#great software testing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

colleendoran · 1 year ago

Text

Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

Go me!

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt.

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back.

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news.

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work.

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing.

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work.

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way.

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry.

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings, enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks.

#good omens graphic novel #good omens #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #dunmanifestin

2K notes · View notes

impyssadobsessions · 2 years ago

Text

DP x DC idea/prompt Okay Wayne Industries has hired a new employee that's Phenomenal at their job. They have every program and software up to date- everything working smoothly without any interruptions or delay. Only strange thing is no one has ever seen them. They work strictly remotely due to disability. However, they are not on record to exist except for the last few years. Sam, Tucker, and Danny are runaways, running from GIW. They had to leave everything behind to keep themselves, the ghost zone, and their love ones safe. They're too young and have no way of actually being hired without finding out. Thankfully one of them is great at hacking, and he's been dreaming of working there for a while and now he has the perfect opportunity to show his skills AND work for company. However despite all his skills- They don't go unnoticed. A certain Tim Drake and the rest of the Batfamily had already figured out this "new hire" wasn't who he said he was. In fact, they may have found out it was a group of runaway teens before the second week. Now the only question they have, is why? Also Tim thinks its fun to test Tucker's skills and purposely throws viruses his way. Sam and Danny are probably focusing on doing the main shopping/looking out for giw and doing odd things for extra money while Tucker is living his dream.. remotely.. and anonymously.. but hey its the dream and the pay keeps them well afloat. Luckily they found a place that won't ask questions as long as they get the money.

Basically the Bats are keeping this group of teens employed while figuring out why they're on their own. Also while helping anonymously make their mystery employee (s) get better at their documentation by asking for information here and there without penalty. Its become a game, especially to Tim. XD

#long post #danny phantom #danny fenton #dpxdc #dp x dc #tucker foley #sam manson #team phantom in gotham #tim drake #dpxdc prompt

4K notes · View notes

ailelie · 4 months ago

Text

Installing Linux (Mint) as a Non-Techy Person

I've wanted Linux for various reasons since college. I tried it once when I no longer had to worry about having specific programs for school, but it did not go well. It was a dedicated PC that was, I believe, poorly made. Anyway.

In the process of deGoogling and deWindows365'ing, I started to think about Linux again. Here is my experience.

Pre-Work: Take Stock

List out the programs you use regularly and those you need. Look up whether or not they work on Linux. For those that don't, look up alternatives.

If the alternative works on Windows/Mac, try it out first.

Make sure you have your files backed up somewhere.

Also, pick up a 5GB minimum USB drive.

Oh and make a system restore point (look it up in your Start menu) and back-up your files.

Step One: Choose a Distro

Dear god do Linux people like to talk about distros. Basically, from what all I've read, if you don't want to fuss a lot with your OS, you've got two options: Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Ubuntu is better known and run by a company called Canonical. Linux Mint is run by a small team and paid for via donations.

I chose Linux Mint. Some of the stuff I read about Ubuntu reminded me too much of my reasons for wanting to leave Windows, basically. Did I second-guess this a half-dozen times? Yes, yes I did.

The rest of this is true for Linux Mint Cinnamon only.

Step Two: Make your Flash Drive

Linux Mint has great instructions. For the most part they work.

Start here:

The trickiest part of creating the flash drive is verifying and authenticating it.

On the same page that you download the Linux .iso file there are two links. Right click+save as both of those files to your computer. I saved them and the .iso file all to my Downloads folder.

Then, once you get to the 'Verify your ISO image' page in their guide and you're on Windows like me, skip down to this link about verifying on Windows.

Once it is verified, you can go back to the Linux Mint guide. They'll direct you to download Etchr and use that to create your flash drive.

If this step is too tricky, then please reconsider Linux. Subsequent steps are both easier and trickier.

Step Three: Restart from your Flash Drive

This is the step where I nearly gave up. The guide is still great, except it doesn't mention certain security features that make installing Linux Mint impossible without extra steps.

(1) Look up your Bitlocker recovery key and have it handy.

I don't know if you'll need it like I did (I did not turn off Bitlocker at first), but better to be safe.

(2) Turn off Bitlocker.

(3) Restart. When on the title screen, press your Bios key. There might be more than one. On a Lenovo, pressing F1 several times gets you to the relevant menu. This is not the menu you'll need to install, though. Turn off "Secure Boot."

(4) Restart. This time press F12 (on a Lenovo). The HDD option, iirc, is your USB. Look it up on your phone to be sure.

Now you can return to the Linux Mint instructions.

Figuring this out via trial-and-error was not fun.

Step Four: Install Mint

Just follow the prompts. I chose to do the dual boot.

You will have to click through some scary messages about irrevocable changes. This is your last chance to change your mind.

I chose the dual boot because I may not have anticipated everything I'll need from Windows. My goal is to work primarily in Linux. Then, in a few months, if it is working, I'll look up the steps for making my machine Linux only.

Some Notes on Linux Mint

Some of the minor things I looked up ahead of time and other miscellany:

(1) HP Printers supposedly play nice with Linux. I have not tested this yet.

(2) Linux Mint can easily access your Windows files. I've read that this does not go both ways. I've not tested it yet.

(3) You can move the taskbar (panel in LM) to the left side of your screen.

(4) You are going to have to download your key programs again.

(5) The LM software manager has most programs, but not all. Some you'll have to download from websites. Follow instructions. If a file leads to a scary wall of strange text, close it and just do the Terminal instructions instead.

(6) The software manager also has fonts. I was able to get Fanwood (my favorite serif) and JetBrains (my favorite mono) easily.

In the end, be prepared for something to go wrong. Just trust that you are not the first person to ever experience the issue and look it up. If that doesn't help, you can always ask. The forums and reddit community both look active.

#linux mint #linux #deWindows #de365 #deGoogle

177 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 2 months ago

Text

The MAGA-DOGE régime decided that the middle of hepatitis outbreak was a great time to close the CDC's Division of Viral Hepatitis.

After people started testing positive for hepatitis C in a coastal Florida town in December, state officials collected blood from patients, wrapped their specimens in dry ice and mailed them straight to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. The hepatitis C virus, which is spread through contact with infected blood and can lead to deadly liver cancer, is notoriously hard to identify. But if anyone could understand what was happening in Florida, it would be the Division of Viral Hepatitis in the CDC's headquarters. Using samples from the laboratory's collection of nearly 1 million frozen specimens, scientists helped make the initial discovery of the hepatitis C virus in the 1980s. In 2020, that research was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Unlike Trump, the scientists at the lab knew what they were doing.

The scientists at the lab knew what they were doing. Quickly, they analyzed the blood from Florida using their custom software and found that nine cases were genetically linked to the same pain clinic, where it was later discovered that a doctor was improperly reusing injection vials. By March, officials in Florida had restricted the doctor's medical license to limit the spread of the virus and packaged new patient samples to send to the CDC for testing, CDC employees told NPR. But on April 1, the outbreak investigation was brought to a halt. All 27 of the lab's scientists received an email from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informing them that they were losing their jobs. Like thousands of other employees who received similar emails that day, the scientists were told they would be placed on administrative leave until June 2, after which they would no longer work for the CDC. The email said their duties were "identified as either unnecessary or virtually identical to duties being performed elsewhere in the agency." But the kind of genetic tracing that the CDC's lab performs is not conducted by any other lab in the United States or the world, experts interviewed by NPR said. While the lab remains shuttered, ongoing investigations of current hepatitis outbreaks have been stalled, not just in Florida, but also in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Georgia, according to CDC employees who work closely with the Division of Viral Hepatitis. The five CDC employees NPR spoke with requested that their names not be shared for fear of retaliation.

For all anybody knows, the scientists may have been fired by Apartheid Elon's teen buddy Big Balls.

The Trump administration is making people sick and keeping them sick. And this is just the start.

#public health #epidemics #hepatitis #cdc #division of viral hepatitis #donald trump #maga #republicans #doge #elon musk #apartheid elon #trump administration

125 notes · View notes

dragonmarquise · 1 year ago

Text

How to Deal with Windows 10/11 Nonsense

This is more for my own reference to keep all of this on one post. But hopefully others will find this useful too! So yeah, as the title says, this is a to organize links and resources related to handling/removing nonsense from Windows 10 and Windows 11. Especially bloatware and stuff like that Copilot AI thing.

First and foremost, there's O&O Software's ShutUp10++ (an antispy tool that help give you more control over Windows settings) and App Buster (helps remove bloatware and manage applications). I've used these myself for Windows 10 and they work great, and the developers have stated that these should work with Windows 11 too!

10AppsManager is another bloatware/app management tool, though at the moment it seems to only work on Windows 10.

Winaero Tweaker, similar to ShupUp10++ in that it gives you more control over Windows to disable some of the more annoying settings, such as disabling web search from the taskbar/start menu and disabling ads/tips/suggestions in different parts of the OS. I think ShupUp10++ covers the same options as this one, but I'm not entirely sure.

OpenShell, helps simplify the Start Menu and make it look more like the classic start menu from older versions of Windows. Should work with both 10 and 11 according to the readme.

Notes on how to remove that one horrible AI spying snapshots feature that's being rolled out on Windows 11 right now.

Article on how to remove Copilot (an AI assistant) from Windows 11. (Edit 11/20/2024) Plus a post with notes on how to remove it from Windows 10 too, since apparently it's not just limited to 11 now.

Win11Debloat, a simple script that can be used to automatically remove pretty much all of the bullshit from both 10 and 11, though a lot of its features are focused on fixing Windows 11 in particular (hence the name). Also has options you can set to pick and choose what changes you want!

Article on how to set up Windows 11 with a local account on a new computer, instead of having to log in with a Microsoft account. To me, this is especially important because I much prefer having a local account than let Microsoft have access to my stuff via a cloud account. Also note this article and this article for more or less the same process.

I will add to this as I find more resources. I'm hoping to avoid Windows 11 for as long as possible, and I've already been used the O&O apps to keep Windows 10 trimmed down and controlled. But if all else fails and I have to use Windows 11 on a new computer, then I plan to be as prepared as possible.

Edit 11/1/2024: Two extra things I wanted to add onto here.

A recommended Linux distro for people who want to use Linux instead of Windows.

How to run a Windows app on Linux, using Wine. Note that this will not work for every app out there, though a lot of people out there are working on testing different apps and figuring out how to get them to work in Wine.

The main app I use to help with my art (specifically for 3D models to make references when I need it) is Windows only. If I could get it to work on Linux, it would give me no reason to use Windows outside of my work computer tbh (which is a company laptop anyways).

#Microsoft #Windows #Windows 10 #Windows 11 #computers #general resources #computer resources

427 notes · View notes

animentality · 8 months ago

Text

not to be such a boomer, but I think chatgpt is fucking this generation over, at least in terms of critical thinking and creative skills.

I get that it's easy to use and I probably would've used it if I was in school when it came out.

but damn.

y'all can't just write a fucking email?

also people using it to write essays ... i mean what is the point then?

are you gaming the educational system in pursuit of survival, or are you just unwilling to engage critically with anyone or anything?

is this why media literacy is so fucking ass right now?

learning how to write is learning how to express yourself and communicate with others.

you might not be great at it, but writing can help you rearrange the ideas in your brain. the more you try to articulate yourself, the more you understand yourself. all skills can be honed with time, and the value is not in the product. it's in the process.

it's in humans expressing their thoughts to others, in an attempt to improve how we do things, by building upon foundations and evolving old ideas into innovation.

scraping together a mush of ideas from a software that pulls specific, generic phrases from data made by actual humans... what is that going to teach you or anyone else?

it's just old ideas being recycled by a new generation.

a generation I am seriously concerned about, because digital tests have made it very easy to cheat, which means people aren't just throwing away their critical thinking and problem solving abilities, but foundational knowledge too.

like what the hell is anyone going to know in the future? you don't want to make art, you don't want to understand how the world works, you don't want to know about the history of us?

is it because we all know it's ending soon anyway, or is it just because it's difficult, and we don't want to bother with difficult?

maybe it's both.

but. you know what? on that note, maybe it's whatever.

fuck it, right, let's just have an AI generate "therefore" "in conclusion" and "in addition" statements followed by simplistic ideas copy pasted from a kid who actually wrote a paper thirty years ago.

if climate change is killing us all anyway, maybe generative ai is a good thing.

maybe it'll be a digital archive of who we used to be, a shambling corpse that remains long after the consequences of our decisions catch up with us.

maybe it'll be smart enough to talk to itself when there's no one left to talk to.

it'll talk to itself in phrases we once valued, it'll make art derived from people who used to be alive and breathing and feeling, it'll regurgitate our best ideas in an earnest but hollow approximation of our species.

and it'll be the best thing we ever made. the last thing too.

I don't really believe in fate or destiny, I think all of this was a spectacular bit of luck, but that's a poetic end for us.

chatgpt does poetry.

#chatgpt #ai #ai generated #generative ai

187 notes · View notes

genericpuff · 4 months ago

Text

💣💥💣💥💣

so with Episode 67 finally posted and the dust settled, I wanted to share some funny behind-the-scenes stuff with you all.

Clip Studio is a great piece of software, it's what allows Banshriek and I to work on the same episode together via cloud-syncing (it's a function called "Teamworks" in the app) but it's also... kind of garbage sometimes. Without getting too much into it, CSP has a bottleneck issue with how it predominantly uses CPU rather than the graphics card in a computer. And considering it's literally graphics software, yeah, you can probably figure out pretty quickly with the most bare minimum of computer knowledge why this is a problem that's really silly for it to have LOL

ANYWAYS. This has been known to cause problems between Banshriek and I when trying to complete an episode. Problems that - often enough for me to tell you stories about it - result in us having to essentially "rebuild" the episode we're working on. This doesn't necessarily mean having to redraw anything (thankfully that doesn't happen very often) but it usually goes down something like this:

1.) The software suddenly has an issue syncing our changes which results in either conflicted files that can't update, software crashes that refuse to load pages, updates not even going through, or taking WAY too long to update to the point that we'd rather just rebuild and work on the episode independently and then swap the files and layers when it's time for the other person to do their part.

2.) I have to inform Banshriek that Clip Studio crashed again, and in the event that I can't get back into page editing because of the aforementioned issues ^^^ they immediately get to backing up their most recent version of the file that's stored on their computer. Thankfully a lot of the time these versions are pretty up to date, but it's still a moment of tension every single time because these crashes don't always happen the same way every time.

3.) Using the backup version, a new .cmc file (the file that contains every page for each episode, it's the thing that lets you make pages for comics in the software!) is created by whoever has access to the pages without issue (usually Banshriek is the one who's able to do it, this has become a very one-sided problem LMAO) and then is sent to me so that I can upload it to the cloud to replace the old version. This file is then usually called something like "Episode#BACKUP" to distinguish between both versions as we usually still have the older versions downloaded as well.

4.) Work (hopefully) continues as normal. Though it's definitely caused setbacks, so far our survival rate is still 100% 😆

This happens at least every other episode. It's become rare to go a whole episode without having to go through this process. We're still trying to figure out what we can do to avoid it, but we've tried a bunch of other options (and Banshriek has created some test episodes using pages from completed episodes that crashed for the sake of experimenting) and so far it's still a struggle understanding what exactly is going wrong with Clip Studio and it's syncing features. Fortunately, Banshriek and I are both auDHD enough that we're gonna obsess over it until we figure it out LMAO but until then, we're constantly having to treat Clip Studio like a live snake that's trying to wrangle itself out of our hands 💀😆

And the most recent episode? Episode 67, which ran a week and a day late? It set a new personal best for number of backups, because we had to rebuild it not just once, but TWICE.

What we've noticed is that sometimes you can barely make a change to an episode and these crashes still happen, as if major changes have been made. So far the best hypothesis Banshriek has come up with regarding this observation is that the software struggles more to update changes that affect overall pixel count and appearance - stuff like moving canvases, flipping canvases, adding on textured layers (which is what we do at the end of making each page) , etc. that covers a lot of pixels at a time, even if it's only changing the hues / colors slightly, seems to cause the most problems.

During the production of Episode 67, the following plagues came to pass:

Our car exploded

Our cat nearly exploded (btw! for anyone wondering from my last post about him, he's doing better now!)

Our toilet pipes froze twice (and exploded once)

Democracy in the U.S. exploded

My husband's wisdom teeth were exploding so the last 3 of them were removed all at once

The files for Episode 67 exploded twice and had to be rebuilt just to keep it on life support (by the end of the episode we were literally sending files back and forth via Google Drive like peasants 😔 /hj)

The most non-explosive thing to happen was the tattoo shop I work at moving locations up the street, and even then, I came very close to exploding a few times during that process LMAO (and our debit machine just exploded so we're cash only for the next few days sksksks)

This episode was probably our most cursed yet, and frankly, it couldn't be more fitting, I think Dionysus himself had a hand in our madness, just for the sake of being on theme with this episode. And the worst part, we haven't even gotten into the truly chaotic stuff yet. All Dionysus has done so far is slam Hades' head into a table, he's barely gotten started. Dionysus only knows what Episode 68 has in store for me and Banshriek as well 😭💀

#i literally had to take a shower after it was all over LMAO #lore rekindled

93 notes · View notes

ms-demeanor · 2 months ago

Note

Okay, if anyone knows the answer to this, it's you. I DESPERATELY want to set my mouse to recognize both LMB and RMB as the primary mouse button instead of assigning the non-primary mouse button to bring up context menus, but I cannot find literally any mention of any software or programs that make that possible. Is it something that's technologically impossible or am I just not looking hard enough

This is possible but figuring it out was a pain in the ass and didn't seem like it would work with the hardware that I had but long story short either you need to get a programmable mouse and use the software that comes with it to do this or you need to find software that will work with your current mouse to do this. You can get a wired programmable gaming mouse for under twenty dollars and a wireless one for under thirty.

A few weeks ago I bought a mouse because I wanted to program a shift ctrl v button onto it and I just tested setting both the main buttons to have left button behaviors with the mouse software and it worked great.

64 notes · View notes

samueldays · 3 months ago

Text

In this house, we cheer Musk

Elon Musk is so skilled he makes it look easy to run SpaceX and a majority of the world's orbital lift, and this leads a lot of people to underestimate him. "He doesn't do shit, he just pays the engineers!" critics say. "I could have done the same if I had a billion dollars!" they imagine.

Well, such critics should pay more attention to Blue Origin, which demonstrates that "just" paying the engineers a billion dollars is not enough.

Blue Origin is a spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2000, two years before SpaceX in 2002. Both spent some time laying groundwork and did their first test launches in 2006, the New Shepard and the Falcon 1 respectively.

SpaceX pushed ahead rapidly and first reached orbit in 2008 with the fourth flight of a Falcon 1. Blue Origin was slower, and first reached orbit in 2025 with the New Glenn. In the intervening time, SpaceX had accomplished several hundred orbital flights and increased its launch pace from "per year" to "per week". (130-something Falcon 9 launches in 2024.)

SpaceX also hit several other milestones like supplying the ISS with the Dragon 1 in 2012, first propulsive (vertical) landing of an orbital rocket stage with Falcon 9 in 2015, taking humans to orbit with the Dragon 2 in 2020. On a more abstract but also more practical note, SpaceX's Booster 1051 went from hopeful "it landed and we might reuse it" plans to definite "cycle it back into service, you know the drill" when it was reused for the tenth time in 2021.

Harder to measure is how much SpaceX decreased the cost of launching people and things to orbit for all their customers, but it's somewhere around an order of magnitude thanks to the combination of mass production and rocket reuse, where previous orbital launches tended to be artisanal one-offs. And it's still dropping.

I will return to that 'majority' point: consider the US and Soviet/Russian space program which are the two big ones, and the Chinese and Indian and Japanese and other government space programs too. Add the private competitors, like Orbital Sciences Corporation which put their Pegasus in orbit in 1990 and went on to relative success with several more orbital missions.

SpaceX first reached orbit in 2008, and by 2024 was outdoing all the above put together. This does not happen by simply throwing money at the problem, the Great Powers have far more money to throw at the problem. This was not replicated by competitors. You can tell nobody even got close, for SpaceX to perform a majority.

Blue Origin? eventually got to orbit this year, planning another launch later this year. Orbital Sciences Corporation that I mentioned above? shut down. Space Services Inc.? technically reached space in the sense of the Karman line (100km up) but not orbit, then shut down. Armadillo Aerospace? never made it.

Wealthy and technically competent people like John Carmack (better known for Id Software, Doom) tried to run private spaceflight companies, lost a lot of money and shut down with little to show for it. Most of them are forgotten quickly. Elon Musk has put SpaceX so far ahead of the real alternatives, people lose sight of those and start comparing him to imaginary alternatives.

#all #elon musk #spacex #blue origin

99 notes · View notes