#i don’t see it often but it gets across a simplified version of whatever the hell I have going on pretty well. that & singed wings &

[talenlee]

A Year of Blahaj

You know I feel like I don’t talk about my work enough. Or rather that now as part of a sprawling internet presence that covers a bunch of different platforms and front ends, I don’t feel like I talk that much about the individual components of that very often. I rarely reflect on what I’ve done and how good a job I did doing it, whatever it was. Which is funny because when I’m looking for stuff to write about, it seems a pretty obvious thing to do, because I’m one of the topics I have complete control over and can’t get copyright struck over. After all, things I create, myself, are entirely and surely under my control and I don’t have to worry about things like copyright law for my own work, right?

Right?

Let’s talk about this blahaj sticker I drew.

This sticker, which you can buy at Redbubble, if you want, and if you see me at a convention you probably can buy one off me for a dollar, too. It’s a fun little sticker!

The original genesis for the Blahaj sticker was a joke I remembered making on twitter. I’m not linking the source material any more, but it was a joke I made, off-handedly, as with many one-off jokes I made on the regular. It was like many such jokes on twitter, where it was both made into an open space where anyone could see it, and also, made without much forethought. I threw it out there and off it went, and a thousand retweets and six thousands like later, I thought that it was a funny idea, and I should do something with it.

I doodled it in my notebook, then took a photo of that doodle. I sent the photo to my copy of GIMP, then used the vector pen tool to simplify the design, which is how I make most of my ‘drawing’ designs. When the drawing was done, I coloured a few versions and put it up on Redbubble for people to buy, imagining that it would be, like many of my other designs, something someone would say ‘oh I want that on a shirt’ and then never bought the shirt.

How’d that work out?

Well, one year later, here’s how it looks:

I sold 278 designs across the year. Of those, 199 of the designs sold are of Blahaj, and of those, 189 of the designs are the trans flag design of Blahaj. It’s not quite ⅔ of my sales, but pretty close. It would not be inappropriate to say that my Redbubble store sells Blahaj stickers. For perspective my next most popular designs are Cassowary and my Demon Core design, which each sold five products in a year.

This is pretty cool, I made a joke, people liked it, I drew a thing based on that joke, and people liked it, and people bought it.

Cool!

Right?

Right?

That’s it, right?

Well, no of course it’s not it, because my joke, made in a vacuum, was not made in a vacuum. Just in the same way that several hundred thousand people all made the joke ‘But Doctor, I am Dril,’ because we all love a good Pagliacci joke, I was not the first person to make a ‘friend of blahaj’ joke. Turns out somone else had, too, and that person was a trans woman with a much smaller following.

And it didn’t go viral when she did it.

I hadn’t seen it, I didn’t know about it, but the thing is, people she knew did see my tweet, and shared them and that result was getting to see, months later, some stranger – a boy, no less – being retweeted making the joke she did. She was, naturally, upset by this, and pretty reasonably, at first, thought that I had copied her.

There’s a science to how tweet virality works. Or rather, there’s a science to how tweet virality couldn’t work. If you have zero followers, your tweets won’t go viral, because the network of people around you are limited. This is a thing my classmates learned the awkward way. Back in the class, we were trying to make something digital as a product, like a podcast or a web gallery or something like that. What one group wanted to make was, as part of their marketing degree, a ‘viral tweet.’ They took a picture of one of our professors and shared it to their twitter account and then instructed the rest of the class to retweet it.

Now, this didn’t mean anything. This didn’t go anywhere, because that classroom was full of students who had exactly as many followers on twitter as were contained in that studio, minus the ones they thought were icky. This was not connecting to anyone or anything with a broad following, no way to escape the environment of the small community they had. I know that when I was sharing tweets, if I didn’t have a ‘big’ follower near me, or a chain of follows to a big follower, I wasn’t ever going to get my stuff in front of a large enough number of people.

Anyway, it’s just one of those things that twitter promises, numbers and values and the way our brains respond to them. Either way, it meant my goofy tweet, and the image associated with it, made someone feel shitty. And even if it wasn’t what actually happened, it’s still a pattern that so often happens: Someone monetising the work of trans people.

I wound up talking to her and buying her a pizza. Since falling off twitter, I don’t know what’s going on with her. I hope she’s doing okay.

But!

It did make me mindful that sure, while this is a joke I made and art I made and then art I converted into a saleable form, this is still a product that is ultimately about and for the trans community. And sometimes, the money it’s made has been useful for paying for things like food and rent, and that’s not a small matter, but sometimes it’s sold really well and I’ve had, functionally, just… well, money that I would normally spend on something like a board game or whatever.

In deference to the community that’s responsible for the joke, and that inspired the art, I gave a chunk of the Blahaj money to a queer-as-in-not-made-up-of-cis-gay-men anarchist co-op I trust. I didn’t give it to a charity with a big name, because I know those are often fraught with bad experiences for people and I didn’t want to give it to just some random ‘queer’ project because those so often are thoughtless outputs for people who can raise money. I wasn’t giving a lot so I wanted to maximise it.

Make no mistake, by the way: I was trying to buy away guilt that didn’t make sense. I know I haven’t done anything wrong, and I also think that artists getting paid for their art is good. It’s not even non-queer creators monetising queer work, because I’m a queer artist. There are a lot of justifications I could give for how I shouldn’t feel guilty.

But I do.

So, sometimes I spend this money on other people who I know have it harder than I do because of their access to things based on how their gender is valued in our society. I can’t say it’s an incredibly well reasoned moral framework and I don’t even know if it makes me feel better but I think it’s part of the story of this sticker I drew. How apparently, the ‘support’ this sticker offers, the art made for people who wanted it, is in my mind, is Just More Cis Bullshit.

Thanks for buying my sticker if you liked it.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[jonathankatwhatever]

I can suddenly play pretty, like I always wanted to but couldn’t because I didn’t know this was what it would sound like for me to play pretty with depth, with each nuance across the rational points like not butter smooth because that would be too connected to existing forms, meaning a constraint there, and not totally creative, because we need to maintain the tension in the Triangular which holds open the hole to the solution which idealizes that Triangular. That, rather obviously, took a lot of trust to pull off. Identified rational points as places like technique and tonal choices, because that simplifies modularly, and bingo, we got bingo: the mod4 which identifies primes being IC, or CM4 in calculatory terms, literally climbs the pole of primes. Say you’re at L5, then the movement out to L5 and thus to that prime count which we locate at the Bip of the szK3 grid square - and we could continue into as the ++ quadrant, so the zK and sK each Halve the ++ quadrant, which overlays or superimposes states from each Irreducible on the grid and each quadrant, and so forth - and all that maps to whatever the imaginary part is for the real ½.

I feel like we just coined supercalifragilisticexpealidocious. That was a lot of connections connecting! And it all makes sense. I mean L5 locates at the Bip the same as the Bip in CM1, which in this role is also szK1 as the identifier on the grid itself. Just realized that allows us to do what we’ve been doing, and it’s a really great organizational scheme that I didn’t know existed because I just used it because it worked and I assume at some point I might know why. Well, here is why: by identifying grid squares in multiple ways, we can separate out aspects or attributes while leaving them as grid squares. So, we don’t map all of the above all the time, but rather we tension them. Because they are in tension, they can explore different arrangements within the tensioned system, with the system itself acting as a constraint. Why constraint? Finite. Grid squares are inherently finite within an infinite generating process.

Oh, that answers another eternal question: once created, what happen to them? Just had the scariest thought. What I believed to be my more dangerous ravings is true: the method for extinguishment requires cutting off all connections to grid, and that requires literally squeezing every last drop of potential out of you, because potential is related to grid squares. That requires developing and destroying the potential, which is why in the Mission Storyline, this presents to us as the dot which moves chaotically around a hole as though unaware the hole is there when it’s obvious to us. Can’t they see there’s a hole? To us, the hole has a center point, and that casts out images of what is hell to you. And I remember my origin Storyline that what happened was competition entering a non-competitive world, one that we’d set up because there was a cooperative space available. And we traced that to versions of here, the place where choices are so chaotic people do evil in the name of good, where people actively seek to cause harm to others, often those weaker than themselves and those who can’t fight back, as though that’s a valid expression of whatever psychic pain they’re experiencing, a world where leaders consistently make choices which lead to death and destruction in the name of an ideology, as though being relatively better or worse constitutes God’s blessing or condemnation.

That motivates this. I see it as a whole now.

So, let me get this straight: I dig extremely deeply into the most fundamental issues regarding the organization of reality, and literally manage to connect my silly drawings to the zeta function, along with the entire conception of gs process, and that generates a vision of hell which was defined through Dimensional Construction & Reduction as the expression of the basic algorithm by which the life force of potential is removed from Things which are of no use in constructing grid squares, which contain destructive tendencies, so we can literally see the choice is condemnation of all, which is scary because that invokes the very problem they experience, which is the urge to exercise dominion over as a right rather than a privilege. In other words, the same question Joseph answered with I am not in the place of God.

So the approach is to explain how finite existence works.

And rational points are important because they are the Ends which sit where the modulation occurs. Written that way because they are Ends but not necessarily the smallest Ends, meaning they’re Ends of the size they need to be to be rational points for that I//I, meaning thus all this looping described above. This happens at abstract layers, which should not be startling because it’s inherent in any form of abstract algebra or other representation, and we somehow managed to show how the basic mechanics of that works, which must make the calculators very happy because I have lived with them saying he’ll never get it only to realize he won’t but she will, meaning they were giving me a group operations clue which had to be read in the negative for the chain to work the other way into the positive.

Imagine it the other way: she will never get it. What I needed to get required unraveling this very shift, which is the essence of modular arithmetic because that connects these two identity states over some operation that runs both ways, which is the essence of a 1-0Segment, which means the modular method creates Triangulars ‘in the sky’, in the same way that gs space is created like with a+b=c and all the variants of that.

That actually connects in my head the 2 which generates all of this, all the way through the elliptic integral into the genus 1 curve, which of course is everything from a simplified 2 across to the entire structure by which the curve generates, through to how learning occurs by connecting rational points, which is a form of Winding, which occurs no matter what because the looping of this process - see the elaborate sentences above - themselves modulate, so each step fits or not to those modulations. That means we can FINALLY say that these modulations are Inmanation and Emanation, as a marker of directionality of Reduction and Construction, being obviously related to DC&R but in the conception of alternating series and other infinite series.

May I say I am completely humbled. I heard in my head a thousand times that this would all come together and we would be able to present a unified picture that underpins without destroying, which elevates accomplishment, both of the past and into the future, which opens doors in minds, and I never truly believed I could do the work. I mean in terms of intellectual and rendering capacity.

That deserves a seriously wow.

[butchford]

I loveee when people add both angel & demon imagery to pieces. Esp with some characters it’s like “Ah. You Get It.”

[massistocchifontana]

Healing Narcissism 

Healing Narcissism 

 Following on from my previous blog post about Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), one topic that is seldom spoken about is the role of healing the narcissist. We are very focused on the healing of the victim but not so much on the healing of the narcissist.

 Yes it makes sense that it is difficult to heal someone with narcissistic personality disorder, primarily because the likelihood of you actually getting this individual to come to a therapy session is slim to none. But this doesn’t mean that something cannot be done to assist someone isolated in their narcissism.

 On a lesser level, there is a greater likelihood that the individual with narcissistic traits is more diagnosable as someone suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), because there is still a great deal of functionality in relationships within this individual. You will find yourself in relationships with this kind of partner and fall deeply in love with them, however there is often a turning point where the narcissistic wound is touched on because they have hidden this from you, and this brings out a different version of this person.

 On the one hand, this type of individual wants to relate with you, but due to their deeply conditioned behaviours and protective mechanisms they have learnt over their lifespan it makes for relating very difficult as there is always some sense of conflict and control needing to be managed.

 I find it particularly interesting that this type of individual will always find someone who is more empathic than narcissistic, and this in itself is a potential problem because it can lead towards the cycle of violence, depending on the severity of the borderline personality disorder. This makes it very hard for the other person to endure this type of treatment and they either will flee or depending on the situation feel it necessary to stay and rescue the situation.

 Drawing on the Karpman drama triangle, the basis of its creation is founded on social human interaction. This triangle maps the types of destructive interaction that can occur between people in conflict. As you can see below there are three fundamental positions that can be adopted in any interaction or conflict. In respect of someone in a narcissistic cycle, they will predominantly oscillate between the victim and the persecutor roles. This positions the partner to always be the rescuer, which in itself sounds like a noble position to be in, but this is very tiresome and draining mentally and physically.

 If you look at the second triangle I’ve drawn, there is one noticeable difference that Karpman doesn’t use in the original triangle. This is the role of being Neutral in any form of conflict.

  You’ll find that learning how to sit with discomfort and conflict and make peace with the emotional conflict rather than acting in any of the other three positions will destabilise the individual with narcissistic tendencies. This pushes them potentially to become stronger in their manipulation tactics and although this sounds terrible because you know how bad they can become, it does arm you with a power that they cannot penetrate.

 This is the position that I find most helpful because if you are aiming at assisting this individual to heal, then this is the only manner I have come across that works. It is either this, or leaving, but in many circumstances there are many factors preventing you to leave i.e. children, mortgage, family, many other systemic issues. So by arming yourself with an impenetrable ability to be neutral and not impacted, you will find your relationship far more manageable.

 If the individual struggling with this narcissistic component to them has some amenability and are open to some suggestion, one of the most effective alternative therapies that is gaining a lot of traction and much investment in time and resources is the role of ayahuasca and psilocybin.

These hallucinogens are found in nature and come in the form of mushrooms (Psilocybin), truffles (Psilocybin) and the mixture which is ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the Psychotria Viridis shrub). There are many other plant based hallucinogens that I haven’t mentioned so I will focus on these for the moment.

 The simplified manner in which I see these plant hallucinogens is that they are medicine and should be treated as such. The usage of these substances (in particular mushrooms) has been for recreational usage but the manner in which I am speaking here, is very much about using them for self-discovery and breaking down barriers of control that are only fuelling suffering in yourself and in your relationships. 

 Most people have very sedimented blockages and avoid wanting to change and you will find many professionals advocate that people remain the same in their socially constructed bubbles rather than stripping back the veneer and actually looking at the behaviours and thinking patterns that aren’t actually serving you except for maintaining the current status you hold. The support for this kind of maintenance is that there was a very real reason behind the creation of such a manner of relating. Almost a type of survival instinct that kicked in and they saved themselves by developing such ways of relating. 

 This makes a lot of sense in the creation of the self-image that the individual has constructed, but when you find individuals who are not working in the positive for themselves or others, and they recognise something is wrong. They fundamentally need assistance. We are very fortunate that we live in the current climate that self-help is not frowned upon any longer and there is a great likelihood that each and every single one of us needs assistance at some point. The only stigma to reaching out will come from yourself as there are so many means of receiving help if you want it.

 Most of us cannot sit with discomfort. The same applies to the individual with the narcissistic wound. But when you embark on a journey taking ayahuasca or psilocybin with a “proper” shaman who can contain and facilitate the ceremony, you are placing yourself in a situation to face yourself. There is no time frame but it does end. There is no loss of control because you don’t need to control anything. It is like entering into a train and having to go through a tunnel regardless of how long the tunnel is.

 The point is that it provides you a moment in your life where you are completely resigned to the healing of plant based medicine. You are metaphorically taken by the hand and shown whatever you need to see. This can be ugly, can be beautiful or it can be nothing at all. But what it is, is profound and the most important take away is that you learn to sit with all the discomfort that is in your soul. You open the door to full acceptance and surrender to what and who you are.

 So, try be open enough to look at other types of therapies. But keep in mind that a central focus is engaging in therapies that hold you accountable and help you face yourself.

 Via Con Dios

[icecreamisbetterwithafork]

Hello friends!

I am super excited to share with you my new single "Letting Go"

(It will be available across all platforms for streaming and downloading on Friday, Jan 24th, 2020 at 12am EST/ Thursday, Jan 23rd, 2020 at 9pm.)

Until then, I invite you to enjoy this music video I made with my dear friend Ryan West, in my hometown of Encinitas, CA. Shot on a super 8 (real) film camera! I had a vision, Ryan was a yes, and the rest is history. He and his team made the making of this video so fun and effortless, and now I am so stoked to finally get to share it with you all! These days i'm learning to trust my gut, and follow it... things I wish I would have done, and fought more for when I was on a label. I felt strongly that having a visual would bring this song to life...I think it worked.

I know its been a minute...more like 6, 7 years... I've never been one to churn out songs for the sake of staying in the game, or whatever you want to call it. I try not to force myself to write anything, I tried that once and it was a disaster. All the songs that have ever ended up on my albums: good, bad, fan favorites, hits or not, have always come from the heart, they feel right. Like they belong. It's always been my experience, that songs come when they want. Sometimes it's many in a row, sometimes there is a dry season. For me it's merely being in alignment, and if I am lucky enough to capture a phrase, a moment, a feeling and let it move through me, out of my head and into song... well, that's the magic of what drew me to becoming an artist in the first place.

I honestly didn't anticipate taking such a long break, and if i'm being honest, I even caught myself falling out of love with music a couple times. I started exploring some other interests, I got super into health and wellness and plant based eating. I went back to school to become a health coach, and I even coached a bunch of clients while I was at it, which was super fun and a nice change of scenery. I took up snowboarding, something I always wanted to learn, but never did when I was actively on tour, terrified I would injure my hands. And then one day last year, in between two snowboarding trips, I was in LA for one day, and I called up my friend Steven Solomon​ to see if he was around and wanted to write. He was free, I went to his house, and this song just came out..literally out of nowhere. I cried my way through the entire thing, tissue box after tissue box. I knew at the end of it, we had written something very special.

When I put out Back To Home (2014), I had just gotten married. I literally got married (August 2014), went on my honeymoon (September 2014), came home, relocated to LA for 2 months to record (Sept/Oct 2014), put out a new EP (October 2014) and went on tour (Nov/Dec 2014). Then I came home for the holidays and found out I was pregnant. Kylo was born August of 2015, and by 2017 Kylo's dad and I decided we were going to separate. Our relationship was a whirlwind: we met, 8 months later engaged, 8 months later got married and 4 months later found out we were having a baby. It was a lot, in a short amount of time, in my experience we just were still getting to know each other, and figure out our relationship, and there was just too much, too soon, too fast. I found myself unable to handle it all. I do not regret any of it, it has all led me to right here, right now. It led me to becoming a mother. Honestly, it has led me to a better, more honest, authentic, version of myself. I know by now, when the shit hits the fan, there is a tremendous opportunity for growth and healing. I assumed when Kylo was born, i'd be back on tour within 6 months, writing songs, putting out albums..and boy was I wrong. I don't even know how to describe but I just feel like I lost myself. And eventually I knew this relationship I was in, I could no longer be in, even though the person I was in it with, was and still is one of the most amazing humans ever. It's a very conflicting feeling, when you know you can no longer stay in something, with someone, but also that nothing necessarily bad happened. What's that saying? Two people can be great, but not so great together. Our relationship works much better in the current dynamic: co-parenting and friends. I am proud of us for the many hours, nearly a year, of therapy we did to process the undoing of our relationship (Shout out to IMAGO therapy). I feel so lucky I had a partner who was willing, and brave enough to do the work with me, to identity our woundings and where we needed healing, I am forever grateful that we could split peacefully and really with the intention of putting our own shit aside and doing whatever was best for our son. I don't take for granted the fact that we can still be friends and look out for one another, we will always be a family. I know this sort of thing is rare, and I know it isn't possible for everyone, but I wanted to share because it was possible for us, which means it is possible. It is so against everything we are taught, but you can end a relationship respectfully, out of love, with compassion and kindness for one another.

After the divorce, I took a lot of time for myself. I started going to yoga regularly, surfing more often, meditating every day, drinking less, simplifying, spending more time outside, in nature, with Kylo... I slowly came back to myself, my center and I started to find music again. I knew I would write a song about everything that had happened, but I didn't know when or how. It's not like someone cheated or lied, or there was some massive fight. I started experimenting with new sounds, different vibes, but it always felt like I was avoiding the elephant in the room. Then that day came, mid Feb 2019. Letting Go was born, and it puts into words everything I didn't know how to say. This is a song about love, honesty, trusting yourself, and honoring all the precious moments with the ones we love.

I hope you find some peace in it, some closure, some hope, I hope you can feel the love. Thank you for listening, it means a lot.

xo TP

[butterfly-buck]

Rant AU to me *flutters eyelashes*

fRIGG uuhhh, any au??? Aight.

PLASMA IT IS THEN.

Kai as a siren, Jay as a bb land boi because i feel like it-

Jay’s your typical early 1800′s kid (orrrr,,, as 1800′s as ninjago can get), lives with his overly rich (and highly neglective) father, Cliff Gordon, a sea merchant.

And Kai’s a siren.  physical feature headcanons???? here ya go. * His hair is a wild mess with the lack of hair gel. Often he’ll run his fingers through it to try to tame it, but it never stays once he submerges underwater. * His skin is a fare tan from showing tf off on rocks when feeding - if he were lucky enough to spot a ship close enough to shore to do so.  * Several scars run across areas of his body, including over his eye, chin, stomach, and biceps, usually inflicted by victims trying to fight off, or other sirens and dangerous sea creatures. * His tail is dark red w/ almost a bluish-purple sheen to it when it catches the light just right, kind of like a bloody oil spill. Not exactly friendly and good-looking, but when you’re under his spell, you don’t know the difference. * He’s got splotches of scales on various parts of his upper half, like on his right shoulder and traveling his left side.  * He also has a thin spike-like dorsal fin up his spine continuing down his tail, sort of bluegill-style. * His fingernails are more like claws, sharp and take up the entirety of the tips of his fingers instead of just resting on top. I’m sure he’d have a wonderful time painting those. * On either side of his neck are gills, allowing him to receive oxygen from both air and water (mostly seawater). But this feature doesn’t leave much room for his vocal cords. He has them, to sing, obviously, but he can’t form hard letters and can only sing smooth notes. * His teeth also play a role in this, being sharp, resembling that of sharks rather than the square-shape you’d see on a human. He just can’t seem to get the right sound. Not that he’s ever really had to try until Jay came into his life...

AS FOR JAY. The cabin boy. Yippie. Well, since Cliff’s got ‘other things to do’ that are apparently more important than raising his son, he tends to be left with the cook, Ed. [stfu treasure planet is still one of the best movies out there, change my mind.] Uhhh, appearance. * Longer hair, s8+ style. Makes him look younger ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ * Freckles adorn his cheeks, obviously.  * I imagine him beinggggggggggg,,,,, about 16-19 in this au [it’s undecided], whereas Kai literally doesn’t give a goose about his age so he doesn’t know.  * For some reason I really like the idea of him wearing Chihiro-style clothes???? Y’know from spirited away????? like the loose summer clothes style. Obviously, in the 1800′s, they didn’t particularly have that sort of stuff, so it’s more like,,,, a more simplified version of whatever they wore back then. I dunno, Cliff, being the arsehole I imagine him to be, prolly wouldn’t have spent too much on clothing for Jay. And Jay wouldn’t want anything too flashy anyway (because literally anything that looks good is hella uncomfortable). So prolly baggy stockings, a loose white undershirt and some kind of dark vest. And I can’t imagine him anything else but barefoot. 

HOW THEY MET.

* One cloudy night, Kai, looking for an easy meal, stumbles across the ship Gordon owned on its way back to its homeport. Having not eaten in a week or so, he was starting to feel the effects of hunger. He’d seen Jay from a distance and, although unable to make out any defining features, recognized that he was younger than the rest of the crew, but didn’t really give it a second thought. After all, why should he care about them? All that mattered to him was survival for him and his sister.  * He started singing, captivating most of the crew, Jay included, beckoning them closer to the edge with his powerful subliminal urges, putting sweet, comforting words into their heads. He cooed at them to jump, and Jay was the first.  * Kai wasted no time. Still singing, he pumped his powerful tail closer to the young sailor, his arms outstretched to dig his claws into Jay’s shoulder. * Kai stopped, however, merely a yard from Jay, lips parted showing a few of his sharklike teeth, his song caught in his throat. He was stunned by Jay, suddenly no longer feeling the effects of hunger.  He couldn’t bring himself to eat Jay.  * Jay, no longer under Kai’s spell due to the lack of song, widened his eyes in alarm, frantically swimming to the surface to get away from the siren.  * Kai let him go, staring after and wondering why his heart was thudding so loudly in his ears.  * In the short time Kai had stopped singing, one of the crew members had also snapped out of his trance and pulled his pistol, firing at the submerged creature.  * Kai let out a deafening screech, blood rising in the water around him as an unbearable burning sensation erupted in his side. The bullet had grazed him, but the blood was sure to attract unwanted attention from other hungry predators.  He hurried to escape, swimming almost lopsidedly away from the ship as more bangs erupted above the surface.  Finally, he escaped, but not without more injury. Another bullet had blazed through a part of his tailfin and another on his arm. But as far as the ship new, he had escaped, vanishing into the night.  * After Jay was hauled aboard and inspected for injury, he was told he was lucky to be alive after such a close encounter, and even more so to not have a scratch on him. Nonetheless, Jay was pretty spooked by the whole situation and was allowed to rest for the next day until they arrived at the ports. Jay was not complaining.

aight this is straight-up fanfiction at this point, i’ma leave it here for now ^-^ i got so much more but i’ll continue later, i’m runnin low on juice.

[bondsmagii]

If it's not too personal, could you talk a bit about your experiences growing up in Northern Ireland with the civil war and the cultural differences between the north and the republic etc? I have Irish ancestry but none of the Irish part of my family is alive and I'm trying really hard to reconnect with that part of my blood and pay homage to it, so hearing about the experiences of someone who's lived it would mean so, so much to me.

I can try but I can’t promise it’ll make any sense; it’s a highly nuanced situation and I experienced it as one person living in one time period and the whole thing is just a huge mess but! I’ll try and keep it as succinct as possible lmao (good luck to me).

basically the most simplified version of the issue is thus:

Britain, being Britain, takes over Ireland, because of course they do

nasty bastards about it

Irish people are understandably pissed and there’s about 800 years of conflict

Britain keeps sending British people over there to settle (mostly from Scotland originally) to up British numbers and get those bastard Irish Catholics out of the idea they can like, live in their own country

things escalate

rebellions happen

Big Rebellion happens (the 1916 Easter Rising)

the Irish War of Independence happens and Britain is finally like OK we’ll chat (centuries later)

My Man Michael Collins goes over the London and negotiates a treaty 

Ireland is given independence but not the six north-eastern-most counties; these countries are the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland respectively

(you’ll sometimes see Protestants calling Northern Ireland “Ulster” but they’re wrong because Ulster is a province and has nine counties not six)

(Catholics tend to avoid using “Northern Ireland” and will call it “the North of Ireland”, “the Six Counties”, or if they’re really political “the Occupied Six Counties”)

some other stuff happened that I won’t get into here because I’ll just bitch about Eamon de Valera for eight hours (if you want to see me bitching I did so here)

the North of Ireland was partitioned as such because of its huge number of British-identifying Protestants descending from the people who had moved over; they wished to remain British and so the North is still a part of the UK today

Irish-identifying Catholics in the North were understandably pissed about this because they wanted their whole country back but were now stuck across a land border with neighbours who didn’t particularly like them and whom they did not particularly like

this escalated into a civil war known as The Troubles (because we’re really great at understating things) where thousands of people died in a bloody conflict mostly contained in the North

(aside from occasional skirmishes and people using the border as a way to escape conviction, the Republic didn’t really have much to do with this war)

it was Bad Times and the North was eventually occupied by British soldiers who set up bases and patrolled the streets and backed up the police for several decades, which only further escalated things 

many years of shootings and bombings and beatings and terror ensued

this is about the point where I come in and start trying to grow up there, fun times 

I’ll put the rest under a cut because wow this is already very long and I haven’t even touched on what it was like to grow up there lmao

detailed accounts of living in a literal warzone under the cut, so beware.

Civil War Funtimes

growing up in a warzone like the one I grew up in was wack as hell because it’s not… acknowledged as a civil war at all. like the rest of the UK kind of just forget it ever happened or they don’t know about it at all, and like as much as I don’t like to admit it the North is UK soil and the idea that thousands of people could be killing one another in the fucking UK is just phenomenal to me. when I talk about my experiences growing up and don’t specify the country, people hear what I went through and assume I grew up in Bosnia or Chechnya or something. it was that bad.

the strange thing is, as unpleasant as it was, while I was growing up there it was totally normal. it was scary sometimes, when coming into direct contact with things, but a lot of the time it was just inconvenient. I remember being stuck in traffic on the motorway going into Belfast and it was hot and we had no water and we were there for hours and we were moaning and complaining and finally when we were allowed to move again it turned out there was a bomb up ahead and the Army had been called in to diffuse it, but at the time it wasn’t about The Bomb but more about I’m Hot and Thirsty and Several Hours Are Gone From The Time I Had To Run Errands In Belfast. it was only when I moved away from the North and lived a more normal life that I looked back and began processing fully how fucked up it was to live there.

I’m Catholic, so right off the bat I kind of got the shitty end of the stick. both sides were bad, don’t get me wrong, but Protestants had the backing of the police and the British Army and it’s been confirmed that both organisations backed Protestant paramilitary death squads; i.e., helped gangs of Protestant terrorists murder Catholics and get away with it. they also committed a lot more atrocities of their own, including opening fire on unarmed civilians, so it’s kind of a shitty deal when the two organisations sent in to protect everyone align with one side of the civil war and don’t give a shit if you’re getting beaten to death in front of them or something. I remember one time my friends and I were chased by a gang of people who found out we were Catholic somehow, and they were throwing lit fireworks at us in full view of the police, who did nothing. we were 15. 

how did they know we were Catholic? there’s a million ways to tell. growing up there sort of required knowing what I call the sectarian geography of the country. certain places were Catholic, and certain places were Protestant. saying you were from a certain town or village could confirm your religion to a potential enemy. in large cities, especially Belfast, saying the street you were from could out you. I had to be careful what side of the road I walked on, and there were streets I couldn’t exit from if I was going into the city centre for fear that someone would see and wait for me. likewise, names could be used to identify you. my friends and I had several different names we’d give depending on what area we were in or the name or accent of the person talking to us. it’s subtle things, too – I mean obviously you’re Catholic if your name is Seamus or Sean or Eamon and obviously you’re Protestant if you’re called William or Billy but it wasn’t always as obvious as that. it was safer to be subtle. if I’m in a Catholic area and want to use a fake name for whatever reason, I’m Joseph McCarthy. if I cross the street to a Protestant area, I’d be better off as James McAllister. all of us learned this growing up, and there were so many nuances I can’t even remember a lot of them now. I know should I ever visit Belfast again it’ll all come back, and so will the subtle shifts in my accent depending on where I am. but to think I knew all this at 12, 13, 14 years old? and it was the difference between life and death, quite literally? I have no idea how I dealt with the stress.

making it into the city was only half of the battle, anyway. violence could erupt at any moment, and bomb scares were known to happen. I’ve been in a number of riots which almost always escalated from a peaceful protest, because of Army and police presence being unwelcome or unfairly biased. during such riots people could and did die: the police and Army used rubber bullets because they’re apparently “less deadly”, but many people, including small children caught in the crossfire, were killed by them. often there was added danger from the IRA (Irish Republican Army; the main Catholic paramilitary force) who would show up to take shots at the police and soldiers, meaning that civilians were very often caught in the no-man’s land between offensive and defensive fire. this was not occasional pistol fire, either: both sides were armed with semi- or fully-automatic weapons. again, this is on streets legally in the UK. 

bombs were also a threat, though most of the time they were just threats to create panic and disruption. however, it was occasionally real: I once found a bomb myself, in a newly opened supermarket that was packed during its first week. it was hidden on the shelving and around its outside, nails and ball bearings had been taped to use as shrapnel. I remember going quickly to tell the store manager and him pulling the fire alarm so people didn’t panic too much. everyone went out into the car park and it was only when the bomb squad arrived that people realised. a humorous note to this story is that my parents lost me in the chaos, and found me talking animatedly to several police officers and a member of the bomb squad, in his full protective gear. I was 13, and I’m sure they were wondering just what kind of trouble I’d got myself into in the 20 minutes I’d been out of their sight.

finally, a lot of people died. I mean, a lot. thousands, in a country with a population of only one eighth the size of London alone. every single person in that country knew someone who had died or been injured during the fighting. it’s a very close-knit country; both sides of the conflict have a strong community spirit and towns and districts are often very close, with many people knowing everyone if not by name then by sight. when you take several thousand people and have them killed violently, their death will be felt through fifty to one hundred of their friends, families, neighbours, colleagues, etc. in a country so small, that reverberates and quickly takes in everyone. many people knew several of the dead; older people might know dozens. many more would have witnessed something. my friend group were no different. it’s been over a decade and I still can’t talk about it in any detail, but all I’ll say is that I lost a friend of mine when I was 15, and it was a very violent, drawn-out death at the hands of a mob of adults. he was my age. the reason for it was because he was Catholic. being the same age as him made it a very strange experience. even now, on my birthday, I think about the fact that he would be my age if he had lived. he’s frozen in time, and the rest of us have grown up and moved on, and it’s so unfair it makes me feel sick.

as for the culture,

(forgive the abrupt ending, but to be honest that part of things always exhausts my emotions when talking about what it was like to live like that.)

I’m sorry that this is a wholly depressing account, but it was a warzone; I get the feeling that’s to be expected. what I can say is that despite everything, I miss living there dearly. despite how horrible it could be, the country is beautiful and a vast majority of the people I met and grew up with were wonderful. I miss it a lot. I miss the landscapes, I miss all the places I used to go to lose myself. I miss the forests and the waterfalls, I miss the Causeway Coast, I miss turning the bend on the motorway and seeing Belfast nestled in its valley with the sea on one side and Cave Hill on the other. I miss the little villages, I miss getting lost in the fields and the trees and the trails, I miss the tiny little pubs and the small harbours and drinking by the lough with my friends. I miss the food, and I miss all the little quirks in the way we talked, and I miss walking down the street or going into a shop and having my friends’ parents recognise me and act like they’re all my mothers (“ach, how’ve you been? lookit you! I can’t believe it. you used to be so wee!” – no matter if they’d seen me a week ago, I was always wee then and taller now).

I was lucky enough that my friends and I were much more open-minded; members of the new generation who were getting sick to death of all the fighting. there were both Catholics and Protestants in our friend group, and sometimes the only thing that got us through was making dark jokes and poking fun at one another. I miss that, too – living away from the country and knowing no other people from there makes reconciling what happened very difficult. even now I have an innate connection with people when we hear one another’s accents. we’ll start chatting like old friends, and it’s wonderful, because religion doesn’t come up at all. we’ll ask where each other is from, and usually we’ll have heard of it, and then we’ll probably start bitching about the weather or the roadworks that are still there eight years later or something. sometimes we’ll even start making a few dark jokes of our own, and it’s always a relief to laugh. it loosens something in the chest. I don’t think there’s a group of people more resilient than those from the North. we’ve seen some shit, and we still manage to live through it and laugh about it. I remember one time in school, when we were about 16, me and my fellow Catholics were going to skip school for St Patrick’s Day (we never got given the day off, honestly) and our Protestant friends were jealous, and we invited them along and they were jokingly saying that nah, they couldn’t, it’s a Catholic celebration, it wouldn’t be right, etc, and finally one of them was like “we’ll come to St Paddy’s Day if you skip school and come with us on St Proddy’s Day” and we were like “what the fuck is St Proddy’s Day” and he was like “idk it’s like St Paddy’s Day but for Protestants” and I was like “alright when is it” and everyone decided it was the day after St Patrick’s Day so our entire group skipped school for a two-day drinking fest. to be honest it’s stuff like that I remember more than the fighting. 

I didn’t get to go to the Republic as much as I wanted to, but despite the border I find the culture is just as warm, just as welcoming, and the sense of humour is brilliant across the board. Irish/Northern Irish culture, no matter what you want to call it, is just very familial. it’s warm. everyone is genuinely interested in everyone, everyone is genuinely there for a laugh (craic, as we’d say – pronounced “crack”. common greeting is “what’s the craic?”). it’s a nice place to be. you come from a culture known across the world for its friendliness and its love of fun, but as depressing as some of this information is, I hope you realise that you also come from a very resilient people. despite everything I love the place and I hope to go back one day, when I’m ready to do so. and the best part is that despite everything, I know I’ll be welcome.

[leviathan-supersystem]

OKAY i finished a rough draft of the script i’m making for a youtube video version of the Currents post [link] and i’m gonna post it here for commentary- i tried to have the diagram slides roughly correspond to where i want them to be in the monolog, although in the final video there will also be zooms in to relevant details, whereas right now i just say “in the top right corner” or w/e to indicate where to look.

also deciding between these titles: “Currents”

“Memetics, Dialectics, Incentive Structures, and Superorganisms Explained”

or maybe combine the two and put the second after the first with a colon in between? idk, also if anyone has any suggestions for better titles let em rip

anyways here’s the script, let me know what you think:

People have proposed numerous methods for understanding society and how people interact with each other from a scientific standpoint, from dialectical materialism, to memetics, to analysis of incentive structures, even to viewing social groups as a kind of superorganism, with each individual as a cell in a body.

And I thought- what if you were to take those models and jam them together?

Now, this is a rough and messy attempt, and I’m sure there’s someone out there who can do better- and I hope they do! But I thought I’d give it a try anyways.

Imagine, if you will, a bunch of people, living together, interacting with each other, the usual.

Now, imagine that these people have value systems, beliefs about what actions are good and what actions are bad, beliefs which spread as memes between individuals, until you have groups of people clustered together around these value-system memeplexes. Let’s represent these with color dots, and say the blue dots are right-wingers and the pink dots are left-wingers, but lets say the yellow/orange dots represent not a political memeplex, but a religious one - let’s say neopaganism, to pick a random example.

Now, of course someone’s political or religious beliefs will in some ways affect how they interact with their friends, family, neighbors, and so forth- they’ll be likely to reward actions the political or religious value system they adhere to views as good, and penalize actions the value system views as bad, in ways which range from subtle expressions of approval or disapproval, to more extreme measures like shunning. Lets represent the influence that people have on each other in a given community through a series of arrows, with the size of the arrow indicating the degree of influence one person has on the other, with the color of the arrow representing which value system is guiding how they incentivize or disincentivize behavior.

This is very simplified rendition, of course- a perfectly accurate one would be excessively cluttered- but this works as a lose rendition of how communities interact. People with shared beliefs cluster together, and influence each other and the people they’re socially adjacent to according to those shared beliefs.

From this angle, social groups which coalesce around memplexes like this appear as almost a kind of collective organism, with each person being a cell in the body of some kind of massive behemoth, all acting in tandem to incentivize and dis-incentivize behavior according to the instructions of the memeplex they follow.

A lot of analysis which has used this sort of metaphor has framed it as strictly negative, but I don’t think that’s useful- these sorts of social organisms form any time you have multiple people together who have even vaguely shared beliefs about right and wrong, and I don’t think it’s meaningfully possible or desirable to prevent people from congregating around shared moral beliefs. We’re all cells in the bodies of vast superorganisms, we’re all conduits for forces far larger than ourselves, and that’s okay!

For lack of a better term, lets call these collective organism “currents,” building off of the sense of the term meaning “particular ideas, opinions or feelings being present in a group of people.”

But also referencing it’s more common usage as referring to a current of water - something a person can get caught in the flow of. Or an electrical current, coursing through anything which can become a conduit for it.

Most social phenomenon can be described in these terms- groups of people acting in tandem to incentivize and dis-incentivize behavior according to a memetic script- from political movements, to religions, to cults, to ethical philosophies, to governments, even to corporations and artistic movements- all of these can essentially be thought of as different varieties of currents.

And there can also be currents within currents- for example all corporations are sub-currents of the super-current of capitalism, which is the prevailing hegemonic economic current.

The incentives used by currents include everything from material incentives like money, to expressions of approval or disapproval from peers, to legal punitive measures like imprisonment- even our internal feelings of guilt and pride are ultimately based on the value systems we’ve picked up through social interaction, and thus are just another form of incentive that currents use.

Morality, rather than being some unchanging concrete law encoded into the universe, is a function of this social phenomenon- people generate memetic scripts about which actions to incentivize and which to dis-incentivize, and the effect of this incentive structure will be to varying degrees beneficial, or detrimental, or beneficial to one group at the expense of another. Morality isn’t like the laws of physics as much as it’s like a form of technology, which must always be continually updated and improved to be more beneficial to more people.

We could also roughly sort currents according to the categories of Economic and Ideological- or in Marxist terms, Base and Superstructure.

These both overlap and have a reciprocal relationship, of course, but there is a definite divide between currents which incentivize mostly through material economic means, like corporations- let’s call these Base currents- and currents which incentivize behavior through more subtle ideological and social means, such as political ideologies and religions- let’s call these Superstructure Currents

Often there will be superstructure currents which emerge out of base currents, or base currents which emerge out of superstructure currents- consider the mission statement of the ethos of a company as a superstructure current emerging out of a base current, or a boycott organized by political group as a base current emerging out of a superstructure current- or the food program run by the black panthers as a base current emanating from a superstructure current, which could have, had there been a successful revolution, evolved into a more larger and more complex base current- a socialist economy.

Our choices are so heavily shaped by the incentive structures of the social currents we interact with that insofar as we have any kind of autonomy as individuals, this is expressed more by what currents we choose to interact with or act as a conduit for than it is by what we choose to do within a given current.

While usually currents operate simply through people following the incentive structure while acting in their own self-interest, once an individual has fully absorbed the value system of a current, they will act according to that value system even beyond the point of self interest- whether this is a good or bad thing depends on the merit of the value system of that current- on how beneficial it is as a piece of moral social technology.

To give a few examples to illustrate this:

A: Two people in the desert come across water. Instead of splitting it evenly, the stronger of the two simply kills the other, and takes all the water for themselves. (Also in this hypothetical they feel no guilt and won’t ever be intervened on by society, which is a bit of a stretch, sure, but I need an example to illustrate how selfishness plays out in the absence of any kind of incentive system.)

B: Someone donates money, but the primary reason they did so was because they knew they would receive social approval for doing so, and benefit in the form of social approval outweighed the cost to themselves.

C: Someone knowingly gives their life to save the lives of several other people. In this case there isn’t even the hypothetical chance that they did it purely for selfish approval-seeking reasons, since the cost was their own life, and whatever social approval they may gain, they will never experience it. This is, nonetheless, still a function of currents- it’s just that they have internalized the value system to the point where they adhere to it not just as a means to the end of gaining social approval (or avoiding social disapproval and punishment), but as an ends unto itself, and will adhere to it even at extreme personal cost.

D: Some incel creep, stewing in forums which treat Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian as heroes, goes on his own similar spree killing, ending the spree by taking his own life. This person also will never receive any social reward from their cohorts for their actions, due to being dead, but had internalized the value system of the incel ideology to the point where they will act on it even at extreme personal cost.

So you can see that while example C and example D are both acting selflessly, example C is morally commendable, while example D morally repugnant- and while both example A and example B are acting selfishly, and example A is just as repugnant as example D, example B is only somewhat less commendable than example C- point is, acting selflessly does not inherently make you better than someone acting selfishly if the moral framework of the current you are selflessly adhering to is itself a malignant framework. (And this isn’t a static thing either, since a current which was once benign can become malignant).

So selfishness is, overall, Not Great, but the picture is a little more nuanced than “selfishness=bad, selflessness=good”

In practice, currents tend to have a certain anatomy- already in this image here we can see the different currents portrayed have a clusters within them, as well as a noticeable edge- let’s outline those to bring them into clearer focus:

When we do this, we can see an amoeba-like shape taking form- inner nuclei, and an outer membrane. Similar to how genetic code instructs cells on how to organize into an organism, this is how memetic codes instruct individuals on how to organize into collective superorganisms. And when the two memeplexes are more compatible, the superorganisms will overlap as they absorb each other, and when they memeplexes are less compatible, they’ll form more distinct boundaries, and attempt to siphon people away from each other, acting more directly in competition.

Currents have a tendency to try to place parts of the memeplex which are more appealing to outsiders on the outside membrane, and to place parts which are more alienating to outsiders near the nuclei- Scientologists don’t tell people about all the Xenu stuff right off the bat, you feel me? This especially applies when attempting to siphon people away from a competing current.

The Mormons actually have a term to describe this strategy- “Milk Before Meat”- the idea being that you must first expose potential converts to the Spiritual Milk- the more appealing parts of the memeplex- before exposing them to the Spiritual Meat- the more alienating parts of the memeplex.

In addition, incentive structures are usually more severe, and the rules more strict, the deeper you go- this similarly helps to ease the process by which someone is absorbed into a current.

In some of those nuclei clusters we can see noticeable power hierarchies, particularly the ones on the top and bottom right, which are clearly centered around specific individuals or groups who the rest of the cluster is subordinate to. To tie this more firmly into the real world, if the pink and blue represent the political left and the right in this model, then the nuclei-like clusters would be both informal and formal groups of political activists or discussion groups, with some of the more formally organized political groups having overt hierarchies and chains of command.

These kinds of power imbalances within a current can have a detrimental effect upon it, resulting in a kind of social decay.

People with power shifts their value system in such a way that it better serves their own needs- here I’m representing that shift with the shift from blue to teal-ish in the upper right corner:

and this has a ripple effect on the cluster surrounding them,

shifting it so that it better serves the interests of themselves and their cohorts, increasing their power, often at the expense of everyone else.

 So while it’s a popular narrative that we need hierarchy to maintain social order, in actuality hierarchy is in many ways harmful to the social order- the powerful have every motivation to shift the rules in their favor, change the currents incentive structures such that it acts to their benefit and exploits the people lower in the hierarchy, not to mention when there is a clear divide between the people who make or enforce social rules, and everyone else, the people who make or enforce social rules have little reason to follow them- cops, and Ted Kennedy, can get away with murder.

Luckily, the hegemonic power attempting to entrench itself isn’t the only way a currents value system can shift- and we’ll come back to that in a minute.

There’s also another kind of cluster within the currents in this chart, and that’s clusters of people who have become dissatisfied with the status quo of the social norms of the current they’re within - lets highlight those in grey.

These pockets of dissatisfaction generally emerge in response to legitimate grievances with real problems in the value system of the status quo (though they can also occasionally be founded on illegitimate grievances, like a formerly privileged class losing their privilege). Often these problems in the value system are tied into the kind of exploitative hierarchies I mentioned earlier - however, problems can exist within the value system of a current without them necessarily being to any exploitative classes benefit- sometimes the source of the problem is that the rules have been written- or re-written- to benefit one group at the expense of the rest, but occasionally there are problems in the value system of a current which are caused by simple human error, and aren’t to anyone’s benefit.

On one hand, these pockets of dissatisfaction can act as a point from which a competing current can attempt to siphon away individuals, in the form of people from the competing current reaching out to the people in the pocket and making the case that they would be happier if they were to leave their current for the competitor- in this framework it can almost be represented as one current extending a pseudopod into the other current to draw in people from it:

For example consider a group like redneck revolt, which reaches out to people in right-wing leaning rural areas and recruits them into the left, or conversely the Jesus movement, a right-wing movement which recruited hippies into reactionary evangelical Christianity- unlike a redneck revolt, which is pretty overt in what it’s goals are, the jesus movement was more deceptive, framing itself as a left-leaning progressive brand of Christianity when in actuality it’s most prominent figures were  staunchly reactionary- just look at the Jesus movement associated cult the Children of God, which marketed itself to hippies and presented itself as progressive to outsiders, when secretly it’s was preaching racist, homophobic, and antiemetic screeds to the people living on the cult commune. An especially deceptive version of the milk before meat strategy comes into play here, in this case being used as a strategy to siphon people away from the left while concealing that intention, presenting a progressive face to suck in hippies and then indoctrinating them with far-right ideology once they’ve been ensnared. So while the strategy of one current extending a pseudopod into another to siphon away members may be pretty universal, it can either be done in ways which are more honest about the intentions, like Redneck Revolt, or it can be more underhanded and dishonest like the Jesus movement was.

But on the other hand, these pockets of dissatisfaction act as a corrective force, as people who have been harmed by the existing social norms within that current create an updated version of that value system, or an entirely new value system, in response to their material needs- here represented on the left by the red cluster within the pink current.

This creates a current within that current,

which acts in opposition to it on the point of contradiction. In the classic dialectical materialist model, the first current is the thesis, then the new current growing out of the pocket of dissatisfaction is the antithesis, they synthesize into a new status quo, which inevitably will have it’s own pockets of dissatisfaction, and the process repeats.

For example, the problems inherent in the 1960’s radical scene’s social norms around sex (which was one of the points of weakness the Jesus movement exploited) was the flashpoint for the development of feminist critiques of sex and porn, then the flaws inherent within that framework spurred sex positive feminist critiques, then the flaws within the sex positive framework spurred a new wave of sex critical feminism, and so forth, this back-and forth dialectic working to shape the social norms of the left around sex.

The pattern of “people disenfranchised by the current value system create new value system, which spurs praxis which shifts social norms to better accommodate peoples needs” is visible everywhere- revolutionary action by the oppressed against the status quo is not only a force in driving social and moral advancement- it’s the primary force, the grinding dialectical engine at the heart of history and morality.

We can see this pattern playing out in the field of LGBT rights, where homophobic and transphobic laws and social mores- which are a harmful incentive system which unnecessarily punishes benign behavior- spurred the emergence of the lgbt rights movement, as the people harmed by homophobic and transphobic social mores and laws to joined together in radical action to change them.

Or for an example on a larger scale, consider the way feudalism was supplanted by liberalism and capitalism, particularly around such flashpoints as the French revolution- so we can see that this dialectical pattern can take different forms, and while sex critical feminism and sex positive feminism both acted internally within the left, the contradiction which spurred the decline of feudalism was more severe, with the liberal enlightenment current more fully separating itself from the feudal current before overtaking it.

Similarly, at this point it’s necessary for capitalism to be supplanted by an entirely new economic current- the contradictions at play here are too severe to be resolved through a more subtle internal dialectical process.

As noted earlier, the ruling class losing it’s power and privilege due to social progress creates it’s own pocket of dissatisfaction, which creates a harmful reactionary current.

Now, I’m sure some would argue that in the back and forth between sex negativity and sex positivity, one of the two was reactionary, and emerged to retain the privilege of an oppressive class and undo progress. However I disagree- I think both sex positivity and sex negativity- and the back and forth dialectic between them- played a progressive role in improving the social norms around sex within the left.

Reactionary currents caused by an oppressive class losing their power can have a significant memetic ripple effect, outlasting the actual people who lost their power- consider the reactionary current which emanated from the aristocracy and monarchy losing their power after feudalism declined, which carried as it’s central narrative the notion that progressivism and democracy were bad, and that Jewish people, freemasons, and the Illuminati were behind them (especially in relation to the French revolution)- this narrative which continues to play a central role in reactionary movements to this day, from fascism to neoreaction- though some original flavor moldbuggian neoreactionaries attempted to swap out the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theorism for a sinister Calvinist conspiracy.

The Illuminati was a small short-lived enlightenment-era discussion group, but then some deranged pro-monarchist priest named Augustin Barruel accuses them of having caused the French revolution, and from there the telephone game of the memetic ripple effect exaggerated the Illuminati into the ultimate shadowy boogeyman in the reactionary narrative. More than anything else, the fact that the whole right-wing conspiracy theory about the Illuminati is directly traceable back to the reactionary response to the French revolution shows just how severe the memetic ripple from that reactionary current was, and how firmly caught up in it’s wake a lot of modern reactionaries are. Both fascism and neoreaction can be understood as essentially mutations of the reactionary current which emerged in response to the French revolution.

However, while reactionary currents can undo progress, nonetheless the general overall trend of history is toward improvement- the long moral arc of the universe bending toward justice.

Now, if power imbalances are harmful, and if these sorts of dialectical processes correct power imbalances through social upheaval, the question must be asked- why do power imbalances exist in the first place?

To answer this question, another question- how do you create an incentive system without that incentive system creating a power imbalance between those it rewards and those it punishes?

It’s a difficult question, with no easy answer!

Of course, this may drive many to deem currents and incentive structures inherently evil- “We must cast off all binds that might shape our behavior, destroy all the authoritarian social mores, reject all coercive social systems, and embrace individualism fully!” they might say. They might also tell you you’re “spooked” and tell you to read Stirner.

Ultimately though this isn’t viable- the fact is, any time you have people in a group where some of them have shared beliefs about which actions are good or bad, these kind of social incentive systems are going to emerge- there isn’t any meaningfully possible way to stop these kind of incentive systems from emerging, and attempting to stop them by somehow preventing people from ever having beliefs about morality or expressing approval or disapproval for the actions of another would end up being far more coercive than the  incentive systems it’s trying to prevent.

And more importantly, would we really be better off if there were no social incentive systems or consequences for action? Would we really be better off if abusers faced no social repercussions? And recall here that we’re talking not only about formal legal penalties but also decentralized social penalties like “people not liking you”- which, mind you, can be a pretty powerful social tool for shaping behavior!

So as you can see, there isn’t an “out” here, and the dream of a world without incentive structures is in actuality neither desirable nor possible. The goal shouldn’t be to abolish all social incentive structures, but rather to correct what is broken, to replace flawed incentive structures with better ones, and to improve upon the social technology of morality.

So, what is the takeaway from all of this? Essentially that both Anarchists and Marxist-Leninists are right in some ways, and the way forward is to synthesize the two modes of thought- to merge the concepts of horizontal non-hierarchical social organization from Anarchists, with a sense of duty, unity, and discipline more akin to the ideas floated by Marxists in On Authority or Combat Liberalism. Through a more complete understanding of currents and how they function, we can more effectively create a revolutionary current which can supplant the hegemonic capitalist current, driving the great dialectical engine of history and morality forward toward greater human flourishing and prosperity.

[ambrvsel]

hey there demons! it’s me, sam ( she / her, 22, est timezone ) aaaand here’s a fourth char, which i’ve never had here but we started accepting older muses and daniel sharman is one of my fave fcs ever so here we are. pls bear with me but ok let’s hop into this! character info under the cut and as always please message me here or @ellvie​​ if you’d like to plot!

╰☆╮ DANIEL SHARMAN ─ AMBROSE LANCASTER identifies as CIS MALE and uses HE/HIM pronouns. they’re a POET/ACTOR, and they’re only TWENTY-EIGHT ! they’re said to be INGENIOUS, but also BROODING. i guess that’s why they’re known as THE WORDSMITH in the tabloids. *mia's older brother wc!

so, this is...ambrosius cyril lancaster. we just don’t know why the lancaster parents gave him such a mouthful of a name and then looked at their second kid and went nah just one ( 1 ) syllable for this one, but it happened and now here we are! he tends to go by ambrose, which is just the simplified version of his actual name and takes less than five fuckin hours to say

anyway, as you might have guessed ambrose is mia’s older brother! they’re about seven years apart which is obviously a significant age gap, but it never really stopped them from being v close!

he was born and raised in los angeles, california where he experienced your typical upper middle class sort of lifestyle during his childhood. his parents divorced when he was a teenager, but it was amicable so he was able to kinda just accept it and move on with his life. he and mia lived with their mother most of the time, but both of their parents are cool and he really doesn’t have any issues with them or any serious childhood tragedies at all really

so growing up he was always kinda quiet and timid, but not painfully so. as his interests in the arts developed, his parents kinda nudged him into doing things like joining the drama club, which helped him to come out of his shell a bit

yes, he was a Theater Kid™ i’m so sorry everyone

he was...v v good at acting to the point where he wound up going to hollywood arts a special performing arts high school in hollywood on an acting scholarship. he starred in many of the school plays which usually had a lot of talent agents and casting directors and producers in the audience so he got noticed without really trying tbh

did a couple small tv appearances when he was 16 - 17 in all of the basic af teen drama shows of the time like pll & tvd & gossip girl. so, nothing special or groundbreaking buuuut it got him noticed by a lot of studios and hollywood people who were offering him much bigger roles in tv and film but he was like nah and went to college instead.

so he took a small break from acting in order to study poetry at columbia university in nyc, but he got bored bc it felt kinda easy to him oops. so he quickly went back to acting on the side while continuing his studies and got himself a steady recurring role on yet another basic teen drama to keep him entertained while he went through school.

he got his mfa in poetry from columbia a few years ago and he’s v proud of it aw i love that for him :’)

however after graduating he really didn’t do much with his writing bc he accidentally bit off more than he could chew by taking on a couple more acting roles bc he figured he’d be able to manage it and still work on his poetry but...nah. as a result his writing has kinda fallen by the wayside but he’s still really passionate about it!

was engaged to torrance keynes for a time and it wound up being v...Messy. she got pregnant more than once, but unfortunately miscarried each time. it was obvs difficult on both of them and it turned out to be too much and so they eventually broke things off. he’s still kind of a wreck over everything but like how could he not be? it’s still a very sore subject for him but like what are you gonna do! he basically just refuses to talk about it and pretends everything is fine haha yikes

he’s kinda been switching between la and nyc ever since he started college bc of school and work and going to see his fam ( especially mia! ) and he’s never really settled in one place or the other? but he’s really fallen in love with nyc and it’s where he spends most of his free time!

might have dipped to la for a little longer than usual after his last break up with torrance, buuuut he’s obvs returned and i think he’s planning to stay put for now

extra fun facts! probs a good thing to read if you’re looking for a tl;dr tbh

he’s probs on a tv show right now. think like american horror story or the walking dead or something? i feel like he gets typecast as a dark/brooding/sarcastic type of character in a lot of ~edgy~ type of shows. lmk if you’ve got any suggestions for a specific role bc rn i’ve got nothing

critics and management and even fans often complain that he’s wasting his immense acting talent on all of these smaller roles, but ambrose is happy with his career rn. he loves acting and he doesn’t want it to start feeling like a chore and he wants freedom and flexibility so that he can finally start focusing on his poetry.

“are you mad?” no that’s just his face

hobbies include boxing, throwing knives, surfing, taking walks, watching pretentious films, hanging out in record stores, and some dabbling in drawing.

loves to read, always carrying a book around and sticking his nose in it if he has a few minutes of free time & it’s not uncommon to see him with a new book every single day, or even more than one book in a single day

he’s kind of a hipster i’m sorry

also just kinda...slightly...a little...very Dramatic™

might do music on the side but like……...very far on the side. he’s probs a drummer?? in some arctic monkeys type of shitty indie rock band but he enjoys it so whatever

a total gentleman and a romantic, but also most likely a Disaster in the relationships department so...watch out for that too ig!

personality: ambrose is quiet, perceptive, intelligent, eloquent, creative, pensive, sarcastic, dramatic, tumultuous, and passionate. he can come across as standoffish but it’s just Resting Bitch Face and the fact that he’s an introvert working against him. just start talking about film or books or something and he’ll warm right up. he’s a v loyal and protective friend, nice and polite to strangers, but noticeably a bit closed off ( especially after the miscarriages and failed engagement ). basically - all you need to know about ambrose is that if someone told you that he was secretly a 500 year old british vampire who likes to surf in his spare time then you would probably believe them.

here are a few lame connection ideas that you should not feel limited by whatsoever!

best friend

friends

frenemies

former costars

enemies

romantic - exes, crushes, pr relationships maybe? & all that stuff

people he attended school with - either in la or at columbia

college roommates?

other members of his little side project indie band?

ok that’s it for now! feel free to message me if you’d like to plot and as always, i’m super excited to write with you all!

[kathys4444992-blog]

Convert To FLAC (Online & Free)

In the event you've ever tried to seek for software that may convert audio and video files on Home windows, you would possibly know how hard it can be to seek out dedicated options which can be truly free and performance as marketed. FileZigZag is a FLAC to MP3 converter free online that's efficient. It has extra options with reducing-edge performance. It's got a sophisticated converter feature that simplifies all conversion operations. To convert FLAC to MP3 on-line is easy and fun for the reason that page is understandable making it easy to convert information. Fortunately, if you want to convert Apple Music losslessly with half dimension of authentic file, NoteBurner Apple Music Converter will enable you, it supports to output file to FLAC format with zero loss. The next is a detailed tutorial on methods to convert Apple Music information to FLAC with the newest version of NoteBurner Apple Music Converter. Please download this great tool in your Home windows PC or Mac first earlier than getting started.

Along with changing single audio files into other codecs in bulk, Www.Audio-Transcoder.Com you possibly can join multiple files into one bigger audio files with Freemake Audio Converter. You may also alter the output high quality before changing recordsdata. Stabilize or Enhance MP3 Audio quality. Updated program: Pazera Free MKV to AVI Converter 1.three. FLAC is a common lossless format. It doesn't modify the audio stream, and flac to mp3 converter online free url the sound encoded with this format is an identical to the unique. It is often used to playback the sound on excessive-end audio programs. Its playback assist on gadgets and players is limited, due to this fact, if desired, it's usually transformed to different formats prior to listening in a player. I'm really attempting to playflac on iTunes to see if it wil support multichannel rips from DTS or DVD-A. I do know you can play multichannel DTS rips ->alac in your ATV4 but I actually need this to work with iTunes however I suspect the issue isn't just with the format, but a limitation with iTunes. Considering that it helps other surround formats passthrough like PCM it doesn't make sense to pay the licensing for use on AppleTV but completely neglect iTunes for nearly twenty years now. Similarly, it is absurd that Apple still wont supportflac, a free format, presumably as a result of they want people usingalac becaus thats so bloody necessary…flac is nice because it's a absolutely taggable format that plays on all platforms- except iTunes! Apple's deliberate solely game in town" schtick is admittedly getting previous. Free FLAC to MP3 Converter can also converts FLAC tiles to WAV. This provides you the benefit of better compression without a loss in output quality. On the next window you can add the file(s) you want to convert and you may embrace many directly, even when they are completely different file varieties, as long as you need them to be the identical output file type. For example we included both MP4 and M4A recordsdata in the identical workload to be encoded as MP3 as a substitute. Locate the file to be transformed and add it to the site. This app is only out there for iPhone and iPad , but the consumer interface is clean and straightforward to navigate. It imports more than 30 file varieties, together with popular video formats, and exports to 10 of the most popular audio codecs. The enter and output file varieties aren't as complete because the Swap app, but this app has a extra user-pleasant interface. There is a file browser feature that makes it easy to search out the audio file you need to convert and share your converted file across standard social media platforms instantly from the app. The easy and straightforward Free Audio Converter from Freemake (for Windows solely) is one other good choice. With this utility, you simply drag your audio into this system window, choose your output format from the listing at the bottom, and you're good to go. It helps common audio formats akin to MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, and FLAC. Choose ".mp3" from the drop-down selector. You can quickly invite others to view, obtain and collaborate on all of the files you want, no electronic mail attachment needed. You're achieved! Don't forget to delete the original FLAC files. If you wish to convert your FLAC audio file with great and high-high quality outcomes, then Wondershare FLAC Converter is one of the best converter software on your concern. It stands out amongst different video converter programs with 30X times sooner pace with out quality loss. Should you typically visit video-hosting sites like YouTube, you will love their one-click on obtain, which lets you download movies instantly for offline playback. Swap Audio Converter is an easy desktop app which lets you convert FLAC to mp3 and can also convert information between as much as 40 formats in case your wants are extra particular. It might probably also convert an entire FLAC playlist to mp3 and permits to entry online database to add music information.

So what are you able to do when you have information in certainly one of these formats and wish to add them to iTunes? There are a variety of packages that may convert audio information from one format to another. tmkk's free XLD is my software of selection, because it manages each audio file format I've ever come across, along with some I've never heard of, and even helps cue files. Stephen Sales space's free Max is one other tool that converts many audio file codecs. And when you've got Roxio's Toast 11 Titanium (and a few earlier versions), you'll be able to convert from FLAC or Ogg Vorbis to iTunes-pleasant formats.

Okay, if the On-line Audio Converter someway wasn't fast enough for you, here's essentially the most streamlined model of all. Choose a file, select your MP3 output format, select from four high quality options, and convert. That's it. There isn't any room for customization, cloud storage administration, or anything, just pure conversion that's excellent for a few fast file adjustments. That being stated, the web site does supply a free download of a far more advanced instrument on your desktop that we really like. If did not wind as an online choose, it might have most likely made it in as one in every of our desktop choices.Added converting FLAC to Ogg recordsdata. 5KPlayer is repeatedly careworn to be a multifunctional, quick, protected and steady offline FLAC file converter able to video audio conversion integrated with video music playback , online video music download and video audio AirPlay to give you nice convenience to take pleasure in various media files. When you're working with recordsdata already compressed right into a lossless format likeflac orape, you possibly can simply decompress them towav without dropping any data for editing earlier than compressing once more to whatever format you want.

[lovetheangelshadow]

N'Pressions: Netflix' Carmen Sandiego

I will admit my past experiences with the Carmen Sandiego franchise is a mix of both enjoyment and frustration. My first encounter with the series was that my grandpa had the original black and white game installed on his Mac II and half the time me and my brother were guessing and constantly losing because who knew you needed the accompanying Almanac to go with it. Also I was like six and my brother four and we didn’t even know what an Almanac was. We did sporadically watch the game show; both the geography and history ones, when our mother let us watch TV and well as the cartoon that came up on the Fox. To memory the only other game we ever owned was the USA specific one that we played to heck out of.

 I was not even aware that there was a reboot in the making until I had gotten an email from Netflix about some shows I might like. I glanced at the trailer on YouTube and admittedly was not exactly enthusiastic about the premise. From what it appeared to be, we were following Carmen specifically and that, while she was still a thief, she stole from other thieves. Sly Cooper. They were essentially premiering a Sly Cooper type show. Why didn’t Sly get his own show?! Okay so the Ratchet and Clank movie tanked, but you have a bit more wiggle room with a show guys! Heck technically there is 2D animation in the Sly series, it would not look out of place. Well despite my disappointment, I decided to give this a fair shake.

The theme song is meh. Honestly it just doesn’t stick with me like the previous three version. And yes, as corny as it was, I still like the Where in Time theme. I get what they’re trying to do though; invoking a jazzy tone like in the James Bond series, Pink Panther, or Catch me if you Can-it just feels very generic to me. Which is an honest shame because the animation for the opener is beautiful. The black and white cut out backgrounds with the trademark red coat gliding through and the title character eluding capture is just a treat. Again it works really well with the mood and tone of the show; a spy-action chase theme traversing the world. Like I said it does feel like they’re trying to invoke that classic thief/spy films. It’s just the theme doesn’t stick with me.

And as for the reboot itself, the show decides to elaborate and remake Carmen Sandiego’s origin. Now I don’t know if people were clamoring for this, but I never really came across any howling dissent like with She-Ra or Powerpuff Girls when this news came out. Most of the reactions I’ve seen were either excitement or hesitation. And let’s face it, any time there is a reboot there is reasonable grounds for reluctance. Now with Carmen there is a bit more of a leeway here. After all, at least to my memory, a set personality or origin for her. You knew she was a thief that wanted you to know it was her, someone who enjoyed the chase, and was very crafty and intelligent. Also mysterious.

So the new concept is that Carmen, or Black Sheep as her former name, was an orphan found by one of the V.I.L.E faculty members, Ms. Blunt and raised on V.I.LE Headquarters island where she had a series of various tutors who taught her geography, history, and world culture. She also learned a few other things by osmosis from other members of the organization and was also a bit of a prankster and precocious. Eventually she is allowed to train in the next school year where only 40 thieves graduate per year (clever pun). And it’s here where we meet some of the her schoolmates who will eventually her antagonists for the season. And if I may put in aside her, this show does this SO much better than She-Ra. The show actually does take the time to make them more or less fleshed out characters so you know the kinds of threats they will eventually be later on in the show. With She-Ra they’re more like set pieces then anything else (save for Catra, but whatever). Anyway the school is run by five faculty members each with their own personality and gimmick to their methods of crime. And watching these guys is very enjoyable. The best comparison I can think of is the Kingdom Hearts series where if you compare the organization of Disney Villains and Origination XIII in terms of interaction and entertainment. The former classmates are more like Organization XIII. Sure they have their own gimmicks and personas, but they don’t stand out as much and their interaction with Carmen is more professional and serious. The only exception may be Tigress-but she’s more of a rival. Also I am convinced two of those guys are gay and it actually feels natural because it’s not their most outstanding feature. With the Faculty, it is a lot more personal. Plus their egos often clash with one another and they’ve got no qualms taunting or flaunting others’ failures and their own successes. There is someone of a sixth member, who is the bookkeeper for V.I.L.E. Fun fact, she is voiced by the original Carmen and the reboot Carmen steals her soon to be trademark hat and coat from her. That is one of the cleverest pass the torches EVER.

Anyway, Carmen is flunked from the course and is forced to take it over. However she stows away on the place heading for heist where she learns the true face of V.I.L.E. She doesn’t have a problem with theft, it’s the fact that the organization is willing to kill to get what it wants. There are other atrocities but I won’t spoil them here. So finding this out, she escapes the island with stolen data with the help of a hacker named Player and vows to destroy V.I.L.E by stealing thigs before they do and or steal back from them.

For the rest of the series, it plays itself out a straightforward heist and chase show. At the same time either Carmen or Player will drop factoids about each place they visit either to each other or to Carmen’s two assistants: Zack and Ivy. They are also perused by Interpol agents Chase Devineaux and Julia Argent. Chase is a by the book officer who is persistent in pursuit and isn’t too interested in history and cultural facts. I would not call him stupid but rather he’s focused on the hunt and will do what he has to in order to keep up the chase. Also he has some of the best comedic lines in the show. Julia is more the bookworm and slow burning patient partner. ACME is also part of the chase as well as a shadow organization dedicated to tracking down and stopping VILE. When I first heard the two agents mention Chief I was super excited to see the return of the Chief and…shrugs. And nothing against Dawnn Lewis but she doesn’t strike me with authority the same way Lynne Thigpen did. Also I am kinda sad that they went the more generic men in black look. Sure the old red and yellow coats were cheesy, but they’ve stuck in my mind more than anything. Plus with VILE’s color schemes being mostly green, black, and grey it would have made for the perfect contrast.

The show goes more for of a cutout style along the vein of shows like 6teen and Chaotix season 1 (yeah remember that show?) with coloring resembling more of a painterly style. Basically similar to the style of the opening but a bit more simplified. For the most part I don’t mind it too much; but it tends to be not always as flexible when it comes to the action sequences. This is more noticeable with it comes to sequences that involve impacts, but they’re too brief to really notice unless you’re actively looking for them. Same thing goes for other things like follow through and squash and stretch. But for a first season especially with this kind of animation, I will give them credit that more the most part its consistent and nine times out of then it doesn’t feel stiff and awkward. If I have a minor nitpick it’s more the character designs themselves. I feel like a lot of these designs I’ve seen in other shows and none of them really stand out to me. Sure the old VILE agent designs from the show and games were kooky and sometimes questionable in design choices, but they still felt a bit more individual.

And now on to Carmen herself. Honestly, she’s fine. Sure they changed her to more of a grey hero but they didn’t toss off what made people like her. She’s fast on her feet, able to use what the situation gives her, and she is a skilled thief even when pitted against members of her own class. The only ones who really give her great trouble that she has yet to really outmatch are when she’s going against facility members head on. Which makes sense as they are more experienced than her. Hell, she almost gets hugged to death in one episode. Admittedly the humor in the show is 50/50. I laughed at a few jokes, but most were minor shrugs. At least there was not anything that made me cringe or face palm.

I honestly enjoyed myself and I felt the show was in the spirit of the original series. While focusing on Carmen and making her a Robin Hood-esque character was an odd choice they didn’t forget what the core of the series was. Globetrotting heists, geographical education, and just good old straight forward action. Also thank you so much for just focusing on being good educational entertainment. For actually being something that a broad spectrum can genuinely enjoy and not feel talked down to or pandered. I am very excited for the next season. So good job guys. I’m Noctina Noir and I’m one Nox of a Nobody.

[hydrus]

Version 455

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.gz

I had an ok couple of weeks. Some quality of life is improved, the UI should save sessions a bit quicker, and the database repairs itself more of itself.

Your client may warn you about a missing index on first boot. If it does, that's great--some new repair code is working!

session save

Some users with large sessions (typically around 2-3+ million 'weight') are experiencing severe UI lockups and general lag. This week I deal with part of that problem by greatly reducing the amount of CPU needed to save most sessions. Now pages know if they have been changed since being loaded, and if they have no changes, they can skip a bunch of session save work.

There's nothing you have to do here, but if you have been experiencing 12+ second freezes every few minutes, please let me know how you get on now. I can't promise things will be perfect, but if you have any large and inactive downloader pages, you should notice things running a bit smoother (exiting the program too, should be faster).

There is still a problem of lag and lockups when there are 200+ downloaders in the session. This is a different and unfortunately more severe problem that I have relieved in recent weeks but needs some other large work to completely fix. Best solution for now is to clear out finished downloaders if you can.

misc

Many of the simple system predicates, like height and filesize, now support the '≠' (not equal) operator! This is still in the early stages, but I'd like to add some options of the thumbnail menu so you can say 'find files that (do not) have this file's precise resolution/duration/size' etc...

You can now copy thread subjects to clipboard in the watcher downloader page list!

The advanced file deletion dialog now remembers the last reason you chose!

The network job widget (which shows download progress, you see it on any downloader) now shows the current URL it is working on under its cog menu. You can click it to copy to clipboard. May help to debug some odd network errors etc...

The way data sizes over 1KB are rendered has been overhauled. It should now generally be to three significant figures, so 3.11MB instead of 3.1MB, 12.3GB instead of 12GB. See if you like the change, and if not, try tweaking it to 2sf under the new EXPERIMENTAL option in options->gui.

database repair

tl;dr: Boot checks are better, you don't have to do anything.

I have spent most of my 'cleanup' time this year breaking the client database into smaller modules. These modules are now responsible for their own repair (which happens on boot), and they do much of it in a neater automatic way, using the same set of definitions it uses to initialise on first start to check whether an existing database is missing anything now. Most of my old hardcoded 'oh, you are missing this table' code is now simplified and modularised, works more reliably, and will be much easier to maintain in future.

You may get a popup when you boot saying you are missing one or more indices. There are several legacy reasons why this might be the case, but most often it will be because you once recovered from former hard drive damage and a clone/recover was unable to rescue an index. Whatever the case, these can now be regenerated automatically (they store duplicated data, so can be regenerated 100%), so please let it run. You might even notice PTR processing working faster afterwards.

Many tables can also be regenerated, and some can be completely repopulated. It is now possible (though not a great idea!) to start a client without a client.caches.db or client.mappings.db file and have it recover to a bootable state. Error presentation around this is improved, with instructions on what to do next in the case of critical problems.

I will continue modularising more of the database and fleshing out this repair code to cover more of the schema!

full list

misc:

many of the simple system predicates (width, size, duration, etc..) now support the '≠' (not equal) operator! searches only support one of these at once for now (e.g. you can't say height != 640 AND height != 1080--it'll pick one of these pseudorandomly)

the watcher page list right-click menu now has 'copy subjects', which copies the selected watchers' 'subject' texts to clipboard

the advanced file deletion panel now remembers which reason you last used. it remembers if you selected the 'default' value up top versus specific reason text, and if you enter custom text, it remembers that for next time too

the network job widget now shows the current URL as tooltip over the progress gauge, and under the cog menu, where clicking it copies it to clipboard

the various menu labels across the program should now show ampersand (&) correctly (e.g. in URLs)

the way byte sizes (like 21.7KB or 1.24GB) above 1KB are rendered to strings has been overhauled. they now generally show three significant figures. a new EXPERIMENTAL option in 'gui' options panel lets you change this, but only 2 or 3 are really helpful

if a repository clears the message on your account, you no longer get a popup telling you 'hey, new message from server x: ...'

the new ≠ system preds should be parseable (but be careful, likely buggy) using the client api's new system predicate parser, with '≠', '!=', 'is not', or 'isn't'

cleaned up some old data presentation methods and improved how client specific options are patched in to base hydrus string conversion code

.

ui freezes:

session pages can now detect if they have had no saveable changes since a certain time. they use this ability to skip redundant session save CPU time for pages with no changes since the last session save

for now, since the smallest atom of the session system is a whole page, gallery and watcher pages can only save time if _every_ downloader in the page has had no changes, so in their case this optimisation mostly only applies to completely finished/paused pages. it is still better to have several medium size downloader pages than one gigantic one

a new database maintenance task ensures that optimisation cannot accidentally lose a page (from something like an unfortunate timing of a session save after many manual session deletes)

the existing optimisation that skips 'last session' save on no changes now initialises its data as the 'last session' is first loaded (rather than on first save), meaning that if there are no changes while the client is open, no new 'last session's will be saved at all

misc session save code cleanup

.

database repair, mostly boring:

a client can now boot with client.caches.db missing and will rebuild that file. almost all of its tables are now able to automatically repopulate (issue #975)

all the new modules I have been working on are now responsible for their own repair. this includes missing indices, missing tables, and table repopulation where possible. modules now know which of their tables are critical to a boot, what version each table and index was added, and now manage both initial and later-created service tables and indices

essentially, all newer database repair code is now modularised rather than hardcoded. the repair and creation code actually now share the same table and index definitions. the code is more reliable, checkpoints its good work in case of later failure, and will be much easier to maintain and expand in future

lots of module repair and initialisation code is refactored and generally given a full pass

the core mappings cache regeneration routine now takes transaction checkpoints throughout its job to save progress and reduce journal size

master definition critical error detection code is no longer hardcoded!

mapping storage repair code is no longer hardcoded!

similar files repair code is no longer hardcoded!

parent or sibling cache repair repopulation is no longer hardcoded!

the local hashes cache module can now repopulate itself during repair

the notes fast search table can now repopulate itself during repair

the similar files search tree table can now rebuild itself during repair

next week

I'm not really happy with my productivity over the past two weeks. This repair and session save worked bogged me down a bit, but I also didn't get as many hours in as I had planned. In any case, I will try to prioritise smaller bug fixes next week. Keep on pushing.

[lakelandseo]

Image Link Building — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Last week, we took you into the future with SEO expert Britney Muller to explore link prospecting in 2021. This week, we're going back in time — all the way to 2017 — for her concrete advice on an important part of building links: image link building.

Image link building is a delicate art. There are some distinct considerations from traditional link building, and doing it successfully requires a balance of creativity, curiosity, and having the right tools on hand. Let's dive in! 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we're going to go over all things image link building, which is sort of an art. I'm so excited to dig into this with you.

Know your link targets

So first and foremost, you need to know your link targets:

I. Popular industry platforms - top pages

What are those top platforms or websites that you would really like to acquire a link from? Then, from there, you can start to understand who might be influencers on those platforms, who's writing the content, who might you contact, and also what are the top pages currently for those sites. There are a number of tools that give you a glimpse into that information. Moz's OSE, Open Site Explorer, will show you top pages. SEMrush has a top page report. SimilarWeb has a popular page report. You can dig into all that information there, really interesting stuff.

II. Old popular images - update!

You can also start to dig into old, popular images and then update them. So what are old popular images within your space that you could have an opportunity to revamp and update? A really neat way to sort of dig into some of that is BuzzSumo's infographics filter, and then you would insert the topic. You enter the industry or the topic you're trying to address and then search by the infographics to see if you can come across anything.

III. Transform popular content into images

You can also just transform popular content into images, and I think there is so much opportunity in doing that for new statistics reports, new data that comes out. There are tons of great opportunities to transform those into multiple images and leverage that across different platforms for link building.

IV. Influencers

Again, just understanding who those influencers are.

Do your keyword research

So, from here, we're going to dive into the keyword research part of this whole puzzle, and this is really understanding the intent behind people searching about the topic or the product or whatever it might be. Something you can do is evaluate keywords with link intent. This is a brilliant concept I heard about a couple weeks back from Dan Shure's podcast. Thank you, Dan. Essentially it's the idea that keywords with statistics or facts after the keyword have link intent baked into the search query. It's brilliant. Those individuals are searching for something to reference, to maybe link to, to include in a presentation or an article or whatever that might be. It has this basic link intent.

Another thing you want to evaluate is just anything around images. Do any of your keywords and pictures or photos, etc. have good search volume with some opportunities? What does that search result currently look like? You have to evaluate what's currently ranking to understand what's working and what's not. I used to say at my old agency I didn't want anyone writing any piece of content until they had read all of the 10 search results for that keyword or that phrase we were targeting. Why would you do that until you have a full understanding of how that looks currently and how we can make something way better?

Rand had also mentioned this really cool tip on if you find some keywords, it's good to evaluate whether or not the image carousel shows up for those searches, because if it does, that's a little glimpse into the searcher intent that leads to images. That's a good sign that you're on the right track to really optimize for a certain image. It's something to keep in mind.

Provide value

So, from here, we're going to move up to providing value. Now we're in the brainstorming stage. Hopefully, you've gotten some ideas, you know where you want to link from, and you need to provide value in some way. It could be a...

I. Reference/bookmark Maybe something that people would bookmark, that always works.

II. Perspective is a really interesting one. So some of the most beautiful data visualizations do this extremely well, where they can simplify a confusing concept or a lot of data. It's a great way to leverage images and graphics.

III. Printouts still work really well. Moz has the SEO Dev Cheat Sheet that I have seen printed all over at different agencies, and that's really neat to see it adding value directly.

IV. Curate images. We see this a lot with different articles. Maybe the top 25 to 50 images from this tradeshow or this event or whatever it might be, that's a great way to leverage link building and kind of getting people fired up about a curated piece of content.

Gregory Ciotti — I don't know if I'm saying that right — has an incredible article I suggest you all read called "Why a Visual Really Is Worth a Thousand Words," and he mentions don't be afraid to get obvious. I love that, because I think all too often we tend to overthink images and executing things in general. Why not just state the obvious and see how it goes? He's got great examples.

Optimize

So, from here, we are going to move into optimization. If any of you need a brush-up on image optimization, I highly suggest you check out Rand's Whiteboard Friday on image SEO. It covers everything. But some of the basics are your...

Title

You want to make sure that the title of the image has your keyword and explains what it is that you're trying to convey.

Alt text

This was first and foremost designed for the visually impaired, so you need to be mindful of visually impaired screen readers that will read this to people to explain what the image actually is. So first and foremost, you just need to be helpful and provide information in a descriptive way to describe that image.

Compression

Compression is huge. Page speed is so big right now. I hear about it all the time. I know you guys do too. But one of the easiest ways to help page speed is to compress those huge images. There's a ton of great free tools out there, like Optimizilla, where you can bulk upload a bunch of large images and then bulk download. It makes it super easy. There are also some desktop programs, if you're doing this kind of stuff all the time, that will automatically compress images you download or save. That might be worth looking into if you do this a lot. You want to host the image. You want it to live on your domain. You want to house that. You can leverage it on other platforms, but you want sort of that original to be on your site.

SRCSET

Source set attribute is getting a little technical. It's super interesting, and it's basically this really incredible image attribute that allows you to set the minimum browser size and the image you would prefer to show up for different sizes. So you can not only have different images show up for different devices in different sizes, but you can also revamp them. You can revamp the same image and serve it better for a mobile user versus a tablet, etc. Jon Henshaw has some of the greatest stuff on source set. Highly suggest you look at some of his articles. He's doing really cool things with it. Check that out.

Promotion

So, from here, you want to promote your images. You obviously want to share it on popular platforms. You want to reach back out to some of these things that you might have into earlier. If you updated a piece of content, make them aware of that. Or if you transformed a really popular piece of content into some visuals, you might want to share that with the person who is sharing that piece of content. You want to start to tap into that previous research with your promotion.

Inform the influencers

Ask people to share it. There is nothing wrong with just asking your network of people to share something you've worked really hard on, and hopefully, vice versa, that can work in return and you're not afraid to share something a connection of yours has that they worked really hard on.

Monitor the image SERPs

From here, you need to monitor. One of the best ways to do this is Google reverse image search. So if you go to Google and you click the images tab, there's that little camera icon that you can click on and upload images to see where else they live on the web. This is a great way to figure out who is using your image, where it's being held, are you getting a backlink or are you not. You want to keep an eye on all of that stuff.

Two other tools to do this, that I've heard about, are Image Raider and TinEye. But I have not had great experience with either of these. I would love to hear your comments below if maybe you have.

Reverse image search with Google works the best for me. This is also an awesome opportunity for someone to get on the market and create a Google alert for images. I don't think anyone is actually doing that right now. If you know someone that is, please let me know down below in the comments. But it could be a cool business opportunity, right? I don't know.

So for monitoring, let's say you find your image is being used on different websites. Now you need to do some basic outreach to get that link. You want to request that link for using your image.

This is just a super basic template that I came up with. You can use it. You can change it, do whatever you want. But it's just:

Hi, [first name]. Thank you so much for including our image in your article. Great piece. Just wondering if you could link to us.com as the source. Thanks, Britney

Something like that. Something short, to the point. If you can make it more personalized, please do so. I can't stress that enough. People will take you way more seriously if you have some nugget of personal information or connection that you can make.

From there, you just sort of stay in this loop. After you go through this process, you need to continue to promote your content and continue to monitor and do outreach and push that to maximize your link building efforts. So I hope you enjoyed this. I look forward to hearing all of your comments and thoughts down below in the comments. I look forward to seeing you all later. Thanks for joining us on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. Thanks.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[epackingvietnam]

Image Link Building — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Last week, we took you into the future with SEO expert Britney Muller to explore link prospecting in 2021. This week, we're going back in time — all the way to 2017 — for her concrete advice on an important part of building links: image link building.

Image link building is a delicate art. There are some distinct considerations from traditional link building, and doing it successfully requires a balance of creativity, curiosity, and having the right tools on hand. Let's dive in! 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we're going to go over all things image link building, which is sort of an art. I'm so excited to dig into this with you.

Know your link targets

So first and foremost, you need to know your link targets:

I. Popular industry platforms - top pages

What are those top platforms or websites that you would really like to acquire a link from? Then, from there, you can start to understand who might be influencers on those platforms, who's writing the content, who might you contact, and also what are the top pages currently for those sites. There are a number of tools that give you a glimpse into that information. Moz's OSE, Open Site Explorer, will show you top pages. SEMrush has a top page report. SimilarWeb has a popular page report. You can dig into all that information there, really interesting stuff.

II. Old popular images - update!

You can also start to dig into old, popular images and then update them. So what are old popular images within your space that you could have an opportunity to revamp and update? A really neat way to sort of dig into some of that is BuzzSumo's infographics filter, and then you would insert the topic. You enter the industry or the topic you're trying to address and then search by the infographics to see if you can come across anything.

III. Transform popular content into images

You can also just transform popular content into images, and I think there is so much opportunity in doing that for new statistics reports, new data that comes out. There are tons of great opportunities to transform those into multiple images and leverage that across different platforms for link building.

IV. Influencers

Again, just understanding who those influencers are.

Do your keyword research

So, from here, we're going to dive into the keyword research part of this whole puzzle, and this is really understanding the intent behind people searching about the topic or the product or whatever it might be. Something you can do is evaluate keywords with link intent. This is a brilliant concept I heard about a couple weeks back from Dan Shure's podcast. Thank you, Dan. Essentially it's the idea that keywords with statistics or facts after the keyword have link intent baked into the search query. It's brilliant. Those individuals are searching for something to reference, to maybe link to, to include in a presentation or an article or whatever that might be. It has this basic link intent.

Another thing you want to evaluate is just anything around images. Do any of your keywords and pictures or photos, etc. have good search volume with some opportunities? What does that search result currently look like? You have to evaluate what's currently ranking to understand what's working and what's not. I used to say at my old agency I didn't want anyone writing any piece of content until they had read all of the 10 search results for that keyword or that phrase we were targeting. Why would you do that until you have a full understanding of how that looks currently and how we can make something way better?

Rand had also mentioned this really cool tip on if you find some keywords, it's good to evaluate whether or not the image carousel shows up for those searches, because if it does, that's a little glimpse into the searcher intent that leads to images. That's a good sign that you're on the right track to really optimize for a certain image. It's something to keep in mind.

Provide value

So, from here, we're going to move up to providing value. Now we're in the brainstorming stage. Hopefully, you've gotten some ideas, you know where you want to link from, and you need to provide value in some way. It could be a...

I. Reference/bookmark Maybe something that people would bookmark, that always works.

II. Perspective is a really interesting one. So some of the most beautiful data visualizations do this extremely well, where they can simplify a confusing concept or a lot of data. It's a great way to leverage images and graphics.

III. Printouts still work really well. Moz has the SEO Dev Cheat Sheet that I have seen printed all over at different agencies, and that's really neat to see it adding value directly.

IV. Curate images. We see this a lot with different articles. Maybe the top 25 to 50 images from this tradeshow or this event or whatever it might be, that's a great way to leverage link building and kind of getting people fired up about a curated piece of content.

Gregory Ciotti — I don't know if I'm saying that right — has an incredible article I suggest you all read called "Why a Visual Really Is Worth a Thousand Words," and he mentions don't be afraid to get obvious. I love that, because I think all too often we tend to overthink images and executing things in general. Why not just state the obvious and see how it goes? He's got great examples.

Optimize

So, from here, we are going to move into optimization. If any of you need a brush-up on image optimization, I highly suggest you check out Rand's Whiteboard Friday on image SEO. It covers everything. But some of the basics are your...

Title

You want to make sure that the title of the image has your keyword and explains what it is that you're trying to convey.

Alt text

This was first and foremost designed for the visually impaired, so you need to be mindful of visually impaired screen readers that will read this to people to explain what the image actually is. So first and foremost, you just need to be helpful and provide information in a descriptive way to describe that image.

Compression

Compression is huge. Page speed is so big right now. I hear about it all the time. I know you guys do too. But one of the easiest ways to help page speed is to compress those huge images. There's a ton of great free tools out there, like Optimizilla, where you can bulk upload a bunch of large images and then bulk download. It makes it super easy. There are also some desktop programs, if you're doing this kind of stuff all the time, that will automatically compress images you download or save. That might be worth looking into if you do this a lot. You want to host the image. You want it to live on your domain. You want to house that. You can leverage it on other platforms, but you want sort of that original to be on your site.

SRCSET

Source set attribute is getting a little technical. It's super interesting, and it's basically this really incredible image attribute that allows you to set the minimum browser size and the image you would prefer to show up for different sizes. So you can not only have different images show up for different devices in different sizes, but you can also revamp them. You can revamp the same image and serve it better for a mobile user versus a tablet, etc. Jon Henshaw has some of the greatest stuff on source set. Highly suggest you look at some of his articles. He's doing really cool things with it. Check that out.

Promotion

So, from here, you want to promote your images. You obviously want to share it on popular platforms. You want to reach back out to some of these things that you might have into earlier. If you updated a piece of content, make them aware of that. Or if you transformed a really popular piece of content into some visuals, you might want to share that with the person who is sharing that piece of content. You want to start to tap into that previous research with your promotion.

Inform the influencers

Ask people to share it. There is nothing wrong with just asking your network of people to share something you've worked really hard on, and hopefully, vice versa, that can work in return and you're not afraid to share something a connection of yours has that they worked really hard on.

Monitor the image SERPs

From here, you need to monitor. One of the best ways to do this is Google reverse image search. So if you go to Google and you click the images tab, there's that little camera icon that you can click on and upload images to see where else they live on the web. This is a great way to figure out who is using your image, where it's being held, are you getting a backlink or are you not. You want to keep an eye on all of that stuff.

Two other tools to do this, that I've heard about, are Image Raider and TinEye. But I have not had great experience with either of these. I would love to hear your comments below if maybe you have.

Reverse image search with Google works the best for me. This is also an awesome opportunity for someone to get on the market and create a Google alert for images. I don't think anyone is actually doing that right now. If you know someone that is, please let me know down below in the comments. But it could be a cool business opportunity, right? I don't know.

So for monitoring, let's say you find your image is being used on different websites. Now you need to do some basic outreach to get that link. You want to request that link for using your image.

This is just a super basic template that I came up with. You can use it. You can change it, do whatever you want. But it's just:

Hi, [first name]. Thank you so much for including our image in your article. Great piece. Just wondering if you could link to us.com as the source. Thanks, Britney

Something like that. Something short, to the point. If you can make it more personalized, please do so. I can't stress that enough. People will take you way more seriously if you have some nugget of personal information or connection that you can make.

From there, you just sort of stay in this loop. After you go through this process, you need to continue to promote your content and continue to monitor and do outreach and push that to maximize your link building efforts. So I hope you enjoyed this. I look forward to hearing all of your comments and thoughts down below in the comments. I look forward to seeing you all later. Thanks for joining us on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. Thanks.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking

[bfxenon]

Image Link Building — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Last week, we took you into the future with SEO expert Britney Muller to explore link prospecting in 2021. This week, we're going back in time — all the way to 2017 — for her concrete advice on an important part of building links: image link building.

Image link building is a delicate art. There are some distinct considerations from traditional link building, and doing it successfully requires a balance of creativity, curiosity, and having the right tools on hand. Let's dive in! 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we're going to go over all things image link building, which is sort of an art. I'm so excited to dig into this with you.

Know your link targets

So first and foremost, you need to know your link targets:

I. Popular industry platforms - top pages

What are those top platforms or websites that you would really like to acquire a link from? Then, from there, you can start to understand who might be influencers on those platforms, who's writing the content, who might you contact, and also what are the top pages currently for those sites. There are a number of tools that give you a glimpse into that information. Moz's OSE, Open Site Explorer, will show you top pages. SEMrush has a top page report. SimilarWeb has a popular page report. You can dig into all that information there, really interesting stuff.

II. Old popular images - update!

You can also start to dig into old, popular images and then update them. So what are old popular images within your space that you could have an opportunity to revamp and update? A really neat way to sort of dig into some of that is BuzzSumo's infographics filter, and then you would insert the topic. You enter the industry or the topic you're trying to address and then search by the infographics to see if you can come across anything.

III. Transform popular content into images

You can also just transform popular content into images, and I think there is so much opportunity in doing that for new statistics reports, new data that comes out. There are tons of great opportunities to transform those into multiple images and leverage that across different platforms for link building.

IV. Influencers

Again, just understanding who those influencers are.

Do your keyword research

So, from here, we're going to dive into the keyword research part of this whole puzzle, and this is really understanding the intent behind people searching about the topic or the product or whatever it might be. Something you can do is evaluate keywords with link intent. This is a brilliant concept I heard about a couple weeks back from Dan Shure's podcast. Thank you, Dan. Essentially it's the idea that keywords with statistics or facts after the keyword have link intent baked into the search query. It's brilliant. Those individuals are searching for something to reference, to maybe link to, to include in a presentation or an article or whatever that might be. It has this basic link intent.

Another thing you want to evaluate is just anything around images. Do any of your keywords and pictures or photos, etc. have good search volume with some opportunities? What does that search result currently look like? You have to evaluate what's currently ranking to understand what's working and what's not. I used to say at my old agency I didn't want anyone writing any piece of content until they had read all of the 10 search results for that keyword or that phrase we were targeting. Why would you do that until you have a full understanding of how that looks currently and how we can make something way better?

Rand had also mentioned this really cool tip on if you find some keywords, it's good to evaluate whether or not the image carousel shows up for those searches, because if it does, that's a little glimpse into the searcher intent that leads to images. That's a good sign that you're on the right track to really optimize for a certain image. It's something to keep in mind.

Provide value

So, from here, we're going to move up to providing value. Now we're in the brainstorming stage. Hopefully, you've gotten some ideas, you know where you want to link from, and you need to provide value in some way. It could be a...

I. Reference/bookmark Maybe something that people would bookmark, that always works.

II. Perspective is a really interesting one. So some of the most beautiful data visualizations do this extremely well, where they can simplify a confusing concept or a lot of data. It's a great way to leverage images and graphics.

III. Printouts still work really well. Moz has the SEO Dev Cheat Sheet that I have seen printed all over at different agencies, and that's really neat to see it adding value directly.

IV. Curate images. We see this a lot with different articles. Maybe the top 25 to 50 images from this tradeshow or this event or whatever it might be, that's a great way to leverage link building and kind of getting people fired up about a curated piece of content.

Gregory Ciotti — I don't know if I'm saying that right — has an incredible article I suggest you all read called "Why a Visual Really Is Worth a Thousand Words," and he mentions don't be afraid to get obvious. I love that, because I think all too often we tend to overthink images and executing things in general. Why not just state the obvious and see how it goes? He's got great examples.

Optimize

So, from here, we are going to move into optimization. If any of you need a brush-up on image optimization, I highly suggest you check out Rand's Whiteboard Friday on image SEO. It covers everything. But some of the basics are your...

Title

You want to make sure that the title of the image has your keyword and explains what it is that you're trying to convey.

Alt text

This was first and foremost designed for the visually impaired, so you need to be mindful of visually impaired screen readers that will read this to people to explain what the image actually is. So first and foremost, you just need to be helpful and provide information in a descriptive way to describe that image.

Compression

Compression is huge. Page speed is so big right now. I hear about it all the time. I know you guys do too. But one of the easiest ways to help page speed is to compress those huge images. There's a ton of great free tools out there, like Optimizilla, where you can bulk upload a bunch of large images and then bulk download. It makes it super easy. There are also some desktop programs, if you're doing this kind of stuff all the time, that will automatically compress images you download or save. That might be worth looking into if you do this a lot. You want to host the image. You want it to live on your domain. You want to house that. You can leverage it on other platforms, but you want sort of that original to be on your site.

SRCSET

Source set attribute is getting a little technical. It's super interesting, and it's basically this really incredible image attribute that allows you to set the minimum browser size and the image you would prefer to show up for different sizes. So you can not only have different images show up for different devices in different sizes, but you can also revamp them. You can revamp the same image and serve it better for a mobile user versus a tablet, etc. Jon Henshaw has some of the greatest stuff on source set. Highly suggest you look at some of his articles. He's doing really cool things with it. Check that out.

Promotion

So, from here, you want to promote your images. You obviously want to share it on popular platforms. You want to reach back out to some of these things that you might have into earlier. If you updated a piece of content, make them aware of that. Or if you transformed a really popular piece of content into some visuals, you might want to share that with the person who is sharing that piece of content. You want to start to tap into that previous research with your promotion.

Inform the influencers

Ask people to share it. There is nothing wrong with just asking your network of people to share something you've worked really hard on, and hopefully, vice versa, that can work in return and you're not afraid to share something a connection of yours has that they worked really hard on.

Monitor the image SERPs

From here, you need to monitor. One of the best ways to do this is Google reverse image search. So if you go to Google and you click the images tab, there's that little camera icon that you can click on and upload images to see where else they live on the web. This is a great way to figure out who is using your image, where it's being held, are you getting a backlink or are you not. You want to keep an eye on all of that stuff.

Two other tools to do this, that I've heard about, are Image Raider and TinEye. But I have not had great experience with either of these. I would love to hear your comments below if maybe you have.

Reverse image search with Google works the best for me. This is also an awesome opportunity for someone to get on the market and create a Google alert for images. I don't think anyone is actually doing that right now. If you know someone that is, please let me know down below in the comments. But it could be a cool business opportunity, right? I don't know.

So for monitoring, let's say you find your image is being used on different websites. Now you need to do some basic outreach to get that link. You want to request that link for using your image.

This is just a super basic template that I came up with. You can use it. You can change it, do whatever you want. But it's just:

Hi, [first name]. Thank you so much for including our image in your article. Great piece. Just wondering if you could link to us.com as the source. Thanks, Britney

Something like that. Something short, to the point. If you can make it more personalized, please do so. I can't stress that enough. People will take you way more seriously if you have some nugget of personal information or connection that you can make.

From there, you just sort of stay in this loop. After you go through this process, you need to continue to promote your content and continue to monitor and do outreach and push that to maximize your link building efforts. So I hope you enjoyed this. I look forward to hearing all of your comments and thoughts down below in the comments. I look forward to seeing you all later. Thanks for joining us on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. Thanks.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[nutrifami]

Image Link Building — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Last week, we took you into the future with SEO expert Britney Muller to explore link prospecting in 2021. This week, we're going back in time — all the way to 2017 — for her concrete advice on an important part of building links: image link building.

Image link building is a delicate art. There are some distinct considerations from traditional link building, and doing it successfully requires a balance of creativity, curiosity, and having the right tools on hand. Let's dive in! 

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans, welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we're going to go over all things image link building, which is sort of an art. I'm so excited to dig into this with you.

Know your link targets

So first and foremost, you need to know your link targets:

I. Popular industry platforms - top pages

What are those top platforms or websites that you would really like to acquire a link from? Then, from there, you can start to understand who might be influencers on those platforms, who's writing the content, who might you contact, and also what are the top pages currently for those sites. There are a number of tools that give you a glimpse into that information. Moz's OSE, Open Site Explorer, will show you top pages. SEMrush has a top page report. SimilarWeb has a popular page report. You can dig into all that information there, really interesting stuff.

II. Old popular images - update!

You can also start to dig into old, popular images and then update them. So what are old popular images within your space that you could have an opportunity to revamp and update? A really neat way to sort of dig into some of that is BuzzSumo's infographics filter, and then you would insert the topic. You enter the industry or the topic you're trying to address and then search by the infographics to see if you can come across anything.

III. Transform popular content into images

You can also just transform popular content into images, and I think there is so much opportunity in doing that for new statistics reports, new data that comes out. There are tons of great opportunities to transform those into multiple images and leverage that across different platforms for link building.

IV. Influencers

Again, just understanding who those influencers are.

Do your keyword research

So, from here, we're going to dive into the keyword research part of this whole puzzle, and this is really understanding the intent behind people searching about the topic or the product or whatever it might be. Something you can do is evaluate keywords with link intent. This is a brilliant concept I heard about a couple weeks back from Dan Shure's podcast. Thank you, Dan. Essentially it's the idea that keywords with statistics or facts after the keyword have link intent baked into the search query. It's brilliant. Those individuals are searching for something to reference, to maybe link to, to include in a presentation or an article or whatever that might be. It has this basic link intent.

Another thing you want to evaluate is just anything around images. Do any of your keywords and pictures or photos, etc. have good search volume with some opportunities? What does that search result currently look like? You have to evaluate what's currently ranking to understand what's working and what's not. I used to say at my old agency I didn't want anyone writing any piece of content until they had read all of the 10 search results for that keyword or that phrase we were targeting. Why would you do that until you have a full understanding of how that looks currently and how we can make something way better?

Rand had also mentioned this really cool tip on if you find some keywords, it's good to evaluate whether or not the image carousel shows up for those searches, because if it does, that's a little glimpse into the searcher intent that leads to images. That's a good sign that you're on the right track to really optimize for a certain image. It's something to keep in mind.

Provide value

So, from here, we're going to move up to providing value. Now we're in the brainstorming stage. Hopefully, you've gotten some ideas, you know where you want to link from, and you need to provide value in some way. It could be a...

I. Reference/bookmark Maybe something that people would bookmark, that always works.

II. Perspective is a really interesting one. So some of the most beautiful data visualizations do this extremely well, where they can simplify a confusing concept or a lot of data. It's a great way to leverage images and graphics.

III. Printouts still work really well. Moz has the SEO Dev Cheat Sheet that I have seen printed all over at different agencies, and that's really neat to see it adding value directly.

IV. Curate images. We see this a lot with different articles. Maybe the top 25 to 50 images from this tradeshow or this event or whatever it might be, that's a great way to leverage link building and kind of getting people fired up about a curated piece of content.

Gregory Ciotti — I don't know if I'm saying that right — has an incredible article I suggest you all read called "Why a Visual Really Is Worth a Thousand Words," and he mentions don't be afraid to get obvious. I love that, because I think all too often we tend to overthink images and executing things in general. Why not just state the obvious and see how it goes? He's got great examples.

Optimize

So, from here, we are going to move into optimization. If any of you need a brush-up on image optimization, I highly suggest you check out Rand's Whiteboard Friday on image SEO. It covers everything. But some of the basics are your...

Title

You want to make sure that the title of the image has your keyword and explains what it is that you're trying to convey.

Alt text

This was first and foremost designed for the visually impaired, so you need to be mindful of visually impaired screen readers that will read this to people to explain what the image actually is. So first and foremost, you just need to be helpful and provide information in a descriptive way to describe that image.

Compression

Compression is huge. Page speed is so big right now. I hear about it all the time. I know you guys do too. But one of the easiest ways to help page speed is to compress those huge images. There's a ton of great free tools out there, like Optimizilla, where you can bulk upload a bunch of large images and then bulk download. It makes it super easy. There are also some desktop programs, if you're doing this kind of stuff all the time, that will automatically compress images you download or save. That might be worth looking into if you do this a lot. You want to host the image. You want it to live on your domain. You want to house that. You can leverage it on other platforms, but you want sort of that original to be on your site.

SRCSET

Source set attribute is getting a little technical. It's super interesting, and it's basically this really incredible image attribute that allows you to set the minimum browser size and the image you would prefer to show up for different sizes. So you can not only have different images show up for different devices in different sizes, but you can also revamp them. You can revamp the same image and serve it better for a mobile user versus a tablet, etc. Jon Henshaw has some of the greatest stuff on source set. Highly suggest you look at some of his articles. He's doing really cool things with it. Check that out.

Promotion

So, from here, you want to promote your images. You obviously want to share it on popular platforms. You want to reach back out to some of these things that you might have into earlier. If you updated a piece of content, make them aware of that. Or if you transformed a really popular piece of content into some visuals, you might want to share that with the person who is sharing that piece of content. You want to start to tap into that previous research with your promotion.

Inform the influencers

Ask people to share it. There is nothing wrong with just asking your network of people to share something you've worked really hard on, and hopefully, vice versa, that can work in return and you're not afraid to share something a connection of yours has that they worked really hard on.

Monitor the image SERPs

From here, you need to monitor. One of the best ways to do this is Google reverse image search. So if you go to Google and you click the images tab, there's that little camera icon that you can click on and upload images to see where else they live on the web. This is a great way to figure out who is using your image, where it's being held, are you getting a backlink or are you not. You want to keep an eye on all of that stuff.

Two other tools to do this, that I've heard about, are Image Raider and TinEye. But I have not had great experience with either of these. I would love to hear your comments below if maybe you have.

Reverse image search with Google works the best for me. This is also an awesome opportunity for someone to get on the market and create a Google alert for images. I don't think anyone is actually doing that right now. If you know someone that is, please let me know down below in the comments. But it could be a cool business opportunity, right? I don't know.

So for monitoring, let's say you find your image is being used on different websites. Now you need to do some basic outreach to get that link. You want to request that link for using your image.

This is just a super basic template that I came up with. You can use it. You can change it, do whatever you want. But it's just:

Hi, [first name]. Thank you so much for including our image in your article. Great piece. Just wondering if you could link to us.com as the source. Thanks, Britney

Something like that. Something short, to the point. If you can make it more personalized, please do so. I can't stress that enough. People will take you way more seriously if you have some nugget of personal information or connection that you can make.

From there, you just sort of stay in this loop. After you go through this process, you need to continue to promote your content and continue to monitor and do outreach and push that to maximize your link building efforts. So I hope you enjoyed this. I look forward to hearing all of your comments and thoughts down below in the comments. I look forward to seeing you all later. Thanks for joining us on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. Thanks.

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