#my edit: source link creds

[lovelyhellokitty]

クリームソーダ

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

01/24/24 OFMD Daily Recap

TLDR; Cast and Crew Sightings with clowning; UK News; Wee John Wednesday; RenewAsACrewUpdates; NewTwitter Resource: @AdoptOurCrew; Pirate Omens Watch Party; LubeAsACrew; The Queerties; Petition Status; Final Notes; Love Notes; Rhys & Rosie's Anniversary;

==Cast and Crew Sightings==

David Jenkins got the clowning going really early this morning with a picture of a red sunrise, playing the song "New York Groove" by Ace Frehley.

There's been a lot of speculation (obviously we don't know what it means for sure) but the current fan theories going around are:

1. "Red Skies In Morning, Sailor's Take Warning" which Djenkins previously posted prior to a new OFMD Trailer being released back in Sept. Thanks @saltpepperbeard!

2. Some folks think that the Red color is to help indicate Netflix as it is very similar to their signature red. @_Irene_Adler

3. Others are going towards the AppleTV route since out in sunnyside queens, there is an Apple building nearby. @skrifores

Do we actually know? Nope, just conjecture, but it left people wanting to target Netflix and AppleTV more today in terms of hashtags. Which is great cause the Pirate Omens Focused on PrimeVideo in the afternoon.

=Con O'Neil Updated his Instagram, and David Fane commented =

==Ruibo Qian also made a profound update on IG==

"Amplifying positive intent toward a paradigm is what solidifies it into live experience".

Take these updates as you will, but one nice thing about being broken apart from Max is we're starting to see the crew reach out again, and all of it seems to be in somewhat of a positive direction.

==More UK News!==

Today’s news from the UK 24 January 2024 - by @lamentus1

We have a date!! The most amazing news! Season 2 will be available to watch in the UK on BBCiPlayer from Monday 4 February!!! The arrival of season two in the UK will give us an opportunity to organise some attention grabbing events around the show. We’ll keep you posted!

=Convention news=

Starfury Conventions is considering holding an Our Flag Means Death convention here in the UK! We need to show how much interest there is in the idea, so make sure you vote in their poll.

Vote here: https://x.com/starfuryevents/status/1750149921880059968 Make sure they know just how interested we are!

**Note from @gentlebeardsbarngrill: If you are avoiding twitter and need someone to log in and for for you, I have lots of extra twitter handles, just shoot me a DM with what answer you wanna choose and I'll vote on your behalf.**

=Previous Access Poll=

After a week and 986 votes the poll is closed and we can confidently state that 36.5% of fans can’t even watch Our Flag Means Death season 2 in their country yet! This is more than a third of the dedicated fandom not even able to watch the second season, and yet look at how passionate we all are about renewal. Imagine how that will grow when the second season is shown in those countries that have missed out so far.

The poll is here: @lamentus1 Are you able to watch Season 2?

While this last piece isn't SPECIFICALLY for the UK, it is being run in UK time zone so may be a bit harder for some US folks to join in.

== Wee John Wednesday is back! ==

EDIT: hey all, my sick brain messed this one up, Kristian announced on twitter he was gonna reboot wee john weds and I went to IG cause I wanted to get the link and apparently linked an old IG post. Sorry about the confusion! It hasnt been announced when it will start yet. Thank you to @wastingyourgum for the correction!

== Renew As A Crew News ===

So I was a little hesitant to post this, but I'd like you to read it and then read my notes below. This was posted in the Renew As A Crew Public Discord (If someone actually has access to that can you please invite me? I can dm you my creds, I'd rather get it from the source then bugging people).

So, essentially, right now they are considering not keeping the Renew As A Crew "brand" if a team internally doesn't step up within the next two weeks. Several volunteers have expressed their concern with this (as Renew As A Crew is already popular and news sites know about it). I have it on good authority that even though this was posted, other volunteers are trying to change that so we can maintain that Renew As A Crew brand. So if you happen to see this floating around -- please understand this is still up in the air-- so please don't lose hope or worry too much about this just yet.

==New Resource Group on Twitter ==

@adoptourcrew on twitter is trying to keep threads available with compiled resources (similar to these recaps and daily task lists) if you are in fact on twitter, they're a good resource for up to date information. There's been some questions on "who are they!" well they're a fan led group (much like the rest of the campaign) and they will not be focusing on collecting money of any kind, they are an information group. They may suggest fundraisers, but as of right now, no money is exchanging hands with them. So please feel free to check them out here.

== Pirate Omens Watch Party ==

Another fun day of watching good omens with Pirates and Omens fans alike. On to Season 2 tomorrow.

== Lube As a Crew ==

Still making waves all. Thanks @_Irene_Adler for posting this

=== The Queerties! ===

If you have a moment, feel free to head over to the queerties page and do some voting for OFMD! It is.. a really long list, and OFMD only qualifies for two (Vico Oritiz and OFMD in general), but if you have a few minutes it'd help out. It'd be great to at least get those two voted for!

Vote

===Petition Status===

We're so very close to 80K all!

== Some Final Notes ==

So something I noticed today is that we're not trending as much across all the platforms. On twitter, AdoptOurCrew was sticking to 30-35K per 24 hr period for several days, but now it's down to about 24K. We're down to #2 on Max, and the engagement score has gone down quite a bit. Now that might seem like a bad thing. That might seem like we're losing momentum. But I'd like to offer a different perspective. People are taking breaks. People are still directing their efforts on making things more efficient, and compiling information. People are doing more with less -- higher quality tweets, instagram messages, etc. I know that tumblr isn't really being counted high in those stats that tv companies look at, but Im seeing more people interact and delve deep into analysis of things and hashtags are being used. But most of all I'm seeing people take breaks, whether it's in the global strike for Palestine, or just taking some time to recoup.

Not every day is going to be record breaking, nor should it be, because if it was, it'd be people-breaking too. Take it from someone who's worked on 8 month long quality assurance projects, you're gonna have some down days, and that's a good thing.

We've done SO much in so little amount of time, and with David Jenkins and Ruibo Qian posting uplifting things...they see everything we've done, and while they can't tell us if S3 has been adopted, they are sending love. I don't wanna read too much into it conspiracy wise, but I've seen David multiple times over the past few days post RIGHT when things are getting chaotic across all the platforms. He's watching and he's rooting for us. Don't give up hope, but take this time to take a break. Relax, do something creative and fun that you love. Come back when you're feeling refreshed. We'll get there.

=== How To Help ===

If you are still out doing things for the campaign, here's a reminder on how to help (This is not a directive but a guide for when you come back) How To Help Save OFMD Task List - US How to Help Save OFMD Task List - Outside US

== LOVE NOTEEEES ==

Did you know that you're beautiful? When I say beautiful I mean the non-gendered version. You're like really beautiful, inside and out. Seriously look at you. I can feel your beauty miles and miles away through a computer screen, that's how friggn beautiful you are! You're just such a great fucking person and you should be proud of that. You're gorgeous, and beautiful in all ways, and you deserve to be happy lovelies. As always, love you crew, rest up tonight/today.

=================

Well apparently today is Rhys an Rosie's 20th Anniversary! So tonight's Rhys picture will feature Rosie and her lovely letter of love to our favorite dude.

[queenlua]

hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue.  see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP.   and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP.  so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on.  there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc.  you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

[perspektivv]

When do you make decisions?

Edit: Prøvde tumblr gif som man kan sette inn selv, men er så dårlig utvalg og jeg kan ikke ta vekk teksten under, så det var kun for å prøve. Må nok bare holde meg til giphy og gjøre html. Ellers er det jo litt morsomt å sette inn gifs i en så lang og informative text. Gøy, gøy, gøy.

According to multiple sources on the Internet, the average amount of remotely conscious decisions an adult makes each day equals about 35,000. The average Brit makes 773,618 decisions in a lifetime but lives to regret as many as 143,262 of them. (I’m not gonna link to my sources on this or similar things, because google.)

There are countless of articles, talks, books and more discussing how we make decisions and how to practise making those decisions quicker and more efficiently. To quote an article on Harvard Business Review about 3 Timeless rules for making tough decisions:

We spend an inordinate amount of time, and a tremendous amount of energy, making choices between equally attractive options in everyday situations. The problem is, that while they may be equally attractive, they are also differently attractive, with tradeoffs that require compromise.

It’s really not surprising that the number of decisions in a day is so high, as answering one only enables another one to appear. Just imagine a situation where someone asks you if you want a cup of tea. First of all, do you want a cup of tea, what tea do you want, how do you want that tea, is that person gonna make that tea right, do you have time for tea, do you sit down with your tea, and if so do you sit down with others or by yourself - and this is where maybe the decision isn’t just about something that needs an answer or action anymore, but starts spiralling into a thought process of how you are perceived through your actions by others, social conduct, traditions and cultural differences. The decision isn’t necessarily just yours anymore, and this is something we face more often than you might think in decisions about life, jobs, homes/home towns or countries, travel, cars, recycling, kids, pets, drugs, partying, sex, or paying for a meal, you name it. I’m hoping that in the future any decisions is just ours to make and that we can confidently make it, but at the same time I will contradict myself by saying that I hope we also improve our communication and collaboration with people more so that the weight of making a decision isn’t just yours to carry and that we can ask more freely about advice, share previous experiences, and give objective feedback. Notice the objective here. Objective is a very key word for that to work.

However, the question I’m wanting to explore is WHEN do you make decisions? Some everyday decisions you just make in the moment, yes, of course. There’s triggers and impulses and responses and actions, you just make those decisions in the moment. But what about the bigger things in life, the decisions that requires you to focus a bit, research, think and consider if this is really something you want because making that decision changes so much and will - like any good thing in life be ir article, book or case study - end up leaving you with more questions, requiring you to make even more decisions.

Think back on your life, when did you make the decision to try alcohol for the first time (or to have sex, smoke some weed or even try drugs, or to get your drivers license, move out or go travelling)? For me, I don’t think that was a conscious decision, it was just something that would inevitably happen as a part of life. As a part of my life even more importantly, because although I might not have realised at a young age, part of what makes me who I am is my longing for experiences and to try things for myself and make up my own mind about something. Sure, many others have drunk excessive amounts of alcohol before and there’s lots of facts and information about it, amongst your friends, family or teachers and in books or online, but I believe in trying it for yourself and hopefully doing so with an open and ready mind (as in even though you’ve heard about the effects of alcohol or drugs from several people and they all say similar things, be open for this not to necessarily be relevant to your experience at all and that whatever you experience is subjective - but let’s not delve into this as that’s not the theme this week), not letting others subjective experiences cloud or impact your perception of your experience. (Hah, how many times can Ida say experience in a day!?)

Important to note here though is the difference between these decisions - the decision of trying alcohol for the first time, deciding to have kids or quitting your job is in my mind a bit easier (albeit not easy at all!), because it’s mostly just a yes or no, do it or don’t. With decisions down to as trivial as what to order from a menu which has so many exciting things you want to try, that’s where the difficulty comes in. A bigger version of this is choosing what university to go to. If you decide to have a kid there’s obviously lots of knock on effects of that decision and lots you have to think about prior to that, like can you afford it, is this person you want to have a kid with the right person, maybe you want it alone, etc. However with choosing a university you have multiple options to choose from. And those options have options again. Similar to a menu at a restaurant. Do you want a burger or pizza, with a burger there’s fries, maybe even sweet potato fries, pizza has lots of different combinations such as ham and pineapple or triple cheese, thick crust, thin crust, how do you know if this particular restaurant has the pizza you want, even if the combination is right, maybe the crust just isn’t crusty enough? That’s what we might call the multiple opportunity decision. A decision in which you can see several right choices. I think with the other, “easier” decisions which we might call the do or don’t decision, there is still lots of options to consider, but if that decision is to get a car or have a kid as mentioned earlier, the weight of that decision is mostly on the do or don’t. The other options will obviously need a lot of considering after that initial decision has been made, but that’s when the weight of that decision shifts and spreads out over multiple, different decisions rather than weigh so heavily on just the do or don’t.

In terms of when to make a decision I think we should give our brains a bit more cred for their hard work in decision making. Your brain is definitely doing a lot of hard work - without you realising - to prepare you for any decision. You might never have thought about getting a car consciously, but your brain is always on and it will gather and store information you never thought you would need until you one day get that question from a friend or colleague which prompts you to think about maybe getting a car. Now - this is where the when of making a decision comes into action. Unfortunately I am no professor of psychology or social behaviour or neuroscience, so I can only answer this question from my perspective. But if you’re interested in knowing when the worst time to make a decision is, according to psychology today it is late afternoon (when you’re usually running low on energy, have other worries and are stressed or emotionally charged).

“People who are cognitively busy are more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.” Kahneman goes on to explain how cognitive overload and physical depletion impair our self-control. We make stupid choices. We hurt ourselves and others. We act uncharacteristically.

However, logically it makes sense that you should (like is so often advised) sleep on it and make decisions when your mind isn’t clouded with other stuff and you’re not running low on energy. But in reality I think that’s very far from the truth, especially for me who’s not a morning person and there’s always stuff clouding my mind.

I feel like the multiple opportunity decision is more difficult to decide on WHEN to make, because usually there is multiple opportunities because the time just happens to be right (stars aligning, faith, ment to be etc) for a lot of different things, but if you don’t act on it soon enough many opportunities will fade away and your decision will have been made on the basis of you choosing not to decide yet. The do or don’t decision is mostly already been decided on, however you just got to wait for or choose the right moment to act on that decision, and it can probably come around several times in life. Like having a boyfriend, sometimes it works with your life other times it doesn’t. Same with a car, travelling, house, pet, kids etc. Do or don’t is part of you, you’ll just know when you know (bleeergh, wank, but true. And also, just side note here, it’s the most frustrating and annoying thing when people say “when you know you know” because you don’t necessarily just know, but this is where I think an element of knowing yourself and allowing yourself some time to actually listen will benefit and you will maybe more easily come to this magically, holy, wanky “when you know you know” so I guess it connects back to that quote from psychology today where they say it’s better to make decisions when your mind isn’t clouded).

I think I very quickly make decisions when I can see the whole picture just falling into place, like when my friend messaged me about going to Reading Festival it didn’t take long for my unconscious brain to see the full jigsaw (yes, subconsciously inspired by Daniel Sloss) and how it was actually a possibility - without me realising, and as soon as that happens I then actively start to consider the options and research further about anything that might throw a spanner in the works - schedule, money, time, is this actually something I want/that excites me/an experience I can gain from - what you may call the hard and soft facts. As soon as I saw that the pieces fitted the jigsaw (the do or don’t had already been decided at this point - I guess it’s decided as soon as you start looking into the possibility, and then if you somehow end up not deciding to do it due to conflicting elements which doesn’t make the piece fit well into the jigsaw that’s I guess when the window to make the decision has passed and your decision was to not make a decision - BUT this does however prove that it is in fact a do or don’t decision because if it had been right you would’ve done it and just because the window of opportunity has passed does not mean you won’t do it if the opportunity arises again) the only thing left to do for me is to convince myself that I have already made the decision so there’s no point in fighting it (convincing yourself to act at the right time and place, because you’ve already decided on do or don’t subconsciously, and now the time seems to be right - act on it). So looking back at this week and the previous weeks leading up to my decisions I think this is very relevant to getting my hair cut & handing in my notice at work. It was a do or don’t decision, but I’ve spent a long time convincing myself to just do it. And I think this is the same thing when I’ve in the past gotten tattoos (however the action of getting a tattoo is very much do or don’t, but interestingly it’s very clouded by the multiple opportunity decision in terms of what to get which will then obviously drag out the time and then your opportunities to act on your decision will come and go. You in a way have to find the right opportunity for the right choice of tattoo design, in the same way as the opportunity to have a boyfriend and car will come and go and depend on what type you get).

Interestingly enough though, through desperately trying to prompt myself to write some mildly interesting stuff in this blogpost, I found a few articles discussing when to make a decision and how your mental health (good or bad) impacts and affects your judgement in decision making. And what I haven’t yet mentioned in relation to decision making is the psychology of the “reward risk” which will impact your decision making depending on your mood. BBC’s article The best time of year to make a life decision? talks about how depressed mood usually makes us more risk-averse and shows to a study explaining that:

"Depressed subjects showed lower memory of observed rewards and had an impaired ability to use internal value estimations to guide decision-making in our task.”

Or as explained in the BBC article “When given a card-playing task designed to assess risk-taking, for example, depressed participants had a harder time remembering which options were more likely to yield rewards, making them worse at the game than non-depressed participants. Participants with depressive symptoms also were more conservative in their risk-taking than non-depressed participants – sticking with safe choices that had low chances of reward, instead of adopting higher-risk strategies with potentially larger payoffs.” 

However they also go into talking about the optimism bias and how it’s not necessarily a good thing to be happy and optimistic when making a decision, because you’re more likely to blindly just believe that you have a better chance, that there will be a positive outcome from your decision. BUT! While healthy, positive thinking individuals might be biased to the optimistic outcome of any situation they are also better at making it come true. So according to this article making a decision in the summer, when the days are longer and the sun is shining, people are happier and more optimistic might serve you better than winter and January when most people make some changes due to the risk of Seasonal affective disorder. What I choose to take from this is that maybe January is actually a good time of the year to make a decision, IF you have taken care of yourself in terms of an ideal December - lots of time off from work, time well spend relaxing, caring for yourself and your family members, and hopefully you will maybe go on a holiday to fight off the winter blues. When you come back to life & routines after that your head is hopefully clear and your body filled with sunshine.

So, does that mean I was not right in making the decision to quit my job this week because if anything I have had the exact opposite? I’ve been very ill (in and out from the doctors, relying on meds, been exhausted from the constant pain but still gone to work because I felt guilty for not) and been excused from not really having a proper break at Christmas and before, and from not really remembering when I was last proper relaxed. I’ve been mentally weak, and getting weaker over the past few months, and I live in London, it’s not exactly the capital of sunshine and optimism. I would venture to say that I was not wrong in making that decision, because going back to that wanky bullshit of when you know you know, you do kinda know when you know, it’s just easier to see when you’re not trying to balance all those other things.

Adele Barlow wrote in the Huffpost blog about three questions she has learned will help aid her in making big decisions. It doesn’t mention much about when to make decisions, but I think this is maybe the article I found most useful of all the ones I’ve read in preparation and research for this blogpost because it so obviously puts into words something I have subconsciously thought about and value.

The three questions are :

1. Will this help me to stay upwind? Instead of trying to predict what you're going to want in twenty years, he talks about giving yourself the best skill-set possible by always selecting the more difficult problems to work on. Those tougher projects sharpen your skills and therefore inherently equip you best for whatever you work on next (which you can't necessarily predict from here in the present).Most importantly, choosing to tackle tough problems brings you in contact with others aching for challenge: "Look for smart people and hard problems. Smart people tend to clump together, and if you can find such a clump, it's probably worthwhile to join it.”

2. Will this introduce me to supermodels? The analogy of meeting a supermodel and how the likelihood of the episode happening rests less on your having a six-pack and more on hanging out where the supermodels actually are

3. Will this bring me closer to my wizards? "At this stage in life, in your twenties, you're still an apprentice in anything you do. The important thing is to find your wizards, the masters in your field. Sometimes they're in industry, sometimes they're in academia." These are the people whose wisdom and knowledge you want to absorb, he said; whose paths you somehow want to partly emulate. 

The reasons to quitting my job was many, and it was a difficult decision because it’s a good job. I’m in a very privileged position where I felt safe to make that choice without any plan in place because I knew I would survive. I had things to fall back on and I know I’m employable and that there’s always jobs in my industry. Looking at these questions helps me realise a lot of what I just couldn’t quite formulate in terms of why this job just wasn’t right for me, and in terms of when to make this decision I really could’ve made it anytime. But it was a do or don’t decision, and I had a window of opportunities and I was not willing to risk not acting on that decision at the right moment just to see it fade away as a result of my indecisiveness.

So what have I actually learned from all this, from reading and reflecting on decision making and the important question of WHEN to actually make a decision? I think it’s safe to say that a lot of it is subconscious and that we therefore have to allow ourselves time to listen to ourselves, pick up on hints and changes. A multiple opportunity decision is very hard to decide on because there is so many right outcomes, it’s like that full coloured jigsaw piece that could technically go anywhere, and maybe in those situations you should maybe allow yourself some play and excitement, allow yourself to try it out and remind yourself that if this is not it (if the university or job just isn’t right despite you believing it would be when you made the decision) then there is plenty more options to try out. The beauty of a multiple opportunity decision is that it’s more readily available for when you need a change. So you can try to put the jigsaw piece there, but if it doesn’t fit later you can just move it and try another position for some time. I guess that with those decisions time might seem of essence, it might all seem like all of the stars have aligned creating a blinding brightness, but actually, in the end you will (argh, I’m so annoyed that I’m about to say this) just know if it was the right decision or not. The do or don’t might be faith, it might be whatever you want it to be, but for me it’s important to remember that it already is. I can’t remember what I was talking to Simon about, but the essence of the conversation was him trying to convince me to worry and sweat the little thing less, and he said something which I think fits in well with the do or don’t decisions - don’t focus on the what if’s, but the what is. This is a decision you will just naturally fall into, like my decision to go to Reading with my mates, so allow yourself some calmness and confidence in these things.

The outcomes of any decision I make might not always be to my expectations or what I wanted, but fighting against that unconsciously made decision or the time and place and jigsaw layout is kind of useless, so in terms of when to make a decision maybe this is a plea for myself to trust my gut more and act quicker, after all if it’s all a jigsaw the most important thing is to have some fun with it.  

P.S. This is an honourable mention of an article I really wanted to include, and probably have subconsciously, but still worth a read on its own. (However I don’t like the example of driving down the road and you have an intuition to drive more to one side of the lane because of something further ahead. I don’t feel like that makes for a good example, and also it just makes me believe the writer must be a very inattentive driver because urgh, it’s such a bad example.)

http://theconversation.com/is-it-rational-to-trust-your-gut-feelings-a-neuroscientist-explains-95086

[siliconwebx]

Using Dotfiles for Managing Development and Many Other Magical Things

Howdy folks! 🎉 I'm Simon Owen, and over the years, I've loved being a part of and learning from the dotfiles community. I spend a lot of time teaching developers and running workshops. In those sessions, demonstrating how I set up my development environment is often one of things that folks appreciated the most.

Dotfiles are a key part of my development environment. Haven’t heard of them? Well, even if you have, it’s a good idea to walk through what they are and the benefits of using them.

Last year, I set myself a goal to create a screencast series. If you like this article and want to find out more, please subscribe to the mailing list and get the download link. If you really like it, you can also 🦄 donate here! 🦄

A dot-what-file?

If you’re hearing about dotfiles for the first time, it’s totally fine to be confused about what they are and what they do. I recall that it took me a considerable amount of time before I realized a dotfile is simply a file that has a dot in front of the file name!

There are two common examples of dotfiles. First, the ones you might already be familiar with are those often found at the root of many open source projects — for example, .editorconfig contains code editor preferences to help maintain consistent coding styles for a project. You may also have seen .stylelintrc and .eslintrc floating around, which set CSS and JavaScript rules, respectively.

Second (and the ones we’re looking at today), are dotfiles that can live at the root level of a user directory (i.e. /Users/<username> ). One such dotfile is .aliases, which contains custom named commands that can speed up work in the Terminal. Another is .bash_prompt, which is used to change the $ in Terminal to something a little more fun. In my case, I set it so this dude pops up to make me smile when things get tough:

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Hopefully, you’re already starting to get a good sense of how useful dotfiles can be. They’re sort of like hidden gems (literally, since they’re hidden from views by default) that unlock superpowers for your machine to help with development. We’re talking about automation, optimizations, and efficient workflows, among other things.

First, I want to give props to the dotfiles community

Before we dig into dotfiles, it’s worth calling out how great the community behind them is. When I first forked Paul Irish’s dotfile repo, there was a lot going on in there I didn’t understand. Mathias Bynens and Paul Irish helped me immensely by answering questions about the code and it was their willingness to help that served as one of the reasons I became drawn to both the concept and the community.

Sometimes, I’ll post something to the community that I’d like to automate, but can’t figure it out for the life of me. And, without fail, I’ll get a helpful reply. Case in point: Eric Czarny wrote an app for me to automate my Spectacle settings and Mathias also contributed a code snippet. How cool is that?!

Then there are things like macOS updates. The dotfiles community is often on top of this and provide useful advice on GitHub comments regarding anything that no longer works or other useful information. You can then amend your dotfiles accordingly, such as adding the following code that increases the sound quality for Bluetooth headphones/headsets:

defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" -int 40

Digging into dotfiles

The code example above might look a bit familiar to you. It’s along the same lines as this often-used one to show hidden files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

...or this one to add spaces to the dock:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock

These commands can be pasted directly into the Terminal. As you might expect, something like -bool true will change a boolean value from false to true and reset the command for later use.

If you’e like me and have a lot of these commands, then this is where the .macos (previously .osx) dotfile becomes especially useful. Instead of copying and pasting each command individually, we can automate and run all of them in one go.

Let’s walk through some examples

There are so many awesome things we can do in dotfiles. Here are some practical use cases that I rely on for my day-to-day work.

Setting aliases for default commands (.aliases)

Navigating between directories in the Terminal can be cumbersome and it’s easy to get lost in cd madness.

We can replace the standard “change directory" (cd) command with a custom command in the .aliases dotfile. For example, use this alias to ditch the cd prefix altogether when using the command cd .. to move up a directory in favor of .. by itself.

alias ..="cd .."

Sure, it’s only dropping two letters, but how much easier is that to remember?

We can do the same thing to make shortcuts to certain directories:

alias dl="cd ~/Downloads"

Or, create aliases for shorthand command tasks:

alias hs="hexo serve"

Oh, here’s another one! List only directories:

alias lsd="ls -lF ${colorflag} | grep --color=never '^d'"

Make a custom bash prompt for a personal touch to the Terminal (.bash_prompt)

I referenced this a little earlier, but here’s how I turned my bash prompt ($) into a little dude that’s way more fun to look at it. This is done directly in the .bash_prompt dotfile.

PS1="༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ"

Create Git shortcuts to speed up commits (.gitconfig)

We can make it a little more efficient to commit all changes at once in the .gitconfig dotfile. Using ca is a lot more concise than !git add -A && git commit -av .

ca = !git add -A && git commit -av

Another handy shortcut: find commits by commit message.

fm = "!f() { git log --pretty=format:'%C(yellow)%h %Cblue%ad %Creset%s%Cgreen [%cn] %Cred%d' --decorate --date=short --grep=$1; }; f"

Automate common Homebrew tasks (brew.sh)

Use Homebrew for package management? Although not strictly a dotfile (it doesn’t have a dot before the file name), Homebrew gives us the brew.sh shell script file. This file automates the installation and management of Apps and Tools:

brew install git brew install tree brew cask install google-chrome brew cask install iterm2 brew cask install sublime-text

Protect your Git credentials (.extra)

Hide information you don't want to share publicly in one file in a private repo and bring it in for you alone. For example, a good idea for this file is anything that’s specific to you, such as your Git credentials. This will prevent people from cloning, running your dotfiles, then committing as you!

# Git credentials # Not in the repository, to prevent people from accidentally committing under my name GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Simon Owen" GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" git config --global user.name "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="<ADD-YOUR-EMAIL-HERE>" GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" git config --global user.email "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"

Write custom functions for tasks (.functions)

Dotfiles are more than shortcuts and aliases. We can also make custom functions in .functions that do more advanced lifting. For example, create a new directory and change directory to it:

function mkd() { mkdir -p "$@" && cd "$_"; }

Or, we can open a given location in Finder with a one-letter command (o):

function o() { if [ $#-eq 0 ]; then open .; else open "$@"; fi; }

Specify your $PATH and keep private (.path)

$PATH allows the running of executable files. Instead of navigating to each path manually in Terminal, here we can set the file paths so they can run the executable files directly. It might be the case that this file contains sensitive information. As such, this file is often kept in a private repo.

Here’s an example adding ~/utils to the $PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/utils:$PATH"

Force Vim to use a particular theme (.vimrc)

Editor config files are great for ensuring consistent formatting across projects, but we can also tell a Vim editor to use a specific theme in a .vimrc file:

" Use the Solarized Dark theme set background=dark colorscheme solarized let g:solarized_termtrans=1

Bonus: Helpful Terminal recipes for macOS

OK, so here’s a little bit of a bonus for Mac users that isn’t related to dotfiles, but are things we can do in the Terminal to give macOS superpowers to do pretty awesome things that make day-to-day use a little easier and more pleasant.

First off, we can show hidden files by default in the Finder so dotfiles are visible all the time by typing this into the Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

Find the way that scrollbars toggle on and off in Finder jarring? Let’s make them visible at all times:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowScrollBars -string "Always"

By default, macOS checks for software updates once per week. But maybe we want to check once a day or at some other interval:

defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate ScheduleFrequency -int 1

You know how holding down on a keyboard key repeats that character? Well, it repeats at a determined speed that we can supercharge to blazingly fast:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 0

Some people love the way macOS includes a box shadow when taking a screenshot of a window. Others don’t. Here’s how to turn it off:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true

And, in this example, we can automate the size of icons in the Dock:

defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 36

This is only the tip of the iceberg! In my screencast series I go over more than one hundred of them.

Conclusion

Web development is increasingly more complicated as time goes on. We all have ways of making our development workflow a little easier and comfortable based on personal preferences.

You may be a seasoned developer and aware of such things as Node, npm, and Git but still find yourself stuck in a Terminal window with a bunch of errors. Or, you might be starting out and find these, and other tools, complex and tough to grasp.

Either way, hopefully knowing more about dotfiles and what they’re capable of doing gives you a new weapon in your arsenal to make your development environment tailored to you, speed up your workflow and give your machine added superpowers!

As a reminder, my screencast series will give you more tips and tricks, plus a good idea of how to get your development environment set up. This is the first in the series. Going forwards, I'm going to look at expanding on it, so please let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to cover!

The post Using Dotfiles for Managing Development and Many Other Magical Things appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

😉SiliconWebX | 🌐CSS-Tricks

[hayjeon]

Official Statement of apology and hiatus

So I decided that I needed to make a separate post for this. Please read through if you have the time!  

To start off, I apologize sincerely if I stole someone’s work without credit. It was definitely not my intention to do so, and have taken many measures to try and mend my mistakes, but it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t credit. So I am writing this separate post and will have a link to it on my FAQ page.

It may sound like excuses to whoever is angry about this, but please let me explain myself and the situation I was in.

I will be taking a hiatus to reflect on my actions and will not be uploading any stories until this issue is solved.

[ [MORE] ]

It’s my first time on tumblr, and I am still so unfamiliar with this website and how it works. I think I was still too used to the asianfanfics layout, which lets me copy and paste a url and it’ll credit it automatically. Unfortunately, tumblr’s photo system is not similar to the one I mentioned, so I decided the fastest way to do so would be to save and upload, not knowing it would make me the “source” and I automatically assumed that was how everyone else did it.

However, after trial and error, and some anon messages letting me know, I realized that was not the case and that I was making a huge mistake in assuming so. I backtracked and made sure to tag “gif not mine” in order to try and let readers know the media was not mine at all, but it was also my mistake of not making it obvious enough, by putting the tag at the end of all my other tags.

I then started to change the method I was using and proceeded to copy and paste the pictures onto my posts. Since that meant I wasn’t saving the picture and uploading, I thought it would have the “originally posted by:” banner underneath it when it was posted. But unfortunately it didn’t and so I tried to make a (x) with a credit for Sutures and Stitches part 3, but realized the credit wasn’t proper, so I tried to make amends by rushing a project I was working on: my headers.

I replaced the post with the (x) before anyone could reblog it and managed to avoid making that mistake again.

At this point I’d like to address the anons who messaged me: There were around 2 or 3 who messaged me on anon and let me know that I wasn’t properly crediting. I’m going to assume you were two different people because the way you approached the situation was entirely different.

One politely suggested using the tumblr option, which I assumed was the copy and paste. I apologize, it took me a few more days after receiving your message to finally realize the weight of my actions. But your message was the one I considered a polite warning. You sent me another anon this morning, and I think you misunderstood my words. I did not “accuse you of accusing me” but instead directed those words to the following person. I also tagged in my headers post “thank you for being patient” and so on to express my gratitude for your messages, which were polite and gave me the idea of starting my own headers. Thank you again. You were not the one I said “accused me,” but you were the one when I said “and politely suggesting <3 like the one I answered.” I hope this clears up the misunderstanding.

The other anon just simply left me a rude, “You’re plagiarizing” with more extremely rude accusations and left me no suggestions nor time to explain myself. I addressed this anon in a reply to someone saying that I have “anons accusing me of taking creds.” To you, I’m sorry that I couldn’t figure out how to use it on time, but I didn’t reply to yours and chose to ignore it because I knew that 1) I had my header posts in the works and 2) you didn’t give me the chance to learn nor explain myself.

The header project took weeks to finish. I had to look around and find places to take pictures of with my phone, which is not easy during a full semester of college. Then I had to edit them, then buy an app to help me add text and then upload again onto my computer. And this was all rushed last night when I got another anon message about the same issue (which I replied to on my tumblr) and so I speeded up the process of the project and uploaded what little I had: the header for sutures and stitches and for when war runs deep.  

Unfortunately, the other ones I made are still in progress, and I will be uploading them one by one as I finish them. However, the two that I did last night were done at around 3 am and I had to go to sleep, and I plan to finish them throughout the week.

Now I’d like to address something an anon brought up to me this morning.

You said, “Hi. You said ‘but i’ve been crediting in the description with a link (x)’ but i havent seen any (x) on your stitches scenario. Im not talking about the edited version now, you obviously removed the gifs and put your edit, but I had reblogged the previous versions WITH the gif and there has never been a credit/link to the owner..”

So I’ve been messaging a few friends here on tumblr, and they said that by my uploading of the headers, its true that it doesn’t just replace the first posts that I made.

So, as a response, I’m not exactly sure what to do. If uploading a header and deleting the gif doesn’t change the reblogged version, I don’t know what else I can further do. I meant I added the (x) after I saw messages, so it didn’t happen to every single gif on my blog (which I am working on rn). I’ve already deleted the gifs on my stories I replaced with headers, and have gotten rid of the credits as well because I am no longer using said gif. I uploaded my own property headers in order to reflect on my actions, but it seems like the mistakes I made will remain on my blog and in the histories of the reblogged versions of my stories.

So to wrap up, the bottom line is that I made a mistake due to my ignorance and I deserve to receive the punishment for my actions. If this means I have to take a hiatus to reflect, then I will do so. But I hope all of my followers know that I too, as an artist, writer, and student, understand the importance of crediting and plagiarization accusations. I did not intend to steal anyone’s work, and I never intend to ever do something of the sorts in the future. Nevertheless, I’d like to apologize to whoever was inconvenienced by my actions and encourage you to message me separately if you’d like to be put on a post that specifically credits you and your work. I can’t replace the reblogged versions, but hopefully if I post separately, I can direct them to you and your work.

[hsrsports]

Dream11 new IPL title sponsor with average bid of Rs 234cr per year - Click on link to subscribe my channel https://ift.tt/34vXvMA Facebook - https://ift.tt/2Vjiyz6 Twitter - https://twitter.com/HsrSports Pinterest - https://ift.tt/2ywdZIH Tumblr - https://ift.tt/2z5qwmL Blog - https://ift.tt/2VlBDRu #Sports #Sports_News #Tournament MUMBAI: Dream11 have made a three-year winning bid to bag the Indian Premier League ( IPL) title rights. The fantasy sports platform – a start-up pioneered by two Indian entrepreneurs – have made a bid for three years, subject to Vivo’s return next year. Should Vivo India – the title sponsors who exited the space two weeks ago – come back to the table next year, Dream 11 will have to make way. However, if Vivo do not return as title sponsors, the fantasy sports start-up will continue to hold the title rights till the 2022 edition. The break up of Dream11's winning bid is as follows: Rs 222 crore for the first year, Rs 240 crore for year two and Rs 240 crore for year three, for an average of Rs 234 crore per year. It could not be confirmed if Tata Sons, who had expressed interest in the IPL title rights and had spiked the interest, came to the bidding table. E-learning start-ups Byju’s and Unacademy could not muster up the numbers either. In the wake of all the controversy surrounding Chinese investments in Indian sports, especially cricket, the BCCI has underlined that “Dream 11, essentially, is an Indian start-up with single-digit Chinese investment that is negligible and can be resolved internally”. The BCCI is primarily of the view that with a digital platform coming on board, it will boost IPL’s fan engagement that has been lying passive over the last few months, especially due to the Covid19-led slowdown. TOI can confirm that Tatas were looking to make a “handsome bid” subject to certain conditions. Tatas’ primary objective was to block three categories (different brands under the group) through the title sponsorship while the BCCI had maintained that the space would invite only a single-brand activity. “Only one category was available to block and that’s what has not worked in favour of Tatas”, sources in the know said. Dream11’s Rs 230 crore bid is 51% of what Vivo was paying the BCCI. Top Comment A shadow betting company sponsoring IPL ... funny See All Comments Add comment “It’s a decent amount considering the prevailing market conditions. The Board will bring two more official partners – Unacademy and Cred – to the table, which means Rs 80 cr more to the kitty,” sources added. The BCCI is, thus, on the verge of pocketing a little in excess of Rs 300 crore. In Video:IPL 2020: Dream11 is new Indian Premier League title sponsor Credit : Times of India Source: https://ift.tt/3kQUYER

[bonniejstarks]

CONTOUR *BEFORE* FOUNDATION: HAVE YOU TRIED IT?

Contour before your foundation instead of afterward is a thing. If you regularly sculpt your features with makeup and the before-foundation concept is new to you, settle in: below, two top makeup artists each demonstrate their techniques for very different looks. One is full-on JLo-esque glamour; the other is fresh, anytime-appropriate.

Thanks for watching!Visit Website

contour before foundation: scott barnes

Veteran celebrity makeup artist Scott Barnes, known for creating that beyond-famous JLo glow, first laid out his contour-first technique in his 2010 book, About Face ($20.99 CAD at chaptersindigo.com). And in a decade, I haven’t tried it, despite all intentions of doing so. That’s what happens when your own “thing” is throwing on your makeup almost exclusively in the back of moving vehicle. Plus, I’m not really all about contouring. I might do a little shading, and a little highlight, but for the most part I don’t really see the need – aside from a few iPhone snaps, I live an off-camera life. Doesn’t mean I can’t try the look out, though, right?

I interviewed Scott Barnes years ago (three years after his book dropped, actually), about the art of subtle sculpting and bronzer for winter, but we didn’t get into his contour-first approach at the time. Doesn’t matter because Barnes demonstrated his beauty moves quite recently, in October of last year with YouTube star Tati Westbrook. “I always start with contouring. I always start with the dark and then I add the light,” he says at the 4:04 mark in the video below. “It’s not about contouring on top of makeup.” 

Thanks for watching!Visit Website

Thanks for watching!Visit Website

Technically, Barnes begins with a liberal application of concealer “to eliminate stuff” before getting into the rest of the mega-star glamorous look. And interesting point: Barnes doesn’t use primer. “I don’t really need it. I like the contouring and everything to do the work under the foundation so you don’t see it.”

Confession: I’m mesmerized by Barnes’ application techniques. As well as on Jennifer Lopez, his longtime client (he did her makeup for Hustlers, too), he’s also worked his magic on Beyoncé, Gwen Stefani, Gwyneth Paltrow, and more. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this video since Tati posted it. The makeup looks fantastic on camera, although Barnes admits it’s rather intense for real life. Doesn’t mean we couldn’t copy some of the tricks for a special event, though. Best to make time for several practice runs, by the way – this isn’t something you want to try for the first time on the day-of!

contour before foundation: gucci westman

Makeup artist Gucci Westman, founder of Westman Atelier, has a markedly different approach to beauty. Her celebrity clients include Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and she has extensive backstage cred for designers such as Rag & Bone, Stella McCartney, Nina Ricci and more. She’s also worked closely with Lancôme and Revlon, and has a gazillion magazine editorial shoots under her brush belt. Her personal aesthetic is enhanced natural, makeup applied with a light touch that’s less intimidating for someone who doesn’t wear much.

When Gucci Westman starts makeup with highlight and contour first, I can easily get behind copying the look because she does it so quickly and achieves a wonderfully fresh finish that presents as naturally-blessed amazing. Here’s her how-to:

Side note: my birthday-gift wish list, if I had one, would feature exclusively Westman Atelier makeup, I’ve decided. Or if I were getting married any time soon or ever, the entire line would be listed in my bridal registry. Yup.

PSA: That gorgeous Lip Suede ($114 CAD at holtrenfrew.com* and $85 USD at net-a-porter.com) is available on its own and as part of The Shanghai Edition from Westman Atelier ($147 USD at net-a-porter.com), a limited-edition box that includes the Westman Atelier mascara; both already on-counter in the US. However, an inconsiderate snow storm rudely delayed the shipment to Holt Renfrew in Canada; there’s actually a waiting list of people eagerly anticipating its arrival. Put yourself on it STAT if you’re keen to get hands on the Lip Suede or the duo.

contour to apply before foundation

If you’re keen to try contouring before foundation, the foundation format you choose should dictate the type of contour formula you apply first. If you plan to wear a liquid or cream base, select a cream or liquid contour and highlight. Try any of the following: 

Kryolan TV Paint Stick; Scott Barnes used a deeper shade, V18, on Tati Westbrook

Kryolan TV Paint Stick ($31 CAD at studiofx.ca* and $24.50 at kryolan.com*) – Scott Barnes used shade V18 on Tati.

Westman Atelier Trace Face Contour

Westman Atelier Trace Face Contour ($64 CAD at holtrenfrew.com and $48 USD at net-a-porter.com)

Clinique Chubby Stick Sculpting Contour

Clinique Chubby Stick Sculpting Contour ($33 CAD and $25 USD at sephora.com) – along with the Sculpting Highlight, Sculpting Contour is reviewed here.

Fenty Beauty by Rihanna Match Stix Matte Skinstick in Amber

Fenty Beauty Match Stix Matte Skinstick in Amber ($33 CAD and $25 USD at sephora.com)

Maybelline FaceStudio Master Contour V-Shape Duo Stick

Maybelline FaceStudio Master Contour V-Shape Duo Stick ($16 CAD at amazon.ca and $4.95 USD at walmart.com) 

NYX Wonder Stick in Universal; available in six more shades including Deep Dark

NYX Wonder Stick ($13.99 CAD at amazon.ca and $12.99 USD at nyxcosmetics.com)

If you wear a powder foundation, I suspect sticking to powder contour and highlight applied over your base as usual is your best bet.

over to you

Have you ever applied contour and highlight before putting on foundation? If yes, what contour do you use?

Would you apply contour and highlight first?

Would you/have you include/included makeup on your bridal registry? Or do you know anyone who has?

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New Post has been published on Harold Gross: The 5a.m. Critic

New Post has been published on http://literaryends.com/hgblog/oscar-nominees-2020/

Oscar Nominees 2020

Well, here we are again. I didn’t try to write up my guesses for the nominees this year, though they’re pretty much aligned with what came in, because they were too early.

This year, even more than last, is going to be one heck of a battle (lack of diversity aside because that’s an entirely different discussion). Not just because of all the great productions and performances, but because this is likely going to be the inflection point for streamers vs. establishment in Hollywood. Either the final votes will snub the streamers and risk becoming irrelevant and pissing off a number of creatives, or they’ll accept the new normal and change the landscape forever. Given that Netflix leads the pack of studios with 24 nominations total, it isn’t out of the question that platform, as a decision maker, may actually have faded since the Roma controversy of last year.

The other two surprises for me were the complete snubbing of The Farewell and Joker garnering the most noms of the season. Farewell not getting a shot at anything is near criminal. It was one of the best films of the past year. But so was Joker, and I honestly thought the Academy voters would eschew it in large part. So, I was wildly wrong on both counts… which just intrigues me more.

So with a few awards already out there, I’m going to risk my early predictions before making a final call the night before the awards early next month. I imagine my insight(?) will shift as more awards are announced and sentiment clarifies over the next few weeks, but it’s never stopped me before…

Actress in a Leading Role

Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story) Siorse Ronan (Little Women) Charlize Theron (Bombshell) Renee Zellwegger (Judy)

This is a great list, and every one of these women deserve recognition. But Zellwegger really stands out in her transformation and subtlety of performance. And, let’s face it, Judy Garland is beloved by the industry, which gives her a leg up.

Actor in a Leading Role

Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) Adam Driver (Marriage Story) Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes)

There are a number of great performances here as well, but I think Joaquin Phoenix really out-classed all these other men. His performance is the most complex and, ultimately, the most affecting.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Kathy Bates (Richard Jewell) Laura Dern (Marriage Story) Scarlett Johannson (Jojo Rabbit) Florence Pugh (Little Women) Margot Robbie (Bombshell)

This is a really tough field to choose from. Each performance in the list is strong for a different reason. Given Dern’s previous wins for the role, she probably has the edge. Johannson is going to have her votes split and Pugh and Robbie each have great moments, but aren’t quite as impactful as Dern in their roles.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes) Al Pacino (The Irishman) Joe Pesci (The Irishman) Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood)

A similarly difficult field to choose from. I think Hanks, as good as he was, is simply going to get overlooked, and the dueling Irishmen will cancel eachother out, allowing Pitt to float to the top. In this field, were I to choose, however, I’d give it to Pesci for his quiet and subtle performance that overshadows the entire movie.

Adapted Screenplay

The Irishman Jojo Rabbit Joker Little Women The Two Popes

The selection of a winner here will depend heavily on what the voters are looking for in a script. The most creative is, hands-down, Jojo Rabbit. But Joker is an unexpectedly powerful tale of mental illness and a society gone wrong. Irishman is a quiet epic that is really just a small tale of family in the most beautiful of ways. And Little Women and Two Popes took source material and broadened it into a more encompassing philosophy and message.

But since only one can win, I’m thinking Irishman or Joker, with odds on Irishman.

Original Screenplay

Knives Out Marriage Story 1917 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood Parasite

Man, I just want to scream “stop making me pick!” The only one that doesn’t belong here is Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, which was a lousy script. I’m sorry, I know I’m in the minority, but I hated the script. In any event, it doesn really hold a candle to the rest of these.

Honestly, on merits, I think it’s between Marriage Story and Parasite. And since Marriage Story is unlikely to get more than Best Supporting, I’m thinking it will pick up the statuette here…also because it manages to do the seemingly impossible: making divorce feel positive.

Directing

Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) Todd Phillips (Joker) Sam Mendes (1917) Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) Bong Joon-ho (Parasite)

Unsurprisingly, these are all part of the Best Picture pool as well, and with many of the same challenges. For sheer, unexpected craft, my choice would be Joker or Parasite. For audacity of vision and production, 1917. For journeymanship and career best: The Irishman.

But as to who will win? I’m going to go out on a limb and take a lesson from Gravity’s win a few years back and call it for 1917, simply for the incredible delivery of an audacious vision.

Best Picture

Ford V Ferrari The Irishman Jojo Rabbit Joker Little Women Marriage Story 1917 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood Parasite

With the exception of front-runner Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and the snubbing of The Farewell, this is a legit list for the year. Given these selections, I’m hard-pressed to pick just one (and expect that much vote-splitting is going to really randomize the winner).

For now, I expect Once Upon a Time to win. It is such insider-baseball and has a groundswell, where many of the others are more divisive and likely to siphon votes from one another.

If it were solely up to me, I’d probably go with The Irishman. It is such a subtle epic and beautifully crafted all around. But honestly, so was Joker. I just don’t see Joker taking this top prize with this voting block. The real question is whether the Academy can get past Netflix-hate to award this top prize to a streamer?

International Feature

Corpus Christi Honeyland Les Miserables Pain And Glory Parasite

Gotta be Parasite, despite all the other excellent entries.

Original Song

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” – Toy Story 4 “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” – Rocketman “I’m Standing With You” – Breakthrough “Into the Uknown” – Frozen 2 “Stand Up” – Harriet

I’ve always found this category somewhat pointless. It is rarely about more than popularity. And while that may be something worth rewarding, many songs are simply in the credits or as incidental music…there isn’t much consistency in how they interact with the film. This year, none of the songs really broke out in any particular way (again, let me express joy at not being subjected to Let it Go v2). Being forced to select, I’m going to go with Harriet, if for no other reasons than the lack of diversity elsewhere and Eviro’s cred.

Original Score

Joker (Hildur Guonadottir) Little Women (Alexandre Desplat) Marriage Story (Randy Newman) 1917 (Thomas Newman) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (John Williams)

Going with Joker for this one. My experience was best enhanced by the score for that movie. It wouldn’t surprise me if Star Wars takes it since it set a record 52nd nomination for John Williams. He’s only won 5 of those and only Walt Disney (the man) has ever had more at 59. Though, also props for the dual Newman brothers noms… going to make the next holiday meal entertaining, I’m sure…

Documentary Feature

American Factory The Cave The Edge of Democracy For Sama Honeyland

While Honeyland is a good contender, American Factory with the Obamas behind it may ride a political wave to the front of the race. But I haven’t seen any of these yet to make an educated guess.

Documentary Short Subject

In The Absence Learning To Skateboard Life Overtakes Me St Louis Superman Walk, Run, Cha-Cha

Still waiting to see these.

Live Action Short Film

Brotherhood Nefta Football Club The Neighbors’ Window Saria A Sister

Still waiting to see these.

Animated Feature Film

How To Train Your Dragon I Lost My Body Klaus Missing Link Toy Story 4

For the sheer hubris of the story, I’d love to see I Lost My Body win, but it’s gonna be Toy Story 4. That series really went out on a high and the craft of it is solid. Missing Link just didn’t really work well for me, as much as I’ve loved the previous Laika offerings, and How To Train Your Dragon was sweet and pretty, but not exactly brilliant. Klaus, well, whatever.

Animated Short Film

Dcera (Daughter) Hair Love Kitbull Memorable Sister

Cinematography

The Irishman Joker The Lighthouse 1917 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Until recently, I would have selected differently, but 1917 is a Cinematographer’s dream/nightmare, and its successful delivery sets a new bar for movies. All the nominees have things going for them, but none were as challenged.

Film Editing

Ford V Ferrari The Irishman Jojo Rabbit Joker Parasite

How 1917 was subbed here, I don’t know. But, given it isn’t in attendance, my best guess is going to be Ford v Ferrari due to the Le Mans scenes.

Production Design

The Irishman Jojo Rabbit 1917 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood Parasite

Such a hodgepodge of eras and approaches makes this a grab-bag. Irishman and 1917 are both perfect incarnations of their eras, making the production design invisible. Sorta true for Once Upon a Time as well, but I just don’t think it has the same creativity. Jojo and Parasite each have a sense of whimsy and reality that mixes in unexpected ways. Because of the latter two’s impact on the story itself, rather than just facilitating the tales, I think it goes to one of them, and if I had to guess (which I do), I’m going with Jojo Rabbit.

Costume Design

The Irishman Jojo Rabbit Joker Little Women Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Almost always this goes to a period piece, despite any of the other relative values of the productions. Since 1917 isn’t in the mix, I’m betting on Little Women.

Visual Effects

Avengers: Endgame The Irishman The Lion King 1917 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

This is another tough one. Tougher than usual as several of these films are in it for pushing the envelope in different ways. I’m ignoring Avengers and Star Wars as possibilities as they are big and flashy, but not really new. Lion King found a new way to film that is astounding (however weak the film itself was). Irishman did magic with aging and de-aging. 1917 recreated and presented WWI in a way never achieved before. I think for the invisibleness of it, The Irishman may take this one.

Makeup and Hairstyling

Bombshell Joker Judy Maleficent: Mistress of Evil 1917

Thinking Bombshell or Judy for this. I’m leaning Bombshell because of the transformations the makeup provided. Zellweger already looked like Judy, but Theron was subtly metamorphosed into her character with invisible prosthetics and makeup.

Sound Mixing

Ad Astra Ford V Ferrari Joker 1917 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

I think both this and Sound Editing are up for grabs between Ford v Ferrari and 1917. If the latter gets a groundswell, it may well sweep the two.

Sound Editing

Ford V Ferrari Joker 1917 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

I think both this and Sound Mixing are up for grabs between Ford v Ferrari and 1917. If the latter gets a groundswell, it may well sweep the two.

NOMINATIONS BY FILM

Provided just for reference, but certainly interesting to consider when considering who has the attention of the voters.

Joker (Warner Bros.) – 11 The Irishman (Netflix) – 10 1917 (Universal/Amblin Partners) – 10 Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Sony Pictures Releasing) – 10 Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight) – 6 Little Women (Sony Pictures Releasing) – 6 Marriage Story (Netflix) – 6 Parasite (Neon) – 6 Ford v Ferrari (Disney) – 4 Bombshell (Lionsgate) – 3 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Disney) – 3 The Two Popes (Netflix) – 3 Harriet (Focus Features) – 2 Honeyland (Neon) 2 Judy (LD Entertainment and Roadside Attractions) – 2 Pain and Glory (Sony Pictures Classics) – 2 Toy Story 4 (Disney) – 2

[lovelyhellokitty]

ネンドロイドペコちゃん:学校版。

[biofunmy]

What Rappers Wore to the Genius Barbecue Concert in Brooklyn

Genius, the media company that is the online repository of annotated song lyrics, held a barbecue concert at its Brooklyn headquarters earlier this fall, featuring some of the buzziest names in hip-hop.

While Doja Cat performed, other acts, including Lil Tjay and Young Baby Tate, hung out at the loftlike offices near the Gowanus Canal, mingling with the company’s young founders. Here’s what they wore.

Doja Cat

Age: 24

Occupation: rapper and music producer

Your outfit has a lot of checks and yellow.

This is a Fashion Nova piece. I thought, for Genius, why not? Because it’s yellow and black.

The earrings are not small.

I wish I wore the bigger ones. These are Tanaya Henry. She does beautiful jeweled pieces like this, and bodysuits out of chain mail.

What does it say around your neck?

It says “Nasty.”

And are you?

I kind of am.

Ilan Zechory

Age: 35

Occupation: co-founder and president, Genius

You’re wandering around in flip-flops and socks.

I just found slides a couple years ago. I always want to wear them the most, and I just rolled in.

This looks like a very comfy flannel shirt.

Iro. It’s really soft.

Tell me about your pants.

These are joggers from a discontinued brand called Jack Threads. I knew the guy who owned it, and he sent me a gift certificate and I had to buy something. And I bought these pants and proceeded to wear them six million times. I make fun of these pants, and I get made fun of for wearing these pants. I’m wearing them. I’m not proud of it.

Is this what you wear to work?

I have a variety of things I wear: T-shirt and jeans, Nikes and Reeboks.

Jacques Morel

Age: 30

Occupation: senior correspondent for “Genius News”

You’re an on-air star.

I’m a reporter, just like you.

You seem a lot cooler than me. You literally have a razor blade hanging from your ear.

Fair. Shout out to Johnny Nelson Jewelry. He makes black-inspired jewelry: Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela.

What’s black-inspired about the razor blade?

This is just fire.

You’re wearing a Carly Rae Jepsen T-shirt.

I love Carly Rae Jepsen. I saw her show back in July — that’s where I got this — and it felt like group catharsis.

What’s on your feet.

These are Rick Owens Ramones. Rap carries fashion trends like a bee carries pollen. A lot of these things weren’t thought of with us in mind. To see what artists like Pyer Moss are doing, reclaiming the space for black faces and black bodies … me wearing stuff like this makes me feel like, Yeah, I’m here: I’m a young black man and I wear Rick Owens.

Tom Lehman

Age: 35

Occupation: co-founder and chief executive, Genius

The colorful sweater and your big hair — you look like a delightful clown.

The hair is a bit of an issue. I’ve been told it’s a distraction. These jeans are just very classic Levi’s. On top I’m wearing a recycled cashmere sweater from a company, Tricot, I started with my friend Rémi. It means “sweater” in French.

What does the tongue on your sneakers say?

It says, “Have a Nike day.”

Why did you pick them?

I love Air Maxes. I like to say, “The only thing missing in an Air Max is a good insert.” In this particular case I was really taken with the color scheme.

Tell me about your large camera.

This is a Pentax 6-by-7 medium-format camera. I have it for my hipster cred. It has this nice wood grain handle, and it’s totally manual.

If your company goes bankrupt, it’s stuff like this that they’re going to point to.

Personal expense.

Young Baby Tate

Age: 23

Occupation: rapper and music producer

Oh my, is that a stuffed-animal backpack?

Yes it is. It’s like a rainbow cheetah.

Is that your spirit animal?

Honestly, yes. This is me. I just love anything rainbow, and this reminded me of Lisa Frank. I love her. Sometimes I call myself Lisa Frank Lauryn Hill.

Those earrings are something else.

This was actually custom made for me by a woman in New York, J. Papa.

Tell me about your boots.

I love a little bobo boot. I don’t like to wear heels when I perform because I’d probably fall and break my neck.

Would you call your top a bustier?

A bustier or a corset. I’m not sure what the difference is. I found this at a little store in Little Five Points in Atlanta. It’s sexy but it’s still cute.

Tia Hill

Age: 23

Occupation: producer and correspondent on “Genius News”

Nice jump pants.

I got them from Asos or something. I love a good baggy pant, tight top combo.

What is it about that silhouette?

I love Aaliyah.

I was going to say the Fresh Prince.

I love Fresh Prince. But I like being comfortable at work and, aah, relaxed from the waist down. And then I have a ton of crop tops and tube tops. And then jewelry to accentuate my clavicle area.

Very specific. And hoops.

I always wear hoops. I feel like I always have big hair, up in an Afro puff or an Afro. Big hoop, big hair.

Everybody here has such styling shoes.

These Adidas are not too chunky, like the Filas everyone has. And I’ve never seen anyone with this colorway.

Lil Tjay

Age: 18

Occupation: rapper

Let’s start with your chain.

My chain comes from Izzy the jeweler. I’m happy with his work. I love my chain. Two-toned Cuban-linked. White gold. Yellow gold. Prone set. With nice diamonds.

It has a dollar sign with a “B” in the middle.

SB. That’s my team.

What kind of jeans do you like?

The kind I have on now are called Kasubi. I like Amiri jeans. Off-White — I like them too.

And you’ve got the big Dolce & Gabbana sneakers.

It’s just for today. I’m not even saying I’m like a big fan. Not one of my favorites.

What’s one of your favorites?

I love Jordans. It’s not a step-out fashion designer shoe, but that’s my comfortable shoe.

Briana Mendez

Age: 25

Occupation: sales assistant, Genius

Tell me about your furry hat.

I got it at Urban Outfitters. I threw it on and I was like, “Damn, I look cute.”

Your hoops are ovular.

I got these at a beauty supply store in Chinatown. I was drawn to the shape. It’s like a little raindrop.

You mentioned that you are proud of your shirt.

It’s by a designer, Barragán, and he is a Mexican designer based in Brooklyn. I’m so proud to rep for my community, always. The chain comes with the shirt.

Destiny Rogers just stopped her entire entourage to compliment your shoes.

These are retro Jordans, limited-edition women’s. Women are taking up more space in street wear. They’re fuzzy. I don’t think this is real fur.

Something tells me it’s not.

And I wouldn’t want to wear an animal. I reminds me of a cute little panda.

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{block:ifblacksparkles} <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ var colour="#000"; var sparkles=140;

/**************************** *  Tinkerbell Magic Sparkle * * (c) 2005 mf2fm web-design * *  http://www.mf2fm.com/rv  * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS BOX * ****************************/ var x=ox=400; var y=oy=300; var swide=800; var shigh=600; var sleft=sdown=0; var tiny=new Array(); var star=new Array(); var starv=new Array(); var starx=new Array(); var stary=new Array(); var tinyx=new Array(); var tinyy=new Array(); var tinyv=new Array();

window.onload=function() { if (document.getElementById) {  var i, rats, rlef, rdow;  for (var i=0; i<sparkles; i++) {    var rats=createDiv(3, 3);    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    document.body.appendChild(tiny[i]=rats);    starv[i]=0;    tinyv[i]=0;    var rats=createDiv(5, 5);    rats.style.backgroundColor="transparent";    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    var rlef=createDiv(1, 5);    var rdow=createDiv(5, 1);    rats.appendChild(rlef);    rats.appendChild(rdow);    rlef.style.top="2px";    rlef.style.left="0px";    rdow.style.top="0px";    rdow.style.left="2px";    document.body.appendChild(star[i]=rats);  }  set_width();  sparkle(); }}

function sparkle() {  var c;  if (x!=ox || y!=oy) {    ox=x;    oy=y;    for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) if (!starv[c]) {      star[c].style.left=(starx[c]=x)+"px";      star[c].style.top=(stary[c]=y)+"px";      star[c].style.clip="rect(0px, 5px, 5px, 0px)";      star[c].style.visibility="visible";      starv[c]=50;      break;    }  }  for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) {    if (starv[c]) update_star(c);    if (tinyv[c]) update_tiny(c);  }  setTimeout("sparkle()", 40); }

function update_star(i) {  if (--starv[i]==25) star[i].style.clip="rect(1px, 4px, 4px, 1px)";  if (starv[i]) {    stary[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    if (stary[i]<shigh+sdown) {      star[i].style.top=stary[i]+"px";      starx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;      star[i].style.left=starx[i]+"px";    }    else {      star[i].style.visibility="hidden";      starv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else {    tinyv[i]=50;    tiny[i].style.top=(tinyy[i]=stary[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.left=(tinyx[i]=starx[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.width="2px";    tiny[i].style.height="2px";    star[i].style.visibility="hidden";    tiny[i].style.visibility="visible"  } }

function update_tiny(i) {  if (--tinyv[i]==25) {    tiny[i].style.width="1px";    tiny[i].style.height="1px";  }  if (tinyv[i]) {    tinyy[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    if (tinyy[i]<shigh+sdown) {      tiny[i].style.top=tinyy[i]+"px";      tinyx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;      tiny[i].style.left=tinyx[i]+"px";    }    else {      tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden";      tinyv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden"; }

document.onmousemove=mouse; function mouse(e) {  set_scroll();  y=(e)?e.pageY:event.y+sdown;  x=(e)?e.pageX:event.x+sleft; }

function set_scroll() {  if (typeof(self.pageYOffset)=="number") {    sdown=self.pageYOffset;    sleft=self.pageXOffset;  }  else if (document.body.scrollTop || document.body.scrollLeft) {    sdown=document.body.scrollTop;    sleft=document.body.scrollLeft;  }  else if (document.documentElement && (document.documentElement.scrollTop || document.documentElement.scrollLeft)) {    sleft=document.documentElement.scrollLeft;    sdown=document.documentElement.scrollTop;  }  else {    sdown=0;    sleft=0;  } }

window.onresize=set_width; function set_width() {  if (typeof(self.innerWidth)=="number") {    swide=self.innerWidth;    shigh=self.innerHeight;  }  else if (document.documentElement && document.documentElement.clientWidth) {    swide=document.documentElement.clientWidth;    shigh=document.documentElement.clientHeight;  }  else if (document.body.clientWidth) {    swide=document.body.clientWidth;    shigh=document.body.clientHeight;  } }

function createDiv(height, width) {  var div=document.createElement("div");  div.style.position="absolute";  div.style.height=height+"px";  div.style.width=width+"px";  div.style.overflow="hidden";  div.style.backgroundColor=colour;  return (div); } // ]]> </script> {/block:ifblacksparkles}

{block:ifgraysparkles} <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ var colour="#e0e1e2"; var sparkles=140;

/**************************** *  Tinkerbell Magic Sparkle * * (c) 2005 mf2fm web-design * *  http://www.mf2fm.com/rv  * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS BOX * ****************************/ var x=ox=400; var y=oy=300; var swide=800; var shigh=600; var sleft=sdown=0; var tiny=new Array(); var star=new Array(); var starv=new Array(); var starx=new Array(); var stary=new Array(); var tinyx=new Array(); var tinyy=new Array(); var tinyv=new Array();

window.onload=function() { if (document.getElementById) {  var i, rats, rlef, rdow;  for (var i=0; i<sparkles; i++) {    var rats=createDiv(3, 3);    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    document.body.appendChild(tiny[i]=rats);    starv[i]=0;    tinyv[i]=0;    var rats=createDiv(5, 5);    rats.style.backgroundColor="transparent";    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    var rlef=createDiv(1, 5);    var rdow=createDiv(5, 1);    rats.appendChild(rlef);    rats.appendChild(rdow);    rlef.style.top="2px";    rlef.style.left="0px";    rdow.style.top="0px";    rdow.style.left="2px";    document.body.appendChild(star[i]=rats);  }  set_width();  sparkle(); }}

function sparkle() {  var c;  if (x!=ox || y!=oy) {    ox=x;    oy=y;    for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) if (!starv[c]) {      star[c].style.left=(starx[c]=x)+"px";      star[c].style.top=(stary[c]=y)+"px";      star[c].style.clip="rect(0px, 5px, 5px, 0px)";      star[c].style.visibility="visible";      starv[c]=50;      break;    }  }  for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) {    if (starv[c]) update_star(c);    if (tinyv[c]) update_tiny(c);  }  setTimeout("sparkle()", 40); }

function update_star(i) {  if (--starv[i]==25) star[i].style.clip="rect(1px, 4px, 4px, 1px)";  if (starv[i]) {    stary[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    if (stary[i]<shigh+sdown) {      star[i].style.top=stary[i]+"px";      starx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;      star[i].style.left=starx[i]+"px";    }    else {      star[i].style.visibility="hidden";      starv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else {    tinyv[i]=50;    tiny[i].style.top=(tinyy[i]=stary[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.left=(tinyx[i]=starx[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.width="2px";    tiny[i].style.height="2px";    star[i].style.visibility="hidden";    tiny[i].style.visibility="visible"  } }

function update_tiny(i) {  if (--tinyv[i]==25) {    tiny[i].style.width="1px";    tiny[i].style.height="1px";  }  if (tinyv[i]) {    tinyy[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    if (tinyy[i]<shigh+sdown) {      tiny[i].style.top=tinyy[i]+"px";      tinyx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;      tiny[i].style.left=tinyx[i]+"px";    }    else {      tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden";      tinyv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden"; }

document.onmousemove=mouse; function mouse(e) {  set_scroll();  y=(e)?e.pageY:event.y+sdown;  x=(e)?e.pageX:event.x+sleft; }

function set_scroll() {  if (typeof(self.pageYOffset)=="number") {    sdown=self.pageYOffset;    sleft=self.pageXOffset;  }  else if (document.body.scrollTop || document.body.scrollLeft) {    sdown=document.body.scrollTop;    sleft=document.body.scrollLeft;  }  else if (document.documentElement && (document.documentElement.scrollTop || document.documentElement.scrollLeft)) {    sleft=document.documentElement.scrollLeft;    sdown=document.documentElement.scrollTop;  }  else {    sdown=0;    sleft=0;  } }

window.onresize=set_width; function set_width() {  if (typeof(self.innerWidth)=="number") {    swide=self.innerWidth;    shigh=self.innerHeight;  }  else if (document.documentElement && document.documentElement.clientWidth) {    swide=document.documentElement.clientWidth;    shigh=document.documentElement.clientHeight;  }  else if (document.body.clientWidth) {    swide=document.body.clientWidth;    shigh=document.body.clientHeight;  } }

function createDiv(height, width) {  var div=document.createElement("div");  div.style.position="absolute";  div.style.height=height+"px";  div.style.width=width+"px";  div.style.overflow="hidden";  div.style.backgroundColor=colour;  return (div); } // ]]> </script> {/block:ifgraysparkles}

{block:ifpinksparkles} <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ var colour="#ffc6d3"; var sparkles=140;

/**************************** *  Tinkerbell Magic Sparkle * * (c) 2005 mf2fm web-design * *  http://www.mf2fm.com/rv  * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS BOX * ****************************/ var x=ox=400; var y=oy=300; var swide=800; var shigh=600; var sleft=sdown=0; var tiny=new Array(); var star=new Array(); var starv=new Array(); var starx=new Array(); var stary=new Array(); var tinyx=new Array(); var tinyy=new Array(); var tinyv=new Array();

window.onload=function() { if (document.getElementById) {  var i, rats, rlef, rdow;  for (var i=0; i<sparkles; i++) {    var rats=createDiv(3, 3);    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    document.body.appendChild(tiny[i]=rats);    starv[i]=0;    tinyv[i]=0;    var rats=createDiv(5, 5);    rats.style.backgroundColor="transparent";    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    var rlef=createDiv(1, 5);    var rdow=createDiv(5, 1);    rats.appendChild(rlef);    rats.appendChild(rdow);    rlef.style.top="2px";    rlef.style.left="0px";    rdow.style.top="0px";    rdow.style.left="2px";    document.body.appendChild(star[i]=rats);  }  set_width();  sparkle(); }}

function sparkle() {  var c;  if (x!=ox || y!=oy) {    ox=x;    oy=y;    for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) if (!starv[c]) {      star[c].style.left=(starx[c]=x)+"px";      star[c].style.top=(stary[c]=y)+"px";      star[c].style.clip="rect(0px, 5px, 5px, 0px)";      star[c].style.visibility="visible";      starv[c]=50;      break;    }  }  for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) {    if (starv[c]) update_star(c);    if (tinyv[c]) update_tiny(c);  }  setTimeout("sparkle()", 40); }

function update_star(i) {  if (--starv[i]==25) star[i].style.clip="rect(1px, 4px, 4px, 1px)";  if (starv[i]) {    stary[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    if (stary[i]<shigh+sdown) {      star[i].style.top=stary[i]+"px";      starx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;      star[i].style.left=starx[i]+"px";    }    else {      star[i].style.visibility="hidden";      starv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else {    tinyv[i]=50;    tiny[i].style.top=(tinyy[i]=stary[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.left=(tinyx[i]=starx[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.width="2px";    tiny[i].style.height="2px";    star[i].style.visibility="hidden";    tiny[i].style.visibility="visible"  } }

function update_tiny(i) {  if (--tinyv[i]==25) {    tiny[i].style.width="1px";    tiny[i].style.height="1px";  }  if (tinyv[i]) {    tinyy[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    if (tinyy[i]<shigh+sdown) {      tiny[i].style.top=tinyy[i]+"px";      tinyx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;      tiny[i].style.left=tinyx[i]+"px";    }    else {      tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden";      tinyv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden"; }

document.onmousemove=mouse; function mouse(e) {  set_scroll();  y=(e)?e.pageY:event.y+sdown;  x=(e)?e.pageX:event.x+sleft; }

function set_scroll() {  if (typeof(self.pageYOffset)=="number") {    sdown=self.pageYOffset;    sleft=self.pageXOffset;  }  else if (document.body.scrollTop || document.body.scrollLeft) {    sdown=document.body.scrollTop;    sleft=document.body.scrollLeft;  }  else if (document.documentElement && (document.documentElement.scrollTop || document.documentElement.scrollLeft)) {    sleft=document.documentElement.scrollLeft;    sdown=document.documentElement.scrollTop;  }  else {    sdown=0;    sleft=0;  } }

window.onresize=set_width; function set_width() {  if (typeof(self.innerWidth)=="number") {    swide=self.innerWidth;    shigh=self.innerHeight;  }  else if (document.documentElement && document.documentElement.clientWidth) {    swide=document.documentElement.clientWidth;    shigh=document.documentElement.clientHeight;  }  else if (document.body.clientWidth) {    swide=document.body.clientWidth;    shigh=document.body.clientHeight;  } }

function createDiv(height, width) {  var div=document.createElement("div");  div.style.position="absolute";  div.style.height=height+"px";  div.style.width=width+"px";  div.style.overflow="hidden";  div.style.backgroundColor=colour;  return (div); } // ]]> </script> {/block:ifpinksparkles}

{block:ifrainbowsparkles} <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ var colour="random"; // in addition to "random" can be set to any valid colour eg "#f0f" or "red" var sparkles=50;

/**************************** *  Tinkerbell Magic Sparkle * *(c)2005-13 mf2fm web-design* *  http://www.mf2fm.com/rv  * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS BOX * ****************************/ var x=ox=400; var y=oy=300; var swide=800; var shigh=600; var sleft=sdown=0; var tiny=new Array(); var star=new Array(); var starv=new Array(); var starx=new Array(); var stary=new Array(); var tinyx=new Array(); var tinyy=new Array(); var tinyv=new Array();

window.onload=function() { if (document.getElementById) {  var i, rats, rlef, rdow;  for (var i=0; i<sparkles; i++) {    var rats=createDiv(3, 3);    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    rats.style.zIndex="999";    document.body.appendChild(tiny[i]=rats);    starv[i]=0;    tinyv[i]=0;    var rats=createDiv(5, 5);    rats.style.backgroundColor="transparent";    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    rats.style.zIndex="999";    var rlef=createDiv(1, 5);    var rdow=createDiv(5, 1);    rats.appendChild(rlef);    rats.appendChild(rdow);    rlef.style.top="2px";    rlef.style.left="0px";    rdow.style.top="0px";    rdow.style.left="2px";    document.body.appendChild(star[i]=rats);  }  set_width();  sparkle(); }}

function sparkle() {  var c;  if (Math.abs(x-ox)>1 || Math.abs(y-oy)>1) {    ox=x;    oy=y;    for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) if (!starv[c]) {      star[c].style.left=(starx[c]=x)+"px";      star[c].style.top=(stary[c]=y+1)+"px";      star[c].style.clip="rect(0px, 5px, 5px, 0px)";      star[c].childNodes[0].style.backgroundColor=star[c].childNodes[1].style.backgroundColor=(colour=="random")?newColour():colour;      star[c].style.visibility="visible";      starv[c]=50;      break;    }  }  for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) {    if (starv[c]) update_star(c);    if (tinyv[c]) update_tiny(c);  }  setTimeout("sparkle()", 40); }

function update_star(i) {  if (--starv[i]==25) star[i].style.clip="rect(1px, 4px, 4px, 1px)";  if (starv[i]) {    stary[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    starx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;    if (stary[i]<shigh+sdown) {      star[i].style.top=stary[i]+"px";      star[i].style.left=starx[i]+"px";    }    else {      star[i].style.visibility="hidden";      starv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else {    tinyv[i]=50;    tiny[i].style.top=(tinyy[i]=stary[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.left=(tinyx[i]=starx[i])+"px";    tiny[i].style.width="2px";    tiny[i].style.height="2px";    tiny[i].style.backgroundColor=star[i].childNodes[0].style.backgroundColor;    star[i].style.visibility="hidden";    tiny[i].style.visibility="visible"  } }

function update_tiny(i) {  if (--tinyv[i]==25) {    tiny[i].style.width="1px";    tiny[i].style.height="1px";  }  if (tinyv[i]) {    tinyy[i]+=1+Math.random()*3;    tinyx[i]+=(i%5-2)/5;    if (tinyy[i]<shigh+sdown) {      tiny[i].style.top=tinyy[i]+"px";      tiny[i].style.left=tinyx[i]+"px";    }    else {      tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden";      tinyv[i]=0;      return;    }  }  else tiny[i].style.visibility="hidden"; }

document.onmousemove=mouse; function mouse(e) {  if (e) {    y=e.pageY;    x=e.pageX;  }  else {    set_scroll();    y=event.y+sdown;    x=event.x+sleft;  } }

window.onscroll=set_scroll; function set_scroll() {  if (typeof(self.pageYOffset)=='number') {    sdown=self.pageYOffset;    sleft=self.pageXOffset;  }  else if (document.body && (document.body.scrollTop || document.body.scrollLeft)) {    sdown=document.body.scrollTop;    sleft=document.body.scrollLeft;  }  else if (document.documentElement && (document.documentElement.scrollTop || document.documentElement.scrollLeft)) {    sleft=document.documentElement.scrollLeft;    sdown=document.documentElement.scrollTop;  }  else {    sdown=0;    sleft=0;  } }

window.onresize=set_width; function set_width() {  var sw_min=999999;  var sh_min=999999;  if (document.documentElement && document.documentElement.clientWidth) {    if (document.documentElement.clientWidth>0) sw_min=document.documentElement.clientWidth;    if (document.documentElement.clientHeight>0) sh_min=document.documentElement.clientHeight;  }  if (typeof(self.innerWidth)=='number' && self.innerWidth) {    if (self.innerWidth>0 && self.innerWidth<sw_min) sw_min=self.innerWidth;    if (self.innerHeight>0 && self.innerHeight<sh_min) sh_min=self.innerHeight;  }  if (document.body.clientWidth) {    if (document.body.clientWidth>0 && document.body.clientWidth<sw_min) sw_min=document.body.clientWidth;    if (document.body.clientHeight>0 && document.body.clientHeight<sh_min) sh_min=document.body.clientHeight;  }  if (sw_min==999999 || sh_min==999999) {    sw_min=800;    sh_min=600;  }  swide=sw_min;  shigh=sh_min; }

function createDiv(height, width) {  var div=document.createElement("div");  div.style.position="absolute";  div.style.height=height+"px";  div.style.width=width+"px";  div.style.overflow="hidden";  return (div); }

function newColour() {  var c=new Array();  c[0]=255;  c[1]=Math.floor(Math.random()*256);  c[2]=Math.floor(Math.random()*(256-c[1]/2));  c.sort(function(){return (0.5 - Math.random());});  return ("rgb("+c[0]+", "+c[1]+", "+c[2]+")"); } // ]]> </script> {/block:ifrainbowsparkles}

{block:ifwhitesparkles} <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ var colour="#fff"; var sparkles=140;

/**************************** *  Tinkerbell Magic Sparkle * * (c) 2005 mf2fm web-design * *  http://www.mf2fm.com/rv  * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS BOX * ****************************/ var x=ox=400; var y=oy=300; var swide=800; var shigh=600; var sleft=sdown=0; var tiny=new Array(); var star=new Array(); var starv=new Array(); var starx=new Array(); var stary=new Array(); var tinyx=new Array(); var tinyy=new Array(); var tinyv=new Array();

window.onload=function() { if (document.getElementById) {  var i, rats, rlef, rdow;  for (var i=0; i<sparkles; i++) {    var rats=createDiv(3, 3);    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    document.body.appendChild(tiny[i]=rats);    starv[i]=0;    tinyv[i]=0;    var rats=createDiv(5, 5);    rats.style.backgroundColor="transparent";    rats.style.visibility="hidden";    var rlef=createDiv(1, 5);    var rdow=createDiv(5, 1);    rats.appendChild(rlef);    rats.appendChild(rdow);    rlef.style.top="2px";    rlef.style.left="0px";    rdow.style.top="0px";    rdow.style.left="2px";    document.body.appendChild(star[i]=rats);  }  set_width();  sparkle(); }}

function sparkle() {  var c;  if (x!=ox || y!=oy) {    ox=x;    oy=y;    for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) if (!starv[c]) {      star[c].style.left=(starx[c]=x)+"px";      star[c].style.top=(stary[c]=y)+"px";      star[c].style.clip="rect(0px, 5px, 5px, 0px)";      star[c].style.visibility="visible";      starv[c]=50;      break;    }  }  for (c=0; c<sparkles; c++) {    if (starv[c]) update_star(c);    if (tinyv[c]) update_tiny(c);  }  setTimeout("sparkle()", 40); }

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[timothyakoonce]

How to Use Anders Pink for Content Curation

If you’re looking for an effective way to streamline the content curation process, then this one is for you!

Whether you are a content marketer or a social media marketer, you know how much time and effort it takes to find, curate, and share valuable content. It’s hard work but it needs to get done because the returns are significant – more followers, more engagement, increased authority, etc.

I recently tested a new content curation tool that can help improve your workflow and increase your efficiency. It’s called Anders Pink and it’s brought to you by Steve Rayson, the co-founder of BuzzSumo.

This fact alone should give Anders Pink enough street cred, but also its advanced capabilities that I’m about to walk you through in this article.

So let’s get started and see how you can easily “get briefed” on the topics that matter to you the most!

What is Anders Pink?

Anders Pink is a content curation platform that lets you set up “briefings” or content stream based on your topics of interest. These Briefings are automatically updated with fresh content every few hours. You can create them using keywords and additional filters so you get the latest content from specific sources, including websites, twitter influencers, or RSS feeds. Your briefings can be private or public, and most importantly – you can set them up for free!

If you like to discover, read and curate content on the go, Anders Pink also has iOS and Android apps too.

Here’s a quick look at what you can do with this tool:

Set up custom briefings

Create teams to collaborate on briefings with your colleagues.

Take action on content – upvote, comment, and share.

Easily discover the latest content on any topic.

Save articles and organize them into folders for later reading.

Follow topics or public briefings that interest you.

Getting Started

Anders Pink offers a free plan for individual users that lets you create 5 briefings and 1 folder for your saved articles. This should be more than enough for anyone to get to know the platform, see if it works for them, and decide to upgrade (or not) to one of the paid plans.

To access the tool, go to Anders Pink website and sign up. If you log in with your twitter account you’ll immediately see your home screen populated with the latest content on the topics you share the most on Twitter. You’ll also see the latest articles shared by your twitter connections.

Here’s how my home screen in Anders Pink looks like:

Anders Pink Home

I share a lot of content on Twitter about content marketing and social media, which the tool figured out by analyzing my profile. As you can see, it’s showing me fresh content related to those topics from quality sites. If I want to, I can click on “see more” for each topic to get more content and select if I want to see content from the last 3 days, 1 week, or 1 month. There’s also an option to edit or remove any topic.

On the right-hand side of the screen in “Top from your Network,” you’ll see the latest articles shared by the people you follow on Twitter. You can click to see who shared the article or share it on your social profiles.

How to Create a Custom Briefing

To create a custom briefing click on “Create briefing” from the menu on the left. From there you’ll have the option to either create your briefing by topic or by sources.

Pick some topics: enter some topics and use filters to refine your briefing.

Pick some sources: enter sources you want to see content from in your stream. This option is useful if you have preferred sites that you want to see content from.

Start with entering relevant topics

If you choose to start with topics, just enter your keyword phrase and you’ll instantly see a preview of relevant, recent content on the right. If you’re happy with what you’re seeing, you can save the briefing. However, it’s always better to get more specific and there are few filters available to help you narrow the topic down.

Limit to certain sites. You probably have some sites that you regularly read content from, and you may only want to see content from those sites in your briefing. Enter the domains here and your briefing will refresh to only show content on your chosen topic from these sites.

Get Suggested Sites. If you don’t have an idea which sites you’d like to see the content from, you can pick from the domains that Anders Pink will suggest based on your chosen topic. For my topic (content marketing), I’ve got suggestions including cmi.com, jeffbullas.com, forbes.com and also razorsocial.com! I’d say these are some pretty relevant suggestions!

Block domains. If you don’t want articles from certain sites to appear in your briefing, you can easily block them by entering the domains here.

After you’ve set up all your filters, name your briefing and hit save. Your briefing is now live and it will appear in the menu on the left.

      Start your briefing by picking sources

The alternative way to create a briefing is to add sources including any website, twitter account, or RSS feed. Choose the type and enter the source, it’s that simple!

Add Sources

You can also enter a topic into the “see suggested sources box”, and let the tool find relevant sources that publish quality content on your topic. You can then preview the suggested sources and add the ones you like to your briefing.

Following are the suggestions I got for “content marketing” topic.

Suggested Sources in Anders Pink

You can just save the briefing like this if you want a general regularly updating stream of content from your chosen sources all in one briefing.

Like with the first option for creating a briefing (Pick some topics), you can further filter the content for your briefing by keywords, include or exclude certain words, and block articles form certain domains.

How to Use Anders Pink for Content Discovery

You can also use Anders Pink to discover and share the best content from around the web on any topic you choose. The “Discover” feature is available from the menu on the left. Just click on it and enter your topic. The tool will instantly return relevant and fresh articles from a number of quality sources.

From here you can either follow the topic which will add it to your home, or create a briefing if you want to see more specific content.

Curate Content with Your Team

In order to work on content curation with your team, you’ll have to subscribe to Anders Pink Team plan which costs $99/month for up to 20 users.

Once you’re subscribed, you’ll see a “create team” option in the top menu. There you’ll be able to name your team and invite colleagues to join by sending them an email invite or by creating and sharing a signup link.

When you create a briefing inside the team, the rest of the team will see that content and be able to take actions on the articles e.g. upvote, comment, mention a team member, and share on social media.

Inside the team view, you’ll also see a feed of the latest activity from your team members so you can stay up to date on what they’re talking about.

Summary

Content curation tools such as Anders Pink are really useful for helping you find, curate, and share really good, relevant content with your target audience. If used properly, this tool can save you a lot of time.

What content curation tools do you use? Will you consider trying Anders Pink? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

  The post How to Use Anders Pink for Content Curation appeared first on Find and get the most out of the best marketing tools to promote your business.

from Blog – Find and get the most out of the best marketing tools to promote your business http://www.razorsocial.com/use-anders-pink-content-curation/

[biofunmy]

A Marijuana Brand With Loads of Street Cred

To his die-hard fans, Mr. Sherbinski is a storied name in marijuana.

A celebrated California cultivator, he helped create the Gelato and Sunset Sherbert strains that have been name-checked in more than 200 hip-hop songs, including “First Off” by Future and “Bosses Don’t Speak” by Migos.

At the Business of Fashion’s Voices conference in London last year, his brand, Sherbinskis, was introduced as “the Supreme of marijuana.”

And when Sherbinskis released its first sneaker design last year at ComplexCon, a two-day festival of hip-hop and fashion in Long Beach, Calif., the limited-edition Nike Air Force 1 model sold out in two hours. (There is a pair currently on eBay asking more than $1,000.)

Now, devotees of the marijuana brand will have an official place to worship.

Sherbinskis recently announced plans for its first store, on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, a few doors away from a Supreme boutique.

Renderings show a rooftop garden that is visible from the sidewalk (no, there won’t be pot plants growing there), and a gallery-like white space decorated with close-up photos of marijuana buds. Haute cannabis products for sale include vape pens and pre-rolled buds in Instagram-worthy orange packaging; branded hoodies, fanny packs and Mophies; and fashion collaborations.

“I want to evolve past the taboo, what I call the ‘dirty bong syndrome,’” said Mario Guzman, the Sherbinskis founder who for years was known only by his street name, Mr. Sherbinski.

With his deep roots in cannabis, Mr. Guzman, 42, is hardly another corporate newcomer looking to hitch a ride on the legal-marijuana express. For decades he has been building a reputation as a cultivator and innovator of widely copied strains. Now he plans to grow Sherbinskis into a lifestyle brand beyond stoners.

“When people think of Supreme, a lot of people don’t know it was started as a skate shop,” Mr. Guzman said. “It was really made by skaters, but Supreme got to the point where people that never ride a skateboard buy their stuff, because it’s fire.”

This is not to say that Mr. Guzman has any plans to abandon cannabis. After two decades, he qualifies as a lifer, although a career in pot was never his goal.

The son of a Mexican immigrant who was a sheriff’s officer in Sacramento, Mr. Guzman moved to San Francisco in the mid-1990s and was making good money as a real estate broker until the dot-com bust. Because medical marijuana was legal in California, a friend suggested he make ends meet by growing marijuana in the garage of his Sunset District house.

He eventually collaborated with the developers of a popular marijuana strain called Girl Scout Cookies to create the Sunset Sherbert and Gelato lines, and soon spun off on his own to perfect those strains. The Gelato strain is a indica-sativa hybrid with purplish buds that delivers a “heavy handed euphoria,” according to its promotional literature. Sunset Sherbert is an indica-leaning hybrid with a flavor suggesting fruit and berries that brings a stress-melting body high.

The confectionary names seemed inevitable, he said, given that “the munchies is obviously something that’s associated with smoking cannabis.”

Mr. Guzman’s creations soon spread among Bay Area rappers like E-40 and B-Legit, and, eventually, to Los Angeles artists like B-Real, the Cypress Hill rapper of “Insane in the Membrane” fame.

“They were the ones calling us,” he said. “They wanted us to be there, to smoke with them, to vibe with them on a creative level.”

While Mr. Guzman takes pride in his street cred, he has no qualms about the corporate fervor that is transforming the industry.

“The people that are running these $500 million hedge funds, they have smart people and big checkbooks, but I still feel like there’s a shortage of people who are passionate and have been doing this a long time,” Mr. Guzman said. “I know my value.”

Part of his value lies in more than a million square feet of greenhouse space in Santa Barbara, a 22,000-square-foot indoor facility in Sacramento, a four-acre property with commercial greenhouses in Mendocino and other growing operations.

“I know I can always make a living,” he said. “I can always have a garden.”

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

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