Hello everyone! My first post with the posters reached 70k notes, which is way more than I ever thought, so for that reason and one other I thought I'd do a little bit of a celebration!
I'm releasing a new version of my posters, these cleaner, more "modern" ones in black and white WITH a 25% sale on all posters until midnight on the 15th with this link! The files used here in the post are not full size, just FYI.
They're available on my shop, just go to the poster you'd like and select the "modern" option, or let me know in a ko-fi message if you buy the bundle. The price is the same as the other posters. They won't have a preview option yet, I'll update that as I get these printed. The designs are also available as stickers! Use the same method.
Additionally, I do have the files ready for the missing button styles, just haven't put them up yet - if you'd like to order a poster as a button, either purchase a random one and send me a message on ko-fi or purchase the button pack and do the same. I'll get them up soon! the button/sticker prices haven't been raised yet.
One more thing - I'm attempting to raise some money to get to a big expo in my city, so please spread the link to my shop if possible!
If you enjoy these, follow my blog for more writing and art from the Office for the Preservation of Normalcy. Check out my pinned post for more information.
I recently released Legends & Lattes, my first full novel, on 2/22/22. Let’s discuss the whole process, end to end, with numbers!
Travis Baldree Mar 1, 2022
[...]
So, for anyone else thinking of taking the plunge, or in the middle of doing so, I’m going to lay out end-to-end everything that I did, things I discovered, and also cold, hard, numbers. I wanted this sort of information when I was going through the process, and never found it all in one place, or often only vaguely articulated.
Shark skin feels exactly like sandpaper. It is made up of tiny teeth-like structures called placoid scales, also known as dermal denticles. These scales point towards the tail and help to reduce friction from surrounding water when the shark swims. … In the opposite direction, it feels very rough like sandpaper.
When we were discussing the surgery I'd need for my sleep apnea, the surgeon told me I'd never be able to speak French properly because the French R is a uvular sound and I'd no longer have a uvula.
... that's okay? I'm not French? I don't speak French? I've always thought it was the weirdest thing for him to say!
The notes on this post are just filled to the brim with the society-killing US chest-thumping of ‘HOW DARE YOU ASK SOMETHING OF ME IN MY OWN HOUSE???????‘ and just like... you guys do understand this is why you had Trump, right? Because all of you feel this way about each other?
Like, you are all aware that this is exactly exactly exactly how right wing people feel about being asked to use pronouns? “You want me to change MY behavior just to benefit YOU? FUCK YOU. I WOULD RATHER CALL YOU THE WRONG NAME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE THAN BEND TO YOUR WILL.“ But hey. Lawnmower go brrrr, right? Based? The person asking for courtesy was the one being rude?
On reddit, I would expect this, but I’m surprised to see it on tumblr because like... this is the queer website? We care about each other here? Sometimes I feel like some of you are only right by coincidence and not by conviction or principle.
Maybe it’s because I’m from a third-world country, but in my eyes lawnmower man is such a gigantic cunt I cannot even believe my eyes reading this story. Part of being in a community, even a tiny, ad hoc one like a neighborhood is recognising that there are parts of our spaces that overlap, and we give and take from those spaces in equal measure. In my neighborhood, that means my neighbors are allowed to stay up until 3 AM partying if they want. You won’t hear a peep from me unless you’re doing it every night. I party too, and we both understand each other. It means my neighbor’s kids can play the drums and ride their very loud motorcycle outside. I have my own loud hobbies, and we all respect each other. And if you leave a note on my door asking me to be quiet while you have your WEDDING? Of course man, no problem! I hope it’s a sunny day and the ceremony is beautiful! I know that if I ever need anything, you will help me out as well.
I mean come on, people. Are you seriously searing over one afternoon of your life? That is such a reasonable request. You were probably being quiet anyway! Stop trying to be the main character and build connections with the people around you. Being nice costs nothing and will only bring you gains. How else do you expect people to be respectful and kind to you, if not in return?
so this might be tmi but the first time i jacked off it was like 2005? I was playing the sims 2 for the first time and i didn’t know anything about Gay but i made my male sim kiss don lothario, which i didn’t think would work. i then googled “2 sims kissing (boys)” and that led me down a rabbit hole (lol sims 3 reference there), and yeah, ya know, I did the self-woohoo. that same night there was an oprah re-run about teenage pregnancy and i was horrified. oh my god, i was convinced i was pregnant, nevermind that i am a little cis gay boy with no uterus. nevermind that i was a virgin. i was CERTAIN I was pregnant. Like, 900%. I had done the nasty and had become filled with my own vile seed. I started getting really self-conscious about my belly expanding. I didn’t want to google anything about masturbation leading to pregnancy out of fear it would confirm all my worst fears. My male sim got abducted by aliens and came back with morning sickness. He gave birth to twin aliens. that confirmed it in my mind that it was biological possible for men to carry children, perhaps even their own.. what was i going to tell my parents when i gave birth to myself? anyway I went to the doctor with a cold and he asked me what was wrong and i told him i was pregnant and he pissed himself laughing. this whole ordeal lasted about 5 months, but the lasting effect will probably follow me to the grave.
Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.
The Diagnosis
In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.
Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content.
To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.
Our Guiding Principles
To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.
Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.
Provide high-quality content with every app launch.
Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.
Retain and grow our creator base.
Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.
Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.
Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.
Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.
Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up.
We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.
Actions & Next Steps
Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.
Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.
Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.
We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.
The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.
Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant.
Actions & Next Steps
Deliver great content each time the app is opened.
Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are.
Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds.
Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.
Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.
Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.
Actions & Next Steps
Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.
Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs.
Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.
Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread.
Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads.
Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed.
Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.
Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.
Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.
The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.
It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.
Actions & Next Steps
Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it.
Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.
Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.
Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.
Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.
Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.
Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.
Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.
Actions & Next Steps
Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.
Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.
Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages.
Test what the right daily push notification limit is.
Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.
Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.
The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.
Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.
Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users.
Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.
Conclusion
Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.
Hi folks! We're surprised to see how many of you think we're getting rid of the reverse-chronological dashboard or pivoting to a solely algorithmic feed. We're not! We can see how you might have come to that conclusion, so let us reassure you and clear some things up.
We have a ton of options and toggles to customize your experience. Want a reverse-chronological dashboard feed? No problem! The chronological feed is not going anywhere. Just toggle off "Best Stuff First" in your dashboard settings and scroll away. Want to see more art or fanfic of your favorite movie or show? Follow some tags and you'll find additional posts and new blogs to follow. We've had an algorithm for years—we just don't make you use it if you don't want to.
Tumblr is a place where you can tailor and customize your experience to individual preferences. With this core product strategy as guidance, we'll keep improving Tumblr for new and existing users alike.
Hey staff, we like tumblr because it's tumblr. Haven't you noticed how stubborn we are? We aren't ON other apps doing the stuff we do here. It's like trying to attract tourists by kicking out the locals, gutting small businesses, and turning them into chain stores that you could find in literally any other place.
You use 'it's OK we still have chronology' as a cover up for the shit updates. You want to make it like twitter with collapsed replies.
BULLSHIT!!!!! that changes the culture! People like tumblr for tumblr not because it's twitter in blue shade or looks like tiktok (vomit).
We want you to get rid of that AWFUL tiktok-style media viewer. IT IS OVER-STIMULATING. Get rid of tumblr live, no one uses it.
And while we're at it, COULD YOU FIX THE APP BUG THAT TURNS ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS INTO ITALICS OR BOLD IF YOU DARE TO USE IT ON EVEN ONE WORD. PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
hey netizens! i'm not sure how many people are aware, but youtube's been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can't be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate
BUT, if you're a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard (under My Filters) to get rid of it!
I really hope everyone reblogging this followed the link and read the article, because it’s larger point is really good
“Reproductive health and childbirth is a crutch, and Lucas gets away with it because his audience accepts that these things are mysterious and cannot be intervened with the way that that the loss of limbs can be remedied with robot prosthetics, or the way Luke can be rescued from near-death on Hoth by being submerged in a bacta tank. Having babies is worse than being mauled by a wampa ice creature or being chopped up by lightsabers and falling into a river of lava. Lucas can write a world like that, and worse, the audience will accept it.
But uteruses aren’t made of malignant magic. Women’s bodies are real physical things that can be studied and understood and when necessary, cured. ”
IDK about everyone else, but I’ve actually been certified as a doula and childbirth educator and worked in women’s health media for most of a decade.
All points valid, but “Help me OB-GYN Kenobi” broke me.
And this is how you can tell a story was written by men because pre-natal healthcare never even occurred to the writer. Women’s insides are a mysterious and magical place that no man either can fathom, or just just not want to think about, so in stories like this they just handwave it away as” dying in childbirth”.
Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023
Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!
Sejda - Free online PDF editor.
Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it’ll give you recipe ideas.
Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.
Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I’d recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.
12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.
Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.
TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn’t read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.
OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can’t for the life of you remember the actual word.
My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You’ll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.
Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.
Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.
PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.
Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.
Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.
LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.
Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.
Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.
CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.
Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.
I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.
Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.
Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.
Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.
My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.
Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.
Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.
Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.
Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.
Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.
Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.
Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.
This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.
Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.
BitWarden – Free open source password manager.
Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It’s genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.
Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.
ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.
Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.
Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.
Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.
myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.
DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.
Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.
For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.
