online communities are so strange because people slip away so easily. you can be on here for years, folding people you've never met into the fabric of your daily life, and then they disappear, leaving only ghost posts scattered across tumblr behind. or their blog stays dormant, for weeks, months, years, until you're only still following them because you remember that they love sunflowers or they were kind to you when they didn't have to be or the last thing they posted was sad and raw and you still worry about them sometimes.
and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.
there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.
i hope you're all okay out there. i hope the sun is shining on your face and you are breathing deeply. i miss you.
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
MapCrunch. Environment artists rejoice. Random locations, filter by indoor or outdoor, rural or urban, specific country. Great for realistic/authentic building ref.
Do you have any tips or advice for running an artists booth at a convention? I'm thinking about doing it eventually and been wanting to hear from people who have done it before :^)
yeah!!! lemme rattle off a few things off the top a my head
also, pardon me 4 using amazon dot ca links for products that i mention. its just easy to find references that way (and often u can look up the brand and find their non-amazon store etc etc)
this got super long so im putting it under a cut!!
ā¢ join an artist alley group!! i'm in this artist alley discord and it is a fantastic place to get info about cons, table display ideas, manufacturer recommendations, etc. there are more than just this group out there and i think there are bigger ones but i personally really like this one ^u^ i make a ton of use of the display resources and manu recommendation channels!
ā¢ if you can afford it, be choosy about the events you apply to. there are a lot of cons out there that are fantastic, and a lot that aren't worth the trouble, and i don't necessarily mean small vs big cons. some of my fav events are smaller artist alleys local to me, and most of the artists i know avoid informa (fanexpo) like the plague. check out what other artists have to say about past events and keep an eye out for red flags: personally i find cons with really out of date/poorly advertised social medias and websites that have mismatched info are a warning sign of a mismanaged and not well attended event.
ā¢ you don't need a lot of fancy display stuff to start, those sorts of things you can build up over time. im a fan of getting a ton of my display stuff from the dollar store >:)
when you're ready and need the space to display a good amount of art the main thing you wanna pick up is definitely something that gives your table some verticality, whether that's a pvc pipe style setup, pegboards, or modular cube shelving (we all used to use these big heavy grid ones until the plastic sheet covered ones came out and now we all use those. theyre cuter and lighter and fit better on a table and come in more colours yayay. im sure some people still like the grid ones since they fit gridwall accessories tho) there are lots of other ways to display stuff but these r what i am most familiar with. definitely helps to look at youtube and pinterest and discord groups for display ideas!!
another thing you will want to start is a tablecloth. not every con has their tables already covered! there are those plastic picnic ones at dollar stores, and you can thrift bedsheets/fabric too.
ā¢ depending on the type of display and art you do you'll need some way to attach signs/prints/charms/etc to your display. i just moved from blu-tack to magnets but i used to use sewing clips (back when i used the grid cubes) and before then masking tape. all of them are okay and cool! except blu-tack. don't make the same mistakes as me it adds like 40 whole minutes to teardown and it leaves gross oil on the prints after some time. evil
ā¢ if you don't have business cards you can make a sign with a qr code that links to you/your shop! there are lots of qr code makers online that u can even customize with images and colours and stuff. there will be people that wanna know how to find you again after a con!
ā¢ these days a lot of people don't bring cash to conventions and it's pretty vital to bring some sort of card reader or other digital payment method. most of us use square - they recently made it so that the phone app can accept tap! so you don't need to jump for the expensive physical readers. i've also got a paypal dot me qr code and my etransfer email (i think this is a canadian thing) on a lil sign on the table so people have lots of payment options. usually over 50% of my con income comes from non-cash sales!
ā¢ make sure to bring change!! we've forgotten in the past and done okay but it's always handy to be able to make change for people. you'll want a secure place to put cash as well, whether it's a locked moneybox that you keep out of sight or a place on your person (friend of mine uses a fanny pack!) you never wanna leave your table completely unattended but especially when it comes to the moneybox. if it's a multi day con this is an item you mustn't leave at your table overnight.
ā¢ keep count of your sales and expenses properly so that you can see how much you made at the end of the con. i really like spreadsheets but you can even just note it down in a book. here's a little example of one con for me:
ā¢ you'll want to make a checklist of stock and display stuff to bring, but don't forget to make a list of minor stuff like phone chargers and scissors and tape and glue and pens and paper. multiple types of tape and paper if possible. they don't feel super important until you're stuck because you forgot to make a price sign and have to get by with a sharpie and a napkin. don't let that be you!! dollar store sticky note pads are super useful for this type of thing.
ā¢ plan out your prices and do as much prep (counting, sign making, display planning, packing/sorting) as you can beforehand so that the event doesn't feel too stressful. make sure your merchandise is stored in an easily accessible way for you behind the table so you aren't scrambling or rummaging too much when people are asking for stuff!
ā¢ similarly, whatever you can leave out for people to just pick/grab themselves, the more of it you're likely to sell. things like stickers and charms are good for this - people like to touch stuff! and it makes it so you don't need to go fishing for items for people as frequently. generally i don't do this with more expensive items just to be safe.
ā¢ if you sell prints, people are gonna ask for sleeves to keep them safe, especially at outdoor events. sometimes people ask for sleeves/bags even if they dont buy anything. they're a good idea to have on hand and you can find em for pretty cheap online and for a bit more expensive at dollar stores (i use OPP bags. if you dont wanna use plastic you can always get paper bags/envelopes/glassine bags instead)
ā¢ a cushion for the chair is a good idea. lots of conventions have really uncomfy chairs. some folks even bring camping chairs instead!
ā¢ pack snacks/lunch/water/drinks/have lunch plans. if you have a table buddy that is able to run out for food that's always nice. you might be sitting but it uses a lot of energy to interface all day!! you'll be exhausted and hungry and it's gonna be important to get enough fuel for your brain to function properly. i genuinely would recommend juice/soda/coffee/energy dink alongside water and food if you wanna live, especially if its a multi day con. get good sleep on days between!
ā¢ if you're excited to do trades with other artists during the con, the general etiquette is to wait until later in the day/near the end when the crowds are winding down! it's always okay to ask if someone's doing trades, and don't be upset or press them if they aren't interested or have certain stuff they don't want to trade.
ā¢ speaking of con etiquette, depending on the type of vert you are (intro/extro) and or how much customer service experience you have, interfacing can be nervewracking. my general rule is that if they stop to look, i say Hello and let them browse. if they seem interested in my table i try and do some small talk. stuff like How are you/How's the event been for ya/compliments on their outfit/cosplay/merch they have on like pins etc are good! kids and old folks love this. as tiring as it is to do some of my favourite parts of cons is talking to nice people that like my art!! all the folks that say nice things about my work are what keep me drawing ;w; i keep my sketchbook with me to jot down/doodle nice and funny encounters just cus it makes me happy to look back on XD
ā¢ when it's teardown time try to put stuff away as neatly as you can. you might be tired and just wanna toss all your stuff into whatever it is you brought it in but i promise future you (especially next-con you) will be so thankful that you put all your price signs into one baggie etc etc.
ā¢ speaking of bringing and putting away merch - you'll need a way to get it all from your home/car to your table and back. lots of people use dollies and other types of utility cart (i can guarantee there are a bunch of those grandma grocery ones at your local thrift store!!) - i personally use a big luggage bag and a collapsible wagon, but back in the day we used to CARRY bin after bin of stuff from the car and back in multiple trips which i would NOT reccomend lol. not every convention hall is easily accessible or close to parking so not having to lift stuff if you can avoid it is gonna be vital.
I feel like something that doesnt get talked about enough is how fast fashion is coming to hobbies as well. Sure, you can sew, knit, and crochet something better than youd buy in store, but good luck finding quality materials
Want a fabric that doesnt fray from being gently caressed? Want yarn thats not 100% plastic and splits if you touch it wrong? Good luck finding that if you dont have a genuinely good crafts store near you.
Go on any thread where people are trying to figure out where to buy fabric. 50% of it is people saying big stores are servicable, online stores work, or the like, and the other 50% are talking about how bad the quality is or how the quality of a website dropped because it was bought out
Were running into a problem where fast fashiob is so integrated into society that even the ability to make your own, comfortable and long lasting, clothes is being threatened by capitalism
Also it begs the question: if your fabric, trimmings, beads, trinkets, yarns are all made in the same factories as fast fashion, can we really talk about it being "handmade" and "sustainable"?
I went to the Craft market, where people sell their own craftwork, and there were some beautiful earrings, but I could tell they bought the parts on aliexpress, such as wires, beads, pendants, then put them together into a product. Is this custom work?
No shade on anyone, just an observation and food for thought
Some people are responding to this that the artisanal magic granted by a person stringing together mass-produced elements is over-arching, and renders the whole thing handmade, and therefore worthy. At the very least, it removes the exploited labor of assembly from the equation.
In counterpoint, I have to remind people of the very uncomfortable point that sometimes you are reducing the value of the materials by what you choose to do with them. Sometimes your labor removes value from materials.
Crafters are a market. Crafting shops exist in most large human settlements because the market is large, diverse and insatiable. People will work at this on purpose, for free, because itās satisfying! Materials are expensive because the market bears it. Crafters will purchase the materials regardless of price, because the human drive to create is inherently rewarding! (And craft material hoarding is a thing.) Materials, also, have an inherent value; they are not usually diminished by age or fashion. Even secondhand wool yarn from stash clearouts retains its value. Crafters want materials for their potential. The inherent material value of materials is high. The potential usage value of materials is high. Even if they donāt cost very much - a button does not cost much at all! Jewelry findings are absurdly cheap! Wool comes right off sheep! - materials are inherently valuable and wanted.
Meanwhile, crafters often craft stuff that sucks. They add their labor to materials and make something thatās worse than not starting. They frequently make things that nobody wants or will pay for. And thatās ā¦ well, itās okay! Itās fine! But if we consider that a crafter in the western world has magical labor-magic, a special magic of making that means their finished object transcends ALL the sin&suffering that may be embodied in the resources&materials, then please remember also: all the people you know who take those same materials and make trash.
Crafters are not usually in the headspace to receive this or even reflect on it, but itās worth thinking about! Crafters and hobby artists frequently make things that are less desirable, attractive or useful than the original materials would be! Itās perfectly fair enough. In fact, itās expected when youāre practicing and learning - students should always have access to materials! and nobody should feel pressure to have everything they make be marketable, and they should not be making things primarily to be fed to the Consumption Engine.
And not all of the objects theyāre making are intended to be immortal heirlooms anyway. There are entire factions of crocheters who purchase cheap acrylic on purpose, as cheaply and nastily as possible, because their hobby involves crocheting stuff to abandon in public. I know people who do this - theyāre old people and itās āsomething to doā - and I know mothers who hasten their children away from the items because the mothers do not want to be hosting someone elseās plastic trash in their home, before inevitably donating it to charity, where it will probably be thrown away as being completely unsaleable. After accidentally letting my children take home some Random Acts of Crochet Kindness I am also, guiltily, on their side. Yes, itās handmade, but itās basically a McDonaldās Happy Meal Toy, and I didnāt precisely invite it into my house! I put the depressing little item into the charity shop bag in the FULL knowledge that I should really just throw it away, and save the charity shop volunteers some time.
A supply chain of fossil fuel to landfill with extra steps, via endless expenditure of free labor from old ladies, and weary throwing-away from everyone in the supply chain whose job is to deal with unwanted, valueless things. The old ladies feel it ābrings smiles to peopleās faces,ā bless them, and it sure does seem to make them feel good about themselves, so we wonāt take that away from them (because they arenāt on tumblr reading this). But the fact is, not all of the old ladies buying the old-lady acrylic - from the demented evangelical artefact-thieving craft stores who sourced it from exploitative sweatshops who bought it from petrochemical companies who created that acrylic as a usefully saleable byproduct of the coal and petroleum they are ripping out of the earth - are making anything that anybody wants out of it.
If youāre a crafter, you probably want to believe that the absolution that thoughtful and attentive labor grants on materials - the alchemical transformation of Crafting - is innate and applies to everyone who is driven to Create, and everything created by human hands. Like the Velveteen Rabbit for labor theory or something.
It could be true. It could be true. I suspect it is really only true for small children, and the things they make between the age of nursery-staff-guiding-them-to-make-a-handprint-turkey and the age of trying-to-sell-bad-amigurumi-at-a-craft-fair - a window of cuteness and purity where the sheer effort is of tremendous value to a mother.
But crafters are a marketā¦ the materials are being sold quite cynically to this market and most crafters are a bit shit, using shit materials to make garbage. Itās okay! But there isnāt a universal law of blessing conveyed by it taking a lot of time to do.
A lot of crafts are shit. A lot of crafts are crap.
A corollary that I think about a lot: my grandmothers actually *could* go to a physical store, buy cotton fabric, and make a simple dress for less money than it would have cost to buy a similar cotton dress new. When my grandmothers were the age I am now, the labor of making the dress was a substantial part of the cost of the finished dressāsubstantial enough that not counting the cost of sewing labor (which is what āmaking it myself for lessā means) made up for the lost economy of scale incurred by switching from factory production to home production. Because clothing sold in stores was produced in the same country they lived in, my grandmothers could reduce expenditures in the household budget by sewing in the same way they could by cooking.
I canāt do this. Why? Well, several reasons. 1) Clothing sold new today is made by labor that is at best artificially cheap due to relative value of currencies (fair trade textile goods) and at worst made by people who are horrifically exploited and underpaid even given the cost of food and rent where they live (most textile goods). So the amount of money that I save by doing the labor myself is more than outweighed by the shift to small-scale production. 2) As @elodieunderglass noted above, the cotton fabric sold in physical stores near where I live, while produced in the same places as the dresses sold in stores here, is being sold as a *final retail product* in and of itself, and includes a retail markup accordingly. Even if it is the same fabric as the factories are using (doubtfulāthe cotton is probably better in the craft store, though the prom dress polyester will be the same in both places), I will be paying at least twice as much per yard as the factories do.
Interestingly, what I *can* do is make a wool or silk dress out of fabric ordered online from a remnants store (allowing me to pay no more per yard than clothing factories, less if I catch a good saleāalso the higher-end stuff at least claims to come from countries that enforce their labor laws), make it with *far* higher quality finishes than any formalwear you can buy in a department store today, and have spent less than a quarter of what it would cost me to buy a garment that performs the same function (but is made out of lower-quality materials and doesnāt fit me anywhere near as well) off the rack. But, and this is very important, I will still have spent at least twice (quadruple if weāre talking about silk) the price of a cheap cotton everyday dress from not-even-a-fast-fashion-store.
There's a cheat-code in US antitrust law, one that's been increasingly used since the Reagan administration, when the "consumer welfare" theory ("monopolies are fine, so long as the lower prices") shoved aside the long-established idea that antitrust law existed to prevent monopolies from forming at all.
The idea that a company can do anything to create or perpetuate a monopoly so long as its prices go down and/or its quality goes up is directly to blame for the rise of Big Tech. These companies burned through their investors' cash for years, selling goods and services below cost, or even giving stuff away for free. Think of Uber, who lost $0.41 on every dollar they brought in for their first 13 years of existence, a move that cost their investors (mostly Saudi royals) $31 billion.
The monopoly cheerleaders in the consumer welfare camp understood that these money-losing orgies could not go on forever, and that the investors who financed them weren't doing so for charitable purposes. But they dismissed the possibility that would-be monopolists could raise prices after attaining dominance, because these prices hikes would bring new competitors into the market, starting the process over again.
Well, Uber has doubled the price of a ride and halved the wages of its drivers (not that consumer welfare theorists care about workers' wages ā they care about consumer welfare, not worker welfare). And not just Uber: companies that captured whole markets have jacked up prices and lowered quality across the board, a Great Enshittening whose playbook has been dubbed "venture predation":
Not only was this turn predictable ā it was predicted. Back in 2017, Lina Khan ā then a law student ā published a earthshaking Yale Law Journal paper, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," laying out how monopolists would trap their customers and block new competitors as they raised prices and lowered quality:
Today, Khan is the chair of the FTC, and has brought a case against Amazon that turns her legal theories into practice, backed by a cheering chorus of Amazon customers, workers, suppliers and competitors who've been cheated by the e-commerce giant:
https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator
Khan's case argues that Amazon is not the house of bargains that it's widely billed as. She points to the sky-high fees that Amazon extracts from its sellers (45-51% of every dollar!) and the company's use of "most favored nation" deals that force sellers who raise their Amazon prices to pay those rents to raise their prices everywhere else, too:
Now, a new Amazon Paradox has dropped, and it drills into another way that Amazon overcharges most of us by as much as 29% on nearly every purchase, disqualifying it from invoking that consumer welfare cheat code. The new paper is "Amazon's Pricing Paradox," from law professors Rory Van Loo and Nikita Aggarwal, for The Harvard Journal of Law and Technology:
The authors concede that while Amazon does have some great bargains, it goes to enormous lengths to make it nearly impossible to get those bargains. Drawing from the literature on behavioral economics, the authors make the reasonable (and experimentally verified) assumption that shoppers generally assume that the top results in an Amazon search are the best results, and click on those.
But Amazon's search-ordering is enshittified: it shifts value from sellers and shoppers (you!) to the company. A combination of self-preferencing (upranking Amazon's own knock-offs), pay-for-placement (Amazon ads), other forms of payola (whether a merchant is paying for Prime), and "junk ads" (that don't match your search) turn Amazon's search-ordering into a rigged casino game.
The ability to manipulate customers and sellers and get more money from both is why Amazon has so many incentives to use Amazon's internal search tool, rather than, say, searching Amazon via Google, which can yield far superior results. For years, Amazon ran a program called Amazon Smile, where a share of every purchase you made would be given to a charity of your choice ā but only if you found that item by searching for it on Amazon, and not via Google or a direct link:
In their new paper, the authors extract and analyze a large dataset of common items you might buy on Amazon, determining which result is best ā the lowest price at the highest rating ā and then calculating how much more you'll pay for that item if you click the first relevant (non-ad) item on the search results.
If you trust Amazon search to find you the best product and click that first link, you will pay a 29% premium for that item. If you expand your selection to the "headline" ā the first four items, which are often all that's visible without scrolling ā you'll pay an average of 25% more. That top row accounts for 64% of Amazon's clicks.
On average, the best deal on Amazon is found in the seventeenth slot in the search results. Seventeen!
Amazon argues that none of this matters, because it allows users to refine their searches to get the best bargains, but Amazon's search won't let you factor in "unit pricing" ā that is, the price per unit. So if you order your search by price, the seller who's offering a single pencil for $10 will show up above a seller who's offering ten pencils for $10.01.
Here is an iron law of cons: any time someone adds complexity to a proposition bet, the complexity exists solely to make it hard for you to figure out if you're getting a good deal. Whether that's the payout lines on a craps table, the complex interplay of deductibles and co-pays on your health insurance, the menu of fees your bank charges, or the add-ons for your cell-phone plan, the complexity exists to confound your intuition and overwhelm your reason:
And Amazon certainly knows how to pile on the complexity! First, there's the irrelevant results ā AAA batteries that show up in a search for AA batteries, or dog accessories that show up in a search for cat accessories:
Then there's the "drip pricing": extra charges that get tacked on at checkout, like shipping fees. I once found an item on Amazon that advertised "free shipping" ā but at checkout, that "free shipping" came with a delivery date that was three months in the future. Upgrading to shipping in the current quarter doubled the price.
Drip pricing makes it hard to figure out if Prime is a good deal, too. Recall that Amazon already comps shipping on orders over $25, so a potential Prime purchaser has to evaluate whether they'll place enough sub-$25 orders in the coming year to justify the price ā and also factor in the fact that Prime items are often more expensive on a per-unit basis than their non-Prime equivalents. Yes, Prime comes with other perks ā music and videos ā but valuing these just adds complexity to your calculations about whether Prime is a good buy for you, and requires that you factor in the possibility that Amazon will enshittify those services and reduce their value in the coming year, say, by taking away the ability to turn off shuffle when listening to music:
Finally, there's the nonsense labels that Amazon pastes onto its search results: "Best Seller," "Climate Pledge Friendly," "Highly Rated," "Top Rated From Our Brands" and other gibberish that doesn't necessarily mean what it seems like it means. Is an item a "best seller" because it was briefly price-dropped, or elevated in search results, or both, or because other shoppers genuinely liked it better?
The authors conclude that getting the best price on Amazon requires that you "first spend considerable time searching through pages of results and then utilize, at a minimum, spreadsheet algebraic capabilities to determine the productās full priceā¦[and] somehow de-bias from the psychological effects of anchoring, and labels such as 'limited time deal' and 'Best Seller,' as well as many other subtle psychological influences."
Amazon says it's entitled to use the consumer welfare cheat-code to get out of antitrust enforcement because it has so many bargains. But to get those bargains, you have to pay such minutely detailed attention ā literally spreadsheeting your options and hand-coding mathematical formulas to compare them ā that you'll almost certainly fail. The price of failure is incredibly high ā a 25-29% overcharge on every purchase.
Amazon's burying of this vital information will be familiar to Douglas Adams readers, as the "Beware of the Leopard" tactic. It's not even the first time Amazon's deployed it:
Another group of scholars recently coined a useful term to describe this ripoff: in a paper published last week, Tim O'Reilly, Mariana Mazzucato and Ilan Strauss dubbed the costs of all this complexity "attention rents":
It's fascinating to see these two different groups of scholars, coming at this problem from multiple disciplines, all converging on the same analysis! When technologists, trad economists, behavioral economists, and antitrust lawyers all study Amazon and come away pointing at the same sleazy tactic as being at the heart of the scam, it feels like maybe we're having A Moment. What's more, all of this is so thoroughly presaged by Khan's 2018 paper that it suggests that she's a bona fide prophet.
The authors of this new paper are pretty confident that this gimmick violates antitrust law. They point out that it doesn't matter if Amazon customers feel like they're getting a good deal ā just as it doesn't matter if don't know that you got charged a higher rate for your mortgage because you're Black, that's still illegal.
What's more, consumer protection law doesn't require that the merchant intends to rip you off. There's plenty of laws requiring supermarkets to post unit prices on their shelves. These laws don't start from the assumption that supermarkets who don't use unit pricing are trying to scam you! Rather, they start from the assumption that you will make better-informed purchases if you have that information, and so you should get it.
Regulating the presentation of prices is firmly in the purview of antitrust law, especially consumer welfare antitrust, which fetishizes low prices above all else. The less competitive a market is, the less pressure a company will feel to offer clear price information to customers, because those customers will have fewer places to go if they don't like the company's business practices.
All of this militates for antitrust intervention: rules for how Amazon must do its business. The authors propose three different kinds of rules:
I. Force Amazon to halt its most deceptive practices, like hiding the true price including shipping or chaffing search results with confusing junk ads. One fascinating tidbit: just a few days after this paper was published, the FTC revealed that Amazon had been deliberately cluttering its results with junk ads in order to juice revenue:
II. Mandate interoperability between Amazon and comparison shopping sites by forcing the company to publish its pricing data in machine-readable format, and allowing customers to authorize shopping bots to access their purchasing data to help them figure out how to get a better deal. Another fascinating turn ā the same week this paper came out, the CFPB proposed a rule that would force your bank to do the same thing ā let you forward your data to comparison shopping sites that would tell you which bank you'd get the best deal from:
The CFPB rule goes one step further, strictly limiting how those comparison sites can use your data, banning them from retaining, selling or sharing it or using it to target ads to you. This is the approach that my EFF colleague Bennett Cyphers and I proposed in our "Privacy Without Monopoly" paper:
III. Create legal safe harbors for scraping. Scraping is a form of "adversarial interoperability," the self-help measures that technologists use to modify and adapt existing services without their owners' consent. Think of reverse-engineering, bots, etc:
Comparison shopping sites have historically relied on scraping to help their users get better deals. Amazon almost certainly scrapes its competitors' sites to figure out if a merchant is selling more cheaply elsewhere (these merchants are punished by being banished to screen eleventy-million of the search results, which has the same effect of just kicking them off of Amazon).
Scraping was once the norm online, then it dwindled, as monopolists used their cash reserves and market power to get governments to punish rivals that used it. But scraping is a very important backstop to any kind of price-analysis. Though Mario Zechner used grocery stores' own official APIs to prove that they were colluding to rig prices, he has gone on record to say that he would also use scraping if they shut down those gateways or denied him access to them:
I. Start with traditional antitrust remedies (breakups, bans on unfair or deceptive practices)
II. Mandatory APIs that allow tinkerers, co-ops, nonprofits, and startups to interface with dominant platforms and offer their users and suppliers better services and deals;
III. Safe harbors for adversarial interoperability, so that when companies cheat on their mandatory APIs by blocking or degrading them, those rival services can keep things going while they wait for fact-intensive regulatory proceedings to force the big companies back into compliance.
Reading this new paper, I was struck by how much convergence there is among different kinds of practitioners, working against the digital sins of very different kinds of businesses. From the CFPB using mandates and privacy rules to fight bank ripoffs to behavioral economists thinking about Amazon's manipulative search results.
This kind of convergence is exciting as hell. After years of pretending that Big Tech was good for "consumers," we've not only woken up to how destructive these companies are, but we're also all increasingly in accord about what to do about it. Hot damn!
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Hey I love your art very much! Just wanted to ask you if you have any ressources/tutorials to recommend for learning Blender?
Hey, thanks for the kind words!
Honestly most of my Blender learning has been just messing around with it and looking stuff up as I need it, but here's a couple tutorials that got me started:
MortMort's "Blender Zero 2 Hero" tutorials
These were very useful in understanding Blender's UI, and come with some tips for pixel art textures in Blender that will be helpful for low poly stuff specifically.
Cherylynn Lima's Low Poly Modeling tutorials
These use an older version of Blender, so the UI and some shortcuts will be different, but they're great for getting an understanding of the box modeling process used in low poly models.
Imphenzia's Low Poly Character Modeling tutorials
This is a link to the newer version of his tutorial videos, which goes over the same kinda stuff as the older ones that I used. These were particularly great for getting a quick grasp on rigging low poly characters for animation.
Besides those tutorial videos, an additional resource I used was The Models Resource, which collects video game models for viewing in Blender and other 3D art applications. I used this site to study lots of low poly models from stuff like PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS games.
I also participated in challenges like #256FES very early on, because I strongly believe that having limitations or challenge goals makes it much easier to learn how a program works. Especially limitations (like 256FES' "use only 256 tris and a 256x256 texture") really force you to learn and puzzle solve to get the most out of your model.
My last tip would be: if making your own art is the ultimate goal, then don't feel like you have to learn everything about a program before you start doing your own art. Just get started, then problem solve as you go! It can be fun and gratifying to follow along with tutorials because they produce pretty results in the end, but for me personally I vastly prefer just being creative with a program and figuring out what I need to do as I stumble upon problems.
Hope this helps! Good luck on your Blender journey! :)
(speaking of an astral projection) "he was a deformed astral figure where his sexual part was his size. then he came to -- I was lucid, dude, that thing came and stuck itself in me - and in that moment, I felt such a impressive, gnomistic pleasure. Seriously. I came back to my body missing the gnome, and ended typing on google - when I came back I typed on google - "well endowned horny gnome". Never type that on google."
@eldriwolf sent me this, and I immediately thought of the Indian bagh nakh ātiger-clawā weapon, which isnāt usually articulated or as realistic - for a given value of realism - but was a very nasty piece of kit.
The basic version was a steel bar with two rings for index and pinkie fingers, and four steel claws for ripping into an enemyās soft parts - probably neck and stomach, where there were no awkward bones and the result would be more effective.
These simple versions had an extra advantage of being easy to concealā¦
ā¦and sometimes the finger-rings would be gilded and decorated with gems as if they were just jewellery.
Okay, maybe quite a lot of jewellery.
I bet that if timing and location were organised properly, political assassination could be passed off - in honest belief or for convenience - as the victim having encountered a real tiger.
āBut where are the marks of the tigerās teeth?ā That too could be arranged:
These double daggers have proper flattened-diamond blade profiles, and their points are too close for a full-grown tiger or leopard - but (fiction-writer imagination at work) thereās no reason why a special-purpose one couldnāt have been made with realistic separation and correct tooth-spike shape.
The modern era has seen plenty of convenient āaccidentsā and āsuicidesā(what writer Len Deighton calls XPD or Expedient Demise) so how good was Mughal-era CSI?
Or more correctly, when required by Certain Circumstances, how bad did it need to be?
If an Important Person announced: āClearly a tiger did it. How sad. Too bad. Long live the new maharajah, my Dear Little Nephewā, the best way for doubters to maintain good health would be agreementā¦
*****
There was another version which - if the āattacked by a wild beastā excuse was still used - came with a suggestion that tigers in that particular region were getting disturbingly smart. (Though pointing this out may not have been wise, see aboveā¦) :->
These are bichuwa bagh nakh, āscorpion-sting tiger clawsā, the dagger name deriving from its recurved blade shape resembling the business end of a scorpionās tail.
They were sometimes carried in combat, bichuwa bagh nakh in the left hand and a talwar (curved) or khanda (straight) sword in the right.
During close-quarter grappling the claws could rake and the dagger stab, while the finger-rings meant less risk of dropping it.
In the same way that many Indian weapons had ātacticoolā add-ons - miniature pistols, axe-gun combinations, concealed daggers and so on - there were bagh nakh with more than just one extra bladeā¦
ā¦bagh nakh with extra folding blades and a knuckle-guardā¦
ā¦and this articulated contraption which (IMO anyway) was for defence as well as attack.
*****
It was, like the much simpler two-ring-no-blades version, a lot less obvious than the first photo suggestsā¦
ā¦and since many Indian helmets were open-faced while others had face-protection only of mailā¦
ā¦a surprise slap across the face might spoil any warriorās day.
The reason I think it also had a defensive purpose is the fairly thick metal palm and that little spur low down on it, almost certainly meant to stop a palm-blocked blade from sliding any further.
Iām not sure thereās enough articulation for such a blade to be actually gripped tightly, but once trapped between spur and claws it could be twisted aside for long enough that a weapon in the other hand could attend to its wielder.
*****
Yet again: when creating a fantasy weapon for writing or RPG, do a search for whatever you have in mind, because it may well have been made for real a couple of centuries ago by an Indian weaponsmith demonstrating what he could do to advertise his skill, or just making some oddity in steel to see if it was possibleā¦ :->
Fact 1: In most versions of Dungeons & Dragons, when infected ā as opposed to natural-born ā lycanthropes transform under the full moon, they assume the default alignment of their type during the ensuing mindless rampage.
Fact 2: In most versions of Dungeons & Dragons, the default alignment of werebears is Lawful Good.
Conclusion: When an infected werebear transforms under the full moon, they go on a mindless Lawful Good rampage.
The worst part is that when fat people talk about their struggles with fatphobia they're expected to ALWAYS have a disclaimer saying "Body shaming of all kinds is bad uwu even skinny shaming we're all victims of the same caliber of a body shaming society!" Lest they be seen as one of those Mean Fatties who hate skinny people and thus DESERVE to be systemically seen as unhealthy and lazy by society. I shouldn't have to reassure you that, yes, if someone tells you to eat a burger they're being an asshole. because I'm too busy being told I should kill myself for looking like a whale lol
Honestly thereās also the difference that most people that harass skinny people to eat more do it from a place of worry, while most people that harass fat people to lose weight do it from a place of disgust. Neither should be done, but you can feel the difference when you see it (even when the latter also claims itās for health reasons)
post on one of the dev forums for disco elysium, titled "THE BENEFITS OF A MODERN FANTASY WORLD". text version beneath the cut
There's been a lot of art and tech talk so far, it's all kinda dry or saccharine. I think it's time to juice it up by throwing in a proper essay.
THE BENEFITS OF A MODERN FANTASY WORLD
The world of No Truce! (we do have a proper name for it, but weāre shy) is not what youād call āa generic genre worldā. It is not pseudo-medieval stasis, as Forgotten Realms was, nor is it Falloutās campy barbarism with guns. It is also not a Harry Potter/Batman/vampire fantasy world, which is basically āour world with a secret/special world within itā. Neither is it the tech-obsessed āpunksā of steam and cyber. Itās a modern fantasy world, a fantasy world in its modernity, which roughly corresponds to the middle part of our XXth century. Now that kind of thing opens up an array of new possibilities. It is a world with a promise of non-staticness, meaning, things appear undecided ā they could go one way or the other. It is close enough to our own world for things to have meaning in it, it is a proper frame in which to explore themes relevant to our own society such as bigotry, power relations, politics, bureaucratic apparati, geopolitical relations, philosophy, ideology, religion et cetera. A pseudo-medieval world is not a proper frame for truly exploring themes of, for example, sexuality, for it lacks 1) a proper concept of sexuality, 2) an actual idea of societal progress and 3) a clear ideological dominant, which would be the place where values come from. All you can do in a static, societally unstructured world is give out-of-place shoutouts to present day communities for cheap popularity (āthis is exactly my sexual orientation, how did they know?!ā).
We find the ideological dominant missing because the western world is traditionally culturally critical of ideological dominants ā critical of both state and religion. Anyhow, a classic fantasy world would feature two main ideologies ā the āgoodā and the āevilā, of which the former is selfless and compassionate, but the other one is selfish and cruel. The attempts to overcome that have given us the Grittywelt ā a world in which everyone is an asshole and pessimism rules the day. Unsurprisingly, Grittywelt is also static as hell and meaningful change is foreclosed from it. It is a āprotection from false hopesā. As such, it is heavily unrealistic. Much more realistic would be people living in super gritty conditions, but not looking the part, that is, not really noticing the abnormal harshness of their conditions, because they donāt have much to compare them to, and being hopeful towards the next day, because surprise! This is how you do it. Survive, I mean. Being depressed is a luxury. In a way, Iād say weāre trying to create the obverse of the Grittywelt ā a world in which everyone is empathizable, sort of a hero of their own story.
The modern era is also a fitting vessel for anachronisms ā do we not have actual cyborg limbs and donkey-pulled carts operating in the same world at the modern era? Capitalism can also contain little feudalisms in a way, in which a single man or single family controls the entire economy of a town or a village and profits from it. And at the same time, it can also contain little socialist utopias, scientist villages, in which everything is provided by the State. Aside from being a basic feature of reality (anachronism is nothing more than time failing to fit the stereotype about it), it is also a lovable creative tool, allowing for a plethora of what-if-scenarios. Imagine a modern world, only without television; imagine a modern world in which there never was a global war, imagine a world in which fossil fuels are less available. Now, if you will, imagine one which has forgotten its antiquity, and one, in which there is not just water between the continents, but something worse as well ā an anti-reality mass we call āpaleā (also more on that later). Now imagine one, which has a legitimate and operative āreligion of historyā in place, which seeks for people it deems special enough to be the āvessel of progressā. (This is not an alternate history thing, by the way. An alternate history takes place in our world quite recognizably and has no more than one divergence point from history as it happened.)
One might ask, why would we not create an even more modern world, if we wanted to maximise our possibilities? Well one of the answers is that it would have destroyed the necessary element of escapism, another is that we cannot create a good alternate Information Era because we ourselves fail to understand the Information Era (More precicely, we have the information era in its infancy and it works via radio relays). We are too close to it and it is too new to understand it, it is āin progressā. The third reason would be that technology is not a fascinating subject for modern science fiction. Itās become a natural part of our reality. We donāt believe itās going to save us anymore ā it has failed to deliver for too long. I am of the belief that the themes of science fiction today are societal, political and psychological (one could maybe add aesthetical to it, for we also love the world for its beauty). All fantastic or sci-fi elements are means for best exploring those themes.
I have filled my page. Thatās all for the time being. Thank you for reading.
btw Iāve found these stretches from the WAK blog very helpful when knitting a lot:
Plus make sure to take breaks regularly - and stop if anything starts to hurt!
especially with gift knitting I know it can be tempting to push through it for a deadline, but itās really not worth causing long term injury. (And anyone knit-worthy should be understanding of that, imho.) Stay well :)
I have to slow myself down 10 times a day & gently remind myself - you donāt have to change your whole life today, the best way to change your life right now is actually to slow down & accept rest.
I love it when people like/reblog my posts I made in the depths of trauma and depression in winter because it reminds me that I was right about everything. It really worked. I took things slowly & was gentle with myself, felt out my feelings, spent a lot of time alone writing & processing. The days felt so long and the only thing I looked forward to was sleeping but I kept myself going by truly believing that I would make it through, even though I had no idea what was on the other side. Iām thriving physically, mentally, and socially now and I never could have envisioned how expansive and bright my world would become just half a year after everything fell apart. If everything Iām doing now falls apart, it wonāt affect me the same way, because I know I can keep growing & adapting. Just keep going yāall
