2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
d e v o n
#extradirty
Xuebing Du
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Stranger Things
RMH
hello vonnie
NASA
tannertan36
almost home
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ojovivo
KIROKAZE
cherry valley forever
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i don't do bad sauce passes
Monterey Bay Aquarium
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@geehall1
Let’s not forget who else is making his first published appearance in the new Reverie (now on Kickstarter)...yours truly and artist Peter Lawson bring you the awesome origin of...N.E.D. Copyright 2016, 2017. All Rights Reserved.
Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg, and Joe Simon were two Jewish men in a dangerous time who did something extraordinary. They created a true American hero who stood up for the little guy, like them. They created a political statement by putting Captain America on the cover of their comic knocking Hitler out with one good punch. Because the US was not even in the war yet, this led to the two men receiving death threats. Both men served in World War II, fighting against the Nazi regime.
It is so incredibly disrespectful to these two men to write this new story line of Captain America. The writers have already said it isn’t a Skrull, or a LMD, or brainwashing… this is the new direction they are choosing to take the character in. In light of this new development I encourage everyone to remember the men behind the incredible Cap we have had for all these years and to take a stand against the new series. Don’t buy it, don’t reblog it, do not show anything but opposition to it.
And always, Remember Jack Kirby and Joe Simon
Perhaps Marvel writer Nick Spencer needs to go outside America and see some REAL evils, then he might get a better idea of how to write Captain America. #SayNoToHydraCap
Australian Fiction...
Here’s some links where readers can purchase my current body of creative work.
A Question of Theories novel...via Barnes And Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-question-of-theories-george-anthony-hall/1106912476?ean=9781447652656
And:
Bloodgard Origins Mini Comic...via Gumroad
http://www.gumroad.com/geehall1
The novel deals with intelligence-related themes, a cult and a weird love triangle as part of that. Non-superhero and a satire on American movies of the nineties.
The mini comic is a new presentation of my Bloodgard charater as published during the eighties in Reverie, with a bonus unpublished story and a retrospective article on Reverie itself.
“Bloodgard Origins” is now published.
This 16-page mini comic reprints the two-part Bloodgard origin arc from Reverie issues 4 and 5 and contains a never-before-seen Bloodgard episode with artwork by Mark Ryan. There is also an article telling of Reverie’s important contribution to Australia’s comic history.
The mini comic is available on eBay for AUD $6 (plus shipping and handling) and currently for Australian eBayers only. If you are outside Australia, contact me at [email protected] to make arrangements for purchase.
Relive a part of Australia’s comic history in a brand-new format.
Bloodgard and Bloodgard Origins are Copryright © 1984, 1985, 2016 George Anthony Hall. All Rights Reserved
Bloodgard Origins Mini Comic off to be printed
The long-awaited retrospective of the Reverie strip has passed production and is being printed today as a 16-page A5 mini comic.
It features the Bloodgard origin two-parter from Reverie 4 and 5 (1984) and a bonus unpublished episode drawn by Mark Ryan, PLUS has an article on Reverie itself.
The concept has been rebooted and will appear in new stories later on...but in the meantime you can catch up on a moment in Australia’s comic history.
Contact me at [email protected] for more details and for information on how to buy the comic.
NEW MINI COMIC ABOUT TO BE RELEASED
Currently in the production phase...but due to be released within the next week or so.... Copyright © 2016 George Anthony Hall, All Rights Reserved.
Bloodgard Origins The Mini Comic
Here we go...testing of how greyscale works for the mini comic...and seeing how an A5 mini comic would look.
A Bloodgard mini comic is looking that much more possible.
It’s been almost 30 years since the last-published Bloodgard episode in Reverie comics...and although i’m bringing back the second of these characters in a reboot...the original Bloodgard origin is long-overdue to be retold.
My first ever mini comic will re-present the origin story to a whole new generation.
So what else will be appearing in the first mini comic? An unpublished Bloodgard episode originally slated for Reverie 8.
#Reverie #Australiancomics #comics #Aussieheroes #Australia
Supernova Pop Culture Expo 2016 - Melbourne
The last time I ever saw any sort of convention or expo was...let’s see...1983 or 1984, a science fiction one.
So this was, to pardon the pun, a real culture shock seeing Supernova.
Up to the past couple of months, I’ve also been out of the local comic scene almost as long....though the past seven years has been filled with enough Twitter emergency monitoring, what with Black Saturday, the Queensland Floods, Victoria floods and just about anything else that happened in the first quarter of 2011.
Being away from one of my key passions, though? I guess it was long since time to look back to comics and comic creating.
There are some ideas in motion after the Supernova expo...and one of them will to be putting some old Bloodgard material from my Reverie days into some newer form...perhaps a mini-comic.
So this next week or so...I’ll be looking at writing some new editorial material, drawing a new cover...and seeing how I go resetting the old pages down to an A5 or A6 size.
Once I’ve done that side of things...then I’ll see how I go printing off the first run and seeing how I go.
Windows 8.1 Preview; The First Play
Virtualize It
On the second day after the release of Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft made the ISO version available (why they didn’t have it ready on the release day is beyond me to understand). However, this version was the most needed as most of us didn’t want to test it on a mission-critical computer.
Virtualizing the Preview made a lot more sense.
My chosen too for a virtualized Windows 8.1 was Virtualbox. So after downloading the ISO, then the latest Virtualbox for my Mac OS X MacBook, it was off to install the Preview.
The only problem has been that the Guess Additions for Windows 8 doesn’t yet work properly for this preview, so it means your Preview will really only have 1024x768 resolution for this.
Start Your Preview
Well…the Start Button makes a welcome return on the desktop, but really only is there to help hold your hand. It essentially allows you to return to the Start Page rather than doing anything spectacular, though you can change settings via the taskbar to have it instead click out to full apps list instead of the Start Page.
It’s also visible when you click on any Modern Interface app in the bottom-left corner, but instead of the old Page icon, you’ll see the blue of the Start Button.
Closing apps has changed. Swiping down doesn’t necessarily close any app until you keep it in position at the bottom of the swipe a second or two longer (long press in other words). Then it rotates to inactive and switches the app closed entirely.
I’m generally liking the fact it’s a bit more consistent with Windows Phone 8, so although it’s via a landscape switch, seeing a familiar arrow down the bottom is a reminder of the longer apps list in the Phone version of the OS…and that’s exactly how you access your full list of apps. So the old swipe up/down in the Page mode now only allows you to customize that page.
Now, since I’m using the X86 version of Windows 8.1 Preview, there’s no Office apps and hence no new Outlook. The Mail app is the same Hotmail version, though at a glance I can’t see too much difference from the original. It won’t be until I can get the Preview on my Surface tablet that I could check the new Outlook.
Tile Sizes
The new sizes make for a more varied Start Page and it’s good having some of the lesser-used apps shrunk to the small icon size. Also good is being able to have my Weather app icon at the large size and get a full vew of my weather information. This will be the strength of the new sizing, where information you need more fully at a quick glance via live tiles is presented this way.
Browsing and Reading List
Interestingly, adding a new web browser like Firefox and making it the default changes things so that you can only view Internet Explorer on the desktop. This is annoying, as sometimes I’d prefer to use the Modern version.
In the case of the new Reading List app, it’s an absolute necessity.
Yes, the new Reading List app doesn’t even show up in Share options from Charms unless you’re using the Modern App version of IE. I’ve tried using both version and only one will share to Reading list.
So…I think these are two things that should be corrected before final release of 8.1. It’s glaring that Reading List can’t be shared to from the desktop IE.
Summary
Some improvements are cosmetic, some are quite good and practical. it “feels” a lot better than the poin Oh version as it should.
But there’s definitely one or two small things to fix yet.
Now if only I could get it onto my Surface….
Shutterbugging Services And Changing Micro-Blogs
It's an ever-changing landscape in the tech world and what you may like one year could be the next year's shuttered service.
Posterous is one such case.
For a while there it was one of my favorite places for blogging from but is now closed as the team behind it move on to something else.
Then again, there's a few services long since gone from the time I first started on the internet way back in 1996. What remained have now been transformed, such as Hotmail, which now becomes Outlook.com.
Actually, there was a time when Hotmail was the big hotmail service separate from anything Microsoft, then it got bought by the Microsoft crowd and with that came a lot of spam.
I don't think I remember getting much spam in the pre-Microsoft sale version of Hotmail.
Still, it too sails into the sunset.
So what happens when Yahoo buys Tumblr? Will it be autonomous of other Yahoo properties? Will it stay as a name for at least a few years? Will the character of Tumlr be changed by being part of the broader Yahoo portfolio?
Everyone's wondering that.
I really do hope Yahoo handles this well and enables Tumblr to shine and improve...and with it drag Yahoo into a greater resurgence.
Still, there's a reason I tend to stick to the bigger platforms and services now (Twitter, Facebook and Google+) as they're less likely to be bought out or shuttered when I least want them to be.
When I started in social media four years ago, there were some great services, but some have become irrelevant, some have been bought out, a few shuttered, and there was so many of them that it was hard to find time to update on the smaller ones.
Then again, someone might surprise me a year or so down the track and perhaps even buy out Facebook.
Wouldn't THAT be interesting?
planforemergency.com
Not that long ago television and radio played a crucial role in keeping the public safe. During natural disasters the mainstream news was where we turned for the dissemination of criti …
Clearly agree with this article after seeing the Tweet stream for tornadoes today and last week, The Twitter coverage was detailed, up-to-the-minute and well ahead of broadcasters like CNN. There are numerous trusted sources on Twitter, from weather channels to local news services near affected areas, to storm-chasers and others. These sources have really made a difference to how quickly alerts come through.
Video of car knocked into Fort Lauderdale's Ocean Mile Inn pool news.com.au
Parked car flies into pool
Surveillance video from the Ocean Inn in Fort Lauderdale, Florida captures the moment a car hit a parked vehicle, sending it into the pool.
WHEN you park your car in a …
Ah, the amazing things you find in your swimming pool...
Yes I am gloating since I actually got my hands on a 128 GB version the day it was released. Actually, I’ll be honest – hubby and I were greedy and got two. In today’s world of technology sharing has nothing to do with caring. And no I am not at all guilty knowing there is a shortage.
Reblogging a Tumblr post by the person mentioned below.
My own Surface is the RT model...but it's interesting to read the experiences of others who are using the Intel processor Surface Pro...
A Night Ten Years Ago...
On the tenth anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers, some reflections.
I was up late on that fateful night, looking at something on the internet when a friend of mine rang and told me to turn on the TV. He also mentioned someone had attacked the Pentagon. I asked him if he were joking, but he assured me he wasn't.
However, the sight that greeted me when I switched on my TV set was not of Washington, but New York. One plane already having hit one of the towers and if I remember, the second was also on fire.
Unlike most people in the West, I had come across terrorism on a two-year trip to Israel, in the form of a Hamas man who ran an Old City of Jerusalem hostel just in from Damascus Gate. Probably my worst experience for eighteen months of that same trip. One I survived, thankfully, even though being one of a couple of people that hostel manager didn't like.
I'd often tried explaining the concept to friends when I came back to Australia. Most couldn't relate to it at all, because it was something outside their experience. Yet, for Israelis, it was something they had to deal with every day.
On September 11, 2001 (actually the 12th in Australian time), one or two of the friends I'd talked of my experience to finally understood as they themselves watched what happened in New York and Washington.
On that day, nobody knew exactly what the next ten years would be like. All we knew was that the world had just changed as terrorism came to the West.
One thing from that time stands out to me, the sacrifice of the passengers of Flight 93. Because of my own experience with my pet problem on my Israel trip, these were the people I most related to. I understood their thoughts and their choice. All too intimately.
When you face terrorism, you can do one of two things. You can just sit there and let it do worse things...or you can take a stand. For some, that works and one survives. For others, it works only by a sacrifice like Flight 93's, which prevented any further major losses of life.
Flight 93's passengers prevented their hijackers from hitting any more buildings. They prevented any more deaths than the 3000+ that had already happened. The sacrifice took a couple of hundred lives, but saved probably a few thousand more.
Appeasing terrorists is unfortunately like appeasing the high school bully. Until you stand, and stand well, they'll just keep walking all over you.
Perhaps that's a lesson the Israelis understand more than the West does some days.
I read today of something deeply embedded in the Israeli Defence Force's Code of Ethics, the idea that at all cost, harm to civilians should be minimized at all costs. If it can't be avoided altogether, to be minized as much as humanly possible.
Terrorists don't have such a code of ethics. They will always target civilians. As they did ten years ago.
Lest we forget, as we commemorate the loss of innocent life on that sad day ten years ago.
Lions and Pluses...
This past month has seen the arrival of OSX 10.7 Lion and Google's social layer, Google+...enough to keep a die-hard tech fan amused.
Interestingly enough, I'm writing this post on a Parallels version of Windows 7 on my Macbook. It's been quite a few months since I last used Windows and I had to reinstall it after the virtual drive screwed up. Yes, it happens even with virtual disks.
On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago I installed the latest OSX version to my Mac as an in-place install. Now there's a different way of installing...
OSX 10.7 Lion was available in the Mac App Store and was a change from having to install from CD/DVD. I installed over my Snow Leopard and found my Macbook still working after it. I'm pleased to say I like the Lion.
Launchpad is something I haven't used much, although it's been nice organising my apps in a nearly-identical way to my iPad apps. I tend to use Mission Control more at the moment, with a simple multiple-fingered swipe up to activate it and see the desktops I'm using.
Since my Macbook has a trackpad built-in, I get the full Lion touch experience, though it took me a few hours to get used to swiping on the trackpad in the same way I did my iPad. Different...but nothing major to overcome.
Full page Mac apps? Well, full-page is a nice way to view Google+.
After some of Google's other attempts at social, Google+ is the one that demonstrates how well Google has learnt from its previous social experiments. This is not Wave, this is not Buzz. What it is turns out to be something that takes a bit of Twitter with a bit of Facebook and makes something refreshingly different.
Google+ Circles enable you to post either to one circle of friends, multiple circle of friends, or just to one person in any one of them. As long as you've got all the people you know in the appropriate Circle, you can pretty much post different things to family, different things to friends and animated cat GIFs to just about anyone.
Yeah...those animated cat GIFs. They've found a new home on G+.
Then there's the Sparks feature. You can pick a topic and have a list of articles for that subject show up in your Sparks. It's not exactly the full Google search, but until Google's private field test of G+ integrates more real search and Buzz posts or Google Reader shares, it's workable. It still alllows you to have in-service access to the latest news on the web.
I tend to use Sparks for seeing what's happening in the Batman and comics world...
What I'm really enjoying in Google+ is discussion in threads and the fact a post there doesn't have a 140-character limit, or anything like Facebook's 400 and a bit limit.
Will Google+ replace my blog here? Dunno yet. On the other hand, it's now one of my top three main social media services, very quickly.
Twenty million other people in the same four-week period seem to agree.
Red Zones, Green Zones, White Zones...
It's been two weeks since Christchurch experienced its second 6+ magnitude quake this year. For the second time in less than six months a big quake has unsettled routine. This time with only one fatality and no one missing.
I was looking at the #eqnz hashtag moments before it hit, having just retweeted news of the two aftershocks prior to it. To watch the stream in real-time as it happened was a different experience, since most emergencies this year I've only heard about hours later.
On my Springpad collation notebooks it rated a separate notebook from the situation earlier this year and quickly filled with news items, videos and photos in addition to resources links. However, after the first week I tweeted less of links to the photos and videos and more to the resources.
The Kiwis are pretty much over the whole thing, even as they sit through the mess and still crack jokes. It's tiring. Exhausting. So there comes a point where it's not good to continually emphasise what they already see every day when they walk past streets still filled with liquefaction, or past demolished or damaged buildings.
Late this past week, the NZ Government finally announced what they'll be doing to help their Christchurch citizens. The best description of that is here.
Mid-week, though, we had a debate on Twitter about how that affected those without insurance in the worst-affected zones. It was kind of sad to see people with insurance not particularly being concerned that those unable to insure might come out worse off, even after all the Christchurchers are almost equally affected by the quake damage.
By end of week, though, reports came in via Twitter that a number of insurance companies in NZ are finding loopholes in their policies to avoid paying out much, if any.
If that's the case, then even the insured now find themselves almost as bad of as uninsured homeowners.
It's for the New Zealand people, especially the Christchurch people to now work out amongst themselves and with their government.
I think there'll still be some debate over it in the months to come.
