Stay Alive Not Because Your Mother Will Never Stop Crying But Because You Can Look Up At The Sky On A

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The one where they think they’re teaching Keith how to walk but it turns out he can already do that and would just prefer to hug Thace instead.  // Commissioned by Eyeslikestarsss on twitter! 

little goals for the new year

“one day or day one?” start learning a new language and try to stick with it. better to do less regularly than big study sessions once per week! 

buy yourself an art notebook and fill it during the year with doodles and drawings

meet with old friends and acquaintances who might become friends

keep a journal and regularly write about your day

appreciate the little things in life: the snow lying outside, the scent of flowers, the little smiles on people’s faces

make it a habit to start your assignment as soon as you get it; it saves you from so much stress!!

more cozy study dates in cafes

don’t buy too many books while still having to read all the ones you bought last time, otherwise, you’ll be overwhelmed soon enough

reach out to people online and make more friends, a lot of people on here are extremely nice and welcoming!!

look at the sky more often

don’t dwell on the past too much, what’s done is done, try to grow from it

buy more little things that make you happy, such as candles, bath bombs or stationery

go for a walk at least once a week, especially if you live in the city

accept that it’s okay to ask for help, in school and in personal matters!!

Saw this somewhere else and felt the need to post it cause no one else ever really tells you this stuff

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

Hey friends!

Sorry for the late TUTOR TUESDAY, but here it is! Today is on clothing folds and was a recommendation from @kitemist, thanks! If you have any recommendations you’d like to see send ‘em in here or my personal! Hopefully I can expand on clothes more soon! Keep practicing, have fun, and I’ll see you next week!

My deaf spiderwoman OC, Marisol 🕷

Miles knows ASL and even tho it's the Insomniac version of him Imma headcanon all versions of Miles know ASL because that cool asf!

Marisol communicates solely in ASL. She's Italian-American and LOVES pastels and hearts.

In deaf culture they use light to alert and get others attention so I wanted to incorporate light into her fighting style. She uses flash bombs and the main part of her suit, which is based off of the Mirror Spider's reflective back, can blind temporarily enemies. The eyes of her suit allow her to see in the intense light and are very expressive (an important part of signing).

She's not fully flushed out yet and this is only the 2nd iteration of her design so she will definitely change in the future. But for now I want to figure out what her face looks like and draw her with clothes over her suit because she does so all the time.

SHOUT OUT TO MY WRITER HOMIES WITH MUSLIM OCS/CHARACTERS;

1. WEARING A SHAWL TO BATTLE IS THE EQUIVALENT OF HAVING GIRLS FIGHT IN STILLETTOS. 

Just so you know, this is what I’m talking about;

-Is it bad-ass? Abso-fucking-lutely. Is it Practical? Not a chance in hell. Especially not if it’s silk. If it’s cotton, you are skating on thin fucking ice. That bitch will NOT stay on. It barely stays on with me just walking down the street to Walmart. Wielding axes and rifles and swords and daggers? I PROMISE you it will not do the job it’s expected to-WHICH IS TO COVER THE HAIR. (Some muslim girls dont wear them-and that’s fine. But those who DO do it to completely cover the hair in public. Is it ~Aesthetic~ to see the flyaway hairs in battle? Sure, but those aren’t usually practical either. )Consider instead; 

sport shawls 

-For one thing, it’s actually DESIGNED to be worn to atheletic activities. Archers tuck hems into the collar of their shirts so they don’t get in the way, and track runners pins (ill get to this bit later) them down into the shirts to prevent flyaway bits and to stop them from getting slapped in the face. It’s breathable, stretchy, presentable without being attention seeking. 

Bawals 

In a pinch, bawals work just as well-as long as you specify that they are COTTON. Unlike the shawl, which are rectangular, bawals are SQUARE, and thus easier to manipulate, fold and pin down. If you wear it right, they carry an equal aesthetic value to shawls, and come in plenty of pretty patterns as well. 

2. I’m not sure about the USA, but the girls I know wear this underneath the headscarf;

Does it kinda look like a beanie? It sort of works like a beanie too. Hair is slippery. It tucks in any extra hair you might miss just by wearing the headscarf, its harder to pull down and on the event the shawl DOES fall down, your hair is still not exposed. It protects the ears-which is important even on a daily basis, because pins, headphones and any other headgear that might pinch them. It comes in plenty of designs, including ones that has open backs to allow long hair and ponytails. 

3.SPEAKING OF PINS; I’M TALKING ABOUT THESE BAD BOYS;

BROOCHES 

though , i suppose most of y’all are most familiar with safety pins, right?

what’s the difference? Well, if your oc/character is an athlete, it’s actually LEAST likely they’ll be wearing SAFETY PINS. They’re cheap and super easy to buy in bulk, true, but they also SUPER easy to wear out even with the smallest amount of strenuous activity. Between the three of ‘em, I’d put the brooches as the best option to wear in battle because 1) it has a large surface area, thus hurts less when pressed on with heavy items, which includes bag straps and weapons, (pins are sharp and can poke you painfully);  and 2) more secure-the latch is covered by the gaudy jewellery above, and theyre usually smaller and tighter. Stays on the stubbornnest, even when headscarf is pulled. very roughly. I’m saying that even the cheapest brooches will allow the shawl to be ripped apart before even letting it go. 

3. They probably ponytail their hair. Because Come On, guys.

Anyway it’s been bothering me and I just thought if yall could bother knowing the difference between skin tones for POC you could bother with muslim practicalities too. Or something 

waiting for people to realize that things like matching idles (kavehtham, eimiko), mirroring (kavehtham, wriolette) and complimentary colors (clorivia, aventio, renheng) are important for establishing a connection between two characters especially when it's a wlw or mlm pairing

you can't rely on implications alone to establish a connection between two characters

things like mirroring and complimentary colors are used to show they match/mirror and compliment each other

I think those things are just as important as implications and shouldn't be dismissed because it shows the characters are connected to each other even in something as simple as their designs

A friendship between a time traveler and an immortal. Wherever the time traveler ends up, the immortal is there to catch him up to speed.