Latest Posts by pikz3l - Page 8
So thankful for a fresh new story. This was great.
Beef (2023) + Ending Episode Needle Drop
I love NaNoWriMo. Been trying since 2008 on and off when time allows. I haven't won it yet but I just enjoy the exercise of writing new characters and settings. Had to get the notebook for the art and for sending some money to a cool organization. I'm debating some new ideas for NNWM this year...
I knew it! The timing of this mess is right on the heels of Musk's disaster plan for Twitter. It was like real life copypasta.
I can't stop rewatching this video. The animation is badass. The story doesn't make that much sense but the sequences are so cool.
This tune really grew on me, after a few years finally seeing the video tonight got me liking it even more. Love the animation in this and it makes me feel so nostalgic.
This is ridiculous. I get that if I were to reverse the concept, create a new file type called .com or .net it'd still be a problem but I'm not so sure the new domains were necessary to the whole of the internet. It just means I'll probably never click on one of those links. Can we have the first go at removing a TLD? Seems to me more dangerous than valuable.
New Things to Beware on the Internet
On May 3rd, Google released 8 new top-level domains (TLDs) -- these are new values like .com, .org, .biz, domain names. These new TLDs were made available for public registration via any domain registrar on May 10th.
Usually, this should be a cool info, move on with your life and largely ignore it moment.
Except a couple of these new domain names are common file type extensions: ".zip" and ".mov".
This means typing out a file name could resolve into a link that takes you to one of these new URLs, whether it's in an email, on your tumblr blog post, a tweet, or in file explorer on your desktop.
What was previously plain text could now resolve as link and go to a malicious website where people are expecting to go to a file and therefore download malware without realizing it.
Folk monitoring these new domain registrations are already seeing some clearly malicious actors registering and setting this up. Some are squatting the domain names trying to point out what a bad idea this was. Some already trying to steal your login in credentials and personal info.
This is what we're seeing only 12 days into the domains being available. Only 5 days being publicly available.
What can you do? For now, be very careful where you type in .zip or .mov, watch what website URLs you're on, don't enable automatic downloads, be very careful when visiting any site on these new domains, and do not type in file names without spaces or other interrupters.
I'm seeing security officers for companies talking about wholesale blocking .zip and .mov domains from within the company's internet, and that's probably wise.
Be cautious out there.
Rediscovering an appreciation for Sam Rockwell and loving this beat.
I am all for taking action in support of repairing climate change, but this is not the way. Action should be taken against the active offenders, big corporate.
Degas is long dead. The collection and museum is part of the Smithsonian which is supported with public funding too. Climate crisis is not a battle in an art gallery, unless it's a piece of artwork that is raising money to enact immediate policies against those climate offenders.
For anyone wanting to contribute to climate action, this just isn't it.
Watch "Star Trek: The Original Series by Balenciaga" on YouTube
This just seems to work so well lol.
This is the fun part of the internet. Fun little moments that connect people.
Watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation by Balenciaga" on YouTube
This is one of my favorite trends right now lol
I had started on Camp NaNoWriMo this month but then it's fizzled. Life just gets in the way sometimes. Also, I'm experimenting with writing my story by hand. I think I picked too big of a notebook because I can't carry it with me. It's discbound but also letter page size. If I was still using a book bag to travel with, maybe not so bad but I don't anymore.
I've been in the mood for something new and it's been a mental debate for me. I don't need these things but I love gadgets. My options that I'm debating:
- freewrite traveler (maybe Alpha because it's cheaper)
- pomera dm250
- just buy a new laptop (current is from 2014)
- use Bluetooth keyboard with my phone
- pick a better sized notebook for story writing
“Many of my movies have strong female leads - brave, self-sufficient girls that don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their heart. They’ll need a friend, or a supporter, but never a saviour. Any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man.” -Hayao Miyazaki
Happy International Women’s Day!
I appreciate this.
I've been taking a look at these writing appliances lately. It's been difficult to justify the prices. At this point, the Freewrite Alpha is on pre-order for $299. I can get the Pomera DM250 for about $325 depending on exchange rate.
And in the essence that in this society I already have an excess of appliances, do I really need another one??
I'll just go back to writing my stories by hand in a notebook while I have decision paralysis on a fancy electronic typewriter.
,](https://64.media.tumblr.com/69a9c2d3b3ae9bdf9cea732c074d6a62/339731a668efe1f2-b1/s500x750/7db107a53e409ebc5e4b5a0e10b57ffcc6a272db.png)
I’m not at all surprised by my disappointment in [**this clumsily executed product reveal**](https://alphasmart.com/reveal/), which to my knowledge, doesn’t even include a video of any kind.
I am however, unexpectedly amused that they would go this far in riding the coat tails of the long-dead Alphasmart product lineage to conceive a new machine for a captive, special interest audience they have already proved they are vividly aware of, and yet, for all that effort, not only continue to alienate that audience, but deny themselves and their business most that the benefits that even attempting an “Alphasmart successor” device could potentially bring them.
Astrohaus accomplishes this, of course, by continuing their enforced fetishization of 20th Century typewriters, as though typewriters were used in the previous century because writers in that age harbored an ideological hostility toward the concept of editing, rather than simply wanting the most efficient mechanical means of writing that the technology of the era would allow for.
If Astrohaus is happy selling ten thousand machines to the Judy Funnies of the world who want a high-end statement piece to signal their affinity with 20th Century writers, rather than selling hundreds of thousands of machines to disabled students desperate to function normally in classrooms and express themselves, and to writers who care more about utility and freedom than having their creative processes dictated to them by a boutique manufacturer of luxury goods, then perhaps they’ll get the returns they are hoping for.
I’m further amused that one of the aspects of the Alphasmart devices Astrohaus decided was important to copy was the lack of a backlit screen.
Back when Astrohaus was attempting to dunk on the continued use of aging Alphasmart devices, and woo Alphasmart users over to the Freewrite by saying something in their copy to the general effect of, “Let’s upgrade you to a proper writing tool.”, at least Astrohaus could boast that their device had a lit screen while the Alphasmart Neo 2 didn’t.
I’d love to know where between the $350 MSRP of the Alpha and the $650 asking price of the standard issue Freewrite does a writer deserve to have a lit screen, but it certainly isn’t at the $500 price point of the Freewrite Traveler.
Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance SP, a children’s toy from twenty years ago, had a backlit screen. It launched at $100 USD ($161 at 2022 currency rates), was considered low end tech even for the time, and was generally used to keep preteen brats quiet in the back seat during trips to the supermarket.
Meanwhile, not only do Astrohaus’s Alpha, at $350, but also the Freewrite Traveler at $500, lack backlit screens, but both of these machines are positioned as high-end, sophisticated creative tools for language artists willing to pay above and beyond to have a Grade A experience for word processing functionality – functionality that is bundled as default with even the most primitive modern device that any writer in the developed world would have needed access to in order to browse and make purchases from the Astrohaus website to begin with.
Writers aren’t outbidding each other to get increasingly old, increasingly expensive, and increasingly coveted decades-old Alphasmart devices, and then doing extensive refurbishment and modification projects on them, in order to remove the arrow keys so they can write while being “freed” from the odious distraction of an easily movable cursor.
Writers are refurbishing and modifying their Alphasmarts in order to add screen lights to them.
For Astrohaus to design a product as a successor to the Alphasmart, and decide to carry forward the old Alphasmart’s lack of a backlight, but remove the Alphasmart’s inclusion of arrow keys, which have been standard on nearly every modern keyboard produced in the last thirty-five years, (other than those designed by Astrohaus) is not merely throwing out the baby and keeping the old bathwater – it’s keeping the old bathwater, bottling it for sale as a luxury item, and then burning down the perfectly intact house the bathwater originated from, with the baby still inside.
Of course, it could be the case that the Alpha by Astrohaus does have a lit screen after all, which would call into question their copy writing ability, and as an extension, their authority to not only produce writing devices, but to dictate to writers what their writing process is supposed to be, in which editing is either explicitly disallowed, or made deliberately as cumbersome as possible in order to discourage it.
I’m fascinated if the rumors that members of the company behind the original Alphasmart devices were consulted, contacted, or hired by Astrohaus in relation to the development of the Alpha are true, and that if they are true, to what extent they were actually listened to – as I’m quite certain if the design philosophy behind the original Alphasmart product line resembled that of Astrohaus, those devices would not have had the success that they did enjoy for a while before they sadly fizzled out.
Many months ago I listened to some bigwig from Astrohaus who’s name I don’t recall being interviewed on a podcast. At one point he said something to the immediate effect of wanting the Freewrite to become a declaration piece that writers would use to signal to peers and clients that they are serious about their craft.
On the other hand, on the online writing community which seems more dedicated than any other that I’m aware of to discussing and displaying purpose-made electronic writing and word processing equipment - which in many cases happens to be rare and expensive - Astrohaus and the Freewrite device family has been the butt of jokes for years, and it seems to be more of a mark of distinction to see how far someone is willing to go to use any possible solution other than a Freewrite, even if it’s literally hacked together with crudely assembled spare parts in someone’s garage.
It’s sad for Astrohaus that the King Jim Pomera DM 100, an out-of-production device more than a decade old, that was created in Japan, and designed chiefly to perform word processing in a language that I can not speak or read, seems set to continue to serve me better as an English-literate written word artist for years to come, than a newly announced machine designed in my own home town of New York City, that hasn’t even hit the market yet.
There’s no way I could be this emotionally involved with this unfolding story without being sure that my paid 1$ pre-order for the Alpha was secured without delay or hesitation.
For me, the $250 pre-shipping is worth the utility of being able to say that I put my own money on the line to give a device in the Freewrite family a fair and extensive trial, and can speak from hundreds of hours of experience in using it. I say this because as much as I vocally criticize and challenge Astrohaus, I have been conscious of the fact I’ve spent years tearing this firm apart without having laid hands on one of their products.
Perhaps writing is believing – my dollar is on the table, with 249 more to follow it, but if the product rollout is as smoothly executed as the botched hype for the reveal of the Alpha’s product page, this may be a long and rocky waiting period.
Though to Astrohaus’s credit, they have actually consistently delivered on past electronics hardware projects geared to niche hobbyist markets, even if delayed; which in a world of Coleco Chameleons, Polymegas, and Intellivision Amicos, is more of a unique and distinctive statement than plopping one of Astrohaus’s deliberately crippled contraptions on the table of a coffee house ever could ever be.
The best part of today’s announcement to me is the fact that Astrohaus either had the restraint not to use the legacy Alphasmart branding for this device (only for the teaser site URL for whatever reason), or felt it as beneath them to actually do so, in spite of the obvious intent to mimic Alphasmart in as many ways as possible, all while maintaining that unique Astrohaus pretentious gimmick charm.
(FYI, I wrote every word this on a NEO 2, LOL.)
Writing by me.
Product photo by Astrohaus.
Art by KeetahSpacecat.
[Twitch] [VOD Channel] [Writing FA] [Ko-fi]
Because it's just nice to have a pick me up every now and then.
I love this movie. A smart dark satire that still works for today.
HEATHERS 1989, dir. Michael Lehmann
Watch "Sailor Moon as an 80's Dark Fantasy Film" on YouTube
The aesthetic came out pretty good for AI generated. Every time I play with midjourney, I'm not getting stuff this realistic looking 😅