@landonhere

I work for a small web and graphic design company. Because of the kinds of questions we get asked all the time, our boss has added some very specific rules and terms on our website and any contracts we use.

Client: “So… about payment, since you’ll be getting so much exposure, I was thinking that the $800 you’re charging should—”

Me: “Have you checked point number five in both our FAQ and contract?”

Client: *Reading aloud* “[Our Company] never has and never will work for ‘exposure’ or use any form of ‘exposure’ as a replacement for payment.”

Me: “Hopefully that answers any form of that question you were about to ask.”

Client: “Okay, but you see, I don’t think you understand that—”

Me: “And if I could refer you to point five-a in both our FAQ and contract?”

Client: *Reading aloud* “No form of negotiation on point five will be tolerated.”

Me: “Hopefully that also answers any form of that question you were about to ask.”

Client: “Cute, but I don’t think you’re really seeing the bigger picture here. If you—”

Me: “Check point five-b, please.”

This time the client reads silently. A moment longer than it should take to read this point passes, before:

Client: *Click*

Point five-b read: “Any continued form of negotiation on point five, after the client has been made aware of point five-a, will result in a 10% increase in the final fee.”

- We Now Have Anti ‘Client From Hell’ Contracts on Not Always Right

CONTEXT: When traveling between star systems in No Man's Sky, you'll occasionally encounter two capital ships in combat. Fighting a pirate dreadnought is no easy task; you have to regularly alternate between destroying shield generators and fuel rods in the dreadnought’s trenches and intercepting anti-freighter torpedoes. And you also have to factor in destroying the dreadnought’s four hyperdrive engines, which it will use to escape if it takes too much damage or the civilian freighter is destroyed. Stalling the dreadnought and forcing it to surrender is enough of a challenge; destroying it before it destroys the civilian freighter is even harder. This is the first time I managed to accomplish the latter!

Me: *silently chanting* “ Man-ny, Man-ny, Man-ny, Man-ny…”

My Dad: “Music or podcast?”

Me: “. . . movie audio stream recording.”

My Dad: “Only you.”

Because cubeupload was giving me trouble with the email verification, I went the alternative route and got an ImgBB account instead. Apologies to Gilbert if he can't see them, but at least I can upload images on-demand and use them here!

I have a problem to report. Cubeupload claims to have sent me two verification emails, yet I have received nothing. Nothing has come in at all; my spam filtering is disabled and I have no other automatic folders. Any ideas?

I prepared this massive manifesto - in a text message - to my dad, to convince him to clear a Vimeo and cubeupload account:

Regarding external website registrations

I'm having second thoughts about your offer for a Vimeo account. Optimizing videos using HandBrake has worked well enough, but a recent upload required me to reduce a video to very low quality and cut off a section at the end to get it under a file size. I also take your argument about having a place to share full-quality videos on-demand.

I'm also looking for an image uploading account. After the Scratch forums underwent some maintenance in which its main-site filter was merged with the forums, my preferred image uploading method - an exploit that allows the project asset uploading systems to be used as an image host - has stopped working. The Scratch forums already have a limited whitelist of usable image hosting websites, so I can't really use anything that doesn't require a registration. Cubeupload ( cubeupload.com ) is one of the few image hosts that remains usable, and I'd like to get an account there.

The second paragraph is a half-truth (I intend to use the cubeupload account for sharing images here, not on Scratch), but as I’ve heard, the best lies and cover stories have some truth to them!

Icelandic Water Dragon: *casually reading an article on No Man's Sky’s lore*

Asteria, the Hero-Traveler

Icelandic Water Dragon: “WHAT THE-”

CONTEXT: I have an original character named Asteria. I made them long before I found out about No Man's Sky (evidence dates back to 2024.1.31.D - Custom Superstructure), and I thought they were entirely original.

https://xkcd.com/780

Every time I've played a recording of Super Battleworn Insomniac in the car, my dad mistook the distraction ringtone for an actual notification. I don't blame him.

https://chiroyce1.github.io/image/?75f364dd488399f18d205942f1730d0b.jpg

I need to get a cubeupload account so I can embed images in posts…

I cannot tell you how many times* I've absentmindedly said “So, where to?” and promptly recited an entire scene from Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Neverbeast. In fact, let me prove my point by reciting the scene from memory, here and now:

So, where to? Anywhere but scout headquarters. Look, if you want me to cover for you, I need to know, what’s the tower for? This won’t be Rhino Bob; great guy who can build dams big enough to store food for three winters . . . And of course marmots build these terrific burrows out of rock piles for hibernation . . . And then you’ve got your northern orioles and those hanging nests of theirs! I mean, talk about amazing!

I’m thinking . . . you’re not storing food. Or preparing for hibernation. Or nesting. Seriously. What’s the tower for?

You don’t have to be so gruff about it.

*gasp* That’s it; Gruff! Yep, that name suits you perfecwOAH!

Guess we’re building another one.

But before we start, I was just thinking; why don’t you enjoy yourself a bit while you work?

Hear me out; no reason I should have all the fun with the pixie dust…

[scene transitions into mostly visual content]

*somewhere in the single digits, but more than two times

If you’re one of the four external parties who receive limited access to my journal, you may have noticed me talking about someone named “Slovsko“. If you noticed that name, it turns out that I was misspelling their name. Their actual name is “Skovsko“.

          Skovsko IL9 | A | 06 | 05 | 04 | 14 | Swift
       Pudozhnyev QB8 | A | 27 | 06 | 06 | 05 | Warlike
The Inflamed Iushimki | C | 03 | 08 | 03 | 21 | Melodious
        Opavlovsk VY4 | C | 12 | 02 | 02 | 01 | Stormy
   The Pained Yondala | C | 03 | 01 | 16 | 02 | Deft

Speaking of, I found some new friends for Skovsko this morning. He’s currently out on assignment and hasn't seen them, but he’ll be back in . . . *counts time on fingers* . . . 8 hours? That can’t be right; it’s been at least four hours since I sent him out. I should hope he gets back before 4pm . . .

ENTRY F - Quirk Improvements

I had a dream that Nihilev had switched back to his original PFP, and made a post saying something along the lines of "find a person, convince them to take you in, pretend to warm up to them, commit war crimes, bite people, steal valuables from your 'owner', and repeat". The monologue was in a code block, and each sentence was in a new line; more like a greentext.

I also dreamed that I was in No Man's Sky, and was on a planet with a tiny black hole in the surface. The planet had the purple atmosphere of a dissonant planet, but the planet on the other side was an idyllic blue-and-green planet, save for a black hole in the sky. There were also lava streams underground on the dissonant planet.

Should I share my dreams here more often?

I’ve broken my silence and started working on a new writing. It involves a pair of researchers investigating a strange mental condition that has taken their test subjects by storm. All they know about it paralyzes the victim by blocking off the brain stem, jams the sensory cortexes with false stimuli, blasts the prefrontal cortex with chaotic signals, and leaves the victim brain-dead. The whole thing seems to be orchestrated by a tiny lobe of unknown function attached to the brain stem. When observed in the wild, this area shows minimal, almost vestigial, amounts of activity, but it regularly flares up when observed in specimens in captivity.

I'm taking one of my regular midday naps. The construction of [^382] was finished three weeks ago, but they hit the ground running. I've been pushing carts with heavy loads down narrow corridors around the clock, only catching my breath at the elevator doors.

You'd think that they would have enough information down at this point to give a firm press report, but even after an entire month of study, anomalies in what we though had been solidly proven information are popping up left and right. One such slideshow was discovered less than a week ago, and has pulled the attention of the entire research staff. It's been infrequent, unpredictable, and quick-acting, so it's been very hard to observe in action.

- The Heart(lessness) Of Scientific Study, 2024.6.13.D

Heheh, I think the entry I just wrote is a serious contender. In the face of the Unsustainability, my entries tend to bounce between ~40 words and 200~ words. With the previous leader at 303 words, let's see the updated top picks . . .

6.12.C   | The Hadal Harvest           | 1,090 words
6.6.C    | Enough Air To Breathe       | 451 words
4.7.F    | Someone Demands Justice...  | 428 words
3.16.C   | No Timeline Too Scattered   | 384 words
5.13.C   | No Man's Sky Day 2, Ses. 5  | 313 words
2.11.A   | No Messengers Left Behind   | 303 words
4.13.D   | The [^382] Iceberg          | 302 words
2.13.D   | Stuck Inside Your Can       | 302 words
2.13.C   | Survival, Answers, And Hope | 287 words
2.7.F    | The Rot Won't Stop          | 274 words
2.5.F    | GT-180 and Artisan          | 245 words
2.12.E   | [name redacted]             | 222 words
2.3.C    | Rain World Day 1, Ses. 1    | 213 words
2.8.E    | Reaching Artistic Horizons  | 212 words
2.12.B   | Spearmaster And The Vittles | 205 words

The Icelandic Waters just got the idea to view a microSD card containing special data using a conventional file viewer. To access it, I had to dig a microSD → SD adapter out of a drawer. And since I couldn't find a typical SD card reader, I’m going to have to use the SD card slot in an old Garmin nüvi GPS. And past that, I'll be using a USB-A → USB-C adapter.

In a nutshell, microSD → SD → nüvi → USB-A → USB-C. That's four adapters in total. I'm sure other people have had to use even longer and more impractical adapter chains, though.