Features on WordPress to Effectively Manage Your Content and Boost Quality

What are the cool features on WordPress to manage content effectively? WordPress remains the most widely used and effective content management tool out there today. It powers almost half of the web or any online content ranging from websites to blogs. WordPress can be described as the building block for a host of online content you see today. Simplicity and flexibility are the two keywords that…

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"how do I keep my art from being scraped for AI from now on?"

if you post images online, there's no 100% guaranteed way to prevent this, and you can probably assume that there's no need to remove/edit existing content. you might contest this as a matter of data privacy and workers' rights, but you might also be looking for smaller, more immediate actions to take.

...so I made this list! I can't vouch for the effectiveness of all of these, but I wanted to compile as many options as possible so you can decide what's best for you.

Discouraging data scraping and "opting out"

robots.txt - This is a file placed in a website's home directory to "ask" web crawlers not to access certain parts of a site. If you have your own website, you can edit this yourself, or you can check which crawlers a site disallows by adding /robots.txt at the end of the URL. This article has instructions for blocking some bots that scrape data for AI.

HTML metadata - DeviantArt (i know) has proposed the "noai" and "noimageai" meta tags for opting images out of machine learning datasets, while Mojeek proposed "noml". To use all three, you'd put the following in your webpages' headers:

<meta name="robots" content="noai, noimageai, noml">

Have I Been Trained? - A tool by Spawning to search for images in the LAION-5B and LAION-400M datasets and opt your images and web domain out of future model training. Spawning claims that Stability AI and Hugging Face have agreed to respect these opt-outs. Try searching for usernames!

Kudurru - A tool by Spawning (currently a Wordpress plugin) in closed beta that purportedly blocks/redirects AI scrapers from your website. I don't know much about how this one works.

ai.txt - Similar to robots.txt. A new type of permissions file for AI training proposed by Spawning.

ArtShield Watermarker - Web-based tool to add Stable Diffusion's "invisible watermark" to images, which may cause an image to be recognized as AI-generated and excluded from data scraping and/or model training. Source available on GitHub. Doesn't seem to have updated/posted on social media since last year.

Image processing... things

these are popular now, but there seems to be some confusion regarding the goal of these tools; these aren't meant to "kill" AI art, and they won't affect existing models. they won't magically guarantee full protection, so you probably shouldn't loudly announce that you're using them to try to bait AI users into responding

Glaze - UChicago's tool to add "adversarial noise" to art to disrupt style mimicry. Devs recommend glazing pictures last. Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

WebGlaze - Free browser-based Glaze service for those who can't run Glaze locally. Request an invite by following their instructions.

Mist - Another adversarial noise tool, by Psyker Group. Runs on Windows and Linux (Nvidia GPU required) or on web with a Google Colab Notebook.

Nightshade - UChicago's tool to distort AI's recognition of features and "poison" datasets, with the goal of making it inconvenient to use images scraped without consent. The guide recommends that you do not disclose whether your art is nightshaded. Nightshade chooses a tag that's relevant to your image. You should use this word in the image's caption/alt text when you post the image online. This means the alt text will accurately describe what's in the image-- there is no reason to ever write false/mismatched alt text!!! Runs on Windows and Mac (Nvidia GPU required)

Sanative AI - Web-based "anti-AI watermark"-- maybe comparable to Glaze and Mist. I can't find much about this one except that they won a "Responsible AI Challenge" hosted by Mozilla last year.

Just Add A Regular Watermark - It doesn't take a lot of processing power to add a watermark, so why not? Try adding complexities like warping, changes in color/opacity, and blurring to make it more annoying for an AI (or human) to remove. You could even try testing your watermark against an AI watermark remover. (the privacy policy claims that they don't keep or otherwise use your images, but use your own judgment)

given that energy consumption was the focus of some AI art criticism, I'm not sure if the benefits of these GPU-intensive tools outweigh the cost, and I'd like to know more about that. in any case, I thought that people writing alt text/image descriptions more often would've been a neat side effect of Nightshade being used, so I hope to see more of that in the future, at least!

worm sounds fascinating, how do I get started reading it? would you recommend starting from the beginning?

(Here we go)

So, first off, the specific questions you asked indicate that I should probably clarify the following: Worm is a single self-contained novel by Canadian author John McCrae (Pen name Wildbow). The book was written and published online for free on Wordpress, at a rate of two-to-three chapters a week, over the course of two years between 2011 and 2013. It's useful to conceive of it as a book written under the same paradigm as a particularly-faithfully-attended-to webcomic, except (and very unusually for a superhero thing) it's entirely prose with no visual elements. All of this is a longwinded way of answering your second question; yes, you should absolutely read it from the beginning, and the beginning is here. The entire book is available online, for free.

(In case that you haven't been able to pull together a broad sense of what the book is about just from perusing my Tumblr, I wrote a broad pitch for the setting at large and the story of Worm specifically here. The gist is that it’s a reconstructive superhero setting where superpowers are ironically tied into the user’s moment of greatest rock-bottom trauma, which is a major explanatory factor in why there are so many unstable kooks in costumes taking out their frustrations on the world; Worm proper follows the upwards-and-downwards trajectory of one Taylor Hebert, a teenaged insect-controller and would-be superhero with the secondary superpower of being able to rationalize nearly anything she does as being in the service of some greater good.)

Worm is divided into 31 arcs; each arc is comprised of 6-to-10 chapters, told in first person from Taylor’s perspective, followed by an interlude chapter told in third-person from the perspective of a member of the supporting cast. This structure is partly a holdover from early in Worm’s development, when the book was conceived as an ensemble piece that would rotate perspectives between different cape teams; as the book picked up steam, it also became a monetization vector, as Wildbow would write additional interludes if his donors hit certain milestones. This is important to note because one failure mode I’ve seen for reading Worm is that people will assume they can safely skip something called a “donation interlude” without missing anything important. You can’t. From a thematic perspective, the interludes are a major method by which the narrative keeps the protagonist honest, as they provide a sane or at least differently-insane perspective on the situation at hand, or on whatever over-the-top bullshit Taylor has pulled recently. From a craft perspective, the interludes are some of the best and most memorable writing in the book, at least in part due to the novelty of each character’s perspective.  From a story perspective, Wildbow was very diligent about making sure that most or all of the interludes introduced information or set up future events in a way that, if worst came to worst, he could incorporate into a regular chapter if the goal wasn’t met. But he did meet those donation milestones, meaning a lot of the book isn’t gonna make sense if you don’t read the interludes. Read the interludes.

You may have caught on to that “31 arcs with 5-10 chapters an arc” factoid and done some quick napkin math. Worm is long. Very Very Long. To my knowledge, Wildbow didn’t miss an update once, and 10,000 words every three days is considered a middle-of-the-road output for him. The effect of his truly insane production rate is twofold. First, the quality of Worm’s prose increases exponentially over the course of the book, going from workmanlike to amazing as a result of the sheer volume of practice he was getting. The second effect is that it’s 1.7 million words long. There’s a piece of apocrypha about how a mail-order copy of Stephen King’s It fell through a mailslot and pulverized the recipients chihuahua. Top researchers hypothesize that a printed edition of Worm could plausibly achieve similar results with a mastiff. This is mitigated by the pageless online format that lets you consume vast quantities of text without noticing the volume of what you’ve read; kinda similar to the infinite canvas trick that make some webcomics unprintable, or the infinite scroll UI trick if it were used for good instead of evil. But the gist is that Worm is very Long, and it’s also essentially a rough draft. Your enjoyment therefore might be contingent on your willingness to extend it a mulligan based on the absurd circumstances under which it was produced.

The very first chapter of Worm has the following disclaimer; Brief note from the author:  This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers.  Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. Some people interpret this as glib or dismissive on the part of the author; I think what’s closer to true is that he was just saving time, because the alternative would be most of the first chapter just being a ten-thousand-word long list of specifics. I can’t think of a single common trigger warning that isn’t applicable to Worm. Name a fucked-up thing, and it’s in there somewhere. Special mentions going to Bug Stuff (duh), dismemberment, torture, child abuse, incest, implied (and some offscreen) sexual assault, Nazis, animal death, and horrifically fleshed-out descriptions of bullying and institutional apathy, which are heavily influenced by the author’s own experience as a disabled student in public school. Reader Beware.

And, on a related note, the book was pretty clearly trying to be progressive.... by 2011 standards, which means you’re gonna be sucking air in through your teeth at points vis a vis representational issues, if that’s a big sticking point. It would be disingenuous for me to frame this as something that meaningfully detracted from my own reading experience, but it would be equally disingenuous to act like it doesn’t bother anyone deeply, and for valid reasons. To hone in on the queer rep angle specifically, picture the discourse if Ianthe was the only canon-lesbian character with any focus in TLT and you’re getting close to the situation on that front.

Wildbow (AKA Writers Georg, who should not have been counted) continued to maintain the two-chapter-a-week production rate to this day. His other works include: 

Pact (2014-2015) and Pale (2020-present) which are Urban fantasy works set in a universe colloquially known as the Otherverse, a setting in which essentially all magic is fueled by bullshitting the universe so hard that your chosen magical tradition is incorporated into reality as Something That Is Allowed; a major downstream result of this is that the sheer weight of precedent means that no magical practitioner is allowed to explicitly lie, on pain of the universe revoking their magical ability if they’re called out on it. Pact follows the misadventures of Blake Thorburn, a jaded 20-something who gets a target painted on his back after his grandmother- a widely feared diabolist- kicks the bucket and wills him her potentially apocalyptic cache of demonic texts as part of a complicated post-mortem gambit. Pale is a murder mystery/coming of age story. Set in Kennet, a small Canadian town with a subculture of unorthodox magical creatures who’ve managed to avoid being subordinated by more powerful human practitioners, the story follows a trio of pre-teen witches who’re hurriedly brought into the magical fold and tasked with trying to solve the murder of an extremely powerful magical being whose residence in the area was a major warding factor against magicians moving in and trying to bind the locals. 

Twig (2017-2018), a biopunk alternate-history coming-of-age novel set in a universe where, instead of writing Frankenstein, Mary Shelley actually figured out how to reanimate the dead; this kicked off a necroengineering/bioengineering revolution that leads to Britain conquering much of the world by the 1920s, lording over their holdings with everything from Kaiju to designer plagues, with a Royal Family that’s been modified into undying, post-human atrocities who treat their subjects as playthings as best. The protagonists are The Lambs, a group of heavily augmented child-soldiers used by The Crown’s science division as an investigation and infiltration unit; picture here The Hardy Boys or Scooby Doo if every case they were sent out on was in service of Ingsoc.  Alternatively, think of Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy with the same aesthetic sensibilities, but paired with the balls to portray British Imperialism as backed by genetic engineering as something apocalyptically horrifying rather than as forbidden-love fuel.

Ward (2018-2020) is the sequel to Worm, set in the parahumans universe two years after the end of the first book. Basically impossible to describe in any additional detail without massive spoilers; suffice to say that it was contentious. I liked it personally, and I maintain that it’s main error was not having the same ten years of Pre-writing that Worm got. Other works in the same universe as Worm include PHO Sundays, which were RP threads that Wildbow ran weekly on the official subreddit in which he would post a fictitious forum thread from within the setting’s cape enthusiast forums, PRT Quest, which was a semi-canon Play-by-Vote quest on the Spacebattles Forums, and Weaverdice, which is an ongoing WIP TTRPG for the parahumans universe that he works on in his spare time, and for which he’s written a lot of fleshed out faction documents and character profiles.

There’s probably some level of broad fandom analysis it’d be useful to impart here; one interesting bit of fandom lore is that, by virtue of being a superhero setting that made some effort to be internally coherent, the series received a big bump from the Rationalist community, who you may or may not have run into on here. The series was also a big hit with battle boarders, who-would-winners, and that whole corner of nerddom, since the power system is so well-defined and well-articulated; a consequence of this is that a major Worm fandom Locus is the wargaming-site spacebattles, which was hit with such an ongoing deluge of Worm Fanfiction that they have a designated Worm section on the creative writing board, something no other fandom necessitated. Both of those things have affected the shape of the fandom and the fanfiction scene in ways that I don’t feel qualified to comment extensively on this late in the evening, but it’s a fascinating little abyss to have a staring contest with. At any rate, I’d genuinely would recommend the subreddit for the OC threads, worldbuilding idea threads, and stuff of that nature, the Cauldron discord if you’re into fanfiction, and Tumblr if you’re into rambling character analysis. I would recommend none of these things before you’re actually done with the book.

That’s all I’ve got for the moment. Hope you enjoy the book. Or shun the book, if my sundry disclaimers generated a sort of warding effect. I hope you have a contextually appropriate interaction with the book.

Being Plural IRL: Telling People, Living Your Lives, & Other Tips.

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We have been living as a system for 10 years now, and it's one of the first things new people notice about us when meeting us. We've had people tell us they could 'just tell' we were plural before we had ever brought it up. For years we kept it a secret, acting as though other people wouldn't notice, or would always have a bad reaction, but sometime ago, sometimes all it takes is providing that person with exposure to plurality that helps them understand that it is a real phenomenon.

There will always be people who don't believe in plurality, and people who believe only those with disordered plurality can be plural. This is a constant, but there's also a wide variety of people in between with a mixture of reactions, most of which involve acceptance. Even if someone doesn't understand the concept, I've found it's more common that someone will play along and try to grasp on to it as you give them more information.

If someone doesn't have an IRL reference, it can be hard for them to digest that something is real. I think people think that even systems on YouTube, TikTok, twitter, and so on are faking because there's a level of disconnect, not because they 100% genuinely believe that plurality is false. I really think it is the disconnect from the experience that causes most people to have such repulsion and negative opinions.

Stay casual, avoid using medical terms & overly clinical definitions and terms your first few conversations when bringing up plurality to someone who doesn't know anything about it. The best way I've found to bring it up to people in a way that helps them believe what you are saying, is to be casual, but informative, and say something to the effect of "Oh, I look and sound different today because you are talking to a different person who lives in this body. There are others in here and this will happen sometimes, nice to meet you," or "You met [headmate] last time, I'm [name], several people live in this body." Something like that. Confidence is key, the more assertive you are with your language, the more it becomes apparent you are serious.

Avoid dumping on people with very specific and in depth system terms (protector, host, little, switching, co-fronting, etc.) right away, and it's especially best if you don't go into origin labels or "types" of systems unless that person specifically asks what you think caused your system, or what causes some people to be plural. Unless someone asks, the origin story really isn't worth it and I've found that adds a layer of confusion for some singlets, because they weren't thinking super hard about it to begin with, but now the concept has become way more complicated and confusing.

Honestly the best way to approach it naturally is to just mention the names, pronouns, identities, accents, voices, and styles of dress of any headmates they may commonly see. Give them indicators as to who they can potentially look out for. It's alright if you are plural and don't know your system very well, you can tell people you're still getting to know them, or that you personally struggle with communicating with the others, but they will get to meet them. You don't have to make it super complicated and you don't have to come up with information if you don't have any. If people ask how many of you there are and you don't know, it's okay to say you don't know. We personally don't find that question helpful and try to avoid answering it because we literally just don't know.

Be patient with people who are just finding out about plurality, they are not going to know how to keep up with switches right away, especially if your system is quite large. They will get confused, not notice switches, not be able to identify folks at first and that's okay. Especially if you are a covert system it can be hard at times, be patient and willing to work with people, especially if you are literally the first plural person they have ever met.

Living your own lives can be tricky- it can require a little extra income at times to do certain things, such as expanding your wardrobe to include outfits and accessories for others, but it doesn't have to get outlandish. Many headmates in a system find they have different styles of dress and fashion. That is a perfect way to get people to be able to recognize who is out is to allow that system member to dress in a way that makes them feel safe, comfortable, and like themselves. You don' thave to buy entire new outfits if you are very poor, you can often times make accessories or have small indicators like pins or bracelets that help show who is out.

Having different places that you frequent for different headmates helps a lot. Introducing yourself as different people in different places can often times be a good way to test how you feel about your own plurality, as well as a really cool way to feel more accepted and like yourselves. These two places can be completely unrelated, so these people who know you by another name may never know your host's or body's name, and may never know otherwise. It's a very cool way to get yourself used to introducing yourselves as different people.

Having different social groups, groups of friends, social media pages, chat groups/servers, etc. who know you by your different headmates' names can also help a lot as well. Sometimes, system members want their own friends independent of the rest of the system. Sometimes, a headmate needs to be themselves and feel like they are a person in control of a body for some time. It's okay to foster an environment where everyone can feel like an individual. You can use apps like Simply Plural to help organize your system, and you can create different pages on social media sites, different tumblr blogs, pinterest pages, join different Discord servers, Facebook groups, and so on.

Allowing different headmates to engage in different hobbies, if they have differing hobbies, is also very crucial. Even one small activity like allowing one system member to journal for a bit a day, or letting someone work out at the gym, or watch movies, or whatever it may be can help someone feel a lot more like themselves. Even if the rest of your system doesn't care for it, if you can allow that one person to do it for a bit, it can help tremendously.

Doing activities with each other when possible is also very crucial. Watching shows, playing games, eating, going on walks, and even dates together can be very healthy activities that can help your system grow, flourish, and understand who they are. You are absolutely allowed to socialize with your other selves and use that as an opportunity to find out what makes each of you yourselves, if that is something you are capable of doing, or, would like to work toward. Acknowledgement from another system member goes a long way, and socializing with one another helps strengthen your internal views of one another.

Learning your different system members' favorite foods, perfumes, scents, toys, games, etc. and surprising them with little gifts, and letting others know that they enjoy being surprised with small things (like sweets for example) can also help. Positive triggers are a big part of the experience- triggers do not have to be negative all the time, they can be positive and even neutral. Discovering what things trigger you to front can be beneficial, as you can learn how to pull people out when needed or just wanted, especially if that person has expressed desire about fronting for long periods of time, but struggles to do so.

Not every single person in your system has to have a different voice, style of dress or presentation, or "feel" completely different. It's okay if you all have to introduce yourselves. It's okay if you have to remind people who's fronting. Many systems have members that look and sound very similar, and may even be very similar if not versions of the same person. That's alright, too. You still deserve to be acknowledged for being separate people.

I hope this helps some folks approach the concept of telling IRL strangers and friends that you are plural. It's frightening at first but I've found that if you keep it simple and express it in a way that's natural for you, instead of trying to adhere to a dictionary definition, you will find some more success. Of course, if someone reacts negatively, there's a chance you may not be able to get them to see your way, but it's better to figure that out for sure. That doesn't mean you have to stop living as a plural.

Johnny

Let's put this to bed:

For some reason, there's a rumor going around online that the suit from Godzilla (1984) was stolen and to this day, nobody knows what happened to it. I don't know how this started or where it came from, but it's wholly untrue. Firstly, there were two Godzilla suits made for the film. One for the main shooting, the other for "stunts" and water scenes and such. One of these suits was taken by Teruyoshi Nakano to North Korea and transformed into Pulgasari for Kenpachiro Satsuma to act in again. How it started: https://becominggodzilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Return_1984_Screenshot_03.jpg How it ended: https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/pulgasari-span.jpg The other suit was at some point sent to America to do a publicity tour for the release of Godzilla 1985. Svengoolie (then, "Son of Svengoolie") even did a show back then with the suit on hand! https://64.media.tumblr.com/c8236ab23914497cf118f8eb312ba504/6bbc7811252ac46b-d8/s1280x1920/e1b8d137ed6755413b7a76d05aefa093fcdc87a0.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/f3e50da5f2a184a518b76946f6d460dc/6bbc7811252ac46b-3c/s1280x1920/c5cef9f0d70d59675b6304020fdad67675e7b2e8.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/fd9a7a33db0b3174f18c1186b67b58c2/6bbc7811252ac46b-64/s1280x1920/6209fdef0043a0d37820ec0fbb38a156a70421a7.jpg After that was over, the suit was sent back to Toho where it was used in several commercials. Since nobody's ever mentioned it, I presume Pulgasari was left over in North Korea where it eventually rotted away. The only Godzilla suit ever actually stolen was the 1989 Biogoji, refurbished and used again in 1991. It was somehow swiped in mid-1992 just before shooting of Godzilla vs. Mothra began. Koichi Kawakita fully intended to use the Bio/Gidogoji suit yet again for the entire movie, even with its aging, floppy plates. But when it was stolen, he was forced to have a new suit made. The effects staff were relieved when the suit was stolen because there was some kind of problem with it and they didn't want to deal with it anymore. The suit was eventually discovered discarded in a ditch, probably because the damn thing was just so unwieldy (keep in mind, the lightest Godzilla suit for shooting ever made was still like 100 pounds). Kawakita ordered it repaired and it was used as like a stunt suit in vs. Mothra, which would be the final onscreen appearance for it.

Experiments In Early Victorian Skincare: Unguentum Resinosum

(Note: since Tumblr seems to be making text posts deliberately inaccessible to anyone not logged into a Tumblr account, I'm still crossposting these posts to the Gallipot Project stand-alone blog over on Wordpress.)

This element of the project I stumbled upon while reading about Royal Navy medicine chests — even in all the excitement and anxiety of the recovery of Erebus and Terror, with plenty of discussion of the potential to glean information from what the crew left behind, it slipped my mind that among the relics recovered from the final Franklin expedition there might be actual medicaments (or at least their residues) left behind. My brain is a thick sludge right now due to a spicy range of events, but I wanted to give a little more detail about this chapter in my experiments.

Unguents Of Historical Significance

The original item that served as the springboard for this was a component of the Victory Point medicine chest recovered by Lt. William Hobson with the McClintock expedition of 1857. The medicine chest and its contents are now in the Royal Museums Greenwich collection. For more on the chest, I recommend this series of posts by S.L. over at 70 North Beset, which includes a wonderful guide to the chest’s cryptically-labeled contents and their uses.

The item we're discussing is by all appearances mislabeled, or rather stored in a repurposed container with a label indicating its previous contents. (If you've ever kept Band-Aids in an Altoids tin or safety pins in a medicine bottle, you're carrying on a proud tradition.) There's no image of the container by itself on the RMG's website, but I believe it's the round black container with the octagonal paper label on the bottom left here, just above the sticking-plaster box.

Image © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

(so what the fuck is that supposed to be?)

Franklin expedition research frequent-flier Richard J. Cyriax’s “A Historic Medicine Chest”, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1947, describes the box and its contents as follows:

a circular metal box said on a label to contain ground ginger but actually containing what seems to be an ointment, now dried up almost into a ball. McClintock’s inventory mentions a box containing shrunk ointment, and no other article in the chest agrees with his description. The ointment is of a light yellow colour and possesses no definite odour; it may be “unguentum resinae”, which was very often used in surgical practice.

Okay, great, but wtf is unguentum resinae? I took this recipe from the 1830 Edinburgh New Dispensatory, compiled by Andrew Duncan, professor of materia medica at the University of Edinburgh.

Presto, salve plus resin.

So yeah, there are a lot of different salves in play in this era, some of them damn close in formulation. As much as I like making funky little unguents, making a full slate of these recipes might be overkill. This same text contains a whole mess of recipes for other liniments, ointments, cerates, and plasters, including a half-dozen variations on the theme of “some proportion of some kind of fat + some proportion of wax, white or yellow”. Duncan’s description continues on the next page:

THESE [presumably meaning the preceding recipes], which are varieties of the basilicon ointment, are commonly employed in dressings for digesting, cleansing, and incarnating wounds and ulcers.

(Basilicon ointments supposedly achieved this effect by, uh, causing pus production. Thanks, I hate it.)

Side note: If a salve is oil-based, how can it dry up, like the sample in the ginger container? This is how my dumb ass learned that oils can indeed evaporate over time. Presumably the inclement weather conditions at Victory Point didn’t help, but it’d be an interesting experiment for a long-haul-minded Franklin enthusiast to keep a tin of this stuff around over the course of years to see how it responds.

What is this salve for? Why carry it all the way to Victory Point? Why abandon it there? Honestly, I find these questions pretty confounding, starting with the first — the use of unguentum resinae appears to have been so wide and unremarkable that I’m not getting a lot of detailed information about how they were meant to be applied, and the information I am getting is very much framed like you (the presumed-medically-trained reader) should know this shit already. The recovered medicine chest also contains a stockpile of materials used for bandaging and dressing wounds: bandages, lint, sticking plasters, and cotton wool. So wound care definitely seems like a focus of this set, and I’d wager this salve’s use fits right into that mix.  One interesting thing that both Cyriax and the writer over at 70 North Beset remark upon is that the Victory Point medicine chest is unlikely to have been a government article issued to the ships’ officially recognized medical personnel; even to my eye, it lacks any obvious broad-arrow branding. Was this some random officer’s personal supply? Was it carried to supplement official medicine chests or perhaps salvaged from a late officer’s belongings? I’m looking forward to more news from the wrecks to see if they shed any more light on the material culture of medicine aboard Erebus and Terror.

I encountered a source remarking that “unguentum resinae” was simply a drawing salve by another name — this assertion gave me pause since I’m used to “drawing salve” itself being another name for black salve, a whole category of corrosive salve used in bogus cancer cures that you should absolutely, absolutely not use on any part of your body. But drawing salves are a whole category of their own in folk medicine (including folk veterinary medicine) and were very much in use during the 19th century, without necessarily entailing the corrosive effect of sanguinarine and its eschariotic sisters.

In turn, what kind of salve did I make? I made two batches, one plant-based salve with more similarities to ceratum resinae, and one pork lard salve more closely replicating the Edinburgh formulation for unguentum resinae/resinosum. The recipe for either salve is pretty damn straightforward, so I didn’t feel driven to document all the double-boilering and pouring here; the only tricky element was sourcing my pine resin. Lots of people go out and wildcraft their own tree resins, which is fully possible but not something I have access to; I bought my resin from a Canadian retailer selling food-grade pine resin for wax wrap-making.

For my first non-lard rendition of this salve (sort of an “inspired by” version) I took cues regarding the proportions of liquid oil:butter:beeswax:resin from modern salving. Folk medicine practitioners still use similar pine resin salves as a topical treatment for minor wounds, an anti-inflammatory joint rub, or a reliever of chest congestion — it’s also a pretty basic emollient for dry skin and these are the uses I focus on when I make salves for myself/my loved ones, rather than dressing more serious wounds. If you tweak your ratios, you can also use the same basic elements to make reusable beeswax wraps for food storage; this is actually the stated purpose behind the pine rein I sourced, since I’d feel some qualms about using resin earmarked for specifically holistic purposes in my silly living history project.

For my second batch, I used the same resin and beeswax but paired them with a pork-derived lard. I put this round off at first due to hesitation around how to best source a non-hydrogenated rendered lard. Since concerns about shelf-stability were the motivation behind my first oil-based batch, I didn’t want to go about rendering my own pork fat au naturel or buy the $25/lb impossibly-bougie Epic lard aimed at keto/paleo people who have Whole Foods $$, but I also didn’t want to go with your Armour lard in a shelf-stable brick — I ended up tracking down a local butcher shop that renders their own.

Honestly this version came together even more smoothly than the previous version — I crushed my resin into smaller pieces rather than waiting for big old rocks to melt down, and the lard gave a more slick, less “tugging” consistency to the resulting balm. It doesn’t smell meaty or pork-like at all; there’s a faint odor of wood resin, but that’s it, and if I didn’t care for that it would be pretty easy to doctor up with essential oils. I will say that at room temperature the consistency seems a little firm for use in a plaster, but I might need to glob it on more generously and allow body heat to soften things up. A little bit of a raw deal for those dealing with polar weather extremes, but maybe unavoidable.

How would you make a natural preparation using approximately 1840s ingredients that remained soft and spreadable at colder temperatures? Honestly, I don’t know if this is something people planned for, since abandoning ship wasn’t anyone’s first choice, but it would have been relatively easy. Increasing the proportion of fats/oils to beeswax is one way to adapt any fat/wax recipe for colder weather use, but another option I can think of could be using fats/oils that solidify at lower temperature points. Some useful data there you probably know off the cuff — if you put olive oil in a cold fridge, it’ll solidify into a chunk; if you keep your coconut oil out at room temperature, you can tell the weather’s warming up when it goes fully liquid in the jar — but for better suggestions than that I had to resort to Modern Science.

I’m based in the US and use Fahrenheit most often but this is a pretty clear case where Celsius is superior. The Franklin expedition crews were dealing with outside temps of -40° and lower, and while interior temperatures (as long as the ships’ heating systems held out) weren’t nearly as nippy, they might well have been in the “your Costco coconut oil remains firm and opaque” range. If they wanted emulsified oil-based salves with maximum spreadability at ambient temperature, something runnier from the low end of the freeze/melt temp scale might have been handy.

[For a table listing different values here, head over to the blog!]

Not all of these are suitable for salvemaking (linseed oil, my old enemy) but castor oil is feasible, for instance. I might make up some compare-and-contrast salves to explore this but uhhhh not any time soon, because I already have so many fucking salves. The plant oil-based salves are up for sale on my Bigcartel site now -- would you be interested in buying a beef tallow-based salve? Speak up in the comments and let me know!

Overall I’m very pleased with the result of my salve-making, and the smaller or nonexistent amount of butter ingredients like cocoa butter should hopefully prevent the slight granularity that some of my other creations have developed in cooling. I like the tallow-based salve a little better and its emollient consistency is lovely.

How skin-safe is this product? The biggest issue is that pine resin is a well-known trigger for dermatological issues like contact dermatitis. If you know you’re allergic to it, please don’t make this recipe or buy salves containing it! You have way better options for wound care than a stranded Victorian sailor.

How vegan is this product? Well, not at all vegan, in either variation, due to the beeswax. I have gotten my hands on some vegan waxes, so sound off if you’d be interested in a purely plant-based version of this recipe too, or another exploration of Early Victorian receipts adapted to modern methods.

Meanwhile… I get to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of this lard.

Sweet Beginnings Tag

This tag is all about looking at your past. All you need to do is to find one of the first screenshots you ever took (preferably also published), and post it beside the recent one! And tell everybody when you took that first picture! Oh, and don’t forget to tag your posts! #sweet beginnings tag.

Thank you @hancyan, @greenplumbboblover, @nocturnalazure and @eljeebee for tagging me in this.

I have to be honest though, seeing this Sweet Beginnings Tag going round has been bringing out my insecurities. I see people posting their 2010's stuff saying "Eww!", "Cringe!", "OMG, look at this puddingface!", "The lighting is horrible!" and "What was I thinking with that camera angle?!" Meanwhile I'm sitting here looking at these pictures they deem to be such an embarrassment and all I think is "Umm, that's better than what I currently do... So if that's all so disgusting, what does that say about (your opinion on) my stuff?"

But I will play! I love looking back! I know what everyone is expecting is a huge difference between a Sim created in the 2010s and one created now, but guess what, peeps; the Sims that were the centre of my Sim-universe back then are the same ones still going strong today. I stick with my babies foreverrrrr. I also will not say, "Oh, look what an embarrassment I was back then." What I will say, though, is there was a time when I didn't know turning off headline effects was an option. See for yourself:

September 2012

This is The Prom of 03, one of the first (non-)story posts. We see Dan and James, still the best cousin-friends ever, talking after James had just publicly broken up with Jill.

At that point, I posted to my WordPress blog and to The Sims Daily (I know I keep commenting this on everyone's posts, but I soooo miss the awesome atmosphere of the forums and to my darlings from the TSD days: I MISS YOU! I MISS US!).

However, aside from the picture above, I also managed to shoot the picture below by NOT posing anyone and just clicking at the right time. For the early days, that's quite the skill, I think! Especially when you realise I also didn't know how to use the tab camera mode yet.

September 2012

This is Ellie's mum Annabel meeting teacher Eva on Ellie's very first day of school. With Ellie standing by. Just using in-game interactions (not even Animator).

In April 2013, I came to Tumblr. At first, I mainly reblogged posts by my Daily friends and posted pictures of Honeycomb Valley and interiors. I feel tempted to reblog one of those full posts now. Should I?

After a few months, I started posting links to my (non-)stories on my blog, accompanied by some pictures to get a taste of the story and hopefully lure people to my WordPress blog. Funnily enough, one of those first pictures is my darling Sadie singing, which is the same thing I photographed today! :)

June 2013

Fun fact: This is the karaoke performance which landed Sadie her place as The Hot Wings female lead! Oh, how this moment would end up changing her life... Neither her nor me knew just how much by that point. Makes me all nostalgic to see her like this again.

By this point, I did know how to turn off headline effects and how to work the camera in tab mode, which already made a difference.

Unto the current stuff. Well, my absolute proudest pictures are these:

August 2023

Particularly because of the emotions they portray. Which were so on point for the story they were telling. Aww, my Joshua <3.

A lot of the credit for these goes to the pose creators though. In particularly @danjaley for her railing poses.

I will also share Singing Sadie again, even though I've shared this picture two times already, but I figured it would be fun to see in this post to compare her (and me) to the picture above.

October 2023

I do think I've grown over the years. No, I know I did. And I know even my current stuff isn't as shiny and polished and perfect as a lot of other stuff out there, but these are my babies and I love them just the way they are. :)

Tagging @simsaralove, @ice-creamforbreakfast, @wasset-aseskara, @missy-hissy, @danjaley. But feel free to ignore if you've already done this or simply don't feel like it.

AroAce guy here. Reading the "Aromantic Manifesto" reminds me of the "Asexual Manifesto" and not in a good way. Specifically the crux of the Manifesto:

"We see asexuality as an efficient "alternative life-style" for revolutionary women but we do not claim that “asexuality is revolution.”  We call ourselves “self-identified women” but we do not demand that all feminists adopt this title.  Our statement is simply this: as a result of examining the nature of our sexuality and reclaiming it from the sexist misconceptions surrounding it, we are able to form and maintain relationships in a way which both reflects our values and is effective in our liberation struggle.  For us, asexuality is a commitment to defy and ultimately to destroy the baseless concepts, surrounding both sex and relationships, which support and perpetuate the patriarchy."

( For people who wonder why certain things are phrased like this, it was written by Lisa Orlando, who was a Radical Feminist "disillusioned with political lesbianism" and basically wanted an alternative. She said in correspondence about the Manifesto that, to her, Asexuality is “a choice, and an experience, not an identity.” She currently still labels herself as an Asexual as well as Bisexual but still holds that view which.... is strange to me but reminds me of the "Aromanticism as counterculture" in the "Aromantic Manifesto"

I'd recommend looking up "The Asexual Agenda"'s Wordpress article on the Manifesto for more complete historical context and a screenreader friendly transcript if anyone is interested in reading through it for themselves)

People need to stop trying to marry Political Lesbianism and Radical Feminism with Aspectrum advocacy and identity, it's not salvageable and my identity as an Aromantic man is not "counterculture". It was a hard fought realization and I STILL have no idea if I'm Greyaro or if that's just the pressure society puts on me to Not be a "loveless evil male". The "Aromantic Manifesto" doesn't speak for me just like how the "Asexual Manifesto" doesn't either. The RadFem and PolitiLes communities have already caused Aspecs so, so much damage and I think it's in our genuine interest to make sure we don't whitewash that or forget it.

I think Aromantics who feel little, limited, or circumstantial attraction or are romance-positive/neutral/ambivalent are awesome and just as radical to society as those that don't and are negative/adverse/apothi. I also think Aros who are cool with Partnering or getting married are incredible. Romo Aros, Gay Aros, Alloaros, all of us are so important!

I also think Allo love can be healthy and I don't think we should be telling queer Allos that it's inherently negative (especially since that was literally an Aphobic stereotype? that "the Aces and Aros think gay people love and sex are disgusting, we should bully them for being homophobic!". Saying that I actually think the Manifesto reads like an infighting sockpuppet wth) Gay romance is revolutionary. Aromanticism is revolutionary. Neither is widely accepted so why fight?

Yeah. Aromanticism and asexuality aren't a choice and it promotes harmful misconceptions to say that they are. That manifesto was shit.

Free writing tools and services

you don't need to spend a lot of money(or any) on expensive software or tools to improve your craft. There are plenty of free resources available online that can help you organize your thoughts, stay inspired, and enhance your writing skills. Here are some of the best free writing tools for poets that i use for free, i hope they help!

Google Docs - Google Docs is a free word processing software that allows you to create and edit documents online. It's a great tool for poets who want to organize their work into different files and access them from anywhere with an internet connection.(I'm sure most of you know it)

Grammarly - Grammarly is a free online grammar and spell-checker that can help you improve your writing skills. It can detect errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and also provides suggestions for more effective sentence structure.

Canva - Canva is a free design tool that allows you to create visually appealing images to accompany your poetry. You can choose from a variety of templates, fonts, and graphics to create eye-catching designs for social media or print.

Poets.org - Poets.org is a website that features articles, interviews, and poems from both new and established poets. It's a great resource for discovering new poets and staying up-to-date on the latest trends in poetry.(this is i found to be really great)

Duotrope - Duotrope is a free online database of literary magazines and journals that accept poetry submissions. You can use it to search for markets, track your submissions, and even get personalized submission recommendations based on your writing.

RhymeZone - RhymeZone is a free website that helps poets find rhyming words and synonyms for their poetry. It's a great tool for those who are struggling to find the perfect word to complete a line.

Poem-a-Day - Poem-a-Day is a free email subscription service that delivers a new poem to your inbox every day. It's a great way to discover new poets and stay inspired.

Writer's Digest - Writer's Digest is a free online resource that features articles, tips, and advice for writers of all kinds, including poets. You can find articles on everything from writing prompts to getting published.

Poet Assistant - Poet Assistant is a free mobile app that provides prompts, word suggestions, and other tools to help poets overcome writer's block and improve their writing.

WordPress - WordPress is a free blogging platform that allows you to create and publish your poetry online. You can customize your blog's design, share your work with a wider audience, and even connect with other poets through the platform's social features.

These free writing tools for poets can help you develop your writing skills, stay inspired, and connect with other writers. Give them a try and see how they can enhance your poetry writing journey!

Creating a Solarpunk Society in the Big City with Lindsay Jane

This week, Ariel talks to Lindsay Jane of The Solarpunk Scene, where she discusses her solarpunk life in #Toronto, as well as shines a spotlight on #solarpunk projects locally and internationally. Tune in to learn more!

On today’s episode, Ariel talks to Lindsay Jane of The Solarpunk Scene, where she discusses her solarpunk life in Toronto, as well as shines a spotlight on solarpunk projects locally and internationally. Lindsay tells us about how she discovered solarpunk and the ways that she lives a solarpunk life in the city – both the upsides (gardens! architecture! effective transit!) and the downsides…

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Stardust Sessions with Lozzie Stardust - Deuteronomy and Daemonologie (BONUS)

Now available on your favorite podcatcher!

Just one more hiatus episode to go! This month, we’re wrapping up our dive into the life and deeds of King James VI/I with a discussion of his literary exploits, from commissioning an approved English translation of the Bible to pamphlets on how to hunt witches and rule a country effectively.

Learn how one man’s personal demons and some really poor text formatting decisions changed the course of literary and religious history, and why it’s never a good idea to base your entire understanding of the world around one single book.

Check my Wordpress for podcast show notes and information on upcoming events.

Follow the show on Twitter @hex_podcast for the latest updates! You can also find me as @BreeNicGarran on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Wordpress. Follow Lozzie Stardust on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter @bihexual and come chat with us in the Nerd & Tie Discord!

Visit the Willow Wings Witch Shop to purchase my books and homemade accoutrements for your craft!

Proud member of the Nerd and Tie Podcast Network.

MUSIC CREDITS

“Netherworld Shanty” & “Miri’s Magic Dance” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Caturday Saturday

  We are joining Athena’s Caturday Art Blog Hop. I used Lunapic’s  Dream FX effect for my art. The puzzle is below.   I know this time of year, money is tight, but if you have anything to spare, please consider donating to help this lady and her cat keep their apartment. Her cat was in the former Cat Scouts where we became friends. I can’t even imagine how scared she is for her and her kitty,…

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Here's a big reason why I sympathize with Martin Scorsese over all the endless flack he gets for a few concerns he had about superhero/tentpole movies and their effects on the overall cinema landscape...

About three years ago, in the midst of pre-vaccine COVID times, I was deep into my Beach Boys hyperfixation. At the time, I maintained a wordpress blog called "Kyle Loves Animation and More". On it, I decided to do a personal deep dive into Beach Boys album released in the early 1970s called SUNFLOWER and SURF'S UP.

I related a lot of my own neurodivergent experiences to the way Brian Wilson, a neurodivergent himself (and possibly autistic, like me), wrote songs in his idiosyncratic ways. It was a pretty long article, and I felt I put a lot into it. I tried to understand the thought process behind the songs, relating some historical context, and my own personal views on the music.

I was once part of a Facebook group dedicated to all things Beach Boys, and I decided to post the article there. It got some pretty decent marks from the community there, but there was this one man... Who presumably grew up in the '60s/'70s when their music was new, unlike me, a 1992 baby who was introduced to the Beach Boys' music via their parents... This one man found this ONE sentence in the article...

Where I remarked that the album 20/20 was "fascinatingly uneven"... I didn't even mean "uneven" in a bad way, but as a matter of fact... And he got soooooo upset... And made one comment about that... How dare I use the word "uneven" to describe the genre buffet/half made-up-of-leftovers album 20/20!

So I tried to explain, calmly, what I meant by that... And he didn't respond to me. He said to another commenter "who cares about the history of the album? the music is good!" To another commenter. Not to me directly... Passive-aggressive, much?

And also, as an artist MYSELF, I do very much CARE about the history of any given piece of art... What circumstances lead to the creation of this thing? What drove the artist? Yes, I care about the history, too! It's a fixation of mine!

...

Anyways, Scorsese. Marvel movies.

I totally get it.

Here, Scorsese is trying to make new films, new statements through the cinematic art form, openly worrying about his age and whether he has enough years left to tell more stories... He's openly reflecting about life itself, how he feels... He has an entire legacy of films behind him that far outweighs the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and I'm saying this as someone who likes the MCU and has seen at least 85% of the movies in THEATERS), one film of his alone arguably does that...

And yet all some people care about is whether he regards THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER as a work of art or not...

And ironically, a director like Francis Ford Coppola has said even more scathing things about Marvel movies... But he doesn't get an *ounce* of the flack Scorsese continues to get... And this was WELL AFTER Scorsese took the time to explain what he meant...

So yeah, I find that all so frustrating. If I were Scorsese having to read all of that (he probably doesn't, good for him), I'd be so goddamn frustrated lol.

(As an aside, on my other tumblr, I did a little article analyzing the current trajectory of superhero movies and how they are evolving, or need to evolve, in a post-ENDGAME world... I put a ton of paragraphs and research into it... And I got this one comment that was like "hush"... From an MCU stan... See what I mean?)

How can I make a SaaS website design with WordPress tips?

Designing a SaaS website using WordPress? Adhere to these guidelines for a professional website that effectively highlights your services and focuses on conversions.

Select an appropriate theme: Choose a WordPress theme that is a good match for displaying SaaS products. Search for themes that provide sleek designs, customizable layouts, and compatibility with common plugins.

Emphasize the importance of being clear and simple: Your website needs to effectively convey the value of your SaaS design services. Maintain a simple design, easy-to-use navigation, and content that is easy to understand.

Showcase your past SaaS website design projects prominently on your website to spotlight your portfolio. Demonstrate your expertise and the quality of your work by utilizing case studies or portfolio galleries.

Optimize your website with the focus on increasing conversion rates. Utilize distinct calls-to-action (CTAs) to prompt visitors to reach out to you or ask about your services. Think about incorporating lead capture forms or chatbots to interact with visitors and gather leads.

Optimize your website to ensure it is fully responsive and mobile-friendly. It is essential for the user experience to be consistent across all devices since a large number of users will be accessing the site via smartphones or tablets.

Implementing SEO best practices is important for enhancing your website's presence in search engine results. This involves maximizing meta tags, utilizing informative headings, and producing top-notch, keyword-optimized content.

Incorporate testimonials, client logos, or case studies to establish trust with potential clients by integrating Social Proof. Utilizing social proof can show your reliability and persuade visitors to select your services.

Give Easily Understandable Information about Your Services: Clearly define the services you provide, like the process for designing SaaS websites, pricing choices, and any extra services like maintenance or support.

Add a blog: Have a blog to post helpful information on SaaS website design, web development trends, case studies, and industry insights. Frequently updating your blog can increase traffic to your website and position you as an expert in your industry.

Frequent Updates and Maintenance: Ensure your website is always current by staying on top of the latest WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates. Frequent upkeep guarantees safety, efficiency, and alignment with modern technologies.

Web Development Trends 2023: What's Shaping the Future of Online Experiences

The development of the web over time is evidence of the tech industry's commitment to constant innovation in the face of a constantly shifting digital landscape. Keeping up with these changes is crucial if we are to continue providing our clients with the most innovative solutions as a leading Web development company in Vadodara, Gujarat, India.

Web development has come a long way from its infancy to the present day. Static HTML web pages were the foundation upon which the modern web was developed. The pages were static and lacked the interactive elements that characterise modern websites. However, a giant leap was made in web development with the introduction of JavaScript and its associated frameworks. This ushered in a new era of user-centric design, rich media, and dynamic content.

The subsequent appearance of content management systems (CMS) triggered a sea change in web development and administration. WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are just a few of the platforms that have simplified content updates and modifications by eliminating the need for elaborate coding. As a top Web development company in Gujarat, India we were responsible for implementing these systems to provide our customers with better control over their material and provide more streamlined processes.

As the variety of devices available to users grew, so did the demand for responsive web design. Maintaining continuity of use across devices with varying display sizes is now of crucial importance. This focus on responsive design is in line with our mission as a Vadodara web development company to deliver excellent user experiences on all devices.

Cutting-edge innovations like AI, Progressive online Apps, and AR have come to define modern online design and development. These developments are raising the bar for performance and user interaction, allowing for the creation of truly unique digital experiences. As an excellent Web development company in India, we've embraced these developments, tapping into their potential to create sites that expertly blend aesthetic value with state-of-the-art features.

The Advent of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs):

The advent of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) has been heralded as a revolutionary step that has effectively blurred the distinctions between regular web pages and dedicated mobile apps. Nivida Web Solutions is recognised as a distinct Web development company in Vadodara, Gujarat, India. We recognise the potential of PWAs to improve digital interactions for our customers and their end users, and we are committed to seizing this opportunity.

When it comes to interacting with and understanding material on the web, progressive web apps herald a significant shift. These applications take the greatest features of both websites and mobile apps and offer users extraordinary interactivity and functionality. We know that progressive web apps' (PWAs') smooth user experience is crucial to attracting and retaining visitors.

PWAs are distinguished by their adaptability to different screen sizes and devices. PWAs guarantee the same high-quality experience across all devices, from mobile to desktop. Being the most reliable Web development company in Gujarat, we are dedicated to providing solutions that are as adaptable as possible to meet the needs of a wide range of users.

Instant loading times are another strength of PWAs, which they achieve in spades regardless of network performance. Faster loading speeds improve the user experience by decreasing the need for patience-testing waits. We know how important it is for our client's digital platforms to load quickly so that users can have a positive experience.

In addition, PWAs include offline capabilities that let consumers view content even without an active internet connection. This is a huge deal, especially in places with spotty internet service.

Voice Search and AI Integration: Transforming User Interactions

Key developments, such as voice search and AI integration, are revolutionising the way people use the internet. We at a premier Web development company in India understand the revolutionary potential of these technologies to shape the future of people's time spent online, and we're dedicated to maximising that potential to create delightful, natural user experiences for our customers and their target demographics.

Voice-activated search engines are changing the way people find their way online. The way individuals look for information has changed drastically since the introduction of voice-activated devices and virtual assistants. To ensure that our clients' platforms are still discoverable and available to consumers who prefer speech-based queries, as a reputable Web development company in Gujarat, we know the value of optimising websites for voice search.

Another game-changer in user engagement is the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI), especially in the form of chatbots. Artificial intelligence-based chatbots allow for immediate help and tailored suggestions. Users are more satisfied and invested in the experience because it feels more human. As an India-based web development agency, we specialise in incorporating AI-powered chatbots to provide innovative user experiences that go beyond standard interfaces.

In addition, businesses may learn more about their customers' habits and preferences using AI-driven data analysis, paving the way for more tailored content and a more satisfied customer base. Vadodara's most innovative web developers know full well the strategic value of using AI to create personalised user experiences.

Keeping up with the competition requires websites to evolve as the use of voice search and AI increases. Our agile web development team builds AI-driven features that respond to user preferences and expedite interactions to make websites voice search-friendly.

Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design: Making the Web Universally Usable

The trend now is towards making websites and apps usable for people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. The principles of web accessibility and inclusive design have recently come to the fore, greatly impacting the process by which new websites are created. We understand the impact these tendencies will have on the future of people's interactions with the internet and are dedicated to building accessible platforms for everyone.

For those with physical or cognitive impairments, it is essential that websites be built with accessibility in mind from the start. However, Inclusive Design goes above and beyond accessibility standards by taking into account a wider range of user requirements and preferences. We, as Gujarat's leading web development agency, believe that everyone should be able to enjoy the same high-quality online services without discrimination.

Screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, picture alt text, and optimisation for users with visual, aural, or cognitive impairments are all components of Web Accessibility. Not only does Inclusive Design account for people of all ages and linguistic backgrounds, but it also takes into account the specific needs of those users. Websites built by an Indian web development firm following these guidelines would be accessible to the widest possible audience.

Web accessibility and inclusive design have many positive outcomes. For starters, they improve the quality of service provided by a website by making it easier to navigate and utilise. Second, they allow people who might not have been able to visit websites before to do so because of these tools. Websites that are easy for users with disabilities to navigate tend to rank higher in search results. Being the most distinguished Web development company in India, it is our responsibility to ensure that these guiding principles are fully included in our work so that no user is overlooked.

Immersive Technologies: AR and VR Redefining Online Experiences

The advent of new kinds of online experiences is due in large part to the widespread adoption of immersive technologies like AR and VR. We at Nivida Web Solutions, recognise the game-changing potential of augmented and virtual reality to shape the future of the internet. Incorporating these innovations into websites and apps will allow developers to craft more engaging and dynamic experiences for users.

In Augmented Reality, the user's environment is augmented with digital elements such as images, animations, and data. In contrast, virtual reality (VR) allows users to feel as though they are actually present and interacting within a digital world. We see the potential for augmented and virtual reality integration to transform customers' online experiences across sectors.

Virtual and augmented reality has the potential to produce very compelling interactions that will draw people in and keep them engrossed in digital material. The level of immersion provided by these technologies is unrivalled by more conventional means, whether one is trying on clothes before buying them or touring a house virtually. As an Indian web development firm, it is our job to leverage augmented and virtual reality to create user experiences that stick with them long after they've left the website.

The fields of teaching, learning, and leisure could likewise benefit greatly from these innovations. The ways in which people take in information are changing as a result of the advent of augmented and virtual reality technologies. Responsible web development in Vadodara means using cutting-edge tools like augmented and virtual reality to build cutting-edge platforms that provide users with more than just the run-of-the-mill experience.

Final Thoughts:

The trends we've covered thus far are just the tip of the iceberg, but they give us a glimpse into the exciting and transformational future of online experiences as we look ahead to 2023 and beyond. All of these developments—from Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and voice search to Augmented Reality (AR) and inclusive design—point to a single truth about the modern digital landscape: it is in a constant state of flux, and businesses that want to stay competitive must be willing to adapt to new realities as they emerge.

Being an industry-leading Web development company in Vadodara, Gujarat, India, Nivida Web Solutions has seen this transformation firsthand. By deftly incorporating these developments into our projects, we not only stand ready to take advantage of these tendencies, but we also intend to establish new standards in web construction. Our inspiration comes from our customers' ideas, and we build each website with the goal of going above and beyond their wildest dreams.

Our commitment to quality and originality remains firm even as the environment around us changes. We hope you'll join us on this exciting adventure into the future. Working together, we can fully realise the advantages of PWAs, voice search, augmented and virtual reality, web accessibility, and more. Together, we have the opportunity to create a vision for the future of digital culture that doesn't merely reflect current fashions but rather pushes the envelope. Nivida Web Solutions is where website creation is headed in the future.

Hi! This is regarding the "semen makes women dumber" post. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the study and how unscientific it is.

Very delayed response but here I go!

I think most women here understand that this idea is... not supported so I'm going to try and make this more useful by pointing out flags to look for when it comes to analysing other posts/claims as well.

For context this ask was referring to this post which links to this: https://trustyourperceptions.wordpress.com/2016/05/15/semen-mens-chemical-war-against-women-appendix-compounds-in-human-semen-which-alter-female-psychology-behavior-and-physiology/

The first thing to note here is that the link is not to a study and that within that link the key reference used for semen having psychobiological properties are references to a book called "Female Infidelity and Paternal Uncertainty: Evolutionary Perspectives on Anti-Cuckoldry Tactics". I was unable to obtain a copy of this book but this review provides some information about the content. Moving on:

The approach on the physiological side:

The blogger using the wordpress article as evidence and that writing itself lean heavily on a list of "mind altering chemicals" being present in semen from the aforementioned book. The blogger then wordpress article makes a bunch of claims about these compounds being able to basically mind control women based on their presence.

This is a similar tactic to what antivaxxers do: take a list of compounds, list properties along side them, then twist that to your narrative. If you are scared about the list of compounds mentioned in the references, try reading the tables from this article about the compounds present in chicken eggs - does consuming testosterone from eggs have that sort of effect? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657713/.

Based on the listing of properties I would suggest that the author is either highly unfamiliar with biology & psychology or is intentionally acting like that. Listing transcortin, but not cortisol, as being involved in the stress response? Really? Based on the writing in the article I think it's more the former than the latter.

The evolutionary mechanism: I'm going to keep this short: there is no way that you can be educated on evolution and believe that in males only the Y chromosome and not the autosomes experience selection pressure. Nor can you believe that males are cloned via sexual reproduction.

Other:

Note the way information is handled in general across the article: violent male animal? evidence of how corrupt maleness in general is. Violence in female animals? evidence that maybe there is some hope for us If you were doing this properly:

If you wanted to actually show that semen "makes women dumber" what you would want to do is set up a controlled experiment with a semen-exposed condition vs not, sufficient sample size, control of other variables & measure intelligence at the start of the experiment vs the end (which is not actually the easiest thing to do - IQ has issues). Not only does this wordpress article not have something like that to show a casual relationship, there is nothing in it that suggests that there actually is an association between women's intelligence and semen exposure (e.g. survey results). What this writing is, is a bunch of speculation about possible mechanisms (physiological and evolutionary) that is not actually plausible. Even if it was plausible, however, it would fall far short of being evidence of there actually being a relationship (casual or otherwise) between semen-exposure and women's intelligence.