Finished Phonogram. The final series, The Immaterial Girl (yes, it's a Madonna reference), explores the character of Emily Aster. She has been a player right through, but now we learn about how she and her alter ego Claire, who was introduced in an issue of the previous series, got separated as Emily races to end the Faustian bargain that caused the split and Claire races to mess up everything Emily has accomplished since the split. Music videos play a big role, as does the death of Michael Jackson. The musical references are more mainstream, too, and the magic is bigger and more blatant. Still, it is a good story and a good ending to the series (at least, the final few panels make it seem like Kieron Gillen meant this as a swansong for the characters). Most of the character arcs are either tied up or at least on at a point where we aren't left hanging.
Forum
etairay just asked about being able to suppress signatures in the forums. It's making for a lot of scrolling on her device. Would be a good idea. I know I've seen the feature on other sites. Xenforo, the software I am most familiar with, actually suppresses them by default on small screens like phones but we don't need to go that far. Just being able to click a "Show Others' Signatures" switch in Forum Settings or some other appropriate place would be sufficient, I think.
Quote by etairayI don't think you can as of yet. I'll add it to the issues thread and credit you 😎. In fact, some forum software automatically turns them off on a phone screen but that may be too much to ask right now. Just having the ability to turn them off would be enough to start.Haha ..for someone who loves forum ..I'm seriously starting to have some serious questions ..how do I turn off seeing signatures 😂😂😂😃 it's seriously blowing up my screen ..especially when one has to scroll through so many postings
Sounds stormy around here, but maybe it's the (bleep) jets from the (bleep) airshow. Just lots of noise, no rain yet.
Quote by AnnaMayZingOn the previous incarnation of this site, on the home page, the stories had a square beside the title showing the number of votes. Below it was indicated whether you had voted or not. That seems to have disappeared now, and I can see no indication of whether I have read/voted.
Number of votes is the first icon in this row, which appears below each story in the list. You can see what each of the icons means by hovering over it. Agreed on not being able to see from the Stories list whether you have voted on a story. Would be a good addition. Could just make the votes icon a different colour if you have voted or something like that.
Also, it no longer locks the voting after you vote so you can change your vote at any time (old site locked it and you needed to get a mod to change a vote). Not sure if that's a good thing or not.
Also, the row below looks different in My Stories than on the Stories page. Information is the same and in the same order, but icons are slightly different in My Stories and it also lacks the "on hover" explanations.
Quote by verbalStrange as it seems, I never saw the first Candyman. Love the original story and Barker in general. Part of it is, I think, that the original story is so good, I don't really care if I see it adapted.
I REALLY wanna go see Candyman this weekend. I love every piece of movie DNA in it, from Barker and the original story to the excellent first movie and Peele being involved in this iteration. The trope of repeating some name into a mirror scares the F out of me. I won't do it. I wouldn't let my kids do it (they did anyway, I've since learned).
I wrote one of my best stories ever about it.
Anyway. Enjoy the day everyone. Coffee and ten thousand sugar cookies please.
So My Comments kind of takes the place of the old Timeline. Shows all your Likes and Comments in chronological order. My like about it: You can reply to a comment right there. No need to follow a link to the story or your profile comments. You can reply right in My Comments.
Ape prances merrily into the cafe. Looks around. Puts a basket of danishes and muffins on the breakfast bar. Cleans up cookie crumbs around the Sesame Street jars. Loads the coffee maker with some Jamaican Blue Mountain. Fires up the kettle and puts some Kenya Tinderet (new tea I just bought) in the pot
Good morning! Hot muggy and grey. We are up to the third day of this crap weather. By the time it ends, I am back to work. Lovely.
Might need earplugs this weekend. Local airshow (recently voted best in North America in USA Today) is on this weekend. We aren't that close to the airport but I've been hearing jets a lot starting mid-afternoon or so. They do it as a drive-in (something they started last year due to pandemic restrictions). No ground displays and you watch the flying show from your parking spot. They even have some local food people delivering to viewers.
Going to try a new story idea. Great opening but have, as of yet, no idea where it goes from there. Loosely based on an incident from my life (the opening is) but I'll probably go somewhere different after that, maybe even magic realism.
For now, though, I'm scarfing some cookies and putting the kettle for green tea.
Quote by VerityThe host of PBS Spacetime, a science YouTube channel I watch, once explained that some think there is only one electron in the universe that just keeps bouncing around through space and time. Apparently the math does hold up under some interpretations of quantum theory, but he was not a supporter (he is an Aussie astrophysicist who teaches at a college in the US).I was chatting with a scientist once who had a theory that every black hole was in the same place. As mad as it sounds, it kind of made sense when he explained it. He reckons that the universe is doughnut shaped. We still have so much to learn.
Short version: theoretical physics and astrophysics go down some really weird rabbit holes.
Quote by Welshdreamer42Non-breaking space. It's rendering a character that is normally invisible (similar to a line or page break) into its text representation. I think this has been noted before but it has been a while so good to call it out again.There’s a problem with poems when they’re listed on the front page eg.
“I wish I could tell you The things I hide inside Lay out my broken parts For your eyes to see. I wish I…”
I’m technologically challenged so I don’t know what the   is, but it shouldn’t be there. The poem looks fine when you click on it.
Black Holes : The Edge of All We Know. (Netflix)
It's a documentary about two rather different groups of scientists working on problems related to black holes. One is the Event Horizon Telescope, the globe-spanning group that got us the first actual picture of a black hole's event horizon a couple years ago. The other is the smaller group (basically a bunch of friends) that worked with the late Stephen Hawking on his final paper on the "black hole information paradox", a problem in astrophysics that Hawking himself first identified in the seventies. Hawking's death is dealt with partway through the movie. A couple other black hole related projects come up, including the LIGO project's first observation of gravity waves from colliding black holes, but those two teams are the focus. It's more about the process of science and how scientists work together than about black holes themselves. Still fascinating, though.
Another little glitch with notifications: I notice that sometimes I am getting two notifications for the same event. For instance, marleyadmin just liked a post. I got two notifications about them liking my post, but when I check My Comments, there's only one Like there. Usually seems to happen when I am on site. If there are notifications waiting when I come in, there usually aren't dups. Also, seems to be mainly with Likes so far. Can't recall getting one for a reply or watched thread notification.
Goooooooood morning!!! And if it is not morning where you are, just remember that it is always morning somewhere!
Coffee is brewing, kettle is boiling. An assortment of fine looseleaf and bag teas has been added to the coffee bar for your enjoyment.
I am playing with an old story. It's been posted elsewhere but I actually wrestled with that when I wrote it. Needs a hefty rewrite in the third act, but I'm not really doing much else creatively right now. If nothing else, it gets me writing, which I have not been doing as much as I had intended on my vacation.
Quote by Violet_the_VerboseOo, thanks for posting that. Hadn't realized the Save Drafts was working now. I write my stories offline and then paste them but I still use it sometimes if I want to hold a story for a final review.I like the forums too. And with the most recent update, the ability to save story drafts and re-edit them before submitting again. 😊
Personally, I would never have implemented the icons either, but that's me. I think they should just be removed since they serve no real purpose here that I can see. In fact, I find them a bit of an eyesore, regardless of any gender issues around them. Still, not a priority item compared to some other issues.
EDIT: Especially the big ugly one next to the username on a profile. There should be nothing there but the username and avatar. Spoils the cover image for one thing.
First off, I am disappointed to see this thread, which I intended as place where we could help each other learn to use the new site has turned into a debate about gender identity on the site. Basically, the thread is now useless for what I intended. However, that is the way of forums and since I'm not in a position of authority here, I can't really change that (On my own board, I'd have moved the discussion to its own thread. I'm a bit of a cranky ape as a mod/admin).
My own view is that it should be an optional field (but wouldn't complain if it was removed). That's how I've done it on Wondercafe2, where is similarly unimportant but some people still want it as part of their identity. We've done a simple list of Male (which would include both Cis and Trans), Female (ditto), Fluid/Non-Binary, and, most importantly for this discussion, No Selection as the default. And if it is left as "No Selection" the field is removed from the profile. Even with SS's longer, more comprehensive list, adding a "No Selection" option, making it the default, and adding some code to hide the field from profiles when that is selected should not be rocket science.
Quote by gillianleezaResales in my neighbourhood are going for $800K+ right now. For comparison, we built our place for under $300K including the land. And new houses in this city are insane. (that's all CAD by the way). If I sold right now, I'd make a killing but we plan to stay here for a few more years, at least until I retired.Eventually, we will have to leave this area, our house is paid for, but the property taxes are getting ridiculous. One of those silly houses sold for $990,000, and three months later, its twin next store sold for $1.3 million.
Cheers!
Hmm. We are getting a storm right now so a lightning bolt and a raindrop would be quite fitting. 😋
Quote by AnnaMayZingAh, that's what that is. I read about it upthread and was a bit perplexed since I had no idea where it was coming from.Apparently, it's what the 'Wink' button sends.
Small suggestion (and it is merely a suggestion, not something that needs to be fixed, and if others disagree, I'm cool with that): In the little profile bubble that comes up when you hover over someone in the forums, instead of gender (or in addition to it) put their forum title. That's generally closer to how people want to identify on a forum like this.
Quote by verbalE.T. is another example that comes up a lot, as is Goonies. Stranger Things is basically taking that genre and remaking it for the 21st century streaming world.We actually talked about this genre in my last critique group and started calling it "80s Spielbergian Horror." It was about kids exploring a sewer pipe. We were calling Stand By Me the definitive example of it, though Stranger Things works too.
COOKIES!!!
* scarfs a lemon softie to have with afternoon tea *
Quote by gillianleezaYeah, mine, too. That fix is clearly still in the works.Quote by BaronvonmontyQuote by MendallaQuote by GodsAngelI checked some profiles including yours and could not see birthdate. It only appears for the owner of the profile, it seems, not anyone else.I don't feel the site feels secure. I can't hide my age.
Yes it's totally private, if you look at you own profile it's automatically in "edit mode" but you can turn that on and off on the top right of the profile screen to see what others see. But to avoid confusion we are just putting some text with it to say it is not visible to other members.
A very minor issue since I can hide my birthday but it is still showing as a day off even after I try to change it to the correct day.
Quote by magnificent1rascalThat makes more sense. Though if you use really long words...😀
Hi Verity,
The minimum is supposed to be 3,000 characters, or about 600 words. Please make sure your story is at least 3,000 characters and try again, or submit it as Flash Fiction with a Humor tag. Let us know if you’re still encountering a problem.
Quote by VerityThat's got to be a bug. 3000 words is not the minimum anywhere on here that I know of. And humourous stories are often quite short so that's the least likely category to have a minimum that high.I have a general question. I tried to post a story in “Humor” but it wouldn’t let me. It said my story would have to be at least 3’000 words. I’ve had a look and can’t find many stories in humor that long. Is it something I’m doing wrong or is it a new rule? And secondly. As the new site doesn’t show my old story artwork properly. Could admin please remove all my old story pictures. At the moment they just look stupid. Regards, Verity
Funnily enough, I think most of my cover pictures came out okay. You should be able to remove them yourself by editing the stories, shouldn't you? Though that now seems to "bump" stories back to the front page, which is itself a change from the old site.
Yeah, it's a good crowd here. I plan to spend more time here going forward, assuming things pick up on the forum front.
Another new feature I am fond of: The New Posts at the top of the forum. Love being able to just click that and see all the recent forum activity at a glance.