Nota Bene

Many point-of-sale machines now are essentially just a smartphone with a card reader attached and the interface. The control layout can change at a moment's notice and there are no physical boundaries between buttons. With a keypad-style machine, the buttons are always in the same place and can be located by touch, especially since the middle button has a raised ridge on it.

Buttons can also be located by touch without activating them, which enables a "locate then press" style of interaction which is not possible on touchscreens, where even light touches will register as presses and the buttons must be located visually rather than by touch.

When elevator or door controls are replaced by touch screens, will existing accessibility features be preserved, or will some people no longer be able to use those controls?

people on the Internet: “FrIeNd???” ERASURE. STOP TRYING TO HIDE THE GAY. “OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES”

aforementioned historians: she. she opens the letter with “My dearest friend.” we’re literally quoting here, and we just admitted they had sex

people on the Internet: “JUST GALS BEING PALS” EH? R/SAPPHOANDHERFRIEND?

historians: a truly vast number of us are queer

People on the internet: SO GAYS DIDN’T EXIST IN HISTORY HUH?

Historians: no? We’re saying ancients had different relationships and acceptances for things we now label as queer and it’s not right to force modern terms-

People on the internet: WOW, SO GAYS DON’T AND HAVE NEVER EXISTED? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING? YOU’RE TRYING TO ERASE GAYS FROM HISTORY.

Internet: Historians refuse to acknowledge that anyone in history was anything but straight!

Historians: Some people believe this man and woman had a romantic interest in each other based on their letters, but it’s important to remember that this kind of language was expected and didn’t necessarily mean they were actually interested in each other.

Internet: All a woman and a man had to do was look at each other and all historians are convinced they were into each other!

Historians: This person had some contemporary sources referring to them as gay, but that’s likely people spreading rumors because we can’t find anything to back it up beyond the word of their political rivals.

Internet: So gay people just never existed??

Historians: Actually we all agree this other person from the same place and time was gay and we talk extensively about it

☆*: .｡.  the long-awaited continuation .｡.:*☆

Helmets for Mandos who Aren’t Goddamn Humans Pt.5

- Kaleesh (Kshai - Clan Vastiin)

- Ithorian (Tuo Dassie - Clan Stral)

- Toydarian (Cyare’ava - Clan Solusulos)

- Devaronian (Lahtassi, Clan Stral)

- Gran (Sambet-Kamer, Clan Rig)

- Kaminoan (Tula, Clan Stral)

- Yoda Species (The Child, Clan Djarin  © The Cowards at Lucasfilms)

- - -

The Kaminoan and Yoda Species would just kick it with human-adjacent helms, ye

More Alien Mandos

- Chagrian

- Trandoshan

- Gungan

- Kushiban

- - - - - 

Artist Thoughts!!:

Most alien designs in Star Wars (especially the ones present in the earlier films) were built as costumes to fit over-top of actor’s heads. Few of these alien species were designed to be compatible with a fully-closed helmet, because production simply didn’t need a Twi’lek or a Rodian to ever be in full armor in the films. If the costume was gonna be on screen, they wanted to show off the alien’s latex head, not what kind of helmets that species would’ve built to fit themselves.

 The solid helms that fit on humans and near-humans -that come off as whole pieces of armor, probably aren’t feasible for a majority of the cooler non-human aliens due to the fact that they’d have to get around horns and weird head shapes in order to slip a helmet off. Either their helmets are huge and silly-looking or they’re piece-meal, in separate sections; a bit like a good chestplate!

Detachable face plates and caps for these helmets allow the Mandos to show their faces, eat, and get some fresh air without needing to dismantle the frame that’s protecting their montral, horns, eye-stalks, etc. These helm designs probably take longer to put on (or not, alien Mandos probably git good at suiting up quicklike- Humans ain’t special) but they offer the same degree of protection as a Human Mando’s fully enclosed helm.

- For species like Togruta with cool as fuck sensory organs like their montral, their helms would probably be designed to protect without mitigation, or at least with as little mitigation as possible, of that sensory input. I imagine my Togruta Mandos have dampening on their montral to protect them from the potentially harmful effects of being next to ship engines firing, or large ordnance, just like regular helms protect human ears from the same things without completely blocking their ability to hear shit.

Additionally!

Please do feel free to save these sketches as references or as benchmarks to help illustrate to others what your alien Mando’s helmets might look like! 

I’m more than happy for you guys to use these images as examples or inspiration! Do keep in mind though that these are characters of mine as well as runway models for Mando helms, so if you repost them please drop a credit to this Tumblr account there as well!

I love my Mandalorians diverse, forget what recent canon has told you because the Mandos were always a culture, never a select few species, and they’re far cooler that way.

 If my lil sketches can help propagate Alien Mando designs, I’m happy to see them circulate!   

- Twi’lek (Mavadhi - Clan Stral)

- Mon Calamari (Gedheer - Clan Dochost)

- Rodian (Senu’shoy - Clan Dochost)

- Kel Dor (Sarad - Clan Stral)

hi i’m in the business of designing helms for alien Mandalorians because lucasarts is full of cowards

- Togruta

- Nautolan

- Quarren

Also yes, queer is more inclusive! Especially coming at it from an academic standpoint, people didn’t always use or identify with the terms we use now and you can’t always try to cram them into our modern perceptions of sexuality. We can argue for years about whether a famous historical figure was gay or bisexual or straight and trans or whatever, but if we can all agree that they were somehow queer then using that term allows us to move past the debate and into productive discussion. And not everybody everywhere shares the same terms for sexual and gender identity, or even the same concepts of those things, so queer really is a more inclusive term in a lot of cases.

Your words are slurs, too. Why do you get your words, but I don’t get mine? What makes you so special?

every single one of our labels has been used as a slur against us.

terfs and -phobes are always going to try and hurt us with what we identify as. but the fact remains these are OUR labels and always have been.

It just baffled me that people would think an identifier is automatically a slur just because someone uses it to mock someone. If we did that gay would be a slur. Stupid would be a slur. Autistic would be a slur.

So it’s 2001, and my family drives from fucking California and like three blizzards to get to Ohio for thanksgiving, becuase my grandparents are moving into a nursing home and it’s their last holiday in that house.  So its a bit bittersweet but ultimately a good thing.

Since it’s their last holiday there, the family pulls out all the stops when it comes to dinner, all the Russian desserts come out, as does the Lethal Bacon Mashed Potatoes and the horrible candied yams with the mini marshmallows dish because not all expressions of love are good, even if they are sincere.  In the spirit of going all-out, Uncle Bobby smokes a Turkey.  

Uncle Bobby started cooking as a boy scout by tossing foil-wrapped potatoes into a campfire and has been addicted since, and now has a hand-made smokehouse in the backyard where he makes various cured meats and other delights.  He seasons the turkey in the traditional manner, but he and grandpa have a shared passion for a spicier mesquite-style bird, so Bobby makes a Cornish Game Hen seasoned that way, for them.

Then Bobby has a Brilliant Idea.  He realizes that he can stuff the turkey (once it has been smoked) with regular stuffing, and there is still plenty of room for him to put the game hen inside THAT, and stuff the game hen becuase why not?  He confers with Mom, and she explains how to cut open the turkey so there’s  dramatic reveal as the stuffing and game hen come out.  It’s Genius.

Except, of course, that my Aunt Sue is attending, Uncle Cliff slouching after her.

So the day of the dinner, tensions are running a bit high, between the marathon cooking, the kids all being trapped indoors due to aforementioned blizzards, and Uncle Cliff deciding that the best way to amuse himself is by hiding from the adults in the basement, getting drunk and rambling about how various ethic groups were destroying America.  Being that I had close Muslim friends that were leaving the country becuase of 9/11, I was near tears from this nonsense and ready to fight a man roughly five times my size.  

Sue, for some reason, keeps coming down and defending him, or telling us we’re rotten children for ‘attacking’ him, becuase she Must Stand By Her Man, even if her man is a hefty bag of dog feces with an ugly mustache.

My sister eventually bolts upstairs to tattle and my grandfather limps down to the basement and brandishes his Hip-Bone Cane, hands rock-steady in spite of the Parkinson’s slowly taking over him.

“Firstly Cliff, It may not be my roof much longer but while you are under it you will be civil, or I’ll beat your skull in.  Also, dinner’s ready, everyone go wash up.”

We go upstairs and sit down, and do the traditional “Name one thing you’re thankful for” as the bread gets passed around the table, and things calm down a bit.  Bobby brings out the Turkey and everyone goes OOH becuase it’s really pretty, them Mom carves it open so that the stuffing spills out dramatically along with the game hen and there’s an appreciative gasp all around becuase it looks cool.

Only Sue KEEPS gasping, in utter horror, before getting up and clasping her hands to her face ala Edvard Munch and shrieks-

“OH MY GOD IT WAS PREGNANT!”

We all stare at Sue.  We all look back at the fully-dressed-cooked-and-stuffed birds that in no way had any internal organs in them or ever gave live birth. Then we all looked back at Sue, trying to figure out where to begin but since she’d been trying to justify Cliff’s behavior she was pretty much free-associating conspiracies and scandals now, and just kept going.

“IT WAS PREGNANT MY GOD WE’VE COMMITTED AN ABORTION WE’RE ALL GOING TO HELL FOR THIS, I’M SO SORRY JESUS-” She goes into full pearl-clutching gibbering horror at this point and falls back into her chair like it’s a Victorian fainting couch only it’s a shitty chair from the Eisenhower administration so it collapses and she slams into the floor, sobbing and kicking her feet like a toddler.

Everyone watched for a moment before my Mom sighs heavily and starts carving and serving the turkey while my grandmother mouths “she’s not coming back”.   

Cliff, reactions delayed by about six beers, finally notices his wife is on the floor and tries to pick her up, falls on his ass himself.  They are assisted by Dad, who is saintly patient man and less immune to this jacknapery at that point. I am stuffing dinner rolls into my face to keep from laughing at this grand spectacle and it’s not working.

“I CAN’T EAT IT, I REFUSE TO PARTAKE IN THIS BARBARISM-”  Sue begins but Dad puts on his best Kindly Father voice (he was heavily involved with the catholic church and even considered becoming a priest before getting drafted but that’s another story) and assures Sue that she need not eat, or even be in the room if she wants.  She nods, placated by being the center of attention again, and Dad goes in for the kill.

“I wouldn’t want you to go hungry.  Can I make you some Eggs?”

“That would be lovely.” Said Sue, joke flying over her head like a boeing 747.  I recall watching my grandmother nearly choke to death on the green beans over that, and everyone pointedly trying to avoid talking about anything poultry-related while Sue sat there and ate the most ironic scrambled eggs in the history of mankind.

Shortly thereafter, Cliff threw up in the sink and they went home, and the party got underway properly, with Grandpa raising a toast to Mom and Uncle Bobby “For marrying well, for a change” “Pregnant Turkey” has been an Ohioan thanksgiving staple since then.  I’ll see if I can hit Uncle Bobby up for instructions but if you decide to make it 1. you HAVE to shriek “OH MY GOD IT WAS PREGNANT” when you carve it open, or it’s not authentic and won’t taste as good 2. Share the pictures with me.

So you don’t have to watch the video every time you need one of these hacks immediately:

1. If you feel nauseated, smell rubbing alcohol.

2. If you feel like throwing up, start humming.

3. If you have a runny nose, put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and press your thumb to your forehead for about 20 seconds.

4. If you have a headache, pinch the webbing between your fingers and rub it back and forth for about 1 minute.

5. If you’re lightheaded from standing up too quickly, clench your butt cheeks.

6. If your arm’s dead/has the pins and needles feeling, rock your head back and forth.

7. If you need to pee badly, think of sex to trick your brain and relieve the pressure.

8. If you have a migraine, stick your hands in ice water.

US Elevation.

They said “before dinosaurs,” but we have a cave here that began forming between 450 million to 550 million years ago.

There are no bones in that cave. No fossils. No nothing.

That’s because this cave began forming before bones existed on land, and had only just started to exist in the ocean. Shellfish hadn’t evolved yet. Limestone, which forms many caves, was just starting to become a more prevalent rock.

those are over a billion years old.

that’s why they’re so small. they’re the last ancient remnants of a lava flow 5 miles thick. the lava didn’t kill any dinosaurs. or any fish. or any animals at all. because there were no animals. you know what there was?

algae.

those mountains were 5 miles tall when the most advanced life on earth was algae.

the Appalachians are way way old. the fossils that ARE found in these ranges are ancient marine beings, whose fossil remains predate the anatomical structures of beings migrating to land for the first time. THAT’S how old the Appalachians are.

So are you telling me that… life is old there?