Education @ TED.com
Awesome educational video library right here.
The Harry Potter Sonic Obama Bookbag
This bookbag…seems a little confused as to what it’s marketing…xD
Amazingly Creative Drawing vs. Photography
Cool combos of photography and sketches. Wow!
DIY Chan Luu Bracelet Tutorial
Make an awesome wrap Chan Luu bracelet with this DIY tutorial!
Over the last few years, Magic: the Gathering has released many official sets–but those are not their only products. In fact, there have also been quite a few special collections, such as the Duel Decks, the From The Vault collections, and the Premium Deck series. Plus, there have been new formats introduced, such as Commander and Archenemy.
All of these mentioned products have their own set symbols, and that leads to quite a bit of confusion for both M:TG newbies and veterans. I’ve heard quite a few M:TG players trying to figure out these rarer symbols, and I’ve been a little bewildered by it all as well. Finally I decided to compile a reference article about it, to help us all learn these special symbols. (I’ve covered only the last three years in Magic, to cover as many “new cards” and “new sets” as possible in a short article.)
Special Collections for New Formats
| Set Symbol | Set Name | Release Date |
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Archenemy | June 2010 |
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Commander | June 2011 |
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Commander’s Arsenal | November 2012 |
Duel Decks
| Set Symbol | Set Name | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
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Phyrexia vs. The Coalition | March 2010 |
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Elspeth vs. Tezzeret | September 2010 |
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Knights vs. Dragons | April 2011 |
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Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas | September 2011 |
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Venser vs. Koth | March 2012 |
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Izzet vs. Golgari | September 2012 |
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Sorin vs. Tibalt | March 2013 |
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Heroes vs. Monsters | September 2013 |
Premium Deck Series
| Set Symbol | Set Name | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
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Fire & Lightning | November 2010 |
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Graveborn | November 2011 |
From the Vault Collections
| Set Symbol | Set Name | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
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From the Vault: Relics | August 2010 |
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From the Vault: Legends | August 2011 |
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From the Vault: Realms | August 2012 |
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From the Vault: Twenty | August 2013 |
Expansion Sets
| Set Symbol | Set Name | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
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Scars of Mirrodin | October 2010 |
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Mirrodin Besieged | February 2011 |
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New Phyrexia | May 2011 |
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Innistrad | September 2011 |
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Dark Ascension | February 2012 |
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Avacyn Restored | May 2012 |
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Return to Ravnica | October 2012 |
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Gatecrash | February 2013 |
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Dragon’s Maze | May 2013 |
(All the preceding symbols were retrieved from the MTG Salvation Wiki, an excellent resource for set symbols and tons more M:TG information.)
Acts 26:24-29
24 At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.”
25 “I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable. 26 The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it ws not done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.”
28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”
29 Paul replied, “Short time or long–I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”
After Paul has given quite a testimony of what happened to him to change his faith, Festus, the governor, interrupts him; he believes that Paul’s long hours of study on the Scriptures has led him into a manic state. But Paul counters with calm reasoning–everything Paul has said so far can be vetted and researched for its truth, and indeed King Agrippa would know most if not all of the details anyway.
Then Paul asks the king directly (and bravely), “Do you believe the prophets? I know you do.” (Most Jews of the day believed that the Old Testament prophets spoke true when they claimed a coming Messiah–they just didn’t think that Messiah was Jesus.) Now, if Agrippa answers either “Yes” or “No,” he would either be forced to admit Paul was right, or to risk angering the devout Jews of his court by saying he didn’t believe in the prophets. Agrippa chooses to evade the question, answering with some dubiousness, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”
Paul’s answer is an example to all Christians–he prays for those listening to receive the kind of blessing that he has experienced through Christ.
When we witness to others, it is not about showing that we’re the best Christians ever, or acting like we’re better than everyone else. It’s about sincerely wanting others to experience the fulfillment and spiritual peace of knowing Jesus. Paul’s life had been changed for the better after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he wanted others’ lives to be changed this wonderfully as well.
As Christians, let’s resolve not only to witness to others about Jesus, but to pray for them to receive the peace we enjoy, too. After all, someone else prayerfully shared the gospel with us once, otherwise we would not be Christians ourselves.
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Recently, as I purged my bathroom of all sorts of old shower gels and shampoos, I realized I had quite a little collection of almost-but-not-quite-used-up bath products. Most of them were a bit old to continue using for their original purpose, but, being the borderline hoarder that I am, I didn’t like to see wads of money going in the trash can if I could repurpose the leftover products for any other household use.
I was quite at a loss, till I discovered that there was a way to make your own foaming soap using some of these unwanted products. Yes, you read that right–your own foamy soap, without having to go out and buy it! With this process, I’ve been able to both use up leftover products AND save money on hand soap…a definite win-win! |
The Process
(There are many blog articles about this out there on the Internet, but the tutorial I followed was this one over at KingdomFirstMom.com. I have added my own tips and advice to this, gained through trial and error.)
One Final Note: Obtaining a “Foamy Soap” Bottle
The real trick to making anything into “foamy soap” is the bottle, or more accurately, the top of the bottle, which adds air into the soap/water mix as you pump it out of the bottle. There are some fillable foaming soap pumps out there, but most of them have really bad reviews, either for being leaky or for the foamy dispenser part clogging up really easily.
At our house, we had several empty Bath & Body Works foaming soap bottles and pumps lying around; I just rinsed one out and repurposed it for my “homemade” foamy soap. This has worked out really well! So, if you can’t find a foamy soap pump you like, you may want to ask friends if they have any empty storebought soap pumps they’d be willing to let go. One less item of clutter/trash for them, one very cheap way to stretch soap for you!
Sometimes, we webdesigners need a little humor–but not just any good ol’ laugh will do. Sometimes, we need to hear and see someone tell our stories…to perfectly detail how freelance webdesigners struggle, how irritating it can be to debug a layout, how software updates throw monkey wrenches into your carefully-coded website at random.
The Internet knows our need and has responded! Here is a selection of webcomics about webdesign (and the techie life in general)–for each comic you read, you’ll laugh because it’s true, and you’ll laugh because you’ve been there.
Kopozky – A subtle and witty comic, with lots of design and development references only we will get.
PCWeenies.com – Our complete lives as designers, developers, and “tech people,” told with wit and color.
The Brads – Tales from a fictional webdesign workplace, Dilbert-esque and hilarious. (This comic creator also did a series of comics for .Net magazine as well 🙂 )
OK-Cancel – For techies of all sorts, including webdesigners and developers.
TheOatmeal.com’s Tech Archive – A small but mighty cache of techie comics, delivered with TheOatmeal’s generous dollops of penetrating observations and hilarious phrasing. (Warning, language)
Freelance Freedom – For those of us who are freelancers (which is most of us web designers and developers these days), this comic is us. Period.
1stWebDesigner’s Life Webcomic – Interesting concept–a comic as much made by the readers as its creator. Lots of reader input went into each webdesign strip!
BugBash.net – A tech-based comic for all of us who’ve battled the digital bugs in our programs and websites.
The System: Web Design Archives – Within this larger comic, these little humor gems about web design appear.
As I’ve written about before, choosing exactly the right descriptive word when you’re writing is important–words carry not only a direct meaning, but an implied meaning as well, called a connotation.
I noticed this afresh during an impromptu “writers’ club” meeting with my guy friend; we had switched computers to read each other’s stories so far, and I saw that while he had scattered descriptive words all throughout his story, some of them didn’t quite seem to fit the tone of what he meant. Instead of saying “said” a million times, for instance, he had put in apparent synonyms for the word “said”, like “noted,” “stated,” etc. Yet these words didn’t have the right “shade” of meaning in the context of what the characters were saying, etc.
I’ve run into this same problem many times in my own writing–I call it “synonym syndrome,” when you’re trying desperately not to use the same word over and over. The problem comes in when the synonyms you’re trying to use don’t quite match your meaning; they can cause a little confusion in the reader as they try to picture the scene you’ve written.
Examples of Synonym Syndrome
“I can’t believe this is happening to me!” Sandy noted.
“Psst, look over there,” Nathan stated.
“This is my original opinion,” he cited.
“WILL YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME?!” she murmured.
All of these speaking words in these examples do have the basic meaning of speech, but the more subtle shades of meaning in each one render our mental picture of the described action a little differently. It’s hard for readers to imagine a character murmuring in all caps, for instance. When you overuse synonyms like this, which is very tempting to do, it’s almost like your writing becomes a thesaurus in and of itself–it reads in a more stilted fashion rather than flowing naturally.
Some Ideas to Fix Synonym Syndrome
Examples (adverbs in italics):
Additional Food for Thought: Taking Apart Synonyms’ Meanings
Really take time to dissect the words you want to use. Do they really mean what you want them to mean? This can help you determine whether your word choice is natural or whether it’s got a little synonym syndrome. As examples, let’s look at the words “said” and “moved.”
Synonyms for “Said”
Synonyms for “Moved”
Visual Chakra Chart
Mainly a chart for health reasons.
Flipcash (Video)
How money is counted in different countries…(funny)
Eyezmaze.com
Home of the Grow Island game series, and more!
Using CSS to Fix Anything: 20 Common Bugs and Fixes
Well, CSS can’t fix your car or your house, but here’s what it can fix…
If you’ve bought any of the most recent HeroClix sets, you might have noticed some very strange-looking new symbols printed on their character cards, like the following:
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They have also begun to appear in rules text like the following:
These and several other symbols like them now stand for certain rules within HeroClix, which the 2012 Powers and Abilities card goes into in detail. The symbols just make it a lot simpler to print these rules on character cards. Today’s blog post will make you an expert at decoding this newest Hero Clix code!
What These Rules Are All About
Collectively, these rules are known as the “Improved Movement and Targeting” rules. Movement is symbolized by the running man, and targeting is symbolized by the bullseye. These two symbols are the first ones you should look for on a character’s card, to determine which kind of character action (moving or shooting) is affected.
Take the Swim example from above:
In this example, we can see that the Swim ability affects movement, because it’s got the little running man symbol in its rules text.
By contrast, we can see that the Sharpshooter ability affects targeting, because it’s got the little bullseye symbol in its rules text.
The Other Associated Symbols
Now that you know the two main symbols, you can see how the additional symbols tell you more about how each special power and ability works.
Here’s the whole chart of Improved symbols and their meanings, taken from a screenshot of the powers and abilities card PDF file:
The difference between the two columns is that the Improved Movement column (left) shows what things the affected character ignores for movement purposes, while the Improved Targeting column (right) shows what things the affected character ignores for attack purposes.
For instance, someone with the bullseye symbol followed by a green square means that they ignore Hindering Terrain for attack purposes (like Superman ignores Hindering Terrain for attack–watch out, Batman!). However, a running man symbol followed by a green square means that the character ignores Hindering for movement purposes. (Anybody with Leap/Climb on their dial has this ability!)
There are some additional symbols here–the roundish, Hero-Clix-dial-shaped symbol means that character bases can be ignored for either line-of-fire or movement purposes, for instance (depending on whether the running man or bullseye symbol precedes it). Though these new symbols look a little daunting, this chart generally makes easy work of understanding and referencing them.
Test Your Decoding Skills!
Let’s check out a few examples of rules text where these symbols are used! (Answers at the end of this article)
And now for the last question–a little tricky!
Practice with These Symbols Makes Perfect!
How’d you do on the little quiz above? It may take a little time and frequent referencing back to the Powers and Abilities Card to master these symbols, but you’ll get ’em down pat soon enough! In the meantime, HeroClix.com has provided us materials so that we never forget the rules too easily.
To download a copy of the 2012 Powers and Abilities card for yourself, visit HeroClix.com’s Rules Downloads page.
Answer Key
Flight:
Pulse Wave:
Sharpshooter:
Great Size:
Swim:
Leap/Climb and Phasing:
Isaiah 48:3-5
3 I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. 4 For I knew how stubborn you were; your neck muscles were iron, your forehead was bronze. 5 Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, ‘My images brought them about; my wooden image and metal god ordained them.’
Here, God is rebuking ‘stubborn Israel,’ His people who have gone off and worshipped regional Canaanite deities of metal and wood rather than following God. All the things the prophets spoke of so far have come to pass; Israel as a nation is struggling, yet still they cling to tangible idols, sacrificing to them in a vain effort to change their circumstances, rather than turning back to God and trusting Him.
It’s very easy (and tempting) to laugh at the ancient Israelites for doing this. They knew the right things to do, so why didn’t they just do them? Very easy, indeed, to say these things, until we realize we are doing the same things in the present day. Our idols may not look the same as the Canaanite deities, but we still worship the gods of money, technology, and power, and we often trust in those powers far more than we trust in God. There’s a belief, subtle and insidious, that tells us if we just have enough money/technology/power, we will outrun our problems and trials–and we like to believe in that rather than trusting a God we cannot even see.
The Israelites were doing the same thing, trusting in things they could see, touch, and even create rather than really trusting the God who had brought them out of Egyptian slavery and through the wilderness. And then they wondered why their deities had “abandoned” them! God, through the prophet Isaiah, is proving that He is the only One they can trust, and the only One who has power to help them–if they can just trust in that, and stop running off after the tangible things that are powerless to change anything. We need that reminder, too.
Amid all the beauty articles you’ll see me post every now and again, there’s one topic you’ll never see me cover: eyebrows. You know why? Because I, unlike so many girls and young women my age, have never and will never pluck my eyebrows to shape them. It’s just a part of the typical female beauty routine that I have never adopted.
In thinking about this issue, I realized there was a little more to it than just not liking to pluck eyebrow hairs out. It has more to do with my philosophy of beauty, which is vastly different from the beauty industry’s philosophy of beauty (not to mention society at large). Read on, to find out how a simple pair of eyebrows could make such an elegant point.
How My Brows Actually Look
As evidence of my unplucked eyebrows, I have a few pictures of myself, with no makeup and no retouching:
Barring the fact that you can tell I haven’t slept right in several years days (LOL), my eyebrows are thick and nearly-black, going almost straight across rather than having the thin, graceful arched shape so coveted in the beauty industry over the last several decades.
Every eyebrow article I read subtly tells me that I, too, should want those perfectly groomed and plucked brows for my own face. It’s almost like your face isn’t “feminine” enough without plucking these hairs out of your face every week, or having them waxed off every few months. But I just haven’t done so. Being as squeamish about pain as I am, it seems ludicrous to inflict such pinching pain on myself for a goal that I’m not even interested in.
Now, why would I not be interested in such a beauty goal? Because when my eyebrows are taken in context with the rest of my face, as seen below without glasses and with glasses…
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…they actually look pretty normal, fairly well-scaled to the rest of my facial features. True, they’re thick and straight, and some kids I went to school with used to pick on me for having “guybrows,” but they do what God intended them to–namely, to keep sweat out of my eyes (which is very handy during Zumba).
The Eyebrow Epiphany
I used to think about “getting my brows done” (as it’s usually called), but I don’t anymore. And I think this whole eyebrows thing has led me to an epiphany about beauty:
Beauty is not for other people, but for the self.
If you think about it, it’s true. Each of us are the only ones who know what that makeup product feels like on our faces, what those false lashes feel like when they’re glued to our eyelids, how much those eyebrow hair roots can hurt when they’re plucked out with tweezers. Isn’t it, then, up to us which products we use and which beauty routines we do, rather than depending on someone else to tell us “what we SHOULD be using” and “what we SHOULD be doing?”
And yet, the beauty industry–and modern society as well–does not think that way. In most people’s eyes, beauty products and routines are used to visually impact other people, not to make ourselves happier…in effect, saying that our outward beauty is solely for the visual consumption of others.
I don’t buy into that line of thinking anymore; I’ve had my turn trying to “fit in with the crowd,” beauty-wise, and I just don’t. I would rather spend my time using products and doing routines that make ME feel good about ME. Thus, why I’ve never touched my eyebrows with a tweezer, but instead use hand softeners, scrubs, and lotions to make my hands feel baby-soft after a good workout.
People might even judge me through this blog post, thinking “Why would you ever let yourself look that ugly?” or “You ought to shape your brows, you’d look so much better,” but neither opinion really matters. After all, they’re my brows on my face–if some folks don’t like them, that’s perfectly okay, because my brows are not on their faces and they don’t have to live with them. My beauty routine is for me and me alone, and I think more girls and women have a right to think that way as well.
I’m not saying that we all throw down our tweezers and stomp ’em–if you love to keep your brows groomed and plucked because it makes you feel better, then that’s awesome; keep doing it. But if you’re clinging to old beauty routines and products just because some expert said you ought to or because your friends all do it, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate your beauty thinking and start doing only the things that make you the happiest about your appearance. After all, it’s your appearance–if others don’t like it, they ain’t got to live with it!