The money never goes to actually relevant or innovative projects, because there is a whole industry devoted to "proposal writing". Companies will literally bring dedicated teams together to sit in a room and think how they could possibly grift EU money, because they cannot meaningfully compete on the open market and need to fund 25-50% of their personnel costs through such programs.
Think Siemens, Orange S.A., Technikon, Philips N.V., T-Systems, but also (!) IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, McKinsey.
I started cooking ice cream this summer. I bought an ice cream machine that can yield 1L of ice cream in 30 minutes, and prepared about 30L, sometimes sourcing material from the garden (strawberries, raspberries, cherries, figs and blackberries). If you enjoy the taste of fresh figs (which I don't normally because of the texture of the fruit) it is an incredible way to preserve it.
The best ice cream I made was blueberry + coco cream + lime. Highly recommend it. Coco cream as a substitute for water in sorbet is an amazing trick.
Shared this with a friend yesterday:
1. **Creaminess (smooth, creamy texture)**
Creaminess ↑ ⇔ Cream ↑ + Eggs ↑ + Sugar ↑
Creaminess ↓ ⇔ Water ↑ + Fresh fruits (high in water) ↑
2. **Lightness (airy texture)**
Lightness ↑ ⇔ Milk ↓ + Cream ↓ + Eggs ↓ + Sugar ↓
Lightness ↑ ⇔ Air incorporation (whipping) ↑
3. **Stability (avoiding crystallization)**
Stability ↑ ⇔ Sugar ↑ + Eggs (yolks) ↑ + Alcohol ↑
Stability ↓ ⇔ Water ↑ + Uneven freezing temperature ↑
4. **Density (weight in the mouth)**
Density ↑ ⇔ Fats (cream, butter) ↑ + Eggs ↑ + Sugar ↑
Density ↓ ⇔ Incorporated air ↑ + Water ↑
5. **Melting Temperature (softer or harder out of the freezer)**
Melting Temperature ↑ (softer) ⇔ Sugar ↑ + Alcohol ↑ + Air ↑
Melting Temperature ↓ (harder) ⇔ Water ↑ + Freezing temperature ↓
6. **Sweetness (perceived sugar)**
Sweetness ↑ ⇔ Sugar ↑ + Sweet fruit puree ↑
Sweetness ↓ ⇔ Acidity (lemon, vinegar) ↑ + Acidic fruits ↑
7. **Crystallization (grainy or smooth texture)**
Crystallization ↑ ⇔ Water ↑ + Poorly mixed ingredients ↑
Crystallization ↓ ⇔ Fats ↑ + Sugar ↑ + Proper agitation ↑
There are some really interesting choices for F/OSS email servers these days. There are SMTP+IMAP:
- maddy[0] (I use this)
- chasquid[1]
- docker-mailserver[2]
And combinations:
- haraka[3]/ZoneMTA[4] (SMTP) + wilduck[5] (IMAP)
Modoboa brings something new in that it bundles together the frontend but I'm very happy with Thunderbird (and there are other frontends like Sogo) -- the competition is stiff and modoboa really could use a front-and center image of what the app looks like on the main page.
My best advice about writer's block is: the reason you're having a hard time writing is because of a conflict between the GOAL of writing well and the FEAR of writing badly.
By default, our instinct is to conquer the fear, but our feelings are much, much, less within our control than the goals we set, and since it's the conflict BETWEEN the two forces blocking you, if you simply change your goal from "writing well" to "writing badly," you will be a veritable fucking fountain of material, because guess what, man, we don't like to admit it, because we're raised to think lack of confidence is synonymous with paralysis, but, let's just be honest with ourselves and each other: we can only hope to be good writers. We can only ever hope and wish that will ever happen, that's a bird in the bush. The one in the hand is: we suck.
We are terrified we suck, and that terror is oppressive and pervasive because we can VERY WELL see the possibility that we suck. We are well acquainted with it. We know how we suck like the backs of our shitty, untalented hands.
We could write a fucking book on how bad a book would be if we just wrote one instead of sitting at a desk scratching our dumb heads trying to figure out how, by some miracle, the next thing we type is going to be brilliant. It isn't going to be brilliant. You stink. Prove it. It will go faster.
And then, after you write something incredibly shitty in about six hours, it's no problem making it better in passes, because in addition to being absolutely untalented, you are also a mean, petty CRITIC.
You know how you suck and you know how everything sucks and when you see something that sucks, you know exactly how to fix it, because you're an asshole.
So that is my advice about getting unblocked. Switch from team "I will one day write something good" to team "I have no choice but to write a piece of shit" and then take off your "bad writer" hat and replace it with a "petty critic" hat and go to town on that poor hack's draft and that's your second draft.
The problem with this pixel art is its targetting 1080p for some bizzarre reason and just ends up looking like non anti-aliased graphics. Pixel art should look like this. https://twitter.com/zaebucca/status/1057312889160286215/phot... Even scaled up 4x this looks gorgeous.
I personally know Markipler (youtube, 23M+) as well as follow some other people here and there.
There is a youtuber; BloominBanana I subbed around the same time I subbed to Markipler 2010ish, they both do (did?) the same horror gameplay except Bloomin' has about 12 subs on youtube.
Mark as I knew him was the king of 'going out there' he was never afraid of marketing, publicity stunts and was honestly humble to his huge user base where Bloomin' despised marketing and wanted to grow "organically".
Growing organically isn't possible. You need to do something, you need to bot and break rules on twitch, you need to ask for publicity, you need to make friends with other streamers. Playing a game and being funny doesn't cut it anymore
Think Siemens, Orange S.A., Technikon, Philips N.V., T-Systems, but also (!) IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, McKinsey.