Spooky times are back, and you know what that means: ‘Tis the season for bad Halloween costumes! Cosplay and nerd culture have become more mainstream and while that means some awesome costumes, so too do we see an increase in badly made knockoffs. Some of them are supposed to be “sexy,” others funny, but they usually end up just being plain bad. We’re looking at the worst of the worst of 2019.

I said this last year, but it bears repeating: This is not about defining what constitutes a good or bad “sexy” costume. Halloween is a great time to celebrate your sexuality and have fun with fashion—as is any time of year, for that matter. Rather, we’re here to look at the ridiculous, the laughable, and the offensive. In other words, the best of the worst borderline copyright infringement that the folks at Yandy, ForPlay, and beyond have bestowed on us for this year’s All Hallow’s Eve.

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The ‘Winner’

Nicest Neighbor

Much in the vein of that Bob Ross aka “Happy Tree Painter” costume, Yandy has decided to sexify Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood with “Nicest Neighbor” (Yandy), complete with a red belly sweater, shorts, and a stiff necktie that isn’t even attached to a shirt (puppets not included). Excuse me, but Fred Rogers was already sexy enough on his own.

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Ooh, That’s Topical

Miss Impeachment | Beyond Burger | Sold Out Chicken Sandwich | Tater Thot

That’s right, we’re back with another round of oh-so-topical Halloween costumes! After all, “Sexy Op-Ed Anonymous” is soooo 2018. This year, it was mostly food-related costumes—I’m guessing because we all stuffed our faces to try and survive this horrible year. We’ve got “Beyond Burger” (Yandy) and “Sold Out Chicken Sandwich” (Yandy), along with a delightful pun stuck on a disappointing costume with “Tater Thot” (Yandy). But if you still want to get political, we’ve got “Miss Impeachment” (Yandy) a tribute to…nice butts and systemic justice?

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Nothing But…Space Battles

Galaxy Trooper | Human Space Scavenger | Universe Warrior | Dark Star Lady

The Skywalker saga is finally coming to an end this year with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Why not celebrate with the finest pieces of borderline copyright infringement with these totally-not-Star Wars Halloween costumes? The “Galaxy Trooper” (Yandy) outfit looks all right enough, were it not for it having the solar system’s worst fake helmet. Then there’s “Human Space Scavenger”(Yandy)—not to be confused with all those non-human ones—as well as the absolutely ridiculous “Universe Warrior” (Yandy).

All of that said, I’m kinda digging the fake Darth Vader costume… except for the fact that it looks cheap as hell and it’s called “Dark Star Lady” (Yandy). Like, come on, that’s just silly.

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Space, the Weirdest Frontier

Future Is Female | I’m Blue Alien | Blast Off

There were enough fake Star Wars costumes to warrant their own category, but I still had a few extra spacey outfits that simply had to be mentioned. You can be a possibly radioactive weirdo with “I’m Blue Alien” (Yandy). Then there’s “Blast Off” (ForPlay), an astronaut costume that says it’s based on a “movie character” but for the life in me I can’t figure out which one. The one on the left is called “Future Is Female” (Yandy) and it made me want to die.

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Scary (But Not Really)

Defiant Doll | It’s a Wrap | Bone Daddy | Dream Killer | Got The Juice

It’s time to get spoooooooky! Except no, not really. “It’s a Wrap” (ForPlay) handled the mummy game while “Got the Juice” (ForPlay) channeled not-Beetlejuice…except both of them are wearing these weird half-pants that can’t look or feel good after walking around all right. “Dream Killer” (ForPlay) is overall bad but gets a pass for having a creepy meat skin hoodie. Then, for those wanting to be creepy in completely uncomfortable ways, there’s the sexified Annabelle of “Defiant Doll” (Yandy).

Finally, there’s the bone guy. A big trend in costumes this year is folks dressing up like skeletons. No surprise, it’s a universally flattering look and really brings out the inner self (get it?). That doesn’t mean all the costumes are good, though. There are plenty of bad skeleton looks. But I’ve gotta be honest: The main reason I picked this one is because it’s called “Bone Daddy” (Leg Avenue) and I just couldn’t help myself.

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Cute (But Not Really)

Hear Me Roar | Anime School Girl | Heartless Tin | Despicable Human | Scary Scoops

This one is a bit of a hodge-podge, but it’s mostly things that are normally designed to look cute but in this case, are anything but. The Wizard of Oz hath returned (following ForPlay’s 2018 costume set) with “Hear Me Roar” (Yandy) and “Heartless Tin” (Yandy)—although I couldn’t find a sexy male Dorothy anywhere! Otherwise, there’s the childhood-ruining “Despicable Human” (Yandy) or “Anime School Girl” (Starline) which is making choices with the Sailor Moon-inspired getup. Finally, the cosplay of the year with Stranger Things’ sailor suit, this time going by “Scary Scoops” (Yandy). After all, nothing is scarier than minimum wage.

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Superher-Oh No

Ghost Hunter | Super Suit | Vile Villain | Space Soldier | Femme Fatale Warrior

Most of these costumes are to be expected. The Ghostbusters “Ghost Hunter” (Yandy), the Captain Marvel “Space Soldier” (ForPlay), and Black Panther’s “Femme Fatal Warrior” (Yandy)… complete with a truly terrible name. Even the weird mesh “Super Suit” (Yandy) that turns The Incredibles into some seriously kinky shit. But I just wanted to point out one thing: “Vile Villain” (Yandy), the newest incarnation of the Joker ensemble, costs $72. How? And why? Just go to Goodwill, folks. You can find like 40 leisure suits there.

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Greetings Fellow Gamers

Cuddle Dream Gamer | Ken | Ryu | Mushroom Damsel

Shout-out to my gamer squad!!! We’ve got the “Cuddle Dream Gamer” (Starline) and our favorite “Mushroom Damsel” (Starline). And then, the Street Fighter duo themselves, Ryu (ForPlay) and Ken (ForPlay). Hint hint: Best couples costume ever, maybe?

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Legally Not Disney

Vengeful Creature | A Whole New World | Island Princess | Desert Prince | Beautiful Belle

Why is it that fake Disney costumes are always the worst? “Vengeful Creature” (Yandy) looks like she has a bag of poop on her head, while “Desert Prince” (Leg Avenue) might as well be carrying a load around in those pants. You’ve got “A Whole New World” (Yandy) donning a shower curtain on her legs and “Beautiful Belle” (Yandy) in a weird crimp skirt that I can’t imagine looks good on anyone. But I’m especially weirded out by “Island Princess” (ForPlay) Moana was, like, definitively underage. I don’t want to see Moana’s underboobs.

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Still Not Disney

Frozen Queen | Alice In Chains | Sleeping Beauty | Naughty Red Riding Hood

These costumes come from Harmonia, a site that normally specializes in outfits to wear to Burning Man or Coachella. So it’s no surprise that these costumes, which tend to go for hundreds of dollars, feel like they’d be more at home in a fancy rave than at your friend’s Halloween party. On one hand, they’re clearly well made. On the other, they’re making some weird choices.

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Totally Not Disney Trust Us You Guys (Also WTF)

The Chosen One | To Infinity Space Ranger | Playtime Sheriff | Bo Peep This

So, these exist now. All ForPlay.

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For more, make sure you’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.

via Gizmodo
Here Are 2019’s Most Awful Halloween Costumes

In this fairly short (15 minute) video, I show how to structure a basic Laravel package, set up a service provider and config file, use Guzzle to make requests to an external API, and install the package to a local Laravel installation using Composer’s symlink functionality.
via Laravel News Links
How to develop a simple Laravel package locally

In the 1936 movie Modern Times, a blindfolded Charlie Chaplin rollerskates around on the fourth floor of an under-construction department store. As he skates backwards and hits the staircase trim, he nearly topples to his death.

By reconstructing the entire scene in CG, this GIF reveals the camera trick–called a "glass shot," as that’s what the painting substrate is–the filmmakers used to pull the shot off and keep Charlie safe:

How’s that for clever?

via Core77
GIF Reveals how Charlie Chaplin Performed a “Dangerous” Stunt with Camera Trickery

Databricks is a SaaS business built on top of a bunch of open-source tools, and apparently it’s been going pretty well on the business side of things. In fact, the company claims to be one of the fastest growing enterprise cloud companies ever. Today the company announced a massive $400 million Series F funding round on a hefty $6.2 billion valuation. Today’s funding brings the total raised to almost a $900 million.

Andreessen Horowitz’s Late Stage Venture Fund led the round with new investors BlackRock, Inc., T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Tiger Global Management also participating. The institutional investors are particularly interesting here because as a late-stage startup, Databricks likely has its eye on a future IPO, and having those investors on board already could give them a head start.

CEO Ali Ghodsi was coy when it came to the IPO, but it sure sounded like that’s a direction he wants to go. “We are one of the fastest growing cloud enterprise software companies on record, which means we have a lot of access to capital as this fundraise shows. The revenue is growing gangbusters, and the brand is also really well known. So an IPO is not something that we’re optimizing for, but it’s something that’s definitely going to happen down the line in the not-too-distant future,” Ghodsi told TechCrunch.

The company announced as of Q3 it’s on a $200 million run rate, and it has a platform that consists of four products, all built on foundational open source: Delta Lake, an open-source data lake product; MLflow, an open-source project that helps data teams operationalize machine learning; Koalas, which creates a single machine framework for Spark and Pandos, greatly simplifying working with the two tools; and, finally, Spark, the open-source analytics engine.

You can download the open-source version of all of these tools for free, but they are not easy to use or manage. The way that Databricks makes money is by offering each of these tools in the form of Software as a Service. They handle all of the management headaches associated with using these tools and they charge you a subscription price.

It’s a model that seems to be working, as the company is growing like crazy. It raised $250 million just last February on a $2.75 billion valuation. Apparently the investors saw room for a lot more growth in the intervening six months, as today’s $6.2 billion valuation shows.

via TechCrunch
Databricks announces $400M round on $6.2B valuation as analytics platform continues to grow

composer require shetabit/visitor

# In your providers array. 'providers' => [  ...  Shetabit\Visitor\Provider\VisitorServiceProvider::class, ],  # In your aliases array. 'aliases' => [  ...  'Visitor' => Shetabit\Visitor\Facade\Visitor::class, ],

php artisan vendor:publish php artisan migrate

$request->visitor()->browser(); // firefox $request->visitor()->visit($post); // create log for post $request->visitor()->setVisitor($user)->visit($post); // create a log wich says $user has visited $post

visitor()->visit(); // create a visit log

// or you can save log like the below visitor()->visit($model); // or like the below $model->createVisitLog();  // you can say which user has visited the given $model $model->createVisitLog($user); // or like the below visitor()->setVisitor($user)->visit($model); 

$model->visitLogs()->count();

$user->visit(); // create a visit log $user->visit($model); // create a log which says, $user has visited $model

visitor()->onlineVisitors(User::class); // returns collection of online users User::online()->get(); // another way  visitor()->isOnline($user); // determines if the given user is online $user->isOnline(); // another way

via Laravel News Links
A Laravel package to retrieve visitors’ information

Researchers have created a new way to classify arrogance on different levels across a spectrum.

“We were surprised at the limited amount of modern research we found on arrogance,” says Nelson Cowan, professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missour, says of the findings. “Furthermore, we found it didn’t all come from one specific area. So we created a one-stop resource to inspire further research, including, but not limited to, possible medical diagnoses of personality disorders.”

The team acknowledges everyone seems to have some degree of arrogance, so in addition to the literature review, the researchers suggest a way to classify the different levels of arrogance a person could exhibit.

The team devised a system that identifies three types of arrogance:

• Individual arrogance—an inflated opinion of one’s own abilities, traits, or accomplishments compared to the truth.
• Comparative arrogance—an inflated ranking of one’s own abilities, traits, or accomplishments compared to other people.
• Antagonistic arrogance—the denigration of others based on an assumption of superiority.

The three levels provide a foundation for future descriptions of arrogance.

“Our system cannot offer a complete scientific understanding, rather it is intended to provide an analytical perspective on arrogance to help guide future psychological research,” Cowan says. “It could be applied to all types of relationships, such as interpersonal relationships, or even dialogues between nations and political groups.”

The review appears in the Review of General Psychology. Funding for the work came from a NIAAA grant. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

Source: University of Missouri

The post There are 3 types of arrogance appeared first on Futurity.

via Futurity.org
There are 3 types of arrogance

Here’s a short video about how to sharpen an axe. Like all sharpening, it’s not complicated to sharpen an axe… but there are right and wrong ways to do anything.

An axe is a beautiful tool. It deserves to be treated with respect. Be nice to your axe.

From files and oil stones to belt grinders and polishing wheels, this guy covers the basics in less than 8 minutes. He also provides tips on filing steel,cleaning files, and making sure you don’t get your axe head too hot if you use power tools.

He advises users of power tools to sharpen their axes bare-handed so they can touch the edge often to make sure it’s not getting too hot. Personally, I prefer to wear gloves to protect my hands from clumsy mistakes, and use water frequently to ensure the steel is cool.

Enough talk; enjoy the video.

The post Sharpening an Axe appeared first on AllOutdoor.com.

via All Outdoor
Sharpening an Axe

composer require hapidjus/laravel-impersonate-ui

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Hapidjus\ImpersonateUI\ImpersonateUiServiceProvider"

return [   /**  * Position of icon.  *   * Supported: "bottom-right", "bottom-left", "top-left", "top-right"  *   */  'icon_position' => 'bottom-right',   /**  * Show Impersonate button.   *   * Trying to save some clicks?  * Then this is the option for you! Select a user and BOOM -   * form submited - user impersonated. No need to click any  * pesky buttons.  *   */  'show_button' => true,   /**  * Globaly include laravel-impersonate-ui.   *   * Or use this view: @include('impersonate-ui::impersonate-ui')  *   */  'global_include' => true,   /**  * The URI/Route to redirect after taking an impersonation.  *  * Use 'back' to redirect to the previous page  *  */  'take_redirect_to' => 'back',   /**  * The URI/Route to redirect after leaving an impersonation.  *  * Use 'back' to redirect to the previous page  *  */  'leave_redirect_to' => 'back',  ];

Have fun impersonating.

via Laravel News Links
Laravel Impersonate UI – UI for impersonating Users

When Shan Sundaram tried to purchase a boutique consulting shop, he was frustrated by how inefficient and outdated the process was.

Likewise when Aravind Namasivayam was trying to buy a restaurant. He found that existing online platforms weren’t up to the job; sending buyers and sellers to Craigslist wasn’t built for this sort of transaction. The process was slow and lacked transparency.

In Aimee Zhang‘s role helping found and launch a snack company, she met numerous business owners with thriving companies and product lines who didn’t know how to sell their enterprises or take them to the next level.

This year the trio came together to launch BizPappa, a Bellevue, Wash.-based startup trying to help people buy and sell their small businesses.

In addition to these experiences, Sundaram and Namasivayam have both worked at Microsoft as program managers; Namasivayam is currently a senior program manager at the company. Zhang works as a real estate broker, with experience in commercial real estate.

“All three founders come from different backgrounds,” said Sundaram, who is BizPappa’s CEO. “That makes us very unique to execute our vision.”

An initial version of the platform launched in July, but the team has big ideas for how to improve and expand it. That includes using machine learning to create more targeted listings and provide information specific to a user’s needs.

“We don’t want to just be a platform for a broker to just upload a listing,” Sundaram said.

Ultimately, the site could provide additional information and services to meet a suite of needs experienced by new small business owners. That concierge-type service could differentiate BizPappa from existing platforms including Craigslist, BizBuySell and Tresle.

The startup generates revenue by charging sellers 7-to-8 percent per transaction, with the goal of reducing that to around 5 percent as the company grows. Sundaram would also like to offer some sort of rebates for buyers to encourage them to use the platform.

The company’s biggest challenge, Sundaram said, is the lengthy amount of time that it takes to complete a sale. Often the mom-and-pop shops have less than perfect bookkeeping and it takes time to share information on the business.

“We see a potential opportunity there,” he said. “We’re trying to help the sellers put all of the information together.”

We caught up with Sundaram for this Startup Spotlight, a regular GeekWire feature. Continue reading for his answers to our questionnaire.

What does your company do? We’re building a marketplace to help people buy and sell small local businesses such as restaurants and salons, and we plan to eventually provide concierge services such as food safety licenses, business licenses, insurance, finding a CPA and other areas. We want to be the small local business market’s Redfin plus Zenefits (a company providing support in HR and other business operational needs for startups).

Inspiration hit us when: We realized that buying and selling small businesses followed an antiquated model that hasn’t changed with the times. Given the availability of new technology and a fast-moving market, this process needs a new platform that is entrepreneur friendly. There are plenty of improvements in residential real estate, but there isn’t the same sort of resources for small business owners pursuing their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs. We can launch more entrepreneurs by using the latest tools and technology because our platform was created with problem solving in mind for small businesses.

VC, Angel or Bootstrap: Bootstrap. We are self-funded and focusing on getting traction before we raise any seed funding.

Our ‘secret sauce’ is: We’re the first in the market for building a platform that uses artificial intelligence to help people buy and sell small businesses. This helps target the business listing category, location and price that buyers and sellers receive, and eliminates needless communication between buyers and sellers. We also have dedicated in-house brokers to assist buyers and sellers throughout the transaction and make it transparent and professional.

Our founders come from the technology sector, commercial real estate, restaurants and the food and beverage industry. It’s the perfect combo to solve this problem.

The smartest move we’ve made so far: The first thing we did was break the problem into single blocks and tackle our challenges according to a philosophy of solving them one by one. As part of this exercise, we decided to focus solely on the fast moving, restaurant buy-and-sell category. We have partnered with the CBA (Commercial Business Association) and integrated their listings to discover local businesses available for sale.

Given that last year Forbes ranked Seattle as the No.1 place in the U.S. to run a business, we’re launching with restaurants in Seattle and the greater Puget Sound area to prove our business model before expanding to other markets and categories.

The biggest mistake we’ve made so far: We’ve waited to launch the MVP to kick start our content strategy, which includes informational posts about how to start a business, the pros and cons of buying a business versus starting from scratch, etc. We quickly realized that we could have started producing the content while simultaneously talking to customers and building the platform.

Which leading entrepreneur or executive would you most want working in your corner? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazon started as an e-commerce company, but has diversified into areas such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Echo personal assistants, etc. The company fails fast and moves quickly into new areas to become first in a field. We’re following the same concept to move fast and test the market quickly — while still using strong data points — along with talking to customers.

Our favorite team-building activity is: Frequent coffee meetups

The biggest thing we look for when hiring is: Passion, integrity, being a go-to person, and looking for opportunities with every problem, rather than whining about challenges.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to other entrepreneurs just starting out: Don’t rush to build the technology. Do thorough customer research, talking to potential customers to understand the landscape before building the product.

via GeekWire
BizPappa helps spur entrepreneurship with a platform for buying and selling small businesses

isAuth

This package provides control to check if user session dead before submit forms. If the session is dead, a modal will reveal and ask password to re-login.

Installation

Require this package with composer.

composer require spiderwebtr/isauth

Laravel 5.5+

If you don’t use auto-discovery, add the ServiceProvider to the providers array in config/app.php

spiderwebtr\isauth\isAuthServiceProvider::class,

Include JQuery and Sweet Alert

You can download the js files or just use cdn.

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.4.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="https://unpkg.com/sweetalert/dist/sweetalert.min.js"></script>

Create assets

Run the command to copy js file.

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=public --force

Last Step

Add this code to the footer in your blade. user object provides information in login modal.

<script>  let user={  name:"",  email:"",  photo:"" //edit this up to your system or just remove this line.  }; </script> <style>  .swal-icon--custom>img{  max-height: 250px;  border-radius: 50%;  } </style> <script src="/assets/SpiderWebtr/isAuth/isAuth.js"></script>

Extras

Translate

In isAuth.js file there is texts object which provides texts to package. You can modify them to translate.

isAuth Function

isAuth function takes a callback parameter so you can call isAuth in your code.

isAuth(function(){ //do something  });

Login modal will reveal if the session is dead. When you re-login, your code will work with callback.

via Laravel News Links
isAuth package checks if you are logged in and provides login modal before post requests if you session is dead.