#101 BASIC Computer Games

[chaesparklez]

victory (pt.1) | taerae x reader

wc: 2.7k

reader: femme afab

warnings: 18+ SMUT MINORS DNI

teasing, lap dancing, oral m!receiving, sloppy oral sex, tension, slightly bratty reader, subby taerae

synopsis: game rules

- whichever player makes the opponent cum in the shortest amount of time wins. the opponent only has to cum once for the player to win.

- the game is timed. the timer starts upon first contact with the opponent's center.

- acts of foreplay like kissing or heavy petting excluding the genitals do not count.

a thrilling game of control and domination. whose victory will it be?

a/n: i am so so happy to have written this story! the idea and writing process for this piece flowed out so naturally and i had so much fun writing it. as a kkultarae i feel like a taerae fic was long overdue. enjoy the story and stay seated for pt 2 :)

cross-posted on wattpad and ao3. available through user @/chaesparkle

“let's play a game."

taerae looks up from his computer, slipping his headphones off one ear.

"what was that, jagi?" he replies.

you smile mischievously and take a couple steps towards him where he sits at his gaming desk. you ruffle his hair and rest your hand on the nape of his neck.

"i said, let's play a game. a really fun one." you smile, massaging his neck with your hand.

he looks up into your eyes, his gaze a mix of curiosity and amusement.

"what game is it?" he asks.

you grin deviously.

~~

you and taerae had been dating for a year and a half now. initially shy, he had opened up wonderfully with you, appreciating how you were always ready to lead him and teach him something new. whether it was explaining some cool academic concept, a technique on how to fold a fitted sheet... or how to eat pussy.

with his lack of experience, you guys started off pretty slow so he could learn the basics. but once he got going... well.

the thing about taerae was that he was incredibly hardworking. he knew what he lacked in and worked tirelessly till he perfected it. and he did so with this quiet confidence that you'd always found insanely sexy. not overly cocky, never too critical of himself, just aware of his good points and always ready to improve.

you can imagine how that translated into the bedroom. over the course of the past year you had basically given him a 101 on how to drive a woman crazy, and needless to say you couldn't keep your hands off eachother once he had grown comfortable exploring.

and today, you decided you wanted to give a surprise test to spice things up a bit.

"let's see who can make the other cum the fastest."

his eyebrows raise in surprise, caught a little off guard at the unexpected proposal. but shock is taken over by amusement, then competitiveness as his eyes glint with determination.

"what are the stakes?" he asks.

"winner doesn't have to do the dishes for a week."

he laughs and ruffles his hair. "can't pass up that," he takes his headset off and swivels around in his chair to face you fully.

'okay, any rules?' he asks.

you purse your lips in thought for a second, deciding how you wanted to do this. "hmmm."

you set out the following rules:

- whichever player makes the opponent cum in the shortest amount of time wins. the opponent only has to cum once for the player to win.

- the game is timed. the timer starts upon first contact with the opponent's center.

- acts of foreplay like kissing or heavy petting excluding the genitals do not count.

taerae loved this organisation. he smirks and nods his head, loving the prospect of both winning a competition and getting to see you crumble before him.

"sounds good to me. get ready to have the fastest orgasm you've ever had." he grins.

"unfortunately that'll be you." you smile.

"guess we'll just have to see about that. who should go first?'

"i will. come to the sitting room in 10 minutes." you reply, already having decided what you'd do with a smirk.

"okay then," he replies, gazing at you with darkened eyes. 'i’m anticipating it.’

you smile and plant a kiss on his neck. "may the best player win." you whisper.

"oh, he will." he breathes.

~~

"honey, you can come out now!" you call.

taerae enters the sitting room to find the lights dimmed and a chair placed in the middle of the room. you are nowhere to be seen.

"jagi, where are you?" he calls back, mildly puzzled.

"you'll see plenty of me in a second," you chirp with a grin from the adjoining room. 'sit in the chair and wait in the meanwhile.'

he takes his place and laughs quietly to himself, anticipating to see what you've prepared. you had a habit of surprising him but he was sure he wouldn't fall for it this time being determined to win the game.

well, he was sure in for a ride.

all of a sudden, he hears music filling the room. the speakers were playing a song from all corners of the space. he looks around bemused.

"jagi?" he calls out.

showtime.

"yes?" you reply innocently, stepping into the doorway.

taerae's eyes widen with shock for a second, then he bites his lip with a smile, throwing his head back with a chuckle knowing that he's already in danger of losing by how his cock is twitching in his pants just at the sight of you.

you stand before him dressed in a baby tee and plaid micro mini skirt, white thigh high socks and platform heels. the only accessories you wore were a kitty headband and a white garter with a bow around your thigh. much of you was on show not leaving a lot to the imagination; although taerae's imagination right now was running wild. you smile, knowing this outfit would drive him crazy.

you knew that your gamer boyfriend was secretly into the stereotypical sexy female twitch streamer getup despite him insisting he was different. after all, he was still a man. and you were going to play this to your advantage to win the game. you were going to give him an agonizing lap dance.

you strut slowly towards him and circle around his chair while caressing his shoulder. he places his hand on top of yours as you brush it across his hoodie, to which you remove your hand immediately.

"no touching yet." you whisper, waggling a finger at him mischievously.

taerae bites his lip and covers his face with his hands, knowing that having to sit still while you give him a lap dance barely clothed might actually make him cum in his pants if he doesn't control himself. his cock was already throbbing like crazy.

all he could think about right now was how fucking sexy you looked in that outfit. like a present wrapped up for him with that bow around your thigh. he wanted nothing more than to fuck you in this getup, removing your garter with his teeth. bending you over and sliding your panties aside before thrusting his throbbing erection into your core, watching you teeter in those stilettos...

but here he stayed sat on the chair as you tortured him with your wily charms. he sits on his hands purely because he wasn't sure he could refrain from touching you if he didn't.

now slowly, more deliberately, you strut to the back of his chair and run your hand along his chest where you can momentarily feel his heart pounding, tracing your fingertips up along his neck then pulling his head back with a tug to his hair. you exhale warm breath onto his exposed neck before gently kissing him below the lobe then nibbling on his ear.

"fuck." taerae breathes, fighting not to let out a moan.

he was struggling to keep his resolve as you knew exactly how to make him crumble- by targeting his erogenous zone. the tingling sensation of your breath on his neck and your gentle nibbles on his earlobe drives him insane, exhaling shakily with his eyes closed. he swallows nervously and purses his lips together.

you release him with a smile, continuing to circle round with your hand tracing his other shoulder, down to his chest, then his thigh, till you stand before him. you place your leg between his thighs, stiletto resting on the polished oak of the chair. then grazing his inner thigh with your foot. he clenches his teeth in desperation, using all the power in him to not forfeit the game and fuck you right in this chair.

you draw your hand up your thigh beginning at the knee, brushing past the lacy garter. taerae's gaze follows your touch; your panties were visible as your skirt hiked up past your thighs. he stared with longing at your parted thighs, wanting nothing more than to grab them and bury his head between them..

you lift his chin with a finger forcing him to look away from your leg and at your face.

"look at me, baby." you whisper.

he nods in submission, prompting a tingle to spread through your center at the yearning look in his eyes. you step back and begin to dance for him, letting the music wash over you as you sway your hips, flip your hair and draw out every movement so his eyes linger on the arch of your back and your tantalising ass peeking out from under that micro mini skirt. taerae watches you intently, entranced and still struggling to ignore the aching bulge in his pants.

"you're determined to win this, huh?" he rasps.

"of course." you reply, cocking your head to the side and grinning.

running a hand through your hair, you amble slowly towards your tortured lover. then straddle him in the chair, legs either side of him with your chest in his face. he swallows nervously at your proximity, gazing up at you with longing.

“you can touch me if you want,” you whisper.

he runs his fingers up the side of your exposed waist, making you shiver gently. you begin to move your hips, grinding against his clothed cock and feeling it graze your center. you bite your lip to stifle a moan, the both of you engaging in a torturous battle of restraint; you weren’t sure who’d lose.

you continue to undulate against him and lean down to plant kisses on his neck. you suck and nibble at the smooth skin, peppering his neck with splotchy red love bites. he lets out a shaky breath and you feel his cock twitch. gingerly, he palms your breast, long fingers running across your nipple and squeezing gently. you let out a soft moan against his neck and retract, gazing into his eyes as your chests rise and fall against eachother. you feel yourself start to lose focus and remember suddenly to maintain your resolve, breaking the moment of catharsis by planting a kiss on his full lips and leaving his lap.

knowing your ass looked great in this skirt, you decided to tease him further by facing away and bending over slightly, tracing your fingertips down the back of your thighs, shaking it a little with a giggle. you can practically hear him stop breathing trying to control himself.

placing your hands on the arms of the chair, you flick your hair while swaying your ass side to side before sitting in his lap, this time pushing your clouded thoughts aside determined to win the game. you hook your arm around his neck and begin to grind again, slower but more firmly this time. rolling your hips and feeling his erection poking your ass as you move against it. you brush your other hand across your chest as you lose yourself in the movements.

"jagi... please.." he rasps in your ear.

pretending not to hear his plea, you give yourself a sly smile and rise from his lap.

then you sink down to your knees in front of him looking up at him with pseudo innocence.

"please what, baby? are you asking for something?" you ask, batting your lashes.

"touch me. let me touch you. please... so hard." he groans, clenching his jaw and throwing his head back in agitation.

"someone looks bothered. let's see if we can get rid of some of that tension." you reply wily.

you rub his thighs with your hands, deliberately avoiding his cock to avoid breaking the rules. he exhales shakily. you smile, finally deciding to reward him for holding out this long.

"you've done so well, baby. let me make you feel good." you whisper.

you pull down his pants enough so his erection springs out, tip leaking a bead of precum. even though you were trying to assert dominance right now, the sight of him this hard made you suddenly aware of the wetness building between your thighs.

you reach under the chair for the stopwatch you had placed there and hold it facing towards him.

"let's start." you say, and press the 'go' button.

taking a moment to push your hair back, you take his cock into your hand and spit on it before stroking it gently. you gaze up into his eyes and slowly lick along the dorsal vein at a painstaking pace. his cock twitches in your hand as if it calls out for more. starting at the shaft, you plant sloppy kisses all the way up his length till you reach his angry pink tip, then deepthroat him. taerae lets out a deep moan, the feeling of his cock all the way down your warm throat sending tingles down his spine.

you swirl your tongue around his tip to lick up the leaking precum before slowly sucking him off, your mouth travelling halfway down before coming up again. he looks down at you with a dark gaze, pupils focused on you intently.

you begin to suck him off more intensely, starting off slow then progressively getting faster, sloppily spitting all over his cock making a warm sticky mess all over the both of you. you watch as the saliva runs down his length; it momentarily remains a string suspended in air between your lips and his cock, and as you jerk him off it makes a delectable sound.

he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. "doing so well, baby. you look so hot right now drooling all over my dick."

you smile in satisfaction and carry on. you pick up the pace, head bobbing up and down rapidly as you suck him off with your ass jiggling in time with your movements. you deepthroat him again and stay there for a couple seconds, moaning so the vibrations from your throat send him into a new plane of ecstasy. your eyes water slightly from the pressure but you continue at a slowly increasing speed, feeling him get closer to climax as his groans of pleasure grow louder.

then your final weapon. you enclose your lips around his tip while your hand remains wrapped around his length, and suck.

"f-fuck. oh my god. fuck." he breathes, stuttering from the sheer stimulation. your lips targeting the most sensitive part of his cock while you jerk him off sloppily drives him insane. he screws his eyes shut and moans.

"i'm close," he pants. you maintain the pace and carry on sucking and licking the smooth head of his cock, making eye contact with him once again.

and he shatters.

with a deep grunt, he cums, hot fluid spurting all over your tongue. you slow down the movements of your hand and suck his tip clean of every last drop of cum, then swallow, releasing his cock from your mouth with a pop. you move the hair out of your eyes, slightly out of breath and panting.

he looks down at the scene before him: his cock covered in a mix of spit and precum, your chin covered in saliva, cheeks red and lipstick smudged. he holds your chin and wipes a smear of pink away with his thumb.

"have to give this one to you, baby. you never fail to surprise me." he laughs wearily as you gaze at eachother.

taerae's face is flushed and his pupils waver from side to side as you kneel before him a mess. hair tangled, makeup smudged...

you hold up the stopwatch.

"five minutes twelve seconds. think you can beat it?"

he takes a moment to regard you, then smiles, leaning forward in his chair with a knowing expression.

what you didn't know was that taerae was just as competitive as you- if not more. and while you had gone above and beyond his expectations right now, he still had something in store for you that would have you folding immediately.

planning, organising, calculating like a true 'T' on how to give you the fastest orgasm of your life. you didn't stand a chance. he smirks at you with an air of utmost confidence, caressing your cheek.

"i think you'll be surprised at what i have in store for you, jagi," he breathes in a deep voice.

and you find yourself a little thrown off by his sudden resolve, thinking you hadn't crumbled him to dust as finely as you thought you had. but overwhelmingly what you felt right now was... lust.

his dimples appearing as he flashes that sly smirk, eyes filled with competitiveness and that quiet confidence that made you very aware of how your core was soaking wet and throbbing.

noticing your expression, taerae chuckles again and leans forward so your faces are only inches apart.

"let's see what you have to say to my plan." he whispers in your ear.

*and the game continues…*

[kremlin]

i figure most human behaviour that, not only doesn’t occur in other animals but has zero connection to animal behavior is basically distantly rooted in the known fear of inevitable death. let me be clear. cats and shit don’t know they’re gonna die. we do. we have thoughts. we know it’s coming. we think we’re gonna be rich, bullshit like that, most humans believe in magic and most humans doubt that math is a universal or consistent thing. total nonsense right. but everyone knows their ass is gonna die. before you write me off as some dumbass reciting basic 101 level university lectures just Trust Me I’m An Engineer. anyways. being human and dying are somewhat one in the same.

“if i do nonhuman things i can cheat the reaper.” short and sweet. if i can beat zelda faster than anyone i can outrun the reaper. and you know what, fuck it, i’m scared shitless of dying. it’s gonna hurt really bad no doubt. what if the brain destroyal process makes time slow down in my perception and it’s not just like five seconds of bleeding out or fire ant bites or however you go. Scary. so i’ll play along:

i am an average american man and i enjoy bad game runescape. it’s a computer game. MMO. kill monster get loot. sell what i don’t want to other players for gold. spamming chat with “SELLING BOWSTRINGS 200gp” for an hour “sucks” so the devs add a grand exchange where you can post buy/sell orders for a given item+price to maximize gameplay efficiency and minimize social interaction.

like any other MMO you can pay some sketchy website real money for ingame gold farmer by chinese gold farmers. totally against the rules. remember this

so the first thing that comes to any male aged 23-27 mind is “buy low sell high” basic bitch shit. no good. there’s a 5% tax that’ll wipe out your profit margin intended to eliminate this behavior (you’re supposed to friggen kill monsters). but everyone thinks they’re a genius and can beat the system and that there is a secret george soros style illuminati group that is holding the secrets, blah blah blah, whatever, and this comes as a coping mechanism after losing your shirt after trying to beat the market (success rate of 0%).

here is where people mostly quit thinking: if you do the math, which takes about ten minutes and can be done on one side of a sheet of paper with the most basic calculator, it’s easy to figure out that the amount of gold you’d need to play dirty (buy out all the available Feathers or Fire Runes or whatever) in order to corner the market would be so high that there is no possible way for a character to hold that much without having spent IRL money for gold. you’d get autobanned.

SO..finally, go on the ol’ www.reddit.com, and make a really really professional-to-professional sounding post advertising a “service”. Saturate the fuck out of it with dense but very real financial jargon. the “service” (which needs to be obscured enough with plausible and relevant language) is a hedging service aimed at make-believe market players who are buying and selling such huge amounts of items and gold (usually in anticipation of a game update that will speculatively introduce a sudden, dramatic, and capitalizable price change for some item). you need it to be as alien-sounding and foreign as possible but with enough believability and clarity that a handful of reddit jackasses will figure out what the fuck your post is about. whenever pressed further, act totally puzzled and make it very clear that this is not a service relevant to “individual entertainment-motivated” players or some shit. no matter what amount of gold anyone quotes at you, just act puzzled and if that amount is 1/1000th the amount one of your “normal” clients deal with. you need to do all of this extremely artfully. and by “you”, i’ve been meaning to write “me”. really lay it on thick that whatever you’re “doing” is totally unavailable to them and that you want zero to do with them.

so now theyre still mostly totally confused but enough is made clear that their interest is piqued. got my hook in em. some guy will copy/paste wikipedia shit in an obnoxiously long and pseudointellectual, contemptible but characteristically reddit guy style what you’re “selling” actually is in the most exhausting, hand-holdingest way to his fellow reddit gamers. with complete tone of authority.

inevitably one of them will put on their sherlock holmes hat and go deep undercover, emailing me posing as an interested party. bingo. now i get to really lay on the WTF and go off the rails asking about vouchers from One Of The Big Seven, but oh no, you can’t get one of them to vouch for you, that’s fine, it makes sense, we’re the only firm that deals with unvouched, that’s our market, well, one of them at least. Just give me a rough rundown of your entry criteria, dwell time, risk tolerance, fuckin “Gamma Ratio”, you know, all the basic stuff, and i’ll have the team generate a .xlsx for you to plug your data into to get a rough feel for what the final contract might be like.

(lololol) But REMEMBER, that excel sheet is seeded, output is fuzzed and salted and if you share it or try and sell it to our competitors, it will be fuzzy enough to be worthless to them but obvious to us who leaked what. this is the only way we’re able to integrate unvouched clients without untenable premiums and while managing our risk levels

blah blah blah blah, i go on and on and on and the guy on the other end is developing a scab from constant head-scratching. and that’s about the maximum real-world harm i’m willing to inflict. i know this sounds like an elaborate as fuck confidence scam but it isn’t. that shit makes me sick. i’d literally slam my arms in a car door before taking a cent from all this. hell, i’ll go out of my way to guarantee i don’t even piss anyone off or offend them or anything.

your guess is as good as mine but i do stuff like this constantly for anything i know well enough and the example i gave above is just a pretty low quality one i made up on the spot. this is a public blog after all.

anyways, cheers, hoping this saves me from dying or whatever the hell i was talking about before that could have probably been cut out. Namaste. Mahala.

[sadquickchristmassnowman]

masterlist of episodes featuring prof duncan? I only JUST made the connection that he's played by john oliver

fantastic idea anon. I’m honestly surprised I haven't made this list yet as I am an avid duncan enjoyer lmfao and yes john oliver is great. so I’ll make the list right now. here we go:

the feat. professor duncan episode masterlist

1x01: pilot

he is the reason jeff chose to enroll at greendale

he has multiple interactions with jeff throughout the episode

1x04: social psychology

annie, troy, and abed participate in his psychological experiment in which he proves the existence of "the duncan principle"

1x05: advanced criminal law

duncan, dean pelton, and chang create "greendale court" in order to put britta's alleged academic dishonesty on trial

1x25: pascal's triangle revisited

first shown doing a therapy session with britta

constantly fighting with chang, escalating into chang punching him at the end

does his iconic rap after he gets drunk at the transfer dance

2x03: the psychology of letting go

takes over as the anthropology professor despite knowing nothing about the subject

uses the restraining order he got against chang to torment him

has a few conversations with jeff about the inevitability of death

is civil with chang by the end of the episode

2x05: messianic myths and ancient peoples

exclusively shown "teaching" the anthropology 101 class

2x11: abed's uncontrollable christmas

leads abed's "therapy" session but is generally unhelpful

2x12: asian population studies

again, just shown "teaching" anthropology 101

2x15: early 21st century romanticism

watches the liverpool vs. manchester united football game with jeff at jeff's apartment

has conversations with jeff about friendship and greendale etc.

2x21: paradigms of human memory

appears very briefly in a flashback to the events of "abed's uncontrollable christmas"

2x22: applied anthropology and culinary arts

is shown again at the head of the anthropology class, this time "administering their final" (getting drunk) but disappears very quickly as soon as the dean walks in

5x03: basic intergluteal numismatics

"helps" with the psychological aspect of the ass crack bandit investigation

(you might notice he is not in seasons 3 or 4. irl it's because he got too busy with his other projects, but in the show his character explains that he was "taking care of his sick mother")

5x05: geothermal escapism

shown briefly playing the floor is lava game, but loses very quickly after jeff knocks over the chair that he was going to jump on while chasing britta

5x06: analysis of cork-based networking

shown as a member of the save greendale committee

helps jeff, shirley, and chang choose a theme and decorate for the dance (bear down for midterms)

5x07: bondage and beta male sexuality

asks jeff to help him scheme a way into getting a date with britta, which ends up backfiring

ends up hanging out a lot with jeff. this episode re-establishes that the two of them have known each other longer than any of the other characters

5x11: g.i. jeff

appears briefly only in jeff's animated dream, as "xim xam"

(so, I guess it's not technically duncan, but it's jeff's g.i. joe dream version of duncan, so I’m counting it)

5x12: basic story

appears again as a member of the save greendale committee

5x13: basic sandwich

tries to help the save greendale committee uncover the hidden computer school but gets electrocuted lmfao

alright yep. that should be all. I personally went through the credits of every single episode to double check everything because I do not trust the lists that are already online tbh. full of discrepancies smh. also, yeah, he is indeed not in seasons 3, 4, or 6. anyway! hope this is helpful. duncan is hilarious and every single line that comes out of his mouth is comedy gold. bye

[nanaloco]

Mario Kart 10137.5

Warnings : MARIO KART (this story heavily describes a game they play of mario kart, howerver it's all in relation to HC and well, you :) alternating from game description to your reactions), slight swearing (like 2 words), hitting (with pillows😭), FLUFFFF, reader and Haechan bicker and joke a lot

Genre : Boyfriend!Haechan x semign!reader, Fluff (again), crack fic?

Word count: 1.32k

---👾

Get it! 10137.5! 101 cuz thats like the teaching number or something then its haechans viewer rating I'm so smart

You and your boyfriend Haechan got nintendo switches together and he's recently been obessed with Mario kart and you ,being his s/o , ooobviously have to play it with him.

The only problem is, you're absolutely terrible at it so he has to teach you how to play before he can even allow you to play with him and his friends (Johnny, Jisung and Jeno). You have no interest in playing with his gaming squad who's names all suspiciously begin with the letter J. But the main driving force which got you sitting on his bed with the controler( that he  bought for you for his house) in hand was the determination to beat him after you came 12th (last place) out of him and all the cpus (basically computer players, you play against but theyre not actual people).

Instead of him explaining to you all the controls and the game, he decided that the best way for you to learn was to throw you into the deepend on the fastest race mode with cpus. You two were going to play 12 matches, with the last one predetermined by Hyuck as 'rainbow road' (every mario kart players worst nightmare). You begin to choose your characters and haechan chooses Bowser because you said he looks ugly and scary. You choose Rosalina (because you have taste of course) and she was one of the only human characters available 😭😭

Hyuck starts the tournament and you two with all of the other cpus are all lined up in a straight line.

3!

2! Haechan starts holing down one of the buttons on his controller

1!

Go!

Everyone speeds off ahead of you leaving you in last place, in the first 5 seconds

'THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENCE WHAT' You exclaim already ready to quit the game, he leans over you to move your thumb over the A button on the right side of the controller and explains that you have to hold down A when it says 2! to in order to accelerate.

Out of rage you restart the game and you're back to the begining, but now you have that trick up your sleeve, nothing can stop you! 3, 2, you audibly press A, 1, GO! Now you're zooming off with everyone else and a victorious grin displays itself on your pretty face knocking Haechan from 1st to third cuz he's lowkey whipped for you as you chaotically purposefully bash into other cpus, you were 8th place making your way to the top ' I'm coming for you' you annouce which he just scoffs in reply.

A few miles ahead, there are these floating boxes which you avoid and run over the speed up as you think that they were something bad, only to see Haechan shoot right through it. Regardless, you were ahead of him. 'What's that' you ask as you see the wheel of different powerups spin at the top of his screen, it lands on a red shell 'wanna find out?' 'Go on then' you reply unimpressed. He makes his way over to you and throws the red shell which follows your kart until it hits your character and stops you in your tracks, taking you down four ranks in the leaderboard as the other players unnessicarily throttle themselves into your helpless character. 'WHAT WAS THAT FOR!' 'DID YOU NOT WANT TO SEE WHAT IT WAS' you roll your eyes but start grinning cheekily as you just recieved your powerup which was a green shell, you somehow caught up to him and threw it at his character only for it to bounce right off of a random object that was apart of the map and hit a player behind you. Your face filled with horror and dissapointment 'What the fuck was that' 'green shells go anywhere, only red shells target the person directly infront of you. ' 'all of these rules are pissing me off, what is this game' you say rolling your eyes in frustration while leaning your whole body into the screen to focus.

Haechan is back at first place and you hear an almost whistle noise as his character finishes the 3rd, final lap of that course, leaving you dumbfounded as bowser does a disgusting celebration animation around the track that Haechan replicates to get a reaction out of you. Which you retort by pushing his face away from you and starting the next match.

9 lost matches later, you've given up on winning through skill, you're willing to anything, absolutely anything to beat this jerk. You have to play dirty, super dirty. So, when the game starts, you ready one of Haechans pillows in your hand. 3! You smack him across the face with the fluffy pillow and almost like a movie feathers come out You quickly grab your controller and hold the A button to accelerate at 2!, 1! Haechan presses accelerate too late at GO! He's left in your dust, smoke coming out of his engine as he's stationary for 2 seconds for accelerating to late meanwhile, you're in steady 3th place. 'WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM' you stick your tongue out as you tokyo drift around the corner and secure 2rd place.

Climbing the ranks, you throw a red shell atthe cpu who was in 1st place making you! FIRST PLACE! With only a few seconds before your beautiful victory which was only 10 races late, this being your 11th. As the finish line is in sight, you're thinking about the funny annoying victory line you're going to scream in his face; 'maybe you could be better than me one day' no 'I was only warming up' no 'you're lucky I let you win, the first 10 matches'; when he lets out a small, evil chuckle. That wasn't a good sign, not from Hyuck.

He was in 2nd place right behind you and hadn't used his powerup from his mystery box yet, you just assumed it was something useless like a banana peel or something until, just as you're about to cross the finish line, you're character has this flying blue thing over her head and a loud warning siren is ringing through the speakers until a large blue cloud of an explosion engulfs your screen and the wicked laugh haechan had been hiding comes out in full fury. 'LEE HAECHAN' He's wiping a tear away from his eye as Bowser crosses the finish line doing that annoying animation which he soon copies in your face, pissing you off even further. 'Blue shells fly straight to the 1st person in the race regardless of what rank you are in! Har har har' he says in a mocking tone.

Consumed with genuine anger, you take it out on him by repeatedly hitting him with the pillow that was previously fired at his face, standing on your knees as he's curled up in a ball before finding his feet and grabbing another pillow, which basically turns into a pillow fight between the two of you. You grab two pillows and tightly shut your eyes as you windmill hit Haechan picturing bowser as you do so only until you notice you're not landing any hits. You squint your eye to see only a glimpse of him leaping at you with his arms reaching your middle until your head hits his bed. You're laying on your back with haechan ontop of you 'I didn't realise you'd actually get mad.' He says as he attempts to place wet kisses on your cheeks while you try to push him away 'GROSS HAECHAN' was all you could make out between your giggles, you couldn't be mad at him. "I'm sorrrrrrry" he coos "sorry for what" "sorry for being better at you in mario kart!" He beams as he starts doing bowsers dance again, recieving another pillow to the face.

--- 👾

Fyi this is bowser lol

Incase you want to know what Bowser winning animation I'm referring to, skip to

4:20

Thank you so much for reading ily!!!

I'm starting an @ mention list so lmk if you want to be included! 💕💕

Requests are open literally spam me!!

[tearsinthemist]

Want to learn something new

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Jan 2, 2023

Want to learn something new in 2023??

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

Dec 26, 2023

Want to learn something new in 2024??

Beginner-oriented video on how to sail

This guy has so many videos on baking different types of bread. SO very many.

Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games

Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)

Learn how quantum mechanics works. Then read some more about it

[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]

Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver

Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)

How to hit the ball in softball

Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean

Full beginner mechanics technical training, if you want to go more in depth

Playlist on how car engine physics work if you want to go ultra in depth

Lecture series on architecture design through study of buildings

How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)

Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)

+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)

School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:

American Law - Contracts

Shakespeare’s Life and Plays

Fairy Tales: Meanings, Messages, and Morals

Modern Poetry

World History [Part 1, Part 2]

Learn a language:

Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)

Chinese (Cantonese) (audio)

Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide

Yucatec Maya

[allaroundnerd]

Codetober Day #13

13. Give us your most nerdy computer fact

Technically it's past midnight because I got caught up trying to repair my computer chair and the cylinder is rusted in, but I'm still considering it day 13. Here's my most nerdy fact and how it's applied.

Binary is a base-2 number system (I promise I'm getting to something cool), meaning it only uses the digits 0 and 1. Because it's base 2, each digit is a 2 to the x power, similarly to how we view the numbers we use daily, which is the base-10 decimal system. We all know the ones, tens, and hundredths places, but if you consider them as 10^0, 10^1, and 10^2, you see why we call it that. For example, the number 289 is (2 * 10^2) + (8 * 10^1) + (9 * 10^0). Side note: anything to the 0 power is 1. Now apply that to binary: 101 is (1 * 2^2) + (0 * 2^1) + (1 * 2^0), which is 4 + 0 + 1 = 5. Now you know how to decipher other number systems like Hexadecimal (base-16, uses 0-9 and A-F) or octal (base-8, uses 0-7). But that's not the cool fact:

This translates into some fun interactions in video games. I'll give you 1 basic example and a funny "glitch." If you played the older LoZ games or any game around that time, you may have noticed that your inventory stack limit was 255. An odd number to us, but to a computer, it's the largest number expressible in 8 bits (one binary digit is one bit here), and we only had so much space to go with. If you use my breakdown above, you get this: (1 *2^7) + (1 * 2^6) + ... + (1 * 2^0) 128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 255.

Now, there's actually different TYPES of integers (numbers) we can express in binary. Signed or unsigned. You're familiar with negative numbers. Signed integers are how those are expressed in binary, the first digit determines what sign you get (for those who know, I'm using one's compliment since it's a bit easier to explain and I THINK this is how these "glitches" happened. If I'm wrong, please correct me.) Unsigned integers can't be negative, but signed integers can be with this method based on the leftmost bit. If it's a 0, the number is positive and calculated as I showed above. If it's a 1, it's negative and calculated the exact OPPOSITE way, meaning 0 bits are counted and 1 bits are ignored. Using my 101 from above, unsigned would read that as 5, signed would read that as -2. Now, when counting in decimal, if you hit 9 and want to keep going, you add 1 to the higher place and get 10. Binary is the same way: 1, 10, 11, 100, and so on. You may be getting where I'm heading, but just in case (and I enjoy explaining this because I'm a nerd), let's keep going.

Signed integers can "overflow" since we're changing that left most digit. Let's say we have 8 bits: 01111111 or 127 in decimal. If we add 1 to this, we get 10000000. In an unsigned int, this is 128, easy. BUT if we're using a signed int, this actually flips to -127. We call this overflow and it can make things behave...unexpectedly. NOW I can tell you about the glitch!

A beloved game of my childhood was Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. I remember beating it and loving the experience, but then I was told of an exploit involving the final boss. You can actually "heal" him to death. The "Cure" spell is meant to heal the living, and the Dark King is alive, but if cast with a sufficiently high magic rating, it will heal for so much that it flips the first digit, causing it to deal more damage than anything attack you could throw. If you look hard enough, you can actually find this in multiple games in the SNES era. Hope that makes up for the late entry!

[dotslashchloe]

I remember running a terrible Zoostorm laptop when I was 12 and It had 1GB of RAM in a time when machines came with at least 2 as a standard option, and some people believed that you'd never need more than 4GB for anything.

Image source

My parents bought me this thing because I had caused a little bit of an issue in our house, and that was my constant need for floppy disks post year 2000. We ran an Amiga 1200 in the dining room of our home as it was what my parents both used to code on in the mid 90's. We had tons of software for that thing but the coolest by far was a programming environment called AMOS. It used a proprietary (read: now unsupported) programming language called AMOS BASIC and the only resources we had for the language was whatever my dad remembered and the official language guide which, if i remember correctly, was thick enough to beat a goat to death with.

Image credit

The guide was sometimes really good at explaining language features and best use cases for mid 90's game development methodologies.

You can actually still download AMOS and run it on a Windows machine, or OSX and GNU/Linux if you have the tools to run applications meant for windows.

I moved from an Amiga sporting 2MB of chip RAM and 8MB of fast RAM to a Windows 7 laptop with a whopping, for the time, Gigabyte of Random Access Memory.

I couldn't wait to see the types of software that I could make with 32 bit technology and how I could use new... Oh, it crashed.

Image credit

Windows 7, at least on my machine, was a garbage fire. Somewhere along the way when we transitioned from floppy disks to hard drives and hard drives to solid state, programmers suddenly forgot how to make good decisions. The amount of driver errors, lag spikes, and crashes I experienced on that platform made me hate Windows, and even to this day, I really don't trust it.

I once turned my laptop on to find Windows using 90% of my available RAM, and it wasn't even running anything.

This frustration led me to look further afield. I knew that I liked the UNIX like systems from helping my dad run a FreeBSD server, and because of that, I very nearly bought a mac. Nearly. I still like to have a usable computer and do things that Apple don't want me to do, like change my settings in a way that matters.

Image credits

I finally found out enough to flash Arch to my USB drive and install it using a guide i found on a reddit thread. after editing all of my settings, i pressed enter, sat back... And bricked the fucking thing. Archinstall was a blessing from the gods, but we didn't have that yet.

2nd choice was Debian. Not only was it pre-configured out of the box, it had a package manager that made sense and came with development tools already built in. I played around with a few other distributions over the years until i discovered that they're all either Debian or Arch with a different package manager and desktop environment.

GNU/Linux blew my mind. The fact that all of this software was just out there for free fort anybody to use and change astounded me, and it still does to this day. You need to run a piece of hardware that nobody has made a driver for in about 20 years? Debian probably has it built in. You want to make video games? Debian can do that flawlessly. You want to play video games? Steam installs natively and comes with Proton!

By the time I was ready to go to College at 16, I was using Linux full time, and Archinstall had been added to the installation ISO (thank god). I used arch for all of my studies there, and all of my studies at University. I passed my degree because my software was free. I even had a C# compiling and running for my Programming 101 classes.

I do occasionally run Windows at some point from time to time, but i always make sure that WSL is installed. I do not see the need to download a piece of software to do something when Debian has the command built-in.

If it were not for the FOSS community, and GNU/Linux as a whole, I probably would not be the programmer that I am today, and I wouldn't have been able to learn many of the complex topics I needed for the field I have worked in due to the closed, corporate nature of the vast majority of software out there.

Sorry for yapping.

[fearcrowz]

What are some art tips you'd be willing to share?

Oooh boy I don't know if I'm the one to go to for art tips.. I guess it depends on what you would like to know? If it comes to tutorials or process stuff, I have a patreon for that. *nudgenudge*

Joking, joking, I haven't posted on that thing in awhile. If we are talking about the worldly world of art...

I know you've heard this a billion to trillion times, but practice. You don't always have to go out of your comfort zone to learn stuff, but it does help! If you have an interest, let's say scenes/backgrounds, draw them bunch. You don't have to have the most perfect lines or the perfect anatomy/perspectives, just have fun and take your time with it all. You'll learn the "correct routes" of art as you go. I am a stubborn artist that never wanted to look at anatomy books or learn perspective (I know basics and that's all I practiced on). Sometimes what I do may still look wonky but that's okay cuz I will just practice more on those things and one day it will look better! And if something frustrates me enough I do go find references. Never have too much pride in your work, seeking help for something is also part of the practice. If you're a person that does like researching that though and don't get bored like I do, absolutely go for it! But go at your own pace, don't ever rush. Take your time and enjoy your hobby, dreamed career, etc. Nurture it! Have fun! Uh uh... *motivational speech* uh... And even when it gets really hard somedays don't give up on it. Even if you wanna fling your computer or sketchbook out the window. We allll have those days but they pass. Never stop trying, even in an art block. Listen to music, play games, watch movies, you'll get your spark again and inspiration will always flow back.

Practice, observe, learn, and grow and a big thing, don't let likes or shares or all that social media gunk rule you. You're doing great and you will continue to do great at your own pace!

Thanks for coming to my 101 Ted talk of Fear doesn't know what the hell she is talking about, but totally tried! >vo) 9 ✨

[legitimatesatanspawn]

So I remember enjoying dot hack IMOQ and to a lesser degree dot hack GU back on the PS2. The difference had less to do with the gameplay and GU being darker but more to do with loving R1 and the dot hack SIGN anime. I remember being utterly furious that dot hack GU got the PS4 remaster job when dot hack IMOQ needed it more due to being released near the start of the PS2's lifespan.

But I got curious about the sheer number of area locations.

(I also am aware I rarely talk about the series in spite of my Balmung of the Azure Sky avatar/pfp but it's mostly because I'd be talking way more about the Phases and Cubia than anything released from GU anime onward.)

Now for those unaware of the series: with the dot hack franchise the games are designed like a fake MMO because the setting itself is an early example of a VRMMO series. It was out long before Sword Art Online, although Log Horizon has dot hack beat in turn (while still being its own unique thing with Log Horizon more of an en-masse Isekai than the objective secret-known-to-few nightmare that The World is). Each area in-setting of dot hack is supposedly designed by the devs or maybe is just generated out of the box by the blackbox code "Morganna" with humans taking credit.

But because this is a real video game too, instead the area codes are used to help generate which specific style, size, element, level, and sort of drops you'll expect to find in a map. There are some areas that you access only for quest/storyline stuff. There are also some that you are blocked from reaching until you get a specific keyword through the fake forums, emails, or in-game interactions with other characters.

The key code system goes Server then a word from each three distinct codeword banks. So like the most famous example in the series is Delta Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground, but accessing it in Theta, Lambda, or Sigma for example would result in a very different map. Holy Ground is one word as some keywords are like "Sea Sand's", "No Face", or "Royal Edict".

dot hack IMOQ are spread across four games. There's a total of 5 listed servers (I forget if Omega is accessible before/after the finale), 101 word A, 103 word B, and 102 word C.

dot hack GU, which is now 3.5 games, has as far as I know 3 servers with a viable Chaos Gate (the teleportation system to reach the dungeon maps) and 150 word A, 91 word B, and 131 word C.

Even just by the basic number of words I already know this is going to be insane. I never even did more than 200 maps in one set of games, goodness... Admittedly I don't remember if any game locked some key codes off for plot reasons but this is insane.

Basic probability used: A times B times and so on, this results in the potential combinations.

IMOQ: 5 times 101 times 103 times 102 = 5305530, or 1061106 per server. That's 1.06 million combinations. Per server.

GU: 3 times 150 times 91 times 131 = 5364450, or 1788150 per server. 1.79 million combinations.

Thankfully you don't need to visit every area to complete or get everything possible but I think I now know why the characters willingly shell out for The World even setting aside it being native to their computers' OS. It's bigger than anyone could feasibly ever beat!

[thebookworm0001]

What’s in a Computer 101

Motherboard - everything plugs into this. It makes sure every part talks nicely to each other.

CPU - brain of the computer. Roughly, bigger numbers = more brainpower

GPU - makes the pictures happen. Again, bigger numbers roughly equal more picture power.

RAM - short term memory. More of this means more things can happen at once. This is what gets eat by your open google chrome tags and makes things slower.

Storage - long term memory. Where you store all your downloaded but unplayed steam games.

PSU - UNLIMITED POWER. Nah but this is your battery and what makes sure all the pieces can turn on. Make sure it’s big enough and do not under any circumstances cheap out on this if buying separately. A cheap psu will explode.

Cooling - power=heat. More power means more cooling. There’s a ton of options.

Case - what everything goes into. Size matters. Make sure it’s big enough.

Motherboard - This determines the kind of cpu you can purchase because they fit into the board differently. They have different stuff going on depending on how much you want to spend. Basic boards will do what you want, but they may look busier and be lacking things you want (like a million usb connections or internal Wi-Fi).

They come in different sizes. Micro-ITX is itty bitty. Surprisingly, this does not mean cheaper. Then it’s mini-ATX. Both mini and micro will be lacking the extra PCIE slots that let you plug in things like multiple graphics cards or a Wi-Fi board if your motherboard doesn’t have that capability built-in. ATX is your standard size motherboard. Then it’s E-ATX. You can have More Stuff on this one. It’s big.

Pick a motherboard that has the functionality you want on it. You gotta make that choice based on your budget and on the other parts we’ll talk about in a minute.

You don’t really get to pick this for a laptop though.

CPU - There are two companies that make computer brains: Intel and AMD. They are in a constant fight to be the company with the most powerful brain. Their number schemes are weird. Intel is i3-, i5-, i7-, and i9- followed by some very large number. The general rule is the bigger the number, the more it can handle. AMD has the 3000,5000, and 7000 series. Again, bigger number, better performance. Bigger number also means more money. AMD had better cost/performance ratios when I built my stuff, but unless you’re aiming for the top tier of performance, the difference honestly isn’t that noticeable between companies.

GPU -On a pc, this will be your most expensive component. Again, bigger numbers = better performance = more money. There are two companies for graphic processing units: AMD and NVIDIA. NVIDIA has the RTX line or cards. The most recent is their 4000 series (4060,4070,4080,4090) and AMD’s 7000 series (7600 and 7000) Radeon cards are their competition. Again, unless you are aiming for The Best, you will not necessarily notice a difference and there ain’t no god damn reason to buy the 4090 or 7900 unless you have $2k USD burning a hole in your pocket.

The NVIDIA 3000 series and AMD 6000 series will be cheaper and work just fine. All of NVIDIA’s cards since the 3000 series have raytracing which is a fancy lighting thing big games use right now. It’s pretty and you do actually notice the difference. AMD’s lower tier cards don’t. I believe NVIDIA is sorta winning the performance fight right now but like I said. Unless you are going for ultra/elite settings on everything with 4k resolution… you’re not noticing a difference at medium/high at 1080p between any given company. You can also find older, used cards for cheaper that work just fine. Be careful that they weren’t used for mining though. They tend to be busted.

RAM - You want as much of this as you can get. 8 GB is not enough if you want to have more than one tab open in google chrome. 16 is the bare minimum for gaming. Pretty much anything new is gonna require 16GB of ram. Some people are starting to say 32 is now the thing you should aim for. Considering how cheap ram is right now, it’s probably worth it just as games get more demanding. This is less true for laptops because everything is more expensive in a laptop.

This also has to be compatible with your cpu so if you buy parts individually, you gotta do some digging on the CPU’s support list via your motherboard support site with the ram’s serial numbers to make sure it’ll work. This is not a concern with prebuilt machines like laptops or prebuilt pcs.

They also have different speeds if you want to make things go faster but that’s more advanced than I’m getting into here

Storage - There are three types of storage right now: hard drives, SSDs and M.2 SSDS. Hard drives are slower and physical. They’re cheap, good for massive storage. Not good for putting your operating system (windows, Linux, etc.) on if you want it to move quickly. SSDs - faster than hard drives, digital storage, and more expensive than hard drives. M.2 - looks like a stick of gum. Plugs into your motherboard directly (no wires), super fast. The most expensive. Laptops run off M.2s for space reasons. This makes more storage more expensive. You will need a lot of storage if you are running modern AAA games. They’re chunky now. 1000 GB makes 1 TB - most AAA games live in the land of 150 GB at least now.

PSU - power supply. Your graphics card is gonna determine this the most. But the more powerful your machine, the more power you need. This is the place you never, ever, ever cheap out. A bad power supply can blow up. Literally. Best case scenario with that is the computer you just bought is dead. Laptops don’t let you pick this. Instead you get averages of battery life. More battery life means less time plugged into a wall.

Cooling - how to keep your computer from dying from the heat. This will depend a Lot on your person preferences but also on the power of machine. Power=heat. The more powerful your machine, the more cooling you need. Entry level CPUs come with coolers. The more mid-tier and high-tier tell you to buy your own. You have two routes: air and water cooling. Air uses metal pipes and fans. Noctua is the brand everyone swears by and it’s the brand I bought when I upgraded my machine. They’re pricey, but they really are fantastic. They will also send you pieces later down the road if you upgrade your machine to a new cpu with different dimension so their cooler can still fit. Their site also has a bunch of graphs and charts and stuff to help you pick which of their coolers is best for your machine. Water cooling uses a bunch of tubes filled with water to pick up the heat and carry it to a big metal thing (radiator) that you attach fans to to blow out the hot air. It’s quieter than an air cooler, and you can do all this crazy custom stuff with it. Or you can buy an AIO (all-in-one) that just needs to be attached to your case and a fan. People fight about whether air or water cooling is better. All I know is that I don’t risk spilling water on my electronics with one. So that’s the route I go.

Laptops have their own thing going. They’ve got air cooling with little fans inside the case. More powerful laptops sometimes allow you to external coolers to help offset the heat. I would suggest these. Don’t fry your laptop.

Case - where you put everything. Laptops give you very little choice here and they all basically have the same shape. Gaming laptops are gonna have a certain Aesthetic that I can only describe as red/rainbow and Pointy. They tend to be a bit aggressive in their appearance. This is true for most gamer things and it’s hard to get around.

PC cases are mostly the same shape (rectangle) but have more variety in color and layout. That’s all personal preference though. but they’ve got stuff you gotta pay attention to. Namely their size. You gotta fit all your stuff inside it. Tiny cases will not fit an ATX motherboard. A giant case will fit everything but may also be bigger than you’d like. Basically, you gotta look at the dimensions of your other parts (the gpu and cooler mostly) and compare it to the case dimensions so everything fits. Prebuilt pcs take care of this for you.

My current rig

Motherboard: Aorus b450 pro Wi-Fi

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X

GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060ti

RAM: 16 GB

Storage: Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB SSD (2 of these, actually)

PSU: Corsair 650w

Cooling: Noctua NH-D15s (and a bunch of cheap upHere fans for my case)

Case: a Montech something-or-another that’s cheap and not made anymore from what I can tell

My rig can play Jedi:Survivor on high settings with ray tracing on at 1080p with no real issues. I want to do some upgrades, but that’s me chasing those insane top of the line rigs. I dont need to do that by any means. I can play any game that comes out in the next few years just fine.

@drakonovisny

[blakesuga]

Little Things #21: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Personally, I have never heard of the Xenoblade Chronicles series. I am not much of a gamer (unless the game is Wizard 101, in that case, I will not claim master level at it, but I am familiar with the gaming lore) so I might be unable to fully commentate on how good of a role-playing game this series is. On the other hand, I heard that Xenoblade Chronicles is a popular computer game and that most gamers who are into this genre have at least heard of the game. I also find it strange how we are reviewing a video role-playing game in an anime class, but maybe there are just some hidden similarities between video games and anime that I am unaware of. Ultimately, this game is centered around a God-like character known as Klaus, or the Architect, who has mistakenly destroyed all the nature in the world and is desperately trying to revive it. He uses nanobots to speed up nature's regeneration and has given the humans who lived in the world Titans (who might all be dragons?) who are basically glorified floating houses.

It is interesting to note that in this world, even though humans are once again causing the problem of nature's extinction, we are truly struggling with trying to revive it. You would think that nature would just do its own thing and just fix itself, but instead it is heavily reliant on whether humanity can solve its own problems. It really changes the perspective on whether nature is as self-sufficient as we like to think it is. I am pretty sure that in real life nature would just bounce back and prosper without human intervention if destroyed, but what would happen if this is not the case? What if the only way nature will ever recover from reckless human actions is that is humans to come together and unite under the common goal of restoring the global environment? I would like to be optimistic about these sorts of things but I have a hard time believing that nature would survive if that was the case.

[game-history]

Top 24-27 games in 1973 reviews: 101 BASIC Computer Games, Laser Clay Sh...

[boredtechnologist]

101 Basic Computer Games and 84 More Basic Computer Games programming books

[ghost-of-ulysses]

Here is my list of extended tips!

ranging from the basic to the technically advanced:

If you have quick draw perk and have a couple weapons hotkeyed, cycle between them instead of reloading to quickly fill your weapon's magazine

Keep several types of ammo in your inventory. Cycling between two ammo types will instantly reload your weapon with one animation.

If you're ADS, not using a scoped weapon and don't use VATs, try turning true iron sights off. The cross hair is a bit more consistent.

Toolboxes always have at least one component of a weapon repair kit

At higher levels look for the best weapons: marksman carbines, 12mm and 45-70 weapons, anti-materiel rifles, riot shotguns. Sell them if you don't use them.

Against armored enemies, .22, 9MM, 10MM, and even 45 SMGs cost-to-combat effectiveness ratio is extremely bad. Their best use is a panic weapon against cazadors.

Try the bunny hop build:

Agility 8+

Tunnel Runner perk (Lonesome Road)

M-5 Implant (Old World Blues)

Crouching is now faster than running!

B-hopping 101:

Hold forward while running

Crouch

Immediately jump and un-crouch simultaneously

Jump again right after hitting the ground

Even though the assassin suit invisibility is absolute to NPC line of sight (unlike the stealth boy effect) high perception enemies can still hear you!

Mass purify water recipe is:

Survival 50

Campfire or electric hot plate

5 Dirty Water

Surgical Tubing

2 Glass Pitcher

= 4 Purified Water

You will not expend the tube and pitchers in the process. Hold on to them, you might need them again.

Just like any other drug, you can in fact get addicted to turbo.

Instead of tobacco and other aid items that remove sleep, try nuka chemist perk and make ice cold nuka which removes 60 sleep points.

COMPUTER SPECIFIC:

If you're stuck in an object in the map (and don't care about steam achievements), use the command 'tcl' to toggle collusion off and navigate out of the object. Make sure to toggle it back on by entering it again!

Mod Specific:

No Witness kills only apply to non-essential NPCs

(Better .22 Weapons) The .22 SMG with AP rounds is an end game weapon for a sneaky or sniper build. Its bonus crit DPS surpasses the 12MM SMG.

[syscyber]

Systems & Cybernetics Site Map & Web Stuff

IconArchive.com

Diego Azeta blogs:

» Sys•Cyber ✴️🔆✴️ The real cybernetics

» Diego•Azeta 🌐 Azeta Azota

» La•Colonia 🇵🇷 World's oldest colony*

*World's most experienced colony (®Pan Am™)

Sys•Cyber ✴️🔆✴️ blog:

American Society for Cybernetics

Cognitive Science Society

International Society for Systems Sciences

Fractal self-similarity

Principia Cybernetica

Simulation Modeling Software Analyze • Visualize • Optimize

AnyLogic - agent-based modeling (ABM), discrete event simulation (DES), system dynamics (SD) modeling

NetLogo - ABM development environment

Mesa - Python ABM

AgentPy - Python ABM library

Simantics System Dynamics - open source SD modeling & simulation software

Insight Maker - ABM & SD online simulation

Systems Dynamics Society - core software

Systems Dynamics Society - web-based tools

Capterra - best free simulation software

Online Resources

Computer Modeling and Simulation by Ángel A. Juan Pérez, Open University of Catalonia. A brief overview of DES. (PDF)

Gentle Intro Discrete Event Simulation

Intro Discrete Event Simulation (PDF)

Intro to Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems by Hiroki Sayama, SUNY Binghamton

Complexity - Wikipedia

Complex System - Wikipedia

Principles of Systems Science - U Wash PDF

Systems Theory - Wikipedia

Cybernetics and Systems (open journal)

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics 2e

The Limits to Growth - The classic world sim, now more relevant than ever. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

System Dynamics - Wikipedia

What Is System Dynamics - SD Society

Intro System Dynamics - MIT OCW

The Beginnings of SD - Jay W. Forrester

Mathematics of SD - Worcester Polytechnic

Descriptive Statistics - Bhandari @ Scribbr

Inferential Statistics - Bhandari @ Scribbr

Descriptive vs inferential Statistics - by Zach @ Statology

Bayesian Statistics - Wikipedia

Bayesian Statistics & Modeling - Gelman

Open Access Textbooks 📚

OAT Resource Directory - U Buffalo

Directory of Open Access Books

Math Open Textbooks - AI Math

LibreTexts

• LibreTexts Systems Engineering

Open Textbook Library

OpenStax

OER Commons Open Textbooks

Milne Open Textbooks - SUNY

IntechOpen Books

Merlot Materials

Saylor Academy Open Textbooks

Find e-Books/Books in general:

Guide to e-Books - UC Berkeley

18 Free e-Book Sites - Lifewire

Index of Books - Google Books

Open Library - Internet Archive

Lifelong Learning - Free

Carnegie-Mellon Open Learning

MIT Open Learning

Open Michigan

Open Yale

Stanford Online

Systems Pre/Co-reqs

Recommended for learners of systems science, cyber systems analysis, and cyber systems engineering. Work at your own pace.

Probability & Statistics

Probability & Statistics - Carnegie-Mellon OLI

Intro Probability & Statistics - MIT OCW

• Introductory Statistics with Randomization and Simulation (Open Textbook Library)

• Intro Bayesian Statistics - Rice, U Wash

Linear Algebra

Linear Algebra - Strang, MIT OCW

• Linear Algebra (text) - Pinkham, Columbia

• Understanding Linear Algebra - Austin

Python Programming

🌟 PythonAnywhere - Online IDE

• Getting Started Python - Michigan Online

• Think Python 2e - Downey

• Intro Computer Science Python - MIT OCW

• Python online tutorial - Google

• Core Python Tutorials - Real Python.com

Linear Programming

Linear Programming (basic ideas) - OU

• LP (basic ideas) mini-text (PDF) - OU

Economics

Microeconomics - Gruber, MIT OCW

• Intermediate Microeconomics - Emerson

Game Theory

• Game Theory - Open Yale Courses

• Game Theory - Stanford Online

• Game Theory 101 video course - Spaniel

Logic

• Logic & Proofs - Carnegie-Mellon OLI

• Logic I - MIT OCW

• Intro Logic and Critical Thinking (text) - Van Cleave, OTL

Systems Thinking

• Systems Thinking Books - Goodreads

• Intro Systems Thinking - UN ESCAP (PDF)

• Introduction to Industrial Engineering by Bonnie Boardman, U Texas at Arlington

Calculus & Differential Equations

Calculus Made Easy - An elegant introduction

Coursera Calculus courses

edX Calculus courses

MIT Calculus courses - MIT OCW

Diffy Qs: Differential Equations for Engineers - Jiří Lebl (textbook)

Differential Equations: An Introduction for Engineers - Matthew Charley (textbook)

Differential Equations - U Toronto (PDF)

You need not be an expert at solving DEs to work productively in cyber systems analysis. SD simulation software do that automatically with built-in numerical algorithms. But you should know what the DE means and does in the model. The same holds true for other technical details, such as random number generation and statistical measures, in different modeling and simulation paradigms. The conceptual ideas must be well understood; the computational aspects are best delegated to the modeling platform.

Thought of the day: Investing your time in becoming conversant with cybernetic system analysis methods is far superior to wasting it watching TV.

Cyber systems analysts think much better than non-analysts and are excellent at multi-factor problem solving, enterprise or institutional policy design, and strategic decision making. They are skilled in transforming conceptual insights into effective operational solutions.

Cyberneticians were key to the rise of cognitive science as a modern scientific discipline. They were pivotal in overcoming resistance to new ideas in psychiatry and psychology, especially in doctrinaire behaviorism.

Traditional fields of inquiry are often biased by conceiving problems and proposed solutions solely from their disciplinary perspective. This can turn out to be a hindrance. Cyber systems analysis is trans-disciplinary and eclectic. As such it tends to be more open in recognizing issues and ascertaining workable solutions to complex real-world problems.

If you want to change the world without waiting forever for change to happen, consider using cybernetic systems analysis. Effective results. Efficient and functional. Less prone to risk yet significantly more cost effective than traditional organizational reform approaches.

[gameguides]

Streamer Life Simulator Walkthrough & Guide

Welcome to our Streamer Life Simulator Walkthrough & Guide. This guide may contain Spoilers, helpful advice, a Walkthrough, and traces of tree nuts. #StreamerLifeSimulator

Streamer Life Simulator Walkthrough & Guide

This guide may contain Spoilers, helpful advice, a Walkthrough, and traces of tree nuts. Game Basics, Controls, The Phone In case they disappear, press the 'J' key to hide/show the Tutorial Missions. Do NOT worry about warning pop-ups regarding hunger, toilet, hygeine, etc. Your character is immortal and you only need to fix these problems while you are streaming. - Press the 'Tab' key to hide/show these character statistics. While it is technically possible to work low-paying jobs or search dumpsters for 'valuables,' I strongly suggest simply saving your starting money to complete the tutorial and begin Streaming instead. Controls - Movement uses the standard WASD scheme. - Press the 'I' key to open the Inventory screen. - Pressing the 'X' key opens the Streamer Skill Tree screen. You will need significant amounts of money to purchase these skills, as well as 'Streamer crowns' earned by streaming. The Phone - Press the 'up arrow' key to open the phone at almost any place and time - even while computing and driving. - One phone app notably 'warps' to any owned or un-owned player house for $50. For example, the blue (apartment) destination is close to an ATM and the crypto miner salesdude. Inventory Basics - All Items take up oneinventory slot. - Your character starts with 4 slots of storage in their backpack. - Hold ‘E’ to pick items up directly into an available backpack space. One can even just hold 'E' and move the cursor between objects to store many objects quickly. - Press ‘I’ to show/hide the Backpack. - Note that in addition to the backpack slots, there is a separate ‘hand’ slot. - This ‘hand’ slot is used to build furniture and computer components, eat and drink meals, and equip tools. - Press ‘E’ to pick up items into the ‘hand’ slot. Placing objects to/from the hand slot from within an inventory screen takes time / causes a delay. Furniture Building - Press LMB to enter build mode for an item currently held in the 'hand' slot. - Use the ‘Q’ and ‘R’ keys for rotation control of the object. - When you have the object aligned, press LMB to place it. - Note that Desks can be locked in place by pressing ‘Z’. - Sometimes a random item will accidentally be picked up in the ‘hand’ slot, and it can be challenging to find a valid spot to place it down again. Opening inventory with 'I' and storing such an item causes fewer bug-like consequences than using RMB to 'throw' items around one's carefully arranged home. - When a food item from the ‘hand’ slot is eaten, and while identical food is in the backpack, the ‘hand’ slot will be instantly refilled, allowing multiple items to be eaten quickly. - When a food item is in the ‘hand’ slot, it will be consumed when one uses ‘F’ to interact with any other item. This includes other food items, toilets, baths, beds, computers, etc. - When interacting with another container such as a car trunk, click on stored items to pick them up or place them into an empty slot. Computers 101 Building the PC - When you place a PC monitor on a Desk, a checklist will appear on the monitor showing which parts are needed to complete the PC. - While the keyboard, mouse, and chair are self-explanatory and easy to turn into Green check-marks, the PC case will remain a yellow question-mark icon until it is filled with at least one of each type of internal PC component. - Press ‘F’ on the PC case to open the case like any container, and then fill its empty slots from PC parts in your inventory. - Once all the icons have become green check-marks, the computer is complete and may be powered up. Switching on the PC - Switch On the PC by pressing 'C' on the PC case. Using the Computer - Press 'F' on the computer monitor to begin using a currently-operating computer. Your character will sit in the chair and your view will zoom in on the monitor. - Press ‘Q’ while using a computer to instantly stand up from it, at any time, without shutting it down. - Caution: Pressing 'E' key will pick up the PC case or monitor, shutting it down. This was quite frustrating until I developed a technique of 'E' key 'trigger discipline'. Silly Chair - The chair found for free in the starting house has no markings identifying which way one will face when sitting in it. - When one uses the computer, the view zooms in on the monitor, so there is no indication of facing then, either. - When one finally installs a camera and starts the stream, one often discovers in the preview that their character is facing a rather silly direction. - The mighty ambiguity of the featureless square starter chair laughs at your repeated attempts to correct its alignment. - I can neither confirm nor deny the rumor that my excessive placements of this chair caused my PC table to flip into the air scattering PC parts all over my home. - You may wish to buy, literally any different chair with your first camera and place it once. In-game Web Programs Essential Programs for StreamingFast Net is my recommended First Stop for any game. - Purchasing 4 days of the fastest / right-most internet speed for $30 is an enormous and immediate quality-of-life improvement. Blender is the in-game streaming website which will eventually pay you the big bucks for having thousands of subscribers and followers. - One must permanently Register their Cool Streamer Name with Blender to get a 4-digit Stream Code and begin broadcasting. - Blender will deposit your earnings once every 4 days, and sends you a CMail with the amount. Blender Dashboard The left half of the screen shows the health of your Streaming Career. - Blender pays you for literally just having Followers and Subscribers. - One can run Advertisements (using this screen) while a Stream is running for quick ad revenue. I used this sparingly because it slows or reverses the increase of followers and subscribers. - Blender share is a percentage which increases Blender earnings somehow. I think it increases when one meets successive Subscription goals. - All that stuff mixes together to form, Captain Expected earnings:!! The right half of the screen provides choices. - One can change the Stream Name here, which can help one track and organize their zoutube uploads. - There is a slider to select Ad duration and a button to Show ad which becomes available to click during a Stream. - You can also pick a different subscriber icon if the purple cat does not please you. OPS is the program one must run on the PC to stream content to Blender (and record it for upload to Zoutube). - It requires your Blender Stream Code and a Specific Bitrate Number to begin. Bitrate is a measure of internet bandwidth required to carry a stream. - One must specify a number for the Stream's Bitrate to begin streaming. (Using the text box on the left side.) - The OPS program allows one to select many options for the Stream. Most such options increase the needed "Recommended" Bitrate. (One can select random options and watch the number in the lower-right corner update.) - The Camera and Recording options in the top right are noteworthy yet miss-able. - I recommended in the strongest possible vague terms to not set your Bitrate smaller than the Recommended Bitrate. - Better internet speeds will let you set this number higher, and you may note that the Real Estate listings handily disclose available internet speeds for each location. In-game Website DirectoryThe blue ‘WWW’ browser has a homepage with many web programs you will use frequently. The ‘WWW’ browser often stays on a previously-selected website until one uses the home button (blue circle at top center of browser) or back buttons to explicitly navigate to and open a fresh WWW browser menu. CMail shows incoming messages, mostly about Blender income deposits and 'IP addresses' for CS tournaments you have joined. Apps Website allows downloads of useful programs. These downloads seem to continue automatically once started, so the browser can be used for other things. - Steem allows one to buy and run PC (mini-)Games to stream. - OPS is the program one must run on the PC to stream content to Blender (or record it for upload to Zoutube). It requires a Blender Stream Code to work. See above for more. - Spotiry is a music player. Unsure if playing them has an in-game impact. - Stream Lap is used to accept donations associated with a Blender Stream Code. I run it after every stream for my early-game food-money. - Avest is a virus scanner program. It finds and eliminates threats, but I'm not sure it actually does anything. - Miner is a utility program to give you another code to link your crypto miners to your portfolio app. - VPN allows one to enter The Hacker Website and purchase Things for crypto. Zorn Hub and Speed Test don’t seem to do anything important. Bank. This website version notably allows one to acquire a Loan of money, and to withdraw cash to one’s wallet. Skin Case, Scratch, Horse, Higher Lower, and Blackjack are all sites for gambling. Scratch is popular. Zamazor is the web-shopping website with three categories of items: computer parts, furniture, and clothes. Food Shop allows one to order food with Card money. Some advocate eating nothing but the $2.50 soup to save money. I like a bucket of veggies and as many cups of tea as I can carry, simply because they're at the bottom of the list together. Crypto EX. is Your Crypto Portfolio. Allows buying, selling, and viewing Crypto Products. Billboard Co sells advertisements for Your Stream. Job King allows one to work at low paying jobs, if you can find the correct starting spot and get there on time every day. DeebWeb is The Hacking Website. One must run VPN to log in to their site, and they only take crypto for payment. Fast Net allows one to pick between three recurring internet plans available for the current location. One may also pay a daily 'Boost' fee to add a temporary increase. Blender was explained at the top of this section. Freelancers is a way to earn in-game money by completing some sort of letter-search Puzzle. I had a hard time with the puzzle, so I didn’t use this site. Zoutube is a website where you can upload and publish recorded streams for more income. Replacing older posted streams with freshly recorded streams seems to earn more money than retaining them. Real Estate un-surprisingly allows one to purchase new places to fill with furniture. Listings show which locations have better Internet Speeds available. Tournaments are for the in-game CS game. To use them: - Start Steem and load into the CS Game program. Select the option to enter an IP Address. - Open the WWW Browser and visit this Tournament site to Accept a tournament appropriate for your Rank. - Check the Cmail site for the Tournament message and open it up to view the Tournament’s IP address. - If you’re not into note-taking, grab the top or bottom bar of the Cmail and CS windows to move them around so you can see the IP address and enter it at the same time. - Suggest verifying correct address is perfectly entered before closing Cmail. CS can then be minimized and final preparations made (food, hygeine, lining up ten cups of tea on the desk edge). The Tournament will remain ready to start unless one Sleeps in a bed. Bills arrive here and must be paid. Tax doesn’t seem to do much, as the Tax Bill arrives in the Bills site. Pet Shop shows you the many, many types of Dogs available. Feedback is a way to send message to the development team. Workers is the site where one Rents Moderators to de-toxify your Stream Chat. I’m not sure whether I’m doing something wrong or missing some crucial concept or piece of equipment, but Chat Toxicity has literally never decreased for me. Unknown if any game impact. Car Dealer sells cars. The looks of the beginning car and the hungover road-trip to the first player-owned home are good incentive for most folks to spring for a better ride. Streamer Life Simulator Walkthrough parts 1 and 2 Starting Tips - Very Important: Start Thinking of a Cool Streamer Name. You have up to fifteen letters. - In case they disappear on you, the Tutorial Quests can be toggled on and off by pressing ‘J.’ - Put your cursor / crosshairs on everything. The pop-up information is strong with this title. - Do NOT worry about warning pop-ups regarding hunger, toilet, hygeine, etc. Your character is immortal and you only need to fix these problems prior to streaming. Walkthrough 1: Talk to Mosi, put computer parts in car trunk, Go home. - Talk to Mosi. He is the human, downstairs. Keep clicking dialogue options until you get to 'End Conversation'. - You have more PC parts than you can carry. You must put some of them in the car trunk. I recommend holding ‘E’ and using the cursor like a vacuum cleaner to fill up backpack space until it gives you an error. Then open the trunk and single-click each carried item then an empty trunk slot to move them quickly. - However you decide to store them, be sure you and the trunk have all 9 pieces before driving home. 4 white PC pieces (case, monitor, mouse, keyboard) and 5 black-boxed Components (mainboard, CPU, RAM, disk, video card). - Driving Tip. Instead of going off-road, I recommend following the gravel road from Mosi’s all the way around to the far side of the little town. Under a broken arch on your left, there is a direct path to the first (orange) player house. - The orange marker is the precise entrance. Park the car near that. - Look at the door and press the 'Q' key to exit the car. Walkthrough 2: Setup and run your computer, Register on the Blender website, Uncheck 1st house from Maps app.Suggestion: Set up Furniture First Go inside to set up the scattered furniture before unloading PC parts. - A bed, poster, shelf, desk, and chair can be picked up and rebuilt. Press ‘E’ to take, LMB to build, and ‘Q’ and ‘R’ for rotation control. - Note that the Desk can be locked in place by pressing ‘Z’. - That white square thing is a chair to be placed in front of the Desk. Assembling the PC. - Fetch the PC case, monitor, mouse, and keyboard out of the car and build them on the desk facing the proper forward direction. - If anything bounces around when something is placed, pick it up and place it again. You may need to walk around the side of the desk align the gigantic monitor in a keyboard-friendly way. - The monitor will show a PC-completion-diagram once it is placed. A green checkmark shows by each ready component. - The PC case icon on this diagram will remain a Yellow Question Mark until it is filled with working parts. - Fill your backpack with the black-boxed PC parts from the car trunk. Press ‘F’ on the PC case to open it up like any container. Click component in backpack, click empty slot. There are mouse-over tooltips if you need them. - Once you see four green checkmarks on the monitor, Press the ‘C’ keyon the PC Case to switch its power 'on.' Computer Controls - Press ‘F’ on the monitor to begin using a currently-operating computer. - Press ‘Q’ while using a computer to instantly stand up from it without shutting it down. Useful for snacks and toilet breaks. Browser Basics - Check out the blue ‘WWW’ browser. Don’t sweat the apparent large quantity of the icons, most of them are used infrequently. - Note: The ‘WWW’ browser often stays on a previously selected website until one uses the home button (blue circle at top center of browser) or back buttons to explicitly navigate away and open an actual fresh WWW browser menu. Instant Quality of Life Upgrade for $30 - There is a blue icon just to the left of center called Fast Net which sells Less-Slow Internet plans. I highly recommend purchasing the right-most / Most Expensive internet plan for $30 immediately. Do not buy the Boost which lasts one in-game day per purchase. Register on Blender website - Blender is the streaming site which will eventually pay you the big bucks for having thousands of subscribers and followers. To get started, we must sign up and Get a Code for our Stream. I hope you are Ready with that Cool Streamer Name. - Blender is the Purple icon in the center of WWW menu. Click ‘Register’ in the top right corner. - Enter your Streamer Name, then hold LMB on the Fingerprint, and click Complete button. - Click ‘Login’ in the top right and repeat the fingerprint thing. Once you’re logged in... - Click on ‘Dashboard’ and Note the four-digit Stream Key. - Note: This is a Walkthrough, but Blender Dashboard is literally your entire Streaming career and you should check it out later. Clear the phone GPS - If you have not already done so, clear tracking the first (orange) house from the phone’s Map App to activate the next set of tutorial missions. (Open phone, map program, click to enlarge, de-select the circle next to the top destination.) Streamer Life Simulator Walkthrough parts 3 and 4 Walkthrough 3: Download OPS program, purchase a microphone, send money to Card.OPS is the program you run on your PC to transmit your Stream to Blender. - Start the download of the OPS program from the Apps website. This type of download will continue automatically once started, so feel free to navigate away from the download page and work on something else. Buy a Microphone - Get back to the WWW home page once more and go to Zamazor, the web-shopping website (green icon, top right area). Find microphones under computer parts, and buy the cheapest one. (See the next paragraph if your payment is declined.) Send All Money to the Card - This objective is to send all the money to The Card. Read the full article