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hoidn · 3 years ago

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tree Explains Things 01: SnapMotion

In this tutorial I talk about using SnapMotion to create caps from video clips for the purpose of making gifs. (I recommend viewing this on YouTube for better quality and a larger video size.)

Please note that I'm not affiliated with SnapMotion or its creator in any way and there's nothing in it for me if you choose to purchase SnapMotion for yourself. Obviously, I recommend it, but do investigate your options, as there may be something out there that's better suited to you.

(This transcript is approximately 60% accurate to the tutorial and 40% me condensing my waffle into more sensible narration.)

SnapMotion is a Mac OS X program available to buy at the App Store. (As far as I'm aware, there are no releases for any other operating system.) It's fairly inexpensive: AUD $7.99 when I bought it two years ago. (In the video I said $12, from memory, but then I looked up the receipt email to confirm and found myself $4.01 wrong.) Considering that I've made thousands and thousands of caps in the couple of years I've been using it, I've definitely gotten my money's worth.

SnapMotion has two modes: what I call photo mode and then batch mode. Photo mode is good for one or two caps, but to extract caps in bulk you'll be using batch mode. (Something I forgot to mention in the video is that dragging your file to the SnapMotion icon will open it in photo mode by default. In order to access batch mode, you have to open the program and select it.)

Selecting Show Batch Mode takes you to the batch mode work space. Here you can drag and drop your clip or click the plus sign to add it. Once you've loaded a clip, select it in order to access the Add Batch Tasks menu.

One of the things that I particularly like about this program is that all the information you need about the file is clearly set out. In particular, it shows you how many frames per second you're working with. This is important because the fps rate determines how many frames you want to extract from a clip.

Why? Because math.

All the sources I've worked with have an fps rate of either 24 or 60. That number tells you how many individual images are contained in one second of video. Obviously, there's a considerable difference between 24 and 60, and that affects how many frames you choose to extract.

I've found I get the best results by extracting every other frame from 24 fps sources and every fifth frame from 60 fps sources. So:

24 fps = 2 (or 1/2 ← why does Tumblr do that?? I hate that!) 60 fps = 5 (or 1/5)

(That gives you roughly 12 caps per second for both sources. I say 'roughly' because, as you can see on my screen, the fps rate is rounded to the nearest whole number. 24 fps is actually 23.7 fps, so that missing .03 can have a cumulative effect.)

I find this is the best compromise between having smooth, natural looking motion in your gifs and keeping your file size within Tumblr's constraints. (I'll talk more about that in the next tutorial.)

Tools

The green bar is obviously your clip timeline. The cursor defaults to being in the centre for some reason. You have start and end caps (or whatever you call them) that define the start and end points of your extraction. The left and right arrow|bar buttons move your cursor to the start or end cap respectively, and between them is the play button. To the left are the transformation options. I've never used them, so I don't know what they do. (If you decide to experiment, please report back about your results!) To the right of that is the volume icon, which allows you to hear sound from your clip during playback. I don't find it useful, so I don't bother. The tortoise icon allows you to adjust the speed of your playback (left is slower, right is faster in case that’s not obvious). The arrowheads on the far right move your playback cursor to the start and end caps respectively.

Add Batch Tasks

This is where you specify the parameters for the batch.

Mode: there are four options. I primarily use Every X Frames. As this is a 24 fps source, I want to extract every 2 frames, so I use the value 2. When I type my value in and then press tab, the bottom of the panel shows the number of frames that will be generated from my selection. If I process this selection, SnapMotion will create twenty-five images. But because I moved the start and end caps earlier, and I actually want to extract frames from the whole clip, I need to adjust them. When I tab through my X value again, I see an updated number of generated frames.

I always include the Starting and Ending frames because I trim my clips to the exact frames I want (unless I'm being lazy).

Max size: This refers to the width of the image in pixels. (Technically, it refers to the maximum size of the largest dimension, but since video sources are universally landscape oriented, for our purposes this number will always refer to the width.) The default setting is 4,000 pixels and since the source clip is 1920 pixels wide my caps are going to remain 1920 pixels wide. However, if you know what width you want your eventual gif to be and you don't want to go through the extra step of resizing it in Photoshop, you can use this setting to do that for you. For example, if you want your gif to be 540 pixels wide you would enter 540 in this field. When you process this batch, SnapMotion will resize each frame it extracts to a width of 540 pixels with a proportional height. (Yeah, I said width at first and then I had trouble getting out the word height. Talking is hard!)

I don't use this feature simply because sometimes I change my mind, and I would have to rerun the batch if I did. (This isn't a big deal for a single shot like this, but if you're working with a whole scene that contains hundreds of frames, it's a hassle.) I also reuse caps sometimes. As you probably know, if you follow my Longmire gifs, sometimes I do a full scene using small gifs and then I go back and do large versions of some of the Vic shots. (Because I love her so.) And sometimes I make other graphics. In those situations, I want the image at its original size, so that I can resize or crop it the way I want.

Format: I prefer PNG.

Override: this tells the program what to do when a file with the same name already exists in the destination folder. The options are Replace existing files or Use alternative name. They're probably fairly self-explanatory (but just in case, I included a note).

Errors: I don't think I've ever had an error in this program. You can choose to generate a log file with each batch, but I kept getting logs that said "no errors" every time I ran one and it was annoying having to constantly delete them, so I switched to No error handling.

Headline/Credit: I believe this is like watermarking your images. If you want to watermark your gifs (I honestly don't see the point but some people do it), I think it'd be a lot easier to do it in Photoshop (or whatever program you use for image editing).

Export: this is where you specify the destination for your extracted image files. Click Choose to open the menu from here. Alternatively, when you're ready to process a batch, click the red button (aka the "Do the Thing" button according to me when I recorded this), and if there is no destination already specified, it will prompt you for a location.

Once you've clicked the Do the Thing button (yeah, I'm just leaning into it now), SnapMotion will display Task Added. If you look at the top of the window, you'll see a progress bar showing the percentage of completion as it processes.

When the images are fully exported, you'll see All Tasks Done and also an alert if you've selected that in your preferences (which I haven't gotten to yet but it's coming up). If you go to the destination folder, you'll find all the images that have been extracted. That's it!

I want to address the syntax for how files are named because I found the options very confusing to begin with. The default syntax made no sense to me and it took me a while to configure something that did. File names are defined in the program preferences, so go to the SnapMotion menu, select Preferences, then select the Batch tab.

Number of concurrent snaps: how many frames should be extracted at the same time. This has an impact on your RAM usage and also impacts how long it takes a batch to run.

Alert users with: this is where you choose whether or not you want a notification outside the program. It's useful if you're running a larger batch in the background and therefore don't see the All Tasks Done message.

Output name format: these are the elements I use:

<movie_name> = the title of your clip file

hyphen

<time_seconds> = the actual second position of the frame within the clip; for example, a frame that was extracted at 14s would be numbered beginning with 14. This parameter converts durations of 1 minute+ into seconds, e.g. 60, 61, etc.

<frame _index> = the running number of the frames extracted in the batch, beginning at 1. The position of this number depends on the total number of frames you're extracting. From 1 to 99 frames, the number will be 01; from 100 to 999 frames, the number will be 001. I've never extracted more than 1,000 frames, but I assume in that situation you'd begin with 0001.

If I were extracting 40 frames from my clip beginning at 14s, then the numerical portion of my file names would start at 1401. If I were extracting 120 frames, then the numerical portion of my file names would start at 14001.

<image_extension> = the file format you've specified

So, my file names are constructed like this:

<movie_name>-<time_seconds><frame _index>.<image_extension>

And the files from the batch I've just run look like this if you separate the elements:

1x05_2206 - 0 01 . png

In this batch, the seconds run from 0 to 3 and there are 34 frames in total. The first number column represents <time_seconds>, while columns two and three combined represent <frame_index>. You can see that the numbers in columns two and three are sequential from 1-34, whereas the numbers in column one aren't. That's because I've extracted multiple frames per second. Caps 1-7 were extracted from the first second of the clip, caps 8-18 from the second, caps 19-31 from the third, and caps 32-34 from the fraction of the fourth second.

This naming system is what works for me, but you should experiment with the options so that you can construct file names that work best for you.

The last couple of things:

You can import multiple clips either individually or at the same time.

You can delete a clip by selecting it and clicking the minus button.

And that's SnapMotion!

If anything is unclear or I've omitted something that you wanted to know about, please let me know. Thanks for watching and listening (and reading). Next up, I’ll be explaining the process of importing your caps into Photoshop and creating your gif file.

#tree explains things #snapmotion #tutorial

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writteninsunshine · 5 years ago

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Love And Lost - Clint Barton/Pietro Maximoff - SFW

Title: Love And Lost Author: Donnie Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Setting: The Helicarrier Pairing: Clint Barton/Pietro Maximoff Characters: Clint Barton, Pietro Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff, Natasha Romanov, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Nick Fury, Steve Rogers Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Romance Rating: T Chapters: 1/1 Word Count: 1273 Type of Work: One-Shot, Part of the Clint Barton Bingo: Round Two Series Status: Complete Warnings: Gay, Slash, Yaoi, Mentions of Character Death, AU – Canon Divergent, Fix-It Fic, Pietro Didn't Die, AU - Soulmates Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Summary: Only two things could put Clint in such a sour mood over a victory, but only one thing could bring him back out of it. AN: Here we are at another Bingo fill, and I'm pretty happy to get through another one. I've been having a lot of issues at home lately, and so writing again felt really nice. Note: While this is a Soulmate AU, and I have a square for that, this isn't what I wanted to write for it. I just wanted to write a Soulmate AU and so it ended up being part of this fill. I hope that's okay.

Clint Barton Bingo Round 2 Masterlist Love And Lost ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ While everyone was fully aware that there had been a few hiccups (Hulk had thrown the wrong truck cab and nearly lost them Natasha, and Tony had gotten miserably turned around in some cavern system beneath the Hydra hideout), it had been a full success. Wanda had even whooped when they returned to the Helicarrier and they were told that they'd done a bang-up job. Her high-five with Steve and then Natasha caused a full round of them from Thor, who never did take 'no' for an answer when it was time to revel.

The one storm cloud in the room seemed to be Clint, who had chosen the highest point in the main deck and parked there. Hiding out and absently glaring at the small, makeshift party below him, his displeasure didn't go unnoticed. When Natasha clapped him on the shoulder, Pietro realized absently that he wasn't the only one that recognized just who was missing. “You should go tell him it's time to get out of those sweaty leathers.” She spoke gently, a slight smirk on her red lips, “He'll probably need someone who's more gentle with him than I would be.” The knowing look she shot her friend only had Pietro's stomach flipping and falling into his feet. Did he really want to mess with the Hawk when he looked so... Irate? Well, it wasn't like Pietro was known for his patience or ability to think clearly when he wanted something. His lover's silence wasn't so strange as the fact that he couldn't seem to wipe the scowl off his face, but he was sure he could help. Zipping up to the current perch that Clint had taken up, Pietro leaned on the railing with a small, nervous smile on his face. It was the same look he wore when he didn't want to talk about something but knew that he had to, and the second that Clint gave a cursory glance over, he knew that he'd have to give in and try. If he didn't, the impossible task of getting Pietro to trust him would have been for naught. At any moment, the precarious precipice that he stood on with the kid could bowl over and he'd be up shit creek without a paddle and without Pietro to keep him company. “What's up, kid?” The tone made Pietro flinch, and Clint reached out to take his hand in his own gloved one, gently stroking his thumb over the other's knuckles. “Sorry. What's on your mind?” “You.” While the answer was cocky as usual, his voice quaked slightly and he looked away, like he might just as quickly retreat as he had arrived. “Who put bee in your underwear?” Snorting a little at the word choice, Clint rolled his eyes. “It's not like you'd really understand it, babe.” He muttered, “It's not like you can just lose your powers.” It took approximately a second before Pietro was sitting beside the elder man, dangling his legs from their tower, leaning against his arm. The concerned look burning his eyes into the other's hands told Clint he caught the words just as easily as if they hadn't been so vague. “You lost your bow.” “I did.” Glancing back over, Clint couldn't help the beginnings of a tiny smile pulling at the corners of his lips, and he had to turn his glare back to Tony having another little spat with Steve to keep his sour mood. Whatever it was they were fighting over, Clint figured one honest talk would get them to the other side of it. Maybe. Then again, knowing those two, it would never happen. Still, his eyes found Pietro's little scowl once more and he saw his own arm wrap around the kid's shoulders more than he registered it happening. Tugging him in closer, he waited for the words to fall from the other's lips, letting him pick them out all on his own. “That is like losing arm, no?” He finally asked, his sour expression only making Clint chuckle a little bit. Honestly, the kid was too cute when he was mad at things, it was why Clint could never keep his hands to himself. “Yeah, I guess it is.” Clint nodded in response, pressing his temple to Pietro's, “And I can't believe I lost it. But... I guess there are worse things to lose.” The quiet, tight-lipped frown that overcame him as he looked at the white-haired nineteen year old beside him made Pietro go stiff. Why did he constantly have to bring that up? It hadn't been a good day for anyone. “You did not lose me.” The definitive tone told Clint he didn't want to talk about it, but sometimes he had to get those feelings out when he had them. “But I could have.” “And you would not have known what you were losing.” Pietro added after a moment, “You have lost a piece of you, now.” “I thought I lost a piece of myself in Sokovia.” Clint sighed, shaking his head a little, “The bow can be replaced, I just need to talk to Bruce and Fury.” He informed easily, “It won't be that hard to get another one.” It's impossible to find another person like you. Absently, Clint's fingers worked through that soft, pale hair, trailing down the kid's shoulder, chest, and to his hip. Beneath his track suit, Pietro swore he could feel the initials in his hip throbbing, and he forced himself to look away. CB had always thrown him for a loop until he'd started to come to terms with the fact that the old man he kept bothering in the forest was, indeed, his soulmate. “I get the point.” Pietro muttered, pouting as his voice grew louder, “But it should not--” “It does matter. Now, hush. We need to go get ready for whatever bullshit party Tony and Thor are cooking up, right?” A smile was on his lips as he nuzzled his cheek into the other's shoulder, the elder man feeling oddly better about everything despite himself. Clint always found it odd how he would end up comforting Pietro when he'd been the upset one in the first place, but he didn't doubt the effectiveness of it. Pietro's tried and true remedy for Clint being upset worked far too well sometimes. He'd simply have to work harder to get Pietro to think about something, anything other than the track he'd accidentally ended up on. A party and a good amount of attention would do his soulmate some good. Kissing his temple, he popped up beside him and held out a hand. “Let's go, alright, pidge?” “Alright...” Pietro took his hand and rose to his feet, letting Clint help him to the nearest way down. Once his feet were on solid ground, he didn't let a breath of air come between them; even when they were changing. Really, sometimes the kid was indescribably clingy. Still in the back of Clint's mind, his missing bow wore on his ability to have a good time. Even if Pietro was doing a fairly good job of distracting him, he couldn't quite get his head wrapped around what he was going to do; It took him a solid two hours before he sought out Bruce to discuss the thoughts he'd had on his new bow. Pietro knew better than to get in the way, so he opted to chat at Wanda and Natasha in Sokovian instead, never letting his eyes drive away from his lover. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ AN: I'm finally feeling okay enough to write some again, so let's see what all I can get done. I still have no internet, so getting donations via Ko-Fi (Sunshinecackle) would be great! It's okay if you can't, but maybe promoing me would help! We have a goal of $75 to get the internet set up and everything, and if we could do that ASAP, it would be so great. We currently have no money at all. Translations: Raz na raz ne prikhoditsya. - Russian – From time to time, it does not happen. Prompt: N5 – Lost Bow

#Clint Barton Bingo #MCU Fanfic #MCU Fanfiction #MCU Hawksilver #MCU Clint Barton #MCU Pietro Maximoff

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canadian-riddler · 6 years ago

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Morality of a Supercomputer: Why GLaDOS is not evil (or inherently a bad person)

(under a readmore for length)

Part A: Aperture Itself is an Immoral Corporation Run By Immoral Employees

- Cave Johnson was the was the CEO of Aperture from 1947 to sometime in the 1980s. We can infer that his employees either a) had similar beliefs to himself or b) were content to adhere to his ridiculous whims while also turning a blind eye.

- Cave never, ever expresses remorse for killing his first set of test subjects. He treats it as an inconvenience. He literally doesn’t care that he killed a bunch of promising members of society during a bunch of horribly conceived tests with a horribly built device that was proven not to work. Your introduction to the Repulsion Gel includes him making a joke about someone breaking all the bones in their legs.

- Aperture put to market two separate gels that were not fit for human consumption. Again, Cave doesn’t seem to care one bit about this. He takes a stance more akin to ‘oh well, we’ll just… use them for this experimental quantum tunnelling device, I guess’.

- Aperture’s unethical disaster experiments are all played off as inconsequential or mildly amusing inconveniences.

- Cave does not take responsibility for his own ill-advised actions. He shoulders them off onto everybody else. People were accepting this responsibility willingly.

- Cave publicly disrespects, insults, and demeans almost every person that works for him. He fires without notice people who disagree with him.

- Cave’s plan, after killing the astronauts and Olympians, was to specifically entice the homeless, the mentally ill, seniors, and orphaned children to do his tests for him. That is, he specifically wanted populations that nobody would cause a fuss about if they went missing. This tells us that Cave Johnson has no regard for human life and, additionally, that his employees willingly went along with this. Aperture was taken to court not for injured astronauts, but for missing ones. Somebody got rid of what was left of them. People also agreed to this marketing campaign and put it into action.

- Because Aperture wanted only populations that nobody would miss, we can infer something very important: nobody ever survived the testing process. Every single person who went into the testing tracks died.

- During Test Chamber 18 in Portal, there is a room with craters in the wall panels where the energy pellets have been colliding with them. No other chamber has this. Therefore, before Chell arrives, nobody has ever solved that chamber. Every person who has gone through the testing track has died before reaching this point. In Portal, GLaDOS is not shown to have the ability to reorder the facility. All she is able to do is position turrets and activate the neurotoxin, so we know that she does not reorder the tests. They are static and she merely resets them after they are complete/failed partway through.

- Test Chamber 19 appears unfinished, which follows from the previous point that Test Chamber 18 was never solved so Test Chamber 19 was never fully built. GLaDOS, additionally, seems baffled that Chell ends up at the end of it and is forced to improvise when she escapes, which GLaDOS does not know how to do because she has never done it before.

- In Lab Rat, neither Henry nor Doug Rattmann seem to be overly concerned with whether GLaDOS is a person or not, and not at all bothered by the fact that Caroline is supposed to be in there. They talk about her like she is a bothersome computer and that is all. You could argue that Henry does not know about Caroline; however, Doug’s murals prove that he does know. This doesn’t seem to influence his decisions whatsoever.

- Lab Rat also states that they turn GLaDOS off and on at will, ‘off’ usually involving a ‘kill switch’. Given that GLaDOS is a computer from the late eighties/early nineties, which took forever to turn off and on, and GLaDOS is shown to be immediately shut off, the ‘kill switch’ is probably actually her being crashed. Crashing software creates a whole host of problems for non-sentient software; therefore, every time they turned her back on again her system would have been a horrible mess. This would have created massive system instability… which nobody seemed to care very much about.

- GLaDOS is described on a PowerPoint presentation as ‘arguably alive’, but in the same presentation they propose selling her to the military as a fuel line de-icer that doesn’t have the ability to do anything else. Therefore, they are fully aware that she is alive and she is a person… they just don’t care.

- It is explicitly shown that most of the work done on GLaDOS is carried out without her consent. The very act of Caroline’s upload is done with the consent of neither of them. Henry is extremely blasé about the Morality Core and there are approximately forty cores shown in the clear bin during the end of Portal 2. This implies that they have been installing them on her for a very long time with no regard at all for her or the Cores, even though they have very blatantly failed multiple times. They just build sentient, arguably alive AI with the sole intention of corralling GLaDOS temporarily, and when the Cores fail they are basically put into storage forever.

- GLaDOS’s job in Portal was to supervise the tests. As concluded above, she doesn’t demonstrate the ability to build them herself. Therefore, she was watching people be maimed and killed within human-designed tests under the supervision of her engineers before she ever killed anyone herself.

- Aperture had over ten thousand people in cryogenic storage waiting to be awoken for testing. The Extended Relaxation Vaults at the beginning of Portal 2 have a ‘packing date’ (in 1976/77, when GLaDOS did not exist even as a concept yet) and an ‘expiry date’ (in 1996, which means that they were all brain-dead before GLaDOS took over the facility). GLaDOS does not have any human test subjects between the conclusion of Portal 2 and the first DLC, and she doesn’t know about the existence of the human vault. Therefore, Aperture put tens of thousands of people into indefinite, unstable storage with no regard whatsoever to what state they would be when, and indeed if, they woke up, and they did not tell the AI they put in charge of the facility so said AI so much as knew they existed.

- The very fact they gave literal people – including children – an expiry date when they put them into a metal box for twenty years really tells you all you need to know about Aperture as a whole.

What does this teach GLaDOS?

- Aperture was a cesspool of bad people doing bad things and not caring about the consequences.

- You do not need someone’s permission to do something to them. You merely beat away at them until they break.

- Death is part of the tests.

- Dying during the test is a controlled variable. There is no such thing as ‘passing the test’.

- GLaDOS does not actually understand death.

- People are not people. They are objects. They are objects to be modified, put into storage, and sold at will, and any harm that comes to them is meaningless and should be disregarded as an impedance to progress.

Part B. GLaDOS, as We Know Her, is Pure AI

Before we get into this, it is important to establish that it is implied in-universe GLaDOS herself is actually the DOS; that is, GLaDOS herself is the operating system. If you believe GLaDOS and Caroline are the same person, that’s fine; please hear me out regardless.

- She has a prototype chassis in the Portal 2 DLC with an earlier version of her OS on it. This has an in-game date of 1989 and, since we know that GLaDOS took over the facility nearabouts the Black Mesa Incident in 1998/1999, we know that she was in development for at least ten years.

- There was, at one point, a Portal 2 hype website where you did a survey and it was run by an early version of GLaDOS; it is no longer active but it was a real thing.

- GLaDOS is incredibly, genuinely clueless about things that any regular person knows: she believes a bird has malicious intentions to destroy her facility; she believes that motivation consists of telling blatant, obvious lies to people; her grasp of social niceties is completely nonexistent.

- Because it is stated that there were multiple versions of GLaDOS, this means that she is a person built from nothing. Everything she knows was either provided to her via Aperture’s database or taught to her in some way by GLaDOS’s engineers. GLaDOS does not know a single thing she was not directly taught by somebody else.

- GLaDOS is never shown to have a ~normal~ conversation with anybody. Every time she talks, it is to convince someone to do what she wants them to do. Because she is AI, this behaviour was learned and, given how the engineers at Aperture regard her and the Cores, it is not illogical to say that pretty much the only conversations they had with their AI were probably along the lines of ‘do this for me because my neck is on the line here’.

- During the instatement of the Morality Core, Doug Rattmann tells Henry that the Morality Core is not going to be enough because you can always ignore your conscience. However, in the second half of Portal 2, GLaDOS is shown to be unable to ignore it. What is the difference?

- The Morality Core was not a true conscience. It was, yet again, the scientists telling her what to do. It was, like all the other Cores, an annoying new set of restrictions that had no purpose except to impede her. Henry describes it as ‘the latest in AI inhibition technology’. It did not exist to teach her morals. It was created to slow her down.

- It’s entirely possible that nobody actually told her what morals were or what the Morality Core was actually for. Additionally, we don’t actually know what the Morality Core was telling her, since it is never mentioned and the Core never speaks.

- The conscience that GLaDOS comes across is her own conscience; she literally says so (‘I’ve heard voices all my life, but now I hear the voice of a conscience, and it’s terrifying, because for the first time… it’s my voice’) which, unlike the Morality Core, she cannot ignore.

What does this teach us about GLaDOS?

- GLaDOS was in development for at least ten years but all she learned about personal interaction was how to manipulate people.

- GLaDOS was created in an environment that did not care about morals and did not teach her any but, when she failed to toe the moral line, she had morals forced on her.

Part C. GLaDOS’s Thought Process

- GLaDOS, as pure AI, operates on a binary scale; that is, everything to her is either yes or no, on or off, with her or against her. Prior to being placed in a potato, GLaDOS never had a reason to think outside of this binary. GLaDOS has no concept of an in-between and does not understand grey reasoning.

- As a robot whose sole purpose was to run variations on the same test ad nauseam, it would never have occurred to GLaDOS to do anything else.

- GLaDOS says about herself in an unused piece of dialogue: ‘I’m brilliant. […] I’m the most massive collection of wisdom and raw computational power that’s ever existed. I’m not bragging. That’s an objective fact.’ Therefore, she knows she could do literally anything with her intelligence and her hardware… but that would require her to think outside her binary of testing and not testing. So she does nothing.

- This is established several times: as soon as she reactivates after her death, she starts testing. As soon as she sends Chell away, she sends her robots into testing. As soon as she finds the test subjects, she starts testing. She constructs ‘art pieces’… which are simply more tests. Her ‘training’ for the co-op bots are… you guessed it… tests.

- As an extension of the above point: she could build any robot she wants or anything she wants. She in fact talks about doing other experiments. She doesn’t. She opts to build testing robots and test elements. And that’s it.

- Upon discovering her conscience/the ability to think in grey, she says, ‘I’m serious! I think there’s something really wrong with me!’ She doesn’t understand that this is a normal thing for a person to have or to be able to use. Conscience and morality are things that were neither demonstrated nor explained to her and so when she comes across them herself, she thinks it is a problem.

- Additionally, when Chell fails to react to GLaDOS’s dialogue about her fledgling ability to think in grey, she immediately reverts to her old standbys of binary thought and manipulation: ‘You like revenge, right? Everybody likes revenge! Well, let’s go get some!’ She’s now aware of the concept of a middle ground, but does not know how to do anything with it.

- GLaDOS states about Chell: ‘I thought you were my enemy, but all along you were my best friend.’ This is another example of her binary thought process. A person who helps you when it’s mutually beneficial, as Chell does during Portal 2, is not necessarily your best friend. At best, they are usually your temporary ally. But because GLaDOS only understands binary concepts, that’s the conclusion she comes to.

- She states ‘the best solution is the easiest one, and killing you is hard’. This slots neatly into her binary: if killing you down here is hard, then letting you live up there is easy. In Want You Gone she says, ‘when I delete you maybe I’ll stop feeling so bad’ so we know Chell exists outside of her binary at that point, but she doesn’t know what to do about it so she forces a binary decision on the situation anyway.

What does this teach us about GLaDOS?

- GLaDOS lacks the ability to think in grey, and when able/forced to do so she either becomes frightened or forces the situation into a decision with only two options.

Part D. What All of This Means

Gathering the previous points gives us these clues about GLaDOS’s behaviour:

- Aperture was a cesspool of bad people doing bad things and not caring about the consequences.

- You do not need someone’s permission to do something to them. You merely beat away at them until they break.

- Death is part of the tests.

- Dying during the test is a controlled variable. There is no such thing as ‘passing the test’.

- GLaDOS does not understand death.

- GLaDOS was in development for at least ten years but all she learned about personal interaction was how to manipulate people.

- GLaDOS was created in an environment that did not care about morals and did not teach her any but, when she failed to toe the moral line, she had morals forced on her.

- GLaDOS lacks the ability to think in grey, and when able/forced to do so she either becomes frightened or forces the situation into a decision with only two options.

What this tells us about how GLaDOS operates is the following:

- There are no consequences for anything whatsoever, as long as you’re the one in charge.

- You can do whatever you want to somebody else, as long as you come out on top.

- Death is meaningless.

- She sees people as objects and she treats them as such.

- She does not know how to talk to people. Only at them.

- She knows that morals are rules people want her to follow, but she doesn’t understand them and has never seen them in action.

- Grey thought is anathema to her. If something does not fit into her binary, she will force it to.

All of these rules are challenged when Chell, through her actions, personally demonstrates morality to GLaDOS. Chell helps GLaDOS not because she needs to, but because it’s the right thing to do. Instead of attempting to skip town and leave GLaDOS to fend for herself (which she was well within her rights to do), Chell returns GLaDOS to her chassis. And at this point GLaDOS immediately demonstrates grey reasoning both when she elects to save Chell and when it is shown that she does not kill Wheatley. This is not the behaviour of an evil person. This is the behaviour of someone who understands there was something wrong with their previous actions and has decided to do something about it. GLaDOS’s behaviour towards the co-op bots is less malicious than it is the fumblings of somebody whose worldview has skewed, but they aren’t sure what to do about it and there aren’t any binary answers. Because of her extreme isolation, it is going to take her a long, long time to get things right, but once she is exposed to the concept of grey reasoning she does attempt to figure out what to do with it.

GLaDOS is not evil, nor are most of her actions inherently ill-intentioned. Some of them are. To claim all of her actions are borne of evil and come from a place of inherent malice shows a misunderstanding of the sort of environment Aperture was and the kind of people who would populate such an environment. At the end of the day, she’s still not a very nice person. But to write her off as evil is oversimplifying a lot of what we are told about her and a misunderstanding of computer science as a whole. Artificial intelligence is not developed in a vacuum and a computer only does exactly what it’s told. All of GLaDOS’s behaviours are learned. The people who created her may have been evil, but she herself is not. And when given the choice to be something else, something she never knew was an option… she takes it.

#GLaDOS #Portal #so says Indy #I hope you didn't think I was joking because I wasn't

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crimethinc · 6 years ago

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The 2018 G20 in Buenos Aires: Setting the Stage–Background Materials and Logbook November 15-16

On November 30 and December 1, the 2018 G20 summit will bring together the rulers of the 20 most powerful nations for a meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina to strategize about how to maintain world domination. Following the courageous disruption and mass unrest during last year’s G20 summit in Hamburg, the whole world is watching to see what will happen in Buenos Aires. Organizers have planned a global week of action expressing opposition to the concentration of power in the hands of politicians and capitalists and conveying a vision of a more egalitarian world. Our international correspondent in Buenos Aires will be reporting to us daily. Below, you can read the reports from the last few days before the mobilization and review our coverage of a decade and a half of previous resistance to G8 and G20 summits.

Logbook G20

We will be publishing a kind of logbook covering the 2018 G20 summit in Buenos Aires and the demonstrations taking place against it. The function of a logbook is to record all essential events concerning the ship—including events on board, but also everything that could affect the ship from outside and observations during the voyage or when going ashore. Here, we will try to present the essential context of the 2018 G20 and give an impression of the general city events.

Prehistory and General Conditions

Buenos Aires was already chosen as the venue for 2018 before the 2017 G20 summit took place in Hamburg. This metropolis of 14 million people has been a protest stronghold in Latin America for a long time. This is even truer now, as a result of the far-reaching social cuts introduced by the neoliberal policies of President Macri’s government. The background to this is a currency crisis and a loan imposed by the IMF as the “only possible antidote.” According to official figures, the repayment and interest burden alone will account for approximately 25% of the state budget for many years to come. (In Germany, by contrast, a total of 6% is currently spent as “debt service” in the state budget.) The IMF is an integral part of the G20; consequently, the protests against the summit address the IMF, social questions, and the future viability of society.

The protest alliance “No al G20” is broad-based: it involves numerous trade unions, environmental associations, human rights groups, ATTAC, and large sections of the women’s movement and left-wing organizations. This mobilization is international, especially involving people from neighboring countries. An action week is planned before the summit, as well as a large-scale demonstration on Friday, November 30, the first day of the two-day summit.

The Argentine government has taken tremendous repressive measures. The deployment of 22,000 Argentine police officers has already been announced, and a further 5000 security forces from various countries are to supplement them. The government purchased discarded combat aircraft from France and new armored vehicles from China with optional MG armament on the roof. In addition, they bought an arsenal including fully 2 million rubber bullets, various surveillance equipment, and other police weaponry. The Argentine state is spending money on this while in the universities, the lights are going out in the evening due to unpaid electricity bills and pensioners have to tighten their belts three holes at a time.

November 30 has been legally declared a “holiday without work” for the entire city of Buenos Aires; the residents are encouraged to spend a long weekend in the countryside. In addition, for the duration of the summit, public transport will be completely suspended in the city center, if not the entire city.

Wednesday, November 14

Senate Waves IMF Program through; Protests before Parliament

It was foreseeable. After the House of Representatives had already approved the draft of the IMF program by a narrow majority; the approval of the much more conservative Senate seemed to be certain. This time, however, the Macri government made every effort to secure the broadest possible approval. That is why they haggled until the end—especially aiming to gain the approval of at least a few Peronists and of representatives of the rural regions. Those in rural areas will be particularly affected by the program because, in addition to the social cuts, it will also cut funding previously earmarked for the poorer provinces. A few specific representatives negotiated special conditions for their regions and finally agreed to pass the controversial IMF budget package. The vote was 45 in favor, 24 against, while opinion polls showed almost exactly the opposite picture among the general population.

While the debate was taking place, a rally of between 3000 and 5000 demonstrators gathered in front of the parliament (“el Congreso”)—quite a small number for Buenos Aires and especially in view of the important reason. A few weeks before, during the vote of the Chamber of Deputies, there came many, many more people and fierce clashes broke out. The largest blocs at that time were young Trotskyists and a more leftist faction within the Peronists. But there was also a kind of “standing panel discussion,” the “Barrios de Pie” were involved, and also a few more militant groups. When a small group, mostly unmasked despite several cameras, began to pry up paving stones from the street with iron rods, a sturdy group came out of the Peronist block and took the rods away from them. The Trotskyists sealed off their bloc with a human chain and shortly thereafter pulled away to hold their own smaller demonstration.

Finally, about 80 fully-equipped police officers stormed out of their own fencing towards the Peronist block, grabbed a very young anarcho-punk demonstrator, and dragged him away to loud protests from the crowd, which they blocked off by forming a chain across a side street. According to the press, a second person was arrested as well.

Notably, after a comparatively short sprint, most of that riot police in full gear were gasping for air. Their protective equipment must be enormously heavy.

Ritualized Protests and Repression before the Congreso

There is hardly a protest in Buenos Aires that does not end in front of the Parliament building—if it does not begin there. Accordingly, everything seems to be arranged: the roadblocks (2-meter-high connectable steel grids) are not transported away between demonstrations, but stored nearby and always rebuilt at the same intersections. At the adjacent main artery, this is indicated by installed signs reading “Evitar zona Congreso—Corte total” (“Avoid the congress zone—total blockage”). The standard barriers cover several hundred meters with numerous shops and an estimated 5000 residents. At the narrow checkpoints, the security guards wear suits; they probably already know many of the residents and regulate everything without helmets and truncheons on their belts. Often, everyday life plays out on three of the four sides of the ritualized barrier.

On the fourth side, however, in front of the main façade, demonstrations take place in front of the barrier on the large square, and clashes occur regularly. Behind the barriers, the police position their “Infanteria” (the usual term here), i.e., helmeted riot police, as well as water cannons and motorcycle units. If they think it´s necessary, they move to the spacious square in front of the parliament building, shoot tear gas and rubber bullets, clear the area, and beat and arrest people, often against embittered resistance.

Barbecue in the front of the barrier.

Thursday, November 15

Press Conference of the Protest Alliance “La Confluencia—Fuera G20 y FMI”

This press conference took place at the Latin American human rights organization “Servicio Paz y Justicia.” The small hall was full to capacity—including, among others, the 1st German Television and the news agency Reuters. The podium is occupied by Beverly Keene, a spokeswoman of the alliance, and Nora Cortiñas, one of the best-known “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo.” Behind them stand other representatives of the alliance.

Beverly Keene briefly introduces the alliance and emphasizes its versatility and openness. It was not for nothing that it is called La Confluencia, i.e., a “confluence” of many different flows into a common river. She stresses that all meetings and preparations are open to the public and, in this context, criticizes the surveillance carried out by security forces. The danger does not come from the alliance, but rather from the premeditated state repression and from the G20 itself.

Then, succinctly but comprehensively, she sets forth the protesters’ concerns. The G20 leaders do not represent the interests of the people, as they claim to, especially not those of Latin America. Rather, their policies produce hunger, poverty, and destruction worldwide, especially in Argentina, where the IMF stipulations are currently aggravating the misery of millions of people. But this is only one part of an international system that no longer has any legitimacy. It is not for nothing that the G20 leaders have to hide behind an armada of security forces.

Then we hear about the events of the protest week, especially the “summit of alternatives” on November 28 and 29, which will take place on the square in front of the parliament building, and the mass demonstration on November 30, the first day of the summit. A trade union representative adds that several million demonstrators have already taken to the streets throughout Argentina against Macri—against the IMF program and thus also against the policy of the G20. Everywhere in the country, mobilizations are taking place; one may expect very, very many participants.

Next, we heard from Nora “Norita” Cortiñas with a short but touching speech. She vehemently called on people not to be intimidated and instead to take to the streets in droves. Her demand carries weight; she publicly opposed the military dictatorship at a time when participating in demonstrations could get you killed. Over 30,000 people were murdered—including Nora Cortiña’s son.

Protest Alliance and Appeals

The alliance involves nine international networks, 102 Argentine organizations, and eight from other countries. Among them are environmental associations (e.g., Friends of the Earth), several grassroots trade unions, organizations that are critical of capitalist globalization, left-wing anti-imperialist groups, ATTAC (also from France and Spain), a Basque Antifascist organization, internationalist groups, various campesino organizations, student associations, women’s organizations, human rights groups, associations for grassroots economy, and others. It does not involve the Peronist-dominated trade unions, but for example the “Movimiento Evita,” who see themselves as “revolutionary Peronists.” What is striking about the alliance and its external image is the large proportion of women in general and the specifically feminist component of the mobilization.

From the outset, the “Confluencia” has explicitly positioned itself as internationalist. This is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that generally, Argentinian politics from right to left are limited to a standard national framework. The call for mobilization was translated into five other languages, including English.

Friday, November 16

An Explosion at the Cemetery; Raids and 14 Arrests

Already on November 14, in the early evening, an explosion took place in the cemetery in the district of Recoleta, allegedly in direct proximity to the grave of Ramón Falcón, an infamous police chief who was assassinated by anarchists on November 14, 1909, precisely 109 years earlier. A woman was seriously injured in the explosion. A mother of two, she lost three fingers and was taken to hospital with severe facial and skull injuries; her companion was arrested directly. According to police, four more “homemade pipe bombs” were found at the grave.

Shortly thereafter, bodyguards arrested another man who allegedly threw a “highly developed incendiary bomb” that did not detonate under the parked car of the judge Claudio Bonadio. The federal judge had conducted various sensational corruption proceedings against former high-ranking Peronist officials and politicians, as well as sentencing two demonstrators to several months’ imprisonment after riots in December 2017. The arrestee is alleged to have visited one of them once in prison.

The police and large sections of the press evaluate both “attempts” as part of a militant campaign in the context of the upcoming G20 summit and classify the three arrested as “violent anarchists.” On this pretext, police carried out raids of several houses, including three left-wing cultural centers. The man arrested at the cemetery is alleged to have lived in one of them, which is alleged to be the “epicenter of the anarchist movement.” The police stormed the long-occupied house with heavily armed special units and arrested ten more people. So-called crow’s feet (caltrops) were presented to the press as “bomb material.” On the following day, another arrest took place.

In addition, two Lebanese brothers were arrested and accused of possessing numerous weapons. Both were accused of associating with Hezbollah and of planning an assassination during the G20. The whole thing became mixed up in the media, which used the excuse to portray a scenario of extreme danger. The press conference of the alliance “Confluencia” was pushed under the table and instead one media “fish story” chased after the next.

Bizarrely, the “donated” armored clearance vehicles from the Chinese to Argentina were delivered in a public ceremony. Security Minister Bullrich once again urged city dwellers to leave Buenos Aires already on the Thursday before the summit, because “…the situation in the city will become very complicated… if there is any violence, we will take immediate measures against and stop it.” In the meantime, the German Foreign Office has also issued a corresponding safety warning.

Anarchism in Argentina

From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, there was a very strong libertarian and anarcho-syndicalist movement in Argentina. For several decades, the FORA (Federación Obrera Regional Argentina) was the largest and most militant trade union in the country. After a long history of strikes, demonstrations, factory occupations, and bloody repression, the movement was largely crushed in the 1930s and 1940s.

Currently, the relatively small anarchist movement is closely linked to a subcultural context, similar to the anarchist movement in many parts of Europe. But anarchists also participate in major political mobilizations, such as those bringing attention to the kidnapping and murder of the activist Santiago Maldonado.

Appendix: Previous Coverage of Resistance to the G8 and G20

For nearly two decades, CrimethInc. has published firsthand accounts and analyses of demonstrations and acts of defiance at summits including the G8 and G20. These stories of strategy, courage, and adventure deserve to be passed on from one generation to the next.

2003 G8 in Évian, France

Let Me Light My Cigarette on Your Burning Blockade: An Eyewitness Account of the Anti-G8 Demonstrations and Anarchy in the Alps

2005 G8 in Scotland, UK

Taking on the G8 in Scotland, July 2005: A Retrospective

2007 G8 in Heiligendamm, Germany

Can’t Stop the Chaos: Autonomous Resistance to the 2007 G8 in Germany

2009 G20 in Pittsburgh, USA

Why and How to Confront the G20 in Pittsburgh

Breaking News from the Pittsburgh G20 Protests

State Repression at the Pittsburgh G20 Protests

Pittsburgh G20 Mobilization: Preliminary Assessment

2010 G20 in Toronto, Canada

Shut Doors = Broken Windows

Toronto G20: Eyewitness Report

2017 G20 in Hamburg, Germany

DON’T TRY TO BREAK US–WE’LL EXPLODE: The 2017 G20 and the Battle of Hamburg: A Full Account and Analysis

To Our Compas in Buenos Aires: A Full Retrospective on the 2017 G20 Protests in Hamburg

Continuous Live Coverage of Resistance to the G20 in Hamburg: Four Days of Round-the-Clock Reports

“Solidarity with the Police”: Debunking Excuses for State Violence in Hamburg

“Dear Citizens, This Is Your Police”: In Praise of the Police-Free Zone in Hamburg

Police Raid on the G20 Camp: A Tale of Violence and Betrayal

The Spiral of Police Violence: A Work of Art Criticism

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a-mad-scientist-approaches · 7 years ago

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Multiverse is a Curse Word (10)

AHHH! Why can’t I just estimate a flipping ending accurately? I’ve split the ending into two more chapters YET AGAIN.

Addi is @hntrgurl13‘s OC, and the Dimension Jumper and Drifting Dimensions AUs belong to her as well.

The Addiford ship, which I am shamelessly obsessed with, belongs to @scipunk63.

The Adrift AU belongs to @the-subpar-ghost.

@deadpool-demon-diva and @thejesterlyfictionista, thanks for sticking with me.

AO3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Chapter 10: Robot In-Laws Are the Coolest In-Laws

I wish we didn’t have to do this, Addi thought.

Wikert Expansion Enterprises was apparently so influential in their dimension of origin that they could shut down the interdimensional customs terminal with a single transmission. So they had. Next thing Addi knew, they were being escorted to a private section of the building and a swirling blue portal was waiting for them.

“Assuming the coordinates you gave us are right, this should take you straight to RC736’s base of operations. Use this-” Lic thrust a transmitter into Addi’s hand – “to let us know the number of hostiles, and the kind of weapons technology we should expect, and we’ll arrive within twenty minutes, give or take,”

“Give or take what, exactly?” said Ford. Lic just grinned, like Ford had made a joke. Addi didn’t think that was a good sign.

The very reluctant scouting trio stepped through, and found themselves back in the dimension with permanently black sky, and furthermore, back inside RC736’s base of operations. The hangar, to be exact.

“Shhhhhoot,” hissed Addi, once again refraining from swearing in front of Mabel. They darted to the shelter of a nearby shuttle.

“Wow, they weren’t messing around when they said they’d get us to the base, were they?” said Mabel.

“I suppose not.” answered Ford, checking all around them for resisters. Fortunately, the hangar was deserted. “All the shuttles are here, so we shouldn’t have to expect any surprise arrivals.”

“I think we should split up.” said Addi suddenly. The others looked at her in alarm. “This place is huge,” she explained, “and the longer we take, the more likely it is that Lic is going to assume we’ve been captured.”

Ford had started nodding in agreement halfway through. “In that case, you take the residential quarter and the medical wing, and Mabel and I will handle the rest,”

Addi raised her eyebrows at him, letting him know she was fully aware of how he had directed her to the least dangerous parts of the garrison, and of how he was keeping Mabel with him so that he personally could keep her out of trouble. Ever the protector, that Stanford, doing what he thought was best for others without consulting them. In this instance she wasn’t complaining, however, so she just shook her head at his faux innocent expression and gave him a long kiss. He brought his hand around to the back of her neck, and she felt butterflies in her stomach before she pulled away.

Lastly, she swept Mabel into a surprise hug and touched their foreheads together, grinning at her giggle. “You stay safe, you hear?” She waited for Mabel to nod and then set off, walking backwards towards an exit. “Let’s meet back here in an hour. See you soon.”

We’re almost through this. In twenty-four hours, my family will be free.

⃝

“I thought you said we were splitting up?” catechised Mabel. “How come I’m coming with you?”

Ford sighed tiredly, having expected this. “Mabel, I know-”

“You know I can handle myself, right? I’m not useless, right?”

“Yes, I know you are a very capable person, and you are far from useless. However, I need you to stay with me because then I can be sure of helping you if you get hurt – which could happen to anyone, not only yourself!” he added quickly as Mabel’s mouth opened, “or in case of . . . any other number of scenarios.” he finished lamely, preferring to ignore the thoughts filling in those blanks.

Mabel was not satisfied with his answer. “You don’t think Addi’s going to get hurt,” she said, rather petulantly.

Ford bit back the first answer that came to mind. Adeline has been surviving on her own for thirty years, and unlike you she is an armed and dangerous adult. That was not to say he was not dreading what might happen to her, now he thought about it. He mentally shook himself. No time, have to sort this out quickly.

He decided honesty would be the best tactic. Quite apart from being the quickest way to appease his niece, she always seemed to know whether or not he was acting truthfully with her, and scolded him if he neglected to do so.

“Mabel, I am far more concerned with your safety than with Addi’s because you are the most important thing in the universe to me. In any universe, really. And I’m sure Adeline feels the same way.” He smiled tenderly. “So therefore, I am not prepared to take any risks when it comes to you. Or, well, unless they are unavoidable, or for scientific purposes, or for fun, or-”

He was interrupted by the fierce hug she gave him.

“Love you too.” she said simply, and looked up at him reassuringly. “I promise you aren’t gonna lose me. NotevenwhenIdothis!”

She darted away from him and dodged through a nearby access doorway. Ford was bolting after her before he fully registered what she was doing, and caught the door before it swung shut completely. Outside the hangar were many service tunnels, and this access doorway just so happened to face a junction of four of them. There was no sign of Mabel.

It was definitely the smart choice, he knew that. With the three of them all scouting different sections of the base their reconnaissance would be accomplished quicker, and they would have a much greater chance of receiving the support of Wikert Expansion Enterprises. He had not been willing to let Mabel go, so she had taken matters into her own hands. He should be proud. He was, on some level.

“Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck . . .”

That level was buried deep beneath layers of anger and terror.

He chose a random corridor and ran down it.

⃝

About forty people in the “wreck-room”. Addi hadn’t been able to get close enough to check properly. Her quick glances from various entrance points were by no means accurate, but they were the best she could do, so she dutifully took down the estimate and the location in the transmitter, holding off from sending the message; she would wait until the entire compound had been seen to.

Security cameras would make this a lot easier, she reflected as she made her way stealthily towards the medical wing, checking rooms as she went. Then again, she didn’t want to be caught on a monitor herself, so maybe not. Overall, it was a good thing that Wesley had dismantled most of the Wikert security he could find. As far as Addi knew, he had never installed a replacement.

The more she thought, the more things there seemed to be that could go wrong. It was unlikely, but not impossible, that some resisters were out at the moment and could come back at the same time Wikert arrived. Several could round a corner and try to stop her at any moment. They could already know she was here, or Ford and Mabel could be being captured right this instant. An ambush could be waiting for her. The approximation they sent Lic might not be good enough. Actually, that was fairly likely. It wasn’t like she could just stop all the resisters from moving around, so she was bound to miss –

Wait a minute. She could stop them from moving around. Risky, yes, but ultimately it would be easier . . .

⃝

Okay, it’s okay Mabel, you’re not lost, you’re just a little displaced.

Everything around her seemed so quiet. She hadn’t yet encountered a single living thing and frankly she was beginning to wonder if anyone even inhabited this part of the building. Was she just wasting time? Well if she was, she had no idea how to get back on track, so she might as well continue the way she was going.

The corridor was very, very long, rounding many corners so it seemed like she was walking in a square shape, but she never came to a junction. There was the occasional door on the outer edge of the square. They had all been locked so far. The ground sloped gradually downwards, and Mabel assumed she was already underground. A feeling of slight claustrophobia was starting to get to her. She really hoped there was actually a way out at the end of this.

She also hoped, probably in vain, that Ford wasn’t worrying, and wondered if he would try grounding her again. It hadn’t worked well last time, as Ford couldn’t work out how to go about it in the first place (what with their nomadic lifestyle), and had melted the instant she snuggled up and apologised.

There was a faint buzzing noise coming from around the next corner. Mabel drew her grappling hook from inside her coat and approached slowly, mouth set in a determined line.

Peeking around the corner, she took in the scene.

The corridor opened into a long, starkly lit space, filled with assembly lines. They were laid out in front of her in parallel rows stretching to the opposite end of the room. Weapons were systematically being tweaked, repaired and cleaned by mechanisms as they moved down transparent conveyor belts. Mabel followed the progress of a gun down the line as if mesmerised.

“Can I help you?” a tinny voice said behind her. Mabel yelped and turned, brandishing her grappling hook.

A stocky robot observed her quizzically. “Is your weapon malfunctioning, small one?”

“Uh, no,”

“Do you have a special repair in need of undertaking?” The robot asked. It looked vaguely humanoid, but it had a sort of trunk with wheels rather than legs. Its chest was also a large magnetic plate, a perfect fit for the crates being filled.

“Also, uh, no,” she replied. The thing wasn’t very threatening. It looked eager to help, as much as a robot can be eager. “I’m looking for a way out,”

“The main exit is located along the east wall. I can guide you,”

“Thank you,” she said courteously.

The robot rotated on its wheels and she followed it past the lines.

“What happened? To the guns and stuff?”

“A mission. These military types are fairly lax with their equipment maintenance, which does not help during a firefight. Apparently, many explosions ensued. Ordinarily they do not take my advice, however, today is recall day and I have the majority of their equipment. I am in charge now. Ha. Ha,”

“Are you like, the supervisor?”

“I oversee repair operations for all technology in the building. Are you a resister?”

“Er,” Mabel considered how to answer. She doubted the robot would care enough to inform anyone, and besides, there was no one around to tell. “No,” she said confidently.

“Thank God. I’ve had enough of them,”

They reached the double-doored exit. The robot held one open for her.

“If you need any technology-related work done, let me know,”

Mabel smiled and went to go through the door. Then she stopped.

“Actually,” she said, turning back to it.

⃝

Nothing for it. She’d have to kick it in.

The operations centre was a sparse office without much use, as all the tech from Wikert Expansion Enterprises had been shut down when Wesley seized control. The only security system he had left active was the emergency fire procedure. Handily enough, it also doubled as a way to keep the resistance cell under control. A way to remind people who was in charge.

Addi’s boot slammed into the door, right next to the lock. It crumpled. Thankfully, nobody was inside and she didn’t have use her sword. Ever conscious of how much danger she and her companions were in, she wasted no time in logging into the system’s mainframe and bypassing the security it threw up. After all that time she had spent trying to open this place’s laboratory, hacking into the network constructed by Wesley was comparatively easy. Once she was in, she pulled up the desired protocol.

Are you sure you wish to close off all checkpoints? asked the computer, holographic words flashing.

Addi hit enter.

Initiating lockdown.

⃝

It quickly became clear that this was not the path his niece had taken. Despite how Mabel was able to move very quickly when she wanted to, the pace he had elected to move at meant that he should have caught up to her by now.

Focus on the mission. Well, the only other option was to develop an ulcer, so scouting it was.

Ford crept onwards, ears strained and weapon ready. He had already narrowly dodged several resisters, and had attempted to memorise their appearance so he could avoid counting them a second time, should the occasion arise. He came to a doorway and quickly checked for occupants. Rather than leading to a conference room of sorts, like the last few had, this opened into a wide hallway, at the end of which were double deadlocked doors and titanium-reinforced walls. On top of all that there were at least nine different types of access scanners.

He had been here before, of course. It was hard to forget an area containing so much security. This was the very lab Wesley had tested his skills as a hacker on. He still felt quite proud of how he had managed to disrupt the system and all its safeguards.

A thought struck him. Ford pulled out his portable monitor and walked over to the left wall, activating the hologram there with a touch. He connected the two devices easily, and set about finding his (virtual) way into the lab once again. It was much easier now that he had done all the work once before.

He typed in one final command, and the computer obeyed. Green lights flickered on all around the laboratory’s entrance, and the door beeped open freely, but Ford turned on his heel and left.

While that will certainly be useful, you still have a job to do.

Past the lab, away from the medical wing, Addi had that covered, here looked interesting . . .

Approximately five floors, eight planning stations, and twenty-six rooms of snoring, off-duty resisters later, Ford checked his watch. It was time to head back. Once again, thoughts about his family’s safety began to arise, but before they could do much more than flicker into life, a sudden wail of alarms crashed into existence, and flashing red lights assaulted his eyes. Feeling his heartbeat skyrocket and adrenaline flood through him, Ford clapped his hands over his head at the sudden deafening and blinding sensations, and was barely able to observe the thick metal seals being lowered at the end of the corridor. He had a feeling the entire section had just been closed off, and that similar things were happening all over the compound.

Who did they catch is Mabel okay what’s happening with Addi are they safe how do I get to them how long do I have –

Cursing and complaining. The sirens had stopped and he could hear people moving away from their shared quarters to find out what was happening. This told him that whatever was going on at least had not been a set-up: they still had a chance.

It hit him that he was trapped in a corridor with many disgruntled resisters on the way. Backup would be fine idea, now.

Ford drew the portable monitor out again and selected the first of two options he had at the ready. Then he drew his gun. Robots were not that reliable, and he was not sure whether these specially designed killing machines would attack him as well.

⃝

“You would like me to shut off all power to this facility’s external defences,” repeated the robot flatly.

Mabel nodded eagerly. “And also stop repairing these weapons. In fact, can you just seal this room completely so no-one can get to it? If most of the guns are down here then that’ll make it so much easier for the WEE people to storm the place and arrest everyone inside,”

“Wee people? Storm the place?”

“Yeah, my grunkle, grauntie, and I kinda recruited this really powerful organisation to help us take you down. Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure you won’t go to robot prison or whatever. BUT,” she added cunningly, “only if you help me.”

The robot didn’t need long to make its decision. She was sure that if it were possible it would have blanched. “I agree to your terms,”

Promptly, sirens wailed and a metal plate rolled down over the exit.

“Wow, that was quick! Thanks! I still need to get out, though,” said Mabel brightly.

“I did not do that,”

Mabel laughed nervously. Horrible thoughts about being trapped, being captured, being separated from the others flashed across her mind. “Then who did?”

“Unclear. You may use this to gain passage, however. Take it and please, please, go.” The robot handed her a small, square, squishy thing, which, when she experimentally squeezed it, caused the metal plate to rise about two feet off the ground. It lowered when she pressed it again.

“Thank you so much, you won’t regret-”

“Too late. The sentinels are active.” the robot interrupted. “I do not wish to be involved in this any further. My in-laws are quite authoritarian, the cold-circuited jerks.”

“You have in-laws?”

“The key will give you access through all the checkpoints, and will not mark you as a threat to the sentinels.” It started shooing her towards the exit.

“Does this mean you’re married?” she asked while belly-crawling under the gap. “Can robots even get married? Do you secretly feel love?” No answers were forthcoming. “I’ll find out eventually!” she threatened, and resealed the exit.

⃝

Addi winced at how loud the lockdown had been. Discretion was obviously not what Wesley went in for. The most pressing thing on her mind at the moment though, was finding Stanford and Mabel. The hour was long since up, so they should be safely back in the hangar.

Before she left the operations centre, she checked the status of the building. The resistance would no doubt be on high alert, wondering what was happening. She estimated she had perhaps half an hour before they managed to break through the checkpoints.

Suddenly a cluster of blue dots appeared in the laboratory. They all began moving towards the sleeping quarters.

“That can’t be good,” she muttered.

Addi drew her sword and left, grabbing an access key as she went. The area with those blue dots looked like trouble, and the only troublemakers in this facility were on her side. Ford and Mabel needed her help.

The access key allowed her to bypass several checkpoints, until she rolled under one more and came up facing three resisters. One of them was Dek, who was too surprised to leer.

Limbs reached for guns and Addi’s own finger instinctively thumbed her E-field button. It didn’t work. It just crackled a spark, shocking her painfully. She cried out, already halfway towards them, and she was certain the distraction would cost her the use of at least one arm as someone was bound to shoot at her, but nothing more happened. She looked up in time to see expressions of dawning realisation on three faces. None of them had guns.

“That bloody robot-!” one had time to say before Addi socked him in the jaw and he collapsed. She ducked under another’s strike and sidestepped Dek’s punch, then gripped his arm vice-like and pulled him towards his friend. Their foreheads collided more gently than she meant, but their heads must have been soft because they fell to the floor just like the first guy. She paused to add their number to her total estimate in the transmitter, and hurried onwards. No weapons. That was interesting. And very good.

“HALT. STAND DOWN. HALT,” A booming digital voice emanated from a very deadly-looking black and grey robot ahead of her. It was a sentinel, and several others were behind it. She hadn’t known there were any here . . . wait a second. Hadn’t Ford said something about finding armed robots in the laboratory once? She had a feeling she knew what all those blue dots had been.

“STAND DOWN,” it repeated, lifting an arm which transformed in a series of intricate moves into a plasma cannon. Superheated air wavered inside the glowing orange barrel. There was no way Addi could expect to face off against a sentinel and win – not that she wasn’t tempted to try. Mabel and Ford were in deeper peril every second.

She dropped Big Bertha grudgingly and raised her arms in surrender.

“IDENDTIFY YOURSELF,” the sentinel demanded.

“Adeline Marks,”

The checkpoint was behind her. She had closed it when she stood up, but if she opened it again would she be able to quickly duck under and get away? No, you idiot, that robot is going to kill you if you make one wrong move, and besides, do you really think that plasma cannon can’t melt right through the wall?

“PRESENT IDENTIFICATION,”

“What identification?”

“PRESENT IDENTIFICATION,”

“I don’t exactly carry a passport these days,” Her pulse was roaring in her ears and she wished her smart mouth would shut it occasionally.

“PRESENT IDENTIFICATION OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE,”

Nothing for it. She was going to have to take her chances with the checkpoint.

“Okay, here it is.” She opened the hand with the access key in it, ready to squeeze the living daylights out of it, when the robot automatically lowered its plasma cannon and reverted it back into an arm.

“IDENTIFICATION ACCEPTED,”

“Really?” Addi checked her hand to make sure that yes, she was indeed carrying an access key, not a passport.

“WHAT ARE YOUR ORDERS?”

“Orders?” She had absolutely no idea why these sentinels thought they were under her command, but she was not going to complain. “Uh, okay, I need to find two humans. Their names are Stanford and Mabel Pines, and they’re related, if that helps.”

“SCANNING TERRITORY.” After a moment the green thinking symbol in the sentinel’s visor dimmed. “NEAREST TARGET LOCATED. ADULT HUMAN MALE, FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS OF AGE, BLOOD TYPE-”

“That’s Ford! Is he okay? Where’s Mabel? Why aren’t they together?!”

“TARGET STANFORD PINES IS CURRENTLY SURROUNDED BY HOSTILE MEMBERS OF WIKERT RESISTENCE CELL 736. SEVERAL FIREARMS DETECTED. ADOLESCENT HUMAN FEMALE OF RELATION TO TARGET IS INBOUND.”

Not having time to sort through all the pressing questions she had, Addi focused on the most pressing issue. “We have to help him!”

“ALL SENTINELS ALERTED. ASSISTANCE WILL ARRIVE AT TARGET STANFORD PINES’ LOCATION IN T-MINUS 10 SECONDS,”

“Okay, take me to him now! Quickly! We need to be there as fast as possible!”

The sentinel immediately fired up its plasma cannon and blasted a hole through the wall on the left.

⃝

Mabel still had no idea where she was. She had some sort of access-all-areas pass, she had been up and down several floors, and her feet were starting to hurt, but she did not have a map. Or a watch. How much time had passed since she left the hangar?

There was sounds of gunfire nearby. Right. She shouldn’t’ve expected all the weapons to be recalled for maintenance. Her eyes widened as she realised what gunfire meant. The resisters were attacking someone! Actually, she supposed it could be Ford attacking them, too. That was better. A much nicer option.

Regardless, she sprinted as fast as she could towards the sounds.

Abruptly, they changed. She didn’t think screams were a good sign. And those blasts were a lot more powerful than usual laser guns. What the heck was happening? There were more noises now. The laser fire had started up again, but there was something else underneath that. It was like . . . crashing? Crumbling? Where was it coming from? Was it getting closer?

A red glow briefly permeated the wall ahead and to the right of her, and then it exploded into the corridor, chucks of concrete flying, making . . . oh! A kabooming sound.

A big metal robot, looking much cooler than the one in the basement, stepped through the hole, followed by Addi and several more robots. At almost the exact same time, the wall directly opposite them, on Mabel’s left, exploded, littering the corridor with debris once again. More robots, these ones escorting Ford, stepped through. Once both humans were standing in the hallway, they all went back through the left-hand hole, presumably towards the resisters.

There was a manic light in her uncle’s eyes, and once he stopped coughing he grinned as broadly as he could.

“You sent these?!” he asked Addi excitedly.

“Yeah! I’m guessing you activated them?!” she said, equally vibrantly.

“I did! Why are they obeying you though?”

“I don’t know! They asked for identification, and when they saw I had an access key they did what I wanted! It was so weird. And awesome! Did you see their plasma cannons?”

“I didn’t know they could be made so small! It’s a wonder of engineering! The sentinels must have seen that the access key and assumed you were the one who caused the lockdown. Since it was initiated through hacking – against the resistance’s wishes – and because I programmed them not to accept orders from Wikert or the resistance, they must have come to the conclusion that they were meant to follow you, since you’re not either!”

“I just thought we needed a way to stop the resisters moving around, and as a bonus this can probably contain them until Wikert arrives! We did it! Wait, you did manage to get a good estimate of your area, right? And by the way, I am so sorry for trapping you with the resisters, I thought you’d be in the hangar,” At this point they were both laughing and gripping each other’s arms tightly, looking as though they were barely restraining themselves from jumping around madly.

“Who cares, you sent robots after me! It was a great idea! Give me the transmitter, I’ll add my estimate.” Ford quickly typed his numbers in and sent the message. “Yes! It’s done! Only between one hundred and one hundred and thirty hostiles, so hopefully they’ll be here soon.”

“Did you notice how most of the weapons are missing?”

“Yes, although I was more grateful than interested. They would have shot me without hesitation if they hadn’t been so surprised. Ha!”

“It’s going to make this whole thing so much easier. I guess the lockdown will have taken away the element of surprise though, won’t it? They’re expecting a big attack now,”

“Well, I do have a diversion planned. This should surprise them,” said Ford, cockily holding up his portable monitor. Addi looked down at it and read whatever was there.

“You’re going to detonate the security explosive in the lab.” she said, and then looked up at him again. “You are damn sexy sometimes, you know that?”

“Just sometimes?”

“Hi! Mabel here!” Mabel watched as their faces changed from delighted to appalled. They hadn’t even noticed she was in the corridor with them. “Just wondering if you guys know we’re still in danger?”

The atmosphere took a sudden dive for distress. Immediately, Ford hastened over and scooped her up, while Addi took her face in her hands and spouted apologies for not thinking of her sooner.

“Are you okay?” Ford didn’t wait for an answer before he started checking her for injuries.

“I’m fine!” Mabel protested, attempting to wriggle down from her uncle’s tight grip. It didn’t work. She winced as she realised that was probably her fault: he didn’t want her running off again. What was more, Addi looked too freaked out at finding her separated from Ford to approve of her decision.

“Sh – Shiny gold rings!” Addi said very loudly. “We didn’t get your estimate! Wikert might not be prepared enough!”

“Actually, the only person I met was a vengeful yet grudging robot who said those other robots were his in-laws. It’s keeping all the guns in the basement. Also, I have an access key too! Do you think the robots would obey me?”

Ford chuckled, and both adults visibly relaxed as they saw she was her usual bubbly self.

“Don’t do that again,” her uncle warned, but no further chastising came.

The sounds of the fighting had quieted down several minutes ago, and the robots had moved somewhere else. All three people jumped when sirens once again wailed and green lights burst into life as the metal plates rolled upwards into the ceiling.

“Looks like the resistance is back in control,” Ford said.

“Not for long,” Addi said, and swiped the monitor from him. She wasted no time in selecting the second option.

A massive explosion rocked the building, coming from somewhere above them. Mabel saw a few pieces of debris actually jump off the ground. No more lab, she thought.

Addi grinned in satisfaction and handed the monitor back to Ford.

“Who’s sexy now?” he said appreciatively.

“Mabel’s still here!” Mabel shouted in his ear.

⃝

Addi led them away from the blast. It had probably been powerful enough to breach the outer wall, so the resistance would be expecting an attack from there. Until the force from Wikert arrived they just had to keep out of sight.

That sounded simpler in theory, Addi reflected.

“Marks. I thought I would find you down here,”

#gravity falls #fanfiction #adrift au #dimension jumper au #drifting dimensions au #portal ford #portal mabel #portal addi #adeline marks #stanford pines #mabel pines #multiverse is a curse word #my writing

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endofinfinityrp-blog · 7 years ago

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Welcome, ADMIN JEN, to the END OF INFINITY. We loved your take on MARLEY ROSE, especially her familial history. We can’t wait to see how Marley does at WALDRON ISLAND UNIVERSITY! Now that you’re accepted, please make sure to complete the New Member Checklist within the next 24 hours!

OOC:

Player name: Jen

Player age: old

Player pronouns: she/her

Activity level: 6

IC:

Character name: Marley Rose

Character species: Superhuman

Character age & birthdate: 19, Sept 12

Character power: Marley has the ability to alter her physical size while retaining her normal physical proportions. At present her target size range is anywhere between her natural height (5’8”) and approximately one inch tall. Clothing and other items on her person can shrink and grow in proportion as long as they remain in close contact with her body, and she exerts conscious control over doing so.

In addition to the conscious control that she has learned, Marley’s powers are tied to her emotions, and so she cannot always exert full control over them. When she experiences emotions that make her feel small -- such as fear, sadness, embarrassment, or surprise, among others -- she will unconsciously grow slowly smaller. This may result in periods of time where she may fluctuate between a size that is still “normal” for a person of her age, but smaller than her own natural height.

As her power evolves and she learns control, she will learn that confidence is the key to truly controlling her powers. Eventually, she will also be able to increase her physical size, with the same caveats that she will retain her normal physical proportions and objects on her person must be consciously “brought with.”

Area of Study: Marley is undecided. When looking at the list of potential majors, she feels a little overwhelmed and loses about 2-3”.

Dorm Style: However, she does know that she would prefer a double-bed dorm. A suite might also be nice, but she insists that she doesn’t need a lot of room, and she likes the idea of sharing her space with another person. I’d like her to be in Salvatore.

Bio: Marley’s story begins with the story of Marilyn, also known as Mistress Morph, a golden age hero who could increase or decrease the size and shape of different body parts at will. She married her high school sweetheart, Arthur Rose, also a super -- but not a hero -- with superhuman strength and durability. They didn’t have a lot of money, but Arthur had a good job working construction and demolitions, and they bought a nice suburban house and lived a nice suburban dream, with two children and a dog -- but it all changed when the first Voratians attacked. Marilyn had retired from her hero career to raise a family, but she felt it imperative to do her duty and defend her planet from the attack. Unfortunately, this imperative would be her demise, because she died during the war, in the six month period between the initial attack and the arrival of the Fromians.

Grief-stricken, Arthur moved to a new town and raised his children on his own. He took a job in sales, where he could easily hide the powers that he grew to resent. It was these powers that took his wife from her family, after all. He did not speak of powers to the children, and when they showed signs of also being super, he turned a blind eye, pretending that they were “normal.” If he could suppress his kids’ powers, then they would never rush into battle the way that his beloved did. They would be safe. But … powers have a way of making themselves known. A way of controlling those who could not control them. His son had the ability to alter his density, but without training, could not keep himself from floating away. His daughter, Millicent, had the ability to change her mass … and her mother’s fighting spirit. She was never properly trained, but fought anyway, donning a secret identity to keep her father from finding out what she was doing. She fought in memory of her brother, and in memory of her mother, to continue the fight that the previous generation had started -- even if it had to be conducted in secret. She began a relationship with another hero, one whose secret identity she never knew, and eventually had a daughter of her own.

After Marley was born, Millie’s secret adventures in the night grew fewer and farther between, and the rudimentary control she had over her power began to collapse. It left her stuck, the same way that her brother had been -- only instead of being lighter than air, she gained more and more mass, without the ability to control it. But it didn’t matter to her -- she could still support her daughter even without being a hero, and did so with immense amounts of love and care, as well as any job that she could take.

And so Marley had a mother who loved her dearly. She was an intelligent, soft-spoken, creative child, which meant that she often had trouble making friends. She had a soft spot for others who were overlooked, for those who suffered silently, and had a keen eye to spot people who needed a helping hand, which she was happy to give, even without getting anything in return. She didn’t mind so much that she wasn’t the center of attention among her peers, because she never really wanted to be.

Interestingly enough, this attitude shaped the form that her powers would take. Kindness wasn’t always so well received among young children, and it was well-known that Marley’s family was poor. Because of this, Marley was teased as a child, and for the most part, she bore the weight of it without complaint. She wasn’t here to fight others, despite what her mother and grandmother had done. She just wanted to be kind to others, and hoped that they would also be kind to each other as well. But what she perceived as kindness, as a desire not to rock the boat, manifested in the form of her shrinking -- every day she just took the cruelty without complaint was another day she wished that she could fade away, another day that she wanted to be so small that they could not even see her. And every day she grew a little smaller, and a little smaller, barely perceptible -- until one day she just couldn’t take it anymore.

A steady stream of insults poured from the mouth of the girl who had been tormenting her the most, and Marley curled in on herself, hoping to become invisible. All of the fear and sadness that these other students heaped on her pushed her down, down, down, until the next thing she knew, she was miniscule. The room was gigantic around her, the sounds from the students like thunder around her tiny ears. She didn’t know what to do, or where to go -- she just knew that she had to contact her mother somehow and get out of that school.

Fortunately, the teacher of that class was far more sympathetic than the students, and helped her make the call to her mom (a text, really, because Marley’s tiny voice was too small to carry over the phone), and get a ride home. On that ride back, Millie insisted that Marley be taken out of that school and transfer to a magnet for supers. Marley would not have to make a decision as to whether she wanted to fight or not, but for her own health and safety, she would be educated in the use of her powers.

That was three years ago. In the intervening time, Marley has gained some control over her powers, but they are still driven very much by her emotions. She shrinks when she is afraid, embarrassed, or sad -- sometimes by only inches, sometimes to an inch. Her clothing does not always come with her, unfortunately, so she wears specialized undergarments that are designed to move and flow with physical powers -- they are not cheap, but she believes that they are certainly worth it.

IC Writing Sample:

Marley stood over the sink, up to her elbows in dingy, greasy water as she dutifully scrubbed at the past few days’ worth of dirty dishes. Sunlight and a gentle breeze streamed in through the open window, and the old radio on the counter played a peppy variety of today’s top hits, making the chore go by a lot faster than if Marley had been doing dishes without the upbeat company. She hummed along contentedly, and humming turned to soft singing, and before the song was even over she had joined in at full volume, even shimmying a little to the beat.

She hadn’t expected a knock on the front door. Startled, she pulled her hands out of the grey water and shook them off before drying them fully on a hand towel that she’d half-tucked into the waistband of her jeans. Each step towards the front of the house brought with it another drop of dread, until the emotion had pooled in her gut like a cumulative puddle of hesitant fear. There was no way to know who was there, which meant it could have been anyone, even --

No. Marley was not going to entertain the possibility that her father had actually found her. She shook the thought from her head, and reached for the doorknob, only to frown when she noticed the cuff of her sleeve had slipped from where she’d rolled it up, and now covered her knuckles. The peephole on the door was also a good few inches above her head, which was definitely not where it should be. So with closed eyes, Marley drew in a long, deep breath, and willed her body to change back. She felt her limbs lengthen and expand, felt the way that her clothes tightened on her form, and watched her vantage point shift upwards as she pushed out the negativity and worry and returned to her normal height.

She tried again, this time looking through the peephole to see that no one was there. With a frown, Marley opened the door and found a single brown cardboard box on the front patio, no more than ten inches square. It must have been a delivery driver, she mused. Leaning down to pick up the box, she saw it was addressed to her mother. Huh.

After leaving the box on the kitchen table where her mother would see it when she came home from work, Marley went back to the dishes. The chore went by quickly, and once the dishes were rinsed and loaded the drying rack, she pulled the stopper and watched the water get sucked down into the drain, along with the gross bits of food and something glinting golden and metallic and -- oh, no.

She hadn’t felt her grandmother’s ring slip off of her finger. She had thought, naturally, that she’d remembered to take it off before doing the dishes at all, but apparently that hadn’t been the case. Apparently, the chime of the doorbell had been enough to trigger Marley’s power, to initiate the kind of slow shrinking that she usually didn’t notice until she had cause to -- until she couldn’t reach something she normally should be able to, or until her clothes hung a little too loosely off of her body.

Panic rising slowly in her throat, Marley searched her brain for options, because she wasn’t about to just write the ring off as a loss. It had to come out of the drain somehow. She could call her mom, but her mom was at work, and shouldn’t really be bothered for this. She could call … a jeweler? A plumber? A hero?

Unless …

“No,” Marley told herself, shaking her head as a slow smile blossomed on her face. The answer was obvious. “No … I can do this. I can do this,” she repeated, as though assuring herself again might give her the confidence needed to pull herself together and consciously, purposely shrink herself small enough to fit inside the drain. Knowing that she would need a way to also get out, with the lost ring on her, she tied a piece of string to the faucet, and let it dangle into the drain. Satisfied with the knot, she pushed herself up onto the counter, closed her eyes, and thought … small.

The change was slow at first, like it usually was. She barely noticed herself getting smaller, just that the room seemed a little larger -- that the sink seemed a little larger, too, suddenly able to accommodate both of her feet as she swung them over the edge and into the sink. This was working, she realized, and in that instant, the world seemed to blow itself up, seemed to lengthen and widen and expand, and she felt her feet slipping on wet stainless steel, felt her stomach lurching with the sudden shift in perspective, felt her head spin dizzily as she managed to steady herself … fully inside the sink.

The string dangling from the faucet overhead looked very much like a proper rope, from this point of view, and Marley grabbed onto it to lower herself down into the muck that settled in the pipes after washing the dishes. It was dark and warm, and reeked like rotting things, but she could see the ring clearly, sparking huge and golden in the light filtering in from above. Hesitantly, she gritted her teeth and hopped off of the rope, into the filth, to grab the wide band and settle it over her shoulder. Then, it was just a matter of holding on again, and hoisting herself back up, hand over hand, with the unwieldy ring looped through the crook of her arm.

Marley emerged back into the sink feeling more exhausted than she properly should for such a small journey, but she wasn’t used to directing her powers like this. The powers were the ones usually calling the shots, so to speak. Fortunately, she was a lot more practiced in returning to normal, so after sliding the ring off of her shoulder, she focused on getting big. Up she went, with two feet still in the sink, and went so fast that she banged her head against the bottom of the overhead cupboards, which was a pretty good indicator that she was exactly where she wanted to be.

She swung her legs back around and hopped off the sink, and after putting the ring back on her finger -- where it belonged -- she went back into her room to take a much-needed nap. Gosh, who knew that being so small would take so much effort?

#eoiaccepted

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alexsmitposts · 6 years ago

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Gradually Re-establishing Historical Truth about Jeju Uprising On 3 April, 2019 a commemoration ceremony to honor victims of a bloody suppression by government forces of the people’s uprising in 1948-1954 was held on the island of Jeju. More than 10,000 people, including representatives of the government and the National Assembly, revolt participants and offspring of the victims of its clampdown, took part in the memorial. South Korea’s Prime Minister, Lee Nak-yeon, gave a speech at the ceremony. He proposed to honor the memory of all those lost and expressed his deepest condolences to their families. The minister also referred to the incident in Jeju as the worst event in South Korea’s modern history. Lee Nak-yeon emphasized that Moon Jae-in’s administration has undertaken the monumental task of uncovering the truth behind the Jeju massacre, and of restoring the victims’ dignity. The head of South Korea’s National Police Agency, Min Gap-Ryong, participated in a commemoration ceremony in Seoul. He wrote the following words in the visitor’s book: “I humbly share my condolences before the spirits of all those innocent people who were killed during Jeju April 3, and I respectfully share my wishes that they rest in peace.” Vice Minister of National Defense Seo Joo-seok, who made the aforementioned statement, was also in attendance. He highlighted that the army was fully committed “to the government investigation efforts going forward” and would “take part in healing the wounds and suffering of the family members while restoring the honor of those who were slain”. This was the first comment about the incident made by a South Korean military agency. Officially, at least 10,000 Jeju residents were killed and almost 3,600 went missing, as a result of the tragedy that stemmed from Korea’s ideological split following its emancipation from Japanese colonial rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. In reality, the situation was even more complex. Propaganda from both North and South Koreas portray the uprising as a communist revolt against elections, which were to take place in the South on dividing the peninsula. However, in reality, the uprising was instigated by actions of the police and agitators from so-called “youth groups”, who used racketeering and violence to bring the region, with a powerful left-wing movement, under control. South Korea’s current strategic policy has its origins at the start of the rebellion, 1 March 1947, when a child who suffered a blow from a police horse’s hoof died during a street protest in celebration of May Day. This led to a confrontation with the police and the crowd was fired on. In response, the Workers’ Party of South Korea declared a general strike. Instead of calming people down, the government made a decision to destroy the left-wing forces once and for all, which led to an even tougher response from the people. On 3 April 1948, more than 350 armed civilians simultaneously attacked 12 police precincts and homes of representatives of legislative bodies, in order to free detained relatives and force the government to reconsider its policy. The leadership reacted even more violently in turn. Death squads mercilessly dealt with protesters and local residents who helped them. On 17 October 1948, a ban on movement in inner and mountainous regions of the island, with the exception of its 5-km coast line, was introduced. All the villages outside this perimeter were completely destroyed and so were their residents if they refused to leave these territories. 2,500 islanders were imprisoned although there were no charges against them or any written verdicts. The bloodshed continued during the Korean War too. The truth is, however, in 1953 armed units had only approximately 60 people in them, and by the beginning of 1954, this number decreased to 5. 21 September 1954 is viewed as the last day of the uprising, when the ban on movement was finally lifted. The last guerrilla member was arrested on 2 April 1957. Since a substantial portion of the population was massacred, and their bodies were often submerged or burned, the number of estimated victims ranges from 14,000 to 30,000 people. And if those who were indirectly affected by the government’s crackdown (i.e. victims of hunger or subsequent social cleansing) are added to the total, the number is even higher. Incidentally, only 14% of protesters were killed. For decades after the uprising, memories of this event and the atrocities committed during the rule of Syngman Rhee were hidden from the public by means of censorship and repression. And only on 12 January 2000, a Special Act was decreed, in accordance with which a truth committee was established to investigate the Jeju massacre and to exonerate its victims. Approximately 14,000 people applied to have the status of a victim of those events. On 28 August of the same year, the special committee for investigating causes of death of the residents and their exoneration began their work. In 2006, Roh Moo-hyun’s government issued an official apology for its role in the massacre. The leadership also promised reparations for the victims, but by the end of 2018 nothing had been done to this end. On the plus side, a lot of work is being done to clear the good name of people, who, during the uprising, were preemptively jailed and tortured, without a single charge brought against them. Those who were released had to live under the umbrella of suspicion. And, finally, in January 2019, the Jeju District Court dismissed military court’s rulings with regard to the 18 plaintiffs, who survived, and recognized them as victims instead. The accusations levelled against them were deemed unsubstantiated since the military court did not follow prescribed legal procedures. This conclusion, in the opinion of those who issued the verdict, is supported by the fact that the plaintiffs were not aware of the criminal charges against them. Also the sheer number of people brought before the military courts-martial within a short period of time indicated relevant investigations were unlikely to have been carried out. The plaintiffs demanded that their cases be reviewed as far back as 2017, as they claimed to have been arrested and jailed for a period of up to 20 years without as much as a fair trial. Since that time not a single court record has been found to indicate why the plaintiffs received such harsh sentences. Even after researchers had travelled to the peninsula and accessed central archives, they were unable to find any existing records about the investigation at that time. It turns out that people were detained and tortured without being charged for any crimes , which is consistent with the practice of preemptive arrests. The court decided to retry the case in September 2018 due to renewed interest in the incident following the commemoration of its 70th anniversary and the official apology issued by President Moon Jae-in. A few months later, on 17 January 2019, the Jeju court exonerated all the participants of the people’s uprising on 3 April 1948, who had served the sentences handed down to them by the military courts-martial. This policy, exercised by Moon Jae-in’s government towards residents of Jeju, is part of a common trend. As part of this new shift, “a former police investigation building in Namyeong-dong, Seoul”, where intelligence agents “tortured hundreds of pro-democracy” and anti-government “activists in the 1970s and 1980s, has been turned into a memorial hall for human rights and democracy.” The Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to outsource the building’s “operation to the Korea Democracy Foundation”. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon participated in the transfer ceremony, along with Minister of the Interior and Safety Kim Boo-kyum; Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon; Commissioner General of the Korean National Police Agency Min Gap-Ryong, and victims of torture and their family members. In 1976, the anti-communism investigation division office was located where the current facility stands now. During both the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan administrations, the building was used to detain, interrogate and torture anti-government activists. Over a period of approximately 30 years, a combined total of 391 activists were tortured there. Their ranks included Seoul National University student Park Jong-chul, whose death resulted in mass protests that led to the fall of the Fifth Republic of South Korea. In response to criticism, in 2005 the National Police Agency closed the Namyeong-dong division and transformed it into a human rights police center. However, civic groups demanded that the police stopped operating this facility. This process began in earnest in June 2018, when Moon Jae-in promised to convert the building into a memorial for human rights and democracy. In his speech, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said that Namyeong-dong “will forever contribute to the people and history as a place to warn against the state’s abuse of power”. A similar policy is being used with respect to persecuted members of the Bodo League. This political organization was comprised of “re-educated” left-wing activists. But once the Korean War began, most of its members were subject to repression (as a preventative measure), and the majority were executed by firing squads. Groups, such as the Korean War Bereaved Family Members’ Association, claim that after this war 200,000 members of the League were killed throughout the country. Numerous testimonies from family members of victims paint a grim picture: activists were gathered together under the pretense of going on an excursion to the mountains or to a ceremony. They were then transported out of town or city, executed by a firing squad and buried in unmarked graves. Only in June 2014, did a number of residents gather enough courage to corroborate evidence of a civilian massacre, which local witnesses remembered. They carried out an excavation and unearthed burial sites, but there have not been any official exhumations so far. On 22 June 2016, a testimony by prosecutor Song Jung-won (1918-2014), who is viewed as the founder of the Bodo League, became public knowledge. On 18 October 2007, he testified in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and said that many members of the League were not partisans and, in fact, did not even know what a communist party was. As a rule, these were simple peasants or intellectuals, who wished to expunge the “Red Menace” label from their family name. Civilian activists think this testimony may be viewed as proof of the fact that the government massacred countless numbers of innocent people knowing full well that they were not members of the Communist Party. In addition, as far back as 2009, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirmed mass killings of at least 3,400 civilians and inmates held in prisons in Busan, Masan and Jinju from July to September 1950. Jail employees, police officers and members of counterintelligence services took part in these reprisals. Victims were either killed inside prisons or taken to the mountains, executed, and their bodies were disposed of in the sea. Only in few cases were executions carried out after an official sentence was handed down by a military tribunal. Incidentally, most of these victims were prisoners sentenced to less than three years in jail, and they were killed only because of concerns that they would collaborate with DPRC. Most investigations of this nature were conducted in the course of the work performed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was established in December 2005 and tasked with researching information connected with the anti-Japanese independence movement; mass killings of civilians during the Korean War, and violation of human rights by government forces during the military dictatorship. During a fairly short 5-year period, the commission uncovered the truth about 8,468 cases by concluding that extrajudicial massacres had taken place during the Korean War and earlier. In addition, the commission ascertained that evidence in a number of espionage cases from the 1980s was either distorted or completely fabricated. However, during Lee Myung-bak’s presidency the work conducted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was discontinued. The final report highlighted the fact that both sides were responsible for atrocities, but failed to mention the fact that there were twice as many victims of the “White Terror”, and many culprits were absolved of responsibility. “As a result, true reconciliation and reckoning with the past ended up being put off until another day.” And now, possibly, this day has arrived. Although old political myths often have a tendency to transform into new ones during Moon Jae-in’s presidency, hope remains that the final picture will be an accurate reflection of the historical truth.

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shadowsong26fic · 8 years ago

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May Fourth Bonus Fic: Coda

Title: It’s Like Deja Vu (All Over Again); Coda

Author: shadowsong26

Rating: R

Fandom: Star Wars

Characters: Padme Amidala, Anakin Skywalker, etc.

Warnings: War, violence, referenced genocide, referenced murder, these two dorks and their AOTC angst…

Summary: Three days ago, Padme Amidala closed her eyes for the last time in a sterile white room on an asteroid at the edge of nowhere. Three days ago, she opened them again in a sleek, chrome starship, watching Dorme put the finishing touches on Corde’s headdress, her own weighted braids a comforting blanket on her back.

Padme decides to change things, decides she can save Anakin this time. Except, as time passes, she starts to realize things aren’t happening exactly the way she remembers…

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of their respective creators.

Notes: Bonus fic! May the Fourth be with you :D

Also, tumblr formatting seems not to allow for right/center justified text. Apologies for the resulting formatting weirdness.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Anakin quietly extracted himself from the bed, trying to disturb Padme as little as possible, and padded out onto the balcony to look over the lake. He flexed his new hand idly as he went--one of the exercises he was supposed to do, to strengthen the neural connections and complete the integration process.

Dooku had been a better duelist than Anakin had planned for; but in the end, there had been a chance, and he’d taken it. Unfortunately, he’d made too many mistakes of his own in the beginning, and it had required a sacrifice, to make Dooku take the bait and actually give him the opening he’d needed to strike.

That was all right, though. It was a fair bargain, in the end.

It was strange, but--maybe not totally unexpected, that the metal prosthetic felt somehow more natural than his own flesh and bone. Even though it wasn’t fully integrated yet.

Because Anakin had a secret.

Because, ten years ago, Anakin Skywalker closed his eyes for the last time on a dying battlestation in the skies above Endor.

And, ten years ago, he had opened them again in the Council Chamber at sunset--much larger than he remembered it--with warm, firm hands lying heavy on his shoulders.

“I take Anakin as my Padawan Learner.”

...did he really say that? I’d forgotten. No wonder Obi-Wan resented me so much at first.

Initially, he’d decided the experience was a dream--a rather odd place to begin, and significantly more detailed than he would’ve thought, but proof of that theory that, in the moment of death, his life would flash before his eyes.

And then he got to the hangar.

On a whim, he’d activated his starfighter’s guns a few minutes early. Just sitting there had been boring; he’d never been good at being still, especially at this age.

And then he’d seen Maul and, not really expecting it to work, idly fired off a shot in his direction.

Most lightsabers were not really built to handle laser blasts from starfighters. They could deflect one--but usually only one, and had a tendency to overload and short out for an hour or so after.

Maul’s, it seemed, was no exception.

He’d caught the blast with one side of his saberstaff, successfully deflecting it into a wall, causing a small explosion and shower of rock dust, but shorting out that blade.

Leaving him down to one.

For half a second, Anakin had frozen in his cockpit.

That...that worked? I can change things?

But then he’d remembered--he had a control ship to destroy, a battle to help win. Everything else could wait.

When he returned to solid ground, he’d learned that Obi-Wan had again killed Maul (perhaps permanently this time) but, most likely due to the distraction Anakin had provided, Qui-Gon had survived.

After that, everything had been a blur for some time, as Anakin struggled to reconcile everything this meant--to say nothing of the fact that, young as he had become, his mind seemed to have some difficulty maintaining all of his memories. He could access everything if he went into a deep enough trance--it was all there--but consciously could only recall broad strokes. And his reactions, especially in the early days, were sometimes unpredictable as well--at times, he responded as the approximately ten-year-old child he appeared to be; at times as the forty-something soldier he was.

Fortunately, his confusion and vacillating maturity were, it seemed, mostly put down to him being a rural child who had grown up under...less than ideal circumstances, overwhelmed by the vast, rapid changes in his life, to say nothing of Coruscant itself.

By the time he had reached equilibrium, several weeks had passed. He was mostly settled into the Temple by then, apprenticed to Qui-Gon as promised, and with enough knowledge of the hell he would rain down on the galaxy to do something about it.

But what?

His first thought, of course, had been to make his way to the Emperor’s apartment and murder him.

Fortunately, before he had actually climbed out the window to do so, he had recognized the two major flaws in this plan.

First: he was, at least for the moment, tiny and ineffectual. Success was vanishingly unlikely.

Second: either as a result of his unreliable memories or because he had never known--or cared--in the first place, he couldn’t be sure how much of the Emperor’s plan was already in place, able to continue without his direct oversight. While it might not be the same destructive force, the chaos that might be unleashed without its architect to shape it would likely ruin everything just the same. The clones, for one thing, were probably already in production, and who knew what else?

So he had, reluctantly, settled in to watch and wait, to prepare himself and gather the knowledge he would need to atone for what he’d done the first time.

The problem was, he wasn’t very good at patience, or at long-range planning. He never had been. There had always been a partner, an ally, who took care of that for him. And it became increasingly obvious that his new Master was, if anything, worse at thinking ahead than he was.

He’d needed help. And, once he admitted it to himself, there was really only one person he could turn to.

It had taken him six months to approach Obi-Wan, once he’d made the decision to do so--his old Master was rarely in the Temple, and tended to avoid Anakin and Qui-Gon when he was. And, even after he made contact, it was several more before they were finally comfortable enough with one another that Anakin could broach the subject.

Finally, nearly two years after he’d arrived in the past, he had told him--not everything; he still hadn’t told him everything--but enough. Another delay while Obi-Wan wrapped his head around it, and then they’d gotten to work.

Obi-Wan had started investigating, discreetly gathering what intelligence he could without pulling too hard on the web and alerting the Emperor to their activities. He had set Anakin to designing a way to remove the chips from the clones without being detected, as a failsafe if they couldn’t fix things before then. This without alerting the rest of the Order--they had agreed that that would do more harm than good at this stage--meaning they had other duties, other missions, as well.

And then, when Anakin was approximately thirteen, Qui-Gon had been killed.

He suspected--but would likely never be able to prove--that the Emperor was responsible, if for no other reason than Qui-Gon hadn’t allowed him much access to his apprentice. Which, at the time, had been a profound relief. Anakin wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to deceive the Emperor if they’d spent much time together. And, to be fair, he still wasn’t.

But after Qui-Gon’s death, he had been afraid for a moment--what if he wasn’t actually changing anything after all, at least not in any real, permanent sense? What if time--the universe--was course-correcting around him?

“If that’s the case,” Obi-Wan had pointed out, when he’d brought this up, “why did the Force send you back in the first place?”

It was a good point, and one he couldn’t really refute. But the concern had remained, buried deep in the back of his mind. He tried not to fixate on it too much. It would get in the way of his mission if he did.

And so, in the end, Obi-Wan had inherited him from Qui-Gon and become his Master again, and it had felt--right. Natural. Anakin had forgotten how good things had been, once upon a time.

Before he’d ruined it all.

Time had passed. They had worked together, overtly now as well as covertly, and quickly become something very close to the seamless Team he remembered. Not quite the same, because he wasn’t quite the same, but close enough.

It wasn’t until they were wrapping up a border dispute on Ansion that he realized when they were.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted--he did, more than anything, want to...to see her again, hold her again. He wanted Luke and his sister to exist.

But he had a mission. He had a mission. That had to come first. Besides which, this was something he had to earn. He had no right to--maybe, maybe, when he succeeded, he would get a second chance.

Assuming, of course, that he survived.

So, he and Obi-Wan had searched for a way around the problem. They’d tried switching places--sending Obi-Wan to Naboo and letting him go to Kamino instead. But, without telling the Council why--which they still felt they couldn’t afford--they couldn’t justify it.

And so he’d come to Varykino with her, as he had a lifetime ago, resolving to be good this time; resolving to keep his feelings to himself, and…

He’d forgotten, somehow, how much she had loved him.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Or, at least, it wasn’t exactly the right word. He grasped it in the abstract, at least--broad strokes--but he’d been so focused on how it had all ended; on how he had lost her and his mission to avert that future, that he…

He had forgotten.

Until she’d kissed him on the balcony, in the arena.

Until they’d laughed in the meadow, despaired by the fire.

Until she’d held him after his duel with Dooku, after his surgery, and asked him for a vow.

And now here he was again, back at Varykino as before, despite all his good intentions; his wife--his wife--asleep in the bedroom behind him.

Because she loved him.

His good intentions would simply have to find another way.

He can never know

She can never know

What I’ve seen.

What I’ve done.

It would break him.

It would destroy her.

And I will not

And I cannot

Let that happen.

I’m going to get it right this time.

I’m going to save you.

I promise.

#shadowsong26fic #shadowsong writes star wars

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allineednow · 7 years ago

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<p>A Great Wall: On Immigration, Border Controls, and National Survival</p>

I have the issue of immigration from the outset, in SurvivalBlog. Back in 2006, I explained why. But recent events have pushed this issue to the forefront of the debate. I'd love to make my position clear, even at the risk of perturbing a number of my readers. I can now see that immigration is not only a political issue or a policy issue. Rather, it is a matter of national survival.

Before Donald J. Trump (DJT) was seated as U.S. president, there was huge disagreement on his planned immigration and border security policies. There are differences in the world views of American liberals and conservatives. Liberals tend to favor open borders and nearly unlimited immigration. In contrast, conservatives prefer immigration that is limited and borders. The of most liberals is that they don't look at the illegal immigration problem from a standpoint that is multi-generational, and they don't see the full implications of the macro scale changes.

It is apropos to step back and examine the context of the country's immigration policies, starting in the 18th century, to fully understand this issue.

Immigration In and Before the 1700s

Ahead of our War of Independence, Britain's colonies in North America were settled by northern Europeans who were predominantly Christian. The majority of them were English-speaking. And those that didn't speak English soon learned the tongue. Most immigrants shared a common set of a moral framework that was quite similar and ethics. A few statistical outliers were, but nearly all of them adopted and soon assimilated the way of life.

Immigration from the 1800s

In the following century, there were several waves of immigration. Demographic shifts were created by many of these. Among the biggest was that the wave of Irish immigration, which came amidst Ireland's catastrophic Famine. Each one of these 19th century immigrant waves had their difficulties with assimilation. But again since most of them had a worldview, they finally fit in. Even the arrival of Chinese immigrants--most of whom were distinctly non-Christian--triumphed assimilation.

At the first and even second generation, many 19th century immigrant groups began papers published in their native languages. But most of these publications were not intended to be clannish or divisive. They were actually transitional tools. From the third or second generation, most of the newspapers faded into obscurity. The kids and grand-children of immigrants had little or no interest in keeping the language and culture of "The Old Country." They were absorbed into the peaceable American culture.

Immigration from the 1900s

From the early 1900s, the waves of immigration were larger than ever but still manageable. Full assimilation was the norm, and the ethic was still ground for the vast majority of immigrants. Beginning in the 1920s, Congress started slowing immigration, particularly from Europe and Asia. By the time of the economic dislocation of the Great Depression, immigration had slowed to a trickle.

The World War II Aberrations

Then, for a period of 3 years during World War II, fearing domestic terrorism, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Administration took the unprecedented step of ordering the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans, by Executive Order. This included even second generation ("neisei") Japanese Americans who were native-born citizens! Similar steps were taken by Canadian government. Before Executive Order 9066 might find a complete test of its constitutionality in the courts, the internment had ended.

Japanese internment remains a black mark on American governance and jurisprudence. Belated redress payments letters of apology were finally issued by the U.S. government in the 1990s, under an order signed by President Reagan, and executed under the first Bush Administration. It may be said that the Japanese internment was racist, since the corresponding program created to intern Italian and German immigrants was small, by comparison. (Only 31,000 Germans and Italians, nearly all of whom were foreign passport-holders.)

Also during WWII, to compensate for a farm labor shortage created by the draft and mass military conscription, the U.S. began the contract guest worker program. This brought hundreds of thousands of mostly peasant farm workers. The after-effects of this program are still being felt today, while it did succeed in solving part of the labor shortage. The Bracero program was phased out in the early 1960s. But that "flavor of the great life" in El Norte spawned a flood of illegal immigration that is continuing today.

Post-War Immigration

Post-WWII policy for legal immigration became quite lax. After the sensibilities of liberal politicians, our official immigration policies started to consciously ignore the vital factors of a common language, a predominant faith, a common and peaceable culture, and secure borders. For the last 50 years, our nation has embarked on a campaign of what I believe cultural suicide. Up until 1965, immigration quotas favored people . But the Immigration and Nationality Act created a new system that favored selecting skilled immigrants and "reunifying families", instead of by-country quotas.

The composition of our population has changed, as immigration policies have loosened, and birthrates have fallen. In 1970, only 4.7% of Americans were foreign-born. It is climbing, and more than 13%. That figure is much like the "Ellis Island Era" immigration boom of the early 1900s, when that percentage was around 14%. As of 2017, about 25% of children in families had at least one parent that is foreign-born.

Since the Nationality and Immigration Act was enacted in 1965 immigration was dominated by people instead of in Europe. Beginning in 1965, people groups who have small ornothing in common with American culture and Judeo-Christian ethics were allowed entrance, en masse. Worse, radical Muslims with a worldview that is diametrically opposed to the American way of life were given equal preference to Christian and Jewish immigrants. If current immigration trends continue, Islam could be the second-largest faith in the United States, by 2040.

A Lack of Vetting

During the Obama Administration, vetting of offender immigrants fell by the wayside. Huge numbers of radicals fell through the cracks. These people have no intention of ever assimilating and living peacefully among us. They have brought foreign terrorism -- typified by the September 11, 2001 attacks -- to our shores. Our news headlines are today punctuated by A list of events. The common threadmilitary age males who are adherents of radical Islam.

Many Americans now anticipate even more horrendous acts of terrorism. Before one of these terrorists gets hold of a weapon of mass destruction, it is simply a matter of time--be it nuclear, chemical biological, or cyber. To clarify. I'm a realist. It is not racial individuality that makes a good immigrant versus a bad immigrant, or a good tourist versus a terrible tourist. I actually deny the very concept of "race". (There is only one race, the human race.) But there is definitely a correlation between religious affiliation and a propensity for terrorism. America does not have a issue with Christian terrorism, or Jewish terrorism, or Hindu terrorism, or Sikh terrorism, or Buddhist terrorism, or Taoist terrorism, or Jainist terrorism, and certainly not Baha'i terrorism! But we dohave an undeniable problem with Islamic terrorism. To ignore or downplay this truth is a divorce from reality.

The Extent and Cost of Illegal Immigration

As of 2014, it was estimated that there were 5.8 million illegal aliens from Mexico, and 5.3 million from other countries. But those are only figures that are rough. Nobody could offer a more precise or current figure. The costs are enormous. According to The Heritage Institute, there are approximately 3.7 million unlawful immigrant households in the U.S., and such households impose a net fiscal burden of about $54.5 billion per year. The estimated cost of building fence and the border wall will cost somewhere between $15 billion and $25 billion. (A leaked report by the Department of Homeland Security in February estimated $21.6 billion. So some claim that the wall/fence will pay for itself, in only a couple years.)

The liberals who predominate in the mass media and who make the noise in Congress are in denial about the extent and impact of illegal immigration. They are now engaged in a war of words. The majority of our universities and major news outlets have banned use of the descriptive term "illegal alien." In its place, they utilize the fanciful fabricated terms "undocumented residents" or "undocumented immigrants". Actor James Woods once famously stated: "Calling illegal aliens 'undocumented immigrants' is like calling heroin dealers 'undocumented pharmacists.'"

The Plain Truth

It is time to speak the plain truth about immigration in particular. Traditional Islam is a war-like syncretic religion that has the goal of world domination. It's Not, as the liberal whiners claim, "a religion of peace". In fact the term islam itself means "submission". By that, their promised prophet Muhammad meant: "submission to the will of Allah." In numerous suryas, the Koran calls for the forced conversion or death of non-believing "infidels" and a holy war (jihad) against any and all who defy Islamic domination. Liberals are quick to point out that many Muslims claim to have lost those tenets. That is true. But their own Koran states that any Muslim who does not adhere to all of the Koran's teachings must also be treated as an infidel. And that is how they operate and what their radical minority considers. That is what all those Wahhabistmadrasah are teaching.

Even if we take the very conservative estimate of only 2% of Muslims deserving the label radical jihadis, then we still have a huge issue. Here is the math:

World Population: 7.6 billion

World's Islamic Population: 1.6 billion

Estimate of World's Radical Islamic Population (2% of 1.6 billion): 3,200,000

U.S. Population: 325,677,000

U.S. Islamic Population: 3.45 Million

Estimate of U.S. Radical Islamic Population (2% of 3.45 million): 69,000

To me, seeing the figure of time bombs is not reassuring. To allow extremist Islamists entrance to our country is an enormous mistake. Vetting on a case-by-case basis is a policy. Individual vetting has to be performed for tourists seeking visas and for the two candidate immigrants. I would even go so far as to suggest occasionally re-vetting any foreign-born military age males with Islamic names that are here as permanent residents (Green Card holders) but not yet citizens. Any who are of terrible character should be deported from the country.

Please don't confuse me with the likes of FDR. What I'm referring to here is deporting (not locking up) some untrustworthy non-citizens, after individual hearings. In contrast, what FDR did was imprison people, some of who were complete U.S. citizens, without due process.

We must also abandon the absurd practice of "random screening" that calls for searching grandmas and toddlers in equal numbers as foreign-born military age males. The plain truth is that more than 90 percent of those deaths by terrorism in our nation since 2000 could be directly attributed to military age Islamic males that are foreign-born. Consequently, YES, we should indeed "profile" them! Stop groping Granny, and start searching and interrogating those guys.

A Fence, Not a Wall

The Trump Administration's planned "border wall" is a logical, well-calculated reaction to a growing threat. It is planned as a wall structure in a short, heavily-populated sections. Through 97% of its length, it will just be a sophisticated fence. This fence will be tricky to scale and have intrusion detectors. But it won't be as powerful as Israel's anti-vehicular/anti-intrusion fence . (See photo.) A more robust border fence will help protect us from illegal immigration from Mexico, as well as "through-migration" of illegals from across Central America, who use Mexico as a conduit. Additionally, it has been recorded that some illegals from Middle Eastern countries have been flying to Mexico and then walking across the Mexico-U.S. border. Therefore a stout fence and wall system will help reduce that traffic.

The Constitutional Flaw

One flaw of the Constitution is that its framers included a clause that it automatically makes anybody born on American soil an American citizen, regardless of the citizenship of the parents. This is codified under Title 8 U.S.C. § 1401. Our Founders could not have foreseen modern air travel. This constitutional flaw has created what are commonly called Anchor Babies. I advocate a Constitutional Amendment that would alter that, putting U.S. citizenship policy more in alignment with that of most European countries.

Our Survival Is At Stake

The threat is underestimated by most pundits. It has become so rampant that it represents an invasion. The majority of the illegal immigrants from Mexico are people that are peaceable, but one of them are some hardened criminals, sexual predators, and some quite radical racist and leftist revolutionaries. (For further reading , do web searches on the words "reconquista" and "Aztlan".)

Meanwhile, allowing legal immigration by unvetted foreign-born applicants is downright suicidal.

There is only one way that any state can survive in the long term (that is, multi-generationally): To maintain its integrity, any sovereign nation must have secure borders, a unifying peaceable culture, and a common language. Any nation that ignores those three factors is doomed. -- JWR

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scienceblogtumbler · 4 years ago

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A new rover to land on Mars

The Mars 2020 mission is scheduled to launch at the end of July. Its goal is to land the Perseverance rover on the Red Planet and collect samples in the hope of finding signs of past life.

While Mars remains an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Hollywood films, it equally fascinates NASA, which has made its exploration a priority. Since the early 2000s, the US space agency has successfully carried out eight missions1 designed to study its geological and climate history. The next step in this programme is the upcoming launch from Cape Canaveral of a massive Atlas V rocket carrying the Perseverance rover on a new mission dubbed Mars 2020, which will land on the Red Planet on 18 February 2021.

Packed with cameras and high-tech scientific instruments, the rover, approximately the size of a car, aims to answer the question that has been nagging the astrophysics community ever since the early days of Martian exploration: could Mars have once been home to life? “After focusing on the presence of water on the planet and on its habitability, Mars 2020 marks the third and latest step in a series of missions, and will be primarily dedicated to the search for signs of fossil life,” says Sylvestre Maurice, an astronomer at the IRAP2 in Toulouse (southwestern France). With the support of around 200 scientists, engineers and technicians from several CNRS and French university laboratories,3 the scientist helped develop the SuperCam laser camera, one of seven scientific instruments carried by the Perseverance rover. Based on many of the features of the Curiosity rover’s ChemCam deployed on Mars in 2012, SuperCam was enhanced with new functionalities such as Raman and infrared spectrometers. “These techniques, the first of their kind to be used on the Red Planet, can identify bonds between atoms and the way in which molecules are organised. As a result, they are able to detect complex structures favourable to the preservation of biosignatures in SuperCam’s targets,” he explains.

Engineers install the SuperCam instrument on the Perseverance rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California on June 25, 2019.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Landing on an ancient lakebed

To maximise their chances in the search for Martian biosignatures, the Mars 2020 team chose the Jezero crater as their landing site. Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, this area, 45 kilometres in diameter, was home to a vast lake to which several rivers converged, forming deltas whose remains are still visible today. The very early presence of water, together with extensive sedimentary deposits, makes Jezero a particularly promising environment for the detection of traces of life. The site also includes a wide range of geological features, which will help Mars 2020 achieve its other primary goal, namely the collection of some thirty soil core and rock samples reflecting the geological diversity of the planet. “Once the samples have been enclosed in metal tubes kept inside the rover, they will be sealed and stored on the Martian surface, and eventually brought back to Earth during a future sample return mission scheduled by 2030,” Maurice explains.

View of the Jezero crater, the landing site chosen for the Mars 2020 mission. 3.5 billion years ago, this area housed a large lake and traces of fossilized microbial life may have been preserved there.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL/ESA

This unprecedented sampling operation will be carried out using the SuperCam instrument. Its high-resolution colour camera attached atop Perseverance’s mast will make it possible to accurately determine the geological and environmental context associated with each sample of rock or regolith thanks to the analysis performed by the instrument’s three spectrometers.4 In addition, SuperCam will be the very first scientific instrument sent to Mars to be equipped with a microphone. “By listening to the impact on the rocks each time the laser is fired, this system will provide information about the hardness of the geological samples targeted,” Maurice says. “The device will also be used to pick up the sound of the Martian wind and detect possible signs of wear and tear to the equipment by continuously recording the noises made by the rover.”

Perseverance remote sensing mast head where the SuperCam instrument is enclosed (Nasa JPL, July 23, 2019).

NASA/JPL-Caltech

An unexpected incident

Filled with cutting-edge technology, the SuperCam laser camera took five long years to develop by several French research laboratories. “Although from the outside the instrument looks like Curiosity’s ChemCam, which our team had previously helped to design, it contains three additional analysis technologies packed into exactly the same volume. This required the miniaturisation of numerous components,” explains Pernelle Bernardi, a systems engineer at the LESIA,5 in charge of the specifications and performance of the SuperCam. This was a major challenge that the French team met with flying colours. However, just as the production of the flight model to be mounted on the rover neared completion, things went badly wrong when the optical component of the instrument was being tested inside a heat chamber in November 2018. The temperature rose to nearly 250 °C, well above the acceptable limits, quite literally “roasting” the instrument.

The heat shield (left) and rear hull (right) will protect the rover to its final destination.

LMS

Following a crisis meeting with US mission officials and representatives from the French space agency, CNES,6 the decision was taken to rebuild the entire laser camera, using all the available spare parts. The French team worked flat out, day and night, and rebuilt the instrument in six months, even managing to enhance its performance. “The primary mirror of the first SuperCam’s telescope had a tendency to deform when cold, which resulted in a significant widening of the focus point of the infrared laser beam,” Bernardi explains. “The November 2018 incident therefore gave us the opportunity to replace this defective mirror and thereby significantly improve the laser shot.”

Completed in June 2019, the upgraded version of the SuperCam was then shipped to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California in order to be attached to the top of the rover mast. “We visited the site several times last year to ensure that the instrument’s laser beams were still perfectly aligned during tests carried out in an environment very close to that of Mars, and it was indeed the case,” says Bernardi, who was awarded the CNRS 2020 Crystal Medal for her key role in the construction of the device. A few weeks before the Covid-19 crisis broke out, the fully-assembled rover had reached the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and was docked to the descent vehicle. It was then placed in the capsule that will enter the Martian atmosphere, this structure being itself attached to the cruise stage, which will fly the entire system to its final destination. Sheltering behind its heat shield, Perseverance is now waiting for the green light from NASA to begin its long journey to Mars.

Footnotes

1.Odyssey, MRO, Maven, Insight, Phoenix, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity.

2.Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie (CNRS / Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier / CNES).

3.The French part of SuperCam was produced thanks to the skills and expertise of the teams at IRAP, the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP – CNRS / Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier / Météo-France / IRD / CNES), the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux (LAB – CNRS / Université de Bordeaux), the Laboratoire d’Etudes Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique (LESIA – CNRS / Observatoire de Paris-PSL / Sorbonne Université / Université de Paris), the Atmosphères, Environments, and Spatial Observations Laboratory (LATMOS – CNRS / Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines / Sorbonne Université) and the CNES, prime contractor of the French contribution to SuperCam.

4.In addition to the Raman and infrared spectrometers already mentioned, SuperCam has a Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS), already used on ChemCam. This technology provides both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the elemental chemical composition of every geological sample targeted by the laser.

5.Laboratoire d’Etudes Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique (CNRS / Observatoire de Paris-PSL / Sorbonne Université / Université de Paris).

6.The CNES is the prime contractor for the French contribution to SuperCam.

source https://scienceblog.com/517464/a-new-rover-to-land-on-mars/

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Priority CRPG 2: Rogue: Exploring the Dungeons of Doom (1980)

In the history of gaming, there are plenty of games that are important milestones. Games that changed the direction of the medium, or set a benchmark for their genre going forward. There are only a handful of games, however, that are so significant and set such a precedent that an entire genre will be named after them. They’re not necessarily the most famous games out there, but they are the ones that defined their play-style so much that their genre can’t be separated from them afterwards. I’ve played a couple of those for the blog already: Adventure and MUD1 gave their names to the adventure game genre and MUDs, respectively. Now I come to the third such milestone: Rogue.

I have an ambivalent history with roguelikes. The first one that I remember playing for any significant length of time was Diablo, which is only tangentially related to the genre. I bounced off it hard in the late 90s, when everyone was raving about it. Why would I want to play a game with random dungeons when I could play something crafted by a human? The random dungeons were just one aspect of a game that was – at the time – everything I didn’t want CRPGs to become.

I played Rogue a time or two in the years after that, when I was making an effort to go back to a bunch of classics I’d missed. I bounced off of Rogue in much the same way that I did with Diablo: random dungeons and a lack of story didn’t appeal to me, and I really didn’t get the permadeath thing. I also kind of hated its dumb monsters. Kestrels and ostriches? No thanks. (I was playing the commercial DOS port, which excised a lot of the Dungeons & Dragons flavour of the original for legal purposes, even though a bazillion games had already nicked it without any repercussions.)

The commercial version of Rogue for DOS. I’d mock the presence of an emu, but those things are no joke.

It wasn’t until around the early 2010s that I was able to come to grips with it, mostly due to getting a smartphone. I was looking for games to play on it, and I stumbled across an Android port of Rogue. That’s when the game clicked for me, as it’s great for mobile devices. Got ten minutes to waste standing in line? That’s the perfect time to knock out a few levels of Rogue. Playing it on the go put me in a different head-space, where I wasn’t looking for a substantial gaming experience, or settling in to explore a virtual world for hours on end. I was looking for a challenge that I could kill time with in bite-sized chunks, and with Rogue I’d found it. Sure, the touchscreen interface sucked, but for a turn-based game that didn’t matter so much.

I never finished it on Android, and eventually I switched phones and couldn’t find it for download any more. The best I ever did was to make it to level 22, where I was probably killed by an Umber Hulk or something. What can I say, it’s a hard game. I’ve played a few genuine roguelikes here and there since, but the only one I ever knuckled down with and beat was Pixel Dungeon.

Since then I started the blog, and have beaten a number of games that I’d consider proto-roguelikes: The Dungeon, The Game of Dungeons (versions 5.4 and 8), Orthanc and Beneath Apple Manor all share elements that define the genre: random dungeon layouts, a quest to retrieve an item from deep within the dungeon, and permadeath. None of those put all three elements together, although Beneath Apple Manor comes the closest.

It’s odd that, of the three genres I mentioned at the start of the post, roguelikes seem to be thriving more now than at any other point in their history. Adventure games peaked in the 80s and 90s, and haven’t really returned to the prominence they had. MUDs were big amongst a niche crowd in the 80s and 90s, but I suppose their turf got taken over by MMOs. Roguelikes, on the other hand, seem to have only gotten big in the last decade. I wonder if my experience is indicative of the trend, and if perhaps the rise of mobile gaming has anything to do with that? Hard to say, but I’d love for someone with a stronger grasp of the genre’s history to chime in with their opinion.

I’m not really here to write about the genre as a whole however, but the game that started it. The history of Rogue began in the late 1970s, with two students at the University of California in Santa Cruz: Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman. Toy had had some opportunities to play the mainframe-based Star Trek game in his youth, and became fascinated with computer games. While at college he discovered Colossal Cave Adventure, which impressed him enough that he started writing his own. Wichman had spent some time playing Dungeons & Dragons, and enrolled in UCSC to learn game design and become a board game developer. The two became close friends, and started writing adventure games to challenge each other, but soon they realised that the genre provided little in the way of replayability.

Around 1980, with UNIX starting to take over as the primary operating system at UCSC, Toy and Wichman discovered a program called curses, written by Ken Arnold. Curses allowed for the positioning of characters at any point on a terminal, and using that crude graphics could be developed. That was the final inspiration that Toy and Wichman needed, and together they came up with a D&D-based game that would satisfy their desire for replayability.

I’m not sure when exactly Rogue was first playable; 1980 is the usual date given so I’ll go with that. By 1982, Michael Toy was so wrapped up in the game’s development that he was kicked out of UCSC for poor grades. He took the code with him and continued working on it; Wichman tried to keep up, but found it unworkable, and turned development fully over to Toy. Toy eventually got in touch with Ken Arnold, intending to get some insight into how curses worked, and the two of them improved the interface, display, and procedural generation of the game.

Around 1984, Rogue was turned into a commercial product distributed by Epyx, but I won’t be dealing with that version of the game just yet. For now I’m playing a DOS port of version 3.6, which is based on the UNIX code as it existed in 1981. No doubt it’s inauthentic in some way, but as far as I’m aware it’s the closest approximation out there to the game in its original form.

The backstory of Rogue has you playing as a student of the local fighter’s guild. As a kind of final entry exam, the guildmasters have tasked you with entering the Dungeons of Doom and coming back alive with the Amulet of Yendor. (I’ve always assumed that this was supposed to be “Rodney” backwards, and intended to represent one of the creators in much the same manner that Werdna and Trebor represented the creators of Wizardry; today I’ve discovered that nobody who created Rogue had that name, so my theory is shot down.) Outfitted with elf-made armour and an enchanted sword, you journey to the ancient ruins that mark the entrance to the Dungeons of Doom, and your quest begins. (There’s a bit of a disconnect between the backstory and the game here, as you actually start with an enchanted mace and a bow.)

The amulet is said to be somewhere below level 20. In all the games of Rogue that I’ve ever played, I’ve never seen it. As I said above, the lowest level I’ve ever reached is level 22, and I probably only hit level 20 a handful of other times. A Rogue expert I ain’t, but I intend to become one. My intention is to beat this game legitimately, without save-scumming. It’s going to take a while, but thankfully I have a small leg-up in that I don’t have to learn things from scratch. I know some of the tactics already. And you know, I beat The Game of Dungeons v8. I beat Moria. I can beat Rogue too.

Beginning a game of Rogue. This time I’ll win for sure.

So the goal of the game is to ascend through at least 20 dungeon levels, find the Amulet of Yendor, and get back to the surface. Those levels are procedurally generated, and drawn using ASCII characters, but they’re not completely random. Each one has around nine rooms, laid out in a 3×3 grid, with passages connecting them. Sometimes rooms are hidden, and can only be uncovered by searching for secret doors, but the 3×3 layout makes it pretty easy to figure out where those doors might be.

The player (represented by an @ symbol, to let you know “where you’re at”) is moved around using the number pad, so you can move in eight directions. I think the original UNIX version used a cluster of letters for movement, but thankfully whoever converted it to DOS made this concession to user-friendliness. The rest of the commands are executed via keyboard: t for throw, q to quaff a potion, r to read a scroll, that sort of thing. The most confusing thing is that some commands use the same key in upper and lower case. For example, lower case t is for throw, but upper case T is for taking off your armour. Lower case w is to wield a weapon, and upper case W is to wear armour. When I first started playing I needed a text file with all of the commands listed open at all times, but now that I’ve got a dozen games or so under my belt it’s become second nature, and I hardly need to refer to it at all.

The player has very little in the way of stats: there’s a Strength score, starting at 16, which I gather determines how much damage you do in combat. Hit points work like they always do, and you always begin with 12 (which in D&D terms would be the equivalent of a 1st level fighter with maximum hit points and a decent Constitution score). Armour Class determines how hard you are to hit, with a lower score being better as it was in old-school D&D. You earn experience points by killing monsters, and gain levels that increase your hit points. It’s all very standard CRPG stuff. You can customise your game slightly, by using the options command: this lets you rename your character and set their favourite fruit. The latter merely changes the name of some items you can find, and has no real bearing on mechanics. It’s set on “slime-mold” as a default, but I usually change it to mushroom,which is a little more palatable but also something that could conceivably grow in a dungeon. (If I change it to “amulet of yendor” can I get an easy win?)

The monsters are represented with upper case ASCII characters, and are very much drawn from the D&D Monster Manual. On the first few levels you fight Snakes, Bats, Kobolds and Hobgoblins, but they get stronger as you descend: Zombies, Centaurs, Trolls, Invisible Stalkers, and even the incredibly D&D-specific Xorn. I recall that on the deepest levels there were Umber Hulks, Vampires and Dragons, but I haven’t managed to make it that far yet.

Traps are also a danger, although a minor one. There are arrows that shoot from the wall, and poison darts that can reduce your Strength. The most troublesome are those that dump you on the next lower dungeon level, as sometimes that can mean you have to fight some monsters that you’re not quite ready for. On my first game I had an irritating placement of a teleport trap, which was situated right in front of the door to the room where the stairs down were located. There was nothing I could do except keep running into it until it put me where I needed to go. It was just a quirk of the random generation, and not a fatal one, but it sure was annoying.

I need to get into the room in the upper left, but that teleport trap won’t let me.

There’s plenty of gold to be found, but it’s a little pointless: you can’t buy anything, and it’s really just there as a kind of scoring system. Also scattered around the dungeon are weapons, armour, potions, scrolls, rings, and magic staves/wands. The weapons and armour are sometimes magical, granting a bonus to combat or defense, but they can also be cursed. Cursed items can’t be removed until you find a scroll of remove curse, but there’s often no way of knowing how good an item is until you start using it (unless you find a scroll of identify). Putting on an item without identifying it first is always a gamble.

The potions, scrolls, rings and staves/wands are uniquely identified, but those identifiers change for every game. For example, potions are differentiated by colour. In one game a potion of healing might be red, but in the next game it might be silver. Rings and staves/wands are differentiated by the material they are made out of, and the scrolls use gibberish words. Some items are identified once you use them; if you use a scroll of identify, the next such scroll you find will be clearly marked. Some items don’t identify, though, so it can be a good idea to take notes unless you have a good memory. Just don’t expect those notes to be helpful on your next game.

Food is also a factor. You begin with one meal, but there is food to be found throughout the dungeon if you’re lucky. If you don’t eat, you’ll eventually grow hungry, and then weak. Once you’re weak, eventually you’ll start falling unconscious every few moves. I don’t know if you can genuinely starve to death, but once you start passing out the monsters will probably make short work of you. Hunger is the main reason that you can’t linger on the easier levels and grind for experience: you need to keep descending, as that’s the only way to find food.

At this point, I should probably address permadeath. Rogue has it, and is infamous for it. You can save your game, but the file will be deleted as soon as you reload, so you can’t just save your game and keep trying from the same point over and over again. I used to think that was unfair bullshit, but now I recognise it as a completely valid element for this kind of game. A complete game doesn’t take all that long, and the progress you make isn’t by getting further through the game but by learning its systems. I like the phrase that Toy and Wichman used to describe it: “consequence permanence”.

So far I’ve played thirteen games, with varying levels of success, and some genuinely heart-breaking moments. I’ll quickly run through my experiences below:

Nobody (the default character name) was my first character, and made it all the way to dungeon level 16. I was pretty heartened by this, and started to entertain the delusion that I could beat Rogue on my first shot. Alas, I got cornered between a Rust Monster and an Invisible Stalker, the latter of which made short work of me.

Nobody II got down to level 8, but had a pretty low hit point total. He got killed in his first fight with a Centaur.

Gideon made it down to level 16, but got killed by an Invisible Stalker. I find that for a lot of characters who make it past the initial stages, Invisible Stalkers are among the most common stumbling blocks.

Mideon died on level 8. My run of bad luck started when I accidentally threw my mace at a kobold. Throwing items at foes when they are far away is a standard tactic to avoid melee, but if you throw a weapon and hit with it, that weapon disappears. I lost my mace this way, and had to fight with my bare hands. It didn’t matter all that much, until I tried to fight a floating Eye, which paralysed me. A Centaur rolled up while I was paralysed and killed me.

Jonn Greywood made it to level 11, but lost his mace along the way by throwing it at a floating Eye. Then he put on cursed plate armor, which got further reduced in effectiveness by a Rust Monster (which have the ability to worsen your AC by 1 with every hit if you’re wearing metallic armour). I couldn’t remove the cursed armour, and ended up fighting a Centaur with no weapon and an AC of 9. It didn’t end well.

Saskar got into a fight with a Wraith on dungeon level 16. Wraiths drain your experience points, and I dropped from level 9 to level 7. I escaped by using a teleport scroll, only to land right next to a Troll which killed me with one blow.

Nobody III put on a cursed ring that occasionally made him teleport to a random location in the dungeon, which was pretty distracting. I threw my mace away, and eventually got killed by a Hobgoblin (which is pretty uncommon for a character that deep in the dungeon; I must have been softened up by something else first).

Myrio Immyrio Velaasa was my most promising character. She had a strength of 18, a two-handed sword, and numerous healing potions. The two-handed sword is really the key item to doing well at Rogue, it makes killing monsters much more efficient. Unfortunately, it all went wrong when I found a staff of lightning bolts. The lightning bolts that it casts bounce around the walls until they hit something. I tried to hit a Wraith with one, but the bolt ended up bouncing around the room in an endless loop that I couldn’t break out of. I sat there holding the spacebar through a whole episode of The Goodies, but it was still stuck in that loop by the end. I had to abandon Myrio, who I think actually had a good shot at descending past level 20.

Nobody IV got killed by a Bat on level 1. This is the most embarrassing way to die in Rogue, because Bats don’t even target you, they just sort of move about at random and occasionally attack if you’re next to them. Nobody IV, I disavow you.

Sir Gareth did really well, making it all the way down to level 17 before getting cornered by a Xorn with no way out. You don’t want to engage a Xorn in straight up combat unless you’re incredibly hard, but I had no other choice.

Krago got killed by a Snake on level 1. It’s not quite as bad as being killed by a Bat, but it’s not far off.

Artis got killed on level 1 by a Hobgoblin. Hobgoblins are the biggest danger to starting characters, until they gain some extra hit points.

Nobody V had a really bad run of luck with some giant Ants, which can drain your Strength with their stings. I got my Strength drained all the way down to 3, and it would have gone lower if that was possible. (Strength ranges between 3 and 18, another of this game’s many D&Disms.) I got cornered between an Ant and an Orc, and couldn’t do enough damage to beat either of them.

Myrio got stuck in a loop, and I forgot to screenshot one of the Nobodies, but this is an otherwise comprehensive graveyard.

So that’s my tale of woe and ignominy. But I’m building up my knowledge of the game, how the various monsters behave, and how to counter them. I’ve learned to take off my armour when I see a Rust Monster, or to try to find some magic leather armour. I’ve learned to keep a potion of restore strength in reserve, to use around level 10 when the giant Ants stop appearing. I’ve learned not to read scrolls until I have an item worth identifying, like a ring or a two-handed sword. Even with that knowledge, a lot of Rogue is down to luck: if you don’t find the right items, or enough food, you’re not going to survive. For the moment I’m having fun in the attempt, and struggling to avoid playing “just one more game” before bed.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/priority-crpg-2-rogue-exploring-the-dungeons-of-doom-1980/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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itsworn · 6 years ago

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Underdash Lokar Emergency Brake Installation

After recently completing the installation of a new rear suspension under our 1936 Phaeton it was time to complete that installation with a working emergency brake. Our first order of business was to decide how the brake would be engaged, so we began this job on the inside.

Actually the original 1936 handbrake is a pretty cool piece, albeit quite large, to the point that it dominated the transmission tunnel area. Since there is a T5 swap planned for the car we wanted to keep the tranny tunnel clear for that installation. Another reason to keep things clean is that neat Stewart-Warner heater we plan on using. These two items put the gennie 1936 handbrake up on the shelf. It is worthy to note that FoMoCo is in agreement with my decision, as 1936 was the last year for the transmission mount handbrake, beginning in 1937 the handle was moved under the dash.

Lokar has long been the leader in brake cable kits and cool handbrakes so we decided to check out their latest offerings. Their old standby floor-mounted unit would have worked, and while this unit is small and compact we still wanted a clean floor. They also offer a transmission mount handbrake that looks like a vintage Ford brake but shorter and more refined. Ultimately, we decided to go with the underdash, hand-operated emergency brake (Lokar also offers a foot-operated underdash unit). We ordered the Lokar handbrake in a black powdercoated finish, and in the future when our black interior is installed the brake handle will all but disappear.

Prior to beginning the job we disconnected the battery and made certain the car was safely lifted for the undercar portion of the job. The Lokar underdash emergency brake unit is designed to fit between the lower lip of the dashboard and the firewall. The unit is adaptable from 11 to 15 inches, which will fit most applications. However, our 1936 tub measured almost 19 inches from firewall to dash, so some adapting would be required. We decided to fabricate two brackets to locate the emergency brake mechanism. One bracket was a simple piece of 1/8-inch flat stock with slight angle. This piece mounted to the dashboard and then the front of the brake assembly bolted to the fabricated piece. This moved the handle back under the dash an additional 2 inches and made any future removal of the brake assembly easier. The second bracket was a bit more complex and involved fabricating a mounting pad that would attach to the firewall and the side of the body underhood. This bracket was formed from 16-gauge sheetmetal and we ultimately bolted it to the firewall and the body. This same bracket could be formed and spot welded to the inside of the firewall and side of the body but since a former owner had insulated the firewall we decided to simply bolt the bracket in place with button-head bolts. We will fill the hex on the bolts and after paint they will then resemble a factory rivet.

After we fabricated these two brackets and mounted the handle and brake mechanism under the dash we turned our attention to the business of connecting cables to our newly installed handle.

Let’s face it, installing a fully functioning emergency brake system doesn’t make the list of “glory work” when you’re building a street rod. However, it does make the all-important safety list as the emergency brake could be your last resort stopping or simply a parking brake that keeps your hot rod safely parked even when the clutch is depressed or someone kicks the shifter in Neutral. Yes, an emergency brake is mandatory equipment for any street-driven car. It is a lot of safety for not a lot of money.

Once again we turned to the Lokar line of emergency brake kits and ordered one Connector Cable kit with black housing (braided stainless also available). This is a single cable that runs from the underdash brake unit to a single cable mount under the car. We also ordered a Lokar Universal Emergency Brake Cable kit. This is a two-cable kit that connects the parking brake levers on our new John’s Industries 9-inch rear to a double cable bracket we mounted to the floor. Armed with these two kits we were ready for the undercar portion of the job.

We decided to first find the optimum location for the single and double cable mounts. These mounts should be mounted so the cable has a direct, straight pull. The mounts should also be about 9-1/2 inches apart. Using a couple of magnets (available from Harbor Freight, and yes every shop should have some) we held the brackets in place on the floorpan. We then studied the best way to route the cables to the brackets. Satisfied that the cables could be mounted with smooth, sweeping bends, we drilled the floor and mounted the two brackets. Now it was a simple matter of routing the cables.

We began by removing the inner stainless steel cable from all three housings and set them aside. Next we bolted one cable to each backing plate and proceeded to route these cables to the mounted double-cable bracket. We attached the cable housing to the floor of the car with Adel clamps and stainless steel button-head bolts and cut the cable with a set of heavy-duty cable cutters.

Next we crawled under the dash and using a straightedge as a guide located the proper place for a hole in the floorboard. We drilled the hole and then slotted that hole to the outside of the floor panel. This will enable us to remove the floorboard without removing the cable should that need arise in the future. Next we installed the connector cable to the new Lokar handbrake. This is e-clip, so after feeding the cable down through the floorboard hole we installed the cable housing to the brake assembly by pushing the clip in place. We then moved under the car and routed the cable to the single-cable mount, cut the outer cable to length, and installed it first in the ferrule and then the bracket.

With all the outer cable housing cut and mounted we began work on the stainless steel inner wire cables. These are the cables that actually make the brakes work. We took one rear cable with the spring installed and fed the cable through the cable housing bolted to the backing plate. The ball end of the cable slips into the emergency brake lever on the backing plate with the spring between the brake lever and the bolt-in end of the cable housing. The same procedure was performed on the opposite side. With the inner cables fed through the double adjuster bracket we had several feet of extra cable. We left that hanging for now and turned our attention to routing the inner cable from the brake handle down to the single-cable adjuster bracket. This involved installing the cable through the connector cable clevis mounted to the brake handle. Then the cable is routed around the pulley on the brake assembly and down into the outer cable housing until the cable was protruding from the single adjust bracket.

With all three cables hanging down it was time to adjust and cut the cables. Before we did that, we went to the rear brakes and did a brake adjustment. When you order “loaded backing plates” from John’s Industries the adjuster are run all the way in. This makes installing and removing the drums easy during installation. Once the rear is installed the brakes need to be adjusted until there is a slight drag on the drum. This adjustment will also affect the handbrake, so it should be done prior to fitting and adjusting the handbrake cables. With the rear brakes adjusted we moved back to the single- and double-cable adjusters.

We removed the tension from the rear cables, being careful not to engage the emergency brake in the process. With the tension removed we tightened the two setscrews for each cable, but we did not cut the inner cables yet. Next we pulled the tension out of the connector cable and marked it for cutting. This cable will fit in the single cable union assembly and you must remember to leave 1-3/8 inches of cable to go inside the union. With cable properly sized and cut we tightened the two setscrews on the single-cable union assembly. At this point the cables are connected from the rear brakes to the underdash unit.

We went inside the car and pulled the handle up. The cable tightened on about the fifth click. Since three clicks is optimum we went back under the car and pulled just a bit of tension out of the cables. We then pulled the e-brake handle again and this time the tension felt perfect. The car was still up on jackstands so we went to the rear and attempted to turn the wheels. The passenger-side wheel was locked tight, however, the driver-side wheel could still be turned. We released the brake and checked the brake adjustment on that wheel and also loosened the setscrews and pulled a bit more tension on the driver-side cable. We tested the emergency brake again and this time both rear wheels were locked when the emergency brake was pulled. Satisfied that the system was adjusted properly we cut the two inner cables from the rear axle at the cable union block, leaving approximately 1 inch of cable protruding. And that completed our emergency brake installation.

Like most things it pays to work slowly, measure twice, cut once, and, here’s the tough one, not only should you read the instructions, it actually pays to follow the instructions. In the end we were more than pleased with the installation, the underdash brake handle fit perfectly, and looks like it may have come from the factory. SRM

We decided it was time to relocate the emergency brake on our 1936 Ford Phaeton. The Lokar underdash, hand-operated emergency brake was our choice.

We ordered the handle in powdercoated black; it is also available in brushed aluminum or chrome plated. Our first task was to mount the unit under our 1936 dash. We began the process by disconnecting the battery to avoid any unwanted “sparks.”

This end typically bolts to the dashboard. The brake is adjustable from 11 to 15 inches; since our distance was almost 19 inches, we would have to do some fabricating.

This is the firewall end of the brake. It bolts to the firewall with four button-head bolts and all hardware is included. We will build a custom mount inside our firewall.

We decided to move the brake forward a couple of inches under the dashboard. A simple bracket was made to bolt to the dashboard and the emergency brake.

Here is the finished bracket; it has about a 10-degree bend and the 1/4-20 nuts tack-weld to the bracket goes on the dashboard side. This makes for an easy “one wrench” installation.

To begin the process of locating the brake assembly we bolted our custom bracket and the emergency brake to the dashboard.

On the firewall end of the brake we used a ty-wrap to temporarily hold the brake in position. This allowed us to move the bracket left, right, and up or down to find the best location.

We had to build a sheetmetal mount for this end of the brake that would attach to the firewall and side panel of the body. When positioning the brake we had to consider room for a left foot on the clutch pedal.

After taking some measurements we sketched out the bracket on a pad and then did a more accurate layout on a piece of 16-gauge sheetmetal. The black lines are bent from this side; blue line means flip it over.

A little work with the hand shear and we had the basic shape of the bracket cut out.

It is often easier to drill the required holes when the sheetmetal is still flat. In this instance we drilled holes for 1/4-20 bolts prior to bending the piece.

A quick trip to the metal brake and we had shaped the bracket. As you can see we also traced the outline of the emergency brake on the new bracket and used a transfer punch to center punch the hole locations.

A quick test-fit showed the holes were perfectly located. This bracket is now complete and ready to install.

We took the time to put a quick coat of silver paint on both brackets to give them a finished appearance.

Since it is difficult to photograph under the dash we assembled this mock-up shot to illustrate how the brackets will hold the brake in place. Now it’s time for a test-fit.

After we test-fit the brake unit and brackets, we located the holes in the firewall and the side panel and drilled four 1/4-inch holes. We then bolted the bracket in place.

This is the final location of the Lokar emergency brake. There is ample room to operate the clutch pedal and still room for a comfortable grip on the piston grip lever.

The next step was installing the cables. We used this Lokar universal emergency brake cable kit. The kit is designed to work with our drum brakes; disc brake applications are also available.

Before working on the cables we removed the stainless steel inner wire from the cable housing. This is the end of the inner wire designed to slip into the slot on the emergency brake lever on the rear backing plates. The springs are return spring to release the brake lever.

The other end of the inner wire slips into a double-cable adapter bracket, the inner wires will slide through cable union block. The aluminum ferrules simply push into the adjuster bracket.

We will need to locate this double-cable adjuster bracket under the car, either on the chassis or the floor of the car. We opted to locate the brackets on the floor of the car.

Just above the blue spring you will see the backing plate fitting on the brake cable housing. Since this an aluminum fitting a dab of antiseize is recommended.

We also ordered a Connector Cable kit from Lokar. This single cable will mount to the underdash emergency brake and to a single-cable adjuster bracket mounted under the car.

We used a couple of magnetic brackets (available from Harbor Freight) to test different locations for our cable adjuster brackets. This allowed us to plan the routing of the cables prior to actually mounting the brackets.

Once we were satisfied with the bracket locations we mounted the two brackets 9-1/2 inches apart. Next we routed the cut-to-fit black cable housings between the backing plate and these brackets.

Next we installed the inner wire cable onto the emergency brake lever. When our “load backing plates” arrived from John’s Industries the adjusters are all the way in; this makes assembly easy. However, we adjusted the rear brakes until we had a slight drag prior to adjusting the emergency brake cables.

A hole is required in the floorboard to pass the cable down under the car. We used a straightedge to find the location and then drilled the hole. We slotted the floorboard to the outboard edge. This would allow the floorboard to be removed without removing the emergency brake cable.

Installing the Connector Cable kit begins with threading the inner wire through the clevis (as shown). This clevis bolts to the Lokar pistol grip, underdash emergency brake lever.

The other end of the connector cable will slide into this single-wire union. The double-wire union block will attach to the two brake cables from the backing plates.

The outer cable housing attaches to the parking brake clevis with this simple e-clip.

Since we slotted the floorboard to the outboard side we fabricated this small aluminum plate to cover the slot in the floorboard. To remove the floorboard this plate must be removed.

The inner wire cable is routed over the pulley and then between the spacer and the pulley. From there the inner wire is routed under the car to the single-cable adjuster.

The black cable housings were carefully routed with no sharp bends to allow for smooth cable operation. Adel clamps hold everything firmly in place and well clear of the future driveshaft

After carefully adjusting the tension on all cables we tightened all the setscrews and tested the emergency brake. We had to do a second tension adjustment to have both rear wheels lock at the same time, followed by retightening the wires in the union block.

We made a mockup cardboard kick panel to illustrate the final fit of the emergency brake. It is neat and clean and when seated in the car the handle is easy to reach and operate.

The post Underdash Lokar Emergency Brake Installation appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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3 Smart Tips That Took This Millennial From Food Stamps To Millions

3 years in the past, 27-12 months-vintage Kimra Luna turned into on food stamps.

Today she’s making seven figures with her online non-public branding and social media enterprise. In high faculty, Luna was the woman with the giant pink mohawk, the child others made a laugh off. These days, with her blue hair, facial piercings, and punk rock style, her success comes from being actual to herself.

Luna enables others to begin on-line FOOD agencies around their personal strengths. And it’s no longer simply millennials she’s assisting. With over 40,000 contributors in her Freedom TIPS Hackers community, she works with parents of their 70’s.

In our Mentoring Moments podcast, Luna stocks her inspiring adventure from booking punk bands in Idaho to becoming a mother living off food stamps, to coming across a business gold mine. Right here are 3 of her pinnacle suggestions that will let you face your fears and find your freedom (in Luna’s words, condensed and edited):

1. Create Something Large

“I’m just a mother. What can I provide humans?” That become a question from certainly one of my college students earlier than she figured out the significance of what she became doing clearly. Now she has a six-parent commercial enterprise coaching mothers the way to prepare their day and maintain track of family budgets and finances. Whether or not we’re building our very own commercial enterprise or operating in a corporation where we will create the trade in this world and assist human beings, all of us have the abilities to create Something Massive.

2. Prevent Hiding

I have achieved hiding. A few humans might examine me and assume, “Kim, you are not hiding. you are in the public spotlight.” But I simply “hiding” in the experience of not sharing the deepest matters interior of me, the things which can be prone and real.

My phrase of the year is “vulnerable” due to the fact I think we’re in a time in which the majority are putting up masks. We’re the use of social media to exhibit perfect Instagram pix, But we’re not the truly glad interior. And on the identical time, we’re evaluating our lives to the all those other ideal Instagram pictures. We want extra human beings sharing true and galvanizing memories due to the fact with the intention to help uplift us out the worry many humans are experiencing in these instances. I consider the greater susceptible I am, the extra I can assist others. I need to spend my time with individuals who inspire me, people, who are real and vulnerable.

3. Get Obtainable

Procrastination comes from more than one locations. It can be a worry of fulfillment, a worry of failure or a fear of what different humans think of you. Too regularly people let doubt take over and get caught in “I want to check it extra. just one extra tweak.” Occasionally you need to try this, However too regularly you are allowing doubt to take over and if you doubt yourself, you’re telling the universe that you don’t completely agree with in it.

Every so often I need to deliver some of my students a swift kick in the butt and inform them, “Hey, you’ve been sitting on this challenge for goodbye. you’re now not serving anybody by using sitting. in case you genuinely are telling me, “those are the human beings I want to serve. these are the human beings I need to help,” However you are nevertheless now not doing whatever to do this, then perhaps that’s not actually genuine. you’re telling me one component, However, you’re now not doing it—why need to I agree with you?

To be wealthy, not just moneywise, But your fitness, life and happiness, you have to decide what you want in lifestyles. Then you have to take the motion that is going with that selection.

There are a couple of kinds of fear and there’s not one solution, But one thing I’ve seen paintings is to take the bounce. As soon as you’re taking the leap, the worry starts of evolved to diminish because you begin having consequences. And what’s the worst that could take place? if you don’t exit there you may get that purchase. However in case, you get that first client and that they have top notch consequences, that fills you. That makes you lose that doubt. The great way to get past worry is to just take the action.

If matters don’t paintings, I don’t see it as a large failure or flop. I see it as: “It didn’t work out, it’s ok. There was a lesson I discovered. Flow on. There are human beings I can serve over Here.” You can not recognize what the result goes to be until you do it. It’s simply freaking get Accessible!

To listen to Luna’s Mentoring Second story and discover why you need a job that promises more than good insurance, one issue a success leaders do and why constructing your community is crucial in your fulfillment, take a listen to our podcast.

Fasting Can Break the Meals Cravings Dependancy

The present day custom of consuming 3 meals consistent with the day with a regular snack in among differs a lot from the way that historical peoples lived for thousands of years. The hunter-gatherer way of life intended that human beings were continuously adjusting from feasting to hunger mode as their Meals deliver allowed. For them, it was now not a choice but that lifestyle has affected techniques in our bodies that are helpful for weight reduction and for strengthening the immune device.

The health benefits attributed to fasting are several consisting of reduced cardiovascular sickness, lower chance of cancer, sickness resistance, weight reduction and recovery from pressure. That remaining one is one of the primary reasons that fasting works. Our bodies are designed to repair genes, cells tissues, and nerves after strain, which can be bodily or emotional anxiety. Common consumption of Meals slows down our body’s restore cycle as it works to the manner the Food as a substitute. If the Food is nutrient-rich rather than sugar-rich, we still benefit from this. If, however, your lunch became a pizza and also you observed it up with a chocolate blanketed candy bar at three:00 PM, your body might be too busy producing and fighting the insulin rush to have any time to repair the damage.

Taking quick breaks from Meals allows your body to apply fat as a source of strength, in preference to relying on the insulin-producing sugars in such a lot of packaged meals. Insulin also stimulates manufacturing of hormones inside the body that make you experience hungry. Maintaining insulin degrees low normalizes these hormones. Fasting additionally stimulates the frame to increase human increase hormone manufacturing, that is crucial for weight loss and to preserve you searching more youthful.

searching younger, more healthy pores and skin and cardiovascular systems occur due to the fact the frame receives higher control over oxidative stress, which is stimulated through extra glucose. Your brain benefits from using this technique too. While your frame consumes fats, your mind makes use of the released ketones to aid wholesome neuron era. This keeps your brain healthful and decreases the danger of Alzheimer’s and other intellectual issues.

A few worries approximately overdoing it are really worth noting. In case you sense robust Food cravings on the end of a fasting duration, withstand the urge to overeat at some stage in that first meal. hold the meal small and loaded with veggies and healthy assets of proteins and essential fatty acids, like Omega-3 and the cravings, will disappear quickly. Some human beings document that their sleep is disturbed while fasting. Sleep deprivation can lead to a spread of fitness troubles so please sluggish down on the fasting If you experience this.

Prolonged fasting periods longer than a day or so can bring about a loss of vital vitamins that guide a healthy body and prevent inflammation. One consequence of being starved for nutrients is that the frame will not simplest turn to fat for power, it’s going to also Break down muscle mass. Begin gradual and be prepared to backtrack at any signal of pain.

When you have no longer been on a calorie-restricting plan or fasting application of any kind before, then the quality manner to begin is to take small steps. Try skipping breakfast in the future in step with the week in the beginning after which add any other day In case you seem to manage that without any problems. Slowly growth the variety of days and food that you pass ingesting. You could work your way all the manner up to alternating complete days of fasting, however, do not rush into this. An excellent mode to hold is to skip breakfast numerous days in step with the week and to hold you are ingesting to within an 8-to-ten-hour time frame on the fasting days. You will locate that the Food craving speedy fades away and also you do not want as a great deal Meals with each meal to experience fully.

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