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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months ago

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Utah’s getting some of America’s best broadband

TOMORROW (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the country, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.

This broadband service is, of course, delivered via fiber optic cable. Of course it is. Fiber is vastly superior to all other forms of broadband delivery, including satellites, but also cable and DSL. Fiber caps out at 100tb/s, while cable caps out at 50gb/s – that is, fiber is 1,000 times faster:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/why-fiber-vastly-superior-cable-and-5g

Despite the obvious superiority of fiber, America has been very slow to adopt it. Our monopolistic carriers act as though pulling fiber to our homes is an impossible challenge. All those wires that currently go to your house, from power-lines to copper phone-lines, are relics of a mysterious, fallen civilization and its long-lost arts. Apparently we could no more get a new wire to your house than we could build the pyramids using only hand-tools.

In a sense, the people who say we can't pull wires anymore are right: these are relics of a lost civilization. Specifically, electrification and later, universal telephone service was accomplished through massive federal grants under the New Deal – grants that were typically made to either local governments or non-profit co-operatives who got everyone in town connected to these essential modern utilities.

Today – thanks to decades of neoliberalism and its dogmatic insistence that governments can't do anything and shouldn't try, lest they break the fragile equilibrium of the market – we have lost much of the public capacity that our grandparents took for granted. But in the isolated pockets where this capacity lives on, amazing things happen.

Since 2015, residents of Jackson County, KY – one of the poorest counties in America – have enjoyed some of the country's fastest, cheapest, most reliable broadband. The desperately poor Appalachian county is home to a rural telephone co-op, which grew out of its rural electrification co-op, and it used a combination of federal grants and local capacity to bring fiber to every home in the county, traversing dangerous mountain passes with a mule named "Ole Bub" to reach the most remote homes. The result was an immediately economic uplift for the community, and in the longer term, the county had reliable and effective broadband during the covid lockdowns:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Contrast this with places where the private sector has the only say over who gets broadband, at what speed, and at what price. America is full of broadband deserts – deserts that strand our poorest people. Even in the hearts of our largest densest cities, whole neighborhoods can't get any broadband. You won't be surprised to learn that these are the neighborhoods that were historically redlined, and that the people who live in them are Black and brown, and also live with some of the highest levels of pollution and its attendant sicknesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/10/flicc/#digital-divide

These places are not set up for success under the best of circumstances, and during the lockdowns, they suffered terribly. You think your kid found it hard to go to Zoom school? Imagine what life was like for kids who attended remote learning while sitting on the baking tarmac in a Taco Bell parking lot, using its free wifi:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/02/elem-s02.html

ISPs loathe competition. They divide up the country into exclusive territories like the Pope dividing up the "new world" and do not trouble one another by trying to sell to customers outside of "their" turf. When Frontier – one of the worst of America's terrible ISPs – went bankrupt, we got to see their books, and we learned two important facts:

The company booked one million customers who had no alternative as an asset, because they would pay more for slower broadband, and Frontier could save a fortune by skipping maintenance, and charging these customers for broadband even through multi-day outages; and

Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose to strand their customers with aging copper connections and to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table, so that their personal net worth didn't suffer a temporary downturn:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

ISPs maintain the weirdest position: that a) only the private sector can deliver broadband effectively, but b) to do so, they'll need massive, unsupervised, no-strings-attached government handouts. For years, America went along with this improbable scheme, which is why Trump's FCC chairman Ajit Pai gave the carriers $45 billion in public funds to string slow, 19th-century-style copper lines across rural America:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/27/all-broadband-politics-are-local/

Now, this is obviously untrue, and people keep figuring out that publicly provisioned broadband is the only way for America to get the same standard of broadband connectivity that our cousins in other high-income nations enjoy. In order to thwart the public's will, the cable and telco lobbyists joined ALEC, the far-right, corporatist lobbying shop, and drafted "model legislation" banning cities and counties from providing broadband, even in places the carriers chose not to serve:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/culture-war-bullshit-stole-your-broadband/

Red states across America adopted these rules, and legislators sold this to their base by saying that this was just "keeping the government out of their internet" (even as every carrier relied on an exclusive, government-granted territorial charter, often with massive government subsidies).

ALEC didn't target red states exclusively because they had pliable, bribable conservative lawmakers. Red states trend rural, and rural places are the most likely sites for public fiber. Partly, that's because low-density areas are harder to make a business case for, but also because these are also the places that got electricity and telephone through New Deal co-ops, which are often still in place.

Just about the only places in America where people like their internet service are the 450+ small towns where the local government provides fiber. These places vote solidly Republican, and it was their beloved conservative lawmakers whom ALEC targeted to enact laws banning their equally beloved fiber – keep voting for Christmas, turkeys, and see where it gets you:

https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map

But spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible.

Which brings me back to Utah, a red state with a Republican governor and legislature, and a national leader in passing unconstitutional, unhinged, unworkable legislation as part of an elaborate culture war kabuki:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165975112/utah-passes-an-age-verification-law-for-anyone-using-social-media

For more than two decades, a coalition of 21 cities in Utah have been building out municipal fiber. The consortium calls itself UTOPIA: "Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency":

https://www.utopiafiber.com/faqs/

UTOPIA pursues a hybrid model: they run "open access" fiber and then let anyone offer service over it. This can deliver the best of both worlds: publicly provisioned, blazing-fast fiber to your home, but with service provided by your choice of competing carriers. That means that if Moms for Liberty captures you local government, you're not captive to their ideas about what sites your ISP should block.

As Karl Bode writes for Techdirt, Utahns in UTOPIA regions have their choice of 18 carriers, and competition has driven down prices and increased speeds. Want uncapped 1gb fiber? That's $75/month. Want 10gb fiber? That's $150:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/15/utah-locals-are-getting-cheap-10-gbps-fiber-thanks-to-local-governments/

UTOPIA's path to glory wasn't an easy one. The dismal telco monopolists Qwest and Lumen sued to put them out of business, delaying the rollout by years:

https://www.deseret.com/2005/7/22/19903471/utopia-responds-to-qwest-lawsuit/

UTOPIA has been profitable and self-sustaining for over 15 years and shows no sign of slowing. But 17 states still ban any attempt at this.

Keeping up such an obviously bad policy requires a steady stream of distractions and lies. The "government broadband doesn't work" lie has worn thin, so we've gotten a string of new lies about wireless service, insisting that fiber is obviated by point-to-point microwave relays, or 5g, or satellite service.

There's plenty of places where these services make sense. You're not going to be able to use fiber in a moving car, so yeah, you're going to want 5g (and those 5g towers are going to need to be connected to each other with fiber). Microwave relay service can fill the gap until fiber can be brought in, and it's great for temporary sites (especially in places where it doesn't rain, because rain, clouds, leaves and other obstructions are deadly for microwave relays). Satellite can make sense for an RV or a boat or remote scientific station.

But wireless services are orders of magnitude slower than fiber. With satellite service, you share your bandwidth with an entire region or even a state. If there's only a couple of users in your satellite's footprint, you might get great service, but when your carrier adds a thousand more customers, your connection is sliced into a thousand pieces.

That's also true for everyone sharing your fiber trunk, but the difference is that your fiber trunk supports speeds that are tens of thousands of times faster than the maximum speeds we can put through freespace electromagnetic spectrum. If we need more fiber capacity, we can just fish a new strand of fiber through the conduit. And while you can increase the capacity of wireless by increasing your power and bandwidth, at a certain point you start pump so much EM into the air that birds start falling out of the sky.

Every wireless device in a region shares the same electromagnetic spectrum, and we are only issued one such spectrum per universe. Each strand of fiber, by contrast, has its own little pocket universe, containing a subset of that spectrum.

Despite all its disadvantages, satellite broadband has one distinct advantage, at least from an investor's perspective: it can be monopolized. Just as we only have one electromagnetic spectrum, we also only have one sky, and the satellite density needed to sustain a colorably fast broadband speed pushes the limit of that shared sky:

https://spacenews.com/starlink-vs-the-astronomers/

Private investors love monopoly telecoms providers, because, like pre-bankruptcy Frontier, they are too big to care. Back in 2021, Altice – the fourth-largest cable operator in America – announced that it was slashing its broadband speeds, to be "in line with other ISPs":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

In other words: "We've figured out that our competitors are so much worse than we are that we are deliberately degrading our service because we know you will still pay us the same for less."

This is why corporate shills and pro-monopolists prefer satellite to municipal fiber. Sure, it's orders of magnitude slower than fiber. Sure, it costs subscribers far more. Sure, it's less reliable. But boy oh boy is it profitable.

The thing is, reality has a pronounced leftist bias. No amount of market magic will conjure up new electromagnetic spectra that will allow satellite to attain parity with fiber. Physics hates Starlink.

Yeah, I'm talking about Starlink. Of course I am. Elon Musk basically claims that his business genius can triumph over physics itself.

That's not the only vast, impersonal, implacable force that Musk claims he can best with his incredible reality-distortion field. Musk also claims that he can somehow add so many cars to the road that he will end traffic – in other words, he will best geometry too:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Geometry hates Tesla, and physics hates Starlink. Reality has a leftist bias. The future is fiber, and public transit. These are both vastly preferable, more efficient, safer, more reliable and more plausible than satellite and private vehicles. Their only disadvantage is that they fail to give an easily gulled, thin-skinned compulsive liar more power over billions of people. That's a disadvantage I can live with.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

Image: 4028mdk09 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_LED_Fiberglasleuchte.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #fiber #broadband #physics #public goods #utah #utopia #red states #ole bub

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kaijuposting · 11 months ago

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Jaegers of Pacific Rim: What do we know about them?

There's actually a fair amount of lore about Pacific Rim's jaegers, though most of it isn't actually in the movie itself. A lot of it has been scattered in places like Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, & Monsters, Tales From Year Zero, Travis Beacham's blog, and the Pacific Rim novelization.

Note that I will not be including information from either Pacific Rim: Uprising or Pacific Rim: The Black. Uprising didn't really add anything, and The Black's take on jaegers can easily be summed up as "simplified the concept to make a cartoon for children."

So what is there to know about jaegers, besides the fact that they're piloted by two people with their brains connected via computer?

Here's a fun fact: underneath the hull (which may or may not be pure iron), jaegers have "muscle strands" and liquid data transfer technology. Tendo Choi refers to them in the film when describing Lady Danger's repairs and upgrades:

Solid iron hull, no alloys. Forty engine blocks per muscle strand. Hyper-torque driver for every limb and a new fluid synapse system.

The novelization by Alex Irvine makes frequent references to this liquid data transfer tech. For example:

The Jaeger’s joints squealed and began to freeze up from loss of lubricant through the holes Knifehead had torn in it. Its liquid-circuit neural architecture was misfiring like crazy. (Page 29.)

He had enough fiber-optic and fluid-core cabling to get the bandwidth he needed. (Page 94.)

Newt soldered together a series of leads using the copper contact pins and short fluid-core cables. (Page 96.)

Unfortunately I haven't found anything more about the "muscle strands" and what they might be made of, but I do find it interesting that jaegers apparently have some sort of artificial muscle system going on, especially considering Newt's personnel dossier in the novel mentioned him pioneering research in artificial tissue replication at MIT.

The novelization also mentions that the pilots' drivesuits have a kind of recording device for their experiences while drifting:

This armored outer layer included a Drift recorder that automatically preserved sensory impressions. (Page 16.)

It was connected through a silver half-torus that looked like a travel pillow but was in fact a four-dimensional quantum recorder that would provide a full record of the Drift. (Page 96.)

This is certainly... quite the concept. Perhaps the PPDC has legitimate reasons for looking through the memories and feelings of their pilots, but let's not pretend this doesn't enable horrific levels of privacy invasion.

I must note, though, I haven't seen mention of a recording system anywhere outside of the novel. Travis Beacham doesn't mention it on his blog, and it never comes up in either Tales From Year Zero or Tales From The Drift, both written by him. Whether there just wasn't any occasion to mention it or whether this piece of worldbuilding fell by the wayside in Beacham's mind is currently impossible to determine.

Speaking of the drivesuits, let's talk about those more. The novelization includes a few paragraphs outlining how the pilots' drivesuits work. It's a two-layer deal:

The first layer, the circuity suit, was like a wetsuit threaded with a mesh of synaptic processors. The pattern of processor relays looked like circuitry on the outside of the suit, gleaming gold against its smooth black polymer material. These artificial synapses transmitted commands to the Jaeger’s motor systems as fast as the pilot’s brain could generate them, with lag times close to zero. The synaptic processor array also transmitted pain signals to the pilots when their Jaeger was damaged.

...

The second layer was a sealed polycarbonate shell with full life support and magnetic interfaces at spine, feet, and all major limb joints. It relayed neural signals both incoming and outgoing. This armored outer layer included a Drift recorder that automatically preserved sensory impressions.

...

The outer armored layer of the drivesuit also kept pilots locked into the Conn-Pod’s Pilot Motion Rig, a command platform with geared locks for the Rangers’ boots, cabled extensors that attached to each suit gauntlet, and a full-spectrum neural transference plate, called the feedback cradle, that locked from the Motion Rig to the spine of each Ranger’s suit. At the front of the motion rig stood a command console, but most of a Ranger’s commands were issued either by voice or through interaction with the holographic heads-up display projected into the space in front of the pilots’ faces. (Page 16.)

Now let's talk about the pons system. According to the novelization:

The basics of the Pons were simple. You needed an interface on each end, so neuro signals from the two brains could reach the central bridge. You needed a processor capable of organizing and merging the two sets of signals. You needed an output so the data generated by the Drift could be recorded, monitored, and analyzed. That was it. (Page 96.)

This is pretty consistent with other depictions of the drift, recording device aside. (Again, the 4D quantum recorder never comes up anywhere outside of the novel.)

The development of the pons system as we know it is depicted in Tales From Year Zero, which goes into further detail on what happened after Trespasser's attack on San Francisco. In this comic, a jaeger can be difficult to move if improbably calibrated. Stacker Pentecost testing out a single arm describes the experience as feeling like his hand is stuck in wet concrete; Doctor Caitlin Lightcap explains that it's resistance from the datastream because the interface isn't calibrated to Pentecost's neural profile. (I'm guessing that this is the kind of calibration the film refers to when Tendo Choi calls out Lady Danger's left and right hemispheres being calibrated.)

According to Travis Beacham's blog, solo piloting a jaeger for a short time is possible, though highly risky. While it won't cause lasting damage if the pilot survives the encounter, the neural overload that accumulates the longer a pilot goes on can be deadly. In this post he says:

It won't kill you right away. May take five minutes. May take twenty. No telling. But it gets more difficult the longer you try. And at some point it catches up with you. You won't last a whole fight start-to-finish. Stacker and Raleigh managed to get it done and unplug before hitting that wall.

In this post he says:

It starts off fine, but it's a steep curve from fine to dead. Most people can last five minutes. Far fewer can last thirty. Nobody can last a whole fight.

Next, let's talk about the size and weight of jaegers. Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, & Monsters lists off the sizes and weights of various jaegers. The heights of the jaegers it lists (which, to be clear, are not all of them) range from 224 feet to 280 feet. Their weights range from 1850 tons to 7890 tons. Worth noting, the heaviest jaegers (Romeo Blue and Horizon Brave) were among the Mark-1s, and it seems that these heavy builds didn't last long given that another Mark-1, Coyote Tango, weighed 2312 tons.

And on the topic of jaeger specs, each jaeger in Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, & Monsters is listed with a (fictional) power core and operating system. For example, Crimson Typhoon is powered by the Midnight Orb 9 power core, and runs on the Tri-Sun Plasma Gate OS.

Where the novelization's combat asset dossiers covers the same jaegers, this information lines up - with the exception of Lady Danger. PR:MMM says that Lady Danger's OS is Blue Spark 4.1; the novelization's dossier says it's BLPK 4.1.

PR:MMM also seems to have an incomplete list of the jaegers' armaments; for example, it lists the I-22 Plasmacaster under Weaponry, and "jet kick" under Power Moves. Meanwhile, the novelization presents its armaments thus:

I-22 Plasmacaster Twin Fist gripping claws, left arm only Enhanced balance systems and leg-integral Thrust Kickers Enhanced combat-strike armature on all limbs

The novel's dossiers list between 2-4 features in the jaegers' armaments sections.

Now let's move on to jaeger power cores. As many of you probably already know, Mark-1-3 jaegers were outfitted with nuclear power cores. However, this posed a risk of cancer for pilots, especially during the early days. To combat this, pilots were given the (fictional) anti-radiation drug, Metharocin. (We see Stacker Pentecost take Metharocin in the film.)

The Mark-4s and beyond were fitted with alternative fuel sources, although their exact nature isn't always clear. Striker Eureka's XIG supercell chamber implies some sort of giant cell batteries, but it's a little harder to guess what Crimson Typhoon's Midnight Orb 9 might be, aside from round.

Back on the topic of nuclear cores, though, the novelization contains a little paragraph about the inventor of Lady Danger's power core, which I found entertaining:

The old nuclear vortex turbine lifted away from the reactor housing. The reactor itself was a proprietary design, brainchild of an engineer who left Westinghouse when they wouldn’t let him use his lab to explore portable nuclear miniaturization tech. He’d landed with one of the contractors the PPDC brought in at its founding, and his small reactors powered many of the first three generations of Jaegers. (Page 182.)

Like... I have literally just met this character, and I love him. I want him to meet Newt Geiszler, you know? >:3

Apparently, escape pods were a new feature to Mark-3 jaegers. Text in the novelization says, "New to the Mark III is an automated escape-pod system capable of ejecting each Ranger individually." (Page 240.)

Finally, jaegers were always meant to be more than just machines. Their designs and movements were meant to convey personality and character. Pacific Rim: Man, Machines, & Monsters says:

Del Toro insisted the Jaegers be characters in and of themselves, not simply giant versions of their pilots. Del Toro told his designers, "It should be as painful for you to see a Jaeger get injured as it is for you to see the pilot [get hurt.]" (Page 56.)

Their weathered skins are inspired by combat-worn vehicles from the Iraq War and World War II battleships and bombers. They look believable and their design echoes human anatomy, but only to a point. "At the end of the day, what you want is for them to look cool," says Francisco Ruiz Velasco. "It's a summer movie, so you want to see some eye candy." Del Toro replies, "I, however, believe in 'eye protein,' which is high-end design with a high narrative content." (Page 57.)

THE JAEGER FROM DOWN UNDER is the only Mark 5, the most modern and best all-around athlete of the Jaegers. He's also the most brutal of the Jaeger force. Del Toro calls him "sort of brawler, like a bar fighter." (Page 64.)

And that is about all the info I could scrounge up and summarize in a post. I think there's a lot of interesting stuff here - like, I feel that the liquid circuit and muscle tissue stuff gives jaegers an eerily organic quality that could be played for some pretty interesting angles. And I also find it interesting that jaegers were meant to embody their own sort of character and personality, rather than just being simple combat machines or extensions of their pilots - it's a great example of a piece of media choosing thematic correctness over technical correctness, which when you get right down to it, is sort of what Pacific Rim is really all about.

#pacific rim #pacific rim 2013 #jaegers #jaeger #pacific rim lore

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yourlocalmechanism-dr-carmilla · 2 months ago

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FELLOW THE MECHANISMS ARTISTS (and inspectors second class)

i am unable to draw üroeprly so I propose this:

THE MECHANISMS BIT DRESSED UP AND THE CLOTHES MATCH EVERY ALBUM-

Once upon a time in space - medieval clothing mixed with sco fi elements, armour and chains and cybernetic elements. Colours: red, white, golden, black, silver, dark blue, dark green and dark red

Ulysses dies at dawn- mafia/noir movie type attire, suits and elegant gowns, mixed with vintage technology (cables, steel and buttons, not futuristic exavtly) Colours: black, dark blue, silver, all shades of grey, dark red (but only hints of it), beige and sandy tones, hints of white

High noon over camelot- cowboy attire basically cattlepunk (steampunk plus cowboy aesthetic), give everyone cowboy hats and bandanas, colours: black, all shades of brown, red, golden, copper, sand coloured, dark red, orange, yellow, the colour of whiskey (i canmot describe.it)

The bifrost incident: norse mythology inspired, lots of accessoires ESPECIALLY hair decorations-pearls and beads in the hair, fake hair strandes, hair clips, etc. Skirts for men >:), intricate patterns, colours: black, purple, green, soft orange, rainbow colours, bright colours liek green and blue and yellow, abit of grey, soft yellow, red, silver, golden, abit lf brown

Yeah ^^

And either you dress them up fitting for their roles or disregard the roles :)

Anyways, i hope i can inspire, i mean i BET my idea isnt new so

#the mechanisms

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sirfrogsworth · 1 year ago

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Thankfully this post was a joke. He is not going to put a power cable on a TV that costs less than the actual cable. But I had to look up the product page and see what kind of nonsense AudioQuest came up with for this one. I've already checked out their $12,000 power cable, so I'm curious how their "budget" $430 version works.

-----------------------------

Low-Distortion 3-Pole Power Cable

Perfect-Surface Copper (PSC) with Silver-Plated Drain Wires

Quiet Background and Minimal Active-Circuit Misbehavior Due to RF/ND-Tech (US Patent # 8,988,168) & Direction-Controlled Conductors and Shields

ZERO (No) Characteristic Impedance (Uncompressed Current Transfer)

THE CHALLENGE: No matter how perfect an AC power source, distortion is added within any AC cable. Even the most sophisticated filters and power supplies cannot eliminate this Transient Intermodulation Distortion (TIM) as the induced RF noise modulates the low-level audio/video signal.

THE SOLUTION: NRG-Z3 cables use direction-controlled Perfect-Surface Copper (PSC) strands in a 7-strand Semi-Solid Concentric conductor arrangement in which strands are packed more tightly and never change position within the bundle. This construction significantly reduces strand interaction distortion. The extremely pure and smooth-surface PSC conductors minimize distortion caused by grain boundaries which exist in any metal conductor.

NRG-Z3’s patented RF/ND-Tech and direction-controlled Silver-Plated shield conductors efficiently drain RF noise from the line and neutral shields to ground via the third “ground” pin. In addition. NRG-Z3’s common-mode phase-cancelling array provides additional differential linear filtering. The net result is powerful, dynamic and immersive!

--------------------

Okay, Star Trek needs to hire these people to write their technobabble. This is next level "reverse the polarity" nonsense.

Gotta get that PSC to control the TIM or else you'll be SOL trying to minimize that grain boundary distortion. The phase-cancelling array is really the star of this cable though. Whenever I hear differential linear filtering, I'm just like, "THIS IS NOT DYNAMIC AND IMMERSIVE ENOUGH!"

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funnysideblog · 8 months ago

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Minos/v2 1shot (background minophus)

> MINOS? WHAT IS LOVE LIKE?

V2 asked. Head tilting to a precise angle as it looked at him from its place on his lap.

Minos nodded along, continuing braiding a collection of cables. He paused before speaking. Not able to tell if v2 was going to continue.

> MY KIND WAS NEVER PROGRAMMED FOR IT

"Thy job was intended to be thee only capabilities?" Minos asked for clarification. Stroking v2's body, trying to offer some comfort to the machine.

> TRUE. I WAS ONLY PROVIDED WITH WHAT I NEEDED TO COMPLETE MY TASKS. I FAILED.

"Thee surpassed them."

> CORRECT. YET IT IS AN ERROR WITHIN ME REGARDLESS.

"V2 is not wrong to feel. Even if thee were not told how to."

He had finished his creation. Wires from other machines, stripped of their protective coatings and twisted into intricate patterns. He slipped it around v2's wrist. Intertwining his fingers with the robot's claws. A gift. A band formed of gold, silver and copper strands they had scavenged.

V2 watched with great curiosity. It was art. It was a gift. He had made it for it. While it served no purpose. It was made especially for it. Not as a nessecity or to be useful. Because Minos wanted to. It was glad it had updated its optics, it was able to focus on the detail of his work. To truly appreciate the work that had gone into the useless object.

It understood.

> YOU LOVE SISYPHUS?

It asked again

"As i love you."

V2 leant its body closer to his. It had sat and studied them a lot recently. Gathering data. Watching Sisyphus braid his hair. The way they dressed eachother, despite it being more functional for them to do it themselves. How Minos gifted him with jewels and precious metals, despite how much they both already had. It had watched them do more than that.

It was interesting to observe. Exchanges such at these were rare. Unfamiliar. its world tainted by violence and war. Isolation and clinical study.

It had studied minos days ago. Watching him sit and weave. Threading golden decorations and chains, sorting through all kinds of stone it had never seen before. Minos even let it have a go carving shapes into it.

It had taken the man days, but Minos had fashioned them into charms and bangles, hairpieces and rings, and told it all about how Sisyphus would love them.

It was far from an optimal use of resources and energy. But Minos did not seem to mind, because he liked Sisyphus.

V2 thought back to itself, twisting its bracelet. They were not the only ones wasting resources for such reasons. Perhaps it already knew why.

#ultrakill

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springfallendeer · 10 months ago

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Frayed Wires

A wireplay fic involving my oc Ayala and @twistedviper's OC "Jho", set in the Fazbear universe (as well as an unspecified AU).

fic includes wireplay as well as human on animatronic intercourse, and is over 8k words (ergo it is a bit of a read).

This was bad.

He had just charged. As in he had just now woken up from charging. But for some reason, he could barely move.

His whole body felt heavy, and sluggish. Despite being fully charged, the stored energy was struggling to move throughout his body.

Every minor movement felt forced. Merely flexing his fingers required a lot of concentration. Not because he was in decline cognitively; every message that needed to be relayed was being relayed just as quickly as before. The problem was that his body had suddenly lost the ability to respond accordingly; and as reluctant as he was to admit it, he knew exactly what the problem was.

He was in dire need of maintenance. The wires and cables that kept his body functional had finally been worn to the brink of breaking. He was effectively pulling energy through a few hair-thin copper strands, which were at risk of snapping from the force of the strained electrical current.

His wires had reached the point where the slightest twist or bend could completely ruin them. No amount of electrical tape or jerry-rigging the individual cables could keep him functional in the long run.

Something needed to be replaced.

Given how long it had been since he had last been repaired... Chances were that quite a lot of something needed to be replaced. Which made it all the more terrifying for him to have to reach out in search of aid.

No one liked being subjected to these invasive procedures. Humans certainly didn’t. And they were often unconscious throughout their operations.

Oftentimes, the animatronics were given no such luxury. They remained somewhat active throughout most repairs, just to assure that everything was going smoothly.

The process was unpleasant and far from perfect. There had been many incidents in the past where human and animatronic alike had been left worse for wear, due to a mishap. Those unpleasant mishaps were exactly why he had gone out of his way to avoid maintenance for so long.

But now, he had no choice but to seek repairs. Failure to do so now could and likely would lead to him suffering lethal malfunctions. If he didn’t get fixed now, then he would undoubtedly wind up being decommissioned. And if that happened, then the best case scenario was that he would simply turn off and never come back on.

Worst case scenario? He would wind up trapped beneath the plex, conscious and barely functional. Doomed to waste away into nothing, surrounded by nothing but the rusting remains countless other decommissioned animatronics.

Animatronic Hell is what that fate would be. The idea of it managed to terrify him more than the idea of being sent to parts and services.

But that did not mean that he would simply bow his head and allow just anyone to work on him.

Making the arrangements proved incredibly difficult, given his limited mobility. More so, because the issues also affected his ability to speak. So little power could be pushed through his body that even his voice box struggled to emit the words that he wished to say. The fact that his desired help decided to seek him out became less the result of having been asked, and more the result of her immediate concern over his obvious malfunctions. Which only solidified the idea that he could trust her with this important task.

Waiting for her to arrive was still unpleasant and anxiety inducing. But the idea of having someone by his side who cared about his well being brought him immense comfort.

When help arrived, most of his anxiety just... Washed away.

The concern on her face. The hushed, worried tone of her voice. The gentle way that she brought her hands up to cradle his cheeks as he struggled to speak. Everything mixed together to solidify the fact that she meant him no harm, and that she would do everything in her power to help him.

Were he capable of it, he would have cried. Her touch alone brought so much comfort. Her presence lifted a weight from his shoulders that almost made him believe that it was easier for him to move.

It wasn’t. But it was nice to feel less restrained, even if it was only an illusion.

“Jho, what happened?!...” The woman asked. Her hushed, gentle voice kept him grounded as he attempted to force the words from his voice box.

For a while, his voice box could do nothing but produce static. His voice struggled to even resonate through the unappealing sound. But eventually, “Wires” could be heard through the distorted sounds.

“Wires?...” She repeated in response. He could tell by her tone that she was confused. But he couldn’t explain. Try as he might, his voice just couldn’t do for him what he needed it to do.

All that he could really do was glance to the side past her to stare at a specific shelf. There was a book there. An old, worn out book that contained all the necessary blueprints and instructions on how to repair him.

She would need to go and get the supplies from parts in services, because he did not have them. Because he could hardly move, there would be no getting him to walk there, and she certainly lacked the strength to move him.

With her focus on him, it took time for her to figure out that he was trying to guide her. He tried to say “Book”. He tried many, many times. But the whisper of his voice could not be heard through the static.

Bless her heart. She did her best to listen. She brought her head right to the source of the static, and ignored the unpleasant sound as it blared in her ear. But for all the effort she put into listening, all she really managed to do was give herself a headache.

For as frustrated as the inability to communicate made her, it was obvious that she just wanted to help. While her eyes watered and she grew restless out of worry, she never once snapped at him.

This does not mean that she never snapped. Far from it. Jho was helpless to do much more than anxiously sit and watch as the poor woman worked herself up into a bit of a frenzy out of panic. She cursed under her breath. She fidgeted in place and even stomped her foot in frustration.

He watched as her chest heaved faintly from what must have been a developing panic attack. He listened to the sound of her blowing air through her mouth in long, slow breaths as she attempted to ease away the panic. He watched her comb her fingers through her hair in an attempt to calm herself.

It made him feel guilty, knowing that he was the reason that she had fallen into this state of distress. The inability to actually comfort her and apologize made him feel worse.

Honestly, it was a stroke of blind luck that she took interest in the shelf.

As she paced, she glanced around the room. Likely in an attempt to calm herself, or find something, anything, that could be of help.

Inevitably, she spotted the shelf. He watched as she glanced at it, then locked eyes with her as she glanced back at him.

He watched the theoretical gears in her head turn as she began to speculate whether or not he was staring at the shelf.

Eventually she paused, took one last deep breath, and made her way over to the shelf.

He watched as she began to rummage through it. As he did, he found himself grateful for the fact that he had so few personal belongings. Anything that was not obviously a tool or a book was ignored. Which meant that it did not take long at all for her to happen upon the old book that he needed her to find.

She picked it up, likely drawn to the cover. It depicted him. Or rather, it depicted animatronics of his type. He watched as she opened it and skimmed multiple pages.

The instant that she realized that she was holding the key to aiding him, she closed the book and turned to face him.

“Jho, sweetie. Stay right there. Don’t move. I’ll be right back, I just need to go and get some things.” She stated.

He was so relieved that he almost rolled his eyes in response. Not because he was annoyed, but because of the redundancy of her statements.

He could not move. There wasn’t a chance of him getting to the door, yet alone making it out of the room.

Then again... It was obvious that she was just trying to communicate with him. She was just making sure that he knew what she was doing. The last thing that she wanted was to risk him misunderstanding her actions.

Imagine if she had just left without saying anything, and he had interpreted it as abandonment in his time of need? Best case scenario, he would have spent some time alone with intrusive thoughts.

Worst case scenario? He would have done exactly what she did not want him to do. He would have tried to get up. Which could have ended poorly.

He cannot even verify to her that he understands what she has asked of him. So he can only imagine how terrified she must be when she turns and leaves. Because she does not know for certain if he can even understand her.

She doesn’t know how extensive the damage is, or if he even recognizes her in his damaged state. She just has to hope that he does, and trust that he can listen when she leaves.

Once she is gone, he is naturally alone. Trapped in his room and unable to do more than glance around the room as he anxiously awaits her return. All the while aware of the fact that, if anyone or anything was to seek him out with intent on doing him harm, he could do nothing to defend himself.

That alone was enough to send him into a mental turmoil.

No one liked the idea of being helpless. As someone who had already experienced utter helplessness more than once in the past, he was all too familiar with it.

The slightest sound, imagined or otherwise, was almost enough to make him jump with unease.

He was alone. Unable to move. Reliant on Ayala’s speed and determination to help him. At the complete and utter mercy of anyone or anything that might happen across him while she was away.

He hated it. He hated being so helpless and afraid.

It was such a relief when she finally returned. He had no idea how long she was actually away for, but given the amount of supplies that she had brought along, it must have been a while. It appeared as though she has grabbed anything and everything as recommended by the book, just because she did not know what the exact problem was.

“I’m back!... I’m back.” The woman exclaims as she bursts back into the room. She is quick to calm herself once she arrives to find the animatronic still awake and... About as functional as before.

She then drags the heavy cart of supplies over to where he sits, so that she can get started on repairing him.

“A-alright, I uh... I’m gonna need to open you up, alright? I’ve grabbed everything we should need. So... Hopefully I won’t have to bring you up to parts and services.” She murmured as she approached.

While he could not relay his understanding to her, he did appreciate that she was trying to communicate with him. She clearly understood how uncomfortable this situation was for him, and so she was making an attempt at easing away his discomfort. She was just trying to help.

He trusted her to help him. He just wished that he could make it clear that he did. But for the time being, all that he could do was sit and wait for her to patch up the issue.

He doesn’t like not being able to see what she’s doing. Nor is he a fan of not being able to walk her through what needs to be done.

But still, he does trust her. She is a smart woman. Compassionate. One who has gone out of her wait to get trained on animatronic care, just so that she could be of use during emergencies such as this.

She has helped others in the past. There is no doubt in his troubled mind that she can help him now.

Still. He is anxious. He cannot help but be anxious.

Especially when he feels the woman press her fingers down on the specific pressure points around his temple, triggering the release of the plate that covers the back of his head.

The brief silence proves palpable. He can tell based off of it that she is... Appalled, by the state of him. Disturbed and overwhelmed by how years of abuse and neglect have left him completely and utterly broken, inside and out.

He feels how her hands tremble as they brush against the open edges of his metal skull.

As much as he wants too, he cannot even offer a reassuring word.

It doesn’t hurt. At least not the same way that it once did. He has long since grown accustomed to the constant discomfort of his body as it slowly falls apart on the inside. So much so that he can no longer remember a time where something inside of him did not feel... Off.

He can hear her when she takes a long, deep breath.

Then he finds himself startled by the sound and feel of air as it blows into his open skull.

Canned air, specifically. He can hear the familiar hiss as it escapes the can.

But still, the unexpected sensation startled him. He had only really anticipated the feeling of wires being disconnected so that they could be replaced.

His anxiety only increases when, after a few seconds of being aired out, he hears the woman start to cough.

Shortly after which, he sees a cloud of dust particles and mystery fibers start to drift into the air in front of him.

No wonder the poor girl was coughing. With the amount of dust being blown out of him, it would have taken a miracle for her to have been able to breathe at all.

Despite being the one with his head opened up and in the process of being cleaned, he cannot help but worry about her.

She should have a mask on. She should have grabbed any and all PPE that was at her disposal, for her own sake.

If anything inside of him breaks, it can be repaired. But fixing an issue inside of her body was not nearly as simple, and somehow, it would cost more than repairing him.

He would be gently scolding her for being so foolish, once his voice was back in working order. She should know better than to put her own health at risk for his sake. Because truly, she was irreplaceable. He would not be happy if she went and hurt herself for his sake.

Eventually, the canned air either runs out. That, or it was put away once the debris had been thoroughly cleaned out.

The woman takes her time once she actually starts to deal with his damaged wires. He can feel as she lightly pinches each individual wire between her fingers to follow them to their connection point. Probably so that she can keep track of which wire leads where, so as to keep from damaging him further.

The big issue is that his wires are rather... Disorganized. Previous technicians failed to keep him properly maintained, and so there is no doubt in his mind that all of the wires in his head have transformed into tangled mass.

The patience that the woman shows in carefully sorting through the wires puts him more at ease. It is a relief to learn that she will not just pick a random wire and tug it haphazardly out of place.

He can feel everything that is done. Every touch, every tug, and every disconnect; on top of the ensuing consequences of a disconnected wire.

Previous technicians never bothered to take his pain into account when working on him.

It was honestly touching to be shown so much care now. Soft touches like the ones he was being given now were few and far between for the animatronics. Especially during times of maintenance.

One by one, the damaged wires are disconnected so that they can be untangled, removed, and replaced.

With each disconnection, some part of him is momentarily taken out of commission. His limbs will lock up, or go limp. He loses the ability to see, or to hear, or even to feel. His voicebox is shut off entirely with one disconnection.

Previously, he would have been distressed each time one of his senses or abilities was taken away from him. But the gentleness of the woman’s actions and her slow, calculated efforts make the experience a lot less stressful than those prior.

She only takes one thing from him at a time, so long as she can manage. He can feel how she carefully arranges the wires and secures them so that they will not get tangled as easily in the future.

Bit by bit, she repairs him.

His eyes flicker off with the disconnection of a damaged wire. She goes through the process of working a replacement into place, and then his vision is restored. The wire is secured, and then she moves on to the next one.

Gradually, he regains the ability to move. He occupies himself by testing his mobility while she fixes him up. He lifts and flexes his fingers. He stretches his jaw, and works his tongue to assure that all is in order.

Eventually, he can feel his voicebox come back into working order.

“Ay-a-la?...” His voice croaked as he attempted to say the woman’s name. As broken as the words sounded, he at least confirmed that he could speak again. There was no more static. Each syllable could be heard loud and clear. It would just take some time for everything to be recalibrated through use.

He can feel her jump somewhat in response to his voice. Most likely because she had become so engrossed in her work that she failed to anticipate that he would inevitably speak.

“Yes?” She quietly replied.

He could feel her hands as they continued to work. She was very nearly done replacing all of the damaged wires in his head. Soo, the procedure would be over and he would be back in top shape. He just needed to be patient for a while longer.

“... Are you al-right?” He asked.

For a split second, he can feel how her fingers falter as they follow a wire.

“I’m fine. Just... Trying to concentrate.” She eventually replied.

“You were cough-ing...” Jho muttered in turn. He can tell that she is intentionally being vague with her response. She knows why he had asked her if she was alright. She just chose to interpret it as him asking her because she was being uncomfortably quiet.

“You were really dusty.” She responded.

At last, she finishes working on him. Or at least she finishes working on the wires in his head. After what she’s seen, she fully intends on opening up his torso to see how bad the poor bot is internally.

Jho remains quiet for a moment as she carefully closes the back of his head. He also makes sure to hold nice and still, just to make it easier for her to finish up.

“... I uh... I-I have not been checked in quite some time.” He awkwardly states. Now that the stress and anxiety of the moment had passed, he was actually quite embarrassed. She had just seen him at his most vulnerable. She had been made witness to the horrible reality of his existence.

Broken and dirty.

He struggles to find the will to turn and look her in the face once she’s got him closed up.

He also flinches somewhat when he feels damp cloth being rubbed against his body. Mostly because it is cold, but also because of how awkward he feels after having been seen in this state.

He remains quiet as the woman cleans him up.

For as awkward as he feels... It also feels nice, being properly maintained. Ayala is gentle with him even as she wipes the dust and debris from his neck and shoulders. The animatronic even finds himself leaning somewhat into her touch when she brings the cloth up to clean around his head and face.

What a surprisingly relaxing sensation. He never found this much comfort in cleaning himself off.

“Must feel a lot better now. Having all the gunk cleared out.” Ayala hums. She brings the cloth around to clean under his jaw, just to be thorough. He finds himself arching his head back to give her more room, unintentionally leaning back to rest his head on her shoulder as he does.

The contact is only maintained for a few seconds. But it does work to ease away the lingering tension.

“Much better.” He sighs.

He then finds himself glancing over his shoulder as the woman puts her hand on top of it.

“I’d like to have a look in the front.” Ayaka asks.

After having seen how horrible of a state he has fallen into just in terms of his head, she could only imagine how bad the other access point might be.

“... If you wish.” Jho replies.

He then shifts somewhat so that he can awkwardly lay himself back atop the table.

While he does not personally believe that he is in any further need of assistance, he certainly won’t be turning the woman away. She has been a great help to him so far, and a great comfort to him in his time of vulnerability. If there was anyone that he would trust to work on him further, then it would be her. And he would rather not wake up tomorrow to find fresh problems brought on by lack of care.

The woman made her way around to stand beside him once he was comfortable. The book came with her. She had already turned it to the needed page, detailing the inner workings of his torso.

She finds the pressure points to unlock the latch, and she opens him up.

This time around, the poor animatronic can experience the full embarrassment that comes with having the woman see the poor state of his body. Because just like her, he can see how horrible the interior of his torso looks.

Layers of thick dust and grime cling to the wires haphazardly strewn throughout his body. Frayed rubber that was meant to cover said wires sit in a tangled mess of filth. She could run her finger through it and then turn around to write on the wall, and the words would stand out clear as day.

“... Jho. I love you. But how the fuck do you still work?” Ayala comments after a long, almost stunned silence. She is legitimately surprised seeing just how... Filthy and damaged, the animatronic is on the inside. And baffled by the fact that he is still functional, despite it all.

“Uh.... I’m built different?” Jho replies, admittedly trying to make a joke to ease away the awkward tension. He could tell that Ayala wasn’t trying to judge him. She understood why it was that he had fallen into such a state of disrepair. It wasn’t as though Fazbear wanted to spend the time or money to fix something if it did not appear to be broken. And as it were, he had been able to perform his duties just fine up until now. He had also been more than happy to just let himself steadily grow worse as he went out of his way to avoid being sent to parts and services.

She understood his situation. But that absolutely did not mean that she had to be happy seeing him in such a horrible state. She wanted nothing but for him to be happy and comfortable. And it was obvious that she was now questioning just how happy and comfortable he could have possibly been while in such a horrible state.

“You must be...” The woman replied, before she began to reach across his chest.

The animatronic is quick to grab her arm. He can tell that she is trying to retrieve another can of compressed air. After her earlier coughing fit, he absolutely will not allow her to put her health at risk. Especially not for him.

“Mask.” He calmly, but sternly states, prompting the woman to roll her eyes a bit. But she does not argue. Nor does she ignore what he’s asked of her. She simply steps away from him once he lets go of his arm, and she finds a bandanna that she can wrap around her face to keep the dust out of her lungs.

Once her health is secured, he allows her to do what needs to be done.

Ayala gets started on blowing the dust and grime out of his torso. It flies out of him in a thick cloud, accompanied by clumps of debris that drift high into the air, before dropping heavily onto the floor.

It is shameful. A little embarrassing. But admittedly, it tickles a bit this time. To the point that he cannot help but squirm faintly as a little giggle escapes him.

“Jho~” Ayala lightly scolds him, though the squinting in the corners of her eyes make it clear that she is smiling underneath her bandanna. She finds his squirming amusing and can tell that he isn’t in any pain. But she still needs him to hold still so that she can work. There’s a lot of dust and she might need to go through extra canned air if he moves around too much.

“Sorry~ Sorry. It tickles~” Jho chuckles in turn, smiling up at the woman.

Honestly, this was the most pleasant that maintenance had ever been for him. He was nice and relaxed. There wasn’t any obvious discomfort. At least not any that hadn’t been there since before the repairs started. He certainly couldn’t recall a time in the past where he had laughed in the middle of being fixed up.

It was nice, not needing to be afraid. He might have to ask the woman to be the one to do repairs on him in the future, seeing as she had done such a wonderful job so far.

Eventually the dust is cleared out and the damage beneath is fully revealed. As expected, there are a lot of exposed wires. There are also a lot of frayed wires with little strands of sharp metal poking out in every which direction.

Completely unprompted, Ayala takes the time to put on some rubber gloves. Two pairs, to be specific. To reduce the likelihood of being given a jolt, but also to make it less likely that she would jab herself in the finger on one of the frayed wires.

The animatronic is glad that she goes out of her way to do this. He absolutely would have insisted on her doing so if she hadn’t decided to do it on her own. So it made him happy, seeing her make sure that she wouldn’t needlessly get hurt.

Once she’s properly gloved up, Ayala gets started on the actual repairs.

Just as before, she starts by following a singular wire so that she can determine where it leads. The connection points determine its purpose and how it is supposed to be arranged inside of him. She is careful and precise with her movements, intent on making the process as painless as it can possibly be for him.

Oddly... This is when the animatronic starts to feel strange.

Each gentle tug of a wire stirs something within him. Something familiar, and yet so incredibly foreign, given the circumstances.

It starts with a tingle.

Not in the typical unpleasant “I can’t fully feel my limb and yet sensations are being amplified” manner, that he usually associated with repairs. But in the... “I am being given sexual stimulus” sort of way, much to his disbelief.

At first, he legitimately has to convince himself that he is imagining things. Because there is no possible reason for this situation to be arousing him.

It is such an abnormal reaction that he has to clench his jaw and grip the sides of the table in order to keep from squirming. Particularly when the sensation escalates from a slight tingle to jolt.

A strong, powerful jolt not unlike the sensation of having his genitals stimulated. One that somehow is creating the illusion that all of those erogenous zones in his pelvic region are being given attention at the same time, despite the reality being that nothing is touching him at all.

He cannot help the faint whimper that escapes him as the woman works.

At first, she does not appear to notice it, because she is so engrossed in her work that she is mentally tuning out the quieter sounds of the room.

As a result, she remains oblivious to the effects that her actions are having on his body.

As she carefully works a cable out of a connection point, he clenches his fingers around the edges of the table.

When she runs her fingers along an individual cable to separate it from the clustered mess in his torso, it sends pleasant jolts coursing through him. Specifically through his pelvic region, bringing him to the point of near orgasm each time.

The jolts only get more intense when she installs a replacement cable. To the point that he knows that, if he were capable of producing his own lubricant, the table would be completely and utterly soaked between his legs.

The sensations only grow more intense the longer that she works. And it would seem that Ayala cannot help but take her sweet, sweet time.

She’s no perfectionist. At least not with matters more trivial, like sweeping or cooking. But right now, when she’s working on him? She is determined to do everything in her power to get the job done correctly.

And it is slowly driving him mad.

She’s not even halfway done by the time his voice escalates in volume. Enough so that she inevitably takes notice of the unexpected sound that had escaped him.

Her hands falter and her gaze moves from his chest compartment to his face.

He locks eyes with her. Half lidded and desperate. All the while he struggled to keep still, because her hands are still inside of him, and her fingers are still lightly clasped around a wire.

“... Does it hurt?” Ayala quietly asks. She sounds concerned, as she rightly ought to be. But she also sounds confused. Which she also has the right to be, given the unusual way that Jho is behaving.

She could not tell if the noise that escaped him was one of pain or of... Something else. But she naturally does not want to continue as she is if she is somehow hurting the animatronic. Surely there are ways for her to finish without it needing to be unpleasant.

“N-no!...” Jho groans in response.

Fuck. He was so close. If she had removed one more wire, he probably would have made a fresh mess. One that would be a little more difficult to clean up than the dust all over the floor.

A barely audible whimper escapes him as the woman’s hands shift ever so slightly inside of him. Another faint jolt rolled through him in response, adding to the unintended torture of the circumstances.

“Are you sure?... I can stop for now if you need a break.” She replies. Obviously she is starting to feel uneasy, given his strange reactions to the stimulation.

She even goes so far as to release the wire so that she can withdraw her hands.

Never before has Jho reached out to grab someone with such speed. The movement would not even properly appear on film, if the scene were to have been recorded.

“No!” He exclaims, desperation in his voice as he prevents the confused and mildly startled woman. Thankfully he realizes right away that he has come on too strong, and so he releases her from his trembling hands. “I-I’m sorry, I just... Please. Please, don’t stop.” He groans, his voice quickly transforming into a pathetic, pleading whimper as he speaks.

Regardless of the amount of shame he feels for behaving in such a way, he cannot help but beg her to keep going.

For a moment, Ayala seems hesitant. Unsure of whether or not she should comply with what he’s asked of her. But she does inevitably place her hands back inside of him so that she can resume her work.

The difference now is that she has been made acutely aware of his every reaction to what she is doing.

Every groan. Every minor twitch or tremble in response to having his wires touched, removed, and replaced. She takes notice of it, and it slows her progress even more. Thus this sweet, delicious torture is drawn out even more as the animatronic lays helplessly atop the table.

Inevitably, as Ayala replaces one of the few remaining wires, Jho reaches orgasm. And it is the most intense orgasm that he has ever experienced in his life. The sort which makes his whole body briefly spasm, as if suffering from an electrical discharge.

The woman rightly pulls her hands out of his chest as he rides out his orgasm. The 3 in 1 sort of ecstasy that cannot be described in any way, outside of complete and utter euphoria.

It is wild, intense, and bewildering in nature. Never would he have anticipated that he could achieve orgasm without being given some sort of overt sexual stimulation. Either by having his parts touched, or by getting lost in the sensation of touching someone else.

Maintenance was an entirely non-sexual situation. One that, up until now, he had only ever associated with pain and stress. Something distressing and traumatic. Not erotic and intimate, like it has so unexpectedly become.

His fans kick on in response to the intensity of his orgasm, flooding his open torso with a rush of fresh air in an attempt to better help him cool down before he can overheat.

By then, the remnants of his mind slowly flicker back into reality and take notice of the fact that Ayala is staring at him. Her flushed face and wide eyes make it clear that she has finally been made fully aware of what her actions have brought about. She is very obviously flustered, and a little unsure as to how she should react. Rightly so! Jho himself wasn’t even sure what to make of this bizarre situation, despite being the one that had just ejaculated in response to having his wires pulled.

“Uhm... Are-... Are we good, bud? All done with... Whatever the fuck that was?” Ayala squeaks out, her voice quiet and awkward due to how flustered she has become. It is the same tone that she develops when caught off guard in the midst of a sexual situation. The sort of tone that reads as “I don’t know what just happened, and I need a minute to figure out if I was into it”.

The animatronic lets out an awkward chuckle in response. One that admittedly sounds like more of a pathetic, desperate whine.

“Y-yes.” Jho replies, his voice admittedly glitching out somewhat due to the lingering effects of orgasm. He quickly does what he can to settle himself back down, so that the woman can finish replacing the few remaining wires.

Ayala, meanwhile, needs a few moments to get her mind where she needs it. She is very clearly a bit bewildered by what just happened. Not disgusted, mind you. Just obviously caught off guard by this unexpected turn of events.

Within a couple of minutes, she is fine to pick up where she left off.

All that she needs to do now is replace the few remaining wires, and then attach the proper restraints to keep them secure and organized.

It is obvious that she’s a little distracted, though. For as gentle and precise as her touch remains, there is the faintest tremble in her hands. A slight hesitation in her every touch. Shy and awkward from the inexperience, but eager to get the job done, and to get it done well.

Having already had his otherworldly orgasm, Jho is able to hold relatively still for her. Though now that she is aware of how aroused this situation has made him, he has no intention of hiding the fact that her efforts are affecting him.

“I am going to ravish you.” He murmurs as he watches her work, his voice deeper and more hungry than it has ever been before. To which he hears her squeak out a flustered “Oh?!” in response.

The pleasant jolts resume as she finishes up with her task. Not because of her tugging at his wires; though that still plays a part; but because he is able to clearly see the tremble of anticipation that rolls through her in response to his promise.

She has thoroughly but unintentionally gotten under his metaphorical skin, and he has every intention to repay her in kind.

Not just to pay her for that delightful orgasm that she gave him, but to thank her for the tender love and care that she has shown him throughout what would otherwise have been a nerve-wracking experience.

Eventually, the maintenance reaches its conclusion and she closes him up with gentle, trembling hands. At which point he sits himself back up and impulsively reaches for her, eager to savor the delights of her soft, human body.

He can hear her breath hitch in her throat as he tugs her closer for a kiss. Slow, and intimate.

He keeps his eyes open and locked on her expression as his mouth dances against hers.

She’s so cute when she gets flustered. So adorable and bashful when he lightly drags the tip of his tongue against hers. Instinctively shy and too embarrassed to hold his gaze, despite being unable to keep from locking eyes with him every so often. Which only manages to rile him up further.

He breaks the kiss to taste her skin.

His tongue lightly glides along her cheek, towards her ear. He knows that her ears are sensitive. So he takes a moment to indulge by gently licking the shell of her ear, before carefully nibbling on the lobe.

She trembles in response. Not from fear, but from an inability to keep still as his antics rile her up in turn.

Once her ear has been left damp and pink from the stimulation, he moves downwards to her neck. He wraps his arms around her tighter as he practically creates a collar with his tongue.

Her skin is so soft and delicate. Especially when compared to his body. He adores how malleable it is.

The faintest of growls escapes him as he mouths her neck.

Not a threatening growl. But a growl of arousal in response to movement. He can feel her subconsciously grinding herself against him as he decorates her neck in marks of his affection.

He can’t tell if she’s wet, or if the ejaculate from his earlier orgasm is just adding to the sensation.

Either way, her clothing has become something of an annoyance. He wants to feel her skin. He wants to spoil and treasure her body just as she did with him throughout his maintenance.

These clothes need to go. And they need to change locations. He won’t be laying her down on this dusty table.

“Jho!?” A quiet, startled squeak of his name escapes her as he unexpectedly adjusts his arms to hold her against him while he stands.

He comforts her with an affectionate nuzzle as he makes a beeline towards his personal workbench.

It is a bit cluttered, but he otherwise keeps it nice and clean. There will be more than enough room for him to sit her down and worship her the way that she deserves.

She squeaks again as he sets her down.

The surface of the workbench is cold and startling against her bare rump. He has wasted no time in working her out of these annoying clothes as he places her upon her temporary throne.

Startled as she is, she clearly understands the game plan.

As he works her pants and underwear down her legs, she responds in kind by working herself out of her shirt and bra.

He gently scrapes his teeth against the skin of her knee as he kneels to get her fully freed of her clothing. In his haste, he had nearly forgotten about her shoes. But he takes the time to properly untie the laces so that he can slide them off, and he stuffs her socks inside of each shoe so that they cannot lose them in the chaos.

Once her lower half is bare, he cannot help but take a moment to admire her legs.

Slender and soft. Her thighs have a fair amount of meat to them, compared to the rest of her. He gently works his way between her legs and encourages her to squeeze his head between them. Just enough for her thighs to flatten against his metal cheeks.

He loves the way she feels.

Once he is done indulging in the feel and weight of her thighs, he coaxes her legs apart so that he can better indulge in another of his favorite pleasures.

She’s already nice and wet. Her skin is nicely flushed with arousal.

Beautiful. But he can make it more so.

He makes a show of getting ready. She isn’t afraid of his dangerous looking maw, and so he takes advantage of the fact to better arouse her. He opens wide and allows his tongue to snake out of his mouth, all the while maintaining eye contact.

He can feel her tremble with anticipation.

She leans back somewhat and spreads her legs further for him, inviting him to spoil her just as he deems fit.

Still, he cannot help but tease.

Gently, he scrapes his teeth against her inner thighs. She spreads her legs even further, silently pleading with him to hurry up and taste her properly.

He works his tongue along the inside of one thigh, lapping up the thin layer of sweat that formed at some point throughout the day. He cleans her thigh all the way up to the very edge of her vulva, before abruptly withdrawing so that he can repeat the process on her other thigh.

Ayala whines. She squirms. She bites the inside of her lip and lets her head fall back as a delighted tremble takes hold of her when he licks that sweet spot near her pelvis.

Once he’s thoroughly enjoyed the taste of her thighs, he gives her what she’s been waiting for.

He brings his hands up behind her legs to them around her hips. As he does so, he presses his face fully between her legs.

A delighted gasp escapes her as he drags the full length of his tongue between her folds.

He can feel her tremble against his tongue.

Unable to help himself, he lightly nibbles on the delicate skin protecting her clitoris. Just to coax it out of the way so that he can properly stimulate that sensitive little lump.

“God~!... Jho~...” Ayala sweetly mewls his name as he eats.

He purrs in response, giving her his usual loving look as he curls his tongue to usher it inside of her.

He fucks her with his tongue. There is no better descriptor.

He presses it in as deeply as he can and withdraws it time and time again. Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. Sometimes he adjusts the positioning of his tongue so that he can drag it along her exposed clitoris as he sucks it out of her vagina canal.

She gasps. She moans. She squirms in his hold and desperately places a hand on the back of his head just to find some sort of support.

Wet, loud, and messy. The evidence of this adventure will undoubtedly leave a stain on the surface of his workbench, and he will gaze upon it fondly whenever a bad day has left him sour.

He works her gently to each orgasm.

Some hit her slowly, but with intensity. Others hit her quickly, but subtly. He moans at the feel of her inner walls spasming dramatically around his tongue regardless.

Neither of them keep track of how many orgasms she has. There is only the delight of the peak and the excitement of building back to it.

He withdraws his tongue to bring the oral adventure to a close only when she meekly strums the back of his head.

The “safe word”. The sign that she has gotten overwhelmed and needs time to settle back down before they continue.

Gentle kisses are placed on her thigh while he waits for her to move her hand so that he can stand up.

He places additional soft kisses along one side of her body once he is given the room to move. A trail of wet kisses form a path all the way up to the nape of her neck.

One there, he brings his hands up to gently cradle her face.

The poor girl really did get worked up.

He affectionately presses his forehead against hers as he thumbs her tears away.

She’ll be fine. He overwhelmed her with the pleasure. Nothing more. She just needs a few moments to catch her breath and settle back down.

In the meantime, he is more than happy to wait. He enjoys cuddling with her just as much if not more than he enjoys working her to orgasm. So he has absolutely no issue showering her face in kisses or just holding her while she calms down.

When she is ready to continue, she tentatively wraps her legs around his hips to guide him closer to her.

No more oral. No more teasing. As much as she enjoys it, she wants him to feel good right along with her.

Another light growl escapes him as he ushers her closer to him. He reaches down to guide her hips with his hands, encouraging her to lay back just a bit more to give him the room to lock their bodies.

One hand moves around to press against the small of her back. The other wraps around to support behind her shoulders as he leans forward and encourages her to lay back.

He nuzzles the top of her head as he closes the distance between their bodies.

Ayala gasp proves all the sweeter as he slips inside with ease. She’s so warm and slick, delightfully so.

“A-Ayala~” He quietly moans her name as he begins to rock his hips against hers.

It's faztastic, being with her like this.

The needy whimper of her moans. The trembling of her body as he guides her through this R rated dance. The heat of her body. The dampness of her breath. The slick, yet perfectly sticky feel of her insides swallowing him up.

Wonderful. Addictive, even.

He cannot help but kiss her. Touch her. Cradle her against him as they ride out their shared orgasms.

The stains that they’ll leave on his workbench will never wash out, and he doesn’t care in the slightest.

In fact, he welcomes the stains as a reminder of these newly created, positive memories.

Memories that will remind him of more than just the pleasure. They will remind him of the intimacy of the moment, and of the relief he felt when she first stepped through the door to rescue him from his plight.

Memories of her tender touches, and the care that she put into helping him in his time of vulnerability.

Memories of the first time that being repaired had ever made him feel fixed.

She fixed him, and she did so in more ways than she could ever realize.

He loves her for that.

#Frayed wires #not osha approved #Ayala #Jho #wireplay #wire play #twistedviper

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fibermarts · 5 months ago

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Advantages of a 12-core fiber optic cable

A 12 Fiber Cable is a type of optical cable that has 12 separate strands or cores of optical fibers enclosed in a protective jacket. Each core may carry a distinct communication signal, allowing numerous data streams to be delivered concurrently.

Fiber optic cables are composed of tiny strands of glass or plastic fibers that transport data via light pulses. These cables provide various advantages over regular copper cables, such as increased bandwidth, quicker data transmission rates, and greater transmission distances.

The 12-core design is a common choice for fiber optic cables because it strikes an appropriate balance between capacity and cost.

It supports the transmission of numerous signals, making it ideal for applications requiring large data capacity, such as telecommunications networks, data centers, and internet service providers.

In recent years, there has been an increase in demand for larger-capacity fiber optic connections to meet contemporary technology's expanding data requirements. As a result, manufacturers have created cables with even greater core counts, such as 24, 48, or 96 cores. These higher-core-count cables are commonly employed in large-scale data centers and high-capacity backbone networks.

Furthermore, advances in fiber optic technology have resulted in the development of cables with superior performance characteristics, such as faster data transfer speeds and lower signal loss. These advances have expanded the potential of 12 Fiber Pigtail, making them a dependable and effective alternative for a variety of applications.

Advantages of a 12-core fiber optic cable

Increased capacity: This cable has 12 separate fibers, which gives more data transmission capacity than cables with fewer cores. It enables the simultaneous transmission of several signals, resulting in better network flexibility and scalability.

Fiber optic lines provide greater data transfer speeds than standard copper wires. The 12-core architecture adds to this advantage, allowing for high-speed data transmission across great distances.

Improved Reliability: Fiber optic connections are less susceptible to electromagnetic interference and signal loss, resulting in more stable data transfer. The 12-core architecture provides redundancy, guaranteeing that if one or more fibers fail, the network may still function with the remaining fibers.

Future-proofing: The 12 Fiber Cable allows for future extension and technical developments. It enables future updates and the incorporation of new services without requiring significant infrastructure expenditures.

Next: What Is Passive Optical Networking (PON) and How Does It Revolutionize Broadband Connectivity?

#12 Fiber Cable #12 LC Cable #12 SC Cable

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ganpatiwires · 1 year ago

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The Advantages of Braided Copper Wire Connectors: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction to Braided Copper Wire Connectors

When it comes to electrical connections, using the right type of connector is crucial for ensuring optimal performance and safety. One type of connector that has gained popularity in recent years is the braided copper wire connector. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the advantages of using braided copper wire connectors and why they are an excellent choice for various applications.

The Importance of Using High-quality Connectors

Before delving into the advantages of braided copper wire connectors, it is essential to emphasize the importance of using high-quality connectors in electrical systems. A subpar connector can lead to several issues, including poor conductivity, increased resistance, and even potential electrical hazards. By investing in high-quality connectors, such as braided copper wire connectors, you can ensure a reliable and efficient electrical connection that will stand the test of time.

Advantages of Braided Copper Wire Connectors

Enhanced Conductivity and Current Carrying Capacity

One of the primary advantages of braided copper wire connectors is their superior conductivity. Copper is an excellent conductor of electricity, and the braided design further enhances this property. The braided structure allows for increased surface area, ensuring optimal contact with the connected components. This, in turn, results in reduced resistance and improved current carrying capacity, making braided copper wire connectors ideal for applications that require high levels of conductivity.

Improved Flexibility and Durability

Flexibility is another notable advantage of braided copper wire connectors. Unlike solid copper wire, which can be rigid and difficult to maneuver, the braided design offers enhanced flexibility, allowing for easy installation even in tight spaces. Additionally, the braided construction provides improved durability. The interwoven strands of copper make the connectors more resistant to bending and twisting, reducing the risk of breakage or damage during installation or in demanding environments.

Resistance to Corrosion and High Temperatures

Braided copper wire connectors are highly resistant to corrosion, making them suitable for use in various environments. Copper naturally forms a protective oxide layer, which helps prevent corrosion and ensures long-term reliability. Furthermore, the braided design allows for excellent heat dissipation, making braided copper wire connectors capable of withstanding high temperatures without compromising their performance. This resistance to corrosion and high temperatures makes braided copper wire connectors a reliable choice for both indoor and outdoor applications.

Applications of Braided Copper Wire Connectors

Due to their numerous advantages, braided copper wire connectors find application in a wide range of industries and settings. Some common applications include:

Electrical and Electronics Industry

Braided copper wire connectors are extensively used in the electrical and electronics industry. They are employed in power distribution systems, circuit boards, and grounding applications. The enhanced conductivity and durability of braided copper wire connectors ensure reliable electrical connections and minimize the risk of electrical failures or malfunctions.

Automotive Industry

The automotive industry also benefits from the use of braided copper wire connectors. These connectors are utilized in various electrical systems within vehicles, such as battery cables, engine grounding, and audio systems. The flexible nature of braided copper wire connectors allows for easy installation in the confined spaces of an automobile, ensuring efficient electrical connections that can withstand the rigors of the road.

Renewable Energy Sector

With the increasing focus on renewable energy sources, braided copper wire connectors are playing a vital role in solar and wind power systems. These connectors are used to interconnect solar panels, inverters, and batteries, ensuring efficient energy transfer and reducing the loss of power. The corrosion resistance and high-temperature tolerance of braided copper wire connectors make them well-suited for outdoor installations in harsh environments.

Conclusion

In conclusion, braided copper wire connectors offer numerous advantages that make them an excellent choice for various electrical applications. Their enhanced conductivity, flexibility, durability, and resistance to corrosion and high temperatures make them reliable and efficient connectors. Whether in the electrical and electronics industry, automotive sector, or renewable energy field, braided copper wire connectors provide optimal performance and ensure the safety and longevity of electrical systems. When it comes to electrical connections, investing in high-quality connectors, such as braided copper wire connectors, is a wise decision that pays off in the long run.

#Braided #Copper #Wire

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catwif3 · 1 year ago

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friends my internet has been blinking in and out for like, a month at least and i've been mildly annoyed but the threshold to make me have to make a CALL or an APPOINTMENT is SO HIGH that i've just been like,,, leaving it lol

but i finally did get it looked at!!!

and the tech brings in a section of cable that has CLEARLY been animal-chewed just. SO WELL. a full nearly a foot just gone scrumbled and an inch at least held together still by a single strand of copper wire

both of us were like "i am surprised you still had ANY internet"

#life with sao

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suyooo · 1 year ago

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Making BIG SIF2 (Part 2)

Hello again. In case you missed the first part of this project, I'm trying to recreate an old SIF(1) attraction where nine players jump around on floor buttons to play the game cooperatively. Last time, I went into how those buttons work, how they connect to the game, and completed the first switch.

Just need to do that eight more times.

This is another post with a bunch of text I'm writing down as I work on the project, in case you want to see where it's going or want to build something similar yourself. The TL;DR is that all floor switches are done now, I had to change the button mapping app, and found a nice solution for selecting songs and starting Lives - and then there's a video of me trying (emphasis on trying) to play BIG SIF solo.

This is the part of a project where there's nothing to do but boring, repetitive work. There is more interesting stuff to do, but you can't get to it before you just spend several hours doing the same thing over and over again, and it's hard to get excited to do it. So, even though this was probably the most time-consuming step of the project with 25+ hours, it can be summarized in one sentence: there are now eight more functioning switches.

This involved cutting out a total of 24 more shelf liner circles, clipping holes into 8 more rug pad spacers and 8 of the shelf liners, inserting 128 snap caps, crimping 16 connectors, and placing all the copper tape and soldering it together. One small change I made is that I added a little bit of copper tape to move all the connectors a bit to the side, so you don't step right on it when going for a press, and also gave it a generous glob of hot glue to serve as strain relief. Also, I had to purchase more anti-slip rug pad after all - turns out most of the one I owned was too flat to work properly. Oops. With the new rug pad, I noticed this beady style of rug pad is more stretchy on one axis than the other, so these layers are not rotationally symmetrical. To help with that, I cut out the corner where the connectors are glued on - not only does this make that spot a little flatter, but it also makes it easy to tell which orientation the pads must be placed when assembling the switches to align everything correctly.

Since I don't own any proper presses, all of the snap caps and crimp connectors had to be done by hand. That - combined with all the liner cutting, rug pad trimming, and soldering - has not been a fun time for my wrist :) It might be a good idea to invest into snap cap and crimp presses instead of pliers, it's probably cheaper than replacing my wrist down the road... and for the soldering, I'll probably just go with copper tape with conductive adhesive next time as mentioned before, to avoid that problem altogether.

Speaking of crimp connectors: add 36 more to the count for those connecting cables, and 18 more for the other ends on the controller board. The latter one just involved replacing the little button connectors the board comes with, which would usually make it easier to wire up arcade panels.

As for the cables, those are speaker wire. It's probably extremely overkill for a simple signal wire. I originally wanted to use dirt-cheap doorbell wire which would have been more than enough to carry the signal even over long runs, but there were two reasons I didn't go with it. One reason is that doorbell wire is solid wire. But if people might step on the wire, or I want to roll up and transport the parts of this project, stranded wire is far more durable, so I wanted to make sure to use it for the extra reliability. The other reason is that it was on sale :) I decided on buying a 25m roll and having each cable be 2m long - which is probably somewhat overkill again, but for things like cable length, I'd rather go too long than too short.

But hey, we've got over the mountain that is the boring and repetitive part of the project, and now we can ride down the hill to the finish!

Wait, no, that would have been too easy. Of course there's problems.

There was something that I completely missed in my test from the first post. I only had one floor switch, so I didn't try an actual song, which would have uncovered a big issue with using Key Mapper: it doesn't support pressing multiple buttons at once. If one player holds down a switch for a hold note, and another player taps their switch, the hold immediately ends. And of course, I didn't notice that problem until I actually had multiple floor switches completed.

After a few hours of searching and experimenting, I could only find one other app that worked. It is called Mantis, and it sucks. It contains ads, requires a weird and completely intransparent set up procedure through a wireless ADB debugging session, you must map the inputs of the arcade controller board to an Xbox controller layout before you can use them or they'll just be ignored, there's an unremovable menu button on your screen at all times, the map can't be programmatically disabled to stop the buttons from inputting for a moment, and I've found it's maybe a little unreliable? It just suddenly stopped while the game was running once. But as I said, it's the only one that I've found that works. So, I'll have to live with it. At least it supports the holds that Key Mapper doesn't do. So, you can play the game fine now. We can get back to finishing up the setup.

But before that, have you noticed though some of the mapped tap locations for the buttons are slightly off from the center of the spots in the game? I intentionally moved them a little, so they still hit the tap spots during Lives, but miss certain menu buttons! For example, the tap locations for spots 4 and 6 are moved down, so they don't hit the menu buttons while the game is paused. Otherwise, the player on floor switch 6 could accidentally use up my loveca if they kept stomping on the button after their stamina ran out and continued…

Here's everything connected together! The nine completed switches, all linked up to the board, and all that's left to do is set up Mantis and the HDMI output on the phone, plug in the single USB-C cable, and it's ready to play!

But before we plug everything into the phone, I really quickly want to note something about the adapter: The adapter required for this project was not just about needing a way to go from USB-A to USB-C - after all, that could have been solved even easier by just replacing the USB-B-to-A cable of the board with a USB-B-to-C cable and connecting it directly to the phone. As you might have been able to tell from the cover picture from the first post, playing BIG SIF on the phone screen is kind of... not optimal. So, the adapter had to have both an USB-A port and an HDMI port, so you could show the game on a TV or projector!

The adapter I ended up picking not only had those two ports, but also two more USB-A sockets and an USB-C socket. The USB-C port is for power delivery - everything runs off of the phone battery if it is not used, but this allows you to use a powerbank to extend the battery, or just plug in a wall charger so you don't have to worry about it at all. And the other USB-A ports come in really handy, as well. One of them can be used for an Ethernet adapter, which can vastly improve the stability of the required internet connection, if available. As for the other USB-A... one problem I hadn't considered at all is the game menus. As in, song selection and actually getting into the game. Of course, you could always just walk over to the phone, and try to find the correct tap spot on the screen that is turned off, then walk back to the switches - but there's a better approach thanks to that last USB port, with a wireless keyboard I had around already:

This one in particular is a wireless keyboard and touchpad combo, which gets recognized as a generic keyboard and mouse on any device you can plug it into - including Android. So now, you can use the touchpad on that to move around a cursor and do the menuing that way, without having to run back and forth! It's still a little awkward to control the pointer via the touchpad, but there's more that you can do: the keyboard part is not actually needed for this project, since we don't need to type any text... and Key Mapper is sitting idle now that we replaced it with Mantis, so how about we pass the keyboard to it? The keyboard won't have to deal with multiple simultaneous presses, so by setting up keys from it in Key Mapper, we can get an entire keyboard worth of buttons to map even more taps to! That way, instead of having to move the cursor across the screen, you can select and start songs by just pressing a few keys in order. And Mantis still handles the floor switches, so holding down the buttons still works fine, no matter how many are pressed.

Also, yes, I am planning to run regular Lives when playing on this. You might be wondering - "Why? There's a Rehearsal mode now, wouldn't that be better for something like this?" And the answer is yes, it absolutely would be, since I don't have to care about LP or running out of HP during a Live then! But the Rehearsal mode has a static background (see video below) instead of the cool Live Monitor, so I'll be happy to sacrifice my LP candies for the cool effects :) I'm not going to ever use all of them, anyways. And as for the HP problem, I could just add some healers... and if anyone ever wants to see how badly a Master chart would go, I can still start a Rehearsal by clicking on that button using the touch pad.

~~~ a quick little bit of an aside

Speaking of Rehearsal though, even if I'm not using that mode - can I just say how much I appreciate SIF2's gameplay direction? It just feels like the game is far more about "having fun just playing songs" than SIF1. There's changes like the ability to restart songs right from the pause menu if you're aiming for an FC, not losing LP if you fail, all songs being unlocked from the start - but also, obviously, the addition of the Rehearsal mode, where you can play any song without using LP and with infinite HP. One key result of this kind of design is that the game is far less punishing for making a mistake, and I think it invites people to challenge themselves to higher difficulties. There's no need to play it safe anymore: If you're curious about whether you could pass a Master chart, you can just play it, without having to worry about failing and wasting resources anymore. If the chart ends up being too hard, you don't lose any LP or other resources. You can choose to either run it back as many times as you want, or to play another song, neither option carrying any penalty. That makes the harder difficulties so much more approachable, and I think it's a fantastic change.

~~~ back to your regularly scheduled programming

With the system fully set up, it can finally be played! The problem being, I don't have nine players here, just one. I tried a couple times, but it went about as well as you'd expect, even on Normal - it's kind of hard to consistenly find and hit the floor switches while staring at the screen. But it does work! All the buttons work great (as long as I can hit them)! And even with me stepping on the connectors and cables and kicking the switches around by accident, they don't immediately break.

So with that, the project is technically done! All the switches are functional, you can play BIG SIF as intended, and I can bring the controller system anywhere. That's a massive milestone done, of course - but overall, this project still very much in the "janky mess of cables" state. So there's still some stuff to do...

On the next part of Making BIG SIF2: making it nice, making it good. Probably at least a box to put everything in, maybe something to improve reliability, maybe make the interface something better than just a keyboard with labels on it? Let's see how far I can take this

update: you can find the third part here!

#lovelive #love live #ラブライブ #school idol festival #sif2 #スクフェス #i am currently wearing a wrist brace #ouch oof owie

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