#Technological Edge
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Blockbuster Video, 2000
#dvd#stores#out of business#blockbuster video#2000s#2000#vintage advertising#cutting edge technology
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Edge 178
#3d#art#cgi#cybercore#cyber y2k#design#edge magazine#electronic#fashion#games#gaming#graphic art#graphic design#graphics#kaybug#magazine covers#microsoft#mirror's edge#print#ps3#scans#sony#tech#technology#video games#y2kcore#y2kore#y2k aesthetic#y2k art#y2k blog
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Anyway, while I was gone I was thinking of this stupid idea with Bakugou (as usual)
Imagine your eighteenth birthday is when you find out who you’re bonded to, and this bond is created via telepathy. A connection opens between two souls, and you’re able to communicate with each other no matter where in the world you are. A connection that only becomes stronger as your relationship with your soulmate grows.
But of course, connections can be broken. The same way those dreamlike fantasies of meeting your perfect soulmate don’t always work— especially when your soulmate is Bakugou Katsuki.
The first time you try to communicate with him, he brushes you off. Telling you to “piss off”, that he doesn’t “need a fuckin’ soulmate”. It’s a time in his life that arguably he needs that connection with someone more than ever. But the feelings of inadequacy and inferiority he holds inside are at an all time high as he pushes everyone away, including you. Shutting the door on any hope you had of ever having a connection with him, of finding your soulmate.
You try again a few times after, watching all your friends develop their love and even meet their soulmates. Hating the green-eyed monster that appears when you realise how bitter you actually are— to be paired with someone that has no interest in you. Cursed to be one of the ones without a soulmate, to try and find a love with another broken person like you.
The conversations are always the same— his irritation for your very existence no match for the conversations you try to start. Making it abundantly clear to you that you’re a distraction, that he doesn’t have time for a soulmate. And yet amongst his complaining that you’ve opened the link at a bad moment, or that he doesn’t need you— he always answers.
So over time you find yourself starting to give up, wondering why you’ve wasted so much time on a man that clearly doesn’t want you. The connection going quiet as neither of you try to open the link.
Radio silence.
And what makes it worse, is your friends who have perfect connections pity you. One of the lost souls without a soulmate— which is why you’re prepared to join a special program. A program that can realign your connection— to tie your soul to another.
It’s unorthodox, an extreme measure that has an endless list of side-effects. You could end up with the more undesirable members of society, who’s connections have been severed before, or the ones that abuse the system for their own benefit— and if the second connection doesn’t work out you’re unable to claim a third. But craving that special bond with someone, picturing the perfect smiles and pickett fences it’s more than worth the risks. So you plan to do it— to sever your connection with your soulmate, and find a new one.
Someone who will actually love you.
But it isn’t until one night that you hear something at the back of your mind, barely a murmur as you shoot up in bed. Squinting as you try desperately to focus on the sound— another whimper. But you can’t seem to make out much else, as you realise that it’s the same connection that you thought was completely shattered all those years ago.
“Hello?” You feel almost stupid calling out, wondering if he even realised that you could hear him again— that you were there.
“Long time no talk, hah sweetheart?” He scoffs, a choked cough spills from his lips after as he winces in pain.
“You sound like shit— is that why you reconnected our bond at four am?”
“Must’ve called the wrong number, sweetheart.” He sneers, but you can almost hear the humour in his tone.
“Well luckily for you I’m going to break our bond.” You bite back as you’re met with silence on the other end, “So you won’t have to make the same mistake again.”
“You can do that?” He whispers.
“Yeah, they can reconnect me with someone else.” You murmur.
“They won’t be as good as me.” He manages to get out before another cough wracks through his body.
“I wouldn’t know, would I?” You scrunch your nose in irritation, “But at least they’ll want me.”
“Who said I don’t want you?”
It’s not until a month later that you find out the real reason he reconnected the bond that night. That it was the night that his heart stopped beating as he almost lost his life, his body shutting down as the only thing he could think to do was to call out for you.
#I’ve got a disgusting amount of soulmate ideas in my drafts#but some aren’t fully fleshed out#like I was thinking of computer programmed soulmates too#or like a lonely hearts club vibe where you can through cutting edge technology find a soulmate#think ready player one with the VR headsets#like those trashy dating games#and you fall in love in one of those fantasy worlds#LIKE BELLE!!!! ahhhh#but I digress#soft bakugou#I should tw:soulmates this cause I know how much some of you HATE soulmate tropes LOL
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How do the researchers react to the clan cats leaving the lake for a time?
You mean the little patrols they send out?
They aren't aware of them, EXCEPT for the Beaver Expedition that Dovepaw was on. They found out about that one because they got a phone call from the team in charge of the beaver introduction.
It was NERVE WRACKING. Both teams were terrified the other would injure their subjects. They were horrified when the cats dug out the top of the dam and pulled the squealing baby beavers out, thinking this was going to end BADLY, but practically cried in relief and excitement when the Clan cats baited the parents towards the lake.
(I like to imagine someone on the beaver team ended up hitting it off with someone on the Clan cat team. The wedding cake was cats and beavers.)
But generally? They don't know about expeditions. Sometimes they catch them leaving, but don't have the funding to chase them down.
Clan cats are also not under constant surveillance. Very important to understand this. Clan cats will attack anything that upsets them and good cameras are expensive; they snuck one into the ThunderClan Camp once in like 2009, and Firestar dug it up at the stake and dropped it down the WindClan border ravine because it was freaking his warriors out.
(The cats don't understand that the cameras watch; they just don't like the Freaky Human Thing)
So the team has to be careful, not install too many, and hide the ones they do have. They don't want the cats to move again.
#I try to make sure that my researchers are more like actual wildlife scientists than gods. Yknow?#I think it's more interesting that they have funding issues and can't just install endless cameras#PLUS the cats reach the lake around 2008-ish. So I try to keep the technology accurate#Re: a lot of this is based off techniques they had to use for capturing the footage on Meerkat Manor#I also use the wayback machine to reference the Sirtrack catalogue which was cutting edge tech at the time#And mind you! This isn't meerkat manor. These researchers are ridiculously underfunded#Have i ever mentioned that i loved meerkat manor as a kid? A family member used to record it for me lmaooo#Better bones au#Millie's radio collar
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It's cute to say that stealth aircraft got rounder for the same reason that video game characters did: because the computers got more powerful. But it's not the complete story. More accurately, it was specifically Lockheed's stealth aircraft that evolved that way.
Famously, a Lockheed employee noticed a paper describing how to calculate electromagnetic scattering from a polyhedron. They implemented it in software and used it to design the Have Blue demonstrator, which evolved into the F-117.
But at the same time, Northrop developed the Tacit Blue demonstrator, which was not designed using the edge diffraction software, and did not consist of only flat polygons.
Tacit Blue was the first aircraft to use "edge convolution" (a.k.a. "Gaussian stealth"). This smoothes out the edges by convolving them with a gaussian function. In particular, the convolution makes the edge of the wing sharper than if it was just a wedge between two polygons (with an ideal gaussian function it would extend out infinitely, so the acute angle would approach 0 degrees). This means that the edge of the wing will reflect less radar waves if it is illuminated directly from the side (from the horizon), which is the typical case if the plane is flying straight and the enemy radar is far away.
All stealth aircraft now use the gaussian smoothing idea, and you can clearly see the commonalities between Tacit Blue and the Northrop B-2.
Actually, when it came time to design the ATF (which evolved into the F-22), Lockheed also had to abandon their edge diffraction software. The ATF chief engineer commented:
We did not know how to analyze a curved stealthy shape in those days. The software wasn't sophisticated enough, and we didn't have the computational capacity we needed. We had our hands tied by the analytical problems. Lockheed had become convinced that, if we could not analyze a design as a stealthy shape, then it could not be stealthy. We would not break through that barrier until 1984. [...] We simply started drawing curved shapes even though we could not run the designs through our analytical software models. When we went to curved airplanes, we began to get more acceptable supersonic and maneuver performance. Instead of relying on software models, we built curved shapes and tested them on the company's radar range. The curved shapes performed quite well in the radar tests.
So in the end, I think the "smooth stealth planes" (B-2, F-22) were mainly designed heuristically and evaluated by building actual model airplanes; having fast computers to simulate them was not the bottle neck.
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you ever wonder if the Glamrocks's face tracking acts up when they look at Glamrock-Freddy, like they'll look at his face, and the recognition will register as Freddy, but their systems for whatever reason or another think that there is a face overlapped on Freddy's do you think they see two small squares next to him, at his side, roughly child sized, but no one is physically there.... right...?
#fnaf#michael afton#five nights at freddy’s#glammike#crying child#elizabeth afton#i wanted to allude something to william but idk#would the glamrocks go into the sinkhole? maybe#maybe next to glamrock freddy alongside the weird overlapping face he has and the two kid height faces#there is a face tracking box next to him...standing#remember that post about the ghost hunters comin to the pizza plex? maybe the weird face tracking happens too...#im watching garret watts and Andrew's constant facial tracking anomalies inspired this post lol#anyways i really like the thought that despite being the most friendly Glamrock; Freddy has this......feeling about him#his AI was made just this year! programmed with cutting edge and top of the line technology!#then....then why does he go off script sometimes? why does he say things that wasn't programmed show dialogue?#how does he know about Mr. Afton? the killer from the 80's who committed heinous deeds?#Why does he speak as if he knew him personally? if his AI is just pulling stuff from online; Why does he speak with resentment about him?#IM SORRY I JUST LOVE THE CONCEPT!!#like just because this franchise has gotten more neon and sugery than ever; remember; lights can be blinding and sugar causes cavities#idk what that means just omg there is more horror potential than you think in the SB era of games if you look hard enough#off topic but back to freddy being a sweetie pie i think that its funny okay#freddy sasses adults okay okay but he isnt mean to kids okay maybe michael just idk; MATURED? maybe he just got some whimsy mkay?#listen if i was forced to be in a perpetual cycle of atoning for my own and my father's sins i would find any and all silver linings mkay#aw yeah this is sick i get to be a freddy mercury inspired glamrock bear WOOO#granted michael was probably tired of animatronic bands and pizza by fnaf 6 but ykkkkkkkk it.....could be worse? he could be his dad lmao#anyways headcannon michael listend to freddy mercury and this is the equivalent of cosplaying him scott told me so (trust)#tag rambles! theyre fun lol
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tfw an idea for a simple yan blade short story has evolved into something that requires me to design an entire planet, the culture within said planet, in a way that adheres to the worldbuilding of honkai star rail which we honestly don't know too much about
#I've Gotten Myself Into a Doozy Fellas#i love sci-fi but having to write it means having to come up with names for stuff#and i suck at that so bad#like idk how to name futuristic technology in a cool cutting edge way.#my fear is i'm gonna find the name decent but it'll read with the same finesse as 'glup shitto' or something#ANYWAY guess i'm working on a blade miniseries more details to come as the mental illness progresses#lock.txt
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Capehart Television, 1950
Adjusted for inflation, this cutting edge black and white television would cost a mere $3600 (and up) these days.
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Hey, is anyone keepin' track of my heads batted in?
A Scoutbot Stimboard, requested by @scoutbot
credits
🤖 ⚙️ 🤖 ⚙️ ⚾ ⚙️ 🦿 ⚙️ 🦿
#you didn't ask for anything in particular so i went with my gut/the vibes#if you'd like anything changed let me know. i know this ones kinda hard around the edges#tf2#tf2 stimboard#scoutbot tf2#scoutbot#hands#irl people#weapons#weaponry#eye strain#blue#grey#gray#black#machinery#machine stim#technology#technology stim#robotics#robot stim#arcade stim#glow stim#neon stim#request
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i should be Doing Tasks instead of sitting here waxing poetic about math but i do think graphs (the discrete math kind) (not this kind 📊📈📉) are the most elegant and beautiful mathematical object
#*slaps roof of graph* this bad boy can fit so much information in it#it's just a set of vertices and a set of edges! and the edges are just pairs of vertices!#that's IT!!!! two sets!!#well also you can add edge weights#anyway then you can take your two sets and maybe edge weights and use them to represent problems#that are probably too hard to solve with current computing technology (see: P != NP)#mathematical equivalent of a corkboard with documents and red string#'this thing is connected to that thing' in its absolute purest form#math#ok. done waxing poetic for now#numbers do not lie#ok one more thing. i have beef with the other kind of graph for having the same name#those are CHARTS#also useful but HRRRHGH GRRR ripping them apart in my teeth. impostors. nobody knows what im talking about when i say graphs because of YOU#ok ok im done
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UK 1998
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Is there even any infrastructure for humans visiting merfolk underwater settlements? Or are they too deep for humans to comfortably dive/swim in? Or maybe the merfolk just say, "of course we don't have any support for you under several hundred feet of water. literally why would you even try?"
there's not any infrastructure for human (or any other sophont besides gorgons that already live there, anyhow) visitation! mostly that's because this is a bit of a first contact situation, albeit one that was born more out of political isolationism and not necessarily caring about the land-based sophonts...
basically, the current political entity overseeing all existing or known merfolk settlement is a fairly old one, that slowly grew from a smaller polity into a more all-encompassing unit by swallowing up its neighbors. it's more of a complicated shell game than this necessarily makes it seem - like i said, a lot of time has passed, and significant cultural shifts have happened within that time, as well as shifts and establishment on how its government and policies would function, so it's a little bit more of a larger conglomerate containing within it many smaller governments, who are allowed independent control of the populations within their allotted territories, just so long as they take up the job of translating the broader governmental laws and taxes down onto that population. the details are rather vague, and so long as the results are what the larger governmental body asked, the intermediary areas are allowed a lot of different ways to interpret what that means.
however, one of the things that got lost in that shuffle of politic and history was the presence of merfolk inland. historically, merfolk have actually periodically spent time inland! usually it was still very tied to the water, being more like seasonal beachcombing using temporary shelters and housing, but they utilized the land a lot more for potential resources and ways to live. the nomadic families especially used to take advantage of these opportunities, and there was much more interaction with landfolk in these contexts.
the exact way it was lost varies, in that not everyone agrees what came first or what was the reason or who did what, but most of this was probably limited and then lost due to the larger governmental body, in the process of colonization, banning merfolk from going up onto the land in order to prevent political enemies and refugees from fleeing up and onto the land, using it as a base of operations, or otherwise using it as a means to escape to other bodies of saltwater. like i said, these periods inland were mostly seasonal, and merfolk did still majorly depend on the water, so what merfolk did make settlements inland mostly ended up vanishing over time anyways - either through simply vanishing into landfolk populations, or through dying out, it wasn't particularly sustainable.
but, time still went on, and this ban remained, and somehow it slowly disseminated into popular thought that the land was just not really very interesting in the first place. sure, merfolk knew there was stuff up there, and other animals and even fairly smart animals, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth investigating. travel over land is hard for them, and it's hard for them to live on land for long periods of time, and everything that they need and depend on is in the ocean anyways. there's a lot less space to the land, there's nothing that would interest merfolk, it would be uncomfortable and painful for them to visit (a lot of myths and legends about the land and what lived there got started in this time, with a lot of focus on undead monsters that had dried out and were lit from within by the hateful light of the sun, and a lot of merfolk made a habit of coming up with scary stories about the weird things that must've lived in such an extreme environment), and there was a lot more political movements and such focused on other merfolk to begin with.
even moreso because merfolk still, technically, did go out onto land? it just wasn't very large portions of land, that is. mostly they would set up on much smaller islands and atolls, which would mostly be used for manufacturing or more technical jobs that required being done in the air. they really just needed the space, not anything specific already on the land itself, and the space was all functional, very little exploration or relaxation areas. sometimes these were used specifically to produce novelty items or experiences, but usually this didn't go much further than exploring the uniqueness of being in open air for the first time, and wasn't really pursued as much more than that.
so merfolk still knew the land was important and needed for ecological functioning - something they had learned the hard way, after an earlier period in their history pre-unifying government became known for a particular and acute ecological disaster, felt even harder by all merfolk on account of the properties of water and everyone living in the ocean. they view the land as functional in its own right - a needed recycling facility that operates itself and helps keep them alive, and one in a place that they had no interest in and could set aside for such tasks.
they also knew there was life up there, even intelligent life, but considering the period in time when merfolk ceased interacting with land-based societies, and the predominant view that what makes something sapient for them being a multiplicity and plural nature to it, on top of the complex interweave of language and meaning, they basically just viewed it as "smart animals". i've compared it before to like if we actually discovered warrior cats was real and there was a population of feral cats in a national park that had their own tiny society. it's interesting, for sure, but it wouldn't be the kind of thing that they might feel too passionately about, and can easily pass it off as a curiosity and a thought experiment all of its own.
the fact that this has changed at all, and especially in such a small time frame and with such major turnaround and abrupt interest in the outer governing body is actually really odd, and a major question and mystery in what i'm writing! the starting interest happened only just in the previous generation, and now they're making major steps towards introducing themselves to land-based civilizations in just miranda's generation, even to the point of sending her inland as an ambassador and an active participant in this shift.
most people on the land already knew that someone was in the ocean and actively preventing anyone else from crossing it or even getting particularly close, but they had no context for this any more than anyone else, and thus they might not raise as many questions about why this is happening than they should, especially since they don't know merfolk history. even most merfolk don't necessarily have all of the details of this shift, but they do know more than nothing, and certainly can note how odd it is and how weird such a change is.
likewise, neither civilization has very much to accommodate for the other, given as they barely even knew of each other by the time they were already designing how it was laid out, so the issues humans have accessing merfolk spaces is at least mutual, if nothing else. it's also something very likely to change over time, depending on how said first contact goes.
#all the care guide says is 'biomass'#asks#brothermanwill#theres also the aspect of. said governmental body enforcing that border and ban on contact#and majorly affecting the history and development of everyone else who wasnt a merfolk#because the ocean is now entirely inaccessible#many empires have ceased to exist because Oops You Need Naval Power For That#many places dependent on fishing have also vanished too tbh-#most of humanity's big cities and cutting edge technology is confined the usual river valleys#and other towns and cities exist but they are much less interconnected and have much more varying levels of whats available#the only way ''over'' the oceans is through setting up teleportation gates with everything they need on both ends#because making flying machines just. ah. results in them vanishing and Never Coming Back#but also yeah unless you use magic theres just no way down to most merfolk areas if you dont breathe water#theyre fairly deep too. even the more shallow settlements are very much deeper than most humans are ready for#and only those island stations are anywhere that you might be able to regularly return to the surface from#theres also the issue of magic which is. another reason why a waterbreathing spell isnt Easy#magic and especially magic that affects the body is so complicated and so easy to mess up#and when it messes up. it messes up Bad.#anyhow thank you for the question!! i am. chatty.#the gorgons who settled underwater just live like merfolk tbh#and thus their opinions arent really meaningfully different#i dont think they even know there are gorgons inland tbh. not sure they would care if they did.
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📚
#random personal stuff#the search for a new library director goes on#right now our only applicants (as far as I know) are:#A) man with uncanny similarity to That Man in appearance speech and mannerisms and who has already acted shady#B) woman with a teaching background who just started working on her library degree (a position requirement)#and C) one of our current librarians who lacks the necessary people and technology skills and has a p o l i t i c a l agenda#so you see the difficult position the hiring committee is in#I'm not on this committee of course#but as someone who would have to work under whoever they chose I have concerns#I could not work for someone who was like That Man - wouldn't be able to trust him and would be constantly on edge#(even if he somehow turned out to be just fine despite the bad signs - I would have a hard time shaking those associations)#and I couldn't work for my current co-worker either#we've already got a clique here with him and another guy and his being in charge would just further enable existing problems#and there would be nothing I could do about it - it would be the two of them running things to suit themselves#and we need someone with a library degree because it's important to the role and apparently it's also been made clear#that certain people who do have such degrees wouldn't respect anyone who didn't yet#but to be frank if these were the only options I would rather have the person with the degree in progress#who reportedly seems to have the better leadership skills#the lack of a degree is something that can change with time#but personal qualities are more fixed#& as important as a library degree is I have seen that it doesn't necessarily make one able to make the best decisions for a library
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I thought there was no surefire way to like distinguish AI fic from real stories but the sudden pov & tense shifts and repetitive dialogue beats are becoming a huge giveaway
#theres never any consistency with pace space or place and its kinda funny#teleporting all over the room & spending two paragraphs to resolve one action im sickkk#i hate to be the one to say this but cutting edge technology cannot handle position changes and formulate coherent smut please give up
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Animatronic dolphin robot created by Edge Innovations
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iPod, 2001
Adjusted for inflation, this click wheel 20 GB iPod with a black and white screen would run you about $538 in today's money.
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