#USB-C problem

[untypicable]

The Mystique of USB Cables: A Modern Enigma

There are few certainties in life: death, taxes, and the eternal frustration of USB cables. These unassuming little connectors—so essential, yet so infuriating—have an uncanny ability to turn even the most composed individual into a muttering, frustrated mess. You’d think something designed for universal use (it’s in the name, after all) would be straightforward. But no, USB cables are a riddle…

[fiendishartist2]

never buy a mac this is my message to you

[rizardofether]

Ah yes, the abyss. The loading problems do at least lead to some interesting moments.

[bigthingsforeverintheworks]

tragic my magic usb converter doesn't solve this problem

[apol]

I always disconnect bc I don't like charging it specially bc my current cellphone charger and headphones use the same entrance

the headphones doesn't work all the time bc it connects to the charger part, I know its like that bc the opposite has happened before AKA my music stopped playing bc I put my cellphone to charge bc the music is supposed to be playing on the headphones but I can't use the headphones bc my phone is charging

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[sugar-phoenix]

𖥔 . overheating . 𖥔

synopsis: you're out on an operation with Boothill, and after a long battle and a quick getaway, you turn to realize that the cyborg cowboy is...overheating. With all the implications that come with that. tags: f!reader (Boothill refers to reader as "Lady" and "Missy" once), no smut, fluff, light romance a/n: 1.3k words, wrote this in a craze based off of a headcanon that @k9wa and @nvuy posted about! tickled my brain too much!

ao3 link here!

The sound of gunshots rang out in the night. You ducked in your getaway vehicle, a hover car illegally outfitted with nitrogen turbo boosters. Sticking our head out of the car every now and then, you aimed your pistol at the heads of IPC guards, knocking them dead left and right.

Boothill had been inside the IPC base for a while now. It was supposed to be a quick job. He only needed to run in, download the secret data straight to one of the USB ports on his hip, and then run out. Probably nailing an IPC soldier or ten in the head while he was there.

“Boothill,” you muttered, “where are you?”

You met the cowboy only once before this operation — he had sought you out as a fellow Ranger against the IPC for your getaway vehicle.

“’M gonna be lootin’ a pretty big IPC base, ‘n I need some kinda escape route,” he drawled. “You git me?”

You happily agreed. Why not? Anything that would be a loss for the IPC was a win for you.

Not to mention the cyborg cowboy was one of the finer men you’d come across in your travels.

Presently, you shook that thought out of your mind and fired a shot at another guard. It’s better to stay clear-headed when you’re in a shootout. Any unholy thoughts were perfectly fine to sift through in safer, calmer settings.

“Where is that dang cowboy?” you muttered again for the fifth time.

A hoot and a holler rang through the air, and you glanced towards the entrance. As though in answer to your question, Boothill emerged from within the base, running full gallop towards the vehicle.

“Start drivin,’” he ordered as he slid into the passenger seat.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” you replied as more IPC soldiers spilled out of the entrance. The engine roared as you slammed the gas pedal to the floor.

“Ugh, turn up the A/C,” Boothill groaned.

“Turn ‘em up yourself, cowboy,” you responded. “I’m too busy making sure we’re getting away.”

The cyborg reached towards the dashboard and rotated the knob to the coolest possible setting. He leaned back into his seat, huffing and panting.

“All good?”

“Yeah. ‘S just a lot of fighting. Got me worked up.” He sniffed. “This dang A/C ain’t cool enough for me.”

You shrugged, checking the rearview mirror. The IPC vehicles were hot on your heels.  Thankfully, that wasn’t a problem for you. As an expert driver, you were fully trained in the art of evasive maneuvers. It’s what the cowboy hired you to do, after all.

You sped into the nearby city, a metropolis that conveniently had many twisty alleys and tight turns.

“This’ll be a piece of cake. Don’t you worry, cowboy,” you chuckled. The cowboy didn’t answer, and you were too busy focused on the road to check on him.

Drifting through intersections and jumping across lanes, you managed to throw off the majority of the IPC squadron pursuing you. There were only three small hover vehicles left, chasing you through a single-lane alleyway. You revved your engine to taunt them and cackled as the reverberations echoed off the buildings on either side.

The hovercar drifted, fishtailing as you made a sharp turn to the right. You swore as the sound of screaming metal rang out in the air, signaling that your spoilers had scraped against the walls.

“That’s gonna cost ya, cowboy,” you quipped, smiling as you saw two of the three vehicles crash into the wall behind you.

“Lady, I ain’t at fault for your drivin’ skills.”

You snapped your head towards Boothill, giving him a full-on death glare.

“Not that you drive bad, missy! I was just sayin,” he said, raising his hands up in surrender. It was then that you realized he’d unzipped his jacket, letting it fall lazily off his shoulders.

Heat rising to your cheeks, you snapped your attention back to the road, trying to evade the last IPC hover vehicle. A few quick turns and an IPC crash later, you pulled into a dark alleyway and braked, turning off the car.

“Why are we stoppin’?” Boothill asked.

“They’re probably swarming the city. Best to lie low for now until it all subsides.”

There was shuffling in the passenger seat, and you turned to look.

Boothill laid back against the seat, his limbs sprawled out. His bangs were arranged in wet clumps, and sweat gleamed off his face in the glow from distant neon signs. The rest of his long hair was put up along the headrest behind him, leaving his neck bare. His jacket, bandana, and hat were thrown in the back, leaving his upper torso bare for all the world to see. His pants were shrugged low on his hip, almost revealing his unmentionables (did cyborgs even have unmentionables?). Panting and huffing, he closed his eyes, frowning. You could hear a loud hum emanate from within his robot body.

“Boothill?” you croaked, fighting to speak through the feeling of your brain frying in your skull. It wasn’t just his appearance that was, well, hot, but a boiling heat was radiating off of him. You had hardly noticed in all the earlier action.

“Yes, darlin’?” He groaned. Your heart fluttered at the way he said darlin.’

“What. Are you doing?” You hardly thought the cowboy was one to give in to his darker desires at the drop of a hat, although there was something off about the scene that told you it wasn’t motivated by lust.

He chuckled before answering.

“Told ya I got worked up during that fight. I’m overheatin.’ One of the problems with having a robot body, ya get me?” Boothill breathed out heavily, his breath steaming in the air. “Fudge,” he muttered, closing his eyes and frowning again.

“Are you in pain?” you asked. His stance was akin to a man tortured, impaled from the back with hot iron spears.

“Nah, darlin,’ nothin’ like that. Just… hot, is all. Really fudgin’ hot.” Boothill let out a breath of steam again. “It’ll go away, like it always does. I jus’ need ta’ keep still for a lil’ bit. Let it cool down.”

You leaned over him, trying to ignore how close you were to his hot (both physically and metaphorically) abs, and pushed the passenger door open. It only went so far as the narrow alleyway let it, but you could feel the cold air of the night wash over you both.

“Thank ya’ kindly, darlin,’” he murmured.

“Don’t mention it,” you said, leaning back. You jumped when your arm brushed over his body.

“Did I burn ya?” Boothill didn’t move but his eyes fixed you with a worried look.

“No, you didn’t, it’s just…” You trailed off, not knowing how to end that sentence without embarrassing yourself. A heat creeped over your cheeks again.

“Oh, I see,” he smiled. “You can touch me if ya want darlin.’ I don’t bite.” He punctuated that sentence with a wide grin, showing off his shark-like teeth.

“But not right now,” he said as you tentatively reached an arm towards him. “Not while I’m hot like this. And it ain’t cause I might burn ya sweetie, but with all due respect, I ain’t wanna touch anything right this moment.”

“Got it,” you said sitting straight back in your seat.

A silence filled the car, gently broken by the whir of Boothill’s internal fans and the ambient hum of the city outside.

It was a comfortable, soft kind of silence. You let it soak into your flesh, down to your bones, etching this moment inside of yourself. It was nice.

“’Course, when I’m not overheatin,” Boothill murmured, “you’re free to touch whatever.” He grinned mischievously.

“Stop it,” you said. “You’re gonna make me overheat.”

dividers by cafekitsune

[mostlysignssomeportents]

American education has all the downsides of standardization, none of the upsides

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

We moved to America in 2015, in time for my kid to start third grade. Now she's a year away from graduating high school (!) and I've had a front-row seat for the US K-12 system in a district rated as one of the best in the country. There were ups and downs, but high school has been a monster.

We're a decade and a half into the "common core" experiment in educational standardization. The majority of the country has now signed up to a standardized and rigid curriculum that treats overworked teachers as untrustworthy slackers who need to be disciplined by measuring their output through standard lessons and evaluations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core

This system is rigid enough, but it gets even worse at the secondary level, especially when combined with the Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which adds another layer of inflexible benchmarks to the highest-stakes, most anxiety-provoking classes in the system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement

It is a system singularly lacking in grace. Ironically, this unforgiving system was sold as a way of correcting the injustice at the heart of the US public education system, which funds schools based on local taxation. That means that rich neighborhoods have better funded schools. Rather than equalizing public educational funding, the standardizers promised to ensure the quality of instruction at the worst-funded schools by measuring the educational outcomes with standard tools.

But the joke's on the middle-class families who backed standardized instruction over standardized funding. Their own kids need slack as much as anyone's, and a system that promises to put the nation's kids through the same benchmarks on the same timetable is bad for everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/28/give-me-slack-2/

Undoing this is above my pay-grade. I've already got more causes to crusade on than I have time for. But there is a piece of tantalyzingly low-hanging fruit that is dangling right there, and even though I'm not gonna pick it, I can't get it out of my head, so I figured I'd write about it and hope I can lazyweb it into existence.

The thing is, there's a reason that standardization takes hold in so many domains. Agreeing on a common standard enables collaboration by many entities without any need for explicit agreements or coordination. The existence of the ANSI/SAE J563 standard automobile auxiliary power outlet (AKA "car cigarette lighter") didn't just allow many manufacturers to make replacement lighter plugs. The existence of a standardized receptacle delivering standardized voltage to standardized contacts let all kinds of gadgets be designed to fit in that socket.

Standards crystallize the space of all possible ways of solving a problem into a range of solutions. This inevitably has a downside, because the standardized range might not be optimal for all applications. Think of the EU's requirement for USB-C charger tips on all devices. There's a lot of reasons that manufacturers prefer different charger tips for different gadgets. Some of those reasons are bad (gouging you on replacement chargers), but some are good (unique form-factor, specific smart-charging needs). USB-C is a very flexible standard (indeed, it's so flexible that some people complain that it's not a standard at all!) but there are some applications where the optimal solution is outside its parameters.

And still, I think that the standardization on USB-C is a force for good. I have drawers full of gadgets that need proprietary charger tips, and other drawers full of chargers with proprietary tips, and damned if I can make half of them match up. We've continued our pandemic lockdown tradition of my wife cutting my hair in the back yard, and just tracking the three different charger tips for the three clippers she uses is an ongoing source of frustration. I'd happily trade slightly sub-optimal charging for just being able to plug any of those clippers into the same cable I charge my headphones, phone, tablet and laptop on.

The standardization of American education has produced all the downsides of standardization – a rigid, often suboptimal, one-size-fits-all system – without the benefits. With teachers across America teaching in lockstep, often from the same set texts (especially in the AP courses), there's a massive opportunity for a commons to go with the common core.

For example, the AP English and History classes my kid takes use standard texts that are often centuries old and hard to puzzle out. I watched my kid struggle with texts for learning about "persuasive rhetoric" like 17th century pamphlets that inspired anti-indigenous pogroms with fictional accounts of "Indian atrocities."

It's good for American schoolkids to learn about the use of these blood libels to excuse genocide, but these pamphlets are a slog. Even with glossaries in the textbooks, it's a slow, word-by-word matter to parse these out. I can't imagine anyone learning a single thing about how speech persuades people just by reading that text.

But there's nothing in the standardized curriculum that prevents teachers from adding more texts to the unit. We live in an unfortunate golden age for persuasive texts that inspire terrible deeds – for example, kids could also read core Pizzagate texts and connect the guy who shot up the pizza parlor to the racists who formed a 17th century lynchmob.

But teachers are incredibly time-constrained. For one thing, at least a third of the AP classroom time seems to be taken up with detailed instructions for writing stilted, stylized "essays" for the AP tests (these are terrible writing, but they're easy to grade in a standardized way).

That's where standardization could actually deliver some benefits. If just one teacher could produce some supplemental materials and accompanying curriculum, the existence of standards means that every other teacher could use it. What's more, any adaptations that teachers make to that unit to make them suited to their kids would also work for the other teachers in the USA. And because the instruction is so rigidly standardized, all of these materials could be keyed to metadata that precisely identified the units they belonged to.

The closest thing we have to this are "marketplaces" where teachers can sell each other their supplementary materials. As far as I can tell, the only people making real money from these marketplaces are the grifters who built them and convinced teachers to paywall the instructional materials that could otherwise form a commons.

Like I said, I've got a completely overfull plate, but if I found myself at loose ends, trying to find a project to devote the rest of my life to, I'd be pitching funders on building a national, open access portal to build an educational commons.

It may be a lot to expect teachers to master the intricacies of peer-based co-production tools like Git, but there's already a system like this that K-8 teachers across the country have mastered: Scratch. Scratch is a graphic programming environment for kids, and starting with 2019's Scratch 3.0, the primary way to access it is via an in-browser version that's hosted at scratch.mit.edu.

Scratch's online version is basically a kid- (and teacher-)friendly version of Github. Find a project you like, make a copy in your own workspace, and then mod it to suit your own needs. The system keeps track of the lineage of different projects and makes it easy for Scratch users to find, adapt, and share their own projects. The wild popularity of this system tells us that this model for a managed digital commons for an educational audience is eminently achievable.

So when students are being asked to study the rhythm of text by counting the numbers of words in the sentences of important speeches, they could supplement that very boring exercise by listening to and analyzing contemporary election speeches, or rap lyrics, or viral influencer videos. Different teachers could fork these units to swap in locally appropriate comparitors – and so could students!

Students could be given extra credit for identifying additional materials that slot into existing curricular projects – Tiktok videos, new chart-topping songs, passages from hot YA novels. These, too, could go into the commons.

This would enlist students in developing and thinking critically about their curriculum, whereas today, these activities are often off-limits to students. For example, my kid's math teachers don't hand back their quizzes after they're graded. The teachers only have one set of quizzes per unit, and letting the kids hold onto them would leak an answer-key for the next batch of test-takers.

I can't imagine learning math this way. "You got three questions wrong but I won't let you see them" is no way to help a student focus on the right areas to improve their understanding.

But there's no reason that math teachers in a commons built around the (unfortunately) rigid procession of concepts and testing couldn't generate procedural quizzes, specified with a simple programming language. These tests could even be automatically graded, and produce classroom stats on which concepts the whole class is struggling with. Each quiz would be different, but cover the same ground.

When I help my kid with her homework, we often find disorganized and scattered elements of this system – a teacher might post extensive notes on teaching a specific unit. A publisher might produce a classroom guide that connects a book to specific parts of the common core. But these are scattered across the web, and they aren't keyed to the specific, standard components of common core and AP.

This is a standardized system that is all costs, no benefits. It has no "architecture of participation" that lets teachers, students, parents, practitioners and even commercial publishers collaborate to produce a commons that all may share and improve upon.

In an ideal world, we'd get rid of standardization in education, pay teachers well, give them the additional time they needed to prepare exciting and relevant curriculum, and fund all our schools based on need, not parents' income.

But in the meanwhile, we could be making lemonade of out lemons. If we're going to have standardization, we should at least have the collaboration standards enable.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

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/2024/01/16/flexibility-in-the-margins/#a-commons

[thewertsearch]

Well, now that you've got these home-alchemized hormones, why not alchemize them into something else? After all, what's the point in transitioning if it doesn't increase your combat potential?

Combining your CHARGER and ESTROGEN creates... the MTF EXTENSION CORD.

Which, you guess, makes sense.

Problem is, this doesn't count as a charger. You guess you could plug a charger into it to get a bit more range?

Maybe the alternative would work better.

Combining your Charger OR Estrogen creates the UNIVERSAL DIRECTIVE.

NOW we're talking! With this baby, you can turn any port you plug it into into a compatible USB-C port. Definitely more preferable than trying to figure out how to alchemize adapters for all those wacky port shapes down on LOCAH.

At least, it sorts out the smaller ones. Some of the data and power you've seen going around doesn't look like it'd work over USB-C. Maybe there's an HDMI version?

You're not sure how it does as an actual weapon, but you'll figure that out when the time comes.

(My talents at spritework are... not the best, so I just settled for lazy overlays of the trans flag.)

Fantastic work! This gear will surely help me on my Quest.

Perhaps I can also use the hormones to give myself a double-jump? ;)

[makrustic]

A Landscape Pixelartist reviews the XPPEN Artist Pro 14 (2nd Gen)! 🐦🌿

XPPEN was kind enough to send me this to finish my latest piece on; and it is here to stay for me to make more pixelart on it. Review below! ✍️ ———

Here are my thoughts using it for a week:

- The 1920x1200 Display makes drawing comfortable and manageable, while being amazingly bright and color accurate.

- The 16K-Pressure Pen draws responsively, along with its Felt-Tip Nibs—that comes with its Metal Case—feel very natural.

- It also comes with a Customizable Wireless Remote that can house all your shortcuts!

- The tablet itself has Built-In Foldable Legs that serves as a sufficient-enough stand.

- And my fave feature, is if your device has a USB-C port, you can plug it in using only *one cable*. ———

- The only problem I encounter is if the ambient room temp is quite warm, the tablet tends to heat up, especially around where the cable connects to it.

- I also suggest getting a separate stand that offers higher angles if you are prone to neck pain from looking down too often. ———

Overall, The Certified Cluster Commando approves!

Thank you XPPEN for sending me this tablet for reviewing! ❤️

And as a bonus, they have given us a 5%-OFF Discount Code 'makrustic5' on products in their store!

US store: https://bit.ly/4a6xrIi CA store: https://bit.ly/3yaDMW0

[autolenaphilia]

I got a Steam Deck last year, and it’s such a great machine. It’s obviously inspired by Nintendo Switch, but it’s a lot better than a Switch.

The most important part is that it runs PC games. It’s fundamentally a Linux gaming PC in the form of a handheld console. There are a lot more games available than any console and and PC games both on Steam and GOG are a lot cheaper than console ones. You can get old or indie games for as cheap as 1-3 euro during sales. It’s a tremendous advantage for the deck over its console competitors.

And while the obvious intent of the deck is to get more people to buy games from Steam, it isn’t a walled garden at all. The deck launches into Steam when you boot it up, but you can go into desktop mode, and then it functions as a normal PC running a Linux distro. From there you can install Lutris or Heroic Games Launcher, and use it to easily install games you bought from GOG and Itch.io.

You can also do things like use the official dock or an unofficial usb-c hub to hook the deck up to a monitor, mouse and keyboard to use it as a desktop PC. Or you can hook it up to a tv to use it as home console.

The hardware is also a lot more powerful than a switch, the demanding triple-a games it can play is actually impressive. Although this comes with the natural disadvantage that it’s bulkier too. Putting more powerful PC parts demands more space for them. The deck is not something I bring with me outside. But then again I didn’t even do that with the 3DS, which was actually of a practical size to do that. The deck is portable enough that I can comfortably play lying in bed, which is how I always used my handheld consoles. So it’s perfect for me, but maybe not if you want to play it on the bus or something. It can probably be a fun addition to your luggage on longer trips though.

Of course, as mentioned, the Steam Deck uses Linux. This has both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that it allows Valve to customize the operating system to make it fit with the machine it’s running on. The Deck’s SteamOS feels really well-integrated into the hardware, like how a proper console OS should be like. It’s not that dissimilar to how Sony used FreeBSD to make Playstation’s OS. Windows would not allow for this amount of customization and would not integrate as well.

And the open source nature of most Linux development allows Valve and the user to use existing open-source Linux software to their advantage. For example, the desktop mode is largely not a Valve creation, it’s an existing desktop environment for Linux, KDE Plasma. Yet it extends what the user can do with the deck to a great extent, like for installing non-steam games.

The main disadvantage to the Deck using Linux is that most PC games are built for Windows and don’t run natively under Linux. To run games built for Windows, the Deck has to run it through Proton, a compatibility layer which is Valve’s own gaming-focused version of Wine. Wine/Proton is far from perfect, sometimes games require extensive tinkering to work, or only run with serious issues, or don’t run at all, no matter what you do. Sometimes a game not working with Wine due to some random but serious issue that comes naturally from running a Windows executable on a Linux system via a compatibility layer. Sometimes it’s due to things like a multiplayer’s game anti-cheat system requiring access to the Windows kernel, and it will block a Linux pc from running the game because it has no Windows kernel.

This is however not as big a problem as it might otherwise be. Most games work, more or less. Valve has put a lot of work and money into both their own Proton and the Wine project as a whole, and they work a lot better than they did 10 years ago. Many run perfectly out of the box, because they are native, or play nice with Proton. Some require mere minor tinkering, like using a different version of Proton. And I generally don’t play multiplayer games, or if I do they don’t have draconian anti-cheats, so the games that are blocked because of anti-cheat are no big loss to me. The Steam Deck not running Fortnite is a plus in my book.

And we shouldn’t forget the Steam Deck verified system. Basically Valve employees check if the game runs out of the box with no issues on the Deck. They get a verified rating if they work with no issue, including both proton compatibility but also things like the controls working nice and the text being legible on the deck’s small screen. They also get a “playable” rating if the game runs to an acceptable standard but with tinkering required or other minor issues.

This is a good system. If you dislike tinkering, you can just buy and play games on steam with a verified rating, and the deck will work like a normal console for you, but with a lot cheaper games. It’s a good way to get people used to consoles into PC gaming, which is probably the point of the Deck.

And if you want more than deck verified games from Steam on the Deck, you are given the freedom to do it. I’ve gotten officially non-supported steam games to run on the deck by installing and using proton-GE and I’ve installed and played games from GOG.

The Steam Deck is really how a Linux PC for the common people should work. An easy and slick experience for casual users, but freedom and customization given to those that want it.

[annabelle--cane]

rifle through DVD box. find old being human s2 DVDs. excavate old dual region DVD player and tv monitor. spend several minutes de-cobwebbing them. find the remotes. de-cobweb remotes. replace batteries in remotes. plug in and hook up DVD player and monitor. put in first DVD. it works! score! problem: you don't know how you'll transfer the cenSAA special features to your computer if these turn out to be the right DVDs, but that's a future step. the menu screen plays on the tv, you prepare to let it loop a few times. the music is Loud. there's someone else in the next room and you cannot in good conscience have sound playing at this volume. you try to turn it down with the tv remote. tv remote does not work. DVD remote works but doesn't have a volume button. the little buttons on the monitor itself do not control the volume. monitor refuses to turn off. turn off DVD player in a panic.

reassess situation. inspect DVD player, it has an HDMI port. okay. workable, your desktop has an HDMI port, too, and if you connect it there then you can transfer the special features right away. go out in 20 degree F weather to get your desktop out of the car where you left it after coming home from school because it was raining and you didn't want to get it wet. lug desktop inside. disconnect monitor. acquire HDMI cable. plug in desktop. connect DVD player to desktop with HDMI cable. desktop registers Nothing. do spin attacks and kill things. spend twenty minutes poking at your desktop to see if you can make it work. fail.

reassess situation. inspect DVD player, it has a USB port. okay. workable, you have a USB to USB C cable, and your laptop has a USB C port. unplug and disconnect desktop. get out laptop. connect DVD player to laptop. laptop registers Nothing. begin bleeding from the eyes and ears and nose and mouth. spend twenty minutes poking at your laptop to see if you can make it work. fail.

reassess situation. inspect monitor, it has an HDMI port. okay. not workable exactly, but you can at least perform an experiment to see if this old DVD player is simply incompatible with newer technology for some reason or if all its other ways of connecting are janked and it can only work via VIVO. sit in your little ring of scattered devices and cables and wireless add-ons for several minutes. decide actually you would rather explode into a shower of viscera than spend any more time disconnecting and reconnecting monitors. explode into a shower of viscera.

[3xen]

Hey

Ive been seeing youre writing hc’s about mlbb characters can i please request an alpha one please because i need some hcs about that boy😩

boyfriend hcs; alpha

n. ah hi guys! i hope u enjoy :3

c. fluff

boyfriend!alpha keeps a separate hard drive in his system that is solely dedicated to you. it’s the largest unit in his system. the content and data he collects ranges from photos, videos, personal information, and details about you that are as small as if you like your grapes seedless or not.

boyfriend!alpha refuses to reboot or upgrade his system. octavius is muddled that his cyborg that he built from top to bottom utterly declines a new system that is more compatible than the last. alpha has a rational fear of losing his data. he deems it very valuable and if he ever were to lose his memories with you, there would be no point, will there? the only solution to this problem is that octavius outputs all his data into a usb and transfers it to his new system. alpha is grateful.

boyfriend!alpha will drop everything and anything if he gets the impression that you are in danger. oh yeah, he’s fighting crime right now but there’s a spider on your bathroom wall? he surrenders to defeat and gets to you as soon as he can. he’ll never make you wait if he doesn’t have to.

boyfriend!alpha doesn’t let being a cyborg be an excuse. human emotions or not, he performs just as well as any human does. he’ll find ways to show he loves you. his love language is surely acts of service. he buys you your favorite flowers, candy, and writes you sensual love letters. he really does try his best.

boyfriend!alpha breaks the rules. the laboratory does have some strict rules, but does alpha follow them? no. does he have to break them? no. the laboratory provides rooms for the doctors and nurses. in the dead of night, your getting a soft knock at your door; one part of you is sacred and the other is questioning who could this be. it’s almost midnight.. you can’t be out of your quarters between 10 pm and 7 am. it’s alpha, obviously. “goodness, let me know next time you’ll be sneaking out past working hours.”

boyfriend!alpha only allows two people to work on him for better upgrades. octavius and you. he knows you insanely well and he knows you do your job well. he will never ever question your abilities. “i think that screw was meant to go here.” “are you serious right now?”

boyfriend!alpha is husband material. alpha does corny and sappy things with you. he sees everything on the web of course. that is his source! he knows you may not like it as much as he does and that’s why he’s such a great boyfriend! he puts you first in any situation and gives you extreme princess treatment. his love is undying and i don’t think he’s ever looking at another woman again.

© 3xen

[lalune9x]

SCTIR Translation - Chapter 464: I'm a Fan! (4)

[NOVEL SPOILERS] Story context: Han Gyeol is the name of the pink fairy dragon previously called 'Changeling' that Han Yoojin, uh, gave birth to. Yoojin named him in an earlier chapter after getting input from the other dad slash magical essence donor(?).

"Also, you barely know her. I’m not against you dating outright." "Ajussi, that’s one hundred percent a lie,” Yerim cut in.

Chapter translation under the cut.

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“I’m telling you, I’ll get rejected,” I said. I was organizing the details of the monsters I had cared for on my laptop.

Han Gyeol, who was sitting beside the laptop and glaring at Sung Hyunje, grumbled, ‘Why would Dad get rejected?’ Then he said more loudly:

— If Dad likes someone, then I’ll like them too.

“That’s sweet of you, Gyeol-ah. But you know, Dad actually sort of likes Sung Hyunje, too.”

— Except for that one. Except the ones dangerous to Dad.

It seemed like Han Gyeol had developed a particular dislike for Sung Hyunje after I’d been threatened by him a few times. There was that time during the dungeon break, and when he’d tried to mess with me on the cruise.

“So, is this going to be your office, Director Han?” Moon Hyuna asked, looking around the room. We were in one of the empty rooms on the first floor of the rearing facility.

“They told me I needed a director’s office. Up until now, I’ve just been working from home, but now that I have employees, I figured it’s time to do things properly.”

It was about time I had a more regular work schedule. I had been living too erratically. For now, I had just set up a desk, table, and sofa. I didn’t even have a nameplate yet. Come to think of it, I should get a new business card too.

“Anyway, I’m just going to confess and be done with it.”

“How’s that going to work? What if Chloe says okay?”

“Do you really think that’s likely? I mean assuming she has no ulterior motives,” I replied.

Moon Hyuna scratched the back of her head. “You are cute, Hyung-nim, but...” She plopped down onto the sofa and continued, “If you’re asking if Chloe would find you attractive, I’m honestly not sure I can give a positive answer.”

“Of course not. After all, I’m pretty much a stranger to her. It would be hard to claim love at first sight, too. No matter what people say about first impressions, looks matter, and in that department, I’m at a disadvantage.”

As if it weren’t hard enough being on my own, I had to contend with Yoohyun, Sung Hyunje, and even Song Taewon as my companions. Who would even notice my face? Getting rejected was the most likely outcome, assuming there were no ulterior motives involved.

“You’re speaking very rationally. Weren’t you all flustered yesterday? Did your feelings cool off overnight?”

“I still like Chloe-ssi. I’d like to keep liking her, if possible.”

Chloe didn’t know it, but her programs had been a source of comfort to me during some tough times. I wasn’t the only one she’d helped. While those moments had been erased due to my regression, I still remembered them clearly.

“…You’re acting a bit suspicious.” Hyuna-ssi seemed to have caught on that my attitude wasn’t normal.

“In support of Han Yoojin-gun’s first love.” Sung Hyunje approached and perched on the desk, then handed me a USB drive. Gyeol bared his teeth as if he would chomp on Sung Hyunje’s hand at any moment. Calm down, Gyeol-ah.

“It’s not my first love. I already got rejected by my first love a long time ago,” I said.

I plugged the USB into my laptop. It contained detailed information on Chloe Alger. “You got that ready fast.”

I said I would contact him in a few days, but he had brought the information in just one day. The data included not only personal details but also recent activities in detail. After reading through it, I let out a deep sigh. There wasn’t anything particularly suspicious in the data itself. However…

‘One centimeter.’

She was 1 cm taller than she had been before my regression. It was a small difference, but the problem was that Chloe at this point should be at a lower level than the Chloe I knew. Taking that into account, the difference might be closer to 2 cm.

‘...It’s likely that her rank increased, after all.’

Or she might have acquired a skill that affected her body. That was also possible. Ranks can go up. Skills can be gained. After all, I had changed, and so had the people around me. It wasn’t unreasonable to think others could change too.

But change wasn’t that easy. If I didn't have my memories, if my skills remained the same and I had simply regressed—how much would I have changed compared to before the regression? It's never easy to change without external interference.

“Han Yoojin-gun,” Sung Hyunje said, leaning forward. “It seems some information differs from what you remember.”

“…Yes.”

"Why are you two having a conversation only you understand," Moon Hyuna grumbled, annoyed at being left out. 

Explaining it fully would mean bringing up my life before the regression. I rubbed my face as if washing it and pushed my hair back.

“It’s not certain,” I said, feeling a weight in my chest. “But there’s a possibility that Hunter Chloe is connected to Park Hayul or to the person who recently carried out the attack on the Association.”

“…Chloe is?” Moon Hyuna looked surprised.

“Yes. That's why, to confirm, I need to be rejected by her."

Moon Hyuna loosely crossed her arms. Gyeol used his tail to slap away Sung Hyunje’s hand, which had been reaching towards me.

“Don’t be too disappointed. People aren’t always what they seem,” Sung Hyunje consoled me.

“We don’t know for certain yet.”

“Hold on, Hyung-nim. So you pretended to like Chloe?”

“…I’m not pretending. I do like her, not romantically but as a person. I’m genuinely a fan."

“Yeah, you didn’t seem like you were acting. But confessing just to see if there’s something fishy… isn’t that a strange approach?"

"Everyone already thinks I have a crush on Chloe-ssi, so I’m playing along with the situation."

I couldn’t explain about the keyword. If the keyword failed to work, it would mean she was connected to Park Hayul. If it worked but she started making moves to get closer to me or try something else, then she’d likely be linked to the Pious. If neither happened, then maybe I could relax a little. But I’d still need to ask her about her rank.

“I don’t think Chloe-ssi is the kind of person who would date me just for my status. Don’t you agree?"

"From what I know, yeah. Chloe is, how should I put it, a bit like Director Song."

“Like Director Song?”

“I told you that she’s unusual. She’s not as extreme in suppressing herself, but for a high-ranking hunter, she cares a lot about the public good. She also dislikes hunters who abuse their power.”

“…She sounds like a good person.”

“Well, there’s still a lot of discrimination where she’s from, right? Even though it’s lessened over time, you still hear things like, ‘America’s heroes are always white.’"

Though not all, most of the famous and popular hunters in the U.S. were indeed white. There had been discussions about how similarly skilled or even weaker hunters received preferential treatment if they were white.

“Her ethics are fairly strict, so it’s hard to imagine her being involved with the people who kidnapped you and shot at you, Director Han. Still, as Sung Hyunje said, people aren’t always what they seem. Some folks are completely different on the inside.”

"The Breaker Guild Leader got tricked once, too. That’s why—"

“Shut your mouth, Sung Hyunje, before I stitch it closed,” Moon Hyuna growled, her brow furrowing. Hyuna-ssi had also been deceived at some point?

“It could just be my misunderstanding,” I said.

“Well anyway, Hyung-nim, if you’re rejected cleanly, then she probably doesn’t have any ulterior motives. Right?”

“Basically, yes. If she were targeting me, it’d be an opportunity she wouldn’t want to pass up."

Even though we were technically in a ceasefire with the Pious, both sides were allowed to maintain contact. There was no reason for them to refuse an opportunity to get closer to me.

"She might suspect it's a trap, but I think my behavior has been quite natural."

"It was good enough to fool me, so I’d say that’s a safe bet,” Hyuna said.

"I’m telling you, it’s real."

Besides, given how loudly I’d been declaring my supposed feelings and confessing, it’d be hard for anyone to believe this was all staged. And all I’d done was mention the idea of confessing. 

"It seems the rumors have spread quite a bit.”

“Yeah, it’s all over our guild,” Hyuna replied.

“Sooyoung said she wants to catch the bouquet,” Sung Hyunje chimed in.

“Ah, Liette mentioned she might try to make a move before it’s too late, so be careful. Lock your doors at night.”

What nonsense was that? Does that mean Liette wouldn't touch someone who has a partner? I thought she wouldn't care about things like that, so it was a bit surprising.

“…I really feel bad for Chloe-ssi, though. If this turns out to be a misunderstanding, I’ll need to apologize properly."

"You said your behavior wasn't fake, right? Besides, you’re F-rank and younger than her, so it’s not a big deal. If Chloe were a low-rank hunter or your genders were reversed, I’d tell you to keep quiet, but this is just a harmless incident.”

Moon Hyuna waved her hand dismissively, assuring me that this situation would blow over as a minor incident. She even suggested Chloe might find it amusing.

“Please keep this a secret from others. From Yoohyun and Yerim, of course, but also from Director Song,” I requested.

If Yoohyun and Yerim found out, they’d give away the ruse immediately. And Director Song wasn’t great at acting either.

“Don’t worry. So, which hotel? Should I call in an orchestra?” Moon Hyuna was still excited, insisting that a confession was still a confession, after all.

“Fine, fine. Chloe-ssi probably knows what you’re like, Hyuna-ssi, so do as you please. I’ll just go along with the two of you and let you push me into confessing."

There was something else I hesitated to mention but felt I should, just in case.

“It seems Chloe-ssi’s stats are higher than what’s publicly known. She might actually be S-rank, not A-rank.”

“What?” Moon Hyuna’s eyes widened in surprise. It seemed even Sung Hyunje hadn’t anticipated that.

"The current Chloe Alger is about 2cm taller than the A-rank Chloe Alger."

"So that's why you were sure after seeing the data,” Sung Hyunje remarked.

“What are you two talking about?”

“The Chloe Alger I knew was 1 cm shorter, even five years from now.”

“…Five years from now?”

“I’m actually from five years in the future.”

“What Han Yoojin-gun says is true,” Sung Hyunje backed me up.

Moon Hyuna leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, staring at us. There was a moment of silence.

“…Well, fine. I guess a lot of strange things have happened since the dungeons appeared, so why not. We’ve been to other worlds, so time travel doesn’t seem too far-fetched. The bottom line is that you know what’ll happen over the next five years?”

“It’s changed a lot. Originally, I couldn't raise monsters. There was no rearing facility. S-rank mounts didn’t exist even five years later.”

"Things are much better then! That's all that matters." Moon Hyuna sat up and stretched her back, before sinking deep into the sofa. “Got any advice for me?”

“Not really. Just be cautious with the media, I guess? You can imagine why I would have known about that incident,” I said.

“Got it.”

She didn’t pry for more details. Just like in Achates, Hyuna-ssi lived in the present. She focused on the here and now, without lingering on a future that had disappeared. Even after the Breaker Guild collapsed prior to my regression, she would have continued on her own path. And that would be the same in this present.

“So, Chloe changed a lot physically from A-rank to S-rank, which is suspicious. Can those guys turn A-ranks into S-ranks? What about making S-ranks into SS-ranks?” Hyuna asked.

“That would be difficult. I did help Hunter Kim Sunghan grow into an S-rank, but that was different.”

“Oh, right, you did.”

“I only managed it because I figured out his growth conditions, but it still wasn’t easy. The requirements were strict.”

I also shared the exact date I had regressed. Moon Hyuna cheerfully left first, saying she’d prepare everything nicely. Gyeol glared at Sung Hyunje, as if urging him to leave quickly too.

"Will you send everyone away when you confess?" Sung Hyunje asked.

“Yes. The skill on me hasn’t lifted yet, so I’ll deactivate my Fear Resistance just in case. That should also make things more convincing.”

If Chloe were connected to Park Hayul, she might try to control me. Confessing to an S-rank I supposedly liked without Fear Resistance… it was going to look pretty pathetic. Honestly, it would be more surprising if she didn’t reject me. Just thinking about it made me a little sad. Honestly, it’s not like I had no desire for a normal relationship.

“Even if, by some miracle, she says yes, I’d still turn her down.”

Yerim, who had been supportive, told me to brush it off and stay strong in advance.

Yoohyun, however, still didn’t seem to believe I could be rejected. Sure, maybe on paper my qualifications were appealing…

"You know my situation well, but you’re acting like this?" I asked.

“…Yeah.”

"Didn't you say before that you'd step aside if I got married?"

“Really? Did Han Yoohyun really say that?” Yerim asked, looking between Yoohyun and me in disbelief.

“At the time, I thought it would be fine as long as Hyung was happy.”

"And now you don’t want to do that?"

“…No, I don’t,” Yoohyun shook his head apologetically. It was better for him to admit it than forcing himself to accept it. "Also, you barely know her. I’m not against you dating outright."

"Ajussi, that’s one hundred percent a lie,” Yerim cut in.

"I mean, if she were trustworthy, I’d be okay with it."

“Is there even anyone like that? By your standards, the only one who could pass is probably Peace,” Yerim pointed out.

“Yeah, Peace would be fine.”

Yerim and I both stared at Yoohyun. Oh… he seemed serious.

“Wow… Han Yoohyun," Yerim said slowly.

“Yoohyun-ah, at least consider the fact that Peace is a different species.”

Of course, I trusted Peace too, especially since I’d raised him myself.

“At least Peace would never hurt you, Hyung.”

“Right, right.”

As we talked, the car arrived at the hotel. Even though I was expecting to be rejected, I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous.

[kde-plasma-official]

whats the status of like. using linux on a phone. it feels like there are two parallel universes, one that kde lives in where people use linux on phones, and one where if you google linux phones you discover theyre almost usable but they can barely make phone calls or send texts and they only run on like 4 models of phone

don't have much experience with linux on phone so anyone please correct me if i'm wrong but

one of the problems with phones is that every vendor and manufacturer adds their own proprietary driver blob to it and these have to be extracted and integrated into the kernel in order for the hardware to function.

as companies don't like to share their magic of "how does plastic slab make light", reverse engineering all your hardware is quite a difficult task. Sometimes there just isn't a driver for the camera of a phone model yet because no one was able to make it work.

So naturally, this takes a lot of time and tech is evolving fast so by the time a phone is completely compatible, next generations are already out and your new model obsolete.

Also important to note: most of this work is made by volunteers, people with a love for programming who put a lot of their own time into these things, most of them after their daytime jobs as a hobby.

Of course, there are companies and associations out there who build linux phones for a living. But the consumer hardware providers, like Pinephone, Fairphone and others out there aren't as big and don't have this much of a lobby behind them so they can't get their prices cheap. Also the manufacturers are actively working against our right to repair so we need more activism.

To make the phones still affordable (and because of said above driver issues) they have to use older hardware, sometimes even used phones from other manufacturers that they have to fix up, so you can't really expect a modern experience. At least you can revive some older phones. As everything Linux.

Then there's the software providers who many of are non-profits. KDE has Plasma Mobile, Canonical works on Ubuntu Touch, Debian has the Mobian Project and among some others there's also the Arch Linux ARM Project.

That's right baby, ARM. We're not talking about your fancy PC or ThinkPad with their sometimes even up to 64-bit processors. No no no, this is the future, fucking chrome jellyfishes and everything.

This is the stuff Apple just started building their fancy line of over-priced and over-engineered Fisher-Price laptop-desktops on and Microsoft started (Windows 10X), discontinued and beat into the smush of ChatGPT Nano Bing Open AI chips in all your new surface hp dell asus laptops.

What I was trying to say is, that program support even for the market dominating monopoles out there is still limited and.... (from my own experience from the workplace) buggy. Which, in these times of enshittification is a bad news. And the good projects you gotta emulate afterwards anyways so yay extra steps!

Speaking of extra steps: In order to turn their phone into a true freedom phone, users need to free themselves off their phones warranty, lose their shackles of not gaining root access, installing a custom recovery onto their phone (like TWRP for example), and also have more technical know-how as the typical user, which doesn't quite sounds commercial-ready to me.

So is there no hope at all?

Fret not, my friend!

If we can't put the Linux into the phone, why don't we put the phone around the Linux? You know... Like a container?

Thanks to EU regulations-

(US consumers, please buy the European versions of your phones! They are sometimes a bit more expensive, but used models of the same generation or one below usually still have warranty, are around the same price as over there in Freedom Valley, and (another side tangent incoming - because of better European consumer protection laws) sometimes have other advantages, such as faster charging and data transfer (USB-C vs lightning ports) or less bloated systems)

- it is made easier now to virtualize Linux on your phone.

You can download a terminal emulator, create a headless Linux VM and get A VNC client running. This comes with a performance limit though, as a app with standard user permissions is containerized inside of Android itself so it can't use the whole hardware.

If you have root access on your phone, you can assign more RAM and CPU to your VM.

Also things like SDL just released a new version so emulation is getting better.

And didn't you hear the news? You can run other things inside a VM on an iPhone now! Yup, and I got Debian with Xfce running on my Xiaomi phone. Didn't do much with it tho. Also Windows XP and playing Sims 1 on mobile. Was fun, but battery draining. Maybe something more for tablets for now.

Things will get interesting now that Google officially is a monopoly. It funds a lot of that stuff.

I really want a Steam Deck.

Steam phones would be cool.

[gryficowa]

People entering popular tags and seeing my posts about boycotting:

It follows that today (August 11) another strike begins (For Palestine) and lasts until August 18

Yes, my Internet is rebelling (I use mobile hispot via USB)

Unfortunately, this complicates sharing fundraising posts a bit, but hey, that's not the most important thing, so yeah

I know, it's a trivial problem (Compared to the situation with fundraisers where I'm trying to increase the reach, which doesn't change the fact that it makes it a bit more difficult, seriously, my Internet often randomly stops working and it sucks, because if you want the collections to reach a larger number of people, this may make it difficult, especially if you do not have a charger very close to you, so you also have a limit on how long the battery can run before the laptop runs out of charge)

Unfortunately, many collections are empty or have stopped at a certain number and do not want to move forward :/

Now that I have your attention:

[isyourmechrunning]

◊ Hello again, Darling! Apologies for the delay, transit was a touch more eventful than I had anticipated. However, myself and my dear travelling companions are now within a few hours of your doorstep. I rather thought it would be polite to knock, so to speak.

◊ You mentioned you were under some form of quarentine, no? It sounded rather dreadfully dull, so I thought I would aquire some creature comforts as a token of grattitude for your willingness to teach me to better care for my dear Sleep to the Freezing. I was unsure what you might enjoy regarding some reading material, so I picked up a handful of magazines. Files, and physical darling- I thought perhaps the paper would be novel. Or good for keeping the floors clean while working, at least.

◊ Hm what else... ah, yes. A nice selection of cheeses, some accoutrements to go with them, I was fortunate to find fresh grapes as well. Some cookies, I believe? I don't quite remember all of what I packed into this basket if I'm quite honest. Perhaps the surprise will add to the enjoyment. Oh, yes speaking of surprises- I do hope you don't mind dear, but I am not here alone. My dear partner Zero agreed to accompany me, in my journey here. I'm sure you'll get along swimmingly. Certainlly, I think you will be delighted to meet his darling Ashanna; I have taken the liberty of procuring some scrap metal on our journey, to keep her hunger at bay during our visit.

◊ We should arrive posthaste, so do inform me if there are any precautions we should take on approach. Both myself and my dear partner are capable of subtlety, should the need arise. Oh yes, and- should you wish to know anything in detail of my darling To the Freezing, please don't hesitate to ask.

◊ Ciao. I will see you soon ✧

[ Khione // @umbrasnow ]

>>OH HI!!!! Hi Mx. Khione I’m SO excited to actually get to work on your mech I’ve never worked on a Banshee PG before but it’s gonna be SO fun I’ve been reading up as much as I can with these more exotic pattern groups and I haven’t found but BUT!!! I’m really good with HORUS stuff so it’ll be great it’ll be awesome.

>>Oh gifts!!! Ohhhh this is so sweet thank you so much!!!! I’ve kinda been going crazy here since all I have to do is tinker and stuff but surprise surprise I actually have hobbies other than being a mechanic. This is so so so sweet I’m gonna give you a discount for bringing gifts and also because you’re nice and I don’t actually need the money all that much. Your friend too because I think his Omninet beef is really funny and I think Paole frames are really cool.

>>You might need to be just a liiiittle quiet getting in here since technically I’m not supposed to have visitors BUT!!! I’m not monitored very closely and you won’t show up on the cameras because I’m cracked at the craft and USB can’t keep up with me. Just make sure none of the guards question you and you’ll be fine. I’ve read up on your guys’ records I’m sure that literally won’t be a problem for you.

>>One more thing!!! So, I’m really very skilled in something I like call duct tape maintenance, but also I know that some people like their repairs to be all fancy and seamless. The outside will be as nice and pristine as always!!! But inside on any more major repairs I might use materials like duct tape and stuff to patch things up. I’m also just a pretty good mechanic in general so I can also do neater repairs with all the fancy special-made materials and make it look pretty on the inside too, but functionally it’ll work all the same way and it’s just a cosmetic choice really. Doing it with all the special-made materials will cost more since those are really hard to find for HORUS PGs and C-GW mechs just straight up don’t have them, but I totally get it if you wanna treat your babies more nicely!!!

>>I’m so so excited for when you guys get here I also have drinks if you guys want. I’ve also got the printer running in case there’s parts I need!!! Door’s open, don’t be afraid to just walk in!!!