#What is an encoder and a decoder

[jnthn2rris]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/semiconductors--analog--multiplexer-demultiplexer/dg406dn-t1-e3-vishay-3148293

What is an encoder and a decoder, digital data converter, communication network

Single 16 Channel 5 to 20 V 50 Ω CMOS Analog Multiplexer - PLCC-28

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[bludraws094]

the five and a half minute hallway

made this at the mix lab at the science museum

navidson is a cutout that i glued onto the main sheet of paper

all of the colors were done in alcohol(?) markers on the backside, so that they would bleed through

i got to tell other people there about house of leaves while i drew it :3 also there was a kitten named mcdonalds sprite

if any of the people who were there see this (which i doubt they will) and have pictures of mcdonalds sprite please add pictures of him i didnt get to take any bcus i didnt want to photograph any of the people who held him without permission and my anxious ass was not asking to take pictures of people holding a cat

reblogs > likes!

[muted5ilence]

Me when Eddie Dear Update

But fren pointed out the low low prices for Poppy merch and such things

So Eddie is being actively haunted

And Poppy is just a very very worried character

/lh

But someone saying Eddie might get removed — he died /hj

Poppy is being quietly removed /j

My main notice is that the project actively reflects what we as a fandom (sorta, maybe) have been thinking of

We got characterization actively via the 14 clips and such

And it was “Eddie is being bullied </3” and “Poppy deserves more love” (bc most ppl favor the rest of the cast). Plus we get Sally and Frank fighting, which is funny as a Sally hater (I have mad respect for Frank for that lmao)

So reflecting those things in the COMMUNITY, we get a mostly Eddie-centric update. Confirming that he is in fact left out a LOT, that he is in fact an isolated lil guy (the isolation stuff). Poppy is *quietly* left out of stuff (me when fren said it could be like the birds migrating thing but instead she stays indoors—which tbh she already isolates herself in her home anyways). And Sally is actively being fought (a massive DUB for the Sally haters 😂)

Also I miss my boyyyy, I miss Wally 🥺 They really said “No sir” and locked him up and shit, not allowed to chat on main anymore 😔 Tbf, he did make a mess. But like c’mon, let pookie SPEAK!! Punished for being autistic /j

Anyways I think about the person who made those notebook entries “my name doesn’t matter”

ALSO OML SO MANY Ws ARE USED ACTUALLY (in reference to different things)

Wally, WaLLy, Welcome Home, WHRP, (thats it actually that I can think of)

So when the sign off is •W, I’m gonna think of what little we get

Also note, remember those questions startin’ w/ W, fellas

Who what when where why

And AAAAAAA my brain is making minor connections to things that don’t matter bc ITS SILLYYYY!!! SIlly Silly <3

Anyways yeah I miss pookie and I hope he and/or others will make codes with the new cryptography stuff we gettin’ (cipher)

I always loved those pages in activity books anyways, because looking at a key for reference and translating letters is so fun (despite the tedious back and forth if you dont have it memorized)

[strangelittlestories]

After the occupation, the princess was confined to the palace.

Once a month she'd be taken on a walk around the city, heavily guarded of course, to show the people that she still lived. It also served, of course, as a reminder of what they stood to lose if they made trouble. The princess did her best go wave and smile and give the people what encouragement she could.

The rest of the time, her life was spent in musty rooms and dusty towers. She filled most of her time scouring the castle for materials which she would sew into more and more elaborate outfits, which she would show off on the days when she was allowed outside.

Indeed, the public loved their princess and her dresses so much they'd often sketch or paint them along the route and pass the images on so that all could see the princess at least was well.

This pleased the occupiers for two reasons. First: it kept the princess out of trouble. Second: it gave them a reason to sneer and they did love a good sneer.

"What a vain creature she is!" They would remark.

"Doesn't even care we murdered her brothers so long as she gets enough satin to make her little dresses!" They squawked.

This was unfair, of course, for to call her creations "little dresses" was to call Queen Murderfun the Needlessly Genocidal "a tad piquey". Her dresses were gravity-defying wonders lace and pearl. They were thunderstorms captured in velvet and waterfalls summoned in silk. She was a wizard with silk.

Still, she bore their mockery with a tight smile and careful deference.

"Please, good sirs, my home, my people and my city now belong to you. Let me keep, at least, this one last joy."

And they sneered and they crowed most unpleasantly, but they let her keep her sewing room.

Of course, they would have known their mockery to be doubly unfair had they realised the true purpose of the princess's elaborate designs. For hidden in the intricate embroiderings across her gowns, jackets and fans, the princess had encoded secret (and very detailed) messages. When she would go on her monthly walk, the city's loyalists would line the route, sketching down the patterns to decode later.

Thus did the princess transmit all the occupiers' secrets (unearthed while supposedly 'searching the castle for old fabrics') to the city and thus did she build her resistance.

On the day the revolution finally came, she girded herself in armour of thick spider silk and whale bone. She cut a fine figure with a lacy handkerchief in her top pocket and a razor sharp knitting needle keeping her hair up.

As she waltzed through the castle to open the door for her army, the Usurper King tried to stop her and she simply unfolded her handkerchief and showed it to him.

Upon seeing the impossible arcane pattern emblazoned across it, he fell to the floor with blood streaming from his eyes.

She always had been a wizard with silk.

---

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so at https://ko-fi.com/strangelittlestories

[getreview4u]

(via What is Video Encoding and Decoding?)

[alchemist-of-life]

I’m curious how binary cant work for admech since day 1. At first, I thought it’s just high speed alternation in frequencies of sounds to denote 0 and 1, just like how computer cable does with voltage. So I wrote a python script to convert natural language to binary code then to sound based on the idea (so that I can curse in binary in ttrpg). However, since the human auditory cortex can only distinguish sound about 20ms apart, the current commonly used binary coding method (Unicode) that requires 8 bits to encode for one letter (16 bits for one character in Mandarin) would make binary cant less efficient than natural language through the bare ear. As a result, binary cant users not only need vocal implants but also auditory implants to receive info (or perhaps cortex implants to decode). Based on these assumptions, binary cant would be able to happen in sound frequencies not perceivable by the original human cochlea so techpriests conversation can be extremely quiet. And more efficiently, just through data cables.

Or it could be the other way around, scientists might develop more efficient binary language without basing it on the symbol system of natural languages (I’m not that familiar with linguistics so I don’t know if this is possible or not).

However, the sound techpriests made in the game mechanicus doesn’t sound like my assumption. There are definitely more than 2 pitches used in the conversations (which makes it less binary...) and they seem to be faster than natural language. I still couldn’t figure out what’s happening here. Do the twisting pitches actually encode more than one bit? Is binary cant actually an analog signal encoding a digital signal? Or is the sound effect just mean to sound better for the game?

The binary curse program (turn the sound on!):

[filestack]

What Is Codecs | FileStack Blog

In this post, we'll go through what is codecs. Codec is a protocol for encoding and decoding video. Common codecs include H.264, MPEG-4, and DIvX. A well engineered codec has high efficiency, or ability to preserve quality while reducing file size. For more information, visit the website.

[audliminal]

It's just a game, right? Pt 1

Masterpost

"I just don't see how sitting around is gonna do anything!" Dash argues, face to face with Sam.

"Well, if you have other ideas you're more than welcome to offer them, but we can't just take out the giw. They have more manpower than us, more equipment, and the new agents actually seem to be competent in fights! And we are a bunch of high school students!"

They are all, ostensibly in English Class right now, but even Mr. lancer has forgone the illusion of normal classwork. He assigns books and hands out reading assignments every week, but nobody really cares whether they get turned in or not. The city, after all, has a much bigger problem.

"I don't know! But sitting here-"

"He's not entirely wrong, the longer we wait the more likely they figure it out, just like we all did." As Valerie finishes speaking, the room temperature drops noticeably, and the kids all glance nervously over at Danny who's head hasn't moved from it's spot on his desk. He almost seems dead with how still he is. Beside him Tucker stares at his PDA, the only one who hasn't reacted to the temperature change.

"Should I even ask what you're messing with?" Sam asks, walking over while the others stare nervously at Danny.

"Actually, yeah." Tucker easily shifts so they can both see the webpage displayed on the handmade tech. "I got something through."

"I thought getting stuff through wasn't really the problem?"

"I mean, yeah, they're letting Everything Is Normal posts through, but this wasn't. That. I was, um, kind of fucking around with ciphers and shit? Not saying anything relevant, but just seeing whether they'd flag any old weird shit, you know? And um. I got a video out."

"Okay, but how does that help us?" Valerie asks.

"It helps because if they let a cipher through then means if I encode shit well enough, then it'll also get through."

"But if it's, like, that hard to figure out what it says, then won't it be useless on the outside?"

"The chances of it getting into the hands of someone who could crack it do seem, uh, improbable."

"Not if we stack the deck."

"Wes-"

"No, listen, I know you're all still mad at me, but like. If you can attract a community of codebreakers? Then eventually someone will crack the code on what you need them to!"

"If you have an idea then just fucking say it, Wes," Sam snaps.

"Make an ARG. We can even have like, the base level be completely United to anything real, just make up a story about, i dunno, space travel? And then bury the actual info beneath that. Eventually somebody will crack into the real stuff, and if it's popular enough by then, and the GIW tries to suppress it? That'll be even more suspicious-looking, and just make them dig harder."

"What the fuck is a ARG?" Dash asks, pulling his gaze away from their definitely-just-sleeping classmate.

"Augmented reality game. It's like an unfiction thing. Make a story but the story is interactive and people have to decode shit to figure out what's going on." Tucker glances over to Wes. "And actually not a bad idea. If we all work together, we could probably make something cool."

"You could treat it as a class-wide project." Mr. Lancer says, making everyone jump. "That way I can back you up if anyone starts asking questions."

"Make it about black holes," Danny says, finally pulling himself up from his desk. "We can base it in wormhole theory, and distract the GIW with all the theoretical science."

"What, so like we make videos that seem like they're being sent through a black hole?"

"Fuckin. Sure, why not? As if shit couldn't get any weirder around here."

"Star, please try to refrain from swearing in front of me. I know the situation is - difficult - but I am officially still your teacher."

"Sorry, Lancer."

[lxgentlefolkcomic]

First page || Previous page || Next page

Start reading Episode 1

Dialogue transcripts:

Panel 1

Jonathan: My diary! You fiend!

Panel 2

Nemo: Stay your anger, Mr. Harker. I perceived you had lied to me, and for the safety of this vessel and its crew it is my responsibility to determine the truth.

Panel 3

Jonathan: The truth about what?

Nemo (offscreen): Your reasons for coming to sea, for one.

Godfrey: This is a monstrous invasion of privacy!

Panel 4

Jack: He wouldn’t be able to read it, anyway—Harker uses shorthand.

Nemo (offscreen): Yes, and wisely so. Fortunately, I have had occasion to study this form of shorthand, and was easily able to decode it.

Panel 5

Nemo: Consider the facts, Mr. Harker. I found you three in the wake of a great monster, sifting through the wreckage of its latest target. When Mr. Harker lied to me about your intentions, my suspicion was aroused.

Panel 6

Nemo: I suppose you suspected me, just as I suspected you. Yet now, with the evidence of this encoded diary you assumed would be safe from prying eyes, I am satisfied on the matter.

Panel 7

Nemo: I am sorry, Mr. Harker, that I have brought up so many unpleasant memories of this “Count”. Now that I have verified your trustworthiness, perhaps I can win your trust in return.

[foone]

Have you ever wondered what's the difference between a Beta and VHS tape? Like, physically? They're both half-inch (12.7mm) magnetic tapes, after all... and you can't exactly put a beta tape into a VHS VCR, or vice versa... but what if we opened up the cassettes and transplanted the tape between them?

So I opened the beta (left) and vhs (right) tapes

I wound the tape from the beta onto the VHS tape

I needed to unspool the old VHS tape, which is hard. this thing is nearly a half-kilometer long, about 1400 feet. So how do you do that? A POWER DRILL!

And I put it back together. And I stuck it in the VHS VCR, and hit play.

Well, it doesn't really show anything. The VHS VCR can't decode the Beta signal, because it's encoded differently. There's no sound, either.

But what about the tape? Is it similar enough to VHS tape that we could record onto it?

YEP! Without any issues.

I'd love to try the opposite way, but I don't have as many beta tapes to spare, and also my beta VCRs are barely functional as it is, they have trouble playing beta tapes, let alone VHS tapes in horrible hybrid forms.

[anouchard]

Okie dokie, solution time!

Ya know, just in case anyone has been wondering what all the funky codes meant.

1. The ciphers: these were mainly encoded using ROT[insert days left in countdown here]. Most people figured this out - congrats if you did! The exceptions were the extra codes (ROT18, because why not?*), the fake-out solution post code (ROT160, because of the "apologies for the deception" reference), the FINAL final code (ROT30, for episode 30), and the code for when we had 24 hours remaining (ROT24, because a shift of one felt FAR too easy). 24 was a fun one - the hidden song was 24 Hours, released quite recently by my friend Chloe (we shared a day job a while back, and she really is doing AMAZINGLY well!).

2. The songs themselves: these were (almost) all from the 'Tunes To Blackmail Your Boss To' playlist. The exceptions were the two Gorillaz tracks, which were both referenced with timestamps for ...

3. A laugh: the Italics in the raw ciphers, when all put together, spelt out "guess who gets the last ...", with the final clue of the 'Clint Eastwood' intro filling in the (hopefully obvious, by this point) "laugh"! This was perhaps my favourite moment to record, and I also enjoyed the ambiguity and malleability of the chosen phrase (which *may* come in to play should we ever return to this). After all ... does she really?

Right, that should be everything! Let me know if you have any questions, and thank you so much for playing along - It's been really grand (and fun!) seeing all your theories, puzzling-outs, joy, and occasional confusion.

Until the next time, then ... 🥰

*Edit: I know people were pretty stumped by the final two lines of the EA code! Once decoded, all you had to do was Google the first line to get to 'Feel Good', and then use the second line as a timestamp. Infuriating, I know - it really was as simple as cutting the Gordian Knot. 😁

[suppermariobroth]

In 2019, an activity called "Mario Secret Message Fun Decoding" was posted on Nintendo of America's official activity site. The top image presents an encoded answer to the following question:

Oh no! Undodog undid Cat Mario’s homework! What will Cat Mario do now?

The bottom image shows the key to decoding the top image. The answer is provided in an image linked here to avoid spoiling the solution.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[oriley42]

Serious question but no need to answer if you don’t want to

I see a lot of talk about Amber’s portrayal being sexist in the show, but I’m not quite sure why? To me her motives always seemed really well-defined (high pressure = “I’m only worthy when I’m successful”) so she puts on this sharky mask with a feminine facade so she is feminine enough to get a certain amount of approval but never shows how much she cares (which could be used against her but also could be used to undermine her “oh you’re too soft”). I thought the show did an excellent job of showing a mask for her

But a lot of people talk about 00s sexism and how it impacts her characterization. The sexism… Is it that she gets called a cutthroat bitch? Or how her story revolves around a man after she leaves House’s team? Is it the fridging?

Any of those could be it I guess but it just sounds like you and others are talking about something a little more fundamental to her personhood so I thought I’d ask if I’m missing anything.

Very interesting question! I think you're getting at exactly the trickiness of the issue, which is that sexism always operates systemically. It's not that any key aspect of Amber's character "is" misogynist, it's that every aspect of her character is automatically filtered through a lens of sexism.

In today's world where "bitch" has been very de-clawed, turned into a more casual and way less gendered insult that's used without cruel intention in queer slang, I think it's hard to understand just how violent the term was--and was meant to be--in the aughts. House in canon is not calling Amber a bitch in a cute, almost self-deprecating, friendly way (though I think it's valid to re-write it that way in fic to defuse the term!). He is calling her a bitch to contain and belittle and dehumanize her. We see the term mobilized this way against Cuddy in 5 to 9 as well: calling a woman a bitch was an extremely powerful rhetorical tool to turn any dangerously competent, brilliant, threateningly accomplished woman back into a harmless, debased, controllable object. So, "CB" reflects how easily the fact that Amber is the "female House" gets turned against her--it doesn't mean she's an eccentric genius like him, it means she's an evil copycat who needs to be put down. And this kind of structural logic applies to her whole characterization--it doesn't matter that House does it all more frequently and worse, if she does it, it's unacceptable because she's a woman. (There are parallels here with how racism means that when Foreman acts like House, he also gets the axe instead of the narrative bending over backwards to make what he did alright.) That's why she was fired, after all!

And her death. Woof. Classic case of killing a woman for man-pain. Everything supposedly about her death is actually about how her violent destruction can be used to fuel Wilson and House's character arcs. The narrative is occasionally conscious of this, for example, Wilson saying "none of you even liked Amber" is an almost metatextual reminder of how cruelly she was disenfranchised in every way (including the sexism of her trying to "defect" to the men's team early on, having no female friends, because unlike House who has so many people orbiting him, she is truly alone). Comparing her death to Kutner's is instructive: Kutner gets a whole episode that's about characters desperately trying to know him better. They trace their relationships towards him. Amber, on the other hand, is nearly absent from her own death. The characters trace away from her and towards the way male characters feel (Wilson's loss, House's guilt). Amber becomes just an imagined figure of House's guilt. Even her ghost is not her own. (Though I think many fans do a more feminist read and reclaim the way she haunts the narrative--but imho that would be a negotiated if not fully oppositional reading, to use Stuart Hall's decoding/encoding terms.)

One easy way to see that gendered difference is in how the show refers to these characters after death. Kutner is always "Kutner," never just "House's dead fellow" or rarely "our dead colleague." Amber is often referred to as "Wilson's dead girlfriend." Kutner is his own person, Amber rhetorically gets reduced to an object belonging to a man.

In conclusion: sexism operates structurally, which can make it hard to identify! And one of the funny effects of contemporary fandom doing so much good work to un-fridge women and give marginalized female characters richer personalities and more chances to grow is that canon's intended message of sexism gets obscured. Which, is awesome? Keep up the good work! Let's make misogyny unintelligible 🎉

[zephiris]

Being autistic feels like having to emulate brain hardware that most other people have. Being allistic is like having a social chip in the brain that handles converting thoughts into social communication and vice versa while being autistic is like using the CPU to essentially emulate what that social chip does in allistic people.

Skip this paragraph if you know about video codec hardware on GPUs. Similarly, some computers have hardware chips specifically meant for encoding and decoding specific video formats like H.264 (usually located in the GPU), while other computers might not have those chips built in meaning that encoding and decoding videos must be done “by hand” on the CPU. That means it usually takes longer but is also usually more configurable, meaning that the output quality of the CPU method can sometimes surpass the hardware chip’s output quality depending on the settings set for the CPU encoding.

In conclusion, video codec encoding and decoding for computers is to social encoding and decoding for autistic/allistic people.

[nectardaddy]

another rant about inumaki's speech (hi, hello I'm a teacher and used to teach primary which is all about learning letters/sounds/blends/basic words)

inumaki had to have learned his cursed words in a VERY secluded environment. I would also venture to say the inumaki clan is probably very well versed in phonics and morphology. they have to be, especially while trying to learn how to speak or teach their children how to speak.

my best guess on how he actually learned to speak is honestly pretty simple: he had to enunciate really, really slowly.

take the word "cat" (after letters, which even for him would have been pretty straightforward - there's no harm in just letters, you start with one syllable words.) he would've had to learn, even from just simple words like cat, to sound out words slowly. breaking down each letter to the point it barely sounded like a word. saying each sound with a pause, and if he knew the word was a safe word he could fully blend it together.

however with cursed words- he would do the same thing BUT he couldn't blend the word together fully unless it was a controlled environment.

I use the word "twist" as an example all the time, but it's a harder word to master so it's a good example. with twist he would've already had to learn letter blends (tw, qu, cr, etc...) he would genuinely have to sound this word out agonizingly slow when he was learning it as to not hurt himself or others. but when it came time to practice it, he most definitely failed to blend the whole word together on numerous occasions.

kids find it pretty easy to know what a letter/letter blend sounds like, but to put words together is actually very hard.

(things get REALLY complicated in 3,2,1...)

THIS BEING SAID- there's a big difference between encoding and decoding words. encoding words is using your knowledge of letter sounds to sound out words. decoding is blending these sounds together to form the word, and thus being a fluent reader. decoding (even though it seems silly, but I promise there's a science to it) helps a reader/speaker understand what they're reading. if you don't understand the word and how to say it, 9/10 you don't understand the meaning.

inumaki is probably a VERY GOOD speller because all he knows is encoding. while he can read, it's probably a bit behind because of his lack of decoding skills (not like he can help it though- his clan probably didn't even teach him certain words). he's probably a very slow reader (nothing wrong with that tho, I am too!) because he only knows how to encode words (sound out letter by letter) rather than decode them (blend the word together).

thank you for coming to my insane ted talk

@inumakis-boo @inumakisser idk if yall will enjoy this lmao but just some thoughts