#analogue interface

[tcfactory]

So, I have a really silly Mobei-jun transmigrator idea.

OG Mobei gets into writing after his Qinghua dies and Bingge starts doing the endless harem collecting because he wants to get away from what is kinda turning into his personal hell and he doesn't even have a trusty retainer he can bully to let off some steam.

He doesn't plan on getting any of it published because he starts out really clumsy with his words at first and even he knows it. But after getting all his venting out in his early works he really just nails the kind of stories with AU fix-it vibes (even if he always very carefully writes different settings than their own world. Can't have Bingge think he is criticizing what the Junshang has done to the world) that a lot of people in PIDW crave as a form of escapism, actually. And it's a little bit fun to sneak around and get the publishing contract and the illustrations and everything done behind Bingge's back.

The harem is hooked. There are passionate fanclubs for his characters that change the friendships and alliances between the consorts. There are ship wars that escalate to actual murder attempts. Mobei-jun watches with growing dread as the women ignore Luo Binghe in favor of trying to find out who the mysterious author writing the books is. Nobody suspects him because in person he still doesn't talk, like, at all.

Except finally Bingge has enough and uses a relic to track down the mysterious author and ends up killing Mobei, because centuries of loyal service or not, he has stirred up the harem so bad that Bingge refuses to tolerate the distraction anymore. Mobei dies thinking that if it was to end like this anyway he really should have just written that wish-fulfillment fix-it story he always wanted.

So the former Mobei-jun transmigrates into Mo Yunbao, soon to be An Ding's head disciple, a little before Binghe comes to the sect. He doesn't have a digital System (at least at the start), he has an analogue interface: the System directly communicates with these strangely folded paper 'birds'.

It takes Mobei some time to realize that other people can technically see the papers the System sends, but only if he deliberately brings attention to them, they can't read any of the writing and then they forget about them right away. He eats a lot of paper trying to hide them before he realizes that he doesn't have to bother.

Since his complaint was essentially that "nobody was actually happy in PIDW, not even the protagonist" his task is simple: create the maximum number of happy endings without completely sidestepping the main storyline re: Binghe, abyss, the usual System restrictions. How hard could it be, right? He thinks he has a fair idea about all of these people, Luo Binghe just could not shut up about all his horrible childhood when he had a captive audience and Mobei has always been very good at listening.

Except Shang Qinghua is acting strange. Mobei dismisses it as maybe the peak lord being different with his disciples than he is with his king, even if there are other things that are not quite aligning as they should. He already knows how he's going to fix that storyline, he needs to focus on figuring out all the other things, so he just ignores Shang Qinghua.

Yeah, that goes exactly as well as you'd think. Imagine Airplane bro for a moment: he's trying to send his weird little (he's cute, like a feral kitten is cute) gremlin of a head disciple to harass Shen Qingqiu into turning in the bi-monthly financial report early so he can sneak out and report to his king, when the distracted A-Bao reminds him not to forget his fur coat this time. It's the middle of the summer! Even more shockingly a very neatly folded paper plane flies in out of nowhere and hits head disciple Mo on the head with a thwack before it falls on the peak lord's desk.

Qinghua surprises both of them by picking the paper plane up before the other can even reach for it. It's a warning for OOC violation, but no point deduction because there are only transmigrators in the room.

So both Mobei and Airplane tell their stories, they bond over their love of writing and how fucked it would be if everything someone wrote became someone else's reality (Mobei hopes that hasn't happened to any of his stories. He wrote some really dark stuff at the start of his writing career that he would never wish even on his worst enemy), somewhere along the way they bully the System into upgrading Mobei's interface to the digital one and they become allies in fixing the world one doomed relationship at a time.

It's not long into their cooperation when Mobei realizes that he really likes this version of Shang Qinghua, actually, but it would be really inappropriate for a head disciple to hook up with his shizun, so he settles for setting the other Mobei-jun up with Airplane. Airplane is a good, responsible creator deity, he deserves a happy end.

Besides, Mobei has a good life here, as a human. He has friends he can (affectionately) bully, he doesn't have to fear certain death (for a while at least), he teams up with Liu Mingyan and together they convince Shen Qingqiu to preside over a cross-peak literature and creative writing club that's an absolute blast and Liu Qingge is trying to poach him for Bai Zhan because the body of Mo Yunbao is really suited for physical cultivation. He would go too if it wasn't so much more convenient to stay on An Ding for the sake of their schemes, but maybe he can let the War God steal him away for some night-hunting dates every now and then.

They don't know yet what to do with Luo Binghe when he inevitably shows up at the sect, but he has some faith that between Airplane and him they can figure out something good.

[postapocalyptic-cryptic]

@suborbitalrailgun and I have been working on our pieces for the TF Reverse Big Bang @tf-bigbang and we're so excited to finally show you the preview! And so, without further ado, (a sample of):

Geminus (the Pacific Rim AU), written by me and illustrated by @suborbitalrailgun!

The prep room is large, but with low ceilings, dim lighting, and a myriad of computers and equipment, it feels almost claustrophobic. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stand on a metal platform with their arms held out to the sides as technicians build the circuitry suits around them. As soon as their arms are free, Sunstreaker turns his back to Sideswipe, who begins braiding his long blond hair in a neat line down his back. Then come the helmets and the neural connectivity fluid, and then LOCCENT is in their ears.

"Good evening," Soundwave greets them, crisp and clean, right down to business. “Twins: ready to enter the conn pod?”

"Ready and waiting for your go, LOCCENT," Sideswipe answers.

"Twins: cleared for entry."

Together, they step through the doors into the massive head of the jaeger. The door closes behind them, and it's just them and the machine. Well, and LOCCENT over comms.

"Geminus," comes Prowl's voice over comms. "Are you ready for your first solo mission?"

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker whoop in sync. "Born ready, baby!" Sideswipe yells.

Excitement begins to pool in the pit of Sunstreaker's stomach as they strap in. Each of them is strapped to a long arm extending down into the conn pod, connecting to their suits and tracking their movements, allowing them to interface with the jaeger.

"Geminus Prime is ready for the big drop," Sunstreaker says.

"Affirmative," Prowl confirms. "Drop in three, two, one---"

No matter how many times they do it, Sunstreaker never gets used to the free-fall plunge, the flip of his stomach as they hurtle towards the body of the jaeger. Then, with a jolt that never feels as big as it should, they're locked in.

"Coupling confirmed," a cool female voice informs them. "Engaging pilot-to-pilot protocol."

A jolt, something deep in the back of Sunstreaker's head, the pit of his stomach. A click like a connection somewhere in his chest. A rush, Sideswipe, always too much too fast.

"Pilot-to-pilot connection protocol sequence."

The world around him fades as Sunstreaker dives into memories. It's not unlike diving into water, and at first he'd wondered if it was simply his organic, analogue body struggling to attach a feeling to the sensation of the Drift.

"Prepare for neural handshake." Sunstreaker gasps for air, flexes his hands. Tingle of electricity down his spine.

"Pilot connection sequence: neural handshake initiated."

And then he's them.

"Right hemisphere: calibrating." That's him.

"Left hemisphere: calibrating." Sideswipe.

"All systems ready."

[max1461]

At this point, "Max's abrasions with the discoursosphere" is becoming a semi-formalized series. Here's another one.

There's a larger complex of thoughts I have around this that I won't really get into, but I think one of my least favorite things about the discourse is put most succinctly as: it asks you to view yourself as an agent of history, instead of as an individual.

Every "camp"—communist, reactionary, rationalist, whatever—seems animated by these sort of fantastical, world-historic dreams. It's all about the coming revolution, or the fate of the light cone, or the future of Western civilization, or whatever. Even liberals are guilty of this, and they are sometimes extra annoying about it because they think they aren't guilty of it. Their end of history was literally sketched out in a book called The End of History. Ok, I mostly said that last sentence because it's a punchy line—not every liberal (or even most, I suspect) endorses Fukuyama's particular thesis. But they do still tend to act like "the point of it all" is advancing liberal democracy and efficient distribution of resources.

Everyone seems to reduce human activity to the aim of shaping history in a particular way. The value of everything is reduced to its instrumental usefulness in Advancing The Project.

This is precisely the opposite of the way I look at the world. It's kind of an analogue of that Hannah Arendt "the only love I know is the love of particular persons" thing. The only value I know is the value of particular things. There is value in art, learning, fun, love, joy; books, video games, mathematics, beautiful vistas, sex, food, conversation. Insofar as there is value in any political or world-historical project, it is purely by way of enabling or supporting these things which are valuable on their own. Making ourselves pure instruments to history is self-defeating, because the only possible reason that history could matter is because of us and the things that we care about.

What I am complaining about here is an attitude, not a particular set of beliefs. I'll pick on the group that is closest to "my side" because that feels fair. It is true that not all communists or socialists actually believe in the fantastical, pseudo-Biblical version of the revolution that one sees from the most ideologically insular. Plenty critique this vision of revolution pretty starkly. But it's like, the tendrils of teleological thinking are already in them. So many still see themselves as instruments. Their raison d'etre is to shape the trajectory of human events. Their existence as an individual is secondary, or at the very least must be brought into alignment with this raison d'etre.

Well, I'll tell you what. I don't want my individuality to be subsumed. I don't want my self to be subsumed. As I've said before, I'm not into that kind of stuff.

But it's everywhere, it seems that it is universally characteristic of every "ideology" or "movement".

Actually, what I'm really complaining about here is more subtle, I think. Most of the discoursers I engage with, I suspect, will roughly agree with me thus far. I've heard them say similar things. Here's the problem: even in circles where this kind of self-instrumentalization is openly critiqued, I find that again and again in discussions of [inherently valuable thing], the conversation inevitably shifts to whether [inherently valuable thing] is instrumentally valuable from the perspective of the local Grand Historical Project. By the way, please set aside any philosophical gripes you might have with the idea of an "inherently valuable thing"; those sorts of details are not the point here. The point is that there will be discussion about [cool topic], and this discussion will inevitably drift towards "how does [cool topic] interface with [grand historical project]".

[Grand historical project] is less important than [cool topic]!!!! [Cool topic] is [grand historical project]'s boss!!!! Don't you see!

This is I think the basic trait of "discoursiness", and I really don't like it.

[nem0c]

the lust for mind-machine interfaces in the mecha belies a lack of desire for the truly machine, a failure to understand the technical brilliance of the analogue pilot, and a nostalgic and quite romantic love of the human, all too human as the machine is mass-produced the pilot should be too, with rank and uniform but no name, no face in the battalion of lovers no-one is beautiful and no-one ugly, only skilled and unskilled, already exhibiting the operational perfection of a corpse or a robot

[pico-digital-studios]

KinitoPET console port ideas

In the wake of KinitoPET's growing success, I thought about how a console port of the game would work if troy_en ever decides to do something like that.

WARNING!: Spoilers are prominent for the game ahead, so don't read on unless you've played or watched all of KinitoPET, including the game's secret ending.

To start, let's talk about the...

Interface

Since the game takes place on a simulated PC, changes will obviously have to be made for the game to function there.

To begin with, the control scheme. The general idea I had was for the mouse cursor to be moved with the left analogue stick, and for interactions to be made with one of the different buttons on the controller. Pressing the console's respective start/pause button will quickly bring up the pause menu for you to change settings or return to a regular desktop.

As most of the consoles lack their own wallpaper settings built in (Nintendo Switch, I'm especially looking at you for your lack of themes), the My Pictures folder instead links to some pre-prepared images that you can set as the in-game desktop background. For 3D Pinball's controls, it works similarly to games like Pinball FX, using the trigger buttons to move the flippers, and one of the normal buttons to control the plunger.

Now, about the game's achievements/trophies. Steam was the main way of unlocking KinitoPET's various achievements, so I felt the system could also be applied for the Xbox and PlayStation systems. However, a new workaround is needed for Switch, since that lacks an achievement system outright. As such, like with the Portal and Stanley Parable ports, I thought about a separate Achievements menu/application where the unlocked and yet-to-be-unlocked achievements can be viewed from.

KinitoPET in general

Since the game needs keyboard input at various points, the ports would have ways to overcome this, using the console's respective on-screen keyboard for these inputs. If it supports touch-screen, then all the better, too. Kinito's instructions are also tweaked to make up for the consoles not actually having keyboards by default.

As the game also reads from your Steam friend list and what Steam games you have in your library, I thought about the game also having its own way of reading this; namely, pulling the options from your console's friend list, and if your highlighted favourite game is in the respective console's store, along with various others you have save data for.

For the 3D sections in the game, the left analogue stick helps with movement, while the right analogue stick (for controllers that support it; otherwise, the D-Pad works) moves the camera view.

Fourth-wall scares

Now, this is something that definitely needs tweaking due to it being on consoles.

First off, a lot of fans will know that when Kinito is told that he's NOT your best friend, he turns up your system volume to reiterate that question. Obviously, this isn't going to work for consoles that have their audio come from a TV, but if the console has built-in volume controls on its own (like Switch), Kinito will raise the console's volume from there.

Next, the Paint jumpscare. This one opens up your PC's actual MS Paint briefly to facilitate the scare, but in this case, a fullscreen in-game Paint window would appear to create the "ARE YOU REALLY (NAME)?" taunt.

Now, next up is the infamous Camera scare Kinito pulls on you. Now, we all know that unless your TV or console actually HAS camera support, it's outright ineffective, so I thought of another workaround. Kinito, instead, asks to "see your avatar", pulling a direct model of your Avatar/Mii on full show. If you don't have one, he'll instead nab one of the generic defaults.

Also, about the recording secret, another twist is thrown in; if you have captured screenshots or recorded snippets of gameplay, Kinito questions this, actually pulling said screenshots/recordings from your console's gallery to question you with.

Now, onto the darker questions of the Analysis Hub. Remember what I said above about the friends toggle? Well, two of the questions, those being "Can you trust everything that (NAME) says?" and "Who would you rather kill?" actually read that friend list data for you to look through.

For the address-hunting/doxxing scare, the dialogue obviously changes unless your console has a proper built-in web browser:

"Hey. It seems like you made a mistake when filling out your address. I would find out your address for you, but your system doesn't have the capacity to let me do so. But just so you know, I could."

And last, and most importantly, the Command Prompt sequence. Kinito will instead point your attention to the My Computer icon, which is toggled in the console ports to house other sub-applications, a built-in console included, for you to type either Kinito's system access command, or the commands and codes needed to outright get rid of him.

Oh, right! Let's not forget about the game-closing sequences. At the end of each act of the game, pop-up windows appear to inform you that that part of the game is over, though for the consoles, this isn't possible, so on-screen text would appear before the game crashes deliberately, necessitating you to actually restart the game.

Your World

When Kinito is preparing to show off your house, since he can't exactly turn off your monitor, he simply resorts to asking you to close your eyes. In the house itself, he recycles the data he found in your console to utilise here. For instance, in the special office, the cover art of your favourite game on that console is on the computer, with other games that have save data on the shelves. Your console friends are each gathered around the dining table and sofas, and the TV, which originally showed nothing, plays random recordings from your console gallery to give you something to watch.

I personally also had the thought about Your World being accessible without an off-screen timer if you wished to explore either the funfair or your island/forest/field's house without any pressure on your shoulders. In the idea, the rollercoaster would instead park up by the entrance to another chute, and taking this one will let you go back to your funfair if you wish.

Secret Ending tweaks

As the Secret Ending requires even more interaction on your part, new tweaks are needed to help this fully work.

The "Lense.exe" program creates a magnifying glass that you can use to gather the files and email logs. Since they likely can't be stored on your console's system memory, they are instead stored in a bar accessible once you get inside the Dark Land. The respective passwords are saved by the game for you, and will be entered for you in order for each one you find before opening the console in Act 3.

If you don't have all of the passwords, the game will stop entering them should a crucial one be missing, and deny you that access. If you have all of them, though, and get to the confirmatory code, the game will ask you to confirm this final decision, and if you go through with it, you've achieved the secret ending!

Well, that's all I can really think about for a potential future console port for KinitoPET. I do know it's going to be a lot harder work to work with, though I'm sure it can work out, since the Godot engine (which KinitoPET runs on) is cross-platform.

[average-transdalorian]

Y’know what I want to see? A Mecha that really leans in to how difficult coming up with control interfaces is. Like, most Mecha (as far as I’m aware) have some sort of physical, psychic, or mental link between the pilot and the mech (Pacific Rim has physical and mental, G-Witch has mental via permet, other Gundam timelines might? Have psychic links? NGE has psychic links I’m pretty sure, Aliens’ work loader has a physical link, NieR: Automata has a mental link), but I want to see a series where those AREN’T reasonable interfaces, so skilled mech pilots choose how they control their mechs

Obviously, the cockpits would be entirely modular, with pilots able to switch out control interfaces and setups as they please, and pilots would be able to program in their own moves (or download moves other people made and posted online)

Automatic getup and positioning in various environments would be troublesome, so a lot of people choose mechs with low centers of gravity and wide, spread apart feet/treads

The worldwide grounded mech tournament champion’s setup is basically just a rolling bunker with a giant rapier on an arm on top of it; the controls are a lock-on button (which automatically moves the mech to within normal fencing range), and two touch screens (one to position the arm, one to make a motion for an attack), as well as some foot pedals for some other basic functionality

The spoiled rich kid has this super expensive shield generator that makes it so that they can straight up just upload a fighting game character’s moves onto their mech (including shielding) so they use a fightbox to play

Some corporation or something is doing a super fucked up unethical breeding or genetic modification program to try and create a pilot who can move their digits and think fast enough to activate every muscle analogue the right amount at the right time

Some people have 3rd person pov drones and basically just play Armored Core except from inside the mech

Someone who can’t afford a bunch of extra equipment instead binds buttons to automatic combos

Someone uses just a normal gaming console controller but with a lock-on function to make it so that the right stick can be used for extra moves (they’re in a homoerotic rivalry with someone who does the exact same thing but with a GameCube controller specifically)

There are some people out there who do just map the mech’s movements to their body movements and have like. Joycons or vr controllers for options that aren’t physical movement, but they have to have extraordinary stamina AND desyncing with your mech’s position is a common issue

Someone invents an i-frames shield generator and just plays a soulslike

A pair or trio have just SO many buttons, and each one moves a specific part a specific way (they’re the narrative foil to fucked up unethical breeding/genetics pilot from earlier)

I just want to see Mecha that explore having no good way to map human movement onto a mech, and have fully user-decided control and interface schemes to deal with that, y’know?

[heliza24]

This was one of those lines and scenes that basically turns me inside out with envy as a writer. This exchange is working on so many levels. Like on a macro level it is summing up the themes of the show. Andy and the other inventors are fixated on creating technology that will protect them in the face of climate change but it's not enough to protect them from murder. In fact sometimes it's the technology itself that's being used to kill them. Andy is constantly talking technology in these big sweeping terms. He uses it to keep himself separate and apart from the rest of the world. But Darby uses it for connection. She fell in love with Bill on the internet. She uses technology to find the clues that lead her to answers. She uses Ray to keep herself grounded. She sees the humanity, the people-made hacks, threaded through every interface and every computer. The dead speak to her but so does code. And when the show touches on a generational divide I think that's what it's mainly saying. How do you view technology? Is it a tool to help you stay separate and apart from the rest of humanity or a way to speak to the dead? In reality there are people of every generation that have every possible relationship to technology. But there is something that feels very Gen x about Andy and very Gen Z about Darby in their relationship to computers.

Bill is kind of an in between. He meets Darby on the internet, but their courtship is analogue. He woos her using Morse code after they graduate off of Reddit. After he leaves Darby he starts making art that protests smart cities. Maybe he was murdered because he opposed some sort of tech that Andy is working on. We're not sure yet. And he's frustrated that Darby is so obsessed with the case she can't look up and see him, and for Darby the case lives on her phone. So it makes sense on a scene level that he would be railing against phones here. He's just been so vulnerable with her, listed the moments he knew he was in love with her, and she's too scared to be vulnerable in return. Instead she turns back to the phone. So it makes sense that he's displacing his frustration with Darby onto the object of her obsession. And her response just cuts through his defense mechanism. It's such a good rebuttal. It refutes his initial assumption, that her obsession with the case means she doesn't love him. It lets her be vulnerable and defend herself at the same time. It's such a good line.

Another thing I loved about this episode was the way that the Bill/Darby relationship shifted. In the beginning of the series Bill feels very dangerous. He's a stranger Darby met on the internet, he's hacking lights on abandoned train tracks to send her a message, he's sweeping her away on a cross country roadtrip to find a killer. He could easily be a killer himself. Those early scenes between them are shot in a way to emphasize the danger and the edginess that exists between them, and you’re supposed to be scared for Darby. But as we gradually get to know Bill we realize how caring and thoughtful he is. We see how much he cares about Darby and especially about her consent before anything sexual happens. And in this episode we realize that there was always a dangerous element in their relationship. But it was Darby, not Bill. It was Darby's obsession with the case, her comfort and dedication to the dead over the living, and her spiraling mental health that threatened their safety and their relationship.

By the time Darby is in Iceland, it seems like she's grown past this negative mental health space, at least to an extent. She's written about her experience finding the killer with Bill and put it behind her. But death finds her in Iceland and pulls her back in, and in this episode we see her resort to some of the same unhealthy coping mechanisms in order to solve the case.

The other perfect line from this episode was "sometimes I feel like I would have to die for you to love me", and I think it's so wonderful because it's both extremely true and totally wrong. Darby does have a connection to the dead, and she is bound to Bill more strongly in his death than she was during the years after he left her. She is intent on finding out what happened to him, but at the same time she is drowning in grief. She's unwilling to offer Bill's name when the other guests lists the other murder victims at the bonfire because that would mean he is really not coming back, he's really just the same as all the other serial killer victims they investigated together. And she loved him more than that. She loved him in life too.

This show is so good, the writing and the dialogue and the symbolism and sense of fate that runs through it is so good. I really hope they stick the landing of the mystery because I just love it. This episode in particular is just rattling around in my brain, I can't let it go.

[evviejo]

with the "thasmin is queerbaiting" argument coming back over and over and over again, i started to wonder if the same people would say shoot was queerbaiting.

for those unfamiliar with my other greatest ship (i may not post too much of them anymore, but they still own me), shoot was a sapphic pairing on person of interest, made up by sameen shaw (a former government assassin with antisocial personality disorder) and root (a hacker/gun for hire who becomes the analogue interface of the machine, an ai which can predict crimes).

there are a few similarities between thasmin and shoot: neither was planned as a romantic relationship from the start, the characters were never introduced with that intention, but the actresses' chemistry pushed the writers to make it explicit (thasmin in lotsd, shoot in if-then-else); neither had a happy ending (spoiler alert), with one being left behind soon after the confirmation of their feelings; neither was exploited for marketing purposes, at least not beyond reason (like including snippets of their scenes in trailers), the relationships weren't discussed so much in spaces where the shows were marketed, as in fan spaces like cons, with willing participation from the actresses themselves.

what is different about the two ships is this: shoot has on-screen kisses and a sex scene, they do try to pursue a relationship, while thasmin - for entirely plot- and character-consistent reasons - do not, despite declaring feelings for one another (in a manner typical for emotionally repressed individuals, which they both are).

so if thasmin is queerbaiting for those people, is shoot also? or is it the kissing, the sex that makes it not so? do they want to make any unconsummated relationship invalid, any relationship in which physicality is not present?

the feelings were there in both cases, the marketing wasn't exploiting it. they were both ships that included queer women loving one another against the odds. if you feel baited, and not simply sad at the lack of happy ending, i don't know what to tell you.

[deep-spaghetti]

having grown up with the technology i did, just on the tail end of using analogue media (and even then only really VHS) being practical, i’m so jealous that some of you people got to have machines with VFDs and buttons that go kachunk and storage mediums you have to shunt in and secure like you’re loading a gun. best i’ve got is the slightly resistive spring loaded clicks of ds cartridges and moderately clacky home stereo buttons. even like GBA carts only really slide into place and often with an unpleasant stiffness about it. i think those shitty little physical keyboards were never the way for smartphones but also i think buttons should be present, big and loud, touchscreens mostly just make me sad. someone needs to make a smartphone with the silhouette of an original walkman and the physical interface to match and also more square, square is computer shaped and also make every other consumer electronic that way forever. stop removing all the buttons from everything it’s like pedigree dog breeding you’re hurting her :(

[stockenhuberdesign]

#INDUSTRIALDESIGN

despite our great love for super cool touchscreen user interfaces, we think that some devices could well use a step up from the beautiful analogue versions to the super cool modern touchscreen versions. Especially in the field of #music, an intermediate step that also offers a haptic experience could be a nice idea. Pure shiny white and bright orange accents for user guidance characterize this design ❤️

[ahungeringknife]

365: February 3

@seventhscorpio

yeah pretty sure I just got a 3 day brain rot about the Hive. I am the worst at doing month long challenges bc more than like 3-4 prompts rarely interest me.

---

He’d never been to this part of the Throne World before. According to the runes and directions it said ‘Archives’. So a library of some sort. He’d never been to a library but he’d seen plenty.

He library was enormous at six stories tall and full of shelves that went up to the ceiling of each floor. Lining the shelves were thousands and thousands of books, scrolls, and rolls of documents. Most of the occupants were Wizards, gently floating with a book in hand or resting it on a tall lecturn. But there were Acolytes here too most of them sporting a horned carapace headpiece not unlike Wizards. Wizards to-be perhaps? Not all of them of course. Some were just Acolytes and a handful he saw had the start of their Swords at their hips.

He wandered the library unhindered looking at the towering white stacks and the delicate stained glass that looked like eyes peering in on you. But why did the Hive need books if they had the World’s Graves? He ended up standing between two stacks thinking about it for a long time. Maybe they just liked it? The interfaces he’d seen Hive use weren’t… the best and most of it was analogue. It wasn’t like Graves were rare either. They were all over. Maybe they didn’t work the same in a Throne World? That had to be it.

There were several librarian acolytes in the library who made sure no one was doing anything disruptive. One caught Gup putting a book back in the slightly wrong place and started yelling at him. It was just one book to the left what was the big deal!? He made himself scarce quickly after that, leaving the library but staying near the Archives.

He ended up finding an acolyte off by themselves furiously writing stuff down. Gup just leaned over their shoulder and saw they were writing notes directed at Savathun. Gup didn’t get why. His mom said Savathun was dead now. Or at least her body was. “Isn’t that a fool’s errand?” he asked.

The acolyte nearly fell off the low ledge they were sitting on. “What? Who are you? Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak up on people?” he demanded.

“I wasn’t sneaking, you just didn’t hear me,” Gup said brightly.

The acolyte narrowed his green eyes at him. “Why do you sound like that?”

“Like what?”

“Mmmm. What are you doing here?”

“Looking around,” Gup said in his carefree stupid way he could do. He’d learned to do it from uncle Savant and he was very good at it.

“Well do it somewhere else.”

“Why are you writing notes for Savathun?” Gup asked, undisturbed by the hostility. A lot of Hive were hostile towards you at first. “She’s… gone,” he said, feigning sadness.

“Exactly. And I’ll have everything written down for when she comes back,” they said sharply.

“But the Guardians took her. I imagine she won’t, right?”

“Pft. Immaru will find a way. Don’t you want her to come back?”

“I’ve lost enough gods, another doesn’t do much for me,” Gup said. Eric had had to talk him through that logic. He was technically part of Crota’s brood but ‘would’ have joined Oryx’s brood when he showed up. “I know Guardians are good at making our gods dead,” he tapped part of his arm where he still had some yellow chitin. He’d shed most of it in favor of more gray blue/purple that more resembled his mom’s skin. He sat next to the acolyte on the ledge now.

“You were Crota Spawn,” he said. Gup nodded. “Awful thing they did to our Prince,” he said bitterly. “I was Hidden Swarm before Savathun came.”

“What’s your name?”

“Dornuk.”

As far as names went it was nothing terribly special. Good name though. “I’m “Xolkûn, but you can call me Gup if you want. That’s what my mom always calls me,” he said cheerfully. He loved how absolutely confused what he said made other Hive.

“… Gup? But Xolkûn is such a cool name,” Dornuk said.

“My mom only calls me that when I’m in trouble.”

There was a long beat of silence. “What’s a mom?”

“Like a brood mother but she loves you,” Gup said brightly.

Dornuk stared at Gup. “You’re weird, Xolkûn,” he decided.

“Gup is better.”

“Fine. Stupid weird name for a stupid weird Acolyte,” Dornuk said.

“My mom thinks its cute,” Gup said. “So if you’re writing notes for Savathun when she comes back how do you know what to write down?”

“I’m just writing everything down,” Dornuk said.

“I bet it’d be easier if you were allowed around some big deal wizards huh?”

“Who’s to say I’m not?” Dornuk asked scornfully.

“Well you’re here and not in a meeting on how to thwart the Gaurdians,” Gup shrugged. “Or get our god back.”

Dornuk looked at him a long moment. “You talk weird. Like those Lucent,” he squinted at Gup. “You’re not one are you?”

“No. I bet my mom has some stuff you could write down for Savathun,” he said. “She knows all sorts of stuff about what’s happening in the Throne World.”

“Your ‘mom’ is some sort of Wizard or something?”

“No. She’s a Lightbearer.”

Dornuk gave Gup the most confused look. Gup didn’t talk to too many Hive so didn’t really realize he was being insanely confusing. “… Sure,” he said and got up, Gup hopped to his feet.

“We need to go somewhere open first,” Gup said and Dornuk followed Gup out of the Archives onto the promenade that ran up to the Archives.

“What’s the matter with you?” Dornuk asked after Gup found his mom’s scope glint and made a hand sign. He knew she was looking. He counted the flashes of the scope glint.

“Hmm? Nothing I’m just getting a reading from my mom. This way. She’ll meet us over here,” and he walked off. They walked a ways away from the Archives to what was now a fountain with benches. Gup plopped down. Dornuk stood.

“So what exactly is your mom?” Dornuk asked.

“A Lightbearer,” Gup said, not lying but not telling Donuk the whole truth either.

“If you were in Crota’s Brood how’d you end up here?”

“I was brought? Not like I’m a Wizard who can fly,” Gup said.

“But you don’t have the carapace colors of any swarm I’m familiar with,” Dornuk’s eyes narrowed. “Including Xivu Arath.”

“I just like these,” Gup said in his sweet stupid way that looked like it was giving Dornuk a headache. “It’s fun, you know. What’s life if you can’t have some fun?”

“There is work to be done over fun.”

“Sounds like you never have fun.”

“I do too,” Dornuk protested. “It has just… been a harrowing year.”

“After you meet my mom we should go do something fun,” Gup said brightly.

“You are a strange Acolyte, Gup,” Dornuk said with all the gravity of a funeral.

“Oh, momma,” Gup perked up and Dornuk turned when Gup pointed. Before Dornuk could yell about a Guardian Eric calmly put a gun in his face. “Mooom, don’t do that,” Gup whined.

“Who’s your friend, baby?” she asked, looking at Dornuk who was bigger than her.

“Dornuk. He’s nice,” Gup said.

“Dornuk… Let’s be friends. No yelling, okay?” she asked nicely and Gup didn’t hear the obvious threat in her voice. Dornuk nodded quickly. Eric put her gun away, slotting it into a holster on her thigh. “What’d you call me here for, baby?” she asked Gup.

“Dornuk writes stuff down for Savathun,” Gup said pointing at his new friend. “All the important stuff but he’s not allowed in meetings with the Wizards. But you know all sorts of important stuff, right?” he asked her.

There was a pause and then Eric chuckled. “Sure. I guess,” she allowed and came and sat next to him.

Dornuk stood there staring at them. “Gup, that’s a Guardian.”

“Yeah. Lightbearer, like I said,” Gup chirped.

“Why isn’t it shooting us?”

“She’s my mom. She wouldn’t shoot us don’t be silly,” Gup scoffed.

“I can understand you, you know. It’s quite rude to talk about someone like they aren’t here,” Eric said.

Dornuk looked at them both and looked torn between great interest and absolute fury and revulsion. Eventually his curiosity won out. “You’re Gup’s mom?”

“Yes.”

Gup was thrilled when Dornuk slowly came over and sat on Gup’s other side with his writing tablet. “What’s a mom?”

[softrobotcritics]

The Gordon Pask Cybernetic Theatre

Gordon Pask’s ‘Cybernetic theatre’: Beyond tinkering with architecture (Conference Paper)

Werner, L.C.

Abstract

Written in the year of Gordon Pask’s 90th anniversary of his birth, “Beyond tinkering with Architecture” presents the Philosopher Mechanics’ proposal for a Cybernetic Theatre, conceived in 1964; and projects it into today’s digital and analogue networked systems of operation.

A performance machine, a space to allow communication, interaction and learning between a theatre audience and actors of a play; a space celebrating the control of control regulated through algorithmic calculation and an active actor inter-actor network. [14, 22]

The idea was to integrate members of an audience into a performance to steer plots of a given play and to allow adaption of a pre-set script. Communication would happen by interfacing through a computational communicator in the form and beauty of a Paskian colourful light display.

Conceptually, technically and chronologically, the project locates itself between Musicolour (1953-58), The Fun Palace (core design phase 1961–64) and the Colloquy of Mobiles (1968).

The rather unknown project is exemplary for Gordon Pask’s influential research and work for architecture and architectural digital theory in the 21st century. At this point in history the incorporation of machine (artificial) intelligence in the human environment, and emergent interaction between them is in the process of naturalizing. The ‘Proposal for a Cybernetic Theatre’ prescribes an organization designed by Gordon Pask. The organization integrates structure, material, mechanics, function, individual goals and randomness in one coherent system. Actors of all kinds become participants, interactors with the environment and themselves. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the principles of control and indirect conversation between users and artefacts Pask used in his Cybernetic Theatre are akin to the principles of exchange in Cyberspace. © Proceedings of AISB Annual Convention 2018. All rights reserved.

Indexed keywords

[echogenic]

failed recording (text for a performance and/or lecture by acte vide)

[New entry 17 October 2023]

We met someone at the border.

They claimed they were a well-known sound artist who had just performed the most gruesome, unethical act on record.

They did not know whether they should turn themselves in, or exhibit at the next biennial.

It was windy, and our English was getting rusty.

We could not determine whether they had performed the act, or recorded it, or both.

They described the act in detail, then played us a recording.

The description was terrifying.

The recording was just noise.

It sounded identical to our music.

The sound artist fled the scene.

We did not know what we were in for.

For a while now, we had avoided listening with the ears.

We were approaching sound signals with extra caution and care, always asking for permission before close contact.

At first, we were using our fingers or the soles of our feet to experience the vibration, but gradually this created a sense of profound saturation, and eventually resulted in addiction.

We decided to handle the situation drastically, by inaugurating the first ever intensive workshops of the Initiative for the Emancipation from Vibration and Bass Frequencies.

In those workshops, we were interrogating our perceptual limits, employing our eyelids, or the fine hair on the back of the forearms as temporary interfaces. We categorically denied the ease of visuality and gesture, persisting for hours on each attempt. To cultivate the untapped skills of our minutest, invisible limbs, at the very edges of our physical bodies, required us to remain stationary, carefully disciplining any survival instinct that urged us to move.

Soon, some began to express strong criticism against the initiative. They argued that our methods were hostile to a range of neurodiverse needs. At the same time, due to our funding sources, we were accused of sound-washing institutional totalitarianism.

The issue escalated quickly. Numerous abusive comments from unidentified accounts began to appear under all of our posts, threatening to cancel the initiative. The only solution was our complete and indefinite withdrawal from the online sphere.

We found our safe space in a damp, underground cave. Its echo held great promise: we hypothesized it could listen to us more profoundly than we could ever listen to our environment.

In total absence of daylight, our sleep lasted for longer and longer intervals. We identified the circularity of our circadian rhythms only in the most basic of functions, counting the bottles of water emptied by drinking, and filled by urinating. We took to documenting this emergent methodology, exploring its potential to act as a toolkit for new working knowledge. The cave had its own dark history that resonated deeply with our own traumas. While there, we made sure to keep ourselves busy, so as never to allow them to be uncovered.

Eventually, we ran out of bottles, and had to terminate our residency. We were relieved to complete the project having reached the last milestone, with our deliverables adequately bottled. However, the sudden contact with unfiltered light and electromagnetic frequencies emitted by the a/c and smart apartments at close distance resulted in our total meltdown. We were diagnosed with scoliosis, ataxia and acute psychogenic analogue nostalgia, and had no option left but to enrol on a bespoke multi-year program for digital prospect restoration, and continuing rehabilitation from our embodied past.

This was how we met with the Microphone.

Our first contact was quite intrusive, bordering on harassment.

The Microphone stood in the space as if it had always been there, acting like an elephant in the room.

It was supposedly listening. But this felt nothing like the cave and its boundless, selfless embrace. Every time we approached it, it resisted any form of cooperation, putting up an impermeable wall between the voice and its sound.

The subtle resonances of each oral cavity, the reflections across different lips and dentitions, the infinitesimal vibrations that connected each unique inner sound to a different outside world, were of no interest whatsoever to The Microphone.

The Microphone made clear that it only recognized telephonic speech. Its sole purpose was to compensate for missing images. To demonstrate, it invited us to approach it with anything that could be seen but not heard clearly, in order for it to be rendered audible. By intimating our most apocryphal, epiphonetic fragments to The Microphone, we automatically experienced sensory responses in previously unknown meridians. We felt like the protagonists in our very own Narcissus myth, getting closer and closer, until we almost drowned in feedback.  This was the technique that would allow us to escape, by distracting the microphone that had discovered itself for the first time.

Having understood the dangers of our sonic adventures, we dedicated ourselves fully to the exploration of gaps between words. We substituted our recording devices with keyboards and monitor screens, and delved tirelessly into every form of code. For a while, this pursuit brought us unprecedented joy. In the mornings we critiqued everyday life, dancing deftly between ideological entanglements and solidly entrenched meanings. In the evenings, like other object-oriented Frankensteins, we prompt-whispered artificial intelligence into secret tricks for combinatorial creativity, challenging it to fulfil all of our desires for derivatives.

It was a one-way street, an impasse closing in on our re-encounter with The Microphone. This time, we didn't even have to go near it. It had already recorded us. With the help of the screen, everything we had thought inaudible had been graphically rendered, re-packaged, archived and sold to the new logo-philic market. Our moments of awkwardness, our meagre attempts to escape, had all been captured and reduced to flashing green ciphers on a black background. The microphone was now the world. Reality was witnessed through the fidelity of its reconstruction.

I don't know how much time passed in that darkness. I realized I was here when I heard my voice narrating. Her tone was vaguely familiar yet uncanny. The consonants sounded eerily perfect. The vowels all seemed to have roughly the same duration of attack, sustain, decay and release. But no matter how many times I recorded the exact duration to verify this impression, the numbers kept betraying me. And besides, I did not know whom I was supposed to prove this to.

Now I am finally talking with my own voice.

Our conversations, frugal but resourceful, sound a bit like this:

Μe: Are you listening to me?

Voice: I am listening

Me: Can you listen with me?

Voice: Ι am listening

Μe: Who are you?

Voice: I am listening

Me: [….]

*A first version of this text was prepared and performed in Greek, during an acte vide performance in April 2023 (No Ordinary Festival, Prelab, Athens). A second, slightly modified iteration of the Greek text was performed in September 2023 (Stereoma Festival, MOMus - Experimental Center for the Arts, Thessaloniki).   This is the third version of the text, and the first to be prepared and performed in English, in a performance-lecture format, in the context of the Listening as Witnessing Symposium (ERC-MUTE), co-organized by the Institute of Historical Research (National Hellenic Research Foundation) & The Listening Academy, in collaboration with the Athens School of Fine Arts. With thanks to Anna Papaeti and Brandon LaBelle.

Audio excerpt + more details:

[quasi-normalcy]

Anyways, the reason why analogue controls are so much fun is because, not withstanding the vestigial Cartesianism that permeates western culture (and particularly science and technology), you are not an disembodied consciousness. If you are going to use a machine, it’s good to involve your body in it; to give yourself the feeling of a genuine, physical interface between human and machine, rather than just looking at a screen or sliding fingers over glass.

[sibelin]

what synth do you own? i want to start playing something and i feel a synth would be a great start :)

hello anon!! i hope you're having a very good day <3

i am still a beginner so take my (cheap) setup with a grain of salt. for now, i only use three machines for my synth music purposes, not counting the effects i add in post on my computer. i bought them separately and you can absolutely start with one main instrument dependind on your ambition with the music (if you just want to play, if you want to write songs, etc)... but personally, here's what i work with:

a Korg Minilogue, a polyphonic analogue synthesizer which is very beginner friendly in my opinion. there's an upgraded version that is called the XD, it's a bit more expensive but maybe it's worth looking into it since it has more options to fiddle with (including a built-in looper). i am very happy with my original minilogue though! great instrument, easy to understand and fun to work with, no matter your level. i have to say the sequencer can be limiting if you're not working with an audio interface since it only has 16 steps. which leads to my second machine on the list.....

a Behringer U-phoria UMC22 also known as the cheapest audio interface i could find. it does what it does well, nothing fancy but if you plan to put your music on a computer one day, it's good to have an audio interface (and all the cables that goes with it. i love you audio jack cables <3)

and finally, a Korg Volca Sample which i both use as a drum machine and a sampler. it's not the best drum machine out there but it's very easy to use. useful if you want to write full songs!

it you're not against pads instead of keys, you could check Donner and their B1 for the cheapest option or you could check Arturia's Microfreak which is another great entry-price synth. if it's too expensive, which i have to admit it is, i'd advice you to check the second-hand market, lots of people are selling synths so you might find what you need at a cheaper price than what you expect!

i can't encourage you enough to pick up the synth. it's a great instrument. it has so many layers and it pushes you to experiment and have fun with sound.

have fun ! 🎹 🤖

[gracien-system]

We are extremely far from being able to create a truly sentient AI.

The most optimistic estimates of the amount of processing power the human brain possesses are orders of magnitude off from the amount of processing power every computer on earth has, combined.

And that's not even including the tax that you incur from emulation.

The ML shit that is currently happening is nothing like a true AI. It is a collection of linear programming and statistical models which create the illusion of intelligence by recombining data in statistical fashions which make it seem like there is intent when there really isn't.

All they're doing is looking at the last thing they did and predicting the most likely next step, then doing that and repeating the process until the task is complete.

All of this is to preface an entirely different conversation/argument we've been seeing way more than we'd like, recently. That being "we will never achieve sentient AI, it's impossible".

And I would like to counter this in a few different ways, and then leave it alone, because frankly, we hate the discussions about what is/isn't possible via technology, and hate discussions about machine learning with a particular passion.

So, why do we believe sentient AI is possible at all.

Well, when we talk about AI, we aren't limiting our discussion to binary computation. Using a classical or quantum computer and trying to create a consciousness with it is a bad idea. It's theoretically not impossible -- the universe is built on a foundation of information, of bits, of yes/no questions, but frankly, you're not just trying to simulate a consciousness at that point, you're trying to simulate the things that make a consciousness, and doing that makes the computational requirements just absolutely fucking outrageous.

Even if we're talking about a quantum computer, the advantage that it has over regular computing is that you can find every possible solution to an equation in the same time it takes to get one solution, because it does them all simultaneously, and then collapses the computation into the solution you were (hopefully) looking for.

That technology isn't the technology that you're going to want to use if your goal is to create a sentient AI. Not anywhere near it. And I think that's what people get stuck on when they talk about how we will never create sentient AI -- limiting themselves to traditional and quantum computing.

There are other forms of computation which are much closer to the human brain, though -- and much closer to what you would want to use if your goal was to create an artificial intelligence.

Analogue computing comes to mind -- using physical electrical currents to do imprecise, but nearly instant calculation. However, the main thing about analogue computing is that it's... analogue. It's specific. You have a device which can do one thing, and to make it do something else, you need to take it apart and reassemble it in another configuration.

Analogue computing is not what will create AI, not on its own. I think it will be part of that solution, but it won't be the soul component.

So, you might ask what will be that soul component, what computational technology will let us create a sentient AI -- what will allow us to play god in that way?

Frankly, I'm not an oracle. I can't predict which one of the dozen different technologies being worked on as we speak will be the main component of a future AI, if any of them end up being that technology.

But I do know this:

Nature created us. Humanity. It gave us consciousness, it gave us sapience -- and it likely gave some other animals that trait, too.

And frankly? I believe that if nature did it with no guiding hand or intention, humanity can do it with intent in an order of magnitude less time.

If we were forced to make a bet on which technology creates AI first, we would bet on lab-grown neurons interfacing with electrodes. Does that count as artificial intelligence? In the strictest sense, I think it would. It's certainly artificial, and it would certainly be an intelligence. And I think that it would have the best chance of making a sentient AI in our lifetime, or shortly thereafter.

And now it's tangent time.

I know where the arguments about this kind of thing come from, and I know that if this post breaks containment we're going to have people from a dozen different communities all throwing different points at us as to why we're wrong. I'm going to address at least one or two of them here.

One of the things we've seen thrown around about this is that under capitalism, there is no profit incentive to create a sentient AI, and that if people claimed they had created one, they would likely be lying, or have some ulterior motive for why they claimed so.

That is correct! You're fucking right! There is no reason for sentient AI to be made under capitalism! That does not mean it isn't possible for it to be made under capitalism! Or in a post capitalist world!

Just because capitalism doesn't create optimal or semi-optimal conditions for something to be created doesn't mean that it won't be created anyway. Humans are curious and motivated and even in a system which actively hates technological progress which can't be monetized, it can still happen. That doesn't mean it will happen, but that also doesn't mean it can't happen.

Yes, machines and people are fundamentally different things. Creating a sentient AI is playing god. Creating a sentient AI is creating a living thing.

The morals of this are questionable. I can see the argument behind why we shouldn't try to create sentient AI. I can see the argument why we shouldn't create artificial life.

But I really hate the narrative that doing it is impossible. That it is beyond technology, or beyond human reach.

There are some science fiction concepts which are likely impossible. FTL travel and time travel, for example.

But this absolutely isn't one of them. The universe created life without intent and without a guidebook. The universe created sentience without intent, and without a guidebook.

Humanity has a blueprint, and humanity has intent.

Nature did it first. We can do it too. Should we? I don't know. But the fact that we can is important to recognize.

Alright, that's about all we've got. I hope the rant was coherent enough to be understood, and that we were persuasive. Good luck and good tidings, even if you disagree with us.