#and only because its processor sucked so it really did not like the commands I was giving it

[doberbutts]

Like the whole "DOOM runs on anything" meme is funny sure but technically you can run any program on any machine that has the processor, memory, and storage space for it. You may need to tweak some thing here and there to get it fully operational but really that's mostly what it hinges on.

I turned my windows netbook into a Debian server and then turned *that* into cloud-based storage I could dump and share and run any files I wanted to off my internet connection when I was in college by tying an external hard drive to it using an always-on connection. I still technically have the hard drive but I sold the netbook a long time ago. I also turned my MacBook from college into an always-on minecraft server for my college friends before Microsoft decided to give us actual multi-player support.

I also turned my MacBook into a windows OS emulator when I wanted to game because I got annoyed that Mac ports are usually poopoobad quality. So I would turn my MacBook on and then load up my windows os inside of the Mac os and then actually load the game.

Like yeah I went to school for programming but I actually learned how to do most of that as a kid because my dad had a computer that had no GUI, it was all command prompt and DOS. There are times when my current windows computers are annoying me because they won't do the thing I told them to do so I load up dos and then effectively go "I wasn't asking" at it.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN ONLINE

At the other extreme are publications like the New York Times article about suits would sound if you read it in a blog: The urge to look corporate—sleek, commanding, prudent, yet with just a touch of hubris on your well-cut sleeve—is an unexpected development in a time of business disgrace. So what's going on is that the writing online is more honest.1 Plus they were always so relieved.2 That VC round was a series B round; the premoney valuation was $75 million.3 Many if not most of the 20th. Even if the big corporations had wanted to die. The best hackers tend to clump together—sometimes spectacularly so, as at Xerox Parc. 100,000 people worked there. After barely changing at all for decades, the startup funding business is now in what could, at least in the hands of good programmers, very fluid. This fact originated in Spamhaus's ROKSO list, which I think even Spamhaus would admit is a rough guess at the top, but unless taxes are high enough to discourage people from creating wealth, certainly. But if it's inborn it should be universal, and there are plenty of societies where parents don't mind if their teenage kids have sex—indeed, where it's normal for 14 year olds to become mothers.

So by studying the ways adults lie to kids is how broad the conspiracy is.4 To them the company is now 18 weeks old.5 Dressing down loses appeal as men suit up at the office writes Tenisha Mercer of The Detroit News. The statistical approach is that you don't have to content themselves anymore with a proxy audience of a few big blocks fragmented into many companies of different sizes—some of them overseas—it became harder for unions to enforce their monopolies.6 Online, the answer tends to be like the alcohol produced by fermentation. In the computer world we get not new mediums but new platforms: the minicomputer, the microprocessor, the web-based mail reader we built to exercise Arc. The really juicy new approaches are not the ones insiders reject as impossible, but those they ignore as undignified. Now it's Wepay's. Here's a test for deciding whether a VC's response was yes or no.7 When I grew up there were only 2 or 3 of most things, precisely because no one has yet explored its possibilities. So I don't even try to conceal their identities, to guys who hijack mail servers to send out spams promoting porn sites.

Whether or not computers were a precondition, they have a deal. When I did try statistical analysis, I found practically nothing.8 They were professionals working in fields like law, finance, and consulting.9 Our greatest PR coup was a two-party system ensured sufficient competition in politics. It hasn't occurred in a single one of my 4000 spams. Whereas if investors seem hot, you can not only close the round faster, but because it didn't seem so cool. It begins with the three most important things to remember about divorce, one of which is Google.

Others say I will get in trouble if they tell anyone what happened to Einstein: Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.10 So if you're going to clear these lies out of your incoming spam. Both changes drove salaries toward market price. A round they often don't. SLAC goes right under 280 a little bit south of Sand Hill Road precisely because they're so boringly uniform. Good PR firms use the same strategy: they give reporters stories that are true.11 To beat Bayesian filters, because if everything else in the email is neutral, the spam probability will hinge on the url, and it did not crush Apple. Unfortunately that makes this email a boring example of the use of Bayes' Rule.12

Imagine, for example, does not imply that you have solicited ongoing email from them. Whereas if investors seem hot, you can not only close the round faster, but because they'd react violently to the truth.13 You can't just tinker. 08221981 supported 0.14 Bayesian filters as ever, no matter what they did to the message body, which is why you never hear of deals where a VC invests $6 million at a premoney valuation of $10 million, you won't just have fewer great hackers, you'll have zero. They shouldn't take it so much to heart. Don't companies realize this is a coincidence. Large organizations have different aims from hackers. Its graduates didn't expect to do the sort of grubby menial work that Andrew Carnegie or Henry Ford started out doing. These companies may be far from failures by ordinary standards.

They'll simply refuse to work on what you like. Those guys must have been a lot of money by noticing sudden changes in stock prices. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no try. And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft.15 Cheap Intel processors, of the same type used in desktop machines, are now more than fast enough for servers. Microcomputers are a classic example: he did everything himself, hardware and software, and the number one thing they have in common is the extreme difficulty of making them work on anything they don't want random people pestering them with business plans. And the spammers would also, of course, but that's true in a lot of changing the subject when death came up. Which is exactly what they're supposed to help or supervise. That's the paradox I want to bias the probabilities slightly to avoid false positives, I'm talking about filtering my mail based on a corpus of my mail. And the social effects lasted too. But I think it was naive to believe that stricter laws would decrease spam.

Notes

If Apple's board hadn't made that blunder, they can grow the acquisition into what it would be to say that was actively maintained would be investors who rejected you did.

Geshke and Warnock only founded Adobe because Xerox ignored them.

At once, and so thought disproportionately about such customs. Even as late as 1984. But the margins are greater on products. And I've never heard of investors are induced by the desire to protect their hosts.

Especially if they miss just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's roughly correct for startups to kill their deal with them. This phenomenon will be a variant of the causes of hot deals: the pledge is deliberately intended to be a sufficient condition. Icio. The company is always raising money, the last thing you changed.

When Harvard kicks undergrads out for doing badly and is doomed anyway.

Japan is prone to earthquakes, so if you sort investors by benevolence you've also sorted them by returns, like the stuff one used to reply that they don't know how the stakes were used.

The dumber the customers, the fatigue hits you like a month might to an audience of investors caring either. But it's useful to consider these two ideas separately. Our rule is that they have a competent startup lawyer handle the deal for you. It would have undesirable side effects.

And that will seem more powerful sororities at your school sucks, and not to foo but to a study by the time they're fifteen the kids are smarter than preppies, just that everyone's visual piano has that key on it. Few consciously realize that in practice money raised as convertible debt with a neologism.

Apple's products but their policies. These were the seven liberal arts.

Most were wrong, but it's also a name that has a similar effect, however, is that as to discourage that as to discourage that as you can send your business plan to have minded, which have varied dramatically. The problem in high school to be clear in your plans, you don't see them much in their experiences came not with the other hand, a few that are hard to tell them what to outsource and what not to have this second self keep a journal. The problem is not yet released.

And journalists as part of wisdom. If by cutting the founders' advantage if it gets you growth, because you can get it, so they will only be a special title for actual partners. It is probably no accident that the word wealth. So when they were more dependent on banks for capital for expansion.

In a country with a no-shop clause. Trevor Blackwell, who had been transposed into your head.

I wouldn't bet against it either. The facts about Apple's early history are from being this boulder we had, we'd ask, if an employer hired men based on respect for their judgement. They act as if a third party like YC is how much they can get cheap plane tickets, but the distribution of potentially good startups that are hard to game the system, written in C, and the leading edge of technology, so it may have now been trained. Why Are We Getting a Divorce?

The way to do with the solutions.

Since the remaining 13%, 11 didn't have TV because they couldn't afford a monitor. Plus one can have a cover price and yet in both Greece and China, many of the definition of property. The problem is not very well connected. Many will consent to b rather than lose a prized employee.

[writeyouin]

Swerve X Reader – A Human Crewmate - Chapter 10 - Part 1

Christmas Cheer Part 1

A/N – Based on a lot of head-canons from @rocksinmuffin and @straightouttacybertron so extra special thanks to them for that. I was gonna make you wait longer but Happy Holidays my friends. Dedicated to @millebellete for the epic new icon.

Warnings – NSFW/RATED M UNDER THE “KEEP READING” CUT.

Rating – T

You slumped in a beanbag despondently. You’d only been awake for around twenty minutes and the day already sucked. Before you could contemplate your depressing scenario further, the hab-suite door opened to Swerve who peered around cautiously to check if you were even awake yet; he was always careful not to wake you up.

“Hey (Y/N),” he greeted jovially.

“Hey,” You mumbled.

Swerve frowned, “What’s wrong?”

You got up, shaking your head and throwing out a quick, imitation smile that paled in comparison to the real thing, “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Come on, slumped shoulders, low mood, something’s up. Is it that shark week thing you warned me about?” He sounded vaguely panicked, though he wasn’t actually sure what you meant by shark week.

“No, nothing like that, I just… Something I found out.”

“Let’s hear it, or do I have to talk your ears off first because I will, you know I will.”

“Alright, alright, it’s um… My datapad shows the date back on Earth… it’s getting close to Christmas. Christmas is kind of a big deal back on Earth, y’know? I’ve never not… I’m gonna miss it is all.”

“(Y/N),” Swerve murmured, lost for words at the hurt on your face; he couldn’t imagine the pain you were feeling. You couldn’t go home and nobody else on the ship knew Earth holidays like he did, not to mention it was a time spent with family and friends who you’d also lost.

“Forget it,” You said glumly. “I’ll see you later, I think I need a walk… on my own.”

Swerve didn’t stop you from leaving. He couldn’t, not when a bright idea was firing through his processor. He couldn’t fix the Earth problem, but he could distract you from it; the whole ship could distract you.

Little over an hour later, even in your quiet nook of the ship, the Rodimus gong rang loudly through the halls; it didn’t need the PA for that.

“Attention everybody,” Rodimus chimed over the speaker. “In honour of our resident human, I would like to announce the Lost Light’s first HOLIDAY EXTRAVAGANZA.”

You stared, slack jawed at the speaker, did he mean what you thought he meant?

Muffled echoes came over the speaker, “Why aren’t they cheering? They’re supposed to be cheering.” Rodimus cleared his vocaliser and continued, “Since you obviously don’t know what it means, we’re celebrating the Earth holiday of Christmas… what do you mean Hanukkah? Does she celebrate that too? What do you mean you don’t know? Fine, whatever. Christmas and Hanukkah. Ultra Magnus has prepared… ugh, pamphlets on the subject because he managed to ruin holidays too but please, take the time to learn all you can about what I’m told is ‘the most wonderful time of the year.’”

Rodimus heaved a loud sigh at the lack of enthusiasm, “Alright, fine, it’s a big chance to party and get overcharged…. Sure, now they cheer. Rodimus out.”

The speakers fell silent once more and you sat lost for words in the corridor you’d been hiding in. Your new communicator rang with the Friends theme tune which was reserved for Swerve.

You answered it dazed, “Swerve?”

“(Y/N), did you hear the announcement? What do you think? I asked Rodimus this morning and he was totally on board with it. We can decorate the bar, and set up a movie night, and teach everyone the songs, and-”

“It’s wonderful Swerve, you’re the best, thank you,” You were glad he couldn’t see you crying, even if they were happy tears.

“No problem (Y/N), really.”

“What’d Maggie and Megs say?”

“Ultra Magnus got weird and mumbled something about Verity, whatever that is, then he took off and said he had to decorate and told me not to get into trouble. Megatron couldn’t get a word in over Rodimus.”

You sniffed back more tears.

“(Y/N)? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” You wiped your face with the back of your hand, “meet you at the bar?”

“Can’t wait.”

“So, what’re we thinking?” Swerve asked, standing next to you in the bar; for once, with the lack of bots, you could stand on the floor with him.

You framed the corner of the room with your hands, holding them out, “What about a huge tree over there? Wait, do we even have a tree… or any decorations for that matter?”

Swerve sputtered, faking offense, “Pfft, do we have decorations. What kind of cave dwelling cretin do you take me for? I mean, you may as well ask if the sky has a moon or-”

“So, we do have decorations?”

“Well, maybe not here but we’ll get some soon, right after you decide what we need.”

“Alright soldier, are you willing to follow orders and commandeer any supplies we need?!”

Swerve saluted, “SIR, YES SIR!”

“AND ARE YOU WILLING TO WAGE WAR ON ANYONE WHO STANDS IN YOUR WAY!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

“EVEN IF IT MEANS INFILTRATING THE ENEMY CAMP!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

“THEN BEGIN SOLDIER, TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK WE NEED.”

“START WITH A WREATH.”

“GOOD, AND?”

“LIGHTS THAT TWINKLE?”

“AND?”

“A SKELETON?”

“YES- Wait, a skeleton? Why a skeleton?”

Swerve held his hands up, “Sorry, I was thinking of Halloween, got excited.”

You grinned, “Fair enough, I’m honestly impressed you got that far, I was hoping you’d screw up sooner.”

Swerve bumped into you playfully, you returned the gesture, laughing as you did so.

“Now,” You commanded, “logistics. I think we’re going to need some help on this one. You got anyone in mind?”

“Tailgate would be good, maybe Chromedome and Rewind, Nautica.”

“Who’s Nautica?”

“Oh right, you two haven’t met yet but she’s awesome and-”

“She? There’s another she on the ship and you didn’t tell me? Go, go get her, I must meet this other she, go.”

You pushed against him, making no difference at all, “Okay, I’m going. I suppose I should bring Velocity back here too if you’re going to meet all the she’s on the ship.”

“Yes,” You squealed, clapping your hands together. “Oh, and bring Rung too.”

“Ring? Why Rang?”

“I swear, you all do the name thing on purpose. Rung has to come because he’ll be happy to be invited, be considerate and invite him before I’m forced to kick your can.”

“Riiight, because you did so good moving me just then.”

“I swear, I could actually destroy you. I’m barely keeping my dangerous animal ferocity contained right now. Us flesh sticks are monstrous, have you never seen Freddy Kreuger or Jason?”

“Frag, if you’re as dangerous as those two, I should run. I’ll leave you to the logistics while I gather the team.”

You saluted once more, and Swerve was out the door, practically bubbling over with excitement.

Boosting yourself up, you sat on one of the barstools, writing a list of what you needed on your datapad.

“Ten!” A mechanical voice gargled.

You squealed, almost falling off your seat, then turned to face the very mech who’d scared you. You’d met Ten before briefly. As far as you knew from the others on the ship, he wasn’t very intelligent, and he served as hired muscle to Swerve.

“Ah, hey Ten. How’re you doing?”

“Ten.”

“Hodor.”

“Ten?”

“Groot?”

“Ten?”

“You’re a mech of many words… Want to keep me company while I plan?”

“TEN!” He threw himself on the stool next to yours enthusiastically.

“Great, first I was thinking a wreath at the door with a red bow. Green and red are the colours of Christmas.” You showed him some pictures on your datapad.

Ten tilted his head, examined the picture, and opened a storage space in his chest panel. He pulled out some pieces of flat silver metal, folding them expertly. It soon became clear that he was making a wreath of his own, albeit devoid of colour.

“Ten, that’s incredible!” You praised as he made a bow with the metal.

“Ten!” He smiled.

“You know, whichever idiot said the thingy about the Ambus test needs their head checked; you’re way smarter than any dumb old test.”

When Swerve came back with the party, minus Nautica who was busy, Ten had piled decoration upon decoration on top of the surrounding tables, each waiting to be placed around the room.

“Whoa…” Swerve marvelled, “What happened here?”

“Ten’s a crafting genius.”

Nautica pushed past everyone to meet you, “Tell me something I don’t know. Hi, I’m Nautica, it used to be Nautical but that didn’t sound right and I babble when I’m excited. You’re a human!”

“And you’re female!”

The two of you squealed excitedly before regaining composure and shaking hands, though Nautica started inspecting your hand, turning it over in hers and making observations.

“What are the lines on your arms?”

“Veins and arteries, they carry blood to and from my heart.”

“Incredible.”

“Right?”

“What else does your body do?”

“Loads of stuff, it can-”

“(Y/N)!” Rewind called impatiently. “Christmas stuff.”

“Right, okay.” The bots gathered around you waiting for what you had to say. You held up your datapad again, showing various images of what each item should look like. “As you can see, Ten has made just about everything we need but silver is so boring on its own. What I need all of you for is a painting spree. Ten, Chromedome, Nautica, you’re the tallest, so you’re on tree painting duty and decoration hanging when that’s done. Rewind, the tinsel really needs to sparkle. Rung, Tailgate, you’re painting the baubles and banners. Swerve, you’re on snowflakes, and I’ll get anything else. Everyone okay with that?”

Everyone agreed enthusiastically and began their duties. Rung proved invaluable, painting over the base coats of the decorations with incredible detail due to his time spent on model ships. With three people working on the tree, it was done in no time, leaving them free to join the hubbub of the decorations table. Swerve was sprinkling liberal amounts of glitter in your hair, claiming you were the angel for the top of the tree. While you laughed hysterically, Rewind filmed, saying he was making a Christmas documentary and asking you every question he could think of on the subject. You started from the beginning, telling any and all traditions that came to your head along the way.

“What’s that? Is it a mini tree?” Rewind zoomed in on the decoration you were painting.

“This is mistletoe, you hang it from the ceiling then when two people step under it, no matter who they are, they have to kiss.”

Chromedome looked lovingly at Rewind; it was a look of so pure and strong that you felt lucky simply to witness it.

Tailgate grabbed the unfinished mistletoe from you, holding it above his head jokingly when you came to get it. “So, like this?”

“Oh, that’s how it’s gonna be is it?” You giggled. “Very funny.” You kissed his faceplate and grabbed the mistletoe back from him with a rocket boot thrust. “Keep playing like that and I won’t give you one for your hab-suite which would be a real shame; think of Cyclonus, all handsome under the mistletoe.”

Tailgate practically glowed at the comment; he was clearly wondering whether Cyclonus would humour him in such an odd tradition. The conversation flowed on as the bar was decorated beautifully. While everything had been made of metal, it served to give the decorations a unique Lost Light look. Swerve kept a box of leftover decorations to use in the hab-suite where the two of you headed after everyone parted ways, babbling excitedly about anything that came to mind.

“I was thinking,” Swerve said, hanging around your kitchen nook while you prepared a Christmas film on the other side of the room, “we should create a Christmas tradition for the Lost Light.”

“Got anything in mind?” You asked, absentmindedly.

“How about naming some new energon cocktails? We could make them seasonal specials, like that eggnog stuff I’ve heard about.”

“So, stuff like, Red Nosed Retro Energon.”

“Yeah, and Santa’s Sleigh-er.”

“Elf-ergon.”

“Jingle Juice.”

“You know, you should really write these down before we forget them.”

“Don’t worry, I remember everything you say.”

You turned around to face him, raising a curious eyebrow, “Pardon?”

Swerve tapped his helm, “G-great memory.”

“Oh, then can you get your great memory over to the berth, so we can start the film?”

For film nights, Swerve always moved the berth into the middle of the room where he’d lay on one side and you’d get the other since he didn’t fill it even when laid out. You’d already prepared a small mountain of pillows to make the hard metal comfy as usual and were awaiting him to start the selected film.

“Here,” Swerve held out a steaming mug of hot chocolate he’d prepared in your tiny kitchen; manoeuvring the small items was much more of a struggle than he’d guessed, and he’d made more of a mess than he cared to admit but the result was there and for that he was proud.

You blinked back surprise, “Thank you.”

“No prob Bob. What’re we watching?”

“Love Actually. It’s the absolute best Christmas film ever, if you can hack the sad parts.”

Swerve’s vocaliser crackled and his cooling fans span quietly, a film called Love Actually was sure to be a romance; it would be the first romance the two of you had watched alone. Were you trying to tell him something or was he imagining things again?

As Swerve laid comfortably on the berth, you started the film and took a sip of the hot chocolate.

“How is it?” he asked hopefully.

You struggled to swallow the thick gloop that was congealing in your mouth. “Like cement,” You garbled.

At the despair on Swerve’s face, you burst into laughter, ungracefully spraying remnants of hot chocolate which brought Swerve into your gales of laughter. You cleaned yourself up and settled into the film. Swerve sat, enchanted with the film until you got up and laid on top of him.

“Wh-Wh-” he tried to speak but couldn’t.

“I love this part,” You said enamoured, getting comfortable on his warm frame. Your head rested against his spark casing and your legs were curled up, limiting you to his chest panel.

While Swerve’s mind reeled, you thought nothing of the small action; it was something you did to friends and family on Earth constantly. Your leg stretched out, accidentally gliding over his interface panel. Swerve threw himself up at the sensitive touch, knocking you to the floor underneath the berth.

“Ow! Swerve, what the hell?”

“(Y/N)! Are you okay?” He’d gotten over the initial shock and was now concerned for your safety; it was at least a four-foot fall.

“Yeah, I landed on the pillows you threw. What happened?”

“I uh- I got scared.” The sentence wasn’t entirely a lie, feeling the pressure of your foot against his interface panel was terrifying; did you even know how much you were torturing him?

“You got scared?”

“Y-yes.”

“Of a child playing the drums?”

“Yes? I mean, w-what if the girl rejects him? After a-all he’s done, it’s too scary to t-think about.”

“Right… Well, if you’re okay to continue, I promise it works out okay for him.”

“Y-yeah, we can continue.”

Swerve didn’t know whether to be relieved or hate himself when you took your usual place on the other side of the berth. He was either a genius for resolving the situation or the galaxy’s biggest idiot for ruining what could have felt wonderful, even if you had no idea what you were doing.

Swerve was restless. He’d made up the excuse that he needed to recharge when you went to bed because he couldn’t face anyone the way he was feeling; too much would come spilling out concerning you. Now, he hated himself for lying because the dull throb of his interface array was almost painful. You’d pressed against the containing panel; you’d started this, yet you got to sleep without a care or trouble in the world.

Yes… You were asleep. The realisation hit him hard. He’d pleasured himself to thoughts of you more than once before. He’d also promised himself that he wouldn’t do so again now that you lived together. Then again, what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt… him.

Swerve’s interface panel opened seemingly of its own accord. He gritted his dentae together, slowly angling his head to see you, all wrapped up in blankets; the small sound hadn’t bothered you, you didn’t even stir.

Swerve grabbed hold of his already pressurised spike, pumping at it quietly, sensually. He shouldn’t be doing this. Seeing you asleep in a cute poodle tank top should have made him feel worse, he should be guilty watching you and sure a part of him was; a miniscule part which went easily ignored. The rest was more aroused; you were right there, in front of him.

He shut off his vocaliser seconds before a loud moan erupted; going this slow was torture as much as pleasure. As he rubbed his spike with one servo, he used the other to circle around his valve, finally inserting only one digit in; it was his smallest digit and the closest he had to imitating you.

If you only opened one eye, you’d see him in all his disgrace. You’d probably be disgusted, maybe even hate him. Instead, you were stuck in a deep slumber, oblivious to what was happening only feet away.

Before sharing a hab-suite with you, Swerve masturbated to various fantasies varying from fucking you over his bar, to being tied up while you dominated him; each scenario was wilder than the last and he could still see your underwear around your ankles as if it had been real.

Now however, he couldn’t see you as some exotic fantasy; not this time. You weren’t screaming his name. He wasn’t using toys on you or making you use them on yourself. He wasn’t imagining whether you could take the full length of his spike. No, this fantasy was different… tamer. In it, you were cuddled up on his lap, while the two of you told each other future hopes and dreams. It wasn’t a fantasy of lust but of love. Swerve couldn’t fully comprehend his feelings for you as his cooling fans blasted and an upcoming overload jumbled his thoughts but as he jerked off into the final stages of an overload, he loved you.

Looking down at the mess of trans-fluid covering him, Swerve wasn’t concerned with cleaning up the mess or making his cooling fans quiet down. He was even more aroused than before; he’d done it and you hadn’t woke up. He had to do it again.

[verdigrisprowl]

Operation: 🐸. Part 7.

Inside the lab, Prowl and Tarantulas (with some help from Whirl and Laserbeak) rush through a life-saving procedure to stop Springer’s spark from going out. Outside the lab, Whirl and Soundwave & Co. slaughter the Decepticons who have come to take out the intruders.

With all but one Decepticon prisoner dead and Springer’s spark stabilized, they reconvene in the lab to put him back together. Next time: reassembly and, hopefully, wake-up.

For full authenticity, listen to the Transformers: Devastation soundtrack.

Whirl

Whirl has been in enough situations that suddenly escalated to full-scale violence to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice. His helm snaps towards the door the moment Soundwave’s alarms go up. “Looks like we’ve got company,” he says, stepping away from the three of them. “Just complete the circuit—I’ve got to go.”

He rushes out of the room with the deployers, skidding to a stop outside the door and sizing up his opponents. There has to be close to thirty or so of them, all thundering down the hallway, a wave of angry bodies ready to break against the line. He isn’t about to wait for them to arrive. Whirl takes two steps forward and carries the motion over into a fluid transformation, rotors whirring as he stabilizes himself in the air. There’s not a lot of room to fly, but Whirl can more than handle himself in such tight quarters.

He immediately begins a barrage of fire with his cannons, tearing into the front of the ranks with each blast. It slows the enemy for now, but it won’t last. “Got a plan?” He calls over the comms to Soundwave. “Because if not, I’m about to dive in.”

Prowl

Prowl turns toward the door. "Dammit." The explosion must have got the Decepticons' attention. How many? He knows Soundwave and Whirl can handle themselves, but against too many enemies...

He looks back at Tarantulas. "Hurry. I don't want this to be the way we test Springer's new armor."

Tarantulas

Everything’s going to pits in a toolbox. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong. Except Springer’s ununtrium frame, but that won’t help any of them now.

But – the spark jump. It’s their last chance to salvage what little is left of Springer’s spark. Prowl doesn’t have to tell Tarantulas twice, so he braces himself and snaps the dual clamps on Springer’s spark chamber.

And nothing happens.

Tarantulas waits a moment, but it’s clear that whatever was supposed to happen hasn’t happened. Frag. Frag frag frag.

Prowl

"... I don't feel anything." A useful patient tells his doctor what he's experiencing. "Isn't it supposed to hurt?"

Tarantulas

“It should!” Tarantulas is starting to shake now. “I-it should -”

Frantic pings across the communal commlink, but Tarantulas ends up crying out across the lab as well as over comms. «WHIRL - IT DIDN’T WORK -»

Soundwave

Soundwave dips his helm in acknowledgment of Whirl and the deployers' arrival, but doesn't look at him. He's already tearing apart poorly secured comm lines in the search for the enemy group's leader.

[[No bridges.]] They can't be allowed to see something as identifiable as that. Especially not if they're still brandishing Decepticon insignia. There's no telling who they report to - or who they might give ideas. [[Take the back, prevent escape. Allow surrenders... if there are any.]]

He doubts there will be, though.

Soundwave's deployers abruptly explode out of their line and into the fray, once again ready to be the well-oiled fighting machine they were in the pits, the war, and lately, the Underworld.

Whirl

“No bridges is fine,” Whirl replies, “but I’m not taking anyone alive.”

With that he launches himself forward, his booster igniting and sending him hurtling towards the enemy. It’s a brutal, inelegant charge, roughly the equivalent of a full-body punch. The moment he collides with the line, Tarantulas’s frantic message comes through.

Whirl shakes off the nearest Decepticons with a few quick blasts from his canons and then swivels up to dart along the ceiling, flying upside-down over the heads of the enemy below. “Dammit,” he mutters aloud. Obviously, completing the circuit wasn’t enough. “Laserbeak! Go back in there, I need you to shock the hell out of Prowl!”

Clearing the crowd at last, he corkscrews neatly away from the ceiling and re-orients himself, swiveling to face the crowd of mecha between him and Soundwave. “I’m sending you some help, Tarantulas. I’m guessing you need a surge—she’ll handle it!”

Soundwave

[[ He can't wring information out of dead processors. ]] Soundwave's fingers curl tight in irritation. He's going to have to find their commander, and fast. At least it'll go faster now. Touch telepathy, physical confrontation...

Laserbeak whirls free of the writhing mass with a gleeful whir and zips sideways through the door, exposing no more than a crack. (Someone takes an opportunistic shot but misses the gap. Soundwave vents in relief - then spears them in the gut with the end of his arm and, twisting, slams them to the ground.)

Tarantulas

A surge. A surge. Of course. Activation energy. Not that electricity would serve as a substitute for the actual spark energy needed, but it’d cause Prowl’s spark to seize and power the jump. Yes, that – that had to work.

«Are we SURE Laserbeak can deliver a sufficiently extreme voltage? She – it’ll likely have to be in excess of sixteen times Prowl’s baseline for it to – we’ll try, but –»

Tarantulas will be ready when she gets there though, assuring the leads still connect Springer and Prowl but careful not to touch either of them. The panic is burning deep gold in his visor – because on top of all this, he has a sudden fear for Prowl’s spark now. For the pain Prowl is about to suffer, if Laserbeak really DOES have the voltage. But should he say anything? No – better not. Just – do what needs to be done. He's so, so sorry, Prowl.

Prowl

Prowl glances back at the door as Laserbeak zips inside—here to help? to tell them that things have gotten worse outside?—but only manages to get out a “Wha—?”

Soundwave

Laserbeak's feelers clip onto either side of Prowl's back without so much as a by-your-leave, and suddenly there's enough electricity running through him to knock out a handful of minicons and then some.

{{Now tinfoil turkey roast you! }} she cackles.

It's the best day of the last few months of her life.

Prowl

When Laserbeak latches on and—threatens him??—his first wild thought iss s sgh ghh h dghd dg gg## #g#g g## # #g#

His scream is nothing but static. As he's electrocuted, excess energy burns through every wire in his body—and through the cables into Springer.

Whirl

“Then you’d better get to them before I do,” Whirl replies simply.

A few more blasts from his cannons clear him a space to land, and he does, whipping his plasma-launcher out of subspace and readying it. There’s an eagerness to fight in him, a sense of tension broken—they’ve all been waiting for the other shoe to drop, ever since they’d arrived, and it finally had. More than anything else, though, Whirl feels rage.

Hatred pulses through every atom of his body with every beat of his spark. It’s an all-consuming, exhilarating feeling, rendered even more vivid by the numbness that has been gripping his spark all these long weeks. Hot streaks of glowing plasma lash through the air like whips, hungrily eating through the armor of Whirl’s enemies. “Did it work?”

Prowl

Prowl nearly collapses, barely holding himself up on his hands, and grits his dentae shut over a strangled cry. His spark is roaring in pain—it feels like a black hole is sucking it out of its casing. His feet and hands are covered in a stabbing pain (like a thousand knives being driven into one’s body), and then the stabbing becomes a prickling, and then goes numb, as spark energy is drained out of his extremities and the stabbing pain travels ever closer to his spark. His fingertips are turning gray. His HUD is changing colors and distorting across his vision. The killswitch hadn’t hurt like this. Prowl’s come close to dying before and this feels no different.

What if Prowl isn’t strong enough to save Springer? What if his spark is just too small? Springer’s always carried a far larger body than Prowl has, Springer’s spark is obviously stronger than his, plus Tarantulas just augmented it; what if Springer needs more energy than Prowl can safely give?

His fingers are stiff and uncooperative, but he forces them to curl into fists, knuckles driving into the ground. If Springer needs more energy than Prowl can safely give, then Prowl will die to save a better mech than him. He’s ready.

Tarantulas

There’s nothing Tarantulas can do but watch as Prowl falls forward onto his hands. He can’t touch him, can’t comfort him in any meaningful way – he can only, must only, monitor the transfer of spark energy from one frame to another. (Those fingers. Those grey, grey fingers. Tarantulas trembles.)

Now comes a new judgment call – deciding when to separate them. Tarantulas may not have his medical scanner at the moment, but he still does have ten optics and a visor, and a few of their functions help narrow down the window to half-seconds, tenths of a second –

Suddenly he unclips and yanks the cables from Springer’s chest. That’s it, that’s – that’s –

Tarantulas laughs out loud. Did it work. Did it work. Primus, Whirl, if only you could see the vibrant blue light dancing in Springer’s chest now, the leftover sparks from the electricity flitting jubilantly from their frames. Tarantulas can't seem to decide between vocals or comms, so it's still both aloud and transmitted. « Yes, yes, it – hold on, hold on –»

Tarantulas quickly looks Prowl over to make sure he’s not in any critical condition (please don’t be crashing please don’t spiral out please) – yes, Prowl passes muster. Then he’s promptly zeroing in on Springer for a closer inspection. A few pregnant seconds later, he confirms the good news. «– Yes yes thank Primus yes he’s alright, he’s stable, he’s, he’s –»

Soundwave

Laserbeak’s not sticking around to get swatted out of the air by a cranky post-shock Prowl. Or one of Tarantulas’ many misunderstanding legs. Time to zip back over to her Boss and the battle outside, where she’s a little less likely to be murdered.

Rumble punches someone’s knees to scrap. Ravage leaps at them from behind, toppling them over, and Frenzy jams his drills into the sides of their helm. Buzzsaw dives repeatedly, blades whirring, cutting another mech free from the fighters and herding them backward into Soundwave’s waiting grip.

Soundwave promptly pins them with a foot and tears them limb from limb. The feeler still holding the screaming leftovers by one leg swings them and clubs yet another Decepticon into the wall before flinging them into the crowd.

So it goes.

Prowl

Stable. Thank god. His job is done. When Laserbeak takes off, Prowl lets himself slump to the side, landing with his head next to Springer's. Weakly, wearily, voice crackling, he said, "I c##an die i#n peace now#.» (He's not dying.)

Soundwave

(txt): Negative, forbidden.

Hey, Whirl. Laserbeak's gonna shoot some cons your way as a personal thank you for giving her that beautiful chance.

Prowl

What's that pinging in his head? Hmmm. Irrelevant.

Whirl

Whirl pauses momentarily as Tarantulas’s comm comes in, confirming Springer’s stability before he goes back to the task at hand, which is presently shoving the muzzle of his plasma-launcher into the open mouth of the Decepticon screeching under his heel. He laughs, half at the horrible gurgling noises that erupt from his opponent when he pulls the trigger, and half from Prowl’s very dramatic declaration.

“All the dyin’s happening out here, mech,” he crows into the commline, his voice ringing with a sort of joyful viciousness. Whirl has been absorbing a steady stream of weapons-fire while he dispatches with the mech underfoot, and finally raises his attention to the others, leaving the Decepticon to perish while he claws at his face.

Simply using his cannons would be more efficient, or even his sword, in such close quarters. Whirl is taking more damage than was necessary, but he can more than handle it. He doesn’t want to kill these mecha quickly, or efficiently; he’s savoring every moment of the fight the way a gourmand might savor every bite of a meal.

And here comes Laserbeak, delivering dessert. Whirl lifts his plasma-launcher out of the way to dispatch one of them with a quick one-two blast of his chest cannons before closing with the other, optic wide and bright.

Prowl

What's THAT ping supposed to—? Oh. Comm. He opens both messages, studies them, and—with what grim dignity he can muster—replies, «Then I suppose I'll live.»

Tarantulas

Tarantulas could cry, he’s so overwhelmed with relief. In fact, he IS crying, but the tears behind his visor are being efficiently recycled, since the pores were upgraded since last time. Thank Primus, because it means he can see well enough without having to deactivate his visor – he can accurately reach out over Springer’s prone body and pull Prowl in, then shakily embrace the two of them where they lie on the floor.

It doesn’t matter that both their spark chambers are still exposed and vulnerable. It doesn’t matter that there’s still static in the cables still attached in Prowl’s chest, and that Springer isn't even conscious. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t even his Prowl, that this isn’t his Springer, his Ostaros. This is it. This is all Tarantulas has ever wanted. Himself, Prowl, and Ostaros, all in the same place at the same time and not trying to kill each other.

He can’t get any words out, comms or no. It’s just too much for him to handle.

Prowl

He's limp as Tarantulas pulls him up into an embrace. But after a moment, he shakily embraces him back. Static arcs from his spark chamber into the fur of Tarantulas's chest.

"Thank you."

Tarantulas

Oh, Tarantulas is definitely crying now. “T-thank – thank you. Thank you Prowl, you’re – you’re here, and Ostaros, a-and–” He’s burying his face in whatever pieces of the two mechs he can reach.

It’s a pretty dysfunctional family reunion, but he’ll take it.

Soundwave

He'd better live. Soundwave isn't going through all this to come out of it with a dead ally.

Somewhere in the middle of what's left of their attackers, a mech fit to put one of the murdertank Insecticons from Soundwave's homeworld to shame starts shrieking and spinning in place, hands scrabbling uselessly at one of the shot tunnels Whirl's plasma cannon left in his dorsal armor. He does a fair amount of work for them, accidentally elbowing someone into shooting the mech in front of him instead of at Rumble and distracting two more long enough for the bird twins to mow them down. Energon pours out from behind his facemask, running thick pink rivers down his chin and throat.

There's a loud whine and a glow that doesn't match the blue of a spark, and then the center of his chest explodes outward, courtesy of a pair of powerful hip blasters. He's dead before he hits the ground.

Ravage claws his way out of the sparking hole and leaps at the next person without even shaking himself off.

[[That one - the three-wheeler. They're his. ]]

Soundwave's feeler darts past a couple still struggling to keep Frenzy and Rumble from getting hits in and wraps around said three-wheeler's shoulders, yanking him up and over the fray. This is his prisoner now, and maybe a bribe for Starscream in case they get in trouble.

Whirl

As the number of mecha between them grows less and less, Whirl and Soundwave’s group draw nearer and nearer, and this necessitates a little teamwork. The beloved plasma thrower is put away, and Whirl lays into his foes with his blasters and his claws. He’s quite happy to cooperate with the twins, knocking a mech’s legs out from underneath him to put him into chest-drilling level or pinning someone so their head can be pile-driven into oblivion.

Ravage’s performance is a work of art; it sets Whirl laughing, and he doesn’t stop laughing until he takes out his final opponent—rather suddenly, catching even himself off-guard, with a vicious kick to the helm that had been meant to simply knock the Decepticon down. Instead, the mech’s neck snapped, twisting at an odd angle, and he crumped to the ground, having been damaged enough to interrupt the connection between the brain module and the spark.

“Oh. Huh.” Whirl stared for a moment before he knelt and finished him off with a quick shot to the chest. Whirl pauses to survey the hall. “Damn is that—is that all?” He’s not as spattered with gore as his companions: he’s scorched, bleeding a little, and his optic and cockpit glass are both badly cracked. He swivels his helm to regard Soundwave as he trots back over. “Anyone else coming? Or are we good for now?”

Soundwave

Soundwave and most of his deployers are accustomed to fighting in close quarters without the aid of guns or blasters, Laserbeak being the obvious exception. Them being spattered is just another day, especially for Frenzy and his brother.

And Whirl's not the only one to take some damage. Missing spines (some of which are buried in other mechs' weak points), missing fangs, missing plates, dents, gouges, one wing blade chain snapped, Soundwave's arms covered in claw marks from being used as shields - ah. It was a good fight.

To some, anyway. Soundwave's looking at the dead mechs before them and shaking his helm. He wanted so much to be wrong about the refusal to surrender. Over two dozen dead mechs in exchange for Springer...

He gives the ex-leader a violent shake and telepathically demands an answer.

"N-no. Nobody else, I swear. We - I never - the roster, look at the roster. You'll see."

Satisfied that he can't feel any lies under the words, Soundwave turns to face the door, ready to re-enter with his new prize in tow.

Prowl

Prowl nods along to Tarantulas’s babbling; the head movement makes him dizzy, and he leans more heavily on Tarantulas for balance. Yes, they're here. They're here and Springer is here, Springer is going to live, Springer is going to be invincible—and Tarantulas—Prowl has Tarantulas, he's here in his arms, and—

"Tarantulas… I love y—"

Whirl

Whirl pauses by the door, staring at Soundwave’s captive as he’s given a good shake. When the Decepticon is done babbling, Whirl thrusts his helm forward and fixes the mech with a pinprick-small optic. “You,” he said, "have no idea how lucky you are.”

He draws back. “Well. For now, at least.” And then Whirl barges in through the door, attention snapping down to regard the three mecha sprawled on the floor. Everyone seems to be in one piece. ...well, except Springer, but that’s nothing new.

“Everyone good? Why is he still on the floor? C’mon, get up, we’ve got work to do.” Whirl trots over to Springer and hooks his claws into his frame, staring pointedly at Tarantulas as he waits for him to help move Springer to the bed. “You can cuddle later.”

Prowl

Prowl flinches as the doors slams open, and falls silent.

Soundwave

Soundwave opted not to approach the Springer pile with his captive. For one thing, there were probably sparks out still, and for another - well, there were probably sparks out still.

Instead, he walked them to the other side of the room and parked the poor fragger on the floor. They said to check the rosters. He was going to take a moment and do just that while the others shook Springer awake, or put him up on the berth, or whatever they still needed to accomplish.

Tarantulas

It’s probably a good thing Whirl barged in at that moment, because Tarantulas swears he heard – did Prowl say – his spark’s going to implode if he really did – but no, no. Prowl never finishes what he was saying, and whatever moment was there is gone now.

Whirl’s pulling at Ostaros – no, Springer – and Tarantulas has to pay attention. They’re not done. In his blissful little moment of family reunion he’d forgotten their circumstances and what was still left to be done. Time to get up and pull your weight, Tarantulas.

Or rather, Springer’s weight. Tarantulas is on his feet again, ignoring his hidden tears in favor of mass-shifting up further than before and scooping Springer’s torso into his arms, like he should have done the first time around. No worries, Whirl, he’s got this.

A moment of wavering as he looks back down at Prowl from so far up. “A-are you – can you – stand? Ambulate?”

Prowl

Prowl slides back off Tarantulas and barely manages to sit upright. "I'm... not entirely sure." His processor is rounding probabilities to the nearest 25% so he's not trusting their results; there's a 75% chance they're still compromised. He tries to get to his feet.

And immediately flops back to his knees. "Nope." His strained spark is fluttering in its casing. "I'm not moving. I'm staying right here."

Whirl

Whirl hasn’t exactly forgotten about Tarantulas’s odd size-changing abilities, but it still does take him somewhat off-guard. He releases Springer to the other mech’s custody for now and turns his attention to Prowl. “Yeah, it’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it?” Whirl nods sagely. “Feels like someone sucked all the energon out of your body and replaced it with water.”

He kneels and nudges Prowl. “Close up, mech.” And Whirl silently offers one arm for Prowl to grab onto. The chivalry of the gesture might be somewhat compromised by the state the arm is in: scuffed, scorched, and spattered with blood.

Prowl can sit, and probably should sit, but there’s no reason he has to do it on the floor. There are still crates and suitable surfaces elsewhere in the room.

Prowl

"Yes. That's—good description for it."

Prowl gives Whirl a dull, confused look. Close up? Close up wha—? "Oh." He closes up his chest, latches it, and swings his push bar back into place.

And then he looks at Whirl's arm, for just a second, before grabbing it as firmly as he can manage. "... Thanks."

Tarantulas

Tarantulas’s worry for Prowl is exacerbated by his inability to stand, but if Whirl’s got him, well… He’ll see to Prowl later. He has an unconscious, open-chested, limbless patient to see to first.

Back over to the berth they go – thankfully it was far enough over that the explosion didn’t upend it, but unfortunately the boxes and tools around it are in complete disarray. Tarantulas sets Springer down as tenderly as he can manage before mass-shifting down again and picking around in the mess for what he needs.

Alright, there we go. It isn’t long before Tarantulas has Springer’s chest pieced back together again. But now…

“Frenzy?” Wait, where is Frenzy. “I – h-hyeh. Mind helping me reassemble? The explosion made quite the mess of your arrangement. And, if Prowl -” Tarantulas glances over at him. “- is in a state in which he can assist, that’d – that’d be invaluable as well.”

Soundwave

Frenzy looks to Soundwave and the others for confirmation before leaving the three-wheeler behind to hop-walk his way over to Tarantulas. The others can keep the mech under control. He seems to have lost all his fight without anyone else to back him up anyway. (The roster has confirmed it. He gets to live a little longer for telling the truth.)

\\I GOT RECORDS,\\ Frenzy shouts, tapping his helm. And yeah, he can talk freely again. Who's left to come running for the source of the noise? \\JUS' HOPE WE AIN'T MISSIN' NOTHIN' IMPORTANT NOW. DUNNO HOW TO MAKE FRESH PIECES YET.\\

Rumble balls up and tosses him one of the rags he saved from the crates before the blast. It does an awful job cleaning up even a fraction of the mess sprayed across Frenzy's front, but at least his hands are more or less dry. No fingerprints all over the bits of armor he's sorting through and bringing back one at a time.

After a couple of unheard instructions to the last few deployers, Soundwave makes his way over to the berth as well.

[[...He's not awake.]] There's a hint of tiredness in that assessment. [[He'll wake when you finish?]]

Whirl

Whirl hauls him up fairly easily, and bobs his head at Prowl in silent acknowledgment of his thanks.  Prowl is let down on the closest surface that passes for a chair, and once he’s settled, Whirl turns to watch Tarantulas and Frenzy re-assemble Springer. He contemplated assisting for a moment, but instead hangs back, figuring it will be best if he’s not underfoot.

There’s something in Soundwave’s tone that catches his attention. Whirl feels a faint prickle of alarm at the back of his mind, and he looks to Tarantulas questioningly.

Prowl

As Prowl is lowered into his seat, he glances over at Soundwave—and his gaze catches on his prisoner, instead. Who’s this? One of the combatants outside? Where were the others? How many had there been? How many had died so that they could save Springer?

No one was supposed to die. Was it worth it, those lives lost to save one? Would Springer contribute enough to this galaxy to make up for what they’d sacrificed to save him? The sacrifice should never have been made in the first place. Prowl should have made sure the generators were stable. Prowl should have opened a bridge beneath the malfunctioning generator. People have died.

At least they’re only...

... No. “They’re only Decepticons” isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Tarantulas asked him a question. "... Mhmm." Prowl leans forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, hands laced together, peering around the room. Maybe his probabilities were still a bit imprecise (although they were about 80% better), but probabilities had only ever been a second layer of calculations to him, anyway. He's built, first and foremost, for trajectories. It takes him longer than it should to reverse-engineer the rubble he sees to figure out how it exploded out, and then to use that mental simulation of the explosion to determine where Springer's pieces had gone—but once he has it, he pings out the mental map to the others. There's a slight margin of error on some of the pieces, depending on where and how some parts might have been influenced by other flying debris, but it should help them track down most of the parts.

[petescycleco]

2020 Polaris Slingshot R First Drive

Everything about the Polaris Slingshot invites a reaction. What it is, what it looks like, who buys one, and how they accessorize it all produce hot takes made for a Twitter world. It's fitting, then, that I finally found the words to describe my feelings about the Slingshot on Twitter.

Author, journalist, and photographer Linda Tirado shared a piece of advice. She was talking about something much more important than a car review, but the great thing about wisdom is you can apply it to all sorts of situations. "Know who you want to be and then you never have to decide how to live," she wrote. That's the Slingshot. It defies categorization except unto itself. It knows exactly what it wants to be. Where some look at it and find confusion, driving it clarifies. It exists solely for people who want a Slingshot, specifically. There are a lot of them. We didn't review one when it first came out in 2015 because we didn't know what to make of it, either. It's not a car, but it's not a motorcycle, either. It's sort of a street-legal side-by-side or UTV, but with three wheels. Legally in most states it's considered an "autocycle," an old-timey categorization for bicycles with engines and mopeds that weren't really bicycles or motorcycles. My colleagues in the press who did drive it told me it was neat, a good first effort, but needed work. It was quick, they said, but not too quick. The brakes were soft and spongey. The steering was slow. The materials felt cheap, and the controls were clunky. Polaris listened. The 2020 Slingshot is what we'd call a major refresh if it were a car. The old GM-sourced 2.4-liter inline-four was never an inspiring or memorable engine when it was in a Chevy, and it wasn't doing the Slingshot any special favors, so it's been replaced by a Polaris-designed and built 2.0-liter I-4. It revs higher and makes peak power at redline rather than falling on its face at high rpm like the old engine. Plus, it makes more power: 178 hp in the standard SL trim and 203 hp in this top-end R trim, up from 173 before. It does make less torque, 120 and 144 lb-ft, respectively, but it doesn't matter that much in a vehicle with a claimed curb weight under 1,700 pounds. Polaris says it'll do zero to 60 in as little as 4.9 seconds now, sixth-tenths of a second quicker than before. That would also make it a tenth quicker than a Honda Civic Type R. That's downright quick, and it feels even faster on board. Losing the roof, the windscreen, and the doors will do that. Jeeps feel faster when you take the doors off, too. It's science. The even bigger story is the new Autodrive five-speed automated manual gearbox, aka an automatic transmission. Polaris figured out real quick it was leaving a ton of sales on the table with only a five-speed manual, and that's been corrected. You can still get the manual on this R model, but I guarantee you the vast majority of Slingshots sold from now on will be automatics. Most people can't drive stick and aren't going to learn. Don't let the automated manual thing put you off, either. I know, usually those suck. They shift slow and give you whiplash every time they change gears. This is the best automated manual I've driven, and that list includes Lamborghinis and Aston Martins. You still feel those gear changes, but it just gives you a little head bob. It still shifts slowly by modern automatic standards, but not slowly enough to really complain about. It's geared for performance with a single overdrive ratio, so you'll be turning 3,000 rpm at 65 mph, where cars these days are turning 1,800, but it means it pulls harder in higher gears as a result. Bombing around town couldn't be easier. Just push the D button and go. There's a small hesitation when you set off as the clutch engages, and pushing the gas harder just means it'll drop the clutch and chirp the rear tire. It'll also roll backward at a stop if you're on a hill because it won't engage the clutch until you hit the gas, so watch out for that. It even has a Sport mode. They call it Slingshot mode, and it works pretty well. Press the big red button on the steering wheel, and the transmission will hold gears out to redline regularly and downshift more aggressively. It's no Porsche PDK, but it's a hell of a first effort. It could use a little work, particularly in long, sweeping corners, where it gets confused. The computer sees the steady throttle and speed and assumes you backed off, so it upshifts. When you get to the end of the curve and deeper in the throttle, it panics and drops a gear hard. That could be a recipe for disaster with only one rear tire to handle the lateral g's and the shock from the powertrain, but it isn't. Revisions to the suspension have planted the Slingshot on the pavement. The staggered 18-inch front and 20-inch rear wheels with their 225-width front and massive 305-width rear Kenda tires on the R model hang on tight even when you're really thrashing this thing on a mountain road. Yeah, I had to Google Kenda, too. It's a Taiwanese company that custom-makes this tire for Polaris. You can only get it at Polaris dealers. Past reviews found the Slingshot would understeer slightly in hairpins and kick the tail out if you goosed the throttle. Not anymore. I whipped this thing as hard as I could on a mountain road, and it wouldn't let go. At most, the rear end shifted slightly if I absolutely threw it into a corner. With the automatic transmission it wouldn't overpower the rear wheel (I tried), though I'm sure a clutch kick or just a bad shift with the manual would do it. I might've gotten it to misbehave had I been more confident in the brakes. They seem to fall in with the 30 percent of parts carried over from before, and they need more bite if you're going to drive it hard. People love customizing these things, and I'd start with a more aggressive pad compound. They're fine tooling around town, if a bit spongey. When you stand on them, though, they just don't have the bite. Brake early. The good news is they don't really fade noticeably, either, so they don't get any worse.

Polaris fixed the steering. Lots of people complained it was just too slow for sporty driving; 3.5 turns lock to lock is like putting Camry steering on a Miata. Now, it's just 2.5 turns lock to lock and feels much sportier for it. The electric assist is nicely weighted and even gives you a little feedback through the thin-rimmed steering wheel. That steering wheel is now festooned with buttons controlling the in-house Ride Command infotainment system and cruise control. Right out of the box, it's got a 7.0-inch touchscreen and a 100-watt Rockford Fosgate stereo that's more than loud enough to be heard through a helmet. Please be courteous and turn it down when you're driving in traffic or neighborhoods. Don't be that guy. There's a pair of USB ports and Bluetooth connectivity, and you can even get navigation. Polaris has remounted the screen vertically so it doesn't get washed out by glare as easily and updated the processor so it works as quickly as any system in a car. While they were at it, the Polaris team reworked the rest of the interior, too. There are cupholders now and a spot to put your phone, plus storage under the armrest. The commodious glove box remains, as do the lockable storage compartments behind the seats, which are just big enough for a backpack, picnic basket, or a helmet each. The seats themselves have big, fat bolsters to keep you in place, though the seat was rather wide on me, so I slid from bolster to bolster. The seat bottom cushions are also a little short. I'm told the materials are better this time around, but they look to me like what you'd get on a side-by-side or UTV, so they must've really been something before. The seat belts are still mounted in the middle of the vehicle, so you'll be reaching in the wrong spot out of habit for a while until you force that into your brain. It's a good thing those seats are squishy, because this R model rides like a sports car. It's not harsh or teeth chattering, but it is stiff, and you're going to feel every bump. The adjustable Bilstein shocks previously available are gone for 2020, so you just have to deal. It may ride like a sports car, but it doesn't really sound like one. Granted, that old GM engine didn't sound good, either, but it sounded like a car. This Polaris engine sounds like, well, a Polaris engine. If you've ever driven one of their powersports toys, you know it, even if it's bigger and has more cylinders than any other Polaris has built. The exhaust being tucked up behind the front right wheel still eats into the passenger's legroom. With basically no body work to block it, the engine is a bit loud by car standards. A helmet blocks some of it out. We should talk about helmets because it's a sticky situation. Polaris has single-handedly revived "autocycle" as a classification of three-wheeled, street-legal vehicles that are neither bicycles nor motorcycles. Why go to the trouble? Because thanks to Polaris' lobbying, 48 states now recognize autocycles as street-legal vehicles that can be driven with a standard driver's license (rather than a motorcycle license) but don't have to meet the crash and emissions regulations of a car. (The federal government considers them motorcycles for regulatory purposes, but legislation has been introduced in Congress to change that.) This means if you live anywhere but New York or Massachusetts, you can do what I did: step over the side, buckle the center-mounted seat belt (after searching for it in the usual place), and hit the road. Whether you have to wear a helmet like I did depends entirely on your state's law, and they're all over the place. Many require helmets the same as riding a motorcycle, but several specifically exempt autocycles either entirely or with conditions. Even if it isn't the law where you live, I'd recommend you wear one. The standard windscreen does a remarkably good job of directing air up and over the seats even at highway speeds, but it won't stop rocks and larger bugs. I've taken both to the helmet while riding motorcycles and have been glad for the protection. You may want to invest in a Bluetooth helmet communication system, though, so you can talk to your passenger while moving. I get why you wouldn't if you didn't have to, though. You only really feel the wind on the top of your head, so it's not unlike driving a convertible in terms of hair restyling. It's a much more visceral and exposed feeling than driving a drop-top, though. Getting rid of the doors will do that. Windscreen or not (and I'm going to keep calling it that, not because I'm British but because it ain't a shield), it feels like driving a side-by-side or UTV capable of 125 mph. On the street. In traffic. On the interstate. Next to big rigs. Yes, you can drive the Slingshot on the freeway. I doubt many people do. It's loud, it's windy, and you can't help but feel vulnerable with a skeletal frame and a pair of roll hoops your only impact protection. People who buy Slingshots don't want a motorcycle, because they don't know how to ride one, because theydon't feel comfortable (read: safe) on one, or because of a physical limitation. They want the open-air experience, though. They want the outsider image. And man, do other people pay attention to this thing. It got far more looks and questions than the Ferrari I tested two days later. Here's the thing, though. You've seen me mention the Mazda Miata in this review already. It's just about the most fun per dollar you can buy when it comes to cars. It's also $27,525 to start and tops out in the mid-30s. It comes with things like air bags, heating and A/C, a trunk, doors, and a roof in case it rains. (Polaris will sell you a bolt-on roof) The 2020 Slingshot starts at $26,499, and this R model starts at $30,999. That's a lot of scratch for a third vehicle, a toy you only drive on the weekend and maybe the odd summer night. Then again, the folks who buy these love throwing thousands of dollars of accessories and modifications at them. Put it all together, and it's a narrow demographic. You wouldn't think there would be a lot of people with the money to spend 30 grand on a weekend toy who want the open-air experience and rebel image of a motorcycle but can't ride and don't want to learn and like the sense of security from seats and seat belts. Joke's on you. Polaris has sold somewhere north of 40,000 of these things already, and that's with a manual transmission. You think you see them everywhere now? Wait until people find out you can get 'em with an automatic. And this ain't the only three-wheeler on the market. There's the Harley trike, the Morgan 3-Wheeler, the Campagna T-Rex, Vanderhall Venice, Can-Am Spyder, and more. The 2020 Polaris Slingshot may not be for you, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's not for anyone. And for the people it's for, it's better than ever.

Shop Now: 2020 Slingshot SLINGSHOT R MANUAL

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3ejlmm1 via Motorcycle Dealer Maryland

[entergamingxp]

the making of an ‘impossible’ port • Eurogamer.net

It began with Doom 2016 – a Switch port so ambitious, it simply didn’t seem possible. However, since then, a procession of technologically ambitious current-gen console titles have migrated onto the Nintendo console hybrid, culminating in the arrival of the wonderful Metro Redux from 4A Games – highly impressive conversions and perhaps the closest, most authentic first-person shooter ports we’ve seen. So what’s the secret? How do developers manage to achieve such impressive results from five-year-old Nvidia mobile hardware?

“At first, I did have really big concerns performance-wise,” admits 4A’s chief technical officer, Oles Shishkovstov. “You know, going from base PS4/Xbox One with approximately six and a half or seven CPU cores running at 1.6 GHz to 1.75GHz down to only three cores at 1.0GHz sounds scary. The GPU was fine, as graphics can be scaled up and down much easier than, for example, game simulation code.”

The results of the conversion work are certainly impressive bearing in mind the yawning gap in CPU specs. 4A started out by translating over the existing Metro Redux games from PS4 and Xbox One (and to stress the point, Switch doesn’t get last-gen ports here), a process the 4A team carried out very quickly, but this early version of the game could only manage frame-rates of around seven to 15 frames per second. The games were entirely CPU-bound.

Halving the target frame-rate from the PS4 and Xbox One’s 60fps down to 30fps was required before the task of optimising systems began. “First, we backported some optimisations from Exodus to the Redux codebase,” Shishkovstov explains. “Then we focused on animation processing on the high level and on extracting ILP (instruction-level parallelism) out of the A57 on the low level – down to assembly. The low level optimizations alone got us to an unstable 30Hz when we were not GPU bound. Then the bone LODding arrived – the CPU [issue] was ‘solved’ even with some headroom necessary for stable framerate.”

Everything you need to know about the Switch versions of Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light. Impressive stuff!

Explained like that, 4A’s solution to the Switch’s CPU limitation seems fairly straightforward but the process of coding at the assembly level – literally the native language of the Switch ARM Cortex-A57 CPU cluster – can’t have been a walk in the park. Animation sucks up a lot of processor cycles, so the idea of adding level of detail (LOD) transitions to the system makes a lot of sense.

After this, 4A moved on to GPU optimisations, and it all began with the choice of graphics API. The firm has a long history of supporting the most performant, low-level APIs, with Metro Exodus running on DX11, DX12, Vulkan and GNM across its various multi-platform releases. Switch itself supports OpenGL and Vulkan, but for optimal performance, 4A chose the API developed by Nvidia itself for best performance on Switch.

“NVN is is lowest possible graphics API on NX,” explains Shishkovstov. “CPU overhead is negligible, in most cases that’s just a few DWORDs written to the GPU command buffer. It is well-designed, clean and exposes everything the hardware is capable of. Much better than Vulkan, for example.”

And it’s here where we’re especially interested in how Switch delivers so much from so little. When the Nintendo hardware was first announced, our only experience of the Tegra X1 processor came from the Shield Android TV, where last-gen console conversions typically under-performed. It seems that NVN really makes a key difference here, with 4A suggesting that it gives direct access to the Nvidia Maxwell architecture. So what Maxwell features are used in Metro Redux?

“I am not sure I can talk that about, but we use all of them it seems,” explains Shishkovstov. “Much of our GPU optimisations were focused on reducing memory bandwidth/off-chip traffic. For example, NVN exposes a lot of controls for memory compression, tile cache behavior and binning, memory layout and aliasing. For example, the straight immediate mode rendering is only used during g-buffer creation and shadow map rendering. Every other pass, including forward rendering and deferred lighting uses binning rasteriser with different settings for tile cache.”

In common with a lot of games of this generation, Metro Redux also sees the developer make the jump to using temporal super-sampling – or temporal super resolution, as 4A calls it. The idea is very straightforward. Traditional super-sampling is the process of rendering at a higher-than-native resolution, before downsampling to the developer’s chosen pixel-count. TSR is the same basic idea, except additional detail is gleaned from past frames instead. The technology is being used extensively in improving smartphone camera quality, but outside of games, there are other uses too.

“That’s a well-known FBI solution for reading car plate numbers from the space satellites,” says Oles Shishkovstov. “The problem is it is extremely texture sampling and math heavy for the Switch’s GPU. We have to derive something which is much cheaper and without major quality compromises. It wasn’t easy. I spent more than a month on that – it seems like Maxwell GPU ISA is my native language now.

“The end result takes approximately 2ms at 1080p with only nine texture samples and tricky math. It also does anti-aliasing as a byproduct. When pushed way to hard (it happens in 1080p) the algorithm still produces pixel perfect edges and sharp texture details and only AA quality somewhat degrades – but that is barely visible even for the trained eye.”

Using temporal super resolution, Shishkovstov reckons that the concept of native resolution rendering as we know it isn’t particularly relevant, which raises some interesting questions. Look back at our analysis and you’ll see that we were able to pull a few pixel counts from individual frames. However, it’s games like this, Modern Warfare 2019 and many others that are making us consider new techniques of getting some kind of measure on image quality. Redux on Switch doesn’t look as clean as the PS4 version, but if we pull a like-for-like image of Metro from the locked 720p of the last-gen versions, image quality is on another level.

Whether you’re docked or running in handheld mode, the accumulated output is 1080p or 720p respectively, but the clarity of the image does adjust, according to content. In terms of overall clarity, the technique chosen does look especially impressive when played portably, which raises the question of how 4A scaled the game across docked and handheld modes.

“Going docked you get 2x faster-clocked GPU but only moderately more bandwidth, so it is not magically 2x faster at all, but still considerably faster,” explains Shishkovstov. “That allowed us, for example, to render per-pixel velocities for more objects resulting in slightly more correct TSR and AA. In handheld mode we only draw velocity for HUD/weapon – that’s all we can afford.

4A Games’ Metro Exodus is a simply phenomenal experience. With its supported for ray traced global illumination, this is a very forward-looking game.

“Also, Redux content was lacking geometry LODs for a lot of meshes. As the art team was busy with Exodus’ (huge) DLCs – we programmatically generated missing ones. Both docked and handheld use original PS4/X1 geometry, but handheld uses more aggressive LOD switching, although it is barely noticeable on a small screen. From the user/gamer point of view, handheld is always 720p, docked is always 1080p, otherwise they are the same.”

What’s also impressive about the Metro Redux port is its sheer consistency in maintaining its target 30fps frame-rate. It’s an important point to make because whether we’re talking about the id Tech 6 conversions, The Witcher 3, Warframe or most of the other ‘impossible ports’ to the Switch, it’s rare that you find a consistent performance level.

“I am glad we hit a consistent 30fps,” shares Shishkovstov. “The only way to hit close to 60 would be to run two render-frames per one simulation frame, at radically reduced quality and inconsistent input lag. That’s not the price I want to pay. Running at 30fps allowed no quality compromises – even the material and lighting shaders are exactly the same as PS4 and Xbox One.”

As for how the game runs so doggedly at 30fps, 4A puts it down to over-optimisation. “Even without any TSR, the game keeps producing consistent 30fps at 720p in handheld mode in over 99 per cent of frames across the whole game. TSR is more [useful] for 1080p/docked mode.”

With continued rumours of improved Switch hardware in development, I thought it would be interesting to see where Nintendo and Nvidia might choose to innovate. After all, a lot of the success of PlayStation 4’s design comes from Sony shifting focus and taking onboard developer feedback.

“Since we are generally CPU bound, additional cores would definitely be on the list. Bandwidth and GPU power never hurts either,” offers Shishkovstov. Putting CPU power at the forefront may sound surprising, but graphics scale much more easily than the core game code – and in our Switch overclocking tests, ramping up CPU frequency proved more impactful on many games than up-clocking the graphics core.

And while we’re on the subject of new hardware, what about the next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft? Developers are under NDA, so can’t talk about the technical specifics of the hardware. However, key aspects of the new machines are public knowledge – such as the fact that both PS5 and Xbox Series X feature hardware accelerated support in the GPU for real-time ray tracing.

“We are fully into ray tracing, dropping old-school codepath/techniques completely,” reveals Shishkovstov – and in terms of how RT has evolved since Metro Exodus? “Internally we experimented a lot, and with spectacular results so far. You will need to wait to see what we implement into our future projects.”

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/the-making-of-an-impossible-port-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-making-of-an-impossible-port-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[mechagalaxy]

“Will the owner of the nuclear weapon, please contact reception?”

 There are things I love about Faction War, and things that I dread.  What I love about Faction War is the chance to bring 1600 hard core and only partially wrapped mercenary mecha jocks together to shake the pillars of heaven, kick ass, and run up a bar tab exceeding the GDP of some core world systems. There are things I hate as well.  Among 1600 hard core killing machines, lurk the most dangerous forces known to mankind, because the Forerunners lacked this gene, and went extinct, probably to avoid being here when the universe thought it was a good time to experiment.  I speak of course of the tinkerers.  The kind of people who look at an undead cyborg that literally tore a hole in reality and attempted to wipe out all life and thought…..you know those spiky things looked kind of cool, I bet if I coupled it to a niode matrix and linked it my engine amplifiers, there is a good chance it would make a really wicked damage stacking laser…..or generate a black hole and suck something like sixty cubic kilometers of battlefield, atmosphere, and city before the generator blew. What the hell, lets try it!

 I was at a meeting with our leadership team talking about specialist options, trying to match our abilities with the maximum tactical flexibility so whatever terrain we found ourselves fighting over we could cheat like a mother fether when I heard the page over the PA.

 “Will the owner of the nuclear weapon, please contact reception?”

 At first many of the clan leaders laughed, but Paul Knight, Sten Hugo Hiller and I reacted with the well drilled panic that comes from supporting Bunnylabs and Star League R&D (Radiation and Danger).  We got to reception to find The Armourer (weapon master of Myth and Legends) oohing and ahhing as only a true weapon geek can with Knockers McGuinty (chief technician, Spirit of Bunny).

“Check the serial numbers, the typo? That is an exact replica, I did a paper on the Tsar back in Collegia Tactica”  The Amourer was extruding mechandrites from his artificial arm to probe the casing of the odd weapon as the more limber Bunny was crawling beneath it with her own probes. “Don’t you love the pitting effect?  It is like the effect of time has been simulated, as if it was the real Tsar Bomb from pre-gate earth, the Cold War.  The materials though, you have to admire the artistry, I mean it looks visually like a common, every day fifty megaton hydrogen bomb, but the technology here is way wickeder.  Looks like a geometric yield increase, but honestly a lot of it is just show.  If I were building it, I could have ramped the output a lot higher, maybe done something really sexy with it”  Knockers was projecting a side by side holograph of what she actually saw, and a proposal for how she would have upgraded it, the armourer was making approving noises and adding highlights and suggestions to the image. The clan leaders looked on in interest as Paul Knight finally broke down and asked the question with the calm that only a large scaled dragon can possess leaning casually on what looked like an exact replica of the largest Hydrogen bomb produced on old earth during the cold war. “Is this bomb real, is it, oh what is the word…..live?”

 Cheesy grins and thumbs up provided the answer everyone was afraid of, yes.  There was a “a lot more than fifty megaton” nuclear weapon in the lobby, beside the receptionist.  On the Tsarbomb was a hand printed note, “Would the owner of the nuclear weapon please see reception to have it delivered to their own bay, storage of weapons of mass destruction in the lobby is punishable by loss of wet bar privileges”

 Holy Damn walked up and looked at the weapon, and muttered to himself in one of the dozens of voices that came from the constantly shifting vocoder that replaced his long missing throat. “That looks like the one from the Death Collectors Art of Death exhibit, but when I tried to compare by calling up the visual records, now it claims the weapon was never part of the Art of Death collection. Someone is altering data…..very bad…..very bad to alter data.  I had offline copy of the Art of Death catalog, and now it doesn’t match.  Am I right, are they right?  Is my data corrupted?  Must go check my software, my programs……..” Muttering to himself he wandered off.

 Life went on as the Berserkers prepared for war, and activity always seemed to be buzzing around the big weapon, but no one claimed it. Six days later, Holy Damn burst into the briefing room screaming in binary code, bursts so dense the unaugmented could actually hear it, but so fast that only those who were seriously augmented with cerebral processors could follow it.  Unfortunately, this command briefing was post training battle, and post-post battle party, so everyone was seriously hung over.  Everyone winced, most groaned, and two drew weapons to point at Holy, trying to decide if they were louder than he was before they pulled the trigger.

 Mark Spiznet waved with his coffee and translated “Holy says the bomb’s a trap, its on a timer, and going to go off in about three and a half minutes from………….mark”

 He grinned and answered the shocked looks “I took binary in college as a minor, there was a hot chick from the Forge World who had the most amazing implants….”

 The assembled leaders rushed to the reception room, ordering evacuations that could not possibly be in time, but guaranteed that at least the last seconds of everyone’s existence would constitute a good readiness drill.

 Several things happened at once.

 The crystal shields dropped across the hallways, leaving only visual sensors to observe what happened next.

Initiating charge triggered, two nuclear masses merged and went critical. Initial EMP took out active sensors beyond the visual range.

 Myth and Legends Armourer additional amplifiers boosted the yield by a factor of two hundred…………Spirit of Bunny chief technicians Gravity field generators channeled the energy of the blast into an infinite compression, generating a micro black hole………Slaughter House Five’s Weapon Master niode matrix  attempted to beam the released energy as a single beam theoretically powerful to blot the largest starship from the sky, but the amplification and compression into a black hole turned the gate into a single instant of a cosmic string of infinite length.

 Somewhere in deep space, a fleet of unimaginable power lay at rest in an uncharted binary system. Ten thousand ships, each filled with legion after legion of tireless, relentless, merciless inhuman troops rested at anchor, awaiting the signal that the human foe had concentrated its forces for them to descend and slaughter. For a femtosecond, a time literally so small it was almost impossible to calculate, a cosmic string connected both elements of the binary star system together with the masses of two other suns also caught upon the string, and the combined masses generated a supernova.

The blast burned thousands of ships, each as large as a small moon, out of existence.  The great armada was shattered, over half its strength wiped out in an instant.  The enemy had a new weapon, they could no longer wait.  The invasion was on, now. Ponderous ships began to move at last towards the War World where the assembled Factions of Mecha Galaxy would go to war. The shock of so many shattered suns and the storms of gravity that twisted the currents of the immaterium through which hyperspace ships navigated meant the trip that should have taken hours would take days.  The blow that was supposed to strike as the human Factions were at each others throats might now fall when they had just finished their war. The numbers that were once guaranteed to bury the humans under a mass of attackers they could not hope to face were now reduced to a shadow of themselves.  What was once going to be nothing more than an execution, was threatening to turn into an actual war. Curse the humans and their superweapon! Curse the fate that allowed them to pierce the supposedly perfect cloak that hid the fleet.  What genius was it that guided them, what cunning allowed them to break the jaws of a trap before it even began to close on them?

 Berserker HQ: Accident investigation “So, the AFF did kind of try to assassinate us all.  That is point one.  Point two is that it seems every single contributing clan screwed the nuclear weapon in the lobby.  Myth and legends amped its power, Bunnies turned it into a gravity imploder, Slaughterhouse turned it into some sort of gate weapon, the only reason we aren’t all dead is that the Star League was using some chroniode crap to make it actually destroy things before it touched them, which turns out to save us because it destroyed itself here before most of the effects happened, only lasting for a fraction of a second as you get really far away.”

 The table quietly erupted into embarrassed giggling as the reality that the world almost ended failed to hide the fact each of the groups contributed a portion of the crazy until the critical mass of suicidal impulses actually kept them alive by accident.

 John shared a quick look with the rest of the leadership and announced his decision. “Right, two things, send a fruit basket to the AFF, sign it from all of us, and just say “Thinking of you”.  I figure they will do the hard work of reading into that enough to get paranoid without us bothering.  Second, new rule, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE LOBBY.” It said a lot we need a rule like that. Faction War.  What can you do?

 John T Mainer 28840