#but like. think of the other account as a virtual machine. if i'm not on there i'm generally not thinking about stuff related to it

[demifiendcruithne]

legion

o/

though if you want to talk to me in legion context i'd rather it be on the other account purely so i remember that's the context - i've been moving all my rp blog follows over there to make it easier for myself if i don't keep the accounts separate i Will get confused on what's the context of stuff, so

[cyberstudious]

Tools of the Trade for Learning Cybersecurity

I created this post for the Studyblr Masterpost Jam, check out the tag for more cool masterposts from folks in the studyblr community!

Cybersecurity professionals use a lot of different tools to get the job done. There are plenty of fancy and expensive tools that enterprise security teams use, but luckily there are also lots of brilliant people writing free and open-source software. In this post, I'm going to list some popular free tools that you can download right now to practice and learn with.

In my opinion, one of the most important tools you can learn how to use is a virtual machine. If you're not already familiar with Linux, this is a great way to learn. VMs are helpful for separating all your security tools from your everyday OS, isolating potentially malicious files, and just generally experimenting. You'll need to use something like VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation (Workstation Pro is now free for personal use, but they make you jump through hoops to download it).

Below is a list of some popular cybersecurity-focused Linux distributions that come with lots of tools pre-installed:

Kali is a popular distro that comes loaded with tools for penetration testing

REMnux is a distro built for malware analysis

honorable mention for FLARE-VM, which is not a VM on its own, but a set of scripts for setting up a malware analysis workstation & installing tools on a Windows VM.

SANS maintains several different distros that are used in their courses. You'll need to create an account to download them, but they're all free:

Slingshot is built for penetration testing

SIFT Workstation is a distro that comes with lots of tools for digital forensics

These distros can be kind of overwhelming if you don't know how to use most of the pre-installed software yet, so just starting with a regular Linux distribution and installing tools as you want to learn them is another good choice for learning.

Free Software

Wireshark: sniff packets and explore network protocols

Ghidra and the free version of IDA Pro are the top picks for reverse engineering

for digital forensics, check out Eric Zimmerman's tools - there are many different ones for exploring & analyzing different forensic artifacts

pwntools is a super useful Python library for solving binary exploitation CTF challenges

CyberChef is a tool that makes it easy to manipulate data - encryption & decryption, encoding & decoding, formatting, conversions… CyberChef gives you a lot to work with (and there's a web version - no installation required!).

Burp Suite is a handy tool for web security testing that has a free community edition

Metasploit is a popular penetration testing framework, check out Metasploitable if you want a target to practice with

SANS also has a list of free tools that's worth checking out.

Programming Languages

Knowing how to write code isn't a hard requirement for learning cybersecurity, but it's incredibly useful. Any programming language will do, especially since learning one will make it easy to pick up others, but these are some common ones that security folks use:

Python is quick to write, easy to learn, and since it's so popular, there are lots of helpful libraries out there.

PowerShell is useful for automating things in the Windows world. It's built on .NET, so you can practically dip into writing C# if you need a bit more power.

Go is a relatively new language, but it's popular and there are some security tools written in it.

Rust is another new-ish language that's designed for memory safety and it has a wonderful community. There's a bit of a steep learning curve, but learning Rust makes you understand how memory bugs work and I think that's neat.

If you want to get into reverse engineering or malware analysis, you'll want to have a good grasp of C and C++.

Other Tools for Cybersecurity

There are lots of things you'll need that aren't specific to cybersecurity, like:

a good system for taking notes, whether that's pen & paper or software-based. I recommend using something that lets you work in plain text or close to it.

general command line familiarity + basic knowledge of CLI text editors (nano is great, but what if you have to work with a system that only has vi?)

familiarity with git and docker will be helpful

There are countless scripts and programs out there, but the most important thing is understanding what your tools do and how they work. There is no magic "hack this system" or "solve this forensics case" button. Tools are great for speeding up the process, but you have to know what the process is. Definitely take some time to learn how to use them, but don't base your entire understanding of security on code that someone else wrote. That's how you end up as a "script kiddie", and your skills and knowledge will be limited.

Feel free to send me an ask if you have questions about any specific tool or something you found that I haven't listed. I have approximate knowledge of many things, and if I don't have an answer I can at least help point you in the right direction.

[dxki-sketches]

Callum Crown was born in Dialtown, in 1923. Growing up in an era of depression and change, Callum found himself transfixed with the technology that was becoming commonplace at the time, mainly the telephone. Callum was born with a severe deformity, only having one complete limb, his left arm, and while extraordinarily bright, he lived a solitary life, watching other kids outside perform feats he could only dream of.

When the early 40's rolled around, Callum signed up to fight in World War 2, but wasn't accepted on account of his disability. He had to stay home and bitterly follow the war alongside the others who were unfit to fight via hazy radio transmissions. "If only I could walk!" Callum thought to himself. "If I could walk, I could serve!". It was at that time that Callum put his garage workshop to good use, and making use of just about any metal he could get his hands on to forge himself a pair of prosthetic legs, which, while crudely assembled, were virtually unheard of at the time. He sent the army registration office a note, vouching for his new metallic appendages, but he never got a reply. So he sent another. And then another. What started as one letter quickly became dozens.

Always a motivated guy, Callum decided to use his head, think of something new. Callum bought his first telephone. After getting through to Dialtown's head enlister, Callum found out that to his shock, every single one of his letters HAD hit their mark, but was simply thrown out en masse. "I'm here to recruit the best of the best this country has to offer!" the recruiter stated over the phone, "Not some FREAK with metallic legs who'd slow the rest of my boys down!". With a single disconnecting click, Callum's dreams were obliterated yet again.

Callum, now full of spite and determination, decided to better himself further. He built himself a right hand, out of just about every metal he could find that was left over after the construction of his legs, connected the copper wires to his own nerves and made the first fully working prosthetic hand. With the war winding down, Callum decided to patent his designs. People at the patent office looked at him as though he were a freak, with his rusted iron clanking hand and his bulky metallic legs. Callum bitterly listened to the end of the war, now disillusioned, now tweaking his prosthetic limbs to be more functional.

Come 1948, Callum decided to sell his metallic limbs to war veterans, many of which had returned in the coming months after the war. Initially, they sold like hotcakes, allowing Crown to move from his garage to a small manufacturing plant. Sadly this did not turn out to be a sustainable business model, as once each soldier bought one limb or two, they didn't need to buy more. Come 1950, Callum struggled to move even one limb. This lead him back to the drawing board, his inventions had dramatically improved his own quality of life, he wondered if he could offer his fellow man an upgrade or two. Advanced metallic limbs that had tools built in that increased strength or flexibility. Limbs that could even change humanity, even the world as he knew it, just as he changed his own life. Callum took into the public, parading his new models around on the streets using himself as a test subject. He was laughed off as a self-mutilated idiot trying to sell his own misery to people. They looked at him as if he were a monster, someone who made himself a freak for show and not as a talented and determined visionary who paved the path that he needed underneath him to walk. "I'll prove them wrong! I'll prove the whole WORLD wrong if I must!"

Callum gradually became more cynical. Began reading more into the market with the vain hopes of copying success, and sure enough, he figured it out. Sadly, America turned into a luxury market. Washing machines, televisions, refrigerators, always selling faster than the nearby factories could churn 'em out. Callums idea to integrate organics and inorganics wasn't taken to right away, with the lack of sales revenue, Callum had to all but shut down Crown Mechanics Inc. and let each and every one of his workers go. Callum soon became something of a town oddity. A door-to-door salesman made of clanking rusted metal. A vendor of that which was unwanted. Callum somehow felt lonelier than ever before, even more so than when he was back in his garage, watching the rest of the world movie outside his window. He reflected on his loneliness, once again being bound to his workshop, next to his phone, desperate not to miss a single opportunity for his dream to take off. His phone, it connected him to the world outside the workshop, to the rest of Dialtown. Perhaps, it could again...

That's when he realized. "I've got it now!". Callum spent a full year on his new design. A telephone that's built into your own head, could be swapped and traded for other such devices and has a 5-year warranty, no re-purchases required. Surprisingly, despite their clunkiness and novelty, the practicality of having complete and portable phone access anywhere in the world through air-wave frequencies wasn't lost on people, and interestingly, the phones caught on quickly. A typewriter alternative had even become common allowing text to be printed from ones own head, as if the user was having a conversation with the very paper itself. Unpredictably, these phone-heads caused a massive boom in employment, with young men and women getting hired left and right as not just manufacturers, but as operators and switchboard exchangers. This economic boom made Callum extraordinarily popular, which he used to run for mayor, the senator of Wisconsin, and eventually President: all 3 roles he walked into, seen as a visionary, a man who could change the face of America for a second time.

While campaigning for Senator, Callum met Milton R. Wallace for the first time after a rally. Mentioned that he was a recent graduate and that his university thesis had involved combining organic and inorganic materials within a single system. Simply put, the two hit it off in a way that's abnormally rare. In a very practical sense, it was more than evident that Milton, growing up during the Great Depression too, had strong progressive leanings. When Callum took office, Milton became his Vice President. On their first day in D.C., Crown gifted Milt one of his prosthetic hands, the very first he'd forged. With it, Crown included a note: "For my right hand man.", a joke of sorts, as Crown's right arm was the missing one.

During the summer of 1966, Callum enlisted one of his most trusted astronauts and air force veteran, Sgt. Norm Allen, on a mission in through a recently discovered wormhole.

Milton and Callum had a very close relationship, Milton being the only person Callum trusted with his dream for the whole world. However, as Callum gained more and more power and had to make more difficult and messy decisions, they started falling apart and getting into verbal fights and harsh disagreements. After the last argument they had occurred, Callum demanded his hand back.

Not deterred, he became leader of the United Nations and proposed to the world his vision for the future. His idea of a wonderous, functional and inclusive mechanical world where all problems from famine, to animal extinction, to societal conflict, to resource shortages, all could be solved, preventing future wars and creating worldwide harmony. However, due to paranoia, he refused to write the plan down in its entirety. The only person he confided in with the plan was Milton, who reacted negatively whenever it was brought up.

Needless to say, the vote in favor for it won by a landslide.

In the coming years, the whole world was converted to have in-organic heads. Women, children, and animals too. On January 1st of 1967, the day after the official date of the Dialup, Callum stood on the highest podium given to a human being to date... and fell the hardest for it. He began to give his ultimate speech, his oratory opus. "My fellow humans, now for the moment you've all been waiting for! Without further ado, the full details of my plan to substantially improve the whole world-"

Callum had accidentally wiped his own answering box, which in his model of telephone, was being used to store his memories. During his speech, he was wearing the hand he demanded back from Milton; it was with this hand that he accidentally pressed his erasure button that he made in case someone would kidnap him and torture him in order to get information out of him. The reason for this is when you attach foreign extensions to appendages, you often overshoot. Foreign. Callum never felt like the hand was his again, still in his heart believing that it still was Milton's. The guilt caused him to slip. Additionally he was a cocaine addict, which causes people to do suddem twitchy movements. Both his wife Marla and Milt were worried sick about him but despite that he HAD to do it. He was running on nothing but cocaine, spending his nights working on his project, the DialUp.

With the memory wipe, Callum had given himself a total amnesia in an instant, stunning the whole world. Life was made fundamentally different for everyone, all for a promise never kept. The changes, the thought process behind these sweeping modifications, now a mystery. So, the world just picked up the pieces, without Callum, of course.

Doctors tried all they could to restore his memories. However, due to his paranoia, the schematics for his phone head were also lost, meaning that any attempt to fix it was fruitless. The only person Callum trusted with the plans for his head was Milton, who was obviously no longer around to ask. Professionals let him go to live out the rest of his life like this, not knowing that he had actually also modified his internal organs which made him live longer. He is additionally kept alive through his granddaughter, Mingus, who continues to hire professionals ranging from neurosurgeons to a person who specializes in repairing Swiss clocks. All of them refused to operate on him. Even God himself turned down Mingus when she hounded him into attempting to fix him.

Nowadays, he sits in an old nursing home, alone, tuning a busted radio, asking anyone that passes by him, "I-Is the war over yet? I can't get a signal..." Some would say this is a fitting end for Callum Crown.

did NOT expect full on lore thank you gng

[razzamult]

First Post, and hard lessons.

It's been a long time since I've blogged, I used to have an account with blogger.com (remember that?) back in the early 2000's So trying this out again is interesting, seeing what's different, what's similar.

I wanted to start this blog to record some personal thoughts that I've had over the last few years, so there will be some serious posts, including this one, but I do want to lighten things up inbetween.

I feel like I've written and re-written this a dozen times in my head, but it's time to commit and write something down. for those of you who know me, I want to tell a story and maybe you've heard some bits of it already, for any others who happen along? it's a story of anxiety, depression, burnout, a new path maybe? mostly i write this for my own benefit, to remind myself of where I've been & where I'd like to go, and where i don't want to go back to.

But first, some context. I've been working (full time) in IT for….16 years? I think? (give or take), and I'll be honest - I've had enough, and i want out of IT. I remember a time when computers were "simple" beasts (relatively speaking), the earliest memories of using a computer was my mum's 386 (it was a while ago ok!), she was studying a degree, but we had a number of DOS games installed on it (lots of apogee shareware), over time that computer got upgraded, new CPU, more ram, bigger hard drive, Windows 95! that was new & exciting! I remember somewhere along the way mum teaching me enough dos commands that when we bought a new game I could install it without needing help, she just gave me the discs and sent me on my way.

It was in year 10 in high school that i started scrounging enough parts to start making my own computer (or computers as it would become), my first pc being a 386 and the first thing I did was run games on it & dad had a laugh, it was slow, but it was mine! I worked out how to do all the upgrades myself, and over time ended up moving through windows 3.x, 95, 98. by the time i got to windows 2000 i had a 2nd hand IBM desktop, and I was looking after our home network, i think we'd moved from dial-up to ADSL around that time too.

After high school i got into the local TAFE (college for trade certificates), and got a Cert III in IT

I remember not liking XP when it came out (oh god, what is that default theme?! those colours?!), but I built an amd athlon64 system to run it on, all new parts & it was the fastest thing ever! (well, ok, maybe not ever…but it was mine! and it way faster than anything i had previously) i spent days playing warcraft III on that machine, learning how to compile software, playing with virtual machines, and it around this time i landed a job doing helpdesk at the local university.

Helpdesk work was interesting, but it's pretty soul crushing at times, you learn there are people out there who have no idea how to do the equivalent of "fill the tank with gas & check tire pressure", the uni had debated about having a basic computer literacy course for both staff & students, but it never got off the ground. But i pushed through, worked hard, and got recognized as being a good person to talk to in person or on the phone, often out-performing many peers on the helpdesk. We had people on the helpdesk escalating tickets to me, because i was good at working out the "curly" ones.

at some point I got offered a temporary transfer into server admin for 6 months, they'd seen me do good troubleshooting before sending stuff over to them, and they wanted to give me a chance. That ended up turning into fulltime work, that lasted 10 years. I learned a lot in that time, deploying and managing servers, "hearding cats" to get people to agree when an old application can be turned off or upgraded, working on projects. i'm not going to fill this up with IT acronyms but i did get sent on a lot of microsoft & other vendor training and for a number of mission-critical things became first point of contact. I got to experience oncall (and get paid extra for it), and almost single-handedly dragged the windows server fleet up to modern standards.

But in 2022 i couldn't do it anymore. I'd watched over the past years since microsoft fired it's QA staff in 2014, patches got worse, microsoft's promises of improvement got more frequent, and my team (or me specifically) was often stuck between "deploy patch to fix vulnerability or don't deploy patch since it's broken and will break things we depend on", a position that no IT department should find themselves in, having to choose between security and uptime. I'd worked on projects that were so badly run that I'd experienced depression (and some of the places your mind can take you), and while i never acted on the the thoughts during such times, it was not a place that, mentally, i wanted to return to. I'd seen people in other teams at the uni stonewall projects…for what??? no repercussions, one of them even got a promotion. not to mention that in 2021 our IT director/executive staff decided to overrule state government and tell everyone they had to be back in the office (that went down about as well as you'd expect)

2022 was a bad year, we had multiple bad patches we couldn't install on some of our servers until revisions came out, I had a staff member in another team who refused (again…after 4 years…and raising it with my supervisor) to complete work they'd promised, we had a huuuuge amount of work coming down the pipe, and no extra staff, and at some point in july i just broke down over it all. I could not do it any more. I could not push through. my reserves were empty. I had no more to give. things had gotten too hard, things were too complex, I wasn't running a cute 486 playing an apogee game. I was looking after hundreds of servers and multiple cloud environments. these weren't the basic applications that we knew & hated when i arrived, these things were using complex databases and machine learning, and I was expected to understand it all enough to support it. Sure i was part of a team, but people go on leave, I get the on-call phone, I filled in for my manager on occasion, you have to know enough to be able to diagnose and fix things, and it's so. much. now. Things have moved so fast over the last 10 years, and the reward for being able to tread water, for being able to keep up? not more people to help out, but more work, more new technology to learn, in addition to the old technology. It was suffocating, it wasn't sustainable.

And i was dumb enough to think that changing employers would be sufficient. I moved state, found a new job, it paid more, only to find out that the work was worse. the internal documentation was incomplete and the team didn't want to answer questions. clients running systems that were 20 years old (and not supported)….and were planning an upgrade to a system that was 15 years old….and would still not be supported. And all that anxiety? It came back! with friends!

I found a 2nd job, working in IT / healthcare and it was terrifying. we have laws about how medical data is to be stored & handled and my manager told me "there's no laws about this", turns out he was also a sexist & a bigot too. That was a job that didn't see a need to have compliant IT and guess who's getting blamed when shit hits the fan??….well not me….not anymore. The only reason I was able to stay there as long as I did was that I was working part time for most of it.

I spoke to a number of people in IT over the last 2 years and the common theme is that they're all burned out, they've all been screwed by the pace of change or inability to enact required changes. And maybe that pace has been dictated by management not because anyone needed new things, but simply due to those things being new and shiny, or due to complacency. Maybe in other cases it was driven by consumer demand / consumption, maybe as a society we're destroying good IT staff for our own amusement so we can have the goods & services we want when we want them, on our schedule….I don't think I'm qualified to answer that.

But for all that IT has burned me, there are things about it I miss. I miss those times when computing was simpler, when it was easier to understand, when it was just a hobby. I miss being able to comprehend how things worked, rather than feeling like I was part of some cargo cult. I miss when IT was just a hobby and didn't have to understand laws for businesses around it and ensure compliance. I miss when IT was fun.

whoever said that making your hobby a job would make you happy and "you'd never work a day in your life" was lying. whoever said "just push through" never experienced anxiety / depression / burnout (or at least not in the way I did)

If i had piece of advice? If I can leave a message for myself to look back on? Know your limits, you're only human, don't try and push yourself beyond them & hit the wall. Know where that wall is & that it's ok to tap out if need to & you have the means. It's a lesson I had to learn over the last 2 years.

So what does the future hold? I want to go back to IT as a hobby, I can't see myself doing this as a career anymore. and in 2024 I'm going to study for a Library & Information Services Certificate, it'll be a change of pace / direction & should be a good career change.

If you made it this far, thankyou for reading, it's a serious first post i know. But it's been roiling around my head for a while. I should have some more light hearted things to post later

[captainaikus]

BELLEEEEEE!!!!! I’ve missed you so much 😭😭😭😭😭!!!!! Typing this as I’m sitting in my car after getting out of my last class. FINALS. ARE. FINALLY. OVER. And I passed all my classes with As!!!! Final exams went really well too!!! I feel like I’m gonna fall and pass out for 12 hours. Which I actually did yesterday because I had finished all my exams/classes but I had one more class to go to today.

BUT ENOUGH ABT ME HOW ARE YOU MY DEAR SWEET BLUE PUNK FAIRY FRIEND??? Have you been eating and drinking water?? Resting??? Taking breaks??? Isabelle. If you haven’t. *gently bonks head* Oliver would reprimand you too yknow? And not the fun bedroom scolding. TAKE BREAKS LOVE!!!! 😭😭❤️ Taking regular breaks is a responsibility to yourself that everyone forgets sometimes when they get lost in all their other responsibilities. Multitasking writing different works too much can cause headaches, speaking from experience sweetheart. And going to the gym is great but your body needs to relax and rest too. Water and a good meal and a hot shower/bath do wonders after a long session do wonders trust me. So please rest okay?

CONGRATULATIONS ON 1.6K 🎉✨🥳!!!! The numbers keep climbing so fast and all these milestones are amazing!!!! I’m so proud of you love 🥹✨❤️!!!

I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHOS WATCHED KUROKO NO BASKET. Seriously the fandom is almost completely dead 😭😭💀. I knew it was a oldie but a goody but I didn’t think it was dust and tumbleweeds out here 😭😭. So glad you like it too!! Haikyuu will always be my favorite sports anime and one of my top favorites in general, it holds a really special place in my heart, but KnB was still a really fun watch.

ASFKKFFKJFHKHJG. THAT OLVER ART. Pls he’d hate getting out of bed and just become a complete octopus in the mornings. You gotta wake him up for practice and it’s such a chore. He’s such a big baby pshhhh. But there are some upsides like him saying the only way he’s gonna get up is if you place exactly 100 kisses all over his face, more than half of them end up being on the lips when he actually starts to get up, and you relent every money with a roll of your eyes and and huff and a fond smile he misses cause his eyes are closed. The first thing you do is wipe off that smug smirk from his face. Also hc that Oliver is actually really ticklish and it’s your weapon. Don’t get up even after the kisses? His sides are looking very open rn. Wont get off after flopping on you on the couch? You’re in the perfect position to reach his armpits. Wont stop clinging to you while you’re trying to do a new eye makeup style for your guys’ date? His neck is literally wide open cause he loves smushing his face into the crook of your neck.

What video? Did you post it on your other account? Because I couldn’t find it. Dangit I wanted to simp for Oliver too 😭😭.

Seriously I’m an introvert what are you gonna do? Lock me inside your house? Great free access to your clothes. Still me seeing friends? What friends babe? Take me everywhere with you? Nice let me grab my book and coffee and we’re good to go. Adjkgfhnjhhhv 💀💀.

That girl shoving into you was so rude. All it takes is a simple excuse me dude. And ISTG PEOPLE WHO SPOIL THINGS WHEN NO ONE ASKED 😤😤😤. They seriously piss me off and ruin the experience. See it’s different when I intentionally spoil myself because I’m too impatient. Someone else doing it? Oh heck no. Its the same feeling as someone taking the last of your favorite snack from the vending machine.

Also just a heads up. I’m gonna sending in multiple asks cause there’s just too much I wanna talk abt and breaking it into parts sounds better. So this is the first one. *sends aggressive virtual hugs that feel like they squish all the exhaustion out of you*

- ✨ anon

Starry! Omg- All As! That's great! And it's a good thing you took rest too- ik that i'm bout to pass out when i finish exams. I hope you're doing alright tho! Sorry it took me long to get to your ask; tumblr is being weird cause i can only see it when i get on my pc... and not on the app. yeah no I'm moving to ao3. i saw the rb of which character i would interpret the best and you said- Oliver Ofc. he's my husband but he doesn't know it yet ૮꒰ ˶> ༝ <˶꒱ა Well, I've been doing pretty good! I finished a jar of nutella (in 2 days) and i'm planning to buy a bigger one; i did drink a lot of water, ate some pasta, taking rest too made a wedding playlist for me and aiku and lowkey enjoyed it *the way i laughed when i saw : And not the fun bedroom scolding.' I'd like to see Oliver reprimand me (truth : he can't. Cause he knows at the end of the day even if he's bigger and stronger than me, he is gonna be beneath me) but yeah he'd probably say something like "you're gonna get sick, doorbell." But yeah i've been taking rest, dw starry! i'm actually giving myself a treat. with ao3 i can take things slow and easy tbh, which is another reason i'm moving there. The blog will be up ofc; to answer asks and for anons who wanna talk to me abt my work, but yeah my activity on ao3 is gonna be very irregular... THANK YOU!! 1.6k is such a big number, past me would have been like 'huh... never thought i'd make it this far.' BUT YEAH I DID ! T.T But actually it’s you guys who got me there so thank you everyone 💓

I think everyone thought that they were the only ones who watched knb; me included. I used to have the BIGGEST crush on aomine, i even found an asmr of his. (and yeah i do listen to asmrs btw) And yeah the fandom is almost dead (｡ ́︿ ̀｡) and I didn’t even get to read that many aomine works too…but yeah I really liked that anime! Haikyuu made me cry after clannad and also made me laugh the hardest, does hold a special place in my heart as well, Bokuto was my fav and rn… no one really. I like all of them cause they’re so unique yk?

As for the Oliver art, pretty sure he would hold you down to the bed. He would demand kisses! He is such a smooth talker- but since I’m me. When he expects a kiss *places hand on his lips before you kiss* “good morning. It’s time to get up” and he just groans when you have a tiny smirk and walk out of your shared bedroom, and his brain just going ‘god woman. You’re gonna be the death of me.’

How- I think I’m getting too predictable with my writing cause I do have something to do with eye makeup in Ocean hues… 👁️ *but we don’t talk abt that cause no spoilers!*

The video! Starry. I BLEW A FUSE CAUSE OF THAT REEL. so story time, I was checking my insta in the morning after I woke up and this gym based reel popped on my feed. And the moment I saw it - I thought of Oliver. Like alright fineeeee this is a guy Idek on the internet just doing his own thing and posting fitness reels but his body. IT LOOKED. LIKE. OLIVER. AND HIS HAIR WAS LIKE AIKU’S TOO! I’m not even joking - The shaggy hair down at the back minus the green highlights - it’s like the way I imagined Oliver’s body to be like. And- I really wasn’t expecting to see THAT in the morning. So it was a really great start to my day- and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a whole day so I had to save it. I posted the link for a bit so that blue (💙 anon) and other Aikuists could check it out and we were just fawning over this guy. I took the link down soon after cause I didn’t want anyone reblogging it and creating chaos. I’ll put the link again and take it down in 10 mins. I’m telling you though. IT. WAS. FUCKING. HOT. (i'll be putting up the link in a bit and taking it down too you should totally take a look at it- cause the content is not mine neither do i know the guy but FUCK. THAT LOOKED LIKE OLIVER.) The free access to clothes 😭 Happy relationship = yandere bf + a very introverted partner oliver stealing my oversized clothes in the corner I'm an introverted person as well introverted enough to terrify a yandere as well istg- idk who that was, but it was rude to push shove someone and not apologize for it or even an excuse me. and the girl who spoiled wednesday, never saw her again. i get that someone's enthusiastic about a show, but at the same time... some consideration for people around you 😭 anyway, that times gone and i got a lot of better things to move onto like movies, working out and just overall, making myself happy and having a good day yk? *Sending hugs back*

[leam1983]

Tech - FAQ 2

I'm scared of PCs; I'm just an end-user! I want to learn, though!

If you're curious and want a safe and zero-consequence environment to poke around with, consider turning to tools like VirtualBox. This is what we call a VM Manager or a Virtual Machine manager that enables you to emulate computer hardware on, well, actual hardware. It's a great way to create a Windows install you can poke around without damaging your own system, or of trying out other operating systems to familiarize yourself with them.

In fact, I'll always recommend that anyone who's sitting on the fence in regards to Linux try out a distro in a VM, first. There's no pressure involved, you get the same feel as a bare-metal install, and can rest easy in knowing that if none of this works out for you, you can just mash Delete on your VM folder, delete VirtualBox and forget this ever happened.

What tools do you recommend?

I can point you to several. First comes not so much a software tool as a piece of hardware most of us have, which is a USB drive. If you want to store diagnostics tools on it as well as a few OS image files, I'd advise investing in a nice and chonky one, going above 16 GBs in size. See Amazon for help, or any computer or hardware store you can think of. If you go Amazon's route, avoid no-name vendors and buy directly from reputed hardware manufacturers, like Lexar, Seagate or others. They'll be more expensive, yes, but you won't get scammed.

Then comes Balena Etcher and Rufus. Both do the same thing, which is burn an ISO image file to a USB stick, so said stick becomes a bootable drive containing everything you need to install an OS to your main drive. Etcher is more straightforward, while Rufus offers a few customization options, especially if you're trying to burn or flash a Windows image file.

What about Ventoy?

Ventoy is the Big Kahuna in bootable ISO file management, but it's a bit too involved for first-timers. Effectively, it turns your USB thumb drive into its own multiboot system, complete with a GRUB file that allows your PC to boot off it, while letting you choose which operating system you actually want to start. So instead of having one stick for your tools, one for a Windows install and one for a Linux distro, you'd have everything in one place. I'd recommend familiarizing yourself with simpler tools, first.

I don't want to switch to Linux, but I want more ownership of my Windows install. What can I do?

You can refer to tools like NTLite but again, that one is a lot for first-timers. In the interim, I'd recommend starting with a vanilla Windows 11 install and then referring to Chris Titus' Ultimate Windows Tool, to tweak and debloat your OS to your heart's content. Of particular note is the included MicroWin tool, which can strip down a normal Windows 11 ISO and create an unattended, offline install that boots directly into your User account. No giving Microsoft further credentials, no connection required - nothing. Several of the tweaks involved result in a Windows install that phones home a lot less often and that only concerns itself with proved, tested and necessary Windows Update cycles.

What's an Unattended install?

That refers to a software install that requires no input from the user. You start it, off it goes - and the reins of the PC are handed over to you only once the whole process is completed. No more screwing-about with Microsoft Game Pass offers or trying to say no to Microsoft's thirty thousand instances of telemetry. One click, and you're off to the races.

I tried it, and noticed it didn't remove everything from the base install. I still want to remove more stuff.

Then check out Bulk Crap Uninstaller, which allows you to force the removal of components Windows considers as vital, but that aren't, necessarily. If BCI's interface underlines something in green, it's safe to remove. If it's listed in red, you can still remove it. At your own risk. Some things are provably safe to remove, like the Xbox Game Bar if you've never used the Windows Store to buy a game before. Others shouldn't be touched if you know what's good for you, like Windows Explorer...

I've heard bad things about VirtualBox. What else can you recommend?

Microsoft supplies its own Hyper-V virtualization platform as part of Windows' basic tools, although it's not installed by default and is typically a bit more finicky to handle. Please note, Hyper-V isn't included in Windows Home Edition. You may have to upgrade, or go with a software-based solution like VirtualBox. Check your BIOS; your motherboard needs to support virtualization tech, too.

To get it, search for Turn Windows features on or off in the Start Menu's Search bar and tick the box next to Hyper-V. It'll tell you to prep for a reboot, let it do its thing. Once you've rebooted, you'll be able to search for Hyper-V in the Start menu. Follow the first-time tutorial that pops up to get a sense of the process - which requires you to have an ISO on hand.

What's a BIOS?

The Basic Input-Output System, or BIOS, is what initially controls your PC, before handing off most important aspects of it to your actual operating system. The BIOS performs hardware checks, allows you to define boot priority and can allow you to enable more advanced aspects of your motherboard of choice.

So, I figured out this Virtualization thing. What OS do I try out now?

The obvious first answer is Windows. Running Windows within another instance of Windows has the merit of giving you the most compact and secure home lab you could possibly want. You can try out the stupid shit I mentioned in the previous post - such as deleting System32 - in full confidence that you won't torch your actual rig. You can also test out debloaters, aesthetic patches, anything you'd want - with no fear of leaving scars on your actual system.

What about Linux?

Start with Linux Mint. It'll get you everything you need - just don't forget to install its hardware codecs, when it asks you. Get used to the Terminal - and do that in the knowledge that you're just barely touching the surface of the tech that runs most of the Web. Even Microsoft itself runs its business partly on Mint's parent distro, Ubuntu.

When you're ready, check out Arco Linux as a transition point between Mint and Arch Linux. Get used to its own package manager and syntax, while keeping the benefits of an out-of-box GUI experience.

At the end of your journey, hopefully a few years down the line, try out Arch Linux proper. Stick to VM installs, and get used to the command line-based install process. It isn't that complicated, but the absence of anything graphical and the need to grasp certain commands from the get-go can be daunting for some. Be aware that even if your Arch install boots and reaches a desktop, you'll have to provide literally everything else - or at least point it to the right resources. Expect some Terminal editing, a good long while spent poring through config files - and the fact that Arch pays for its modularity with stability. One errant package update can break anything and everything - and that's a small price to pay in the face of total user control - at least, according to some diehards.

So, when do I get to Mister Robot shit?

That's after years of work and several certifications. You can check your local Community College for courses, or just learn as you go online, provided you do sit down to take the CompTIA certifications, eventually. Fair warning - they're gruelling. Comparatively, Microsoft's own database of certs is easier to work through, but are more specific to Windows itself, as you'd expect. Outright hackers, however, tend not to make gains strictly using legitimate training platforms. Hacker or not, your best tool for learning is going to be a home lab.

What's a home lab?

Just your eternally willing victim, to be simplistic. It's a PC you set up as an attack target, or a PC you use as a test bench for new hardware, new tools or distros. Before any stress test I submit to the business' infrastructure, I always test my scripts and practice myself on hardware set aside specifically for that. You don't need anything expensive; mine is still just a refurbished Dell OptiPlex mid-tower PC bought used on eBay. It's currently connected to the office's netwok via VPN so I can attack it realistically. It's packed with dummy files and is designed to sort of feel like the workstation of a modestly-careful member of our Accounting team, and my colleagues in the IT department are instructed to treat any non-standard access to it as seriously as any other potential breach.

It's actually fairly simple: if I can hack into it and copy or steal something, then someone else can. If someone else can, then our entire infrastructure is at risk. This is why even though I work from home, there's days where audits need to happen, and I need to ensure that everyone who's onboard with us has decent security practices. That means going to our small office, going over logs manually and making sure nobody's been using workarounds or unsecure software.

Which tools can I expect to use?

Mostly Kali Linux' set of tools, just packaged into something a little less meme-worthy - like Parrot Security. Metasploit is eventually going to be your bread-and-butter, as once properly configured, it's a one-stop shop for pen-testing everything from computers to smartphones of both the Apple and Android persuasions.

I've done research and people keep telling me not to do bare-metal installs of Kali or Parrot. Why is that?

Because a hacker, ethical or otherwise, leaves no trace. You haven't finished pen-testing something until you've managed to exfil without being fingered as an unexpected connection. You're not there to leave calling cards; that's distinctly unprofessional. If you do choose to leave one, then it means you're after something - usually money, or the approval of some sponsor body or State. And that, well, defeats the purpose of being a hacker. Curiosity should be its own reward. Considering, working off of a dedicated "hacking rig" is the stupidest and easiest way for your pen-testing efforts to lose all relevancy - or for your sponsored hacks to be easily traceable.

Keep a mainline OS that handles Normie stuff - word-processing, normal Sysadmin tasks, writing emails, gaming after hours - and then use a USB stick to create a bootable drive image that contains everything you need for the rest.

Have you hacked anything before?

Only approved company resources - including keypads, IR receivers on TVs mounted in the Old Place's conference room - everything I could conceivably reach within the limits of my mandate. Now, with Walt and Sarah, I maintain the same ethical constraints. If I'm not asked to test something, I don't touch it.

But have you ever... hacked anything?

Illegally? No. I'm a staunch White Hat - with a few tinges of gray here and there. I've trolled particularly noxious Sales Reps using script-based UI barks in Windows, but I wouldn't go further.

[kusanagionthetelevi]

red alert! new project sekai rp blog!

as you make your way through the vast spectrum that is project sekai roleplay blogs, you find yourself running into...

...a television?

what's that doing here?

you attempt waving at it, but as you move closer, you notice the confusion in their face as they try to process everything that had just happened, to no avail.

a dialogue box suddenly appears from the screen...

[alt text: an animated gif of a custom mint-themed earthbound dialogue box that reads: wha.. what am i doing here… /end id]

(ooc intro under the cut)

hi there! i'm no one's favorite inazuma eleven fan @nanairomelette! i made this sideblog as a sorry excuse to overuse the earthbound text labs site because it's beautiful. sorry not sorry

general? info:

i prefer being called noa, but i use other names too :3 (allister, fei, j, sol)

i use the same pronouns i use for nene, as well as thou/🎲/nine/six pronouns !

basic dni (homophobes, transphobes, naz1s, ableists, racists, etc) and anti mogai or neopronouns. also if you sexualize any of the pjsk characters you WILL be blocked on sight. this excludes some of the npcs and kaimeiluka as they're all of age but i will likely avoid interacting with you since i'm a minor

speaking of sexualization, please don't send anything suggestive in the askbox! nene is a minor, and so am i.

this is generally a self indulgent blog so expect a lot of headcanons. one of those hcs are he/they/six/waltz nene so just a heads up i guess

although this is less important, i'd like to note that i also hc nene as a genderfluid transmasc aroace lesbian :]

oh ANF ANFD AND. i will also use pronoun hcs for other project sekai characters and i'll make a masterlist when i feel like it.

even then, i'll use the pronouns you use for the character you're roleplaying as when the time comes that we interact!

also i already have this in my description but i'd like to add a trigger warning for unreality as this is a roleplay blog, as well as an obligatory no this account is in no way officially affiliated with sega nor colorful palette!

and since i'm using gifs (image format) as a means to communicate, i'll do my best to maximize alt texts on this blog. feel free to criticize me if i'm missing out or pointing out too many details in my alt texts!

i might not be too active on this account as 1. my current sp/in is inazuma eleven so i don't really dwell much on pjsk anymore 2. school is stressing me the hell out

also i have a few negative experiences with roleplaying and i'm a bit scared of interacting with strangers so please bare with me

some stuff i think you should know:

this is basically an au where for whatever reason, rui's inventions accidentally get nene stuck inside a damn old television. as of late, she has not found a way to get him out of there

that's like. the main premise if we're talking about nene, however i haven't really decided the rest. i'm thinking the main plot would include project sekai characters inside random things (ie. miku inside your washing machine)

feel free to add more to this mess of an au, i'm open to anything, just shoot me an ask either here or on my main account!

tag masterlist:

#nene live broadcasting -> text? posts #live nene reaction -> in-character reblogs #nene rebroadcasting -> in-character self-reblogs #dial KUS4N4G1-N3N3-720-06 -> asks #sol live broadcasting -> ooc/mod posts/reblogs (includes self-reblogs)

to conclude this post, i'd like to link the project sekai rp blog masterlist down below! nice to meet you all, and let's have fun!

[improper-integral]

So in the past few weeks I've been working on a technical project for Open Doors, an OTW committee dedicated to preserving old fanfiction and importing old online archives into AO3. I'm posting this here primarily so my friend can read it without seeing a flood of messages lol but if this sounds interesting to you, feel free to read on!

I've never really explained the Open Doors process properly before, but basically we start with a database from an old online fanfiction archive - usually it's in a specific structure called eFiction but sometimes not. Us tech volunteers work to translate this database into a slightly different structure (along with other things, like removing author emails and links to sites like patreon, checking for any character/text display issues, etc).

This different structure is not for importing directly into AO3, instead, we spin up a temporary website where the admin volunteers can test the importing and notify us of any issues. Even though I've been a technical volunteer for over 2 years now, I never touched the temp site until recently. This is because I've been working on a fanfiction archive that is unusually large compared to the archives we usually get, and the temp site basically broke when we tried to spin one up for it. The underlying issue is something that I think is fairly straightforward to fix (knock on wood lmao) however setting up the local development environment has been another story entirely. That is, all the temp sites live somewhere on AO3's servers, but no one can work to develop new features or fix bugs directly on the server, instead we set up an environment on our local computers where we can do this work.

There's a couple reasons why this hasn't been straightforward for me. First is that AO3 and thus the temp site were built using the Ruby on Rails web development framework (Ruby is a programming language used to run the framework hence the name). That accounts for the backend, or everything that happens on the server. The temp site uses React as a JavaScript frontend framework, or for everything living on the client aka your browser. I have some familiarity with JavaScript and React but not Ruby or Rails lol. Second, I've come to find that having a Windows PC actually kinda blows big time for development purposes. This is because basically almost all web servers everywhere run on Linux. MacOS surprisingly has some Linux features out of the box that makes it more friendly towards Linux-related development (probably why my work laptop is a Macbook Pro lol), so Windows is the odd one out.

Pretty early on trying to set up my local environment for the temp site I kept running into roadblocks, so I decided to work on an alternative solution using Docker. Docker is basically a way to set up a virtual computer (basically always Linux-based, though it might support other OSs idk) where you install only the necessary things for your project. Docker can be run on any OS, so once you're able to set it up then every dev working on the project will be using the exact same environment, decreasing the likelihood of any issues resulting from local computer discrepancies.

I had some familiarity with Docker as I've worked with it at my current job, but working on this had plenty of its own complications so I've spent countless hours on it over the last several weeks. I did finally get it working but it took FOREVER for the local temp site to load. However, Windows now has a feature called Windows Subsystem for Linux or WSL, basically a way to install a Linux virtual machine on Windows. Running everything from here worked smoothly and greatly improved the loading times. So now I'm using Docker, which is like a virtual machine, on a Linux virtual machine lmao but I'm just so grateful to have finally found a solution.

With this set up, I can finally start working on the actual problem that sparked this project! Though it may be slow going, not just because of my lack of experience with Ruby on Rails, but because when I was working on this Docker project I had little to no work at my actual job, but now I actually have work to do lmao

Although, having the opportunity to work on this when I did was very serendipitous, because in the past week I've been able to apply my greater familiarity with Docker on one of my newly assigned projects at work! So in a way the fact that they continued to pay my usual salary during the downtime meant they got some return on that investment due to self-training lol

If you actually read all that lmao, thanks for reading! If anything I said was confusing or unclear just let me know!

[thespoliarium]

Rant Time, Story Time, Opening Up????

TW: Manipulation, suicide threats, grooming

Hey all, I just noticed that I've been noisy about this on Twitter and Instagram and not here... So, I really want to talk about it here.

Long story short, I was groomed. I know, it came to you as a shock (if it does) but it came to me as a shock as well. I didn't realize I was being groomed until my classmates pointed it out. Get this, my mom doesn't know.

A lot to unpack... Let's dive deep into the story, shall we?

So, around June last year, I posted something about Michael Palin. Unfortunately, Eric Idle thinks I shoved Michael in his face and thus...

I was so distraught, I really wanted to deactivate Twitter because I look up to this man. Decided just to go on Twitter hiatus and spend my days here on Tumblr. But then, a mutual (who is also Eric's mutual) reached out to me and checks if I'm okay. I was, but I was disappointed in Eric.

I really liked talking to him, he's pretty funny. Shares a mutual liking for Michael. Months, and months and his true personality shows. Can't deny, we were getting comfortable with each other. He tells me about his problems, and I do the same, and we try solving it.

Later, however, he started dumping it on me like I'm a washing machine. One of his true personalities was that he's selfish. There was one message that still baffles me to this day...

Take note, I was transitioning to a new school and his selfish side wants me to prioritize him. I get that he did consider it bad, but why would he think of it?

Oh, he's a John Cleese stan. Yuck.

Months passed, and there came the moment. He confessed that he liked me. Can't lie, I liked him too, but it's like a happy crush. That's real, and now that happy crush is gone.

Then, it came. He wants me to be his girlfriend and go on a virtual date with me, watch The Missionary together. Take note that I was 16 when he asked, and he was 19. As much as I don't want to, I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I get that I have a fault there, I led him on until I was made to decline, but he was the reason I don't want to say what I want because he'll lash out on me again (say stuff like nobody likes me)

Also, there was one time he wanted to cut himself and I offered him help, but he keeps on declining. It was one of those only times I gave up on him. So, I let him do what he wants, I'm not his mother. When he came back, he said...

I will not also deny the good things he did for me like supporting me during the play, complimenting my outfits, also sometimes they get creepy, also liking my laugh, which I find also creepy at times, especially when it's out of the blue.

However, when that day came... He left. I was super excited to tell him about what happened, and he left. He told me that, and I accepted it, leaving me to focus completely on the play.

The next day, however, he came back. Somehow, he came back. Probably because I already had my flowers. And he kept on saying sorry. We were doing well and fine until the next day... When he sent 4 chat bubbles worth of a vent. Saying that I'm playing with his feelings.

I woke up to those messages and we fought the entire morning and I cut it off. I've had enough of him and his trauma dumping skills.

Decided to open up to my classmates about this and they pointed it out to me that I was groomed. Decided to open up about it on Twitter, and guess what? He tried to reach me. In 3 different accounts.

Fought for my entire life that night! And I took down the post... But he posted his side anyway.

I was shivering that night, but thanks to my good Filipino moots they attacked him. It was a battle as it unfolded, calling him a manipulator, a groomer, and all that. The winner? Them. He took down his post.

I still have some friends that are his friends.

It's been 4 months since all of this happened, yet it still haunts me to this day. Can't believe I wasted my energy on him!

"Viviene, it's been 4 months, move on." Until his friends and my friends realize all the things he had done to me, I will never know peace.

[kuromi-hoemie]

mm I’m not really feeling Deepin so far lol. I have to accept a privacy policy before I can get started with the install, I’m on my third time trying to install it in a virtual machine because the first time I only gave it 15GB and it said it needs at least 20, so I bumped it up to 50GB and it said it needs 64GB?? So I bumped it up to 100GB of storage space. 

It also gives me a lil “warning” like oh hey we notice ur installing in a virtual machine u should install this on a real machine instead for better performance” 🤚 okay well I didn’t ask and I’m only checking it out so far sooo. It’s also taking a pretty long time to install .... and a long time to get setup after the initial account creation.

yeeeah it took almost half an hour to install and setup Deepin before I actually got to use the desktop. It just looks like Win 11 with the system tray spilled out into the taskbar tbh.

With some slight theme adjustments it even Feels more like Windows 10/11

I actually do kinda like the UI (*/ω＼*) especially after seeing u can minimize their system tray it just kinda expands into the taskbar instead of being a separate popup like on Windows.

I don’t actually hate the way Windows 11 looks I just hate personalization and the Saas/always online stuff, and that search n other things are tied to the internet. This just feels like a no/less nonsense version of Windows but i Know this is all Linux and therefore has a lot less of the dumb surprises u would find in Windows whenever you want to do anything at or beyond the super user level.

as a matter of fact, when I downloaded firefox and saw it was archived in a .tar.bz2 file I was thinking what the heck is bz2 and idr the tar commands off the top of my head, but its file explorer lets u just extract the archive anyways with a simple point n click (❁´◡`❁) (archive is the same thing as a .zip file, or rather a .zip file is only one kind of archive format)

I already have Windows 10/11 and I do enjoy my other Debian/GNOME install I have on my laptop. But also since it’s so rarely used I’m kind of considering the switch actuallyyyy (⁠´⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠.̫⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠`⁠) i haven't been using it bc i lost my charger but i happened to come across another one that works, i just haven't gotten back into using it since then.

I think if u just sit down and play with this for like 10-20 minutes to get all the aesthetics and initial cleanup out of the way so u can install ur own programs n stuff, u will probs warm up to it. But only if u don’t hate the way modern Windows looks aesthetically lol. Anyways, I wasn’t planning on doing operating system/GUI reviews today?? But this was kinda fun to look at and play around with. I think we should all throw ourselves at something new Just Because more often. (⁠*⁠´⁠ω⁠｀⁠*⁠)

Ah one thing I would say is that this does seem a bit more resource intensive than ur standard Linux installs so if ur gonna VM it then give it more resources, and if ur gonna put it on a laptop maybe have at least 4gb ram and idk what level for the CPU or graphic card tbh. like I'm sure getting to use a real graphic card helps speed things up a bit but some things were slow in my virtual machine. tbf it was hyper-v which doesn't let u make some of the more granular hardware resource allocations that say, VirtualBox, let's you do.

Actual ratings tho!

GNOME: 10/10 - that's my baby, my honey, my wife. always looking good and is so so fast and efficient. Looks modern.

KDE: 3/10 - uh. not the worst (i could not tell you a worse looking one though lol). not okay even by my standards. dated, clunky. anytime I've had to use kde i always hate it aesthetically. Redesign of Windows xp from memory ass user interface. I associate it with ppl who love Windows 7 and can't get over the fact that it's gone, as if trying to "relive the glory days" kinda thing. They have not moved on from Windows 7 and need operating systems that look and feel like it. I wish it wasn't functional so I could've given it the -5 score it has in my heart but I'm being fair.

Pantheon: 6/10 - idk i don't have much to say about it or even felt curious enough to really go click around n play with it that much. it looks like MacOS, it basically is but u get things thru linux repos instead of the apple store. MacOS is aesthetically similar to GNOME, to a point, but I've already seen MacOS/wasn't rly particularly impressed with it and uh idk I'd pick this over KDE but would otherwise choose an actual GNOME UX operating system like Debian or Ubuntu. it's not a "bad" operating system though 👍

Deepin: 8.5/10 - more resource heavy than your typical Linux OS, but it does look pretty good and modern. Feels like what I would want Windows 10/11 to be without Microsoft's bullshit. The privacy policy mostly applies to their Deepin programs and app store, but if u know how to use linux this comes with the APT package manager so u don't even need to use any of the Deepin stuff. If gnome is my baby, my honey, my sweet apple pie - then this arrangements about to become a polycule bc i kind of love her too actually 😔💕 i didn't think I would!

i understand ppl who use Linux and want the Windows 7 look but I've always thought KDE looked kinda weird/dated and clunky tbh (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠)

I've liked using GNOME the most so far, but looking more into the different types of user interfaces I realize I just. don't like KDE lol. all the other ones seem cool and efficient to me.

If anything I'm really curious to try them out but i don't need to... or. 🧐 i think i have a spare laptop and charger I can use. I wanna see what using Pantheon feels like, there's a distribution called Elementary OS using it that fr looks like MacOS.

I also read briefly about Deepin Desktop that has being praised for its aesthetics. idk i have mixed feelings on the screenshots lol but I'd also be curious to see how it feels. At first glance it just looks like a fusion of Android and Windows but seems kinda clunky idk..

I'm sure they both have a live version u can run off a flash drive :3c probably. but uhh also feeling kinda lazy so i think I'm just gonna run them in a VM actuallyyy lol. at least for checking them out

[analviel]

Am I the only one who thinks that it's criminal that Tim's 'main villain'/'rival' in-universe is considered by most of the fandom to be Ra's (which can be fun in it's own right) and not Lonnie Machin!

Even Ulysses thought so, like, Lonnie was Tim's guy, at the very least I really believe he deserves regular mentions in fics, even offhand ones but non! Zero!

Tim's portrayed dynamic with Ra's even, where 'not really evil but is harmful and Tim just redirects his plans and sources and ninjas', that could just as well be Lonnie.

Lonnie's thing -genius kid hacking corporates at twelve and fighting virtual wars at the same age, which is curiously enough what some would also stereotype Tim as but is really not and therefore would be a good character study on the both of them of how Tim is NOT. THAT but is not in any way lesser for it and can and will go up against a formidable young rival and consistently best him- is encouraging anarchy but with little to no plan (he wants to make the world better but can't exactly picture what better is supposed to look like and seems to just trust others to figure it out once the corrupt overlords are out of the way), even stealing money and handing it off directly to those in need (without taking into account that those who need it for food and shelter are also just as likely to buy guns rather than start a business to secure a steady wave of income, just because you're poor doesn't necessarily mean you're good), he's got the will, could go through the deed, but the means as a means are not the best-

-while Tim on his part, also has the will and is a bit better on the means. Always my main example for this is, because it's his earliest and so most rooted to his character, him knowing Batman needed someone to reign him in, Alfred and others are not working so only other option and the only one who is most likely to work is Dick, so Tim took pictures to show to Dick, and investigated his known associates to narrow down his location as best as he could (I mean, if Tim rushed it and turned out to be wrong, can you imagine? If he needs to back-track a couple of times, would Dick have still stayed in the circus or would he have eventually got restless again, would Bruce have killed someone or been killed by that point?), and then found him and gave him those evidence he'd collected (that he took the time to collect and if he hadn't had that with him already, what would it have taken to convince Dick to come back to the man who threw him out, gave his name and costume to the boy that will then die in that name and costume, and then blamed Dick, in that same city as that same headstone and that same clown -I don't know if he was even planning to come back, but he'd at least take a few years to cool down if just the throwing out part already fucked up their relationship this much) -Tim's more likely to splice down the steps when there's the time to -is more likely to recognize when you need to slow down to do things properly, is more patient -and that's in more ways than just able to sit still for a long amount of time. Basically, Lonnie got details down, but Tim's got the details down.

So Lonnie stealing from corrupt accounts and scrubbing the traces and wiring it straight to empty accounts in destitute areas- and then Tim swoops in and directs it to legit and trusted foundations (that Lonnie absolutely would not trust out of principle because he's a shoe-in for Bat paranoia in the extreme spectrum) to distribute more fairly and evenly and pings Lonnie with the fact that if Tim could've redirected the money that he knew was moving around then someone out there may too, also here's the link for the present time updates I set up- and Lonnie hits back by sike I'd knew you'd do that and that's why I'm actually sending it to this even more impoverished area -yeah I also knew you'd do that and that's why I chose the exact legit and trusted foundations that also has sub branches in that area and I also took some Wayne money to put in the previous dud area -did you steal that from the Waynes that you're always harping I should trust more -I did (Tim actually did) and left them a letter telling them exactly where I'm putting it and that they won't get any credit but I'm sure it'll be fine with them as long as it's being put to good and they're not going to spring up some manhunt which will prove that maybe we should consider their role in this a bit so we can also focus on even more stuff -no :) but I might if you tell me where's the backdoor you put nevermind I'll find it -hah sorry I already closed it and the team of IT are naturally also raising their security because just as I told you how your good deed can be misused they've also learned -aha anyone with a brain could've guessed that and that's why I didn't bother and used the last few seconds to get an Intel past you that should send the rotten order of the Western world collapsing -I didn't anticipate that exactly but I did predict you were just about time for a largescale stunt and I've previously set up some things that may prove useful here -and you'll never be able to use them again -and they'll still exist even if I can't control them at least I've made borders that should give me some warning if they sense a delay or change in their functions in the future-

Pssh, the Ra's and Tim by-plays don't even make sense because Ra's wouldn't even be doing it himself and Tim is just outhinking some random schmuck who's going to get executed for failing his job, but Tim and Lonnie by-plays is a no holds barred legit Clever vs Smart sparring match that Oracle is probably eating popcorn at while watching over.

And they get to learn a thing or two from one another. Tim might even get that bit closer to fandom!Tim specialised skillset if you so wish (or New52 Tim but I think that's another different direction entirely too) and Lonnie would actually be a serviceable anti-hero/vigilante with subdued negatives that would make others less likely seek to put him behind bars and IT JUST MAKES SO MUCH SENSE ALRIGHT!!!

[sylathas-world]

Y is Y2K Appealing?

As you can observe, my blog has been made with a particular aesthetic focus: the simple HTML and CSS, the glow effect on all the texts, and the WoW-inspired cursor. All of these call back to the Early Internet age of graphic design, and I'm not the only person to like this nostalgic wave of aesthetics.

The Aesthetics Wiki defines Y2K as:

"Y2K (also known as��Kaybug) is an aesthetic that was prevalent in popular culture from roughly 1997 to 2004. Named after the Y2K Bug, it is characterized by a distinct aesthetic period, encapsulating fashion, hardware design, music, and furnishings shining with tech optimism — sometimes literally."

People are now returning to this very recognisable style for many reasons. But first, As Günseli Yalcinkaya points out in her Dazed Digital article "Why are we all so obsessed with early web nostalgia?" we have to understand why it started at all:

From a Political standpoint, early cyberspace provided a liberating and autonomous dream world beyond the confines of capitalist structures. People could design their own websites thanks to services like Geocities, which allowed users to create, publish and browse websites for free, and each of them was unique in its own kind of way. Considering the almost inexistence of Big Tech in the early 2000s, being online was virtually living in a borderline socialist dimension.

From an Aesthetical standpoint, Y2K is glittery, brash, pixelated, and generally in-your-face. On the web, this kind of visual style is derived from the utter freedom of personalization—even if the elements were mostly just images, gifs, texts, and the background—and, as pointed out by several users on Quora, most people had no design training at the time. They just did what they liked, not thinking about usability or readability. But Y2K, at its peak, had lots of excellent and sleek designs, and most of them derived from optimism about the future of technology as the world reached a new millennium.

These two reasons for existence, translated and morphed into the modern era, are almost identical. The brash look contrasts the minimalist corporate look that we are now used to, setting an uprising both on the visual and political meaning of the modern style. One of the first things they taught me at Design school was "Less is more", and here that theorem is inverted. More is, in fact, more, as it is transparent of what is happening behind the curtains of tech. Ed Finn, in his book "What Algorithms Want. Imagination in the age of computing", compares this technological shadowing to a black box:

"As I click on the link to the news site, a cascading series of actions unfurls behind the static pixels of my screen, obscured from human view not just by design but also by the boundaries of my temporal perception. In a matter of milliseconds, my request for the page has reached one of the company’s servers, triggering a flurry of activity as the site identifies me through cookies, IP address, and other means. The server contacts other machines in the company network to pull together not just “the news” but my news, curated in various ways to capture and maintain my attention (e.g., through recommendations for what to read next) and establish a familiar context by referencing previous interactions with the site (e.g., items saved in my “history”). But before the page loads, my query also triggers a number of other requests to companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Advertising algorithms engage in an automated auction to decide which ads will be shown to me on the news site, taking into account prevailing bids as well as my own history, social media presence, and membership or nonmembership in various predetermined target populations."

The Y2K style goes back to the roots of the internet, trying not to shadow anything and show a bit too much.

The tech optimism characteristic of that Era instead translates into the possible modern transition into Web3, which promises a decentralized web removed from tech monopolies. The contemporary tech evolution corresponded with shrinking possibilities, and now those monopolies control most of the time we spend online. With their economies of scale, they seem to be able to crush all up-and-coming challengers. The optimism is not the same, though: when the style was created, it was a hope for the future, as it could change how we lived and interacted. Now that change has happened, we don't want it to go the way Web2 did. We're not optimistic; we're just frustrated over how things have been going for the last 20 years, and we want to do better. Although the founding spirit is commendable, Web3 has the potential to ruin everything even more, as several sources point out [1] [2] [3]. But that's a topic for a different blog post.

As we can tell, the political premises are fundamentally intertwined with the aesthetical choices of Y2K.

But we haven't tackled the most crucial factor of Y2K: Nostalgia. According to the article "Why Do Fashion Trends Come Back?"¹: "Trends repeat every 20-30 years because of generational changes as well as designers taking inspiration from styles their parents wore." But now something is different: the style is from our youths, not our parents. We have been influenced by the celebrities we know and love, and now we're bringing back what they represented back then. Of course, this is not the first time fashions have worked like this, but the swiftness with which it exploded is incredible, considering how minimalism was and still is very big. This, in my opinion, has two different reasons:

Thanks to our current technology, every type of information travels faster than before. What needed to be known through television, newspapers, magazines and so on can now be discovered through smartphones. This allows the growth of styles at a rate before unimaginable. Still, studies suggest that, due to the ever-growing stream of information present on the web, shorter intervals of collective attention are given to individual topics. We now embrace and forget as fast as we ever did, but Y2K seems to remain².

The second reason is a bit more philosophical and delves into my personal experience. The 2000s was not a happy decade. First, the twin towers collapsed, changing the political stance that the USA, sadly one of the most influential countries in the world, had towards foreign countries. Then, the 2007-2008 financial crisis happened, making our upbringing in the world desperate, not even considering the climate crisis that is now upon us. But Y2K was not sad: it was the opposite. It was hoping for a brighter future, and we are nostalgic for that. The article "The Brain and Nostalgia" by Heidi Moawad says, "Sometimes nostalgic triggers [...] are sought out as a means to bring comfort and happy feelings." And that is precisely what we are searching for. It's not essential that we lived that age or not; what we thrive for is the peace and hopefulness that the 2000s had in their own personal way. It may have been through the sparkly gifs, the neon colours and the overall nonchalance of the people who used to live it, but Y2K means something important to the youth now: the hope for happiness and peace. The longing to not live like we've always lived.

1: Interestingly, the article cites a DSN English report on fashion trends, which is now down. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I found a snapshot of it, which led me to another article, accessible as well only by a snapshot. This article points to other websites as sources, and I couldn't find any "report" on this matter, but multiple websites cite it talking about fashion throwbacks. My only explanation for this occurrence is that someone mentioned it as a "report", and other writers started using the first article source without checking it.

2: One of the first instances of the throwback to this style I've found online was Hailey Bieber's 2019 Met Gala Look.

[codelance]

What's the best way to start for a programming newbie? Are Python/Django the best?

Although I think Python is a better overall language, if you just want to slap a utilitarian web interface on some backend code for internal use then PHP might be a better language to learn. It's easier to setup on the server, will run on virtually any host, and is a more out of the box solution.

As for Python/Django:

If you have never programmed before, it's definitely worth learning Python before you get to Django. Someone with experience could skip to a Django book/tutorial and pickup Python on the way - it's a simple language with very clear, easy to read and understand code.

How long it takes you to learn what you need to know is highly variable. If you are just trying to write some automation scripts to help cut down some manual labor, then you can probably go from zero to this point in a few weeks (maybe 20-30 hours). If you want to write production quality web apps using Python/Django, it's going to take longer.

Setup The Environment

First download Python if you don't have it. http://www.python.org/getit/ I prefer Linux, but your MacBook will be more than sufficient as a dev machine.

Python is in a state of limbo between the 2.7 release version and 3. While 3 is the future, it introduces some intrinsic changes which many of the popular libraries do not yet support, Django included. Your best bet is to start with 2.7 and switch to Python 3 later. Also, most of the learning material available is still written for Python 2.

You can write code in any text editor. My favorite, and an up-and-coming basic code editor is Sublime Text. It is simple, elegant, and very functional. http://www.sublimetext.com/ It costs $59, but you can use it free for an unlimited amount of time (as of right now). Well worth buying though.

Many Mac developers love and swear by TextMate. It's more developed and further along than Sublime, I think. Costs $54, and has a 30-day trial.

If you get deeper into programming and want a full featured integrated development environment (IDE), then PyCharm is top notch. http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/ It costs $99 and has a yearly renewal fee for updates, but is worth it. Something like this has a much steeper learning curve than Sublime Text or TextMate, but they can save you time and keystrokes in the long run.

I'm going to assume you are familiar with working in the terminal, since you have IT experience. If not, this might be a good starting point: http://smokingapples.com/software/tutorials/mac-terminal-tips/

Django apps can be run entirely on your own dev machine, but if you want to put it on the web to be accessed by others on your team, or from other machines you will need a host. There are some good questions on Quora about hosts, but ensure you choose one that allows Python and SSH access. I recommend finding a cheap Virtual Private Server (VPS), although this might be too steep a learning curve for someone without experience. (You say you've done a lot in the IT field, so some of this might be too basic for you, sorry).

I recommend learning and using Source Control. This helps manage your code revisions, and is particularly useful if you have more than one person working on it. I personally use Mercurial, but Git is more popular.

http://hginit.com/ is a good intro guide for Mercurial. http://learn.github.com/p/intro.html looks to be good for Git, but I haven't worked through it yet.

In addition to using Source Control, you'll need a source code repository (you'll learn what this means in one of those tutorials. GitHub (http://www.github.com) is the most popular, with BitBucket (http://www.bitbucket.org) coming in second. You can use Git on either, but GitHub does not support Mercurial. Also, BB has better options for free accounts - unlimited free repos, whereas GitHub limits you.

You might feel overwhelmed trying to learn how to program Python, learning Django, and trying to figure out source control and a myriad of tools all at once. In my opinion it's best to get down a version control workflow early on, rather than putting it off. You'll develop good habits early on that will help you down the stretch.

Where to Learn There are a ton of resources for learning Python, and quite a few for Django. Be sure that whatever you choose, you go with resources that consistently use either Python 2 or 3. Also, stay away from small tutorials and stick with complete references. Learning from piecemeal tutorials will leave you with fragmented knowledge, and they are usually lower quality.

Here is a list of references taken from another Quora question. The key to learning how to program, in my opinion, is to practice a lot. So do the exercises these books contain, and do more programming on your own.

Online Tutorials & Ebooks All free

Recommended: http://www.diveintopython.net/ http://docs.python.org/tutorial/ http://swaroopch.com/notes/Python http://homepage.mac.com/s_lott/books/python/html/index.html Recommended: http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html (A higher level look at programming with Python as the tool; highly recommended if you want to be a good programmer) http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html http://learnpythonthehardway.com/

Videos

http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/ http://www.youtube.com/user/thenewboston#g/c/EA1FEF17E1E5C0DA Recommended: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/video-lectures (A higher level look at programming with Python as the tool; highly recommended if you want to be a good programmer)

Books Sometimes having a physical book makes it easier for some people to learn. Many of the above ebooks are available in hard copy.

Dive Into Python Think Python Learn Python the Hard Way A Byte of Python

How do I learn Python?

All of those are Python references. The online material available for Django is more sparse, but there are some good resources.

The Django Book is the starting point for most people: http://www.djangobook.com/

There is, of course, the official tutorial: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/ I found Django Book more useful. However, get very familiar with the Django docs. They are very good, and you will be spending a lot of time digging into them.

This is a highly recommended hardcopy book for learning, but I've not used it: https://www.packtpub.com/django-1-0-website-development-2nd-edition/book

Prefer video? This series ought to be very good: http://teamtreehouse.com/library/archive/django I have not tried it yet either. There is a $25/mo fee for their service

Getting Assistance Inevitably, when you are learning or attempting to build something, you're going to run into a brick wall at some point.

This is my workflow if I get stuck on a concept, or while programming: Check the Documentation -> Check the Source Code -> Search Google -> Ask on StackOverflow

Asking is always a last resort, quite simply because figuring it out on my own gives more of a sense of pride and accomplishment, and I'm more likely to remember the solution.

Python Docs: http://docs.python.org/ Django Docs: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/

[unboundwanderers]

"Ah! Leave it to an android to be forward- of course, of course." He moves to slide his hands into his pockets and begins to think. He's not sure which crew of the Enterprise he's come into contact before, and it's been so long- well all the starship crews seem to blend together, you see!! And he can't be bothered to memorize every distinct crew member. The Doctor exhales and begins formulating a string of statements prepared to put Data into a position that's more amicable. Indeed, The Doctor has no quarrel with the Enterprise, and wishes to only get back to his ship and fly away- but stranger things have gotten The Doctor mixed up in all sorts of situations- so better to play it safe.

Okay, in a time of desperation, he moves to hit Data with something he almost usually never resorts to immediately: The Truth. The Doctor clears his throat, one hand near his mouth while the other hand rests in his pocket.

"Right, yes- You see: I am a Timelord. I'm usually referred to as The Doctor." He put a lot of Grandeos into the statement: Timelord. As if the race was still in the sky, blinking with the other stars. He said his name: The Doctor- with a puff of his chest, giving the name a lot of importance, even though it was nothing more than a title. "I am- for all intents and purposes- A Time Traveller-- From The Future-!" He quickly snaps his fingers and points towards Data, "Register my body language- I am telling the truth-" He pauses, inhaling. He does give Data time to actually scan him. The Doctor isn't aware of whether or not Data has the capacity to do a deeper scan, but in times like this- it's best to just let an Android scan whatever he wants. Data will register alien physiology- two hearts- a binary vascular system- and a significantly lower body temperature- as well as DNA that can not be physically logged or matched to any known races within the federation.

"Either I am telling the truth- or, whatever I am telling you is something I believe to be the truth." He intercepts, catching any attempt to put in, watching Data's body language with much precision. Data is a supercomputer, but in very many ways so is The Doctor. "Have the Holodeck do a scan for non-simulated objects. It'll detect you, myself- and a non-living object--" He ropes his proof into the mix, a risky play- but against a computer, it's his ace in the hole, "Ask for its exact measurements and your personal positronic mainframe will conclude that it can only be the size of a London Police Box from the twentieth century." He knows Data is precise- precise enough to know these things- any Android should be, and any Android with a Positronic brain would know things that no other ordinary Android should know.

"That is my ship- my SpaceTime Machine, to be precise-" He explains, still standing across from Data but having leaned slightly forward, hand in his pocket and finger extended- as if he's waiting to be released from that spot, "Now! Of course, you could alert your senior officers to me, and you could wait for them to get through all the necessary senior operating procedures in order to delegate me to the status of a non-threat-- if you had reason to believe I was a threat-- which I'm not." He explained, making a gesture with his free hand to accentuate how boring that all sounds. He continued, "But if you had every reason to believe I wasn't a threat-- which I'm not--" He paused to raise eyebrows at Data.

"Then, virtually- all you'd be required to do per Starfleet operating procedure is ascertain of your own accord that I am not a threat- which, to repeat, I'm not." He moved toward the window, opening it up and pointing down the photographically generated street to show the Police Box, which was a model and a paint job that should not exist in the programmed century of Arthur Doyle's work- meaning that this is not a Holodeck generated item. "And of course- if Starfleet can account for Time Travelling, then surely you must know that if I am from the future, your prime objective should be to get me back to my own time--" The Doctor cut him off to continue standing, leaning forward again. "And luckily for you! I have the means to do that of my own accord-- which I want to do! Meaning that for all intents and purposes-- I am a visitor who is a non-threat to the enterprise and doesn't have to be logged in any report for any reason due to his nature as a time-sensitive individual." He stood up straight, scratching the pink locks behind his head as he continued his speech- he had a few more bullet points to hit, and by god- he was going to hit them.

"Now-- that does just leave you with the simple conundrum: What to explain when a senior officer enters--" The Doctor predicts that by all means, logical and physical, an android would want to account for every exact possibility- or perhaps The Doctor is just paranoid, and tying up his own loose ends- either way, he gives Data a solution, "Seeing as I have no intention of leaving The Holodeck any time soon-- well... you could simply inform a senior officer or deck officer that I'm... simply a simulation you engineered to interact with an intellect as strong as you--" He raises his finger, "But of course," he intercepts his own logic with an assumed logical response to his own question-

"The only way the computer would be able to generate an intellectual equal of your own without endangering the crew would be to give it elements of characters who generate nonsensical statements for very little logical reasoning--" He finally concludes, doing a dramatic bow before Data, "Meaning that I am not an intruder..."

"I am the Holodeck's interpretation of The Mad Hatter~"

@unboundtravels continued from [ x ]

Utterly mystified by the individual’s inexplicable appearance on the holodeck, Data could only stare at him. Starfleet regulation dictated he had to apprehend the infiltrator and apprise the Captain, but his subroutines were not humming with vigilance, just mild amusement interlinked with excessive discombobulation. The stranger possessed of an intellect not that dissimilar to his own; eager to obtain information, inquisitive, and an intrinsic desire to investigate that what he could not fathom.

Nonetheless, a certain level of wariness was evoked when the zealous man started to bounce around and addressed his components by name. Was he a cyberneticist of sorts? Could he be an associate or contemporary of Dr Noonian Soong? Possibly, but unlikely. Either way, it was heightening his sense of suspicion. His yellow eyes remained trained on the exuberant individual, determined to ascertain what purpose he was pursuing. He had, after all, clandestinely embarked the Enterprise while they were traversing across the galaxy at warp 6.8. How had he even managed to board the vessel? Queries for later, or whenever he could interpolate them into the sparse intermissions the stranger applied to his one-sided conversation.

Data’s subroutines droned with the profuse information spewed into his direction. His advanced computational capabilities digested the information assiduously, paying close attention to every detail, whether he could comprehend them on a cognitive level or not. The stranger had many questions, and formulated several tempting propositions, but the android could not comply unless he had garnered sufficient information regarding the other man’s intentions, other than reenacting a medley of detective novels on the holodeck.

‘Perhaps,’ Data replied placidly, not intending to indulge the other in his wishes until he could verify his identity and determine whether he was friend or foe. ‘You are well-informed about who and what I am, sir. You have accurately extrapolated my interests by violating my private recreational time on the holodeck, and I would gladly grant you my concession; your actions have not yet contradicted my initial profile of you as “benign,” but I do require additional information if you would prefer I proceed to regard you this way.’

His approach was pragmatic, and expressed with the immaculate coolness of a machine unfazed by the peculiarity that permeated in this infrequent occurrence.

‘Would you please be so kind as to identify yourself and state your business aboard the Enterprise? As one of the senior officers, I am usually notified when we are accommodating new guests, but I was not briefed on the arrival of a visitor of your stature. Furthermore, the circumstances do not lend themselves for admitting passengers to our ship; we are currently travelling at warp speed. Transportation should be unavailable at the present time. If you are not a visitor, but have boarded the ship without prior authorisation and utilised a different means of transportation, I am obligated to apprise my superiors of this anomaly. And once they are satisfied with the nature of your intentions, we could devise the holoprogram you are so eager to explore.’

[scripttorture]

Hello, I'm kind of new this scene. I wanted to ask what usually does go on in torture? What tools and methods are used? What is considered to be going too far/unrealistic in torture (like what you sorta mentioned in the ask about the immortal & machine gun torture)? Do you have a list of where I can go to start researching the basics? Also, how/what would you recommend writers do to be respectful to the experiences of torture victims when writing torture? Sorry for the boring questions. thank u

Welcome and don’t worry about the questions. It’s much better to try to find out then assume you know the answers. :)

 I’m going to start with the last two questions because those are the easiest to answer.

 I’ve got a post on the most common misconceptions about torture over here. I’ve got a post on the common effects of torture here.

 Those posts were designed to be a starting point.

 I’ve also got a post of sources here which you can use to do further reading.

 Going through those posts (and any relevant sources) first should give you an idea of how to portray torture in a more realistic way.

 Making sure it’s also respectful is harder. A lot comes down to how you actually write your story.

 I think the best thing to do if you’re just starting out is to read as many accounts by torture survivors as you can. Amnesty International has interviews on their website. Alleg’s The Question is available in a lot of different translations for a reasonable price. Monroe’s A Darkling Plain contains interviews with a lot of different survivors.

 I think you should also look at this post on researching torture. And take breaks. This is hard and you should be kind to yourself.

 What’s ‘usual’ for torture is highly dependant on the time period and place. Torture practices have changed with time and they are different in different countries.

 You can read about typical practices around the world today in this post.

 Even though there’s a lot of variation there are also a lot of similarities.

 The vast majority of torture today is what Rejali calls ‘clean torture’. This means that it doesn’t leave any obvious external marks. Other researchers use different terms for this. I chose to use Rejali’s term.

 Clean tortures were used historically but they were usually used with other tortures that left obvious marks or scars. I tend to refer to those as ‘scarring tortures’.

 Torture generally (in the past and today) is low-tech. It doesn’t require any training or specialist knowledge. It is not skilled or complicated.

 Sometimes tools are used but often they aren’t. Today the tools used for torture are the sort of thing you’d find in most houses and a few items common in police departments like handcuffs and Tasers. But the typical things in use today? Hose pipes, culinary spices, items of furniture, buckets-

 And a lot of the most common tools used in the past were also common place. Knives, scrap metal, ropes, pliers, fire.

 There were some instruments designed purely for torture historically but they’re not complicated devices either to use or to make.

 This is because- Basically torturers aren’t very smart. They’re not inventive, they’re not well trained, they’re not skilled. In fact there’s evidence that torturing people makes torturers less good at the jobs they were trained for, they forget their previous skills.

 Torturers are also typically pretty lazy. Most of the time they’re using torture as if it’s a short cut to get around a more complicated job. Now torture can’t work in that way but a significant number of torturers seem to honestly believe that it does.

 When I say something’s gone too far or too unrealistic I’m making a judgement based on everything I’ve read. You can build up that sort of sense too if you want to um- spend years reading about torture.

 But the simpler way to approach it is probably like this:

Could the torturer character find the tools you want them to use in their home or at work?

Could a 4-6 year old child come up with the torture technique you have planned?

Could someone with no training who has never used the tools before do it?

 If your idea meets these criteria then it’s probably something that a torturer could realistically do.

 The 500 bullets ask could, arguably, also meet those criteria. But the reason I discouraged that idea wasn’t because it sounded unreasonable from the torturer’s perspective, it sounded unreasonable from the victim’s.

 The asker wanted their character to survive a situation that was completely unsurvivable. It was a fantasy ask but my judgement was that this particular fantasy was so far removed from reality that I couldn’t make it ‘more realistic’.

 There’s a big tendency in fictional portrayals of torture for writers to present scarring tortures as if they’re the only ‘real’ form of torture.

 That’s really dangerous because it dismisses and belittles virtually every form of torture that is actually happening now. It tells survivors that they don’t ‘count’, even if torture nearly killed them, just because they don’t have scars.

 Because this is such a popular and problematic trope I feel like we need to question these kinds of ultra-violent fantasy scenarios.

 It isn’t because there’s anything wrong with a writer making the decision that they want their character to have scars or they want the torture scene in their story to contain blood.

 It’s because when we focus too much on gore and scars we risk losing touch with what torture actually looks like today. We also risk misunderstanding what torture is, connecting it with the gore and the scars rather than pain.

 I’ve left you quite a bit to get on with, so I think I’ll leave it there for now.

 If you have any more specific questions or want to run a story scenario past me please don’t hesitate; ask. :)

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[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Iron Man 3

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where We Continue Looking At The Marvel Cinematic Universe...

And With Phase One Now Behind Us We Move Now Onto The Start Phase Two, With The First Movie Of Phase 2, Iron Man 3...

This Film Sees Tony Stark Attempting To Deal With The Events That Happened In The Avengers While Also Dealing With Terrorist Attacks From A New Enemy Called The Mandarin, Will Tony Succeed In Stopping This New Threat While Facing His Own Issues?

Lets Find Out As We Watch Iron Man 3...

The Film Starts With An Intro From Tony Stark (Played Again By Robert Downey Jr) Before The Film Actually Begins With A Flashback On New Year's Eve In 1999 In Switzerland, Where Tony Is With A Girl Named Maya Hansen (Played By Rebecca Hall) And Happy (Played By The Person Who Should Have Directed This Movie, Jon Favreau) At A Conference Where Tony Actually Met Yinsen Before They Were Captured By The 10 Rings...

On His Way Up To His Room With Maya And Happy, Tony Meets A Fanboy Named Aldrich Killian (Played By Guy Pearce) Who Attempts To Get Tony To Join His Team At Advanced Idea Mechanics (Otherwise Known In Marvel As A.I.M.) Seemingly Interested, Tony Tells Killian That He'll Meet Him On The Roof In 5 Minutes...

But Being An Asshole Back Then Tony Doesn't Show And Instead Spends His Night With Hansen Only To Ditch Her The Next Day...

But Eventually Growing Out Of His Asshole Phase, We Come To Now As Tony Works On A New Mark 42 Armor...

Mark 42?!? We Were On Mark 7 How The Hell Did We Get To 42?

Well Turns Out That Ever Since The Battle With The Chitauri, Tony Has Been Without Sleep And Has Been Making Suits Like Crazy, Some That Are Just Plain Iron Man Suits And Others That Serve A Certain Purpose (Space Travel, Underwater Capabilities, Heavy Lifting Etc..) And This... Is Just Another Iron Man Suit...

(Start At 0:51, End At 3:04)

The Next Day, A Broadcast From A Terrorist Criminal Known As The Mandarin Goes Over The Airwaves And In Response To This New Threat, President Ellis (Played By The Bad Guy From Die Hard 2) Rebrands Rhodey As The Iron Patriot As The Name War Machine Did Not Test Well With Focus Groups...

War Machine Did Not Test Well With Focus Groups...

What Was The Age Preference For These Groups? Ages 2 To 3 Years Old?

Asking What's Going On With The Mandarin, Rhodey Tells Tony (Despite It Being Classified Information) That There Have Been 9 Bombings Despite The Public Knowing About 8 And There Have Been No Evidence Of Bombs Whatsoever...

Interrupted By Two Kids Asking For An Autograph, Tony Gives It But When One Asks About His Experience With A Black Hole In The Avengers It Causes Tony To Have An Anxiety Attack. Going To His Suit Outside, Tony Leaves...

Meanwhile At Stark Industries, Pepper Potts (Played By The Queen Of Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow) Has A Meeting With Aldrich Killian, Who Looks Less Geeky And More Suave And Debonair...

Anyway, Killian Is There To Show Pepper, A.I.M.'S Latest Project Called Extremis Which Hacks Into The Hard Drive Of A Living Organism And Recode It's DNA But With Pepper Believing That Killian's Project Is Dangerous, She Takes A Pass On It To Killian's Displeasure...

Returning To Tony's Mansion, Pepper Finds What She Believes To Be Tony Inside Of His Latest Iron Man Suit, Wanting A Kiss From Tony, Pepper Goes To The Lab To Get A Crowbar Only To Discover That Tony's Not Inside The Suit And That It's Just His Voice Coming From It....

Believing Their Date Night To Be Ruined, Pepper Decides To Go To Bed But Tony Stops Her When He Decides To Tell Her The Truth That Ever Since The Battle With The Chitauri, He's Been A Piping Hot Mess And That He Can't Sleep And The Only Reason He's Not In The Looney Bin Is Because Of Her...

Later That Night In Bed, Tony Has A Nightmare Accidentally Calls The Mark 42 Where It Attacks Pepper. Waking From His Nightmare, Tony Powers Down The Suit But Still Pissed Off Tony's Suit Almost Decapitated Her, Pepper Goes To Sleep On The Couch...

Meanwhile At The Chinese Theatre, Happy Follows Killian's Right Hand Man To There As He Looked Suspicious The Entire Time Killian Was Talking With Pepper And Boy, Was Happy Right, As He Seems To Be Selling Drugs To Someone...

(Start At 0:52, End At 3:10)

The Next Day A New Video From The Mandarin Is Released, As Tony Goes To See Happy In The Hospital Only To Do The Dumbest Thing In The World When Being Interviewed By The Press, He Gives Out His Home Address For The Mandarin To Come Face Him...

How Crazy Do Have To Be To Realize That This Is A Bad Idea?!?

So, Getting All Forms Of Information On The Mandarin From Everywhere And Even Recreating The Crime Scene In Virtual Reality, Tony Manages To Get A Look At The Dog Tags That Were Near Happy After The Explosion...

But He's Interrupted When He Gets A Visit From Maya Hansen...

Passing Out After Surviving That Attack, J.A.R.V.I.S. Eventually Wakes Up Tony When The Suit Reaches 5% Power And They're About To Crash Land In A Small Town In Tennessee, Letting Tony Out Of The Suit As The Power And J.A.R.V.I.S. Goes Out, Tony Drags The Suit Into The Workshop Of A Young Kid Named Harley Keener (Played By One Of The Kids From Jurassic World) Who Tony Recruits To Help Him Get His Suit Back On-Line...

Receiving A Call From Tony To Let Her Know That He's All Right, Pepper Ends Up Going With Maya Hansen, Who Believes That Her Boss, Aldrich Killian, Is Working With The Mandarin, Meanwhile Back In Tennessee, Harley Takes Tony To A Site Where A Former Military Solider Blew Himself Up, Killing 6 People In The Process...

But Tony Doesn't Buy It As There Are Only 5 Shadows On The Wall...

After Another Anxiety Attack When Harley Mentions The Avengers, They Get Back To Buisness By Talking To The Bomber's Mother Who Gives Him A File On Everything Only To Be Confronted By One Of Killian's Goons (And A Hot One At That, Despite The Scar On Her Face) Who Kills A Sheriff When Things Don't Go Her Way...

(Start At 2:52)

But When Killian's Right Hand Man Takes Harley Captive, He Uses A Device That Tony Gave Him Earlier Before Tony Blasts Him With A Handheld Repulsor Meant For One Time Use...

Stealing The Man's Car Keys Off Of Him, Tony Says Goodbye To Harley And Takes Off To Go Stop The Mandarin...

However As That Happens Another Message From The Mandarin Comes On The Screen, Stating That If The President Doesn't Call Him Within The Next Half Minute, He Will Kill The Accountant For The Roxxon Corporation, However, When The President Calls Him, He Shoots The Guy Anyway!....

Pissed Off About This, The President Tells His Vice President To Tell Rhodey To Find This Lunatic Now...

Looking Over The Files In His Car, Tony Realizes That A.I.M. Is Behind This, So, He Contacts Rhodey To Get His A.I.M. Account Name And Password As They Upgraded His Suit. Eventually Getting It, He Goes To A News Truck (Which Is Covering A Miss America Like Pagent Where Stan Lee Is Judging!)...

Stan Lee Cameo!

To Use Their Satellite To Encrypt Some Data Files But Only Problem Is Their Connection Is Slow To Say The Least, But Wouldn't You Know It The Guy Who Is Handling The Van Is A Tony Stark Fanboy...

So, He Speeds Up The Internet By About 40% So Tony Can Get His Files Which Reveal That Extremis Is What Is Causing People To Blow Up...

Pepper Talks With Maya At A Hotel Only For When Hears A Knock On The Door To Be Confronted By Killian Who Kidnaps Pepper As We Discover That Maya Is Actually Working With The Mandarin...

Meanwhile, Half Way Across The World, Rhodey Continues His Search For The Mandarin Only To Get Kidnapped Himself By...The Wicked Witch Of The West From Once Upon A Time...

Contacting Harley Back In Tennessee (Who Is Trying To Get The Suit Back On-Line) He Manages To Get Tony In Contact With J.A.R.V.I.S. Who Is Back On-Line And That After Factoring In A.I.M.'s Headquarters Around The World, Their Location Is In Miami...

That However, Is The Good News...

The Suit Is Charging But It Won't Be Enough Power To Revitalize The Mark 42. Having Another Anxiety Attack Without Harley Even Mentioning The Avengers Or New York, Harley Suggests That Since Tony Is A Mechanic That He Should Just Build Something...

So, Taking Harley's Advice To Heart Tony Does Build Weapons Before Driving To Miami..

Only For Tony And Us To Discover The Biggest F-You Moment Of The Entire Movie...

And That's That The Mandarin Is Not The Mandarin But An Actor Named Trevor Slattery...

What The Hell!?!

THIS HAS TO BE THE WORST TWIST IN A MARVEL MOVIE EVER!!!!

Why Did They Do This!?! Why Did They Think That We Would Be Shocked By This Huge Middle Finger Pointed At Us?

The Mandarin Is Supposed To Be A Genius Scientist And A Superhuman Martial Artist Whose Sources Of Power Come From Ten Rings That Adapted From Alien Technology From A Crashed Spaceship While Here You've Made Him An Actor Who Only Took The Job To Support His Drug Usage...

Screw You, Marvel, Screw You For Screwing Up A Good Character...

Knocked Out By Killian's Right Hand Guy, Tony Wakes Up Only To Be Confronted By Maya Who Asks Him To Help Her Fix Extremis, But Saying Go To Hell, Tony Is Then Confronted By Aldrich Who Tell Him Why He's Doing This Which Is Basically The Same Reason Syndrome Became A Villain In The Incredibles...

Yes, Everyone, Shane Black Is Stealing From Brad Bird's Closet...

Wanting To Repay Tony By Making Him As Desperate As He Was Killian Shows Tony That He Is Injecting Extremis Into Pepper, Not Liking This Maya Turns On Killian And Tells Him To Let Tony Go Or Else She'll Kill Herself By Injecting Extremis Into Her But Instead, Killian Decides To Leave Out The Middle Man And Just Shoot Her...

With Tony Calling Killian A Maniac, Killian Exits So He Can Attempt To Get Rhodey Out Of His Iron Patriot Armor By Burning Through It, Eventually Getting Rhodey Out, Killian's Right Hand Guy Knocks Him Out...

Guarded By 2 Guards, An Alarm Goes Off On Tony's Dora The Explorer Watch Which Gives Him The Go Ahead To Call The Mark 42 From Harley's In Tennessee...

With Pieces Of The Suit Coming One At A Time, Tony Takes Out The Guards. Going Outside, Tony Sees Killian Take Off In An Army Helicopter While His Second In Command Commanders The Iron Patriot Suit...

With Rhodey Coming To, He Takes Out Some Guards Before Contacting Tony Who Introduces Him To Trevor, Who Doesn't Tell Them Much About Killian's Plan Except That It's Happening On A Big Boat Off The Coast And It May Involve The Vice President...

Contacting The Vice President, He Tells Tony That He's Surrounded By Secret Service And He Doubts Anyone Will Attack And With The President Safe On Air Force One With Rhodey On-Board He Honestly Has Nothing To Say To Tony But When Rhodey Gets On The Phone Explaining Everything To The Vice President, He Tells Them That He'll Lock It Down And If Need Be, Have F-22's On Stand By...

However, It's Somewhat Implied By The Vice President's Crippled Daughter That He's Working With Killian...

With The President And "Iron Patriot" On-Board Air Force One, With The Plane Taking Off, Killian's Right Hand Man Locks 2 Security Guards In The Bathroom Before Taking Out The Security Guards That Are Guarding The President...

Placing The President Inside Of The Iron Patriot Suit, Killian's Right Hand Guy Is Preparing To Jump Ship, However, Tony May Have Something To Say About That....

(Start At 0:36, End At 3:56)

Tony Activates The House Party Protocol, While The President Arrives In The Iron Patriot On Killian's Ship, Asking What Killian Wants, He Tells The President Nothing Only Stating That With His Death The Vice President Will Have His Job...

Sneaking On-Board Killian's Freighter With Rhodey, They See The President Inside Of The Iron Patriot Suit Strung Up Like Jesus To The Cross, Only To Be Spotted By Killian's Men And Women Who Serve Him Who Start Shooting At Them...

(Start At 0:59)

With Pepper Alive, She Finishes Off Killian By Blowing Him Up Again...

What The Hell, If You Don't Succeed Killing A Guy With Explosions Once Then Try Try Again...

Understanding Now Why Tony Doesn't Want To Give Up Being Iron Man, Tony Promises Pepper To Find A Cure For Extremis By Limiting His Job As Iron Man Ten Fold By Activating The Clean Slate Protocol, Destroying All Of His Suits...

You Know, When I Saw This In Theatres I Thought This Was The End Of Iron Man, Tony's Suits Are Destroyed, His Arc Reactor Is Taken Out And Some Guy Who Yinsen Knew Takes Out The Remaining Shrapnel That Was In His Heart So There's No Way To Power His Suits So The Question Remained And Still Remains, How Could Tony Be Iron Man Without The Arc Reactor?

But Aside From That Lingering Question, The Vice President And Trevor Slattery Are Arrested, Tony And Pepper Spend Christmas In Some Continent, It Looks Like Happy Will Survive To See Spider Man Homecoming And Harley Gets A Laboratory Upgrade From Tony As A Thank You While Tony Tosses His Arc Reactor Into The Ocean As It's It Appears That He's Leaving Iron Man In The Past (Despite Us Knowing That We'll See Tony Again In Age Of Ultron)

After The Credits Roll We Get An End Credit Scene, Which Shows Us That The Person Tony Has Been Talking To All This Time Was Bruce Banner (Played Again By Mark Ruffalo) Who Fell Asleep While Listening To Tony Talk...

Before I Say What I Thought About The Movie I Think I Should Briefly Mention The Marvel One-Shot Entitled All Hail The King, (SPOILERS) Which Shows What Happened To Trevor Slatttery After The End Of Iron Man 3 As A Documentary Filmmaker Named Jackson Norriss Who Goes To Ask Trevor Some Questions About The Mandarin Incident...

Only For Us To Discover Later That Jackson Actually Is There To Break Trevor Out Of Prison So He Can Meet The Real Mandarin Who Wants Trevor To Pay For Impersonating Him On TV...

And Recently It's Been Revealed That We Will Meet The Real Mandarin In Shang Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, There's Only One Problem That I Have With This And That's That It's Not Iron Man Who's Going To Be Fighting Him But Shang Chi!

The Mandarin Is Iron Man's Bad Guy Not Shang Chi's And Now That (Again, Spoilers!) Iron Man Is Dead, We Can't, And They Think It's Just Okay To Place Him With Another Superhero?

Well, It's Not, You Had Your Chance At The Mandarin And You Blew It, So Move On To Another Supervillain That Doesn't Belong To Another Superhero! Because I'll Tell You When This Film Comes Out I Have No Intention Of Seeing It Unless They Somehow Resurrect Tony For This One Movie Or Have Someone That Is Connected With Tony In Someway (Like Rhodey) In It To Make Up For The Mistakes In This Movie!

But Enough Of This Rant And Onto What I Thought About This Movie...

It's Okay, The Action Scenes Are Good And Robert Downey Jr. Is Good As Tony As Always But The Rest Of The Film Is A Jumbled Mess, From The Story To The Villain This Movie Is Horrible Everyone Says That The Problem With The First 2 Iron Man Movies Is That The Villain Is Just A Guy In Another Iron Man Suit, Well, No Offense I Would Rather Have A Guy In An Iron Man Suit As A Bad Guy Than Getting What We Got Here...

Also I'm A Little Upset That They Kinda Killed The Best Character Of These Iron Man Movies....DUM-E!!!! NO!!!!!! But Of Course I Kid, As We See Tony With DUM-E's Remains At The End Of The Movie, Either Way, This Movie Is One Hot Mess And I Say Skip It And Just Wait Until Age Of Ultron To Get Your Iron Man Fix...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...