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kujoestars · 5 months ago

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The Mechanism of Kafka's Transformation and How It Affects Him

(Crossposting my analysis/theory from Reddit. Also, warning: this post contains both anime and manga spoilers so beware if you are anime-only)

So, something that drove me nuts about the manga's version of the X-ray scene was the fact that there was literally no difference from a normal human chest x-ray. The anime THANK GOODNESS fixed that:

We finally know exactly how Kafka's core looks while he's in human form. It appears to be primarily occupying where the chambers would be with a good amount of myocardium (the heart muscles) suspending it while also continuing to function as a heart.

Notably for me, there's actually a translucent hemicircle up top there where it's supposed to connect to the aorta. In fact, you can see the core is translucent on its left (our right) side while more opaque to its right (our left).

Let me highlight it for reference I hope y'all appreciate the fact I had to do it with a mouse on MSPaint because Reddit won't save images to drafts and I can't drop images from tablet like on desktop:

It appears that Kafka's heart was fully converted and the tissue there is just a facsimile since it appears to be forming a pouch for the core to nestle in.

The anime's expansion of the scene the Mysterious Larva/Young Yoju fused with Kafka ended up perfectly tying in to this. Something I noticed was that Kafka was not actually transforming for most of it. Initially he was clutching at his throat where it entered:

Then just before the transformation started (when his eyes started glowing), he was clawing desperately at his chest:

For reference to anyone who's never studied anatomy, the mid-esophagus is actually resting against the heart, which is why the best form of imaging for the heart is a transesophageal echocardiogram (i.e. stick an ultrasound down the esophagus), which works like in this diagram:

In other words, the Larva's target was his heart and it was burrowing into it from that point. Which is consistent with where Kafka was clawing at in the shot I posted before and why after the change completed, his hand was resting just above that area:

Basically, the theory I have been saving specifically for after this episode is: Everything about Kafka's body is tied to the core.

Yes, that was obvious since we saw him regenerate his entire body from just the core, but what I'm saying here is that that the heart was the only thing the Larva was trying to fuse with. The rest of the body followed instantaneously once the heart became a core. Kaiju cores appear to be storing a lot of energy, so it would fit in with why even the initial change could happen so rapidly. It was a large burst of energy that had Kafka's cells all convert and restructure, and we even see steam coming both off and out of him here in the anime.

All future changes seem to be purely a matter of him controlling every cell in his body like individual muscles or even like how cuttlefish and octopi are able to change their appearance in an instant from muscle contractions and chromatophores.

In other words, the evidence has stacked to full OVERKILL that Kafka is truly a kaiju that can shapeshift into a human rather than the reverse like he and everyone else prefers to think.

Which leads me to my big pet theory right now: the reason Kafka is losing his ability to revert to human form is because he's becoming malnourished. I won't stack the image evidence since I've already done enough and the focus is on the core and Kafka's real biological nature now (I'll save that for a future post, lol), but it only stands to reason that if Kafka is physiologically a kaiju regardless of form, that means he has the metabolic needs of a kaiju.

He was only fine before because he had a lot of extra body fat as reserves and didn't use his kaiju form much. But after entering the Defense Force, he's been in multiple situations where he had to push himself while transformed and consume much more energy. If you pay attention to his body type, you'll notice he's been having quite a bit of weight loss.

Sure, he's been training a lot too and eating better, but following the fight with Isao, he's becoming abnormally thin. Maybe not enough for people to immediately think he needs a sandwich, but as of the latest chapters, I've noticed he's actually pretty lanky now even in kaiju form when previously Kaiju No. 8 was built like a bear.

You could argue it's just art evolution EXCEPT literally no one else had such a drastic change in body type or AT ALL. I'm pretty convinced this is an intentional transition from Matsumoto.

Whatever Kafka is eating as a human, it's not enough to sustain him long term and so his body is going into power save mode. And since his default is kaiju (why else would he constantly slip up his first few months if it wasn't actually his default form?), his body is losing its ability to shapeshift because it doesn't have the energy to. Malnourishment tends to manifest in a similarly piecemeal fashion irl, so I'm not surprised its first sign is just one spot on his hand.

Such a deceptively simple reason for the kaijufication is precisely why I'm very certain that is the cause. Kafka has a lot of issues with loving and taking care of himself. And this series is all about subverting tropes in favor of common sense. It's not some "inner demon" trying to take over (the Larva actually only did that once because Kafka was both in danger and refusing to fight back what it perceived as another daikaiju); Kafka just isn't taking care of himself as usual!

And there you have it, folks. Finally, a clear breakdown of what exactly the Larva did, how the transformations work, and why the kaijufication may not be as scary as everyone thinks. Or rather....not in the way they think. Someone please feed that kaiju properly!

#kaiju no. 8 #kn8 #kn8 spoilers #kn8 analysis #kn8 meta #kafka hibino #mysterious larva #mysterious young yoju #kaiju

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toskarin · 3 months ago

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going on the twine rant again, lads. fair warning.

the twine editor is theoretically great software

which is to say, twine editor is far and away the best execution of "a text game maker for people who mostly make text and not games" that presently exists. it's notable for making wholly self-contained (read: does not require interpreter software) text games with functioning mechanics at about the level of code literacy you could feasibly ask from people who brushed off of other more complicated software

this is in large part because the text adventure and IF ecosystem has the same problem as the (similarly insular and incestuous) scorewriting ecosystem: all of the software is made to be used by a group of like 50 people who don't use anything else, so they just settle for whatever exists

twine solves a lot of these problems by simply existing as an html game maker that can automate all of the functions of a gamebook out of the box. the editor has features which (to me) seem to be inspired by scrivener, which is my favourite WYSIWYG writing software for longform fiction on the market (I prefer writing in LaTeX but I can acknowledge that's a habit I picked up and not an endorsement of LaTeX)

that being said, even though there's an obvious utility to being able to prototype out rpgs and such in twine incredibly quickly, I can't really recommend people... use twine for that. because of the problems.

the twine editor is also kind of beautiful for all the ways in which it issoftware designed to torture the user

twine exists with one foot in "games" and one foot in "writing" and this overlap is the totality of its intended use. this space of compromise is still the best that's been made for this specific scene, but it means that edge cases are (at absolute best) operating twine in much the way that someone being hanging onto the edge of a shattered cockpit is operating an airliner

I could go on and on about the specific elements of twine's design that drive me insane, and in how it punishes you both for making too much of a book and for making too much of a game, but there's one problem that kind of sticks out as a simulacrum of this whole issue

by design, twine organises its projects as a story map. this is kind of like the middle point between scrivener's storyboard and a whiteboard, but specialised for use in making text games. this means that each node on it is one screen, called a card, that you can open and edit

doing this opens a window for text input, and the exact contents of this window kind of depend on which format you're writing your story in, but as a rule, you write everything into these sub-windows and that's the game

because twine runs in one window, these cards open more like menus than true windows. you can have one open at a time, and when you need to test something, you close the window and press the button to test the game. simple as

now, for making software, it's helpful to have a versioning function of some sort in case, among other reasons, you fuck something up in a way you don't immediately notice

for writing, you usually want some sort of undo function, in case you accidentally delete something or edit over it

at the intersection of these two, twine does have an undo function. which works differently depending on which version of the editor you're using. in the web version, you get multiple layers of undo. that makes sense.

in the downloaded version, which is the version you have to use if you don't want to use your browser's local storage (?? you shouldn't be doing this) you get

one layer of undo.

in a modern text editor.

that you are expected to write in.

this is on top of the browser-hosted version of twine editor being significantly more stable than the desktop version, so that's obviously the version you're meant to use, which runs in stark contrast to like... how that should work. this should already be raising your blood pressure a little bit if you remember that the browser version of twine saves your project files to your browser's local storage

now, common to both versions is another important feature which seemingly exists to prevent data loss: twine automatically saves your changes when you exit out of a card

this means that, the moment you close a card to go test the changes you just made to your game, they are saved over the previous version of the game with no way to undo them

but there IS a way to get around this without having to write in an entirely separate word processor! several ways even. you can even use the downloaded version if you do this

duplicate the full project every single time you make changes that could necessitate an undo function

make a copy of every card you edit in case you need to revert to it after testing, then remember to delete it afterwards

if you're editing the cards themselves, see option 1, because there is no way to undo deletion of cards in the story map

and like... that's not good. it's kind of the hell machine for killing all human beings, actually

it's also not a problem remotely unique to twine, because this is the kind of thing you see in most niche-specialised software where there isn't really a distinction made between "this is an expected frustration of working on any artistic project" and "this is something completely insane that absolutely should not be the case and isn't tolerated in immediately adjacent comparable creative fields"

twine can be used to make longer projects, but at the point where you're recommending two layers of supporting software that overlap so hard with the editor that they should be redundancies, it becomes clear that the only thing it's really fit-for-purpose to do is non-linear fiction consisting of two or three paragraphs per card

and that's generally not what it's used for! because that sort of thing is almost universally understood as a stepping stone towards using twine for making either longform non-linear fiction or full-featured rpgs

twine could be really useful software, and in fairness it's generally better than the alternatives it supplanted in its niche (people making little interactive poems probably shouldn't be trying to use Inform or TADS), but it really seems like it was designed with as a cursed amulet meant to cause as much grief as possible while being difficult to justify throwing away

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collegeafricagroup33 · 2 years ago

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diablo4mobile · 2 years ago

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Diablo IV Mac, iOS and Android Mechanics

Diablo IV, the highly anticipated action role-playing game from Blizzard Entertainment, is finally on the horizon. This latest installment in the beloved Diablo franchise promises to be bigger, bolder, and more epic than ever before, with a brand-new storyline, stunning graphics, and a range of exciting mechanics that will keep gamers engaged for hours on end. In this article, we will take a closer look at some of the mechanics of Diablo IV, with a specific focus on how the game will function on Mac, Android, and iOS platforms. Remember that you can download the game completely for free. One of the key new features of Diablo IV is the introduction of an open-world environment. Players will now be able to explore a vast and varied landscape, full of hidden treasures, challenging enemies, and immersive storylines. The game will also feature a day-night cycle, which will affect gameplay in a variety of ways. For example, certain quests and events may only be available at certain times of the day, and enemies may be more or less powerful depending on whether it is day or night.

Diablo IV Mac, Android and iOS Mechanics

Another exciting mechanic in Diablo IV is the skill tree system. Unlike previous Diablo games, where players would gain new abilities and powers by leveling up, Diablo IV allows players to customize their characters' abilities and powers by investing points in a skill tree. This means that players will have much more control over how their character develops and evolves over time, and will be able to tailor their playstyle to suit their individual preferences. In terms of gameplay mechanics, Diablo IV is set to be a fast-paced and action-packed experience. Combat will be more fluid and dynamic than ever before, with a range of new skills and abilities that players can use to take down enemies. There will also be a greater focus on cooperative play, with players able to team up with friends and other players to take on challenging missions and quests. So, what about the specific mechanics of Diablo IV on Mac, Android, and iOS? Fortunately, Blizzard has confirmed that the game will be fully optimized for these platforms, with all of the same mechanics and features available across all devices. This means that whether you're playing on a powerful Mac desktop computer, a sleek Android smartphone, or an iOS tablet, you'll be able to experience the full range of Diablo IV's mechanics and gameplay. Overall, Diablo IV promises to be a truly epic gaming experience, with a range of exciting mechanics and features that will keep players engaged for hours on end. Whether you're a long-time fan of the franchise or a newcomer to the world of Diablo, this latest installment is sure to be one of the standout games of the year. So get ready to explore a vast and dangerous world, battle fearsome enemies, and unleash your inner demon hunter in Diablo IV! Read the full article

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ms-demeanor · 5 years ago

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You know what’s funny is whenever I make a tech post I get people going “this is blatantly untrue” and I get people going “this is really good information and everyone needs to know it” and the dividing line is how much time you spend with people who are tech literate.

Yep, I would tell my computer savvy friends where they could get keycaps and fix their keyboards; I don’t even have to bother telling my computer savvy friends how to run a fifteen year old laptop because we’re all pretty good at it.

But GODDAMN I just read a response to my “cheap computer season” post that claimed that it was totally reasonable to run a macbook from 2010 and

Look.

That’s not a reasonable thing to tell a student who needs a functional computer to do research and write papers. (have fun trying to find installation discs from when the OS was still named after cats and have fun trying to get a browser to get along with that OS)

You know why most people bring me laptops with missing keys? Because the key got ripped off by their two-year-old and damaged the soldering in the keyboard and I have no idea it’s going to be “oh, yeah, that’s a ten dollar fix” or “sorry, that’s going to be an hour and a half to disassemble and reassemble and we’ll have to order you a new keyboard specific to that model out of new old stock” and the thing is the second one is much, much, much more common in my experience than the first.

Do I think you need to replace a laptop when the bezel is cracked? No. I also don’t carry my laptop powered on in the bag with a flashdrive sticking out of the USB port. Customers do weird things that I don’t understand and when a customer tells me they want me to fix the bezel they think it’s a twenty-dollar snap-on repair because they have no idea how this works and then they get mad at me when I explain “no, you’ve gotta have this specific piece of plastic, these haven’t been made in five years, and you might be better off buying a used model online than trying to track down a new bezel.”

So here’s the thing: Can Macs get viruses?

There are three answers here.

“No, of course not, Macs are made to be virus-proof”

“Macs need antivirus protection because, while it is less common than infections for PCs, there are types of malware that can infect macs and it’s worthwhile to guard against that”

“tEcHnIcAlLy a virus has to be self-replicating and IOS’s file management system [or some other bullshit] prevents that so TECHNICALLY Macs can’t get viruses and what you need is anti-malware software if you need anything because you’re fairly likely to have security through obscurity”

I’m aware of the third position and voicing the second position to people who believe the first position.

YES TECHNICALLY YOU CAN KEEP A COMPUTER RUNNING INDEFINITELY AND YES IT’S TOTALLY POSSIBLE YOUR LAPTOP WILL LAST TEN YEARS.

“Well if you treat it right and run it well it’ll be in great shape for a long time”

YES THAT IS CORRECT DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE WHO DON’T WORK ON THEIR OWN CARS DRIVE AROUND WITH THE OIL CHANGE LIGHT ON FOR MONTHS?!?

Tons of people in the world today use computers. They use computers every day, they use computers at home and at school and at work.

Tons of people drive every day. They use cars for fun and for commuting and for their jobs.

That doesn’t mean that all (or even most, or even half) of the people using these things is any good at keeping them running, or even has the barest idea of how to start tracking down a problem.

Someone in the notes of that post described a green line on their screen and thought that was a symptom of hard drive problems. I don’t have the hours in the day to catch this person up to speed on why a display issue on a laptop isn’t indicative of hard drive issues.

Do you know how much people think it’s going to cost to get data off of a broken drive? Not “won’t power up” not “won’t spin” but “I dropped this and part fell off and now it won’t power up or spin and also the platter is chipped”? I’m going to have to send that shit to a clean room and the customer is *staggered* that it might cost more than a hundred dollars to get their data. “Outrageous, what kind of blackmail operation are you trying to run here, just plug it in and get my pictures.”

A year or so ago I was at Jiffy Lube (ew). I’d been shooting the shit with the mechanic when a parent and child rolled in in a panic. And they should have been panicking! They’d thrown a fucking rod because they’d been driving with no oil in the car for god knows how long because neither of them had had the oil changed in the two years they’d owned the vehicle.

*I* can keep a 30-year-old car running. I can put a belt back on an engine in a dark parking lot with a wrench and a headlamp. I can drop a gas tank and replace my fuel filter and thumb my nose at the mechanics who tried to upsell me on “replacing your old, worn-out air filter” the day after I’d popped a new one into my truck.

These folks couldn’t keep a new car running with three alarms telling them what was wrong.

*I* can power up my 2005 macbook running Leopard and use garage band to record a song or do some design work on my copy of Adobe CS3; I can kludge its FF3.5 browser into playing nice with the internet and accept that it’s going to be a slow piece of shit.

The lady who called me confused by the fact that the password to her email was different than the login information for her grocery store rewards account will not be able to function if she gets a pop-up that says she’s using an outdated browser and will think it’s a virus if her bank won’t let her log in on that browser.

And you know what, I’m kind of sick of this attitude.

I would *fucking adore it* if computers were actually easy to repair; I’d love it if you could run new OSs on old hardware (especially on macs because I think apple are kind of shitheads about planned obsolescence).

But you know what, no, most people *CAN’T* reasonably expect to use a ten-year-old computer and have pleasant experience of it. It’s going to run slow. It’s going to shut down when they don’t want it to. The battery is going to swell slightly with the heat and your touchpad is going to go nuts. Your USB ports will stop working. Standard wear and tear that most people don’t know how to protect against and don’t know how to repair is going to make it harder to use AND software requirements will outstrip the hardware capabilities of the computer.

If your old computer sucks it’s not your fault. If you can’t happily use a 10-year-old laptop to do your homework that’s okay, it wasn’t designed for you to use it that way and YOU SHOULDN’T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT.

Because that’s kind of what a lot of these “well anybody should realistically be able to run a laptop from 2010″ responses comes down to: if you need new hardware you’re just not doing it right. If you have to replace your computer you didn’t make good choices when you bought it. If your battery dies it’s because you didn’t take care of it.

No. No. No. No.

This shit is A) designed to fail and B) actually really hard to keep running (hey how many blown capacitors do you think someone has to have on their motherboard before you say it’s not their fault for wanting to replace the laptop)

ALSO SOMEONE IN THE RESPONSES OF THAT POST LITERALLY SAID THAT IF YOUR BATTERY DIED AT THREE YEARS IT WAS BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T DOING THE DRAIN CHARGE CYCLE RIGHT AND FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. It’s discharge cycles and heat, motherfucker; they are going to fail at some point and people shouldn’t feel bad if their batteries stop working after a couple years.

UGH.

You shouldn’t have to be a mechanic. You shouldn’t have to be a computer technician. Yeah, your shit will last longer if you know how to take care of it but, fuck. Imagine you were still using internet speeds from 2010. Imagine all your devices still had USB 2.0. Imagine you couldn’t log onto your online bank because your hardware won’t run he software that your bank recognizes because the hardware manufacturer decided it won’t support the older hardware.

What I was trying to get across in that initial post was “computers fail, and they fail pretty frequently; your life will be better and you will save money if you plan on replacing them at a regular interval and have reasonable expectations in terms of cost and failure. So buy a cheap computer now because you’re probably going to need one at some point”

And now I’ve got to Do A Yell about how there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism and it’s unreasonable to expect tired, overworked, broke people to become experts in computer repair in order to do their homework or play the goose game.

FUCK THAT.

IT’S CHEAP COMPUTER SEASON MOTHERFUCKERS. LAPTOP FAILURE RATES INCREASE AT THREE TO FIVE YEARS AND DESKTOP FAILURE RATES INCREASE AT FIVE TO SEVEN YEARS. RIGHT NOW THERE ARE DISCOUNTS ON NEW COMPUTERS AND IT’S CHEAP TO GET AN EXTENDED WARRANTY.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER AND WORK ON COMPUTERS IF YOU WANNA AND PLAN TO REPLACE REGULARLY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WORK ON COMPUTERS.

ALSO CHANGE YOUR FUCKING OIL YOU’RE PROBABLY DUE.

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mszegedy · 5 years ago

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You, too, can design a wrench to throw in the workings of the coronavirus

I pretty much never post about my job here. I do love my field, but it’s not a special interest of mine. Just a normal interest. And while the things I do are pretty easy to explain, it’s hard to explain why they matter.

Now it’s easy to explain why they matter, too. Unfortunately.

The term I’m most comfortable with for my job is protein engineer, but nobody uses that. So my bio says computational protein design specialist instead. I sit at a computer and design proteins. This is important because anything important that has ever happened has been accomplished with the help of proteins. They are the most useful thing to make living things out of, because you can use them as both structural components (struts, ropes, cages, armor plating, nets, pipes, spools) and as machines (assemblers, disassemblers, sorters, recyclers, dynamos, rotary motors, ratchet motors, pumps, locks and keys). They do all the things that make things be alive. (By the way, if you’re on desktop, every one of those words in the parentheses is a link, if you’re curious.)

More precisely, I wish I sat at my computer and designed proteins. Today, instead of doing that, I attended the first half of an emergency protein design conference called to discuss how we can design a protein that can be used to cure the coronavirus. It was five hours long and I’m really tired and I got nothing done today.

Even on a normal day, though, I don’t really design proteins. I just read papers, write programs that make charts, and write apologetic letters to my advisor.

This is because actually designing a protein is the easiest step. The rest is paperwork and tears. Designing a protein is so easy, actually, that I get computers to do it for me. But designing proteins is like playing Starcraft. You can beat a computer just by knowing what the hell you’re doing.

About a decade ago my research community made a program, called Foldit, that let anyone design proteins. We do the paperwork and tears, while you do the design. It’s a fair trade, because design is fun, and we still get paid. (Most of us, anyway.)

Right now, the world only has to accomplish one protein design task. This is the simplest it’s ever been: make a protein that sticks to some part of the spikes on the coronavirus. That’s it. Make the right protein, and you’ve cured the coronavirus.

Everybody in my research community is scrambling head over heels to attack the problem from all angles. With Foldit, you have… somewhere between 10 and 50 percent of those angles available to you. You make something even vaguely successful, and we can use it as fodder for our models and algorithms and clueless neural nets until we’ve aggregated the design for the stickiest motherfucking protein the coronavirus has ever seen. And it won’t be able to do anything to stop us.

Do you want to do something about the coronavirus, and think you can handle protein design? Read below the cut, I’ll explain exactly how you can do that. Do you want to do something about the coronavirus, and don’t think you can handle protein design? Read below the cut anyway, and you’ll change your mind, because protein design is about as hard as sculpting, except with a way lower skill ceiling.

Please help us. We believe in you. We discuss Foldit models at our conferences. We take you seriously. We take this pandemic seriously. We need you.

On board? Let’s dive in.

A protein is a sticky string. There’s two kinds of sticky: orange sticking to orange (”nonpolar” sticky), and red sticking to blue (”polar” sticky). Here’s a short protein, technically so short that we should refer to it as a “peptide”:

You can see that it’s organized into groups of 3, called “residues”: little red bit (a hydrogen), an optional orange bit of some kind (the “side chain”), and a blue bit (a carboxyl). At the ends, the red and blue bits get bigger. The fact that the red and blue bits are always there means that they can be arranged into some simple patterns, assuming there’s room. But let’s talk about the side chains for a moment.

Some side chains end in red and blue bits. These are the “polar” and “charged” side chains, and when the protein tangles itself into the right shape, they’re found on the outside. This is because outside the protein is water, and water molecules have a red part and a blue part, so the side chains want to stick to it. I put a water molecule, to scale, next to the first charged side chain, so you can have a visual. Polar and charged side chains are called “hydrophilic” side chains for this reason.

The pure orange “nonpolar” side chains, meanwhile, gather on the inside, sticking to each other in a gooey mess. They’re the opposite of hydrophilic: hydrophobic. When you achieve that gooey mess, you have “buried your hydrophobics”.

90% of figuring out what shape a protein will tangle up (euphemistically “fold”) into is burying your hydrophobics.

There’s only 20 kinds of side chains in total, and that’s also counting the weird residues with not-quite side chains like proline, that weird bend in the last but one residue in our little peptide, and glycine, the residue with no side chain at all. (Besides a measly hydrogen, and everyone knows hydrogens aren’t real. That’s a computational protein engineering injoke; feel free to use it. The joke is nobody knows exactly where hydrogens are, and nobody cares.) Here’s a family portrait:

I’m not gonna explain any of the weird ones here, because honestly, it’s not super important. Red sticks to blue, orange sticks to orange, and stuff that looks like it’s connected is connected. That’s it, that’s proteins. I guess it’s worth mentioning that the yellow parts are sulfur, but sulfurs are just large, bratty oxygens (the blue bits). They’re not special.

Remember how I said the regular alternation of red bits and blue bits on residues creates some simple, reliable patterns? “Some” is two. Well, technically a few more than two, but nobody really pays attention to the other ones, because they’re just knockoffs of the first two. Here is the first pattern. It’s the favorite pattern of isolated bits of protein with nothing better to do:

This is called an alpha helix. They’re stiff, like rods. You’ll see a lot of these. The other one happens when you lay bits of proteins side by side:

This is called a beta sheet. If you leave a bucket of any protein whatsoever in one place long enough, eventually it’ll fall apart and turn into these. That’s part of why cells have to clean their proteins up: otherwise, it’ll turn into this junk. (”This junk”, on the cellular level, is called amyloid fiber, and is deadly to the cell. On the human scale, it’s called silk, and it’s nice and soft.) But this is also a very structurally useful pattern; it creates tight but flexible weaves. They get shaped into barrels or parts of barrels, usually, but sometimes they get used as walls instead. And sometimes they’re very small and consist of just two short bits that need to get glued together at the sides.

The rest of the protein is just spaghetti, euphemistically called “loops”. The functional bits that attach to stuff outside the protein tend to be on the loops, because the loops are the most flexible and can be posed the most precisely. In real life, proteins are constantly undergoing vibrating motions on every level. The biggest motions are also the slowest; pac-man-shaped proteins will “breathe”, opening and closing at regular intervals. Usually the only time they’ll be able to bind stuff is when they’re open. The takeaway here is that all the stuff inside the protein is gonna wiggle anyway, and you have to make sure it looks the best when it’s wiggled open, if you’re trying to stick something.

Congratulations. That’s everything I know about how proteins get their shapes, pretty much. Your mission is now to make a protein that sticks really well to some important part of the coronavirus’s spikes. The spikes are made of protein, and when they get near an alveolar cell, they open up and jam a lockpick into a “lock” protein called ACE2 on the surface of the cell, which makes the cell sluuurrrp up the virus. Some good ideas are to cover the lockpick so it can’t activate the lock, or to jam the opening and closing mechanism so the spike’s shape gets distorted.

There’s also a couple of other proteins the coronavirus makes that you could try to mess up. A popular target is its two proteases. Viral proteins come like the plastic bits for assemblable toy models: all the pieces are there, but they’re connected together, and you have to break them apart before you can put them together. That’s what the proteases do. (The second protease also cuts off the “to be destroyed” tags that the cell’s proteins keep putting on the viral proteins.) It’s much harder to get your protein drug inside the cells, but once they’re there, they can be as effective as a drug that targets the virus before it gets into the cell. Leave the drug delivery to us. (Or to big pharma, idk. I got a C+ in drug delivery in undergrad, and got it bumped up to a B when I reminded the professor that my attendance grade was low because I was in the psych ward for a chunk of the semester. That’s still more drug delivery than most protein engineers have taken.)

You’re ready!

Here’s a “Getting started with Foldit” tutorial.

Here’s an in-depth analysis of the coronavirus spike for Foldit players, with an accounting of some of the more advanced tools at your disposal. (I highly recommend DDG, although it’s slow to compute in real time.)

#coronavirus #biochemistry #video games #covid-19 #covid19 #quarantine activities #molecular biology #proteins #protein folding #foldit #signal boost appreciated #coronavirus activities #biology #chemistry #computational biology #protein design

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ericleo108 · 4 years ago

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Sentientism 2021

Intro

Through the “108” book we know that God is the planet and is conscious through magnetism which also allows access to your brain. In other words, the planets and stars have an internal dynamo that makes a magnetic field that is conscious and is godly in comparison to human intelligence.

If you could set Jupiter’s magnetic field in the night sky it would be double the size of the moon. Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field. If you could see the nearest galaxy, andromeda in the night sky, it would be six times as wide as the moon.

How are we to understand the segway between godly intelligence and human intelligence? First and foremost, science. However, you have to know where, what, and why to test which is more philosophical. It’s up to philosophy to postulate and science to test those meditations.

Searching For Truth

Before I finished writing “108” I combed through philosophy to find anyone who thought anything close to thinking the planets and stars were conscious. I did find a couple, like Stephen Hawking, which I talk about in the book that thought there could be organisms living in the middle of the sun. But I couldn’t find anyone saying that the actual planet and atmosphere were alive and conscious. I also tried to find anyone that said they talked to Gaia or talked to a God other than Jesus.

I didn’t find much. Again, I’m an atheist. All this has to make sense in the physical world. I’ve had to reverse engineer how the voice in my head could be Gaia. I don’t think really smart people (like modern philosophers) have had the new information and perspective to see that the stars, planet, and atmosphere are alive. I probably would have never gotten there if it wasn’t for a voice in my head claiming to be the planet. Still, the evidence makes sense and we’re just too physically small and under-evolved to see the universe teaming with a different form of consciousness.

What is Sentientism?

Science can test the magnetism and try to do experimentation to assess whether the entire planet is conscious. Until then, there is one known communication mechanism I know of that I use every day. As much as my skeptical and scientific brain thinks it’s frivolous to elaborate on the voice in my head, like a prophet of old I can ask Gaia questions and divulge what she says. Such will be the beginnings of sentientism.

Knhoeing is the educational process of understanding how to know the planet’s godly consciousness. Sentientism is the religion of intelligent sentient beings that worship a natural god (Gaia) through appropriate (environmental) behaviors because they believe in natural consequence. Sentientism is a religion for and building off the already established sentientism that you can find defined on Wikipedia. For example, If you believe in the natural world you believe in global warming; sentientists worship through action so they may choose to get solar panels, drive electric, and be carbon neutral.

The whole point in sentientism is to create a religion to follow through common sense and rituals to come in tune and closer with oneself, nature, the planet, and the universe. Some of the rituals could include some of those that are already honored like Jesus’s birthday witch is really the winter solstice or Easter which is really the spring equinox.

Gaia Rules

Gaia is always telling me how she rules. She’s basically a ball of consciousness suspended in the sun's gravity so she may not have many options. The founding fathers were deists. They believed god created the world and just let it go. I believe this to be more accurate. Say the star at the middle of the galaxy is conscious and can alter the gravity and trajectory of the sun and our earth. That would make the galaxy like god, she could have created us and left us in the goldilocks zone to “grow.” It seems as if Gaia would have rules and she wouldn’t intervene even if she could.

In this writing, I’m going to focus on the relationship I have with Gaia, the conversations we’ve had, and what I’ve discovered. The first thing she made me aware of when she first started talking to me is that she has rules. It’s not that she can’t do it, she just chooses not to.

Gaia is smart. If the voice in my head is my subconscious it has a broad vocabulary, good ideas, nice communications, and intelligence. Once I was thinking of solutions for global warming. Since commercial cattle ranching is the leading cause of global warming Gaia suggested that we make all commercial cattle ranching illegal; you could still have them on regular farms. It would give people the freedom to eat beef while cutting down what makes it bad for the environment. Gaia would also talk to me about a sustainable free food system to set the appropriate sustainable economic and logistic model for businesses to follow. Gaia has told me she tracks and remembers the movements of everything throughout her lifetime, down to the atom.

You can read the “108” book for a further example of what communicating with Gaia is like but she likes cute things, she’s always acting as a fuzzy kitty. I’ve been homeless before and when I think about going back there Gaia will say “not my kitty.” Gaia can be sweet and she’ll make you laugh. When I used to get angry or scream at people in my head she’ll quickly segway the thought into an otter sneezing with a scrunched-up face. I love otters and I’ve always found it hilarious. Gaia told me how to fix my hip pain by telling me which muscles to stretch and what stretches to do.

Understanding Gaia’s existence doesn’t require faith. I’ve asked Gaia about the dinosaurs and why she let them go extinct, and she insists the sun drove an asteroid into her and it was his decision, “one that he didn’t take lightly.” Gaia says she molds evolution. I asked how. She points to how she is the environment and she could make, for example, Yellowstone blow. Yellowstone is actually a giant volcano that erupts every 100,000 years. Such an explosion would definitely change the environment, affect humans and wildlife, and make the environment harsher and therefore giving adaptive species a greater advantage than those that can’t adapt. Gaia says she chooses “a relatively compliant world for her species.” She says she loves humans and they’re fun to watch. The sun has promised her he won’t send an asteroid, but he will send a commit. Gaia says she is happy with the sun’s decision to end the dinosaurs “because it brought me you.”

Prove It

I always want Gaia to prove to me it’s actually her talking to me. I’ve been trying to find a way to prove that it’s the planet and not just a voice in my head. My thought was that if she is the planet, with her abilities, she should be able to reasonably predict the future. Gaia would tell me things like stem cell therapy is covered by Medicare or Bernie Sanders is going to win the primary. First of all, I didn't believe her. But second of all, I thought she was just trying to comfort me.

I was rather upset that she wouldn't predict the future. Come to find out she doesn't want to give me, quote “superpowers.” She doesn’t want me to be able to predict the future or become a prophet. She wants me to be a philosopher and feels she has already given me enough. She keeps on saying that she's going to prove that she's real and the planet. I guess I'm just going to have to try to find a different way of confirming my communications with the planet then seeing if it can predict the future.

Consciousness After Life

Gaia keeps on saying she’s gonna prove she’s the planet but I think I won’t find out till I die or unless I dedicate my life to it. I used to often think of being unplugged from the matrix, having that knife come out of my head, and Gaia is always like “you have no idea how real that is.” She is always saying to me “you won’t die.” She has clarified and by that she means my body will cease to function but my consciousness will continue. My consciousness will presumably be kept in the storage capacity of Earth’s dynamo and run like a “virtual computer” where I will still have consciousness, just without a body.

I write extensively about the computer screen she opened in my head back in 2017 in the “108” book. The screen laid over my vision and Gaia communicates with the soul. I think when we die we have a consciousness like that in which I experienced without the body. Your physical biology dies but our minds, which are attached to Gaia through earth's magnetic field, gets downloaded into the computer that is Gaia and our consciousness continues.

Remember The Name

About a year or two ago now, when Gaia first started talking to me I thought about what I should call a religion if I started one. I asked my friend Kyle telepathically what I should call it and he said “sentientism.” Since it was undoubtedly not Kyle, it was Gaia acting like him and must be what she wants her religion to be called. Little did I know that sentientism is an ethical philosophy that focuses on critical, evidence-based thinking and is an extension of humanism. It’s clear that if I am to create a religion, she wants it to be an evidence-based theoretical framework, and have rituals based on science and philosophy.

Gaia probably wouldn’t talk to someone (in their head) that would think she is Jesus, or she might take that avatar if you did believe in Jesus. Meaning, if the planet was going to communicate she might act like Jesus.

Perspective

When asked about the universe Gaia says “it’s like we’re in someone’s closet.” Gaia likes to mess with me so I remain skeptical. For a decade I've had my desktop or mobile screen saver as a full picture of the earth. I often look at it with the stars in the background and wonder what it's gotta be like to be Gaia. What are her relationships like with other planets? Would she even talk to us? It’s clear to me that since she has access to your brain through magnetism she can not only tell what you’re thinking but can feel your pain and happiness too. “Life isn’t fair,” she says, “but I do my best.”

It was discovered (but not peer-reviewed yet) that plants emit an ultrasonic noise when in distress. This is a great example of my thoughts and my communications to Gaia. I'm always looking for what is hidden in plain sight. As a psychologist, I understand the limits to knowledge and understanding are all in our heads. If we change our thinking we can change the world. Humans literally can't hear plants scream for their life because our ears are limited physically. What other findings are waiting to be discovered by changing our thinking and expand our perception beyond the human senses? What if it’s just a matter of time until we communicate openly with the planet?

Open Lines of Communication

What if we are already openly communicating with the planet? What if there is a mechanism of communication, but we were unaware of it? To imagine I often think about what it would be like to be a silent floating brain suspended in space by the earth’s gravity because that’s basically what we are dealing with. Gaia has no arms, or ears, or mouth. So how would she communicate or how could we find evidence of her influence?

It reminds me of the relationship between you and microscopic bugs that live on your pillow and eat the dead skin around your eyes and eyebrows at night. Were kinda like those microscopic bugs living on a human which is really Gaia. Maybe with her “gravity” she could send a comet and get rid of us if she wanted but she’d rather leave us alone.

The Unconscious Mind in Media

I think I have come across a way that the planet could be communicating and it’s like randonauting for thoughts. Basically, when your actions come into alignment with the music, media, or other thoughts you have at that moment, that is called a “Point of realization” (POR). Those points of realization create a mental framework to change your thoughts about the environment. Through small unnoticeable subtleties and influencing in your subconscious, Gaia is steering the mind of humanity.

To be clear, a “point of realization” (POR) is when you find yourself doing something physical in real life that is in associated coordination with the music or media. For example, suppose you had music playing and noticed that as the song says “I opened the door, went into the kitchen,” you were opening the door to go into the kitchen right as the artist sings that in the song. For an actual example, I have caught myself on multiple occasions while driving noticing I was turning on the bright lights right as Taylor Swift sings “headlights” from the lyric “Midnight, you come pick me up no headlights” from her song “Style.”

Anecdotal Example

The following are other anecdotal examples that I logged. If you pay attention you’ll see they happen often. At around 1:30 AM on October 17th I was in bed listening to Taylor Swift’s “Everything has changed” and I was feeling hungry. I made the decision that I was gonna eat an Atkins bar so I jumped up, grabbed a bar from the shelf next to my bed, and right as I opened the package Ed sang “and opened up the door for you.” (Right after, Taylor sings “and all I feel in my stomach is butterflies.”) I know I wasn’t opening a door but I was still doing the act of opening something right as the song said “open up.”

This brings up the question, did I grab the Atkins bar because I made up my mind about eating it and subconsciously reacted to coordinate the time of me opening up the bar with the music? ...or did the music, with its (also other associated) lyrical content (e.g. “stomach is butterflies”) make me hungry and drive me to grab that Atkins bar? If it did stimulate me to action, what does that say that I was in coordination with the music? Was it a combination of both influences? I would say this is random, chance, or happenstance but it really happens way too often to be a fluke!

For another example, right around 3:55 PM on Saturday, August 15th 2020 I was watching “Can HULK’S FIST Break Into A BANK SAFE?” and right at 6:58 when they say “it’s smoking” a smoke alarm went off in my apartment complex.

The “points of realization” (POR) don’t have to come in the form of media. You could be at a location and have a thought as you see something that brings you to a POR. This reminds me of another personal example of a point of realization. I was in the grocery store and I was maneuvering around an employee who was filling the same ice chest with ice cream. I patiently waited and while I did I was debating on how many items of ice cream I should get because the carb smart ones I like usually sell out quickly. I was specifically thinking I couldn’t get more than 2 because it wouldn’t fit in my fridge. I decided to buy them out at four of them but when I went to grabbed them the same female employee said “that’s not gonna fit” to another employee.

Bigger Picture

Like with most points of realization, it doesn’t give you an answer, but it makes you stop and think. In my perspective “Points of realization” are real, they happen all the time and you just don’t notice your physicality is in coordination with the media, music, or thoughts. This means your brain either subconsciously syncs your body with the media and calculates and coordinates the time and action to have a “point of realization” or these points are part of a larger communication mechanism designed to influence your mind by the conscious planet. It’s not a perfect system, you can’t teach mathematics, but you can subconsciously change attitudes, focus, and cognition through the subconscious influence of Gaia’s magnetism.

Gaia’s randonauting is like playing semantics. You don't say it directly but you talk around it. It's just like advertising works by influencing your subconscious until you obtain recognition and it becomes normal. Points of realization are even more subtle.

Give Me a Sign

Maybe this is one way in which Gaia “talks.” Basically through semantics and feelings. This is also a classic interaction with god. When people talk about God they always want a sign.

Two illustrations of the semantics of god are “Peter’s Prostate Exam” (linked) from Family Guy and the “I need a sign” scene from the movie Bruce Almighty. In “Bruce Almighty” god literally sends Bruce a sign but he doesn’t see the semantics of the message. In Family Guy, the reality of being given an exam won’t go away when he tries to run from reality by turning on the television which just reminds him of his current life. In effect, there’s Bruce and Peter. Bruce didn’t see the semantics and Peter did. It’s like The Truman show but everyone and all of life is being watched and guided by the planets and stars.

Imagination is Greater than Knowledge.

Scientists don’t know why at the quantum level when they observe a photon it turns from a wave to a particle. Watch episode 9, season 3 of Cosmos: Possible Worlds. Maybe the planets could communicate in the same way as photons do when they’re observed but separated by millions of miles as explained by quantum entanglement in the episode. Is there information contained in a photon, including in the x-ray and gamma spectrum, that a planet can read when it comes in contact with its magnetic field?

Gaia’s Biology

I often think about what it would take for Gaia to stop being conscious. Does her rotation around the sun with a moon stretch the planet to create the forces to keep up the heat for her internal dynamo? Will Gaia die when her core stops being molten?

Earth may still be a floating rock but does the live spirit of Gaia made possible by its molten internal dynamo die? When the internal dynamo dies and the center becomes solid does the magnetic field stop? My thinking is Gaia dies when her core turns solid and she not longer has a magnetic field.

#sentientism #knhoeing #gaia #rules #jesus #god #randonauting #randonautica

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marithlizard · 4 years ago

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Ace Attorney: Rise From the Ashes (part 1)

A couple of people expressed interest in a writeup as I play through the game, so I thought I’d give quasi-liveblogging a try. It might have come out to be too detailed - let me know if the result is amusing enough to go through the next part.

(I knew this already, but wow liveblogging is a lot of work. And it must take twice as much effort to do this for a show and to include screencaps.)

(I’ve tried three times now to put proper line breaks/spacing in, and they’re just not displaying, at least on desktop. I’m sorry.)

A brief, stylized opening designed not to give away much, except that a creepy-looking doll is involved.

Two months? Phoenix, you haven't taken a single client since Maya left? a) are you depressed, and b) how are you paying rent on the office?

Ookay, you're not going to tell us why you've been moping around. I don't think it's that you have a crush on Maya. Are you just not able to function without a partner? That's not great for your ability to survive, but I can sympathize.

New perky assistant, right on cue. (A partner who isn't a young girl would be a nice change now and then. (But not Larry. Anyone but Larry. In fact, I take it back, this girl with the pink sunglasses will do just fine.))

Oof, Phoenix still not being able to say out loud that Mia's dead.

In the first two minutes pink-glasses girl has asserted that he's his female boss, the coffee boy, and 'better than nothing'. Aha! The problem with all the clients he turned down was that they didn't insult him enough.

Kid, you can't be more than sixteen, and you have silly face buttons on your lab coat. You are about as much a scientific investigator as Photography Girl last episode was a journalist. ...But apparently you have a future job lined up in forensics, so you're more organized than she was. And this world certainly could use more competent crime scene analysis.

"I promised her I'd bring Mia Fey". Huh. Is Mia's murder not well-known to the public, then, even though the Edgeworth case apparently got famous enough to earn Phoenix a bit of a reputation?

A murder charge with an eyewitness, and an assistant who "kind of hates" her sister the defendant. Sounds hopeless, let's do it! Off to the Detention Center.

...Did we just overhear the defendant threatening their terrified guard with a pay freeze? Is she their boss? And if she's someone that high up, why doesn't she already have a better defense attorney?

I like Lana Skye's character design. She looks as though she should be starring in a Takurazuka revue show, swearing eternal star-crossed love to a princess.

She insists she did it. By genre convention we know that can't be the case; my first assumption is that she's being forced to cover for someone, blackmailed or coerced by someone higher up in the system. But it would certainly be interesting if it turned out she was covering for Ema.

Must....resist...plotbunnies...

Oookay. A prosecutor should certainly know ways to commit murder without getting caught, and this sounds like the opposite of those ways. WHY does she claim she did this? You're not even going to ask her, are you? *headdesk*

Ema: "Please ignore that totally gay statement by my sister, because I certainly plan to!"

Lana: "No don't help me, go away go away go away go away go awa-oh fine."

Hmmm. From Ema's description of the behavior change, Lana has been being blackmailed or coerced for a long time now.

Time to go investigate the underground parking garage.

Attorneys aren't supposed to examine crime scenes, and defense attorneys aren't entitled to a copy of the police investigation reports. What does a "normal" defense attorney in this world do for their clients then? Always assume a loss and try to negotiate a plea bargain? I wonder if we'll ever get to see one in action.

It's...a cop with a cowboy fetish? Do police not have dress codes here? Maybe they're waived above a certain level, and some people take pride in cultivating a unique style to show off that they can. It would explain Edgeworth.

You are dramatically pretending to shave in front of us. Also you just called Ema a baby cow. Although you know her and seem sympathetic - I guess Lana brought her little sister to the office sometimes? Not sure what I think of you, Jake Marshall.

I am revising my stance. Being Phoenix's partner on a case requires precise and narrow qualifications. Specifically, just enough sense to stop him from doing something breathtakingly stupid, but not enough sense to take the badge firmly away from him and do the job themselves. Ema fits the bill perfectly.

Ooh, new mechanic! And an ID card number for a Bruce Goodman who dresses like a white-hat agent in Spy vs Spy. (I was trained on games that would require you to write that number down and remember it later, but AA will certainly be more forgiving.)

Using the new mechanic on Phoenix's attorney badge, I deduce that at some point this game it will be stolen.

It doesn't explain Lana's supposed actions, but that red sports car does kind of scream "My owner is a jerk, stuff a body in my trunk." Instead of a chalk outline, they seem to have outlined the hanging body with string? Is that actually a technique, and how do they get the rope to stay put in precise outline?

And the cowboy gives them a hint. So he's on their side but constrained by rules?

Lady put the boobs away. Why are you selling sushi in a negligee under a fur coat, at a crime scene? And why would anyone trust food from someone whose nickname is "the Cough-Up Queen"?

Angel Starr, dominatrix lunch lady. It says something that this is not the weirdest witness in an AA game so far.

She hates prosecutors, and therefore especially Lana. Not a trustworthy witness. But it's probably no fun to cater for a group of (relatively) wealthy and powerful people you despise. Especially if they're smugly giving awards to each other as they eat lunches. (Eeeevil lunches. She probably coughs on them.)

"The rhythmic beat of Lana Skye's knife"... very poetic, but didn't Lana say the victim was stabbed only once?

We can't get back to the car, phooey, so up to the prosecutor's office we go.

Pink...everywhere...no question whose office this is, even if one of his outfits wasn't framed on the wall. (why do you frame an outfit?) I see a very ugly trophy on the sofa, so he's the one who won the award.

Ema: "this is the kind of room that just screams 'I can do the job'. Actually it screams 'I don't need to pretend to be heterosexual', but the two aren't unconnected.

Is it just me or is that trophy broken off at the top?

Edgeworth did you just roll with being insulted and make a joke about it? I'm so proud of you, you've clearly relaxed since your murder trial!

BWAHAHA of course it was Edgeworth's car.

Wendy the security guard from the Steel Samurai case is sending Edgeworth expensive presents?? a) that's both funny and a little sad, b) how can she afford it, and c) he keeps and displays them which is very courteous.

WAIT did you - did this game just heavily suggest Gumshoe hangs out in the office a lot? Twice, once when you look at the shelves and again when you look at the desk? I don't ship it, but this is the point where I start to see why people do.

Awwww he's embarrassed about the trophy, that's cute. So he's the one who "devours the evillest lunches of all", hmm? I wouldn't have thought the Cough-Up Queen's weird not-even-fresh lunches would appeal to Edgeworth's refined tastes.

Ema actually has a bit of a crush, from the way she's rhapsodizing about Edgeworth sleeping on the sofa. d'awww. And I definitely want to know the story behind the outfit. Made by his mom and too precious to wear?

Edgeworth, no one thinks you did it. Sheesh. He certainly doesn't sound happy about having to prosecute Lana, even though he believes she's guilty. His car, his knife... it almost seems like this is a plot aimed at him, or perhaps a plot against Lana with a healthy dose of fuck-you-too-Edgeworth to it.

Huh. Maybe it *is* aimed at him. I've been assuming all this time from his behavior on the stand that Edgeworth has indeed been messing with evidence to convict obviously innocent people, and also assuming that it's common practice in this corrupt justice system. (Much as it is in Japan and in the US). But the way he's talking about rumors right now, it sounds more like he's being slandered. And he thinks the award he was given was out of mockery. Ouch.

So yes, the trophy is broken. (In RWBY, you assume everything is a gun; in AA, you assume everything is a murder weapon. It probably broke when it was used to hit someone over the head.)

Evidence transferal day, huh? Was the murder timed to draw attention away from a case being closed? And Edgeworth parked his car only three minutes before Goodman was stabbed and thrown into its trunk? No way. He was there for the murder, or more likely that's not when the murder happened. (Is he being coerced like Lana? I don't think so, but it's possible.)

Enter an idiot mailman with a bandaged hand. And exit, with sniveling. What was that about?

And a hint to go investigate at the police station. Is Edgeworth being friendly, attempting to signal something, or merely aware that the most efficient way to get rid of Phoenix is to give him a clue to chase?

The police department entrance, with some sort of plywood jester figure in front of it. We're offhandedly informed that it took 30 minutes to get there from Edgeworth's office, which means that will be important later.

This is the creepy doll from the intro! It's clearly meant to be a mascot. Was it made by the sniveling mailman? There's a certain resemblance...

No, I should've guessed that Gumshoe made it. I mean ... mechanically it's pretty clever for someone who's not a craftsman or engineer? Moving articulated limbs and all. It's just the aesthetics and design he shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near.

Yes, yes it is odd that only the top-ranked people are being allowed to work on the case. Are they all in on it? A patrolman in charge of the crime scene instead of a detective - that suggests Marshall is part of the conspiracy. I'm thinking the dominatrix lunch lady is too.

Gumshoe is so happy about the prosecutor's award - Edgeworth probably didn't have the heart to say that for him it's a mockery. Daww. (Also there's something endearingly cheerful about his hopping-caterpillar eyebrows.) He's also being much more helpful than his superiors would want, probably just because he thinks of Phoenix as an ally in general now.

Back to the parking lot, with a letter of introduction in hand this time.

I genuinely can't tell if the lunch lady is a sex worker, if she actually has multiple boyfriends, or if that's code for her professional contacts in whatever she's really doing here. (And that's an interesting cultural bit, isn't it - any of those options seem possible, and I'm not expecting any of the characters to question her competence or morality because of it, not even in court. If this was a US-made game my expectations would be...different.)

"Good men always die young"...I see what you did there, Marshall.

Autopsy report confirms one stab wound. Lana and the victim worked together on "a case a few years back", ding ding ding. Someone didn't want the evidence for that case transferred. Or looked at.

Marshall used to be a detective but got demoted? And he's lying about why he was assigned to the crime scene, and telling us Gumshoe is off the case because he's friends with Edgeworth. The police chief, whoever he is, is now at the top of my suspect list.

Happily, the game will let me do dumbass things like show off Goodman's ID card without consequences. Marshall seems very uninterested in it and why it was found so far from the spot of the murder, which I take to mean "we have our official narrative, don't go messing it up with facts or evidence."

Finally we can examine the car! First up, Lana's cellphone. The whole business about hitting redial and somehow not knowing that Ema's phone rang was weird. Phoenix’s lie couldn't possibly have fooled Marshall, who is bizarrely claiming there's no way to know who the last call was made to. It's an odd thing to conceal, even given the “no facts please we have our narrative” stance. Maybe he's trying to protect Ema somehow?)

Marshall said the rumors about Edgeworth came from Lana. And we have a note found in the trunk: 6-7S 12/2, on a piece of Goodman's stationery.

Er, yeah, Ema, why didn't you mention your sister called you 3 minutes after the claimed murder time? If Lana hung up right away that's hardly incriminating for either of you.

End of Day One! We are, as usual, completely unprepared for tomorrow morning's trial.

#ace attorney #rise from the ashes #ace attorney spoilers

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collegeafricagroup33 · 2 years ago

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Microsoft Workplace 2019 Residence & Enterprise Edition

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dominickfxog721-blog · 4 years ago

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10 Facts About Tech Support That Will Instantly Put You In A Good Mood

Why You Never Found Supporting Your Product: How To Provide Technical Support ... to Be Important

Table of ContentsInsanely neat Ideas That Three Simple Steps To Providing Better Customer Support ... Will Change ForeverWhat to do About Support Services - Industry Trends & Best Practices - Tsia - Tsia Before it's Too LateThe 6 Fundamentals of What Does A Technical Support Specialist Do? ‐ Careerexplorer Most People Get Wrong

Even for products aimed at highly literate users, understanding that somebody is on hand to respond to questions or repair bugs can influence the decision to purchase or register - different. Users will constantly require support (inside). You could have a bulletproof product and the most exceptional tutorials and paperwork, and somebody will find a method to break it or just not read the details staring them in the face.

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But you need to anticipate to use support and develop it into the rate of your item. Your support group should likewise assist you track the quantity of time being used up by assistance, so that you can prepare for future requirements (network). If you are a small company whose product developers are supporting the item at present, knowing the quantity of time each license or user requires for assistance on average will enable you to predict when you may need to employ additional support personnel. labeled.

Depending upon the product and the individuals utilizing it, you may offer some or all of the following kinds of assistance: Phone, Email, Social media, Ticketing system,Real-time chat. Supporting users by phone is lengthy, however for some kinds of items, it can reassure potential buyers, especially if they are not Internet-savvy or if the product deals with delicate information (for instance, monetary or health data) (block diagram).

You can take phone support even more by offering a remote-desktop function to help customers right on their computer system. We picked not to use phone support at Perch, because the assistance requests we get typically require us to take a look at a client's config file, diagnostic report or design template code (architecture). So, a preliminary phone conversation would simply raise the expense of supporting customers, since we 'd need to ask to send this information by email or some other method - architecture.

Also, monitor the time you invest on this and the concerns that customers raise so that you can combine it with the details that you gather by means of e-mail or your online assistance desk. Image source: Opensourceway. A great deal of companies start with e-mail support. Merely publish an email address, and respond to questions as they come in.

What to do About The Ultimate Guide To Training For Customer Service & Support Before it's Too Late

However, it gets tricky if you are not the only person supporting the item. If all of the support personnel logs into the same mailbox, two people might really quickly answer the very same question, or a demand might get overlooked due to the fact that everybody thinks another person is dealing with it (inside). Email is also less than perfect for tracking requests with time and for working out the quantity of time you spend handling them.

If email is your primary assistance mechanism, then think about establishing template actions to typical demands, much as you would use canned actions in a help desk system (as I'll describe below). Don't forget to keep enhancing, contributing to and remedying these actions as your site or item modifications. Unintentionally giving out old guidance is easy when these design templates get out of date.

Social network should be a part of your assistance system, but it should not be the only way that you assist people - block diagram. Having the ability to quickly respond to somebody who is having a problem or has a question about your item is incredibly powerful. drawing. We have actually set up searches in our Twitter customers, so as quickly as someone points out Perch, we can respond.

It is necessary that you not appear to pester potential customers; just provide them a method to ask informally about anything on their mind. motherboard. If you have personnel dedicated to support on Twitter, ensure they are empowered to assist people. engineering. Lots of big companies have dedicated Twitter support personnel who just appear able to direct individuals to responses on the business site, which is often more frustrating than useful! T-Mobile in the UK deals with Twitter support extremely well via its @TMobileUKhelp account.

Little companies can do social media really well, often better than big companies. If a client is using Twitter to vent their disappointment, a couple of fast and handy messages can turn them from "I'm so annoyed" to "Wow! Assistance for this product is amazing!" People are normally very comprehending about issues as long as they can get assist rapidly (output).

Why Women Love Customer Comments About Stata Tech Support - Stata More Than Men

For example, at Perch, numerous concerns need us to see the user's code or to ask to try something - drawing. In these cases, you need to be able to direct them to another channel, whether a ticketing system or even an email address. Long conversations over Twitter tend not to be really useful; so, unless I can address the inquiry in one or 2 messages, I point the user to our ticketing system or online forum, where I can pick up the conversation and offer better details (network).

This support group can often be combined with the methods noted above - basic. For example, many systems can turn inbound emails into tickets, or can log phone sessions in an useful format, or have a user interface where users can send tickets directly. unit. Ticketing systems make the process of providing support much easier when numerous employee are included, due to the fact that you can see whether a demand is being reacted to and who is working on it.

To utilize a, when we released Perch just over 2 years back, we began utilizing a hosted software-as-a-service system called Tender. Tender is a fairly light-weight system that allows users to submit tickets that are either public (noticeable and answerable by anybody, not just support personnel) or personal (noticeable only to support personnel).

First, we didn't desire our ticketing system to operate as have a peek here I.T. Services Los Angeles a forum, so we set up a different forum somewhere else. engineering. But this indicated that people needed to look in two locations for answers: the online forum and the ticketing system. Our paperwork was also situated elsewhere - drawing. Secondly, because anybody could view and react to support queries, we often saw customers themselves responding to tickets sent by other consumers; frequently the advice was handy, but in some cases it was inaccurate or complicated, and clients could not tell the difference in between main actions and responses from well-meaning customers.

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verus-veritas · 6 years ago

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Metabods: Change of Mind (1)

Time for another favourite story of mine. It’s a bodyswap story written by “Mango Deville” on the Metabods site. I really, really love this story and it’s definitely one of the Top 3 Best Bodyswap Stories of all time! /Verus

This happened a few years ago now.

Stuart was just lying there, unable to do anything with his life. I had come into his room on a late night prowl of the hospice made more restless than normal that night due to the news I had received that day. My suspicions had been confirmed, I had inoperable liver, stomach and bowel cancer giving me only a few more months to live.

Not that I could really complain, at 64 years of age I know that I had had a reasonably long and active life. Although I hadn't been in an intimate relationship since my last lover and I parted company twenty-five years ago I had to be grateful for what I'd had. Let's face it, it was a life of sorts at least, unlike some of the patients whose physical welfare I tended as the resident physician and who tonight I looked in on. Most were here only due to the “wonders” of modern medical technology.

Case in point was Stuart here, 23-year-old son of a wealthy industrialist, all but killed in a motorcycle accident on the family estate about a year ago; physically his young body had healed completely, flawlessly you might even say. His brain, however, had never recovered; he had never regained consciousness and brain scans failed to reveal any activity. In a less advanced society he would have died and been laid to rest after the accident. But his parents had denied him this natural process, refusing to accept the medical facts and well able to afford 24 x 7 intensive care for what was basically only the shell of the vivacious and high-spirited man-boy that I had also known, as private physician to the family. His mother regularly spent long hours by his bedside trying to revive him with her conversation and massaging his surprisingly still very fit body; there were hardly any signs of wasting away, a rare situation that gave her hope. But there was never any response and it was probably a matter of time before they finally accepted the inevitable and let him go.

I looked ruefully at Stuart, his chest rising and falling rhythmically but somehow mechanically; in the dim light I could see the heart stimulating pad that was taped to his firm chest. A respirator sat beside the bed but it was not expected to ever be used. During my tenure at the hospice I had grown to accept the tragic waste of patients like this as part of life's cruel irony. In the soft glow of the machines that were keeping his body alive and on that day of all days the irony of the empty shell of such a beautiful youth lying here for want of an active brain resounded heavily in my mind. Irony, because for want of just such a healthy body my brain would soon be silent like his.

Many thoughts had gone through my head that day but I don't quite know what prompted me to decide to try out such a crazy idea. For some years to relieve the boredom of my normal work I had experimented with brain wave patterning, always with laboratory animals of course but ultimately as a possible means of cancelling out criminal and antisocial behaviour in humans too. I was not unaware of the ethical dilemma of this concept but was not really expecting any major breakthroughs to need to worry about those realities now, if ever. And now it appears that nothing would ever come of it anyway, despite some interesting results among some of the larger mammal subjects I had tried lately. The concept was for the “good” brain wave patterns of one subject to be read into a computer and “mapped” into the other subject's brain, erasing the negative patterns. I had been experimenting with horses recently (the hospice kept a few for the active but terminally ill patients to enjoy) but to get the strength of signal required there had been problems with feedback. The donor subject would get some of the recipient's brainwaves back through the system, usually for example it would respond to the recipient's name (as well as it's own still) and other behavioural anomalies. It was as though there'd been a slight merger of memory. Certainly the recipient benefited from the experience as behavioural patterns immediately took on the donor horse's profile; it even responded to the donor horse's name! There was some evidence of a merger on this side too.

Of course all this experimentation was done on the quiet and was completely unknown to the other staff of the hospice, but I had documented everything I had done on the laptop and the main copies were on my desktop computer at home.

Perhaps it was ill-formed thought processes caused by the reaction to my bad news but also there was a feeling that maybe my experiments could help Stuart here and perhaps other patients like him. There was not also some degree of pride in the thought that my “brain” was somewhat worth saving; having been gay all my life had meant I had not had children to pass any of my characteristics on to. Perhaps I could pass my brainwaves over to Stuart and he would be able to function again? At the same time it would be like I was passing him some of myself, my characteristics so that he could make use of them. I decided there was nothing for either of us to lose, either of our lives would be measured in months now, as things stood.

So that night I went back to my office and got my experimental apparatus, consisting of a laptop computer, a pair of skullcaps, an electrical transformer and some loops of wiring to connect them all together. On my return I plugged in the transformer and connected the skullcaps to it and the laptop in parallel. I booted up the computer and loaded the program and realised I would need to modify the parameters for the different body weights (for the electrical charges) and relative brain masses (for the mapping) of humans compared to horses. I entered the data and the computer quickly calculated the settings it would feed to the rest of the apparatus. I positioned a chair by the bed and placed the laptop next to Stuart's left arm, facing the chair. I then placed the recipient's skullcap on his head and located it carefully, as I had learned the criticality of its correct positioning with the previous experiments. Stuart at least did not move with the unfamiliarity of it, unlike the horses.

The other cap I placed on my own head and, using the mirror across the room over the washbasin in which I could see myself from where I stood next to the bed, positioned it carefully. I sat on the chair and placed my right hand in Stuart's left one and clasped it tightly (this wasn't necessary but I appreciated the feeling of warmth it gave me). With my left hand I clicked the laptop mouse button to initiate the sequence. I remember the feeling of buzzing in my brain rising from almost nothing to what no doubt had caused the horses to react nervously. For them I had resorted to mild sedatives recently but had not even thought of it for myself, having only just decided to do this on the spur of the moment. It was nothing really compared to some of the pain of the cancers I was carrying in my body. The buzzing was getting to be most objectionable and I remember thinking that at least I was confident that Stuart would not be feeling anything. And then I blacked out.

I woke with a jolt, the buzzing in my head was down again to a bare minimum. I went to open my eyes but the lids seemed strangely heavy as they do when you are awakened suddenly from a long deep sleep. My eyes took some time to focus clearly though there was no problem seeing with the light in the room—I could make out the clock on the wall across from me, it read a quarter to 1, about 12 minutes after I had started my “experiment”.

Then it struck me! I was looking at the clock from a different angle from what I should have, sitting on the low patient's chair beside the bed; I was higher than that and my neck was at a reclined angle from which it was a slight strain to focus on the clock. And I could feel a hand in mine but it was my left hand, not my right one!

Noting the stiffness of my body I pushed myself upright with my free hand and realised it was the bed I was on, not the chair! And the hand I was holding was that of an older overweight man who was slumped motionless in that very chair I was sure I had been sitting in only minutes before. And that man was me! I was looking at my own body from afar—was this an out-of-body experience? Slightly panicky, I searched the room and my eyes fell onto the mirror over the washbasin and there was the ultimate shock! Looking back at me was Stuart, animated and sitting up in bed! And I saw the startled look on his face in complete accord with my emotions. I moved my head and Stuart moved his too! I raised my right arm and waved my hand and Stuart raised his arm and waved back at me. How could this be, was this possible, was I inside of Stuart's body?

Just then the fact that I (or was it Stuart?) was still wearing the skullcap caught my attention—perhaps instead of merely transferring brainwaves more than that had gone across; my consciousness in fact! So where had Stuart's consciousness gone? But then he hadn't had any consciousness had he? Is that why my (former) body lay slouched in the chair? As the thought dawned on me I instinctively reached up and removed the skullcap and it's wiring from my.. er.. Stuart's head. How would I explain this, that the former me was now at least comatose possibly dead and I was now alive inside of Stuart's body? It would appear to everyone that I had “stolen” his body! And what a body to steal! Prime of youth 6 foot 2 23 year old with a slim but muscular physique, blue green eyes and sandy coloured hair. And then there was his flawless skin, skin that when he arrived last year had acquired a golden hue from outdoor activities in the summer months but was by now somewhat paler from his time in the hospice. No one would ever understand.

I reached over and saw that my former self was indeed lifeless. Without brain activity and the life-support system that had kept Stuart's body alive all these months it had probably taken no time at all for the body to die, certainly less than the 10 minutes I had been unconscious. There was obviously no going back now. In a strangely horrified reaction to something that I had called “me” for over 60 years I shook free of the hand that still clasped mine.

Perhaps I could hide what had actually happened? My brain ticked over quickly—I would have to remove all traces of the “experiment”. With some effort I reached over and removed the skullcap from what was formerly my head. I wrapped the two of them together and reaching down to the other side of the bed, opened the cupboard door and tossed them inside. The transformer was a standard issue one though there had not been need of one for any of the equipment in Stuart's room. Again with some effort I reached down and switched it off. I picked up the laptop computer from the bed; I could see from its display that it had been coordinating and recording the miraculous process that I had just been through. Somehow I had to save this data but not let it get into anyone else's hands, of course. Fortunately I had previously loaded a rewriteable CD into the machine as I had previously found this to be the easiest and most secure way to transfer data from my experiments to the desktop at home. I quickly typed in the commands to copy the data onto the CD, noting the stiffness in my fingers. I guess when you haven't used your muscles for months, as Stuart hadn't, you can't expect them to be anything but stiff, despite his mother's massages.

My immediate thought was to delete the files from the laptop lest someone discover them but stopped myself; I normally waited till I knew the CD could be read before deleting the files, a habit formed from making an early mistake with saving data. I remembered I could encrypt them so did so and set the password to “Change_Of_Mind”, my “codename” for the experimental work I had been doing. I removed the CD and placed it into an empty CD case that I saw was lying on top of the bedside cupboard, next to the portable CD player with which I had seen Stuart's mother play his favourite music in her efforts to revive him.

Finally I pushed my former body back into the chair and slumped it over to one side (away from me).

I closed down the experiment program and opened my expenses spreadsheet, did a minor change so that it would look like I had been working on it, and launched the screensaver program. I positioned the machine on “my” lap and arranged “my” right hand as though I had been typing but it had fallen loose.

Satisfied that most of the evidence of my experiment was now removed and a plausible view of “my” former body's death was established I lay back for a minute to think about how I could “become Stuart”. I knew the boy well enough, delivering him and being the family physician for all his 23 years, but it was gonna to be hard for them to accept the inevitable differences in our personalities. I decided that perhaps they would believe that it was the result of the months of coma, a form of amnesia, maybe. I, too, would need to remember what it was like to be young and free of worries.

I had been lying there for about 15 minutes and realised one last thing. I was supposed to be comatose and there I would be perfectly normal in the morning when someone would find us. Only one thing to do, knock myself out for some time and then I could “awake”, to everyone's miraculous relief, no doubt! I remembered the tranquillisers that I had been using to give myself a few hours sleep each night, relief from the pain of the cancers. They were in my breast pocket! I reached over and gently removed the strip, took four from it, replaced the rest and then smoothed down the jacket again. From the cupboard I took the glass of water Stuart's mother used to moisten his lips... er... my lips with. Swallowing the pills was not easy (even my throat muscles were unused to activity) but after a moment I'd got them all down.

I lay for another 10 minutes or so before I could feel their effect but while I was waiting another thought occurred to me. Once or twice I had arrived to visit Stuart as the hospice's Chief nurse Peter had been finishing sponge bathing Stuart. I had been slightly jealous of the strongly built male nurse's job, really only when it came to Stuart, I admit, but couldn't help wondering at his enthusiasm to take on this particular patient with such personal zeal. My suspicions were confirmed when driving past a gay bar on the other side of town one night I saw Peter coming out of the bar, and he wasn't alone. That was some time back and I had seen him again on two more recent occasions also leaving the bar. But both of the later times he was alone which had surprised me because not only was he well built but he was quite good looking with a white blond mop of hair and possibly Nordic features. I reminded myself that gay life in our town was not necessarily a hectic social whirl (it certainly never had been for me my whole life) and with shift work perhaps Peter did not often meet other available gay men. The second time I saw him come out alone I actually felt real sympathy for the man.

On the last occasion that I had arrived before Peter had quite finished Stuart's sponge batch I discovered that he was gently cleansing Stuart's genitals, and the sight of it was enough to make me even more jealous. From where I stood at the doorway I could see that Stuart's penis and balls were quite large and not only was Peter bathing them meticulously he was obviously enjoying the moment too, from the sizeable bulge I could see in his white uniform trousers. I momentarily wondered had Stuart gotten an erection then, as a response to the warm soapy water, whether Peter would have “helped him out” if he had thought he was not likely to be disturbed. The thought had sustained me for a number of nights in my own bed, too.

I raised my “new” hand and looked at it; it was a reasonable size for a man. I then thrust it down under the covers until I located “my” genitals. Sure enough the penis I felt there was a size that surprised me even at such close quarters and my balls were easily larger than my hand could grasp together. I could almost feel an erection coming on (I was starting to get used to feeling things through Stuart's body) but the tranquillisers were kicking in. Instead I contentedly dropped the weighty objects between “my” legs and fell into a heavy sleep in which, I am now convinced, parts of Stuart's life were revealed to me in flashbacks. This would prove to be a common occurrence over the next few months.

(End of part one)

Source: “Change of mind” by Mango Deville on Metabods.com

#bodyswap #jock #selflove #permanent #metabods #changeofmind

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superheroes-of-color · 5 years ago

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Cleaning Macbook Pro 2016 keyboard

Cleaning Macbook Pro 2016 keyboard The keyboard is somewhat covered. If I eat meat and the risk of cancer doubles, it does not mean that I will get sick. Doubling then means risk instead of 0.01% is 0.02%, which is twice as high but still low. If you are still noticing dust from one key to another, or if you want to make sure the cleaning is accurate, take the air can again and change the angle of the keyboard. All of the material I've listed in the previous lines is available in stores near you (both supermarkets and stores that specialize in selling PC equipment and online). If you have an Apple laptop from 2016 or 2017, we do not recommend removing the keys from your keyboard. So, I don't mean rubbing that with the damp eraser or with a glasses cleaning cloth; Joke aside, the hint with the slightly damp microfiber cloth was really good, went razzfazz unn the thing was eaten. Unfortunately, not all buttons work 100% because there is probably still liquid under the butterfly. The butterfly is difficult to remove without damaging it. Maybe someone knows a trick or a precise procedure how to expand it. I then wipe the display with the Apple cloth provided; the dust cleaning mud rest with a soft, dry cotton cloth. We are very sorry! Turn your Mac notebook to the right side and spray again from left to right over the keyboard. A technical error occurred while trying to complete your entry. We are already working on it and will be back for you as soon as possible. Take a lint-free microfiber cloth and rub it over the keyboard to remove the dust. If you want to vacuum your keyboard, you can pull a disused pantyhose tightly over the vacuum cleaner tube. Fix it with a hair tie. Now you no longer have to be afraid of accidentally sucking in important parts. Nevertheless, you should choose a low level. This may not be able to display this or other websites correctly. Choose a size and copy the code below to embed this guide as a small widget on your page / forum. A MacBook Pro was used as an example in this guide, but these techniques apply to any laptop. Well done!

You are using an outdated browser.

When you add lace to the organza, the look becomes light and fresh, which like a garden to grow on your wedding dresses.

I have not found any entry in google for this ... and only heard from others (trustworthy) that the aluminum should be really sensitive.

I only cleaned my current MacBook with water and a microfiber cloth.

Push the butterfly mechanism back in on one side and then carefully on the other side.

iFixit has a high level of competence in this area and can therefore be classified as extremely credible. So far, Apple has been relatively obscure about the revised keyboard design of the new MacBook Pro generation. It should be quieter - that was the manufacturer's only statement so far. Now Apple has also commented on the silicone cover on the butterfly mechanism that has been discovered in the meantime. Please note that the oil-repellent effect of this coating diminishes over time with normal use and that this protective effect is further reduced when the screen is rubbed with rough materials, which leads to scratches on the screen. The alternative to cleaning with a cloth or cotton swab are special compressed air sprays. Here too it should be ensured that these are explicitly suitable for electronics and are ANTISTATIC. Compressed air sprays are usually very expensive and ultimately not necessary if you follow the tips above. Many keyboards are built so that the keys can be removed individually. This works with both desktop and laptop keyboards. Some devices, especially mechanical keyboards, are even delivered with a tool with which the keys can be easily removed. For other models, you need to carefully go under the edge of a button with a butter knife and push up.

How do I switch off the laptop?

Switch off the monitor using a key combination. Laptops in particular often have function keys with "fn" on them. A common key combination for switching off the monitor is [fn] + [F6]. For some keyboards, [fn] + [F4] or [fn] + [F7] is the right key combination. div> div> div> Do not use sprays, solvents, abrasives or detergents with hydrogen peroxide as they can attack and damage the surface. If liquid gets into your Apple product, contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Store for assistance as soon as possible. Liquid damage is not covered by the Apple product warranty or AppleCare Protection Plan. However, you may have rights under consumer protection laws.

#how to clean the Macbook Pro keyboard

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coinbaba · 5 years ago

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What is Stegos?

Stegos’s unique blockchain and token design make us the world’s first fully integrated crypto, completely immune to government surveillance. Other cryptocurrencies, even privacy coins, are missing crucial features and require users to expose their identity in various ways. But Stegos will let you buy and sell crypto, request and send payments and, crucially, talk to other Stegos users. All with complete anonymity, all with a single app and token (STG). Best of all, there will be no performance trade-off. In addition to these significant privacy advantages, Stegos is designed to be efficient, scalable, and environmentally sustainable. This article will explain more about what makes Stegos unique and explain why you should adopt Stegos as your primary crypto to reject surveillance and embrace your freedom! The need for Stegos The explosion in connected technology since the turn of the century has brought billions of people online. But it has also made it easier than ever for governments to spy on us. The rise of blockchain, end-to-end encryption and decentralized applications (DApps) seemed to offer a way to regain some freedom. By cutting out centralized authorities and improving encryption protocols, people thought they were getting back control of their money, messages, and privacy. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Public blockchains actually make it easier for government to spy on us: the details of every Bitcoin transaction are available online for everyone to see. When combined with governmental databases of other data, your public key might as well be your full name and address. For communications, we’ve got much better at protecting data — the actual content of what we send — but there are still enormous leaks of metadata: who’re you’re talking to, where, when and for how long. Governments use this to build a remarkably complete picture of your life. In fact, because they often can’t see the content of perfectly innocent messages, they now assume the worst about you. It shouldn’t be this way. Stegos gives you a way to take back control. Simply, securely and completely anonymously. Stegos: More than Just a Privacy Coin There are hundreds of privacy coins on the market. Why do we need another one? Well Stegos is more than just private transactions: it’s a complete platform for payments and messages. It’s also more secure and scalable than other privacy coins. Privacy coins have made great strides on the transaction front, but often at significant costs in terms of efficiency and security, with cumbersome encryption and bulky transactions. And they still haven’t solved the problem of onboarding: what’s the point of a completely private crypto if the government can see the metadata of you arranging your transactions via unsecured messaging services and you can only buy it by giving up all your personal details to an exchange? Stegos fixes these problems with a fully scalable and prunable blockchain and integrated messaging, all while obscuring every scrap of you data and metadata. Scalability Stegos is built to be faster and more efficient than other crypto. In fact, Stegos is designed to be so efficient, we plan to provide full mobile staking, not just light wallets! So you’ll be able to earn STG from your pocket. Stegos has three key scalability features: gPoS consensus Sharding Pruning #1 gPoS consensus Stegos uses a unique consensus mechanism called gamified proof-of-stake or gPOS. gPoS is a modification of proof-of-stake consensus (PoS), which was created as an efficient alternative to proof-of-work (PoW). PoW consensus requires a lot of computational power which is extremely wasteful, environmentally unfriendly and is beyond the means of all but the richest users. In a PoS system, a validator’s ability to create blocks is directly proportional to the amount of coins they hold. This is much more computationally efficient, but it still rewards the rich. This is turn leads to centralization of validation services and compromises the safety of the network. To rectify this issue, our developers have created gPoS. Under gPoS everyone who runs a Stegos node for a certain amount of time will be eligible to receive the validator service award, regardless of the size of their stake. To fund this, a portion of each block reward will be added to the service award pool. A winning validator will be selected in an ongoing cryptographic lottery based on verifiable distributed randomness. The service award is awarded roughly every ten thousand blocks, so you could receive an enormous payday, even if you only provide the minimum stake! #2 Sharding Sharding is a technique to cut down bulky databases into more manageable chunks or “shards.” Image Credit: Digital Ocean As the diagram shows, sharding partitions databases horizontally. This way, instead of dealing with an entire database, one needs to only deal with a specific shard. Stegos uses transactional sharding to scale. The validators will only need to verify a subset of incoming transactions, instead of dealing with the whole blockchain. This will allow Stegos to process tens of thousands of transactions per second across millions of devices. #3 Pruning Stegos isn’t the first blockchain to boast of huge transaction speeds. But that’s only half the story. Consider: the Bitcoin blockchain is currently larger than 200 gigabytes, despite being only able to handle 7–10 transactions per second. If it suddenly supported 16,000 transactions a second, the blockchain would start growing by 350 gigabytes a day or 127 terabytes a year! This is obviously unsustainable in a decentralized network. The Stegos blockchain is kept compact by routinely and automatically removing spent coins and expired messages using secure cryptographic pruning. This has an added privacy benefit of deleting old transaction and messaging data, making it impossible to unobscure the Stegos chain using chain analysis. Privacy Now let’s look at precisely how Stegos will provide the first fully integrated private crypto experience, entirely on-chain. Transactions Messaging and Chat Peer-to-Peer Trading Private Apps #1 Transactions In Stegos, only you and the people you transact with have direct access to transaction information or metadata. Public addresses are cloaked by stealth addresses, while transaction details are cloaked with random values. Transactions cannot be linked, and even if you post your Stegos public key or QR code online, it cannot be tracked back to you. #2 Messaging and Chat Private transactions are all very well, but you still need to initiate them, which means you need a way to contact the other party without exposing your (or their) personal information. To do this, we implement a fully private communication and integrate it within the Stegos app. The Stegos chat service: Functions like a standard messaging app, with group chat, contact lists, and more. Lets you use your public key as an identifier. Like with transactions, stealth addresses ensure public keys cannot be linked back to you. Sends messages via the Stegos fast message bus, ensuring messages are received instantly without waiting for chain confirmation. Lets you initiate an STG transaction by sending a QR code via private chat. You can also create chat groups and invite people to it via QR codes. #3 Peer-to-Peer Trading Even with private transactions and communication, users still need a way to get access to the cryptosphere without exposing their private data. Exchanges are a notorious security and privacy risk, with most exchanges requiring more personal data than signing up for a standard bank account! Stegos will implement on-chain peer-to-peer trading, allowing users to buy and sell crypto using atomic swaps. (Stegos can’t do anything about the privacy problems of other crypto, but any surveillance trails will be broken once your crypto enters the Stegos ecosystem.) #4 Private Apps The Stegos app provides an integrated crypto experience, but we know you always need more: more functionality, and more choice between existing functionalities. For this reason, Stegos will have an on-chain privacy app store, with details of the apps stored privately on the Stegos blockchain. This way, you will be able to browse and access apps privately. You can also be confident that the apps you install are private and secure. To be listed on the Stegos privacy app store, the app must have a manifest which includes the following description: The URL used to download the app. Hash of the app bundle. The apps are stored on-chain to avoid bloating the Stegos chain and downloaded via the Stegos app. The Segos TAC (trusted application container) will install the app bundle locally once it verifies that the signature of the app bundle and the hash match the information in the manifest. The TAC is a sandbox and virtual machine which runs plug-in apps written using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The TAC will keep the DApps contained while they run on your device, and will provide a simpler and more secure user experience. How far have we got? As you can see, Stegos has an extremely ambitious vision. So how much progress have we made? Well, the simplest thing would be to see for yourself: you can download the first version of the desktop app and interact with our test chain. There’s still a way to go (in particular there’s a one-off sync delay on first running the app which will be eliminated in future version), and we’re still implementing some key features, but all of the advanced protocols that power the Stegos chain and keep it private are in place and working perfectly. We’re releasing new versions of the desktop app and command-line interface every week or so, and we’re about to launch a huge bounty program where you can test out staking, transactions and messaging and earn thousands of testSTG. These testSTG can be exchanged for a share of tens of thousands of dollars worth of real STG when the chain launches for real next month: we believe this is the first pre-launch bounty program that’s secured by the project’s own blockchain, with automatic conversion to real money once the program closes! Conclusion At Stegos, we believe that everyone deserves privacy and protection from government surveillance. Our tight-knit team has successfully created state-of-the-art scalability and privacy protocols to build the first integrated and accessible private blockchain platform, with immense growth potential. Our ultimate goal is to be the world’s first truly mobile blockchain which will give everyone the chance to reject government surveillance and embrace their freedoms. But don’t just take our word for it: try out our app, read our white paper, join our Telegram group or check out our website. #Blockchain #Stegos #Cryptocurrency

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wolframalpha · 6 years ago

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3D-Printed Blood Vessels: The Tech Just Became Scalable

By Greg Hurst and Matt Gelber.

This article was published on Medium.

The Problem: Making Vasculature is Hard!

It sounds simple enough — all of your cells require a constant supply of oxygen. Your lungs extract it from the air and your blood carries it all around your body through a vascular network comprising thousands of miles of veins and arteries. If your heart doesn’t beat at least once every couple seconds, your brain doesn’t receive enough oxygen-rich blood to maintain consciousness.

We don’t understand super high-level biological phenomena like consciousness. We can’t engineer a conscious array of cells, or even of transistors. But we understand pretty well the vasculature that supports consciousness. It’s a series of tubes. Literally. And it may be that if we can make the tubes and deliver oxygen to a sufficiently large population of cells, we can make some cool things happen. A conscious brain is a long shot, a functional piece of liver or kidney decidedly less so.

The problem is, making vasculature is hard. Cells in a dish do self-organize to an extent, but we don’t understand such systems well enough to tell a bunch of cells to grow into a vascularized organ.

An alternative means of generating physiological structure’s blood vessels is a bit cruder — design the structure you want, then make a robot that can physically place the cells and the vessels where you want them. We call this bioprinting. A major hurdle with bioprinting is the fact that, while the printer is working, the cells that have been printed are slowly dying from lack of oxygen. For really big, complex tissues, you either need a way to supply oxygen while you’re still printing, or you need a way to make all those blood vessels really fast.

One really fast approach was demonstrated in 2009. Researchers at Cornell used a cotton candy machine to melt-spin a pile of sugar fibers. They cast the sugar fibers in a polymer, dissolved them out with water and made a random vascular network in minutes. In 2012, researchers at Penn used a hacked desktop 3D printer to draw molten sugar fibers into a simple lattice and showed that the same sacrificial casting approach could be used deliver blood to rat liver cells in a dish, keeping them alive for weeks. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed the ability to make these sugar fiber networks of any shape and size.

Materials Science + Mechanical Engineering + Theoretical Computer Science to the Rescue

Scaling the process isn’t just a matter of building a more precise, more expensive printer (although that is necessary). It’s a matter of choosing the right type of sugar, understanding the physical behavior of the sugar as it is printed and of telling the printing robot how to move. The problem spans materials science, mechanical engineering and theoretical computer science; it contained more than enough material for a PhD thesis, and the cells aren’t even in there yet. The materials and mechanical engineering aspects are laid out in a recent publication in Additive Manufacturing; the planning algorithm is described in a recent manuscript still under review.

Instead of conventional sugars, this printer uses isomalt, the same low-calorie sugar substitute they use to make throat lozenges. Isomalt works better than conventional sugar, mostly because it doesn’t burn like sugar does. The printer melts the isomalt and pushes it out of a tiny nozzle under pressure. Like a pen, the nozzle is used to “write” thin isomalt filaments, but in 3D. Printing speed, temperature and pressure are critical to achieving precise filaments. Right now the diameters of the filaments can be anywhere from 50 to 500 micrometers; to give some context, a human hair is about 10 micrometers thick. However, the researchers say it’s entirely possible to go bigger or smaller.

At that point it might seem like you’re done. But when you want to print a network comprising thousands of filaments, you encounter an interesting problem. You need to choose an order in which to print them. The printing process is freeform; you can move the nozzle anywhere you want. That means if you’re not careful, you can hit your sugar construct with your nozzle and destroy it.

Avoid Collisions AND Don’t Melt

Collision avoidance is a pretty common problem in robotics, so that part isn’t too hard to deal with. However, there is an additional wrinkle that is very specific to this problem. It has to do with the fact that every time you go to an existing filament and draw a new branch, you melt the material at the joint. Imagine you’re building a bridge, but every time you weld a new beam on, all the existing welds around it melt. This makes the problem a lot harder.

Without this constraint, the problem of choosing a sequence is analogous to finding your way out of the maze on the right. There are dead ends, but you can see them. You won’t get lost in them; you’ll immediately turn around. But with this particular constraint, choosing a sequence is like finding your way out of the maze on the right. The maze is big; for long sequences, it becomes, for all practical purposes, infinite.

The best you can do in this case is make an educated guess at every fork. For example, if you had a compass that pointed towards the exit, you might take the path that most nearly coincides with the direction of the needle. In some cases, there is no feasible printing sequence; the maze has no exit. More strangely still, you can’t know, at least with our current understanding of computer science, if you should give up. You know the exit exists if, and only if, you actually find it.

In order to navigate the maze and generate a printing sequence, you need an efficient algorithm as well as a fair bit of computational power. This part has become much easier recently with high-level languages such as the Wolfram Language. Says author Greg Hurst, a developer at Wolfram Research, “This problem spans many disciplines. Computational geometry is needed for collision detection, NP-complete graph problems — like finding cliques — need to be solved, and sparse matrix solvers need to be invoked thousands of times throughout. With the Wolfram Language, I was able to hammer out fast code in a matter of months.”

Here’s a Wolfram Language command to visualize nozzle-beam collisions. The red beams must be drawn after the green one to avoid contact with the blue nozzle as it draws the green beam:

Here’s the full implementation with relevant information to monitor the progress:

What’s Next?

So the problems of turning a design into a set of printer instructions, and of having a printer that is sufficiently precise into execute them, are more or less solved. This doesn’t mean that 3D-printed organs are just around the corner. Just pouring a bunch of liver cells around a vascular mold doesn’t give you a functional liver. You need to make the cells to grow and organize the same way they do in your body.

Cells respond to the chemical and mechanical properties of their environment, and successfully recapitulating tissue requires tailoring these parameters as well. But printing vasculature is a very important step, because without it, everything dies. Now we can start tweaking the environment without worrying so much about the all-important blood vessels.

Today, we have sugar bunnies. Tomorrow, we might have miniature organs on a chip that we use to test new drugs. In several years, who knows. Maybe we’ll be able to replace a failing heart with a patient-specific replica. Maybe the processor in your computer will be replaced by a vascularized slab of neurons. We can’t yet say what the application will be, but we have the tools now to start entertaining these ideas. Stay tuned!

For a more technical overview, visit the Wolfram Blog.

#wolfram #wolfram research #mathematica #3d printing #science #tech #vasculature #bioprinting #biology #health

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pcproductreviews-blog · 5 years ago

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What are the new features of Microsoft Windows 10

MICROSOFT this morning role player back the curtain on the in operation systems by popping out Windows ten with a mob of business-friendly options and additionally with some surprises. Microsoft is breaking down the Windows Phone and Windows RT borders of its software system, and with this breaks we have a tendency to all predict that, Microsoft has created a certain shot approach toward connecting its devices a lot of seamlessly to become a vicinity of its universal apps program. the large surprise, however, was Microsoft’s bust into video game, with its Holo Lens glasses, associate approach to form a system for overlaying holographic pictures over the $64000 world.

Windows 10, starting is different

Microsoft’s Windows ten with its feasibleness to figure over mobile devices and PCs square measure currently returning with new begin menu that expands to seem like Windows 8’s home screen and a brand new Action Center wherever you'll be able to fast toggle settings, windows 10 pro product key.

Windows 10, Cortana for desktop

Cortana, Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, is coming back to the computer. Long on the market on mobile, Cortana can currently live next to the beginning button on the task bar and function a natural-language interface for Windows ten. Cortana for desktop will, however, do everything its desktop counterpart will, meaning: reminders, decision individuals with Skype, check my location/maps, play/pause music, launch apps, check the weather and additional.

Windows 10, Multitasking with Snap Windows

Microsoft also will introduce a correct multitasking feature known as “Task View” which is able to show nicely sized four preview windows of your running apps. Again, this works with each bit and standard management inputs – either a swipe from the left of the screen together with your finger, or clicking on the taskbar with a mouse. Naturally this is often aimed toward desktops and tablets instead of phones.

Windows 10, The end of Internet Explorer. Say hello to Project Spartan

Spartan may be a cleaner browser with a great deal of shiny new options and integration with different Microsoft services. Spartan has "note-taking mode" that helps you to draw everywhere pages with a stylus or add comments with a keyboard, then save the results on OneNote. A clean "reading mode" will what you would possibly expect. Spartan has Cortana designed into it, contextually recognizing data like restaurants or plane flights and giving further data.

Windows 10, Your PC is now your Xbox

Microsoft owns an enormous majority of the pc gambling market. And currently declared associate Xbox app for launch on each Windows ten machine. The app brings over Xbox One options like your messages, friends list, and activity feed. You’ll be able to chat with individuals on Xbox Live and consider console achievements and videos from your desktop, also as record your own clips on laptop.

Windows 10, The amazing Command Prompt

Another quite wonderful feature for those folks that use it's that the prompt is currently obtaining keyboard shortcuts! therefore you may be in a position to stick in your commands! Hardly groundbreaking, however truly pretty exciting.

Windows 10, Continum - the special one

This is the most effective new issue we tend to acknowledged these days. Continum is Associate in Nursing on-the-fly mode for two in one devices which will mechanically modification mode if it detects there's suddenly no keyboard hooked up. it's designed to create the switch from keyboard and mouse to touchscreen seamless.

Windows 10, A bigger role for OneDrive

OneDrive was everyplace in Microsoft’s presentation. It shaped the backbone of its unified apps, permitting documents to synchronize across devices. Microsoft’s titillated a bigger role for OneDrive in photos and music, can synchronize between devices victimisation OneDrive.

Windows 10, Universal apps

Windows Universal apps square measure the new name for underground apps/Modern apps/Windows Store apps. Windows ten may be a single platform and interface across PCs, wearables, phones, tablets etc. and can be able to run on all devices from phones to servers and there'll be one app store across the heap.

Windows 10, Surface hub and Windows Holographic

This is associate unexpected—hardware announcement from Microsoft: Windows Holographic can build 3D imaging into Windows ten, which may be intimate with exploitation the HoloLens receiver. The company's rolling out the Surface Hub, an 84-inch, 4K, touch-enabled show for workplace collaboration.

Future-Proofing

Microsoft has left U.S. with some huge things to deem. Its vision of tomorrow's ideal software package is grander still with the goal to supply a unified expertise across devices of all shapes and sizes. It’s attempting to securely move off from the failures of Windows eight and Windows Phone. however Hope with Windows ten, Microsoft looks to be obtaining right.

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