#cryptome

[futchgunk]

baTTervvitchcraft diary 01:

happy belated birthday to me. I imagined a Swalot cookie jar a while back and my best friend made it out of clay. It took 3 tries to come out properly, apparently its ghost (failed attempt) haunts the studio that killed it. How Romantic.

Swalot was one of my favorite pokemon playing gen 3 growing up and seeing it come back in scarlet and violet meant i got to play with it again!! I am in love with its disruption and utility that it provides in the game. It has access to Yawn and Clear Smog which are really strong counter sweep measures, its a mono poison type which is so cute, and its stat pool is more hp oriented yet base stat total is lower than whats considered metagame. We love discovering sleeper picks. when i used it for my Reg B team i didnt know a lot about metakitbuilding so i felt that i didnt know what I needed to pressure with a pokemon that wasn't oriented around dealing damage. (What are other ludic priorities in a game of pokemon that a pokemon can command agency over?) If i had to build it as a team staple it would look like:

Swalot Psn [Dark]

252Def/80HP/80Atk/80SpD/12Spe*

Ability: Sticky Hold @ Black Sludge

-Knock Off (anti item)

-Iron Defense (Defense++ (damage mitigation)->Helping Hand (ally dmg +50% this turn)

-Body Press (Defense = Damage attack) -> Pain Split (average HP

-Thunder Wave/Yawn/Toxic**

*investing in speed vs hp would be a transludic approach because if swalot can outspeed the pokemon that do supereffective damage to it, it can command agency via its disruptive utility (status move, item removal) and contributed to the game state.

**the status utility is relative to the teams needs. Twave for the most general form of control (speed), Yawn for the fastest form of control by means of egress/ingress 50/50; 1 turn of assured inaction (sleep ludic condition), or Toxic as the slowest form of control (time on field aka HP creep aka DoT)

THE RECIPE

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies [Transexual] [Gothic] [Divine]

1 C. Flour

1/3 C. dairy free chocolate chips

1/3 C. walnuts

1/4 C. sugar

1/4 C. brown sugar

3 T. milk sub (oat milk)

2 T. vegetable oil*

2 T. melted butter*

1/2 tsp baking powder**

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

a good cry into the batter***

*u can use 4 T of either, i adjusted bc my dough was really dry when i was mixing it

**the recipe said baking soda, i used baking powder because i was grieving when i made these cookies

***by will of my Lich or the universe, rabbits by nursejoy came on while i was baking this so i had an emotional breakdown. Technically this adds a bit more salt and moisture to the dough so its like an organic enhancer.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease baking sheet(s)

Combine the drys (flour, sugars, baking soda/powder, salt, chocolate chips, walnuts)

Add the wets (nondairy milk, oil, melted butter, vanilla extract

Mix until dough forms and then scoop out onto greased baking sheet

Bake at 325 for 11 mins.

Spellcasting underneath the cut!! (edit: the cookies did come out a bit salty)

what happens when i am given freely but never returned?

SARNESAIAJP

if you can counter my spell, then you can ask for a prize!!

[vicforberger]

Upgrading to Xubuntu Noble -- 24.04 from 22.02 -- and a review

I have upgraded my desktop but not my laptop. Note: Xneo is an alias for neofetch --ascii_distro xubuntu. In general, the switch to mostly snaps could be smoother, and I still need to play with the system more to discover all the changes. Note: the upgrade to Noble 24.04 was delayed several days after initial release. Disabling third-party PPAs For any upgrade, third-party PPAs are disabled…

[justcrafting]

Right on time for the announced release of Venom: The Last Dance, have my sona in their Symbiote form! [ ID: Two transparent digital drawings of a cat-like symbiote named Crypt. Their body is mostly black, but they have a light gray skull marking on their face and spider marking on their chest. Their eyes are pure white. The first image is of them sitting and yawning, showing off two rows of sharp yellowed teeth and a long gray tongue. The second image is of them in a defensive stance, glaring at something. Their first row of top teeth poke out of their mouth. / end ID]

[markethighs]

Pi Network: Mine Cryptocurrency on Your Phone

Pi Network is revolutionizing the way we mine cryptocurrency. Unlike traditional mining methods that require powerful hardware and consume massive amounts of electricity, Pi allows you to mine directly on your mobile phone. It’s easy, secure, and eco-friendly. Join millions of users who are already part of this exciting Web3 ecosystem.

[dergarabedian]

"Dinner de los founders" celebra su primer aniversario

“Dinner de los founders” es una comunidad de emprendedores, fundada por la empresaria Connie Ansaldi y la compañía Fichap hace un año, que celebró su primer aniversario con un encuentro especial en el Teatro Colón, en Buenos Aires. Continue reading Untitled

[scififanpl-blog]

"Halo: Cryptum" by Greg Bear

“Halo: Cryptum” by Greg Bear

Halo Cryptum is a thrilling and action-packed science fiction novel set in the beloved Halo universe. Written by Greg Bear, the book follows the story of the ancient and powerful Forerunner race and their struggle to save the universe from the destructive force known as the Flood. One of the standout features of this book is its complex and well-developed world-building. Bear does an excellent…

[teasugarsalt]

The Cryptomeals

So my friend has gone basically nocturnal and forgot to eat for a couple days by dint of it Not Being Mealtime. I have named some mealtimes for those who are also nocturnal and require official mealtimes:

Breakfast: Breakfast is whenever you get up and break your fast. *Whenever* you get up.

Elevenses: Eleven pm works as well as eleven am.

Dark Lunch: Midnightish.

Low Tea: 3-4am.

Bird Supper: Eaten whenever you hear the birds start to chirp. If you're up and you weren't hearing birds and now you hear birds, it's time for bird supper. You gotta.

[imperator-titus]

Be My Juice Box [Ch 1]

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: F/M Relationships: Astarion/Tav (Baldur's Gate) Characters: Astarion (Baldur's Gate), Tav (Baldur's Gate) Additional Tags: Modern AU with Some Twists, Slow Burn, they were roommates, Vampires Summary: Sometimes you have to sell your blood to a vampire to keep your head above water.

Notes: Playing with an idea I've had for a while! Mostly modern, but maintains magic elements with tiniest bit of cyberpunk elements. I used the basic outline of Rowan from A Non-Hero's Guide, seeing as I was thinking of this while I was writing that. I'm not giving up on Ghost from the Past or anything, but I recently got covid and couldn't really think about that story hard enough to get anything out. This came out much more easily for me.

Text under cut:

Insert finger. Get poked. Try not to curse in front of the sweet little old lady behind the machine.

Blood tested. Machine beeps. It spits out the results like a GreenWalls receipt.

The kindly old lady holds a cotton swab to your injured finger. She raises the cotton to her nose and, before she even reads your results, tells you your blood is top-grade, minus a little iron deficiency.

You chuckle nervously and say you can’t afford red meat, much like the rest of the city. She chortles and says that will all change, if you’re lucky. And you smell lucky.

A young man sits you down and walks you through how to use the next machine as he draws your blood. It’s not like the last time you donated blood. It’s sleek and sophisticated and barely hurts. You are unable to look away as the needle pierces your skin and your blood floods out.

He laughs and asks if you’re an ingénue. You know it as a literary term, but he is using it as a slang term for women who want to be bitten by a vampire. Plenty of those come through the Black Cross’s doors. 

The kindly old lady gives you a cookie to eat while the young man explains how to clean the machine. If you’re picked, it’ll be your job to maintain it.

After he’s done explaining all the other stuff like how to store the blood and read the test results, a being of unknown sex or species enters the room. It is just a dark shape, a shade. It explains the rules to you.

Your blood is being divided up into samples. Those samples will be sent to vampires currently in need of a “donor.” Donors come in two forms: on-site and off-site. You need a place to live, so you preferred on-site, but it still feels weird to imagine living with someone again, mortal or not. 

Those vampires will submit their impression of your blood and an offer for you to consider.

You laugh, because the shade told you “this isn’t an escort service,” but here it is, telling you that you’re being bid on like a cow at auction.

On-site donors are mostly like roommates, except they are giving up their blood and, in the case of vampires lacking a daytime servant, fulfilling reasonable requests. Donors are compensated for additional duties. 

They must respect their host’s space and privacy.

Basically, get along and leave the place how you left it.

Expect your offers in 1-2 weeks.

Thank you for your donation. You are saving unlives.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Rowan Vignaud looked back in trepidation at the empty expanse of what used to be her home.

Like most in New Babylon, she couldn’t afford to live on her own in this part of the city. Maybe that would change, eventually. Cryptomancy had fallen out of fashion about 100 years ago in a push to elevate the more arcane arts. It was used to maintain systems that kept the world running and, despite its clear importance, was treated like kobold-work.

Rowan never understood that term. Kobolds did all the important stuff, like make sure the sewers worked and the garbage gets collected.

But then the world was briefly plunged into darkness and it became clear that the world still needed cryptomancers. One overworked, underpaid, underappreciated number-jockey in some dank basement somewhere caused the Great Crash, all because the world’s riches were protected by some other overworked, underpaid, underappreciated number-jockey sitting in a dank basement that no one ever listened to when they said this could happen.

Rowan was once one of those cryptomancers. Now she was hoping to work her way into a position where she didn’t need to give up her blood every day to live in the city.

Her things already sold or sent ahead to her new home, Rowan left with just a bag slung over her shoulder.

The residence was a “Brownstone,” as historians called it, a very rare sight in the cities these days. Out front, a kobold in a smart little suit sat on the first step, a binder almost as big as him clutched in his little arms.

“Ah! Yes! Human!” he called out cheerily as she approached. He made a few feeble attempts to put down the binder gently in order to greet her properly before he asked nervously, “Coulds you take this? It's yours anyway.”

Full of paper, it was a little heavy, especially for such a small creature. He was happy to be free of it, offering her a dramatic bow in thanks.

“Welcomes to your new home, Miss Vignauds!” The kobold hopped up the steps one at a time, taking them by leaps instead of clambering over them.

A week after her visit, Rowan received a packet from the Black Cross, delivered by a shuffling zombie who unknowingly left behind a finger on her doorstep. Zombies needed jobs too. Just not very complicated ones.

Inside were 3 offers as well as a form for stating her intention to take an offer or decline in the hopes of receiving more. 

The first offer was from a vampire further out from the city. She had many flowery words to describe the blood she sampled and provided many pictures of her estate. While Rowan was more inclined to live amongst nature, the permanent work she hoped to secure was contained to the city.

The next offer was rather similar, with intense feelings associated with her blood sample. The compensation was generous and their home was closer to the city.

The third was brief. “Adequate.” The offer didn't reflect that sentiment.

In the end, Rowan chose the third offer.

Inside the binder was a code to the door, but Rowan only got so far as the first digit before it whirred and beeped, indicating it was unlocked.

She kind of expected a vampire to be stuck in their time period and, while most of the house was still in its original Victorian style, it had obviously gone through some changes as its owner debated keeping up with the times.

“Master Ancuníns hasn’t had a live-in donor in a very long times,” her little guide informed her as they removed their shoes in the foyer, “so we don’ts really have much to says about his behavior.”

Well, he clearly knew she’d arrived, but was choosing not to show himself. It was daytime, she expected him to be sleeping somewhere. Maybe he heard an alarm, rolled over in his coffin, saw it was them at the door, pressed the button, and went back to sleep. Or whatever vampires did. The binder had a lot of information about general vampire knowledge and cleared up a lot of misconceptions that still lived in modern society. 

Could vampires be… shy? The binder didn’t really say.

“Master Ancuníns doesn’t have servants, but there is a very nice magical cleanings service.” To demonstrate, he indicated for her to pluck a petal off of a flower in a fresh bouquet brightening up the hallway and drop it on the ground. After a moment, like a mouse snatching a piece of fallen cheese, a mage hand darted out from another room and took the petal away. “So, you shouldn’t haves to do much.”

There was the kitchen, which was probably the most modern part of the home, despite the fact that it was the most useless to its owner. Here she would test her blood after dinner and, if her levels were good, have it drawn. There was a special storage unit just for the bags, separate from the spacious refrigerator where she found the last of her food from her apartment.

Then there was the bedroom. It was a little cramped, but there was a room next to it that would be her office. None of the furniture was hers, it would have clashed, but at least her mattress fit the bed frame. It was already made with her sheets, waiting for her to fall into it later tonight.

Rowan bid the kobold goodbye and sat down at the kitchen island to read through her binder for things he failed to mention. She was free to have guests as long as they didn’t spend the night or make a mess of things, a general “respect the place” rule. That was fine, there was no one she would invite over anyway. Anything she needed could be requested through a terminal to be delivered. How swank.

She was in the middle of making dinner when she thought she heard something. But when she turned around, there was nothing there. Vampires could move silently if they wanted, so if he wanted to sneak up on her, why make noise? Returning to her preparations, Rowan shrugged it off as her mind playing tricks. It was a very old house.

As she ate, the house’s “cleaning service” tidied up after her. She watched the translucent hands erase any indication that the kitchen had been used with a sense of… sadness? It wasn’t like she liked cleaning. It just made her feel lazy, in a way, not picking up after herself. Even when she was done eating, a set of hands was there to whisk away the dishes and wipe down the counter.

The blood-drawing machine was much the same as the one at the Black Cross center, but the tester was different. This one allowed her to prick any part of her body, not just the finger. A bead of blood welled up on her arm where she gave herself a little stab and the machine hummed as it worked.

The light turned green and it spit out the results. Some slight mineral alterations. At the end, it made some suggestions for additions to her diet. Rowan ripped off the results and placed them next to the terminal by the refrigerator so she would remember it later when ordering groceries.

Unlike the machine at the Black Cross, magic guided its needle into her arm for a perfect draw. Little pinching, no bruising, one slip of the needle into a vein. When it was done, she took the label it printed out, slapped it on the blood bag, and put it away.

Pressing a cotton ball to the crook of her arm, Rowan flicked through what was available from the grocery service. Rich people really could get their hands on pretty much anything. Only a few years ago, she could have afforded some of this, at least a decent steak once every other month. That was before the Great Crash, of course.

Groceries ordered, clothes unpacked and put away, computer set up in her new office, Rowan crawled into bed. It was the kind with the curtains, like she’d seen in period dramas. When she was little, she wanted one, associating them with fairy tales. Curious, she undid the ties and let the curtains close, creating a little room inside the room, only as big as the borders of her bed.

Vampires had to ask for permission to enter, but this was his own house. There was a more-or-less unspoken agreement that hosts would respect the places they provided for their donors, but the thought still crossed her mind.

The blood-drawing machine was there for many reasons. It controlled the amount donors gave, reducing the risks of complications. It allowed both parties to give and take at times convenient to them. And most important of all, not everyone was into the whole biting thing. But if they mutually agreed to it, they could go that route.

For now, Rowan was fine with the needle in her arm every day. She hadn’t even met her host yet.

But still. The thought of him sneaking in while she was asleep, crawling into bed with her, and sinking his fangs into her neck wasn’t far from her mind.

The two wouldn’t exchange words for some time. From Rowan’s perspective, it would be the first time they were in the same room.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Astarion Ancunín made it a habit to be awake at least some of the day. Some people and places only operated when the sun was up, unfortunately. He only needed so much rest, after all.

The windows were shuttered, of course, so he had to watch for his guests from a security camera. Chin in hand, elbow propped on the desk, he watched with total enthralling boredom as the little kobold representing the Black Cross waddled up with his big book and crawled onto the stairs. Centuries ago, he would've bled such a creature dry and called it a snack. Sometimes he requested some of their blood, for special occasions. They could only give so little, it was like humans doing shots at a bar.

Then there she was, his live-in donor.

It had been a long time since he had one. Back then, it wasn't so official. It didn't end well. But when that sample found its way into his shipment of blood and it washed over his tongue, he knew he had to give it a chance.

Her looks left much to be desired, but he wasn’t planning on parading her around like some vainglorious trophy. Only his most special friends were allowed in his private sanctum and they required no impressing.

No, they would lead separate lives, one extravagant, the other plain. 

As much as vampires were cool and calculating, they could be quite fickle creatures. There were clear logical reasons for picking this particular donor: clean blood, clean record, stable life patterns, suitable for sharing a home. 

Then there were the less logical reasons. She was intelligent; he was old enough to remember when cryptomancers practically ran the world. Something about her told him that she wasn’t a romantic, which pleased him, because he spent all night playing the romantic lead and didn’t want to come home to entertain some ingénue’s fantasies.

But chief amongst all the reasons was the way her blood tingled as it spread throughout his undead cells. It was indescribable, rare, and horrifying. Of all the blood bags delivered to his doorstep, of all the necks pierced by his fangs, he’d never felt that spark of life.

Like a dirty secret, it was whispered about in dark alcoves by his fellows. Astarion had even lied about feeling it once, believing it to be some mark of status, as something to be envied.

Now he knew the truth. It was a curse. A delicious call to insanity. It was something he wanted to possess forever, but it had an expiration date. Why must human lives be so short?

In the old days, there was little to keep Astarion from doing what he wanted: to lock her up in his little castle and never let her go. Back then, you could drain people dry or charm them into your service. 

Of course, you ran the risk of being hunted. He didn’t miss that part.

Astarion stood in the doorway separating the kitchen from the hallway. Gliding on supernaturally silent feet, his donor wouldn’t have heard him. He watched as she made sense of her new surroundings and started to make her own meal. It would have tasted like ashes to him, but the thought of it nourishing her body, and in turn his, made his mouth salivate.

The floorboards creaked as he shifted his weight forward just slightly. Her head turned to see what made the noise, but his quick reflexes ensured that she didn’t catch even a hint of his form.

Hiding in his own home. What a miserable creature he’d become.

[cuma-lee]

Cryptome (Open for Adoption) by cumalee on

@DeviantArt

https://www.deviantart.com/cumalee/art/Cryptome-Open-for-Adoption-1126851705

#adoptable #pokemon #fakemon #deviantart

[ericvanderburg]

Cryptomator: Open-source cloud storage encryption

http://securitytc.com/TCSZz4

[miraclemaya]

Oh wow 3e doesn't have the cool Cryptomancy lore that 1e had...

oh? are you reading 1e? all i know about cryptomancy is whats in book five but that's not really lore it's just mechanices

[futchgunk]

steps to solving a cypher

what language is the message in

what is the system used to make the cypher

construct the key (how things were changed)

apply the key to the message

[kennak]

以前は、すべてをセルフホスティングし、10G バックボーンを備えた過剰なホーム ネットワークを使用していました。 最近はより現実的になってきました。 有線マシンが 2 台あり、他はすべて Wi-Fi で動作します。 ネットワーク「ラック」は単純にファイアウォールと 16 ポート POE スイッチであり、その他のネットワーク関連のものはすべてクローゼットにしまい込まれています。 NASがなくなってしまいました。 昨年の冬は電力料金が 1 ユーロ/kWh を超えることが頻繁にあったため、最大 35 kWh/月を消費する NAS をそこに設置するのは悪い考えのように思えました。 代わりに、私はクラウドストレージに月額約20ユーロを費やし、すべてをクラウドにアップロードするだけで（Cryptomatorで暗号化されています）、冗長クラウドストレージ（別のプロバイダー）が費用に含まれており、そこにバックアップが保存されます。 家に残っているのは、クラウド データの毎日のバックアップをローカルで作成し、単一の USB3 外付けドライブで小さな Plex ライブラリを実行する小さな ARM ベースのマシンだけです。 以前の電気代の約半分 (ハードウェアのコストもすべて!) を節約できたほかに、非常に多くの空き時間を得ることができました。 私のファイアウォールは完全に閉じられており (ワイヤーガード VPN は保存されています)、通常のパッチ ルーチン以外は何も維持する必要がなくなりました。

私のやりすぎホームネットワーク | ハッカーニュース

[lobster-shell-polish]

With regards to cloud storage, this tool may help some.

Writer tries to use the internet without relying on Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or Apple. Writer struggles. A lot. Not because she can’t stop googling things, but because Google is integrated with everything, and anything it isn’t is hooked into is partnered with at least one of the other four. 

For an example, she details the long process of figuring out how to send a large file without relying on the Google iCloud or Amazon Web Services:

My Gmail alternatives—ProtonMail and Riseup—tell me the file is too large; they tap out at 25 MB. Google Drive and Dropbox aren’t options, Dropbox because it’s hosted by Amazon’s AWS and relies on Google for sign-in. Other file-sharing sites also rely on the tech giants for web hosting services.

…O’Brien directs me first to Send.Firefox.com, an encrypted file-sharing service operated by Mozilla. But… it uses the Google Cloud, so it won’t load. O’Brien then sends me to Share.Riseup.net, a file-sharing service from the same radical tech collective that is hosting my personal email, but it only works for files up to 50 MB.

O’Brien’s last suggestion is Onionshare, a tool for sharing files privately via the “dark web,” i.e. the part of the web that’s not crawled by Google and requires the Tor browser to get to. I know this one actually. My friend Micah Lee, a technologist for the Intercept, made it. Unfortunately, when I go to Onionshare.org to download it, the website won’t load. 

“Hah, yes,” emails Micah when I ask about it. “Right now it’s hosted by AWS.”

The troubling implications of tech monopolies on our private data are discussed, as well as potential solutions that don’t sound very appealing at all:

An uncomfortable idea I keep coming up against this week is that, if we want to get away from monopolies and surveillance economies, we might need to rethink the assumption that everything on the internet should be free.

So when I try to create a fourth folder in ProtonMail to organize my email and it tells me that I need to upgrade from a free to a premium account to do so, I decide to fork over 48 euros (about $50) for the year. In return, I get a 5 GB email account that doesn’t have its contents scanned and monetized.

However, I’m well aware that not everyone has $50 dollars to spare for something that they can easily get for “free,” so if that’s the way things go, the rich will have privacy online and the poor (and most vulnerable) will have their data exploited.

[filehulk]

Cryptomator

Cryptomator is a free, open-source tool providing multi-platform, transparent client-side encryption for your cloud files. Compatible with nearly any cloud storage service, it integrates seamlessly into your workflow, allowing you to work with files as usual. It uses robust 256-bit AES encryption for security. Additionally, it is user-friendly and requires no separate accounts, key management,…

[aspiringbelle]

Well, apparently the media is more than willing to cover for the Trump campaign and ignore the efforts of leakers to reveal insider information to us. All that matters should be the truth.

Robert, if you're listening, try and send it to CryptoMe.

And, apparently, Johns Hopkins is taking lots of money from a noted controversial figure...