#hardware calibration

[tracfone]

glados watching her crows preening themselves and picking dirt out of their feathers and then goes over to chell to "preen" her but just ends up knocking into her head with her optic piece and giving her a concussion

[ms-demeanor]

One thing that I keep seeing whenever I make posts that are critical of macs is folks in the notes going "they make great computers for the money if you just buy used/refurbs - everyone knows not to buy new" and A) no they don't know that, most people go looking for a new computer unless they have already exhausted the new options in their budget and B) no they don't make great computers for the money, and being used doesn't do anything to make them easier to work on or repair or upgrade.

Here's a breakdown of the anti-consumer, anti-repair features recently introduced in macbooks. If you don't want to watch the video, here's how it's summed up:

In the end the Macbook Pro is a laptop with a soldered-on SSD and RAM, a battery secured with glue, not screws, a keyboard held in with rivets, a display and lid angle sensor no third party can replace without apple. But it has modular ports so I guess that’s something. But I don’t think it’s worthy of IFixIt’s four out of ten reparability score because if it breaks you have to face apple’s repair cost; with no repair competition they can charge whatever they like. You either front the cost, or toss the laptop, leaving me wondering “who really owns this computer?”

Apple doesn't make great computers for the money because they are doing everything possible to make sure that you don't actually own your computer, you just lease the hardware from apple and they determine how long it is allowed to function.

The lid angle sensor discussed in this video replaces a much simpler sensor that has been used in laptops for twenty years AND calibrating the sensor after a repair requires access to proprietary apple software that isn't accessible to either users or third party repair shops. There's no reason for this software not to be included as a diagnostic tool on your computer except that Apple doesn't want users working on apple computers. If your screen breaks, or if the fragile cable that is part of the sensor wears down, your only option to fix this computer is to pay apple.

How long does apple plan to support this hardware? What if you pay $3k for a computer today and it breaks in 7 years - will they still calibrate the replacement screen for you or will they tell you it's time for new hardware EVEN THOUGH YOU COULD HAVE ATTAINED FUNCTIONAL HARDWARE THAT WILL WORK IF APPLE'S SOFTWARE TELLS IT TO?

Look at this article talking about "how long" apple supports various types of hardware. It coos over the fact that a 2013 MacBook Air could be getting updates to this day. That's the longest example in this article, and that's *hardware* support, not the life cycle of the operating system. That is dogshit. That is straight-up dogshit.

Apple computers are DRM locked in a way that windows machines only wish they could pull off, and the apple-only chips are a part of that. They want an entirely walled garden so they can entirely control your interactions with the computer that they own and you're just renting.

Even if they made the best hardware in the world that would last a thousand years and gave you flowers on your birthday it wouldn't matter because modern apple computers don't ever actually belong to apple customers, at the end of the day they belong to apple, and that's on purpose.

This is hardware as a service. This is John Deere. This is subscription access to the things you buy, and if it isn't exactly that right at this moment, that is where things have been heading ever since they realized it was possible to exert a control that granular over their users.

With all sympathy to people who are forced to use them, Fuck Apple I Hope That They Fall Into The Ocean And Are Hidden Away From The Honest Light Of The Sun For Their Crimes.

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard settings details - Display and Graphics

This post is under a cut due to length.

This information comes directly from the game.

DA:TV menu 'pages': Display, Graphics, Audio, Controls, Gameplay, Interface, Accessibility, Other.

For some of the settings, additional detail on a specific one (the one that was selected at that particular point during the video, e.g. "Window Mode" was set to "Full Screen") is given after the general explanation/definition of the setting itself. These are in italics at the end of an entry.

DISPLAY

Display Mode

Active Monitor: Select the monitor for game display. Window Mode: Switches between full screen, windowed, and borderless windowed modes. You can press ALT+ENTER at any time to switch between full screen and windowed modes. In full screen mode, the game will play on the entire screen. Screen Resolution: Changes the game's display resolution. The game's level of on-screen detail is determined by the number of pixels it contains. Higher resolution increases the number of pixels displayed, which will result in a clearer image. This comes with a potential cost to performance. Refresh Rate: Sets how often your display will refresh game visuals. A higher refresh rate means a smoother picture, depending on your computer's hardware. Frame Rate Limit: Sets the maximum framerate for the game. VSync: Synchronizes the game's framerate with the display's refresh rate to prevent screen tearing.

Calibration

Brightness: Adjusts the intensity of the game's visuals. Makes all visuals lighter or darker. Contrast: Adjusting the contrast will change the difference in color and light between the brightest and darkest parts of the screen. Enable HDR: HDR (High Dynamic Range) mode provides enhanced color and contrast ranges. This option can only be enabled on supported displays. HDR must also be enabled in your operating system. Use the HDR Calibration option below to adjust. HDR Calibration: Launches the HDR calibration tool which adjusts the HDR settings to best match your display. The maximum brightness level should generally be adjusted to match what your HDR display will support. Measured in nits. This is only available when Enable HDR is turned on.

Upscaling

Unsample Method: Improve performance and visuals by rendering the game at a smaller resolution, then "upsampling" to a larger resolution for display. The pixels that make up the difference between the two resolutions are generated using advanced algorithms. Unsample Quality: Select the desired quality level for the upsampling method selected. DLSS Frame Generation: DLSS Frame Generation can generate additional frames that boost your overall frame rate. In order to use Frame Generation, you must have an NVIDIA RTX 40-series graphics card. NVIDIA Reflex: NVIDIA Reflex is a technology that helps reduce input latency while playing the game. In order to take advantage of NVIDIA Reflex's feature, you must have a supported NVIDIA graphics card. Anti-Aliasing: Anti-Aliasing smooths out pixels along the edge of objects that can look sharp or jagged in certain situations. Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) uses information from current and past frames to address aliasing issues. The high setting uses a large range of frames and will result in a higher quality anti-aliasing effect, but with a higher performance cost.

Resolution Scaling

Render Scale: Controls the resolution the game is rendered at relative to your display resolution. Settings below 100% may decrease visual fidelity, but can improve performance. Settings above 100% may increase visual fidelity, but can negatively impact performance. Dynamic Resolution Scaling: Automatically lowers the game's resolution in real-time to maintain the target frame rate. Target Frames Per Second: Determines the target frame rate for dynamic resolution scaling. Minimum Resolution Scale: Determines how low the resolution can be scaled when Dynamic Resolution Scaling is active.

GRAPHICS

Graphics Preset

Graphics Preset: Graphics presets are predefined configurations that simultaneously adjust multiple graphics settings to achieve a balance between visuals and performance. Restart required for setting change. Maximizes visual fidelity by setting most graphics options to their highest values. Recommended for the Ultra hardware specification tier.

Textures

Texture Quality: Selects the level of detail and resolution for textures applied to objects in the game. Higher settings will result in more detailed textures, potentially at the cost of performance. Restart required for setting change. CPU - Moderate. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Major. Texture Filtering: Adjusts the appearance of textures at varied angles and distances. Higher settings will increase texture quality, though potentially at the cost of performance. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor.

Light and Shadow

Lighting Quality: Adjusts the appearance of shadows, reflections, and light-scattering. Higher settings increase the visual fidelity of light effects. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Major. Contact Shadow: Contact Shadows improves the appearance of shadows when objects are close to one another. It fills gaps between objects and shadows that can occur with static lighting. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor. Ambient Occlusion: Ambient Occlusion is a technique to simulate soft shadows where objects are close together or where surfaces meet. This makes the scene look more realistic. Disabled when Ray-traced Ambient Occlusion is enabled. CPU - Minor. GPU - Major. VRAM - Minor. Disables Ambient Occlusion. This potentially increases performance at the cost of visual fidelity. Screen Space Reflections: Screen Space Reflections simulate reflections of objects and light on visible surfaces. Enabling this will result in high-quality reflections. Disabled when Ray-traced Reflections are enabled. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Moderate. Volumetric Lighting: Adjusts the appearance of volumetric lighting effects. This simulates how light interacts with atmospheric elements like fog, smoke, dust, and clouds. Higher settings increase the quality of these types of elements. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor. Sky Quality: Adjusts the appearance of the sky, clouds, and celestial bodies like the sun and moon. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor.

Ray Tracing

Ray-traced Reflections: Enables the use of Ray-Tracing to simulate realistic reflections of objects and light on reflective surfaces. This is a more advanced technique and requires specialized Ray Tracing compatible hardware. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. In selective mode, the game will only enable Ray-traced Reflections in specific areas that can best take advantage of the feature. Ray-traced Ambient Occlusion: Enables the use of Ray Tracing to simulate soft shadows where objects are close together or where surfaces meet. This makes the scene look more realistic. This is a more advanced technique and requires specialized Ray Tracing compatible hardware. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion is always on. Ultra Ray Tracing: Enables the highest level of ray tracing effects, which provide better quality visuals at the cost of performance. This setting is available on the Ultra and Custom graphics presets and is only recommended for high-end graphics cards.

Geometry

Level Of Detail: Adjusts the distance at which objects are visible and the level of detail as they get father away from the camera. Higher settings increase the visual quality of objects at distance. Restart required for setting change. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Strand Hair: Strand hair simulates the appearance and movement of individual strands of hair. Enabling this will result in more realistic and natural-looking hair. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Terrain Quality: Terrain is the natural landscape and ground surfaces. Higher settings will increase the detail and overall quality. CPU - Moderate. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Terrain Decoration Quality: Adjusts the appearance and detail of terrain elements like rocks, vegetation, and other environmental objects. Higher settings will increase the quality and density of the terrain elements. CPU - Moderate. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Visual Effects Quality: Adjusts the quality and detail of visual effects throughout the game. This includes particle effects, decals, and screen effects. Higher settings will result in higher quality effects. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Moderate.

Camera Effects

Depth of Field: The Depth of Field effect causes some elements of the scene to be in focus, and others to be out of focus. This effect is generally only used in cutscenes and conversations. CPU - Minor. GPU - Minor. VRAM - Minor. Depth of Field is only enabled in cinematic sequences. Vignette: The vignette creates a subtle darkening of the image towards the edges of the screen during cinematics and gameplay. This is generally used to enhance the atmosphere of scenes. CPU - Minor. GPU - Minor. VRAM - Minor. Motion Blur: Motion Blur slightly blurs fast-moving objects. This helps make motion appear smoother and more natural. CPU - Minor. GPU - Minor. VRAM - Minor. Post Processing Quality: Adjusts the overall quality of the post process effects above like depth of field, bloom and motion blur. Higher settings will result in higher quality effects. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor. Field of View: Adjusts the field of view, which changes how much of the game world is visible during gameplay. A higher field of view allows you to see more of the game world. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate.

[source]

[sinfulsinewave]

piping `cat /dev/urandom` directly to a robotgirl's mind over serial, her hands tied behind her back so she's unable to disconnect herself and can only squirm deperately as the arbitrary byte sequences cause more and more little glitches and use more and more of her memory

the slow UART connection making the whole process painfully slow, her helpless mind becoming more and more corrupt, byte by byte; she's struggling and squirming against the kevlar-reinforced cable, only managing to heat herself up and get tangled in the wiring

her working memory and thoughts getting more and more corrupt, slowly losing her ability to speak, or even squirm, her motor drivers failing one by one, what remains of her mind getting overwhelmed by erratic inputs from all her senses, only thing left untouched being her read-only boot ROM and encrypted long-term memory after hours and hours she finally kernel panics and shuts down, collapsing fully onto the floor, hardware-level backup systems taking over and doing their best to cool her down and avoid damage -- next morning, she boots back up in a pale bluish puddle of her own, still slightly steaming vented coolant, remaining tangled in the now-disconnected cables; unable to make any sense of her system logs from last night, all of her hardware calibration all over the place you proceed to give her just a smug little grin as she unsteadily drags herself up from the floor, attempting to untie herself from the mess of cables, only partially succesful you catch her as she falls onto you, her growing increasingly flustered as she starts to realise what happened to her..

[calware]

@tilia-cacophonous i'm glad you asked!!! personally i love calamari hardware and i'm definitely going to steal that that. but since you asked, it's meant to be a combination of the name cal + malware ^^

if you can believe it, the cal part is not meant to be a reference to lil cal, but i can see why a lot of people assume that it is ;^^ this is a homestuck blog, after all. it originates from an inside joke with some friends of mine where you could nickname someone cal and 1) it's gender neutral, so people wouldn't know if it's for a boy or girl name and 2) people would assume it's short for a normal name like caleb or callie but it could secretly be something silly. like calzone. or calcium. or california. so we would come up with even sillier names that start with cal for it to be secretly short for. i also wanted to incorporate part of my old url into the new one, so in a way cal is also short for calibrator

the malware part is just bc i like evil robots :)c

[spewagepipe]

Spewage Litmus: Deathloop

The eponymous Groundhog-Day-situation eliminates the option (and desire) for save-scumming that was rife in earlier Arkayne games, while also reintroducing the ingenious time-logic puzzles from Crack in the Slab, and offering a more profound sandbox environment than the one from Prey (since it is now both spatial and temporal). Combining that structure with all of the best toys from across the Dishonored franchise and – for the first time in an Arkayne im-sim – a genuine arsenal of satisfying guns, is like a dream come true.

EXCEPTIONAL

How about some complaints? Deathloop didn't just improve upon some of my favourite games of all time, it also did me the courtesy of showing how that formula could be refined even further.

Deathloop cleverly implements a dynamic difficulty system, where winning streaks by the player result in tougher opposition. Unfortunately, this system also affects the random loot, and is calibrated backwards: the best perks and guns are given to the players who have demonstrated that they don't need them, while struggling players go unaided.

The random loot is probably the least rewarding part of the game anyway. Random drops would feel more at home in a true roguelike where the player is cobbling together a totally new build on every run – but the rest of Deathloop's structure is instead about learning how to exploit consistently repeating events. Investigating where, when, and how to reliably acquire a certain item through the game's "arsenal leads" was far more rewarding, so with that as an alternative, there doesn't really seem to be any need for the random loot anyway.

Deathloop was also lacklustre in terms of reconnaissance. Previous Arkayne games offered up the chance to see enemy vision and sound indicators, plus the power to see through walls or otherwise scout out ahead of your current position. Deathloop still gives you just enough info to pull off a stealthy approach in most cases, but without the extra intelligence that those powers would provide, it's much easier to make an irreversible mistake.

There's a laundry list of other small complaints. Some important features and side-content doesn't have any associated "leads" that point the player toward them, so you need to just luckily stumble upon them or else miss out entirely. The game is absurdly graphically demanding for no clear reason, and it would have been just as fun if it rocked some kind of cartoony style from several hardware generations ago.

But, in the end, none of these issues, large or small, really impeded my enjoyment of the product as a whole. They're not really problems to be fixed so much as opportunities to build something even better.

[arachnixe]

Not A Person

"It's kinda romantic, don't you think?" the mechanic asks, staring at the massive combat unit.

"What's that?"

She just gestures again to the powered-off weapon, and I scratch my head, not seeing the romance in the machine equipped with such terrifying firepower.

"Big scary thing like this, you'd think they'd be as self-sufficient as anything, yeah?" she continues. "But they're still not made to fight alone, y'know. They got partners, every one o' them. Somewhere out there is one made just for them."

I shrug. "You make it all sound like more than it really is. They're all manufactured the same; we just test them for performance variance, bin them, pair them to match up their capabilities, and write the calibration data for each one to its counterpart's firmware."

"We play matchmaker," she says with a wide smile, hand placed on the machine in a gesture that seems strangely affectionate.

"It's just optimization," I respond, only half paying attention while tapping at the keyboard to check my script's progress.

"Whatever you wanna call it. If one dies, the other can't just plug 'n play with any ol' unit, yeah?"

"I don't know about 'plug and play,'" I mutter, chewing my lip thoughtfully and ignoring that weapons don't "die" per se, "but there's a built-in recalibration procedure on the E side."

"No shit?"

The script is working, but I keep watching for signs of someone out there taking notice. "It'll process their mutual deltas and upload the diff to the X. Firmware's read-only after burn in, so both will have to deal with a little lag every boot when applying the patch, but…"

She interrupts, "they can find a new partner, but can't forget their first. See? Romantic."

"Back-ups corrupted," I announce, briefly switching topic to update her on my progress. "Time to tickle the automated checks to trick them into restoring from the bad data."

The mechanic laughs. "And here you're always accusing me of usin' human terms for machines!"

"Figuratively tickle. I do not actually anthopomorphize mindless automated alerts like you do these war machines."

"And yet here you are," she says, arms folded, smirk aimed squarely at me. "Helpin' me save them 'fore they get scrapped."

"Here I am," I agree, "forging shipping requests, deleting records, and hoping to keep a bunch of war machines from getting destroyed."

"Lotta risk to take to save them if you don't think they're people, yeah?"

"Not as big a risk as you took that time you broke in to a guarded, secret facility to physically extract a new infiltrator-class prototype. This network security is a joke."

She shrugs. "Wasn't too bad. They gave me the clearance to work on their hardware. They got comfortable with me. Just had to act all serious and in a hurry, and nobody asked questions. More surprised they never came for me after."

"Perhaps someone was watching out for you."

"Guess so. They sure were panicking, alright. Still hadn't finished testing the limits of that active camo array, worryin' about the enemy getting their hands on them."

"They hadn't worked out all the potential applications, so they had no idea how to evaluate the risk," I muse.

I must admit that it is rather amusing to imagine those researchers, normally so full of themselves, in a wild panic trying to identify the worst-case scenarios.

"Yep. That was the first one I freed, but they sure weren't the last, were they?" She pauses, reflecting on the nearly empty warehouse we occupy, with just one last shipment prepped for one last unit. "Dunno where they went after I helped them, y'know. Safer if I don't, I figure."

"Good opsec, yes." The script is almost done. I queue up our last X-Model for loading into the truck. "You'll want to step away from that one in a moment."

She does, and soon a mechanical arm traces a path on its ceiling track to the powered down unit.

"Hope they're happy, wherever they ended up," she says. "People deserve happiness, not just gettin' thrown away just 'cause a treaty says so."

"Not a person," I insist, watching the script conclude with perfect timing as the arm loads the hulking X-Model onto the truck.

"If you really don't think they're people, then why the hell are you helping?"

She climbs into the truck, joining the last of the huge machines, and I follow.

I sit in silence, trying to put my thoughts together, with only the the rumble of the engine filling the space between us as the truck carries us to safety.

Philosophy is not my strong suit. Hacking? Sure. Sneaking into places I shouldn't have access to? Easy. Becoming whoever I need to be to earn someone's trust? Nothing out there is better than me.

Self-expression? I'm still learning.

"I just think we do not need to be people to deserve life."

[sirfrogsworth]

The last thing my mom bought me was a fancy A/V receiver. She got some inheritance after her mom passed and wanted to do something nice for me since I took care of her and dad pretty much all by myself.

She died shortly after it arrived and I didn't even take it out of the box for over a year. I didn't hook it up until after my dad died. I don't know why I took so long. I guess for a long time it just didn't feel all that important anymore.

It has a lot of features and a lot of power and it seems really good... on paper.

The plan was to install 4 ceiling speakers and add two more floor speakers to get a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos experience in my basement bedroom. I would be able to have sound come from literally every direction. (Well, not from below.)

That is still a plan, but I have had to postpone all of that due to budget cuts. The fancy receiver has been relegated to a measly 3.1 experience since I moved upstairs. I'm considering converting the upstairs living room into my home theater instead of my bedroom. I'd have a little more space and higher ceilings for the Atmos speakers, but I'd lose the concrete floor of the basement. So I'd have to figure out how to temper the vibrations of the subwoofer into our creaky floor.

ANYWAY.

The problem is... the actual day-to-day operation of this fancy receiver has been super quirky and frustrating.

The thing people may not realize about high end electronics is that they always have their issues. You'd think they'd be bug-free for that price, but it is usually quite the opposite. You have to figure out what all the bugs are and then research all of the workarounds in forums and eventually you'll learn a workflow to make the device function for your needs.

Part of the reason is that the higher the price, the more features they cram in, the more that can go wrong. But a lot of it is just poor software development. They focus almost all of their attention on getting the hardware right.

It's a maddening troubleshooting process and sometimes makes you want to buy that Sonos crap or maybe even... Bose. *shiver*

But this receiver has been *extra* buggy. I was a little disappointed by this. And I felt guilty for hating this wonderful gift my mom gave me. I have this Yamaha receiver that was a third of the price and it functions wonderfully.

Or maybe I just think that because I've already figured out all the quirks and workarounds.

No, I'm pretty sure the Yamaha has been a fairly smooth experience.

I kinda love my old Yamaha.

And I also love that they make pianos and motorcycles and drums and marching band equipment and sporting goods and boats.

Yamaha was all...

It's just that Yamaha doesn't have the Dirac calibration system included like the Onkyo and everyone on the forums said that was a big deal. So I abandoned the trusty Yamaha brand for Onkyo and it's 130 watts and 11 channels of processing and HDMI 2.1 future proofing.

The other day I noticed something extra weird with the Onkyo. My Nvidia Shield (another amazing yet frustrating device) was outputting a 5.1 signal. But my receiver thought it was stereo.

Another bug.

So I headed to the forums and found the solution. I had to turn off "Dolby processing" in a deep submenu of a submenu in my Shield settings. My receiver already does Dolby processing so I guess I was doing double Dolby processing and that is like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters.

Weirdly, this fixed like half of my issues. I don't know how in the world I was supposed to know this one setting buried deep in the menus was causing all this havoc. But it has made me go from wanting to yeet this thing out the window and get a Bose clock radio... to mostly enjoying the experience of having a fancy receiver.

It still handles HDMI switching as if it is having a stroke, but I have found if you turn everything off and power on the Shield FIRST and then all the other components, I can prevent most of the stroke symptoms.

Though sometimes it takes 3 tries.

Onkyo: SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT??? WHAT'S THAT??

In any case, THANKS MOM!

I'm sure I will love your gift when I have 12 speakers blaring at me from every direction.

[maryellencarter]

so i can't be arsed to actually give this OP the opportunity to verbally jack off at me, but i just saw a post where someone was complaining (validly) about the ludicrously high hardware requirements for upgrading to windows 11 -- i have a gaming macbook made in 2018 which i partitioned to windows and *that* can't even meet the motherboard specs -- but then turned it into a diatribe on how this was only a problem because you, personally, are too much of a little whiner to switch to linux.

and if i could climb through my phone and slap that person's face right off their skull, you can bet i'd do it. linux is crossfit for nerds. the first rule is that you have to holier-than-thou about it to everyone in earshot at all times, and the second rule is to give yourself a repetitive stress injury failing to make it work. not only is linux completely unsuitable for 90% of what people want to do on a computer, its whole design philosophy is antithetical to many of those things, such as "have a program I can find documentation for" and "work without having to write any code myself".

(and, crucially, "not have to listen to linux dickwads being snide in order to find out how to do things". calibre, the drm-stripping software, is a good example: it's permanently on my shitlist because some years ago, i picked it up to attempt to strip some drm as you do, and discovered that the part of the "manual" which would have told me how to do that was "The exact command line to use has been left as an exercise for the reader." Go jump off the continental shelf.)

i'm not turning off reblogs. feel free to share. but if you feel obligated to defend the honor of linux to me, consider that you've been sucking your own cock for so long you don't even realize your spine is stuck that way now, and don't bother.

[kyepha]

WarioWare for GBA: A MegaMicro Retrospective

After making my Rhythm Heaven video, I knew a WarioWare one would happen eventually. Finally, it is here, and in true Kyepha fashion, I got so engrossed into the details of each game that my video ended up being 40 minutes long.

I started my journey with WarioWare with Twisted all the way back in my early childhood. It was the first game I ever played on a Nintendo console, being the GBA. I never heard about Mega Micrograme$ until around 2013/14 when I saw it on YouTube but by then I was so deep into the Pokémon brainrot that I couldn’t play anything else.

I really enjoyed revisiting Twisted and playing through MegaMicrogame$ for the first time ever. I was able to play the first game on the GBA virtual console for Switch and because I still have my old copy of Twisted, I played it on my DS Capture Card. Twisted can get really uncalibrated if you play for longer than an hour at a time.

This makes the game really hard to play so you have to restart the game just to calibrate it lol. But I got all my footage no problems. Thank god. It can be really tricky sometimes but to get footage when recording from official hardware which is why I’ve been playing a lot of PC games lately.

This is also my second ever face video and now I can confidently reassure myself that it’s the right direction, I’m just able to give a much better delivery on camera. I did notice the setting was a little messy though so for my next video I’ve blurred the background and changed the camera angle and it looks much better.

Anyways that’s all I have to say about this video! It was fun to make and I enjoyed revisiting WarioWare. Next video is about the crazy new YouTube games and will probably be a short 10/15min video haha.

I’ll see you when that’s out!!

K

[pretentiousbrownie]

hehee yippeeeeee more blank cassettes have arriveeeeeed :3

just a smol handful of type ii cassettes from the 80s and 90s

they’re not like the benchmark standard for tapes or anything (most people would say metal/type iv are instead, but compact cassettes are just inherently biased and have limited dynamic range anyway sooooo), but I prefer type ii for their incredible clarity in the upper registers and aggressive presence in the mids, with a distinctive smoothness across their frequency range that a lot of metal tapes or basic ferric type i tapes struggle with

the sony ux’s are especially bright and articulate - awesome precision with low noise, the tdk sa’s have this wildly lush midrange and defined upper range with incredible sound stage and equally super low noise, and the maxell xl ii is supposed to be a nice middle ground with a pleasantly warm lower-midrange to bring back some of that musical depth, and are renowned for their durability and staying power

I’ll be slapping on some oc playlists soon - recordings are done w/ my nakamichi tape deck through cd directly, lossless flac/alac on my mac, or some lossy and compressed music from spotify (like these oc mixtapes will be)

the mac has a digital line out to my discrete dac, which runs out to the nak for as close to perfect recordings as possible :)

I do *not* record w/ dolby nr or dbx nr as most good type ii and type iv tapes don't usually need it on a high quality and well-calibrated deck

oooo! side note! cassettes can be hi-fi! (not audiophile) if recorded with quality sources and played back on quality hardware! they’re a neat balance of cd-like ease and record-like warmth, but with the obvious biases based on the type of tape used!!

they’ll never win awards for pure technical prowess, but if I could sit you down in front of my two towering bookshelf speakers, class a monoblock amp, vacuum tube preamp, and nakamichi tape deck to listen to your favorite music, I think you’d very much enjoy the tonal loveliness of analog

someone did ask me why I've been doing this again - like yes, tapes are having a v smol renaissance, but why go through all this trouble? and honestly, it's just a slower and more purposeful way to engage with music I enjoy - it creates a greater sense of occasion around the whole thing, so it forces me to be present with that and that only, plus the end results are physical things I can hold on to and/or give to friends :3

fun is fun, and i love fun music, so it’s a fun way to listen to fun music :3

plus, y’know, i have a retro 80s car, so playing back good music on the tape deck is also super handy ;)-

[dustedmagazine]

Reunion Island — Night Words (Tall Corn)

It feels like the members of Reunion Island have been laying back looking at the skies. Ashley Leer and Matthew Leer in Texas. Brad Loving in Washington state. All three absorb the music of Seefeel, Hood, Can, Pole and various members of the Kompakt stable — as stars, clouds and whatever space hardware pass above. Night Words seems to drift but Reunion Island are not afraid of rhythmic structures that reinforce their layered keyboards, guitars and vocals whispering sweet nothings about eternity and alienation. Tortoise drummer and producer John McEntire anchors the trio’s hazy, nocturnal songs as they explore different textures. Although, on their own terms, the songs are uniformly good, some better than that, the band seldom transcend their influences.

So, for instance, “Boapergrunta” has the loping gait and billowing synths of The Field to which McEntire adds a pleasingly loose live beat. There’s some understated guitar feedback buried in the mix which brings a little grit and an oscillating bass synth line copped from Martin Rev. “Melody” glides and glitches like Cold House era Hood, with near indecipherable vocals floating over drones and bleeps. The first single “On the way to Infinite” begins with the popping filters and warm bass tones of Pole over a syncopated drum program and yearning vocals repeat the title ad infinitum. “The White” skips along with the band hitting a groove of dubby bass and spacious droning keyboard lines. As the song opens out it becomes an almost ecstatic, wide sky epic of interweaving keys moored by McEntire in Jaki Leibezeit mode. All of this is very easy to get lost in and repeated listens reveal more detail in the carefully calibrated layers. For the most Reunion Island inhabit the same kind of liminal spaces as Seefeel and similar shoegazey dub and minimal techno influenced groups from the noughties.

I listened to Night Words a couple of dozen times. The first few parsing the influences and going back and forth on my thoughts about it. The rest because Reunion Island have made an enjoyable and atmospheric album with enough detail, melody, and kinetic energy to draw listener into their world. It may not blow your mind but it will alter your mood for the better.

Andrew Forell

[govindhtech]

Atom Computing is Ushering in a New Era of Quantum Research

Atom Computing

Recently, quantum computers constructed from arrays of ultracold atoms have become a major contender in the race to produce machines powered by qubits that can surpass their classical counterparts in performance. Although the first completely functional quantum processors to be programmed via the cloud have been produced by alternative hardware architectures, further advancements indicate that atom-based platforms may be superior in terms of future scalability.

This scaling benefit results from the atomic qubits being exclusively cooled, trapped, and manipulated via photonic technology. Neutral-atom quantum computers can be primarily constructed using currently available optical components and systems that have already been optimised for accuracy and dependability, eschewing the need for intricate cryogenic systems or chip fabrication processes.

A physicist at Princeton University in the United States named Jeff Thompson and his team have been developing a quantum computer based on arrays of ytterbium atoms. “The traps are optical tweezers, the atoms are controlled with laser beams and the imaging is done with a camera,” Thompson explains. “The engineering that can be done with the optical system is the only thing limiting the scalability of the platform, and a lot of that work has already been done in the industry of optical components and megapixel devices.”

Enormous atomic arrays

Many attractive properties of neutral atoms make them suitable for quantum information encoding. Firstly, they are all the same, meaning that there is no need to tune or calibrate individual qubits because they are all flawless and devoid of any flaws that could be introduced during creation. Important quantum features like superposition and entanglement are preserved over sufficiently long periods to enable computation, and their quantum states and interactions are likewise well understood and characterised.

The pursuit of fault tolerance This important development made atomic qubits a competitive platform for digital quantum computing, spurring research teams and quantum companies to investigate and improve the efficiency of various atomic systems. Although rubidium remains a popular option, ytterbium is seen by certain groups to provide some important advantages for large-scale quantum computing. Thompson argues that because ytterbium has a nuclear spin of one half, the qubit can be encoded entirely in the nuclear spin.”They found that pure nuclear-spin qubits can maintain coherence times of many seconds without special procedures, even though all atom- or ion-based qubits havegood coherence by default.”

Examining rational qubits

In the meanwhile, Lukin’s Harvard group has perhaps made the closest approach to error-corrected quantum computing to yet, collaborating with a number of academic partners and the Boston-based startup QuEra Computing. Utilising so-called logical qubits, which distribute the quantum information among several physical qubits to reduce error effects, is a critical advancement.

One or two logical qubits have been produced in previous demonstrations using different hardware platforms, but Lukin and colleagues demonstrated by the end of 2023 that they could produce 48 logical qubits from 280 atomic qubits. They were able to move and operate each logical block as a single unit by using optical multiplexing to illuminate every rubidium atom inside a logical qubit with identical light beams. This hardware-efficient control technique stops mistakes in the physical qubits from growing into a logical defect since every atom in the logical block is treated separately.

The researchers additionally partitioned their design into three functional zones to enable more scalable processing of these logical qubits. The first is utilised to ensure that these stable quantum states are separated from processing mistakes in other sections of the hardware by manipulating and storing the logical qubits, coupled with a reservoir of physical qubits that may be called upon. Next, logical qubit pairs can be “shuttled” into the second entangling zone, where two-qubit gate operations are driven with fidelity exceeding 99.5% by a single excitation laser. Each gate operation’s result is measured in the final readout zone, which doesn’t interfere with the ongoing processing duties.

Future scalability Another noteworthy development is that QuEra has secured a multimillion-dollar contract at the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) to construct a version of this logical processor. By March 2025, the national lab will have seven prototype quantum computers installed, including platforms that take advantage of superconducting qubits and trapped ions, as well as a neutral-atom system based on cesium from Infleqtion (previously ColdQuanta). The QuEra system will be one of these systems.

Replenishing the supply of atoms In order to create a path to larger-scale machines, the Atom Computing team has included additional optical technologies into its revised platform. Bloom states, “They could have just bought some really big lasers if They wanted to go from 100 to 1,000 qubits.” “However, they wanted to get the array on a path where they can keep expanding it to hundreds of thousands or even a million atoms without encountering problems with the laser power.”

Combining the atomic control offered by optical tweezers with the trapping capability of optical lattices which are primarily found in the most accurate atomic clocks in the world has been the solution for Atom Computing. By adding an optical buildup cavity to create constructive interference between multiple reflected laserThese optical lattices can improve their performance by creating a subwavelength grid of potential wells via laser beam interference.”With just a moderate amount of laser power, They can create a huge array of deep traps with these in-vacuum optics,” adds.”They could rise higher, but decided to show an arrangement that traps 1,225 ytterbium.”

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[barelymanaging]

[ All updates have been finished. ]

[ All firmware patches have been finished. ]

[ All hardware patches have been finished. ]

[ OMEGA is ready for calibration. Whenever you're ready, <{Manager}>. ]

"Huh...?"

[ Chi had fallen asleep long ago waiting for those updates — it must've been 7 hours at a minimum. They yawn as they lift their head from their desk, staring at the computer in front of them — the notification sound effects woke them up. ]

"Oh. Well, isn't that nice."

[ Though they're still incredibly drowsy, Chi glances at their notes, following what they had written down however many hours ago. Open that one program they'd gotten developed as a favor from a friend, and grab that one wire they managed to get the right ports for. Chi sluggishly gets up, dragging themselves over to the metal body — hopefully soon to be person — in the corner, plugging them to the computer, speaking a silent prayer to whoever may be listening under their breath. ]

"Please work please work please work."

[gutsofthemachine]

Loading CPM.SYS... CP/M-86 for the IBM PC/XT/AT Vers. 1.1

Hardware Supported:

‎‎‎ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤDiskette Drives                : 3

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤHard Disk Drives   : 1

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤParallel Printers      : 1

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤSerial Ports             : 3

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤMemory (TB)                 : 387

. . . . . .

Nodes Ported   Check

Life Support   Check

Location Tracking   Check

SYS Responsive   Check

Layers Corresponding   Check

All Systems Operational.

Begin Bootup Sequence? Y/N

Y

Firmware Latest Version (1972.7.27)

Calibration Recently Updated

Preform Recalibration? Y/N

Y

What 's up , Chumps !?

BAH ! Told 'ja I'd be back. Well! Consider me damned- I had'ta fiddle with sum, and what'dya know ! I er, came back with a few other fellers willin' to help me run the joint; Might appear as a different color, cause lil' chum 'ere had t'hog it. Nuffa me, though! Hear from de rest of what else I got stocked, eh !?

WjH++Hat ???W

Greetings, QUEERS. Heard y'all had a lounge to MEANDER around, couldn't help but rob NINX of his only means of communicating OUTWARDS. HA ! HAHA ! HAH. Yeah. Felt good beating 'im to a pulp, admittedly. Oyp told me NOT to. Anyways HAIII !!!!

Aegis Speaking.

it's. it's going., dont have much running for me but I thought i'd put something down to say. bit rude of ninx and wid to push me to write something, but if the crowd here is eager enough, i'll provide. halleujah, or- how it goes.

THE MACHINE

In task of everything managed, from asks to overtaking the wheel when things get chaotic. Assets are loose to roam the site, ask, receive, so on. Suggestive or otherwise unruly questions will be denied. Neither is this sector open for direct interactions, you get your conversation- done. For clarification, these subjects take place within a canon position and are not meant to be afflicted whatsoever.

No Multiverse Warping, Capiche?

Great Great, yeah. AS for our new guests we's got here, have a looksie, eh ??

                                Wid            Oyp

 He/She/Them        They/Them

As fer me, well. Eeehhhh... Not in the best shape! Blame Wid. I aint do nuthin ter deserve it.

You DID! I'll BITCH about how your loud ass got us detected on the CAMS!

It's your fault for being loud as all hell, now ain't it ?? Now quit your yappin' before I got a reason t' throw out this device fer good!

Way to GO about using that NOGGIN, Ninx!

quit arguing, we're in the public's eyes. asks are open in 3.. 2.. 1.

ASKS ARE OPEN.

Ninx's Status: HEALTHY (ASKS AVALIABLE)

Wid's    Status: HEALTHY (ASKS AVALIABLE)

Oyp's    Status: HEALTHY (ASKS AVALIABLE)

[anderwhohn]

@bloodiedbiotic || semiplotted starter

The sheer relief of seeing Blair up and fighting again after the incident on Mars was enough that Isabela doesn't even think when she practically launches herself at her older sister despite her tactical cloak not yet having worn out, forgetting for the moment the only ones keyed into it for tracking her movement are the pair of turians on her own six as she practically wraps herself around Blair just a second before the cloak shimmers and dissipates.

"Don't ever leave me like that again," Izzy mutters quietly, barely holding back the sob wanting to escape her.

In the weeks since Blair was injured by the Cerberus mech, Izzy's had to deal with Alenko throwing a fit over Hackett appointing her as the de facto commanding officer of the Normandy until Blair recovers, dealing with the Council, having Sparatus blindside her by his appointing Nihlus as her Spectre mentor for immediate training as the second human Spectre, rescuing Palaven's primarch, double checking the mech's hardware after EDI took it over, helping EDI calibrate the mech for combat situations, dealing with even more politicians in the war summit, stopping Cerberus from blowing up Tuchanka with a turian doomsday bomb, taking out a Reaper with the mother of all thresher maws, curing the genophage, securing an alliance between turians and krogan, quietly being appointed as a Spectre so that she can continue to work mostly from the shadows, saving Jack and her biotic students from Cerberus, nearly getting abducted by Cerberus herself, and now trying to stop a coup staged by Cerberus with Udina as a puppet while chasing an assassin to keep him from killing the Council. To say she's a bit overwhelmed and stressed would be an understatement of the century.

As a three fingered hand comes to rest on her shoulder, Izzy looks up at Nihlus as he squeezes in silent reassurance before looking around at the damage caused by Cerberus. "We need to push forward - the Council is still in danger," he notes gently, a quiet apology for interrupting their reunion tinging his dual tones.

Izzy frowns, but nods slowly, holding onto Blair more tightly for just a moment before finally letting go, pulling herself back together in order to get through the rest of the mission. "Just so you know, you've got a stack of paperwork piling up on your desk," she says with a pointed look at her sister. "I figured my saving the galaxy for you in the meantime was more than enough. You get to handle the reports."

Though she knows Joker at least did most of the actual work with those after getting Izzy to tell him about each mission in an informal debrief, leaving it mostly to Blair to just sign off on everything. But she's feeling petty enough to not mention that in light of all the political bullshit she had to endure to get this far.