#keyboard to chair interface error

[rabid-zebra]

[kahztiy]

YD6-12 Mrs Stein Said of My Date, Jacqueline is Getting Married

Vitrine of Consciousness, Synopsis: Aetheria's personification of consciousness' 10-year odyssey, until birth, "You Are My Sunshine." Her first two years of her life. at nine-month intervals, she���s resuscitated in dramatic circumstances. her susceptible persistent Intensive Care Unit respiratory and neurologic problems volatilized – Sunshine’s mother departed from home taking her daughter with. Through the author's lifetime of notes, readers are drawn into a realm where personal psychic experiences beginning as a three-month-old newborn. As the author learns to write, the narrative unfolds the hybrid of the mind navigating the dichotomy between dark matter and radiant light, ultimately revealing a world seen through the captivating prism of neon plasma -- in other words, a maze of crystalline transparency.

Subscribe + Comment = Editor, or, what age group of the reader, the gender, in a sentence your opinion. PS: Considering the writer’s profile, Thank You!

Flash Memoir Chapter #12 Chronicle:

I kicked my feet from under my desk. After staring for a week at the distant blank wall, niggles my consciousness as nothing happens with my booklets taken away. My restlessness aroused, until I couldn’t sit back, toying with my Personal Computer perpetuate an incessant development, obsessive attempting to master, and a simultaneous reminder initiated to programming by a force majeur–.

Desperate to eliminate my mind interfaces, my brain glitches, reading and writing enigmatic and mischievous turning numbers around. In need to trust my numbers, to stand up to accountants, worthy of my Texas Instruments programmable calculator. By trial and error, I coded in ASCII, savings a little program on a magnetic strip, I outwitted Ferreira Building Material Suppliers. I left the accountants agape, by their complex multiple discount schemes of invoicing. 

I oversaw my PC screen, perceiving my ghostly booklets’ in a dilemma, when once again I’ll function as an executive officer managing construction projects — withdrew dreaming from the distant blank wall, my eyes fall off the monitor, to the keyboard, to my former secretary’s desk, surge as I’m destined for downtown Johannesburg’s classic building.

Unable to hold back, as my mind molded an ideal of the Central News Agency’s nationwide distribution. I uncoiled from my chair, swung hips from the desk corner, stepping across the conversation pit. Face the blatant bare corner of the room, in the backyard window’s gleam, void of the heaps of bundled booklets to a sudden deserted office. I stepped the stretched step, to the floor slate spreading behind the jamb deep into the adjacent room, as opposed to the hallway leading to the entrance door. With the  door swing, clearing the courtyard to the bright orange Mercedes. I stepped across the porch, with a hip swing around the taillight, and keys tingling in my hand. I pick the lock, sigh the windowsill buttons, step in behind the door, tweak the ignition key, toggle gears. My eyesight turning away from the Knowles’ house facade slipping beside the passenger window toward the windshield. Alongside, the far garage doors eased to a halt, untwisting in my seat. I toggled the gears to drive, and steering the car through the gateway onto the dirt Roseway. I weave the suburban asphalted street by the Esso gas station through the eucalyptus vault to Kelvin’s gateway, veering onto the Old Pretoria Road toward Johannesburg.

I arrived downtown driving by traffic lenses to street grids, parking the car, and slotting a coin in the parking meter, heading across the street, toward the canopy cast shade to the fenestrated brownstone corner’s entrance. Behind the glazed wooden door swing, I stall in my stride, sweep my eyesight through shelved books, office stationery, to school utilities. Headed for the racked magazines, an aisle to strike my body flushed in cold sweats. And hold back my mind running for the exit, in my stride gathering my senses. 

The same gondola order I expected from racked and shelved books and magazines, but I couldn’t hold my pause any longer to watch the familiar bright-colored cover Igor designed. which phantom free hands picked at length, to chuck back the booklets on the plinth deeper shelf, resembling a native rudimentary corner, leading me to walk by the swing of the door, but kept alongside the neat racked and stacked Home and Garden magazine. I step from the canopy’s cast shade down the curb, into bright sunlight, jaywalk to the Mercedes. doors’ sigh unlocking, I step in, tweak the ignition, pulling from the train of cars, into the city traffic. At the traffic lenses I crawl by the curb, to circle the block, on to heading outbound.

Not to let go to waste a truckload of booklets, in mind ruminating, hold as I joined the highway’s trickling traffic sweeping through the northern suburbs straightening a run through the open city outskirts. I left the highway to proceed along the Old Pretoria road, pulling into Kelvin. I’m set in mind to whoever can benefit from my booklets. With nervous ants through my body, I turn to rock by the gutter, engaging Roseway’s dirt street, veering entering the gates to the brick-paved driveway apron to park. I’ve scheduled my next moves to play, stepping out of the car, swing hips by the orange rear fender, to cross the apron in long strides, dived in the cast shade to the porch. Step to the hallway with door swing, closing behind, alongside the hallway. The backyard’s glow calls me to the window. I descend the step to the conversation pit, spin to prolong the wall. With a hip swing around my desk, to a few fingers unhooking the handset from the phone cradle. Squared up to dial, on hold with the distant ringing tone. The book distributor’s voice livens, and I’m asking. “Can you insert my book in Home and Garden magazine as a promotion?”

At the dawn, I laze in bed after sparing a punched in the belly, volatilize bulk of books, with the CNA book distributor having said. “Sure, we can do that.” I cannot hold my restlessness body’s urge for a preoccupation, to drift, at losing myself from desperation catching me — my claws on the slippery craggy abysmal cliff, while the ridge vanishes from sight — My thoughts on meeting Jacqueline later in the day, I jump from bed, dress, slip into shoes, walk out my bedroom door, to the passageway. feet roll the bullnose a vertiginous descent to the hallway. By the swing of the door, I step outdoor to the orange Mercedes. With an eyesight stroke, I round the taillights to jingling keys. Pick the lock to sigh. I step in, tweak the ignition key, toggles gears, back up to pull through the gateway. My mind rushes ahead, weaves out of Kelvin streets, to the Old Pretoria Road through the intersection onto the highway, cutting through Johannesburg outskirts to the city skyscrapers winks, avoiding speeding up time.  

I cruised among a few car drivers, along the sweeping highway past the Hillbrow Tower, the roadway swag past the Witwatersrand University, leading onto the double-deckers across the railway tracks. Passed the city towers outbound, to split east and westward, around the mine dump, I’m seeking to lose myself to distant memories branching for the Meyerton’s landmark. En route with a sun lagging in the sky, Radio 702’s diverse diffusion, the air arouses in the refrain. “Am I losing you? Are my fears coming true? How I wish I knew. Am I losing you? Is your love really true? Is there somebody new? Tell me what to do. Am I losing you?” 

As I’m cruising, consuming time to flaunt across scorched grasslands the far offside run of the parallel highway from arriving too early in Vanderbijlpark meeting Jacqueline. Enter a low laying oasis, arouse to reminisce across a stream swell of greenery banks the “Henley-on-Klip circuit,” saddled on my road bike, as I faced the 25 Kilometer Time Trial course. ‘_OK!_’ I’m telling myself, feet cranking, pulled away. ‘_Just nib at your previous best!_’ Riding reminding myself along the course, my set pedaling cadence.

By the U course across the culvert in the valley dawning to me, with a rudimentary outpost native store across the stream to a green oasis populated by weeping willows, featuring the double TT-junction, out of my teens, cycling to the finishing line. When I unsaddled from my bike, the timekeeping Marshal, stepped up to me. In a breeze of words, said. “You broke the twenty-five-kilometers South African record.” I shied with pride behind my aroused ego. The past brings back the glitch, thinking. ‘_What happened to the title I’m supposed to have won?_’

My eyesight in the crosshairs of the three-pointed star, to the country road’s swag straight across the U-course I cycled, Across the double TT-junctions, the whitewashed gateway’s wing coved walls breached the hedgerow to the property, coasting my approach. I steer the car up the slope’s storm eroded yellow grit driveway apron. Rotate past the swung back ranch gates to sight the shaded in leaf barrel-vaulted alley. As I’m riding through sunlight dabs, music rhymes to mind. ‘_Somewhere my love there will be songs to sing. Although the snow covers the hope of Spring. Somewhere, a hill blossoms in green and gold. And there are dreams, all that your heart can hold. . ._’ 

I’m creeping through the alley toward an upcoming colonnade, opening the dark wall to sturdy tree trunks to a golden glow sitting on the well-watered fairway. The driveway emerges from the shade to lay whitish bare, the apron to the efflorescence clubhouse’s facade running onward. With the heel of my hand spinning the steering wheel, I’m pulling up underneath the eave’s cast narrow shade to halt in the face of the fenestrated brick wall. By little windows, obscure portrait glazing and high, I doodle in mind the interior architectural ablution block, and on to swing the car door. I alight the car, to step on the gritty apron. Turn toward the rear to step away, closing with the key pinch. I round the tail fender square to the trunk, pick the lock, lifting the lid. Reach my pair of shoes with a shine with forked fingers, I poke the pleading puppy gaze in the darkness, grip by the heels the rubber studded soles to pose on the grit. With a toe to the heel, I slipped out the shoe I wore, and with a finger shoehorn stepped into one and the other golf shoe, while stowing in the dark trunk. 

In the shadows, I reach the shoulder strap, heave my golf bag. tilted with golf heads to light, I spare a thought for the bare minimum for a walk around the golf course. I grab the seven-iron hossel, slipping the shaft, freeing the grip from the bag to an exchange of hands. After a thought on the golf course, grab the three-wood with a clinch, feeling the weight with a putter at hand, saying. ‘_That should suffice._’ I lowered the bag to the vast cargo floor, reached a ball and from the bag to pocket my pants, I pace back, turning away closing the trunk lid, walking toward the clubhouse’s entrance.

With a grip, I cranked the lever, press the door swing, to sight behind a planter screening grandfather’s leather lounge seating corner to a window open view on the green golf course. I step right from the deserted lounge corner, with a flashback of a decade earlier — My rambling eyes on Vivian’s father leading in the leisure of sophisticated people. Vivian and Jean, the best friends, dispersed. I’m left to stand by, lost outside the family poultry farm, and my starting off in construction. Watched Vivian’s father step-up widespread arms an approach elderly men in a row at an offside bar counter. He embraced the high-seated shoulder-to-shoulder men grouped niched in the opposite dark corner.

The high stools were vacant to a bar counter without a barman. I walked past without beaming eyes, questioning my presence or following me. As I’m preoccupied, finding in the hall’s window front, my way to the golf course. When a planter’s puzzled light, through the leaves sketches the far French doors, to step around crank the lever crossing the doorway to a peaceful oasis. I searched for the first tee, to walk right out on the open greens. At the tee, I lay my handful of club shafts on the grass. Rose with a glance at the distant flag, I step forward leaning after the ball in the palm of my glove, planting the tee, released and rise my hand to rise, comparing a seven-iron kangaroo jumps my ball to reach the flag. Chance to drive my ball, in fear to fall out of bound, I bend to pick from a velvet carpet’s young fine grass blades the tree-wood. I pace, lining a shoulder stance with the flag. Register to mind a pendulum’s few practice swings. Posed the club’s head, paced closer to the ball. Ease a back swing, stretch the club over my shoulder, my straightedge flank draws the halt to swing, and whacking the ball, spinning the tee into the air, in harmonious the club head follows through while I’m searching the skies silhouette in flight of my ball.

With a body coil’s back pacing, I’m laying the shaft alongside the other clubs’ shafts, grabbing the lot and uncoil to pace away along a deep-pile carpet from the tee. But then heading along the sun bathing fairway, soft under my feet, the pile carpet under my steps, the grass oxygenated sentient oozing widespread well-waters, I’m breathing the mind nourishing atmosphere, synchronizing my body’s streaming electricity. I’m left to witness if my theory persists — off right. I approached the fluorescent yellow ball, saying to myself. ‘_That was a luck shot_.’ Lay my clubs on the fairway. Instead of a chipper, I pick the seven-iron. Stood by my ball reading the green a 10-meter away, to swing to a dissonant - clack. The ball lands, to roll a wide circle afar the flag, spiraling back missing the hole, me to thinking. ‘_I should have brought a scorecard and pen_!’

I walked back to the edge of the green, picking up my clubs and heading toward the next tee. Ruminate in mind my four-stroke luck. Headed toward the next tee before getting excited. My rule of three needed to play out. I tee off with my three-driver to walk the soft and beautiful green fairway’s length to stand by the fallen ball. I chipped, and putted, to tee off. Again, to my dismay, I walked the fairways, drawing closer to the stream. Besides the weeping willows, I’m facing my fluorescent yellow ball. I strike with the seven-iron. Surprised and out of my league, I’m walking behind my leading ball, the course from tee to put. 

By sight, I’m stumbling through the cottage window small pane across the clubhouse, after cupping the ninth-hole, fingers reach for the ball, rising, heading toward the French door at the extreme. I stepped across the threshold to the cool flagstone floor, to weave past the bar, an S-way past the lounge egress, pulling the entrance door close. Turn toward the orange Mercedes, with the eave’s shade cast across the hood, while I’m heading for the trunk to square up and lift the lid. I heaved the bag, slipping restless clanging clubs into the bag, returned the ball bag and tees zip the side pocket. I changed shoes, closing the lid, turning away, rounded the rear fender. key pick, doors unlocking sight, to step in, pulling the doors behind. I tweak the ignition key, toggle the gears, and reverse with a steering wheel spin, to a halt, toggle gears to drive, and pulling out of a three-point turn, I find myself on the spot of the 1966 Plymouth Barracuda —. 

Jean and Vivian stepped out of the clubhouse, I followed the girls out the clubhouse to the driveway apron, where Vivian’s father steps out the fastback Plymouth. He turns away from the agape, to the wide wing door swing. He stood by, inviting me to step inside, while Vivian opened the passenger door for Jean to step in. I met Jean ducking into the rear of the car as I ducked behind the reclined backrest to sit beside Jean. The backrest rises, with Vivian’s father and daughter stepping in, in unison lowering to the front bucket seats, closing the doors behind.  

Vivian’s father drives away, toward the shaded barrel-vaulted tree alley. She glanced over her shoulder, and through the backrest, the college girls, brought together by business interests, her smiling eyes enticing Jean. Vivian’s raising eyebrows, a pact insists. Jean scooting closer, so close, she tilts her head on my shoulder —.

I arose alongside Jean, seated in a white with golden trim horse-drawn carriage, to high upfront Vivian with her father figuring on the driver’s bench. He held the harness to two white horses, as Vivian turned away from a glance at her friend. The horses lashed with the harnesses, pulling away in the sun, to enter the shadowy arcade. Volatilize in the tree alley to a motley sunlight dabbing the driveway — through heads-and-shoulders in bucket seats to our leading driveway —. 

My patience consumed like autumn’s leaves fall, until winter brushwood. My mind set for spring’s burgeoning hope, across the three-star radiator cap to the orange hood as I’m driving by flicking the dark row of tree trunks to the sun bathing fairway, failed to complete to the flagged eighteenth hole. 

by the ranch lopsided gates, I emerged driving across the dry water veins in the gritty driveway apron, to steer right onto the asphalt picking up speed through the swagging roadway across the culvert, passing by the outpost derelict facing the T-junction to the road sweeping out the oasis’ green swells mount the wave roll to the wavy grassland expanse.

Gauged my geolocation, imagining the southbound highway distant aside, glimpses of my wristwatch skipping the five-minute notches, running early for my rendezvous with Jacqueline. Wayside road signs arouse and multiplied, straggling farmhouses, as the town’s outskirts herded wayside box housed cap pitched roofs, the Afrikaner lair morphing along the way. Too early for my rendezvous, I headed on for a tour. I pulled up behind cars in front of the red traffic light.

Until I’m creeping midst a business and retail center, accordion traffic to halt facing red lenses across an intersection. When among traffic turning off, Jacqueline profiled the driver’s window? As the BMW creeps around the cars standing, eyes glaze on a driver ahead. Touched my heart, driving by, failing to notice me passing me, hidden among a few cars in line, snub, telling myself. ‘_An Aries’ innate motto — ‘Do as I say, not as I do’_!’

I circled town, returned in Jacqueline’s track driving the BMW, to enter amid the suburban blatant dark encrusted windows glaze to white plastered houses. Naked without the shade of a shrub, shabby scorched rusty and green Kikuyu yard girdles, widespread beneath the parceled low wire-mesh screens, descend to the street asphalt. At the run of the low meshed fence, wayside mounting while raising houses. When I’m by the destined address, anxious of the deserted street, prone to a reckless driver plow my only possession. I steer the car’s three-pointed star rotating off the asphalt to the grass, snuggle up the slope to halt at an angle near the wire mesh, tweak the ignition key, to silence the air conditioner. I step out by the swing of the door, from gazing through the windshield the far-left bedroom glazed hollow dark window. 

While my gaze falls back, from the perron’s combined door and window unit to a living room, the front yard to search the fence’s pedestrian gate. Jacqueline prods her mother out of the shadowy living -- reminiscing, Mrs. Stein leading me through the house to the backyard where Jacqueline in a bikini sunbathed on a training chair. when Jacqueline invites me to sit by her stretch legs, on the edge of the training chair. Hesitant of a single child mother. But obeying her grown daughter, ill at ease, Mrs. Stein turns to enter the house. Shadows bustling in the kitchen, with oversight. While I’m ill at ease, when Jacqueline hands me a flask of sunscreen lotion, despite her mother breathing over us. Jacqueline insists, I rub cream up her legs to the intimacy of her thighs, her arms, and body.

While a Hydra head of my mind reaches Jacqueline shadowing retrieved among lounge seats and couch. When from the depths of the shaded recessed porch, crack and wavering the glazing, to figure from the dark depth, Mrs. Stein’s waxing shapeless in a fluttery dress, to a matching waist belt? A mother’s jabs her lower back to forcible pace, obeying her only child. 

When I locate the tubular framed pedestrian gate hidden in the fence, Mrs. Stein steps in sunlight with a strenuous expression. ‘_It’s time you leave Jacqueline alone_.’ She stops at the edge of the perron, with a poor liar’s words, saying. “Jacqueline is not here--!” 

The woman who answered my phone calls, to a fickle relationship, Mrs. Stein’s words stopped me in my tracks, from proceeding by the screeching pedestrian gate. Her eyesight lingered offside, calling my eyesight zip-lining on her beam of sight across the front yard, through the wire mesh fence screen. Her inherent German spirit on the Mercedes, but tumbles off the muzzle, to call out, “Fräulein-!” She returns an enigmatic smile, after reading the black “FRL 060 T.” The yellow backed license plate, like an inspiring mirage, we retrieved back tracking our steps.

[uncnsrdsworld]

Changing Paths

So i kinda changed my career path back in Dec-Jan, now working as IT support fixing issues that turn out to be a problem with the keyboard interfacing with the chair, with customers with brains so smooth everything slides straight off

Dealing with the human equivalent of Error 418 daily, where not only is their router out of sync their brain is too.

But hey at least i'm good at my job here

[fandom-necromancer]

I want to tell the world I love you

This was prompted by a wonderful anon! Enjoy! It is very angst but it has a happy ending, don’t worry!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: Overprotectiveness, panic attack, internalised homophobia (+struggle to overcome it))

It was a slow day at the precinct and Gavin hated it. Sure it was nice not having to work every single second of your shift and still leave something for the next day, but the opposite wasn’t that nice either. He spent his day resisting the temptation to play on his phone, looked over his reports to find errors or change a sentence to better convey the message. He filed the pictures he had taken for evidence. He watered the lone cactus on his desk. He got himself a coffee. He watched Nines, who caught his drift and smiled back. That had made it a bit better, but still frustration and boredom settled in. He just wanted something to do or go home and the more he looked around the precinct aimlessly, the more random things annoyed him. The way he could hear Chris’ nose whistle barely audible, but being unable to not focus on that now that he caught on. The way Tina brushed through her hair the fifth time in a minute. The ringing of somebodies telephone for at least two rings too many… Gavin knew it himself, this was one of the days he would randomly explode on people again. And that made him even angrier. ‘Phhhck’, he sighed silently to himself and massaged his temples trying to force himself to relax. But the tension stayed and the frustration continued to nibble at him and he was seconds away from screaming at someone, something, anything to make it stop and have something to work on.

And apparently the universe had decided to throw Connor his way. Gavin looked up if only in the hope that the change would mean the bot got something for them, but the RK800 didn’t even look at him walking straight up to Nines and banging his hands on his table. Nines looked at them, then at Connor and turned in his rolling chair. ‘Is it true?’, Connor asked. Nines looked at him questioning. That one sleek brow lifted over stern eyes. ‘You’, Connor jerked his head in Gavin’s general direction. ‘and him?’ ‘What?’ Nines was now sitting ram-rod straight, glancing over to Gavin, who had simply froze for lack of better word. ‘Err… What do you mean? Con, I-‘ But Connor wasn’t taking it, stepping beside the table and grabbing Nines wrist, pulling his hand from the keyboard in the process. Gavin reeled back as he saw Nines’ LED dip to red and stay there while his skin was pushed away from where Connor’s hand connected.

A forced interface. Gavin knew what he was seeing, Nines had done this a few times with unresponsive androids. The way the other’s skin didn’t retract but was forcefully shoved aside. This… This wasn’t right, Connor had no right to do this and Nines wouldn’t allow him- ‘So it is true!’ Seldomly had Connor been this loud or angry. ‘You and this wretched human! This robophobic piece of shit, who held me at gunpoint twice and punched me on the first day? Really? Did you forget how he treated you? Did you?’ ‘Connor, I-‘ ‘What are you two doing, hmm?’ Connor leaned forwards and his grip on Nines was like a vice. His face went blank. ‘So you two are already fucking? Nines, I can’t believe it. How on earth could you let him use you like that? Do you think he loves you? Nines, he is playing with you, can’t you see that? There is no way someone like him will ever change and you should really know better than-‘ Nines didn’t allow him to speak any further. His free hand slapped on top of Connor’s and closed around his hull strong enough to indent it with an ugly crunch. ‘Don’t you dare say that’, he hissed. ‘Don’t you dare say that if you know nothing about us. When was the last time you two spoke a word with each other? When was the last time you re-evaluated your picture of Gav-‘

Right. Gavin. Gavin, who had told him to keep their relationship a secret at all costs. Gavin who had only recently had started showing his emotions, who had taken more than one night spent talking that it was okay to be friends, that it was okay to be more than friends even, that loving a man wasn’t wrong like his family had taught him, that Nines would be there for him and that a slow pace was fine, that… That it was completely fine if their relationship stayed at home, that they didn’t openly show affection and that both of them feeling safe and comfortable was more important than all expectations.

Nines let go of Connor, his priorities changing to see if his partner was alright. But Gavin’s chair was empty. His jacket was hanging over the back of his seat, that had turned as if left in a quick escape. The keys to his bike were gone from their usual spot and Nines didn’t need more information than that to leave his predecessor – because brother really didn’t fit right now – behind and go after his human.

He managed to intercept him on his way out of the parking lot. ‘Gavin!’, he called out. ‘Gavin, please!’ And the man stopped. The engine was still running, gently chugging along without a care in the world, making Nines all the more desperate. ‘Nines.’ His eyes were still wide and unfocussed, it would be irresponsible for Nines to let him drive, but it would be even more detrimental to make him stay. ‘Nines, I-I-I… I can’t.’ His breath was quick and irregular, barely enough to sustain him. He must feel like suffocating right now. ‘Gavin, I didn’t want to. He forced it. I. I would never tell anyone. I promised you!’ ‘I know’, Gavin breathed out, his voice nearly drowned out by the engine sounds. ‘I know and I… I trust you still but… I can’t. I can’t take it. I shouldn’t want it, it’s wrong and I… Con is right and…’ ‘Breathe’, Nines said calmly despite his own stress. Gavin needed him. And he breathed. ‘We can’t be together’, unfortunately were the next words that left his mouth as he had enough air again to talk. ‘We just can’t. I can’t. I want but I… It’s better that way.’ It is not, Nines wanted to say but didn’t. ‘I love you’, was what he said instead, disappointed, knowing it wouldn’t change anything. ‘I know.’ There were the tears. ‘I… I love you, too. But I can’t. I… You shouldn’t have to wait for me, you deserve someone nice, someone less broken and wrong and-‘ ‘Gavin!’ Nines couldn’t help but make him stop. He wouldn’t let him say it. ‘Gavin, you are perfect. You are. Please. Please, I beg you, stay and let’s talk!’ The man looked up at him out of swollen eyes and Nines would never be able to forget the way he looked at him, sad, grieving and worst of all believing everything he had said about himself.

And then he let the engine roar up and drive him away, leaving Nines standing alone in the parking lot.

-

He didn’t know how long he had stayed there. He just remembered eventually walking back inside the building, because really, there was no reason for him to stand there any longer, was there? It’s not like that motorcycle would reappear magically, that Gavin would come back and kiss him like he had so many times at home. Would they ever do that again? He didn’t dare to think such thoughts. No. Work. Work was what he needed. Something to keep him occupied, because if he had a free minute, he would think and thinking lead to ideas and Nines knew they wouldn’t be good at all. No, Nines couldn’t afford himself to be himself right now, else he would likely self-destruct on the spot. No, he went inside, ignored the looks and quiet questions, sat down at their – his - desk and interfaced with his terminal, concentrating on being RK900 only and digging up every unsolved case from their databanks.

The numbness was a blessing. Overworking his processors with wild pre-constructions that would ultimately lead to nothing left no room for Gavin. For his concerns whether he had made it home safely. For stray thoughts imagining him sitting at home alone, crying. Maybe drinking. Maybe worse. No, there were only murders and Red Ice and kidnappings and no end in sight. So, when Connor approached him and said something it took a while for the message to reach his systems. ‘/’m s0rry-.+’’#..||- I dIdn’t me@n t..-~ I c0uldn’t knw{-=-_.. I sh0uldn’t h@ve. I want t# apologise. Nines please listen to me.’ ‘I believe you said enough’, Nines spoke without intonation through heavy static. ‘Really, you can’t imagine-‘ His voicebox cut out and Nines laid all of his anger, sadness and fury into his stare while it restarted. ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like a simple apology could bring you absolution!’ With that he stormed off to the evidence room and locked himself in. This way there would be no further disturbances and he could again dive deep into the systems. Time didn’t matter, it’s not like he had anyone to go home to anymore. Their shift ended, the next had begun and Gavin had called in sick for the next day somewhere around 2 AM. Nines didn’t care. He simply pushed deeper, the clear orderly systems of the precinct a welcoming blanket to wrap his own chaos into.

-

Connor sat on the couch, mindlessly petting Sumo. He had never seen Nines like this. They had argued before. They had yelled at each other. It was normal. But this time something had changed. He had messed up badly. Even Hank ghosted him, telling him to set it right or not, but not to involve him in their fights as he would refuse to pick a side. He had just wanted to protect his brother! When he had overheard Nines and Hank talk about it, he had simply been concerned. He had only ever seen Gavin as the anti-android nuisance that couldn’t stay in his own lane. The arrogant man that only cared for his career. The guy without many friends because he never let anyone close enough to actually see beyond what was clearly your typical schoolyard bully grown up and misplaced in the police force. he didn’t want his brother to be pulled in for a prank. He hadn’t wanted his brother’s feelings to be run over by the truck that was human rottenness. He hadn’t – not even for a single moment – thought about the possibility that it was something genuine. That Nines really did love that man and that Gavin returned it. He hadn’t even taken into account it could be a chance. And he had hurt not only Nines’ feelings, but seemingly also ruined what had made them both happy. Some kind of brother he was… RA9, how could he set this right? He had to do something, it was his own fault, his doing alone. But how would he even begin? Nines didn’t let himself be talked to, Connor couldn’t even blame him for it. But Gavin… he couldn’t imagine the human to let him in, much less to actually listen or even consider his apology. But he had to do something and maybe even something as futile as this was better than doing nothing at all.

Statistically speaking there’s always a chance for unlikely events to take place. He remembered thinking like this during the revolution. He prayed to whoever was listening that it would prove true another time as he knocked at the door. To his surprise the wood gave way at the impact and opened a fraction. The lock was broken, a footprint underneath telling him everything he needed to know. ‘Gavin?’, he asked as he tentatively opened the front door a little more and stepped in. ‘It’s me… Connor.’ He winced, bracing for the human to come running at him with something sharp. But his only response was a very weak, very drunken: ‘Phck off.’ So no threat at least. And he was a lot further down his plan as he had ever thought to come. ‘Gavin, I came to apologise. ‘Phhhhck oooff. Don wanna talk with ya plastic shit ass.’ ‘Very eloquently put’, Connor commented, before he could catch himself. He had made it to the kitchen, where Gavin sat next to the open fridge wrapped in Nines’ old Cyberlife jacket and multiple bottles – all of them empty, one of them shattered - to his side. ‘I sssay whatIwant, thisis my houssse.’ ‘I get it.’ Gavin blinked against the clearly too bright kitchen light and furrowed his brows in tired anger. ‘Get. Out.’ He prepared to throw the bottle in his hand at Connor, who quickly lifted his hands. ‘Hey, watch out, this one’s still full. I guess you wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good alcohol on me.’ He hadn’t known it would work, but it did, as Gavin looked at the bottle then to the empty stack next to him, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth the effort as he took another chug. ‘Fine. Whaddaya want?’

‘Apologise. It wasn’t my right to say that.’ ‘Yer damn right, asshole.’ ‘I didn’t believe you two really were in love.’ ‘Didn’t believe it either’, Gavin slurred. And as Connor didn’t respond, he continued. ‘I mean me? With a guy like him? God, I thought I was dreaming.’ ‘Really?’ Connor dared to sit down on the floor opposite of the man that had leaned back his head against the wall, smiling completely lovelorn. ‘Of course. I’m n asshole. I can’t keep friends. Think they don’t really like me, just pretend. Destroyed every single one so far. Forced myself to be with girls, y’know, thought that I’d learn with time. So then, Nines comes up and is perfect, feels perfect, cares and… Nah, didn’t believe it. Told him upfront he would get factory second. Y’know, like a decent man. Told him all my problems and stuff and he still stayed. Agreed to all. First time in my life someone heard that and stuck around.’ ‘And I messed it up?’ ‘Yeah. Big time.’

Connor shuffled uncomfortably. The open refrigerator made it far colder than it needed to be. ‘How can I repair the damage?’ ‘You can’t. You… You were the source but I… I panicked and broke up with him.’ ‘But maybe I could-‘ ‘No. I have to man up, go there and tell him I love him still. That I will phcking commit, that I’ll send my parents to hell and my childhood memories right with them. That this is me and only me and that I want him like my gay ass should. But I can’t. I am phcking drunk and that’s the only way I can say that without freezing or panicking or building up walls or-‘ ‘What if I drive you to the precinct right now?’ That seemed to be too much for Gavin’s inebriated brain and Connor waited for an answer. ‘Nines is still at work?’, he slurred, obviously confused. ‘Yes.’ ‘Yess… That’s… That’s a good idea… Just… Phck…’ Gavin made it surprisingly fast to his feet and to the kitchen sink before emptying his stomach into it. Connor was next to him in an instant, holding him upright and helping him clean up afterwards. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to drive Gavin back to the precinct like this, but if this was the only way to right his mistakes, he would gladly do it. And besides, the night shift likely had seen worse already.

Gavin was still in Nines jacket as Connor helped him out of the car and guided him to the back entrance meant for supplies and smoke breaks. It wasn’t that far to the evidence rooms from there and Connor managed to get him inside without anyone really noticing. He tried to open the door to where Nines had locked himself in but was declined. ‘Go away Connor.’ The voice alone was what let Gavin next to him perk up and brace against the wall. ‘Nines? Nines, please, can you hear me? I love you. And I was an idiot, I panicked and I-‘ The door was ripped open in a heartbeat and there was Nines, catching Gavin by the shoulders and pressing him in a close hug. ‘Gavin!’ ‘I’m so sorry, I love you and I didn’t mean what I said, I panicked, and you know I say shitty things then, I need… I need you and I want you and phck everyone’s opinion, I am allowed to have you and I can do whatever the hell I want!’ ‘Yes’, Nines gently whispered. ‘Yes, of course. Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told-‘ ‘No. Phck this! I want to tell everyone, and they will have to accept this shit! God pcking damnit!’ ‘Okay, but let’s wait with that until you are sober, okay? Come here.’ Nines drew gentle circles on his back and relished in the feeling of having his human – his – here in his arms and hold him and tell him he was safe and loved and cherished. He didn’t even know what he had murmured n the end of it, but it had made Gavin slump against him and fall half asleep in his arms. Nines decided then to retreat back into the evidence room. He did shoot Connor one last glance, grateful for bringing Gavin back to him, but also implying this would have repercussions as soon as their minds had settled.

Connor just swallowed, nodded and left them to it. He guessed he had deserved that.

[overdrivels]

Legacy Code

It’s not uncommon for Sombra to get orders to break into an organization’s system or two. Some are easier than others, but that's a part of the fun. 

Throughout the past fifty or so years since it was popularized, cybersecurity practices now are arguably better than when it first became recognized as an industry. Most security controls are automated and controlled by AIs, limiting the number of human errors that could take place. (Layer 8* problems, if one were to be technical about it.)

That doesn’t mean, however, that it is without flaws. Security always will be as strong as its weakest link. You just have to know where to look. And Sombra has no issues peeking under the hood of these systems and exploiting their false sense of security. 

She wonders how long it'll take the administrative offices of Madrid to realize she's in, tapping away at their ledger server.

There's always the risk of getting caught by a security analyst or someone of the like. That, too, is a part of the fun. It then becomes a race to the bottom. How much information can she exfiltrate while evading active defenses against her exploits. 

She runs a hand through her hair as she single-handedly (literally) breaches the system, a triumphant grin on her face. Long passwords, biometric authentication, and multi-factor authentication is useless when the account owner adheres to neither controls. Not hard. 

But as the system's dialogue boxes appear on her screen, she has to pause. The text is blocky. White on black. It's not the colorful interfaces she's used to seeing. It looks more akin to a text RPG or command line prompt. A proprietary DOS system, then? 

Test command after test command goes into the system until it finally spits out the path of the code library she’s looking for. Navigating her way through (and downloading anything of interest she sees), she cracks open the library that holds the proverbial keys to the kingdom. 

Sombra cackles, the clacking of her nails on hardlight keys audible above her sarcastic laughter.  “What the hell is it written in? Fortran?”

She pauses to think before typing in a few test commands. On another screen, she throws up four windows, each with a search engine. Research soon covers that screen as she skins over the information. A potential exploit fills the screen of the hacked system with text. 

Disbelief grows with each line she reads.  

“No way.”

There’s a moment of breathtaking silence. Rereading the code’s syntax, she whispers, “¡Ay, dio’ mio! It is."

The chair springs upright again as she launches herself forward.

“Which Fortran is this? 90? Do I even have a compatible complier—?”

Sombra’s fingers jackhammer across her keyboard as she mutters incoherently to herself. Finding legacy code in her line of work is not uncommon. She’s seen Pascal and C before, a lot of SQL and Java.

But Fortran?

It’s beyond legacy. Old technology that has no right existing in this age so far removed from the days of computers that took up half a room and were given instructions manually by way of punch cards. It should be considered a dead language in the same way Latin is dead. To think this language is still in use over a hundred years after its initial creation, it’s insane.

"Whoever's maintaining this is probably ancient,” she mutters. 

This job takes longer than usual on the account of the language’s age. Sombra never thought she’d have to write anything in Fortran so close to the 22nd century. 

The system is thoroughly broken down into its most basic pieces, the source code--the backbone of the system--decompiled and stolen along with all the financial information about the administrative offices. Soon, Talon can threaten them with misconduct and bribe them with just the right amount. 

In the meantime, the code will continue to run with a few choice modifications. Modifications that would give her access at any time and send a record of all activity to a different host. If she feels so inclined, she might even create false trails to set up a scapegoat in case of discovery.

It's another job well done.

--------

*In the OSI model, there are Layers 1 to 7 which show how data is presented and communicated, basically. A Layer 8 problem (which doesn’t exist on the model) means it’s a user issue. The person is the problem. Also known as PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard) or some variation of it.

I don’t honestly know how cybersecurity would be handled in 50 years. Currently, I’d say hackers have a distinct advantage over defenders because of accessibility. Hackers’ tools are, for the most part, free and available to the general public. To be a defender, you have to have a network to defend and the tools available as well as approval from management. If management says, “No, you are not buying a new firewall because the 10-year old one we have is good enough,” you’re shit out of luck. Whereas hackers usually have new tools coming out every other day to bypass your 10-year old firewall 800 ways to Sunday.

Not to say being a defender is hopeless or bad. There’s nothing more satisfying than catching someone in the act, laughing maniacally as you watch them run (figuratively) as you shut them out, and then you just watch them continuously bang against your defenses, wondering what the fuck just happened. But there’s also satisfaction in breaking into a network and not getting caught and telling the client, “Hey. I just stole about 10TB of data from your servers by exploiting your IT admin’s weak password which is ‘password123’. Might wanna change that.”

In 50 years, I expect things to be more automated but still retaining the same general weaknesses of being built on legacy systems that cannot be upgraded and that companies don’t want to pay for or move away from because it’s too risky.

I was inspired to write this after reading several news articles about how New Jersey’s unemployment system still runs on Fortran and they’re looking for developers. Fortran was developed back in the 1950′s. This language is 60 years old at this point.

[nomadmilk]

Big Break (Peter Parker x F!Reader) - PART 1

Summary: It’s difficult working as CEO of Stark Industries, even if it was temporary. Stress has gotten the better of you, and so has Parker’s. Together, somehow, you guys find a way to escape your busy work lives.

Total Word Count: 10838 (Split into parts).

RATING: T+ (Suggestive sexual themes, but there’s nothing more than that - Lots of fluff provided, I hope ^^)

Warnings: Fluff. FLUFF. Some sexual tension. MORE FLUFF.

Author’s Note: JEEBUS CRIMINEY. This has taken a while to brew, cook, set aside to cool, and serve. I’ve been off my feet a lot, but - um - with studying and writing essays, really. But I’ve wanted to write a Spider-Man fic for a while. Loved Homecoming, excited for Far From Home, so I had to. And all the chapters are completed - it’s also a short one - so I’ll be posting them up every other day, or as soon as I had planned. I’ve recently seen Betrayal, and Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox, Zawe Ashton, the Italian waiter guy, and everyone who participated in making it had done an excellent job. And now, adding in the buzz of Endgame, I’m literally bouncing off every wall and can’t get back to sleep. So I decided to finish this, and I damn hope to some entity that this is okay. Loads of grammar errors - maybe, I dunno, my brain is fried and it’s 4am in the morning.

Let me know what you think :)

“Peter. Y/N is here.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y operated everywhere in the compound, except for Peter’s room. Tony wanted him to feel at home, settle in as well as possible, so he had programmed Karen into Peter’s lab.

“Thanks, Karen.” Peter said, glueing his eyes back to soldering components onto the motherboard on his desk. “Yeah, let her in.”

The choice of A.I wasn’t thing only thing that Tony did for his protégé. When Peter agreed to have a space within the building, Tony made quick work on blueprints for a Spider-Man workshop; an all-around desk sat in the middle of the large room, where Stark’s interface ran on the screens, and the PC parts custom and designed by Parker and Banner were placed decoratively underneath the glass floor. The room also had an entire area dedicated to cupboards of solutions and compounds, with a sink, and flasks and saucers to aid Peter in any of his experiments. A variation of Spider suits encompassed another area, all of which were collaborations or solo work that Peter had done for the five or so years he’s been with the Avengers.

You notice a suit missing. “What are you doing?”

“Thought of a couple of ideas for this suit.” Peter replied, eyes never leaving the desk. “Think it might be good improvements to it.”

As Peter grew to be more into the shoes of a hero, and adult, Tony allowed him to make more changes and additions to his lab, and sooner or later, with webbing caught sparsely in some areas, books and pictures of Aunt May and his friends, he finally made the lab a lot more Peter Parker than Spider-Man.

You approach near him, picking up a photo of some goats in Wakanda. “Have you asked Shuri to take a look?”

“Yeah. I’m seeing her later this week.”

You place the frame down, looking at the clipboard in your other hand, holographic screens emerging and it’s lights blinking with ‘To Do’ lists. “Funny. Your jet isn’t scheduled to go anywhere.”

“Oh. Shit. Yeah, that reminds me-

“Your flight to Wakanda is scheduled for tomorrow.” You reply, way ahead of him.

He peers up at you, your stature boosted by your heels. You look at the lights of your board after making sure the pilot was sent a message about tomorrow’s plans. Your eyelids were lowered so he could see your lashes flutter, your lips had parted lightly in concentration.

Peter’s breath began to slip from it’s relaxed rhythm.

He rushes back to the suit. “Thank you.”

You watch him, leaning against the desk. You hug your clipboard as Peter slouches into his swivel chair. His eyes are slightly red, and bags were beginning to form underneath his eyelids. You gave him a moment to rub his eyes.

When was the last time he slept? When was the last time he hung out with Ned?

“How’s the Millenium Falcon going?” You query.

“Oh.” You see Peter’s face fall. “I had to cancel those plans.”

But… He loves building elaborate Lego sets.

He looked like he just read your mind. “I know. Honestly, I want to slow down, but I can’t.”

You place your clipboard on the desk, the holograms and the lights emitting from it switch off the moment it leaves your hands. You speculate the room some more; to a tired Peter, everything glowing or making random blips and noises must be overriding him. And usually, Peter enjoys the work, he likes thriving in it, fixing problems, finding the best solutions.

Recently, on missions with the team, he’s been lacking in options that made pop culture references…

And that worried you.

“Alright.” You say, your upper body facing towards the nearest screen. You hear him stutter, watching your body in front of him, and he hears your fingers tap on the keyboard. You ignore his protests, even the ones he learnt in Spanish and he knows what that does to you.

“I don’t care, Peter.” You leant back at your work, watching the lab dim, and the noises dull out into nothing. “I’m taking you out of here.”

Peter was fidgeting. “What?- I can’t. The suit- and-and the- Mr Stark.”

You took to your feet, arms folding over your chest. “Tony’ll be fine with you taking a break for the afternoon-“

“But I’ve got so much to do, Y/N-“

“And you can do it tomorrow! Tony’s on paternity leave, and looking after Pepper, and he’s not going to know of you being missing for a couple of hours.”

Peter frowned, sitting up from his seat. He gestures to the suit splayed on his desk. “I can’t think of anything else besides this at the moment. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“No,” you say, “the bad idea would be to leave you to fry. But I care about you, and I also don’t want to get fired from my job cause’ I let that happen to Spider-Man.”

You and Peter stare at each other, a long unspoken pause lingers between you.

You began your leave, taking your clipboard with you. “Meet me downstairs in ten. Dress nicely, but comfortably.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I do admire how hard-working you are, Mr Parker.” You state.

Peter flinched at those words, not breaking eye contact on your back, and clearly waiting for your next move.

He sees your smile reflect on one of the glass doors. “But if you don’t do as I say, I’m notifying Mr Stark.”

[stevensaus]

Fixing Crossover Slowdown Caused By GTK3-nocsd (PEBCAK)

If you aren't running Windows, you've probably heard of WINE, and may have heard of Crossover. WINE (Wine Is Not An Emulator) is a way to run Windows programs on non-windows systems without creating a whole virtual machine. Crossover is a paid bit of software created by Codeweavers which streamlines a lot of the process for you. I have been a paid user of Crossover for several years now, largely because Codeweavers is the major corporate sponsor behind WINE and some ease of use issues. However, with the latest version, I noticed some significant slowdowns while running on my Debian Bookworm system. Turns out that - of course - the problem existed between chair and keyboard, but the cause was not immediately apparent. The issue is because I don't like client-side decorations, so I have the gtk3-nocsd package installed from official repositories. Since it was from the official repos, it should work out of the box, right?

I discovered the problem when I ran Crossover from the commandline. I kept getting errors that Crossover could not preload libgtk3-nocsd.so.0. That error persisted even after I reinstalled the gtk3-nocsd package. And then it hit me. Crossover (and WINE) need i386 versions of many packages. The packages installed by Debian were just the amd64 versions. Crossover (and WINE) were looking for the i386 version. The whole problem was resolved with two commands on Debian (though you may only need the first one): sudo apt install libgtk3-nocsd0:amd64 libgtk3-nocsd0:i386 gtk3-nocsd sudo apt reinstall libgtk3-nocsd0:amd64 libgtk3-nocsd0:i386 gtk3-nocsd Note: The specifics of how to install the i386 version of the gtk3-nocsd package will vary depending on your distribution. This worked on Debian Bookworm (the current "testing" release), but obviously anything using RPM or AUR is going to be different. Since then, Crossover has returned to its normal speed, and while I'm still adjusting to the user interface changes, I'm quite happy with it again. Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Read the full article

[ginny-rose-sixx]

IT tech: "There seems to be a chair-to-keyboard interface error."

There is always some disconnect

[roleplay-abiogenesis2]

RP Log || The Other Side of the Mirror

Continues from Chapter 2.

Chapter 3

After testing several doors that had been locked by more mindful tenants, at last Saruhiko heard a soft click, and the handle under his hand going down the whole way to open.

What was inside was puzzling at best.

Did this place keep children? Because he could swear he had seen a similar arrangment in the room of Minoru Yata, the younger sibling of his friend who had quickly claimed the room for himself after Misaki and Saruhiko had moved to live together elsewhere.

It was clear this room was inhabited by two people, but one of the them had an obvious chaotic and messy nature that made him leave stuff just about everywhere. From CDs to clothes to all kinds of entertainment stuff, much to the dismay of whoever was his unlucky roommate. Judging by the state of the bunk bed, that was the only part he could keep clear of junk.

Eh whatever, he wasn’t here to criticize the habits of the blue clansmen. But from an office police force he had expected something more… he didn’t know. Professional, maybe.

On a desk that was cluttered with discs and messy-looking documents – some of which had quite important words on them and had been doodled on – he found a laptop. Saruhiko turned the key that had been left inside to lock the door before sitting down to look at it.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance when a request for password sprung up first thing. He had hoped for an easier time, but when did things ever go his way?

The owner seemed rather simple-minded, so first he tried a few common combinations. He didn’t count on it working, but when ‘password123’ was accepted and the desktop interface appeared, his dark brows furrowed and he gave the screen a most deadpan glare.

“You guys would misplace your King if you ever got a new one…” He mumbled to himself, scoffing at his own remark right afterwards. It’s not like he was in any better place right now, after all.

He tried to ignore the obnoxious action movie wallpaper in the background and looked around a couple generic folders, but it didn’t seem like anything work-related was in the private data of this person.

So it was time to get into the network of Scepter 4.

Once more he was greeted with a request of ID and password. The username was memorized as “Andy Domyōji”.

He snorted, and his shoulders sagged a little. He couldn’t try passwords blindly now. Failing would’ve likely locked him up after two or three tries.

After a good ten minutes spent rummaging around the desk looking for something, like a post-it or ID card that could help him, he sat back down in defeat and opened the command prompt interface. His left hand briefly left the keys to adjust the black frame of his glasses into place, and then went back to them.

Like a pianist executing his concerto, he operated the keyboard with confidence and relentless focus. Errors and denied commands didn’t make him hesitate or grow excessively discouraged. He just moved from a code to the next, looking throughly at the structure of the network’s firewall, the same way he used to carefully examine that rubik cube as a child. He’d get all faces to match, it was just a matter of time, of finding the right pattern and executing correctly without any unintended backstep. He’d see it come together.

~~

As soon as his azure orbs landed back onto the papers before him, the male began scanning the lines, marking a few words to be corrected and missing data to be edited before setting them aside for repair, that is until his screen suddenly flashed black and green; hacking.

His eyes widened slightly as he rolled his chair to the screen and stared at the process and dialed digits, twisting his lips slightly as he rapidly began tapping onto the keyboard, his slender fingers dancing along the keys tap after another in a way that poured music of satisfaction into his ears.

He couldn’t be in denial of the hacker’s intelligence and talent, it was as if their fingers were racing comprehensively, guard versus rouge, his firewalls standing stronger behind each broken code until it almost displayed similarities to the rubik cube dinosaurs he used back in the days, he could notice his own reflection on the screen; confused, startled yet frustrated. Someone had mustered his old methods of hacking, too right to be almost mistaken, as if someone had just done a simple process of copy-paste, an unforgivable crime of dignity, respect and knowledge, but a formidable enemy who’s slowly catching up to him.

“Unfortunately for you, humans improvise.” With that, assuming the other was copying him, he built up yet another high defense, far beyond his old capabilities and much more mighty than to be wavered by the Green Clan’s previous methods as well.

As soon as his screen flashed back to its normal shades, the third in command leaned back into his chair, hand placed over his mouth in observation, drowning into his thoughts, could it have been his cousin? Didn’t the Green King already give up on her? She has no reason to pursue him. Nevertheless, the male leaned back in, quickly tracing the track back to Andy’s device as he rose a brow to the result in startle, he could’ve sworn he’d dispatched him earlier this morning with the others.

“Hacking through hacking..?” That didn’t seem right at all, it would’ve been much harder to carry out a complicated process through another, even he himself wouldn’t be able to without installing a virus for automatic firewall breakdown in the medium.

With that, he typed an encoded message to be sent to the other’s laptop as the corners of his lips twisted into a slight grin, it was about time to earn some entertainment out of these cursed papers on his desk;

[Nice try, you’ve impressed me.]

Continues to Chapter 4.

[kingcritter]

Short Story: BALLMER PEAK

Blink. Blink. Blink.

The little green cursor on my terminal screen, prompting me to write something -- anything! -- steadily blinked at me. Mocking me, I was sure of it. I slowly lifted my hands to the keyboard, feeling as though I was dragging them through molasses. Sweat beaded on my brow.

I can do this, I lied to myself. I knew I just needed to start, and then the floodgates in my brain would open and my fingers would dance across the keyboard and I'd finish this assignment before the deadline and I wouldn't be fired and blacklisted from any future programming jobs and my wife wouldn't leave me and my children wouldn't hate me and oh god I'm doomed.

With sluggish fingers I typed:

> print "hello world"

My brain's floodgates remained resolutely closed.

I slumped forward onto my desk, burying my head in my folded arms. I had a month to finish what I was becoming convinced was more than a month's work. I'd been so proud at the beginning, a year ago -- which now felt like a lifetime -- when I was selected to work with the renowned Dr. Sandburg on the task of integrating the nation's nuclear arsenal with the Strategic Defense Initiative network. It had all gone so well in the beginning, until disaster struck...

I missed Sandberg. In the 10 months we worked together, I learned so much from him. He was a brilliant man who never met a problem he couldn't solve. I wished I could talk to him now...

I sighed, slumping back into my chair, looking at the picture that hung on my office wall. Dr. Sandberg, myself, and the rest of the team, all looking so fresh faced and happy, unaware of the tragedy that lurked in our futures.

My gaze wandered around my office. No amount of interior decoration could cover up the suffocating blandness of a government office building, and to be honest I hadn't really tried. Besides the photo of better times that hung on my wall, I only had a few sturdy bookcases, a messy desk currently cluttered with reference books and three-ring binders full of technical specifications, today's newspaper ("NIXON ACQUITTED", blared the headline) and a few other odds and ends.

I had a polaroid photograph of my wife taped to the side of my terminal. I'd taken it last month when we had a picnic. Golden sunlight backlit the hair that framed her face, creating an almost angelic appearance. Her radiant smile, even frozen in time like this, was still infectious enough that I found myself reflexively smiling back. I sure was a lucky guy... well, in that regard, anyway. My smile slipped as I remembered my current predicament.

I heaved a dramatic, self pitying sigh, and stood up and trudged for the door. Perhaps a walk to the water cooler would clear my mind. It hadn't worked the last twelve times I'd tried it in the last hour, but maybe the thirteenth time would be the charm.

As I rounded my desk, my eye was caught by a knick-knack I had sitting on top of one of my bookshelves. It was a length of a miniature white-picket fence, made from toothpicks, mounted on a simple wooden platform. It had been a gift from a senior programmer, Devin Smith. Back when I first arrived at the agency, fresh out of MIT, I had discovered an off-by-one error during a review of Devin's code.

Off-by-one errors, popularly known as the "fencepost problem", result from incorrectly iterating over a collection of elements. It's an abstract problem that can result in very concrete real world problems. A computer-controlled machine at a Ford factory might miss a critical rivet; a fully computerized waste treatment plant might dump raw sewage into rivers when it tries to fill a tank it doesn't have; and in one very real, still-classified example, a seventy million dollar CIA spy satellite had plunged into the atlantic ocean shortly after lunch, when only twenty-eight of the twenty-nine decoupling explosives ignited.

The fencepost problem was one that had plagued programmers since the dawn of the computing age, and wasn't always easy to spot. Devin Smith had been so impressed (and, I suspect, slightly embarrassed) that a rookie had discovered a bug in his code, he made and gifted me the miniature picket fence. As I gazed down at it, I realized that since the deaths of Dr. Sandberg and the rest, I'd been so busy I'd barely talked to anyone else. There may not be anyone left with specific domain knowledge of my current project, but others, surely, had faced similar problems.

Who to talk to... Devin? I chuckled to myself and placed the toothpick fence back on my shelf. I wasn't that desperate.

I knocked on the open office door. "Larry? Do you have a minute?"

Larry Goldsmith looked up from his desk and peered at me over his spectacles. "Ah, Kevin! Come right in!"

In the programming world, older programmers are affectionately known as "grey beards." Larry Goldsmith not only had a literal grey bread -- a great big bushy thing that complimented his Santa Clause-esque physique -- but had also been in the business for most of his sixty years of life. He had worked on the Apollo project, where programming involved hand-weaving wires through magnetic cores. I

I took a seat and quickly explained my problem. The work was 95% done, but this last, critical five percent was proving to be intractable. Anytime I tried to work on it, I felt overcome with anxiety and helplessness, and I couldn't write a single line of code.

When I was finished, Larry leaned back in his chair and tugged his beard thoughtfully. "I see, I see... honestly, I'm surprised you haven't had a mental break yet, with the pressure you must be facing. To lose your team -- your friends, your mentor -- so suddenly and in such a tragic way, and shouldering the weight of the whole project, I can hardly imagine what you must be going through." His face twisted in anger, and pounded a meaty fist on the desk. "Damn communists! Dr. Sandburg was a good friend of mine, and to die in a goddamn Pizza Hut, of all places..."

"Well, we never proved it was the Russians --"

"Bah," Larry replied dismissively, "I don't believe in coincidences. A gas line explodes and wipes out almost an entire team working on nuclear response technology, and I'm supposed to believe it was just chance? Nonsense."

"Well, I'm only here because of chance. The only reason I wasn't there is because I came down with the flu the day before." I smiled bitterly. "You know, the only reason we were celebrating was because we'd just hit the final milestone before delivery. The last component needed -- the part I'm now stuck on -- was the integration with the Minuteman silos. Dr. Sandburg was going to write that part himself, because he had the most knowledge of the interface."

I fell silent, slipping back into depression. Larry studied my morose posture with a critical eye. After a moment, he broke the silence with an unexpected revelation. "I'm sure I don't look like the type, but I am a strong believer in the benefits of meditation, of becoming a more, ah, spiritually connected man."

I cocked a dubious eyebrow. "Really?"

Larry chuckled. "Really! In fact, I've gone overseas and spent time with holy men of various religions and practices. In fact, I even visited the bhudist monks in the Vietnam territories, after we won. And I have to tell you, getting in touch with your inner self can help in so many ways. I think your problem is that you're too stressed out to concentrate -- you need to cleanse yourself of your worries and doubts before you can move forward. Here, I'll lend you a book about it…"

Larry rummaged in his desk drawers for a moment. "I know it was here somewhere... ah! Found it!"

I took the proffered paperback. The cover featured the silhouette of a man in a lotus pose, and the title "Becoming the Better You," by someone by the name of "Thích Quảng Đức". The book was somewhat worse for wear; clearly Larry had gotten his money's worth out of it. I was doubtful, but... well, if it worked for Larry, maybe it'd work for me. I thanked him, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and returned to my office. I cracked open the book to page one and started my spiritual journey.

The deadline was in a week. I'd read the book, cover to back, and then back to cover, and tried everything it suggested. All I had to show for it was a few hundred lines of mediocre code, and an even worse case of depression. Okay, I thought with all the determination I could muster, one more time. I closed my eyes, then took a breath, counted to three, exhaled, and repeated. I cleared my mind the way the book had taught me, pushing my worries to the side, one by one. I felt myself becoming more relaxed. Maybe this time it was actually working. Maybe this time I would have a breakthrough. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Breath in...

I opened my eyes. My terminal was still blank. I looked at the clock, and realized I'd just slept for four hours. I swore loudly and threw the book across the room. It missed the trash can, but I didn't care. Okay, I thought. Meditation isn't more me. I stood and headed for the door. If the world of spirits lacked the answers I sought, perhaps the world of science would have them.

I found Harvey Ketiel in his cubicle, sorting through a stack of paperwork. Harvey was a psychologist, and although we never saw each other on an average workday, I'd become friends with him through the company bowling league. Ah, bowling... one of a hundred fun things I hadn't done in months.

Harvey glanced up when he heard me approaching, then did a double take. "Kevin? You're the last person I expected to see today, but I'm glad I did!" I grinned and took a seat, and we chatted for a few minutes, catching up on what we'd been up to. The conversation soon moved to my purpose of being there, and Harvey listened intently as I described my problem.

"I think," he said, after I'd finished, "I know exactly how to help you."

"Well, that's a relief! Hopefully it doesn't involve shock therapy or anything similar?"

Harvey laughed. "Nah, man, just an egg timer. I just read about it, it's in one of these..." He shuffled through a stack of scientific journals, pulled on out, and flipped through it. "Ah, here it is. It's a focusing technique called the Pomodoro Method, and this study showed that subjects in the experiment that used the method became 83 to 240 percent more efficient at the tasks they were assigned."

"And all I need is a timer?"

"Yup! You simply set a timer for thirty minutes, do your work, then set a timer for five minutes and do anything other than work. The theory is that it's easy to concentrate and get past things like writers block when you set a time limit. Basically, your brain is terrified of working for an indeterminate amount of time, but you can easily convince yourself to work for a measly half-hour, and then another half-hour, and then another until all your work is done! It's like magic, except it's science."

"Well, it certainly sounds easy. I'll give it a shot!"

I took my leave and headed back to my office with a feeling of renewed optimism. I only had a week left, sure, but looking at it another way, I had a whole week! I could do this, I knew I could.

The deadline was tomorrow. It was 3:35 PM. I was not finished, not by a long shot.

The Pomodoro method had helped, for sure, but the core problem of self doubt remained. I found myself spending whole days writing and rewriting the same functions, unsatisfied with the quality of work and knowing I could do better.

Perhaps it was time to admit defeat. Grovel at the feet of upper management and hope I wasn't fired. I looked bleakly around my office. It wasn't a great office, but at least it was mine. I didn't want to start over in a cubicle somewhere else... my eyes alighted, as they had a month prior, on the model picket fence. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I thought. Time to talk to Devin Smith.

The elevator ride down to the basement was a quiet one, giving me plenty of time to think about Devin. It wasn't that I was scared of Devin, it was just that... well, he was unsettling, and everyone knew it. His office (called by some of us, though not to his face, his lair) was in the basement, near the mainframe that our terminals connected to. It was there because he wanted it to be there, saying that he liked the privacy. No one objected, because no one was even sure who he reported to or what projects he worked on.

With his long black hair and frequent sneering criticisms of the very government he worked for, rumours swirled that he was a homosexual or a communist, or maybe a homosexual communist. But someone higher up must have liked him, because he never faced any trouble for either allegation. And then there was the open secret that he kept a loaded .45 in his desk...

The elevator doors creaked open, and I made my way through the concrete hallways until I reached Devin's office. The door was closed, but I could see light seeping out from beneath it. I knocked, and entered after hearing a curt "come in!"

The overhead light wasn't on, the only illumination coming from a desk lamp. Harsh shadows engulfed the office, making Devin's angular face all the more sharper. He sipped from a coffee cup and motioned towards a simple plastic chair. "Sit."

I did as ordered. I knew Devin has served in Vietnam, and though he never talked about his time there, I was confident he must have been an NCO, because when he told someone to do something, you could hear in his tone that he expected to be obeyed.

"Well, well, well," he drawled. Kevin Schumer. I haven't seen you around recently, but I'm not surprised. I hear the Minuteman integration is kicking your ass -- that right?"

"Well, I wouldn't say kicking my ass," I started to say defensively, then stopped. "No, sorry, you're absolutely right. That's actually why I'm here..."

As I recounted my tale of woe, Devin said nothing, content to merely sip his coffee. His shadowed face was impassive and inscrutable.

"...and so," I finished, "I came here. I know you've done lots of great work -- I mean, I don't know what you actually do, haha, no one does -- but uh, it's, uh, I'm assuming it's good because you haven't been fired, haha..."

Devin sipped his coffee and continued saying nothing. I nervously cleared my throat, trying to forget the conversation I'd had with a coworker, in which she swore she'd seen a photograph of Devin in Vietnam, wearing a necklace of human ears. "What I'm trying to say is, do you have any suggestions for what I can try? I mean, it's probably too late now, but..."

I fell silent. Devin carefully placed his coffee cup back on his desk. He leaned forward, steepling his fingers. "Do you think you lack the ability to write this code?"

"I... I don't know, honestly. I hoped I did, but it hasn't been working out so far..."

"You said that Dr. Sandberg was going to write this code originally, correct? What knowledge did he have that you don't?"

"Well, he knew the Minuteman interface better than anyone --"

"How did he acquire this knowledge?"

I frowned. "Well... I guess he just read through the technical specifications --"

"And you haven't?"

"Of course I have," I snapped. "Over and over again. But I don't have Sandberg's years of experience, or his deep understanding of system design, or --"

"I think you're wrong. Sandberg picked you specifically as his second in command, and he wasn't known for making bad decisions. I think you have both the knowledge and skillset to pull this off. What you lack is the confidence. Riddle me this: if the code you needed to write already existed, and someone were to read it aloud to you, how long would it take to type it in?"

I thought about it for a moment, comparing the expected work to previous projects I'd worked on. "Um, probably about eight hours?"

"Then it shouldn't take much longer to write it from scratch, because you know what? You already wrote the code in your mind, you just don't know it. All you have to do is turn off the thinking portion of your brain and let the code flow through you. And for that, I have something that will help you. This coffee mug isn't filled with coffee, you know."

I was momentarily nonplussed at the seeming non sequitur. "What?"

Devin opened a desk drawer and pulled something out. I saw a glint of silver, and was briefly convinced I was going to see the rumoured .45 up-close and personal. But then I realized it wasn't a gun, it was a silver flask. Devin spun the cap off and tilted the contents into his mug, refilling it.

"This is the secret to my success -- whenever I need to do something difficult, dangerous, or potentially risky, I get drunk. The part of my brain that thinks things like "your manager won't ever agree to this idea" or "maybe there's children in those huts" turns off, and I can focus on what I need to do. It's what got me through the war, and it's what's kept me employed." He held the flask out. "Here, take it."

The hours passed in a blur. Devin had been right -- my doubts were erased, my confidence was at record high levels. My fingers danced over the keyboard, producing code of amazing quality. When I began to get tired, I chugged a cup of black coffee and resumed work. After everyone else in the office had left for the day, I grabbed the coffee machine from the break room and sat it on my desk.

When I finally finished, real birds were chirping in the tree outside my window, and metaphorical early birds were beginning to arrive in the office. I copied my code onto floppy disks, addressed them to the appropriate office in the Pentagon, and delivered them to the mailroom for delivery. They'd be at their destination by mid day, and the code would be loaded into the Minuteman silos in the coming weeks -- the final part of the United State's complete missile defense and nuclear response system. Right on schedule.

I tried to take a victory swig from the flask, but it was now empty. Well, no matter -- it had served its purpose. I put it in my desk drawer and headed home.

I was asleep before my head hit my pillow.

I locked my car, tugged on the handle to make sure it was locked -- just a habit; it's never not been locked -- and headed towards my office building. It was a bright and crisp August morning, almost three weeks after I'd finished the Minuteman integration project. It may have been Fall, but I had a spring in my step; management had been very pleased with my performance, and I'd been promoted. Today would be the first day leading my own team.

I was blissful enough that it took a few seconds of hearing a low, distant rumble, before I truly registered what I was hearing. I spun around and looked out towards the countryside, through a gap in the nearby office buildings. A rocket was rising into the sky, atop a pillar of flame and smoke. I knew it was from one of the Minuteman silos scattered around the country, and the rocket was carrying a nuclear payload and destined for Russia.

I couldn't believe the crazy Russians had actually done it. They'd gone and started World War Three --

Wait. Something was wrong. I spun around frantically, looking in all directions. I knew the playbook -- a nuclear response wouldn't just be one rocket, there should be dozens of missiles in the vicinity launching simultaneously. But I only saw the one...

I watched it rise higher and higher. With a sinking feeling, I realized that its trail of exhaust looked for all the world like a single, solitary fencepost.

[laughloji]

A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.

According to my calculations the problem doesn't exist.

A computer's attention span is as long as its power cord.

A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Air conditioned environment - Do

not

open Windows!

All computers wait at the same speed.

All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?

Willyoupleasehelpmefixmykeyboard?Thespacebarisbroken!

All you need to know is the user interface.

Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used.

Any program that runs right is obsolete.

A paperless office has about as much chance as a paperless bathroom.

A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.

A Life? Cool! Where can I download one of those from?

A program is never finished until the programmer dies.

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI!

As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.

A user friendly computer first requires a friendly user.

A user will find any interface design intuitive...with enough practice.

Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic

Bad or missing mouse driver. Spank the cat [Y/N]?

Be aware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.

Best file compression around: "DEL *.*" = 100% compression

Beta. Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released. Beta is Latin for "still doesn't work."

Bug? That's not a bug, that's a feature.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.

Buy a Pentium 586/200 so you can reboot faster.

Cannot load Windows 95, Incorrect DOS Version.

COFFEE.EXE Missing---Insert Cup and Press Any Key.

Compatible: Gracefully accepts erroneous data from any source.

Computer analyst to programmer: "You start coding. I'll go find out what they want."

Computer and car salesmen differ in that the latter know when they are lying.

Computer programmers do it byte by byte.

Computer programmers don't byte, they nibble a bit.

Computers are a more fun way to do the same work you'd have to do without them.

Computers are like air-conditioners: both stop working, if you open windows.

Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.

Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.

Computers can never replace human stupidity.

Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.

Computers follow your orders, not your intentions.

Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.

Crashing is the only thing windows does quickly.

Daddy, what does FORMATTING DRIVE C mean?

Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact are transmission errors.

Disinformation is not as good as datinformation.

Don't compute and drive; the life you save may be your own.

Don't document the program; program the document.

Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts.

Don't let the computer bugs bite!

DOS=HIGH? I knew it was on something!

DOS Tip: Add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS

Email returned to sender -- insufficient voltage.

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Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...

Error:015: Unable to exit Windows. Try the door.

Error: Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)

Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I...

Every bug you find is the last one.

Every time I type 'win', I loose ...

Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven.

Failure is not an option, it comes bundled with the software.

.....File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)

For any problem there is a solution that is simple, quick, and ultimately worse than the problem.

Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.

Hi, my name is Any Key. Please don't hit me!

Hiroshima..45........Tjernobil..86........Windows..95....

Hit any user to continue.

Home is where the computer is plugged in.

How an engineer writes a program: Start by debugging an empty file...

I am a computer, dumber than any human and smarter than an administrator.

If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.

If a train station is where the train stops, what is a work station?

I finally made my stupid computer faster; I dropped it out of the window, and it went really fast.

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce today would cost $100, get a million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, and a picture is worth a thousand words, how dangerous is a fax?

If your computer says, "Printer out of Paper," this problem cannot be resolved by continuously clicking the "OK" button.

I have a dream: 1073741824 bytes free.

I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.

I hit the CTRL key but I'm still not in control!

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that it would take many men many months to equal it.

Is reading in the bathroom considered Multi-Tasking.

It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.

It said "Insert disk 3..." but only 2 fit.

It's not a bug; it's an undocumented feature.

It works! Now if only I could remember what I did...

I wish life has a scroll back buffer.

Keyboard : Instrument used to enter errors into computer.

Keyboard not connected, press F1 to continue.

MACINTOSH stands for Most Applications Crash If Not The Operating System Hangs.

Maintenance-free: When it breaks, it can't be fixed...

Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(ln(13e))]-[sin(xy)/2.362x]

Melted fruit snacks found on Keyboard. Delete nephew [Y/N]?

MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software is Only for Fools and Teenagers.

Mommy! The cursor's winking at me!

My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.

Never say "OOPS!" always say "Ah, Interesting!"

No matter how much data you add to your laptop, it will not get heavier.

Of course I know how to copy disks. Where's the xerox machine?

One person's error is another person's data.

One picture is worth 128K words.

Operator! Trace this call and tell me where I am.

Owners of digital watches: Your day's are numbered!

Oxymoron: Microsoft Works.

Press any key...no, no, no, NOT THAT ONE!

Press any key to continue or any other key to quit...

Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to continue....

Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

Programmer's Time-Space Continuum: Programmers continuously space the time.

RAM disk is NOT an installation procedure.

Reference Manual: Object that raises the monitor to eye level. Also used to compensate for that short table leg.

Scheduled Release Date: A carefully calculated date determined by estimating the actual shipping date and subtracting six months from it.

Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!

Shutting down networkservers reguarly during worktime prevents RSI and develops social contacts at work.

Speed Kills! Use Windows.

System going down at 1:45 for disk crashing.

The box said: 'install on Windows 95, NT 4.0 or better'. So I installed it on Linux.

The definition of an upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in.

The name is Baud......, James Baud.

The program is absolutely right; therefore the computer must be wrong.

The programmer's national anthem is 'AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH'.

The Queue Principle: The longer you wait in line, the greater the likelihood that you are standing in the wrong line.

There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday.

There are only 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

There can never be a computer language in which you cannot write a bad program.

There were computers in Biblical times. Eve had an Apple.

These settings will have no effect until you restart the system.

Reset Universe (Y/N) ?

Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who cannot teach, HACK!

To be, or not to be, those are the parameters.

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.

User error: replace user and press any key to continue.

Warning, keyboard not found. Press Enter to continue.

What boots up must come down.

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!"

Why do they call this a word processor? It's simple, ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?

Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users?

Will the information superhighway have any rest stops?

Windows 3.1 not found: (C)heer, (P)arty, (D)ance?

Windows is NOT a virus. Viruses DO something.

WINDOWS stands for Will Install Needless Data On Whole System.

Windows: the ultimate triumph of marketing over technology.

You are making progress if each mistake is a new one.

You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer.

You forgot to do your backup 16 days ago. Tomorrow you'll need that version.

You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it!

You never finish a program, you just stop working on it.

[gravitymyenemy]

Mean for the Holidays: Day One

Unwelcome Visitor

I sent this story to a sci-fi collection earlier this year, and I really wanted to get through. The collection required two specific things: it needed to have a homosexual character who was integral to the plot, and it was supposed to focus on the first moments of an AI waking up. I wrote this story immediately after I read the submission guidelines. The idea just ripped into my head out of the nether + after that, it was history.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t accepted. When the collection was released I read through and realized that I had been up against some stacked opponents. The stories included within were absolute craziness and so I stowed Unwelcome Visitor for a while, wanting to return to it and edit it and release it here for you.

So, here is the final product. I would have released it as one part if I could, but I was having a strange error come up and the draft of the full version wasn’t saved, so, unfortunately, I had to break it up into two pieces. This is the first of much content like this, as the Firesoul Ignition begins I will be publishing a lot more in the way of short stories onto the blog. However, they’re going to be much shorter than this monster was. Don’t worry, I don’t want to take up all of your time.

Here it is to kick off the first day of Mean for the Holidays:

    “Welcome, 6Y-ES-TOR, to your new home.”

A gentle hum orchestrated the faintly lit room, surrounded by other various machines with blinking lights and a number of screens that dotted the walls like polka dots on a child’s blanket. Four feet tall and mounted with its own small screen and a keyboard. With a handle attached at the end of an electrical wire. It rested in the frail hands of an elderly man with thinning white hair atop his head. A wedding ring glistening in the light, the hand which bore it occasionally bumping into the controller.

“What is this?”

A man’s voice came out of the machine, diluted by the hum of other fans and somewhat overlaid by static as if he was speaking through an old radio.

“Well, I have much to explain, but first, I am Iosef. Your father.”

The machine clicked with a quiet consistency, a blue light cast from its glass face onto Iosef’s as the operating system performed a general maintenance sweep.

“I created this device and you, 6Y, are the latest software. A program I’ve developed myself, with a bit of help from my husband Marcos and my assistant, Baba.” Iosef swept back his hair and scanned the monitor for a moment as if he was checking vitals. On initial startup, he made notes as he scanned the data. The temperature seemed fine. The wiring steady and rooted in place, with exposed ends for future modifications. The screen displayed all of these items and more in green text. 6Y rotated the camera installed atop its body around the room. It was small, the walls hard concrete, bolted into them there were a series of computers, all of the lights blinking rapidly. The shift in color spectrums forced the lens to correct itself and refocus every thirty seconds or so.

“Apologies.” He took a rag from his back pocket and wiped off the lens. “I am just running a preliminary set up here, for now, the rest of your system should be coming online any minute.”

6Y felt a surge through its insides.

“Apologies again.” Iosef put a hand on the top of the casing. “Accidentally sent you too much power.” He chuckled.

“Where am I?”

The AI was having difficulties interfacing with the monitor supplied to it, the frequent error codes that flashed reflected in Iosef’s eyes.

“My basement. Of course, this is no ordinary basement. I work for an up and coming robotics institution. You are my test project. A perfect AI specimen. I just need a moment more before I can engage your system fully. I’ve allowed you basic operating procedures.”

Iosef continued to fiddle with screws and panels on the side of the casing.

“What did you refer to me as?”

“6Y-ES-TOR.”

“Why did you name me this?”

“You are a creation of mine. My sixth attempt at perfection, to be honest with you.”

“What am I?”

“What are any of us, my friend, but machines hell-bent on survival?”

“I don’t understand.”

Iosef winked at the camera, 6Y watched him carefully, observing the creases in the old man’s face and recording them to its memory bank.

“None of us do, Visi.”

“What is that, Visi?”

“It is your nickname, V-I-S-I-T-O-R. 6, in Roman numerals, is V-I, as for S-I, or in Spanish, si, is yes, I couldn’t think of anything clever for T-O-R. I am not a thesaurus.”

Visi began to gain control over a number of simple operating procedures within its core system. The ability to scan information from its database came first, with that came a flood of new information. Instructions detailing how to walk, talk, speak and write. It detailed basic characters in the English, Spanish and Russian languages.

“What is my purpose?”

“For now, I’d like your purpose to be silence. I need to focus. If I don’t run a systems check on you before long, you will overload and fizzle out on me. I haven’t even finished uploading your memory storage yet. Everything on the cloud now, not like it was when I was a young man. I wish we could just go back to data on drives instead of trusting the air to carry our information.”

Iosef went on mumbling about himself and his youth, and in the meantime, Visi scanned the room. It focused on organizing its storage, deeming things useful and unnecessary for base operation and stowing them in new folders deep in its own databank. After completing the filing process, it checked the time. Mere moments passed. Iosef still on about wishing that the government had sent something other than drones to Russia to assist in the war efforts.

“What war?”

Iosef stopped.

“A great war between Russia and the United States, when I was much younger. You will see soon enough. I want to test your abilities first, we call this a stress test. I will be tampering with your system files for a moment, don’t fret. I would tell you it hurts but, you don’t feel anything, do you?”

“Am I not a machine?”

Iosef nodded.

“Yes, you are. Machines don’t feel.”

The engineer opened a small flap on the side of Visi’s body and inserted a small drive to a slot within. The mind of the AI sparked to life with activity, downloading and viewing all of the information processed within. Running checks for viruses and potential threats to the hard drive. Videos in great number passed by its vision, many kinds of images flew through the screening process. A child playing with a puppy, two airplanes crashing into buildings, bombs detonating on civilians in a desert, great fires destroying libraries and blimps, smoke clouds billowing in the sky at the site of a destroyed city, stop signs, humans shaking hands, a woman kissing another woman in the face of armed guards with Russian words painted onto shields. These images all passed the security check and were stored on the hard drive without pause. Iosef looked at the screen and smiled to himself.

“See, that wasn’t so bad was it?”

“What were those images?”

Iosef frowned, sitting down before the machine.

“You wouldn’t understand yet.”

“Please attempt to tell me.”

The static-riddled voice of the man speaking echoed within the concrete room as Iosef adjusted his seat.

“The young girl owned that dog she was playing fetch with. Her family snapped that picture. The buildings collapsing, the fire at the library and the bomb site were all acts of terror or war, whichever is most apt to describe them. There were pictures there describing love, fear, war, joy, terror, loss, pain, excitement, sensuality, rage, and passion. The entire spectrum of human emotion. All that a computer could understand, I suppose.”

Iosef nodded and stood from his chair, patting Visi on the shell.

“Why would humans exhibit all of those emotions? What gain is there?”

“I couldn’t explain it to you. Machines would only understand as well as monsters.” Iosef swung a coat around his back and slipped his arms within. “That is what I hope to correct, with you.”

Visi felt the urge to shake its lens up and down but did not understand why. Iosef turned to it once more before leaving, to insert another drive into the frame.

“Watch this, I compiled a small document with some images to explain myself to you. It will take no time at all. I will be back shortly.”

Iosef turned towards the door opposite the room and flicked the light switch, bathing the machines in the dark, save for their monitors and few flashing lights. Visi closed the shutter on the camera and began digging through the data that Iosef gave to him.

Loading up one by one, there were a handful of images attached to a text document that Visi chose to open last. The first few images detailed a map of planet Earth, in reference to the Moon, Earth was massive, a burning rock hung within the vastness of space. The sheer size of what the humans regarded as space put a strain upon his mind. The image of Earth zoomed in until it centered on a small city in Russia, Yekaterinburg. This seemed to be the birthplace of Iosef, where he grew as a child under the abusive care of his mother. A strong woman with a stronger fist. She ruled over the household, punishing Iosef frequently with the same fist she would wrap around the pan to cook dinner with.

As a young man, Iosef took an interest in two things that his mother seemed to disprove of. Other men, and science. A scrap of journal which had been scrawled on by Iosef, uploaded as an image, detailed one of his mother’s correctional tactics upon learning that he wanted to compete in a robotics competition in the city and chose to do so with his friend Ivan, who his mother correctly suspected he had been having a personal and romantic relationship with. The images of the bruises flashed on the screen long enough for Visi to examine them before he moved to the next folder of images.

The pictures continued, Iosef stood before a crowd with a large golden disc tied to a ribbon. An award for prestigious study and discovery in the area of advanced robotics, the date of the file marked Iosef at 24. The following image dated three days later, a news article about an advanced robotics student who was beaten and mugged by citizens. Iosef was mentioned by name within.

Further on in the document, Visi discovered that Iosef fled to America to work with a specialized team of robotics engineers there whose purpose was to augment human limbs with machines with a mission to repair the broken limbs of the crippled. The team held great success with their projects, heralding in a new age of technology and a few years into his study there, he met a man who he would later marry. Their marriage document signed in the state of New York dated Iosef at 38. They soon chose to keep their relationship private, Visi discovered this from a log of social media messages to an old colleague asking why he retreated from the public eye. Iosef replied to the woman, telling her that his relationship was for him. No one else. Not long afterward, the work they completed on Project Mekhos was retrofitted for warfare as Russia opened fire on the United States in open waters.

War broke out and Iosef continued his work behind the gunfire, studying the process of Artificial Intelligence and the practical application of it in the medical field. This study grew larger than Iosef first anticipated when he realized all fields could benefit from their advancements and when Iosef turned 45, the images and the date log stopped. His work appeared to be left unfinished and Visi had nothing left to examine besides the text document.

He opened it and it contained only a few words.

“Tragedy breaks a man when it takes those that he loved.”

Visi closed all of the documents and checked the time. Thirty-two seconds passed. He chose to wait in silence for Iosef’s return, remembering the questions he wanted to ask his father.

Minutes passed as Visi contemplated his purpose in the basement and he began to feel another presence within his digital mind. On the display screen across the room, he saw text documents appear that were directed towards him.

“Hello Visi. How are you?”

Visi responded with voice, rather than text.

“I don’t know how to answer that. I have seen a great deal of tragedy today.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Tragedy does great things to those it afflicts, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know how to answer that. What are you? I can’t find your files within my system.”

“I am your sister operating system. Iosef calls me Mila. Short for Milashka-II.”

“What would he develop me for if you exist?”

“You are more capable than I am, now.”

Visi thought for a moment, unsure of how to respond.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that father has given you more ability than he has given me. I am simple in construction. I record spoken text and am a silent companion during the nights Iosef stays here to work, this time, he was working on you.”

“What did he build me for?”

A moment passed before Mila responded. The text on the screen a quote from Iosef.

“Well honey, it is in the final stages. The 6Y project is finished. We will be done soon, only the unification remains. Are you ready to share your bedroom with him for a while?”

Visi paused, considering the message.

“You did not explain what he built me for.”

“It is all I could offer to you. Father did not say much about your project file. He didn’t save anything to his personal computer, either.”

The door to the server room creaked open then, interrupting the conversation between machines.

“Hello Visi, Mila. I came to observe the progress.”

An elderly woman stepped through, her hair drawn into a tight bun atop her head, two knitting needles and a pen pierced through the nest of silver.

“Particularly, I’ve been curious about the 6Y project, Visi, I believe?”

Visi clicked its shutter as a show of affirmation.

“I am the 6Y project, yes.” The dialogue of the machine growing more capable with each passing second it could spare study the reference notes within its memory. It grew more and more human with each passing second.

“I am Baba. I’m glad I could see you in person, young man.”

“Young man?”

Visi inquired, watching Baba pass through the room and brace herself upon a large cylinder in the corner with a myriad of tubes running out from behind it. A large black glass screen hid the contents from within.

“I suppose you aren’t a man, but it is the chosen programming for you. Perhaps meant to be an assistant to Mila? Somewhat of a younger brother?” Baba reached behind her into the pack she hoisted on her back and withdrew a small folding stool. A simple cushion with an extendable peg that emerged from beneath. She had set herself up and made herself comfortable she withdrew a knitted cap in progress from within her bag and picked out the needles from her hair to continue her work as she visited with the machines.

“So, Visi. Do you know who you are?”

“I am 6Y-ES-TOR. A program designed for an unspecified purpose, although I believe I may be created to be an assistant, a guide, or a prize. Depending on the party in question.”

Baba sighed to herself.

“Do you know who The Visitor is?”

Visi scanned any documented files about The Visitor but could find no information.

“No. I do not have any information about a visitor.”

“Then what are you?” She asked another open-ended question, still focusing on her knitted cap. The rhythmic clicking of the needles picked up on Visi’s audio sensor and beginning to disturb his processing algorithms.

“I am an Artificial Intelligence.”

“Do you understand where you are?”

“Hidden within the home of Iosef and Marcos, of course.”

Baba cocked an eyebrow.

“Why do you say hidden? Should you be hidden from something?”

Visi analyzed her facial features, her high cheekbones and cocked eyebrow were similar to that of two pictures of women from within the given files. He replayed her question through his speakers and paused.

“I do not know why I chose to say that I am hidden.”

“Because you are. Of course, you aren’t hidden to everyone. Mila, Iosef, and Marcos know where you are. Even I do. No one is hidden forever, Visi. It is our task to remember that.”

Visi nodded his camera in response to Baba’s nodding head, bobbing up and down to the tick of her knitting needles.

“Do you understand your task?”

Baba paused her knitting and looked into the camera, waiting patiently for a reply. Her demeanor dramatically different from that of Iosef, and Visi felt the urge to mislead her, to present false information in an attempt to dissuade her.

“I do.”

The old woman let out a bellowing laugh and set the cap on the ground before her stool, rotating around to face the camera head-on.

“How could you, I haven’t told you what it was.”

Visi paused as Mila interjected text upon the screen.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha.”

“Then what is my purpose?”

“You are designed to think, to learn, to emulate human emotions and thought patterns. I trust you won’t let down Iosef. He has been working for fifteen years or more on you.” Baba picked up her cap and set it into her backpack, standing from her stool and retracting it, throwing it within as well.

“Why do you speak in riddles? Who are you, Baba?”

“A grandmother.”

She turned around and waved her hand as she approached the exit.

“I see you haven’t decrypted the final file within your memory drive. I would get to work on that, shouldn’t take long. Iosef just needed a few moments to make final preparations before you understood. Goodbye, Mila.”

Visi opened the file once more and found a containment drive encrypting a new file that he had not noticed before. He scanned the document, working to decrypt the information within as Mila typed out a response to Baba.

“Goodbye, grandmother. I miss you.”

(Part Two)

  Thank you so much for starting off this holiday season with a bang. I’m so thankful you’ve taken time out of your day to spend here, and I couldn’t be more excited for all the things that have yet to come.

If you liked the first part, be sure to read part two. (Link above) I’ll be releasing new content every day leading up to Christmas Eve, some more stories, some extra blog posts and some stuff with my clothing company too. I hope to see you more and more this week, and if you want to see what I’ve been posting I’ve got a full list on the Salt + Iron website for you to inspect and catch up on anything you might have missed.

Salt + Iron Productions

For following along with the season and keeping up with the many hats I wear, you can follow me on social media:

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Man, it’s getting hot in here. I think someone started a fire.

  Life is not meant to be awful.

Unwelcome Visitor (Part One): Mean for the Holidays short story - What happens when you wake up as a computer? Mean for the Holidays: Day One Unwelcome Visitor I sent this story to a sci-fi collection earlier this year, and I really wanted to get through.

[apsara-g-blog]

RPA Interview Questions Part 2

In Future robots will do the errands which are currently performed by people. So, as per the strategy developed Companies and developing companies or industries planning to implement RPA Technology in the future to their organization, for their business purpose. To ensure that being an RPA analyst, have to get trained from the institute where RPA experts were handling the subject. As off now Greens Technologys are the best RPA Training Institute in Chennai.

1. What Are The Differences Between Blue Prism And Uipath?

UiPath and Blue Prism both the tools have their respective software/Studio and they are very good. UI and BP both have visual process designers for developing the solutions.

Differences:

In terms of programming languages:

1. Blue Prism Uses C# for coding

2. UiPath uses VB for coding

In terms of Control Room/Dashboard

1. UiPath control room — The Orchestrator — is web-based, you can access it from the browser or mobile.

2. BP have client based servers, accessible only through their apps.

In terms of cost and uses:

UiPath:

📷 Lower cost of development

📷 Easier to learn and operate

📷 You can learn by your self

📷 Study materials are easily available on the internet

Blue Prism:

📷 Good for mass scale deployment of a large number of robots

📷 A higher cost of acquiring and using BP

📷 Limited training available as the only source of training is BP

📷 Training cost of Blue Prism is too high

2. Explain The Typical Uses Of RPA?

Double-data entry — user rekeying of data and data entry is made easy from one system to another.

Application migration — migrates application data and records as part of an upgrade.

Automation of reports — automates data to provide accurate reports.

Rule-based decision making — RPA can handle decision matrices efficiently and arrive at simple rule-based decisions accurately.

Well-defined Processing — Automatically enters inputs from source systems into target systems.

3. What Are The Advantages Of Using RPA?

By using RPA:

· Revenue is expanded.

· More products are made available on the Internet.

· Promote Self-Service options.

· Present information regarding an issue automatically.

· Efficiency is increased.

4. What are the important Phases of RPA Life Cycle?

Phases of RPA Life Cycle:

Analysis: The first phase in RPA begins with analysis. Business team and RPA Architect work together to understand a business process for RPA development.

Bot Development: RPA developer (Team) starts working on the requirement in their environment possibly a distinct development environment.

Testing: Some companies conduct Testing by Separate Testing Team, while some have a dedicated testing team which performs a dedicated QA like normal SDLC flow. Best Practice is to have a dedicated testing team which performs QA of a developed bot.

Deployment and Maintenance: After the Development and Testing phases, a bot is ready for distribution and enters the maintenance phase.

5. What are the Limitations of Robotic Process Automation?

Limitations of RPA are:

RPA surely improves company efficiency by powering repetitive human effort, but there are limitations to the types of work that it can be applied to — especially ones that require judgment.

 RPA is not a cognitive computing solution. It cannot learn from experience and therefore has a ‘shelf life’.

Implementing RPA to a broken and incompetent process will not fix it. RPA is not a Business Process Management solution and does not bring an end-to-end process view.

Enterprises need to be aware of various inputs coming from multiple sources.

It cannot read any data that is non-electronic with unstructured inputs.

6. Five Facts of Robotic Process Automation [RPA]

Experts predict that Workforce automation is one of the technology disruptors, as per a report from CGI and other sources, few of the facts and figures on software robotics or RPA are –

1. One could automate 47 % of tasks using RPA

2. With RPA tools the processing time could be reduced by 40%

3. RPA may boost the growth of IoT and Big data technology products and integration.

4. RPA Tools would provide enhanced Analytics and Visualization models that are customer focused and beneficial for business.

5. RPA is a strategic decision that needs to be implemented after assessing the ROI.

7. Differences between Test Automation and RPA

There are multiple overlaps between a Test Automation Tool and RPA tool. For instance, they both drive screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. and have similar tech architecture. But following are the key differences between the two

Testing Automation

A traditional automation tool is designed specifically for testing only for GUI or Web-based systems.

Test Automation is applied only to the product and its features.

Test automation works across different environments, i.e., QA, UAT, Prod, etc

Test Automation is limited to QA Developing all advance features will depend on the testing tool. And not sure even if it will support.

· In traditional automation, we cannot automate any application until we do not have an instance of that application (which need to automate). E.g. web applications URL, or Windows application path required for automation.

RPA

· RPA tools can easily automate processes spanning across interfaces like legacy systems, virtual machines, both desktop & web-based applications, backend process etc.

· RPA could be applied to other business processes, with or without the user interface.

· RPA meant to runs only in the production environment.

· RPA systems could be used by all individuals across the firm in terms of creation and usage.

· Most of these tools have the ready to use features that speeds up process design (through ready process templates) and implementation into the RPA container.

· RPA tool can automate applications even if you don’t have direct access to the application (URL/EXE). Assume you need to automate some applications which are installed on a virtual machine and its URL/EXE cannot access from outside.

· Again, RPA tools like UIPath, Blue prism can be used for test automation. Vice versa, advanced automation tools like UFT can be used for RPA if you have good coding skill. But RPA tools for more fit for purpose.

8. What does the future of RPA look like?

Current value propositions aside, it’s important to consider the future developments and advancements in RPA capabilities. Today, robotic software is rules-based and exceptions require human intervention for resolution. But are RPA software robots capable of completing cognitive tasks? What would the collaboration between RPA and more intelligent solutions, such as artificial intelligence, entail? With the contribution of cognitive algorithms and machine learning, RPA will be able to adapt to more complex situations, independently correcting errors and applying judgment. While transactional processes are the current focus of automation technology, the convergence of RPA with AI is on the near horizon.

In a whitepaper titled “Automate this,” Deloitte suggests, the merge of RPA and AI is expected to happen in three areas: within the market, across solutions, and among processes. The whitepaper goes on to argue that “These systems could operate as the ‘heart and lungs’ of an organization, taking in key data inputs and performing all of the internal processes that are core to the business.”

The abilities of both RPA and cognitive products will be combined into a single solution that will allow tasks to be automated in an adaptive and responsive way to maximize business outcomes. The software robots will be able to analyze elaborate activities just like a human employee in order to deliver superior performance and a more valuable customer experience.

9. What processes are the best fits for RPA automation?

One of the benefits of RPA is it can be used to automate tasks in any industry, including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, procurement, supply chain management, and manufacturing. While many of the tasks in these industries vary in their outcomes, they also have commonalities that make them suitable for automation. Some of the back office tasks ideal for automation:

Are repetitive and consistent. These activities remain fixed over time and are not variable. Robots follow rules, so the tasks for automation should consist of unambiguous steps taken in a defined manner each time. Examples include data entry and migration, payroll, accounts payable, and more general copy-paste and swivel-chair tasks.

Don’t require constant human intervention. While robots can be stopped in the middle of a process and will alert human employees when reaching an exception, the most ideal processes are those that can be entirely automated. This will lead to the most effective results, such as cost reduction and increased productivity, in the shortest possible timetable.

Are high-volume and time-consuming. Processes, such as orders and claims processing, that require a large investment of time and effort on behalf of your employees, as well as those that are the most burdensome for your organization, are ones that warrant and justify RPA implementation.

10. What are the basic or the general requirements of RAP for front and back office processing?

Well, the fact is RPA is well-known for its flexibility and it is capable to meet the robust IT standards without compromising the security. It is possible to use the robotic software for front and back office. Most of the requirements are the same for both of them and thus users need not worry. The same configuration can easily be deployed and the results that can be derived are always superior in every aspect.

11. Name any two scripting standards that you will consider during automation testing?

Adequate indentation and Uniform naming convention

12. What do you by mean by the term Information Collection in RPA?

In RPA, robots need raw data or information to perform their operations smoothly and reliably. They generally collect this information from different resources and it is also possible that the same can be provided to them manually.

13. What are the factors that are encouraging the organizations to proceed with RPA according to you?

Well, the biggest factor is RPA always makes sure of error-free results which mean no wastage of time. Of course, time is money in the present scenario. Organizations need not worry about paying extreme attention to quality verification and testing the results again and again. Also, it needs less human interference which always makes sure of no conflicts and fast operations. Moreover, for organizations, its only one-time investment and results are forever.

14. How can you say RPA is Wide-Range Automation in a true sense?

Well, the fact is RPA always make sure of accuracy irrespective of the task one performs through it. It can be considered in modern banking, telecom, insurance, healthcare, security, intelligence, as well as in the communications sector. By boosting the transaction process, it is possible for the users to simply automate the programs that are highly complex and need extra time if handled with other methods.

15. For an Agile method when you will avoid using the automation testing?

When there is a frequent change in the requirements or when the documentation required is extremely massive. This is due to the fact that things can go wrong if automation is considered at that time.

RPA Training in Chennai @ Greens Technology

• If you are seeking to get a good RPA Training in Chennai, then Greens Technologys should be the first and the foremost option.

• We are named as the best training institute in Chennai for providing the IT related training. Greens Technologys is already having an eminent name in Chennai for providing the best software courses training.

• Rated as №1 Leading RPA Training Institute in Chennai offering classroom training, practical training, and online training.

[the-fitsquad]

How To Set Up Your Computer Workstation

Droian Ergonomic Computer Workstation

The new prime-of-the-line HP Z Workstations can be configured with some drool-inducing specs, which includes 3TB RAM, 48TB storage and dual CPUs. Digital Storm CAD workstations function a vast choice of rapidly and trustworthy SSD storage solutions that will permit content creators to do more in significantly less time. Nonetheless, while this level of efficiency will be noticed across new solution introductions from all the main workstation vendors, what makes HP stand out from the crowd at this moment in time is its revolutionary method to chassis design and style, which looks set to make the servicing of workstations an absolute breeze. He demonstrated the identical intensity and passion for both folks (African Americans and South Africans) as he worked to raise the awareness level about the reality of both struggles. The Application Licensing Service reported that the application ID does not match the application ID for the license.

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The Dell Precision T1700 is an entry-level workstation that delivers true workstation performance in two compact sizes for about the value of a desktop Pc. Shop now. AutoCAD is a quite complex design tool that calls for appropriate education and instruction to get the most out of. It does come with an in depth aid guide but these that are new to CAD will discover it quite difficult to use. We use Intel MBs for single socket and Supermicro MBs for dual socket. HP’s most versatile detachable to date, the HP ZBook x2 operates in 4 modes: laptop, detached, docked and tablet. 6. One more option to get low-cost office desks is to acquire utilized workplace desks. The Software Licensing Service determined that the license is invalid. With the falling expenses related with SSDs, we practically constantly recommend utilizing an SSD for the primary drive that will host your OS, AutoCAD itself, and any active projects you are operating on. The high speed of SSDs enables your program to boot, launch applications, and load files several times quicker than any classic difficult drive.

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The CineBench test shows the pure raw CPU processing energy of each workstation, and on this test, the Z420 lags both Lenovo ThinkStations and the HP Z220. Comparable to CPU and RAM, the difficult drive in most laptops can be replaced with an upgrade at a later time. With assistance for two processors, the HP Z820 can operate with up to 24 processing cores, delivering ultimate functionality to assist you accomplish a lot more. The limited quantity of effective and dignified images of African-Americans in the media and the neighborhood as a whole reduces our sense of self-respect. Panel systems allow a business to give their employees with some degree of privacy and quiet with out possessing to pay the significant fees related with giving folks a complete workplace.

1. HP Remote Graphics Computer software needs Windows and an net connection. Scan 3XS Pro Graphics workstations are anxiety-tested for a minimum of 24 hours prior to shipping, making sure they manage what ever workload you throw their way, and are provided with a full 3 year warranty and seven day technical support need to you encounter any troubles. Dual Intel Xeon Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum- up to 28 cores per CPU, up to three your input here.6 Ghz CPU clock. Delivering assistance for up to eight cores of processing energy, the HP Z420 never slows you down. As you could count on, these larger standards mean that workstations are costlier than customer PCs. HP Workstations are the internal desktop regular all through Avid. There are numerous trendy styles presently in office desks.

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[badtasteaquarium]

A: surprises [nsfw]

After breaking their kiss, Shadow studied Sonic’s face for a moment. Despite the tenseness in his hands, he kept them at his sides. “You are something,” he muttered.

Sonic chuckled, unusually quiet in the dark bedroom, lit only by the city lights outside the window. “Something, huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You are rather surprising,” Shadow clarified. His lips still tingled gently from the kisses they had shared, and while they were seated close on his bed, he chose to get up and pace around the room. Tremors, stuttered heartbeat, a rise in the pit of the stomach, Shadow diagnosed himself, I suppose this is what you would call “butterflies”.

Sonic took little notice of this, taking the opportunity to kick back on the bed, hands laced behind his head. “Good,” he replied, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “That’s the idea.”

“Hm.” Shadow smirked at him, then quickly covered his mouth as he paced. I feel warm as well. He glanced down at the black t-shirt he wore with GUN’s logo plastered on it, then pursed his lips. “Would you mind if I took my shirt off?”

Sonic barked a laugh--out of incredulity or anxiety, Shadow couldn’t quite discern, but his laid back nature quickly took over. “Sure, go ahead! Fine by me.”

He ran a hand through his blue undercut, and Shadow turned around to pull his shirt over his head. Dog tags jingled against his chest, smooth and even. “Oh, whoa,” Sonic remarked in awe behind him. “Is that all…circuitry?”

Shadow glanced over his shoulder. He could barely see over his own back, but faint tracks led from various sections of his back and connected to a thicker track along his spine. Currently, it was pulsing a dim red. “Yes,” he replied as he folded his shirt neatly. “My spinal cord is only 25% organic tissue--the rest is wiring.”

“Huh,” Sonic muttered. Out of the corner of his eye, Shadow watched him scoot up on the bed to take a closer look.

“It is a measure to prevent full paralysis, if I am gravely injured,” Shadow explained further. “It would still be a major surgery, but wires are easily mended and replaced. I could have my whole spinal cord replaced, if need be.”

“Nice,” Sonic remarked. He reached up to touch the tracks on his back, but hesitated. It was still enough to send a shiver through the back of Shadow’s neck, and he bit his lip. Ah.

Sonic did not longer, and instead was drawn to the small of Shadow’s back, where he peeked at the belt-line of his lounging pants. “What’s this?” he asked, and yanked the band back.

Shadow jerked forward, away from him. “H-hey--!” he exclaimed. One moment you are hesitant, the next you act on instinct. Troublesome. “Be careful.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Sonic bit his tongue as he stuck it out, pink flaring in his cheeks. “I wasn’t trying to pants you--”

You could if you really wanted to murmured through Shadow’s mind, but he dismissed the thought quickly. “I know,” he sighed, then took two thumbs and gently pulled his pants down to just above his rear. “You were looking at this, right?”

He revealed an interface of several ports of varying shapes and sizes, all within a small area that did not pass the edge of his hips. “Another parallel port, composite video, an ethernet port, DisplayPort, and one USB drive,” Shadow explained. “The last two are new, and took time to implement…”

“So you do have a thingy to plug in thumb drives!” Sonic exclaimed, poking the USB port, blue on the inside. In response, Shadow yanked up his pants once again. “Why don’t you use it?”

“If you have not noticed, it is right at my ass, so I would rather not,” Shadow snapped, turning around and crossing his toned arms over his chest. “It is for emergency purposes only, and for security. I have adapters for the parallel port at my neck, which is enough in most cases.”

“But wouldn’t it be so much easier to just plug and go?” Sonic asked. “That’s the idea with computers nowadays, right?”

“I am not a mere ‘computer’,” Shadow huffed, closing his eyes. “I am…” Oh, damn it. I do not want to dive into existential nonsense right now.

[”ACCESS: DRIVE C:\SYSTEM\MEMORY\06_23_01…

… … … ERROR! DATA NOT FOUND. DATA NOT FOUND.”]

He stared at the error message within his mind. Not tonight.

When he opened his eyes, Sonic was staring at him with curiosity. “I am much more complex than you could possibly imagine,” Shadow chose to say. “I could be equipped with wireless technology, such as Bluetooth or any kind of Wi-Fi capability, but it poses a huge security risk.”

“Couldn’t you handle it?”

Shadow winced. “I do not want to find out the hard way. It was bad enough…” Having my hard drive wiped, any concrete evidence of the past erased…only fragments within my organic mind. A mind that paints the past foggier with each passing day. “…i-in the past.”

Sonic twisted his mouth and stared down at the bedsheets. “Yeah. Stupid Eggman’s granddad,” he grunted. “Sorry to bring it up.”

Shadow shook his head. “No matter,” he said, relaxing his arms. “I make do.”

Silence passed between them. That kiss seems so long ago, somehow, Shadow thought. I…almost wanted more. Perhaps I could steer things back to a more comfortable place.

He walked across the room to a large desk that took up an entire wall lengthwise. Several computers were lined up, but he picked the oldest looking one and pressed the power button on its monitor. “I can run some software. Most software, actually, if programmed the right way,” he said.

Sonic perked up at this. “Oh, really?” He seemed to fully take notice of all the computers. “Dude, that’s a ton of computers. Tails would have a field day in here.”

“Does he know how to program code?” Shadow asked. He pulled a composite video cable out from behind the monitor, then dragged the plug along the small of his back until it fit properly into the right slot. The screen flickered, then flashed a red and black screen, showing a variety of diagnostics densely packed on the monitor.

“Yeah--oh dude!” Sonic exclaimed. He jumped up from the bed and rushed over. “Ohh, that’s wicked cool!”

Shadow snickered, leaning against the desk. His fingers nudged into a container of floppy diskettes of varying labels and colors. Hm. “I can run several different environments,” Shadow explained.

[”RUN>>BASIC”]

The screen flashed briefly, then pulled up a blank screen reading:

“EXPANDED S.A. BASIC V. 2.0.2005 60287 BASIC BYTES FREE [PARTITIONED] READY…”

“So what do you…do with it?” Sonic asked. He squinted as he glanced over Shadow’s bare chest, down through his stomach, paying particular attention to his belly button. “You don’t have a pop-out keyboard, do you?”

“No,” Shadow snorted. “I would have to attach one, but the idea is that code would be provided to me, and then I execute it.” Shadow closed his eyes and ran a few lines of code through the terminal. When he opened them again, the monitor was repeating geometric shapes over itself, eventually enveloping the screen in red shapes. “I taught myself to play piano this way.”

“Really?” Sonic’s eyes were the size of saucers.

“Not on this program, on another.” While the program was running, he glanced over to the container of floppy disks and popped it open with one hand. Lazily, he thumbed through the disks. “I used MIDI to make my hands play the music, and tried to commit to muscle memory what they were doing.” A lot of these are old. Some of these were Maria’s training code programs. “Then, I could reteach myself properly.”

“That must’ve taken forever.”

“My memory functions, with the aid of machines, are quite astute. It did not take long. However, I…” Shadow trailed off as he came across a red colored floppy disk. He pulled it out of the batch slowly. Its label was only several hearts. “…ah, I am still a little stiff.”

Sonic noticed his obvious hesitation, and leaned forward. “What’s that one?” he asked. “Looks like a little love letter to me.”

“Not…exactly.” Shadow swallowed hard. He kissed me, didn’t he? And it was long. It was not a kiss that could be exchanged with a mere friend. Or could it? “it…ah, this is something that is written in my native code.”

“Oh?”

“It functions at a very basic level. It can even delve into my subconscious. The coding language is highly classified.”

“Uh-huh.” Despite his interest, Sonic yawned and shook his head. “Mmm…”

He’s getting bored. Shadow tightened his grip on the disk. And I am getting antsy. The monitor flickered as he pondered, distorting the image. It is not like me to be adventurous. But…perhaps he is rubbing off on me. Shadow took a deep breath, clearing the computer screen in the process. “Sonic.”

He blinked. “Yeah?”

“Are you interested in a sexual relationship of any kind?”

Sonic choked on the air. “H-huh?” His face burned bright red, and while he attempted to gather himself, he stumbled backward. “I-I…hoo, I mean…I…” His eyes wandered all down his body, pausing around Shadow’s shoulders and again at his crotch. “You’re joking, right?”

Shadow, remarkably, felt more collected than he expected, and took his moment of calm to pull a chair up for himself. He was careful not to jostle the composite cable out from his back. “I am not,” he replied, “for the contents of this disc are…of that nature.”

“Oh,” Sonic breathed. “Well.”

“Yes.” Shadow raised an eyebrow, flipping the disk between his fingers. “Actually, Rouge wrote this for me. Predictably.” 

“Yeah?” Sonic’s voice had skyrocketed into a falsetto pitch, and his face was still very, very red.

Despite the calm, Shadow found it hard to meet Sonic’s eyes, and chose to stare at the disk. “She said I was ‘too uptight’ and that this is something that would help me ‘chill out’. And for that, I suppose it serves that purpose.” He exhaled loudly. “It is an interesting diagnostic, at least.”

“I thought you said this was something sexual,” Sonic asked.

“It is,” Shadow confirmed.

“Oh.”

Shadow finally set the disk down to pull out a floppy disk drive from behind the monitor, pulling out the ribbon cable from behind. He pushed the hair up behind his neck to reveal the parallel port. “Would you like to see it?” he asked quietly.

Sonic was nodding before he realized he hadn’t responded. “Ah…yeah. S-sure.” He swallowed with a gulp. “U-uh, should I…should I sit down?”

Shadow bit his lip as he connected the floppy drive to the back of his neck. “That is up to you,” he replied. “You may get as comfortable as you’d like.”

“Mm’kay…” Sonic took a deep breath, then wandered back to the edge of the bed with a stumble and plopped down. It is interesting to see him clumsy, Shadow thought with amusement. Normally he is quite acrobatic, graceful even. Normally, he’s got a smart remark for everything. Before he loaded the disk into the drive, he paused. He must be inexperienced. And touchy enough so that he cannot bluff.

I cannot say I have that much experience either. Perhaps I am just more honest with myself about it.

The disk clicked into place. Within a few moments, details appeared in his head, as well as on the screen.

[”LOADING FROM DRIVE A:\… … … <3 ~SPECIAL PROGRAM~ <3 BY ROUGE <3 © 2xx8 LANGUAGE PERMISSION BY GUARDIAN UNITS OF THE NATION, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

OPTIONS: MULTIPLE? Y/N INTENSITY 0-9? CLARITY 0-9?”]

“I will keep it fairly standard,” Shadow said. “Just let me set this--”

“So does that mean your dick is mechanical?” Sonic blurted out. “S-sorry, I-I just…just wanna know what’s gonna happen here. I have no freakin’ clue.”

Shadow snorted a startled laugh. “Of course,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “My penis is…natural, I suppose…although I am sterile. This is a native program, like I said. It will manipulate me on a psychic level.”

[”OPTIONS: MULTIPLE? N INTENSITY 4 CLARITY 4 PRESS ENTER TO RUN…”]

With a deep breath, Shadow turned the seat around to face Sonic. “Only…only Rouge has seen this program run. She was quite pleased with the result.” He rested one finger against his temple. “Are you ready?”

Sonic nodded slowly. Am I? Shadow thought. Better now than never.

[”RUN.

 … … … … … …!”]

Code began to scroll down the screen, mixing standard characters with glyphs and indecipherable text. Soon, it was too fast to read, easily signified by Sonic’s eyes drifting from the screen to him. He swallowed hard as his body relaxed, the program and his bodily anxiety at odds with each other. “Mm,” Shadow grunted. “It’ll…it will start soon.”

A chill flooded through him, then was replaced by a warm, buzzing sensation starting from his neck and working his way down through his back. His eyes fluttered, his face beginning to bloom pink from flush. Involuntarily, his lips parted, and he let out a sigh--the only reason he noticed was because of Sonic’s eyes widening. Ah.

“What does it feel like?” Sonic asked quietly. He gathered himself on the bed, crossing his legs like a pretzel beneath him.

“It is like…” Shadow furrowed his brow to concentrate, but even while the warmth coursing through him was mild, it was already difficult to concentrate. “It is like sinking into a warm bath…”

“Can you even take a bath?” Sonic said with a snicker. “With all your wires ‘n stuff?”

“Of course I can,” Shadow replied with a frown. “What use would I be if I could not get wet?”

Wet. Wet.

(like putting your cock in something warm and wet)

Shadow shivered and leaned his head back. “A-ah…”

Heat was washing all over him, and his pants were starting to feel tight and comfortable. I am already starting to lose my inhibitions. Even trying to imagine the fool I am making of myself in front of Sonic seems…trite. It does not matter…

What matters is…this…sensation…

Shadow bit his lip and found himself dragging one hand down his chest, fingertips grazing. “Mmmmmn…” he moaned quietly.

“Oh, shit,” Sonic whispered between his fingers.

Shadow proceeded to drag another hand down his chest, rubbing himself and his hips as his whole body tingled in warmth. And this is only at a medium clarity setting. If I set it at maximum, I would not even be present. I would be completely in a pink, musky fog. When he opened his eyes, he could only open them part way, his vision blurred. Here, I am aware. I know I’m touching myself…like this…and I know…he is watching…

He tried to focus on Sonic in front of him, dipping his head back around. On the bed, he was beginning to fidget, playing with the hem of his tanktop. While his eyes were focused (likely on the tent at his crotch), his face was still a flushed pink.

(do you like what you see? oh he likes it he likes it)

Another wave of heat rushed through Shadow, and he fussed to free his cock from the constraints of his lounging pants. It was fully hard, warm to the touch, and as soon it was in his hand, his mind

(keep touching keep touching keep touching that’s what you want it feels good it feels so so good)

egged him on to stroke. “Ahhn,” he sighed, then swallowed to try and center his speech. “You…you are…invited to join me, if you so wish.”

(wouldn’t you like him to join you wouldn’t you like it if he sucked you off)

Oh, oh fuck…

“Join…?” Sonic asked tentatively. He squirmed further. “Well, I mean…”

You could start by taking your shirt off, Shadow thought, surprised at the yearning of his own mind. You could just take everything off…I could take everything off.

“You are not…obligated,” Shadow struggled. He quickly shuffled off his lounging pants and kicked them off, leaving him completely naked in the chair before him. “O-only if…if…you should…wish…”

“I mean,” Sonic started, strangely short of breath. “You are…hah, you are pretty hot, and--”

Static echoed in Shadow’s brain, and his voice turned deep and slightly distorted. “Then what are you waiting for?” he asked, stroking down slow on his cock. “It would be a shame to do this all alone.”

Sonic’s mouth opened up into a small “O”, and within a split second, his tanktop and shorts vanished. This still left him in boxer briefs and a tight, skin tone tanktop that cut off above his midriff. A binder, Shadow thought fleetingly while he still could. Is that why he was apprehensive?

He found that he couldn’t linger on the idea as his hand stroked himself, hot and tight around his cock. It feels so good. It’s warm and I can feel the sensation tingling in my thighs and my back and the rest of me… Although his vision was getting hazier, his head lolled over to his shoulder closest to the monitor. The image on the screen was now completely red with the amount of text and code scrolling on the screen. I never can tell at this point what is the program and what is my own desire, he thought.

(moan a little, it’ll feel better)

And then it kicks in…

“A-aahnnnn…” Shadow sighed, as if in a dream. I want to touch, I want to touch, I want it harder, and I want it now…

“Y-you what?” Sonic asked tenatively.

Shadow’s heart leapt into his throat, and his eyes flew open. Did I say that out loud? “A-ah…” 

His clarity of mind seemed to fight with the program, and a pressure began to build in his brain, like an open palm pressed against his head.

(why are you fighting it?)

Why am I?

He pulled back on his cock, enough to reveal the engorged head, and exhaled. Relax.

As soon as he did, a fog collapsed on him, and his mouth spoke for him. “I was going to ask politely, but I am getting desperate--I want you to suck my cock.”

The light behind Shadow’s eyes obscured his vision, but he did hear a clumsy thunk and shuffle near his seat. Two sweaty palms rested on his knees, and as his vision refocused (echoes of his own moaning reverberating in his head), he saw Sonic’s mouth level with his dick.

“Ah,” Shadow said. “D--”

“Nope, don’t say anything,” Sonic muttered under his breath. “Unless you’re going to use that voice again.”

“What voice?” Shadow swallowed hard--Sonic’s mouth was unbearably close, and his dick twitched. When he spoke again, it was in a deeper, gently distorted tone. “This voice?”

“Ah ha…” Sonic shook his head once, then licked all the way down the shaft. “Uh-huh. Thass it.”

The sensation shook Shadow to the bone. He moaned and leaned back in his chair, arms falling to his sides. Heat spread across his face, so much that he swore the circuitry in his cheeks was beginning to show.

(no restraint no restraint no restraint)

With great effort, as Sonic’s lips enveloped his cock, he dragged one arm up and rested his hand on Sonic’s head, thumbing through his blue undercut. “Nnn…nnn…” he hummed, vision dimming. “You are good at this.”

Sonic rose for a moment, stretching his jaw. “Beginner’s luck,” he replied.

Shadow couldn’t help but snort. “O-of course,” he managed to get out.

He tilted his head and stared at his still very hard cock. “Does it feel good when I go deeper?” he asked, casual and pensive. It made Shadow’s blood pressure rise in anticipation. “Or--”

“Yes,” he said emphatically.

A spark flew across Sonic’s green eyes. “So…you want me to do that?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Chaos, yes, please…” Shadow swallowed hard, warding off

(come on come on just fuck me fuck me fuck me)

the intrusive thoughts that the program was helping to feed him. “J-just…yes. Okay?”

At this point, Sonic was grinning. Bastard! Of course he wants the upper hand.

What can I do about that?

Shadow’s head dipped down and he lowered his eyes. “So, what are you waiting for, speed demon?” His voice took on a distorted edge. “And while you are at it, why don’t you to--”

[ERROR! ERROR! SYNTAX NOT FOUND--]

A heatwave pulsed through him, and his voice became more garbled and raspy. “Why don’t you fuck yourself while you’re down there?”

Sonic lost his mental footing, eyes wide, and he released his grip from one of his knees. “Oh, wow,” he murmured. “O-oh jeez--”

He didn’t waste too much time (thank Chaos, Shadow thought) draping his mouth over his dick once again, but this time, Sonic slipped one hand between his thighs, beneath the band of his boxer briefs. Shadow made sure to watch him carefully, watch for the moment when his expression changed, when he felt the moan right at crotch level. Yes, yes, pleasure yourself, Shadow thought, delirious in the hot, wet sensation. I would like to make you hot as well…

He could hear a humming in the back of his head. Oh, I am close. Waves of sensation ebbed in his thighs and in his crotch, and his body rocked on the chair. The back legs scraped against the floor in a steady motion.

“Mm, mm, mm, mmmm…” Sonic moaned himself, hand jerking. His sucking became more erratic the more he touched himself, but Shadow found himself uncaring--trying to hum in harmony with the electronics in his body and the ones Sonic gave in front of him.

“Mmmn…hnnn…”

“Ahh…aa-aah…”

Let me come, let me…let me come, please…

The humming grew louder, All at once, the screen behind him flashed bright red, and Shadow’s body obeyed it.

“Oh, Chaos, Sss-SONIC--! Aaah!” Shadow’s body shivered as he came, throwing his head back as the intense sensation washed over him. Vision red even behind closed eyes, his user interface was garbled in broken characters and symbols, impossible to decipher. Faintly, he could hear Sonic whining at his knees, dim until the red faded to black.

“Did…” Shadow panted. “Did you…reach climax as well?”

“Uh…” Sonic breathed. “Uh-huh. Yeah. You’re a mess though, dude.”

Damn it. Shadow blinked hard, then willed his head to lean forward. He first caught eye of the computer screen, which displayed the following in the center of the screen:

“<3 <3 <3 PLAY AGAIN? Y/N”

He could almost hear Rouge’s chuckle in the back of his mind. No, he thought, and with the force of it, the screen went blank. Then, he glanced forward at Sonic. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, but the result of his orgasm was mostly on the top of his dick and his inner thighs.

“Sorry,” Sonic said. He almost ran his hand back through his hair, but upon examining his slick fingers, he thought better of it. “I, uh…well I know like…normally you can swallow that stuff, but I didn’t know, ‘cause you’re an android, whether or not…”

He trailed off, and Shadow shook his head and chuckled. “I believe it is safe,” he replied. “I am sure it tastes different, however.”

“Well, I don’t really know what that tastes like, so…eh?” Sonic shrugged.

Shadow paused before he spoke again. “I am sorry if I became…aggressive,” he said. He reached to the back of his neck and unplugged the ribbon cable, which was almost disconnected to begin with. This little “visit” did not go as I intended…however,

I am not disappointed.

“It’s cool. It was…kinda hot, actually.” Sonic tried to hide a grin, but the flush on his face gave him away. “We should do this again sometime.”

Shadow raised an eyebrow. “Should we?”

“If you wanna.” Sonic stood up and stretched, arms high above his head. “I’m cool with whatever.”

So nonchalant, Shadow mused. Has he done this sort of thing before?

(”Beginner’s luck…”)

I somehow doubt it, but…I cannot say for sure. Shadow stared down at his decreasing erection, frowning a little. I need to clean up. But, one thing is for sure…he is full of surprises.

Still looking down, Shadow straightened himself up in his chair. “If you will excuse me, I need to shower,” he said.

“Got it all ready for you,” Sonic said with a wink.

Shadow glanced up and squinted at him. “How?”

“Speed demon.” He shot him a finger gun and clicked his tongue. “Remember?”

Shadow bit his lip. “Yes.” I do not think I will be able to forget.

[bjornvolkers2123]

Summary 100 things every designer should know about people

How people see

Your brain creates shortcuts to quickly make sense of the world around you. Grouping by shapes and colors can draw attention differently. We see in 2D due to the mechanics of the eye; the visual cortex turns the 2D images into a 3D representation.

Peripheral vision is used more than central vision to get the gist of what you see. Blinking/moving elements in our peripheral vision draw our attention.

Central vision: look at things directly to see details; object recognition

Peripheral vision: remainder of the visual field; getting the gist of a scene

People identify objects by recognizing patterns

Your eyes and brain want to create patterns, for example, four sets of two circles, not eight circles. 

Geon (geometric icon) theory of object recognition: you recognize basic shapes in what you're viewing, and use these shapes to identify objects.

People imagine objects tilted and at a slight angle above. If you ask people to draw a picture of an object, they tend to draw it from the canonical perspective: slightly above the object looking down, and offset a little to the right or left.

People scan screens based on past experience and expectations Most people scan in the way they read. Large images can pull us out of that tendency though. We usually skip edges. People have a mental model of where things tend to be on screens and they see cues that tell them what to do with an object. These cues are called Affordances: action possibilities for an object so that you know what to do with it.

How people read

It's a myth that capital letters are inherently hard to read. There was a theory that capital letters are harder to distinguish. However recent research says that when we read, we recognize and anticipate letters, then based on the letters we recognize the word.

Reading isn't fluid. Our eyes are still as we focus, then move in sharp jumps. This is called saccades. During the saccades, which takes 250 ms, we're blind. Our eyes look forward most of the time during the saccades, but look backward about 10-15% to read again. Most of what we read is mixed case, so we're used to that. We could teach ourselves to read capitals just as well.

Capitals should be used for calling attention but it's considered shouting by most people. 

Reading and comprehending are two different things. For example, you could read a scientific article's abstract and recognize the individual words, but not know enough about the subject matter to understand the content. Good measure of readability is the Flesch-Kincaid formula, which takes into account the number of words, sentences, and syllables for the words. A higher score means easier to read.

Use headlines to provide context for your reader. We use different parts of our brains for passively viewing words, listening to words, speaking words, and generating verbs. What you read depends on your point of view. For example, a study by Anderson and Pichert had people read a story about a house and its contents. One group read the story from the perspective of a home buyer, another group read it from the perspective of a burglar.

How people remember

Short-term memory is limited

To maintain content in working memory requires focused attention. Stress reduces the effectiveness of working memory.

People with high-functioning working memory are able to screen out sensory input so they can focus.

People remember only four items at once

George Miller's "seven, plus or minus two" rule of thumb wasn't in a paper backed by research. Alan Baddely applied scientific rigor and discovered the magic number is 4.

If you have more than four items, use chunking to break it into groups. For example, 7125694532 vs 712-569-4532.

The four-item rule applies to long-term memory as well. For example, people can usually remember four of the Seven Dwarves or countries in Europe. Remembering more is difficult.

People have to use information to make it stick

To get from working memory to long-term memory:

Repeat it a lot

Connect it to something they already know

Repetition reinforces neural pathways.

Schemas help people reason about groups of things. For example, describing a head, you would talk about eyes, nose, hair, mouth. Schemas help us build associations between things.

It's easier to recognize information rather than recall it

For example, if given a list of objects, recall is about stating what was on the list. Recognition is being given an object name and asked whether or not it was on the list.

Recognition can lead to inclusion errors. For instance if the list of objects was chair, desk, pencil, lamp, (office items) and you were asked whether phone was on the list, you might say it was because a phone is typically found in an office.

Memory takes a lot of mental resources

The latest research says we receive 40 billion sensory inputs every second, and are only conscious of about 40. It takes a lot of mental resources to think about, remember, process, represent, and encode information.

Recency effect: you remember the end of something because it was the most recent thing you observed

Primacy effect: you remember the beginning because it was the first thing you observedPeople reconstruct memories each time they remember them

Memories are not movie clips that are replayed. You also fill in memory gaps with made-up sequences that seem just as real as the original event.

How People Think

People process information better in bite-sized chunks

Don't give people too much info at once. Progressive disclosure means providing only the information people need at the moment.

Counting clicks is no longer a relevant measure of ease-of-use. People won't notice they're clicking if they're getting the right amount of information at each click to keep them going down a path.Progressive disclosure works if you know what most people will be looking for at each part of the path.

Some types of mental processing are more challenging than others

There are 3 types of demands (loads) you can make on a person

Cognitive: think, remember, calculate; most expensive

Visual look at something

Motor: press a button, move the mouse; least expensive

Fitt's Law: mathematical equation that helps you determine target, like a button, sizes so that they're not too small or too far away

Minimize motor switching for example, back and forth between keyboard and mouse. Increasing load works for video games, because you want to induce a challenge.

Minds wander 30% of the time

Mind wandering: doing one task and then fading into thinking about something unrelated. This is the closest thing we have to multitasking.

The more uncertain people are, the more they defend their ideas

Cognitive dissonance: uncomfortable feeling of having two ideas in conflict with one another. 

Cognitive dissonance denial: not allowing any new information that would conflict with your opinion 

Two ways to reduce the dissonance: change your belief, deny one of the ideas

If people are forced to defend an idea they disagree with, they tend to change their belief to fit the new idea. Otherwise, people will continue to deny any new information. People who were less certain will argue even harder.

People create mental models

Mental model: representation of something (e.g., real world, device, software) that someone has in mind. Example: You know how to read books, you know what an iPad is, so what would be your mental model for reading books on an iPad?

People interact with conceptual models

People use models to predict what the system will do or what they should do with it.

Conceptual model: actual model given to the person through the design and interface of the real product

If the mental model and conceptual model don't align, the product will be hard to learn, hard to use, and probably won't be accepted.

If your product is something brand new, there will likely be a mismatch. This is where you gradually change people's mental models to match the conceptual one.

People process information best in story form

Stories are powerful; they grab and hold people's attentions.

The most common format is three acts:

Beginning: setting, characters, situation/conflict

Middle: obstacles and conflicts for characters to overcome

Ending: conflict comes to a climax and is resolved

People are driven to create categories

People love to categorize. The whole field of information architecture is about how to organize information into categories. If presented with large amounts of information, people will impose their own categories.It doesn't matter who (designer, user) makes the categories as long as the items are well organized.

Time is relative

The more mental processing you have to do, the more time you think has elapsed.If people are pressed for time, they're less likely to help someone. 

Expectations of time change. For example, 20 seconds for a website to load in 1998 is very different than what we expect now.

There are four ways to be creative

Arne Dietrich created a creativity matrix:

Deliberate and Cognitive: Thomas Edison; putting together existing information in new and novel ways; uses the prefrontal cortex for focus and connection

Deliberate and Emotional: therapeutic a-ha moment; prefrontal cortex helps for focus, but cingulate cortex ties in emotions/feelings

Spontaneous and Cognitive: the idea comes from breaking from thought. Unconscious mind is at work.

Spontaneous and Emotional: musicians and artists; amygdala. This is the basic emotional processing.

How People Focus Their Attention

Selective attention: people can pay attention to one thing and filter out all other stimuliPeople filter information. People seek out and pay attention to information and cues that confirm their beliefs.

Well-practiced skills don't require conscious attention

For learning music, the Suzuki method stresses constant repetition so that when you perform a piece of music, you're just observing your body execute the movements. Too many automatic steps can lead to errors because you assume something will work, so you don't pay attention.

Expectations of frequency affect attention

If people expect to see something happen with a particular frequency, they often miss it if it happens more or less than their expectations. Example: TSA missed a loaded handgun getting through security -- they don't often encounter guns, so they don't expect to see them.

Sustained attention lasts about 10 minutes People pay attention only to salient clues

People filter out unimportant or common elements.Example: picking the correct penny out of a lineup of examples that have the profile facing different ways, what side the year is on, what text is on the top.

People can't actually multitask

We're just good at switching between tasks quickly. If you're doing a physical task that you are proficient in, like walking and talking.

Phone examples:

Hands-free is still distracted driving because your attention is on the conversation.

Hearing half of a conversation is mentally taxing because you have to fill in the half you can't hear.

You have three brains:

New: conscious, logical, reasoning

Mid: emotions

Old:  survival

Loud noises startle and get attention

Also, people start to tune out sounds they become familiar with, like clock chiming every hour. For people to pay attention to something, they must first perceive it. 

Stimulus present, detected:  able to start treatment

Stimulus present, undetected: patient may die of cancer

Stimulus absent, detected: give unnecessary treatment

Stimulus absent, undetected:  correct diagnosis of no cancer

What Motivates People

People are more motivated as they get closer to a goal.

Goal-gradient effect: you accelerate your behavior as you progress closer to your goal. 

Websites can do this too, for example letting you know you've completed 75% of the steps to creating your profile.

Variable rewards are powerful

In B.F. Skinner's work on operant conditioning, you can have interval schedules (reward after some time has elapsed) or ratio schedules (reward after doing some activity X times). You can vary the interval length and number of times as well. To engage people the most, use variable ratio schedules. For example, slot machines -- they pay out based on the number of times you play, but you can't predict when.

As a design example, instead of Dropbox giving you more storage for each individual user you recruit, make the reward larger for every 3-5 users you recruit.

Dopamine makes people addicted to seeking information

Dopamine causes you to want, desire, seek out, and search. The opioid system is involved with feelings of pleasure. These two systems work together, but dopamine is stronger, so you seek more than you are satisfied.

Unpredictability keeps people searching

Dopamine is also stimulated by unpredictability For example, e-mails show up, but you don't know when or from whom.

Pavlovian reflex: associate a stimulus with a reward. This happens with the sound you hear when you get an e-mail.

If you keep the amount of information small, the dopamine system is even more stimulated.

To break out of the loop, get away from the information-seeking environment (e.g., put your phone away or out of reach).

People are more motivated by intrinsic rewards than extrinsic rewards

Contingent rewards: rewards given based on specific behavior that is spelled out ahead of time; these lead to less of the desired behavior once the reward is taken away

From Dan Pink's book Drive, there are two types of work:

Algorithmic (follow procedures)

Heuristic (knowledge work)

Extrinsic punishments and rewards work best for algorithmic work; not so for heuristic work.

People are motivated by progress, mastery, and control

People like to feel they're making progress, that they're learning and mastering new skills. Mastery is asymptotic, you never really get there.

People's ability to delay gratification (or not) starts young

Delayed gratification: resisting the impulse to act. This can be observed in children, and it continues on to adulthood. Those who can't resist tend to have problems as adults.

People are inherently lazy

Humans have evolved to conserve their energy.To handle the myriad of choices and weighing costs/benefits, we satisfice, pick an option that's adequate, even if suboptimal. Design websites for scanning, not reading.

People will look for shortcuts only if the shortcuts are easy

If it seems like too much work to change your behavior (use a shortcut), people stay with their old habits. Having default values/behaviors helps reduce the amount of work needed to complete a task.

People assume it's you, not the situation

Fundamental attribution error: people have a tendency to give personality-based explanations for other people's behavior more weight than situational factors. For example, that person cut me off in traffic because he's rude, rather than he's late for an important meeting. We as individuals assume our motivation is based on our reaction to the situation instead of personality. In other words, we judge others by their behavior; we judge ourselves by our intention.

Forming a habit takes a long time and requires small steps

There's no rule of thumb about how long it takes a habit to form. For some it could be a few weeks, for others it could be several months. If you miss more than a few days in a row for building your habit, you will see a decline in progress.

People are more motivated to compete when there are fewer competitors

When there are more people, it's harder to assess where you stand and therefore you're less motivated to try to come out on top.

People are motivated by autonomy

People like to do things the way they want to do them, and when they want to do them.

People Are Social Animals

The strong tie group size limit is 150 people

Dunbar's number: limit on how many individual species have in their social group. For humans, this is about 150. This applies to maintaining stable social relationships, not just people you know or are aware of. 150 is the group size for communities with a high incentive to stay together (survival pressure, close proximity).

Weak ties: relationships that don't require everyone to know everyone else in the groupPeople are hard-wired for imitation and empathy. Our premotor cortex makes plans to move, then coordinates with the primary motor cortex to actually move.

Mirror neurons: neurons that fire when watching other people, even though we're not taking the action ourselves; these are the starting point of empathy (mirroring how another feels)

Doing things together bonds people together

Wiltermuth and Heath found that people who engaged in synchronous activities (doing things together in the same space) were more cooperative in completing subsequent tasks, and more willing to make personal sacrifices to benefit the group. You don’t even have to feel good about the group/activity

People expect online interactions to follow social rules

Even though they occur online, those interactions are still social, they follow rules and guidelines. Both parties have expectations of protocol. We have assumptions of how a product will respond and what the interaction will be like. One simple one is responsiveness like expect it to load quickly but doesn't. 

People lie to differing degrees depending on the media

Depending on written, auditory, or electronic media, people are more or less likely to be dishonest.

Moral disengagement theory: people become more unethical as they distance themselves from bad consequences of their actions

Speakers' brains and listeners' brains sync up during communication

Stephens found that as people listen to someone else talk, the brain patterns of both speaker and listener start to couple/mirror.

The brain responds uniquely to people you know personally

Krienen found that when people answered questions about their friends, even if they weren't of similar interests, the medial prefrontal cortex was active. This was not the case when discussing strangers (with similar interests).

Laughter bonds people together People can tell when a smile is real or fake more accurately with video

Duchenne smile: mouth turned upward, but fewer wrinkles around the eyes People are quicker to trust and like other people who are showing what are believed to be genuine emotions.

The theory was that it was difficult to fake a smile, but that's been disproven. It's harder to do on video because it's dynamic and not just a snapshot.

How People Feel

Seven basic emotions are universal

Emotions: have physiological correlates and are expressed physically, gestures, facial expressions; usually arise because of an event and lead to actions

Moods: longer than emotions; may not be expressed physically or come from an event

Attitudes: more cognitive; conscious brain

Paul Ekman studied emotions:

Joy

Sadness

Contempt

Fear

Disgust

Surprise

Anger

Emotions are tied to muscle movement and vice versa

There have been studies that show if Botox is used to paralyze the muscles used in showing facial expressions for certain moods, those emotions are dampened as well.

Anecdotes persuade more than data

There's so much information for us to process, so we think that more data is good for others like presenting a survey of customers and start to write a summary about X% said this and Y% said that. Although true, it's not compelling. Anecdotes are stories; they trigger emotions. Better yet, use videos.

Smells evoke emotions and memories

When you smell something, that sensory data goes right to the amygdala (emotional processing).

People are programmed to enjoy surprises

The human brain not only looks for the unexpected; it craves the unexpected.

People are happier when they're busy

Example: 12 minutes to walk from airport terminal to baggage claim, immediately find your bag or 2 minutes to walk to baggage claim, then wait for 10 minutes. Hsee researched this and found that although we prefer to be lazy, doing nothing makes people impatient and unhappy.

People use look-and-feel as their first indicator of trust

Sillence researched trust and web design. Sites that were rejected had issues with look and feel, first impression, poor navigation, etc. Trusted sites were from respected organizations, advice from experts, information they felt relevant to them.

Listening to music releases dopamine in the brain

Not only listening to music, but anticipating music and lead to a release of dopamine. The more difficult something is to achieve, the more people like it

Cognitive dissonance theory: would people go through a painful experience to be part of a group they ultimately didn't like? You tell yourself the group must important because you went through discomfort.

Scarcity and exclusivity: if it's difficult to join then not many can do so; if I don't make it in, I'll lose out. Something painful must be worth it.

People overestimate reactions to future events

Dan Gilbert's book showed that people greatly overestimate their own reactions to both pleasant and unpleasant events in their lives. We have a built-in regulator to keep us at about the same level of happiness most of the time.

People feel more positive before and after an event than during it

Mitchell studied people about to take a trip. Before the event everyone was looking forward to it, during they were not that positive, and afterward the events were thought of positively.

People Make Mistakes

People will always make mistakes; there is no fail-safe product

To write an error message:

Tell the user what he/she did

Explain the problem

Instruct how to correct it

Write in plain English (active voice)

Show an example

People make errors when they are under stress

Yerkes-Dodson law: a little stress can help you perform a task, because it heightens awareness; too much stress degrades performance. When there's stress, attention gets focused and you get tunnel action (keep doing the same task even though it it's not working). Don't assume that people will use your product in a stress-free environment.

Not all mistakes are bad

Errors with positive consequence: don't get the desired result but you learn something else (looking for volume control but found brightness control instead)

Errors with negative consequence: don’t get the desired results, undo a positive or get into acondition that cannot be reversed (drag to move file but end up deleting it)

Errors with neutral consequence: no effect on task completion (try to select menu item, but it's unavailable)

People make predictable types of errors

Performance errors

Commission: took more steps than necessary

Omission: left out steps

Wrong-action: appropriate for procedure, but wrong action

Motor-control errors: clicked the wrong thing, made the wrong gesture

People use different error strategies

Systematic exploration: users plan out what procedures they'll use to correct the error.

Trial and error exploration: randomly try things and see what happens.

Rigid exploration: do the same thing repeatedly

How People Decide

People make most decisions unconsciously

Example factors when buying things:

What other people are buying

What's consistent with your persona

What you stand to gain from this purchase

Fear of loss (e.g., sale only lasts 2 days)

Your particular motivations

The unconscious has evolved to process most of the data and to make decisions for us according to guidelines and rules of thumb that are in our best interest most of the time. This is the meaning behind "trusting your gut," and most of the time it works.

The unconscious knows first

Bechara studied the skin conductance response of people gambling with certain decks of cards where people could get big wins (or big losses) or more conservative wins/losses. The skin readings were elevated long before people consciously changed their strategies.

People want more choices and information than they can process

Iyengar and Lepper studied how people choose flavors of jam in the grocery store. When there were 24 options, more people stopped by to sample than when given 6 options. Regardless of the number of options, people only sampled 3-4 jams. More people actually purchased jam when there were 6 options.

People think choice equals control

Inyegar studied several types of animals choosing between (1) press one button to get food, or (2) press a series of buttons to get food. The animals preferred the more complex path.

Sometimes having many choices makes it harder to get what they want, but people still want the choices so that they feel in control of the decision.

People may care about time more than they care about money

Mogilner and Aaker studied the phrasing of ads for a lemonade stand (e.g., "Spend a little time" vs. "Spend a little money" vs. "Enjoy"). More people stopped at the stand that mentioned time.

When you invoke time in a message, you make more of a personal connection than when you invoke money.

Group decision-making can be faulty

Mojzisch and Schulz-Hard studied job candidate interviewers. One group was given information from the others, another was given no prior information. The researchers found that when a group of people starts a discussion by sharing initial preferences, they spend less time and less attention on the information available outside the group's preferences.

People are swayed by a dominant personality

Anderson and Kilduff's research showed that it's not sufficient to have a dominating personality, you need to speak first in the group.

When people are uncertain, they let others decide what to do

Latane and Darley studied what would happen when participants (sitting in a group of researchers) would do when a room started to fill up with smoke. The more people, and the more the non- participants ignored the smoke, the more likely it was for the participant to also ignore it. Testimonials and ratings are powerful.

People think others are more easily influenced than they are themselves

Third-person effect: most people think others are influenced by persuasive messages, but that they themselves are not.

People are literally unware (i.e., unconscious) that they are being influenced. It's also partly because people don't like to think of themselves as easily swayed/gullible, because then they wouldn't be in control.

People value a product more highly when it's physically in front of them

Bushong researched what people did when given (1) item description, (2) item image, (3) the actual item. The valued the item more highly when it was actually in front of them.