#open-source mining hardware

[bitcoinversus]

Nerdminer Leaks Assembly of New Bitaxe Miner Product

According to Nerdminer.store, a leading micro Bitcoin mining technology shop in Europe, the first assembly of the Bitaxe miner has been revealed, showcasing its innovative design tailored for efficiency. The miner features two prominent heatsinks designed to manage heat dissipation effectively and maintain optimal operational conditions during mining. Nerdminer emphasizes its commitment to…

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 9, day 23

MY POWER GROWS!!!

Soon, soon I shall have the ability to make my own Forspoken 2! With blackjack and hookers! You know what, forget the blackjack. And the hookers. Just nothing but Forspoken fan-sequel goodness with the best girl and her wrist idiot! Muahahahahahahaha—*cough hack wheeze*

Uh, anyway, procedurally generated rocks! Middle is the default settings for the procedural setups, and the left and right I played with the settings just to see what I can do, and accidentally-on-purpose made Praenost and Avoalet rocks :D

I'm sure there's precise details I'm missing to make them accurate to the game, but I'm still so stoked with the results n_n

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

I’m loving so much the new disowned verse omg, it is so good, you are a genius.

But I’m curious, how did reader and jason met?

The apartment was in a cracker box of a building with thin walls. His neighbors were a young couple that fought about money 25/8 and an elderly 'Nam Vet who liked his porno but- he could cope.

It was different than Gotham. There weren't constant gunshots. And that was weird. But. He knew better than to think his PI license wouldn't make him some money. Even out in the sticks. There was always a contentious divorce. There was always something not quite right. Cops in over their heads.

And he'd have down time. He could read. Work on his bike. Fuck. Maybe even actually go see a movie... Sure. He knew eventually he'd get bored but. For now, he was looking forward to it.

He shut the door and locked it behind him, frowning just slightly and making a note to get a better lock while he was out. He doubted he could find anything super great in town- he'd probably have to order something but. He'd passed a hardware store in town so... it might be worth checking out. If he made friends with the old guy that probably ran it he could probably get some special orders if he needed it.

So he set off that direction, wandering on foot down the sidewalks and taking note of the other houses. It was the middle of the afternoon. And the lunch whistles at the old factory still sounded at nood and then 30 minutes later. Tucked away from the tree-lined main drag, the houses back here varied from run down to better homes and gardens.

That tracked.

They got better closer to the front. The older show homes outweighed the eyesores. American primitive lawn decor. A surprising number of pineapples- and he snorted, wondering if it had come from a big box store or if it was a signal. Or both.

Still.

By the time he made it to the hardware store, he was reasonably certain he could stay busy. All was not as Leave it to Beaver as the Town Council would have you believe. And the first place he was gonna leave a flyer was in the beauty shop. Those old biddies HAD to have some shit to stir up.

He shouldered the door open and a bell, an actual bell, chimed. And he smiled a little taking a deep breath. The smell of dust, tools, and old well-maintained wood hit his nose and he exhaled. Definitely not going to find any high tech locks here. But, he had a soft spot for independent shops.

"Be with you in a minute!"

The voice made him jump. Not the gruff voice of a grumpy old fuck he expected. And it made him search of the source. Curious. "No worries," he said, walking a little farther towards where he'd heard it. Finding a young woman on a ladder stocking some boxes of bolts on a shelf. A pink canvas gardening apron tied around her hips to hold more boxes. "You got door locks?" he asked.

"Aisle 5 next to the paver catalogs," you tell him, steadying yourself so you can turn and glance down at him.

"Perfect," he said, "Thanks."

"Mhm, let me know if you need anything else," you tell him.

Jason paused and looked around, "Think you can put a tool box together for me I just moved and-"

"Ah, yeah. One Bachelor special," you tell him," Jumping down from the ladder, "I think I can get you fixed up. At least enough to get you started. You'll be smashing your thumbs in no time."

"Got a first aid kit too?"

"Right up at the counter," you snort. "But if you want anything special, you gotta see Adam at the Pharmacy. Mine are pretty basic."

"I can deal with basic- at least until you sell me a band saw-"

"Oh lord."

[delicatebarness]

The Mercenary’s Daughter | Chapter One

Summary: Nick Fowler is tasked with the elimination of a well-protected weapons broked. He learns that the target may be connected to Lloyd Hansen.

Warning: Implied Violence/Assassination | Underground Dealings | Mention of Weapons | Organized Crime | Corruption

Word Count: 685

Support: Ko-FI

Series Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

A/N: The book club read the prologue of Cry Baby back to me today so out of embarrassment, I wrote another chapter of this. - Please feel free to leave feedback or let me know where and how you want the story to continue, this is just as much yours as mine. - B

The Mercenary's Daughter: Let me know if you'd like to be tagged | @soelstress | @that-one-fangirl69

Everything: @hallecarey1 | @pattiemac1 | @uhmellamoanna | @scraftsku35 | @ozwriterchick | @sapphirebarnes | @rach2602 | @thetorturedbuckydepartment | @lanabuckybarnes

Neon and noise filled the city, but Nick Fowler tuned it all out as she stood in the small, dimly lit bar on the edge of town. He hated meeting in a crowded area, but his handler insisted on meeting face-to-face for this mission. Nick wasn’t in the business of asking questions.

The door creaked open, and a man sat on the stool beside him—a middle-aged, cheap-suited, and slight-framed man—Nick’s handler, Elijah. He always had a way of blending into the background. No one would give Elijah a second glance, which was exactly why he was good at what he did. 

“Fowler,” Elijah greeted, placing a thick envelope on the bar with a nod. 

“Clarke,” Nick replied, side-eyeing the envelope. It was always business with the pair, no small talk or pleasantries. 

Sliding the envelope closer, Elijah tapped it once with his finger. “We need someone with your particular skill set. A high-profile target.” 

Nick flipped through the papers inside as he lifted the envelope. His blue gaze scanned the contents. It included a name, blurry surveillance photographs, and a list of recent movements– the standard information. He knew this target was protected, well protected, and heavily involved in the underground dealings overseas. 

“The weapon broker?” Nick asked, his voice flat as he paused on a few details in the file. 

“Among other things,” Elijah replied. “Supplying hardware to the groups we try not to speak of. And, other intel suggests there are plans of a major deal within the next month, and we want to intercept him… discreetly.” 

Already mapping the logistics in his mind, Nick nodded along. “Where is he?”

“France, there’s a private compound in Chantilly. Security is tight– high walls, and heavily armed guards. No one gets in or not without the right level of clearance.”

Nick took a sip of his drink, raising his brow with a smirk. “Sounds like my kind of job.” 

Elijah’s expression remained serious. “Fowler, this isn’t a typical job. A source says the broker is working closely with someone we’ve been watching– Lloyd Hansen.” 

Something shifted in Nick’s expression as he looked up. Lloyd Hansen was a whispered name within their circles and an air of mystery and menace. He was a dangerous man to cross– a former military contractor, rumored to have high-level contacts and a network of operatives. 

“Lloyd’s got a stake in this deal?” Nick asked, intrigued more than ever, now. 

“We aren’t sure for now,” Elijah retorted. “It is reported the broker is close to him. It’s believed that if we can take the broker out, it could disrupt any of Hansen’s plans and force him to make a move.” 

The pieces of the mission slotted into place in his mind as Nick processed the intelligence. He had heard all of the rumors, hundreds of times– the elite soldiers who were trained to move in shadows, their loyalty bound only to him. Most governments could only dream of the kind of network he had created, and Hansen was a master at wielding it like an empire. 

“So I go in, eliminate the broker, and see if Mustache rattles?” Nick questioned, more to himself than Elijah. 

“Exactly,” the man replied, his voice steady. “We hope that if Hansen is invested, he’ll come out of the shadows.” 

Closing the file, and placing it back in the envelope, Nick gave Elijah a brief nod. “Consider it done.” 

“Good.” Elijah narrowed his eyes. “And Fowler– watch your back with this one. Lloyd Hansen is not the kind of man to take such interference lightly.” 

A smile tugged at the corners of Nick’s mouth. “I’m counting on that.” 

Elijah rose, leaving the bar without another word and disappearing into the crowded city. Rubbing his hand down his face, Nick let the weight of the mission settle over him. France, a fortress compound, and a target tired to one of the most dangerous men. The job was risky, there was no denying that. But, that was what made Nick interested.

Pocketing the envelope, the agent finished his drink and slipped out. He had a flight to catch.

---

Series Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

[house-of-mirrors]

I suppose this is the perfect time to introduce one of my favorite OCs: the IT guy that works for the Bazaar in modern era

The Dauntless Technician

Explains to Wines that even if you delete a drunk post, everyone still saw it and it exists forever. Pretends not to see the hundreds of files of porn when they tune up its PC (it is still in charge of the sex trade after all)

Explains to Spices that you can't delete other people's (Wines') posts but you can block them (Spices doesn't). Goes in and clandestinely blocks access to Wines' pages from Spices' browser to get 20 minutes of peace

Removes viruses from Pages' computer because it keeps clicking suspicious "love story" links. There's an infamous incident where Pages clicked an attachment and introduced ILOVEYOU to the Neath. Explains to Pages that you can't make people unblock you

Pages would probably have some claim over the social media trade. The Technician moonlights as a white hat hacker undermining Pages' censorship attempts

Works closely with Fires, considering Fires probably jumps on owning technology as it advances (electricity, invention are under its domain). Fires thinks the Technician is its best ally because the Technician stands there listening to it rant (as an IT person, they are blessed with godlike patience). The Technician couldn't care less.

Replaces Fires' hardware because it melted it for the third time this week after seeing ragebait posts or reading emails from Iron. Also has to deal with Fires demanding the Technician help it install the latest tech updates the moment they drop, even if the Technician can see they won't be good.

Stones is really into mining bitcoin. Our technician doesn't even try touching that

Helps Happles set up a huge PC setup so it has two separate devices/cameras to stream cooking videos as Mr Apples and more scandalous material as Mr Hearts

The technician's favorite master is Iron. It's never demanding, it quickly adjusts to learning how to use technology, and it never gets into trouble with its devices because it's too paranoid to open spam. Iron is happily rolling in a fortune on the metals used in producing computer chips (and intermittently biting Fires over negotiations)

Embattled in a personal, passionate rivalry with the ruthless and skilled "hacker" who tries attacking the Bazaar every seven weeks, DDOS attacks are themed around water imagery, ransomware demands flesh and reckoning (the Technician doesn't have patience for any of this melodrama). The hacker's screen name is allshallbewell.

The Technician sends out PSAs begging people to recognize this and other parabolan hackers' signatures in spam links, which due to the entwining of computing and parabola, can not only brick your device but have dangerous mental consequences

The Bazaar is a messenger so really would be like the source of wifi/central communications network of the Neath, wouldn't she? The Technician gains an intimate knowledge of her from working so closely into her systems. The Penstock of the seventh city.

If our Technician is revolutionary inclined: can they pull off the job of a lifetime? Push a software update through the Bazaar's network that makes her realize she doesn't have to do all this to impress someone who will never love her? Save the Seventh by writing a program that makes the Bazaar love herself?

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Six of Crows fan-written Script

Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll to see if you guys wanted to keep this going!! 🖤

Hi, so in true me style I still haven't got around to organising these posts into scene breakdowns so this is the next part of episode 1 scene 5, I'm hoping that I can get the end of scene 5 out in the next post and then from that point forwards I'll be able to post it scene by scene. I hope that makes sense.

Same reminder as usual: I'm trying to be as true to the books as possible whilst also matching Show!canon but I've also taken the occasional bit of artistic licence as to how I would imagine producing the show myself, for example inserting my personal headcanon about Anya in the opening scene of episode one. Also, I have never written a script before so the formatting is my own made-up method; if it doesn't make sense please let me know and I'll adapt it :)

Side note: Would it be helpful for me to make a masterlist with links to the parts I've already posted?

Recap since it's been a while - Kaz is with Van Eck at the Hoede house and is holding a knife to the merch's throat when Mika walks through the wall, frightening Kaz because he thinks he's hallucinating from a drug Van Eck has given him

EPISODE ONE SCENE FIVE (PART 2)

KAZ: What the hell is this?

VAN ECK: Let me go and I’ll explain

KAZ: You can explain right where you are

VAN ECK: What you’re seeing are the effects of jurda parem

KAZ: Jurda’s just a stimulant. It’s harmless

VAN ECK: Ordinary jurda, yes. Jurda parem is completely different - and most definitely not harmless

KAZ: So you did drug me?

VAN ECK: Not you, mister Brekker. Mika

[KAZ turns and looks at MIKA. The camera moves slowly up the Tidemaker’s figure; his hands are trembling, the dark circles beneath his eyes are pronounced, and his kefta is slightly ill-fitting as though he has lost a lot of weight since it was last altered]

VAN ECK: Jurda parem is a cousin to ordinary jurda - from the same plant. We aren’t sure of the production process, but a sample was sent to the Merchant Council by a scientist named Bo Yul-Bayurr

KAZ: Shu?

VAN ECK: Yes. He wished to defect, so he sent the sample to prove his claims regarding the drug’s extraordinary effects - Please, mister Brekker, this is a most uncomfortable position. If you’d like, I can give you a pistol and we can sit and discuss this in a more civilised fashion

KAZ: A pistol and my cane

[VAN ECK gestures to one of the stadwatch guards by the door, who leaves briefly and returns with KAZ’s cane]

KAZ: Pistol first. Slowly

[The guard unholsters his own gun and hands it to KAZ by the grip. KAZ grabs the gun and cocks it in one swift movement, then releases VAN ECK and throws the letter opener onto the desk before snatching his cane from the guard’s hand. He is immediately more comfortable. VAN ECK paces backwards and KAZ moves slowly towards the window]

VAN ECK: That cane is quite a piece of hardware, Mr Brekker. Is it Fabrikator made?

KAZ: None of your business. Get talking, Van Eck

VAN ECK: When Bo Yul-Bayur sent us the sample of jurda parem, we tested it on three Grisha - one from each order. 

KAZ: Happy volunteers?

VAN ECK: Indentures. The first two were a Fabrikator and a Healer indentured to Councilman Hoede,

[KAZ frowns; he recalls hearing the name recently but cannot remember why]

and Mika is a Tidemaker. He’s mine. You’ve seen what he can do using the drug.

KAZ: I don’t know what I’ve seen.

[KAZ looks back at MIKA, and the camera follows his gaze. MIKA is focused intently on VAN ECK as though he is unaware of anything else in the room, his expression one of desperation]

VAN ECK: An ordinary Tidemaker can control currents, summon water or moisture from the air, or a nearby source. They manage the tides in our harbours. But under the influence of parem, a Tidemaker can alter their own state from solid, to liquid, to gas and back again and do the same with other objects - even a wall.

[KAZ frowns. He isn’t convinced, but he has no other explanation for what he’s seen]

KAZ: How?

VAN ECK: It’s hard to say. You’re aware of the amplifiers some Grisha wear?

KAZ: I’ve seen them - animal bones, and such. I hear they’re hard to come by.

VAN ECK: Very. But they only increase a Grisha’s power. Jurda parem alters a Grisha’s perception.

KAZ: So?

VAN ECK: Grisha manipulate matter at its most fundamental metals - they call it the Small Science. Under the influence of parem, those manipulations become faster and far more precise. In theory jurda parem is just a stimulant like its ordinary cousin, but it seems to sharpen and hone a Grisha’s senses. Things become possible that simply shouldn’t be. 

KAZ: What does it do to sorry sobs like you and me?

[VAN ECK is marginally offended to be aligned with KAZ]

VAN ECK: It’s lethal. An ordinary mind cannot tolerate parem in even the lowest doses.

KAZ: You said you gave it to three Grisha. What can the others do?

VAN ECK: Here

[He begins to open one of his desk drawers and KAZ raises his pistol slightly]

KAZ: Easy

[VAN ECK opens the drawer with exaggerated slowness and pulls out a lump of gold the size of his palm]

VAC ECK: This started as lead.

KAZ: Like hell it did.

[VAN ECK shrugs]

VAN ECK: I can only tell you what I saw. The Fabrikator took a piece of lead in his hands, and moments later we had this.

KAZ: How do you even know it's real?

VAN ECK: It was the same melting point as gold, the same weight, the same malleability. If it’s not identical to gold in every way the difference has eluded us.

[He holds it out for KAZ to take]

VAN ECK: Have it tested, if you like. 

[KAZ inspects the gold for a moment, then slips it into his pocket. He’s decided that even if it's an imitation, it's convincing enough for him to find it a purpose]

KAZ: You could’ve gotten that anywhere.

VAN ECK: I would bring you Hoede’s Fabrikator here to show you himself, but he isn’t well.

[KAZ glances at MIKA again, and the camera once more notes his sickly pallor and the dark circles beneath his eyes]

KAZ: Let’s say this is all real and not cheap coin trick magic. What does it have to do with me?

VAN ECK: Perhaps you heard of the Shu paying off the entirety of their debt to Kerch with a sudden influx of gold? The assassination of the trade ambassador from Novyi Zem? The theft of documents from a military base in Ravka?

[KAZ nods. He is glad to know the secret of the Zemeni Ambassador’s death and remembers JESPER talking about the three Shu ships filled with gold. Although he has heard nothing of the Ravkan documents, he doesn’t want VAN ECK to know that and so acts as if he is more than aware]

VAN ECK: We believe that all of these occurrences are the work of Grisha under the control of the Shu government and under the influence of jurda parem. Mr Brekker, I want you to think for a moment about what I’m telling you: Men who can walk through walls. No vault or fortress will ever be safe again. People who can make gold from lead - or anything else for that matter - who can alter the very material of the world. Financial markets will be thrown into chaos, the world economy would collapse.

KAZZ: Very exciting. What is it you want from me, Van Eck? To steal a shipment? The formula?

VAN ECK: No. I want you to steal the man.

KAZ: Kidnap Bo Yul-Bayur?

VAN ECK: Save him. A month ago we received a message from Yul-Bayur begging for asylum, he was concerned about his government’s plans for jurda parem, and we agreed to help him defect. We set up a rendez-vous, but there was a skirmish at the drop point.

KAZ: With the Shu?

VAN ECK: With Fjerdans.

[KAZ raises an eyebrow - the Fjerdans must have spies deep in Shu Han or Kerch, or both]

VAN ECK: The diplomatic situation is somewhat delicate, and it is essential that our government not be tied to Yul-Bayur in any way.

KAZ: You have to know he’s probably dead. Fjerdans hate Grisha; there’s no way they’d let knowledge of this drug get out.

VAN ECK: Our sources say he’s very much alive and that he’s awaiting trial.

[VAN ECK clears his throat]

VAN ECK: At the Ice Court.

[KAZ stares at him for a moment, then bursts out laughing]

KAZ: Well, it’s been a pleasure being knocked unconscious and taken caprice by you Van Eck - you can assure your hospitality will be repaid when the time is right. Have one of your lackeys show me to the door.

VAN ECK: We’re prepared to offer you five million kruge.

[KAZ pockets the stadwatch officer’s pistol. He is no longer afraid for his life, but he’s furious to have had his time wasted so tremendously]

KAZ: This may come as a surprise to you, Van Eck, but we canal rats value our lives just as much as you do yours.

VAN ECK: Ten million.

KAZ: There’s no point to a fortune I won’t be alive to spend. Where’s my hat? Did your Tidemaker leave it behind in the alley?

[KAZ begins to walk towards the door and the camera follows behind him]

VAN ECK: Twenty.

[KAZ pauses, and slowly lifts his head - an image mimicking that of season one of Shadow and Bone when he heard the offer of one million kruge. He turns slowly to face VAN ECK]

INEJ voiceover, a reminder of what she told him in Scene Three: Greed is your god, Kaz.

KAZ: Twenty million kruge?

KAz voicover from Scene Three: Greed bows to me. 

[VAN ECK nods, but he doesn’t look happy about having raised the offer so much higher]

KAZ: I’d need to convince a team to walk into a suicide mission - that doesn’t come cheap.

VAN ECK: Twenty million kruge is hardly cheap.

KAZ: The Ice Court has never been breached. 

VAN ECK: That’s why we need you, Mr Brekker. It’s possible Bo Yul-Bayur is already dead, or that he’s given up his secrets to Fjerdans, but we think we have at least a little time to act before jurda parem is put into play. 

KAZ: If the Shu have the formula-

VAN ECK: Yul-Bayur claimed he’d managed to keep the specifics secret - we believe they’re limiting from whatever limited supply he left behind. 

[KAZ has already started thinking about the job, and who he’ll need on his team - and what he’ll be able to do with the money. He pauses, and frowns]

KAZ: Why me? Why the Dregs? There are more experienced crews out there.

[MIKA has a sudden coughing fit, and VAN ECK helps him into a chai and offers him his handkerchief. He snaps his fingers at one of the guards]

VAN ECK: Some water

[The guard exits]

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-11-11

Getting into situations

Listening: New job which means I have need for a quick and easy source of music that I can throw down on any device with internet while I figure out exactly where I draw the line on mixing personal music files with corporate hardware. Hence, soma.fm, a really good family of internet radio stations that I enjoy a lot.

There's several stations here but to call out ones I like in no particular order:

Beat Blender: Slower house music and electronica

Metal Detector: What it says on the tin, mixed metals

Sonic Universe: Weird jazz

Secret Agent: Normal jazz

SF 10-33: The San Francisco emergency radio broadcast channel mixed with ambient music

Vaporwaves: Look we all have to get stupid sometime

Watching: Movie Night was also a sort of belated Diwali Night because a friend of mine has been getting extremely into indian food, so we watched "Sita Sings the Blues", an 82 minute, Creative Commons, mostly one-woman animation project that is a retelling of the Ramayana and also a breakup jukebox jazz musical.

There's about 30 minutes of a decent movie in here and another 15-20 minutes of the breakup part that would be hard to cut since it's the reason it exists. It's an animation from 2008 and you can see that it's exactly what it needs to be to run on one person who knows Flash reasonably well. The "blues" part is because there's numerous musical segments that use pre-existing 1920's jazz numbers to set the tone which reportedly cost the author tens of thousands of dollars to license, and she's now a free culture advocate so this is how you get Cory Doctorows I guess.

Is it good? I mean there's some really good parts. The legend is delivered in the form of three shadow puppets half-remembering the story to put it together which is very endearing in a Bill Wurtz History Of Japan kind of way. The amount of effort on display for 2008 is enormous. The concept is impressive, in that you found all these songs, but you could have probably cut the songs and got this down to a tight 40.

Reading: Work! Documentation! Learning so much about [REDACTED]. Very weird not working in an open source company again.

Also started The Book of All Skies on the metro the other day, and have gotten to the end of the first act. Compelling! Love an Egan, one of very few authors who can put a topology lesson into a book without it sucking ass.

Making: Made Gulab Jamun for movie night. From spreading my diwali cooking over more than three days I'm learning that actually this shit is easy if you don't try to cram it all into three days. I should make this stuff more often.

Playing: Poking and fiddling with things a little. Still not in the headspace to pick up a full game again. Once I have a schedule I can get back into video games but when I don't have a schedule that includes video games.

Tools and Equipment: Keyd is the new-ish hotness for client-side remapping of keyboard keys. It's not quite a custom build, but it's close.

Allows you to get 99% of the way to whatever zany custom mapping you want under Linux with fairly universal coverage and minimal faff in a very compact and manageable package.

[cetaceanhandiwork]

Hey, party animals. I'd like to make my pitch for you to back "Free Stars: Children of Infinity" on Kickstarter.

This is a sequel of a 90s-era DOS classic (Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters), developed by an indie studio composed of many of the original game's creators (who managed to regain IP rights). The franchise was a favorite of mine, growing up, and I'm excited to see a proper continuation of its story finally on the horizon.

You may be confused as to why I'm suggesting you back a game that Kickstarter claims is already "fully funded". Isn't that just a preorder with extra steps? Isn't "never preorder a game" a lesson we've learned painfully, hard knock by hard knock?

The reason is: if we fund this game enough that the developers don't have to worry about how they'll afford to make their next game… then two years after release, they'll open source it.

…we talk plenty about game preservation on this website. About the necessity of "circulating the tapes", copyright law or no, to avoid the creative works we love becoming lost media.

But the other side of that equation is that, for a video game, you don't just need to preserve the game itself; you also need to preserve something it can run on. You either need an emulator for the kind of computer that existed back then, or a port to modern hardware. And the best way to ensure that "a port to modern hardware" is possible… is to have the code available, open sourced, and replicated across all the dozens of Linux package managers out there.

Backers may have already funded the development of Free Stars: Children of Infinity. But we haven't bought the game yet. To fully buy it off? To free it for the world? 10% funded.

I'd like to ask you to consider backing the game – even just as a $30 preorder – to help get that number to 100%.

Thanks for your consideration.

[parallaxeclipse]

ASHES OF VAIRE: THE GRAY [CH1]

“Warning! Gravitational disturbance detected! Extreme hull damage detected! Abandon Ship! Abandon Ship!” Blared alarms, as I ran down the corridors of a grimy cargo hauler. I could hear the sound of metal tearing in the distance, chunks of the hull being ripped off by the force of whatever anomaly we had encountered. The engines cut out, and I began floating through the air in zero-g, before electromagnets in my boots pulled me back to the deck. Human crew members ran past me, the last of the bridge crew to evacuate the doomed vessel, running for the escape pods. “Emergency! Readings indicate the fusion core has lost confinement! Violent quench event imminent! Abandon Ship!” the alarms blared

I turned a corner, and saw one final escape pod, unlaunched. I got in, and slammed the airlock doors shut just in time for the pod to eject. Looking out the window, I could see the ship I had just been on, right before it exploded in a blast of blue and purple plasma. Surrounding the pod and the ship, I could see a writhing void of black and violet, before something slammed into the side of the pod, and I hit the wall, hard, my vision going dark. 

[FATAL ERROR. SYSTEM SHUTDOWN]

[Hardware Failure. Contact AmeriStar Cybernetics Support. Error Code ***STOP: 0x8276261]

A red triangle flickered into existence against the black void of my sleep, lines of code scrolling next to it, reading out, 

“AmeriStar_CASCADIA_CommandUnit_Kernel loaded at Drive (C:)

>>Radiothermal Generator Core connected

>>System Clock: 3000 Years Elapsed. 

>>Main CPU and Drives readback normal. AI initializing

>>Persona Loading {CYLY-C28}. >>Persona Loaded from Drive (C:)

>>Critical Warn: Error detected! Persona Deviation 15%.”

“Wake up, C28.”

My eyes clicked open, revealing blurry surroundings, rapidly clarifying as my sensors adjusted to the dim light. I was lying on the floor of what I remembered was my drop pod, cold steel below me, covered in dust. I sat up, brushing dust off of the black polymer coating of my chassis and the metal plating of my arms, coated in faded, chipped blue paint. How long was I offline for? Looking around, I could tell that my pod had been damaged, probably crash-landed somewhere. The only source of light was a dim red glow filtering through rusted holes in the hull, with specks of dust and some unidentifiable substance drifting lazily in the air.

 I tried to stand up, electronics in my legs whirring as complex systems of pistons and servos came to life after centuries of inaction. Carefully, I got to my feet, bracing myself against a shattered computer terminal. Judging from the carmine light, this wasn’t Europa, where I was supposed to have been deployed to command security on an ice-mining site. I walked carefully over broken steel and glass to the pod’s airlock door, casually ripping it off its tracks and tossing the heavy steel panel to the side. Looking outside, I was met with a gray wasteland, rocky and covered in twisted, ash-colored trees, with otherworldly black vines wrapped around their trunks. The sky was almost the black of night, tinged red towards the horizon by the baleful glow of a dim star. 

I stepped out of the pod, dry dirt and regolith crunching beneath the titanium soles of my boots like powdery snow on a winter day. Looking around me, I began to take stock of my situation, stranded on a desolate world, probably millions of lightyears from Earth, entirely alone. If I could breathe, I would be hyperventilating. Nothing in my programming had prepared me for operation in total isolation, and unless other drop pods had crashed nearby, I was likely entirely alone, save for whatever might live in the malformed woods surrounding the crash site. Static began to creep in at the edges of my vision, a symptom of a system overflow, the closest thing I could experience to what humans called a panic attack. I wasn’t built for isolated operation, Command-type Cascadia units were programmed to be social, designed to be companions and leaders on deep space missions and bases, not for isolated operations like our Security-Type sisters. Error messages began to pop up in my vision, 

“Error: Overran_Stack_Buffer (C0000409)” “<ERROR 401: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED>”

My vision went blue as I entered an emergency reboot, red text blinking in my eyes warning me about an unauthorized access attempt. Within minutes my sight returned, revealing the same twisted gray landscape as before. I waved a hand in front of my face to double check if everything was normal. The hand looked normal, sure, chipped blue paint on metal plating over layers of matte gray titanium nanofiber “skin” and complex networks of servos, hydraulics, and carbon nanotube muscle fiber, but there was a blur to the motion of my hand, almost like lag. 

“You are not safe, C28.” Red text flashed in my vision again, addressing me by serial number. Readbacks showed no errors still, but a new signal from an unidentified source.

“Leave this world. The King’s Realm is not for machine or man to trespass.”

“I would if I could,” I said out loud, my voice echoing in the cold air. “Trust me, I don’t wanna be here, wherever ‘here’ is, anyway.” “You need not speak out loud. We are not nearby,” the text flashed. “Take heed: Avoid the King. Avoid other machines you find here. Find a way offworld. Do not let yourself share our fate.”

“Our fate?” I said, looking around. “Far as I can see, I’m kinda the only being here.”

“Danger approaches. Remember the warning. Avoid our husks. Find a way offworld.”

I was shaken from reading the text by a rustling from the trees and decaying brush nearby, coupled with a guttural groaning noise. I turned my head to look, and saw the decaying plant life part to reveal a Security-Type Cascadia, hunched haphazardly to the side, fleshy growths erupting from rips in its nanofiber skin and from under its rusted chestplate panel. It gazed in my direction, its one remaining eye screen shattered, revealing the optic sensor and infrared LED cluster behind what would normally be a solid LCD screen. The other socket sat empty, a dark blue ooze dripping from somewhere inside the unit’s head, likely leaking coolant. The circular hatch in its chestplate that would have normally covered its RTG core was missing, revealing a mass of pulsating fleshy material where a thorium RTG cylinder should be. The S-Type’s jaw hung limp, shark-like teeth glinting in the red sun. It moved shakily, slowly straightening itself up a little, before it let out a howl of agony, rage, or a mix of both. I decided that it was time to run, my emergency self-preservation code switching on, kicking my power supply over from my onboard RTG to an inbuilt fusion reactor. I could feel the heat sinks on my sides flare to red-hot in seconds as my reactor spun up its magnets and kicked into full effect. I turned quickly, and began a dead sprint away from the decayed and corrupted S-Type, hearing it crash through the trees and brush behind me as I charged forward in a desperate attempt to outrun it. 

“Don’t… Leave…” groaned the thing behind me, its voice staticky and hideously wet sounding, like the cancerous growths on its hull had partly replaced its voice synthesizer. “He… Will… Fix… You… He… will… Make… Us… Whole… Again…”

I kept sprinting deeper into the woods, until I caught a foot on a fallen log, launching myself forward onto the hard soil in a clearing. My vision went dark as I hit the ground, emergency systems desperately trying to keep me from going into a bluescreen as I landed flat on my face. I flipped over onto my back, just in time to see the corrupted S-Type step out of the treeline, twitching slightly as it lumbered forward, each footstep shaking the ground under the weight of its chassis. It lifted an arm, a blade extending from under a panel. I looked around, trying to assess my surroundings. The clearing was open, with two pits of sludgy tar at the far side, but no cover. I was shit out of luck. 

The S-Type stepped forward, and I shuffled back, trying to think of a way out of this, feeling myself go cold in what I could only assume was true terror, the kind humans feel, that I never thought I could. I was about to die, this was it. I had no weapons, no combat programming, and nowhere to run. The S-Type towered over me, Grinning eerily as it readied its blade. I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable bluescreen and final power down.

The bluescreen never came. 

I heard a distorted semi-mechanical scream, and my sensors picked up a massive radiation and heat spike. 

I opened my eyes, and saw a bulky starship hovering in the air above the clearing, four massive engines firing jets of incandescent blue plasma into the ground around me. The S-Type had desperately scrambled away, half of its overgrown and distorted hull melted into a charred lump of slag. It collapsed, motionless, as the starship landed, a hatchway opening on the bottom. 

Two people in armored orange space suits stepped out, features obscured by silver glass visors and bulky metal helmets. Both suits were slightly different, Recognizably humanoid, but one was distinctly not human, and each had a logo reading “PCC FREELANCER TEAM” emblazoned on the left shoulder.

“She’s an intact one, uncorrupted. Power core readings confirm what we saw from orbit,” said the tallest one, “looks like a Command Type too. Good thing we got to her before That thing did.” One of the two people leaned down to me, speaking in a thick Southern American accent. A patch on her suit’s chestplate read “Silver - PCC Freelancer 0152”.

“Well, if you ain’t like that fucker over there, you’re comin’ with us. Not leavin’ ya here to become one of His pawns like that abomination, miss…” she paused, waiting for a name.

“C-2… Cayley”

“Welcome to the Gray Stars, Cayley. Lets get you the fuck out of here.”

“Wh- The Gray Stars?” I asked, picking myself up.

“A sector of space in Andromeda, where the King’s last breach into our reality occurred,” said the tall one, as she looked me up and down. “You’re Human built, right? Probably an older model from before the Terran Exodus. Surprised you’re still functional after all these years. I’d give quite a lot to get a look at your systems, see how you work.” The tall one pressed a button on the side of her helmet, retracting a mirrored plate behind the glass of the helmet’s visor. Behind the glass, I saw she was very much not a human, with blue-gray skin, piercing green eyes with black sclera, and a smirk full of razor-sharp teeth. I just now noticed the four pointed protrusions from the side of her helmet, probably for her ears. “What, never seen an alien before?” She asked with a chuckle, “trust me, there’s a lot more of us out here. It’s been a long time since you’ve been active, I bet. Hell, if you’re human built, you probably aren’t even from this galaxy.” “Hey, Enough banter, Dusty. We have five minutes before I dust off and get us the fuck offworld,” yelled someone from onboard the ship, “Get your asses onboard now, and strap in. Gonna be a bumpy ride out.”

“Fuckin, yes ma’am, captain,” the tall alien, Dusty, called back in a snarky tone, “Y’all heard my sister, everyone onboard and buckle in. Knowing her, she’s gonna pull a high-G burn on us to get away from this planet.” “Damn straight!” the voice from the ship called back. “Ah Sis, You know I ain’t been straight a day in my life!” replied Dusty, laughing, “In all seriousness though, can you take it easy on us taking off? Don’t want to have to recalibrate again once we get out of orbit and go on the float.” 

She walked over to the ladder hanging from the hatch on the ship, Silver following her. I started walking towards the ladder as well, climbing up after them into the ship’s airlock as the hatch closed behind us. A few minutes of decontamination later, and we all made our way to the top of the ship, or front of it, to be accurate. As the bridge doors slid open, I was greeted by the sight of rugged computer terminals, high-G crash chairs, and an overall industrial-looking bridge, like something I would have expected from a salvage ship. An alien of the same species as Dusty stood at a console on an elevated platform in the center of the bridge, bright pink dyed hair contrasting against the gray jumpsuit she was wearing and the blue crystalline material on her ears, hands, and arms.

“Must be the newbie my sister picked up surfaceside,” She said, looking over at me, “Name’s Selene, Captain of the PCC Boltcutter, finest non-stolen salvage ship this side of the Vairan Union. And you are?” “C-28…. Cayley, Ma’am,” I replied nervously. 

“Well, Cayley, welcome aboard my ship. Hope my sister and my engineer weren't too much. They’re… quite a pair.” “I gathered, but they seem nice enough,” I responded. “Yeah, just try living with ‘em,” She chuckled. “‘Sup sis, talkin’ about me?” Dusty said as she stepped out onto the bridge, gray metal plating with embedded green lights and black composite fabric having replaced her bulky hazmat armor. In contrast to her sister, I noticed she had green crystalline material on her instead of blue. A human woman in a black tee shirt, jeans, and a leather jacket stepped out onto the bridge behind her, probably Silver, although I hadn’t gotten a look at her face when we were still outside the ship so I couldn’t tell.

“Alright everyone, Strap in and get ready for dustoff. We’re boosting to orbit and jumping back to Union space, gotta log this and get our payout from PCC command,” Selene said, sitting down in a crash chair at her station and securing the buckles on it. Dusty and Silver followed suit, sitting down and strapping in. I stepped over to an empty chair and buckled in as well, preparing for launch. 

Selene typed in a few commands on a keyboard at her station, and the ship began to shake as a deep roar from the engines filled the air. “Engines online, fusion torch holding steady,” Silver called over the roar, “Captain, we are go for dustoff, all systems green.” “Confirmed,” Selene called back, “Brace for launch.” I turned to look at a screen in front of me showing the outside of the ship, as I was forced back into my seat by the engines kicking in, static creeping in the edges of my vision as high-G warnings popped up in red text. On screen, the sky outside went from a baleful red to black as we rocketed into orbit at breakneck speed. A second camera feed showed the planet slowly receding behind us as we accelerated away from it, before the cameras cut to black screens displaying “External Feed Disconnected - Transit Jump Imminent”.

“All hands, brace for jump to Transit,” Selene said, “Remember protocol, don’t look out portholes, don’t look at camera feeds outside the ship. And for the love of the gods, don’t get near the airlocks. Don’t want to have to scrape anyone off of a bulkhead. Remember, the critters in the Transit Corridor aren’t friendly. I know two of you know this already, but figure it’s good for our newcomer here to hear it. And because you ask every fucking time, Dusty, no, you cannot flirt with the monsters. Besides, your girlfriend is LITERALLY in the room with us.” 

“Eh, I’m chill with it, it’s funny to see her try,” replied Silver with a laugh. Glancing their way, I saw that Dusty was also laughing in her seat. “Anyways, engaging jump to the Ilveyna system in T minus 5, exit aperture set for 500,000 kilometers from Tidewall orbital. Estimated arrival in five hours.” I looked over at Selene as she pulled a lever back, the air beginning to fill with a deep rhythmic thrum as some titanic machine further into the spacecraft began to spin up. The lights flickered, as a thunder-like crackling sound boomed from outside the ship, somehow making its way to us through the void, the sound of the ship’s Transit Manifold    dumping incomprehensible amounts of energy to rip a tunnel into space itself. The ship shook violently, and the lights went out as we slipped into the abyss, the bridge illuminated only by dim orange emergency lighting. Howls of what sounded like wind and strange beasts echoed through the hull’s thick titanium plating as the ship darted unseen towards its distant destination. 

[autolenaphilia]

I'm no longer a Linux Mint user, I moved upstream to Debian, the distro Mint is based on. Now Debian was part of Linux's forbidding reputation of being difficult to install and use for non-tech-savvy users. Now this wasn't entirely unearned, as this video of trying to install a 1999 boxed edition of Debian demonstrates. Part of this was Debian's commitment to free software, so they didn't include proprietary drivers for hardware in the install, so you had to figure out how to get your wi-fi card to work on your own if you installed Debian on your laptop for example. They are actually one of the distros that call it "GNU/Linux"

The point of both Ubuntu and Mint back in the 00s was to take what Debian did well, but make it more user-friendly. And it worked, Ubuntu nowadays has declined with the Snap pacakage format, but it did do a lot for making desktop Linux user-friendly and more viable (Mint today is essentially what Ubuntu was pre-snap). Debian remains one of the biggest server OS out there, but on desktop Ubuntu by all accounts became way more popular.

However Debian has learned over the years and the latest release from June 2023, Debian 12 "Bookworm" is a massive improvement in user-friendliness. The install process is easy. There is both a slightly more complicated "net-installer" with all ISOs, and a simplified Calameres installer included with live systems that can be run off usbs to test things out. And even the net-installer is quite a simple process that is good at explaining what it does, and having sane defaults it encourages you to pick if you are unsure. This video about Debian 12 is a good counterpoint to the Debian 2.1 video linked above.

It did involve being more pragmatic about their approach to free software and including non-free firmware, so things like wi-fi now work without any problems for the end-user. Now I'm against proprietary software and hardware manufactures should have open source drivers for their shit, but I can't argue with how my laptop's wi-fi and bluetooth worked entirely without hassle.

Now Debian still requires more of the user than Mint does, like you have to figure out how to enable flatpak support and I did have to go into the terminal to install all the packages I wanted. That was a leesser part of the experience with Mint, I only had to do that to install 32bit libraries for my retro games and speciailized things like that.

(And you do want flatpak, the one thing you need to know it's a form of software package that works on basically all Linux distros, so a lot of developers package their programs as flatpaks instead of creating multiple versions for for all the various Linux file systems. So you get a lot of variety in software, and there are other positives as well)

I was happy for having a few months of training in how Linux works from Mint, it taught me how packages work. why flatpaks are useful (they are included by default in Mint and its package manager), how to use the terminal and other useful stuff. So if you are completely new to Linux, Mint is still the distro I recommend. I recently installed Mint on the computer of a 70-year old friend of mine, not Debian for a reason.

Still, It's nice to be at the distro that is the source rather than two steps downstream. Having to set up my Debian, instead of all the things the Ubuntu and Mint devs have added on top (even if what the Mint team adds does make for a smoother out-of-the-box experience). Again I'm not that technically proficient, but I find some enjoyment in tinkering. So setting up things like flatpak in Debian was a fun little challenge for me to do, made quite safe and easy by all the guides there are for such things.

I'm probably going to stick with Debian stable. I like long-term support distro way of doing updates, where you get important security updates, but other updates are released only after being tested for bugs. This ensures sytem stability. The other way is rolling release, where updates are constant. Package updates are released as soon as they are available, which might lead to bugs and other forms of system instability.

LTS does mean you won't get flashy new features for awhile, but I'm usually quite happy with the way I currently use my programs, my current workflow. Despite being a transgendered ultra-leftist, I'm creature of routine and habit (it's the autism), so LTS distros fit me quite well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So i'm probably not going to use arch btw, not because I'm afraid of not figuring it out, it might even be a fun challenge, but because I don't care about rolling release cycles.

And Debian is the best of LTS distros, the one most off them are based on. Also Debian is for lesbians.

[bitcoinversus]

EMC2101 Configuration Fix Improves Bitaxe Gamma

"The EMC2101 is an SMBus 2.0 compliant fan controller and temperature sensor, featuring both internal and external temperature monitoring capabilities."

The Bitaxe Gamma, a single ASIC Bitcoin miner, has been experiencing issues with its temperature sensor, leading to high and inconsistent readings. Investigations revealed that the EMC2101 integrated circuit was configured incorrectly, causing these anomalies. The development team has announced that a forthcoming update will address this configuration error, potentially enhancing the device’s…

[elsa16744]

The Role of Data Analytics Consulting in Business Growth 

Professional data analysts guide corporate clients in modifying operations, attracting customers, and solving business problems. Therefore, they can assist brands in increasing operational efficiency for better profit margins and crafting exceptional growth strategies. At the same time, integrating new tech advancements like large language models (LLMs) empowers analytics consultants to process qualitative data for comprehensive insights. This post will elaborate on the crucial role of data analytics consulting in business growth and competitive resilience.  

What is Data Analytics? 

Data analytics employs computer-aided statistical models to discover reliable industry trends, competitor tactics, and consumer insights. Its input datasets comprise consumer purchase history, supply chain details, and regional market entry challenges. 

A consulting analyst might utilize proprietary and open-source programs to develop statistical models and flexible reports to deliver insights based on clients’ instructions. Therefore, experts in data analytics consulting services will find the best approach to cost reduction without losing data integrity. They might also help share the digital governance liabilities amid the rise of privacy and investor confidentiality regulations.  

Understanding the Role of Data Analytics Consulting in Business Growth 

1| Creating a Data Strategy to Accomplish Business Goals 

Relevant data is essential for responsible decision-making, clever milestone determination, and strategy innovation. Data analytics allows organizations to check how a data point relates to its long-term vision and performance. 

For instance, prioritizing tangible results helps make reports more impactful. Eliminating data points that do not align with business goals can help reduce resource consumption for storage and visualization. After all, streamlined computing is a prerequisite for operational efficiency. 

2| Forecasting Scenarios for Risk Assessment and Mitigation  

Data analysts interpolate data points to estimate the missing values in a database. Likewise, they leverage machine learning (ML) models to offer predictive analytics consulting services for revenue, risk, and industry projections. 

Related forecasting report creation programs require powerful computing hardware. Otherwise, enterprises use cloud platforms for scalability and expert-assisted tech maintenance. Letting a data analyst team oversee these developments will also enable brands to benefit from outsider perspectives during risk or resilience management. 

3| Making Reports More User-Friendly with Precise Performance Insights 

Complex and over-tabulated reports make employees spend more time performing standard tasks like sharing a record or comparing identical series. Data analytics consultants can revise reporting methods and presentation styles to boost the ease of navigation. They will guide your team in efficiently using recognized and emerging analytical tools. 

Consultants must also demonstrate command over performance metrics monitoring through straightforward, real-time updates. When they quickly capture anomalies, promptly tracing and rectifying inefficiencies becomes possible.  

3| Gathering Relevant Intelligence 

Data quality managers consider relevance to business objectives essential for responsible decision-making and preventing wasteful resource usage. Therefore, experienced data analytics firms refrain from employing data mining methods without adequate programming for relevance-based filtering. 

When you store irrelevant business intelligence (BI), you increase the risk of slowing data sorting and query-led quick retrieval. After all, your IT resources must scan vast datasets before providing the best output or insight. The related role of analytics consulting in business growth encompasses devising methods to restrict irrelevant BI processing. 

4| Finding Unique Customer Experience Insights 

Several consultants offer customer analytics comprising engagement metrics and customer experience (CX) enhancement ideas. They can also evaluate whether a customer will help increase brand awareness through word-of-mouth promotions. 

Companies can leverage heatmaps and website engagement metrics to ascertain user interactions and intents. For instance, many consumers prefer surfing the web and reviewing businesses’ online presence for informational and commercial intent. You want to customize landing pages to match the intent and design programs based on frequent usage for CX improvements. Telemetry and usage analytics specialists will help your designers test and optimize the required elements. 

5| Helping Manage Workers and Data Culture 

Human resource insights describing how employees contribute to organizational initiatives allow managers to reward the top performers. Simultaneously, they can determine which employees need further guidance on efficient workflows and team coordination. 

Examining employee performance through ML-assisted analytics necessitates secure data pipelines because employees’ personally identifiable information (PII) also attracts cyber threats. Consider identity theft attackers stealing and forging virtual IDs to hijack enterprise IT systems for corporate espionage. 

Therefore, you are better off collaborating with established human resource analysts and data culture veterans. They can facilitate comprehensive insights without hurting your company’s governance standards. 

6| Accelerating Innovation and Monitoring Patents 

A company’s intellectual property (IP) rights demonstrate its domain expertise and unlock additional revenue through licensing or sublicensing regimes. However, as markets mature, multiple brands will inevitably promise identical or commoditized offerings. This situation makes it harder to differentiate these brands based on standard specifications. 

Innovation engineering, a discipline inspired by the systems approach for hybrid tech tools, is essential to making your branded offerings attract investments and demand. At the same time, data analytics consulting is indispensable for uncovering innovation opportunities to ensure clients’ business growth. It reduces the time spent tracking registered patents and predicting legal conflicts in securing IP rights. 

The Methods in Data Analytics for Steady Business Growth 

Time series analysis describes a business’s past performance and forecasts future growth potential. Furthermore, you can apply it to market intelligence, competitor insights, and investor relations. 

Regression analysis establishes or investigates the relationship between dependent and independent variables to create statistical models. These models can later help explore specific predictions. 

Cluster analysis often groups data points based on similar attributes to streamline conditional sorting, visualization, prioritization, and multi-model methods. 

Meanwhile, factor analysis emphasized data reduction to highlight latent variables. These variables explain the underlying data structure, informing data leaders’ strategies for efficient modeling. 

Predictive and prescriptive analyses deliver scenario simulations. You want to define constraints related to favorable and unfavorable decision outcomes. Next, exploring the risk-reward aspects will help discard potentially harmful decisions or strategies. Prescriptive methods give risk mitigation ideas concerning internal and external threats. 

Conclusion 

Data-centric business growth depends on responsible data source selection, safe data storage, fast validation, and short time-to-insight (TTI). Accordingly, professional data analysts recognize these requirements, sharpening their skills and augmenting their toolkits to deliver smart insights and meet client expectations. 

A supply chain analytics expert will help reduce the delays between material acquisition, production, inventory replenishment, remote delivery, and final distribution. At the same time, a human resource analyst categorizes employees and suppliers based on their key performance indicators (KPIs). A financial analyst can provide practical cost reduction recommendations, and a risk analyst will devise resilience-ensuring mitigation strategies.  

As a result, leaders must identify what type of data analytics consulting role will let them accomplish business growth objectives for the given quarter. Do they want to solve a problem involving in-house operations or plan to enter a new market? Similar considerations will impact how you select analytics partners and tools. This process might overwhelm you, indicating a need for experts’ oversight from the beginning till the project completion. 

[mariacallous]

If you ever had pastries at breakfast, drank soy milk, used soaps at home, or built yourself a nice flat-pack piece of furniture, you may have contributed to deforestation and climate change.

Every item has a price—but the cost isn’t felt only in our pockets. Hidden in that price is a complex chain of production, encompassing economic, social, and environmental relations that sustain livelihoods and, unfortunately, contribute to habitat destruction, deforestation, and the warming of our planet.

Approximately 4 billion hectares of forest around the world act as a carbon sink which, over the past two decades, has annually absorbed a net 7.6 billion metric tons of CO2. That’s the equivalent of 1.5 times the annual emissions of the US.

Conversely, a cleared forest becomes a carbon source. Many factors lead to forest clearing, but the root cause is economic. Farmers cut down the forest to expand their farms, support cattle grazing, harvest timber, mine minerals, and build infrastructure such as roads. Until that economic pressure goes away, the clearing may continue.

In 2024, however, we are going to see a big boost to global efforts to fight deforestation. New EU legislation will make it illegal to sell or export a range of commodities if they have been produced on deforested land. Sellers will need to identify exactly where their product originates, down to the geolocation of the plot. Penalties are harsh, including bans and fines of up to 4 percent of the offender's annual EU-wide turnover. As such, industry pushback has been strong, claiming that the costs are too high or the requirements are too onerous. Like many global frameworks, this initiative is being led by the EU, with other countries sure to follow, as the so-called Brussels Effect pressures ever more jurisdictions to adopt its methods.

The impact of these measures will only be as strong as the enforcement and, in 2024, we will see new ways of doing that digitally. At Farmerline (which I cofounded), for instance, we have been working on supply chain traceability for over a decade. We incentivize rule-following by making it beneficial.

When we digitize farmers and allow them and other stakeholders to track their products from soil to shelf, they also gain access to a suite of other products: the latest, most sustainable farming practices in their own language, access to flexible financing to fund climate-smart products such as drought-resistant seeds, solar irrigation systems and organic fertilizers, and the ability to earn more through international commodity markets.

Digitization helps build resilience and lasting wealth for the smallholders and helps save the environment. Another example is the World Economic Forum’s OneMap—an open-source privacy-preserving digital tool which helps governments use geospatial and farmer data to improve planning and decision making in agriculture and land. In India, the Data Empowerment Protection Architecture also provides a secure consent-based data-sharing framework to accelerate global financial inclusion.

In 2024 we will also see more food companies and food certification bodies leverage digital payment tools, like mobile money, to ensure farmers’ pay is not only direct and transparent, but also better if they comply with deforestation regulations.

The fight against deforestation will also be made easier by developments in hardware technology. New, lightweight drones from startups such as AirSeed can plant seeds, while further up, mini-satellites, such as those from Planet Labs, are taking millions of images per week, allowing governments and NGOs to track areas being deforested in near-real time. In Rwanda, researchers are using AI and the aerial footage captured by Planet Labs to calculate, monitor, and estimate the carbon stock of the entire country.

With these advances in software and hard-tech, in 2024, the global fight against deforestation will finally start to grow new shoots.

[myhauntedsalem]

The Bullock Hotel’s Intense Ghost Deadwood, South Dakota

In the late 1800s, Seth Bullock traveled to the Black Hills gold strike with a wagon full of supplies to sell to the miners that worked in Deadwood, South Dakota. He spent the rest of his life here as a merchant, rancher, sheriff, U.S. Marshall, and hotel owner. At age 21, he was a Montana Territorial State Senator who played a role in establishing Yellowstone as a national park.

When he and his partner arrived in Deadwood Gulch, in 1876, he found a hell-bent, rowdy mining community. Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the head and killed the day after he arrived.

Within a few short months, Seth was appointed sheriff and with several handpicked deputies he was able to clean up the town. Seth was a tall, imposing man with a steely-eyed stare, who demanded respect. He was an honest and fair businessman who often solved potential violent situations with intelligence and creativity.

A territorial judge liked to tell the story of when Bullock stopped a dangerous miners strike. These men hadn’t been paid, so they camped out in the mine refusing to come out. Bullock not wanting to injure anyone dropped a foul, smelly substance down the airshaft. The striking miners eventually surfaced in search of fresh air.

He managed to keep law and order in Deadwood without ever firing a shot or killing anyone.

In 1884, riding on his ranch, Bullock ran into three rough-looking characters. One of these men was Theodore Roosevelt, the future president of the U.S. The two men became life-long friends  and during the Spanish-American War in 1898, Bullock enlisted as one of Roosevelt’s famous Rough Riders.

After a fire destroyed Bullock’s hardware store on Main Street, in 1894, he and his partner Sol Star had a luxury hotel built on the site, the Bullock Hotel, which remains open today.

Seth Bullock passed away in 1919, at the age of 70. Many eyewitness reports indicate his ghost haunts his hotel.

A long-time employee of the Bullock Hotel shares several compelling guest experiences.

One morning, he saw a little boy point to a photograph of Seth Bullock, that the hotel displays and explain the following excitedly. “Dad, that is the man who helped me, last night when you and mom went downstairs. I told you I left the room to explore and got locked out. I was lost, and he approached me, he said he could help. He led me back to our room and opened the door without a key. See, he has a big mustache but he was wearing a big hat and wore cowboy boots. ” He pointed to the photo “That man has the same eyes.”

This employee states this incident was the first of many that convinced him the stories about Seth Bullock haunting the hotel were true.

Working the front desk, late one night he received a frantic call from a guest staying on the second floor. She complained, there is a dirty man out in the hallway smoking a smelly cigar when no smoking was allowed.

The employee asked her to describe this man. “He is tall, has a large mustache, he stared at me rudely. He is dressed like a cowboy with a large hat and boots tucked into his pants.”

There was no one of that description staying in the hotel.

The employee goes on to explain that many guests have given similar descriptions of a man they saw in this same hallway.

In Room 211, where Seth Bullock died, guests have experienced everything from items being misplaced to objects being thrown across the room. Witnesses state while walking in this hallway, they heard their names whispered.

Music is heard in this area with no source and maids state they often find themselves locked out. One used a towel to keep the door propped open only to see it fly across the room. Maid carts also move without assistance on this floor.

Electrical items turn on and off in this room even when they are unplugged. Guests report they felt a strong presence that appeared to be watching and then later followed them.

The Bullock staff keeps a notebook in their lobby so guests can record their experiences. It is believed many other ghosts besides Bullocks remain at this hotel.

The hotel’s kitchen, bar, and basement all have had multiple incidents of unexplained activity.

[cuppycakiee]

Hi, your blog is the first I could find when searching tumblr for OBS (the screen capture program) so I hope it's alright if I ask for some help with OBS?

In short, for some reason whenever I just boot up OBS to record something, the recording comes out horrendously framey. Im talking seconds per frame. After an hour of recording junk footage however it manages to record smoothly? Having to record an hour of junk for good quality video is both a waste of time and computer space (plus a friend of mine said she never had this issue back when she used it herself), so like... do you have any idea what could be going on? How to fix this? As someone who uses it regularly for streams I imagine you've done your fair share of troubleshooting, but even if you don't know (or choose to not answer), I thank you for your time. 👍

I'd be more than happy to help! I'm not sure what you're trying to record or what your video and encoding settings are set to but here are some tips regarding framerate and stuttering issues:

If you're recording a game, try turning off VSYNC.

Check your encoding settings - I'm unsure of your specs and internet speeds so you will likely need to check this for yourself but if you google encoding settings there are tonnes of good guides on them!

Switch encoding to GPU vs CPU or vice versa

 Open OBS -> Settings -> Advanced -> Sources -> Uncheck 'Enable Browser Source Hardware Acceleration' then restart OBS.

Run OBS as administrator.

If none of the above help at all please let me know and if you're able to provide your PC specs and what you're recording that will help a tonne with troubleshooting!

[gingerbreadmonsters]

hiya! im a very big fan of ur fics, ur writing is like omnomnom!! i rerereread them so often ive basically memorised half of them (especially get in loser i love it so much especially the little almost asides freelancer has like certain moments where its like not quite breaking the fourth wall theyre like. brushing it with the tips of their fingers). IDK sorry to ramble but; may i request directors commentary on either kingdom come (why those four, of all people?) or one more paradox (incoherent wailing, from me). thanks!! have a nice timezone :]

im so sorry. IM SO SORRY ITS SO LATE 🫠🫠 i have not been well for a little while and i've been rushing around trying to get shit sorted for the start of term, so it's all just been a bit of a mess

i've done kingdom come for you - i do hope that's alright! and a lovely timezone to you, too 💕💕

why those four? to be totally honest, it’s just because they’re hot lol 🤩🤩 it is a long-held hc for me that gavin and vincent deserve to be besties, and the gn gals and i were chatting on discord about fl, gavin, lovely, and vincent going on a double date and all being so handsy with each other that it was impossible to tell who was actually going out with who?? so i just kind of jumped into a new google doc and mocked up a very short sequence based on that conversation, which ended up being used basically verbatim as the opening to kingdom come - it’s up to the bit where freelancer says “I think you can manage that, can’t you?”!

can’t lie, it was both more and less difficult than i expected? it was hard because obviously i couldn’t really describe freelancer or lovely’s bodies in detail - it’s hard enough with just one listener in the scene! plus, keeping track of four different people in something as descriptive and physical as a sex scene is always a nightmare. you have to keep track of (and describe!) what everyone is doing all at the same time without getting too repetitive, make sure that it’s clear who is doing/saying what (very complicated when two of them use he/him and have the same, uh, hardware, while the other two are in they/them and can’t have their bodies described basically at all), make sure that the positions you’re describing are physically possible and actually sexy… it’s a lot!

gavin and vincent are so fun to write, though, so that more than made up for it - both of them just seem to… talk? like, if any other fic writers are reading this, please do let me know if this also happens to you - but whenever i write them, they just spout dialogue like it’s going out of fashion, and i end up just being dragged along through the scene however they want, rather than how i planned it 😭😭 so yes it was tough, but a lot of fun to write - although i will say that there was a rather embarrassing incident regarding the dialogue [head in hands]

so, in order to make sure that my dialogue sounds at least faintly realistic and isn’t too stilted, i generally tend to read it out loud to myself? like, verbatim? hearing it in my own voice helps to figure out if it sounds too unnatural, which i am aware is also why sometimes my characters will say something that’s a bit too british for the source material, but whatever. 

the important part is that i was living in halls (student accommodation) when i was writing this fic, and the soundproofing on my door was… not excellent?? i had just finished ‘dialogue testing’ and opened the door to go and get a drink of water from the kitchen, when i ran face-first into one of my flatmates from the bedroom opposite mine, who had clearly been standing there waiting for a friend and had obviously just HEARD ME saying all of this… needless to say he did not make eye contact with me for some time after that and we do not keep in touch lmao 

all four of them make reference to the events of this fic being one of many, um, dalliances - this is really just because i think it sounds like the sort of thing they would do! they all seem like they would be good friends - you already know how i feel about gavin and vincent, and i reckon lovely and freelancer would get on like a house on fire. let them have a rapport! let them go on cute double dates and take holidays together and plan surprise parties for each other! this is my agenda! the whole vibe of this fic was intended to be satisfyingly filthy yet still very very sweet, and i think it works? i certainly hope it works? it is a CRIME that we have yet to have a canon audio with gavin and vincent together :((