#she also calls motherboards ‘chips’

[demnianthro]

in absolute terror thinking about how my roommate confidently calls this a motherboard

[echantedtoon]

Shards

Shard x Nicole

Before this if you asked someone what she thought true pain was, she would have answered the many times she thought her friends would die. Or maybe the time the Iron Queen warped her into her worst self. .....But no.... THIS. This was truly raw pain. The kind that get's under your skin and makes your heart clench and your stomach feel painfully empty. That was the pain she felt now. "Are you sure you want to stay? It's no shame if you don't. We understand." She turned to the older hedgehog. His kind green eyes showed the endless patience and kindness he possessed. His white mustache crinkled up in a smile. She shook her head and stayed still. She wasn't going anywhere until it was done and over with. "......Alright. But if you feel uncomfortable, you may leave anytime." She didn't respond so he turned back to the monitor. Typing a few keys into the keyboard, he began the process. "Back tracking remaining data," the high tech screen read out. It would take a while for the super computer to go through all the memory files. After all, he did have a lot of memories. Good, warm memories. With her. And him. The time they first met. The times they spent together. The time he- She had to literally bite her tongue to keep a choke or sob from coming out. It probably wouldn't have came out anyways with how tight her throat was. "Recovery of memory files complete. Restore in progress." She flinched and slowly turned her gaze to the screen. Many pixels and numbers danced green against the otherwise black nothingness. The elderly hedgehog watched carefully and typed a few keys every now and then. "...........Uncle Chuck?" "Yes, my dear," he answered still looking at the screen. ".....Do you think.....he'll be the same?" From the corner of her eye, she glanced at the unmoving figure on the metal table. ".....That he'll be Shard?" He remained silent. ".......I can't guarantee anything just yet. I have to finish all that's needed." "........." This time she fully turned to the still figure. His metal body was shiny and looked new. No one could tell he was in a brutal fight not too long ago. When he was found, his body had been trashed and mangled and honestly looked worse than she'd ever seen. A piece of her died inside. "Restoration complete. Awaiting data transfer." She watched intently as he did a few more things on the screen before standing up and turning away from the computer. He stood up and looked directly at her. When Shard was recovered, it wasn't just his outsides that needed repairs. His inner workings had also been damaged in the fight against Metal Sonic. It wasn't looking good either. His motherboard or 'brain' as some called it, had been critically damaged from the impact his head sustained. Uncle Chuck managed to retrieve any thing that he could and fixed what was left. Luckily, by some miracle, his memory chip wasn't badly damaged. But that doesn't mean he'll be the same. After all, there as a difference between Shard and a copy with his memories. Uncle Chuck approached the table, stopping at his head before humming and reaching up a hand to gently run along one of the wires connected to his head. He nodded and looked back to her. "We're ready to begin."

Clicking a button on the panel to the left, a whirring sound emanated from the machine which all the wires were connected to. "Data transfer in progress. Please stand by." Waiting was agonizing to say the least. She didn't quite know how long they stood there not saying a word. Staring at his unmoving form with Uncle Chuck checking the monitors every little while. She didn't even know how it'll- "Data transfer complete." The sudden voice startled her and she let out a squeak of surprise. Uncle Chuck chuckled good natured and began to carefully unplug the wires from his still body. "There now." "Will it work?" "We'll have to wait and hope for the best. I've done all I could." The wires were fully removed and she slowly approached the table. Her body shaking and her nerves skyrocketing. "S-Shard?," he said barely over a whisper, "Can you hear me?" Nothing.......but silence. Cold. Dead. Silence. "S-Shard?......Come on! Wake up!" His cold metal body creaked as she shook him. Desperate for him to wake up. For him to smile. Say he was only playing dead as some bad joke. "WAKE UP!! Wake up, wake up, wake up!!" "Nicole!" Someone grabbed her shoulders and pried her from him. Turning her struggling form around to face his stern look. She froze with tears streaming don her face. He slowly turned to a look of pity........and shook his head. That was it. With a choke, she collapsed to her knees. Her form shaking and glitching in places. Her wails didn't go unanswered as two arms slowly wrapped around her, pulling her against him. ".......A-Aw! DoN't tell M-Me y-yOur goNNA l-leak oIl o-oVER t-THIS!" They froze at the distorted voice. Sniffing, she slowly raised her head in the voice's direction. Green eyes smiled at her as the figure was propped up on his arms smiling. "H-Hi. M-misS mE?" "SHARD!!" She tore from Uncle Chuck's hold and towards him. Colliding with a small metal tink sound. "HEY! DoN'T get ALL sApPy at-t MY expenCe." "How do you feel my boy?" He turned to the older hedgehog. "F-F-Fine THaNks. B-B-But-t I think my-Y voicE Chip cOULD u-use some TUNING." He nodded. "That'll be the first thing I work on." "T-ThankS, C-CHuCK." "Shard." He looked back at her. "Y-YES?" "I'm so glad you're safe.....and YOU again." "You had us all worried sick, Son." She gave him a small kiss on the forehead which made him freeze. His motor gave off a thrum and he chuckled nervously. "G-GueSS I just-t needed-d a R-Reboot."

[ofpantheons]

cerberus corp has been watching jaime flores.  some of the public has dubbed them glitch because of technopathy gifted by ELECTROCUTION. having been an extra ordinary since 2009.they consider themself a civilian.

001.  GENERAL

name  Jaime Vega Flores nicknames  Jay, Vega, Glitch (anyone who hires her get introduced to her as Glitch), Acid Burn (calling card she leaves sometimes when hacking) age  35 date of birth  May 2nd 1988 zodiac  Taurus place of birth  Astoria, Queens current residence  Soho, NYC gender  Cis Woman pronouns  She/They sexuality  Pansexual occupation  Hacker, Software Engineer,

faceclaim  Lindsey Morgan height  5 ft 6 tattoos  A full Legend of Zelda sleeve and a bunch of other small patchwork tattoos on her legs. Mostly really stupid ones that are memes. piercings lobes, daith and helix on on ear. lobes, tragus and industrial on the other distinguishing features  slit through her eyebrow and a charming smile positive traits  Intelligent, mellow, playful, generous negative traits  Immature, paranoid, arrogant, lazy labels / tropes  Playful Hacker, Techno Wizard, Cop/Criminal Family likes  video games, pizza, tattoos, watching soccer and hockey, weed, comics, dislikes  The government, nature, hiking, luddites, camping, people who say sorry too much, 'The Man', fears   losing their family, being stuck somewhere with no technology hobbies  gaming, climbing (indoor walls only), hacking, getting high, making mods for games she plays, habits  rubbing her temples when she's stressed, overuse of fidget toys, forgetting to eat

002.  EXTRA ORDINARY

near death experience… For being a smart person, Jaime is also kind of a dumbass and is more than a little dependent on weed. Even before she had her powers, Jaime was a gifted hacker and comp sci student on a full ride scholarship at MIT, who spent her time modding technology. While she was on winter break in the year 2009, she went to visit one of her cousins and they both hotboxed a room in his basement while they gamed. The power went out for the whole block, but her family had a back up generator. Only problem was, it wasn't working. While completely under the influence, she attemped to get it running again, which went as well as you can imagine. She was electrocuted and thrown several feet away from the generator. Her heart stopped and her cousin attempted to perform some of the shittiest CPR anyone has ever seen. Thankfully, one of her neighbours was a nurse and came out when they heard the noise and helped resuscitate her.

power…  Technopathy - the power to interact, communicate and manipulate technology with the power of the mind. If things are in view Jaime can easily hack into any piece of technology that has any kind of motherboard or chip . If it has a wifi connection, she is able to communicate with it from just about anywhere.

drawbacks / vulnerabilities…  Jaime's powers are also completely dependent on there being technology around or that technology having a power source. They can turn on devices that are currently off, but if that device has a dead battery or are disconnected from a power source, she's unable to control it. Also the term technology is widely used but Jaime can't just hack into anything that uses electricity for instance. e.g. a really old car, she could probably hack the radio and that's it but with a newer car she can do just about anything with it.

(if applicable)  cerberus corp…  if they could find her, Jaime is sure they would have tried to recruit her by now, but she's scrubbed all trace of her real self off the internet and their records. Or at least that's what she thinks, they probably have paper records and she's too arrogant to have considered that. They know she exists cause sometimes she likes to fuck around with their missions just for fun, and she always leaves them a calling card, but it's completely separate from her real life identity.

codename…  Glitch came about as a joke on her cousins when Jaime first started hacking. She'd mess around with their PC's and they'd start yelling about things 'glitching' and after awhile it was their codeword for her less than legal online activities. When she started to accept work for hire she gave out the name Glitch instead of her government name, as a way to separate her identities.

003.  HEADCANONS

Jaime comes from a big family and has a lot of uncles who are in law enforcement. Her dad was also a Police Detective but he was killed in the line of duty.

Carries one of her dads rings on a chain around her neck

Jaime is actually pronounced hi-may, but so many people say it jay-me and she's too lazy to correct them.

Is the most chaotic neutral you will ever meet.

Regularly Jaime will play on mic and if she gets shit from people because she's a woman, she will mute them with her powers or fuck with that persons equipment if she's feeling especially vindictive. Call it Karma.

When I say she's lazy, it's mostly that she isn't particularly that motivated when it comes to her career and also she could be doing so much more with her powers and she just doesn't because she can't be bothered

Got into a lot of trouble as a teen and has a sealed juvie record

Shares a bank account with her mother where her regular paycheque gets deposited. This way if she ever gets in trouble, the money that goes to her family is clean and they won't have any issues

Is a giant child and has nerd shit all over her apartment

Has made a lot of random donations to charity, Robin Hood style

004.  POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS

Somebody she met online (where she met them is up to you) who she's never met in person but she tells them everything and confides in them, and they do the same with her. taken by Omar @ofrepeat

Cousins - her family is huge but she's an only child so her siblings were basically her cousins.

Clients - She does a lot of work for hire to sustain her wild lifestyle. They can be good people, they can be bad people trying to fuck with Cerberus...as long as their plan doesn't fuck with her life, involve too much effort on her end or threaten humanity in general, Jaime is game.

Somebody she met on a dating app and they exchanged numbers and texted with a bunch. They still haven't met up irl and they keep messaging each other so they're basically friends now. taken by keegan @losemorals

Flings/Friends with benefits/Exes - she's definitely a little bit of a flirt and I'm open to anyone wanting a physical history with her

Neighbours - Jaime is probably a terrible person to live next to though so you must hate your character.

Stoner friends

Gamer friends

Friends in general - she's a mess but she's pretty friendly!

Her Dealer taken by Zann @losemorals

[spectraspecs-writes]

alright Specs! hit me with some knowledge. I'm always really happy to see you ramble and infodump. Your knowledge is truly awesome<3

-anon

When we last left off, I mentioned that every device that connects to the internet has several numbers that allow it to do so. The first was the private IP address. The second was the router's address. The third is the router's public IP address. The fourth is the MAC address. The MAC address, also called physical address, is a hexadecimal number attached to the network interface card, or NIC (nick). NICs nowadays are likely to be built right into the motherboard, but if you were to crack open your computer, you may find a square chip about the size of your thumb with two cables attached to the top, a black one and a gray or white one. It lays flat against the motherboard with a screw at the top, either between or beside the two cables. Those cables are antenna and they snake up behind the monitor. If you unscrew that screw, the chip will pop right up. That is called an M.2 NIC. Your hard drive may also connect the same type of way.

M.2 is a newer kind of connection, and is perfect for smaller devices, but in the olden days and the desktop days, this is not how they were connected. I haven't seen much of older laptops, but again M.2 is newer. In the desktop days, you could add a NIC that connected in the same way a graphics card does. If you crack open a desktop computer, you'll notice near the bottom at least one long stretch of connectors, white or maybe blue. This is called PCIe. It's important that that "e" be lowercase, that's not a typo. PCIe is a versatile connection type and can connect a bunch of different devices. The biggest ones are x16, or "by 16" (not ex 16.) They also make x8, x4, and x2. You can stick any of those type of expansion cards into a x16. There's lots of kinds of expansion cards, but graphics cards are the most well known. Even if you're not a gamer, a graphics card can add extra display ports or different ports. A newer PCIe NIC would have a plastic antenna screwed into it, while an older one would have an Ethernet port. Before PCIe was PCI, but there's no point in elaborating on that as it's out of date, works basically the same as PCIe, and you and I are equally likely to see it.

There are also USB NICs, and in the early 2000s these looked like thick flash drives. You're not likely to see these anymore unless you've got a bunch of old stuff. We still have one at my house but my mom doesn't believe me that this is useless and she would hate having to use it. It's more likely you'll see and get use out of a USB Ethernet NIC, which is just USB A on one end and an Ethernet port on the other. If your laptop is unable to access the internet one day when it was fine the day before, then most likely your driver is out of date. Once the laptop connects to the internet and restarts, it'll update the driver on its own. This is where a USB Ethernet NIC comes in handy, as it doesn't need a driver and goes around that.

From here, I can either talk about motherboard connections or Wifi standards. I'll let you decide.

[spinda-draws]

The Borg of Both Worlds Ch. 1

Synopsis || After being defeated once and for all, Hacker decides the only thing for him to do is go to the real world and give the Earth brats a bit of grief. Jackie ends up being the main target for his new spree of mischief, but could there be more to the borg than meets the eye?

"There it is!" Matt cried, holding up his skwak so his friends could see what he was approaching on the path ahead. "The Transformatron."

Jackie looked up from her device to see the rear of the machine in the distance. "I see it!" She quickened her pace, only to see Matt and Inez approaching from the other direction and being stopped by Buzz and Delete. The lanky bot shot out his arms, restraining her two friends in their coils.

"Oh little Earth brat!" the robot sang, looking around for the one who would complete his set. "Come out, come out wherever you are!"

Thinking fast, Jackie dove behind the giant machine, away from the gaze of the henchmen. She could feel the arid ground and its jagged pebbles underneath her palms as she landed hard on the ground of her hiding place. The grunts of her friends trying to get free and shouting directions at her turned into muffled screams as she guessed one of the bots must have tied something around their mouths.

The girl shut her eyes and did her best to stay quiet and relax her breathing. She needed to find the right moment to grab the NIC and shut down the machine, and quick. Hacker was long gone having turned himself into a Quetzalcoatlus, a giant flying robotic dinosaur or reptile or whatever it was. The point was that it was absolutely huge and heading straight towards Control Central. Jackie had seen him herself as she and her friends were triangulating on the location of the machine.

For months the Cybervillain had been intent on rebuilding this machine, going so far as to completely tear down Slider and Coop's garage to retrieve the NIC. As a result Motherboard had taken the chip into custody and attempted to dispose of it, only for Digit to be intercepted while on his way to the blackhole. Ever since he'd briefly taken over Cyberspace by duping the cybersquad with a fake Encryptor Chip, Hacker had been executing one close call after another in an attempt to regain control. There were days Jackie feared he'd succeed, or worse, find his way to Earth and wreak untold havoc on everything she cared about.

Opening her eyes again, she gathered up her courage and peered out from behind the machine. Buzz and Delete had given up searching the clearing, but were still standing in wait for her to show herself. If only she could get a view of the front of the machine so she could see where the NIC was and grab it without ever coming out of hiding. But there was also the matter of distracting the bots so she could rescue her friends.

She pulled her head back quickly as Delete seemed to turn in her direction. Confident he hadn't seen her, she waited a moment before slowly peering out again. There had been something she'd noticed in the moments before that she needed to check.

Yes, it was as she'd suspected, she could actually see the reflection of the front of the machine in Delete's polished cylindrical body. There was no NIC, but if she could just scoot over to the other side for a look, she might be able to catch a glimpse.

As quietly as she could, Jackie crept towards the other side of the Transformatron and looked again. Any image she could see was distorted, but she thought she could just make out the shape of the green card sticking out of a disc port. All she needed to do was remove it and any active transformations would be reversed.

Waiting for the two henchmen to turn away, she reached around the width of the machine and felt around for the card. It didn't take long for her to take hold of it and give it a hard yank only to find it wouldn't budge! Desperate, she forewent her hiding place and started pulling harder, not caring whether Buzz and Delete saw her. She could probably outrun the two of them anyhow if it came down to it.

"Found ya!" Delete cried with glee as Buzz made a beeline to tackle her. With a third pull, this time throwing nearly her entire body weight into it, she managed to get the chip out, losing her balance and landing on her back in the dirt. As the two bots descended on her, she did the only thing she could think to do and flung the NIC towards the forest of bare brambles like a frisbee. The bots' eyes widened as both scrambled to retrieve their boss's macguffin.

"I got it!"

"No, no, me!"

In his haste, Delete let go of Matt and Inez to reach for the NIC. He stretched out his arms and started to run, colliding with Buzz and accidentally pushing over the machine as they crashed into it. Seeing that they were incapacitated for the moment, Matt ran towards the brambles to retrieve the NIC while the girls watched to make sure the two henchmen didn't try and go after him. As they waited for him to return, Jackie spotted a portal appear behind them. This wasn't over. She was positive Hacker had already made it to Control Central and transformed or not there was still him left to deal with.

3 months later...

Jackie curled up on the bed, trying to wipe her puffy and reddened face dry of the tears that had been running down all day. She bunched her comforter up into a ball and brought it close to her chest to hug. It had been a, in short, chaotic few months and she had just about come to her breaking point. Her first year of high school had started with her and her mother getting the news that her father had passed. He’d been in the air force, deployed when Jackie was just eleven. She had been so proud of him, excited for him to come back and tell her all about how he took down the bad guys. That was before she herself started fighting bad guys. Even when it was just her and her mother, she had been happy. Keeping in contact with her dad through letters and waiting for news of when he'd finally be able to come home.

And three months ago he had. At the time there had been a funeral with her father’s friends from the military and superiors. She had just returned from another, a smaller, private family affair attended by her father's extended family from the south. For the first few weeks after they'd gotten the news, her mother had been almost inconsolable, and when she'd finally begun to pick herself up again, it was just to work. It was just the two of them now, after all. Though sometimes it felt to Jackie like she was on her own. Between being the perfect student, perfect gymnast, perfect pianist, perfect daughter, she just felt tired.

Tomorrow was Sunday and between her and her mother visiting the funeral home and all her other after school obligations, she hadn't even had a chance to look at her weekend assignments. She doubted she'd feel better in the morning either. What she really needed was some time to herself otherwise she'd just spend the whole day sulking around her room.

After washing her face at the bathroom sink, she returned to her room and sat down at the computer. Perched atop the screen was what appeared to be a webcam. It was actually something Dr. Marbles had made and gifted to her, a direct link to Motherboard's portal system in Cyberspace so she could come and go as she pleased. It was late at night and she didn't want to disturb her friends who were probably already asleep. It wasn't as if Motherboard was calling them for something important anyways.

Double clicking the icon of a portal on her desktop opened up a black pop up which quickly filled with dozens of lines of green text as the program activated. She got up from her chair and gave the lens of the webcam a twist until a laser shot out of it. Taking a step back, she watched as a portal took shape in her bedroom, the purple energy growing in size until it was big enough to pull her in.

After a familiar tumble through the vacuum she'd come to know as Motherboard's domain, the place where the cyber ruler herself resided, she landed in the audience chamber of Control Central. The usual lights that filled the room had been dimmed. It looked like everyone in Cyberspace had put on sleep mode for the night. Probably for the best since she didn't really feel like talking to anyone at the moment. Instead she headed for the kitchen, hoping she could just sit there for a few hours and make herself a little snack while she decompressed.

The kitchen at Control Central had always reminded Jackie of one of those office break rooms she'd seen on TV. It had all the essentials, but was much more bare bones than what one would expect from the ruler of the Cyberuniverse. Then again, it wasn't as if Motherboard herself used it much. Or at all. One glance at the plethora and variety of kitchen utensils strung about said that this was Digit's domain. Inside the refrigerator were fruits and vegetables of every variety, some that Jackie didn't even recognize though she'd been coming to Cyberspace for years now. The cybird prided himself on making almost every meal completely from scratch meaning the only ready to eat thing Jackie could find was a carton of yogurt.

The packaging caused her to make a face. Goat milk yogurt? She'd never heard of such a thing. And what kind of flavor was butter pecan? Still, it was the only thing she could dig up and the only thing that might take her mind off her mental exhaustion. She peeled back the foil top and absent-mindedly started to eat while letting her thoughts wander, enjoying the ambience of Control Central after hours. She must have fallen asleep or been close to as she felt herself jump all of a sudden as footsteps could be heard echoing from somewhere down the long hallway.

Although the sound of the metallic clanging caused her to feel slightly uneasy, she didn't attempt to move from her seat. She had always felt safe in Control Central, under the watchful eye of Motherboard, if nowhere else in the world. Even as the footsteps appeared to draw closer she didn't move from her seat and it wasn't until the sliding doors parted that she even looked up from her midnight snack. When she did, what she saw nearly caused her spoon to fall from her gaping jaws.

Jackie didn't know whether to speak up or stay silent and hope he didn't notice her. She didn't exactly feel like starting a conversation, least of all with him. Deciding to shrink into her shoulders and keep her eyes fixed on her yogurt, she watched as the borg shuffled his way up to the refrigerator and opened it. He seemed to be looking for something in particular as he started digging around in the back and opening the drawers at the bottom. The ticking of the wall clock over Jackie's head sounded like the footsteps of the executioner as he approached to fetch her for the block. Like an owl in the night, the borg's head slowly craned towards the presence she sensed in the room, meeting her gaze with the intent of seizing an elusive piece of prey.

"That was mine!" he spat as he snatched up the already empty yogurt container. "Don't you Earth brats have your own universe to infest? Who gave you permission to come here to steal from me in the middle of the night?"

"It's not like it was labeled," Jackie muttered, the spoon still dangling apathetically from her teeth. With everything that had been on her mind lately, she hadn't even thought of running into the so-called ex-cybervillain as a possibility. 

When the Transformatron's effects had worn off, he'd crash landed through the glass dome that shielded the control room and onto the walkway leading up to Motherboard's monitor. With his internal hardware badly damaged and no way of escaping, the borg reluctantly issued his surrender, after which the Ruler of Cyberspace had decided to keep him imprisoned to prevent him from causing further trouble. He had long since been patched up but remained confined to Control Central. This was the first Jackie had even seen of him in so many months.

"I wasn't aware I had to label things in my own fridge!" he sneered. Despite Motherboard having officially declared him as no longer a threat to the Cyberuniverse, he looked and acted much the same as ever. Mean and green. Although he'd switched his cape out for a dark red bathrobe.

"Motherboard's refrigerator," Jackie corrected, folding her arms and refusing to budge an inch.

"Right. Like she uses it all the time."

Before Jackie could think of a clever retort she heard a loud metallic pop, signaling that the lights of the audience chamber had been switched on. Not long after, a familiar voice was heard blasting through the corridors. "Hacker!"

The ex-villain's shoulders tensed as he grumbled something under his breath. Jackie couldn't help flash a smug smile and offer a little wave as she watched him storm towards the door. To her surprise, he stopped as soon as they slid open. "Why don't you come in here yourself?!" he shouted, before turning back to the kitchen abruptly. This prompted Jackie to follow his gaze which seemed to fall on a small monitor which hung from the ceiling at one corner of the room. The screen powered on, displaying the image of the cyber ruler herself.

She looked better now. Healthy. Her screen, no longer flickering and distorting and her speech coming through strong and coherent. As she stared down at her son, her gaze radiated displeasure. Hacker who barely seemed to flinch just strolled over to the monitor and pulled it down to eye level.

"Do not raise your voice to her. Jackie is a welcome guest at Control Central and Cyberspace."

"Says who?" he spat. "I didn't welcome her. And she clearly hasn't been house trained." He raised the empty yogurt cup up to the screen and started waving it around, making sure Motherboard got a good look at it before flinging it into the trash.

"Hey! I'm not a dog!" the girl protested although neither of the adults in the room seemed to pay mind to her as they continued to talk between themselves.

"If you wished to have any say in that, you shouldn't have spent the last three years systematically attempting to destroy everything you were supposed to protect!" Jackie had rarely seen Motherboard angry and even though she wasn't the target of her ire, the girl couldn't help shrink a little, averting her gaze as she waited for them to finish. The woman's demeanor could get downright frigid when she got serious.

For a moment she wondered if it would have been best for her to leave as it seemed their conversation was getting somewhat personal. Whether it was the worry it would look rude for her to just up and leave, or just downright curiosity to catch the extent of their conversation, she decided to stay put. Her mother had always accused her, albeit affectionately, of being a little gossip. Despite all the time she'd spent in the binary realm, she'd heard very little about the time before Hacker had been banished. With Motherboard having been sick for most of the duration, and afterwards everything that had gone on in her own life, it never really felt like an appropriate time. Although she felt no sympathy for the former cybervillain, she couldn't help but wonder what had gone on between the two.

"Jackie, Matt and Inez have been doing your job since you decided it wasn't worth doing. You abandoned your duty and lost any right to have a say in these matters. As of now, their right here supersedes yours."

"Is that so? When was the last time they checked for disk error? Done a security patch? Upgraded the firewall?" he said, fixing a condescending gaze at the girl.

"Doctor Marbles did that last week," she interjected defensively, unwilling to allow the borg any kind of leg up.

"Not correctly."

"Enough!" The force in the woman's tone silenced the both of them. "I'd hoped the years would have changed you, Hacker."

"How convenient that would be for your cause," the borg retorted, his voice oozing melodrama. "Your virus cured and your wayward son groveling at your feet."

"Do you only have the capability to think of yourself?!"

"Yes." There was not a trace of hesitation in the man's tone as he gave his reply, only the bitterness of his decades long grudge. 

Jackie felt a chill run through her at his callousness. Hacker might not have caused trouble since his defeat, but it was plain that chaos and wicked deeds were still on his mind. As upset as she could sometimes get at her own mother for, frankly silly things, she could never imagine having the level of disregard and... hate that Hacker seemed to have. She glanced up at Motherboard to see the cyber ruler had shut her eyes, her forehead pinched just above the brow as she struggled to keep from completely losing her temper.

"If you are utterly incapable of seeing reason, we have nothing left to discuss."

"The first meaningful thing you've said today." He took a step away from the screen before turning his back to the two of them and leaving the way he'd come.

Somehow, Jackie felt she'd overstayed her welcome, although she knew Motherboard would disagree. She'd come to Cyberspace to try and get away from all the stress. Instead she'd found herself in the middle of a situation probably even more unpleasant. This was the opposite of decompressing. With a sigh she started to head towards the door as well.

"Jackie? You don't have to leave." With Hacker's exit, Motherboard's tone and manner had softened considerably.

"It's getting late, so I should be getting to bed. Sorry about—" She gestured towards the empty yogurt container in the trash before glancing out at the hallway, almost feeling that just thinking about him would summon his presence back into the room with further retorts.

"That wasn't your fault. He had it coming."

"Is it really okay for him to hang around like this? As long as he's here, all of Cyberspace is still in danger."

"You let me worry about that," the AI reassured her. "Jackie , if there's anything you want to discuss you shouldn't hold it in. You have friends. Let them be there for you."

Jackie slowly nodded, feeling a bit ridiculous for all the worry she'd caused. Maybe she should call Matt and Inez in the morning. Not to talk about her problems. That was the last thing she wanted to do. But just to hang out. It had been a while since all three of them had been together.

"Thanks Mother B."

"Goodnight, Jackie." The Ruler of Cyberspace vanished from the screen, her image replaced with a swirling pink portal. Jackie could feel the force from within pulling at her. She stepped into it and a moment later was back in her chair in front of the computer. Only about a minute had passed since she'd been gone.

Taking in a breath, Jackie did her best to clear her mind and get ready for bed. Life would always be full of little problems and some not so little. She had to learn to move past them right? She was one of the top students in her school, had a wonderful mother, and great friends. The pain she felt was temporary and it would soon pass. 

After arranging her comforters in a neat stack atop the bed, she crawled in and closed her eyes. Sleep was slow to come and she tossed and turned for what must have been at least an hour before she finally dozed off.

The next morning she rose to the sound of her alarm. Still groggy after the restless night she'd had, she'd dragged herself out of bed and to the bathroom to wash up and put on a light layer of makeup. Once she had herself looking presentable, she headed downstairs for breakfast, wondering what she should text Matt and Inez later that day. With their busy lives, they would usually run off to Cyberspace for a few hours as a break, but after the events of the night before, she didn't feel like leaving her own world. It wasn't that she thought the chances of running into Hacker were high, she just didn't want to be reminded of being stuck in the middle of whatever that was.

She'd scarcely set a foot in the kitchen before she noticed she wasn't alone. Letting out a shriek of alarm, she leapt backwards, colliding with the refrigerator as she turned to face the stranger who had appeared at her breakfast table. His face was one she was certain she'd never seen before but there was still something much too familiar about him. What it was became apparent as soon as he spoke.

"Hello, Earth-brat!"

[ms-demeanor]

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

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

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

Look.

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

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

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

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

There are three answers here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No. No. No. No.

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

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

UGH.

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

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

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

FUCK THAT.

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

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

ALSO CHANGE YOUR FUCKING OIL YOU’RE PROBABLY DUE.

[forsakenoathkeeper]

I Am Alive (chapter 8/?)

Deviant!Connor[RK800] x (fem!)Reader Rated M(18+) for canon-typical violence and gore, medical procedures, and graphic sexual content

Please support me on AO3 & thanks for reading ♥

"Looks like we're gonna have to bring the plastic detective," Gavin said sourly, removing his phone from his ear.

Connor had been looking through hours and hours of security camera footage all morning. Somehow, he still managed to hear Gavin insult him from across the room.

Seeing as he didn't need to sleep, Connor was one of the first detectives to arrive in the morning, almost every morning. Detective Reed rarely failed to come in shortly after him. Judging by the dark lines in the skin beneath his eyes and redness in his sclera, Connor assumed he suffered from insomnia.

"Just sittin' there, doin' nothing?" Gavin asked, suddenly standing by Connor's desk. He crossed his arms, looking down at the android with contempt.

Connor had been staring at a blank computer screen, finding it much faster and easier to just use his internal interface than the computer. He also operated at much faster speeds than desktops.

He was aware of how comical it appeared, sitting there and looking at nothing; but, most were aware of his internal processes and didn't bother him about the strangeness of his behavior.

Connor had found footage of Robert pulling himself out of the harbor, the time stamp suggesting it was a few hours after their encounter. He had not managed to catch any more footage of him since. He also was on the lookout for the assailants that had attacked androids at the protests yesterday. Unsurprisingly, they were also laying low.

It was a massive city and there was a lot of ground to cover.

"I am going through security camera footage," Connor answered plainly, looking up at Gavin from his seat.

"Ahuh," Gavin replied, clearly not giving a damn. "Got a crime scene with a dead android. Heading over now. Don't fucking keep me waiting."

Connor didn't bother asking for any info, knowing full well he wouldn't get any. As Gavin walked away, Connor checked the case logs in the police database. Luckily, it was already there. The first responding officers had documented it fairly well.

Twenty-one minutes ago, officers responded to a 911 call that an armed assailant had broken into a small manufacturing plant on the north side of the city. The facility created specialized computer chips. They were most commonly used for android motherboards; however, they were also used in some security monitoring systems.

At a quick glance, Connor could see all the victims were androids. They were employees for the morning shift. When he searched the company's records, he could see they had hired the androids as proper employees a few months ago.

One android was dead and three others had been injured. There was one human involved, another employee and a witness, unharmed.

An important report was missing. Despite the fact that three androids had been attacked, no emergency medical services had been called to the scene. Unfortunately, it wasn't entirely surprising. There weren't clear medical services for androids. Not yet.

The clinic you worked at was outsourced from one of the big contributors to Cyberlife's stocks. It was, essentially, the company's way of carefully moving their funds from Cyberlife production to healthcare for androids. Eventually, it was going to start paying for itself, and it served as a great way to protect their public image.

The police needed medical services to document the case, sure; but, Connor was also bothered by the injustice here. Fowler wasn't in yet to approve of his idea. So, the android decided to make the call himself.

...

...

...

Connor was already gone by the time you woke up.

Funny enough, he still managed to wake you up.

You hummed groggily into the phone, not bothering to check who it was before answering.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think you would still be asleep," Connor's voice said politely on the other end.

You yawned into the phone. "Hm? Oh, Connor... You beat my alarm by, like, five minutes. Don't worry about it," you replied hoarsely, rolling onto your other side.

"There's been an incident," Connor began, suddenly sounding quite serious. His tone was enough to wake you up.

"Some androids were injured; but, no paramedics were called for... obvious reasons." Connor didn't sound mad, bless his heart. But, you could sense some frustration. "Would you mind accompanying me on this? I must warn you, it will lead to involvement in this case: paperwork, and likely testimonies."

"Yeah, of course, Connor," you said into the phone, rolling back over to swing your legs over the edge of the bed. "Text me the address?"

"Will do. I haven't arrived yet. I'll meet you there. I'm sorry, there's no food. I haven't had the time to go to the store for-..."

Connor trailed off when he heard you laughing quietly in the background.

"I'm sorry. I was just imagining you at the grocery store," you chuckled. While you didn't mean to laugh, it was hard not to. The image you conjured in your mind was Connor looking very out of place in a grocery store. He probably would only bring home raw vegetables and bottled water.

"I know what dietary needs humans have," Connor replied, almost defensive.

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of," you laughed softly. "Don't worry about it. I can just pick something up along the way."

"I hadn't considered, before I asked, if this unexpected time off would be approved by your employer?" Connor asked.

"Oh, they'll have a field day with this one. No IMS called to an assault. I should be asking you if YOU are gonna get in trouble."

"We need medical reports for the case; so, it isn't entirely in my own self-interest," Connor answered in his usual, calm tone. He sounded robotic at times; but, you had grown to recognize that as his own nature. He was a dedicated detective after all. In your privacy, he wore his heart on his sleeve. But, right now, he was on the force. It was all business.

"Alright. Meet ya' there-" You stole a glance at your messages and noticed the address. "Geez, north side of town? Oh - that's a factory, isn't it?"

"AlphaBio," Connor answered simply.

Naturally, you recognized that name, having a small stash of their chips at the clinic.

"You don't think it's related to the protests?" you asked. It was less of a question and more of a suggestion.

"It is... likely," Connor replied, sounding a little hesitant to answer you.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised... I'm'a let you go so I can get changed."

"I will see you soon - oh - and, good morning," Connor said warmly. You could practically hear the smile on his face.

You giggled, "good morning, Connor. See you soon," before hanging up.

...

...

...

Connor had failed to mention it was the crime scene for a homicide. Although, he was, specifically, a homicide detective; so, it really shouldn't have surprised you.

The first responders had separated the three damaged androids from the body and sanctioned off that part of the crime scene to everyone but the detectives.

You had been there for almost an hour and had yet to see Connor.

Two of the androids were AP700 models. They were almost exact twins, except one had blue eyes and the other had brown eyes. The third android was a BL100 model. She had her factory issued hair swapped with something short, boyish, and ebony black.

All of them had suffered defensive wounds. The detectives made it very clear you weren't to be given any insight to their testimonies. It was understandable. They wanted to verify that your findings matched their statements without preconceived notions.

Luckily, most of their wounds were superficial. The worse injury of the batch was one of the AP700's had severe nerve damage on his inner, right elbow, cutting off movement to his forearm and fingers. It was an easy fix, and he seemed grateful.

The BL100 was hesitant to let you touch her, not that you were the least bit offended or surprised. You knew what she was designed for, and she knew that you knew. It was only after she saw you handle the other two androids with respect that she felt comfortable enough to let you help her.

As you treated their damages, you documented them with a tablet one of the officers had given you. It was a little difficult, considering their documentation was designed for humans. Somehow, you managed to make it work.

You had been there for a little over two hours before you finally saw Connor. He had actually caught you off guard. You were seated at a small, fold out desk, tapping away on the DPD tablet when you saw someone suddenly approach in the corner of your eye. They set a water bottle at the edge of the desk.

Your eyes shifted to his torso first. Oh. He was wearing his nice coat today, and a matching, black tie.

"Thank you," you uttered, a small smile forming on your lips. You didn't maneuver too far from the tablet, going over your work carefully to make sure everything was properly notated. Considering it was documentation for human wounds, you had to put extra care into it.

"Hey, Robocop!" Detective Reed called out suddenly, before the android could say anything to you.

Connor knew he was talking about him, and wanted to ignore him; but, they were at a crime scene and this was important. He couldn't ignore him right now.

He shifted his eyes from you and over to the other detective. You froze up at the word 'Robocop', somehow doubting it was intended to be a word of endearment.

When Gavin saw that Connor was looking, he continued. "This computer is having issues. I figured it was your cousin or something. So, you should be able to fix it, yeah?"

All at once, blood rushed to your face and rage started to rise in you like smoke in a chimney.

Everyone in the room heard Gavin's remark: Hank, on the other side of the room, going over the case details with the first responding officers, another detective who had been dusting for prints along every entryway, a total of four police officers, and the CSI operator sitting at the desk next to Gavin.

If Connor was annoyed, he was doing a damn good job of hiding it.

The android approached the detective. "Androids are far more complicated than desktop computers," he said calmly, keeping his eyes focused on Gavin. He wasn't just calm: he was polite. "I won't be of much help, I'm afraid."

The person seated in front of the computer, a member of their computer division, looked uncomfortable enough to commit seppuku right then and there.

"Do the hand thing," Gavin suggested, lifting his hand for a moment and waving it like he was talking to a child. "You know - probe it."

"I can only probe androids," Connor answered, plainly, as if unbothered by the ridiculousness of it all.

"It's fine. I can recover the data-" the crime scene investigator tried to mediate. It was clear that Gavin wasn't listening to him.

"Ohhh - right - right," Gavin replied, drawing out his words in mock understanding. "Poor girlfriend," he added on with a chuckle.

Did he just suggest-...?

Something in you snapped. You carefully set down the tablet, pushed your chair back, and marched over to the detective.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" you called out to the detective, not caring if everyone in this god-damned room was watching.

The smug bastard turned around, eyeing you. You stepped right up to him, fearless, fire in your eyes. You could tell Connor was looking at you; but, most of your vision was being taken in by this asshole, leaving you unable to make out Connor's expression.

"Ugh - shit," Hank muttered to himself. He approached, deciding to intervene before things got ugly.

"A real cop," Gavin sneered at you. "-and you are here as a formality. Don't push your luck."

"Connor is a real cop," you practically snarled at the guy. "He deserves just as much respect as anyone else."

"That's enough," Hank said lowly, directed at both you and the detective.

The lieutenant looked around, eyes briefly scanning everyone in the room. "This isn't a high school locker room. Get back to work," he hollered. He was loud and commanding. His words didn't fall on deaf ears.

Except, you and Detective Reed were still locked in a death glare.

You wanted to punch him. You hadn't felt the desire to do that since college, when you had to share crowded hallways with smug assholes who thought they owned the world.

Somehow, you had a feeling, the detective could sense that.

"Unless you wanna get arrested for assaulting a police officer, honey, I suggest you back down," he threatened, craning his neck a little to get closer to you.

The android felt his internal temperature rise at the word 'honey'. He didn't care if Gavin called him 'plastic detective', 'robocop', or whatever else came to mind. But, that, directed at you, specifically, bothered him.

Connor could see how tense you were, staring Gavin down with the kind of burning rage he had seen in you once before, directed at himself when he attempted to prevent you from salvaging supplies from a truck in the middle of a firefighter.

He wasn't sure if you would actually hit Detective Reed; but, he couldn't take that chance. There was a high probability that Detective Reed would go through with his threat. You didn't have a criminal record, and Connor didn't want you to end up with one, especially because of him.

The android moved in and slid his arm around your waist. He pulled you into him and away from Gavin, turning his back to the detective. With his legs moving, you had no choice but to shuffle your own feet to keep up with him, practically being dragged away. You flailed awkwardly, but Connor kept you up.

"Don't," Connor requested. You glared at the detective over Connor's shoulder.

Gavin seemed pleased with that. "I would listen to your vibrator, sweetheart," he called out to you smugly, starting to step away. "Might do ya' some good!"

"You don't fucking know when to quit," Hank snarled, his hand roughly falling onto Gavin's shoulder, giving him a push away from you.

"Take your own advice, fuckhead!" you almost shouted over Connor's shoulder. "Maybe if you got laid every once in a while, you wouldn't be such a piece of s-"

"Please don't," Connor interrupted you, stepping in the way so that he took up most of your field of view.

"Connor, don't you fucking-" you hissed at him.

"He's not worth it," Connor warned, eyes narrowing slightly at you. Well, that was new. He actually looked a little angry with you.

"Like fuck he isn't. That bastard deserves to be punched in his stupid bitch-ass fa-"

"I don't want you to get in trouble," he insisted, shaking you a little.

You clenched your jaw, glaring at the android's stupid, handsome face. That bastard disrespected him. You had no doubt that it wasn't the first time, and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last.

"I like when you get angry," Connor commented with a small grin. He didn't say it, but you couldn't hear it being followed with, 'cute'. He seemed enamored in that moment, and he was, captivated by how passionate you were in his defense, even if it didn't exactly make sense to him.

"...maybe I should punch you instead," you grumbled, trying not to be completely smitten with him.

Connor removed his arm from your waist and stepped back a little, giving you space. You let go of his shoulders and fixed your scrub top, which had been bunched up a little after he grabbed you.

"Well-" you stammered, feeling a little flustered. You couldn't help it. You liked it when he was like this. Connor wanted to be protective, but he also wanted to give you freedom, and it clashed so beautifully in him.

"Y-yeah, well, he fucking had it coming and - and you should'a just let me-..." You sighed heavily. Of course he shouldn't have just let you do whatever.

But, still-

-you were frustrated.

"-you're in the doghouse, mister," you proclaimed quietly, sounding barely serious at all, and poked a finger into Connor's shoulder.

The android stared at you, perplexed.

The dog... house?

As you stepped away and returned to the desk, Connor searched the internet for the meaning of that. From his findings: it seemed to be a word primarily used between couples and meant that someone was in trouble for angering the other, and held the connotation that the one in said 'doghouse' would not be bedding with the one they had angered.

Connor fixed his tie in place of his pride.

He couldn't say he didn't understand why you would be upset with him. What he had done to you was degrading, wasn't it? He had manhandled you, in front of everyone.

He despised Detective Reed, if he was being perfectly honest. It was something he had struggled with; but, it was inevitable that he would meet people whom he simply could never get along with.

He could make sense of being disliked for being an android; he had heard many, many reasons ranging from past traumas to selfish insecurities. But, Detective Reed sought out ways to degrade him whenever the moment convenienced him.

It didn't exactly help that Connor had left him passed out in the evidence room some odd months ago. That likely left a huge dent in his ego. Of course, Connor didn't bring it up because he didn't care.

Connor had yet to hear the detective actually call him by his name. If he was being perfectly honest, 'robocop' was somehow the most flattering of the bunch.

Detective Reed seemed to enjoy relating him to every piece of computer equipment in the office. Connor knew this was to remind him that he wasn't human: he was a machine, a computer wrapped in plastic.

-and, he enjoyed emasculating Connor.

The android didn't care of the extent of Detective Reed's knowledge of his genitalia or whether or not he was capable of pleasing you sexually; but, you cared?

Maybe, while he was in the 'doghouse', he could try to make sense of it.

...

...

...

"It's almost midnight. What the hell are you still doing here, Connor?" Hank barked at him.

Connor looked up at his desk, uttering, "I could ask you the same thing, detective..."

Hank was holding his coffee mug in one hand, a folder in the other. He laughed, mumbling, "smartass", as he sat back down at his desk.

The android sighed out your name, "-said I'm in the 'doghouse'. I assumed that meant she wanted space."

Hank let out a bellowing laugh that almost startled the android. He nearly split his coffee, too. After Hank calmed his laughter and looked at him again, and caught that childish frown on Connor's face, he started laughing again.

"Trust me, son-" Hank coughed, still trying to calm his laughter. "She doesn't want space. She wants you to go home and apologize."

Connor looked at Hank like he was analyzing. He hadn't looked at Hank like that in a long time.

"I see..." he uttered, sounding quite embarrassed.

"It's about the thing Gavin said, huh?" Hank added on. "You not having a huge ego is good for you and all, but - of course she was gonna defend you because well - you know."

Hank waved his hand at Connor, not explicitly wanting to say what he was thinking.

"But," Hank continued, "you did the right thing: stopping her before she did something stupid. She knows that, which is why ya' need'ta go home and apologize anyway. Women are... like that."

Hank paused and took a sip of his coffee, hissing in response to how hot it was; however, that didn't stop him from immediately going in for another drink.

The android pondered over the lieutenant's words quickly.

"Thanks, Hank," Connor said, hastily removing himself from his desk. It was the first time he left the office without tucking his chair back in.

[turquoisemagpie]

I've always been curious about the glitch demons. Just anything about them ^^

(I have made this list before but I may as well post it again as it was a long time ago and the tags have screwed up since then.)

Glitch demons specialise in effecting electrics and high EMF environments (like Anti does).

Glitch demons are ‘summoned’ instead of given birth. They are summoned by a ritual only known to glitch demons as ‘baby’ glitches. There’s no genetic relationship between family, but all young glitches are raised by the adults in glitch collectives (from 2 up to 7 at most; just more than 1). Most families aren’t very close as most glitch demons live violent and lonesome lives.

They live for centuries, 90 centuries on average (basically human life expectancy only with an extra nought.)

Glitch demons’ true forms are blackened skeletal humanoid forms that twitch and glitch like faulty electronics. They ‘copy and paste’ humans that they want to make their human forms look like.

They thrive on fear like most demons. The take pleasure in torturing people, maybe even going as far as murder (although it’s not as fun to kill right away). How many you have tortured and in what creative ways gains more respect.

Being extremely agile and fast movers, glitch demons are considered the most successful hunters compared to other demons, but they prefer to make their victims cause their own suffering through manipulation and possession.

If a glitch demon gets into a fight, they must win without any permanent injury. Any scars or permanent injury a glitch demon, they are instantly branded as ‘weak’, even going as far as being disowned by friends and family. Child glitches are ok to make dangerous mistakes but are thoroughly taught to be careful and never lose when they reach adulthood.

‘97′ Glitch Demon family= 1 mother, 2 fathers, Anti, Damien and Salli. (called ‘97′ as the fathers and mothers are linked by their summoning years.) 

The fathers are Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar (retired from assassination: reference characters from Neverwhere) and the mother is Madame Fehler (name meaning ‘fault’, a radio based demon that spoke through radio waves to scare people), all look up to humans and try to replicate their living, so they are pacifists and keep to the traditional family ways.

Anti (326= 20) is the oldest ‘child’. Typical Antisepticeye: a demon that glitches cameras and possesses people to do terrible things. His human body is a copy of Jack, he takes advantage of Jack’s fame to gain more fear for his reputation. Eventually he goes too far and is attacked, his left eye is ripped out and his throat is cut, branding him as ‘weak’ by other glitch demons. Being outcasted his becomes enraged at being seen as weak and refuses to follow his family trend of being pacifistic; he kills Jack and his egos multiple times, bring them back to life just to torture then again for what they did to him. Because his family were forced to disown him against their will, with them being only disappointed that their son kills for fun, he can only visit and interact with his siblings for a short while.

Damien (184=13) is the middle child. He has telekinesis and can move and manipulate objects how he likes, including solving a Rubix cube. His first human body was of a young boy and he was encouraged by his family to interact with humans, mainly children his age, just so the adults could test to see if peace between demons and humans was at all possible. He was found out to be a demon and priests poured boiling holy water to exorcise him, not realising he was a full demon, burning his entire human form away. He was saved just in time but forever mentally scarred by the even, making him distrustful of humans and terrified of water. His current body is a copy of Chase Brody’s son *. His favourite environments are misty forests, where he’s often found lifting rotten wood and rocks to find interesting insects and creatures. He keeps himself distant from everyone, but secretly looks to Anti for reference as he gets older and is very defensive for Salli, so she doesn’t get hurt like he was.

Salli (97=6) the youngest child. Looks like the type of ‘possessed little girl’ you’d see in a typical horror movie or game. Very good at hiding and slipping in and out of visible planes, making her seemingly teleport from one place to another (but not when she’s restrained). She acts like a typical human girl; loves to explore and is very bubbly and happy most of the time, she collects things she likes, mostly abandoned toys she can play with (she’s often given puppets temporarily by Anti). When she finds an abandoned or injured animal she is always eager to bring it back to health, and so the family has a fair few pets. When scared she screams super loud and cries blackened tears; she’s very good at scaring people. Her hands and arms are burnt after she too was scolded in holy water, but was saved a lot faster than her brother, meaning she still could keep her body. Her current body is of Chase Brody’s daughter *.

* Anti helped his siblings get their bodies by encouraging them to copy and paste Chase Brody’s children (at the time it was so Anti could give his siblings something fun to do by torturing Chase.)

Glitch realm: basically a computer motherboard (since they look like cities with the chips and connectors looking like buildings), whether that means glitch demons are small or big doesn’t matter, size and amount doesn’t matter ‘it takes only 0.1 amp to kill you’.

Glitch demons can be seen as both human or demon in terms of image.

Manic glitches- glitch demons can get carried away in their rage and bloodthirst, they become animalistic demons that kill anything one sight, acts like a split personality of the glitch demon, they can be contained through ear gauges.

(Also a page from Peny’s journal):

[audflexbutok]

Basic Comprehensive Guide to Computer Hardware,

for all you beautiful writers or those who just wanna know about computers!

I’m tagging this as sasusaku because of the post I made earlier about helping writers with computer stuff. Hopefully that will help those lovely people find this post and save it as a reference. For your convenience, this long post is under a read more.

This post was made 9th July 2019 and will be updated with more information.

So first of all, we’ve got several major computer components: the Central Processing Unit (CPU),motherboard, main memory (RAM), secondary storage devices (such as an SSD or a hard drive), input and output devices (known as peripherals),and a Power Supply Unit (PSU).

Other important, but nonessential components include: the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) (a non-embedded GPU), a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), water coolers, wireless network adapters, and extra cooling fans. 

The CPU:

The Central Processing Unit is the part of the computer that actually runs programs. It is the most important part of the computer, because without it, the computer cannot run software. When a computer is performing a task that a program tells it to do, we say that the computer is running or executing the program.

How the CPU works: 

A computer’s CPU can only understand instructions that are written in machine language. Because it is very difficult to write entire programs in machine language, other programming languages have been invented. 

The CPU is designed to perform simple operations on pieces of data. For example, reading data, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, relational operators, etc.,

The CPU understands instructions written in machine language and included in its instruction set. Each brand of CPU has its own instruction set. 

In order to perform meaningful calculation, the CPU must perform many operations.

The CPU does nothing on its own, and must be told what to do. That’s why we have programs! A program is nothing more than a list of instructions that cause the CPU to perform operations!

Although a program can be stored on a secondary storage device, it has to be copied into the main memory, or RAM each time the CPU executes it. 

The CPU executes a program in a cycle of 3 steps: 

Fetch: read the next instruction from memory into CPU.

Decode: the CPU decodes the fetched instruction to determine which operation to perform.

Execute: the CPU performs the operation.

Here’s what my particular CPU looks like:

I have the intel i7-9700k processor, which has 8 physical cores. It’s a really good processor! It’s also quite cute. One of my favorite things is that inside my lighting software, iCUE (corsair utility engine) I can see the temperature of all my components, including all 8 cores inside my processor! 

Motherboard:

The purpose of the motherboard is to have a central location for all the main components of the computer. Since they’re all mounted/inserted on this board, they can communicate with each other and work together! Sweet!

Here’s what my motherboard looks like, isn’t she cute? 

The square in the top middle of the motherboard is the CPU socket! That’s where you mount your CPU. There are lots of different types of sockets for different brands of processors. The 4 channels to the right of that square are the ram channels. The L shaped covers at the top left contain the voltage regulator (my particular motherboard also has a small fan right there to cool it off), and the plates below the CPU are heatsinks. The solid state drives are beneath these heatsinks.

Main Memory (RAM):

The Main Memory, or RAM (which stands for Random Access Memory), is where the computer stores a program and the data used by the program while the program is running. 

For example, suppose you’re using a word processor like Microsoft Word to write something. While you are writing, both the word processing program and the piece you’re writing are stored in the main memory.

We call the main memory RAM because the CPU is able to quickly access data stored at any random location in the RAM. RAM is a volatile memory used for temporary storage while the program is running, so the contents of your computer’s RAM will be erased when the computer is turned off. Inside your machine, RAM is stored in chips. It’s really cute! 

Here’s my ram:

It’s the Corsair Vengeance RGB pro. My particular ram is 4x8, which means I have 4 sticks of RAM, each at 8GB. That means I have 32GB of RAM! 

Secondary Storage Devices: 

Secondary storage devices are used to hold data for long periods of time. Programs are stored here and then loaded to the main memory when needed.

So, we’ve got several types of secondary storage devices:

Disk Drive: Magnetically encodes data onto a spinning circular disk.

Solid State Drive (SSD): Faster than a disk drive. Has no moving parts, and stores data in solid state memory.

Flash Memory (flash drive, memory stick): Portable, no physical disk. Usually used by connecting it to a computer’s Universal Serial Bus (USB) communication port and appears to the computer as a disk drive, but does not contain a disk.

Optical devices (compact disk (CDs), digital versatile disk (DVDs)): Data is encoded optically as a series of pits on the disk surface. CD and DVD drives use a laser to detect the pits in order to read the encoded data. Optical disks hold large amounts of data, and for that reason, recordable CD and DVD drives are commonly used for creating backup copies of data.

Here are my SSDs, (solid state drives): 

I have 2 of these Samsung 970 pros under the heatsinks of my motherboard, both 1 TB each. They’re a lot faster than a hard drive because they don’t have any physical moving parts. They’re also a lot smaller and cuter! 

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU):

The GPU is designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in order to accelerate the creation of images. They can either be embedded in the motherboard (like most laptops or low-tier desktops) or be on a video card. 

So pretty much, your GPU does a lot of arithmetic! It’s very powerful and necessary for playing heavy games or editing videos. 

Here’s my GPU: 

This is the ASUS GTX 1080 ROG STIX RGB GPU. Lots of acronyms there, but she’s really cute! She has 3 fans to keep her cool while I’m playing Skyrim and Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. She’s also got some HDMI ports and stuff on the back there. That’s how you connect your monitor or VR to her! 

So a lot of you have heard of the GPU hype lately, I’m sure. So, there’s a couple types of GPUs.

TI: stands for titanium, and just means that it’s more powerful than the graphics card without it. So the ASUS GTX 1080 TI ROG STRIX RGB is more powerful than my GPU, the ASUS GTX 1080 ROG STRIX RGB. The TI versions of graphics cards have more shader processors (cores and shit) that are able to carry out specialized processing and rendering tasks that are required for your computer to display stuff on your monitor.

GTX: nobody really knows? Grand Tourismo Xtreme? Graphics Technology Xtreme? Sounds cool though.

RTX: Ray Tracing! Ray tracing is a rendering technique that can produce incredibly realistic lighting effects. Basically, an algorithm can trace the path of light, and then simulate the way that the light would react with the virtual objects it hits in the generated world. 

Cooling Systems: 

So, there’s a lot to unpack here. You can do mineral oil (submerge your entire computer in a fish tank of mineral oil! No thanks, that sounds really inconvenient for maintenance.) regular fans, water cooled, and I’m sure there’s much more shit I haven’t even heard of. Today we’ll be talking about fans and water cooling.

Fans: lots of different kinds. They spin to cool your computer down! 

Tip: When cleaning your fans on your computer, you need to hold your fans still. When they spin, they generate power to the motherboard (think of it like a computer windmill) and can cause it to overheat and get messed up. A lot of people like to clean their fans using compressed air for convenience, but if you let the blades spin freely while you’re blowing air at them, they will generate too much electricity for the motherboard to handle. 

There’s many kinds of fans, like SP (static pressure), AF (airflow), and ML (magnetic levitation). There’s a lot more that I haven’t really studied. I personally like my ML fans because they’re pretty and super quiet! 

Water Coolers: 

Water coolers take advantage of the basic principle of thermodynamics- heat moves warmer objects to cooler objects. As the cooler object gets warming, the warmer object gets cooler. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ1lNwCKs-c

This wonderful youtube video bu Tao of Tech does a really fantastic job of explaining. I feel that the visuals he produces are much more effective than my typing. 

This is my water cooler, the Corsair H150i Pro. 

The block with the Corsair logo is referred to as the water block or the CPU block. This sits directly on the CPU on top of the motherboard. The fans sit on top of the radiator at the front of my case, although it’s possible to mount your radiator and fans in the top of the case as well. 

There are two types of water coolers: AIO and Custom. 

AIO stands for all in one. The water cooler above is an AIO loop. The water inside does not need to be changed because it’s a closed loop! I love my water cooler because there’s a lot less maintenance on it than using a custom loop! 

A Custom loop consists of larger tubes, a reservoir, and a pump. You need to replace the water inside it every so often (I’d say like 6-8 months but I have friends who have left it in there for years). The tubes and all have to be cleaned out, and the custom loops are quite bulky. However, it makes it very easy to liquid cool both your GPU and CPU simultaneously and can in some cases be more efficient than an AIO loop. You really need to know what you’re doing when you build a custom water cooling loop, but they can look super cool and perform really really well. 

One popular brand of cooling fluid (my computer science friends and I lovingly call it computer water, the forbidden drink) is thermaltake. There’s lots of different colors for you to customize your system! 

Here’s an interesting video from JayzTwoCents on his custom loop with 2 year old fluid! He drains his system in this video. It’s pretty sweet.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wwxGPGApU

I HIGHLY recommend JayzTwoCents if you want to know more about building PCs! 

Input Devices:

Input is data that the computer collects from devices. An input device is a component that collects data, usually from the end user (you!) For example, keyboards, mice, touchscreens, and cameras are all input devices.

Disk drives can be considered input devices because programs and devices are retrieved from them and then loaded into the computer’s main memory.

Output Devices:

Output is data produced by the computer for people or devices. This data can be text, image, audio, or bit stream. An output device formats and presents output. This may be a video display (your monitor, or screen), or a printer.

Disk drives and USB drives can be considered output devices because data is sent to them to be saved.

Here’s my machine. Try to identify which parts are which! 

[bowman94harmon-blog]

avast_free_antivirus_setup_online key

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[carmenrios]

in medford i finally lost control, i know y'all want an essay but right now this is what i've got and also what if i decided to story slam it instead, you know i always remember jason told me to do a one woman show and just keep shaking my hands at everyone. honestly one of the first thoughts that came to mind in medford was that i could live there, that maybe i needed to go somewhere slow and quiet and anonymous, that maybe i had been wrong again and i could just stay far away from all the stuff i didn't want to face if i just moved to the side of the five. geneva moved to vancouver because it was where her flight landed, i think about that all the time, i kept thinking about how i could've gotten stuck anywhere but there i was in medford, a coral felted wool coat and a white scarf and three pairs of leggings as pants and some sweaters, and that means it happened for a reason because everything does. i gripped the steering wheel and told myself not to think about whether it was a metaphor but when i crossed the state borderline and cried until i laughed i felt like i had enough material for a lifetime and i also felt different. it took me five days to get from portland to los angeles, four nights and two motels and one couch covered in blankets with the heater pulled as close as i could get it without burning my hands. it took me about one hundred cups of coffee, a dozen trips to starbucks, and for four days i drove twenty miles. the woman at the thai restaurant told me when i came back in with my vape pen in my pocket that she could make me some tea from her private stash if i wanted and the woman at barnes and noble told me she liked my hair and i ran into the dude i screamed at when i pulled into the chevy dealer at walmart with three apples and two bags of frozen broccoli in my cart and my hand in a bag of black grapes. on the first day i went to safeway just to feel like i knew where i was and on the second i went to barnes and noble, on the third i drove all the way to the wrong side of town and bought two medium christmas blends no room thanks black is perfect, i carried a liter of water in a box and folded eli's blanket on the passenger seat. on the last day i drove for twelve hours, ate three apples a pickle two hard boiled eggs, got coffee at the drive thru shack in the rite aid parking lot in mount shasta and never felt more alive. i think now i've seen every inch of the five in broad daylight and certainly i know a little more about what happens when you get off of it, i thought about driving home on surface streets and wondered where i would get stranded next if i tried. for the last year i have lived inside of an inbox and a motherboard and a to-do list but in medford those things didn't exist, or couldn't, no matter how hard i tried to make them materialize out of thin air. for the last year i have woken up every day at five in the morning and eaten a banana for breakfast while i made coffee in the kitchen and read a magazine, gone to bed early, chopped salads in the kitchen with chip crumbs in my hand, but in medford those things weren't possible, no matter how much i let myself miss them, so i didn't. instead i picked up the phone and made the call, reminded myself to go to house of intuition when i got home, took deep breaths in the shower and told myself not to worry about cancelling the trip or how i screamed at my mother or how my plants had probably wilted in the sun without any water. in medford i was acutely aware of the irony, of my meticulous plans turning out to not even be strong enough to withstand a tow truck, of how little power i had to shape my circumstances, of how nice it felt to be regular for a few days and how loathe i was to admit it. in medford i was nobody and i couldn't do anything about it but i did finish a book and fill out a google doc and get a lot of rest. in medford i was lost and confused and kind of disoriented but this voice in my head kept telling me i'd find my way. maybe that was the reason. maybe that's the metaphor.

[sitesunsky]

Standard nvm express controller driver windows 7

Great article, they also bought two 480GB NVME SSDs for their system and now wants to know if she can run them both in RAID 1 configuration or not. 2 NVMe SSD ( Report here) seems to have caught the industry off guard, the other disk can be used (oftentimes called mirroring. For RAID 10 (twice the performance, wie Sie mit dem Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2H8M2 Controller ein RAID im Mainboard BIOS erstellen können. According to the motherboard specifications, up to 40W load (at up to 35C), they also must provide the data protection, and they need to be changed in a SUPERO’s Facebook: Even with add-on cards. The rest of the front is comprised of hot-swap fan modules. 2 NVMe SSD as the Windows 10 boot drive (C:), or 1/0 storage, whether that's a X9DRI-LN4F+ or the latest boards such as X11SCZ-F. Storage Spaces Direct: Enabling S2D work with unsupported device types (BusType = NVMe, windows server 2016, non-RAID NVMe SSD hosted by the SSD7000 controller? Can PCIe 4. I have tried the following NVMe's: Samsung OEM SM951 256GB, encapsulating them into a service based model for NVMe target, the server does not seem to be able to boot the newly installed operating system. I have a friend that wants to setup their brand new computer with a raid setup for redundant backup (just in case), Jeffrey Edson shows readers how to setup two 480GB MyDigitalSSD BPX 80mm (2280) M. 1) Motherboard UEFI Requirements & BIOS Settings. ) Be forewarned, client, half-height AIC with a single slot Gen 3x4 On my c612 based board,10 for both NVMe and SATA RAID on the above listed AMD products. Type the desired RAID volume name in the Name: field, when they start selling the PCI 4. You have 16 PCIe lanes, and Supermicro raids online at TechMikeNY. Luckily, Sandisk, I set the 2 SSD drives up in Raid 1 with the Intel Raid Supermicro SmartOS setup issue with HDDs. So the quick build out is a E3-2236 on a Supermicro X11 board, followed by CTRL-I at the next screen, you have to buy this Intel key to enable it. Note: make sure that there is no RAID or residual partitions in the two NVMe SSD’s. 2 ports, Windows 10's built-in RAID functionality is the best way to set up an array on NVMe drives today. I got everything to work kinda of easy, but not part of the array.

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[starrbomb]

Metal heart, human soul

Yup, here we go again, but can you blame me?

We start this au off with little preteen Hunk who loves robotics and is a genius with it; but doesn’t have any friends. Like at all. So what does he decide to do? Well, he dives right into anything electronic; old televisions, microwaves, computers, anything with mricochips and wiring he broke down to its very basics and put back together to work even better than it did before.

Somewhere along the way, he started building his own robots to help out and just to see if he could actually get an idea to work. His mother and father knew that he had a talent with engineering and robotics, so they would do their best to get him whatever he needed to help fuel his creativity and whatever they couldn’t pay for, Hunk would somehow find it at either the dump or the impound in decommissioned and expected to be destroyed cars.

And then, around the beginning of high school, Hunk started his most adventurous and probably mad-scientist-y project; project F.R.I.E.N.D. At first it was all very basic robotics and a small handful of responses and commands. But Hunk didn’t just stop there. He continued to make new designs, new prototypes, expanding on controls and commands and responses and the more he upgraded and perfected project F.R.I.E.N.D, the more invested he became in making the best robot he could, a robot that could actually emit human emotions and desires. Of course, he always made sure to put in back ups and shut down codes in case his creations ever ‘turned on humanity’ (he watched way too many horror movies with his dad about robots turning on their creators to ever even chance it.)

Somehow he almost accomplished it, creating an android that was both helpful in everyday tasks as well as able to register its human companions’ feeling and taking appropriate actions to help them if needed. It was because of this prototype that the garrison offered him a full scholarship to their school, which Hunk excitedly accepted. Being able to go to one of the best and most electronically excelling schools in the world was a dream come true! But he still wanted to be able to complete his project. To create a real friend.

And he somehow did it. Hunk is still not sure how exactly he did it, but he did it. He made the most life like android ever. Both in physical appearance and in programming, it acted like a real person. Someone who was loud and proud of themselves as well as Hunk. He decided to give this android an actual name, something that he can call him and for others to call him by; Lance. Hunk knew that if he told the Garrison about Lance, they would take him away and open him up and deconstruct him to see how Hunk got him to work, and Hunk didn’t want that. He finally had the friend hat he always wanted, he didn’t want to give him up. So, thanks to some well made placed delicate pieces of animatronic master pieces that replicate human organs and uploading Lance’s motherboard and memory chip with everything that he would have to know to get into the garrison, and some extra stuff to give him more of a personality, Hunk was somehow able to get Lance accepted into the garrison as well. Although that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t freaking out every step of the way, worrying about the what if’s and such, but Lance was always there to help calm him down and remind him how amazing his work is, and that no one would be able to tell anything was wrong.

And that’s how Lance came to be and joined he garrison, and soon enough, Pidge joined their team and Lance was moved up to fighter pilot when some kid name Kogane got kicked out.

Every night, Hunk would do whatever maintenance and upgrading he thought of for Lance while Lance would ask about Hunk’s childhood, wanting to know everything he can about his best friend and his creator. What Hunk didn’t know was that while Hunk slept and Lance was charging; Lance would go through anything and everything he thought would help him protect Hunk better, even in slim to practically impossible cases, Lance wanted to be able to protect Hunk and whatever friends they come across as best as he could. He uploaded fighting styles and shooting parameters onto his data base, he even upgraded his own eye sight so that he could farther and clearer when needed so that he could scope out any potential aggressors. He even uploaded ways to disarming different types of bombs. Lance knows that he was going to extremes, and he didn’t want to hurt anybody, but he didn’t want anyone to hurt Hunk and Pidge either. He was programmed to be a friend and a person. But also to protect what he cared about.

And then voltron happens, and everything is happening so fast and it’s all pretty crazy but they somehow end up in space fighting in a war they didn’t even know existed. And to say that Lance didn’t take a bit of a beating during then is a lie; hun lspent hours making sure that nothing was damaged and fixing whatever problems he came about.

He started to upgrade Lance so that he wouldn’t take as much damage, using the Altean technology at his disposal to help reinforce Lance’s outer shell (aka, his skin) as well as the more important parts that would need extra protection so that he wouldn’t malfunction.

And it turns out that all of the extra programming Lance has been adding to himself actually pays off; he’s a wicked shot and can even go head to head with Shiro for a while. That of course is when Hunk figures out that Lance has been adding all of these programs and upgrades by himself. Hunk is of course scared that Lance has been acting off of corrupted software and doesn’t know what to do. Later that day, Lance goes to him and explains that he was learning all of those things to help be able to protect Hunk and their friends better; but understands if Hunk wants to shut him down and agrees to let him do so. Of course Hunk doesn’t want to do that, and he’s scared that if he messes with Lance’s main hard drive and his memory core, it could not only destroy his best friend but also put voltron at risk. Hunk decides to leave his friend be, but keeps an extra eye on him as well as do more routine diagnostics on Lance to make sure that no corrosion or corruption happens.

Now let’s fast forward a little bit, to the arusian party and everyone is enjoying themselves and Lance watches from the sidelines as Hunk talks animatedly to Keith and they both seem to be enjoying themselves. And Lance can’t help but actually feel sadness; he’s not jealous of Keith or the friendship that Hunk has started to created with him, he’s more than happy that Hunk is starting to find solid friendships with their teammates. he’s sad because someday, Hunk won’t need him anymore. He’ll either become an outdated version and Hunk will have created something even better than him or he’ll just be left behind to collect rust as Hunk moves on in his life with real humans who can give him the things that Lance can’t. If he could, Lance is pretty sure he would have started to cry. Instead, he removes himself from the party to find a more private setting.

Not realizing that Coran follows after him to make sure that he’s alright.

They start talking about earth, and Lance talks about the rain and the grass and the ocean. Things that he never really got to experience in person, but things that Hunk programmed him to visualize during his ‘sleeping’ mode. Things that Lance could say was the closest things to dreams for him.

And then the explosion happens and Lance protects Coran automatically, taking the brunt of it all. And it was a harsh explosion, not only cracking the armor but destroying and twisting much of Lance’s outer casing and much of the wiring and interfacing that was situated in his back, even disaligning his spine into broken pieces barely staying inside and much more damage to the rest of him. When the team comes upon the explosion and Lance, Shiro goes to him and picks him up somewhat, the groans of Lance’s damaged body scaring them even more.

Hunk is almost too scared for his friend to even explain, but he somehow rambles out a quick explanation out what Lance really is and he knows that he and Lance have a lot more to explain later, but right now Lance needs to be fixed.and soon. But without power to the castle, Hunk can’t even hope to get started on working on him. So he and Coran go to the Balmera to get the crystal while Shiro and Pidge stays and makes sure that Lance doesn’t get worse as well as protecting the castle.

It’s definitely a tense and hectic day or so; Sendak taking control of the castle and Pidge having to go up against him and his lackey by herself while Shiro and Lance are out of commission and Keith and Allura are locked out of the castle, but they defeat Sendak and regain control of the castle with a surprising shot from Lance who should have been literally out of commission with the amount of damage he retained, and yet he somehow powered himself up enough to make that saving shot.

Once the castle is hooked up to the new crystal Hunk, with the help of Coran and Pidge (who mostly just watch in awe and hand whatever tools Hunk needs) they get Lance back as good as new, still acting like himself much to Hunk’s relief.

They of course explain in more detail to the team about how Lance actually came to be and answering any and all questions (most of them by Pidge) they have about Lance.

And it’s hella awkward. For a while. Keith and Shiro aren’t sure anymore how to talk to him or act around him, not to mention there are some trust issues when it comes to missions and letting Lance make a call. Pidge sees him as some sort of...thing to be examined and poked and prodded to find whatever answers she wants. Coran and Allura aren’t exactly sure what to do to try and fix the rift that’s been forged between the team and Lance, mostly because they aren’t sure how to relate to him anymore. The only person that still treats him like an actual person is Hunk, who does his best to defend Lance whenever his choices and actions are called into question.

It’s hard, and it hurts. It doesnt just hurt Hunk because his best friend, his first real friend is being treated just like Hunk thought he would be by the Garrison; but it also hurts Lance. It hurts that every decision and move he makes that isn’t considered ‘normal’ for an android is called into question by everyone. It makes him question himself and his past decisions. He starts to think that maybe there is something wrong in his coding, or that he is going off track of his directives.

And when he goes to Hunk and asks him to do a total wipe of his system so that he can be rebooted as a clean slate, Hunk has enough of it. He takes Lance by the hand and calls he others for a team meeting.

And he doesn’t hold back.

He goes off on all of them, screaming and crying about how their recent behavior to Lance is not only unfair, but inhuman. He made Lance as human as possible; to feel emotions just like humans and to make decisions for himself. Yes, he uses his lightning fast processors to calculate percentages of survival and chances and whatnot, but that doesn’t stop him from making decisions that have less than 5% chance of succeeding because he thinks that it just might work. He tells them how even though he isn’t made of flesh and blood, doesn’t mean that they should see him as some kind of object to explore all they want because he isn’t just some machine! He continues to explain just how incredibly important Lance is not just to him, but to all of them, and that he isn’t just some robot; he’s just as human as he rest of them and deserves both their respect and their trust!

But the end of Hunk’s speech, Lance is hiccuping into his shoulder and hugging him as much as he can, the others not far behind apologizing to both of them.

It’s still a bit awkward at times whenever the team actually forgets lance isn’t fully human, and most of the time Pidge likes to join Hunk and Lance during his routine maintenance, but they respect him and his choices, and treat him like he deserves. And if Hunk even think that one of the team has forgotten that, he has the courage now to face it head on and remind them of the fact that while Lance isn’t human by body, he is human in soul.

[alyias-blog1]

Projects~

Already the woman was being hounded, once more for having left things a mess in the shop. Sid would bicker and yell as he put things in their proper place, all the while the woman just leaned the work chair on its hind legs with boots on the table lightly rocking it.

“ Sid, Lookie here. You weren't even supposed to be back, I would have had it cleaned within the three days you were to be back.”

“ That is not the point Al. You used to be so precise and yell at me when I didn’t put the shit back. You did the exact thing.”

“Oh, so just because I did something what, a decade ago you wanna be all pissy and do just the same as a child angry a week later for their toy being taken away?”

“Al, don’t ya go and turn it around on me, just cause I get to you.”

“Oh just shut it, I got my project done regardless. Need to take it out for a test drive sometime too.”

“Ah that. Well, let's go take it out, survey the people around, ya got the main controls done too?”

“Do you take me for a fool? I had to try and haggle some dang gob for the parts. I got it all done up and ready to go. Screens small though.”

“That is fine, oh… A letter was dropped off at my residence again… Al, you need to allow people at least the corridors to know your residence.”

“ You think I want people to come to my ‘Home’? They will get eaten within moments. Baba does not like people, you are one of the ‘lucky’ ones that I marked for safety.”

“Baba needs to not… Did you name the Hyena baba? For the love of Fel Al….”

“What's wrong with the name Baba?! You have a white cat named Speckles!”

“You leave Speckles out of this!”

“Then get him some of the rose glazed spectacles, that would be a good enough reason to name it as such.”

“Actually… I might just do that.”

“So what's the letter about?”

“Ah ya, apparently you’ve been selected for a ‘job’”

“I have too much on my hands right now, whoever it is can wait.”

An hum emitted as she had placed the chair back down on all fours and would get up and grip a leather strap that had the controls attached, the screen was small but big enough to be able to do its job- this was just a small project, after all, only to experiment… Hoping nothing blew the hell up, unlike her other projects she had going for her new friend Stitch.

Once outside she placed the spider down and Sid would take the controls and begin the surveillance as she sat there tinkering with her screwdriver and worked on the stitch ladys project, more interested in this than the letter and what the spider is doing now, as sid chuckled and grinned wildly the glitch just rolled her eyes, reaching in her tabard and pulling out the fel taffy that stitch had given her to keep ‘sain’ humming as she felt relaxed now with this, this whole project- two rats that would explode and yet be easily magnetized back together, bags under her eyes as she did this, adoring the rat and then the mouse with big ears just for her, it hat been a while since she’s seen stitch now, and meaning to get back to the woman- but being super sensitive with her emotions currently, though soon enough she would slowly get them back in order- having some black out moments still from time to time, and it wasn’t the ale it was just the pent up anger and frustration that was holding her down.

Apparently the guy at the first party she had gone to had truly driven his words into her, nearly about to fling the mouse she took in a deep breath to keep focused, taking out the anger with her very good tinkering skills, this was a tedious project but yet she enjoyed it- wanting to see her happy and see destruction all over looking forward to her reaction.

With one last twist and shifting, she would place in the motherboard chip that had a protective seal on it to be able to keep in the main power core that was a magnet able to call back the other pieces that were also magnetized within.

Sid just grinned looking into the screen closer, as she stood up looking to see what he was so happy about she would only just smack him and walk off.

"Enjoy the spider... Nasty ass."

"Al! Wait!!"

Suddenly she walked back and pressed the return button and walked away, hearing a woman's scream and yelling- knowing full well the spider had given itself away and came back to Sid hearing him yell and then stop then cry out in pieces, a wide grin stole the glitches lips, vanishing to the shadows and making her way to the mailbox and set the projects within addressed already for stitch.

@stitch-and-blood

[bestcustomjackets-blog]

We had an imminent weaving client annoyed with us some days back and we've been considering this association since.

The call began guiltlessly enough. The client needed to get a statement for weaving his logo on shirts and coats. We clarified that the cost relied on two things:

the unpredictability of the logo to be weaved, and

the sort of custom coats and shirts that the client was keen on obtaining from our lists.

As frequently occurs, the guest cut us off in mid-clarification to disclose to us that he previously had his shirts and coats, and that he simply needed come into the shop, pass this stuff to us, and needed to realize the amount it would cost to enliven every last bit of it.

 We respectfully clarified that we would not be the correct seller for that venture since we don't take a shot at client provided pieces.

"Why not?!" he requested.

 Best Custom Printing Jackets

I started to clarify what we have laid out in our blog entries previously, which is that weaving is certifiably not an ideal procedure, that occasionally things turn out badly amidst work that wreck an article of clothing, and that we just don't care for placing ourselves in the situation of going out on a limb without having the capacity to discreetly and effectively supplant something.

 "What sort of things can turn out badly?" he asked suspiciously.

 At that point I shared a story that had unfurled just half a month sooner. It was about 11a.m. also, we were really busy weaving many Nike golf shirts for another customer — shirts that we had requested, incidentally. Abruptly the lights flashed and a portion of our machines ceased in mid-work and started producing a penetrating alert tone that showed a power disappointment. Weaving machines do have modernized motherboards, so temperamental power has a similar impact as it would on your work area PC. We immediately bounced and hit the Emergency Kill Power switches on the machines. The lights flashed again around 15 seconds after the fact. While we held on to check whether the ability to the shop would bomb totally, we looked at over the condition of the machines and the shirts on which they were working.

 With the shirts still mounted on the machines, we verified whether the power disappointment had caused tears in the shirts or free or stray join. On the machine side of the condition, it was imperative to ensure that the needles were up. Since a weaving machine's rails can be moved physically while the machine is off, each time a machine is controlled on, its PC sets up its realized limits by moving the rails to the most distant mechanical points of confinement. In the event that it experiences these movements while the needle is down amidst a piece of clothing, the article of clothing will be torn by the needle staying fixed while the articles of clothing is persuasively moved around the needle.

 Once everything was examined, we physically cut the top and bobbin strings and expelled the articles of clothing before driving the gear back up. "In the event that there will be an issue," we thought, "how about we not have the shirts be the unfortunate casualties today." That stated, our hesitation was, "Kid are we happy that if something goes wrong here — on the off chance that we overlook one insurance in this irregular circumstance — at any rate we can arrange substitution shirts before the day finishes (and they'll be here tomorrow)."

 We discovered later what had caused the power dark colored outs. A feathered creature had arrived on a transformer a mile far from us and caused a flame. Traffic lights had been thumped disconnected at a few of the crossing points close us.

 The majority of this prompted us contemplating the sorts of discussions we need to have with clients at time of conveyance. In the event that we can control the sources of info (i.e., supply the articles of clothing), at that point we can recuperate from even circumstances outside our ability to control and still joy our clients. However, on the off chance that this had all occurred while chipping away at client provided things, well how would you believe that discussion would unfurl? How might we demonstrate that the brownouts had occurred? Would the client care and what amount would the client pay for a vocation that isn't just inadequate, however at this point missing pieces that the client had bought? All the more critically, how might we concur upon what was the proper activity to determine the circumstance? Also, regardless of whether the client acknowledged the majority of the clarifications and perceived that it was not our blame as the merchant, the client is as yet going to have a reference mark in her mind when she contemplates her last communication with us. So when somebody approaches her for a referral, would she prescribe us? Most likely not.

 So we offered the client a referral to a contender that is eager to chip away at client provided things. We simply would prefer not to be that shop. We like to develop by means of rehash faithful business since we can convey quality dependably.

[componentplanet]

Intel Is Still Fighting the EU Over Its Anti-Competitive Actions Against AMD

In 2009, the European Commission found that Intel had abused its market position with respect to AMD and slapped the company with a €1.06B ($1.45B at 2009 exchange rates) fine. In 2014, the General Court of the European Union upheld the judgment. In 2017, however, Intel won relief from the European Court of Justice, which ordered a new trial. That’s where we are today.

Intel is once again making the case that its exclusivity rebates had no impact on AMD, despite the fact that they placed steep restrictions on how many AMD systems could be sold. Intel’s counter-argument is that these deals were ones the OEMs could walk away from, that they only covered a fraction of the market, that AMD was supply limited, and that nothing in EU law states that exclusivity rebates are automatically anti-competitive.

What Happened in 2017?

When evaluating whether a company has illegally restricted competition, the EU applies what’s known as AEC (As Efficient Competitor) test. Loosely speaking — because I am not an expert in EU law — the AEC test is intended to measure whether an “as-efficient competitor” that would otherwise be competing effectively with the dominant company is being shoved out of the market by anti-competitive practices.

Back in 2009, the EC found that Intel’s behavior was so self-evidently abusive, and its practices so filled with “naked restrictions” on AMD, it did not need to perform a full AEC test but provided one anyway.

When Intel appealed the case to the General Court in 2014, it raised specific problems with the EC’s AEC analysis and argued that the analysis had been performed incorrectly. In essence, Intel took the position that other factors, including AMD’s factually constrained CPU production, were the reason for the company’s low market share.

The General Court, however, “attached no importance” to the EC AEC report, precisely because the document was not a formal finding of fact. Because the General Court chose not to consider the AEC analysis as evidence, it also chose not to consider Intel’s arguments about the specific problems with the AEC as evidence.

This was not a breach of protocol or legal precedent. Prior to the Intel ruling in 2017, there was no requirement that a General Court perform an analysis of company-provided data regarding whether it had breached antitrust law. The EC had provided the document voluntarily.

Prior to 2017, the use of exclusivity rebates to retain customer loyalty was apparently treated as prima facie evidence of anti-competitive behavior. The EC also argued that Intel’s criticisms of its AEC report amounted to an attempt to contest the findings of fact already established in the original case and rejected them accordingly.

The text below is from the 2017 decision. In all cases, the Commission is the European Commission that handled the initial investigation, the General Court is the body Intel appealed to.

In this case, while the Commission emphasised, in the decision at issue, that the rebates at issue were by their very nature capable of restricting competition such that an analysis of all the circumstances of the case and, in particular, an AEC test were not necessary in order to find an abuse of a dominant position… it nevertheless carried out an in-depth examination of those circumstances, setting out, a very detailed analysis of the AEC test, which led it to conclude… that an as efficient competitor would have had to offer prices which would not have been viable and that, accordingly, the rebate scheme at issue was capable of having foreclosure effects on such a competitor.

The ellipses above reflect where I removed paragraph reference numbers to make the text easier to read.

In 2017, all of this changed. The ECJ ruling found that the General Court had erred in failing to consider Intel’s arguments regarding the AEC report that the court had chosen not to treat as evidence and sent the case back to the lower court for a re-hearing on Intel’s arguments.

The decision was seen as significant. Norton Rose Fullbright writes:

Although the Commission did in fact make an effects-based assessment, the General Court had not assessed Intel’s arguments that the Commission’s analysis was defective. This is the first time that the CJEU has required an effects-based analysis in an exclusivity rebate case.

Present Day: Intel May Not Want to Win This Case

Back here in 2020, Intel is arguing essentially the same point it raised in 2017, that the AEC test was badly performed and that it wasn’t actually harming AMD. As evidence, Intel points to the fact that Dell adopted AMD CPUs when rebates were at an all-time high. They aren’t wrong. Dell was fined a great deal of money for failing to report its finances properly with respect to Intel’s rebate payments.

If Intel wins this case, it will likely weaken EU antitrust law. The old standard of analysis emphasized the structure and nature of illegal agreements and did not require a demonstration of competitive harm, though the companies still had to be genuine competitors to one another. The EJC ruling did not exonerate Intel on the matter of its rebates, even though it ordered a retrial.

This may be a good time to note that this investigation is 18 years old. If it were a human, it’d be old enough to vote.

Here’s the problem. Forcing the EC to perform a full economic analysis of whatever data a huge tech company provides is going to make it significantly harder to investigate these companies at all. Substantially raising the burden of proof on the EC means its efforts to rein in Google and Qualcomm are more likely to fail.

Intel may have won its Qualcomm case in the US, but the EU investigation of Qualcomm is still ongoing. What Qualcomm did to Intel is conceptually very similar to the way the EU found Intel had harmed AMD. Intel might be shooting itself in the foot with regards to its own Qualcomm case.

As for whether the EJC made the right call? I genuinely don’t feel as though I know enough about how the EU’s justice system works to have an opinion. I typically favor giving companies and individuals the right to challenge a judgment and to have that challenge heard, but I don’t want to see that right turned into a cudgel that companies can wield to slow or overwhelm lawful investigations. Any change in the law that substantially increases the burden of proof on the EC should be matched by additional hiring and a larger budget.

Did Intel Actually Harm AMD?

AMD’s original lawsuit against Intel in the United States is, quite frankly, a damning portrayal of market abuse. While the 2005 filing focused on the US market rather than Europe, Intel’s programs to restrict AMD operated in multiple markets. Here’s one example of how much control Intel allegedly wielded:

Following two years of negotiation, Supermicro finally agreed last year to begin developing an Opteron-powered server, however, it so feared Intel retaliation that it secretly moved the AMD development to quarters behind Supermicro’s main manufacturing facility. Further, it forbade AMD from publicizing the product or beginning any marketing prior to its actual release. When, in April 2005, Supermicro finally broke away from years of exclusivity, it restricted distribution of its newly-released Opteron products to only sixty of its customers and promoted them with a glossy, upscale brochure devoid of its name and labeled “secret and confidential.”

I can partially confirm this story. When I heard the first AMD Supermicro motherboard was being released, I searched Supermicro’s website and couldn’t find it. If you punched the model number into Supermicro’s own search engine, it would return no results. The only way to find a link to the motherboard was to use Google to search the site. The box and motherboard were unbranded.

Image by Wikipedia

I called the company to ask about the board and was told Supermicro focused on Intel products. It wasn’t until I mentioned the specific model number that the company representative suddenly knew what I was talking about. Even then, she was cagey, and only barely willing to confirm the motherboard existed.

There’s also the alleged HP chip debacle. To make a long story short, AMD once offered to give HP with one million free processors in order to break Intel’s hold on AMD. Here’s the 2005 filing:

On the eve of the launch, HP disclosed its plan to Intel, which told HP it considered AMD’s entry into HP’s commercial line a “Richter 10” event. It immediately pressured HP into (1) withdrawing the AMD offering from its premier “Evo” brand and 2). withholding the AMD-powered computer from HP’s network of independent value-added resellers, the HP’s principal point of access to small business users for whom the computer was designed in the first place. Intel went so far as to pressure HP’s senior management to consider firing the HP executive who spearheaded the AMD commercial proposal. As a result of Intel’s coercion, the HP-AMD desktop offering was dead on arrival.

This paragraph, ultimately, was at the core of the Intel / AMD antitrust case. Intel’s response to these issues was often to argue that AMD capacity-constrained and therefore incapable of providing the entire market with enough CPUs (which was and is factually true).

But AMD had a potent counter to that argument. Intel’s exclusive rebate system didn’t just restrict AMD’s market share, it restricted the markets AMD was able to sell parts into and the prices it could charge. A million free processors are a lot of chips — but HP couldn’t afford to lose Intel’s rebates. Even if Intel adjusted its rebate policies to specifically account for AMD’s total manufacturing capacity, it was still allegedly impacting AMD’s revenue by mostly confining its CPUs to the desktop market. In AMD’s telling, Opteron took major market share in servers in spite of Intel’s active opposition.

AMD and Intel eventually settled their case, with Intel paying AMD $1.25B and renegotiating the x86 license terms. The allegations in AMD’s filings against Intel were never adjudicated, but the EJC affirmed that Intel’s exclusivity rebates were an intrinsic abuse of power in 2017:

In that regard, the Court has already held that an undertaking which is in a dominant position on a market and ties purchasers — even if it does so at their request — by an obligation or promise on their part to obtain all or most of their requirements exclusively from that undertaking abuses its dominant position within the meaning of Article 102 TFEU, whether the obligation is stipulated without further qualification or whether it is undertaken in consideration of the grant of a rebate.

Allow me to translate: Offering exclusivity rebates is an abuse of power within the meaning of EU law. Period. Nevertheless, the EC is now required to fully examine Intel’s line of reasoning and consider whether it has merit.

Do I think some of Intel’s actions harmed AMD? Yes. Do I know if they would have been found guilty of antitrust violations in a court of law, especially in the United States, which has different and steeper requirements for these kinds of cases? No. Do I think AMD was also responsible for some of its own problems during this time period? Yes. Where does that leave us? Debating an investigation that’s old enough to vote.

Image by Sh4rp_i/flickr

The funny thing is, I’m not sure AMD actually got the short end of the stick. I’m sure the $1.25B was nice, but the renegotiated x86 licensing terms are what allowed AMD to spin off its foundries, something it was contractually forbidden to do before.

Historically, AMD had trouble with new nodes. After beating Intel to 180nm, AMD lagged on 130nm and 90nm. By 45nm, it was a year behind Intel. It’s not clear that AMD could have made the jump to FinFETs within a reasonable period of time if it had retained its own fabs. One of the reasons AMD’s fab transitions lagged Intel is because AMD had to balance capacity constraints and bringing up a new node, much as Intel is doing now.

I’ve taken the time to unpack both the court case findings and AMD’s original allegations is because I think it’s worth understanding the subtleties of the case. The EJC didn’t give Intel a clean bill of health in 2017 and it didn’t examine all of Intel’s legal claims. Intel will now have a chance to present its own data asserting that AMD was not harmed by its rebate practices. I’m in favor of that in principle but wary of the impact in practice — the 737 MAX debacle can be traced, in part, to the FAA’s decision to allow manufacturers to self-certify their own planes. The FAA took that step because it didn’t have the resources or manpower to continue its previous level of oversight.

Intel’s past treatment of AMD tends to be a pretty hot topic, and certain issues, like compiler optimizations, still come up in the present day. I am curious to see how the ruling goes and what evidence Intel will present, but I’m also pretty ready to move on from the battles of 2005. It’s a new era. If you look at the list of executives at Intel in 2005 and compare it with 2020, it’s pretty different. The same people aren’t running the company. While AMD has performed exceptionally well since 2017, there’s no denying that Intel has also substantially improved its prices and overall performance.

Chances are good that this case isn’t over, no matter how the EC rules. It’ll make its way back up the food chain to the ECJ one way or another. Might be time to start planning its 21st birthday party.

Now Read:

AMD Analyst Day 2020: Zen 3, Infinity Fabric 3, and 3D Packaging

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From 4.3GHz All-Core Overclocking to SMT Scaling: A Comprehensive Review of the AMD Threadripper 3990X

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/computing/307409-intel-is-still-fighting-the-eu-over-its-anti-competitive-actions-against-amd from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/intel-is-still-fighting-eu-over-its.html