#Kafka Monitoring & Management

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kafka management

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LivestreamIQ

LivestreamIQ – Kafka-hosted, web-based GUI that offers intelligent alerting and monitoring tools to reduce the risk of downtime, streamline troubleshooting, surface key metrics, and accelerate issue resolution. It helps offload monitoring costs related to storing historical data and is built on Confluent’s deep understanding of data in motion infrastructure. LiveStreamIQ empowers businesses to proactively manage their Kafka infrastructure, ensuring optimal performance, reliability, and security. It is a niche product for Kafka Environment Management that provides Intelligent Alerting, Unified Notification Gateway with a scalable architecture ensuring the Messaging system is up and running as per Business critical Needs.

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LiveStreamIQ empowers businesses to proactively manage their Kafka infrastructure, ensuring optimal performance, reliability, and security.

INTUITIVE UI

The powerful UI streamlines managing Kafka brokers, topics, messages, and node health, simplifying operations and troubleshooting.

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Seamless integration with your existing Kafka infrastructure

SCALABLE

Designed to handle large and complex message streams with ease. Grows alongside your evolving business needs.

INTELLIGENT ALERTING

Predictive Insights

Customizable Thresholds

Actionable Intelligence

Reduced Alert Fatigue

UNIFIED NOTIFICATION GATEWAY

Consolidate all channels (SMS,email & push notification)

Consistent and reliable message delivery

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[sem24]

He’s not running. He’s not armed. He’s not resisting. He’s just walking through a sunlit plaza, surrounded by strangers, near a shop he has no interest in. And then, without warning, he is stopped. Questioned. Accused. There’s a disturbance nearby, they say. He looks suspicious. He’s sweating. Why would he be sweating unless he’s guilty of something? The questions become statements. The statements become charges. And the charges are meaningless—vague phrases muttered by a bored official who barely looks up from her typewriter. He’s sentenced before he even understands what’s happening. A number is handed down. He protests. “Take it up with the Emperor,” says the official, already calling the next case. (Andor, Season 1, Episode 7)

This is the trial of Cassian Andor, in Season One, Episode Seven of Star Wars: Andor.

The prison Cassian is sent to is efficient, sterile, and almost eerily quiet. The walls are spotless white. The prisoners wear identical uniforms. There are no bars or shouting guards. Control is built into the architecture, with electrified floors omnipresent and always ready to punish.

Andor ties power not just to violence but to sound. To be heard is to have power. In Narkina 5, the Empire completely strips prisoners of that. Orders come down through speakers; pain comes up from the floor. The guards remain unseen, the prisoners unheard.

The work itself is grueling but orderly. Inmates spend their days assembling mechanical components without knowing what they’re for. Kino Loy, the floor manager, enforces the system. He’s not cruel, but he’s committed to survival. When someone dies, Kino replaces them. When their team falls behind, he pushes harder. The message is clear: stay “on program,” follow the rules, and wait out your time for release. (Andor, Season 1, Episode 8)

Everything changes when they learn that released prisoners are merely cycled back into the system, and an entire floor is executed to maintain secrecy. Obedience doesn’t earn freedom; it keeps the machine running. Cassian begs Kino to help him plan an escape. But Kino resists; he doesn’t want to be overheard plotting and punished. He believes in the system, even now.

“They’re so proud of themselves,” Cassian says about stealing from the Empire. “They don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it.” (Andor, Season 1, Episode 3) The Empire isn’t stopping people from resisting; it’s banking on the idea that they won’t realize they can. Its strength isn’t fear, it’s complacency. It doesn’t need loyalty. It just needs passivity. They do not even have to monitor the prisoners. “Nobody’s listening,” Cassian screams. (Andor, Season 1, Episode 9)

As Arendt warned, totalitarian regimes don’t just control people’s actions; they limit what people think is possible. The genius of Narkina 5 is that prisoners believe escape is impossible, so they never even try. On a floor with hundreds of prisoners, how many guards are there? Cassian asks. “Never more than twelve.” (Andor, Season 1, Episode 9)

Narkina 5 is the Empire in miniature, a system that hides its brutality behind procedure and relies on silence and fragmentation to keep people from realizing their own power. As Karis Nemik writes in his manifesto: “The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.” (Andor, Season 1, Episode 12)

That’s why it matters so much when Kino finally takes the mic. His voice, trembling, uncertain, rings out through the same intercom that once controlled them. “One way out!” becomes a chant. A signal. A rupture. (Andor, Season 1, Episode 10)

“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K.,” begins The Trial. (Kafka 1) Words have power. One lie is all it takes to unravel K.’s entire life. But K. has sharp words of his own. He wields language like a master fencer, parrying and jabbing with cold irony and careful precision, verbally sparring with every faceless representative of the court.

What is the difference between Cassian Andor and Josef K., who both face insurmountable odds? For all his cleverness, for all his resistance, K. is alone in the face of unyielding bureaucracy. He was always going to lose. Cassian, unlike K., is not alone, and that makes all the difference.

If Josef K. is an example of one person being crushed beneath the heel of an uncaring system, then Maarva Andor is that rare spark that sets the fire, one that burns down Nemik’s siege, and she does so impressively, from beyond the grave.

Her funeral is announced by the steady, swelling rhythm of the Ferrix band: horns, drums, the slow cadence of grief turned defiance. Then the projection flickers to life, and her voice fills the square. She does not plead. She does not rage. She invites: “The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness. It is never more alive than when we sleep.” (Andor, Season 1, Episode 12)

The music behind her surges, no longer mournful but militant. On Ferrix, resistance is built on noise, or more accurately, on the refusal to be quiet. Even the instruments are significant. The anvil of Ferrix rings out like a signal flare. In a world ruled by silence, every note is a risk. Maarva’s voice cuts through the complacency on which the Empire depends. And when she says, “Fight the Empire,” when the crowd echoes her words, it becomes more than a cry. It becomes clear that no one will be left to be crushed alone. (Andor, Season 1, Episode 12)

This has been Part 2 of: A Great Organization: Repression and Propaganda in Andor

part 1 < > Part 3

Masterlist of all parts

[mechazushi]

Stoic Till The End. {A Kn8 Story}

[I know what this looks like, but TRUST ME It's cute. Isakaf btw]

"Vitals are still elevated, but stable. Are you sure you still want to keep trying?" Mica, the bunker operator Kafka had gotten familiar with liked to ask him this question before he continued forward.

"Come on, ye of little faith! I've made progress with him, I know it." Kafka answered back through his ear piece as he stood before the reinforced doors.

On the other side of the containment doors stood the ex-director of the entire Defense Force. It was less then a month after the Meraki Kaiju fight before something strange crawled itself out of the wreckage that was Japan. People had been sighting another humanoid kaiju wandering various streets in Japan, making sure to stay out of sight but had been known to rescue the occasional bystander. Once a pattern of appearances had been established and determined that this creature was slowly making its way to Ariaka Base, a select group of people were tasked with hunting down and restraining the abnormal beast. Once collected, it was clear from what remained of his more human side that this was, somehow, Director Shinomiya.

A brief fight was had before they managed to incapacitate him just enough to bring him into the same security bunker he had imprisoned a man in a similar condition months before. Once inside, they monitored Isao continuously for a while as best they could, since he had made it obvious he wasn't going to let anyone within touching distance. Still, it became clear that Isao was in there, somewhere deep in the mind of the kaiju. He had bouts of clarity, but still kept this air of independence and indomitability. Most of the Defense Force wanted to opt for neutralization, calling this mutated behemoth a mockery of what was once the greatest officer of their time. Others fought for a different route.

Thus the reason Kafka stood outside the double doors he was once locked behind, a reoccurring sight for the past two weeks. Every day since he had heard what had happened, he would walk himself inside and attempt to see if he could get any deeper inside Isao's mind. And every time he did, they clashed into a fight, one that kept ending with Isao laid out on the floor, unconscious. It was obvious that whatever Isao was going through physically, his body wasn't used to it. Kafka, while not knowing the kaiju in a personal sense, could tell that Isao had somehow merged with the core or essence of Number 2 while they were both trapped inside Number 9. Kafka knew that such a feat was a taxing one, if his encounter with Nine when it happened the first time was any indication, but he worried that if Isao wasn't reached in any sense in time, that this version of Isao was going to get progressively harder to deal with.

Still, he continued to work with the newly transformed man. He had a discussion with Kikoru before he started this journey, asking her if she felt if it was possible that her father could be inside, or if it was even worth it to see and to find. Would she even consider this new amalgamation of man and beast to be her father anymore if they managed to bring him back to himself. After a long and hard time thinking about it, Kikoru had only one thing left to say.

"We'll never know if we never tried first."

The operator in the observation room above started the process of opening the final set of doors separating Kafka from the new Director General. The only reason people were continuing to let him do this was because of Kafka's new form. Since it's actualization, researchers were desperate to learn more about it, to test limits and weaknesses. Having a punching bag in the form of another experimental kaiju-man to gain results from as well didn't hurt either. Their continued fights produced a lot of interesting data, both on Kafka's limits and Isao's developing state.

The grinding and whining of the doors never failed in capturing the beastly Isao's attention, tilting his armored head to face the intruder from his place at the center of the room. He passively watched as Kafka's now familiar white and lithe form plodded his way inside. What was different this time was the little, black, hard walled briefcase he was carrying. His fingers alone nearly dwarfed the object. Kafka placed it on the ground before holding his hands up in defense.

"Hey Director General!" Kafka announced cheerfully, "It's your sparring buddy! I had a thought on the way over here and was thinking that, maybe, we don't fight today! How does that sound?"

Isao only responded with a low growl before launching his muscular form right at the innocent guest.

"That figures." Kafka muttered before he braced himself for the impact.

This new version of Isao stood on par with his new height of about fourteen feet, but had more than double the body mass with most of it divided unevenly between his four arms. The two that were where arms should normally be locked their fists within Kafka's awaiting grip while two more, muscular arms that hung off of his shoulder blades came around and aimed for his horns. Anticipating this. Kafka pulled on the ones in his hands to force Isao's body closer to him. As it drew closer, he took the opportunity to smash his face on Isao's nose bridge, sending an unexpected and painful shock-wave through his opponent's face. Distracted, but refusing to let go so easily, Isao held his place as he made his second set of arms reach for Kafka again.

Kafka leveraged his weight and used it to push Isao away this time. As the second set of hands moved past him, Kafka reached back out and grabbed them this time to forcefully stop Isao's momentum and almost knock him off of his feet. Taking the sudden shift in weight in stride, Kafka whipped the arms up and down quickly, fully knocking Isao off of his feet and slamming him down face first into the floor. He continued to not let go as he swiftly shifted into spinning Isao by his arms, gaining enough momentum to launch him across the bunker. Even with as quickly as Kafka followed behind his attack, Isao could keep up with his speed thanks to his new set of eight eyes.

This was a now familiar dance to the both of them at this point. Not the move set, but the speed and veracity of the fight. Kafka had no reason to hold back as much when it came to fighting Isao like this, since in Isao's mind he was fighting for his life. The people who had constructed the bunker last time had learned some new tricks to make the room even more resistant to attacks, but that didn't stop the two of them from somehow managing to create new craters in the walls and floor. It already looked like a spent mine field in there from all the dents and scorch marks from the lightning discharge.

None of it distracted Kafka from the fact that the Director General seemed to be growing stronger like he predicted. Even with having learned a modified style of Squadron Style hand-to-hand, Isao was becoming more and more adept with countering his attacks. The speed was there, making Kafka's only saving grace at this point being the lack of strength, and even that was catching up to him. He had to find a way to settle Isao down enough to get through to him soon or this problem was about to blow out of control.

"Come on, big guy! Ain't you even a little curious as to what I brought ya today?" Kafka tried to ask in between dodging and blocking blows from his assailant. Again, the only sound Isao responded with was a fierce growl.

Trying something different, Kafka broke off from the fight and instead headed for the armored briefcase back at the door. This took a few tries as Isao could quickly and easily caught up and tried to overtake Kafka just to force him back into the fight. After landing a solid enough kick to his chest, Kafka gained enough space and time to quickly make his way over to the case and grabbed it before Isao recovered. Once he did, he came rocketing back to his opponent and tried to return the kick with one of his own, this time encased in a threatening coat of lighting. Kafka sidestepped it in time, shifting past a vulnerable Isao and summoned as much strength as he could bring himself to use to land a debilitating punch to the back of Isao's skull.

This sufficiently dazed Isao but didn't knock him to his feet, something Kafka was worried would happen. Letting him shake off the pain and fog the punch caused, Kafka slowly but surely moved around so Isao could face him. Sensing the movement, Isao sneered and reared back to send his fist, but stopped once he saw Kafka holding the briefcase up in front of his face defensively.

"THISWASYOURDAUGHTER'SIDEA!" Kafka hastily shouted once he saw the fist heading in his direction. A tense moment passed as no contact was made, but the fist hadn't dropped from its place.

"Kik...oru?" Isao spoke haltingly, sounding out the syllables like he had only recently learned how to speak. His voice sounded different as well, adopting a rough and alien baritone.

Kafka breathed a small sigh of relief as he lowered the briefcase, "Yeah, your daughter Kikrou. She suggested I try this if I ever got you to sit still for more than five seconds."

Isao slowly lowered his fist and softened his fighting stance, his head tilting at a slight angle to match his confusion. He passively watched as Kafka walked away from him and scanned the room to see if there was a space in the destruction wide enough to his liking. Coming to a stop at a side wall, he knelt down and flipped the locks on the case, opening it up to mess about inside. Isao moved over to where Kafka was and quietly observed, regaining the feeling of being curious.

"Talked around to some of your people and a few of them said that you used to like watching movies with your wife." Kafka mentioned as he placed a strange white object on top of the hard case.

Pressing one button after another caused a rectangle of bright light to project onto the wall in front of them. Pulling a phone out of the projector, he played about with the screen for a moment before he looked back and saw Isao still choosing to hover. Kafka wordlessly waved his hand to indicate that Isao should come down to the floor with him. Isao snarled at the suggestion, leaving Kafka to just shrug and settle down closer to the floor. The white light on the wall began to change, now projecting what looked to be the main menu of a streaming service.

"Managed to get around the firewalls here and get a hold of a Webflix account." Kafka explained with a cheeky grin to his tone, "Better yet, it's not even my account! Hoshina left his sheet of passwords out and I got a good look at it... Okay, it wasn't out in the open, he keeps it under a stack of binders hoping people won't notice. So, really, this is on him."

Kafka continued to look back at Isao, hoping some sort of light would come back into those soulless, pupil-less eyes of his. His expression remained impassive as he continued to switch between looking at Kafka and the projector light. Kafka almost thought he was sweating from nerves as Isao continued to do... nothing. Hell, even fighting him felt better than this continued pause of inactivity. Kafka just fiddled with the phone a little as he returned his attention to the account.

"Anyway," Kafka coughed anxiously, "Do you have anything in particular you like to watch? Documentaries, Action Adventure films? I enjoy a good comedy routine special myself, but I've met people who have to be in a certain mood first before they wanna watch something like that." He began to scroll through the site's listings, trying to see if he could guess what the director general would even like. He knew from asking Ogata and Kikrou that him and his wife were both avid movie watchers, but neither one of them knew what it was they enjoyed watching the most.

"Stop." Isao suddenly commanded out of no where. Kafka listened obediently to the point he almost dropped the phone.

Looked back nervously, Kafka chuckled quietly before asking, "Stop... scrolling? Stop looking? Stop... trying?" He wondered out loud as he watched Isao's face.

Isao just moved to sit on the floor on the other side of Kafka, having the projector in between them.

"Back." He simply commanded again, all eight eyes glued to the screen.

"Back... to the left? Back up a row? Come on buddy, work with me a little here." Kafka questioned with a little exasperation in his tone.

"Back...left...three." Isao requested slowly, like he had to think about each word as it left his sharp looking mouth. Kafka did as he asked, coming to land on an old, but highly appraised rom-com movie.

"Really? Huh. Last thing I ever thought you would pick." Kafka muttered as he brought up the attached plot synopsis.

"Hikari... liked... this one." Isao remarked, his expression softening in the slightest of ways. Even Kafka's special vision almost had a hard time telling what had changed, but he was sure. The general did develop an air of sadness about him.

"Sure. Been wanting to check this one out anyway." Kafka said, keeping his tone interested as he gave a side-long glance at Isao.

The two of them watched the movie in mostly silence. Every once in a while the overhead air vents rattled to life, but if it wasn't for their souped up hearing, no one would have noticed. Every time it clicked on, Kafka just subconsciously turned the volume up a little more until it went away. Other than the occasional laugh from Kafka, there was hardly anything else breaking their attention from the musical comedy they were watching. With Kafka being engrossed in the movie, he hadn't noticed how when he did laugh, one side of Isao's eyes would flick over to watch him.

During his moments alone, Isao pondered if he really was made out of the first, true iteration of the man or if he was just the memories that could be salvaged and refused to die. Was he just a Kaiju that needed more brain matter to come to life and it just so happened to select some that came with extra baggage? Or was he the original man and was just lacking the physical structure to walk out of the remains of the fight, long after he should still be around. Somewhere, underneath the instinct to rage against all that holds him back, a part of him wished to stay reasonable. To ask questions and to hold conversation.

It was an odd feeling, coming back to a dormant part of himself. Watching the movie, listening to someone beside him vocally enjoying it, it grounded him. No... more so a beacon, shining down in a deep, thick, oppressive abyss. Being near a calm and positive presence and rediscovering calm and positive emotions, he realized this was something he had felt before, but with someone else. The movie did help him remember his wife, dredging up fonder memories from early in their relationship. It also brought up an unusual thought; He remembered thinking once that he was positive in that he would never feel something like this with anyone else.

As the movie came to an end, Kafka leaned back into a long and intense stretch, his long legs shaking as he splayed them out in front of him, "Mmmmmmh, That wasn't bad! Cute and cheesy, like I like them."

"Hmm. Slow." Isao commented as his form remained unchanged.

"Okay, yeah it was. But I don't think it was a problem. Might not have been necessary, but it's not like I hated it." Kafka conceded a little more descriptively.

"I... didn't like it... at first. When she showed... it to me... the first time. But... I think I... understand now. Why it had to be slow. Still think... the dog should've made... a bigger... impact." Isao continued, managing to form longer thoughts as more of him old self fell into place.

"Hey! look at you! Discovering new takes and making longer sentences already. I think we've made some real progress today." Kafka exclaimed as he playfully tapped his fist on Isao's shoulder. He did flinch a little when Isao returned the affection with a low snarl.

"Well, nothing's stopping us from continuing this happy moment. Got anything else you wanna watch since I'm here? I could find more rom-coms if you're up for more." Kafka swiftly picked up the phone again in hopes to distract Isao from the unexpected contact and keep him pacified.

"Mmmm... no. Is that... dog documentary... still on here?" Isao asked slowly, the movie bringing back more and more parts of himself that he wanted to get back in touch with.

"Dog documentary?" Kafka questioned with a shocked chuff. Isao returned an intense scowl, but made no move to physically retaliate.

"Hey man, I'm not dissing the request. Just... surprised that's your next choice." Kafka defended himself as he searched around for anything that might have fit the bill.

"I liked dogs... I think." Isao remarked, his expression dropping slightly again.

"Who doesn't!" Kafka claimed as he continued to look, "I'm a big animal person myself, but that's a part of myself I've had to put aside lately." He continued, trying to not let his disappointment leak into his tone. He couldn't ignore the burning beam of curiosity Isao was sending into the side of his head, openly wanting to ask the question but couldn't bring himself to say the words.

"Being part Kaiju, it... they can sense it is all. Kinda disturbs them, and I don't have enough hours in the day to let them all know I'm a friend, you know?" Kafka explained with a dejected shrug, "I've managed to befriend Mina's tiger, so I'm not completely without a furry friend." He mentioned, hoping to finish the revelation on a happy note.

"Always wanted a dog." Isao ruminated, "A husky. I think... we could have handled it. Never worked out... though."

"Aw, have you ever seen a chocolate husky? They're so gorgeous." Kafka replied with joy, "Oh, hey! I think I found it." He said as he landed on the documentary. Before he could press play, Isao spoke up again. His tone indicating a sudden sense of seriousness.

"Kafka." He started, trying to gather his thoughts, "Am I... me?"

It was the best he could piece together with the limits he had on his mind. He knew he wasn't at a level of eloquence he was used to speaking as a former Director general, but he prayed in that moment that Kafka understood. Kafka took a long look at Isao, meeting him eye for eye as best he could as all six of his passed over all eight of his movie partner's. Kafka donned what he hoped was the most reassuring face he could make with his limited features before he answered him.

"You're going to be asking yourself that for a while. There's no sugar coating it or anything vague or therapeutic I can say that's going to make the feeling go away or speed up getting over it. But the fact that you're asking yourself that question now means that you're getting to a point where you can ask yourself those types of questions. And if asking yourself those deep and thought provoking questions isn't a part of what separates humans from full kaijus, then both of us weren't human in the first place, were we?" Kafka finished his speech while never taking his eyes off of Isao, choosing to monitor the other's reaction to his thoughts. It was an odd sight to see a half-kaiju man squint in skepticism, but it blatantly telegraphed what was about to come out of Isao's mouth.

"You... didn't come up with that yourself, did you." Isao remarked, stringing together the longest thought he would make that day.

"Heh, yeah." Kafka admitted with a chuckle after being discovered, "Ogata noticed I was kinda spiraling a few days into this... new age of myself, I guess. Invited me to his office after hours and we drank the night away. Found out he gets even more philosophical the drunker he gets. At some point he starts to mutter incoherently, but the stuff he says before that can be really eye opening."

Kafka pressed play once he finished talking, but was forced to pause it when they were only a few minutes in. A hand came up to his ear piece in a tell-tale sign that there was someone on the other side requesting something out of him. Isao didn't bother listening in to the brief, one-sided conversation, feeling like he could already tell how this was going to end up. It didn't take much longer before he heard a small sigh of disappointment come from his Kaiju colleague.

"Looks like I've got to cut date night short." Kafka said as a joke, hoping to ease the blow with the blatant humor, "Kaiju just emerged up top and they want me to be in a more available position in case they need back-up."

The two of them moved to stand with both of them letting out quietly pained grunts of exertion. When the both of them moved to stretch out their sore and unused muscles, Kafka began to laugh brightly at how ridiculous they were acting right now.

"Ugh, look at us. Both of us kaijus and here we are, acting like we're dinosaurs." Kafka leaned back down to gather the projector, but stopped himself halfway down, "You know, just because I have to leave, doesn't mean I have to leave you without any fun." He held out the phone, still connected to the projector.

"You can continue without me. I brought this down here for you anyway."

Isao took a long look at the offered phone. A part of him wanted the gift, knowing that he'll have nothing else better to do than to pace about his enclosure. A larger part of him suddenly spoke up over that voice and told him to wait. To wait and have Kafka bring it back to him. Movies were meant to be enjoyed with company, and what better company than a fellow kaiju. On top of that, having to bring the projector back meant that Kafka would have to come back as well. And right now, that sounded better than watching movies alone.

This part of his mind was quickly silenced, however. Even if he was just Isao's mind reawakened inside the body of a Kaiju, even now he was still tamping down that part of him that wanted close connections. If anything, that sort of behavior just cemented how much of him was still Isao.

▼△▼△▼△▼△

The coming months were quite eventful on Isao's end. Between the sparring, movies, and other things Kafka tried to utilize to help patch more of Isao's scattered mind, he felt far from feeling left in the lurch. Between that and the occasional scientists that had started to appear now that he was becoming more and more calm and reasonable, any sense of isolation dissipated as well. Kafka's days were just as eventful as it turned out, if their conversations were anything to go by. Alongside Isao's experiments, they were performing similar ones on Kafka as well and comparing their status between the two of them.

It wasn't long before a team of researchers began to experiment on Kafka. He went into this willingly, being under the assumption that anything learned here could help Isao get back to something close to his original self. It was slow going since Kafka had requested breaks in the research to continue his visits to the security bunker. While he never expressed it openly, Isao did worry about him. He knew Kafka was more comfortable in his Kaiju state and was only really doing this to help him get back to something more presentable to the public. Still, he couldn't argue that the researchers were producing results.

Less than a month later the team, with Kafka's continued help, was able to come up with methods and treatment that somehow managed to slowly but surely revert their kaiju forms back to human. It was slow as to avoid too much pain, but neither could complain too much about the results. Kafka got to feel less like a bumbling inconvenience for the first time in months and Isao got to experience the sun for the first time in the same amount of time. It didn't completely erase the Kaiju within them, but to the both of them they felt like it was for the best. Sure, being human again was great, but it would still be a waste to never have the power to fight back against bigger threats so assuredly on their own.

However, this did bring up the problem that was how to go about dealing with the situation that was Isao. A former Director General who was technically dead and had been replaced, was now walking around under full conscious decision and was, technically, eligible for his old position again since he was evaluated and determined to be back in his right, old mindset. Every precedent was up in the air now, between Kafka and now Isao's state of being, so half measures and placation was to be the patch fixes until more evidence could be gathered as to what the status of both of the world's first half-kaiju humans should be in their coming future.

In a twisted sense of fate, it was decided that Isao would start from the bottom in ranking. It almost felt like a joke, the former, now technically resurrected, Director General being treated as an officer of near-lowest rank. In this way, it would let the current Directors gather more evidence as to whether this new version of Isao was really him through and through as well as let him regain rapport and respect with his fellow officers. If anything, this method only further cemented that Isao was truly back to his old self as it wasn't long before he was back into a Vice Captain position. It still didn't change the fact of how odd it felt being the vice captain to someone nearly half his age, but Rin was someone he could respect in turn and be agreeable with.

On one hand, this brought him back to an earlier, more enjoyable mentality he had left behind when he became Director General the first time around. On the other hand... he did not miss the paperwork in the slightest. It was late at night, like it had been for the last week. His position as a Vice Captain entailed that he had to deal with all manner of paperwork dealing with anything and everything the officers below him needed or complained about, which completing it all in a timely manner meant that Isao would be continuously kept past lights out compared to everyone else in the building. His ass was numb, his brain was fried, and he felt like he would kill a fortitude 5 and higher for a sandwich. He wouldn't be suffering forever as it turns out as he heard the tapping of military boot heels breaking the silence of the base.

"Hey there fellow Insomniac. I brought you your usual." Kafka said as he leaned against the door frame leading into the communal office, holding a couple white paper and plastic bags.

"Hibino. You're supposed to be asleep." Isao remarked as he rubbed his numb face to stimulate it.

"Uh, yeah. That's the whole problem of being an insomniac." Kafka joked in return as he pulled up a chair and placed the collection of bags in between them.

Isao wanted to counter the comment, but the sight and smell of his salvation was far more alluring. Kafka separated the bags and shoved Isao's portion of the lion's share over to is side. Digging around, he found a couple cans of black coffee and some gas station chicken sandwiches. He tried his best to tamp down the primal sounding growl that wanted to escape his throat, but seeing the dark chocolate ice cream bar made it a little harder to keep the facade. Kafka gave a knowing sidelong glance at his friend, but chose to say nothing as he dug out a discounted hamburg steak meal. Shifting the wrapper off of the lukewarm sandwich, Isao tore a large bite out of it and let out a repressed moan as it hit his taste buds.

"You didn't have to do this, ya know." Isao muttered as he cracked open a coffee can with his other hand. Kafka turned and let him see the full force of that knowing glance he was wearing earlier.

"Okay, just because you, somehow, knew I would want this right now, doesn't mean you had to go out of your way for me. The nearest 7/11 is, what, three blocks away?" Isao tried to defend his point, but it quickly crumbled as Kafka wordlessly shifted closer to Isao and propped his chin in his hand with his elbow on the desk, the expression not wavering in the slightest.

"Shut up." Isao pathetically commanded as he looked away.

Kafka lightly laughed as he started to dig into his own meal, "Besides, Keji told me you'd been stuck in here after hours for a week now and I figured it was about time to nip that in the bud." He mentioned as he took a big bite of steak. "Since I'm here, might as well help with the paper work." He mumbled around the bite while picking up a sheet of paper to look at.

"Thanks for the food, but I can take care of this myself." Isao continued to insist as he mirrored Kafka's actions.

"Isao, when was the last time you hung out with your daughter?" Kafka countered with a very direct and unavoidable question. When Isao abruptly choked on a sip of coffee and had to look away to save face, Kafka took that as enough of an answer.

"Exactly." Kafka chided as he went back to reviewing the documents, "You have a day off tomorrow and I'm not going to let you spend it being here in the office all day."

All Isao did was sigh as he put down the paper, "I... I don't know what to say. To her, I mean. It feels like... every time we talk, it's just... awkward."

Isao was apprehensive about reconnecting with his daughter. He knew he wasn't exactly the best parent to her before now, and on top of that there was the issue of legitimacy surrounding whether he really was still her father after all. Even he had days where he still argued with himself over if he was Isao or just a copy of his memories. He knew those silent questions hovered in the air when he was stuck in conversations with her and it made him wonder if his presence made her... uncomfortable. It wasn't a strange thought to him, considering her daughter's feelings about things, but this was the first time he had the urge to take them into consideration. A part of him wanted a second chance. To change and to be a better father this time around. A larger, much louder part of him wondered if it was worth it, considering the circumstances. Or worse, even a reciprocated feeling.

"It'll go away soon enough." Kafka quickly dismissed, not even looking away from the papers in front of him. Isao sighed as he tried to begin to contradict him.

"Hibino-"

"Isao." Kafka interrupted him much more forcefully, effectively cutting him off, "You're not going to get past that feeling if you don't take any steps in that direction."

"But, Kikoru-"

"Your daughter is a big girl. She can handle a little awkward conversation time with her father." Kafka barreled forward with his point, trying his best to utilize reason to break down Isao's walls.

He watched Isao flounder around as it looked like he took Kafka's words to heart- or core in this case. His was an unusual sight, watching Isao's face crack and twitch into unfamiliar expressions. It was like his face had forgotten what it was like to move. Try as he might to keep himself above emotion, even kaijus could learn what worry and fear was. If anything, his subsequent resurrection could be his chance to remember what it was like to be human the first time around. It all appeared to be too much for him tonight however, as he dropped the paper and his meal to vigorously rub at his temples.

"Can we... pick this up another time? I'd like to get this done no matter the reason." Isao requested as he lowly groaned in pain.

"You too, huh?" Kafka quietly chuckled as he recognized the possible source of his friend's pain, "Yeah, it'll do us no good to spend all night in here arguing." He began to rub away at his forehead, awakening something in his features.

Isao watched as Kafka's forehead grew grey and lumpy. His jawline lengthened and his lips pulled back slightly to reveal a row of needle-like fangs. Removing his hands, two long and thick horns grew from the top of his head. Groaning from relief, Kafka shook his head as his face finished its partial transformation.

"Seriously? Right now?" Isao harshly whispered as he threw a quick glance around the office to make sure no one was watching.

"There's no one here to care Isao." Kafka commented reassuringly as he picked back up the paper and fork, "And I'll bet a dollar to a donut that if let go just a little bit, that migraine you just developed will go away."

"That is ridiculous." Isao huffed with indignation, "Partial transformations in the middle of the office."

"I'm serious!" Kafka admonished, "Cures mine and Narumi's migraines all the time."

Isao snapped himself away from his work to look at Kafka, "Narumi has migraines?"

Kafka choked on a bite of food when he heard the question, "You didn't hear that from me, okay?" Kafka tried to respond as his throat worked itself around the unexpected intrusion. Isao stared him down a little more in the hopes that the shear weight of his glare would pry more information out of him.

Kafka just sighed in defeat as he relinquished the information, "But yeah. He gets migraines sometimes. He says he just has to use his eyes for something stupid and non-taxing, like reading a comic book in the dark for a while and he's good to go. I always kinda saw it as sitting on your ass for too long. Some muscles need to be stretched after a while or it'll start to hurt, ya know?" Kafka didn't look away from his portion of paperwork and instead faced Isao with the eyes embedded in his horns.

"Seriously, give it a shot. I'm right here if something goes wrong." He continued in a gentle tone, knocking his elbow into his friend for added encouragement.

Isao just groaned at him as he shuffled away from the contact a little. Of course it was like him to hit the center of the problem and brush it off like it wasn't. Isao wasn't as used to transforming like Kafka was, so it would make sense that he would be a little hesitant to perform it so casually in the office. Still doesn't change the fact that practice makes perfect, as Kafka was prone to saying when they first started this helpful relationship. It was the main reason as to why he was still here was to help, and as much as Isao's pride didn't want to admit it, he can't help but lean on Kafka's unwavering confidence when it came to their unnatural situation.

Isao took a deep breath and let his eyes roll into the back of his head. He felt the now disgustingly familiar sensation of his extra sets of eyes popping out from under the skin on his face. It always felt unpleasant, like zits bursting on their own. The longer, sharper teeth pushed themselves out from the gums and slotted themselves against each other. Rubbing the sides of his face helped wipe away the excess tears that developed when his eyes appeared while helping them adjust to the low light in the room.

Once he felt readjusted, he tried to start getting back to his paperwork, but something still felt off. Stopping for a second to unzip his jumpsuit, Isao shuffled the sleeves off of his shoulders to reveal the cheap, black, wife beater underneath. He roughly pulled the left strap off of the shoulder to scratch at the spot behind it. Doing so removed the itch as well as the layer of skin that trapped one of his extra arms that stayed hidden inside him. After which he tugged a little more at his jumpsuit so it fell low enough to have room for his long, thick, and strong armored tail. Once all that needed to be revealed got to a point where its presence wouldn't bother him, he settled back into scanning through the stack of documents. He would have continued uninterrupted if he hadn't caught wind of Kafka trying to hide a light chuckle.

"Hey, you encouraged this." Isao tried to retaliate at the suspected teasing.

"It's not that, it's not that!" Kafka dismissed with humor still in his tone.

"Then what?" Isao asked, genuinely wondering what was the problem.

"I'm not going to talk about it, it's stupid." Kafka countered, still hiding a chuckle.

"Can't be any more stupid than how we look now." Isao grumbled, mostly to himself but it was loud enough for Kafka to hear.

"I just find the state of your shirt to be funny is all." Kafka muttered behind his hand. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't muffled enough as Isao took a quick glance at his shoulder to see how it was now being scantily displayed without a tank top strap to cover it.

"What are you, some Victorian pervert?" Isao fired back calmly once he realized what the joke that was running through Kafka's head was.

"I told you I didn't want to say anything!" Kafka said as he buckled under no opposition on his work partner's end.

Isao used his third hand to reach around and playfully flick at the tip of Kafka's horn before letting the incident's energy melt into the still calm of this office air. It wasn't long before the two of them followed suit and landed themselves in their own comfortable pace, Kafka's eyes scanning multiple documents at a time and Isao's third arm helping processing them faster than if he was alone. Isao probably would have been working faster if he could have gotten his extra sets of eyes to focus on the paperwork as well. Try as he might, he couldn't help but have one or two of them split his focus and instead passively watch his office mate.

It was pretty often that Kafka showed up to help with paperwork this late at night, but Isao couldn't stop himself from being grateful anyway. The extra help with the piles of requests were nice, but he found himself looking more towards the comfortable company that came from having someone who knew him well. He couldn't be more thankful to be around someone who understood that silence was more preferred than idle conversation while performing menial tasks this late at night. It was a sense of piece he hadn't felt since his wife passed. Comparing his situation now to how everything was before becoming the Director General, it almost made him want to laugh from how similar things were repeating themselves.

Quiet nights with cheap dinner, desk lamps filling in for candlelight, a permeated sense of coziness that could really only be had from close companions, it was the closest feeling of belonging he had felt in a while. Hell, even the constant need to watch everything the person next to him was doing was something that hadn't left him even after the unfortunate metamorphosis. Isao did his best to leave the comparisons up to that point, mainly out of necessity. Delving any deeper into that mindset unveiled things Isao wasn't ready to come to terms to. He really did want to try and just accept Kafka's help without reading too deep into it or defaulting back onto his falsely wounded pride. Between those being afraid of him, those that questioned him, and those that sought to exploit him, Kafka acted as the one harbor of normalcy Isao could find in this sea of confusion and pain and doubt.

Well, about as normal as one could get when both of them had multiple, sensitive eyes that could divert their attention onto anything without their knowing. It always fascinated Isao with how much expression could be seen in those smaller eye sockets that lined Kafka's horns. While the main set was focused on the paperwork in front of him, the next one was very clearly acting sleepy as it slowly winked closed and fluttered back open. The third one was moving around erratically, squinting in annoyance as it followed the path of a fly. Isao had been successfully ignoring it, but now that he could see and hear it much better thanks to his altered form, watching a portion of Kafka's brain becoming irritated at it as well suddenly became his final straw.

Following the path his gaze made, Isao soon locked on to the fly's position. Concentrating a portion of his energy into one of his eyes, it sent a concentrated blast of lightning directly at the bug and killed it instantly.

"Oh thank God, that was really starting to bug me." Kafka muttered under his breath.

"Really? 'Bug' you?" Isao retorted, a quiet chortle adding an implied connotation to his phrase.

"The pun was entirely unintentional." Kafka countered with his own light chuckle, "And was that a laugh I heard?" He continued as he playfully pushed him again.

Isao didn't shy away from this bout of contact as much as the first time. Try as he might to set boundaries and unspoken walls, it was becoming increasingly more frequent to look around and find those walls nonexistent once Kafka came into the picture. The two of them settled back into the desired level of quiet, but it didn't last nearly as long. Come to find out, it would be Kafka's turn to stare intermittently at the vice captain. Isao would occasionally catch one or both of Kafka's new eyes staring at him, almost like they were evaluating something about him. Something like this normally wouldn't have bothered him, having been once a center of attention as a director general, but this time felt different coming from Kafka.

"What is it?" Isao asked gruffly, still continuing to sort through the forms and documents.

"What's what?" Kafka asked in return, his voice squeaking slightly from being caught off guard.

"A part of you seems intent on staring at me. I would like to know why." Isao answered, his work continued unbothered so far.

"Oh yeah, that." Kafka conceded as he cleared his throat, "It's nothing. I just noticed your hair was getting long."

"Yes, I've been needing to stop by the barber, but I haven't been able to make the time." Isao explained.

"I figured as much, I was just trying to imagine you with longer hair is all." Kafka acknowledged as he briefly stopped just to take a second to look as Isao fully.

Isao stopped but hadn't turned to face Kafka as he spoke, "Oh?"

"I mean, a stoic stickler kinda guy like you probably prefers the short buzz cut as much as the next guy, but I was just thinking that, I don't know, maybe it wouldn't be a horrible change of pace?" Kafka prattled nervously, thinking he was digging himself into a sudden grave, " Not that you need one, it was just a thought experiment anyway, but I mean you did come back from the dead so... what's wrong with changing things up the second time around? of course this is just me talking here and-"

"Do you think I could pull it off?" Isao interjected suddenly, clearly understanding that Kafka needed a way out of the hole he was digging.

"I-uum, well... I'm sure you would look good no matter what you do." Kafka tried to answer as he fumbled over it.

"That's not... what I asked." Isao reiterated, turning to face a nervous Kafka head on.

Kafka kept the eye contact as best as possible as he nervously licked his lips, "I think you would look cool." He answered hesitantly.

Isao returned the statement with a soft smile before looking away, "You're delusional."

"Okay, wow. Just blow me off after all." Kafka bemoaned dramatically, paperwork forgotten, "Asking for my opinion just to throw it away. You know what? Next time, just shove me down a flight of stairs. I think that would honestly feel better than what you just did."

"God you're so dramatic." Isao muttered playfully under his breath and rolled his several eyes.

"Yeah well..." Kafka started proudly before hesitating slightly and went back to the pile in front of him, "Doesn't seem to be bothering you much." He countered in a soft voice.

Isao didn't say anything back. There wasn't anything to say, really. After all... he was right. They kept to themselves a little while longer, managing to blast through a large portion of the workload in front of them. There was still some left to do when Kafka's hearing picked up on a disturbance nearby.

"Hold up. I think someone's heading this way." He spoke quietly, instinctively wanting to make himself unnoticed out of habit.

"Shit." Isao managed to think up amidst the sudden panic welling up inside him.

Isao had been doing good not to let anyone get any up close and personal looks at his transformation. Kafka warned him that sudden and unwelcome transformations were an unavoidable part of the first few months of being a converted being, but he was still under strict orders not to be in any kaiju-like state while on base. Most within his close group of compatriots knew about how uncontrollable the shifts in visage could be and were good sports about it whenever they caught him, but that group wasn't the whole base. Most here carried some levels of fear when they encountered him and it wasn't paranoid of him to think that some of the more afraid ones wouldn't hesitate to report his flagrant disregard of his direct orders. Not only that, Kafka was transformed alongside him. With the shock that came with the reveal that intelligent Kaiju exist, it wouldn't be hard to spread a rumor that the two last cases of humanoid Kaiju within the defense force were conspiring together for whatever reason. It didn't often matter if they had already proven that they were trustworthy. When confronted with the unnatural, most folks would sooner get rid of it than try to understand.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted." Kafka lamented as he slapped his hands on his face.

He vigorously rubbed them up and down, shaking loose the flakes of chitinous fibers that made up his horns. Shaking his head to wake himself out of the fog of sleepy stupor he was in, he was about to start back into the paperwork like nothing was wrong until he felt an anguished air form beside him. Next to him was Isao, suddenly sweating bullets with the muscles in his face tighter than bow strings. Kafka could almost hear the sharpened teeth squeaking together from the force of his clenched jaw. Recognizing a reoccurring problem, he quickly shifted closer to Isao's side to try and get his attention.

"Hey! Heyheyhey, you're not in trouble yet!" Kafka spoke softly but with urgency, hesitating as to whether or not it was safe to touch Isao when he was tense like this.

"Can't... let them... see." Isao choked on the words, almost sounding like a sob as a hand came up to mask the side of his face.

"No, you can, okay? You're going to be fine." Kafka kept trying to reassure, going forward anyway to put his hand on Isao's back to rub what was hopefully soothing circles.

"I can't... put it back! I.. can't-" Isao continued to groan and cough through his tight teeth.

Kafka just sighed harshly as he gathered up the courage to do what needed to be done. He moved his hand to the back of Isao's head and forced it to face more towards him. Rearing his own head back, Kafka brought it down hard onto Isao's forehead, knocking loose his current derailing train of thought.

"Hey. Look at me." Kafka gently commanded as he grabbed both sides of the vice captain's face, "What do I tell you to do when you're like this?"

Isao looked up with wet eyes at Kafka's steady ones, anchoring himself through them. Soon, he closed his own eyes and forced himself to breath slow and deep. He tried to visualize the Kaiju inside himself, to see the avatars of himself on even ground but it was still feeling like Number Two was still fighting him.

"It's not... It's not working." Isao panted, less stressed sounding but still nervous.

"It is, it is. You're still trying to force it. Just let him come to you." Kafka talked smoothly, letting himself back up to give Isao space.

He didn't let Kafka get too far away as his hands came up to snatch the other kaiju's wrists. Kafka's understanding was felt as he shifted their hands around so he could hold the other's securely in his fists. He watched as Isao kept his head bowed and his breathing slow and even, looking on as the extra arm dissolved off of his shoulder and the extra eyes shriveled up and disappeared. The sweat continued to appear on his brow, but Isao had managed to completely revert back to himself.

"There. Feel better?" Kafka asked cheerfully, shaking one of the hands in his grasp.

"You think I would have gotten this by now." Isao muttered, trying to hide how pathetic he felt from his tone.

"That's because both you and Number Two are stubborn. When you change in and out of form, you're not supposed to command him or treat him like he isn't there. Your continued existence is a partnership, not a beast for you to order around." Kafka leaned off to the side to dig around in the plastic bag that still had Isao's ice cream bar in it, "Once you get that through your thick, boney skull, I'm sure this will come to you a lot more naturally." Kafka unwrapped the ice cream bar and offered it to Isao with a playful smile.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt." An unknown voice called out from the open door frame on the other side of the office, "But I just finished up my side of work and I need to drop off the paperwork it made. I don't think they need any in-depth review, just the signature." Kafka just gave the man a sidelong glance and sighed as he patted Isao's thigh.

"Sit and chill. I'll take care of it." Kafka offered with a nod and got up from his chair.

Isao watched as Kafka went over to talk to the intruder, feeling utterly defeated. There was no escaping how he felt so completely dependent on Kafka when it came to matters of his new state. The days where he was Director General, the days where all he had to worry about was making it through to the next were so much simpler than how they were now. He never had to be dependent on anyone for anything, let alone needing someone to guide him through something so personal. Well, that wasn't entirely true, was it? Isao began to remember a time where he was completely dependent on someone.

It was over a much more complicated subject, certainly felt complicated to him at the time, but it had felt nice to have someone else take the reigns. The thought of love never really crossed Isao's mind much before he met his wife. Somewhere during his teenage or young adult years he figured it would be nice, but he was completely invested in rising through the Defense Force ranks at that point that it would be a while before the thought crossed his mind again. Hikari blew into his life like a mortar round, explosive and sudden, but what made her stick around was her decisiveness. She made it very clear what she wanted in a relationship and what she was going to do on her side of keeping them together.

That decisiveness complimented their relationship well as it paired nicely with Isao's proactiveness. Hanging around Kafka however reminded him that her decisiveness got her in trouble too. Sometimes to the point where she couldn't recover from the consequences it made. It was something Isao noticed quite early on that both of them suffered from, and it was something he would rather not be reminded of. Being decisive can get you pretty far, but it sends you down paths you can't easily turn around on. Especially when one's life is taken into account.

Isao put the ice cream on the desk and got up from his chair. As he walked over to where the two of them were standing, the guest quickly noticed his presence approaching and offered up a polite goodbye to Kafka before vanishing back down the darkened hall. Kafka watched him leave, confused at the sudden exist until he felt Isao's hand come down on his shoulder.

"Oh yeah, guess we should be getting back to work huh?" Kafka mentioned with a smile, "Hate to add on to the pile, but there isn't much here thankfully."

Isao looked at the small clutch of documents in his hand and pulled them out of Kafka's grasp, "I'll take it from here." He said bluntly.

"What? Shipping me off already?" Kafka joked as he tried to follow behind.

"Yes." Isao countered, sounding swift and brash.

Kafka's smile dropped from his face as he heard his partner's tone, "Hey, if this is about what happened..." He started as he slowly reached a hand out.

"It's not." Isao answered abruptly before taking a second and a deep breath, "It's like you said. There's not much here and the both of us have been here too long anyway. One of us should get some sleep." He finished as he tried to turn and walk away, only to be stopped by a hand softly griping his shoulder.

He turned back to see that familiar stubborn pout on Kafka's face. Familiar not because he saw it before on Kafka's, but from a much deeper memory. Isao watched as Kafka put his fist out with his pinky extended.

"We're both going to get some sleep tonight. And you're gonna promise me that." Kafka ordered valiantly.

"Really? What are we, twelve?" Isao jabbed back with a raised eyebrow.

"It will make me feel better." Kafka hammered home, hands and eyes refusing to move from their place.

Isao took a long look at the childish gesture before sighing deep, "Fine, but we're shaking on this like men."

"Well, whatever makes you feel better then." Kafka replied as he jokingly rolled his eyes.

The two of them shook hands and Kafka turned and left for the barracks. Isao walked back towards the desk with paperwork in hand, trying not to kick himself over letting someone get close to him like this again.

Life was so much easier when he was the only one who had to make sacrifices.

▼△▼△▼△▼△

"Oh, and Haruichi's dad 'asked' him to a bank sponsored... dance? Ball? I'm not entirely sure, but he apparently made it clear this wasn't an option for him and now Haruichi is openly inviting the Third Division to crash the ball as a show of support, so I just wanted to ask if there was anything important I should know about around the 23rd and if I could go?" Kikoru casually spieled as she finished up fixing the hair tie that had come loose on her father's braid.

"No." Isao responded simply as he waited patiently, sitting on the weight bench.

It had been another handful of months and things had progressed quickly again. Through a shear amount of overworking himself and a few glowing recommendations from his fellow captains, Isao managed to regain his title as Director General in less than a year. In between fighting for his original position, with some constant helpful reminders from a now close friend of his, Isao succeeded in reestablishing a cordial relationship with his daughter. Kafka was right in saying that starting this would be rough, but he wasn't wrong when he said it was necessary. Isao couldn't bring himself to say this before now, but he always wanted to keep a close connection to his kid. He felt like he had to give that up when his wife died due to her wishes, but this second chance let him see that it never had to be that way. Kikoru was already so much like her mother, he was just so afraid for her that he never got to see that.

"Come on! Please?" Kikoru begged as she leveled her best puppy dog eyes at him, "I hardly get to go anywhere nice. And it's for a good cause too, so that has to account for something."

Isao leveled his own hardened look as he evaluated her eagerness before he sighed and leaned back on the bench, "Can you promise not to instigate anything?" He asked as he reached for the weight bar.

"Seriously, who do you think I am?" Kikoru countered as she walked behind his head to spot him as he lifted.

"This is a vengeance based invite, I wouldn't put it past your friends to pull something." Isao grunted back as he pumped the bar above his head.

"How about if I promise to mitigate the fallout if something does happen?" Kikoru offered as a suggestion.

Isao stopped halfway through the motions as he thought long and hard about the offer, "As long as your name doesn't end up in the papers, sure." He finally conceded.

"Yes! Thank you daddy!" Kikoru cheered before she bent down to give her father a forehead peck.

She let him crank out a few more sets before something equally pressing popped into her mind.

"Oh! By the way, Kafka should be on his way back." She casually mentioned.

The news caught Isao by surprise and made him almost lose his grip in the weight bar. Kikoru tried to help out, but her father made enough of a recovery to rack the weights himself before he replied.

"Really? He's coming back?" Isao asked with an uncharacteristically shrill tone as he looked up at his daughter.

"Uuuhh, yeah?" Kikoru answered while sounding unsure, "Did he not explain the situation to you? He was just visiting while Mina gives the new batch of recruits an introductory speech."

"No... I knew." Isao answered back, sounding just as unsure, "I just figured that, well... it would be to stay. I mean... the Third Division was his first assignment. I've been keeping him away from them for too long at this point." He explained with a dower expression, opting to cover it up by restarting his set.

"You're still uneasy about your shifting, right? He promised to help you through them until you weren't and he tends to hold onto his promises pretty hard." Kikoru pondered openly, having known Kafka just as well as her father does at this point.

"I've noticed." Isao growled as he remembered all the promises his friend held him too while Kafka was stationed over here at the First.

Kikoru muffled a sly giggle as she watched her father's face at the mention, "What, don't tell me you miss him or something?"

Watching her father's grip unexpectedly slip once again not only surprised her, but made her question what was going on in the General's head.

"Are you okay? You seem to be out of it all of a sudden." She asked as she helped her father rerack the weights.

"I'm... fine." Isao growled through clenched teeth as he screwed his eyes shut. Seeing such a clear expression on her father's face in conjunction with the subject of their conversation helped make so many ideas click into place for her.

"Oh... my god. You do miss him, don't you?" Kikoru gleefully interrogated as she gripped the bar and leaned heavily over it to stare her father directly into his eyes.

"Ihavenoideawhatyou'retalkingabout." Isao scrambled to reply as he tried and failed to retreat from his daughter's piercing gaze.

"Oh you answered that way too quickly." Kikrou retaliated, reveling in witnessing her father having an emotion that wasn't passive disappointment.

Isao groaned and sat up quickly, utilizing his broad backside as a form of separation to give himself a break from the perceptive questioning he was being subjected to. He breathed deeply as he scratched the side of his head, glad for the second his daughter didn't immediately try and walk around to see his face then.

"I should just reassign him back to the Third. He's done enough for me already." Isao spoke quietly to no one in particular.

Kikoru just stared at her father for a minute. The air in the room turning into a painfully nostalgic taste of sour. It wasn't the first time he acted like this as it was an all too familiar view to her. It did feel weird however, not being on the receiving end of the cold treatment, but knowing who was going to be on the accepting end of such unjustified actions helped Kikoru know that she couldn't let this stand for long. She slowly approached her father from behind, extending a gentle hand to massage his shoulder as she came around to face him.

"You know... you're allowed to have friends, right? Kafka's strong enough on his own." She tried to assure her father, only to be met with an odd series of glances. A sad sort of unspoken longing before turning away in uncomfortable resolve.

"Unless... you don't want "just a friend"?" Kikrou clarified with a small smile, hoping to egg out some more information about the state of Isao's private mind.

"I... shouldn't. I'm not going too." Isao commanded to himself firmly as he pushed back a few strands of sweaty hair off of his forehead.

"Why not? I don't think anyone would try and dictate how the Director General of the JAKDF should live his life." Kikrou countered with some amusement in her tone.

"It's not that." Isao refuted, " It... it wouldn't be right." He finished as he started bouncing his right knee.

"Again, people are a lot more accepting nowadays." Kikoru brought up, still trying to salvage what could be the start of something good for her dad.

"It's not that either." Isao replied harshly as he tried to knock his daughter's hand off of his shoulder only to change his mind and hold it in his calloused hand.

"Kikoru, I... I love your mother. I married her because I wanted only her to be a part of my life. Being with Kafka... it would just disrespect her memory." Isao spoke softly, reverently with the weight of his memories as he uttered the words into Kikrou's knuckles.

"Oh... Daddy." Kikoru sobbed lightly as she felt the weight of his words. She took her hand out of his so she could hold the sides of his face and she leaned down to give him a hug. They stood like this for a while, Isao breathing shallowly into his daughter's shirt as her other hand came up to pet his hair.

"I know it's been difficult, but you have to know she would be okay with this, right? People lose those they love often, but they can find others to love after their firsts are gone. Mom would just want you to be happy." Kikrou tried not to cry just yet as she focused on consoling her father.

"I get that, but it can't be with him." Isao replied, the shirt's fabric hiding the shaking in his voice, "It would hurt us both."

"How, daddy?" Kikoru countered as she pulled out of the hug, "How would it? It's not because he's a guy, is it?"

"No, it's not- well... kinda, but not in the way you think-" Isao's thoughts were all over the place as he tried to piece together the reason as to why he was against falling for Kafka.

"Kikoru, you've met him. You know him. I can't be with someone like him, he's too much-"

"Like a male version of mom?" Kikoru finished his sentence with a smug expression and a giggle.

"God, you're not kidding." Isao muttered exasperatedly under his breath, glad to not be the one to say the painfully obvious part out loud.

"And I think... that's what makes him perfect for you." Kikoru stated confidently as her hands came down to squeeze her father's shoulders supportively.

Isao just hung his head and sighed deeply, almost sounding defeated, "I don't... I don't think I can go through that again."

"Go through what?" Kikrou asked innocently. Isao looked into her eyes before sighing slowly, preparing himself for what he was about to say.

"The problem is that he's too much like your mother, Kikoru." Isao remarked, "It was hard enough for me losing your mother the first time. I don't want to repeat the same mistake."

"Was meeting mom a mistake?" Kikoru suddenly asked, intending to demonstrate a point.

"No! Not in the slightest baby, never." Isao quickly reassured, his hands pulling her in for another hug.

"Then neither will being with Kafka." Kikoru claimed assuredly as she tightened the hug, "I mean, on top of him clearly being your type he's gotten to a point where he's pretty hard to kill, soooo." She tacked on jokingly.

Isao chuckled lightly as the joke hit home, "Alright, I'll give you that."

"Tell you what." Kikoru started, "If it's starting to look like he's about to do something stupid, you can fight him over it. And don't be afraid to use my name to guilt trip him." She said as she pulled back to look her father in the eyes.

Isao laughed harder, "Considering I'm the only one who can personally fight him, having a way to end the fights quickly might be nice to have."

Kikoru just smiled as she leaned down to plant a friendly kiss on his forehead, "Seriously, ask him out sometime before I'm a spinster."

"Isn't that supposed to be my line?" Isao retorted playfully.

The two of them just stayed in that moment for a little while, holding onto each other for a few seconds longer. Isao learned his lesson the second time around to hold on to the little moments with the ones he loves. It helped make the regret of not doing so the first time fade away a little more each day. Just as much as he was getting used to enjoying time spent with others, he was soon to be getting used to being interrupted as well. A distinct thuding of boots made it's way to the gym entrance as Isao and Kikoru were finishing up their hug.

"Working out in the middle of the workday? Don't you know better than-" Kafka started to speak as he casually leaned the doorway only to stop himself short once he saw what was going on, "Oh, I'm interrupting something." He quickly finished and swiftly moved to leave.

"Kafka! Come in! Don't worry about us, I was just about to leave for a lunch date with Minase anyway." Kikoru called out as she slyly turned and gave her father a wink. Isao was left sputtering as Kafka walked himself back to make sure it was okay to intrude.

"Well, if you're sure." Kafka pondered as he watched her quickly grab her bag and rush out of the room.

"Everything been going smoothly while I've been gone?" Kafka pointed his question to Isao who was now holding his head in his hands.

"Uneventful so far." Isao answered as he pushed back some errant strands of loose hair back onto his sweaty head, "Is that something important?" He asked back as he nodded towards the Manila document in Kafka's hand.

"Oh, this old thing? Maybe. All I know is that Jeb was on his way to drop it off to you and I just thought I'd kill two birds with one stone." Kafka responded as he flippantly flapped the document in Isao's face.

Isao took it from his hand and opened it up to look at it. Kafka watched on with amusement as he saw Isao subconsciously reach a hand up to adjust a pair of nonexistent glasses, only to grunt and glare ruefully at his traitorous hand. In his mental fight to return to the man he once was, it was thought that Isao might have taken the notion a little too far considering that, despite being mostly kaiju, he still needed his glasses in human form. Kafka just lightly chuckled as he bent down to rummage around in Isao's gym bag, knowing that man to never not be prepared to review documents even outside of his office. Isao had to look twice before he understood the fact that for One: Kafka knew this and Two: he was now holding the case a few inches from his face.

"I can read this just fine, Kafka." Isao growled out with an air of irritation. Not at Kafka for the most part, but mainly at how perceptive he was becoming.

"I can see you squinting at it from here." Kafka chuffed in return with a bright smile.

Isao growled again as he took the glasses case from him, "I'm a kaiju, I shouldn't need glasses."

"Kaiju or not, you're still the same old crotchity bastard on the inside." Kafka joked reassuringly.

Isao burned his signature glare at his friend but Kafka just scrunched his nose up right back at him. Turning back to the document in hand, Isao looked it over for several minutes while Kafka waited patiently.

"Just needs a signature, like usual." Isao mentioned as he closed the paperwork back up, only to get startled by Kafka who was holding a pen a few inches away from his face again. He signed it and handed it over as he watched Kafka turn and pick something up off the floor.

"I'll go ahead and drop this off in your office then. Need to go hunt down Kikrou anyway. Seem like she left her phone here." He said as he waved the fallen object in his hands.

As Isao watched Kafka start to walk away, something came over him. He wouldn't know if it was because of what Kikoru said earlier or if it was some divine being wanted a good laugh that day, but something in him told him to move. Isao was very sure that this feeling wasn't coming from him, because if he had any real say in the matter he would have just let Kafka walk out the door none the wiser. But no, something in him told him to move, to stop Kafka from leaving so soon. Isao could only watch on helplessly as his hand reached out with the intention of grabbing his friend's wrist, only to lock a finger through a belt loop on the back of his pants.

Being suddenly pulled to a stop certainly caught Kafka's attention. He turned and looked down at the large finger that had hooked itself in his belt loop and traced down the arm it was attached to and looked up on an uncanny expression. Kafka was sure Isao didn't have it in him to be flustered, but the telltale sign of blood flooding across his stony expression could only tell Kafka that Isao was caught off guard just as much as him. With twitching lips and a nervous sweat beading up across his brow, Isao's brain fought his voice and made his stammer unintelligibly for a brief second before he wrestled his hand away like it had caught on fire.

"Is there, uhhh... something you'd like to say General?" Kafka asked tentatively, but couldn't hide the amused grin spreading across his face.

"Nope. Carry on Hibino." Isao quickly shut down and shoved himself back under the weight rack, hoping the distraction for him would make Kafka leave as well.

It almost worked. Isao could see Kafka considering putting the incident behind them as he slowly shuffled out the gym doors, but it wasn't effective enough. A part of Isao started to scream in terror as he saw Kafka turn back around and stride back towards him with intent.

"Actually, I think I really do want to know what was going through your mind just then." Kafka challenged with a smug grin.

"Idon'tknowwhatyou'retalkingabout." Isao's answer mirrored the speed at which he was pumping the heavy steel bar as he tried to keep him mind occupied.

"Oh, you answered that way too quickly." Kafka retorted.

"That is not a thing." Isao countered as he gritted his teeth, forcing himself to speak slower.

"Isao." Kafka stern command was helped along by him coming around to the back of the weight rack and forcing the General to rest it in the hooks, "I am giving you one chance... to speak your mind here."

Isao was helpless as he could only look up at Kafka. His distressed gaze bashed relentlessly against Kafka's affirming and comforting eyes. Isao's throat tightened as he swallowed thickly, feeling every muscle in his neck straining against the action. He knew Kafka could feel his sweaty hands shaking the bar, but as he felt those callused pads brush over his fingers and Kafka's thumb rub soothing circles into his, he could begin to force himself to relax. Isao could never stop himself from taking comfort in Kafka's presence, and it wasn't about to change now. He closed his eyes as he prepared himself to speak.

"I... didn't feel like... having you leave just yet." Isao finally admitted as he fought every nerve in his body to say his desire out loud.

"And why is that?" Kafka asked with a sickeningly sweet tone. Not condescending, just... amused.

Isao had to take a deep breath before he could open his mouth, "Because I missed you."

"Aw, you did?" Kafka sang as he flashed a bright smile, "I missed you too, big guy. But don't worry, you'll be seeing plenty of me tonight." Kafka leaned back off of the bar and started to walk away again.

Isao knew very well that his last chance was slipping away from him again. Hikari might have held his hand through every step of their relationship, but it was clear that he was going to have to take a more active role the second time around. Pride and Ego be damned, he was already on a roll. Might as well see it through to the crash. Isao stood up suddenly and reach out again. This time making sure he grabbed Kafka's wrist instead. When he turned around again, Kafka's expression dropped from his usual joyous and joking smile and fell into something awestruck. Kafka could see that Isao wasn't done talking, even if the bigger man hadn't said anything more yet. He turned to face the general a little more, sliding his hand back so it could slot into Isao's fingers as hope swelled in his chest. Kafka could joke and kid himself all he wanted, but he never denied that he had grown close to the Director. He just never thought he would get the chance to see if the Director felt the same way.

"Kafka, I..." Isao spoke softly as he felt his strength leaving him, "I... like you. A lot."

Kafka let out a little sputtering laugh as he heard that, "You like me? What are you, twelve?"

Isao just grumbled and averted his gaze, knowing full well what that confession sounded like but couldn't bring himself to express everything fully in time. Kafka just continued to chuckle softly as his other hand came up to cup Isao's face.

"But I'll take it." Kafka admitted as he gently pulled Isao down to his level.

The kiss they shared was soft and gentle, full of unsureness and hesitation, but nothing negative about it could cover up the sweetness in its taste. Their lips moved slowly against each other, almost as if they were taking their time. Kafka was, definitely. Isao was just busy trying to remember what it was like to kiss like this the first time. It had been a while for him, and whatever memories he had left were still a little fuzzy on the details, but he was glad that his muscle memory had left some of the basics within him. They did eventually pull away from each other, but not so far away that they couldn't breathe each other in. Isao tasted like sweat and chocolate protein drinks, Kafka tasted like a cold bento train meal. To the both of them, there wasn't a better taste in the world.

"DAAAaaad! Did I leave my phone in here?" Kikoru's tinny call echoed down the hall and announced her presence before her physical arrival. It wasn't early enough to stop her from seeing her two father figures pull away from each other with guilty expressions on their faces. As Kikoru stood in the doorway with shock and betrayal, Kafka tried to speak up first.

"Kikoru, I can explain-"

"YOU WEAR GLASSES?!" Kikoru shrieked as she saw what was on her father's face.

"Wait... that's what you freak out about first?" Kafka asked with disbelief.

"How long has this been going on Daddy! When were you going to tell me about this?" Kikoru continued unbothered by Kafka's interjections and proceeded to berate her father.

"Kikoru! I just kissed your father." Kafka reiterated as he gestured wildly to the man in question. Isao just kept silent and held his face in his hands out of shame.

"Yeahyeahyeah, I don't care about that." Kikoru acknowledged halfheartedly as she waived him off, "We had a nice long discussion, yada yada yada I'm happy for you, but YOU." She stomped her way up to her father with a threatening aura, "You have a lot to explain for yourself, mister! How long have you been keeping this a secret from me?"

"Okay, if you're going to be like this." Kafka dejectedly muttered to himself as he grabbed Kikrou by the shoulders and tried to shove her away from her father and back out the door. Kikrou continued to vocally protest and tried to fight her way back into the conversation, but was thoroughly outmatched by Kafka's strength.

"I'll come see you later tonight, okay? How about a 7/11 picnic by the river? If you don't mind a cheap date, that is." Kafka called out over his shoulder as he continued to push the feral child out of the gym.

"Sounds great." Isao called back while never taking his hands off of his face.

He watched through his fingers as Kafka smiled brightly before vanishing out of sight. Once the stress of the situation left with them, Isao could feel himself relax once again. Unfortunately, he could feel himself relax a little too much and heard the sound of the back of his pants ripping. The heat coming off of his face could have cooked a turkey once he heard the sound of his Kaiju tail smacking rhythmically into the weight bench behind him.

▼△▼△▼△▼△

@margoteve This is probably the only Isakaf fic you will ever get out of me.

@iceclew I'm just gonna start auto-tagging you in my fic because I've started wondering if Tumblr isn't doing it's damn job. (also don't worry about the review. I mean, I would still like them, but there's still no rush on them.)

apologies for any blatant typos. I need to put this down because my brain is frying. Will port over to Ao3 soon.

[sonicasura]

Does this mean that in Rafflesia Woes, Skully and his siblings existence would be a welcomed surprise? Because they thought they would never have children? (assuming they didn't adopt for one reason or the other.)

There were definitely a few discussions about children between the two. Both decided to wait until their 6th anniversary before expanding their family. That of course didn't happen as planned considering Kafka turns into a kaiju on the 5th.

Skully can come in two ways with the second having guaranteed siblings. The first being if one of Kafka's lizard clones in isolated for too long. It's the least stressful and awkward occurrence unlike the other option.

To sum it up, three weeks of peculiar behavior by Kafka after one private moment between the lovers. Soshiro pretty much stormed over to his husband's nest on the 23rd day because the weirdness was getting a bit too much to handle. Imagine his fucking face seeing a now flustered Kafka curled around three 6 ft blue speckled obsidian kaiju eggs.

Skully and his siblings definitely wouldn't start out tiny via the second option. Nothing like 6 ft tall kaiju whelp to bring about the most awkward emergency meeting ever. They get to keep the kids in the end despite the constant monitoring afterwards.

Unlike Kafka, Skully and his siblings don't have any issue managing a smaller size for long periods of time(like 18 hrs tops). The limit they can shrink to is 2 ft which is definitely a more manageable size than their normal 6 ft. You can bet there were a variety of jokes about Soshiro's kids.

Especially whenever they follow him around like ducklings.

[limerenceheart]

Hello, can i ask about headcannon with Yan!Stellaron Hunters fought The Chosen One!Reader (From Animation vs Animator) and got defeated because reader's insane power (they have heat vision, fire manipulation, ice manipulation, lightning manipulation and more), what would they do to capture reader though ?

hello! i only wrote silverwolf for this request because this is the first time that I've heard about Animation vs Animator and she would find this hardest to do.

trigger warnings - breach of privacy.

silver wolf never liked anything non-digital, the living is something that she couldn't alter with the few taps of a keyboard or having access to the codes of the dna.

the hacker wasn't happy to find out that elios had asked forced her to create a trap weapon to catch one of kafka's past victims from exposing the truth about the stellaron hunters.

cleaning up other people shit, as always.

silver wolf was used to turning a blind eye towards things but whenever blade or kafka would return with her weapon in a bust up state kept driving her nuts.

whoever the target was, their fire manipulation was preventing silverwolf from becoming the winner so the silver hair woman took it to another level.

befriend then betray.

(y/n) was different from what the hacker imagined, her ability should belonged to a sophisticated mature woman but instead a young girl that was too naive and a little bit of a scary cat.

silver wolf understood why the weapons would always be burnt into lava, the girl clearly did not have control over the fire when being in a daunting situation.

"i bribed her so she will stay silent."

blade and kafka just accepted this conclusion, (y/n) was becoming a pain and facing silver wolf's wrath on each failed attempt was not a pleasant thing to experience.

it was a lie though, silverwolf just never revealed her true colours and if (y/n) somehow did managed to pluck up the courage, she would just easily be able to shut everything down since (y/n) accepted her present of a mobile phone.

"the phone is know for the security features."

(y/n) fell for that too, never realising that silverwolf would monitors her messages and catch glimpses of her from the camera.

it's a shame because the hacker took a photo of everything.

but sometimes, silverwolf needed to resist the urge from installing a virus on the electronic device when getting certain messages from others.

(y/n) belong to her and the only thing silverwolf wanted to do was invite (y/n) to play video games with her and take it to the next step.

[mvishnukumar]

How can you optimize the performance of machine learning models in the cloud?

Optimizing machine learning models in the cloud involves several strategies to enhance performance and efficiency. Here’s a detailed approach:

Choose the Right Cloud Services:

Managed ML Services: 

Use managed services like AWS SageMaker, Google AI Platform, or Azure Machine Learning, which offer built-in tools for training, tuning, and deploying models.

Auto-scaling: 

Enable auto-scaling features to adjust resources based on demand, which helps manage costs and performance.

Optimize Data Handling:

Data Storage: 

Use scalable cloud storage solutions like Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob Storage for storing large datasets efficiently.

Data Pipeline: 

Implement efficient data pipelines with tools like Apache Kafka or AWS Glue to manage and process large volumes of data.

Select Appropriate Computational Resources:

Instance Types: 

Choose the right instance types based on your model’s requirements. For example, use GPU or TPU instances for deep learning tasks to accelerate training.

Spot Instances: 

Utilize spot instances or preemptible VMs to reduce costs for non-time-sensitive tasks.

Optimize Model Training:

Hyperparameter Tuning: 

Use cloud-based hyperparameter tuning services to automate the search for optimal model parameters. Services like Google Cloud AI Platform’s HyperTune or AWS SageMaker’s Automatic Model Tuning can help.

Distributed Training: 

Distribute model training across multiple instances or nodes to speed up the process. Frameworks like TensorFlow and PyTorch support distributed training and can take advantage of cloud resources.

Monitoring and Logging:

Monitoring Tools: 

Implement monitoring tools to track performance metrics and resource usage. AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Monitoring, and Azure Monitor offer real-time insights.

Logging: 

Maintain detailed logs for debugging and performance analysis, using tools like AWS CloudTrail or Google Cloud Logging.

Model Deployment:

Serverless Deployment: 

Use serverless options to simplify scaling and reduce infrastructure management. Services like AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions can handle inference tasks without managing servers.

Model Optimization: 

Optimize models by compressing them or using model distillation techniques to reduce inference time and improve latency.

Cost Management:

Cost Analysis: 

Regularly analyze and optimize cloud costs to avoid overspending. Tools like AWS Cost Explorer, Google Cloud’s Cost Management, and Azure Cost Management can help monitor and manage expenses.

By carefully selecting cloud services, optimizing data handling and training processes, and monitoring performance, you can efficiently manage and improve machine learning models in the cloud.

[sleepyorchidmonster]

Remember the "Last line Challenge?"

Tagging @banterismylovelanguage , @isnt-it-pretty and @canonical-transformation because I'm about to ramble about the story.

So, imagine if, in a future installment of Star Rail, we face off against another one of the Lord Ravagers (Irontomb in this case).

However, this time they're targeting Nous and all of the cyberspace, after all, is there anything more destructive than erasing all manner of communication and data between worlds? Everything would plunge into chaos.

Let's say that their choice of attack is using the denizens of propagation (Tanzzyroth), as literal bugs in the system, similar to how Phantylia used the Abundance to destroy the Luofu.

This would happen in Hertha Space Station (or anywhere that's related to the Genius Society). And, although we would have Hertha and Screwllum on our side, only the Trailblazer would actually be able to enter.

The bossfight has 5 stages, one for each firewall we have to bypass (the bugs ate most of the wall but we have to get to Nous).

The first is a 2d platformer where we have to avoid the bugs and find the first entrance, then the second is a simulated universe themed encounter with plenty of riddles, the third one is to literally "surf the internet" (think of a mix between Elysia's Herrscher music video and the first half of Dvalin fight).

During each of the stages, we can see Silver Wolf's chibis hiding in the background, sometimes even giving tips on how to proceed.

The last two stages are the actual bossfight, the first round is basically the Traiblazer and Silver Wolf, who joins the fight, against the Lord Ravager, with the two of them being the last line of defense between him and Nous. (The other character slots are locked).

It's just us, the Emanator of Destruction and everyone that is watching because the whole thing is being livestreamed to the entire Galaxy. (Something something let me crush all your remaining hopes by defeating the resistance in front of your eyes.)

The first round ends with everyone almost dying, only to be saved by Nous (and Silver Wolf usung her chibi friends as a respawn feature). The background changes to the Simulated Universe, Screwllum's disembodied voice is giving us directions, and we can now choose the last two party members from the ranks of the Nameless and Stellaron Hunters (you can only choose one from each faction, though).

Turns out that our friends in the Astral Express and the Stellaron Hunters have been trying to hack their way into the fight as soon as the livestream started, Welt was doing his best while the Mara got the best of Blade and he decided to headbutt the monitors to see if they were portals, Kafka wasn't fast enough, though Elio prophesised that the devices had to go, so no harm done.

Anyway, Nous noticed their efforts and decided to help out, by giving them gsme controllers and letting them pick a fighter. Notice that Blade is awful at any games so his character acts erratically, think Donald from Kingdom Hearts. He is playing on a Wii remote. Help him.

Nous summons all of the Genius Society, represented as shooting stars, as an extra attack, similar to the Engine of Creation or Inhibitor Lunae. Sometimes we get a different effect based on the Genius Society member, like a freeze reaction for Hertha.

We manage to beat the Lord Ravager and return to the real world for some much needed rest (the Stellaron Hunters don't have to worry about their bounties for a bit because they did help save an Aeon so they've been temporarily pardoned).

And that's how Silver Wolf returns home to see all of the monitors destroyed, leading to Kafka's line: "Sorry sweetie, Bladie destroyed all of the monitors!"

The funny thing is that I had all of this thought out before the 1.3 trailer. And now we're getting Tanzzyroth bugs in Simulated Universe!

[aiagent]

What Skills Are Needed to Deploy a Generative AI Solution for IT Workspace?

As businesses race to leverage artificial intelligence for digital transformation, Generative AI solutions for IT workspaces are emerging as a game-changing force. These solutions streamline support workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and enhance user experiences through intelligent systems that can generate content, code, and solutions dynamically.

However, deploying a generative AI system is not plug-and-play. It requires a carefully curated mix of technical, analytical, and domain-specific skills. Whether you're a decision-maker looking to scale AI adoption or an IT professional aiming to stay ahead of the curve, understanding the key competencies needed to implement a Generative AI solution for IT workspace is essential.

Below, we explore the critical skills and roles required for successful deployment.

1. Machine Learning and Deep Learning Expertise

At the core of any generative AI system lies advanced machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL). These technologies power the models that enable generative outputs like text, code, images, and synthetic data.

Key skills include:

Understanding of ML algorithms (e.g., supervised/unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning)

Deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Hugging Face Transformers

Model training and fine-tuning for specific IT use cases (e.g., chatbots, incident response)

Prompt engineering for optimizing large language model outputs

This expertise is essential to customize a Generative AI solution for IT workspace to fit your environment's unique needs.

2. Data Engineering and Data Management

Generative AI systems thrive on high-quality data. To ensure the system delivers accurate and useful results, data must be curated, cleaned, labeled, and efficiently managed.

Skills required:

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes

Data pipeline development using tools like Apache Kafka, Airflow, or Spark

Data warehousing with platforms like Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift

Structured and unstructured data handling

Data governance and compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.)

Since IT environments produce vast amounts of logs, tickets, and metrics, good data engineering ensures that your Generative AI solution for IT workspace is trained on relevant, accurate, and actionable inputs.

3. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

For many IT-related applications, especially those involving chatbots, ticket classification, or code generation, NLP is a critical domain.

Important NLP capabilities include:

Text summarization for condensing incident logs

Named entity recognition (NER) for parsing logs and error messages

Sentiment and intent analysis for service desk optimization

Language translation for global IT operations

An NLP expert ensures that the Generative AI solution for IT workspace can interpret and generate human-like responses that align with enterprise standards.

4. Cloud Infrastructure and DevOps Skills

Modern AI workloads run on scalable cloud infrastructure. To successfully deploy and maintain a Generative AI solution for IT workspace, teams need strong cloud and DevOps capabilities.

Skills to look for:

Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)

Containerization using Docker and orchestration with Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines for continuous model updates

Monitoring and logging to ensure system health and compliance

Cost optimization strategies for compute-intensive tasks

These competencies help teams deploy AI models reliably and at scale, a non-negotiable in enterprise IT environments.

5. API Development and Integration

Generative AI doesn't work in isolation. To make it effective in an IT workspace, it must integrate with existing tools like ServiceNow, Jira, Slack, or custom enterprise systems.

Critical integration skills:

RESTful API development

Webhooks and middleware development

Experience with GraphQL, gRPC, or other modern communication protocols

Knowledge of enterprise ITSM platforms and how to plug AI features into them

By enabling seamless communication between systems, API developers make sure the Generative AI solution for IT workspace enhances—not disrupts—existing workflows.

6. Cybersecurity and Risk Management

AI models can introduce new vulnerabilities. It's crucial to incorporate security throughout the AI lifecycle, from training data protection to deployment safeguards.

Security skills needed:

Data anonymization and encryption

Secure model training environments

Adversarial testing to ensure robustness

Access control and identity management

Audit logging for AI decisions and data access

With cybersecurity baked in, your Generative AI solution for IT workspace will not only be powerful but also trustworthy.

7. AI Ethics and Governance

Generative AI raises questions about data usage, fairness, and transparency. To maintain trust and meet regulatory standards, governance mechanisms must be in place.

Relevant competencies:

Bias detection and mitigation

Explainability frameworks (e.g., LIME, SHAP)

Model documentation and versioning

Auditability of decisions made by AI systems

Familiarity with AI ethics guidelines (e.g., EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF)

An ethically governed Generative AI solution for IT workspace is more likely to gain stakeholder trust and long-term adoption.

8. Project Management and Cross-functional Leadership

Deploying a generative AI system is a multi-disciplinary effort. Effective project management is needed to coordinate efforts across data scientists, IT operations, developers, and business leaders.

Project management skills:

Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban)

Risk and dependency management

Roadmap planning for AI initiatives

Vendor and budget oversight

Cross-team collaboration tools like Jira, Confluence, or Asana

Having a strong leader at the helm ensures that your Generative AI solution for IT workspace launches on time, on budget, and with measurable impact.

Conclusion

Deploying a Generative AI solution for IT workspace is a strategic investment that can transform how support teams operate, how issues are resolved, and how productivity scales across the organization. But this transformation doesn’t happen automatically. It requires a coordinated effort across multiple skill sets—from data science and NLP to cloud engineering, integration, and change management.

For organizations looking to lead in the AI-first future, the journey begins with building a cross-functional team empowered with the right technical and strategic skills. Whether you’re just starting or looking to scale, aligning talent with purpose is the key to unlocking the full value of generative AI in IT operations.

[odooerpanditskeyfeatures]

AI Development Companies: Building the Foundations of Intelligent Systems

AI Development Companies: Building the Foundations of Intelligent Systems

In recent years, artificial intelligence has moved from academic research labs to boardrooms, factory floors, and cloud platforms. Behind this evolution are AI development companies — specialized firms that don’t just write code but architect intelligence into machines, processes, and decision systems. These companies don’t follow trends; they shape them.

This article delves deep into what AI development companies actually do, how they build intelligent systems, the technologies they work with, the challenges they solve, and why their work has become indispensable in shaping the digital ecosystem.

1. What Defines an AI Development Company?

An AI development company is not simply a software agency offering machine learning as a feature. It’s a multidisciplinary team that combines expertise in data science, algorithm engineering, cloud computing, statistics, and domain-specific knowledge to craft solutions that can learn from data and make decisions.

At its core, an AI development company:

Designs learning algorithms (supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement learning)

Implements neural networks and deep learning architectures

Processes structured and unstructured data (text, images, audio, video)

Integrates intelligent systems into real-time environments

Manages lifecycle from data ingestion → model training → deployment → continuous monitoring

But unlike traditional software, AI solutions are non-deterministic — meaning they adapt and evolve over time. That nuance changes everything — from how systems are built to how they’re maintained.

2. The Architecture of AI Solutions

A high-quality AI system is rarely built in a straight line. Instead, it’s the outcome of layered thinking and iterations. Here’s a simplified breakdown of how an AI solution typically comes to life:

a. Problem Formalization

Not every business problem can be solved with AI — and not all AI solutions are useful. The first step involves abstracting a real-world problem into a machine-learnable format. For instance:

“Predict machine failure” becomes a time-series classification problem.

“Understand customer feedback” becomes a sentiment analysis task.

b. Data Strategy and Engineering

The backbone of AI is data. Noisy, incomplete, or biased data leads to faulty predictions — the classic “garbage in, garbage out” scenario.

Data engineers in AI firms:

Set up data pipelines (ETL/ELT)

Structure databases for high-performance querying

Implement real-time data ingestion using Kafka, Flink, or Spark

Normalize and enrich datasets using feature engineering

c. Model Selection and Training

Once clean data is available, data scientists and ML engineers begin the experimental phase:

Testing different models: decision trees, random forests, CNNs, RNNs, transformers

Evaluating with metrics like accuracy, recall, F1-score, AUC-ROC

Handling overfitting, class imbalance, and data leakage

Using frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, Hugging Face, and ONNX

The goal isn’t just performance — it’s robustness, explainability, and reproducibility.

d. Model Deployment and Integration

AI that lives in a Jupyter notebook is of no value unless deployed at scale. AI development companies handle:

Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)

RESTful APIs and gRPC endpoints

CI/CD for ML (MLOps) pipelines

Real-time model serving using TorchServe or TensorFlow Serving

Monitoring tools for model drift, latency, and accuracy

This step transforms a model into a living, breathing system.

3. Core Technical Capabilities

Let’s dive deeper into the capabilities most AI development firms provide — beyond just buzzwords.

i. Custom Machine Learning

Custom ML models are trained on client-specific datasets. These aren't pre-trained models from public repositories. They're tailored to context — medical diagnostics, fraud detection, recommendation systems, etc.

ii. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Understanding human language isn’t trivial. NLP requires:

Tokenization and lemmatization

Named Entity Recognition (NER)

Sentiment analysis

Topic modeling (LDA, BERT embeddings)

Text summarization and question answering

Modern NLP relies heavily on transformer-based models (BERT, RoBERTa, GPT variants) and fine-tuning on domain-specific corpora.

iii. Computer Vision

From analyzing CT scans to identifying defective components on a conveyor belt, computer vision is vital. AI firms use:

CNN architectures (ResNet, EfficientNet, YOLO)

Image segmentation (U-Net, Mask R-CNN)

Object tracking and OCR (Tesseract, OpenCV)

Augmentation techniques (rotation, flipping, noise injection)

iv. AI for Edge Devices

Not all intelligence runs in the cloud. AI companies also build models optimized for edge deployment — lightweight neural nets that run on microcontrollers or mobile chips (e.g., TensorFlow Lite, ONNX Runtime Mobile).

v. Conversational AI and Speech Recognition

Custom AI chatbots today use:

Dialogue management systems (Rasa, Dialogflow)

ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) using wav2vec, DeepSpeech

TTS (Text-to-Speech) using Tacotron, WaveNet

Context-aware conversations with memory modules

These aren’t static bots—they learn from interactions.

4. Real-World Applications and Use Cases

AI development companies work across sectors. Here are some deeply technical use cases:

Predictive Maintenance in Manufacturing: Sensor data is processed in real-time using anomaly detection models to predict equipment failures.

Dynamic Pricing in eCommerce: Reinforcement learning optimizes pricing strategies based on demand elasticity, competitor actions, and inventory.

Autonomous Drones in Agriculture: Computer vision identifies crop health using NDVI maps and deep segmentation.

Medical Imaging: AI models analyze radiology images with 95%+ accuracy, outperforming baseline human diagnosis in certain conditions.

Financial Risk Modeling: Graph neural networks are used to detect collusion and fraud in transactional networks.

These solutions are not “plug and play.” They’re complex, highly customized systems involving multi-disciplinary collaboration.

5. Challenges That AI Developers Tackle Head-On

AI development is not glamorous — it’s gritty, iterative, and nuanced. Here are some of the challenges seasoned firms navigate:

a. Data Scarcity

In niche domains, labeled datasets are rare. Developers use:

Transfer learning

Semi-supervised learning

Synthetic data generation using GANs or simulators

b. Model Interpretability

AI is often a black box. But for sectors like healthcare or law, explainability is non-negotiable.

Tools like LIME, SHAP, Eli5, and Captum help visualize why a model made a decision.

c. Bias and Fairness

Biases in training data can lead to discriminatory AI. Ethical AI teams run bias audits, adversarial testing, and ensure demographic parity.

d. Model Drift

Real-world data evolves. AI models degrade over time. Firms set up continuous monitoring and retraining pipelines — a concept known as MLOps.

e. Security and Privacy

AI systems are susceptible to adversarial attacks and data poisoning. Encryption, differential privacy, and federated learning are becoming standard protocols.

6. What Makes a Good AI Development Company?

It’s not just about code. The best AI firms:

Focus on research-backed development (often publishing papers or contributing to open-source)

Maintain a cross-functional team (data scientists, ML engineers, DevOps, domain experts)

Use version control for data and models (DVC, MLflow)

Engage in responsible AI practices (bias testing, energy efficiency)

Follow agile and reproducible experimentation workflows

Moreover, a good AI partner doesn’t overpromise — they explain the limitations clearly, define metrics transparently, and test rigorously.

Final Reflections

AI is not a monolithic solution — it's a continuously evolving field grounded in mathematics, computing, and human context. AI development companies are the silent architects building the systems we now rely on — from the voice that answers your customer query to the model that flags a disease before symptoms arise.

These companies aren’t magicians — they’re deeply technical teams who understand that AI is both an art and a science. In their world, every model is an experiment, every dataset a story, and every deployment a responsibility.

As organizations move deeper into data-driven decision-making, the role of AI development firms will only become more integral. But success lies not in chasing trends — it lies in choosing partners who understand the terrain, ask the right questions, and build with rigor.

[daintilyultimateslayer]

kafka management

LivestreamIQ – Kafka-hosted, web-based GUI that offers intelligent alerting and monitoring tools to reduce the risk of downtime, streamline troubleshooting, surface key metrics, and accelerate issue resolution. It helps offload monitoring costs related to storing historical data and is built on Confluent’s deep understanding of data in motion infrastructure. LiveStreamIQ empowers businesses to proactively manage their Kafka infrastructure, ensuring optimal performance, reliability, and security. It is a niche product for Kafka Environment Management that provides Intelligent Alerting, Unified Notification Gateway with a scalable architecture ensuring the Messaging system is up and running as per Business critical Needs.

Contac us at:

OUR ADDRESS

403, 4TH FLOOR, SAKET CALLIPOLIS, Rainbow Drive, Sarjapur Road, Varthurhobli East Taluk, Doddakannelli, Bengaluru Karnataka 560035

OUR CONTACTS

contact@prodevans.com

+91 97044 56015

[hawskstack]

Introduction to Red Hat OpenShift AI: Features, Architecture & Components

In today’s data-driven world, organizations need a scalable, secure, and flexible platform to build, deploy, and manage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models. Red Hat OpenShift AI is built precisely for that. It provides a consistent, Kubernetes-native platform for MLOps, integrating open-source tools, enterprise-grade support, and cloud-native flexibility.

Let’s break down the key features, architecture, and components that make OpenShift AI a powerful platform for AI innovation.

🔍 What is Red Hat OpenShift AI?

Red Hat OpenShift AI (formerly known as OpenShift Data Science) is a fully supported, enterprise-ready platform that brings together tools for data scientists, ML engineers, and DevOps teams. It enables rapid model development, training, and deployment on the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

🚀 Key Features of OpenShift AI

1. Built for MLOps

OpenShift AI supports the entire ML lifecycle—from experimentation to deployment—within a consistent, containerized environment.

2. Integrated Jupyter Notebooks

Data scientists can use Jupyter notebooks pre-integrated into the platform, allowing quick experimentation with data and models.

3. Model Training and Serving

Use Kubernetes to scale model training jobs and deploy inference services using tools like KServe and Seldon Core.

4. Security and Governance

OpenShift AI integrates enterprise-grade security, role-based access controls (RBAC), and policy enforcement using OpenShift’s built-in features.

5. Support for Open Source Tools

Seamless integration with open-source frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, and ONNX for maximum flexibility.

6. Hybrid and Multicloud Ready

You can run OpenShift AI on any OpenShift cluster—on-premise or across cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP.

🧠 OpenShift AI Architecture Overview

Red Hat OpenShift AI builds upon OpenShift’s robust Kubernetes platform, adding specific components to support the AI/ML workflows. The architecture broadly consists of:

1. User Interface Layer

JupyterHub: Multi-user Jupyter notebook support.

Dashboard: UI for managing projects, models, and pipelines.

2. Model Development Layer

Notebooks: Containerized environments with GPU/CPU options.

Data Connectors: Access to S3, Ceph, or other object storage for datasets.

3. Training and Pipeline Layer

Open Data Hub and Kubeflow Pipelines: Automate ML workflows.

Ray, MPI, and Horovod: For distributed training jobs.

4. Inference Layer

KServe/Seldon: Model serving at scale with REST and gRPC endpoints.

Model Monitoring: Metrics and performance tracking for live models.

5. Storage and Resource Management

Ceph / OpenShift Data Foundation: Persistent storage for model artifacts and datasets.

GPU Scheduling and Node Management: Leverages OpenShift for optimized hardware utilization.

🧩 Core Components of OpenShift AI

ComponentDescriptionJupyterHubWeb-based development interface for notebooksKServe/SeldonInference serving engines with auto-scalingOpen Data HubML platform tools including Kafka, Spark, and moreKubeflow PipelinesWorkflow orchestration for training pipelinesModelMeshScalable, multi-model servingPrometheus + GrafanaMonitoring and dashboarding for models and infrastructureOpenShift PipelinesCI/CD for ML workflows using Tekton

🌎 Use Cases

Financial Services: Fraud detection using real-time ML models

Healthcare: Predictive diagnostics and patient risk models

Retail: Personalized recommendations powered by AI

Manufacturing: Predictive maintenance and quality control

🏁 Final Thoughts

Red Hat OpenShift AI brings together the best of Kubernetes, open-source innovation, and enterprise-level security to enable real-world AI at scale. Whether you’re building a simple classifier or deploying a complex deep learning pipeline, OpenShift AI provides a unified, scalable, and production-grade platform.

For more info, Kindly follow: Hawkstack Technologies

[sonicasura]

1/2

Kafka was like 12 at the oldest when his mom died. Of course it was a nightmare. We don't really know what age Kafka and Mina was when the first kaiju attacked their homes in canon, at least from what I remember. And given that the second in my au happened months after the first one he was nowhere near a teenager or adult when he lost his mom.

Though regadless of which verson I'd use, Kafka statys in touch with his dad for years. And visits when he can after his old man move to his grandparents place.

His dad always found it a bit akward that Kafka ended up working as a monster sweeper, given his family history. Know or not. But in this verson it actually helps his son greatly as Kafka needs a lot more food to fully function as a adult since his kaiju side is awake instead of dorment. Had it stayed dormant, Kafka would have not needed to eat kaiju meat he stole from his workplace at night every few weeks.

It was the same for his mom and Proto. While Proto found he loved human food, with some junk foods being his favorite. The old kaiju had to hunt other kaiju to properly get the needed nutrition and not bankrupt themself.

Akari was no different, even if she needed to eat less of the amount her dad needed being only 50/50. Kafka need even less, which helps greatly when he has to go and get said kaiju meat.

And yeah after the main events happened, a lot of stuff got filled in for Mina. She did give Kafka a good smack in the head for waiting this long to tell her the truth, but she understood his fears.

Awkward dose not even fit properly with how Soshiro feels about this all. He was infact the one who found out that No 8 was that welp in the old file after he did some digging with Okonogi. As both feld like they had seen the kaiju somewhere.

You can imagien when the two of them reported that No 8 had been spotted before main events as a little welp caused a bit of a mess. There was enough familities from the old pictures they had of Kafka's early form that there where little doubt that it was true.

Some of the seniors where happy to know that that meant no mama kaiju to protect him, since he's an adult now and they know his mom is dead. And feel dread when they realized said full grown welp is now the strongest kaiju know to mankind.

I'm not surprised at all that the entire kaiju side of his family had larger appetites. Only a Pokemon Trainer is equipped to deal with something on such a magnitude. Kafka munching on kaiju corpses when his coworkers are gone or aren't paying attention. It isn't uncommon for something to eat at the bodies so no one would suspect a thing.

Mina honestly would smack Kafka cause her friend really can't do things like this alone. She's just glad he managed to not get into trouble much earlier. Kafka is a Grade A disaster after all.

Soshiro and Okonogi have a lot of material to build their case on. Especially since the Third Division in general likes Kafka. (He's practically their heart similar to Mina.) Although his family line is definitely being monitored, even moreso if Kafka has kids down the line. Tiny had greatly amplified his kaiju blood thus the potency might be way more than 1/4 now.

Kafka feeling awkward in Riot mode honestly sounds funny. Bigger scarier No.8 acting more like s panicked kid cause Tiny just supersized his Kaiju form and the poor man is trying to calm the thing down while fighting Isao. "It's an idiotic old man, not a kaiju so fucking chill!"

Kafka swears he has an extra feral kid in his head than a mysterious body mate.

[swagtalk123]

Comprehensively improve your quantitative trading experience: AllTick API

High latency? Incomplete data? Unstable interface? These issues severely limit the implementation of quantitative strategies. In this article, we will show you how to build an efficient, stable and scalable quantitative trading system. In particular, we will focus on how to use the AllTick API to solve data problems and quickly seize market opportunities.

Why do we need a quantitative trading system?

Quantitative trading uses algorithms and programs to automatically identify market opportunities and execute trades. Compared to manual operations, it has the following significant advantages:

✅ Fully automated, never miss an opportunity ✅ Execute accurate trades with millisecond-level response speed ✅ Backtest and optimize strategies based on clear logic ✅ Systemized risk management mechanism effectively suppresses losses

II. Core architecture of quantitative trading system (6 major modules)

1️⃣ Strategy research and modeling 📦 Tools: Python (Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn), Jupyter

🧠 Contents: Technical indicators, statistical arbitrage, machine learning models, event-driven strategies, etc.

2️⃣ Data acquisition and cleaning (the most core part)

🔧 Recommended tools:

✅ AllTick API: tick-level high-frequency data, over 100,000 types worldwide, low latency

yfinance: Free but with data delay

ccxt: Supports multiple cryptocurrency exchanges

Kafka: Used for real-time data stream processing

🧹 Cleaning tasks:

Outlier removal

Missing value imputation

Time adjustment

Feature engineering (volatility, momentum, etc.)

3️⃣ Backtesting and strategy optimization

⏳ Tools: Backtrader, Zipline QuantConnect

🔁 Contents: Historical backtesting, parameter tuning, robustness testing, Monte Carlo simulation

4️⃣ Automated trade execution

📡 Tools: Alpaca API, IB API, FIX protocol, etc.

⚙️ Contents: Access to trade signals for orders, slippage control, matching mechanisms, risk management

5️⃣ Risk management systems

⚠️ Tools: PyPortfolioOpt, Grafana, Prometheus

📊 Contents: Position management, stop loss/take profit, volatility control, circuit breaker mechanisms

6️⃣ Operational and real-time monitoring

🛠️ Tools: Grafana, Prometheus, AlertManager

📉 Contents: System operation status monitoring, performance alarms, log auditing

AllTick API: Data is the soul of quant systems ✅ Why choose AllTick Benefits and features of AllTick Wide data coverage: Covers more than 100,000 stocks worldwide. Supports US stocks, foreign exchange, cryptocurrencies, and commodities. Powerful real-time WebSocket push function, average latency is about 170 milliseconds. Data stability: 99.95% SLA, high service availability. High-frequency tick-by-tick market: Supports tick-level matching data. Ideal for high-frequency strategies. Multi-language support: Python, Go, JavaScript, Java SDK. Rich historical data: Supports K-line, tick-by-tick, and market data acquisition. IV. Practice: Accessing the real-time market with AllTick API in Python Subscribe to real-time tick-by-tick data for ETH/USDT using WebSocket

python

Copy edit

import websocket import json def on_message(ws, message): print(f"Received message: {message}") def on_error(ws, error): print(f"Error: {error}") def on_close(ws, close_status_code, close_msg): print("Connection closed") def on_open(ws): print("Connection opened") subscribe_message = { "method": "SUBSCRIBE", "params": ["ETH/USDT@trade"], "id": 1 } ws.send(json.dumps(subscribe_message)) if name == "main": websocket.enableTrace(True) ws = websocket.WebSocketApp("wss://quote.alltick.co/ws", on_open=on_open, on_message=on_message, on_error=on_error, on_close=on_close) ws.run_forever()

V. Overview of the construction process: from strategy research to actual trading Stage Task Description ✅ Demand analysis Clarify trading market, type, frequency, and risk appetite ✅ Strategy development Select technical indicators, statistical/AI models for strategy design ✅ Register AllTick and obtain API key and debug data interface ✅ Data acquisition and cleaning Acquire tick/K-line data and perform cleaning process ✅ Backtest optimization Use Backtrader for backtesting and parameter adjustment ✅ Real-time execution system Connect to broker API (Alpaca/IB, etc.) to place orders ✅ Risk management system integration Stop loss, position management, capital management ✅ System deployment and monitoring Use Grafana + Prometheus for real-time monitoring ✅ Continuous strategy iteration Results of performing iterative optimization and retraining based on real-time data VI. Conclusion: Success in quantitative trading starts with data For a stable and reliable quantitative trading system, 80% of success depends on "high-quality data". AllTick API provides real-time, low-latency, global market data, making it an ideal solution to solve data bottlenecks. Whether you are a strategy researcher, engineering implementer, or real-time trader, AllTick is worth understanding and trying.

[exploretheworldwithme01]

Seamless Streaming with LiveStreamIQ: The Future of Real-Time Data Flow

Handling Billions of Messages Daily: How LiveStreamIQ Transforms Real-Time Data Streaming for BFSI

In the fast-paced world of the digital today, data is the lifeline of every business. These may apply to financial transactions, customer interactions, cloud applications and more, but the key thing is that real-time data streaming is essential for keeping operations efficient, secure and effective. Traditional data pipelines, however, are prone to delays, problems of integration and unexpected outages that can cause missed opportunities and downtime that may be expensive.

Meet LiveStreamIQ: an innovation in real-time data streaming meant to remove blind spots, enhance efficiency, and communicate data via different systems without interruptions. We will discuss what sets LiveStreamIQ apart concerning advancements in real-time data streaming, as well as why it serves as the primary option for companies that aspire to remain industry leaders.

The Challenges of Traditional Data Streaming

A lot of companies utilize open-source tools such as Kafka, Kubernetes, and Helm for data streaming. While these technologies function well, they do come with some challenges:

1. Data Visualization, Monitoring & Preemptive Notifications

LiveStreamIQ actively tracks data pipelines 24/7 which allows businesses to monitor in real time without feeling any disruption. AI-powered alerts allow issues to be solved proactively, preventing operational downtimes and costly business impacts.

2. Integrative use of all Multi-clouds

Instead of requiring long and complex setups, as older solutions do, LiveSteamIQ integrates smoothly with Google cloud, Azure, AWS and even on-premise setups, enabling businesses to have one streamlined data strategy regardless of their multi-infrastructures.

3. Intelligent Cost Optimization

LiveStreamIQ’s data streaming can be resource heavy, but if not managed properly, costs can spiral out of control. The cost optimization feature helps businesses sustain superior performance while reigning during periods of resource waste, inefficiency and excessive spending.

4. Flexibility and scalable solutions

Data requirements increase alongside business expansion. LiveStream is built to be scalable so performance won’t be impacted at any level of increase or decrease. So whether you are a budding startup or a sprawling global enterprise, LiveStreamIQ scales seamlessly with business growth—from startups to global enterprises.

5. Security, Compliance and Advanced features

The guarding of data is central to streaming. LiveStreamIQ takes the burden of peace of mind away by ensuring end-to-end encryption, role based access control for users, and compliance with global regulations pertaining to data.

To read more, click the link below

[hawkstack]

Enterprise Kubernetes Storage with Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (DO370)

In the era of cloud-native transformation, data is the fuel powering everything from mission-critical enterprise apps to real-time analytics platforms. However, as Kubernetes adoption grows, many organizations face a new set of challenges: how to manage persistent storage efficiently, reliably, and securely across distributed environments.

To solve this, Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF) emerges as a powerful solution — and the DO370 training course is designed to equip professionals with the skills to deploy and manage this enterprise-grade storage platform.

🔍 What is Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation?

OpenShift Data Foundation is an integrated, software-defined storage solution that delivers scalable, resilient, and cloud-native storage for Kubernetes workloads. Built on Ceph and Rook, ODF supports block, file, and object storage within OpenShift, making it an ideal choice for stateful applications like databases, CI/CD systems, AI/ML pipelines, and analytics engines.

🎯 Why Learn DO370?

The DO370: Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation course is specifically designed for storage administrators, infrastructure architects, and OpenShift professionals who want to:

✅ Deploy ODF on OpenShift clusters using best practices.

✅ Understand the architecture and internal components of Ceph-based storage.

✅ Manage persistent volumes (PVs), storage classes, and dynamic provisioning.

✅ Monitor, scale, and secure Kubernetes storage environments.

✅ Troubleshoot common storage-related issues in production.

🛠️ Key Features of ODF for Enterprise Workloads

1. Unified Storage (Block, File, Object)

Eliminate silos with a single platform that supports diverse workloads.

2. High Availability & Resilience

ODF is designed for fault tolerance and self-healing, ensuring business continuity.

3. Integrated with OpenShift

Full integration with the OpenShift Console, Operators, and CLI for seamless Day 1 and Day 2 operations.

4. Dynamic Provisioning

Simplifies persistent storage allocation, reducing manual intervention.

5. Multi-Cloud & Hybrid Cloud Ready

Store and manage data across on-prem, public cloud, and edge environments.

📘 What You Will Learn in DO370

Installing and configuring ODF in an OpenShift environment.

Creating and managing storage resources using the OpenShift Console and CLI.

Implementing security and encryption for data at rest.

Monitoring ODF health with Prometheus and Grafana.

Scaling the storage cluster to meet growing demands.

🧠 Real-World Use Cases

Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB with persistent volumes.

CI/CD: Jenkins with persistent pipelines and storage for artifacts.

AI/ML: Store and manage large datasets for training models.

Kafka & Logging: High-throughput storage for real-time data ingestion.

👨‍🏫 Who Should Enroll?

This course is ideal for:

Storage Administrators

Kubernetes Engineers

DevOps & SRE teams

Enterprise Architects

OpenShift Administrators aiming to become RHCA in Infrastructure or OpenShift

🚀 Takeaway

If you’re serious about building resilient, performant, and scalable storage for your Kubernetes applications, DO370 is the must-have training. With ODF becoming a core component of modern OpenShift deployments, understanding it deeply positions you as a valuable asset in any hybrid cloud team.

🧭 Ready to transform your Kubernetes storage strategy? Enroll in DO370 and master Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation today with HawkStack Technologies – your trusted Red Hat Certified Training Partner. For more details www.hawkstack.com

[classbazaarpromos]

Real Time Spark Project for Beginners: Hadoop, Spark, Docker

🚀 Building a Real-Time Data Pipeline for Server Monitoring Using Kafka, Spark, Hadoop, PostgreSQL & Django

In today’s data centers, various types of servers constantly generate vast volumes of real-time event data—each event representing the server’s status. To ensure stability and minimize downtime, monitoring teams need instant insights into this data to detect and resolve issues swiftly.

To meet this demand, a scalable and efficient real-time data pipeline architecture is essential. Here’s how we’re building it:

🧩 Tech Stack Overview: Apache Kafka acts as the real-time data ingestion layer, handling high-throughput event streams with minimal latency.

Apache Spark (Scala + PySpark), running on a Hadoop cluster (via Docker), performs large-scale, fault-tolerant data processing and analytics.

Hadoop enables distributed storage and computation, forming the backbone of our big data processing layer.

PostgreSQL stores the processed insights for long-term use and querying.

Django serves as the web framework, enabling dynamic dashboards and APIs.

Flexmonster powers data visualization, delivering real-time, interactive insights to monitoring teams.

🔍 Why This Stack? Scalability: Each tool is designed to handle massive data volumes.

Real-time processing: Kafka + Spark combo ensures minimal lag in generating insights.

Interactivity: Flexmonster with Django provides a user-friendly, interactive frontend.

Containerized: Docker simplifies deployment and management.

This architecture empowers data center teams to monitor server statuses live, quickly detect anomalies, and improve infrastructure reliability.

Stay tuned for detailed implementation guides and performance benchmarks!