#Horizon software system

[mudwerks]

(via Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start” | Ars Technica)

Fujitsu software bugs that helped send innocent postal employees to prison in the UK were known "right from the very start of deployment," a Fujitsu executive told a public inquiry today.

"All the bugs and errors have been known at one level or not, for many, many years. Right from the very start of deployment of the system, there were bugs and errors and defects, which were well-known to all parties," said Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division.

That goes back to 1999, when the Horizon software system was installed in post offices by Fujitsu subsidiary International Computers Limited. From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu's faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches....

... "You've had marriages fail, people commit suicide, an horrendous impact on people's lives," he said. "It's perfectly reasonable that the public should demand people are held to account and that should mean criminal prosecutions wherever possible." The UK government also has plans for a new law to "swiftly exonerate and compensate" people who were falsely convicted.

this is so fucked up

[rubyvroom]

Ed Zitron lays it all out here.

You are the victim of a con — one so pernicious that you’ve likely tuned it out despite the fact it’s part of almost every part of your life. It hurts everybody you know in different ways, and it hurts people more based on their socioeconomic status. It pokes and prods and twists millions of little parts of your life, and it’s everywhere, so you have to ignore it, because complaining about it feels futile, like complaining about the weather.  It isn’t. You’re battered by the Rot Economy, and a tech industry that has become so obsessed with growth that you, the paying customer, are a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value. A death cult has taken over the markets, using software as a mechanism to extract value at scale in the pursuit of growth at the cost of user happiness.  These people want everything from you — to control every moment you spend working with them so that you may provide them with more ways to make money, even if doing so doesn’t involve you getting anything else in return. Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and a majority of tech platforms are at war with the user, and, in the absence of any kind of consistent standards or effective regulations, the entire tech ecosystem has followed suit. A kind of Coalition of the Willing of the worst players in hyper-growth tech capitalism.  Things are being made linearly worse in the pursuit of growth in every aspect of our digital lives, and it’s because everything must grow, at all costs, at all times, unrelentingly, even if it makes the technology we use every day consistently harmful.

What this writer terms the Rot Economy is a larger system that creates the enshittification we know and loathe. It's the constant irrational pursuit of growth. Rot Economy is a great term for a definition that has been slowly coming into focus from one horizon to the other. Not just tech. This essay focuses on Spotify and Meta and speaker software and websites but you could easily extrapolate from here to absolutely everything.

I’m not writing this to complain, but because I believe [sic] that we are in the midst of the largest-scale ecological disaster of our time, because almost every single interaction with technology, which is required to live in modern society, has become actively adversarial to the user. These issues hit everything we do, all the time, a constant onslaught of interference, and I believe it’s so much bigger than just social media and algorithms — though they’re a big part of it, of course.  In plain terms, everybody is being fucked with constantly in tiny little ways by most apps and services, and I believe that billions of people being fucked with at once in all of these ways has profound psychological and social consequences that we’re not meaningfully discussing. 

Not to mention being actively fucked with in every way, in every aspect of our lives, by every company trying to suck the last drops of profit from us every minute of the day. How does that constant frustration contribute to the ways we treat each other as family, friends, neighbors, in politics, in everyday interactions?

Anyway, go and read.

[ayeforscotland]

Good morning Aye, or afternoon maybe?

Could you explain what the Post Office scandal is about?

Howdy! Sure thing. The Post Office scandal is probably one of the biggest contemporary miscarriages of justice in the UK. To the point where calling it a 'scandal' actually minimises how terrible it is.

To be absolutely clear, the pressure and stress the victims of the 'scandal' had to deal with is linked with 4 suicides. An innocent young mum was jailed while she was pregnant with her second child. Countless others sent to prison or left financially ruined. Marriages and families were destroyed.

To start with, what is a Post Office? Some people might be under the impression that Post Offices in the UK are ran by the Royal Mail. They are not.

The Post Office is a retail company. Most Post Offices are run by franchise owners (In the same way, people can run a franchise of McDonalds). These people are referred to as 'Sub-postmasters'. The scandal saw over 700 sub-postmasters convicted of a number of financial misconduct crimes - straight up theft, fraud, providing false accounts.

The cause of all of this was a SOFTWARE ERROR.

The Post Office's Horizon system was had a fault which reported false shortfalls of money. The Post Office claimed the system was robust, and they went after these people.

The reason why people are talking about it more now is that ITV released a dramatisation of it at the start of the year. Hopefully it leads to convictions being overturned.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs real AI harms

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (Feb 27) in Portland at Powell's. Then, onto Phoenix (Changing Hands, Feb 29), Tucson (Mar 9-12), and more!

You can barely turn around these days without encountering a think-piece warning of the impending risk of AI disinformation in the coming elections. But a recent episode of This Machine Kills podcast reminds us that these are hypothetical risks, and there is no shortage of real AI harms:

https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/311-selling-pickaxes-for-the-ai-gold-rush

The algorithmic decision-making systems that increasingly run the back-ends to our lives are really, truly very bad at doing their jobs, and worse, these systems constitute a form of "empiricism-washing": if the computer says it's true, it must be true. There's no such thing as racist math, you SJW snowflake!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/aoc-algorithms-racist-bias.html

Nearly 1,000 British postmasters were wrongly convicted of fraud by Horizon, the faulty AI fraud-hunting system that Fujitsu provided to the Royal Mail. They had their lives ruined by this faulty AI, many went to prison, and at least four of the AI's victims killed themselves:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

Tenants across America have seen their rents skyrocket thanks to Realpage's landlord price-fixing algorithm, which deployed the time-honored defense: "It's not a crime if we commit it with an app":

https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech

Housing, you'll recall, is pretty foundational in the human hierarchy of needs. Losing your home – or being forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries or gas for your car or clothes for your kid – is a non-hypothetical, widespread, urgent problem that can be traced straight to AI.

Then there's predictive policing: cities across America and the world have bought systems that purport to tell the cops where to look for crime. Of course, these systems are trained on policing data from forces that are seeking to correct racial bias in their practices by using an algorithm to create "fairness." You feed this algorithm a data-set of where the police had detected crime in previous years, and it predicts where you'll find crime in the years to come.

But you only find crime where you look for it. If the cops only ever stop-and-frisk Black and brown kids, or pull over Black and brown drivers, then every knife, baggie or gun they find in someone's trunk or pockets will be found in a Black or brown person's trunk or pocket. A predictive policing algorithm will naively ingest this data and confidently assert that future crimes can be foiled by looking for more Black and brown people and searching them and pulling them over.

Obviously, this is bad for Black and brown people in low-income neighborhoods, whose baseline risk of an encounter with a cop turning violent or even lethal. But it's also bad for affluent people in affluent neighborhoods – because they are underpoliced as a result of these algorithmic biases. For example, domestic abuse that occurs in full detached single-family homes is systematically underrepresented in crime data, because the majority of domestic abuse calls originate with neighbors who can hear the abuse take place through a shared wall.

But the majority of algorithmic harms are inflicted on poor, racialized and/or working class people. Even if you escape a predictive policing algorithm, a facial recognition algorithm may wrongly accuse you of a crime, and even if you were far away from the site of the crime, the cops will still arrest you, because computers don't lie:

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/texas-macys-sunglass-hut-facial-recognition-software-wrongful-arrest-sacramento-alibi/

Trying to get a low-waged service job? Be prepared for endless, nonsensical AI "personality tests" that make Scientology look like NASA:

https://futurism.com/mandatory-ai-hiring-tests

Service workers' schedules are at the mercy of shift-allocation algorithms that assign them hours that ensure that they fall just short of qualifying for health and other benefits. These algorithms push workers into "clopening" – where you close the store after midnight and then open it again the next morning before 5AM. And if you try to unionize, another algorithm – that spies on you and your fellow workers' social media activity – targets you for reprisals and your store for closure.

If you're driving an Amazon delivery van, algorithm watches your eyeballs and tells your boss that you're a bad driver if it doesn't like what it sees. If you're working in an Amazon warehouse, an algorithm decides if you've taken too many pee-breaks and automatically dings you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

If this disgusts you and you're hoping to use your ballot to elect lawmakers who will take up your cause, an algorithm stands in your way again. "AI" tools for purging voter rolls are especially harmful to racialized people – for example, they assume that two "Juan Gomez"es with a shared birthday in two different states must be the same person and remove one or both from the voter rolls:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/

Hoping to get a solid education, the sort that will keep you out of AI-supervised, precarious, low-waged work? Sorry, kiddo: the ed-tech system is riddled with algorithms. There's the grifty "remote invigilation" industry that watches you take tests via webcam and accuses you of cheating if your facial expressions fail its high-tech phrenology standards:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

All of these are non-hypothetical, real risks from AI. The AI industry has proven itself incredibly adept at deflecting interest from real harms to hypothetical ones, like the "risk" that the spicy autocomplete will become conscious and take over the world in order to convert us all to paperclips:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

Whenever you hear AI bosses talking about how seriously they're taking a hypothetical risk, that's the moment when you should check in on whether they're doing anything about all these longstanding, real risks. And even as AI bosses promise to fight hypothetical election disinformation, they continue to downplay or ignore the non-hypothetical, here-and-now harms of AI.

There's something unseemly – and even perverse – about worrying so much about AI and election disinformation. It plays into the narrative that kicked off in earnest in 2016, that the reason the electorate votes for manifestly unqualified candidates who run on a platform of bald-faced lies is that they are gullible and easily led astray.

But there's another explanation: the reason people accept conspiratorial accounts of how our institutions are run is because the institutions that are supposed to be defending us are corrupt and captured by actual conspiracies:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

The party line on conspiratorial accounts is that these institutions are good, actually. Think of the rebuttal offered to anti-vaxxers who claimed that pharma giants were run by murderous sociopath billionaires who were in league with their regulators to kill us for a buck: "no, I think you'll find pharma companies are great and superbly regulated":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Institutions are profoundly important to a high-tech society. No one is capable of assessing all the life-or-death choices we make every day, from whether to trust the firmware in your car's anti-lock brakes, the alloys used in the structural members of your home, or the food-safety standards for the meal you're about to eat. We must rely on well-regulated experts to make these calls for us, and when the institutions fail us, we are thrown into a state of epistemological chaos. We must make decisions about whether to trust these technological systems, but we can't make informed choices because the one thing we're sure of is that our institutions aren't trustworthy.

Ironically, the long list of AI harms that we live with every day are the most important contributor to disinformation campaigns. It's these harms that provide the evidence for belief in conspiratorial accounts of the world, because each one is proof that the system can't be trusted. The election disinformation discourse focuses on the lies told – and not why those lies are credible.

That's because the subtext of election disinformation concerns is usually that the electorate is credulous, fools waiting to be suckered in. By refusing to contemplate the institutional failures that sit upstream of conspiracism, we can smugly locate the blame with the peddlers of lies and assume the mantle of paternalistic protectors of the easily gulled electorate.

But the group of people who are demonstrably being tricked by AI is the people who buy the horrifically flawed AI-based algorithmic systems and put them into use despite their manifest failures.

As I've written many times, "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, but we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job"

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

The most visible victims of AI disinformation are the people who are putting AI in charge of the life-chances of millions of the rest of us. Tackle that AI disinformation and its harms, and we'll make conspiratorial claims about our institutions being corrupt far less credible.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/27/ai-conspiracies/#epistemological-collapse

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[rizlowwritessortof]

Waiting for the Real Thing

Yes, after one episode, I did it. I wrote a Russell Shaw fic. I know.

You can't serve in the same unit with somebody without getting pretty close. She managed to survive around him until a couple of years ago. And when she hears about their brother-in-arms troubles, she heads that way to help out. Of course, Russ beat her to it. And now she just can't make herself leave without seeing him.

Pairing: Russell Shaw/OC (Andi)

Word Count: 2759

Warnings: A little angst, a little smut, a little more angst and some fluff thrown in here and there for good measure 🙂

Dividers by the always amazing @firefly-graphics

Andi hesitated a moment before knocking. She could still walk away, pretend she hadn’t ‘accidentally’ found him. She’d be better off. At least her heart would be.

She knocked anyway.

He opened the door cautiously, eyes quickly taking her in, then scanning the area before landing on her again. His smile widened slowly, and he stepped back, gesturing with a tilt of his head for her to come into the room.

She couldn’t help grinning back at him, waiting for him to put his gun on the table before he grabbed her into a bear hug that she answered with equal enthusiasm. “Hey, Russ.”

He moved back, beaming into her face. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s been – what – two years?”

“Almost. How are you?”

Russell pulled out a chair and gestured for her to have a seat. “I’m good. Well, my arm’s a little sore, but I’ll live.” He handed her a beer from the mini-fridge and sat down across the table from her. “So seriously, what brings you to this neck of the woods?”

Andi opened her beer and took a long swallow. “Heard about Doug. Of course, by the time I got here, you already had it taken care of. Stopped by his place, he told me where you were staying – I just took a shot that you were still here.” She nodded towards his arm. “I heard you caught a bullet. Did you see a doctor?”

Russell rolled his eyes a little and nodded, answering with a cheerfully gruff tolerance. “Yes, mom, I saw a doctor. Antibiotics and everything, don’t worry. ‘Course I went through Horizon, the locals get all bent out of shape when there’s a gunshot injury.”

“Good. I know how you are. I can just see you still out on the job, wailing on bad guys with your one good arm.” She let her smile fade. “So you met up with Colter. How’d that go?”

He smiled. “Good, I think. Cleared the air some. At least he doesn’t still think I killed our dad.” He leaned back in his chair, those candid green eyes of his taking her in. “It’s really good to see you, Andi.” He took a swig from his bottle. “So what are you up to these days?”

“Actually, I’m heading to Fort Worth. I start a job there next week. I’ll be running system security for a computer software company down there.”

Russ gave her that crooked, disarming smile that never failed to make her heartbeat pause for a second. “You always did have that sexy nerd thing goin’ on. That’s awesome, really.” He sat forward, bracing himself on his forearms. “Think you can handle that, sitting behind a desk all day?”

She smiled back at him. “Hell, yes. I’m ready for a quiet life. I’ve had enough gunfire and chaos to last me the rest of my days.” She rose to her feet and tossed her bottle, helping herself to another beer. Russ nodded as she waved it at him, and she grabbed one for him, setting it in front of him as she sat down again. “What about you? When are you gonna give it up? You’ve been talking about opening that little brewery for years now.”

“I’ll get there someday. I don’t know, if I’m not in the middle of somethin’, I just get – antsy.”

Her expression grew more serious, and she looked down at the table. “Yeah. Gotta keep moving – because if you hold still long enough, you might get attached to something. Or someone.” She opened her beer and took a long pull, setting it down and still avoiding Russell’s eyes when he spoke again.

“I’m sorry, Andi.” His voice was soft, barely audible, and he reached out to put a calloused hand over hers. “You have every right to be pissed at me for taking off like I did.”

She shook her head. “We never made any promises. I just thought, after that few days – I don’t know. I thought we had something. Maybe it was just wishful thinking.”

He took hold of her hand, and she looked up at him, the expression in her eyes sending a stab of guilt through his chest. “We did have something. We do. I just – I know I’m fucking bad at this shit.” He ducked his head down a little, peering up into her eyes. “We’re okay, right? You mean a lot to me, I don’t wanna lose – well, whatever the hell this is.”

A smile crept onto her face, and she shook her head. “You and those damn puppy dog eyes. Yes, we’re okay. We’ll always be okay.” She shifted in her chair, partly as an excuse to pull her hand away. There was only so much actual contact she could take without losing what little control she had around him. “So, tell me about what happened with Doug. And with Colter.”

He began to talk, filling her in about the mission to save their friend and his reunion with his brother. His voice always struck a chord down deep inside her, made her feel like her soul was attached to him in some way, and the warmth it sent through her helped soothe the dull ache of longing that it inflicted in almost equal measure.

She was still laughing a little at his description of his exploits with his brother as he headed to the fridge for more beer. He opened hers and set it down in front of her, asking his question as he sat down. “So – is there somebody waiting for you down there? In Fort Worth?”

She tilted her head, one eyebrow raised, a little surprised at his query. “Um – no. Nobody.” She avoided his eyes as she returned fire. “How about you?”

He chuckled a little, a crooked smirk on his lips as he answered. “I make do here and there. I’ve pretty much always had to just make do.” The smirk faded as he looked into her eyes. “Except with you. You’ve always been the one they can’t live up to.”

She bit at her lip thoughtfully, glancing away and then meeting his green eyes head on. “Yeah, and you’re the one I never should have said ‘yes’ to,” she said softly.

Russ ducked his head with a rueful smile. “Yeah, you’re probably right about that.” It was quiet for a minute, then he laughed softly. “Hey, remember that time in Kabul?”

Andi joined his laughter, nodding. “Yep. I was so much smarter back then.”

“Smart-ass. Yeah, and mean. Hurt a guy’s feelings, sayin’ shit like that. Not to mention the knee.”

“That was an accident.”

“Sure, it was,” he teased. “Guess I left you alone after that, though, so – mission accomplished.”

“That was back before I knew you so well.”

“We did start off a little rocky.”

They reminisced through the rest of their beer, then Andi stretched and stood up. “I’m gonna borrow your little boy’s room, and then I want to look at that bullet wound before I go. I’m guessing you haven’t changed the dressing today?”

“Haven’t gotten around to it,” he hedged, and she shook her head.

“Yeah. I figured. Be right back.”

She walked out of the bathroom just in time to see him peel off his t-shirt. “Bad idea, this was a bad idea,” she mentally scolded herself, then squared her shoulders and went to where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Pretty sore?” she asked as he grimaced a little at the movement.

“It’s not too bad. I’ve had worse.”

“I know. I’ve bandaged them.”

“Well, I know you’ve got a more gentle touch than Colter, so I’m glad of that.”

She laughed, perching on the edge of the bed beside him and repositioning his arm to examine his wound. “I’m gonna clean this up a little, then I’ll wrap it for you again before I take off,” she said, grabbing an alcohol wipe from the first aid kit sitting beside them. He winced as she worked, as carefully as she could manage. Then she applied fresh gauze and wrapped his bicep again, trying to ignore the feelings that touching him were stirring up inside her. “There. That should hold you for a day or two. If you’re careful in the shower.”

She raised her head, and the look in his eyes made her pulse skip. “Thanks,” he said softly, and she nodded.

“You’re welcome.” He was still staring at her, so she busied herself putting the supplies back into the kit, until he leaned a little closer, breathing her name. He reached to brush her hair back from her neck, and she felt goosebumps bloom all over her body as his fingers touched her skin.

“Andi. Stay tonight.” He nuzzled his face into her hair. “Please.”

She leaned her head into his, her voice barely there when she finally spoke. “Damn you, Russ.”

He pulled back, letting his hand move to the back of her neck as he brushed his lips over hers. “That’s a yes, right?”

Andi laughed softly. “Yes, that’s a yes.”

He made a triumphant little face that made her giggle, then whispered, “Thank God,” before he kissed her for real.

He felt warm and solid beneath her hands as they roamed the muscular expanse of his back, his scars beneath her fingers a violent history, a unique braille that only those who have lived that life could read. She knew a lot of those scars intimately, had lived through them with him, had survived those events at his side. Remembering how close they had come to not making it home made this moment all the more intense, and she clung tightly to him as he laid her back on the bed.

He finally raised his head, her lips reluctantly parting from his, and he reached for the hem of her shirt, bracing himself on his good arm to help her work it up and over her head. She rolled slightly to give him access to her bra, and that joined her shirt on the floor as she laid back. His eyes roamed over her almost reverently before he bent to kiss her again, her breasts crushed to his chest as he rolled to his back, holding her close.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he muttered against her lips, then groaned as she sat up, his erection trapped underneath her. She grinned, circling her hips against him before moving down to straddle his thighs as she reached for his zipper. “Bad girl.”

“Or is it - ‘good girl?’” she teased, laughing softly as he sighed in relief as she unfastened his jeans. “Feel better?”

“Feels okay. Could feel better,” he coaxed, and she slipped her fingertips into the waistband of his boxers.

“Such a whiner.” She pulled his boxers down and playfully swatted the side of his hip, waiting for him to lift up so she could pull them down to his knees. She bent to kiss the head of his cock before sucking it gently into her mouth, humming as he threw his head back into the pillow, swearing softly. She worked him deeper and deeper, finally sucking hard as she pulled off to look up into his glassy-eyed gaze. “I missed you, too.”

He moved quickly, grabbing her by the shoulders and flipping her to her back again, hands busily unfastening her jeans, bending to suck a nipple into his mouth and teasing at it with his tongue. She buried her hands in his hair, back arching a little at the sparks of pleasure he sent through her. He tugged her jeans and panties down, leaving her for a moment to rid her of them completely and finish kicking his off as well. Then he crawled back up between her thighs and dropped a kiss to her mound, looking up with a wicked grin before moving down further.

God, he remembered every tiny thing that drove her mad, and in no time he had her writhing beneath him, her hands gripping his hair as she begged and called his name again and again. She flung her arms wide when she came, and before she stopped pulsing and shuddering, he moved up and pushed inside her to the hilt.

“Jesus, fuck, Russ!” she cried out, clutching wildly at his shoulders as he buried his face in her neck, holding himself in deep and riding out her orgasm. When she finally began to relax, he kissed the soft skin of her neck and throat, then finally her lips, their breath gently mingling as she calmed.

“Goddamn, that was amazing,” he whispered, and she smiled drunkenly up at him.

“You’re tellin’ me.” She shifted her hips a little, moaning softly. “You feel so good, baby.”

“Yeah? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he murmured into their kiss, and she smiled.

“You’re so full of yourself,” she teased, and she felt his lips curve into a grin before he lifted himself up to look down at her.

“What a coincidence, so are you.” She giggled, then gasped as he drew back and drove deep, rocking into her with a relentless, delicious rhythm that stopped them both from speaking coherently. She wrapped her legs around his hips, meeting each thrust, clinging to him tight as their moans and sighs filled the room. She came hard, digging her nails into his back as her muscles seized, and after a few more frantic strokes, he joined her with a loud moan.

She held him, fingers combing through his hair as they laid there recovering, determined to enjoy every second they had together. She could deal with the reality of after when she left tomorrow. He stirred, his breath warm on her neck, his lips gentle as he kissed her there. “You are staying the whole night, right? So we can do that again?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’m staying all night. You’re so needy.”

He chuckled, nipping at her before moving to roll to his back. “When it comes to you, I am.”

She didn’t bother reminding him that he could remedy that situation. That conversation was a hopeless circle, so she ignored the thought and rolled to her side into his waiting arms.

He was quiet the next morning, watching her dress as she readied herself to leave. She was avoiding his eyes, and he felt that familiar pang of guilt that he lived with every day for the pain he knew he brought her. Someday – someday he’d get to the point of being able to live with himself without escaping into dangerous, adrenaline-filled missions, but he had no right to expect her to be there when he did.

He crawled out of bed, pulling on his boxers and walking up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist. She leaned back into him, a reluctant sigh escaping before she turned to face him. “Well, I guess I should hit the road. Long drive.”

He brushed his knuckles over her cheek, then bent to kiss her softly. “Sure you’re okay to drive? Not like we got a lot of sleep last night.”

She looked up into his eyes and smiled. “Worth it. I’ll probably get a room somewhere partway, don’t worry about me.” He smiled back, kissing her again, this time until she finally put a hand to his chest and pushed away. “Okay. Gotta go.” She turned to grab her jacket, slipping it on as she moved towards the door. “It was really good to see you, Russ.”

“Great seeing you, too. Just be careful.” She nodded and opened the door, turning back as he spoke again. “Next time I see you, you’ll probably be with some great guy you’ll meet down there, all happy and settled down.”

She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, her gaze lingering on his face one last time. “Nah. I’m not much for making do. I’ll probably just keep waiting for the real thing.” She raised a hand in a little wave and headed out the door, and he stood staring at it for a time before turning away.

After a long, hot shower, he stood at the bathroom counter removing the plastic he had wrapped around his arm to protect his bandages. He looked up and met his reflection’s gaze in the mirror, and they stared at each other for a few long seconds before he frowned at himself. “Fuckin’ idiot,” he muttered, hitting the switch to turn off the light and leaving the room.

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[arkus-rhapsode]

So wasn't expecting to make this Gaming Hot Take of the day but after reading this from Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki I gotta be honest I had to write something

So look, I can kinda understand this stance in a very retrospective sense as he says "Fostered from the beginning." Playstation 1 in particular didn't really make a big distinction between its original IP and its Third Party IP. It's why you had Crash Bandicoot or Cloud Strife as basically the mascot of Playstation when both come from third parties. Compared to the likes of Mario and Sonic who were not only their console mascot, but company mascots respectively.

But by now, Playstation has an undeniable back catalogue of first and second IP that it can either revive or rerelease if need be. Like if we're looking at like multi entry series and not just one offs, by the PS2, Sony had:

Jak & Daxter

Twisted Metal

Ape Escape

Sly Cooper

MediEvil

Wild Arms

Dark Cloud

Everybody's Golf

God of War

Rachet and Clank

And by the PS3 we have

Infamous

Uncharted

Killzone

Resistance

Little Big Planet

Like Sony has their own catalogue that can stand on its own. Its not like they should be struggling now to play catch up.

Now if you read my recent Emio and Mages post, I am very well aware that in the age of modern gaming, a game doesn't get made without a team devoted to it. And with the rising production and time costs of making games, no company can release a hundred games and be profitable. So sadly some IP just do fall by the wayside in favor of others. Guerrilla Games isn't making Killzone anymore, because their efforts are spent on Horizon and Sucker Punch went from being the Sly Cooper guys to the Infamous guys, to now the Ghosts of Tsushima guys.

However, I feel like Sony has had some circumstances that compound this problem. Sony and Playstation are technically powerful machines-they want to fully utilize the hardware they're selling you for hundreds of dollars. It is their brand. However, the downside to this is because of this the rise in production costs, it's now taking much longer to make games that make use of the powerful hardware. We went from being able to release a full trilogy in a single generation to basically one. Its also made worse by the fact that Sony has been very active in shuttering studios and cutting costs. The biggest would be the loss of Sony Japan Studio, who were beloved for their more varied Japanese-y style games. It added flavor to the more Naughty Dog inspired games of the sixth and seventh generation. But now, Sony went all in on being that one big budget release that leaned more towards broader genres that could maximize the amount of sales like Uncharted, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, etc.

With this, a lot of mismanagement, its really made the PS5 era feel very sparse compared to the PS4. Now, I wanna stress this, I actually do not subscribe to the mentality "Playstation has no games." Playstation has tons of games beyond just their first party titles, some are exclusive like Final Fantasy 16, some are just way too powerful to be something that could be played on a switch like GTAV. Heck, I played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on my PS5 and it's probably the game I've dumped the most time into this year. So yes, even if Playstation's first party offerings are few and far between, you're still capable of playing a lot of good games on this really expensive plastic box.

And maybe that's indicative of the fact that Playstation has always been about selling you the hardware on the basis of the hardware. Going back to the PS1, the main selling points was this was the haven for third parties after Nintendo really burned a lot of developers with the N64, and that this was a much more system than the N64. When you look at someone like Nintendo now, they're hardware is underpowered they live and die by the power of their software that only they can provide and no one else. But the playstation even if its not shooting out a new Jax & Daxter every year, they're still the place you can play something like Final Fantasy or Elden Ring at a really great clip. Perhaps Totoki was alluding to that reliance on hardware instead of software because in retrospect, they never really had that big homegrown system seller on playstation till the PS2 with things like God of War. And now fostering that, has made it hard to have that sort of Zelda or Halo that are so undeniably their companies IP and will move launch units.

But a reliance on just being the place where you can play games at a high fidelity, means that its still got competition from Xbox and PC. So Sony would have to offer a service the others don't and that can be software you find nowhere else. True story, I was genuinely conflicted about getting a PS5 or and Xbox X/S for my birthday because I knew I needed to at least have a strong machine to play with my switch. And ultimately I took PS5 because that was the console that would have God of War Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2. So yes, IP absolutely factors into purchases in my experience. And the fact that this generation Sony has really struggled to put out first party games, really makes that purchase factor feel so much thinner and thinner. When you know-you know Sony has loads of IP (Some that haven't left their respective console) that even a simple remaster on the PS5 could at least hold people over in-between their AAA releases. So to hear their CFO say that they don't have enough IP, gets very disingenuous.

To close this out, I wanna stress something. I don't think wanting to make new IP is a bad thing. Im glad Sony is willing to invest 8 years and millions of dollars into something new. But eventually, we reach a point where this has to be better managed. We have to have some smaller titles that can be released between the bigger ones. We gotta have some variation in the types of games we're getting from the platform holder. And sometimes leaning in on those fan faves for smaller titles would help. Are they gonna sell 10 million units? More than likely not. But if you balance the budget, having something move between 1-2 million units would be acceptable. Perhaps maybe allow more second party developers a crack at using that IP so your internal teams can work on the bigger blockbuster titles?

The PS5 generation has been a pretty all over the map one for Sony, and the more we learn about the thoughts and management behind the scenes, the more aggravating it can become when this platform does something really cool, but then seems to take two steps back. I genuinely can't tell you if I'll get a PS6. But if I do, it will probably not be out of optimism for classic Playstation franchises to return.

[ui-alcoholic]

Enterprise 64/128 (1985) (formerly ELAN 64/128)

After the 1982 introduction of the ZX Spectrum, Hong Kong trading company Locumals commissioned Intelligent Software to develop a home computer in the UK. During development, the machine had the codename DPC. The machine was also known by the names Samurai, Oscar, Elan, and Flan before the Enterprise name was finally chosen. The succession of name changes was mainly due to the discovery of other machines and companies with the chosen name.

The Enterprise has a 4 MHz Z80 CPU, 64 KB or 128 KB of RAM, and 32 KB of internal read-only memory that contains the EXOS operating system and a word processor. The BASIC programming language was supplied on a 16 KB ROM cartridge, it had to be inserted into the left side of the machine. Cartridges containing other programming languages ​​(Forth, Lisp, Pascal) were also produced. In this way, games or user programs could be stored on the cartridges. The maximum supported ROM size of the cartridges was 64Kb.

Two application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips take some of the workload off of the central processor. They are named 'NICK' and 'DAVE' after their designers, Nick Toop, who had previously worked on the Acorn Atom, and Dave Woodfield. 'NICK' manages graphics, while 'DAVE' handles sound and memory paging. The Z80, like all 8-bit CPUs, could only address 64 KB of memory, so "bank switching" was required to access more memory. The Enterprise's memory can be expanded to 4 MB without any tricks (and this is a 'plain' 8-bit machine like the ZX-Spectrum or Commodore 64)

Enterprise was announced to the press in September 1983, and some 80,000 machines were pre-ordered by the time of its April 1984 sales launch. The product did not ship until 1985, by which point the UK home computer market was already dominated by the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, and Acorn BBC Micro with the 16-bit era on the horizon (Commodore Amiga, Atarti ST, etc)

After the initial manufacturing run of 80,000 units, it is believed that no further units were made, so the Enterprise is among the rarer home computers of the 1980s.

source of images: 8bit home computer museum

more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_(computer)

https://www.theregister.com/2013/10/24/elan_flan_enterprise_micro_is_30_years_old/

[elexuscal]

ficlet prompt: Trinh POV of like. All Of That

'There's danger out there in the stars,' Granmeme always said. 'Maybe it'll be in five years, maybe fifty, maybe in five hundred, but don't doubt my mark, there's danger out there.'

'Yes Granmeme,' Trihn would always say, and then, 'Can I get you some coffee?'

And it wasn't that Trihn didn't believe the elders, exactly. How could anyone who paid a modicum of attention during history lessons? And even if you hadn't, the Adamantine Logo stared back at them from almost every other surface in the colony. Adamantine, the company that had founded the settlement, the company that had abandoned them, and the company which had, maybe, protected them?

Maybe, maybe not. And maybe the colony's existence was still listed out there, on some sort of spreadsheet 20 systems away. Maybe one day people would come looking for them.

But that was literally such a distant concern. Not when the plumbing on level 4 was still intermittently leaking green sludge, not when there were caterpillars in the bok choy beds, not when the lights in the south wing kept flickering.

No, if danger was going to come form anywhere, it would be in their own backyard, first and foremost.

Well, well, well. No doubt Granmeme was wagging mer finger at them from beyond the Great Event Horizon.

"We're so glad to have found you," Supervisor Leonide said, her voice oozing compassion even through the tinny translation software. "When your cousins at the initial base-camp first told us of a splinter group that had gone to found a secondary colony... And that it had been so long before any contact... Well, we were just so worried that something might have happened to you!"

"Why would you have assumed that?" asked Jerail, who's face remained impressively impassive as ze sipped the rich fresh coffee Barrish-Estranza had brought as a gift.

"Oh of course. You wouldn't know." A shocked and concerned expression. "I understand you left due alien remnant contamination at the initial site?"

"In part," agreed Trihn. That's the simple answer, at least. (She sipped the coffee. It was very good. It came from actual beans, not flavoured powder.)

"Well, you made a good choice! Over the last five years, the contamination became much more severe. Physical deformations, behavioural alterations... It's a terrible situation. That's why we're here, to help before it gets any worse."

It could have been a trick. They wanted it to be a trick. But Barrish-Estranza had pictures, videos. Even their expert didn't think they were faked. And this corporate envoy, they'd brought someone from the original colony to vouch for them. That person could have been an actor, except they spoke with a perfect Spirliet accent, and there was something of the Niziral clan in the bridge of the nose, in the shape of their cheeks.

Their claims were real. Some of them, at least.

Others were likely to come, Leonide said. While reasonable people could tell this planet was a wash, some people weren't reasonable. There were always those willing to take risks as they pushed the envelope of science. One needed to be careful when dealing with such risk-takers, lest you get sliced on the cutting edge.

And sure enough, another group came. From a university, they claimed. A smaller team, only four. This one did not come in two shiny fancy hoppers, loaded down with delicacies for the adults and toys for the kiddies. No, the university envoy saddled up in one of the colony's own pilfered hoppers, worn and wary.

The university envoy said that Barrish-Estranza were dangerous, that they were looking for an indentured work-force, that they would enslave the Adamantine colonists so severely that even their children's grandchildren would still be slaves. The university instead offered the colonists ownership of their own planet and/or safe relocation, free of charge.

Barrish-Estranza said that the university's offer was too good to be true, that they had clashed quite awfully with the other colonists and were looking for revenge, that they were looking for a naive population willing to stay behind as lab rats. Barrish-Estranza instead offered fair, gainful employment.

The only thing either group of strangers agreed upon was this: It wasn't feasible for their colonists to stay where they were.

But Trihn didn't want to leave. Of course she didn't. No, their underground bunker wasn't exactly luxurious. It was all grey steel and concrete, everything cobbled together from extra equipment. Yes, there were caterpillars in some of the hydroponics bays, and yes, some of the lights flickered. But wasn't it theirs? Hadn't they built it up over the past thirty years? Hadn't they carved out this sanctuary among the ice and snow? Didn't they have a sleet-ball court, and music recitals, and movie nights?

Wasn't this their home?

Could they really just be expected to leave it?

Opinions were all over the place, the leadership starting to splinter, just like it must have back at the original colony site. Lucia and his faction liked Barrish-Estranza, or at least liked the lifeline they offered. Zenchal's faction didn't trust any of this, didn't trust it one bit, thought they should shut the hatches and burrow deeper. Magnolio's faction went one step further, arguing that they should be opening up the armoury and preparing for a fight.

And Trihn. Trihn just didn't know.

{What do you think, Addy?} she asked the AI which was the heart and lungs and nervous system of the entire colony. It (she, Trihn liked to think of Addy as a she) had been watching monitoring both groups since their initial arrival, as much as she could.

{Hard to say.} Her servers whined slightly under the effort of generating plain human speech. {But I like the university team better.}

{Why?}

For a few second, the only sound was the hard-drives fans in overdrive. {Their SecUnit is friendly. Or acts that way.}

{What does that mean, 'SecUnit'?}

Addy couldn't define it, not really, though she pointed the SecUnit out from their surveillance footage. The tall, serious one with the splicing. Trihn didn't think they looked particularly friendly, but Addy had a different way of judging such things.

This information probably wouldn't do anything to sway anyone. The others were unlikely to be swayed by Addy's opinion; she was just a computer, after-all. But Trihn was less quick to dismiss her, and regardless... It made no sense to reject the university without even speaking to them. She would have to keep pushing the other leaders for a meeting.

In the next meeting with Leonide, though, she did ask, in as casual a tone as she could muster. "What's a SecUnit?"

"A SecUnit?" Leonide blinked, off guard, a rarity. Then she smiled that brilliant white smile. "Oh, just a type of robot, with a little extra something-something for oomph. They're here to keep us all safe." She gestured to her entourage, the armoured soldiers carrying large guns.

Trihn had not thought they were robots. And certainly, the "SecUnit" which Addy had pointed out did not look like a robot.

So that was at least one lie Barrish-Estranza had fed them.

How many more were there?

[pinkspiderastrology]

Starmageddon: Birth Charts from Online Planetariums

I fixed the math that's missing from chart calculation software...

Kristen Patterson / KP O'Neil

Jan. 14, 2025 / Uttara Ashadha P3 in Sagittarius / Social Capitalism

Zodiac birth charts - Tropical and Sidereal - are calculated with the 12 constellations divided evenly, 30° each, and therefore can't be accurate;

it's not mathematical and scientific to measure them evenly, equal to each other - this requires ignoring astronomy, when the very careful attention paid to stars and heavenly bodies for 24,000 years or more is what built the knowledge-base for understanding ourselves - our blueprints - through astrology.

All that's needed for accuracy is to set the birth chart calculation software to measure the constellations correctly - unevenly - and all software could have been set for this from the start -

it's the culture and business of Zodiac astrology that keeps the calculations and software incorrect -

there are several other corrections necessary as well, all of which were fought over when online planetariums reached near-maturity in the 2010s, taking the already-weak excuses out of matching astronomy to Zodiac astrology (excepting Babylonian astrology;)

if I wanted another life journey to learn coding, I would create the software myself - but I'm most satisfied as an artist, drawing instructor and forensic medium to have spent four years creating, testing and refining a set of chart drawings to interpret online planetarium results - overlaying jpeg screenshots on constellations scaled and measured by Nakshatras and the Gregorian calendar (which is how I found a gap in the wheel for a full-sized Abhijit Nakshatra... hmmm...)

working manually ensures there are no automated glitches in my results - which I process five ways and five times, and check from three online planetariums -

you can check your placements right now, if you go to one of the planetarium sites (though Stellarium on desktop is off by 45 minutes - Stellarium is perfect in App,) and set the location to your birthplace, the date/clock to your birthday and birth time;

I believe this is also a superior emotional and spiritual experience for encountering your birth data - and when it comes to determining your Ascendant, you can and should choose by what star is visibly the strongest on the horizon - your Descendant being half of your core personality, and needing to be determined the same way - which star is strongest on the horizon - and this usually leads to Ascendants and Descendants that span two Nakshatras, with auras of seven days -

the huge gains I've made by matching everything to calendar dates are beyond belief - numerology vindicated, and Spirit Guides with human histories/trackable dates empowered - I'll explain in another post;

Tropical astrology needs to rename itself to Tropicology, as it measures Signs only by the equinoxes and solstices hitting lines of longitude that are mapped to the geography of Earth - following the so-called Seasons, which have had moments of consistency but are different worlds in different hemispheres, with Tropical being Eurocentric - and can only assess personalities as specifically as a Season can set one - while the Seasons have been shifting tremendously... how to measure someone by 1° with this kind of accuracy? Not possible...

and if you are aware of the problem of Precession, you know corrections are needed to allow for Earth's wobble on its axis - which wrecked Tropical's Tropics all of 2000+ years ago - the reliance on predictive astronomy tables based on patterning gave Zodiac astrologers the option to calculate birth charts from these tables, instead of being active astronomers keeping pace with the heavens -

Jyotisha experts, relying on a fixed-star system, still watch the skies because they have no conflict of interest - except when trying to blend Nakshatras with Zodiac astrologies for increased market shares;

I don't know why 'Sidereal' astrologers corrected birth chart calculations for Precession but not for the unmathematical culture of 30° - their leader and (arguably) one of my Guides, Cyril Fagan, pointed out the 30° needed to be abandoned for accuracy's sake - though I expect the timely and conjunct deaths of several Sidereal astrologers help explain why -

I found Cyril's argument about two months into my astrology studies, and then it took a year for my brain to wake up (the night before my birthday) and realise I could answer his argument by building star chart drawings to interpret the settings in online planetariums - and at the same time, synchronise the calendar and the Nakshatras with the true Zodiac...

To be helpful, here's the overview of my results:

Sun in Aries: Ashwini Pada 1 - Bharani Pada 3 start of April 21 - early evening May 11

Ashwini: Pada 1 (April 21-24) / Goal-Oriented; Pada 2 (24-27) / Dancers & Athletes; Pada 3 (27-30) / Fast Learning; Pada 4 (30-May 3) / Rescuer-Medics

Bharani: Pada 1 (May 4-7) / Ancestral Ties; Pada 2 (7-10) / Shamanism; Pada 3 (10-13) / Sex Gurus-Healers

Sun in Taurus: Bharani Pada 3 - Mrigashira Pada 3 / evening May 11 - end of June 19

Bharani: Pada 3 (May 10-13, Taurus starts evening May 11) / Sex Gurus-Healers; Pada 4 (13-16) / Medicine-Making

Krittika: Pada 1 (17-20) / Key-Holders; Pada 2 (20-23) / Diplomats; Pada 3 (23-26) / Occult Technologies; Pada 4 (26-29) / Professional Muses

Rohini: Pada 1 (May 30-June 2) / Promoters; Pada 2 (2-5) / Producers; Pada 3 (5-8) / Business Gurus; Pada 4 (8-11) / Collectors & Curators

Mrigashira: Pada 1 (June 12-15) / Interviewing; Pada 2 (15-18) / Interpreting; Pada 3 (18-21, Gemini starts midnight June 20) / Convening

Sun in Gemini: Mrigashira Pada 3 - Punarvasu Pada 4 / start of June 20 - to start of July 19

Mrigashira: Pada 3 (June 18-21, Gemini starts June 20) / Convening; Pada 4 (21-24) / Mediumship

Ardra: Pada 1 (June 25-28) / Predictions-Prophecy; Pada 2 (28-July 1) / Advocacy; Pada 3 (1-4) Optimising; Pada 4 (4-7) Influencing

Punarvasu: Pada 1 (8-11) / Orchestrating; Pada 2 (11-14) / Speculating; Pada 3 (14-17) / Marketing; Pada 4 (17-20, Cancer starts July 19) / Home Business

Sun in Cancer: Punarvasu Pada 4 - Ashlesha Pada 2 / start of July 19 - midday August 9

Punarvasu: Pada 4 (July 17-20, Cancer starts July 19) / Home Business

Pushya: Pada 1 (July 21-24) / Consultants; Pada 2 (24-27) / Caregiver-Medics; Pada 3 (27-30) Collaborators; Pada 4 (30-August 2) Oracles

Ashlesha: Pada 1 (August 3-6) / Institutional; Pada 2 (6-9) / Political

Sun in Leo: Ashlesha Pada 3 - Uttara Phalguni Pada 2 / midday August 9 - midday September 15

Ashlesha: Pada 3 (August 9-12, Leo starts midday August 9) / Ideological; Pada 4 (12-15) / Anarchical

Magha: Pada 1 (August 16-19) / Action- Driven; Pada 2 (19-22) / Context-Driven; Pada 3 (22-25) / Results-Driven; Pada 4 (25-28) / Process-Driven

Purva Phalguni: Pada 1 (August 29- September 1) / Sun-Gameplay Leadership; Pada 2 (1-4) / Mercury-Mind & Sales Leadership; Pada 3 (4-7) / Venus-Investment Leadership; Pada 4 (7-10) / Mars-Mission, Loves & Loyalties Leadership

Uttara Phalguni: Pada 1 (September 11-14) / Jupiter-Wheel & House Leadership; Pada 2 (14-17, Virgo starts midday September 15) / Saturn-Media Leadership

Sun in Virgo: Uttara Phalguni Pada 2 - Vishakha Pada 1 / midday September 15 - midday November 3

Uttara Phalguni; Pada 2 (September 14-17, Virgo starts midday September 15) / Saturn-Media Leadership; Pada 3 (17-20) / Ouranos-Revolution Leadership; Pada 4 (20-23) / Neptune-Soul Contract Leadership

Hasta: Pada 1 (September 24-27) / Magic Traders-Merchants; Pada 2 (27-30) / Magic Artisans; Pada 3 (30-October 3) / Magic- Channeled Writing; Pada 4 (3-6) / Magic Hands and Feet

Chitra: Pada 1 (October 7-10) / Picture-Making; Pada 2 (10-13) / Project Management; Pada 3 (13-16) / Venture Capitalism; Pada 4 (16-19) / Forbidden Path(s) to Heaven

Swati: Pada 1 (October 20-23) / Philosophy; Pada 2 (23-26) / Record-Keeping; Pada 3 (26-29) / Social Engineering; Pada 4 (October 29-November 1) / Entrepreneurism

Vishakha: Pada 1 (November 2-5, Libra starts midday November 3) / Pioneering

Sun in Libra: Vishakha Pada 1 - Anuradha Pada 3 / midday November 3 - start of November 24

Vishakha Pada 1 (November 2-5, Libra starts midday November 3) / Pioneering; Pada 2 (5-8) / Asset Management; Pada 3 (8-11) / Family Business; Pada 4 (11-14) / Benefactors

Anuradha: Pada 1 (November 15-18) / Matrix-Hacking; Pada 2 (18-21) / Pathfinding; Pada 3 (21-24, Scorpius starts November 24) / Mediating-Martyrdom

Sun in Scorpius: Anuradha Pada 3 - Mula Pada 3 / start of November 24 - late morning December 19

Anuradha: Pada 3 (21-24, Scorpius starts November 24) / Mediating-Martyrdom; Pada 4 (24-27) / Secret Service

Jyeshtha: Pada 1 (November 28-December 1) / Pluto-Career Secrets; Pada 2 (1-4) / Chiron-Stolen Career Secrets; Pada 3 (4-7) / Ouranos-Astrology-Tech-Trafficking Secrets; Pada 4 (7-10) / Neptune-Soul Contract Secrets

Mula: Pada 1 (December 11-14) / Rehabilitators; Pada 2 (14-17) / Green Men, Green Ladies, House Protectors; Pada 3 (17-20, Sagittarius starts December 19) / Knowledge-Keepers

Sun in Sagittarius: Mula Pada 3 - Abhijit Pada 1 / late morning December 19 - start of January 20

Mula: Pada 3 (December 17-20, Sagittarius starts December 19) / Knowledge-Keepers; Pada 4 (20-23) / Root-Workers

Purva Ashadha: Pada 1 (December 24-27) / Ancestral Healers; Pada 2 (27-30) / Oracle Healers; Pada 3 (December 31-January 2) / Fire-Starters & Peacemakers; Pada 4 (2-5) / Rogue Healers

Uttara Ashadha: Pada 1 (January 6-9) / Chosen for A Mission; Pada 2 (9-12) / Law Expertise; Pada 3 (12-15) / Social Capitalism; Pada 4 (15-18) / Prolific Writing

Abhijit: Pada 1 (January 19-22, Capricornus starts January 20) / Surgeons, Pathologists, Seamstresses & Tailors, Machinists, Precision-Workers

Sun in Capricornus: Abhijit Pada 1 - Dhanishta Pada 1 / start of January 20 - start of February 15 (with overlap of Aquarius' arm as of January 31)

Abhijit: Pada 1 (January 19-22, Capricornus starts January 20) / Surgeons, Pathologists, Seamstresses & Tailors, Machinists, Precision-Workers; Pada 2 (22-25) / Fated Winners and Heroes; Pada 3 (25-28) / Reverse-Engineers, Comedians; Pada 4 (28-31) Innovators

Shravana: Pada 1 (February 1-4) / Ideas-Person; Pada 2 (4-7) / Speaking and Singing; Pada 3 (7-10) / Design-Thinking, Graphic Design; Pada 4 (10-13) / All-Powerful

Dhanishta: Pada 1 (February 14-17, Capricornus ends at start of February 15) / Manifesting

Sun in Aquarius (out of Capricornus:) Dhanishta Pada 1 - Shatabisha Pada 4 / overlap with Capricornus, January 31 in Abhijit Pada 4 - start of February 15 in Dhanishta Pada 1; reaches Pisces midday March 11

Dhanishta: Pada 1 (February 14-17, Capricornus ends February 14) / Manifesting; Pada 2 (17-20) / Networking; Pada 3 (20-23) / Celebrity; Pada 4 (23-26) / Cultural Icon

Shatabisha: Pada 1 (February 27-March 2) / Semi-Conductors setting personal worth with favourite technology; Pada 2 (2-5) / Star-Delta Circuit as Self-Starters or Arrangers (Chaos Magic) and use of private transportation; Pada 3 (5-8) / Comparative Circuit in Executive-Mode with use of favourite tools and instruments; Pada 4 (9-12, Pisces starts March 11) / Passive Circuit as Empaths with use of machinery and public transportation

Sun in Pisces: Shatabisha Pada 4 - Revati Pada 4 / midday March 11 - start of April 21

Shatabisha: Pada 4 (March 9-12, Pisces starts March 11) / Passive Circuit as Empaths with use of machinery and public transportation

Purva Bhadrapadha: Pada 1 (March 12-15) / Child and Animal Advocacy; Pada 2 (15-18) / Children's Mentorship; Pada 3 (18-21) / Gurus and Publishing; Pada 4 (22-25) / Service to Kali and Birth Charts-Akashic Records (also service to Jesus - we could say, service to God, but decide for yourself - I believe Kali is most relevant as the credited Creator of these charts-records, and I'm not about pushing anything religious, but being specific to historic and cultural accuracy - you might care more about religious/spiritual allegiances)

Uttara Bhadrapadha: Pada 1 (March 25-28) / Navigation, Boats & obsessions with Sea Dragons; Pada 2 (March 29-April 1) / Masterminding; Pada 3 (1-4) / Math and Music Expertise; Pada 4 (4-7) / Occult Arts

Revati: Pada 1 (April 8-11) / Fine Arts and Industrial Arts Teachers; Pada 2 (11-14) / Problem-Solvers; Pada 3 (14-17) / Scientists; Pada 4 (17-20) / Psychic Artists

I hope that helps get you started - please don't hesitate to send me your birth info if you'd like me to gift you my version of your chart placements -

I'll soon be publishing pdf booklets with detailed results for Ascendant-Descendant Core Personalities

because my corrections led to a discovery of patterns in our charts set by our Ascendants, that organise all 112 Padas in specific relationships and sequencing with each other, making it possible to know how all your chart aspects work together -

which I've also tested and proved (proofs will be included, and published regularly) to match how your planet cycles imprint your childhood and adolescent development - and through which Spirit Guides - by calendar dates -

I will update this article with a link to them.

[possibly-j]

My Linux Journey

This was originally supposed to be a post on learning Linux but I got to rambling so enjoy my story about my journey with Linux. Expect a post on that topic at a later date.

~The early days~

I think my introduction to Linux was honestly quite smooth. See I'm poor and am not inclined to sail the seven seas when I can get by on a free option. And as I looked for free software I started to pick up that the safe ones were always "open source" and seemed to always support, sometimes primarily, Linux. Eventually my curiosity was piqued and I decided to look into it. I was confused by a lot of things, but I was setting up a Minecraft server for my friends and saw people recommend Linux, specifically Debian, for the job. So after unsuccessfully installing it once (I don't know how I think I got scared about formatting the drive) and not understanding how formatting works and deleting the operating system by writing it over with 0's (I keep adding comments but seriously where did I get the impression I had to do that?) and reinstalling I got it set up, downloaded everything I needed, and got it working in a few days. This taught me a lot. The command line, which I wasn't unfamiliar with but rarely used, was my new best friend, or rather only friend. I learned how to do updates, navigate the file structure, download software, and use Nano because, well, I had to. But most importantly, I like how clean everything was compared to Windows (subtle foreshadowing), and I wanted more.

~Adoption~

I was building my computer and really wanted to make the jump to Linux, so I researched and landed on Kubuntu. I installed it, smoothly this time, got some software, got confused by Snaps, opened Blender and- green bar. I had a new AMD graphics card, so driver issues weren't unexpected, but it deterred me enough to just install Windows instead. I did decide though to try on my laptop since it was older and mostly used for web-surfing. I installed Pop! OS because I thought the tiling was cool (more subtle foreshadowing) and... It worked great! I quickly got used to the nice GUI elements it provided and my prior knowledge of the terminal made it easy enough to fix odd issues that came up. However, and I'm sure everyone who knows anything about Linux sees this one coming

~Distro Hopping~

I'll save you most of the details but I think it went like this

Pop! OS, got mad at Gnome, switched to Manjaro with KDE (Which will be my DE of choice for the rest of this), wanted Arch but wasn't comfortable enough with the command line yet.

Broke something, switched to Debian, liked it on server thought I might like it on my laptop.

Wanted newer software, switched to OpenSuse Tumbleweed.

I used OpenSuse Tumbleweed for I think a year straight. It's just that good, but I can't leave good enough alone so

Alpine Linux, because I thought it was cool. Actually planning on moving back to it once I'm done needing my laptop to always be working because it meets that "clean" criteria like no other in my brain (See I told you it was foreshadowing).

And right now Endeavour OS, because I wanted something with good documentation and didn't feel like setting up Arch.

Oh and I use i3 now, to finish off the foreshadowing.

There were a bunch of short lived ones throughout that, but those are the memorable ones. Also I installed Fedora on the computer I built a few months back and now use it over Windows whenever I can.

~Where I am Now~

If it isn't obvious, I'm sucked in. I've almost built Linux From Scratch, three times, installed Gentoo a few times, and even tried expanding my horizons further with FreeBSD, which I love but the software support isn't great for my needs. Linux is natural to me and I even have my own bits of obscure knowledge on fixes for odd issues with my hardware. I have weird opinions about init systems (Weird because I don't actually care much, I just like OpenRC more than SystemD because it's simple). Windows feels slow to use, and not for hardware reasons it just takes me twice as long to do anything. I really love tiling window managers like I don't understand how I lived without them. I primarily use open source software when I can but flatpaks and web applications fill in the gaps nicely.

~Closing Notes~

I love Linux, probably a bit too much, but it's just a fun time. It works well for me and I've spent enough time in the ecosystem that it's what I'm used to. I see a lot of new Linux users on here so if you're new, welcome! Don't let the often toxic community (at least on Reddit, I don't know about here) get to you. My absolute favorite part of Linux is that you get to have choices. Make use of that, find what you like, and don't be afraid to reinstall Arch for the 10 millionth time. There's a lot to learn, and maybe my story will be of some help. To those more experienced than me, how the fuck do you understand chmod

:q!

[astrorakesh1726]

Hi are Taurus ascendant unlucky in love and marriage?

Astrology, including the concept of ascendants, is a belief system that varies among individuals and cultures. It's important to remember that astrology is not a science and its interpretations can differ widely among practitioners.

In astrology, the ascendant (or rising sign) is the zodiac sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at the time of your birth. It's considered to represent the mask you present to the world and can influence your outward demeanor and approach to life.

Taurus ascendants are often described as stable, practical, and reliable individuals. However, whether someone with a Taurus ascendant is "unlucky" in love and marriage would depend on many factors beyond just their ascendant sign, including the placement of Venus (the planet associated with love and relationships), the seventh house (the house of partnerships and marriage), and aspects between planets in the birth chart.

Furthermore, luck in love and marriage is subjective and can't be solely determined by astrological factors. Many other factors such as personal choices, communication skills, emotional intelligence, and compatibility with partners also play significant roles in romantic relationships and marriages.

It's essential to approach astrology with an open mind and understand that it provides one perspective among many for understanding ourselves and our lives. If someone is experiencing challenges in their love life or marriage, seeking guidance from a qualified therapist or counselor could be beneficial, rather than relying solely on astrological interpretations.

It is important to approach astrology with an open mind and understand that it offers one of many perspectives to understand us and our lives. If someone is facing challenges in their love life or marriage,

So you can take help of Kundli Chakra 2022 Professional software.

[geeta1726]

What is the significance of the ninth house in a birth chart?

The 9th house in a birth chart is highly significant and is often associated with luck, wisdom, and higher purposes. Here are for key points about its importance:

House of Fortune and Luck: The 9th house is considered the "house of fortune" (Bhagya Sthana). It reflects one's luck, blessings, and opportunities in life. A strong 9th house can indicate good fortune, success, and the ability to overcome obstacles through grace or divine intervention.

Higher Learning and Philosophy: This house governs higher education, wisdom, philosophy, and spiritual beliefs. It represents one's quest for knowledge beyond the material world, such as religion, ethics, and a deeper understanding of life. It's the house of teachers, gurus, and mentors who guide the native.

Long-distance Travel and Exploration: The 9th house rules long journeys, both physical and metaphorical. It is associated with international travel, exploration, and cultural exchange, as well as the expansion of one’s horizons through these experiences.

Results of 9th House in Birth Chart: If you want to know about your Kundli then you can use Kundli Chakra Professional 2022 software which can give you better information like Kundli . Match Making ,K.P. System ,S.P.S. System, Jaimini System Ho ,rari (Prashna) Analysis Numerology - Predictions Numerology - Compatibility with partner and calculations Lal Kitab Analysis Lal Kitab Varshphal Analysis Muhurta Analysis Sarvato Bhadra Chakra - Ancient Indian method for predictions using Vedhas Nomenclature - Vedic method Nomenclature - Western method Transit study with various worksheets and animated transits Transit graph for financial astrologers Transit wheel (Detailed chart wheel with nakshatras and all aspects) is also used in western astrology Time correction can also be known about the study of events.

[tf-rpg]

Tales of Lore- TF, VR, RPG

Greetings and welcome! This blog is for detailing a setting that combines fantasy, transformation, isekai, and probably some size stuff!

This will include some kinky stuff, so Minors, Do Not Interact.

Tales of Lore is a fictional Virtual Reality Role Playing Game, drawing inspiration from World of Warcraft, Pathfinder, Log Horizon, Overlord and some other media. While the software works well for some 99% of players, many find that the Reality doesn't entirely stay virtual.

Some players are trapped as their characters within the incredibly realistic fantastic game world, some are permanently turned into characters or monsters in the real one, and some can switch between the two. That transformation, or growth, or access to fantastic powers and magic, are the main focus of the art and stories on this account.

Tales of Lore also has a dense hybrid system, so many characters may end up being cross-species of 2, 3, or even 4 ancestries, for some very funky designs and abilities.

@cloud-kaiju and @lulu-the-kaiju are the folk behind this blog, but feel free to throw questions and suggestions in if you're interested! We'll upload the backlog of relevant characters and artworks daily for the moment, so stay tuned!

[usafphantom2]

Modernization: Dilemmas for Adversaries

Jan. 16, 2025

Air Combat Command

ACC shield

Air Combat Command shield

Photo Details / Download Hi-Res

JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS,Va --

When Gen. Ken Wilsbach took command of Air Combat Command last February, he made it clear that ACC would prioritize creating dilemmas for adversaries.

“To create those dilemmas in ACC, we have to work on readiness, modernization, and Agile Combat Employment,” Wilsbach said.

These three focus areas, along with “taking care of Airmen and families,” are the four priorities established for ACC by Wilsbach and Chief Master Sgt. Dave Wolfe, ACC command chief.

In a rapidly evolving global security environment, modernization of the U.S. Air Force is more critical than ever. The complexity of modern warfare, advancements in adversarial capabilities, and the need to maintain global strategic dominance make evolving the force an imperative.

To ensure air dominance in the 21st century, Wilsbach has placed a robust and integrated cyber network at the forefront of ACC’s modernization efforts.

“The first modernization priority for me has to be the network,” Wilsbach said. “When we look forward to the way we will have to fight, it will be with a network-enabled force. We need to have a combined operating picture so we can have situational awareness and complete the kill chain.”

The "kill chain" refers to the sequence of steps required to detect, identify, track, target, engage, and assess threats. It demands coordination across multiple domains — air, space, cyber, and sea — to enable seamless information flow and operational agility. A robust cyber network is essential to achieving this capability.

Wilsbach also highlighted the importance of extending the kill chain to long-range engagements, a crucial capability for countering the highly defended targets of the modern battlefield.

“Throughout my career, most weapons were short-range, relying on aircraft sensors for targeting and guidance,” Wilsbach said. “While we still retain that capability, we now aim to engage targets beyond the horizon, where aircraft sensors cannot reach.”

This “over-the-horizon” kill chain not only extends the Air Force’s operational reach, but also enhances safety for personnel by enabling engagements from greater distances.

In addition to enhancing the Air Force’s cyber network and extending the kill chain, Wilsbach recognized the importance of modernizing an aging fleet of aircraft.

“In the next few years, we'll be delivering some new aircraft, while at the same time modernizing our current fleet with new software and new weapons,” he said. “That will be happening relatively soon with Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which is a way for us to increase the mass of what we can deliver as effects in the battle space, at a relatively inexpensive cost.”

Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA, are unmanned systems being developed by ACC to operate alongside manned aircraft. These platforms enhance mission capabilities by providing support for reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and strike operations, facilitating more effective, adaptable, and cost-efficient air combat strategies.

By modernizing existing capabilities and introducing advanced systems like CCA, the Air Force aims to employ a strategy known as “stacking effects,” to create multiple dilemmas for adversaries.

“In the old days, when we would drop a bomb on a target, we'd guide the bomb on the target from our own aircraft sensors to destroy it,” Wilsbach said. “Modern 21st century targets are highly defended and require a strategy of stacking effects, which involves combining space and cyber capabilities, electronic warfare, decoys, and kinetic weapons to increase the likelihood of mission success.”

While modernization is a top priority for ACC, Chief Wolfe acknowledged the challenges ahead and emphasized the importance of maintaining current platforms at peak performance.

“Modernization is extremely complicated, and there are a lot of priorities out there,” Wolfe said. “Not everything is going to come on a timeline that we would like. We must preserve our current capabilities and keep them moving along until we can get across the bridge, to the capability that is just down the road.”

Wilsbach stressed the need for innovation at all levels to bridge the gap between current and future capabilities.

“Jump in, be innovative, make the most of whatever you have,” Wilsbach said. “What we want is to maximize whatever platform you have by making sure they're ready, they're flyable, and we're being innovative with procedures and processes so we can get the most out of every one of those platforms.”

Air Combat Command’s focus on modernization will make sure the Air Force is prepared to confront the challenges ahead and maintain its position as the world’s preeminent air power.

@acc.af.mil

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-04-01

Boopin' Monday

Listening: Sometimes you go a while without listening to a performer well understood to be solidly good and you forget that they're solidly good and then you listen to them and you're like yeah this is good. Daft Punk's Human After All album.

A positively wet album.

Reading: Finished Glory In The Thunder, by 0xabad1dea. A very strange book to read, like, it's a peculiar mix of extremely by the book fantasy and the peculiar "teen queer perfusion" style that 0xabad1dea was aiming for. A lot of plotlines but very well plotted, they weave in and out very neatly and intersect at the right times. It's a satisfying book to read but also I get the feeling that 0xabad1dea is having more fun writing it than I could ever have reading it.

If nothing else I should understand more of her posts now, since many of them are notebook sketches of these characters. I'll get to the sequel another time but I'm busy digging through my book list for what to read next.

Watching: Not much! A lot of short web stuff most notably the new Antimemetics Division short film, which has part 2 coming out in a couple days! Exciting stuff.

Playing: Forza Horizon 5, the Audi Quattro Rally S1 is up as a reward this month and I was like hey I want one of those, although I ended up scoring one through the rally DLC quests. I did wrap up the rally DLC storylines though so I'm caught back up with all the big quests, still haven't finished a ton of the ones that came out since I kind of stopped playing it as much as I used to because I was wasting a lot of my time in that game. It's too easy to get sucked into just cruising between races idly for hours.

Making: Started poking at LÖVR in detail, started writing a boids simulation but I fell down the rabbit hole of locomotion methods in VR, dealing with the dual coordinate spaces of the headset position in space and the virtual space positioning transforms is a little daunting, I expect I'll have to write some helpers to simplify it. Slowly relearning how Lua works.

Also sat and sanded the NAS case, I was planning on painting it this weekend but I was a little sick so that is on hold until probably Friday when the workshop opens again. Also need to go finish signing up for a library card so I can use the library system's shared workshop for smaller things, it looks cool.

Tools and Equipment: I have been responsible for rescuing a dying storage server at work, and I would like to pitch mdadm. If you're still using hardware RAID, stop that. It is a bad idea. You are setting yourself up for problems. CPU's are fast enough now that software RAID is perfectly performant and it makes sure that you don't end up in the situation where something silently goes wrong with your RAID card and you don't realize that your data has turned into giblets.

mdadm is actually really nice when you aren't dealing with inscrutable bugs that I see because I'm in the bugfixing division. Very simple to manage, good documentation, comprehensible metaphors, handles itself when possible, and has several sets of instructions that are basically guaranteed not to break anything that was no already broken, which is handy if you are dealing with an already fragile system.

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Saturn - 3D Baseball

Title: 3D Baseball / ３Ｄベースボール ザ・メジャー

Developer: Crystal Dynamics / STATS Inc. (Sports Team Analysis and Tracking Systems) / Webtone

Publisher: BMG Japan

Release date: 31 January 1997

Catalogue No.: T-18003G

Genre: Baseball

 I'm not a big fan of Crystal Dynamics. An awful lot of their games just don't appeal to me. They are dark-looking, pure American-based software. Now, there's nothing wrong with American-based software since there is a market and fans to support it. Heck, even the best games on today's gaming platform are all Western-made - God of War, Horizon, Starfield, Knights of the Old Republic, a lot of it. However, 3D Baseball: The Majors did actually impress me.

The quality of the 3D in this game far outdoes Sega's Greatest Nine (World Series Baseball) series with ease. Even the main player is polygon-generated without looking all squarish. The commentary is also pretty good although the voice does tend to become annoying after a while.

3D Baseball plays a pretty decent game of baseball as well. You've got all your options to play with and stats to keep you happy as well. In fact, I'd say that 3D Baseball is one of the better baseball sims out there on the Saturn. Well worth checking out. You will have to put up with a poor-quality FMV ad for Pandemonium though before the game starts. This is quite odd since Pandemonium was released by Bandai in Japan under the name of Magical Hoppers along with brand new characters and looks far better than the Pandemonium original.