#MES Manufacturing Execution System

[datadiscoveriesdaily]

Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) Market Size Growth Set to Surge Significantly during 2024-2031

Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) market has witnessed substantial growth in recent years, becoming a pivotal component in modern manufacturing processes. MES is a comprehensive software solution that plays a crucial role in managing and optimizing manufacturing operations on the shop floor. Its primary objective is to enhance production efficiency, reduce errors, and provide real-time insights into the manufacturing process. As industries increasingly embrace automation and digitization, the MES market is poised for continued expansion. The concept of MES is widely recognized and used in manufacturing sectors such as automotive, semiconductor, electronics, food processing, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, medical devices, and textiles. Elements such as scheduling, maintenance management, quality, time, and attendance fall within the scope of MES and are used in all industries.

To Know the Global Scope and Demand of the Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) Market | Request for Sample PDF: https://www.sanglobalresearch.com/enquiry/manufacturing-execution-systems-mes-market

One of the key drivers propelling the growth of the MES market is the relentless pursuit of operational excellence by manufacturing enterprises. MES enables companies to streamline their production processes, improve overall efficiency, and minimize waste. By providing real-time visibility into production metrics, MES empowers decision-makers to make informed choices, optimize resource utilization, and reduce production costs. The demand for MES solutions is further fueled by the need for better compliance with regulatory standards and industry norms, ensuring that manufacturers adhere to quality and safety standards.

Moreover, the growing trend of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing has been a significant catalyst for the MES market's expansion. As manufacturing facilities embrace the integration of IoT (Internet of Things) devices, sensors, and data analytics, MES becomes the linchpin connecting these technologies. MES not only facilitates communication between various manufacturing components but also helps in harnessing the power of data for predictive analytics and proactive decision-making. The ability of MES to foster connectivity and data-driven insights positions it as a crucial enabler for the digital transformation of manufacturing processes.

However, the MES market does face certain restraints that could impact its growth trajectory. Implementation costs and the complexity of integrating MES with existing systems pose challenges for some businesses. Small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, may find the initial investment in MES implementation daunting. Additionally, concerns about data security and the potential disruptions during the transition phase can act as deterrents for organizations considering MES adoption. Overcoming these challenges requires careful planning, collaboration with experienced MES providers, and a phased approach to implementation.

Despite the hurdles, the MES market is poised for growth due to various favorable factors. The increasing demand for customized and configurable MES solutions tailored to specific industry requirements is creating new opportunities for market players. MES vendors are focusing on developing user-friendly interfaces and scalable solutions to cater to a diverse range of manufacturing environments. The emphasis on scalability ensures that MES can adapt to the evolving needs of businesses, making it a sustainable and future-proof investment.

Furthermore, the emphasis on sustainability and eco-friendly manufacturing practices is driving the adoption of MES. Manufacturers are leveraging MES capabilities to monitor and optimize energy consumption, reduce waste, and adhere to environmental regulations. As businesses increasingly recognize the importance of corporate social responsibility, MES becomes a strategic tool for aligning manufacturing operations with sustainable practices.

In conclusion, the Manufacturing Execution Systems market is witnessing robust growth driven by factors such as the pursuit of operational excellence, the advent of Industry 4.0, and the demand for sustainable manufacturing practices. While challenges such as implementation costs and integration complexities exist, the overall trajectory of the MES market is positive. As industries continue to prioritize efficiency, connectivity, and sustainability, MES will remain a crucial technology in the evolving landscape of modern manufacturing.

Market segment by players, this report covers

    ABB

    Accenture

    Andea Solutions

    Aptean

    Dassault Systemes

    Emerson

    Eyelit

    Fujitsu

    GE Digital

    HCL Technologies

    Honeywell

    IBASEt

    Krones

Market Segmentation

The Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) market is split by Type and by Application. For the period 2024-2031, the growth among segments provides accurate calculations and forecasts for consumption value by Type, and by Application in terms of value.

Market Segment by Type

    On-Premises

    On-Demand

    Hybrid

Market Segment by Application

    Beverages or Brewing Industrial

    Refineries and Petrochemicals

    Pharmaceuticals

    Chemicals and Specialty Chemicals

    Automotive

    Machine or Plant Construction

    Metal or Paper

Market segment by regions, regional analysis covers

    North America (United States, Canada, and Mexico)

    Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy, and Rest of Europe)

    Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, South Korea, India, Southeast Asia, Australia and Rest of Asia-Pacific)

    South America (Brazil, Argentina and the Rest of South America)

    Middle East & Africa (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Rest of Middle East & Africa)

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[oneofthosecrazycatladies]

This post is my attempt to track what’s going on with US politics. This post is constantly being updated so if you see this on your dash, check my blog (this post will be pinned) to see the latest version. If there’s anything I miss that you think should be included on this list, please let me know.

January-April 2025

May 2025

National News:

Trump-appointed judge says president’s use of Alien Enemies Act is unlawful [x]

Trump is replacing Mike Waltz as national security adviser [x]

The Department of Justice is preemptively suing several states in order to prevent them from suing oil and gas companies [x]

Trump releases a budget proposal that cuts funding to health, education, and clean energy while growing funding to the military [x]

Trump downplays fears of recession [x]

Trump administration is making sweeping cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) [x]

Trump is ordering the reopening of Alcatraz [x]

Trump wants to put tariffs on foreign films [x]

Trump says he’ll give immigrants $1,000 if they self-deport [x]

Trump administration has shut down CDC's infection control committee [x]

Supreme Court upholds Trump’s ban on trans people serving in the military [x]

House votes to codify Trump's Gulf of America executive order [x]

Trump names Fox News host as US Attorney for D. C. [x]

Supreme Court lets Trump end deportation protections for 350,000 Venezuelans [x]

House Republicans want to stop states from regulating AI [x]

The executive orders Trump has signed to rewrite American history [x]

LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) has been arrested and charged with assault [x]

FDA may limit future Covid-19 shots to older people and those at risk of serious infection [x]

Trump unveils plans for 'Golden Dome' defence system [x]

Justice Department pulls civil rights investigations into local police departments [x]

17 family members of notorious cartel leader enter U.S. in deal with Trump administration, Mexico says [x]

Judge blocks Trump administration from closing the Education Department [x]

Trump administration blocks Harvard's ability to enroll international students [x]

Trump reverses the ban on forced reset triggers, which are devices that can turn an assault rifle into a machine gun [x]

Supreme Court grants Trump request to fire independent agency members [x]

A judge has temporarily blocked Trump’s plan to stop Harvard from enrolling international students [x]

Trump has made massive cuts to the National Security Council [x]

Trump is delaying tariffs on the EU [x]

CDC ends Covid vaccine recommendation for healthy kids and pregnant women [x]

US court blocks Trump from imposing the bulk of his tariffs [x]

Appeals court pauses ruling that blocked Trump’s tariffs [x]

Supreme Court allows Trump to revoke legal status of 500,000 immigrants [x]

State News:

Texas is trying to pass a bill that would ban people from receiving medication abortion pills in the mail [x]

Trump’s war on clean energy is threatening a battery manufacturing plant in Kansas [x]

Florida bans fluoride [x]

A brain-dead woman in Georgia is being kept alive because of the state’s abortion law [x]

A bill in Texas will require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools [x]

Other News:

Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for US Attorney for D.C. lies about being acquainted with a Nazi sympathizer [x]

Trump says he “doesn’t know” if he has to uphold the Constitution [x]

Trump posts an AI generated photo of himself as the Pope [x]

Former Palantir workers condemn company's work with Trump administration [x]

Trump wants to have a military parade for his birthday [x]

Trump pulled his nominee for Surgeon General for not being MAGA enough [x]

Trump accepts a luxury jet from Qatar [x]

Trump is claiming there’s no inflation [x]

White South Africans arrive in the US as refugees [x]

Kristi Noem incorrectly defines habeas corpus during hearing [x]

Pentagon says it has accepted Qatar's gift of a luxury megajet for Trump's use [x]

Pete Hegseth is hosting Christian prayer services at the Pentagon [x]

June 2025

20 years ago, same-sex couples couldn’t legally be married in America. 40 years ago, people with disabilities had next to no civil rights and were sometimes barely treated as human. 50 years ago, women couldn’t get a credit card without their husband’s or male relative’s permission. 70 years ago, America was a racially-divided apartheid state and there was a literal terrorist group freely roaming the country and holding political power. 90 years ago people of color, people with disabilities, non-heterosexual people were subjected to eugenics and forced-sterilization. 110 years ago women couldn’t vote.

The ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples, slavery, imprisoning people for being homosexual, lynching, institutionalizing disabled people, I could go on and on and on.

America has done a lot of unforgivable things to minorities. This country has been through some unimaginable times. And through all that, there have been people putting their lives at risk to fight that because the Founders, for all their flaws, did manage to get one thing right: leaving the language of the Constitution just vague enough to plausibly include everyone even if the Founders, themselves, weren’t necessarily thinking of everyone when they wrote it.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I really couldn’t care less if I’m “cringe” or whatever. Truthfully, I think that people considering optimism and hope to be “cringe” is exactly why we’re in this mess right now. Being optimistic doesn’t mean denying the reality you’re in. Being optimistic means accepting reality and saying “but I think things can be better.”

When our forebears were being enslaved, institutionalized, sterilized, terrorized, murdered, did they just throw up their hands and say “well times are tough, nothing we can do about it, guess we have to just accept it 🤷‍♀️”? We owe it to everyone who came before us to pick up the mantle and keep fighting.

Protest peacefully. Make your voices heard. We lose if we give up and stop fighting. Remember: Community Is Strength. Diversity Is Strength. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

[rohitpalan]

Advantages of Real-time Data in Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)

In 2023, the market for manufacturing execution systems (MES) is anticipated to be worth US$18.2 billion. Market expansion is being driven by the growing use of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) in end-use industries. According to estimates, the market would generate US$ 61.8 billion in 2033, growing at a 13.0% CAGR between 2023 and 2033.

The manufacturing execution system market is anticipated to expand during the forecast period due to the rising need for operational efficiency, automation, and digitization in manufacturing sectors to optimise their production processes, enhance quality, and lower costs.

During the projected period, the market expansion is anticipated to be driven by the rising demand for manufacturing execution systems (MES) from a variety of industries, including automotive, oil & gas, chemical, healthcare, and consumer packaged goods.

Get an overview of the market from industry experts to evaluate and develop growth strategies. Get your sample report here @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-17317

Innovations in technology such as big data, cloud computing, and IoT have propelled the manufacturing execution systems (MES) market.  Manufacturing execution systems provide real-time visibility and actionable insights into production processes for manufacturers.

MES systems play a crucial role in integrating and optimizing manufacturing operations, facilitating the use of technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML).

Asia Pacific is expected to hold the largest share of the manufacturing execution system market due to the increasing industrialization and ongoing development of manufacturing sites in nations like India & China The manufacturing execution system market in Europe is expected to witness significant growth in the coming years due to the increasing demand for MES system with real-time analytical capacity.

Key Takeaways from this Market Report:

From 2018 to 2022, the manufacturing execution systems (MES) market demand expanded at a CAGR of 14.7%.

Based on components, the software segment accounts for a CAGR of 12.9%.

By deployment, the on-premises segment is expected to expand at a CAGR of 12.7% during the forecast period.

North America to emerge as a promising market, capturing a CAGR of 13.0%.

Asia Pacific is an opportunistic market, expected to capture a CAGR of 13.0% during the forecast period.

Competitive Landscape:

Prominent players in this market are:

ABB Ltd.

Aptean, Inc.

Accenture PLC

Applied Materials, Inc.

Aspen Technology, Inc.

Few others

Rockwell Automation provides the FactoryTalk Production Centre MES, which helps manufacturers streamline production operations, enforce quality control, and track performance in real-time.

In October 2022, Aptean announced its acquisition of Frontex BV, a leading provider of cloud-based Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and energy management solutions to process manufacturers in the Netherlands, Belgium, and over a dozen other countries across the globe.

Honeywell offers the Uniformance® Suite MES, which combines real-time process data, analytics, and reporting to improve manufacturing efficiency and decision-making.

Schneider Electric offers the EcoStruxure™ Manufacturing Execution System, which integrates with other plant systems to provide real-time visibility into production, quality, and energy management.

More Info @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/manufacturing-execution-systems-market

Know More about What this Market Report Covers:

Future Market Insights offers an unbiased analysis of the global manufacturing execution systems (MES) market, providing historical data for 2018 to 2022 and forecast statistics from 2023 to 2033.

To understand opportunities in the manufacturing execution systems (MES) market, the market is segmented based on component, deployment, and end-use across five major regions.

Key Segments Covered in this Industry:

By Component:

Software

Services

By Deployment:

On-premise

On-Demand

Hybrid

By End-Use:

Automotive

Aerospace &Defence

Healthcare

Oil &Gas

Chemical

Food & Beverage

Consumer Packaged Good

Others

By Region:

North American

Latin America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East and Africa

[absolutebl]

Top 10 Great BLs That Are REALLY hard to find (but worth tracking down)

You may want to go hunting anyway!

Seven Days

Seven Days: Monday-Thursday

Seven Days: Friday-Sunday

Japan 2015

Never doubt my ability to recommend this show. One of the best live action yaois ever made, with perfectly structured angst, fantastic characters and acting, and no problematic tropes (rare in Japanese BL). The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat there’s still some really cute mutual kisses.

Cherry Magic AKA 30-sai made Dotei Da to Mahotsukai ni Nareru rashii

Japan 2020

The sweetest fluffiest magical realism BL, packaged as a pinning office romance, very low heat (practically chaste) but the cutest. It’s truly great.

Cherry Magic Thailand

Thai 2024

A soft charming warm hug of a show about crushes and mind reading and self worth, with no-fuss execution from a consummate team and an OG lead pair proving why they remain eternal and deserve to grow up. Look, here’s the thing, Cherry Magic is a great Thai BL in its own right not comparing it to any other iteration. But even when I do compare (and I've seen all the Cherries and read the manga) it still stands. I personally like it slightly better than the Japanese live action, but I think that’s because I just really like Thai BL and I LOVE TayNew. Also all the kissing was both present and better than any other iteration. As it should be from Thailand.

I Feel You Linger in the Air

Thai 2023

IFYLITA is an exquisite BL, from filming techniques to narrative framework (much like Until We Meet Again). Steeped in history and family drama it edges into lakorn (but no as much as To Sir With Love and with way less scenery chewing). This is an elegant and classy BL... from Thailand which normally doesn't even try for classy. The main couple (both as a pair and individuals) were excellent, particularly Bright (Yai) whose eye-work acting style is a personal favorite of mine. Pity about the ending. Oh it wasn’t that sad but it wasn’t good either. This show could easily have earned a 10/10 from me except that it fumbled the… erm… balls in the final quarter. Argh. Whatever.

All about the ecstasy and the agony here.

Restart After Come Back Home AKA Risutato wa tadaima no ato de

Japan 2020

Atmospheric study in rural Japan meets complex family dynamics built on a romance framework of city boy meets country boy, grumpy/sunshine. It’s beautiful and icy sweet. Slow moving in places but ultimately worth the patience, low heat, low angst, and stunning.

Given

Japan 2021

Boy joins band, falls in love with other boy. The singing is terrible, fast forward through that but with the possible exception of the hair styles, this BL could have been made in 2015 and no one would be surprised. As such, it wasn’t ground breaking, but it didn’t disappoint either.

Make a Wish

Thai 2023

A doctor who can see the dead strikes a bargain with a wish-granting irreverent tree angel - naturally they fall in love (from Sammon: Manner of Death & Triage). Stars Fluke Natouch opposite not-Ohm, but who tf cares because Fluke has chemistry with everybody. Once again the Thai afterlife is incredibly bureaucratic but I enjoyed the premise and the unfolding of the story (it’s not predictable but still satisfying and with nice little twist). I like that the doctor is just gay AF - fag hag bestie and all the swagger. The cast is excellent even if the comedic stylings are a bit overblown and tonally off. It had sad parts and did make me cry but is ultimately happy with a great sex scene, good smiley kisses, and all the agency. Definitely recommended.

2 Moons The Ambassador AKA 2 Moons 3

Thai 2022

A Thai pulp that felt like it came out 5 yrs prior, with many of the flaws inherent to that time and studio system, including manufactured angst and convoluted plot, but an ultimately sweet main couple that (as a pairing) feels a bit more modern and satisfying to watch than they started out. This will probably go down in history as one of the few BLs where I genuinely didn’t care about any of the side couples. All that said, I find this show oddly appealing and rewatchable and I have no excuses for that except, I enjoyed it probably more than it deserved. Nostalgia & d**k, it's what's for dinner.

I Want to See Only You AKA Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai

Japan 2022

This is a beautiful well acted piece of cinema, about two boys who are opposite personalities and grew up together. Gifted and serious Sakura pines after outgoing eccentric manic pixie dream boy, Yuma. It is very pretty and this is the kind of atmospheric elegantly performed BL that only really comes from Japan (complete with dead fish kisses - what you though Korea invented them? oh no). If you want something stylish, this is it.

Triage

Thai 2022

BL does Groundhog Day featuring a doctor stuck in a time loop who must save a poor little rich boy from death by seducing the stuffing out of him, then PLOT TWIST, poor little rich boy must do the same for the doctor! Unfortunately... stuffing keeps leaking. I thought the plot was engaging if a little redundant and occasionally exhausting. The pairs were all well done, low heat but with decent chemistry and the support characters were likable (or unlikable, as required). If anything, the romance arc detracted and distracted from the main plot, but that doesn't stop this from being a genuinely good show.

HONORABLE MENTION

Great Men Academy

Thai 2019

Bodyswap involving unicorns turning a teenage girl into a boy makes this questionable as a BL (because, ya know, gender). But the fact remains that James is killer in the lead, and I (who do not like bodyswap) loved this damn show. Look, there is actual plot, hotties at boarding school, "bully the one you love" trope, some weird VR shit, very bad CGI, and yes, the boys end up together... whether they boys or not, so to speak.

Some of these shows may appear on a smaller streaming service, like WeTV, or they may be on a legal platform in your territory. I hope it goes without saying you should check there first.

(source)

This list updated Spring 2024, not responsible for cool stuff that went missing (or was added to a platform) after that date.

It's it last in a series the rest of which are:

[drdemonprince]

Thousands of people did not just suddenly stop using headphones one day because they felt like it, or because they stopped caring about people with sensory sensitivities like me. No, people stopped using headphones because cell phone manufacturers stopped including headphone jacks in their products. 

My sensory-processing issues are a physical element of my disability that would absolutely still exist in a world without capitalism. Like my poor fine motor control and reduced muscle tone, my sensory processing issues debilitate me: there are tasks I simply cannot perform because of how my body is wired, and this makes me different from most other people in ways that are non-negotiable.  Still, my physical disabilities are worsened quite clearly by capitalism: Because large corporations have both a profit motive and a vested interest in reinvesting those profits into advertisements, and because the internet does not receive public financial support, my daily life is bombarded with bright, noisy, flashing, disruptive advertisements, which makes it far more difficult for me to process relevant information and can swiftly bring me to the verge of a meltdown.  If the internet were funded as a public utility and was therefore not sandblasted in ads, I would be less disabled. If my local streets were less plastered in billboards and littered with junk mail advertising chain restaurants, I would be less disabled. 

Because companies like Apple financially rely upon consumers replacing their phones on an annual basis (despite how unsustainable and murderously cruel continuing to mine cobalt in Sudan for the production of all these new phones is), I must replace my phone regularly. With an updated phone model I lose my headphone jack and have to adapt to a new operating system and layout, and so my sensory issues and executive functioning challenges are exacerbated.  In a world where phones were produced in order to help human beings function rather than to make money, I would be less disabled.  Thanks to capitalism, I cannot exist in public if I am not purchasing anything. I cannot simply be present in a store, coffee shop, or even public plaza, enjoying my surroundings and taking the sight of other people in. I must contribute to the economy in order to justify it. If the brickwork of a nearby building fascinates me and I crave to feel it against my palms, I have to pretend that I wish to buy it, and be prepared to tell anyone who asks that that’s what I intend to do. I can’t even stand on the corner and feel the sun on my face without worrying my neighbors might find it unusual and send the cops.  As an Autistic person, I often can’t fake being a perpetual consumer well enough. My desire to simply elope around my environment and take in new, interesting sensations registers as suspicious or concerningly mentally ill. And so I am further disabled and excluded from public life. 

The full essay is free to read or have narrated to you at drdevonprice.substack.com

[treasure-mimic]

Psychopomp and What Things Mean When They Don't Mean Anything

So if you haven't noticed or you don't follow me, I recently became interested in a small, one-man dev team indie game by name of Psychopomp. As a brief synopsis and pitch, Psychopomp is a game about a woman who seemingly suffers from paranoid delusions, through the lens of this narrator she tells us that there's a labyrinth of catacombs hidden underneath every public building and sets out to explore them to uncover the world's secrets, armed with nothing but a store bought hammer.

The game's intro puts it in words better than I could and more influential than any pitch is just seeing the protagonist's design.

As one commentator states, she looks like a skateboard mascot from the mid-2000s. Like she should be on those posters with a snarky quip just fucked up enough to catch those pearl clutching puritans off guard. I love the style and I love the tone and I love the premise.

This might be the best time to note that if you're interested in playing this game, you should stop reading here, as this discussion will contain spoilers. It's a short game, took me about 3 hours on my first playthrough, and it's pretty cheap, even has a free demo in the form of the base version with Psychopomp Gold serving as the expanded, completed experience.

Anyways.

I've always found conspiracy theories fascinating but in the modern age it can be hard to immerse yourself in these reality-detached belief systems without acknowledging, you know, the racist dogwhistling and tangible physical harm it's causing to society at the present moment. Psychopomp is able to pretty gracefully sidestep this issue by setting its anarchic anti-government sentiments against its protagonist's paranoid delusions rather than adherence to a faith or belief system.

Indeed, the game seems to take systemic beliefs as its central enemy. The entities that are necessary to kill to progress through its levels are defined by the systems they interact in, historical figures of elevated status, keystone positions in industrial manufacturing, even abstract systems like urbanism and DNA composition are posed as societal and oppressive. I'm not saying that there's no way to interpret the game in bad faith and make it directed at marginalized social, political, or ethnic groups, but I also struggle to imagine the person who takes the game literally on its face value?

Which I guess leads me to the main topic I wanted to discuss. The game very obviously has an unreliable narrator (for the record, the protagonist remains nameless for the bulk of the game, I will be referring to her as Venus as it's the closest she has to a name that's explicitly stated within the text itself) with the flavor of one whose intake of reality may be different from what's actually occurring. The game uses a combination of conspiratorial rambling and dream logic to stage its unreal tone; for example, one level delves into the "biology" of buildings, stating that they use graffiti to communicate and that black mold is a pheromone used to evacuate its inhabitants to allow for mating. Loading screens come with "Gameplay Tips" and "Real World Tips", both of which are often dense and inscrutable; for example you might get a pair like "Not all enemies are friends" and "Viruses do not exist. Illness is simply your body punishing you for what you've done wrong."

Surrealism and unreality as stylistic choices can be a bit of a tightrope walk to get right. On the one hand, if you make it explicit that a story takes place in a state that did not happen even within the story's universe, a dream or a hallucination, it can rob the narrative of its stakes, regardless of how well executed the internal metaphors are. Psychopomp very explicitly does not do this, regardless of what it is that Venus is experiencing, the game makes it clear through scientific logs and communications (as well as a brief epilogue set outside of her perspective) that something abnormal is happening, the question is just where in between normality and Venus's experiences does the truth of the game's narrative actually lie.

The other side of the tight rope is literal interpretation, presenting a setting that's absurd to our sensibilities but tangibly explainable, where meaning is supplanted by lore and the cosmology begins to solidify into a set of Calvinball rules that don't make sense, but are still adhered to, and this is the side Psychopomp threatens to lose me on. There is a credible argument to be made that there is no difference, that what Venus is experiencing is her reality without warping and distortion, it's a more credible argument than saying she completely fabricated all of it, and it's an argument I was starting to wonder wasn't the intended interpretation. Until I got the game's second, secret ending.

Psychopomp has one collectible that doesn't serve a direct gameplay purpose, but each catacomb has a key hidden away, often behind false mimic walls that bleed and scream when you hit them with your hammer, and which unlock new rooms in the only permanent location "Home". Initially a gray, cubical, concrete room with a single mattress and a small table with a radio on it, collecting keys allows you to further explore outside(?)/within(?) the home with a unique camera perspective and limited interaction. In the first layer there's a blob man who cries out in torment, demanding to know why you specifically made the world like this, giving some credence to the deification of Venus implied by the game's ending. In the last layer, Venus traverses underneath and past her own brain to unlock a repressed memory.

I take this as confirmation that there's some level of abstraction at play here. Under scrutiny it feels as though there must be some level of abstraction at play here because when taken as a whole, the conspiracies start becoming outright contradictory, even if you try to take the cosmology at play as fact, which are the closest thing to objective facts that we have.

See, Venus's perspective takes place an alternate Earth, one that both seemingly was broken off from the planet and now orbits it like a new moon but also has always existed. One of the locations is a natural history museum which explains the history of sentience on this counter-earth, humans rose, went extinct, were supplanted by a species called the thrait, then humans returned in a mutated form and retook the surface and forced the thrait back underground (though the museum also refers to the thrait as extinct despite being the most common friendly NPC you will encounter). Another location seems to imply that the humans of this world, or maybe only some of them, are artificial clay creatures, reinforced by the arbiters of the DNA factory too being clay alleles. The Human Seedbed even has the game's most effective jumpscare in it, where Venus cannot leave the area without being confronted with a jittering clay facsimile of herself.

But with that in mind, what the hell is Venus then? By no account is she one of these artificial clay people but then how did she get here? The game's introduction implies that she used to be a normal person, or at least closer to, with lived experiences inclusive of complete ignorance to this underworld, the game's endings imply that she's an immortal god-being who has been intentionally working towards her own reawakening, and that is actually one of the least ambiguous plot points within the narrative. None of the pieces of this world lock together to form a cohesive vision of a setting that operates on even the barest of internal rules, and yet the game in the same step refuses to be a character study or subconscious examination, I mean the epilogue is a damn sequel hook that involves assembling the damn Avengers to combat the ramifications of the events of the game.

So, I come to realize, I'm the problem. I might, in fact, be thinking about this too hard.

One of the locations in the game is called "Daddy's Bad Place". It is a single, tiny room of a house or apartment, frozen in a moment of tearing itself apart, that only contains a dusty old TV set with a small, pointless ornament sitting on top. In any other surrealist game, this isolated circle of clarity, a compact orb of recognizable terrain, would be a moment to deliver one single jolt of reality into the metaphor of the protagonist's journey through their own subconscious.

In Psychopomp the TV turns on and delivers a distorted warning about a giant insect which is deadly, deceitful, and above all, not real.

In Daddy's Bad Place I come to realize something. The lore is fake, the characterization is fake, the dichotomy of truth and delusion is fake, the insect is not real. Let's think about what I'm doing here for a moment, right? I'm trying to discern the truth from within a work of fiction. None of its true, none of it happened, what difference does it actually make?

The thing about conspiracy theories is that they don't make logical sense. It's a known phenomenon that conspiracy theorists love to debate, but cannot be reasoned out of their beliefs by facts or logic. There is never a counter, but always a failsafe argument that can be retreated to for safety. What conspiracy theories do make is emotional sense, they make narrative sense. The line that initially sold me on Psychopomp was one of the aforementioned loading screen tips, "All the food you've ever eaten is rotten. You have never tasted fresh food."

Patently false statement, does not hold under scrutiny, but I, as someone who lives in America and lives in a city center and has to get all my food through corporations, can look at a statement like that and say yeah. Checks out. I believe you. We would know if children were being smelted into egg slicers underneath public schools, but it resonates with our emotions about the systems of education we enforce upon children, so it could be true. We would know if buildings were a living, reproducing organism, but it resonates with the feelings of being born into a world where urbanism exists, has existed as permanent fixtures of the world, and is continuously encroaching upon the face of the world, so it could be true.

Anyone who understands the fundamentals of incentives and human psychology does not need to believe that there is a coordinated group of ontologically evil individuals driving the world to ruin for ruin's sake, but that narrative still feels true, it becomes validating in the ways that it plays off of the emotions of believers until it becomes a foundational pillar of belief that cannot be destroyed by logical contradiction.

Psychopomp, in the same way, presents information about its internal systems that cannot be true logically but form self-justification anyways through emotional resonance. It doesn't matter if the lore works because its stated, it isn't wrong, so it must be a truth. This is the way that Psychopomp emulates the unreality of the conspiracy theory in a way that can avoid the disturbing implications of the real world practice. I've made comparison to surrealism by dream logic and surrealism by internal self-reflection, but this is a different mode entirely and the game simply refuses to operate by those tropes at its core. Conspiracy is itself contradiction, not the soft contradiction of two halves of a dream that don't lock together, but the hard contradiction of attempting to apply emotion and narrative to a waking world that rejects either premise. Psychopomp, then, is surrealism by way of conspiracy.

[mariacallous]

Well, it’s good we’re suddenly paying attention to postal logistics. Retailers, traders, and consumers are trying to figure out what U.S. President Donald Trump’s suspension—and then reimposition—of the postal service’s de minimis rule means. The end of customs-free imports for Chinese goods worth less than $800 was perhaps inevitable, and drugs and artificially cheap clothes should definitely have a harder time entering the United States. So far, though, the executive order has mostly led to chaos that has forced Trump to suspend the measure.

Allow me to nag: Knowing some Latin is exceedingly useful. Those who have had the privilege of learning this versatile language will know that de minimis means “about the smallest [things].” For the past nine years, the United States has been rather generous in its definition of the smallest things. The de minimis rule for goods coming into the country per post has been $800 since 2016, which means that only goods worth more than $800 are subject to customs fees. That can buy quite a lot, especially online.

China has been the big winner of this loophole, especially budget fashion manufacturers like Shein and Temu, which don’t have stores in the United States but ship almost everything directly to their U.S. consumers. (Shein has a warehouse in Indiana, from which it ships some items and also handles returns, and Temu announced last year that it was going to launch U.S. warehouses.)

For $800, one also gets quite a bit of fentanyl. The synthetic opioid that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, including nearly 75,000 in 2023, mostly arrives in small parcels from Mexico and China. Six years ago, Beijing imposed heavy restrictions on fentanyl, but crafty entrepreneurs instead began exporting the lethal drug’s essential components. Today, China is the world’s leading exporter of such precursor chemicals, according to an October 2024 report.

That makes the de minimis parcels arriving in the United States every day a mixed bag, and they’re growing at a dizzying rate. By last October, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) was processing some 4 million de minimis shipments per day, up from 2.8 million per day in 2023. “Bad actors are exploiting this explosion in volume to traffic counterfeits, dangerous narcotics, and other illicit goods including precursor chemicals and materials such as pill presses and die molds used to manufacture fentanyl and other synthetic drugs that are killing Americans,” CBP noted.

It’s these drug packages that Trump tried to reduce with a Feb. 1 executive order ending the $800 de minimis rule for goods made in China. “I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the sustained influx of synthetic opioids has profound consequences on our Nation, including by killing approximately two hundred Americans per day, putting a severe strain on our healthcare system, ravaging our communities, and destroying our families,” he explained in the executive order.

De minimis shipments are a mixed bag—and an enormous one at that. Under a normal government, any change to de minimis rules would need to be carefully planned with CBP, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), FedEx, DHL, and other logistics companies. That didn’t happen. And now that the executive order has been signed, it has to be implemented, since lex dilationes abhorret—the law abhors delay.

As a result, the executive order has caused logistical turmoil. To begin with, there are the parcels that were midair when Trump signed the order. Then there are the ones that had just arrived but had not been processed yet by CBP. Remember, over 100,000 de minimis packages arrive in the United States every hour. Not all of them are from China, of course, but that just means that CBP has to go through all the parcels that have recently arrived and separate out the ones from China.

And then, CBP could, of course, destroy the fentanyl packages, but the legal shipments have to be stored somewhere and then returned to their senders, since it’s the sender—not the recipient—that pays customs duties.

Oh, and did I mention the packages in China awaiting shipment to the United States? Since customers are unlikely to want to pay more to absorb the customs costs, and Shein, Temu, and others would be likely to retroactively add to their bills, the parcels had to return to the sellers and refunds had to be initiated.

Facing this mess, shipping giants threw up their hands. USPS and other freight companies suddenly had to deal with tons of packages with unclear destinations—and even less clarity about who would pay. USPS announced it was going to stop handling parcels from China altogether. Then, on Feb. 7, the White House announced the executive order would be delayed to give federal agencies more time to prepare. That suspension was, in fact, inevitable.

It makes sense to close the loophole. The $800 de minimis was a globalization-era luxury. Those who thought it up seem not to have countenanced the possibility of it being used for drug shipments, or that Chinese fast-fashion retailers would systematically use it to undercut competitors that ship and sell their goods the traditional way, via bulk country-to-country shipments and sales to consumers from warehouses or shops within the United States. When it’s closed, that’s going to mean a substantial blow to firms like Temu and Shein, which may not win favor with some of Trump’s allies who have their own stakes in those firms.

This hastily composed executive order has mostly brought chaos upon the United States, and now there’s the embarrassment of having to delay its implementation. That seems to be a consistent pattern with the new administration’s shotgun approach to governance. Trump, let me introduce you to a motto coined by Emperor Augustus: festina lente—make haste slowly.

[annaphoenix1994]

When the World Fades

Previous Chapter - Masterlist - Next Chapter

»»-------¤-------««

I sat in the kitchen area at the end of the hallway, sitting alone as I recalled the last several hours, Valeria's words seeping into my mind like a bad infection. "You tell me. You're the contractor, no?"

That question replayed in my mind like a broken record, and I possibly was overthinking the question, but I knew better than to brush it off due to my gut instinct telling me to look into it more. Why did Valeria call him a contractor? Because contractors plan and execute ideas. Why would she call him a contractor if she didn't know something?

Immediately, I pulled out my phone to check for new notifications, a sigh of relief leaving me when I got an email notification from Kate, stating that she was now okay and was able to confirm that the guidance systems for the missiles were originally in Spain and were now on the missiles. I had my confirmation with something to branch off of for more research.

I took another drag from my vape pen, exhaling through my nose before I stood to my feet, making my way towards my room before locking myself inside. I was so fucking tired now that my adrenaline was wearing off, a faint soreness invading my limbs after I sat down at the small desk, opening my laptop and notepad to begin my research, the small piece of paper I had written on during Hassan's interrogation pressed beneath a paperclip on the first page of my notebook.

I was going to do more research, remembering how Kate mentioned why she was tasking me on this in the first place.

Starting off, I did a background check on both Graves and Shepherd, seeing that there wasn't anything to use for potential evidence.

That was, until I started digging a little deeper...

0511. That was the number on the missile Soap told me about when his team found the first missile in Al Mazrah.

"What was your intention on sending missiles to my land?" I remembered Hassan asking Graves the night of his interrogation, the same question written on my scrap piece of paper. 

I began to start my research with the number on the missile, finding that I was able to track it by seeing its history of being assembled in Alabama at the MFC (Lockhead Martin Missiles and Fire Control), which is where most American missiles are manufactured, seeing that it was then transported to Arlington, Virginia, coincidentally along with two other missiles out of Texas, which is also where Graves called home. After that, I was able to track a shipment from Virginia all the way to Urzikstan without the proper stops and checkpoints required for transporting missiles overseas. This was off the books.

A Black Bag Operation.

Conducted by Commander Graves and approved by General Shepherd.

Oh, I've got you now, motherfucker.

I quickly dialed Kate's phone from my burner phone, a smart move considering anything could be tracked nowadays. "Kate, how are you?"

She sighed, "Better than how I was. What've you got for me?"

"I started with the number on the missile Sergeant MacTavish found with the team in Al Mazrah. I traced it back from Alabama where it was made and sent to Virginia before it was transported out overseas. Never once made a mandatory stop at checkpoints."

"Any names?"

"Yeah. Conducted by Graves and approved by Shepherd."

"I'm going to do some digging. I'm due back to the Pentagon tomorrow morning."

"Okay. We also found and interrogated a sicaria posing as El Sin Nombre. I'm going to link up with Graves and see what he was able to find out all while gathering intel on my own."

"Okay, Kiera. Report back to me with what you can find out." 

"I will. Stay safe out there." 

"Always. You too." 

I locked my laptop and put it away along with my notebook before deciding to take a shower, eager to rid my skin of the thin sheen of sweat that consumed the top layer of my skin.

Relieved and relaxed, I left my hair down over my shoulders after I had changed into a new set of attire that were designed to keep me cooler in the Mexican climate, strapping a thigh holster against me just in case.

Until we gathered additional intel, the Task Force, me, and Mexican Special Forces were on rest for the remainder of the day. Most took advantage by taking longer showers, having fun on utility vehicles to explore the desert, or engaging in P.T. As for me, I found myself on top of a hill that was mainly used for a lookout, but I found myself enjoying the isolation and take advantage by listening to my favorite playlist, cracking open a can of Dr. Pepper, and taking a few drags from my vape pen as I gazed over the landscape Mexico had to offer. The live version of Kate McCannon by Colter Wall played lowly from my phone's playlist, drowning out the silence that surrounded me.

The strong chords and low voice reminded me of Wyoming, and I wished I was home – far better than where I currently was.

"Interesting music taste." A voice startled me, nearly making me jump out of my skin. Ghost – standing there as if I had taken his lookout spot.

"It's real music if that's what you're asking." I smirked.

"You say so," He shrugged. "Never heard it."

"Not surprised. Didn't think music like this would exist in the U.K. You're missing out," I teased. "You look like you're here to take a post. I'll get out of your way—"

"No need. I usually come up here to do the same thing you're doing," He cut me off. "Care for some company?"

"You didn't seem the type to like company."

"It usually doesn't bother me. Unless it's Soap, then I like being alone." He shook his head, taking a seat close by before removing his balaclava from his head, running his fingers through his hair with a deep sigh.

This man was beautiful, and I wondered why he chose to conceal his identity. He had deep brown eyes with dark blonde hair and light stubble with a build that I couldn't help but get butterflies over. He was a prime example of a military man, and my stomach twisted into a knot when I realized that his sleeve concealed an arm full of tattoos on his left arm.

I couldn't help but take another hit from my vape pen when I watched him roll up the sleeves of his ACU jacket, desperate to rid my mind of realization that this man was insanely attractive, and I knew I would have no chance.

"How'd he acquire a callsign like that?" I asked him.

"I really don't know. To be honest, I'm afraid to ask."

I chuckled, "why's that?"

"You know what they say about don't drop the soap. He strikes me as the one who has, and it just stuck."

"Great, now I can't look at him another way even if he does eventually tell me why he chose Soap as his callsign." I shook my head, taking another drag before I offered it to him. "Want a hit?"

He shook his head, "I'm alright. I don't smoke unless I'm anxious."

"If you're anxious, it must be serious, because I've been anxious ever since I've been here." I giggled.

"You'd be surprised," He huffed. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What you said about Graves a couple days ago. Why'd you say it?" He asked, his tone of blunt curiosity, which surprised me. I haven't known this man long, but I did know that he was a reserved, observant type, and if something intrigued him enough to ask a question that he knew he probably shouldn't, he was genuinely curious.

"I'm afraid it's classified information, Lieutenant."

"Okay."

We caught each other's gaze, looking into the other's eyes for a few seconds, seeing that he was genuinely wondering what I was doing here if I wasn't a part of the Task Force or Special Forces. He knew I had worked alongside his Captain before, yet we had never met prior to our assignment. He knew I worked closely with Kate, and he seemed to be trying to put together the pieces as to who I was. Not for intel, but his own curiosity, perhaps interest. I felt like I could trust him, but I've learned a long time ago to not trust anyone fully, especially a man, and that was of no fault of his own, but it's unfortunate that a few bad encounters I've had with men aside from enemy forces had ruined that for me.

"I'm here for the same reason you are, following orders."

"Fair enough."

A moment of silence fell between us, and I was oblivious to how much I relaxed while in his presence. He was mysterious and intimidating, yet I felt the safest when around him. I felt the world seem to fade around me when I was with him, and I knew that I was thinking too far and giddy from the excitement of having an attraction to someone.

I couldn't help but hum along to the next song that played from my playlist, Zach Bryan's song Dawns featuring Maggie Rogers. "It just dawned on me, life is as fleeting as the passin' dawn..." I thought that my humming was low enough to keep him from hearing the words I was singing along to, but I guess I wasn't as oblivious as I thought.

"I take it you like to sing, yeah?" He asked.

I couldn't help but smile. It was a genuine smile that appeared very briefly throughout my life – a smile that was innocent and vulnerable when all I was used to was being dominant and intimidating. "I do, but I'm not a professional or anything. Just a talent that I occupy my time with."

"Any favorites?"

"Any song I like is a favorite," I chuckled. "I mumble just about anything."

"You've got to have a favorite that you can't help but sing every time you hear it, no matter where you are."

"Eh, you'll think it's silly."

"Try me."

"You know that movie with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga?"

"Who? I don't really watch a lot of movies, love. Don't have the time."

"Do you even know who they are?"

"No."

"Well, they're in a movie together called A Star is Born. There's a song in that movie called Always Remember Us This Way, and I've loved it ever since I heard it. It's one of my favorite movies."

"I'm assuming it's a love story type of movie?" He guessed.

"Yeah, not surprising, huh?" I laughed. "I've always loved that song, but it was catchy with no meaning behind it for me. Never had a reason to sing it and actually enjoy it."

"Why?"

I never expected to hear him ask that question when I figured he'd just drop it and not pry, so I was caught off guard and surprised that he wanted to know.

"Stupid reason. Had a man who I thought loved me, but I wasn't good enough, I guess. I caught him cheating on me, and when I confronted him about it, he got defensive and tried to gaslight me into making me think I was crazy."

"You shouldn't let that affect what you love to do."

"Easier said than done, Lieutenant—"

"Simon." He corrected, his tone sounding of regret after correcting me. I saw how tense he was, letting down a wall of his own because he wanted me to know. I showed him a smile of vulnerability, something that I rarely ever did because of my own trauma and past experiences as I didn't want to give him a chance to take advantage of me, yet he gave me his name when it was obvious he went by Ghost for a reason.

He was being vulnerable with me, even if it was just an ounce of it.

"Simon." I repeated, a faint smile spreading on my face.

"Simon Riley." He choked out. Another ounce of vulnerability. I finally knew this man's name, sharing the same information that possibly very few people knew.

"Kiera Dutton."

"Strong name." He complimented, unaware that I was able to realize that he forced out the compliment as it was something new and rare for him, obvious that it wasn't common for him to express a compliment to anyone besides saying "good work" or "nice shot."

"Thank you. You need a strong name for living in Wyoming," I giggled, easing the tension before looking down at my watch. "Well, I gotta get back to the base. I asked Alejandro to sit down with me for a briefing before turning in for the night." As I went to get up, a rock that had shifted under my foot caused me to lose my balance, and Simon didn't hesitate to reach his arm out and prevent me from falling on my back, but he was a second too late. I laughed as I embraced my embarrassment, accepting his offer of helping me to my feet to keep me from falling again.

"Clumsy today, yeah?" He teased me, keeping a firm grip on my bicep until I was stable on my own two feet.

"I sat for too long, and my leg is still hurting from that terrifying cliff jump, ya know. My leg fell asleep and did me dirty."

"That wasn't even a far fall."

"I beg to differ!" I scoffed. "That was a first-class ticket straight to hell if I had to name it!"

"You must've not jumped out of planes before, then."

"Believe it or not, I have. I felt safer because I had a parachute, but when we jumped off of that cliff? I had to rely on positivity and luck not to hit a jagged rock."

"Fair enough."

"Here," I said, handing him my iPod I kept as a spare just in case I broke my phone. "Listen to all of my good music that you're missing out on. You won't regret it." I giggled.

"I might."

"You never know. Might find a song you like."

»»-------¤-------««

For the rest of the day, Kiera and I haven't seen each other since we split off from the lookout post. I got a good look at her face in the golden hour of a Mexican sunset, and she didn't fail to make my breath hitch. She was so bloody gorgeous, and only having the interaction from earlier and not being close to her since we separated, it was a bloody tease.

I had gone off to bed early, taking the advantage of a day off to get much-needed sleep, but my body was against me as I suffered through usual insomnia. Kiera's iPod was sitting next to me on my cot, yet I hadn't even listened to any of her music that she suggested. In fact, I didn't even touch it because I didn't want to drain her battery, but perhaps she had a song on her music list that could possibly help me fall asleep. I never had a particular taste in music, listening to a random song on the radio while I was back home in Manchester.

Deciding to give this iPod a try, I held it above my head, pressing the button and seeing that her background wallpaper was a family photo – all on horseback with a rugged mountain backdrop behind them. She must have a perfect life.

I knew I shouldn't have tapped on her photo album, not wanting to invade her privacy, but I figured it was harmless curiosity as well as keeping my embarrassment of having to ask her more questions about her personal life. I figured that I could get to know her better this way. I was horrible with communication and self-esteem, and I knew that trait was what ruined my former relationships, my most recent being a lass named Sarah. We had been broken up for a couple of years now, but we were both toxic for each other. It started off as a mutual no-strings-attached type of relationship and had a few night stands before I started developing feelings for her. The first couple of months were perfect until I had to go off for a deployment. She didn't like that, but I didn't care. She knew from day one about my work but couldn't handle the fact that I would be gone. She ended up getting more than "clingy." It was borderline stalker behavior – always around my flat, asking my friends where I was and when I'd be coming home, and even reaching out to my own Captain and asking him to release me.

It was bloody ridiculous, and I wasn't having it anymore.

By the time I eventually came back, she was suffocating to be around. I tried to make it work – tried to understand her behavior, but it wasn't working. She didn't understand that I needed my space after coming home to decompress from the violence and carnage I participated in. It got to a point where I would take longer showers just to have time to myself because she wouldn't leave me alone.

I tried not to fault her for it or consider her crazy, because she wasn't. She was just insecure – too insecure with herself to not leave me alone in fear of losing me.

It was a mistake, and I never should've pursued a relationship when I knew that there was a possibility that it wouldn't work or that she would lose me.

And now here I was, wishing that something could end up working between me and Kiera because I had a strong interest in her. I didn't intend on a one-night stand with her or a no-strings-attached sort of relationship. I could see myself with her, and that was a ridiculous thought considering I haven't known her for more than a week, and perhaps I was so lonely and lovesick that I saw an opportunity with every woman I came across.

I ended up tapping on the photo album, seeing many various photos of her personal life that I had no business looking into, seeing photos of different horses, dogs, her and her parents, food, and landscapes – no personal photos (or selfies as younger people call it) or anything inappropriate. She was classy and full of life outside of the military, and I grew attracted to her even more.

Especially when I didn't see any evidence of a relationship waiting for her back home.

I had no problem attracting women, but impressing one that I really had an interest in was a severe skill I lacked.

My favorite photo of her was a portrait of her with a palomino horse, her eyes sparkling with happiness and peace with her long hair blowing with a breeze. I wished I could print it off and keep it to just look at when I was wanting to look at her, but I guess looking at it was enough.

After I had looked through every photo, I eventually tapped on her music app, seeing various playlists with a lot of songs within them. There was a playlist titled 'Daily', which contained the obvious, I guess. Another was titled 'outlaw country', and the last was titled 'foreign.'

I curiously went through every one, seeing a lot of songs from a band named Rammstein. I had heard their music before, but I barely understood German, so I never listened to them on my own free will. One of my comrades listened to Rammstein and Eisbrecher while doing P.T. when we were in Austria for a mission years ago.

I'd be lying if I said Bestrafe mich wasn't a good song.

I didn't know what it meant, and it could've been about worshipping Satan for all I knew, but I liked the sound of the song.

Her 'daily' playlist consisted of various different genres and different artists like Bon Jovi, George Straight, Alice Cooper, Nickelback, Johnny Cash, and Slipknot. I didn't find any song that I was curious about listening to, so I found my way to the 'outlaw country' playlist, and I was happy with my decision when I found one of the songs she had been listening to while we were sitting at the lookout post.

Within that playlist was a lad named Colter Wall, and he had some pretty good music he put out, The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie being my favorite one so far.

I wasn't even aware that I was falling asleep, until my eyes shot open at the sound of muffled singing coming from Kiera's room. My cot was right against the wall, and coincidentally, the wall was the only thing separating us from laying alongside each other. She wasn't trying to sing loud – just something to occupy her mind. If I had to guess, she wasn't realizing how good her voice sounded even if she was singing at a low tone.

"That Arizona sky; burnin' in your eyes; you look at me and babe, I wanna catch on fire; it's buried in my soul; like California gold; you found the light in me that I couldn't find..."

I felt bad for curling my finger against the wall, delivering a soft knock to the drywall before I heard her immediately stop, likely out of embarrassment, but I wanted her to keep going.

Dammit, Riley, if you would've just stayed quiet, she would've sung for you! Bloody idiot!

It was when she knocked back that I knew she wasn't embarrassed, but she still didn't continue singing when she knew I'd be listening.

Instead, I knocked back. 

[andmaybegayer]

Hello. So what's the deal with computer chips? Let's say, for example, that I wanted to build a brand new Sega Genesis. Ignoring firmware and software, what's stopping me from dissecting their proprietary chips and reverse-engineering them to make new ones? It's just electric connections and such inside, isn't it? If I match the pin ins and outs, shouldn't it be easy? So why don't people do it?

The answer is that people totally used to do this, there's several examples of chips being cloned and used to build compatible third-party hardware, the most famous two examples being famiclones/NESclones and Intel 808X clones.

AMD is now a major processor manufacturer, but they took off in the 70's by reverse-engineering Intel's 8080 processor. Eventually they were called in to officially produce additional 8086 chips under license to meet burgeoning demand for IBM PC's, but that was almost a decade later if I remember correctly.

There were a ton of other 808X clones, like the Soviet-made pin-compatible K1810VM86. Almost anyone with a chip fab was cloning Intel chips back in the 80's, a lot of it was in the grey area of reverse engineering the chips.

Companies kept cloning Intel processors well into the 386 days, but eventually the processors got too complicated to easily clone, and so only companies who licensed designs could make them, slowly reducing the field down to Intel, AMD, and Via, who still exist! Via's CPU division currently works on the Zhaoxin x86_64 processors as part of the ongoing attempts to homebrew a Chinese-only x86 processor.

I wrote about NES clones a while ago, in less detail, so here's that if you want to read it:

Early famiclones worked by essentially reverse-engineering or otherwise cloning the individual chips inside an NES/famicom, and just reconstructing a compatible device from there. Those usually lacked any of the DRM lockout chips built into the original NES, and were often very deeply strange, with integrated clones of official peripherals like the keyboard and mouse simply hardwired directly into the system.

These were sold all over the world, but mostly in developing economies or behind the Iron Curtain where official Nintendo stuff was harder to find. I had a Golden China brand Famiclone growing up, which was a common famiclone brand around South Africa.

Eventually the cost of chip fabbing came down and all those individual chips from the NES were crammed onto one cheap piece of silicon and mass produced for pennies each, the NES-on-a-chip. With this you could turn anything into an NES, and now you could buy a handheld console that ran pirated NES game for twenty dollars in a corner store. In 2002. Lots of edutainment mini-PC's for children were powered by these, although now those are losing out to Linux (and now Android) powered tablets a la Leapfrog.

Nintendo's patents on their hardware designs expired throughout the early 2000's and so now the hardware design was legally above board, even if the pirated games weren't. You can still find companies making systems that rely on these NES chips, and there are still software houses specializing in novel NES games.

Why doesn't this really happen anymore? Well, mostly CPU's and their accoutrements are too complicated. Companies still regularly clone their competitors simpler chips all the time, and I actually don't know if Genesis clones exist, it's only a Motorola 68000k, but absolutely no one is cloning a modern Intel or AMD processor.

The die of a Motorola 68000 (1979)

A classic Intel 8080 is basically the kind of chip you learn about in entry level electrical engineering, a box with logic gates that may be complicated, but pretty straightforwardly fetches things from memory, decodes, executes, and stores. A modern processor is a magic pinball machine that does things backwards and out of order if it'll get you even a little speedup, as Mickens puts it in The Slow Winter:

I think that it used to be fun to be a hardware architect. Anything that you invented would be amazing, and the laws of physics were actively trying to help you succeed. Your friend would say, “I wish that we could predict branches more accurately,” and you’d think, “maybe we can leverage three bits of state per branch to implement a simple saturating counter,” and you’d laugh and declare that such a stupid scheme would never work, but then you’d test it and it would be 94% accurate, and the branches would wake up the next morning and read their newspapers and the headlines would say OUR WORLD HAS BEEN SET ON FIRE. You’d give your buddy a high-five and go celebrate at the bar, and then you’d think, “I wonder if we can make branch predictors even more accurate,” and the next day you’d start XOR’ing the branch’s PC address with a shift register containing the branch’s recent branching history, because in those days, you could XOR anything with anything and get something useful, and you test the new branch predictor, and now you’re up to 96% accuracy, and the branches call you on the phone and say OK, WE GET IT, YOU DO NOT LIKE BRANCHES, but the phone call goes to your voicemail because you’re too busy driving the speed boats and wearing the monocles that you purchased after your promotion at work. You go to work hung-over, and you realize that, during a drunken conference call, you told your boss that your processor has 32 registers when it only has 8, but then you realize THAT YOU CAN TOTALLY LIE ABOUT THE NUMBER OF PHYSICAL REGISTERS, and you invent a crazy hardware mapping scheme from virtual registers to physical ones, and at this point, you start seducing the spouses of the compiler team, because it’s pretty clear that compilers are a thing of the past, and the next generation of processors will run English-level pseudocode directly.

Die shot of a Ryzen 5 2600 core complex (2019)

Nowadays to meet performance parity you can't just be pin-compatible and run at the right frequency, you have to really do a ton of internal logical optimization that is extremely opaque to the reverse engineer. As mentioned, Via is making the Zhaoxin stuff, they are licensed, they have access to all the documentation needed to make an x86_64 processor, and their performance is still barely half of what Intel and AMD can do.

Companies still frequently clone each others simpler chips, charge controllers, sensor filters, etc. but the big stuff is just too complicated.

[absolutebl]

Rules: List 10 of your comfort shows

tagged by @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle (thanks doll)

I rarely pass along tags but you should do this one and tag me if you do so I can see, comfort watches are my absolute FAVORITE.

This is a BL blog and I've watched most of them, so I will be picking BL. But I will only be picking BL I am rewatching for comfort right NOW.

Some of these may surprise. Ready?

My Top 10 Comfort BL's right NOW

1 kiss x kiss x kiss - perfect scandal (short)

My favorite of this series because it's basically office romance sexy bits we all wanted from Old Fashion Cupcake.

2 Jun & Jun

his show made up for in style what it lacked in substance. I like fluff. I loved this. I smile every moment I'm watching. This is very much MY style of BL.

3 Love is Science (BL cut)

Mark and Ouwen gotta be one of my all time favorite side dishes. LIS? is a noona romance with added mature side couple as well as these two, mostly interwoven. It’s a big buy in just for Mark & Ouwen but WORTH IT, and some kind soul uploaded a BL cut to YT. Everything is a touch quirky but the BL boys are beautiful, earnest, and high heat. It's one of Taiwan's favorite dynamics: the bisexual himbo meets the confident gay, but they are just LOVELY, plus tiny queer family at the end.

4 2 Moons 3

What can I say, it's utter trash but there is something about the main couple I love. A Thai pulp that felt like it came out 5 yrs ago with many of the flaws inherent to that time and studio system, including manufactured angst and convoluted plot, but an ultimately sweet main couple that (as a pairing) feels a bit more modern and is satisfying to watch. This will probably go down in history as one of the few BLs where I genuinely didn’t care about any of the side couples.

5 Love Class 2

But only "my couple." ( the mature student and the TA). I still hold that they probably should’ve had their own series.

6 Big Dragon

I didn't love this when it first aired but I am coming around to it more on the rewatch. (I may even up its score from 7 to 8 if the eventual movie sticks the landing). This is a pairing that proved itself to be a lot more sophisticated than I expected with nods at kink in a more respectful way than Mame could ever dream, plus excellent chemistry.

7 Why R U? Korea

The Korean remake of Why RU? is BOTH bizarro land, and EXACTLY what I expected. There is something comforting in watching the Cliff's notes version of a show I enjoyed before just in a different BL style. I don't know why I like this one so much, but I really do.

8 Takara & Amagi

I gnawed on my knuckles and squealed a lot with this show first time around. Now I still love it but I'm more calm. It is beyond charming: soft and gentle, packed with cuteness and high school angst, thirst, & yearning.

9 About Youth

A truly lovely little coming of age high school BL with a classic YA low drama but high angst and an earnest depth.

Clearly I'm having a bit of a high school phase because I've been thinking of doing this one next:

10 My School President

Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but I still ADORED this. And there is a lot to be said for the classics being re-executed perfectly. Who let my BL be this wholesome and funny?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sophie Hurwitz at Mother Jones:

Donald Trump’s Republican Party platform, released in July, contains little in terms of tangible policy proposals. But one of the few concrete ideas is a call to (apologies for the capitalization) “PREVENT WORLD WORLD III” by building “A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR ENTIRE COUNTRY”—a plan that experts say is nearly impossible to execute, unnecessary, and hard to even comprehend.  Trump has vowed to build this Iron Dome in multiple speeches. It is among his campaign’s 20 core promises. The former president has said that the missile shield would be “MADE IN AMERICA,” creating jobs, as well as stopping foreign attacks. 

While it might sound nice to talk of building the “greatest dome of them all,” as Trump recently said, Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, says such a plan is ridiculous. “It’s dramatically unclear to me what any of this means,” Lewis said of the Iron Dome idea, “other than just treating it like the insane ramblings of a senile old person.”

It may be more useful to consider an American Iron Dome as a bombastic businessman’s branding exercise, rather than a viable policy position, said Lewis: “The Iron Dome here has just become a kind of brand name, like Xerox or Kleenex for missile defense.” The Iron Dome, a short-range missile defense system created by Israeli state-owned company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and American weapons manufacturer Raytheon, has been a prized part of the country’s military arsenal since it became operational in 2011. It is not, as the name suggests, an impenetrable shield. It’s more mobile: when a short-range missile reaches Israel’s airspace, “interceptor missiles” are launched to blow them up before they can touch the ground. The Iron Dome’s functionality depends on Israel’s comparatively miniscule size and proximity to enemies. This makes it particularly hard to imagine a similar setup in the US, which is over 400 times the geographical size of Israel. Such an apparatus, national security analyst Joseph Cirincione estimated, would cost about 2.5 trillion dollars. That’s over three times the country’s entire projected military budget for 2025.

An American Iron Dome is NOT a feasible idea.

[keoulkeech]

On-lyne: their infection and the spread of Technocyte Coda. [Speculation]

No On-lyne crumbs this DevStream won't stop me from thinking about them, Kinemantik Online and Kinemantik Global Entertainments.

"Stay connected anywhere, anytime with the KinePage all-in-one communications revolution from Kinemantik! Boasting a massive 2 megabytes of memory, you'll never run out of storage space." — Arthur's KinePage decoration description

Something that really surprised me on The Lotus Eaters was discovering that they are now not only the producer and "owner" of the band - which is a very distinct role on its own - but they are also manufacturers and designers of communication equipments (and likely developers of communication systems aswell)!

Because I always wondered how there were so many On-lyne posters, themed neon lights and so forth dozens of promotional content on every single street shown on the Tennocon Gameplay but now it all makes sense they are not "only" the manager of the band but a whole market on it's own!

That also makes On-lyne, and their show/tour all the more intriging because at first they are "only" a popular band making a big show - no big deal - But now we see that Kinemantik (their producer) manufactures and owns all sorts of audio/communication equipments and have their signature Kinemantik speakers, loudspeakers, etcetera across the entire Höllvania city-state.

Now my speculation on how/why the infection of the On-lyne band and it's spreading was planned and executed by whatever/whoever owns Kinemantik:

The band is infected and Technocyte Coda has a "mutation" for music/sound

Loudspeakers and so on are (or at least attempted to be) planted across the entire Höllvania to maximize it's the spread!

Profit!... for Coda...

[mariacallous]

Sweden, Norway, and Lithuania will team up to buy hundreds of soon-to-be-manufactured CV90 combat vehicles, Sweden’s prime minister announced late last month. Economies of scale matter in the military—but these kinds of deals are very difficult to execute, which is why they’re usually very rare. The three Nordic-Baltic nations may be about to set a new standard.

“The joint procurement will speed up the delivery, reduce the cost, and benefit our defense industrial links,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden said on April 22. “With the CV90 [operating] in almost all Nordic and Baltic states, we can also improve our interoperability and our security of supply,” he added.

The Swedish-made infantry fighting vehicle has long been popular among European armies: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine use it. It’s easy to see why: The CV90, which was developed for the Swedish military and hit the market in the 1990s, can perform many of the functions of a main battle tank (including taking on enemy tanks), but it’s smaller, more mobile, and more versatile.

Just last December, Denmark ordered 115 CV90s from BAE Systems Hagglunds (which manufactures them in Sweden), while the Swedish Armed Forces ordered 50. Two years ago, the Czech ordered nearly 250, and a few months before that, Slovakia bought more than 150.

And now there’s the planned Nordic-Baltic mass order. Finland initially expressed interest in the plan but later explained that it won’t participate in the joint procurement, instead presumably opting to make a separate one, but that still leaves three countries willing to attempt one of defense procurement’s most challenging moves. According to Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas, it will involve some 1,000 CV90s.

Usually, the path of joint procurement is one of thorns, tears, delays, hurt feelings, and sometimes failure. In the 1980s, for example, several European nations decided to jointly order A400M transport planes, but agreeing on the details proved so difficult that the orders were not placed until the early 2000s; delivery of the planes began in the 2010s.

The countries participating in a joint NH90 helicopter order around the same time added so many individual specifications that “[i]n the end, there were 20 different versions. It was not a joint project anymore,” Hilmar Linnenkamp, a former deputy director of the European Defence Agency, told me for a piece about the curse of joint procurement that was published in Foreign Policy nine years ago.

Even in the friendly and collaborative Nordic-Baltic region, the process has produced a litany of failures in the past. The “Archer” artillery program “was initially a Swedish-Norwegian project, but the Norwegians left it in a pretty untidy fashion, which meant that Sweden had to buy those Archers, too,” recalled retired Rear Adm. Thomas Engevall, who worked until 2022 as the deputy national armaments director at the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration. “And Sweden also did a similar thing to Finland around 2007-2008, when cuts to the defense budget meant we had to abandon a joint torpedo, mine, and UW [underwater] sensor project with them,” he added. “It took the Finns several years to get over it.”

Project Viking, which was launched in the 1990s and involved Sweden, Norway, and Denmark jointly procuring submarines, had an even more ignominious end.

“At first it went well—then Denmark decided it didn’t need submarines after all, and then the Norwegians left, so the project came to naught,” Engevall told me.

It’s not the goodwill that has been lacking. “Countries have their own political and strategic priorities,” said Robert Limmergard, the director-general Sweden’s defense industry association, SOFF. “On top of that, there are invisible hurdles, including the fact that some governments prefer giving business to companies in their countries and may even own those companies.”

Then there’s the question of which country should do what, because all countries are keen that at least part of the manufacturing be handed to firms at home. “Governments usually feel they need to consider their domestic defense industry, so they’ll say, ‘if you do this, we do that,’” Engevall said. “That’s often inefficient and causes delays.”

Even more importantly, Limmergard pointed out, different countries’ ministries have different regulations, budget cycles, procedures, approvals processes, military requirements, and levels of ambition. Countries have squabbled over everything from vessel color to tanks’ leg space (an important detail if you’re Dutch, who are the tallest people in the world on average).

But these are no longer the comparatively peaceful times of a decade ago. Governments faced with the immediate threat of Russia no longer have the luxury of insisting on a transport plane, helicopter, or infantry fighting vehicle that is perfectly suited to their preferences. Things must go quickly, and given the threats on the horizon, governments also need maximum bang for their defense buck.

That makes governments more likely to buy more equipment off the shelf rather than commissioning a new version.

“Joint procurement of off-the-shelf equipment is much easier, and that’s what the new CV90 order is,” Engevall said. “The differences between what the countries need are very small, so joint procurement is simply a matter of buying many items of the same product.”

Kristersson had made much the same point. “Exactly how it will develop, it’s too early to tell, but I think there is a very good reason for this collaboration. We have too many platforms around Europe. We have too few countries collaborating in terms of procurement and standardization and things like that. So this is a good example that could be a showcase for other procurements as well,” he said during a visit to Lithuania.

And Lithuania is keen to point out that it, too, will benefit from the massive order. “Lithuania will receive about a hundred units, but we also expect Lithuanian businesses to participate in the production of the full batch,” Paluckas said after meeting with Kristersson.

Western armed forces will, of course, need to continue to work with the defense industry to develop tomorrow’s platforms and software—and everything in between. But now that things must proceed expeditiously, Sweden, Norway, and Lithuania are setting a benchmark with their straightforward CV90 order.

“These types of orders will increase dramatically,” Engevall said. “We just don’t have time to wait 10-15 years for a new product. And things are developing so quickly now that if you wait a decade for a new product, it may well be obsolete by the time you take possession of it.”

This trend has allowed new defense manufacturing players to emerge: Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began more than three years ago, Ukrainian firms have been pioneering defense innovation on the go.

The question is which countries will team up next—and nice guys finish first. The governments that have already shown they can work together with minimal friction are likely to be snapped up first. Even after this deal, Sweden, Norway, and Lithuania may also have a slot or two left on their dance cards.

[lord-of-hollows]

The morality of the vote:

Ive had enough of people telling me I care more about my own perfectionist sense of morality than using my vote to reduce harm as if that's an argument. As if that's not exactly what I'm going for.

Look, I watched Vaush cover the election, this is the guy who said it's a moral good to vote blue no matter who. Did you see how many people in his chat were going full doomer, considering suicide? Over the fact that Kamala lost when at best it was going to be 4 years of Trump but with abortions?

Yes, I do care more about my sense of morals than the infinitesimally small chance that my vote may lead to harm reduction, but the fact of the matter is, even if I knew for a fact that my vote would be the tiebreaker that solved the whole election. Even in that scenario, I still do not believe my vote would reduce harm and be a force of good in the world.

Its a simple fact that if your vote would ever change things, you wouldn't be allowed to do it. If the reality for you is that it's easy as just registering to vote and showing up on election day, no further thought? Then you can do that but I hope you don't believe your vote will make a difference.

Democracy functions at its most stable when elections are predictable, the final form of democracy is when approval rates couldn't be lower and re-election rates couldn't be higher.

So the vote is as useless as it could be, but why do I have a problem with it on moral levels?

Im not a utilitarian, my morals are not flexible based on consequence. I believe consequence based morality would be brilliant if you could perfectly predict the outcome of your actions when you're making them, however I doubt the predictive abilities of basically every human being. As such I believe in a more Kantian system of ethics where minimum standards of justice are applied. Murder is wrong not because of the consequences it brings but because each human being has an intrinsic worth and when you commit murder you disregard that intrinsic worth as a means to your own end. If you could lay out the perfect argument as to why killing someone would be a benefit for literally every other human being, it would still be immoral because a murder is a wrong in and of itself.

So let's talk about why voting might not be the most moral of actions:

Lets assume that voting does anything. I don't believe it does, but I'll entertain the hypothetical that it does.

Lets first assume I vote out of self interest, without regard for others. Well, then I'm disregarding the intrinsic value of others and the harm that may be caused by my vote to manufacture a preferred outcome for myself. I don't believe actions motivated by self interest need any further explanation as to why they're a moral wrong.

Now, let's assume I don't go with self interest and simply "Vote blue no matter who." That's a lack of rational consideration, simply following an axiom without thinking about it, even if you're technically doing a moral good, can never be a moral action. Not considering the wider implications for society wholly, ignoring things like the fact that no matter who I vote for the nation is on a long slow march toward fascism and neither party is doing anything to course correct is a moral wrong. Even if I do follow through with this, viewing it as the lesser of two evils, the problem with that is the lesser of two evils is still fucking evil.

Third, let's consider the universalism of the vote. For an action to be a moral good it needs to be universally applied to all moral actors. This is why I dislike the idea of the lesser of two evils. Being slightly less bad doesn't suddenly manufacture a good outcome. So if I were to call my vote a moral good, I would have to ignore and/or be okay with the fact that no law will be made that prevents Amazon's work conditions, no attempt will be made to pull out of Gaza (not falling for that one again, at least) and police will continue to be allowed to execute civilians with no due process and get away with it. I cannot bring myself to cast a vote without believing it will bring universal good instead of a religious adherence to this status quo. And if you would vote for a party that will continue to maintain this status quo, then don't call yourself antifascist. You're fascist-neutral if not an enthusiastic fascist.

Participation in the vote is consenting to the outcome of that vote. This is the one thing Utilitarians and I agree on, even if they don't think they do. (Hey, if you believe in consequence based morals, it should make sense that your bad consequences are a moral outcome.) And my moral beliefs do not allow me to participate and consent to a system that routinely violates human agency and dignity, endorse actions that cannot be universalized as morally positive, and be complicit in immoral outcomes.

So don't come to me with "you care about your own personal beliefs more than I do" bullshit. Yes, that's the point. Hey, maybe you should try having strong moral beliefs before you try to argue with mine.

And know what? I'd love to be wrong. I'd love it if there were a candidate I could cast my vote for, free of all moral doubt. Voting my conscience is not a freedom I am granted because my conscience has a habit of noticing shit like the fact that nothing will be different except a few minor things that don't actually change shit in the long run.

[scotianostra]

On June 27th 1967 the first cash dispenser was opened by Barclay’s Bank in Enfield by actor Reg Varney.

The idea of an automatic money dispensing machine had been mooted and tried without success in the early 60's but it wasn't until Scotsmen John Shepherd-Barron and James Goodfellow successfully designed the "cash machine" and Personal Identification Number (PIN) technology which is still used over 50 years later.

Goodfellow lodged his patent in May 1966, more than a year before the first cash machine was ceremonially opened in a blaze of publicity. A machine was developed by John Shepherd-Barron, who was born in India, to Scottish parents, and lived much of his later life in Portmahomack in Ross-shire.

Shepherd-Barron's ATM beat Goodfellow's machines, which were installed at branches of Westminster Bank (later to become NatWest), by just a month.

So Shepherd-Barron became known as the "man who invented the cash machine" and not Goodfellow, the man who patented the system we use today.

Shepherd-Barron says he was inspired by chocolate vending machines, he stated "It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK. I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.

The two devices were very different.

Shepherd-Barron's did not use plastic cards, instead it used cheques that were impregnated with carbon 14, a mildly radioactive substance.

The machine detected it, then matched the cheque against a Pin number.

Shepherd-Barron worked for banknote manufacturer De La Rue, which never patented its machine.

Before he died in 2010, he told a documentary that he didn't patent the idea because he did not want fraudsters knowing how the system worked.

He also said that the chief executive of Barclays had been quick to say yes to the idea when they had discussed it after a couple of Martinis.

Shepherd-Barron then had to go back to his team and get them to develop his idea.

In recent years, his claim to have been the real inventor of the cash machine has been recognised more widely.

Mr Goodfellow now does not like to talk about the years in which Mr Shepherd-Barron got all the credit but in a 2009 BBC documentary he said it "really does raise my blood pressure".

The engineer, from Paisley, told BBC Scotland: "My patent was licensed by all the manufacturers. They thought that was the way to go.

"The race to get it on to the street was not as important.

"Getting it right was the answer, not getting it first."

Mr Goodfellow was working as development engineer for Glasgow firm Kelvin Hughes in the mid-1960s when he got involved in a project to design a machine that could dispense money to customers when banks were closed.

He said in an interview that the driving force for the move was unions putting pressure on banks to close on Saturday mornings.

He said most people worked during the week and could not get to the bank, which closed at 3pm on weekdays.

Many people went to the bank on Saturday mornings but the unions were pressing for staff to work a five-day week.

The banks wanted a way to give working people access to their money when they were closed. Goodfellow said "The problem with cash machines was access.

"How would a genuine customer, and only a genuine customer, get money out of it?"

They considered biometrics - fingerprints, voice prints or retinal scans.

"But in the 60s the technology to do this was not there, it was impossible,"

So the next approach was an "exotic token", a piece of paper or plastic with "uncommon characteristics" that a machine would recognise.

His "eureka moment" came when he hit upon the idea of the Personal Identification Number (PIN).

This was the vital security measure that would make the system work, the number would be known to the customer and the bank and could be related to the card but not read by anyone else.

Goodfellow's invention was patented in May 1966, more than a year before his rival unveiled the first ATM in London.

But he still had a battle to make his concept reality.

"We had to meet some of the banks demands which were pretty severe," he said.

"They had a million customers and they wanted 2,000 machines across the UK.

"They wanted any one of the one million customers to be able to access any one of the 2,000 machines.

"You've got to remember there was no IT network in those days. The banks had no IT equipment. The bank's branches had nothing.

"We spent a lot of time developing the code. We had to submit something like 1,000 of these cards to a consultant, who would try to decipher it."

The cards he used were one quarter of a "Hollerith" punch-card, which just happens to be the same size as today's credit card. It contains just 30 bytes of data.

His patent for the card and Pin ATM was licensed for millions but Mr Goodfellow, as a humble technician, did not own the rights and did not get rich from his invention.

He said he signed patents for 15 countries around the world and got a dollar for each - worth about £10.

Mr Goodfellow left the firm in 1967 when it moved its operations to England and he went to work for IBM.

There have been arguments for years over who should officially go down in history as "the inventor of the ATM".

In 2005, Mr Shepherd-Barron received an OBE in the New Year honours list for services to banking as the "inventor of the automatic cash dispenser".

However, since then Mr Goodfellow, the man who patented the invention, has regained his place.

In 2006 Mr Goodfellow received an OBE for services to banking as "patentor of the personal identification number".

He has also been placed in the Scottish engineering hall of fame alongside John Logie Baird, the inventor of the television.

According to the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA), as of 2015, there were close to 3.5 million ATMs installed worldwide. However, the use of ATMs is gradually declining with the increase in cashless payment systems.

[darkmaga-returns]

4/2 ASTROLABE LINKS:

Normal People vs WWII Veterans | Facebook

(20) ₩₳Ɽ ₱₳₮Ⱨ on X: "The Mexicans have 24 hours to respond-- https://t.co/doflLNfMxQ" / X

(23) Holden Culotta on X: "Mike Rowe: “For every five tradespeople that retire this year, two replace them.” “It’s been that way for 12 years.” “I don’t need to be a mathematician, this is bad arithmetic.” “7.2 million able-bodied men today, in their prime working years, are not only unemployed …… https://t.co/STTPJhZn5D" / X

(24) Eric Daugherty on X: "THIS is why MAGA won in November. This man right here. Midwest, manufacturing. The forgotten men and women will not be forgotten any longer. "I grew up just north of Detroit, Michigan in Macomb County, known as the home of the Reagan Democrats. My first vote for president was https://t.co/o6ScTLAa7a" / X

(26) Collin Rugg on X: "JUST IN: Trump pulls out his Reciprocal Tariff chart to explain how his new tariffs will be imposed on each country. The announcement came on the highly anticipated Liberation Day. Trump said he is going easy on countries by issuing discounted reciprocal tariffs. China: 34% https://t.co/QoZSdw0yru" / X

(26) Rapid Response 47 on X: ".@POTUS: "In the coming days, there will be complaints from the globalists, the outsourcers, special interests, and Fake News... Never forget that every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong. They were wrong about NAFTA, https://t.co/45IpfY1MOi" / X

(26) Eric Daugherty on X: "🚨 BREAKING - it’s official: Donald Trump signs reciprocal tariffs on countries across the world. Liberation Day. https://t.co/2WyH9Tlp2D" / X

(26) First Squawk on X: "SENIOR WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL: POST WORLD WAR TWO INSTITUTIONS ARE 'NO LONGER FIT FOR OUR TIMES AND OUR ECONOMIC SITUATION'" / X

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(26) Ryan Petersen on X: "Buried in today's Executive Order on tariffs is a bombshell: Duty free "de minimus" shipping is being eliminated from ALL countries as soon as the systems are ready." / X

(28) Battle Beagle on X: "https://t.co/BeuJmAxcSK" / X

(28) Charlie Kirk on X: "President Trump's tariffs aren't random. They're detailed and thought out. The US Trade Representative has produced a 400-page report chronicling every single tariff and trade restriction imposed on America, everywhere in the world. If a country doesn't like today's" / X

(28) Tom Shafron on X: "@orthonormalist If this is correct then the admin is doing a great disservice by not publishing the formula. If that's really how it works and everyone knew it, it's really quite brilliant. It incentives countries to increase their imports of US products in order to increase their exports." / X

(28) Eamon Javers on X: "One big point amid all the headlines: I was texting with press secretary Karoline Leavitt during the event and she confirms that the 34 percent tariff on China is ON TOP of the previous 20 percent. So that means the rate on China will be *54* percent when these tariffs take" / X

(29) Geiger Capital on X: "*SCOTT BESSENT: “The equity market selloff is a Mag7 problem, not a MAGA problem” Insanely hard quote. https://t.co/4pODIIwJ7j" / X

(30) Aesthetica on X: "These stats are insane https://t.co/F2vmJqiRyV" / X

(30) Nate Hochman on X: "Pat Buchanan on trade, 1998: "To me, the country comes before the economy; and the economy exists for the people." https://t.co/JGGsbSWBLN" / X

(30) Howard Lutnick on X: "Trump’s been right on trade for 35 years. Washington sold out our workers. That ends today. https://t.co/x9ojY7OQkH" / X

(30) zerohedge on X: "Is Trump's plan to reshore manufacturing already working: biggest increase in manufacturing jobs since October 22, which was followed by a 2 year manufacturing recession. https://t.co/7iyA11BSRr" / X

(31) Peter Schiff on X: "About 98% of American footwear is imported. There is no way these shoes can be supplied domestically anytime soon, so prices will rise by the full amount of the tariffs. The result will be fewer shoes sold at higher prices. On the bright side, the shoe repair business will boom." / X

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(32) The Patriot Oasis™ on X: "🚨 #BREAKING: per CNN, Democrats in Congress now have a whopping 21% approval rating. Democrats are self-combusting 🔥 https://t.co/SdyvFEuanj" / X

A Modest Defense of Nationalism – Modern Age

(35) Sam Stein on X: "Absolute BLOODBATH at HHS/NIH/CDC this morning. Generation of scientists, health care officials being wiped out https://t.co/ikJjcOiqhp" / X

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(22) Senator Jim Banks on X: "#NewProfilePic https://t.co/B7Cl8oMEoI" / X

(22) Senator Jim Banks on X: "Thanks, AB. I’m honored!" / X