#Mechanic Shop Software

[welphelpmelt]

Tu es manques de mon ame

Danny knew that it was rare for a ghost to have two obsessions— even rarer to have three. Ghosts usually dedicate their undead lives to their first obsession and rarely have time for anything else. But really, it should not have been a surprise when he formed a third obsession— one still related to his first but still so different.

Before his death, Danny was always protective over those he deemed his, whether they were his friends or family. He always wanted to make sure they were protected, and while they didn’t understand it, they allowed him to do as he pleased. When Danny died, he died hoping and praying that Sam and Tucker were okay— that the portal didn’t end up exploding or sucking them into it— that they didn’t die because of his stupidity. After becoming a half-ghost, his protectiveness increased tenfold. And Danny? The poor boy was so confused about why he was suddenly more protective over people after his little “accident.”

It was only after a visit to Frostbite— after the fight with Dark Pariah— that he got a rundown on ghost biology and understood that it was his obsession. And not only did he have one, but two.

After that, Danny learned that, yes, his interest in space had turned into an obsession when he died, but he just didn't notice because he had been flying off into space in his free time, therefore satisfying and feeding his obsession. It turned out that to satisfy and feed his protection obsession, he just needed to protect the people around him. As Phantom, that wasn’t a problem, but as Danny? He had to find a more subtle way to do it. Convincing Jazz and Tucker to wear a tracker wasn’t that hard— what was hard was convincing Sam to wear one. She eventually caved once Danny started sulking for a week straight and almost got hit by a car while doing it.

Danny was happy. He got into Gotham University for aerospace engineering and had a part-time job at an old mechanic shop. His sister was in Metropolis getting a degree in psychology, and Tucker and Sam were together in New York— Tucker studying software engineering and information technology, and Sam studying botany.

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on his side on a random Wednesday when he missed his alarm. He ran into the nearest coffee shop, but thanks to his fantastic luck, he bumped into someone the moment he entered. And his core fucking purrs at the sight of the guy. He looks tired, on the verge of death, but oh so pretty. Danny could see the hidden muscles that the well-fitting suit concealed. He could feel his core reaching out, trying to connect with this poor guy, and Danny had to physically hold himself back from reaching out while simultaneously wrangling in his core.

After apologies and a coffee date, Danny learned the guy's name and a bunch of other stuff about Tim. They enjoyed it so much that they scheduled another date, which turned into another, and it wasn’t long before they were in a loving relationship.

Danny was worried. When he met Tim, he was immediately obsessed, and when they started dating, it got even worse. He wanted Tim all to himself. He wanted Tim happy. He wanted Tim safe. He wanted to be there when he laughed and cried. He wanted to be with him during his failures and successes. He wanted so much of Tim, he knew it was unhealthy.

So Danny did the only thing that made sense— he acted normal. He held back all those urges and pretended he wasn’t an obsessed freak who wanted to love Tim like there was no tomorrow. He toned it down to what humans would call normal— no human would ever love someone so obsessively and devotedly. That is only something a ghost would do. He was kind, patient, respectful, and understanding.

After a few months, Danny knew that he had to figure out what was wrong with him. After a quick visit to Frostbite, Danny learned that he had a love obsession. According to Frostbite, a love obsession occurs when he finds a partner who his core approves of. It is as simple as that, and Danny was confused but even more worried.

Danny had seen what a love obsession does to you. Just look at Vlad! He was insane! And one of Danny’s worst fears was turning into that. He had seen what Vlad’s obsession had done to his mom— she was cordial at best and downright disgusted at worst, truly only tolerating him for his dad’s sake.

After consulting with Frostbite, Danny learned that since his obsession wasn’t fully formed, he had time to stop it from fully maturing. The only way to do that was to isolate himself from the object of his obsession for about three to six months.

Which was easier said than done.

Because Danny loved Tim.

To Danny, it wasn’t even an option to not love him. After all, what wasn’t there to love about Tim? Tim was smart, passionate, and intelligent— everything to Danny. To stay away from him for six months, when being away from him for even thirty minutes felt like his core was being ripped out, would be absolute torture.

But it would be worth it if it meant that Tim would be okay. He didn’t want to become Vlad. He didn’t want Tim to treat him like his mom treated Vlad.

So instead of asking for a little bit of time away from Tim, Danny decided that the best course of action was to break up with Tim.

Hopefully, on a bad note— so bad that Tim hated him so much that Danny’s core would give up and move on. Liar, a voice hissed. You know your core will break if that happens.

Or maybe they would end on a neutral note, and Tim would move on and find someone better— someone who wasn’t a ghost, someone who could love Tim normally as he deserved— which made Danny’s core ache.

But it was okay.

Because it was for Tim.

(Tu es manques de mon ame = You are missing from my soul)

Do i do part two? who knows

[stevebattle]

Kermit (1978), by Ron Milner and Larry Nicolson, Cyan Engineering, Atari's secret think tank in Grass Valley, CA.

"The robot was a pet project for Nolan Bushnell, then still the head of Atari and a very creative guy. Its purpose in life was as Nolan put it to "bring me a beer!" Navigation for robots was a sketchy thing at that time with lots of pioneering work at MIT but no consumer cost ideas. Nolan brought us the incredibly original idea to navigate a robot (which mostly meant knowing where it was) by means of scanning bar codes attached here and there to the baseboards in the rooms the robot was to service. Why it wasn't patented I don't know.

I had lots of fun building the R2D2 style robot about 20" tall. I liked to put mechanical and electronic things together and we had a great shop at Cyan. Its brain was one of the 6502 based single board computers-I think it was a KIM but not sure. Locomotion was two DC gear motor driven wheels and an instrumented caster-about the same rig as a modern Roomba. A rotatable turret covered with a plexiglass dome carried microphones, an IR sensor to detect people, and ultrasonic ranging sensors I built on a separate PC board. A speaker so Kermit could beep gleefully, of course.

A ring of contact-detecting burglar alarm sensing tape (green in the pictures) around Kermit's middle told the software he had hit something and should back off. The ultrasonics provided range to obstacles and to some extent direction as the turret was rotated, so we could go around things.

My pride and joy was the barcode remote scanner which was mounted on the bottom of the robot so its rotating head would be level with the barcodes on the baseboards. It had a vertical telescope tube with a beam splitter between the IR Led and the photodiode sensor and a lens to focus 2-20' away. It aimed down at a front surface mirror at 45 degree to scan horizontally. The mirror was mounted on a motor driven turret so it spun around continuously with a sensor once around to resolve the continuous angular position of the beam horizontally of course with respect to Kermit's rotational position. Unfortunately, this part of the robot did not survive the closing of our group. The barcodes I made for the prototype to detect were about 4" tall made of 3/4" reflective 3m tape on black poster board.

My programming partner on the project was Larry Nicholson, a really bright guy. He made the barcode reading work to detect not only the barcodes, but where they were angularly with respect to the robot and also their subtended angle or apparent size (all from timing of the rotation of the scanner) which was a measure of distance combined with angle from the barcode. We worked out some pretty clever math to resolve that information from two or three of the barcodes into a position and orientation of Kermit in the room. We had rented an empty room upstairs on the third floor of the Litton building to try all this out and work out the navigation. Larry and I got the basic navigation and obstacle avoidance working so Kermit could go from one place to a designated other place in the room and avoid wastebaskets placed randomly. We demonstrated it to Nolan and he was impressed.

Shortly thereafter Warner Communication who had bought Atari from Nolan kicked him out and the Kermit project was cancelled."

– Kermit The Robot Notes by Ron Milner.

[andmaybegayer]

Are there any primitives or operations you wished parametric CAD software had?

This is tricky, because parametric CAD is what I learned to design on so its feature set feels "natural".

I don't really think so! Most of the obvious innovations are already covered, SolidWorks can take a model back and forth between parametric and primitives modelling in its own weird way, Inventor has really great design for manufacture features, from what I've seen SolidEdge has done some clever stuff with the solver to help you design parts that are customizable as you go down the chain. Who knows what's going on in NX these days, not me. There's definitely some holes in the sense of individual packages lacking features, but almost anything you can ask has been implemented somewhere, by someone.

Good quality design for manufacture tools really do help, I remember doing sheet metal stuff in Inventor back before they cut off free Inventor access and being able to see your generated sheet and bend allowances so clearly was great, and now even OnShape has pretty solid design helpers.

A thing small shops and hobbyists would probably like is better handling of point clouds and photogrammetry for matching parts, since you're much more likely to be working with parts and projects where you didn't do all the design, I've spent many hours trying to accurately model a mating feature, but even that's like. Pretty good these days, importing 3D scans into an editor is pretty standard and the good CAD packages will even let you pick up holes and clean up point clouds directly from the scan.

I'm not that much of a mech eng, and never really was, my CAD is mostly self taught for simple tasks, real mechanical designers no doubt have better opinions on this, @literallymechanical probably has thoughts on T-splines.

[simulamortem]

@transmechatrist

An appointment had been scheduled with no name given.

A SIMULACRUM who wanted a substance simulator, a software cultivated in the underground scene that still had a foot in its early development stage. A client coming from such a top tier modder, anyone in the scene would be hard-pressed to turn down, name or no name. Successful work off of her referral would be a gold star for the reputation - not to mention that this was a client who could PAY if he normally afforded her services.

But not an easy one. Simulacra were notoriously difficult to mod to begin with. This one was rough around the edges, she'd said. A lot of VERY ROUGH edges, she'd said, and she clearly hadn't just meant the programming. Her advice had been to be patient but not a doormat.

Whichever entrance Revenant used, he didn't make a sound. 6'8" mechanical frame all but materialized in the back, helping himself to the shop floor having seen the modder WAITING for him at the front. Golden glow took in the space, whatever decor and equipment it housed, the signs of its use. He had already made a sweep to ensure his stipulations had been respected: that they would be ALONE, and that any camera feeds were switched off.

Only when he'd had his fill of looking over the workshop did he deign to make himself known, taking a leisurely seat at the desk. Slouching there and allowing the chair to creak as he made an idle spin back and forth in it. Reached to rest a plain leather satchel he'd brought with him on the desk - observing the keyboard, stray cabling, various data drives and other bits and pieces that had been left there.

[forsakenheadmates]

We kindly request a <://MAX LEVEL> <://target_SCAG> if you are willing to do so. We request all add ons minus usernames, and do not have a time limit. We are also claiming <://key_🪦> if that is okay.

WELCOME, SCAG, TO YOUR ETERNAL PRISON + AN EXTRA VICTIM!

⌣⌣ 🔪 Scag, Floppy, Glitch, Claw, CR4NKD, Bitzy, Sage, Sadie, Riley, Spitzie, C0ral.EXE !

🩸 she/her, They/Them, tv/tvs, scag/scags, screen/screens, core/cores, gamer/gamers, maxxer/maxxers, cd/cds, disk/disks, vinyl/vinyls, shop/shops, wifi/wifis, computer/computers, television/televisions, tech/techs, static/statics, wire/wires,

✧ about.. ✧

▹age: Ageless TV screen

▹gender: Nonbinary

▹sexuality: Pansexual, Demiromantic, autosexual, Aromantic greyace,

▹role: mood‑shifter, Bell Ringer, ADHD holder, archivist

▹source: Regretevator

▹sign off: 📺,💾,📀,💿,💽

▹typing quirk: types with no punctuation, very informally. And obviously, a lot of internet brainrot

▹likes: oil, DOOM, vintage tech, glitch aesthetic, portmanteaus, memes, internet speech,

▹dislikes: punctuation, slow tech, formal tone, punctuation

▹kin types: Gremlinkin, Raccoonkin,

▹aesthetic:

▹Paras: 💭, 🍯, 🥚, 📖, 💐, ⚙️,

▹IDs: Cischronicallyonline, Transfuture, Nullsleep, Transarttracer, Mirrortranstrauma

▹Triggers: Floppy disk drop or retro music playing, Audible glitches/static or screen flicker, Presence of crude oil or dust clouds, Magnetic fields or items like magnets/degaussing, Retro computer hardware (CDs, CRT displays, albums), Hearing portmanteau‑heavy speech

⌣⌣ 🔪 PROTOTYPE, Ace, Hasmat, Jo, Prism, Circuit, Byte, Nexus, Glitch, Axon, Helix, Vector, Pixel !

🩸 he/him, They/Them proto/protos, carry/carrys, faceplate/faceplates, wire/wires, robot/robots, technology/technologys, crate/crates, code/codes, android/androids, program/programs, beep/beeps, scan/scans, metal/metals, bot/bots, software/softwares, droid/droids, 01/01s, 1/0s, ai/ais, android/androids, artificial/artificials, bit/bits, bot/bots, byte/bytes, cheer/cheers, circuit/circuits, code/codes, curious/curiosity, cyber/cybers, digi/digital, droid/droids, energy/energys, fun/funs, glee/glees, glow/glows, joy/joys, robo/robos, screen/screens, tech/techs, tech/techs, thon/thons, volt/volts, wire/wires, yon/yons, ze/zim

✧ about.. ✧

▹age: Ageless robot

▹gender: Genderfluid, Nonbinary, Mechanofluff

▹sexuality: PanLesboy, Lithromantic,

▹role: ADHD holder, Archivist, Scout

▹source: Regretevator

▹sign off: 🪩,⭐️,👀, 🖍️,🌈,🎨

▹typing quirk: types in all lowercase

▹likes: Colorful crystalline objects, bright colors, journaling

▹dislikes: Uncontrolled emotional outbursts in others, Environments without clear data patterns or paths, Snowballs

▹kin types: AIkin, Glitchkin,

▹aesthetic:

▹Paras: 🔗, 🎭, panpara

▹IDs: Transoilblood, Transglowingblood, Transchubby, Duahighix, Transfuture, Transadored, Transarttracer

▹Triggers: Flashing lights, sudden movements, and loud noises, Glowing objects, Mechanical glitches

[azsazz]

Hiii 👋 just wanted to say I adore your writing ☺️ I always get so happy when I see you’ve written something new 😁

I was curious to ask, what are some of your favourite modern AU jobs/roles for the bat boys (whether you’ve written about them or not)? Or just any ACOTAR characters?

CEO Rhys has been done a lot, but for good reason, it’s so perfect. He almost has to be effortlessly rich and/or in some position of power, like a prince, or a mafia boss.💰 I also kinda like to imagine him as a nepo baby set to take over his father’s company, but he breaks away or gets cut off, so with his very little actual job experience (as he was all set to inherit), he gets a barista job at a lil coffee shop. ☕️

Cass would definitely suit something physical, like an ice hockey player, or a firefighter, or a personal trainer. I could so see him being a gym teacher as well, imagine him coaching a kids ice hockey team. 💪🏽 He would SO volunteer to be a nude model in life drawing classes in his free time 😆 Though I hadn’t considered it before I read your stuff, I think he really fits a small town rancher too. I can so picture him in jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt, driving around in an old rusty faded red truck 👨‍🌾

Az could easily be in the FBI or something, but choosing something further away from his canon role, I seriously think he’d be an awkward computer programmer / software engineer nerd, or a twitch gamer, 👨🏻‍💻 with a secret anonymous OnlyFans or erotic audio patreon on the side. 😏 And I reckon he’d ride a motorcycle and tinker with it in his spare time, so might also enjoy working at a garage. 🏍️ I really love him in Midnight Muse, and think he suits a shy amateur artist / tattoo artist as well.

I also love the bat boy band idea I’ve seen a lot recently, where Rhys is the charismatic lead singer and guitarist, Az is the quiet songwriting bassist, and Cass is the energetic drummer. 🎶

Sorry it’s so long, I just love thinking about this stuff 😄

Hiiii!! Thank you so so much! I saw this message this morning but wanted to wait until I could give it my full attention and have my computer around, so thank you for your patience! 💙

Okay, some of my favorite AUs for the batboys? This is a wonderful question!

Rhys: Normally, I just think of Rhys as always having some sort of money/job inherited. So CEO, mafia, anything that puts him in a position of power, really, but i think it's mostly because those just reflect the books.

I do, however, love love love art school rhys. painter rhys. working at the local art supply degenerate rhys who still has wealthy parents but is trying to stick it to the man rhys. steals erasers and petty things from the art supply rhys. love him so much.

There's also something to be said about young adult rhys who's messing around with his little sister's best friend rhys. he gets me going too.

also captain of the hockey team rhys is a solid choice for him as well.

Cass: LOVE ME SOME RANCHER/COWBOY/SMALL TOWN CASSIAN. but, these are all very different. small town cass doesn't trust women, heart broken at a young age with the girl he thought was his forever. doesn't want to leave town, likes the ranch because its safe and its what he knows. cowboy cass or bull rider cassian, famous for breaking horses and backs. grumpy, gruff rancher cassian always gets me going tbh he's fucking hot as shit

i also always see him in a blue collar role like a mechanic or welder are the two i mostly attribute to him.

def something physical as well, we love hockey cass, rugby cass, wrestler (wwe lol) cass, dang i had another on my mind for sports cass but i forgot. sad. OH surfer cassian. jock type tho i can see him as. love the firefighter vibe for him too, he'd fill out the tight fire department t-shirt WELL LADIES and also volunteers for wet t-shirt contests. omg gym teach cass would be adorable as hell! oof another thought, contractor cassian ffs that would be so yummy

Az: Az i agree fits the FBI (stalker) vibes. i also like to think of him in finance or computer science too. omfg the erotic audio that's iconic and i'd def subscribe to that. hmmm what else could i see azzy doing...maybe something with music or writing...i could see him being a ghost writer of some sort and then one day his song plays on the radio and he's like hey i wrote that and literally no one believes him. something behind the scenes or where he can go unnoticed is mostly where i place him, tbh. honestly maybe even something military because he takes comfort in having a set schedule and people telling him what to do at every minute of the day. he'd fare well i think. perfect. operative because if the mission goes south and he gets captured he's not telling a soul anything.

Eris: idk why this thought came to my head but i was thinking about architecture but i think eris would be a fantastic interior designer lol. like i could see it. maybe i was just thinking about him furnishing az's new place and having a lil sparky. i could also see him as a lawyer too or something like that, something where he can be the know-it-all, smirking at them and looking down his nose at them...

Lucien: Architecture for sure. or professor. I could see him doing either of these. maybe even lawyer tbh, he would be good at that too, though i know he's immaculate at twisting stories and words so you gotta be careful of that.

Tamlin: poet? lol. professional gaslighter? jk i love tammy. maybe he installs security systems? haha just kidding just kidding. he's a tough one tho. idk why i added him but i guess also a musician but low-key soothing music, instrumental for sure...prob has a podcast where he just bullshits all day

hopefully i didn't rant for too long about this 🤭💙 this was so much fun though thank you for asking!

[bisexual-engineer-guy]

I think my goal in life--the thing that gives the most fulfillment for me--is being "the guy." At school, I'm "the guy" for CAD work and machining and programming and anything to do with the makerspace or shop. In my internship, I'm "the guy" for photogrammetry or surveying or niche SFM software. In my startup, I'm "the guy" for anything weird and mechanical, and possibly soon radio and signal electronics. And this is honestly what I love, it's my calling

[tam-o-shunter]

Old Iron (1986)

NW Interstellar Railway’s newcomer James used to mock Edward for being an older android who hadn’t gotten any upgrades in a very long time

Until the day he got impatient with waiting for his local mechanic to push out a new OS software update and decided to download a pirated version of it into his cybernetic brain

He thought nothing of it until his jet-powered legs and wings started malfunctioning while he was racing around New Sodor, and he found himself barreling into various buildings and lamp posts, unable to brake

And who should be there to hear his frantic cries for help but old reliable Edward?

Ed knew that the only way to save James was to disable his legs and wings by unhooking several nervous system cables from his neck 

So he grabbed James and desperately tried to pry the plating off of his upper back while the splendid red android rammed the both of them into various other structures, with Ed bearing the brunt of the impacts

It was only when James thrusted both of them into a forest that Edward figured out how to halt him long enough to detach the necessary wires

Edward flared his wings out and hugged James tightly to manoeuvre them into a narrow gap between a pair of trees, allowing his wings to pin them in place long enough for him to safely disable James’ rockets

At the cost of his beautiful seagull-patterned wings which he’d spent seven years saving up for

James was so overcome with a mixture of guilt and gratitude that he was a complete loss for how to even begin thanking Edward. But he took Henry’s suggestion to start by buying him the new pair of dragonfly-shaped wings he’d been longingly staring at through a shop window, yet couldn’t afford

[pokepasta-fluffcanons]

This idea may sound a bit... random, but I think it could be so cool

Glitchy Red with a mechanic/robot maker S/O. He could help them with the software part and, in return, his S/O could make a rovotic body for him!

Ooo interesting!

*you are a mechanic that can make robots

*you had picked up Glitchy Red’s cartridge from a friend/nearby shop that sold older games

*of course he was very wary of you, as he is with his other players, but seeing as you haven’t thrown out his cartridge has helped him to warm up to you

*you had told him about what you do, and you had eventually suggested creating a robotic body for him to use to escape the game

*Glitchy Red had to think about it for a moment, but seeing as there was no other option, he agreed to it

*you worked on the body itself, while Glitchy Red worked on the software portion of it, to make sure it would be perfect for him

*once finished, and him transferred to the new robotic body, which took a little while for you and him to figure out how to get him out, he was actually very happy to get out

*you had to help him get used to his new body, but of course let him figure it out on his own but you were there to help when needed

*Glitchy Red is very thankful for your help, and will continue to stick around to help you when you need it. (Also if anyone dared to hurt you, he will not hesitate to kick them out)

[rosemaidenvixen]

Tales of Arcadia Hallmark au

Idea came from a conversation between me and @trololololololooz , based on our shared love of Hallmark movies, TOA, and gay stuff.

Spoiler alert, Jeves and Clairy sweetness ahead.

Ao3

Steve is a big time baseball star and Mary is his girlfriend and a big time corporate lawyer. (Neither one of them is super invested in their relationship, because gay, but it's pushed on them by Steve's manager and Mary's boss, as it generates good publicity for both of them). Steve suffers a big injury, his doctor tells him it could be the end of his sports career. Steve's manager blows the doctor off, telling Steve to rest over Christmas and he can get back on the field in January. Steve gets a call from his childhood BFF Darci, who tells him that she just published a book and the release event is going to be held in their hometown of Arcadia, and she encourages him to come. Steve decides to go visit Arcadia for Christmas while resting his injury. Mary accompanies him, under instructions from her firm to scout the town for a corporate takeover.

Mary and Steve arrive in Arcadia only to have their car immediately break down. They go to the local mechanic, only for Steve to be utterly shocked that their mechanic is Jim, Steve's high school friend and secret crush. Both of them are flustered and awkward, Steve says he's only in town to visit family for the holiday/see Darci's book signing and Jim agrees to fix Steve's car. Steve overhears a phone call between Jim and Claire and thinks the two are dating and becomes sad. In reality Jim and Claire did date a bit after high school but mutually broke it off and are just friends now.

Meanwhile outside the mechanic shop Claire and Mary run into each other. Claire, a local councilwoman, recognizes Mary as the corporate takeover lawyer and confronts her. Cue wlw hostility.

Car now fixed Steve and Mary continue on their way to his siblings' house. They arrive and are greeted by Douxie, Steve's adopted older brother, who guides them inside. Douxie lives with his and Steve's younger siblings, twins Aja and Krel, and Aja's girlfriend Shannon. Douxie is a waiter/a musician on the side, Krel is a software engineer, Shannon is a liveblogger, and Aja does something completely off the wall like lumberjack/reindeer herder/bear wrestler. Steve is delighted by the reunion with his siblings and easily falls back in with them. He and Mary also let them know that their relationship is purely for business purposes and they aren't romantically interested in each other at all. At dinner Steve inquires about where their parents are, the others are all made uncomfortable by this and tell Steve they still live in town but Steve doesn't have to see them. Steve brushes off their concerns but Mary is intrigued.

The next morning they all go to the book store for Darci's book release. Steve gets there early and he and Darci have a heartfelt reunion. The book signing commences to and Steve's surprise they run into Jim and Claire at the book store. Cue blushing and awkwardness from Steve and Jim, and tooth grinding barely concealed hostility from Mary and Claire.

Shannon sees how obvious Jim and Steve are being and tells Douxie, Aja, and Krel they need to get the two of them together so they'll stop being blushing awkward messes. Delighted at the idea of hijinks they all agree.

Douxie slides in and tells Steve that while Jim is the town mechanic he also bakes on the side and does a lot of the baking for the town Christmas festival and is heavily involved with running it, and that he'd be a great person to show Steve around the town. Steve and Jim both blush and flounder saying they're going to be busy helping Mary and Claire with their respective tasks. Aja chimes in saying Mary and Claire can come along and the four of them can spend time together, shy agreement from Jim and Steve and forced grins from Mary and Claire.

Cut to them doing various holiday activities, Steve and Jim have shy sweet chemistry while Mary and Claire have barely concealed hostility. This ends with Steve's injury being aggravated. Jim, Mary, and Claire push Steve to go see a doctor, which stresses Steve greatly until Jim tells him that the old town doctor died when he slipped on a patch of ice and Barbara is the new doctor.

At the doctor's office Jim and Steve go into the exam room while Mary and Claire hang out in the waiting room. Barbara looks over Steve's injury and says he's fine for now but to take it easy and not do anything strenuous, and that he should definitely make an appointment with a physical therapist. Jim and Steve share an "I'm glad you're ok" moment, which Barbara observes.

Meanwhile in the waiting room the computer system goes down and everyone starts panicking, Mary steps in and begins organizing things, quickly bringing the chaos into order. Claire reluctantly respects her for this.

Barbara later meets with Douxie, Aja, Krel, and Shannon, once she realizes that Steve and Mary's relationship is purely for show she becomes fully onboard with their antics to bring Jim and Steve together. Shannon has a quick moment of realization "Wait are we in a Hallmark movie?"

The next day Jim and Steve spend time with Toby and Darci at their D&D session, Claire declined because she's busy and Mary because she's tired. Toby privately tells Jim his feelings for Steve are obvious and Jim should go ahead and ask him out, Jim says he can't because Steve built up a new life as a big baseball star that Jim has no place in. Darci does the same with Steve but Steve says that Jim is with Claire and Steve can't disrupt their happiness.

That night Mary is frustrated at her bosses hounding her and decides to go out to a local bar to hopefully unwind. Douxie's band takes the stage and to her utter shock Claire is with them as a bassist/vocalist rocking out to punk music. Moment of gay panic from Mary. Off stage she tells Claire she really enjoyed her performance, a flustered Claire says that punk music is just something she uses to unwind from her job as a councilwoman.

The next day they do more holiday activities with the four of them, with Claire and Mary earnestly enjoying each other's company this time. At the end of the day Barbara, Douxie, Aja, Krel, and Shannon arrange for Steve and Jim to have a quiet moment alone (Shannon remains the only one self aware of their Hallmark movie shenanigens). Jim reveals that he and Claire broke up and are purely friends now, a stunned Steve reveals that him and Mary's relationship is purely for publicity. Sharing a moment of stunned elation the two of them agree to try a relationship.

The next day Jim and Steve go meet up with Steve's old baseball team, including Eli, Logan, and Seamus who still play baseball in their free time. They are all are excited to see Steve as he's the only one who "made" it. Steve shyly says after his injury he's considering giving up sports and picking up something less hard on his body. Steve has a great time catching up with them until he's ambushed by his parents. They pull him aside and berate him for potentially giving up sports, calling him weak for not wanting to play with his injury, and make homophobic comments about him and Jim. Meanwhile after hearing the other team members talk Jim starts to feel guilty about pulling Steve away from his glamorous sports star life.

That night Jim breaks up with Steve, claiming it's because their lives are just too different. Steve is heartbroken, and under pressure from his parents and his manager, believes baseball is the only thing he'll ever be good for and makes plans to go back to the big city and back to playing.

Meanwhile Claire overhears snippets of a conversation Mary has on the phone and thinks that Mary's giving her firm the go ahead to take over the town. Claire angrily tells Mary off. A crushed Mary makes plans to go back to the city with Steve, both of them planning on continuing their sham relationship.

Steve tells Eli, Logan, and Seamus goodbye, saying he's split up with Jim and is heading back to the big city to start back up with baseball practice. They're worried about Steve both breaking up with Jim and jumping back in to baseball instead of resting his injury. They go check with Barbara, who is very concerned by Steve's plan to return to baseball, as she knows that's the last thing his injury needs.

All of them meet up with Douxie, Douxie confesses that their parents always pushed Steve too hard to succeed in baseball, and that they got the old town doctor to sweep his injuries under the rug so they could push him further and further. Douxie always wanted to intervene, but because he was a foster kid, their parents threatened to send Douxie away if he made too much of a fuss. They all decide that they can't let Steve and Jim part like this, so they wrangle everyone in town to help Steve and Jim get back together (at this point Shannon is resigned "fuck it if we're in a Hallmark movie we might as well go all the way").

Through hijinks Barbara, all of Steve's siblings, and the baseball team get Steve and Mary to attend the town's Christmas tree lighting festival. Toby and Darci find Jim and Claire drowning their sorrows in eggnog at the local bar. Jim bemoans that he can't get in the way of Steve's dream life and at least this way he can protect Steve's feelings. Toby shuts him down hard, saying that he's not protecting Steve, he's taking the decision away from him, and that Steve deserves to make his own choices and Jim owes him his honest feelings. Claire grumbles about being decieved by Mary, Darci curtly points out that what Claire heard was a small segment of a conversation with absolutely no context, Mary could have been talking about a lot of things, and at the very least Claire should ask Mary for an explanation. Jim and Claire concede and agree to meet up with Steve and Mary.

At the tree lighting Jim reunites with Steve and confesses everything, he says he loves Steve and wants to be with him, but doesn't want to get in the way of Steve doing the sport he loves. He says he'll support Steve at whatever Steve wants, as long as it makes Steve happy. Jim's sincerity has Steve breaking down, he confesses he's been grinding so much at baseball he hasn't enjoyed it for a long time, and his injury gives him chronic pain and he wants to quit but has been doing baseball for so long he doesn't know what else to do. Jim assures him he can spend as much time as he needs to figuring it out.

Meanwhile Claire apologizes to Mary for blowing up at her and asks about the phone call. Mary confesses that she is planning a corporate takeover...of her own company, using blackmail and embezzlement to oust her bosses and put herself on top. She says she loved spending time with Claire, but she also loves being a corporate lawyer, and she could never ask Claire to leave the town she loves. Claire confesses that while she does love her town she doesn't want to be a councilwoman for the rest of her life, and that she, Douxie, and the rest of the band have been talking for months about going to the city to try and make it big.

Both couples happily agree to try new lives together. Jim and Steve in Arcadia, and Mary and Claire in the big city.

Steve's parents storm in and start berating Steve again for quitting baseball just when he's "made it". Jim steps in and absolutely tears into them, saying they never truly cared about what was best for Steve and pushed him to the point of injury. Douxie, Aja, Krel, Mary, Claire, Logan, Seamus, Eli, and the other baseball team members all join in on blasting Steve's parents. Embarrassed, Steve's parents slink away.

The Christmas tree lighting commences, Jim and Steve share a kiss, as well as Mary and Claire. Shannon rolls her eyes "Of course they kiss now, we are in a Hallmark movie after all," Aja slides up to her "So does this mean you don't want to kiss me?" Shannon smirks "Oh I didn't say that".

While the couples are all kissing Krel, Darci, and Toby roll their eyes and share a moment of aromantic solidarity as the only three people in town capable of being normal about this stuff. Darci remarks that she doesn't see the Palchuk parents anywhere. Krel tells her that Douxie mentioned their parents were arrested for child abuse and taken away. Toby comments that it's weird for them to be arrested after all this time has passed but none of them really dwell on it.

Cut to the Palchuk parents' being taken away by Krampus (Strickler) while Barbara and Douxie watch. Through conversation it's revealed that Krampus (Strickler) is Barbara's friend with benefits. After he departs with the Palchuk parents, Douxie asks if Barbara cares to explain how she and Krampus (Strickler) became fwb, Barbara says no she does not.

One year later, Steve has quit baseball and lives in Arcadia with Jim. He fosters animals for the local shelter and works part time as a substitute teacher, as well as various other side jobs around town. Steve still doesn't know what he wants to spend the rest of his life doing, but he's having fun trying out the different options while being loved and supported by Jim and his friends and family. He's started physical therapy and stopped playing baseball completely, but enjoys cheering Eli, Logan, and Seamus on at their games.

Mary, Claire, and Douxie arrive in town to visit for Christmas. Mary gushes about how much she enjoys running her own firm, while Douxie and Claire gleefully share how their band is taking off.

Big Christmas party with all the characters happens, Steve and Jim share a kiss under the mistletoe.

Cue end credits over Christmas music.

[alohaasaloevera]

Au where Lance works a normal 9 to 5 (or as a nurse???) as a single dad and Keith is a mechanic at an auto shop??

It’s either a rivals-ish mutual pining slow burn 7-15 chapters 60k+ fic or a friends with benefits type of situation also mutual pining slow burn 7-15 chapters 60k+ fic.

Basically Lance moves into this new neighborhood to get away from the past (which is mainly his child’s mother and some other toxic people/environments (not his family or Hunk though)), and is immediately known as the hot, single dad who recently moved to the neighborhood, before he meets Pidge, a former child prodigy now genius software engineer. Pidge and Lance form a close bond with each other and Hunk even meets up with them a few times!!!!

Lance also hears about the young, hot mechanic down the street, and that’s kinda where their rivalry starts (along with other events).

In the mutual pining rivals au they keep getting put in situations where they have to compete, and then they become rivals, but they’re also hopelessly pining over each other and adore the other a lot. Cue Lance’s child accidentally calling Keith “Daddy” and everyone freaking out.

In the fwb au Lance grows a pair and pins Keith to a wall before making out with him almost immediately (like in the first few chapters), which also leads to mutual pining. They’re still “rivals”, though. Rivals who secretly make out and cuddle with each other, but that’s not important (it really is).

YOO???? I MIGHT’VE MADE A BANGER AU???

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

#15yrsago Mall cops in Norwich, England get police powers https://web.archive.org/web/20091220231959/http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp24/news/story.aspx

#15yrsago Kenyan bike-mechanic’s homemade tools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEeyY09YzEY

#15yrsago Science fiction fandom is 80 today https://web.archive.org/web/20091214023834/http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58405

#15yrsago English anti-terror cops ask nursery school workers to watch 4 year olds for signs of “radicalization” https://web.archive.org/web/20100106032907/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6952503.ece

#15yrsago Just look at this awesome EU banana curvature regulation. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:1994R2257:20060217:EN:PDF

#15yrsago Anti-Olympic mural censored in Vancouver https://web.archive.org/web/20091214014017/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/vancouver-orders-removal-of-anti-olympic-mural/article1396541/

#15yrsago RIAA, MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce declare war on blind and disabled people https://web.archive.org/web/20091214062920/https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/blind_block/

#15yrsago Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border https://memex.craphound.com/2009/12/11/dr-peter-watts-canadian-science-fiction-writer-beaten-and-arrested-at-us-border/

#10yrsago Google News shuts down in Spain https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/google-news-shuts-shop-spain-thanks-ancillary-copyright-law

#10yrsago Calling out the doctors who abetted CIA torture https://kottke.org/14/12/medical-profession-aided-cia-torture

#10yrsago Lawquake! Judge rules that explaining jailbreaking isn’t illegal https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/pointing-users-drm-stripping-software-isnt-copyright-infringement-judge-rules

#10yrsago We know you love privacy, Judge Posner. We just wish you’d share. https://www.techdirt.com/2014/12/09/judge-posner-says-nsa-should-be-able-to-get-everything-that-privacy-is-overrated/

#10yrsago Furry convention evacuated after chlorine-gas attack https://www.themarysue.com/furry-con-terrorist-attack/

#5yrsago Twitter wants to develop an open, decentralized, federated social media standard…and then join it https://www.techdirt.com/2019/12/11/twitter-makes-bet-protocols-over-platforms/

#5yrsago The true nature of creativity: pilfering and recombining the work of your forebears (who, in turn, pilfered and recombined) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB1KE5dbOZo

#5yrsago South Carolina’s feudal magistrate system may take a modest step toward modernization https://www.propublica.org/article/we-investigated-magistrates-now-lawmakers-want-to-overhaul-the-system

#1yrago Daddy-Daughter Podcast 2023 https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/11/daddy-daughter-2023/#not-bye

[mariacallous]

American R&B singer Aliaune Thiam, professionally known as Akon, has long wanted to help Senegal, the country he grew up in. He started Akon Lighting Africa in 2014 to install cheap Chinese solar-powered lighting systems across the continent. He hoped to do something more significant for Senegal. But how to fund it?

The answer turned out to be the same one adopted by a growing number of governments and entrepreneurs: a mixture of cryptocurrency and urban planning. It’s a combination that offers the promise of development without any of the tricky details—and which tends to turn out to be little more than vaporware. There was Bitcoin City in El Salvador, but also Painted Rock in Nevada, Satoshi Island in Vanuatu, Cryptoland in Fiji, or the Crypto-Kingdom of Bitcointopia in Utah.

In 2018, Akon announced a new cryptocurrency, to be called “akoin.” Akoin would enable Africans to, as the singer put it at a launch event, “advance themselves independent of the government”—in some manner. Most importantly, akoin would fund the creation of Akon City, an advanced planned city to be built in Senegal. Akon announced akoin and Akon City at the Cannes Lions Festival in June 2018. Akon said in November of that year that he had “everything planned out” for the city. But both Akon City and the akoin token remained only ideas for many months.

Akon was interested by the promises of cryptocurrency—specifically, free money by some unclear mechanism—but he was not up on the details of its technical or financial issues: “I come with the concepts and let the geeks figure it out,” he said. The akoin team featured initial coin offering (ICO) entrepreneurs such as Lynn Liss of ICO Impact and Crystal Rose Pierce.

The akoin cryptocurrency was pre-sold in a 2019 crypto token offering called “token of appreciation.” Each dollar “donation” would give you up to four tokens which would convert to akoin.

Akoin had not launched in Senegal at the time, despite billboards across the country. The West African CFA franc is the only legal currency in Senegal; BCEAO, the central bank, warned that akoin could not be used as a currency in the country.

Akoin promised all manner of functionality—special akoin wallet software, direct exchange with other cryptocurrencies or with cellphone minutes, an application marketplace, various “building blocks for entrepreneurship.” None of this was ever implemented.

Akoin finally started trading on a crypto exchange in November 2020. The akoin token didn’t do anything or have any particular utility; it was just a crypto token that you could trade. Pre-sale buyers dumped their akoin immediately and the price crashed. That’s not unusual: As of 2022, 24 percent of new cryptos fell 90 percent or more in their first week.

Akon posted on social media in January 2020 that he had “finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal”—though he had previously claimed that construction had already started in March 2019. The new city would be built near the small town of Mbodiène, about 100 kilometers south of the capital, Dakar.

Akon City would be a “smart city” inspired by the futuristic African nation of Wakanda from the 2018 movie Black Panther. The city would feature boldly curved skyscrapers, shopping malls, music and movie studios, “eco-friendly” tourist resorts, and a parking garage for flying cars.

Akon claimed in August 2020 that $2 billion of the $6 billion needed to build Akon City had been secured. He laid the foundation stone for the city on Aug. 31, 2020, and said that construction would start “next year,” in 2021.

Construction did not start in 2021, to the disappointment of locals. It was not clear where the $6 billion needed to build Akon City would come from. A representative for KE International, the United States-based contractor for Akon City, told AFP that more than $4 billion had been secured, with Kenyan entrepreneur Julius Mwale as lead investor, and that construction would start in October 2021—but it did not.

By 2022, Akon told the BBC that construction was “100,000 percent moving.” He said the COVID-19 pandemic was partly to blame for the delays. Akon was surprised at the “thousands of studies” that had to be done before work could even commence.

Senegal’s Society for the Development and Promotion of Coasts and Tourist Zones (SAPCO) had claimed the land by eminent domain in 2009 before offering it to Akon City in 2020. By 2023, no building work had been done at the Akon City site—though Axiome Construction insisted that geotechnical studies and environmental assessments were still under way. By this time, according to the Guardian, the only construction was a youth center nearby in Mbodiène, paid for personally by Akon—and built upon the foundation stone that he had laid in 2020.

Senegal finally lost patience with the project. Akon had missed several payments to SAPCO, and in June of this year, SAPCO sent a formal notice to Akon warning that work had to start by the end of July or SAPCO might take back almost all of the land grant.

Akon had already been looking for other opportunities to place akoin. In April 2021, he started talking to Uganda about setting up an Akon City there as well. In January 2022, the Ugandan government allocated him one square mile in Mpunge, in the Mukono district—despite objections from the National Unity Platform party and protests from Mpunge residents wanting compensation, which could not be paid before 2025.

Akon said that Akon City, Uganda, might be completed by 2036. At a 2021 news conference, he evaded questions on what the new city would cost or how it would be funded. The Forum for Democratic Change party said that the Ugandan Akon City would never happen and accused the government of granting “sweetheart deals” to developers.

Akon City was tech solutionism that leveraged the political power of celebrity. Akon wanted to launch a large project and thought that cryptocurrency, the buzzword of 2018, might fund his dream. He thought that this one weird trick would do the job.

In this case, the miracle technology was crypto. These days, such  pushes by celebrities or entrepreneurs of new projects will typically use artificial intelligence—whatever that might mean in a particular case—as the marketing hook for a “smart city.

In his 2023 book Let Them Eat Crypto, Peter Howson of Northumbria University detailed how to head off solutionism-inspired blockchain projects that were heavy on publicity but light on the necessary bureaucratic work on the ground. His approach is broadly applicable to tech solutionism in general: Pay attention to the men behind the curtain. Howson has written recently on “smart city” plans as marketing for crypto tokens.

The Akon City plan was a worked example of speculative urbanization. A project is proposed with science-fiction concept drawings and a pitch aimed at tourists rather than locals; land is allocated; something might eventually be built, but it will bear little resemblance to the brochures. Christopher Marcinkoski of the University of Pennsylvania described Akon City as just one of many such initiatives, particularly in Africa, calling it “very much a real estate play.” The important output from such projects is local political capital—even as they never work out as advertised.

Cryptocurrency was an application of speculative urbanization to money—a high concept, a pitch to financial tourists, and the only end result being a token to speculate on and a tremendous amount of fraud. The Akon City project, however good Akon’s own intentions, seems functionally to have been merely the pitch for a crypto offering that failed—leaving an empty site, disappointed locals, and an embarrassed figurehead.

By 2024, akoin had been removed from the few crypto exchanges it had been listed on; it was effectively worthless. Akon sold short videos on Cameo—but he would not do requests related to cryptocurrency.

The speculative urbanization pitch rolls on. Actor Idris Elba has recently floated plans for an “environmentally friendly smart city” on Sherbro Island off Sierra Leone.

[theshipsong]

If neovim is what you want to talk about, then please pick three items from the ask game that you like the most and tell me about it ^_^

(fic writer asks)

this is a can of worms you’ve opened but i choose to understand your self-described tech monkey-ness as you probably know a thing or two already so for my other victims reading!!!:

16. favorite place to write

17. talk about your writing and editing process

i fully realize this ask game probably meant a real world location like a coffee shop or a couch but i am interpreting it as software!!!

vi/vim/neovim are a succession of terminal UI text editors that date back to the 70s. its main feature is probably that it’s modal, meaning you switch between editing/preview/select/other functions with a keyboard command. i write my fic in markdown format, not rich text like in google docs or word, so if i want to italicize text i type asterisks around it *like this* instead of having to select “italic” from a formatting bar or worse, highlighting the text after the fact

ALL THIS MEANS is i can write an entire fic draft without touching a mouse!!! which i know isn’t cool/with these touchscreen times but i have mechanical keyboards and a sexy sexy thinkpad that are a joy to type on, so any opportunity to use them, i will take. neo/vim is also highly customizable with plugins (relevant here is probably a wordcounter), and i use my own colorscheme named after my beautiful girlfriend PERONA:

the other thing about “modal” editing is it is so painless to manipulate text, like move entire 10s of paragraphs up and down a chapter draft without touching a mouse and easily undoing it, which i tend to do if i’m fucking with linear time, seeing what it’d look like starting in media res, etc. in terms of proofreading, i tend to proofread in either the tumblr editor (godless) or in obsidian, viewing the same file in rendered markdown, probably in a serif font.

and THE LAST THING is it’s such a lightweight piece of software that i can use it on any device under the sun. actually. there’s no compromises of folding to what the android app store has available. i have the exact same writing experience on my laptop, desktop, ipad, and if i’m crazy, by attaching a keyboard to my phone.

7. your preferred writing fonts

the other vim thing is because it’s in the terminal, you will be stuck with whatever monospace (hacker-looking) font your terminal emulator uses. now i set this to be either Iosevka or JetBrains Mono (in above screenshot) if i have that freedom, two open source programming fonts with pretty italics and broad language support, but my ipad shell app only lets me use apple’s Menlo, which is…. fine.

this is a similar liberatory resriction to using Times New Roman for academic writing. all the time i would spend fucking around formatting fonts is gone (and instead went into configuring neovim plugins). the serif font i have in obsidian for proofreading rn is Crimson Pro

[savagegardensprogramming]

Modular Oriented Programming and DevOps

The idea is as follows.

If you were an application developer, you would go into a market place and shop for parts. For example (see figure above). You would get some buttons, an LCD display, a back panel and a control circuit. Then you would wire the components together to create an application. Even thou you would be a software developer you would not need to do any programming what so ever. For example the calculator can be put together with a simple bash script or even simpler. An XML file.

This is possible with Modular Oriented Programming. It would change DevOps for software developers to operate similar to the automobile industry. The engine is made in one country. The tires in another. The dashboards and bumpers in another and so on. All the automobile manufacturers really focus on is the outter body. The chassis that glues all the parts together.

Software DevOps would have three distinct industries:

1. - Module developer focused on a specific situation or problem.

2. - Application developer who brings together different modules and creates an application

3. - The technician who is akin to the auto mechanic. This guy would maintain and tweak the application by adding and removing modules. Rewiring the app in a sense.

[supercantaloupe]

Hi independent living anon back actually you mentioned the instant pot and my friend's mom somehow went from software engineer to food blogger and her first cookbook is like well they're Indian to it's ilke Indian instant pot stuff you should check that out if it interests you and if the book is behind a paywall she has recipes on her site and stuff her blog is called Ministry of Curry. Anyway your post kind of made me realize that the actually mechanics of cooking I feel ok with but it was just the idea of buying my own groceries deciding what to buy and fashioning that into food but now that you said it depends on like figuring out stuff that you want to eat etc I feel like completely changed my perspective even though it's kind of obvious. Anyway super helpful post thanks anon out have a good day/week/year/life

ooh that does sound interesting, i don't cook a lot of indian food myself but i feel like i should get into it because there's a lot of really delicious vegetarian indian dishes and i want to try and expand my arsenal of vegetarian meals.

anyway, with respect to knowing what to buy and what to make with that, one thing that i like to do to make things easier for myself is having a well stocked pantry of nonperishables that i can pull from whenever i need. you can pick up items a few at a time when you grocery shop so you can build your pantry over time rather than having to get everything all at once which is overwhelming and pricey. but basically i try to always have dry pasta, rice, canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned pumpkin, breadcrumbs, soy sauce, broth base, honey, garlic and onions, potatoes, oil, peanut butter, etc in my pantry at all times (and eggs, milk, butter, and yogurt in my fridge). very basic things that can be turned into meals without a ton of prep. then my meal planning for a week will hinge on several factors: what i want to eat, what time am i going to have to cook and eat during the week (ie will i be able to cook dinner during the week or will i have to pack dinners ahead of time every day), and what's available/in season. i do a lot of shopping at the farmers market so i'll often figure out what i want to make based on what's fresh that time of year; recently i've been loving these delicious baby kales, which are only available in the winter here. in the summer it'll be lots of tomatoes and peaches and eggplants! i like to cook with what's in season a lot of the time because you can get deals that way and because in season local produce is very nutritious and usually more flavorful than what you can buy at a grocery store. but that will depend on what you have available where you live.

basically, i don't really sit down and plan in detail what to cook and eat during an entire week and then go out and shop for everything i need to make those things all at once -- i try to keep my pantry well stocked with versatile and shelf stable ingredients that i can use spontaneously to make larger meals out of, based on what i want to eat and what is fresh and available at any given time.