#Remote office software

[opengrowth-hub]

Breaking Barriers: Enabling Effective Collaboration in Remote Work

Introduction

Remote employment is becoming more and more common in today's dynamic workplace. Its freedom and adaptability have revolutionised the way firms run. Effective cooperation, however, can be difficult when remote workers are distributed over numerous places. It is crucial to use the top remote team collaboration tools to get beyond this challenge. This article will examine some of the best collaboration tools that facilitate productive cooperation and raise efficiency in remote work settings.

1. Remote Office Software

Remote Office Software is essential for encouraging team members to work together. With the help of these tools, staff members can interact virtually and work together in real time to share files and complete projects. Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, and Zoho Office Suite, Opengrowth Hub are best examples of well-liked remote office software. These platforms provide a full range of productivity features, including the ability to edit documents, exchange calendars, and conduct video conferences, assuring smooth communication between remote workers.

2. Remote Work Management Software

Organisations use remote work management tools to handle remote teams efficiently. Task distribution, progress monitoring, and team coordination are made easier by using these technologies. Leading products with user-friendly interfaces, customizable workflows, and integration with other productivity tools include Asana, Trello, and Monday.com. distant work management software improves cooperation and keeps distant teams oriented towards shared goals by centralising project-related information and offering transparency.

3. Project Management Tools

Project management tools are essential for overseeing projects when working remotely. Teams can quickly plan, carry out, and monitor projects thanks to these platforms. Examples worth mentioning are Wrike and Opengrowth hub. These technologies enable remote teams to work easily while remaining organised and fulfilling project deadlines by providing features like task assignment, milestone tracking, and Gantt charts.

OpenGrowth Hub: Empowering Remote Work Collaboration

The groundbreaking remote work collaboration tool OpenGrowth Hub was created to improve productivity and communication among remote workers. With its extensive capabilities, OpenGrowth Hub enables remote teams to conduct efficient reporting, fill huddles, manage timesheets, and arrange meetings all while seamlessly catching up. OpenGrowth Hub gives remote workers the tools they need to stay connected, on the same page, and engaged, which ultimately promotes success in the virtual workplace.

[nemaria]

hot take: if an office/remote job requires mostly email communication, the interview questions should be written. There should also be a sample email that you have to write a response to, and something that tests your ability to draft an initial email about something related to whatever the job is about.

if you really need telephone skills as well, then there should be a mock call that is similar to the calls you'd have to make on the job, e.g. you are given a document to read beforehand and have to answer some questions about the content of the document on the call. No more of this "tell me about a time when you...." bullshit, just assessing things that are Directly Related To The Job, Please For The Love of God

[msn-technology]

Venn Alternatives for Remote Work: Enhancing Productivity and Collaboration

In the era of remote work, it is crucial for businesses of all sizes to find the right tools. These tools should enhance productivity. They should also improve collaboration. While Venn is a popular choice for remote work solutions, there are several alternatives that offer unique features and capabilities. This article explores the top Venn alternatives for remote work. It focuses on…

[filehulk]

ONLYOFFICE

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses and individuals need versatile tools to manage documents, collaborate efficiently, and enhance productivity. ONLYOFFICE is a robust office suite that caters to these needs, offering a blend of document management, collaboration, and integration capabilities. This article dives into what ONLYOFFICE is, its key features, benefits, and use…

[retinaconfectionary]

[taitanium2]

The Ultimate Guide to Developing Your Software Project Alone: Learn the Principles of IT Project Development, Avoid Mistakes, and Build a Famous Project. The best book for aspiring entrepreneurs and remote workers. Written by Alex Gurkin, this comprehensive guide provides valuable insights and practical advice for building successful software projects from home or working remotely with a small team.

VISIT HERE :- https://www.amazon.com/Develop-Alone-innovative-amazing-software/dp/1957989882

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets”

This week only, Barnes and Noble is offering 25% off pre-orders of my forthcoming novel Picks and Shovels. ENDS TODAY!.

While we truly live in an age of ascendant monsters who have hijacked our country, our economy, and our imaginations, there is one consolation: the small cohort of brilliant, driven writers who have these monsters' number, and will share it with us. Writers like Maureen Tkacik:

https://prospect.org/topics/maureen-tkacik/

Journalists like Wired's Vittoria Elliott, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman are absolutely crushing it when it comes to Musk's DOGE coup:

https://www.wired.com/author/vittoria-elliott/

And Nathan Tankus is doing incredible work all on his own, just blasting out scoop after scoop:

https://www.crisesnotes.com/

But for me, it was Tkacik – as usual – in the pages of The American Prospect who pulled it all together in a way that finally made it make sense, transforming the blitzkreig Muskian chaos into a recognizable playbook. While most of the coverage of Musk's wrecking crew has focused on the broccoli-haired Gen Z brownshirts who are wilding through the server rooms at giant, critical government agencies, Tkacik homes in on their boss, Tom Krause, whom she memorably dubs "the Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" (I told you she was a great writer!):

https://prospect.org/power/2025-02-06-private-equity-hatchet-man-leading-lost-boys-of-doge/

Krause is a private equity looter. He's the guy who basically invented the playbook for PE takeovers of large tech companies, from Broadcom to Citrix to VMWare, converting their businesses from selling things to renting them out, loading them up with junk fees, slashing quality, jacking up prices over and over, and firing everyone who was good at their jobs. He is a master enshittifier, an enshittification ninja.

Krause has an unerring instinct for making people miserable while making money. He oversaw the merger of Citrix and VMWare, creating a ghastly company called The Cloud Software Group, which sold remote working tools. Despite this, of his first official acts was to order all of his employees to stop working remotely. But then, after forcing his workers to drag their butts into work, move back across the country, etc, he reversed himself because he figured out he could sell off all of the company's office space for a tidy profit.

Krause canceled employee benefits, like thank you days for managers who pulled a lot of unpaid overtime, or bonuses for workers who upgraded their credentials. He also ended the company's practice of handing out swag as small gifts to workers, and then stiffed the company that made the swag, wontpaying a $437,574.97 invoice for all the tchotchkes the company had ordered. That's not the only supplier Krause stiffed: FinLync, a fintech company with a three-year contract with Krause's company, also had to sue to get paid.

Krause's isn't a canny operator who roots out waste: he's a guy who tears out all the wiring and then grudgingly restores the minimum needed to keep the machine running (no wonder Musk loves him, this is the Twitter playbook). As Tkacik reports, Krause fucked up the customer service and reliability systems that served Citrix's extremely large, corporate customers – the giant businesses that cut huge monthly checks to Citrix, whose CIOs received daily sales calls from his competitors.

Workers who serviced these customers, like disabled Air Force veteran David Morgan, who worked with big public agencies, were fired on one hour's notice, just before their stock options vested. The giant public agency customers he'd serviced later called him to complain that the only people they could get on the phone were subcontractors in Indian call centers who lacked the knowledge and authority to resolve their problems.

Last month, Citrix fired all of its customer support engineers. Citrix's military customers are being illegally routed to offshore customer support teams who are prohibited from working with the US military.

Citrix/VMWare isn't an exception. The carnage at these companies is indistinguishable from the wreck Krause made of Broadcom. In all these cases, Krause was parachuted in by private equity bosses, and he destroyed something useful to extract a giant, one-time profit, leaving behind a husk that no longer provides value to its customers or its employees.

This is the DOGE playbook. It's all about plunder: take something that was patiently, carefully built up over generations and burn it to the ground, warming yourself in the pyre, leaving nothing behind but ash. This is what private equity plunderers have been doing to the world's "advanced" economies since the Reagan years. They did it to airlines, family restaurants, funeral homes, dog groomers, toy stores, pharma, palliative care, dialysis, hospital beds, groceries, cars, and the internet.

Trump's a plunderer. He was elected by the plunderer class – like the crypto bros who want to run wild, transforming workers' carefully shepherded retirement savings into useless shitcoins, while the crypto bros run off with their perfectly cromulent "fiat" money. Musk is the apotheosis of this mindset, a guy who claims credit for other peoples' productive and useful businesses, replacing real engineering with financial engineering. Musk and Krause, they're like two peas in a pod.

That's why – according to anonymous DOGE employees cited by Tckacik – DOGE managers are hired for their capacity for cruelty: "The criteria for DOGE is how many you have fired, how much you enjoy firing people, and how little you care about the impact on peoples well being…No wonder Tom Krause was tapped for this. He’s their dream employee!"

The fact that Krause isn't well known outside of plunderer circles is absolutely a feature for him, not a bug. Scammers like Krause want to be admitted to polite society. This is why the Sacklers – the opioid crime family that kicked off the Oxy pandemic that's murdered more than 800,000 Americans so far – were so aggressive about keeping their association with their family business, Purdue Pharma, a secret. The Sacklers only wanted to be associated with the art galleries and museums they put their names over, and their lawyers threatened journalists for writing about their lives as billionaire drug pushers (I got one of those threats).

There's plenty of good reasons to be anonymous – if you're a whistleblower, say. But if you ever encounter a corporate executive who insists on anonymity, that's a wild danger sign. Take Pixsy, the scam "copyleft trolls" whose business depends on baiting people into making small errors when using images licensed under very early versions of the Creative Common licenses, and then threatening to sue them unless they pay hundreds or thousands of dollars:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

Kain Jones, the CEO of Pixsy, tried to threaten me under the EU's GDPR for revealing the names of the scammer on his payroll who sent me a legal threat, and the executive who ran the scam for his business (I say he tried to threaten me because I helped lobby for the GDPR and I know for a fact that this isn't a GDPR violation):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

These people understand that they are in the business of ripping people off, causing them grave and wholly unjust financial injury. They value their secrecy because they are in the business of making strangers righteously furious, and they understand that one of these strangers might just show up in their lives someday to confront them about their transgressions.

This is why Unitedhealthcare freaked out so hard about Luigi Mangione's assassination of CEO Brian Thompson – that's not how the game is supposed to be played. The people who sit in on executive row, destroying your lives, are supposed to be wholly insulated from the consequences of their actions. You're not supposed to know who they are, you're not supposed to be able to find them – of course.

But even more importantly, you're not supposed to be angry at them. They pose as mere software agents in an immortal colony organism called a Limited Liability Corporation, bound by the iron law of shareholder supremacy to destroy your life while getting very, very rich. It's not supposed to be personal. That's why Unitedhealthcare is threatening to sue a doctor who was yanked out of surgery on a cancer patient to be berated by a UHC rep for ordering a hospital stay for her patient:

https://gizmodo.com/unitedhealthcare-is-mad-about-in-luigi-we-trust-comments-under-a-doctors-viral-post-2000560543

UHC is angry that this surgeon, Austin's Dr Elisabeth Potter, went Tiktok-viral with her true story of how how chaotic and depraved and uncaring UHC is. UHC execs fear that Mangione made it personal, that he obliterated the accountability sink of the corporation and put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the (mostly) men at the top who make this call.

This is a point Adam Conover made in his latest Factually podcast, where he interviewed Propublica's T Christian Miller and Patrick Rucker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_5tDXRw8kg

Miller and Rucker published a blockbuster investigative report into Cigna's Evocore, a secret company that offers claims-denials as a service to America's biggest health insurers:

https://www.propublica.org/article/evicore-health-insurance-denials-cigna-unitedhealthcare-aetna-prior-authorizations

If you're the CEO of a health insurance company and you don't like how much you're paying out for MRIs or cancer treatment, you tell Evocore (which processes all your claim authorizations) and they turn a virtual dial that starts to reduce the number of MRIs your customers are allowed to have. This dial increases the likelihood that a claim or pre-authorization will be denied, which, in turn, makes doctors less willing to order them (even if they're medically necessary) and makes patients more likely to pay for them out of pocket.

Towards the end of the conversation, Miller and Rucker talk about how the rank-and-file people at an insurer don't get involved with the industry to murder people in order to enrich their shareholders. They genuinely want to help people. But executive row is different: those very wealthy people do believe their job is to kill people to save money, and get richer. Those people are personally to blame for the systemic problem. They are the ones who design and operate the system.

That's why naming the people who are personally responsible for these immoral, vicious acts is so important. That's why it's important that Wired and Propublica are unmasking the "pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" who are raiding the federal government under Krause's leadership:

https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/

These people are committing grave crimes against the nation and its people. They should be known for this. It should follow them for the rest of their lives. It should be the lead in their obituaries. People who are introduced to them at parties should have a flash of recognition, hastily end the handshake, then turn on their heels and race to the bathroom to scrub their hands. For the rest of their lives.

Naming these people isn't enough to stop the plunder, but it helps. Yesterday, Marko Elez, the 25 year old avowed "eugenicist" who wanted to "normalize Indian hate" and could not be "[paid] to marry outside of my ethnicity," was shown the door. He's off the job. For the rest of his life, he will be the broccoli-haired brownshirt who got fired for his asinine, racist shitposting:

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5289337/elon-musk-doge-treasury

After Krause's identity as the chief wrecker at DOGE was revealed, the brilliant Anna Merlan (author of Republic of Lies, the best book on conspiratorialism), wrote that "Now the whole country gets the experience of what it’s like when private equity buys the place you work":

https://bsky.app/profile/annamerlan.bsky.social/post/3lhepjkudcs2t

That's exactly it. We are witnessing a private equity-style plunder of the entire US government – of the USA itself. No one is better poised to write about this than Tkacik, because no one has private equity's number like Tkacik does:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Ironically, all this came down just as Trump announced that he was going to finally get rid of private equity's scammiest trick, the "carried interest" loophole that lets PE bosses (and, to a lesser extent, hedge fund managers) avoid billions in personal taxes:

https://archive.is/yKhvD

"Carried interest" has nothing to do with the interest rate – it's a law that was designed for 16th century sea captains who had an "interest" in the cargo they "carried":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Trump campaigned on killing this loophole in 2017, but Congress stopped him, after a lobbying blitz by the looter industry. It's possible that he genuinely wants to get rid of the carried interest loophole – he's nothing if not idiosyncratic, as the residents of Greenland can attest:

https://prospect.org/world/2025-02-07-letter-between-friendly-nations/

Even if he succeeds, looters and the "investor class" will get a huge giveaway under Trump, in the form of more tax giveaways and the dismantling of labor and environmental regulation. But it's far more likely that he won't succeed. Rather – as Yves Smith writes for Naked Capitalism – he'll do what he did with the Canada and Mexico tariffs: make a tiny, unimportant change and then lie and say he had done something revolutionary:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/is-trump-serious-about-trying-to-close-the-private-equity-carried-interest-loophole.html

This has been a shitty month, and it's not gonna get better for a while. On my dark days, I worry that it won't get better during my lifetime. But at least we have people like Tkacik to chronicle it, explain it, put it in context. She's amazing, a whirlwind. The same day that her report on Krause dropped, the Prospect published another must-read piece by her, digging deep into Alex Jones's convoluted bankruptcy gambit:

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-02-06-crisis-actors-alex-jones-bankruptcy/

It lays bare the wild world of elite bankruptcy court, another critical conduit for protecting the immoral rich from their victims. The fact that Tkacik can explain both Krause and the elite bankruptcy system on the same day is beyond impressive.

We've got a lot of work ahead of ourselves. The people in charge of this system – whose names you must learn and never forget – aren't going to go easily. But at least we know who they are. We know what they're doing. We know how the scam works. It's not a flurry of incomprehensible actions – it's a playbook that killed Red Lobster, Toys R Us, and Sears. We don't have to follow that playbook.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/07/broccoli-hair-brownshirts/#shameless

[spacedace]

For the second time in my time working for my company, an enforced software update had bricked my laptop.

Cherry on top? Literally all of my bosses are out today. I can't reach out to any of them. And since I work remote I can't just sadly wander over to the IT offices to beg for help

I guess my weekend is starting early?

[srbachchan]

DAY 6274

Jalsa, Mumbai Aopr 20, 2025 Sun 11:17 pm

🪔 ,

April 21 .. birthday greetings and happiness to Ef Mousumi Biswas .. and Ef Arijit Bhattacharya from Kolkata .. 🙏🏽❤️🚩.. the wishes from the Ef family continue with warmth .. and love 🌺

The AI debate became the topic of discussion on the dining table ad there were many potent points raised - bith positive and a little indifferent ..

The young acknowledged it with reason and able argument .. some of the mid elders disagreed mildly .. and the end was kind of neutral ..

Blessed be they of the next GEN .. their minds are sorted out well in advance .. and why not .. we shall not be around till time in advance , but they and their progeny shall .. as has been the norm through generations ...

The IPL is now the greatest attraction throughout the day .. particularly on the Sunday, for the two on the day .. and there is never a debate on that ..

🤣

.. and I am most appreciative to read the comments from the Ef on the topic of the day - AI .. appreciative because some of the reactions and texts are valid and interesting to know .. the aspect expressed in all has a legitimate argument and that is most healthy ..

I am happy that we could all react to the Blog contents in the manner they have done .. my gratitude .. such a joy to get different views , valid and meaningful ..

And it is not the end of the day or the debate .. some impressions of the Gen X and some from the just passed Gen .. and some that were never ever the Gen are interesting as well :

The Printing Press (15th Century)

Fear: Scribes, monks, and elites thought it would destroy the value of knowledge, lead to mass misinformation, and eliminate jobs. Reality: It democratized knowledge, spurred the Renaissance and Reformation, and created entirely new industries—publishing, journalism, and education.

⸻

Industrial Revolution (18th–19th Century)

Fear: Machines would replace all human labor. The Luddites famously destroyed machinery in protest. Reality: Some manual labor jobs were displaced, but the economy exploded with new roles in manufacturing, logistics, engineering, and management. Overall employment and productivity soared.

⸻

Automobiles (Early 20th Century)

Fear: People feared job losses for carriage makers, stable hands, and horseshoe smiths. Cities worried about traffic, accidents, and social decay. Reality: The car industry became one of the largest employers in the world. It reshaped economies, enabled suburbia, and created new sectors like travel, road infrastructure, and auto repair.

⸻

Personal Computers (1980s)

Fear: Office workers would be replaced by machines; people worried about becoming obsolete. Reality: Computers made work faster and created entire industries: IT, software development, cybersecurity, and tech support. It transformed how we live and work.

⸻

The Internet (1990s)

Fear: It would destroy jobs in retail, publishing, and communication. Some thought it would unravel social order. Reality: E-commerce, digital marketing, remote work, and the creator economy now thrive. It connected the world and opened new opportunities.

⸻

ATMs (1970s–80s)

Fear: Bank tellers would lose their jobs en masse. Reality: ATMs handled routine tasks, but banks actually hired more tellers for customer service roles as they opened more branches thanks to reduced transaction costs.

⸻

Robotics & Automation (Factory work, 20th century–today)

Fear: Mass unemployment in factories. Reality: While some jobs shifted or ended, others evolved—robot maintenance, programming, design. Productivity gains created new jobs elsewhere.

The fear is not for losing jobs. It is the compromise of intellectual property and use without compensation. This case is slightly different.

I think AI will only make humans smarter. If we use it to our advantage.

That’s been happening for the last 10 years anyway

Not something new

You can’t control that in this day and age

YouTube & User-Generated Content (mid-2000s onward)

Initial Fear: When YouTube exploded, many in the entertainment industry panicked. The fear was that copyrighted material—music, TV clips, movies—would be shared freely without compensation. Creators and rights holders worried their content would be pirated, devalued, and that they’d lose control over distribution.

What Actually Happened: YouTube evolved to protect IP and monetize it through systems like Content ID, which allows rights holders to:

Automatically detect when their content is used

Choose to block, track, or monetize that usage

Earn revenue from ads run on videos using their IP (even when others post it)

Instead of wiping out creators or studios, it became a massive revenue stream—especially for musicians, media companies, and creators. Entire business models emerged around fair use, remixes, and reactions—with compensation built in.

Key Shift: The system went from “piracy risk” to “profit partner,” by embracing tech that recognized and enforced IP rights at scale.

This lead to higher profits and more money for owners and content btw

You just have to restructure the compensation laws and rewrite contracts

It’s only going to benefit artists in the long run ‎

Yes

They can IP it

That is the hope

It’s the spread of your content and material without you putting a penny towards it

Cannot blindly sign off everything in contracts anymore. Has to be a lot more specific.

Yes that’s for sure

“Automation hasn’t erased jobs—it’s changed where human effort goes.”

Another good one is “hard work beats talent when talent stops working hard”

Which has absolutely nothing to with AI right now but 🤣

These ladies and Gentlemen of the Ef jury are various conversational opinions on AI .. I am merely pasting them for a view and an opinion ..

And among all the brouhaha about AI .. we simply forgot the Sunday well wishers .. and so ..

my love and the length be of immense .. pardon

Amitabh Bachchan

[sexymemecoin]

The Metaverse: A New Frontier in Digital Interaction

The concept of the metaverse has captivated the imagination of technologists, futurists, and businesses alike. Envisioned as a collective virtual shared space, the metaverse merges physical and digital realities, offering immersive experiences and unprecedented opportunities for interaction, commerce, and creativity. This article delves into the metaverse, its potential impact on various sectors, the technologies driving its development, and notable projects shaping this emerging landscape.

What is the Metaverse?

The metaverse is a digital universe that encompasses virtual and augmented reality, providing a persistent, shared, and interactive online environment. In the metaverse, users can create avatars, interact with others, attend virtual events, own virtual property, and engage in economic activities. Unlike traditional online experiences, the metaverse aims to replicate and enhance the real world, offering seamless integration of the physical and digital realms.

Key Components of the Metaverse

Virtual Worlds: Virtual worlds are digital environments where users can explore, interact, and create. Platforms like Decentraland, Sandbox, and VRChat offer expansive virtual spaces where users can build, socialize, and participate in various activities.

Augmented Reality (AR): AR overlays digital information onto the real world, enhancing user experiences through devices like smartphones and AR glasses. Examples include Pokémon GO and AR navigation apps that blend digital content with physical surroundings.

Virtual Reality (VR): VR provides immersive experiences through headsets that transport users to fully digital environments. Companies like Oculus, HTC Vive, and Sony PlayStation VR are leading the way in developing advanced VR hardware and software.

Blockchain Technology: Blockchain plays a crucial role in the metaverse by enabling decentralized ownership, digital scarcity, and secure transactions. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and cryptocurrencies are integral to the metaverse economy, allowing users to buy, sell, and trade virtual assets.

Digital Economy: The metaverse features a robust digital economy where users can earn, spend, and invest in virtual goods and services. Virtual real estate, digital art, and in-game items are examples of assets that hold real-world value within the metaverse.

Potential Impact of the Metaverse

Social Interaction: The metaverse offers new ways for people to connect and interact, transcending geographical boundaries. Virtual events, social spaces, and collaborative environments provide opportunities for meaningful engagement and community building.

Entertainment and Gaming: The entertainment and gaming industries are poised to benefit significantly from the metaverse. Immersive games, virtual concerts, and interactive storytelling experiences offer new dimensions of engagement and creativity.

Education and Training: The metaverse has the potential to revolutionize education and training by providing immersive, interactive learning environments. Virtual classrooms, simulations, and collaborative projects can enhance educational outcomes and accessibility.

Commerce and Retail: Virtual shopping experiences and digital marketplaces enable businesses to reach global audiences in innovative ways. Brands can create virtual storefronts, offer unique digital products, and engage customers through immersive experiences.

Work and Collaboration: The metaverse can transform the future of work by providing virtual offices, meeting spaces, and collaborative tools. Remote work and global collaboration become more seamless and engaging in a fully digital environment.

Technologies Driving the Metaverse

5G Connectivity: High-speed, low-latency 5G networks are essential for delivering seamless and responsive metaverse experiences. Enhanced connectivity enables real-time interactions and high-quality streaming of immersive content.

Advanced Graphics and Computing: Powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) and cloud computing resources are crucial for rendering detailed virtual environments and supporting large-scale metaverse platforms.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI enhances the metaverse by enabling realistic avatars, intelligent virtual assistants, and dynamic content generation. AI-driven algorithms can personalize experiences and optimize virtual interactions.

Wearable Technology: Wearable devices, such as VR headsets, AR glasses, and haptic feedback suits, provide users with immersive and interactive experiences. Advancements in wearable technology are critical for enhancing the metaverse experience.

Notable Metaverse Projects

Decentraland: Decentraland is a decentralized virtual world where users can buy, sell, and develop virtual real estate as NFTs. The platform offers a wide range of experiences, from gaming and socializing to virtual commerce and education.

Sandbox: Sandbox is a virtual world that allows users to create, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using blockchain technology. The platform's user-generated content and virtual real estate model have attracted a vibrant community of creators and players.

Facebook's Meta: Facebook's rebranding to Meta underscores its commitment to building the metaverse. Meta aims to create interconnected virtual spaces for social interaction, work, and entertainment, leveraging its existing social media infrastructure.

Roblox: Roblox is an online platform that enables users to create and play games developed by other users. With its extensive user-generated content and virtual economy, Roblox exemplifies the potential of the metaverse in gaming and social interaction.

Sexy Meme Coin (SEXXXY): Sexy Meme Coin integrates metaverse elements by offering a decentralized marketplace for buying, selling, and trading memes as NFTs. This unique approach combines humor, creativity, and digital ownership, adding a distinct flavor to the metaverse landscape. Learn more about Sexy Meme Coin at Sexy Meme Coin.

The Future of the Metaverse

The metaverse is still in its early stages, but its potential to reshape digital interaction is immense. As technology advances and more industries explore its possibilities, the metaverse is likely to become an integral part of our daily lives. Collaboration between technology providers, content creators, and businesses will drive the development of the metaverse, creating new opportunities for innovation and growth.

Conclusion

The metaverse represents a new frontier in digital interaction, offering immersive and interconnected experiences that bridge the physical and digital worlds. With its potential to transform social interaction, entertainment, education, commerce, and work, the metaverse is poised to revolutionize various aspects of our lives. Notable projects like Decentraland, Sandbox, Meta, Roblox, and Sexy Meme Coin are at the forefront of this transformation, showcasing the diverse possibilities within this emerging digital universe.

For those interested in the playful and innovative side of the metaverse, Sexy Meme Coin offers a unique and entertaining platform. Visit Sexy Meme Coin to explore this exciting project and join the community.

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk’s minions—from trusted sidekicks to random college students and former Musk company interns—have taken over the General Services Administration, a critical government agency that manages federal offices and technology. Already, the team is attempting to use White House security credentials to gain unusual access to GSA tech, deploying a suite of new AI software, and recreating the office in X’s image, according to leaked documents obtained by WIRED.

Some of the same people who helped Musk take over Twitter more than two years ago are now registered as official GSA employees. Nicole Hollander, who slept in Twitter HQ as an unofficial member of Musk’s transition team, has high-level agency access and an official government email address, according to documents viewed by WIRED. Hollander’s husband, Steve Davis, also slept in the office. He has now taken on a leading role in Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Thomas Shedd, the recently installed director of the Technology Transformation Services within GSA, worked as a software engineer at Tesla for eight years. Edward Coristine, who previously interned at Neuralink, has been onboarded along with Ethan Shaotran, a Harvard senior who is developing his own OpenAI-backed scheduling assistant and participated in an xAI hackathon.

“I believe these people do not want to help the federal government provide services to the American people,” says a current GSA employee who asked not to be named, citing fears of retaliation. “They are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company.”

The team appears to be carrying out Musk’s agenda: slashing the federal government as quickly as possible. They’re currently targeting a 50 percent reduction in spending for every office managed by the GSA, according to documents obtained by WIRED.

There also appears to be an effort to use IT credentials from the Executive Office of the President to access GSA laptops and internal GSA infrastructure. Typically, access to agency systems requires workers to be employed at such agencies, sources say. While Musk's team could be trying to obtain better laptops and equipment from GSA, sources fear that the mandate laid out in the DOGE executive order would grant the body broad access to GSA systems and data. That includes sensitive procurement data, data internal to all the systems and services GSA offers, and internal monitoring software to surveil GSA employees as part of normal auditing and security processes.

The access could give Musk’s proxies the ability to remote into laptops, listen in on meetings, read emails, among many other things, a former Biden official told WIRED on Friday.

“Granting DOGE staff, many of whom aren't government employees, unfettered access to internal government systems and sensitive data poses a huge security risk to the federal government and to the American public,” the Biden official said. “Not only will DOGE be able to review procurement-sensitive information about major government contracts, it'll also be able to actively surveil government employees.”

The new GSA leadership team has prioritized downsizing the GSA’s real estate portfolio, canceling convenience contracts, and rolling out AI tools for use by the federal government, according to internal documents and interviews with sources familiar with the situation. At a GSA office in Washington, DC, earlier this week, there were three items written on a white board sitting in a large, vacant room. “Spending Cuts $585 m, Regulations Removed, 15, Square feet sold/terminated 203,000 sf,” it read, according to a photo viewed by WIRED. There’s no note of who wrote the message, but it appears to be a tracker of cuts made or proposed by the team.

“We notified the commercial real estate market that two GSA properties would soon be listed for sale, and we terminated three leases,” Stephen Ehikian, the newly appointed GSA acting administrator, said in an email to GSA staff on Tuesday, confirming the agency’s focus on lowering real estate costs. “This is our first step in right-sizing the real estate portfolio.”

The proposed changes extend even inside the physical spaces at the GSA offices. Hollander has requested multiple “resting rooms,” for use by the A-suite, a team of employees affiliated with the GSA administrator’s office.

On January 29, a working group of high-ranking GSA employees, including the deputy general counsel and the chief administrative services officer, met to discuss building a resting room prototype. The team mapped out how to get the necessary funding and waivers to build resting rooms in the office, according to an agenda viewed by WIRED.

After Musk bought Twitter, Hollander and Davis moved into the office with their newborn baby. Hollander helped oversee real estate and office design—including the installation of hotel rooms at Twitter HQ, according to a lawsuit later filed by Twitter executives. During the installation process, one of the executives emailed to say that the plans for the rooms were likely not code compliant. Hollander “visited him in person and emphatically instructed him to never put anything about the project in writing again,” the lawsuit alleged. Employees were allegedly instructed to call the hotel rooms “sleeping rooms” and to say they were just for taking naps.

Hollander has also requested access to Public Buildings Service applications; PBS owns and leases office space to government agencies. The timing of the access request lines up with Ehikian’s announcement about shrinking GSA’s real estate cost.

Musk’s lieutenants are also working to authorize the use of AI tools, including Google Gemini and Cursor (an AI coding assistant), for federal workers. On January 30, the group met with Google to discuss Telemetry, a software used to monitor the health and performance of applications, according to a document obtained by WIRED.

A-suite engineers, including Coristine and Shaotran, have requested access to a variety of GSA records, including nearly 10 years of accounting data, as well as detailed records on vendor payments, purchase orders, and revenue.

The GSA takeover mimics Musk’s strategy at other federal agencies like the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Earlier this month, Amanda Scales, who worked in talent at Musk’s xAI, was appointed as OPM chief of staff. Riccardo Biasini, former Tesla engineer and director of operations at the Boring company, is now a senior adviser to the director. Earlier this week, Musk cohorts at the US Office of Personnel Management emailed more than 2 million federal workers offering “deferred resignations,” allegedly promising employees their regular pay and benefits through September 30.

The email closely mirrored the “extremely hardcore” note Musk sent to Twitter staff in November 2022, shortly after buying the company.

Many federal workers thought the email was fake—as with Twitter, it seemed designed to force people to leave, slashing headcount costs without the headache of an official layoff.

Ehikian followed up with a note to staff stressing that the email was legitimate. “Yes, the OPM email is real and should be taken very seriously,” he said in an email obtained by WIRED. He added that employees should expect a “further consolidation of offices and centralization of functions.”

On Thursday night, GSA workers received a third email related to the resignation request called “Fork in the Road FAQs.” The email explained that employees who resign from their positions would not be required to work and could get a second job. “We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” it read. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”

The third question posed in the FAQ asked, “Will I really get my full pay and benefits during the entire period through September 30, even if I get a second job?”

“Yes,” the answer read. “You will also accrue further personal leave days, vacation days, etc. and be paid out for unused leave at your final resignation date.”

However, multiple GSA employees have told WIRED that they are refusing to resign, especially after the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) told its members on Tuesday that the offer could be void.

“There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring, or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised,” the union said in a notice.

There is also concern that, under Musk’s influence, the federal government might not pay for the duration of the deferred resignation period. Thousands of Twitter employees have sued Musk alleging that he failed to pay their agreed upon severance. Last year, one class action suit was dismissed in Musk’s favor.

In an internal video viewed by WIRED, Ehikian reiterated that GSA employees had the “opportunity to participate in a deferred resignation program,” per the email sent by OPM on January 28. Pressing his hands into the namaste gesture, Ehikian added, “If you choose to participate, I offer you my heartfelt gratitude for your service to this nation. If you choose to stay at the GSA, we’ll work together to implement the four pillars from the OPM memo.” He ended the video by saying thank you and pressing his hands into namaste again.

[jackied0minguez]

Remote Work Redefined: TopDevz CEO Ashkan Rajaee on the Future of Flexible Business

In a world where remote work has rapidly shifted from a temporary solution to a long-term strategy, TopDevz CEO Ashkan Rajaee is leading by example. Speaking ahead of the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show, Rajaee shared insights on how his company has seamlessly integrated remote operations into its DNA—and why he believes this model isn’t just a passing trend.

A New Kind of Software Solutions

TopDevz isn’t your typical tech firm. Comprising an elite team of software developers, designers, project managers, and quality assurance specialists based in the United States and Canada, the company tackles the unique challenges that conventional off-the-shelf software can’t resolve. Rajaee explains that while standard solutions can cover 80–90% of business needs, the remaining nuances often cause significant inefficiencies. TopDevz fills this gap by offering custom solutions designed to address those critical details, ensuring that their clients achieve peak operational efficiency. With an impressive 96% workforce retention rate and 63% of their business coming through referrals, the company’s model speaks volumes about its effectiveness and employee satisfaction.

Mastering Remote Operations

Long before the global pivot to remote work, TopDevz was already thriving in a fully virtual environment. Rajaee emphasizes that the success of remote operations lies in having the right infrastructure and clear communication channels. “Working remotely isn’t as simple as logging in from home,” he notes. “It demands disciplined processes and a commitment to best practices—elements we’ve honed over the years.” His team’s seamless transition during the pandemic only reinforced the idea that a well-organized remote workforce can outperform traditional office setups.

The Indefinite Future of Remote Work

For TopDevz, remote work isn’t a temporary workaround—it’s the future. Rajaee envisions a business landscape where companies can lower overhead costs while empowering employees to work from anywhere. This flexible model not only drives client satisfaction by reducing expenses but also enriches employees’ lives by allowing them to choose environments that inspire creativity and well-being.

Rajaee even shares a personal touch: his passion for working from a yacht. Equipped with reliable Wi-Fi and satellite services, his unconventional workspace symbolizes the freedom that remote work offers. “If your current job doesn’t support the lifestyle you aspire to, it’s time to consider other opportunities,” he advises. His own journey from renting a yacht to eventually making it part of his regular work life underscores the importance of aligning one’s career with personal values and ambitions.

Empowering the Next Generation of Remote Entrepreneurs

Beyond leading TopDevz, Rajaee is passionate about sharing his remote work philosophy. Through his “RemotePreneur” initiative, he provides aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals with a playbook for building successful remote companies. This resource addresses the nuanced challenges of remote business management—from overcoming financial stagnation in traditional roles to confronting the inevitable criticisms that come with venturing off the beaten path. Rajaee’s message is clear: true freedom in work comes from rethinking established norms and embracing the possibilities that remote operations can offer.

Embracing a New Era

As businesses around the globe continue to navigate the evolving work landscape, Ashkan Rajaee’s vision serves as a powerful reminder that remote work, when executed with precision and passion, can unlock unprecedented opportunities. His leadership at TopDevz demonstrates that with the right approach, remote operations can not only sustain but also drive innovation, employee satisfaction, and overall business growth.

In a time when flexibility and adaptability are more important than ever, Rajaee’s insights offer a compelling roadmap for companies eager to thrive in a remote-first world.

[darkmaga-returns]

Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf has just announced in a press release that his office has referred a case regarding election-related crimes to the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

He stated: “The Texas Attorney General has opened a criminal investigation related to Dominion Voting Systems, Election Systems & Software (ES&S). Hart InterCivic, and SolarWinds including specific subcontractors, agents, and employees.”

According to the press release, the sheriff’s office will release more information when it can do so without compromising the investigation. However, he has posted on X in the past that he was looking into “conspiracy crimes, wire services fraud, honest services fraud, and perjury charges” related to Dominion CEO John Polous’ “sworn testimony before the Michigan Legislature that its voting systems could not be accessed or connected to by outside networks and sources, and that it was a ‘US based company.'”

He previously claimed in an affidavit that Serbian foreign nationals were instructed by employees of Dominion to access Michigan’s election system remotely and refused to provide prosecutors with his voter fraud files out of concern that it would compromise his investigation.

Journalist Lara Logan shared the new press release on X and provided additional context, saying that some parts of this investigation have been going on for a few years and are “not pretty.”

Referring to the press release, she said: “This is one of those documents that could be easily overlooked -- in truth it is a nuclear bomb.”

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Total $hit$how: Computer Games

in which Jericho has a talk

cw: referenced violence, implied manipulation, adult language, migraine

previous // masterlist // next

×~×~×

Jericho slept in for the first time in months. At the compound, Sahota and Vic had kept the team on a Ben Franklin approved schedule---early to bed, early to rise---and back at home, Ari was still at the age where she naturally woke up early. Saturday mornings were lovingly tiresome, and Sundays were for church and visiting. Much as he missed staying in bed on the weekends, he'd give up sleeping late forever to be home right now, Ari at his door, knocking and calling for him to wake up, wake up, come on already!

He pulled himself out of bed at nine, unable to stare at the ceiling and miss his family any longer. They all had work to do today, and completing the next tasks would put him one step closer to home.

And maybe one step closer to getting through to Harbor.

Jericho exhaled, changing into a fresh set of gray sweats, and stepped into the hall. He wasn't sure Harbor would still be in his room, but after a few knocks---

No answer.

After a few more knocks, Harbor stumbled to the door, looking like he'd just rolled out of bed. His old cargo jacket was thrown over his own set of grays, and his colorful hair was more tangled than usual.

Jericho offered a smile. “Sorry, I didn't know you were still asleep.”

Harbor only shrugged, not making eye contact, and Jericho stepped aside to give him room to move into the hall.

Okay. This was it. Time to talk about yesterday, see if they could come to an understanding. The rest of the crew would already be out for the day, so at least he wouldn't have to worry about them getting hostile and scaring Harbor off, but that wouldn't make the conversation any easier.

“You wanna grab breakfast before we get to work?”

Harbor once again shrugged, still not looking up. Good enough, Jericho didn't wanna do this on an empty stomach.

They ate in silence; Vic had left out plain instant oats and peanut butter, and the combination wasn't half bad. Harbor didn't eat much, his cut-up hands half-hidden in his jacket sleeves, fingers tight around a spoon as he tapped the side of the plastic bowl in an unsteady rhythm.

Maybe he felt guilty. That was a good sign, right? Sahota did say he'd told him to do it, so maybe Harbor had just run with the order, taken things too far, and regretted it. Breakfast could've been a good time to get the ball rolling, but Jericho didn't know the words to start, and Vic appeared in the doorway before he could find them.

After a brief exchanged greeting---and more silence from Harbor; he didn't perk up the way he usually did around their handler---they followed Vic past the briefing room---he tried not to think about the last time they were in there---and into a side room… side hall, more like. A corridor he hadn't been in yet. Was this where their trainers’ rooms were? Vic led them past a few closed doors, to a room with an external keypad. Jericho's eyes went to the floor as the man typed in the code, a habitual attempt at respecting privacy. On the other side of the door was a pretty unremarkable office; desk and lockable cabinets and an old computer with monitor attached. Vic powered it on, and it roared to life with a sound like a small avalanche.

As high-tech as Vic’s gear seemed, he was woefully out of date here. Maybe it was another level of security? The older hard and softwares were more difficult to access remotely, Jer knew that firsthand. Still, it had to be aggravating to get any sort of work done on it.

Again, he hung back, waiting for Vic to input the password before stepping forward.

“Are there any specifics you want me to go after?”

Their handler shook his head. “Anything you believe is relevant.” His hand went to Harbor's shoulder, giving it a squeeze and lingering there for a maybe a little too long. “Or anything Hunter here guides you to.” He rubbed a small circle into the younger man's shoulder as he spoke. “Remember what we've been training, mhm?”

“Mhm,” Harbor replied, quiet as Vic left the room. Jericho took a seat in front of the screen, deciding to ignore whatever nonverbal exchange had passed between the two. For now.

“Is Hunter your first name?” he asked after he heard the door close, fingers dancing across the keyboard to pull up various Rotorworx sites.

“Fuck else would it be?” Harbor—Hunter grumbled, leaning against the wall.

Jericho tried not to sigh too audibly. “Do you prefer that, or Harbor?”

“I don't care.”

They were off to a stellar start. Jericho rolled his shoulders, keeping his eyes on the monitor screen. This had to be a casual endeavor. Anything accusatory would likely make the other man clam up, or turn hostile, or worse, storm out and leave him to work alone. He cleared his throat.

“Is there anything you can, uh, see? Anything pointing me a certain way?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“If I see shit, I'll tell you.”

Jericho pressed his lips together, looking for a new approach. Something that would work. In the weeks he'd known the other man, Hunter had shown to be easily agitated and easily shut down; leaving the room or cussing them out at the first sign of disapproval. He seemed insecure. Maybe around this specific group of people, maybe around people in general. He seemed to like Vic, and Vic had a tendency to praise him.

Was that the secret? If Hunter was just afraid of not measuring up, and that was the root cause of all this, would assuring him of his ability help break his shell a little bit?

Did it feel right to praise him after what he'd done to Sahota?

Jericho shook the thought away. He still didn't know the full story. Starting the conversation with a clear bias wouldn't get him anywhere.

Encouraging Hunter had seemed to work back in the labyrinth. Sure, he'd still been a little hostile about it, but he'd stuck with them, just that once.

“I've been impressed with your abilities,” Jericho said as he scanned the source page of one of the smaller Rotorworx websites. “That implant you have is really something special.”

Hunter's scowl didn't seem to deepen at that. “Yeah… I mean. Yeah. It is.”

“Once we get the mission going you're gonna be the MVP. Even with all this preparation, we'll still be relying on you to navigate. Like a… psychic GPS.”

The other man snorted, but he seemed more amused than annoyed. “Guess so.”

Jericho made a point of scanning the page. Anything he believed was relevant. Vic's instructions were vague and unhelpful, but with a little push…

“Think you could do that now?” he said, glancing back at Hunter. “I'll be honest, I'm lost.”

He cocked his head, a flash of genuine confusion on his face. “Lost? I thought you were a master hacker or something. Can't you just… go in and find the secrets?”

Jericho let out a laugh. “It's not that easy. Usually I'm coming into a site with a very specific goal or target. Going after the institution as a whole… it's a bit too broad.” He gave him a slight grin. “Could really use a psychic GPS.”

“Yeah. Fuck. I'll try.”

Jericho scooted his chair to the side, allowing him room to step forward.

“I… I can't always get it though,” he mumbled. “I'll try, but sometimes I mess up. Or…” He trailed off.

“Hey, you're a million times better at it than I am.”

“Yeah.”

It felt like a success. They were working together, Harbor's attitude was brighter, progress on the task was being made. Too bad he'd have to darken the mood before too long.

“Uh. Try that?” Harbor pointed towards the bottom of the site page, and Jericho scrolled down, watching for anything that stood out.

“There?” He waved the mouse over an embedded link.

“No, not...” Hunter squinted at the screen, face pinched in concentration. “There. Not online. On… it's one of the computer files or something.”

Jericho minimized the window and opened the file explorer. This felt… not quite right. Why would anything relevant be stored on Vic's computer?

“Are you sure?” he asked, mouse hovering on the browser tab. Maybe he'd misjudged. It had to be difficult to translate something that usually applied to the real world to a computer screen.

“I'm… I don't know,” Hunter said. “Give it to me.”

Jericho moved his hand, allowing the man to pilot the mouse. Eyes half-closed, Hunter shifted it around, looking like a teenager at a ouija board. After a few jagged motions, he opened a folder. Another, another. Stopping at one that was simply labeled Untitled 1. Hunter frowned at the screen, teeth bared like he was ready to square up with the monitor. His finger twitched, accompanied by the click of the mouse, and the folder opened.

He seemed to recoil as its contents loaded, inhaling through his teeth, hurrying to backtrack. Jericho managed to catch a glimpse before he could retreat to the previous screen. Untitled 1 appeared to hold a bunch of videos. No thumbnails, but he caught a title or two. Battery, Switch.

“What was that?”

Hunter shook his head, brows drawn down tightly, something unsteady in his expression.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing. It's… this isn't what we're after.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's not… it's wrong.” He shook his head again, mouth twisted in a grimace. “This isn't what Vic wanted. It's not… just go back. Fuck. I'll try again, I-I fucked it up.” He shoved himself away from the monitor, mouse askew in his wake.

Jericho took control of it, hovering over the folder. Untitled 1. What had led Hunter here? He didn't know how his abilities worked, so maybe it was just a case of crossed wires, but what if it was something more? He was tempted to open the folder again, to watch just one video, just to see what this was all about , just in case it was important. 

He managed to hold back. Vic trusted them to only use this system for the mission. Jericho didn't want to breach that trust. He knew Vic had a lot to hide, but he had a right to that, didn't he? Especially with a job like his.

“Okay.” He closed the file explorer, re-opening the Rotorworx tabs. “What about now? See anything?”

Hunter squinted at the monitor in silence, his expression twitching, eyes chasing unseen things. His hand went to the mouse. Jericho yielded it to him, half expecting him to open a source code box and tap away at it like some kind of psychic hacker. Instead, Hunter clicked the tab for one of the sub-sites and opened the “meet our staff” page. He frowned at it for a moment, before tracing a circle around a name with the mouse.

“That guy,” he said. Michael Walsh, the text read. Data Analytics Manager.

“What about him?” Jer asked.

“Don't fuckin know,” Hunter said, pressing his palm into his eye. “It's just… him.”

Jericho looked away from the screen, turning instead to the man at his side. Hunter was breathing through a scowl, his eyebrows drawn down in a wince. What had he said before? In the maze? His head hurt.

“Hey, we can take a break.”

He shook his head, palm pressing into his temple. “I'm fine.”

Well, he certainly didn't look fine. “It's cool, I'll start looking into Walsh. You can rest your eyes for a minute.”

“Said I'm fine.” As if to punctuate the statement, Hunter took the mouse back in a quick jerk. 

“Hunter—”

“Fuck off.” He clicked a few hyperlinks and tapped a few keys, his eyes barely open, each breath hissing through his teeth. Then, at last, he fell back in his chair, eyes closed.

“There. That.”

Jericho didn't even glance at the monitor. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Hunter snapped again. “I just… it’s training. I need to get better at finding.”

“Even if it hurts?”

“Need to learn to push through. Vic said it's important.”

Vic said. Of course. It was becoming more and more clear that Vic’s priority was the mission, not any of them. And the mission really was important, but if their handler didn't care about them beyond their functions, it was up to them to look out for each other.

“You did good,” Jericho said. “But rest is important too.” He pressed his lips together, adding, “Gotta be fresh for the next one, right?”

At least the last part seemed to resonate with Hunter.

“Yeah. Guess so.” He was hunched in his chair, both hands pressing against his face. A part of Jericho wanted to tell him to go lie down, but he doubted he'd take that well. More than that, they still had things that needed to be addressed. 

And a time when Hunter was in pain was probably not the best time to do that addressing, but it had to happen soon. Later today, Jer told himself. Finish the task, and confront him when he's feeling better.

The page Hunter had landed on was really more of a popup window. Walsh’s contact information, including a phone number and company email, were displayed across it in tiny black text.

Hmm… If this was where Hunter's sixth sense was leading them, there had to be a reason, right? Jericho glanced at the email address.

Maybe it was as simple as a scam email. Walsh seemed to be high up on Rotorworx’s food chain. If Jericho could trick him into letting some malware onboard, it could give him more access, and faster, which was just what they needed.

He opened a new window, mulling over which site would be the best place to create a fake email address, and what exactly he should say to get Walsh rise to the bait. Maybe he'd pretend to be someone from a startup asking for advice, or an events host looking for an experienced speaker for their next conference. A little ego stroking went a long way…

Jericho set to work whipping up a quick identity and make-believe company, aware of Hunter behind him, curled up in his chair, facing away.

It would be easy to take a quick break. Dig back into Vic's files. Watch one video, just to confirm there was nothing deeper going on, that Hunter's finding it was just a fluke. No one but him would ever have to know…

With effort, he buried the urge. No, it wasn't his place, and especially not right now. They had a task. He had work to do.

It was time to go whaling.

×~×~×

Laying all the bait hadn't taken as long as he'd expected. Once the message was sent, Jericho let Vic know what their plan was, and their handler said he'd keep an eye out for the notification that his trojan horse had been let inside.

So far, nothing. He ate a quiet lunch with Harbor, then invited him to the library, more quiet. At this rate, Joy and Sahota would be back before he’d even brought up the matter. Jericho let out a small sigh, glancing at Hunter.

He was just slouched on one of the chairs, staring at an unopened book in his lap.

Huckleberry Finn.

Jericho cleared his throat. “I appreciate your help today. Wouldn't have come up with that plan without you.”

Hunter just shrugged. He wondered if the headache was still bothering him.

“When else have you used it? Besides the maze and the bomb, I mean. Did you ever use it to figure stuff out before coming here?”

Hunter tapped his fingers against the book’s cover. “No. It was Vic's idea.”

Ah. “Is that what you two have been working on together?”

“Yeah.”

Jericho licked his lips. He was delaying a much needed conversation, and they were running out of daylight.

“So… did you use it yesterday?”

Hunter’s shoulders tensed, nails scraping against the book as his hands tightened into fists. “No,” he said after a moment.

Then what happened? Once again, the right words evaded him. What could he say? 

Did you have a reason to hurt Sahota? No, that felt wrong.

Why did you hurt Sahota? It wasn't that simple. Was there any excuse that would make it make sense?

“I saw what happened,” he said instead, letting out a soft exhale. “You know, I saw him. After… after you were done.”

Hunter's eyes darted back and forth, as if tracking something invisible, his gaze firmly angled on the ground.

“You hurt him.”

He watched Hunter's mouth tighten, settling into a scowl, eyes dark as he lifted his head. “I don't fucking need this.”

“Hunter—”

The other man shoved himself to his feet, book hitting the floor in a flutter of pages. Damnit. He wasn't about to grab at him, but how could he make him stay? Talk about it? He couldn't say it's okay, he couldn't say I'm not mad, couldn't say you did nothing wrong.

“We're a team,” he said, just as Hunter reached the door. By some miracle, he stopped, arms swinging at his sides.

“That doesn't mean anything.”

“It does. It means a lot.”

“I know you don’t fucking want me here.”

“I do want you here.” Jericho sighed. “But we still need to talk about yesterday. Please.”

The room felt like a freeze frame, neither of them moving, Jericho certain Hunter would cuss him out, or run away, or maybe just stare him down, and then what?

But he didn't. Slowly, head bowed, like a kid caught passing notes in class, he trudged back to the couch, falling into the cushions, fingers squeezing fingers.

“I'm not sorry for it,” he mumbled, though his tone suggested otherwise. Jericho took a seat beside him, slouching forward until their eyes were about level. Not that Hunter showed any signs of glancing up.

“Why not?” he asked, careful to voice it as a genuine question, not an accusation.

Hunter shrugged. “What's the fucking point? It already happened.”

“And you don't feel even a little sorry?”

Hunter shook his head. That had to be a lie, right? Or was Jericho just putting too much hope forward?

“Would you… is it something you think you'd do again?”

Hunter's head snapped up at that, his eyes meeting Jericho’s for all of a second before dropping again. There was a flash of something there, something he hoped was remorse, but it was swiftly covered up by anger.

“Is that what this is fucking about? You think I'll jump someone else? Like… like some kind of rabid dog? Maybe I will. What are you gonna do about it?”

Jericho took a breath. “I don't think that, Hunter. I'm just trying to work out what happened.”

A snort. “Sure.” His hands wrapped tighter around each other, knuckles whitening. “Maybe I just got tired of Sahota being an asshole and decided to teach him a lesson. Maybe I did it because I could.”

“Did you?”

Hunter didn't answer.

Lord give me patience. “I won't pretend I can see inside your head. I don't know why you hurt him, but you know it's not right. Like I said, we're a team. We can't go around beating each other up.”

“Mm.” 

“You don't have to tell me your side of this. I just want you to tell me it won't happen again.”

“What if it does?”

Jericho dropped his own gaze at that. “I hope it doesn't, but that would probably be something that pushes you off the team.”

“And who made you the boss of that?” Hunter was glancing up again, lips pulled back in a snarl. “Vic is in charge, not you.”

“Vic wouldn't stand for that,” Jericho replied, but even as he said the words, he wasn't sure he believed them. Vic had watched Sahota suffer and done nothing. Vic had electrocuted them for training value. Vic…

“Was he there?” he asked before Hunter could shoot back. The other man's mouth hung open, whatever he'd been about to say stuck in his throat, eyes widening.

“Hunter, was Vic there yesterday?”

His jaw snapped shut, eyes darting along the ground as if looking for the right answer. “He… he came to watch me.”

Something cold was spreading through Jericho. Something that should've been right in front of his face, a puzzle piece he'd missed.

I hope you had a productive training day.

He's resting.

Vic had known about Sahota, but he'd shown no concern, no anger at what had happened. Hell, he'd sent him on a mission today. Why hadn't he connected it before?

“He didn't stop you.” It wasn't a question.

Hunter gave a tiny shake of his head. “He…” his words trailed off, expression twitching.

“Did he tell you to hurt him?” It was irrational, something Jericho didn't want to believe. Why would someone with so much power over them do that? Of course, he already knew the answer, he'd seen it before. Out in the real world, a repeating cycle. Because he could. Because who would stop him?

“He— it was for… he said it was training, and I… I don't know.”

Jericho stayed quiet. What next? What could he—

“I didn't want to. I just— he… fuck. He said…”

“He said..?”

“Fuck. Nothing.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“No.”

Did he believe him? “Look, it's okay. I'll talk to him about it, tell him—”

“No,” Hunter said again, more insistent. 

“Why not?”

“He…” Hunter blinked furiously, gritting his teeth. “I can't fuck this up. Vic said… he said I could stay, after all this bullshit.”

“And you want that?” The question came out harsher than he'd intended. Jericho wanted to get as far away from Vic as possible once this was over. Who would want to stay?

“Yeah,” Hunter said, an edge entering his tone. “Something fucking wrong with that?”

“No, I… why Vic? He's…” Not a good person.

“He's what?” Hunter got to his feet. “What else am I supposed to do? Go back to being nothing? Being alone? Anything's better than that. This is… it's something. Vic cares about me.”

“No he doesn't.” The words fell out before he could stop himself, before he could come up with something more tactful. How much did Vic really care about any of them? They were assets, nothing more. He barely seemed to care about Sahota. But that wasn't what Hunter wanted to hear.

“Fuck off.”

“Hunter—”

Before the other man could storm out of the library, before Jericho could try to say anything else, Benji stumbled through the door, his hair windblown, makeup smeared.

Both Jericho and Hunter stopped short.

“What's—?”

“Kaius,” Benji said breathlessly, leaning on the doorframe.

“Someone got Kaius.”

×~×~×

@theonewithallthefixations , @violets-whumperflies , @whump-me ,

@pirefyrelight , @soheavyaburden , @snakebites-and-ink ,

@whumpsday , @kixngiggles , @echo-goes-aaa , @whumpcateyes ,

@clickerflight , @sodacreampuff , @starfields08000 , @neverthelass

[fuck-customers]

I work corporate IT now, switched from customer service, but so many of the skills I learned in customer service are unfortunately useful. Like for people who have thick skulls.

A person was having a login issue yesterday. Those are pretty easy - usually they’re just entering in the wrong thing. But it was a phone call and we kept getting disconnected. And the disconnect kept happening before I knew which laptop she was using so i could remote into it. Finally we got a connection long enough to learn which laptop it was. I kept telling her “on the underside of the laptop there’s a label that says which laptop this is.” “But I can’t get into the laptop to tell you!” “Its on the bottom of the laptop!” “Oh, hang on.” Like i hadnt said “underside” several times. But I finally got which laptop it was before we got disconnected again. I’m trying to contact back while I can see her continue to enter in the wrong thing while trying to log in.

Finally, i use our remote access software to cut off her inputs and login to a shared account that we maintain for purposes such as this. I open notepad and leave a note, all the while i know she’s watching. “This is your username, the password you use is the same for your email, that’s all you need to enter. I’m going to turn your keyboard back on so you can login.” And did so.

She closed notepad and didn’t log out of the shared account. Went to go find her emails. There’s a message option with the remote software that I seldom use - it’s easy to ignore and I find notepad much easier. So I use the message option to say “this isn’t your account, none of your stuff is here.” I typed like four messages and she closed the window every time. Now, I’m the kind of person who won’t give you any more help than you ask for, and she was continually closing out my help, so I’m like “fine, deal with it yourself, if you need me you know where I am”, and closed my connection.

A short while later, she called back. “I’m logged in but my emails aren’t here.” Which. Yeah. I told you. You closed my messages. Which i say as politely as possible, but I can tell she’s getting irritated too. Which I get but that is not my fault. I say “Let me drive,” which is what we say to tell the user, “I’ve got this, I’ll show you.” She kept moving the mouse. “You’re not letting me drive, (name.)” With an annoyed tone she stopped doing things (possibly because I turned off user inputs again.) I went to the login screen, entered in her username. Had to reset her password which isn’t uncommon, and she set it back to what it was supposed to be. And we got in.

She then said “i don’t know how but I’m in.” Excuse me, you don’t know how? I walked you through everything i did in plain English. Flabbergasted, i said “that was me. I did that.” Never so glad to get an issue over with.

I would think by that point it's more about her being lonely and wanting to talk to someone than about her actually needing help to log in.

Unless she can't read. There was a guy I worked with at the depot of offices that said when he worked tech support in the 80's he was on the phone with a guy for his whole shift because they had to go over everything one letter at a time because the guy didn't know how to read. My co worker said he was getting frustrated because he thought the guy was being difficult purpose and once he understood what the issue was it went a lot easier.

-Rodney