#Urban Computing

[goodoldbandit]

Smart Cities & Urban Computing: The Pulse of Our Urban Future.

Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo. skm.stayingalive.in Explore how IoT sensors, data analytics, and simple tech transform urban structure, traffic flow, and energy use in smart, vibrant cities.
 In our fast-changing urban life, simple tech is reshaping how our cities work. We now see a mix of small devices and clear data that make cities smart and liveable. The rise of connected…

[dciricnetworks]

urban movement path generation

search function, in terms of the "legal moves" (moves allowed by the chosen policy and defined by the created network), is performed in each consecutive node (or a state) that has been occupied, and after which a decision regarding the node to occupy next is made, enabling search and decision-making iterations to continue

Source: © Dragana Ciric, unit [d], 2023

[whereserpentswalk]

Reblog to meet your date! Like to give them a little gift! Tag your freinds to make sure that every monster has somebody to love them! Look under the cut to see what meeting them for the first time is like!

The fallen angel: You see them for the first time, a sexless humanoid with a muscular physique with eyes that reflect broken stars, and wings permanently stained with blood. They wear all black, clothing that looks like they could barely manage to place upon themself. They seem shy at first, like they're worried they'll hurt you just by being there, slowly you extend a hand for them to hold, and cautiously they gently take it, for what's probably the first time in a long time their face shows a smile.

Computer: Slowly the creature is wheeled out by an attendant in a gas mask, an ancient looking monitor surrounded by wires, placed in a wheelchair to make up for the fact that such a creature lacks any limbs. For a few momments you wonder if the stories are true, and if such a being could truly be alive. Then the screen lights up and displays a single red eye, and you understand...

Cyborg: You see them sitting there, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, they didn't even bother wearing clothing. You can see their old flesh and hair on their upper face but everything else looks so very skeletal, even the lower part of their face is like a gas mask, with no mouth or nose. You sit next to them, looking at the parts that hold together their silver body, looking almost like restraints more then they do body parts. You're about to ask them something but a noise reminds them of something and they start to break down, you hold them and tell them they're safe, and you can feel their oddly warm body start to become calm.

Sun and Moon: Two glowing shapes stand before you, each floating and ethereal. One is in the shape of a crescent moon, while the other is in the shape of a sun with rays. You're not sure if it's alive or not or one being or two. Slowly both of them start saying things, wondering what you are and what they're supposed to do to you, sounding more like someone talking tho themself then two beings arguing. Eventually they decide that you're theirs.

Werewolf: for a moment they look entirely human, a slightly chubby grad student with glasses and messy hair looking at you with eyes that aren't a color that human eyes ever are. They looked for a moment to see if you're safe to let their form shift in front of. You can see them change for a moment, cycling through forms, first a humanoid with a few lupine features on their body, then a creature that could pass entirely for an actual wolf, then a mess of fur and claws and jaws and sharp teeth, then a bipedal creature with a wolflike head and fur all over their body. The final form seems to be the one they're most comfortable with, at least around you, at least for this moment.

Fae: They look over you, sitting on the back of their chair instead of sitting on its seat. Their body looks almost human but there is something off about it, like they possess a beauty so perfect its entirely inhuman, almost creepy. They flash you a quick smile, the molecules in the air around their body seemingly terrified by their presence. For a few moments they shift your body, changing your age, your sex, your species, and then putting you back as they were before. They magically remove the worn denims and leathers they were wearing, for a split second showing their naked salmacian body, then they drape themself in a costume of opulent gold and blood red rubies, as they prepare to hold court with you.

Alien: They're massive, like a mantis, with an exoskeleton that shimmers with a thousand colors like bismuth or like starling's feathers. Their crested head looks down at your big golden eyes, that seem weirdly happy. They extend a scythe like arm to touch you with, and you think they're going to attack you, but all they do is gently pet your head. You're very aware of how easily they could hurt you, but they don't, and with them next to you, you feel so safe.

Goblin: The creature walks around you in circles, a blood-stained hoodie on their body, they're far shorter than you but you're very sure that they're stronger, their body skinny not slender but still looking like it could pounce so quickly, like a serpent stalking its prey. Their eyes are so red, like a mouse's, their fangs so sharp, their skin pale white but with thick black veins throughout it. They sniff you for a moment, and then identify you as something safe, and hug you, holding you very tight, as something that's theirs.

Vampire: They're just sitting there, looking at you with their big golden eyes, their inhumanly pale skin contrasted with their long black hair, their completely sexless body wrapped in fancy clothing from hundreds of years prior. Their most inhuman feature is their mouth, massive, snake like, with exposed fangs, and mandibles to help them latch on to prey. You'd expect the sounds they'd make to be like screeches, but they're singing the most beautiful song that you've ever heard, like the sirens of the Odessey. You let them gently pet your head for a few moments, as you do the same for them, then you take out a knife to draw blood from the palm of your hand, and they lap it up so very gently, like a creature eating treats out of your naked hand.

Demon lord: they stand before you, tall and proud, their head many horned and covered in shimmering red scales, their arms muscular and their belly fat, their bottom half quadrupled and reptilian. They look down at you and places something into your hand, it's a food of some sort but it doesn't match the profile of anything you've ever eaten or even seen before in your life, each ingredient entirely alien to your senses. When you take a bite of it they smile and ask if you like it. It tastes better then anything that you've ever eaten before, your tongue filling with eldirch and unknowable things, as your ambitions begin to completely melt away.

Ghost: slowly you walk closer to the spirt, ignoring the others warnings, knowing that you're walking into danger. Eventually you can see them, contrasted with the night, their bloodied form ethereal yet very very present. You can see the broken windows around you, you know that it would be very easy for them to take your life if they wanted to. But they don't, at least not for now, and slowly you extend a hand, and watch them slowly come down twords you to take it.

Dragon: You watch as the sea slowly boils with your spell. You wonder if they can really be summoned like this, you worry that you did something wrong, or that you're not far enough out at sea. Then you see the start of their head rise up from the water, larger then any natural beast, they rush up, rearing their head and neck alone as high up as a skyscraper, their body covered in black-green scales as solid as steel but as light as a feather, their neck serpentine but their massive jaws like that of a crocodile, bright red eyes shining agaisnt the sky as bioluminescent patches glow across their body. They look down at you and smile...

[captainzigo]

toxic arcade cabinet yaoi

[anim-ttrpgs]

Technology Skill from Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. Every investigator has the same 21 Skills, which are set at a rating from +3 to -3 depending on how good or bad they are at those things. Before applying any Traits, an investigator's skill ratings have to add up to net 0.

[blockbuster-stims]

via ❥ urbex9

[whereserpentswalk]

There was a church who started worshipping a god built of machine.

They started out as a normal church. Culty and strict for sure, one of those tiny American high control protestant sects. They were just kind of doing their thing for awhile, but than some of the elders said that an angel had come to them, an angel made of steel and wire and plastic, and that he told them how to build God on earth.

The first thing they did was connect every church they had in North America with these massive underground wires. The wires were large and thick and made from this unknown red material. The stats tried to stop them, but once it was built nobody seemed to be able to remove it without causing worse damage. So the wires stayed.

And in every church they owned they brought in big machines to hook up to the red wires. Nobody saw the machines, everyone other than the high ranking priests were forbidden from seeing them, they always kept them under cloths. Nobody knew what they did either, they just knew the priests were constantly interacting with them. But they heard them. It was an awful noise. Sometimes it was like a great churning or screeching, but most of the time it sounded like singing, a horrifying and strange song like nobody had ever heard the likes of before, in a language no one knew.

They showed the world a map of the network and the machines, and told them that that was their god. They believed that if their god had come to earth before as a mortal man, now he had come to earth as a network of machines. And now the entire church bore the bloody hands of Saint Maria.

As time went on they started replacing normal church images with ones that fit their vision of God. Security cameras, computer screens, factory engines, headlights, and the hard and glowing things. And when they depicted angels, they seemed like beings of mechanical creation.

Then they started putting machines inside of people. Little computers. More advanced than anything that humans had made before. Some of them seemed to be to watch their followers. Others to effect their mood, or the hormones, or other subtle things. Others to tell them things. And still others were to do things nobody could figure out the meaning of. Soon all the followers had little computers in their body, and the church knew everything about them. They were entertained, the songs were always with them now.

Then the angels came. Strange mechanical creatures, they looked like something from outside of humanity trying to imitate it. And the angels told the church things, about other planets, and other planes, and war amoung gods and spirits. Some of the church leaders went mad or became disturbed, but they all disappeared, and the ones who stayed were the most loyal. They handed them a map of many universes, and told them to keep it secret.

Soon the angels began demanding sacrifices, though they wouldn't call them that. They wanted humans, to take, nobody knew where. Though they would take anyone, and the church could make anyone with the machines inside them go. Children who didn't follow the pure lifestyle of the church, those who doubted their doctrin, loose women, unmasculine men, those who knew too much that they couldn't be trusted with, all went to the angels, never to be seen again. It's not even like there were bodies to find, they looked but it was like they just exited the universe.

The church left soon after that. The state never cared about them, but journalists broke the story, and the church became too hated to continue. And when their crimes were found, most of the leaders were arrested, tax fraud, embezzlement, crimes more boring than they deserved. The angels left, but warned of darker things from further places and stranger masters. And the god from wires and machines was pulled apart, it didn't even get to be seen in full condition, it just seemed to fall apart and than they had to clean it up.

They say there's still something lurking out there with interest in our world, something that was kept quite, but can now listen thanks to new technology. There is something living in the wires and the glowing machines.

[cornertheculprit]

sometimes i hate my tendency to try to puzzle out how exactly a fictional mechanic would function irl because i just wanted to make a post about how i think the terrifyingly good gramarye eyesight (that works in tandem with the tension sensing and the focus to let them Perceive—"Their 'power' relies on eyesight combined with exceptional focus.") would affect apollo being abruptly moved from a quiet mountainous area to a metropolitan city with a bajillion people in it as a child (it would suck at first. Badly) but then i started trying to explain WHY it would suck so badly and now i'm knee-deep in articles about neuroscience and psychology and shit like "Variability in human cone topography assessed by adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy" in an attempt to somewhat explain a possible way the gramarye power could work. and you know what. fuck it. rough potential explanation of my original point with no elaboration behind it. exceptional visual acuity is where the ability to subconsciously "sense" tension comes from (they See it but they don't consciously register it because of selective filtering—"She wouldn't realize that she was subconsciously detecting this tension...") -> the other known gramaryes in the games were raised in and/or very accustomed to loud chaotic environments (we know jack shit about magnifi's childhood) so they were desensitized to all the visual noise (habituation) in a way that apollo wouldn't have been since he was raised in relative isolation in the mountains -> apollo might not have known how to employ the "focus" part of the power at that point but he had to have been absolutely miserable at first (until he also grew desensitized to it) when you consider his eyesight combined with being thrust into a giant city. his bracelet was probably clamped onto his wrist until he got used to it and was able to tune all the visual noise (People, especially. Everywhere) out. Or something. WHATEVERRRRR

[margaretcruzemark]

A handshake of carbon monoxide and no alarms and no surprises

[justpicsofstuff]

Apple museum in Warsaw, Poland 🍎

[yrw1nh]

blip blop

[bugfrances]

listen if you’d like <3

[mindless-cinematic-trash]

Silent Madness (1984) Dir. Simon Nuchtern Belinda Montgomery as Dr. Joan Gilmore

[sandimexicola]

Urban warrior

Midjourney prompt: A close up face photograph of a Soldier, with a helmet and green glossy glases , wearing a gas mask, Similar to the protagonist Adrian Shepherd of the videogame Half-life Opposing Force, With black and white urban camouflage on his Uniform. The sleeves of his fieldjacket are rolled up over his elbows, staggering through an abandoned alleyway with dilapidated buildings and scattered debris in the background, during twilight with eerie, dim lighting and shot with a wide-angle lens using a Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED --v 6.1 --p nwnj8ta --style raw

[vgprintads]

'Urban Chaos - "Criminal Justice for a New Millennium"'

[PC] [USA] [MAGAZINE, SPREAD] [2000]

"As the 2nd millennium ends, the cities are over-ran with Apocalyptic violence. Is this down to urban frustrations, or a sinister cult controlling everybody? You are either cop D'Arcy Stern or former soldier Roper McIntyre, and have to find the answers, but more importantly put a stop to the carnage. This involves a succession of action-packed non-linear missions. The environment incorporates shadows, rain, fog and a day/night cycle. Police cars, motorcycles and ambulances must be controlled during some missions. There are many ways to 'settle' the enemies - car chases, hand-to-hand combats and action movie-style shoot outs for example." ~MobyGames

Source: Computer Gaming World Issue, February 2000 (#187) || RetroMags; E-Day

[dciricnetworks]

Source: © Dragana Ciric, unit [d], 2023. Software: Grasshopper - Rhinoceros