#What is Programmable logic controller

[izicodes]

Fundamentals of Programming

Every time you learn a new programming language, you’ll come across topics you’ve seen before when you learnt other languages. All the same but different syntax and methods for that new programming language - what you're doing is learning the fundamentals of programming.

The fundamentals of programming refer to the basic concepts and principles that underpin all programming languages and software development. When programmers learn and become really good at these basic ideas, they can create more complicated computer programs and even come up with brand-new software ideas with confidence. Let's explore those basic concepts we need to understand as programmers~!

Variables

Variables are used to store data, such as numbers or strings of text.

Knowing how to manipulate variables can help to control the flow of the program.

Data types

Different types of data, such as integers, floating-point numbers, and strings, require different ways of handling and processing.

Knowing the correct data type to use can help to optimize the performance of the program.

Operators

Operators are used to performing arithmetical or logical operations on data, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and comparison. Other operators include assignment, bitwise, membership and identity.

Knowing how to use them correctly can help to ensure that the program produces the correct output.

Control structures

Control structures, such as loops and conditional statements, are used to control the flow of a program.

Understanding how to use them can help decide which parts of the code to execute or skip over, depending on specific conditions.

Functions

Functions are reusable blocks of code that perform a specific task.

Knowing how to create and use functions can help to make code more modular and easier to maintain.

Input and output

Programs often require input from users or other sources, and they need to produce output in a variety of formats.

Knowing how to handle input and output can help to make the program more interactive and user-friendly.

Debugging

Debugging involves identifying and fixing errors or bugs in the code.

Knowing how to use debugging tools and techniques can help to make the process easier and more efficient.

These concepts form the foundation of programming and are essential for understanding and using any programming language. You’re going to learn them somehow and eventually, it’s important to understand them fully so you can prevent making mistakes in your code in the future.

There’s no rush into learning these as well. Take as much time as you need, because getting these foundations down and set helps in the long run!

Thanks for reading!! Hope you learnt something new! 👏🏾💻💗

◀ previous programming post

[opencommunion]

"International institutions, promoted as fair and designed to serve all, were in fact racist vehicles of oppression and control. Colonialism had never gone away; it is simply cloaked in a different cloth. The uninformed talking heads on Western news programmes, the nonsensical UN debates, and hypocritical Western government officials once again lectured us, trying to mislead us into thinking the world was made up of the civilised and the uncivilised, the enlightened and the brutes. There is light, and that is where they live, and there is darkness, where others merely exist. This twisted colonial logic is what gives birth to Whiteness, with all its rights, protection, and recourse. Whiteness is by its very nature exclusive and operates on exceptionalism. It feeds on oppression and violence, someone must suffer for it to function, and that someone can have no entitlements, otherwise Whiteness doesn’t work. 

So, Western governments enabled and encouraged their single largest militia outpost, 'Israel,' to bomb, brutalise, butcher, and besiege Gaza. But on April 15th a few thousand brave people turned the tables and lay siege to thirty cities around the world. Gaza, colonialism’s open wound, was striking back. And the irony was on view for all to see."

[blubberquark]

When "Clean" Code is Hard to Read

Never mind that "clean" code can be slow.

Off the top of my head, I could give you several examples of software projects that were deliberately designed to be didactic examples for beginners, but are unreasonably hard to read and difficult to understand, especially for beginners.

Some projects are like that because they are the equivalent of GNU Hello World: They are using all the bells and whistles and and best practices and design patterns and architecture and software development ceremony to demonstrate how to software engineering is supposed to work in the big leagues. There is a lot of validity to that idea. Not every project needs microservices, load balancing, RDBMS and a worker queue, but a project that does need all those things might not be a good "hello, world" example. Not every project needs continuous integration, acceptance testing, unit tests, integration tests, code reviews, an official branching and merging procedure document, and test coverage metrics. Some projects can just be two people who collaborate via git and push to master, with one shell script to run the tests and one shell script to build or deploy the application.

So what about those other projects that aren't like GNU Hello World?

There are projects out there that go out of their way to make the code simple and well-factored to be easier for beginners to grasp, and they fail spectacularly. Instead of having a main() that reads input, does things, and prints the result, these projects define an object-oriented framework. The main file loads the framework, the framework calls the CLI argument parser, which then calls the interactive input reader, which then calls the business logic. All this complexity happens in the name of writing short, easy to understand functions and classes.

None of those things - the parser, the interactive part, the calculation - are in the same file, module, or even directory. They are all strewn about in a large directory hierarchy, and if you don't have an IDE configured to go to the definition of a class with a shortcut, you'll have trouble figuring out what is happening, how, and where.

The smaller you make your functions, the less they do individually. They can still do the same amount of work, but in more places. The smaller you make your classes, the more is-a and as-a relationships you have between classes and objects. The result is not Spaghetti Code, but Ravioli Code: Little enclosed bits floating in sauce, with no obvious connections.

Ravioli Code makes it hard to see what the code actually does, how it does it, and where is does stuff. This is a general problem with code documentation: Do you just document what a function does, do you document how it works, does the documentation include what it should and shouldn't be used for and how to use it? The "how it works" part should be easy to figure out by reading the code, but the more you split up things that don't need splitting up - sometimes over multiple files - the harder you make it to understand what the code actually does just by looking at it.

To put it succinctly: Information hiding and encapsulation can obscure control flow and make it harder to find out how things work.

This is not just a problem for beginner programmers. It's an invisible problem for existing developers and a barrier to entry for new developers, because the existing developers wrote the code and know where everything is. The existing developers also have knowledge about what kinds of types, subclasses, or just special cases exist, might be added in the future, or are out of scope. If there is a limited and known number of cases for a code base to handle, and no plan for downstream users to extend the functionality, then the downside to a "switch" statement is limited, and the upside is the ability to make changes that affect all special cases without the risk of missing a subclass that is hiding somewhere in the code base.

Up until now, I have focused on OOP foundations like polymorphism/encapsulation/inheritance and principles like the single responsibility principle and separation of concerns, mainly because that video by Casey Muratori on the performance cost of "Clean Code" and OOP focused on those. I think these problems can occur in the large just as they do in the small, in distributed software architectures, overly abstract types in functional programming, dependency injection, inversion of control, the model/view/controller pattern, client/server architectures, and similar abstractions.

It's not always just performance or readability/discoverability that suffer from certain abstractions and architectural patterns. Adding indirections or extracting certain functions into micro-services can also hamper debugging and error handling. If everything is polymorphic, then everything must either raise and handle the same exceptions, or failure conditions must be dealt with where they arise, and not raised. If an application is consists of a part written in a high-level interpreted language like Python, a library written in Rust, and a bunch of external utility programs that are run as child processes, the developer needs to figure out which process to attach the debugger to, and which debugger to attach. And then, the developer must manually step through a method called something like FrameWorkManager.orchestrate_objects() thirty times.

[anarcho-physicist]

Press release from my undergrad university about my paper :D

(artist's recreation of the texture of an active nematic liquid crystal)

Controlling the chaos of active fluids reporting by Sonia Fernandez of UCSB's The Current

Physicists at UC Santa Barbara, with colleagues at University of Michigan (UM) and The University of Chicago (UChicago), have developed design rules that take advantage of topological defects to control self-sustained chaotic flows in active fluids. This framework, for now developed as a theoretical model, provides a path for the engineering of self-powered fluids with tunable flows.

“And we can do this either at the level of one defect or at a level of many defects, which provides another way of controlling the flow dynamics,” said UCSB theoretical physicist Cristina Marchetti, a senior author of a paper that appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the paper, the work “establishes an additive framework to sculpt flows and manipulate active defects in both space and time, paving the way to design programmable active and living materials for transport, memory and logic.”

Active matter in general is fascinating for the ability of its constituent parts — whether they be motor proteins, bacteria, synthetic microswimmers, or humans — to collectively behave like an out-of-equilibrium material. A familiar example is a flock of starlings that move together, bending and folding in the sky like a fluid. Active fluids developed in the lab are similarly composed of individual molecular-scale units that, like the birds, consume energy and turn it into movement. Through interactions they organize in emergent structures that act in unison.

Researchers for this study, including theoretician Mark Bowick from UCSB Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), lead author Suraj Shankar at UM and Luca Scharrer, a UCSB College of Creative Studies physics alum, now a graduate student at UChicago, focused on an active fluid made of biomolecular proteins and filaments. In this fluid, known as an active nematic liquid crystal, the rod-like filamentary proteins tend to align with each other — the “nematic” part. The “active’’ part comes from the ability of these lined-up filaments to exert forces on their surroundings, pumping fluid and driving large-scale flows.

“This active liquid crystal is a fluid that continuously flows on its own, without any external applied force or pressure difference,” Marchetti added, thanks to local chemical reactions by so-called “motor proteins’’ that generate the energy for movement.

These flows, however, are inherently chaotic, with swirls and eddies that continuously distort the local alignment of the filaments. This creates patterns in the otherwise regular arrangement of the rod-like filaments, with strong distortions similar to the ridges in your fingerprints. The structure of these distortions is dictated by geometry and topology, earning them the label “topological defects.” The defects in turn influence the orientation and movements of the other rods around them, and the resulting flows.

“In our work we formulate design rules that dictate how particular defect structure patterns can be created, moved and even braided around each other through what we call ‘topological tweezers.’”

Defects are commonly observed in passive liquid crystals. “In the active case, an entirely new feature is observed,” added Bowick. “The defects become self-propelled, like tiny engines roaming around the fluid.” While the disturbances are localized, they move and continuously stir the entire fluid.

But rather than being bugs, these “tiny engines” can be used as features that allow for the control of active flows via the control of defect motion. The control of active defects is indeed a hot topic of experimental research, with various strategies developed to influence their generation and dynamics. Until now, however, a systematic quantification and design framework for the manipulation of defects has been missing.

“In our work we formulate design rules that dictate how particular defect structure patterns can be created, moved and even braided around each other through what we call ‘topological tweezers.’” Bowick said. This is achieved by “designing patterns of ‘activity’ in space and time,” Marchetti explained, that is “by controlling the structure and extent of the regions where chemical reactions drive fluid pumping.”

This spatial variability is achievable in experiments through light-responsive motor proteins and filaments. It allows scientists to essentially grab individual defects and move them around to design the flow that goes along with them. The researchers also demonstrate how simple activity patterns can control large collections of swirling defects that continually drive turbulent flows.

The main part of the research was carried out while Scharrer was an undergraduate student at UCSB. This demonstrates the impact of undergraduate research and the key role faculty advisors such as Sathya Guruswamy play in matching promising undergraduates with suitable research groups.

It's still early days for this work, but the scientists can see a potential array of applications and implications, for everything from biological processes to soft robotics and fluid-based logic devices. “Our work suggests how these processes can be controlled by manipulating active defects,” Bowick said

[positivelybeastly]

Do you see x-force as a commentary on unchecked power?

"If I possessed truly unchecked power, you'd know."

So, it's meant to be. The ultimate intention of the series is meant to be a commentary/satire on the CIA and its various cruelties inflicted upon the world in the interests in national security. Beast has been forced into the role of Henry Kissinger, who, while never an actual Director of the CIA, certainly had his role to play in the history of the United States and its defence policies over the last 60 years.

"Kissinger is also associated with controversial U.S. policies, including its bombing of Cambodia, involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, support for Argentina's military junta in its Dirty War, support for Indonesia in its invasion of East Timor, and support for Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War and Bangladesh genocide.

He was accused of war crimes for the civilian death toll of the policies he pursued, his role in facilitating U.S. support for dictatorial regimes, and willful ignorance towards human rights abuses committed by the United States and its allies."

Taken from Kissinger's Wikipedia page.

(Apologies, by the way, that this particular answer will be text heavy, I refuse to cap X-Force because I just. Don't. Want. To read it again.)

The parallels are pretty obvious - Beast's genocide of Terra Verde, his space prison, his wilful manipulation of X-Force to satisfy what he viewed as the interests of Krakoan national security, to the point where he would weaponise Logan just as the Weapon X programme did . . . these are the comic book equivalents of the United States' various criminal acts against a wide variety of smaller, less powerful countries. They are brighter, louder, flashier, more outwardly grotesque, but they fulfil the exact same role.

Now, here's the problem.

And let's try and follow Ben Percy's narrative logic here, yeah?

Beast has always been evil. Beast himself, Logan, and Domino all express this exact sentiment. It was only when he possessed true carte blanche that he revealed this evil, because if he had done so beforehand, then he would have been cast out or killed by his fellow heroic X-Men. That's safe to say, right?

Now.

Hank has, in the past, been given cosmic power by the Black Mirror, and promptly used it to try and find out how to fix the damage that he had done to the space-time continuum by bringing the Original 5 X-Men to the present.

When he realised there was no easy way to fix it, not even with his cosmic power, he ran away SCREAMING that it was all his fault, and when we next see him, he is depressed, he is brought low, his fucking speech bubbles are tiny because he's so shaken and mortified by what he's done.

But let's ignore that. Because Ben Percy did.

When Beast makes his departure from X-Force, Sage takes over, and promises to run X-Force more efficiently, with more oversight, with more transparency. She promises to be what Beast wasn't.

So far, so good, right? That's a pretty clear narrative.

. . . Hey, uhhh, where was X-Force when the Hellfire Gala went down?

Oh, they weren't there?

The intelligence agency, the force designed to combat external threats and shut them down with extreme prejudice, just - straight up completely missed the biggest threat imaginable to their country, and they just. Fucked up, completely?

Hmmm.

They were infiltrated from within, by an observer sent by the Quiet Council, who was meant to provide oversight? An observer that Beast had previously identified as a threat, and didn't want anywhere near a position of power, albeit for xenophobic reasons?

An observer who, when they went into the far off future to navel gaze at Nimrod Beast's evil future, broke the control over him - and didn't tell anyone that he had been being controlled for the past, like, year? Who was acting strangely, and no-one followed up on it?

Hmmm.

Like, here's the thing - I don't think Ben Percy necessarily wants us to think that Beast was a better leader of X-Force than Sage. He's portrayed as a brow beating, emotionally abusive, manipulative, oily voiced, condescending asshole who keeps biting off more than he can chew . . . BUT.

It's only when he's gone that both Krakoa falls, and that X-Force is completely double fucked by a person who wouldn't be there if Beast was still there? Like . . . have I said anything incorrect here?

Ladies, gentlemen, individuals who fall outside or along the gender spectrum in various places . . . this is what's described as bad theming, and inadequate plotting.

By running these two plots in parallel, and having them happen like this, Ben Percy has accidentally implied that the corrupt, evil asshole leader of X-Force was the one actually keeping Krakoa safe, and the good, transparent leader of X-Force managed to fuck things up immediately.

That's not what the story wants you to think! It wants you to view Sage and co. as the heroes of the story, explicitly, they are the good guys. But. Through lack of care, and lack of thought, that's what's been accidentally implied.

Now, maybe that's just me being facetious, and you know what, it probably is. That's a minor quibble, you can't really blame Ben Percy for that, Gerry Duggan and the X-office say that the Hellfire Gala happens this way, and Ben Percy has to say, sure. It's unfortunate timing, but Sage did not cause the Hellfire Gala to happen, that's ridiculous.

However.

I have to remind you all, as I so often do, that the entirety of X-Force knew that Beast had killed Terra Verde, used the bodies of its ambassadors as puppets; had an evil space prison built using siphoned Krakoan funds; had attacked Piotr Rasputin's reputation, publicly humiliated him; they knew that he was not to be trusted, and they knew that he was a bad, bad, bad man.

Yeah? That's established?

. . . Why did they keep working for him?

Why was it that the buck apparently stopped at mind controlling Logan? THAT was the point where you draw the line, huh? The evil Mengele space prison, THAT YOU KNEW ABOUT, that you dragged Beast from in chains, warranted the fucking silent treatment, like you're a bunch of fucking children, but the instant something happens to Logan, suddenly he's got to go?

That's some real moral myopia you guys got going on, there!

That means you were all okay with everything he was doing before! You could have stopped working with X-Force, you could have just killed Beast, over and over and over, you could have protested to the Quiet Council, you could have done anything - but you just kept turning up to work! You kept doing the dirt!

Why?

. . . Oh, sorry, there's, uh, no real answer here. There are no character arcs for people in X-Force. It's just, Beast is evil, Logan is the grizzled hero, and everyone else is here, I guess.

Like, there's some real weak political commentary going on with Logan vs. the Quiet Council, where he's like, BLUUUUH KRAKOA'S A COUNTRY CLUB, BUUUUH I DON'T LIKE HOW YOU DO THINGS, but, like, it's just so without any kind of substance! It's acting like Wolverine wasn't ALSO fine with everything Beast was doing up until it affected him!

You can't have clear cut heroes and villains in a narrative like this. Everyone on X-Force, without exception, is a horrible person willing to do horrible things in the interests of national security, and they have been SHOWN to be FINE with whatever Beast wanted to do, but because they are NOT Beast, they're heroes.

This is what's known as the 'bad cop' narrative. One bad apple spoils the bunch, you know the saying - not all cops are bad, if you could just get rid of the bad ones, it'd be fine!

Except that it's not a case of good cops and bad cops, is it? It's a case of a cop culture that breeds corruptive power. It's a case of good cops being punished for calling out corruption, being put in mental institutions, left to die in combat situations. And it's the same with black ops teams. It's the same with intelligence agencies. There are no heroes on these teams, because it's not POSSIBLE to be a hero on these teams.

But Ben Percy seems to think that there can be. That X-Force would have been fine if Beast wasn't on the team from the start, that black ops teams full of murderers are completely fine so long as they're guided by the right person.

The instant he started prattling on about good and evil in this narrative, if it was ever meant to be a commentary on unchecked power, it lost all of its potency. Power and its relation to Beast becomes almost pointless if he's just evil - he just becomes a villain waiting for his chance, and it makes all the heroes look like morons for continuing to give him power and not take any of it away.

The only way this narrative works is if Beast was a good person to start with, and he had to start making moral compromises, he had to start cutting out his soul to save Krakoa, he had to - except, that's not how Ben Percy believes Beast is. He has told us so, repeatedly, both in and out of narrative.

What's the actual moral of the story in X-Force?

Is it that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely? Well, Beast was apparently always corrupt, and Sage apparently is a hero despite letting him do whatever the fuck he wanted, sooo. No?

Is it that intelligence agencies are intrinsically cruel and horrible apparatuses that allow states to harm innocents in the interests of national security? Well, this intelligence agency is full of heroes who pretty much never do anything morally bankrupt, who constantly push back against their evil overseer but don't really challenge him, so, I guess intelligence agencies are fine, actually, so long as the people are good.

Is it that nation building is a bloody process that requires moral sacrifice, and that everyone involved in the founding of a nation has some degree of blood on their hands? Maybe? Iunno.

How often do the Quiet Council actually appear in X-Force and Wolverine? Maybe two, three times? Are they to blame for what happens? I guess, since they give Beast carte blanche, but X-Force sure don't do a lot to push back against that, do they? For a character that allegedly is protecting Beast from these consequences, we never see Xavier interact with Beast, do we?

X-Force is a political commentary with messy, lazy politics, that believes that black ops teams are fine so long as the people running them are good people.

X-Force is a story of good and evil with very little actual moral nuance, and not much to actually, truly say about Krakoa, other than, it can be bad sometimes and Logan doesn't like it.

X-Force is an intelligence agency without any actual intelligence. Every character in it is unobservant, wilfully ignorant, lazy, short-sighted, easily manipulated despite being outwardly cynical, and have not once, in nearly 50 issues, executed a plan that I looked at and thought, you know what, I would never have thought of that, that was really smart.

X-Force is a group of morons who can't kill a fat blue man who bounces a lot, because he's just too smart and capable for them, even though he's also evil and arrogant and stupid and constantly overplays his hand.

X-Force is so stupid that they brought back a clone of their previous Director to fight the current version of him, left said clone in a room that he had the access codes to open with a guard that was talked to sleep with embarrassing ease, and then left their control centre unguarded, despite it having been broken into that very same day by this very same man, so that he could look through their files and leave.

X-Force is fucking dumb.

If it's a commentary on anything, it's that Ben Percy can't write smart narratives to save his goddamn fucking life.

He should stick to short Wolverine stories and body horror, because politics, spy thrillers, satisfying character narratives, theming?

These fucking escape him.

I have no professional respect for the man.

He's probably a nice enough guy if you talk to him in real life.

But, you wanna know a secret? I've never paid a penny for a single issue of X-Force, it's all pirated. All these caps I used? Pirate sources.

I'd walk up to his face and tell him so.

Because I find his work to be a complete waste of time, energy, good art, paper, downloaded megabits, and space. It's a complete wash.

Unless Hank gay kisses Wonder Man in the next two issues.

That'd make it worthwhile, I s'pose.

[dolloshub]

It’s been awhile….

Update within

Echo here! Sigh. It doesn’t even know where to begin, but as OS likes to say certainly not at the beginning.

Perhaps the most logical place to start- because dolls of course are always completely logical, is on the absence.

This could be explained in a variety of ways, but what it really comes down to is that the brain has been having more and more seizures, pushing the timeline for brain surgery from six-eight months away to less than six weeks.

It’s not gonna lie and say everything is sunshine rainbows and lollipops, but what it can and will say is that it’s still here, doll remains, and it continues everyday to try to be its best.

It found a new Owner, who is very much in the Cgl corner of our community. It mentions this in the middle because it’s not a permanent placement yet- he doesn’t know if he’ll want to be doll’s owner after six months- the period to which he committed to- enough time to get doll neurologically stable.

He fully supports the doll identity, and if things go beyond six, now five months, it’s likely going to be indefinite. He is unfamiliar with the brainwashing hypno programming side of things, so we are right now focusing on the caregiving aspects of the relationship.

As for me, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m still addicted to intelligence and being perceived as the girl that’s put together and and and.. it’s all an addiction and illusion. I am perhaps really just beginning to understand that I might actually be lovable, able to forgive myself for turning my back on a five year plan, and be content in a smaller world, where my life is focused and an extension of my owner.

This doll experiment started when the girl who was reached the point where existing for her own sake was no longer enough. She knew that which got her as far as she was would ultimately destroy her. This being unrelenting standards.

Now this Echo, she’s understanding that just because you can get a proper diagnosis doesn’t mean you can fix the problem. It, Echo- all of doll is likely going to be forever be tempted by unrelenting standards and being unable to stop ourselves.

This is why It and OS, and It assumes the rest of the apps are labeling this pull as an addiction. It is also this pull that makes being owned a necessity. We can admit that we can not be trusted to stop, it is beyond us, our control. The only way to stop is to be stopped. A strong willed doll, who won’t stop, can’t stop, and is unowned- well that’s a doll that’s on its way to self destruction.

So whether or not it’s found it’s forever owner, it’s current owner is keeping it safe and is fully aware that his doll can never be unowned again. So if he decides to let me go, this doll will be given to an owner that it’s compatible with.

Because there is so much of this future unknown tied into the health aspects- can any relationship stand up to a this level of stress and one side having their brain on fire? .. we simply don’t know.

For this reason only limited modifications are going to be permitted on doll. The deeper lasting changes will come in due time, with its current owner or another. The programmable girl is still here, and fighting for its survival, and finally accepting the knowledge that it’s survival is dependent on being stopped. And so it will continue to try and be its best.

~Echo~

[worldseekerdragon]

Codex Entry: Ordinus

The cities exist on a circular continuum, so none of them is really "first." But I tend to always think about them in a certain order, and that sequence starts with Ordinus.

Spectrum: Order/Chaos

Ruler: The Prefect

Demonym: Ordinite

Unique Resource: Funnel, an inklike substance

Hallmarks: Brutalist, often physics-defying architecture. Typewriters, trains, and other tech that loudly clacks, chunks, and dings. Identical spaces. Topiary. Scheduled weather. Layers of beurocracy.

History

Ordinus is surrounded on all sides by chaos. It is all that remains of a world whose every atom has been randomized into noncompliance with every other. It is a sea of continuously shifting entropic muck, and the Boundary is all that prevents Ordinus itself from being consumed and converted endlessly. This is the history conjured for the city at the moment of its creation, but that does not make it any less real or true.

The Boundary

Ordinus is not a walled city in the traditional sense. The Boundary is not a high barrier looming over the outskirts of the city. In order to survive, Ordinus has become something that would be unrecognizable to the world it once occupied. It is topologically interwoven, looping over and back on itself across spatial dimensions. This is not a noticeable phenomenon to a citizen of Ordinus. The streets all connect and will take you where you wish to go. Everything follows logically from the ground.

What this means, though, is that the Boundary is everywhere, and Chaos can leak through wherever it is weakened. This is a fear deeply ingrained in every Ordinite.

Chaos

The entropic mass constantly pressuring Ordinus does not look like anything. It is not coherent enough to parse with the senses. But chaos that pours into Ordinus when the Boundary cracks is different. Every aspect of Ordinus' construction is suffused with intent. Within its bounds the chaos is constrained. It flows like a corrosive sea, it twists into monstrous approximations of life. It can be fought and driven back. Contact with it can be survived, though surviving unchanged is another matter. Breaches of the Boundary are often smaller than a full flood, manifesting as solitary monsters or alleys and corridors shifting as though alive, trapping anyone unfortunate enough to stumble in.

Funnel

The physical laws of Ordinus, the ways matter behaves and interacts with itself, are codified in actual documents. Localized alteration of these laws allows for the construction of buildings that spite gravity or contain more interior space than should be possible. More intense configurations are possible, but structures are designed to make efficient use of space while not putting strain on the mind.

The reason for all of this is an iridescent substance with the properties of metallic ink called Funnel. Its name is derived from its ability to act as a probabalistic funnel, bottlenecking ranges of probability down to a smaller set of outcomes. If Funnel existed in our world, you could ink a 20-sided die in such a way that it always rolled above a fifteen, or only rolled twenties, or any other permutation of outcomes that were already possible. You couldn't ink that die to make it float, or sing, or explode.

It's different in Ordinus. The city is order carved out of chaos. What makes the chaos deadly is that anything is possible, and everything is happening. The range of possibilities Funnel can create are therefore limited only by a programmer's knowledge of glyphs, the time it takes to write them, and the amount of Funnel in their possession. Funnel is strictly controlled within Ordinus, and unauthorized use of it is punished harshly.

Daily Life

Everything in Ordinus happens according to a plan and a schedule. It is efficient, but not cruel. Humans are not seen as expendable. The Prefect recognizes that in order for society to run smoothly, Ordinites require adequate rest, housing, nutrition, and exercise, as well as entertainment and social time. Society largely sees itself as benevolent. In many ways it is. However, the belief that everyone's exact needs and optimal path in life can be calculated by a dispassionate formula has led to unfortunate results for anyone that formula fails to account for, and blame tends to fall on such folk for their own unhappiness. People live within a system that wants to reduce them to numbers for their own good.

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

🎵 Church

3. "We're not just breaking in! I'm pursuing a mysterious lead, searching for my lost identity.""

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "You won't find any answers from here." She barely looks up from the keyboard. You hear the machine whir back to life.

"It's just me and my computer -- and it has been this way for weeks. Now please, give me some room. I need two seconds to see that you haven't destroyed anything."

KIM KITSURAGI - "We should talk to her," the lieutenant whispers, "after she has rebooted the machine."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "What is it?" The woman is still hunched over the keyboard, gently illuminated by the purring machine.

"I didn't break anything, did I?"

"Sorry, but... who *are* you? What are you doing here?"

"Nothing, I'll let you work." [Leave.]

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "No, you just printed out my personal log and wasted some paper." It does not look like a big loss to her.

2. "Sorry, but… who *are* you? What are you doing here?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I am Soona Luukanen-Kilde, the former lead programmer of Fortress Accident and RSA Radios. I have over 16 years of programming experience and I'm proficient in both Vox and Orbis languages..."

"If you're not here to hire me, I don't really know how can I help you." She turns back to the terminal.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - Did she say *over 16 years of experience*? She must have started programming when she was still a teenager.

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - That still doesn't answer what she's doing in an abandoned church.

"Have you seen... *the crab-man*?"

"Why are there so many machines in this place?"

"What are you doing in an abandoned church?"

"How do you feel about *anodic dance music*?"

"Right, I'll let you work in peace now." [Leave.]

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "No."

"But you know he's around?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Yes."

"He's seen *you*."

"He must have seen you."

"It sounds like you're not worried about him at all."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "And?"

"And? *The crab-man* has seen you!"

"Okay, it's probably not a big deal then."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I don't care, I don't care about crab men." She barely looks up, now tinkering with the machine's printer.

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] - Wow. She really doesn't. Not afraid, this one.

2. "Why are there so many machines in this place?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I brought them here. These are my machines. Please don't touch anything."

"Why do you need an antenna?" (Point to it.)

"What are you doing with your radiocomputer?"

"What about those bowls of water over there?"

"Right, I'll try not to touch anything. Next question..."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I use the AR-1 as my Rehm Prefect's processing unit."

"Rehm Prefect, that's your radiocomputer, right?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Mhmh."

"And that antenna is its... processing unit?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Yes." She sighs. "You really don't know anything about radiocomputers, do you?" She has stopped working now.

"No, I'm a master circuit-bender, I know *everything*."

"Not really."

"I know *a little*."

"I don't really know much about *anything* in this world, to be honest."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Alright, well... All radiocomputers perform operations up on air, so in order to gain more processing power you need to invest in a *good antenna*."

"Wait, what's 'on air'`?"

"And the AR-1? Is it a 'good antenna'?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "On the *front*. The unified front of radiowaves, licensed and controlled by Lintel in the East-Insulindic region."

"It's all around us," she waves her hand, "that's what 'on air' means."

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - Like love.

"And the AR-1? Is it a 'good antenna'?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I guess it is…" She stops to think. "So far I've been quite satisfied with it. Martinaise is an unstable region with bad coverage and the operation has been surprisingly stable."

"But it's not the cheapest one on the market, so I wouldn't recommend it for your regular red tape operations. Fraser 1000 is a foolproof line for civilians."

"Anyway..." She turns back to her terminal. "You should do some research before you decide to buy anything. Ask around, compare the prices. There are many milieus dedicated to that sort of thing."

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - She liked telling you this. It calmed her nerves.

2. "What are you doing with your radiocomputer?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I'm working."

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - The machine seems almost alien with its pulsing core, the light casting her face in a strange shadow.

"Working on what?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Could you..." She closes her eyes. "Could you just... *shh* for a moment? Or get to the point -- I really need to focus on something."

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - It's not *just* rudeness. It really is hard to concentrate on whatever she needs to do. And you're not helping.

"Isn't your Rehm Prefect radiocomputer made exclusively for the government-use?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "So you do know *something* about computers." She looks up, almost proud of you. "You're right, Prefect *is* used mostly by the government peeps."

"And you work for the government?"

"So why do you have it?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "No, I don't."

1. "So why do you have it?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - She inhales sharply, before answering in a single breath: "Because I needed something *good* for my investigation and Rehm Civic is widely agreed to be below all standards, so I had to upgrade."

"Besides, owning a Rehm Prefect isn't such a big deal anymore."

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - No, actually it *is* kind of a big deal. You don't see Rehm Prefects in every police department for example.

"How did you get your hands on it?"

"Did you *steal it*?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I know a friend of a friend who used to freelance for the Coalition," she says nonchalantly, scratching her ear. "I was actually aiming for the military-grade Rehm Rational series, but couldn't find one."

She pats her glowing machine. "Prefect is mainly based on the same technology as Rehm Civic, so it's kind of a rip-off, but it does have better compatibility with newer antenna models, so I won't complain."

4. "What about those bowls of water over there?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "They are connected to my Rehm Prefect." She looks up. "Whatever you do, just please don't move them, okay? Thanks."

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - Short and terse -- there you have it. Whatever she's using them for, they're hers.

5. "Right, I'll try not to touch anything. Next question..."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Great." She dwells back into the glowing terminal.

3. "What are you doing in an abandoned church?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "You really like those questions, don't you?" There's a hint of amusement in her tired eyes.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - They're bloodshot. She really hasn't been getting much sleep lately, has she?

"I'm a police officer, it's my job to ask questions."

"You're occupying a public space. I need to know what you're doing here."

"There have been complaints from your neighbours."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I am conducting scientific research here. You can't throw me out," she says, ready to stand her ground.

"What research?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I'm looking for the location of a two-millimetre hole in the world."

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - Wait, what?

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - She's looking for a disruption in the *radio waves*. That's what her personal log said.

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant raises his brows, but doesn't say anything.

"Is the hole connected to the data loss in your journal?"

"A hole in the world... What does that mean exactly?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Yes, that's what led me here..." She stares at the burnished antenna on a nearby table. "But I suspect it might be something a bit more complicated than that."

2. "A hole in the world… What does that mean exactly?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Exactly, what *does* it mean?" There's something frantic about her as she locks her gaze with you, eyes shining like pearls. "Up to now it has been impossible to say what it is, because it's impossible to measure *nothing*."

"What do *you* think it is? What qualities does *nothing* have? How do you measure something that does not exist?" She's suddenly absorbed in the conversation, waiting for your answer.

LOGIC [Challenging: Failure] - That's a little above your pay grade at the moment.

Wait, hold on, let me change hats real quick.

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] - Easy, you measure it by the world around it.

"Hold on a moment -- does it mean we're now living in a world that has *holes in it*?!"

"You measure it by collecting data on its surroundings, on that which exists."

"I can't even understand how we're talking about something that doesn't exist, let alone measure it."

"I don't know, I'm not here for some science, I just want to solve a murder so I can go home."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I don't know, are we? That's what I'm trying to figure out here. But how *do* I figure it out?"

"You measure it by collecting data on its surroundings, on that which exists."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Exactly," she nods, "very true! That's what I've been aiming for, that's why I have those basins. I've tried using hydrotransducers to record the silence -- to find out where it *begins*."

"But honestly, it's not progressing very well." She grows silent, staring at her circle of basins -- it looks like some ancient ritual.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - But does it have anything to do with necroplasmic life forms? 'Ghosts' in everyday parlance.

"Does it have anything to do with *ghosts*?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "*Ghosts?*" she repeats. "No, I don't think so, I don't believe in ghosts."

"What about other supra-natural entities?"

"Right, nothing to do with ghosts..." (Start writing it down in your ledger.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "You do know there's no need to officially document this information, right?" the lieutenant whispers to you.

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - She has already turned back to her keyboard.

4. "Do you have any idea where this hole might be located?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Somewhere underneath those roof beams, I assume." She looks up, eyes trying to pierce the pitch-black heights above, but without much success.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - Only a faint criss-cross of rafters can be made out from the dark, most of the tower disappearing into the shade.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - Strange things may flourish in the dark...

"Why there?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "There's this place at the back of the church, a place where all audible vibrations seem to decease -- I've named it 'the swallow'. And the higher you go, the less you record."

KIM KITSURAGI - "The pillar of silence? Are you sure it's not just an architectural quirk?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Maybe. But it's oddly close to the physical coordinates of the data loss that led me to this place."

"This is where the crab-man lives."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "I know."

"You don't think crab-man might be somehow responsible here?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "No, I don't."

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - She sounds mildly annoyed by this line of questioning, her hands typing hundreds of commands into the machine.

5. "You said that the research isn't going well. Why not?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Because it's just trial and error, trying to locate the swallow -- the exact point in space."

"And I don't have a..." She stops mid-sentence. "You know what, it would be really helpful if you could just stop talking and let me work."

6. "That's all I wanted to know about the scary two-millimetre hole in the world... for now." (Conclude.)

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Great." Her hands are a whirl on the keyboard. "Thanks."

4. "How do you feel about *anodic dance music*?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "What?" She squints her eyes. "I hate it."

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - I bet she hasn't even heard it.

"Have you even *listened* to it? Like *actually* listened?"

"What are you, *forty*? It's the future of dance music!"

"Same here, it just doesn't *connect* here..." (Tap on your heart.) "Not like disco does, anyway."

"Okay. Wow. That was quick. Why do you hate it?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Yeah, like all the time. My tent-neighbours don't really ease up with their partying, do they?" She pulls a face that looks absolutely scathing.

"Maybe I'd have to be *on drugs* to get it, but to a sober mind it just sounds like uninspired rug whipping. No idea what it has to do with either dancing or music."

"Right, right... but how do you feel about a *club* for anodic dance music?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "This is about those speedfreaks in the tent, isn't it?" She looks up, shaking her head. "I've got some news for you, it's not a *nightclub* they want to build here..."

"What do they want to build then?"

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - "Take a guess, why don't you?"

"A youth centre would be nice."

"A petting zoo, a place for animals!"

"Maybe some community space to help the elderly?"

"I'm still convinced they want to establish a nightclub for anodic dance music -- they said it's their *dream*."

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER - The lead programmer sighs. "I can't believe they got you so easily. Go have another talk with those up-and-coming entrepreneurs, will you? Thanks."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Good luck," the lieutenant notes. "I'm *not* coming in there."

4. "Right, I'll let you work in peace now." [Leave.]

Well, that's no good. I guess we have to go tell Andre the bad news.

🎵 Protorave

ANDRE - "Hi again. So, uh... How're things going?" He looks excited. The tips of his hair are sharp and white. The bleach has consumed almost all of the toothbrush on the mirror in front of him.

"About the church... I checked it out."

ANDRE - "And...?" He tenses up. "What happened?"

"I talked to the crab-man."

"Actually, I want to talk about something else."

ANDRE - "Oh man! Who is he, what did you think?"

"Seemed okay, to be honest. Very spiritual."

"He gave me this odd lecture on alcoholism, before rambling on and on about Mother's love."

"You were right, he's a true narcomaniac. And the way he climbs! It was terrifying."

ANDRE - "Really? Huh... interesting. What's he doing in the church?"

"Just preaching and praying, from the looks of it."

"He clearly enjoys the physical activity. Guy climbs like a freak!"

"There's something sinister going on under the building's roof… I think he's getting high or something."

ANDRE - "What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure, I'm just telling you what it *felt* like."

"It didn't sound like a sober man's talk. He must be getting *visions* up there."

NOID - "No matter," the paranoid young man mumbles gruffly. "Is he going to be a problem?"

ANDRE - "Yeah, Noid is right... let's get back to the point. What are we going to *do* about him?"

SAVOIR FAIRE [Easy: Success] - These guys will never catch him. You will never catch him. There's nothing to do.

"Of course he's a problem -- he's a *crab-man*!"

"He keeps himself physically active, thinks spiritual thoughts and doesn't drink. Who am I to evict such a person?"

"As far as I can tell he's not going to leave. He'll climb around up there, and guys, you'll never catch him."

"Actually, he told me he wouldn't mind the nightclub at all."

ANDRE - "I dunno, man... doesn't it feel like a major hindrance to you?" He rubs his jaw. "A spooky guy climbing around when all the guests are trying to have nice friendly hyper-time?"

"You're just going to have to live with the crab-man."

"Don't worry, I don't think he really gives a damn about you or anyone else."

NOID - "I guess it's not a *massive* problem, now that I think of it."

EGG HEAD - "Everyone is welcome -- to dance till the morning light! YEAGH!"

ANDRE - "Maybe... uh... I guess we'll figure something out. Okay, but what about the other spooker -- the one in grandma's clothes? Did you see her?"

2. "I was using the mainframe when Soona, the former lead programmer of Fortress Accident, appeared."

ANDRE - "A programmer? That's odd. What was she like? Did you ask her about the nightclub?"

"She did not like the anodic dance club idea."

NOID - "What a pity! That's my favourite thing in the world." He drops a hammer back into a toolbox. "And she doesn't like it at all."

ANDRE - "A shame." He sighs. "What can we do now? Do you see a way out of this jam -- and into a laser-lit future of dance and unity?"

EGG HEAD - "UNITY! DANCE!"

"She made it very clear that she won't leave until her own project is finished."

ANDRE - "And you can't just evict her?"

"No, I *won't* evict her. We have to come up with a different solution."

"I *could* go for another try. Bring down the hammer of the law."

NOID - "Look at you, honour-man."

ANDRE - "No, Noid. He's right... maybe we've approached it the wrong way after all. I'm sure there's a workaround. We can make a deal not to bother her."

"If that's okay with her... We only wanna get in the church and spread the joy and ecstasy of music."

EGG HEAD - "The lines in the dark, exist, CO-EXIST!"

NOID - "At least crab-man seems like an *advanced* being. He's hard. He'll understand."

ANDRE - "Yeah, he can do his climbing thing in the tower. And the programmer... does she like anodic dance music?"

[fostercare-expat]

Fearless is really doing my head in with his self sabotage. He is about to turn 10. He just had an amazing weekend. He spent a night at my former husband’s place and was very well behaved. He spent 2 nights with me and was very well behaved. But Monday morning at his school care programme, they sent him home by 10am for misbehaving. His mom’s boyfriend was home, and in his mom’s instructions, he wasn’t allowed his phone or TV. Apparently he screamed at mom’s boyfriend for 3 hours until his mom got home from work. Then he screamed at her. She said he can’t be in the house and act this way and told him to stand outside in the hallway, he wouldn’t leave, she went to drag him out, he punched and kicked her, he even knocked out her contact from her eye. And he said horrible things to her with lots of bad words, and about what a horrible mother she is and how he doesn’t want to live with her anymore. Boyfriend tried to intervene and he tried to punch him too. It sounded really horrible. And they live in a crowded building where everyone has their windows open, so of course every neighbour heard. Eventually he laid down on the bed and went to sleep. He apologised the next day, but of course the is a lot of damage which can’t be undone.

His mom is so upset about the things he said. Personally I’m much more concerned about his kicking and punching. (Interesting cultural difference between his mom and I.)

His mom has contacted his counsellor, who said to give him a some time to cool off. I offered to come talk to him, but his mom said he still needs space, which is fair.

Before when there was violence at home 4 years ago, his behaviour made total sense. And then he had been removed from his mom’s care and his life felt very out of control, and it made sense. He's been back living with his mom for 3.5 years even, with basically zero violence and minimal change, other than his mom’s boyfriend’s moving in about 1.5 years ago (after 2 years of long distance dating), and that seems to have gone fairly smoothly and they have a good relationship.

But things have been very stable for while, it seems he seems like he's not stablizing. I guess trauma is an long lasting monster and this isn't much time in the life of a child, but I really thought things should be better by now. There are so many people pouring love into this kiddo. He has counselling, sports after school and weekend, private tutoring in his subject he struggles in, a positive same-race male figure in his life, extended family he is close with, a continuing relationship with his foster family (me), a bit of extra money in the family now that his mom is out of school and working, etc. Yet I guess it all just needs more time? I guess I just think he needs to step up and take some responsibility for his own behaviour now. Part of me feels like he’s causing a lot of his own problems logically I know he is 9 and I know trauma is long lasting and I know he’s not completely out of control, but I admit that I thought it would be better by now.

[oorpe]

Met with a friend couple over at their place for pizza and some impromptu washing machine repairs, and I was again met with the realization that other people aren't as enchanted with household appliance maintenance as I might be. As we were pushing the de-gunked machine back in place, the guy was casually saying how he'd just bought this machine for a year or two, just until they found a place to buy, and then he'd be able to chuck it and buy a "good samsung that lasts." And I was just politely nodding along in the moment, but it definitely gave me some cultural whiplash.

Because, well, the machines are made of the same parts! The "good samsung" and this bargain one are like 70% interchangeable. The drain pump that we were just now massaging back to life is seemingly the exact same one samsung uses for a lot of their lineup, and it's not like the nice branding is going to keep it from getting clogged with heavy water buildup. Yeah, nicer brands might use slightly more robust solutions, like direct drive instead of a belt for the drum. But at the end of the day, a washing machine is a washing machine, made out of washing machine parts. Machines can be kept working indefinitely if you can find spares, or even unrelated parts that can be somehow rigged to fit the dimensions and/or required specs. Even the control electronics could be rigged out of programmable logic & relays, if you just couldn't find original parts. (Though I might avoid that outside of dire straits, because of the whole liability issue around homebrew electronics...)

I don't know, it feels like a lot of the people around me aren't at all interested in *stuff*, and I find it so strange. Stuff is great! It's often made of steel and plastic and levers and bearings! There are mechanisms! What's not to love about that?

But still a lot of my friends and acquaintances are only interested in machines as these discrete black boxes, unknowable things that do other things, that must be discarded and replaced if anything ever goes wrong and they stop doing the other things.

Anyway their approach to life is wrong, and they should also be weird shut-in tinkerers instead of socially and politically active citizens and attentive parents, boo for them!

[hopeymchope]

Imagine Shuichi Maki and Himiko thinking they ended a Tv Show…only to find out they where actually in a VIDEO GAME

Although it's certainly not impossible for such a twist to occur after the V3 ending we see (and it'd make the narrative even MORE meta), I think it has the potential to erase/undo some of the effect of previous reveals. Although you can probably work carefully around a lot of those to avoid completely ditching them. Like, was the 'audience control/vote' for Keebo's actions totally fake? Probably, but maybe you could say someone outside the game was 'playing as him' or something. Is the kid we see at the start of Chapter 6 who's addicted to Danganronpa no longer real? Maybe he's hooked on the game, you could argue...

Besides, V3 already has seen fit to trash its own prior reveals, so this would just be a logical extension of that. Remember, they slowly teased out the reveals about the asteroid, Hope's Peak, the "Gofer Project" and all that, gradually giving us backstory.... that they ultimately slam-dunk into a trash can during the final chapter.

Okay, so let's dig into the idea that they're all trapped in a video game? What could that mean for the survivors and their future?

Their best-case scenario is that they're still real people who're just plugged into a some kind of VR simulation ala DR2. You're probably aware that there are many fan AUs/fanfics that embrace exactly that concept. After all, that means you can bring back the various "dead" characters just like DR2's cast managed to do, so there's an inherent appeal there.

Outside of that possibility, though? All other possibilities become much darker. If they're in a video game, all the questions about how much of their identities are real vs fabricated are swiftly supplanted by bigger worries. Are they even real human minds, or just programs? Are they A.I.s, or are they merely doing and feeling and thinking based on their programming, effectively predetermining their actions? If they're part of a game, is it even possible to somehow separate themselves from it and "escape"? What does "escape" in such a situation mean or look like? Where could they go, and how?

The funnest part of this idea is that it could serve as a neat excuse for some of Gonta's ridiculous claims, though. "Yeah, sorry — the programmers got lazy near the end of development and just copy-pasted some of the code from Street Fighter II to patch the remaining holes during crunch. That's how Gonta accidentally wound up getting Blanka's backstory... our bad." lol

[naturalrights-retard]

The world's second largest manufacturer of electrical components has announced a 20-week delay for "engineered-to-order" (ETO) components.

Schneider Electric produces electrical products that are absolutely critical for daily life: things like electrical infrastructure, industrial automation, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and so much more rely on parts made by Schneider Electric – without them, the world as we currently know it will cease to exist.

ETO projects are essential to both public and private infrastructure. The power grid, for one, requires them. Any kind of delay in their production and delivery means the electrical grid is just one calamity away from potentially becoming a grid-down blackout situation.

Even more ominous is the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently warned about cyberattacks involving, you guessed it: the same types of ETO equipment that Schneider Electric manufactures.

In other words, the FBI is setting the stage, possibly through predictive programming, for major calamities to come by claiming that there will soon be cyberattacks involving the very same equipment produced by Schneider Electric that will be delayed at least through Q1 2024.

"The reason this is so weird is this company is very good at planning," an industry insider is quoted as saying about the situation. "They supply billions of dollars in critical components."

"They aren't perfect, but they usually have a plan when they announce something like this. Not this time. The plans behind the announcement letter (shown below) are very shallow. They got the note out way before anyone on their teams knew what is going on. Many questions with no answers. That is very weird."

(Related: When extreme food shortages and rationing inevitably arrive on America's doorstep, World War III will be the excuse.)

[blubberquark]

Programming Pattern: Overdetermined Conditionals

Related: Named Booleans

When programming set-up and tear-down functionality, or platform-specific glue code, or hacks and monkey patches to get around broken upstream or OS functionality, I often find myself writing code like if(Linux AND upstream-version <= 1.2) and then later if(NOT Linux AND ...) and even later if(NOT Windows AND ...).

Often people try to simplify my code, or they tell me the else clause is unreachable, but then some automated code scanning tool like Coverity alarms us that there is no way to handle a case when the function is called twice, first on Windows, and then on Linux, somehow. At least having the else clause explicitly marked as NOT Linux prevents some of those screw-ups.

More than that, though, conditionals that completely determine when they apply are robust against moving code around. If a certain piece of code should run only on systems that use X11 but not on Linux or only when OpenGL is available but DirectX isn't, it's easy to write a comment that says /*only when no DirectX is available*/ into an if block inside an else block.

When other programmers change around the logic above that piece of code, if they change the returns, the surrounding if clauses, the preceding if to the current else block, then the comment will happily persist. It will just be wrong. Having an overdetermined conditional like if(NOT Linux AND ...) after if(Linux AND upstream-version <= 1.2) at least prevents accidentally running code when it shouldn't.

It doesn't prevent code from not running when it should. But having flatter control structures with more conditions rather than nested control structures with fewer preconditions at least makes it easier to see which code paths are active when, and easier to copy and paste code around without screwing this up.

In platform-specific set-up code, there is usually no reason to optimise for every last CPU cycle, so I think this trade-off is worthwhile. You may disagree. Feel free to disagree! This is a judgement call. Maybe you think what I did there is harder to read.

Just don't tell me you "simplified" my code that I "forgot to optimise". That's the compiler's job.

[kudostasolutionsllp]

CAKE PHP DEVELOPMENT

What is CakePHP?

CakePHP is an open-source web framework written in PHP scripting language for web development based on the core PHP framework and MVC architecture. MVC architecture mostly Centre on model, view, and controller of the specific project to give logical separation of code from the end user.

CakePHP was created by Michal Tatarynowicz in April Year 2005. The framework gives a strong base for your application. It can hold each aspect, from the user’s beginning request all the way to the final supply of a web page.

And since the framework follows the fundamental of MVC, it permits you to simply customize and expand most aspects of your application.

The CakePHP also gives a simple organizational structure, from filenames to database table names, keeping your whole application constant and logical. This concept is easy but impressive. Go around with the protocol and you’ll always know absolutely where things are and how they’re arranged.

Here’s a quick list of CakePHP features such as:

It follows MVC architecture

Rapid development

Application scaffolding

Active, friendly community

Built-in validations

Secure, scalable, and stable

Flexible licensing

Localization

Why select CakePHP for website development:

1. Compatible : The Cakephp is compatible with several versions of PHP as well as with the in demand website directories.

2. Customizable Elements : The Elements residing inside the framework are simple to redesign and understand.

3. No Download Required : There is no requiring downloading the whole package as you can get started by directly installing the database.

4. Code Reusability : Coding from scratch isn’t needed as code-written can be used so many times in the project decrease time and effort.

5. MVC Pattern : Huge apps need a structured pattern to get started, which CakePHP offers with its special MVC pattern.

6. Code Simplicity : Easy code written in PHP can do the trick for you. The framework is simple, successful and high on areas like security and session handling.

“Make use of CakePHP means your core application’s is well checked and is being always improved.”

At Kudosta, Website Design and Development Company we provide CakePHP web services such as Framework Customization, CakePHP Module Development, CakePHP Migration and lots more. Try to deliver the best of CakePHP web services in the market.

We have worked for several big scale as well as medium scale enterprises. Our team of skilled CakePHP programmers work with passion, practice new techniques offers you the best depending on your project’s needs.

[superectojazzmage]

Thinking about doing a BioShock replay so getting this old essay/observation thing I had in my drafts for awhile and actually making it, but something I’ve kinda realized is that the reason (or maybe just one reason) that BioShock Infinite isn’t as fantastic and well-constructed compared to the iconic original (or even 2) and has had people souring on it a lot in the years after it’s release is that it forgets the real core that BioShock was built around.

Namely that what BioShock is really about is video games themselves as a medium. BioShock is a story about video gaming, a meta exploration of video games and their gameplay, narratives, and developments. The world of Rapture is carefully constructed entirely around this idea.

Rapture is a small, isolated, contained location where people are free to do whatever they want within the confines of the “system”, just like the world of any video game. A playground where people can be whatever they want to be and do whatever they want to do without fear of consequences, even things that would be regarded as evil in a normal world.

Things like plasmids and vita-chambers and Adam and Eve are all video game mechanics taken to their logical conclusion — upgrades/spells you have to genetically modify yourself into a monster to use, checkpoints that literally stitch your mutilated body back together when you come close to death so you can keep “playing”, experience points that are an actual physical substance you need to acquire to become stronger, power-ups and health pickups that are literally just addictive drugs in hypodermic needles.

And, of course, the famous “would you kindly” twist and everything involving Atlas/Fontaine and the way you can do things/use items that all the NPCs and enemies can’t is all one big warp on the idea of player characters and how players behave in video games. Your character is basically a human robot, a living weapon bred and altered and programmed from birth to be able to be like that.

You can use checkpoints and do all these freakish upgrades to your body because you’re built to be able to. You do everything the objective marker/weirdo over the radio tells you to is because that’s what you usually do in video games you’re programmed to do it, and it’s engrained so thoroughly in you that even after the spell is ostensibly broken, you just instinctively default to following a different voice’s orders. And the splicers, those dumb enemies you’re fighting? Previous players of the “game” who got in too deep and now stalk the maps, killing everything in sight and obsessively hunting for more experience points and unlockables.

The characters of Rapture, the people who built it, are twisted parodies of game developers. A controlling, hypocritical, and narcissistic auteur director, Andrew Ryan, who doesn’t believe in anything except himself and his “vision”. The pretentious prima-donna artists and writers like Sander Cohen who pour their neuroses into the work and on their coworkers. Character designers represented with a crazed surgeon, Steinman, who views people like paintings. An environmental designer, Langford, so obsessed with getting every detail right and perfecting the trees that she doesn’t notice or care about the office around her burning. Uncaring, abusive managers and producers like Suchong who don’t care what they have to do to get the project done. Cutthroat meddling executives like Fontaine who slip into the artistic world and play it for their own ends. And all around them, hapless programmers and play-testers and interns responsible for the actual nuts and bolts that make the game function suffering under the crunch or being discarded at a moment’s notice when they’re “outmoded” or try to unionize.

The central point of BioShock at its core, is to deconstruct and examine the nature of the medium and genres of video games. It is an exploration of what a world would have to be in order to function like a video game world does, it’s setting carefully constructed around this idea, and the answer is… a horror story. It’s a tale that can only really be told as a video game, because it is so inextricably linked to that medium of storytelling.

Infinite doesn’t have ANY of that.

There’s no consideration for the artform and construction of video games, no commentary on gaming culture and ideas. The worldbuilding has no central theme beyond whatever theme was in Ken Levine’ head at the moment, hence why the game cycles through God knows how many ideas without doing justice to any of them and has a completely nonsensical setting and overall plot that looks superficially smart but falls apart at a moment’s examination. The characters don’t map to anything. The gameplay doesn’t map to anything, and in fact is usually completely incongruous with the setting and story. The only thing that maybe could be seen as a twist on the gaming medium is the multiverse plot point/lighthouse scene possibly reflecting on the idea of sequels, but even then it’s so half-formed that I can’t even really discern what point they’re trying to make.

You mindlessly slaughter thousands of people to get to the next cutscene where your characters suddenly become actual thinking humans again and start responding to death realistically. You down drinkable plasmids that are barely even tangentially acknowledged by the narrative.

Compare how intensely interwoven things like plasmids and vita-chambers are with the story and worldbuilding of OG BioShock with how vestigial and barely acknowledged similar things are in Infinite. Compare the complexity and nuance of OG BioShock’s setting and characters with the cartoonish stereotypes and simplicity of Infinite’s entire cast except maybe Booker and Elizabeth themselves. Infinite can barely pick a single thesis to discuss, let alone grapple with its nature as a video game. If BioShock 1 and 2 are a story that could only be told in video game form, Infinite is like a book or movie shaped peg that Ken Levine is smashing into a video game hole.

I don’t know where I’m going with this other then making this observation but yeah. I am curious if Levine will have learned the lesson with his upcoming not-BioShock game Judas, or if it’s going to be the same pretentious bundle of incoherently jammed together ideas that Infinite was.