#What is an encoder and a decoder

[jnthn2rris]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/semiconductors--analog--multiplexer-demultiplexer/dg406dn-t1-e3-vishay-3148293

What is an encoder and a decoder, digital data converter, communication network

Single 16 Channel 5 to 20 V 50 Ω CMOS Analog Multiplexer - PLCC-28

[muted5ilence]

Me when Eddie Dear Update

But fren pointed out the low low prices for Poppy merch and such things

So Eddie is being actively haunted

And Poppy is just a very very worried character

/lh

But someone saying Eddie might get removed — he died /hj

Poppy is being quietly removed /j

My main notice is that the project actively reflects what we as a fandom (sorta, maybe) have been thinking of

We got characterization actively via the 14 clips and such

And it was “Eddie is being bullied </3” and “Poppy deserves more love” (bc most ppl favor the rest of the cast). Plus we get Sally and Frank fighting, which is funny as a Sally hater (I have mad respect for Frank for that lmao)

So reflecting those things in the COMMUNITY, we get a mostly Eddie-centric update. Confirming that he is in fact left out a LOT, that he is in fact an isolated lil guy (the isolation stuff). Poppy is *quietly* left out of stuff (me when fren said it could be like the birds migrating thing but instead she stays indoors—which tbh she already isolates herself in her home anyways). And Sally is actively being fought (a massive DUB for the Sally haters 😂)

Also I miss my boyyyy, I miss Wally 🥺 They really said “No sir” and locked him up and shit, not allowed to chat on main anymore 😔 Tbf, he did make a mess. But like c’mon, let pookie SPEAK!! Punished for being autistic /j

Anyways I think about the person who made those notebook entries “my name doesn’t matter”

ALSO OML SO MANY Ws ARE USED ACTUALLY (in reference to different things)

Wally, WaLLy, Welcome Home, WHRP, (thats it actually that I can think of)

So when the sign off is •W, I’m gonna think of what little we get

Also note, remember those questions startin’ w/ W, fellas

Who what when where why

And AAAAAAA my brain is making minor connections to things that don’t matter bc ITS SILLYYYY!!! SIlly Silly <3

Anyways yeah I miss pookie and I hope he and/or others will make codes with the new cryptography stuff we gettin’ (cipher)

I always loved those pages in activity books anyways, because looking at a key for reference and translating letters is so fun (despite the tedious back and forth if you dont have it memorized)

[strangelittlestories]

After the occupation, the princess was confined to the palace.

Once a month she'd be taken on a walk around the city, heavily guarded of course, to show the people that she still lived. It also served, of course, as a reminder of what they stood to lose if they made trouble. The princess did her best go wave and smile and give the people what encouragement she could.

The rest of the time, her life was spent in musty rooms and dusty towers. She filled most of her time scouring the castle for materials which she would sew into more and more elaborate outfits, which she would show off on the days when she was allowed outside.

Indeed, the public loved their princess and her dresses so much they'd often sketch or paint them along the route and pass the images on so that all could see the princess at least was well.

This pleased the occupiers for two reasons. First: it kept the princess out of trouble. Second: it gave them a reason to sneer and they did love a good sneer.

"What a vain creature she is!" They would remark.

"Doesn't even care we murdered her brothers so long as she gets enough satin to make her little dresses!" They squawked.

This was unfair, of course, for to call her creations "little dresses" was to call Queen Murderfun the Needlessly Genocidal "a tad piquey". Her dresses were gravity-defying wonders lace and pearl. They were thunderstorms captured in velvet and waterfalls summoned in silk. She was a wizard with silk.

Still, she bore their mockery with a tight smile and careful deference.

"Please, good sirs, my home, my people and my city now belong to you. Let me keep, at least, this one last joy."

And they sneered and they crowed most unpleasantly, but they let her keep her sewing room.

Of course, they would have known their mockery to be doubly unfair had they realised the true purpose of the princess's elaborate designs. For hidden in the intricate embroiderings across her gowns, jackets and fans, the princess had encoded secret (and very detailed) messages. When she would go on her monthly walk, the city's loyalists would line the route, sketching down the patterns to decode later.

Thus did the princess transmit all the occupiers' secrets (unearthed while supposedly 'searching the castle for old fabrics') to the city and thus did she build her resistance.

On the day the revolution finally came, she girded herself in armour of thick spider silk and whale bone. She cut a fine figure with a lacy handkerchief in her top pocket and a razor sharp knitting needle keeping her hair up.

As she waltzed through the castle to open the door for her army, the Usurper King tried to stop her and she simply unfolded her handkerchief and showed it to him.

Upon seeing the impossible arcane pattern emblazoned across it, he fell to the floor with blood streaming from his eyes.

She always had been a wizard with silk.

---

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so at https://ko-fi.com/strangelittlestories

[todays-xkcd]

They just want researchers in the enclosure to feel enriched and stimulated. ('The Enclosure' is what archivists call the shadowy world outside their archives in which so many people are trapped.)

Archive Request [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball sits at a desk, on his laptop.]

Computer: To request data from the archives, fill out this form. The pages will be scanned, encoded to CD-ROM, and mailed to you within 10 business days. Computer: Download the decoder for our propriety format here (requires Windows 98® or XP®). Cueball: Ugh, fine...

Caption: Archivists actually have everything in digital repos now, but they still do this to provide enrichment for researchers, the way zoos hide food for animals in hard-to-open-boxes.

[alchemist-of-life]

I’m curious how binary cant work for admech since day 1. At first, I thought it’s just high speed alternation in frequencies of sounds to denote 0 and 1, just like how computer cable does with voltage. So I wrote a python script to convert natural language to binary code then to sound based on the idea (so that I can curse in binary in ttrpg). However, since the human auditory cortex can only distinguish sound about 20ms apart, the current commonly used binary coding method (Unicode) that requires 8 bits to encode for one letter (16 bits for one character in Mandarin) would make binary cant less efficient than natural language through the bare ear. As a result, binary cant users not only need vocal implants but also auditory implants to receive info (or perhaps cortex implants to decode). Based on these assumptions, binary cant would be able to happen in sound frequencies not perceivable by the original human cochlea so techpriests conversation can be extremely quiet. And more efficiently, just through data cables.

Or it could be the other way around, scientists might develop more efficient binary language without basing it on the symbol system of natural languages (I’m not that familiar with linguistics so I don’t know if this is possible or not).

However, the sound techpriests made in the game mechanicus doesn’t sound like my assumption. There are definitely more than 2 pitches used in the conversations (which makes it less binary...) and they seem to be faster than natural language. I still couldn’t figure out what’s happening here. Do the twisting pitches actually encode more than one bit? Is binary cant actually an analog signal encoding a digital signal? Or is the sound effect just mean to sound better for the game?

The binary curse program (turn the sound on!):

[audliminal]

It's just a game, right? Pt 1

Masterpost

"I just don't see how sitting around is gonna do anything!" Dash argues, face to face with Sam.

"Well, if you have other ideas you're more than welcome to offer them, but we can't just take out the giw. They have more manpower than us, more equipment, and the new agents actually seem to be competent in fights! And we are a bunch of high school students!"

They are all, ostensibly in English Class right now, but even Mr. lancer has forgone the illusion of normal classwork. He assigns books and hands out reading assignments every week, but nobody really cares whether they get turned in or not. The city, after all, has a much bigger problem.

"I don't know! But sitting here-"

"He's not entirely wrong, the longer we wait the more likely they figure it out, just like we all did." As Valerie finishes speaking, the room temperature drops noticeably, and the kids all glance nervously over at Danny who's head hasn't moved from it's spot on his desk. He almost seems dead with how still he is. Beside him Tucker stares at his PDA, the only one who hasn't reacted to the temperature change.

"Should I even ask what you're messing with?" Sam asks, walking over while the others stare nervously at Danny.

"Actually, yeah." Tucker easily shifts so they can both see the webpage displayed on the handmade tech. "I got something through."

"I thought getting stuff through wasn't really the problem?"

"I mean, yeah, they're letting Everything Is Normal posts through, but this wasn't. That. I was, um, kind of fucking around with ciphers and shit? Not saying anything relevant, but just seeing whether they'd flag any old weird shit, you know? And um. I got a video out."

"Okay, but how does that help us?" Valerie asks.

"It helps because if they let a cipher through then means if I encode shit well enough, then it'll also get through."

"But if it's, like, that hard to figure out what it says, then won't it be useless on the outside?"

"The chances of it getting into the hands of someone who could crack it do seem, uh, improbable."

"Not if we stack the deck."

"Wes-"

"No, listen, I know you're all still mad at me, but like. If you can attract a community of codebreakers? Then eventually someone will crack the code on what you need them to!"

"If you have an idea then just fucking say it, Wes," Sam snaps.

"Make an ARG. We can even have like, the base level be completely United to anything real, just make up a story about, i dunno, space travel? And then bury the actual info beneath that. Eventually somebody will crack into the real stuff, and if it's popular enough by then, and the GIW tries to suppress it? That'll be even more suspicious-looking, and just make them dig harder."

"What the fuck is a ARG?" Dash asks, pulling his gaze away from their definitely-just-sleeping classmate.

"Augmented reality game. It's like an unfiction thing. Make a story but the story is interactive and people have to decode shit to figure out what's going on." Tucker glances over to Wes. "And actually not a bad idea. If we all work together, we could probably make something cool."

"You could treat it as a class-wide project." Mr. Lancer says, making everyone jump. "That way I can back you up if anyone starts asking questions."

"Make it about black holes," Danny says, finally pulling himself up from his desk. "We can base it in wormhole theory, and distract the GIW with all the theoretical science."

"What, so like we make videos that seem like they're being sent through a black hole?"

"Fuckin. Sure, why not? As if shit couldn't get any weirder around here."

"Star, please try to refrain from swearing in front of me. I know the situation is - difficult - but I am officially still your teacher."

"Sorry, Lancer."

[lxgentlefolkcomic]

First page || Previous page || Next page

Start reading Episode 1

Dialogue transcripts:

Panel 1

Jonathan: My diary! You fiend!

Panel 2

Nemo: Stay your anger, Mr. Harker. I perceived you had lied to me, and for the safety of this vessel and its crew it is my responsibility to determine the truth.

Panel 3

Jonathan: The truth about what?

Nemo (offscreen): Your reasons for coming to sea, for one.

Godfrey: This is a monstrous invasion of privacy!

Panel 4

Jack: He wouldn’t be able to read it, anyway—Harker uses shorthand.

Nemo (offscreen): Yes, and wisely so. Fortunately, I have had occasion to study this form of shorthand, and was easily able to decode it.

Panel 5

Nemo: Consider the facts, Mr. Harker. I found you three in the wake of a great monster, sifting through the wreckage of its latest target. When Mr. Harker lied to me about your intentions, my suspicion was aroused.

Panel 6

Nemo: I suppose you suspected me, just as I suspected you. Yet now, with the evidence of this encoded diary you assumed would be safe from prying eyes, I am satisfied on the matter.

Panel 7

Nemo: I am sorry, Mr. Harker, that I have brought up so many unpleasant memories of this “Count”. Now that I have verified your trustworthiness, perhaps I can win your trust in return.

[foone]

Have you ever wondered what's the difference between a Beta and VHS tape? Like, physically? They're both half-inch (12.7mm) magnetic tapes, after all... and you can't exactly put a beta tape into a VHS VCR, or vice versa... but what if we opened up the cassettes and transplanted the tape between them?

So I opened the beta (left) and vhs (right) tapes

I wound the tape from the beta onto the VHS tape

I needed to unspool the old VHS tape, which is hard. this thing is nearly a half-kilometer long, about 1400 feet. So how do you do that? A POWER DRILL!

And I put it back together. And I stuck it in the VHS VCR, and hit play.

Well, it doesn't really show anything. The VHS VCR can't decode the Beta signal, because it's encoded differently. There's no sound, either.

But what about the tape? Is it similar enough to VHS tape that we could record onto it?

YEP! Without any issues.

I'd love to try the opposite way, but I don't have as many beta tapes to spare, and also my beta VCRs are barely functional as it is, they have trouble playing beta tapes, let alone VHS tapes in horrible hybrid forms.

[anouchard]

Okie dokie, solution time!

Ya know, just in case anyone has been wondering what all the funky codes meant.

1. The ciphers: these were mainly encoded using ROT[insert days left in countdown here]. Most people figured this out - congrats if you did! The exceptions were the extra codes (ROT18, because why not?*), the fake-out solution post code (ROT160, because of the "apologies for the deception" reference), the FINAL final code (ROT30, for episode 30), and the code for when we had 24 hours remaining (ROT24, because a shift of one felt FAR too easy). 24 was a fun one - the hidden song was 24 Hours, released quite recently by my friend Chloe (we shared a day job a while back, and she really is doing AMAZINGLY well!).

2. The songs themselves: these were (almost) all from the 'Tunes To Blackmail Your Boss To' playlist. The exceptions were the two Gorillaz tracks, which were both referenced with timestamps for ...

3. A laugh: the Italics in the raw ciphers, when all put together, spelt out "guess who gets the last ...", with the final clue of the 'Clint Eastwood' intro filling in the (hopefully obvious, by this point) "laugh"! This was perhaps my favourite moment to record, and I also enjoyed the ambiguity and malleability of the chosen phrase (which *may* come in to play should we ever return to this). After all ... does she really?

Right, that should be everything! Let me know if you have any questions, and thank you so much for playing along - It's been really grand (and fun!) seeing all your theories, puzzling-outs, joy, and occasional confusion.

Until the next time, then ... 🥰

*Edit: I know people were pretty stumped by the final two lines of the EA code! Once decoded, all you had to do was Google the first line to get to 'Feel Good', and then use the second line as a timestamp. Infuriating, I know - it really was as simple as cutting the Gordian Knot. 😁

[oriley42]

Serious question but no need to answer if you don’t want to

I see a lot of talk about Amber’s portrayal being sexist in the show, but I’m not quite sure why? To me her motives always seemed really well-defined (high pressure = “I’m only worthy when I’m successful”) so she puts on this sharky mask with a feminine facade so she is feminine enough to get a certain amount of approval but never shows how much she cares (which could be used against her but also could be used to undermine her “oh you’re too soft”). I thought the show did an excellent job of showing a mask for her

But a lot of people talk about 00s sexism and how it impacts her characterization. The sexism… Is it that she gets called a cutthroat bitch? Or how her story revolves around a man after she leaves House’s team? Is it the fridging?

Any of those could be it I guess but it just sounds like you and others are talking about something a little more fundamental to her personhood so I thought I’d ask if I’m missing anything.

Very interesting question! I think you're getting at exactly the trickiness of the issue, which is that sexism always operates systemically. It's not that any key aspect of Amber's character "is" misogynist, it's that every aspect of her character is automatically filtered through a lens of sexism.

In today's world where "bitch" has been very de-clawed, turned into a more casual and way less gendered insult that's used without cruel intention in queer slang, I think it's hard to understand just how violent the term was--and was meant to be--in the aughts. House in canon is not calling Amber a bitch in a cute, almost self-deprecating, friendly way (though I think it's valid to re-write it that way in fic to defuse the term!). He is calling her a bitch to contain and belittle and dehumanize her. We see the term mobilized this way against Cuddy in 5 to 9 as well: calling a woman a bitch was an extremely powerful rhetorical tool to turn any dangerously competent, brilliant, threateningly accomplished woman back into a harmless, debased, controllable object. So, "CB" reflects how easily the fact that Amber is the "female House" gets turned against her--it doesn't mean she's an eccentric genius like him, it means she's an evil copycat who needs to be put down. And this kind of structural logic applies to her whole characterization--it doesn't matter that House does it all more frequently and worse, if she does it, it's unacceptable because she's a woman. (There are parallels here with how racism means that when Foreman acts like House, he also gets the axe instead of the narrative bending over backwards to make what he did alright.) That's why she was fired, after all!

And her death. Woof. Classic case of killing a woman for man-pain. Everything supposedly about her death is actually about how her violent destruction can be used to fuel Wilson and House's character arcs. The narrative is occasionally conscious of this, for example, Wilson saying "none of you even liked Amber" is an almost metatextual reminder of how cruelly she was disenfranchised in every way (including the sexism of her trying to "defect" to the men's team early on, having no female friends, because unlike House who has so many people orbiting him, she is truly alone). Comparing her death to Kutner's is instructive: Kutner gets a whole episode that's about characters desperately trying to know him better. They trace their relationships towards him. Amber, on the other hand, is nearly absent from her own death. The characters trace away from her and towards the way male characters feel (Wilson's loss, House's guilt). Amber becomes just an imagined figure of House's guilt. Even her ghost is not her own. (Though I think many fans do a more feminist read and reclaim the way she haunts the narrative--but imho that would be a negotiated if not fully oppositional reading, to use Stuart Hall's decoding/encoding terms.)

One easy way to see that gendered difference is in how the show refers to these characters after death. Kutner is always "Kutner," never just "House's dead fellow" or rarely "our dead colleague." Amber is often referred to as "Wilson's dead girlfriend." Kutner is his own person, Amber rhetorically gets reduced to an object belonging to a man.

In conclusion: sexism operates structurally, which can make it hard to identify! And one of the funny effects of contemporary fandom doing so much good work to un-fridge women and give marginalized female characters richer personalities and more chances to grow is that canon's intended message of sexism gets obscured. Which, is awesome? Keep up the good work! Let's make misogyny unintelligible 🎉

[suppermariobroth]

In 2019, an activity called "Mario Secret Message Fun Decoding" was posted on Nintendo of America's official activity site. The top image presents an encoded answer to the following question:

Oh no! Undodog undid Cat Mario’s homework! What will Cat Mario do now?

The bottom image shows the key to decoding the top image. The answer is provided in an image linked here to avoid spoiling the solution.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

[thepinkpanther83]

The Harmonic Equation (Pt.1 Frequency Unknown)

Story Prompt: “Turtle Song”

Donatello x Fem!Reader - Soulmate Song AU - Action/Romance

PROMPT:

The turtles have, and continually practice a "Turtle Song." Their mate(s) or potential mate(s) is/are the only human who can hear/react to said song. That's how they know that person is "The One."

💌 Author’s Note:

This story began as a soulmate trope- soft, strange, and a little bit science fiction. But like all things involving Donatello, it quickly turned into something deeper. Expect tech, tension, a “slow-burn” bond rooted in logic and longing, and a melody only two souls can hear. Thanks for reading.

~Pinkie 🍒

Masterlist

Find me on AO3.

Read this story on AO3.

Find the full series on AO3.

Summary:

Some songs aren’t meant to be heard by everyone. Just Two.

In the underworld of New York City, brilliant but reclusive Donatello has spent years chasing resonance anomalies- mysterious frequencies that defy physics and logic. What he doesn’t expect is to hear one humming softly from the lips of his new systems specialist.

You don’t even realize you're doing it. It’s just a tune you’ve always known, one that no one else seems to recognize. But Donnie hears it. Feels it. The exact, impossible melody that’s haunted his experiments, encoded in forgotten tech, and burned into his own DNA all his life.

Drawn together by something more ancient than science and more dangerous than fate, the two of you unravel not just your connection, but a conspiracy within the Foot Clan that wants your song for themselves. You're more than a genius assistant. You're a living harmonic key- and someone's out to weaponize the equation only Donatello can decode.

Next Chapter: Chapter Two: "Harmonic Anomaly"

Click "Keep Reading" below the cut to read. 😘

Chapter One: “Frequency Unknown”

Donnie adjusts a fiberoptic relay by hand, jaw ticking as he concentrates. The hum is quiet at first- barely audible even to him. A slow, tonal scale, soft and oddly grounding. He doesn’t notice he’s doing it until the relay’s pulse syncs with it.

He stops.

Silence again. The only sound is the mechanical chirp of the system finishing its boot sequence.

A quick glance around.

No one’s there. Of course not.

He exhales through his nostrils, gives himself a little shake. “Focus, Donnie,” he mutters, adjusting his glasses. “No time for... musical psychosis.”

But even as he turns back to the console, the notes linger in his mind. Not fully formed. Not even a melody.

Just a feeling.

The smell hits you first.

Not unpleasant, just... unexpected. Like sun-warmed copper and soldering wire, spliced with something mossy, something deeper- wet stone, old air. You grip the strap of your duffel bag tighter and remind yourself, for the third time, that you’re a professional.

Not someone currently standing in a sewer junction, waiting to meet up a mutant turtle with multiple PhDs.

“Just keep breathing,” you murmur to yourself, eyes scanning the far end of the tunnel. It’s dim but not pitch black- clearly, someone’s been working down here. There are temporary light fixtures strung up along the concrete walls, illuminating crates of tech components, unspooled cables, a stack of dismantled servers, and… is that a Nintendo 64?

You smile in spite of yourself.

Then you hear it.

A quiet hum.

You turn toward the sound instinctively. It's not mechanical- doesn’t match the low thrum of generators or the occasional hiss of air pressure valves. It’s melodic. Not a full tune. Just a few tones. A scale? You can’t place it, but it makes something familiar flicker in the back of your mind.

Comfort? Nostalgia?

Then there’s a voice. Smooth, low, undeniably intelligent.

“You’re early.”

You spin around and nearly trip over your own feet.

He’s already there.

Seven feet of muscle, shell, and gentle wariness, standing just beyond the edge of the light. Dark purple bandana, soft hazel eyes, and large, tridactyl hands that twitch like he’s restraining the urge to fidget. You can tell. You do that, too.

“I… uh- hi,” you manage, your brain doing cartwheels behind your eyeballs. “Donatello?”

He inclines his head slightly. “Most call me Donnie. You must be the systems specialist Leo mentioned.”

You nod, and your brain finally coughs up your name and credentials. He listens, but his eyes never leave your face- not in a weird way, just… like he’s analyzing something. Or waiting for something to click.

The hum is gone. But the memory of it lingers like phantom static under your skin.

He adjusts his glasses with one three-fingered hand, the movement smooth and practiced. "Systems specialist with a background in quantum computing and... art history?" There's a faint smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "Fascinating combination."

The tech gauntlet on his right arm whirs softly as he gestures toward the makeshift lab. "You'll forgive the unconventional workspace. The surface world tends to get... twitchy about my kind of experiments." His voice drops conspiratorially. "Especially the ones involving plasma-based energy sources and stolen government satellites."

His tail shifts slightly behind him, the movement drawing your eye to the way his plastron flexes as he breathes. There's something strangely hypnotic about the play of shadows across his shell.

"Come," he says suddenly, turning with surprising grace for someone his size. "I'll show you why we needed someone with your particular skill set." The lights flicker as he passes under them, casting his massive form in alternating bands of light and shadow.

You follow him deeper into the tunnel-lab, your boots clicking softly against the damp concrete. There’s a low buzz of machinery, the scent of solder and ozone intensifying as you step into what you can only describe as… a nerd’s fever dream.

Towering server racks blink with mismatched LEDs. Holotable projections flicker mid-boot. There’s an old-school cathode monitor rigged up next to what looks like a military-grade tracking system, and hanging from the ceiling? A disco ball. Naturally.

Donnie moves through it like he was born there. Because, well- he was.

“Most of this is cobbled from salvage and donor parts,” he explains, motioning to a massive console that’s half duct tape, half alien chic. “But the encryption hub is our real concern. Mikey keeps accidentally brute-forcing the firewall when he tries to stream... whatever the hell ‘Pizza Lads React’ is.”

You laugh, unable to help yourself. “That’s a cybercrime, you know.”

Donnie sighs. “Believe me, I’ve informed him. In triplicate.”

As he turns to one of the control panels, your curiosity gets the better of you. You wander a few paces, peering at a panel with handwritten Post-It notes and color-coded wires. Something about the power routing looks off- like the failsafe feedback loop is reversed?

You reach out without thinking- just to nudge a component. Just a millimeter.

Click.

A sharp zap cracks through your fingers, not painful but definitely attention-grabbing. The panel lights flare bright, a high-pitched whirrrr whining from the device as warning lights start blinking.

“Ah- oh crap-”

Before you can pull back fully, he’s there.

Fast.

One huge hand closes gently but firmly around your wrist, the other flipping a switch with expert precision to kill the current. It happens in less than two seconds.

The lights cut.

Silence.

Only his breath, a little heavier now, and yours.

When you look up, he’s close. So close. Taller than you remembered a moment ago. His brow ridges furrowed, concern radiating from him like heat.

“You alright?” His voice is softer this time. Less playful. More protective.

You nod dumbly, still holding your hand in his. His fingers are warm, callused, surprisingly careful for someone who could probably bench press a van.

“Didn’t fry anything vital, I hope?” you joke weakly, trying to inject a little levity back into your voice.

He doesn’t laugh. He’s scanning you with those hyper-attuned eyes, head tilting slightly as if listening for something internal. Finally, he lets go, and your hand feels a little colder than it should.

“Don’t touch the blue ports,” he says gently, with a crooked grin. “Unless you want to discover what a localized microburst feels like.”

“Got it,” you say, flexing your fingers. “Lesson learned.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Not creepy. Not invasive. Just… reading. Studying. A quiet puzzle to solve.

Then he turns back to the console, his voice once again smooth and casual.

“Still, you’re the first person to spot that misrouted feedback line. I’ve been trying to isolate that loop for a week.”

You blink. “Really?”

“Mmhmm. I think I like you already, systems specialist.”

He adjusts his glasses with that now becoming familiar, endearing motion, the glow from the console reflecting off the lenses. "Tell me, dove-" the pet name slips out effortlessly, "-what does your gut say about quantum encryption paired with a neural net filter? Hypothetically speaking."

As you open your mouth to answer, there's a sudden thunk from above. Dust sprinkles down from the ceiling. Donnie's head snaps up, muscles tensing beneath his shell.

"Raph," he mutters, nostrils flaring slightly. "He's early for patrol." His gaze flicks back to you, hazel eyes softening. "Unless you'd prefer to stay and debate the merits of heuristic algorithms versus-"

Another thunk, louder this time. A voice booms through the pipes: "DONNIE! Quit geek-flirting and get your shell up here!"

Donnie's sigh is long-suffering, but there's amusement in it. "Subtlety isn't his strong suit." He offers you his arm, the tech-gauntlet whirring softly. "Shall we? I promise the surface air up there is marginally less... sewer-adjacent."

His smirk is all mischief and caffeine.

And something warmer beneath.

Later that day, you’ve gone home, and Donnie’s crouched over a soldering array that refuses to cooperate. He's elbow-deep in circuitry, posture tight with frustration.

The lab is quiet.

And then- again, he hums. Instinctive. Automatic.

But this time, it’s... slightly different. Like the pattern has shifted to include a note that wasn’t there before. It throws him off.

He stops mid-hum, blinking at the open panel in front of him. The array still isn’t working. But now his mind’s somewhere else.

He taps the comms on his gauntlet. Static. Then diagnostic blips. Nothing strange.

“Residual resonance?” he wonders aloud, voice low. “Or cross-feedback from the ambient sonar net?”

A pause.

“No, it’s too specific.”

He frowns, typing something quickly into his terminal. The notes are already slipping from memory, like a dream you can't quite chase down. But the feeling? It lingers.

His fingers pause over the keyboard, the soft glow of the screen casting shadows across his face. The numbers and equations blur as his mind drifts back to earlier- to you.

The way your fingers had twitched when you spotted the misrouted feedback line. The way your breath hitched when he caught your wrist. The way your pulse jumped under his touch- fast, alive, reacting to him.

His jaw tightens.

A slow exhale.

Then, without thinking, he pulls up a new file.

SUBJECT: AUDITORY PHENOMENA - OBSERVATION LOG

Hypothesis: The tonal pattern is not mechanical. It is adaptive.

His fingers hover.

He types:

"Possible external influence. Requires further study."

A moment passes.

Then, softer- almost reluctantly, he adds:

"Subject: My New Assistant."

The cursor blinks.

Waiting.

His fingers tap once against the desk.

Then, decisively, he closes the file.

But he doesn’t delete it.

And when he stands, his tail flicks once- sharp, restless, before he turns back to the array.

The hum doesn’t return.

Not yet.

But the silence feels different now.

Like the air before a storm.

The next time you’re in the lab, the air feels charged.

You wouldn’t know why- everything seems normal. Donnie’s posture is relaxed, his tech is responsive for once, and the coffee he offers you is only slightly over-caffeinated instead of jet-fuel strong. But there’s a current under the surface. Something restless in the way his fingers twitch on the keyboard when you lean too close. The way he’s watching you without looking.

You don’t notice.

You’re too busy cross-referencing a capacitor spec sheet, muttering to yourself as you work through voltage thresholds.

And that’s when it happens.

You hum.

It’s soft, under your breath- just a handful of notes, barely a melody. A reflex, you figure it’s probably something you heard on the street, and it stuck in your head. It isn’t even deliberate.

But Donnie freezes.

Only for a second. A glitch in the system.

His eyes flick toward you.

No- toward your lips.

Then your hands.

Then the air between you, as if trying to see the vibration.

His breath catches. Something spikes in his chest- recognition, instinct, alarm, maybe. His fingers twitch above the interface. For a moment, he forgets to blink.

You stop humming. Unaware.

The moment passes.

But it doesn’t pass for him.

He swallows hard and returns to his work, lips pressed into a line.

But later- when you’re gone again, he reopens that file. The one he almost deleted.

And adds:

“Pattern matched. .0327 Hz variance. Origin: Her.”

Then, after a pause:

“Further exposure required. Memory response noted. Avoid eye contact next time.”

The file auto-saves.

Donnie stares at the screen for a long, long moment.

And finally whispers, so quiet even he barely hears it:

“What are you?”

Next Chapter: Chapter Two: "Harmonic Anomaly"

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Masterlist

[bambi-kinos]

A question to be taken lightly but not meant to offend you or anything. But who was/ is the walrus? like in the video, in the song(s) and what can it mean, really? ( I "know" the "official" content) but I don't really believe neither wrote songs w/o meaning anything or used double meaning words for nothing. I also don't think everything has a meaning or an answer.

I think the concept of the Walrus is amorphous and shifted around depending on their moods. A meaning can't be pinned down because the meaning changes depending on the context. The most reliable interpretation of the Walrus is that it demonstrates John's mindset depending on how he uses it. Otherwise I don't think there's anything special about the Walrus in of itself.

So the official story is that John wrote I Am The Walrus to get back at the people who were convinced that every Beatles song had a special encoded meaning. John responded with one of his nonsense poems and he ended up choosing Lewis Carrol's creation The Walrus as a touchstone. Right? Right.

There used to be a post floating around waxing rhapsodic about how John modeled himself on the Walrus and Paul on the Carpenter and this was because the Carpenter could ONLY be Paul and zomg you guiz SYMBOLISM. It was all so intentional!!! (Personally I think that shit gets more and more pretentious the more I think about it.)

It's a cute idea but it's missing out on one important factor: John didn't think in those terms. There is a connection between him, Paul, and Carroll in John's mind but it would only make sense to John and perhaps Paul. When John says he wrote it to bite back at critics, who were using their Ovaltine decoder rings trying to figure out the DEEP INTENTIONAL SYMBOLISM OF BEATLE SONGS, I think he meant it. He made the Walrus a touchstone because John loved Carroll's wordplay and poetry. They were aiming for an animal motif and it fit. It was a cute shorthand nod to his genuinely sociopathic partner, John got to watch a bunch of overeducated pencil jockeys trying to figure it all out, he laughed, good times had by all. The important part is that it wasn't a big deal.

But for John there was dismay on the way. People would not shut the fuck up about the Walrus and what it meant and John is getting increasingly angry because it doesn't mean anything and now a bunch of people are getting fired up over nothing and OOOOHHH GLASS ONIONNNNNN. So John puts in the Walrus again on Plastic Ono Band, again as a big middle finger to all of these blowhards and me-tooers all pulling on his coattails going "hey John! hey John! what about the Beatles! what about the Beatles John! what does it all mean John!" So John writes "I was the walrus but now I'm John" on the track God. The Walrus itself still does not mean anything to John, he's just weaponizing the perceptions of fans against themselves. In their minds "the Walrus" represented The Beatles and John's own Beatleness and John knew that. The boomer fans at the time were absolutely convinced that I Am The Walrus was a secret masterwork of unbreakable code...simply because they didn't understand it. "I don't get it so it must be super deep!"

And the thing is John hated that kind of thinking. He appreciated mystery sure but he was a lot more invested in accessibility. He wanted art to be for everyone, he wanted everyone to invest their own meaning into art. That was why he was so taken with Yoko in the first place, because Yoko's artwork is based in creating open ended experiences where the art itself is created by the thoughts and feelings and sensations you experienced while you interact with her exhibits. You don't get in the bag to look cool, you do it so you can have the experience of being in the bag, even if it was just "well that sucked." What John loved about it was the "YES" factor, that Yoko Ono wants the audience to create the art with her by interacting with her exhibits. Art is not a static thing where you sit on your ass and stare at it or listen to it, art is the thing that happens inside your head when you hear "I am the Eggman/I am the walrus/googoo gah joob" and think "what the fuck does that mean" and then you develop a personal interpretation with your thoughts and feelings that belongs to you and you alone. (And that is why Yoko is actually kinda underrated! She was too hip for the room man. You just don't get it man....)

But the fans and overeducated idiots didn't want to do that. They wanted strict prescriptions for interpreting Beatle music. Many fans refused to appreciate I Am The Walrus for what it is: a silly and slightly lewd/violent nonsense poem John probably worked out on the back of an envelope. (Written with Paul's bottom as a table, I'm sure.) They wanted it to be more than it was instead of appreciating the joy that John gifted them by singing the song for them.

So John turned it around on them in God and on Plastic Ono Band. They want to believe in the Walrus so much? Fine. He'll kill the Walrus. It's dead. There is no more Walrus, there are no more Beatles, there is only John, and Yoko, and John&Yoko. The fans wanted the Walrus to mean something so badly that they strangled the poor thing to death and John had to put it out of its misery. That poor fucking creature, John just wanted it to amuse the children and look what the cretins made him do. The Walrus was supposed to be a cute nod to Lewis Carroll, not be a fucking Beatle thing!

It's important to note John's (warranted) bitter and volatile mindset towards the Beatles machine. I want to make a whole post about it someday but John was pretty furious and I think he was right to be. But he also chose to deal with it by killing what the fans loved. I think he was justified but also, oof.

Wrt the music video: I believe it's Paul in the Walrus costume right? George referenced this in the When We Was Fab music video where there's a left handed bass guitarist in the Walrus mask. So yes, there was a link to Paul and the Walrus in the beginning. I think this was part of John's private joke. Paul was the closest to his heart so of course Paul should get to play the character from John's favorite poet. John even references this in Glass Onion, the last time he tried throwing Paul a bone. But again, I don't think it meant anything overly deep or significant as a symbol in of itself. The Walrus doesn't mean anything innately.

But then we get into the interesting stuff: John referencing "the Walrus" in his Just Like Starting Over demo. Specifically referencing taking the Walrus back to bed! Well, well, well. And I believe there's an interesting line from Paul in 1979 isn't there where he says "I am the walrus/was the walrus but now I'm Paul" in an interview or something? I may be making that up, I'm not sure.

So what does this big slurry mean?

I think that the Walrus started out in John's mind as just a cute literary toy for Beatle fans to puzzle over. The overeducated and overeager pencil jockeys got one in the eye trying to make sense of gibberish and John got to indulge in his love of cosplay by sticking Paul in a Walrus suit. And it should have ended there, except it didn't, everyone and their dog assumed the Walrus meant something (what about the poor Eggman???) and John tried to pacify them and then that didn't work and then he goes FINE YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE A WALRUS ANYMORE. And he pulps the Walrus.

The change comes with John's shift in mood. Paul's arrest in Japan legitimately threw John for a loop IMO. That's when John started softening towards Paul, that's when Bermuda happened and his creativity came roaring back. The sudden reminder that he could lose Paul forever and then John's realization "I can steer my own ship, I'm in charge of my own life!" which resulted in John starting the process on leaving Yoko under his own power, a very vital point. John was getting his own divorce lawyer according to industry rumors. John was reemerging as the hero he needed to be to save himself and forgive Paul.

All of that culminated in "the time has come the walrus said/for you and me to stay in bed again." If the Walrus charts John's inner landscape and his personal feelings towards Paul then this means he was coming out of the fugue and wanted to dote on Paul again, like he used to. Figure out where they could go from here. And it seems John was very optimistic about his future with Paul to be perfectly honest. Taking Paul back to bed after all that time? And Paul seems to have been the one who instigated it! He was still hot for John! Whew!

So all that IMO is what the Walrus "really means." I don't think it's definitive and there's lots of stuff I am definitely missing and didn't include here. Someone I used to know once said she didn't put anything past John because he read everything and kept it all stored in his head, so who knows maybe the jerk off interpretation about the Walrus and the Carpenter and Paul is true.

But ultimately it's just a word with no genuine connection to its animal counterpart and the purpose of it is as a demonstration of John's personal thoughts and feelings mostly (but not always) relating to Paul McCartney.

[blackwoolncrown]

The issue w literacy is like this...

I have a friend who grew up poor. Neither of their parents completed college. Both his parents are what I would say is 'proper' literate by which I mean they *can* read any common book you'd find for sale in a Barnes and Noble. But...

I'm very close w their family and once in conversation it came out that their father, only semi jokingly, admitted he kind of didn't trust me because I can parse legalese.

My friend themselves can hardly understand talking to legal professionals because they speak in casual legalese. I can't always get through legalese in Spanish because I'm not fully literate in it. Even while I can understand most of the words, it's hard at times to maintain the clauses and meaning of entire sentences so I can't reliably make correct legal decisions without a friend to translate, when it comes to legal contracts.

Literacy is the block here.

-------

Part of what can make reading difficult at higher levels is how much data you have to crunch just to get through a sentence- you kind of have to be able to 'hold' 15, 20, 30 bits of meaning at once so you can understand the sentences- it doesn't go word by word.

This is why there are people who can read at a 5th grade level but get 'tired' or confused when trying to read a college level paper, medical text, legalese or excessively flowery or 'outdated' writing. You have to hold a lot more data in your mind at once, remembering it all while adding the next few sentence fragments and clauses, and draw meaning from it as a whole in order to understand what's being said.

So you can be phonetically literate but illiterate at higher levels---- AND THAT'S WHERE ALL THE IMPORTANT INFORMATION IS BEING KEPT.

It was hurtful when my friends dad expressed a gut distrust of me for understanding legalese-- which he associated with upper class people he couldn't trust--- especially when being able to parse legalese would have been especially helpful to him as a lower class citizen whom the government intentionally fucks over by hiding information in code.

Language is code. It's all code. This shit has levels to it.

Two of my hyperfixations are religious/spiritual texts and scientific texts. For the same reason-- both of these hold incredible information about the world, much of it extremely empowering to the reader. But both of them require decoding!

For thousands of years, secrets about how to manipulate and understand the world we live in has been hidden from people- intentionally mind you- via encoding them in a way that requires higher or specific types of literacy.

Medical literacy is also a specifically low these days which SUCKS especially bc we live-- if you live in the US specifically-- in an age where we can no longer rely on our government to assess and apply scientific information for us beneficially, or even communicate it to us clearly.

However, studies and such are (at least for now) still available-- but the average person cannot read a single medical paper correctly nor do the cross-reference research correctly in order to apply this information in any meaningful way. Because in that realm they are illiterate.

People should be way less fucking concerned about trying to maintain a reading participation badge for audiobooks and more concerned with how much information they may or may not have access to because of a lack of literacy.

[zephiris]

Being autistic feels like having to emulate brain hardware that most other people have. Being allistic is like having a social chip in the brain that handles converting thoughts into social communication and vice versa while being autistic is like using the CPU to essentially emulate what that social chip does in allistic people.

Skip this paragraph if you know about video codec hardware on GPUs. Similarly, some computers have hardware chips specifically meant for encoding and decoding specific video formats like H.264 (usually located in the GPU), while other computers might not have those chips built in meaning that encoding and decoding videos must be done “by hand” on the CPU. That means it usually takes longer but is also usually more configurable, meaning that the output quality of the CPU method can sometimes surpass the hardware chip’s output quality depending on the settings set for the CPU encoding.

In conclusion, video codec encoding and decoding for computers is to social encoding and decoding for autistic/allistic people.

[definitelyunhingedagentphoenix]

Fabricator: we've received an encoded message from the E.O.D

Zor: ... Alright. Decode it and read it to me then. Maybe they've finally come to their senses and surrendered.

Fabricator: *giggling as she decrypts it*

Zor: oh god, what?

Fabricator: *hands them the note that says "you just lost the game"*

Zor: ... Fucking hell!