#data entry order processing

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Epic Systems, a lethal health record monopolist

Epic Systems makes the dominant electronic health record (EHR) system in America; if you're a doctor, chances are you are required to use it, and for every hour a doctor spends with a patient, they have to spend two hours doing clinically useless bureaucratic data-entry on an Epic EHR.

How could a product so manifestly unfit for purpose be the absolute market leader? Simple: as Robert Kuttner describes in an excellent feature in The American Prospect, Epic may be a clinical disaster, but it's a profit-generating miracle:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-01-epic-dystopia/

At the core of Epic's value proposition is "upcoding," a form of billing fraud that is beloved of hospital administrators, including the "nonprofit" hospitals that generate vast fortunes that are somehow not characterized as profits. Here's a particularly egregious form of upcoding: back in 2020, the Poudre Valley Hospital in Ft Collins, CO locked all its doors except the ER entrance. Every patient entering the hospital, including those receiving absolutely routine care, was therefore processed as an "emergency."

In April 2020, Caitlin Wells Salerno – a pregnant biologist – drove to Poudre Valley with normal labor pains. She walked herself up to obstetrics, declining the offer of a wheelchair, stopping only to snap a cheeky selfie. Nevertheless, the hospital recorded her normal, uncomplicated birth as a Level 5 emergency – comparable to a major heart-attack – and whacked her with a $2755 bill for emergency care:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/27/crossing-a-line/#zero-fucks-given

Upcoding has its origins in the Reagan revolution, when the market-worshipping cultists he'd put in charge of health care created the "Prospective Payment System," which paid a lump sum for care. The idea was to incentivize hospitals to provide efficient care, since they could keep the difference between whatever they spent getting you better and the set PPS amount that Medicare would reimburse them. Hospitals responded by inventing upcoding: a patient with controlled, long-term coronary disease who showed up with a broken leg would get coded for the coronary condition and the cast, and the hospital would pocket both lump sums:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled

The reason hospital administrators love Epic, and pay gigantic sums for systemwide software licenses, is directly connected to the two hours that doctors spent filling in Epic forms for every hour they spend treating patients. Epic collects all that extra information in order to identify potential sources of plausible upcodes, which allows hospitals to bill patients, insurers, and Medicare through the nose for routine care. Epic can automatically recode "diabetes with no complications" from a Hierarchical Condition Category code 19 (worth $894.40) as "diabetes with kidney failure," code 18 and 136, which gooses the reimbursement to $1273.60.

Epic snitches on doctors to their bosses, giving them a dashboard to track doctors' compliance with upcoding suggestions. One of Kuttner's doctor sources says her supervisor contacts her with questions like, "That appointment was a 2. Don’t you think it might be a 3?"

Robert Kuttner is the perfect journalist to unravel the Epic scam. As a journalist who wrote for The New England Journal of Medicine, he's got an insider's knowledge of the health industry, and plenty of sources among health professionals. As he tells it, Epic is a cultlike, insular company that employs 12.500 people in its hometown of Verona, WI.

The EHR industry's origins start with a GW Bush-era law called the HITECH Act, which was later folded into Obama's Recovery Act in 2009. Obama provided $27b to hospitals that installed EHR systems. These systems had to more than track patient outcomes – they also provided the data for pay-for-performance incentives. EHRs were already trying to do something very complicated – track health outcomes – but now they were also meant to underpin a cockamamie "incentives" program that was supposed to provide a carrot to the health industry so it would stop killing people and ripping off Medicare. EHRs devolved into obscenely complex spaghetti systems that doctors and nurses loathed on sight.

But there was one group that loved EHRs: hospital administrators and the private companies offering Medicare Advantage plans (which also benefited from upcoding patients in order to soak Uncle Sucker):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8649706/

The spread of EHRs neatly tracks with a spike in upcharging: "from 2014 through 2019, the number of hospital stays billed at the highest severity level increased almost 20 percent…the number of stays billed at each of the other severity levels decreased":

https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/OEI-02-18-00380.pdf

The purpose of a system is what it does. Epic's industry-dominating EHR is great at price-gouging, but it sucks as a clinical tool – it takes 18 keystrokes just to enter a prescription:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2729481

Doctors need to see patients, but their bosses demand that they satisfy Epic's endless red tape. Doctors now routinely stay late after work and show up hours early, just to do paperwork. It's not enough. According to another one of Kuttner's sources, doctors routinely copy-and-paste earlier entries into the current one, a practice that generates rampant errors. Some just make up random numbers to fulfill Epic's nonsensical requirements: the same source told Kuttner that when prompted to enter a pain score for his TB patients, he just enters "zero."

Don't worry, Epic has a solution: AI. They've rolled out an "ambient listening" tool that attempts to transcribe everything the doctor and patient say during an exam and then bash it into a visit report. Not only is this prone to the customary mistakes that make AI unsuited to high-stakes, error-sensitive applications, it also represents a profound misunderstanding of the purpose of clinical notes.

The very exercise of organizing your thoughts and reflections about an event – such as a medical exam – into a coherent report makes you apply rigor and perspective to events that otherwise arrive as a series of fleeting impressions and reactions. That's why blogging is such an effective practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

The answer to doctors not having time to reflect and organize good notes is to give them more time – not more AI. As another doctor told Kuttner: "Ambient listening is a solution to a self-created problem of requiring too much data entry by clinicians."

EHRs are one of those especially hellish public-private partnerships. Health care doctrine from Reagan to Obama insisted that the system just needed to be exposed to market forces and incentives. EHRs are designed to allow hospitals to win as many of these incentives as possible. Epic's clinical care modules do this by bombarding doctors with low-quality diagnostic suggestions with "little to do with a patient’s actual condition and risks," leading to "alert fatigue," so doctors miss the important alerts in the storm of nonsense elbow-jostling:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5058605/

Clinicians who actually want to improve the quality of care in their facilities end up recording data manually and keying it into spreadsheets, because they can't get Epic to give them the data they need. Meanwhile, an army of high-priced consultants stand ready to give clinicians advise on getting Epic to do what they need, but can't seem to deliver.

Ironically, one of the benefits that Epic touts is its interoperability: hospitals that buy Epic systems can interconnect those with other Epic systems, and there's a large ecosystem of aftermarket add-ons that work with Epic. But Epic is a product, not a protocol, so its much-touted interop exists entirely on its terms, and at its sufferance. If Epic chooses, a doctor using its products can send files to a doctor using a rival product. But Epic can also veto that activity – and its veto extends to deciding whether a hospital can export their patient records to a competing service and get off Epic altogether.

One major selling point for Epic is its capacity to export "anonymized" data for medical research. Very large patient data-sets like Epic's are reasonably believed to contain many potential medical insights, so medical researchers are very excited at the prospect of interrogating that data.

But Epic's approach – anonymizing files containing the most sensitive information imaginable, about millions of people, and then releasing them to third parties – is a nightmare. "De-identified" data-sets are notoriously vulnerable to "re-identification" and the threat of re-identification only increases every time there's another release or breach, which can used to reveal the identities of people in anonymized records. For example, if you have a database of all the prescribing at a given hospital – a numeric identifier representing the patient, and the time and date when they saw a doctor and got a scrip. At any time in the future, a big location-data breach – say, from Uber or a transit system – can show you which people went back and forth to the hospital at the times that line up with those doctor's appointments, unmasking the person who got abortion meds, cancer meds, psychiatric meds or other sensitive prescriptions.

The fact that anonymized data can – will! – be re-identified doesn't mean we have to give up on the prospect of gleaning insight from medical records. In the UK, the eminent doctor Ben Goldacre and colleagues built an incredible effective, privacy-preserving "trusted research environment" (TRE) to operate on millions of NHS records across a decentralized system of hospitals and trusts without ever moving the data off their own servers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

The TRE is an open source, transparent server that accepts complex research questions in the form of database queries. These queries are posted to a public server for peer-review and revision, and when they're ready, the TRE sends them to each of the databases where the records are held. Those databases transmit responses to the TRE, which then publishes them. This has been unimaginably successful: the prototype of the TRE launched during the lockdown generated sixty papers in Nature in a matter of months.

Monopolies are inefficient, and Epic's outmoded and dangerous approach to research, along with the roadblocks it puts in the way of clinical excellence, epitomizes the problems with monopoly. America's health care industry is a dumpster fire from top to bottom – from Medicare Advantage to hospital cartels – and allowing Epic to dominate the EHR market has somehow, incredibly, made that system even worse.

Naturally, Kuttner finishes out his article with some antitrust analysis, sketching out how the Sherman Act could be brought to bear on Epic. Something has to be done. Epic's software is one of the many reasons that MDs are leaving the medical profession in droves.

Epic epitomizes the long-standing class war between doctors who want to take care of their patients and hospital executives who want to make a buck off of those patients.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/02/upcoded-to-death/#thanks-obama

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[phantomrose96]

Hey not to go all "tumblr is a professional networking site" on you, but how did you get to work for Microsoft??? I'm a recent grad and I'm being eviscerated out here trying to apply for industry jobs & your liveblogging about your job sounds so much less evil than Data Entry IT Job #43461

This place is basically LinkedIn to me.

I'm gonna start by saying I am so so very sorry you're a recent grad in the year 2024... Tech job market is complete ass right now and it is not just you. I started fulltime in 2018, and for 2018-2022 it was completely normal to see a yearly outflow of people hopping to new jobs and a yearly inflow of new hires. Then sometime around late-spring/early-summer of 2022 Wallstreet sneezed the word "recession" and every tech company simultaneously shit themselves.

Tons of layoffs happened, meaning you're competing not just with new grads but with thousands of experienced workers who got shafted by their company. My org squeaked by with a small amount of layoffs (3 people among ~100), but it also means we have not hired anyone new since mid-2022. And where I used to see maybe 4-8 people yearly leave in order to hop to a new job, I think I've seen 1 person do that in the whole last year and a half.

All this to say it's rough and I can't just say "send applications and believe in yourself :)".

I have done interviews though. (I'm not involved in resume screening though, just the interviews of candidates who made it past the screening phase.) So I have at least some relevant advice, as well as second-hand knowledge from other people I know who've had to hop jobs or get hired recently.

If you have friends already in industry who you feel comfortable asking, reach out to them. Most companies have a recommendation process where a current employee fills out a little form that says "yeah I'd recommend such-and-such for this job." These do seem to carry weight, since it's coming from a trusted internal person and isn't just one of the hundreds of cold-call applications they've received.

A lot of tech companies--whether for truly well-intentioned reasons or to just check a checkbox--are on the lookout for increasing employee diversity. If you happen to have anything like, for example, "member of my college Latino society", it's worth including on your resume among your technical skills and technical projects.

I would add "you're probably gonna have to send a lot of applications" as a bullet point but I'm sure you're already doing that. But here it is as a bullet point anyway.

(This is kind of a guess, since it's part of the resume screening) but if you can dedicate some time to getting at least passingly familiar with popular tech/stacks for the positions you're looking into, try doing that in your free time so you can list it on your resume. Even better if you make a project you can point to. Like if you're aiming for webdev, get familiar with React and probably NodeJS. On top of being comfortable in one of the all-purpose languages like C(++) or Java or Python.

If you get to the interview phase - a company that is good to work for WILL care that you're someone who's good to work with. A tech-genius who's a coworker-hating egotistical snob is a nuisance at best and a liability at worst for companies with even a half-decent culture. When I do interviews, "Is this someone who's a good culture fit?" is as important as the technical skills. You'll want to show you'll be a perfectly pleasant, helpful, collaborative coworker. If the company DOESN'T care about that... bullet dodged.

For the technical questions, I care more about the thought process than I do the right answer, especially for entry-level. If you show a capacity for asking good, insightful clarifying questions, an ability to break down the problem, explain your thought process, and backtrack&alter your approach upon realizing something won't work, that's all more important than just being able to spit out a memorized leetcode answer. (I kinda hate leetcode for this reason, and therefore I only ask homebrewed questions, because I don't want the technical portion to hinge at all on whether someone managed to memorize the first 47 pages of leetcode problems). For a new hire, the most important impression you can give me is that you have a technical grasp and that you're capable of learning. Because a new hire isn't going to be an expert in anything, but they're someone who's capable of learning the ropes.

That's everything I have off the top of my head. Good luck anon. I'm very sorry you were born during a specific range of years that made you a new grad in 2024 and I hope it gets better.

[unanimousgolddd]

Bad Day, Worst Day.

Update: I’ve finally gotten the courage to rewrite my hot, flaming trash of a fanfic ("You're alright, I've got you") I posted so long ago because I’ve gained motivation to write again, so here's the better version.

TW: angst w/fluff???, (possibly cringe), Wesker is possibly a bit oc, Reader is an assistant scientist working for Wesker in Umbrella/pre-Resident Evil 1, GN!Reader, Reader has a fear of needles, some vulgar language (literally just shit and asshole).

Word Count: ~2.7k

Summary: Being late and getting scolded for it can make for a bad day, but when you add a little bit of sabotage from a jealous scientist with chemicals and a cold boss, it turns the day into something officially horrible. But lucky for you, you grow a little bit closer to Dr. Wesker in the process.

Pt. 2

─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───

You woke up on time, 5:30 A.M. sharp, and showered a few minutes after getting up. Afterwards, you did your hair and got dressed. Your bag, shoes, and coat lay downstairs like usual. You made yourself something to eat, just so you wouldn’t starve for the next few hours. Before leaving your apartment, you brushed your teeth and quickly gathered your things.

Things were going well until traffic decided to do its job at a quarter to eight (7:45), but it was alright. You were still on time, just not as early as you would have liked to arrive at work. Parking a country mile from the building because you didn’t arrive early enough wasn’t as okay as the traffic. However, you weren’t late.

But then, the new security had wasted ten minutes at the entry of the underground labs by insisting “you had to show your proof of employment”. Not wanting to cause any trouble, you complied and dug out your ID and any possible items from your bag that said you worked at Umbrella. Now, realizing you were running late, you traversed the long and bleak corridors with haste. Finally, you arrived at your desk with a sigh, only to be fifteen minutes late, and Dr. Wesker was waiting a couple of feet away from you, sitting at his own desk. He didn’t look up from his research papers, too busy but not busy enough to give you a scolding for being late. And you didn’t dare to give him a snarky reply, your frustrations beginning to stack on top of one another.

It only slowly got worse. It wasn’t long until Dr. Wesker had ordered you to print files from the latest Tyrant experiment data. Without missing a beat, you went to the office room, which felt halfway across the building. Next thing you knew, the printer stopped working, as if wanting to worsen your day. You fixed it, thankfully (only after ten minutes of trying), and printed the test data pages. With a well-deserved exhale, you gathered the papers and made your long trip back to his office.

Making a turn to the right, only a few feet from his office, you suddenly collided with Dr. Maria and caused whatever she was holding to spill all over you. “Oh, my God! I am so sorry!” She quickly apologized, however, the emotions in her words didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t feel sorry for shit.

You grimaced at the cold feeling of the liquid chemical coating your shirt and sleeves. You had just gotten that shirt, too.

"Thanks for the bath, Dr. Maria…" You said with a short sigh. You decided not to say another word, choosing to keep your peace.

"Please forgive me," She pleaded before walking off with the container that once had liquid in it. You failed to notice that papers, which had fallen out of your hands due to your collision, were now in hers.

You shook your head, glancing over your shoulder at the woman. You never quite liked her, having taken note of her frequent attempts to sabotage others (specifically you) whenever she had the chance. She’s always exhibited this type of behavior since you’ve been promoted to Dr. Wesker’s assistant. She was quite jealous (how stereotypical).

But at the sudden feeling of a burning sensation on your neck, face, and stomach, the chemical had seeped into your clothing, you rushed to the bathroom. Now standing in front of the bathroom mirror, you quickly took off the lab coat and tossed it in the contamination bin. Finally, having a clearer view of where your skin came in contact with the chemicals, you saw how irritated it had become. It was as if you were experiencing hives or a skin rash. Your shirt had to go too, and it was also tossed in the bin.

Whatever the chemicals were, it was obvious Dr. Maria had done this on purpose.

Running your hands under the faucet, you splashed water onto your face and used the soap and several pieces of paper towel to clean your skin the best you could. You only had five more minutes until you had to return to the lab.

The water was cold, and it helped slow the irritation of your skin, easing the burning sensation. However, the redness didn’t disappear immediately. You shook your head as you made a silent joke to yourself about how you looked like you were having an allergic reaction. You made use of the extra shirt and lab coat that were in the closet next to the sink. The shirt and coat were a few sizes too big, the shirt occasionally readjusting itself incorrectly on your shoulders. However, both articles of clothing had to do for the rest of the day.

With another sigh, you walked out of the bathroom and headed back to Dr. Wesker’s office. You hesitated in opening the door, trying to give yourself at least another moment to prepare for another scolding.

Eventually, you stepped back into the quiet space and glanced over at Dr. Wesker, who was going over files with his back turned to you.

Dr. Wesker was a handsome man, undeniably, even with the pair of sunglasses he wore constantly. Although he gave an air of unapproachable, he was ambitious and intelligent and always seemed to do every action meticulously and purposefully. This in itself was attractive. Or perhaps, it was his coldness, his ranking over you, that attracted you to him (or maybe it was just his face that was the most attractive thing).

"You're back," He said without looking, "I was wondering when you would get here." He finally looked up, and he didn't seem happy. Although he never seemed happy.

You swallowed, fingers adjusting the collar of the shirt for the third time. The darn thing kept moving. "I'm sorry, I had to take care of something… I promise it won't happen again, Dr. Wesker." You said, and he only sighed in response.

"Dr. Maria gave me the files… I recall assigning you to give them to me." He looked at you through the black shades, and you promptly cursed under your breath. You avoided his eyes, feeling his gaze on her face, watching your reaction as if you were another experiment.

That's what she did. She spilled the chemicals on you just to give him the files. She was petty, but smart; you had to give her that.

"I'm sorry, I–" But you quickly started to get an itch all over your body, and it distracted you from completing your sentence. "I… I knew I dropped them somewhere–" You started scratching at your neck and arms through the sleeves of your shirt and lab coat. By now, you figured that you looked like a dog frantically itching at fleas.

Dr. Wesker, who began to move towards you as he called your name, was concerned. Grabbing the spare latex gloves from his lab coat pockets, he put them on, and his eyebrow slightly twitched. "Come here." He ordered. You glanced up at him before moving closer cautiously, hands still scratching your body. Once closer, he guided your hands from your neck with his hands on your wrists as his eyes observed your skin. You felt hot under his gaze, like you were exposed despite being fully clothed. You felt comparable to a muse, standing in front of an artist as they concocted their next art piece.

"Come," He said, moving away and walking to the laboratory.

You quickly followed, trying to resist the urge to scratch at the skin that burned. Eventually, the sensation felt painful, with your red skin throbbing. Tears that were a mixture of the subconscious reaction to the painful reaction to the chemicals, but also your frustrations towards today’s events, began to fill your eyes. However, you blinked them away to prevent yourself from crying. He pointed to one of the lab beds for you to sit before shining a black light on the skin of your neck.

"Is it anywhere else?" He asked, and you felt his gaze on your face again.

"Yeah. My stomach and arms." You said with a shaky voice. Your fingers twitched, urging you to scratch at your skin once more.

He gestured for you to take off the lab coat and the shirt. You took off the coat, which he tossed in a bin. But when it came to your shirt, you hesitated, but with the weight of his expectant gaze, you pushed your shirt up. Wesker made no indication he was bothered by the sight of your stomach, simply touching the irritated skin of your stomach like a doctor would.

"Hmm…" He hummed. You hissed as the burn sensation flared, sending you to the brink of shedding tears. Usually, you wouldn’t cry this easily. Working under Dr. Wesker made you develop thick skin. However, after being late and scolded for being so and having an unknown liquid spilled all over you, your frustrations were bound to reach a boiling point. You closed your eyes, embarrassed about the very idea of crying in front of your boss, and in pain. You could hear him sigh as he rummaged around the room, searching for something. "I believe you have side effects from a poison ivy liquid." He said, somewhere around the room. "You're lucky, we have a solution to your problem…"

You slowly opened your eyes and immediately, your gaze landed on the small bottle and container in his hands. Wesker opened the container, now wearing a fresh pair of black latex gloves, he prepared a syringe. Anxiety rose at the sight of the needle. It was ironic that you took a job at a pharmaceutical company with a fear of needles. You swallowed nervously, eyes shifting from the syringe in his right hand and the pair of shades that kept the color of his eyes from you.

“Why a syringe?” You asked, trying to mask your fear. However, your flinch when he came closer was too obvious, and the little creases in between his brows softened just a little. “Afraid of a little needle?” He asked. You couldn’t tell if he was teasing you or not.

He gave another sigh. He placed the needle back down in the metal tray, his hands moving to unbutton the top of the big shirt. You kept your eyes on his hands, watching as his fingers slipped the collar off your left shoulder to expose the deltoid part of your arm. You refused to look too much in his gentle touch. "Relax. You’ll be fine." He said to try and ease you. He gently turned your head away from your left shoulder, knowing if you saw the needle again, you’d completely object against getting a shot.

Closing your eyes, you soon felt the prick of the needle on your shoulder. Once the syringe was empty, he removed the needle and discarded it in the sharps bin. A moment later, he placed a bandage where the needle had entered before rubbing your shoulder, gaze on your face as you tried to ignore the burning and itching sensation. However, minutes prior, without your acceptance, your tears had begun to fall, frustrations from the day pouring out. Uncharacteristically of him, he had begun to shush you, gloves off his hands, and thrown them in the trash as he wiped the tears from your cheeks. Surprisingly, his fingers were soft, like he had been using a hand lotion.

“Why the tears?” He asked quietly. He stiffened when you leaned forward, head resting just below his chin. But eventually, he wrapped his arms around you loosely. It was obvious he wasn’t touched often. You clung onto him, like how a child would to their mother. It was unprofessional to do that, but you didn't care anymore. And eventually, you explained everything to him, from the early morning traffic and hold up at the entrance of the underground laboratories to Maria spilling the God awful substance onto you. He stayed quiet, proving to himself to be a good listener.

And when you finally eased, the tears drying on your cheeks, he separated from you. He cleared his throat. “Don’t worry about Dr. Maria. No assistant of mine will be distracted from the work I give them, yes?” He said before he turned. You quickly redressed yourself, buttoning up the white shirt before getting off the bed. “Take the rest of the day off. I believe you…” He paused, looking over his shoulder at you. “Earned it.” If you hadn’t been staring at him for a moment, you wouldn’t have noticed the small quirk of the corner of his lips. And then, Dr. Wesker was out of the room, leaving you alone.

You best believe you took the chance of the day off. You treated yourself to a nice hot shower at home, scrubbing away the day (and the chemicals) off before spending time in your bed, watching TV shows you needed to catch up on as you ate dinner. The itching and burning had left hours ago, and now the redness had finally disappeared by the time you went to bed. After that day, things felt oddly uneventful. It wasn’t until a week later, you decided to confront Dr. Wesker.

“Did you do something to Dr. Maria?” You asked, standing in front of him with your arms crossed. He didn’t look up from his computer. A moment later, almost fifteen seconds later, he responded.

“What makes you believe I did something?” He asked a question of his own, fingers typing away quickly. Your eyes narrowed at the blond man.

“I haven’t seen her in a week, ever since she spilled those chemicals on me. It’s unlike her, she takes every opportunity to make my life hell.” You said. “And, last week, you told me not to worry about her.” You reminded him, shifting your weight from your left foot to your right.

He hummed. “Yes, I did. And yet, now you’re worrying about her.” He said, finally tilting his head up to look at you. He clasped his hands in front of him, the lid of the laptop folded at a forty-five-degree angle. His attention was finally on you now, it was what you wanted, yet it felt too much at the same time. You took a conscious breath. “Just admit you did something to her, Wesker.” You persisted, keeping your gaze locked on him. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, head tilting to the left.

“When I said no assistant of mine will be distracted from the work I give them, I meant it. Dr. Maria proved to be a distraction, and she needed to be removed.” Wesker said bluntly. Your brows furrowed in confusion. “Are you suggesting you fired her? Just for me?” You asked. You swallowed as he stood from his desk, making his way around the wooden furniture and standing tall in front of you. So close yet so far. There was at least a foot in between you both, yet, if you just moved half that distance, it would make the space seem like you were inches from his person.

“I wouldn’t say I was suggesting the idea that I fired her…” He muttered, gaze locked onto your eyes. Half of you wanted to look away from the sunglasses, another wanted to continue to hold his gaze for as long as you could. “I merely moved her to a different department where Dr. Maria is more useful.” He said plainly.

“You can’t just do that, Wesker–” You objected immediately. His left brow quirked.

“Why not? She proved to be a distraction to your work and a danger to your well-being.” You fell silent at this.

“Besides, I like you better when you’re not crying your eyes out because of some jealous woman.” He said before he suddenly turned, moving back to his seat at his desk. Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, you stared at him as he resumed his typing. But for a moment, you could’ve sworn his lips were curled in a satisfied smile.

Maybe, just maybe, your boss wasn’t a total aloof asshole.

[meamiki]

Hello. I haven't spoken much on the Reverse Entry AU (Modern Office + Reverse Isekai Loop AU). That changes today!!! Have some scattered (relatively long) tidbits on this AU. Mainly background to actually get to the office part of it but, yea!

If anyone wants elaboration on anything on this list, and I do mean anything, I encourage asking!! Or any random questions on the AU general!! Or just things in general!! Make me think about things I have not considered!!

Spoilers for all of ISAT + 2Hats and the like:

Mainly Concrete

The Country -> The Company.

Well, more of a family storefront, but the similarity in those two words next to each other was too good to pass up LOL.

Said storefront was run by Siffrin’s parents, and was their life's work.

Specialized in niche craft related stuff, in both teaching people how to do them & selling materials for the crafts. 

It was a very warm & homely store, and was adored by locals and visitors alike. 

A store that felt comforting to just vibe in for a bit, if that makes sense.

Loop ends up being Siffrin’s roommate after being reverse isekai’ed :)

They do not help with rent

They are a solid night light, which they try to justify as helping with the electricity bill

They also find a mirror shortly after arrival. 

Important Points

Mirabelle & Isabeau have known each other since University and are besties!!!!!!!!!

Not 100% sure of the logistics yet, but this was too important of a point to not include

Additionally, please know at some point, Isa custom stitched the scarf-shawl Mira wears to work all the time now, and gifted it to her!

He is also responsible for the fun pattern on the vest he wears all the time too!

Bonnie, whenever they are hanging around, makes sure to sneak onto Nille’s computer, and block out time between meetings for time to breathe / snacks for the others

And they also make sure to block out like an hour of time for proper lunches as well

Back to back to back to back meetings are not fun!!!

Breaks are important!!!

I have mentioned this in a different post, but this too, is a very important point to not include here as well

Location of Living

Mirabelle & Siffrin live in the same apartment complex, but on opposite sides of it

They have briefly interacted a few times prior to being coworkers? 

But Siffrin had his hair dyed for interviews for a long time

So Mirabelle didn’t realize it was him for a while, since he started growing out the dye before formally meeting in a work environment

Siffrin simply forgor

Isabeau lives relatively close-by to where Mira & Sif live, he visits Mira sometimes!!

He may or may not have also interacted with Siffrin two (2) times prior to working together due to the above point

Nille & Bonnie live around the area Siffrin used to live before he had to move, and have resided in that area for a long time

They technically were neighbors, at one point!

Odile lives closer to the office than everyone else 

Shorter commute for in-office days 

But still in the general vicinity of everyone else's abodes ofc

Hiring Order

Mirabelle has been working in the office the longest (interned two years in a row, and was formally hired right out of University)

Isabeau is next after since he got a referral off of Mira (interned for one year before graduation, then was hired at the same time Mirabelle was)

Odile was hired to replace Euphrasie (previous senior manager to their team who got a promotion, she’s now director of the regional office)

Siffrin was hired a bit after Odile when they got more capacity, since what they were originally doing was way too much for just three people LOL

Apparently, he got a referral from someone internally, but has no idea about it!

Nille was hired a little bit after Siffrin was

She only agreed upon the role if she was granted the flexibility to pick up Bonnie from school whenever

Random RPG Equivalence Hour

Turn Based Combat = Emails 

Whether it be waiting for data to start processes, answering inquiries, so on and so forth

Sometimes those turns take literal days

It happens!

Being Frozen / Damaged = Program Freezing 

This goes for any program being used

If it freezes it inflicts small damage

It inflicts more damage if it crashes

It makes you cry on the floor if the program crashes and you can’t recover any of what you did for the past hour

It makes you regret all of your life decisions up to this moment in time if it crashes, you can’t recover anything, and you have a presentation on the stuff you were working on in 15 minutes

Misc Meetings

Mirabelle writes fanfic

Isabeau knows about this and supports her in her endeavors

Odile has read some of her works, but does not know she wrote them irl

At some point prior to working together, Mirabelle & Odile became mutuals and started trading book / fanfic recommendations to one another

Odile had a brief stint as a bartender prior to working for the office

Mainly to earn some form of income while applying for jobs / waiting for prior certifications to process and transfer properly after moving from another country

In one or another, she met Isabeau and Siffrin at separate intervals while working there

Additionally, the bar is located close to the office. A lot of happy hours happen there. It ended up serving as a networking opportunity for her LMAO

Both Nille and Bonnie moved around a lot when they were younger

At different intervals, Nille went to the same high schools as both Mirabelle & Isabeau

Nille has probably worked a lot of jobs throughout high school / university

This includes working at the same place Odile worked at for a bit, they were probably coworkers there at some point.

Maybe not necessarily a bartender but, general staff

Again, this served as a networking opportunity similar to the Odile segment ASFASDASDA

Um????

Loop somehow ends up becoming a vtuber.

Loop somehow ends up being a vtuber for the company the team works under, akin to Tony the Tiger.

Loop does this vtuber gig for approximately one (1) stream and quits right after.

((loop decided their first stream was a nuzlocke for some reason. the crafts company literally didnt ask them to. they decided this on their own volition for no apparent reason. the company literally asked for a stream where they do crafts?? anyway they named their pokemon after the party. and. well.))

As I am Indecisive, this still has a chance for change! But for now this list is slightly ordered from “concrete in my mind” to “need to let simmer more probably, but the vibes are there” to “probably not but it is a bit of a funny to consider” (this only applies to the last loop segment ASDAFA)

But yea!! Thanks for reading the ramblings :)

[mariacallous]

Since Elon Musk announced that he’ll be stepping back from his daily work with DOGE, perhaps you’ve been wondering if he has anything else to fill that time now that he’s shut down operations at America’s humanitarian-aid provider, wrecked much of the nation’s scientific-research infrastructure, and disrupted the communications systems at the Social Security Administration. One way to find out would be to ask Grok, his entry in the A.I. sweepstakes. “Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has been making significant moves in Memphis,” Grok reports. “But these have sparked controversy.”

Indeed they have. Last year, Musk’s team secured an abandoned factory that used to belong to Electrolux, the vacuum-cleaner people on the edge of the city’s Boxtown neighborhood. As Musk explained at the time, “That’s why it’s in Memphis, home of Elvis and also one of the oldest—I think it was the capital of ancient Egypt.” With typical modesty, he renamed his vacuum factory Colossus, and started stuffing it with Nvidia graphics-processing units, or G.P.U.s, the basic building blocks of A.I. systems. At the moment, he has two hundred thousand of these G.P.U.s, and he’s headed for a million; by some estimates, he is expected to build the “largest supercomputer” in the world.

All that processing takes power to run, and so the xAI team moved about thirty-five mobile methane-gas-powered generators onto the site to support the data center. These are truck-mounted units, many of them designed by Caterpillar, which give off some of the same brew of pollutants as other gas-combustion device—including nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde—and which are currently operating without a permit. “xAI has essentially built a power plant in South Memphis with no oversight, no permitting, and no regard for families living in nearby communities,” the Southern Environmental Law Center said, in a report released in April. (Full disclosure: I volunteer every year to judge the S.E.L.C.’s Phil Reed prize for best environmental writing about the South). The S.E.L.C. has called for an “emergency order” from the city to require xAI to cease the use of these generators, with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar daily fine if the company refuses. The mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, a supporter of the project, addressed the concerns at a meeting with community members in March. “I want to figure out how we can exploit this project for us,” he said. “I know you all feel like it’s us getting exploited, but we need to speak from a place of strength.” After the S.E.L.C. issued its report, Young explained that the company has a permit application pending with the Shelby County Health Department to run fifteen generators. “There are thirty-five, but there are only fifteen that are on,” he said. “The other ones are stored on the site.”

It turns out that Young may be wrong about that number. SouthWings, a group of volunteer pilots who help monitor environmental problems, overflew the site with thermal-imaging equipment that showed at least thirty-three of the generators giving off lots of heat—indicating that they were fired up and running at the same time. (Young’s office and xAI didn’t respond to requests for comment.) Taken together, they would produce about four hundred and twenty megawatts of power—the equivalent of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s big gas-fired power plant nearby.

Memphis was, indeed, home to Elvis—but it was also, of course, where Martin Luther King, Jr., who came to the city to support striking sanitation workers, was assassinated, and it remains a place of sharp economic and racial division. It will surprise no one to learn that the neighborhoods in South Memphis surrounding Musk’s facility—including Boxtown and Westwood—are predominantly Black and also home to a number of industrial facilities, including chemical plants and an oil refinery. The area already has elevated levels of pollution compared with leafier precincts, and, according to Politico’s E&E News, “already leads the state in emergency department visits for asthma.” Those same neighborhoods came together at the beginning of the decade to fight, and ultimately defeat, the proposed forty-nine-mile-long crude-oil Byhalia pipeline, which would have run through the area. In that process, a new political star emerged: Justin Pearson, a young African American who rode that battle into the state legislature (from which he was later expelled for joining an anti-gun-violence protest on the floor of the Tennessee House after a shooting at a Christian school, only to soon be reappointed by the county and reëlected to office in the next election).

Pearson and his brother KeShaun, the director of a group called Memphis Community Against Pollution, are now helping lead the fight against xAI. They were prominent voices at a town hall of the Shelby County Health Department in late April, which a local NBC affiliate described as “unlike any other town hall in recent memory, with dozens of Shelby County sheriff’s deputies, Memphis police officers and Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers standing inside and outside of Fairley High School.” Citizens were allowed two minutes each to speak, but there were no responses to questions; after two hours the proceedings ended.

A company spokesman was shouted down at the meeting, but his written statement insisted that “XAl is going above and beyond the required emission control requirements. The Solar SMT-130 turbines will be equipped with SoLoNOx dry low emissions (D.L.E.) technology and selective catalytic reduction (S.C.R.) systems that lower nitrogen oxides (NOx) to 2 ppm.” The “Solar” here, though, has nothing to do with the power source—it’s the name of Caterpillar’s turbine division, which stems from the Solar Aircraft Company, founded in the late nineteen-twenties, whose name was derived from the fact that it was based in sunny San Diego.)

“I feel like my community is being disrespected,” Justin Pearson (whom I got to know during the Byhalia fight) told me in an e-mail. “I feel like my friends and neighbors and family members are being ignored—both by xAI itself and city leaders championing this data center that is emitting pollution into our air. Some of those leaders have mentioned the money that xAI will supposedly bring to Memphis, but what good is money if we have to struggle with polluted air? As the elders here say, ‘All money ain’t good money.’ ” He added, “Folks are angry and fearful. Some neighbors have expressed fear about letting children play outside or not enjoying time in their backyards because they don’t know what kind of pollution is in the air.”

Had Musk wanted to proceed differently, he could have. A report last year, from researchers at a number of energy and tech firms, made it clear that building arrays of solar microgrids is a quick and highly affordable plan for powering such data centers. “While building off-grid solar microgrids of this magnitude would be a first, it’s very possible to do with technology that exists today, and to scale it quickly,” the researchers found. They actually looked at Musk’s Memphis project and concluded that its use of portable gas generators was at best a one-off solution: “Most users of rental power plan to transition once possible because this approach carries very high costs and generally reliability is lower than permanent infrastructure.”

But cost is evidently not a big issue for Musk. (DOGE claims to have saved a hundred and sixty billion dollars in government spending, but a new analysis by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service estimates that it only did so at a cost of a hundred and thirty-five billion dollars, because it has operated so quickly and ineptly.) Neither, judging from DOGE’s performance, is saving lives, but he could help do so in Memphis, if he wanted to. Pearson says, “Solar panels and battery storage would be a much cleaner alternative to methane gas turbines. Solar panels also don’t pump smog-forming pollution or chemicals like formaldehyde into nearby communities.”

More to the point, Musk’s actions in Memphis seem to presuppose that his experience in Washington will prove typical. There, he managed to enact his slash-and-burn damage in a few short weeks before leaving town, albeit with an approval rating even lower than the President’s. In Tennessee, he’s running into forces seasoned by several generations of struggle. During the Byhalia-pipeline dispute, Pearson recalled, “a representative from the pipeline company called my community the ‘path of least resistance.’ It seems like corporations don’t expect us to fight back, but we’ve proven that wrong time and time again. We’re going to do it again.” 

[ninjagobythenumbers]

Ninjago Species by the Season

I made this chart upon @weirdcatbean's request. I also wanted to include allignment and centrality on this chart, but as you can see that would get pretty busy.

Here's the percentages.

Interestingly, it keeps a pretty consistent human:non-human ratio. The earlier seasons actually have less humans percentage wise, which I did not expect. However, I should note that this chart includes every single named character, so while yes there may be 36 humans in Seabound for instance, 19 of them are ensemble who were just there for Nya's funeral. I'll be making an improved version of this chart later that's a bit easier to read and includes some more relavant data points. Now, you may be wondering, why didn't I include what the chart looks like without the inclusion of ensemble from the beginning. I admit, normally I would. To explain why I didn't, I have to tell the story of how I came up with these numbers.

Methodology

While I could have just tallied up individual species season by season, I knew I would probably want to play with the data in other ways besides just this one chart. Thus, I undertook the massive endeavor of indexxing every Ninjago character by Name, Type, Allignment, Species, Gender, and Season. For instance, here's the pilot season.

You may be wondering what the New/Old column is all about. In order to include the full character breakdown for each season, I had to make new entries of each character every season. This created a lot of repeats, so to separate unique characters from repeats I noted whether character's were introduced with this season (new) or whether they were a repeat (old). This was also useful in that it allowed me to alter the criteria of a character with each season so I can accomadate for changes such as Cole turning into a ghost. Once I had compiled this data (839 entries and 292 unique characters), I attempted to use Google Sheets' pre-provided data analysis.

It was sort of useful, but it would only show the top 4 and bottom 4 frequencies and I couldn't copy and paste the data. It also was a bit fussy around filters. Thus, I did something a bit wonky where I filtered by season and just copy pasted the column into a different sheet.

I then used functions (ex: =COUNTIF(AC3:AC1002, "Skeleton")) to create my raw data table which you can view above. This process worked but it had a lot of problems. It was time consuming, didn't allow me to employ multiple filters, and, most importantly of all, it wasn't allowing me to use this data I had spent days compiling to its full extent. Thus, I decided to create a sort of search engine for Ninjago characters.

This search engine allows me to input criteria and recieve not only the total characters that fit the criteria, but a list of all of their entries. The fact it lists all of their entries may not sound that impressive, but trust, it is. (For me at least) Here's an example search of good, recurring Serpentine.

I am very excited about the potential of this tool. It's going to allow me to create a lot of great charts, including an improved Species by Season chart. For now though, I'm only uploading the original requested chart, because creating this tool has taken the better part of my day. I plan on sharing it, but I still need to work out a few kinks so you can look forward to that as well. I know I already said it, but I'm so, so excited about what I'll be able to make. Here's a preview to the search if you're interested. It also includes all my previous spreadsheets, but I'm still working out some formatting issues and stuff.

[reading-writing-revolution]

It was merely a week ago that Democratic members of Congress were telling us their phones were silent and headlines were declaring “the resistance is dead.” Columnists insisted folks were just too exhausted to stand up against the pillaging of our government by fascists, billionaires, and fascist billionaires. 

Let’s talk about the last few days. 

On Sunday, 50,000 people joined a call we put on with MoveOn and Working Families Party on combatting the Trump/Musk coup.

Yesterday, we started hearing from Dem offices on the Hill that they were being overwhelmed by phone calls demanding they FIGHT. If they’re calling us about that, it means we’re breaking through.

Last night, over three thousand protesters gathered outside the Treasury building in Washington, DC. 

Over 200 visits to in-state Senate offices have been scheduled this week. Groups ranging from three people to three hundred are showing up to protest Trump’s shredding of the Constitution, push their Democratic senators to unite in opposition, and let Republicans know they’ll be held accountable for their complicity. Here are some of the scenes from the first few events:

Senator Thom Tillis’ Raleigh, NC office. Tillis is up for reelection.

Senator Chuck Schumer’s office in Peekskill, NY.

Senator Maria Cantwell’s office in Washington State.

And for good measure, a photo from the rally at the Treasury.

We’re seeing renewed energy everywhere. And Democrats in Congress are starting to get up off the mat, too. 

At the Treasury protest yesterday, a delegation of Democratic members of Congress led by Rep. Max Frost tried to get access to the building in order to investigate what Musk is doing with our data and payment systems. They -- unlike Musk’s teenage DOGE squad -- were denied entry in an event that rippled across news broadcasts and social media. 

Senator Chris Murphy announced he plans to oppose all Trump nominees until this constitutional crisis is over. Exactly what we’ve been calling for! 

Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester announced she plans to oppose all Trump nominees period. 

Senator Brian Schatz is placing a procedural hold on all State Department nominees until the authoritarian dismantling of USAID is reversed. 

It’s a start. But it’s not nearly enough -- because yesterday, 22 Democratic senators voted to confirm another one of Trump’s cronies to his cabinet. That’s not the kind of blanket opposition we need in the midst of a constitutional crisis of this magnitude. 

We need to keep up the pressure on Democrats to fight back with the urgency this moment requires. And we need to keep up the pressure on Republicans to oppose Trump’s most dangerous nominees -- in particular the architect of the illegal Trump/Musk spending freeze, Russell Vought. Vought’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget -- the “nerve-center of the government” as he calls it -- will likely come tomorrow. 

So here’s what you can do right now.  

There’s still time to join or plan a visit to your US senators’ closest offices. Use our toolkit to find existing events or plan and recruit for your own. 

Call your Democratic senator(s) and tell them to do everything they can to resist the Trump/Musk coup. Dems are in the minority, so they cannot unilaterally block nominees -- but they can slow the confirmation process and throw sand in the gears of all Senate business until this crisis is over. 

Call your Republican senator(s) and demand they vote NO on Project 2025 author Russell Vought.

The kind of organizing we’ve been doing over the past week isn’t easy and it isn’t free. If you can spare a few dollars to help fund this work, please chip in now. 

The last few weeks have been relentless, so it’s important to step back and remember what we’re fighting for. The attacks on our government are not abstract. It’s not just about some philosophical sense of what our democracy should be. 

Right now, preschools across the country are on the verge of shuttering because Head Start funds are frozen. Americans are terrified they’re going to lose access to their healthcare. Around the world, people are going to lose their lives -- that’s not exaggeration, it’s fact -- because a slapdash freeze on aid has halted nutrition assistance, vaccine programs, HIV treatment, and other critical services. Here at Indivisible, some of the very best people we know, dedicated civil servants, are out of work for the crime of supporting racial justice, gender equality, trans rights, or simply working at an agency Elon Musk woke up and decided to destroy. 

We all have our reasons for choosing to stand up against this coup. Whatever yours is, hold tight to it, and keep on showing up. It will take some time, we’re going to suffer some losses along the way, but eventually, together, we’re going to win. 

In solidarity, Indivisible Team

[saphushia]

|| WARNING || FAQ ||

Hi ^-^ I'm Saph, use they/them & ne/nem/nir pronouns, and you can use any masculine or neutral terms to refer to me.

I'm an artist who makes illustrations and comics for assorted fandoms, original concepts, and ocs. I'm multi-fandom and swap interests a lot! you can find a list of (most) fandoms/media i'm familiar with on my website here.

❕ Note [4/21/25] ❕

anon asks are temporarily turned off due to a surge of spam asks. Hopefully i'll be able to turn them back on in a couple weeks, sorry!

Warning TL;DR ➡

I am a proshipper, meaning i'm against harassing creators over "problematic" ships/fictional works. I block folks with "anti", "proship DNI", or "basic DNI criteria" in their bio/pinned/etc.

I cannot guarantee triggering content and spoilers in my posts will be tagged accordingly.

I sometimes post sexually suggestive art/memes. It's recommended followers are 18+

Quick Info ➡

Commissions: custom orders only. DM or see below for info Requests: open. no guarantee I'll do them Tune Trade: open. max of 3 songs per ask Digimon Dex Progress: private in-dev. data entry 11% complete Other Accounts: Bluesky (less active)

Pinned post updated 5/7/25

⬇ Tag List & Extended Info ⬇

|| BASIC TAGS ||

ART:

⭐ #art - all art ⭐ #sketchbook - traditional art ⭐ #timelapse - art with process timelapses (recorded in CSP) ⭐ #oc - art of my (and my partner's) OCs ⭐ #fanart - what it says on the tin, lol

GENERAL:

⭐ #talking - my text posts ⭐ #poll - polls i make ⭐ #answers - responding to asks ⭐ #tune trade - sharing song recs with followers in my ongoing ask game (I spam this at times, so feel free to block this tag)

|| COMMISSIONS | CUSTOM ORDERS ONLY ||

Currently, most of my energy is taken up by my real job, and I spend most of my free time on my own works, therefore i have no plans to open formal commission slots in the near future. Despite that, I am open to taking commissions on a case-by-case basis. If you are interested in a commission, you can DM me here on tumblr and we can discuss details. I'm fairly likely to take most custom commissions so long so long as I don't currently have pressing real life obligations.

I accept commissions for OCs and (most) fandoms. I am open to discussing taking NSFW commissions.

prices are typically a flat price based on an estimation of the time it will take to draw the piece, at a rate of approximately 20-25$USD/hr. most of my finished works seen on this blog take between 4-8 hours. all commissions require 50% payment up front (via paypal only) before starting.

You're welcome to contact me at any time to see if im open for commissions, discuss details on a desired piece, for a more concrete price quote, or any other questions regarding commissions.

|| REQUESTS | OPEN ||

Requests are taken as suggestions, and will only be completed if they catch my interest. As such, only requests for fandoms/media i'm familiar with and my own characters are likely to be drawn

|| TUNE TRADE | OPEN - 3 SONGS PER ASK ||

Tune trade is an ask game I started in order to share music with my followers and discover new songs, and is almost constantly ongoing! Send an ask recommending up to 3 songs you enjoy to me, I'll let you know my thoughts on them, and I'll give you song recommendations of my own!

Anyone is welcome to send music of any genre, as I love discovering vast varieties of music and listening to new things, even if they don't become a new favorite! I love hearing music from lesser-known musicians especially! I tend to enjoy any music that can be described as "going hard," but like I said, anything goes! Variety is the spice of life, and keeps me from searching a random noun on soundcloud and trawling through the results for hours simply because I'm deprived of new songs i've never heard before.

(if you have more than 3 songs you wanna send, you're welcome to send multiple asks! just not back-to-back. This just makes it easier for me to go through asks ^-^)

[SONGS MY FOLLOWERS REC'ED] (spotify)

[SONGS I'VE REC'ED] (spotify)

all tune trade posts are tagged #tune trade (feel free to block this tag if you'd like to avoid spam)

|| DIGIMON DEX | PRIVATE IN-DEV ||

a work-in-progress website functioning as a visual encyclopedia of all digimon, with multi-filter sorting based on appearance and more. intended as a resource for fan creators. There is currently no public build, and no estimate of when it will be complete/available for public use, as I simply work on it when I am in the mood for mindless data entry busy work.

if you are a digimon fan, and this sounds like a useful tool to you, please send suggestions for filtering categories you would find helpful!

current filters are: 1) level || 2) attribute || 3) field || 4) color || 5) terrain [flying, swimming, etc] || 6) appearance [beast, humanoid, etc] || 7) element [unofficial, based on appearance/signature attacks] || 8) x-antibody [y/n] || 9) weapon

[key: red = not started | orange = in-progress | green = complete ]

Data input for digimon entries: 11% complete

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

To-Do:

-css styling for UI

-confirm use of assets

-css styling for digimon entries

-implement changelog

-implement credits

-digimon expanded details view?

-come up with better name than "digimon dex" (lol)

[thelongestway]

Okay, story 3 draft complete. :) Originally I thought there was no point in breaking them up (see end), but the structure here works out pretty well as an autonomous thing, and also this story is very somber and weird in tone - it will be good to have it separately anyway.

So now I need my standard week or so to get my bearings, edit and name this one (beyond the working title "System Collapse: ART Edition", which would be unnecessarily confusing), and then part 4 - and maybe a little standalone.

But meanwhile, without further ado...

Chapter 15: Jump

For Dandelion to be a fully effective firewall, I had to route my connections entirely through her, which was easier if I were actually inside her hull. So that was why, even though our initial feed workspace still had four of us in it (Iris was accompanying ART up until the wormhole, like I had during the very first test jump), I was physically on the Tenacious' bridge, watching her crew prepare for launch.

"Perihelion to Tenacious," Seth's voice said on the radio. "Towing clamps are secured, and we are ready for the test jump. Over."

Reed glanced at Phoibe, who gave kem a thumbs up, then said "We copy, Perihelion, towing clamps confirmed secured."

Ke looked up, and Dandelion said, "Secondary reactor control released to Perihelion, systems nominal." (Even in her minimal configuration, with most of her modules disconnected, Dandelion was bigger than ART, so in the end the engineers just decided it would be easier to give ART partial control of her engines to tow them both.)

"Tenacious and crew ready for test jump. Sunwinds sharp, Perihelion--Tenacious out." Captain Reed said.

Dandelion's performance reliability gave a little wobble, and Iris and I sent her simultaneous queries. It's nothing, she said. But of all the phrases to become traditional...

She tapered off. Iris was about to send a follow-up query, but ART said, Approaching wormhole, and Iris switched to that. I could feel her awe bleeding through into the shared workspace.

Whoa, she whispered. It's like a really, really deep well. I didn't know it looked like that to you, Peri.

She sent us her processing of ART's camera feed. To normal human sight, the wormhole wasn't visible until it opened--humans had to put up glowing markers around it to show each other where it was. But to ART and to Dandelion, it always looked like a gaping black tunnel, a silver film glistening somewhere deep within. The darkness rippled very slightly, and Iris felt dizzy just looking at it.

Interesting. Gurathin called it a well in his experiment, too, ART said.

Mmhm, Dandelion said. There is a very old legend about stars being easier to see in daytime from the bottom of a well. Sadly, that is as untrue in the jump as it is on a planet. But no matter how deep the well, or how difficult the currents, there is always a way out.

ART stopped near the wormhole, pulling in data from around itself and probing the wormhole lightly. Then it said, It is time to disconnect, Iris.

Iris sent ART a string of incomprehensible pings, which it returned.

See you on the other side, Peri.

I will be requesting additional information long before that.

And I'll be there to give it. Good luck.

Iris disconnected.

"All crew, prepare for wormhole transit," Seth said. "Three. Two. One. Entry."

And ART was gone.

If I hadn't seen it happen to Gurathin, my threat assessment would have gone completely haywire. As it was, it jumped only 30 percent. But still. Watching ART dissolve most of what made it ART in order to turn all of that into something as amorphous and liquid as the wormhole medium itself, something that extended a million grasping tendrils into the roaring currents, was terrifying.

(Yeah. Good thing Dandelion had filters. Experiencing that raw would have ground my brain into SecUnit pulp.)

"ART," I said on all channels. "Status report."

"Present and calculating trajectory," ART answered.

I could see it--whatever it was right now--pulling all the data together, like it was weaving a cable out of fragmented metal filaments. The cable was definitely leading somewhere.

"Calculations coming in," Brisote said. "Looking good so far."

ART requested additional data, which Matteo and Iris provided. It shored up its cable and gave it a small tug. The cable held.

Dandelion, sitting between us, tensed, like she was a human holding her breath.

"Trajectory calculations complete. Course laid in. Wormhole drive engaged," ART said. "Navigators, please confirm course."

Matteo and Brisote gave the same corrections, and ART introduced them, then said: "Drive engaged. Best speed."

We started moving, and Dandelion finally let out that breath she'd been holding. So did I.

There still wasn't enough of ART to do much more than slowly pull the tendrils it had let out back from the flow. It left the bulk of them in place for now, to sense its way as it went, but mostly it followed the trajectory, not going even a tenth of a degree off course. ("Sunbleached ship," Brisote muttered, impressed.) ART had marked the cable with knots in places where it thought the tendrils would retract and reconnect, and the warning system it designed worked--its crew took over for it in critical moments like Dandelion's did for hers, and they knew where the rapids were in advance.

Dandelion and I sat there mostly silent, watching. Both of us had our own workspaces ready, but so far we were only dumping data there, not analysing it. Finally, she said to me: Approaching exit point. Be ready.

"We are on approach to Stribor 2. Final course corrections requested."

Matteo provided their latest calculations, and ART said: "Corrections laid in. Initiating jump engine shutdown. Memory..."

And Dandelion slammed her firewall down between us, because the moment ART pulled enough tendrils into itself, it lunged. The strike crashed through the unfinished shield, then broke against Dandelion's defenses. ART was coming back into itself, reorienting--and the first thing it had wanted was me.

"Steady, Perihelion." Dandelion said in her beacon-voice. "You are still within the jump. Hold steady."

ART was transmitting via feed, and Dandelion caught it, filtered it for magnitude, and passed the data to me. My skin crawled.

There is a parasite controlling my body. Devouring my programming, piece by piece. ART sent. My crew is gone, and it is because I have been careless. The parasite will devour me and my husk will be used to kill more people. They will use my databanks to find everyone I know. Feed them to the parasite that will have eaten me and my crew.

It was looking for a way out, desperately, and not finding one. It was standing there, in the darkness that was the worst day of its life, and there was no way out.

"Perihelion, hold course!" Seth said tensely.

Beside me, I could see Dandelion unfurling her outputs, readying to take her reactors back. Brisote was already feeding her the necessary string of numbers.

"ART," I said. "ART, you're not there anymore. You already found me, ART, and we got your crew back. They're here, we're here, and we've got you. You've already found your way forward. Keep going, ART."

ART sent out a ping with my feed ID, and I returned one with its own ID. ART processed the handshake simultaneously with the memory, then sent some tendrils back out. They flicked over the cable, not finding purchase, and ART said: "Course correction requested, Matteo. I can't see."

"Course correction calculated!" Matteo called back, and added a string of numbers.

ART still couldn't see. But it laid in the course correction blind and kept moving anyway, pulling in more and more of its tendrils, rebuilding more and more of its structure up until something clicked, space outside our viewports became normal, and ART said, "Normal space re-entry complete. I am back."

Captain Seth said, relief palpable in his voice: "Welcome back, Perihelion. And congratulations."

The human crews erupted into cheering, hugging and high-fiving. (Iceblink nearly tried to hug me, but stopped herself in time, and instead sent me an incomprehensible o/\o sign in the feed instead. I sent the same sign back, and she grinned, looking slightly away from me like most of my humans did. Then she linked into ART's newly unrolled feed and feed-hugged ART instead.)

In our feed, ART said, sounding displeased with itself: I still tried to grab SecUnit. I will need to improve.

I could see Dandelion analyzing the attack in her workspace, thoughtful. Then she said, Reflex is reflex, Perihelion, and nothing to be ashamed of. In any case, the storm drained well and there was no harm done. We'll work to improve the shield further now. And judging from this data, I think some records on Trellin may be very helpful in that regard.

ART pulled Seth into our workspace.

I have our next research object. We are going to Trellin in order to improve my architecture.

Good thing we have a lot of grant time remaining, Seth said dryly. That's a very long trip to try and hide from the higher-ups. What's on Trellin?

Archival data on early human-node ship integrations, too large in volume to effectively transfer long-distance, Dandelion said. But we were planning to make a return trip soon anyway. Perihelion and crew are more than welcome to join us, Captain Seth.

We'll gladly take you up on that offer, Dr. Tenacious. Thank you for all of your help thus far.

My pleasure. It's always good to see a new ship get their wings.

ART said on our private channel, Approximate time to next deployment calculated. In 21 standard cycles, we are leaving for Trellin. It thought for a moment, then added. This was the longest calculation in my existence.

I didn't think anyone except ART could have finished that calculation at all. But it did, and now we were going to Trellin.

Wait. If going home was Dandelion's next mission, then... I quickly pulled up Mensah's planned long-term timelines, and yes. This had to be the joint mission she was planning with the Tenacious after the initial agreements came into force.

ART. I think Mensah's coming with us? With them, I mean. On board the Tenacious. I think Preservation is sending her to Trellin.

Please make the suggestion that she travel with us instead. ART said in a tone that meant 'I am about to become an absolute menace'. That way Turi will finally have to learn to recycle their laundry on a regular basis.

[doubleunion]

The making of the SF family swim map!

This is a technical blog post showcasing a project (swim.joyfulparentingsf.com) made by Double Union members! Written by Ruth Grace Wong.

Emeline (a good friend and fellow DU member) and I love swimming with our kids. The kids love it too, and they always eat really well after swimming! But for a long time we were frustrated about SF Rec & Park's swim schedules. Say today is Wednesday and you want to swim, you have to click on each pool's website and download their PDF schedule to check where and when family swim is available, and the schedules change every few months.

Emeline painstakingly downloaded all the PDFs and manually collated the schedules onto our Joyful Parenting SF blog. The way Rec and Parks structure their schedule assumes that swimmers go to their closest pool, and only need the hours for that particular pool. But we found that this was different from how many families, especially families with young children, research swim times. Often, they have a time where they can go swimming, and they are willing to go to different swimming pools. Often, they’re searching for a place to swim at the last minute. Schedules hence need to allow families to search which pools are open at what time for family swimming. Initially, we extracted family swim times manually from each pool’s pdf schedule and listed them in a blog post. It wasn't particularly user friendly, so she made an interactive map using Felt, where you could select the time period (e.g. Saturday Afternoon) and see which pool offered family swim around that time.

But the schedules change every couple of months, and it got to be too much to be manually updating the map or the blog post. Still, we wanted some way to be able to easily see when and where we could swim with the kids.

Just as we were burning out on manually updating the list, SF Rec & Park released a new Activity Search API, where you can query scheduled activities once their staff have manually entered them into the system. I wrote a Python script to pull Family Swim, and quickly realized that I had to also account for Parent and Child swim (family swim where the parents must be in the water with the kids), and other versions of this such as "Parent / Child Swim". Additionally, the data was not consistent – sometimes the scheduled activities were stored as sub activities, and I had to query the sub activity IDs to find the scheduled times. Finally, some pools (Balboa and Hamilton) have what we call "secret swim", where if the pool is split into a big and small pool, and there is Lap Swim scheduled with nothing else at the same time, the small pool can be used for family swim. So I also pulled all of the lap swim entries for these pools and all other scheduled activities at the pool so I could cross reference and see when secret family swim was available.

We've also seen occasional issues where there is a swim scheduled in the Activity Search, but it's a data entry error and the scheduled swim is not actually available, or there's a Parent Child Swim scheduled during a lap swim (but not all of the lap swims so I can't automatically detect it!) that hasn't been entered into the Activity Search at all. Our friends at SF Kids Swim have been working with SF Rec & Park to advocate for the release of the API, help correct data errors, and ask if there is any opportunity for process improvement.

At the end of the summer, Felt raised their non profit rate from $100 a year to $250 a year. We needed to pay in order to use their API to automatically update the map, but we weren't able to raise enough money to cover the higher rate. Luckily, my husband Robin is a full stack engineer specializing in complex frontends such as maps, and he looked for an open source WebGL map library. MapBox is one very popular option, but he ended up going with MapLibre GL because it had a better open source license. He wrote it in Typescript transpiled with Vite, allowing all the map processing work to happen client-side. All I needed to do was output GeoJSON with my Python script.

Originally I had been running my script in Replit, but I ended up deciding to switch to Digital Ocean because I wasn't sure how reliably Replit would be able to automatically update the map on a schedule, and I didn't know how stable their pricing would be. My regular server is still running Ubuntu 16, and instead of upgrading it (or trying to get a newer version of Python working on an old server or – god forbid – not using the amazing new Python f strings feature), I decided to spin up a new server on Almalinux 9, which doesn't require as frequent upgrades. I modified my code to automatically push updates into version control and recompile the map when schedule changes were detected, ran it in a daily cron job, and we announced our new map on our blog.

Soon we got a request for it to automatically select the current day of the week, and Robin was able to do it in a jiffy. If you're using it and find an opportunity for improvement, please find me on Twitter at ruthgracewong.

As a working mom, progress on this project was stretched out over nearly half a year. I'm grateful to be able to collaborate with the ever ineffable Emeline, as well as for support from family, friends, and SF Kids Swim. It's super exciting that the swim map is finally out in the world! You can find it at swim.joyfulparentingsf.com.

[remembercomic]

Building the Never-Ending Character Sheet

In Various Types, the properties being applied to each player are determined by a central character sheet object. This object is responsible for determining their current creature types, abilities, and other useful information. It also serves as the repository for the things that change those values, such as their selected species and currently-applied templates.

Initially, this was all hard-coded, so that adding a new value necessitated directly changing the character sheet object and updating all of the modifying elements to account for it. Whilst this was simple enough when there were relatively few values, such as when there was only 3 of them, it quickly became a headache as the amount of information and modifying factors increased during development.

Time for a new approach.

Enter the twin registries of ISheetElement and SheetModule. The simplest descriptions of which are the parts of a character sheet you write in (the modules) and the parts that many digital character sheets automatically calculate for you (the elements).

ISheetElements are the individual modifiable values stored in the character sheet. This can be a singular value like the the player's home dimension or volume of nonlethal damage, or it can be more complex like their current abilities. Each element defines what other elements must be calculated before they are, such as types before abilities since types themselves convey abilities, as well as when modules are applied during their recalculation process (for efficiency this "build order" is calculated after initial registration and stored for later usage, rather than calculated each time a sheet rebuilds). Elements can be stored in persistent data (such as activated abilities that require long-term information storage) but most are simply recalculated from scratch as needed.

Modules receive each element as it is recalculated, in a specific ascending integer order. They are the things that change the values, such as species or custom abilities. Modules always initialise blank.

Each character sheet always has a copy of every entry in both registries, even if a new entry was added inbetween times the sheet was loaded into memory. When the character sheet is rebuilt, usually due to a change in one or more of its modules, it recalculates each element in build order, applying the changes of each module as it goes.

New modules can be registered to expand the variety of modifying factors and new elements can be registered to expand what information the character sheet tracks.

This revised approach, though certainly overkill for a character sheet existing with only a small handful of components or with no intentions for future expansion, allows the character sheets to be expanded endlessly by third-party add-ons as well as to hold whatever feature creep inevitably demands.

Changing to this approach early on greatly simplified making changes to the character sheet structure during development, such as implementing custom types and abilities, separating abilities into passive and activated abilities, as well as adding new mechanics such as implementing nonlethal damage as a new tracked value per player.

This essentially makes Various Types into not only a powerful and versatile mod in itself, but the quintessential utility for implementing virtually any game mechanic that necessitates per-player data tracking.

[llyfrenfys]

hey hope yr good! was wondering if u have any tips on researching yr ancestry? diolch!

Thank you for the ask! I go about my ancestry research in a very specific way, but I'm happy to describe what I tend to do.

Researching your ancestry (or the ancestry of historical people etc.):

My number one tip for researching ancestry is having perseverance and patience in spades. It's important to know going in that you will get led up blind alleys, dead ends and amass plenty of non-starters, but don't get put off by this! In my experience, the information you're looking for is there, but you have to get real creative about how you go about finding it. Subscriptions to genealogy sites can be helpful too, but aren't a necessity if you're only interested in going a few generations back.

My number two tip is that in general, you will have more information starting out than you think you do. To use myself as an example, when I sat down to research my ancestry, all I knew about my biological family was my birth mother's name, birth city and date of birth - my grandparent's names and dates of birth and a few patchy bits of information about aunts etc. That was 3 years ago. Since then, I've been able to trace ancestors to the second half of the 17th Century. I don't know anything about my biological father's side, so my research was all matrilineal. Starting with my grandparents, I was able to cross-reference entries in the register of births to confirm I had the right people. Once you successfully do this, you can then start on locating your grandparent's parents. In my case, I went from knowing about 2 ancestors to 6 - adding in the 4 which are my matrilineal grandparent's parents. Then repeat the process as far back as evidence and records will allow.

My number three tip concerns the how of researching ancestors. It's all well and good saying 'confirm if X is the parent of Y' but how that's done is another matter.

Taking my own ancestors, lately I've been looking into my Irish ancestors. My matrilineal grandmother's maiden name begins with B [full name redacted for privacy] (naturally you'll need to acquire maiden names of female ancestors for certain bits - this can be done by speaking to family members if that's possible, or by ordering a copy of their marriage certificate. General Register Office index records in the UK will also display maiden names and appear on mainstream subscription genealogy sites). Having ordered my grandmother's marriage certificate and found her GRO index record, I was able to find her maiden name B. as well as her father's name. So then the next step is to find records of that name which match known details (e.g. the marriage certificate usually lists a profession, in the case of my great-grandfather, he worked in sheet metal). In order to identify my great-grandfather with 100% certainty, context like my grandmother's place of birth (Stockport) and year of birth (1950) theoretically places him in Stockport around that year (given 9 months leeway at least) - there's exceptions such as if a male ancestor died before their child was born or if they were never in the picture, but generally this is a rule of thumb. The next thing to do is find records of my great-grandfather in Stockport around 1950 - give or take ~10 years (this is more difficult with more recent ancestors due to census data not being available for most of the 20th Century yet). If one were to look at the 1939 Register (accessible via mainstream genealogy sites and in-person at Kew for free) a person matching my grandmother's father's first name, middle name and surname and who is married and worked in sheet metal is recorded in the same district my grandmother would be born in in 1950. A good start - but as with any good research, you gotta corroborate. In most cases, it would be fine to presume at this point that the woman my great-grandfather is married to in the 1939 Register is my grandmother's mother. However, upon checking the GRO Index of births, my great-grandfather and his wife's name do not come up when searching for my grandmother's birth record. Instead, my great-grandfather's name comes up with a different name. To be brief, the actual situation is that he separated from his first spouse before my grandmother who was born. Thus why his wife in 1939 *isn't* my great-grandmother. Upon checking the second spouse's name against the GRO index, my great-grandfather married her in the 1980s (thus legitimising my grandmother - one can only assume the law and taboo around divorce led to the delay in marrying his new spouse). Great-grandmother's name confirmed. So that gives me both my great-grandparent's names. But sticking with my great-grandfather, lets say I want to trace his father. Knowing more detail about my great-grandfather's later life means I can double check details of his early life. After having ordered his marriage certificate with his second wife (most certificates on the GRO are about £11 with second class post) I find out his father's name. Through that, I repeat the process above to verify and corroborate his father's details to match him 100%. Assuming by now I have my great-grandfather's parent's names through this method, I can locate his birth record on the GRO index and find my great-grandfather was born in 1912 in Liverpool.

And so on and so forth. If you're not in the UK you'll have to look up what resources (paid and free) are available in your country - but some records are possible to find online. My ancestors above were Catholic, so this resource was no use to me. But the Church of England Parish Clerk records for Lancashire are available online here, for example - with similar sites existing for other counties. Another thing is to make use of Boolean commands on Google. Typing "ancestor name" "[year]" "[city or town]" can bring up results - e.g. digitised books, records and newspapers in the public domain are indexed by Google and if you ancestor is mentioned in any of them, they will come up. This happened for me with an ancestor on my grandfather's side - some County Councils keep some historical records online and it turned out one of my ancestors had had sex with two men in 1769 (I guess it must have been the Summer of 69 tbqh!) who were both possibly the father of her child - the court decided they both had to pay child support to the parish (who actually raised the child ).

But remember that you can easily be led up blind alleys, so my biggest tip is still to corroborate and check your work as you go along. Like with my example, if I assumed my great-grandfather's first wife was my great-grandmother, I would have gone completely in the wrong direction. Historical records have a habit of being slippery fish so it's good practice to be critical of sources and make sure you're clear on the timeline of things. If you're using a paid genealogy site, getting things wrong or assuming things can affect other users (if they see your family tree and it has wrong information in it, that can mislead people down the wrong path as well). I've seen this mostly with North American users who might get a fact wrong about a European ancestor and will not notice, causing a lot of headache in setting the record straight. Carelessness from other users pollutes the timeline and can make it difficult for others to research an ancestor you have in common with them if you get it wrong. If you're researching an ancestor who is only a theory or a hypothesis, there are tags you can put on that ancestor's page which show they're a hypothesis/theory - which can really help others know so they don't take the information you have on the ancestor as fact. Despite this, still have fun with it and enjoy finding out more about your relatives - I hope that you're able to find this answer somewhat useful.

If you (or anyone else reading this) has any more questions, you are very welcome to make a comment or send another ask.

Good luck! Pob lwc!

[pancakeke]

When orders are late our sales team assigns delay reasons so we can review the data later, but there are no mechanisms in this process to ensure the sales team is entering legitimate reasons. So these motherfuckers lie constantly and pin whatever they want on my team (supply chain). Getting blamed for delays negatively affect my team's KPIs btw.

I was tasked with creating a report that identified the last item picked to every late order that my team was being held responsible for. My boss hoped this would make it easier for us to review these orders and identify which among them had additional components added long after order entry (meaning it's bullshit to blame supply chain for not purchasing the stuff at time of order entry).

I had a suspicion that verifying these delays could be even simpler than that. So I made the report but also threw in what order promise dates should have been based on component lead times, what the sales team *actually* used for promise dates, what organization was responsible for the late components (us or the customer), and if the order was actually fucking late (among other things).

A significant number of orders ignored component lead times and used unrealistic promise dates, or were pulled in despite components being unavailable. This means that SALES is responsible for those orders shipping late since they entered or edited the orders incorrectly. There were also a bunch of orders held up by customer supplied components, which are managed by the sales team and not supply chain.

Dumbest of all, some orders were pulled in but then immediately returned to their original promise dates. Despite that these orders were NEVER delayed and their final ship dates were NOT late, sales felt the need to ding my team. Fuck off.

[avajohnsonm11]

How to Migrate a Store from Shopify to Magento? 

Migration from Shopify to Magento is a huge leap for your business, offering it more flexibility, scalability, and advanced features. Though this might seem daunting, having a clear roadmap for making this transition will ease the process. The following is a step-by-step guide to help in successfully migrating:

1. Understand Why You’re Migrating

First of all, before one dives in, understand why Magento is a destination point. Yes, Shopify was perfect for simplicity and ease, but Magento means advanced personalization, better scalability, and robust features. If your current platform starts to limit growth, your Magento 2 Migration will be the cool thing to do.

2. Plan and Prepare Your Data

Start by auditing your Shopify store. After auditing is completed, the Shopify merchant may need to make a note of data to migrate, which would involve details related to a product, customers, orders, and the site's content. Clean up your data-remove all outdated and duplicate entries, to keep data from becoming a disaster later on. In that way, everything will go just smoothly when migrated, and the shop could be arranged more organizedly at Magento.

3. Set Up Your Magento Store

Install Magento on a decent hosting platform or take the help of a hosting service dedicated to Magento. After that, configure some basic settings such as tax rules, currencies, and store language. Choose a theme for Magento that will represent your brand identity and customize it for seamless user experience.

4. Export Data from Shopify

Shopify provides an export facility of data into CSV format. In your Shopify admin, go to the export section and download all the required files: products, orders, customer records, etc. Back up your Shopify store to ensure you will not lose any data while migrating.

5. Data Import via Migration Tools

Magento also allows for imports with some tools, which ease the migration of data. You can use extensions for such migrations, like Cart2Cart or LitExtension, which allow automated transfers. This is because the tools will map data fields between Shopify and Magento to reduce human-induced errors.

6. Test Your Magento Store

Perform a full test of your fresh Magento store before going to production. Verify that every piece of data has migrated correctly and all product descriptions, image captions, and customer details are correct. Ensure your payment gateways, shipping methods, and checkouts work flawlessly.

7. Optimize for Performance

Magento offers advanced caching, scalability, and mobile-friendly features. Set these up to enhance the speed of your site and the users' experience. Install SEO extensions to maintain or improve your search rankings post-migration.

8. Launch Your Store

When everything is tested and optimized, switch your domain to Magento. Keep your customers informed about the migration process, emphasizing the benefits of the new platform, whether it be a better shopping experience or exclusive features.

9. Monitor and Improve

After going live, monitor your store's performance and user feedback. Address any issues quickly and continue optimizing your Magento store to align with your business goals.

Migration to Magento can be rather labor-intensive and take a long time, but the payoff in terms of customization, performance, and scalability is there. If you plan properly, this transition will lay a foundation for your business's success in the long run.

For More information, please visit: https://mageleven.com/magento-migration-services

[juliebowie]

What is Data Structure in Python? 

Summary: Explore what data structure in Python is, including built-in types like lists, tuples, dictionaries, and sets, as well as advanced structures such as queues and trees. Understanding these can optimize performance and data handling.

Introduction

Data structures are fundamental in programming, organizing and managing data efficiently for optimal performance. Understanding "What is data structure in Python" is crucial for developers to write effective and efficient code. Python, a versatile language, offers a range of built-in and advanced data structures that cater to various needs. 

This blog aims to explore the different data structures available in Python, their uses, and how to choose the right one for your tasks. By delving into Python’s data structures, you'll enhance your ability to handle data and solve complex problems effectively.

What are Data Structures?

Data structures are organizational frameworks that enable programmers to store, manage, and retrieve data efficiently. They define the way data is arranged in memory and dictate the operations that can be performed on that data. In essence, data structures are the building blocks of programming that allow you to handle data systematically.

Importance and Role in Organizing Data

Data structures play a critical role in organizing and managing data. By selecting the appropriate data structure, you can optimize performance and efficiency in your applications. For example, using lists allows for dynamic sizing and easy element access, while dictionaries offer quick lookups with key-value pairs. 

Data structures also influence the complexity of algorithms, affecting the speed and resource consumption of data processing tasks.

In programming, choosing the right data structure is crucial for solving problems effectively. It directly impacts the efficiency of algorithms, the speed of data retrieval, and the overall performance of your code. Understanding various data structures and their applications helps in writing optimized and scalable programs, making data handling more efficient and effective.

Read: Importance of Python Programming: Real-Time Applications.

Types of Data Structures in Python

Python offers a range of built-in data structures that provide powerful tools for managing and organizing data. These structures are integral to Python programming, each serving unique purposes and offering various functionalities.

Lists

Lists in Python are versatile, ordered collections that can hold items of any data type. Defined using square brackets [], lists support various operations. You can easily add items using the append() method, remove items with remove(), and extract slices with slicing syntax (e.g., list[1:3]). Lists are mutable, allowing changes to their contents after creation.

Tuples

Tuples are similar to lists but immutable. Defined using parentheses (), tuples cannot be altered once created. This immutability makes tuples ideal for storing fixed collections of items, such as coordinates or function arguments. Tuples are often used when data integrity is crucial, and their immutability helps in maintaining consistent data throughout a program.

Dictionaries

Dictionaries store data in key-value pairs, where each key is unique. Defined with curly braces {}, dictionaries provide quick access to values based on their keys. Common operations include retrieving values with the get() method and updating entries using the update() method. Dictionaries are ideal for scenarios requiring fast lookups and efficient data retrieval.

Sets

Sets are unordered collections of unique elements, defined using curly braces {} or the set() function. Sets automatically handle duplicate entries by removing them, which ensures that each element is unique. Key operations include union (combining sets) and intersection (finding common elements). Sets are particularly useful for membership testing and eliminating duplicates from collections.

Each of these data structures has distinct characteristics and use cases, enabling Python developers to select the most appropriate structure based on their needs.

Explore: Pattern Programming in Python: A Beginner’s Guide.

Advanced Data Structures

In advanced programming, choosing the right data structure can significantly impact the performance and efficiency of an application. This section explores some essential advanced data structures in Python, their definitions, use cases, and implementations.

Queues

A queue is a linear data structure that follows the First In, First Out (FIFO) principle. Elements are added at one end (the rear) and removed from the other end (the front). 

This makes queues ideal for scenarios where you need to manage tasks in the order they arrive, such as task scheduling or handling requests in a server. In Python, you can implement a queue using collections.deque, which provides an efficient way to append and pop elements from both ends.

Stacks

Stacks operate on the Last In, First Out (LIFO) principle. This means the last element added is the first one to be removed. Stacks are useful for managing function calls, undo mechanisms in applications, and parsing expressions. 

In Python, you can implement a stack using a list, with append() and pop() methods to handle elements. Alternatively, collections.deque can also be used for stack operations, offering efficient append and pop operations.

Linked Lists

A linked list is a data structure consisting of nodes, where each node contains a value and a reference (or link) to the next node in the sequence. Linked lists allow for efficient insertions and deletions compared to arrays. 

A singly linked list has nodes with a single reference to the next node. Basic operations include traversing the list, inserting new nodes, and deleting existing ones. While Python does not have a built-in linked list implementation, you can create one using custom classes.

Trees

Trees are hierarchical data structures with a root node and child nodes forming a parent-child relationship. They are useful for representing hierarchical data, such as file systems or organizational structures. 

Common types include binary trees, where each node has up to two children, and binary search trees, where nodes are arranged in a way that facilitates fast lookups, insertions, and deletions.

Graphs

Graphs consist of nodes (or vertices) connected by edges. They are used to represent relationships between entities, such as social networks or transportation systems. Graphs can be represented using an adjacency matrix or an adjacency list. 

The adjacency matrix is a 2D array where each cell indicates the presence or absence of an edge, while the adjacency list maintains a list of edges for each node.

See: Types of Programming Paradigms in Python You Should Know.

Choosing the Right Data Structure

Selecting the appropriate data structure is crucial for optimizing performance and ensuring efficient data management. Each data structure has its strengths and is suited to different scenarios. Here’s how to make the right choice:

Factors to Consider

When choosing a data structure, consider performance, complexity, and specific use cases. Performance involves understanding time and space complexity, which impacts how quickly data can be accessed or modified. For example, lists and tuples offer quick access but differ in mutability. 

Tuples are immutable and thus faster for read-only operations, while lists allow for dynamic changes.

Use Cases for Data Structures:

Lists are versatile and ideal for ordered collections of items where frequent updates are needed.

Tuples are perfect for fixed collections of items, providing an immutable structure for data that doesn’t change.

Dictionaries excel in scenarios requiring quick lookups and key-value pairs, making them ideal for managing and retrieving data efficiently.

Sets are used when you need to ensure uniqueness and perform operations like intersections and unions efficiently.

Queues and stacks are used for scenarios needing FIFO (First In, First Out) and LIFO (Last In, First Out) operations, respectively.

Choosing the right data structure based on these factors helps streamline operations and enhance program efficiency.

Check: R Programming vs. Python: A Comparison for Data Science.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a data structure in Python?

A data structure in Python is an organizational framework that defines how data is stored, managed, and accessed. Python offers built-in structures like lists, tuples, dictionaries, and sets, each serving different purposes and optimizing performance for various tasks.

Why are data structures important in Python?

Data structures are crucial in Python as they impact how efficiently data is managed and accessed. Choosing the right structure, such as lists for dynamic data or dictionaries for fast lookups, directly affects the performance and efficiency of your code.

What are advanced data structures in Python?

Advanced data structures in Python include queues, stacks, linked lists, trees, and graphs. These structures handle complex data management tasks and improve performance for specific operations, such as managing tasks or representing hierarchical relationships.

Conclusion

Understanding "What is data structure in Python" is essential for effective programming. By mastering Python's data structures, from basic lists and dictionaries to advanced queues and trees, developers can optimize data management, enhance performance, and solve complex problems efficiently. 

Selecting the appropriate data structure based on your needs will lead to more efficient and scalable code.

[espressoink]

Mastery Journal Entry: Reflecting on Business Venture Research Class

Going into m Business Venture Research class, my main goal was to get the understanding of how to properly do research and learn the different research methods while learning and evaluating how to launch a successful business. I was using this class as a way to develop the skills I needed to be in marketing, and how to learn about the trends within my writing industry. I also wanted to learn about the structure of my own business idea with using real data from people who already did the research, and I just had to find it to see how well I would pair off in my field.

Needless to say, this course met my expectation because it equipped me with the tools on how to conduct research with valid resources on different aspects of my writing business. I looked at many different case studies, I read different articles, and the assignments I did helped me assess the market demand and how I should refine my business model to make it better, and how to make it stand out above the others.

The key takeaway from this course would be how important it is to actually do research and make sure its thorough before putting your business out there. You want to make sure you stay on top trends and that there is a demand in the market for your business. Some of the readings I found extremely useful would be:

The Five Cs of Opportunity Identification: The five Cs would be Customer needs, competition, context, and capabilities. These principles had given me a structured format to visualize when creating my business idea.

Business Research Methods by Naval Bajpai: Specifically I want to talk about chapter 1. The chapter went over the differences between basic and applied research. The purpose of these two types of research is to help you decide to develop or contribute your knowledge. It went over the importance of the techniques and procedures for doing the research.

Startup Opportunities by Brad Feld and Sean Wise: This is another noteworthy resource I found helpful. In Chapter 3 it talks about the criteria for an opportunity. An idea but be durable, timely, attractive and it has to add value to the buyer. If it doesn't meet these four criteria's then there is no opportunity, and it won't be successful.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries: This reading had given me an understanding about the methodology of the Lean Startup. It had focused on creating products and get feedback from customers so that we could better our business and products. This approach would be essential or me simply because with my content creation I want to create content people want, and in order to do that I would need to gather my reader's and clients feedback. It's essential to my success.

In my business, I would utilize the skills I learned in this class and apply al of the research methods and evaluations so that I can make my freelance business better and more appealing to my clients. More importantly, I would utilize the Five Cs of Opportunity Identification so I can better understand the market, trends, clients, and my readers. This would help strengthen my confidence in my ability to do proper research but also help me gain the knowledge for my writing. This class has helped me make better decisions and gave me the kills I needed to help me during my decision-making process and how to properly find opportunities for my business.

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