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Assignment Help in Belfast
Are you a Belfast student who is struggling with your assignment? Worry no more â The Tutors Help is at your service. We offer professional assignment assistance in Belfast to simplify and make your academic life more successful. Having professional assignment assistance at your disposal will not only save your time but also enable you to concentrate on your studies and live without tension. Irrespective of whether you study at Queen's University Belfast, Ulster University, or any other college, our experts are prepared to assist you with better grades.
Why Do Students in Belfast Need Assignment Help
Belfast has some of the best educational institutions in the UK. The education is excellent, but the assignments are quite challenging. Most of the students claim to be overburdened with deadlines, research tasks, and writing demands. Some of the most common issues that students endure are:
Insufficient Time: Students will have a part-time job or hectic schedules, so they cannot concentrate on assignments.
Chrate Subjects: Certain subjects such as engineering, law, nursing, and finance are said to be challenging and require specialist knowledge.
Languages Differences: For foreign students, it is challenging to write academic English.
Plagiarism Fears: Most students are said to fear plagiarizing content intentionally, which results in punishment.
It is said that this is due to where The Tutors Help comes in.
What We Provide
We at The Tutors Help give the best assignment writing services in Belfast. We believe that we should enable students to learn their subjects more effectively and achieve high marks. This is what you receive if you hire us:
Expert Writers: Our staff consists of professional writers in various fields of science, business studies, law, and more. They are well-equipped with knowledge about the UK education system and maintain strict university standards.
Plagiarism-Free Work: We provide plagiarism-free work with proper research and references. All assignments are proofread for plagiarism before sending them.
Affordable Prices: We know students are low on funds, and hence our services are kept reasonable and fair.
On-Time Delivery: Time is precious. We make sure you get your assignments on time without any inconvenience.
24/7 Support: Our personnel is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to any query you may have and guide you in your studies.
How to Get Assignment Help in Belfast
Obtaining assistance from The Tutors Help is quick and convenient:
Send Your Details: Provide us with your assignment title, deadline, and instructor guidelines.
Get a Quote: We'll provide you with a fair quote for the assignment.
Sit Back While We Do It: Our experts will research, write, and provide you with the assignment well ahead of your deadline.
Download and Master: Utilize the assignment to better know your topic and study for exams.
Final Thoughts
It is a wonderful experience to study in Belfast, but assignment work can prove to be very stressful. You don't have to do it all on your own. By availing The Tutors Help, you receive specialized guidance and high-quality help for all your scholastic needs.
We can relieve you of the pressure of studying. Chat with The Tutors Help today for the highest quality assignment assistance in Belfast and begin attaining those grades that you so rightly deserve!
#Assignment Help in Belfast#Are you a Belfast student who is struggling with your assignment? Worry no more â The Tutors Help is at your service. We offer professional#Ulster University#or any other college#our experts are prepared to assist you with better grades.#Why Do Students in Belfast Need Assignment Help#Belfast has some of the best educational institutions in the UK. The education is excellent#but the assignments are quite challenging. Most of the students claim to be overburdened with deadlines#research tasks#and writing demands. Some of the most common issues that students endure are:#1.#Insufficient Time: Students will have a part-time job or hectic schedules#so they cannot concentrate on assignments.#2.#Chrate Subjects: Certain subjects such as engineering#law#nursing#and finance are said to be challenging and require specialist knowledge.#3.#Languages Differences: For foreign students#it is challenging to write academic English.#4.#Plagiarism Fears: Most students are said to fear plagiarizing content intentionally#which results in punishment.#It is said that this is due to where The Tutors Help comes in.#What We Provide#We at The Tutors Help give the best assignment writing services in Belfast. We believe that we should enable students to learn their subjec#â#Expert Writers: Our staff consists of professional writers in various fields of science#business studies
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The Rise of Professional MBA Assignment Writing Services in India: A Game Changer for Aspiring Leaders
The landscape of higher education in India is evolving rapidly, and the demand for skilled professionals is at an all-time high. For aspiring leaders pursuing their MBA degrees, the pressure to excel can be overwhelming. With rigorous coursework and tight deadlines, many students find themselves seeking help in unexpected places. Enter professional MBA assignment writing servicesâa new trend that's transforming how students approach their studies. These services not only promise to ease academic burdens but also offer a fresh perspective on complex topics that often leave students grappling for answers. As more learners turn to these specialized resources, one can't help but wonder: are they a blessing or a hindrance? Letâs explore the advantages of using these MBA essay writing company in india and delve into some controversies surrounding them while sharing success stories from those who've navigated this path successfully.
Advantages of Using Professional Services for MBA Assignments
Professional MBA assignment writing services provide a lifeline for students navigating their demanding programs. With expert writers well-versed in various business disciplines, these services ensure high-quality submissions that reflect industry standards. Time management is another significant advantage. Juggling classes, group projects, and internships can leave little time for research and writing. Outsourcing assignments allows students to focus on other essential aspects of their education. Moreover, professional services offer personalized support tailored to specific needs. Students receive customized content that aligns with their unique requirements, enhancing learning outcomes. Access to resources is yet another benefit. Writers often have access to academic databases and current literature, providing insights that enrich the assignments beyond typical classroom materials. Utilizing these services can boost confidence. Submitting well-crafted work not only improves grades but also reinforces knowledgeâan invaluable asset for future leaders in any field.
Controversies and Criticisms Surrounding the Industry
The surge of MBA assignment writing services in India has not come without its share of controversies. Critics often argue that these services encourage academic dishonesty. The concern is valid; students may rely too heavily on external help, undermining their learning. Moreover, the quality of work provided by some companies can be inconsistent. While many firms boast top-notch writers, others may deliver subpar content that fails to meet academic standards. This inconsistency can lead to poor grades and tarnished reputations for those who use these services. Ethical considerations also loom large in this debate. Some educators feel that hiring someone else to complete assignments goes against the spirit of education itself. They worry it fosters a culture where effort and perseverance are sidelined for convenience. Despite the criticisms, it's clear that demand for these services continues to grow as students seek support amidst rigorous academic pressures.
Success Stories of Students Who Utilized Professional Services
The impact of MBA assignment writing services in India is evident through numerous success stories. Many students have turned to these services not just for help, but as a strategic move towards achieving their career goals. Take the case of Priya, who struggled with time management due to her part-time job and rigorous coursework. After seeking assistance from a professional writing service, she discovered how structured guidance could enhance her understanding. With expertly crafted assignments that adhered to academic standards, Priya was able to focus on building essential skills during her limited study hours. She graduated with flying colors and landed a prestigious role in marketing shortly after. Similarly, Rohan faced challenges while juggling multiple projects. He opted for MBA assignment writing services as a way to alleviate some pressure during peak times. The insights he gained from well-researched papers helped him grasp complex concepts better than ever before. This newfound confidence translated into higher grades and eventually secured him an internship at a leading consulting firm. Students like Priya and Rohan represent the growing trend where utilizing professional assistance has become synonymous with smart studying rather than shortcuts or dishonesty. Their experiences resonate among peers, highlighting that when used correctly, these services can be transformative tools in navigating the demanding landscape of business education. As more aspiring leaders embrace this approach, it seems likely that MBA assignment writing services will continue shaping educational journeys across Indiaâempowering students by providing support tailored specifically for their needs.
For More Information :
Phd Assignment Writing in India
Indian Assignment Help
#M Tech Thesis Writing Services in India#civil engineering thesis writing services in india#MBA Assignment Writing Services india
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In her new book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, journalist and WIRED alum Megan Greenwell chronicles the devastating impacts of one of the most powerful yet poorly understood forces in modern American capitalism. Flush with cash, largely unregulated, and relentlessly focused on profit, private equity firms have quietly reshaped the US economy, taking over large chunks of industries ranging from health care to retailâoften leaving financial ruin in their wake.
Twelve million people in the US now work for companies owned by private equity, Greenwell writes, or about 8 percent of the total employed population. Her book focuses on the stories of four of these individuals, including a Toys âRâ Us supervisor who loses the best job she ever had and a Wyoming doctor who watches his rural hospital cut essential services. Their collective experiences are a damning account of how innovation is being replaced by financial engineering and the ways that shift is being paid for by everyone except those at the top.
In a review of Bad Company for Bloomberg, a longtime private equity executive accused Greenwell of seeking out sad stories with inevitably âsad endings.â But the characters Greenwell selected donât just sit back and watch as private equity devastates their communities. The book is a portrait of not only how the American dream is being eroded but also the creative tactics people are using to fight back.
Greenwell spoke to WIRED late last month about what private equity is and isnât, how it has transformed different industries, and what workers are doing to reclaim their power.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
WIRED: What is private equity? How is the business model different from, say, venture capital?
Megan Greenwell: People confuse private equity and venture capital all the time, but it's totally reasonable that normal people don't understand the difference. Basically, the easiest way to explain the difference is that venture capital firms invest money, usually in startups. Theyâre essentially taking a stake in the company and expecting some sort of returns over time. They're also generally playing a significantly longer game than private equity.
But the way private equity works, especially with leveraged buyouts, which is what I focus on in the book, is they're buying companies outright. In venture capital, you put your money in, you're entrusting it to a CEO, and you probably have a board seat. But in the leveraged buyout model, the private equity firm really is the owner and controlling decider of the portfolio company.
How do private equity firms define success? What kinds of companies or businesses are attractive to them?
In venture capital, VCs are evaluating whether to make a deal based solely on whether they think that company is going to become successful. They are looking for unicorns. Is this company going to be the next Uber? Private equity is looking to make money off of companies in ways that don't actually require the company itself to make money. That is like the biggest thing.
So itâs less of a gamble.
It is very hard for private equity firms to lose money on deals. They're getting a 2 percent management fee, even if they're running the company into the ground. They're also able to pull off all these tricks, like selling off the company's real estate and then charging the company rent on the same land it used to own. When private equity firms take out loans to buy companies, the debt from those loans is assigned not to the private equity firm but to the portfolio company.
And so what you end up getting is that private equity is really attracted to companies where you don't have to play the long game. In fact, you don't want to play the long game, which means that you have no interest in doing the hard, slow work of improving a company's fundamentals. It is just not about improving the company at all. It is about, how do we extract money?
How did we get to this point where private equity is now taking over relatively large and diverse swaths of the economy, including veterinary clinics, brick-and-mortar retail stores, and all sorts of other businesses. What was the promise of this model?
Private equity started pretty small in the 1960s with what were then called âbootstrap deals,â essentially acquisitions of small, family-run companies that maybe showed promise for expansion but didn't have the capital necessary to grow. So in some ways it was more like venture capital, although it targeted established companies and not brand-new startups. This idea of growth at all costs then just expanded and expanded and expanded and started swallowing more and more and more things.
When did private equity start to peak?
There was a huge expansion of private equity in the 2010s for the same reason that venture capital exploded: There was a lot of cheap money out there, and cheap money is great for investors. Weâve seen private equity explore more industries over time, and usually that's because some policy change or broader economic trend all of a sudden makes a certain sector look like fertile ground for them.
What are some of the strategies that workers have used to fight back against private equity firms? Have they been successful?
What was interesting to me was not prescribing solutions but talking about what people are doing. The four characters in my book are all trying to do something about this in very different ways, and those range from fighting for regulation, to just going head-to-head directly with the private equity firm that upended their own life, to really trying to reinvent their industries from the ground up, which is something that is especially inspiring to me.
Do you have one that has stuck with you more than the others?
One example that Iâll talk about from the book is from the Toys âRâ Us section. Public pension funds are a huge source of capital for private equity firms, and they typically have worker representatives on their boards. So if they're representing teachers and nurses and firefighters, there will be one or more people working in those professions serving on the pension fund board.
Toys âRâ Us workers had this very smart idea that those folks would be more likely to be sympathetic to their cause than a bunch of billionaires would. So they started going around the country, standing in front of these pension fund boards and saying âhere is how these private equity firms that you invest in have blown up our lives,â talking in really specific detail about things like how they couldnât find jobs and were worried about feeding their families. The protagonist of that section of my book tells a story about how the members of one board just started peppering her with questions after she spoke in front of them.
Some people claim that private equity firms are the primary culprit behind broad economic problems such as income inequality and the housing crisis. Are they putting the blame in the right place?
I think by putting all of the blame on them, you end up undermining the criticisms about private equity firms that are more truthful. This is something that I thought really hard about how to do in the book, because I do think it's a mistake actually, but also strategically for people who want to see this system change, to attribute too much to them.
Right.
The first section of the book tells the story of how the four industries I write aboutâhousing, hospitals, retail, and local mediaâgot themselves into trouble in the first place. In all of those cases, the problems are so fundamental. And in many of those cases, the earlier business decisions were so bone-headed that they essentially opened the door and invited private equity to walk right in. I do think private equity is a villain in terms of the way they have taken advantage of these industries for their own gain, but it is absolutely true that they did not cause the problems.
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In the Blue Hours of the Morning: Chapter 1 - Compete Against the Stars
Summary: You're in your final semester at Piltoverâs University, and in your endeavors to revise one of your final papers, you meet Professor Heimerdinger's assistant. Heâs quick. Intelligent. And surprisingly charismatic. A last minute friendship forms as you ask for his help to have the best chance to graduate on time and become a scientist yourself. Things are looking up for your studiesâŚUntil your stress mixes with some unpredictable feelings.
Story tags/warnings: pre-season 1, no use of y/n or real world language, strangers to friends to lovers, fluffy, acts of service as viktors love language, academic weapon reader, viktor pov chapters, sky pov chapter, eventual nsfw. unrequited love towards sky :( random oc created for the sole purpose of being a side character. not a song fic, chapters names are just inspired by song lyrics. the only thing viktors insecure about is him being an assistant, he knows heâs fine.
Word Count (Chapter 1): 2.3k
Next Chapter ->
Chapter 1 of 21
Read on AO3
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Four years. Four years of university were almost over. And yet there wasnât time or room to slack off, especially not now. You needed to turn in final projects, write essays, and take your final exam. Not take it⌠Ace it. Demolish it.
Every day was almost always the same. You woke up, dressed yourself, and adjusted your vest with its two pairs of diamonds, and headed to class. No matter how tired you were, you had one goal in mind: success.
And damn, you were getting there.
You were among the top three students in your class, always shifting between number one, two, and three. It hadnât been easy, especially in science and engineering. One doesnât make it that far without a system. You had a list of rules for yourself:
Do the homework the day itâs assigned.
Study the homework.
Read ahead.
Borrow books to read more about every subject.Â
Attend every class. No absences even if you were sick.
No distractions. No parties, no leisure time if an assignment is due. Work first. Always.
Annotate everything that the professors say. Even the small comments.
Study at least three days before a test.
And the most important one:
Donât let anyone see you fail. Not once.
Perfection was key. Inside and outside of the classroom alike.Â
Except⌠it was draining; you couldnât deny that. This wasnât in your nature. Maybe it wasnât in anyoneâs nature to try so much. You cherished the moments when you rested in the middle of the gardens in spring, with the birds softly chirping and the grass rustling in the wind. Nothing was better than being right in the middle of the semester, with nothing to do and nothing to turn in. Youâd go out to lunch with some friends, maybe read a book or something. Whatever it was, the choice was yours.
That bliss would come again, and soon. Just as soon as you pushed through for one final time to earn your third pair of diamonds.
You could not fail. Not when your parents worked their tails off to leave the undercity and raise you in Piltover. Even when they were still alive and well, they always told you to be the best for yourself. They screwed that into your head ever since you were little. More so when they both got sick from the fumes they had inhaled their whole life. It was the fate of a large chunk of people living in the underbelly of Piltover. Especially people like you who were born in the lower parts of the entresol level. Your parents managed to scrape together enough to rent a small shack on the outskirts of town near the cold and uninviting harbor. Having daily access to sea air over toxic fumes gave you much better odds.Â
Seeing them cough up blood, lose mobility, and losing them to illness gave you the final push to be self-sufficient. You got into Piltoverâs University yourself. You filled out the dormitory paperwork so you wouldnât sleep on the streets like they once had to. You applied for weekend jobs to feed and clothe yourself during university.
You did that. You, your perseverance, and nobody else.Â
And gods be damned if anyone thought you would slack off a month before the final exam.Â
The long corridors went on and on as you swept through them, trying to keep your papers in your notebook.Â
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hope heâs in his lab right now. You thought.
You needed Professor Heimerdinger to look over your paper for one of your classes. Normally, you wouldnât have asked for his help, knowing he had much more important matters at hand. But he had offered help to anyone in one of his classes you took. So, you had to take his word for it. You didnât have the time to guess if you had done the homework right.Â
It was due in two days. If there was something wrong, you needed to know. Stat. These kinds of equations were so unforgiving when you put a decimal one space more than it needed to be. With sleep deprivation, any mistake was possible.
Once you made it to his lab, you straightened your vest, sleeves, and organized your pages. Then, with three swift knocks, you made your presence known. The professor's voice echoed through the lab and grew closer with little tip-taps of his feet. The door opened inward, and you looked down.Â
There he was, short as always and his fur covered in dust. âMy! If it isnât one of my best pupils! Come, come. Come in!â He stepped aside to let you in with a smile. Sheepishly, you skulked in, having never entered his lab. You followed him toward the back of the room to resume what he was doing. It looked like he was organizing and cleaning up the lab. Papers lay scattered, and screws were sprinkled all over the place.
It was amazing.Â
Its walls stood tall with elevated bookshelves filled to the brim with books. At the far left were three large windows that would let the incoming sunset in. So many gadgets and contraptions were everywhere, big and small. Some finished, some open and in the middle of repairs. And by Janna, the sketches. Endless notes and sketches of invention ideas pasted on walls.
âApologies for the mess! You know how it is with the end of the semester. Cleaning out old ideas in favor of new ones!â You could have looked at it all day until the professor brought you back to the moment, âwhat can I help you with today?â
âOh, well. In the last class of this semester, you said if we ever needed help with anything, we could come to you for help, right?â You pulled the papers out of your notebook. âAnd I need it. I really doâ"
The soft hum of the lab door stopped your words and another student waltzed inside in a hurry.
âProfessor Heimerdinger! Iâm here about the funds for the library improvements. The student body wants to hand over the list of expenses to you and the council so we can get approval.â
âOh yes! How exciting! Come! Come in!â Professor Heimerdinger skipped past you and took the stack of papers from the student. He skimmed through them and looked back at you. âIâll be with you in a second.â
âItâs fine," you said, putting your hand up. "I can wait."
âThank you, I was waiting for this visitâ Actually, let me call my assistant." He looked up from the papers and called out. âViktor! Could you assist me here for a minute?â He smiled at you from below. Professor Heimerdinger was your favorite by far; he was always so kind. His short stature likely contributed to the friendliness he gave off.
Wait. Is someone else in the lab?
Soft metal clinks came from the hidden part of the professorâs lab along with some footsteps. Your ears searched for the soundâs origin, but your eyes beat you to it. They landed on a tall, slender stranger with nicely combed brown hair along his angular face. The stranger seemed pretentious and intimidating with his golden cane wrapped in fine maroon leather.
Until he spoke.
âGood afternoon,â he said with a softness as he passed his cane to his other hand to greet you. Your mind looked through its catalog of faces. Had you seen him before? It wasnât a face you could recall on the spot. Maybe youâd know if you hadnât sequestered yourself in your studies for the past four years.
âHave you met?â The professor asked.
âI donât think so.â You shook his hand firmly as the professor said your name to him.Â
Professor Heimerdinger handed him your seven equation-filled pages. âThis is Viktor, my assistant. My right hand, if you will!â Viktor seemed to count the pages as the professor continued. âIâm going to have him look through your paper, if itâs alright with him. And you!â
Another student checking your homework made you feel nervous. What if he missed a crucial error? A thousand what-ifs filled your head and you pushed them out with one logical thought.
If heâs the professorâs assistant, he must know what heâs doing, right?
Between all your mental chaos, you gave a simple answer. âThatâs fine by me.â
âItâs not a problem, Professor. I remember this project.â Viktor straightened the papers out, "it'll be a refresher.âÂ
As soon as he said the word 'refresher', you noticed his three sets of diamonds on his vest. It meant only one thing.Â
He had already graduated.
Not an upperclassman. This is going to be so embarrassing if itâs wrong. The thought ate at you. You hoped it didn't show on your face.
âOh goody! Iâll be done in a minute.â He hurried over to the student.
Viktorâs head tilted towards the back of the lab. "We can sit if youâd like.â A small table with four chairs near the tall windows waited for you, covered in papers like the rest of the room.
âYeah, that works.â You followed him, still gazing at the immensity of the lab. So many books for the professor to have on hand. One could only dream.
Arriving at the table, you reached for the chair in front of you, but Viktor had placed his hand on it.
I shouldâve waited for him to pick a chair first.
He pulled it out and motioned for you to sit.
Oh.Â
You sat and adjusted your vest. âThank you.âÂ
He soon followed, placing his cane on the side of the table and clearing his throat. Without another word, he started looking through it. His gaze focused on the problem at the top. He looked intimidating again with his thick brows cinched together.Â
Your eyes wandered through the silence. Well, almost silence. The shuffling of your project paired with the professorâs voice made your nerves skyrocket. Still, you had to sit still like nothing was wrong. Otherwise, youâd be pacing around the room with your arms crossed. You decided to break the quietness.Â
Be polite.
âThanks for looking through my project." You huffed, "Iâm about to graduate and I donât want to repeat the class. Ever.âÂ
No, seriously. That was the worst class youâd ever been through. Sleepless nights and dark eye bags were the prize every student had after taking the class. Professor Penmark was the filter for graduation. Condescending to absolutely everyone, so it wasn't personal towards you.
âItâs no problem. I graduated a year ago. I still remember this class. That teacher isnât lenient, huh?"
âNot at all.â You chuckled, still keeping your posture rigid and proper.
His face relaxed, âI remember how the class gasped when he said that this homeworkâproject-thing⌠was going to decide if you passed or not." Then his eyes widened. "Fun.â He kept flipping through the pages quite swiftly. Was he even looking through it? âLooks like he made it more complicated this year. Not impossible, butâ" Viktor looked up. âHow long did this take you?â
âSix hours. With breaks.â
âHm.â
Viktor went back to the pages and looked intimidating again because your fate of passing the class was in his hands. A few short hums, or huffs, came from him. That made you worried. A hum or a huff could only mean one thing: a mistake.
Letâs say it was wrong. That meant it was back to square one. The teacher gave you three days to complete it. You were already one day down. If it took you six hours and it was wrong this first time, you had another seven tries at the most to try again. You sat there, praying to whatever would listen that your calculations had been right, with every symbol correctly switched andâ
âSo, whatâs wrong with it?â His voice cut off your train of thought.
All you could muster up was a measly, 'what?'Â
âYou brought it here to fix any mistakes, no?â He looked up from your papers, looking terribly confused. More confused than you, actually.
âW-wait. Is it correct? The whole thing? Are you sure?âÂ
Thereâs no way.
âWell... Yes. Whatâs the issue?â
You didnât know what to feel. Satisfaction, anxiousness, relief? You figured out the problem on the first try? Clear? No repeats, a clean sweep?
âNo, thatâs what I wanted to know, if it had no mistakes,â you took the paper when he handed it back to you. âOh myâI can finally rest.â
There was a brief moment of silence before the professorâs voice became louder, âyes, very well! Iâll make sure to let them know! Check the corrections I gave you and come back!â He escorted the person out and came back to you both in little steps, "oh, Iâm terribly sorry, you two. I was caught up in some council duties, but now that thatâs out of the way, did Viktor look over your project?â
You sprung from your chair, âyes! Itâs done. No mistakes.âÂ
âItâs to be expected; you have a knack for numbers!â He looked up at Viktor. "And with a talent like this boy's, itâs inconceivable that itâs wrong!â
"It never hurts to be extra sure." Your hands kept fidgeting with your papers.
âI suggest turning it in right now! You donât want to end up forgetting!â The professor walked to the door as you followed. Thankfully, the project was over and completely correct. Now you could finally take a small break.
Wait.
How could you forget to say goodbye?
How rude of me.
You turned on your heel and waved, "it was nice to meet you!"
He was already standing up before you called to him. For a second, he was taken aback.Â
Then, he replied. "Likewise."
#arcane#viktor arcane#viktor x reader#in the blue hours of the morning#IM POSTING THIS FOR MY FRIEND DJLHDFLJHDSJLF SHES BEEN WANTING ME TO POST THIS FOR LIKE. A YEAR. SORRY QUEEN ILY#I LOVE WRITING THIS FIC SO- ENJOY??? <3#arcane x reader#arcane viktor#viktor#FIRST POST YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE#the glorious ovulation
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Twinkump Linkdump

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY next MONDAY (Mar 24), and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.
I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire, which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):
https://www.mystgalaxy.com/32425Doctorow
Therefore, this is 30th linkdump, in which I collect the assorted links that didn't make it into this week's newsletters. Here are the other 29:
https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/
I always like to start and end these 'dumps with some good news, which isn't easy in these absolutely terrifying times. But there is some good news: Wil Wheaton has announced his new podcast, a successor of sorts to the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. It's called "It's Storytime" and it features Wil reading his favorite stories handpicked from science fiction magazines, including On Spec, the magazine that bought my very first published story (I was 16, it ran in their special youth issue, it wasn't very good, but boy did it mean a lot to me):
https://wilwheaton.net/podcast/
Here's some more good news: a court has found (again!) that works created by AI are not eligible for copyright. This is the very best possible outcome for people worried about creators' rights in the age of AI, because if our bosses can't copyright the botshit that comes out of the "AI" systems trained on our work, then they will pay us:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-appeals-court-rejects-copyrights-171203999.html
Our bosses hate paying us, but they hate the idea of not being able to stop people from copying their entertainment products so! much! more! It's that simple:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/
This outcome is so much better than the idea that AI training isn't fair use â an idea that threatens the existence of search engines, archiving, computational linguistics, and other clearly beneficial activities. Worse than that, though: if we create a new copyright that allows creators to prevent others from scraping and analyzing their works, our bosses will immediately alter their non-negotiable boilerplate contracts to demand that we assign them this right. That will allow them to warehouse huge troves of copyrighted material that they will sell to AI companies who will train models designed to put us on the breadline (see above, re: our bosses hate paying us):
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/13/hey-look-over-there/#lets-you-and-he-fight
The rights of archivists grow more urgent by the day, as the Trump regime lays waste to billions of dollars worth of government materials that were produced at public expense, deleting decades of scientific, scholarly, historical and technical materials. This is the kind of thing you might expect the National Archive or the Library of Congress to take care of, but they're being chucked into the meat-grinder as well.
To make things even worse, Trump and Musk have laid waste to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a tiny, vital agency that provides funding to libraries, archives and museums across the country. Evan Robb writes about all the ways the IMLS supports the public in his state of Washington:
Technology support. Last-mile broadband connection, network support, hardware, etc. Assistance with the confusing e-rate program for reduced Internet pricing for libraries.
Coordinated group purchase of e-books, e-audiobooks, scholarly research databases, etc.
Library services for the blind and print-disabled.
Libraries in state prisons, juvenile detention centers, and psychiatric institutions.
Digitization of, and access to, historical resources (e.g., newspapers, government records, documents, photos, film, audio, etc.).
Literacy programming and support for youth services at libraries.
The entire IMLS budget over the next 10 years rounds to zero when compared to the US federal budget â and yet, by gutting it, DOGE is amputating significant parts of the country's systems that promote literacy; critical thinking; and universal access to networks, media and ideas. Put it that way, and it's not hard to see why they hate it so.
Trying to figure out what Trump is up to is (deliberately) confusing, because Trump and Musk are pursuing a chaotic agenda that is designed to keep their foes off-balance:
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-donald-trump-chaos/
But as Hamilton Nolan writes, there's a way to cut through the chaos and make sense of it all. The problem is that there are a handful of billionaires who have so much money that when they choose chaos, we all have to live with it:
The significant thing about the way that Elon Musk is presently dismantling our government is not the existence of his own political delusions, or his own self-interested quest to privatize public functions, or his own misreading of economics; it is the fact that he is able to do it. And he is able to do it because he has several hundred billion dollars. If he did not have several hundred billion dollars he would just be another idiot with bad opinions. Because he has several hundred billion dollars his bad opinions are now our collective lived experience.
https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-underlying-problem
We actually have a body of law designed to prevent this from happening. It's called "antitrust" and 40 years ago, Jimmy Carter decided to follow the advice of some of history's dumbest economists who said that fighting monopolies made the economy "inefficient." Every president since, up to â but not including â Biden, did even more to encourage monopolization and the immense riches it creates for a tiny number of greedy bastards.
But Biden changed that. Thanks to the "Unity Taskforce" that divided up the presidential appointments between the Democrats' corporate wing and the Warren/Sanders wing, Biden appointed some of the most committed, effective trustbusters we'd seen for generations:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
After Trump's election, there was some room for hope that Trump's FTC would continue to pursue at least some of the anti-monopoly work of the Biden years. After all, there's a sizable faction within the MAGA movement that hates (some) monopolies:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/24/enforcement-priorities/#enemies-lists
But last week, Trump claimed to have illegally fired the two Democratic commissioners on the FTC: Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter. I stan both of these commissioners, hard. When they were at the height of their powers in the Biden years, I had the incredible, disorienting experience of getting out of bed, checking the headlines, and feeling very good about what the government had just done.
Trump isn't legally allowed to fire Bedoya and Slaughter. Perhaps he's just picking this fight as part of his chaos agenda (see above). But there are some other pretty good theories about what this is setting up. In his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller proposes that Trump is using this case as a wedge, trying to set a precedent that would let him fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell:
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-trump-tried-to-fire-federal-trade
But perhaps there's more to it. Stoller just had Commissioner Bedoya on Organized Money, the podcast he co-hosts with David Dayen, and Bedoya pointed out that if Trump can fire Democratic commissioners, he can also fire Republican commissioners. That means that if he cuts a shady deal with, say, Jeff Bezos, he can order the FTC to drop its case against Amazon and fire the Republicans on the commission if they don't frog when he jumps:
https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/trumps-showdown-at-the-ftc-with-commissioner
(By the way, Organized Money is a fantastic podcast, notwithstanding the fact that they put me on the show last week:)
https://audio.buzzsprout.com/6f5ly01qcx6ijokbvoamr794ht81
The future that our plutocrat overlords are grasping for is indeed a terrible one. You can see its shape in the fantasies of "liberatarian exit" â the seasteads, free states, and other assorted attempts to build anarcho-capitalist lawless lands where you can sell yourself into slavery, or just sell your kidneys. The best nonfiction book on libertarian exit is Raymond Criab's 2022 "Adventure Capitalism," a brilliant, darkly hilarious and chilling history of every time a group of people have tried to found a nation based on elevating selfishness to a virtue:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/14/this-way-to-the-egress/#terra-nullius
If Craib's book is the best nonfiction volume on the subject of libertarian exit, then Naomi Kritzer's super 2023 novel Liberty's Daughter is the best novel about life in a libertopia â a young adult novel about a girl growing up in the hell that would be life with a Heinlein-type dad:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent
But now this canon has a third volume, a piece of design fiction from Atelier Van Lieshout called "Slave City," which specs out an arcology populated with 200,000 inhabitants whose "very rational, efficient and profitable" arrangements produce âŹ7b/year in profit:
https://www.archdaily.com/30114/slave-city-atelier-van-lieshout
This economic miracle is created by the residents' "voluntary" opt-in to a day consisting of 7h in an office, 7h toiling in the fields, 7h of sleep, and 3h for "leisure" (e.g. hanging out at "The Mall," a 24/7, 26-storey " boundless consumer paradise"). Slaves who wish to better themselves can attend either Female Slave University or Male Slave University (no gender controversy in Slave City!), which run 24/7, with 7 hours of study, 7 hours of upkeep and maintenance on the facility, 7h of sleep, and, of course, 3h of "leisure."
The field of design fiction is a weird and fertile one. In his traditional closing keynote for this year's SXSW Interactive festival, Bruce Sterling opens with a little potted history of the field since it was coined by Julian Bleeker:
https://bruces.medium.com/how-to-rebuild-an-imaginary-future-2025-0b14e511e7b6
Then Bruce moves on to his own latest design fiction project, an automated poetry machine called the Versificatore first described by Primo Levi in an odd piece of science fiction written for a newspaper. The Versificatore was then adapted to the screen in 1971, for an episode of an Italian sf TV show based on Levi's fiction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tva-D_8b8-E
And now Sterling has built a Versificatore. The keynote is a sterlingian delight â as all of his SXSW closers are. It's a hymn to the value of "imaginary futures" and an instruction manual for recovering them. It could not be more timely.
Sterling's imaginary futures would be a good upbeat note to end this 'dump with, but I've got a real future that's just as inspiring to close us out with: the EU has found Apple guilty of monopolizing the interfaces to its devices and have ordered the company to open them up for interoperability, so that other manufacturers â European manufacturers! â can make fully interoperable gadgets that are first-class citizens of Apple's "ecosystem":
https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-ordered-by-eu-antitrust-regulators-open-up-rivals-2025-03-19/
It's a good reminder that as America crumbles, there are still places left in the world with competent governments that want to help the people they represent thrive and prosper. As the Prophet Gibson tells us, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." Let's hope that the EU is living in America's future, and not the other way around.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/22/omnium-gatherum/#storytime
Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/
CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
#pluralistic#bruce sterling#design fiction#sxsw#Atelier Van Lieshout#libertopia#libertarian exit#wil wheaton#sf#science fiction#podcasts#linkdump#linkdumps#apple#eu#antitrust#interop#interoperabilty#ai#copyright#law#glam#Institute of Museum and Library Services#libraries#museums#ftc#matt stoller#david dayen#alvaro bedoya#rebecca slaughter
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The Story of KLogs: What happens when an Mechanical Engineer codes
Since i no longer work at Wearhouse Automation Startup (WAS for short) and havnt for many years i feel as though i should recount the tale of the most bonkers program i ever wrote, but we need to establish some background
WAS has its HQ very far away from the big customer site and i worked as a Field Service Engineer (FSE) on site. so i learned early on that if a problem needed to be solved fast, WE had to do it. we never got many updates on what was coming down the pipeline for us or what issues were being worked on. this made us very independent
As such, we got good at reading the robot logs ourselves. it took too much time to send the logs off to HQ for analysis and get back what the problem was. we can read. now GETTING the logs is another thing.
the early robots we cut our teeth on used 2.4 gHz wifi to communicate with FSE's so dumping the logs was as simple as pushing a button in a little application and it would spit out a txt file
later on our robots were upgraded to use a 2.4 mHz xbee radio to communicate with us. which was FUCKING SLOW. and log dumping became a much more tedious process. you had to connect, go to logging mode, and then the robot would vomit all the logs in the past 2 min OR the entirety of its memory bank (only 2 options) into a terminal window. you would then save the terminal window and open it in a text editor to read them. it could take up to 5 min to dump the entire log file and if you didnt dump fast enough, the ACK messages from the control server would fill up the logs and erase the error as the memory overwrote itself.
this missing logs problem was a Big Deal for software who now weren't getting every log from every error so a NEW method of saving logs was devised: the robot would just vomit the log data in real time over a DIFFERENT radio and we would save it to a KQL server. Thanks Daddy Microsoft.
now whats KQL you may be asking. why, its Microsofts very own SQL clone! its Kusto Query Language. never mind that the system uses a SQL database for daily operations. lets use this proprietary Microsoft thing because they are paying us
so yay, problem solved. we now never miss the logs. so how do we read them if they are split up line by line in a database? why with a query of course!
select * from tbLogs where RobotUID = [64CharLongString] and timestamp > [UnixTimeCode]
if this makes no sense to you, CONGRATULATIONS! you found the problem with this setup. Most FSE's were BAD at SQL which meant they didnt read logs anymore. If you do understand what the query is, CONGRATULATIONS! you see why this is Very Stupid.
You could not search by robot name. each robot had some arbitrarily assigned 64 character long string as an identifier and the timestamps were not set to local time. so you had run a lookup query to find the right name and do some time zone math to figure out what part of the logs to read. oh yeah and you had to download KQL to view them. so now we had both SQL and KQL on our computers
NOBODY in the field like this.
But Daddy Microsoft comes to the rescue
see we didnt JUST get KQL with part of that deal. we got the entire Microsoft cloud suite. and some people (like me) had been automating emails and stuff with Power Automate
This is Microsoft Power Automate. its Microsoft's version of Scratch but it has hooks into everything Microsoft. SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Excel, it can integrate with all of it. i had been using it to send an email once a day with a list of all the robots in maintenance.
this gave me an idea
and i checked
and Power Automate had hooks for KQL
KLogs is actually short for Kusto Logs
I did not know how to program in Power Automate but damn it anything is better then writing KQL queries. so i got to work. and about 2 months later i had a BEHEMOTH of a Power Automate program. it lagged the webpage and many times when i tried to edit something my changes wouldn't take and i would have to click in very specific ways to ensure none of my variables were getting nuked. i dont think this was the intended purpose of Power Automate but this is what it did
the KLogger would watch a list of Teams chats and when someone typed "klogs" or pasted a copy of an ERROR mesage, it would spring into action.
it extracted the robot name from the message and timestamp from teams
it would lookup the name in the database to find the 64 long string UID and the location that robot was assigned too
it would reply to the message in teams saying it found a robot name and was getting logs
it would run a KQL query for the database and get the control system logs then export then into a CSV
it would save the CSV with the a .xls extension into a folder in ShairPoint (it would make a new folder for each day and location if it didnt have one already)
it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a LINK to the file in SharePoint
it would then enter a loop and scour the robot logs looking for the keyword ESTOP to find the error. (it did this because Kusto was SLOWER then the xbee radio and had up to a 10 min delay on syncing)
if it found the error, it would adjust its start and end timestamps to capture it and export the robot logs book-ended from the event by ~ 1 min. if it didnt, it would use the timestamp from when it was triggered +/- 5 min
it saved THOSE logs to SharePoint the same way as before
it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a link to the files
it would then check if the error was 1 of 3 very specific type of error with the camera. if it was it extracted the base64 jpg image saved in KQL as a byte array, do the math to convert it, and save that as a jpg in SharePoint (and link it of course)
and then it would terminate. and if it encountered an error anywhere in all of this, i had logic where it would spit back an error message in Teams as plaintext explaining what step failed and the program would close gracefully
I deployed it without asking anyone at one of the sites that was struggling. i just pointed it at their chat and turned it on. it had a bit of a rocky start (spammed chat) but man did the FSE's LOVE IT.
about 6 months later software deployed their answer to reading the logs: a webpage that acted as a nice GUI to the KQL database. much better then an CSV file
it still needed you to scroll though a big drop-down of robot names and enter a timestamp, but i noticed something. all that did was just change part of the URL and refresh the webpage
SO I MADE KLOGS 2 AND HAD IT GENERATE THE URL FOR YOU AND REPLY TO YOUR MESSAGE WITH IT. (it also still did the control server and jpg stuff). Theres a non-zero chance that klogs was still in use long after i left that job
now i dont recommend anyone use power automate like this. its clunky and weird. i had to make a variable called "Carrage Return" which was a blank text box that i pressed enter one time in because it was incapable of understanding /n or generating a new line in any capacity OTHER then this (thanks support forum).
im also sure this probably is giving the actual programmer people anxiety. imagine working at a company and then some rando you've never seen but only heard about as "the FSE whos really good at root causing stuff", in a department that does not do any coding, managed to, in their spare time, build and release and entire workflow piggybacking on your work without any oversight, code review, or permission.....and everyone liked it
#comet tales#lazee works#power automate#coding#software engineering#it was so funny whenever i visited HQ because i would go âhi my name is LazeeCometâ and they would go âOH i've heard SO much about youâ
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The Cleanup Crew - Chapter 3
[Previous Chapter]
[Next Chapter]
Finally it's time to get dangerous. This is almost twice the length of the previous chapters, which is like fine, but I was originally hoping to keep installments in this series on the shorter side. I guess you can take the writing out of the blah but you can't take the blah out of the writing.
Female sneezes - Feathers
cw: Guns, Violence
Operation "Porcupine"
All things considered, Bucketâs first day at the cafe wasnât terrible. Not too many customers, and she spent all of her time shadowing Duster and Mop anyway. It was like the first day back in school, when all your teachers just make sure you have all your stuff and donât even assign any homework.
That evening, however, was like the second day back in school.
The four maids gather around the table in the staff room, where Kerchief had laid out several stacks of papers. The manager pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and glances around at her subordinates, then she turns her attention to the documents below.
âWeâve received a request for turndown service,â she says, her voice flat and serious as always. âA straightforward retrieval mission, which should also serve as a fine opportunity to show Miss Bucket how we do business after hours.â
Bucketâs eyes unfocus and stare into the middle distance. Time for actual work.
âOur client is an engineer with the ExTech corporation who has been leaking information regarding dangerous products to various journalists over the past several months. He was recently outed as a whistleblower, and has already been taken into protective custody. However, he was forced to leave several important items behind at his apartment, and itâs our job to collect them.â
âSounds easy enough,â says Duster, grinning as she manages to somehow rub a finger under her nose but in an arrogant sort of way.
âDue to the sensitive nature of the situation, we will only be told what to look for once we arrive in the clientâs apartment, but we have also been assured that there wonât be anything we canât carry on our persons.â
Bucket realizes sheâs zoning out and tries to resume paying attention. It wasnât even a conscious choice on her part, it was like her mind had a mind of its own and would simply switch off if she wasnât thinking about video games or food. Whatever. Hopefully nobody noticed.
âMiss Duster, Miss Bucket, and I will enter the building as cleaners and make our way to the clientâs apartment on the eleventh floor. Weâll go in light and quick, with concealed equipment only. Miss Mop will provide surveillance from this nearby billboard, where youâll have a view of our clientâs apartmentâs windows. LetâsâŚâ
Kerchief trails off, closing her eyes with a deep breath. She pushes her glasses up her nose once more before continuing.
âLetâs try to keep collateral damage to a minimum, please.â
Neither Duster nor Mop give any sort of response, standing stock still. Bucket blinks. Just what kind of collateral damage are they expecting?
âAny questions?â Kerchief concludes, looking around the table at her maids.
âUm, yeah. Hi,â interjects Bucket, shakily raising a hand. âWas I supposed to, um⌠Bring my own guns? Cuz, I, er⌠Kinda donât have one.â
Kerchief gives a hand sign for the others to move out, and then she leads Bucket over to the weapon wall. Part of her hopes sheâll be allowed to pick her own, but she buries any urge to complain when the manager selects a diminutive, blocky pistol.
âHere, this should suit you nicely. Glock 19, compact nine millimeter.â
âThanks,â Bucket mumbles as she accepts the gun, hoping she doesnât sound ungrateful. She kinda is, but she hopes she doesnât sound like she is. After checking the chamber and holstering the weapon under her ruffles, she skips after Kerchief to avoid being left behind.
For better or worse, the apartment building is a relatively short van ride away. Duster holds a one-sided conversation with Mop as Kerchief drives, and Bucket silently spaces out all over again. The rookie maid is jolted from her trance when the van stops early and Mop climbs out alone, SRS precision rifle in tow. Bucket briefly wonders how Mop can use a scope with her hair covering both eyes before deciding to spare her remaining functional brain cells.
âOh yeah, almost forgot,â says Duster as the van slows to a stop in the parking lot. She holds out an earpiece to Bucket, who accepts it and slips it into place after a nod of thanks. After a brief pop of static, she hears what she assumes to be Mopâs voice over the radio.
âIâm in position. Approach looks clear, no sign of movement in the clientâs apartment.â
âThank you, Miss Mop,â Kerchief replies, coming in differently through each of Bucketâs ears. âKeep us apprised of anything unusual.â
Kerchiefâs voice is flat in a stilted, socially awkward sort of way, while Mopâs is flat in more of a âcan I go home now?â fashion. Bucket assumes they each simply have their gimmicks. Dusterâs customers at the cafe probably want her to lift them off the ground with a big hug, and Mopâs want her to step on them.
The three maids hop out of the van, showing nothing to set them apart from any other group of housekeepers. Kerchief casually flashes a key fob to open the buildingâs front door, and Bucket takes a detailed mental image of the patterns on the carpet as she follows to the elevator. The ride up to the eleventh floor is silent aside from Duster cracking her knuckles. No pre-battle elevator music or anything. Maybe this really would be an easy in and out. Surely thereâd have to be thematically inappropriate and royalty-free jazz if they were about to walk into a gunfight.
Nothing out of the ordinary in the hall either. The door to each apartment was neatly shut, with no trash or bodies strewn about, no ninjas waiting in the rafters, and no rafters in which ninjas could be waiting to begin with. Kerchief unlocks unit 11-38 and the squad slips inside without incident.
âDonât shoot, Mop. Itâs just us,â teases Duster, giving a casual salute in the direction of the nearest window.
âTempting,â Mop drones, though the glass remains unpunctured.
Kerchief brings a hand up to her earpiece as Bucket takes a look around the room. Itâs a small, simple suite apartment. Decently sized living room, and a door on one side that presumably leads to the bedroom.
âWeâve arrived, Master,â Kerchief says into her radio. âWhat would you like us to retrieve?â
âO-oh, right, of course, thank you,â comes a nervous voice that Bucket hasnât heard before. Time to walk out of here with an armful of classified documents that will surely get her disappeared in the coming weeks.
âItâs, um⌠My limited edition commemorative Boom the Porcupine plushie.â
Bucketâs head jerks up to stare across the room at Kerchief. The bespectacled maidâs glasses spontaneously slip down her nose just a smidge.
â...Iâm sorry?â
âI-itâs the most important thing I own! Only ten were ever made! P-please, find itâŚâ
Neither Bucket nor Kerchief give any sort of reaction. The managerâs eyes darken as she stares vacantly into the middle distance, but still she says nothing.
âUm⌠M-miss Maids? A-are you there?â
âheh⌠HRESHoooh!â
A sudden thundering sneeze startles both maids out of their stupor. Bucket looks in the rough direction of the noise to find the door to the bedroom wide open and Duster nowhere to be seen in the living room.
âhh-hhh-! RAAHshooh! Uh. I think I found it.â
Dusterâs scratchy, nasal voice sounds even scratchier and nasally-er than usual. Bucket and Kerchief follow into the bedroom, and while the living room seemed completely untouched, the domicile appeared to have been completely torn apart. Papers and broken drawers are strewn across the floor, and the pillows and mattress are ripped open and covered in loose feathers. Duster stands beside the bed, a green plush toy held limply in one hand as her head tips back toward the ceiling.
âHAESHHoo!â
A few feathers stir at the disturbance, and the stuffed animal falls to the floor. It rolls toward Bucket, at which point she picks it up and turns it over in her hands.
âLooks okay to me,â she says, unable to find any obvious damage. Her eyes briefly flick up to Duster, who is busy frantically rubbing two fingers back and forth under her nose. âGesundheit, by the way.â
âPlease forgive Miss Duster,â Kerchief interjects, leaning over to inspect the plushie herself. âIâm afraid sheâs allergic to feathers.â
âNo Iâm dot!â protests the boyish maid. âItâs just sobethig id the eh⌠heh⌠HERSHHoooh!â
âCare, care. Another van is pulling into the parking lot,â comes Mopâs voice. âWill keep- Get down, get down!â
Before Bucket can react, she finds herself being yanked into the bedroom closet. The sound of breaking glass just barely reaches her ears as the door slams shut, plunging her and the others into darkness.
âTalk to me, Miss Mop,â Kerchief half whispers.
âAt least six unidentified contacts, and theyâre⌠Theyâre climbing the side of the building.â
âTheyâre what!?â snaps Duster, prompting Kerchief to clap a hand over her mouth.
âHold fire and keep me updated,â commands the manager. âThe apartment has already been searched. Weâll let them see that for themselves and they should pass us by.â
âUnderstood.â
Silence falls once more. Bucket ponders pointing out that whoever these people are, theyâre definitely going to check the closet. But surely Kerchief already knows that, right? Plus, with eleven floors worth of wall to climb, she and the others would probably have time to simply go back the way they came.
âFirst unknown entering the window now,â Mop says. Okay, that was a lot faster than Bucket expected. Sure enough, the crunch of someone stepping on glass shards soon follows. In spite of the apparent danger, however, the maid begins to tumble down another mental rabbit hole. In the sliver of light coming around the closet door, Bucket spots a little scrap of feather fluff stuck to the plush porcupine. She casually plucks it off and flicks it away, leaving it to flutter about in improbable aimlessness until it comes to rest right on the upturned tip of Dusterâs nose.
âhh⌠hehâŚâ
The muscular maidâs reaction is immediate, and Kerchiefâs is only slightly behind. The manager presses an outstretched finger firmly against Dusterâs nostrils, silently urging her to hold it in.Â
âhegh⌠ghhâŚâ
Duster shudders, unable to suppress the occasional hitchy wheeze. The footsteps in the bedroom continue, sometimes moving closer, sometimes away. But, if someone else had already turned the apartment upside down, why were they-
âah-ahh-CHOOOO!!â
Bucket doubles over with a sudden screamed sneeze, leaving Duster too stunned to finish her own. The closet door flies open and the maids find themselves facing a white, featureless⌠Face? A pair of glowing blue eyes stare out from behind what Bucket can only assume is a robotâs plastic outer shell. She sheepishly rubs her nose as the machine regards her and each of the maids, but none of them offer any reaction. Finally the robot settles on the stuffed animal in Bucketâs arms, and its eyes blink in seeming recognition.
âAttention, female. Surrender the porcu-â
Kerchief quickdraws her Sig P229 sidearm and delivers two rapid shots from the hip to the robotâs torso, then she takes a split second to aim before putting a third bullet through its head. She strides out of the closet without missing a beat, checking for danger in both directions before turning in the direction of the window and firing again. The maid takes her finger off the trigger, raises her weapon slightly, and looks back to her subordinates.
âTime to get tactical, ladies. Miss Mop, weapons free.â
Bucket blinks a few times before fumbling to draw her own pistol.
âUh. Yeah. Yeah, sure,â she stammers, awkwardly stepping into the bedroom. A grappling hook had pierced through the window and secured itself to the wall below, giving the robotic attackers their means of ingress.
âehh⌠hHRESHHoo!â
Bucket jumps as Duster heaves out another explosive sneeze. By the time Bucket can turn to look, her snuffly companion has already produced and readied a Scorpion Evo 3 submachine gun. Where sheâd been hiding it all this time remains a mystery. With a harsh sniff and a firm rub under her nose, Duster walks up to the fallen robot and gives it a kick.
âExTech,â she grumbles, pausing to mash her nostrils upward with the palm of her hand. âAnd theyâre really here for this heh⌠ehgh⌠HESHH-hooh!â
âPorcupine,â Bucket amends, assuming Duster was trying to sneeze her way through âhedgehog.â
A distant POP interrupts the banter, and a moment later the sounds of crashing and clattering issue through the window.
âRemaining climbers dispatched,â says Mop. âDoesnât look like they survived the fall. Are they⌠Robots?â
âExTech drones, here for the same thing we are,â Bucket mumbles. âI didnât think stuff like this existed, but Iâm a maid with a gun, so I guess anythingâs possible.â
âOh, more good news. ExTech helicopter inbound,â Mop alerts. Kerchiefâs hand flies up to her earpiece.
âHold fire, thereâs no way to control where itâll crash.â
âI hope you can make a quick exit, then. Theyâre headed for the roof.â
Bucket looks around at her companions, bristling slightly as the sound of beating rotors draws nearer.
âSo, uh⌠Elevator? Do we have to take the stairs cuz itâs an emergency?â
Kerchief and Duster each remove a climbing descender from under their ruffles. Bucket twitches.
âH-hang on, what are those? I donât have one.â
âJust hold on to me,â says Duster with a grin, clipping her device onto the rope the robots had courteously provided. Not wanting to be left behind, Bucket immediately hops onto her back and clings for dear life. She squeezes even tighter as Duster braces against the windowsill, forgetting all about the porcupine plush as it gets squished in between them.
âWait, can this thing hold two people?â Bucket screeches. Duster glances back at her with a wink.
âOnly one way to find out!â
Duster kicks off from the window, and the pair begin to glide down the rope toward the parking lot below. Bucket lasts a whole two seconds before starting to scream at the top of her lungs, but she runs out of breath before they reach the ground and manages to silence herself.
âSo, howâs this for your first day of work?â Duster shouts over the rushing wind. Bucket does her best to shrug without letting go.
âBeats retail, I guess!â
âDamn straight! I think youâre⌠Y-youre⌠heh⌠eh-hehhâŚâ
Their descent becomes a touch choppy as Dusterâs breath starts to waver. Filled with a renewed sense of panic, Bucket tries to maneuver one hand to put a finger under her lifelineâs nose, butâŚ
âheh⌠hEH! HRESHHHoooh!â
Completely consumed by her sneeze, Duster loses her grip on her descender. She and Bucket plummet to the ground, a treacherous two feet of remaining distance. Both maids lay on top of each other on the pavement in silence for a few stunned seconds before starting to moan and groan.
âGesundheitâŚâ breathes Bucket, reaching between herself and her companion as she remembers the flattened plushie. Duster snorts inelegantly and rubs her fingers in a rough circle under her itchy nose.
âYeah⌠Sorry. You break anything?â
âNah. Just your fall.â
#OC Bucket#OC Kerchief#OC Duster#OC Mop#blah writes#snz#snz kink#snzfic#proofreading what is proofreading I'm impatient
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I love the reaper au so far!
You said it was fantasy so will there be any magic or supernatural elements? Like can only certain people become reapers, what are the requirements? Did Roba do something to Ghost that made him eligible or was it taking out his BOA?
Gaz is the best and I love how you write him, heâs ntegral to any good 141 fic.
Could Laswell be a retired reaper?
Is Ghost Call to cheesy a name suggestion?
I love your writing and am excited to see what you come up with wherever it is itâll be sure to be good! And good luck with work it sounds like your going through the wringer.
I'm so glad you love this au so far!! I'm really enjoying it, and it seems quite a few are as well. I'm thinking about starting a tag list for when I manage to write stuff for it, if anyone wants added to that!
Anyways let's get into it!
Magic is definitely a thing, and certain people are inherently prone to magic abilities and stuff than others. Magic is something that has to be worked on, and those born with a gift are able to do base level spells without any education or training. For example, conjuring a flame on their fingertip cokes naturally to gifted individuals.
There will definitely be some magic used by Reapers to help them do their job. A lot of the really good ones are advanced spell casters. Requirements to be a Reaper are: mastery of all types of weapon, base level magic abilities, and large knowledge criteria of the current political climate. However, Reapers with higher magic abilities and fluency in several languages are more likely to be inducted faster.
There's a theory/rumor that most Reapers skipped the induction process by selling their souls to Death itself. It isn't confirmed by any means, but it seems to hold some ground when applied to the more notorious Reapers. It's believed that during Roba, Ghost's soul was offered to Death and that he accepted. However, it's more like Roba offered Ghost as a service to some more experienced Reapers, who quickly proved he was an inherently adept magic user.
Gaz is the best and he is integral! I really hope to be able to showcase his loyalty and intelligence in this, and I just love writing him!
Anon this was not something I considered at first but holy fuck it's such a good idea!! Laswell is indeed a retired Reaper. Price definitely questions how she's able to get her hands on some of the information she does simply because it's so difficult to obtain unless you're a Reaper.
So making her a retired Reaper spawned another horrible, beautiful idea.
Instead of like a contract, when Reapers are paid to do work for someone, it's called a bid. I talked a bit about this in the last post about the au, but basically if someone needs a Reaper, they publicly announce they are "auctioning off" whatever their target is. Reapers then bid on who gets the job, and sometimes these bidding processes can get ugly. Thus, Reapers call each "assignment" or "mission" a Bid.
Laswell's last Bid as a Reaper was to kill Nik.
But obviously that didn't work so well and they became friends, her career in the CIA advanced, and she left Reaping behind.
Nik himself has earned a name in the Reaper world. He's known as "The Most Un-Killable Man". He's had over a hundred bids to kill him, and clearly not a single one has been successful. Turns out, he's just a really powerful sorcerer who refuses to die. Ghost once took a Bid on him, and decided to play fate and kill him by damaging the plane Nik was gonna fly. Turns out, Nik has so many protection spells on all of his vehicles that they very well could still function without their engines. Ghost was honestly so impressed by this and so humored that he went back to the people who auctioned it and said "lmao good luck ever killing him"
As for the title "Ghost Calls", it is cheesy but it might work. The one I had in mind was "Oh Death, Who Art Thou?" But I'm not sure. Still undecided on a title
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Mmmm.. hi.
Watched a bit more TFA while doing art assignments.
Lockdown x Police Drone Tech! Reader
đ¤đđ¤đđ¤đđ¤đđ¤đ
Lockdown had hundreds of trophies from his various 'jobs'. Upgrades, helmets he'd found cool, weapons, a few photos.
And you.
He hadn't actually meant to bring you along with him. He thought you were different from the other organics, sure, but.. well. Just as tiny. A pawn, he had believed, for the police.
How wrong he had been.
Sure, you were employed by the Detroit Police Department to service their drones and other technology..
But you didn't seem too upset when Lockdown had grabbed you as collateral against the Autobots.
---
"Too small to just set with the other trophies," he mumbled to himself, holding you gently in his servo. "Or to get strapped down on the berth.."
He watched you out of the corner of his optic, your own little eyes roaming across his trophy shelves.
"What's with that one?"
He followed your gaze to a broken armament - a relic of a past battle with the Autobots.
"Busted weapon.. somethin' 'a one of those Cyber-Ninjas. The little speedster broke it in one of my last fights."
"Can I look at it?"
He held back a laugh. "If you're tryin' to escape, you'll have to do better than a busted holo-sword."
You rolled your eyes at him, and he couldn't help but smile. Oh, the character you were!
"I'm not trying to get away.. just want something to do. I'm sure it'll take a while for anyone to find me."
He shrugged, setting you down on the shelf. "Fine. Go nuts."
He hadn't been expecting to come back a few hours later to you snapping a panel back into place, the weapon looking almost good as new (save a few dents.. he was sure he could fix 'em later.)
"How'd you do that?"
You shrugged, fiddling with the connecting portion before the holo-sword materialized. "I was a drone tech. Good with finding problems and putting things back together."
"Was?" He sounded amused.
"Thought I was staying here for a while. Y'know, since nobody really cropped up."
He chuckled. "Well.. I'm sure I could use your help around here. Especially since more like that'll help." He nodded towards the now-functional weapon.
---
Prowl groaned quietly, rubbing his helm as he sat up. He jolted as he heard a familiar engine rumble, a warehouse falling away to reveal Lockdown's ship.
Attempting to stand or transform to vehicle mode both caused more pain than progress, and so he watched, solemnly, as the ship disappeared into the sky.
The chief was bound to be pissed that one of the department's assets had been kidnapped.
---
"Starshine!"
Lockdown walked into the ship, grinning as he tossed a barely-conscious bot onto one of the repurposed med berths.
"Lockdown! What happened?"
He presses a button, cables coming up to restrain his prisoner. "Autobot. Apparently the cons are looking for him."
You look down from your perch, surveying the blue and orange mech. "A data bot?"
"Better." He grinned. "A Prime."
đđ¤đđ¤đđ¤đđ¤đđ¤
I like this one. Might write more đ¤đ
#kana's ficlets#lockdown#transformers lockdown#transformers animated lockdown#tfa lockdown#transformers animated lockdown x reader#tfa lockdown x reader#transformers lockdown x reader#lockdown x reader#transformers#transformers animated#tfa#transformers x reader#transformers animated x reader#tfa x reader#lockdown my beloved#lockdown transformers#lockdown tfa#transformers x human reader#transformers x human#x reader#xreader
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KKACHI'S ENGLISH/íęľě´ TRANSLATION COMMISSIONS
Hi, I'm Kkachi!
I am;
A native Korean speaker currently living in Korea
A fluent English speaker of 13+ years
A former English teacher several times over
A hobbyist translator whose previous work as a translator includes several pieces of fiction, as well as a Ren'py and an RPG Maker game. I have also participated in a zine as an English to Korean translator.
I am offering services in translating;
Communication (messaging, social media replies)
Original fiction, comics, fanfiction/fancomics
Poetry, lyrics
Essays, articles, textbooks
Commission sheets
Video games
Videos, podcasts, subtitles, emails, letters
All mediums and literary styles are welcome.
Machine/AI translating tools will not be used in any step of the translation process. You are not paying me to use Google Translate or any AI translation tool that you could easily use yourself. I refuse to compromise the integrity of my work with laziness.
In the case of small-scale or solo creative projects such as indie games or fanfiction, commissions will not proceed without proof of knowledge and consent from the original creator(s).
All listed prices are of Korean to English translation.
English to Korean translation prices will add to the total price a markup of +50% (x1.5).
Prices are subject to change.
TRANSLATION PRICES
đď¸ Single sentences: 1,000⊠per sentence
Lines of dialogue, quotes, titles, OC catchphrases, images (ie memes), etc
đď¸ Fiction: 10,000⊠per 100 Hangul characters
Original fiction, fanfiction
đď¸ Comics: 1,000⊠per sentence
Fan comics, webtoon panels
I will not translate illegally sourced webtoon panels. Proof of purchase/loan must be provided. Translated panels must not be redistributed to those that have not purchased or loaned the episode(s) in question.
I do not provide lettering/image editing services.
đď¸ Prose: 10,000⊠per work
Song lyrics, poetry
Songs longer than 5 minutes and poetry that exceeds a single A4 page will require additional charges.
đď¸ Communication: 1,000⊠per sentence
Social media messages, commission communication, QRTs/replies
Proof of knowledge and consent from all parties involved is required for the translation of private conversations, except in the case of cyberbullying/harrassment. Public messages are fair game. I will never judge.
đď¸ Academic writing: 20,000⊠per 100 Hangul characters
Essays, articles, academic/non-fiction writing
I may reject commissions if the translation of a provided work is beyond my professional/academic capabilities. (Translator is a former semiconductor engineering/physics double major, currently an English student; topics such as basic physics and English literature and linguistics are within my capabilities.)
đď¸ Commission sheets: 25,000âŠ
I will not be translating English to Korean or Korean to English translation commission sheets. All other commissions are welcome; art, writing, crafts, etc.
Service included: reblog/retweet/other methods of sharing of finished commission sheet for signal boosting
Service not included: communication with future clients. See above for Communication services.
đď¸ Video and audio: 6,000⊠per minute
Price is subject to markup if the video/audio exceeds 3 minutes
In the case of documentaries or interviews for which professional/academic knowledge is required, I may reject commissions.
đď¸ Games: ???
Ren'py, RPG Maker games welcome
Price is up for negotiation and depends on how much text is in your game
đď¸ And more!
Please inquire via Tumblr messages if you feel you would like to employ my services.
EDITING PRICES
Emails, letters, essays
20,000⊠per 100 Hangul characters
ADDITIONAL CHARGES/DISCOUNTS
Assignment/homework: +50% (x1.5)
Applies only in the case of work assigned in relation to Korean skills
I will teach you what my translation/editing did to your original sentence & the Korean involved. I do not approve of using me as a paid cheat sheet to get an A+; I will teach and tutor instead.
Does not apply to the following: Korean sentences or words used in art homework ie design elements/comic dialogue, etc
Commercial use: +100% (x2.0)
I am not a professional freelance translator. I encourage you to look for a professional translator in the case that more serious commercial-use services are required.
Queer literature: -10%
I myself am a queer writer; all queer literature is welcome.
Fanworks related to the following; (-10%)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Original and Reboot series), SANABI (Wonder Potion), FAITH: the Unholy Trinity, certain Minecraft YouTubers and streamers (please inquire for more information)
OTHER INFORMATION
I am an adult willing to work with mature/explicit content.
I will not accept hateful material for translation in the case that I judge the translated result could be used to spread hate and bigotry.
Finished translations (with notes/commentary, if applicable) will be delivered via file format of choice.
If crediting a translator, please credit me as @kkachizip.
Please feel free to inquire via DMs if there is something not listed on this page that you would like to ask of me!
CONTACT INFORMATION/OTHER LINKS
Tumblr @kkachizip
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PREVIOUS TRANSLATED WORK ON AO3 @kkachizip and POSTYPE
#translation#translator#translation commissions#commission sheet#korean language#language help#korean translation
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Is it AI Copy or a Tired Writer Trying Their Best? A Look Backstage in Copywriting
(For those unaware, copy in this context is used to describe the informational writing on a website)
So for a while now I've seen people online point at certain web copy and claim that it's clearly generated by AI. In many cases I disagree. People against generative AI will claim the tells are easy. People for generative AI will often say the same thing, right before selling guides on editing the obvious tells out of your generative text to slip under the radar.
I don't have the most authority on the topic, but I've been in technical writing for about six years. I've worked as a by-the-assignment ghostwriter and a salaried copywriter. So I think I have enough backing to say that I don't think it's possible to catch AI writing. I think it's possible to perceive sloppy writing, manipulative writing, almost incoherent writing. But a lot of that has existed before the sudden surge in large language models, thanks to the way many companies in the industry direct their writers to work.
Want a behind-the-curtain look at what goes into a lot of the copy you read online? Follow me!
See this? This is a keyword ranking off SEOSpyGlass for a popular house cleaner service in Portland. I am not the best person to talk about Search Engine Optimization. In my defense, I believe that's because SEO changes constantly - first based on the whims of what Google would value most, which has now gotten even more convoluted as other search engines creep into more prominent use.
This ranking above shows the most common search terms that resulted in someone clicking on a certain link (In this case, MollyMaid - or the specific page that "ranks" high enough in search results).
Pretty much every copy-writing company I've ever worked for would give me a list of "relevant search terms" for an assignment, and part of my job was to fit them into the copy I created. Looking at some of these terms, you might see that a lot of them aren't easily fit into writing in a way that feels normal to read on a website. The "[SOMETHING] near me" is probably one of the most popular search terms in pretty much every industry. In my opinion it's also the clumsiest to work with as a writer.
It's actually very funny to see this. You see that phrasing at the start? Hey did you search this specific phrase? Cool! Use us for that. That is essentially the exact format I would use whenever I had to fit in any variant of that keyphrase. It doesn't feel great. If Google ever loses interest in longer, conversational keyphrases, a lot of copy will be outdated and pointlessly clunky.
The emphasis on keywords and word count in general is the true culprit behind a majority of web copy that reads as if the website you're on is having an nervous breakdown. I've been in many situations where I've had to pad out assignments for no reason, because even though I expressed all the information that needed to be expressed, I was short of the word count given ahead of time. I imagine based on the latest change to Google's algorithm, this might slowly become less of a sticking point. They seem to claim that value is now in writing like a human being, and that's harder to do if you have to circle the same points again and again just to kill time.
It's kind of interesting isn't it? I'm gradually edging into freelance copy-writing work - which is cool, because it hopefully means I can choose how deep into SEO I decide to work in. Despite my complaints, I really enjoy the technical writing aspect, especially for a client I want to help.
I just had to get all this out there, because before I found SEOSpyglass I tried to use Semrush and was immediately like haha holy shit I remember this.
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HelponAssignment
Help on Assignment: Your Trusted Partner for Academic Excellence
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I hope this is not annoying to say, but I cannot overstate how much I love the world building and various headcanons you have for Yoruichi that flesh her out far beyond most people would have the energy or passion to do. Your ideas and everything inspire me to do better every time I see them, because you put so much thought into things that I can only look at them and be like "Damn, that's so good, I need to be do more too", not in a negative sense, just an envious source of energy sprouting from when I see your headcanon or meta posts.
It's not annoying at all, and very kind of you to take the time to let me know that you've found the work on her to be such an inspiration! I honestly wish I'd been more diligent with my time and had gotten a lot more down, like a more complete history of her travels and what she was up to, but I have faith it'll all shake out eventually.
As a little extra pick-me-up since you find it motivational: I recently worked out exactly how Yoruichi got to southern China after VE Day in Europe!
There were several all-women sections of the American Armed Forces like the WACs, WASPs, WAVES, SPARS, and MCWR (USMC didn't get the memo ig) and the British had WAAFs and Wrens. After doing some digging, I determined WACs was probably most plausible for Yoruichi to pose as, especially because at that time the OSS (later CIA) would often disguise its female agents as WACs.
The CIA itself has an interesting page on some of the women in service from back then, and the story of Elizabeth "Betty" McIntosh is particularly insightful:
She became one of the few women assigned to the Morale Operations Branch (MOB), where she created disinformation reports, postcards, and radio messages designed to undermine the morale of Japanese troops. Her work with the MOB would take her overseas to India, Burma and China. In 1945, on a bumpy night flight to Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka), Betty found herself on a plane with fellow OSS officer Julia McWilliams. As the plane flew through a storm and rocked back and forth, Betty thought this was it! She didnât think she was going to survive the flight. She nervously looked over at McWilliams, who calmly continued reading her book and eating an apple as if nothing was wrong. Seeing McWilliamsâ composure put Betty somewhat at ease.
That Julia McWilliams would later be known to the world as chef Julia Child, and she was then the head of the Kunming office of the OSS. I also discovered that:
A daily direct flight called the "Trojan", flown by select C-54 crews, carried a minimum of five tons of highest priority materiel or passengers between Calcutta and Kunming, then brought back critically wounded patients or aircraft engines needing overhaul.
My current thinking is Yoruichi took this flight in a WAC uniform, posing as a radar technician, then went east from Kunming until she reached the front lines. I'm still tossing up whether she actually had any affiliation with OSS at that time, was simply posing as one of their staff, or something somewhere in between. (If she had direct contact with the OSS, it'd probably have started while she was working with the French Resistance.) The closer she was working with them at the time, the more poignant it'd make her later siding with North Vietnam.
It's kind of a small thing, ultimately, but I think the backstory gets most interesting by weaving together the small things like that, even if it never gets directly interacted with in RP.
Anyway, thanks again for taking your time to write in!
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Your Guide to Choosing the Right AI Tools for Small Business Growth
 In state-of-the-art speedy-paced international, synthetic intelligence (AI) has come to be a game-changer for businesses of all sizes, mainly small corporations that need to stay aggressive. AI tools are now not constrained to big establishments; less costly and available answers now empower small groups to improve efficiency, decorate patron experience, and boost revenue.

Best AI tools for improving small business customer experience
Hereâs a detailed review of the top 10 AI tools that are ideal for small organizations:
1. ChatGPT by using OpenAI
Category:Â Customer Support & Content Creation
Why Itâs Useful:
ChatGPT is an AI-powered conversational assistant designed to help with customer service, content creation, and more. Small companies can use it to generate product descriptions, blog posts, or respond to purchaser inquiries correctly.
Key Features:
24/7 customer service via AI chatbots.
Easy integration into web sites and apps.
Cost-powerful answers for growing enticing content material.
Use Case:Â A small e-trade commercial enterprise makes use of ChatGPT to handle FAQs and automate patron queries, decreasing the workload on human personnel.
2. Jasper AI
Category:Â Content Marketing
Why Itâs Useful:
Jasper AI specializes in generating first rate marketing content. Itâs ideal for creating blogs, social media posts, advert reproduction, and extra, tailored to your emblemâs voice.
Key Features:
AI-powered writing assistance with customizable tones.
Templates for emails, advertisements, and blogs.
Plagiarism detection and search engine optimization optimization.
Use Case:Â A small enterprise owner uses Jasper AI to create search engine optimization-pleasant blog content material, enhancing their website's visibility and traffic.
Three. HubSpot CRM
Category:Â Customer Relationship Management
Why Itâs Useful:
HubSpot CRM makes use of AI to streamline purchaser relationship control, making it less difficult to music leads, control income pipelines, and improve consumer retention.
Key Features:
Automated lead scoring and observe-ups.
AI insights for customized purchaser interactions.
Seamless integration with advertising gear.
Use Case:Â A startup leverages HubSpot CRM to automate email follow-ups, increasing conversion costs without hiring extra staff.
Four. Hootsuite Insights Powered by means of Brandwatch
Category:Â Social Media Management
Why Itâs Useful:
Hootsuite integrates AI-powered social media insights to help small businesses tune tendencies, manipulate engagement, and optimize their social media method.
Key Features:
Real-time social listening and analytics.
AI suggestions for content timing and hashtags.
Competitor evaluation for a competitive aspect.
Use Case: A nearby cafĂŠ uses Hootsuite to agenda posts, tune customer feedback on social media, and analyze trending content material ideas.
Five. QuickBooks Online with AI Integration
Category:Â Accounting & Finance
Why Itâs Useful:
QuickBooks Online automates bookkeeping responsibilities, rate monitoring, and economic reporting using AI, saving small agencies time and reducing mistakes.
Key Features:
Automated categorization of costs.
AI-driven economic insights and forecasting.
Invoice generation and price reminders.
Use Case: A freelance photo designer uses QuickBooks to simplify tax practise and hold tune of assignment-primarily based earnings.
6. Canva Magic Studio
Category:Â Graphic Design
Why Itâs Useful:
Canva Magic Studio is an AI-more advantageous design tool that empowers non-designers to create stunning visuals for marketing, social media, and presentations.
Key Features:
AI-assisted layout guidelines.
One-click background elimination and resizing.
Access to templates, inventory pictures, and videos.
Use Case: A small bakery makes use of Canva Magic Studio to create pleasing Instagram posts and promotional flyers.
7. Grammarly Business
Category:Â Writing Assistance
Why Itâs Useful:
Grammarly Business guarantees that each one written communications, from emails to reviews, are expert and blunders-unfastened. Its AI improves clarity, tone, and engagement.
Key Features:
AI-powered grammar, spelling, and style corrections.
Customizable tone adjustments for branding.
Team collaboration gear.
Use Case: A advertising company makes use of Grammarly Business to make sure consumer proposals and content material are polished and compelling.
Eight. Zapier with AI Automation
Category:Â Workflow Automation
Why Itâs Useful:
Zapier connects apps and automates workflows without coding. It makes use of AI to signify smart integrations, saving time on repetitive tasks.
Key Features:
Automates responsibilities throughout 5,000+ apps.
AI-pushed recommendations for green workflows.
No coding required for setup.
Use Case: A small IT consulting corporation makes use of Zapier to routinely create tasks in their assignment management device every time a brand new lead is captured.
9. Surfer SEO
Category: Search Engine Optimization
Why Itâs Useful:
Surfer SEO uses AI to assist small businesses improve their internet siteâs seek engine scores thru content material optimization and keyword strategies.
Key Features:
AI-pushed content audit and optimization.
Keyword studies and clustering.
Competitive evaluation equipment.
Use Case: An on-line store uses Surfer search engine marketing to optimize product descriptions and blog posts, increasing organic site visitors.
10. Loom
Category: Video Communication
Why Itâs Useful:
Loom lets in small groups to create video messages quick, which are beneficial for group collaboration, client updates, and customer service.
Key Features:
Screen recording with AI-powered editing.
Analytics for viewer engagement.
Cloud garage and smooth sharing hyperlinks.
Use Case: A digital advertising consultant makes use of Loom to offer video tutorials for customers, improving expertise and lowering in-man or woman conferences.
Why Small Businesses Should Embrace AI Tools
Cost Savings: AI automates repetitive duties, reducing the need for extra group of workers.
Efficiency: These equipment streamline operations, saving time and increasing productiveness.
Scalability: AI permits small organizations to manipulate boom with out full-size infrastructure changes.
Improved Customer Experience: From personalized tips to 24/7 help, AI gear help small groups deliver superior customer service.
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What is the measuring process steps? How does one get picked to be the next tallest? Surely it canât be the height alone. There must be some qualities or something like that.
Who built the Colossus? How long did it take to make it? Was this the idea of the ancients?
Has any of the tallest ever call upon irkens that kinda look like them in to their chambers and have them do plays of themselves like a reminder of their past or âwhat ifsâ for example: if Miyuki brings two tall soldiers who somewhat resemble her and Spork.
I have to confess, I have no idea how exactly the imperial measuring process works.

Lazy writing time. (Lazy sketch too. Sorry, still warming up the wrist.)
The steps of the measuring process is information hoarded by the control brains and only shared to the imperial PAK technicians who are assigned to perform the physical steps of the process. The PAK Techs assigned to this task are honorably executed and collected after the process is complete to ensure the information stays classified.
The tallest measured drone put through the process is heavily drugged and forced to fixate on the cintrol brains while their PAKs/ collective minds directly links up, so the most a tallest remembers when the process is over is the chant which roughly translates to English as,
"Let fire become white Dislodge the joints Stretch them Let fire burn star bright Break the back Let them stand with towering might Realign them Destroy to rebuild them stronger than ever To our will be true Let the ALMIGHTY TALLEST rule on."
It's three different chants recited at once, so it's difficult to remember the exact recitation, but that's roughly it.
So apparently the process involves "dislodging the joints" and "breaking the back", stretching the body to its limits then somehow surgically making the stretching permanent.
The process does cause long lasting damage, a lifetime of chronic pain. But with it comes almost unlimited wealth and power, so the drawbacks are manageable.
Red and Purple were tricky because they had to be stretched out to exactly the same height.
Sadly no, traditional Irken culture demands that the tallest drone rule. There are no further qualifications. Sounds ridiculous to us, but imagine how ridiculous we would sound explaining a monarchy system or to them.

The Colossus was built centuries after Behemotta, tallest of tallests, fell in in battle [Actually, she suffocated to death under her own mass and her corpse was used as a prop/ puppet to intimidate an enemy army, but that's a story for another day.]
Soon after she fell panic and chaos erupted through the ranks of her armies. The super hive Behemotta united over her lifetime broke apart into separate entities. Maps were redrawn. Many innocents were assassinated in pursuit of a new order including any of Behemotta's smeets who had not died in battle already.
Seemingly overnight entire drone populations were deceived into submitting to the rule of tall standing and high ranking former generals claiming to rule in Behemotta's name or in Behemotta's spirit or by the last wishes of Behemotta ect.
And it kept getting more and more out of hand from there.
The labor forces of at least 5 allied hive-nations, but possibly several others, were commissioned to construct the Colossus. Tons upon tons of stone was imported, stacked, sculpted and smoothed to a perfection the Irken species has never been able to replicate since. The indestructible wings and eyes they fused to the monolith were carved from six massive full-spectrum diamonds, priceless in the greater galaxies. The Colossus was somehow designed, built and positioned to never erode. It is a mystery and a marvel.
The construction of the Colossus took nearly a thousand years of nonstop labor. Trillions of service drones, architects, engineers and artisans lost their lives to breathe life into the fallen Behemotta's memory.
But the memory was twisted into a new narrative; Tall drones are mighty. The tallest drone is the mightiest and rules over you. Small drones are insignificant and exist to serve small drones. Tall drones should always be acknowledged, respected, feared and obeyed.
Behemotta would HATE the Colossus if she were still alive to see it. She would consider it an eyesore and a huge waste of time, energy and resources. Psychologically, the version of Behemotta the Colossus portrays would wound her.

The Colossus is really nothing more than ancient Irken propaganda solidifying a very toxic cultural mindset; one the real Behemotta would have never approved of or enforced.
Tallest miniarure lookalike contests have been a common and very popular thing in Irken culture since the mid first era, both official and unofficial.
Official contests are streamed publicly. If time allows, the Tallest will host the contest. The Tallest's corridinator is placed in charge of sifting through the photos, measurements and stats of contestants until a winner is chosen.
It's not unusual for the tallest to hire the winning lookalike drone for reasons that you described; to act out fantasies or revisit pre-measuring fond memories or to relieve boredom, ect.
As established previously, Tallest Cini had a mini double, Maraschino. Dava's modern mini double was hired to narrate the mandatory educational video on Irken fertility and emergency live birth protocol that medically confirmed fertile drones are forced by law to attend. (Irken women dread watching it).
Spittle hired a mini double to act as a Rosie the Riveter- type poster character promoting cadets to sign up to be trained and encoded into the empire's maintenance labor forces. Construction, repair and sanitation work was in extremely high demand during his reign.
Tallest mini doubles are required to sign an NDA when hired. Tallest minis are dressed up and played with like a barby doll. It seems like a fun little luxury, but sometimes tallests regret hiring doubles to act out fantasies. It can lead to open wounds and stir up feelings of resentment or jealousy.
Tallest miniatures are usually 4'9 (1.4-1.5 meeters) and under. The reputations of service drones are of no importance to Tallests usually. High ranking drones are too risky to hire depending on what the mini double is hired to do.
[Mem "Late Miyuki did actually hire a lookalike double for her personal chambers when I served as her coordinator. Mochi was her name, I think. I only worked with her a few times, but I remember she was a sweet drone. Funny too.

Miyuki ordered me to search for a mini double for Spork too, but by the time I found one, she had already fired Mochi and never brought up the subject again. Not sure why. Mochi was her perfect double, lucky little pixy. Guess she didn't cheer Miyuki up as we had all hoped. It was a shame. I really liked her."]
(Was trying to make "flirtatious" speech bubbles for Mem and Mochi because I can't write flirty dialogue to save my life)
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