#hacking the city

[sunkissedlouis]

louis in awe of the crowd 🥹❤️ | faith in the future world tour in mexico city 06.01.24

[disk28]

[pantsaretherealheroes]

every time I finish a season of hacks I feel like do people know??? How good hacks is???? Do they KNOW????

[cyberegypt]

Cyberpunk Aesthetic + Ancient Egypt + A Hacker Girl

[thatsbelievable]

[wastedskins]

Catwoman, Batman: Arkham City, 2011

[zahri-melitor]

Someone needs to study DC’s habit of randomly making the nearest woman character the GCPD Commissioner, particularly in other timelines, without stopping to consider whether this makes any narrative sense for the character in question.

Barbara suffers this the worst of course, but also Renée Montoya and Catherine Kane suffer it (Catherine Hamilton fucking Kane. Tell me you haven’t read Batwoman without saying you haven’t read Batwoman).

The only positive example I can think of is that hot minute Sarah Essen was Commissioner when the mayor demoted Jim in the mid 90s. And even then it was ‘Sarah’s just a stand in while we have narrative tension with Jim’.

[detectivedimplez]

Im watching Hacks and there are some dropout people on here (and 2nd degree connections)! So far Ive seen Trey from Broad City which in a previous post i mentioned had dropout people on. We got Rekha Shankar (who was also on BC), Anna Garcia, and now in s2 we got Mano Agapion! Can’t wait to see more :)

Also this show is hilarious and makes me so emotional

[reportsofagrandfuture]

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[disk28]

[lesbiansanemi]

I am so fucking sick of living with my roommate and his fuck ass boyfriend. Also watching my roommate burn every single one of his (already rather minimal, I might add) bridges for this guy is also kind of painful but also his relationship with me is one of said bridges so I'm almost past the point of even feeling bad for him lmao

[cyberegypt]

Cyberpunk Egypt: a Hacker Girl

[not-so-special-whore]

I have mead.

[wastedskins]

Batman: Arkham City, 2011

[travelers-of-the-multiverse]

It was another day for Reyna, trying to find more of herself, and understand her budding powers as a goddess, or something more. Meditation, in a closed room, with nothing but the sound of her own breathing keeping her company. Her thoughts focus on her attachment, her belief, and her actions in regards to keeping life safe and what it means to live.

Of course, that all came crashing down when there was a sudden loud knock on the door.

"L-Lady Reyna, please, you must come see this!" A magister's voice echoes from the other side.

She sighs, as there always has to be something. "What is it?" She asks, as she opens the door.

"I...I can't properly explain, it's best seen." He says. Curious, Reyna follows the Magister outside. And there she sees it. Something that surprises the experienced guide even.

A giant tank, towering over the palace even, outside of Arx. It wasn't hard to see, due to the size of it. But that wasn't what surprised her most.

No...it was the signs that children were coming out of it.

"...What...the FFFFFFFFF-" She starts, barely restraining herself from swearing. She takes a deep breath and lets it out.

"I swear, it's always something terrible..." She mumbles, annoyed, before warping over to the children climbing out of the tank.

"Whaaa!" Most of them shouted when Reyna appeared. They were a mixture of anthropomorphic dogs and cats, and very clearly wildly varying ages. The youngest couldn't be older than four, as she clung to what seemed to be her older brother.

"W...who are you?!" The brother asks, protectively.

"My name is Reyna. I apologize for my sudden appearance frightening you all." She says, as she kneels down to look less scary. "Where did you all come from? And why were you in that tank?" She asks.

The kids introduced themselves each: Malt, Hanna, Kyle, Boron, Socks, Mei, Hack, Chick, Sheena, Jin, Wappa, and Britz. They were the pilots of this tank, called the Taranis, and were trying to save their families. But suddenly, the Taranis glowed brightly and was warped away somehow.

Reyna had half a mind to just go back to their world, kill the Berman Officers, and be done with it. But, she thinks back to how her interference might be a hinderance than a boon. So, the most she can do is the rework the Taranis' teleportation function so that they can warp back home easily.

"It won't take you directly to your families, just last where you warped away from your world. I wish I could help more." Reyna tells them. She feels terrible, these children are going to war, and she's basically sending them back into it. Yet, when she looks upon their determined faces, she thinks...they can make it through this.

Mei happily bounces over and hugs Reyna's leg. "Hehehe, thanks lizard lady!" She says.

"...Think nothing of it, Mei. And please, call me Reyna." She says, gently petting the little dog girl's head.

With that, the children board the death machine again, and a golden light shines around it. With that, the Taranis is gone from the sight of Arx.

"...I'll help you from afar. I swear, none of you will suffer again." She promises aloud.

[hahahahawk]

I want a fake person to live in my computer. But not like that.

The neurospicy coping/productivity technique “body doubling” is about seeing someone doing your desired activity helps your executive functioning circuits let you also do the desired activity.

I’m not a scientist about this, I just have a wonky brain that responds well to this (but not working in an open plan office, go figure (that probably has to do with agency and consent, but this is a derail))

Today I tried a utility/tool/“game” called Spirit City: LoFi Sessions. You get an avatar in a cozy apartment, and both avatar and apartment can be customized. You set the lighting/time of day and tell your avatar where to go (“on the bed”, “at the desk”, “on the window seat”, “by the fire”) and what to do (writing, typing, gaming, drawing, meditating, knitting (as a knitter, I judge the knitting animation “not bad”)).

There are lofi-chill out music playlists in the “game” and rudimentary productivity tools like a todo list, a habit tracker, a pompodoro timer, and a “journal” feature.

The gamification is earning coins (by logging in, having the app open, and using the productivity tools) to buy different furniture/clothes and following hints to find new wacky pets.

I’ve spent about 15 years obsessing over productivity tools and techniques, so that side of the utility did nothing for me. I pay for Spotify, so the included music did nothing for me (the songs were pleasant, but repeated too soon for my liking, and I wasn’t interested in manually switching the playlist every 40 minutes). Dress up/decorating does nothing for me.

Needless to say, I got a refund pretty quickly.

Well, I did… but not without some hesitation because holy shit the body doubling aspect did something for me. At a few junctures in the hour-ish I had the program open, I looked over from my main project, saw my avatar typing away at their desk and thought “hell yeah, we’re getting stuff done” then went back to my project without doing any random googling or checking social media.

I considered keeping the “game” just for that aspect, but

The window didn’t fit well on my vertical monitor

The avatar wouldn’t change tasks/take breaks without my input

I would *so much* love to have a CG avatar in the corner* of my screen that would have its own pompodoro timer and mostly spend 5 hours typing on their laptop in a variety of locations, but also model “get up and stretch/snack/drink water” for me.

The interaction I’d want to have with this avatar:

Patting them on the head to tell them they’re going a good job.

I do *not* want that behavior reciprocated to me because I refuse to be complimented by inanimate objects (or people who don’t know what they’re ‘complimenting’)

Them suggesting I take a break whenever they do

Me notifying them when I start a break/get back to work. (I do a lot of flow state work and usually prefer flexible breaks rather than scheduled ones)

I will accept feedback (and data exports) about my working/taking a break patterns

—-

* I think the large default window was both a blessing and a curse for Spirit City. It allowed the avatar to be big enough to feel like a person in an environment instead of a stick figure in a box. But I don’t actually have a lot of screen real estate to give over. So it’s be nice if the program handled being odd window sizes better.

Anyway, Rusty’s Retirement is an idle game that doesn’t scratch the body double itch (though it might if you identify as a robot), but it is a calm farming game that is designed to only take up a strip along the bottom/side of your monitor and it’s been much better for my productivity. It’s great for the occasional quick hit of dopamine (bring it to the front, plant some crops, queue some bot upgrades, put it away again), and also useful for short breaks. On those longer short breaks, I make larger functional and aesthetic changes to my farm, but it generally takes less than five minutes to catch up/run out of content. After that I’m generally ready to jump back into work, and if I’m not it’s usually a sign I need to stand up and take care of some other needs.