#process re-engineering

[maximoesolution]

Business Process Reengineering: Tips & Techniques

The ultimate aim of a business is to remain profitable while providing best-in-class products and services to its customers. Every business has a set of processes that contribute a lot to making it profitable. For more - process re-engineering

[violet-dragongirl]

...so sadly I'm back in the Bethesda Caves....again...[angrily] chasing shadows and modding FO4... So far things work...but knowing how that game is...*sigh*

Anyway main thing is I've been really into overgrowth/forest environment mods lately for that game and I decided to take my old one out since it was giving me so much trouble last time and try another, but there's another out there that's actually more overgrowth AND trees than just...trees.

But it's still in beta and requires so much reading (reading the process to get it in the game ain't the problem btw) that I decided to just sit in the discord, read, and wait.

The one I have now should suffice with the theme of the game I got going so far but yeah...for a while I got tired of the Scorched Apocalypse look cos seriously that's been over done for games/stories that start like...200+ years (basically Post Post Apocalypse) after the Post Apoc started and like...I'd like to think that nature is a LOT more resilient than we'd like to write about in stories sometimes so having a mod that reflects that...ish...not perfect or scientifically accurate, but enough to where like...it gets the point across that you're in a world that's been through a lot worse nature wise and is now "healing"...even if that healing is just...Not Good for your chances of survival in said Post Post Apocalyptic Story.

[fsnowzombie]

Armored Lady Monday

you may or may not know this about me, but i really like when character designs are really bulky on one side of the body, and very straightforward on the other side of the body

and i havent drawn a sci-fi looking armor in so long i figured id try cus i feel like lifting legs like that would need aid from sci-fi technomagic

you can check out full res and more on my patreon!

Also let me take you into a bit more intricate design i liked about this one in particular, when i was designing the legs i thought about making chicken legs like a lot of mecha, but with human joints that wouldnt quite work.

So i opted for a more propulsion and impact reduction base, her feet would reach just about the ankle (where the little triangle is on the lower leg of the armor) so shed have up and down movement of her feet, but all the bottom of the actual contraption is built of is purely for impact reduction. If look, the leg that is planted on the floor, the space between the blue feet guard and the "hooves" is lower than the one that she has raised.

And the other bit is the turbines on the ankle and back of the knee, i like to think that since those get really heated, whenever she has to use them for movement, the inner thigh bit closes fully (instead of having the gray metal bit inside showing) for them to move the turbines outward and connect them to the fuel source, aswell as initializing the cooling process, and this depects something along the lines of her just comming out of her running mode and the steam is the heat distribution of the engines.

And finally! the things on her wrists are for laser daggers of course

[odoraful]

𝑯𝑬𝑳𝑷𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑹𝑬𝑷𝑨𝑰𝑹 𝑯𝑰𝑺 𝑨𝑹𝑴 ᯓ 𝑪𝑨𝑳𝑬𝑩

⟡ content: gn!reader ; established relationship ; honey petname hehe ; minor hurt/comfort (which i didn't anticipate honestly, but it seemed to just go in that direction :O) ; 1.5k wc

⟡ a/n: i watched a clip where pepper potts helps tony stark replace like the tech in his heart and my brain went straight to caleb! also i don't know bionics at all so pls suspend disbelief at my descriptions of tech because its definitely all baloney HAHA also still figuring out how to write for caleb so it might be ooc..,, ANYWAY I DIGRESS i do hope it's an enjoyable read!! <33

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It was beyond you why Caleb chose to entrust you with this task, and equally incomprehensible that you agreed to it. Sure, you knew your way around certain weaponry and gadgets—a skill every good Hunter needed to have—but you were certainly no biomechanical engineer. Yet here you were sitting in the living room of Caleb’s home, his bionic arm fully revealed to you and a set of tools being laid out on the table.

“Isn’t the maintenance process… automated?” you asked, voice quivering with trepidation.

Caleb finished arranging the equipment in front of him. A neat array of screwdrivers and wires.

Comparably, there was no indication of hesitancy in his voice when he spoke.

“Yes, it typically is,” he answered, sitting back down on the sofa. He flexed the fingers of his right arm before flashing a smile at you, “but this isn’t one of those typical times.”

His usually comforting smile did little to ease you. You sat down, observing his arm as he continued speaking.

“One of the wires here—” Caleb pointed to the area at his elbow, “—has loosened for some reason. It just needs some reconnecting and I’ll be right as rain.”

He was right. Upon closer inspection, you could see the wire now beginning to detach from the small, round metal piece it was connected to. Occasionally, a tiny spark of electricity flashed from within the empty hole. If this was left unchecked, it would certainly lead to some kind of malfunction.

You squirmed in the cushion. “Wouldn’t telling the Fleet be better? Don’t they have technicians to do this exact thing?”

Caleb's lips quirked upwards, betraying the stiffness he suddenly felt.

Yes, it would be protocol to let the people responsible for this arm know (whether that was the Fleet or not he would never admit the truth of to you), but it was far too bothersome to have them inspect and diagnose for such a minor issue. And then, there was the pain of it as well. Caleb was very familiar with gritting one’s teeth and baring it, but the soulless nature of the Professor’s rooms made him always feel so alone. Despite the bright, sterile lights and the group of masked technicians in white coats attending to his arm, it was always just him and the pain and the desire for everything to be finished already.

Things were a lot different now with you here, finally here with him.

“Oh, your touch is much gentler than anyone in the Fleet, trust me,” he replied.

Though he hadn’t actually answered your question, the line was enough classic Caleb charm to disarm you. He looked fondly over at your expression as your shook your head, trying to stifle your laugh.

“It’s not a full maintenance repair, just a simple replacement. I’ll walk you through every step, don’t worry.”

He patted the space right next to him and you shuffled over.

“Caleb… will this hurt you?”

You couldn’t help but recall the pain he was in when his arm was hooked up to that machine. Your chest grew tight at the memory.

“Not at all, I swear,” he quickly responded. “Like I said, it’s just a replacement.”

He reached over to pick up a screwdriver. Turning his right arm around so you could see his elbow clearer, he used the tool to point out a small screw on the round metal pieces where the wire was being held.

“So, all you need to do is turn this a little to the left, and it should loosen the wire enough to remove it.”

Caleb then reached for the table to pick up a wire the same as the one in his arm. Though, the metallic conductors could be seen emerging out from the ends of the black casing.

“Then, all you need to do is just need to replace it with this.”

You repeated his words over in your mind. Loosen and then replace.

Exhaling a nervous breath, you took the screwdriver. You placed a hand against his arm to help steady yourself. The metal cooled your sweaty palm. Moving closer, you inserted the tip of the screwdriver into the screw, turning it slowly as possible. Afraid that any quick movements might have an adverse effect.

Just as Caleb had said, once the screws were turned, the metal pieces widened and the wire was freely hanging, only held to the arm by its conductive metal.

So focused on making sure your hands weren’t shaking, you didn’t see Caleb’s eyes scrunched shut, taking in deep breaths through his nose.

“Ah!”

Your head snapped up hearing him wince. His eyes peeled open, a weak but sheepish expression on his face.

“Caleb! You promised it wouldn’t hurt you!”

At your accusatory look, he chuckled wearily. “That was nothing! Just a little—” he sucked a sharp breath in “—buzz that’s all.”

Panicked, you put the screwdriver down. “W-what do I do now?!” you stuttered out, holding your hands away from the exposed area.

“Take the old wire out and put the new one in the same spot.” Despite his discomfort, Caleb tempered his voice. His composure kept your fear at bay for the moment. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be alright.”

You nodded. Moving you hand closer again, you held onto the wire delicately. You pulled slowly. Thankfully, it released without any tugging needed.

“Mhm, there you go. You’re doing great,” Caleb reassured.

The conductive wire unfurled as if aware it was being replaced. You picked up the wire Caleb had held previously in demonstration and lined it up in the empty space. Similarly, the wire reattached itself.

“Now tighten it with the screwdriver.”

Turning the screws once again, you felt the round metal pieces tighten around the wire, holding it securely in place. The repair appeared successful.

You let out a long sigh, relief washing over you. You looked at Caleb’s face, hoping you wouldn’t find him pale and stricken. Instead, he was smiling. He turned his bionic arm around, bending his elbow and wiggling his fingers. It looked like it was back to normal.

“Look at that,” he beamed. “I knew you could do it, honey.”

Your laugh was filled with disbelief at his complete faith in you. “Please don’t ask me to do this again.” You were still slightly delirious by everything that just happened.

“What if I don’t have anyone but you?” he responded.

You knew that statement wasn’t true. There were plenty of people he could rely on to assist him with this. He was the Colonel of the Farspace Fleet after all. Yet, there was a softness in his tone and a distance in his eyes as he spoke. He really believed that to be the truth.

You looped your pinkie finger around his (still hesitant if your craftsmanship had fully worked). Caleb glanced down at your movement. He saw your tenderness and there was a phantom sensation of warmth right where your fingers connected. Though, he knew it was all just his brain and its sensory signals trying desperately to reconstruct a feeling he once had.

“But what if I messed up a-and something bad had happened? I just don’t want to hurt you.”

Caleb enveloped his hand around yours. His touch was cold and metallic, but his words were anything but.

“Nothing you do could ever hurt me.”

The color of his bionic arm began to change. It flickered in the same way a holographic screen did when you put your hand through it. His arm was recalibrating to project the perfect color, and to mimic the feeling of real skin. As fast as you could blink, it returned to its usual appearance.

Caleb squeezed your hand. “See? Right as rain.”

The sudden mixture of your fear and sadness made you crave being in his hold. You pulled him into a hug. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you buried you face into his shoulder.

“Hey, it’s alright,” he soothed, rubbing your back. “I’m still here with you, arm fully functional.”

“I know…” you remained glued to his shoulder, voice muffling.

“Nothing bad will happen to me,” he said, coaxing you gently both in speech and touch as he grazed his finger against your cheek. “Could I see you? Please?”

You lifted your head up, leaning back. Your eyes were glossy with tears and Caleb felt as though he’d been stabbed in the chest. He kissed you on the forehead. With his thumb, he carefully swiped at your bottom lashes.

“I'm sorry, honey. I don’t know what I was thinking wanting you to do this,” he murmured, his warm breath tickling your skin at his closeness. “You don’t have to do this for me next time.”

“It’s okay,” you sniffed, shaking your head. “Now that I know what to expect, I think I can help you if this happens again.”

The shock soon passed. Feeling the rise and fall of Caleb’s chest grounded you. You both held each other until the pain faded, talking to each other quietly in the embrace.

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[polarmoon]

🪐 oasis springs aerospace is hiring!

OASIS SPRINGS AEROSPACE (OSA) is an aerospace startup located in oasis springs, arizona. we are seeking to form a small, diverse team of new graduates with backgrounds in physics, biology, and computer science. if you are interested in aerospace mechanics, astrobiology, or astrophysics, apply today!

this is a public call for sims to join my occult legacy save!

i'm looking for 7 sims to become christopher's coworkers + more sims to populate oasis springs.

submissions will be open until june 15th.

🌴 more info under the cut!

📝 guidelines

young adult human sims only!

i am looking for sims that are engineers, biologists, and computer programmers that would be interested in working in aerospace. you can get creative, but try to stay within those niches!

please write a small biography about your sim! it will help me select who i think will be best for the job. you don't have go super in depth, but their bio will help me select the final sims :)

you don't need to set your sim up with degrees or skills or anything if you don't want to! i can do all of that in game myself.

💌 how to apply

simply make a post introducing your sim and tag me in the post! feel free to send me an ask telling me you posted one, just in case tumblr eats the notification.

i will contact you via askbox after the post goes up and we'll organize a private download, so make sure your ask is open! i will be downloading every sim that is submitted.

i will reblog every submission under the tag #deanOSA

⭐ selection process

the deadline for submissions is june 15th, 2025. sorry for the short window - i'm really excited to play asap lol. i'll be selecting the sims and posting about them sometime before june 21st, 2025!

i will be selecting 7 sims to be christopher's coworkers for the duration of the generation. using the club feature, these sims will act as his coworkers, and will ultimately become his and percy's primary social circle.

i am ideally looking for at least two sims from each category (engineering, biology, computer science). i want to create a well balanced team for this project, but if i don't get enough submissions for each category, i'll just cope :P

the sims will be chosen based on... vibes? i might rng if i'm stuck between who to pick. ultimately though i want to pick whoever fits best with christopher and the vibe i have for the team.

don't worry though! all sims submitted will be added to my save and live in oasis springs for the whole generation! because i use kuttoe's home regions mod, they will be the only sims populating the town, and so they'll be the sims interacting with my sims most often. they will also essentially be re-populating my save since i recently culled a bunch of random townies lol

i will absolutely be posting updates if anything interesting happens with submitted sims :) and who knows, maybe a future dean will marry a descendent or something!

🧬 sim creation info

i have all packs, so there's no pack restrictions on what you can use to dress up your sims!

your sims should have one outfit per category. don't worry about their main outfit being work appropriate - i'll be giving each sim an additional work outfit. if i need to add or change anything, i'll make sure to keep their aesthetic consistent!

cc is okay, but keep it to a moderate amount. mm preferred, hair + clothes are okay, but don't go buckwild on accessories or anything like that (unless it's important for their backstory or identity, like necessary scars, medical equipment, identifying features, etc)

if i choose not to use any of the cc given with the sim, i will change the item to something consistent in style that i already have in my game. (for example, a green t-shirt will be swapped out for a different green t-shirt)

please don't use custom body presets! custom face presets and sliders are okay, but just know that they might get messed up if i ever need to make tweaks.

feel free to use skin details and makeup, but the sims will have my defaults, and i might change up some skin details and makeup to fit in with my game better. i'll still retain their general look though! i might just go with stuff i have in my game instead of new stuff that i wouldn't normally use.

you can either link the cc they use in the post, or include them in the dl with their tray files. i don't mind either way.

that should be everything!! if you have any questions feel free to ask me. no judgements if you need clarification on anything i mentioned here :) i know it's a lot lol!

🚀🌴☄️👽🛰️🌻

taglist of people who replied to my initial interest check: @nervousgnome @girlwithnojobcom @peachiyuu @simbugge @cozylattesims @simswoon @thecutestgf @panicsimss @gerbits @moontaart @iliketodissectsims @pixelblooming @spectermansion @alxandergoth (if you no longer have interest in applying, no worries! just wanted to tag everyone that replied to my interest check just in case they didn't catch this post in time for the deadline. <3)

(the lot in these pictures that i will be using this generation is "astronaut eco pod" by teaboat on the gallery, edited a bit!)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI can’t do your job

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24, and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/amid-job-cuts-doge-accelerates-rollout-of-ai-tool-to-automate-government

If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong. The AI hype machine could put every commercial illustrator alive on the breadline and the savings wouldn't pay the kombucha budget for the million-dollar-a-year techies who oversaw Dall-E's training run. The commercial market for automated email summaries is likewise infinitesimal.

The fact that CEOs overestimate the size of this market is easy to understand, since "CEO" is the most laptop job of all laptop jobs. Having a chatbot summarize the boss's email is the 2025 equivalent of the 2000s gag about the boss whose secretary printed out the boss's email and put it in his in-tray so he could go over it with a red pen and then dictate his reply.

The smart AI money is long on "decision support," whereby a statistical inference engine suggests to a human being what decision they should make. There's bots that are supposed to diagnose tumors, bots that are supposed to make neutral bail and parole decisions, bots that are supposed to evaluate student essays, resumes and loan applications.

The narrative around these bots is that they are there to help humans. In this story, the hospital buys a radiology bot that offers a second opinion to the human radiologist. If they disagree, the human radiologist takes another look. In this tale, AI is a way for hospitals to make fewer mistakes by spending more money. An AI assisted radiologist is less productive (because they re-run some x-rays to resolve disagreements with the bot) but more accurate.

In automation theory jargon, this radiologist is a "centaur" – a human head grafted onto the tireless, ever-vigilant body of a robot

Of course, no one who invests in an AI company expects this to happen. Instead, they want reverse-centaurs: a human who acts as an assistant to a robot. The real pitch to hospital is, "Fire all but one of your radiologists and then put that poor bastard to work reviewing the judgments our robot makes at machine scale."

No one seriously thinks that the reverse-centaur radiologist will be able to maintain perfect vigilance over long shifts of supervising automated process that rarely go wrong, but when they do, the error must be caught:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

The role of this "human in the loop" isn't to prevent errors. That human's is there to be blamed for errors:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/30/a-neck-in-a-noose/#is-also-a-human-in-the-loop

The human is there to be a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The human is there to be an "accountability sink":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

But they're not there to be radiologists.

This is bad enough when we're talking about radiology, but it's even worse in government contexts, where the bots are deciding who gets Medicare, who gets food stamps, who gets VA benefits, who gets a visa, who gets indicted, who gets bail, and who gets parole.

That's because statistical inference is intrinsically conservative: an AI predicts the future by looking at its data about the past, and when that prediction is also an automated decision, fed to a Chaplinesque reverse-centaur trying to keep pace with a torrent of machine judgments, the prediction becomes a directive, and thus a self-fulfilling prophecy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

AIs want the future to be like the past, and AIs make the future like the past. If the training data is full of human bias, then the predictions will also be full of human bias, and then the outcomes will be full of human bias, and when those outcomes are copraphagically fed back into the training data, you get new, highly concentrated human/machine bias:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/inhuman-centipede/#enshittibottification

By firing skilled human workers and replacing them with spicy autocomplete, Musk is assuming his final form as both the kind of boss who can be conned into replacing you with a defective chatbot and as the fast-talking sales rep who cons your boss. Musk is transforming key government functions into high-speed error-generating machines whose human minders are only the payroll to take the fall for the coming tsunami of robot fuckups.

This is the equivalent to filling the American government's walls with asbestos, turning agencies into hazmat zones that we can't touch without causing thousands to sicken and die:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/19/failure-cascades/#dirty-data

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/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete

Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

--

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[caitmayart]

Bulk Ask Responses!

Heya! I've been getting a bunch of asks re: Cloudward, Ho! and I figured I could answer them all in one place ♥

Starting off strong @wogglywiggler ;D Van is amazing and I can't wait for yall to see Siobhan's incredible performance as her - she's got LAYERS, folks!!

You're welcome, Anon. Live thirsty my child ♥

SOMETIMES IT'S NOT INTENTIONAL BUT ALSO I'm a raging pansexual and I find everyone attractive so I do my best to translate that to my drawings. I'm so glad I am apparently the queen of dnd thirst characters tho ;D

Hi @eembezzle!! GOSH that's so cool, I never really think of my art as like... super recognizable but I'm glad yall knew it was me! ♥

The second part of your ask is very similar to this one from @whookami :

and this one from @graciousred :

So I'll answer them all together!

The process is different for the PCs vs NPCs, but all in all I work through coordinators and art directors. I rarely get the chance to 1 on 1 with talent. We work with a wonderful app called Airtable, which makes everything nice and organized and easy to deal with when you're drawing a bajillion characters. PCs I get mood boards and written descriptions, and we go through several rounds of ideation before landing on finals. They take the longest by far!

NPC-wise, I'm given a write up of the character and the timestamp for when they're introduced in the season. If they have a battle mini, I get reference pics of that, too. Yep, minis are made WAY before character art! I listen/watch the "stringouts" aka uncut/unedited footage of the sessions to get the vibe of the character, as well as any secret things that are important later i.e. someone in disguise, like The Skulker vs Johnny Manhattan in NSBU, or if there's some kind of historical importance to a character/secret hidden on their person that is important to visualize. These get done in batches :)

I wouldn't be able to get this done without the awesome dropout team - especially Eve, Skye Loremaster, and Alison ♥

As for Projection Illustrations - that's done before filming! We work closely with the battlemap team (love you Rick, Alison, and KC) and the projection engineers (GOATS Derek and Ruby) to make the beautiful sets the players and viewers get to enjoy. We actually work on the sets DURING film schedule - and CH has a LOT of art yall will get to see. There were times we finished the art the day before the episode was filmed!! But, the art has to be done before the cameras roll, as they're projected live behind the actors.

Hi @seasonofhotness! Thank you so much - I have my con schedule on my website (caitmayart.com) and I try to keep it as updated as I can. I'm currently waiting to hear back from NYCC, but I did apply! Cross your fingers for me ♥

Oh goodness @lady-writes that was totally unintentional, but I SEE IT NOW WHOOOOPS

I just wanted to make Daisuke look like the suave bastard he is, and Zac embodies him so well it must have leaked into my drawing haha!

Thank you all SO MUCH for the love - I can't wait to sail CLOUDWARD, HO with you all!!

[shadesofmauve]

Alliance Normandy SR2 interior redesign: Introduction

The Normandy is a sexy sexy spaceship, but the interior we see is defined by game play: corridors are extremely wide so Shepard doesn't get stuck on the scenery, the crew is sparse because animating crew members takes resources and NPCs are also obstacles Shepard could get stuck on, you need larger spaces for camera angles, etc.

I wanted to see if I could redesign the space to fit a crew of 70–90... ...and I got carried away.

This post covers the rules I set myself and the basic process. Each deck will get a separate post (check back for links):

Intro

Loft

Command deck

Crew deck

Engineering deck

Hangar deck

Design rules

Keep major elements in basically the same places. This is the Normandy as she exists in my fic Sunset & Evening Star, and readers shouldn't have to study a floorplan!

Use only space that's 'available' in the game. If we can access it as the player, it's fair game. If it's a mysterious void in-game, I assume it's full of Important Spaceship Parts and the only access is for ship maintenance.

The elevator shaft is vertical. No Willy Wonka/ST turbo lift shit.

*There are inertial dampeners; if there weren't none of this would work. But as an author I like to imagine that any system can be overloaded.

Step one: Align & scale the deck maps

I aligned the deck maps around the elevator, the only element that shows up on every one. Each is shown at a different scale, so I eyeballed their relationship based on furniture, which is the only thing required to have a relatively consistent size. This is a big assumption; game designers resize whatever they need to! Shepard's bed, for instance, has pillows about a meter square. Presumably they needed room to made the pixel dolls have sex. Shepard's bed can therefore not be trusted, and to a lesser extent neither can anything else.

(There are also floor panels that look a lot like standard 4'x8' construction sheet stock, but A) developers can re-size those as needed without the player noticing, and B) If we're still using imperial units to construct spaceships in 2184 I hope the reapers eat us.**)

**...that said, I used a scale of 1px:2ft to draw this. I'm so sorry. I'm American and I've done construction, it's easy for me to visualize. (The scale was two inches to the pixel, if you're curious.)

Step two: Redesign over the existing space

This is where I saw how much I could fit in the space the game design allowed (given my guesses on scale). Y'know, the fun bit that I thought I'd be spending most of my time doing!

(I was so wrong).

Redesign goals

The Alliance refitted the Normandy for an Admiral. Admirals don't captain their own ships, so I needed to account for an Admiral and their staff as well as the captain and crew.

Align bunks fore-aft, so that the most common major inertial vectors* will hit sleeping crew in the least dangerous direction.

Plumbing should be stacked when possible. (I don't know spaceships but I know about plumbing columns. Glamorous!)

Step three: Adjust to the hull

One modeler figured the ship had to be ~370 meters long to fit the decks as-is, which would leave them using only ~20% of the length. One dev is quoted as saying she's 170m. Fan estimates comparing it with other ships suggest somewhere from 210–230 meters.

The hangar deck is the one*** place the interior aligns with the exterior for certain. The hangar needs to fit two kodiaks in the space between the bay door and the elevator, and each kodiak needs to fit 12 people plus the pilot. Additionally, as the lowest deck the hanger is limited in width by the inward curve of the hull (and that limit changes based on how low you go, which is why the drawing above includes a front elevation).

***Yes, we also see Joker piloting right up in the nose. This is impossible to achieve and also stupid, so I've elected to ignore it.

Sizing it to the smallest reasonable hangar — and after drawing a rather stubbier kodiak — I managed a 194 meter hull; ~217 if you include thrusters. At this size the liveable area takes up just over a third of the hull length. It's still an awful lot of nose, but that nose means 136 meters for the main gun, which for my purposes is still a rail gun (so size matters). Sadly it can't be a hull-length gun; it would run into first the elevator, and then the eezo core.

I did NOT pretend to figure out where the Make Spaceship Go parts are, or the Keep People Alive parts. There's a LOT of 'wasted' space; assume it's all in use and accessible through engineering access-ways, though how comfortable or safe they are is questionable.

———

Thanks to @swaps55 for the amazing high-res screenshots of the game maps, and to @faejilly and @sheepishwolfy for the long-ago talks about crew size that started all this!

[fangirlfuel]

Ready to be a Father

Kimi Antonelli was in the middle of an intense testing session in Bahrain, his focus razor-sharp as he navigated the track, gathering valuable data for the team. The mechanics and engineers monitored his every move, analyzing every fraction of a second, every minor adjustment. The pressure was immense, after all, this was his first year in Formula 1, and expectations were already sky-high.

During a short break, he sat in the garage, helmet resting on his knee as he grabbed a water bottle. His phone buzzed on the table next to him. He wasn’t one to check his messages during testing, but something made him glance at the screen. The moment his eyes landed on the picture you had sent, his entire world tilted.

A tiny, pink baby onesie.

With the caption: You're going to be a daddy! 🩷

His breath caught in his throat, heart hammering against his ribs. His hands trembled slightly as he re-read the message, his brain struggling to process what he was seeing. Pregnant? You were pregnant? His mind short-circuited. He was only eighteen. You were only seventeen. He had just started his career, barely getting used to the chaos of F1. And now… a baby?

A mix of emotions crashed over him like a tidal wave. Panic. Shock. Fear. And then, something else, something warm and overwhelming. Love. The idea of having a family with you, of holding a tiny baby in his arms, made his heart swell. He swallowed hard, his mind racing. Could he do this? Would he be a good father? Would you be okay? He had so many questions, so many worries, but one thing was certain—he loved you, and he would do anything to make this work.

With shaking hands, he took a deep breath and, without really thinking, forwarded the picture to his parents with a voice note , his voice trembling. "Mom, Dad… I have to tell you something important......Y/N is pregnant".

Immediately, his phone exploded with notifications. His mother was calling him nonstop, and his father sent a string of panicked texts.

Kimi Lorenzo Antonelli, ANSWER YOUR PHONE RIGHT NOW!

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

You’re EIGHTEEN, Kimi!

KIMI, WE ARE GETTING ON A PLANE.

Kimi felt like he was going to pass out. His hands were sweating, and his helmet slipped off his knee onto the floor with a loud clatter. His engineer, noticing his pale face, frowned. “Kimi, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think I just did,” Kimi muttered.

He barely made it through the rest of the testing session. His engineers kept asking if everything was alright, and he brushed them off with forced smiles. The second he was done for the day, he bolted to the nearest store, heart pounding in his chest. He found a small, soft teddy bear, something perfect for a newborn to cuddle. Holding it in his hands, he made a silent vow to be the best father he could be.

When he finally arrived home, his hands were shaking as he unlocked the door. You barely had time to turn around before he was wrapping you up in a tight embrace, burying his face in your shoulder.

“I can’t believe it,” he murmured against your skin. “I–I don’t know how we’re going to do this, but I swear, I’m going to be the best dad. I’ll do anything for you, for our baby.”

You froze. “Our… baby?”

He pulled back slightly, looking down at you with the softest expression you had ever seen. “I know it’s unexpected, but I swear, I’ll be there for everything. Doctor’s appointments, late nights, everything. I’ll make sure you and the baby have everything you need.”

Your mind reeled, trying to piece together what was happening. Then, a small bark broke the silence.

Your eyes flickered towards the couch, where a tiny golden retriever puppy sat, its tail wagging. And there, draped over its tiny frame, was the pink baby onesie.

Realization hit you like a lightning bolt.

“Oh my God,” you gasped, slapping a hand over your mouth. Your shoulders started shaking with laughter. “Kimi, no! The onesie wasn’t because I’m pregnant, it was for the puppy! I was trying to surprise you with our new pet!”

His face turned a deep shade of red. “Wait… what?”

Tears of laughter streamed down your face as you clutched his arm. “Kimi, you actually thought I was pregnant?”

Kimi groaned, covering his face with his hands. “I just had an entire existential crisis for nothing.”

You grinned, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “A very cute crisis, though.”

Just as Kimi was about to respond, the apartment door burst open with a loud BANG.

“KIMI LORENZO ANTONELLI!”

Kimi jumped, nearly dropping the teddy bear as his parents stormed inside, looking completely frazzled. His mother, eyes blazing with fury, marched up to him and smacked his arm. “You thought you could just TEXT US something like this and NOT ANSWER YOUR PHONE?!”

His father, though slightly calmer, was running a hand through his hair, looking at you with wide eyes. “Kimi, what were you thinking?! You’re both so young! We are about to rearrange our whole lives for this!”

You were doubled over in laughter at this point, tears streaming down your face. Kimi held up his hands. “Mom! Dad! It was a misunderstanding! Y/N isn’t pregnant!”

His mother stopped mid-rant, eyes narrowing. “What?”

Kimi pointed to the couch, where the tiny puppy was now chewing on the onesie’s sleeve. “The onesie was for the puppy! Y/N was surprising me, and I misunderstood!”

Silence.

Then, his mother smacked his arm again. “IDIOTA! Do you know what you just put us through?! We nearly had a heart attack on the way here!”

His father let out a deep sigh of relief before shaking his head. “You’re lucky we love you, Kimi.”

You wiped at your tears, still giggling. “I think this is the funniest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Kimi groaned. “I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?”

His mother crossed her arms. “Not from me.”

His father smirked. “Or from me.”

You grinned, wrapping your arms around Kimi’s waist. “And definitely not from me.”

Kimi let out a dramatic sigh. “Great. Just great.”

But despite his embarrassment, he couldn’t help but smile. Because even though this wasn’t the life-changing moment he thought it was, he still had you, and now, a tiny puppy that you would raise together. And maybe, just maybe, one day, the real onesie moment would happen.

Just… not today.

----

[frownyalfred]

the fact that the batsuit has a cape is just so perfect to me. it’s iconic, of course, the drape and the silhouette are the Bat Brand by now, and actually hugely functional with the reinforced fabric blocking knives and the fact that he can use it to glide but the more i think about the engineering design process behind the batsuit the more i’m convinced those were additional functionalities bruce put in later, and he started out with a cape not because it was useful but because he was raised by an actor and loves costumes. everything else about the suit is tested and re-tested and optimized for pure practicality and function…except the first iteration of the cape, which is pure theatrical intimidation intended to serve no purpose but flapping majestically in the wind and scaring the shit out of petty criminals. sure that’s important to the mission, fear is a tool and the bat is the night, but it’s not the same kind of important to the mission as thirty pounds of body armor. bruce might not have alfred’s genes but by god does he have alfred’s sense of drama worked into his bones

Absolutely. I had a post somewhere on here about how only a true actor at heart could wear and know how to fold/swirl a cape that big and that heavy without looking foolish. Alfred taught him that, and Bruce took that knowledge and ran with it like nothing else.

[maximoesolution]

Business Process Reengineering: Tips & Techniques

The ultimate aim of a business is to remain profitable while providing best-in-class products and services to its customers. Every business has a set of processes that contribute a lot to making it profitable.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

do you have any tips on pacing? for me I always tend to right way faster then I would like to. thanks!

Writing Notes: Narrative Pacing

The best storytellers across all genres of fiction writing are often masters of the pace at which the story unfolds.

Pacing - refers to how fast or slow the story is moving for the reader.

This is determined by the length of a scene and the speed at which you, the writer, distribute information.

Generally speaking, descriptive passages tend to slow things down, while dialogue and action scenes speed things up—but slowing the pacing of action down at choice moments can also build suspense.

Good pacing is crucial to the flow of a successful narrative and without it, the story is dead on the page.

The reader wants to be immersed in the thoughts and actions of your characters.

They want to feel that they’re in the world you’ve created.

Clunky language, bad dialogue, and poorly-conceived scenes will all draw your reader out of the story.

Pace will help keep them there.

Writing Tips: On Narrative Pacing

Whether it’s through subplots, playing with sentence structure (longer sentences can slow things down, rapid-fire dialogue and short sentences can speed them up), or experimenting with passive versus active voice—here are a few ideas to keep your story moving:

Utilize breathers. By balancing action scenes with more reflective, internal moments, you give the reader an equal dose of excitement and recovery. The quieter moments in any novel—the “negative space”—are the places to share relationship details, a character’s thoughts and memories, and anything a character might do while taking a break. These spaces, which are just as important as the more dramatic scenes, give readers a chance to orient themselves and process their reactions. Too much of the same pace—no matter how exciting it is—will begin to feel tedious to the reader.

Change the order of events. Try a method called in medias res—opening the story in the middle of the action and filling in details later. This works well when you want to capture your reader’s attention quickly, like in a short story. If you are writing something longer, try placing the sole dramatic question of your story upfront while using the rest of the novel to slowly parse out information that leads to the final answer. Your readers will keep reading to discover the answer to the question you’ve given them.

Vary your sentence length. Try breaking up long passages of exposition with short dialogue—even a sentence or two can be refreshing. If you have a very long section of dialogue, insert brief sections of exposition to keep your reader grounded in time and place.

Keep characters physically moving during dialogue. If your characters are on the run and having a conversation in an airport, you can show the numerous distractions they might notice as they walk nervously through the airport. By interspersing brief distractions (clumsy passengers, stern security guards) between segments of dialogue, you prevent the pacing from becoming monotonous.

Reveal information selectively. Writing suspense into any novel is a matter of controlling information—how much you reveal, and when and how you reveal it. In its most practical sense, suspense is a series of incremental steps. While every novel will have a central, overarching storyline that seeks to answer the sole dramatic question, that question is an engine built of thousands of smaller components that carry the reader through each chapter, sustaining their interest along the way.

Vary your narration. In all writing, there are 2 types of narration: scene and dramatic narration. In the former, you show the characters performing an action or having a conversation. This tends to speed up the pacing. In the latter, you simply tell the reader what the characters did, but the event remains “offstage.” This type of narration can slow the story down. To keep pacing from feeling monotonous, it’s a good idea to vary the two modes of writing. Show the reader a scene when it’s interesting or necessary, and use a summary to move over the less exciting parts.

Read the work out loud. Notice the amount of time it takes you to read through a scene and pay attention to how the sentences feel to read and mark where the rhythms naturally change. Where should you slow down? Where should you pause? Where should your pacing gain momentum?

How to Pace Your Novel

How Long Should Book Chapters Be? The overall story arc of a novel is essential, but meticulous construction of individual chapters is just as important to the reader’s experience. Here are a few of David Baldacci's tips for structuring chapters:

Keep scenes and chapters short. David keeps his chapters short—between three to five pages. This keeps the narrative moving at a brisk pace.

Keep your audience asking questions. When a chapter answers a question from a previous chapter, you have the opportunity to introduce a new one. The new question will propel you through the next chapter. A classic example from crime fiction: “Will this serial killer strike again?” becomes “He struck again—now how many more people will he kill?” Keep this up over the course of a novel, and the book will be a page-turner.

Make sure each chapter has a purpose that ties into the bigger story. If you lose sight of the overarching narrative of your novel, your individual chapters can begin to feel aimless. To keep your novel focused and on track, you should have a clear objective with every scene you write.

Don’t fluff up the novel with irrelevant content. Scene-setting and vivid descriptions are critical for a compelling novel, but don’t get bogged down in the details. Focus on sustaining narrative momentum from chapter one onward.

Make your scenes multitask. Driving the plot forward, conveying information, and deepening a character’s development are the three most critical jobs that a chapter can do. The short chapters you write should make use of at least one of these tools, and preferably more than one.

A Writing Exercise on Pacing

One person punches another.

Describe this act in 10 words.

Describe the same act in 100 words.

You’ll find that the second description reads more like the end of a chapter, while the first may sound more like the beginning or middle. 

To follow up, write a scene leading up to the punch and play with sentence lengths.

For the scene leading up to 2, for instance, try making all the preceding sentences no longer than five words apiece.

In the scene leading up to 1, keep all the sentences equally short, except when you get to the action that directly provokes the punch and describe that one action in 100 words.

After completing this exercise, you should see how very different the exact same scene can feel, depending on which elements of that scene are sped through, and which are dragged out.   

A good advice on pacing: Read and learn. The next time you come across a book that keeps you up all night turning pages, give it a second read once you’ve finished and caught your breath. Take a look at what the author does, whether it’s speeding up scenes, slowing them down or shifting points of view at crucial moments. Odds are, you’ll appreciate the book even more… and pick up a few pacing tricks of your own.

Techniques to Slow Down the Pace

Lengthen your sentences

Add descriptions

Include subplots

Use flashbacks and backstory

Add more introspection

Techniques to Speed Things Up

Shorten your sentences

Use more dialogue

Remove (or limit) secondary subplots

Use cliffhangers

Increase the action

There is no formula for a great story: it can be either fast or slow depending on how it is told. So, don’t be afraid to play with your story’s pacing and explore different ways in which a scene can be slowed down or sped up until you find the right fit. Above all, remember that nailing the pace is a matter of balance.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

Hope this helps with your writing!

[alkalineleak]

Commissions are open on Ca$h app and paypa!l!! If anyone ks interested please DM me! 3/3 slots are currently opened!

Terms of Service

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FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH A TOS CAN RESULT IN BEING DROPPED, HAVING YOUR COMMISSION CANCELLED OR DENIED, AND BLACKLISTED.

Higher res images of the drawings under the cut

[ryanthel0ser]

An additional thing I adore about DMC5 is the facial performances. DMC has always used motion capture for cutscenes but by the time DMC5 was being made they could do facial capture.

Add on the fact they're using the RE engine and you get to see the very small movements and subtle acting that happens in the face that is extremely hard to capture if you just try animating it. For Dante, Nero, and Vergil we also get to finally see the voice actors show off more of their understanding of their characters. For example, when Vergil returns pay attention to Nero's expressions. You can almost see his thoughts in that moment and when he's finally hit with the "he's your father" we get to see Nero processing everything that entails; his eyes moving as if you can see him going through his memories and emotions, the horror and anger at the whole situation passing over his face, the confusion with his own emotions, even doing a small head shake of disbelief. It elevates and creates more depth to these characters than we had previously and something I think should be praised more from these actors.

One of the small things that I love about DMC5 is that the characters sound older which in real life is because it'd been 11 years since DMC4 but in game it helps with creating that feeling of "it's been 5 years since these characters interacted."

Like Nero is now 23-24 years old, his voice changing makes sense. Also, going back and listening to DMC4 Nero just makes me realize how young he actually is when all that goes down, in our world he'd be fresh out of high school.

[kabr0ztrousers]

There's this tired worn out guy and he can't help but fantasize about how nice it would be to be a hucow that spends his days getting his chest and dick milked, but everywhere only seems to hire women since it's much easier to induce lactation. He's sitting at this boring desk at work when a mysterious email shows up inviting him to trial run the newest technology in the hucow field!! When he arrives it's better than he can even fathom. Little does he know that this trial run is aired on TV for the entire world to see. People can send in money and control just how fast, slow, hard, or soft the machines milk or fuck him.

Kabr0z Writes episode 63: Reality TV

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: intox; dubcon; implements; restraints; humiliation; coercion; overstim;

A/N: This wasn't requested to be another Chitinid story, but there's only 2 continuities I have ongoing where hucows feature, and this is the one where it isn't an underground practice. I'm not against spinning out another continuity, but couching it where things are already set up helps streamline the process

########################################

A month ago, the old library had been flattened. That was the last interesting thing that had happened in this city, and since then Mike's life has been an unending sequence of cubicle walls and tedious emails. He sighed. Half the world spirited away to be milked stupid, spending the entire remainder of their lives in chemically induced ecstasy to harvest their sexual fluids, and he managed to wind up behind a desk.

Not that Mike hadn't tried, he wrote to his city supervisor, even tried going above his head to regional governor, but was met with the same response every time: his best place was where he was, sat behind a desk so Chitinid anthropologists could study him as the drab monotony of the passing days slowly drove him mad. No wonder they got resistance cells, even if they didn't admit they existed. Of course, everyone knew there was a resistance, libraries don't get demolished via high-caliber autocannons because of termites.

A notification pinged in the corner of the screen Mike had been ignoring for the last hour. A half page of corporate lorem ipsum left behind by his train of thought. He opened the email and scanned it, finger poised over the delete key.

"You have been Selected" came the subject line

Weird, spam didn't exist any more. Nobody had anything to steal, companies didn't have any information to pillage, there wasn't even anything worth destroying. He read on

"Congratulations!

You have been selected to take part in a viability study involving human livestock material harvesting. You have been selected because either you have registered interest with your city supervisor, or your usefulness has been re-evaluated"

Well, he'd definitely made his interest well known. The rest of the email detailed where to go, what to bring, when to be there. One final sentence capped off the message, reminding the recipients that this is in fact not optional. Mike would either go willingly, or he would be taken. That's one way to deal with people not reading their email.

There wasn't much required to bring. Civilian travel documents, ID card, and the clothes on his back. Only he turned up, either everyone else was trying to hide or nobody else was selected from his area, either way, he probably wouldn't find out. Transparency was never at the top of their lists of priorities.

A gunship swung down low, the silent engine didn't even disturb the treetops as the vessel passed within inches of them. A voice came over the loudspeaker, a Chitinid speaking English

"Citizen Lewis, Michael. Identity recognised. Stand by for transfer"

Stand by for transfer. Sounds like he wasn't about to be atomised by weapons fire at least. Always a plus

A confinement field engulfed him. The tingling blue light surrounding you before the world disappeared, replaced with a holding cell. Exactly as expected.

There's no way to measure time in a Chitinid holding cell. The walls are blank, the lighting flat. This one didn't even seem to have a door.

Mike tried to sleep, without success. Chitinids never seemed to realise that blue light stops humans going to sleep, either that or they just didn't care. So he sat on the floor. The ship could be anywhere, going at any speed, there's no way to know. Mike had an idea of where it was probably headed, the human farms were kept in great facilities on the moon. They were visible even without a telescope, even if the ship traffic to and from wasn't.

The lights in the room brightened, the air becoming charged. The whole room was filled with a confinement field. The world flipped, beaming the hapless man down, completely nude, onto a metal table.

He couldn't move, he must have been sent from one confinement field to another. This didn't match what he'd been told about these facilities. Normally the people in these facilities would be held in huge spaces, hundreds of them plugged into machines with little to no conception of privacy. The room Mike found himself in was small, with only the table he was held to and only one device on the ceiling for company. A screen flickered to life, covering an entire wall of the room. Mike could see himself in it, the blue light of the containment casting him in a sickly pallor as the machine on the ceiling whirred to life.

A cup suctioned itself to his crotch as tubes carrying drugs attached themselves to his arms. A voice filled the room "Welcome, citizen, to the game of your life! You're live on channel nine!"

What?

A sound effect played. A number appeared on the screen and drugs pushed into Mike's bloodstream. He gasped as his skin flushed, turning red and immediately glistening with perspiration. Another noise, more drugs. His cock was achingly hard now, starting to throb into the tube surrounding it. The field parted his legs, bringing his knees upwards as a probe pushed against his asshole. Another noise and it pressed in, the cold metal making him wince before a tingling electric current ran through his prostate to the tip of his cock. The noises were speeding up, each one driving more drugs into him. Mike's chest became heavy, tits starting to bud, already leaking creamy milk as his cock dribbled precum.

A different noise, louder, more discordant, accompanied by the quick chattering of a Chitinid. The gentle electric pulsing from the probe in Mike's ass intensified for a moment. His hips bucked as his balls clenched, a rope of cum jetting from the tip of his cock. Then another, and another. The cocktail of alien aphrodisiac flowing into his body kept his cock hard and cooperative, but did nothing to stop his balls aching or the shaft burning as another noise jolted him again. His tits were leaking more now, probes fixing themselves to his nipples to collect the fluids, pumping and sucking the liquid out as the new tits kept growing at an alarming rate.

He groaned, partially from the exertions of the repeated orgasms, partly from the growing pains on his chest. The vocalisation caused a flurry of noises, the drugs hammering into his body causing him to twitch and convulse as a stream of thick cum pumped from his cock, getting thin and watery as his balls emptied out.

Mike's groans grew weaker, turning to wheezing sobs as the stimulation took its toll. His cock was still throbbing, trying to pump out ever more but nothing came, only the clenching of his drained nutsack sending painful lances through him.

The screen went dark. The stimulation stopped.

"Good show! Same time tomorrow!"

####################################

Well, I'll admit I'd lost faith in this one at about the halfway mark but feel like I pulled it back at the end

As always, any requests, ideas, scenarios, lore questions, etc, send an ask. I try to answer non-request asks quickly but if you bundle a question or something with a req, it'll get answered when you get your story

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An Epic antitrust loss for Google

A jury just found Google guilty on all counts of antitrust violations stemming from its dispute with Epic, maker of Fortnite, which brought a variety of claims related to how Google runs its app marketplace. This is huge:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/technology/epic-games-google-antitrust-ruling.html

The mobile app store world is a duopoly run by Google and Apple. Both use a variety of tactics to prevent their customers from installing third party app stores, which funnels all app makers into their own app stores. Those app stores cream an eye-popping 30% off every purchase made in an app.

This is a shocking amount to charge for payment processing. The payments sector is incredibly monopolized and notorious for its price-gouging – and its standard (wildly inflated) rate is 2-5%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Now, in theory, Epic doesn't have to sell in Google Play, the official Android app store. Unlike Apple's iOS, Android permit both sideloading (installing an app directly without using an app store) and configuring your device to use a different app store. In practice, Google uses a variety of anticompetitive tricks to prevent these app stores from springing up and to dissuade Android users from sideloading. Proving that Google's actions – like paying Activision $360m as part of "Project Hug" (no, really!) – were intended to prevent new app storesfrom springing up was a big lift for Epic. But they managed it, in large part thanks to Google's own internal communications, wherein executives admitted that this was exactly why Project Hug existed. This is part of a pattern with Big Tech antitrust: many of the charges are theoretically very hard to make stick, but because the companies put their evil plans in writing (think of the fraudulent crypto exchange FTX, whose top execs all conferred in a groupchat called "Wirefraud"), Big Tech keeps losing in court:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Now, I do like to dunk on Big Tech for this kind of thing, because it's objectively funny and because the companies make so many unforced errors. But in an important sense, this kind of written record is impossible to avoid. Any large institution can only make and enact policy through administrative systems, and those systems leave behind a paper-trail: memos, meeting minutes, etc. Yes, we all know that quote from The Wire: "Is you taking notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy?" But inevitably, any ambitious conspiracy can only exist if someone is taking notes.

What's more, any large conspiracy involving lots of parties will inevitably produce leaks. Think of this as the corollary to the idea that the moon landing can't be a hoax, because there's no way 400,000 co-conspirators could keep the secret. Big Tech's conspiracies required hundreds or even thousands of collaborators to keep their mouths shut, and eventually someone blabs:

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-moon-landing-you-d-need-400000-conspirators

This is part of a wave of antitrust cases being brought against the tech giants. As Matt Stoller writes, the guilty-on-all-counts jury verdict will leak into current and future actions. Remember, Google spent much of this year in court fighting the DoJ, who argued that the company bribed Apple not to make a competing search engine, paying tens of billions every year to keep a competitor from emerging. Now that a jury has convinced Google of doing that to prevent alternative app stores from emerging, claims that it used these pay-for-delay tactics in other sectros get a lot more credible:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-google-loses-antitrust-case

On that note: what about Apple? Epic brought a very similar case against Apple and lost. Both Apple and Epic are appealing that case to the Supreme Court, and now that Google has been convicted in a similar case, it might prompt the Supremes to weigh in and resolve the seeming inconsistencies in the interpretation of federal law.

This is a key moment in the long project to wrest antitrust away from the pro-monopoly side, who spent decades "training" judges to produce verdicts that run counter to the plain language of America's antitrust law:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

There's 40 years' worth of bad precedent to overturn. The good news is that we've got the law on our side. Literally, the wording of the laws and the records of the Congressional debate leading to their passage, all militate towards the (incredibly obvious) conclusion that the purpose of anti-monopoly law is to fight monopoly, not defend it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

It's amazing to realize that we got into this monopoly quagmire because judges just literally refused to enforce the law. That's what makes one part of the jury verdict against Google so exciting: the jury found that Google's insistence that Play Store sellers use its payment processor was an act of illegal tying. Today, "tying" is an obscure legal theory, but few doctrines would be more useful in disenshittifying the internet. A company is guilty of illegal tying when it forces you to use unrelated products or services as a condition of using the product you actually want. The abandonment of tying led to a host of horribles, from printer companies forcing you to buy ink at $10,000/gallon to Livenation forcing venues to sell tickets through its Ticketmaster subsidiary.

The next phase of this comes when the judge decides on the penalty. Epic doesn't want cash damages – it wants the judge to order Google to fulfill its promise of "an open, competitive Android ecosystem for all users and industry participants." They've asked the judge to order Google to facilitate third-party app stores, and to separate app stores from payment processors. As Stoller puts it, they want to "crush Google’s control over Android":

https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-v-google-trial-verdict-a-win-for-all-developers

Google has sworn to appeal, surprising no one. The Times's expert says that they will have a tough time winning, given how clear the verdict was. Whatever this means for Google and Android, it means a lot for a future free from monopolies.

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/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger