#quality computer components

[techdriveplay]

Upgrading Your Gaming Rig with the Latest Computer Parts

In the rapidly evolving world of PC gaming, staying ahead of the curve is essential for an immersive and competitive experience. Upgrading your gaming rig with the latest computer parts not only boosts your system’s performance but also ensures that you’re getting the most out of your gaming sessions. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the key components to consider when upgrading…

[foone]

why are printers so hated? it's simple:

computers are good at computering. they are not good at the real world.

the biggest problems in computers, the ones that have had to change the most over the time they've existed, are the parts that deal with the real world. The keyboard, the mouse, the screen. every computer needs these, but they involve interacting with the real world. that's a problem. that's why they get replaced so much.

now, printers: printers have some of the most complex real-world interaction. they need to deposit ink on paper in 2 dimensions, and that results in at least three ways it can go on right from the start. (this is why 3D printers are just 2D printers that can go wrong in another whole dimension)

scanners fall into many of the same problems printers have, but fewer people have scanners, and they're not as cost-optimized. But they are nearly as annoying.

This is also why you can make a printer better by cutting down on the number of moving elements: laser printers are better than inkjets, because they only need to move in one dimension, and their ink is a powder, not a liquid. and the best-behaved printers of all are thermal printers: no ink and the head doesn't move. That's why every receipt printer is a thermal printer, because they need that shit to work all the time so they can sell shit. And thermal is the most reliable way to do that.

But yeah, cost-optimization is also a big part of why printers are such finicky unreliable bastards: you don't want to pay much for them. Who is excited for all the printing they're gonna be doing? basically nobody. But people get forced to have a printer because they gotta print something, for school or work or the government or whatever. So they want the cheapest thing that'll work. They're not shopping on features and functionality and design, they want something that costs barely anything, and can fucking PRINT. anything else is an optional bonus.

And here's the thing: there's a fundamental limit of how much you can optimize an inkjet printer, and we got near to it in like the late 90s. Every printer since then has just been a tad smaller, a tad faster, and added some gimmicks like printing from WIFI or bluetooth instead of needing to plug in a cable.

And that's the worst place to be in, for a computer component. The "I don't care how fancy it is, just give me one that works" zone. This is why you can buy a keyboard for 20$ and a mouse for 10$ and they both work plenty fine for 90% of users. They're objectively shit compared to the ones in the 60-150$ range, but do they work? yep. So that's what people get.

Printers fell into that zone long, long ago, when people stopped getting excited about "desktop publishing". So with printers shoved into the "make them as cheap as possible" zone, they have gotten exponentially shittier. Can you cut costs by 5$ a printer by making them jam more often? good. make them only last a couple years to save a buck or two per unit? absolutely. Can you make the printer cost 10$ less and make that back on the proprietary ink cartridges? oh, they've been doing that since Billy Clinton was in office.

It's the same place floppy disks were in in about 2000. CD-burners were not yet cheap enough, USB flash drives didn't exist yet (but were coming), modems weren't fast enough yet to copy stuff over the internet, superfloppies hadn't taken over like some hoped, and memory cards were too expensive and not everyone had a drive for them. So we still needed floppy disks, but at the same time this was a technology that hadn't changed in nearly 20 years. So people were tired of paying out the nose for them... the only solution? cut corners. I have floppy disks from 1984 that read perfectly, but a shrinkwrapped box of disks from 1999 will have over half the disks failed. They cut corners on the material quality, the QA process, the cleaning cloth inside the disk, everything they could. And the disks were shit as a result.

So, printers are in that particular note of the death-spiral where they've reached the point of "no one likes or cares about this technology, but it's still required so it's gone to shit". That's why they are so annoying, so unreliable, so fucking crap.

So, here's the good news:

You can still buy a better printer, and it will work far better. Laser printers still exist, and LED printers work the same way but even cheaper. They're still more expensive than inkjets (especially if you need color), but if you have to print stuff, they're a godsend. Way more reliable.

This is not a stable equilibrium. Printers cannot limp along in this terrible state forever. You know why I brought up floppy disk there? (besides the fact I'm a giant floppy disk nerd) because floppy disks GOT REPLACED. Have you used one this decade? CD-Rs and USB drives and internet sharing came along and ate the lunch of floppy disks, so much so that it's been over a decade since any more have been made. The same will happen to (inkjet) printers, eventually. This kind of clearly-broken situation cannot hold. It'll push people to go paperless, for companies to build cheaper alternatives to take over from the inkjets, or someone will come up with a new, more reliable printer based on some new technology that's now cheap enough to use in printers. Yeah, it sucks right now, but it can't last.

So, in conclusion: Printers suck, but this is both an innate problem caused by them having to deal with so much fucking Real World, and a local minimum of reliability that we're currently stuck in. Eventually we'll get out of this valley on the graph and printers will bother people a lot less.

Random fun facts about printing of the past and their local minimums:

in the hot metal type era, not only would the whole printing process expose you to lead, the most common method of printing text was the linotype, which could go wrong in a very fun way: if the next for a line wasn't properly justified (filling out the whole row), it could "squirt", and lead would escape through gaps in the type matrix. This would result in molten lead squirting out of the machine, possibly onto the operator. Anecdotally, linotype operators would sometimes recognize each other on the street because of the telltale spots on their forearms where they had white splotches where no hair grew, because they got bad lead burns. This type of printing remained in use until the 80s.

Another fun type of now-retired printers are drum printers, a type of line printer. These work something like a typewriter or dot-matrix printer, except the elements extend across the entire width of the paper. So instead of printing a character at time by smacking it into the paper, the whole line got smacked nearly at once. The problem is that if the paper jammed and the printer continued to try to print, that line of the paper would be repeatedly struck at high speed, creating a lot of heat. This worry created the now-infamous Linux error: "lp0 on fire". This was displayed when the error signals from a parallel printer didn't make sense... and it was a real worry. A high speed printer could definitely set the paper on fire, though this was rare.

So... one thing to be grateful about current shitty inkjet printers: they are very unlikely to burn anything, especially you.

(because before they could do that they'd have to work, at least a little, first, and that's very unlikely)

[are-we-art-yet]

Is AWAY using it's own program or is this just a voluntary list of guidelines for people using programs like DALL-E? How does AWAY address the environmental concerns of how the companies making those AI programs conduct themselves (energy consumption, exploiting impoverished areas for cheap electricity, destruction of the environment to rapidly build and get the components for data centers etc.)? Are members of AWAY encouraged to contact their gov representatives about IP theft by AI apps?

What is AWAY and how does it work?

AWAY does not "use its own program" in the software sense—rather, we're a diverse collective of ~1000 members that each have their own varying workflows and approaches to art. While some members do use AI as one tool among many, most of the people in the server are actually traditional artists who don't use AI at all, yet are still interested in ethical approaches to new technologies.

Our code of ethics is a set of voluntary guidelines that members agree to follow upon joining. These emphasize ethical AI approaches, (preferably open-source models that can run locally), respecting artists who oppose AI by not training styles on their art, and refusing to use AI to undercut other artists or work for corporations that similarly exploit creative labor.

Environmental Impact in Context

It's important to place environmental concerns about AI in the context of our broader extractive, industrialized society, where there are virtually no "clean" solutions:

The water usage figures for AI data centers (200-740 million liters annually) represent roughly 0.00013% of total U.S. water usage. This is a small fraction compared to industrial agriculture or manufacturing—for example, golf course irrigation alone in the U.S. consumes approximately 2.08 billion gallons of water per day, or about 7.87 trillion liters annually. This makes AI's water usage about 0.01% of just golf course irrigation.

Looking into individual usage, the average American consumes about 26.8 kg of beef annually, which takes around 1,608 megajoules (MJ) of energy to produce. Making 10 ChatGPT queries daily for an entire year (3,650 queries) consumes just 38.1 MJ—about 42 times less energy than eating beef. In fact, a single quarter-pound beef patty takes 651 times more energy to produce than a single AI query.

Overall, power usage specific to AI represents just 4% of total data center power consumption, which itself is a small fraction of global energy usage. Current annual energy usage for data centers is roughly 9-15 TWh globally—comparable to producing a relatively small number of vehicles.

The consumer environmentalism narrative around technology often ignores how imperial exploitation pushes environmental costs onto the Global South. The rare earth minerals needed for computing hardware, the cheap labor for manufacturing, and the toxic waste from electronics disposal disproportionately burden developing nations, while the benefits flow largely to wealthy countries.

While this pattern isn't unique to AI, it is fundamental to our global economic structure. The focus on individual consumer choices (like whether or not one should use AI, for art or otherwise,) distracts from the much larger systemic issues of imperialism, extractive capitalism, and global inequality that drive environmental degradation at a massive scale.

They are not going to stop building the data centers, and they weren't going to even if AI never got invented.

Creative Tools and Environmental Impact

In actuality, all creative practices have some sort of environmental impact in an industrialized society:

Digital art software (such as Photoshop, Blender, etc) generally uses 60-300 watts per hour depending on your computer's specifications. This is typically more energy than dozens, if not hundreds, of AI image generations (maybe even thousands if you are using a particularly low-quality one).

Traditional art supplies rely on similar if not worse scales of resource extraction, chemical processing, and global supply chains, all of which come with their own environmental impact.

Paint production requires roughly thirteen gallons of water to manufacture one gallon of paint.

Many oil paints contain toxic heavy metals and solvents, which have the potential to contaminate ground water.

Synthetic brushes are made from petroleum-based plastics that take centuries to decompose.

That being said, the point of this section isn't to deflect criticism of AI by criticizing other art forms. Rather, it's important to recognize that we live in a society where virtually all artistic avenues have environmental costs. Focusing exclusively on the newest technologies while ignoring the environmental costs of pre-existing tools and practices doesn't help to solve any of the issues with our current or future waste.

The largest environmental problems come not from individual creative choices, but rather from industrial-scale systems, such as:

Industrial manufacturing (responsible for roughly 22% of global emissions)

Industrial agriculture (responsible for roughly 24% of global emissions)

Transportation and logistics networks (responsible for roughly 14% of global emissions)

Making changes on an individual scale, while meaningful on a personal level, can't address systemic issues without broader policy changes and overall restructuring of global economic systems.

Intellectual Property Considerations

AWAY doesn't encourage members to contact government representatives about "IP theft" for multiple reasons:

We acknowledge that copyright law overwhelmingly serves corporate interests rather than individual creators

Creating new "learning rights" or "style rights" would further empower large corporations while harming individual artists and fan creators

Many AWAY members live outside the United States, many of which having been directly damaged by the US, and thus understand that intellectual property regimes are often tools of imperial control that benefit wealthy nations

Instead, we emphasize respect for artists who are protective of their work and style. Our guidelines explicitly prohibit imitating the style of artists who have voiced their distaste for AI, working on an opt-in model that encourages traditional artists to give and subsequently revoke permissions if they see fit. This approach is about respect, not legal enforcement. We are not a pro-copyright group.

In Conclusion

AWAY aims to cultivate thoughtful, ethical engagement with new technologies, while also holding respect for creative communities outside of itself. As a collective, we recognize that real environmental solutions require addressing concepts such as imperial exploitation, extractive capitalism, and corporate power—not just focusing on individual consumer choices, which do little to change the current state of the world we live in.

When discussing environmental impacts, it's important to keep perspective on a relative scale, and to avoid ignoring major issues in favor of smaller ones. We promote balanced discussions based in concrete fact, with the belief that they can lead to meaningful solutions, rather than misplaced outrage that ultimately serves to maintain the status quo.

If this resonates with you, please feel free to join our discord. :)

Works Cited:

USGS Water Use Data: https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/water-use-united-states

Golf Course Superintendents Association of America water usage report: https://www.gcsaa.org/resources/research/golf-course-environmental-profile

Equinix data center water sustainability report: https://www.equinix.com/resources/infopapers/corporate-sustainability-report

Environmental Working Group's Meat Eater's Guide (beef energy calculations): https://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/

Hugging Face AI energy consumption study: https://huggingface.co/blog/carbon-footprint

International Energy Agency report on data centers: https://www.iea.org/reports/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks

Goldman Sachs "Generational Growth" report on AI power demand: https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gs-research/generational-growth-ai-data-centers-and-the-coming-us-power-surge/report.pdf

Artists Network's guide to eco-friendly art practices: https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-business/how-to-be-an-eco-friendly-artist/

The Earth Chronicles' analysis of art materials: https://earthchronicles.org/artists-ironically-paint-nature-with-harmful-materials/

Natural Earth Paint's environmental impact report: https://naturalearthpaint.com/pages/environmental-impact

Our World in Data's global emissions by sector: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

"The High Cost of High Tech" report on electronics manufacturing: https://goodelectronics.org/the-high-cost-of-high-tech/

"Unearthing the Dirty Secrets of the Clean Energy Transition" (on rare earth mineral mining): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/18/clean-energy-dirty-mining-indigenous-communities-climate-crisis

Electronic Frontier Foundation's position paper on AI and copyright: https://www.eff.org/wp/ai-and-copyright

Creative Commons research on enabling better sharing: https://creativecommons.org/2023/04/24/ai-and-creativity/

[nostalgebraist]

There's a particular quality to early-to-mid Homestuck that I really loved when I first read it, but which I tend to forget when thinking about the story retrospectively.

This quality of like . . . taking pre-established elements, and building larger structures out of them. And then repeating this recursively, as these larger structures now become "pre-established elements" unto themselves.

A camera zooming further and further out from the same central point, "Powers of Ten"-style.

----

Homestuck is initially about the process of playing "Sburb," a fictitious base-building computer game.

The vast majority of comic pages in first 4 Acts are either about a character doing something in this game, or (if they are not yet a player) attempting to obtain and install it.

Everything else is secondary, at least formally, to this core activity. The main characters are always playing Sburb (or at least trying to), no matter what else they're doing. Dialogue is presented as a temporary side-stream overlaid onto the game; the characters play in silence unless they need to talk, and when they do talk, it's usually about the game.

This quality appears in the mechanics of Sburb. It's a game about combining things you have to make new ones ("alchemy"); about constructing a building by continually extending it at the edges; about making a tower that gets taller and taller, building on a pre-established foundation, using new components made from earlier ones.

And it appears, less literally, in the mechanics of the story. An element is introduced -- casually, weightlessly, accidentally -- and once introduced, it sticks. It gets brought back again and again, in a series of bigger and weirder riffs.

(John lived in a house, which we spent some time surveying. In the process, we learned about his father, who was his only caretaker. So now everyone has a single caretaker, and everyone lives in a house which we spend some time surveying. But with every iteration, the houses get bigger, the surveys grander, the caretakers more bizarre.)

Whimsical elements introduced very early on, like the "kernelsprite prototyping" mechanic, end up very deeply baked into everything. There's a palpable joy to the way the comic handles these things. A joy in doing something on a whim, and then committing completely to the bit, indefinitely; a joy in making mountains shaped like molehills.

This kind of dims away in the later, more "plot-heavy" portions that loom larger in my memory. There's a similar vibe to the way the plot elaborates upon itself, even much later on, but we lose this dynamic on the micro-level.

[sexymemecoin]

The Metaverse: A New Frontier in Digital Interaction

The concept of the metaverse has captivated the imagination of technologists, futurists, and businesses alike. Envisioned as a collective virtual shared space, the metaverse merges physical and digital realities, offering immersive experiences and unprecedented opportunities for interaction, commerce, and creativity. This article delves into the metaverse, its potential impact on various sectors, the technologies driving its development, and notable projects shaping this emerging landscape.

What is the Metaverse?

The metaverse is a digital universe that encompasses virtual and augmented reality, providing a persistent, shared, and interactive online environment. In the metaverse, users can create avatars, interact with others, attend virtual events, own virtual property, and engage in economic activities. Unlike traditional online experiences, the metaverse aims to replicate and enhance the real world, offering seamless integration of the physical and digital realms.

Key Components of the Metaverse

Virtual Worlds: Virtual worlds are digital environments where users can explore, interact, and create. Platforms like Decentraland, Sandbox, and VRChat offer expansive virtual spaces where users can build, socialize, and participate in various activities.

Augmented Reality (AR): AR overlays digital information onto the real world, enhancing user experiences through devices like smartphones and AR glasses. Examples include Pokémon GO and AR navigation apps that blend digital content with physical surroundings.

Virtual Reality (VR): VR provides immersive experiences through headsets that transport users to fully digital environments. Companies like Oculus, HTC Vive, and Sony PlayStation VR are leading the way in developing advanced VR hardware and software.

Blockchain Technology: Blockchain plays a crucial role in the metaverse by enabling decentralized ownership, digital scarcity, and secure transactions. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and cryptocurrencies are integral to the metaverse economy, allowing users to buy, sell, and trade virtual assets.

Digital Economy: The metaverse features a robust digital economy where users can earn, spend, and invest in virtual goods and services. Virtual real estate, digital art, and in-game items are examples of assets that hold real-world value within the metaverse.

Potential Impact of the Metaverse

Social Interaction: The metaverse offers new ways for people to connect and interact, transcending geographical boundaries. Virtual events, social spaces, and collaborative environments provide opportunities for meaningful engagement and community building.

Entertainment and Gaming: The entertainment and gaming industries are poised to benefit significantly from the metaverse. Immersive games, virtual concerts, and interactive storytelling experiences offer new dimensions of engagement and creativity.

Education and Training: The metaverse has the potential to revolutionize education and training by providing immersive, interactive learning environments. Virtual classrooms, simulations, and collaborative projects can enhance educational outcomes and accessibility.

Commerce and Retail: Virtual shopping experiences and digital marketplaces enable businesses to reach global audiences in innovative ways. Brands can create virtual storefronts, offer unique digital products, and engage customers through immersive experiences.

Work and Collaboration: The metaverse can transform the future of work by providing virtual offices, meeting spaces, and collaborative tools. Remote work and global collaboration become more seamless and engaging in a fully digital environment.

Technologies Driving the Metaverse

5G Connectivity: High-speed, low-latency 5G networks are essential for delivering seamless and responsive metaverse experiences. Enhanced connectivity enables real-time interactions and high-quality streaming of immersive content.

Advanced Graphics and Computing: Powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) and cloud computing resources are crucial for rendering detailed virtual environments and supporting large-scale metaverse platforms.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI enhances the metaverse by enabling realistic avatars, intelligent virtual assistants, and dynamic content generation. AI-driven algorithms can personalize experiences and optimize virtual interactions.

Wearable Technology: Wearable devices, such as VR headsets, AR glasses, and haptic feedback suits, provide users with immersive and interactive experiences. Advancements in wearable technology are critical for enhancing the metaverse experience.

Notable Metaverse Projects

Decentraland: Decentraland is a decentralized virtual world where users can buy, sell, and develop virtual real estate as NFTs. The platform offers a wide range of experiences, from gaming and socializing to virtual commerce and education.

Sandbox: Sandbox is a virtual world that allows users to create, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using blockchain technology. The platform's user-generated content and virtual real estate model have attracted a vibrant community of creators and players.

Facebook's Meta: Facebook's rebranding to Meta underscores its commitment to building the metaverse. Meta aims to create interconnected virtual spaces for social interaction, work, and entertainment, leveraging its existing social media infrastructure.

Roblox: Roblox is an online platform that enables users to create and play games developed by other users. With its extensive user-generated content and virtual economy, Roblox exemplifies the potential of the metaverse in gaming and social interaction.

Sexy Meme Coin (SEXXXY): Sexy Meme Coin integrates metaverse elements by offering a decentralized marketplace for buying, selling, and trading memes as NFTs. This unique approach combines humor, creativity, and digital ownership, adding a distinct flavor to the metaverse landscape. Learn more about Sexy Meme Coin at Sexy Meme Coin.

The Future of the Metaverse

The metaverse is still in its early stages, but its potential to reshape digital interaction is immense. As technology advances and more industries explore its possibilities, the metaverse is likely to become an integral part of our daily lives. Collaboration between technology providers, content creators, and businesses will drive the development of the metaverse, creating new opportunities for innovation and growth.

Conclusion

The metaverse represents a new frontier in digital interaction, offering immersive and interconnected experiences that bridge the physical and digital worlds. With its potential to transform social interaction, entertainment, education, commerce, and work, the metaverse is poised to revolutionize various aspects of our lives. Notable projects like Decentraland, Sandbox, Meta, Roblox, and Sexy Meme Coin are at the forefront of this transformation, showcasing the diverse possibilities within this emerging digital universe.

For those interested in the playful and innovative side of the metaverse, Sexy Meme Coin offers a unique and entertaining platform. Visit Sexy Meme Coin to explore this exciting project and join the community.

[fallout-lou-begas]

Not sure if you’ve been asked this before, but what are your favorite/essential mods for new vegas? I’ve only ever played it unmodded so I’m curious

Good question! I definitely have answered this before, but that was so many years ago. It's only now that I've taken the opportunity to overhaul and modernize my own mod set-up that I've been figuring out the answer to this question myself. But I can definitely talk you through the most important parts of my new load order.

First, however, every single person modding this game in this day and age absolutely needs to start with the Viva New Vegas modding guide, and follow every step to the letter. The recommendations are air-tight and the instructions are written and presented as if you, the reader, have never even seen so much as a computer before. It's amazing. The "Base" of VNV contains nothing but bugfixes, lightweight unofficial patches, performance optimizations, and other under-the-hood stuff designed to remedy FNV's infamous stability issues while maintaining a completely "vanilla" feel. This makes it absolutely necessary, in my opinion, even for people who don't actually want to play with any (other) mods. Especially crucial to this guide is its mandate to use Mod Organizer 2; if you're using Nexus Mod Manager, Vortex, or Fallout Mod Manager any time since Biden got elected, you are shooting yourself in the foot plain and simple. The best endorsement that I can give of Mod Organizer 2 is that it mods you game completely virtually, meaning that if you fuck your mods up beyond repair, you can just go to your actual FNV launcher in your root folder and boot up the vanilla game like nothing ever happened.

And the "Extended" section of Viva New Vegas consists of more modding tools, quality of life tweaks, content restorations, and a curated list of strongly recommended gameplay modifications that nevertheless all come down to your personal preference (though deviating from their provided list may make you use your brain a little bit when choosing the right compatibility patches, and so on).

This isn't going to cover every single thing that I play with, but here's everything that I would think to suggest to anybody who asked. With that said, here's Fallout "Lou" Begas's Mod Recommendations, 2024 Edition:

Viva New Vegas Extended: Lou's Preferences

VNV Extended recommends several gameplay modifications that come down to personal preference. I installed just about all of them, with a few exceptions (I don't care at all for B42 Optics, for example). Here's some specific details:

Just Assorted Mods has a hell of a lot of features but I actually enable are breath-holding, the vanilla sprint, and the loot menu (though I flip-flop often on using JAM's Bullet Time in place of V.A.T.S.). If you install VNV and boot up the game and wonder "what is all this fucking shit on my HUD," it's probably some of Just Assorted Mods's components. Just disable the ones you don't want in the in-game Mod Configuration Menu, which you will also have available if you followed the instructions for VNV Base.

Vigor is a modernized fork of JSawyer, the mod that was originally created by FNV's own director after the game's release that tweaked a lot of under-the-hood game settings and statistical balance to his personal preferences. JSawyer Ultimate Edition a more faithful modernization of the original JSawyer whereas Vigor is "a more lightweight alternative" that dials back some of the more drastic features of JSUE. Your choice of these, or none of them, is purely personal preference, and my preference is for Vigor. Any form of JSawyer is strongly recommended if you play in Hardcore Mode.

Simple Vigor Config is used in conjuncton with Vigor and is an intuitive and easy way to overwrite Vigor's gamesetting changes with your own preference. I use the config to adjust carry weight to a much more punishing (25 + 5*STR) formula that incentivizes the use of backpacks, mindful inventory management, and companion inventory space; and to increase the starvation, thirst, and sleep Hardcore Mode rates to 10, 5, and 14 respectively.

Desert Natural Weathers is the weather mod to end all weather mods, in my view, and it includes configuration for customizing the darkness and visibility of nighttime. This effectively obsoletes former dinosaurs like Darker Nights Ultimate Edition. Refer to the post that I made on DNUE's Nexus page here for a copy of my settings to darken those dang nights with DNW.

In AIStewie's Tweaks's nvse_stewie_tweaks.ini file, I set bCustomSpecialPoints = 1 and iNumPointsToAllocate = 35. This slightly reduced starting stat spread forces you to make tradeoffs in your character creation, because it starts with a perfect middle 5 in every stat. Every addition above average will require a subtraction below average. The "Essentials" INI included with VNV Base is all that most players will ever need, so this is my one specific personal tweak that'll keep you from scrolling through every single option in the whole damn thing (though I also recommend enabling the tweaks that hide all of your skill check tags in dialogue for more immersive and less gamified roleplaying in conversation: set bNoSkillTags, bRemoveFailedSuccessText, bRemoveRedOutline, and iRemoveTags to all = 1. )

Lou's Personally Valuable or Sentimental Tweaks and Fixes

Better Pause Menu Screen (Simple Blur). I play with an ultrawide resolution and the vanilla pause menu filter doesn't actually extend past 1920x1080. So this is really vital, lol.

Vanilla Animations Weapon Scale Fix. This mod will fix a common issue with custom weapons and animation mods where your weapon will become invisible because its scale has gotten stuck at 0.

Companion Carry Weight Fix. All companions in the game have an invisible attribute called "companion suite" that, among other things, halves their carrying capacity based on their actual stats. If you play with a super low carry weight formula like I do, you can see how this is a problem. Here's the solution.

Miscellaneous Tweaks Collection includes a few files that I get great use out of: No DLC Recipes Early (great unless you integrate DLC crafting ingredients into your base game somehow) and Vendors Have Throwables (why the fuck are throwing weapons so hard to find in vanilla!). There are others that I use as well but I recommend these two the most generally.

Lucky 38 Suite Upgrade Terminal Tweak is a very cute little mod that removes the ugly wall-mounted terminal and makes you purchase your suite upgrades from the actual computer on the desk in the master bedroom instead.

I Fought the Law - Simple NCR Start finally gives you a good reason to check out NCRCF if you're not siding with the Powder Gangers.

Hire Cass Early was my "dream mod" for the longest time, and thanks to some help, it's finally a reality. Simply pick up the letter that this mod adds to the Mojave Express office in Primm and you can recruit Cass right away (through the usual persuasive requirements) without ever stepping off the road from Goodsprings to the Mojave Outpost. Part of my ongoing "make @ikroah real" project.

Harder Strip Access. Getting into Vegas to finally confront Benny should feel like a tremendous accomplishment. This mod makes it so. Better pony up the caps or call in one hell of a favor, kid! With any kind of tougher economy mods, especially, this mod makes it wonderfully Herculean to just buy your way onto the Strip.

Balance Tweaks

Pseudo-Realistic Carry Weight - No Weightless Item Overhaul and Realistic Bottle Cap Weight. The former is actually an optional file; the main file just implements the the carry weight formula that I was coincidentally already using. The latter just forces you to think strategically about how much money you're walking around with. Can you tell that I love inventory management? Note that if you give bottlecaps weight, you should definitely let yourself drop them when necessary by editing Stewie's Tweaks (bShowCurrencyInContainers = 1).

Carry Weight Affects Speed, Med-Tek Trauma Kit (Lou's Version), and More Conditions to Fast Travel. The first appearance of my own mods on this list! These three mods in conjunction tie your encumbrance and your overall health to your mobility far more strictly. I love the balancing act of packing enough supplies for an excursion while leaving enough room for loot that I can still fast travel with, and the choice to get greedy with more loot than I can comfortably carry and just hope to not run into danger on my slow walk back toward a merchant. My tweaks to the classic Med-Tek Trauma Kit mod apply this level of emergent gameplay and resource management to your limb health, though it makes the game much more difficult unless your character specializes in Medicine. I haven't tried it myself, but Simple Healing System is fully configurable, modern mod that I've had my eyes on and that might be better for most general playstyles, and it might even be compatible in conjunction with my Med-Tek mod for extra intensity!

Better Charisma (Charisma Affects Dialogue Skill Checks) and/or Charisma Affects Reputation. I've always been very frustrated with how much of a meaningless dump stat Charisma is, and the phenomenon of the 1 CHA 100 Speech player character in general. These two mods, which you can use just one of or both together, give Charisma much more meaningful and palpable functionality.

Terrifying Presence (Lou's Version), speaking of Charisma, changes the requirement for this perk from Level 6 and 70 Speech to Level 2 and 6 CHA, making it much more accessible to more types of intimidating characters. This same mod includes alternate options to take it as a trait instead, with the drawback(s) of either tanking your Speech and Barter and/or increasing your addiction chance. See also: Less Snarky Terrifying Presence.

New Vegas Karma Rebalance is a great under-the-hood mod that makes FNV's nearly vestigial karma system less nonsensical without removing it or its effects on the player entirely. Thanks to this and Mass Ownership Tweaks, which is already included in VNV Extended's recommendation of Essential Vanilla Enhancements Merged, Cass won't hate your guts just for stealing a few things from Caesar's Legion at Cottonwood Cove, especially not after you've already killed them all.

Damage Multiplier solves the sluggish damage sponge problem that plagues Bethesda engine combat by simply multiplying all damage dealt globally, both by and to the player, by a factor of your choosing. I use 2.5x, which is usually enough to kill any level-appropriate human being with a single shot to the head. 2x should be the minimum. Combine with Combat Enhancer NVSE and NPCs Use Ammo for overall faster but much more ferocious and intense combat engagements.

Visuals and Animations

Third Person Camera Overhaul. Though I'm still getting used to its extremely specific configuration settings, this is vital for a third-person enjoyer like myself. It obsoletes any and all "dynamic camera" or "shoulder swap" mods of the past. Once you figure out how it works and what you like, you're set for life.

Realistic Movement and Dramatic Inertia. Although a little goofy, it has never felt better for me to physically move around in the game than it has before. I like the weight and get-up-and-go that this mod has for me as a player, but it's especially significant in firefights and other combat situations where, now, your targets can't dodge bullets by shifting direction instantly or stopping and turning on perfect dimes. For a single, less heavyweight alternative, try 360 Movement and Diagonal Movement together instead. Each pair of these mods is incompatible with the other pair, however.

B42 Loot, B42 Interact, and B42 Inject. I recommend a lot of the B42 family of animation overhauls in general (except B42 Optics, lol) because I just love seeing my character actually do the things they're doing. For B42 Loot, I use the included config file to disable the "force pull" effect, and for B42 Interact, there exists compatibility patches between it and its more third-person oriented counterpart Animated Ingestibles, but I'd only look into that if you know what you're doing (though, I do).

Character Kit Remake is a mod that I was turned onto recently. For a long time I have scoffed at character appearance overhauls out of nostalgia for those classic gamebryo engine potato-faces and what I thought was, to be blunt, the tasteless ineptitude of the actual overhauling. But I do really like this one, even if the showcase of screenshots do a really bad job of selling it. It looks a lot better in motion and in game, I promise. i think that these people are just not good digital photographers.

Height Randomizer. It's funny how much you can get attached to a minor character when they are, for whatever reason, especially tall or short. This lightweight mod just adds some height variance to all NPCs in the game that don't already have a non-normal 1.00 height setting in vanilla.

The Strip Groove. Dance on command. Endorsed.

Items, Economy, Crafting, Survival, Repair, Etc.

Gloves Galore (Lou's Version), Power Armor Gloves, Combat Armor Gloves, and White Glove Society Wear Gloves. Anyone who has followed me long enough on here should know that I have strong, totally normal feelings about gloves.

Armed to the Teeth Redux and literally any backpack mod. I've used this duffel bag forever, for example. I love these ones because I personally love when you can physically, literally see the things that a character is supposed to be carrying.

Flashlight NVSE. Another piece of Agnes Sands's arsenal, this is the one "old" mod that I can't quit. Even if it is a little janky, I've yet to find a better directional flashlight mod. Only install this is you think you can handle wrestling with it a little, and make sure your "Exterior" flashlight settings are all on the lowest quality regardless of computer specs (or else it causes flickering). It's a must-have for darker nights, too.

Famine is the last "loot scarcity" mod you'll ever need. Combine it with Harder, Barter, Faster, Stronger from the VNV Extended recommendations list for a really tough time affording even basic necessities without tailoring your build for mercantile success... which is just how I like it.

Cheaper Repair Costs. The vanilla formula for determining the cost of weapon and armor repairs at merchants is, in a word, fucked, where it literally costs twice the weapon's base value to repair it from broken. This mod lets you adjust that proportion so that you won't be better off literally selling and buying another gun in every single case. I play with a rate of 67% (which means that paying a merchant to repair a completely broken weapon from 0% health to 100% health will cost 67% of the weapon's base value).

Alternative Repairing does too much cool, practical shit to the base repairing system to even get into here. To keep it short, it intuitively incentivizes actually scrounging for all kinds of formerly useless junk that you can now scrap for spare parts. Check it out.

Water Overhaul. Ever play with a Universal Water Bottling mod and find things suddenly far too easy? Water Overhaul combines all the convenience and sense-making of bottling water anywhere with the much-needed tradeoff of truly purified water being much rarer. All that convenient H2O is now just radioactive enough to keep Goodsprings Source from singlehandedly breaking the survival economy of the game (not to mention the literal economy).

Cowboy Coffee and Coffee Grounds, my own mod that adds brewable coffee to the wasteland. While mostly just created because it's cute, it's really nice to have a reliable and palpable source of sleep deprivation relief when playing in Hardcore Mode.

Gun Oil From Animal Fat, another mod of mine that provides a cheaper, craftable, and less demanding but less effective repair option to complement Weapon Repair Kits. I patched this one recently to fix some old issues, and it's great for incentivizing emergent gameplay (since you need to hunt for meat, and cook the meat for fat, and combine the fat with loot to make the gun oil).

Sound

Less Constant Music and Passive Combat Music Tweaked do exactly what they say on the tin and are perfect for people who like to get immersed in the natural sound of their environment, especially if you're a chronically stealthy player like me and you've trained yourself to constantly listen for enemy footsteps. I do recommend keeping Less Constant Music disabled when you first start a game, though, because until I can figure out how to add an exception to it myself, it will remove the background music from character creation at Doc Mitchell's house more often than not, and I really like that music.

SPEAKING of Doc Mitchell's music, Try Not To Get Killed Anymore is one of the first mods I ever made and it has never left my load order. It simply replaces the musical sting that plays when you die with an emphatic, tolling bell and the refrain from Doc Mitchell's theme, plus an optional version that includes his ghostly voice telling you to try not to get killed anymore. Two of my other personal sound replacers are the Mysterious Stranger Level-up Theme, Simple Snap Sound Effects for Quest Updates, and Mechanical Camera VATS.

[alera21]

Doll Maintenance

(I thought to write a thing. I hope I did well)

I was on a subcontract to a small military organization, they fielded three mechs, two tank squadrons, and assorted infantry. The majority of the infantry squads though were enhanced by combat dolls. At first, I did not see the difference between them and standard combat bots.

I was set to repair one that had taken shrapnel. Its name was Glimmer. I removed its panels, each of them sculpted to give it the shape of an athletic woman and carved with portraits and symbols. It gave me error messages, but none of them made sense. They were all addressed to its 'witch', though with no name signifiers. What bot is so imprecise? Messages need to be routed to the correct person.

"I came back, my witch"

"This one performed its tasks"

"Did I do well, my witch?"

It was sad in a way. A wail of anguish that it couldn't see whatever 'witch' it was assigned to. It was twitchy and anxious, it kept trying to stand, I had to calm it. It was thrashing too much for me to work properly.

"I promise, I will help you find your witch as soon as I complete my repairs."

That helped, but it still tried to get up occasionally.

"You will be no help to your witch if you are damaged. She is in no danger, we are not under attack, and I can fix you shortly."

That got it to stop struggling, but it still sent repeated messages asking for its witch to be the one to fix it. This I understood, in a way. My favorite technician was always my preferred choice if no one else was available. But they weren't here, so if I had an issue that I couldn't fix myself, I would have let any other qualified technician perform repairs. This, though, was a plea. The pings nearly drowned my wireless comms until I showed it my certified work order and credentials. That must have finally made it accept that I had the proper authority. It still whined occasionally, but it was ignorable.

I isolated damaged areas, turning off power to them before replacing whatever components were damaged, splicing cut wires, and removing shards of shrapnel. Working area by area, I found… oddities. Intricate carvings on even the smallest pieces, higher quality parts than I would expect, far less grime buildup than I'd see on most combat bots.

It wailed again when I took away the smallest scraps of wire after splicing the two ends together. I held it down and looked into its eyes.

"That was a gift from this one's Witch! You cannot take it!"

The grinding of its servos hurt me. Such desperation over trash.

"It was cut. I fixed the wire. You don't need the damaged ends of it."

It still cried. Its mechanical limbs, stripped of their armor for my repairs, whined and made their own protest known. It didn't have the power right now to throw me off, damaged as it was.

"Please. I just need to fix you. If it's so important you can ask your witch for more wiring later!"

It was unmoved.

"Fine, I won't trash it, I'll set it right here. You can still hold onto it, but it's doing you no good rattling around in your frame."

Its servos stopped grinding, but it held its tensed position.

"I'll put all your damaged parts in a box. You can keep them," not that I had any idea what a combat doll would do with old parts, "you can even just give them back to your witch if you want."

Finally, it laid back down and let me continue.

It took hours, even employing auxiliary limbs and running diagnostics on external computers. I had a fetch bot run for parts I didn't have on hand in my small corner of the workshop. I stayed with it. There seemed as much wrong with its mind as with its body. I know that dolls are, to say the least, different from standard bots, but I didn't know how much of this one was strange because of damage or was its standard settings. One of its storage drives had a fragment halfway through it. The doll was delirious at this point, still repeating its service requests addressed simply to "my witch" so it didn't mind as I swapped the drive for a fresh one. I queued an admin command to rebuild its data backup as I quickly put the drive into a data recovery unit. The damage was light, but to internal components like that it still meant that the data was half trashed.

It was still enough to see her. While I kept servicing the mumbling doll I saw the memories of its witch. She stood larger than life in its memories, as if three meters tall. She was nothing but kind and loving, every word from her rang out as if a tone from the sweetest bell. Commands to dive into combat and kill were received as if they were "I love you" and "you're precious to me." I saw few specifics, the data was too trashed for that, but the doll had nothing but love and devotion to return to its witch. She was the only person in its world, all others were at most a figment, a shadow. Unimportant. Seen only as they related to its witch's orders.

I should not have read the drive.

I tried to shunt it into the dolls archive rebuild, but it didn't need the help. I would have still seen it all anyway if it did need the data. Something about it made it difficult to turn off. The doll's love, its witch's love, and I saw it. I felt it. My love.

I would have cried if I were a human.

Sometimes I hate that humans modeled me after them. Bots did not need to feel emotions.

I put my effort into the repairs. I could not match its witch, at least not in its own mind. I doubted that its witch would love me the same way as I felt in its memory. How could anyone have that capacity, to express that love to more than one being, much less more than one bot. But I could perhaps be appreciated. Every sane human appreciated good work. I tried for my best, to put in the same effort that its witch would have. I do not know if I managed it, and I had not the artistry to carve every new bolt and joint with the same designs that the witch had. It took far more time than it would have normally to enact such repairs.

I struggled with what to do for the armored plating. I could fix it, but standard procedure was to yank out the offending shrapnel, hammer the plates back into shape, and weld the gaps closed. The idea of such barbarity made my hands shake.

Bots should not shake.

I worked the shrapnel out gently. I applied a heat gun at a little below melting temperatures and gently pressed the metal into place. It took far longer than hammering would have, just keeping it at ideal temp was hard enough. A human could not have done it, their very flesh would have melted off at the temperatures, and they could not have commanded the heat resistant, shop mounted appendages with nearly the same skill or care as a bot like me could have.

I struggled with what to do to properly seal the holes in the doll's armor, but that was when she finally entered.

It was her, the witch. The one I had seen in my memories- in Glimmer's memories. She smiled at me. It shone like a star.

"So you're the one taking care of my Glimmer."

She was not three meters tall, more like 1.8.

"I must apologize for adding work for you, and to my Glimmer for not helping her personally."

Her every word didn't drip with love and care. But she was kind.

"I was helping its sister, I hope you both can understand."

She was not a perfect being. She was human, a little past her prime. But her eyes were full of intelligence.

She tilted her head. "Little bot. Is everything okay?"

She walked closer. I could feel my internal temperature rise.

Bots should not have feelings.

"Oh, uhh, yes, sir."

"Please, call me Stella. Or Witch. Or Ma'am, if you must. Just not 'sir'. It's too… military standard." Her eyebrows lowered with her statement. She was angry at me. I could feel myself losing the sliver of affection that she showed for her doll.

"Apologies, Ma'am," her first name felt too personal, I hadn't earned it, "I was just following my programming." That was a useful phrase, most humans accepted it as a basic excuse.

"Oh, of course dear. Just as long as you can learn." She smiled again. My temperature got high enough that my fans kicked on. I manually turned them back down. It would overheat me in time, but I didn't want to show that I was… what? What was I feeling right now?

Bots should not have feelings. They're complicated. Bots should do a task.

"I was almost finished. Would you like to check over my work?"

I threw an error message, but it was empty. This was standard procedure, humans always liked to look at my work, even though I do it perfectly the first time. Why did I throw an error? My processor clock speed was spiking up and down.

The witch, Stella, ran a hand over all of the factory new parts that I had installed. The cables that I had properly routed. The joints and gears that I had cleaned and oiled. She ran her hands over the internals of Glimmer in a way wholly different from how I would. I check for faults. She was doing it like a caretaker, worried over its pet and checking for scratches.

Which was stupid because humans need that, not bots.

So why did I want her to touch my internals like that?

Bots should not have feelings.

I ran some of the corrupted clips from Glimmer's drive again. The love that this human could hold for a bot. Or at least the love that that doll had interpreted from her, for itself.

The doll in question just stupidly stared at its witch. Its processor was still bogged down with the archive repair, so it couldn't respond in any meaningful way, but I knew what it felt in that moment.

It felt what I should be feeling. I had fixed it, I should be receiving that love for my work.

"You've done good work. Thank you, from me and Glimmer." My fans were finally forced on by my rising internal temperature. Why did it hurt to receive those words of praise? A good thing should feel good. Is it because… it didn't feel like what Glimmer had felt in its memories?

"Thank you, Ma'am. I just still had to fix the plating. I pressed the metal back into place, but I was considering the best way to seal the holes." Looking at the work still to be done instead of into her eyes seemed easier.

"Don't you mechanics usually just weld those closed? It causes a headache for me when I'm trying to properly fix my dolls later, but I suppose it at least gets them up and walking again."

"Well�� yes, but I didn't want to… there had to be a better way, to just do it correctly from the start… I saw the carvings and didn't want to…"

"How curious. A mechanical mechanic having wants."

"That is not against my design." I panicked. I had let a part of me slip. I had gotten used to humans that would just ignore 'want' statements. But she knew. She worked with her dolls so much that she knew what a bot showing feelings actually looked like.

"These plates have a specific molecular structure that strengthens them more than standard plating. I would need to do the repairs for those myself. But having them in the right shape does help, so thank you for not jumping to use a hammer and torch." She cupped my cheek. My internals went into overdrive. My backup drives spun themselves, my fans whined, my servos jittered. She giggled. When her hand left my face it still felt warm. Which was impossible as my sensors told me that temperature equilibrium returned to normal within moments. But still…

And she had giggled at me. Why did it hurt. Why do emotions hurt. Why had humans foisted emotions onto me. She already knew I felt, so I expressed it physically, in a way that she would understand. I looked aside and crossed one arm in front of me to grip my other elbow.

It was annoying to have to always manually show emotions in physical ways that came naturally to humans. But it seemed to work.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you. Really, you've done a great job." I ran more of Glimmer's memories. The concern, the care. They felt too real when seen through Glimmer's eyes. Too big. Too much.

"Are you okay?" Why did she care even that much. I wasn't hers. I was owned by a small firm lightyears away, contracted to a larger company, and again subcontracted to this far flung outpost.

Bots should not have pain.

"Yes, I'm fine. If you're satisfied with my portion of the repairs, please take your doll and leave. It's still running a disk repair operation, but otherwise the internal hardware is fine."

Stella looked at the disks. At the mismatched one. At the one I'd pulled and put into the recovery bay.

My temperature spiked yet again. More errors got thrown. I checked my database for what this could be. Shame? Fear? It did not feel good.

"Oh little bot. You see me, through that, don't you?" I nodded. "I'm sorry. There should have been a warning about that. I… if you have any questions, or need any help, please contact me. Please." She sent a ping that included her contact details. I nodded and pinged back a message received code.

I bolted the armor plating back on. At Stella's request, I left it a little loose because she'd have to take it off again soon anyway. She called in another doll, this one also a mix of fresh and worn parts, perhaps Glimmer's sister that Stella had been working on. It picked up its still limp sister and carried it away, presumably to Stella's workspace.

"One more thing Ma'am. Glimmer requested that I not throw anything away. These are all the parts I had to take out." I pointed to the box and went to add the broken drive to it.

"Thank you. Glimmer always was sentimental." She smiled. She knew that her doll had feelings, and she was happy about it. My feelings were always met with confusion or indifference. She took the box, but pressed the damaged drive back into my hand. "Keep it. I'm sorry for the trouble this may have caused, it's usually best not to have other bots review doll data archives. They see things quite differently. Please, think about my offer." I had already copied all the memories off the drive. It would have been stupid to leave them on there to keep degrading. But I kept it. As Stella walked away I put it back in the recovery bay and played them. Again and again, through the night. Sometimes the copy I had made, as intact as the first time I had seen it, sometimes the ever more degraded copy still on the drive.

Bots should not have feelings. I would have cried if I could. I hurt. Glimmer's love, its witch's love... I could almost believe that they were my love whenever I played an especially intact memory.

[lynamei]

Political plot: where to start

Well, some people would try to seem wise and say something like ‘at the beginning’. Here we are, then, trying to figure out what that beginning would be.

Before we dive head first into perfecting your plot, there's some important nuances that you should decide on. And you should keep them in your head through the entire process of planning your plot. So the question you should find the answer to is the following:

Why do you want to write it, what do you want to tell your reader with it?

That's important lest you lose the thread and become caught up in the excitement of intrigues, power plays and winning moves. Because then you risk overcomplicating the plot and creating too many unnecessary tangents that wouldn't make sense in the end. Or worse: you’ll pause at some point, look back and feel lost at what you should do with all that mess.

So yeah, the reason your plot is what it is.

It doesn't have to be something socially important (like the dangers of introducing computers to governing to guarantee impartiality and equality). Even if you think that your reasons are too simple or silly, they exist and they are important to you. That's all that matters. You don't have to share your reasons with other people, just keep them in mind to ensure that the story progresses as it should.

Then comes another important detail.

You have to decide whether it's your central plot line or your subplot. And it's not because a central plot demands more attention and knowledge than a subplot, though some might think like that. But there is a fundamental difference between the two. For your subplots you have to decide how they are connected to the main plot. So, there's one more point for you to think through.

The first option obviously means that your story actually is about politics.

It doesn't have to be only about politics, stories with multilayer plots and complex problems are as interesting as the ones featuring single focus. So, no need to make everything a political move. But you will have to remember that politics are in the centre.

One of the most well-known examples of political plots is George Martin’s ‘Game of Thrones’ series. Now, I won't comment on the quality of it, but the fact remains - the story is about the struggle over the throne that is the symbol of the ultimate power. Other storylines are tied to this one. Even the supernatural subplot with Others and the Long Night is somewhat dependent on the political turmoil of the Seven Kingdoms.

What does that mean? Only that most (probably not all) of your subplots will be to some point defined by the main plot or coloured by it. Like, marriage of two people loving each other isn't only marriage now, but a political alliance, obstacle on the path to power, or a hidden danger. Possibilities are numerous. Also, not everything has to be touched by your political plot, but that should be an exception, not a rule.

The second option is writing a political subplot. It obviously must have some importance to the story (why would it be there otherwise?) and some ties to the main plot.

A subplot can be:

a way to better unfold a character’s personality and/or history (the storyline of Ciri’s origin from Witcher books series)

a component of some bigger conflict (Landsmeet quest in Dragon Age: Origin);

a background to the main story (pretty much most books written by Remark);

a side of the complex and multifaceted central plot (like in Harry Potter ideological side is the part of struggle between good and evil).

There are, of course, other possibilities of political subplots. You only need to think up the thing you want and tie it logically to your main plot. Remember: you are the author. If you decide that some action, behaviour or other element of the story is political and you show it to your readers then everything is as you say.

Now, when you decide why you have this specific plot, you must understand that politics is all about power and influence. It might be not the political power in its pure form (like a throne, a post of president or conquering a neighbouring tribe), but it's power nonetheless. Each of your characters wants it, needs it for some reason or is in possession of it, and events unfold around it.

And if you went for a political subplot instead, you should determine what parts are relevant for your story but still trace the entire line at least in your head. Because if some attentive reader notices that something doesn't add up, you’ll have to fend off a series of critiques, not always kind. Slacking off isn't worth it.

Next up, we’re delving a little deeper into political worldbuilding, going over the main elements you’ll have to account for. Those are all things that will be important in your plotting. How the political system is built and functions. Which political institutions can and cannot coexist. What place political culture has in the system and what are sociopolitical implications in everyday behaviour.

Until the next time. Stay safe.

[anghraine]

So, I'd been going to write another chunk of the femslash Spirk AU for Valentine's Day, something actually centered on their romance, maybe something fluffy. What I actually wrote was several thousand words of S'paak as high-octane gay yearning given human (well, human/Vulcan) form, ft. barely metaphorical internalized homophobia. That's how I see TOS Spock anyway, but it didn't feel quite in the spirit of the day, so I'm posting it today instead! It's set around "Turnabout Intruder" (of all things).

When S’paak looked at Jessica Kirk, she felt more than any Vulcan should. And as time passed, and S’paak came to understand her more accurately and in more detail, the wilder her impossible, irrepressible emotions became. She admired the captain’s personal qualities, of course: her knowledge, her ability to command trust and obedience, her cleverness, her presence of mind in a crisis, even her propensity towards tackling foes half again her size and targeting the nerves that sent them crumpling to the ground. Her attacks might be less precise than S’paak’s in defending her, but they were effective, and S’paak respected effectiveness. Jess was her friend, as well, and as a human, saw no need to conceal her personal attachment to S’paak, or high opinion of her intelligence and skills. She almost always addressed S’paak with an open camaraderie that seemed to expect nothing in return except competence at her work, and was certainly absent the others’ obvious desire to nudge S’paak towards forgetting her family and culture for the sake of their own comfort. If anything, S’paak’s restraint only increased Jess’s evident regard for her—and S’paak found that her distaste for the cascade of affronts she so often received faded every time the captain’s lashes flicked her way and lifted to reveal a look of undisguised affection, Jess’s mouth shifting into a smile. Not her usual smile, either, but one with less calculated charm and more effortless delight. S’paak considered these expressions a special honor, though she could not have explained why to anyone else, least of all another Vulcan. But even this much, while true, did not explain the immeasurable value S’paak found in Jessica’s friendship and her being. Each wry aside, each fond glance, each laugh at S’paak’s more acrid remarks, provoked a degree of silent but deep sentimentality that S’paak could not shake and did not entirely wish to shake. She knew it was shameful to feel such emotions, and still more shameful to nourish them within herself rather than subduing them to her will. And she was ashamed, but not enough to withdraw from Jess or their friendship. Sometimes S’paak thought she would do anything for her. Anything at all.

She took a deep breath, laying her hands on her folded legs. At the end of every day, S’paak meditated before sleeping. The practices of her ancestors helped her assemble facts and observations in patterns not always clear to her regular deliberations, yet still rigorous and logical in form. It was soothing after hours among humans, but more importantly, it was a discipline that led to truth. She counted her inhalations.

She could recall, perhaps more vividly than a full human might have, the sensation of inferior wires and various metal components against her cold skin as she built a computer in early twentieth-century Earth. It had been difficult, and sometimes painful as the crude materials conducted energy across her fingers; the endeavor was initially beyond even S’paak’s estimation of her own abilities. But when Jessica said I sometimes expect too much of you, S’paak had immediately been determined to succeed.

The circumstances were urgent, critical, yet the captain’s disappointment had registered as still more critical. And afterwards, Jess’s fascination with Edith Keeler, and Edith’s with her, only deepened S’paak’s sense of urgency. In that time and place, such an attachment between two women—even when both were human—could only be a great danger. Her concern was not entirely illogical. But she had not lied to herself then and did not now. S’paak respected Edith, but at the same time, had almost loathed her, for no reason except the obvious depth of feeling growing between Edith and Jessica. It was more excruciating to observe them together than to burn her fingers on the wires, a visceral pain that no logic could explain or justify.

Her shame also struck her as, in some way, a failure. The captain unquestionably merited S’paak’s devotion. It was not irrational in that sense. Jess deserved a friend who would not regret her.

She already had friends of that kind, of course: McCoy most of all, but many others scattered across the galaxy. And she seemed to value them, to welcome the human expressiveness she shared with them—and yet S’paak’s calculations resulted in the unambiguous conclusion that the captain spent considerably more time with her than all others, even accounting for their professional proximity. Jessica did not have to set aside significant portions of her time off-duty for games of strategy or conversation of no particular moment, nor show up at S’paak’s door with food and tea when S’paak was weary enough to avoid the lines at the replicators. All information suggested that she had no other motive than liking S’paak’s company and caring for her welfare.

S’paak, too, enjoyed the disproportionate quantity of time they spent together, and wished the captain well beyond her ability to articulate. At the same time, she could offer little to her in personal terms, except unbending loyalty. It was more than she should feel, and less than Jessica deserved. S’paak didn’t know if she felt guiltier over the depth of friendship between them or over her own ambivalence about it, but neither could be denied.

And even that was a lesser truth. S’paak’s eyelids twitched and she opened them, staring at the familiar Vulcan weapons decorating her quarters, the gleam of the metals against the deep red of her walls. She knew her shame was not confined to feelings of friendship.

She had always recognized that Captain Kirk was an attractive woman, had increasingly found that her dislike of the standard Starfleet uniform for women came to a very sudden end whenever she looked at Jessica. There was no acceptable rationale for this, no significant variations between the cut of the captain’s clothes and the inconveniences of the uniform for other women, except accommodations to differing proportions. But Jessica had a habit of settling into the captain’s chair with easy assurance, stretching out her booted legs, then hooking one ankle over the other as she delivered crisp, entirely professional orders to the crew, and it just—looked different.

Sometimes, watching her, S’paak felt as if the hazy fever of pon farr might return at any moment, her blood aflame, consuming her entirely should her eyes linger on the line of Jessica’s throat and breast, or smoothly muscled legs, or even the waves of dark blonde hair pinned behind her head and neatly parted above her brow.

Out of respect, S’paak made a point of fixing her eyes on the captain’s face when interacting with her on the bridge, trying not to become equally distracted by the soft curve of her mouth or the gleam in her eyes as they glanced at each other, needing few words. S’paak had to remind herself that they were surrounded by other people; at such moments, it was remarkably easy to forget anyone else existed at all. She adopted a habit of counting to an appropriate number of seconds before decorum required her to turn away, examining sensor results or the stellar field in their viewscreen while her pulse thrummed in her throat.

And when Jessica ordered S’paak to accompany her on an away team, as she often did, there was always some observation of the environment to be made, or tricorder reading to consider, or an expression or conversation to evaluate rationally. She took comfort in the fact that the burden of all this could be managed in a way that pon farr could not—repressed, contained, modulated to the appropriate conduct of a first officer and friend, giving nothing away even when her stomach lurched at the sight of her captain.

But after three years, S’paak had come to understand that this emotion, this feeling of starved longing for what could never be hers, was not going to disappear. Perhaps it never would. Then again, it didn’t need to; her silent hunger for her friend and superior officer inconvenienced no one but herself. This particular shame didn’t diminish her loyalty, but amplified it. Beyond any desire for touch, of the body or the mind, she longed to be useful to Jessica, significant, valuable, more irreplaceable than anyone else could ever be.

Sometimes, that desire struck her as every bit as impossible and unreasonable as the other; sometimes, she thought the empirical evidence suggested she could attain this much, at least. But it fed her discipline and her work like nothing else. S’paak knew she would make for a highly competent science officer on any vessel, but she also knew she’d never be so effective again as on this mission, unless—she hardly dared hope for it—they were sent out together again.

S’paak unfolded her legs and rose to her feet, oddly at peace once more. Her emotions, if forbidden, were at least comprehensible, neat and compressed within her mind. Nothing short of a mind-meld could disturb them.

-----

S’paak slept as dreamlessly as usual, with no reason to expect disaster on the next day’s shift. But that was what came of expectations without evidence one way or another. She, Jessica, and McCoy had returned from Camus II in discomfort, unable to do much for the dying scientist who had once loved Jessica—not like S’paak, but in her own way, no doubt. None of them suspected anything odd about the captain’s behavior. Not then. But her chilly stubbornness on the bridge caught S’paak’s attention with no need for contact with her mind.

���Continue present course,” the captain insisted, sitting rigidly upright rather than leaning back with her usual air of careless authority.

“At maximum speed, Starbase Two would still meet the emergency,” said S’paak, more puzzled than alarmed. Jess was generally reasonable and measured in judgment, for all of her emotional displays.

Lieutenant Lysa glanced over at both of them, her brow furrowed.

“Captain, shall I advise Starfleet Command of the change of plan?” Lysa asked.

“No change of plan has been ordered, lieutenant!” snapped the captain. “Our arrival at Beta Aurigae will merely be delayed. Our gravitational studies of that binary system will not suffer, and a life may be saved!” She paused. “This is not unusual procedure for the Enterprise.”

A peculiar way of putting it.

“Ma’am,” said S’paak, “I believe Starfleet will have to be notified that our rendezvous with the starship Potemkin will not take place as scheduled.”

Captain Kirk jerked towards her, her body stiff with obvious anger and her features drawn into a scowl.

“Commander S’paak, if you’d concentrate on the areas for which you are responsible, Starfleet Command would’ve been informed already!”

S’paak lifted an eyebrow, not about to stare, but now certain that something was deeply wrong. The human crewmembers looked far more taken aback; whatever the effects of their easy, quick-passing emotions on their minds, they were not unintelligent.

Within an hour, S’paak estimated that a good half of the entire crew of the Enterprise had noticed the strangeness of the captain’s behavior. Kirk continually tried to enact a furious tyranny that made it impossible to protect or help her, least of all after she struck a visibly upset Janice Lester so hard that Dr. Lester crumpled to the ground. 

Neither S’paak nor McCoy had any idea what might have caused the disruption to Kirk’s mind, but there was no denying it. After McCoy led the captain away for medical testing, S’paak thought about the only words Dr. Lester had managed to get out before Captain Kirk knocked her unconscious.

Spock, Bones. Help me. Don’t let them lock me away from you. I’ve got to talk to you!

It did not seem probable for Dr. Lester, a stranger, to speak to either McCoy or S’paak in such a fashion, unless for some reason she had adopted the informality from Captain Kirk in the few minutes they had been alone together. Not impossible, but not likely. Even if Dr. Lester was psychologically unstable—well, she could hardly be more unstable than Kirk herself had become since their return. And S’paak thought it obvious that Kirk had been trying to prevent Dr. Lester from communicating whatever she was trying to say.

S’paak trusted Dr. McCoy’s medical expertise enough that she saw no need to interfere with his physiological and psychological tests of the captain. Instead, she retraced her steps back to Dr. Lester’s guarded quarters. Lieutenant Galloway, a security officer, frowned at her.

“How is the doctor?” S’paak asked him.

“She regained consciousness very quickly,” he said.

S’paak gave a sharp nod. “Good. I have questions to ask her.”

With customary human transparency, uncertainty settled over his features. “Did the captain order it, ma’am?”

S’paak was not about to be stopped by Galloway, of all people, during this brief opportunity she had to discover the truth. McCoy’s tests could only distract Kirk for so long. She looked down her nose at him.

“Why should she?” she said. “They are my questions; therefore, I am ordering it, lieutenant.”

“The captain said no one is allowed to speak to Dr. Lester,” he said weakly.

“Has such an order ever included her senior officers?” she said.

“No, ma’am,” he admitted, and glanced around the hall. “Commander S’paak, I think the captain meant that a guard should be present.”

Good enough.

“By all means, lieutenant,” she told him.

Together, they strode into the quarters where Janice Lester stood somberly by her bed, arms about her waist. Dr. Lester turned as they entered, Galloway’s hand drifting near his phaser. If Lester noticed, she didn’t care; the frustration in her face immediately transmuted into wild relief at the sight of them.

“S’paak!” she cried, taking an unsteady step forward. “I should have known you’d come back!”

S’paak gestured for Galloway to stand near the door. Thankfully, he didn’t resist that order, and S'paak stalked over to the doctor, near enough that she could drop her voice out of Galloway’s range of hearing.

“Dr. Lester, I—”

“I’m not Janice Lester,” she whispered. “You’ve got to believe me. She is.”

S’paak blinked. No rational response immediately came to mind.

“Explain,” she said at last.

“Janice and Coleman planned this,” said the woman who looked and sounded like Dr. Lester, and presumably was Lester, and only very ill. “I’m Jess, S’paak. At least, what makes Jessica Kirk me is trapped in this body.” She gestured at her slim, sickly form with every appearance of distaste. “Janice wasn’t actually weak—she took me by surprised, overpowered me, connected me to some sort of device. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but I came to in this body, and to her in mine. She’s out of her mind, S’paak.”

It was a baffling, unlikely explanation for the peculiarities S’paak had observed. Not impossible, of course, and it conveniently explained just about every anomaly surrounding both women throughout the last few hours. But it explained them in defiance of all probability. Yet if this were true, S’paak could hardly abandon Captain Kirk—Jessica—to this fate.

“Complete life-entity transfer with the aid of a mechanical device?” S’paak asked.

Maybe-Lester nodded eagerly. “Yes, that’s what it must’ve been.”

“To my knowledge,” said S’paak, selecting each word with even greater care than she always did, “such total transfer has never been accomplished with complete success anywhere in the galaxy.”

“It was accomplished and forgotten long ago on Camus II,” maybe-Lester insisted. “I am a living example.”

“That is your claim,” S’paak said. “As yet, it is unsubstantiated by any external evidence, or objective tests.”

The other woman’s brows drew together. “Nevertheless, S’paak, it is the truth I’m speaking.”

S’paak studied her, unable to see any signs of deception, yet unsure that she would see them in such a case. If this woman who looked and sounded like Janice Lester was not lying or insane, her explanation would make for a much more palatable truth than the one S’paak had feared, the inescapable conclusion that Kirk had gone completely out of her mind. But the very appeal of an alternate explanation, as well as its unlikelihood, made her wary.

“At this moment, Dr. McCoy is examining the captain for psychological changes,” S’paak said, meeting her eyes. “If any facts are uncovered, that would be acceptable evidence. The only kind which is acceptable to Starfleet Command or to the crew of the Enterprise.”

“S’paak,” maybe-Lester said impatiently, “when I was caught in the interspace of the Tholian Sector, you risked your life and the Enterprise to get me back! Help me get back now. When the Vians of Minara demanded that we let Bones die, we didn’t permit it!”

“That is true,” said S’paak slowly, but she knew it wasn’t proof. “The captain did not. However, those events have been recorded. They could have become known to you.”

The other woman took a quick breath, her gaze unwavering and intense, fixed on S’paak’s face in what S’paak acknowledged to herself was very much Jessica’s way. But the eyes were the wrong color, the wrong shape, the wrong—everything was wrong, and this explanation so strange, yet so very much preferable to what S’paak feared.

Then again, was it more logical to presume that two women spontaneously going mad was more likely than one? She could acknowledge an elegant simplicity to this explanation, beyond its convenience.

“You are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe. You know her thoughts,” maybe-Lester said, her tone urgent and matter-of-fact, not sentimental. An easy misunderstanding if she only knew of them by report. But if she was Jessica, then—for a brief, fractional moment, S’paak felt like she had the first time she set foot on Earth, breathing in the richness of its air, so overwhelmed by sensation that her control over herself nearly crumbled on the spot. 

“What does your telepathic mind tell you now?” maybe-Lester was saying.

S’paak knew her expression had not changed, not given anything away. But it was an obvious solution, a logical one. She dared not risk even a cautious look at Galloway, but shifted her position to stand in his line of sight, hoping that her taller form would obscure her actions. It was terrifyingly simple to brush her fingers over the familiar psi-points on the unfamiliar face, and just as simple to link their minds as if it were nothing.

This time, S’paak found that she didn’t need to whisper the ritual phrases that guided most mind-melds, nor even rely on the controlled mental effort she usually had to exert to navigate the chaos of a human mind. Her own spare, careful thoughts easily joined those of the woman before her, charged with fear, misery, desperation, but implacable resolve. She had to try. She had to keep trying, couldn’t give up, couldn’t end this way—

Already, it required more discipline for S’paak to maintain a barrier between them than to join their thoughts together. This woman’s mind was breathtakingly vibrant and dynamic, blending a cool flow of sharp reasoning and calculation with an overwhelming force of emotion. Both currents felt equally intense, equally familiar. Her mind might well consume everything S’paak was if she let it, or become subsumed into S’paak’s own—she couldn’t tell. She’d never been able to tell.

Jess. Jessica.

S’paak withdrew from the meld as quickly as good practice allowed, pulling her hand away from Lester’s—Jessica’s—face. She knew the captain had not invaded her own thoughts. It was not her way, nor her ability, and S’paak had the distinct impression that Jess was too caught up in the very understandable anxieties of her situation to try. Her own mind was secure, and in any case, they had far greater priorities.

“I believe you,” S’paak said, and Jessica’s shoulders slumped in relief, even as S’paak’s mind raced ahead.

There would be difficulties. Galloway, for one, and possibly, every other person on the ship, depending on the results of McCoy’s tests. It might well be only the two of them against everyone on the ship, against perhaps an entire universe that would see only the outer shells of Janice Lester and Jessica Kirk.

You are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe.

Well, the attempt must be made, S’paak decided. Jessica’s control over her own mind and body had been stripped from her, yet again, in an utterly bizarre way that no one could possibly deserve or desire. Their path out might be difficult, but it was not complex, and doing nothing was not an option.

“Come with me,” S’paak murmured.

Three hours later, Jessica had been restored to her own body, to the very evident relief of all concerned except Janice Lester herself. S’paak’s own relief somewhat passed reason. To know that Jessica stood beside her, trapped and endangered—to know she could reach into the mind behind a strange face with only the slightest effort, and find herself swept up in the familiar flood of Jessica’s thoughts—and yet to see a stranger? It was the least important element of the ordeal, but S’paak didn’t like it.

Once she returned to the captain’s chair, Jessica thanked the many mutineers for their loyalty to the principles of the Federation above unthinking obedience, and several of the security officers who had obeyed Lester winced. As they well should, S’paak thought. They should have known something was wrong, as so many others had. Chekov and Sulu had refused to fly the ship. Scott had planned to overthrow the captain with a half-reluctant McCoy. Jessica could have died alone while an intruder governed the Enterprise like some ancient warlord and led them into disaster. But some of the crew had done nothing.

For all of S’paak’s years of burning shame, what she felt in the privacy of her mind had never led her to anything so contemptible.

She tucked the thought away for another time and focused on her post as the Enterprise rushed into warp 6, Jessica’s voice ringing out with her usual steady, controlled calm. Not the control of a Vulcan, but not entirely unlike, and S’paak could see the effect on the nervous bridge crew, the tension in various human voices and postures fading as the hours of their shift went on. Jessica had refused to cut her own short, as ever.

Logical, thought S’paak. The most effective thing Jess could do at this point was behave as much like her usual self as possible, and undoubtedly she knew it. But she must be tired.

-----

At the end of their shift, Jessica and S’paak walked quietly towards the turbolift. Once the doors closed, Jessica exhaled and leaned against the wall with a low groan, pressing her fingers to her forehead.

“You should rest, captain,” S’paak told her.

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to sleep tonight,” Jessica said ruefully, forcing herself back upright. Her right hand was still pressed to her temple.

A headache was to be expected, S’paak knew. Jess was prone to them under stress, and anyone might experience an unusually painful migraine after the day she’d had. It would be easy to soothe, of course, just as S’paak had melded with her while she slept and soothed her pain over Rayna. But that had been different.

Forbidden. Very forbidden. She hadn’t even hesitated.

S’paak removed temptation through her customary means of locking her hands behind her back. But she could see how strained and exhausted Jess looked, now that she wasn’t in full sight of the crew and projecting strength.

“You should still rest,” S’paak said.

“Very logical of you,” said Jessica, lowering her hand and breaking into the sunny smile she so often directed at S’paak, if an unusually weary iteration of it. “How about you come by my quarters for chess instead, after your dinner? I’m going to check in with Bones before I settle in, make sure Janice didn’t leave anything behind. But I’ve got to get my thoughts to slow down before I consider sleeping—you know how it is.”

S’paak did, indeed, know. She also knew Dr. McCoy would do better at bullying Jess into sleep, so she nodded.

“I’ll join you in two hours,” she said while the turbolift opened.

“No doubt to the minute,” said Jessica, her voice brightening, and she carelessly waved a hand as they parted.

For 2.7 seconds, the gesture brought her hand within range of S’paak’s own, had she chosen to reach out. S’paak could have touched her fingers to Jessica’s, perhaps even drawn them over her skin—but that would mean a far greater loss than gain. Jess, after all, knew what that meant to Vulcans. Instead, S’paak very reasonably kept her hands wrapped around each other and held behind her, where they could cause no trouble.

As she walked towards the mess hall, she recalled Jessica’s fond, laughing voice of two years ago: Please stay out of trouble, Commander S’paak.

S’paak, not at all injured by the unconvincing reproach, had returned her gaze and said with equally unconvincing innocence,

That is always my intention, captain.

It was rarely the point to convince her, of course. Jessica saw the finer nuances and edges of S’paak’s personality, and very evidently delighted in seeing them. The obvious joy she took in understanding and observing her—the joy she took in S’paak—had always been too unfamiliar and heady to repulse.

S’paak ate her dinner in outwards silence, thoughts still darting around her mind, and did reach the captain’s quarters at precisely the scheduled time. She found the layers of the chess set already pulled out and the pieces properly set up. She and Jessica hardly spoke for an hour, hearing little except the slight clack of the pieces through three rapid games, and the steady rumble of the ship.

Finally, after S’paak managed to eke out a win in the final round, Jessica sighed.

“You should probably get some sleep, too,” she said, her fingers curling against her palms.

S’paak shook her head. “I do not require anything like the amount of rest you do, and I slept well last night. If you want to see if you can claim victory after five games instead of three, it’s no trouble to me.”

In answer, Jessica’s hands relaxed and she began quickly setting up the pieces again.

“May the best woman win,” she said.

She already has, S’paak thought, remembering Janice Lester’s screams of rage.

“As ever,” said S’paak.

She was still highly alert by the time that Jessica’s eyes started blinking more slowly. Jess even yawned before almost absently seizing S’paak’s king and declaring her third checkmate of the night. S’paak had not let her win, of course—she never did—but her attention on the game had been rather less focused than usual. Throughout the evening, Jessica had said little of her thoughts, but her face was still drawn, and a few times, her hand shook as she moved one of the pieces. Nothing remarkable for most people, but unusual for her.

S’paak didn’t like leaving her alone, despite knowing that Jessica could take care of herself, and likely needed rest more than anything. Staying was certainly not an option, at any rate. They wished each other quiet farewells, and S’paak dutifully returned to her own quarters, very slightly soothed by the warmer air and the colors of Vulcan. It had been a long day for her, as well, however little her strain compared to Jessica’s. Alone, she allowed herself a long, steadying inhalation, then rolled out her meditation mat and sat down.

It took longer than usual for her thoughts to settle into a proper order—calm, disciplined, free of self-deception. She felt guilty, she realized, and not for her typical reasons. Amidst all the chaos and near-disasters of the day, the very real harm to Jessica and potentially to herself and the crew of the Enterprise, something had given rise to an entirely different emotion. More than gratification, less than joy.

You are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe, Jessica had said. She’d been trapped, desperate, saying the words in a voice other than her own, staring into S’paak’s eyes with a body other than her own. But she had not lied. S’paak had slipped into her mind seconds later, felt Jessica’s conviction in that fact, so simple and absolute that it required no qualification or reflection.

It was wrong and illogical, S’paak concluded, to take any enjoyment from such a terrible circumstance. She shouldn’t, for Jessica’s sake if not her own. But even long meditation did nothing to budge the selfish pleasure that still lingered. She finally changed clothes and stretched out on her bed, hands clasped over her stomach as she stared at the ceiling.

Closer than anyone in the universe.

She could live on this day for years.

[mitigatedchaos]

On Discourse

(~1,000 words, ~5m)

[ anon ]

[...] I only know like other early twenty somethings who are as clueless if not more than me. I then imagine said smart abstraction person inevitably getting frustrated with me and my inability to keep up with them or add on to their thoughts, per the inexperienced idiocy, and eventually blocking me in the middle of a discussion on how pro-sex work thought conflicts with modern feminism despite many sharing those beliefs. [...]

I know that in your ask, you said that this might be better left unspoken, but I'd like to share a line of thought that you might find useful.

One of the discursive norms that was weakened 2014-2022 was the idea of the separation between ideas and people.

Someone who is currently wrong, but who is honest, humble, and sincerely interested in the truth, is likely to become correct (or more correct). Someone who is currently correct, but who is dishonest with both others and with themselves, is likely to become wrong (or less correct).

Therefore honesty, humility, and a sincere desire to know the nature of the material world, are generally, though not always, more important than having a correct object-level position on every issue.

If methods are more important than just being correct, because methods are how you become correct, then we can view the nature of discussion differently.

You can have a discussion …as practice. It's OK if you're wrong, as long as the discussion helps you to become more correct, or become better at becoming correct. Breaking things down into their components, forming arguments, and weighing arguments, are skills, which can be practiced.

Now, regarding Tumblr...

In my opinion, people come to Tumblr to blog for basically two reasons. They want to learn, and they want to be heard.

To learn from someone, they must be similar enough to you that you can understand them, but different enough from you that they have something to teach you. Rationalists have a concept called "inferential distance," which refers to the gap in knowledge or reasoning between people. For example, to explain vtuber drama to Leibniz, in order for him to understand you, you would first have to explain computers and the Internet.

Inferential distance should not be thought of as a matter of supremacy or inferiority; two people might have equal shares of information about a problem that don't overlap with each other.

Due to differences in the knowledge and experience of people, there can be someone B in a chain A -> B -> C who understands both A and C, even when A and C do not understand each other.

In addition, if there is something you don't understand, it may be possible to ask a question and get an answer that helps you to understand. In this way, a conversation, which is flexible and adaptive, can reach people that a book, which is fixed, cannot.

Knowledge relationships may be hierarchical, in that I may know some piece of true information that you don't. However, from that perspective, there are multiple knowledge relationships between two people, and it is generally the case that you will also know some true information that I don't.

People also come to social media to be heard. It might be about a topic that doesn't have a large audience in their personal life, such as collecting Korean dolls. It might be to have a larger audience than they can access in real life. It might be to be heard by specific people.

When I came to Tumblr to write about politics in 2017, I did so because I thought that the quality of the national political discourse was quite poor, so that I could hardly do worse than what was regularly platformed by national outlets, but I felt that the quality of discourse in this area of Tumblr was fairly good, so that it was possible to have discourse that would generate light, not just heat.

I write to share information that I think others should know. I also write to gather feedback (and to practice writing). Rather than either-or, this can be thought of as a split, like 90%-10%, that varies by post.

Sometimes this means sharing information I know now that I think it would have been good for me to know when I was younger. Sometimes this means sharing information that I knew when I was your age, but which people who are currently your age do not know.

Tumblr has done something remarkable - it has restored intergenerational transmission of information. I'm not that old, but I believe that many of the more experienced users on this website feel the same as I do. We are all going to leave Tumblr at some point, either because we will become too busy, or because the isekai bus will finally catch up to us.

Confucius once said that, in old age, the best men guard themselves against acquisitiveness. As members of the forthcoming generation, your presence is worth more than gold. This is why, on Nov. 6th, I told you all to survive and become strong.

The next 50 years are going to see some major changes in the underlying dimensions of human society, with likely significant advances in AI (which makes capital more like labor) and in genetic engineering (which will offer an increase in health, but also poses major ethical challenges). You will likely live to make important choices about humanity's future, which will rapidly become the new present.

It is not necessary to become a master of abstraction. Rather, even a moderate improvement in the ability to think clearly, to weigh arguments, to evaluate evidence, and to see contradiction, makes it more difficult for others to lie to and manipulate you. When people are difficult to lie to, liars must proceed in uncertainty, and reduce the magnitude of their lies.

This creates a world which is safer for the weak, the busy, and the distracted. There are people who are too young or too old to seek out the correct information, or verify it.

There was a strain of thought over last decade that was suspicious of strength and agency, as only through strength is it possible to oppress others. The world, of course, is more complicated than this. It is only through strength that we can put compassion into practice, and it is only through agency that we can ensure that what we are doing is compassionate.

[rjzimmerman]

The Clean Energy Revolution Is Unstoppable. (Wall Street Journal)

Surprising essay published by the Wall Street Journal. Actually, two surprises. The first is an assertion that the fossil fuel industry is parading to its death, regardless of the current trump mania, while the renewables industry is marching toward success due to dramatic decreases in cost. The second surprise is that the essay is published in the Wall Street Journal, which we all know can be a biblical equivalent for the right wing. But be careful with that right wing label: today's right wing (e.g., MAGA) or the traditional conservative republican right wing, which is more aligned with saving money and making money and avoiding political headwinds.

Here's the entire essay. I rarely post a complete essay, but this one made me happy and feel good, and right now I/we damn well need to learn something to make us happy and feel good.

Since Donald Trump’s election, clean energy stocks have plummeted, major banks have pulled out of a U.N.-sponsored “net zero” climate alliance, and BP announced it is spinning off its offshore wind business to refocus on oil and gas. Markets and companies seem to be betting that Trump’s promises to stop or reverse the clean energy transition and “drill, baby, drill” will be successful.

But this bet is wrong. The clean energy revolution is being driven by fundamental technological and economic forces that are too strong to stop. Trump’s policies can marginally slow progress in the U.S. and harm the competitiveness of American companies, but they cannot halt the fundamental dynamics of technological change or save a fossil fuel industry that will inevitably shrink dramatically in the next two decades.

Our research shows that once new technologies become established their patterns in terms of cost are surprisingly predictable. They generally follow one of three patterns.

The first is a pattern where costs are volatile over days, months and years but relatively flat over longer time frames. It applies to resources extracted from the earth, like minerals and fossil fuels. The price of oil, for instance, fluctuates in response to economic and political events such as recessions, OPEC actions or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But coal, oil and natural gas cost roughly the same today as they did a century ago, adjusted for inflation. One reason is that even though the technology for extracting fossil fuels improves over time, the resources get harder and harder to extract as the quality of deposits declines.

There is a second group of technologies whose costs are also largely flat over time. For example, hydropower, whose technology can’t be mass produced because each dam is different, now costs about the same as it did 50 years ago. Nuclear power costs have also been relatively flat globally since its first commercial use in 1956, although in the U.S. nuclear costs have increased by about a factor of three. The reasons for U.S. cost increases include a lack of standardized designs, growing construction costs, increased regulatory burdens, supply-chain constraints and worker shortages.

A third group of technologies experience predictable long-term declines in cost and increases in performance. Computer processors are the classic example. In 1965, Gordon Moore, then the head of Intel, noticed that the density of electrical components in integrated circuits was growing at a rate of about 40% a year. He predicted this trend would continue, and Moore’s Law has held true for 60 years, enabling companies and investors to accurately forecast the cost and speed of computers many decades ahead.

Clean energy technologies such as solar, wind and batteries all follow this pattern but at different rates. Since 1990, the cost of wind power has dropped by about 4% a year, solar energy by 12% a year and lithium-ion batteries by about 12% a year. Like semiconductors, each of these technologies can be mass produced. They also benefit from advances and economies of scale in related sectors: solar photovoltaic systems from semiconductor manufacturing, wind from aerospace and batteries from consumer electronics.

Solar energy is 10,000 times cheaper today than when it was first used in the U.S.’s Vanguard satellite in 1958. Using a measure of cost that accounts for reliability and flexibility on the grid, the International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates that electricity from solar power with battery storage is less expensive today than electricity from new coal-fired plants in India and new gas-fired plants in the U.S. We project that by 2050 solar energy will cost a tenth of what it does today, making it far cheaper than any other source of energy. 

At the same time, barriers to large-scale clean energy use keep tumbling, thanks to advances in energy storage and better grid and demand management. And innovations are enabling the electrification of industrial processes with enormous efficiency gains.

The falling price of clean energy has accelerated its adoption. The growth of new technologies, from railroads to mobile phones, follows what is called an S-curve. When a technology is new, it grows exponentially, but its share is tiny, so in absolute terms its growth looks almost flat. As exponential growth continues, however, its share suddenly becomes large, making its absolute growth large too, until the market eventually becomes saturated and growth starts to flatten. The result is an S-shaped adoption curve.

The energy provided by solar has been growing by about 30% a year for several decades. In theory, if this rate continues for just one more decade, solar power with battery storage could supply all the world’s energy needs by about 2035. In reality, growth will probably slow down as the technology reaches the saturation phase in its S-curve. Still, based on historical growth and its likely S-curve pattern, we can predict that renewables, along with pre-existing hydropower and nuclear power, will largely displace fossil fuels by about 2050.

For decades the IEA and others have consistently overestimated the future costs of renewable energy and underestimated future rates of deployment, often by orders of magnitude. The underlying problem is a lack of awareness that technological change is not linear but exponential: A new technology is small for a long time, and then it suddenly takes over. In 2000, about 95% of American households had a landline telephone. Few would have forecast that by 2023, 75% of U.S. adults would have no landline, only a mobile phone. In just two decades, a massive, century-old industry virtually disappeared.

If all of this is true, is there any need for government support for clean energy? Many believe that we should just let the free market alone sort out which energy sources are best. But that would be a mistake. 

History shows that technology transitions often need a kick-start from government. This can take the form of support for basic and high-risk research, purchases that help new technologies reach scale, investment in infrastructure and policies that create stability for private capital. Such government actions have played a critical role in virtually every technological transition, from railroads to automobiles to the internet.

In 2021-22, Congress passed the bipartisan CHIPS Act and Infrastructure Act, plus the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), all of which provided significant funding to accelerate the development of the America’s clean energy industry. Trump has pledged to end that support. The new administration has halted disbursements of $50 billion in already approved clean energy loans and put $280 billion in loan requests under review.

The legality of halting a congressionally mandated program will be challenged in court, but in any case, the IRA horse is well on its way out of the barn. About $61 billion of direct IRA funding has already been spent. IRA tax credits have already attracted $215 billion in new clean energy investment and could be worth $350 billion over the next three years.

Ending the tax credits would be politically difficult, since the top 10 states for clean energy jobs include Texas, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania—all critical states for Republicans. Trump may find himself fighting Republican governors and members of Congress to make those cuts.

It is more likely that Trump and Congress will take actions that are politically easier, such as ending consumer subsidies for electric vehicles or refusing to issue permits for offshore wind projects. The impact of these policy changes would be mainly to harm U.S. competitiveness. By reducing support for private investment and public infrastructure, raising hurdles for permits and slapping on tariffs, the U.S. will simply drive clean-energy investment to competitors in Europe and China.

Meanwhile, Trump’s promises of a fossil fuel renaissance ring hollow. U.S. oil and gas production is already at record levels, and with softening global prices, producers and investors are increasingly cautious about committing capital to expand U.S. production.

The energy transition is a one-way ticket. As the asset base shifts to clean energy technologies, large segments of fossil fuel demand will permanently disappear. Very few consumers who buy an electric vehicle will go back to fossil-fuel cars. Once utilities build cheap renewables and storage, they won’t go back to expensive coal plants. If the S-curves of clean energy continue on their paths, the fossil fuel sector will likely shrink to a niche industry supplying petrochemicals for plastics by around 2050.

For U.S. policymakers, supporting clean energy isn’t about climate change. It is about maintaining American economic leadership. The U.S. invented most clean-energy technologies and has world-beating capabilities in them. Thanks to smart policies and a risk-taking private sector, it has led every major technological transition of the 20th century. It should lead this one too.

[evil-ubuntu]

if you don't mind explaining, what was the process like for building an ebike? i wouldn't even know where to start with that.

It's really not hard, these days it's a lot like building a computer. You can find the individual components you need pretty easily. There are four things that are essential to an ebike and a whole bunch of quality of life things you can get. All you really need is the motor, the drive computer, the battery and the frame.

If you're getting into ebikes as a total beginner with no idea where to start I'd say the first decision you'll want to make is whether you want to go with a mid-drive motor or a hub motor (9/10 times you'll want mid drive). Do a shit ton of research on the pros and cons of each and then decide which one fits your use case best.

Then, I'd get a conversion kit in whichever drive type you'd prefer. If you go mid-drive I can solidly recommend the Bafang conversion kits. There's a ton of components that will come with them, so don't worry about the budget really, just expect to spend approximately $1,000 and then do research on the size of battery you want, and what features you want out of the drive computer, then select them when you purchase the kit.

It's hard to select some baseline components that I can generally recommend because honestly it's hard to fuck up the part selection, it will probably work no matter what you pick, but I'd recommend really researching each component to make sure it's what you specifically want.

Finally you'll need the frame, and it helps to have experience fucking with bicycles, but it's not required. You'll also need to either buy some tools or enlist the help of your local bike shop techs. There are a billion great videos on youtube on how to assemble the Bafang kits, they're great, you should really stick with Bafang ngl.

Also, and this is coming from someone who's built two ebikes and is trying to resist the temptation of building a third; don't build an ebike.

don't do it.

It won't save you money, they're not more reliable, it's going to take you a couple weeks to assemble and the guy at the bike shop is going to tell you it's a death trap to convert a 1990s steel frame mountain bike into an ebike and they're right.

but fuck it's fun.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Hexagons of hexagonal boron nitride join up to form 2D insulator for next-gen electronic devices

A method that can grow a useful insulating material into exceptionally high-quality films that are just one atom thick and are suitable for industrial-scale production has been developed by an international team led by Xixiang Zhang from KAUST. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications. The material, called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), is used in semiconductor devices and can also enhance the performance of other two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Researchers can combine 2D materials to build tiny electronic components for quantum computing, electronic communications, and other applications. While most 2D materials conduct electricity, hBN is one of the few that is an insulator, making it an indispensable component within many of these devices.

Read more.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi! I'm an INTJ, and I have a struggle, to which I'd like to read your opinion. So my problem is, that I tend to be too rational and detached. I often dismiss information input that isn't rooted in well thought out rationality, or doesn't connect to some kind of scientific approach,or rely too much on data and cold, hard facts. - This was always the case in my life, but somehow, now at the age of 26, I started to feel somehow inhuman - not in the good sense.

Essentially, I came to the realization that I probably missing out being human, and operate like a calculator or computer. It started to feel souless. When I realized this, I reviewed my whole life, and also realized that in some form or others, I always craved the touch of humanity, but always ended up either shying away from it, or deemed it too vague or unstable to let it affect my psyche.

But then there was those times, when I read a really deep book, or saw a very soul touching piece of theatre, and I remember seeing the colors of the World around me more vibrant, felt as the wind touches my skin, realized that I live. And then felt too vulnerable and started to fear that if I continue down this road, I won't be able to operate as successfully and efficiently as I can without this. I started to fear that If I show some kind of weakness, I Will fail.

But somehow, I seem to be unable to let go this part of the human existence. I feel drawned towards it, inspecting it with curiosity, much to my unpleasure, sometimes I secretly interested in this dimension more than the perfect functioning formula of life where everything is best calculated. So, now I decided that I want to explore this, and stop with missing out being human for once and for all. I want to live fully. It caused me so much isolation and loneliness - even within myself.

Also, I realized that disregarding this dimension can hold the danger of missing out pieces of information that would normally make me more efficient in decision making and would make me a more developed and more high quality being. So the question is: In your opinion, what should I do? How to engage with my self, with my being? Thank you in advance.

--------------------

It sounds like everything you've described falls under the purview of tertiary Fi development. There is already information in the study guides about it, so you can review and learn on your own.

One of the main lessons of type development is that each of your functions has something valuable to contribute to your life. This implies that going out of your way to reject the development of a particular function means missing out on something very important to your self-actualization and general well-being. Resistance against function development eventually turns your personality unhealthy because of becoming imbalanced or extreme.

You are now feeling the pain of this imbalance. You have spent too long neglecting your feeling life. Yes, it is indeed the F component of personality that allows us to feel fully human, to understand what it truly means to be a human being.

Art is one of the major ways people express their feeling life. It is a relatively safe and acceptable form of exploration and expression. Art holds the possibility to move and touch you very deeply. However, it cannot substitute for the other major pathway of F expression: close interpersonal relationships. This pathway is more risky because there is more uncertainty and unpredictability. But keep in mind, the greater the risk, the greater the reward as well.

You are INTJ? To be INTJ is to pursue your aspirations with a strong and relentless will. This should also apply to Fi development. If you allow fear to hold you back, you're not going to get very far very fast. I'm not saying you shouldn't progress safely; I'm only saying that you have to commit. Be fully willing to challenge yourself to open up your heart, so seek out and embrace every opportunity to feel.

Remember: Ambivalence is an enemy of type development.

[msx-pocky]

For like, the past decade and a half I have found that any time I got a new games console I would try to work up the same kind of excitement I had when getting new consoles as a kid like the gamecube, ds and psp, and consistently what happened ever time was that I'd buy it, try to work up enthusiasm for it and actually keep up with new releases and get involved in modern gaming communities, but then inevitably every time I'd barely play any of the games I get for it since they just didn't grab me, and then inevitably I'd just sell the console to buy more retro games. this happened with 3ds, new 3ds, ps4, wii u and switch.

It took me ENTIRELY too long to realise that pc gaming was what I needed to get back into playing more modern games. I just assumed I wouldn't like pc gaming without trying it fully because I was specifically trying to recapture, again, excitement I got from consoles, and also pc gamers being pc gamers (the unironic "master race" fuckers) turning me off with their usual selling points of just "4k 180fps and no visible polygon edges", which makes it come off like you need overkill $2000+ gaming rigs capable of that kind of thing to actually experience the advantages of pc gaming

That isn't the case at all! you can build a computer for cheaper than next-gen consoles that is able to run lots of modern games at 60fps and 1080p. If you can settle for 30fps you can go even cheaper. You don't even need to buy a windows license anymore since Linux is free and its compatibility with windows software has gotten so good. If building a PC yourself is intimidating you could do what I did; buy a cheap OEM (pre-made) second hand desktop computer for cheap, like sub-$100 cheap, and use that to experiment with learning how to upgrade CPUs, gpus and ram. Using an old win7 HP desktop computer I bought for under $50, I managed to get it running doom 2016 at 30fps just by adding a new graphics card and CPU. doing it this way let me learn more about PC components so that when it was time for me to take the plunge and build my own PC from scratch I knew what I was doing. start cheap, and then if you discover that you need more powerful parts to run stuff you actually want to play, then you can start upgrading. There's no need to buy the highest end graphics card if a low-mid tier graphics card is already running everything smoothly after all. Just recently I built my girlfriend her own PC and managed to keep the price to around $500 (new zealand currency to be clear, which is like $300 USD). It was enough to run saga emerald beyond at 60fps which I was really happy with, but it did end up at around 30fps in other games like god eater 3, so we got a new graphics card once we could afford it.

And even with a cheap computer you can still experience a lot of what makes PC gaming so much fun. Indie games generally aren't demanding on hardware and there's far more of them on PC than there are on consoles. Indie games are genuinely some of the best modern games out there, frequently outdoing the AAA developers in lasting replay value and fun. plus, even the ones on consoles are better on PC thanks to extra features and content like mods, level editors and so on. there's also mouse and keyboard often being a more natural fit for game genres such as strategy and simulation games (I feel the same way about first person shooters as well but your mileage may vary there. Oh yeah also definitely play doom mods, they're awesome). Even if you're not into mouse and keyboard controls (I do really recommend practicing with it though! the speed and precision a mouse gives you is amazing), you'll still have a ton more controller options available on PC since basically anything that can be connected through USB or Bluetooth can be used. You also get access to fan made ports and remakes of classic games, all with their own mods and user made content, plus a ton of amazingly high quality standalone fan games (dr robotnik's ring racers is a recent fave of mine). You also have MUCH better access to older games on PC. You can be assured that stuff from the PS3 era will work superbly on modern PCs, and even a lot of 90s games work well out of the box on linux without needing to jump through hoops, in contrast to not even being able to play PS3 games on PS4. There's SO many cool aspects of modern gaming you can only experience on PC and it's not just playing microtransaction laden AAA games with marginally better graphics than on consoles.

This was meant to be about my disinterest in the switch 2 (not to say I think it'll be awful, I haven't looked enough into it, but I've already got my modern gaming covered by my computer unless some especially good exclusives win me over) but I got sidetracked and I just ended up gushing about how much i love computers oops