Dell studio xps caps lock blinks

I have been having a couple of bugs on S1 v. 5 and I would like to know if they are gone before upgrading to v. 6…

2024.05.16 01:09 Prudent-Fudge-666 I have been having a couple of bugs on S1 v. 5 and I would like to know if they are gone before upgrading to v. 6…

So I really like S1 and have been using it for half a decade now, but there are a couple of bugs that have always annoyed me and would like to know if they are gone before upgrading. They are:
  1. When I change from time signatures in a project, just to try some ideas and then I end up going back to 4/4, it sometimes get the grid all messed up, like some bars are in 3/4 and others in 4/4.
  2. is that when I don’t have my midi keyboard with me I try to use Studio One pop up Keyboard (activating Caps Lock) with third party Instruments, like Noire from NI or Serum or whatever, and it sustains the sound of any key that I have pressed while having the virtual Instrument Interface in front instead the pop up keyboard, which produces a horrible sonic mess, because you end up with 10 sounds on sustain when you where just trying to come up with some melodic ideas.
  3. is that sometimes when I record piano parts it doesn’t register that I have pressed or release the sustain pedal, and ends up ruining takes that otherwise would have been pretty decent. When i first noticed this issue i thought that the problem was my pedal, but I tried the same in Logic Pro and works just fine.
Does any of you have ever had such issues with S1.? Are they gone in the latest version?
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2024.05.15 23:11 Radiant-Main839 HP Stream Laptop won't boot

Hey. I need somebody with more experience to help me. I've got an HP Stream Laptop that won't boot. It's giving a blink code on the caps lock of 3 long, 2 short, which indicates a memory problem. Only issue is, I've reseated the RAM and replaced the stick (yes, I made sure it was the correct type and not too big for the device) but it keeps throwing the same code. Is this laptop FUBAR, or am I missing something?
submitted by Radiant-Main839 to techsupport [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 00:54 RelativeChance [US-NJ] [H] Grey Mirror Polished Brass Keyboard With All Brass Keycaps, Artisans, Rama M6 Metropolis, Rama M6 Bottom Pieces, Mode 65 Parts (Backpiece, PCBs, Plate, Silicone), QK65 Parts (Plates, PCB) [W] Paypal

Timestamp
Endgame:
Grey Mirror Polished Brass Keyboard with Custom CNC Brass Keycaps
The board is a Monokei Hiro SE and the keycaps are CNC machined blank cherry profile chrome plated brass that were custom made for me. Tsangan bottom row (7u spacebar), stepped caps lock, scooped homing keys. The keycaps are chrome plated rather than pvd coated like the board is but they are a very close match in color with the board. The keycaps are also very thick (see comparison with rama & hibi in the album). The chrome plating on the keycaps has some minor surface imperfections (see images and image descriptions in the album). Comes with 1 extra new solder pcb with daughterboard, 1 millmaxed solder pcb with daughterboard, matching brass plate, 4 extra 1u keycaps (1 in each row profile), stabilizers, lots of heavy springs in various heavy weights including super heavy ones for the spacebar, carrying case. Does not come with switches, the keycaps will be shipped in the jtk tray shown. The weight of this keyboard fully built is about 8.7 lbs
$1750 Shipped with insurance, US only (including all US territories). $1250 for keycaps alone (with springs)
​
Artisans:
Blank Aluminum Polished
Cherry profile, row 1 (ESC), raw aluminum polished but has micro scratches (see images)
$11 Shipped
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Blue Spruce 3 Keycap Bundle (Pudding, Thermal, Vibro)
These keycaps were NOT made by Rama Hibi or Mozi and are not endorsed by any of them. Resin, Polished, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)
$60 Shipped
​
Iced Latte 3 Keycap Bundle (Pudding, Thermal, Vibro)
These keycaps were NOT made by Rama Hibi or Mozi and are not endorsed by any of them. Resin, Polished, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)
$60 Shipped
​
Solid Brown Thermal
This keycap was NOT made by or endorsed by Rama. Resin, Polished, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)
$20 Shipped
​
Dark Grey Warning Keycap
This keycap was NOT made by or endorsed by Rama. Resin, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)
$10 Shipped
​
Mozi GMK Pickle R1
Excellent condition, Cherry profile, row 1 (ESC), resin
$48 Shipped
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Keycaps:
Angry Miao Glacier Keycaps Dark Blank Alphas
Excellent condition, more details here
$29 Shipped
​
Macropads:
Rama M6-C Metropolis
Excellent condition, comes with original packaging, switches, keycaps, USB cable
$52 Shipped
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Rama M6 Lunar New Year (LNY) Base
Excellent condition, mirror gold pvd brass, black silicone rubber ring. This is just the bottom piece, not a full m6 macropad. Can be used with any Rama m6 macropad, does not include screws. More details here. Comes with 6 Tecsee gold metal coated linear switches.
$55 Shipped
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Rama M6 Purple (Haze) Base
Excellent condition, silicone. This is just the bottom piece, not a full m6 macropad. Can be used with any Rama m6 macropad, does not include screws. Comes with 6 matching purple grid keycaps.
$11 Shipped
​
Rama M6 Yellow (Yolk) Base
Excellent condition, silicone. This is just the bottom piece, not a full m6 macropad. Can be used with any Rama m6 macropad, does not include screws.
$10 Shipped
​
PCBs, Plates, Keyboard Parts:
Mode65 Blue-Grey Backpiece
Excellent condition
Keywords: Mode 65, Mode Sixtyfive
$37 Shipped
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Mode65 Solder PCBs
Never used. 2 available
Keywords: Mode 65, Mode Sixtyfive
$42 Shipped for both or $25 Shipped each or trade both for one hs pcb (or envoy hs pcb)
​
Mode65 Alu Plate and Yellow Silicone Base
Excellent condition. Plate is full ansi
Keywords: Mode 65, Mode Sixtyfive
$19 Shipped
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QK65 FR4 Plate, POM Plate, Alu Plate, Solder PCB
Never used, solder pcb comes with poron foam, pe foam and standoffs. These are from the R2 run.
$56 Shipped for everything, willing to split alu plate and/or pcb from bundle
​
All items include free shipping to US, international shipping available at an additional cost
Feel free to dm with any questions, discounts for bundles
Must have confirmed trades for items over $100.
​
Want to buy/trade for:
submitted by RelativeChance to mechmarket [link] [comments]

2024.05.15 00:37 Nexusyak [WTS][USA-CA][H]Audiophile's Dream Garage Sale! 🔊🎶 Hi-Fi Gear Galore, Grab Your Deals Before They're Gone! - Audeze - Focal - Fostex - HiFiMan - Oppo- Schiit - Sennheiser - Sony - Topping - Violectric - [W] PayPal

🎶🔊 Audiophile's Dream Garage Sale! 🔊🎶 Hi-Fi Gear Galore, Grab Your Deals Before They're Gone!
https://imgur.com/a/big-sale-time-to-sell-all-audeze-lcd-gx-lcd-2-x3-variations-maxwell-focal-clear-elegia-sennheiser-hd800s-hd700-5-amps-topping-violectric-schiit-19-items-all-nloQluc
It's that time again – my audio collection has reached critical mass! I've been happily testing and reviewing all sorts of awesome hi-fi gear, but now it's time to make room for the next wave of sonic adventures. 👋
Think of this as your chance to score some seriously sweet deals on pre-loved audio treasures. We've got headphones 🎧, DACs 🎛️, amps ⚡️, streamers 🎶, and more! Some prices are firm (gotta make a living, right?), while others are negotiable.
Why Buy From Me?
Where to Find the Loot:
The Fine Print:
Drop a Comment Below:
Questions? Requests for more pics? Let me know!
Let's make some audiophile dreams come true! 🎶
https://imgur.com/a/nloQluc

Headphones

https://www.ebay.com/itm/145762999580?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=7rMUaCZoRny&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=7rMUaCZoRny&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

AMPS/ Dacs

Extra

Any questions, comments or more details message me please. I will update this list when stuff is sold and when I decide to sell other things. I'm not a dealer and not desperate to sell.
submitted by Nexusyak to AVexchange [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 17:25 1tKywani The Wikipedia plot of Arkham Knight but I put it through every Google Translate language and then back to English again

When someone threatens to unleash a new poison on Halloween, the citizens of Gotham City are forced to flee. To save poison ivy, Batman follows Cap to the coward's chamber, where Batman confronts the villain. Your name will be listed on this contract as the author of the toxicology report. Batman discovers the location and sends an army to attack Gotham. Ackerman, the mysterious terrorist, was never found in the house. He said he was scared and ran away. Venom stopped the explosion before Batman could confront the Joker.
Another version is that the Joker was poisoned before his death. Five people are killed, including Batman. Batman takes care of four patients who change their minds as clowns to hide their illness. The Joker is a stupid psychiatrist. When you fight Batman, you're covered in blood and it changes your view of reality. After the explosion, Batman rescues Gordon by telling him that his daughter has been kidnapped. Gordon was injured in the fall.
Batman discovers that Scroo hired businessman Simon Stock (owner of Far Talk) to create Cloudburst. Batman crashes Cloud's train, but the powerful poison allows the Joker to control Batman and Cloud becomes the Arkham Knight. After recovering, he visits Batman in a panic and kills himself in a panic. Harley Quinn saves a patient named Batman Joker at Pensa Studios. Batman, Robin, Harley and everyone else are there, but Batman is determined to defeat the Joker before the disease kills them all. Robin saw that Batman was injured and tried to stop him, but Batman locked him in a room to save him.
Arkham Knight opens a cloud tower and covers the entire city with deadly poison. Batman destroys the secret hideout. Ivy tells Sam to leave. He saves Gotham City, but the Joker tries to kill Batman. Batman brings back the Arkham Knight to save Gordon. Jason Todd is the old Robin who was killed by the Joker rider. Todd accuses Bateman of refusing to help and running away. Batman and Gordon are in trouble. Batman finds him dead, Oral saves him and takes him to the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD), but he survives and is captured by Gordon. Scarecrow teams up with other heroes to attack the GCPD and destroy Batman's army. Scarlow tends to Robin while Batman and Oracle deal with the soldiers.
To save Robin and Gordon, Batman destroys the villain and sends him to Arkham Asylum. In this epic series, Batman kills Bruce Wayne, and Batman kills Bruce Wayne to scare others. Batman and Joker fight for control of Batman's mind. Batman tries to stop Joker and show him the effects of the disease, but Batman forgets his fear of Joker and remembers Joker. Todd helps Batman, but Batman uses Venom to fight depression. When Batman thinks that Gotham is safe, Gordon sends the police into the city. Bats use the night sky to rescue their mates. Batman returns to Wayne's house. Journalists gathered to congratulate Alfredo. When he entered the house, there was violence.
In the second episode of Gotham Gardens, Maria rejoins Oracle and Robin. Two thieves pass by a family on the street.
submitted by 1tKywani to arkham [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 16:30 Corruptfun As If It Were Kismet Prologue & Chapters 1-5

As If It Were Kismet: Prologue
Matt tore through the brush, blind in the dark. He didn’t care where he was going. He only knew he needed to be elsewhere. Far from here.
Behind him a creature howled that shocked his mind. It’s form was cruel and dangerous, though female. Nothing like the young woman she had once been. Nothing but a girl, a small and slight female.
It’s guttural growls and howls only grew closer as Matt tried to pick between seeing where he was going and getting away. The few times he looked he caught sight of the creature behind him. Hopping through the air with a speed that told him he was being toyed with. As if he were a mouse being played with by a cat.
But the reflex in him to run kept him going. His adrenaline going as hard as it could. The tightness and burning in his core tensing and locking up as his legs felt like there were being burned from within while taking on more of a heaviness.
His lungs were starting to betray him as he tried to gulp big breaths of air but only rapid and shallow breaths were all that he could manage. His brain was starting to burn….and then he was falling.
Falling down the side of a hill he saw the creature dart in a spring towards him, imperceivably fast almost. Catching him in mid air it seemed.
Managing to wrap its body around him and cushion his impact against the ground as they rolled. His mind barely took in what was happening during the roll. Only starting to understand what was happening once they were still.
The creature's triple D-cup breasts were unmistakably pressed hard against his back as he laid facing up at the night sky.
For a few seconds the world stilled and the needle light pain hitting the center of his brain took over for the cooking heat his brain had felt. His whole body felt heavy and reluctant to move.
Even if he could have really moved, a dull ache came over his limbs making them feel stilled and trapped as if by immeasurable amounts of sand that had engulfed him.
Slowly the arms holding him started to move. Moving so the creature's hands could start exploring him. Causing Matt to unstoppably let out a pathetic moan that made him go cold inside as hands lifted up his shirt and started to touch his exposed stomach and then his chest.
He would have whimpered so pathetically had he not still been in the depths of terror.
As its hands felt and groped his pecs he tried to situp as if to get away. For his efforts, his reward was a hand around his throat and a collection snarls and growls against his ear. A beastly, guttural voice spat words at him while somehow holding a feminine tone.
“Don’t move….I don’t know if I can calm down…”
Her words were not helped by her moans in his ear and the subsequent kissing of his ear. The flesh of his ear going between her lips as she moaned and seemed to pant. Releasing it and licking the side of his face with a moist warmth. He could feel its spittle, viscous and coating his flesh where the tongue touched. He could smell something in his saliva. Something that subtly entranced him.
Matt went stock still with fear and the confusion of mixed arousal. He barely perceived her right hand traveling lower on his body. A surprised moan and shudder echoed in the night from Matt’s lips as she took ahold of him. Her hand above his pants but still….stimulating him.
A light squeezing and almost probing of her digits kept him aroused and confused within her grasp. Resigning himself to the strange fate, Matt looked up at the stars as his mind tried not to shatter under the strange maelstrom of events and sensation that had started mere minutes ago.
His mind was only more confused as a slight figure, feminine in build, how it seemed to thunk the ground audibly as she landed on her feet out nowhere. Her knees barely bending under the pressure of the landing. Yet dirt was kicked up anyways and some of it onto Matt. Feeling it pepper his shirt and pants as it fell.
The figure, lit only faintly by moonlight, roared some dark tone Matt could only perceive as a demon as her eyes went bright with a crimson light. A light in the darkness that should not have been. “Let him go you bitch.” Was its words following the roar. Spittle escaping its mouth with faint droplets hit Matt's face.
The creature holding him by his throat and crotch seemed to tighten the grasp of both hands as it roared back. “HE IS MINE!”
The figure paused with a moment's hesitation. He was also her quarry. She had felt his fear without him knowing. His confused arousal. His fear. His terror.
And now he laid at the center of a struggle between two monsters. Unsure of who he wanted to win.
As If It Was Kismet Ch. 1
Matthew Berkshire hadn’t seen his mom in two years. Not that he had seen her much over the last six years.
A messy divorce between messy people and mom’s chaotic want for a life in Alaska had been one of the most…upsetting times in life. Setting him up for so much of what had defined his life thus far but then that had really started two years before he ever turned.
His ear buds were basic and simple. A part of cheap five pack, common for his life as he was known to lose little things. Small things. They had a mix of metal and hard rock playing in them. Some classics, some alternative. Whatever made him feel something, anything. Even if it was hate. Anger. Rage. It was better than feeling numb. Not belonging.
The escalator down to his lone bag to go with his lone carry on showed his mom waiting for him. His had a type, that’s for damn sure. Not that it helped him in the genetics department as he was stuck at 5’9” to go along with his mother’s five foot even as his dad stood six foot. Forever leaving him to feel small, to pale, under his dad’s shadow. Did he ever stand a chance?
The guy next to her with the unkempt former seventies porn stache was “Dave.” He’d met him twice when his mother came and visited him in Florida. To his credit the guy didn’t look annoyed. Kind of concerned kind of which made Matthew want to break his frozen look but he was well practiced. Having removed any note of sadness from his face through much…tribulation.
His mother’s look on her face betrayed a hint of worry as the bruises on his face lightly showed up close. Saying his name was his like a distant echo that belonged to someone else.
Dave cut in and pulled out his right headphone. “What the hell bud, they knock you hard enough to hurt hearing? Your mom’s asking how you are doing.”
Matthew pulled out the other bud and grunted an empty “sorry.”
“You still have bruises after two week? What did they do to you?” His mom’s voice was full of worry. Something he hadn’t heard in….too long. Too long to make him feel anything. To ever make him believe there was any sincerity to her words. To not think her voice and mannerisms were an act. An act by someone who…wasn’t really there.
“It’s only fair. I took a nose. Fractured a couple orbital bones. Left one with having to get his jaw wired shut. And one will never walk right again for what I did to his knee cap.” Matthew said it all with a bored and disinterested tone. Perhaps well rehearsed.
“My man, handing out ass kickings, not bothering to take names.” Dave was quick to be the typical man’s man about it. Matthew wasn’t quite done yet. Lifting up his shirt to expose the right side near his kidney. Revealing a nasty scar from a six inch blade. “Luckily they gave me this first so they could rule it all in self-defense. The fuck didn’t get it in more than inch before I ruined his knee cap and then I took the nose of one of the fucks holding me.” Now he chose to smile keeping the well practiced dead look in his eyes.
No retorts. No questions. Just horrified looks on their faces. As he liked. As he preferred. They could hate him. They could be disgusted by him. But by God they would fear him.
“Well the doc did a good job sewing you up.” Dave commented uncomfortably. “Dissolving sutures. Ain’t they grand.” He smiled again and let it abruptly fall off his face and started walking to the carousel for the baggage claim.
Waiting and making small talk with Dave as his mother stood in silence. He was not the little boy she abandoned. The little boy she left with an angry man. While never hitting him. Left him in constant fear till he turned twelve and just didn’t care anymore. Something snapped. Broke. And he didn’t care if he died. Didn’t care if he stole. Didn’t even care if he killed. He just knew not to get caught. Something left over from his grandfather’s wisdom which came to make more and more sense with each passing year of life since that thing inside him broke.
Finally his bag came around and Dave went to try first to grab it but Dave practically leapt ahead of him. “Is that your grandfather’s rucksack bag?” his mother asked in a perplexed voice.
“Figured it’s been around since Viet Nam. So it’d serve me better than any of the worthless stuff they called luggage.” Dave commented after Matthew’s words. “Well hell yeah I still got mine from Desert Storm. You know the first one.” Dave laughed and Matthew eyed him oddly. Be it in the south or whether it was Alaska, country boys are country boys he guessed.
The car ride to the two people’s house, as Matthew thought of them. Was uneventful and full of vistas he imagined metropolitan types wetting themselves over. At most they meant isolation to him. Furtherness from the world as there were no mountains in Florida. And what mountains he had last seen in another state had been when he was eight. Another life, to Matthew it felt like. A life alien to him.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 2
Dave and his mom’s place was some two story type tucked into a tree line far up an elevated point. It was by no means the highest point in the mountain but it certainly felt up there.
Rocks were where the driveway should have been Matthew thought. Grabbing his backpack and rucksack from Dave’s jeep was no hard thing for him. Matthew was in formidable shape for someone his age, maybe even five years older. He had gotten a mix of fairly big shoulders and arms along with the chest to go for it when compared to most kids his age. A side effect of working out at least twice a day. First thing in the morning, some time in the evening, and the school’s gym when had had a good semester in school before he had to leave Florida.
Dave tried to come up and help him but Matthew walked past him towards the house. His mom was not sure what to make of his demeanor. Matthew was not the sweet kind boy he had once been. But she had been gone from his life essentially for a long time.
Ushering him into the house she cracked some joke he did not hear. He was too busy looking about and seeing a mix of old outdated decorating mixed with the strange and odd flair of his mother. Color contrasting against drab and dated. Like brightly painting over an old home that was falling apart he thought.
“Your room is this way Mattie.” His mom brightly intoned.
Without expressing any interest he followed his mother. Still faced and nonplussed. Just going along with the current. Pushed and pulled with its roll like a piece of driftwood.
The room was simple. A single small bed. A set of rubber weights with a curl bar and barbells. “Your dad said you were into weight lifting so we got you a bunch of stuff. Dave says it looks like his department’s gym almost. The woman’s smile felt very alien to him.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ve got most of my stuff from home.” Matthew starting unpacking his rucksack and pulled out cables of repetitive and mixed colors. A single plastic barbell handle. The ruck sack could be filled with water bottles for added weight during pushups he figured. Remembering a Michael Keaton movie he watched with his dad post-Batman movies where he played a convicted killer using plastic bags filled with water for weights.
Matthew caught movement outside his lone fairly large window that could let him step out onto the roof of the house given its layout.
He saw a number of people running together through what he guessed was the backyard of the property, not that it had any fences to mark boundaries
They wore clothes that looked similar yet different from each other at the same time.”Oh those are the Johnston’s. Really nice bunch of people. Been on the mountain for a long time Dave tells me.”
Matthew looked at the group of people running and noticed the lack of resemblance. “They are related?” Matthew quizzically asked. Seeing a black and possibly a hispanic person amongst the bland looking white people.
“Oh well they are all adopted but for one or two of them…besides the parents of course. The family has a long tradition of taking in orphans they say. Real nice of them to do that don’t you think.”
Matthew looked at his mother and the hosier accent made no sense to him as he arched his left eye brow. Her and his dad were both from Florida. Born and raised. Sure her parents were from New York city but…
Matthew shook his lightly without turning to look at his mother as his vision was grabbed by one of the runners in particular. A girl of moderate height. Soft brunette. A plain beauty he figured with a slim build….and lack of remarkable breasts and rear to make any note of but….girls in general were his type at his age.
She was pretty enough. He couldn’t deny that but he found himself transfixed by her visage.
But the way she turned and looked at him, especially at that distance felt very disconcerting to him. Even if she was smiling like…she was a taste of a bright shiny day. Somehow.
Matthew’s mom noticed the exchange and smiled to herself with closed lips. “Oh that’s Vicky. She’s your age I think. Very sweet girl, who does the charity functions. You know bake sales, blood drives, car washes and the like. I think you should get to know her. Might be good for you.”
A truck horn sounded a couple of beeps in rather succession. “Oh that must be Mack, he said he might come by later this evening but he seems early.”
Matthew’s mother turned and left his room. Leaving Matthew to exchange a few looks with the alluring Vicky as she turned her head away from him to talk to the others in her group and look back at him.
Still Matthew’s left eyebrow was arched. In a way that reminded him of Spock from Star Trek that he and his grandpa used to watch on some streaming service or another.
As he heard ambient chatter elsewhere outside the house he figured to check it out as the alluring sight of Vicky would be around he figured. It was dull to stare at artwork. He was a boy who preferred jet skis and the like. Something he could ride and enjoy immensely. Even if at times it got him stabbed.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 3
Matthew sauntered out of the house and down the rockway that stood in for a driveway.
A few new people had come over from what he could first surmise of the situation. As he got closer it was obvious they were indigenous people. A couple of grown men…and a girl?
She was mousey. Maybe five foot. Hiding behind glasses and a big camo jacket that was far too big for her. It looked made for a grown man and the backwards trucker hat on her head kept her long black a beautiful mess of sorts.
She was cute in a way. A little androgynous but she had a cute energy to her. She reminded him of the more tomboyish Puerto Rican girls he had gotten into back in Florida. Given the deer corpses in the back of the truck….probably more dangerous to play with given the men in her family.
Small chatter passed between the adults when the girl noticed but turned away, trying to hide the tiny hint of a smile.
“Oh Mattie, this is Mack. He works with Dave at the sheriff’s department and John, he’s with fish and wildlife.” Matthew nodded at his mom’s words with some blankness as he looked at the deer the in the back of the pickup truck.
“Gale tells us you hunted with your dad some in Florida and Georgia.” Mack offered with a light hearted laugh camouflaged by his big simple and cheery but husky way he spoke.
Looking in the back of the truck he spoke. “We used lever action thirty-thirties and Mosin Nagants in seven-six-two-fifty-four-rimmed.” Mack and John whistled in an exaggerated fashion. Leaving Matthew to wonder if they were mocking him.
Mack spoke. “Well we just used thirty-odd-six in a custom gussied Garand.” That caught Matthew’s attention. “You have a Garand…” Matthew finally demonstrated interest in anything. “My dad has an SVT-40 and a Hakim 8mm but he always wanted a Garand but was too cheap to buy one.”
Gale, his mother, chimed in loudly. “Oh his Dad loved his guns but was such an odd duck about how he bought or why he bought them. Never made sense to me how he wasn’t a collector but he didn’t get the latest and greatest.” Gale laughed uncomfortably. At least it seemed that way to Matthew.
Matthew pointed to the girl with an underhanded pointing hand. “And who is this? A cute little mute mouse or does she have a name?” Dave and the other men laughed.
Mack again spoke. “Well you people call her Rebecca, she’s my adopted daughter.” Matthew was taken aback by what he heard. “You people?”
Rebecca kindly spoke with a soft but almost melodic voice as she struggled to maintain eye contact. “White people or rather not members of our tribe. It’s just easier to appease the colonizer kind of thing. Borrowed from when the Jesuit missionaries chased us up here.”
Mack stepped in. “It’s just easier to have white people names than have them try to say our tribal names. And we don’t want them shortening or Anglicising our names kind of thing.” Rebecca stepped back into the conversation cutting off her adopted father. “It’s an insult to our history basically.”
Matthew cocked his head sideways raising his eyebrows shortly before letting them drop. “Well as soon as I’m eighteen I’m out of here and back to Florida so I’m a sort of involuntary colonizer of sorts. So I won’t be taking any of your land from you. The Seminoles on the other hand are still shit out of luck.”
Rebecca’s smile caused Matthew to reflexively smile. Mack made the moment more awkward. “See Becca, I told you someone off the reservation would like you some. You just have to be creative.” Mack laughed in a chiding manner…Matthew presumed. He sensed that he was the butt of some kind of cultural joke. Like marrying a white guy was some sort of insult or mark of shame. That kind of thing.
Rebecca turning away from him was not something he had been expecting. Her then getting in the truck in a huff left the group in a silence for a moment.
Dave spoke to break the awkward silence. “Well just bring the truck to work on Monday and leave it for me to grab up.” Mack acknowledged Dave and they started to get off as Rebecca looked at Matthew for another instance. Matthew couldn’t look away for some reason as the two seemed to lock eyes for an instance.
Till Vicky and family seemed to come jogging down the road. While Matthew’s eyes diverted from Rebecca’s. Hers did not till she realized he was looking elsewhere. And her vision found Vicky and what had been a hint of smile on her face turned glum and disappointed.
Matthew did not look away from the vision of Vicky but instead of a starry eyed fool looking longingly. It was a baffled look. Well baffled for him, with his eyes drawn narrow and night with a focus.
There was something about her…he couldn’t quite put a name too. The way she appeared to him. One second brunette. The next second blonde or blonde like. As if the color appeared in her air and disappeared in fractions of seconds. Much the same way her body almost seemed to…shift…very subtly…smoothly. A nicer bum. Larger breasts. And then back to a simple and plain form. Feminine no doubt. Attractive. But not so…remarkable.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 4
The next two days passed without incident. Nothing of any real substance or challenge to note.
Matthew got settled somewhat and started working out almost immediately. Exploring around the woods but Dave told him not to go far. Especially without a hunting rifle. Dave had left a simple semi-auto Winchester out for him. His bear gun as Dave referred to it with its four round magazine. But Matt figured till he got some practice with the rifle to leave it alone. He made a hiking stick like his grandpa taught him and treated it over a low fire. He would take some electrical tape for the end his hand would grip around. Plenty enough to ward off anything smaller than a bear he figured.
The ride to school was a pain in the neck but simple enough. Dave would let him use a clunker pickup truck he had laying around. It wasn’t pretty but it would get him to and from. Even if it was from the eighties and still backfired on occasion. But for now Dave and his mom took him on their way to the sheriff’s department.
It wasn’t much of a school. It wanted to be modern but its fifties original construction was very obvious. It serviced the pipeline families and familys’ of fisherman who worked the seasons in between their time at the pipeline.
Matt was to report to the principal for some reason Dave and his mom wouldn’t share. Which annoyed him but he figured it was to read him the law of land. Small towns with their big views of the outside world and like.
Dressed in jeans, a grey sweatshirt under a light jacket with steel toed boots set him more apart then he expected. His buzzed head didn’t help matters. Already he was feeling like a stranger in a strange land but he was quite strange after all. And he liked it that way. Normal people were so pathetically disappointing to him.
A secretary or assistant or some such led him to the principal’s office. Where it reeked of real wood that was old and fabric and upholstery that needed to be updated for the last twenty years, Matt figured.
“This is Matthew Berkshire, Principal Andrews.” The man was turned with his back to the door and he was quick to wave her off as he turned her around.
He was an older man. Fat and large. Tall with a body built like he had once been fit and a demeanour of annoyed and irate already as he fixed Matt with a scowl and look of disgust. Another worthless government whore. Matt thought to himself. His father and his grandfather had bestowed unto him a natural disrespect for government workers and the figures that wore unjustified authority as a shield but pretended the weight of the state was not at their back ready to crush all who resisted. Little figures of valor pretending to be mighty and alone but acting with the tyranny of the state and all the backing.
“Mr. Berkshire, please sit down.” His tone wasn’t unusually hostile, just gruff. As if he had better things to do.
Matt complied and took a seat in the chair while maintaining a friendly facade. Not everyone was an enemy. And not everyone needed to be an enemy. Even if anybody could be any enemy. There was no reason to make enemies you didn’t have to. Another of his grandfather’s bastardised wisdoms.
“Well I looked over you file and you have quite the history Mr. Berkshire.” Matt resisted qiuping back a joke. Instead he waited for Principal Andrews to continue as he remained nonplussed and looking as if he felt no need to respond. A simple head tilt with dead eyes looking back at the principle as if he was not even there would suffice.
Matt’s reaction or lack of a reaction rather made Principal Andrews only narrow his eyes with examination. He was not used to a kid not responding to him. Especially with his gruff and hard act going on.
“Well by all accounts you moved here after some problems at your last school. A fight broke out and you did some real harm to your fellow students it appears.” Of course, he would take the side of the perpetrators. School administrators always did. Especially when they weren’t white. Just a fact of the times. Cowardice and pathetic mediocrity was the way they leaned, like good government workers sucking the dick of Big Daddy government. Worthless whores.
Matt chose to reply. “Oh you mean the criminals that stabbed me. Got arrested at the hospital and then pled to felonies. Yeah Florida, with the American counties are good like that.” Principal Andrews went real still. No shame. No fear. No penitence. He didn’t like that.
“Well be it as it may Mr. Berkshire we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here…” Matt cut him off responding with a deadpan tone. “You mean self-defense meant to save one’s own life while the cowardly and pathetic school workers look on with zero interest but to keep their money rolling in and will allow known gang members with records of violent acts and crimes that should have them expelled many times over, where in certain Democrat counties such cowardice and idiocy empowered a couple school shooters?”
Principal Andrews looked at the Matt with a note of disgust. “Look here Mr. Berkshire, your beliefs matter not one bit here. This isn’t Florida. We don’t like our way of life being disrupted by outside agitators who have problems with authority.”
Matt did his best not to roll his eyes and let the older fat man drone own as he dead-stared him. Lifeless and without emotion.
The man came to a finish and Matt spoke up without having listened to him or paid him any attention. “Great now that’s taken care of. Can I please get to class and finish my sentence of two years at your wonderful school?”
Principal Andrews huffed and snorted before calling in Vicky. Vicky stood in the corner after entering with a quiet and seamless presence. Matt felt disturbed and tried not betray his feelings as the young Vicky was perceived and not perceived to be moving.
Principal Andrews made the introductions and Matt nodded back. She was to be his chaperone for the day. They had the same classes and she was to show him the ropes so to speak. The ins and outs of the school. The locations of their classes.
He recognized her. It was hard not to. The way her appearance seemed to shift fluidly almost. The petite and skinny brunette ever so lightly had a big bust and blonde hair with curves added when she seemed to shift before his eyes. Like watching a film but each frame had a different person.
Matt didn’t say anything about it. Even if he did he would only be acknowledging his crazed state, if he had one. If.
Unlike an obedient puppy dog he got up in a slow and awkward fashion and followed behind her as his oddly disproportionate frame allowed. Causing her a note of concern for some reason. As if she was seeing something she shouldn’t have been….Or he was just weird. And Matt could admit to himself he was just weird. Part of his charm, he would jest about it at times. Not that he had many people to jest to now.
As If It Were Kismet Ch. 5
Following Vicky into the hall off to their first class was simple. She exchanged small talk and he slightly smiled as if to obviously suggest he was just being polite.
Inside his head, Matt was trying to figure out if he was having a psychotic break. The way Vicky looked kept changing and he looked at the other people around him and they stayed the same.
He was searching his mind as they were walking. And thus he wasn’t paying attention to where he was looking and so fell to his face forward over his feet seemingly out of nowhere.
A series of laughs erupted as it sunk in that he was obviously tripped. Like in prison this was a challenge to his superiority. If he let this pass he would be mocked and sneered at by this same group of boys. He wouldn’t walk to them like he was going to do nothing like a little bitch.
In a rage he turned and punched the stomach of the first face he saw. Some typical blonde haired wannabe jock. He knew from experience not to aim for the ribs. Instead he needed to aim for where he thought the belly button was.
Yells and screams blindly echoed around him as his after the punch he followed up his elbow of the opposite arm slamming into the face of the jock. Harder than a fist, the elbow struck the jock’s jaw and seemingly dropped him against a locker. Just in time to catch an errant and soft punch to the nose that sure enough hurt but did little to slow him down as his dad had taught him to fight through the pain. Blood and scars happened. They were a natural consequence of life to a man.
Taking the punch and falling further into his red state Matt headbutted the punch thrower before another guy arm bared his throat from behind. Which he managed to get his grip on the arm over a letterman jacked and jerk the unprepared boy to the side with him still latched on.
A few feet away from the lockers Matt knew his only chance was to jump and push off the lockers and knock the boy to the ground and so he did. He heard a thunk of the boy’s skull bouncing off the ground and he turned to pull out of the grapple.
The beatings he had taken from his father, the grapples, being choked unconscious. Had prepared him for fighting little bitches who didn’t know what a fight was. It wasn’t gay porn with rabbit punch fists flying.
Blood was running down his face and the pain started to hit him as the threats had been eliminated. Only then did he remember to breathe. Taking breathes as Vicky came up to him with tissues and took a hold of his nose.
“Owww owww owww what the fuck my nose could be broken.” He said to Vicky as she pulled his head up and back.
“It’s ok Carl. It’s done.” Matt tried to look to see who Vicky was talking to. It was a boy taller than his 5’9” by more than a small margin. The boy eyed him bored and annoyed before speaking. “What happened here?” An unoriginal line but one Matt couldn’t be a smart aleck about. “Well you see there was an outbreak of tripping and we all tripped over my dick. It happens.” Matt was about to laugh when Vicky seemed to pull up while still gripping his nose causing Matt no small amount of pain which he audibly evidenced.
Vicky spoke in a tone he wasn’t expecting. As if she was accustomed to issuing orders. “Keep Iris away from the hall till we sanitize the site. We have blood from at least three people contaminating the site. And have Jake bring me a spare jacket and shirt for this moron.”
Carl seemed to acknowledge her orders and seemed to blink away. Maybe the punch hit harder than he expected. He had no time to wonder as Vick took her hand away from his and pushed him against the lockers. With ease he had not been expecting from her form and stature.
Before he could respond Vicky licked his blood covered chin and then his lips and spoke to him. “Focus on me you little blood bag.” Her tone had an annoyed yet feminine sneer.
“Look into my eyes. Look at me. You belong to me. You are just another food source in a collection of food sources.” Her eyes were a beautiful hazel Matt thought. Almost green. Pretty like jewels in some old treasure collections. The eyes he could get lost in before kissing her. Finally Vicky was just a slight and petite brunette and he thought she was beautiful.
She would make a hell of a girlfriend. Some cute thing he could see laying on the beach in Florida on their sides laughing and smiling before trading light kisses while hands wandered innocently. Before his mind could drift further he felt her lips on his. It took him a second to mentally grasp the kiss but his arms were around her back as her hands were at his sides. His eyes reflexively closed as he saw hers close.
It was ineffable to Matt. Beyond words, what was happening. The kiss, the moments beforehand. The way his brain tickled with electricity and gentle warmth. He had never had a kiss like this and he had traded more than a few kisses with at least a few girls.
The kiss was like a warm bath with his consciousness slipping beneath the surface. Their lips only parted to try new angles and approaches as Matt struggled to take in breath. It was a moment he could have stayed trapped in for….he didn’t know. But a curt throat clearing by another girl pulled them out of the moment.
The girl was taller than Vicky. Blonde. With slight curves. Vicky addressed her bewildered and gobsmacked, and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “Tina?”
submitted by Corruptfun to yandere [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 15:18 uloneone Help fixing my old HP Mini 110 ! That won't turn on

I have a Mini HP 110-3520TU laptop, When i turn the power on it's turned on but no display showing/Black screen. The caps lock blink 3 times then pauses for a moment. I have search the internet for the solution. Some said its the RAM fault. and i have tried to reseat my RAM. Some also said my BIOS is corrupted. and when i tried to download a bios executable from the HP website it's said my devices is no longer supported.
Please help me i am dying out of curiosity on how to fix this.
submitted by uloneone to techsupport [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 14:01 Zappingsbrew A post talking about 400 words

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weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.
submitted by Zappingsbrew to u/Zappingsbrew [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 04:02 TVnzld Help - strange behaviour regarding input methods and scrolling

Hi all, Iḿ hoping you can help. I am running a Dell XPS 9320 which came new installed with Ubuntu 22.04.
Symptoms of the issues:
Opening a new browser (doesn´t matter which) and input either does not work, or it jumps from the search box to the URL bar. The issue seems to go away temporarily if I press ALT-Space, which opens up the window manager. I have changed all keyboard input methods, even though I haven´t changed it before. You can see just now when typing ´haven´t' that the apostrophe isn´t correct - thatś one thing that I just noticed, and it doesn´t matter if I use my laptop keyboard or my external. I can also be using google sheets and try typing a number into a cell and it won´t work, I need to press ALT-Space again, or open a new window.
The other thing that is odd is Iĺl be on a page and I will scroll down with my mouse, and then it just scrolls back up to the top. The only thing that stops this is hitting ËSC." I can also try typing ¨1" into the search box but it won´t work. If I press ¨2" (you can see that the quotes aren´t working properly) it will scroll down the page. If I use the number pad though, itś fine.
I also can´t seem to enable scroll lock whatever I do. I tried to enable it to see if it would fix it but I can´t get it to work.
I am not sure what caused the issue, but I have been running it perfectly fine for around a year, with an external keyboard, mouse and Samsung screen. Recently I spent 3 months away and did not use my screen. I got home and plugged the screen back in and itś been fine for a week or so. There was a Dell software update recently, but I can't pinpoint when the issue started happening.
Can anyone help? Do I need to post in another sub? Thanks in advance <3
submitted by TVnzld to linuxquestions [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 23:12 bambaazon Logic Pro 11.0 release notes

New Features and enhancements
New AI-enhanced tools join Smart Tempo and the Pitch Correction plug-in to augment your artistry.
Bass Player and Keyboard Player join Drummer to complete a set of Session Players — all built with AI making it easy to create performances that respond to your direction.
Session Players can follow the same chord progression using Global chord track.
Add warmth to any track with ChromaGlow, an advanced plug-in with five saturation models designed to simulate the sound of vintage analog hardware.*
Separate a stereo audio file into stems for vocals, drums, bass and other parts with Stem Splitter.*
Session Players, ChromaGlow, and Stem Splitter also come to Logic Pro for iPad 2 — making it simple to move between projects created in Logic Pro for Mac.
Play any of six deeply-sampled acoustic and electric basses with Studio Bass.
Perform any of three meticulously-sampled pianos with Studio Piano.
Loops that contain chord tags will automatically populate the chord track when added to a project.
Three new Producer Packs are available: Hardwell, The Kount, and Cory Wong.
Original multi-track project of Swing! by Ellie Dixon available as in-app demo song.
Downmix and trim options allow custom mixing for non-Atmos channel configurations.
Exported ADM BWF files have been expanded beyond Dolby Atmos and can contain settings for stereo and other multi-channel formats.
Bounce in place adds automatic real-time recording for External Instrument regions or tracks that utilize external hardware using the Logic Pro I/O plug-in.
Route MIDI signals generated by supported software instruments and effects to the input of other tracks for creative layering during playback or recording.
Edit more efficiently using key commands for moving, extending, or resizing marquee selections.
The Nudge Region/Event Position key commands now also nudge Marquee selections.
The Transpose Region/Event key commands now also move or expand the Marquee selection up/down.
Pattern regions can now be created on Drummer tracks, and Drummer regions can be converted to Pattern regions.
New key commands include Trim Note End to Following Notes (Force Legato) With Overlap and Trim Note End to Selected (Force Legato) With Overlap.
Bounce in Place and Track Freeze can now be performed in real time, allowing for use of external instruments, I/O plug-ins, and external inserts.
Mastering Assistant analysis now can be performed in real time, allowing for use in projects that incorporate external I/O or instruments.
The Dolby Atmos plug-in now offers Downmix and Surround/Height Trim controls.
The Recent Projects list can now be configured to show up to 50 projects.
* Requires a Mac with Apple silicon.
Stability and reliability
Scripts with 1071 characters or more in Scripter no longer cause Logic Pro to quit unexpectedly.
Fixes an issue where creating a an event in a lane assigned to Note off in Step Sequencer could cause Logic Pro to quit unexpectedly.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could fail to launch with an Error Initializing Core MIDI message when the system is under heavy load performing other tasks.
Resolves an issue where Logic Pro could quit unexpectedly when a 64-bit floating point IR file is loaded into Space Designer.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could hang when opening a project while the Project Settings > MIDI window is displayed.
Logic Pro no longer quits unexpectedly when creating multiple Aux tracks with multiple existing Aux tracks selected.
Improves stability when bypassing control surfaces with Musical Typing open when EuControl software is installed.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could hang when quitting a project containing a large number of instances of Sampler.
Fixes an issue where Logic Pro could quit unexpectedly when replacing a playing Live Loops cell with another loop.
Performance
The UI is now more responsive when adjusting Flex Pitches directly on regions in Deviation mode.
Performance is improved when editing Transient Markers in Take regions with Flex enabled.
Performance is improved when making Flex Pitch edits in the Tracks area with a large number of selected regions.
Alchemy's Performance is improved.
Performance is improved when moving regions in projects with a large number of tracks and regions.
Projects containing a large number of flex-pitched regions now open more quickly.
Resolves an issue where loading a project saved with a Summing stack selected that contains Software Instruments that have no regions and/or with the tracks turned off could load the Software Instruments into memory.
Accessibility
VoiceOver now announces the state of Automation mode buttons on channel strips.
VoiceOver now announces the status of the Pause button in the LCD.
VoiceOver no longer announces hidden controls in the Smart Controls view.
VoiceOver no longer reads the values of pan knobs that are currently hidden in Sends on Faders mode.
VoiceOver now announces the state of the Details button and the Follow button in the Drummer Editor.
VoiceOver now announces left-click and Command-click Tool selections in the Control Bar.
VoiceOver now announces the name of the Time Quantize button in the Piano Roll.
VoiceOver now announces changes in value when the Next/Previous key commands are used to change Quantize values.
VoiceOver now announces state of key commands for Cycle, Mute, Track Solo, Input Monitoring, Track On/Off, and Lock/Unlock Track.
VoiceOver now announces the selection state of focused tracks.
Spatial Audio
Fixes an issue where adding a new 3D Object track for the first time to a Spatial Audio project could cause the Renderer to switch from the current model to the Apple renderer.
The Dolby Atmos plug-in now offers a 5.1.2 monitoring option.
Fixes an issue where setting a project to Dolby Atmos could output to 7.1.4 even when the mode defaults to Apple Renderer.
It is now possible to monitor Dolby Atmos projects directly via HDMI to a surround capable receiveamplifier.
The metering for Height channels now shows as post-fader on the Master channel as expected.
Loading a Master Bus channel strip setting in the 7.1.4 channel format now preserves the 7.1.4 channel layout as expected.
Session Players
Resolves an issue where loading a user-created Drum Machine Designer patch could set the input to a bus and fail to load the Drum Machine Designer instrument.
Using the Create Drummer Region command in a Marquee selection now creates a region that corresponds to the Marquee.
Smart Tempo
In cases where there is not an existing Smart Tempo Multitrack Set, selecting an audio file in the Smart Tempo Multitrack Set window and disabling the “Contribute to analysis” check box now causes the Update button to change to Analyze as expected.
Pressing the Space bar now immediately stops a Free Tempo recording.
Fixes an issue where projects previously open in the same Logic Pro session could unexpectedly affect “Contribute to Analysis” in the Smart Tempo editor.
Recording
Audio regions recorded to unnamed tracks now include the project name and track number in their name.
Mixer
The channel strip Stereo Pan control and the Pan menu now can be adjusted when Caps Lock is enabled.
Creating a single Multi-timbral Software Instrument in the New Track Sheet no longer creates two Software Instrument instances in the All view of the Mixer.
Resolves an issue where remaining tracks in a Multitimbral Software Instrument Track Stack could unexpectedly rename the channel strip.
Adjusting the activity status of a speaker in the Surround panner no longer causes the signal to unexpectedly mute.
Groups now immediately show as inactive when switched off for a selected set of channels in the Mixer.
Metering now correctly works on individual channel strips with plug-ins that send to more than two channels and are routed to a surround bus.
Option-clicking on a send in a selected group of channel strips now sets all corresponding sends to 0 dB as expected.
Fixes an issue where performing Undo after adjusting the fader values of grouped channels with Group Clutch enabled and then disabled could cause the faders to jump up to +6 dB when one member of the group is touched.
Setting multiple selected channels to No VCA now works as expected
Alchemy
The oscillator section in Alchemy offers a new Wide Unison mode.
All controls for Additive Effects now accept typed-in values as expected.
Values typed into parameters related to milliseconds (MS) in Acoustic Reverb are no longer interpreted as full seconds.
Resolves an issue where performance control destinations for modulation could show as duplicated.
Sampler, Quick Sampler, and Quick Alchemy
The Playback direction button in Quick Sampler now immediately updates when clicked.
The view now scrolls correctly when dragging the Trim marker in Sample Alchemy.
It is now possible to adjust the level of a group in Sampler up to +24 dB.
The Up/Down buttons for navigating zones in Sampler now remain available after adjusting the start or end positions of samples.
The general Zoom/Scroll key commands now can be used to trim the current view in Sample Alchemy.
Handles and Trim Handles in Sample Alchemy behave correctly when click-dragged, even when the plug-in window does not have focus.
The Ancient Vocal Chop and Baily Glide plug-in settings for Quick Sampler now open in Classic mode, as expected.
Plug-ins
The MIDI Scripter plug-in now shows in Logic Pro when running in dark mode.
Fixes an issue where clicking on Sampled IR in Space Designer could activate Synthesized IR mode unexpectedly.
Resolves an issue where repositioning the playhead could cause audio to cut out on channel strips that use Step FX.
The preset Note Repeater in Scripter now works as expected.
The wet/dry setting on Ringshifter is now always set to 100% wet when inserted on an Aux.
There's now a DI Delay Compensation switch in Bass Amp Designer to improve phase correlation when blending between Amp and Direct Box in the plug-in.
StepFX now includes presets using Sidechain.
The Beat Breaker preset called “Basic / 2 Slices, Speed 66%” no longer plays the slices at 50% speed instead of 66%.
Resolves an issue where ES2 could produce glitching sounds when using Sine Level or Poly Voice mode on Apple Silicon computers.
Mono > Stereo instances of Console EQ no longer can cause unexpected feedback.
Using the Delete all Automation key command while an Audio Unit window has key focus no longer causes the Audio Unit window to go blank.
The menu for the compression section of Phat FX can now be opened by clicking on the Up/Down arrows.
Beat Breaker now offers new default patterns divided evenly into 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 slices.
Mastering Assistant
There is no longer unexpected latency with bounces from projects that use the Clean or Clean + Excite mode in Mastering Assistant.
Mastering Assistant analysis is no longer incorrectly triggered in projects that contain no regions, but are previewing audio from Ultrabeat, etc.
Mastering Assistant no longer allows the -1 dBFS peak limit to be exceeded in certain cases.
Automation
The Consolidate Relative and Absolute for Visible / Automation menu item now only displays when automation types that support relative automation are active in the lane.
Region-based Automation is now pasted as Track-based Automation when pasted to an area of a track that does not contain regions.
Pitchbend now works as expected with zones in Sampler that do not have Flex Pitch enabled.
Selecting Region-based automation points on a region now deselects previously selected automation points on other regions
Disabling Region-Based Automation no longer dims the Power button for MIDI CC data lanes in the Piano Roll.
The movie window now updates to show the correct frame when moving Region-based automation points.
The Autoselect automation parameter now works as expected when clicking any plug-in control.
Automation of the Gain plug-in no longer exhibits unexpected latency.
Region-based automation is now drawn correctly when recorded into projects that start earlier than 1 1 1 1.
Automation lane views for all tracks are now maintained when switching into Flex view and then back to Automation view.
Flex Time and Flex Pitch
Flex Pitched notes now play as expected when clicked while Record or Input Monitoring is active on the track.
Flexed audio tracks using Monophonic or Slicing mode no longer produce clicks at tempo changes.
Takes and comping
Fade-ins are now applied when flatten and merge is performed on Comps.
Renaming a take that encompasses the entire length of an audio file no longer unexpectedly changes the file name.
Comps in Take Folders are now preserved when performing Cut Section Between Locators on a section that includes the end of one Take folder and the beginning of another, with a gap in-between.
Track Stacks
Record-arming a Track Stack now arms grouped audio tracks in a Track Stack it contains.
Dragging a subtrack out of a Track Stack that is assigned to a VCA now removes the assignment for the subtrack.
Fixes an issue where Track Stacks could sometimes be dimmed when some, but not all, subtracks are muted or off.
It's now possible to replace stacked instrument patches that are inside a Summing Stack with single track patches.
Track Alternatives
Loading a patch on a Summing Stack containing sub-tracks with Track Alternatives no longer causes inactive alternatives to be deleted.
Track Alternatives can now be created for the Stereo Output track.
Selection-Based Processing
Using Selection-Based Processing on a Marquee selected section within a Take Folder no longer creates an unexpected comp.
Selection-Based Processing on a comp now retains the comp.
Score
The spacing of notes is improved in cases where there is a dotted note on a line with the stem is pointing upward.
Command + Z to undo now works after deleting a Score Set.
Upward bends in TAB staves now display correctly.
Importing an instrument track no longer can cause Score Sets in the current project to disappear.
Imported Score Sets can now be deleted from a project.
Live Loops
“Join Region and Fill Cell” now works as expected.
Recording a performance in Live Loops now temporarily puts all tracks into Automation: Latch mode.
Fixes an issue where changing patches for a Live Loop track could cause the length of cells to change unexpectedly.
It's now possible to paste MIDI notes into a Live Loops cell.
Step Sequencer
It's now easier to use the disclosure triangle to open sub-rows in Step Sequencer.
Pattern regions now play back correctly immediately after being nudged.
Pattern Regions now immediately play as expected after using the Slip/Rotate tool to drag their contents to the left.
The “Separate pattern region by kit piece” command on Drum Machine Designer tracks is now applied to the correct area of the Pattern Region, in cases where the left border of the region has been moved to the right.
The length and number of steps of a newly created Pattern Region accounts for Time Signature changes correctly.
The maximum possible pattern length of a Pattern region is now 4 bars of the current time signature.
Step Sequencer now allows pattern lengths to be added based on 5/4 and 7/8 time signatures.
The Step Sequencer Inc/Dec controls now work in Loop Edit mode.
Fixes an issue where Pattern Regions on frozen tracks be edited unexpectedly.
Region-based automation now displays properly on Pattern regions in tracks that have been partially frozen, and on regions that have been frozen and then unfrozen.
It's now possible to assign MIDI channels per step in a Pattern Region.
MIDI
Reset messages for Software Instruments now work correctly.
Sustain messages are now sent correctly when playing back regions with Clip Length enabled in cycle mode.
There is now an “Internal MIDI in” setting in the Track Inspector to allow for recording MIDI from any other software instrument or External MIDI Instrument track.
The “Send all MIDI settings” key command now sends program changes to external devices assigned to empty tracks.
Resolves an issue where 3 bytes of random MIDI data would be sent when playing back regions containing SysEx data with MIDI 2.0 disabled
New 'internal MIDI in' feature allows recording of MIDI from other tracks, including MIDI FX plug-in output and 3rd party MIDI generators.
The “Delete MIDI events outside region boundaries" key command now correctly creates a starting CC event in the region to match the last matching CC of the same type in the track.
Fixes an issue where Chase could cut off notes that are preceded by notes of the same pitch on tracks with third-party instrument plug-ins.
Editing
The Humanize transform set now works as expected when the Randomize functions for Position, Length, or Velocity are set to very small values.
The menu item Delete and Move in the Event List is now only displayed if regions are displayed in the window.
When MIDI 2.0 is selected in the Settings, clicking on an Event in the Event List no longer plays events back with MIDI 1.0 resolution.
Fixes an issue where using the Cut command in the Audio Track Editor could switch the view to another editor.
When a region in the Project Audio window is double-clicked, the Audio Track editor now opens as expected.
The content link buttons for the Piano Roll and Score show the correct color as expected when toggled using the mouse.
The Event List correctly updates to reflect changes made by using key commands to select notes in other editors.
Resolves an issue where the Velocity tool in the Piano roll could affect the values of non-note events.
Fixes an issue where applying the Transform set Double Speed could cause the notes to disappear from the Piano Roll.
Step Input
Extending the length of note entered using Step Input now works correctly.
Global Tracks
Adding multiple audio Apple Loops of the same key to different tracks of a new project now changes the project key as expected.
Clicked in Tempo points are now placed at their correct positions in projects that start earlier than 1 1 1 1.
Share and export
When No Overlap is enabled, regions bounced onto existing regions no longer overlap them.
Audio files bounced from Logic Pro now include the proper Encoded Date in the metadata.
Fixes an issue where MIDI regions could be truncated when bounced in place.
Fixes an issue where audio files including Volume/Pan automation exported from mono tracks that use plug-ins could export as stereo files.
It is now possible to bounce sub-channels of multitimbral instrument tracks as individual files.
Import
Resolves an issue when dragging multiple audio files into a project, choosing the “Place all files on one track” option could create a second track and places the first file on one track, and the rest on the second.
Output channels in the Mixer can now be imported from other Logic Pro projects.
Apple Loops
The Loops browser now correctly shows the same enharmonic key an Apple Loop was tagged with.
Apple Loops now preview using the Key Signature active at the current position of the playhead.
It's now possible to add Aliases to bookmarks and untagged loops.
Dragging an Apple Loop from the loop browser to an existing track no longer changes the input for the track.
Fixes an issue where MIDI Apple Loops could jump to the start of the nearest bar position when dragged from the Loop Browser to the middle of a bar.
Video Support
A secondary screen that is running a full screen video with Show Animations off will no longer remain black after closing the project.
Key Commands
The “Increase (or Decrease) last clicked parameter” key commands now work for controls in the LCD.
The “Record off for all” key command now works on Software Instrument tracks in cases where one or more audio tracks are also record-enabled.
There is now a key command to add to the current selection of regions or cells that are assigned to a toggle solo group.
The Zoom Toggle key command now works in the Step Editor.
Compatibility
GarageBand projects that use Pitch Correction now sound the same when opened in Logic Pro.
Undo
If Undo is used immediately after creating a project, the New Track Sheet is displayed as expected rather than leaving a project with no tracks.
Undo/Redo now works as expected with Audio Unit v3 plug-ins.
Changing the Automation Mode, or changing a Track On/Off state now creates an Undo step.
Performing Undo after adding a surround track no longer corrects Drummer tracks in the project.
Logic Remote
Logic Remote immediately updates to show time and signature changes made in Logic Pro.
Control Surfaces and MIDI controllers
Controls on Control Surface devices that use Lua scripts now provide feedback when learning assignments for them in Logic Pro.
Illuminated buttons on control surfaces now show the correct state for Show/Hide Track Editor.
General
The LCD now displays the Cycle start and end times in both SMPTE time and Bars/Beats when the secondary ruler is displayed.
Search in the All Files browser now finds matching items in bookmarked folders.
Fixes an issue where the visible editor in the Main window could unexpectedly switch when rubber-band selecting regions.
Audio Take folders created in Cycle mode now loop as expected after recording when Loop is enabled in the Region Inspector.
It's now possible to create external MIDI tracks when Core Audio is disabled in Logic Pro.
Resolves an issue where deleting a Flex marker from an audio region while a Marker List is visible could switch the key focus to the Marker List.
Track information pasted into a text editor now includes the TIME position when the Use Musical Grid setting for the project is not enabled.
Input monitoring buttons are now displayed on audio tracks when Logic Pro has fallen back to an alternate audio device because the selected device is not available.
Previewing an audio region in the Project Audio window no longer causes it to jump to the top of the window.
Command+Option clicking on the On/Off button of a track now toggles the button for all tracks, as expected.
Copy/paste of regions now works when Automation view is enabled.
Right-clicking on a looped segment of a region now opens the contextual menu as expected.
It's now easier to see when black keys are depressed in the Musical Typing window.
The right arrow key now reliably moves the text cursor in the Bounce > Save As file name panel.
Groove Templates created from audio regions now work in Smart Quantize mode.
Dragging multiple regions from the same audio file from the Project Audio browser to the Tracks area now works correctly.
Audio regions are no longer moved to unexpected positions when trimming, if absolute Snap mode is on, and the region anchor is moved away from the start of the region
Fixes an issue where pasting a Marquee selection with No Overlap and Snap Edits to Zero Crossings mode enabled could delete a non-overlapping part of an existing region.
Autozoom now triggers when a region's upper right corner is dragged in the Main window, or the Audio Track Editor.
The Playhead no longer may briefly appear to be in the wrong position when zooming horizontally.
The Time Ruler now immediately updates to reflect changes made to the “Bar Position [bar position] plays at SMPTE” setting.
The File browser correctly shows the full path when using Save As.
submitted by bambaazon to Logic_Studio [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:58 ENGlaptops Best laptop for CATIA

https://engineeringlaptops.com/best-laptops-for-catia/
  1. ASUS Vivobook 16X Laptop ($1,199)
  2. Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio ($2,049)
  3. MSI Bravo 17 Laptop ($1,499)
  4. HP Victus 15.6″ Full HD 144Hz Gaming Laptop ($829)
  5. Dell Newest XPS 9710 Business Laptop ($1,899)
  6. Lenovo ThinkPad P15s Gen 2 Mobile Workstation ($949)
submitted by ENGlaptops to u/ENGlaptops [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 14:27 Angel466 [Bob the hobo] A Celestial Wars Spin-Off Part 1011

PART ONE THOUSAND AND ELEVEN
[Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2]
Sunday
“Daaaaddy!”
Levi groaned, for the shouting whine from his bedside dragged him kicking and screaming out of sleep in a way no other alarm could. Only two other sounds garnered a faster reaction from him: someone vomiting right beside him or his baby girl screaming in either pain or fear.
He opened one eye, wondering if someone had ever made an alarm that sounded like either of those last two. Parents everywhere would never sleep in again, so maybe not.
A blurry red-headed vision was so close that he could smell her morning breath as it tickled his nose. “Heeey,” he yawned, pulling away enough to bring her back into focus. “What’s up, Peaches?”
He didn’t recognise the room they were in. Not even a little bit. He sat up fast and looked around, causing Maddy to let out an ‘eep’ of fright. “Daddy! You made some come out!”
And then the events of the night before came crashing in: the party, the knowledge that his roommate was going to have the kind of company Maddy didn’t need to see, the invitation to stay in Luke’s old room, and Maddy’s late-night escapades after he’d dropped like a rock after doing a double shift to make it to the party.
He saw Maddy’s uncomfortable wiggle-dance and the strained look on her face and remembered he’d locked the door. “Oh!” He flew out of bed, scooping her up in the process. If he ended up getting peed on, it was his own fault for not setting an alarm for his baby girl’s tiny bladder.
He unlocked the door and dove around the corner, willing to go through the shut bathroom door if he had to, but thankfully found the room open and vacant. Then he flipped the toilet lid before depositing her on the ground in front of the toilet. He immediately pivoted away, not because he was embarrassed by her but because Maddy had grown old enough not to like him watching her go to the toilet. She was starting to get antsy about her bath, too, but until she could adequately bathe herself and not merely play with her bath toys the whole time, that was a hard ‘don’t care’ line.
“Do you want to have a bath, baby, or wait until we get home?” he asked, crossing the room to hold the door almost shut to prevent anyone else from seeing her either.
“I don’t got clothes, Daddy,” she answered like he was an idiot.
Word choice aside, the sentiment was true. They’d borrowed the shirt she was wearing from Charlie. “Well, we need to figure something out, Peaches, because you are not leaving this house in only a nightgown and no underwear.” He’d send Charlotte out to buy her some clothes if he had to.
He heard the toilet flush and Maddy move up behind him, and turned long before she could touch him. “Three guesses what I didn’t hear, young lady?” he asked with a paternal frown. He pointed at the vanity when she looked up at him without a clue.
“But I can’t reach!”
“Then what are you supposed to do?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Daddy, c’n you help?”
He then smiled. “Better.” He put a hand on top of her head and spun her towards the vanity before guiding her forward. After they crossed the room, he loosened the faucet without turning it on and curled his hands around her waist, lifting her high enough that she could lean over the sink. She washed her hands, rinsing them thoroughly, then scooped the water and let it fall over the faucet before turning it off. Not that water alone would wash away the ‘germs’ of the initial contact, but the sentiment was there. Her mother had been a nurse, after all.
“Is Mister Larry still here?”
“I don’t know, baby. But how about we go and see if we can track down either Aunty Charlotte or Robbie and figure out where we’re at, okay?”
“We’re in Uncle Luke’s and Aunty Charlotte’s home,” she said, again like he was an idiot.
That had been a rather stupid thing to say to a three-and-a-half-year-old. “Alright, Miss Smarty-pants. And what are we going to eat for breakfast in Uncle Luke and Aunty Charlotte’s home if we can’t find them to ask them, hmm?”
“Food, silly.”
Clearly, he was going to have to up his game in parental rhetorical questions. Gone were the days when she’d take him at his word, and she was only three. Thirteen was going to be fun. “Right,” he muttered, shaking his head as he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
While holding Maddy’s hand, he peeked in the open door across the hall from the bathroom and saw a very plain bedroom in terms of the rest of the apartment’s décor. At first, he’d thought it was a guest room until he remembered the teenage kid Robbie had recently adopted. This was probably his room.
He’d seen Charlotte and Robbie’s room the day they moved Charlotte in here, so a quick glance to confirm the room was empty was all he needed on that score. That left two doors on the right. And since both were close together, with the one on the left barely a couple of feet from the other and the front wall separating the living room, Levi was willing to assume the second one was a half-bath or a powder room or something. He went to the second door and knocked.
“Yeah?” Mason called from inside.
Levi opened the door and poked his head inside. “Hey, you wouldn’t by any chance happen to know where Robbie or Charlotte are, would you?”
Mason was at his desk, drowning in paperwork, it seemed. “Robbie, no,” he said, shaking his head. "As for Charlie, I’d try her office next door, between us and Boyd’s studio. She has a massive garage refit happening soon, so last I checked, she was in there getting things ready.”
The emphasis on his sister’s preferred name wasn’t lost on him. A sharp, jarring motion to his right caught his eye, and he saw something that really belonged in a space program somewhere.
“What the hell is that?” he demanded, ducking down low enough to see Robbie’s adoptee with his eyes glued on whatever was going on overhead and his fingers typing in a blur of speed.
“Naughty word, Daddy!”
Mason snickered at Levi’s slow blink. “It’s a gaming system courtesy of Robbie’s family. The damn thing is very addictive, though, and I haven’t told Brock that there’s a screen you pull down from inside the headset to cover your eyes that takes the game into 3D playing.”
Levi whistled. “I don’t even want to know how much that costs.”
“I know, and this Sectra table here is up there too,” Mason agreed, gesturing at the electronic display beside him. “But it certainly makes learning a lot more fun.” He tilted his head forward. “Isn’t that right, bunny?”
Bunny?
Maddy leaned into Levi’s leg, but she was grinning ear to ear when she nodded. “I wanna be a vert when I grow up,” she declared, looking up at him.
“Vet, baby,” Mason corrected. “We’re vets. Sounds like “bet’ and ‘get’ and ‘set’.”
“Vet,” Maddy repeated.
“There ya’ go. Step one is getting the name right.” He glanced up at Levi, his cheeky grin on full display. “Step two is getting Daddy to save up for the rest of his life to pay for the classes.”
“I hate you,” Levi whisper-smirked, and Mason pursed his lips in a cocky air-kiss.
Still shaking his head, Levi waved at Mason and left the room, leading Maddy through the kitchen and living room and into the hallway outside. For so many years, his baby brother and their friends had crushed themselves into that ninth-floor horror show, and no amount of pleading from everyone would budge Luke. Not pressure from their parents nor peer guilt from his brothers, who refused to bring their families over to the cramped space.
Charlo—Charlie was the only one who visited regularly, and at the time, he’d put it down to her being skinny, single with no kids, so she could squeeze into whatever gap she found. He knew who she was really visiting now, and Robbie had better be ready for the mother of all guilt trips coming from the family to make an honest woman of their sister. Nascerdios descended or not, he’d be a dead man if he broke her heart.
Thinking about his little brother’s relationship with all these men, it was like Luke knew the payoff was just around the corner. People like them didn’t live like this.
Well, Maverick kind of did, but he’d worked hard for what he had and could rattle off his list of sporting injuries to prove it. Robbie and Sam had simply taken a running dive off the world’s highest diving platform and landed in the kind of wealth the rich and shameless could only dream about.
Luke—Lucas was lucky in a different way. Yes, his friendship with Robbie and Sam had certainly opened the right doors financially, but what Levi had seen of Boyd’s work yesterday, the big guy was well on his way to becoming his own type of rich; much like Mav did for his family. And like Marley, Lu—ucas wouldn’t have to work a day again in his life if he didn’t want to. (Though he had just made detective and loved his job, so Levi couldn’t see him quitting anytime soon.)
He knocked on the closed door. “Come in,” Charlie called, proving Mason right. And like Mason, she was sitting behind a desk covered in paperwork with a phone cradled against her shoulder.
“Aunty Charlotte, we’re hungry!” Maddy declared, and Levi closed his eyes to hide from his sister’s evil chuckle.
“Well, we can’t have that, sweetie,” she said, and he heard the phone click as it was dropped onto the receiver. "Daddy gets very grumpy when he’s hungry.”
“It’s not the only reason he gets cranky,” he said, opening one eye a slit to give his baby sister the stink eye.
Charlie cackled and slid out from behind her desk. “C’mon. Robbie has your breakfast all ready for you in Voila.”
“We didn’t want to start going through things and guessing what we could eat,” Levi explained as they backtracked to the main apartment.
“That’s fine. Grab a seat—any seat,” she said, gesturing to the line of kitchen barstool chairs as she moved through the living room. She headed around the island and over to the box under the window without checking if they had.
Levi wasn’t thrilled about the height of the barstool chairs off the floor. “Do you have a belt or something I could use to tie Maddy in?”
Charlie swung around to him. “Oh! Oh, yeah! Hold on.” She slipped around the island and down her side of the apartment, coming back from her room with the kind of square booster seats that could be found in a restaurant. “Robbie ducked out and got this for her this morning.”
Levi scratched his head as the booster was attached to the second chair along the front of the island. “Where’d he get that from at this hour?”
Charlie looked at him derisively. “This is Robbie, bro. You know he’s got connections all over the place.”
It killed Levi not to ask for more details, but given it was probably either connected to the Nascerdios or, more likely, a wealthy former client in the city that still looked favourably upon Robbie, he hadn’t wanted Maddy to overhear the specifics of the latter. Too many times, his little girl had asked Robbie about different ‘gifts’ he’d been given by clients and how she had wanted to do whatever he did to get presents like that. ‘Over my dead body’ had been his mental declaration.
Maddy was pulling on his boxers. “Up, Daddy,” she said, holding her hands over her head for him.
Levi lifted her into the seat, and then buckled her in. In the meantime, Charlie went back to that wooden box, lifting the lid. “Robbie has this gift with food, so assume everything in the place is for you to eat, because it probably is.”
“Not everything,” Levi countered at Maddy’s wild squeal of delight. He gave her hand a firm squeeze. “Do not take anything without asking, young lady, or you’ll be in big trouble.”
“But Daddy…”
“It’s Daddy’s call, Maddy,” Charlie said, backing his play. She turned, holding a plate with two fist-sized Minnie Mouse-shaped waffles (the bow between the ears made it Minnie) with some type of white marshmallow fluff spread across them and a honey drizzle that drew perfect facial features on each. “Here’s breakfast for one cute-as-a-button Dobson,” she said with a flourish, sliding the plate in front of Maddy and pulling out a children’s stubby fork from the cutlery drawer.
“It’ll have to be cut u—” The words died in Levi’s throat as Maddy stabbed the nearest piece, and it broke into a small, bite-sized piece that Maddy happily popped into her mouth.
“Imma bi’ ’irl,” she said, in and around her food.
Levi tapped her nose. “Big girls don’t talk with their mouths full, Peaches.”
When he glanced at Charlie, she’d gone back to the box and returned with a dinner plate of fluffy scrambled eggs on two pieces of toast with cheese and bacon, and three sausages cut almost in half longways on the side. She nodded at the seat beside Maddy, then slid the plate into the empty spot at the end. “Siddown, bro.”
He might have whimpered a little on the first bite as Charlie went and poured them both a glass (technically, Maddy got a plastic tumbler) of citrus juice (not orange), leaving the jug on the bench between them. “Help yourselves to as much juice as you want. Even if you wipe this whole jug out, there's plenty more.”
“This is really awesome, Charlie. Thanks.”
Charlie placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder as she moved around the island into the hallway. “Anytime, Levi. But now I’ve gotta love you and leave you. There’s a mountain of work to get through in my office, so are you good here?”
“Totally. Thanks again, sis.”
As she walked out the door, Maddy held out a piece of her waffle to him. “Try?”
Waffles were usually too sweet for his blood, but this was the game he’d set up with her a long time ago to make her at least attempt to eat new foods. He couldn’t very well expect her to eat what he wanted her to if, now and again, he didn’t reciprocate the motion.
The honey and marshmallow whip (which tasted nothing like the jar-bought type) melted into the perfectly heated/not-too-hot waffle, giving it a sweet crunch as if it had just come out of the waffle iron. His surprise must have been written all over his face, for Maddy giggled, and he grinned. “That’s yummy.”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she hummed, just as he always had when a new food passed the initial taste test.
[Next Chapter]
* * *
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!
submitted by Angel466 to redditserials [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 10:29 Macca281016 Laptop had a bluescreen, but is seemingly fine now. Is it fine and do I need to do anything?

Laptop had a bluescreen, but is seemingly fine now. Is it fine and do I need to do anything?
My laptop is a Dell XPS 15 9500 and I have owned it since September 2021. It runs Windows 11 Home with OS build 22631.3447. It has given me basically no problems in that time (except one which I'll mention at the end) and has done me well.
A few weeks ago I tried to shut down my computer as I always do after I'm done using it for the day, and it came up with a box saying "are you sure you want to shut down, this app is still running". It had an option to shut down or cancel. I pressed cancel but it just left me with a backlit dark screen. I pressed the power button and the backlit went away, then I tried to turn it on again and the backlit dark screen came back. I then held down the power button to force shut it down and it prompted me with the "drag down to shut down". I did that and it shut down and I was then able to start the computer again and it turned on as normal.
In the next week or so I went about my business with my laptop, continuing to shut it down as I normally do, and it was basically fine, although I had noticed that when I was turning on the laptop it was taking a few seconds longer to come to the lock screen after the windows start up logo than is usually does. I didn't think much of this, and I guess am unsure if I should now. Anyway. Last week I was using my laptop and had google chrome open with quite a few tabs up and I had a word document open as well and was alt + tab'ing between the two as I have always done. Then mid typing on the word document my laptop got the blue screen seen below (this is just a pic from google not a screenshot or photo):
https://preview.redd.it/0a7olopvj50d1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=c71857acd67f14713e1fff96b9392375482b3734
It then proceeded to try and restart but came to this screen:
https://preview.redd.it/f0tzzipdk50d1.png?width=698&format=png&auto=webp&s=632eb49e8733001a13ea9b173004098d47eb6f30
I pressed restart my PC, and it went to the windows logo loading screen with the spinning wheel and it worked. I was back at my lock screen and could open my computer. It has been a week or so since this has happened, and the laptop seems to run fine. I haven't installed anything weird and I haven't really dropped my computer or done any major physical damage to it. Now about the one problem I mentioned at the start, I do believe this recovery screen has come up once before a few years ago when I was opening the computer just normally but yeah just a one time random occurrence. So I'm a bit confused. Is this a sign of the laptop dying? Is there anything I can do to prevent this happening again or check whether there is something wrong with the laptop (I have backed up my important stuff since these occurrences)? Or is this just a pure random unlucky occurrence that has no real implications? Any advice would be great.
Thanks.
submitted by Macca281016 to WindowsHelp [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 00:12 Trash_Tia A dead boy has been hunting me down my whole life. On my 18th birthday, I finally understand why.

I've always been bound to death.
On my eighth birthday, a shadow strode into my house and shot me and my family dead. I remember it vividly, every detail, every angle, etched and stained and carved into my memory.
I sat very still with my knees to my chest, my gaze glued to my siblings.
Lily and PJ looked like they were sleeping, and I could almost believe it.
I didn't look at the shadow.
From the comfort of my knees, I waited for my brother to lift his head.
But his body was so limp, so still, every part of him faltering. My sister’s head was nestled in his shoulder, thick beads of red running down her face.
They're just sleeping.
I could tell myself they were— as long as I didn't look at the splatter of scarlet staining the back of the couch and pooling at their feet.
BANG.
Mom’s body dropped onto the ground.
I lunged forwards, slamming my hands over my ears.
BANG.
PJ’s head slumped forwards, a teasing smile still frozen on his lips.
BANG.
Lily gently tipped into PJ, like she was going to sleep.
Before she closed her eyes, Mom told me to run.
I can't remember how long I stayed under the shattered remnants of Mom’s favorite table. The shadow was waiting for me to move, to make a noise.
I watched booted feet crunch through glass, getting closer and closer, and slowly, fight or flight began to take over.
Making it halfway across the living room, my palms slick with my mother’s blood, I thought I was going to live.
Cruel fingers wound their way through my hair and shoved me to my knees. I remember the phantom legs of a spider creeping down the back of my neck when the shadow with no face dragged the barrel of his gun down my spine.
“Turn around.”
The shadow had a voice.
When I didn't move, the protruding metal stabbed into my neck.
“Turn around, kid!”
I did, very slowly.
Behind him, my siblings still weren't moving.
They were asleep.
Lily was still smiling, strawberry blonde ringlets stained red.
I couldn't see PJ’S face anymore.
BANG.
I didn't feel the gunshot.
I didn't feel anything.
Looking down, I glimpsed slowly spreading red blossoming like a flower.
It felt like being cut from strings.
I hit the ground, just like my mother, my body felt heavy and wrong.
Paralysed.
I remember being unable to scream, unable to cry, the salty taste of metal filling my mouth. It was like being winded. Rolling onto my side, all I could see was flickering candlelight.
The air was thick, so hard to breathe.
I rolled onto my back trying to suck in air.
The shadow took a step back, opened the front door, and bled into the night.
I don't remember the pain, and I don't remember dying. I couldn't breathe, couldn't conjure words in my mouth.
I felt warm and sticky, lying in my own blood.
I think I tried to move.
But I was so tired.
I’m not sure what death feels like, because it's like going to sleep.
I remember my last shuddering breaths, a lulling darkness beginning to swallow me up. I don't know why I wasn't afraid.
Oblivion almost felt like I was sinking into lukewarm depths on a Summer’s day.
Oblivion wasn't pain, and there was a peaceful inevitability to it.
It was endless nothing, a nothing I found myself gravitating towards. But before I could envelope myself in that darkness, it was spitting me back out.
The next thing I knew, I was in a white room, a slow beeping sound tearing me from slumber. I had a vague memory of slow spreading roses blossoming across my shirt, like summer flowers blooming.
Everything was white.
The walls, the ceiling, and my clothes.
Sensation hit me in slow waves.
Exhaustion.
I felt it tightening its grip around my brain, dragging me back onto a mountain of pillows when I tried to jump up. My Aunt May was sitting next to me on a plastic chair, her warm fingers entangled in mine. Aunt May and Mom were practically twins, with the same thick red hair and pale skin.
Mom wore her hair in a casual ponytail, while May preferred a strict bun.
I had to bite back the urge to yank my hand away.
Aunt May was asleep, used tissues filling her lap.
There was a nurse pottering around, checking my vitals and prodding my arms. My eyes felt heavy. I had to blink several times to keep myself awake.
“Charlie?”
The nurse’s voice was like wind-chimes.
I pretended not to notice her forced lipstick smile, the way she stood with her arms folded, staring at me like I was one of my cousin’s experiments. “You were in an accident, sweetie,” the nurse spoke up. I could see her trembling hands. “Just, um, try and rest, okay?”
I wanted to ask where my family was, but I already knew the answer.
I think she knew that too.
“You died, Charlie.” The nurse’s voice was eerily cold. “You were dead for thirteen minutes.”
She took slow steps towards me, her eyes growing frenzied, like she couldn't understand me, like I was a puzzle she could not solve– and it was driving her crazy. I could see it in her twitching hands, her wobbling lips that were trying and failing to appear stoic.
“In fact, I just pulled you out of the morgue, honey. I opened up your body bag that I had just zipped up, and told your aunt that you were a miracle I just… can’t understand.” The nurse sounded like she was trying to choke down a laugh, or maybe a sob.
“Charlotte, you were pronounced dead at 3:02am from a gunshot wound to the chest.” Taking a slow, sobering breath, the nurse tried to smile. “The bullet went through the right ventricle of your heart and severely damaged your left lung, rendering you unable to breathe. Your heart stopped, and after four attempts to resuscitate, we called it.”
Something slimy wound its way up my throat when she began to pace the room. “I… did all the paperwork. It took me two minutes. Your death certificate was signed, and your body was taken to the morgue to be prepped for transportation. Then I had my lunch. Tuna salad with a protein milkshake. I’m not a fan of the chocolate flavor.”
She shook her head. “Anyway, when I came back to you, you were awake inside your body bag.” Her voice was starting to break. “You were…um, alive, and asked me for apple soda.”
The nurse moved closer, and yet kept her distance.
I could feel myself moving back, panic writhing through me.
“So.” The nurse spoke calmly. “How the fuck are you still alive, Charlie?”
I think I passed out after that.
When I woke up again, my head a lot less heavier, the nurse was gone.
Slowly, my foggy brain began to find itself and connect dots.
My mouth was dry, full of cotton.
There was a sudden tightness, a sharp and cruel sting in my wrists.
Something sharp was protruding into my flesh, and no matter how many times I violently wrenched my arm, it was stuck. It didn't feel right to be able to breathe so easily.
I knew the second I woke that my Mom was dead.
Lily and PJ were dead, and it was like losing them all over again.
As clarity came over me, I found my voice, a strangled cry escaping my lips.
“Get it out.” I whispered in a shrill cry.
Tugging at the IV in my wrist, I tried to yank the needle from my skin.
“Get it out!” I shrieked, my gaze glued to the tiny spots of blood staining the insertion point.
I could see it again.
So much blood.
Mom was curled up on the floor, lying in slow spreading red that wouldn't stop, seeping across her beaded rug.
She was all over me, slick on my skin and caked in my fingernails.
I couldn't wash her off of me.
“You're okay, Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice came from my right, stabling me to reality.
The world started to move again, started to make sense again, when she cupped my cheeks and told me to breathe. When I opened my mouth to ask where my family were, she lightly shook her head and I swallowed my words. Aunt May handed me a glass of water, and I drained it in one gulp.
She told me I was a miracle.
Aunt May didn't say much, and when she did, she broke into sobs.
Her eyes were raw from crying, clinging onto me, her shuddery voice reassuring me that I was going to be okay.
She told me I would be living with her from now on, before wrapping me into a hug and leaving to get coffee.
Once my aunt was gone, another nurse came to prod my IV.
I tried to sleep, but the uncomfortable tightness of the needle sticking into my skin and the sterile white lights in my eyes made it impossible. I waited for grief to catch up with me, drowning me in a hollow oblivion I wouldn't be able to claw myself out of. But I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel angry.
I wanted to know why my family were dead.
I wanted to know why I was breathing, and their skin was ice cold.
Rotting.
The sudden image of maggots crawling up my brother’s nose sent me lurching into a sitting position, my stomach heaving. Reaching for my glass of water, it was empty. The sensation of throwing up felt familiar, almost comforting.
Mom was always with me when I was sick, holding my hair back and lulling my hysteria with reassuring murmurs.
I was frowning at the trash can by the door, my cotton candy brain trying to figure out if I would be able to make it in time, when a small voice drifted from the doorway, startling me.
“I don't want you to come live with us.”
My cousin was peeking through the door, hiding behind a shock of dark brown curls. Jude was the only brunette in our family. The rest of us were redheads.
I wasn't sure why he was dressed up like a ghost, draped in a white cloak that was way too big for him. Jude was a weird kid. His mother, and my auntie, had inherited the family house, so in his mind, that made him superior.
Jude made it clear he didn't like his cousins, refusing to let us play with him and banning us from family gatherings.
When the adults were drinking cocktails and losing their awareness, Jude ordered us around. The times we did play with him, our cousin showed us his spider collection, or the raccoon brain he kept in a jar. PJ was convinced our younger cousin was a serial killer. Several months earlier, he'd happily showed us the roadkill he'd been growing bacteria on under his bed.
Jude’s ‘experiments’ were worrying.
He stuffed mushrooms down my brother’s ears while he was sleeping, to, and I quote, “Recreate The Last Of Us.”
When Lily had a nosebleed during Thanksgiving dinner, Jude collected all her bloody tissues and refused to tell us where he'd put them, and what he had done with them. Fast-forward two months, and I found them under a nest of spiders. Jude was trying to adapt the spiders to be able to feed on human blood. I was surprised my cousin hadn't immediately demanded to see my siblings’ dead bodies for autopsy.
Jude stepped into the room, shuffling his feet.
“I'm sorry about Lily, PJ, and Aunt Ivy.” He mumbled, glaring at the floor tiles.
My cousin made no move to offer real sympathy, instead speaking to the floor.
“But I don't want you to come live with us.” Jude lifted his head, looking me dead in the eye. “I don't like you, Charlie. I want you to stay away.”
Before I could reply, he stepped back like I was diseased.
“You should be dead.” Jude grumbled.
He scowled at me, getting my age purposely wrong as usual before running off.
“Happy 68th birthday.”
I was six months older than him.
In Jude’s eyes, I was ready for retirement.
Still, though, my cousin was right.
I was stone cold dead, and then I was somehow alive.
Which was wrong.
Growing up, I realized Death was not so subtly attempting to fix his mistake.
It started small. I'd choke on things I wasn't supposed to choke on.
Chips.
Candy.
Ice cream.
Aunt May had to perform the heimlich manoeuvre when I choked on a piece of chicken. I thought I was just really unlucky, but then I locked myself in a freezer that didn't have a lock, and almost drowned in the local swimming pool, catching my foot in stray netting.
At the summer fair, Jude convinced me to try apple bobbing, only for my head to conveniently get stuck underwater.
It started to make sense.
I was supposed to die with my family that night, and death was out to get me.
Death started to get clever, changing his tactic. Instead of using everyday things to try to kill me, he sent reinforcements.
I turned twelve years old, and my aunt threw me a huge party, inviting all my classmates. Aunt May was rich, rich.
Mom never explained it, but our grandparents left everything to May.
The house was like a palace, a labyrinth of floors I was yet to explore, and two swimming pools.
I was in the kitchen cutting myself a slice of cake, when, out of nowhere, a dead boy came rushing at me with one of my aunt’s favorite kitchen knives.
A dead boy who I immediately recognised.
Wren Oliver.
Several years prior, he'd gone missing from his parents' yard. The town launched a full investigation, only to find his body in a ditch a week later.
So, Death had sent a footsoldier.
Hiding under a hooded sweatshirt, Wren appeared older, like he had grown up with me. But there was a startling vacancy in his expression that drew the breath from my lungs, freezing me in place. Wren’s death was announced as an accident, though his wounds suggested the opposite, dried blood smearing his right temple and a cavernous hole in his chest, his clothes painted, stained, in bright red, glued in sticky mounds clinging to him.
The boy’s eyes were wild, feral, like an animal.
His hair was longer, a mess of reddish curls matted to his forehead.
Lip split into a demented giggle.
I remember taking a slow step back, my gaze glued to the knife.
Wren’s fingers were wrapped around the handle like he knew exactly how to use it, how to plunge it into my heart and kill me for good. He moved like a predator, zero self awareness or recognition, only driven to kill me.
The dead boy prided himself in slow, intimidating steps, shoving me against the wall and dragging the blade of the knife down the curve of my throat.
His eyes confused me, writhing with hatred that was artificial, programmed into him as Death’s official soldier.
He didn't speak, only smiled, revelling in my fear. I could tell it thrilled him, my trembling hands, my sharp, heavy breaths I couldn't control. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited to finally die.
I waited for the pain, and to lose my breath once again.
But death was playing with me.
When I opened my eyes, the dead boy was gone, and I was on my knees, screaming.
“Wren Oliver is trying to kill me!" I managed to hiss.
My aunt knelt in front of me, her expression crumpling.
*Sweetie,” She spoke softly, squeezing my hands. Aunt May was trying to appear calm for my sake, but I could tell she was scared, her frantic eyes searching mine. “Wren Oliver is dead.”
The kids surrounding me started to giggle, whispering among themselves.
In the corner of my eye, my cousin was leaning against the door, mid eye roll.
When my aunt was ushering kids back to the pool, Jude came to crouch in front of me. Ever since I started living with him, he'd made sure to keep his distance.
This time, though, Jude leaned uncomfortably close, a sparkle in his eyes I had never seen before. Inclining his head, he rocked back and forth on his heels, prodding me in the forehead.
“If you see the dead boy again, can you tell me?” His lips curved into a smile.
“I did see him.” I gritted out. “I’m not lying.”
Jude shrugged. “I never said you didn't,” he lowered his voice into a whisper, “I wanna know when you see him again.”
“Why?”
His lips curved into a smirk.
“So, I can catch him.”
My cousin got closer, his breath tickling my cheek.
“I seeeeeeee dead people.”
After that incident, death left me alone for a while.
I was fifteen, walking through the forest with a friend, catching fireflies in bell jars. Aunt May was lucky to live so close to the forest, the entrance just outside her back door. When we were littles, PJ would drag Lily and I down the trail to escape Jude’s weird experiments.
I decided to invite Jem Littlewood on a summer walk.
Jem was cute, but in a dorky way. He was chronically clumsy, and dressed like he'd been spat out of a John Hughes movie. We hiked all the way to the end of the river and had a picnic, watching the sun set over the horizon. I was having conflicting feelings for this guy.
Jem was obsessed with fireflies.
Though he seemed more interested in photographing them than me.
The guy couldn't seem to sit still, jumping to his feet to marvel at tiny specks of light dancing in the air.
“I'm just going to take photos!” Jem beamed, holding up his camera.
I had to bite back the urge to say, “Don't you have enough photos?”
I nodded, and he turned and sprinted back down the trail.
Before his footsteps ground to a sudden halt.
At first, I thought he was snapping polaroids.
When I got closer, though, blinking in the eerie dark, I caught something.
Bending down, I picked up a bell jar still spilling fireflies.
Further down the trail, Jem was lying crumpled in the dirt, his camera smashed to pieces next to him, blood running in thick rivulets down his temple. There he was. Leaning against a tree, his arms folded, was the ghost boy. Wren Oliver was growing up with me. Now, a teenager, and yet his face was carved into something else entirely, more of a monster, slight points to his ears and too-sharp teeth, eyes ignited.
Wren didn't look like a ghost boy anymore.
Death had dressed him in shackles of ivy, a crown of glass and bone forced onto his head, entangled in his curls. Death was torturing him.
Wren’s body was its canvas, and every time I got away, he was punished, painting his failures across scarred skin.
I should have been running for my life, but I was mesmerised by each symbol cruelly carved into his neck.
The boy did a slow head incline, like he couldn't believe I was standing in front of him.
His slow spreading smile caught me off guard.
I remembered how to run, stumbling over my feet.
But I couldn't move.
The burning hatred that death had filled him with, was stronger, hollowing him out completely. I managed two shaky steps, before I felt him, an unearthly force winding its way around my spine. This time, he didn't hesitate.
I watched his mouth move, a single curve of his upper lip that wrenched my body from my control, slamming me against a tree. There was something around my throat, choking the breath from my lungs, a thick fog spreading over my eyes.
Following his mouth curving into silent letters, I could feel my feet slowly leaving the ground, my legs dangling.
I was floating.
Hovering off of the ground, suspended by his words.
Through half lidded eyes, I caught the glint of a blade between his fist, but I couldn't move, couldn't scream.
He was drowning me, bleeding into my blood, spider webbing and expanding in my brain without moving a muscle.
Instead, the ghost boy stood silently, running his thumb down the teeth of his knife while he ripped my lungs apart.
It was like suffocating, sinking into that peaceful oblivion I met at eight years old.
This time, though, the darkness was starving.
“Charlie?”
My eyes found daylight, a scream clawing out of my mouth.
“Charlie, it's past curfew!”
Wren flinched, his stoic expression crumpling.
The dead boy’s lips moved again, this time in a curse.
Fuck.
“Charlotte!”
Staggering back, Wren’s eyes widened and the suffocating hold on me severed.
His head snapped in the direction my aunt was coming from.
“Charlie, answer me right now.”
He hesitated, his bare feet pivoting in the dirt, like he was considering finishing me off. Wren studied me with lazy eyes, sucking on his bottom lip. When my aunt's footsteps got louder, branches snapping under her shoes, something contorted in the boy’s face.
Fear.
I guessed the boy wasn't expecting other humans to intrude.
Wren fell over himself, shuffling on his hands and knees, before diving to his feet. When he turned and ran, I was released, slipping to the ground, trying and failing to draw in breath. I barely felt the impact, only a dull thudding pain. I could hear the ghost boy’s footsteps, his uneven, shuddery breaths as he catapulted into a run.
Under a late setting sun, I watched his dancing shadow disappear into the trees.
Mission unsuccessful, I guessed.
When I was fully conscious, Aunt May was checking over Jem, helping him sit up.
“Where did he go?” I managed to get out, scanning the darkness for Wren.
“He's okay, just concussed.” May whispered, dialling 911.
My aunt applied a dressing to Jem’s wound, ignoring the boy’s hisses.
“Keep still.” she murmured, smoothing his bandaid. “What happened, Charlotte?”
“She pushed me over.” Jem groaned, shuffling away from me. When my aunt told him to stay calm, he straightened up, leaning against the tree. “The psycho bitch tried to fucking kill me!”
When my aunt's gaze flicked to me, I shook my head.
“It was Wren Oliver.” I gritted, teetering on hysteria. I could tell she didn't believe me, but I couldn't stop myself.
I prodded at my throat, clawing for the indentations where his phantom fingers snaked around my neck, squeezing the breath from my lungs.
But there was nothing.
I could feel my mind starting to unravel. I nodded to my disgruntled classmate trying to dodge my aunt’s prodding.
“Ow, ow, ow! That stings!
“He knocked Jem out.” I managed. “Then he tried to kill me.”
Jem surprised me with a scoff. “You're seriously blaming your psychotic break on a dead kid?”
Aunt May pursed her lips, motioning for Jem to be quiet. Judging from her face, however, she agreed with the boy.
May forced a smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. “Okay. Can you, uh, describe the boy to me, Charlotte?”
“He was wearing a crown,” I said, “And he looked my age.”
Aunt May cocked her head, and I saw real worry, like she was trying not to freak out. Jem made a snorting noise.
“I'm sorry, he was wearing a crown?”
“Yes!” I insisted, getting progressively more frustrated.
I tried to jump up, only for my aunt to gently lower me back down. “I know it sounds crazy, but death has sent Wren Oliver to kill me, just like my family. He tried to kill me when I was twelve, too!”
Jem let out a bitter laugh. “Your niece is a fucking wackadoodle.”
Aunt May’s eyes darkened. She grabbed my shoulders, her nails stabbing into my skin. “Charlie, I want you to listen to me, okay?” When my eyes found the rapidly darkening sky, my aunt forced me to look at her.
“Charlotte!”
She was as scared as me, her voice shuddering.
“Wren Oliver is dead.” My aunt said firmly, shaking me. Even then, though, I wasn't even looking at her. I was trying to find his ignited eyes lighting up the dark. “Wren died at eight years old in a terrible accident, and you can't keep using him as an excuse for your mental trauma.” There was something twitching in her expression I was trying to make sense of. When I risked a look at Jem, the boy was staring at me dazedly– like I really was crazy.
Aunt May pressed her face into my shoulder, and I could feel her tears soaking into my shirt. She was trying to hold it together, trying to understand.
“Charlie, I know you lost your family,” she whispered. “But you and Wren Oliver are not the same. You survived, and he didn't.” Her voice splintered.
“You need to come to terms with that, okay?”
When I didn't respond, she pinched my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice turned cold. “I ignored this when you were a kid, but if you continue to use this poor boy as a coping mechanism, I will have no choice but to send you to a specialist.”
When Jem was taken away by paramedics, Aunt May held my hand, squeezing my fingers for dear life.
I caught her gaze scanning the tree's around us, delving into twisting oblivion. Every little noise sent her twisting around. She was looking for something.
“I'm going to get you help.” Aunt May said in a low murmur when we were back at the house. Jude was sitting on the kitchen counter, legs swinging. I could feel his penetrating gaze burning into the back of my head.
Aunt May set a cup of cocoa on the table.
“No more fairytales.”
By the time I was eighteen, I had bitten three therapists.
They refused to believe that death was coming to reclaim my soul, and was using a dead boy to do his dirty work.
For my 16th birthday, I braced myself to come face to face with Wren Oliver’s ghost.
I wasn't even in town, staying at a friend's house.
But dead boys, and especially dead boys moulded into Death’s personal soldiers, could materialise anywhere.
I locked every door in the house, and taped up my friend’s window.
Nothing happened.
On my seventeenth birthday, I was sick in bed with gastritis.
Still no ghost boy.
Death seemed to have finally left me alone.
On my eighteenth birthday, I was stuffing books in my locker when my cousin popped up out of nowhere, scowling as usual. After an unexpected growth spurt and losing a tonne of baby fat, my cousin had scaled the high school hierarchy, swapping his weird experiments for a varsity jacket and experimenting with his sexuality.
The two of us had come to an unspoken truce.
I kept quiet about his spider collection to his popular friends, and he tolerated my existence until I left for college.
“Your surprise party is cancelled.”
Jude leaned against my locker, running a hand through thick dark hair tucked under a baseball cap. Jude never admitted it, but he was definitely embarrassed of being the odd one out.
My siblings may be dead, but they were still redheads.
I pulled off his cap with a smile, throwing it in his face. “Sure it is.”
My cousin’s eyes widened. He lost his slick bravado, grabbing for his cap.
“Hey!”
According to my cousin, my party was unexpectedly cancelled every year.
I wasn't sure if it was his weird superiority complex, or just plain jealousy, but it was getting exhausting.
Jude followed me down the hallway, matching my stride.
“Can you just not come home tonight?”
I quickened my pace. “It's only a party. I'm having some friends over, and no, we won't go anywhere near your room.”
“No, I mean.” Jude stepped in front of me, and for the first time in a while, he wasn't trying to hide disdain for me.
His dark eyes pinned me in place for a moment, the world around us coming to a halt. Sound bled away, and all I heard were his slow breaths. There was something there, an unexplainable twitch in his eyes and lips, that twisted my gut.
Jude stepped closer, his lip curling. He shoved me back, losing his facade.
“Stay the fuck away from the house tonight.” He said, and his voice, his tone, was enough to send shivers creeping down my spine. Jude had always hid behind a ten foot wall in his mind. It was jarring to see something in him finally start to splinter. Fuck. I thought.
This kid had serious Mommy issues.
I blinked, and the world resumed, kids pushing past us.
Jude seemed to catch himself, slipping back under his mask.
“I'm having friends over,” he rolled his eyes, “Your presence will ruin the vibe.”
“It's my birthday?”
He groaned, tipping his head back. “Yes, I know. But–”
“I think you can deal with the attention off of you for one night, Jude.”
“Will Wren Oliver be there too?” Jem Littlewood hollered.
Jude didn't respond for a moment, his lip curling.
“Shut the fuck up.” He spat at Jem, who immediately backed down. With an audience this time, Jude forced an award winning smile. “Fine.” His lips split into a grin I knew he hated. My cousin clamped his hand on my shoulder, hard enough to hurt. I could feel his fingers pinching the material of my jacket. “Have it your way, dude.”
Jude backed away with a two fingered salute.
“Happy 78th birthday!”
In a sense, I wish I listened to my cousin.
My party was a success, sort of.
Four of us, a crate of beers, and no sign of my cousin.
I was mildly tipsy, sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling my legs in the water when my friend demanded more beers.
I was also hungry for cake, so I stumbled inside in search of the goods.
The house was dark, lit up in dazzling blue from the pool's lights reflecting through the windows. Aunt May was in her office on the ground floor, and Jude was getting high in his room. In my drunken state, I found myself marvelling my aunt's house, and how much of it was left unexplored.
For example, in the foyer, past the spiral staircase she’d had custom made, was an elevator I had never questioned.
There was a girl my age standing on the staircase.
She was frozen, mid run, dressed in ragged jeans and t-shirt.
Everything about her stuck out to me, bringing me to a sobering halt.
The girl reminded me of my sister– or at least, if my sister had ever grown up.
I wasn't sure if I was drunk or hallucinating.
Her flower crown was pretty…
Lily had grown wings.
I was slowly moving towards her, a sudden bang sounding from the kitchen.
The bang of something shattering on the floor.
Twisting around, I found myself gravitating towards warm golden light.
The first thing I saw was the refrigerator door hanging open, and someone, no, something, rooting around inside it.
Glued to the spot, I dazedly watched them grab milk, guzzling it down, and then soda, cracking open each can and sucking them dry, before carving their fingers into my birthday cake.
But I wasn't looking at the spillage of food seeping across the floor. Instead, my gaze found a crown of antlers, both human and animal bone entangled with dead flowers and human remains glued to a head of familiar matted brown curls. There was something sticking from battered and bruised flesh, twin gaping slits sliced through a torn shirt resembling glass wings that were not yet formed, reminding me of a butterfly.
Wings.
But not the wings I dreamed of as a kid. These things were unnatural mounds that both did and didn't make sense on a human boy. I could see the trauma of them slicing through his flesh, monstrous, looming things protruding from what was left of a human spine.
Human, and yet I couldn't call his beautifully grotesque face human.
Wren Oliver had grown up with me, now an adult.
Eighteen years old.
His clothes confused me, a single white shirt and shorts.
Wren’s feet were bare, battered and bruised, blood smearing my aunt's tiles.
Angel.
Death had turned his footsoldier, and my future killer, into an angel.
But there was nothing angelic about the dead boy, his body and mind sculpted and moulded into Death’s own.
The boy no longer resembled a human, feral eyes and a manic smile, choking down pieces of cake. His face had been contorted into a monster, gnashing teeth and sharp points in his ears, a sickly tinge to malnourished skin.
And that's when it hit me, watching him stuff himself with food.
Something slimy inched its way up my throat.
The boy didn't move. I don't even think he'd noticed me, gorging himself on anything he could get his hands on.
Chicken, raw bacon, leftover salad.
When he moved onto cupcakes, licking frosting from his fingers, I glimpsed markings on his arms, a language I didn't understand, carved into him.
His wrists were shackled, bound, in entangled iron and vine, iron that was ingrained into his skin, vines and flowers and ivy entangling his bones, that were part of him, polluting his blood. Slowly, my eyes found stab wounds splitting open his torso.
Raw flesh, where his skin had been torched, melting, and then merging, ripped apart and put back together over and over again.
I found his heart, the gaping cavern in his chest where it should be.
And it was.
Marked, carved, and branded with a symbol resembling an X.
Wren Oliver was not dead.
But, just like me, he should have been.
I remember saying his name, my voice slurred slightly.
I didn't drink that much, but I could barely coerce words, my head spinning.
Wren’s neck snapped towards me, his eyes narrowing with resentment I couldn't understand, hatred that seemed to puppeteer him. Slowly tilting his head, the boy’s lips split into a grin, eyes filled, polluted, with mania.
I could see where his lips had been stitched shut, and then ripped open.
“Hi.”
He held up his hand in an awkward wave.
When one of my friends stumbled into the kitchen, Wren reacted on impulse.
He picked up a knife from the counter, throwing it like a dart, straight through the guy’s throat.
Something shattered inside my mind.
Ignoring my friend bleeding out, Wren stumbled over himself, abandoning his feast. He took a single step towards me, backing me against the wall, coming so close, close enough for me to feel his very real breath grazing my cheeks. Just like when he was a kid, he traced the teeth of his blade down my throat. I wasn't expecting him to burst out laughing, trembling with hysteria.
His eyes were wild, feral and wrong, almost euphoric.
With what all I could only recognise as relief.
BANG.
I was barely aware of the gunshot.
The bullet went straight through his head, the winged boy hitting the ground.
Dead.
I saw the blood stemming around him in a halo before the bleeding pool faltered, seeping back inside his head.
Like rewinding a VCR.
Wren was dead, and then he was alive.
Wren’s body contorted, his chest inflating.
His gasp for air was painful, strangled, eyes opening wide.
Terrified.
“You fucking idiot.”
Jude’s voice sent me twisting around.
My cousin stood in the exact same robes he wore as a child.
The world tipped off kilter, and I was on my knees, then my stomach.
I sunk to the floor, my thoughts swimming.
Jude’s murmur followed me, creeping into the dark.
“I told you not to come home.”
I can't remember how long I was unconscious for.
When I woke, I was dressed in an evening gown, a dress that used to be my mother’s.
My vision cleared, and I found myself sitting in an unfamiliar room resembling an abandoned swimming hall.
The pool itself was empty, the bottom stained revealing scarlet.
There were symbols carved into each tile.
Like a game.
“Sit up straight, Charlotte.”
I was sitting at a banquet.
Jude was in front of me, sipping on wine.
He caught my eye for half a second before averting his gaze.
At the far end of the table sat my aunt May.
Kissing the rim of her glass, her smile was twisted.
“I've been waiting so long to give you your birthday presents, Charlotte. Your memories should be returning soon.”
“Mom.” Jude muttered, hiding behind his glass. “Calm down. You're embarrassing yourself.”
Ignoring my cousin, May tapped her glass with a fork, and in walked my birthday presents.
No, dragged.
By their hair.
Wren Oliver, the dead boy, was in fact my aunt's prisoner.
Behind him, was the girl who looked so much like Lily.
I think that's why my aunt chose her.
Aunt May cleared her throat.
“For a long time, our family has lived among creatures who live in the forest you played inside. In exchange for keeping this town safe, they only ask for small favors. Wayward children who disappear into the woods are good enough payment. Charlie, you and your siblings do not share our inheritance. Your mother never wanted fae children. She wanted you to be human.”
Aunt May’s smile faded.
“After losing my sister, and my niece and nephew, I made a deal to give my last surviving niece 100 years of life.”
Her words were white noise, my gaze glued to my birthday presents. I couldn't call them human anymore.
I couldn't call Wren human, when his face was so beautifully grotesque, painfully hypnotising.
The monstrous things sticking from twin slits in his back were supposed to be wings, except they looked wrong, cruelly protruding from his exposed spine. Under the influence of alcohol earlier, the girl made me smile.
Her wings, to me, looked like one of a real fairy.
In reality, they were torn and shredded apart, bigger than the girl herself.
When she dropped onto her stomach, she was dragged back to her feet, her knees buckling under the weight. Her tiara of flowers and bone looked pretty to me when I saw her on the stairs.
Now, though, I could see the pearly white of a human child's skull forced onto her head, dead flowers threaded through cavernous, gaping eye sockets.
The two of them were violently shoved into the empty pool.
“Jude. Please demonstrate, sweetheart.”
Jude stood, pulling out a gun, and aiming it at the winged girl.
BANG.
The girl’s body hit the tiles, her blood seeping across stained white.
“Now, of course, our king did not give you life for free.” May continued.
“The King demanded a debt, as well as two heirs to join him in his court once your hundred years were complete.”
Her lips quirked into a smile.
“The king is smart. If a child cannot be stolen from the human world, they can, however, be made, moulded and shaped from their human forms, skinned of their humanity through their suffering, leaving a hollowed out shell in the child's place.” She was speaking so casually, ignoring Wren’s whimpers.
“The conversion takes a while. 100 years to birth a fully blooded fae heir, who will lose their human memories, in preparation to join their new family.”
Jude shot Wren in the chest, his eyes empty.
This time, he dropped his weapon, using finger-guns instead.
“Bang.” He deadpanned.
Then the neck.
I watched Wren come back to life, and then die.
Over and over again.
I think at one point, he screamed and cried.
But not now.
He was their puppet on display, dancing for their entertainment.
Half lidded eyes drowned in oblivion found mine, and I understood his hatred.
Before he was shot again.
Stabbed.
Branded and burned, and ripped apart.
At some point, I screamed at them to stop. I couldn't breathe, slamming my hands over my ears and begging them.
Aunt May didn't listen, ordering for my hands to be tied down.
“The King required two human sacrifices to suffer in your place.” She concluded. “For one hundred years.”
Aunt May’s smile was suddenly sad, and she lifted her glass in a toast.
I was watching their blood trickle down each tile in the pool, like every death, every time they suffered, my body became progressively less human.
I felt disgusting. I wasn't supposed to be alive. Every single year of my life, every breath I had taken, was stolen.
Aunt May nodded at me, her lips forming a proud smile. She stood up, and was handed a sacrificial knife.
Climbing into the swimming pool herself, she strode over to Wren.
The boy slumped to the floor, trembling, his knees against his chest.
Aunt May grabbed him by the hair, forcing his head up, and sliced the blade across his throat.
His eyes flicked to me, and I swore he smiled.
Spots of red dotted yellowing tiles, a river trickling under my aunt's heels.
“Happy 78th birthday, Charlotte.”
Last night ended with me being locked in my room.
It's been almost 15 hours, and the door is still locked. Please help me. I'm fucking terrified of what my aunt is planning.
I can't stop shgajing. FycjbfucibFUCK
If she is telling the truth, I shouldn't be here, right??
And I can't stop thinking.
Is Wren Oliver trying to kill me, or himself?
submitted by Trash_Tia to nosleep [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 16:44 TheRealHarrypm Tape Transfer, Tape Digitisation & Tapeless Conversion Starting Guide (2024)

I hope this will be pinned as I want to provide a upto-date full-scope info dump on critical things that have changed over the last few years that people binging YT videos and old threads will be out of the loop on.
The Decode Wiki has a massive amount of information thats proacticly updated and mantained, so here is just a more camcorder format biased summary of a lot info there.

Rule 1

There is a thing called SAVE or LOCK tap on tapes, enable it on all your tapes before playing with them, this will save your ass from careless or just mistakes and stop your from erasing your tapes.

Cleaning & Service

Please do not treat mechnical kit like magic, it requires care and maintaince like a car or a rifle it has a lot of parts that need cleaning and oiling once and awhile or outright replacing like belts and capston rubber wheels.
Paper & 99.9% IPA never 60% etc (water + elecronics just no.) for VHS & Beta head cleaning.
Chamois Sticks (overpriced waste for all but camcorders) for small head cleaning.
Brush, Airblower, Super-Lube, Sowing Machine oil - Genreal cleaning & service.
Lens cleaning should always be with microfibeswabs to clean rims, UV Filters are your dust/shatter protection friends caps are also adviced during sunlight use!

PAL & NTSC

We are not all united in this world of standards per region, never forget the diffrances it can cost you time and suffering.
PAL 625-line (25fps 50 fields "25i") is Europe/Middle East to Russia 50hz grids
NTSC 525-line (29.97fps 59.94 fields "29.97i") is USA/Canada/Japan 60hz grids
Digital active area is 720x576i PAL and NTSC is 720x480i or 488
(there is also 608/512 height called IMX standard for preserving the VBI area both are in analog world sampled at 4fsc or 1135x625 PAL & 910x525 NTSC but only vhs/ld/cvbs-decode provide acesss to the full signal frame.)
NTSC-N/PAL-M/NTSC-50/PAL60 etc (South America and outhers who could not just stick to one unifyed system or slowly migrated with existing kit)
Recorded Media only has 3 flavors in common world use, NTSC/PAL then the french have SECAM or MESECAM for recorded tapes before moving to PAL.
Digital you will use and or encouter i.e 2000s era will only be NTSC/PAL (then flavors of HD in interlaced or progressive 25/24/29.97p) to keep things simple.
PAL decks (most 90's & 2000's decks) will play most MESECAM tapes, will play NTSC tapes also but the standard video output will have 4.43Mhz instead of 3.35Mhz colour subcarrier so NTSC native kit will not like it, such as Time Base correctors or NTSC CRT TVs so you will get B/W video out of a lot of PAL kit with native NTSC support too or it will be just PAL converted by a PAL DMR-ES10 for example.
The decks however are reading full NTSC or MESECAM signal off the tape so the video boards internally are converting the signal, but with direct RF capture will get you a native capture to work with and preserve analog tapes.

Digital Tapes

Massive Guide Here with full scope breakdown
Do NOT HOT PLUG, FireWire is 12v turn kit off hook up cable turn it back on, unless its a adapter from TB2 to TB3 to FW800 with low power data only then its most likey a full spec port with 12v 5A that can kill kit if ports are not clean and you hot plug it.
MiniDV/HDV/Digital8 FireWire Camcorders fall under
StarTech and 101 china brands make cards, I like DVgrab on Linux, but WinDV still works for most Windows Boxes & Final Cut still works on MacOS.

Digital Pro Tapes

HDCam / HDCam SR / DVCProHD / DigiBeta (digital betacam) / MPEG IMX etc
Some decks like DVC do have FireWire but HDcam and Digibeta flavors are all SDI
HDCam falls under SDI - Digital to V210 or FFV1 4:2:2
This applys to decks and camcorders you will be using SDI most likey but some had HDMI 8-bit 4:2:2 output like later HDV camcorders did.

Analog Tapes

VHS-C/SVHS-C/BetaMax/Betacam/Video8/Hi8
SVHS may have VITC timecode in VBI space, Hi8 can have PCM digital audio if shot with pro kit and RCTC data like time and date code on pro and prosumer models.
The best possible method for preserving tapes in the 21st century for analog Video and HiFi signals is The FM RF Archival Method then decoding it to S-Video/Composite in software then chroma-decoding it to YUV digital data all in software, no hardware TBC or this capture card is better then that capture card nightmare or limted codec support, it cuts through the noise (littorally) and plight of inflated hardware markets, VHS-Decode gives you a alternative for all analog tape formats dispite its name.
This is direct sampling of the orignal signals as the deck reads the tapes before its internal processing, this is the most affordable and technologically high quality preservation workflow that anyone can use today, cost of entry is sub 100USD and virtually all decks have test points. (but later decks will not have easy HiFi test points so 90s decks with a good cleaning first are your go to.)
You may even already own a CXADC compatible Hauppauge/WinTV or outher brand of capture card with CX chips the driver can use.
Sony 8mm or Hi8/Video8 and Digital8 with backwards playback support have test jigs that are plug and play for test points.
The older more well known method is deck with S-Video Time Base Corrector "TBC" ADC/Capture Card or a capture card with a TBC, this will cost you 2-20x the cost of a FM RF archival workflow thats with a basic office PC out of the skip basically added to the shopping list.

Making a Camcorder tapeless

Analog - S-Video/CVBS or Compoosite (Yellow RCA or 4-Pin Din for S-Video)
Digital - HDMI (but only HDV MiniDV camcorders had this so S-Video would be the best output in 16:9 squesse mode this applys to Digital8)
Cheep Analog SDI coverters off eBay using a 12v to USB-PD adapter will be the most powerful plug and play clean signal converting kit you can put into a Molle belt pouch or backpack with PD power adapters.
SDI is just HDMI with some more specs and piped over Coax cable orignally it replaced all the Coax copper lines that ran Composite or CVBS in studios and now its good solid locking interface for A/V world using the BNC connector from the 1940s and HDMI converters are a dime a dozen for SDI.
Digital8/MiniDV you can buy little off shelf USB adapters, but for later prosumer kit with NPF mount etc just buy a new 18650 cell based chinese battery they last all day long.
Recorders, Atmos, Blackmagic are your 2 go to brands today, but if you have a laptop just get a Magewell or GV-USB2 based setup and encode with VirtualDub2 or OBS if you like crunching stuff with realtime de-interlacing (its terrible for recorded media never should do it, but for live feeds you can get away with it in most cases as long as your system can keep up and use a codec like ProRes LT)

Power & Power Adapting

You can use 9v with stepdown or 5v with step up to power the 6-7.1v to 7.1 to 8.5v voltage range of camcorders, common batterys today are NPF, BP, V-Mount or Gold Mount with ARRI B-Mount slowing getting adaoption, but USB-PD or 20v 3A PD65W and 20v 5a PD100W power banks are now very cheep and provide more then enough to power most field portable kit.

Codecs & Containers & Chroma Sampling & Bit-Depth

Codecs and Cotainers is fun, but MP4/MOV is banned for archival, you will lose files, they break if the recording/encoding fails midway, do not trust them to store your audio and video memorys forever.
MKV/MXF are the only containers you should keep masters in if not DV/AVI at worst for HD and SD media today very much so if you have a home server with Jellyfin for example header dependent containers like MP4/MOV are poor for streaming locally and over the the internet on demand headderless don't care and are very relisaint if currupton happens you lose frames/seconds not your whole file.
(Note: you can easily re-mux a file from these safe containers for use on outher devices that require avi or mp4 etc its just a wrapper to hold the data, its easy to convert between the two without loss)
Codecs range from lossy compressed like AVC/H264 or HEVC/H265 (in MP4/MOV etc) to Lossy DV25 used for MiniDV/Digital8, to visually lossles like ProRes HQ, and the V210 for uncompressed and FFV1 today for lossless compressed.
Chroma Sub-Sampling is how much colour range data is stored per pixel, 4:2:2 is enough to use green screens and preserve the full range of live from camara Composite NTSC or PAL, ware as 4:4:4 is the same for HD era kit in very lay terms here but this is only for master recordings and for digitisaion.
Bit-Depth is simple 8-bit 256 range 10-bit 1024 range of colour, you want 10-bit almost always for inital capture in digital HD era and in Analog SD archival but can drop it to 8-bit 4:2:0 with careful encoding after the fact many videos on this that are clear and demo this.
For example though in this community DV is 4:1:1 NTSC and 4:2:0 in PAL so if using a Digital8 camcorder to ingest tapes from Video8/Hi8 your not saving the full range of colour and also using a lossy compressed codec at 25-30mbps great for 1995 but for 45-50mbps you can use lossless compressed FFV1 8-bit 4:2:2.

Deinterlacing

101 ways hardware and software converters, personally if your camcorder does not have a progressive or progressive pulldown mode, shoot in interlaced, use Hybird or StaxRip with the QTGMC filter via Vapoursynth or Avisynth its 3-5 clicks today and some copy paste at worst, dont use BDWIF or YADIF if you can help it, and always bare in mind lossy compressed interlaced footage will almost always have artifacts to fight with.
All Analog media in consumeprosumer world is interlaced and should be delt with in post for recorded media.

Final Notes

This is a fun subject that without basic EE/Cine/ENG world info being ingrained into your mind, its not very well condenced for people to get into without making massive mistakes or just ones that are sad to see due to lack of ah heres a nice list of key points to go and google and look into or sticky note on the kit.
I hope this has got you on the path of understanding key info in this era!
submitted by TheRealHarrypm to camcorders [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 14:47 Professional-Show230 I want to make my PC run like it used to

I want to make my PC run like it used to
I am pretty hopeless when it comes to computers so hopefully someone has advice. I got this PC in 2018 to play games, do schoolwork, and I have also been using it to make music with FL Studio for a few years by now. While I may be looking at the past with rose colored glasses, I feel this PC used to run almost 10x but after years of accumulating games and a shit ton of random files it does not run very well anymore. Hardware wise I do not see why there would be any issue, as I have not changed or replaced anything (though maybe that's an issue by itself). Generally games run well and my computer seems to perform fine with them at good graphics and pretty high frame rates but my app startup is abysmally slow, accessing basic things like my settings can take a long time, loading into things like my browser or apps takes a weirdly long time and I just generally think it should be performing much, much better. The only thing I can think of that might be holding my computer back other than it slowing down over time is that I have only 16 gb of ram instead of 32, which is probably not as good for playing games (I'll put my other specs down below). However, seeing as my Dell XPS laptop runs better than I could ever imagine this PC running I feel like there are some other issues.
I have tried to follow along with youtube videos for about a year, trying every couple of months to make this computer better, but with my most recent attempt not working and wiping a bunch of files from FL Studio, which luckily I saved to my laptop, I've become pretty frustrated with the situation. I am thinking of wiping the computer entirely and starting fresh since now I will be able to navigate it better and hopefully make fewer mistakes. I have a ton of games on here and probably a shit ton of old files I would have enjoyed back in the day but I don't care much about now. I had to leave my PC behind for college and coming back to it for the summer has made me realize how much stuff I have on here that I really do not care about anymore. Would a total reset be the right action to take? Should I bother to back up my files to a flash drive or something? Let me know, I need some advice.
My specs are below
https://preview.redd.it/arky2bhzrzzc1.png?width=309&format=png&auto=webp&s=bd115dcda734a3d1f9e02bfdb2b7a938fa854b29
submitted by Professional-Show230 to computers [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 13:50 Some0wlOnTheInternet Arena Breakout Long Review

Arena Breakout is a mobile extraction shooter that is developed by Morefun Studios, it was released in China in July 13, 2022, then globally on July 14, 2023. This game is very promising as a tarkov clone but lacks in many aspects. I spent thousands of hours on this game because there isnt any other experince like this on mobile.
When I first started in October of 2022, I was amazed by how advanced the looting and weapon mechanics were since this was basically tarkov mobile, after awhile I found a friend group and we played for over a year. I wasnt great at the game untill season 2 of the global release where I've reached legend rank.
Mechanics:
Theres your typical inventory with pockets, rigs, and backpacks. An advanced health system with each body part having its own health and having debuffs when destroyed. Food and water, and a weight system. The gunplay and movement leave much to be desired. Visual recoil is unrealistic where your reticle grows as you shoot, and semi auto weapons having different recoil than full auto weapons. The recoil system is overall unrealistic and causes low recoil ARs to dominate at all ranges. Theres also small things like the lack of height over bore which currently allows you to headglitch, there is also unrealistic hipfire as hipfire accuracy is determined by stat that basic needs to be almost maxed out in order for your weapon to be accuracy past 10 meters. The range system in this game is poorly designed with the range stat determining how much damage you do at range with some guns basically dealing little to no damage past 50 meters. Shotguns largely suffer from this problem and along poor weapon balance and the new mine map that's twice the size of Northridge, it really shows. As for movement, this game doesn't have inertia which isn't a problem imo. But there are a few mechanics that make gunplay worse. When you shoot, your character will walk slower than creeping speed which makes strafing unviable and encourages camping, holding angles, and stopping to crouch lean. There isnt a skill system so you have a fixed endurance which can be affected by weight and theres no way to reduce the effects without stim. If you wear heavier stuff, you're gonna have a hard time getting anywhere due to your characters weak cardio. You also cannot swap mags while running (except pistols) which is somewhat unrealistic and messes with the pacing of the game. There isnt a free look button which makes checking your surroundings alot harder paired with the already low forced FOV. Matchmaking follows a hidden MMR system which pairs you with similar skilled players avalible in your server region. If you're a legend player with a decently high KD, you'll run into skilled teams more often which can be annoying. This game is also very unfriendly to solo players because of sound indicators and auto matchmaking which guarantees that everyone can get a full 4 man team without looking.
Economy, Traders, and Progression
Overall this game's economy is mediocre. Near everything is run by the market and you unlock the market at a very early level. Usually you're supposed to rely on traders early on but in this game they can be mostly avoided as they provide little value to progression and economy, the only contacts you really want to use are Deke Vinson and both faction traders since they have the best stuff out of all the contacts. There isnt a hideout or crafting system so misc items are meant to be traded with. Problem is that alot of these barters are inflated and really bad which causes misc items to be worth less than most gear in the game. The only way to get high tier gear from contacts are from randal fisher or deke vinson but its mostly cheaper and convenient to just buy everything off market. You don't even need to barter with these contacts because everything is avalible on market from the get go since theres no market restrictions. A new accounts cant get the best gear in the game as soon as they finish the tutorial. Pair this with being able to buy koen and gear bundles and you face some minor problems. Overall this game doesn't have a progression system. The level cap is 30 which can be done in under a week of grinding. This economy mostly favors pvp as misc items are devalued and gear is inflated. Looting isnt rewarding as this game follows a really weird loot spawning system where theres a stock of a certain item in the server and the more people get it, the less chance you'll find it untill there is no more stock. Locked rooms aren't even worth buying keys for most of the time as you'll get pruple items 85% of the time. You'll see youtubers pull reds all the time it only works for them because they constantly hit safes which not everyone is capable of doing wether other people get to it first or just bad spawns. People also have problems with teammates being loot goblins but that can mostly be avoided if you team up with people you know.
Desync, hitreg, and server problems:
I personally don't suffer from constant reconnecting but I see alot of others suffer from it. This game mainly suffers from terrible Desync and hit reg, alot of times you will shoot someone and the bullet either doesn't register or the bullet will damage their arms or another part. The arm hitbox seems to be really big as you can mag dump someone center mass and only their arms would be hurt. This problem is usually because there isnt limb penetration (wasn't added untill S8) although snipers can sometimes go through limbs but that is very inconsistent. The desync is really bad as you can peek someone for a milliseconds, run away and still get shot buy the guy you peek, you also can rubberband alot, especially if you're around teammates.
Weapon Balance:
This game has some of the worst balance I've seen in a tactical shooter as alot of guns in this game are bad and theres a few guns that just dominate the meta. Some of this balancing is laughably bad and outright unrealistic. For example, the AKS-74U is the worst assault rifle in the game besides the MCX, it suffers from literally everything. Very low rpm, limited modification, bad accuracy, terrible range, and low ergo. Realistically this gun is has a faster rpm than most AKs due to the shorter action, its also a compact design so the ergo should be better. The MCX suffers from bad range and accuracy, half the pistols have better range than this gun and is outclassed by literally any other faction weapon. Aside from weak guns, there are broken overpowered weapons, notably the M249 and RPD. These new LMGs are most likely designed around the mine map which explains their amazing range and accuracy, and really low recoil. Surprisingly the base ergo is better than most assault rifles and you can use a bipod which cuts recoil in half making these guns laser beams. There are other problems with the balance but I wont explain further.
The maps are alright, the loot spawns just need to be better to encourage players actually explore instead of just roaming around the danger zones where you can actually find loot and pvp. This also makes sniping kinda hard as nobody really roams in the open parts of the map. The AI sucks and needs improvement. QOL features are pretty rare but most of them are in the PC release as alot of things mentioned in mechanics were fixed in ABI.
Overall this game is a 7/10, unique and amazing mobile experince but filled with design flaws.
submitted by Some0wlOnTheInternet to ArenaBreakoutGlobal [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 11:30 ExplanationBudget272 XPS 15 random shutdowns and missed restarts, manufacturer mode and caps lock stuck on

Hello.
XPS15 7590 here.
A couple of weeks ago my XPS randomly shut down in the middle of light office work. I could not restart it until I performed FLEA procedure and it turned on in manufacturer mode and with compromised audio drivers.
Now it keeps shutting down randomly (sometimes after a minute, sometimes it works for 24hrs no stop) and more often it cannot restart after being manually shutdown or asked to restart. It goes in manufacturing and shutdowns or even just becomes unresponsive/only turn backlighting on and then shuts back off. Sometimes gives out diagnostic LEDs, various combinations regarding CPU or bios error.
Only "solution" is waiting and trying again after half an hour or so.
Then after trying again manufacturer mode comes out and I have to cycle on off a couple of time to deal with that and caps lock light remaining stuck on. Stress tests performed, no issue found. Local repair shop says Northbridge damage but I suspect it could be related to previously known dead/malfunctioning ram slot now left empty.
Any clue on what I could try? Bios recovery? Clean install? It would feel very dumb to change a laptop which basically works for hours or days except some random periods or after shutdowns.
Thank you
submitted by ExplanationBudget272 to Dell [link] [comments]

2024.05.12 03:05 GH057807 A VERY long and hopefully reasonable compilation of issues that I see, and changes that I'd like to, after 300+ hours. Not specific to any patch. Discussion welcome.

Quick Intro/DisclaimePlease Read:

Howdy!
I've been playing since launch week, I have over 300 hours of playtime and have reached level 77.
I play with a lot of friends, a lot of randoms, on a lot of difficulties, and their play time and skill levels vary a lot. I read a lot of feedback and opinions on here and discord, opposing views, memes, rants, thought-out thoughts, and have managed to form opinions about things based on experiences that are often but not always the same as mine.
Pretty much everything in here comes with an example of another thing present in the game that gives me reason to question or mention or suggest it. I will also do what I can to provide ideas for a solution where applicable.
This is intensely long for a reddit post, easily a 20 minute read. Been writing it all day. I've tried to format it so that bold things are noteworthy issues and italics are potential solutions or ways I see making sense of things. At least I tried to. I also tried to be brief.
If you'd like to reply to a specific segment, it might be wise to quote that specific segment in your reply, at least in part, so we don't get lost. I would love to talk about this stuff, but this is largely for my own use as a public repository for my feedback on this game in an official-adjacent location. I'm not expecting much interaction from this much text.
Please keep in mind that these are subjective observations and opinions, often generalizations and are in no way meant to convey absolute fact, objective experience, or are designed to be delivered as complaints. Obligatory "I am not a dev, but I am a player."
\Hellpod Music Begins\**

Enemy Unit Balance

Primary Weapon Balance

I will keep this short and sweet. This is a complex job and a topic worthy of its own megathread. This is just my opinion on how I feel Primary Weapons fit a role in this game, and how balancing them should be approached based on those feelings.

Public Testing Environment

UI Features

Utilization of Currency

Cosmetics and Build Customization

Honorable Mentions / Broken Things / Misc

TL;DR - I just hope you are having a nice day. If you are actually struggling with my wall of text, and I can't fault you for that at all, try looking for a bold part that catches your eye and just read the stuff near it.
EDIT:
WELL, I definitely did not expect waking up to over 200 replies. I will do what I can over the course of the day to reply to most of ya'll, but no promises.
It means a whole lot to me how well this was received. I hope it comes across the right desks too. Ya'll are the best.
I gotta turn off notifications for this thread so I can focus on my day, but I will continue to browse through replies and try to interact to the best of my ability. Again, you guys rock.
submitted by GH057807 to Helldivers [link] [comments]

2024.05.11 20:11 MDavout81 The Sum of the parts of Paramount Global are worth far more than $14 Billion

Sony/Apollo have made an initial offer of $26 Billion for all of Paramount Global including Debt. The Debt stands at roughly $12B. And the company is sitting on about $2B in cash. So that leaves us with $14 Billion in cash for our stock A/B. NAI/Shari Redstone will need about $2B of that for her to agree to sell her control stake. So that would leave us with $12B for the B's.
And apparently a while back Apollo offered $12B for Paramount Studio, IP, and Real Estate. So if that's true then they are looking to buy the rest of Paramount Global minus the debt for $2B. In my last post I laid out a few guesses at some possible rough valuations for sum of the parts of Paramount. Let's see what we get:
  1. Paramount Studio - I'm going to include the studio it's Real Estate and it's IP, conservatively let's value this at a fire sale price of $20B. It could be worth far more with the IP and the Real Estate fully unlocked.
Studio - $10B
IP - $7B
Land - $3B
  1. CBS - All the assets of CBS news and sports - It's Affiliates, IP and sports rights and lets also throw in the New York Office building
CBS - $10B
  1. Viacom Legacy Cable Networks - Fire sale discounted prices of Showtime, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, Paramount Networks, and some smaller channels which some are sub stations of the larger networks of Showtime and MTV and Paramount.
Showtime Networks- $3B - Multiple channels of Showtime
Nickelodean Networks - $5B - Multiple various Nick channels
Comedy Central - $1B
MTV Networks - $1B - I'm packaging CMT and VH1 and MTV
BET - $2B
Paramount Networks - Paramount channel - Tv land - Pop TV - Smithsonian - $1B
Total on a bad day $13B
Sum of the Parts:
Studio - $20B
CBS - $10B
Viacom cable assets - $13B
Cash - $2B
Debt - $12B
Total rough estimate: $45B - $12B
$33B Enterprise Value
This is why you hear the $30 billion number thrown around so much in fair valuation estimates. Paramount Global values itself at this number but for some unknown reason the stock market doesn't recognize the value reflected in the market cap of the A/B shares.
But let's say I'm being too rich with my estimates and a single buyer wants a discount for all the parts of Paramount Global including the assumption of debt that would still be north of $30B.
NAI/Shari $2B plus the remaining A's - $2B 5% of the float is like 33 million shares at - $60 a share.
All the B's would then get about $30B cash Roughly 633 million shares of B which is just north of $47 a share.
Now lets examine the current offer for Sony/Apollo $26B including debt -
A's - $2B
B's - $14B
Debt - $12B minus $2B in cash on hand = $10B
A's = $60 a share roughly 5% of float 33 million shares
B's = $22 a share roughly 633 million shares
So if my math is correct the Sony/Apollo deal is a Home Run for them and a massive discount for us regular B class shareholders. I guess the only silver lining is that Paramount has some real room to negotiate and get us a better deal.
But who is negotiating that deal now that Bob Bakish is no longer the CEO? Is Shari now the only one who decides the deal. If that is the case then she may decide to pass on any offers currently on the table given the steep discount. Assuming that Shari's position is always the same $2B payout for transfer of control stake. Then let's hope Shari and the board can negotiate us a better deal.
The Skydance deal is a an even bigger joke if you start to examine it by the real numbers. In no reality is Skydance ever worth $5B. I can not believe that it was even contemplated as an option. If the Ellison group wants to take control of Paramount then they should pay up like everyone else. I don't know what Skydance is really worth as a company. Maybe a billion or two at most. David Ellison is a smart guy who comes from one of the richest families in the world. His father might be the 5th richest person in the world with his stake in Oracle. David and his sister also have trust funds worth billions in Oracle stock. Put up your own money and put real skin in the game like all of us shareholders. We see the value as much as you do we just want you to pay a fair price to come in and take control from Shari and the Redstones.
You can still be a player if you just did things Kosher from now on. Buy up a large stake in Para B at these distressed prices. Or Tender a percentage 20 - 30% at a fair price. Then buy up Shari's stake and the remaining A's for $2B and take control of the company. Forget the Skydance merger for now and work on getting the company healthy and profitable. Show us shareholders that you are a true visionary and increase the share price and then down the road you can try and merge Skydance and Paramount together for a fair price but let the shareholders vote to decide.
If Shari and the Board decide to pass on the offers and go it alone from here on out then she will need to find a new CEO and one that is empowered to make the tough decisions to get the company back on track. Restructuring and streamlining the company to better reflect the current media landscape and unlock shareholder value.
Paramount Global possibly would want to hold onto CBS and Nickelodeon. I see the most value from the content and IP side of the business going forward. Replicating Sony with a streamlined Paramount Global consisting of content from Paramount Studio, CBS, and Nickelodeon.
I put a premium on Nickelodeon compared to the other legacy cable channels. The IP and the licensing rights for Nick are going to command a premium. I believe it is a bargain at $5B. That's why Sony/Apollo stand to make billions if they are able to make a deal. Nick has been the most popular kids cable channel for decades. The Spongebob franchise and many more shows are very desirable to any integrated media company. I've read that many parents just keep paying for cable just to have Nick for their kids to watch. How many of Paramount + subs are for Nick? In todays media engagement is the key metric and Nick brings the kids eyeballs to the television. I would think if you carved out Nick for sale you would have interest from WBD, Disney, and NBC Universal and possibly more. If you want to even do so it might make more sense to hold onto it given its premium and still solid engagement on both cable and streaming.
CBS has value beyond sports and news they have many #1 rated television shows. And more important they have a library of shows and content that by some estimates is 30,000+ episodes of different shows. That level of content is impossible to easily replicate. It's a trophy asset in itself. They have been #1 in news forever. Valuable franchises in 60 minutes and Face the Nation, and Nightly News to name just a few. CBS news can stand on its own or can be combined to enhance an existing news channel like CNN.
CBS sports is also very valuable today. PGA Golf and Nascar and NFL rights are very valuable today but probably will be out of reach come the next contracts. We see that playing out right now in NBA with TNT and NBC Universal vying for rights. If that's the case then it might make more sense to get out of the football business now and get the best price today. The writing is on the wall for the industry all the various major sports leagues are going to want to go after the most money they can command for viewing rights in the future. It's important to understand that CBS is also the portfolio of local broadcast affiliates. Major market local news channels. Many Billions of dollars lay locked up in these assets. Private equity is drooling to get their hands on these assets.
I'm a regular shareholder and these changes seem very obvious to me. We have a great company here with tremendous value ready to be unlocked with the right leadership. Little things would go a long way towards improving the company. With the right moves this company could be many multiples higher in market cap. I wish an Activist Investor would step in and buy into the company. Buffet saw the long term value but lost faith in Shari and management. Collapsing the dual share structure would do wonders for the valuation of the stock. If it's legal we should sell a non core asset and buy out NAI/Shari and the remaining A shareholders for $2B and call it a buyback program. Shari would get paid we would lose very little she would give up her power and control and we shareholders would finally get a vote. Why is this so difficult to implement? Once this was accomplished a new board of directors could be appointed and a new group of shareholders would flock into the stock. Then the board could appoint a new CEO with a real vision for the future of Paramount. Then the board could sell some more non-core assets and implement a large debt reduction plan/share buyback program that would clean up the balance sheet and remove all remaining shorts from the stock. Then merge Paramount + with someone or all of them WBD/Peacock/Disney to create a new streaming bundled service. We would then be a content provider partner for the new entity. Then adopt a Sony like operating plan "Content Arms Dealer" and realize the free cash flow from selling content to everyone who wants to pay for it.
submitted by MDavout81 to ParamountGlobal2 [link] [comments]

2024.05.11 19:48 ApprehensiveCap6525 Earth is a Lost Colony (27)

A/N: Yeah, I locked tf in and revised my main work when I was posting those side stories. I went through every chapter with a fine-tooth comb and revised them to bring them up to current Cap standards. Maybe I'll do this again at some point, too.
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First Previous Wiki Next
“Holy shit! Kryll!” Those were Ivan Kaydanovsky’s first words as he stepped off his shuttle and onto the deck of the Republic’s Claw. An honor guard of two Republic marines flanked him, clad in polished black and carrying beautiful but deadly ceremonial rifles. On another shuttle, escorted by a black-clad RDF:Intelligence officer and a much larger honor guard, Kryll Naxol stood with the powerful bearing of a Republic Auxiliary.
“Ivan!” Kryll called back, committing a minor breach of protocol to rush out and greet his old friend. They wrapped in a bear hug, nearly crushing each other with their cybernetic strength before logic and neural inhibitors prevailed. “You were assigned to the Claw?”
“Probably old man Jedik trying to keep a watch on us,” Ivan chuckled. “But all’s well that ends well, right?”
Kryll blinked a bit and cocked his head before finally agreeing. “Suppose so. You’re with the standards, right?” The standard Auxiliaries. The ones without a Vanguard to guide their training. Many former apprentices had joined them over the course of the war. Some died with their masters instead.
“Yeah, yeah, the little babies sucking on bottles. That’s me,” smiled Ivan. “You’re motherfucking special forces. Give it a few years, you’ll be taking me as an apprentice.”
“Give it a few years, and the war will be won.” Kryll spoke with pride, and something between confidence and arrogance to back it up. “I… haven’t given too much thought as to what I’ll do after that.”
“See your people?” asked Ivan. “You have to have some.” Now that he thought about it, he didn’t know much of anything about Kryll’s past. He had never asked, and his friend had never told.
“You’re my people.” Kryll looked deep in thought for a moment. “Family, too, I suppose. Everyone else is dead.” Ivan suddenly felt very foolish. “Try not to die, too, okay?” Kryll made an attempt to cut the tension. “I kind of like you.” It had evidently failed.
Ivan remembered his old platoon on Atreides. Russian conscripts, hardly the cream of the crop, but sturdy and true fighters to the last. He missed them dearly, more than he would like to admit. He knew Kryll felt the same. “We’ll have to live for them, then. Keep their memory alive.”
“They lived as heroes,” Kryll replied. “Died like heroes, too. If we do have to go, I wouldn’t mind going out like them.” Ivan felt it was better not to go out at all.
“We had better pack it,” he said. “Don’t want to be late.” And, with that, he and Kryll had separated. Ivan wondered when they would see each other again.
The Auxiliaries Ivan was to meet stood in a large and gleaming cargo bay in clean and orderly ranks, like Ivan’s last platoon had done on Iera Prime. They were all dead now. He felt grimly thankful he had never gotten to know any of them. Then he wondered if Kryll had ever felt the same.
Forty men, Ivan counted. Or women, he added, as you could never really tell in combat armor. Forty Auxiliaries, standing at attention with automatics at port arms. Ivan realized that he was the forty-first. He had yet to don his armor, a suit which he assumed was custom-made for him. Even without the wings, Ierad physiology was alien enough for the Claw’s engineers to have to specialize a design. Ivan had learned as much when his martial arts instructors had to learn Muay Thai at the SpecOps academy.
A grim-faced officer directed him toward the armory. Two imposing marines flanked it, each standing at six feet tall and built like a gorilla in their powered combat suits. Ivan could have taken them apart like tin cans if he wished.
The door hissed open. Even on a Republic ship, all bright colors and sleek curves, there were some places where beauty was a foreign thing. This, a dull gray hallway with sixty berths for powered armor, was one of them. A requisitions officer stepped out of nowhere to challenge Ivan, surprising even his enhanced reflexes, and a brief exchange of words convinced him to show Ivan to his suit.
“Echelon-class standard-issue powered combat armor,” the officer explained, referring to the hulking black thing Ivan was to wear. “Modified for your… unique… physical characteristics. The wing weapons are absent, replaced with shoulder mounts for an arsenal of your choosing.” Ivan took all this in as he was told it. “Each forearm contains a mount for another weapon, usually an autocannon combined with a blade or cutting laser.”
Ivan had seen blades in use before. Horsemen, two of them, had boarded a battleship over the planet Segmentus. Why they hadn’t drawn guns, Ivan could not say, but he remembered vividly the ease with which they had cut down the ship’s marines.
“I’ll be using this?”
“You are Republic Auxiliary Ivan Kaydanovsky, identity number 87987, assigned to Standard Cohort Twelve, are you not?” Ivan nodded. “Then you will be using this.” The requisitions man jabbed a wing at the suit’s chest, where Ivan’s identity number was emblazoned in white Terran numerals.
Ivan stepped closer to the powered armor, admiring its massive bulk. No weapons were strapped to its arms, no artillery was stowed on its back, but this inert suit of armor seemed as formidable as a Greek god in front of lowly mortal Ivan. “You do know how to put it on, yes?” Ivan was really starting to dislike this requisitions officer.
He donned the suit and ran through his diagnostic checks. He had never used a powered suit of this caliber before, but it all came naturally to him. The implants were doing their work well.
After he had gotten the feel of things, some minutes later, Ivan Kaydanovsky took his first step in Auxiliary-grade powered armor. “It’s not unusual for operators of powered combat armor of this grade to experience a rush of euphoria, usually combined with a feeling of invincibility or limitless power,” droned the requisitions man. “Are you?”
Ivan knew all of that. Ivan had the specifics of this armor drilled into him so many times that he could have given that briefing from memory even without his computer augments. “Yes,” he said, taking a thunderous step forward and testing the suit’s systems with a few practiced movements. Then, he threw a lightning-fast blow that could have put a dent in the steel wall in front of him. He stepped back in shock. “I think I am.”
“Well, that’s natural.” The requisitions officer walked toward the door, beckoning Ivan with a wing to follow. “We should have someone here in a bit to remind you that you’re fallible.” Ivan needed no reminder. He had seen the casualty statistics. In a war like this, even gods were mortal.
The door hissed open. “Is that him?” Ivan looked to see a Republic colonel with striking blue plumage standing in the massive doorway.
“Auxiliary… Kaydanovsky, identity number 78987, come with me,” the officer commanded. There was no further communication.
A short ride in a transit pod later, Ivan followed the officer through a corridor and up to a door that was flanked by marines. That was hardly unusual, guarding doors was most of what marines did, but Ivan could not help but notice this door’s security was a bit overkill. The marines eyed him uneasily, and his armor reported that it was being scanned by a battery of concealed sensors. The door in front of him looked flimsy, coated in some alien wood and decorated with gold filigree, but his scanners detected six inches of blast proof metal behind it. “Admiral Jedik’s quarters,” Ivan guessed.
The marines looked among each other. “He’s cleared. Colonel, right this way.” The door slid open, triggered by an unseen operator. The colonel ushered Ivan in.
“Holy shit, Kryll!” That was the second, and not the last, time Ivan would say such a phrase. The Russian trooper spied his friend as he walked into a small but beautiful living room, surrounded by well-placed decorations and copies of artwork from across the galaxy. Most were from Earth, and there was even a Bible on some alien furniture near the door.
“Holy-” Kryll Naxol, clad in his own set of powered armor, shut his beak just before he uttered three alien syllables that would have been improper in the present company. There was, after all, a Republic fleet admiral standing by the hologram projector. “I apologize for my friend’s vulgarity, sir.”
“Apology accepted.” Yegel Jedik, the father of the microchip that now clung tightly to Kryll’s prefrontal cortex, snapped to attention and saluted Ivan. He saluted back. “Colonel Talta, you’re dismissed. Report to the fleet bridge and continue your work on the battle plan.” Jedik was dressed for a formal occasion, a rarity in the Republic fleet, and he was holding a glass of alcohol in his left claw. That was not a rarity.
The colonel, whose name tag Ivan had never actually bothered to read, saluted and left. “Sir, if I may,” said Ivan, “Why am I here?”
“You do remember, of course, that your friend owes his position to the computer chip my surgeons installed in his brain?” Jedik asked. Ivan nodded, a gesture which the admiral had learned by now. “Good. I must confess, I’ve not been entirely truthful with you.”
“With all due respect, sir, I suspected as much,” said Ivan. “I saw your spies when I was training.”
“And you?” Jedik turned to Kryll.
“I don’t think the microchip operates the way you explained it to me. A randomized tactical generator wouldn’t have had the effect it did.”
“I’m not going to discuss military secrets with you,” Jedik snapped, ending that line of discussion. “That is need-to-know only, and neither of you need to know it. Now, listen well.” They were listening. “You, Lieutenant Naxol, are an experiment. A test subject, functionally identical to every other soldier who agreed to have that microchip installed except for one factor; you are an Auxiliary. There is one other in the galaxy like you, lieutenant, and you both are assigned to the same unit.” He pointed a wing at Ivan. “You are their control group. The three of you will be fighting together, under my personal supervision, and your performance will be instrumental in demonstrating the effectiveness of this microchip technology. Are we clear?”
They were test subjects. Guinea pigs on the front lines of a war. Ivan really hoped that Admiral Jedik knew what he was doing.
“Sir, yes, sir!” Kryll and Ivan barked in unison, responding reflexively to their superior’s request. “Perfectly clear, sir!” After that, they were dismissed. They passed ranks of armored marines, who stood like suits of armor in some ancient castle, and thought of their new task.
“Kryll,” Ivan said, to break the silence. “Things make sense, now. The spies, the gold cadre, most of it. The one thing I don’t get is why a Vanguard chose you if Jedik had already laid a claim.”
“He probably didn’t,” Kryll figured. “Or Jedik was late to claim my services. Hell, this microchip is a wonder. I could never think of things like this before.” He paused, thinking of things like this. “Do you think Jedik even knows what it does?”
“Shit, I fucking hope so!” Ivan laughed. “It’d be real shitty if you started seeing the shadow people halfway through a firefight!” Then he had to think, too. “I’d wager he has some idea, but he can’t know everything. No need for an experimental unit if he did,” he explained.
“Agreed. He probably has thousands of units like ours. Tens of thousands of test subjects.”
“It’s kind of fucked, doing that to people,” said Ivan. “I mean, he doesn’t even know what the chips really do, and he’s testing them on intelligent beings.” Kryll didn’t feel the same way. “Why not use it on mice, or monkeys, or those six-legged things that can solve a Rubik’s cube?” ‘Those six-legged things’ referred to a species of mammal on Iera Prime whose average specimen was about as intelligent as an eight-year-old child. Most of them could not solve Rubik’s cubes.
“The Alliance killed two hundred billion people,” Kryll countered. “No provocation, no prior aggression on our end, just senseless murder. If putting computers in my head helps them finally get what’s coming to them, then hook me the fuck up.” There was a harsh finality to his words that ended all discussion on that matter. Ivan did not want to press him any further.
“Who’s the third Auxiliary?” Ivan changed the subject.
“How would I know? I got told the same thing you did.”
“Yeah, I figure that’s fair.” Ivan shrugged. “We should meet him soon enough.”
They did meet him soon enough. Both of them had made their own mental preconceptions of what their new teammate would be, and both of their preconceptions were totally dashed when they finally saw it. Not he, or she, but it. It sat on a huge crate in the cargo bay they had been assembled to, covered from head to toe in a thick brown exoskeleton and holding a massive assault weapon in two of its six limbs. Two others were obviously for movement, being furthest from its ant-like head and shaped much like animal legs on Earth, and the two middle ones were clearly manipulators. They were shorter and scrawnier, but still formidably strong as appendages went. They grasped the assault rifle, the same model of weapon Ivan had seen in the armored gauntlets of Republic marines just minutes prior.
The top two appendages, positioned similarly to Ivan’s arms, were neither for grasping nor moving. They were bruisers, thick as tree trunks and covered at the ends with sharp spikes of strong chitin. They could hold something, with three digits on each limb, but any fine motor tasks were impossible.
The insect was totally naked, not even wearing armor, but no reproductive or even waste-disposal organs were visible. Ivan, being a devout Christian, was thankful for that.
It stood up as it saw him, rising to the height of fully eight feet tall and making Ivan recall all the times he had crushed insects underfoot when he was younger. The burly Russian was clad in full powered armor, seven feet tall and one thousand pounds heavy, and this monster still made him feel small. Any previous thoughts of invincibility in his armor were quickly dispelled.
“Soldier caste,” said Kryll. “It’s a Krulvuk, born and bred for war.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Ivan breathed. “Good Christ, you look different in person.”
“Why?” asked the Krulvuk. “Holographic distortion?”
“No, no, it’s just an expression,” Ivan sighed. “Never mind.”
“My apologies,” the insect chittered. “I am unfamiliar with expressions.” It crouched lower a little, bringing Ivan’s helmeted head level with its own. Two bulbous eyes, like those of a Terran housefly, stared at his metal visage. A pair of massive mandibles clicked absentmindedly. “Command castes are meant for such a purpose. I am a soldier caste.”
Ivan recalled seeing a command caste on a news broadcast, defending her actions from a crowd of incensed reporters. She, or at least the broadcast said it was a she, was the magistrate of a Krulvuk colony on the outskirts of Regime space. When a famine struck, she ordered the killing of twenty thousand of the lower castes to conserve food for the rest of the colony.
Ivan did not like the Krulvuk command caste.
“Tell me more about them,” he said, gauging whether this soldier’s feelings aligned with his own. “How do they treat you?”
“The command caste are thinkers, scholars, leaders. They are exceedingly rare. Soldiers and workers serve them.” Then it paused, mandibles clicking and claws fidgeting. “My command caste sold me to Admiral Jedik for sixty thousand units. He had no need for me.”
There was no emotion whatsoever in that insect’s modulated voice. No hint of sorrow at its betrayal or sale, like a slave on old Earth. “Like a slave?” Ivan gasped. “You’re a slave?”
“It’s a hive insect,” Kryll explained to him, not to defend the insect but to explain its alien nature. “Hardwired to serve its colony, without any regard for its own life or safety. It would kill itself if it meant the colony stayed alive.”
Ivan looked at the insect. “Would you?”
“Without question.”
“Why?” he gasped. “What the fuck do you owe them?”
“It is my biological imperative to obey and serve,” chittered the insect, “No matter the cost.” Its mandibles clicked once, a gesture that Ivan’s suit translated into realization. “Oh, my apologies. I am Vigel, formerly known as Sekvit 1,829.” The 1,829th Krulvuk to hatch from one of Sekvit’s eggs. The command caste were the only ones who could lay them. “I was named by Admiral Jedik, who I am now legally and ethically required to serve.”
“You earned a name,” Kryll congratulated Vigel. “Good job, big man.”
“Thank you,” Vigel chittered. “Low castes are genderless, for your information, but I feel no offense at the mishap. I have been informed that my species can be found quite unnerving, and I truly appreciate your support.”
Ivan certainly found its species unnerving. They were alien, truly alien, and in a very bad way. There was a reason the Alliance had taken pains to exterminate them over the course of their invasion. Regardless of how he thought of the Krulvuks, Ivan was still glad they had failed.
“Well, uh, you seem agreeable enough,” he ventured. “It’s just the command caste that I mind. The way they run things doesn’t sit right with me.” Krulvuks were a cold and utilitarian species, having earned many enemies before they stood against the hated Alliance. Before the war, the threat of a Krell Imperial or international police action kept their species in line with Coalition morality. Now, with their army sorely needed to defend frontline worlds, there were no such restrictions. The Galactic Coalition could not afford a conflict at home.
Their lower castes were instinctively conditioned to obey and defend the command caste to the death, and the latter treated their servants almost universally like expendable machines. To them, lives were a resource like any other. Soldier caste, worker caste, even fellow command castes had a value, and they all could be left to die unflinchingly if another resource was deemed more precious.
Vigel did not mind this way of life. Most others did. The Krulvuk Regime had a very short list of allies.
“Why?” asked the massive insect. “They are logical. Efficient. Calculating. Are these not admirable traits in a leader?”
“A leader should have compassion,” Kryll countered. “They should care for their people, not just see them as tools.” Vigel understood this concept, even if it did not grasp the sentiment of it. Admiral Jedik had explained it to him.
“Like the admiral,” it clicked understandingly. “Compassion is unnecessary,” it countered. “Logic dictates that, when the colony prospers, the command caste will also prosper. Thus, logically, the command caste has an incentive to make their colony prosper. No compassion is involved in that.”
No compassion was involved on Tlelaxis III, either, when a battalion of Regime troops gunned down an entire worker caste habitation sector to cull the spread of a lethal epidemic. Ivan was really growing to dislike Vigel. Kryll had already drawn that conclusion, though he was better at hiding it. “And what if I’m wounded on the battlefield, and logic dictates you leave me to die?” snapped Ivan.
“Ivan,” Kryll warned. “Let’s try to be cooperative here.”
“His concern is valid,” Vigel countered. “I assure you, I will always act in the best interests of the Republic. I would never abandon my unit unless the situation demanded it.” Ivan felt that was a fair answer, all things considered. He knew he’d shed few tears over leaving Vigel on the front. “Still,” warned the insect, “I may not refuse an order that is given to me. I am compelled to obey.”
“Any order?” asked Ivan, concern mixed with contempt in his voice. “Tell me honestly, are you a machine? Or are you a man?”
“I am neither,” said Vigel. “I am simply a killer. Born and bred.” A butcher was closer to Ivan’s description of it. “That is why I am here.”
“Damn straight!” Ivan exclaimed. “You’re a soulless, emotionless, murder machine, just like the rest of your shitty race.”
“Ivan!” snapped Kryll. “As your superior officer, I command you to be silent!” Ivan stepped back sheepishly. “You will not insult your fellow soldiers again.”
“I am not insulted,” Vigel defended him. “I find his assessment to be somewhat accurate, if in a demeaning way.”
“Which means you should be insulted,” Ivan snapped, jabbing a finger at Vigel. Kryll glared at him through his helmet. “Any normal person would.”
“Sergeant Kaydanovsky, do I need to tie your mouth shut with rope?” Ivan grew silent. After all he’d been through alongside Kryll, he had almost forgotten the bird was still his superior officer. “You will refrain from speaking in that manner about anyone in this unit, or I will have you running sixties until your legs collapse,” Kryll snapped. He could be quite intimidating if the situation called for it. “Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Ivan growled, snapping to attention and saluting. “Perfectly clear, sir.”
“Good. Now, you’re dismissed.” Ivan turned and stalked out of the room. Kryll considered following him, thinking more as his friend than his commanding officer, but there was little he could do. Kryll Naxol could field-strip an automatic rifle in ten seconds flat, he could make an improvised explosive out of engine coolant and empty canteens, but he was far out of his element here.
Ivan walked out of the cargo bay in a fury, disgusted at the callousness with which Vigel treated life and the readiness with which he defended his despotic command caste. Kryll knew he was right, he felt the same way himself, but he was hopeless at convincing Ivan to hold his tongue around Vigel. Unity was what won wars, and Kryll's unit was disunified. If Ivan refused to fight alongside Vigel, or he did not place his trust in it, the unit would be destroyed. People would die.
The fleet would be at Neldia within a day. He and his men would be fighting on the ground, behind enemy lines and with only each other to rely on, within three. And, like it or not, the bond between them was fast unraveling.
Kryll knew he had to act fast, but he didn’t know what to do. The doctrine that had held true all his life had just failed right in front of him and, unless he was able to make Ivan fight down his feelings, the entire unit would be in danger.
Kryll Naxol did not know how to succeed, but he very much knew he was failing. Part of him believed that he already had.
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2024.05.11 19:02 bondgorl Working from home over the weekend requires a little help :)

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