An hour had passed and the cloud had spread out. Where before it had been nearly fifty miles at the base and a hundred miles at the top, it had spread out to over a hundred miles at the base and a hundred and thirty at the top. The cloud rippled with lightning and flashes could be seen deep inside.
It had reached the suburbs of all four nearby cities, two of them it was into the outskirts.
"Sisters of Wrath and the Sons of Hateful Mars have still not launched," Ensign Yvera said from her console.
The Admiral looked at the holotank again, where grav-shock warnings, temporal dissonance warnings, and just plain atomic detonations were spiking off every second.
The Admiral had never thought he'd consider multiple rapidfire atomic detonations in the 400 kiloton range to be 'just plain' in his worst nightmares.
"Raise the Sisters of Wrath," the Admiral ordered.
The holotank wiped away the view of the dust cloud where First Telkan was engaged, to be replaced by the ornate wallpaper of the Sisters of Wrath. After a moment it flickered and a large female Terran, clad in ornate Imperium armor appeared.
"Joan Anath, you were supposed to make planetfall thirty-eight minutes ago," the Admiral started.
"You have deployed a Knight Æsir encased in Novastar Armor in Valkyrie mode," the Joan said, her strong brown-skinned face was both stern and furious. "Explain yourself, Admiral."
Admiral Shtuklar frowned. "What?"
"Your warplan ordered us to make planetary landing, yet you have deployed a Knight Æsir to that planet. Why was I not informed you have set upon an Exterminus Ragnarok for this world?" the Joan asked.
"Exterminus Ragnarok?" the Admiral said. "What..."
"Is it your opinion that due to Dwellerspawn infestation this world cannot be saved and it will soon become a breeding world, threatening all worlds around it?" The Joan asked.
"No, which is why you were supposed to land to reinforce First Telkan once they established a landing zone and began to pull the enemy toward them and away from the city," the Admiral said.
"You claim we are to assist the Noble Telkan Martial Order and their Pater Belli , yet you have deployed a Knight Æsir and order us to assist him," the Joan sa
... keep reading on reddit ➡Welcome to an official [Lets Build]! This week, we are looking for:
Evil Magic Items - A list of 100 of the most evil, diabolical magic items.
| Die Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | The Black Finger of Akaron: This long, bony, decaying finger once belonged to the powerful necromancer Akaron. The wielder can use this finger to drain 1d6 HP from their opponent, if they fail a CON saving throw. If the spell works, the fingernail on the finger grows. |
| 2 | The Crown of the Skeleton: A silver circlet, engraved with skulls and bones. While wearing this circlet, you can summon 1d4 skeletons from the earth for a single day. The circlet recharges after 24 hours. |
| 3 | The Ring of Kazjezzren: A simple gold ring with tiny engravings of imps along the outside. You can use this ring to cast 'hold person' once per day, but the 'hold person' spell is actually 1d6 invisible imps holding the target in place. |
| 4 | The Mummified Heart of Granny Zelda: A small wooden box contains the mummified heart of a once VERY powerful hag. If you drop a single drop of your own blood onto the heart, it begins beating again. The heart grants you resistance to necrotic damage for 1d4 hours. |
| 5 | Necklace of the Dead: A necklace made from shrunken heads. The eyes of the heads have been plucked out. If you place a small gem in one of the eye sockets, and wear the necklace, you can cast Speak With Dead once per gem. The gem dissolves after use. |
| 6 | Helm of Twin-Linked Thoughts: This circlet is one of a pair. It enables the wearers to communicate telepathically over any distance. When one of the last users died while wearing it, the other's soul was trapped inside. It works as a helm of telepathy like normal, but when first attuned, the spirit inside tries to possess the wearer. |
| 7 | Hunter's Call: Channels have been carved into this ancient seven pointed elks horn. The user chooses a target and blows into the base. A call beyond human hearing goes out and any wolves within 10 miles will feel compelled to hunt the target each night until it, or they are dead. |
| 8 | Static Reach: This ring is made of braided copper bands of several precious metals. While worn anyone that shakes hands with the wearer will then cast Shocking Grasp on the next person they touch. This effect does not expire until the spell is discharged. The victim is unaware that they've been affected by the ring. |
| 9 | Kinslayers: When this matching pair of rust colored daggers are held by the same person any damage caused by them is also caused to the v |
Name: Carr Manzo
Age: 16
Birthdate: July 23rd
Sex: Male
Voice: Deep, but hushed
Accent: New York Italian
Hometown: Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Nationality: Italian-American
Orientation: Straight
Disorders: ADHD, PTSD, Nicotine Addiction
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Relationships
| Father | Nikki Manzo | 53 | Mob Boss in a past life |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mother | Enyo | Immortal | Goddess of war and destruction |
Appearance
Face claim: Emilio Sakraya
Height: 6'3
Weight: 225
Physique: From years of Wrestling, Kickboxing, and Ju-jutsu, he is fairly well built. His body is also covered in scars from years of fighting and beatings
Clothing: Typically found wearing either a black leather trench coat and combat pants, or a hoodie and sweats. it is unusual to see him not wearing longer clothing, as he is ashamed of his scars. He is always found wearing a golden cross necklace, and a silver and black bracelet on each wrist.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Phycological Profile
Mental State: Carr is extremely unstable, and prone to violence. He would much rather throw hands then talk, as fisticuffs is his language. He is also extremely antisocial, and were he cannot punch, he would run away or hide instead of talking.
Personality: As antisocial as he is, Carr will still go out of his way to be friendly towards strangers. He is a fairly determined individual and is very stubborn. He is also a believer in honor and has his own code, one that he lives by and will die by.
_
... keep reading on reddit ➡10th part in a series giving thoughts and theories by chapter in my read-through of WoT. Previous post here. I have never read this book, so no spoilers past this point!
Prologue: Fortress of the Light
- Starting off with a POV of the head of the Children of the Light, Pedron Niall. I picture these as sort of a militant crusader order, which historically operated fairly independently. He meets with Jaret Byar, who brought the message from Bornhald about the Battle of Falme, and Jaichim Carridin, the head of the the Children of the Light. I'm glad he called Carridin on his B.S. but there's no way I'd trust this guy. His answers on why he forbae Bornhald to go to Falme are clearly nonsense.
- And that's confirmed, looks like Carridin = The Man Called Bors. And he's got two sets of conflicting orders, from the head of the CotL to protect Rand, and from a myrdraal to kill Rand. I'm thinking he follows the Dark orders.
- Looks like we're heading for some sort of collision between the Children and the Tower. Niall's goals remind me of a certain character from Stormlight Archive. The idea of letting a false Dragon grow in power seems pretty arrogant and dumb. He compares it to letting a wild animal loose in town but it's probably more like letting a fire spread - likely to grow too strong to contain later.
Chapter 1: Waiting
- Alright, starting with Perrin (and the Mountains of Mist). Is it just my version or does the intro paragraph to the Great Hunt use slightly different language than the rest of the books?
- Good update on the situation, Rand and his followers are hiding out in the woods, kind of passive. Perrin gets another interaction with the Traveling People. There's something with him and them.
Chapter 2: Saidin
- A lot of recapping in this chapter. Mat, Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne are going to Tar Valon; Perrin, Moiraine, Lan, Min and Loial are with Rand.
- Rand's had a pretty big personality shift since the end of the last book, or perhaps it seems that way because we're seeing him from Perrin's POV. He is Not Okay. Very moody. Not an encouraging state of being.
Chapter 3: News from the Plain
- We're introduced to the Soulless, apparently dark assassins. Stuff in Tarabon is pretty messed up.
Chapter 4: Shadows Sleeping
- Dream sequences!
- First sequence: A man, presumably Ba'alzamon, offers Perrin what I'm going to call the Cu
Welp, I've truly stepped on the cat-girl's tail, Admiral Shtuklar thought to himself, staring at the holotank. He gave himself a physical shudder, shaking his head, then stood straight for a moment, looking over the protocontinent.
He turned to a second holotank and waved his hand through it, dismissing the estimations of post-battle casualties for the civilian populace. It was currently glitching due to SFC Casey hammering apart a large piece of the protocontinent so it next to useless.
He quickly put up his entire ground-side TO&E. First Lanaktallan Armor, First Telkan Marine Division, First Armored Recon, 1095 Treana'ad Ground Warfare Horde, and a good amount of other units. He quickly tabbed up a unit and designated it "First Planetary Powered Armor Assault" and moved Casey from First Telkan Senior NCO to that unit.
Being honest with himself as he worked, he admitted he had screwed up. The fact that 7th Army had been wiped out had shaken him and he had made a midshipman's mistake by just reacting and throwing everything he had at the enemy in the hopes of stopping them.
He closed his eyes for a second and remembered the time the bridge had taken a hit and the entire responsibility for a super-carrier had fallen on him as a LT JG in the middle of a heavy battle. He had reacted then too, and while his decisions had been lauded, he had always looked back on that and wondered if he could have made better decisions and saved more lives.
He brought up the RoE from several past battles involving 7th Army and stopped at the RoE for the Second Telkan War AKA Telkan Dwellerspawn War.
"RoE Update," he called out. "Transmit to all units but First Planetary Assault," he snapped. He turned and looked at the planet itself, thinking fast.
Scans were worthless so far, only showing blurring movement of a large amount of something, but other than that, nothing. He looked up the maximum range of a weapon and began working.
"Fab up Second Mantid War phasic munitions and have the guns loaded," he tapped out different areas, keeping away from the civilian centers and trying to ensure Lanaktallan and neo-sapient troops would only catch the edges. Telkan troops had high resistance to
... keep reading on reddit ➡Update: added link to source code
This is a rather long post. It documents my journey on a project that raised a lot of eyebrows. As is usually the case for me, the question of how is much more interesting than the question of why. This post gives a very detailed answer to the question of how. Let's go!
----
I have a 21 year-old Miele washing machine. I used to connect to the Internet using a modem when this fellow first left the Miele factory floor. As a weekend project I decided to put an ESP into that. How hard can that be?
Nobody stopped me only because we have a second washing machine.
The device has a 3-digit 7-segment display and a bunch of status LED's
https://preview.redd.it/dyvjjkjd7pt61.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4a515bfd704d90e4d63463dafa1fc5bb4d6dcb8c
So I figured, how hard can it be to add an ESP on top that reads out the current state of the device and posts it over MQTT? Just wire the LED's to some GPIO's and read out the voltage across each LED, amirite?
The first step was to disassemble the washing machine (as most people are known to do on weekends) and meet the incumbent MCU.
https://preview.redd.it/l1erw3848pt61.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=99097263f5bbea054b04a13235fd83554cb0182d
On the board we see a custom Miele chippie, a couple of other chips and all the SMT LED's that light up the front panel.
Let's see if we can even tell whether a LED is lit just by measuring the voltage across it. Uh oh, the measurement across a lit LED showed 0.17V. What?... my initial plan did not survive first contact with reality.
Let's try to figure out how the LED's on this board work. Tracing the fat PCB traces that lead away from the LED's on the right side, we arrive at one of the other chips - a Motorola MC14489, year of manufacture '99. A multi-character LED display driver. A-ha! It appears that the board uses an MC14489 to multiplex the output to the LED's. Neat! That explains the low voltage measured earlier.
There is in fact a second MC14489 on the board which apparently drives the 7-segment display. So one chip to drive the display and a second chip to drive the ~24 status LED's. I call the chips "left" and "right" from here on, or L and R.
Reading the datasheet, we see that the MC14489 is programmed over SPI. The chip has two registers, an 8-bit cont
... keep reading on reddit ➡———-
Artemis brought the shuttle to a hover over an open field. The guidance computer brought it to a landing, thank goodness for the ISS back doors tricking the ground controllers into thinking this is an ISS shuttle. So no attempts at tracking or any interface made.
Artemis immediately set a charge using what she has found stores of the shuttle. No point in going to her intended destination. Especially when she is going to enter a war zone where SAMs are everywhere. No point getting blasted out of the sky. Plus Artemis isn’t going to be able to leave for a while judging by the Kessler syndrome she may have caused. Well hopefully their space debris removal systems are up to date.
She set the timer for ten minutes and immediately runs off towards a city. Once’s she got a good three kilometers away an explosion can be heard. She turned back impressed by the small mushroom cloud it made. Clearly the chemical fuel is a lot more powerful than she thought.
———
Artemis walks into what would pass as a coffee shop. She immediately ordered tea and some pastries. She pulls out her tablet and pretended to go through the local newsfeeds.
Artemis taps into the local ISS networks, the nearest red zone is about twenty klicks south. Let’s see. The rebels there are suffering heinous losses against coalition marines.
Hmmm. Clones using power armor and common foot soldiers. Let’s see. It may seem that they are led by a commissar.
-Note. Target the commissars and get their implant codes. It is likely that their guns and power armor are signal coded to prevent any soldiers from rebelling.
-Note. The commissars are likely the most brainwashed zealot citizens or clones.
Artemis takes a bite out of a pastry. Mmmmm. Raspberry cherry like flavored jam.
She checks the local feeds, nothing new. Artemis paid the server and gone shopping, using the ISS credit to get some inconspicuous items.
———
“I need to piss, I’ll be right back ladies.” Commissar Pardra said to her unit. It was dark out and she needs her privacy. She wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time and found a hidden alcove in a bombed out building.
She undid her pants and underw
... keep reading on reddit ➡So, I have some KZ ZSN Pro IEMs with a busted cable which I want to replace.
Anyways, on my attempts on locating the site of the issue, I cut the wire in many parts to the point I have to redo it entirely. The problem was the type-c socket itself.
I did scrap the cable and kind of put everything together, but I have come to the final boss:
I have no clue how to wire the 4 cables to the 3 points of the plug.
I was assuming that for each side, the wire layout is:
1.- Left / Right channel
2.- Ground
So if I'm not mistaken, it is only a matter of wiring together the 2 ground wires and then I'll have the 3 wire standard layout.
That's what I thought until after wiring them, the left channel bleeds into the right channel and vice versa.
As in, I play a stereo test that only plays sound in X channel, but the sound is still being played on the other channel, albeit at a much much lower volume.
The only useful clue I can give is that the cable did have a mic, but I removed it so it's just the wire running straight from the type-c socket to the 3.5mm plug, the only thing I can imagine that could be related is this, maybe the mic portion had some special wiring that prevented this or something.
Any ideas here? Thank you!
Btw, keep in mind that it's a braided cable so it's impossible to tell which side is which, so it's just trial and error until you figure out which wire is which. They are color coded, but as striping the wire makes it just too prone to cut strands of copper, I just burn the plastic off releasing some nice carcinogen gasses and leaving the naked copper wiring, but it also burns off the colored coat so you don't really get to check which wire it is.
Anyway, this shouldn't really matter as I'm using plain wire that is not connected to anything that would give it default a polarity until I do plug them, and also I tried all possible combinations and the result was always the same. Thanks
With Deino in the game and Beibi around the corner, I was thinking on how to balance semi-aquatics and lower the intense cannibalism of juvie Deino. Also, I’m concerned Beibi is not viable as the isle currently is set up. See below and say what you think...
-
The “sonar” Deino has should not show up for semi-aquatics moving in water. Semi-aquatics, being evolved for water movement, should be able to swim freely. Terrestrial animals splash more when in water, so should display the “sonar” to all semi-aquatics in range. This allows Beibi/Deino to effectively move/hide in water.
-
Beibi should have plant-based food sources within the rivers. The diet system should penalize plant food outside the water. This will ensure Beibi remains primarily semi-aquatic.
-
Beibi should deal heavy bleed with its claws. This will provide adequate defense against lone land carnivores while still enabling Deino to prey upon them as Deino has bleed resistance.
-
Beibi should be a VERY fast swimmer. This is their primary defense against Deino. They can’t magically see them coming (see #1), but if wary, they can escape.
-
There needs to be a re-thought to rivers. Granted, there needs to be stand-alone ponds/lakes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Rivers need to be developed further. All rivers eventually feed into the one which dumps onto the beach, yet they never increase in width. As rivers merge, they need to increase in width. Imagine if, towards the ocean, you had a wide river which formed braided channels as it entered the ocean as a true river delta. The old V3 had a wide river, so I hope we can see the same here. This will allow for a wide and varied gameplay between multiple species.
The funeral director was asking us what we think Mum should wear in her casket.
Mum always loved to wear sarongs (fabric wraps that go around the torso and drape downward a bit like a long skirt would), so my uncle suggested that she wear a sarong in there.
The funeral director looked a bit confused, as did some of our family members, to which my uncle added:
"What's sarong with that?"
I started laughing like an idiot. He was proud of it too. The funeral director was rather shocked. We assured her, and our more proper relatives, that Mum would've absolutely loved the joke (which is very true).
His delivery was perfect. I'll never forget the risk he took. We sometimes recall the moment as a way help cushion the blows of the grieving process.
--Edit-- I appreciate the condolences. I'm doing well and the worst is behind me and my family. But thanks :)
--Edit-- Massive thanks for all the awards and kind words. And the puns! Love 'em.
I would have a daughter
>Excerpt from Alexan’s Third Journal, Tour of the Shadowed Depths
>I should not have been surprised I suppose. The Erlkin are a race that lives their lives drenched in shadow.
>The more I deal with these goats, the more they remind me of dusk and the shadows cast by the setting sun. This is a time where the changing shadows can fool the eyes into seeing things that aren’t there, or things that seem wildly different from their true selves. And the Erlkin are intrinsically creatures of darkness. Worse is that the more Erlkin you put together, the more the lies, half-truths and hidden realities pile up. A person could argue that any society is like that given time, but it’s never hit me so hard as it has in literally every Erlkin community I’ve visited.
>The Erlkin themselves seem happy enough with it, as if they’re hiding from the dark under a thick blanket. I wonder just how much it would take for them to throw off the covers?
>
"It may be fortunate that you are Human," Elder Darisen spoke, looking to the center of the scrying globe, his expression softening.
Tal looked away from the ruined landscape, still trying to digest what the sentinel had told him.
The Elder waved a hand at the globe and the vision faded away like dissipating mist. Fragments of the enchantment glittering with colour as they disappeared.
"Indeed, the previous chosen have been either gnomish, or fellow Erlkin." Darisen turned away from the scrying ball. "Walk with me, Yekchetal."
"Please," Tal spoke out, "please call me Tal, if you would.”
That earned him several seconds of a deep appraising look from the Elder. It only took one of those seconds for Tal to be consumed with the urge to fidget.
"Very, young Tal, please." Darisen indicated with lowered hand for Tal to walk beside him. He spoke again as Tal complied and caught up, "We will talk for just a little longer, then I will allow you to resume your recovery."
As they left the room, Tal picked up the conversation, "Elder, you called me lucky? For being Human?"
Lucky wasn't how he would describe being the only Human around with no prospects of that changing.
"Indeed! I have some hope for your chances with the seal," Darisen clasped
... keep reading on reddit ➡
But Bill kept the Windows
