#they decode the codes for us that have a smooth brain

[mitsvri]

@tvaofficial​ you have been hyping us up and also been scaring us a lot and for that we are grateful 🙏

#also shoutout to timevarianceauthoritea #they decode the codes for us that have a smooth brain #loki #loki series #tva #time variance authority #morbius #owen wilson #tvaofficial #tvaofficial acc admin if you see this i'm so sorry for sending asks and dms #pls don't block me

[itskateak]

Mint Ice Cream & Bubblegum Kisses - Chapter Four

(Bucky Barnes X Single Dad!Reader)

Series Summary: Y/N L/N works as an intel specialist at the Avenger’s Compound. He scans chatter on the international - and intergalactic - level for any information that might be helpful to the Avengers and other agents. But he’s also a single father to a beautiful eight-year-old girl: Angelica L/N. It’s tough raising a little girl on his own and working a full-time job, but he’s managing. A promotion has him launched up in rank at the Compound, leading him to work directly with the Avengers team. The only problem is it’s a 24/7 job. Life around the compound gets a little strange when his daughter is added to the mix of enhanced humans and ex-assassins.

Chapter Summary: Rumors had always surrounded Bucky Barnes. A very early morning has Y/N thinking that every single one of them are wrong.

Word Count: 3.9K

Warnings: Meet-cute, fluff, unwanted romantic advances (again), minor language, Bucky being a little self-loathing

A/N: I wish y'all could've seen what happened in the middle of revising this - we got a 5.1 earthquake out of nowhere that jolted the house pretty good and in my rush to pick up my glass (and not move from the couch because screw that, I'm lazy and mother nature would have to throw me off the couch herself like that guy in the bathtub on Nov. 30th, 2018 - which, by the way, who is just soaking in the bathtub at 8:30 AM???), I slapped the keyboard. Oops. And then we got two more in the next two minutes.

Masterlist

Taglist is open! Drop a note in my messages, inbox, or leave a comment to be added!

If I can’t tag you, I will personally message you when a new chapter comes out so you don’t miss it!

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Y/N sank into his desk chair, sleep hanging at the corner of his eyes. He almost had hit his alarm and gone back to bed, but since Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes were returning from a mission, he forced himself out of bed. They'd have information for him to add to the system that could be urgent. So, here he was, half-awake and booting up his computer.

He hadn't even had his caffeine this morning so his personality had yet to catch up. He was just a walking, mumbling shell of Y/N until his brain woke up entirely. That could take ten minutes, or it could take two hours. 

A knock on the door made him look up and blink to see who was in his doorway. The hall outside was still dark and his office wasn't very bright either so it was a little difficult to see.

Steve smiled in greeting and leaned against the doorframe. He was still in his tactical gear, a bloody scratch on his cheek proving that he'd come straight from the helicarrier. "Hey, Y/N. You're up bright and early."

"Well, you two decided to come back before even the roosters are awake, so...here I am. Just in case you guys had sensitive intel for me." Y/N tiredly smiled in return.

"Ah. Buck's the one who gathered most of the intel. He wanted to shower first since he was, in his words, sweatier than a sinner in a church and smellier than a nightclub on Wednesdays." Steve shrugged. "Sometimes I wonder if he's okay when he says stuff like that."

"A...nightclub on...Wednesdays?" Y/N asked, head tilted curiously.

"Apparently, Wednesdays were some of the busiest nights back in the day at the clubs he used to go to. Packed with people. We didn't really use deodorant in that time...so, it smelled pretty bad after a while." Steve explained. "Anyway, I came by to ask you a very important question."

"What's up?"

"What is your favorite caffeinated drink?"

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Y/N didn't realize he had fallen asleep on his desk until someone had carefully placed a cup next to him. He turned his head as he woke up, leaning his cheek against his arm. He blinked awake, noticing the mug.

"Bless you, you beautiful, beautiful person." He mumbled sleepily, straightening up and taking the warm drink gratefully.

"An apology for making you get up really early and somethin' to get you movin'." The person said with a soft voice. "Steve told me that was your favorite."

Y/N looked up at them and paused. He was tall - but that may have been the vantage point - and had wide shoulders. His eyes were a glittering blue and filled with friendliness. He gave a lopsided smile.

 "I'm Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone just calls me Bucky."

"Y/N L/N. Nice to meet you. And thanks for the drink." Y/N extended his hand to greet Bucky. "So, what do you have for me?"

Bucky set a small stack of old files on the corner of the desk before sitting down on the couch pressed against the wall meant for visitors. He laid his ankle on his knee, leaning back and lounging against the couch. He hitched his chin towards the dusty files.

"Grabbed them from the Hydra base we raided. Not sure what all is in there but it seemed pretty important given how it was locked in a safe within a safe, behind a vaulted door and guarded by people armed to the teeth." Bucky explained then sighed deeply, his head falling back against the top of the seat. He stared at the ceiling, shaking his head slightly.

"Sounds crazy. You okay?" Y/N swiveled in his chair to face Bucky, tilting his head slightly. He warmed his hands with the drink he'd been brought, taking slow sips periodically to avoid burning his tongue.

"Yeah, just tired and glad to be back." Bucky picked his head back up and brushed his hair back out of his face. It was obvious he had just gotten out of the shower not too long ago, his hair still damp and starting to curl up. 

"Did you get hurt?"  Y/N asked, concerned. From the looks of Steve, the mission had been rough on them. They'd been gone for almost two weeks.

"Nothin' major. Few scratches and bruises. Maybe a pinched nerve or muscle in my knee, but Bruce isn't awake yet to get it checked out." Bucky gestured with his head to his left knee before shrugging. "How're you settling in? I heard about Stark's smooth promotion offer."

"Oh, yeah...that scared the shit out of me. Everything's working out well. A little strange being my own boss, really, but it feels great. I know Angelica's having a blast with the fact there's a pool downstairs and she's surrounded by some pretty cool people." Y/N shook his head fondly. "New office, new room, new environment. It's different...but good."

"That's how I felt when I first moved here. Though, everyone wasn't as welcoming...and they had every right not to trust me." Bucky looked at the floor, expression faltering. "I'm...not the easiest to get along with somedays."

"I think we're getting along just fine." Y/N gave him a friendly smile. "I might be biased since you brought me my favorite drink."

Bucky laughed then, a warm sound that filled the space, and the corners of his eyes crinkled up. "So you figured out my plan. Bribe you into likin' me." 

"Don't think you have to bribe me very much." Y/N broke into laughter, too, happy to see a smile back on Bucky's face. "You should get some food and get some rest if you can."

"I won't be able to sleep until later. Too wired still and probably will be for most of the morning."

"Maybe Wanda will make some tea for you." Y/N set his cup down. "My daughter doesn't know that you two were coming back this morning. She can be very hyperactive and excited when meeting new people. I didn't want you to come back from a mission and possibly be in a bad state of mind only to be met with a kid who wants to ask you rapid-fire questions for an hour."

"I appreciate that. I won't be against meeting her this afternoon. It's a Monday, right?" Bucky glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost five in the morning. "Yeah. Sometime this afternoon, if you want me to swing by and meet her, just let me know."

 "Of course. Thanks, again, for the drink. I'll get to these files soon." Y/N smiled, waving his hand vaguely at the stack of files.

"No problem. I'll get out of your way and leave you to it. Nice to meet you, Y/N. Happy to have you on the team." Bucky stood raised his arms above his head in a stretch. "Oh, and if you need translating or cracking the codes, let me know and I'll help with what I can. See you around, Y/N."

"See you, Bucky." Y/N watched him walk past the glass front of his office and down the hall. All the rumors he'd heard about Bucky being gruff and cold to everyone he meets seemed to be untrue. He already liked the ex-assassin, despite only knowing him for ten minutes total. His rough exterior was offset by his kindness and concern for others.

Y/N pulled the top file and opened it. He sighed. It was all in Russian. Luckily, he could scan the documents into the computer and a program would translate them all out. The only thing he'd need to do afterward would be to create a decoder for the system Hydra used. He shook his mouse to wake his computer.

This was similar tedious work to what he'd used to do, but at least he could wear what he wanted and play music out loud without disturbing anyone. And his daughter could come in and out whenever she wanted when she was tearing around like the little gremlin she was. 

With a wayward glance at the clock, he stood and started scanning the documents.

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Angelica came running into Y/N's office after school had gotten out, her backpack thrown on the floor near the couch. She flopped onto it on her back, limbs sprawled out, groaning loudly.

"Well, hello to you, too." Y/N said, glancing up from his computer to look at his daughter. "How was school?"

"Boring. Like usual." She whined, throwing her arms out but nearly falling off the couch in the process. She squealed and steadied herself. "I wish we did harder math things or read more interesting things."

"Can't be as boring as what I've been doing." Y/N teased, scrolling through the newly translated documents. He was still scanning the files that Bucky had brought that morning and he had yet to start cracking the codes that HYDRA used. "I have at least thirty-eight papercuts on my hands now."

"Whatcha looking at?" Angelica rolled off the couch and moved to see his computer screens. He switched tabs quickly to a google home page. "Papaaa."

"It could be sensitive content, Angel. Can't show you that. And I have no idea what kind of content is in there. Some of it might not be suitable for you." Y/N picked her up and settled her on his lap, an arm around her waist. She leaned back against him, leaning her head against his. "I could take a break and we can watch some YouTube."

"Ooh! Can we watch some dog videos?" She asked, excited.

"Whatever you want, kiddo." He leaned forward and brought up YouTube, typing in a search for funny dog videos. "We can have a fifteen-minute break before I should get back to work and you should start on homework."

"Don't ruin this for me." Angelica groaned, lighting kicking his shin. "Ooh! The first one looks adorable. Look at his little paws!"

Y/N grinned and clicked on the video, turning up the volume. Her giggles and laughter always brightened his day. He watched a puppy stumble and tip a water dish over. Everyone needed a puppy break in the middle of the day and it was definitely needed after the very early morning. 

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"Oh, wow. This is fancy. You sure moved up in the world." Kiera's voice startled Y/N and he looked up from his notes. 

"Oh, hi! Come in, Kiera." Y/N minimized the tabs on his screens and closed his notebook. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, I have a few files from our department that are directly related to a mission that's coming up that they want you to look at." She said, holding up two folders. 

"I've not been told of any mission but let me see what's up." He held his hand out and she crossed his office to pass the files over. He opened the top one and scanned over the words. "I'll have to talk to Tony or Steve to see what this is about, but this seems pretty important."

"The boss man wanted me to run it up here as soon as it was compiled. Are you sure you don't know what it's about?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"They might've told me and I just forgot. It's been a crazy few days with Natasha and Sam prepping to leave for a mission tonight and the intel I had to send to the Guardians." Y/N set the files down on his desk.

"So, how's it feel to be in the elite club?" Kiera sat down on the couch, crossing her legs. She was wearing a pencil skirt and heels, which he didn't actually pay attention to after doing a quick scan over her. 

"I had to get up at like...three-thirty this morning because Rogers and Barnes decided to return from a mission with sensitive files at four." Y/N buzzed his lips, leaning back in his chair. "Rogers stopped by first to say hi and tell me Barnes had all the files."

"Sergeant Barnes makes me...uncomfortable sometimes. He's really quiet in meetings and always looks like he's angry or doesn't want to be there." Kiera pursed her lips. "And whenever he talks, he's really short and gruff. He just seems really cold and unapproachable. Did you have to deal with him alone?"

"He brought me my favorite drink, apologized for making me get up so early, and asked how I was settling in. He was nice and offered to help  decode the files he'd brought." He shrugged, thinking back on their conversation that morning. "He was really friendly and open. I think he just isn't comfortable around strangers or large groups of people."

"Y/N, I'm worried about you and Angelica. What if he tries to hurt either of you? I know they say he's stable but is he really? What if he just snaps one day and turns back into the Winter Soldier?" Kiera stood and crossed to him, sitting on the edge of his desk. 

Y/N arched a brow slightly as she laid a hand on his shoulder, her thumb rubbing in a circle over the fabric of his shirt. "Kiera, why are you even bringing this up? If there was even the possibility of him being a threat to anyone, especially Angelica, they wouldn't have let us move in here or he would still be in Wakanda."

"All I'm saying is that you should be careful, okay? I don't think you should get too close to him. I don't want to see you get hurt and I really don't want to see Angelica get hurt." Kiera said. She didn't even know Bucky other than what she's heard through rumors or the news, so why was she pushing this so much? In his eight-minute conversation with Bucky that morning, he'd already dismissed all the rumors and other experiences people had told him about because of how open and friendly he'd been.

"Kiera," He started, voice low and stern. "If I had any concerns about Bucky, I would speak to him directly about it. Talking about him behind his back and perpetuating rumors only hurts his reputation and the way people view him. He knows people don't trust him and feels that it's rightfully deserved."

"Just...be careful, okay? That's all I'm asking. I just fear for Angelica." Kiera said quietly.

"Oh, uh...I'll just...come back in a few minutes." A voice made them both turn and Y/N shrugged Kiera's hand off his shoulder. Bucky was standing awkwardly in the doorway, a hand raised to knock on the door.

"No, come on in, Bucky." Y/N flashed him a warm smile and gave a side-eyed glance at the woman still hovering near him. "Kiera was just leaving." He said through his teeth.

"The boss will want me back in my little cubicle." She stood and walked past Bucky without sparing a glance at him and paused in the doorway. "I'll see you Wednesday night." She winked and smiled before sauntering down the hall.

"Did I interrupt something?" Bucky avoided eye contact, looking at the pictures on the wall instead as he moved further into the office. He looked awkward, his arms hanging limply at his sides. Y/N wondered if he overheard their conversation. 

"She was just bringing files relating to a mission coming up that I may or may not have been told about." Y/N turned back to his computer, opening his tabs and notebook again. Bucky could see the intel and he didn't have to worry about the confidential issue.

"Seemed a little more friendly than that." Bucky snorted, sitting down on the couch, and immediately sinking into it. He was relaxing with every passing second. "Wednesday, huh?"

"I have absolutely no idea what she was talking about. The only plan I have Wednesday night is to go to the library after getting ice cream at Pop's Shoppe with Angelica like we do every Wednesday night." Y/N said, looking at him with an open expression of honesty. 

"Sounded like a date to me." Bucky threw an arm over the back of the couch, his ankle resting on his knee. "Nothin' wrong with that if it was."

"She's just a friend." Y/N sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I should clear that up with her in case she got the wrong impression." 

"I don't think you called me down here to talk about your workplace drama, though." Bucky gave him a lopsided smile, head tilted slightly. Any awkwardness or discomfort was gone. "What's up?"

"Need your help deciphering the codes. I've identified four different codes they use but I can't figure out what they mean." Y/N pressed his lips together in frustration. "I've written each of them down."

"Got a pen?" Bucky sat up, hand extended.

"Yeah. Here's the notebook, too." Y/N passed them to him, noticing that he didn't hesitate with reaching out with his metal arm. Not that he minded the metal prosthetic in the first place. "While you work on that, I can look over the files Kiera brought."

"She seems nice. Seen her in a couple of briefings. Knows what she's talking about and is really good at her job." Bucky said, eyes scanning the notebook as he wrote. "Not a bad choice, honestly."

"She is nice, but not my type." Y/N responded, opening one of the new files, ignoring the flush rising on his face. He was so embarrassed for absolutely no reason.

"Don't think she knows that." Bucky snorted before muttering something in Russian under his breath. He glanced up for a moment. "Maybe you should make it clear to her."

"Last week I used going to Operations Control - even though I was actually going to Accounting - as an excuse to leave just to stop her from asking me to dinner because I didn't want to turn her down." He admitted, keeping his gaze on the papers as his face warming up even more.

"Just let her down easy. Tell her you think she's nice but you aren't interested in a romantic relationship with her." Bucky suggested with a shrug.

A comfortable silence settled between them as they both worked on their respective tasks. Occasionally, there was a soft whirring of the computers as the fans turned on to cool them down or of Bucky's arm as he moved. It was because of this that they both heard the footsteps rushing toward the office.

"Papa, I finished my homework! Can you check my multiplication worksheet?" Angelica came dashing in, holding a folder to her chest, and smiling broadly.

"Inside voice, kiddo. Inside voice." Y/N looked up with a gently chastizing expression. "But, yes. I can check your math." 

Angelica stopped with wide-eyes, actually noticing the man on the couch for the first time since she'd sprinted in. There went the plan of setting up a meeting time for Bucky and the ball of energy.

Bucky glanced up and gave her a quick smile that reminded Y/N of the one he gave to people when they held doors open for him. It was full of awkward friendliness and Y/N had sympathy for him.

"You're James Buchanan Barnes." She said in amazement, smiling broadly in return. She bounced on the balls of her feet, barely containing her enthusiasm.

"Uh, yep. That's my name, but you really don't need to call me James or Barnes or whatever. Just Bucky works." He tucked a strand of hair that had fallen into his vision behind his ear. "And you're..?"

"Angelica. Kiddo, you can barrage Bucky with questions here in a second but I need your math homework if you want me to check it." Y/N chuckled. His daughter snapped out of her daze and rushed to hand her folder to him. She then skipped over to the couch and flopped down next to him.

"Whatcha working on?" She asked in her adorable way, her head tilted.

"Code cracking for your dad." Bucky hummed, shifting so he wasn't so closed off.

"Is it fun?"

"Sort of. I'm tired so I'm not exactly at a functioning level." He bounced his foot slightly. "I think you're the only person I've met who has been starstruck and knew my actual name."

"I did a project last month about you for history. That lesson was the only one that was not boring." Angelica swung her legs. "I think you're pretty cool."

"Oh," Bucky said, looking at the notebook. "Uh, thanks."

Y/N glanced up from the multiplication problems to see a blush spreading across the badass Winter Soldier's face. He smiled secretly and returned to the multiplication, scanning just to be sure his math whiz of a kid hadn't missed anything in her speed demon functions.

"Everyone else wanted to do projects on Natasha or Steve or Wanda and no one wanted to do a project on you. Made me mad 'cause they had all these ideas about you that were, like, not at all true but they didn't know that 'cause they jus' listened to their parents and didn't take ten minutes to think for themselfs." Angelica glared at the floor in her very childlike stern manner. "There's a reason you're a hero but they wouldn't know that 'cause all they'd heard was that you were a bad guy. So someone had to tell them otherwise."

"Alright, kiddo. This all looks correct. Good job." Y/N tucked the papers back into her folder and set his pen aside. She hopped off the couch and took her folder back with a smile. "Bucky and I need to get back to work, so you'll have to scram, okay?"

"Wanda said she'd teach me how to make some food from her homeland when I was done with my homework," Angelica told him.

"You remember the rules?"

"Yep!" 

"Then scram. Have fun." Y/N gently shoved her shoulder and she giggled.

"Bye, Bucky! See you later!" Angelica said, pausing at the door to give him a wave.

"See ya around, sweetie." He waved back with a friendly smile before she took off running down the hall again. "She is quite the ball of energy."

"You have no idea." Y/N laughed, picking the file back up. "She didn't make you uncomfortable or anything, right? She tends to get loud and talkative when she's super excited."

"No, no. It was cute. I've...never really had someone act like that the first time I've met them. Usually, they're all wary and distrustful like I'm some feral dog that has to be danced around." Bucky sighed, running a hand through his hair. His lips were pressed into a firm line and he glared at the notebook.

"You know, when she did that project on you, she wouldn't stop talking about you for weeks. I've seen her get passionate about things before, but for some reason, she was extra determined to prove to everyone that you're a good guy now." Y/N smiled fondly. "She likes seeing the good in people. Always have, and probably always will."

"I think she takes after you on that one," Bucky mumbled under his breath. "This should let you decode the information. They mixed codes a lot just to be extra sure no one could sell the intel."

Y/N took his notebook and pen back with a nod. "Thanks. This will help a ton."

Bucky stood, wincing slightly as his knee popped. "I'll leave you to it, then."

"Oh, I have a deal proposition before you go." Y/N stopped him with a smirk. 

"I'm listening." Bucky arched a brow.

"You bring my drink every morning and every time Angelica plans a prank on you or a prank that could affect you, I'll let you know. If she asks, just say it's a super-soldier superpower or something." Y/N offered with a mischievous grin. "We have a deal?"

"We have a deal." Bucky shook his hand. 

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Taglist - @supernaturalwintersoldier​ @shadowolf993​ @myybebe @pastel-boy-sungjae​

#mint ice cream & bubblegum kisses #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x male reader #bucky barnes x single dad!reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #tw earthquake #i talk about it in the note at the beginning

[liathgray]

hey man thanks to you i thought of a way to decode numbers to letters (relatively) quickly in my head because i downloaded your fic for offline and wanted to know what the code meant!! (my previous method was singing the alphabet song and hoping that i could keep track, now i'm putting the numbers on a clock: 3/15: c, o, 6/18: f, r, etc.)

Okay that’s genuinely a smart way to do it I’ve just been using a little chart because i have a smooth brain

#anon you wanna harvard scholarship— #fr tho thats cool!!!! #anon #i need a tag for asks so bam

[sweatersarecomfyy]

Fancy Brain (Spencer Reid x Reader)

Summary: Reader likes Spencer but doesn’t want to tell him in fear of ruining their friendship. It’s super cute and fluffly, no warnings. Ya. 

My first Spencer fic, I love him so much.

He was in the conference room still trying to figure out something from the case. He was sitting on the floor surrounded by papers and books, but I could tell he was taking a break, sipping some coffee as he looked out the window momentarily. It was beautiful to watch him work.

I walked in and sat down at one of the chairs, he turned and gave me that goofy grin before turning back to his coffee. I did some more research as he tried to line up some sort of code that the unsub had left us. Often, I would just look over at him with his furrowed brow, and his fingers scanning the pages of book after book. I wasn’t getting much work done due to being distracted by him.

“It must be hard to be you.” I blurted out.

“Hmm?” He turned slightly.

I felt my face getting hot “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

He sat at one of the chairs and turned toward me. He didn’t look offended. “What do you mean?”

I was really embarrassed. “I just. I don’t know. Your brain works in a way that most people can’t even comprehend, and because of that you don’t quite understand how other people work. I mean, you do in the technical sense, but you know…” I took a deep breath “And you probably got made fun of a lot…I’m sorry. I don’t really have a filter.”

He laughed slightly. “I guess it was hard to be this way, but I’ve pretty much gotten used to it. Luckily, I don’t really notice when people make fun of me. I have good friends, and I wouldn’t change anything.” He smiled and nodded.

I smiled back.

“Is it hard being new?” He asked. “I think you might be projecting your worries.”

I nodded. “I mean, everyone’s great, but they all have so much more experience and years, and I feel, I dunno, different, weird.”

“How about we be different and weird together?” He asked kindly. “Because I’m definitely both of those things.”

My heart warmed at the kind gesture. “That would be great.”

He turned back to the board “How much experience do you have with decoding?”

 *****

“Yes, and so the introduction of Christmas trees, wreaths, and other things we think of as traditional Christmas decorations are actually pagan in origin, introduced when the Christians were trying to get more people to convert.” He rattled off.

I nodded. “Why were the Christians so set on converting so many people? I mean I get that they really believed it but as far as I know their God didn’t teach violence as a form of proselyting.”

“Actually…”

His mind was such a brilliant place, every time I talked to him I learned more and found myself trying to look up information that I didn’t know so that I could have these conversations with him. I found that if I started talking about facts from the myths and legends I specialized in he would immediately supplement it with more. If I kept asking him questions he would keep answering. I was hooked. Other people seemed annoyed when he babbled some random facts and they would roll their eyes even more when I continued to have a conversation off of that topic.

“Two nerds in a pod.” That’s what Garcia said whenever she saw us talking like that, like she wasn’t a nerd at all.

“I would define myself as more of an egghead.” I would reply to her.

Spencer would always laugh at that. He told me that the term originated in 1952 with some presidential candidate I could never remember the name of.

“Thank you.”

I snapped out of my reverie. “For what?”

“For always listening to me.”

I furrowed my brow “Of course.”

“I say that because you actually listen, and then reply. People usually don’t do that to me.”

“Oh. Well you are the most fascinating person I’ve ever met. I could listen to you for hours.” I smiled.

I saw his cheeks redden a little. “You have.”

We both chuckled.

*****

I don’t quite know if my feelings for this man started the day I saw him, or later on, if they came all at once, or if they built up over time, all I knew is that one day I realized I was fully head over heels in love with my best friend and coworker Spencer Reid.

Unfortunately, this meant that I lost all my chill whenever I was around him. Sometimes he would walk into a room and I would walk straight out so that he wouldn’t see how flustered I got. Instead of making meaningful glances at each other whenever someone made a significant factual or grammatical error I would stare straight ahead. I even avoided the coffee shop where we both always ended up getting our morning meal and walking to work together. One day he seemed to be around me so much that I went to hide in a broom closet during lunch. I really didn’t want him to know. I was younger than him, definitely not as smart, and nothing that he deserved looks-wise, and he was smart enough to figure out my feelings.

So I just avoided him.

Being the genius he is, he still found me, in the broom closet, eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich like some sort of outcast in high school.

“What are you doing in here?” He peeked through the door.

I felt my eyes widening. “Um, eating?”

He looked around. “Well can I eat in here with you? I feel like we haven’t talked in a while.”

“I actually, have to leave soon, I need to run an errand…” I stopped when I saw the hurt look on his face.

There was a pause.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” He looked at the ground, the door clicking closed behind him.

“I haven’t.”

“Yes you have, don’t deny it.” He sat down opposite me. “We’re friends. I want to know if something’s wrong. If I’ve done something wrong.”

My heart seized and I almost cried. “No Spencer, you’ve done nothing wrong.” I covered his hand in mine, realized what I was doing and folded my arms back up. There was so much more I wanted to say but it started coming out as tears instead. “I’m sorry. I’m such a wimp.” I wiped my eyes and managed a weak laugh.

“I don’t think you’re a wimp.” He pulled a tissue box from the supply shelf and handed me a tissue. “I just want to help. What’s wrong?”

I looked at his sincere brown eyes, he was leaning toward me and he set a hand on my shoulder. I needed to be honest with him.

“Ok. I need to tell you something.”

He nodded, looking slightly concerned.

“Please don’t think any less of me, and please still be my friend afterwards, I can get over it.”

He now just looked confused. “Get over what?”

I covered my face and gave a rather unattractive sniffle. “I have a huge crush on you, but it’s ok, because we can still be friends, right? I can get over it. I know I’m weird, and young, and you probably don’t have interest in me, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I took a breath. “I’ll just go.”

I tried to get up, but he took my hand and pulled me back down. “That’s why you’ve been avoiding me?”

I nodded, not daring to look him in the face. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“Spence, you’re my best friend, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that, and I’m really sorry.”

He didn’t say anything so I glanced up at him only to see him staring at me.

“What?” I wiped my eyes. My heart beat faster afraid of what he was going to say next.

Before I knew what was happening his lips were on mine and his arms were wrapped around me, pulling me closer. I was shocked for a second before I relaxed into him and put my arms around his shoulders. My brain still wasn’t processing what was happening when it was all over and I was looking at him again.

“What?” I said again, this time slightly out of breath.

He smiled. “Um, I probably should have given you some warning.” His arms were still around me.

I just blinked.

“I hope you don’t mind not being friends anymore, I was thinking we could be something more.”

The smooth bugger with his big fancy brain. My brain still hadn’t caught up. “That was exceptionally smooth Spencer.” Was all I could get out.

He chuckled. “So?”

I smiled finally, and cupped his face with my hand. “Let’s be weird together?”

“That would be great.”

“Spencer?”

“Yes?”

My words failed me as I looked into the face of the man that I love. There were still so many things I wanted to say. Instead, I pulled him into a hug.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” He said. “You’re stuck with me for a long time.”

And that was all I needed to hear.

#spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid #bau #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction

[thethistlegirl]

To Find Where I Belong

@rafaelina-casillas requested a fic about someone not realizing Mac has fallen in love with them. I suck at writing romance, but I did manage to write something that could be sort of a prequel to one? I tried to make it cute...

Kira swipes her sweaty hair out of her face and focuses on the blinking numbers in front of her. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, yes you can.” Mac’s voice, through the comms, is encouraging. “We’re going to do this together.”

It was supposed to be an easy mission. Her first real field op with the Phoenix’s crack team of agents. Kira had heard plenty of stories, both in training and once she was recruited to the agency, about a former EOD tech who could fix almost anything with almost anything, his loyal bodyguard, who was a crack shot and dangerous fighter, a hacker with terrifying skills, a disguise maker good enough to fool facial recognition, and a brilliant young agent from the CIA.

She would never have expected herself, a linguistics analyst, to in any way be worthy of joining the team. She never even expected to be in the field. But, apparently, MacGyver specifically requested her when they ran across a terrorist cell using a highly sophisticated code.

She could have cracked that code from the safety of her cubicle. If it wasn’t being sent via literal paper messages that the team was instructed to intercept en route in Libya.

When the cipher she decoded gave them the location of a bombing attack, the team made an executive decision to act on the intel. They found the bomb site, and Kira, Jack, Riley, Bozer, and Leanna started evacuating people while Mac worked on disarming the bomb. Until Kira stumbled across the secondary device. And triggered it.

“We have to disarm them both at the same time.” Mac’s voice is calm, steady. “I’ve done this before, it’s gonna be okay. They’re just wired together, it’s actually going to be easier than last Christmas.”

But he’s a former EOD with years of training and experience. She’s a linguist. Unless the key to disarming this bomb is a cipher code in a dead language, she has no possible way of doing this.

“Listen, I’m going to talk you through this. It’s gonna be okay. Just don’t panic.” She can’t help it, she’s sweating, hands shaking, vision blurring. If I screw up, he and I will both die. And God knows how many other people too. She’s not sure how close evacuation is to being over. Mac switched their comms to make sure he and Kira were only talking to each other. “Just take a breath.”

“We don’t have time…”

“Yes we do. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” Mac says, and her scrambled brain knows she heard it somewhere but she can’t place it. It doesn’t matter. He’s right. She can’t afford to rush and make a mistake. She takes a few measured breaths, then sighs.

“Ready.”

“Okay, tell me what you see.”

She begins describing the bomb. “It’s pretty simple, just a box. With a panel on top with the countdown clock.” Which is at three minutes, fifteen seconds.

“Okay. Do you have a pocketknife?”

She does, one her dad gave her when she was in college, for one Christmas. It’s the last time she saw him alive. She opens it. “Yeah, what do I do?”

“Carefully, try to detach that plate with the clock. Mine didn’t have a failsafe under it, so yours shouldn’t.” She does. There’s a tangle of wires underneath, tucked down in the center of the bomb. She stars to reach in to pull out the red one.

“Wait, are you reaching inside?” She pulls her hand back. “There are infrared sensors in there. The heat of your hand will set them off. You need to fish the wire out with something.” She can hear him twisting something metal. She glances around the floor. Time’s running out. A minute twenty.

She sees a discarded pencil. Praying it’s long enough, she sticks it into the hole and catches the red wire on the tip, sliding it up the side of the hole until it’s sticking up and she can grab it.

Forty-nine seconds.

“We have to cut them together.” Mac’s voice is a little shaky. “On three. One, Two, Three.”

She hears the faint snip in unison. And then the timer light goes out.

Kira collapses backward onto the cement. We did it. We did it. She’s dimly aware of footsteps racing toward her, of someone kneeling beside her.

“You okay?” Mac’s voice, in real life and not through her comm, shakes her free of her daze. She glances from him, to the bomb, and back to him.

“I really did it. I really did it.”

“I knew you could.” And she knows, the second he says it, that he’s not lying. He trusted her.  I belong here.

#advent calendar fics #fluff #macgyver

[shirlleycoyle]

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon

This story was originally published on mssv.net by Adrian Hon (@adrianhon)

The far-right QAnon conspiracy theory is so sprawling, it’s hard to know where people join. Last week, it was 5G cell towers, this week it’s Wayfair; who knows what next week will bring? But QAnon’s followers always seem to begin their journey with the same refrain: “I’ve done my research.”

I’d heard that line before. In early 2001, the marketing for Steven Spielberg’s latest movie, A.I., had just begun. YouTube wouldn’t launch for another four years, so you had to be eagle-eyed to spot the unusual credit next to Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, and Frances O’Connor: Jeanine Salla, the movie’s “Sentient Machine Therapist.”

Close-up of the A.I. movie poster

Soon after, Ain’t It Cool News (AICN) posted a tip from a reader:

“Type her name in the Google.com search engine, and see what sites pop up…pretty cool stuff! Keep up the good work, Harry!! –ClaviusBase”

(Yes, in 2001 Google was so new you had to spell out its web address.)

The Google results began with Jeanine Salla’s homepage but led to a whole network of fictional sites. Some were futuristic versions of police websites or lifestyle magazines; others were inscrutable online stores and hacked blogs. A couple were in German and Japanese. In all, over twenty sites and phone numbers were listed.

By the end of the day, the websites racked up 25 million hits, all from a single AICN article suggesting readers ‘do their research’. It later emerged they were part of one of the first-ever alternate reality games (ARG), The Beast, developed by Microsoft to promote Spielberg’s movie.

The way I’ve described it here, The Beast sounds like enormous fun. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a doorway into 2142 filled with websites and phone numbers and puzzles, with runaway robots who need your help and even live events around the world? But consider how much work it required to understand the story and it begins to sound less like “watching TV” fun and more like “painstaking research” fun. Along with tracking dozens of websites that updated in real time, you had to solve lute tablature puzzles, decode base 64 messages, reconstruct 3D models of island chains that spelt out messages, and gather clues from newspaper and TV adverts across the US.

This purposeful yet bewildering complexity is the complete opposite of what many associate with conventional popular entertainment, where every bump in your road to enjoyment has been smoothed away in the pursuit of instant engagement and maximal profit. But there’s always been another kind of entertainment that appeals to different people at different times, one that rewards active discovery, the drawing of connections between clues, the delicious sensation of a hunch that pays off after hours or days of work. Puzzle books, murder mysteries, adventure games, escape rooms, even scientific research—they all aim for the same spot.

What was new in The Beast and the ARGs that followed it was less the specific puzzles and stories they incorporated, but the sheer scale of the worlds they realised—so vast and fast-moving that no individual could hope to comprehend them. Instead, players were forced to cooperate, sharing discoveries and solutions, exchanging ideas, and creating resources for others to follow. I’d know: I wrote a novel-length walkthrough of The Beast when I was meant to be studying for my degree at Cambridge.

QAnon is not an ARG. It’s a dangerous conspiracy theory, and there are lots of ways of understanding conspiracy theories without ARGs. But QAnon pushes the same buttons that ARGs do, whether by intention or by coincidence. In both cases, “do your research” leads curious onlookers to a cornucopia of brain-tingling information.

In other words, maybe QAnon is… fun?

ARGs never made it big. They came too early and It’s hard to charge for a game that you stumble into through a Google search. But maybe their purposely-fragmented, internet-native, community-based form of storytelling and puzzle-solving was just biding its time…

This blog post expands on the ideas in my Twitter thread about QAnon and ARGs, and incorporates many of the valuable replies. Please note, however, that I’m not a QAnon expert and I’m not a scholar of conspiracy theories. I’m not even the first to compare QAnon to LARPs and ARGs.

But my experience as lead designer of Perplex City, one of the world’s most popular and longest-running ARGs, gives me a special perspective on QAnon’s game-like nature. My background as a neuroscientist and experimental psychologist also gives me insight into what motivates people.

Today, I run Six to Start, best known for Zombies, Run!, an audio-based augmented reality game with half a million active players, and I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification.

It’s Like We Did It On Purpose

Perplex City “Ascendancy Point” Story Arc

When I was designing Perplex City, I loved sketching out new story arcs. I’d create intricate chains of information and clues for players to uncover, colour-coding for different websites and characters. There was a knack to having enough parallel strands of investigation going on so that players didn’t feel railroaded, but not so many that they were overwhelmed. It was a particular pleasure to have seemingly unconnected arcs intersect after weeks or months.

Merely half of the “Q-web“

No-one would mistake the clean lines of my flowcharts for the snarl of links that makes up a QAnon theory, but the principles are similar: one discovery leading to the next. Of course, these two flowcharts are very different beasts. The QAnon one is an imaginary, retrospective description of supposedly-connected data, while mine is a prescriptive network of events I would design.

Except that’s not quite true. In reality, Perplex City players didn’t always solve our puzzles as quickly as we intended them to, or they became convinced their incorrect solution was correct, or embarrassingly, our puzzles were broken and had no solution at all. In those cases we had to rewrite the story on the fly.

When this happens in most media, you just hold up your hands and say you made a mistake. In video games, you can issue an online update and hope no-one’s the wiser. But in ARGs, a public correction would shatter the uniquely-prolonged collective suspension of disbelief in the story. This was thought to be so integral to the appeal of ARGs, it was termed TINAG, or “This is Not a Game.”

So when we messed up in Perplex City, we tried mightily to avoid editing websites, a sure sign this was, in fact, a game. Instead, we’d fix it by adding new storylines and writing through the problem (it helped to have a crack team of writers and designers, including Naomi Alderman, Andrea Phillips, David Varela, Dan Hon, Jey Biddulph, Fi Silk, Eric Harshbarger, and many many others).

We had a saying when these diversions worked out especially well: “It’s like we did it on purpose.”

Every ARG designer can tell a similar war story. Here’s Josh Fialkov, writer for the Lonelygirl15 ARG/show:

“Our fans/viewers would build elaborate (and pretty neat) theories and stories around the stories we’d already put together and then we’d merge them into our narrative, which would then engage them more. The one I think about the most is we were shooting something on location and we’re run and gunning. We fucked up and our local set PA ended up in the background of a long selfie shot. We had no idea. It was 100% a screw up. The fans became convinced the character was in danger. And then later when that character revealed herself as part of the evil conspiracy — that footage was part of the audiences proof that she was working with the bad guys all along — “THATS why he was in the background!” They literally found a mistake – made it a story point. And used it as evidence of their own foresight into the ending — despite it being, again, us totally being exhausted and sloppy. And at the time hundreds of thousands of people were participating and contributing to a fictional universe and creating strands upon strands.”

Conspiracy theories and cults evince the same insouciance when confronted with inconsistencies or falsified predictions; they can always explain away errors with new stories and theories. What’s special about QAnon and ARGs is that these errors can be fixed almost instantly, before doubt or ridicule can set in. And what’s really special about QAnon is how it’s absorbed all other conspiracy theories to become a kind of ur-conspiracy theory such that seems pointless to call out inconsistencies. In any case, who would you even be calling out when so many QAnon theories come from followers rather than “Q”?

Yet the line between creator and player in ARGs has also long been blurry. That tip from “ClaviusBase” to AICN that catapulted The Beast to massive mainstream coverage? The designers more or less admitted it came from them. Indeed, there’s a grand tradition of ARG “puppetmasters” (an actual term used by devotees) sneaking out from “behind the curtain” (ditto) to create “sockpuppet accounts” in community forums to seed clues, provide solutions, and generally chivvy players along the paths they so carefully designed.

As an ARG designer, I used to take a hard line against this kind of cheating but in the years since, I’ve mellowed somewhat, mostly because it can make the game more fun, and ultimately, because everyone expects it these days. That’s not the case with QAnon.

Yes, anyone who uses 4chan and 8chan understands that anonymity is baked into the system such that posters frequently create entire threads where they argue against themselves in the guise of anonymous users who are impossible to distinguish or trace back to a single individual – but do the more casual QAnon followers know that?

Local Fame

A Beautiful Mind

Pop culture’s conspiracy theorist sits in a dark basement stringing together photos and newspaper clippings on their "crazy wall." On the few occasions this leads to useful results, it’s an unenviable pursuit. Anyone choosing such an existence tends to be shunned by society.

But this ignores one gaping fact: piecing together theories is really satisfying. Writing my walkthrough for The Beast was rewarding and meaningful, appreciated by an enthusiastic community in a way that my molecular biology essays most certainly were not. Online communities have long been dismissed as inferior in every way to “real” friendships, an attenuated version that’s better than nothing, but not something that anyone should choose. Yet ARGs and QAnon (and games and fandom and so many other things) demonstrate there’s an immediacy and scale and relevance to online communities that can be more potent and rewarding than a neighbourhood bake sale. This won’t be news to most of you, but I think it’s still news to decision-makers in traditional media and politics.

Good ARGs are deliberately designed with puzzles and challenges that require unusual talents—I designed one puzzle that required a good understanding of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs—with problems so large that they require crowdsourcing to solve, such that all players feel like welcome and valued contributors.

Needless to say, that feeling is missing from many people’s lives:

“ARGs are generally a showcase for special talent that often goes unrecognized elsewhere. I have met so many wildly talented people with weird knowledge through them.”

If you’re first to solve a puzzle or make a connection, you can attain local fame in ARG communities, as Dan Hon, COO at Mind Candy (makers of the Perplex City ARG), notes. The vast online communities for TV shows like Lost and Westworld, with their purposefully convoluted mystery box plots, also reward those who guess twists early, or produce helpful explainer videos. Yes, the reward is “just” internet points in the form of Reddit upvotes, but the feeling of being appreciated is very real. It’s no coincidence that Lost and Westworld both used ARGs to promote their shows.

Wherever you have depth in storytelling or content or mechanics, you’ll find the same kind of online communities. Games like Bloodborne, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Dwarf Fortress, Animal Crossing, Eve Online, and Elite Dangerous, they all share the same race for discovery. These discoveries eventually become processed into explainer videos and Reddit posts that are more accessible for wider audiences.

The same has happened with modern ARGs, where explainer videos have become so compelling they rack up more views than the ARGs have players (not unlike Twitch). Michael Andersen, owner of the Alternate Reality Gaming Network news site, is a fan of this trend, but wonders about its downside—with reference to conspiracy theorists:

“[W]hen you’re reading (or watching) a summary of an ARG? All of the assumptions and logical leaps have been wrapped up and packaged for you, tied up with a nice little bow. Everything makes sense, and you can see how it all flows together. Living it, though? Sheer chaos. Wild conjectures and theories flying left and right, with circumstantial evidence and speculation ruling the day. Things exist in a fugue state of being simultaneously true-and-not-true, and it’s only the accumulation of evidence that resolves it. And acquiring a “knack” for sifting through theories to surface what’s believable is an extremely valuable skill—both for actively playing ARGs, and for life in general.And sometimes, I worry that when people consume these neatly packaged theories that show all the pieces coming together, they miss out on all those false starts and coincidences that help develop critical thinking skills. …because yes, conspiracy theories try and offer up those same neat packages that attempt to explain the seemingly unexplained. And it’s pretty damn important to learn how groups can be led astray in search of those neatly wrapped packages.”

“SPEC”

I’m a big fan of the SCP Foundation, a creative writing website set within a shared universe not unlike The X-Files. Its top-rated stories rank among the best science fiction and horror I’ve read. A few years ago, I wrote my own (very silly) story, SCP-3993, where New York’s ubiquitous LinkNYC internet kiosks are cover for a mysterious reality-altering invasion.

CITYBRIDGE/NYC

Like the rest of SCP, this was all in good fun, but I recently discovered LinkNYC is tangled up in QAnon conspiracy theories. To be fair, you can say the same thing about pretty much every modern technology, but it’s not surprising their monolith-like presence caught conspiracy theorists’ attention as it did mine.

It’s not unreasonable to be creeped out by LinkNYC. In 2016, the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote to the mayor about “the vast amount of private information retained by the LinkNYC system and the lack of robust language in the privacy policy protecting users against unwarranted government surveillance.” Two years later, kiosks along Third Avenue in Midtown mysteriously blasted out a slowed-down version of the Mister Softee theme song. So there’s at least some cause for speculation. The problem is when speculation hardens into reality.

Not long after the AICN post, The Beast’s players set up a Yahoo Group mailing list called Cloudmakers, named after a boat in the story. As the number of posts rose to dozens and then hundreds per day, it became obvious to list moderators (including me) that some form of organisation was in order. One rule we established was that posts should include a prefix in their subject so members could easily distinguish website updates from puzzle solutions.

My favourite prefix was “SPEC,” a catch-all for any kind of unfounded speculation, most of which was fun nonsense but some of which ended up being true. There were no limits on what or how much you could post, but you always had to use the prefix so people could ignore it. Other moderated communities have similar guidelines, with rationalists using their typically long-winded “epistemic status” metadata.

Absent this kind of moderation, speculation ends up overwhelming communities since it’s far easier and more fun to bullshit than do actual research. And if speculation is repeated enough times, if it’s finessed enough, it can harden into accepted fact, leading to devastating and even fatal consequences.

I’ve personally been the subject of this process thanks to my work in ARGs—not just once, but twice.

The first occasion was fairly innocent. One of our more famous Perplex City puzzles, Billion to One, was a photo of a man. That’s it. The challenge was to find him. Obviously, we were riffing on the whole “six degrees of separation” concept. Some thought it’d be easy, but I was less convinced. Sure enough, fourteen years on, the puzzle is still unsolved, but not for lack of trying. Every so often, the internet rediscovers the puzzle amid a flurry of YouTube videos and podcasts; I can tell whenever this happens because people start DMing me on Twitter and Instagram.

This literally came a few days ago

A clue in the puzzle is the man’s name, Satoshi. It is not a rare name, and it happens to be same as the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. So of course people think Perplex City’s Satoshi created bitcoin. Not a lot of people, to be fair, but enough that I get DMs about it every week. But it’s all pretty innocent, like I said.

More concerning is my presumed connection to Cicada 3301, a mysterious group that recruited codebreakers through very difficult online puzzles. Back in 2011, my company developed a pseudo-ARG for the BBC Two factual series, The Code, all about mathematics. This involved planting clues into the show itself, along with online educational games and a treasure hunt.

To illustrate the concept of prime numbers, The Code explored the gestation period of cicadas. We had no hand in the writing of the show; we got the script and developed our ARG around it. But this was enough to create a brand new conspiracy theory, featuring yours truly:

My bit starts around 20 minutes in:

Interviewer: Why [did you make a puzzle about] cicadas?

Me: Cicadas are known for having a gestation period which is linked to prime numbers. Prime numbers are at the heart of nature and the heart of mathematics.

Interviewer: That puzzle comes out in June 2011.

Me: Yeah.

Interviewer: Six months later, Cicada 3301 makes its international debut.

Me: It's a big coincidence.

Interviewer: There are some people who have brought up the fact that whoever's behind Cicada 3301 would have to be a very accomplished game maker.

Me: Sure.

Interviewer: You would be a candidate to be that person.

Me: That's true, I mean, Cicada 3301 has a lot in common with the games we've made. I think that one big difference (chuckles) is that normally when we make alternate reality games, we do it for money. And it's not so clear to understand where the funding for Cicada 3301 is coming from.

Clearly this was all just in fun – I knew it and the interviewer knew it. That’s why I agreed to take part. But does everyone watching this understand that? There’s no “SPEC” tag on the video. At least a few commenters are taking it seriously:

I am the “ARG guy” in question

I’m not worried, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t a touch concerned that Cicada 3301 now lies squarely in the QAnon vortex and in the “Q-web“:

Here’s a good interview with the creator of the “Q-web”

My defence that the cicada puzzle in The Code was “a big coincidence” (albeit delivered with an unfortunate shit-eating grin) didn’t hold water. In the conspiracy theorest mindset, no such thing exists:

“According to Michael Barkun, emeritus professor of political science at Syracuse University, three core principles characterize most conspiracy theories. Firstly, the belief that nothing happens by accident or coincidence. Secondly, that nothing is as it seems: The “appearance of innocence” is to be suspected. Finally, the belief that everything is connected through a hidden pattern.”

These are helpful beliefs when playing an ARG or watching a TV show designed with twists and turns. It’s fun to speculate and to join seemingly disparate ideas, especially when the creators encourage and reward this behaviour. It’s less helpful when conspiracy theorists “yes, and…” each other into shooting up a pizza parlour or burning down 5G cell towers.

Because there is no coherent QAnon community in the same sense as the Cloudmakers, there’s no convention of “SPEC” tags. In their absence, YouTube has added annotated QAnon videos with links to its Wikipedia article, and Twitter has banned 7,000 accounts and restricted 150,000 more, among other actions. Supposedly, Facebook is planning to do the same.

These are useful steps but will not stop QAnon from spreading in social media comments or private chat groups or unmoderated forums. It’s not something we can reasonably hope for, and I don’t think there’s any technological solution (e.g. browser extensions) either. The only way to stop people from mistaking speculation from fact is for them to want to stop.

Cryptic

It’s always nice to have a few mysteries for players to speculate on in an ARG, if only because it helps them pass the time while the poor puppetmasters scramble to sate their insatiable demand for more website updates and puzzles. A good mystery can keep a community guessing for, as Lost did with its numbers or Game of Thrones with Jon Snow’s parentage. But these mysteries always have to be balanced against specifics, lest the whole story dissolve into a puddle of mush; for as much we derided Lost for the underwhelming conclusion to its mysteries, no-one would’ve watched in the first place if the episode-to-episode storytelling wasn’t so strong.

The downside of being too mysterious in Perplex City is that cryptic messages often led players on wild goose chases such that they completely ignored entire story arcs in favour of pursuing their own theories. This was bad for us because we had a pretty strict timetable that we needed our story to play out on, pinned against the release of our physical puzzle cards that funded the entire enterprise. If players took too long to find the $200,000 treasure at the conclusion of the story, we might run out of money.

QAnon can favour cryptic messages because, as far as I know, they don’t have a specific timeline or goal in mind, let alone a production budget or paid staff. Not only is there no harm in followers misinterpreting messages, but it’s a strength: followers can occupy themselves with their own spin-off theories far better than “Q” can. Dan Hon notes:

“For every ARG I’ve been involved in and ones my friends have been involved in, communities always consume/complete/burn through content faster than you can make it, when you’re doing a narrative-based game. This content generation/consumption/playing asymmetry is, I think, just a fact. But QAnon “solved” it by being able to co-opt all content that already exists and … encourages and allows you to create new content that counts and is fair play in-the-game.”

But even QAnon needs some specificity, hence their frequent references to actual people, places, events, and so on.

A brief aside on designing very hard puzzles

It was useful to be cryptic when I needed to control the speed at which players solved especially consequential puzzles, like the one revealing where our $200,000 treasure was buried. For story and marketing purposes, we wanted players to be able to find it as soon as they had access to all 256 puzzle cards, which we released in three waves. We also wanted players to feel like they were making progress before they had all the cards and we didn’t want them to find the location the minute they had the last card.

My answer was to represent the location as the solution to multiple cryptic puzzles. One puzzle referred to the Jurassic strata in the UK, which I split across the background of 14 cards. Another began with a microdot revealing which order to arrange triple letters I’d hidden on a bunch of cards. By performing mod arithmetic on the letter/number values, you would arrive at 1, 2, 3 or 4, corresponding to the four DNA nucleotides. If you understood the triplets as codons for amino acids, they became letters. These letters led you to the phrase “Duke of Burgundy”, the name of a butterfly whose location, when combined with the Jurassic strata, would help you narrow down the location of the treasure.

The nice thing about this convoluted sequence is that we could provide additional online clues to help the players community when they got stuck. The point being, you can’t make an easy puzzle harder, but you can make a hard puzzle easier.

Beyond ARGs

It can feel crass to compare ARGs to a conspiracy theory that’s caused so much harm. But this reveals the crucial difference between them: in QAnon, the stakes so high, any action is justified. If you truly believe an online store or a pizza parlour is engaging in child trafficking and the authorities are complicit, extreme behaviour is justified.

Gabriel Roth, editorial director for audio at Slate, extends this idea:

“What QAnon has that ARGs didn’t have is the claim of factual truth; in that sense it reminds me of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoir wave of the 90s and early 00s. If you have a story based on real life, but you want to make it more interesting, the correct thing to do is change the names of the people and make it as interesting as you like and call it fiction. The insight of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoirists (I’m thinking of James Frey and Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris) was that you could call it nonfiction and readers would like it much better because it would have the claim of actual factual truth, wowee!! And it worked! How much more engaging and addictive is an immersive, participatory ARG when it adds that unique frisson you can only get with the claim of factual truth? And bear in mind that ARG-scale stories aren’t about mere personal experiences—they operate on a world-historical scale.”

ARGs’ playfulness with the truth and their sometimes-imperceptible winking of This Is Not A Game (accusations Lonelygirl15 was a hoax) is only the most modern incarnation of epistolary storytelling. In that context, immersive and realistic stories have long elicited extreme reactions, like the panic incited by Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds (often exaggerated, to be fair).

We don’t have to wonder what happens when an ARG community meets a matter of life and death. Not long after The Beast concluded, the 9/11 attacks happened. A small number of posters in the Cloudmakers mailing list suggested the community use its skills to “solve” the question of who was behind the attack.

The brief but intense discussion that ensued has become a cautionary tale of ARG communities getting carried away and being unable to distinguish fiction from reality. In reality, the community and the moderators quickly shut down the idea as being impractical, insensitive, and very dangerous. “Cloudmakers tried to solve 9/11” is a great story, but it’s completely false.

Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for the poster child for online sleuthing gone wrong, the r/findbostonbombers subreddit. There’s a parallel between the essentially unmoderated, anonymous theorists of r/findbostonbombers and those in QAnon: neither feel any responsibility for spreading unsupported speculation as fact. What they do feel is that anything should be solvable, as Laura Hall, immersive environment and narrative designer, describes:

“There’s a general sense of, ‘This should be solveable/findable/etc’ that you see in lots of reddit communities for unsolved mysteries and so on. The feeling that all information is available online, that reality and truth must be captured/in evidence somewhere”

There’s truth in that feeling. There is a vast amount of information online, and sometimes it is possible to solve “mysteries”, which makes it hard to criticise people for trying, especially when it comes to stopping perceived injustices. But it’s the sheer volume of information online that makes it so easy and so tempting and so fun to draw spurious connections.

That joy of solving and connecting and sharing and communication can do great things, and it can do awful things. As Josh Fialkov, writer for Lonelygirl15, says:

That brain power negatively focused on what [conspiracy theorists] perceive as life and death (but is actually crassly manipulated paranoia) scares the living shit out of me.

What ARGs Can Teach Us

Can we make “good ARGs”? Could ARGs inoculate people against conspiracy theories like QAnon?

The short answer is: No. When it comes to games that are educational and fun, you usually have to pick one, not both—and I say that as someone who thinks he’s done a decent job at making “serious games” over the years. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s really hard, and I doubt any such ARG would get played by the right audience anyway.

The long answer: I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification. Come back in a year or two.

For now, here’s a medium-sized answer. No ARG can heal the deep mistrust and fear and economic and spiritual malaise that underlies QAnon and other dangerous conspiracy theories, any more than a book or a movie can solve racism. There are hints at ARG-like things that could work, though—not in directly combatting QAnon’s appeal, but in channeling people’s energy and zeal of community-based problem-solving toward better causes.

Take The COVID Tracking Project, an attempt to compile the most complete data available about COVID-19 in the U.S. Every day, volunteers collect the latest numbers on tests, cases, hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every state and territory. In the absence of reliable governmental figures, it’s become one of the best sources not just in the U.S., but in the world.

It’s also incredibly transparent. You can drill down into the raw data volunteers have collected on Google Sheets, view every line of code written on Github, and ask them questions on Slack. Errors and ambiguities in the data are quickly disclosed and explained rather than hidden or ignored. There’s something game-like in the daily quest to collect the best-quality data and to continually expand and improve the metrics being tracked. And like in the best ARGs, volunteers of all backgrounds and skills are welcomed. It’s one of the most impressive and well-organising reporting projects I’ve ever seen; “crowdsourcing” doesn’t even come close to describing its scale.

If you applied ARG skills to investigative journalism, you’d get something like Bellingcat, an an open-source intelligence group that discovered how Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Bellingcat’s volunteers painstakingly pieced together publicly-available information to determine MH17 was downed by a Buk missile launcher originating from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade in Kursk, Russia. The Dutch-led international joint investigation team later came to the same conclusion.

Conspiracy theories thrive in the absence of trust. Today, people don’t trust authorities because authorities have repeatedly shown themselves to be unworthy of trust – misreporting or manipulating COVID-19 testing figures, delaying the publication of government investigations, burning records of past atrocities, and deploying unmarked federal forces. Perhaps authorities were just as untrustworthy twenty or fifty or a hundred years ago, but today we rightly expect more.

Mattathias Schwartz, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, believes it’s that lack of trust that leads people to QAnon:

“Q’s [followers] … are starving for information. Their willingness to chase bread crumbs is a symptom of ignorance and powerlessness. There may be something to their belief that the machinery of the state is inaccessible to the people. It’s hard to blame them for resorting to fantasy and esotericism, after all, when accurate information about the government’s current activities is so easily concealed and so woefully incomplete.”

So the goal cannot be to simply restore trust in existing authorities. Rather, I think it’s to restore faith in truth and knowledge itself. The COVID Tracking Project and Bellingcat help reveal truth by crowdsourcing information. They show their work via hypertext and open data, creating a structure upon which higher-level analysis and journalism can be built. And if they can’t find the truth, they’re willing to say so.

QAnon seems just as open. Everything is online. Every discussion, every idea, every theory is all joined together in a warped edifice where speculation becomes fact and fact leads to action. It’s thrilling to discover, and as you find new terms to Google and new threads to pull upon, you can feel just like a real researcher. And you can never get bored. There’s always new information to make sense of, always a new puzzle to solve, always a new enemy to take down.

QAnon fills the void of information that states have created—not with facts, but with fantasy. If we don’t want QAnon to fill that void, someone else has to. Government institutions can’t be relied upon to do this sustainably, given how underfunded and politicised they’ve become in recent years. Traditional journalism has also struggled against its own challenges of opacity and lack of resources. So maybe that someone is… us.

ARGs teach us that the search for knowledge and truth can be immensely rewarding, not in spite of their deliberately-fractured stories and near-impossible puzzles, but because of them. They teach us that communities can self-organise and self-moderate to take on immense challenges in a responsible way. And they teach us that people are ready and willing to volunteer to work if they’re welcomed, no matter their talent.

It’s hard to create these communities. They rely on software and tools that aren’t always free or easy to use. They need volunteers who have spare time to give and moderators who can be supported, financially and emotionally, through the struggles that always come. These communities already exist. They just need more help.

Despite the growing shadow of QAnon, I’m hopeful for the future. The beauty of ARGs and ARG-like communities isn’t their power to discover truth. It’s how they make the process of discovery so deeply rewarding.

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[ryliweb]

PS4 Central Processing Unit (CPU) | The Information Guide

The PS4 processor (aka PS4 CPU) is the main hardware part of the whole PS4 system. It is the unit which performs most of the processing inside the PS4. In other words, the CPU is the brain of the PS4 where most calculations take place. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of the PS4 game console. It receives data input, executes instructions, and processes information. It communicates with input/output (I/O) devices, which send and receive data to and from the PS4 CPU. Additionally, the PS4 CPU has an internal bus for communication with the internal cache memory, called the backside bus. The main bus for data transfer to and from the PS4 CPU, memory, chipset, and AGP socket is called the front-side bus.

To control instructions and data flow to and from other parts of the PS4, the CPU relies heavily on a chipset, which is a group of microchips located on the PS4 motherboard.

The PS4 CPU contains internal memory units, which are called registers. These registers contain data, instructions, counters and addresses used in the ALU’s information processing.

Components of PS4 CPU

The PS4 CPU has two components:

Control Unit: extracts instructions from memory and decodes and executes them

Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU): handles arithmetic and logical operations

To function properly, the PS4 CPU relies on the system clock, memory, secondary storage, and data and address buses.

The Four Primary Functions of the PS4 CPU

The PS4 CPU processes instructions it receives in the process of decoding data. In processing this data, the PS4 CPU performs four basic steps:

Fetch: Each instruction is stored in memory and has its own address. The PS4 processor takes this address number from the program counter, which is responsible for tracking which instructions the PS4 CPU should execute next.

Decode: All programs to be executed are translated to into Assembly instructions. Assembly code must be decoded into binary instructions, which are understandable to the PS4 CPU. This step is called decoding.

Execute: While executing instructions the CPU can do one of three things: Do calculations with its ALU, move data from one memory location to another, or jump to a different address.

Store: The PS4 CPU must give feedback after executing an instruction, and the output data is written to the memory.

But how can PS4 CPU manage all data together without any flaw? The number of operations the PS4 CPU can perform depends upon its speed, which is measured in Hertz. One hertz is the speed during which the CPU performs one operation in one second. Typically, you can measure a PS4’s speed in gigahertz. 1 GHz is the speed it takes the PS4 CPU to perform one million simple tasks. Get it as a necessity to handle all these data without a single failure. A “simple task” includes the smallest steps a processor can perform.

What the PS4 CPU Looks Like and Where’s Its Location

The PS4 CPU is small and square, with many short, rounded, metallic connectors on its underside.

The processor attaches directly to a CPU “socket” (or sometimes a “slot”) on the PS4 motherboard. The PS4 CPU is inserted into the socket pin-side-down, and a small lever helps to secure the processor.

After running even a short while, PS4 processor can get very hot. To help dissipate this heat, it’s almost always necessary to attach a heatsink and a fan directly on top of the PS4 CPU. That’s why you see the PS4 processor mounted with a cooler.

PS4 CPU Type

PS4 uses an AMD Jaguar CPU with 8 cores at the speed of 1.6GHz. While some of AMD’s charts are a little misleading out of context, this one is fairly straightforward. AMD claims that its low-power Temash system-on-chip simultaneously manages to have double the performance in 3DMark11. Now, with the release of new PS4 Pro CPU, you can imagine how faster it is. It’s a graphical benchmark, and a sizable bump in PCMark7, an all-purpose benchmark. It comes with only half the power at its disposal. At just 3.9 watts, there should be little trouble putting a dual-core 1GHz A4-1200 into a completely fanless tablet. Therefore, you can probably expect eight-watt, quad-core A6-1450 (which can boost to 1.4GHz) to fit in very thin laptops indeed.

AMD Jaguar 8-Core Processor

To get at why and Sony chose AMD CPU for PS4, you need to start with the content needs. Sony was looking for a way to increase the console “footprint”, increase the amount of apps, and lower the cost of software development. For this reason, PS4 CPU is a very good processor for the job it handles. The company designed PS4 to do a lot more than games. They designed the Ps4 console to be the future hub for all home entertainment and home automation and control. To effectively do this, they will need hundreds of complex apps that are relatively straight-forward to code. You can guess it. the PS4 processor can do the work as it should be. Therefore, you need to start with an application processor architecture that supports this, and it’s not Power architecture.

Digital Foundry finds that the scenes that only tap the PS4 Pro’s 2.1GHz Jaguar CPU only provide a minimal bump in FPS, with one scene hitting just a 6FPS bump, which actually directly corresponds to the 31% boost in the CPU’s overclock. The publication hints that if the PS4 Pro had a more optimized and powerful CPU, these specific scenes would have better frame rates.

AMD Jaguar processor used in PS4 makes the gaming more seamless and smooth. 64-bit was important as it maximized memory addressability, and the next gen console needed to run multiple apps, operating systems and hypervisors. ARM-based architectures will soon get as powerful as AMD’s Jaguar cores, but not when Sony needed them for its new console.

32-bit vs. 64-bit processors

PS4 CPU is a 64-bit processor that conforms to the modern standards of gaming consoles. Most of the newer game consoles have 64-bit compatible processor units. PS4 CPU is just one of these good consoles that adopted 64-bit technologies. The move to the newer 64-bit technology emerges from the need to allow computers to support larger RAM memory chips. The 32-bit architecture would only allow the use of a 4GB RAM. Even if you install a larger RAM in the PS4, it will only be able to use 4GB and the rest will go away wasted.

Users with the PS4 Pro usage, who want to simply browse the internet, write documents or send and receive e-mails can still select a 32-bit chipset. However users who heavily use their PS4 for multitask-heavy applications such as games and video editing will need to purchase a 64-bit chipset to optimize their computer performance.

PS4 CPU Cores

A CPU core is a CPU’s processor. In the old days, every processor had just one core that could focus on one task at a time. Today, CPUs have been two and 18 cores, each of which can work on a different task.

PS4 CPU permitting, some applications can use what we call multithreading. When the PS4 CPU runs hot, you may consider changing its fan. If a thread is understood as a single piece of a computer process, then using multiple threads in a single CPU core means more instructions can be understood and processed at once. The 8 cores of PS4 processor may get really hot if loads of data rush at once at it. Some software can take advantage of this feature on more than one CPU core, which means that even more instructions can be processed simultaneously.

A core can work on one task, while another core works a different task. So, the more cores a CPU has, the more efficient it is. In fact, PS4 CPU with its 8 cores will not make you need additional power, in most cases. Many processors, especially those in laptops, have two cores, but some mobile processors, such as Intel’s 8th generation processors, have four. You should shoot for at least four cores in your machine if you can afford it. Even with PS4 Pro CPU, you shouldn’t worry about the speed it offers.

Clock Speed

The clock speed of PS4 CPU is 1.6 MHz, while it is 2.1 MHz in PS4 Pro. The clock speed for the PS4 CPU used to be enough when comparing performance. Things aren’t so simple anymore. A CPU that offers multiple cores or hyper-threading may perform significantly better than a single-core CPU of the same speed that doesn’t feature hyper-threading.

Since PS4 comes with multiple CPUs, it can have an even bigger advantage. What you may not know about the clock speed of PS4 CPU is that developers code their games to comply with this limit. Manufacturers design all of these features to allow high-end game consoles to more easily run multiple processes at the same time, increasing your performance when multitasking or under the demands of powerful apps like video encoders and modern games. That’s why when dealing with PS4 CPU clock speed, you have to free your mind in this regard. So, let’s take a look at each of these features and what they might mean to you.

Hyper-Threading

When talking about PS4 CPU, this topic is not what we want to discuss. Actually, some Intel microprocessors use Hyper-Threading is a technology that allows a single microprocessor to act like two separate processors to the operating system and the application programs that use it. It is a feature of Intel’s IA-32 processor architecture. So, don’t concern too much when it comes to this point.

The fact that PS4 CPU doesn’t support hyper-threading is not surprising at all. With Hyper-Threading, a microprocessor’s “core” processor can execute two (rather than one) concurrent streams (or threads) of instructions sent by the operating system. Having two streams of execution units to work on allows more work to be done by the processor during each clock cycle. Using the right PS4 CPU can add more power to the gaming experience. To the operating system, the Hyper-Threading microprocessor appears to be two separate processors. Because most of today’s operating systems (such as Windows and Linux) are capable of dividing their work load among multiple processors (aka symmetric multiprocessing or SMP ). When considering the processor of PS4 Pro, the things don’t differ here. The operating system simply acts as though the Hyper-Threading processor is a pool of two processors.

Conclusion

There is a lot of gossip on PS4 CPU and how powerful it is to handle all the data it must process. This is something that shouldn’t concern real players that know the capabilities of their PS4 game console. In fact, PS4 CPU is a part of PS4 architecture that you can’t change/remove. There’s no replacement for it and you have to accept it as it is. So, don’t panic when PS4 CPU doesn’t perform the way you want, because all PS4s do the same. Unless you plan to optimize PS4 speed by doing some tweaks, that’s something else. Just make sure the PS4 CPU is the one that needs your real care.

The post PS4 Central Processing Unit (CPU) | The Information Guide appeared first on RyLi Gaming Solutions.

[c-ornflowertea]

Mediation Between Player and Game: Coordination and Communication in Video Games

This Friday, we brought in consoles to class and hooked them up to a projector. While seeming like a play party, we were told that we could only play by partnering up with someone and being either the person who shouts commands or the person who holds the controller. Basically, we were to play a game by splitting hand-eye coordination between two people. Interesting premise, interesting results.

I don’t think any of us have ever ventured into playing games this way, and boy was it entertaining to watch everyone trying so hard to just survive. If you were the one controlling the other player, you have to understand the controls and how the visual feedback will affect your decisions. If you were the one being controlled, your main task was to perform actions inaccurately, or at least consistent enough so that the controlling player can get a grasp the new form of hand-eye coordination. So in the case where neither players are very good at what they do (as I was in either position, sadly), inevitable chaos ensues: the player could either see or feel things going horribly wrong without fully being able to do anything about it.

I believe the main focus of this experiment was to see how gameplay changes when players are faced with a game that requires direct manipulation but is operated indirectly where players need to interact through dialogue (Fernández-Vara 2019). Instead of receiving the usual feedback through the game’s black box, the player also needs to coordinate with another player, their skill, quirks, and everything that affects the actions they intend for and the feedback they receive. The feedback loop of the game changes from learning the designed mechanics into learning how to create an environment where both players can utilize what they can respectively provide: input—using hands—and information—through the eyes (Cook 2007). The usual hand-eye cognitive function stretches into external communication between two cognitions. Unlike neurons in one brain that would likely operate under a main command, two brains will have to consider their differences to communicate effectively. Each pair of players eventually came up with schemes on how commands are to be relayed and received. Although this smoothed things out a bit, I believe it wasn’t quite as simple as mashing buttons to get the desired result. There were a lot of instances where players would fail to perform simple in-game actions that turned out to require finer hand-eye coordination abilities (Hand-Eye Coordination n.d.).

Of course, like any other cognitive ability, I believe the we-are-one joke exercise can be a form of training as well. As two players continue to work together and come to understand how they can effectively communicate with one another, steady gameplay can be achieved. One player’s understanding of visual input and how to relay that information and the other player’s ability to perform accurate action within the game can eventually combine to create the input needed for the directly manipulated game. It may require specially designed exercises that take advantage of the brain’s neuroplasticity, but it’s certainly not impossible (Hand-Eye Coordination n.d.). As for whether or not two players who solely excel at either hand or eye coordination can ever be better than one player who’s good at both, I suppose that would be a question to be answered for another day.

Interestingly, I believe there are already games that take advantage of mediation between players to introduce unique gameplay. One of them is #DanceTogether, a game where a group of players is each assigned to a pair who listen to the same song. The players are not allowed to talk or use hand gestures—they can only dance to express the music and find their song partner. This game uses the same principles of altering the feedback of the game by introducing a human element. Players are bound to be confused and need time to get used to the mechanics, but as humans, we can adapt and find ways to communicate (both in terms of transferring and understanding information) the input and output. In this case, the players would serve as the medium for input and output, effectively replacing the machine’s task of displaying the feedback loop of the game (Zarlez 2017). In video games, this sort of mediation may influence the game’s mechanics as well. In Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, for example, a player is given a manual to decode the bomb while the other player is given the task to relay the code and input the attempts. By dividing the mechanics of the game into two stages, the players need to find a balance between performing their task and passing information over to the other player to complete the objectives (Remly & Rice 2018). Unlike our experiment, the indirect manipulative aspects actually embed well into the game mechanics, so it adds a depth to what would otherwise essentially be reaction-based gameplay.

In conclusion, video games utilize hand-eye coordination and input-output cycles to allow players to interact with the in-game world. This can be done through direct or indirect manipulation, both of which have their own merits and contribute differently to the gameplay. A game can employ design choices that alter common ways inputs and outputs are devised to create a unique experience and use communication mechanics to enhance gameplay. And, if all that’s not enough, players can always find a partner to hold the controller while shouting endless commands at them as a new way to play games they are already familiar with. Who knows, they might just become good enough to play as well, if not better, than they normally would.

References

Hand-Eye Coordination n.d., CogniFit, viewed 25 August 2019, <https://www.cognifit.com/science/cognitive-skills/eye-hand-coordination>.

Cook, D 2007, The Chemistry Of Game Design, Gamasutra, viewed 25 August 2019, <https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/129948/the_chemistry_of_game_design.php>.

Fernández-Vara, C 2019, Introduction to Game Analysis (Second Edition), Routledge, New York, NY. Remly, C & Rice, D 2018, Real Bomb Squad Defuses A Bomb In Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes • Professionals Play, Buzzfeed Multiplayer, viewed 25 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYunaBkn9Ng&>.

Virkus, M 2018, “How Feedback Loops Work in Game Design”, Arcade Rage, weblog post, 11 February, viewed 25 August 2019, <https://arcaderage.co/2018/02/11/game-design-feedback-loops/>.

Zarlez, T 2017, The 2017 Experimental Gameplay Workshop, GDC, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4cCCgOXcNU&>.

[artdis]

Finally - Brain Image Formation As Art

Pierre Huyghe, via Serpentine Galleries/Kamitani Lab/Kyoto University and ATR

The artist Pierre Huyghe has made, with the help of Kamitami Lab/Kyoto University and an fMRI, art works of voxel and machine learning representations of reconstructed images of how the brain perceives the world. This is a development Planet 3D has been tracking for years, and its great to see it made it into the big time.

Katami Labs in Kyoto states on their homepage, “Brain signals can be seen as “codes” that encode our mental contents. We study methods for modeling brain functions and representations using information science and technology including machine learning and artificial neural networks. Our approach is based on data-driven predictive models that relate brain data and mind states via analysis of massive neural, behavioral, and multimedia data. Using these models, we aim to understand basic principles of neural information processing, and seek to develop real-life applications such as brain–machine interfaces that exploit decoded brain information.” The newest incarnation of the lab came into existence in 2015, and this is the place Huyghe collaborated with for his works.

An image from the Kamitami lab of a swan. Love the green head.

The artist never shows the original of what the images are all about, but this type of voxel reconstruction has been around since 2011 at Jack Gallant’s Lab at UC Berkeley. 

The actual steps in using an fMRI to code and decode an image according to Katami’s Lab, including the new DGN, or deep generator network

The video that shows the images over time can be accessed here -  The lab says, “To reconstruct visual images, we first decoded (translated) measured brain activity patterns into deep neural network (DNN) features, then fed those decoded features to a reconstruction algorithm. Our reconstruction algorithm starts from a given initial image and iteratively optimizes the pixel values so that the DNN features of the current image become similar to those decoded from brain activity.” The actual paper written in 2017 states, “Here, we present a novel image reconstruction method, in which the pixel values of an image are optimized to make its DNN features similar to those decoded from human brain activity at multiple layers. We found that the generated images resembled the stimulus images (both natural images and artificial shapes) and the subjective visual content during imagery. While our model was solely trained with natural images, our method successfully generalized the reconstruction to artificial shapes, indicating that our model indeed ‘reconstructs’ or ‘generates’ images from brain activity, not simply matches to exemplars.”

Reconstruction of learning datasets for images. The more simple the image (circle) the better the reconstruction

Here are the same images without the DGM (Deep Generator Network) sophisticated smoothing.

Katami’s Github it really fascinating. He gives all the data away, and anyone could theoretically emulate this if they had a nifty fMIRI, which I for one don’t. 

Artificial shape reconstruction including the alphabet

What is amazing is how far they have come in emulating basic shapes and letters. Especially letters. This is what Facebook Building 8 has been going ballistic about. Now its here. So “Is There A Place In Human Consciousness Where Surveillance Cannot Go?”. Hmmmm

Katami’s work from 2013 in decoding images from dreams. 

#planet 3d #Ellen Pearlman #new aesthetic #brain art #medical imagery #neuro imaging #Japan #dreams #FMRI

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/wordpress-com-begins-testing-first-tv-ads-in-6-markets/

WordPress.com begins testing first TV ads in 6 markets

WordPress.Com unveiled its first TV ads these days and said they had been presently being shown in confined runs in six textual content markets, although it did no longer unveil which markets.

The five ads in this series are constructed around the subject matter “Free to be” and every profile a neighborhood or small commercial enterprise user in Detroit.

On his private blog, Matt Mullenweg, CEO of WordPress.Com determine agency Automattic, noted that he had shared the corporation’s purpose of making investments greater in advertising in 2017 for the duration of his most current State of the Word speech.

“There is lots to learn and plenty to follow, but we have our first TV advertisements up in six markets to check,” he wrote. ” “Each shares a tale of a business in Detroit, and I simply got the threat to visit one of the groups earlier nowadays.”

Senior Security In The Home

We all love our dad and mom. And as we age, they do as properly. In the natural pressure to retain independence, senior residents residing on their personal could without problems turn out to be prey to unsavory characters. Home invaders, thieves and scam artists look to the aged as smooth marks for their crook intentions. To guard and care for those who’ve looked after us our entire lives, there are numerous approaches to comfortable senior safety in the domestic.

Locks and Measures

Good locks are constantly the primary defense whilst securing a home.

Entry doorways have to be fabricated from strong timber or steel, with bolstered frames to prevent breakdowns. Each access door needs to also have a deadbolt in addition to the doorknob. (Be cautious while choosing a deadbolt. One with a turn latch at the inside is safer in an emergency, while a key can without difficulty be dropped or misplaced.) Four-inch screws need to be used to put in the strike to the door body, accordingly securing against a person kicking in the door. Be conscious that tumbler panels subsequent to a door are easy for a could be intruder to interrupt after which reach in to turn a lock.

Sliding glass doors, in addition to a latch lock, ought to be secured greater solidly with a protection bar or a foot latch.

These brought security features may be established through each person who is available with a screwdriver and a drill. Even a garments bar or thick broom handle can be cut to length in a pinch.

Garage doors with electric powered openers are the most relaxed as there is no outside latch to unlock. Remember to give the keypad code to handiest own family and trusted buddies or buddies. If there may be no electric powered opener, make sure to use the manual lock mechanism located in the center of the door.

Perhaps the most inclined entryway into any home is a window. Here a lock is often times no longer enough to preserve out a chronic burglar. Glass can be damaged and locks opened from the outside. Double pane glass is much tougher to penetrate and has the brought advantage of power savings with more insulation. In excessive instances, bars can be established on floor and basement windows to similarly deny a criminal clean get right of entry to. Remember to continually keep home windows locked whilst not in use. Even those high off the floor can be accessed by means of a roof or gutter.

Step It Up

While locks are key in securing a domestic, different actions can be taken to discourage crook pastime. The idea is to make a domestic much less of a target to folks who want to do you incorrectly. Lighting is, in reality, the only and least costly manner to gain the arrival of vigilance.

TV Addiction – As Serious As Drug Addiction

Over-attachment to anything is a serious trouble. People are hooked on different things – tablets, cigarette, alcohol, cartoons, and PC video games are only a few matters that humans fall hooked on.

No one really thought significantly about TV addiction until recently, while a studies observed the characteristic conduct of individuals hooked on drugs and to TV is identical. That is, people hooked on TV indicates the same behavioral patterns like someone who’s hooked on pills.

Definition of addiction: incapability to triumph over the dependence on anything

In spite of great efforts from one’s part is an addiction. Serious withdrawal symptoms are some other characteristic of dependency.

For example – a person who’s addicted to capsules recognize he/she have to damage far away from drugs, tries in that course, but is unable to unfasten oneself from the have an impact on of drugs.

Different studies performed by means of universities from exclusive components of the sector propose the study parallels between TV dependency and drug addiction.

Researchers studied the brain waves of people, who had been extreme approximately retreating from TV.

The men and women experience maximum delight at the same time as preparing for looking TV – he/she feels happy even as taking the remote manage and at the same time as switching to the TV. Once the TV software is over, he or she returns to the previous state of tension and mental strain. He/she wants to reach before TV to all over again sense peaceful.

This enjoy has strong parallels to that of drug addiction, in which drug addicts experience disturbed when the drug stops operating of their body and that they inject more capsules into their blood.

This is not proper for all TV viewers. People who watch TV for more than 4 hours a day show off these behavior patterns and one 10th of general TV visitors are haplessly addicted to TV.

The Serious Problems Associated with TV Addiction

o Anxiety

o Lethargy

o Prefers solitude

o Turns far from social situations

o Difficulty getting alongside others

o Risk of obesity

TV Addiction in Children

Children below 12 years of age are mainly vulnerable to the dangers of TV dependency. They can overlook the whole lot approximately their studies and spend so much time earlier than TV.

When mother and father attempt to decrease time spent earlier than time, the children protest and in an unhealthy way. Self-damage and destruction are not unusual.

Studies have also located that kids enslaved to TV mature early and sense helpless before problems.

Some Things You Can Do to Prevent TV Addiction

@ – Spend time accomplishing bodily activities, sports, hiking, mountaineering, mountain climbing, swimming, tree climbing, and so forth in step with one’s physical capability.

@ – Read books including novels, brief memories, poetry, technology fiction memories, technology magazines, and so forth.

@ – Engage in indoor video games like chess, caroms, scrabble, board video games, and so forth.

@ – Be active at a social service membership (up to now the first-rate antidote for all stress associated problems).

All the above sports are helpful in overcoming addiction to TV. While you experience strength sapped, torpid and tensed after prolonged TV viewing, those activities make you feel refreshed.

Some Popular Markets in Lagos, Nigeria

In Lagos, Nigeria, there are a number of markets that attract a large number of people for various reasons. Some people go to these markets to purchase objects because of their pretty low costs at the same time as others opt for them for a pleasant shopping experience. Take as an instance a small scale store primarily based in one of the suburbs, he or she can also go to these markets to purchase bulk objects from wholesalers as a way to resell at lower fees at a greater convenient time and place. If you as a store deal in GSM merchandise along with six packs, cellular telephones, GSM recharge cards and accessories you will evidently visit a market that has a large number wholesalers dealing in such products. In Lagos Nigeria, such locations consist of Computer Village in Ikeja, elements of the Lagos island Market (Idumota) and one stop of Saka Tinubu in Victoria Island. This of direction is just an example as there are a limitless variety of products and services one could deal in.

Here is my list of famous markets in Lagos Nigeria and the Kind of products such markets deal in;

1. Yaba was additionally known as Tejuosho Market currently undergoing protection it’s miles one of the most modern-day markets in West Africa with well-known facilities and infrastructure. Tejuosho market is a densely populated market, with thousands of purchasing gadgets and tens of thousands of customers who patronize the groups which might be resident within the complicated on a day by day basis. Until 2007 while elements of the marketplace had been gutted by using heart, Tejuosho marketplace became perhaps the busiest marketplace in Lagos Nigeria after Idumota, Balogun, Oshodi, Alaba Market and semi markets.

2. Alaba International marketplace. The so referred to as largest electronics marketplace in Africa, Alaba global Market is home to the largest sellers of electronic products in Nigeria. Many of the dealers are massive time importers and vendors of electrical and digital devices consisting of flat screen televisions, turbines, domestic home equipment especially fridges, enthusiasts, air conditioners, even DVD sets, digital satellite dishes and decoders and lots of greater. The marketplace is a beehive of activities on all days of the week except on Sundays when a maximum of the traders goes to church.

3. Computer village.

Computer village as the call implies is a marketplace that deals by and large in the shopping for and selling of computer systems consisting of software and hardware, mobile phones and their add-ons. It is domestic to some of Nigeria’s exceptional phone and computer restore men with a lot of them demonstrating exquisite ability in coping with, keeping and repairing phones, laptop components, and other associated gadgets. However there is a pull away, this marketplace is likewise infamous for housing a few human beings of the questionable person consisting of tours, pirates, choose wallet and fraudsters. However, the market offers many advantages inclusive of cheap charges and first-rate products but most effective wherein such products are bought from legitimate and authorized sellers.