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autolenaphilia · 1 year

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It's remarkable how easy Linux Mint is to use, compared to Linux's general forbidding reputation. It was really easy to set up for me who has no coding knowledge. I had to fiddle with the boot order in my BIOS a bit but no biggie. Follow the installation guide on the website, and you will be fine. You can boot from an USB too, and test out the OS before installing it and wiping your drive. Transfer data to an external drive before you do.

And you probably won't have much trouble once it is installed either. The default settings are reasonable, and can be changed. It's a very easy to use OS. I have had no problems doing most of the ordinary things I use an OS for. My most used programs on Windows was already things like Firefox, VLC media player and Libreoffice on windows, and they function just as fine on Linux Mint (and are indeed installed by default).

Gaming has given me some trouble, but honestly Lutris has solved most of them. Granted I run mostly so old games on this laptop that Scummvm and dosbox is a solution for many of them. And installing 32 bit libraries has solved others (running the command in this link in the terminal solved so many issues alone). I play very old games, if you can't tell.

Sure, part of how Mint is so user-friendly is that it imitates Windows graphical user interface. But to be honest, it does mean users coming from Windows are already used to the interface. And Mint imitates only the parts of it that work, like the taskbar. And Microsoft has had a bad habit of making the gui look like a phone or a tablet for years now, so Mint does a Windows-like gui better than Windows at this point.

Mint is better than Windows in being a user-friendly operating system in general. Windows being spyware and full of bloatware is well-known and LInux gets away from that bullshit. And just how polite MInt is about updates is a massive improvement. No forced reboots here while an update takes ages to install.

Mint is a long-term support distro, which means it focuses on stability over the latest updates to packages and programs, introducing updates not when they are first released, but after a while when any bugs have been ironed out. And that improves the OS's stability a lot, which I value over getting bleeding edge updates. If you want updates as soon as they happen, and are willing to tinker a bit to fix things, there are other distros which use a rolling-release model.

It is less demanding on the hardware without compromising functionality. Like the majority of Linux distros takes up way less space on the drive and less memory compared to Windows, you can get more life out of an old computer this way.

There are so many older computers that still function fine hardware-wise, but since the specs on that hardware are too weak to switch to a newer more-resource hungry version of Windows, the machines are abandoned because the OS ends up unsupported and unsafe to use. Windows 10 support is going to end in 2025, it might be extended, but the end of w10 support is going to be a blood bath for this very reason. So many computers can't meet the specs for Windows 11 that the switch will be painful. And I would urge you if you are affected by this to upgrade to a LInux distro instead of getting a new computer just for windows 11.

#my writings #more like my ramblings #linux #linux mint #computers

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jenroses · 9 months

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I just ordered a bunch of pieces parts that I'm gonna turn into a computer.

I've built systems before, like eh 15 years ago or more, and I cannot overstate how delightful it is that the persistence of modularity means that while the system I'm building now will be functionally the equivalent of dozens of times the power of the computer I built then, the bones of it are all pretty similar.

Motherboard. Cpu. Cooler. Power supply. RAM. Storage. Case. Fans. Graphics card. Operating system. Monitor.

Now some things have changed. You can now buy literally everything with vivid rainbow lights, and for a few minutes I stared at the pretty modern cases with their windows and rave -like interiors, and dreamed of the gayest computer on the planet.

Then I remembered that I'm a photophobic mushroom who computers in a darkened room and hates bright high contrast lighting and spent more dollars to get a case without a window.

Also, water cooling terrifies me. Not because the idea is unsound but because while I'm confident in my ability to insert tab a into slot b to assemble a computer by going slowly and following instructions, the very notion of me handling liquids around electronic components sounds inherently fraught.

So I did not go with components which require such things.

Infodumping below the cut.

(for the curious: fractal design define r5 case, msi pro z790-p WiFi ddr4 mobo, i5136000kf (14 core), 64gb ddr4 RAM, radeon rx6800 16gb, deepcool ak400 zero dark plus cooler, 4x 140mm case fans, Corsair 850w modular platinum ps, 1 tb ssd for the os and a 2tb ssd for the games, both pcie4x4 nvme, and a curved 27 inch 2k monitor. This is upgrading from a 2015 laptop which is still very robust with an i76700 quad core processor, 16gb RAM, 1tb ssd and a gtx950m 4gb graphics card which just this year stopped meeting minimum specs for the games I want to play. I figure the new system could last me another 8-10 years.)

Is 64 gb of ram overkill? Hahahaha yes. But it's about a hundred bucks. Is 3tb overkill? No but it's also about 120 bucks. Do I need a 27 inch monitor? Mayyyybe but it's $200. The real splurge is the video card and CPU, but I'm not going to regret those at all when I'm playing starfield and bg3.

(I'm also going to play every game I've been playing at low settings on ultra just because I can. Subnautica is gonna be so pretty.)

Interestingly, the parts come with three games, including the one I initially decided to build a system for (starfield). The processor comes with assassin's creed mirage and something I didn't recognize. Going with Intel for the processor and AMD for the GPU ended up being very much in my favor that way as if I'd gone ryzen, I'd have ended up with two copies of starfield.

I think the last time I built a system from scratch it had 4-8 gigs of RAM and a 2gb video card and maybe a dual core cpu maybe not. I've done some bare bones systems since then and a lot of upgrades, but not from-the-ground-up.

Amusingly, while doing this, I thought I was going to hand my laptop down to my son. Then I realized that in a pandemic fugue state in 2021 I bought him and my husband computers with part of the stimulus that were basically maxed out refurb systems that somehow are running 32g of RAM each and the only real weakness in their systems are graphics, which hubby doesn't use and which can be easily upgraded for my son for like <$150 to double his vram.

I have minimal memory of buying these systems but it makes sense for how little they complain about them. (old Dell optiplex systems. I think I spent 400 on each of them at the time. With upgrades.)

So since I've been hyperfixated on this process I've been watching a lot of pc building YouTube and it's been very helpful but also very popcorn. So much drama. Le gasp.

My one regret about not getting a flash light up system with lots of rgb is that it would impress the hell out of my 11 year old but I seriously can't deal with that much light up distraction and the extra cost for the components has been spent on a better GPU.

Anyway this is all going to be much cheaper than trying to find a system with equivalent stats prebuilt, and it's been a while since that was true when I was in the market for a computer.

#computers #building a pc #infodumping

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king-k-ripple · 29 days

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Kirby Games Ranked From Easiest to Hardest

If you haven’t played a Kirby game and don’t know where to start, hopefully this can help you decide based on what you want from Kirby. If you’re looking for a game to simply relax with and have a good time, games ranked 13-9 will suffice. If you’re looking for a challenge, every Kirby game ranked 5-1 will be up your alley despite the popular belief in all Kirby games being cakewalks. Finally, games 6-8 are what I consider to be an average difficulty by Kirby standards. Keep in mind that the difficulty of these games will be based on simply finishing them, not necessarily 100%ing them, though some games require 100% completion to be finished regardless and I will take that into consideration in games where it will be applicable. If you have played these games, I’d love to see where my rankings agree and/or disagree with the rest of the fandom. Without further ado (oh look a Kirby pun), here are my rankings:

13: Kirby’s Epic Yarn

It is literally impossible to die and no collecting is required. Very little to no effort is needed to finish this game. I wish I could say more, but there isn’t anything else to talk about.

12: Kirby Star Allies

The reason why this ranks so low is because a good amount of the game plays itself with the helpers both in puzzle solving and combat. Bosses, often the hardest parts of Kirby games, go down in mere seconds. The reason why it’s not at the very bottom is because it’s at least possible to die in this game, and there are more one-hit kills in this game than any other game in the series. Yes, there are difficult stages like Heroes in Another Dimension and the return of the infamous Shiver Star factory level, but both of these are completely optional and therefore not make the base game any harder.

11: Kirby Super Star Ultra

The combination of being able to take like 10-12 hits and the sheer power+versatility of the copy abilities makes you almost unstoppable (except for auto scrollers). Not even the extra modes like Revenge of the King are all that hard, and Meta Knightmare Ultra is far easier than the main story because you can heal yourself up to 5 times by collecting 10 blue orbs from killing enemies per use, and seeing as enemies are everywhere, your ability to heal recovers and stacks fast.

10: Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland

Not a lot stopping you except for the eratic enemy behavior, but your 6-point health bar makes it only 1/6th as bad as instant death, and seeing as every door is a checkpoint with about 2-5 doors per stage, and the fact that this game showers you with lives, this game isn’t much of a challenge either. Although this game’s Meta Knightmare is an actual hard mode with only three HP and a lack of blue orbs, it has the same issue as Star Allies’ hardest levels in that it’s optional and doesn’t make simply finishing the game any harder.

9: Kirby Squeak Squad

This is the first game on the list with something that can genuinely halt one’s progress, that being the star seals. The player will not be able to progress to World 7 if they missed at least one star seal. With that being said, the required star seals only barely raise the challenge since there are only five of them, three of which are easy to obtain. Mecha Kracko, Dark Daroach, and the Star seals in 4-2 and 5-1 are the only somewhat hard parts of the game. Aside from that, it’s basically Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland 2 but even more forgiving with combat because of the ability scrolls and health upgrades.

8: Kirby’s Dreamland 1

Both the levels and bosses are pushovers. It doesn’t help that this is the shortest Kirby game by a long shot, so there isn’t much challenge the game can throw at you. So why is this in the middle of the list? It’s because of King Dedede, who is easily the hardest Dedede fight in the series. It’s all thanks to the claustrophobic arena you fight him in, making the window for evasion of Dedede’s attacks far smaller than the fights in the rest of the series. I legit “game overed” to this fight many times when I played Dreamland 1 for the fist time. Even to this day, Dedede knocks me out a few times before I get the hang of his move set. Regardless, one very difficult boss fight in an otherwise easy and short game can only get Dreamland 1 so high up on the list.

7: Kirby Return to Dreamland

Now we get to the games that consistently require effort to finish, and not just limited to one or a few instances. Return to Dreamland is basically Kirby Star Allies but with less automation in that you have to perform a lot more tasks yourself, from problem solving to obstacle dodging to combat. Although the number of one-hit kills isn’t quite as high as in Star Allies, it’s up there, especially in Egg Engines.

6: Kirby 64 the Crystal Shards

This entry would be a solid contender for the hardest game in the series if it weren’t for its cheat code, because Kirby 64 has the highest number of mandatory 100% completion tasks, but because the code exists, Kirby 64 is middle of the road when it comes to difficulty, and it plays a lot like Return to Dreamland, being a straightforward action platformer where the meat of the game is overcoming tricky to fight+dodge enemies+obstacles, with a fair amount of obstacles being 1-hit kills. The reason why 64 is above Return to Dreamland is because Kirby is nowhere near as agile in 64. Not only can he run out of flight, but he walks and runs slowly, making avoiding obstacles harder to avoid than Return to Dreamland.

5: Kirby’s Dreamland 2

If you’re like me and prefer easy games over hard ones, this is where the franchise transitions from a lot of fun to kind of frustrating. This game has a 100% completion requirement in the form of rainbow drops, though there are only seven to collect. While that sounds easy, getting the rainbow drops in 4-4, 5-5, and 6-2 are some of the hardest things to do in a Kirby game. 4-4 and 5-5 are fast-moving auto scrollers that can easily one-shot you and take away the power you need for the Rainbow drops. 6-2 has an insane amount to steps to get its rainbow drop, and all must be performed in a row flawlessly. Another thing that puts this game high on the list is the lack of time to react to pretty much anything and everything. Ever played Marble Garden Zone from Sonic 3? The zone where you move far too fast and the hazards move far too fast for you to react? Imagine if every stage was like that, it was on a 10-9 aspect ratio, and the sprites were large relative to the screen. That is basically the level design of Kirby’s Dreamland 2. With no time to react to and prepare for any enemies or hazards, a player is likely to take hits and die quite often, many of which feel more like the game’s fault than a lack of the player’s skill.

4: Kirby Planet Robobot

3: Kirby Triple Deluxe

2: Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Triple Deluxe, Planet Robobot, and Forgotten Land all share the same reasons for their high placements on this list. The first reason is not allowing non-completionists to finish any world if they haven’t obtained enough collectibles, many of which become inaccessible if the player fails to collect them after one attempt. The second reason is because unlike the rest of the series, completing the boss rushes are required to finish the games because the final bosses can’t simply be fought in the main stories and instead are locked behind the tail ends of the boss rushes, and unlike the regular stages, there are no checkpoints or continues in the boss rushes, so the margin for error is insanely small. The reasons why the Kirby games are in this order are because Triple Deluxe on average demands more sun stones than Robobot does for code cubes and the absence of the stone ability in Forgotten Land makes the boss rush at least ten times harder than it was in Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot.

1: Kirby’s Dreamland 3

Imagine taking the difficulty of Dreamland 2’s 4-4, 5-5, and 6-2’s rainbow drops and putting it in every single stage of the game. That is basically what you get for Dreamland 3. There is not one heart star that isn’t a pain in the butt to get, and the worst part is that they are all mandatory. Because there is absolutely zero margin for error, I have no choice but to put this game above all the others when it comes to difficulty.

This truly was an interesting way to analyze the Kirby series, and if you have a difference in opinion, I’d love to hear what Kirby games gave you the easiest and hardest time.

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ejacutastic · 7 months

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so, as of October 2023, windows no longer is supporting windows 7 or 8 keys for windows 10 or 11. makes sense out of context, yeah?

except many windows 7 and almost all windows 8 devices can run windows 10. so they can just buy a windows 10 license right?

nope, windows no longer sells windows 10 licenses. you can only buy them from third party people who harvest them off old broken computers and resell them and they may or may not work after you buy them.

they also cannot just upgrade to windows 11 due to its strict requirements for hardware.

and they cannot (safely) keep using 7 or 8 because windows no longer is doing security or exploit updates for anything before 10.

so windows cannot be updated on these devices, but they also cannot get windows reinstalled in the case of severe OS corruption or other issues that may come up.

honestly I'm so mad about this rn. there's WAY more people with old computers than some people might think too. I'd guess over 50% of the computers I work on came with 7 or 8. I'm so mad

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rriavian · 3 months

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Do you consider Morpheus' Corinthian and Daniel's Corinthian two different persons ( i mean nightmares ha ha) playing the same role? To be more clear- do you consider them like Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker and Tom Holland's Peter Parker?Or do you consider them as the uprated version of same software? Like Corinthian 1 is Windows 10 and Corinthian 2 is Windows 11?

I am asking about your interpretation. Not necessarily it has to be based on canon.

PS. Not sure if I should write my own interpretation here. But anyway, I am gonna write it.

For me, Morpheus and Daniel are completely different personifications. Like- yes they are both doctors/pilots/teachers/bankers-whatever really. But they are different persons. Doing the same job doesn’t make them the same person.

On the other hand, My understanding of Corinthian is completely opposite of "Dream 1 and Dream 2". No matter how different Corinthian and Remade Corinthian are- they are the " same personification" to me. It's like same person getting a second chance to life after coming back from coma state. I am personally not too eager to use "Cori 1 Cori 2". For me, they are both the same " Cori".

Sorry for my English if it's too incoherent.

Oh you love to make me think don’t you! I think my interpretation is still in flux; I’ve not read the comics, or seen a lot of super spoiler-y panels bar a few of the big ones, and the show is also still quite far off this storyline.

I suppose the truth is that the existence of the second Corinthian is a narrative element I struggle with, because to me it’s not very satisfying. I enjoyed how the show handled Dream making Gault a dream, because it was very clearly a cosmetic change, but with the Corinthian it feels like it would be a lot more. The idea of recreating isn’t an easy one (doesn’t feel like a great match for the themes of the story either), as it just seems like a very simplistic way to get a character to change without them actually growing. And this change is entirely against the characters will/doesn’t even involve the Corinthian doing anything at all.

Which is quite chilling given how his rebellion was very much a quest for agency.

The idea of the Corinthian rebelling, spending 100 years sticking to his choices, and then being unmade only to be recreated with everything suddenly being fine, with all the reasons he had to do what he did seemingly gone/resolved, just doesn’t feel very satisfying to me.

I’m still holding off on a full judgement until I’ve reached that point in the narrative, but there has to be some trajectory for me to really get on board. What did Dream alter in that moment of recreation? If it’s a new character with the old one’s face/name/memories but apparently none of their motivations then why should I care? And if there was a reason for not just making a completely new character as Dream’s second attempt at a masterpiece then what was that reason because I’d love to know what that is!

It’s probably because I’m not there yet in the story, but right now I don’t see it, and so I’m not sold on it.

Perhaps everything was somehow resolved while the Corinthian was unmade. Perhaps all he needed was a really good nap. Perhaps he got therapy while chilling as a skull. Joking aside—and finally looping round to actually answering your question—I think there has to be continuity between the first and second Corinthian because, unlike Dream, he’s not really the combination of two distinct identities. Well, in a way he could be, Dream not so much remaking him as giving him something more, not cutting out but adding a balancing factor. Upgrading the software to use your turn of phrase :)

I think that’s the interpretation I go with in Transmutation, and that fic was essentially me exploring what the complexity of identity could mean. It’s the interpretation I go to for Dream as well. Also—just to reference a spoiler I have seen from the comics—the panel of the second Corinthian choking Loki out when looking for Daniel?

Listen: that’s the same nightmare for sure.

#the corinthian #the sandman #rria answers #the sandman spoilers #sandman comic spoilers #sorry for the delay!#working through my asks :)#this has been in draft for a while

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jlawbenn · 12 hours

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Things I’m learning at my new job - part 1830404

1. The Victorian Government do not allow enough money or resources to small schools that severely need upgrading

2. It’s not a legal requirement to have a canteen/tuckshop available in a school?

3. The same student never comes to school with lunch and it’s become an obsessive ritual to come to the staff room to get lunch

4. The nearest cafe/food shop charge $17.50 for ONE spring roll so if I forget my lunch too I’m starving for the day

5. The admin office is a mess and it’s annoying

6. I will never have full rights to a photocopier or coloured printer and it’s irritating

7. The ongoing laptop debate is annoying, I will always be forced to use absent students’ laptops and not a staff one

8. It’s not a legal requirement to have or to travel to a gym, at a school in Victoria?

9. Interschool sport can be done at schools like half an hour or more away

10. No matter how much they expect from you, you will never fix that broken child

11. Don’t tell child x that your hair is dyed or she’ll refuse to work with you

12. Comfort clothes >>> professional clothes

13. Kids bolt in the courtyard and throw balls and you will die

14. I’m too short to reach the child safety gate lock

15. The portables I spend most time in don’t have ramps, just stairs

16. That psychotic teacher who uses fear mongering as a way to control students does it to teachers and us too, and she will scream at you so loud the windows shake, she will call you a whore and she will demand you take your shoes off, even with an obvious injury

17. Never enter her class, ever. Not even when rostered

18. She’s a liar

19. Her stairs are dangerous enough anyway with all the 28 pairs of shoes crowding the landing

20. The vice principal is not very vice principal at all

21. Never talk to that psychotic looking blonde teacher with the huge fake smile that never leaves, she will abuse and use you and then go bitch about you with the psychotic teacher

22. You will never get a proper lunch break no matter how much you need it

23. If blondie teacher asks you to look after a child for a moment and then scurries off, that’s your whole lunch break gone and yeah, you’re responsible if that student pulls the roof of the dollhouse off and bashes you with it

24. The wifi system is in shambles and they will never sort out your access code

25. If it feels like a trap, you’re already in one

26. You really just want to get into the staff room and sit, finally eat for the day and message Laura about all the constant psychological games you’re going through

27. By the time you finish and get home you’ll be too exhausted to message Laura about it all

28. Your back will forever hurt

29. You will climb at LEAST 10 flights of stairs a day

30. Students will look at you like you’re the enemy even though you’re not and you’re tired and just trying

31. You’ll make one really good friend amongst the teaching staff and have a really good leader but the rest you’ll be warily cautious of. Also you’ll think you can trust that Croatian teacher’s aide but she sometimes does psycho’s room so you’ll forever stay silent

32. That good teacher desperately needs a teacher’s aide, her whole class are basically ADHD and trauma that have either moved up from 3/4 or escaped from psycho’s class but she will never get one no matter how many times she threatens to leave her job

33. You will never get a whiteboard on wheels available

34. The wellbeing room is a joke

35. You won’t get to do the actual job you signed up to do

36. Your boss will snap at you and manipulate you to think you’re in the wrong

37. You’ll wonder how this school hasn’t been shut down yet

38. You desperately want a slice of that pizza but since you’re not official teaching staff you won’t get one

39. Sandwiches at lunch are just not enough

40. Your Carlton lanyard is making you a laughing stock amongst the teachers

41. They will bully students at lunch when they’re not around them, and your heart will hurt

42. 8 minutes tops to eat lunch, have a bathroom break and scurry off to Woolies and back!

43. The staff bathrooms will terrify you, with the washing machines and dryers (I’m picturing Laura’s apartment) and no lights, ambulance equipment and a horrid concrete floor I nearly dropped my phone onto

44. The amount of sickness spreading around that school. It’s disturbing

45. The amount of kids who don’t understand what they’re being taught

46. The amount of students with trauma in this day and age makes me want to sue the government

47. The school song will always be stuck in your head for the entire weekend

48. Your assessments will never have the true and correct answers and you’ll always be bullshitting to everyone about how amazing they are

49. You still don’t understand why the printer is named Mr Potato Head and it’s your third week on the job

50. Three weeks feels like a life sentence and you still have several more to go and they’re considering giving you a permanent position

51. You’re not getting paid at all and probably do more than any staff member

52. You’ll always enjoy the escape on a student free day

53. Weekends are even more precious now; waste them wisely

54. That weekly/fortnightly trip to dinner with Laura now feels like it’s dead on arrival

55. Kids will start to annoy you so much that you’ll barely have time for yours and you’ll feel so guilty

56. Doing this all with a baby and two daughters is really difficult

57. You begin to understand what your eldest daughter means when she says primary school is impossible

58. You’ll forever be based in the middle area/space between four classrooms yet you’ll forever be working out of those dreaded staired portables

59. Fruit break seems to be a stupid idea with recess due in the next hour

60. You’ll never understand how kids can be so cruel to their peers

61. When there’s a workplace/student crisis, don’t expect to be out the door until an hour after you officially finish

62. If a student doesn’t want to go home at the end of the day and they’re being extra clingy to the teacher or to you, that means there’s something serious going on at home

63. The amount of dyslexic students who don’t get the help they urgently needs sickens me.

64. You’ll never remember that student’s name for as long as you live

65. You’re also a twin, but those twins you work with everyday will confuse you and you will never understand them

66. That popular girl with the cool hairstyle, she’s actually a bitch to the neurodivergent students and you’ll hate her

67. A student can love you one day and then hate you the next

68. If the staff room is ever empty when you’re in there, you’ll cry for 8 minutes and then get up and rush off like nothing ever happened

69. If you can’t drive, public transport is so much harder

70. The parents of that student will always hate you and send you threats by email and abuse you face to face because they have weird beliefs, they think hair die damages your brain, if you like Taylor Swift you’re encouraging violence in the classroom, doctors are evil, etc

71. That girl will always wear a different uniform and will stand out and be bullied so badly as a result from their harsh and restrictive parenting

72. Parents are a massive cause in all the issues students may have

73. It’s a small town and everybody knows everyone, so when someone’s parent attempts suicide, it’s massive information and all the students become nightmares and you will want to die yourself dealing with it

74. You’ll become selfish in ways you never expected - like if a kid needs help and you’re exhausted, you’ll do a half assed job. When a kid has a major crisis, you’ll be like ‘I don’t want to deal with this’ and YOU’LL feel so guilty and mean

75. You’ll forever be exhausted

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shewhohangsoutincemeteries · 2 years

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to ashes, admission

Clint Barton x F!Reader

To Ashes, Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Summary: two months after the attack on fisk tower, you’re still struggling to move on from what you’ve done. clint has continued on with his personal mission, but he can’t keep his worry for you to himself any longer.

Warnings: angst, softness, mentions of vomiting.

Word Count: 2,341

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prologue - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23

Days Since the Decimation: One Year, Three Hundred and Five Days

“We’re going out.”

You jumped at the sound of his voice, looking up from the few dishes soaking in the sink. The water was cool against your hands as you let them hang limply in the sink, but you could still feel them sting from what had previously been almost scalding temperatures. You realized that you had no idea how long you’d been standing there.

Clint was standing in the kitchen doorway to your left, his hand clenching and unclenching by his side. You were sure he didn’t even realize he was doing it, but it was a gesture you’d long since recognized as a sign that he was agitated, frustrated at being stuck idle in close quarters. Odd, since he’d been out until sunrise almost every night in the two months since you’d arrived in Moscow.

He cleared his throat when you didn’t answer. “Y/N.”

“I’m fine.”

He gave you a pointed look; you could see it out of the corner of your eye. ‘I’m fine’ had become your automatic response, a knee-jerk reaction. “I didn’t ask.”

“Oh.”

“We’re going out.”

“I’ve got work to do here,” you said, busying yourself with the dishes again. The two of you had taken up residence in an abandoned flat in what used to be one of the low-income neighbourhoods of Moscow. The area had, for the most part, been deserted as the people who had survived the Decimation had been shepherded by the Russian government closer to the city’s centre in a bid to reduce the strain on the police force still recovering from significantly lowered numbers.

Most citizens had taken it as an opportunity to upgrade into better homes, and for the most part, it was just the two of you. Still, some had stubbornly remained, and criminal groups had decided to use the now-empty buildings as a chance to expand their bases of operations.

Either way, it was quiet. And you didn’t leave the flat very often.

“The dishes can wait,” he said patiently. A little too gently.

You swallowed the painful knot suddenly lodged in your throat.

* * *

“The news is saying it was some kind of concussion grenade that blew out the windows,” Clint said as you finally stepped out of the bathroom. The two decade-old alarm clock still plugged in by the bed told you you’d been in there for hours, and maybe only Clint knew how long you’d been in his arms.

He’d sat with you until your entire body had felt numb with the cold, never stopping those same whispered comforts despite the way you heard his voice tremble as he shivered. You hadn’t even heard most of it, the words drowned out by the pounding of water against the tiles and your own sobs wracking through your chest, but the smooth, soft tenor of his voice had been enough to slowly calm you.

Eventually, you’d just sat there in silence, curled up in his arms, your body aching but still unwilling to let go. You’d reached up to turn off the tap above you, and you’d felt his lips brush against your hair one last time before he’d finally stood again.

He’d set a pair of sweats and a tee shirt from your bag on the bathroom sink before leaving you to get dressed in private, and his own now-soaked clothes were in a pile in the corner, slowly spreading a wet stain across the carpet. You could feel your hair soaking through the back of your shirt.

He’d redressed in sweats, and he held out a hoodie – one of his you realized dimly – and you took it silently. Your hands were shaking. He had to have seen it.

“Your work with the cameras means no one has any idea it was us. At least on a local level.”

A compliment on your pseudo-spy work would have ordinarily thrilled you, but now, it felt hollow. And you took the meaning of his addendum. Local police might be satisfied with the story they’d come up with, but certain members of the Avengers might poke holes in the story if they showed the damage on the news. They’d seen what you could do enough times that they could tell the difference between a concussion grenade and the aftermath of one of your rogue shields.

You nodded, pulling on the jacket numbly and zipping it up with trembling fingers. The skin of your cheeks felt tight, your back aching from sitting on the hard tile for so long. Your voice came out hoarsely. Worn. “So, what are you going to do?”

Clint sighed, running his hand through his hair. You wrapped your arms around your middle, fingers curling in the soft fabric of your sleeves. “We’ll do what we planned; I’ve got flights organized. We won’t be able to take all your meds with us, but we can take a bottle each, and that should—”

“You’re still taking me with you?” you asked, finally meeting his eye.

He gave you a small smile. His expression was soft, almost touching on amusement at your surprise. “We’re partners, aren’t we?”

* * *

“Why’d you bring me here, Clint?” you asked, your hands wrapped around the mug in front of you despite your untouched coffee. Clint had ordered it without asking what you wanted.

The two of you were tucked away in a small café closer to Moscow proper. The noise of customer chatter and the clink of china against china was enough to set you on edge in your self-imposed isolation, and you sank further back against the wall beside you as a waitress passed.

“You needed a break,” he replied, pushing his fork through the stew and potatoes on his plate. The two of you had been sitting in silence since you arrived, but he seemed unsurprised by your sudden question. He reached across the table to take a piece of dense black bread from the plate beside you, mopping it through the sauce on the side of his plate before taking a bite.

He’d also ordered you a plate of syrniki – little pancakes drizzled in honey – but they were untouched. The delicate scent of them teased at your senses, but your anxiety made your stomach churn. You pushed the plate further away from you.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Clint met your eyes from under his brow, taking the time to eat another mouthful, before casually replying. “I know what you meant.”

* * *

“We can’t take the cash,” Clint explained, handing you your duffle bag before shouldering his own. It felt light, but then, you hadn’t brought a lot with you to begin with. He held out a small key, a ID tag hanging from it. “It’s in a bus locker downtown. Tony gave you the money, not me.”

You nodded, tucking the key into the pocket of your hoodie. “When do we leave?"

“A few hours. We should go now…” he glanced towards the window; a habit built into his brain by years as a spy. “We’ve got to fly commercial – anyone I have who could get us out of the country privately would be on ‘Tasha’s radar.”

* * *

You didn’t say anything, waiting for him to speak again. He ignored you and continued eating, his expression playing on innocent as he met your eye again.

“Clint.”

He nodded pointedly down to the food in front of you, and you sighed, sinking back in your seat. When his expression didn’t change, you rolled your eyes, picking up one of the pancakes. You held it up dramatically before taking a bite. You chewed, swallowed, and threw it back on the plate. “There. Happy?”

“Starting to be.” he replied, unamused. “You need to eat, Y/N.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“No?” At this point you were starting to think he was eating so much just to prove a point. He’d spent months eating only when you brought him something, and even then, you’d find half of it in the trash more often than not. He pushed the plate back towards you. “What was the last thing you ate?”

“I…” you couldn’t remember. “You made me that sandwich.”

Clint set his fork down. “Y/N, that was two days ago.”

* * *

Shock. Fear. Horror. And that sound, that sickening, hollow sound of bones cracking and skin splitting as they were crushed under the force of—

You woke with a start, bile rising in your throat as the memory of it clung to the inside of your skull. Throwing the blankets off of yourself, you managed to stumble into the bathroom and fall in front of the toilet before heaving up bile.

“You’re having headaches again,” Clint’s voice sounded quietly behind you, and you closed your eyes, reaching up to flush the toilet. Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you filled the cup by the basin with cold water, avoiding his eye as you stepped past him and returned to your bed.

“Y/N.”

You sat cross-legged on the mattress, pulling the blankets back up over your lap. The room was dark, curtains drawn stubbornly against the morning’s first light. You shivered; Russian winters were less forgiving than what you were used to, even now that spring was only a few weeks away. “You were supposed to wake me before you left.”

“You needed the rest,” Clint replied, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. He was still dressed in his Ronin uniform, his mask, hood and gloves gone. The faint but familiar scent of sweat and blood hung around him, and he looked tired, older, in the low light. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

The sound… the looks on their faces when you—

“I’m fine.”

“You’re having the migraines again.”

“No, I’m—”

Clint nodded to the bedside table, still littered with the collection of pain killers you’d pilfered from abandoned apartments. Heat flooded your face as you realized you’d forgotten to stash them away again, and you opened the drawer, sliding the lot of them off the tabletop and closing it again with a snap. “I’m fine, Barton.”

“Yeah? You had a nosebleed yesterday, and I know you’re running out of your prescription.”

“How would you know—”

He tossed something gently to you. You caught it automatically, turning it over in your hands. Your prescription bottle, light now that only a few pills remained. You hadn’t been able to bring much at all thanks to customs; the rest of your stockpile was tucked away in the same bus locker as the cash.

“When was the last time you released it?”

“It’s…” Your gaze remained in your lap, your fingers picking at the bottle’s label. “It’s been a while.”

Clint sighed. “Y/N…”

“I’m not doing it, Clint. I can’t.”

He shifted closer to you, turning to face you properly. “You’re going to get yourself killed, Y/N.”

Better you than someone else.

His face came into clearer focus in the dim and your response died on your lips as you noticed the dried blood on the side of his face. You moved automatically, reaching out to touch concerned fingertips to his cheek. There was a cut, a couple of inches long, by his brow. “Clint, you’re bleeding!”

He smiled, the expression one of rueful amusement. He covered your hand with his, fingers curling around your own. “Figures you’d ignore what’s going on with you but panic at little bit of blood from me.” He pulled your hand away gently. “I’m okay. It’s just a little nick.”

* * *

“Clint… why did you bring me here?” you asked again. “Why did you bring me to Russia with you?”

Clint didn’t meet your eye, poking his fork through the last of his meal. “You know why.”

“Because we had a plan?” you said sceptically, setting your coffee mug down on the table. “Clint, I blew it back there. We’re lucky Steve and Natasha didn’t track us down at the airport after the… after what I did. I’m not even doing my job anymore. You saw me afterwards… I’m not…”

You swallowed back the tears lodged in your throat. “Clint, if this is some sense of obligation—”

“It’s not.” he said immediately, meeting your eye. There was a kind of guarded sincerity in his gaze; he was certain. About you. He set his cutlery aside.

“I’m not okay, Clint.” you said, eyes closing for a moment as you steadied yourself. You could feel a tear lingering at your waterline, threatening to fall against your cheek. “So, if you—”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I can’t even—”

“I need you, Y/N.” Clint said, his voice soft with his admission. Still, the words… his tone… made you stop, your fingers freezing where they’d been twisting together in your lap. “I need you here. You’re the only…”

Clint exhaled, looking up and shaking his head. It was as though he was annoyed with himself. Or maybe that actually he had to speak the words out loud.

“You’re the only thing keeping me sane, Y/N. I can’t do this without you.”

Your lips parted as you tried to find a reply. “Clint… I’ve seen you take out rooms of men without—”

“I’m not talking about the…” Clint sighed, and you felt your ribs tighten around your heart as you saw tears well in his eyes. “I can’t… I can’t do any of it without you. Every day, I wake up and my family is still gone and you’re the only thing I’ve got that I—”

His words washed over you, and you pressed your lips together as you steadied yourself. Wordlessly, you picked up another one of the syrniki, popping it into your mouth.

A small, amused smile touched the corner of Clint’s lips despite himself as he noticed, and he breathed a soft chuckle as you chewed and swallowed, reaching for another. “Thank you, Y/N.”

tags: @lovely-dreamer19 @wittyforachange @wefracturedmotivation @glossyloner @january-echoes @capitalnineteen @youclickedthislink @s0ftness @castieltrash1 @absolutly-me @sara-ravenclaw @drakelover78 @queenoftheunderdark @lol-you-thought @ruderavenclaw @startrekkingaroundasgard @notafraid-bitch-igot9lives @enna-core @akumune @xxboesefrauxx @hearmyharmony @katsies @lipstickandtanqueray @youralphawolf72 @whovianayesha @fanofalltheficsx @bradfordbantams @alice-the-nerd @rimaries @ace-fandom-dumbass @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @twsssmlmaa @earth-pig-fish @meeksmusic83 @hallothankmas @multiyfandomgirl40 @fallinginlovewithqueue @justanothermagicalsara @fandomfangirl4ever

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biggaybunny · 8 months

Text

a long time ago someone told me that the rule of thumb is that every other version of Windows will be terrible, and it's held true for longer than some of you have been alive. I can't speak to Windows 95 and 98 but XP was like, pretty innocuous. Sure people bitched about it but everyone bitches about everything, it's the human condition. There's a reason so many businesses refused to get off XP for like, fifteen years.

Then Vista came along and blew hard that this xkcd about it still rings true. Windows 7 was like, *fine*. It walked back a lot of Vista's dumb bullshit. Vista had always been tablet focused which was a dumb fucking move, and Windows 7 actually worked for like, computer users, Microsoft's actual consumers. You still had UAC but this time you could turn it off without needing to edit the registry. I forget what was so shit about Windows 8 but I do remember the PSAs about not upgrading and instructions on how to downgrade, I was also old enough to remember that every business that upgraded from 7 to 8 found all their shit broken.

Now I've been using 10 for the past several years and it's pretty dogshit, but at least it's *usable* dogshit. You may notice that the overall quality keeps declining, and that is true! Microsoft's engineers are trying their best you see, but it's hard to type code with your head up your ass. And it's better than Windows 11. Like Vista (and maybe 8?), 11 is trend-chasing afaict, trying to integrate all sorts of dumb bullshit like trying to mix online services in to everything you do and I think they're doing something with AI now? Anyway I won't be upgrading; they always say oh no you HAVE to upgrade now, but they said that with 8 and guess what, no you didn't. Maybe 12 will be functional but also I'm not saying I *like* the trend. I hope Bill Gates gets killed by a falling chunk of pee ice from a plane bathroom and Microsoft goes up in flames, but until then, it's funny how consistently they keep fucking up in this specific way and yet not learning.

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vintageslideshow · 1 year

Photo

My slide/negative scanner I have been hyperfixating on.

Describing the five pieces above for your education, amusement, or annoyance, your call -- which mercifully I have put on the other side of a page break...

The scanner (Nikon Coolscan 4000 ED, item 4) I got at Goodwill for $10, but you can’t find them for less than $300 online presently. Walmart price is $2,200! They hit the market circa 2001 and came with the drivers for Windows XP, then there was a software update to get it into Vista, but this scanner has such a devoted fanbase -- it’s still considered one of the best scanners ever produced even today -- that an edit to the driver .INF file was written by someone other than Nikon so it could be used in Windows 7 through 10 (I have no idea about 11 as yet). The interface is FireWire, rather than USB, which isn’t an issue to me because I have an IEEE 1394 ExpressCard for my notebook (an eBay purchase cheap from China) and an IEEE1394 PCI Express card in my computer ($2 from a junkshop downtown). The black dust cover slides down so the accessories listed below can be inserted.

The 35mm negative strip adaptor (item 1) came with the scanner but the other two standard accessories listed below did not. It does indeed work with an entire 2-to-20-image strip of negatives at one go, thumbnailing the contents in the Nikon software so it can scroll through the strip to look at whichever image you want.

The single slide adaptor (item 2) I got a comparably good price on, and it’s the thing I’ve been using the most. Especially on what you see on Vintage Slideshow. Insert a slide, and automatically the scanner sucks it in and creates a preview scan. The Nikon software is pretty good at image manipulation and correction, but for simplicity reasons if I have a really lousy slide to fix I’ll use VueScan as the scanning software instead.

The negative adaptor tray (item 3) will accept single 35mm negs as well as other sizes of negatives; I’ve scanned 110, 126, and 127 negatives with this doohickie, which can hold a strip of 4 of the latter two sizes and 6-8 of 110... one just needs to move the slider to put one image into the view frame. This adaptor goes into the 35mm negative strip adaptor, and someone on eBay offers an alternative that they 3D-printed for about half the going price.

The 50-slide magazine (item 5) is the latest addition to the family because it took me several years to locate one at a price less than $400. (Would you believe Walmart is asking $1,500?) It scans one slide at a time, but can crank through a stack in autopilot so you don’t have to keep swapping slides. There’s a known issue with this device [FS-200] and its upgrade [FS-200(S)] jamming because it can try to pull more than one slide into the chamber at a time, but several solutions have been found by the fanbase and the one I like most is taping a cable tie (with the end cut flush) along the wall separating the input from the output, the end about 2mm from the entry passage, so that only the first slide will be in the right position and angle to enter the chamber.

There are other adaptors available which I don’t think I’ll ever need, such as for reading APS film rolls or for magnifying glass microscope slides.

#slide #photograph #negative #scanner #my equipment

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