theorizing the megastructure

25 | she/her |

[machine-ever-expanding]

new me, new girl, new username, new machine

After over ten years on this site, I figured it was time for a new username.

Formerly zeldafoof.

Now an ever-expanding machine.

[makefile-dot-in]

[yodaprod]

[dietspam16]

[foone]

Hi, Foone here, I'm a retrocomputer educator! I'm here to explain the real reason this laptop is like this.

So this is the Panasonic PRONOTE PD CF-62, it's a Pentium 133mhz running Windows 95, released in August 1996. Panasonic did this sort of trick more than once, they did a similar thing with an under-keyboard CD-ROM drive in the PD CF-41, from 1995.

This one is so fancy because that's not just a self-loading under-keyboard laptop CD-ROM drive, it's a HYBRID PD/CD-ROM self-loading under-keyboard laptop drive! It has to be this complex because it takes PD discs (which are the size of caddies) and caddyless CD-ROMs!

So what's PD discs?

They're an optical format by Panasonic, the Phase-change Dual (or Phase-change Disc). They're from 1996, store as much as CD, but are rewritable... much like the later CD-RWs which used basically the same technology, just in a slightly different format. Unlike CD-RWs (which you had to burn (usually), they acted like a hard drive, fully rewritable at any point. That's why the disc is hard-sectored, which you can see through the shutter gap. Those vertical lines indicate where sectors start and end.

So yeah, this laptop has a complex drive that can take both types of discs, and the whole thing folds under the keyboard. Fucking wild.

But the root reason, of course, is that they did this because it's a cool design, and they wanted to do that. Why did they think this was cool, why did they want to do this?

Pervert reasons.

Next question!

[william-s-churros]

i think i saw a movie like this once

[maidslime]

Ok I needed to know the story and

Guy makes a really stupid decision and gets in a car accident -> no real damage from accident but insurance goes up -> starts beating himself up over his stupid decision -> gets depressed -> starts to realize he's single and had crash been worse he'd die alone -> realizes he's never had a relationship or even a crush and starts wondering what he'd want out of a relationship -> starts to realize he doesn't really like girls so he thinks he must be gay -> realizes he likes girls and boys about the same amount, so he must be bi -> later realizes that "same amount" is none at all -> he's ace

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[bixels]

Been MIA for a bit because I had to move, partner came to visit, and I'm currently working on a really cool project for a freelancing job that will hopefully get announced pretty soon.

No art unfortunately. Wish there was something, but all the discourse surrounding the recent indie animated shows has inadvertently discoursed me even more from wanting to focus on my own art projects, even if it's only a certain crowd acting up.

[bixels]

While I'm here, I wanna get back up on my shipping soap box because I've finally cracked the main Deadlock game mode and I'm obsessed, so I've been thinking a lot about the characters.

Holliday x Silver (or Silverbullet) is still peak. Cowgirl x werewolf. Trainwreck x Carwreck. Masc x Masc. Sheriff x Bounty Hunter, both going after the same criminal. Not enough people take advantage of the fact that they're canonically rivals. Celeste x Silver and Mina x Silver are great, but these two have the sauce. I haven't drawn much yet, but I want to do more of them. These two are on par with Rarijack for me.

[angelvvrath]

Was just diagnosed with “need to bite you” disorder. Yeah sorry it’s terminal. The only cure is biting you. C’mere.

[the-kirbe-anon-archive-deactiva]

I love dandelions!

*puts a dandelion in your hair*

Reblog to put a dandelion in prev's hair

[reallyreallyreallytrying]

Apology

i would like to apologise for the thought bubble containing a cartoon mouse in a dressing gown and nightcap who picked up a small plate with a candle on it, yawned and went to bed which appeared while you were telling me about all your problems

[jofiah]

discord dms aren't enough I need to lounge on a sofa and have besties lounge on me

[jofiah]

how are we feeling, fellow touch-starved transfems?

[strawbsonmars]

good morning

[winged-void]

having day bad enough that you're struggling to mask and disassociate at work is so funny. Oh right I think all of you are disgusting and in a just world you would be unworthy to comprise the soil on which i walk

[winged-void]

Everyone say Thank You Miss Mordred

[donutdrawsthings]

I was thinking of a pride art challenge people could do with their OCs, because I thought it'd be cute! A queer/trans artist with their creations.

but then I realised that same challenge would be infinitely more funny with folks who have atypical or horror OCs

[sunset-sunbun]

@otiksimr

you and your beasts.

[otiksimr]

me and my beasts.

[garnetgoddess]

@cinemamind

[cinemamind]

[natoapologistblocker]

Smh don't call your game a Disco Elysium clone unless it includes copious amount of communist brainrot. I don't care if it's a "fail forward" narrative system. I don't give a shit if it has dice-based skill checks. Give me a narrative steeped in Marxist-informed storytelling or fuck off

[natoapologistblocker]

For me, what made Disco Elysium special is the Marxism baked into its narrative. Most other video games, even when they're excellently written, still reproduce liberal or bourgeois ideology. Even when they critique the ruling class or tell revolutionary stories, they tend to keep Marxism at arm's length rather than letting it inform the story itself. And then there's the whole "revolution bad! Never, ever, ever turn against your ruling class, it's bad for your health :)" kind of plot that's so fucking common

Disco Elysium says: "Here's a world grounded in a historical materialist understanding of social phenomena. We've quite literally built every character and every plot element around that dialectic." That's something these clones never replicate, nor do they intend to

[byjove]

It is a great place to live. Hypothetically. If you don’t talk to anyone else who lives there.

[byjove]

New Jersey

[afloweroutofstone]

They closed the Death Wendy's over a year ago and I'm still mad about it. It was a Wendy's located in the middle of a six-way intersection, requiring many pedestrians to cross the street 3 times in a row in order to get to it

It was one of the city's top ten spots for car crashes, multiple people died there, and the service was terrible. I miss it dearly

[thefabfreak]

[tram-kisser]

i like that, since a lot of the internet uses numeric IDs, if you search for a number and get no useful results, there's usually a chinease language forumn post from 2007 and a couple file uploader websites. it makes you feel leas lonely