Video games are a lot of people's escape from an awful, or just mundane existence. A majority of people playing games are doing it to destress after a long day of dealing with the worst parts of life, working a job, managing personal drama, etc. etc.
They get an hour or two after a long day of work to sit down and enter a virtual world, unplug from reality and have a little fun. When you rob someone of that, you are robbing them of something precious, something important, something real.
Just because you ruin someone's time in a virtual world doesn't mean the person is a virtual entity, there's a very real human behind that avatar, a human you're doing actual harm to.
When people get overly stressed they start taking it out on other people. Raising people's stress level causes a domino effect of negativity. Someone who's already on the edge can be pushed over by something as simple as some hacker trolling them in a video game.
If you mess with someone within the confines of the game that's fine, the person can retaliate in the confines of the game. It can be incredibly cathartic to get a bit of revenge, so you aren't ruining their chance to destress, you might be giving them an opportunity to do so. However, if you cheat, well then you've removed the possibility for them to get one over on you, you've removed their ability for catharsis and alleviation of the pressures of day-to-day life.
Similarly if you're the person that's max level camping in a low level area to pick off new players who don't stand a chance against you, cut the shit. You may not technically be cheating in that instance, but you know damn well you're being unfair. Pick on someone your own size and quit trying to ruin people's gaming experiences.
Virtual assaults have real life consequences, so quit being an asshole.
​
I've carved out a nice little life for myself where I don't have the stresses most people have, I'm not really talking about myself here. You try to mess with my fun and it doesn't matter because I don't have a time constraint on my gaming, I'll still find my fun. I'm speaking from a place of empathy, I feel horrible for anyone who has their small bit of fun ruined by some piece of human garbage.

The Galaxy Book3 Pro, 14-inch model, is an entry-level laptop in Samsung’s 2023 range of premium laptops. Unlike its elder siblings, the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 and Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, there is no two-in-one utility, touchscreen, support for digital inking, and dedicated graphics. Yet, it makes a good thin-and-lightweight laptop with Samsung ecosystem advantage. Moreover, it is among the first few laptops in the country powered by 13th Gen Intel Core processors – Core i7-1360P (review unit).
Design
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro is a premium laptop made of aluminum. Compared to the predecessor, there is marginal gain in terms of weight and dimensions, but the overall form factor is still slender (11.3mm thick) and lightweight (1.17kg). That said, the Galaxy Book3 Pro is among the lightest and thinnest laptops in the 14-inch laptops category. The slightly bigger form factor helps in moderating the thermals besides making space for a well spaced-out keyboard, large glass trackpad, and a tall aspect ratio screen.
Display and audio
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro sports a 14-inch 3K (2880 x 1800) AMOLED screen of 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. The screen is stretched in a tall 16:10 aspect ratio, which provides extra vertical space for more content to appear on the screen – compared to the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen has a 120 per cent DCI-P3 colour gamut, which essentially makes it fit for jobs that require colour accuracy. Besides, the screen is VESA HDR 500 certified and supports high dynamic range. The 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 120 per cent DCI-P3 colour coverage, VESA HDR 500 certification, and support for HDR are pro-grade features aimed at creators and professionals. These also make for superior multimedia and gaming experience.
One must give it to Samsung to pay attention to details here. Take for example the rounded corners on the screen. Microsoft introduced a rounded windows interface with the Windows 11 operating system. While most other laptops continue with screens with pointed corners that look unnatural, the screen on the Galaxy Book3 Pro is a perfect fit for Windows 11.
Complementing the screen is audio performance. The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro has an AKG-tuned quad-speaker system powered by Dolby Atmos – 2 x 5W woofers and 2 x 2W tweeters. A pair of woofer and tweeter is available on the right and left side of the chassis, facing downward, for stereo set-up. The audio output is loud, balanced, and detailed. The Dolby Atmos’ signature multi-dimensional soundstage is apparent in supported content.
Also Read : Top 5 stories of the week: Generative AI dominates the news again
Software
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro is based on Microsoft Windows 11 operating system. It comes with a free lifetime subscription of Microsoft Office 2021, which includes Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Besides, the Galaxy Book3 Pro has the Samsung apps built-in for connected ecosystem experience. It is the ecosystem experience that gives the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro an edge over others.
Take for example the multi-control feature.
It lets you connect, control, and manage supported devices, including Galaxy smartphones (based on OneUI 5.1) and tablets (based on OneUI 4.1), through laptop keyboard and trackpad. Besides, it enables cross device copy and paste function and files drag-and-drop utility.
Likewise, there is a second-screen feature that lets the Galaxy tablet owners use their big screen devices as second screen wirelessly connected with the laptop. The list of supported tablets, however, does not include all models. Supported models: Galaxy Tab S7, S7+ and S7 FE with One UI 3.1 or higher, and S8, S8+ and S8 Ultra.
My personal favourite is the Your Phone app from Microsoft. Though the app supports Android smartphones, it has extra features enabled for Samsung Galaxy smartphones – thanks to the tie-up between the two technology majors. Through the app, you can wirelessly control and access most phone-related features directly from the laptop. Besides, the app shows the history of the last three websites accessed on the smartphone using the Samsung Internet app. The app also enables the phone’s wireless hotspot option in the laptop’s Wi-Fi setting for quick access. Important to note, the laptop and smartphone are required to connect with the same Wi-Fi network for full function coverage. You can enable connectivity through mobile data, but some functions such as app access and screen mirroring are disabled on metered connection. Moreover, not all features are available with all Samsung smartphones. The above features are tested with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Galaxy S22 Plus.
Performance
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro is powered by 13th Gen Intel Core processor – Core i7-1360P – paired with integrated Iris Xe graphics, 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, and 1TB SSD. This is top-notch hardware for a thin-and-light category laptop and so is the performance.
The Galaxy Book3 Pro boots in no time and it is ready to go with full zest soon after – with minimal initial wait time for the processes to start in the background. The laptop does not hit performance ceiling and keeps calm and cool with routine tasks such as web browsing, video conferencing, data transfers, writing and editing word documents, etc. The performance with regard to routine workload is likewise even on battery power. However, performance with regard to power-intensive workloads such as multimedia editing, video encoding, compressing multiple files in zip, etc. is best experienced with the laptop on charging.
The Galaxy Book3 Pro is capable of handling processor-and-graphic heavy workloads, but the lack of discrete graphics influences the experience. For example, seeking in and out on the 4K video timeline in a video editing software is not smooth, exporting edited 4K videos takes time, and graphic-intensive gaming titles are best played at low and medium graphic settings and frame rates.
Battery, charging, and ports
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro has a 63Wh battery, which is good for a day of mixed usage. Charging time is quick with the supplied 65W USB-C charger. As for the ports, there is 2 x Thunderbolt 4, 1 x USB type-A, 1 x HDMI 1.4, 1 x microSD slot, and 1 x headphone-mic combo port.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro is a premium laptop in a thin-and-lightweight category with a matching price – Rs 155,990 (review unit – 14-inch screen, 13th Gen Core i7-1360P, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD). The laptop impresses with its slender design, lightweight body, premium construction, colour accurate screen, balanced audio, and swift performance. On top, there is the Samsung ecosystem advantage. It is a no-brainer for people with supported Samsung Galaxy devices such as smartphones and tablets. For others, it makes a compelling buy to experience premium and Samsung ecosystem benefits.
Read More The Spuzz.com

Okay, time to come out of the closet for a minute at least because my situation with wife is killing me.
My perspective on things: - she had visual hallucinations because of alcohol and I was scared for her and for myself - I got her to detox place - after that she went to rehab - checked out after 3 months saying this program is bullshit, went drinking straight away - she restricted my AlAnon meetings, so like a cockroach I do that when she isn't looking (while at work or on toilet) - I worked at my job and hers to sponsor her in the meantime, keeping her place warm - I told her that I won't have kids with her if she won't rehab - I told her she can go to vacation by herself because I don't want the stress of taking care of her drunk ass - I bend backwards to be the best but still got heat because of her POV - I kinda wish she drinks again (10th day of her current sober stint) so that she just be sleeping when I come home
Her perspective and my comments in brackets: - I locked her in detox against her will (it's hard to tell if she had one, she was seeing things that weren't there, almost drank herself to death; even so she wasn't "locked", she was just too weak) - She lost her job because she couldn't work because she was locked in detox (I worked instead of her and we had agreement with her boss that they will welcome her back when she is good. I even didn't say anything about alcohol, lied that she had anorexia) - She lost her job because I didn't secure that spot (well, her boss kinda knew about her drinking because she FUCKING SAW A PISS DRUNK GIRL SLURRING WORDS, yes she worked remotely, but not all people are stupid) - I am not to trust anymore and she doesn't want to have kids with me because I can do anything she can't expect (well, I agree about the kids part, but for different reasons) - I am selfish, can't see her struggle, can't do anything right, always against her even when I say she can do whatever the fuck she wants (I told her I am codependant, as ill as she is, can help with AlAnon, but noooo, we won't have that shit in our house) - I ask her to cook or clean the house but how dare I to even think about it. She won't go applying to new jobs because I blew her previous job and now it's my responsibility to provide (I agree that her boss fucked me in some ways about seat-warming thing, but I also understand boss' position) - she has no mood for snuggles or sex or kisses, nothing at all because she is sad she doesn't have a job, she doesn't have a husband she can trust, everyone is an enemy (so hard to live that way, I can't even imagine)
So now I am insulted on a daily basis because am no-good husband who locked her in detox against her will and played God for some time and she refuses to work on our relationship.
I always thought that we need to work like two miners, who mine towards each other. Well, we do, but she is on a level higher than I am. And so we can never meet no matter how long we mine.
I have dug the dirt with my teeth, I was crawling with my eyebrows to get our family out of this mess. But the fact is I can't. I am tired to think of a plan right now and right now my plan is to wait for vacation at the end of April to think what to do.
I was blind and stupid enough to be gaslit into the state I am in right now, I tried to help, I tried to bargain, I tried to scratch and claw through every obstacle. I failed. But not because I am a failure, but because I was uneducated, because I took everything and put it on my shoulders alone but wasn't ready.
I gave myself time till the wnd of April as deadline. If things won't change – I am out. This deadline will help me to endure – it's easier if you see the end or result.
Sorry for long post. And if you say that I am a fool for not doing it sooner – maybe you are right. But whatever you say won't be as hurtful as her words when she is sober.

Ok serious question do people at Sydney University even have jobs or r they all just rich pvt school kids. Cus most of the ppl I know simply don’t work in uni, but like howwww??
I’m at my wits end trying to find a job as I get no financial support from anyone I’ve applied almost EVERYWHERE and I can’t seem to get any job. I genuinely don’t know what to do as even getting to uni every week costs $30 and I’m running out of money to sustain this small expense.
Do any of you have good entry level job recommendations in the Sydney area? I’ve tried retail, hospitality, junior office and reception roles, lab assistants etc but don’t even make it to the interview stage. I don’t know if it’s a problem with my resume but I do have experience in retail, hospitals, and fast food jobs during high school which I thought would be enough to land me even simple roles. Like I cant apply for cafes cus they expect u to already have barista experience or a food handling certificate which I simply can’t afford; all the data entry and reception roles I’ve seen require u to already have obtained a years worth of experience in the position. Like how r ppl even meant to get hired in the first place if there r already so many barriers? I’ve also tried positions relating to my degree in software engineering and neuroscience but as a first yr it’s pretty useless. Also what’s with all the employers wanting 2 referees?
I’ve wasted so much time spending ENTIRE days looking for jobs which is forcing me to be behind on my own studies. But I cant even prioritise my studies without monetary security. I just feel so drained and disillusioned and I just can’t bother with anything anymore idk what to do. I just want to be able to have coffee or lunch with my friends at uni without the crippling anxiety that I won’t be able to afford travelling to uni the week after.

Hi guys, newbie question, I applied as a virtual assistant to a outsourcing company. They called me and ask if I can be able to provide them with proposal which then be forwarded to the client at dun lang malalaman kung mahahire ako or not.
Should I pursue it? They did not give me a download link for the software tha is needed for the job at ako pa naghanap. The salary they are offering is I think good enough naman for entry level.
Question is: Should I submit the proposal? Hindi kaya isubmit ko tapos magghost ako bigla pag nasa kanila na yung design? Hahahaa thank you

Introduction

Data Science is a field of study that focuses on extracting knowledge from vast amounts of data using scientific techniques, procedures, and algorithms. It is used to identify hidden patterns in the raw data, which can be used to solve various business-related issues. Modern businesses today are required to deal with extensive data to improve their functioning. This is where data science deals with enormous amounts of data to provide solutions and help in effective decision-making to improve the business. As per the latest reports, data science is among the fastest-growing fields in the IT sector, and it is expected to grow by 27.9% by 2026. Data Science is a promising career path that ensures greater job satisfaction with excellent payments. Some standard job options with data science include Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Data Engineer, Data Architect, Business Intelligence Analyst, Statistician and Machine Learning Engineer. Various institutes offer courses in data science to help students build their careers. Among them, Croma Campus tops the list. Along with quality training, there are excellent Croma Campus Placement options that make this institution one of the best options to go for.
Read this section to learn about some of the best career options with data science and their required skills.

Career Options With Data Science

Some of the common job options after pursuing Data Science are as follows:

1. Data Scientist

A Data Scientist is a highly skilled professional who uses analytical skills to provide solutions for businesses and help in effective decision-making to improve productivity. Data Scientists are valuable to an organization and are responsible for gathering, processing, and interpreting data to facilitate effective decision-making. They must examine an enterprise’s sectors to detect problems and provide prospects for expansion. In addition, the Data Scientist cleans the data, eliminates unwanted data, and tests them to ensure the data are correct and consistent. The average salary of a Data Scientist ranges around Rs. 4 lakhs to Rs. 25 lakhs per annum in India.

1. Data Analyst

Data Analyst s hols a reputable position in IT companies. They are highly skilled professionals who examine and interpret data extracted from the data analysis to provide effective business solutions. They play a significant role in a business’s decision-making process and are responsible for adopting effective techniques to complete various projects successfully. The key responsibilities of a Data Analyst include data collection, preparation, and analysis, searching for patterns in multiple data sets, and data visualization. The average salary of a Data Analyst ranges between Rs. 1.8 lakhs to Rs. 12 lakhs per annum in India.

1. Data Engineer

A Data Engineer extracts and processes the information that Data Scientists and Data Analysts use later. These professionals ensure that analysing and interpreting information is effective, safe, and useful. The key responsibilities of a Data Engineer include data acquisition, identifying ways to improve the data quality, reliability, and efficiency, and preparing the data for predictive and prescriptive models. In addition, the Data Engineers use large data sets to address business problems and use sophisticated analytics, ML, and statistical methods to process the data. The average salary of a Data Engineer ranges between Rs. 3 lakhs to Rs. 22.5 lakhs per annum in India.

1. Data Architect

The Data Architects are responsible for building and designing massive data processing platforms to transform the data into information that supports various business-related decision-making processes. They design, create, supervise and administer the management of data structures. The Data Architects organize the information and data at all levels. They design both relational and non-relational databases that support various business applications. In addition, the Data Architects maintain data governance to ensure greater performance, scalability, and security. The average salary of a Data Architect ranges between Rs. 10.2 lakhs to Rs. 37.5 lakhs per annum in India.

1. Business Intelligence Analyst

Business Intelligence Analysts provide reliable information to businesses from various data sources and determine the critical priorities of a business. These professionals design and implement dashboards and business reports. They maintain Business Intelligence applications and provide advisory services on improving and modernizing analytics processes. The average salary of a Business Intelligence Architect ranges between Rs. 3.5 lakhs to Rs. 16.5 lakhs per annum in India.

1. Statistician

The Statisticians apply statistical methods to solve various issues and discover valuable information from the data. They are responsible for gathering, analysing, and interpreting the data, making predictions based on those data sets, and assisting organizations in making the right business decisions. The average salary of a Statistician ranges between Rs. 1.4 lakhs to Rs. 20 lakhs per annum in India.

1. Machine Learning Engineer

The Machine Learning Engineers understand the business objectives and develop ML models to achieve those goals. They research and implement effective ML algorithms and tools to achieve the best results. The Machine Learning Engineers verify data quality and are responsible for cleaning those data for processing. In addition, they train models and tune their hyperparameters, deploy the models to production and design various Machine Learning systems. The average salary of a Machine Learning Engineer is around Rs. 3.2 lakhs to Rs. 22 lakhs per annum in India.

Conclusion

To summarise, Data Science is a promising career path with several job opportunities like Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Data Engineer, Data Architect, Business Intelligence Analyst, Statistician and Machine Learning Engineer. Modern businesses extensively use this field of study for effective business-related decisions. Aspiring IT professionals can join Croma Campus to get the best training in Data Science and develop their skills significantly. In addition, the Croma Campus Student Placement cell is quite active and ensures dedicated placements with 80% course completion. Thus, such formal training guarantees a secure future in the IT industry and validates their skills as IT professionals.

Synopsis:

Ten years ago, Amelia woke up alone and lost in a broken world where she had to fight for her survival.
Now, after reaching the pinnacle of power, defeating the Void itself, and escaping the abyss, she has finally found her way back into the real world. But instead of finding herself on Earth, she is in the land of Vacuos. A fantasy world with magic, monsters, Classes, and Levels. A world that is governed by a System like it were a video game.
And when rewarded with a Class befitting her accomplishments— to become a powerful [Hero] that will forever dedicate her life to protecting this world that is not her own— she only has one response.
“Absolutely not. I’m going to live a normal life now, thank you very much.”
After all, who needs a Class when you're already the strongest anyways?

Read Chapter 1 Here
“I was thinking… for payment,” the man started, averting his gaze. “Could I maybe work for you instead?”
I stared at him for a moment, processing what he said. I blinked, and that was when I finally worked my jaw.
“What?”
I didn’t expect this at all. This was my first customer— he was someone who actually enjoyed my cooking. He wasn’t anyone I knew. He was a complete stranger to me. Sure, I’d heard rumors about him before, but that didn’t really mean anything.
He wasn’t a friend like Noele, Nolan, Nicole, or Garron. He wasn’t an otherworlder like Xakor. He was literally someone who only knew of me as an adventurer. And he actually thought my cooking was good. He might have attributed that fact to Xakor, but his response had been a major success in my book.
However, now he wasn’t going to pay for his food. Instead, he was asking to… work for me? I narrowed my eyes as he sheepishly scratched his cheek.
“It’s literally only twenty-five copper coins,” I said as I proffered an expectant hand. “And I can’t even afford to give you a living wage, anyways. Just pay up and don’t fuss about it.”
“You don’t even have to pay me.” The man shook his head, before giving me a pleading look. “I… if you just give me food and shelter, I’ll work for you for free.”
That sounded like a tempting offer. I had been wondering about how I’d staff my restaurant before things took off— Xakor had already funded the building itself, and I was paying for the ingredients. But I couldn’t exactly hire an employee until business was booming. So I had thought I’d be forced to manage everything on my own… maybe with a little bit of Bucky’s help. However, if I hired this man…
I looked him up and down. I saw his ragged clothing— I stared at the bags under his eyes. I remembered all the bad things I’d heard about him so far. I just sighed.
“I literally don’t even know your name, and I haven’t heard anything good about you. Sorry, but I don’t think this will work out.”
He pursed his lips. He shifted in his seat as Bucky eyed him curiously. I didn’t know what his reasoning was for offering me free labor, but I wasn’t going to accept it. Not when I didn’t even know about his qualifications or background.
He got to his feet after a moment’s deliberation and held my gaze.
“Harlan,” he said. “My name’s Harlan. I’m a former guardsman— I come from Whiteridge, and I’m a [Warrior].”
I quirked a brow. I wasn’t exactly prompting him to explain his whole backstory to me. But I just gave him a flat stare.
“Alright, Harlan. Why exactly would I need to hire a former city guard for my restaurant?” I asked, waving a hand dismissively. “I can handle any thugs or monsters myself.”
“It…” Harlan hesitated for a moment. But he still insisted after steeling himself. “It doesn’t have to be a guardsman job. I could work as a server— I could take orders and serve food for you!” he exclaimed like he was trying to convince himself of his words as much as he was trying to convince me of them.
I shook my head. “You have literally no history in the service industry. And pretty much half of Wolfwater hates you. Again— why should I hire you?”
“T-that’s because I’m… a hard worker?” he said as his lips twisted. He looked at me hopefully, but I just rolled my eyes back at him. Even Bucky gave him a judging look.
Harlan bit his lower lip. He glanced between the both of us. The chicken’s gaze made him shrink back slightly, and he tried to muster up a response. But he couldn’t work his jaw. His shoulders slumped as he finally sighed.
“You’re right.” He lowered his head, clenching his teeth. “I’m… not even cut out to be a server. I don’t even have a Class for it.”
He spoke softly, and I paused. I blinked a few times, staring at the former guardsman. He chuckled bitterly.
“I’m only a [Spearman]— a low-leveled [Spearman] at that. I can’t even become an adventurer if I wanted to. I’m too weak. I’d die in under a year. I am… I am just a guard— that’s all I’ll be. I never should’ve left Whiteridge.”
Harlan dug into his pocket and slapped a bag of coins onto the table. He drew back as I slowly picked up his payment, watching him go. He held his head low, his lips creased. He dragged his feet behind him as he slowly walked towards the exit. I looked on as Bucky glanced back at me. She clucked, and I closed my eyes.
I thought about what he said— I looked back on what I just did. I had rejected Harlan because… he didn’t have the right Class. Or rather, was it because he wasn’t exactly qualified for the job? At least, that was my excuse.
But serving tables wasn’t a hard job. It was quite easy to learn. Work experience meant nothing when it was something that literally anyone could learn over the span of a day. It just felt… like I was treating him the same way others treated me. And I felt a pang of guilt.
Sure, I had heard bad things about him, and maybe that gave me all the more reason to turn him down. However, right now all I saw was a man at the end of his rope. Maybe he had made a few mistakes over the last few weeks. But that didn’t mean I shouldn’t at least give him a chance.
“Fine,” I called out. Harlan halted right by the doorway. He blinked, glancing back at me, and I tossed his bag of coins at him.
“Wha—” It smacked his face, and I snorted.
“That’s some slow reaction time for a [Warrior]…”
He quickly scrambled to pick up the bag of coins up from the ground as I walked up to him. Bucky followed, and he looked up at me, bent double with round eyes.
Wait, what do you mean by that? Why are you—” he started.
And I cut him off, “I’ll give you a job. But I’m not going to let you work for free, and if you’re a shit worker, I’ll fire you in under a week.”
Harlan just blinked. He gaped at me, clutching the bag of coins tightly against his chest. His mouth bobbed open.
“But I’m… just a guard. I’m a [Warrior]— I can’t even…” he trailed off.
“Anyone with half a brain is capable of taking a couple orders,” I said, and Bucky clucked in agreement. “And I doubt you’ll have any trouble serving trays to tables either.”
Harlan still wore an apprehensive look on his face. He averted his gaze, tempted by my offer, but not fully persuaded. I sighed, crouching down as I looked into his eyes.
“Look, your Class doesn’t define you. Why does it matter that you’re a [Warrior]? You don’t enjoy fighting, do you? That’s why you quit being a guardsman, right?”
“I…” He hesitated. Slowly, he shook his head. “I do not.”
“So why should you be forced to do something you hate just because the System says so?” I asked, holding his gaze.
Harlan chewed his lips. Bucky tilted her head. That was… probably blasphemy. Or maybe not. Other than Grat-ra’zun, I didn’t really think that most of the people of this world held the System in reverence. They— most of them, at the very least— just saw it as a fact of life. No different than the laws of physics back on Earth.
He rose to his feet as he looked down at the palm of his hand. He clenched a fist, nodding to himself.
“You’re… right,” Harlan whispered. “I don’t want to be a guard anymore. I’m tired of fighting— I’m tired of risking my life for the sake of others. It’s just serving tables, right? I… can do this.”
His words almost seemed familiar to me. Even though I barely knew this man, he reminded me of… well, myself. Someone who was lost and trying to find themself. Someone who was tired of what they were doing, and was now searching for something new.
He was someone who didn’t fit in. He was someone who tired of the stakes and danger of battle. He came to Wolfwater for a simple reason— to escape from it all and live a simple life. And while he might have squandered the few opportunities he had been given since arriving here, I was still going to give him at least one chance.
A smile slipped onto my face as I gave Harlan a nod of affirmation. “Yeah, it’s easy enough. Although… since I’ll be giving you lodging too, you won’t just be serving tables. I was thinking of giving you a more general job description.”
“What do you mean by that?” He looked up at me with a quizzical look.
“Your first job is simple,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Go and get me some customers.”
He paused. He glanced between me and the window, blinking a few times. “How am I supposed to do that?”
I shrugged casually. “I dunno, figure it out.”
And that was how I got my first employee.
—--
Guardian Angel Z357 swept his gaze over the vast room. He heard the shouts and screams. He saw the flying spells, but he descended, unaffected by their attacks. Phase Shift. It was a powerful Technique that allowed him to maintain a visible but incorporeal form— unneeded against such weak attacks. But the only alternative would be to slaughter his assailants.
And there were hundreds of them. Guardian Angel Z357 landed amidst the swarm of nagas as they hurled their magic his way. His form was translucent, but their spells passed through him like he wasn’t even there. His twelve eyes landed on the [Shaman] standing in the center of this tent. She was a naga too, but with a longer tail than the others. She slithered forward and raised a staff as a purple aura coalesced beneath her.
“Kill it, ya daft idiots!” she screamed.
Guardian Angel Z357 zipped straight ahead, but a pair of twisted tendrils shot out, grabbing him out of the air. He paused for a brief moment, mostly out of curiosity, watching as these void apparitions clung onto him despite his incorporeal form.
And the [Shaman] panted, grinning. “I got ya now! This is why you don’t mess with us, ya slimy bastard!”
As she raised her staff once more, Guardian Angel Z357 simply tore through the bindings. She blinked, and he grabbed her, before shooting up into the sky. He tore through the tent ceiling as the nagas screamed down below.
“That thin’ has got ta chief!”
“Ain’t someone gonna stop it?”
“We can’t hurt tha fucking—”
Their voices faded away, and he came to a halt high above the clouds. He held her up as she squirmed, her tail thrashing beneath her, and her two arms clinging onto his metallic hand. She stared at him with wide eyes, and he transmitted his thoughts simply, asking the same questions he had asked his previous target.
And the response he got from the naga was no different. “I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
His twelve eyes narrowed, and he began his interrogation.
[In Progress: (2/3) Void-touched Individuals Interrogated!]
Twice now, Guardian Angel Z357 had interrogated a Void-touched individual. And both times, he learned nothing. Despite his interrogation Techniques— even when magically compelled to speak— they revealed no new information to him. It was evident to him that either this method of interrogation was lacking, or maybe the denizens of Planet 16B were more clueless than he had assumed.
Even with the World System’s guidance, it seemed that he was not likely going to be making any progress towards finding the source of the return of the Fal-Deus anytime soon. There had to be at least a single anchor located somewhere that he needed to eradicate. If not one, then multiple. Otherwise, there was no reason for Guardian Angel Z357 to have been awakened.
He dropped the charred corpse of the naga before sweeping his gaze to the horizon. He saw the rising sun. And he saw this vast land mass beneath him. It was Alius— the continent of dwarves, gnomes, nagas, fairies, and more. So far, he had discovered nothing of use while exploring this part of Planet 16B. The closest he had come to learning more about this threat was in Laxo.
But Guardian Angel Z357’s programming had brought him here. His current objective was to interrogate those who were Void-touched, and he had detected the usage of their powers most frequently in Alius. However, it had borne no fruit. So it would be the intelligent course of action to pursue his investigation in Laxo.
For a moment, he was conflicted. He would be defying the World System’s guidance. And that nearly made him malfunction. But logic and reasoning won out as he concluded that the World System’s guidance was just that— guidance.
It was not infallible. His presence was better suited elsewhere, pursuing leads that would better serve his main directive. And so, Guardian Angel Z357 made his decision and returned to Laxo.
​

Author's Notes:
And we're back! Sorry for the impromptu break. Burnout got to me real bad last week.
Also, the fanart/fanfic contest is ending in about two hours' time! So if you're seeing this right as the chapter was posted, you can still make your submissions now!
AmeliaTLZHNovel
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Recently got fed up with my current job and im out searching for something new to feel the gap. im still employed but im looking for something that pays over $17 an hour due to my current job i plan to leave paying $20. Any of you city bois/girls have an idea on a good place to start looking or apply?
im capable of working any job as long as ill get decent training as a new employee customer service law and delivery services will do just fine just loking for ideas on decent paying jobs with few entry level requirements.

I left uni and can’t get a job after applying for months. I keep seeing entry level jobs but when I apply they say I need a degree. I finally got offered an interview in a shop but they want me to go somewhere miles away for the interview and I literally have £10 to my name. I decided to go anyway as I needed the job and so the night before got a super cheap takeaway so I could still afford to get the train. Woke up in the night with food poisoning so then had to reschedule the interview. Did the interview at a later date and was offered a trial day - great! Day of trial - boiler breaks down, heating’s gone and the guy can only come to fix it today between 9-6 or next week🤦‍♀️ I informed the job and they said they’re not going to offer me the position as I’ve now “cancelled twice”. Thought whilst I have nothing else to do I’ll sort out my NI but as I’m not working it now means I have gaps which can only fill by making voluntary repayments. So decided to apply for jobseekers / universal credit but realised this will fuck up any chance of me ever getting a mortgage in the future. End of rant

First Previous [Next]()
Issac watched as the single refinery in sector had raw iron dumped into the cauldron, the induction coils around it heating up red hot as the metal inside the container bubbled and smoked away impurities. The coils dulled down automatically a minute later and the cauldron rotated, pouring molten iron into the facility where it would be poured into ingots for storage, moulds for hull plating and hundreds of other standard fabrication designs that the station might need.
The cargo ship was in its berth, the only one section one had so once the mining ship was done it would have to leave the berth for the docking ship to enter, undergo maintenance and then be moved into storage. Right next to the second cargo ship they’d moved here as well.
Without it in the berth, maintenance and prep had taken and extra day for Bradley to give the all clear. Miles and his security had put a team together and had a container with their equipment. A team of 10 was the limit. Both Issac and Miles wanted more, a team of 25 was preferable, but with the incident one of the things that was hit hard were the vacuum suits. And the security team only had 10 sets intact.
It was just another thing added to the list they needed from the JA cruiser.
His eyes drifted up from the smelter and docks, refocusing onto the titanium glass dome that was covered in a lattice of cracks but had done its job of keeping the atmosphere mostly in and drifted further until it reached the massive gate doors and the mechanism that let them open and close.
The jagged line that had cut through the door had transformed into a pixelated slice, large chunks of metal cut free and gently drifting on cables towards massive maintenance hatches for recycling…and beyond that in the dark was a light that was slightly brighter than the others. Orbiting that slightly brighter light was a ship and on that ship was what he needed to keep this station alive a little longer.
He looked down past the glass past the foundry until his eyes hit the bridge floor, his feet and then focussed on the cup in his hand.
“You’re feeling it aren't you?”
He jumps but doesn't. It's a strange thing he feels the response but then some part of him goes and stops it.
Turning around he sees Clarrissa standing at the door to the bridge. “I checked on the others too, the surviving officers. Told them I had to take the operation because of a tumour. Extended my contract by 15 years for it. Means I got to tell them what to expect. Got them to show me their medical scans, most of them anyway.”
“Expect what?” Issac asks.
“The things they don't tell you when you sign the contract. Your brain is now surplus to requirements, it's been superseded by the neural matrix in your skull. And parts of it are already dying off. The suppressants and drug cocktails giving your body the micro dosages of special elements your implant needs to keep growing, winding its way through your brain. Taking over comparatively sluggish organic processes.”
“Why.”
Clare shrugs. “The problem with evolution is it chooses what works best at the time, not what's efficient. The big wigs wanted a template for a better brain to build a better human around, and once they had that they realised that certain things were a bit surplus to requirements.”
“Such as?”
“Your occipital lobe is the first to go. It had a big lump of crystal and exotic elements shoved into it after all. Means that your vision will change. You’ll gain peripheral acuity, you’ll notice the blind spot of your eye until it disappears in a month or two. Your Parietal lobe, The bit above and in front of your vision centre goes strange next. Its basically working like a backup now. So it’ll simplify, shrink a bit. But that does mean multitasking becomes easier, things like maths and spacial awareness get better. But it also handles pain. So that’ll change.”
“How?” Issac asks, interrupting her with a raised hand. In response she pulls out a long needle and calmly pulls up her sleeve and removes a bandage to reveal where a dozen small wounds are and calmly shoves it through the muscle of her forearm.
“Pain is a message informing you of damage.” she says pulling the needle out. “the reaction ‘ow that hurts!’” she says expressing pain and clamping her hand over the new and bleeding hole. A moment later her expression levels out. And she calmly takes her hand away and starts redressing the area. “It becomes a choice. Your digital mind registers it and then you get the choice to react, or file it away for later.”
“And the frontal cortex?”
“Well, that's the part you need to really watch for. It is furthest from the implants initial location but also the one it messes with the most, because by then it's almost fully integrated. It’ll assault the area, things stop being as entertaining, as funny, some drugs loose effect, others get a lot stronger. Emotions level out…at least it did for me…others in the program I was part of”
“Other snakes.” Issac says.
“Yes…most of them stopped being able to empathise properly. They stopped thinking of the corp as a family and more like a machine. And themselves as the administrators. Answerable only to the board. They forgot that people need a reason beyond the job to work and would look for any reason to make the machine more efficient.”
“And you didn't?” Issac asks.
“I could have. It's so easy to let logic take over. But I'm a botanist. And you can't grow and care for plants without caring. But that's not the part I'm warning you of. A few of my colleagues went further. They started to crave the feelings they used to have but it takes more to get the same result. Relationships become funnels for satisfying urges. Sex becomes rape, light drug use becomes hardcore drug abuse. The thrill of a fight becomes the love of inflicting pain.”
“And every officer is now cyberized and walking down that path.”
“Which is why I'm being mostly honest with you and saying that IF I need to do my job. I will, without mercy.”
“Am I supposed to thank you for that?” Issac asks.
“Yes. Because if you could see the thing you’d become you would be horrified. But now you know what the corp doesn't want you to know. You and the other officers can be on guard to the signs.” she says.
Issac sighs and nods. “You’re right…what do you think of our chances?”
“For the next year? Pretty good. Worst case scenario we’re actually fairly well equipped to rebuild somewhere. Best case scenario? We find other ships, other colonies, maybe jump back to Sol and find earth completely fine.” she replies.
Issac shakes his head. “That's not worse case. Worse case is we find other humans and they destroy the station. Or whatever caused this happens again. Or whoever caused it finds us. There’s a lot of ways we die, humanity dies. But not a lot of ways to survive…thanks for telling me what to expect. You’ll be watching tomorrow?”
“Yea…want me to come up here for it? My team knows their work well enough that I can let them work for a day or two.” she says crossing her arms and smiling at him.
Issac stares at her for a second looking for something that's not there before nodding. “I could use the company up here.”
“Then its a date. I’ll sort us out for lunch.” she says turning and leaving him.
He sighs and looks down at his cup. The liquid inside was cold now and his arm ached from being held up at that angle for so long. A note of worry crept in at how he hadn't noticed until he’d wanted to. Quickly walking over to a welfare station he empties the cold liquid and pours himself a cup of steaming hot caffeine with flavour then returns to his spot at the window watching as the cargo ship leaves, the second one moving on rails into the launching berth where two groups are waiting to load it up.
“System, terminal 9, bring up everything on cyberization implants…search sleep requirements and highlight.” he orders.
The next day he was watching the command terminal. It was off to one side of the bridge and dominated one wall. Right now it was showing exactly what the captain of the cargo ship was seeing, which was a close up and detailed view of the crippled cruiser before panning down to the planet.
“Look at the planet. If we trace back the orbit there’s a 100km gap in one of the slices that hit the planet…” the captain's voice faded out as someone else spoke up. “The cuts planetside aren't actually that deep, a few dozen metres mostly. It's just the scale of the impact. Damage to infrastructure would have been the killing blow. Look, nuclear fallout from reactor damage… a few defences around the city detonated too by the look of things….right the ship sorry I'm a research captain.”
The scope changed again back to the cruiser. “Docking bay for shuttles, Cargo door, or we could go close to the slice and move in from there…shuttle bay it is.”
“They’re not trained for this, remember.” Chief Botanist Clarrissa says walking in with two trays stacked on each other. “They’re going to be nervous, probably trigger happy.”
“Could you do better?” Issac asks.
“Leading them? No. If I had a squad of snakes. We’d go in cold and kill anything in our way to rip out what you needed. Which isn't exactly a good starting point when trying to form bonds of trust between former enemies.” she replies, popping the lid on one of the trays revealing a bowl of steaming rice and some processed insect proteins that look like what he’s been told pork is.
He watches her from the corner of his eye whilst he watches the command screen switch from ship camera to a vac suit camera entering in through a cut out airlock. Two security officers float into the airlock and begin setting up the cutting tools whilst another pair work outside to fit a plastic temporary airlock seal around the blown outer door.
By the time the inner airlock is cut through Clarissa hands him a steaming bowl of rice and not-pork drizzled in sauce. He accepts it and uses the spork to stab a lump of meat before scooping a mouthful of rice up and eating it and immediately gagging on the assault of flavours.
“Shit sorry, you’ve been eating paste since wake up haven't you?” Clare apologises, taking the bowl from him and handing him her yet unflavoured bowl once his coughing fit subsides.
He takes it and puts it to one side before reaching for his coffee and gulping down a mouthful then swishing another around to get rid of the remaining burn. “Spicy.” he notes.
“That was tomato, onion and bell pepper flavouring.” she replies with a smirk. “One of the advantages of having done this a few times post cyberization.” she says picking up the bowl and shoving a spoonful of saucy rice into her mouth. “Don't need to readjust my taste.” she finishes after swallowing the mouthful.
Issac shrugs and takes another small mouthful of just rice this time and lets the assault of texture and flavour batter him before swallowing it and moving onto the pork.
As he does the security team sweep through the corridors of the ship, a secondary screen showing a digital map of where they’ve been and what each section of the ship was for. A large portion of the space they move through is just cargo racks and stores that they quickly scan over, letting the cargo ship and by extension the station systems catalogue as they move.
Issac watches as the team secure their entrance to the ship and start moving through the rear section bit by bit. It doesn't take them long to find the first group of cyro pods. They’re easily twice the size of the ones on the tyco, each one when touched shows a display with the basic information of who’s inside. Name age and health.
“Can it be removed?” he asked before cursing and remembering that there was a good few minutes delay between him and the ship.
“Looks like the pods are built into the ship, it’ll take us some time to figure out a way to remove them safely. Lets get a count first and search for anyone awake, or any corpses.'' The search continued through the cruiser for an hour before the team returned to the cargo ship to rest, refuel their vac suits and go at it again. As they did they identified locked doors for armouries, the engine bay and a series of entrances that matched up with the exposed sections around the slice and the reactor.
The next day the cargo ship moved to the front section of the ship and the security team began again from a forward airlock and began mapping the front end of the ship. They didn't find any cryopods in long rows like last time but did find a locked and sealed room that didn't match anything the teams knew about. By the time they’d mapped everything it was time to wait on a command decision form Issac on how to proceed.
“What do you think?” he asked Clare who had joined him for a second day on the bridge.
“Hmm. if there’s any officers chances are they’re in a secure area close to what we think is the bridge. Every other section of the ship we’re fairly sure we know about. So it depends if you want to scrap as much as possible then wake up crew, or wake them up first and see about cooperating.”
Issac doesn't reply instantly. Instead he’s chewing over possible outcomes and what way is best to proceed. After a minute of silence he nods. “I want them to cut into what we think is the officers pod bay. Extract a few pods and bring them over along with whatever supplies we can easily grab. Get into the cargo bay for that but don't destructively open the bay doors. It’ll be easier if we’re not rescuing drifting supplies.” he orders.
Half an hour later the security team were moving again. This time they moved through the ship with purpose towards the sealed forward section and after setting up a pressurised zone, started cutting into the armoured door. It took them longer than expected since the door was reinforced beyond their expectations but after a brief consultation with one of the cargo ships crew they changed up their cutting mix and sliced through the bulkhead leaving melted hot slag around a large hole. Inside what just what they expected, more cryopods. What they didn't expect was a single starved person holding a rifle aiming at the door, pod open.
“Tyco security forces! Stand down! We’ve boarded the ship looking for survivors!” the officer in charge shouts.
The JA officer looks around and backs up still pointing his gun at the security team before backing up to the back wall. “STAY BACK I’LL S-Shoot!” he screams.
“Easy. everyone out, just me inside.” the security officer orders.
“Smart call.” Clare notes watching it from the bridge with Issac.
“Why?”
“The poor sod pulls the trigger, kills only one guy, the rest throw in a stun grenade and merc him. Recover the pods carry on with one casualty.” she notes.
Issac nods at the logic and returns his attention to the screen.
“Easy sir. We’re from tyco, your ships crippled. Something hit you just like it hit us.”
“LIAR. I i i i it w-was an attack. My pod opened so I could assess damage but the power went down, the door wouldn't open…orders are to stay awake and monitor situation…”
“So you did your job. And now a rescue team is here. But listen. We’ve searched the entire ship. Most of your crew seem to be alive but we don't know how to open these pods safely. You do…tell you what. One of the guys has a nutrient pack here. You look like you need it more than we do…”
The skinny officer nods still wide eyed. “Michel, grab your nutrient pack and pass it here would you?” the security man shouts.
A moment later a hand moves into view holding a foil pack with a spout on it. The officer takes it and holds it out. “I'm going to drift forward to the middle of the room ok. I’ll open the pack and take a sip so you know its not bad and then you can have the rest ok?”
The JA officer shakily nods and Issac notes the gun drop down slightly. The camera shows the security officer move forwards, then after a moment of sound. “Ugh, I swear it tastes worse than the usual stuff.” he groans before pushing it towards the officer. “I'm warning you that stuff is nasty. But it keeps you alive.”
The JA officer doesn't pay attention, instead taking the pack with one hand and sipping at the slurry inside, he grimaces and nearly heaves the precious sludge back up but within moments the pack is empty and he sighs in relief.
“How long have you been awake?” the security guard asks.
“Don't know. Since the incident.” the officer replies.
“We’ve been in the system, about 2 weeks now. So well done on surviving this long.” he says. “Listen my orders are to recover as many pods as possible, can we move these things safely?”
The officer nods. “Where to?”
“We have a cargo hauler docked to the ship. We’re going to take whatever we can. And leave the wreckage.”
“Wreckage?”
“That's right. Your ships been cut in half. Our’s isn't jump worthy but it's in one piece. And we have room for you and all your crew.”
“But your tyco.”
“And your JA and whoever hit you hit us just the same.” the security officer replies.
They go back and forth for a while more until the officer agrees to put on a crew survival suit and follow the security officer to the cargo ship. Once inside he’s shown the damage to the ship and the planet below.
“What did this?”
“We don't know. But we still need your help and your crew's help.”
“Are there any JA ships in system?”
“Not that we’ve managed to spot. Our stations scanners were damaged and still getting repaired.”
The officer sighs. “Alright, h-h-here's what you need to do.”

NOW HIRING Entry - level Information Technology (IT) Internship-https://gethiredinflorida.us/other-general/entry-level-information-technology-it-internship-428627/?utm_source=SocialAutoPoster

Likw the title, first off i loved shadowbringers, everything about it and while im excited to both do endwalker and lose my sprout icon after 2 years i feel as if i need to prepare for endwalker.
I had heard that endwalker brings the cast of every job questline and every expansion, thus i am here to ask the community for advice on how to proceed.
Should i get all the jobs to level 80? Right niw my only one is dancer, my favorite class.
If i should i would want to do the white mage first as that would seem hard, i don't even have my conjurer to the point where i can do the leveling ruellete, how dies one level the healers at such low levels?
I had done the MSQ as black mage during the time i coukd have done conjurer.
Thank you in advance.

Jemina: Okay so Stenv is busy working on that Watts satire.
Jimmy: That fool! He finally let his guard down enough! Hell that dragon bimbo isn't around anywhere to stop us. HAHAHAHA!!!
Rando: I mean... I think Cinder is pretty cool...
Jemina: She eats you though...
Rando: Yeah but I got over that ya know. Besides she's funny as heck.
Jimmy: You're only saying that because ProphetT keeps posting hot Cinder art.
Rando: Can't I like her for more than her looks?
Jemina: NO BECAUSE YOU'RE A RANDOM MAN THUS YOU MUST AUTOMATICALLY BE SEXIST! UNLIKE RANDI HERE-
Randi:... Is quietly reading her yaoi manga.
Jemina: YOU TRAITOR.
Jimmy: IDIOTS FOCUS! We can finally bring down this metaverse, by destroying the cringe inhibitors and then we shall become gods!
The Randos and Randis protest but Jimmy and Jemina cackle wildy, as they try to craft their own satire, not paying attention to the danger level warnings, and then everything goes critical! And reality buckles around them!!!!
Jemina: WH-WHA-WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!!
Jimmy: I DON'T KNOW!!! I DON'T KNOW... UH IT LOOKS LIKE THE SATIRE IS DRAGGING US INNNNN THOUG-
The Two get sucked into the book and the metaverse goes back to normal.
Dragon!Cinder: Scoffs Idiots.
Rando: Yep... So... do I put on a spice or....?
Dragon!Cinder: I will think about it... you made it weird... gonna need time to process.
Stenv: Either way, might as well embrace this and see where it goes. I got the popcorn, and the souls of the damned.
Dragon!Cinder calls dibs on eating the souls of the damned, as this becomes a movie night, and they pop in the first episode of the book.

Episode 1

A distorted version of the OP plays, complete with heavy metal, and then the narration begins.
Salem's Voice: Wait.... what the fuck is that all about?
Ozpin's Voice: What?
Salem's Voice: It's all vague bullshit? And then we're in an argument of some kind? Like what the fuck?
Ozpin's Voice: I dunno, but I think the panning shot of Ruby is good setup.
Salem's Voice: THAT'S NOT THE POINT I AM MAKING MORON AND YOU KNOW IT! THIS IS WHY I DIVORCED YOU IDIOT!
Ozpin's Voice: NO I LEFT YOU! AND DON'T CALL ME STUPID!!!
Salem's Voice: Well maybe if you didn't act stupid. I wouldn't have to.
Ozpin's Voice: THAT'S IT!!!!
The two narrators start fighting, slapping noises in the background, as Roman quietly enters the store, trying to not pay attention to the domestic fight. Then a chair noise?
??? BY GAWD SHE BROKE HIM IN HALF!!!
Roman: Exhales Just get this scene over with...
Shopkeep: Yeah can we run this along? I have like nine million other jobs to get to. I am basically the Larry of this show, Larry from Gumball, I basically keep the economy alive.
In the Background, Ruby is rocking out to Sonic Music.
Thug: HEY C'MON RWBY MUSIC ISN'T THAT BAD!
Ruby: Huh? Finally notices people are in the store and takes off her headphones. Oh sup.
Roman: Okay could we just get to the fight scene?
Ruby:... Sure~ What do you think Cresccie?
Roman: You talk to your weapo-
Crescent Rose: FOR THE EMPEROR!!!
Roman: What the-
There's a blur of Red, as Ruby viciously snaps one thugs spine over her leg, and bashes two skulls together, and in a whirwind of violence, she wears an insane wolfish grin as she curbstomps out onto the street.
Roman: ...I don't wanna be in this scene anymore...
Ruby: Oh don't be like that~ I am sure you're cool, I mean you don't have a shit weapon like these mooks right?
Roman: Uhhh I got a cane that's also a gun... it's pretty sturdy...
Ruby: See not so bad... anything else?
Roman: Well I was supposed to get a cool semblance but...
Flashback to a meeting room, where Roman dozes off and Fiona the Sheep Faunus yoinks the box with his name on it, and swaps it out with her own.
Ruby: Oof...
Shopkeep: So can't you use your super speed to keep him from getting away?
Ruby: Probably...
Roman: Yeah but I am kinda needed for plot stuff... for some reason... Can't help but feel like we're forg-
A heel knocks him to the side, as Cinder proudly poses in front of the camera despite her model still being largely unfinished and in shadows.
Cinder: I AM HERE!!!
Ruby: Yeah but it's not your time yet!
Cinder: BUT I GOTTA MAKE A STRONG IMPRESSION!
Ruby: And you will! But it's not time...
Cinder: UGH but it's so boring sitting in that plane and waiting to get through this filler shit!!!
Roman: I think I lost a tooth. But Cindy c'mon, it will be fine.
Cinder: Nooooooo!!!!!! She stomps her foot on the ground with a huff and crossing her arms.
Roman: Tell you what.... I will get you a pumpkin latte... some magazines, some extra shoes... and a hug?
Cinder: ... Make it three hugs and we got a deal... She then turns to Ruby, gesturing with her hand to show she has eyes on Ruby. BUT MARK MY WORDS RUBY!!! WE WILL BE BALLER RIVALS!
Ruby: HATE YOU TOO!!! She says cheerfully blowing kisses at Cinder while flipping her off, and Cinder does the same while going off screen.
Ruby: So Roman back to... Oh... Clever boy....
Roman is already on the rooftop. Having run during the exchange between Ruby and Cinder.
Roman: Okay.... now I just...
Ruby: Heyo~~~
Roman: AH! How my character isn't scared of you is beyond me!
Ruby: Yeah but I am adorable~
Roman: You wield a weapon bigger than your body, that worships a corpse emperor--
Crescent Rose: HERETIC!!!
Roman: Can beat the shit out of grown men like a demented Sonic OC, or Scourge or Surge or... Takes out a few sonic comic books... Well you're not a rocker like Mina... but yeah... YOU'RE FUCKING TERRIFYING.
Ruby: Heehee. Still adorable tho!
Glynda: And then there's me...
Ruby and Roman stare at Glynda.
Roman: Holy shit you're hot.
Glynda: Yeah... a walking fetish I am. I look like a sexy librarian with a riding crop, clearly someone wants a dommy mommy. But at least I have a cool cape.
Ruby: Eyes twitch, as she inhales and exhales deeply.
Glynda and Roman: Ruby?
They start to get scared.
Ruby's breath gets even more erratic, as Crescent Rose quietly floats away from her, even he knows not to get in the way of what's coming.
Ruby: What. Is. That?
Ruby's left hand points with utter venom and hatred at Glynda's weapon of choice, a plain riding crop.
Glynda: It's my weapon. I think it's called uh... Pulls out her scroll and goes to the Wikia. Of course it would be called The Disciplinarian... Really leaning into those dominatrix vibes huh RoosterTeeth?
Glynda looks back up at Ruby and screams in panic and terror as the cute girls face has morphed into a full on black rage furious expression more akin to a savage wolf than anything as she bites the Riding Crop, and yanks it out of Glynda's hand.
Glynda leaps into Roman's arms in fear, who in turn leaps into Cinder's arm who came out to check the commotion, and now all three are scared shitless as Ruby grinds her teeth on the lazy yet surprisingly durable weapon.
Ruby: I could tolerate nameless thugs having shitty mono weapons. But a named character Glynda right?
Glynda: Yeah...?
Ruby: And what's your role again?
Glynda: I am a teacher at Beacon.... the vice principal?
Ruby: And they give you a fucking riding crop? Not even a wand thing or something else?
Ruby slowly turns around away from the trio, as she stares directly into the camera, then she punches it! Glass shattering and with a howl and snarl, she leaps past the hole she made, as Glynda and Roman and Cinder can only watch.
Ruby: SO A FUCKING RIDING CROP!
Jemina: WE DIDN'T MAKE THAT!!!
Ruby: Who da fuck are you?
Jimmy: Well... we technically made this satire... but...
Ruby: Oh well. You will just have to stand in for the writers.
Jemina: What does that mean?! And what are you doing with that Riding Crop?! OH GOD OH NO!!! PLEASE NOOOOOO!!!!!!
Screams of anguish and torment are followed, as only The Trio of characters left in the scene are watching what unfolds, that's so unspeakable it causes Crescent Rose to vomit, and for Cinder to cover Glynda's eyes, and Roman to cover Cinder's eyes.
Ruby: Now then. Where is your workshop?!
Jimmy: Gurgling noises, from being too horrifically beaten to be able to speak properly.
Ruby: Okay good~ Humming noises, and workshop noises, and then she finally exits out of the shattered hole. Oh and if I see another lazy weapon? I will be back for your skin.
---
Jimmy: Gurgling noises.
Jemina: I KNOW! WE HAVE A LOT OF SHIT TO DO!!! SHIT!!! WHY IS NONE OF THIS WORKING?! I DON'T WANT MY BONES GETTING MESSED WITH! I BARELY HAVE ANY SKIN LEFT AFTER THAT BEATDOWN!!!
---
Ruby: SO! Either way.... Huh where did Roman and Cinder go?
Glynda: Gulps I drove them off?
Ruby: That works. So either way~ She cheerfully takes out a dufflebag, seemingly not noticing the blood smears left on her face. I made you some replacments for your weapon~
Firstly you're witchy~ Based on the Goodwitch from Wizard of Oz, and Harry Potter was popular at some point... Plus LOTR soooo I made you three options!
Glynda: Nods her head too scared to protest.
Ruby: So first! I got a broomstick, now admittedly should probably reserve that for.... Salami? Weird name.
Salem's Voice: IT'S SALEM!!!
Ozpin's Voice: HA!
Fight Noises resume.
???: BY GAWD SHE GERMAN SUPPLEXED HIM THROUGH THAT TANK!!!
Ruby: Either way. This looks like a very sleek sci-fi broom. But not only is it capable of flight, either through your semblance thingy... which was....? Oh we kinda skipped over that...
Glynda: Oh uh... it's telekinesis, and arguably the most busted semblance in the show... and for some reason has magic rune looking things....
Ruby: Huh neat. But yeah this can fly, shoot out missiles and is also an semi automatic!!! Or you can just use it for dust shenanigans, since it has a dust propellant system.
Glynda: Uh...
Ruby: Right right... you probably want something more compact! So option Two!
Tosses the Broom away, creating a massive explosion off screen that shakes the camera, making Jemina and Jimmy cry out in pain even more.
Ruby: So I did make a staff, but I get ya probably want a wand. Because Harry Potter, I even added in some butterfly motifs to better fit in with your theme. But also... CHECK DIS OUT!!!
Clicks a button, and the wand shoots Lasers! And another click of a different button also creates a lightsaber!
Ruby: Freaking cool right?!
Glynda: Uuu!
Ruby: Hehehe! Okay last option though... Because we can't let Roman have the only baller hat. Puts the wand to the side, next to it's dust cartridges.
So last but not least. Takes a velvet black witch's hat. Tada!!!
Glynda: Woah... it looks so elegant... so beautiful... but it's also a weapon?
Ruby: You know it! It's me Ruby Rose, there's nothing I can't make into a weapon... NOTHING!!!
But for this hat? So I leaned way more into the dust side of weaponry, because I think that's heavily unused. I figured with your semblance you could play around with Dust more, can't explain away the baller magic runes.
But the hat like Cinder's dress, is embedded with Dust, and we can even do chibi style gags where you can pull random objects and people out of it.
Glynda: SOLD!
Ruby: Wait really?
Glynda: I may not be in Chibi, but I would kill to be on it.
Ruby: YAY!!!!
Glynda: Happily puts on the gorgeous witch hat, that perfectly compliments her outfit.
---
Ruby: So an interrogation room?
Glynda: Well it is the exposition dump scene.
Ruby: Oh right! Wait... shouldn't my introduction have been clue enough? Then again I was randomly in the store.
Glynda: Yeah but you could argue sometimes Exposition dumps are neccessary. I mean it's not like we're going to get some random audience expy that the writers cram in just for the sake of exposition when there's already an exposition engine there right?
Ruby:... That's oddly specific....
The door finally opens before the conversation can continue, as Ozpin is wheeled in by Taiyang, Ozpin being in a full bodycast... from his offscreen wrestling with Salem.
Ruby: Yay! Daddy!!!
Ruby picks her dad up in a spine breaking hug, as he laughs, and takes out a box of strawberries, much to the little gremlins delight.
Ozpin: Okay... this weird thing... well I think we can safely say Ruby Rose is self explanatory... but uh....
Taiyang: She might have been a little unstable in school, but she will make a damn good huntress.
Glynda: Should we mention her uncle?
Taiyang: Ouch... I am right here I kno- Finally notices the hat. Holy shit that looks good on you.
Glynda: Thanks!
Ruby: Sooo next scene?
---
Yang: YAY SIS!
Ruby: Ow! But yeah she's my sister! So get out of the frame shippers...
Jaune slowly starts to get on screen.
Ruby: On Second thought...
Yang: Acts quickly shoving her tits in the camera. Hi folks! I am Yang! The Fun one! But also Ruby's sister... sooo if you ship her... Gimme those fics... but if it's with an abuser or someone way older...
Yang begins to squeeze the camera tightly closer to her chest, the screen beginning to crack.
Yang: There will be nowhere you can hide. She then lets go, and lightly tosses the camera away.
Ruby: Still this could be fun! Wonder what the next episode will be like?
Yang: So long as I get to punch everything? We're all good~
Abandoment issues: Bu-
Yang destroys his dick.
Yang: We're here. To have. Fun. FUCK OFF.

To be Continued.

Epilogue Omake.

Cinder happily purrs as she sips on her Pumpkin Latte, while snuggled up against Roman, Emerald, Mercury and Neo, all of them hugging her. As they watch Ever After, the Drew Barrymore Cinderella Movie.
Cinder: And next time! THANKS TO ME PEASANTS!!!! Next Episode will have Cardining Time!!!

credit: https://dormando.livejournal.com/484577.html

The Technical Element

Design for change

- The old google mantra is right. Design for change. Change is having to deploy new software, upgrade existing software, scaling, equipment breaking, and people shifting around. - Everything in this mantra is about finding balance. You might think it's a good idea to tightly marry your system to a particular OS or Linux distro. It's just as bad of an idea to separately them entirely. Use layers and a _little_ indirection if you must. - This does not mean complete and total platform agnostics. It's about making one system two, two systems twenty. Dealing if a sysadmin gets hit by a bus, if that dangling harddrive dies, if someone runs rm -rf /. It's for the incremental changes. Security updates, pushing new corporate content.

Use automatic, repeatable builds

- Don't build anything by hand. If you do, do it twice, and grab every single command the second time around. - I cannot stress how important this is. It should take no more than 15 minutes from bare metal to production for new hardware. There does not need to be a human element to screw it up, or get punished when a server goes down and no one knows how to replace it. - This is true for anything. There is _no_ such thing as a "one off" server build. If you've built it once, and it only needs to exist once, it will exist twice. The second time around is when it breaks, or if you need to do a major upgrade or consolidation two years down the road and have no frickin' clue how it was put together. - Test, vet new builds. This should be easy because your builds are all automatic, correct? - Scripted builds means that upgrade from Linux Distro Version 3 to Version 4 is absolutely clear cut. Install Version 4 and test the scripts. Read documentation and fix until it works again. This should be a week's worth of work at most, not a yearlong project. (to finish just in time for Version 5 to come out!).

Use redundancy

- Just beacuse something might be easy to rebuild, doesn't mean you can ignore redundancy. Jump boxes, mail servers, billing gateways, whatever. Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier if you could swap out one half of the equation without causing downtime for your customers? - ... and along those lines, you get to "deal with it later!" when a box goes down at 3am, and the redundant machine kicks in. - Even if it's not ideal, go for it anyway. Rsync'ing configs to a second box is a step above nothing. DRBD might not be perfect but it can provide an amazing service.

Use backups

- We shouldn't even joke about this. Use harddrives, burn the tapes. Compress them, move them, run them in parallel. Backup EVERYTHING! - If your builds are automatic, the entire process can be backed up. If you're following along past this point a *real* Disaster Recovery plan might not seem so far fetched.

Keep monitoring specific

- Monitor every damn thing you can, but do it right. Don't get a thousand alerts if your NFS server craps its pants. Don't alert on timeouts if it doesn't make sense for your system. Test for success at the most specific level; sure the service might allow a new TCP connection, and it might even say hello, but does it remember how to do its job? - If you have 500 webservers, you probably don't need to know immediately if one goes down. You _should_ know if the load balancer decided to not take it out of rotation and real human people are seeing its uglyriffic error messages.

Graph data, keep exact historical data

- Graphs are for visualizing trends. Historical data is for crunching numbers. Don't mix the two! It's too easy to get wrong numbers from eyeballing graphs. Many sites use rrd's or other aggregating data systems which will average and smooth out data over time to save on storage space. This means it's not only hard to read, it's wrong. - Don't get trapped having to skim through hundreds of graphs just to pinpoint an issue. If you're trying to find outliers in the graphs, you can pull those out via scripts as well. - If you must use graphs for troubleshooting, try to aggregate high level concepts into a single page, which link into drill-down pages from there. If you can see a spike in the database load, you'll know to click to the page overviewing the databases, then you'd see the one or two iffy machines in question. The idea is to narrow something down fast. Remove as much guesswork as possible.

Log useful information, use multiple streams of data

- Work on your own, and with development, to log as much useful information as you can. Doesn't matter if you live analyze it and store the data somewhere, or lump it into a database and run reports. Information is useful. - Useful examples: Page rendering time (what page, what box, etc), user-facing errors, database and internal service errors, bandwidth usage, etc. - Establish graphs, reports, and do historical comparisons from generalized data. - Reports are really important. Get digested data week-to-week or day-to-day about changes in your infrastructure.

Understand your data storage, databases

- There's an entirely separate set of undrestanding about operating databases, but sometimes you can't leave all of this up to your DBA. - Having multiple, redundant databases affords you many luxuries. Operations that were once many hours of downtime can be done "online" without shelling out for a huge Oracle instance. MySQL and replication is a fantastic thing. - Work with the DBAs to get the best possible hardware for the database in question. RAID10, gobs of RAM, many fast spindles, and potentially RAM disks and SSD's. Ops has access to the vendors, DBA's can beat the pants off the hardware. Find out what works best and save tons of cash in the long run. - Database configurations are changing. Software like HiveDB, MySQL Proxy, DPM exist now. We're absolutely doing partitioned data for huge datasets. We're also thinking outside of the box with software like starling and Gearman. Learn what these are, and understand that not everything will be in a database. - Get a good grip on your filers! If the data's important, back it up! Snapshots on monolithic NFS servers are fantastic, wonderful, and NOT a backup! - Consider alternatives. MogileFS gets better year after year. There're likely other projects for freely and cheaply maintaining massive stores of files. Similar systems were developed for youtube.com, archive.org, etc. We're finally free of expensive NFS filers being the standard!

Scale out a lot, up a little

- You've seen all of the papers. Scale out is really the way to go. Get commodity (read: available, affordable, standard, NOT super cheap) hardware and work with everyone to ensure all aspects possible can scale out. - Scaling out starts at two, work from there. This also happens to encompass redundancy. - Scale out as far as you can without being idiotic about it. The example of MySQL replication with single master, many slaves, is a fantastic example of one form of scale-out sucking. All slaves must do all writes, so as the number of writes scale up with the reads (if they do for your app, which I bet they certainly do), you get less capacity per slave you add. - Keep alternatives in mind. User or range partitioning onto many databases, avoiding production slaves where possible, etc. Good ideas, many ways of implement. - Everything can scale if you give it a chance! Routers, switches, load balancers, webservers, databases. - Remember scale up? Big evil machines with many slow cores, lots of IO boards, and very expensive storage equipment? They're coming back. Well, the CPU part is. - RAM is cheap. - Combine the two, and you just may end up combining services again. A load balancer here, a webserver there... If an application can use many CPUs (apache) this is perfect. If it can't (memcached doesn't get much benefit from it, usually) you can end up wasting tons of available resources by segregating services too much. - Job systems could potentially fill in gaps here. Where there're extra cores, slap up more workers.

Cache

- Caching is good. Developers, sysops, etc. Get on this! Yes, it's weird. It's different. Sometimes you may even need to, gasp, make a tradeoff for it. Effective use of caching can have as much as a ten times increase in overall system performance. That's a giant magnifying glass over the systems you have already and a fraction of the overall cost. - Memcached. Service cache, denormalize DB structures (where it makes performance sense!), squid cache, or even make better usage of OS caches. - Test it, toy with it, and break it. There will be new and different problems with caching. Be prepared for it.

Asyncronous jobs

- Starling, Gearman, The Schwartz, whatever. Job systems allow much more application flexibility. Workers can be spawned one-off, be persistent (load cached data, prepare data, etc), be on different hardware, different locations, and be syncronous or asyncronous. - Maintaining these things is an ops issue. Using them is both a developer and an ops issue. - User clicks "send all my friends an e-mail". Schedule a job, immediately say "okay done! Your friends will receive your spam shortly!" - let the job service multiplex and deal with the issue. - Job systems are great places to bridge services. Blog post -> IM notification, billing cron -> billing services, authentication gateways, etc. - Easy to scale. There will be choke points for where requests come in, and all the workers need to do is pull. This is in contrast with the largely push/pull state of HTTP.

Security and patrols

- Install security updates! Seriously! There's a whole crazy network of people who are dedicated to giving these to you in the shortest period of time possible. Don't let them sit for _years_ because you're afraid of change. - Security is in layers. Accept what you can and cannot secure. Just because mysql has password access doesn't mean it gets to be directly accessable by the internet. - Disable passwords over ssh. Use passphrase encrypted key auth. Remote users _cannot_ guess your private key. They _have_ to get it from you. Keep it safe, and there's no point in firewalling off your ssh port. - Understand how the application works, exactly what it needs to do, and work that to your advantage. If the only part of your application which needs outbound internet access _at all_ are the billing pages and some twitter-posting service, those can easily become job workers. Put the job workers on specific boxes and allow those access to specific hosts. Keep the rest of your network in the dark. - The above is especially important for php sites, but probably works great elsewhere. If someone breaks in, it's most likely going to be through your application. When someone gets in through the front gate, they'll need to haul in their toolbox to get into the safe. Don't let them pull in data and get what they need, or upload the contents of your database somewhere! - These specific suggestions aside, read a lot. Use your best judgement, and test. If you have no understanding of how a security model works, that might not immediately make it worthless, but you certainly don't know where its limits are or even if it works. - Secure based on testing, theory, attack trees, don't stab in the dark. I love it when people dream up obscure security models and ordinary folks like me can smush it to crumbles. - Patrol what you can! Audit logins, logouts, commands used. All accesses to external facing services, including all arguments given in the request. Find outliers, outright ban input outside of the scope of your application, and do what you can actively and have the data to work retroactively. - If you suspect something's been cracked, *take proper precaution* and understand a little computer forensics (or get a company that does). Respond by removing network access, checking the system through serial console or direct terminal, and avoiding using any service, config file, or data on the compromised machine. Too many people "clean up a trojan' and never understand how it got there, or if they've _actually cleaned it up_. - If you do have a security team, forensics expert, or anyone else onhand, you must touch the machine as little as possible and isolate it. This means not rebooting it to "clear out some funky running processes". They need to be able to get at those. If you need to half ass it, go ahead, but remember to wipe the system completely clean, apply any security updates, and do your best to figure out if they've compromised any important data. Do what you can. - Security is an incredible balancing act. If you do it wrong, developers, users, etc, will revolt and find ways around it. If they _can_ get around it, you're not doing your job right. If they _can't_ get around it, they might just give up and leave. - Keep an iron grip on access control. This means ops must absolutely provide windows for what doors have been locked. Kicking development off of production entirely means they get to stab in the dark on fixing hard problems. Providing logging, debugging tools, etc, without allowing them to directly change the service, will be a win for all aspects of production.

The Human Element

Learn from many sources

- Fill up some RSS feeds, and read at least a few good articles per week. LWN, kerneltrap, undeadly.org, whatever's relevant, or even loosely related, to what you do. - Read blogs from smart people. Sometimes they post interesting topics, and comment streams give us the unique ability to directly converse with the masters. - Read a few blogs from not so smart people. Get a feel for what stumps them, or what they do that doesn't work so well. - Get to know people who can kick your ass, at anything. Stay humble. - Help find your own strengths by taking in from many sources, and gobbling up what envigorates you. - Read up on success and failure stories from other companies. Ring up their CTO's and get them to divulge advise over free lunch.

Try many things

- You'll be amazed at what you can do if you keep trying. Never seen something before? Give it a shot. - Try to not be a dangerous newbie. Play in the sandbox until you're comfortable enough to not burn down the house.

Understand redundancy

- Really understand how redundancy affects things. How it works, how it doesn't work. - Break redundant systems in a test lab, sometimes in production. Learn what you can while you're in control. Unplug the power, yank cards out, kill processes, run the box out of memory, yank a harddrive, yank ethernet. - Test replacing and upgrading systems in a redundant setup. Maybe you can toss in that brand new hal-o-tron 8000 without taking downtime.

Understand scalability

- There're tons of papers on making scalable systems. Even if you can't write one yourself, try to understand the theory. - Learn with virtualization. Set up a few virtual machines and try tossing up applications to multiple machines. Run multiple instances locally on different ports. - It's usually the job of operations to do proper capacity planning. You won't know what to do add unless you truely understand where resources should be added.

Become a troubleshooting superstar

- The moment something breaks the clock is ticking. You must be able to pull out your arsenal and use them effectively. - Practice troubleshooting. Pick a perfectly good, working page, and try to track down how it works. - strace, ltrace, lsof, logs. - Understand that load != load. Look at all available information as to how a host is performing or behaving. - Be very familiar with the tools for your IO system. Often "mysterious" performance problems happen beacuse your RAID or SAN setup isn't happy for some reason. - Leave documentation. Checklists, troubleshooting tips, build tools. - Build more tools. For yourself, for other people, or add features to existing ones.

Work with IT

- Believe it or not, there is overlap. - Ops has to maintain high bandwidth network access for servers. IT has to do the same for people, and is often the bridge ops has *into* the datacenter. It may make sense to work together on this one. - Draw the right line. IT should manage mail, but ops should manage development servers. Don't offload things you don't need to, and offer to do what you do best if necessary. - Don't alienate people. Macs are popular, linux is (slowly) gaining share. Believe it or not, forcing everyone to use microsoft productivity software can bite you. There are plenty of alternatives, try one. Odds are more people in your company are familiar with google apps than they are with outlook. - Don't make it more difficult than you have to do for people to run a unix system natively. Unless your backend is a windows shop, wouldn't you want people to have more familiarity with the OS they're supposed to support?

Work with developers

- You both work on the same product, for the same purpose. Try working together a little more. - Having strategy meetings is not working together. - Development understands the code resources the best, and operations understands the hardware and deployment the best. You can design something more efficient by taking all of this into mind. - Cross training. Disseminating information can show how tools and designs on both sides can be improved to be more manageable and resilient. - Be careful of being too demanding on either side. It's not an Us vs Them. Everyone's human. Everyone should be doing as much as they can for the company, not for themselves. - It's more pleasent to handle crunch times and emergencies when everyone gets along.

Work with ops

- Ops folks have their specialties. Networking, databases, OS. Don't forget to talk to each other! - Getting stuck in a rut is demotivating, boring, and a good way to lose people. Even if your systems ops guy has the ability to look over the shoulder of the network guy, they have the opportunity to learn. - Always give people an opportunity to try, learn, and grow. - Be careful of rewarding your best with too much work. If there're people who can pick up slack, you use them. - Bad eggs. It happens. Be tough enough to deal with them. Most people can be turned around with a little help, but they need to be able to be independent.

The Practice

Fix it now, not later

- If a webserver goes offline, don't care about it. You have ten spare, right? - Pick a day during the week to sweep up broken crap. Replace any broken hardware, ensure everything's 100% before swinging into the weekend. - If small, annoying problems crop up, fix them permanently first thing in the morning. Logs fill up the disk twice last week? Come in fresh the next day, and fix it for good. These stack up, and suck. - If you have automated builds, use this to your advantage to fix what you can right away, or in bulk.

Automate everything

- Humans can't screw up scripted tasks (as easily). - Do it twice. Once by hand if you must, then roll up what you did into a script. - Commented scripts make fantastic documentation. Instead of writing twenty pages detailing how to install something (which is up to interpretation of the reader!), write a script which explains what it does. - Scripts can be rolled up into automated builds. The more often something is done, the closer it should get to becoming a zero time task.

Change what's necessary

- Make small, isolated changes. - If you don't have to change it, leave it. - This also means you must understand _when_ to change. Find what's necessary and upgrade it, switch it out, make it standard.

Design for change

- If you can't do it right immediately, get on the road to it being right. - This means if you don't have time to do something right, get the basics going with a clear migration roadmap to the right thing. While your new mail system might not be the crazy cool redundant bounce-processing spam monster you dream of, installing postfix and setting up two hosts with a clean configuration gets you closer than you might think. - This does have a tendency to leave unfinished projects everywhere, but you were going to do that anyway. :)

Practice updating content, fast

- It's usually the job of operations to push out code. Don't suck at it. Push in parallel, apply rolling restarts, be an efficient machine. - This includes software updates, security patches, and configuration changes. - Use puppet, cfengine, whatever you need to control the configuration. Keep it clean, simple, and easy. - The fewer files one must change to make a necessary adjustment the better. If you're adding one line to 20 files just to push out a new database, you're doing it wrong. Build simple templates, build outward, and don't repeat data which needs to be edited by hand.

Standardize, stick to the standard

- Pick one or two standard OS's, httpd's, databases, package systems. - Stick with them. Adjust and upgrade methods as it makes sense. - Don't stick with that major version forever. Unless your product is going to be feature frozen forever, you'll need to keep the standard rolling forward, and everthing behind it. - The _more_ is standard, the more places your tools will work. The more packages for other parts of the operation will "just work" everywhere else too.

Document well

- Document process - Document product - Categorize into shallow trees. - Don't redundantly document. If a script has a long help, ask the reader to refer to that. The closer the documentation is to the program being discussed, the more likely it is to stay accurate. - Marry documentation into code. perldoc, pydoc, etc. - Out of date documentation is poisonous. Reserve time to keep things up to date. Sit down with new employees and update documentation as they run into problems. - Use ticketing systems, with moderation. Documentation of history is important as well. Forcing people to create detailed process tickets for a DNS is just pissing in other people's cheerios.

Use source control

- Use git, or mercurial. Avoid SVN like the black plague. - Put all of your configurations, scripts hacks, whatever, into source control. - Keep checkouts everywhere... - Keep strict, clean, master checkouts. No one should be able to push changes that aren't comitted, but it should also be easy to test changes (in a VM, directly on a single test machine) without having to wrestle with the source control.

Hire well

- Discern between stubborn and smart - Don't avoid hiring senior. Some people really know their shit. Some _seem_ like they do. Others are "senior" in a particular area and will fall behind as technology changes. While you might want to avoid some, there are definitely rockstars out there. - Don't avoid hiring junior. I know so many people who've started really junior (including myself! I still view myself as junior), who've shot up through the ranks and are now have firm established careers. I'd believe most of us have. Except there are ones who don't learn, don't have the motivation, or are in the wrong field.

Avoid vendor lock in, and keep a good relationship with the vendors you do use

- Buying propreitary hardward has the major downside of potentially locking you into always using it. It might be a particular SAN, NAS, special-case direct attached storage, backup systems, etc. Avoid getting sucked in. If you follow all of the above design advise, one should be able to build test environments on different platforms quickly. You're then able to keep on top of hardware evaluations and keep choices open. - If everything's deep, dark, gnarled, undocumented, and directly dependent on your fancy proprietary load balancer, you'll never wriggle free of it. - Be nice to the vendors you do end up using. If you "push them _hard_ on price!" for every single purchase, expect some shit hardware to show up. - Datacenters these days have a lot of potentially useful resources. Try to throw some free remote hands service into your contract and abusing that to get harddrives replaced, vendor items shipped/RMA'ed, and some basic hardware installs. I've had entire racks of equipment delivered and installed with barely a visit from an employee... and damn, it's nice.

Give Open Source a serious try

- nginx, mongrel, lighttpd, apache, perlbal, mogilefs, memcached, squid, OpenBGPD, PF, IPTables, LVS, MySQL, Postgres, blah, blah, blah. Before you hop back on that trusty, reliable, expensive proprietary setup, give open source a shot. You might find yourself adding plugins, extensions, code fixes or contracting help to bring features you'd never be able to do otherwise. In my own experience OSS is just as reliable, often moreso, than big expensive hardware when put under significant load. - The idea of "you get what you pay for" is a complete lie. If you can't make OSS work for you and need the hand holding, you _can_ still go with a vendor. If you have a smart, motivated team, who really want to learn and understand how their infrastructure runs, you just can't beat some hardy GPL'ed or BSD'ed systems. - MySQL and Postgres are fine. Call them tradeoffs if you will; nothing's going to crawl out of your closet and night and eat your data. Sure, it does happen, but you're much more likely to be screwed over with monolithic oracle instances going offline (it happens!) than you are with a well tested and stable MySQL instance, in a redundant master<->master cluster pair. - I'd say 'cite references' - but go look around. Check out any number of articles on the LAMP stack. Most major dot coms, ISP's, and even corporations now are adopting. Give it a shot. The worst you'll have is some lost time, and another product to scare your vendor into dropping price with.

What are AI lead generation Tools?

AI (Artificial Intelligence) lead generation tools are software platforms that use machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics to automate and optimize the process of identifying and qualifying potential customers for a business. These tools can help businesses to streamline their lead generation efforts, saving time and resources while improving the quality of leads and increasing sales.
AI lead generation tools typically use algorithms to analyze large amounts of data from various sources, such as social media, business directories, and web pages. They then use natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to extract relevant information such as company names, job titles, and contact details from this data.

How AI Lead Generation Tools Work

AI (Artificial Intelligence) lead generation tools use machine learning algorithms and predictive analytics to automate the process of identifying and qualifying potential customers. Here's a high-level overview of how AI lead generation tools work:

1. Data collection: AI lead generation tools collect data from various sources such as social media, web pages, and business directories.
2. Data processing: The collected data is processed using natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to extract relevant information such as company names, job titles, and contact details.
3. Lead scoring: The extracted data is then analyzed using predictive analytics algorithms to score each lead based on factors such as job title, company size, industry, and behavior patterns.
4. Lead enrichment: AI lead generation tools can also enrich leads by adding additional data such as company revenue, employee count, and website traffic.
5. Lead segmentation: Once leads are scored and enriched, AI lead generation tools can segment them based on various criteria such as job title, industry, and behavior patterns.
6. Lead prioritization: Based on the lead scores and segmentation, AI lead generation tools can prioritize leads that are most likely to convert into paying customers.
7. Lead outreach: AI lead generation tools can also automate outreach to potential customers through channels such as email, social media, and targeted ads.
8. Analytics and optimization: AI lead generation tools can track and analyze metrics such as email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to optimize the lead generation process over time.

Benefits of AI Lead Generation Tools

AI (Artificial Intelligence) lead generation tools can provide several benefits to companies, including:

1. Time savings: AI lead generation tools can automate many of the time-consuming tasks involved in lead generation, such as data collection, processing, and outreach, freeing up sales teams to focus on more high-value activities.
2. Increased accuracy: AI lead generation tools use machine learning algorithms to analyze large amounts of data, resulting in more accurate and relevant leads compared to traditional lead generation methods.
3. Improved lead quality: AI lead generation tools can use predictive analytics algorithms to score and prioritize leads based on various criteria such as job title, company size, and behavior patterns, resulting in higher-quality leads that are more likely to convert into paying customers.
4. Scalability: AI lead generation tools can process large amounts of data and automate outreach to a large number of potential customers, making it easier to scale lead generation efforts as needed.
5. Cost savings: By automating many of the tasks involved in lead generation, AI lead generation tools can help companies to save money on sales and marketing resources while still generating high-quality leads.
6. Analytics and optimization: AI lead generation tools can track and analyze metrics such as email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, allowing companies to optimize their lead generation strategies over time.
7. Competitive advantage: Companies that use AI lead generation tools can gain a competitive advantage by identifying and reaching out to potential customers before their competitors do.