ask meme!

[queenlua]

stealing a meme from necrophilia:

So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me, something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about, or something you've always been curious about but have never asked, or something completely silly that you'd like me to answer for kicks. No limits on the range of questions, either: ask me anything you want to know about, whether it's a fannish opinion or a question about a fic of mine or trivia about my real life or my thoughts on events in the offline world.

Ask away. ♥

(my answers might, uh, take a few days *stares at Friday deadline for a thing* but feel free to ask away in the meantime!)

Comments

[kradeelav]

good luck on the deadlines! :D here's to both of us making it through the end of this week in one piece, ideally...

for meme times:
(1) something you think you should know about me > what's your favorite part about computers/hacking/etc?
(2) something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about > if u were made president of nintendo or whatever and could direct the next FE game in a different world (aka not tellius remake lol) - what would be the the bits you would want it to have? characters, tropes, subversions of previous games in the series, etc.
(3) something you've always been curious about but have never asked > funniest birding moment you've had recently
(4) something completely silly that you'd like me to answer for kicks > ok lua, here's the hardball one, are you ready? :D ..... what's your favorite meme after spending your years online, o wise sage hacker? :DDD

[queenlua]

(1)

honestly there's something just kind of soothing about reading specifications, like... the intel sdm or the pci spec or whatnot. i've made this comparison before but it really does twiddle the parts of my brain that likes fanfiction—you read canon, you're like "wait doesn't the existence of (A) and (B) imply weird things about the implementation of (C)", and you dig around and, yeah, turns out they were only able to implement (C) due to some horrendous retcon job that's got all these sharp edges, and maybe if you twiddle things just right you can make it do things it wasn't supposed to do...

this is ironic given that i focus more on software security nowadays, which rarely has nice things like "specs" or "any design whatsoever" lmao. but it's definitely something i love when i'm actually working at the hardware interface

(2) oh gosh, uhhhh.... i'm an awful person to ask this, lol. i love the FE games a ton for what they are but it's not the kind of canon that leaves me plotting/daydreaming much for next entries in the series, yaknow? (unlike e.g. stuff with more continuity for characters between new entries or w/e)

first thing that comes to mind is just redoing the general idea from Awakening but with some decent goddamn character writing. i really liked the kids in that game, and the time-travel-to-fix-your-errors setup was deliciously potent, but there just wasn't any real vibing between the cast, so like, nowadays i can't remember a damn thing about the story, lol

(3) yesterday i saw a WOOD THRUSH while out and about??? which is not a rare bird per se, but, it's a very skulky bird. you'll always hear it way more than you see it, and if you do see it, it'll skitter to hide in some leaf litter right off

so imagine my shock when i'm tromping through some forest and the thrush is just there? three feet in front of me? fully in the open?

and naturally i opted to not move or breathe or blink whatsoever for twenty entire minutes while i watched him just CHILLIN and it was so GOOD and i was only a little dizzy from lack of oxygen afterwards lol

(4) omg i searched everywhere and i couldn't find this one D: but i can describe it lol

it's the WHO WOULD WIN format

on the left is "a billion lines of microcode and carefully-crafted silicon by the best engineers on the planet", with a photo of some Intel CPU

on the right is a photo of this lil function with the label "one jumpy boi"

(the joke here is, setjmp/longjmp are commands that can change the control flow in your program at a very low level; the means you use to exploit the Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities is, y'know, tricking the CPU into doing a "jump" when it shouldn't, and hence... one jumpy boi :P

in general something about "boi" just sends me, absolutely one of my favorite internet words, and the thing with just calling `setjmp` a "jumpy" thing sends me even harder, and, yeah, there's my niche favorite meme ever. good meme format too :P)

[kradeelav]

1) the fanfic comparison to like, super technical work tickles me so much, you have no idea. :D the nuances miiiight be lost on this pea brain but ngl i can see how that could totally translate over - had an instance even just today where something wasn't making sense about how our sales department was using this weird obscure third-party-of-a-third-party app and "pulling on" that thread unwraveled a whole fun / pandora's box / 'omfg when the fuck was the last time somebody updated the designs here' rabbit hole trail. ANYWAY yeah that "pulling on a thread" feeling is *so satisfying* whether it's a fic or debugging something, here's to more chasing after it. :3

2) FE-wise i find it kind of absolutely hilarious that Awakening is the one game in the series that grinds both of our gears most in the "you had infinity POTENTIAL" sort of way. 100% agreed with the kiddos (lucina had so much more charisma than the main cast it's almost a little insulting, gah! such brave mostly successful-attempts at maturity but you still see the kid in her underneath). meanwhile I'm over here grabby-hands at the fucked up possession 'tactician as a war machine' side xD

(PS - reading through the other comments/replies here and LMAO BLESS @ your fic high being supported by, among others, one (1) slightly obsessed teen fangirl xD

3) DELIGHTFUL!!!! ngl your mentions about different birds and their attitudes has really made ... it's not deliberate birdwatching, but the ocassional 'looking at a bird on the deck' stints so much more enjoyable because you're *so right* that there's everything from sulky to pompous to ornery to .... ahhh they're delightful

4) *EVEN MORE DELIGHTFUL* :D