stickmaker | Reading

The Zen Marines Marching Chant (to the tune of "Sound Off!"):
Na-am Yo Ho Renkge Kyo
Om Mani Padmi Hum
Na-am Yo Ho Renkge Kyo
Om Mani Padmi Hum
Sound off! One Two
Sound off! Three Four
Bring it on down
Ha-re-krish na
Har-Re-KRISH_NAH!

royalsongbird posting in

little_details

hello! im currently working on a fantasy story where the country it takes place in (or at the very least starts in- im still figuring out plot details) is inspired by indonesia, but im having trouble finding good resources about indonesian architecture in the vague time period im writing in- i dont have a specific idea beyond the vague medieval times setting most fantasy stories use, but im more than willing to try and narrow it down if it helps. if anyone has resources i could look into, that would be very helpful!

full_metal_ox posting in

little_details

squidgiepdx belongs to this comm, but he’s perpetually been some combination of sick and busy, so I’ve taken the liberty of helping him out.

He’s trying to track down a particular BTS shot from Stargate: Atlantis:

And now on to the SGA Picture part of the deal. So I wrote a quickie story for romancingmcshep about John Sheppard's ass (the fest goes until February 28th if you're interested!) and the whole story is based on a picture that NOBODY can find anymore. I KNOW! It's frustrating! Anyway, there's what I think is a "behind the scenes" shot of most likely S01E03 "Hide and Seek" or S01E05 "Suspicion" where it's focused on Joe Flanigan's butt. Like kinda blatantly. He's kneeling on the Gateroom floor over Rodney, I believe and you can see where his t-shirt is pulled up and the waistband of his BDUs are lower - showing some skin and some of his boxers. This is what I think the camera sees in that shot, as Sheppard is kneeling like that but I remember there being a whole lot more skin. Does anyone remember a BTS photo like this? SO FRUSTRATING that I can't find it when I know I've seen it a hundred times.

His post: https://squidgiepdx.dreamwidth.org/341626.html

ETA 25 February 2026: The specific shot has yet to be identified, but

openidwouldwork has kindly provided a resource devoted to this extremely specialized topic: https://dailystargatebooty.tumblr.com/

elisheva_m posting in

little_details

What would be involved in setting up a ~~fake~~ facsimile of a VPN service to gather intelligence on a criminal organisation?

~~Would this essentially be a VPN where the relay saves a copy of the traffic? Everything I've found to read on the internet assumes more knowledge of tech and jargon than I have.~~ Could a choice of servers in different countries be faked? A UI seems easy enough, but what about the ISP it connects to? If it was simply a gateway to a real VPN, would the real VPN notice? Could it at some point send a second copy elsewhere without being noticed?
Edit: (See armiphlage's post below, that's the scenario I'm going to work with, a gateway to a real VPN. Thank you armiphalge. Additional info or other suggestions also welcome.)

This could be a scheme the character is pondering near the end, so it doesn't have to work - it could simply be trying to find solutions to some of the concerns. He has a habit of staring out the window late at night mulling over such things. He really wants to be able to build a phone case with a rechargeable listening device but we've gotten lost on the physics of discretely charging it from the phone.

There's the social infrastructure to make it appear legit, website & fake reviews and social engineering to get them to bite. I've already written this for a different operation, not in great detail but enough for my purposes. If faking a VPN is feasible, I'd probably replace the existing scheme in those scenes with this one. But the marketing email may be more along the lines of "Police and governments can't subpoena a service they don't know exists" with a link to the dark web.

Edit: It doesn't need to actually work as a VPN, the character won't care about hiding the users' info. It just needs to look like one from their side of things.

Please be careful with how much detail and tech-speak you throw at me, my health is poor and I am easily overwhelmed. If this is a rubbish idea, please be kind in putting it down.

Thank you for any help.

kengr

Yesterday's post got me thinking about various forms of communication from science fiction.

The "paired devices", non-interceptable is not uncommon and usually tied to quantum entanglement or the like.

Another one I've seen plays games with "phase velocity". This is a concept from waveguides where the phase velocity (speed at which changes of phase move thru the guide) is higher than the "group velocity".

This results inn a system where you can't communicate across a link until a signal from you has reached them. Once that happens, you can (in fictional theory) send messages to them FTL. They have to send a signal back to be able to send the other way.

This has some fun limitations, such as it being essentially useless except between "fixed" stations. and it taking a long time to set up any sort of network.

If you have FTL *travel*, then you can cheat and place relay station at some convenient distance apart and send signals to start links between *them*. Speeds things up a lot but requires a lot more infrastructure.

There's also the question of *how* much faster than light your signals travel.

Next one is a weirdie. Dirac radio,

With normal EM communications, a signal travels thru space like a ripple across a pond. The ripples spread at the speed of light.

With Dirac radio, the signals act like raising or lowering the level of the pond uniformly. So they are instantaneous. Of course there are a *few* problems. Like where does the energy come from? And what happens if several transmitters are operating at the same time. These are pretty much handwaved away.

Obviously *everyone with a receiver gets the signal at the same time, and it's not directional.

James Blich who was the first aothor to use it, came up with some other interesting effects. :-)

And then there are the "simple" ideas where the signal (of whatever sort) just travels FTL (buut not at infinite speed) and drops off with distance. And can have direction finding.

Can't think of any others at the moment.

kengr

Ok, I'm trying to solve a few problems with a hypothetical communications device. It's undetectable, nothing but the paired device (they are made in pairs cannot made hooked up other than as pairs). Think of the paired part as a small chips, like a SIM card.

There is no way to determine the distance or direction of one unit from another. Not even a time lag.

So, given this, is there any way you can think of to determine where you are with such a device. I mean, you could use some *external signal like GPs, but that's essentially cheating. I'm trying to figure out something that dooesn't rely on other devices. Closest I can come is using it as a reliable clock and doing celestial navigation tricks. Which is both cumbersome and kinda noticable.

Just as a side note, while uyou can use paired chips for a completely secure link, and like build comm units to have slots for multiple chips, more common units just have a chip paired with one at a switching facility that hooks you up different users.

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Touch of Magic

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Squidgie calls for aid! Can anyone retrieve a memetic photo of John Sheppard’s butt?

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