Summary:Comuter talk in a computer store? Happens. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
  |
Eventually, sometimes, you need to cut ties and just let things go. You have to figure that the world has a reason for whatever is happening, and you need to just deal with it. Such is the reason why Caden Pryde has finally decided to stop trying to fix one of his old boxes. It was with such great tears that he had destroyed the hard drives with an industrial magnet, compacted the box itself, and tossed it out in the rubbish bin at Xavier's.
Which led him into the city to Compu-Buy, a big seller with a massive inventory, aisles and aisles of equipment… and no hassle nor sales people. Just gear as far as the eye can see in a warehouse suitably to store it. And to him, in some small way to Caden… this was heaven.
Walking down the aisle with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, the young mutant has a t-shirt on and a backpack over his shoulder. That shirt proclaims happily a poster for 'Singing in the Rain' with a shot of Gene Kelly of all people.
Strolling a bit he stops and starts checking out one of the large case, kneeling beside it curiously.
Jane on the other hand had a kind of regular laundry list she went on to buy again and again, almost weekly at times. In the end, it always came down to a big cart full of stuff. A couple microcontrollers, a couple rolls of plastic filaments, lead solder, a couple Arduinos and sensor shields. And then ome bunch of replacement resistors and such to fix up stuff. Just the stuff you needed if you place pretty much a little sensor box up wherever you have access to and stock up on prepared tools. Not high tech, but standard items - and lots of them.
Jeans, a leather jacket and a T-shirt with Atari on it, she knows pretty well where the stuff is she is looking for, stopping at some racks to pull out a couple boxes, racking them up in the cart she pushes along. A whole crate of tiny thumbdrives? Into the cart it goes, the paper boxing making the wireframe construction reverb. Who needs about 250 10GB thumbdrives?!
One of the cases is chosen and it's hefted up under one arm, the cardboard box pretty chunky but it's not that heavy. The young X-Man steps back and turns his head looking up and down the aisle, out of view of the wandering and shopping Jane. So he starts down the way, walking and stopping at one of the end caps, pulling a seemingly abandoned hand cart from its place resting against the hard drive display. He sets his box down, then grabs a couple of the sale-priced hard drives.
Smiling to himself he seems pleased at the running tally in his head. He nods and starts to push the cart around the corner… when at the last moment that same box of 250 10gb thumbdrives catches his attention. It's like a raven espying something shiny, his head turns, he grins…
And accidentally runs his card into Jane's with a metal /clash/ that causes their chosen items to scatter a bit on the floor and mix together.
"Oh man, I'm sorry."
Jane Roe curses a moment as the cart hits her cart's side, turning to glare at the person pushing such reckless, the box of thumbdrives ripping open and spilling through the frame as she fights to prevent the cart from tipping over fully and tossing some of the other boxes out too.
"Man, that stuff might be on sale in bulk but it's not like I come here to fill my cart twice. I just need the stuff for the next batch but noooo, some rowdy has to toss all the stuff over the floor…"
Caden doesn't have that much stuff, so he quickly keels down and starts to try and help, catching what he can of Jane's and then starting to help her put it back into her cart as he smiles weakly, apologetically. "Hey, seriously, I'm sorry. I should've looked where I was going."
He straightens up and makes sure to pick up each thumb drive that's fallen, as well as the more esoteric gear. He rises up and holds one of arduinos in hand and taps it with a fingertip, "Hey, I'd been meaning to try these, how are they…"
The hazel-eyed young man meets her gaze and then he leans back slightly, "Oh, sorry. You're probably still mad at me."
Jane Roe grumbles as she works to sort her stuff back into the cart, trying the best to make sure the box of thumbdrives was back together, though that might become a pita at the cashier… scanning all of them one by one instead of the box.
"Adruinos and shields? Super nice to prototype or build some kind of limited capability tools. Like sensors. Raspberries are a little more versatile in other regards, so I usually pack a bunch of both."
Those greenish yellow eyes of his brighten with a smile as he gains his feet and helps her finish getting her gear back into her cart. Once that's reasonably settled he'll step back and gives a nod, looking over the contents of her basket, then meeting her gaze levelly.
He's a handsome young man, pale, lithe with a dancer's figure. But his easy smile might lean more towards the… intellectual side of things if not the nerdy.
"I'm just here to replace one of my older machines." For some reason he thinks it's alright to just continue the conversation, though chances are she wants to keep on with her shopping. Thankfully, he is mindful of that as he murmurs, "I should probably let you get back to things. Sorry again."
Jane Roe quirks an eyebrow at the notion he is replacing his machine. She isn't a dancer, she's a parcourist. A fighter. And pretty much thin, a little missing light.
"What kinda machine?" Jane asks, sorting some boxes in the cart before looking into his. "Cause purpose building is a thing you know."
She can likely see him as he looks back at her, see the wheels turn a little as if he might not exactly go into it, but then he sees to resolve on the side of 'why not?' and elaborates. "Oh just I have a fair chunk of other machines I threw together."
More like stole from around Xavier's.
"But I was compiling a lot of data and at this point…" He shakes his head and looks back down the aisle, one hand lifting to rub at the back of his neck as he frowns. "I'm looking for quick clock cycles and strong independent core use. I need to collate a lot of data as quickly as possible."
Turning back to her he smiles, "The rest is just gravy."
"Data compiling or data crawling? Get a water cooling and the biggest processor you can get. A mainboard with as much RAM as you can cram on it. SSD storage. I think 16 cores or more might be a way, if you can get your fingers on it. There's some of that stuff shipped from china, though you might just as likely get a fake." Jane notes, shrugging a little.
"You know, you need to play a little luck, but stay away from Wish and you might have a little luck if you get the right shops. Gearbest and Aliexpress can help a lot to source such strange stuff."
To be fair she's not exactly telling him things he doesn't know, but to act all know-it-all isn't entirely super polite. But he nods and to be fair she does offer him a bit of insight as he doesn't know of Gearbest. "I was thinking of going that direction, overclocking and finding the best heating solution I could. Might steer to some other manufacturers though out of pure paranoia."
That might be a strange thing to say, but then he doesn't elaborate on it. He tilts his head a little and then says, "Oh um, hey. My name's Caden." And then he offers his hand to her. "Caden Pryde."
Jane Roe shrugs a moment as Caden notes to stay clear of some things. "What you fear? Intel designs?" Jane chuckles as he speaks about going the mashup build. "Jane Roe." Cheesy, isn't it? Anonymous name.
She reaches down into the cart to sort some box around, somewhat carefully, but as she looks looks up, she sees the hand. A couple mments she seems reluctant, then reaching out to shake the hand.
There is nothing sinister in the handshake, it's just a good three times then release, gentle even. He smiles and nods, "Jane. Good to meet you." That said he steps back around towards his cart and starts to push it along a bit, coincidentally heading towards the front of the store, the same path they're taking.
"Oh just crazy some of the things you find on hardware from various places. So I usually just buy the kind I know I can run a burn through quick enough to clear it and make it alright for my uses." Which, to be fair, are myriad.
"I take you burn through hardware a lot then?" Jane asks, pushing the cart towards the cashier stations slowly. "I mean, I use like that stuff in a week or so, but that's because I need a lot of those setups. That makes standard parts so useful for them. Especially sourced in bulk."
She doesn't ention that she burns her own firnware to them and removes the serial numbers by etching them off the PCBs. No sign where they were sourced that way anymore.
"Actually," Caden smiles as he leans against the grip of his cart, slouching a bit as they stroll along. "I sort of only recently got back into things." Curious, considering how he was talking. "I'd been gone for a while, totally not around computers. But then I got back here, and my friends needed a computer guy… so I took up the job."
He grins a little and gives a small shrug, "So haven't burned through a ton yet. Just the one old machine. But compared to you I'm probably an amateur." Caden offers that with a small nod and a smile.
"How you tell? Just because I put together the same sensor package week after week? That's nothing special. Slot together hardware, flash firmware, mount in casing, rinse and repeat." Jane teases a little, knowing that there is some more to it. Like the custom make of the firmware. And then placing the sensor package somewhere…
"So, what you need to fix up a bunch of raw data for that it has to be fast? I mean, usually fast and cheap are opposite one another…"
"Oh you know how it is with nerds," Caden's smile is a little wry as he walks, eying her sidelong as he adds, "We can sense instinctively when we meet a nerd that's smarter than us." Ok no they don't, but it's a nice attempt at modesty assuredly.
That said he continues along and then rolls up to the end of the store where the check out lanes are. He'll wait there, perhaps letting her get in line first before he says, "Well it doesn't /have/ to be fast. I'm just lazy." He smiles, again fibbing a little on behalf of politeness. "Or really I just don't like sitting around waiting, really." That more might be true.
Starting to put her things on the belt, Jane seems to ponder about the notions some. Finally, putting the damaged box of thumbdrives onto the belt, she shrugs. "Well, all a question of code optimisation then. I mean, if you know how to cut corners you can throw unlikely data to a secondary pile first and concentrate power on the likely stuff you might get good preliminary results before sifting the rest for fine ones."
"That…" Caden stops and lifts his eyebrows some before he adds, "Is a good idea. Hnh." That said she can likely see the wheels turning in his brain as he considers that. Then he nods a few times as he pushes his cart a little more forward.
"I'll fudge the code some and give that a try." He smiles a little. "You have an online presence, Jane?" His brow knits together, "Or wait, is that gauche these days between computer people? Hm. Maybe it's rude." His lip twists, clear he's making light a bit.
"Just let the code run some flags, and if enough of the right flags are raised in one dataset, push it to the urgent or low priority pile," Jane advises, waiting for the cashier to go through the cart and then groan at the open box, forcing him to scan every single item.
"Of course I am online. Heck, I am online right now with about a half dozen machines, cellphones included. Running my own servers for some storage."
The young X-Man smiles a little and then asks, "I mean, would you like to correspond sometime down the line? In case either of us have any questions or ideas or thoughts." Since having contacts is always a good thing and this Jane Roe… she seems to know what she's talking about.
That said he reaches the end of the checkout lane and he starts to set his choices on the conveyor belt, just the case and the CPU and hard drives, likely having more gear at home to finish the project. "Though if you're trying to be all mysterious with a name like Jane Roe and a deep web presence, I'll understand if you're too black hat to hang out with someone all white hat like me." He smirks.
"I play the whole primary and secondary colors. Black and white is so yesterday. Red, Blue, Yellow, Purple, Green, Orange… The whole IT shebang if you want. Test, Protect, Design and alter my setup as needed." Jane notes, shrugging a moment. "Look up Roe Software Solutions."
"Alright," And by that point she's likely through the check out, being asked to pay up for the gear she's buying while Caden's being waved over to another cashier. So he'll smile to her and give a nod, "I'll be sure to do that."
A twist of the cart and he starts to head it over towards the other register, "Take care of yourself, Jane Roe." He offers in way of departure, giving her a small wave, most likely considering that he's already bugged her enough.
Jane Roe waves a little, haven given Caden one of her front faces for her operations. Not the darknet version, not the Saint Roe persona, but the stuff one coudl use to go to companies. "See yea." she notes as she pays with a card, signing and then taking her cardboard box full of stuff.