#08/14/2021 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gyeomsweetgyeom · 6 months ago

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all nct 127 imagines can be found here personal favorites are marked with ☆

last updated October 28 , 2024

Johnny

lovesick fool {college!au} posted November 21, 2020

Johnny is your work husband and feels fine with being just that until something someone makes him realize he wants more

☆ [5:58 pm] posted September 12, 2021

FaceTime with Johnny and a your mom joke, but really- you’re at his mom’s

[2:57 pm] posted February 26, 2022

Going out shopping with Johnny when someone calls his last name which also happens to be yours

[2:21 pm] posted June 12, 2022

Johnny wants to get your attention after an argument by making you ask for help, but you find your own solution

[4:50 pm] posted November 13, 2022

CEO!Johnny has a few minutes to send something important but he doesn’t want to move so he uses you as a desk

☆ [12:07] posted May 6, 2023

Dad!Johnny and you take your daughter to the beach for the first time +BONUS fake instagram post

☆ [4:51 pm] posted October 22, 2023

CEO!Johnny’s employees have a bet going on for when the two of you will get together, but you already are??

[8:12 pm] posted December 22, 2023

You’re spending your first Christmas in Chicago with the Suh’s and Johnny’s mom is making sure to document it all

[10:14 pm] posted May 4, 2024

you’re really hoping Best friend!Johnny comes over to tell you his date was horrible…

Taeyong

[1:16 pm] posted January 7, 2021

Taeyong does your nails

[7:05 pm] posted January 3, 2022

Taeyong still gets shy when you tell him you love him

[10:38 am] posted September 18, 2022

Parent!Taeyong just can’t say no even when you already have said no

[10:57 pm] posted August 5, 2023

idol!reader breaks up with Taeyong after the hate becomes too much when your relationship is revealed

Yuta

[7:34 pm] posted January 11, 2021

After a date with a little wine, Yuta doesn’t want to hold your hand

☆ [12:06 am] posted September 19, 2021

Yuta comes home drunk with something interesting to show

[3:19 pm] posted March 19, 2022

Yuta ruins his wedding band… again

☆[3:19 pm] posted March 19, 2022

Frat!Yuta can’t wait to get out of this stupid gala especially when you’re dressed this well

☆[1:12 am] posted January 8, 2023

Yuta’s coming home from tour! But do you know that?

[1:24 am] posted June 24, 2023

Frat!Yuta and you always find someway to sneak off and makeout when you drink, how has it become a problem for your friends?

[1:29 pm] posted February 3, 2024

Dad!Yuta and you have a leash kid

Doyoung

[8:32 pm] posted April 25, 2021

Doyoung brings home something surprising and quite frankly, unbelievable

☆[4:41 pm] posted November 14, 2021

You may be mad but you still love Doyoung

[2:19 pm] posted Auguest 14, 2021

Doyoung is an extremely nervous boyfriend- wait, boyfriend?

☆[4:41 pm] posted November 14, 2021

Sneaking around the office with SecretBF!Doyoung would be a lot easier if you didn’t wear lispstick and your secretaries weren’t so observant

[5:44 pm] posted June 3, 2023

Seeing your horrible ex boyfriend at the grocery store has you picking a random stranger, Doyoung, to be your fake boyfriend

[7:27 pm] posted December 21, 2023

CEO!Doyoung finally confesses his feelings for you at the company holiday party

[1:08 pm] posted April 6, 2024

surprisingly, the messiness of fatherhood isn’t something that bothers Doyoung

The Return of Superman- Doyoung posted August 9, 2024

Doyoung and his two kids go on The Return of Superman

[2:09 pm] posted October 4, 2024

dad!Doyoung is starting to notice your son is a miniature version of you

Jaehyun

⋆⭒˚｡⋆fratboy!Jaehyun masterlist⋆⭒˚｡⋆

Pick me posted October 12, 2020

After getting engaged, Johnny and Taeyong keep fighting over who gets to be the best man

[5:42 pm] posted July 25, 2021

Jaehyun is uncharacteristically clingy

☆ [9:33 am] posted December 18, 2021

(suggestive) Jaehyun can’t control himself this early in the morning after a simple kiss

[6:31 pm]

BestFriend!Jaehyun finally gives you your first bouquet of flowers ever

☆ [6:19 pm] posted December 17, 2022

Dad!Jaehyun talks to pregnant!reader’s belly

☆ [7:41 am] posted January 29, 2023

Saturdays are supposed to be sleeping in but Dad!Jaehyun has other plans

☆[8:34pm] posted July 2, 2023

Brother’s Best Friend!Jaehyun comes to pick you up after a bad date and can’t help flirting and flustering you

[9:13 pm] posted September 2, 2023

Jaehyun can get a little jealous when a bartender is talking to you for too long

[10:13 pm] posted October 28, 2023

supposed situationship!Jaehyun hates that you’re watching tiktok edits of Pookie

[8:57 pm] posted November 5, 2023

You told Jaehyun you were going out for Halloween, but you didn’t tell him how sexy your costume was

[9:12 am] posted January 6, 2024

Jaehyun makes the mistake of hanging out with a girl he knew from school, the only mistake being he didn’t tell you who… and he never came home

[8:59 pm] posted January 20, 2024

Jaehyun is just a little shocked to see what his contact name is in your phone

[11:04 pm] posted February 17, 2024

idol!reader and idol!Jaehyun get their relationship exposed at a Bruno Mars concert

[8:46 pm] posted February 24, 2024

you’ve never really dated anyone before so it really only makes sense that since he gets you flowers, you get him some in return right?

your biggest fan posted February 25, 2024

{western popstar!reader x idol!reader} in which the world discovers your relationship with Jaehyun and surprisingly… they love it

[3:21 pm] posted March 3, 2024

in relationships you have to make sacrifices, and for Jaehyun that means eating food he doesn’t really like since you love it

☆[12:11 pm] posted April 21, 2024

dad!Jaehyun isn’t going to say he’s jealous of his daughter and Uncle Johnny- but you can say it

[9:22 pm] posted May 25, 2024

AcademicRival!Jaehyun is the last person you’d expect to help you out after you get in a fight {enemies2lovers, college!au}

[10:14 am] posted May 26, 2024

if you weren’t 2 weeks overdue, Jaehyun being doting would be really sweet- but you are 2 weeks overdue and it’s not sweet

[12:07 pm] posted June 8, 2024

dad!Jaehyun doesn't have your talent of getting his baby girl to eat, or your common sense of keeping the food out of her grasp

[4:59 pm] posted June 22, 2024

Jaehyun watched the Bridgerton carriage scene with you and gets hooked on the show

☆[3:22 pm] posted July 6, 2024

Jaehyun is completely enamored by your pregnancy glow

[4:51 pm] posted July 13, 2024

you and dad!Jaehyun take your kids to the water park and the lazy river works some magic

showering Jaehyun's dimples with love posted August 15, 2024

[12:41 pm] posted August 16, 2024

pregnancy is hard enough as is, but now you're on bed rest? Thank God for Jaehyun (cw: pregnancy complications)

[3:11 pm] posted August 17, 2024

you and Jaehyun were supposed to be baby shopping but Smiskis and Sonny Angels caught your eye instead

just makes sense posted August 22, 2024

your and Jaehyun’s fans just really can’t believe that they two of you are just best friends

self-on kode with Jaehyun posted September 27, 2024

You and Jaehyun usually have a pretty private relationship, thanks to Self-On Kode your fans can learn more (f!reader, idol!reader)

[1:17 pm] posted September 29, 2024

dad!Jaehyun helps you when you're overwhelmed with a colicky baby

Jaehyun doing acts of service! posted October 3, 2024

dad!Jaehyun and shopping with the kids! posted October 11, 2024

[3:17 pm] posted October 12, 2024

dad!Jaehyun gets ambushed by you and his daughters for a makeover

Jungwoo

☆ [8:04 pm] posted August 21, 2021

Jungwoo compares bellies with pregnant!reader

[3:54 am] posted January 29, 2022

You’re trying to fall asleep and feel weird… yeah because Jungwoo is staring at you

[3:48 pm] posted October 16, 2022

If there was any person to get mad over having food made for them it would be Jungwoo

☆ [6:33 am] posted September 9, 2023

Dad!Jungwoo loves his daughter don’t get him wrong, but he questions it the slightest bit when he gets woken up for food

[5:57 pm] posted April 20, 2024

Jungwoo is taking his childhood celebrity crush on a date only to find out you’re really sweet and down to earth

[1:18 pm] posted July 21, 2024

dad!Jungwoo gets sick but luckily he has you and your daughter to nurse him back to health

[8:25 pm] posted August 10, 2024

dad!Jungwoo is getting over being sick and wants your attention, too bad your daughter has gotten used to having it all to herself

Mark

☆ [10:58 am] posted April 11, 2021

Waking up the morning after and Mark is just a suggestive dork

[1:16 pm] posted June 11, 2021

Skater!Mark wants to teach you to skate but first he has to loosen your shoelaces

[9:29 pm] October 9, 2021

BasketballPlayer!Mark doesn’t know when to stop practicing

[11:54 am] posted June 25, 2022

Everything that could go wrong on your first date with Mark goes wrong

[2:25 am] posted December 10, 2022

Mark thinks you’re losing on purpose, but you’re just really not that good at Smash

☆ [2:13 pm] posted March 19, 2023

PART 1- Breakup!au, Mark is stressed with the pressure of college, lucky for him (and unluckily for you) he has some new frat brothers to tell him what to do

[5:48 pm] posted April 9, 2023

PART 2- Mark comes to apologize and tells you he wants you back but he’s made some changes which gives you hope

[12:23 pm] posted April 30, 2023

Mark hates when you kiss him with lipgloss, funny that he wants more after you stop

☆ [4:26 pm] posted July 28, 2023

Most couples use pet names for each other, some people would expect you and Mark to do the same, especially since you’re getting married

[6:14 pm] posted December 24, 2023

BestFriend!Mark comes to the holiday party only to get stuck with you outside and under mistletoe

[2:17 pm] posted March 16, 2024

a quick trip to Ikea becomes an opportunity to play house

[2:57 pm] posted May 11, 2024

BestFriend!Mark accidentally comes across a picture of you in some sexy lingerie

[5:21 pm] posted June 2, 2024

your son starts calling you what Mark calls you and it would be cute if Mark had real term of endearment for you

The Return of Superman- Mark posted August 25, 2024

Mark and his son go on The Return of Superman

[9:22 pm] posted October 17, 2024

you should be happy that situationship!Mark is showing you affection in public, right?

Haechan

my mom loves you posted December 23, 2020

Haechan’s family loves you almost (maybe more) than he does and he loves it (maybe first I love yous too? can be read as that I guess)

a family with the hyungs posted February 4, 2021

dating Hyuck apparently also kinda means dating Mark

[5:58 am] posted August 28, 2021

a soft, cozy morning with Haechan

[11:48 am] posted April 2, 2022

The group finds out College!Haechan tags you in some weird stuff on instagram

☆ [10:39 pm] posted October 29, 2022

Bestfriend!Frat!Haechan thinks you look so hot, when did that happen?

[6:07 pm] posted November 22, 2022

Haechan always says that his grandma is the best cook, so she must have been the one to cook this meal right? No, you did.

[6:17 pm] posted April 22, 2023

Meeting Haechan’s family for the first time should be stressful, so why aren’t you stressful? (kind of prequel to my mom loves you)

☆ [7:33 pm] posted July 15, 2023

being pregnant can be bad, it can get worse when Haechan makes it the slightest bit more uncomfortable for you

☆ [7:21 am] posted December 3, 2023

Haechan and your son are very alike, too alike especially when it comes to their love for you +BONUS fake instagram post

[4:28 pm] posted December 23, 2023

Haechan has to keep up the usual Christmas traditions despite being away from his family, too bad he can’t bake

[9:02 pm] posted March 10, 2024

Romeo!Haechan falls in love with Juliet!Reader at first sight {Romeo and Juliet au}

[2:14 pm] posted June 15, 2024

Haechan is so distracted by his videogames that he'll just agree to anything, and he does

[3:32 pm] posted October 19, 2024

Haechan has not shut up once all day!

#nct 127 masterlist #nct masterlist #masterlist

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

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AI “art” and uncanniness

TOMORROW (May 14), I'm on a livecast about AI AND ENSHITTIFICATION with TIM O'REILLY; on TOMORROW (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

When it comes to AI art (or "art"), it's hard to find a nuanced position that respects creative workers' labor rights, free expression, copyright law's vital exceptions and limitations, and aesthetics.

I am, on balance, opposed to AI art, but there are some important caveats to that position. For starters, I think it's unequivocally wrong – as a matter of law – to say that scraping works and training a model with them infringes copyright. This isn't a moral position (I'll get to that in a second), but rather a technical one.

Break down the steps of training a model and it quickly becomes apparent why it's technically wrong to call this a copyright infringement. First, the act of making transient copies of works – even billions of works – is unequivocally fair use. Unless you think search engines and the Internet Archive shouldn't exist, then you should support scraping at scale:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And unless you think that Facebook should be allowed to use the law to block projects like Ad Observer, which gathers samples of paid political disinformation, then you should support scraping at scale, even when the site being scraped objects (at least sometimes):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

After making transient copies of lots of works, the next step in AI training is to subject them to mathematical analysis. Again, this isn't a copyright violation.

Making quantitative observations about works is a longstanding, respected and important tool for criticism, analysis, archiving and new acts of creation. Measuring the steady contraction of the vocabulary in successive Agatha Christie novels turns out to offer a fascinating window into her dementia:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/03/agatha-christie-alzheimers-research

Programmatic analysis of scraped online speech is also critical to the burgeoning formal analyses of the language spoken by minorities, producing a vibrant account of the rigorous grammar of dialects that have long been dismissed as "slang":

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373950278_Lexicogrammatical_Analysis_on_African-American_Vernacular_English_Spoken_by_African-Amecian_You-Tubers

Since 1988, UCL Survey of English Language has maintained its "International Corpus of English," and scholars have plumbed its depth to draw important conclusions about the wide variety of Englishes spoken around the world, especially in postcolonial English-speaking countries:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/projects/ice.htm

The final step in training a model is publishing the conclusions of the quantitative analysis of the temporarily copied documents as software code. Code itself is a form of expressive speech – and that expressivity is key to the fight for privacy, because the fact that code is speech limits how governments can censor software:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech/

Are models infringing? Well, they certainly can be. In some cases, it's clear that models "memorized" some of the data in their training set, making the fair use, transient copy into an infringing, permanent one. That's generally considered to be the result of a programming error, and it could certainly be prevented (say, by comparing the model to the training data and removing any memorizations that appear).

Not every seeming act of memorization is a memorization, though. While specific models vary widely, the amount of data from each training item retained by the model is very small. For example, Midjourney retains about one byte of information from each image in its training data. If we're talking about a typical low-resolution web image of say, 300kb, that would be one three-hundred-thousandth (0.0000033%) of the original image.

Typically in copyright discussions, when one work contains 0.0000033% of another work, we don't even raise the question of fair use. Rather, we dismiss the use as de minimis (short for de minimis non curat lex or "The law does not concern itself with trifles"):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis

Busting someone who takes 0.0000033% of your work for copyright infringement is like swearing out a trespassing complaint against someone because the edge of their shoe touched one blade of grass on your lawn.

But some works or elements of work appear many times online. For example, the Getty Images watermark appears on millions of similar images of people standing on red carpets and runways, so a model that takes even in infinitesimal sample of each one of those works might still end up being able to produce a whole, recognizable Getty Images watermark.

The same is true for wire-service articles or other widely syndicated texts: there might be dozens or even hundreds of copies of these works in training data, resulting in the memorization of long passages from them.

This might be infringing (we're getting into some gnarly, unprecedented territory here), but again, even if it is, it wouldn't be a big hardship for model makers to post-process their models by comparing them to the training set, deleting any inadvertent memorizations. Even if the resulting model had zero memorizations, this would do nothing to alleviate the (legitimate) concerns of creative workers about the creation and use of these models.

So here's the first nuance in the AI art debate: as a technical matter, training a model isn't a copyright infringement. Creative workers who hope that they can use copyright law to prevent AI from changing the creative labor market are likely to be very disappointed in court:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sarah-silverman-lawsuit-ai-meta-1235669403/

But copyright law isn't a fixed, eternal entity. We write new copyright laws all the time. If current copyright law doesn't prevent the creation of models, what about a future copyright law?

Well, sure, that's a possibility. The first thing to consider is the possible collateral damage of such a law. The legal space for scraping enables a wide range of scholarly, archival, organizational and critical purposes. We'd have to be very careful not to inadvertently ban, say, the scraping of a politician's campaign website, lest we enable liars to run for office and renege on their promises, while they insist that they never made those promises in the first place. We wouldn't want to abolish search engines, or stop creators from scraping their own work off sites that are going away or changing their terms of service.

Now, onto quantitative analysis: counting words and measuring pixels are not activities that you should need permission to perform, with or without a computer, even if the person whose words or pixels you're counting doesn't want you to. You should be able to look as hard as you want at the pixels in Kate Middleton's family photos, or track the rise and fall of the Oxford comma, and you shouldn't need anyone's permission to do so.

Finally, there's publishing the model. There are plenty of published mathematical analyses of large corpuses that are useful and unobjectionable. I love me a good Google n-gram:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fantods%2C+heebie-jeebies&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

And large language models fill all kinds of important niches, like the Human Rights Data Analysis Group's LLM-based work helping the Innocence Project New Orleans' extract data from wrongful conviction case files:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

So that's nuance number two: if we decide to make a new copyright law, we'll need to be very sure that we don't accidentally crush these beneficial activities that don't undermine artistic labor markets.

This brings me to the most important point: passing a new copyright law that requires permission to train an AI won't help creative workers get paid or protect our jobs.

Getty Images pays photographers the least it can get away with. Publishers contracts have transformed by inches into miles-long, ghastly rights grabs that take everything from writers, but still shifts legal risks onto them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/19/reasonable-agreement/

Publishers like the New York Times bitterly oppose their writers' unions:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/new-york-times-stop-union-busting

These large corporations already control the copyrights to gigantic amounts of training data, and they have means, motive and opportunity to license these works for training a model in order to pay us less, and they are engaged in this activity right now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/technology/apple-ai-news-publishers.html

Big games studios are already acting as though there was a copyright in training data, and requiring their voice actors to begin every recording session with words to the effect of, "I hereby grant permission to train an AI with my voice" and if you don't like it, you can hit the bricks:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

If you're a creative worker hoping to pay your bills, it doesn't matter whether your wages are eroded by a model produced without paying your employer for the right to do so, or whether your employer got to double dip by selling your work to an AI company to train a model, and then used that model to fire you or erode your wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

Individual creative workers rarely have any bargaining leverage over the corporations that license our copyrights. That's why copyright's 40-year expansion (in duration, scope, statutory damages) has resulted in larger, more profitable entertainment companies, and lower payments – in real terms and as a share of the income generated by their work – for creative workers.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our book Chokepoint Capitalism, giving creative workers more rights to bargain with against giant corporations that control access to our audiences is like giving your bullied schoolkid extra lunch money – it's just a roundabout way of transferring that money to the bullies:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism/

There's an historical precedent for this struggle – the fight over music sampling. 40 years ago, it wasn't clear whether sampling required a copyright license, and early hip-hop artists took samples without permission, the way a horn player might drop a couple bars of a well-known song into a solo.

Many artists were rightfully furious over this. The "heritage acts" (the music industry's euphemism for "Black people") who were most sampled had been given very bad deals and had seen very little of the fortunes generated by their creative labor. Many of them were desperately poor, despite having made millions for their labels. When other musicians started making money off that work, they got mad.

In the decades that followed, the system for sampling changed, partly through court cases and partly through the commercial terms set by the Big Three labels: Sony, Warner and Universal, who control 70% of all music recordings. Today, you generally can't sample without signing up to one of the Big Three (they are reluctant to deal with indies), and that means taking their standard deal, which is very bad, and also signs away your right to control your samples.

So a musician who wants to sample has to sign the bad terms offered by a Big Three label, and then hand $500 out of their advance to one of those Big Three labels for the sample license. That $500 typically doesn't go to another artist – it goes to the label, who share it around their executives and investors. This is a system that makes every artist poorer.

But it gets worse. Putting a price on samples changes the kind of music that can be economically viable. If you wanted to clear all the samples on an album like Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back," or the Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique," you'd have to sell every CD for $150, just to break even:

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Sampling licenses don't just make every artist financially worse off, they also prevent the creation of music of the sort that millions of people enjoy. But it gets even worse. Some older, sample-heavy music can't be cleared. Most of De La Soul's catalog wasn't available for 15 years, and even though some of their seminal music came back in March 2022, the band's frontman Trugoy the Dove didn't live to see it – he died in February 2022:

https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/de-la-soul-trugoy-the-dove-dead-at-54.html

This is the third nuance: even if we can craft a model-banning copyright system that doesn't catch a lot of dolphins in its tuna net, it could still make artists poorer off.

Back when sampling started, it wasn't clear whether it would ever be considered artistically important. Early sampling was crude and experimental. Musicians who trained for years to master an instrument were dismissive of the idea that clicking a mouse was "making music." Today, most of us don't question the idea that sampling can produce meaningful art – even musicians who believe in licensing samples.

Having lived through that era, I'm prepared to believe that maybe I'll look back on AI "art" and say, "damn, I can't believe I never thought that could be real art."

But I wouldn't give odds on it.

I don't like AI art. I find it anodyne, boring. As Henry Farrell writes, it's uncanny, and not in a good way:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/large-language-models-are-uncanny

Farrell likens the work produced by AIs to the movement of a Ouija board's planchette, something that "seems to have a life of its own, even though its motion is a collective side-effect of the motions of the people whose fingers lightly rest on top of it." This is "spooky-action-at-a-close-up," transforming "collective inputs … into apparently quite specific outputs that are not the intended creation of any conscious mind."

Look, art is irrational in the sense that it speaks to us at some non-rational, or sub-rational level. Caring about the tribulations of imaginary people or being fascinated by pictures of things that don't exist (or that aren't even recognizable) doesn't make any sense. There's a way in which all art is like an optical illusion for our cognition, an imaginary thing that captures us the way a real thing might.

But art is amazing. Making art and experiencing art makes us feel big, numinous, irreducible emotions. Making art keeps me sane. Experiencing art is a precondition for all the joy in my life. Having spent most of my life as a working artist, I've come to the conclusion that the reason for this is that art transmits an approximation of some big, numinous irreducible emotion from an artist's mind to our own. That's it: that's why art is amazing.

AI doesn't have a mind. It doesn't have an intention. The aesthetic choices made by AI aren't choices, they're averages. As Farrell writes, "LLM art sometimes seems to communicate a message, as art does, but it is unclear where that message comes from, or what it means. If it has any meaning at all, it is a meaning that does not stem from organizing intention" (emphasis mine).

Farrell cites Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie, which defines "weird" in easy to understand terms ("that which does not belong") but really grapples with "eerie."

For Fisher, eeriness is "when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there is nothing present when there should be something." AI art produces the seeming of intention without intending anything. It appears to be an agent, but it has no agency. It's eerie.

Fisher talks about capitalism as eerie. Capital is "conjured out of nothing" but "exerts more influence than any allegedly substantial entity." The "invisible hand" shapes our lives more than any person. The invisible hand is fucking eerie. Capitalism is a system in which insubstantial non-things – corporations – appear to act with intention, often at odds with the intentions of the human beings carrying out those actions.

So will AI art ever be art? I don't know. There's a long tradition of using random or irrational or impersonal inputs as the starting point for human acts of artistic creativity. Think of divination:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/31/divination/

Or Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies:

http://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html

I love making my little collages for this blog, though I wouldn't call them important art. Nevertheless, piecing together bits of other peoples' work can make fantastic, important work of historical note:

https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/famous-anti-fascist-art/heartfield-posters-aiz

Even though painstakingly cutting out tiny elements from others' images can be a meditative and educational experience, I don't think that using tiny scissors or the lasso tool is what defines the "art" in collage. If you can automate some of this process, it could still be art.

Here's what I do know. Creating an individual bargainable copyright over training will not improve the material conditions of artists' lives – all it will do is change the relative shares of the value we create, shifting some of that value from tech companies that hate us and want us to starve to entertainment companies that hate us and want us to starve.

As an artist, I'm foursquare against anything that stands in the way of making art. As an artistic worker, I'm entirely committed to things that help workers get a fair share of the money their work creates, feed their families and pay their rent.

I think today's AI art is bad, and I think tomorrow's AI art will probably be bad, but even if you disagree (with either proposition), I hope you'll agree that we should be focused on making sure art is legal to make and that artists get paid for it.

Just because copyright won't fix the creative labor market, it doesn't follow that nothing will. If we're worried about labor issues, we can look to labor law to improve our conditions. That's what the Hollywood writers did, in their groundbreaking 2023 strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Now, the writers had an advantage: they are able to engage in "sectoral bargaining," where a union bargains with all the major employers at once. That's illegal in nearly every other kind of labor market. But if we're willing to entertain the possibility of getting a new copyright law passed (that won't make artists better off), why not the possibility of passing a new labor law (that will)? Sure, our bosses won't lobby alongside of us for more labor protection, the way they would for more copyright (think for a moment about what that says about who benefits from copyright versus labor law expansion).

But all workers benefit from expanded labor protection. Rather than going to Congress alongside our bosses from the studios and labels and publishers to demand more copyright, we could go to Congress alongside every kind of worker, from fast-food cashiers to publishing assistants to truck drivers to demand the right to sectoral bargaining. That's a hell of a coalition.

And if we do want to tinker with copyright to change the way training works, let's look at collective licensing, which can't be bargained away, rather than individual rights that can be confiscated at the entrance to our publisher, label or studio's offices. These collective licenses have been a huge success in protecting creative workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/united-we-stand/

Then there's copyright's wildest wild card: The US Copyright Office has repeatedly stated that works made by AIs aren't eligible for copyright, which is the exclusive purview of works of human authorship. This has been affirmed by courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

Neither AI companies nor entertainment companies will pay creative workers if they don't have to. But for any company contemplating selling an AI-generated work, the fact that it is born in the public domain presents a substantial hurdle, because anyone else is free to take that work and sell it or give it away.

Whether or not AI "art" will ever be good art isn't what our bosses are thinking about when they pay for AI licenses: rather, they are calculating that they have so much market power that they can sell whatever slop the AI makes, and pay less for the AI license than they would make for a human artist's work. As is the case in every industry, AI can't do an artist's job, but an AI salesman can convince an artist's boss to fire the creative worker and replace them with AI:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

They don't care if it's slop – they just care about their bottom line. A studio executive who cancels a widely anticipated film prior to its release to get a tax-credit isn't thinking about artistic integrity. They care about one thing: money. The fact that AI works can be freely copied, sold or given away may not mean much to a creative worker who actually makes their own art, but I assure you, it's the only thing that matters to our bosses.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

#pluralistic #ai art #eerie #ai #weird #henry farrell #copyright #copyfight #creative labor markets #what is art #ideomotor response #mark fisher #invisible hand #uncanniness #prompting

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thealieninhiding · 7 months ago

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The Katie McGrath Archives (WIP)

A repository of my ongoing digital archeology & archival work please contact me if you have anything to contribute and buy me a coffee if you value my content

message me if you want a link to her complete filmography 🤫

Updates

(last updated 2024-07-03)

2024-07-03

Scans:

2014-02-07 London Times - Dracula sets

Audio:

(Un)likeminded 2x02 How to Survive The Apocalypse

2024-05-24

Video:

2017 Katie McGrath interview [CW|KMcGsource]

2017 Supergirl Season 3 Sweet dreams (are made of this) Music Video

2017 CW SDCC Promo Supergirl and Arrow

2019-01-01 The CW Promo Open To All

2021-04-25 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Lena Luthor

2021-09-15 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Reflecting on Supergirl

2024-05-22

Audio:

Interview - 2009-07-17 Katie McGrath Mr Media interview

Interview - 2009-10-15 Geek Syndicate Merlin BTS special

Video:

BTS - 2008-10-08 Blue Peter Merlin BTS

Events - 2009 TV Choice Awards Digital Spy interview

Events - Getty Videos of 2009 TV Choice Awards, 2010 Merlin Series 3 launch, 2011 W.E. premiere, 2017 King Arthur Premiere

2024-05-17

Archived interviews

2008-12-07 Tribune Magazine - What Katie Did

2011-10-14 What's on TV - Merlin's Katie McGrath- 'Bad girls have more fun!'

2012-12-03 Fanhattan Blog - Colin Morgan, Katie McGrath and Bradley James on Season 5 and The Series Finale

2018-08-01 The TV Junkies - Supergirl SDCC 2018 Interviews- Lena’s Impractical Lab Outfits, the Return of Reporter Kara and a More Grounded Season 4

Audio

HHush samples

Interview - 2009-2011 Sci-fi Talk rewind merlin the series specials episode 1

Interview - 2011? Merlin S4 Sci-fi talk byte katie mcgrath on morgana

Interview - 2013 BBC Radio 1xtra part 1 & part 2

(Un)likeminded 1x02 While You Were Dreaming

Trees a crowd- Irish folklore segment

Magazine scans

2008-09-20 Radio Times

2009-06-08 TV Week (Aus)

2010-09-05 Sunday Express

2010-09-30 Totally Merlin Magazine

2011-12 Total Film

2012-03-14 Sci-Fi Now

2012-10-06 Radio Times

2013-04-06 Irish independent

2013-09-02 Marie-Claire (UK)

2013-12 Instyle

2013-12 Total Film

Video:

Fans - 2012-04-16 Merlin4 [carlospyrrhus]

Fans - 2017-08-30 Supergirl cast together on set [Joyce Law]

Interview - 2009-09-?? Merlin S2 audio interview with Katie McGrath [BJsRealm] part 1

Interview - 2010-09-06 Merlin Series 3 - BBC Radio 1xtra Interview with Angel Coulby & Katie McGrath [BJsrealm]

Interview - 2011-10-14 Merlin S4 Colin Morgan, Eoin Macken Katie McGrath on The Late Late Show

Interview - 2012-07-15 Colin Morgan and Katie McGrath at SDCC 2012 - innerSPACE [merlinnetwork2]

Interview - 2012-07-18 Katie McGrath Talks Merlin At Comic Con 2012 [ThinkHeroTV]

Interview - 2012-10-25 BBC Radio 1 Breakfast - Colin & Katie part 1 & part 2 [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Merlin S5 Katie McGrath interview international press day [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Colin, Bradley, Katie phone interview [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2013-11-09 Katie McGrath on BBC One Saturday Kitchen [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2019-07-22 ENTREVISTA SUPERGIRL Elenco fala sobre a nova temporada [Warner Channel Brasil]

Interview - 2019-07-23 Melissa Benoist Teases Directing An Episode Of 'Supergirl' [ET Canada]

Interview - 2020-02-21 ‘Supergirl’ Celebrates 100th Episode [ET Canada]

Panels - 2011-07-28 Merlin Comic Con 2011 Panel [ThinkHeroTV]

#katie mcgrath #katie mcgrath interview #Katie McGrath archive #Katie McGrath filmography archive #wayback machine #media preservation

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helveticablanc · 3 months ago

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From the Archives — 2021 09 08-14

#helveticablanc #wormsong #occultart #mysticart #magic #magick #illustration #art

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whumpetywhump · 4 months ago

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Game Of Outlaws (2021)

Nont Wongdecha

01:

- Grieving, crying, guilt-stricken

- Passes out drunk in the shower, dragged into bed, wakes up with a hangover

05:

- Punched during a fistfight, bruised face

06:

- Face still bruised from last episode

- Shot in the arm, bleeding, dragged to his feet

09:

- Shot in the side, dragged to safety

10:

- Treating his own gunshot wound from last episode, gasping in pain, gags himself while stitching it, trying to hide the injury, bleeding through his shirt

- Punched in the face

- Pistol whipped by his crush

11:

- Drunk, needs support to walk

- Chloroformed, kidnapped, wakes up tied to a chair, beaten up, bloody lip, choked

12:

- Hit with flying shrapnel in an explosion, bleeding from the head, stunned, passes out, dragged to safety, rushed to hospital, recovering in bed with a neck brace, tries and fails to get up

16:

- Face cut and scraped during a gunfight, stabbed in the back with a poisoned knife, bleeding, passes out, hospitalised, cardiac arrest, given CPR, intubated, recovering in bed, wakes up in pain

17:

- Face still scraped from last episode, needs support to walk

- Punched in the face, knocked out, kidnapped, tied up

18:

- Still tied up, face still cut and scraped, soaked in petrol and left to die in a fire, crying, rescued

19:

- Face still cut and scraped

- Shot in the arm, bleeding

Mavin

07:

- Flashback: Bloodied from a beating, held at gunpoint, protected

- Shot in the back

08:

- Still bleeding from last episode, shot in the back again, recovering in hospital

10:

- Punched in the face

12:

- Slapped in the face

14:

- Flashback: Face bruised after a fight, sobbing, comforted

17:

- Punched in the gut

- Emotional breakdown, sobbing, punching himself in the face, comforted

19:

- Shot in the arm and gut, collapses to his knees, shouting in pain

- Shot repeatedly in the chest, falls to his knees, collapses, cradled, dies in his girl’s arms

Ravee Pattarapreecha

05:

- Shot in the shoulder, collapses, bleeding on the ground, passes out

06:

- Punched in the face, nosebleed

07:

- Punched to the ground, beaten up, knocked out, dragged to a car, kidnapped

- Tied up, punched in the face during a hostage video, beaten up in an escape attempt, bruised face, tied up again, held hostage at knifepoint

08:

- Face still bruised from last episode

- Shot in the arm, bleeding, recovering in hospital

10:

- Smacked in the face by his sister

14:

- Stabbed repeatedly in someone else’s dream

17:

- Kidnapped, punched in the face, tied up, held hostage

TW: Contains themes of child abuse, noncon and addiction

#game of outlaws #whump #thai whump #thai drama #asian whump #whump list #mark prin suparat #top jaron sorat #noraphat thitakawin

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welcometoqueer · 14 days ago

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U.S. Recount Updates/News:

Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race will officially go to a recount. GOP candidate David McCormick is leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by less than 0.5% in the vote total, triggering an automatic recount under state law.

Furthermore,

Election and cybersecurity experts sent a formal letter to Vice President Kamala Harris urging a recount in key states, citing potential breaches in voting machines and the fact that voting systems were breached by Trump allies in 2021 and 2022.

https://freespeechforpeople.org/computer-scientists-breaches-of-voting-system-software-warrant-recounts-to-ensure-election-verification/

Cited evidence within the footnotes include:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/08/15/sidney-powell-coffee-county-sullivan-strickler/

Additionally,

The Nevada Secretary of State issued a violation notice regarding election security. A police report has been filed after evidence emerged indicating that Nevada officials may have removed 26,902 ballots from their reported mail-in ballot totals.

[ID:

Three images.

The first is a statement regarding a recount being triggered in the Pennsylvania Senate race. It reads:

“Unofficial Results in U.S. Senate Race Trigger Legally Required Automatic State Recount

Harrisburg, PA — Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced today that unofficial results in the Nov. 5 general election race for U.S.

Senate have triggered a legally required statewide recount.

Senator Bob Casey and Dave McCormick have vote totals within the one-half of 1 percent margin that triggers a mandatory recount under state law.

As of today, the unofficial returns for the U.S. Senate race submitted by all 67 counties show the following results for the top two candidates:

Robert P. Casey Jr. - 3,350,972 (48.50%)

David H. McCormick - 3,380,310 (48.93%)

Once counties finish counting their ballots, they must begin the recount no later than Wednesday, Nov. 20. They must complete the recount by noon on Nov. 26 and must report results to the Secretary by noon on Nov. 27. Results of the recount will not be published until Nov. 27.

The Department estimates that the recount cost will exceed $1 million of taxpayer funds.

This is the eighth time the automatic recount provision has been triggered since the passage of Act 97 of 2004. In the four cases in which the recount was carried out, the initial results of the election were affirmed. Those recounts and the costs for each were as follows:

2022 primary: Oz vs. McCormick, Republican race for U.S. Senate, $1,052,609.

2021 general: Dumas vs. Crompton, Commonwealth Court, $1,117,180.

2011 primary: Boockvar vs. Ernsberger, Democratic race for Commonwealth Court, $525,006.70.

2009 general: Lazarus vs. Colville vs. Smith, Superior Court race, $541,698.56.

For more information about the legally mandated automatic recount procedures, see the Department's directive on this topic (link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com).

Update on outstanding ballot totals

As of this afternoon, county election officials reported there are 60,366 uncounted provisional ballots and 20,155 uncounted mail-in and absentee ballots. That 80,521 total includes all ballots for which county boards of elections have not yet made a final resolution regarding their validity or eligibility to be counted.

As of the issuance of this release, the Department's election returns page [link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com] reflects the unofficial totals that counties have reported. These numbers will change beginning Thursday morning, Nov. 14, as counties continue to canvass provisional ballots and otherwise count ballots. These changes are unrelated to the recount.”

The second image depicts the first page of a formal letter addressed to Vice President Kamala Harris from election security experts urging an election recount in key states. It reads:

“November 13, 2024

The Honorable Kamala Harris

The White House

Office of the Vice President

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Vice President Harris,

We write to alert you to serious election security breaches that have threatened the security and integrity of the 2024 elections, and to identify ways to ensure that the will of the voters is reflected and that voters should have confidence in the result. The most effective manner of doing so is through targeted recounts requested by the candidate. In the light of the breaches we ask that you formally request hand recounts in at least the states of Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. We have no evidence that the outcomes of the elections in those states were actually compromised as a result of the security breaches, and we are not suggesting that they were. But binding risk-limiting audits (RLAs) or hand recounts should be routine for all elections, especially when the stakes are high and the results are close. We believe that, under the current circumstances when massive software breaches are known and documented, recounts are necessary and appropriate to remove all potential doubt and to set an example for security best practices in all elections.

In 2022, records, video camera footage, and deposition testimony produced in a civil case in Georgia' disclosed that its voting system, used statewide, had been breached over multiple days by operatives hired by attorneys for Donald Trump. The evidence showed that the operatives made copies of the software”

(The page cuts off here).

Below there are footnotes with cited evidence for grounds to request a recount.

“No. 17-cv-02989-AT (N.D. Ga. filed Aug. 8, 2017).

1. Emma Brown, Jon Swaine, Aaron C. Davis, Amy Gardner, "Trump-allied lawyers pursued voting machine data in multiple states, records reveal," The Washington Post, (August 15, 2022). Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/08/15/sidney-powell-coffee-county-sullivan-strickler/

3 Kate Brumback, "Video fills in details on alleged Ga. election system breach," The Associated Press, (September 6, 2022). Available at: https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-technology-donald-trump-voting-92c0ace71d7bee6151dd33938688371e

The third image is an excerpt of the Election Security Violation Notice issued by the Nevada Secretary of State. It reads:

“ELECTION INTEGRITY VIOLATION REPORT

The information you report on this form may be used to help us investigate violations of Nevada election laws. When completed, mail, email, or fax your form and supporting documents to the office listed above. Upon receipt, your complaint will be reviewed by a member of our staff. The length of this process can vary depending on the circumstances and information you provide with your complaint. The Office of the Secretary of State may contact you if additional information is needed.

INSTRUCTIONS: Please TYPE/PRINT your complaint in dark ink. You must write LEGIBLY. All fields MUST be completed.

SECTION 3.

COMPLAINT IS AGAINST

Please detail the nature of your complaint. Include the name and contact information (if known) of the individual, candidate, campaign, or group that is the subject of your complaint. Your complaint must also include a clear and concise statement of facts sufficient to establish that the alleged violation occurred. Any relevant documents or other evidence that support your complaint should be listed and attached. You may attach additional sheets if necessary.

On 11-8-24, the mail ballot accepted list deleted 28,320 ballots from Clark County. At this same time, Sam Brown lost his lead. These ballots were accepted on 11-7-24 and then on 11-8-24 for the first time since 10-16-24 and reporting began, ballots were deleted from 2 counties. Washoe and Clark.

See ATTACHED.”

/end ID]

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thankyouforthememoriesworld · 3 months ago

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Thank you for all the Gabby/MJ posts. My timeline is flooded with Paige-Azzi to the point I’m almost sick of them 😂 I love how lowkey Gabby and MJ are, do you have a timeline on their relationship?

You're welcome 😊, I love introducing new people to Willannès. They're the introverted French version of Pazzi (if you know some French athletes then you get what I mean).

That's why you shouldn't follow too many accounts or you'll see the same posts 11 times in a row 🤏🏻

Here we go, the Willannès timeline PART ONE:

▪ July 27, 2016: France faced the USA in preparation for the Olympics with Gabby in the stands (baby Jojo played in it). It was this match that made her want to represent France 🇫🇷.

▪ mid-May 2021: Gabby is selected to play the Euro with France and meets the team for the first time. She hit it off with Jojo, Alexia and Iliana but especially Jojo (a journalist asked her how long they'd known each other, given their complicity, and it was a week lol 😏).

Only 2 weeks after meeting, Jojo asked Gabby if she could tattoo her and she told her 'Sure' (the Pac-Man on her thigh, gay idiots).

▪ June, 2021: Willannès being glued to one another during all the friendly games and the Euro.

▪ July 06 - August 08, 2021: Jojo and Gabby became closer and closer as they prepared for and competed in the Tokyo Olympics. Seeing it written is a little crazy because it made me realize that they somehow spent more than 2 months together (no wonder it changed their dynamic).

Gabby's TikTok recap with a tender-eyed Jojo

▪ November 07 to 14, 2021: EuroBasket - Qualifiers

(waiting for Gabby before going into the bus 🥺)

▪ February 03 to 13, 2022: World Cup qualifiers

▪ Early 2022: Stories and rumors are all pointing to them getting together around this time 🥰.

▪ April 2022: Jojo smirking in her Gabby-branded sweater and Gabby's interview about her tattoos.

▪ June 2022: Gabby signed her contract with Asvel for 2 years to be in the same club as Jojo 💖.

#fuck me I can't put more pics and it's already so long #I get lost in things #I'll do the PART 2 another time #willannès #timeline part 1

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astraofdelos · 5 months ago

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My Personal Headcanons for the Batfamily

(All ages are calculated for the last day of 2024. If people want me to add onto this for other Batfamily members or associates, lmk)

Bruce Thomas Wayne: 43, 02/19/1981

— 19 when he went off to the LoA (2000)

— 24 when he became Batman (2005)

— 27 when he took in Dick (2008)

Barbara Joan Gordon: 24, 09/23/2000

— 12 when she became Batgirl (2012)

— 17; paralyzed (2017)

— 18 when she became Oracle (2018)

Richard John “Dick” Grayson-Wayne: 24, 11/11/2000

— 10 when he became Robin I (2010)

— 15 when he became Nightwing (2015)

Cassandra Carolyn “Cass” Cain-Wayne: 22, 01/26/2002

— 18 when she became Batgirl II (2020)

— 19 when she became Black Bat (2021)

— 21 when she became Orphan (2023)

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne: 22, 8/16/2002

— 13 when he became Robin II (2015)

— 15; died (2017)

— 18 when he became Red Hood (2020)

Timothy Jackson “Tim” Drake-Wayne: 19, 07/19/2005

— 13 when he became Robin III (2018)

— 16 when he became Red Robin (2021)

Stephanie Brown: 19, 08/11/2005

— 14 when she became Spoiler (2019)

— 16 when she became Robin IV (2021)

— 16 when she became Batgirl III (2021)

— 18 when she became Spoiler again (2023)

Duke Thomas: 17, 08/13/2007

— 14 when he became Robin (2021)

— 15 when he became Signal (2022)

Damian Thomas al Ghul- Wayne: 12, 08/09/2012

— 10 when he became Robin VI (2022)

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koch-snowflake-blog · 1 month ago

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長谷川朋加（はせがわともか、1991年5月2日 - ）は、日本のフリーアナウンサー。　

北海道帯広市出身。帯広北高等学校特進コース、拓殖大学政経学部法律政治学科卒業。2014年4月から2016年3月まではNHK山形放送局で契約キャスター、2016年3月から2019年3月までは四国放送でアナウンサーとして、2019年6月から2021年5月までは福島テレビでアナウンサーとして活動した。

2021年5月5日のテレポートプラスで番組卒業と福島テレビの退社を発表した。それ以降は東京に拠点を移し、「日本一走るアナウンサー」を自称して活動をしている。

樋田かおりが設立したトークナビにも所属し、企業研修や就職活動の面接指導などを行っている。

趣味は、スポーツ（するのも観るのも大好き!）、公共交通機関を使う旅。

特技は、バスケットボール、スピードスケート、水泳、氷上綱引き、似てない似顔絵を描く事。

好きな物は、お肉、お祭り、初挑戦。

2018年加古川マラソンに参加し、3時間14分08秒で完走。

#長谷川朋加 #はせがわともか

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calderacitylovers · 1 year ago

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Zutara SlowBurn FanFiction: Personal Favs, part I

· I AM STILL HERE by owedbetter Published: 2017-10-09 | 77K words | 7 Chapters

After the Last Agni Kai K heals Z with the help of bloodbending. Very sweet.

· THE SUMMIT by AJLenoire

Chronicles post-war years, as Gaang and other characters gather for annual summits to keep peace and build relationships between the Four Nations. Katara yearns for a bigger purpose than the Avatar’s companion and slowly grows into a shrewd diplomat. Very sweet slow burn ZK story. Has mature scenes.

· CLOTHE ME IN SEASONS, DRESS ME IN SNOW by sadladybug Published: 2015-01-05 | 62K words | 7 Chapters

Follows old Zuko as he reflects on his life and what would have been if he kept Katara closer. Absolutely beautiful, but also a devastatingly heart-breaking story about loss and pain.

· SILENT DECLARATIONS by Megara Pike (Megara_Pike) Published: 2021-01-20 | 2,6K words

A short story based on animation by Hayley Wong. Z finds K asleep in her study and carries her to bed. Very sweet, gentle story.

· COVERED IN YOU by evergreenonthehorizon Published: 2021-04-02 | 55K words | 14 Chapters

Eight years after the war Z convinces K to take on a role of a Southern Water Tribe ambassador in the Caldera city. Both are completely clueless about each other’s feelings. Features political talks, big gestures, and a ball. Very cute, sweet slow-burn story. Has mature scenes.

· TEN STRIDES IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION by evergreenonthehorizon Published: 2021-04-03 | 29K Words | 12 Chapters

A collection of short stories filling in the gaps between some of the events of ATLAS3 and up to the Last Agni Kai. Features accidental cuddling, embracing in the rain, sharing a bed for warmth, post-Ember Island Theater discussions, being discovered, waiting to be kissed, Suki & Katara being good friends, battle plans, Zuko & Sokka getting drunk, slow burn & angst. Very sweet.

· THE SWAY OF THE SUN by TheBlackBriarSparrow Published: Published: 2019-10-14 | 102K Words | 27 Chapters

Two years post-war Gaang reunites in Caldera city for a secret party in honor of the overworked Fire Lord’s birthday. Rebels attack the palace setting a thrilling consequence of events in motion. Adventures, investigations, and fights ensue. Z & K work together and enlist old friends to help find missing people. Beautiful slow-burn story with an exciting plot.

· A WARM EMBRACE by ewinkie Published: 2020-10-06 | 19K Words | 7 Chapters

An ATLAS3 rewrite from Southern Riders to the Last Agni Kai. Katara and Zuko have to hide in a cave following their encounter with Yon Rha. Comforting turns to cuddling, which turns to waking up on Appa's tail in each other's arms. Katara is shocked at how comfortable she is. Zuko is shocked that Katara doesn't hate him for it. Features sharing a bed, being discovered, slowburn, and lots of teenage silliness.

· FOLLOWING BLUE by Boogum Published: 2018-11-07 | 39K Words | 10 Chapters

ATLA S2 rewrite. After Katara falls from Appa’s saddle during a pursuit, the Blue Spirit becomes her reluctant companion and helps her reunite with her friends. Ba Sing Se scenes are completely rewritten, and Z ends up joining the Gaang much earlier. Thrilling beginning, sweet middle, average ending.

· ANOTHER WORD FOR ALCHEMY by FanPanda13 Published: 2014-08-19 | 108K words | 24 Chapters

Five years post-war Aang summons old friends for a summit and invites them on a trip to investigate mysterious locations where he experiences loss of bending. Features Gaang setting Z & K up, travelling on Appa like in the olden days, lots of sparring, royal courting, magnificent navy ships & war ballons. Thrilling story with fun banter between old friends. Slowburn, mature content.

· CONSUME ME WITH FIRE, FLOOD ME WITH DESIRE by Dacamia Published: 2020-08-14 | 86K words | 24 Chapters

Steamy ATLAS2 and ATLA S3 rewrite. Z & K accidentally meetup on their way to Ba Sing Se and decide to travel together. Features aged-up characters, lots of intimate scenes, staying in a beautiful cave, helping villagers, betrayal in Ba Sing Se, reunion, forgiveness, etc. Explicit mature content.

· ROOTS AND WINGS by zukoscomet Published: 2020-08-14 | 250K words | 25 Chapters

A series of short stories of Z & K as they grow closer, confess their love for one another and start a family.

· THOSE WHO FAVOR FIRE by hiwasseelane Published: 2021-05-02 |29K Words | 13 Chapters

An ATLAS3 rewrite. Sweet, teen-appopriate.

Here’s a link to Part II of my personal favs.

Here’s a link to Wholesome Zutara Short Stories.

#zutara #zukoxkatara #zuko #katara #katara x zuko #zutara fanfiction

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unclewarwick · 4 months ago

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i am making this an art blog now, so i thought i should actually start posting my art here. i finished this drawing today and the rest of the art in this post is from newest to oldest. this post is most of my batman-related art since the last time i posted a big amount of batman art (which was december 2022).

i have a heavy preference for drawing batjokes but am trying to draw more and more of the rogues gallery. i have my own vague storyline ideas that include both batman and the joker being trans men, but in my story he is called bruceman/bat wayne.

2024-07-10 -- i do an annual redraw of this meme. this was the fifth version. the first time i drew it (in 2021) was the first time i had tried to properly draw either of them, despite having a deep batman interest for a long long time, and drawing for even longer.

2024-06-28 -- i spent 41 and a half hours on this one. my first big attempt at pixel art. it was from a bad chronic illness week so it was meant as a purposely ugly and simple drawing but it spiralled out of control.

2024-07-05 and 2024-05-11 -- my concept art for the scarecrow.

2024-04-22 and 2024-03-21 and 2024-02-11 -- the joker taunting bat wayne, an argument with alfred, a community meme redraw that i didn't like the end result of but was unwell while drawing so i give myself a break.

2024-02-08 and 2024-02-06 -- the riddler being desperate for attention on social media, my two-face concept art

2024-01-27 -- my take on the oft-parodied the amazing spider-man #601 cover art.

2024-01-18 -- joker thinks he's being sneaky but doesn't know he's with the same person twice.

2024-01-11 and 2024-01-10 -- catwoman being fun and sillie (from before i redesigned her weird mask and goggles that i originally tried to give her)

art from 1 and 8 december of 2023 that i posted on here

both from 2023-09-10 -- a couple of quick low effort drawings from when i was feeling funky

2023-08-06 and 2023-08-13 and 2023-08-18 -- mini comic where you can see the comic formatting skill developing in each part.. just a small story idea i had revolving around a double joke about bat wayne's Identity. and still figuring out how to draw the riddler.

2023-08-02 -- my first depiction of riddler & first drawing of har-lee (my name for harley quinn) out of costume.

2023-06-18 and 2023-06-15 -- my first drawings ever of har-lee; i did not stick with this costume design for her because i fixed it and made it actually look good and make sense at all a whole year later (character design is my weakness), and also just a simple meme.

youtube

2023-06-15 -- i don't have an animation program, so making this was a real struggle.

2023-04-28 and 2023-04-23 -- bruceman picking up tampons in the middle of a fight, bruceman and joker "fighting".

2023-04-04 and 2023-03-21 -- Earring Magic J, joker being the autistic, gay, trans dad of autistic, gay, trans pee-wee herman (including muffin the cat from batman: legends of the dark knight #50)

all from 2022-11-14 -- a comic Not about being trans, no, not at all...

2022-11-27 -- a fully rendered version of the last panel.

there's more that's not included here because of the 30 image limitation, but those are mostly further concept drawings of har-lee that i didn't like, and lower quality joke drawings. one bigger thing i've left out are stills from an animatic/animation project i started quite a while back (it's not even my only WIP of that kind) and haven't continued progress on for a while. i would prefer to share that all at once whenever it's finished.

#aurt #caumics #animation #bruceman #batjokes #batman #the joker #long post

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months ago

Text

Subprime gadgets

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THIS SUNDAY in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON: YA Fantasy, Room 207, 10 a.m.; Signing, 11 a.m.; Teaching Writing, 2 p.m., Room 213CD.

The promise of feudal security: "Surrender control over your digital life so that we, the wise, giant corporation, can ensure that you aren't tricked into catastrophic blunders that expose you to harm":

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

The tech giant is a feudal warlord whose platform is a fortress; move into the fortress and the warlord will defend you against the bandits roaming the lawless land beyond its walls.

That's the promise, here's the failure: What happens when the warlord decides to attack you? If a tech giant decides to do something that harms you, the fortress becomes a prison and the thick walls keep you in.

Apple does this all the time: "click this box and we will use our control over our platform to stop Facebook from spying on you" (Ios as fortress). "No matter what box you click, we will spy on you and because we control which apps you can install, we can stop you from blocking our spying" (Ios as prison):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

But it's not just Apple – any corporation that arrogates to itself the right to override your own choices about your technology will eventually yield to temptation, using that veto to help itself at your expense:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Once the corporation puts the gun on the mantelpiece in Act One, they're begging their KPI-obsessed managers to take it down and shoot you in the head with it in anticipation of of their annual Act Three performance review:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

One particularly pernicious form of control is "trusted computing" and its handmaiden, "remote attestation." Broadly, this is when a device is designed to gather information about how it is configured and to send verifiable testaments about that configuration to third parties, even if you want to lie to those people:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1

New HP printers are designed to continuously monitor how you use them – and data-mine the documents you print for marketing data. You have to hand over a credit-card in order to use them, and HP reserves the right to fine you if your printer is unreachable, which would frustrate their ability to spy on you and charge you rent:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Under normal circumstances, this technological attack would prompt a defense, like an aftermarket mod that prevents your printer's computer from monitoring you. This is "adversarial interoperability," a once-common technological move:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

An adversarial interoperator seeking to protect HP printer users from HP could gin up fake telemetry to send to HP, so they wouldn't be able to tell that you'd seized the means of computation, triggering fines charged to your credit card.

Enter remote attestation: if HP can create a sealed "trusted platform module" or a (less reliable) "secure enclave" that gathers and cryptographically signs information about which software your printer is running, HP can detect when you have modified it. They can force your printer to rat you out – to spill your secrets to your enemy.

Remote attestation is already a reliable feature of mobile platforms, allowing agencies and corporations whose services you use to make sure that you're perfectly defenseless – not blocking ads or tracking, or doing anything else that shifts power from them to you – before they agree to communicate with your device.

What's more, these "trusted computing" systems aren't just technological impediments to your digital wellbeing – they also carry the force of law. Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, these snitch-chips are "an effective means of access control" which means that anyone who helps you bypass them faces a $500,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence for a first offense.

Feudal security builds fortresses out of trusted computing and remote attestation and promises to use them to defend you from marauders. Remote attestation lets them determine whether your device has been compromised by someone seeking to harm you – it gives them a reliable testament about your device's configuration even if your device has been poisoned by bandits:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The fact that you can't override your computer's remote attestations means that you can't be tricked into doing so. That's a part of your computer that belongs to the manufacturer, not you, and it only takes orders from its owner. So long as the benevolent dictator remains benevolent, this is a protective against your own lapses, follies and missteps. But if the corporate warlord turns bandit, this makes you powerless to stop them from devouring you whole.

With that out of the way, let's talk about debt.

Debt is a normal feature of any economy, but today's debt plays a different role from the normal debt that characterized life before wages stagnated and inequality skyrocketed. 40 years ago, neoliberalism – with its assaults on unions and regulations – kicked off a multigenerational process of taking wealth away from working people to make the rich richer.

Have you ever watched a genius pickpocket like Apollo Robbins work? When Robins lifts your wristwatch, he curls his fingers around your wrist, expertly adding pressure to simulate the effect of a watchband, even as he takes away your watch. Then, he gradually releases his grip, so slowly that you don't even notice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/ppqjya/apollo_robbins_a_master_pickpocket_effortlessly/

For the wealthy to successfully impoverish the rest of us, they had to provide something that made us feel like we were still doing OK, even as they stole our wages, our savings, and our futures. So, even as they shipped our jobs overseas in search of weak environmental laws and weaker labor protection, they shared some of the savings with us, letting us buy more with less. But if your wages keep stagnating, it doesn't matter how cheap a big-screen TV gets, because you're tapped out.

So in tandem with cheap goods from overseas sweatshops, we got easy credit: access to debt. As wages fell, debt rose up to fill the gap. For a while, it's felt OK. Your wages might be falling off, the cost of health care and university might be skyrocketing, but everything was getting cheaper, it was so easy to borrow, and your principal asset – your family home – was going up in value, too.

This period was a "bezzle," John Kenneth Galbraith's name for "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." It's the moment after Apollo Robbins has your watch but before you notice it's gone. In that moment, both you and Robbins feel like you have a watch – the world's supply of watch-derived happiness actually goes up for a moment.

There's a natural limit to debt-fueled consumption: as Michael Hudson says, "debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." Once the debtor owes more than they can pay back – or even service – creditors become less willing to advance credit to them. Worse, they start to demand the right to liquidate the debtor's assets. That can trigger some pretty intense political instability, especially when the only substantial asset most debtors own is the roof over their heads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

"Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," but that doesn't stop creditors from trying to get blood from our stones. As more of us became bankrupt, the bankruptcy system was gutted, turned into a punitive measure designed to terrorize people into continuing to pay down their debts long past the point where they can reasonably do so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

Enter "subprime" – loans advanced to people who stand no meaningful chance of every paying them back. We all remember the subprime housing bubble, in which complex and deceptive mortgages were extended to borrowers on the promise that they could either flip or remortgage their house before the subprime mortgages detonated when their "teaser rates" expired and the price of staying in your home doubled or tripled.

Subprime housing loans were extended on the belief that people would meekly render themselves homeless once the music stopped, forfeiting all the money they'd plowed into their homes because the contract said they had to. For a brief minute there, it looked like there would be a rebellion against mass foreclosure, but then Obama and Timothy Geithner decreed that millions of Americans would have to lose their homes to "foam the runways" for the banks:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/

That's one way to run a subprime shop: offer predatory loans to people who can't afford them and then confiscate their assets when they – inevitably – fail to pay their debts off.

But there's another form of subprime, familiar to loan sharks through the ages: lend money at punitive interest rates, such that the borrower can never repay the debt, and then terrorize the borrower into making payments for as long as possible. Do this right and the borrower will pay you several times the value of the loan, and still owe you a bundle. If the borrower ever earns anything, you'll have a claim on it. Think of Americans who borrowed $79,000 to go to university, paid back $190,000 and still owe $236,000:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

This kind of loan-sharking is profitable, but labor-intensive. It requires that the debtor make payments they fundamentally can't afford. The usurer needs to get their straw right down into the very bottom of the borrower's milkshake and suck up every drop. You need to convince the debtor to sell their wedding ring, then dip into their kid's college fund, then steal their father's coin collection, and, then break into cars to steal the stereos. It takes a lot of person-to-person work to keep your sucker sufficiently motivated to do all that.

This is where digital meets subprime. There's $1T worth of subprime car-loans in America. These are pure predation: the lender sells a beater to a mark, offering a low down-payment loan with a low initial interest rate. The borrower makes payments at that rate for a couple of months, but then the rate blows up to more than they can afford.

Trusted computing makes this marginal racket into a serious industry. First, there's the ability of the car to narc you out to the repo man by reporting on its location. Tesla does one better: if you get behind in your payments, your Tesla immobilizes itself and phones home, waits for the repo man to come to the parking lot, then it backs itself out of the spot while honking its horn and flashing its lights:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

That immobilization trick shows how a canny subprime car-lender can combine the two kinds of subprime: they can secure the loan against an asset (the car), but also coerce borrowers into prioritizing repayment over other necessities of life. After your car immobilizes itself, you just might decide to call the dealership and put down your credit card, even if that means not being able to afford groceries or child support or rent.

One thing we can say about digital tools: they're flexible. Any sadistic motivational technique a lender can dream up, a computerized device can execute. The subprime car market relies on a spectrum of coercive tactics: cars that immobilize themselves, sure, but how about cars that turn on their speakers to max and blare a continuous recording telling you that you're a deadbeat and demanding payment?

https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/

The more a subprime lender can rely on a gadget to torment you on their behalf, the more loans they can issue. Here, at last, is a form of automation-driven mass unemployment: normally, an economy that has been fully captured by wealthy oligarchs needs squadrons of cruel arm-breakers to convince the plebs to prioritize debt service over survival. The infinitely flexible, tireless digital arm-breakers enabled by trusted computing have deprived all of those skilled torturers of their rightful employment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

The world leader in trusted computing isn't cars, though – it's phones. Long before anyone figured out how to make a car take orders from its manufacturer over the objections of its driver, Apple and Google were inventing "curating computing" whose app stores determined which software you could run and how you could run it.

Back in 2021, Indian subprime lenders hit on the strategy of securing their loans by loading borrowers' phones up with digital arm-breaking software:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

The software would gather statistics on your app usage. When you missed a payment, the phone would block you from accessing your most frequently used app. If that didn't motivate you to pay, you'd lose your second-most favorite app, then your third, fourth, etc.

This kind of digital arm-breaking is only possible if your phone is designed to prioritize remote instructions – from the manufacturer and its app makers – over your own. It also only works if the digital arm-breaking company can confirm that you haven't jailbroken your phone, which might allow you to send fake data back saying that your apps have been disabled, while you continue to use those apps. In other words, this kind of digital sadism only works if you've got trusted computing and remote attestation.

Enter "Device Lock Controller," an app that comes pre-installed on some Google Pixel phones. To quote from the app's description: "Device Lock Controller enables device management for credit providers. Your provider can remotely restrict access to your device if you don't make payments":

https://lemmy.world/post/13359866

Google's pitch to Android users is that their "walled garden" is a fortress that keeps people who want to do bad things to you from reaching you. But they're pre-installing software that turns the fortress into a prison that you can't escape if they decide to let someone come after you.

There's a certain kind of economist who looks at these forms of automated, fine-grained punishments and sees nothing but a tool for producing an "efficient market" in debt. For them, the ability to automate arm-breaking results in loans being offered to good, hardworking people who would otherwise be deprived of credit, because lenders will judge that these borrowers can be "incentivized" into continuing payments even to the point of total destitution.

This is classic efficient market hypothesis brain worms, the kind of cognitive dead-end that you arrive at when you conceive of people in purely economic terms, without considering the power relationships between them. It's a dead end you navigate to if you only think about things as they are today – vast numbers of indebted people who command fewer assets and lower wages than at any time since WWII – and treat this as a "natural" state: "how can these poors expect to be offered more debt unless they agree to have their all-important pocket computers booby-trapped?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/29/boobytrap/#device-lock-controller

Image: Oatsy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #debt #subprime #armbreakers #mobile #google #android #apps #drm #technological self-determination #efficient market hypothesis brainworms #law and political economy #gadgets #boobytraps #app stores #curated computing #og app #trusted computing

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