#Blackbox Service

[figures4fun]

Saw No Time to Die for the first time. Quite the callback to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

[slowd1ving]

Hello can u write a Dokja x Medusa!male!reader please

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR GORGON ゜゜・KIM DOKJA

'You listening, Dokja? Maybe if you followed the guides for dealing with intelligent species like this one, you wouldn't be in such a stupid mess.' yall think aegis can be used as a different sort of barrier?!?! sorry anon this is less mythology centric than i planned icl art by @ 1L9l2Aa8UCL0IGJ (blackbox) on x! pairing: kim dokja + male reader warnings: canon typical danger, mentions of self-sacrifice wc: 2.9k

ORV MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

There exist several unspoken rules when interacting with the particularly volatile species integrated onto Planetary System 8612. Most ‘monsters’ are unable to effectively communicate with the main intelligent species in the domes, thus are doomed for imminent slaughter. However, exceptions like the catalyst behind these reports must be treated with particular regard. 

Guidelines will serve you well in the coming days, reader. If you’ve accessed these reports, it probably means the days are bleak and you’ve encountered one of these species. One thing is for certain; if you are reading this, you will survive your encounter with a gorgon. 

< Observation log, section 1 > (Relative Earth time 21/◼◼/20◼◼)TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDING

‘Rule number one: if possible, do not engage with a gorgon. Though, considering your perusal of these records, it seems this was not successful on your end. Better luck next time!’

‘Sooyoung-ah, don’t be ru—’

Avoidance was always a good policy when it came to the apocalypse. It saved time, toil, and lives—much like a vaccine helped one bypass a virus. But one couldn’t rely on it entirely; neither vaccine nor evasion was infallible after all. 

‘If they were, these records would not need to exist.’

And for humans, their biggest hamartia was their ignorance. Nerve cells could only do so much to detect dangerous stimuli and trigger a reflex for flight. If the hazard was less obvious, much more innocuous, then the poor human would only be wading into quicksand if they weren’t smart enough. Right before getting devoured. 

‘Of course that squid was the blind one who got us into this mess.’

Just like these unspoken rules, it was de facto that Kim Dokja was unlucky. Unfortunate. Ill-destined. However you chose to put it, the man was born under a cursed star, which meant that the stranger sitting across from him in the park was naturally part of his jinx as well. 

“What are you staring at?” Unlike the squid wearing his stupidly pristine coat, the man sitting on the bench facing him appeared to be a student: civilian wear and a lanyard still around your neck, like you’d frozen in time these past few months. Glasses rested on your nose, which you pushed up each time they slipped—even if they moved only minutely. 

Perhaps you were nervous, but the caustic indifference in your tone suggested it was an unlikely possibility. 

“Ah, sorry. I have a habit of looking at interesting people,” he laughed your question off, but the lack of information on you, coupled with the fact he didn’t recognise who you were, gave him the answer he needed. You weren’t a part of the original novel. “Uh, it’s a nice park, isn’t it? Lovely statues.”

You glanced at the reader, unimpressed. Just like that handsome bastard, there was that same impassive scowl plastered on your face. But as soon as he’d mentioned the sculptures scattered around this surprisingly lush pocket of Seoul, your face had softened somewhat. 

“Art major?” he probed, for there was something about your gaze that drew words from his mouth. Or perhaps it was just how surreal this scene was: someone enjoying the park like anyone before the paid service began, just some guy taking a breather from classes with a thick, bound book beside him. 

A ballpoint pen, rather than a sword or any other weapon. Blue ink, instead of bloody atrament. 

You were a part of this world, yet detached from it all. 

“No, chemistry,” you said. Deadpan, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m specialising in geochemistry. Rocks, soil, minerals. Humans do so underappreciate what goes on beneath their feet.”

Specialising. Present tense. Not specialised. 

Humans: like you were utterly detached from anyone and everyone. 

His breath caught in his throat.

The urging of constellations reminded him of just the situation he was in—about to run out of time in this sub-scenario, where hordes of monsters would soon swarm. Right in this very park. 

“Listen, you’ll need to get out of here soon—there’s going to be swarms of insect-like creatures here in, uh, five minutes give or take. You’ll be in danger if you can’t fight,” he swallowed. A look of disdain flickered in your eyes, and his head throbbed with how much your expressions resembled that sunfish bastard’s. You’re the idiot, your brows indicated, while the set of your mouth held only one question: who said I couldn’t fight? In the same strand of thinking, the sudden curdle of your shoulders—hunched, guarded—seemed to gesture and who are you to tell me that?

‘If only you knew back then.’

In short, you could fight. You could fight, and you were absolutely terrifying to watch. 

“Aegis,” you whispered, and the statues seemed to continue in susurration with you as the air warped in on itself. Dokja was thrown back by the shockwave as the space rippled—all in time for the main guests of the sub-scenario to arrive. 

Insect mutations. 

They crashed right into the distortions. A barrier. You’d set up an impenetrable defence in less time it took for him to draw breath, only for him to keel over behind you instead. Wow. Okay. He could still work with that. 

“What are you—”

“Silence.” It would’ve stung less if you just told him to shut up instead, but from the very get-go you were never particularly nice. Kind? Somewhat, in the sense you’d viewed him as some useless, bumbling fool that would be better off behind the translucent shield you’d conjured. But nice? No, from the very beginning, you were never nice. 

‘Deserved.’

That was fine. Bearable. Still in the realms of believability. 

For Kim Dokja, the shock came after watching your hand raise to your face to slip your glasses off. From the back, he could no longer see the stern expression you no doubt wore. But he wasn’t focused on your face, but rather the warmth of the day instantly seeping from the molecules. 

Time itself froze, and the insects did too. 

No one breathed, and not a singular sound rang out—save something hissing. A tire, perhaps, but nobody was fool enough to simply drive cars during the apocalypse. 

Then came the stirring of your clothes. It was a breeze only you felt, rippling and undulating until your hair moved too. Except it wasn’t the wind that hissed, nor was it the wind that wafted the coils. No, they twisted into thicker, scaly locks—snake-like, except these were snakes suddenly attached to your head. It was no longer a simile, nor was it a metaphor. 

You had fucking snakes in your hair. 

His breathing was shallow; in the sudden frigid climate, those puffs crystallised and condensed in small white clouds. 

And what of those insects?

His eyes flicked back to the ground shakily, to where the arthropods lay crumbling. Statues, like the ones he’d complimented brief minutes ago. Pearlescent marble—no, stone. Your glasses were still grasped tight in your hand, and he knew if you turned to meet his wide-eyed stare he’d be next. But, alas—

“Who… are you?” 

‘And this is how Kim Dokja put his foot in his mouth and demonstrated his exceptionally poor luck.’

< Observation log, section 2 > (Relative Earth time 24/◼◼/20◼◼)TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDING

‘Rule number two: do not stare into the eyes of a gorgon. Don’t even look, except for when there are protective measures in place. Case one: a blindfold. Case two: glasses, which he literally wears every minute of the day save for when he’s sleeping. Dokja, do not sneak up on the man when he’s sleeping.’

‘Dokja, you suck.’

It wasn’t often you let down your guard, with writhing, clawing humans nonetheless. Pointing fingers to find the monsters under their beds and threatening their cities—when in fact it was their bellicose faults that doomed them. A self-made end, a fitting conclusion for the snake that bites its own tail. If you had ever been human once, these people shared more blood with the beasts than they thought. 

Point was: you didn’t particularly care for those who appeared to be like you. Bodies, soft and squishy from a life coddled in cities; smiles duplicitous and more monstrous than any snarl; and their thoughts, often more heinous than any demon. And despite their sins, they’d meander in life wrapped in the bliss of self-ignorance. Dead in their varying morals like shrouds of far-too different cloths. 

In this, no human was the same. This was the philosophy that alienated yourself from your sisters. 

This was also the philosophy that landed you in a warm, damp place—completely dark with something poking at your cheeks. Correction—even through the thin membrane and slightly thicker skin that covered your eyes, there appeared to be a dim redness seeping into the edges of blackness. It seemed your blood vessels were alit by some foolish beastling. Almost like the golden chariot was prancing afore your eyes, except only Aeos of the Dawn was trotting along your lash line with a proud toss of his shrunken head. 

Your fingers twitched inside your sleeping bag, but you forced a deep breath in before you could hear any hissing. 

Actually, you knew exactly who was prodding at your cheek with a frigid index finger; the faint brush of his scent gave him away almost instantaneously. 

“Kim Dokja. Are you an idiot?” you ground out, eyes still tightly shut to avoid turning this fool to stone. “I’ve already agreed to travelling with your circus, so I’d prefer you refrain from getting petrified.”

“You really do sound like him when you’re irritated,” he let out with a suppressed snort. 

“Aegis,” you whispered, and the impertinent hand ceased its movements. 

The barrier was not, in fact, activated. 

“Gave me a bit of a fright there,” he swallowed. “I just wanted to say, it’s fine if you open your eyes.”

“No,” you deadpanned. Though you couldn’t see the expression, you could feel your facial muscles twitch into an impassive wall. “Don’t involve me with your stupid plans to kill yourself off.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he corrected himself. Were all humans like this when you lived as one? “It just won’t work on me. Me alone, which is why I locked the door so no one could come in.”

“Why?” He was a fool like the rest of them—risking peril for a glimpse of cursed eyes. Like all of man, his hubris rested heavy on his shoulders. 

“I just want to see your smug face without any glasses.”

“You’re looking at it presently,” you argued. Though your ire was evident with your furrowed brows, he didn’t relent. Where was that puny man who’d trembled behind you at the sight of insects? More importantly, how had he changed so quickly?

“With your eyes open,” he clarified. He was more insane than anyone you’d ever met. 

“Does it really make a difference?” you stalled. “How can you be sure you won’t suffer the effects as every other human and beast does?”

“You care about me that much?” 

It was a quiet question. A tentative venture into teasing, yet strangely vulnerable. 

“You worried?” he echoed. It was a weak aegis of his own, already prepared to accept your scoff and firm no. 

“Fool.” Both the skin eyelids and the thin membrane unsheathed haunting irises. You already knew what you’d see in them—a milky sort of quality to their natural colouring, even without the extra membrane. Slit pupils dilated minutely at the sight of him, and his breath caught in his throat as you gazed upwards, unblinking. 

Fool. The word echoed in his mind, an answer to his question but not at the same time. 

I’m not worried. 

Peering, your claws gently grazed his face: almost a kiss, if a kiss left a slight sting behind.

“I’m always worried about you, Kim Dokja,” you murmured, and it was perhaps then that his heartbeat grew erratic. Staring into those pretty eyes of yours with your thumb tenderly swiping across his flushed cheekbones, it was no wonder he could taste his very pulse. “Remember our first meeting?”

“How could I forget?”

A back facing his hunched form, more dependable than the shield spreading and curling beneath your mighty palms. Snakes coiling down your back, but there was nothing scary about how they swayed like ribbons in the sunset. And finally those eyes, directly protecting him from the swarms of insects. 

No, perhaps it was then when the thrum of the organ grew somewhat more rapid. 

‘Glad you realised.’

< Observation log, section 3 > (Relative Earth time 03/◼◼/20◼◼)TRANSCRIPTION OF RECORDING

‘Rule number three: do not feed the snakes. Do not feed the snakes, Dokja. DO NOT FEED THE GODDAMN SNAKES.’

“Is Kim Dokja a masochist?”

The question, like most questions, came out of the blue. Such an innocuous, casual tone veiled your usual clipped syllables that Han Sooyoung found herself seriously internalising your words, before—

“What— koff— huh?” she spluttered against the sudden taste of her lemon candy, expression turning troubled, then incredulous. 

“Does he take pleasure in torturing himself?” you clarified, as though it were a matter of comprehension rather than tact. 

‘I knew what a masochist was! Why would he ask that?’

“If it’s Dokja, probably,” she coughed finally. Honestly, she’d pondered this very question herself—staring deadpan at the numerous deaths he’d experienced by his own plans. “Uh, just so we’re clear, why do you ask?”

“Is it normal to try to feed my snakes?” Definitely not.

“That… idiot did what?” she stared at the resident gorgon with quite the perplexed expression, but soon regained her composure. “No, not particularly. Are they… venomous?”

“Yes. Very much so. Please tell him to quit.”

Yet, despite all the half-hearted chidings of you and Sooyoung alike, your little snakes were beginning to grow fat and affectionate towards the man. You could feel something fundamental begin to shift, and it wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling. 

< Observation log, section 4 > (Relative Earth time 14/◼◼/20◼◼)TRANSCRIPTION OF RECORDING

‘Rule number four: gorgon venom should not be ingested. If you are Kim Dokja, this applies perhaps most poignantly to you. You may be immune to its effects for whatever reason, but the venom is a nightmare to get out of clothing. Thanks.’

“An experiment?” 

Kim Dokja’s face didn’t change from his usual, vaguely blurred visage; but it wasn’t like snakes had particularly good eyesight regardless. “Yes. Would you be up for it?”

You’d agreed on a whim. Why the experiment was to take place in a closed room, you didn’t particularly know. Maybe humans encountering an apocalypse had special customs to adhere to. “I am familiar with experimental protocol in laboratories and practicals.”

“Would you like to help me upgrade my poison-immunity skill?”

You’d initially refused outright—struck dumb at how recklessly he treated his life. Every time you thought he was a fool, he proved himself even more foolish—a crazed endeavour if you ever saw it. 

Gorgon poison. Released in more diluted doses from the snakes on you, concentrated particularly in the bone-white fangs in your mouth. Like a vampire, Yoo Sangah had excitedly noted: much too excitedly for your liking. 

Bite me, he asked you. 

A pale wrist was held out cautiously in front of him. The air was no longer mere air, but an ancient altar dedicated to this sacrifice. Thus, you were the priest for this rite once more, but this time the ram carried the bronze knife itself. 

He’s an idiot, you seethed, yet you were too. 

For you suggested a less painful way of transferring venom, but he agreed. For you gently clasped his chin with razor sharp talons skimming the dermis of his throat, but he melted pliantly in your hands. For you leaned in with softened eyes, but his own simply fluttered shut in anticipation. 

You surged, pressing him against the cold cement of the wall. Air was robbed from his lungs as he gasped, but rather than pulling back his warm, human hands merely wrapped around your nape to meld your body against his. 

Why did his hands shake so? Was this not just an experimental procedure dedicated to strengthening a human? 

Despite your analytical mind, your eyes closed too—both membrane and skin—and you savoured the lingering taste of the meaty dinner he’d eaten, and the underlying flavour of him. Hot blood pumped beneath his fragile oral mucosa; your greedy, long tongue prodded his own to find just where his pulse thrummed the strongest. 

Ah, fuck, he thought dumbly; sloppily making out with you in a forgotten room was not how he’d envisioned this night, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

Even as he winced with sharp pain when your fangs cut his lips, he couldn’t pull back—objective achieved but long forgotten. Those pesky, wandering hands of his clung onto your body when his head canted: deepening the kiss rather than wrapping up his poison exposure. 

Iron tainted his mouth. Dripping past the seams of desperate lips was the crimson mixture of blood and venom, dripping onto his sweater and corroding the very threads—yet Kim Dokja both did not notice and did not particularly care. 

But all good things came to an end. The two of you were met with an extremely exasperated Han Sooyoung at the door as she gave you a look, one that implied I expected better from you. For Dokja, the reserved expression was I expected this, to be honest. 

‘PDA is not appreciated during the apocalypse. Take that shit elsewhere.’

‘Thus, these reports can be summarily concluded in two points of advice: 

1. Unless you are Kim Dokja, do not attempt any of these activities with a gorgon. 

2. Simply don’t do what Kim Dokja does.’

[thefirstknife]

Ok, so finale.

Rasputin was the best of us. I will never emotionally recover from this. Like, this is genuinely the biggest character death since Cayde. I can't handle this. His final lore tab:

The last bit after "SIGNOFF" is just the usual "STOP STOP STOP." Also "K9-BLACKBOX" would be the dog! He sent the data to Archie! I'm crying!

Next! The Traveler! We were correct! Sort of! It did start leaving, but it stopped so it's still in orbit. But it was ready to bolt and I do not blame it.

Eramis! Well that settles that. No redemption for her I guess, she is fully in service to the Witness.

The cutscene absolutely slaughtered me. Especially Mithrax and Eido and the rest of the Eliksni like, please.

Glad Ana had Elsie there with her.

I am so normal right now.

[devleader]

Hot take: There's nothing inherently wrong with testing implementation details I'm sorry if you spit out your coffee when you read that, but hear me out before you smash a novel out on your mechanical keyboard to fight me on this. My approach to testing software boils down to one fundamental: Building confidence in the changes we're delivering So if you're preparing your debate points, just know that this is the perspective I'm grounded in. How we build confidence can and will look different from situation to situation. When I build parsers, I almost always go straight to TDD. I don't even love TDD, but I treat my system like a blackbox and test inputs and outputs. I am constantly rearranging the guts of my parsing logic and I just want to make sure I get the right stuff out based on what I put in. When I build bigger or more complex systems, this story changes. Quite a bit. Just because there are different scenarios I need to consider. "But you must test against the API, not the implementation details!" When I'm writing code, there are some things that aren't known on the API but they're behaviors I expect. And if I need confidence on those things, you can bet your butt that I'm going to write tests to give me that confidence. Some things that I can't just "test against the API" of the method I'm calling: - Does my call to an external service handle exceptions properly? - If necessary, does that call handle retries accordingly? - Before we go roll out a deployment worldwide to hundreds of thousands of servers, are we sending the right telemetry? - Do we have the right logging in place for helpful debug information? ... There are countless scenarios I've encountered where it's been helpful to test implementation details. "But then your tests become brittle! You can never change the code now!!!" Look, you're changing the code without the coverage and breaking all sorts of expected behavior because it wasn't "against the API" so there were no tests. Now if you made it this far before you rushed to the comments to rage: - No, I don't think this is the only way to test - Yes, I would (generally) prefer system/integration tests since they've become very cheap/fast to run - No, I don't think any one type of test is superior to all of them - Yes, I do mix all sorts of testing into my codebase - Yes, I refactor code non-stop - Yes, there are absolutely times I have to blow away tests when I rewrite the guts of something But along the way I'm deciding where I need to build confidence with all of the tools at my disposal. ---- 📨 Sign up for my email newsletter! 🗣️ Share with your network! #Coding #Programming #SoftwareEngineering #Testing

[jgthirlwell]

playlist 08.29.23

Aphex Twin Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / in a room7 F760 (Warp) The Armed Perfect Saviors (Sargent House) The British Stereo Collective Mystery Fields (Castles In Space) Memorials Music for the film Tramps (The State51 Conspiracy) Regal Worm Worm! (Quatermass) Wild Up Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich? (New Amsterdam) Deerhoof Miracle Level (Joyful Noise) Jherek Bischoff Cistern (Leaf) Osees Intercepted Message (In The Red) Poppy I Disagree (Sumerian) Paul Cousins Vanishing Artefacts (Castles In Space) Cate Brooks Tapeworks (Cafe Kaput) Public Service Broadcasting The Race For Space (Test Card) Brett Anderson Coal Black Morning Book (Little, Brown UK)

[perseverantdt]

After seeing one-too-many posts about how sending prompts (stories, specifically) to ChatGPT allows it to use that prompt to base its response on, I decided to look into what really happens when someone prompts ChatGPT with something. I looked into the various policies that OpenAI adheres to, as well as the various blog posts they've made on their website. Even without knowing what goes on in the blackbox that is ChatGPT, we can still figure out quite a lot about what OpenAI does with user prompts.

It's extremely nuanced, and I would like to invite everyone to read this in full, just to know what happens to their prompts. I won't try to convince you that you should or shouldn't use ChatGPT. This isn't the purpose of this post. This is just meant to be an informative text about the stuff that most people wouldn't know about.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert in large language models, nor in machine learning in general. Moreover, parts of these may be inaccurate as I do not have access to OpenAI's internal systems. All of these are inferences based on their policies, papers, and the assumption that nothing extremely shady happens behind closed doors.

TL;DR: Prompts you send to ChatGPT gets used to fine-tune their text completion models. Because of how fine-tuning works, it's not a stretch to say that this includes ChatGPT. However, ChatGPT cannot learn from your prompts, as it is not being trained on those. If you provide it with writing through a prompt, it won't be able to replicate that writing style permanently. On the other hand, it is possible that text completion models in training are being trained from your prompts. This is not explicitly stated, but it is plausible that they use a filtered version of their prompt dataset to train their text completion models.

Training LLMs With Prompts?

What Happens to Prompts

Let's take a quick look at ChatGPT and the company behind them, OpenAI. Reading into their Terms of Service, they outright state that whatever data you send them gets used to train their large language models (LLMs). In their words:

We do not use Content that you provide to or receive from our API (“API Content”) to develop or improve our Services. We may use Content from Services other than our API (“Non-API Content”) to help develop and improve our Services. ... If you do not want your Non-API Content used to improve Services, you can opt out by filling out this form. Please note that in some cases this may limit the ability of our Services to better address your specific use case.

Source: Terms of use (openai.com)

Now, what exactly is it that they consider as API and Non-API Content? This is actually pretty straightforward. If you head over to OpenAI's API Playground, you can have a look at what they consider API content. If you're using the API Playground for your completions, that is considered API content. Whenever you use their API, OpenAI bills your account depending on your usage. This is likely the reason why API content is an opt-in when it comes to data collection. On the other hand, prompts and responses from ChatGPT, is considered non-API content. OpenAI does not bill you for using these services. Although ChatGPT Plus is a paid subscription service that gives access to more functionalities, the use of ChatGPT is completely free. As such, your prompts to ChatGPT get used to train their LLMs, even if you paid for ChatGPT Plus.

OpenAI's Privacy Policy states exactly which kind of information they collect from you. Reading into them, there's nothing noteworthy about them. I'm not going to say that them collecting "your name, contact information, account credentials, payment card information, and transaction history" is some sort of danger. These are the usual kinds of data that any company with some form of online payment will collect. As stated in their privacy policy, these are data that you provide when "you create an account to use our Services or communicate with us". When pertaining to prompts, they explicitly state that they "may collect Personal Information that is included in the input, file uploads, or feedback that you provide to our Services". As such, it is important that when you use ChatGPT (or any text completion AIs for that matter), you do not include any identifying information in your prompts.

OpenAI's API data usage policy states that they retain API data (that is, user prompts) for 30 days "for abuse and misuse monitoring purposes." We can assume that this is their policy for data that does not get used for model training. As for data that gets used for model training, OpenAI does not explicitly state how long they store them. The only thing they say about such data is that they "only keep this information for as long as we need it to serve its intended purpose". This is written in their blog post about how ChatGPT and their other text completion models are developed. Given that such data needs to be stored long-term to be usable for model training, I think we can safely assume that these kinds of data are stored essentially forever. If such data is no longer necessary or useful for training, then they might remove it from their systems. Whether they do so isn't something I can confirm or deny.

[vernyak]

Van valami lenyűgöző elsőre az AI-ban de minél többet használod vagy nézel róla dolgokat, kiderül, hogy humbug. A gyorsasága persze tetszik és idővel javulhat és finomodhat is, ez kétségtelen. (A VR-nél is volt valami hasonló, hogy ez most tényleg világmegváltó lesz)

Az a baj, hogy ezek a kezdő lépések még nem lettek volna érettek a nyilvánosságra. Btw honnan tudod, hogy "fejlődött" vagy változtattak valamit az AI-on? honnan tudod hogy finomhangolták? Software as a service = blackbox lesz számodra mindig is. Ezért kurva veszélyes, mert nem tudhatod, hogy egy aktor nem tol-e el véletlen vagy szándékosan pár potmétert (akár csak a te cloud-bérleményedben) és okoz ezzel neked beláthatalan károkat?

On premise AI-ból azért kevés van. Ha végre az is egy docker konténer lesz, mint a betanított Stable Diffusion, akkor oké, mert azt lehet patchelgetni, hogy úgy működjön ahogy nekem tetszik.

De amíg nem látjuk hogy áll össze, addig inkább nem bízom benne.

[thetadispatcher]

"They probably were, but I don't know about right now... I can't even say if there are any other people left besides us." He knew there were other underwater stations, but with most of the communication grid in shambles he wasn't able to contact them to see if anyone had remained at the stations. He was inclined to believe they were abandoned as most had been served orders to shut down so everyone could be at home with their loved ones of the end of the world.

"You'd have to ask Ross about that, if he is willing to be cooperative and answer questions." From his experience with Ross, he knew the man would definitely make it a hassle to get him to answer anything they might want to ask him as he seemed to enjoy doing that.

Strasky headed up the second flight of stairs, opening a door labeled South Hall F2 to a hall that had some structure gel growths that had hardened so they lacked to usual glow to them. He then headed for the main entrance diving room, just to see what was there.

He opened the door to the room, glancing at the headless person in a diving suit right by the door, then to the one in a uniform laying on the floor. Slowly his attention shifted to the person in a uniform slumped chest first into the wall under a open service box that was coated in what remained of their head, they must've been trying to repair the faulty door before they died. He glanced at the person by the exit, they were in their diving suit with the helmet on, but the force of their head exploding had shattered the glass which was quite impressive with the amount of pressure the helmets were made to withstand. " Guess they were trying to get away from whatever the WAU was doing, I can't imagine it felt nice to have their blackboxes messed with." He noted as he looked over the bodies again.

He shook his head then left the room, heading for Containment F2 and overriding the lockdown for the floor once more as he was only able to do it for the each floor once they were on it. The lights came on and the rest of the rooms unlocked with a thud.

Strasky left the terminal to head into the Power Room which was connected to Containment F2. He entered the Power Room, ignoring the storage room in the hall to it as he knew it would just have spare equipment inside. He rounded a corner in the power room and stopped to stare at a man who was sitting on the floor, leaning up against a machine. He had a small terminal for checking the machine's status stuck to his head that was clearly broken from the gel popping it apart. Structure gel tubes where wrapped around his neck and the rest of his body, some had smaller tubes sticking off that appeared to be moving.

Strasky knelt down to look at the man, noting that the man was still breathing, but thanks to the equipment stuck to over half of his face he wasn't able to identify who it was yet or if he was actually still alive. He'd come to learn that breathing didn't necessarily mean the person was alive.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Carthage was remotely reviewing the WAU's activity." Rook said, "It's easy to hide your incompetence if someone is cleaning up after you."

"Or perhaps Ross believed he could aspire to being the savior of the last pocket humanity while disregarding the fact he clearly isn't qualified as a programmer."

The maniacal laugh didn't upset Bishop as much as it did Rook, who didn't seem to find Strasky's joke very funny. She made sure to stick close as she was going to argue there were better ways to acquire extra storage space.

"Look on the bright side." Bishop said with a grin, "At least this time around we're the ones inflicting pain."

[blackboxau]

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[blackboxfranchising]

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[govindhtech]

How Math-Based Dida Machine Learning Automates Sales

Dida machine learning

The gap between what businesses require from machine learning (ML) solutions and what off-the-shelf, blackbox products can offer is widening in tandem with the business desire for complicated automation. Dida specialises in creating unique AI solutions for businesses ranging from medium-sized to huge. Their highly skilled team, who have degrees in physics and mathematics, is skilled at approaching complicated issues abstractly in order to provide Their clients with advanced, practical AI solutions. Additionally, because Their solutions are explainable due to their modular design, businesses can clearly see what is happening at every stage of the process.

Future energy compared to historical bottlenecks They successfully utilised Their special blend of machine learning and mathematics expertise when They developed a custom AI solution using Google Cloud to automate a portion of Enpal’s solar panel sales process. Enpal, the first greentech unicorn in Germany, was experiencing a time of tremendous expansion due to the growing demand for environmental sustainability solutions in the country.

Enpal required a more effective method of producing bids for potential solar panel buyers in order to maintain this growth. During this process, a salesman would manually count the number of roof tiles to determine the size of the roof, estimate the roof’s angle, then input a satellite image of the customer’s rooftop into a desktop application. The salesman would then determine how many solar panels the customer would require using this estimate before building a mock-up to depict the solar panels on the roof.

One salesperson needed 120 minutes to do the entire procedure, which made it challenging to scale as the company expanded. It was also prone to error due to the laborious counting of the roof tiles and the imprecise estimation of the roof’s angle, which resulted in erroneous cost and energy production estimates. Enpal intended to create a unique artificial intelligence solution to automate the procedure, lowering inefficiencies and raising accuracy. Enpal came to us because they realised they needed Their blend of mathematical problem solving and AI experience.

Effective training of strong machine learning models At dida, They build Their solutions on Google Cloud whenever possible, but They are platform neutral to meet specific customer requests. Cloud is a cheap, easy-to-use platform with several AI development tools. Since They only pay for the services They use, the price model is affordable. They created a modular, understandable solution by segmenting the process as They developed Enpal’s solution into a number of smaller parts. Nearly every stage of the process involved the use of Google Cloud products.

Getting enough rooftop photos or data to create a strong machine learning model was the first step. To train the model, They collected pictures of rooftops in a variety of sizes and forms using the Google Maps Platform API. They managed costs by using automatic storage class transitions while storing all of these photographs in Cloud Storage.

They used these pictures to create a baseline model in order to validate the idea. In order to do this, the model had to be trained to recognise the difference between rooftops and other features, as well as where skylights and chimneys would make it impossible to install solar panels.

They ran experiments using a CI/CD workflow in Cloud Build while They constructed the model, modifying parameters to create a functional working model. They were able to maintain a continuous development cycle by using Cloud Build, which improved process efficiency and allowed us to construct Their baseline model in just four weeks.

Applying a theoretical framework to practical issues Then, it took some effort to figure out the proper formula to determine the roof’s south-facing side angle. In order to do this, Their team used projective geometry and its mathematical problem-solving abilities to create a model that could determine the correct angle from roof images submitted by potential clients. They created an automated procedure to determine the roof area by combining this mathematical technique with the ML model. They then added two more phases to this process: one to determine the required number of solar panels and another to visualise their placement on the roof.

During the ML model-training process, they employed Compute Engine and added GPUs to Their virtual machines to expedite workloads and provide high availability. They could easily scale Their utilisation up or down with Compute Engine, so They were only charged for the compute power They actually used. TensorBoard allowed us to keep an eye on each individual training session while They refined Their model, which allowed us to evaluate the model’s performance.

Automating the procedure to achieve a quicker, more precise sales process After a six-month development period, Enpal developed a customised, automated solution to swiftly and easily determine the size of a roof and the necessary number of panels. Additionally, because the solution was modular, Enpal was able to manually modify specifics along the route, such a roof’s exact proportions, to guarantee the conclusion was as accurate as possible.

This allowed Enpal to have good visibility into how the system was operating. They measured the accuracy of rooftop detection using a performance metric known as Intersection over Union (IoU). They attained an IoU of 93% during model training, optimisation, and post-processing.

Using the help of Their solution and the effectiveness of constructing it using Google Cloud, an Enpal salesperson can now complete an automated procedure in just 15 minutes as opposed to the previous manual method that took 120 minutes, a decrease of 87.5%.

Thirteen employees of Enpal were utilising the software when They first started working on it. After four years, this has increased to 150 Enpal workers, who are now able to save 87.5% of their time for other, more specialised jobs. As a result of the model’s increased accuracy, consumers receive quotes with fewer errors, which speeds up the sales process and enhances the customer experience.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[baileytomkinsviscomblog]

Case Study - D&D Winners Research

Deforestation is not a fiction

Advertising agency – Strike

Production company – Fix Studios

This animation was produced on behalf of Greenpeace. The video's goal is to raise awareness about deforestation by demonstrating how intensive animal farming and the consumption of meat and dairy products are the main contributors to this problem.

Despite being computer-generated, the technique is intended to resemble stop-motion clay animation. The concept works well since it presents itself as a light-hearted and kid-friendly cartoon, but the sombre themes about the realities of excessive animal farming and deforestation is cleverly contrasted.

Gun Stats

Advertising Agency – Alma

Ad agency Alma used actual data to develop several gun forms for the Change the Ref campaign, which was started by the parents of Joaquin Oliver, a victim of the Parkland High School mass shooting. This well-thought-out campaign aims to draw attention to and examine the US gun culture while reminding regular Americans of these often-overlooked or unknowable figures.

One star cookbook

Advertising agency - ‿ and us

Design agency - No One

Production company – BlackBox

Deliveroo used actual, one-star reviews from customers whose food orders were damaged during delivery to create a spoof cookbook. These orders have been comically recreated by Deliveroo, who presents them as authentic recipes that you can cook and names the food in a way that indicates how it has been ruined. The photos that go with it are reminiscent of the type that you might see in an upscale gourmet cookbook. Seeing these ruined meals captured on camera is novel and refreshing.

Magpie Studio

Sleepy TV

SleepyTV is a health and wellness channel that was created to aid weary viewers in falling asleep. The in-room or in-flight on-demand service was developed specifically for the tourism sector. It provides audiences with a blend of traditional storytelling, yoga, breathwork, and guided meditation in settings where it might be difficult to relax. The logo, which was created to be experienced in motion, simulates the blinking pattern of tired eyes. This small gesture instantly establishes a relatable and recognisable shorthand for the channel.

Unity jumper

To celebrate the increasing global collaboration amongst visual designers, San Francisco Design Week launched CommUNITY – a group exhibition and silent auction hosted at its annual gala. Magpie was asked to produce a piece for the show that embodied the notion that we are all related and unified within the design industry. That two heads are always better than one

Senser spirits packaging

Senser Spirits has developed a line of non-alcoholic Plant Spirits that are designed to uplift your spirits without impairing your judgement. Each spirit promotes a certain emotional state that is often associated with alcohol use. From a growing sense of confidence (Blend One), to feeling sociable (Blend Two) and full of energy (Blend Three). The story on Magpie's packaging draws a parallel between the transformation of your emotional state and that of a spirit animal.

Imagine campaign

Papermaker Robert Horne was keen to get the creative industry's attention with the launch of its newest paper, Imagine. To appeal to a design-savvy audience, Magpie developed a marketing strategy that suggests everything is possible with enough ingenuity. They created a series of intriguing and inspiring posters using seemingly impossible illustrations.

Gavin Martin vegetable ink mailer

Award-winning printer Gavin Martin Associates was excited to announce the introduction of vegetable inks and reassure clients that their exacting standards would not be sacrificed. The solution offered by Magpie Studio was a giant pumpkin with a first-place rosette to hold all the details. The choice of a giant pumpkin was effective as it was both relevant to what the product was made of and displayed its quality.

Sarah Grundy artist identity

Sarah Grundy is a make-up artist who’s worked in film and TV for over 30 years. The objective for Magpie was to establish an identity that would attract the attention of upcoming industry professionals. They created a campaign-led brand that made the most of her ability to make the unbelievable believable. Every component—from bearded ladies to babies with tattoos—is a striking example of her talent.

Bandido coffee

Bandido is an independent coffee brand for free-spirited individuals. Magpie Studio produced a design that uses the letter 'B' to embody the brand's disruptive, playful approach. The letter 'B' is presented in a way that alludes to a bandit mask. I admire this branding design as it shows how often the most creative solutions can be the simplest.

[super-lad]

i'm reading a wired article about how in 2016 three teens sometimes running shitty DSL connections got so good at hacking they knocked several big sites (amazon, twitter, facebook, etc.) off the internet for a few hours and were subsequently hired by the fbi. article highlights include:

the apparently high stakes world of amateur hackers where kids and teens take down random sites and each other's routers for skill improvement, petty revenge, or by typical internet fashion: for the shits and giggles. sometimes, they'll SWAT each other if they're mad enough. it's like lord of the flies in there.

these teens having personal problems IRL and sublimating their feelings of powerlessness into an almost god complex with deciding when servers gets to live or die

one guy bombarded his school's router with so much data that it fried from overheating

one target's router had a dynamic IP that would constantly change so they instead targeted the town they lived in and took down all the networks feeding data to that area. collective punishment y'all, they were monsters

exhibit a for why you don't need an app for your fridge. someone can infect it with zombie scripts to send DDOS attacks with 650,000+ other dumb IoT devices ad hoc to throw a terabit (1 TRILLION BITS) per second at whatever they wanted. do you know what your average computer's bandwidth is? maybe 10~ megabits if ur connection is really good.

starting a business to protect Minecraft servers from DDOS attacks and running DDOS attacks on their own prospective customers to unknowingly convince them to use their protection services. that is like a twisted form of vertical integration

there's so much more with how big and uncontrollable their hacking program got

oh and they didn't even get prison time for unleashing the biggest DDOS tool ever that brought multiple big-name websites down over years because they *checks notes* helped the fbi arrest other cybercriminals they knew and taught them their cool hacking tricks over the span of five years to deal with derivative programs of their original hacking tool! they were like in their early twenties at this point come sentencing time. ummmmm. wtf. white privilege is truly fucking real lmao.

recommend reading this. it's really a cautionary tale as to why you don't need IoT devices. your lightbulb doesn't need to be connected to the internet lol. and the reason they even caught the guys was because they received user metadata from google on a burner email address and matched IPs with their business email. that's why you should seriously consider how much of your personal data goes into service provider's blackboxes.

[modernkitchencabinets]

Consider 4 Factors Before Choosing Kitchen Cabinet Installation Services

Modern kitchen cabinets have gained a huge appreciation and popularity in recent years. Well, the reason behind this is not just confined to their luxurious vibe and superior aesthetics. Rather, these are well-known for smart storage solutions, sleek and minimalist designs, technology integration, and timeless nature. These features have encouraged people to install them for commercial or residential kitchen spaces. 

Are you willing to go with modern kitchen cabinets in Plano, TX? If so, your initial job should be to look for a professional kitchen cabinet designer and opt for their installation services. Usually, it’s quite tiring and challenging to get in touch with the right partner. Keep reading the article and find the factors that you should consider while selecting kitchen cabinet installation services. 

Custom Designs: An ideal kitchen cabinet designer or installer allows clients to customize their cabinetry designs based on their individual choices and requirements. You can share your priorities, storage options, lighting ideas, and many more to set up a desired outlook for your kitchen. Besides, you should provide additional specifications regarding cabinet colors, polishes, styles, etc. to create an extraordinary look. Professional designers understand these particular aspects and craft them accordingly.  

Competitive rates: Modern kitchen cabinet designers come up with amazing craftsmanship blended with European designs and German technology. But that doesn't make these designs expensive. Instead, if you explore their catalogs, a variety of designs with competitive rates are available for all customers. You can choose your budget and get the right one without making a huge investment. 

Flawless results: Innovative kitchen cabinet designs are the specialty of Euro-modern kitchen designers. Besides these, some of them are even known for their sturdy construction. They team up with professional developers and build durable, long-lasting cabinets using high-quality materials. No matter which design you choose, they come up with their unique approach to deliver flawless results.  

Flexible Scheduling: Many companies allow clients to schedule an appointment based on their convenience. You can look for this flexible scheduling opportunity to talk with the experts without sacrificing your job. 

Note: The best way to get a suitable kitchen cabinet designer is to find their reviews and ratings. You can go online and check out their testimonials to get better insights into the brand. 

Wrapping up

Would you like to create a modern, luxurious look for your traditional kitchen? That's when you should look for experienced kitchen cabinet designers and grab their comprehensive services. For instance, you can share your ideas and requirements with the professional designers at Blackbox Kitchens. They have different pricing examples for distinct kitchen setups. You can send a pricing request and place your order to transform your culinary space. 

[chaotijenotic]

Cracks

The doll returns from taking care of its duties. And it did a very good job. It quickly tries to run past its Witches gaze and return to its dark corner. Alas the doll is stopped in its tracks. “You did a very good job sweetheart” says the witch and as soon as the words carry out of her mouth she hears a crack. crack of porcelaine coming from her new doll. “Are you alright sweetie?” another crack sounds through the room. The doll only yips in confirmation that it is perfectly fine and doesn’t need any act of service. Witch has seen a few dolls already trying to lie, and she knows that this one lies. Calmly as before with all the love she could pour into these words, she asks “are you sure?” It’s only followed by a pleading yip and terrible sound of breaking. Next second pieces of the doll are all over the floor. core still tingling softly, yet anxiously. Witch never saw such an erratic thing happen to any of her dol nor heard of this kind of behavior. 

She decides to make coffee for the night and orders other dolls to take this one to her laboratory. While slowly sipping on beverage she starts her work of inspecting every piece of a doll that could lead to shattering into this mess. starting from less complicated parts, skin was fine, porcelain muscles even after breaking were still tense, maybe a little too tense, likely cause of shattering. winding them down and putting in acidic baths that will make them less tense in future, she picks through other parts. Most were fine but showing the same symptoms of tension. and finally she stopped at eyes, nothing giving away tension. perfectly fine as they were during the “conversation” Honestly all the parts were fine unless inspected closely. Only the eyes weren't showing any tension even under looking glass. Still there was not a single thing she found that could cause all this tension in the doll. She decided to do something she never does. Look into blackbox. little fungal organ attached in a core responsible for some of memories. Usually she would consider this violation of a doll, but maybe this one time it would help solve this predicament. After some hard work setting up dusty tools, never actually used. She sees what the doll was seeing…

Slowly walking away from duties while making sure three times they're done properly. Pace picking up as the doll is making its way up to it’s Stillness quarter. constantly looking around. Suddenly “You did a very good job sweetheart” all internal alarms start bleeping. Same way as when a combat doll sees its witch in danger. tension is building up. Everything is indicating the doll is going for a meltdown. Thoughts “RUN! RUN! RUN!” conceal everything the doll sees. Blaring sound of static, and some word poking through. Black. Enough…

Witch saw enough and put the blackbox where it belonged. She starts assembling the body for the doll, and when she’s about to put the core back in its body, she hesitates. She pulls the core closer to herself, embracing it, and softly whispers into mechanisms, as they start to pick up tempo. Witch whispers “don’t worry little one I promise on my guts my love is not a threat, a knife put on your core, it’s something very much for you, without any strings attached” and hold the scared core of a doll for few hours until the terrorized tingling melts into slow, almost dreamy pace. “You, my dear, are safe here I promise” whispers the witch as she puts the final piece in the body.

[ecommarce]

We have been serving the industry with our expertise and people. We have been renowned face in the industry for quality products and services. After experiencing tedious process of tenders, quotations and orders involving extensive cost, its time for B2B procurement. We have created a unique platform for the industry; an Online Platform i.e. www.agg-blackbox.com which will act as bridge between the seller and the buyer. It will not only ease the process of buying and selling but also reduce the procurement lead time. It is a platform to bring Global B2B experience.