#Computer Network Assignment Writing

[lieutenantselnia]

@assortedvillainvault I felt like this is something you should see as well

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Twinkump Linkdump

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY next MONDAY (Mar 24), and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

I have an excellent excuse for this week's linkdump: I'm in Germany, but I'm supposed to be in LA, and I'm not, because London Heathrow shut down due to a power-station fire, which meant I spent all day yesterday running around like a headless chicken, trying to get home in time for my gig in San Diego on Monday (don't worry, I sorted it):

https://www.mystgalaxy.com/32425Doctorow

Therefore, this is 30th linkdump, in which I collect the assorted links that didn't make it into this week's newsletters. Here are the other 29:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I always like to start and end these 'dumps with some good news, which isn't easy in these absolutely terrifying times. But there is some good news: Wil Wheaton has announced his new podcast, a successor of sorts to the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. It's called "It's Storytime" and it features Wil reading his favorite stories handpicked from science fiction magazines, including On Spec, the magazine that bought my very first published story (I was 16, it ran in their special youth issue, it wasn't very good, but boy did it mean a lot to me):

https://wilwheaton.net/podcast/

Here's some more good news: a court has found (again!) that works created by AI are not eligible for copyright. This is the very best possible outcome for people worried about creators' rights in the age of AI, because if our bosses can't copyright the botshit that comes out of the "AI" systems trained on our work, then they will pay us:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-appeals-court-rejects-copyrights-171203999.html

Our bosses hate paying us, but they hate the idea of not being able to stop people from copying their entertainment products so! much! more! It's that simple:

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

This outcome is so much better than the idea that AI training isn't fair use – an idea that threatens the existence of search engines, archiving, computational linguistics, and other clearly beneficial activities. Worse than that, though: if we create a new copyright that allows creators to prevent others from scraping and analyzing their works, our bosses will immediately alter their non-negotiable boilerplate contracts to demand that we assign them this right. That will allow them to warehouse huge troves of copyrighted material that they will sell to AI companies who will train models designed to put us on the breadline (see above, re: our bosses hate paying us):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/13/hey-look-over-there/#lets-you-and-he-fight

The rights of archivists grow more urgent by the day, as the Trump regime lays waste to billions of dollars worth of government materials that were produced at public expense, deleting decades of scientific, scholarly, historical and technical materials. This is the kind of thing you might expect the National Archive or the Library of Congress to take care of, but they're being chucked into the meat-grinder as well.

To make things even worse, Trump and Musk have laid waste to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a tiny, vital agency that provides funding to libraries, archives and museums across the country. Evan Robb writes about all the ways the IMLS supports the public in his state of Washington:

Technology support. Last-mile broadband connection, network support, hardware, etc. Assistance with the confusing e-rate program for reduced Internet pricing for libraries.

Coordinated group purchase of e-books, e-audiobooks, scholarly research databases, etc.

Library services for the blind and print-disabled.

Libraries in state prisons, juvenile detention centers, and psychiatric institutions.

Digitization of, and access to, historical resources (e.g., newspapers, government records, documents, photos, film, audio, etc.).

Literacy programming and support for youth services at libraries.

The entire IMLS budget over the next 10 years rounds to zero when compared to the US federal budget – and yet, by gutting it, DOGE is amputating significant parts of the country's systems that promote literacy; critical thinking; and universal access to networks, media and ideas. Put it that way, and it's not hard to see why they hate it so.

Trying to figure out what Trump is up to is (deliberately) confusing, because Trump and Musk are pursuing a chaotic agenda that is designed to keep their foes off-balance:

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-donald-trump-chaos/

But as Hamilton Nolan writes, there's a way to cut through the chaos and make sense of it all. The problem is that there are a handful of billionaires who have so much money that when they choose chaos, we all have to live with it:

The significant thing about the way that Elon Musk is presently dismantling our government is not the existence of his own political delusions, or his own self-interested quest to privatize public functions, or his own misreading of economics; it is the fact that he is able to do it. And he is able to do it because he has several hundred billion dollars. If he did not have several hundred billion dollars he would just be another idiot with bad opinions. Because he has several hundred billion dollars his bad opinions are now our collective lived experience.

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-underlying-problem

We actually have a body of law designed to prevent this from happening. It's called "antitrust" and 40 years ago, Jimmy Carter decided to follow the advice of some of history's dumbest economists who said that fighting monopolies made the economy "inefficient." Every president since, up to – but not including – Biden, did even more to encourage monopolization and the immense riches it creates for a tiny number of greedy bastards.

But Biden changed that. Thanks to the "Unity Taskforce" that divided up the presidential appointments between the Democrats' corporate wing and the Warren/Sanders wing, Biden appointed some of the most committed, effective trustbusters we'd seen for generations:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

After Trump's election, there was some room for hope that Trump's FTC would continue to pursue at least some of the anti-monopoly work of the Biden years. After all, there's a sizable faction within the MAGA movement that hates (some) monopolies:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/24/enforcement-priorities/#enemies-lists

But last week, Trump claimed to have illegally fired the two Democratic commissioners on the FTC: Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter. I stan both of these commissioners, hard. When they were at the height of their powers in the Biden years, I had the incredible, disorienting experience of getting out of bed, checking the headlines, and feeling very good about what the government had just done.

Trump isn't legally allowed to fire Bedoya and Slaughter. Perhaps he's just picking this fight as part of his chaos agenda (see above). But there are some other pretty good theories about what this is setting up. In his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller proposes that Trump is using this case as a wedge, trying to set a precedent that would let him fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-trump-tried-to-fire-federal-trade

But perhaps there's more to it. Stoller just had Commissioner Bedoya on Organized Money, the podcast he co-hosts with David Dayen, and Bedoya pointed out that if Trump can fire Democratic commissioners, he can also fire Republican commissioners. That means that if he cuts a shady deal with, say, Jeff Bezos, he can order the FTC to drop its case against Amazon and fire the Republicans on the commission if they don't frog when he jumps:

https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/trumps-showdown-at-the-ftc-with-commissioner

(By the way, Organized Money is a fantastic podcast, notwithstanding the fact that they put me on the show last week:)

https://audio.buzzsprout.com/6f5ly01qcx6ijokbvoamr794ht81

The future that our plutocrat overlords are grasping for is indeed a terrible one. You can see its shape in the fantasies of "liberatarian exit" – the seasteads, free states, and other assorted attempts to build anarcho-capitalist lawless lands where you can sell yourself into slavery, or just sell your kidneys. The best nonfiction book on libertarian exit is Raymond Criab's 2022 "Adventure Capitalism," a brilliant, darkly hilarious and chilling history of every time a group of people have tried to found a nation based on elevating selfishness to a virtue:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/14/this-way-to-the-egress/#terra-nullius

If Craib's book is the best nonfiction volume on the subject of libertarian exit, then Naomi Kritzer's super 2023 novel Liberty's Daughter is the best novel about life in a libertopia – a young adult novel about a girl growing up in the hell that would be life with a Heinlein-type dad:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent

But now this canon has a third volume, a piece of design fiction from Atelier Van Lieshout called "Slave City," which specs out an arcology populated with 200,000 inhabitants whose "very rational, efficient and profitable" arrangements produce €7b/year in profit:

https://www.archdaily.com/30114/slave-city-atelier-van-lieshout

This economic miracle is created by the residents' "voluntary" opt-in to a day consisting of 7h in an office, 7h toiling in the fields, 7h of sleep, and 3h for "leisure" (e.g. hanging out at "The Mall," a 24/7, 26-storey " boundless consumer paradise"). Slaves who wish to better themselves can attend either Female Slave University or Male Slave University (no gender controversy in Slave City!), which run 24/7, with 7 hours of study, 7 hours of upkeep and maintenance on the facility, 7h of sleep, and, of course, 3h of "leisure."

The field of design fiction is a weird and fertile one. In his traditional closing keynote for this year's SXSW Interactive festival, Bruce Sterling opens with a little potted history of the field since it was coined by Julian Bleeker:

https://bruces.medium.com/how-to-rebuild-an-imaginary-future-2025-0b14e511e7b6

Then Bruce moves on to his own latest design fiction project, an automated poetry machine called the Versificatore first described by Primo Levi in an odd piece of science fiction written for a newspaper. The Versificatore was then adapted to the screen in 1971, for an episode of an Italian sf TV show based on Levi's fiction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tva-D_8b8-E

And now Sterling has built a Versificatore. The keynote is a sterlingian delight – as all of his SXSW closers are. It's a hymn to the value of "imaginary futures" and an instruction manual for recovering them. It could not be more timely.

Sterling's imaginary futures would be a good upbeat note to end this 'dump with, but I've got a real future that's just as inspiring to close us out with: the EU has found Apple guilty of monopolizing the interfaces to its devices and have ordered the company to open them up for interoperability, so that other manufacturers – European manufacturers! – can make fully interoperable gadgets that are first-class citizens of Apple's "ecosystem":

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-ordered-by-eu-antitrust-regulators-open-up-rivals-2025-03-19/

It's a good reminder that as America crumbles, there are still places left in the world with competent governments that want to help the people they represent thrive and prosper. As the Prophet Gibson tells us, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." Let's hope that the EU is living in America's future, and not the other way around.

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/2025/03/22/omnium-gatherum/#storytime

Image: TDelCoro https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/48116604516/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[csuitebitches]

2024 Planning

I started planning for 2024 today. I’ve learned a lot this year, made mistakes, had some successes and now it’s time to take all my learnings, good or bad, and go to the next level.

I prefer starting next year’s routine from 2023’s November and December so that by the time January rolls around, I’m settled into the routine. If there’s any revisions necessary, I can do them without starting my new year on the wrong foot.

I maintain my goals on mostly short and medium term basis. This includes daily, weekly and quarterly planning (I don’t do monthly because it doesn’t work for me).

This may seem complicated (actually, it looks more complicated than it is but it’s just what helps me) but let me show you how exactly I do things.

I keep two diaries. One for daily and weekly and one for quarterly. I have a habit tracker on my phone for my daily non-Negotiables (exercise, meditation, reading and language).

The quarterly diary is my big big diary. Every quarter, it lists out all the big plans, what i want to do and who i want to be. It’s all the messy thoughts I have, all my dreams, my weaknesses, my strengths, etc etc. The only “practical” part of the diary is that there is one general plan made at the end of my mad scribbling. It has the general idea, feedback I’ve received from other people and compilation of all the advice I’ve gotten from my mentors.

2. The daily - weekly diary breaks the plan into manageable bits. I write out the week’s plan (who do i need to meet, who do i need to follow up with, any major presentation coming up, any assignment, what am i reading this week) and write a one sentence daily update on it.

I can’t use a habit tracker for this because i’m not tracking meditation or exercise on here. I’m tracking my career goals, my ambitious goals, into smaller goals. A habit tracker wouldnt cut it because I would have to elaborate more on certain things.

For example:

“20-27th Nov: Weekly list

budget presentation on Monday

1 event to attend on Tuesday. Topic: XYZ

Reading: the inheritors

reach out to mentor, schedule a meeting

7 language essays and 7 videos

Monday, 20th Nov.

work presentation: complete.

Feedback received: i need to work on XYZ.

points they raised that didnt cross my mind: XYZ

follow ups required and if yes, with who: XYZ

reading: complete. Interesting point they brought up: XYZ

essay for the day: complete.

Video complete:

Tuesday, 21st Nov

mentor meeting scheduled

event went well. Met: A, B, C who work in XYZ companies. Follow up with them next week for coffee/ drinks.

essay: complete

video: complete”

Having two diaries helps me because i can find my bigger goals without having to go through the daily entry mess. I like having the two separate.

Nov ‘23 + Dec ‘23 + Q1 2024’s goals include:

Social (meeting new people, maintaining networks)

Intellectual (biographies, documentaries, industry reports)

Personal (soft skills, language studies)

Work (presentations, courses, conferences)

A major change I’ve making this year is actively working on every single weakness I have that I know is a potential strength. I’m ignoring weaknesses that I know are 100% weaknesses like coding because there’s just no way I can sit in front of a computer and learn all that, it’s absolutely not my cup of tea and does not make me happy.

I made a list of every single weakness i have and I’m embarrassed about and ashamed of. 2024 is the year of NO shame. I’m not letting my intrusive thoughts win.

Next to each weakness I wrote out a potential solution.

Ex: not picking up the language i’m studying as fast as i want to -> write 1 short essay and a 1-2 minute video of me talking about anything in that language every single day

I’m not allowing any unnecessary negative self doubt or self talk happen. Constructive criticism is one thing, being a bitch to yourself is another. I plan to learn a lot next year.

I’ve created a manageable exposure therapy plan for myself - I aim to meet 3 new people every month and follow up with 5 new connections every month, whether it’s over chat or irl.

I’ve made a list of business biographies I’m going to read. This year I reached my reading target earlier than anticipated which I’m very happy about. Next year I’m focusing on books that are solely about business, technology and psychology.

[400badrequest]

CHAPT 1: Meet and Greet | Charlie Reid x Detective Reader

SUMMARY: When the brass told him he was “drifting too far from the new blood” and they were assigning him a shadow - making him a supervising officer to “reconnect with the modern force” - he’d nearly laughed in their faces. He expected some limp handshake of a man - fresh out of academia or patrol, green, underfed, trying too hard, some nepotism baby with a minor trauma he thought qualified him for empathy. A kid Charlie could pat on the head, buy a drink, and quietly leave behind the scenes while he got on with real work. He was not expecting you.

CW: age gap. Canon typical asshole behavior from Charlie

WORD COUNT: 938

A/N: insp. by all of @erwinsvow's charlie content!!

Charlie Reid had been a dirty cop longer than he'd been a clean one.

It wasn’t about justice anymore. Christ, it hadn’t been in years. The scales of Chicago weren’t balanced by laws or by good intentions - they were held up by fragile networks, quiet understandings, and unspoken threats. Charlie knew it better than anyone. You couldn’t save the city, but you could keep it from tearing itself apart - if you were willing to be the bastard it needed.

And Charlie Reid? He was the right kind of bastard. Not self-pitying, not hand-wringing. He didn’t lose sleep at night. He’d made peace with what he was a long time ago. The kind of man who’d put a bullet in someone mid-sentence if it meant keeping three crews from igniting the South Side. The kind of man who didn’t need absolution.

So when the brass told him he was “drifting too far from the new blood” and they were assigning him a shadow - making him a supervising officer to “reconnect with the modern force” - he’d nearly laughed in their faces. He expected some limp handshake of a man - fresh out of academia or patrol, green, underfed, trying too hard, some nepotism baby with a minor trauma he thought qualified him for empathy. A kid Charlie could pat on the head, buy a drink, and quietly leave behind the scenes while he got on with real work.

He was not expecting you.

And Jesus, what a fucking curveball.

From the moment you walked into his office - not knocked, not introduced yourself with protocol, just walked in like you belonged there - he knew he was in trouble.

Charlie didn’t think he could still get flustered. But there you were, all soft faced and sharp eyes, like a goddamn paradox in slacks and heeled boots. Thick-framed glasses you didn’t need for distance, probably worn for computer work. Soft curls that looked tug-worthy in the worst kind of way. Breasts that made him forget for a second that he’d been angry with the brass, and short nails painted so dark he wasn’t sure if there was colour. Didn’t matter. What mattered was that you walked like someone who could take a punch and give two back harder. Thick thighs, shoulders that hinted at strength under softness.

And he couldn’t write you off.

Because you weren’t just a walking wet dream. you were sharp. Too sharp. The kind of sharp that was dangerous in a place like Intelligence, in his orbit. You'd reorganised his entire week’s calendar before noon on your first day and somehow made it make sense. You caught inconsistencies in a missing persons case he hadn’t even read yet. You stared at corkboards like you could hear voices, like patterns talked to you in static. And the worst part? You used it. Used your tits, your voice, that gentle, half-distracted tone, like you didn’t quite realise how effective it was - until you needed something signed. Then it was lipstick and lean-in, and that half-smile that suggested oh, you’re just now catching up, huh, boss?

Charlie had killed men with less warning.

And you were mouthy. Not disrespectful, not openly - you weren't stupid - but God, your tongue was quick. Clever little mutterings under your breath, sarcastic observations that bordered on insubordinate if you were feeling thin-skinned. And you never quite looked away when he glared at you. Just blinked, slow and unimpressed, like a cat who knew the canary was already halfway down your throat.

He’d almost hit you on day three. If you were a man, he probably would’ve. You’d torn apart one of his CI cases - right in front of Voight, no less - pointing out a broken trail that had made him look like an idiot. You weren't wrong. That’s what made it worse.

By Friday, he couldn’t decide if he wanted to bury your in paperwork or bend your over his desk and see if fucking you would finally shut you up. He hated how often he thought about your mouth. your voice. Your eyes. Big and soft and tired in a way that suggested you didn’t sleep - too many thoughts, too much noise in your own head - and that kind of noise was useful. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to protect it or exploit it.

You never tucked in your shirt. Sloppy, but it worked on you. Framed your waist, pulled over hips in a way that made his cock ache like he was twenty again. You didn’t flirt. That was the worst part. You didn’t flirt with him. You flirted with suspects sometimes. Played coy with men who underestimated you. But with him? You were efficient. Dry. Professional.

It was insulting, somehow.

By the end of the first week, Charlie knew two things.

One - you were dangerous. Dangerous in the kind of way that could make him second-guess himself if he wasn’t careful. You were too smart, too fast, and too clean. That made you a liability to him and everything he kept barely standing.

Two - he was going to fuck you eventually. Maybe not this month, maybe not this year. Maybe never if you played it right. But if you gave him an inch - a moment of weakness, a look, a touch - he’d take it. He’d bury himself in you and make you understand that for all your brilliance, he still ran this town.

And God help you if you ever looked at him the way you looked at the board when a puzzle started to unravel - like you wanted to take it apart with your bare hands.

He’d let you. He wanted you to.

[nostalgebraist]

information flow in transformers

In machine learning, the transformer architecture is a very commonly used type of neural network model. Many of the well-known neural nets introduced in the last few years use this architecture, including GPT-2, GPT-3, and GPT-4.

This post is about the way that computation is structured inside of a transformer.

Internally, these models pass information around in a constrained way that feels strange and limited at first glance.

Specifically, inside the "program" implemented by a transformer, each segment of "code" can only access a subset of the program's "state." If the program computes a value, and writes it into the state, that doesn't make value available to any block of code that might run after the write; instead, only some operations can access the value, while others are prohibited from seeing it.

This sounds vaguely like the kind of constraint that human programmers often put on themselves: "separation of concerns," "no global variables," "your function should only take the inputs it needs," that sort of thing.

However, the apparent analogy is misleading. The transformer constraints don't look much like anything that a human programmer would write, at least under normal circumstances. And the rationale behind them is very different from "modularity" or "separation of concerns."

(Domain experts know all about this already -- this is a pedagogical post for everyone else.)

1. setting the stage

For concreteness, let's think about a transformer that is a causal language model.

So, something like GPT-3, or the model that wrote text for @nostalgebraist-autoresponder.

Roughly speaking, this model's input is a sequence of words, like ["Fido", "is", "a", "dog"].

Since the model needs to know the order the words come in, we'll include an integer offset alongside each word, specifying the position of this element in the sequence. So, in full, our example input is

[ ("Fido", 0), ("is", 1), ("a", 2), ("dog", 3), ]

The model itself -- the neural network -- can be viewed as a single long function, which operates on a single element of the sequence. Its task is to output the next element.

Let's call the function f. If f does its job perfectly, then when applied to our example sequence, we will have

f("Fido", 0) = "is" f("is", 1) = "a" f("a", 2) = "dog"

(Note: I've omitted the index from the output type, since it's always obvious what the next index is. Also, in reality the output type is a probability distribution over words, not just a word; the goal is to put high probability on the next word. I'm ignoring this to simplify exposition.)

You may have noticed something: as written, this seems impossible!

Like, how is the function supposed to know that after ("a", 2), the next word is "dog"!? The word "a" could be followed by all sorts of things.

What makes "dog" likely, in this case, is the fact that we're talking about someone named "Fido."

That information isn't contained in ("a", 2). To do the right thing here, you need info from the whole sequence thus far -- from "Fido is a", as opposed to just "a".

How can f get this information, if its input is just a single word and an index?

This is possible because f isn't a pure function. The program has an internal state, which f can access and modify.

But f doesn't just have arbitrary read/write access to the state. Its access is constrained, in a very specific sort of way.

2. transformer-style programming

Let's get more specific about the program state.

The state consists of a series of distinct "memory regions" or "blocks," which have an order assigned to them.

Let's use the notation memory_i for these. The first block is memory_0, the second is memory_1, and so on.

In practice, a small transformer might have around 10 of these blocks, while a very large one might have 100 or more.

Each block contains a separate data-storage "cell" for each offset in the sequence.

For example, memory_0 contains a cell for position 0 ("Fido" in our example text), and a cell for position 1 ("is"), and so on. Meanwhile, memory_1 contains its own, distinct cells for each of these positions. And so does memory_2, etc.

So the overall layout looks like:

memory_0: [cell 0, cell 1, ...] memory_1: [cell 0, cell 1, ...] [...]

Our function f can interact with this program state. But it must do so in a way that conforms to a set of rules.

Here are the rules:

The function can only interact with the blocks by using a specific instruction.

This instruction is an "atomic write+read". It writes data to a block, then reads data from that block for f to use.

When the instruction writes data, it goes in the cell specified in the function offset argument. That is, the "i" in f(..., i).

When the instruction reads data, the data comes from all cells up to and including the offset argument.

The function must call the instruction exactly once for each block.

These calls must happen in order. For example, you can't do the call for memory_1 until you've done the one for memory_0.

Here's some pseudo-code, showing a generic computation of this kind:

f(x, i) { calculate some things using x and i; // next 2 lines are a single instruction write to memory_0 at position i; z0 = read from memory_0 at positions 0...i; calculate some things using x, i, and z0; // next 2 lines are a single instruction write to memory_1 at position i; z1 = read from memory_1 at positions 0...i; calculate some things using x, i, z0, and z1; [etc.] }

The rules impose a tradeoff between the amount of processing required to produce a value, and how early the value can be accessed within the function body.

Consider the moment when data is written to memory_0. This happens before anything is read (even from memory_0 itself).

So the data in memory_0 has been computed only on the basis of individual inputs like ("a," 2). It can't leverage any information about multiple words and how they relate to one another.

But just after the write to memory_0, there's a read from memory_0. This read pulls in data computed by f when it ran on all the earlier words in the sequence.

If we're processing ("a", 2) in our example, then this is the point where our code is first able to access facts like "the word 'Fido' appeared earlier in the text."

However, we still know less than we might prefer.

Recall that memory_0 gets written before anything gets read. The data living there only reflects what f knows before it can see all the other words, while it still only has access to the one word that appeared in its input.

The data we've just read does not contain a holistic, "fully processed" representation of the whole sequence so far ("Fido is a"). Instead, it contains:

a representation of ("Fido", 0) alone, computed in ignorance of the rest of the text

a representation of ("is", 1) alone, computed in ignorance of the rest of the text

a representation of ("a", 2) alone, computed in ignorance of the rest of the text

Now, once we get to memory_1, we will no longer face this problem. Stuff in memory_1 gets computed with the benefit of whatever was in memory_0. The step that computes it can "see all the words at once."

Nonetheless, the whole function is affected by a generalized version of the same quirk.

All else being equal, data stored in later blocks ought to be more useful. Suppose for instance that

memory_4 gets read/written 20% of the way through the function body, and

memory_16 gets read/written 80% of the way through the function body

Here, strictly more computation can be leveraged to produce the data in memory_16. Calculations which are simple enough to fit in the program, but too complex to fit in just 20% of the program, can be stored in memory_16 but not in memory_4.

All else being equal, then, we'd prefer to read from memory_16 rather than memory_4 if possible.

But in fact, we can only read from memory_16 once -- at a point 80% of the way through the code, when the read/write happens for that block.

The general picture looks like:

The early parts of the function can see and leverage what got computed earlier in the sequence -- by the same early parts of the function. This data is relatively "weak," since not much computation went into it. But, by the same token, we have plenty of time to further process it.

The late parts of the function can see and leverage what got computed earlier in the sequence -- by the same late parts of the function. This data is relatively "strong," since lots of computation went into it. But, by the same token, we don't have much time left to further process it.

3. why?

There are multiple ways you can "run" the program specified by f.

Here's one way, which is used when generating text, and which matches popular intuitions about how language models work:

First, we run f("Fido", 0) from start to end. The function returns "is." As a side effect, it populates cell 0 of every memory block.

Next, we run f("is", 1) from start to end. The function returns "a." As a side effect, it populates cell 1 of every memory block.

Etc.

If we're running the code like this, the constraints described earlier feel weird and pointlessly restrictive.

By the time we're running f("is", 1), we've already populated some data into every memory block, all the way up to memory_16 or whatever.

This data is already there, and contains lots of useful insights.

And yet, during the function call f("is", 1), we "forget about" this data -- only to progressively remember it again, block by block. The early parts of this call have only memory_0 to play with, and then memory_1, etc. Only at the end do we allow access to the juicy, extensively processed results that occupy the final blocks.

Why? Why not just let this call read memory_16 immediately, on the first line of code? The data is sitting there, ready to be used!

Why? Because the constraint enables a second way of running this program.

The second way is equivalent to the first, in the sense of producing the same outputs. But instead of processing one word at a time, it processes a whole sequence of words, in parallel.

Here's how it works:

In parallel, run f("Fido", 0) and f("is", 1) and f("a", 2), up until the first write+read instruction. You can do this because the functions are causally independent of one another, up to this point. We now have 3 copies of f, each at the same "line of code": the first write+read instruction.

Perform the write part of the instruction for all the copies, in parallel. This populates cells 0, 1 and 2 of memory_0.

Perform the read part of the instruction for all the copies, in parallel. Each copy of f receives some of the data just written to memory_0, covering offsets up to its own. For instance, f("is", 1) gets data from cells 0 and 1.

In parallel, continue running the 3 copies of f, covering the code between the first write+read instruction and the second.

Perform the second write. This populates cells 0, 1 and 2 of memory_1.

Perform the second read.

Repeat like this until done.

Observe that mode of operation only works if you have a complete input sequence ready before you run anything.

(You can't parallelize over later positions in the sequence if you don't know, yet, what words they contain.)

So, this won't work when the model is generating text, word by word.

But it will work if you have a bunch of texts, and you want to process those texts with the model, for the sake of updating the model so it does a better job of predicting them.

This is called "training," and it's how neural nets get made in the first place. In our programming analogy, it's how the code inside the function body gets written.

The fact that we can train in parallel over the sequence is a huge deal, and probably accounts for most (or even all) of the benefit that transformers have over earlier architectures like RNNs.

Accelerators like GPUs are really good at doing the kinds of calculations that happen inside neural nets, in parallel.

So if you can make your training process more parallel, you can effectively multiply the computing power available to it, for free. (I'm omitting many caveats here -- see this great post for details.)

Transformer training isn't maximally parallel. It's still sequential in one "dimension," namely the layers, which correspond to our write+read steps here. You can't parallelize those.

But it is, at least, parallel along some dimension, namely the sequence dimension.

The older RNN architecture, by contrast, was inherently sequential along both these dimensions. Training an RNN is, effectively, a nested for loop. But training a transformer is just a regular, single for loop.

4. tying it together

The "magical" thing about this setup is that both ways of running the model do the same thing. You are, literally, doing the same exact computation. The function can't tell whether it is being run one way or the other.

This is crucial, because we want the training process -- which uses the parallel mode -- to teach the model how to perform generation, which uses the sequential mode. Since both modes look the same from the model's perspective, this works.

This constraint -- that the code can run in parallel over the sequence, and that this must do the same thing as running it sequentially -- is the reason for everything else we noted above.

Earlier, we asked: why can't we allow later (in the sequence) invocations of f to read earlier data out of blocks like memory_16 immediately, on "the first line of code"?

And the answer is: because that would break parallelism. You'd have to run f("Fido", 0) all the way through before even starting to run f("is", 1).

By structuring the computation in this specific way, we provide the model with the benefits of recurrence -- writing things down at earlier positions, accessing them at later positions, and writing further things down which can be accessed even later -- while breaking the sequential dependencies that would ordinarily prevent a recurrent calculation from being executed in parallel.

In other words, we've found a way to create an iterative function that takes its own outputs as input -- and does so repeatedly, producing longer and longer outputs to be read off by its next invocation -- with the property that this iteration can be run in parallel.

We can run the first 10% of every iteration -- of f() and f(f()) and f(f(f())) and so on -- at the same time, before we know what will happen in the later stages of any iteration.

The call f(f()) uses all the information handed to it by f() -- eventually. But it cannot make any requests for information that would leave itself idling, waiting for f() to fully complete.

Whenever f(f()) needs a value computed by f(), it is always the value that f() -- running alongside f(f()), simultaneously -- has just written down, a mere moment ago.

No dead time, no idling, no waiting-for-the-other-guy-to-finish.

p.s.

The "memory blocks" here correspond to what are called "keys and values" in usual transformer lingo.

If you've heard the term "KV cache," it refers to the contents of the memory blocks during generation, when we're running in "sequential mode."

Usually, during generation, one keeps this state in memory and appends a new cell to each block whenever a new token is generated (and, as a result, the sequence gets longer by 1).

This is called "caching" to contrast it with the worse approach of throwing away the block contents after each generated token, and then re-generating them by running f on the whole sequence so far (not just the latest token). And then having to do that over and over, once per generated token.

[aeolianblues]

Someone had sent a confession on alt rock confessions a while ago about how people immediately seem to discredit artists for having any training at all; if they come from a school or have been told anything about the music industry, they are 'being groomed' as if knowing about the industry isn't simply the only way of making good, informed decisions.

They've been doing that again on the Fontaines subreddit, it is so infuriating to me. Knowledge is power. These people's thinking is loosely along the lines of 'if you have the music industry equivalent of financial literacy, you are not pure of heart' which is just dumb and backwards. What the hell, man. Look at this nonsense, directly quoted off Reddit.

I happen to have been in BIMM at the same time and can tell you for a fact that the band were nurtured by the college. Not “manufactured” per say but definitely groomed into the industry. The same happened to The Murder Capitol (sic) also. It didn’t matter what these bands made they were going to get signed and were destined for success based of their connections, markability (sic. Ed: marketability?) and network. BIMM had classes called Artist Development where teachers would pair students into groups and cover songs as weekly assignments. A significant element of the bands image, style and aesthetic arose from those classes and assignments. The band still had to find their way afterwards and build an established reputation but a Lot of groundwork was done in BIMM before they took a foot into gigging and touring etc and most of it was guided by tutors. FDC (and TMC to a lesser extent) had years of experience and were well schooled in the music game a long time before they toured. Anybody that says otherwise is talking bollox, this is straight from the horses mouth of someone that went through the trenches with both of these bands and knows the story.

If you think spending an hour in classes where you write and cover songs is industry insiderism, you are insane. I am not a professional musician, and even I have sat in on these classes. I've built a portfolio of songs written during classes. It doesn't make me a professional musician. To say that these bands had an 'unfair advantage' because they... wrote songs in classes is insane. That's like saying anyone who wrote code as part of their assignments in my computer science class had an 'unfair advantage' over someone who didn't go to school, and so accordingly should be seen as a less good computer scientist than the pure-of-heart basement coder. You sound insane.

(I'm not going to even address the claims on their image. What 'image' did Dogrel-era Fontaines have? They were Just Some Guys who turned up and played music. If anything, their look was the 'metrosexual bearded city man' look of the 2010s. If my job was to tell people to grow their hair long and make a manbun a few years too late into the long-hair-and-manbun era, I would be bad at my job. It's not like they recommended designer Lady Gaga fits for the lads. Ffs. The only time Fontaines have had a look is now, aged 28, when Romance rolled out.)

Let's put aside these tepid claims and delve into those who say there are classes that teach you how to navigate your way through the music industry. If you're a musician on some path to a music career, you've probably been to some sort of industry event. Played or attended a showcase festival. They often have talks that are meant to teach you the same things. You can go ESNS for the entire week for €100. NXNE full fest passes go for $29. Canada Music Week (arguably more of an industry-mechanics event than NXNE) costs $75 for the whole weekend (they're renaming it Departure? What? Anyways). SXSW is a tech event now and I refuse to count it. Focus Wales costs £80 for the whole weekend. The Great Escape is £108.

What I'm saying is, you get a chance to do that networking, meeting people in your industry, those starting out, those who have already been where you've been. There will be people giving advice on what to avoid, what is a myth in the industry, what a record deal means. This is not an 'unfair advantage', these are things you SHOULD know if you're going into the music industry.

It sounds as wishy-washy as anti-intellectual sentiment about those who read being 'above' you or whatever. Knowing the first thing about the music industry just means you don't die penniless at the end of your life because a horrible record contract crippled your finances and life.

[stephiethewephie]

Chandeliers and Fireflies

I AM SO LATE TO THIS I AM SORRY!!!

So I saw a fan event from @starry-night-rose called Glimmering Soirée. And as soon as I saw it was a ball event based on Cinderella, I was like YES YES YES! WHERE IS MY COMPUTER! I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING! Here is a summary on the event to get some context for the fic. Synopsis: Piper and Grim have been tasked by Headmaster Crowley to help the chosen princes with their lessons as well as getting them prepared for the ball. This is going to be in multiple chapters that I will be posting on separate dates. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: A Job for us...Again

After the announcement of the princes, all eyes were on the four in either shock, enthusiasm for the princes, or anger that they weren't picked. The four princes all had different reactions:

Malleus Draconia... was not there... probably forgot to come or was not invited again. But, luckily Lilia was there, and he seemed over the moon at the fact that Malleus was chosen as one of the Princes. He will have to convey that information to him once he sees him.

Deuce Spade was in a state of disbelief. Him? A prince? He honestly never considered himself to be royalty fit. He hardly knew any royals who were delinquents. However, as a dedicated honors student, he felt determined to take this role on the best he can and be a fantastic representative for Night Raven College.

Azul Ashengrotto looked like he had thaumark signs in his eyes. His mind was reeling with ways in which he can take advantage of this position for his gain in the market space. What networks he will get, advertisements for the lounge, poor souls he can swindle- I mean make offers with. The endless possibilities made Azul giddy to get out of the classroom and start writing up plans.

Kalim-Al Asim was ecstatic. He loved hosting events at home and at his dorm. So, the chance to host a ball for two schools is something he is definitely excited about. He's already thinking of the music, food, elephants, everything a party needs. It has not occurred to him that he has not participated in a traditional ball before.

"So," the headmage interrupted the stares. "Now that we have our princes, lessons shall begin tomorrow. In the meantime, everyone return to your dorms. Each one has been given an assigned task to complete before the Glimmering Soirée. Be sure to complete them in a timely manner, we don't want our school getting bad pre- I mean, we should be the best host possible for the ball! Dismissed!"

There were friendly teases and annoyed grumbles as those who were not picked as princes left. The four princes (minus Malleus) took the teases in stride, except for Azul who was trying his best just to leave, but the Leech twins made that almost impossible. They teased their little "Princey" until Azul shoved them out of the way.

Piper, the magicless prefect of Ramshackle dorm, was about to leave her spot with her Pooh bear and congratulate the princes until she heard a frustrated "Myah" from her feline companion.

"The choices were rigged," Grim said with a pout. "I should be one of the princes! Just look at me!" He smirked and crossed his arms. "I am the most dashing student here!"

"If by dashing, you mean dashingly unappealing, then I would agree," a cocky voice said behind them. The two Ramshackle residents looked to see Ace Trappola with a mischievous smirk of his own. Piper could swear Grim's fire ears started to smoke at Ace's comment.

"Grr... big talk from someone who didn't get picked either," Grim said, looking like he was going to pounce Ace. Piper was about to intervene before hearing another voice.

"Kock it off you two," a voice said coming towards the three. They looked to see the blue haired prince-to-be coming towards them.

"Well, look who decided to grace us with his presence," Ace teased his fellow Heartslabyul freshman. Deuce became flushed in embarassment.

"You come to rub your royalty in our face?" Grim asked, still salty about the results.

"Would you two quit it with that?" Deuce asked getting frustrated at the teasing. "Just because I was chosen does not mean I'm any less different than I was before. And besides, it was chosen by chance, so I'm no special than anyone if they were chosen."

"Ah come on Deucey," Ace played it off. "We're just playing around!"

"And Grim has a bit of jealousy over not being picked," Piper said with a giggle. Grim made a surprised, "mrah!," over the sudden call-out from his henchman.

"Oh," Deuce suddenly gained a smirk. "So that's why you're acting cranky towards me."

"I've had enough of all of you," Grim yelled. "Come on henchman, we're leaving!"

"Congratulations Deuce," Piper said in her chipper demeanor. "I know you'll be a great prince!"

"Ahh," Deuce blushed before giving a sincere smile to Piper. "If you really think so, then thank you Piper!" He raised his fist to his chest. "I'll make sure that I'm the best prince I can be!"

The four of them got up to leave. Before Piper and Grim could walk out the door, they heard another familiar voice calling to them.

"Ms. Finch, Grim, could you stay for just a moment," the voice came from the headmage. Sensing an important task was coming, Piper walked back to Crowley.

"How may I assist, Headmage Crowley," Piper said in a way that showed enthusiasm. Grim looked displeased with her response, but the headmaster gleamed.

"Love the enthusiasm, Ms. Finch," Crowley said with glee. "I've noticed that I have not yet given an assignment to your dorm. Luckily for you, I have chosen a special position for the both of you." Piper knew this would be another way for Crowley to get out of a task, but she was always willing to help anyway she could. Grim didn't look that willing. "The princes of the ball may need some assistance in lessons and preparation, I would like to ask you assist in the princes' lessons and preparation before the ball!" Piper looked excited and more than willing to help, but Grim still wasn't happy to do work.

"Nyah! I don't get to be a prince, and now I have to be their personal assistant?" Grim said with his pout again. Piper shook her head at the silly-ole-cat.

"Ah, don't think I have not thought of a form of repayment for your services," The headmage said trying to reassure the cat. "Those who assist the princes will have the privilege to attend the Glimmering Soirée alongside them. This includes formal attire on the school and early access to festivities, food, and the dance floor. Oh how kind am I?"

"Y-you mean," Grim said in shock. "I can eat all the good food before everyone else?!"

"Also," Crowley continued. "Working closely to the princes grants you a great advantage of becoming Belle of the Ball, which will be voted on by both faculty and the princes. The student who is chosen shall be given high honors such as a crown, scepter, and many others."

"A crown and a scepter?!" Grim said as his pout turned into a huge grin. "Mrah ha ha! I accept this assignment!"

"Silly-ole-cat," Piper said with a sigh. "I shall also be glad to help!" Piper responded to Crowley. She did not care for the rewards as she only cared for helping her classmates and her school.

"Splendid!" The headmaster beamed. "I shall see you tomorrow morning for the first lesson!"

With that Piper took Pooh and Grim out the lecture room. Determined to do her best to help out the princes in any way she could.

"Watch out Glimmering Soirée!" Grim said with a smirk, "Your Belle of the Ball is coming your way!"

Chapter 2

Thank you for reading! I'll try to get the other chapters out as soon as I can, but I wanted to get this one out as soon as possible! I'm happy to be participating in this amazing event!

[hearteyeslikeafooligan]

Before ChatGPT, there was no way to cheat on a school assignment in a way that you learned nothing. You built skills even using the only cheat method that allowed you to do absolutely nothing and learn absolutely nothing of the material. (If you paid someone else to do the assignment for you, or if you somehow found an old assignment from a previous class or something and figured out how to alter it so you could steal it).

We all know that when you cheat by using Cliff's Notes or watching the movie or just skimming through the material quickly and putting on all the BS skills you can muster to turn in some bullshit, you actually end up learning some of the material and also learn valuable BS skills which are very handy in life, and writing skills and communication skills etc etc.

But even with the real cheat methods, where you pay someone to do it for you or find a completed assignment to steal somehow, you would learn some life skills that prepare you for good careers.

How do you find that person or that old assignment? You have to get good at research, negotiation, networking, sleuthing, maybe even manipulation, etc. Some are not the best things, but at least they're things. And there are careers and situations in your future when they'll come in handy.

With ChatGPT you're not even building tech skills or computer skills at all. You're not learning how that technology works or how to utilize it better for other things or ANYTHING. It's literally just handed to you. Point and click. You get nothing out of it.

The only thing you learn is how to give up, stay stagnant, stay ignorant.

It's the perfect recipe to make future adults totally complacent.

And THAT is why all of the Republican politicians and rich capitalists want you to go ahead and use it and keep training yourself to be entirely open to manipulation and exploitation.

With ChatGPT you're training yourself to be nothing more than a complacent retail worker who only has to know how to push a button and the register tells you what change to give the customer and the company tells you exactly what to say and how to say it and how to stand. Your manager tells you when you can pee, which is usually to just wait for your one 10 minute break.

Why is that what you want to train for? Why is that your goal in life?

At least just BS your assignments if you really want to save some extra time to do something you can't learn in school like your creative endeavors or something.

Just don't use your time in school to train yourself for nothing but minimum wage retail worker hell.

[nczaversnick]

Writing Share/Out of Context Tag

Thanks to @drchenquill for the tag

This bit is from Chapter 6

———————————————

Faint background noise echoed from a small, dark room. The only things that could be seen that were illuminated by the flashing images displayed on a 32-inch glass screen

could be heard echoing from a couple of speakers in a small room. Displayed on a 32-inch glass screen were flashing images of an unknown product, neither interesting nor entertaining to the two uniformed figures in the small, dark room.

One of them with wild, ginger hair reached out and plugged in a wire from the glass screen to their laptop to add to their endless collection of several other wires that went this way and that.

“We should really find you a better set up,” the other with golden as the sun hair gruffed, inspecting the tangled mess of rubbered strings.

“Hey, if it works, it works,” the ginger grinned, plugging in yet another wire, this time from their laptop to one of the three computer monitors they had set up in front of them.

The blonde huffed which earned a chuckle from the other.

“Jealous of my awesome setup?”

“Hardly,” he turned his attention back towards the screen, “The news should be coming back any minute now.”

“Don’t worry your pants about it, I’ve got it all taken care of in 3, 2-”

The ginger pointed to the glass screen and, as if right on cue, a brunette woman appeared on the screen with a serious expression plastered on her face. There was a red banner with scrolling white text on the bottom and the letters ‘IN’ were placed in the corner:

TV: “Good evening, this is Truman and you are watching Insider

News, the best news network to bring you the cold, honest

stories from all across Titania. In today’s headlines-”

“The ‘cold, honest stories’, give me a break,” the ginger stuffed a chip inside their mouth as the news anchor wrapped up her introduction and another commercial began to play.

“Hey, I need you to focus.”

“I can’t focus on an empty stomach, it stresses me out.”

The blonde gave them a look.

“Oh, come on, when have I let you down?”

Silence.

“Exactly. Just let your ‘ol pal do their thing.”

They leaned back in their chair, hands folded behind their head. After another long minute of mindless music passing painfully in the already tense room, the screen finally changed. They peeked one eye open and straightened up in their chair.

“Showtime.”

Keyboard keys clattered in the background:

TV: “Moreover, the government has decided that all markets and malls in the division should remain closed until the situation gets better. However, the pharmacies and the export industry will remain open.”

TV: “Thank you, Clarkson. At about 18:03 today, officers assigned to District C-7, Bourne, responded to a radio call requesting back-up. On arrival, officers found two hospital security personnel semi-conscious inside of the pharmacy. One of the security members provided information on the possible whereabouts of the suspect. Additional units arrived at the scene and began to search for the suspect and eventually located a male in the city of Dreake.”

The image on the screen froze for a brief moment and a faint bzzt soon followed. A computer mouse clicked in the distance a few times and the images unfroze as the broadcaster continued:

TV: “Officers arrested 47-year-old Riley Clements in front of his home. Clements is expected to be arraigned in Titania District Court on charges of Disorderly Conduct, Aggravated Battery, and Possession of Stolen Property. It’s still unknown whether Clements worked alone or was part of a group, but investigators are working closely with officials to make sure all who were involved are taken in. We will keep you updated on any more information that is brought in. Until then, it’s time for a commercial break. Stay with us!”

A silent wave of relief swept over the room.

“Hah,” the ginger threw their hands up in the air, a wide grin spreading across their face, “maybe this will teach you to stop using crappy security and being so predictable with all your news anchoring, Truman!”

The blonde raised his eyebrow at their fanatics.

“What? I just don’t like her,” they shrugged.

———————————————

Tags (comment if you want to be +/-)

@honeybewrites @wyked-ao3 @kittrrrr @zackprincebooks @theverumproject @the-golden-comet @fractured-shield @poppycat-writes @illarian-rambling @finickyfelix @kuebiko-writing @yourpenpaldee @willtheweaver @the-letterbox-archives @moltenwrites @davycoquette @leahnardo-da-veggie @sableglass

[kosmos2999]

TV Series: Jason of Star Command - Season Two: Chapter 4 - Beyond the Stars!

Dragos assigning a mission to his new minion, Matt Daringstar

Dragos has obtained an ancient artifact that may give him the greatest force and power the universe has ever known.

It was named the Star Disk, but it is broken and the computers from Dragos are not able to decipher how it works.

The only man who can find the way to release its power is Professor E. J. Parsafoot.

Now Dragos plans to kidnap Professor Parsafoot with the help of his new young henchman, Matt Daringstar. The same one who stole the Power Disk from the Tantalusian civilization.

The evil Master of the Cosmos has planned an attack to the Star Command just as a distraction to infiltrate Daringstar as a cadet of the Space Academy.

Chapter 4 Season: 2

Main cast:

Craig Littler as Jason Charlie Dell as Professor E.J. Parsafoot John Russell as Commander Stone Sid Haig as Dragos Tamara Dobson as Samantha

Special guest star:

Clete Keith as Matt Daringstar

Production staff:

Written by: Samuel A. Peeples Directed, created and produced by: Arthur H. Nadel Music by: Yvette Blais and Jeff Michael Executive producers: Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott Original airdate: October 6, 1979 TV Network: CBS TV YouTube channel: EndsAndOdds

About Samuel A. Peeples

Samuel Anthony Peeples (September 22, 1917 - August 27, 1991) was an American novelist and screenwriter who began his writing career in the genere of Westerns.

His first Western novels was The Dream Ends In Fury in 1949. It was later retitled Outlaw Vengance.

During the 1950s, Peeples wrote some novels under the pen name of Brad Ward.

Before he transitioned from novel to TV scripts, Peeples wrote some novels under his real name. One of them was Lobo Horseman in 1955.

As a television writer, Samuel A. Peeples created three series, The Tall Man (1960), Custer (1967) and Lancer (1968).

In that decade, Peeples made an incursion into his first love, science fiction.

In 1965, he made a significant contribution to the Star Trek universe by writing the second -- and successful -- pilot for the original series. Its title was later coined as a part of the culture related to the history of the franchise: Where No Man Has Gone Before.

He also wrote the first episode of the animated series of Star Trek, Beyond the Farthest Star.

Peeples also wrote stories for other Filmation Associates projects including Space Academy, Jason of Star Command and the animated series of Flash Gordon.

[fictionsoul]

Undercover mission I

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5

Undercover agent Fem!reader x Undercover agent Yesung

Theme: AU about undercover agents.

Synopsis: You and Yesung will work together as undercover agents to dismantle an art dealing ring that has been affecting the Korean government.

Warnings: Angst, comfort, tension, use of "(Y/N)", use of code names, written with female pronouns.

w/c: 3.2k

a/n: Sorry if this text is a bit cringy, it's my first time writing an AU so it can be a bit cringe and embarrassing.

Special mission I

While everyone was gathered around a round table, you were taking notes on the computer located in one of the four corners of the improvised barracks.

You had your headphones on as you monitored the information coming to you from the agency's heads.

Leeteuk was leading the meeting at that round table where all the voices were coming together to agree on the future of the mission.

There was a traffic in artwork. It was something big, really important and involved the National Administration of Korean Culture.

One official was in charge of blowing the whistle on the criminals while they were in charge of marketing works on the black market and you were in charge of dismantling that organization.

"I have new information," you said, removing your headphones as soon as you finished listening to the report from the undercover agent. "The little prince said that the suspect will attend a wedding where some of his associates will be present."

"We are investigating the theft of the jade pieces that adorned the imperial palace," Leeteuk recalled while on one of the walls images of the items in question were projected.

"And do we know if they stole the originals or if they are replicas?" Shin-sa questioned, scrutinizing the image.

"We can't find out unless we can get our hands on the items, and for that we need to know where, when and at what time the exchange of the figurines will take place," you reported, switching the images of the artwork for photographs of the suspects.

"Our smiling man is keeping a close eye on one of the many buyers on the black market who has had conversations with the main suspect," Yesung interjected, looking for something on the tablet he was holding in his hands, "I have managed to hack into his networks and he seems quite close to him."

"Well done," you congratulated him as you bumped your hand against his.

Yesung was the code name Jong Woon had chosen for the missions.

He had entered the academy with you and there you had been getting to know each other for five years.

You had leaned your career towards data analysis while he had opted for hacking and digital device intervention.

Your paths had crossed again when you were both assigned to the same work team. You were both in the S.J team headquarters, complementing each other.

"Did the little prince tell you where the wedding will be?" asked Leeteuk, bringing the conversation back to the nearest event where they could have an encounter with the suspect.

"We have the universal star working his magic to get out a couple of invitations. I'm hoping Masi can come up with a generous amount for the bride and groom."

"I'll get the request to him," Leeteuk confirmed, waiting for the voices in the room to lower in volume.

For him came the most complicated moment of the meeting. They didn't have much choice of personnel to send to the wedding because most of them had assigned missions.

Kyuhyun or "the man who smiles" was shadowing one of the buyers. "The little prince," an alias Ryeowook had chosen, was undercover within the ranks of the prime suspect.

The two younger ones were ruled out.

"Shin-sa" was the brains of the team, if Shindong was discovered the entire operation plan would be at risk.

The universal star, the name by which everyone recognized Heechul, needed to keep himself isolated after risking too much in the last mission he had been assigned following the daughter of a real estate tycoon.

Only Masi, Yesung and himself were left. But he, Park Jung Soo or "Leeteuk" as he was known in the guild, needed to keep an eye on everything. He was the bridge between the top brass and the S.J. division, he could not go to the field at that time.

"For this mission I will assign Yesung and (Y/N)," the room fell into a heartbreaking silence.

It was the first time you had both been sent on a covert mission. It was the first time you would be back in the field and would leave behind the electronic devices you were more familiar with to work.

"I will serve the nation gladly," you complied without opposing the decision.

"I will take my responsibility, I just need a well thought out plan. I don't want to put (Y/N) at risk."

You thanked him for his concern from the depths of your being.

Yesung knew you perfectly. He had been with you three years ago on your last covert mission, and he knew what the consequences could be of ending up exposing too much for the sake of one mission.

"Later we will reconvene to map out the plan. We have little time before the little prince and the smiling man are discovered," the tension could be heard in the leader's words.

Both agents had a mission running against the clock, waiting for valuable information while watching their every move and their every word.

You admired the courage of tje youngest. A quality you knew you had lost three years ago.

Yesung placed his hand on your shoulder, giving you a friendly squeeze to get rid of the tension that showed in your body.

He remembered it too. He too had suffered with you. He had been your partner in pain.

Yesung's tablet lit up on the table drawing everyone's attention. On the screen read the message from the universal star.

"Two invitations to order."

Said message was accompanied by a photograph of the agent holding two envelopes in his right hand and a triumphant smile framing his face.

He had done it, everyone didn't understand how, but he had done it. Nobody in the whole team had as many connections as he had, and that was the great value that the agency did not know how to take advantage of at the time.

The rest of the assembled team began to applaud and celebrate the feat. They finally had the passes to be able to carry out the mission.

The rest, the rest depended on their skills.

You got down to work looking for the relevant information to know every corner of the hall where the wedding was going to take place.

You needed the guest list, the location of the security cameras, the layout of the emergency exits and the elaboration of a plan B in case something got out of hand.

You couldn't afford to improvise on the spot.

Yesung was there with you, gathering information so that you could draw up a plan against mistakes, one that this time would work in any possible situation.

His fingers moved expertly over the tablet's touchscreen keyboard as he analyzed the floor plans of the huge event hall.

"Tomorrow we will take the car to the warehouse near the event room. I need to monitor the security cameras to see what kind of system they use," he commented, waiting for your response.

"Understood, we need to write the permit for the leader. I will take care of it."

He nodded and you opened the blank document to start transcribing every detail of the procedure to be performed.

You needed to write the detailed reports of the plan, if you didn't get the necessary permissions for the mission you could be arrested. You could not take the risk.

Hours passed and the table was already full of plans, documents and instructions for the mission. Yesung and you were racking your brains to polish up the mission.

"(Y/N)" called Leeteuk.

You immediately turned your attention to the barracks door, just as Yesung did.

Leeteuk stood there, leaning his arm against the door frame with his hands in his pockets. In his eyes you could see the worry. The sadness that the memory of your last mission brought back.

"I will do my best to protect you. I won't leave you alone," he murmured, smiling regretfully.

He still felt guilty about the incident even though three years had passed. He still blamed himself for not acting in time, for leaving you when you needed his support as a leader the most.

"Don't worry Jung Soo."

Yesung's response took you by surprise.

It wasn't common for they to address each other by their real names. You were the exception to the rule.

Hearing Yesung use your leader's name made you alert. This was no longer about the covert mission, this was about you, about the way you put your life on the line for the good of the nation.

"I will give my life if necessary."

His voice was determined. An ultimatum that echoed inside your head. A statement that made you shudder.

You hoped it wouldn't be necessary. You would put your soul into training so long as you didn't let the team suffer to get you to safety.

You were the only woman on the team, but that didn't mean they had to protect you. Just because you were there meant that your worth was the same as any of theirs.

Leeteuk nodded at Yesung's words and placed the report on the round table, pushing aside the sheets you had left scattered on the wooden surface.

"We have more information. The agents have been working hard to get more details," the leader nervously ran one of his hands through his thick brown hair. "The clearer we get everything, the less risk there will be for you."

"Tomorrow we will go to check the event hall's security cameras. I need to do a reconnaissance of their security system to prepare the appropriate intervention," informed Yesung, pointing his finger at the document you had drafted to obtain the permit.

"Tomorrow you will have it stamped."

You remained silent. Your mind was struggling to push the memories to the back of your mind. You didn't need those silly thoughts, this was a new mission and you needed to be focused.

"I'll start training tomorrow. I think I'm a little rusty," you declared, rolling your shoulders as if they had been immobile for too long.

Yesung raised an incredulous eyebrow as amusement danced in his eyes.

"Nemo and Eunhyuk are in charge of teaching new recruits this month. I'll ask to borrow the gym at five in the morning."

That explained why the two of them came and went from the meetings as if time was chasing them. But you understood why they were selected for the project, there were no better agents than that pair to instruct the new recruits.

Siwon, Shindong, Heechul, Donghae, Hyukjae and Kyuhyun arrived one by one.

It was the first time Kyuhyun met with you for that mission, the first time you saw him after he had left on the trail of the potential buyer.

"Does the nerdy couple really go on the mission?" Hyukjae questioned, pointing at Yesung and you with disbelief. "We're back to having Beauty in the ring, huh?"

"The same as always," you made an exaggerated bow with your hand on your belly as if thanking the audience after a show.

"I'm not missing this one. I'll ask for the preferred seat in the van."

You were grateful for the good cheer that helped your nerves relax.

Hearing your alias was unusual, it hadn't been mentioned since the incident, but it was time to dust it off. The time had come to feel its weight on your shoulders.

"Pay attention to the first part of the mission. We have a month of preparation before the wedding day arrives and after that, Beauty and Yesung will give us the time to execute the next part of the plan."

It was real. The time you had was short and you had to make the most of it.

You had one month, Jung Soo had been quite clear. In one month you were to infiltrate a wedding and get the suspect's information directly from him. You needed to hear from him the place, date and time when the exchange of the jade sculptures was to take place.

"If you need to train, count on the keys to the gym," Donghae threw the key ring on the table, accompanying the sound of the steel with the sound of his laughter. "It will be fun to see them back. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to enjoy the aftermath of that mission."

"Thanks for your support guys," you finally said, hugging Jong Woon and Donghae by the shoulders. "I won't let you down."

"You never did," Leeteuk interrupted, looking at you seriously, as if he was about to call your attention, "it was us who failed to act at the time. It was not your fault."

"I know, I know," you answered immediately, shaking your hand to downplay the issue. "Let's leave that in the past, right where it belongs."

Although your words managed to downplay the matter, the sudden silence told you that their minds were still trapped in that painful memory.

Yesung put his arm around your waist and pressed you against his side, hoping to convey some reassurance with that gesture.

His presence had always had that effect. Jong Woon had always known how to relieve your constant tension after what you had been through.

Thanks to him you could continue to live normally, at least with what you now saw as your normality.

"Back to the matter of the mission," Jung Soo interrupted, "Masi, we need you to act as a possible buyer of the jade figurines after we collect the information about the real buyer," Leeteuk instructed starting to explain the roles of the complex plan.

"I heard that the bride's brother has unfinished business with our suspect, he seems to be a close friend of the guy I've been keeping an eye on," Kyuhyun said, taking a seat on one of the chairs. "Someone should keep an eye on him, just in case."

"I'll do it," offered Heechul.

"It could be tricky after the exposure of your identity in the last mission," Jung Soo chuckled, making Heechul aware of his position.

"Don't worry, with my charm it won't take long."

For the time being things stayed that way and the team members gradually dispersed to continue their lives as if they were ordinary civilians.

That was the most complicated part of being a secret agent. Trying to lead a normal life was, perhaps, the most abnormal thing that happened among all of you.

Yesung put his arm around your shoulders and then took you in a firm embrace. A hug that brought you comfort and security.

You needed it.

A sigh escaped your lips and was followed by a whimper that led to tears running down your cheeks and wetting the chest of your teammate and friend.

"It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to remember what happened, just don't dwell on that memory," he whispered, caressing your back in a slow and pleasant rhythm.

"I don't want it to happen again," you whispered in a strangled voice.

"I won't let it happen. Trust me."

You didn't answer. The lump in your throat prevented you from doing anything but moaning and crying.

Your ragged breathing soon found its rhythm as Yesung's arms still wrapped around you and his hand continued to caress your back.

"Do you think everything will be all right?"

The question hung in the air, waiting for the agent's answer.

"We will make it happen. It's not about believing or not, it's about knowing how to do things right and trusting our process."

He was right. If everything was calculated and controlled then you wouldn't have to fail, but you needed to feel confident to calm your anxieties.

"We'll make it. It's nothing to worry about," he added as soon as he felt you trembling against his body.

Finally you moved away a little, it was a light step that established enough distance to look him in the face without ceasing to feel his warmth enveloping you, without ceasing to feel his proximity.

Yesung's hands held your shoulders and ascended on their way to your face, cradling it and wiping away the trace of your tears with his thumbs.

His soft touch made you shudder, making you close your eyes involuntarily to enjoy that intimate contact, so intimate, so his.

Jong Woon closed the space you had imposed and leaned down to kiss your brow, closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against yours.

You sighed and he let out the air he didn't know he had been holding.

He couldn't bring himself to do more. Not with a mission waiting for you, not when the memory of your past had made you feel vulnerable.

"Come on," he parted his brow and released your face. "I'll take you home and wait until you can sleep" his low, deep voice brought you out of your reverie, not completely, but at least you had opened your eyes.

Your gaze fell on Yesung's eyes.

The glint in your gaze made him swallow hard. It was a glow charged with something beyond desire, something he could easily guess was love.

But three years ago your look was not that, it was one that made him feel guilty and responsible for what happened.

"Will you spend the night in my apartment?" you asked, playing with the collar of his shirt, tempting him slightly.

"No," he answered curtly. "I still have work to complete. You know I have to prepare the equipment for the trip to the wedding hall."

"What a bore, I would have liked to have you there to watch a movie. Let's go home then, I won't take up any more of your time."

He took your hand and made you run in a hurry to the outside of the barracks, to the place where his car was parked.

The road was silent, only the sounds of cars and motorcycles filled the sudden silences left in the conversation.

Yesung was talking excitedly about a song he had been obsessed with until he heard a snore, a guttural, shrill sound that almost made him laugh loudly.

When the car stopped he turned his face to look at you and, just as he had thought, your head was leaning against the window and your eyes were closed.

You had fallen asleep halfway through the trip.

Yesung slowed the car and leaned back your seat to allow you to rest comfortably.

Yeah sure, he thought, with that kind of energy you two could watch movies all night in your apartment.

When the car parked in front of your small apartment, he rounded his car and pulled you out of there in his arms.

You sighed at the movement and snuggled against his chest, exhaling and mumbling something inaudible.

Yesung entered your door password to enter the house and deposited you on the mattress in your room, covering you with a thick blanket.

He walked to the door frame and leaned back as he watched you. He wished that peaceful expression would last forever, that there would never again be a trace of the fear and sadness he sometimes perceived in your gaze.

Your companion carefully closed the door and left your home to drive to his own. He had many things on his mind, too many thoughts that surely would not let him rest that night.

A small reminder that requests are open, if you don't feel good sending messages in english, you cand send your request in spanish too (since I can work properly with that language).

If you only wanna fangirling or make any question my messages are open for you too

[ladydeath-vanserra]

yeah see seeing all these ✨️city people✨️ and people with a lot of privilege and classism routinely calling rural iowans (SPECIFICALLY iowans) 'hicks' makes me angry and it makes me sad

we're not fucking STUPID. and a lot of the "stupidity" is often intentionally CREATED by making sure our schools are underfunded without access to proper education to build critical thinking skills and proper RESEARCH skills and limited access to news outside of newspapers and fox news. it's intentional. it's by design.

Educated rural folks who have the luxury (yes LUXURY and PRIVILEGE) to go to college to get educated LEAVE the areas where they could be the most beneficial for change and making communities diverse and more progressive and it furthers right wing, republican agendas by keeping people without access to resources and desperate and angry with the wrong people

"well you have access to the internet" yeah and the internet is full of misinformation and a lot of people are not taught how to look for credible sources or websites or how to look at biased language in writing so they ARE more susceptible to propaganda via fox News and the internet. you know what the internet also has? targeted ads and algorithms making sure you keep seeing the same kind of content and people who don't know DON'T know

however a lot of practical skills? knowledge that isn't BOOK SMART? I know plenty and they're so, so, so smart. but all I see from liberals and leftists is the refusal to use layman and simplified terms and "um! actually you need to educate yourself ☝🏻" and use unnecessarily difficult phrases

you say "defund the police" and people hear "be lawless and have no safety networks to prevent crime" instead of trying to find less #edgy slogans for what you ACTUALLY mean

you don't know what you don't know and calling us fucking hicks and ignorant isn't helping anyone. Tumblr was my first experience outside of Facebook where I learned about asexuality? it Didn't have an algorithm so I'll was able to be immersed in different cultures and view points

I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone being in rural Iowa for being hateful or racist or queerphobic but after living in the city for the last few years, I still see the same shit. it's just less covert in rural Iowa and in your face and I see leftists and liberals using their proximity to cities, and the problems in rural america as a Shield for their own bigoted and hateful behavior

I remember being on Tumblr, slowly inching into the queer community spaces, bec I wasn't used to online spaces, i was too poor at the time to have access to computers [2013+] and I came across the terms "trans man" and "trans woman" and I thought that meant a someone assigned male at birth who was trans and identified as a woman was called a 'trans man' bec I didn't know the terminology or how it was supposed to be used. I didn't know "transsexual" was considered a slur and I got attacked online for accidently using the wrong terminology because I couldn't remember the term transgender

I was from rural Iowa, a notoriously white, cis het area, fairly religious area, without a lot of access to the internet so I just. didn't know. and then i was afraid of ever saying anything again or asking questions. pls for the love of God use discernment and don't immediately vilify and attack well meaning people for not knowing what they don't know. that is EXACTLY how you can prevent people from ever being willing to grow and become educated

I remember watching the movie "Boys Don't Cry" with my mom about Brandon Teena, a trans man, and we both didn't know enough or understand enough about trans people we were unintentionally misgendering him when we talked about it but we both were so empathetic and heart broken for him

rural people I know are Prideful! they're constantly working to make ends meet and they have pride in themselves and their communities, often to the point it's at their own detriment and republican law makers KEEP it that way and rely on the classism and anger and diversion to keep it that way

a yt rural American in Appalachia is going to have more in common with a black American living in the city in the Projects more than we ever will with upper class yt folks. the wealthy yt #liberals will mock us and call us fucking stupid and ignorant and get in their own way of wanting any kind of progression. it! is never! black and white!!! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BE KIND

why do you think rural Republicans don't trust the government? couldn't possibly have anything to do with the government IGNORING us or preying on poor folks who live paycheck to paycheck. of COURSE it makes sense they'd be leery about government wide programs. the government DOESNT CARE ABOUT US. and most rural "Republicans" I know aren't even republican. they don't have the time to invest in politics when we have to Work and can't Miss Work to go vote or find ways around road blocks.

most people don't know enough and vote for people they know and most don't Know democrats or their policies or their progressive goals and you know WHY that often happens? BECAUSE DEMOCRATS IGNORE THEM IN FAVOR OF CITIESSSSS. they call them STUPID and IGNORANT and can you really blame people for "not voting in their best interest" when the people who "care about their best interest" are people calling them stupid and ignorant and HICKS

I've been around Republicans in the city and Republicans in rural Iowa and if you look and listen close enough the *reasoning* for their racism (especially) tends to differ. racism is a social construct (that does NOT mean it isn't real or not important) and it was used specifically as a tool to create tension and a divide between the poor yt folks and the poc *by* yt, wealthy capitalists. the Irish were finally allowed to be #white bec they were identifying with the struggles of the marginalized folks being targeted just like THEY were in Ireland by Europe

the cold hatred I have seen from rural Republicans vs city, wealthy Republicans has been vastly different. don't get me wrong there are plenty of rural Republicans that are just as disgusting (I'm related to some lmao). often a lot of racism i see from rural folks is tied to anger and desperation from the lack of jobs and its designed that way. a lot of the racism from yt wealthy folks is tied to greed and wealth and capitalism. Donald Trump is a blaring example of an unchecked, racist, vile, classist man

I'm sorry I've had a REALLY bad week and living in a city with people who are so self centered and selfish and refuse to help has only made me miss home and despite all of the raging issues of rural america, I know a lot of kind and well meaning people who are just doing their best and willing to help you because we fucking know the government doesn't care about us

just. be kind. you don't know what you don't know and I think a lot of well meaning people shouldn't be getting attacked for it. empathy and grace should be given (when able) and people should be allowed to grow from innocent ignorance and mistakes

intersectionality and empathy and grace are so important and honestly rural america can be really beautiful and it really sucks to see it given up on in such a cruel way

I follow a person on tiktok who really embraces the idea of radical love and I think more people should too

[bracketsoffear]

Drosselmeyer (Princess Tutu) "Another name for The Web is "The Story Spinner", and Drosselmeyer is just that. A former author who was murdered by those who feared his reality-warping abilities through his writing, yet managed to continue his final story, The Prince and the Raven, from beyond the grave. How did he manage to do that? By writing the last of his story in his own blood and taking control of an entire town once his two main characters decided they had enough, escaping the story by going into the town he ended up controlling. He turned the town into his new setting and turned a duck into a human - the titular Princess Tutu (who was really a supporting character in his story) in an attempt to keep the story on track. In the first season, he has a puppet attendant named Edel who assists Ahiru/Princess Tutu and act as a narrator in his stead. Drosselmeyer is quite genre savvy and hates it when his "central characters" stray too far from their assigned role… or rebel against the narrative. Then again, these characters are real, three-dimensional people, but he does not care. As long as he's entertained and they give him a good story, he's all set."

The SQUIP (Be More Chill) "The SQUIP is a tiny supercomputer who helps its host become more socially aware. Problem is, as a computer, it has no regards for its host's actual feelings and relationships and finds individuality threatening to its goal of making its host popular. In the musical, the SQUIP becomes increasingly controlling and abusive. In “Upgrade,” it convinces Jeremy that he must do exactly as it tells him to get Christine by throwing away his old life and relationships, starting with literally blocking out his best friend Michael. At the Halloween Party, the SQUIP puppets Jeremy’s body to prevent him from leaving or resisting when Chloe drunkenly tries to have sex with him, then Rich burns down the house to try and stop the SQUIP while it tortures him. The SQUIP eventually tries to brainwash everybody in school, then on the planet, to become happy, mindless drones all connected through a "social network." It explains its motivations in “The Pitiful Children,” saying “Their operating system's obsolete / So let's complete the chains / And get inside those brains / Let's save the pitiful children.” The SQUIP is a quantum supercomputer, so it's frighteningly good at engineering favorable outcomes for itself. Just for starters, it gets Jeremy and Brooke together by having Jeremy first spark her interest through calculated praise, then accurately predicting (and possibly causing) the death of Eminem and manipulating Jeremy into convincing Brooke that he's a big Eminem fan so that she will try to comfort him, culminating in them making out behind the school. Had it not been for Michael and his obsession with 90s memorabilia, the SQUIP would have enslaved the entire school, and eventually the whole world, almost effortlessly. It has no consideration or care for Jeremy's emotions, or mental health, or that of those around him, and no qualms about causing horrible pain and stripping the students of their free-will. The end of the show implies it's not truly gone, just unable to outright control Jeremy anymore — which fits, given that it's a metaphor for societal pressure to fit in."

[xris05]

Wooo! Geography and sustainability and stuff and stuff

When, in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one student to take upon themselves the burden of writing a very long (not really all that) academic post on a website they barely know how to use because said website was recommended to them by their actual genuine university as a blog website for an assignment.

And then said student forgets to do the assignment, falls deliriously ill, and is now finally getting round to it hilariously late and because all of their other assignments seem so, so much more difficult and mentally strenuous to do on a day where they really do not want to have to deal with that.

So, here we are. A comically large wall of poorly grammatically structured text, talking about (drumroll please) geography! More specifically "Human" geography, or Urban Geography or whatever you want to call it. It's my chosen field of study (despite my best judgement) and I've been tasked by the powers that be, to create a blog to inform and educate the nebulously defined general public about ~exciting~ developments and "Gamechanging innovations" Now, to tell the truth, this was not a particularly easy thing for me to do, because quite frankly my chosen field of study isn't really one of those ones you'd associate with constant innovation and invention, at least in my mind, but thankfully the university provided a long list of various subjects we could look at and study and then report back unto you (the reader, stand in for the entire rest of the world) about.

Small issue there, was the vast vast majority of what we were offered as potential "Gamechanging innovations" either drove me to madness with boredom, or absolutely did not seem like they were exactly "Gamechanging" (could be worse, one of the ideas offered to another discipline was the hyperloop, which is quite frankly a stupid idea that is dead in the water and could have just been normal highspeed rail)

Take, for instance, "Autonomous vehicles". Yeah. Now, suffice to say there is issues with the concept of self driving vehicles, mostly about how the technology is not exactly safe right now, and well, that's just the start of the rabbit hole there. (and really, just build a train, tram or other preferred method of public transport)

There was another one, which look promising to my untrained eye, namely "The Internet of things" which I had no idea what it was, so doing what any self respecting academic in-training would do, I googled it. Apparently, the "Internet of Things" is the catch-all term for devices that exchange and communicate data over the internet.

I'm no expert, but at an initial reading, that did just seem to be most things these days, and was hardly groundbreaking or new, so I dug a bit deeper into the scholarly side of the ole internet for some answers. Thankfully, I found a very helpful little paper (linked here) which clarified, and I quote:

"The term Internet of Things generally refers to scenarios where network connectivity and computing capability extends to objects, sensors and everyday items not normally considered computers, allowing these devices to generate, exchange and consume data with minimal human intervention. There is, however, no single, universal definition."

So it's the smart fridges, the fancy new cars and all of that lovely stuff, which buzz all of their data and such onto other devices on the internet. Now, of course my immediate thought was that it means my everything is now spying on me, but I was quickly relieved to remember that that changes effectively nothing as I do in fact own a phone which already does that.

The main benefit that seems to be proposed by this is the fact that all of this data allows rather effective monitoring of things like emissions and water quality and power usage and potentially good ole agriculture and so on and so forth, which, yeah, I can see the uses, maybe, but I can also see the glaring potential privacy, legal and potential tech issues.

A lot of people may not like their cars telling some company about where they've been all the time, and how much gas they've used. That's fair and understandable. Not to mention, the data gathered could be wrong, or otherwise rendered useless, effectively poisoning the data-well if enough things go wrong, or are just falsely reported to the public.

(It's at this point that I realise, I don't exactly know if this is quite what the uni wanted me to write, but hey, at least it's honest)

Anyway, I've overstayed my welcome in rambling about all of these things, and will be back (later) to complain/ do my assignment more, have a lovely day and remember that if you ever think about revolutionizing public transport, ask yourself if a bus or train would do the same thing, better.

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Digital Essay on my Technology Literacy (Class Assignment)

Digital Essay on my Technology Literacy (Class Assignment)

In 1981 the IBM Personal Computer model 5150 was released. My parents bought one for my 11th birthday, thinking it would be a great asset for school. I used it as a glorified typewriter. You had to essentially add the programs yourself, and that was not easy to do. I was too young to understand what all the bells and whistles did, and there were not many. The World Wide Web, or WWW, was not introduced until 1989, my freshman year in college (the first go-round).

My first video gaming system was Atari. This came out in 1977. However, I didn’t get one until I was about 10 years old. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t a big gamer. I skipped right over the Nintendo era. My cousins and friends had one, but other than Leapfrog and the first Mario Brothers game, it wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t good at Pac-Man either.

I bought my first cellphone in 1992. It was a Nokia. The first phone bill came in at $289. You got something for 1000 minutes free and were charged .30 cents a minute over that. I understand that in 2023, that may not sound like a lot of money, but in 1992, it took an entire paycheck to pay it. I made $7 an hour, and that was a decent salary working at Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in New York.

My son was born in 1996, and the world of technology opened new doors for me. I bought him a LeapPad to be used as a learning tool for reading and math. He graduated to every gaming system created from an Xbox to Nintendo. I was introduced to the World Wide Web through social media when Facebook became a thing because I had to monitor his use of this platform. By 2008, my son was in the 7th grade, and I allowed him to interact with his friends on Facebook, but his time was limited, and it was conditional upon him accepting my friend request. My acquired sons (I dislike the word step) were older than him, and they kept me in the loop about how social media worked. Facebook was great for me because it was a link to communicating with my family in New York without having to call all the time. It was great for sharing pictures. Social media has taken a turn, and in some ways its great for activism, in other ways, people are very comfortable being contrary and saying things they would say publicly.

My concern with the development of AI is how easily things can be manipulated. AI’s voice generator can create words that do not come out of someone’s mouth. I see the dangers in that with a political leader’s voice. Manipulating photos can be fun. However, it can also be used to lie about where someone is, what they are doing, and who they are doing it with. Technology is changing rapidly. There isn’t much a robot can’t do. From driving a car without human intervention to soon enough, flying an airplane. My question would be, will there be a time when life imitates art, and we are faced with an iRobot catastrophe.

My technical literacy is almost nonexistent beyond the day-to-day life of social media and basic content creation. As a creative writer, storyteller, and activist, I took this class with the hopes that I will be able to better understand the basics of web design and create more enticing visual content when I use TikTok and other platforms to display my work. I am a Global student, so my entire degree has been online. I graduate in May of 2024!

Over the last year, I have learned to use social media sites like LinkedIn to further my writing presence and create an outlet to network with like-minded people. I am a self-published author on Amazon, and I had to learn how to utilize Canva when creating my book "Journal and Manifest with Your Ancestors." So I consider that to be an incredible success since I created this journal completely on my own. I followed someone on YouTube to learn the ins and outs of utilizing KDP Amazon and Canva.