#Data Race Computer Center

[science70]

Aurora AFX Data Race Computer Center and Data Race Sound Tower, 1979.

[nasa]

LaRue Burbank, mathematician and computer, is just one of the many women who were instrumental to NASA missions.

4 Little Known Women Who Made Huge Contributions to NASA

Women have always played a significant role at NASA and its predecessor NACA, although for much of the agency’s history, they received neither the praise nor recognition that their contributions deserved. To celebrate Women’s History Month – and properly highlight some of the little-known women-led accomplishments of NASA’s early history – our archivists gathered the stories of four women whose work was critical to NASA’s success and paved the way for future generations.

LaRue Burbank: One of the Women Who Helped Land a Man on the Moon

LaRue Burbank was a trailblazing mathematician at NASA. Hired in 1954 at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (now NASA’s Langley Research Center), she, like many other young women at NACA, the predecessor to NASA, had a bachelor's degree in mathematics. But unlike most, she also had a physics degree. For the next four years, she worked as a "human computer," conducting complex data analyses for engineers using calculators, slide rules, and other instruments. After NASA's founding, she continued this vital work for Project Mercury.

In 1962, she transferred to the newly established Manned Spacecraft Center (now NASA’s Johnson Space Center) in Houston, becoming one of the few female professionals and managers there.  Her expertise in electronics engineering led her to develop critical display systems used by flight controllers in Mission Control to monitor spacecraft during missions. Her work on the Apollo missions was vital to achieving President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon.

Eilene Galloway: How NASA became… NASA

Eilene Galloway wasn't a NASA employee, but she played a huge role in its very creation. In 1957, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, Senator Richard Russell Jr. called on Galloway, an expert on the Atomic Energy Act, to write a report on the U.S. response to the space race. Initially, legislators aimed to essentially re-write the Atomic Energy Act to handle the U.S. space goals. However, Galloway argued that the existing military framework wouldn't suffice – a new agency was needed to oversee both military and civilian aspects of space exploration. This included not just defense, but also meteorology, communications, and international cooperation.

Her work on the National Aeronautics and Space Act ensured NASA had the power to accomplish all these goals, without limitations from the Department of Defense or restrictions on international agreements. Galloway is even to thank for the name "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", as initially NASA was to be called “National Aeronautics and Space Agency” which was deemed to not carry enough weight and status for the wide-ranging role that NASA was to fill.

Barbara Scott: The “Star Trek Nerd” Who Led Our Understanding of the Stars

A self-described "Star Trek nerd," Barbara Scott's passion for space wasn't steered toward engineering by her guidance counselor. But that didn't stop her!  Fueled by her love of math and computer science, she landed at Goddard Spaceflight Center in 1977.  One of the first women working on flight software, Barbara's coding skills became instrumental on missions like the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and the Thermal Canister Experiment on the Space Shuttle's STS-3.  For the final decade of her impressive career, Scott managed the flight software for the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, a testament to her dedication to space exploration.

Dr. Claire Parkinson: An Early Pioneer in Climate Science Whose Work is Still Saving Lives

Dr. Claire Parkinson's love of math blossomed into a passion for climate science. Inspired by the Moon landing, and the fight for civil rights, she pursued a graduate degree in climatology.  In 1978, her talents landed her at Goddard, where she continued her research on sea ice modeling. But Parkinson's impact goes beyond theory.  She began analyzing satellite data, leading to a groundbreaking discovery: a decline in Arctic sea ice coverage between 1973 and 1987. This critical finding caught the attention of Senator Al Gore, highlighting the urgency of climate change.

Parkinson's leadership extended beyond research.  As Project Scientist for the Aqua satellite, she championed making its data freely available. This real-time information has benefitted countless projects, from wildfire management to weather forecasting, even aiding in monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. Parkinson's dedication to understanding sea ice patterns and the impact of climate change continues to be a valuable resource for our planet.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space! 

[draconym]

nightshade is basically useless https://www.tumblr.com/billclintonsbeefarm/740236576484999168/even-if-you-dont-like-generative-models-this

I'm not a developer, but the creators of Nightshade do address some of this post's concerns in their FAQ. Obviously it's not a magic bullet to prevent AI image scraping, and obviously there's an arms race between AI developers and artists attempting to disrupt their data pools. But personally, I think it's an interesting project and is accessible to most people to try. Giving up on it at this stage seems really premature.

But if it's caption data that's truly valuable, Tumblr is an ... interesting ... place to be scraping it from. For one thing, users tend to get pretty creative with both image descriptions and tags. For another, I hope whichever bot scrapes my blog enjoys the many bird photos I have described as "Cheese." Genuinely curious if Tumblr data is actually valuable or if it's garbage.

That said, I find it pretty ironic that the OP of the post you linked seems to think nightshade and glaze specifically are an unreasonable waste of electricity. Both are software. Your personal computer's graphics card is doing the work, not an entire data center, so if your computer was going to be on anyway, the cost is a drop in the bucket compared to what AI generators are consuming.

Training a large language model like GPT-3, for example, is estimated to use just under 1,300 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity; about as much power as consumed annually by 130 US homes. To put that in context, streaming an hour of Netflix requires around 0.8 kWh (0.0008 MWh) of electricity. That means you’d have to watch 1,625,000 hours to consume the same amount of power it takes to train GPT-3. (source)

So, no, I don't think Nightshade or Glaze are useless just because they aren't going to immediately topple every AI image generator. There's not really much downside for the artists interested in using them so I hope they continue development.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The real AI fight

Tonight (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

Last week's spectacular OpenAI soap-opera hijacked the attention of millions of normal, productive people and nonsensually crammed them full of the fine details of the debate between "Effective Altruism" (doomers) and "Effective Accelerationism" (AKA e/acc), a genuinely absurd debate that was allegedly at the center of the drama.

Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA "spicy autocomplete") will someday become so advanced that it could wake up and annihilate or enslave the human race. To prevent this, we need to employ "AI Safety" – measures that will turn superintelligence into a servant or a partner, nor an adversary.

Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity – but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer "safety" measures, in order to produce an "upward spiral" in the "techno-capital machine."

Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationists who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we're told, is the ideological battle over AI: should cautiously progress our LLMs into superintelligences with safety in mind, or go full speed ahead and trust to market forces to tame and harness the superintelligences to come?

This "AI debate" is pretty stupid, proceeding as it does from the foregone conclusion that adding compute power and data to the next-word-predictor program will eventually create a conscious being, which will then inevitably become a superbeing. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding faster and faster horses, we'll get a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As Molly White writes, this isn't much of a debate. The "two sides" of this debate are as similar as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Yes, they're arrayed against each other in battle, so furious with each other that they're tearing their hair out. But for people who don't take any of this mystical nonsense about spontaneous consciousness arising from applied statistics seriously, these two sides are nearly indistinguishable, sharing as they do this extremely weird belief. The fact that they've split into warring factions on its particulars is less important than their unified belief in the certain coming of the paperclip-maximizing apocalypse:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/effective-obfuscation

White points out that there's another, much more distinct side in this AI debate – as different and distant from Dee and Dum as a Beamish Boy and a Jabberwork. This is the side of AI Ethics – the side that worries about "today’s issues of ghost labor, algorithmic bias, and erosion of the rights of artists and others." As White says, shifting the debate to existential risk from a future, hypothetical superintelligence "is incredibly convenient for the powerful individuals and companies who stand to profit from AI."

After all, both sides plan to make money selling AI tools to corporations, whose track record in deploying algorithmic "decision support" systems and other AI-based automation is pretty poor – like the claims-evaluation engine that Cigna uses to deny insurance claims:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

On a graph that plots the various positions on AI, the two groups of weirdos who disagree about how to create the inevitable superintelligence are effectively standing on the same spot, and the people who worry about the actual way that AI harms actual people right now are about a million miles away from that spot.

There's that old programmer joke, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't." But of course, that joke could just as well be, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't understand either":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/11/the-ten-types-of-people/

What's more, the joke could be, "there are 10 kinds of people, those who understand hexadecenary, those who understand pentadecenary, those who understand tetradecenary [und so weiter] those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't." That is to say, a "polarized" debate often has people who hold positions so far from the ones everyone is talking about that those belligerents' concerns are basically indistinguishable from one another.

The act of identifying these distant positions is a radical opening up of possibilities. Take the indigenous philosopher chief Red Jacket's response to the Christian missionaries who sought permission to proselytize to Red Jacket's people:

https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5790/

Red Jacket's whole rebuttal is a superb dunk, but it gets especially interesting where he points to the sectarian differences among Christians as evidence against the missionary's claim to having a single true faith, and in favor of the idea that his own people's traditional faith could be co-equal among Christian doctrines.

The split that White identifies isn't a split about whether AI tools can be useful. Plenty of us AI skeptics are happy to stipulate that there are good uses for AI. For example, I'm 100% in favor of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group using an LLM to classify and extract information from the Innocence Project New Orleans' wrongful conviction case files:

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

Automating "extracting officer information from documents – specifically, the officer's name and the role the officer played in the wrongful conviction" was a key step to freeing innocent people from prison, and an LLM allowed HRDAG – a tiny, cash-strapped, excellent nonprofit – to make a giant leap forward in a vital project. I'm a donor to HRDAG and you should donate to them too:

https://hrdag.networkforgood.com/

Good data-analysis is key to addressing many of our thorniest, most pressing problems. As Ben Goldacre recounts in his inaugural Oxford lecture, it is both possible and desirable to build ethical, privacy-preserving systems for analyzing the most sensitive personal data (NHS patient records) that yield scores of solid, ground-breaking medical and scientific insights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eaV8SWdjQ

The difference between this kind of work – HRDAG's exoneration work and Goldacre's medical research – and the approach that OpenAI and its competitors take boils down to how they treat humans. The former treats all humans as worthy of respect and consideration. The latter treats humans as instruments – for profit in the short term, and for creating a hypothetical superintelligence in the (very) long term.

As Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax reminds us, this is the root of all sin: "sin is when you treat people like things":

https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/granny-weatherwax-on-sin-favorite.html

So much of the criticism of AI misses this distinction – instead, this criticism starts by accepting the self-serving marketing claim of the "AI safety" crowd – that their software is on the verge of becoming self-aware, and is thus valuable, a good investment, and a good product to purchase. This is Lee Vinsel's "Criti-Hype": "taking press releases from startups and covering them with hellscapes":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Criti-hype and AI were made for each other. Emily M Bender is a tireless cataloger of criti-hypeists, like the newspaper reporters who breathlessly repeat " completely unsubstantiated claims (marketing)…sourced to Altman":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464030855880383

Bender, like White, is at pains to point out that the real debate isn't doomers vs accelerationists. That's just "billionaires throwing money at the hope of bringing about the speculative fiction stories they grew up reading – and philosophers and others feeling important by dressing these same silly ideas up in fancy words":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464024432217299

All of this is just a distraction from real and important scientific questions about how (and whether) to make automation tools that steer clear of Granny Weatherwax's sin of "treating people like things." Bender – a computational linguist – isn't a reactionary who hates automation for its own sake. On Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 – the excellent podcast she co-hosts with Alex Hanna – there is a machine-generated transcript:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417

There is a serious, meaty debate to be had about the costs and possibilities of different forms of automation. But the superintelligence true-believers and their criti-hyping critics keep dragging us away from these important questions and into fanciful and pointless discussions of whether and how to appease the godlike computers we will create when we disassemble the solar system and turn it into computronium.

The question of machine intelligence isn't intrinsically unserious. As a materialist, I believe that whatever makes me "me" is the result of the physics and chemistry of processes inside and around my body. My disbelief in the existence of a soul means that I'm prepared to think that it might be possible for something made by humans to replicate something like whatever process makes me "me."

Ironically, the AI doomers and accelerationists claim that they, too, are materialists – and that's why they're so consumed with the idea of machine superintelligence. But it's precisely because I'm a materialist that I understand these hypotheticals about self-aware software are less important and less urgent than the material lives of people today.

It's because I'm a materialist that my primary concerns about AI are things like the climate impact of AI data-centers and the human impact of biased, opaque, incompetent and unfit algorithmic systems – not science fiction-inspired, self-induced panics over the human race being enslaved by our robot overlords.

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/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[pennamesmith]

Raising Despara

If you enjoyed Masters of the Universe: Revolution and wanted Keith David’s Hordak to have an Entrapta, this story’s for you. Big spoilers for MOTU: Revelation and Revolution!

—

Hordak ran.

He held the tiny bundle tightly in his huge arms, careful to support it properly even as he raced through the night. Sacrificing Skeletor had bought him only moments, if that. He would have to be swift. Already he could hear the pounding footsteps of the palace guards behind him.

Laser bolts ripped across the moonlit sky. Hordak tore through a dark canopy of trees, ignoring the branches that clawed at his face. He was almost at the extraction point. He could see the portal, blazing brightly ahead of him. The shouting at his heels grew louder.

“Pitiful, pedestrian protectors,” Hordak growled, chancing a look over his shoulder. “You cannot keep me from claiming my quarry.”

Clutching the little body to his chest, he took a massive leap and sailed through the crackling rift in space. The portal closed behind him an instant later, sealing out the guards’ angry cries.

In the new silence, another cry filled the air. A small face poked out of the swaddling blankets in Hordak’s hands, and after it, two tiny fists.

“Silence, small one. Cease these sounds. You are safe,” Hordak admonished, rising slowly to his knees.

“Rock her a little. It’ll calm her down,” the engineer operating the portal generator said. “I think that’s what the book I read said to do, anyway.”

Hesitantly, Hordak swung the infant gently from side to side. The movement was almost comical with his hulking frame, but sure enough, the baby girl quieted. A giggle escaped her.

The room they were in was dark, with metal walls. Banks of computer terminals, buzzing machinery, and steaming pipes filled the space from floor to ceiling. Crimson bat emblems burned on every screen that wasn’t showing a data readout.

The engineer busied herself with a wide bank of screens and blinking lights. She was small, but wore her massive work clothes like armor. Her long hair moved like the twisting arms of an octopus, cybernetic implants twinkling purple at the base of her skull.

The hair continued pushing buttons and pulling levers as she approached Hordak to look at the baby he held.

“Did you get the other one?”

“No. Skeletor slipped, as I suspected he would. A manageable mistake. Let him battle his brother for the boy’s fate.” He looked down at the baby girl, who was already drifting back to sleep. “A single scion of Grayskull is more than sufficient to realize my revolution.”

“I’ve got the care pod ready.” The engineer slid a panel aside, revealing a small crib bed nestled in the center of more machinery. Hordak placed her inside, and the two stood there for a moment, simply looking at her.

“Does she have a name?” the engineer asked.

“Whatever name she had on Eternia, she will need a new one now,” Hordak answered. “It presents a potent puzzle. How shall I describe this destined daughter of destruction? Her moniker must match her fearsome fate.”

“What about Despara?” the engineer suggested. “That was my great aunt’s name.”

Hordak considered it, then nodded. “A noble nomination. It suits one such as she.” He leaned down, speaking softly so as not to wake the sleeping child.

“Welcome to your new home in the Horde, dear Despara.”

—

Despara ran.

She’d grown fast in seven years, and soon enough even the generous range granted to her by her guardians was not enough. She could complete every training course with her eyes closed, knew every corner of her dark castle tower, could climb any wall. And so here she was, sprinting down the windowless halls, jumping across the smoky rooftops, and crawling through cramped ventilation shafts. She was big enough to want the universe, and small enough to slip through the cracks in the walls that kept her from it. It was a dangerous age.

She paused at a grate and looked down.

In the room below, a woman crouched over a cluttered desk, soldering computer parts. Her hair stretched out in every direction, reaching for tools or distractedly completing their own tasks. The movement was continuous, like a flowing current. It was hypnotic.

Suddenly, one of the bolts in the grate gave way. Despara yelped as she fell.

The woman below snapped to attention. Despara fell for less than a second before she was caught in a cushion of wrapped hair. She threw her arms around the woman’s neck and laughed.

“Hi Entrapta! I knew you’d catch me,” Despara giggled.

Entrapta raised her goggles and lowered her eyelids. “You are not supposed to be here, little one.”

“I know, but I was bored, and Hordak’s meeting is taking forever,” Despara whined. “Can’t you show me some of the cool stuff you’re working on?”

Entrapta ruffled the girl’s short, blonde hair. “Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear. Here, you can help me make wire relays for the new death ray prototype.” She pushed a pile of parts across the workbench.

Despara began assembling the components with practiced speed. “Tell me again about the day you found me,” she said.

Entrapta’s reply was equally practiced. She’d told this story many times.

“Hordak was coming back from a mission. I had used my technology to open a portal to another world, and he was searching for a new home for the Horde.”

“But it was a bad place,” Despara piped up.

Entrapta nodded. “Very bad. Barbaric, in fact. The evil king and queen of that land were going to sacrifice a child to their false gods of magic.”

“That was me!” Despara bounced in her seat.

“That was you. But Hordak rescued you, even after his trusted apprentice betrayed him. He left that world, just to bring you somewhere better. And as soon as he was back, I closed the portal, snap, just like that!” Entrapta clapped her hands for emphasis.

“Snap!” Despara echoed, mimicking the motion. “What was that world called?”

“Nobody knows,” Entrapta answered, very quickly. “If we ever find it again, perhaps you will be old enough to help us liberate the poor people who live there.”

Despara was quiet for a moment. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

“Will you build me something?”

Entrapta examined the paper. It was a child’s work, but the intention was clear. She smirked at the helmet’s design; the familiar red eyes and teeth.

“I want to help Hordak,” Despara explained. “And if I wear something like that, if I looked like his real daughter, maybe he would let me.”

“You are his real daughter,” Entrapta insisted. “Even if you are not of his blood. And you will help him, someday, when you’re older.”

Despara’s blue eyes twinkled. “That wasn’t a no.”

Entrapta winked and pocketed the paper. “When you’re older,” she repeated.

And Despara thought about her future, making the universe better one world at a time.

It was going to be beautiful.

—

“It’s beautiful!” Despara gasped, staring at the majestic creature. “What is it?”

Hordak beamed as he handed her the reins. “On its homeworld, it is called a horse. A birthday present for you.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Despara hugged the towering Horde Commander with unabashed familiarity. “I love him! I’m going to name him Spirit. May I go out for a ride with him now? Please?”

“Of course, dear Despara. Just take a trooper with you, in case of trouble.”

He stood and watched as they raced off into the distance. Someone snickered below his sightline. Turning, he saw Entrapta emerging from whatever corner she’d been hiding in this time.

“You’re laying it on a bit thick, my lord,” the engineer said. “Everything all right at home?”

Hordak snorted. “You know me so well, scientist. I can have no secrets with you at my side. It happens that the new magic user I hired has been making many overtures to our adolescent ward. I cannot have the future leader of my armies seduced by such simple spells! I had hoped to regain her regard by giving her this gift.”

“Really? You’re feeling threatened by Shadow Weaver?”

“It is most miserable that I must make magic a part of my machinations, however minute. But I will not have my years of work wasted by that witch.”

“Yeah, and it’s got nothing to do with wanting to be the favorite parent over mom,” Entrapta needled with a grin.

Hordak remained impassive. “Nothing at all. And at any rate, if anyone has assumed the mantle of mother to Despara these many years, it is you, my most marvelous machinist.”

That caught Entrapta off guard. Her hair shivered, suddenly uncertain of what to do with itself. Unconsciously, she stepped closer to the towering man. She tried not to look at his face and only wound up staring at his chest instead.

“It’s been an honor to work with you, mighty one,” she managed. “I mean, you already trust me with your weapons, your robots, and your infrastructure. I should think that looking after your kid once in a while is a small ask compared to all that.”

He rested a mighty claw gently on her shoulder, and she cursed herself for flinching.

“I owe you a great debt, Entrapta. I do not forget fealty such as yours. In the new universe Horde Prime has promised us, I intend to install you at my right hand. You are the engine of this empire. Wherever I go, I want you with me.”

Entrapta smiled.

—

Entrapta frowned at the screen. She’d double- and triple-checked the data she was receiving, but the results stayed the same. She sighed. There was no getting around it. She had to tell Hordak.

Half-finished projects and disconnected parts filled the cluttered laboratory. She had to take several big steps over loose cables and chunks of mismatched machinery to get out of the grungy nest that had formed around her desk. She’d been working for, what was it, three days now without sleep? Hordak would have ordered her to rest if he knew, but his praise of her ingenuity always fueled her to keep going.

Most of the room was dominated by a robotic woman of titanic proportions, tubes and wires stretching away from her crowned face like braids. Entrapta patted it on the knee as she passed. The robot didn’t move, but it glowed softly with an eerie indigo light.

Propelled by her hair as much as her feet, Entrapta sped through the labyrinthine halls and tunnels that stretched across the complex. Everything was connected, like a massive anthill, and she had built half of it all anyway. It wasn’t long before a hissing grate swung out of a hidden panel, and she was standing in the vaulted throne room.

Hordak lounged in his chair, resting his head on one hand. He smiled when saw her, flashing his blood-red teeth.

“My most exceptional engineer,” he purred. “What sends you to my side? Have your eyes espied evidence of Eternia’s erosion?”

Entrapta took a deep breath. “You were right. Something happened to the magic — it’s seeping away from the planet like water down a drain. My drones picked up everything. As for the cause… all my reports say that the Champion of Grayskull is dead. And the Sword of Power has been destroyed.”

“Dead?” Hordak’s eyes brightened. “Then Grayskull stands unguarded. You have amazed me again, my accomplished ally. Make Motherboard ready and muster the machines. I would hold Eternia in your electronic embrace as early as possible.”

Entrapta hesitated. “There’s more.”

“More?”

“It would seem that the Champion… was also the son of King Randor.”

Hordak’s face fell. “The king’s son?”

“It’s an advantage.” Entrapta tried to focus on her data screens. “Not only has magic left the planet, they’ve been thrown into political chaos. It’s the perfect time to…”

But Hordak wasn’t listening. He mashed his wide palms against his face, and when he looked up Entrapta was shocked to see the beginning of tears in his red eyes.

“What am I going to tell Despara?”

Entrapta affected a shrug. “Nothing would be easiest. She doesn’t even know Eternia’s name, much less that she still has family there.”

“Her family is in the Fright Zone,” Hordak snapped, perhaps more defensively than he’d meant to.

“Look, we knew this was a possibility. Both of the twins are descendants of Grayskull, it’s the whole reason we went after them!”

Hordak was staring into the distance. “I just didn’t think… He would have been so young. Despara is only a girl.”

Entrapta crossed her arms. “She’s twenty-one. And asks me every day when you’re going to let her go out on a real mission, just so you know. You can’t shield her from the universe forever.”

Hordak grit his teeth. “Perhaps not. But with Eternia eliminated, I can at last provide her with the peace I have promised. We move with caution. I say again: make Motherboard ready. Drones only, until we determine what is next to be done.”

Entrapta pulled her goggles down, and turned to leave.

“As you wish, Lord Hordak.”

—

“No! I won’t do it!” Despara shouted. “Do you really expect me to stay behind? After everything you’ve told me about Eternia?”

“Eternia is an evil environment,” Hordak said sternly. “Especially since it seems the Sorceress’ savage sword-swinger has survived. It’s not safe.”

“All the more reason for me to go!” Despara stomped her boot. She had buzzed hair and wore gray armor, with two swords at her back that ached to be drawn. She scowled at Hordak, and he held out a gauntleted hand to console her.

“If Skeletor’s sedition is successful, we will seize the planet without a single shot. After that I will send for you, to help me redeem the repugnant world I rescued you from. It is your destiny, Despara.”

Despara relented, but her frown remained. “You told me yourself that Skeletor can’t be trusted.”

“I don’t like this plan either,” Entrapta cut in. She was perched on the roof of Hordak’s shuttle, as it waited to deliver him to the great fleet massing in the skies. “There’s too many variables. I should go with you in the flagship, at least.”

“No!” Hordak roared. “I need you both to stay here. The Power of Grayskull is not to be trifled with. Entrapta can continue to control Motherboard from a distance. Despara, you must prepare for your future without distractions. I will send for you both when I have secured the planet…”

He glanced at Despara, then Entrapta, and then looked away from them both.

“…And when He-Man no longer poses a threat to us.”

Entrapta climbed down, her hair like spider legs, and joined Despara in frowning quietly. But she also didn’t try to stop him. Hordak looked at the two women with the closest thing to caring he imagined his cold heart could hold. A more sentimental family might have embraced in that moment.

“I will return soon to the heart of the Horde,” Hordak said, and turned to board the shuttle.

When the doors were up and they’d left the dock, Hordak sighed deeply. He drummed his fingers against his armrest and tapped his feet impatiently. It was alien to him, this feeling of fear. Certainly, he had felt fear before. The universe was large and full of things more terrible even than Hordak. He was not ashamed to admit he had feared for his life more than once in his many years.

What was strange was feeling afraid for someone else’s life. For two lives, in fact.

Hordak hunched in his chair and buried himself in thoughts of war, and stratagem, and conquest. He would be victorious. He had to be victorious.

He would let nothing stand in his way.

—

“Get out of my way!” Entrapta screamed, pushing past the Horde soldiers and robots as they rushed down the medical complex hallways. “Move, you useless trash!”

She burst through the door of the surgery bay. Despara was already there, standing helplessly by the emergency pod. She turned as Entrapta ran in, and there were tears streaming from her face.

“Is he alive? Can you…?” Despara broke into another sob and threw her arms around Entrapta.

Entrapta hugged the girl back, but her eyes stayed fixed on the pod beside them. Under its glass, Hordak lay still, a huge, vicious wound torn through his torso. Data points flashed on holographic screens and a million medical machines pumped and pinged.

Entrapta’s hair moved, twisting across the room in all directions. She seized scalpels, sutures, and a dozen other pieces of equipment. Moving out of Despara’s grasp, she bent to stare at Hordak’s injury. Her eyes burned. She opened the pod, noxious steam hissing, and went to work.

“I need a full-immersion tissue loom and a fresh nanite base kit,” she said, without looking around. For her, the rest of the universe was already fading out of existence. She moved like a machine.

Or a monster.

Six hours later, Entrapta slumped to an exhausted heap. Despara helped her to her chair.

“He’ll live,” Entrapta said, her voice distant and gravelly.

“I should have been there,” Despara said firmly. “We should have been there. Skeletor did this. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.” Her face bent into a cold fury. “I will destroy him. I swear, I will destroy them both! Skeletor, and this despicable He-Man!”

Entrapta put her hand on Despara’s and looked up at her. The fire in the engineer’s eyes had dimmed, but there was still a red-hot coal lurking there. She raised an eyebrow.

“Do you remember, Despara, many years ago, when you asked me to build you something? So that you could help Hordak, as his daughter.”

Despara returned her gaze, and the fire.

“I remember.”

—

The lab was even messier than usual, after Entrapta’s fit of rage when Motherboard went offline. And her next one, when the fleet had returned blaring emergency klaxons. But she still knew where everything was, and in seconds she had what she was looking for.

She’d built it years ago. She was saving it, as a present.

Despara took the helmet from Entrapta’s outstretched hands. She looked at the familiar features: the fanged face, the dark red eyes, the spiked crest. Reverently, she placed it over her head. The world went crimson, and she felt as if she were finally complete. She had the power.

Despara rose.

[beardedmrbean]

A prominent New Hampshire Democrat plans to file a complaint with the state attorney general over an apparent robocall that appears to encourage supporters of President Joe Biden not to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary.

The voice in the message is familiar — even presidential — as it’s an apparent imitation or digital manipulation of Biden’s voice.

“What a bunch of malarkey,” the voice message begins, echoing a favorite term Biden has uttered before.

The message says that “it’s important that you save your vote for the November election.”

“Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday,” it says.

The message concludes with a phone number belonging to Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair who is now running a super PAC supporting the campaign to urge New Hampshire Democrats to write in Biden’s name in the primary. 

Biden’s name does not appear on Tuesday’s ballot, a consequence of state elections officials setting the date of the primary ahead of South Carolina’s on Feb. 3, the first sanctioned contest of the 2024 nominating race under new Democratic National Committee rules.

But local supporters launched the late write-in effort as a way to both marshall support for Biden and send a message to the national party about the Granite State’s coveted, century-long tradition of holding the nation’s first primary.

In an interview, Sullivan said she began receiving calls Sunday evening from those who had received the message. One woman she spoke to told her that Biden had called her, though she said she was not a Biden supporter.

“I said, ‘You got a call from Joe Biden, and he gave you my number?’” Sullivan said she responded.

A volunteer for the write-in effort also received the call and recorded it, according to Sullivan, and shared it with organizers of the Biden write-in campaign. One of the organizers then shared it with NBC News.

It’s not clear how many voters received the call or which types of voters were targeted. Lists of voters’ phone numbers can be readily purchased from data brokers.

And Sullivan said while it isn’t clear who is behind the robo-call, “It’s obviously somebody who wants to hurt Joe Biden.”

“I want them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible because this is an attack on democracy,” said Sullivan, an attorney, who believes the call could violate several laws. “I’m not going to let it go. I want to know who’s paying for it? Who knew about it? Who benefits?”

She said she also plans to engage federal law enforcement in addition to the state attorney general’s office.

Sullivan served as party chair in 2002, when a so-called phone-jamming effort was carried out during a hotly contested U.S. Senate race. Two Republican officials, including the executive director of the state Republican Party and a Republican National Committee operative, were convicted of using computer-generated phone calls to disrupt Democrats’ get-out-the-vote call center operations.  

The campaign of Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman challenging Biden for the nomination, said it was not aware of the calls but called it “wildly concerning.”

“Any effort to discourage voters is disgraceful and an unacceptable affront to democracy,” spokesperson Katie Dolan said. “The potential use of AI to manipulate voters is deeply disturbing.”

The Biden campaign, which says it is not involved in the write-in effort in New Hampshire, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

[zytes]

I know that the average person’s opinion of AI is in a very tumultuous spot right now - partly due to misinformation and misrepresentation of how AI systems actually function, and partly because of the genuine risk of abuse that comes with powerful new technologies being thrust into the public sector before we’ve had a chance to understand the effects; and I’m not necessarily talking about generative AI and data-scraping, although I think that conversation is also important to have right now. Additionally, the blanket term of “AI” is really very insufficient and only vaguely serves to ballpark a topic which includes many diverse areas of research - many of these developments are quite beneficial for human life, such as potentially designing new antibodies or determining where cancer cells originated within a patient that presents complications. When you hear about artificial intelligence, don’t let your mind instantly gravitate towards a specific application or interpretation of the tech - you’ll miss the most important and impactful developments.

Notably, NVIDIA is holding a keynote presentation from March 18-21st to talk about their recent developments in the field of AI - a 16 minute video summarizing the “everything-so-far” detailed in that keynote can be found here - or in the full 2 hour format here. It’s very, very jargon-y, but includes information spanning a wide range of topics: healthcare, human-like robotics, “digital-twin” simulations that mirror real-world physics and allow robots to virtually train to interact and navigate particular environments — these simulated environments are built on a system called the Omniverse, and can also be displayed to Apple Vision Pro, allowing designers to interact and navigate the virtual environments as though standing within them. Notably, they’ve also created a digital sim of our entire planet for the purpose of advanced weather forecasting. It almost feels like the plot of a science-fiction novel, and seems like a great way to get more data pertinent to the effects of global warming.

It was only a few years ago that NVIDIA pivoted from being a “GPU company” to putting a focus on developing AI-forward features and technology. A few very short years; showing accelerating rates of progress. This is whenever we began seeing things like DLSS and ray-tracing/path-tracing make their way onto NVIDIA GPUs; which all use AI-driven features in some form or another. DLSS, or Deep-Learning Super Sampling, is used to generate and interpolate between frames in a game to boost framerate, performance, visual detail, etc - basically, your system only has to actually render a handful of frames and AI generates everything between those traditionally-rendered frames, freeing up resources in your system. Many game developers are making use of DLSS to essentially bypass optimization to an increasing degree; see Remnant II as a great example of this - runs beautifully on a range of machines with DLSS on, but it runs like shit on even the beefiest machines with DLSS off; though there are some wonky cloth physics, clipping issues, and objects or textures “ghosting” whenever you’re not in-motion; all seem to be a side effect of AI-generation as the effect is visible in other games which make use of DLSS or the AMD-equivalent, FSR.

Now, NVIDIA wants to redefine what the average data center consists of internally, showing how Blackwell GPUs can be combined into racks that process information at exascale speeds — which is very, very fucking fast — speeds like that have only ever actually been achieved on some 4 or 5 machines on the planet, and I think they’ve all been quantum-based machines until now; not totally certain. The first exascale computer came into existence in 2022, called Frontier, it was deemed the fastest supercomputer in existence in June 2023 - operating at some 1.19 exaFLOPS. Notably, this computer is around 7,300 sq ft in size; reminding me of the space-race era supercomputers which were entire rooms. NVIDIA’s Blackwell DGX SuperPOD consists of around 576 GPUs and operates at 11.5 exaFLOPS, and is about the size of standard row of server racks - much smaller than an entire room, but still quite large. NVIDIA is also working with AWS to produce Project Ceiba, another supercomputer consisting of some 20,000GPUs, promising 400 exaFLOPS of AI-driven computation - it doesn’t exist yet.

To make my point, things are probably only going to get weirder from here. It may feel somewhat like living in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, only with fewer years in between each new step. Advances in generative-AI are only a very, very small part of that — and many people have already begun to bury their heads in the sand as a response to this emerging technology - citing the death of authenticity and skill among artists who choose to engage with new and emerging means of creation. Interestingly, the Industrial Revolution is what gave birth to modernism, and modern art, as well as photography, and many of the concerns around the quality of art in this coming age-of-AI and in the post-industrial 1800s largely consist of the same talking points — history is a fucking circle, etc — but historians largely agree that the outcome of the Industrial Revolution was remarkably positive for art and culture; even though it took 100 years and a world war for the changes to really become really accepted among the artists of that era. The Industrial Revolution allowed art to become detached from the aristocratic class and indirectly made art accessible for people who weren’t filthy rich or affluent - new technologies and industrialization widened the horizons for new artistic movements and cultural exchanges to occur. It also allowed capitalist exploitation to ingratiate itself into the western model of society and paved the way for destructive levels of globalization, so: win some, lose some.

It isn’t a stretch to think that AI is going to touch upon nearly every existing industry and change it in some significant way, and the events that are happening right now are the basis of those sweeping changes, and it’s all clearly moving very fast - the next level of individual creative freedom is probably only a few years away. I tend to like the idea that it may soon be possible for an individual or small team to create compelling artistic works and experiences without being at the mercy of an idiot investor or a studio or a clump of illiterate shareholders who have no real interest in the development of compelling and engaging art outside of the perceived financial value that it has once it exists.

If you’re of voting age and not paying very much attention to the climate of technology, I really recommend you start keeping an eye on the news for how these advancements are altering existing industries and systems. It’s probably going to affect everyone, and we have the ability to remain uniquely informed about the world through our existing connection with technology; something the last Industrial Revolution did not have the benefit of. If anything, you should be worried about KOSA, a proposed bill you may have heard about which would limit what you can access on the internet under the guise of making the internet more “kid-friendly and safe”, but will more than likely be used to limit what information can be accessed to only pre-approved sources - limiting access to resources for LGBTQ+ and trans youth. It will be hard to stay reliably informed in a world where any system of authority or government gets to spoon-feed you their version of world events.

[dertaglichedan]

Data centers powering artificial intelligence could use more electricity than entire cities

Data center campuses power artificial intelligence and cloud computing

The campuses could grow so large that finding enough power and suitable land to accommodate them becomes increasingly difficult.

Renewable energy alone won’t be sufficient anytime soon to meet their power needs.

Natural gas will have to play a role, which will slow progress toward meeting carbon dioxide emissions targets.

The power needs of artificial intelligence and cloud computing are growing so large that individual data center campuses could soon use more electricity than some cities, and even entire U.S. states, according to companies developing the facilities.

The electricity consumption of data centers has exploded along with their increasingly critical role in the economy in the past 10 years, housing servers that power the applications businesses and consumers rely on for daily tasks.

Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, data centers are growing so large that finding enough power to drive them and enough suitable land to house them will become increasingly difficult, the developers say. The facilities could increasingly demand a gigawatt or more of power — one billion watts — or about twice the residential electricity consumption of the Pittsburgh area last year.

Technology companies are in a “race of a lifetime to global dominance” in artificial intelligence, said Ali Fenn, president of Lancium, a company that secures land and power for data centers in Texas. “It’s frankly about national security and economic security,” she said. “They’re going to keep spending” because there’s no more profitable place to deploy capital.

Renewable energy alone won’t be sufficient to meet their power needs. Natural gas will have to play a role, developers say, which will slow progress toward meeting carbon dioxide emissions targets.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Chicago Tribune story:

You may have no clue what a data center does.

But a boom in these high-tech operations in the Chicago area and around the country—as the United States races to be a world leader in artificial intelligence—will hit home in the form of higher electricity bills next year.

For customers of ComEd, the main electricity utility in the Chicago area, the average increase is expected to be $10.50 a month for each residential customer by the middle of next year. That’s on top of the typical bill in the area, which is about $100 a month.

The price of electricity is going up due to energy-hungry data centers that are expected to dramatically increase demand for power. ComEd and other utilities pay upfront to make sure an electric grid that extends from Chicago to the East Coast has plenty of power over time and won’t see blackouts because of these new electricity hogs.

A typical consumer probably doesn’t have a sense of how these high-tech operations affect electricity demand. It’s unlikely many have heard of PJM Interconnection, a government-regulated nonprofit that operates the grid and oversaw the process that led to the upcoming bill hike.

But those same customers notice when their bills start to rise. And so do politicians.

Some, including Gov. JB Pritzker, blame PJM for the upcoming spike in electric bills to which the grid operator said it’s simply making sure the lights stay on even as power usage soars. A large data center uses enough electricity to power entire neighborhoods or small cities.

A data center is a building or complex that houses equipment used for applications such as cloud computing and AI, among others. Leading data center companies include subsidiaries of Amazon, Meta and Microsoft.

McKinsey and Co., the consulting firm, said data centers are responsible for 3 to 4 percent of the country’s electricity demand today, and this will grow to 11 to 12 percent by 2030.

Chicago is the third largest data center market in the country, just behind Dallas-Fort Worth, and way behind the leader, Northern Virginia, according to the real estate firm CBRE.

[riyayaa]

S P A D E

pairings: trent alexander arnold x female oc

summary:

genre(s): colleagues to lovers, slow burnish, murder mystery

warnings: swearing, mentions of murder, mentions of gore, nsfw?

                                                                                              

                                                                                 

The Spade, a psychotic and ruthless murderer based in Monaco. Spade was said to hand pick his victims by how wealthy they were. After each murder he left a single card, that card being The Spade. Now, if you think about it, it is kind of iconic and ironic. The guy murdered his victims in various ways, the only similarity being a single spade playing card nailed to his victims body

Spade was just a rumour at first, he was someone that people thought a young girl made up for attention,

Until that same young girl died with a single spade cart nailed to her head.

"There has to be at least some evidence, there has to be something we're missing here.." Amelia sighed.

Trent narrowed his eyes "Your kidding right? There's nothing, that guy is good with his work and I'm sure he won't leave any evidence behind anytime soon." Trent scoffed

---

### **Monte-Carlo Headquarters**

The heavy silence in the car was punctuated only by the low hum of the engine and the occasional murmur of the driver’s radio. I stared out the window, trying to steady my racing thoughts. The sleek, modern facade of the Monte-Carlo Headquarters loomed ahead, an imposing reminder of the task that lay before me.

**“Monte-Carlo Headquarters,”** Adam’s voice broke the silence, carrying a weight that made my stomach clench. Headquarters meant something significant, something far beyond what I’d originally anticipated.

I turned to face him, attempting to mask my anxiety with a facade of calm. **“A meeting?”** My voice was steadier than I felt. **“You said I was here for a meeting.”**

Adam’s expression remained inscrutable, though I detected a hint of something—a guarded anticipation, perhaps. **“Yes, you are. A meeting about you landing the Monaco case.”**

The Monaco case. The name alone was enough to make my heart race. The rumors, the horror—everything I’d heard about the escalating string of murders made this feel like a descent into darkness. I hadn’t expected this. It felt like the weight of a thousand nightmares was being placed on my shoulders.

I forced a laugh, trying to keep my composure. **“I didn’t come all the way out here just to tackle that case.”** My words sounded hollow even to me.

Adam’s gaze sharpened, a small, humorless smile playing at his lips. **“Lia, you were chosen for a reason. Your work is exceptional, and this case needs someone of your caliber.”**

The file he handed me felt heavy in my hands. I opened it to find the black spade symbol staring back at me, cold and unforgiving. The photos of the victims followed—each one marked with a spade card nailed to their foreheads. Sixty-seven lives lost, and I was expected to find the one responsible.

Adam’s eyes were unwavering. **“No one else has come close to catching The Spade. No one else can do this but you.”**

The name The Spade sent a shiver down my spine. The thought of facing this unknown terror was both exhilarating and terrifying. But I was a detective, and backing down was never an option.

**“Alright,”** I said, my voice firmer than I felt. **“Let’s do this.”**

---

### **Meeting Trent and Marcus**

Adam led me through a series of corridors until we reached a high-tech command center. The room was dimly lit, filled with the soft hum of computers and the flicker of data streams on multiple screens. In the center of it all stood a man—tall, imposing, with a sharp intelligence in his eyes.

**“Lia, this is Marcus Siné,”** Adam introduced, gesturing towards the man. **“He’ll be your head of tech on this case. If you need any data analysis or tech support, he’s your guy.”**

Marcus’s smile was warm and inviting. **“Hi, Marcus. I’m Amelia,”** I said, extending my hand.

He took it, his grip firm yet gentle. **“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Amelia. I’ve heard great things about your work.”**

I felt a blush creep up my cheeks at the compliment. I quickly withdrew my hand, trying to maintain my professional demeanor. **“Thank you. I’m looking forward to working with you.”**

Marcus’s eyes lingered on me for a moment longer before he turned back to his screens. **“I’ve followed your career closely. The Florida case was particularly impressive.”**

I blinked in surprise. **“The Florida case?”**

Marcus nodded, his gaze warm and knowing. **“The one where you solved the drug trafficking ring just a week after being assigned. It was quite a feat.”**

The memory of the Florida case brought a surge of pride. It had been a pivotal moment in my career, and hearing it acknowledged by Marcus was oddly reassuring. I smiled, feeling a bit more at ease.

**“Trent’s also exceptional,”** Marcus continued, his tone shifting slightly. **“I’m sure you’ll find working with him to be a valuable experience.”**

I almost forgot about Trent until the door opened, and in walked the man himself—Trent Alexander-Arnold.

He stepped into the room with a presence that commanded attention. His eyes met mine, and for a moment, everything else faded away. The world seemed to hold its breath.

**“Trent,”** Adam said, breaking the spell. **“This is Amelia, your new partner for the Monaco case.”**

Trent extended his hand, his smile warm and genuine. **“Nice to meet you, Amelia. I’ve heard a lot about you.”**

I shook his hand, feeling a spark of connection that was both unexpected and intriguing. **“Likewise. I’m looking forward to working with you.”**

---

### **Working Together**

The weeks stretched into months as Trent and I plunged into the heart of the Monaco case. Our days were filled with intense investigations, endless paperwork, and the ever-present shadow of The Spade. It was a grueling process, but working with Trent made it bearable. Our partnership, once professional and distant, began to evolve into something more profound and personal.

**Late Nights at the Command Center**

The command center, with its rows of monitors and stacks of case files, became our second home. The hum of computers and the flickering screens were a constant backdrop to our long hours of work. We spent countless nights poring over evidence, discussing theories, and trying to piece together the puzzle that was The Spade’s crime spree.

One particularly late night, the room was lit only by the soft glow of the computer screens and the occasional flicker of a desk lamp. Trent and I sat side by side, absorbed in the files spread out before us. Our focus was intense, but there was an unspoken connection that hung in the air.

**“I think we’re missing something,”** Trent said, his brow furrowing as he scanned the latest report. **“There’s a pattern here, but it’s not quite clear.”**

I leaned closer, peering at the data on his screen. **“Let’s look at the victim profiles again,”** I suggested. **“Maybe there’s a link we haven’t noticed.”**

We started going through the victim profiles, comparing their backgrounds, locations, and the circumstances of their deaths. Our fingers brushed occasionally as we flipped through pages, each touch sending a spark of electricity through me. The proximity was both comforting and charged with tension.

**“This is maddening,”** Trent said with a frustrated sigh. **“It’s like there’s a clue right in front of us, but we can’t see it.”**

I nodded, feeling a mix of exhaustion and determination. **“We’ll find it. We have to.”**

Our heads were close together as we worked, the scent of his cologne mingling with the sterile smell of the command center. I could feel the heat radiating from his body, a subtle reminder of the growing bond between us. The tension was palpable, and though we both tried to stay focused on the case, the connection between us was undeniable.

**The Revelation of Personal Stories**

As the days passed, our conversations during breaks and late nights grew more personal. We shared stories about our pasts, our hopes, and our fears. It was during these quiet moments that I began to see another side of Trent—a side that was thoughtful, caring, and surprisingly vulnerable.

One evening, after a particularly grueling day, we sat on a small balcony overlooking the city. The view was breathtaking, with the lights of Monaco sparkling like stars against the darkened sky.

**“You know,”** Trent began, his voice soft, **“I never imagined I’d be working on a case like this. It’s intense, but it’s also brought us closer.”**

I turned to look at him, my heart fluttering at the earnestness in his eyes. **“It has. I never thought I’d feel this connected to someone through all of this.”**

Trent’s gaze lingered on me, and I could see the warmth and sincerity in his eyes. **“It’s strange how something so horrific can lead to something so... meaningful.”**

The quiet intimacy of the moment was profound. Our conversations continued, often extending into the early hours of the morning. The emotional connection we shared grew stronger, and the boundaries between us began to blur. I found myself looking forward to these moments of shared solitude, where the weight of the case seemed to lift, if only temporarily.

**The Growing Attraction**

The more time we spent together, the more I found myself drawn to Trent. His support and understanding were a balm to the emotional wounds inflicted by the case. The way he listened, the way he cared—everything about him made my heart ache with longing.

One night, after another exhausting day, we decided to grab a late dinner. We walked through the quiet streets of Monaco, the city’s charm a stark contrast to the darkness of the case.

**“Do you ever wonder what life would be like if we weren’t caught up in this?”** Trent asked, his voice thoughtful.

I glanced at him, feeling a pang of longing. **“I do. Sometimes I imagine a normal life—one where we’re not constantly on edge.”**

Trent stopped and turned to face me, his expression serious yet tender. **“I’ve been thinking about that too. And about us. This case has brought us together in ways I never expected.”**

The sincerity in his voice made my heart race. I wanted to reach out, to close the distance between us, but

I hesitated. The weight of our professional roles and the enormity of the case made the moment feel both significant and delicate.

**The First Kiss**

It was one of those moments when words felt inadequate. We stood close, our breaths mingling in the cool night air. Trent’s gaze was unwavering, and I could see the depth of his feelings reflected in his eyes.

**“Amelia,”** he said softly, **“I care about you more than I’ve ever cared about anyone. This case has shown me how much I want us to be something more.”**

Before I could respond, Trent closed the distance between us and kissed me. It was a tender, hesitant kiss, filled with the emotions we had been keeping at bay. The world around us seemed to disappear, leaving just the two of us in a moment of profound connection.

The kiss deepened, a silent acknowledgment of the feelings that had been growing between us. When we finally pulled away, I could see the hope and affection in Trent’s eyes.

**“I care about you too,”** I whispered, my voice filled with emotion. **“This—what we have—means everything to me.”**

We walked back to the command center hand-in-hand, the warmth of our connection a comforting presence amidst the ongoing investigation. The kiss had solidified our bond, turning our professional partnership into something far more intimate and significant.

---

### **Unspoken Tension and Growing Doubts**

Despite our growing relationship, the investigation continued to weigh heavily on us. The pressure to solve the case was relentless, and the shadows of The Spade loomed large over everything we did. The tension between Trent and me, though undeniably present, was often pushed to the background by the demands of our work.

We spent countless hours in the command center, our interactions marked by a mix of professional focus and personal affection. The line between our roles as detectives and our feelings for each other often blurred, creating a complex dynamic that was both challenging and rewarding.

**“We’re getting closer,”** Trent said one night as we reviewed the latest evidence. **“I can feel it. We just need to stay focused and keep pushing.”**

His words were a comfort, but the strain of the investigation was taking its toll. Our moments of intimacy were precious but fleeting, often interrupted by the relentless demands of the case. The balance between our professional responsibilities and personal connection became increasingly delicate.

**The Growing Suspicion**

While Trent and I grew closer, Marcus remained a constant presence in the background. His support was invaluable, but there was an undercurrent of unease that I couldn’t shake. His attentiveness bordered on intrusive at times, and his behavior became increasingly erratic.

One evening, as Marcus reviewed some data, I noticed discrepancies in the reports he provided. The inconsistencies were subtle but unsettling, and they began to sow seeds of doubt.

**“Have you noticed anything strange about Marcus’s reports?”** I asked Trent one night as we worked late.

Trent looked up, his expression thoughtful. **“I’ve noticed it too. There are inconsistencies that don’t add up. We need to be careful.”**

Our suspicions about Marcus grew, but we treaded carefully. The emotional weight of the case and our growing feelings for each other made it difficult to focus solely on the investigation.

---

### **The Revelation**

Weeks of investigation and mounting tension finally led us to a critical juncture. The evidence we had been gathering pointed towards Marcus, though the realization came slowly. Each clue was like a piece of a puzzle, gradually revealing a disturbing truth.

One night, as we reviewed the latest findings, the full extent of Marcus’s involvement began to sink in. The evidence was irrefutable—Marcus was The Spade.

**“Marcus,”** I said, my voice trembling as I confronted him. **“You’re The Spade. All this time...”**

Marcus’s demeanor was calm, almost detached. **“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,”** he said, his voice steady. **“But you were getting too close to the truth.”**

The revelation was a shock, and the realization hit me like a punch to the gut. Marcus, the man who had seemed so supportive, was the very monster we had been hunting. The betrayal was personal and devastating.

**“Why?”** Trent demanded, his voice cracking with anger. **“Why do this?”**

Marcus’s eyes were cold and devoid of remorse. **“The Spade has always been about control, about proving that I am superior. It’s a game, and I’ve enjoyed every moment of it.”**

---

### **Aftermath**

The arrest of Marcus Siné marked the end of the case but the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. The emotional toll of the investigation was immense, and the resolution came with a mixture of relief and sadness. The connection Trent and I had built was both a source of strength and a reminder of the darkness we had faced together.

In the weeks following the case, Trent and I worked to rebuild our lives, finding solace in each other and the shared experiences that had brought us closer. The Monaco case had changed us both, but it had also solidified our bond, transforming our professional partnership into a deep and abiding relationship.

**“I don’t know where we go from here,”** Trent said one evening as we sat together on the balcony, the city lights shimmering in the distance. **“But I know I want to face it with you.”**

I took his hand, feeling a sense of peace and hope. **“Me too. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.”**

Our journey had been fraught with challenges, but it had also brought us closer than I could have ever imagined. The future was uncertain, but with Trent by my side, I felt ready to face whatever lay ahead.

---

**End**

[newstfionline]

Sunday, November 3, 2024

Canada’s largest drug ‘superlab’ in history has been taken down, police say (Washington Post) Canadian federal officers have dismantled what they described to be the largest, most sophisticated drug lab in the country’s history, seizing a massive cache of weapons and drugs intended for both international and domestic distribution. The facility, described by police officers as a drug “superlab,” contained enough fentanyl and precursor chemicals to produce more than 95.5 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl, an amount that “could have taken the lives of every Canadian, at least twice over,” Assistant Commissioner David Teboul with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement. About 54 kilograms of fentanyl and 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, in addition to “massive amounts of precursor chemicals” and smaller amounts of cocaine, MDMA and cannabis, were discovered at the facility in Falkland, a small rural community in British Columbia, the police statement said, adding that the lab was believed to be behind the production and distribution of “unprecedented quantities” of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Falling Back (NYT) The transition to fall is scattered with seasonal markers: The occasional chill in the air; the urge to make soup. These changes so far have happened like clockwork, and next comes the one that actually involves clocks. On Sunday Nov. 3, people in the United States and Canada will “fall back” to standard time, setting their clocks back an hour and signaling the end of daylight saving time. (Hawaii and most of Arizona, which are on permanent standard time, keep their clocks the same.) For now, most of us will be making the switch. And while many scientists maintain that standard time is better aligned with human circadian biology, even a modest time adjustment can take some getting used to—particularly when it means shorter, darker days. The extra hour of afternoon darkness can be especially hard for people who are “vulnerable to feeling down in the autumn and winter—which is an awful lot of people,” said Norman E. Rosenthal, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Georgetown University School of Medicine who coined the term “seasonal affective disorder.” “They may be low-energy, lethargic, prone to overeating and just out of sorts for a while.” Many people—if they’re not working the night shift or parenting a small child—will get an extra hour of sleep on the morning after the clocks change. And that’s “going to enable them to function better,” said Elizabeth B. Klerman, a professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

As data centers for AI strain the power grid, bills rise for everyday customers (Washington Post) Consumers in some regions of the country are facing higher electric bills due to a boom in tech companies building data centers that guzzle power and force expensive infrastructure upgrades. Companies such as Google and Amazon have ramped up construction of new data centers as they race to compete in artificial intelligence. The facilities’ extraordinary demand for electricity to power and cool computers inside can drive up the price local utilities pay for energy and require significant improvements to electric grid transmission systems. As a result, costs have already begun going up for customers—or are about to in the near future, according to utility planning documents and energy industry analysts. In the Mid-Atlantic, the regional power grid’s energy costs shot up dramatically, and data centers are cited as among root causes of rate increases of up to 20 percent expected in 2025.

Smuggling rings make billions from migrants (Washington Post) He called himself a simple onion farmer, a Mayan Indian with four kids and a fourth-grade education. U.S. prosecutors knew better. By his late 30s, Felipe Diego Alonzo had built a crime route stretching from Central America to Texas, allegedly paying off Mexican drug cartels along the way. He tooled around Guatemala’s western highlands in a loaded silver Ford Ranger pickup and had a show horse valued at $100,000. Alonzo’s business “was more profitable than drug trafficking,” said one of the Guatemalan officials who detained him. Alonzo was moving people. At least 80 percent of unlawful border-crossers hire smugglers. They guide people through treacherous jungles on the trek from Colombia to Panama. They whisk migrants over remote Guatemalan border crossings and up traffic-clogged Mexican highways. With revenue estimated at $4 billion to $12 billion a year, the smuggling of migrants has joined drugs and extortion as a top income stream for groups like Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, increasing their economic clout throughout the hemisphere.

Bolivia’s president accuses supporters of former leader Morales of seizing 3 military barracks (AP) Bolivian President Luis Arce on Friday condemned the seizure of three military units by supporters of former President Evo Morales, saying that “the taking of a military unit is a crime of treason against the homeland and an affront to the country’s Constitution.” Earlier on Friday the Bolivian Armed Forces said in a statement that “irregular armed groups” had kidnapped military personnel and took control of military units in the center of the country, where police officers began to clear the roads blocked 19 days ago by supporters of former President Evo Morales. The conflict broke out three weeks ago when Bolivian prosecutors launched an investigation into accusations that Morales fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl in 2016, classifying their relationship as statutory rape. Morales has refused to testify in court.

In Spanish Town Devastated by Flood, a Grim Search for Bodies (NYT) Plates with half-eaten dinners were still sitting on the white tablecloths in the nursing home’s dining hall on Thursday, amid muddy and overturned wheelchairs and walkers. Six people died in the facility on Tuesday, as a raging river exploded out of its banks and swept through villages and towns around the Spanish city of Valencia, on the country’s east-central coast. Among them was the town of Paiporta, where residents said the water came without warning. It had not even been raining on Tuesday night when the water from the river swept in suddenly. The floods killed at least 205 people in Spain, in the deadliest natural disaster in the country’s recent history, with almost all of those deaths, 202, in the Province of Valencia, the authorities said on Friday. More than 60 of the victims were killed in Paiporta, a working-class town on the southern outskirts of the city of Valencia, according to the official, Vicent Ciscar, the town’s deputy mayor. Amidst the mud, the grim search for bodies goes on.

US is sending $425 million in military assistance to Ukraine (AP) The Pentagon announced Friday it was sending an additional $425 million in military assistance to Ukraine as Kyiv prepares to face Russian forces augmented by North Korean troops. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had said more aid was coming, and soon, during his visit to Kyiv last week. This aid package includes weapons that will be pulled from existing U.S. stockpiles, including air defense interceptors for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and 155 mm artillery, and armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons.

Japan plans automated cargo transport system to relieve shortage of drivers (AP) Japan is planning to build an automated cargo transport corridor between Tokyo and Osaka, dubbed a “conveyor belt road” by the government, to make up for a shortage of truck drivers. A computer graphics video made by the government shows big, wheeled boxes moving along a three-lane corridor, also called an “auto flow road,” in the middle of a big highway. A trial system is due to start test runs in 2027 or early 2028, aiming for full operations by the mid-2030s. The plan may sound like a solution that would only work in relatively low-crime, densely populated societies like Japan, not sprawling nations like the U.S. But similar ideas are being considered in Switzerland and Great Britain. The plan in Switzerland involves an underground pathway, while the one being planned in London will be a fully automated system running on low-cost linear motors. In Japan, loading will be automated, using forklifts, and coordinated with airports, railways and ports.

Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone (AP) Perched on a hilltop a short walk from the Israeli border, the tiny southern Lebanese village of Ramyah has almost been wiped off the map. In a neighboring village, satellite photos show a similar scene: a hill once covered with houses, now reduced to a gray smear of rubble. Israeli warplanes and ground forces have blasted a trail of destruction through southern Lebanon the past month. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel. Even United Nations peacekeepers and Lebanese troops in the south have come under fire from Israeli forces, raising questions over whether they can remain in place. More than 1 million people have fled bombardment, emptying much of the south. Some experts say Israel may be aiming to create a depopulated buffer zone, a strategy it has already deployed along its border with Gaza. Some conditions for such a zone appear already in place, according to an Associated Press analysis of satellite imagery and data collected by mapping experts that show the breadth of destruction across 11 villages next to the border.

North Gaza 'apocalyptic,' everyone at 'imminent risk' of death, warns UN (Reuters) The situation in the northern Gaza Strip is "apocalyptic" as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants in the area, top United Nations officials warned on Friday. "The entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence," they said in a statement signed by the acting U.N. aid chief Joyce Msuya, heads of U.N. agencies, including U.N. children's agency UNICEF and the World Food Programme, and other aid groups. Israel began a wide military push in northern Gaza last month. The United States has said it was watching to ensure that its ally's actions on the ground show it does not have a "policy of starvation" in the north. "Humanitarian aid cannot keep up with the scale of the needs due to the access constraints. Basic, life-saving goods are not available. Humanitarians are not safe to do their work and are blocked by Israeli forces and by insecurity from reaching people in need," they said.

Almost two dozen countries at high risk of acute hunger, UN report reveals (Guardian) According to a joint report by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program, 22 countries across the globe are expected to experience heightened levels of acute food insecurity over the next six months. Five of those countries—Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine, and Haiti—are expected to face famine or the risk of famine between now and May 2025. Situations are likely to degrade even further in some areas experiencing food insecurity as a La Niña weather pattern is projected to sweep the globe this winter. With unusually high levels of rainfall (and the accompanying risk of flooding) expected for some regions, “many countries experiencing humanitarian crises risk being further affected by La Niña, which could exacerbate food insecurity, increase human suffering and result in further economic losses,” added the representative.

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

“Though a growing body of data suggests women in sport are more likely to sustain a concussion, have more severe symptoms, and to take longer to recover, most sports-related concussions protocols are based on data from men.

In a review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers looked at 171 concussion studies written since 1967 which are used to inform the most influential consensus and position statements in treating sports-related concussions.

Clinicians rely on these documents to guide their medical practice when treating athletes -- but most of the studies are focused on men. Only 1% of them was looking exclusively at concussions in women and 40% of them didn't have any women in a sample of participants at all.”

Full text under cut

Kelly Catlin and Ellie Soutter never met, but they had a lot in common.

Both were commanding athletes: Catlin, a US track cyclist, was a three-times world champion and Olympic silver medalist, and Soutter, a snowboarder, was tipped to be one of Team Great Britain's strongest contenders for the 2022 Winter Olympics, having already won a bronze medal at the 2017 European Youth Olympic Festival.

Both were incredibly smart -- Catlin was studying for a master's degree in computational and mathematical engineering at Stanford University, while Soutter learned to speak French in about six months, according to her father.

At times they almost seemed superhuman. In 2013, after only three weeks of formal training and having broken her wrist, Soutter became British Champion with her arm in a cast. Meanwhile, Catlin, who had a tenderness for children, once rode 80 miles through sleet and snow to speak to a grade school about her Olympic experience.

Yet these two women's lives were tragically cut short after they sustained serious head injuries in their pursuit of sporting greatness and then took their own lives. Catlin was 23, while Soutter died by suicide on her 18th birthday.

Females may be more susceptible to concussion, and they also have worse and prolonged symptoms after their injury than men, according to a review of 25 studies of sport-related concussion published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.

However, women remain significantly underrepresented within sport and exercise science research. This, leading experts warn, means they often do not get the treatment or aftercare they need following a head injury.

Women's sports have historically not received the same attention or funding as men's sports, Dr. Ann McKee, Director of the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center told CNN.

"It's been shown that women athletes are more likely to get a concussion, they tend to have longer recovery periods," McKee added.

"We do not have enough information about what happens in the female brain. We don't know if women are biologically more susceptible to these injuries," she said, adding that some research suggests the size and musculature of women's necks could play a part.

Before becoming a track cyclist, Catlin, a triplet, was a national champion road cyclist and time trial national champion, her father Mark, told CNN. After winning a Canadian international race at 17 she was invited to an Olympic training camp for a try out, where, impressed by her performance numbers, coaches immediately offered her a position on the track pursuit team.

Catlin's father, Mark, told CNN, that his daughter was "intense" and "ambitious," attributes she channeled into her sporting life.

Her life changed irrevocably in January 2019. Practicing fast downhill descents in the hills near Los Angeles, she crashed and went skidding down the road. Despite suffering road rash, Catlin got back on her bike, and finished the ride. It wasn't her first crash -- she had experienced 4 or 5 hard crashes before this, her father said, and after the latest, she didn't have any symptoms at the time.

But soon after, at a World Cup track event in Berlin, Catlin was gripped by a sudden and severe headache.

"She couldn't compete," her father said. "Kelly is kind of this stoical individual. And if she's rolling around on the ground, clutching her head, it has to be a severe thing."

On closer inspection, Catlin's helmet from LA had dents in it. Her father told CNN that this, coupled with her symptoms, caused her family to become aware she had suffered a concussion, which was later confirmed with a diagnosis from Stanford's Health Centre.

A concussion is a brain injury which happens after a hit to the head or body causes the brain to move back and forth inside the skull, according to the CDC.

When Catlin returned to the US, her father says she was examined by the track training center in Colorado, whose work-up didn't find anything.

"There wasn't any follow-up from Colorado after this. I believe they assumed she would seek care at Stanford," he told CNN.

Catlin's symptoms didn't improve, and in weekly phone calls with her parents, she admitted she was struggling with schoolwork and was unable to concentrate.

Stanford Health Center, having diagnosed Catlin with concussion with ongoing symptoms, recommended that she decrease her training for 2 weeks and then gradually build back up and start sessions with an athletic trainer, medical documents sent to CNN by her father show. She was referred to a concussion specialist, the document adds.

She tried to train, but "she would have to stop because she got a severe headache just from walking," according to her father. Her heart rate would also accelerate rapidly from even the smallest exertion, leaving her with "no exercise tolerance whatsoever," he added.

Wherever she turned she could not find help."

Mark Catlin

Her injury had other consequences.

"As far as we knew she was never a person that suffered from depression. She had an interesting sense of humor. She was always upbeat and bubbly about things," her father told CNN.

"She basically thought her life was over. She was no longer able to be the athlete that she was, she was failing her teammates. And she wasn't able to succeed in school now. And I think ultimately, that's why she took her life, because she thought her life was over," he added.

At the end of January, Catlin made a serious but unsuccessful suicide attempt, and was involuntarily admitted to the locked psychiatric ward at Stanford, her father told CNN.

A month after that attempt, she took her own life.

Soutter's father Tony said there were many dimensions to his young daughter -- not only was she an "adrenaline junkie," but she was "very conscientious" and excelled in school, even after moving from England to France.

Aged 12, Soutter took up snowboarding at school -- and just months later, she was spotted in her hometown resort of Les Gets and trialed by Team Great Britain in February 2013.

"It was quite obvious why she kept winning competitions because she just made it easy," her father said. "She just made it look graceful and beautiful."

But training took its toll -- Soutter told CNN that his daughter suffered seven major concussions in five years, between 2013 and 2018.

"I was being advised by doctors "Oh, don't worry, she's young enough she'll bounce back. As she progressed, becoming an elite athlete starting on the World Cup circuit, every time she had another concussion, they got worse, and they took longer to recover from," he told CNN.

"With every concussion, with the exception of a few minor knocks, Ellie saw a doctor in person," he added. "I was always told that she was young enough to bounce back to full health after each case and therefore never consulted with the doctors that I met, about any previous concussions."

But Soutter's final concussion was so "huge" that she spent two nights in the hospital.

"When I got there, she didn't even know who I was or where she was," her father said.

Soutter was then selected for the Junior Snowboard World Championships in New Zealand August 2018. But a month before the competition, she died by suicide.

I truly believe today that my daughter would be alive had I had...even the smallest bit of information."

Her father said a neurologist conducted a CT scan of her brain and reaction tests three months after her final concussion, but said she was "absolutely fine" and could continue competing.

Like Catlin, Soutter had issues with studying and concentrating, becoming more insular as she suffered from crippling headaches. She also started suffering from insomnia.

"She would literally sit with the tutor a good month after a concussion, and suddenly, she'd go blind. She'd not be able to see -- everything would go black and dark," her father said.

After missing a flight to snowboard training, Soutter died by suicide on her 18th birthday.

Team GB referred CNN to GB Snowsport when approached for comment, adding that Ellie only competed for Team GB at one event.

In order to represent Britain in international competitions, GB Snowsport says athletes or their coaches are required to demonstrate that the athlete has reached established performance criteria, is of the relevant technical ability to compete, and has appropriate medical clearance to compete. A large number of athletes can represent Britain at different levels of international competition but are not part of a programme delivered and overseen by GB Snowsport.

"As Ellie was not part of the GB Snowsport programme, we were unable to implement a personalised recovery and management programme for Ellie," a spokesperson for GB Snowsport told CNN in an email.

"She was, however, covered by national policies and protocols around fitness to compete, and would not have been cleared for any activity -- training or competition -- overseen by GB Snowsport without being able to demonstrate appropriate medical sign-off," they added.

The spokesperson for GB Snowsport told CNN: "We take concussions and head injuries incredibly seriously, and in reviewing contemporaneous records from the time that Ellie was involved in snowsport we are confident that GB Snowsport staff applied and followed every appropriate process."

Catlin and Soutter aren't the only young sporting women whose lives have been cut short in this way.

After 29-year-old Australian rules football player Jacinda Barclay took her life in 2020, post-mortem research by scientists found that she had degradation to her cerebral white matter unusual for someone her age.

"For someone her age, you would expect to see lovely pristine white matter, and hers looked like she was an old woman in that it was basically degraded," Michael Buckland, founder and Executive Director of the Australian Sports Brain Bank, who studied Barclay's brain, told CNN.

"We haven't gone back and done specific white matter studies on our donors," he told CNN, adding that the bank hasn't done peer reviewed research on this. "But what struck me, just as someone that sees a lot of brains -- this is not normal for someone of that age."

Damage to white matter has been associated with dementia, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Opportunities missed

Suicide after concussion is rare. However patients diagnosed with concussion or mild traumatic brain injury had double the risk of suicide and a higher risk of suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts than people without brain injuries, a 2018 study from researchers at the University of Harvard published in JAMA Neurology found.

Dr. Robert Cantu, clinical professor of neurology at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine told CNN that there are several theories as to why incidence of suicide is higher in people who have suffered concussion.

One theory, he explained, is that those suffering from persistent post-concussion symptoms may have structural or functional brain damage and could be experiencing "behavioral dysregulation: short fuse, irritability, [and] can't suppress impulses the way you normally could."

With these emotional problems, "they would be more prone to perhaps do something impulsive, like commit suicide," Cantu told CNN.

A second theory, Cantu noted, is that post-concussive symptoms prevent people from getting back into their sport and stop them "from being the person that they were before their injury."

Neither theory is proven to the exclusion of the other, Cantu said, adding he thinks increased suicidality was "a combined factor involving both in many, if not most cases."

There are also differences in the way brain injuries affect women.

A study of female soccer players across US high schools found they are nearly twice as likely to suffer concussion as their male counterparts, according to research that looked at over 80,000 adolescent athletes, published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Women remain significantly underrepresented within sport and exercise science research: a 2021 study examining papers from some of the most influential sports medical journals found that only 6% of the studies were solely focused on women, compared with 31% of studies that included just men.

Other researchers have pointed to female sex hormones, with risk of concussion changing with hormone levels during a menstrual cycle.

McKee said all athletes can also experience "non-concussive" injuries: "hits to the head that can be of the same magnitude as concussion, but they don't rise to the level of symptoms for whatever reason, so a player tends to play right through it."

Cumulative exposure to repetitive head impacts -- including concussion and non- concussive injuries -- increases the risk for the neurodegenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, McKee said.

The disease, which can only be formally diagnosed with an autopsy, has mostly been seen in either veterans or people who played contact sports, particularly American football, say researchers. The disease occurs when the brain starts to degenerate likely due to repeated head traumas, according to the Mayo Clinic, which notes CTE is "associated with recurrent concussions."

But scientists aren't only concerned about concussions.

Previous studies have shown subconcussive head impacts -- repetitive hits to the head and body that do not cause symptoms -- can still result in long-term neurological disease.

According to The Concussion Legacy Foundation, "the best available evidence suggests that subconcussive impacts, not concussions, are the driving force behind CTE."

There have been cases of CTE discovered in athletes who have never been diagnosed with a concussion, according to the Concussion Legacy Foundation.

And other changes in the brain after repetitive head impacts aside from CTE are likely "equally important," McKee said.

"We also see damage to the white matter. And that appears to be mostly in the frontal lobe, but also in the temporal lobes," she said.

"We're trying to understand the relationship of those white matter changes to behavioral and mood symptoms, perhaps even suicidality," she said.

McKee stressed that concussion management is important, but physicians and athletes should also be aware of other injuries.

"The problem is the subclinical hits -- the non-concussive injuries that aren't detected, you don't pull the player off the field -- and they can be in the hundreds or even the 1000s in a single season," she explained.

Lack of research

Though a growing body of data suggests women in sport are more likely to sustain a concussion, have more severe symptoms, and to take longer to recover, most sports-related concussions protocols are based on data from men.

In a review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers looked at 171 concussion studies written since 1967 which are used to inform the most influential consensus and position statements in treating sports-related concussions.

Clinicians rely on these documents to guide their medical practice when treating athletes -- but most of the studies are focused on men. Only 1% of them was looking exclusively at concussions in women and 40% of them didn't have any women in a sample of participants at all.

There is another risk factor for women in sport when they sustain head injuries, Katherine Snedaker, founder and executive director of PINK Concussions, a non-profit dedicated to women's health and brain injury, told CNN.

There is a gulf of millions of dollars separating women and men when it comes to average annual salaries in most professional sports.

Outside of elite sport, Snedaker says, female athletes often don't have access to the same medical care as men, meaning head injuries aren't spotted as routinely.

"They tend to push really hard through the injury," she said.

And many women can't afford to take time out to recover: even professional athletes will supplement their sports income with other jobs, she added, and many are caregivers.

"When they really crater, it's a couple of days or weeks later."

Snedaker said female athletes often weren't aware they had suffered a head injury.

If they were, she said, there were no appropriate medical or sporting staff to inform.

Not enough support

The families of Catlin and Soutter feel the young women didn't get enough support after their injuries.

After Catlin's first suicide attempt, she was released from an involuntary admission to the psychiatric ward after threatening legal action, and a conference between psychiatrists, her coach and her parents.

She attended therapy sessions, which she agreed to attend during the conference, but found "they were geared toward suicidal freshman with a whole set of different issues than an elite Olympic athlete," her father told CNN.

She got a referral to a sports psychologist that worked with the Stanford athletic department, but the department forbade the psychologist from seeing Catlin because she was not a varsity athlete, her father added.

She contacted the office of a sports psychologist with whom she had developed a rapport while in the hospital -- but, his appointment secretary said he had no openings for six months, her father told CNN.

"Wherever she turned she could not find help," he said, adding that his daughter tried a suicide hotline several times: she was once put on hold and once received no answer.

Catlin described his daughter as a "stoic, female warrior type person that isn't going to admit that she's struggling."

"She needed a sports psychiatrist that really could understand what she was going through and understand the rigors of her life in terms of preparation for competitions and the athletic side of it and what it could potentially do to you."

Her father said a major factor in his daughter's death was "a lack of communication between the facilities that were involved in Kelly's care. No one was in charge and they assumed the other institutions were following up when they weren't," he added.

In a statement sent to CNN, Luisa Rapport, director of emergency communications and media relations at Stanford University did not address any of the specific allegations made by Catlin's family. She said while the university does not discuss in the media the details of individual students' experiences, "supporting the mental and emotional health of students is a critical priority for Stanford."

"Students in need of mental health crisis assistance -- including students having suicidal thoughts -- and those who are concerned about students in need of assistance, can contact the University's Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week," she added.

Rapport said that in addition to this, "there are multiple places where psychological services may be provided for students depending on individualized need and treatment recommendations, including, for example, affiliated hospital services and clinics through Stanford's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and mental health programs and clinicians in the community."

In a statement sent to CNN, USA Cycling said it was "devastated" by Catlin's death, adding: "She brought focus and determination to everything she did, and served as an inspiration to everyone who knew her.

"As the National Governing Body for the sport of cycling, USA Cycling prioritizes the holistic wellbeing of the riders on the U.S. National Team and has a longstanding commitment to providing both physical and mental health resources to members of the team," a representative for USA Cycling added.

After his daughter Ellie's death, Soutter was contacted by the UNITE Brain Bank, who wanted to study her brain as part of their research into CTE.

But even in that facility -- the biggest of its kind in the world -- of some 12,190 brains, only 3% belonged to women, Ann McKee, Director of the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center told CNN.

"When I actually started looking into CTE -- all of the work that they've done with the footballers in America, she had every single symptom and more," Soutter told CNN.

"It was quite obvious to me that there was a definite link in her starting to get into dark places and feeling bad and anxious and not sleeping properly. All of those symptoms ... Every one that's involved in CTE was part of Ellie's life," he added.

"I truly believe today that my daughter would be alive had I had any inkling, you know, even the smallest bit of information."

Editor's Note: If you are in the US and you or a loved one have contemplated suicide, call The National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to connect with a trained counselor.

For support outside of the US, a worldwide directory of resources and international hotlines is provided by the International Association for Suicide Prevention. You can also turn to Befrienders Worldwide.

[ranger-rai]

There's More to You pt.1

Quick note:

(There's a few characters here that may or may not have been well covered here, but most of this story was conceived in my Discord server. I wanted to push Rai's drive and trust in people as well as expand the world he lives in, and this felt like the best way to do it. If you want to learn a but more, ask questions or feel free to join the discord)

-----

The artificial sunlight was bright and heavy that day, but that was to be expected as it was scheduled, just like the oncoming rainstorm was scheduled.

A tall man in a lab coat and glasses casually strolled through a desert area with small groups of familiar pokemon, Donphan and Phanpy, Diglet and Dugtrio, and the entire Tyranitar line. However, each species seemed sluggish, pale, and somewhat malnourished.

The man sighed as he reached a wall that blended into the scenery with a door cloaked by it as well. He entered what appeared to be an elevator, his view of the previously explored desert area completely unobscured in this futuristic one-way viewing technology.

As he reached a certain altitude, he could see not just the desert area but many different segmented areas that could accommodate different species of pokemon.

This menagerie of species stretched for quite some time. However, he would not be walking this length as his elevator stopped its vertical trip, trading it in for a horizontal one.

He was being taken to the center of this large, enclosed structure, as various habitats whizzed by him. Some were having their own heat, storms, and even minor natural disasters, all to simulate the wild.

The man waved his hand to bring up a virtual display with various stats and vitals displayed.

Swiping around a bit, he pulled up a control page and dialed down some settings, resulting in a current natural disaster coming to an end.

He got a pop-up video on his display of a young man in a lab coat with scraggly hair, addressing this man as “Professor” and informing him that the search was ready to begin.

The spectacled man adjusted his frames as he waved his hand, wiping the screen away as the doors to his transport opened, revealing a large lab with many computers, all surrounding a large tube-like structure.

The same young man seemed to be leading the current team of scientists from behind the big station. He seemed to be sorting through some kind of database, eliminating numerous options to slim out their search.

He made room for the professor, letting him know that this was the most detailed search done yet, and they were ready. All that was left was him.

A handprint appeared on the console in front of them. A pause was had before the professor placed his hand on the device.

The screen began racing with data as the remaining items began to disappear from the screen one by one, leaving only one choice.

“We-we did it!” the scruffy haired young man exclaimed in excitement.

He looked over to the professor who had removed his glasses and covered his eyes with his hand, lingering on that sensation for a moment before looking back at the young man with a small smile on his face.

“Ready the recruits.” The professor stated as he pushed a button on the console.

Suddenly, the large, tube-like mahone roared to life in a surge of energy.

[wolfspiders-web]

What fresh hell is this?

I need a place to put my weird furries for their enrichment or else they breach containment and I have to corral them! It gets old! So I'm deciding to put together my notes on a personal headworld project.

This is where I put all my non-fandom OCs and the stories related to them, because they've all been tossed into multiple different locations/drives on my computer and I'm tired of playing data GeoGuessr when I need to consult my notes or add to them. :Y

Basically, this is the universe where my characters like Lupa, Claude, and Chasseur live.

Long write-up after the break!

Setting Overview

The overall vibe is science fantasy in a post-post-apocalyptic setting, hundreds of years after a "Great War" decimated the planet with lingering scars and barely explored wilds being some of the only reminders of the past. The two major sophont groups are humans* and a race of multi-limbed furfolk known as anthropods, with the population centers of both concentrated into about a dozen or so megacities.

Outside of the major cities there exist ruins of the Old World hidden amongst the landscape, long overgrown and the safer ones turned into tourist destinations and family camping spots. Due to the existence of pockets of reality-warping magic, atomic radiation, or still-active and dangerous technology outside of civilization, intelligent organic life outside of these safe zones is few and far between. This area, taking up most of the real estate on the planet, is called the Verdant.

Magic and technology are two sides of the same coin and are inseparably linked, with furfolk leaning towards high magic/low tech and humans leaning towards high tech/low magic. Technology is well understood, highly advanced, and most knowledge is Pre-War that's slowly being re-discovered; examples range anywhere from holograms, to spaceflight, and giant robotic exosuits. Meanwhile magic is newer, somewhat crude in its use, and came about directly as a result of the War tearing apart the known laws of physics itself. It was revealed that certain branches of science actually have a tangible "magic" at their very core, which can be manipulated in various ways.

Magic generally falls into the categories of energy (light, electricity, thermal, sound, kinetic, radiation, etc.) manipulation, enchantments (the manifestation of "will" on physical objects), blessings and curses (buffs vs debuffs), alchemy and apothecary (new branches of chemistry), and other disciplines not listed here. [aka "add more when I think of them", lol]

*"humans" in this setting aren't exactly like you or me, more on that later

[msclaritea]

A.I. usage fuels spike in Microsoft’s water consumption | Fortune

As they race to capitalize on a craze for generative AI, leading tech developers including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google have acknowledged that growing demand for their AI tools carries hefty costs, from expensive semiconductors to an increase in water consumption.

But they’re often secretive about the specifics. Few people in Iowa knew about its status as a birthplace of OpenAI’s most advanced large language model, GPT-4, before a top Microsoft executive said in a speech it “was literally made next to cornfields west of Des Moines.”

Building a large language model requires analyzing patterns across a huge trove of human-written text. All of that computing takes a lot of electricity and generates a lot of heat. To keep it cool on hot days, data centers need to pump in water — often to a cooling tower outside its warehouse-sized buildings.

In its latest environmental report, Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons, or more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools), a sharp increase compared to previous years that outside researchers tie to its AI research.

“It’s fair to say the majority of the growth is due to AI,” including “its heavy investment in generative AI and partnership with OpenAI,” said Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside who has been trying to calculate the environmental impact of generative AI products such as ChatGPT.

In a paper due to be published later this year, Ren’s team estimates ChatGPT gulps up 500 milliliters of water (close to what’s in a 16-ounce water bottle) every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions. The range varies depending on where its servers are located and the season. The estimate includes indirect water usage that the companies don’t measure — such as to cool power plants that supply the data centers with electricity.

[kamal2047semi]

The Future of Semiconductors: Unveiling a World of Possibilities

**The Future of Semiconductors: Unveiling a World of Possibilities**

As we stand on the brink of a new era, the semiconductor industry finds itself at the heart of a technological revolution. The impact of semiconductors on our lives has been profound, driving advancements across industries and shaping the very fabric of our modern civilization. But what lies ahead for this dynamic and transformative field? Let's delve into the future of semiconductors and the boundless possibilities that await us.

**1. Quantum Leap in Computing:**

The race towards quantum computing is intensifying, and semiconductors will play a pivotal role in unlocking its true potential. Quantum processors, built on novel semiconductor materials, have the power to process vast amounts of data in a fraction of the time it takes traditional computers. The future of computing will transcend current limitations, empowering us to solve complex problems previously deemed insurmountable.

**2. AI and Machine Learning:**

The era of artificial intelligence is upon us, and semiconductors will serve as the backbone of AI and machine learning applications. With the growing demand for AI-driven technologies in autonomous vehicles, robotics, healthcare, and more, the semiconductor industry is set to witness an unprecedented surge in AI-focused chip designs. Neuromorphic computing, inspired by the human brain's architecture, could unlock revolutionary AI capabilities, paving the way for cognitive computing and self-learning systems.

**3. The Internet of Things (IoT) Revolution:**

As IoT proliferates, the demand for energy-efficient and high-performance semiconductor devices will skyrocket. We envision a future where billions of interconnected devices communicate seamlessly, facilitated by advanced semiconductor technologies. Ultra-low-power processors, sensors, and wireless communication chips will define the landscape of the IoT revolution, shaping smart cities, wearables, and an interconnected world.

**4. Green and Sustainable Semiconductors:**

Sustainability will be a driving force in the semiconductor industry's future. Innovations in materials and manufacturing processes will lead to environmentally friendly and energy-efficient semiconductor solutions. From eco-friendly chip packaging to renewable energy-powered fabs, the industry will strive to minimize its carbon footprint, contributing to a greener tomorrow.

**5. Silicon Photonics and Beyond:**

The integration of photonics with silicon promises a new era of ultra-high-speed data transmission and processing. Silicon photonics will revolutionize data centers, enabling faster communication between chips and reducing data bottlenecks. Moreover, emerging technologies like 2D materials and carbon nanotubes offer exciting possibilities for futuristic semiconductor devices that could outperform traditional silicon-based chips.

**6. Security and Privacy:**

With the increasing dependence on connected devices, security and privacy will be paramount. Future semiconductor designs will prioritize hardware-based security features to protect against cyber threats and safeguard sensitive data. Trusted execution environments and secure enclaves will become integral components of semiconductor devices, ensuring user confidence in an interconnected world.

**7. Global Collaboration and Talent Development:**

The future of semiconductors will thrive on global collaboration and talent development. International partnerships will foster innovation, as countries pool their resources and expertise. Companies will invest in nurturing a diverse and skilled workforce, driving advancements and promoting a culture of inclusion and creativity.

The future of semiconductors is bright, brimming with possibilities that have the potential to redefine our world. As innovators, engineers, and visionaries, let's embrace this transformative journey together. Let's harness the power of semiconductors to build a future that empowers, connects, and inspires generations to come.

*The future is here, and it's in the hands of those who dare to dream and innovate with semiconductors as their guiding light.*