#High-Quality Data Labeling

[apex-seo-work]

Generative AI | High-Quality Human Expert Labeling | Apex Data Sciences

Apex Data Sciences combines cutting-edge generative AI with RLHF for superior data labeling solutions. Get high-quality labeled data for your AI projects.

[magentas-dystopia]

Something I really lament is the move towards digital media. Slowly we start to never own the things we like. Even if we "buy" a digital game, or movie or show. It's locked behind a certain platform or service. Once it shuts down we lose it forever.

(me when big booby anime girl explosion Is taken off of Netflix)

I also feel like there's a certain charm to owning physical media, like things you can hold and the satisfaction from pressing a clicky button or putting a disc or cassette in and seeing it work.

(oooh so classy so retro so.. expensive in the modern day)

More people should try to make copies of what they own digitally, or try to buy physical media before it's lost from streaming services and digital storefronts forever. Like the case with certain games like Godzilla 2014 and Transformers War for Cybertron. They don't exist digitally anymore. Only hard copies exist outside of emulation and at insane resell prices like... INSANE ones for a mediocre Godzilla game

So yea. Buy some more CDs of those albums you have on replay! Buy a DVD of that niche obscure anime you like! And most importantly PLEASE PLEASE START MAKING HARD BACKUPS OF SHOWS YOU LIKE THAT YOU PIRATE!!! media preservation is important!

(me downloading every episode of Daredevil onto my hard drive to burn to a DVD later so I can give it to all my friends)

This is now going to be a Comprehensive guide on how to rip a CD

POLL TIME!

Burning and Ripping Disc's❤️❤️💕💕🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

STEP ONE:

BUY A CHEAP BLU-RAY/DVD DRIVE FOR YOUR WINDOWS COMPUTER

here are some I recommend!!!

i personally use this pioneer one :)))

DVD drives in general are relatively cheap from 30-20 smackeroos, but Blu-ray drives are around 80-100 bucks depending on the manufacturer but offer better support for copying HD video such as on a Blu-ray.

STEP TWO:

FIND A PIECE OF MEDIA YOU ENJOY.

in this case its gonna be a CD!!

i really enjoy Vespertine by Bjork, but i wanna have it on my computer just in case anything happens to my CD. SO. ill open Windows Media Player

(she hasn't changed since 2011 <3333 be urself girl)

NEXT

ill insert the disc into the player. and it'll start playing!

Pause the disc and go into Rip settings

NEXT!! select the format!

if you want to conserve space and don't mind sacrificing audio quality select MP3! if you want to hear the same level of audio quality as preserved on the CD, select a format labelled LOSSLESS. I recommend .WAV files as they'll work with most devices including an android phone or iTunes on PC (more on that later ;3 )

NEXT!

create a folder on whatever u wanna save ur music to! (u can call it whatever u want the world is your oyster bestie)

THEN!!! FINALLY

go into more options on the Rip Settings menu!

select ur folder and press Rip CD!!!!

the fun thing of this now, is that you can pull these files on your computer and put it onto your Android device so you can listen to your hearts content without lugging around your CD in a player at high quality without any subscription service with free reign of who you can give your download to!

But Magenta! what if i have an iPhone?

ohohoo fear not bestie because iTunes on PC has an even EASIER way to do it

because simply putting in a disc with iTunes downloaded prompts THIS

(oooo so new age)

and if you have apple music on your iPhone this will sync to your phone if you logged into iTunes on PC!!

thank you for coming to my TED talk

[misc-obeyme]

Okay back on my human!au ideas. I'm gonna do a compilation post or something because the others are just rambles and they aren't exactly easy to find... I don't even have it in the masterlist anywhere... mostly 'cause these are just ideas that I have no idea what I'm gonna do with. asldfj anyway! Feel free to use them if you feel so inclined!

(For reference: Beel, Belphie, Satan, & Asmo, more Asmo & Mammon - you can also check the tag #misc human au)

Okay so I've talked about all the brothers except for Lucifer and Levi, but here's what I'm thinking.

Basically, I can't really imagine any of the brothers living fully alone, so while Beel & Belphie are both living on the farm (though possibly in different buildings) and Satan & Asmo are sharing a place in the city (probably in one side of a duplex because I think an apartment would be too small for them lol), I've decided the three older brothers live together, too.

BUT. Levi is a marine biologist. He has his own boat for research purposes (his research is likely also funded by the university where Satan teaches) and sometimes he goes out on his boat for weeks at a time. His main focus for his research is whales or maybe manatees or something, but everybody knows he's secretly trying to find evidence of sea serpents.

Still completely obsessed with anime & manga, I don't think you could ever take the otaku out of Levi lol. So when he goes out on his boat, he brings piles of manga and anime to catch up on while he's out there.

He has a lot of high tech equipment on his boat that he's especially good at maintaining. Other researchers often ask him for help with this.

When he's home, he spends his time holed up in his room playing video games, occasionally emerging for food and what have you. He also spends a decent amount of time working through what he learned on his expeditions and writing research papers good enough to continue getting grants. Satan helps with those, taking Levi's data and making it sound good. Sometimes Belphie helps out too.

All the other brothers seek out Levi when they need help with tech and sometimes he takes them out on his boat for rides or even if they just wanna get away for a couple days. Belphie especially likes to do this because you get some amazing views of the stars out on the ocean.

Lucifer owns a vineyard. It's not far from Beel's farm, but unlike Beel Lucifer doesn't live there. His house is in the city proper and as mentioned, he shares it with Levi and Mammon.

Lucifer spends a lot of time at the vineyard, though, perfecting the various methods of wine production to create a superior product. He's the real money maker of this family. While everybody else makes money from their various jobs, Lucifer's personal wine label makes the most. We all know that Lucifer would take care of all of his brothers if any of them needed anything. He gives them money regularly and doesn't ask for it back.

Human!Lucifer is much softer than demon!Lucifer in general. There is some angsty family history that I will write about in a different post, but basically he's been through a lot. Basically raised all his brothers himself and they mean everything to him. He isn't about to let them stumble through life because they didn't have enough money. Especially not if he has it to give them.

He's more indulgent, probably middle aged, tired. He was perhaps more intense when he was younger, but he's mellowed out at this point.

He and Mammon are both very business minded, so together they kinda keep everybody else on track. They help with the business side of Beel's farm, allowing Beel to focus on things like crop quality. And if for some reason Levi or Belphie don't get the funds they need from the university, Lucifer and Mammon come up with ways to supplement their income. Satan does all right as a professor and Asmo is a successful therapist, so they don't need as much help. But they will come to their older brothers for advice. Together, Lucifer and Mammon are especially good at helping their brothers plan for retirement lol. They're like, listen we know you're young and don't care, but you gotta start saving with that 401k!!

Lucifer thinks Mammon is a little too wild with his fancy cars, but he also admits that Mammon is good at what he does. Levi worries Lucifer when he's locked up in his room for too long or when he's gone on his boat for too long without checking in.

Lucifer is proud of Satan and Asmo, how they're doing well on their own together, how successful and well balanced they both turned out. He worries a little bit about Belphie, spending a lot of time alone staring at the stars, but he's also aware that Belphie is doing what he loves. Lucifer is also proud of Beel for pursuing something as difficult as farming.

I still like the idea of MC being the only non human in this scenario lol. The one pink sheep on Beel's farm. But of course there could be a situation in which they all meet an MC character...

Buuuut I also think I'm getting ahead of myself. We still got the tragic family backstory and the side characters to consider.

Anyway, this is just me rambling about my thoughts. More likely to come 'cause I can't stop thinking about them.

[tygerbug]

https://youtu.be/FC4sYmilGF8 The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mark 5 Work in Progress 06/20/23

This restoration is still a work in progress. It contains new animation which has not yet been completed, and is "half done" in this preview. At times, there are unfinished edits and smudgy frames.

"Animation among the most glorious and lively ever created!" - The New York Times "The best and most important 'fan edit' ever made." - Twitch Film

Chief Restorationist: Garrett Gilchrist

Directed by Richard Williams Screenplay by Richard Williams and Margaret French Master animator Ken Harris Produced by Imogen Sutton and Richard Williams

Here is your first sneak preview of a newly re-restored version of this lost animation classic, written and directed by legendary three-time Academy Award winning animator Richard Williams (animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the author of The Animator's Survival Kit). Nearly 30 years in the making, a labor of love by a team of animation greats, this was to be the masterpiece of Williams’ career, perhaps the most ambitious independent animated film ever conceived. It was taken away from Williams when he couldn’t meet his deadline, recut and destroyed. It has never been seen the way it was intended to be seen … until now. Based on Williams’ original workprint, missing scenes have been restored using storyboards and unfinished animation. Restored to its true form, this lost cult classic has finally been found - for you at home.

2023 could be considered the 60th anniversary of when production began on the film that would become "The Thief and the Cobbler." 2023 is also the 30th anniversary of when production ended on the film, when a reedited version called "The Princess and the Cobbler" had a very small release in some countries. 2023 is also the 10th anniversary of "The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mark 4," a restoration by filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist which intended to restore the film to its original intended form, as much as possible. This is also, approximately, the 25th anniversary of Gilchrist's first experiments with restoring this film.

So we thought it would be a good idea to go back and restore the film further, and see what could be done with it. We still do not have access to a high quality HD copy of any version of the film (such as the released version "Arabian Knight" or Williams' workprint "A Moment In Time"). We do have some 35mm workprint scenes, which we transferred in HD for this project, and which make up over 30 minutes of the film. Some scenes were also upscaled and rebuilt in HD, and all scenes were cleaned up and restored frame by frame by Garrett Gilchrist. Any Blu-Ray labels that would like to take on this project with us officially can contact us.

Garrett Gilchrist writes:

I had often said that I wouldn't do a "Mark 5" edit unless an HD version of the film (in any form) was released and could be used for a better quality version. The "Recobbled Cut" project was begun in 2006 and continued until 2013, originally. That's eight years of work restoring the film (frame by frame in Photoshop!) and building up a huge data archive of Richard Williams' work (Available via ocpmovie at archive. org). I wasn't going to return to the project without a very good reason to do so. No new footage has turned up in our hands in the last ten years.

But it's been ten years since the "Mark 4," and I was approached by animators Dennis Van Hout and Kiko Pablo (The Crow Artist), who had animated a few new shots for the film. It's very difficult, without a budget, to create the sort of high quality animation that this film requires. However, their efforts showed me that it's possible. I had just completed inking a Thief and the Cobbler Coloring Book (available at archive) and felt more confident that I could draw and ink in Richard Williams' style. I chose about twenty shots that seemed possible to animate, and began work on them in early 2023. You can see a half-finished version of the results in this video. I am still working to bring the results up to standard as much as possible.

I also "re-restored" most of the film for this version, rebuilding some shots in HD using cropped DVD sources, recoloring some shots to appear higher quality, removing dirt and damage in Photoshop frame by frame, and doing months of new work to bring the film to life like never before. We were never happy with the HD transfer of the scenes of The Thief in the War Machine, which are very red and dark and lack detail. Some color correction trickery helped bring more detail to the scenes, and dirt and damage was removed by hand in Photoshop over the course of several months.

Other HD scenes were also restored by hand, which had been overlooked for the previous version, because I'd been working on it for eight years at that point and had to stop somewhere. The U-Matic video source for the workprint was also revisited. Pencil test scenes are hard to see due to the low quality of the video source, and I went back to the original source for this version, and cleaned up the scenes very carefully frame by frame to bring out quality and detail that was previously lost. Scenes that previously switched from one source to another have been cleaned up as much as possible so that the sources match seamlessly. Some workprint scenes have been recolored by hand to improve their quality.

The scenes directed by Fred Calvert were done on the cheap and are not up to the quality standards that Richard Williams intended. In this edit I have reworked the Calvert scenes as much as possible, so that they play more smoothly with additional inbetweening. I have removed animation errors and improved scenes with special effects, and rebuild some scenes in HD. This work will continue as time allows.

Our newly animated scenes are also a work in progress, and will require further work to make the animation smoother and more in line with the rest of the film. I am just one illustrator and do not have the budget of a professional animation studio, so I'm really pushing my luck by trying to insert new animation into a cult-favorite masterpiece by one of the greatest animators who ever lived. But I also was careful to choose scenes that are less complex in how they move. It's been a lot of work, and it's still a work in progress. But I hope you enjoy seeing what I've been up to all these months, as well as the delightful new animation by Dennis Van Hout, Kiko Pablo, Chris Fern and others.

[whimsicallywiddershins]

So Gotham isn't real, but if it was, Stockton, CA is a really close version of a real-life Gotham.

First of all, crime rates! Stockton is the most dangerous city in California based on FBI violent crime data. It's not always number 1, it moves up and down, but it's usually in the top 5.

Next up, crazy villains! Stockton has had many serial killers, including the Night Stalker, who was absolutely horrible.

Stockton, like Gotham, is a port city. To be fair, Stockton is an inland port, on the Sacramento River, not on the ocean, but it still is a port. Port cities usually have higher crime rates, due to the smuggling and such that happens around them.

Stockton is plagued with incredibly thick fog. It's infamous for it! It's gotten better now due to the decrease in air pollution in the area, but when my mom was a kid, she wouldn't be able to see her hands outstretched in front of her. Speaking of air pollution, Gotham is rather famous for its terrible air quality, and Stockton is also quite bad! Due to the horrible geography, the CA valley has some of the worst air quality in California, and in the US. Some parts of Stockton are labeled high risk, and are parts of Assembly Bill 617, to try and fix that.

Stockton is a major industrial area. Its architecture is actually quite Gothic, especially the older areas. Lots of brick, high towers and elaborate trims and such. Driving on Hwy 4 over the city will always give you a great view of the gothic spire of it's downtown church, as well as the cranes and stacks from the port. Driving that hwy every weekend is how I came up with this post.

Stockton actually has a lot of very wealthy and very old families. Lots of big names and generational wealth.

So, in conclusion, if Gotham was a real place, it would look like Stockton CA.

[theminecraftbee]

having read the content warnings, do you have any personal recommendations on which game to start with? i know p5 is super popular (and 50% off right now) but is there anything about p3 or 4 that would make you say to go for those first?

the answer is "it depends"! honestly, if persona 5 royal is currently 50% off (and i checked, it is currently only 30 dollars on steam, it is actually 50% off), that is a good starting point; there are a LOT of persona fans who would argue with me, but it's the one that REALLY made the series blow up for a reason. it is the most polished of the games, the most likely to make someone who isn't already a jrpg fan like the game (despite it being an EXTREMELY jrpg jrpg, it is like, a known fact that a lot of people play it and go "ohhhh that's why people like it"), and the gameplay is the smoothest and easiest for newcomers.

that said, some additional data points:

you want persona 5 royal, persona 4 golden, or persona 3 reload; that last one is going to be a controversial statement but for someone new to the series, reload is going to be a much easier entry point than trying to play portable (although persona 3 portable is MUCH cheaper, lol), as it has a LOT of modern quality-of-life improvements.

honestly if you just want the cheapest entry point into the series, persona 4 golden is only 20 bucks on steam even when it's not on sale, and is only 13 bucks at the moment. it has a lot more janky elements that reload and royal both have smoothed out, but i personally label persona 4 as my favorite because the characters, man. the characters, the atmosphere, yes, even the high quantities of weird anime bullshit side episodes, i love all of it. it doesn't have the same modern flare and polish as the newer games but it's still got a lot of what makes persona persona. just, uh, be aware the boss design in that game is... questionable at best. (surely, giving this boss more hp makes for a more interesting fight, right?)

persona 3 reload is what i direct you towards if you SPECIFICALLY want to play persona 3. i'll say that storyline-wise, persona 3 probably has the tightest/most effective storytelling. that said, reload is. sigh. 70 dollars. which may VERY WELL NOT BE WORTH IT TO YOU, especially given that portable, for all portable is super, super jank as a port, is only thirteen. the main differences, for the record, is that reload looks and plays so much nicer, actually has cutscenes, is fully voice-acted, and has a LOT of combat and exploration tweaks that make the dungeon crawling way less of a chore.

that said, persona 5 royal? STILL probably my recommendation for a first persona game. it's got flash, panache, a pretty smooth combat system, it's easier for beginners, it takes a lot fewer Very Questionable Writing Swings than p4 (i love p4 it's my favorite but you may have noticed how many caveats i keep throwing at it, curse of my favorite being Like That), and more than anything: palaces are just so much better than the randomly-generated dungeons of p3 and p4. like, if you've only played p5: mementos is basically what EVERY dungeon is like in p3 and p4. you now understand why palaces are such an improvement. you will probably like this one the most as a new persona fan! i just wanted to offer the other options to you as well.

[snickerdoodlles]

pulling out a section from this post (a very basic breakdown of generative AI) for easier reading;

AO3 and Generative AI

There are unfortunately some massive misunderstandings in regards to AO3 being included in LLM training datasets. This post was semi-prompted by the ‘Knot in my name’ AO3 tag (for those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s supposed to be a fandom anti-AI event where AO3 writers help “further pollute” AI with Omegaverse), so let’s take a moment to address AO3 in conjunction with AI. We’ll start with the biggest misconception:

1. AO3 wasn’t used to train generative AI.

Or at least not anymore than any other internet website. AO3 was not deliberately scraped to be used as LLM training data.

The AO3 moderators found traces of the Common Crawl web worm in their servers. The Common Crawl is an open data repository of raw web page data, metadata extracts and text extracts collected from 10+ years of web crawling. Its collective data is measured in petabytes. (As a note, it also only features samples of the available pages on a given domain in its datasets, because its data is freely released under fair use and this is part of how they navigate copyright.) LLM developers use it and similar web crawls like Google’s C4 to bulk up the overall amount of pre-training data.

AO3 is big to an individual user, but it’s actually a small website when it comes to the amount of data used to pre-train LLMs. It’s also just a bad candidate for training data. As a comparison example, Wikipedia is often used as high quality training data because it’s a knowledge corpus and its moderators put a lot of work into maintaining a consistent quality across its web pages. AO3 is just a repository for all fanfic -- it doesn’t have any of that quality maintenance nor any knowledge density. Just in terms of practicality, even if people could get around the copyright issues, the sheer amount of work that would go into curating and labeling AO3’s data (or even a part of it) to make it useful for the fine-tuning stages most likely outstrips any potential usage.

Speaking of copyright, AO3 is a terrible candidate for training data just based on that. Even if people (incorrectly) think fanfic doesn’t hold copyright, there are plenty of books and texts that are public domain that can be found in online libraries that make for much better training data (or rather, there is a higher consistency in quality for them that would make them more appealing than fic for people specifically targeting written story data). And for any scrapers who don’t care about legalities or copyright, they’re going to target published works instead. Meta is in fact currently getting sued for including published books from a shadow library in its training data (note, this case is not in regards to any copyrighted material that might’ve been caught in the Common Crawl data, its regarding a book repository of published books that was scraped specifically to bring in some higher quality data for the first training stage). In a similar case, there’s an anonymous group suing Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI for training their LLMs on open source code.

Getting back to my point, AO3 is just not desirable training data. It’s not big enough to be worth scraping for pre-training data, it’s not curated enough to be considered for high quality data, and its data comes with copyright issues to boot. If LLM creators are saying there was no active pursuit in using AO3 to train generative AI, then there was (99% likelihood) no active pursuit in using AO3 to train generative AI.

AO3 has some preventative measures against being included in future Common Crawl datasets, which may or may not work, but there’s no way to remove any previously scraped data from that data corpus. And as a note for anyone locking their AO3 fics: that might potentially help against future AO3 scrapes, but it is rather moot if you post the same fic in full to other platforms like ffn, twitter, tumblr, etc. that have zero preventative measures against data scraping.

2. A/B/O is not polluting generative AI

…I’m going to be real, I have no idea what people expected to prove by asking AI to write Omegaverse fic. At the very least, people know A/B/O fics are not exclusive to AO3, right? The genre isn’t even exclusive to fandom -- it started in fandom, sure, but it expanded to general erotica years ago. It’s all over social media. It has multiple Wikipedia pages.

More to the point though, omegaverse would only be “polluting” AI if LLMs were spewing omegaverse concepts unprompted or like…associated knots with dicks more than rope or something. But people asking AI to write omegaverse and AI then writing omegaverse for them is just AI giving people exactly what they asked for. And…I hate to point this out, but LLMs writing for a niche the LLM trainers didn’t deliberately train the LLMs on is generally considered to be a good thing to the people who develop LLMs. The capability to fill niches developers didn’t even know existed increases LLMs’ marketability. If I were a betting man, what fandom probably saw as a GOTCHA moment, AI people probably saw as a good sign of LLMs’ future potential.

3. Individuals cannot affect LLM training datasets.

So back to the fandom event, with the stated goal of sabotaging AI scrapers via omegaverse fic.

…It’s not going to do anything.

Let’s add some numbers to this to help put things into perspective:

LLaMA’s 65 billion parameter model was trained on 1.4 trillion tokens. Of that 1.4 trillion tokens, about 67% of the training data was from the Common Crawl (roughly ~3 terabytes of data).

3 terabytes is 3,000,000,000 kilobytes.

That’s 3 billion kilobytes.

According to a news article I saw, there has been ~450k words total published for this campaign (*this was while it was going on, that number has probably changed, but you’re about to see why that still doesn’t matter). So, roughly speaking, ~450k of text is ~1012 KB (I’m going off the document size of a plain text doc for a fic whose word count is ~440k).

So 1,012 out of 3,000,000,000.

Aka 0.000034%.

And that 0.000034% of 3 billion kilobytes is only 2/3s of the data for the first stage of training.

And not to beat a dead horse, but 0.000034% is still grossly overestimating the potential impact of posting A/B/O fic. Remember, only parts of AO3 would get scraped for Common Crawl datasets. Which are also huge! The October 2022 Common Crawl dataset is 380 tebibytes. The April 2021 dataset is 320 tebibytes. The 3 terabytes of Common Crawl data used to train LLaMA was randomly selected data that totaled to less than 1% of one full dataset. Not to mention, LLaMA’s training dataset is currently on the (much) larger size as compared to most LLM training datasets.

I also feel the need to point out again that AO3 is trying to prevent any Common Crawl scraping in the future, which would include protection for these new stories (several of which are also locked!).

Omegaverse just isn’t going to do anything to AI. Individual fics are going to do even less. Even if all of AO3 suddenly became omegaverse, it’s just not prominent enough to influence anything in regards to LLMs. You cannot affect training datasets in any meaningful way doing this. And while this might seem really disappointing, this is actually a good thing.

Remember that anything an individual can do to LLMs, the person you hate most can do the same. If it were possible for fandom to corrupt AI with omegaverse, fascists, bigots, and just straight up internet trolls could pollute it with hate speech and worse. AI already carries a lot of biases even while developers are actively trying to flatten that out, it’s good that organized groups can’t corrupt that deliberately.

[itsbenedict]

From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings | 5/18 | 2/7

Nice.

Thanks to the kindness of strangers, the butterflies deliver to the two of you some useful freebies from the Coin shop:

The MER-MYSTIC provides 7 orders of BEAT USER. The two of you divide them such that equally sated as possible- around 8/8. After filling up, neither of you seem too mentally impaired by the hunger, but you know it's only a matter of time before that changes. You still need to FULLY ROBE LILY FILL YOUR BELLY somewhere, though you've got a little wiggle room before it becomes necessary.

They also purchase PRINCE TONY, which... sure, it anagrams to ENCRYPTION, but that seems to be the actual name of the product- a little wind-up doll that acts a smoke bomb by temporarily encrypting everything around it on a timer. Looks like it can be used four times before its bar is depleted.

To that end, A DEMOCRAT purchases you A COUCH FÉVER a CAFÉ VOUCHER, which appears to be for the STACK OVÉRFLOW- a prestigious juice bar that advertises a recent relocation to a place called "the Siren's Arraignment". You're not sure where that is, but you can keep your eye out for it- the voucher is good for 20 hunger's worth of drinks and meals.

You also receive the OLD TROOP SLEEVE DEVELOPER TOOLS, a lightweight gauntlet that sometimes provides the wearer with a +1 HAK bonus. Huh? Or, no, it's... got a hidden needle that allows you to extract a data sample from something and peek at its properties under the hood, allowing you to find weaknesses in bugs and structures.

The BILATERAL SIZINGS SIGNAL STABILIZER is a consumable item that allows you to stabilize an anomaly and automatically DEFEAT THEIR UNTURN one time. A label on the back informs you that it can even be used on memories!

You don't have much time to consider what to do with all this- the monster is hot on your heels! According to the NO FEWER FARMERS FREEFORM ANSWER response, the play seems to be to loop around this thing through the fairy forest and get to the steampunk spires, so you hotfoot it out of there after chowing down on your rations.

Passing through the fairy forest, Walter notices it's changed somewhat since he was last there. The clouds from the cloudscape hills seem to have descended upon it, enshrouding it in fog. It's difficult to navigate, but luckily Adea knows the park's layout like the back of her hand, even in this fanciful and distorted form. She leads you through and up the stairs to the city heights, now a labyrinth of steampunk spires.

You survey the area, to see if there's anything useful here. As usual, it's a little hard to tell if any of this is of use:

There's a patch of soil with a sign declaring that beneath it is every mistake you've ever made, and offering a shovel for you to UNEARTH REGRETS. Is this really a good idea...?

The PURPOSEFUL YACHT is still here, if you want to set sail and scavenge the area for more spare parts to patch yourself up- you're pretty low on health, but there could be consequences.

The GAMED HOUSE-YARD still hasn't replaced its turf with real grass. Seems like they've been getting away with dodging HOA regs for a while.

The high-quality rips whose GRAND DAD THEME: FRISK is easy enough to figure out... still seem to be playing from who knows where.

The FILIAL TWINS have followed you once again, eager to dig up some more files for you to peruse for information and potentially decrypt to earn Coin.

There's a NETTLE SPECIMEN that seems to have grown somehow amidst the whirling machinery. It's got stinging barbs on its leaves, and might be painful to touch.

Continued

[zvaigzdelasas]

17 Jul 23

China Law Translate - Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services

Quotes from direct English translation of law below

These measures apply to the use of generative AI technologies to provide services to the public in the [mainland] PRC for the generation of text, images, audio, video, or other content (hereinafter generative AI services). Where the state has other provisions on the use of generative AI services to engage in activities such as news and publication, film and television production, and artistic creation, those provisions are to be followed. These Measures do not apply where industry associations, enterprises, education and research institutions, public cultural bodies, and related professional bodies, etc., research, develop, and use generative AI technology, but have not provided generative AI services to the (mainland) public.[...]

During processes such as algorithm design, the selection of training data, model generation and optimization, and the provision of services, effective measures are to be employed to prevent the creation of discrimination such as by race, ethnicity, faith, nationality, region, sex, age, profession, or health;[...]

Respect intellectual property rights and commercial ethics, and protect commercial secrets, advantages in algorithms, data, platforms, and so forth must not be used for monopolies or to carry out unfair competition;[...]

Promote the establishment of generative AI infrastructure and public training data resource platforms. Promote collaboration and sharing of algorithm resources, increasing efficiency in the use of computing resources. Promote the orderly opening of public data by type and grade, expanding high-quality public training data resources. Encourage the adoption of safe and reliable chips, software, tools, computational power, and data resources.[...]

Where intellectual property rights are involved, the intellectual property rights that are lawfully enjoyed by others must not be infringed;[...]

Where personal information is involved, the consent of the personal information subject shall be obtained or it shall comply with other situations provided by laws and administrative regulations;[...]

When manual tagging is conducted in the course of researching and developing generative AI technology, the providers shall formulate clear, specific, and feasible tagging rules that meet the requirements of these Measures;[...]

Providers shall bear responsibility as the producers of online information content in accordance with law and are to fulfill the online information security obligations. Where personal information is involved, they are to bear responsibility as personal information handlers and fulfill obligations to protect personal information. Providers shall sign service agreements with users who register for their generative AI services (hereinafter “users”), clarifying the rights and obligations of both parties.[...]

Providers shall clarify and disclose the user groups, occasions, and uses of their services, guide users’ scientific understanding and lawful use of generative AI technology, and employ effective measures to prevent minor users from overreliance or addiction to generative AI services.[...]

Providers shall lawfully and promptly accept and address requests from individuals such as to access, reproduce, modify, supplement, or delete their personal information.[...]

Providers shall label generated content such as images and video in accordance with the Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis Internet Information Services.[...]

Those providing generative AI services with public opinion properties or the capacity for social mobilization shall carry out security assessments in accordance with relevant state provisions[...]

These measures take effect on August 15, 2023.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Denis Campbell

Published: Nov 22, 2023

Growing numbers of people in England and Wales are being found so long after they have died that their body has decomposed, in a shocking trend linked to austerity and social isolation, doctors have said.

Such deaths have been rising steadily in England and Wales since 1980 and are a product of wider societal breakdown, although Covid may also have played a part, according to new research.

“Many people would be shocked that someone can lie dead at home for days, weeks or even longer without anyone raising an alarm among the community they live in,” said Dr Lucinda Hiam, of the University of Oxford, and four co-authors.

Yet the numbers of “undefined deaths” – which will often involve people who have died at home, gone undiscovered and then been found already decomposed – have gone up considerably for both sexes since 1980, while death rates from all other causes have fallen over the same period.

Men are more than twice as likely as women to be discovered in a decomposed state, according to the doctors’ study, which is published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

“The increase in people found dead from unknown causes suggests wider societal breakdowns of both formal and informal social support networks,” they said. “Being found decomposed after days, weeks, months or even years might indicate a high level of neglect, but this is speculative without further investigation.”

They cite the case of Laura Winham, who was 38 and had severe mental health problems, who was found in a “mummified, almost skeletal state” at her flat in Woking, Surrey, in 2021, more than three years after she had died.

The body of another woman, Sheila Seleoane, 61, was found badly decomposed in her flat in London in 2022, two years after she had died.

The doctors analysed Office for National Statistics data showing the rising number of deaths at home and trends over time in “undefined deaths”, which they used as a proxy for deaths where the person has decomposed, as such fatalities are not currently recorded separately.

Dr Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, linked the trend to loneliness and people’s loss of social networks.

“This study makes for very sad reading,” she said. “Loneliness is all too common and although all age groups experience it, for those in later life it can be particularly problematic. The impact it has on a person’s health and their quality of life is pronounced. Loneliness puts people at a 50% increased risk of an early death compared to those with good social connection.”

While advances in medicine mean more people are living longer, “some are potentially living for prolonged periods in isolation from others”, Hawthorne said. “I can think of patients I’ve seen who may not fit the traditional label of ‘vulnerable’ but are nonetheless in need of support due to their experience of loneliness or social isolation. While physical or economic vulnerabilities can be visible, social and mental vulnerabilities can be just as detrimental and difficult to recognise.”

The World Health Organization last week declared loneliness to be a threat to health on a global scale and to pose a risk of early death.

[macmanx]

To some extent, the significance of humans’ AI ratings is evident in the money pouring into them. One company that hires people to do RLHF and data annotation was valued at more than $7 billion in 2021, and its CEO recently predicted that AI companies will soon spend billions of dollars on RLHF, similar to their investment in computing power. The global market for labeling data used to train these models (such as tagging an image of a cat with the label “cat”), another part of the “ghost work” powering AI, could reach nearly $14 billion by 2030, according to an estimate from April 2022, months before the ChatGPT gold rush began.

All of that money, however, rarely seems to be reaching the actual people doing the ghostly labor. The contours of the work are starting to materialize, and the few public investigations into it are alarming: Workers in Africa are paid as little as $1.50 an hour to check outputs for disturbing content that has reportedly left some of them with PTSD. Some contractors in the U.S. can earn only a couple of dollars above the minimum wage for repetitive, exhausting, and rudderless work. The pattern is similar to that of social-media content moderators, who can be paid a tenth as much as software engineers to scan traumatic content for hours every day. “The poor working conditions directly impact data quality,” Krystal Kauffman, a fellow at the Distributed AI Research Institute and an organizer of raters and data labelers on Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform, told me.

Stress, low pay, minimal instructions, inconsistent tasks, and tight deadlines—the sheer volume of data needed to train AI models almost necessitates a rush job—are a recipe for human error, according to Appen raters affiliated with the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America and multiple independent experts. Documents obtained by Bloomberg, for instance, show that AI raters at Google have as little as three minutes to complete some tasks, and that they evaluate high-stakes responses, such as how to safely dose medication. Even OpenAI has written, in the technical report accompanying GPT-4, that “undesired behaviors [in AI systems] can arise when instructions to labelers were underspecified” during RLHF.

[professionalmovershk]

MOVING ELECTRONICS IN HONG KONG'S RAINY SEASON: IMPORTANT TIPS FROM THE MOVERS

Relocation can be one of the most stressful and irritating experiences one can come across. Add moving delicate and very expensive electronics during Hong Kong's rainy season, and it all starts to turn into a nightmare. From April to September, with the period June to August being the peak one, comes with torrential rainfalls that can be pretty dangerous for electronic devices. It's where careful planning and professional moving expertise come in to play for the safe relocation of your electronics. Here are some vital tips to help guide you through the challenges of moving electronics during this wet season.

Understanding the Challenges

The rainy season in Hong Kong is accompanied by heavy rainfalls, high humidity, and occasional thunderstorms. The kind of weather that can cause all sorts of problems while moving electronics: water damage, short circuits, and malfunctioning due to excessive humidity. Professional movers understand these challenges and have strategies to mitigate the risks.

Pre-Move Preparations

1. Choose Experienced Movers: Get experienced movers who have handling experience in electronics and are conversant with the local climate. It will make the experienced moving company better at anticipating and addressing the particular challenges arising during the rainy season.

2. Inspect and Backup Data: Inspect all devices before the move to ensure they're in working order. Back up important data to avoid loss in case damage occurs during the move.

3. Use Original Packaging: If possible, use the original packaging of the electronics. Such packages are designed to provide maximum safety during movement. If there is no possibility of using the original packaging, high quality, sturdy boxes should be used.

4. Taping and Labelling Boxes: Seal all boxes containing electronics well with waterproof tape to prevent water infiltration. Clearly label these boxes with "Fragile" and "Electronics" so that the movers are warned to handle them with extra care.

Protective Packing Techniques

1. Waterproof Wrapping: Each electronic device should be wrapped in waterproof plastic wrap or placed in waterproof bags for protection from moisture. This is quite important in the case of more sensitive items, like laptops, tabs, and small home appliances.

2. Cushioning Materials: You may use bubble wrap, foam sheets, or even packing peanuts to pad your electronics. Such materials absorb shocks and vibrations during transit that may damage your electronics.

3. Silica Gel Packets: Place silica gel packets inside the boxes. Silica gel has the property of absorbing moisture and helps in keeping the environment inside the box dry, very essential during the rainy season when it is very humid.

Loading and Transportation

1. Climate-Controlled Trucks: Avail those movers who offer climate-controlled trucks. These will provide a safe, stable temperature and humidity for your electronics.

2. Elevate Boxes: Make sure boxes with electronics inside the moving truck stay off the floor and away from water in case of leaks or flooding.

3. Avoid Overloading: The truck should not be overfilled with boxes. The too-many boxes might cause shifting, which may cause breakage. Experts balance and load a truck for safety.

During the Move

1. Watch the Weather: Keep an eye on any bad weather that may be predicted for that day. If extreme weather is forecasted, reschedule for another day or day off to prevent your costly electronics from getting soaked.

2. Offload Fast: On reaching the destination, offload your electronics fast. This ensures they receive the minimum possible exposure to the humid environment. Make sure the new location is dry and ready for the electronics.

3. Check for Water Damage: Upon unpacking, inspect all electronic devices for water damage or malfunction. Plug in the devices to turn them on and check for functionality. If there are any discrepancies, notify the movers immediately so that claims can be filed if needed.

After the Move

1. Dehumidifiers: If needed, use dehumidifiers in your new location to reduce the level of humidity to make your electronics safer.

2. Proper Storage: Keep devices in a cool and dry place if you will not install it immediately. Not in basements or places with high humidity, and also not directly beside windows.

3. Regular Maintenance: Regularly have your devices maintained to keep them in good condition. This includes dusting and checking for dampness problems.

Conclusion The wet season in Hong Kong is really a challenging period to transport electronics, requiring great planning and skill from professional movers. With these tips, you can help your devices be safe from such challenges as soaking and soggy weather. You should always select seasoned movers who are conversant with the local climate and shall provide the relevant precautions for a smooth and safe relocation. Do everything meticulously, and you will be able to get through the rainy season without sacrificing any of your gadgets in the process.

[amazonmarketingtips]

What Is Design and Layout in Amazon Store Setup?

Design and layout play a crucial role in Amazon store setup, impacting both user experience and conversion rates. Here’s how to effectively design and layout your Amazon store to enhance customer engagement and boost sales.

1. Understand Your Brand Identity

Your Amazon store should reflect your brand's identity. Use your brand colors, fonts, and logos consistently to create a cohesive look. This consistency builds trust and makes your store instantly recognizable.

2. Create a User-Friendly Navigation

Ensure that your store is easy to navigate. Use clear and concise category labels, and organize products logically. A well-structured navigation helps customers find what they’re looking for quickly, reducing bounce rates and increasing the likelihood of purchase.

3. Optimize for Mobile Devices

With a significant portion of shoppers using mobile devices, it’s essential to optimize your Amazon store for mobile. Ensure that images and text are responsive, buttons are easy to click, and navigation remains intuitive on smaller screens.

For comprehensive support in setting up and optimizing your Amazon store, explore our Amazon Marketing services.

4. Use High-Quality Images

Effective product showing requires high-quality photos. Use multiple images from different angles and include zoom-in features. Clear, professional photos can significantly enhance the perceived value of your products.

5. Incorporate Detailed Product Descriptions

Provide detailed and informative product descriptions. Highlight key features, benefits, and specifications. Use bullet points for readability and ensure your descriptions are free of errors.

6. Leverage A+ Content

Amazon’s A+ Content allows you to enhance your product listings with rich media content, including high-definition videos, comparison charts, and enhanced images. This feature can help improve conversion rates and drive more sales.

7. Include Customer Reviews and Ratings

Customer reviews and ratings are critical for building trust. Ensure that your store displays reviews prominently. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive feedback, and respond to reviews to show that you value customer opinions.

8. Use Engaging Banners and Headers

Banners and headers can be used to highlight promotions, new arrivals, or bestselling products. Use visually appealing graphics and compelling calls-to-action to draw attention and drive traffic to specific sections of your store.

9. Test and Optimize Layouts

Regularly test different layouts and design elements to see what works best. Use A/B testing tools to compare performance metrics and make data-driven decisions. Continuous optimization ensures that your store remains effective and up-to-date.

For expert assistance in enhancing your digital marketing strategy, consider partnering with a professional Digital Marketing company.

10. Focus on Load Speed

Ensure that your store loads quickly. Customers may become irritated and even bounce more frequently when pages load slowly. Optimize images and use efficient coding practices to improve load speed.

Conclusion

Design and layout are integral to the success of your Amazon store. By understanding your brand identity, creating a user-friendly navigation, optimizing for mobile devices, and leveraging high-quality images and detailed descriptions, you can create an engaging and effective store. Incorporating A+ Content, customer reviews, and engaging banners further enhances the shopping experience. Regular testing and optimization, along with a focus on load speed, will ensure your store performs at its best. For comprehensive support in setting up and optimizing your Amazon store, consider partnering with a professional Amazon Marketing services company to achieve sustained success in your digital marketing efforts.

[clu3io]

Trinity, Bass Techno release proudly presents a stellar collection of high-quality tracks, produced by Laylae to perfect your latest bass techno mix. Inspired by the sounds of artists such as Exium, Das and Quartz. The label Robotic, this liveact album promises to propel your music to new heights. Set at a steady tempo of 136 BPM, the tracks are tailored for bass techno enthusiasts and also cater to various sub-genres within the techno spectrum.

Alja Knez is an electronic music producer, Dj and Liveact from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her sound can be described as a bass and breaks driven techno, laced with futuristic soundscapes and progressive characteristics.

With releases on Robotic and Coalition Records, Laylae’s productions exhibit her driving techno influences blended with a newfound inspiration for basstechno and breakstechno.

Apart from being the label manager at Clubio, she has been a DJ for 15 years and having played at multiple of the Europe’s venues, her sets showcase her diverse music collection, carefully curated and adaptive to uplifting the crowd on the dancefloor.

With releases on labels like Let's Techno, Basic Avenue, Techno Vinyls, Data Tech and Tehnopolis, she is leaving her mark at festivals like Exit and underground clubs in Berlin like Mensch Meier. She is resident host at Digitally Imported with I'm not a Robot, Naked and Tors radio show.

Support @LaylaeDJ

[lodeemmanuelpalle]

Guidelines & Best Practices for Exceptional Web Design - Lode Palle

Creating exceptional web design involves following guidelines and best practices to ensure your website is visually appealing, user-friendly, and effective in achieving its goals. Here are some key guidelines and best practices for exceptional web designexplained by Lode Palle:

Understand Your Audience: Start by understanding your target audience, their needs, preferences, and behaviors. Tailor your design to appeal to your specific user demographic.

Mobile-First Design: Design your website with a mobile-first approach, ensuring it looks and functions well on various screen sizes and devices. Responsive design is essential for a seamless user experience.

Clear and Intuitive Navigation: Keep navigation menus simple, organized, and easily accessible. Use clear labels and hierarchical structures to help users find information quickly.

Consistent Branding: Maintain a consistent visual identity, including colors, typography, and logo placement, to reinforce your brand's recognition and trustworthiness.

Whitespace: Use whitespace effectively to improve readability and create a sense of balance in your design. Don't overcrowd pages with content and elements.

Typography: Choose legible fonts and maintain consistent typography throughout your website. Use headings, subheadings, and body text appropriately to structure content.

Color Harmony: Create a harmonious color palette that aligns with your brand and evokes the right emotions. Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background for readability.

High-Quality Images: Use high-resolution, relevant images and graphics to enhance visual appeal. Optimize images for web to improve loading times.

Fast Loading Speed: Optimize your website's performance for fast loading times. Minimize HTTP requests, use compressed images, and enable browser caching.

Content Hierarchy: Organize content with a clear hierarchy, emphasizing important information using headings, bullet points, and visual cues. Make use of whitespace to separate content sections.

Call-to-Action (CTA): Create compelling CTAs that stand out and encourage users to take desired actions. Use action-oriented language and place CTAs strategically.

Accessibility: Ensure your website is accessible to individuals with disabilities. Follow WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) to provide alternatives for multimedia and ensure keyboard navigation is possible.

Browser Compatibility: Test your website on various browsers and devices to ensure compatibility and a consistent experience across platforms.

SEO-Friendly Design: Incorporate SEO best practices into your design, including using descriptive URLs, optimizing images, and structuring content with appropriate headings.

Content Management: Use a user-friendly content management system (CMS) to make it easy to update and maintain your website. WordPress, for example, is a popular choice.

Security: Implement security measures to protect user data and your website from cyber threats. Keep software and plugins up to date and use secure hosting.

User Testing: Conduct usability testing to gather feedback from real users and make improvements based on their experiences.

Analytics: Install web analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics) to monitor user behavior, track goals, and make data-driven improvements to your website.

Regular Updates: Keep your website updated with fresh content, new features, and design improvements to stay relevant and engaging.

Legal Compliance: Ensure your website complies with legal requirements, such as GDPR for data privacy or copyright laws for content usage.

Exceptional web design is an ongoing process that involves continuous improvement and adaptation to changing user needs and technologies. By adhering to these guidelines and best practices, you can create a website that not only looks great but also delivers a superior user experience and achieves its intended objectives.

[tubetrading]

Food Processing Revolution: Innovations Shaping the Industry

In the dynamic domain of food processing, innovation serves as the fundamental basis for advancement.  The food processing business has seen a significant evolution over time, mostly influenced by technological improvements, shifting customer preferences, and an increasing recognition of the importance of sustainability and health.  The revolution in question has had a profound impact on the methods employed in the production, packaging, and consumption of food.  Make Vadodara the hub of your efficient food processing.  Explore solutions for improved productivity, quality, and compliance at Modern Food Products - ranked among the top companies in the Food processing industry in Vadodara!

This blog post aims to explore the noteworthy advancements that are now affecting the food processing industry and their impact on its overall trajectory.

·         Automation and Robotics:

In the dynamic domain of food processing, innovation serves as the fundamental basis for advancement.  The food processing business has seen a significant evolution over time, mostly influenced by technological improvements, shifting customer preferences, and an increasing recognition of the importance of sustainability and health.  The revolution in question has had a profound impact on the methods employed in the production, packaging, and consumption of food.  This blog post aims to explore the noteworthy advancements that are now affecting the food processing industry and their impact on its overall trajectory.

·         Internet of Things (IoT) and Data Analytics:

The incorporation of Internet of Things (IoT) technology in the food processing industry enables the continuous monitoring of production lines in real time, hence facilitating the achievement of optimal performance and the reduction of wastage.  Internet of Things (IoT) devices have the capability to gather significant data, which can be subjected to analysis in order to enhance process optimisation, forecast maintenance requirements, and enhance overall quality control.  The utilisation of data analytics offers significant insights into customer behaviour, hence empowering enterprises to customise their products in accordance with specific tastes.

·         3D Printing in Food Manufacturing:

The utilisation of 3D printing technology in the realm of food manufacturing has garnered significant attention due to its ability to provide novel and tailored solutions for the creation of complicated and personalised food designs.  The utilisation of 3D printing technology has the capacity to significantly transform our understanding and production of food, encompassing the creation of distinctive shapes and textures, as well as the printing of customised nutritional profiles.  This technological advancement presents promising prospects for fostering culinary innovation and addressing specific nutritional needs.

·         Food Preservation and Packaging Innovations:

The primary objectives of advancements in food preservation and packaging are to prolong the duration of shelf life, minimise food wastage, and preserve the nutritious content of food products.  In the field of packaging, notable advancements include Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP), hoover packaging, and intelligent packaging equipped with embedded sensors for freshness monitoring.  These technologies are designed to ensure that consumers are provided with products that are both safe and of high quality, while simultaneously mitigating the environmental consequences associated with packaging.

·         Clean Label and Natural Ingredients:

The demand for clean-label products is on the rise among consumers, prompting the food processing industry to embrace natural ingredients that have undergone little processing.  The driving force behind this transition is motivated by a strong inclination towards openness and a predilection for nourishing healthful dietary options.  Food processors are engaging in the process of reformulation in order to remove artificial additives, preservatives, and synthetic colours from their goods.  This strategic action is in accordance with the growing customer preference for healthier alternatives.  Join the league of successful Food processing companies in Gujarat.  Implement state-of-the-art technologies and witness unprecedented growth.  Get in touch with Modern Food Products today!

·         Plant-Based and Alternative Proteins:

The emergence of plant-based and alternative protein sources represents a notable transformation in consumer dietary preferences.  Food processors are utilising innovative techniques to create plant-based meat alternatives that mimic the sensory attributes, such as taste and texture, of conventional meat products.  These inventions play a significant role in promoting sustainability since they effectively mitigate the environmental consequences associated with traditional meat production, all the while accommodating the needs of an expanding group of individuals who follow vegetarian or flexitarian diets.

·         Nanotechnology in Food Processing:

The utilisation of nanotechnology in food processing allows for the meticulous manipulation of food characteristics on a molecular scale, resulting in improved sensory attributes such as taste and texture, as well as enhanced nutritional composition.  Nanoencapsulation is a technique that facilitates the precise delivery of nutrients to specific targets, hence enhancing the nutritional content of food products through the addition of vital vitamins and minerals.  Furthermore, the application of nanosensors is being employed to enhance quality control measures, thereby guaranteeing the safety and freshness of food products across the whole supply chain.

·         High-Pressure Processing (HPP):

HPP is a food preservation method that uses elevated pressure levels to eliminate pathogenic microorganisms and prolong the shelf life of food products.  This technology achieves these objectives without subjecting the food to thermal treatments, hence preserving its nutritional composition and sensory attributes.  The utilisation of this approach is increasingly being recognised for its ability to generate newly produced, secure, and minimally treated goods, thereby satisfying the growing need for uncontaminated and consumer-friendly food items.

Final Thoughts:

The food processing business is currently experiencing a significant transformation propelled by technological advancements, a focus on sustainability objectives, and the changing demands of consumers.  These developments are not only exerting a significant influence on the sector but also fundamentally altering our perspectives and patterns of food consumption.  The future of food processing encompasses a range of cutting-edge technologies, including automation, robotics, 3D printing, and nanotechnology.

These innovations hold great potential to revolutionise the global food industry and significantly impact the methods by which we sustainably nourish our growing population.  Please remain engaged as we see the gradual progression of this transforming expedition into the forthcoming realm of sustenance.  Ready to secure a top place in the Food processing industry in Vadodara? Modern Food Products’ expert team in Vadodara is prepared to optimize your operations.  Reach out for personalized advice and solutions.