#I need to just simplify simplify simplify

[slxtarchive]

𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐁𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ✦ 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐁𝐘 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. when you find yourself struggling in one of your classes, you thank your lucky stars for such a helpful professor

𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃. yes, you can find it here.

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓. SMUT ! age gap [ up to your interpretation but about a 4-5 yr age gap is intended ], degrading, use of the words dirty & filthy, name calling [ slut, dirty girl, filthy girl, whore, sir ], pinch of handjobs, pnv sex [ unprotected - not recommended ], table sex & standing doggy style.

𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒. he looks so good in that photo. thank you for being patient, i hope you enjoyyy [ divider is made from youtube & capcut ]

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓. 2.4k.

the classroom was quiet, the only thing heard was the scratching of the chalk on the old school chalkboard. standing in front of the equation you tried and tried to think of how to solve it but ended up stumped. your lips pressed into a pout as you turned around. “i don’t get it.” you sighed, finally turning to glance in colby’s direction.

professor brock with his hands on his hips leaned back against his desk. he crossed his arms and gave you an encouraging nod. “alright, where are you stuck?”

you bit your cheek. “um, everywhere?” you replied, motioning to the unsolved problem on the board.

he let out a soft laugh, pushing himself off the desk, and walked over to stand beside you. “okay, let’s just break it down again,” he spoke pointing to the beginning of the equation. “what’s the very first thing you do here.” his tone was soft and light holding a bit of a intelligent sound.

you hesitated getting a bit distracted by the wafting scent of his cologne. you bit your cheek trying to think about the equation. “simplify?” you guessed mindlessly.

he held a light grin. “close.” his voice was so patient. “distribute first, then simplify. go on, try it.” he nodded to the boards.

you nodded slowly grabbing the chalk and began to write. you were on a roll but your hand froze halfway through. “shit — no this doesn’t even make sense.” you groaned, glancing up at him.

your professor sighed, stepping closer so he was standing right behind you. “here,” his tone was light. “let me guide you.”

he reached out, placing his hand gently over yours. his touch was warm and steady, and he guided you through the motion of writing out and solving the next step.

you felt a fire ignite on your skin and your heart started to race. his breathing was slow on your neck as he focused on solving the problem. everything about this intrigued you, turned you on even. he was so — “see?” he murmured, his breath brushing against your ear. “it’s not as complicated as it looks.”

you looked at the problem and noticed everything had been solved. you had been daydreaming. you swallowed harshly before speaking up, “i don’t know.” the uncertainty in your voice was apparent. you tilted your head up at him slightly noticing the flush in his cheeks. “it still feels… complicated.” the eye contact you made with him felt very intimate so he found himself stepping back.

he froze as he put distance between the both of you, your hands no longer touching anymore. “you just need practice.” he cleared his throat.

the way he stood there awkwardly showed you that he felt the exact same way. how he put his hands in his pockets and tried to avoid any extra eye contact.

“maybe,” you bit your lip to fight off a huge grin as you turned toward him. “or maybe i just need the right teacher.”

colby raised a brow noticing your flirty tone and how your posture was telling. “yn…” he said with a warning, though his voice was soft.

“what?” you asked, feigning innocence. “i’m just saying, you’re really good at this.”

his jaw tightened, and he looked away, trying to focus on anything but the way you were staring at him. “we should continue to focus on the math now.” he said, his voice low.

you put on a playful pout. “i am focusing.” you replied taking a step closer. “but maybe i just need a little… incentive.”

colby’s chest rose and fell heavily as he met your gaze. “yn, this… this isn’t— ”

“isn’t what?” you raised your brows. “professor, you don’t have to pretend like you don’t feel anything that i feel.” your voice was quiet and insistent.

he ran a hand through his dark hair looking at the way your shirt was tight around your body leaving just a few to the imagination. how your skin looked so soft, so smooth, so pure. his resolve slowly crumbled around your boldness. “this is a bad idea.” he muttered softly, barely above a whisper.

you were closer than ever before, your body nearly making contact with his. she looked up at his tall figure. “then stop me.” you whispered, your voice daring as you stepped one more inch closer.

he didn’t move. not one inch. he couldn’t. he wanted this.

for a long charged moment, neither of you spoke. your heart was beating so fast, racing even but you held your stance. you searched colby’s eyes trying to wonder what his next step would be.

then, as if something inside him snapped, coming closer to the distance between you. his hands found your waist, pulling you against him as his lips claimed yours.

the kiss was intense, a release of all the tension that had been building between you two. you pressed your hand against his chest, tilting your head to deepen the kiss as he backed you against the chalkboard.

you gasped as your back hit the wall. he pushed you further up against it kissing you with passion and need.

when you both finally pulled apart, you were breathless and felt dizzy trying to register what just happened. colby rested his forehead against yours. “this is going to get us both in trouble.” his voice was hoarse.

you lightly smiled, licking your bottom lip. your fingers curled into his shirt clutching it in your hands and pulled him closer. you then whispered against his lips, “then let’s make it worth it.”

he seemed to have an internal battle within himself before he grabbed your face pulling you toward his slowly, tortuously slow. your lips touched ever so slightly as your breathing mingled with his. he sighed softly, wanting to connect them.

you leaned forward trying to mold them together but he pulled back teasingly. he grinned looking at your eyes and then lips. you let out the slightest whimper that had him lose all control.

he molded your lips with his gripping your waist with urgency. your moans got caught in your throat as he grabbed you harshly before muttering ‘up’. you gasped before jumping so his hands rested on your ass carrying you over to sit on his desk.

he knew it was risky but at this point in time, he didn’t care. he shoved everything off his desk to make room for you and continued to kiss you on your lips, then brought his own all the way down to your neck — sucking and biting. “this is so wrong.” he groaned against your neck.

your eyes fluttered shut loving the feeling of his skin on yours. your chest was moving up and down as you tried to speak through your staggered breathing. “is it?” you questioned, trailing your hand down until you found his print. he was hard under his slacks. you felt excitement course through you as your brain rested on the thought of how you were turning colby on.

you palmed him through the thick material of his pants, earning a low groan from him. he clutched your hips pulling you closer to him. you moved your hand from between you two allowing your centers to collide with one another. you felt that pressure send a shock up inside you. “feels so good.” you whined as you held onto colby’s shoulders.

a low laugh left his lips. “yeah?” he fiddled with his belt with his free hand. you took your hands off his shoulder one by one to prop yourself up. he took his hand off your hip looking down at you as you sat down staring up at him. “so pretty starin’ at me.” he licked his bottom lip unbuckling it swiftly before unbuttoning his pants.

you pulled him by the belt loops of his pants then brought your hand up to his chest clutching his shirt. “make me feel pretty.” you pulled him closer. he looked down at you just before grabbing the waistband of your skirt and tugging it down a bit. you lifted your hips so that he could fully take it off so it pooled hanging off your legs.

his hand reached inside your panties using two fingers to collect your arousal. “already so wet for me, so filthy.” he purred. “my filthy girl.” he brought your slick up to your clit slowly rubbing circles. you bit your lip whimpering slightly.

he kept this going as he spoke in your ear. “you love the thought of fucking your professor? dirty dirty girl.” his fingers picked up the pace stimulating you so good. his words also brought you close and faster than you’ve ever cum before. you felt yourself try to catch your breath and keep up. “gonna have to teach you another lesson huh?”

you nodded the pleasure practically blinding you as you clenched your eyes shut. you felt your legs practically shaking as you felt your impending orgasm. suddenly colby stopped his actions, bringing his fingers up to his mouth. your eyes were mesmerized by how he licked and sucked them clean. “wanna taste you so bad but i have a meeting in a few minutes. can’t believe a dirty slut like you…” he grabbed your jaw. “would make me late for a meeting, all because you’re greedy and needy for my cock, yeah?”

that mouth of his had you completely dripping on his desk. he noticed laughing humorlessly. “making a mess too, so disrespectful.” he pouted. “you wanna be like that, probably shouldn’t give you what you want huh?” he stood still not making any more to continue what was happening.

his words causing you to speak up. “n-no! please… please fuck me.” you begged. “promise i’ll be a good girl for you professor.” you bit your lip as you called him his professional name. he raised a brow, secretly loving the way you called him that but he was looking for more.

“beg more. how bad do you want my cock, huh?” he put your hair behind your ear.

you gulped bringing your hand inside his boxers before grabbing his hard dick and gently pumping him once. “s-so bad sir. so bad, been wanting it.” you licked your lips as you saw his head lull back at your touch. “want you so bad. promise i won’t be filthy anymore. i’ll always be a good girl for you.” you blinked at him.

you were so hard to resist for him, he just had to give you what you wanted.

he licked his teach grabbing your hand and moving it aside grabbing his own cock out. he pumped himself a few times before nudging your legs further apart. he lined himself up with you feeling how smooth and silky you felt.

your hands fell behind you once again holding your balance. you almost felt yourself collapse when colby pushed all the way inside you. you gasped your jaw dropping as you felt him immediately nudge that sweet spot and at that moment, you knew you weren’t going to last long. he thrust in and out of you slowly enjoying the feeling of you wrapped around him.

he moaned at how your walls closed around and swallowed him. “taking me so well. whore for this cock, yeah?” he grabbed your hips thrusting in and out. the view in front of you is so hot. the way his hair fell in front of his eyes, how it was sticking to his forehead because of his sweat — a dream you got to see in reality.

he looked at his watch noticing he had to speed things up. “fuck — have only five minutes.” he groaned, “wish i could take my time with you.” he muttered. he ended up pulling you off the desk and turning you around. “don’t worry baby, gonna make you feel so good, jus’ quicker.” he said sliding back in. you gripped the desk as he pushed down onto his. skin slapping together echoed through the lecture hall — your tiny whimpers and moans threatening to escape.

you felt that natural feeling in your stomach rising up and banding together. you couldn’t help but clench around colby. “fuck — gonna cum! please please please…” you whimpered, the pleasure becoming too much.

colby had a lazy grin on his face as he felt the same way. “cum on my cock. be the greedy good girl you are and milk my cock.” he groaned, grabbing your hair into a makeshift ponytail as he felt himself spill inside you shortly after your legs shook in response to your orgasm.

your hands gripped the desk until they appeared white. sweat beading down your forehead.

in the silence that followed only your harsh breaths mingled in the air — the reality of what just happened settling into place. you slowly stood up as colby helped you lift up your underwear and skirt. you felt colby’s cum slowly dripping out of you; a reminder of what previously occurred.

you bit your cheek observing him buckling his pants up and fixing his collar. then he finally made eye contact with you. “i’m dropping you.” he stated.

your heart dropped out of your chest as he gathered his things. “what? i — im sorry professor brock. i… i didn’t mean to—”

he shook his head. “yn, i’m dropping you because i can’t have any romantic relations with a student.” his face did not at all show how serious dropping you from the class would be.

you gulped realizing he was right. did you regret what happened? you didn’t know. all you knew though was that you needed the class.

“i’ll make sure to get you enrolled in another class though.” he nodded. “and by no romantic relations with a student i mean, it’s because i… want to do this again. i’d like to take you out though, if that’s okay.”

his words caught you completely off guard. he just asked you out? it wasn’t just some in-the-heat-of-the-moment sex, he actually wanted to get to know you.

the smile that made its way onto your face was huge. he pressed his lips together trying to refrain from smiling back. “we'll talk tomorrow, can’t be late to this meeting.” he opened the door waving you over. “you have my number.” he stated as you walked out.

you nodded, giving him a polite smile. his thoughts raced clouding with thoughts of what just happened and what could happen as you walked away.

© 𝐬𝐥𝐱𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐯𝐞

[verdantude]

aurie, I’ve been here for a year, and I think I’ve overconsumed. Now, I’m panicking, waiting for something to happen—a realization that I AM THAT. How do I simplify everything when I feel so confused, tired, and exhausted?

Okay I will simplify it for you.

Well there is only Now, so you are claiming right now you’re a person who overconsumed for a year.

Every moment is a new moment, every moment is a fresh start, because there is no time in the Divine. Time is an illusion.

So the “still waiting”, puts that to sleep because there is no time.

Who is waiting then? An apparent person, the identity you think you are, but you’re not a person.

Said person is basically just baseless thoughts, forget beliefs, forget conditioning, forget feelings, forget emotions. Don’t you notice how thoughts constantly come up and you associate them with yourself, or something happens and you react… all just thought.

Every thought is temporary and you assign them meaning anytime they pass. You’re basically being in your head too much.

No grand realisation, no awakening.

So basically it’s just God, in form, right now. You choose who you are each moment, right now you are nothing / no one / god / universal consciousness / awareness / infinite intelligence whatever you want to call it. It’s a simple as that.

I’m not going to say “now you just need to realise it” because you may perceive it again as reaching some realisation. But no, it’s as simple as that like I said just God, right now, aware each moment of whatever you think your experiencing.

Do NOT GO SEEKING FOR A SPECIFIC PLACE. That’s what everyone on here seems to do. You are it, your experience right now is a proof / manifestation of your power. You’re so powerful you tricked yourself into thinking there is separation and that you’re a limited human.

You just assign meaning to an apparent physical reality which has no fundamental reality.

Scientists realised it’s all atoms -> energy. Religion, scriptures points to it in one way and all point to the same core message. Signs everywhere.

There is just YOU / awareness in this moment right now, without labels, thoughts, conditionings, senses, a story.

Without giving your attention to something, just putting that attention just on noticing and being here now it is clear you are simply… power. Because without your power the thoughts vanish, the limits vanish because you’ve taken away your attention.

You are the only power. You are all that is. God is all these apparent things and people and world in form. APPARENT, UNREAL because it’s all temporary and malleable based on what you’re deciding / knowing to be in your experience.

Stop consuming, if you keep being aware each moment of choosing / seeking you’ll never stop, the search will never end because you’ll keep putting your attention on more stuff to seek. Put it on you and that’s it. You are your salvation (no one to achieve salvation coz there’s no one there, but in the sense you are THAT already now), you are what you seek.

After reading this if you still feel like you’re waiting, no you’re not. Look what you’re doing, giving power to another empty thought no meaning no power unless you decide so since again you’re the only power.

You’re not confused, tired or exhausted. You’re God Now, everything just IS, you are the power, what do you choose right now in this moment.

This longer than it should’ve been, so actually simplified:

Only God, only Now.

[masquayla-the-splendid]

Bolts4Brains Update: 1/21/25

Okay so I might need some help. (Dw it's just input, you're not drawing.)

Every time I approach an Ennard shot, I lose my sparkle after like 2 sketches.

This is the objective:

I have to draw that.

So I didn't animate them in SFM, I just posed him and pieced them together in screenshots. It was mainly for the first half, because I couldn't figure out the camera angle of which he talks to the eyes.

Now, I'm not looking to draw these characters biblically accurate. More like I'm drawing them on-model, but with some tweaks to make them cartoon friendly, like how I colored Baby's eye-plates blue, moved her brows to the rim, and simplified her shoulder plate ruffle things. Or how I just made Funtime Foxy's eyes all yellow.

I sketch Ennard way more often than a full drawing, and I have to be consistent for this project. So I figured I'd just pull up the 3D frames and trace over his shapes. Yknow, like a guide. Well he still wasn't turning out right, so I thought maybe it's because I'm drawing too big? He takes up a lot of space in these shots.

So I return to paper and eyeball them instead, at a much smaller scale than my laptop. Just to see if it's the method or me.

Well some of them turned out alright, but I think you can tell he was burning me out a little. Like I said, I have to be consistent. That's how animation goes. I know how to draw him, I know the shapes he's made of, but it's Ennard. They've got a lot going on to keep up with.

So here's my predicament. When making a Fnaf user friendly, I'll riff off of other cartoons if I need pointers, like the ones mentioned previously. I cannot think of anything from the 80s all the way to the early 2000s that shares even a sliver of resemblance to Ennard. If I look on the robot side, it's too heavy on the machine aspect. If I look on the clown side, it's too much clown, not a lot of uncanny.

Is there any character in the 2D moving picture medium that at least shares their sghetti-ness?

[housewasp]

Spinning frames!

This is a big post that will include all of the warframes and Hex members spinning as a group and separately. If you want to use these as emotes or whatever, go ahead. You have my blessing as long as you provide credit. At the very end of this post will be a write up about this project and what I'll be working on in the future. Read more to see them frames spin!

Project write up

I started this project because I find things spinning funny. I was going to just make Excalibur spin. Then I did the starters, and then I said, "Just do all the frames and Hex." Now here we are nearly a month later with everyone spinning. Style wise I started staring at Earthbound/Mother sprites. I wanted a reference that was the right size (32x32px) and cute. That fit the bill. The biggest challenge that cropped up had to be learning what details to keep and what needed to be simplified. This came up with the Hex and cyte-09 the most. Detail is great, but at this scale little details can add too much noise. For example, I was trying to decide on two straps or three straps for Arthur. Three straps was correct to the character, but caused this banding that I didn't love. I ended up looking at the in-game Arthur floof to help me. Lo and behold, two straps was the answer. My main lesson from this had to be tracking pixel clusters. I haven't done a lot of pixel art animation. And the animations I have done never had the characters rotating to this degree. Keeping track of the pixel clusters was a big deal. Frames of "off" clusters could throw the spin off. Are all of these sprites perfect? No. Haha. Not at all. I did try my best, but perfection isn't a burden I'll carry. I did go back as I gained experience to make corrections to previous sprites. But for now, these are the final versions.

What am I doing next?

Am I going to make more of these spinning frames? Prime versions? Umbra? Future protoframes (if the DE makes more)? What about the other frames? Short answer? No. Long answer. I might make other spinning frames of my favorite warframes, but I'm not going to promise anything. If I make more I make more, but don't expect more. I guess if I do commissions in the future I might include that as an option. But don't go waltzing in asking for me to spin your bubble gum pink rhino prime. Where do I go from here? I have a few more warframe fan art stuff planned. There's this portrait of Qorvex I'd like to do. But from here you'll probably see more original work in addition to fan art. Oh and maybe some writing too! If you read this, Wow. Thanks? I hope these spinning frames brought you as much joy I had in making them. -HouseWasp

[clansafterhours]

$20 dragon commission - CLOSED

thank you all for the quick response on my post, my cats and I really appreciate your kindness!

hi, I decided to open a few slots for dragon art just to test the waters

1- @art-of-astral

2- @dire-vulture

3- @mothknight

(Only three for now because I really dont want to crash and burn out haha)

Want your fat dragon to be drawn in this style and coloring, then give it here and I'll do my best! I love fat dragons! just dm me through here with the dragon breed, personality and details! and i'll begin working on it!

(I will request items of clothing or overcomplicated skins to be simplified if needed, overly complex skins take away my motivation)

My favorite breeds to draw are:

Bogsneak, Coatl, Pearlcatcher, Wildclaw

I'm pm open to anything, if you have an OC (non human if possible) or would like to request something in especific, it can be talked about too 👍

[dapperd3m0n]

Okay, so I love everyone's responses to this so far, but this analysis in particular got me childishly excited about the potential for what this could entail.

For sure, it would be easy to throw simplified meanings at the uninitiated -- yes, at the risk of turning it into a playing card system. I don't think this is entirely a bad thing though. Just as skilled hypnotists can slip things in subliminally and work "behind the scenes" during an induction in ways that a subject may be entirely unaware of, I think this can absolutely be the case with "simplified" tarot. We can still work with all the nuance of the cards, but we don't have to overwhelm the person or people we're toying with reading with all of that information. (We can overwhelm them in other ways later.)

I loooove love love your advanced analysis, and I think the only limitation here is one's imagination (and of course, an understanding of the tarot). One interesting thing that stands out to me though is the idea that cards remain in effect until we see one of the major arcana, which then takes over the whole ordeal. Does this imply that as we read the cards, we take it in a linear fashion, card by card? Or would it be possible to have a three card spread, say, and weave the story together based on the interaction of the cards? This combined interaction can serve as both a way to drop someone and implant suggestions as they go deeper, the final result coming from the reader's interpretation of the spread as a whole. I think either option here is fine, and there can be interesting and wonderful results with both. Maybe it comes down to the type of spread? Or is it analogous to different types of inductions? Or is it just a different way to play the game?

"Would you hypnotise someone to act on their own understanding of the cards or yours?" As a hypnotist, I'd say my own. I'm the one weaving this story, teasing the message out of the cards. You're here to hang onto my every word. (Impersonal you, not you specifically, but you get the idea.) In the words of @toyintrance , "the fortune teller, like any good charlatan, has such a way with words ... that you can't help but feel utterly convinced by every word they say. ... I just think it's sexier if it's a deliberate manipulation." I wholeheartedly agree.

Finally, I love the idea of rewriting the major arcana (I had a very similar idea to yours about the Devil turning someone into "a lusting, whimpering mess"), but I'm even more enchanted with the idea of rewriting the Fool's journey -- especially with the implication of the Magician!

This may be an even deeper rabbit whole than I originally thought... And you're right, I think I'll need a new deck. I don't think my primary deck would look at me the same way either.

Alright, I have an idea and I’m not entirely sure what to do with it yet, but I’m going to throw it out into void and see what happens:

Hypno tarot.

Discuss.

[whentherewerebicycles]

I cannot survive this day lol

[hollytree33]

Hi so I might’ve made a painting of my Inquisitor while trying to mimic Solas’s style so I can pretend he made it

[ckret2]

So y'all know the Gravity Falls production bible that leaked three weeks ago. Someone in one of my discord servers pointed this out:

And, naturally, that spawned an entire AU.

AU Concept: Ford was kicked out instead of Stan and takes a job as a trucker to makes ends meet since he couldn't go to college, while still studying the weird and anomalous however he can.

Ford driving around from quirky small town to quirky small town, drifting through the liminal spaces of truck stops, meeting odd people in isolated diners, seeing strange things out on the road—a deer with too many eyes bounding across a two-lane highway, a flirty woman at a rest stop who doesn't blink or breathe, mysterious lights in the sky at night, inhuman growls on the CB or 50-year-old broadcasts on the radio—and taking notes when he stops for gas or food.

Aside from having gotten kicked out before graduating high school, Ford's the same person he is in canon.

He's still an ambitious guy, and here "ambitious" means working hard and saving as much money as he can—so, a long haul owner-operator who spends weeks at a time on the road. (He goes through a LOT of educational audiobooks.) Plus, this is the easiest way for him to get to travel the country; and since it looks like his "travel the world" dreams with Stan are dead, he'll take what he can get.

Since he's never in the same spot long and carries his life in a truck, almost all of Ford's research is in his journal. His bag of investigation supplies has an instant camera, a portable tape recorder, a thermometer, a flashlight, rubber gloves, and a few zip lock bags—and that's about it. It has to share space with all his clothes, toiletries, and nonperishable food when he's on the road. He doesn't have much opportunity to closely examine anything odd he finds, unless he's lucky enough to run into something when he can stop for the night. He has to cram his paranormal research around the side of his full-time job.

He doesn't live in Gravity Falls, but he knows it exists. Every time he moves—to Chicago, to Nebraska, to California—he seems to inch closer. He currently lives in Portland and usually hauls loads between the Pacific Northwest and Chicago or New York. He stops at the truck stop outside Gravity Falls when he can and has gone fishing in town a few times. He doesn't have the benefit of extensive research to know that this is the weirdest town in the world; but it seems pretty weird to him, there are local rumors about the town, and he's had some weird experiences in the area.

Plus, he can't explain it, but it's like the town's calling to him. He wants to move there, but it'd put him over an hour outside of Portland where the nearest jobs are. Maybe if somebody chucked him like $100k to build a cabin in the woods; but what are the odds of that?

He does know Fiddleford. Truck broke down somewhere and Fiddleford kindly pulled over to fix it on the fly. They looked at each other, had mutual knee-jerk "dumb trucker/hillbilly" reactions, and within ten minutes both went "oh wait you're the most brilliant genius i've ever met." Fiddleford's living the same life he was in canon before Ford called him to Gravity Falls—with his family in California, trying to start a computer company out of his garage—but they make friends and keep in contact.

One time Ford stops at a kitschy roadside knickknack store that also sells new agey magic things—crystals, tarot cards, incense, etc. He bought a "lucky" rearview mirror ornament that looks like an Eye of Providence in a top hat and hung it from his cab fan, and ever since then he's had weird dreams whenever he sleeps in his truck.

Things I don't know yet: what Stan's up to; or why Ford's the one who got kicked out. I tend to believe that in canon Stan wasn't just kicked out because he ruined Ford's college prospects, but rather because the family thought he deliberately sabotaged Ford; so in this AU, Ford would've been kicked out over a proportionate crime.

[plotholes-and-spellingerrors]

I think the thing is that, fundamentally, there's no such thing as running an "AI" locally. (I'm assuming that when you say "AI" you're referring to the "generative" models where a user makes a natural-language request, e.g. "re-organize my business", and the model outputs an org chart or something.) The problem is that these models require so much compute that you basically cannot run them on a personal computer. If you saw that post going around talking about Windows quietly turning on constant system snapshots to run it's AI assistant, the article pointed out that some features were only available on machines with specially beefed-up processors and memory, and even then, internet connectivity was vital because it was sending data back to Microsoft to be processed - that was part of the privacy/security risk, that images potentially displaying passwords, etc., were being stored on Microsoft servers. The point being, you need massive server farms to ingest, store, and analyze the data that these models are being built on - and it never ends, or the model becomes stale. And even once you have the model, calculating a response is also incredibly resource intensive. That's why every single Google AI result takes so much more water and electricity than the entirety of the actual search results combined.

I have shared the link before, but I am begging people to listen to the "Data Vampires" miniseries from Tech Won't Save Us. They make clear very early on that the reason Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are pushing AI so much is because they are data center companies: they make money every time a service uses their data centers. And you know where ChatGPT and MidJourney results are being processed? On Microsoft and Google and Amazon's data centers. In fact, a lot of the "money" that these companies are investing into GenAI orgs is actually just donating server usage to them, to get them locked in on those servers, which will then need to be paid for. So the GenAI companies have to find a way to get people to pay for AI services, because they're paying for AI compute power.

The other thing, and I cannot stress this enough, is that these are not knowledge models. They are very sophisticated duplication models. If you say to the "AI", "Make my workflow simpler", it doesn't have a semantic understanding of what "simpler" means (and it certainly can't ask for clarification). All it can do is look at its massive data set and try to predict a version of whatever it is outputting that is associated with the string of letters "simpler", based on a bunch of stuff that has previously been labeled as "simple" (or similar words). So you might get a work flow that has fewer steps, for example, but what the "AI" might not realize (because it doesn't have a concept of what any of the steps are) is that maybe it's actually added that are meaningless, maybe it's just shuffled some steps to it looks like there's fewer but actually it's just hidden a couple... or maybe it's eliminated some vital error-checking steps that 98% of the time result in nothing (it looks like a waste of time, so simplify it out) but 1.7% of the time catches something minor (oh good, that would have wasted resources to fix) and 0.3% of the time catches something mission-critical (this error could have brought us to bankruptcy/court/prison). And keep in mind, the person asking an automated system to simplify their business workflow is NOT the person who designed the workflow and knows what needs to be in there (if they were, they wouldn't need a computer to tell them how to fix it) - they're the person trying to not need to pay someone to design the workflow.

And for that matter, a lot of what happens when some "AI" system is inserted into a process is that it's still doing the same task (just at a much higher computational requirement, and potentially wrong), but it looks simpler because the human user is only clicking one button rather than five.

And look, I'm all for automating tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming for a human - that's the whole point of computers in the first place. But a truly effective and efficient replacement for human work is one that was designed by people who are intimately familiar with the required tasks and thinking deeply about how to make their jobs easier.

You know, these techbros love to make it sound like humans are just bad at making systems, computers will be so much better at it, but I think that's a lie they tell because they want to make one generic product and get everyone to buy it. That's the promise of "general artificial intelligence" - it's one system that can do everything. But what else in life works like that? Do you put your clothes and your dishes in the same washing device? Something that does a lot of things well is typically very simple. You can fry an egg and boil water in the same pan because it's a bent piece of metal sitting over heat. An espresso machine, however, will have a harder time with the egg. Good software generally focuses on doing one thing - the difference is whether that one thing is simple and can be applied to a lot of different things (Firefox renders web content, it just happens that you can have all kinds of stuff on the web) or if that one thing is extremely specific (Audacity edits music and GIMP edits images - audio and images are both data types that Firefox can show you, but can you imagine what a mess GIMPdacity would be?); the problem is that this specialization requires human effort, and these techbros do not want to PAY for human effort; the problem is that this specialization means that you have target audiences, and these techbros want to sell to a general (read: bigger) audience. And conversely, those byzantine systems that are so terrible? Often it's not because people are just dumb, it's because either the job is a very complicated one, and the system is tailored to success in that task, or because someone wanted a general system that accomplishes all kinds of things, and often what they want accomplished is METRICS so that the efficiency of the business can be micromanaged. But that's another story for another time. In short, don't ever let someone who is trying to sell you bullshit tell you the lie that you couldn't do better on your own.

Anyway, IDK if this is really even what OP meant, it's just where my mind went. If you put up with me to the end, thanks for reading.

MAN, can you imagine the clusterfuck of working at a company that’s become reliant on an AI layer between itself/its employees, and knowing how to do their jobs and use their systems and stuff? Like when that AI layer goes down, poof, you’re all hosed. And they don’t strike me as super robust…

I guess there are ways of training and running them locally, but they’re so seductive they’re definitely going to be deployed in places that aren’t up to the task of maintaining them in a sane state. Like… damn… cutting headcount in favor of relying on AI is like. A raccoon stuffing its head into a yogurt container. This is gonna be killing off organizations in a few years.

Unless AI gets good at destroying preexisting fucked up byzantine workflows and replacing them with simpler, human-friendly ones. That would be okay. But it is gonna irrevocably destroy a lot of records and botch a lot of database migrations on its way there.

[mumblesplash]

he's not even that light impulse is just really strong

[artiquar]

I can't wait to see how they work things out.

[deoidesign]

Ray of sunshine

(pre-launch page for their comic)

[nicky-jr]

HOT GLENN SUMMER NEVER DIES

redraw:

almost 2 years old. waow

[plavigmaz]

For (belated) Women's Day!! (I know, but at least before March ends.) Wanted to show off all the women OCs I created in ESO, and my Argonian bias is very much apparent! 🦎✨

My lovely ladies~ From top to bottom and left to right: Dances-With-Colors*, Tislei, Ghada Rajida, Xeena-Ra*, Tumezi, Kicks-Many-Tails and Julei-Zu

[kandicon]

Actually I think it's severely underrated how fucking funny ejm Brian has the potential to be when there is no actual end. When he's just living on the ship on the day to day between stories and the like. Ends are so, so subjective when there are no wars or really even active society. Stuff like

Brian on his way to the kitchen to grab smth to feed the octokittens -> Jonny and Tim are arguing in front of the door -> he knows from experience that interrupting or trying to get by would only mean getting himself dragged into it -> the octokittens make (most) everyone happy and deserve to be fed food that won't immediately kill them -> conclusion: shoot both Jonny and Tim before they notice him so he can walk over their corpses to the fridge and get the octokittens food