#Online Drone Training

[sailerboy]

Part 107 drone pilot license anyone?

For those of you who want to get their Part 107 drone pilot license, there is a great school online. Check it out. One you take the school it is good for life and it keeps up with the FAA rules!!

Gold Seal online training. They now offer real airplane pilot training too. http:\\www.uavroundschool.com

[hxney-lemcn]

Not so Long Distance — Idia Shroud x gn! reader

summery: with the seconds ticking down, everyone has a certain amount of time before they meet their soulmate, you just hope yours is your online crush.

tw: awkward encounters, reader isn't Yuu.

a/n: I'm in my Idia phase, help. Also, my first soulmate fic I'm proud of.

wc: 2.6k

Master List

The countdown on your wrist that had once been a beacon of hope and excitement slowly turned into one of doom. The idea of meeting your soulmate was terrifying yet exciting. Meeting someone that you fit perfectly with was mystifying, and the underlying fear of rejection scared you, but overall you would accept your soulmates wishes. But now? Something you never even thought of happened. 

You’re falling for someone you met online, but your timer is still ticking. 

With the internet still being new, and research into how it could affect the soulmate mark is still going on, you’re not sure if you should lose hope yet. For all you knew, the mark didn’t register when two people meet from separate distances…but you felt like you were coping with that explanation. You had met him online months ago, and every bad joke or insult towards a shitty player made you laugh, everytime he laughed at your bad jokes your stomach fluttered. It was embarrassing in a sense, you were falling for someone you hadn’t even seen yet. What if he was tricking you and he was some old man? But you doubted it, he sounded young and the way he talked was even outdoing modern slang. In fact, you even brought up this train of thought one day while you were on a call playing separate games. 

“Y’know, for all I know you’re some fifty year old guy,” You said in a joking tone, farming your crops in game.

“Hah?” Gloomuri, or Gloom as you’ve dubbed him, let out a noise of confusion. “Are you really that dumb?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean!” You huffed, accidentally hitting a plant that still needed to grow mature causing you a slight profit loss on your farm. “I just mean that I’ve never seen your face. Even though I know you, if I saw you on the street I’d never realize.”

The call fell silent for a few seconds, but to you it felt like minutes. You were propositioning something that felt like crossing a small boundary that was set. A video call. Something you were nervous about as well since that meant showing your own face. But IGloom had snuck his way into becoming one of your top, if not closest friend over the past few months. He’d drone on about some game drama you had almost no idea about, while he’d listen to your ‘normie’ drama (as he dubbed it) about school or friends. Although you’d say the best moments were when you’d both geek out over games or anime together, fighting on who the best character is and what your favorite part was. 

“Y-you wanna do a…video call?” Gloom hesitantly asked, you could hear the nerves in his tone which caused you to backtrack.

“We don’t have to if you don’t wanna, I’m not trying to pressure you,” You assured. “I’m just a bit curious. 

A few more seconds passed before he spoke up, voice even shakier than before, “Y-you’d show your f-face too…right?”

You fidgeted with your computer mouse, his nerves starting to get to you, “It’s only fair I suppose…” When you clicked on the call, unsure where this was going, you were surprised to see his camera on, but covered. “Wait, you mean right now?” You asked. 

“D-did you not mean right now?” He replied back, his voice an octave higher. 

“I-I just don’t…I’m not the most presentable,” You muttered back, looking at your reflection in the black of your phone screen. You pushed some of your hair back into place, fixing the collar of your sweater. Oh gosh, you were going to finally see what your crush looks like! 

“I don’t either,” Gloom mumbled, continuing to mumble something under his breath that you couldn’t make out. “N-never mind, never doing this-”

“W-wait!” You called out, turning your camera on as soon as you were out of sight. “I’ll do it, just don’t judge me too hard, okay?” Another few seconds before he meekly replied a small ‘ok’. “On the count of three. One…two…three.” 

Just like that, your breath got taken away. On the other side of the camera was a pale guy with blue flaming hair and…wait a minute…didn’t someone exactly like him go to your campus? You blinked at him with wide eyes, snapping out of your daze when he shied away from your gaze.

“Do I know you?” You asked dumbly, snapping Gloom out of his own daze. It was his turn to blink at you before he tilted his head. 

If he moved his hand away from the bottom of his face you’d notice a sharp smirk overtake his handsome features, “I’d hope so, we’ve been talking for how long?”

“That’s not what I meant,” You huffed once more that night. “You look like a guy that goes to my campus.”

“Really?” Gloom asked, unbelievably skeptical. “‘Cus not many people have blue flaming hair.”

You rolled your eyes, glad that convo was back to your playful banter, “I’ve never actually seen him. Only heard about him once from my irl friends. And yes, he was described as having fiery hair.”

“...Where do you go to school?” He asked, suddenly serious.

You gave him a skeptical look, “And why should I give you my current location? So you can stalk me?”

“I could find out in one click if I wanted,” He shrugged, amber eyes showing he was completely serious. 

“Thanks for not doxxing me I guess…” You grumbled, a bit put off. “I go to Night Raven College.” The silence was loud after that revolution before he broke it.

“I guess you do know me irl.”

That call had changed something in your friendship. The space between y’all had seemed to get smaller as you both grew more comfortable with one another, nearly having calls everyday. Now that you knew what eachother looked like, you’d have some video calls sprinkled in, and your raging crush seemed to only grow stronger. Now you had a pretty face to put to his lovely deep voice, and you wanted to strangle him for how attractive he was.

You now found yourself counting down the days till school started, and as you looked down at that damned timer on your wrist you found yourself hopeful again. You had fifteen days till school, and your soulmate timer was down to twenty days. You had been barely getting any sleep due to that, hoping that once you met Gloomuri, who you’ve come to know as Idia, the timer would hit zero. You both just clicked so well in a way you’ve never felt before, you just hoped he had the same numbers lining his own wrist. 

…

With how excited you were with meeting Idia, you found yourself getting quickly overwhelmed with school work. The professors didn’t hold back when it came to work, and contact between you and Idia had devolved from video calls into texts. It wasn’t until you woke up the first Saturday of the school year, looked down at your wrist and noticing the time had changed from days to hours. You nearly had a heart attack seeing it, all your anxiety mashing together at one moment. What if you just stayed in your dorm all day? But then that would mean your soulmate was someone in your dorm. But if you went out there was a high chance it wasn’t Idia. 

Before the dilemma could get to your head too much, your roommate asked if you wanted to tag along with them to Sam’s shop. Wanting to clear your mind a bit, you agreed, hoping to just ignore your problem instead of overthinking. You both ended up talking about classes, what you predicted you’d struggle in and do okay, who was in your classes and such. 

You had to hold yourself back from buying something, though you do have to give Sam props for having almost everything you could think of. All was good once more…until someone with a head of fiery blue hair walked in. It wasn’t Idia though, no, but someone who looked eerily similar if not quite a bit younger. Your friend noticed your attention left them, falling onto the young technomatic humanoid and decided to speak up.

“Hey Ortho,” They greeted him with a smile. “How’s it going?”

“Hello!” He replied back quickly, “My morning is going well. How about you?”

“It’s been good,” They smiled. “This is my friend.” They introduced you, saying your name. To your surprise Ortho lit up, seemingly recognizing your name. 

“Really?” He asked. You hummed while nodding in agreement, heart skipping a beat. Peaking at your wrist you noticed the time was cut down to minutes. Was this it? Was Idia actually your soulmate? Your hope was reignited tenfold.

“My brother talks about you all the time!” Ortho exclaimed excitedly.

“Wait, you know Idia?” Your friend asks, astonished. “The shut-in who uses a tablet to attend class?”

“M-maybe,” You murmured bashfully, crossing your arms as a nervous habit.

“Are you free after this?” Ortho asked, nearly jumping up and down.

“Yeah,” Your friend spoke up before you could. “We just finished actually.”

“That’s great!” Ortho exclaimed, his eyes shining. You were sure if he didn’t have the bottom half of his face covered he’d be smiling widely. “You should come over to Ignihyde, I’m sure Idia would love it if you came to visit.”

“Okay.” 

It was out before you knew it, and like a whirlwind, you were suddenly swept to the front door of Idia’s dorm room, his little brother by your side. Before you could lift your hand up to knock, the door automatically slid open after Ortho’s face was scanned. You knew Ignihyde was known for its technical prowess…but this seemed like overkill. You stood outside awkwardly, unsure if you were allowed to step in yet, but you weren’t left to flounder for long as Ortho pulled you in by your hand. You glanced once more at your wrist and you nearly burst into tears. Only a few seconds left. A few seconds left until Idia was your confirmed soulmate and you suddenly didn’t feel as excited. Fear grasped your heart, unsure if he would be willing to be tied to you for the rest of your lives. You didn’t have much time to think of every terrible scenario as you faced the guy you had been fawning over. 

As Idia turned to greet Ortho (and grab some snacks), he found himself having a heart attack when he saw your face. He knew you both went to the same school, but he wasn’t prepared to see you face to face…not irl at least. He barely comprehended Ortho’s rambling, too busy trying to hide his visage from your sight. He wasn’t prepared for someone to visit, not to mention you. Everywhere he looked he saw a different mess that would surely disappoint you, dirty clothes that scattered the floor, empty ramen cups that lined his desk, and empty cans of energy drinks that filled his trash can…yeah not the best first impression. 

You, on the other hand, anxiously straighten your shirt while trying to not seem like you cared about your appearance too much. You were the first one to speak up after Ortho took his leave (seemingly ignorant of the tense atmosphere). 

“Hey,” You greeted, an awkward smile on your lips. Instead of replying, Idia merely gave a weak whimper as he pulled his hood as far as it would go over his head. “I-I’m sorry, Ortho invited me, and I have been wanting to meet you in person, I hope I’m not overstepping too much…” Then, he let out a sudden shriek, causing you to nearly fall over from how loud it was.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, scared he might’ve hurt himself somehow. 

“Th-the…y-your…I’m in a dream, this has to be. There’s no way this is real,” He muttered, holding his face in some sort of desperation. 

“Not a bad dream I hope…” You chuckled awkwardly, not sure what was going on. Not the cute meeting with your soulmate like you wished, you just hoped this wasn’t him violently rejecting you. Instead of replying, he let out another whimper, and you felt like you’re intruding in something you shouldn’t be. Your awkwardness meter being at its max, you decided you should take your exit and hope he calms down soon so you both can talk the situation out. 

“I’ll just…it was nice seeing you,” You stumbled over your words a bit. “I’ll let you uh…I’ll leave you to it…”

“W-wait!” Idia jolts up, eyes erratic. “You…w-we’re…” “Soulmates?” You supplemented. 

“Y-yeah…how are you so calm about it?”

“Would…would it be weird if I said I was hoping for you to be my soulmate?” You asked in a whisper, eyes darting around his room instead of meeting his own. Not like he’d be able to make eye contact with you either. 

Idia let out a squeak at your reply, his heart beating erratically. He found you too good to be true. You both liked similar games and anime, and when you didn’t play the same game you’d both play your own game while being on call. He found himself looking forward to your calls, something he would have never thought possible (he avoids calls like the plague). He found himself looking forward to something for once, finding solace in something that wasn’t fictional for once, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was scary, but manageable when you were just pixels like everything else he loved (Ortho wasn’t technically pixels, but he wasn’t human (anymore) either). But now you were face to face in person, and you were so much more attractive when he could see you fully, and gosh he’s not sure how much more he could handle this. Especially not with such bold remarks like that. 

Idia never really cared about soulmates. If anything, he loathed the ink that marked his skin. Wished for the digits to just go away. His entire life was a curse, so cursed that he was forced to drag someone down with him. He didn’t deserve it, and no one else deserved his fate. And now, seeing you, a person outside of his family that he managed to grow close to…he felt conflicted. He too was happy you were his soulmate. You were so sweet, but not overly so. Not afraid to snap back at him with your quick wit. His heart would skip a beat when he heard the smile in your voice, or when you’d laugh at his lame joke. He would dream of a future with you when he closed his eyes, allowing him to envision a life with you and Ortho, living happily somewhere like normal people would. He was also guilty, you didn’t deserve a secluded life away from others.

“Yes,” He ended up answering. “That’s like…super weird.”

“Oh,” You felt disheartened. This was totally a rejection. 

“You shouldn’t like me,” Idia continued. “Someone like me doesn’t get that ending…”

“Hmm,” You hummed, an idea forming in your mind. Perhaps you just needed to speak his language. “I guess you got the secret good ending then.”

“B-but-”

“No buts,” You tutted. “Now, last time we talked you mentioned that game, why don’t we play it?”

It’ll take a lot of time for Idia to fully warm up to the idea of having a soulmate, truly. Not just some numbers, but an actual person who smiled at him so warmly, like he was worth something. It’ll take even more time for him to warm up to you, your love, your affection…but he found something small burning within him. Like a small spark being lit deep in his heart…hope. Hope for the future, something he’s never felt before.

[theambitiouswoman]

Hobby Ideas 🎨💻🎵🧁🪴

💰 Hobbies to Make Money:

Freelance Writing

Photography

Graphic Design

Web Development

Online Selling (e.g., Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Shopify)

Blogging

Stock Trading

Real Estate Investing

Affiliate Marketing

Freelance Consulting

💪 Fitness Hobbies:

Running

Yoga

Weightlifting

Cycling

Swimming

Martial Arts

CrossFit

Hiking

Rock Climbing

Dance (e.g., Zumba, Hip-hop)

☀️ Outdoor Hobbies:

Camping

Fishing

Birdwatching

Gardening

Geocaching

Kayaking

Mountain Biking

Backpacking

Stargazing

Horseback Riding

💻 Technology Hobbies:

Programming

Robotics

3D Printing

Virtual Reality (VR) Gaming

Home Automation

Drone Flying

Cybersecurity

App Development

Electronics DIY

PC Building

🎵 Music Hobbies:

Playing an Instrument (e.g., Guitar, Piano)

Singing

DJing

Music Production

Songwriting

Music Recording

Karaoke

Music Theory

Joining a Band or Choir

Vinyl Collecting

📚 Brainy Hobbies:

Chess

Sudoku

Crossword Puzzles

Board Games

Reading

Learning a New Language

Brain Teasers

Logic Puzzles

Math and Mathematical Puzzles

Astronomy

✨ Other Hobbies:

Cooking and Baking

Painting and Drawing

Pottery and Ceramics

Woodworking

Knitting or Crocheting

DIY Home Improvement

Model Building (e.g., model trains, airplanes)

Collecting (e.g., stamps, coins, vintage items)

Volunteer Work

Meditation and Mindfulness

[yeah-yeah-beebiss-1]

people saying "we need stronger copyright laws to stop ai from killing art" as if the ai algorithms wouldnt get immediately trained to automate dmcas on art by real people lmao

online artists when the Illustrated Work Copyright Protection Act of 2025 doesn’t stop their art from being used to train AI algorithms and instead allows Warner Bros to call a drone strike on them because they sold Our Flag Means Death fanart at a con one time in July 2022

[chess-does-things]

I've been thinking about the looming threat of the US basically fully unencrypting and censoring the Internet. The paranoid part of my brain considered raising carrier pigeons as an alternative to online messages, as they'd essentially be completely private and are rather easy to train (you just have to be consistent).

Then I realized that a decidedly less secure but probably more affordable alternative would just be getting delivery drones.

What I'm saying is, basically I think we're gonna see a renaissance of mail delivery and I have some ideas on how we could go about adapting this to the instant-message era.

[max1461]

I didn't know rationalism of the online rationalists was not the same as the one that has the Wikipedia article. When I first saw the term on Tumblr I went to that article and skimmed it and decided I don't really get what those bloggers' perspectives are. After your post I now have even less knowledge than I did before.

The following is an oversimplification, so for those who have quibbles with the history here, well, forgive me.

Online rationalism was founded by two guys named Eliezer Yudkowsky and Robin Hanson on the blog LessWrong. Of these two figures Yudkowsky has been much more influential. The ideology that Yudkowsky promoted is roughly as follows:

humans are, relatively soon, likely to develop a superintelligent AI which has the capacity to self-improve by rewriting its own code. This will cause the AI's intelligence to rapidly explode beyond anything we can imagine, a process which rationalists onomatopoetically call "FOOM".

This superintelligent AI, if it could be harnessed and controlled, could cure death, and possibly revive all already-dead humans in a simulated world, leading to a technological utopia in which humans have merged with machines; this is called "the singularity" (the idea of the singularity predates the rationalists, and is a broader transhumanist trope).

However, it is almost certain that a superintelligent AI could not be harnessed and controlled; in fact, if such an AI was created, there is a very high probability that it would end the world (in rationalist jargon this is called an "x-risk"), perhaps usurping all of the accessible matter and energy on earth, then in the solar system, then in the galaxy and beyond in pursuit of its inscrutable goals. Thus, humans have a responsibility to make sure we never create such a superintelligent AI (in a recent op-ed in Time, Yudkowsky went so far as to say that the US should use drone strikes to destroy any datacenter found to be training a large AI model).

The reason that people do not recognize the truths above is because people are too irrational to see them. Therefore, people need to be taught to be more rational, by Yudkowsky via the blog LessWrong. The tenets of being more rational are laid out largely in a series of blog posts known as "The Sequences", later published as a book. The main take-aways are: (1) use Bayes' Theorem all the time to estimate the probability of things, and (2) to eliminate one's various cognitive biases, as outlined in The Sequences.

LessWrong attracted a lot of people who did not agree with Yudkowsky about AI, but who liked the Bayes' Theorem stuff and the commentary on cognitive biases. There is a joke that "anyone who has ever disagreed with Yudkowsky is a rationalist". The people who settled on LessWrong were largely drawn from the milieu of Bay Area tech workers, economics blog enthusiasts, and sci-fi fans. They would come to be known as LessWrongers, rationalists, or aspiring rationals. From this group, two major subgroups worth mentioning were spawned:

First is the Effective Altruists. Effective Altruism, to my knowledge, isn't a strictly LessWronger phenomenon, and has also been influenced majorly by philosophers like Peter Singer. However, they have been so intertwined with LessWrongers throughout their history that I think they are worth mentioning as essentially an offshoot of rationalism.

Effective Altruists believe that, in order to do the most good in the world, one should use one's money in a way that does the maximum amount of good per dollar. Rather than e.g. donating to charities willy-nilly based on what feels important, one should use quantitative methods to estimate how much impact each dollar is making, and donate in a way which maximizes that. The Effective Altruists are split along one main ideological line: neartermism vs. longtermism. The neartermists are basically focused on what we would traditionally think of as charitable activities: fighting disease, giving people clean water, that kind of stuff. I think neartermist Effective Altruism is pretty sensible, and I think they've done a lot of good work evaluating charities and so on. GiveWill is an essentially neartermist Effective Altruist organization, and I think their activities are very worth supporting.

The longtermists, on the other hand, are focused on "the long-term interests of humanity". They are, well, in my opinion, basically a bunch of people trying to turn their sci-fi fantasies into a reality. They are often very worried about AI x-risk, like Yudkowsky, and they're often pro-singularity, and sometimes pro-eugenics, and a bunch of other stuff. Remember Sam Bankman-Fried, the guy who committed the largest act of financial fraud in human history? Well, he was an Effective Altruist with some longertermist sympathies. Some of the money that he stole he actually gave to worthwhile charities, but some of it he used on stupid longtermist sci-fi fantasy shit. His girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who helped him do a bunch of that fraud, was a member of rationalist tumblr. Some of my mutuals were mutuals with her.

The other major group spawned out of LessWrong were the Neoreactionaries, or NRx. These guys, too, weren't a purely LessWronger phenomenon; they were also majorly influenced by people such as the philosopher Nick Land (former student of Baudrillard, who took a far-right turn in the 2000s and started advocating for "hyper-racism") and blogger Curtis Yarvin a.k.a. "Mencius Moldbug". These guys are a rag-tag group of authoritarians, eugenicists, and racists, who are interested in rationality insofar as they view it as a path that leads to their desired sci-fi-inflected far-right future.

Oh, right, last but not least I should define the term "rat-adj". It means "rationalist-adjacent". Uh. So, I was never a LessWronger, and as I think my description makes clear, I find like 90% of this rationalist stuff either goofy or actively harmful. But I have, somehow, ended up basically acquainted with a bunch of people formerly or presently part of the LessWrong milieu, and in light of this I am what one calls "rationalist-adjacent". I talk to various rationalist bloggers somewhat often. And most of them are much more normal than all this would suggest, part of the rationalist discursive sphere but not really believers in the imminent AI apocalypse. Uh. So, there you go.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Oil is Thicker Then Blood (Part 98)

N was first, climbing down into a small hole in the ceiling, using night vision to make sure the room was safe.

There was flesh piled in the corner, crawling up the wall to reach nearly the ceiling, black tendrils lie dormant all across the floor like living tripwires. One wrong touch and…

Uzi's head poked from the ceiling.

“Can I come down or what?”

N scanned the rest of the room, the control room screens were still online by some miracle, though several of them were busted and several more were tangled in a web of eldritch goo however, let's hope that wouldn't be an issue.

“H-hang on, if you touch the floor we'll trigger a reaction.” He flew up to come face to face with her, “Let me carry you.”

She reached out for him, landing into his hold as her tail lit up the room in a purple glow, taking in the room.

“Damn. This place will be gone in a couple days. We better get out of here fast.” She pointed out, eyelights training on the faintly glowing console. “Bring me over yeah?”

He nodded, hovering over to where she could leap onto the control panel without touching the floor.

[SYSTEM LOCKDOWN : ENTER PASSKEY]

Read the slightly cracked, incredibly dusty monitor and Uzi sighed, mumbling under her breath. “Yeah of course it's on lockdown…”

She pressed a few buttons, getting an error noise on each touch- the entire control panel was completely unresponsive.

“I'm going to have to plug in. Make sure my body doesn't fall.” She turned back to her boyfriend, who ceased his paranoid looking around to meet her eyes; worry creased his frame.

“Uzi this computer has been out here for ages… who knows what sort of virus it has. Plus…” He gestured to the black, slimy tendrils snaking up some of the monitors. “Who knows what this stuff does to computers.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“But the keyboards locked up, and we need the data off this old thing. What other choice do we have?”

“I-I could-”

“No.” Uzi interupted him. “If these things trigger you're the only one that can burn it away. We'd both be sitting ducks.”

He sighed heavily, the knowledge that she was right didn't help his nerves any, his core yanked painfully in protest.

No it's dangerous.

She could get hurt, the kit could be hurt.

Don’t let her go.

“Hey. I got this. You trust me?” She asked, cocking her head with a confident smirk, God, how long had it been since he'd seen that? It's been so much exhaustion and doubt lately…

“Of course I do.” He replies, hovering close just to give her a quick kiss on the lips before parting. “Just be careful, okay?”

She nods. “Duh.” And she reaches for the port above her core, forcing the hatch open, “Ow! Agh… that's not meant to come open without prep I guess.” She hissed under her breath, and fished around in her pocket for a linking cable. “There you are.”

She plugged one end into herself before hunting for an interface port on the console, taking a moment to find it.

She does, it's next to a big red button that was currently pulsing red- she made a mental note to avoid touching it.

“Wish me luck.” Was the last thing she said before she plugged herself into the control panel, body locking up as code crashed into her firewall. Her body winced. She barely felt N keep her steady as she was hit with a flood of errors.

Plugged into another drone, the experience was euphoric, you were connected to another conscious, a soul. But this computer wasn't sentient; and what little AI it possessed was broken beyond the point of functioning. So all the sensation she felt was just her own- and the faint screaming of a dying AI.

ERROR- MEMORY FAILING

ERROR- DATA BACKUP FAILED

ERROR- HARDWARE FAILURE

“Yeah, no shit.” She mumbled, feeling her mouth move as she refocused. Okay, the information had to be in here somewhere…

She began to push through the ocean of errored code, feeling the system push back hard against her firewall. N was right, this thing probably had a thousand viruses it was itching to share with her, let's just hope her firewall held up.

She felt her consciousness leave the confines of her physical body, leaving it behind as she searched through poorly organized files; some were completely corrupted, others were fine, just not useful.

Time lost meaning, the system of the console was incredibly vast, and it quickly became clear she was searching for a needle in a haystack, a dot of purple among a sea of white.

She began to worry, perhaps the information they were looking for had already been corrupted?

That is, until she ran into an encrypted wall of cascading code, denser then the scattering of loose data she'd been able to access thus far.

She pushed against it, purple meeting default white, as strings of encryption appeared on her visor, N watching over her diligently.

[ENTER PASSKEY]

She sighed- or whatever passed for an entirely digital equivalent, beginning to work through the encryption with her own hardware, the solver aiding in her speed.

1s and 0s turned to scrambled letters and white space made to make any unwanted guest have trouble finding the passkey, but a mixture of determination and robotic advantage let Uzi make quick work of it.

P-A-S-S-W

“Oh for- the password is password, I could've just guessed it!” Her body suddenly shouted, startling N and then making him laugh. “Pfft-haha!”

Refocusing, she was able to push her code through the systems firewall, it wasn't entirely painless but she got through.

There was only a single file.

Transmission- Classified [TITANUM-28]

The file was an audio recording, with a set of coordinates attached. She played it, beginning a download into her own system.

“This is Doctor Rosemont, Transmitting from Lab 18. Something… happened.” There was screaming in the background- and a colossal roar.

“The genetic experiments have been a success, modifications to our old C.R.I.S.P.R technology has allowed us a greater range of genetic wiggle room…” There's a crash, and the sound of rapid- panicked gunfire.

“U-Unfortunatly, Subject 5 has uh… escaped.”

There's the sound of shattering glass, and low, feral growling. “If you receive this message, know that Titanium-28 is compromised! I repeat! Titanium-28 is-” The transmission ends with a blood curdling scream and a roar.

The coordinates to the planet are attached labeled very clearly with [QUARANTINED]

A single image is also attached, a satellite view of a planet covered in red and green trees and a canopy so thick you couldn't even see through it from orbit, like images she'd seen of earth, a good portion of the planet was covered in water.

She felt N start to shake her, his voice muffled from the distance her code was from her body.

“UZI! WE GOTTA MOVE!”

Next ->

[mariacallous]

Drones, snipers, razor wire, sniffer dogs, body armor, bulletproof glass, and 24-hour armed security.

This is not a list of protections in place for a visit by the president of the United States nor the contents of a shipment to frontline troops fighting in Ukraine. This is a list of the security measures election officials in counties across the US have had to implement ahead of Tuesday’s vote as a result of the unprecedented threats they have faced in recent years.

Officials are putting in place the typical final measures to ensure the smooth operation of an election, but beyond checking that they have enough ballots and that machines are working properly, officials are now faced with having to monitor for threats and make sure they have done everything they can to protect themselves and their staff.

“Given the current political environment, the possibility that an event may occur has increased, and our election professionals have responded in kind,” says Tammy Patrick, a former election official in Arizona’s Maricopa County who is now a senior adviser at the nonprofit Bolstering Elections Initiative. “Efforts focusing on the physical security of the voters, election workers, and staff by putting in bulletproof glass, panic buttons, razor wire, and fencing are fairly common, as is the installation of surveillance cameras and systems, cyber protections, and training on de-escalation techniques and response drills.”

Nowhere in the US is the militarization of the election process more evident than in Maricopa County.

The fourth largest county in the nation, Maricopa became ground zero for election denial conspiracists in recent years, after GOP lawmakers sanctioned a bogus recount in 2021, run by the Florida company Cyber Ninjas.

As a result, the county has for years been putting increased security measures in place. “We're a fortress now,” Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County Recorder, told WIRED back in February, outlining how he had to navigate security fencing, metal detectors, and security checks in order to get into his office.

As the 2024 election approaches, the measures Maricopa officials are putting in place have been ratcheted up significantly.

Officials have added a second layer of security fencing to protect election offices, as well as concrete k-rails, which means election workers will be bused in from offsite locations due to reduced parking spaces. At the country’s tabulation center, every door will be fitted with metal detectors, floodlights will be installed, and on election day the center will be protected by a ring of snipers deployed on roofs around the building, election officials told NBC.

There will also be mounted police on standby outside the building, round-the-clock armed security, and drones in flight over the building, monitoring for approaching threats. The entire election office building is also covered in security cameras that livestream everything online for anyone to watch, a security measure that doubles as a way of offering transparency into its election process.

“The security and safety of our elections and those that help conduct them are paramount in ensuring a smooth election process,” Taylor Kinnerup, communications director for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, tells WIRED. “Since January of 2021, our office has increased badge security access, installed permanent barriers, and added additional cybersecurity measures based on the recommendations of law enforcement and other experts.”

The threats against election workers spiked in the wake of the 2020 election, spurred on by Donald Trump’s baseless allegations that the election was stolen. While the threats receded somewhat in between election cycles, they have picked up again in recent months.

WIRED revealed earlier this month that the Department of Homeland Security has issued a series of reports to government agencies warning about the “heightened risk” of right-wing extremists carrying out attacks around the election.

Just last week, the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force announced charges against four men for threats they made against election officials. “The fact that election workers need to be worried about their security is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” FBI director Chris Wray said in a statement about the threats.

Some of the charges relate to threats made back in 2022; as a result, election officials have been preparing for years for next week’s vote. Since the beginning of last year, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has conducted over 1,000 voluntary physical security assessments at election offices.

One of these assessments was conducted in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County in late August, with officials from CISA and Homeland Security recommending that barriers be installed to prevent cars from ramming into the ground floor of the building housing the county’s election offices in Wilkes Barre.

“This is a measure taken to safeguard staff, the public, and the ballots,” Luzerne County manager Romilda Crocamo told local TV station WVIA earlier this month as workers installed boulders along the front of the building.

Crocamo also said the county had decided against using drop boxes because they could not adequately protect them. This week, multiple drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, were set on fire in incidents police say were linked.

In addition to protecting the buildings where election staff work, some high-profile election officials have had to protect themselves.

Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes, the top election official in his state, revealed on Monday that he regularly wears a bulletproof vest after a series of threats were posted online and included his home address. In Adams County, Colorado, the county clerk and recorder Josh Zygielbaum has also been advised by local police to wear body armor after someone followed him home after a recent local election.

Zygielbaum recently told USA Today that he has taken the advice and now wears one every day. He has previously used militaristic phrases like “harden the office as a target” to describe his efforts to beef up security, which has included the installation of panic buttons under every desk

Tate Fall, Cobb County, Georgia’s election director, has also installed panic buttons that link directly to emergency services after a poll worker reported an agitated voter during this year’s presidential primary who was carrying a gun.

In some cases, new election offices have been built since the last election, including ones in California’s Los Angeles County and Durham County, North Carolina. These have been built with security in mind and feature bulletproof glass, security cameras, and doors that will open only with the right credentials.

In Los Angeles County, they are also deploying trained sniffer dogs to screen all the mail coming into election offices after a surge in letters sent to officials containing white powder, several of which have tested positive for fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that can be deadly even in small doses.

As a result, most election offices across the country have Narcan kits on hand, and officials have been trained on how to administer the drug in the case of an accidental opioid overdose. Taking things a step further, in Durham County’s new election office, they have constructed a dedicated mail-sorting room that features a separate exhaust system to prevent potentially hazardous substances contaminating the rest of the office.

“Election workers now need to be experts in security, cybersecurity, public health, and public relations, while handling drastically more information requests and recounts,” Adam Hinds, former Massachusetts state senator and current CEO of the nonprofit Edward M. Kennedy Institute, tells WIRED. “One problem is they are already stretched in terms of funding and resources. As election administration receives more attention, our election workers deserve the resources necessary.”

[enigmatist17]

TF One but it ends better

Saw this movie 4 times in theaters and am still just feral about it

Spoilers below

Drabble 1

---

movie happens the same up to the point the high guard kidnap them/get them to safety

Starscream, Shockwave and Soundwave are like ???? why are kids up on the surface ???? why is Arachnia after them ????

D-16 is angy boy of course, and wants to stomp off and go after Sentinel, but is stopped by Orion/the other seekers to listen to how they've been fighting a guerilla war for the last 50 cycles (why btw is about 4700 years give or take), and how they want to take the fight to him

They listen to D-16 and the other 3 how/why they got up tot he surface in the first place, and the guard are pissed to learn about the conditions/how Sentinel has brought the entire city to heel with misinformation and lies

some of the high guard weren't even there originally, they were other seekers/regular bots exiled/thrown out for trying to stop Sentinel and were taken in

Arachnia takes like, 2/3 days longer to find them, giving Starscream and the others time to train the small group on how to better use their alts. His voicebox gets damaged when sparring with D-16 gets a bit too much, but he doesn't hold it against the young mech who looks guilty, knowing the strength will keep him alive when they finally take on Sentinel

B-127 becomes a favorite of Soundwave, Shockwave is not jealous because the other 3 didn't seem to like him too much.

D-16 awkwardly talks with him after some training, shoving him at Orion and is pleased to find the two delving into Cybertronian history before long

The guard are kind of weird and skittish of the new company after a really long time, but oh they love kids and shower them with pride as their personal weapon systems come online. B-127 spends hours showing the entire camp his knife hands and everyone is "we are proud of you!! :D"

Orion and a few seekers sneak in to rally the miners/help those who had been overworked a day before the major battle, and no one shows up to their shift the next day

Sentinel doesn't stand a chance when the entire high guard and the miners attack at once, overwhelming his forces (which btw were they all drones or what? I highly doubt anyone aside from Arachnia would be loyal enough to kneel to the Quintessons and fight their own kind???)

There's a lot of fighting, and during it Orion sacrifices himself to save D-16, falling to his death as his friends scream out for him. Insert change into Optimus as they continue to fight Sentinel, and it ends with Optimus shooting out of the ground and taking out Sentinel, keeping him alive but yanking out his cog and giving it to D-16, who turned into Megatron out of honor to Megatronus

he sees a lot of seekers who are trying not to be emotional about it, and figures to ask about it later

Sentinel gets to watch Optimus bring back the energon/restore the cogs to all the miners, and begs for mercy when some of the guard finally advance on him, clearly ready to tear apart the bot who got their leaders killed, and Megatron stops them

"We must be better than him"

Optimus has the Matrix, but once the initial rush dies down, asks Starscream, Shockwave and Soundwave to help him unite Cybertron/help him lead because holy shit he's a kid and has no idea what he's doing, and D-16 says they'll all work towards a better beginning as equals

The 3 of them: sure????

Fin

I want to carefully place my High Guard boys into a terrarium and give them all the treats, they're so good :)

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Yesterday, there was an independent terrorist attack carried out, where the terrorist stabbed two people. The terrorist was a 23 year old Israeli Arab from East Jerusalem. He was neutralized. His victims are a young man and woman, 20 and 25 years old. Today, there was another independent terrorist attack, this time the terrorist ran over with his vehicle no less than 4 people, and one of them, a 25 years old man, is in a condition defined as "between moderate to serious." All four of the wounded are in their 20's. The attacker was neutralized. He was 16 years old, from Hebron.

It is now confirmed that in addition to Hamas and the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad), another Palestinian terrorist organization that participated in the Oct 7 massacre was the DFLP (the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another Palestinian terrorist organization). The terrorist attack for which they're most known in Israel is the 1974 invasion of an Israeli school, holding a group of 100 school girls and their teachers hostage, and then massacring them as Israeli soldiers broke into the school, trying to save the hostages. This terror attack happened before I was born, but I think like many other Israelis, this image of it is forever etched into my brain, Israeli soldiers carrying away bleeding, but saved students:

Along with the drone attack on Israel's north yesterday, there were also rockets that hit Kiryat Shmona, which is in the same area.

In Turkey, 32 ISIS terrorists were arrested for planning to attack local synagogues and churches.

There's been a lot of speculation regarding who knew about the planned Oct 7 invasion and massacre, since clearly a lot of the funding, training and planning was done by Iran. Yesterday, a Hamas senior in Lebanon said that Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy) was only alerted to the plan about to be implemented half an hour before it started. Currently, according to Israel's Minister of Defence, Israel is being attacked on 7 physical fronts (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and independent terrorist attacks) and one front online (cyber attacks), BUT it's only fighting a full fledged war with Hamas in Gaza. Had Hezbollah been alerted earlier, would it have joined Gaza's terrorists? Would Israel currently been in a full out war on two fronts? Due to not knowing enough time in advance, Hezbollah lost the element of surprise, and ended up joining in attacks that are far from a full scale war.

I was made aware that antisemites are posting about the existence of Israeli military censorship as some sort of "proof" that Israel is not a free, democratic society (as if other democracies don't apply similar censorship to intelligence and operational details, when they believe publishing the info might endanger lives). So I just wanna point out that there is a LOT of info that isn't being censored, stuff that isn't comfortable for Israel to be published (like the story of the hostages being accidentally shot by IDF soldiers. No one else was there, it could have been so easy to bury that story, but Israel published it. Not any external journalistic source. That's who we are, as a society), and explain how some of the info that IS censored is specifically what can be demonstrated to endanger people's lives. For example, journalists can write about the hostages, but not about certain details regarding their professions or military service, present or past. We KNOW Palestinian terrorists follow the news, and if they find out they hold someone they can try and extract info from, they WILL torture that person. If journalists discuss everyone BUT a specific hostage in terms of this aspect, that's also telling the terrorists who to look at. So that's why they're just censoring all of it in regards to this specific aspect. Or another example, when it comes to rocket attacks, some of the details will be censored, because past experience has shown that the terrorists listen to reports on where their rockets hit, and they use that intel to finetune their aiming at Israeli targets.

Here is a NYT piece on the sexual violence of Hamas during the massacre, and in case this is behind a paywall, here is a report on that piece, which details some of what was published. At what point will the people who screamed for evidence of rape, actually come forward and apologized for the way they victimized those sexually brutalized by Hamas, a second time?

This is a CNN host choking up as he reads the letter of Liora Argamani, as she writes to the US president, begging to see and hug her daughter one last time, before she died of brain cancer:

These are Liora Argamani, and her daughter, Noa:

And these are Gadi Chagai and his wife, Judy weinstein:

I've shared their picture once before, when it was discovered that Gadi was actually murdered on Oct 7, and his body was kidnapped to Gaza. At that point, his wife 70 years old Judy was known to have been wounded on that day, but she was still believed to be alive, and the oldest woman in captivity in Gaza (the oldest man is 86 years old Shlomo Mansour). Yesterday, we got confirmation that Judy wasn't just wounded, she was killed on Oct 7, and her body was also taken hostage. May their memories be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[no-psi-nan]

Technology Saiki knows about:

✓ TVs

✓ Microwaves

✓ Video games

✓ Airplanes, trains, boats, cars

✓ YouTube (and imitators)

✓ Guns, robots, drones, and other things Kusuke uses against him

Technology Saiki didn't know about:

✗ Medications

✗ Online shopping

✗ Computer viruses / online scams

Technology Saiki might not know about:

? Plastic surgery

? Bluetooth / wireless tech in general

? Birth control, tampons, etc

? Artificial Intelligence (normal humans can do this and not just Kusuke?)

[dr-futbol-blog]

The Siege I, Pt. 8

Sheppard is lying helpless on the ground as the wraith approaches him, having incapacitated him with a stun weapon. The wraith rips open his tactical vest preparing to drain his life-force when it, in turn, is stunned by Ford and Teyla, saving him in the nick of time.

Sheppard is not unconscious when the wraith comes for him, his tactical vest probably having absorbed some of the blast. He does seem to be fighting to stay conscious, though, able to only slightly move his head. Later, when Ford asks him how he is doing he describes the pins and needles that are the after-effect of the stunner, but we never learn what he was thinking or feeling right here, first at the mercy of the wraith and then having been saved by two members of his team that he has trained and watched grow into the roles they have now. It's only when he is sure that he's out of danger, that Ford and Teyla have got him, that Sheppard allows his consciousness to slip away.

I want to draw attention to how the scene is presented as an allegory for attempted sexual violence. The wraith and the Ancients seem to represent opposing Jungian archetypes, the Shadow and the Self, the Anima and the Animus, the feminine and the masculine, exaggerated depictions of different facets of the human soul. In spite of the majority of their population seeming to consist of male drones, the wraith represent the monstrous feminine, the horror feminae, what with their life-sucking vagina hands and the moist womb hives which they inhabit. It's really not that subtle:

I'm sure someone has written about this concept previously and I'm not sure I even want to pursue it further. But Sheppard is presented not unlike a victim of sexual assault in this scene, and I'll return to this later, but there are some indications that he has been victimized in his youth, by women. He seems not only incapable of turning down the advances of women but horrifyingly doesn't even seem to realize that he can say no, that his consent is even a factor.

Anyway, Sheppard is saved and they once more call attention to communication and communication devices, their role in the narrative, what with Ford's comment "You were on vox, sir. We heard the whole thing and double-timed it." Not only had the wraith been listening in on their communications, Ford and Teyla listening in is what saved him. A lot of attention is placed on communication via devices in this episode.

Back on the satellite, the wraith ships are closing in and McKay and Miller seem unable to get Grodin out because rerouting the power to the weapon shut down some of the systems that allowed for the jumper to dock with the station. Grodin tells them to leave him behind, which McKay seems reluctant to do.

McKay: I'll go back and reroute the power. Grodin: There isn't time for that. The wraith ships are too close. McKay: Yeah, well I know what I'm doing now. Grodin: Rodney. Leave me. McKay: Well, we're not doing that. Grodin: Look, get to a safe distance and then come get me once the satellite has taken care of the wraith ships. McKay: Peter... Grodin: It's the only option and you know it. Besides, this way I can power down the satellite until they're well within range. Then there'll be no way for the wraith to realise we brought it back online. McKay: Alright. We'll cloak, and come back for you after it's done. Grodin: After it's done, then.

What ever their relationship is, McKay still cares about him and doesn't feel good about this. Grodin manages to logic him into leaving him behind which does tell us that he knows McKay pretty well. McKay fully believes that they will be able to go back for him, that they are only temporarily leaving him on the platform and that the satellite will be able to take care of the ships. It's the rational thing to do and he is a man of reason. They have so much riding on this thing working out for them, there is no chance of aborting the mission at this point. They have to protect Atlantis because they are the only ones who can. But this does not sit well with him. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as he had pointed out himself some time ago.

On Atlantis, Sheppard once more is late to join the party, apparently coming straight from the infirmary to the brig area to see the incarcerated wraith.

Ford: Good to see you on your feet, sir. How're you feeling? Sheppard: You know, pins and needles. Hate getting stung by those damn things. Has he said anything yet? Ford: No sir, not yet. Sheppard: You got a name? OK--we'll go with Bob. Bob--I'm gonna need to know what you've been doing here for the past two weeks, and I'm gonna need to know now.

Sheppard names the wraith because it is an interrogation tactic, one which US Army doctrine perfected during their campaigns in Afghanistan. He establishes personal rapport and takes a swing at the wraith's pride and ego by giving it a human name, all at the same time. Sheppard appears to be well-versed in the utilization of these techniques. This is not his first time interrogating a wraith but this time, they are under a time-element and he is fully aware that he will be required to use some of the harsher methods. His tone is soft and conversational here, but there is a chilling undertone to it.

He told Weir in Poisoning the Well (S01E07) that since the wraith don't abide by the Geneva Convention, neither should he. But make no mistake, as much as he might hate and fear the wraith, he is doing this to get information out of it. What ever information this wraith possesses, they believe that the fate of the Earth may depend on it. And even more importantly, the fate of McKay may depend on it because if the wraith had known about their plans with the satellite in advance it means that McKay's team would be ambushed, the wraith would know what they were flying into.

At the same time on the other side of the solar system, the wraith armada has reached the LaGrange point satellite and Grodin, still inside the satellite, is preparing to launch the weapon as McKay and Miller watch on from the cloaked jumper. What is important here is that McKay is in contact with Atlantis, and very specifically the control room where Weir is. What they are talking about is obviously not broadcast to the prison area as allowing the wraith information about their operations would be counter-productive. So Sheppard and his crew are unaware of what is happening in the control room or the satellite that is in contact with them. All they know, if they are paying attention to the time (and Sheppard certainly seems to be in a hurry to get information out of the wraith) is that the armada should be approaching the satellite by now.

And the wraith is not talking.

Ford: I don't think he's in a very talkative mood, sir. Sheppard: Yeah. I need to know what he's been doing and whether or not he's been transmitting back to the hive ships. Ford: Wouldn't we have picked up a transmission? Sheppard: We can send secure messages--there's no reason he can't.

Again the importance of communication, of sending messages, is highlighted. Sheppard explicitly tells us what his motivation here is: to find out whether McKay's mission has been compromised, whether the wraith ships know that he was coming. He even mentions secure messages of which we haven't really seen any examples from them--at least in the main text. But he is telling us that he has the ability to send and receive secure messages, and it's entirely possible he has been making use of this capacity of late. Also the fact that these messages can be sent over vast distances is pointed out.

And once more we need to make note of the fact that Sheppard needs information from this wraith. Everything that he is doing here is designed to get information that he thinks is vital not only for their security, for the success of the mission McKay is on, but the survival of the Earth. He is desperate to get information out of the wraith. Desperate enough that he is finally even willing to let Teyla access the wraith psychic network in spite of what happened the last time she did, and even though he clearly thinks that it's a bad idea:

Teyla: Maybe I can try and connect with him. Sheppard: I don't think so. Teyla: If the Alpha Site has been compromised, Major, we need to know. Sheppard: OK, see what you can do.

Sheppard agrees to let her try even though it might not just be dangerous for her and all the people inside the room with her, it might reveal the wraith all of their plans if they should be able to access Teyla's mind. She points out that they need to know whether the Alpha Site has been compromised but by allowing her to attempt this, they may actually be putting the Alpha Site in jeopardy. That is how badly he thinks that they need this information. He personally needs that information. But it is noteworthy that it is her mentioning the Alpha Site that makes him relent, makes him allow for her to do this. The Alpha Site is what he stayed back for, after all. The Alpha Site is the reason he's not out there with McKay right now.

Teyla attempts to connect with the wraith but it seems to have the stronger mind, easily overtaking her. She seems unable to disconnect which prompts Sheppard to shoot the wraith twice to get it to stop. Not to injure it, certainly not to kill it, but to get it to disengage from Teyla. The wraith even tells him that it's not a big deal to it:

Bob: My wounds will heal. Sheppard: Yeah, but for how long? I need to know what you've done to this city. Listen, Bob, I have no problem with killing you whatsoever.

Sheppard shoots it a bunch more times because shooting it seems to at least have some kind of an effect. He is purposefully antagonizing the wraith both with his words and his gun. And he is getting more and more desperate. Not only does he need to know what this wraith knows about them, their defenses, their plans, about Earth, all of it, but he also needs to know what the wraith are doing right now out there, whether their armada has reached the weapons platform, what is happening with McKay. He needs to know.

He tells the wraith that he has no problem killing it, and this is true. He doesn't consider the wraith people or even enemy combatants. They are sentient creatures that are not beasts but something even worse than that, they are actual monsters. He would gladly kill each and every one of them and not feel bad about it. He wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it. He is not lying when he tells him this.

But killing the wraith is not what he is planning on doing. It's what he says, not what he intends. He is utilizing an interrogation tactic. He is threatening the wraith to get information out of it. That is the most important thing, that is his goal. He had no intention of executing the wraith, not even after he would have gotten all the information out of it, as having a prisoner might come in handy for all kinds of reasons. It's leverage, it's potential for studying them, a possible hostage, a chance to learn more about the wraith. Even though he has no problem killing them whatsoever, he had no intention of killing Bob.

He is using the gun because that seems to be the only thing that is able to get a response from it. So while he isn't lying, the reason he tells the wraith this is to intimidate it into giving up information. He has run out of patience and is willing to move from interrogation to... enhanced interrogation, to straight up torture (and the Air Force has a particularly dark history in the creation of many of these methods reverse-engineering them from their own survival training). During the administration of when the show aired, worse things than what Sheppard does here were actually officially sanctioned although not necessarily broadcast on the evening news.

At the same time, Grodin who is still inside the satellite, manages to take out one of the hive ships. McKay informs Atlantis and the control room cheers for this victory. Maybe there's hope after all.

There were three hives with cruisers and darts coming their way, and they managed to neutralize one using the ancient weapon. But just as they get their hopes up that they might actually be able to survive this, they run into a serious problem:

Grodin: We have a problem. McKay: What? What problem? Grodin: It looks like the circuit we re-routed has overloaded. The weapon can't fire again. I'm trying to find another pathway. McKay: We're heading back in to pick you up. Grodin: Stay exactly where you are! McKay: Look, we're cloaked--they won't see us. Grodin: There's no time! Just get the hell out of here! I'm sorry. McKay: Get us back to that satellite!

McKay wants to save Grodin, tries very hard to get to him, but there is no time. They watch the wraith destroy the Ancient satellite and all their hopes with it. And McKay very much blames himself for what happened because it was the malfunctioning of the satellite that caused this. It was the fact that he had been unable to fix it that killed Grodin.

The scenes switch between McKay and Sheppard, Sheppard and McKay, back and forth. We are watching the emotional journeys of these two men, separated though they are by a vast distance. We are watching the intensifying of their emotional states side by side, the darkening of their respective moods. And the scenes are not unconnected. They are showing us how desperately they need each other. McKay is lost without Sheppard. And without McKay, Sheppard is losing himself.

Continued in Pt. 9

[scarefox]

Signed up to watch a 2h speech / presentation I need to attend... BUT it is online via zoom so I don't have to go outside and can sit on my couch in a blanket and drink coffe!

It's about new AI laws and legally save AI software... I need to know this as graphics designer 😔

---

lol started with a AI animated avatar / deepfake of himself that totally looked AI because the hand movements didn't match what he said.

Oh no, he is a Zuckerberg fanboy.

This is going to be fun. (probably will get pissed along the way tho)

But they have some lawyers there to answer questions. Yay Christian Solmecke is there too (popular german media lawyer on yt)

---

so far: unlike human made work, AI generated artwork or designs are not copyrighted (in germany) AND if the AI piece is based on an existing human made work and it's still visible in the AI piece you need to get the copyright from the original owner / creator (includes designs, logos, images, text and music)

Copyright owner can opt-out and sue if it's still gets used for AI training / generation (american laws aren't finished yet but also will go into that direction)

---

They test different AI software to give out a little comic scenario. And oh boy as a graphic designer with knowledge about typography the text is triggering me so hard. It's so bad. SEE alone typography is an area that can't be made by a machine because even tho it is based on design laws it's still an intuitive human-eye based way of design. There is a difference between mathematical-centered and optical-centered.

---

Man they are all so horny for AI and reduction of jobs and costs.... But no matter how good an AI could generate an image or video... it will never give you the raw files where you can do individual changes afterwards.

Besides that I still think humanity isn't ready yet for the power and options AI is giving us. (at least one of the very high quality AI builders isn't selling it atm because they are afraid that it will get misused for fake news and stuff, so they try to find a way to prevent that before they bring it on the market)

So many creative jobs and professions that will die out just for us to get 100% digital made "creative" content and advertisements :/ (so far even the most high quality AI still has some small uncanny vibe). Like even actors will be replaced in the future... all they need to do is allow companies to use their face / body.... there is literally a Black Mirror episode about that.

Reminds me of that one AI kpop idol project I have seen last year on tiktok.... absolutely creepy and wrong. I know some of us are simping over anime, game or vocaloid characters but... man idk, do yall want to simp over uncanny digital kpop idols who don't even exist nor actually work for their skills and talent? 💀 Being into an idol is not just about the visuals and songs, it's about their personality and individuality.... for me at least.... (but of course the kpop industry is one of the first trying this). I do like Taemin for example beacuse he's breaking out of the industry norms. AI dude could never be on his level.

---

"Amazing. In a company in the US a CEO told us that with the use of an AI they could remove 700 jobs and save so much money!"

.... yeah cool. Maybe we should remove ALL jobs on this earth and let AI do it, so we humans don't do anything at all anymore. Oh wait, no, of course we still have to do hard repetitive labor like some work drones because it's cheaper than to build and maintain actual robots for these jobs.

---

BRUH of course the event is mainly to sell an AI class from the hosting company. For the cheap price of 4900€ FOR THE LAST TIME because the next class will be over 6000€

I feel like AI bros always hype each other up to blow it all up artificially. Just like NFT and the mobile game market.

---

DID HE JUST SAY that there aren't enough graphic designer and programmer on the market and that they will profit from the support of AI?? (it's actually oversaturated and therefore jobs are hard to get) AI bros really live in a secluded bubble hu? Of course none of these dudes in this event are from the creative industry but lawyers and CEOs

[botanicalcanopus]

ok i brought part of this up on anon before but i think i have a more filled concept now

i have this fantroll [of which i cannot draw or name due to a lack of talent] of cerulean blood who lives in the frozen wastes of their colony [wriggled upon, not deported to at adulthood] who was plucked by a duo of massive [about 2.5x the size of sollux's bicyclops] hoarder hootbeasts with a pair of forearm talons each [one of the owls being a horned owl, of which my fantroll's horns would be modeled after]

the owls had already made a home for themselves on a mountaintop, of which the empire decided would be a good location for the troll's hive given how cavernous the mountain was

over time the troll would gradually grow a disdain for the imperial biotech [stopping short at sopor slime, though even that would be put into a sort of bacta tank-like glass tube], favoring the idea of reverse engineering the old technology [mostly clockwork] of the civilization that formerly dominated the planet before they were purged by the empire, and the owl lusae would assist by bringing in whatever junk they could find [in addition to sizable meals for the troll, given the locale he lived in]

the owls, while avaricious, did indeed care about their troll, and abhorred potential invaders [excepting imperial drones] and would stop at nothing to make sure that the intruding trolls would be dead [though they have been trained to tolerate the presence of anyone cerulean and above] before their master would be scarred

Oh neat, I'm glad you're able to develop your fantroll more! As someone who is tied up in the conservation/restoration field I can defo vibe with being upset about how things in the past have progressed and the desire to do what you can to fix things like that. For your troll I can tell this is defo something they would care about and would likely strongly influence their eventual God Teir. I can see Time being the most obvious aspect of their personality, especially if clockwork plays an important part of their work/personality. I personally see them progressing towards Witch, Prince, or Slyph/Maid. Witch if they have Damara's not giving a shit attitude or doing reckless time shenanigans. Prince for the whole destruction of Time/related equipment and could be further supported with a brusque personality. Slyph/Maid can swap depending on activity level but both want to heal/make Time which your troll seems to want to fix or at least "go back to" simpler times. The relationship with the hootbeast would be pretty fun to see the dynamic of due to birds (even owls) having interesting personality quirks. I wonder if the troll would have like two/a mix of typing quirks based off both guardians. As for a name you could always pull a Nepeta and use a related scientific name. For example, true owls are in the family Strigidae, and Strigi is a valid troll name! Or make it some sort of reference.

For my trollsona I based it off the constellation Carina and the color green. This is because my tag has always been botanicalCanopus, and Canopus is the brightest star in the constellation Carina. Carina is one of the 3 constellations that make up the large constellation Argo Navis, so their last name is Arrgos. My favorite color is green, and my personality aligns with jade bloods so that's their blood color. There was a fun color called Paris Green that contained arsenic and was obviously banned but it was used practically everywhere. Most toxic green paints contained some sort of compound with copper in it, which were cupric compounds, hence his first name: Cupric Arrgos! Or just use a generator online to not end up looking like a nerd like me :]

[swappingbryn]

“Back in my day” was always a phrase that made me laugh when I was a kid, and I’m not “old” now per se, only 35, but back in my day guys weren’t so easy to take over their minds.

Tyler was a doctor, model, trainer, influencer, and yet it only took me a week of casual conversation with him to have him powerless to resist me. Now:

He is still a doctor, but I have him scouting patient for new guys for me to claim.

He was never a popular model, but he did have connections, and I took advantage of them get more mindless drones.

His training clients are all well on their way to serving me. Strangely they all put up a much better fight than him.

And his Instagram and TikTok following has nearly doubled since submitting to me, and all of his videos provide an opportunity to put some hidden messages.

But he’s more now. I started an OnlyFans and Patreon where I make him post frequently. He was able to get his boyfriend to submit to me (after playing music with subliminal messages), and they both make videos for their fans. He’s never been happier, or so I tell him. Feel free to send requests, he loves when strangers online objectify him.

[djpachipikachu]

omgomg i’m so interesting in you usagi/tmnt iteration!!!

okok first what’s like.. the starting point/inciting incident of the story if there is one?

second what are the characters personalities/inerests like?

HAIIII excitedly kicking my legs

the start of the main plot is when usagi goes back in time and is forced into the tmnt’s era of time ,,, he accidentally comes across an ancient relic in the woods with spot (these woods are made of massive ancient trees with equally expansive entangled roots , like if the ocean itself had been a forest instead of filled with water it is kinda horrifying) and it takes him and spot back to the tmnt era , before the relic itself was even created

i do plan on making a comic for this so it wont start out immediately like that but itll have some like . oneshots/episodic comics of usagi’s adventures before that happens, similar to usagi yojimbo’s way of storytelling

PERSONALITIES!!!! WEEHEEE!!!!!

usagi:

most similar to usagi yojimbo, a mature but still like . silly kinda guy ! in the usagi era he takes joy in chatting with people he meets on his travels, incredibly polite, loves to tell stories of myths and gods to children

although most of his days are spent alone with spot , his steed (spot is like horse sized)

he tends not to attach to people or things very much because he knows how easy it is to lose everything, so as much as he enjoys talking to people, he keeps his distance.

he doesnt dedicate himself to being a hero or anything … he will help if he feels people need the help but all hes really trying to do is survive on his own

hes basically like a formless side character . forced bystander in this story

its for the character development i promise

leo:

cold

hes the leader/general of an army, a bit harsh in his personality, doesnt want to be approachable or get close with anyone

hes stern and quiet and kind of a workaholic, his brothers think he needs a life outside of being a leader and Only a leader

tired ! so very tired !

a lot of shit that he internalizes

however a very strong leader and strategist, he is well trusted by those who follow him and they know that his main priority is to get everyone out Alive, more than fight for their cause

he protects fiercely , just insanely bad at showing it . the worst at social things out of all his brothers easily

forced to be an adult at a young age so he never rly got the chance to form a personality outside of his responsibilities

she likes reading in her lonesome though

raph:

PASSIONATE ! ABOUT MANY THINGS !

theyre the sibling that goes out the most and interacts with people on personal levels the most out of everyone ! they have a good rep in the general yokai public !

they do have problems with anger but a lot of the time they channel it into training newbie recruits , the main motivational speaker , they know how to encourage and pump ppl up

a bit recklessly bouncy in how they fight, imagine rottmnt mikey’s energy with mutant mayhem raph’s enjoyment of fighting

the most down to earth out of all their siblings . arguably the most mentally stable out of necessity

they love feeding pigeons and they teach lion dancing to a children’s dance group in the city !

donnie:

obnoxiously gen z . good god . insanely chronically online . most similar to mutant mayhem donnie

he doesnt go out like whatsoever Partially bc he has chronic fatigue syndrome and its easier for him to just stay home, partially bc his brothers are over protective of him and dont want him fighting in the war

so he helps from afar, piloting drones, targeting firearms into battle, building gear for everyone

he likes engaging in arguments online . most exciting thing to him . little fuckass teenager this guy

kendra is his worst online enemy and rival but also like . his only friend . rly sad . joking is his coping mechanism

he loves researching and learning things, it takes up most of his time when he finds a topic to extensivelt research and take notes on

his main interests are the usual coding, engineering, etc As well as the inner workings of mystic power

mikey:

most sociable next to raph !! a very altruistic spirit

he’s most similar to idw mikey i think , most upbeat and relaxed kinda nature !

However . he’s not at all as emotionally aware as any other iteration mikey

he’s very strong in his opinions, stubborn about being right, can very easily fall into a black and white point of view about things, its hard to get thru to him

he loves to dance the most, its how he uses his mystic power

whew okay yeah they might not be the Most accurate bc im still ironing out the main traits but here they areee