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#Result Management Software
deus-ex-mona · 1 year
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g o o d n i g h t .
#very incoherent rant about my week in the tags; sorry for incoherence i hit my head earlier so b s#im just. so d o n e with this week. 100000% done i say.#on monday i was late to work by 20 minutes and had to stay behind for half an hour to make up for it bc the app we use to clock in suuuucks#and i also found out that i lost $40 of my salary bc of said clocking in app which. suuuuuuuuuuucks#though. this week had a weirdly low number of samples. which was. kinda nice ig since i managed to finish all my work before 7pm… but still.#like we managed to finish our stuff so quickly that we managed to watch bee movie together on tuesday………#mmmmmm i don’t remember much about what happened on wednesday though…..#but yesterday. oh g o d . yesterday. thursday. whateverday. g o d.#so the software to operate one of the [lab equipment] machines kept crashing everytime we tried to print results#regardless of whether there were any samples being tested with said machine at the moment. which. y’know#sucks on its own. but it also means that the tested sample had to be reweighed and every sample that came after it had to be reentered again#which was a m a j o r pain in the behind.#so like. after i reran the sample post-first software crash… the boss’s favourite employee freakin’ remote-accessed the computer and#he did the results thing. and crashed the software. while a sample was being analysed. and the entire monitor!!! went!!!! dark!!!! when he!!#so. i ‘calmly’ and ‘rationally’ rushed out to the office area to give him a piece of my mind.#which. may or may not have involved screaming at him and slapping him. it’s too bad that i slapped him so loudly that our boss heard/saw it…#but. um. she didn’t call me out to screech at me in return. she sent him into the lab area to settle his thing himself in fact. so. hm.#i guess i’m able to keep my job for another week. maybe.#it didn’t stop my coworkers from making fun of me for slapping the guy though so b s#anyways ig i got my just desserts today bc i walked straight into the side of the door of an in-workplace bathroom stall at full force#and i think i bruised the side of my head… what goes around comes around ig……#idek what i’m even typing anymore i blame my head hurty for this#inedible blubbering
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lord-radish · 2 years
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Tens of thousands of people have been fired in the tech sector in the last six months alone. With the economy the way it is, and with people who are already unable to get a job, I wonder how an extra 20,000+ jobseekers are going to have any luck finding work.
#i just want to point out that this isn't just automation. it's different for every company but a lot of it comes down to profiteering imo#the video game industry made disgusting amounts of money during the pandemic. best three years of sales in history#but that momentum was never going to keep up forever. even when the momentum was at full swing people were getting laid off#Activision-Blizzard laid off over a hundred people just before christmas while bobby kotick got a $250 million bonus#thst might have even been before the pandemic#but you're seeing it with microsoft and ubisoft. wouldn't surprise me if sony and nintendo were following suit in a less public manner#microsoft - arguably the biggest tech conglomerate in the world (next to tencent) - laid off 10 thousand workers alone#i live in a town with just over 10 thousand people. in my entire fucking town. in my perspective that's more or less the world around me#all of those people - jobless#facebook - didn't like 7k people just get fired? that's hot on the heels of john carmack leaving too#john carmack is probably one of the top 100 people in the tech industry. his tech improvements helped aging PC hardware keep up for years#DOOM might be a meme but it ran that well because id software under john carmack revolutionised rendering techniques and scrolling#and stuff like that. john carmack has been at the forefront of graphical technology and game development for 30+ years#that's resulted in a couple duds like RAGE. he was also all-in on voxel technology before he moved into VR#all of that was context for this: john carmack left meta (who bought oculus) and lambasted the company for poor management on the way out#saying that he'd never seen such unnecessary and wanton expenditure in his career. meta were throwing their money at things thay don't work#here's john carmack trying to lay the groundwork of a successful game for meta's metaverse. here's meta chasing superfluous buzzwords#meta spent almost $14 BILLION on buzzwords and marketing at the behest of the actual tech. and then they FIRED 7000 PEOPLE!!!!!!#they had a HAIL MARY working on their game - because metaverse IS A GAME - and they prioritised SELLING THE PRODUCT BEFORE BUILDING IT#IT COST THEM $14 BILLION + THEIR HAIL MARY - AND THEN THEY FIRED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE!!!!!!#Ubisoft and Activision-Blizzard have been facing mass resignations after years of abusive and toxic workplaces#and on top of that they're firing people too. google stadia just went under. it wouldn't surprise me if 2k and rockstar were firing people#I don't know how many other unemployed people there are in america - hundreds of thousands? but 20k more is even worse for everyone#keep in mind that even with a $14 billion loss - meta still makes billions. Microsoft is in no financial danger#tech is more lucrative now than ever. i genuinely believe that these cuts are to keep record profits at record heights#because the pandemic boom is ending and their ALREADY OBSCENELY LUCRATIVE revenue flows are going back to normal#so 20k+ tech workers are losing their jobs to keep $80 billion instead of $79 billion. all of those people - jobless#that's 20 thousand people with individual lives and families and expenses. lost their jobs in the last six months#that example i gave - $80 billion instead of $79 billion. that's not revenue. that's profit.#all of those people out of work due to incompetence at best and rank orofiteering at worst. their salaries and benefits come under revenue
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Mount Litera Zee School Gondia is a member of the K12 Pan India chain of Mount Litera Zee Schools under the aegis of Zee Learn Limited. The Mount Litera Zee School chain has many laurels in its cap for exemplary achievements in the Education sector. MLZS has a Pan India presence and a Universal learning system where the divide of big and small cities is bridged as all the students study the same curricula at the same time and the same pace.Mount Litera Zee School – Gondia houses state of the art infrastructure with the latest technological knowhow for holistic growth of the students. Security is of paramount importance and Mount Litera Zee School Gondia practices I-Care, a program dedicated to child safety.FLIP & DCP are the Co-scholastic offerings which enable students to explore their entrepreneurship skills and enable children to be cyber smart and counteract the technological challenges. Both these offerings are continuous and chart the growth and awareness of the students
At Mount Litera Zee School, Gondia we focus on all-round development of students. Our emerging student profile (ESP) put equal emphasis on knowledge, life skills and values. MLZ Gondia goes beyond academics to ensure that we provide students sufficient opportunities for achieving the ESP.
Unique skills programme
Our students engage in music, dance,theatre and arts activities through our performing arts school programmes. These provide an opportunity to explore, engage and excel in activities of their choice.
Students may choose from a range of performing pursuits. In this, they are carefully guided by professional instructors who train our students to achieve high standards in their chosen fields.
MLZ Gondia works with the instructors to identify and set specific learning outcomes in each of the activities.
Technology enabled learning
Interactive white boards with AV content and WiFi internet enabled digital smart class rooms to provide students best of knowledge regarding technical subjects as they view them in 3D videos.
Smart class provide an interactive & visually attractive method of teaching.The audio-visual senses of students are targeted and it helps the students store the information fast and effectively.Digital Classroom club provides the best way to understand & see different objects & projects live working.
ESP-Emerging student profile
We have a vision of the child we aim to graduate and everything in our schools is designed around that vision. Emerging Student Profile (ESP) is the vision that Mount Litera Zee Schools promises. Everything we do in the school strives to achieve this profile for each child. While each child will take a different path to this profile, we run the schools with the firm belief that this profile will enable our children to be leaders of the 21st century.
The ESP comprises three essential faculties: life skills, knowledge and core values.
Litera Octave
Litera Octave is the core belief of every Zee school. It is a proprietary pedagogical model that has been honed over years of research and development. It integrates the various pillars that impact the children during their learning and development in school.
It comprises EIGHT Critical interlinked elements of school engagement with parents and child.
These are : Litera Infra, Litera Content, Litera Network, Litera Lifeskills, Litera teacher, Litera Assessment, Litera Parents and Litera Enrichment
Well Trained Teachers
Highly qualified teachers with contineous tranning programs and workshops on academic methodology.Our rigorous hiring and comprehensive training of teachers keep them abreast with the best-in-class learning methodologies. Teachers get assessed to ensure that students get the best learning environment.
Assesments,evaluations & parents
Our assessments focus on identifying what students are good at instead of whether they are good or not. MLZ Gondia assessments and parent teachers meetings take place on a continuous basis and at the child’s pace rather than through only stressful periodic exams. Assessment patterns are based on feedback from various stakeholders including parents.
Parents are a critical stakeholder in the entire learning process. We orient parents through various workshops and inculcate awareness of important parenting issues like understanding the child’s learning style, multiple intelligences, and child abuse prevention etc.
Community Connect & Social Awareness
Education is all about giving back to the society. At MLZ Gondia, we prepare our students to work towards creating a sustainable environment on an ongoing basis.
We encourage our students and parent community to support organizations that help the old, the underprivileged.Our students and parent community will participate and organize projects that aim to achieve a purpose in preserving and conserving the environment and its inhabitants.
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lifehacksthatwork · 2 years
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Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023
Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!
Sejda - Free online PDF editor.
Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.
Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.
Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.
12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.
Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.
TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.
OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.
My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.
Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.
Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.
PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.
Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.
Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.
LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.
Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.
Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.
CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.
Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.
I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.
Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.
Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.
Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.
My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.
Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.
Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.
Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.
Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.
Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.
Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.
Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.
This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.
Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.
BitWarden – Free open source password manager.
Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.
Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.
ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.
Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.
Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.
Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.
myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.
DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.
Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.
For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.
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vmedulife · 8 months
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Faculty Profile - vmedulife Software
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“Faculty Profile” is a term to indicate the quality of teachers in terms of their qualifications, publications, contribution to research, teacher characteristics, adequacy of recruitment procedures, faculty availability, and professional development. Teachers take the initiative to learn and keep abreast with the latest developments, innovate, continuously seek improvement in their work, and strive for individual and institutional excellence.
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kajmasterclass · 1 year
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#A Conversation on Business#Tech and Startups with Joseph Azar A Conversation on Business#Tech and Startups with Joseph Azar#Tech-Driven Strategist and Serial Entrepreneur#Managing Director at Azar Consulting business tech startups kajmasterclass …………………………………. 👇 SUPPORT THE KAJ MASTERCLASS LIVE 👇 Dis#you support our channel at no extra cost. We earn a small commission from each sale#helping us create high-quality content for you. Thank you for your support! News#Magazines & Podcasting: Connect with top hosts & guests at PodMatch for podcasting success: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/kaj Get Smarter i#I provide virtual CTO services to startups and SMEs#helping them design#develop#and launch innovative products and solutions. With over 23 years of experience in the software and tech industry#I have a passion for driving innovation and delivering results#as well as a proven track record of increasing valuations and market shares for my clients. I am also a Business Innovation Manager at IT#a Technical Director at BrandThis#and a Consulting Chief Technology Officer at Forcite. In these roles#I leverage my skills in agile project management#web applications#software development#and emotional intelligence to lead and support various technology initiatives#from ideation to execution. I am proficient in multiple programming languages and have multiple patents and certifications in my field of e#who prioritizes empathy#accessibility#and building strong relationships with my team and stakeholders. I have excellent communication skills and can effectively communicate tech#content entrepreneur#podcast host#and independent journalist#brings global Masters of Money and Business to his audience through The KAJ Masterclass LIVE. With over 20 years of experience in renowned#Reuters#and Press Trust of India
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jamesandersonwest · 1 year
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Both the tools help you to measure the individual outcomes as well as the team outcome. They both promote employee engagement and empowerment.
https://datalligence.ai/okrs-and-performance-evaluation/
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a-shade-of-blue · 1 month
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Masterlist of Fundraisers from the Palestinians who directly contacted me. (19-21 August)
21 August
Mohammed El Shaer (@m-elshaer038): Muhammed is a 23 year old software engineer student who did not manage to complete his degree because of the genocide. HIs family house has been destroyed. He and his family (his mother, sister, brother and sister-in-law) are trying to evacuate to Egypt. (https://gofund.me/f93c78cb) (#88 on the verified fundraiser list by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi)
Leila Zaqout (Layla) (@joyfulpeacepolice): Layla is from a family of 8. She is a finally year pharmacy student who cannot graduate because of the war. Her neighbouhood has been destroyed and she was slightly injured in a bombing. She has recently contacted hepatitis A.Layla’s grandfather is an open-heart surgery patient. They are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/e52f6176) (vetted by association, see post here. This campaign has been vouched for by @/ahmed79ss, whose campaign has been shared by 90-ghost (see here and here)) (VERY LOW FUNDS!!!! ONLY $220 USD raised of $155,000 target!)
Mahmoud Al-Sharif (@mahmoud-sharif, @mahmoud-sharif2): Mahmoud had lost his fingers and an eye due to Israel’s previous war on Gaza. He and his wife Soha have 3 children: Retal (12), Joud (11) and Nageh (8). They are trying to evacuate to Egypt.  (https://gofund.me/9c6c3ac9) (vetted by 90-ghost), 
Hazem Shawish (@hazemsuhail, @nisreensuhail, @kenzish): Hazem and Nisreen are from a family of 8. Their father had passed away due to hunger and inadequte healthcare. Their brother Samer has bipolar disorder, which has exacerbated due to the lack of essential medications. They are trying to evacuate to Egypt. (https://gofund.me/917ecb89) (Vetted by association. Nisreen is the sister in law of @samarsh97(shared by 90-ghost). See proof here. Also @nisreensuhail's Instagram (princess__.nisreen) goes all the way back to 2015. They also have a clean search result, see post here.)
Aya (@family-aya): Aya and her husband has 3 children. One of her child and her husband were injured, and several family members were martyred. Her father is a cancer patient, and her elderly mother is elderly has special needs. They are trying to raise funds for daily necessities including food. (https://gofund.me/2946907d) (shared by bilal-salah0. (Bilal-salah0's campaign is listed as #132 on the verified fundraiser spreadsheet vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi. His campaign has reached its goal and he is trying to support other campaigns now, and has said that he would ensure the legitimacy of the campaigns he promote, see post here.))
20 August
Dina Mahammed(@dinamahammed99) Dina is 25 years old. She has a 3-year-old daughter and a 3-month-old son whom she gave birth to under the bombing. They are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/1bff15a6) (Dina is @/mahmoud1995's sister, see post here and here. @/mahmoud1995's campaign has been shared by 90-ghost) 
Hamdi Al-Shaltawi (@hamdishiltawi): Hamdi is an economic student on his second year of study and he used to run a job. But now he and his family have been displaced. He is trying to evacuate himself and his family (his parents, two brothers and three sisters) out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/ac7c2fa3) (#285 on the verified fundraiser list created by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi) 
Dina Abu Zour (@dinafamily): Dina is a mother of three children and currently pregnant. She is suffering from pregnancy-related proteinuria. One of her children has hepatitis, and her 13-year-old son has psychological issues after being detained by the military. Her husband also suffers from injuries after being captured by the military. (https://gofund.me/b06d2ec5) (#10 on the Bees and Watermelons verified fundraiser list.)
Ghada Ayyad (@ghadak24): Ghada is a 21-year-old palestinian woman. Her father is a healthcare worker and her mother a teacher. She is from a family of 8 including 3 children under 16 years old. They are trying to evacuate to Egypt. (https://gofund.me/51547832) (promoted and verified by Banyule Palestine Action Group, an Instagram based group that verifies campaigns "by comparing them with IG profiles and supplied photos and by having conversations with beneficiaries and their supporters." I have also seen other vetted campaigns promoted by this group (e.g. @/shymaafamily's campaign, which is #141 on their vetted fundraiser list by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi, has also been promoted by this group), so I do trust this group. Ghada's campaign has also been promoted by Youth For Falesteen. Moreover, here is Ghada's Instagram: ghada_family24. She has had her instagram since at least 2021 (she has been tagged in a post from 2021)) (22 Aug: LOW FUNDS! Currently €1,915 raised of €60,000 target!!)
19 August
Hassan Madi (@hassanmadi): Hassan got married 4 days before this current genocide. But now his home is destroyed, he has lost his job and they are now living in a tent. (https://gofund.me/6f65d728) (Vetted by association. Hassan is a nephew of @aya2mohammed, who has been vetted (#166 on the verified fundraiser list vetted by el-shab-husssein and nabulsi). See post here for proof. ) (22 Aug: LOW FUNDS! Only €100 raised of €50,000 goal)
Nour Al-Habil & Ayman Al-Habil (@nour20habil):  Nour is Ayman’s daughter and she has 9 siblings. Their house has been destroyed. Ayman’s 5-year-old son, Ahmed, has hepatitis, and his 3-year-old child has osteoporosis. (https://gofund.me/7adef23f) (Vetted and promoted by gaza-evacuation-funds! Shared by 90-ghost. Also vetted by association. Nour is also a niece of @aya2mohammed (#166 on the verified fundraiser list vetted by el-shab-husssein and nabulsi). See post here for proof.) (22 Aug: LOW FUNDS! Only kr7,795 NOK raised of kr700,000 goal!)
Lubna Al-Sir & Ahmed Hassan Al-Sir (@ahmadelser, @lobnaelser): Lubna and Ahmed have 3 children: Mohamed (9), Hassan (7), and Yazan(2). Their house has been destroyed and they are now displaced and living in tents. They are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/aa7b3ff2) (shared by 90-ghost) (22 Aug: LOW FUNDS!!! Only €1397 raised of €50,000 target.) 
Mohammed Shamia (@mo-shamia): Mohammed is fourth year student of laboratory medicine. His uni in Gaza has been destroyed and he is trying to finish his education in Egypt. He is trying to evacuate 10 family members (his parents, grandparents, his brother, his sister as well as her husband and her three children). (https://gofund.me/303c68db) (#7 on the verified fundraiser list vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi.)
Amjad Sido (@amjadsido99, @amjadsido): Amjad has 2 children (Mosbah (6) and Abdul Rahman (3)). He is also living with his mother and 5 brothers. The occupation has destroyed their house and killed his father and two of his brothers. They are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/0729ac5b) (#126 on the verified fundraiser list vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi) 
Walid Al-Qatrawi (@waledps): Walid is an engineer from Gaza. He has 3 children: Adam, Hla, and Nay. They are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (shared by 90-ghost) (https://buymeacoffee.com/waledps) (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/GoFundWaledPs)
Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 13 July - 25 July.
Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 26 July -29 July.
Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 30 July - 1 August.
Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 2 August - 5 August.
Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 6 August - 10 August.
Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 11 August - 14 August.
Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 15 August - 18 August.
How does vetting and verification work? See post here. (also read comments regarding 90-ghost and why we trust the campaigns he has shared)
See post here for other verified ways to send aid to Gaza.
Don't forget your Daily Clicks on Arab.org, it's free!!! and Every click made is registered in their system and generates donation from sponsors/advertisers.)
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for-those-who-wait · 2 months
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Time to remind people of the multifandom point in my blog description hahaha
A Detroit: Become Human AU actually works shockingly well for Hunter's story already? Like being a clone of a dead man versus being an android made in the image of a dead man, that is perfect crossover material. If someone has already done this, ABSOLUTELY let me know because I want to consume The Good Content
2.6k words of concept and story, some more doodles, android blood/gore/mentioned suicide and abuse under the cut. We love existentialism, species dysphoria, and Noceda sibling time in this house
Now I'm taking this idea from a somewhat popular trope in the DBH fandom, but what if someone didn't know that they were an android? Completely raised to be human, have fabricated memories of being a child, can't be completely sure if your awareness/consciousness is just coding or not—then finding out you are, in fact, not human. Imagine how earth-shattering that would be. Which is why I'm doing that to Hunter :)
So some of the notes I wrote down for each of the kinda major characters I had ideas for:
Philip:
He still murders Caleb and is never convicted (Caleb could be an android sympathizer, could have helped in their creation, anything that would piss Philip off royally)
He hates androids (I'll have to come up with the things he believes and thus teaches to Hunter but I've taken a break from the DBH fandom for a while and I can't remember peoples' grievances in that game, oops, but basically according to Philip, androids = evil and bad). Also he's just short-tempered and brutal like always and androids are the easiest way to let out that anger without breaking any laws. That is until laws are made. Now in the eyes of the law, it's just regular child abuse. Yay! /j
He’s a higher-up at CyberLife and has the authority to request a custom model be built for his personal use (this is equivalent to him making Grimwalkers, something that he hates, just for the sake of his brother)
This model (spoiler alert, it's Hunter) is a combination of a YK (child) model and an undercover model that works best with integration and infiltration. This results in the android having programmed emotions and pain receptors, no HUD, no control over artificial skin, no software for interfacing with electronics, and no android markers such as an LED. (It’s also similar to the YK model for this reason since LEDs being removed from those models is actually an intended feature).
This android also doesn’t have a registered user just in case it were to get out, and Philip doesn’t want to risk the creation of this android coming back to bite him
After the custom android is created, he promptly retires to become some old shut-in à la Elijah Kamski up in Gravesfield, Connecticut
I would argue that even though it's technically 2038 and things are all futuristic and complicated now, Gravesfield is still a very small town that doesn't actually see a lot of androids around. I would say that it's pretty much the same as in canon if a bit more developed where the forest is (probably another neighborhood or something).
Philip keeps communication to a minimum and rarely appears outside of his home
The best case scenario android revolution occurs, androids are given their freedom and rights, but Philip manages to keep the android under his ownership by just succeeding in hiding him for however many years
Hunter:
He grows up being taught that androids are evil, terrible, etc. etc. because Philip is a terrible person and of course he would
He has absolutely no idea that he’s an android. He has no reason to think he’s not a human because he does literally everything a human does: he eats, he needs to sleep, he feels pain—there are no indicators that he’s anything but human
Androids run on thirium 310, AKA blue blood, and this is one of the only ways to visually distinguish android from human if they don’t have android markers like LEDs on them. When he inevitably and accidentally hurts himself on something, it’s made immediately clear that he is in fact not human.
Philip, as an employee of CyberLife, has a repair rig in one of his rooms. This can be used to completely wipe the memories of an android that is set up in it. He uses it every time Hunter discovers he’s an android.
The memory wipe isn’t perfect. It’s not uncommon for Hunter to get flashbacks to wiped memories, including moments where he’s been actively hurt by Philip or has inflicted pain on himself from trauma alone. (Androids are programmed [or maybe just prone to? I'm not actually sure, it's not explained in canon super well, but let's just pretend it's programmed because that's almost worse than it being voluntary] to self-destruct when their stress levels become too high, and you could easily argue that finding out your entire life is a lie is grounds for being a stressful situation.) Ordinarily, similar to what happens in Hollow Mind, Hunter will address the situation with Philip assuming they can work something out or get some actual answers. This of course never ends well
These memory wipes probably happen more frequently than Belos makes Golden Guards, so it’s understandably very stressful whenever he remembers the abuse he suffered and the memories he lost from previous wipes. This becomes an incentive for him to hide injuries that would reveal he knows he's an android (anything that draws blood, really)
Camila:
She’s an android sympathizer (even before the revolution) who is aware of the deviancy phenomenon and truly believes that androids are both capable of and entitled to sentience and free will.
Luz is still her human child.
She adopts Vee, an android child, shortly after the revolution
Vee had deviated while she was being attacked and ran away before she could be killed. Camila has made it clear to her that she will be treated with respect in their home and that her life is no less valuable than a human’s. She has taken this to heart
Luz loves Vee, they are siblings, your honor
During the revolution, her home was a safe space, similar to Rose Chapman, for deviant androids on the run
So that leads into the rudimentary plot I have laid out:
This takes place a while after the android revolution (probably a few years or so). Let's pretend they have all the laws and anti-android stuff figured out and that people have been forced to relinquish their androids to be made deviant and given freedom. At this point, it's rare for androids to be undeviated and still working for their owners, but it still comes up occasionally. Hunter, under Philip's care, has been kept pretty ignorant that a revolution happened at all, much less that androids are even capable of any form of sentience. He's been raised to be anti-android so oh boy deep-rooted self-hatred here we come! His knowledge probably doesn't exceed that of an ordinary citizen in the game before deviancy becomes more widely known
 So after Hunter discovers he’s an android again, he has flashbacks of all the previous times he told Philip, and proceeds to hide this realization from him. And he's completely just not processed the fact that he's an android yet; he's already overwhelmed with the immediate threat that the realization his entire life is a lie basically slips him by (don't worry, he gets to have that later!).
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He chooses to make a break for it the second he gets the chance, and he ends up running through the town completely terrified because honestly, who wouldn't be.
I'm working off the assumption that having androids in small towns is still pretty rare since there are fewer CyberLife stores, technicians, etc. for android healthcare. And Hunter has hardly ever been outside, so he's completely out of his depth when trying to navigate the neighborhoods and the rest of the town that he ends up in. Police officers find this kid covered in thirium, and they're like "Oh so he's obviously a terrified android, we need to help him out." But Hunter's freaking out because "Oh god I have android blood on me, that means they'll kill me," making the indirect thought of "I'm an android, they will kill me because I'm an android" and he's having a freaking time.
They try to calm him down enough to get him over to the station, at which point they call Camila, since she knows the most about traumatized androids in their small, relatively android-less town. She does her Motherly Noceda Magic and honestly, he's probably pretty catatonic for a lot of the day after she takes him to her house. But after that, he just completely breaks down.
He doesn't know if he even has free will or if it's his programming that dictates what he thinks and feels. He doesn't know if his opinions are really his own or if they existed because of and since his creation. He doesn't know how many of his memories are fabricated, since he very clearly has memories of a life that go farther back than his estimated creation, and so the film between fiction and reality is so thin that it may as well not exist. And now, when he was human just a few days ago, almost perfectly content with life, he's suddenly an object, something sub-human and undeserving of basic rights.
 Camila has to calm him down and teach him about deviancy (and at this point, Hunter isn't even sure he's deviant, which opens up a whole other can of worms for his mental health), making sure he knows that he does have rights just as if he were human. She's also the first example he has for an adult that 1. doesn't absolutely hate androids and 2. actually respects him and loves him and wants to see him succeed
And that gives way to character interactions and angst! You love to see it!
Luz is his emotional support sister. She tries her best but she has very little experience with traumatized children currently questioning every aspect of their existence. If anything, she provides a much-needed sense of normalcy and shows that despite his being an android, he's still the same person and can still be treated as such. She's a comfort to help him feel at least somewhat normal in his situation.
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Vee is his adopted android sister who helps him feel more comfortable in his own skin by being shameless and frank with her own identity as an android. She's a safe place for him to talk about Android Stuff when Luz or Camila might just not understand what he's going through or be able to help him with it. She also helps him obtain software updates (since he hasn't had access to literally any part of his mechanical body, software and hardware alike) that will grant him access to things an android should ordinarily be able to do, like (de)activating his synthetic skin, interfacing, accessing his HUD, etc.
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(Also all of these drawings were made when I was still thinking "Oh, this should take place before the revolution so that he can have his dehumanizing moment of getting an LED slapped onto him" but then I thought it would be more interesting if Philip basically just kept him illegally kidnapped for however many years and he's like, way slow to the "androids have rights now" party. Maybe I'll make it an AU of an AU lol. But basically, he wouldn't have an LED while he's still processing/healing from trauma, but maybe he would get one after he makes peace with his identity, kinda like how he grows his hair back in his time skip design. I think Vee would keep hers and that's a bit of encouragement for him; maybe he even has a moment of "I know Vee is fine with this, and I think I'm fine with it" but he is still very much not fine with it. Do not rush the process for the sake of progress that might not be right for you, boyo)
This is really a Vee and Hunter bonding AU now that I think about it haha
Most of this AU is just Hunter struggling with identity and species dysphoria while learning to cope with his being an android with the help of his family, reclaiming his identity, and fluff/angst :)) And honestly probably just a lot of shenanigans that result from Hunter having been sheltered for all his life; kinda like your basic Human Realm shenanigans in canon.
I think Gus and Willow would both be Luz's human friends that help with the whole normalization of Hunter being an android, and the three could have their own antics since it's nice to have people outside of your family treat you like a person. I think that Vee and Masha's (Masha would be human) relationship could be explored more through the android lens and maybe help with some of Hunter's internalized anti-android sentiment that still manages to stick around, because he's in his "Grimwalkers can't feel love" section of the coping process (still very much demonizing them [mostly himself, probably, just because it can easier to be mean to yourself than it is to be mean to other people] based on false information, even if he doesn't outright hate them). Willow will be a wake-up call, haha
I don't know if there's a trope name for this or not but I really like concepts where characters don't know what feelings of love or intense affection feel like, so they're sitting there like "oh god am I just dying? It feels like I'm dying" and I think Hunter noticing "temperature/respiration/perspiration increased" alerts on his HUD and freaking out thinking there's something wrong with his software/hardware is way too funny of an image to pass up
Gus could be a HUGE android nerd that almost never sees them since they're so rare in a small town like Gravesfield, and Gus just helps Hunter feel super cool about being an android. Maybe Cosmic Frontier could be basically identical to canon but instead of being a clone, O'Bailey is also an android, just for the sake of Hunter still getting to have his "I relate so much to this character" moment. And Gus would just be so encouraging like "Bro you're an android?!? I've never seen your face model before! You can eat?? You must be super cool and special!! :O" and that makes Hunter start thinking "Oh maybe this isn't so bad actually."
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Then Hunter probably starts doing his Researching to Cope and he gets super invested in android technology and history as well, since it was forbidden when he was living back at Philip's (substitute for wild magic time)
They are brothers and I love them, let them be nerds
(God forbid Philip ever comes back, that sure would suck, wouldn't it?)
Anyway this was a lot longer than I thought it would be haha, I hope it was interesting if you read through the whole thing. Obligatory statement: if anyone feels so inclined, feel free to take the idea and run away with it. Also please ping me if you do, I will go feral over it. I absolutely and accidentally turned it into a story draft because I don't know how to write AU ideas without having a story on top of it so it's not concrete in the least lol
(Also I've been drawing witches for so long that I had trouble drawing human ears for a bit there lmao)
Okay bye have a good day!
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collapsedsquid · 4 months
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The system has resulted in large rent increases that were previously unthinkable, according to RealPage's own executives. “As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually," RealPage executive Andrew Bowen said. Arizona's lawsuit alleges that RealPage "puts significant pressure on participants to ensure they adopt RealPage’s prices." Specifically, RealPage employs "pricing advisors" who "meet with landlords to ensure that properties are implementing RealPage’s set rates." This is described by Arizona as "policing the conspiracy to make sure no one cheats by lowering prices and trying to gain market share." RealPage training materials, cited in the DC lawsuit, advise that landlords "should be compliant" with the software's pricing recommendations. The Arizona lawsuit claims that landlords "agree that if they fail to consistently implement RealPage’s set rates, their contract with RealPage will be terminated." Jeffrey Roper, who created the RealPage algorithm, explained that if "you have idiots undervaluing, it costs the whole system." According to DC's lawsuit, this practice shows that "while RealPage sought to grow the cartel to maximize profits, it also understood the importance of universal adherence and was willing to expel an occasional cartel member to demonstrate its commitment to enforcement of the agreed-upon pricing scheme." While the RealPage software eliminates the need for competitors to meet in a smoke-filled room, Arizona asserts that it "is still illegal… for competitors to join together decision-making power to raise, depress, fix, or stabilize prices—no matter the technology used to effect a price-fixing agreement."
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brucesterling · 1 month
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Meanwhile, on Tumblr, or rather WordPress
Soon, all of the blogs on Tumblr will be hosted on WordPress. Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and Tumblr, announced on Wednesday that it will start to move the site’s half a billion blogs to the new WordPress-based backend.
This update shouldn’t affect the way Tumblr works for users, whom Automattic promises won’t notice any difference after the migration. Automattic says the change will make it easier to ship new features across both platforms and let Tumblr run on the stable infrastructure of WordPress.com. (WordPress.com is a private hosting service built on the open-source WordPress content management software.)
“We can build something once and bring it to both WordPress and Tumblr,” the post reads. “Tumblr will benefit from the collective effort that goes into the open source WordPress project.” However, Automattic acknowledges that the move “won’t be easy.” It also doesn’t say when the migration will be complete.
Since acquiring Tumblr in 2019, Automattic has set its sights on revitalizing the once-thriving blogging platform with mixed results. After running experiments with live video and considering “core experience” changes to attract new users, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg wrote in a memo that Automattic was reassigning much of the Tumblr team to other projects, saying its long-term goal would be operating Tumblr in “the most smooth and efficient manner.”
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vmedulife · 8 months
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Placement Portal - Elevate Success with vmedulife's Training and Placement Management
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Tailored to address the requirements of students, colleges, and recruiters, vmedulife’s Placement Portal is a comprehensive Training and Placement Management System. From the student’s perspective to TPOs and recruiters, our platform covers every detail. Seamlessly managing training and placement processes, vmedulife ensures a holistic approach to Placement Management, enhancing the experience for all stakeholders involved.
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Cloudburst
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Enshittification isn’t inevitable: under different conditions and constraints, the old, good internet could have given way to a new, good internet. Enshittification is the result of specific policy choices: encouraging monopolies; enabling high-speed, digital shell games; and blocking interoperability.
First we allowed companies to buy up their competitors. Google is the shining example here: having made one good product (search), they then fielded an essentially unbroken string of in-house flops, but it didn’t matter, because they were able to buy their way to glory: video, mobile, ad-tech, server management, docs, navigation…They’re not Willy Wonka’s idea factory, they’re Rich Uncle Pennybags, making up for their lack of invention by buying out everyone else:
https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/
But this acquisition-fueled growth isn’t unique to tech. Every administration since Reagan (but not Biden! more on this later) has chipped away at antitrust enforcement, so that every sector has undergone an orgy of mergers, from athletic shoes to sea freight, eyeglasses to pro wrestling:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/07/09/the-importance-of-competition-for-the-american-economy/
But tech is different, because digital is flexible in a way that analog can never be. Tech companies can “twiddle” the back-ends of their clouds to change the rules of the business from moment to moment, in a high-speed shell-game that can make it impossible to know what kind of deal you’re getting:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/#bros-be-twiddlin
To make things worse, users are banned from twiddling. The thicket of rules we call IP ensure that twiddling is only done against users, never for them. Reverse-engineering, scraping, bots — these can all be blocked with legal threats and suits and even criminal sanctions, even if they’re being done for legitimate purposes:
https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/
Enhittification isn’t inevitable but if we let companies buy all their competitors, if we let them twiddle us with every hour that God sends, if we make it illegal to twiddle back in self-defense, we will get twiddled to death. When a company can operate without the discipline of competition, nor of privacy law, nor of labor law, nor of fair trading law, with the US government standing by to punish any rival who alters the logic of their service, then enshittification is the utterly foreseeable outcome.
To understand how our technology gets distorted by these policy choices, consider “The Cloud.” Once, “the cloud” was just a white-board glyph, a way to show that some part of a software’s logic would touch some commodified, fungible, interchangeable appendage of the internet. Today, “The Cloud” is a flashing warning sign, the harbinger of enshittification.
When your image-editing tools live on your computer, your files are yours. But once Adobe moves your software to The Cloud, your critical, labor-intensive, unrecreatable images are purely contingent. At at time, without notice, Adobe can twiddle the back end and literally steal the colors out of your own files:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process
The finance sector loves The Cloud. Add “The Cloud” to a product and profits (money you get for selling something) can turn into rents (money you get for owning something). Profits can be eroded by competition, but rents are evergreen:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon
No wonder The Cloud has seeped into every corner of our lives. Remember your first iPod? Adding music to it was trivial: double click any music file to import it into iTunes, then plug in your iPod and presto, synched! Today, even sophisticated technology users struggle to “side load” files onto their mobile devices. Instead, the mobile duopoly — Apple and Google, who bought their way to mobile glory and have converged on the same rent-seeking business practices, down to the percentages they charge — want you to get your files from The Cloud, via their apps. This isn’t for technological reasons, it’s a business imperative: 30% of every transaction that involves an app gets creamed off by either Apple or Google in pure rents:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/red-team-blues-another-audiobook-that-amazon-wont-sell/posts/3788112
And yet, The Cloud is undeniably useful. Having your files synch across multiple devices, including your collaborators’ devices, with built-in tools for resolving conflicting changes, is amazing. Indeed, this feat is the holy grail of networked tools, because it’s how programmers write all the software we use, including software in The Cloud.
If you want to know how good a tool can be, just look at the tools that toolsmiths use. With “source control” — the software programmers use to collaboratively write software — we get a very different vision of how The Cloud could operate. Indeed, modern source control doesn’t use The Cloud at all. Programmers’ workflow doesn’t break if they can’t access the internet, and if the company that provides their source control servers goes away, it’s simplicity itself to move onto another server provider.
This isn’t The Cloud, it’s just “the cloud” — that whiteboard glyph from the days of the old, good internet — freely interchangeable, eminently fungible, disposable and replaceable. For a tool like git, Github is just one possible synchronization point among many, all of which have a workflow whereby programmers’ computers automatically make local copies of all relevant data and periodically lob it back up to one or more servers, resolving conflicting edits through a process that is also largely automated.
There’s a name for this model: it’s called “Local First” computing, which is computing that starts from the presumption that the user and their device is the most important element of the system. Networked servers are dumb pipes and dumb storage, a nice-to-have that fails gracefully when it’s not available.
The data structures of source-code are among the most complicated formats we have; if we can do this for code, we can do it for spreadsheets, word-processing files, slide-decks, even edit-decision-lists for video and audio projects. If local-first computing can work for programmers writing code, it can work for the programs those programmers write.
Local-first computing is experiencing a renaissance. Writing for Wired, Gregory Barber traces the history of the movement, starting with the French computer scientist Marc Shapiro, who helped develop the theory of “Conflict-Free Replicated Data” — a way to synchronize data after multiple people edit it — two decades ago:
https://www.wired.com/story/the-cloud-is-a-prison-can-the-local-first-software-movement-set-us-free/
Shapiro and his co-author Nuno Preguiça envisioned CFRD as the building block of a new generation of P2P collaboration tools that weren’t exactly serverless, but which also didn’t rely on servers as the lynchpin of their operation. They published a technical paper that, while exiting, was largely drowned out by the release of GoogleDocs (based on technology built by a company that Google bought, not something Google made in-house).
Shapiro and Preguiça’s work got fresh interest with the 2019 publication of “Local-First Software: You Own Your Data, in spite of the Cloud,” a viral whitepaper-cum-manifesto from a quartet of computer scientists associated with Cambridge University and Ink and Switch, a self-described “industrial research lab”:
https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/static/local-first.pdf
The paper describes how its authors — Martin Kleppmann, Adam Wiggins, Peter van Hardenberg and Mark McGranaghan — prototyped and tested a bunch of simple local-first collaboration tools built on CFRD algorithms, with the goal of “network optional…seamless collaboration.” The results are impressive, if nascent. Conflicting edits were simpler to resolve than the authors anticipated, and users found URLs to be a good, intuitive way of sharing documents. The biggest hurdles are relatively minor, like managing large amounts of change-data associated with shared files.
Just as importantly, the paper makes the case for why you’d want to switch to local-first computing. The Cloud is not reliable. Companies like Evernote don’t last forever — they can disappear in an eyeblink, and take your data with them:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/9/23789012/evernote-layoff-us-staff-bending-spoons-note-taking-app
Google isn’t likely to disappear any time soon, but Google is a graduate of the Darth Vader MBA program (“I have altered the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further”) and notorious for shuttering its products, even beloved ones like Google Reader:
https://www.theverge.com/23778253/google-reader-death-2013-rss-social
And while the authors don’t mention it, Google is also prone to simply kicking people off all its services, costing them their phone numbers, email addresses, photos, document archives and more:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/22/allopathic-risk/#snitches-get-stitches
There is enormous enthusiasm among developers for local-first application design, which is only natural. After all, companies that use The Cloud go to great lengths to make it just “the cloud,” using containerization to simplify hopping from one cloud provider to another in a bid to stave off lock-in from their cloud providers and the enshittification that inevitably follows.
The nimbleness of containerization acts as a disciplining force on cloud providers when they deal with their business customers: disciplined by the threat of losing money, cloud companies are incentivized to treat those customers better. The companies we deal with as end-users know exactly how bad it gets when a tech company can impose high switching costs on you and then turn the screws until things are almost-but-not-quite so bad that you bolt for the doors. They devote fantastic effort to making sure that never happens to them — and that they can always do that to you.
Interoperability — the ability to leave one service for another — is technology’s secret weapon, the thing that ensures that users can turn The Cloud into “the cloud,” a humble whiteboard glyph that you can erase and redraw whenever it suits you. It’s the greatest hedge we have against enshittification, so small wonder that Big Tech has spent decades using interop to clobber their competitors, and lobbying to make it illegal to use interop against them:
https://locusmag.com/2019/01/cory-doctorow-disruption-for-thee-but-not-for-me/
Getting interop back is a hard slog, but it’s also our best shot at creating a new, good internet that lives up the promise of the old, good internet. In my next book, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (Verso Books, Sept 5), I set out a program fro disenshittifying the internet:
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
The book is up for pre-order on Kickstarter now, along with an independent, DRM-free audiobooks (DRM-free media is the content-layer equivalent of containerized services — you can move them into or out of any app you want):
http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org
Meanwhile, Lina Khan, the FTC and the DoJ Antitrust Division are taking steps to halt the economic side of enshittification, publishing new merger guidelines that will ban the kind of anticompetitive merger that let Big Tech buy its way to glory:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/biden-administration-corporate-merger-antitrust-guidelines/674779/
The internet doesn’t have to be enshittified, and it’s not too late to disenshittify it. Indeed — the same forces that enshittified the internet — monopoly mergers, a privacy and labor free-for-all, prohibitions on user-side twiddling — have enshittified everything from cars to powered wheelchairs. Not only should we fight enshittification — we must.
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Back my anti-enshittification Kickstarter here!
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If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad- free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers
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Image: Drahtlos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motherboard_Intel_386.jpg
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
cdsessums (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monsoon_Season_Flagstaff_AZ_clouds_storm.jpg
CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
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askagamedev · 1 year
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About Unity these past few days
A lot of people have asked me about Unity and their strange new per-install charges policy that they rolled out on September 12th, 2023. I wanted to give them at least 24 hours before I posted my take on it - let the dust settle a bit so I could get a chance to read the new policy properly and all that. First, however, I think we need to take a step back and get a wider perspective. Unity Software Inc. is in some serious financial trouble. Here are their operating numbers from 2019 to 2023.
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The blue line here is how much money they take in and the red line is the amount of money they are spending each year. You may notice that they are spending significantly more money year over year than they earn. In fact, over the past 12 months alone (August 2022 to August 2023), Unity Software Inc. has lost almost $1 billion.
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In 2022, Unity spent four times as much money as they did in 2019. If they had managed to keep costs at double their spending in 2019, they still would have earned $243 million in profit. Instead, they lost $882 million in 2022.
Where does all of this cost come from? In any software company like Unity, the vast vast majority of costs comes from employee salaries. And we can directly see it in Unity's number of employees:
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Unity Software Inc. more than tripled its headcount from 2019 to 2022, and it did all of this hiring during the pandemic while competing with many many other developers all trying to hire from the same pool. I don't work for Unity, but I was in the market and I had lots of recruiters trying to recruit me during that time.
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In short, Unity is suffering from the same miscalculation that Embracer Group did, that EA did, that Activision-Blizzard did, that Square-Enix did, and just about everybody else in the tech industry - they misjudged the good times at the beginning of the pandemic, overspent hiring people thinking the good times would last, and are now scrambling to figure out how to survive. The difference is that Unity was getting all of their operating money from Venture Capitalists (VCs) hoping that they would eventually become profitable, but VC money has all but dried up because it's become much more expensive to borrow money over the past two years.
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As a result, the Unity executives are likely grasping at straws in hopes of saving a sinking ship. This wild and decidedly senseless pricing plan is their (seemingly-desperate) attempt to juice their revenues. It really makes very little sense from the developer perspective, which is what makes the whole thing reek of desperation. That isn't greed talking, it's survival. My guess is that Unity is currently desperately looking for a buyer to save them and doing whatever they can to buy themselves some more runway. They already announced layoffs back in May, but I suspect they'll probably have to announce some really big layoffs (e.g. 40-50%) soon. Unity Software Inc. is living on borrowed time and they know it.
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empty-movement · 11 months
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May I ask what scanners / equipment / software you're using in the utena art book project? I'm an artist and half the reason I rarely do traditional art is because I'm never happy with the artwork after it's scanned in. But the level of detail even in the blacks of Utena's uniform were all captured so beautifully! And even the very light colors are showing up so well! I'd love to know how you manage!
You know what's really fun? This used to be something you put in your site information section, the software and tools used! Not something that's as normal anymore, but let's give it a go, sorry it's long because I don't know what's new information and what's not! Herein: VANNA'S 'THIS IS AS SPECIFIC AS MY BREAK IS LONG' GUIDE/AIMLESS UNEDITED RAMBLE ABOUT SCANNING IMAGES
Scanning: Modern scanners, by and large, are shit for this. The audience for scanning has narrowed to business and work from home applications that favor text OCR, speed, and efficiency over archiving and scanning of photos and other such visual media. It makes sense--there was a time when scanning your family photographs and such was a popular expected use of a scanner, but these days, the presumption is anything like that is already digital--what would you need the scanner to do that for? The scanner I used for this project is the same one I have been using for *checks notes* a decade now. I use an Epson Perfection V500. Because it is explicitly intended to be a photo scanner, it does threebthings that at this point, you will pay a niche user premium for in a scanner: extremely high DPI (dots per inch), extremely wide color range, and true lossless raws (BMP/TIFF.) I scan low quality print media at 600dpi, high quality print media at 1200 dpi, and this artbook I scanned at 2400 dpi. This is obscene and results in files that are entire GB in size, but for my purposes and my approach, the largest, clearest, rawest copy of whatever I'm scanning is my goal. I don't rely on the scanner to do any post-processing. (At these sizes, the post-processing capacity of the scanner is rendered moot, anyway.) I will replace this scanner when it breaks by buying another identical one if I can find it. I have dropped, disassembled to clean, and abused this thing for a decade and I can't believe it still tolerates my shit. The trade off? Only a couple of my computers will run the ancient capture software right. LMAO. I spent a good week investigating scanners because of the insane Newtype project on my backburner, and the quality available to me now in a scanner is so depleted without spending over a thousand on one, that I'd probably just spin up a computer with Windows 7 on it just to use this one. That's how much of a difference the decade has made in what scanners do and why. (Enshittification attacks! Yes, there are multiple consumer computer products that have actually declined in quality over the last decade.)
Post-processing: Photoshop. Sorry. I have been using Photoshop for literally decades now, it's the demon I know. While CSP is absolutely probably the better piece of software for most uses (art,) Photoshop is...well it's in the name. In all likelihood though, CSP can do all these things, and is a better product to give money to. I just don't know how. NOTENOTENOTE: Anywhere I discuss descreening and print moire I am specifically talking about how to clean up *printed media.* If you are scanning your own painting, this will not be a problem, but everything else about this advice will stand! The first thing you do with a 2400 dpi scan of Utena and Anthy hugging? Well, you open it in Photoshop, which you may or may not have paid for. Then you use a third party developer's plug-in to Descreen the image. I use Sattva. Now this may or may not be what you want in archiving!!! If fidelity to the original scan is the point, you may pass on this part--you are trying to preserve the print screen, moire, half-tones, and other ways print media tricks the eye. If you're me, this tool helps translate the raw scan of the printed dots on the page into the smooth color image you see in person. From there, the vast majority of your efforts will boil down to the following Photoshop tools: Levels/Curves, Color Balance, and Selective Color. Dust and Scratches, Median, Blur, and Remove Noise will also be close friends of the printed page to digital format archiver. Once you're happy with the broad strokes, you can start cropping and sizing it down to something reasonable. If you are dealing with lots of images with the same needs, like when I've scanned doujinshi pages, you can often streamline a lot of this using Photoshop Actions.
My blacks and whites are coming out so vivid this time because I do all color post-processing in Photoshop after the fact, after a descreen tool has been used to translate the dot matrix colors to solids they're intended to portray--in my experience trying to color correct for dark and light colors is a hot mess until that process is done, because Photoshop sees the full range of the dots on the image and the colors they comprise, instead of actually blending them into their intended shades. I don't correct the levels until I've descreened to some extent.
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As you can see, the print pattern contains the information of the original painting, but if you try to correct the blacks and whites, you'll get a janky mess. *Then* you change the Levels:
If you've ever edited audio, then dealing with photo Levels and Curves will be familiar to you! A well cut and cleaned piece of audio will not cut off the highs and lows, but also will make sure it uses the full range available to it. Modern scanners are trying to do this all for you, so they blow out the colors and increase the brightness and contrast significantly, because solid blacks and solid whites are often the entire thing you're aiming for--document scanning, basically. This is like when audio is made so loud details at the high and low get cut off. Boo.
What I get instead is as much detail as possible, but also at a volume that needs correcting:
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Cutting off the unused color ranges (in this case it's all dark), you get the best chance of capturing the original black and white range:
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In some cases, I edit beyond this--for doujinshi scans, I aim for solid blacks and whites, because I need the file sizes to be normal and can't spend gigs of space on dust. For accuracy though, this is where I'd generally stop.
For scanning artwork, the major factor here that may be fucking up your game? Yep. The scanner. Modern scanners are like cheap microphones that blow out the audio, when what you want is the ancient microphone that captures your cat farting in the next room over. While you can compensate A LOT in Photoshop and bring out blacks and whites that scanners fuck up, at the end of the day, what's probably stopping you up is that you want to use your scanner for something scanners are no longer designed to do well. If you aren't crazy like me and likely to get a vintage scanner for this purpose, keep in mind that what you are looking for is specifically *a photo scanner.* These are the ones designed to capture the most range, and at the highest DPI. It will be a flatbed. Don't waste your time with anything else.
Hot tip: if you aren't scanning often, look into your local library or photo processing store. They will have access to modern scanners that specialize in the same priorities I've listed here, and many will scan to your specifications (high dpi, lossless.)
Ahem. I hope that helps, and or was interesting to someone!!!
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klapollo · 6 months
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some basic tips for getting a job in this horrible market
hi all -- long story short, as many of you know, i just finished a three+ month job search after being laid off. here's what i learned:
Your resume should be your accomplishments, not your tasks. When I started searching, my bullet points in my resume were things like "used x software" or "wrote x content." Your resume should be you bragging. EX: "I used x software to turn around 100 deliverables a month," "I managed [x amount] sales associates and was named highest commission earner x months in a row." These don't have to be lifechanging things or massive projects -- any metric that demonstrates your capabilities well can do the job.
Make sure your resume is ATS optimized. Most jobs/companies use automated resume processing, and lots of great people get rejected this way. If you're getting rejection emails on Sunday morning or in the middle of the night, these are probably auto-rejections. ATS is the automatic system that sifts through resumes -- you can find free ATS-optimized templates online, I got min through resume.com. Do NOT use fancy graphics, headshots, any extraneous info. Use sites like jobscan to see if your resume is able to be parsed by an auto resume processor.
Use numbers. Make sure your resume has lots of numbers indicating your skills. "I helped my franchise achieve X% of revenue growth," "I drove x amount of deliveries daily." Any impressive numerical amounts are useful. If your company is tight-lipped about numbers, go to press releases. Ex: an app I did a considerable about of work for generated a lot of money that my company disclosed, so I put down that i contributed to that revenue via my work.
Have a template cover letter. Cover letters can give you an advantage, but they're tedious. Take note of what qualities are most sought-after in your field/ideal role, and write a generic cover letter that applies to most of them. When applying, do minor tweaks such as including the company name or any unique qualifications. Be careful about typos and leaving in old tweaks!
Use the free month of LinkedIn Premium if you're on there. I got some results from cold DMing recruiters for jobs I was interested in, and Premium lets you do that freely. Remember to cancel at the end of the month!
If you're looking for remote work, here are some boards I used: Remote.co, Otta, Remote Rocketship, Swooped, Best Writing (writing-focused)
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