#VR Community Management

[virtualrealitynewstoday]

Meta Horizon Worlds v163：「投票移除」功能更新與修復重點介紹

我們非常想知道您對 Meta Horizon Worlds v163 更新中新功能的看法！您覺得投票移除功能有助於改善社交互動嗎？請在下方留言分享您的想法，我們樂於聽取並回應每一位讀者的見解！

在最新的 v163 版本更新中，Meta Horizon Worlds 帶來了一系列提升使用者體驗的改進。這包括了一個正在測試階段的新功能，讓用戶在錄製影片或拍照時能夠切換名牌標籤的顯示與否。此外，亦新增了世界詳情頁面的內容描述符，以及對「投票移除」功能的更新，增強了用戶的操作便利性和互動體驗。 在一般改進方面，Meta 團隊加速了虛擬世界中畫廊的加載速度，使用者現在可以更快地存取及分享照片和影片。針對名牌標籤的切換功能，該功能目前處於測試階段，只對部分用戶開放。在測試階段的用戶可以在開啟相機時，透過一個新的圖標來切換名牌標籤的顯示與否。值得注意的是，使用無人機相機拍攝時，名牌標籤會自動移除，且無法切換。 Poll to…

[writerblogs]

 Captivating Audiences: The Evolution of the Digital Signage Market

In the ever-evolving landscape of marketing and communication, the Digital Signage Market has emerged as a dynamic force that's transforming the way businesses engage with their audiences. Gone are the days of static posters and traditional billboards – digital signage has taken center stage, offering a visually compelling and interactive platform for delivering messages, promotions, and information.

The Digital Signage Market encompasses a wide array of applications, spanning industries such as retail, hospitality, healthcare, education, and transportation. Its versatility lies in its ability to deliver dynamic content, including videos, images, animations, and real-time data, all of which grab attention and convey messages in a more engaging manner.

A driving force behind the growth of the Digital Signage Market is its power to enhance customer experiences. In the retail sector, for example, businesses are leveraging digital signage to create immersive and personalized shopping journeys. Interactive displays allow customers to explore products, access additional information, and even try out virtual simulations. This not only boosts customer engagement but also helps convert browsing into buying.

Furthermore, the integration of data analytics is revolutionizing the effectiveness of digital signage. Businesses can gather insights on customer behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns. This data-driven approach enables them to tailor content, delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. This level of personalization contributes to a more meaningful interaction, fostering customer loyalty and brand affinity.

As technology continues to advance, the Digital Signage Market is experiencing innovations that push the boundaries of creativity. From curved and ultra-high-definition displays to transparent screens and holographic projections, the possibilities seem limitless. Such innovations enable businesses to create immersive environments that captivate audiences and leave lasting impressions.

However, the Digital Signage Market is not without challenges. Content management, ensuring consistency across multiple screens, and addressing security concerns are some of the hurdles that businesses must navigate. Moreover, as the market becomes more saturated, distinguishing oneself through compelling content and strategies becomes crucial for success.

In conclusion, the Digital Signage Market is revolutionizing the way businesses communicate, interact, and leave an impact on their audiences. With its versatility, interactivity, and data-driven capabilities, digital signage is playing an instrumental role in shaping modern marketing and customer engagement strategies. As technology evolves and customer expectations rise, businesses that harness the potential of the Digital Signage Market are better positioned to thrive in a digital-first world.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The (open) web is good, actually

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library tonight (Monday, November 13) at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

The great irony of the platformization of the internet is that platforms are intermediaries, and the original promise of the internet that got so many of us excited about it was disintermediation – getting rid of the middlemen that act as gatekeepers between community members, creators and audiences, buyers and sellers, etc.

The platformized internet is ripe for rent seeking: where the platform captures an ever-larger share of the value generated by its users, making the service worst for both, while lock-in stops people from looking elsewhere. Every sector of the modern economy is less competitive, thanks to monopolistic tactics like mergers and acquisitions and predatory pricing. But with tech, the options for making things worse are infinitely divisible, thanks to the flexibility of digital systems, which means that product managers can keep subdividing the Jenga blocks they pulling out of the services we rely on. Combine platforms with monopolies with digital flexibility and you get enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

An enshittified, platformized internet is bad for lots of reasons – it concentrates decisions about who may speak and what may be said into just a few hands; it creates a rich-get-richer dynamic that creates a new oligarchy, with all the corruption and instability that comes with elite capture; it makes life materially worse for workers, users, and communities.

But there are many other ways in which the enshitternet is worse than the old good internet. Today, I want to talk about how the enshitternet affects openness and all that entails. An open internet is one whose workings are transparent (think of "open source"), but it's also an internet founded on access – the ability to know what has gone before, to recall what has been said, and to revisit the context in which it was said.

At last week's Museum Computer Network conference, Aaron Straup Cope gave a talk on museums and technology called "Wishful Thinking – A critical discussion of 'extended reality' technologies in the cultural heritage sector" that beautifully addressed these questions of recall and revisiting:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2023/11/11/therapy/#wishful

Cope is a museums technologist who's worked on lots of critical digital projects over the years, and in this talk, he addresses himself to the difference between the excitement of the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector over the possibilities of the web, and why he doesn't feel the same excitement over the metaverse, and its various guises – XR, VR, MR and AR.

The biggest reason to be excited about the web was – and is – the openness of disintermediation. The internet was inspired by the end-to-end principle, the idea that the network's first duty was to transmit data from willing senders to willing receivers, as efficiently and reliably as possible. That principle made it possible for whole swathes of people to connect with one another. As Cope writes, openness "was not, and has never been, a guarantee of a receptive audience or even any audience at all." But because it was "easy and cheap enough to put something on the web," you could "leave it there long enough for others to find it."

That dynamic nurtured an environment where people could have "time to warm up to ideas." This is in sharp contrast to the social media world, where "[anything] not immediately successful or viral … was a waste of time and effort… not worth doing." The social media bias towards a river of content that can't be easily reversed is one in which the only ideas that get to spread are those the algorithm boosts.

This is an important way to understand the role of algorithms in the context of the spread of ideas – that without recall or revisiting, we just don't see stuff, including stuff that might challenge our thinking and change our minds. This is a much more materialistic and grounded way to talk about algorithms and ideas than the idea that Big Data and AI make algorithms so persuasive that they can control our minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

As bad as this is in the social media context, it's even worse in the context of apps, which can't be linked into, bookmarked, or archived. All of this made apps an ominous sign right from the beginning:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Apps interact with law in precisely the way that web-pages don't. "An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

Apps are "closed" in every sense. You can't see what's on an app without installing the app and "agreeing" to its terms of service. You can't reverse-engineer an app (to add a privacy blocker, or to change how it presents information) without risking criminal and civil liability. You can't bookmark anything the app won't let you bookmark, and you can't preserve anything the app won't let you preserve.

Despite being built on the same underlying open frameworks – HTTP, HTML, etc – as the web, apps have the opposite technological viewpoint to the web. Apps' technopolitics are at war with the web's technopolitics. The web is built around recall – the ability to see things, go back to things, save things. The web has the technopolitics of a museum:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2014/09/11/brand/#dconstruct

By comparison, apps have the politics of a product, and most often, that product is a rent-seeking, lock-in-hunting product that wants to take you hostage by holding something you love hostage – your data, perhaps, or your friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

When Anil Dash described "The Web We Lost" in 2012, he was describing a web with the technopolitics of a museum:

where tagging was combined with permissive licenses to make it easy for people to find and reuse each others' stuff;

where it was easy to find out who linked to you in realtime even though most of us were posting to our own sites, which they controlled;

where a link from one site to another meant one person found another person's contribution worthy;

where privacy-invasive bids to capture the web were greeted with outright hostility;

where every service that helped you post things that mattered to you was expected to make it easy for you take that data back if you changed services;

where inlining or referencing material from someone else's site meant following a technical standard, not inking a business-development deal;

https://www.anildash.com/2012/12/13/the_web_we_lost/

Ten years later, Dash's "broken tech/content culture cycle" described the web we live on now:

https://www.anildash.com/2022/02/09/the-stupid-tech-content-culture-cycle/

found your platform by promising to facilitate your users' growth;

order your technologists and designers to prioritize growth above all other factors and fire anyone who doesn't deliver;

grow without regard to the norms of your platform's users;

plaster over the growth-driven influx of abusive and vile material by assigning it to your "most marginalized, least resourced team";

deliver a half-assed moderation scheme that drives good users off the service and leaves no one behind but griefers, edgelords and trolls;

steadfastly refuse to contemplate why the marginalized users who made your platform attractive before being chased away have all left;

flail about in a panic over illegal content, do deals with large media brands, seize control over your most popular users' output;

"surface great content" by algorithmically promoting things that look like whatever's successful, guaranteeing that nothing new will take hold;

overpay your top performers for exclusivity deals, utterly neglect any pipeline for nurturing new performers;

abuse your creators the same ways that big media companies have for decades, but insist that it's different because you're a tech company;

ignore workers who warn that your product is a danger to society, dismiss them as "millennials" (defined as "anyone born after 1970 or who has a student loan")

when your platform is (inevitably) implicated in a murder, have a "town hall" overseen by a crisis communications firm;

pay the creator who inspired the murder to go exclusive on your platform;

dismiss the murder and fascist rhetoric as "growing pains";

when truly ghastly stuff happens on your platform, give your Trust and Safety team a 5% budget increase;

chase growth based on "emotionally engaging content" without specifying whether the emotions should be positive;

respond to ex-employees' call-outs with transient feelings of guilt followed by dismissals of "cancel culture":

fund your platforms' most toxic users and call it "free speech";

whenever anyone disagrees with any of your decisions, dismiss them as being "anti-free speech";

start increasing how much your platform takes out of your creators' paychecks;

force out internal dissenters, dismiss external critics as being in conspiracy with your corporate rivals;

once regulation becomes inevitable, form a cartel with the other large firms in your sector and insist that the problem is a "bad algorithm";

"claim full victim status," and quit your job, complaining about the toll that running a big platform took on your mental wellbeing.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/18/broken-records/#dashes

The web wasn't inevitable – indeed, it was wildly improbable. Tim Berners Lee's decision to make a new platform that was patent-free, open and transparent was a complete opposite approach to the strategy of the media companies of the day. They were building walled gardens and silos – the dialup equivalent to apps – organized as "branded communities." The way I experienced it, the web succeeded because it was so antithetical to the dominant vision for the future of the internet that the big companies couldn't even be bothered to try to kill it until it was too late.

Companies have been trying to correct that mistake ever since. After three or four attempts to replace the web with various garbage systems all called "MSN," Microsoft moved on to trying to lock the internet inside a proprietary browser. Years later, Facebook had far more success in an attempt to kill HTML with React. And of course, apps have gobbled up so much of the old, good internet.

Which brings us to Cope's views on museums and the metaverse. There's nothing intrinsically proprietary about virtual worlds and all their permutations. VRML is a quarter of a century old – just five years younger than Snow Crash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML

But the current enthusiasm for virtual worlds isn't merely a function of the interesting, cool and fun experiences you can have in them. Rather, it's a bid to kill off whatever is left of the old, good web and put everything inside a walled garden. Facebook's metaverse "is more of the same but with a technical footprint so expensive and so demanding that it all but ensures it will only be within the means of a very few companies to operate."

Facebook's VR headsets have forward-facing cameras, turning every users into a walking surveillance camera. Facebook put those cameras there for "pass through" – so they can paint the screens inside the headset with the scene around you – but "who here believes that Facebook doesn't have other motives for enabling an always-on camera capturing the world around you?"

Apple's VisionPro VR headset is "a near-perfect surveillance device," and "the only thing to save this device is the trust that Apple has marketed its brand on over the last few years." Cope notes that "a brand promise is about as fleeting a guarantee as you can get." I'll go further: Apple is already a surveillance company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The technopolitics of the metaverse are the opposite of the technopolitics of the museum – even moreso than apps. Museums that shift their scarce technology budgets to virtual worlds stand a good chance of making something no one wants to use, and that's the best case scenario. The worst case is that museums make a successful project inside a walled garden, one where recall is subject to corporate whim, and help lure their patrons away from the recall-friendly internet to the captured, intermediated metaverse.

It's true that the early web benefited from a lot of hype, just as the metaverse is enjoying today. But the similarity ends there: the metaverse is designed for enclosure, the web for openness. Recall is a historical force for "the right to assembly… access to basic literacy… a public library." The web was "an unexpected gift with the ability to change the order of things; a gift that merits being protected, preserved and promoted both internally and externally." Museums were right to jump on the web bandwagon, because of its technopolitics. The metaverse, with its very different technopolitics, is hostile to the very idea of museums.

In joining forces with metaverse companies, museums strike a Faustian bargain, "because we believe that these places are where our audiences have gone."

The GLAM sector is devoted to access, to recall, and to revisiting. Unlike the self-style free speech warriors whom Dash calls out for self-serving neglect of their communities, the GLAM sector is about preservation and access, the true heart of free expression. When a handful of giant companies organize all our discourse, the ability to be heard is contingent on pleasing the ever-shifting tastes of the algorithm. This is the problem with the idea that "freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach" – if a platform won't let people who want to hear from you see what you have to say, they are indeed compromising freedom of speech:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Likewise, "censorship" is not limited to "things that governments do." As Ada Palmer so wonderfully describes it in her brilliant "Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet" speech, censorship is like arsenic, with trace elements of it all around us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMJb3AxA0s

A community's decision to ban certain offensive conduct or words on pain of expulsion or sanction is censorship – but not to the same degree that, say, a government ban on expressing certain points of view is. However, there are many kinds of private censorship that rise to the same level as state censorship in their impact on public discourse (think of Moms For Liberty and their book-bannings).

It's not a coincidence that Palmer – a historian – would have views on censorship and free speech that intersect with Cope, a museum worker. One of the most brilliant moments in Palmer's speech is where she describes how censorship under the Inquistion was not state censorship – the Inquisition was a multinational, nongovernmental body that was often in conflict with state power.

Not all intermediaries are bad for speech or access. The "disintermediation" that excited early web boosters was about escaping from otherwise inescapable middlemen – the people who figured out how to control and charge for the things we did with one another.

When I was a kid, I loved the writing of Crad Kilodney, a short story writer who sold his own self-published books on Toronto street-corners while wearing a sign that said "VERY FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR, BUY MY BOOKS" (he also had a sign that read, simply, "MARGARET ATWOOD"). Kilodney was a force of nature, who wrote, edited, typeset, printed, bound, and sold his own books:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-late-street-poet-and-publishing-scourge-crad-kilodney-left-behind-a/

But there are plenty of writers out there that I want to hear from who lack the skill or the will to do all of that. Editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers – all the intermediaries who sit between a writer and their readers – are not bad. They're good, actually. The problem isn't intermediation – it's capture.

For generations, hucksters have conned would-be writers by telling them that publishing won't buy their books because "the gatekeepers" lack the discernment to publish "quality" work. Friends of mine in publishing laughed at the idea that they would deliberately sideline a book they could figure out how to sell – that's just not how it worked.

But today, monopolized film studios are literally annihilating beloved, high-priced, commercially viable works because they are worth slightly more as tax writeoffs than they are as movies:

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-bros-discovery-writeoff-david-zaslav-1235598676/

There's four giant studios and five giant publishers. Maybe "five" is the magic number and publishing isn't concentrated enough to drop whole novels down the memory hole for a tax deduction, but even so, publishing is trying like hell to shrink to four:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here

Even as the entertainment sector is working to both literally and figuratively destroy our libraries, the cultural heritage sector is grappling with preserving these libraries, with shrinking budgets and increased legal threats:

https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/

I keep meeting artists of all description who have been conditioned to be suspicious of anything with the word "open" in its name. One colleague has repeatedly told me that fighting for the "open internet" is a self-defeating rhetorical move that will scare off artists who hear "open" and think "Big Tech ripoff."

But "openness" is a necessary precondition for preservation and access, which are the necessary preconditions for recall and revisiting. Here on the last, melting fragment of the open internet, as tech- and entertainment-barons are seizing control over our attention and charging rent on our ability to talk and think together, openness is our best hope of a new, good internet. T

he cultural heritage sector wants to save our creative works. The entertainment and tech industry want to delete them and take a tax writeoff.

As a working artist, I know which side I'm on.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/13/this-is-for-everyone/#revisiting

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Mimara,_Zagreb,_Croacia,_2014-04-20,_DD_01.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

[celinin-archive]

Celestino Vietti, I’m one with the bike 

From the Piemonte Alps to Moto2. Interview to the SKY Racing Team VR46 talent 

“The most beautiful memory I have of my childhood is tied to a three wheels bike. My dad had built it for my older brother, using the engine of a grass trimmer. I used to look at my brother going around on it in the backyard, then one day I asked to try it: once I got on it I irremediably fell in love with engines. Once I got down from that first trial I immediately asked my dad to buy me a two wheels motorbike. “To have a bike without training wheels you first have to know how to ride with them”, was his answer. So I started training and at eight years old I found myself riding in my first italian championship...” 

Celestino Vietti is lightness, a youthly lightness, a mature lightness, a fast lightness, cheeky to the right degree. Not yet twenty, he’s approaching his first Moto2 season, wearing the SKY Racing Team VR 46 leathers on Marco Bezzecchi’s side. 

Leathers that ‘Celin’ paints with the colours of his region, Piemonte. Right in Coassolo Torinese, small settlement wedged between the Valli di Lanzo, two wheels racing had started indelibly marking his life. An atypical place, Alpi Graie, to be the natal place of a world championship level rider. A place that becomes typical as soon as you open wide the doors of the Vietti’s home. 

“My uncle and my dad have always been big enthusiasts. My dad even did some uphill races when he was young. I lived all my childhood in a motorsport enviroment. My relatives had and still now have an agricultural machine repair shop that rapidly became a mandatory stop of my summers. There I used to take apart chainsaws and everything else I could find. Now I realise that the time spent in the repair shop gifted me a better feeling with the engine, with mechanics. My dad also gave me a lot of tools to read and understand the bike’s problems: thanks to him my bond with the bike got to a superior level. It’s as if I feel more merged with what I have under me, I listen to every single sound, I know how to decipher and manage it...” 

A management that for this young promise of two wheels racing hasn’t been and isn’t limited to the technical side, overflowing in the character, human one. Sat in the shades of the WITHU paddock, what immediately hits you of Celestino are the lucidity in the self-analysis, the ease in communicating, in summarising the different steps he took in such a short, but already so full, life. 

“To follow my dream I had to move out of my home during adolescence. The first months were so fast, everything was new, new experiences, new acquaintances. Once you settle you start thinking that once you get home from training nobody is there to wait for you. Relatives, friends, everybody is distant, everything starts getting hard. I had to grow on a personal level and, consequently, as a rider. Situations like this teach you how to manage yourself on the emotional side: sometimes I tend to get angry easily, being this much on your own helps you to reflect, to remain lucid” 

Vietti’s growth was mainly through the motorsport Academy for definition, that two wheels paradise build by the tarmac’s ‘Doctor’. A restricted cenacle reserved only to those who are destined to make an art form out of racing. Disciples, students, riders waiting to see their own boundless talent explode. 

“Getting into the VR46 Racing Academy was a turning point. It's important to realise your luck, the privilege you have to train every day with the best riders in the World Championship. Every time you get on track it’s an enormous challenge, there’s always somebody faster than you. I try to look at everyone, we’re many, we’re ‘colourful’, everyone has a certain characteristic to learn from: I have by my side two World Champions and then Vale, my idol, I think there’s nothing else to add...” 

He slightly moves his hair out of the way, Celestino, when he talks about topics he’s particularly sensible about. He smiles, a sincerely emotional smile, when he gets asked what the bike means for him, for his being. A question that strikes way higher chords than the sports one. 

“When you go really fast you become one with her, you find a magic harmony. Whatever she wants to do, you do it too, you become one thing. When she wants to do one thing, and you want to do another one instead, you struggle. True struggle. You can feel the separation between the two bodies. For me the bike has some sort of life of his own: it’s something difficult to explain” 

Difficult to explain, evocative to listen to. There’s dept in the words of this barely more than teenager rider of the Sky Team. On him also weight hopes and expectations of many italian fans, charmed by his results in the 2020 Moto3 season and the two first places obtained in the Styrian and France GP. 

Celestino is lucid in his analysis of the big jump to Moto2, a natural jump, even though initially complex. The piemonte rider need a settling period, an adjustment phase that now appears completed, processed. To demonstrate it, an always growing confidence in placements and continuity of performances, an exponentially growing mental and sensorial presence. 

“The impact with Moto2 was difficult. It’s a very particular category, unlike Moto3 it rewards constancy, precision, the bike doesn’t want to be assaulted, you can’t afford to do ‘crazy’ lap and feel satisfied. You have to curate the rhythm, you need surgical attention. Now my goal is to get as high as I can in the standings, to continue with the positive feelings of the last races and to keep building up unity with the bike. The future? Everybody’s dream is to become world champion, it’s useless beating around the bush, I’ll work hard to be able to make it” 

[cellarspider]

3/30: Meet David

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We return to the movie I want to bite down on with all of my teeth, Prometheus.

This time, we meet a man so bored he has invented new solo sports and started doing his hair like his blorbo, T.E. Lawrence. 

Meet David (Michael Fassbender). He’s implied to be a little over two years old, and he’s been completely alone for the vast majority of his life.

Actually, I lied. The movie first wants to throw another small strain on our suspension of disbelief: David has a VR visor he can use to view the dreams of the human crew in suspended animation. This is technically a plot point, and thus it is delivered with all the grace of this deer.

I cannot emphasize enough how clunky the movie becomes when plot or deliberate character arcs are being communicated through dialog scenes. 

We find out from dream-peeping that Elizabeth Shaw’s father (horror actor Patrick Wilson) was a devout christian of some variety, possibly a missionary, and her mom  died when she was young. She was given a cross necklace, which we see in blurry montage-o-vision before David wanders off.

We see David’s routine: Pick up tiny specks of dust, send out first contact messages and receive no response, perfect the lonely sport of solo bicycle-riding shootout, eat android breakfast and take a Proto-Indo-European language lesson, watch Lawrence of Arabia (1962) while dying his roots, quote the most Definitely Not Suffering line to himself over and over again as he does his hair like Peter O’Toole and wanders the halls, waiting for something to happen. “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

David is going to later profess to have no emotions, but I think that given the chance, he would at least admit his enclosure needs enrichment.

This is one of the strongest scenes in the movie. David is a novel creation of humanity, and he has been left alone, with only the memories and dreams of humans to extrapolate off of. He has been abandoned without thought for his needs, stuffed down into Plato's Cave. We don’t know yet whether the people on the ship see him as a person, but we know they’re thoughtless in how they’ve treated him. He’s bright, he’s inventive, he’s chosen a way he wants to be seen, but he’s seen by no one. 

I’m sure this is going to turn out great for everybody.

And as a side note, while I didn’t know it at the time, David’s language tutor is the actual historical linguist that they employed for the movie, Anil Biltoo. His and Fassbender’s pronunciations were strong enough that even a hobbyist in linguistics could tell that they were really, really trying to get it right. They even reference Schleicher’s fable, the first piece of text anyone ever created from reconstructed Proto-Indo-European. This level of nerdy detail made me excited.

Side note to the side note, Biltoo also has an introductory textbook on Sanskrit you can buy, if you’re a maniac like I am.

This scene kept part of me hopeful for the rest of the movie, because it’s so strong. The “not minding that it hurts” line is a little on the nose, but overall it has the feel of something that could be expanded into an extremely melancholy short film. Or, hell, a Tarkovsky-esque feature film. Moon (2009) could be another point of comparison. In any case, this scene gives you a little space to feel all the quiet suffering of David’s existence. 

But unfortunately for the movie as a whole, this sets David up as the most sympathetic character. I personally had already been drawn in by the promotional “advert” for the David-8 model android (see part 1). Now I was invested in this particular David’s story. The rest of the film didn’t manage to yank back much sympathy for anybody else. 

Because the general vibe I soon picked up from the rest of the crew was that they were absolute hooting jackasses.

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Sources alt-text facts:

1. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-ron-perlman-nearly-ruined-the-alien-resurrection-basketball-shot/  2. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0766970/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t50

[dcawritings]

I’m going to make a masterlist for all the AUs I might write for, but in case anyone wants a taste of the kind of enabling chaos that goes on in the Superstar Daycare discord server, here’s the list of AUs I’m positively feral about:

Freddy Fazvibes (Sex Shop AU)

Digimon AU

Borderlands AU

Livestreamer / Vtuber AU

Stardew Valley AU

Color of Your Eyes AU

(Longer description of each below the readmore!)

Freddy Fazvibes (Sex Shop AU)

William accepts and admits that he has some unresolved issues between himself and Henry, and decides to open a sex shop after learning he's a furry and it makes him quite happy. The shop -- technically still under the Fazbear brand (Henry is happy for his friend but thoroughly confused) -- features character mascots and lines of toys based on the parent company alongside an up-and-coming VR system to allow people to experience the company (sexual or otherwise) of their favorite characters!

The reader is just one of many customers after discovering the niche but passionate community the store and its characters have. It's bad enough that it's a sex shop with sex toys; how are they going to handle having their favorite character offer to demonstrate using one of them?

No deaths occur in this AU, it's just some good wholesome fun (as wholesome as a sex shop can get) where we don't need to worry about why the animatronics have genitals.

Digimon AU

The reader was supposed to be a member of their generation’s digidestined, but the others were killed by a mysterious power in the digital world many years before the present day. The reader discovers this information as an adult after being pulled into the digital world by a mysterious masked puppet creature who seems to know all too much about them. Trapped, they learn that their two digimon partners (Sun and Moon) had been waiting for them all that time; waiting for their human partner that never showed up when the digital world needed them most.

The reader finds themselves battling through not only their own tentative connection with the digital world as an adult, but also with their own partner as Moon has all but rejected them due to trust and corruption issues. Can the reader heal Sun and Moon's pain, regain their trust, and manage to save the corrupted souls of the other digidestined before the digital world falls apart at the seams?

And who could this mysterious evil force even be?

Borderlands AU

Sun is a prototype of a new line of caretaker bots designed by Hyperion to serve multiple domestic roles for people rich enough to afford them. The spaceship housing him during his live beta-testing experiences an unknown error and crashes on Pandora, where the reader (an ex-Hyperion employee) rescues him from the wreckage.

Things grow even more confusing when Sun realizes that he has a second personality onboard his processors, one that the reader had inadvertently helped to create when they worked for Hyperion: Moon, a military security protocol, and the true reason that the ship had gone down over Pandora. How will Sun deal with learning that his abandonment was part of the testing -- and what will he, Moon, and the reader do when they learn about the ECLIPSE protocol?

Livestreamer / Vtuber AU

After saving them from the Pizzaplex ruins, the reader helps Sun, Moon and the newly-formed Eclipse settle into day-to-day domestic life with them. Though the reader assures that they don't need to, the three search for ways to help pay bills -- keeping them charged has tripled the electric bill alone. So, unbeknownst to the reader at first, the trio take up being a vtuber, quickly becoming quite popular for their unique avatars (which is literally just them rendered into a live2d model) and wide variety of streamed content.

They all play all sorts of videogames, but Eclipse has become very popular for drawing furry art while Moon's realized that people really like his voice in ASMR content. Before they know it, they're able to help pay the reader's bills and beyond, leaving their amused and surprised caretaker to support both their newfound hobby and try desperately to ignore how the twitch chat is always asking if they're dating.

Stardew Valley AU

After the reader's grandfather passes away, they learn that he had left them an entire farm to care for as they liked. An entire plot of land beside a whole new town of people to meet, including the enigmatic trio of automatons powered by forest magic, and are apparently as old if not older than the town itself.

Sun is sweet as can be and helps tutor Jaz and Vincent alongside Penny, while Eclipse is a very soft-spoken personality who you're certain has been heavily damaged at some point (but he's often too busy tending to the community gardens to care). There is a third automaton, but he's only active after sunset -- some townfolk call him a demon and a menace, while others seem to find his pranks quite endearing. Moon is... an enigmatic figure, and it will take some time to get to know him properly.

Color of Your Eyes AU

The reader is just another employee of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex, far from friends and family that they barely remember after moving away several years ago. They work a normal job in the daycare with a normal apartment and go to a normal doctor about normal symptoms of a chronic illness they've been dealing with since they were little -- or so they're told.

Is it all actually normal? Are they human, or are they... something else? Surely not, else it would mean their entire life is nothing more than a lie, a fabrication.

This is an AU about the reader learning they are actually a humanoid animatronic and that everything in their life -- their background, their parents, their memories -- are just that. A lie. They have been the property and research subject of Fazco's R&D division the entire time.

But at least they have Sun and Moon to help them understand not how to be human, but how to be a person again.

[realistically-shifting]

My Luxury Apartment- General Script

I script this apartment complex in most of my DRs and my Waiting Room. Features like the room style change based on what reality the script is for, but the rest generally stays the same. This is the complex I shifted to the first time, all the things I would’ve enjoyed if I stayed longer.

Exterior: At the back of the complex, there’s a playground with equipment for adults too. The playground equipment can handle adult bodies using it.

Basement level: At the basement level, there are storage lockers for the tenants of the apartment, a parking garage, a shop, and a convenience store. The convenience store carries a brand of microwave dinners that has a wide variety of options, and it includes many cultural dishes from various cultures. For example, one of the frozen dinner sets includes collard greens cooked with smoked ham hocks and black eyes peas, fried catfish, baked mac and cheese, and a little cup of banana pudding or candied yams. The store sells other easy to make food items, such as roux cubes for curry and egusi stew. There is also a laundromat down there, for residents that don’t have personal machines.

First floor: The first floor has the lobby of the apartment building, an indoor pool and hot tub for the residents and their guests, and a hot pot restaurant. Residents get a discount at the restaurant, but it’s open to the public. It also has a gym that holds exercise, dance, and yoga classes.

Second floor: There’s a small doctor’s clinic on this floor, staffed by several nurses, two pediatricians, a mental health counselor, and a few physicians. Here, residents (and our guests) can receive regular checkups, emergency aid, help with medical treatments such as dialysis, etc. Attached to the clinic is a small pharmacy where you can get cold medicines, common emergency medicines like epipens and inhalers, etc. There’s also a daycare on the other side of the building, and between them is the complex spa. The spa has masseurs trained in neuromuscular massage therapy.

Third floor: A work space with computers for public use, recreational room that doubles as a movie theater with a larger screen, and an additional rec room with video game consoles, VR gaming space, and a small cafe. The first rec room is popular with older residents, while the second is more popular with the teenage residents.

Penthouse: My penthouse apartment also has a balcony with seating, two guest bedrooms each with its own 3/4 bathroom, and a walk-in storage closet.

Rooftop: On top of the apartment complex is a community garden and an observatory. There are gardeners that maintain most of the plots, but private plots must be privately managed.

Safety features: Along with normal safety features, all the windows and doors on the first and second floor, plus parking garage, have metal shutters that can be lowered during emergencies. The entire building also has an advanced fire suppression system, air purifiers, and an extensive bunker below the parking garage. Each apartment, or at least the penthouses, have security doors (thick wooden doors with metal plates in the middle and higher quality locks). All the safety features have their own failsafes.

[mecchantheotaku]

Time for a more silly Voices headcanons post. This one is all about... gaming. Yes, really.

Hero likes mainly adventure games, action/adventure games and RPGs. In particular I feel he'd be a big Zelda fan. In games with a morality system, he never takes the "evil" paths, only the "good" ones.

Broken surprisingly likes games designed to be unfairly difficult. It feels comforting knowing he's not alone in his pain there and many others struggle in the same ways as he does.

Cheated plays all sorts of games, but is frustrated that he can never be more than second best at any game. This even applies to board games, where he somehow always manages to come in second. The other Voices wonder if he's cursed somehow.

Cold dislikes games with story focus and mostly likes playing competitive games or arcade-style games. Even then, he doesn't play them all too seriously, he just hops on when he has nothing better to do. He's usually the teammate that doesn't talk during a match.

Contrarian loves going into games with a competitive community and trolling their games by spamming moves and goofing off. Aside from that, he's fond of games with a focus on freedom in any way, like open-world games and the Sonic series.

Hunted doesn't play a lot of games, but started picking up rhythm games after he blew everyone's minds playing DDR at an arcade. He's a natural at rhythm games and he finds them oddly calming. Good luck trying to get him to play anything else though.

Opportunist loves to hop on trends with gaming, but is so bafflingly terrible at games that he quickly ends up becoming the laughing stock when he posts gameplay footage online. But hey, it's... some sort of popularity?

Paranoid, as I mentioned before, has a surprising fondness for horror games (except VR). He feels a sense of comfort from the barriers of the screen as he plays them, and finds it oddly therapeutic.

Skeptic likes story-focused games, puzzle games and mystery-based visual novels like Ace Attorney. He also likes to play games with strategy elements, but others have to make sure to keep an eye on him while he's gaming because when he gets into a game, BOY does he get into it.

Smitten naturally likes games with a focus on romance or games with romance as a big mechanic. He's a natural at dating sims and likes to carefully craft the perfect marriages in Fire Emblem based on the units' chemistry with each other.

Stubborn unsurprisingly loves ultra-violent games, fighting games and shooters. Even more unsurprisingly his favourite game is Mortal Kombat. He also likes to listen to game soundtracks when he works out.

[thatsatricky1]

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 || 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Eight of the top ten most popular players in Korea are invited to be the first people to test out the newest device and gameplay by NEO a video game company known as of recent to be the best of the best. An opportunity of a life time handed to them to be able to trial and get a contract to promote it later on. The eight couldn’t resist as they gladly accepted the invitation. Not being able to predict what was to come. A trail test that wouldn’t just be focused on graphics and playablity, no this would test relationships, strength, resolve and many more unpredictable things.

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Nct Dream ot7 x Reader

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Angst, Fantasy, Fluff, Gaming, Humour, Romance, Smut (in future chapters), Thriller.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1,7k+

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: None in prologue.

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: This does not depict an accurate picture of Nct Dream and this is strictly fantasy/fiction for entertainment purposes.

“Good morning, welcome to KBS! Today’s first story will interest our younger audience and may just worry all our parents out there.” A well put together broadcast reporter spoke all the while giving the audience watching her through the screen a bright pearly white smile.

“The youth these days seems to be focusing widely on entertainment in the video game area. Well, everyday there seems to be new things coming out but what we have today is something quite extraordinary.” She recited off the teleprompter hidden from sight pointing behind her at the big green screen that showed images and videos to the audience.

“The biggest competitors in gaming in Korea with well known usernames most teens know have all recently been invited to a new project.”

As she spoke on screen were several very well known professional gamers, some showed streaming while others were seen celebrating recently won titles at gaming competitions.

“The project in question is Project Impact. We have all heard of VR, virtual reality but the people at NEO have taken a large step for the gaming community. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of information on the current project but we will explain what we have.”

“They have worked on a way to make virtual reality more real and as the CEO has promised an experience unlike any other, they have created a way for the player to be able to be in the game with their conscience attached all the while the player is in a sleep-like state.”

As the woman spoke images appeared of people wearing a certain tech wear headgear, seemingly ‘in game’ while their bodies were either laying down or in a sit up position on comfortable chairs.

“The game attached to this new device has also been developed by Neo and is seen to be an in world game with all sorts of challenges and filled with interesting plots. They have confirmed the game is finished.”

“Neo has requested from top players in Korea to test out the tech wear headsets and gameplay, getting many replies and contracts from said players and is due to start testing tonight around 8pm. Though for those interested to see how it plays out, unfortunately it will be under wraps to test out any bugs and glitches at first, but if deemed playable will be streamed and shortly available to the public in only a few months.”

“We have yet to see the whole list of top players that will be testing Neo’s new device and game but those we do have we can list off for you video game enthusiasts, you may just see some of your favourites.”

The reporter, now gesturing at the backdrop once again.

“Mark Lee, also known as Lee Minhyung with the tag name Mork is a Canadian, Korean competitive player known for playing Elden ring, Fortnite and Wow, keeping his place in the top 10 popular Korean players for the sixth year in a row now.”

A video of Mark during his usual streaming was shown with fellow friend Donghyuck, another popular gamer seen in the background screaming his head off at Mark managing to pull his team through for a win.

“Huang Renjun, with the tag name Injeolmi, formally from Jilin ROC now residing in Seoul, SK known very well as a player in Overwatch, King of legend and Fortnite. Placed on the top ten most popular Korean players ranking for the fourth year straight.”

A video of Renjun accepting his award at the most recent gaming event for Overwatch was played also showing a good friend of his, Jeno clapping him on the back for winning.

“Lee Jeno, with the tag name SamoyedJ. Based in Seoul, Sk, another top ten popular Korean player well known for playing Overwatch, King of legend and Valorant.”

A video of Jeno was played from his social media account of his new set up showing off the new branded items he’d received that would help him along. A discord chat with fellow players and friends popped up while he did so.

“Lee Donghyuck, more known by his streaming name Haechan with a gaming tag by the name of Fullsun, holding his top ten most popular Korean gaming title for the fifth year. Known for Valorant, WOW and various odd games.”

A video of Donhyuck appeared of him lounging in his gaming chair animatedly talking with his chat about whatever he had set up for the stream ahead.

“Na Jaemin, with his tag name Nana, another top ten most popular Korean player in his fourth year on the list is well known for Indie games, League of legends and Fortnite.”

Jaemin appeared on screen screaming in terror at another horror indie game playthrough he was doing, camera shaking with him in the dimly lit room.

“Zhong Chenle, also known as Jong Jinrak who goes by the tag name Dolphinlele, formally resided in Shanghai ROC, now currently in Seoul, SK. Having a two year streak being in the top ten most popular Korean players. Known for playing Valorant, Fortnite and Elden ring.”

Chenle was shown on screen one hand moving his mouse clicking around screen with the other arm full with his dog, Daegal sleeping there contently during the stream.

“Park Jisung, with the tag name Jwijwi is based in Seoul, SK a newly added gamer on the top ten most popular Korean players since last year. Mainly known for League of legends, mobile games and Valorant.”

A stream was shown of Jisung sharing food with a friend Y/n on screen as the two spoke to chat while getting ready and picking what two player game to do together.

“The last on the known trail list is L/n F/n, known with the tag T/n, formally based in C/n now residing currently in Seoul, SK, a fresh face this year on the top ten most popular Korean players. Known for Indie games, Cod and Overwatch.”

Y/n was shown on screen playing a game only to be interrupted with a fellow friend and gamer, Donghyuck bursting through the door on screen chasing her cat who went straight towards her desk underneath and between her legs. Y/n scrambling to pause the indie game while Donghyuck whined about her cat not liking him.

Once finished listing off the currently known players entering the trails the reporter pushed aside the small stack of papers on her desk giving the viewers another smile getting ready to say her next rehearsed lines.

“Now I’m sure it’s not needed for me to repeat the list for everyone to have gotten the clue that eight of the top ten most popular Korean players have decided to go through this test trials. Exciting times for their fans I’m sure. These are the current players we know of, the other two most popular gamers could very well have accepted an invitation too but for now we’ll just have to keep our eyes and ears open for any news on that.”

The last photos on screen behind the news anchor was a promotion of the eight players shown wearing similar outfits that were little Easter eggs on previous video games made and produced by NEO to show their official sponsorship with the company.

“We will have more to come on this story later on so stay tuned for that, now onto the weather with my co host who has some exciting news for those who enjoy the warm weather that will surely be quite a good experience for anyone looking to go hiking.”

“Not really sure why we’re wearing outfits for a different old game that has nothing to do with the current game.” Renjun pointed out as he zipped the hood around his face upwards to cover the bottom half of his face.

“Look, we’re matching Junnie, plus who cares this is fun.” Donghyuck nudged his shoulder playfully against Renjun’s, having not zipped his face hood up yet.

“Unfortunately we are.” Renjun grumbled in return harshly zipping up Donghyuck’s zip for him, causing the younger to let out a few muffled complaints.

“Why does Y/n get the grey one?” Chenle whined out his own voice muffled by his knitted mask, hands grabbing and tugging on Y/n’s mask's ears. Her hands flew up to hold onto the mask so it didn’t slip off and ruin anything.

“Let go, it’s not my fault they gave me this character.” Her reply also muffled as she grunted pushing her back into Chenle to make him let go.

“Don’t break it.” Jisung fretted over the duo’s squabble, his hands hanging in the air ready to jump in if needed.

“You look hilarious. Your white hair looks like it’s a part of the mask.” Jaemin teased Jeno pointing at him, holding back a laugh.

“It doesn’t. I’ll smother you right here.” Jeno bit back grabbing onto Jaemin’s mask, tugging it to cover his whole face instead of only half. Jaemin’s muffled screams still loud and clear as his hands flew out blindly slapping at Jeno.

“This is what eight of the top ten most popular Korean players look like, if only people could see us like this our places would be lower.” Mark muttered to himself, his own mask still in hand as he observed his friends' antics.

“Mark! Chenle’s going to rip one of Y/n ear’s off, uh not her real ones the fake ones!” Jisung’s nervous voice cut off Mark’s self monologue as he rushed over to break up the play fight.

“We’ll be taking group photos first before going into individual headshots in two minutes, please be prepared.” The director's voice boomed over to the area the gamers were currently getting their last minute touch ups.

“Two minutes?” A makeup artist asked out in dismay as she and the hairstylist looked over at the eight players who were rough housing.

“Two will be enough to fix up their hair.” The hairstylist spoke reassuring himself since he’d only have to fix the fringes peeking out of their masks.

“How nice for you.” The makeup artist replied to him in dismay, eyeing where Jaemin’s face was currently being messed around underneath his mask.

“You’re right, I’ll ask the director to give us an extra five… ten minutes.” The hairstylist sympathised with his work colleague as he moved away. While the makeup artist rushed over to the eight gamers to do damage control on her previous work hoping she wouldn’t see too many smudges.

𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭:

(If you want to be tagged in my Nct Dream writing comment, inbox or message me)

Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed. Don’t forget likes, reblogs and comments are always encouraged and help keep writers like myself motivated to continue our stories.

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭:

⤻ Click here.

𝐊𝐩𝐨𝐩 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭:

⤻ Click here.

[solarlunedev]

So, I'm making a PS1-style first-person adventure game. You walk around and talk to people. If they ask a yes or no question, you have to manually shake your head to answer.

Right-clicking brings your hand up and allows you to interact with objects in the game world.

My idea for it is that it takes place in the far future, in a somewhat dystopian, neglectfully-managed world that still has some humanity left. Like, you might have high technology like full-body VR or semi-sentient robots and stuff, but people still hope for a better tomorrow and make efforts to live happy lives. They would still have fun, go to the movies, talk about current events, go to school, and interact with their community.

In the game, you play a guy going to pick his daughter up from school, and that's it. That's the point of the game - it's not about standing up to the capitalist machine, or becoming an assassin for hire, or something like that, but rather just about living your life, pretty much like everybody else. Through this trip, you get to examine the lives of people who live in this city, and who they are.

[adhdvsautismbracket]

ADHD vs Autism Bracket: Summary (Round 1)

Round 1 has officially come to a close, with some outcomes that really surprised me!!

Despite sweeping so many polls before mine, Kris and Susie fucking DIED? Right off the bat. But maybe that just goes to show how iconic Phineas and Ferb are, there is truly nothing neurotypical going on in that show.

Another surprise to me was the Ink!Sans and Error!Sans VS Cuphead and Mugman matchup. Although the former received 20+ nominations and Cuphead less than 10, this ratio flipped the other way when it came to the actual polling!

Many of my personal blorbos have fallen in battle </3 Aja and Krel barely stood a chance, but having them has been a pleasure. I am once again recommending 3Below! I was also surprised by the number of polls in Side B that nearly got 50/50, but all the winning duos managed to scrape by even if it was just by 2-3%

Going forward, Side A and Side B polls will go live at the same time. Round 2 will probably begin on Friday (to give myself time to update the graphics) and will be posted around the same time of day as Round 1.

Under the cut is the updated bracket and the duos that will be going head-to-head in Round 2. The pinned post will also be updated with this information:

Side A

Matchup 1: BTW Creature & TBH Creature (The Internet) VS Wylan van Eck & Jesper Fahey (Six of Crows)

Matchup 2: Keith Kogane & Lance McClain (Voltron: Legendary Defender) VS Gomez Addams & Morticia Addams (The Addams Family)

Matchup 3: Aaron Mitchell & Katie Mitchell (The Mitchells vs. the Machines) VS Dewey Duck & Huey Duck (Ducktales)

Matchup 4: Gideon Nav & Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb) VS Jay Walker & Zane (Lego Ninjago)

Matchup 5: Luz Noceda & Hunter Noceda (The Owl House) VS Kyan Reki & Hasegawa Langa (SK8 The Infinity)

Matchup 6: Phineas Flynn & Ferb Fletcher (Phineas and Ferb) VS Luca Paguro & Alberto Scorfano (Luca)

Matchup 7: Tommy Coolatta & Benrey (Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware) VS Zuko & Sokka (Avatar the Last Airbender)

Matchup 8: Ty Blackthorn & Kit Herondale (The Dark Artifices) VS Reigen Arataka & Kageyama "Mob" Shigeo (Mob Psycho 100)

Side B

Matchup 1: Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase (Heroes of Olympus) VS Mondo Owada & Kiyotaka Ishimaru (Danganronpa)

Matchup 2: Michelangelo Hamato & Donatello Hamato (Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) VS Sonic the Hedgehog & Miles "Tails" Prower (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Matchup 3: Phoenix Wright & Miles Edgeworth (Ace Attorney) VS Sunny & Kel (Omori)

Matchup 4: Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines (Gravity Falls) VS Denji & Asa Mitaka (Chainsaw Man)

Matchup 5: Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir (Community) VS Craig Tucker & Tweek Tweak (South Park)

Matchup 6: Brett Hand & Raegan Ridley (Inside Job) VS Usui Nagi & Furesawa "Fret" Tosai (The World Ends With You)

Matchup 7: Sans & Papyrus (Undertale) VS Spock & James T. Kirk (Star Trek)

Matchup 8: Zim & Gir (Invader Zim) VS Cuphead & Mugman (Cuphead)

With some of these matchups, Round 2 promises to be even fiercer than Round 1!! I hope everyone will continue to have fun and enjoy the voting process.

[lndslorepuzzler]

Anecdote: Still In Dark

01: Visitor: Georgie, a small boy, thinks Li Shen is the Grim Reaper, after he kills the monster attacking him and his mother. He wears black leather gloves, and has "crystalline pupils (that gleam) with an inorganic luster."

A month later, Georgie has been following Li Shen; he offers him a large jar of wrapped chocolates in exchange for helping him find the person who killed his mother.

Li Shen tells him, "That is something you should ask the police about."

.

02: Mystery: Detective Ivan is on the trail of a serial killer called Dawnbreaker. There are no corpses, only shattered remnants of an unknown element that remind him of protocores.

"Long before Ivan's generation was born, Wanderers had appeared on Earth. And as far back as he can remember, Wanderers roamed the city, prompting people to spend most of their time indoors to avoid them. Many simple tasks were delegated to robots, and people indulged in VR to pass the remaining years."*1.

Using the theory that Dawnbreaker hunts according to the potential of a human to have this substance in their body, Ivan determines who will likely be the next victim. By the time he gets there, he witnesses the old man Dawnbreaker is targeting turn into some kind of monster and attacking him. He uses a shard of ice to kill it; once the creature is dead, Ivan raises his gun and is frozen in place, his communicator destroyed.

The body on the ground turns to black mist.

Ivan decides to use the case of a murdered woman (more specifically, her missing son) to find Dawnbreaker and "bring him to justice."

.

03: Shelter: Despite doing his best to ignore Georgie, the boy still manages to weasel his way in to Li Shen's apartment (he did take a piece of his chocolate, after all, which is as good as accepting payment.) Georgie finds that Li Shen's apartment is bare and dull; but somehow, despite knowing that Li Shen is a killer, he's drawn in by the way he seems to be emotionally invested in the old medical drama he's watching.

All Li Shen has to eat, aside from Georgie's chocolate, is bottles of nutrient solutions. Georgie wonders if "someone who sustains themselves solely on such a liquid (could) be considered 'human.'"

Georgie falls asleep, and wakes to Li Shen caring for a jasmine plant. Li Shen gives no verbal responses to his questions, and despite being frustrated, he continues to follow Li Shen around both his apartment and outside of it. Li Shen buys them each a soda, and freezes his own into an 'Old Popsicle;' Georgie tells him that's strange, but Li Shen doesn't pay him any mind. He just goes to his usual place to read the 'Linkon City Travel Guide;' Georgie wonders why Li Shen is interested in such an old city. Li Shen tells him that he often dreams of it.

.

04: Nightmare:

"Last night, Li Shen dreamed that he and a girl bought all kinds of snacks and even a frozen soda in the shape of a popsicle. Similar dreams visited him almost every night. In these dreams, he's a surgeon. His dreams keep overlapping with scenes of a doctor's life, and a constant reoccurring presence is a girl. He was 12 the first time he had such a dream, but the dreams didn't happen in a particular order. They were fragmented. So, when he was 12, he already knew the doctor in his dreams would meet that girl at 27. With how frequent these dreams are, he slowly thinks that the doctor is him. Or rather, he wants to become the person loved by the girl in his dreams. He records them, hoping to find their traces in the barren city. The place called 'Linkon City' from years ago, the landmarks that can only be found in travel guides, the food, flavors, and plants in his dreams... He wants to experience them as best he can. And if it's possible, he wants his warm dreams to consume him."

Li Shen bathes and re-dresses, paying no mind to. his scarred body. He's watching a medical drama when Georgie wakes up from a nightmare about a monster bursting out of his chest. Li Shen turns the screen from the medical drama to an animated film.

"A long time ago, there was a man named Zhuangzi He dreamt he as a graceful butterfly. When he woke up, that feeling remained. He couldn't tell if he was a butterfly dreaming of being Zhuangzi, or if Zhaungzi dreamt of being a butterfly..."

Georgie wonders if he's just a monster's dream, and asks if Li Shen dreams of being a doctor. He wonders if Li Shen appears in the doctor's dreams, and maybe he is the doctor's nightmare.*2

Li Shen notices that there is a protrusion under Georgie's eye. He has already formed a "blackened ice blade" behind his back when Georgie tells him that if they celebrate his birthday together the next day, he'll leave Li Shen alone.

Li Shen doesn't agree, but he also doesn't allow the alarm on the screen--which indicates a hostile in his immediate vicinity--to go off, either.

.

05: Birthday: The next day, Li Shen takes Georgie out to a dessert place. He orders macarons; he tells Georgie, "I dreamt about it last night." The robots manning the store bring out a cake with 12 candles, happy birthday is sung, and Georgie's wish is to find the person who killed his mother. There is a blue glow under his skin.

Georgie asks when Li Shen's birthday is; Li Shen tells him he doesn't celebrate birthdays.

On Li Shen's 12th birthday, his adoptive father became a monster, and killed his adoptive mother. In his panic and fear, Li Shen used his Evol to kill his adoptive father--"freezing an Abomination, preventing them from turning into Wanderers." He hasn't celebrated a birthday since. "That night, he dreamt of himself in a doctor's white coat, treating a girl./ Dreams have become his only solace ever since."

Georgie promises to bring Li Shen different types of chocolate on his birthday. He talks about how, living in the factory dorm, he's never seen a sunset outside of a VR game.

"Li Shen suddenly asks, "What if you look at the sunset and feel nothing at all one day?" "What's the difference between that and being dead?" Georgie turns, displaying a maturity beyond his years. "Mom used to say that dying with clarity is better than living like a corpse."

Detective Ivan arrives with several armed police officers, and tells Li Shen they can negotiate if he lets Georgie go. Georgie, confused and afraid, is pulled behind Ivan after he tells Georgie that Li Shen is the man that killed his mother. Georgie's entire body begins to warp with black tendrils, and before Ivan can do anything, Li Shen kills the boy.

"Georgie lowers his head, seeing blackened ice bloom like a flower on his chest. He stumbles and falls to the ground, his last sight being Li Shen kneeling beside him. Tears well up in Georgie's eyes. "What happened? Did... the monster wake up?" Li Shen gently closes the boy's eyes. Georgie dissipates into a black mist."

.

06: Cover-Up: Li Shen and Ivan meet at two unmarked tombstones. Li Shen recalls Georgie's mother, who approached him, asking him to kill her. She's seen people turn into monsters, then into Wanderers. She suspects it has something to do with prolonged exposure to protocores, but can't prove it. They fired her when she tried to report it. She knows Li Shen is someone who hunts monsters, and she doesn't want to become one.

Ivan asks Li Shen if he knew from the beginning that Georgie was doomed. Ivan tells Li Shen that his reports of humans being turned into Wanderers have been suppressed, and his family is receiving death threats. He decides to half the investigation on Dawnbreaker and destroy al the records. "That way no one will ever know of (his) existence. Hopefully, this will buy (him) more time to prevent the world from collapsing."

Li Shen says he hopes they don't meet again; Ivan agrees, but if they do, it means he's going to turn into a monster, and he wants Li Shen to kill him. "Justice stands with the Grim Reaper."

"A familiar melody drifts through the darkness. It's... Happy Birthday? "Happy birthday, Doctor Li!" The girl's clear voice rings out, her smile warm like the morning sun. Is he dreaming again? "From now on, I'll always be by your side for your birthday." The girl's sincere yet slightly shy expression makes him unable to resist the urge to caress her cheek. He lowers his head and discovers they're holding hands. He reaches out, but right before touching the girl's cheek, (she) suddenly looks shocked. "You... aren't Doctor Li. Who are you?" Li Shen abruptly wakes up. The alarm resounds, and the holographic screen starts flickering red again. Li Shen takes a deep breath. What did that dream mean? How did the girl see him? It's as if she saw through time and space, through his dreams, to realize he's not the doctor. Li Shen's gaze sweeps over the window sill. The jasmine quietly blooms under the moonlight."

.

.

*1, We can therefore extrapolate that this is some kind of Alternate Universe/parallel timeline, given the difference in how the Wanderers appeared/the state of Earths technology when they did so. *2, See Anecdote: Never Ending Winter.

I can't believe the timing on this; I had this halfway finished when we got the Li Shen main story announcement; of course I blitzed through it, so it could be out in time. I'm still running with my 'the third anecdote is an alternate universe' theory, which you can find referenced via the 'alternate li shen' tag; I can't WAIT for the new story.

Also appalled that I didn't predict something like this coming out after his birthday event. What the heck, the evidence is right there, staring me in the face!

(Also, if you're new here, I use the Chinese names because I'm playing the game in Mandarin, but I wanted this post to reach as many people as possible given the new event! I am here to keep track of information and connect dots, which seems like something we'll be doing a LOT of!)

[blindrapture]

I have been in full-on Recluse Mode lately. in the interest of communicating a little more, let me share with you what games I have been playing lately:

MyHouse.wad (finally! had been meaning to play this for years. I have gotten the default ending and might maybe try to look for more branches of the maze when I feel up to facing all those monsters again.)

FAITH: The Unholy Trinity (fuck, finally, someone made a good horror game. I have gotten the best ending in chapters 1 and 2 and have made it to the final boss of 3.)

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (ah! wow! this is not my kind of horror game. it's honestly a kinda average adventure game but one that has subject matter that makes me feel gross and depressed and not want to play it. which probably means other people will like it a lot more than me, as I am coming to terms with the fact my tastes *are* weird.)

Who's Lila? (oh wow... I was so curious about this one but it's *also* a kinda average adventure game? albeit with a Mario Party minigame permanently attached to the screen that you have to keep playing. the Easy Mode just gives you a lot more time to do that, which is a sign that the developers were simply unable to balance it properly and had to give you a bandaid solution. I may have to just watch some YouTuber play this one, as the story *probably* gets good!)

Cyberpunk 2077 (I found a surprisingly cheap PS4 at a local pawn shop and picked this game up with it. the PS4 is good for watching blu-rays, even more convenient than a dedicated player. for gaming it is *comically* bad. I may have a bias against PlayStation, the fucking failure of a brand whose first-party properties have serious "AI-generated corporate brand" vibes.... but I thought I was just being stupid! but no! the PS4 cannot game. the controller feels like cheap plastic, and the console itself has a cooling fan with the volume of a jet engine and it will *shake my entire bedroom* if I want to play any game, any game at all. even doom 2016, which it should be more than capable of running. the *menus* on doom 2016 push the PS4's fans into overdrive, there is no refuge. in cyberpunk I can at least pause the game every 30 seconds and wait 20 seconds for the fans to go silent, before unpausing and playing for another 30 seconds. ....it's fucking awful. gaming with a permanent headache, my whole body assaulted with noise and vibrations. .......but uh, Cyberpunk itself honestly seems like fun. I don't really give the slightest shit about the aesthetic, but to my surprise they buried a perfectly good game under there. can't say the same about Sony and any perfectly good gaming consoles, though. the PS2 was the last competent console they released, and that's the one I have a *grudge* against, because It killed the Dreamcast. for what!! for decades of garbage consoles afterwards?? get a damn Xbox. or, when you want to actually play games for real and stop fucking around with these childish insecure "GAMING FOR ADULTS" aesthetics, just get a fucking Nintendo, like god intended. mic dropped.)

Doom 2, in QuestZDoom. (in VR. I have the first three Dooms just.. permanently installed on my quest 2, along with Half-Life. this is admittedly still one of the coolest things ever, that I can just play these games in VR whenever I want. anyway, I have never actually played through Doom 2. never done it. never even tried to. so my first playthrough is in VR. I average about 10 maps a day, on the easiest difficulty because I have no shame. I did not know just how troll-y Doom 2 was. I also did not know everyone was just *wrong* about the city levels, I'd always heard the city levels sucked! but no! they're the best part!! I had a blast with the city levels!! god I LOVE mazes!!!)

oh yeah, also, Starfield. (I managed to find a mod that forces the game to not use 4k textures, and that actually solved most of my performance issues. it still stops to load every now and then, but it hasn't crashed to desktop in a long time now. so I went and finished a quest. I do *kinda like* Starfield, I like the promise of freedom, and I automatically love anything that's first-person. I wouldn't mind actually *playing through* Starfield. I already like it more than any Fallout game-- that's just a bias, I find mass media's fixation on Wasteland Post-Apocalyptica to be boring as hell, to the point of ruining whatever good there is to find in the media itself. but it is not as good as Skyrim. maybe it could *compete* with other Bethesda games if it.. was actually optimized properly? but then it wouldn't be a Bethesda game.)

and yeah, I think that's it.

will get back to you when I play more video games.

[doughbrainer]

Hey? Can I Be Bit Crazy About Something Not Miser Fam Related For A Bit? Cool, Thanks.

Okay, So Basically, A Few Days Ago I Had This Weird Dream That Involved @pistachi0art's OC, Arden, And My Half-Life OC.

I Sent Them A Few Asks That Involve The Dream And Stuff Went From There. To Sum Up The Dream, My OC Ate Arden's Heart And Ended Up Having A Child Because That. (I Know, It's Weird. I Was So Embarrassed When I Woke Up That Morning, Remembering The Dream.)

Cutting To The Chase Though, I Decided To Explore That A Bit More And Eventually...

My Half-Life OC Finally Got A Name After Months Without One, And So Did The Child.

I Didn't Add Much Info In The Images As I Want To Elaborate More In The Post. I Don't Want This To Take Up People's Feed Though, So If You Want To Know About Them, Just Press "Keep Reading"

BARLEY

Barley Is The Human Child Of Barney Calhoun And One Of His Previous Exes. When Barney First Went Under Cover For The Resistance, He Got Along With Another Metro Cop, Who Turned Out To Be Under Cover For The Resistance As Well. Stuff Happened Between Them But Their Mother Was Moved To Monitor A Different City, They Kept Contact With Barney As Much As They Could Until Forcefully Cut Off By The Combine, As My Headcanon For The Story Is That Metro Cops Are Not Allowed Contact With Other Cities. Eventually, Barley Was Born Before The Suppression Was Put Into Place And Her Mother Took Care Of Her In Secret, While The Combine Was Completely Oblivious. This When Barley Eventually Was Discovered, Their Mother Saved Them By Abandoning Them But It Costed Their Mother's Life. (Yeah, Sadly Her Mum Is Dead. :/) Barley Was Found By An Unnamed Scientist And Was Cared For By Them Until They Were Old Enough To Safely Walk Around Without Being In A Main Sense Of Danger. They Followed Their Parents Lead And Went Under Cover For The Resistance, This How She Was Eventually Reunited With Her Father, Barney Calhoun.

After The Events Of HL2:EP2, They Made It To White Forest Base, But Managed To Catch The Attention Of G-Man's Employers And Was Forcefully Hired By Them And Was Given The Same Job Title As G-Man. She Doesn't Know How To Do Her Job And Because She Has No Powers Like G-Man, She Continues To Do Most Of The Stuff For The Resistance, Despite It Being Mandatory That She Wears A Suit Nearly 24/7 Unless In Her Personalised Home For Her Or Under Other Necessary Circumstances. Eventually, When Finally Meeting G-Man, He Gave Her The Ability To Move Across Universes And Reality, Although This Is The Only Power She Has, This Is How She Eventually Meets Everybody From The Universe Of Half-Life VR But The Ai Is Self-Aware.

EVERETT

Everett Is (Fanon) Son Of Barley And Arden, Therefore Making Him Benrey's Nephew. He Came To Be When Barley Ended Up Eating Arden's Heart. Despite The Fact That He's Related To Arden, Barley Cares About Him Regardless, As Him Being Her Son Is The Only Reason She Needs To Love Him. Although He Likes Hanging Out With His Uncle Benrey And Considers Joshua One Of His Best Friends. When Everett Is Made Aware Of Who Is Father Is And What He Did To His Uncle, He Finds It Hard To Approach Benrey For Anything Knowing That, As He Feels Somewhat Responsible For His Father's Actions, And Wants To Make Up For The Things He Did, Despite The Fact They Were Out Of His Control. Sometimes, When Thinking About His Parentage, He Scares Himself With The Thought That There's A Part Of His Father That Lives On Through Him.

When He's Young, He Has A Tail, But He Does Eventually Lose It When He Gets A Grasp On His Powers. He's Stretchy Like His Father, He Uses Sweet Voice A Lot When He's Younger, But As He Gets Older, He Uses It Less, Only Really Using It When He's Frustrated Or When Communicating With Benrey, As It Helps His Uncle Understand How Others Feel. He Prefers To Wear Simple Clothes, Like T-Shirts And Shorts As He Likes To Move Around A Lot, It's Also Easier To Repair Simple Clothes If They Get Ruined.

[infosanjay]

What’s Next in Education? Trends Shaping the Future

As an education researcher, I have conducted numerous experiments to uncover the trends shaping the future of education. These trends, driven by technology and a better understanding of learning processes, promise to transform how we teach and learn.

Personalized Learning

Personalized learning adapts to each student's needs, making education more effective. Research shows that using adaptive learning technologies can improve student engagement and performance. For example, my experiments have found that students using productive or personalized learning tools often understand material better and retain information longer.

Blended Learning

Blended learning mixes traditional classroom teaching with online learning or you can use youtube playlist by knowing their length. This approach offers flexibility and lets students learn at their own pace. Studies, including my own, show that blended learning can help students do better than those in traditional classes. It combines the best of both worlds, making learning more accessible and effective.

Project-Based Learning (PBL)

Project-based learning focuses on real-world problems, encouraging students to apply what they learn. My research shows that PBL boosts critical thinking and creativity. Students working on projects tend to be more motivated and develop better problem-solving skills.

Gamification

Gamification adds game elements to learning, making it more engaging. Experiments show that students are more motivated and participate more when learning feels like a game. Points, badges, and leaderboards can make studying fun and competitive.

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

Social and emotional learning helps students develop important life skills. My studies show that SEL improves academic performance and reduces behavioral problems. Students in SEL programs are better at managing their emotions and interacting with others.

Microlearning

Microlearning breaks information into small, easy-to-understand chunks. This method helps students learn complex subjects more effectively. Research, including my own, shows that microlearning improves understanding and retention of information. For instance, knowing the YouTube playlist length can help organize and manage educational content more efficiently.

Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR)

VR and AR provide immersive learning experiences. These technologies can simulate real-world environments, making learning more engaging. My research shows that VR and AR help students understand complex subjects better by allowing them to interact with the material in a hands-on way.

Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning encourages continuous education. As the job market changes, it's important to keep learning new skills. My studies suggest that promoting lifelong learning helps individuals stay competitive and adapt to new challenges.

Learning Analytics

Learning analytics uses data to improve education. By analyzing student performance, educators can make better decisions to support learning. My experiments show that data-driven insights can personalize learning and enhance teaching methods.

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning helps students work together to achieve common goals. This method improves communication and teamwork skills. Research, including my own, shows that students who learn collaboratively tend to do better academically and are better prepared for the workplace.

By understanding and embracing these trends, educators can create more effective and engaging learning environments. 

[kryshafayeguanzon]

5 trend of ICT

The information and communications technology (ICT)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

AI and ML are at the forefront of ICT innovation, enabling machines to learn from data and perform tasks that traditionally required human intelligence. This includes tasks like image recognition, natural language processing, and predictive analytics. AI and ML are being used in a wide range of applications, from self-driving cars to personalized medicine to fraud detection.

Edge Computing

Edge computing is a distributed computing paradigm that brings computing and data storage closer to the source of data, such as smartphones, sensors, and IoT devices. This reduces latency and improves performance, making it ideal for real-time applications and data-intensive tasks. Edge computing is becoming increasingly important as the volume of data generated by IoT devices continues to grow.

cybersecurity

With the increasing reliance on technology, cybersecurity has become a critical concern. Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated and widespread, targeting individuals, businesses, and governments. The ICT industry is responding with advanced security solutions, including threat intelligence, intrusion detection systems, and data encryption.

Blockchain

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that enables secure and transparent transactions. It is being used to develop applications in various sectors, including finance, supply chain management, and healthcare. Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize how we interact with each other and with businesses.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

VR and AR technologies are creating immersive experiences that blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds. VR immerses users in a simulated environment, while AR overlays digital information onto the real world. These technologies are being used in gaming, entertainment, education, and training.

In conclusion, these five trends are shaping the future of ICT, driving innovation and transforming how we live, work, and interact with the world. As these technologies continue to evolve, we can expect to see even more exciting developments