#World Fastest Human Calculator

[isfjmel-phleg]

Bart was raised by a video game.

Kon was raised by TV.

Thad was raised by a computer.

And that's the problem with each of them.

[poetslastdeath]

john and higher ranking reader (i don’t specify the current day rank but it’s very much implied to be higher than his)

heavy hints of dom reader, fem leaning reader this time (couldn’t choose so i flipped a coin and went with fem), cute and short

—————————

reader and john who have known each other since you were just recruits, both grown from hyper soldiers with stars in your eyes to stoic war hardened soliders with more scars than freckles, have known the deafening sound of gunshots longer than you knew compassion.

his youth died years after yours did, you were already a lieutenant then being looked up at by a fumbling yet smooth sergeant price. always a step behind you, always filling the silent air between you too, unrelenting and bright as a dying sun. you wanted to protect that, hold it close, hold and cradle that fire for a little longer until the winds picked up and blew it all away.

it did either way, you watched then left.

better to let him sit alone then look far too close at you, at everything you’ve done, at how you could so easily hurt him but didn’t it every time. look at that stupid thing foolishly named love.

the twin old decaying thing is your chests, some may call it innocence but one far wiser than anyone should be would call it humanity. so you drifted, climbed the ranks, making it farther than a younger you could have guessed. you and john met sparsely after that.

however something always lingered, something else between you two though it only actually played out a few times when it boiled over, usually his poor knees took the brunt of those encounters. some could call it love or lust or they could call it two far too damaged people who cave into each other like waves crashing against rocks. calloused hand in calloused hand.

john, who gets himself into trouble— on the way over you can only sigh without surprise, he was hotheaded in his twenties but now he’s as slow and burning as molten lava— and has to call in a favor to bail him and his team out.

and when you walk in, you’re the only one that notices his slight stutter of breath, chest aching with heavy lingering smoke. it’s like the gravity around you pulls, the world twisting to meet your every step, and eyes are snapped over to you and held like they can do nothing else.

then that’s when the 141 boys know the now slightly deflated shepherd and graves stand no chance.

and they don’t, they fold because they can do nothing against the raspy honey of your voice, it’s allure sounding like a spiders web, thinly veiled poison dripping from cracked lips.

it doesn’t take long, not when you tilt your head as shepherd freezes so still he looks like a statue when you start naming dates and times. insignificant to anyone else, but you know. he knows. anyone could see the threats laid like bear traps behind your words.

and with a fake barely there smile, shepherd and his mutt leave with the slamming of the door.

it’s tense, not quite as tense as when shepherd was in the room, but it’s still like the rest of them don’t quite know what to do with you now, turning to look at their captain then at their lieutenant when john’s eyes are locked on the side of your head.

you look over, meeting his gaze with heavy unreadable eyes, knowing far too well now that keeping emotions in your eyes is the fastest way to having someone kill the light in them.

“thank you, love.” he rasps, you raise an eyebrow and he pauses. glancing away to consider his next steps from here.

“ma’am. thank you, ma’am” he corrects smoothly like he had never said anything else, so naturally that it makes you want to hear his low rough tone whisper it on repeat until he can’t speak.

you nod, eyes flickering over to his team. “hm, pleasure to help.”

they shift, uncomfortable and clearing untrusting of your heavy calculating stare. though you hardly mean to, by now it’s hard to help yourself from making observations almost idly, like how the one you know is “ghost” stands far closer with one of the men then the other one.

you look away from them and back over at john, you shift your weight from one foot to the other and turn in his direction. he follows every movement carefully with shadowed deep eyes.

“i’m done here. you can clear up your own mess, can’t you?” you hear one of his boys shuffle before a hand is placed on his arm in a tight grip, like he was seconds away yelling. you pay no mind to it, far to busy for a puppy’s biting at your ankle.

“i’ll send you a gift.” you pause, watching john again. “a little something about shepherd so his leash should shorten.”

he exhales, careful and slow. you don’t quite know what he’s thinking, no matter how good you’ve gotten he’s also improved.

“thank you, ma’am” he repeats, tilting his head forward. you smile, walking forward, glancing at the clock behind him.

you mumble, “hm, call me if you need me further.”

and when you pass him, you lean over to whisper in his ear, words carefully crafted just for him. “oh and if you want something, then ask for it, baby.”

his shaky exhale tells you everyone you need to know. the door shutting behind you is perfectly timed with his mind sliding back into captain mode.

it’s a pity, he’s far prettier when he isn’t in control.

[chlorinatedpopsicle]

A video of "human calculator" Shakuntala Devi solving complex mathematical equations within seconds.

In 1982, she was awarded the Guinness World Record for fastest human computation. She was assigned a multiplication problem with two random numbers of 13 digits each (7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779) and gave the correct answer (18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730) in 28 seconds.

She travelled to several countries for the purpose of having her talents studied. In 1988, her abilities were tested by Arthur Jenson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Problems given to her included calculating the cube root of 61,629,875 and the seventh root of 170,859,375. Jensen reported that Devi came up with the solutions (395 and 15) before he could write them down in his notebook.

Before all that, in 1977, at Southern Methodist University, she gave the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in 50 seconds. Her answer (546,372,891) was confirmed by calculations done by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation. The computer took longer to solve the problem than Devi did.

Oh, also, in 1979, she wrote the earliest book about homosexuality in India.

(info stolen from Wikipedia)

[lauraneedstochill]

I've never liked to think that Aemond is evil, just someone who's been hurt too much time and time again and saw no justice for it; do you think he's evil? or that there's more to it than simply that? That he genuinely cares about people, his mother, his family?

I do not consider show!Aemond evil — I’d like to believe that, as the definition of the word suggests, you have to be more immoral and wicked, perhaps even a bit sadistic to be downright evil. I see him as calculating, emotionless, cold, and that paired with everything he’s done makes him a villain but not necessarily evil (…yet?).

his current feelings, though? I have no fcking clue because the show is doing a very poor job of explaining them properly. to me, Aemond from Season 1 and Aemond from Season 2 are two different people.

🔪 S1 Aemond, yes, he cared about his mother (she sought justice for him when no one else did, she offered him comfort even when she couldn’t fully understand his struggles), his family (he’d grow up thinking he had to step up and be the responsible one — to eventually take pride in becoming someone his family can rely on), and he knew what loyalty was, despite not being ecstatic about the order of things (Alicent did drill “in the world we must defend our own” into her kids' heads, and you bet, he was the fastest learner). the real tragedy of Aemond — to me — was about his deepest desires and his arrogance clashing with the picture-perfect image he’s grown into and didn’t mind portraying as it got him the love and trust of the ones he cared about, the approval and respect of everyone else. but his desires are too big and burning, and his arrogance is only fuel: of course, he deserves it all and he should take it — and he can take it BUT it will ruin the image he’s crafted and the bonds he’s formed. raised by the woman who put duty above all, can he betray everything she taught him to believe in? there are a few ways things can go from there but all the paths lead to his self-isolation and his downfall, although he keeps trying and trying to prove something till the very end, and it’s sad because it’s relatable — we are all trying, we all hate feeling that we are capable of more but simultaneously aren’t enough. if only he put all that effort somewhere else, maybe he could’ve been happier but we will never know. he dies young.

🔪 but S2 Aemond? they packed his character development in the tiniest bag and it’s never been opened once. the writers are so keen on blaming Aegon for everything, they don’t realize that making Aemond do a 180 because of one unfortunate joke is a disservice to the character. him deciding that regicide and fratricide aren’t a big deal is as wild as it is dumb: there’s no way he didn’t know it would damage his relationships with the very few people who loved him. how long can you milk “he was bullied as a child” before it bites you in the ass and makes your super-cool-much-wow character look like a thin-skinned boy who holds on to every offense instead of idk MOVING ON? because he did get his justice — he got the biggest dragon as a fuck you to the people who made fun of him for not having one, he only got stronger despite losing an eye, he got to be his mom’s most precious son and he DID get Luke killed (even if by mistake, the result is still the same — the bastard who maimed him won’t ever make fun of him again). how is that not enough? who and when decided that Aemond becoming a bully himself would be a great achievement? why holding him accountable for what he did isn’t fair but him being vengeful left and right is praised and cheered for? and he is not complex, I’m sorry, he just isn’t. he’s been robbed of proper reasoning and conflict, and I am getting tired of trying to peer into his one eye to get a hint of emotion while S1 Aemond could at least grant us little outbursts here and there to confirm that he is a human being and he can successfully keep his facade up while also having feelings.

S1 Aemond was many things, all of them fascinating. S2 Aemond makes me want to skip to the scenes of Daemon getting high and scared in some leaking castle (and I’m starting to wonder if maybe that’s the point?).

anyways, I hope Ryan Condal will be out of job when the show is over.

[waytooobsessedwithmcyt]

Decided to do the math on the Spiders Georg post, in order to get the average amount of spiders eaten per year of the world up to three, Spiders Georg would have to eat not 10,000, but 100,000,000 spiders a day

Assuming the average spider weighs 0.01 grams, he eats 1,000,000 grams of food a day, converted to kilograms, he is eating 1000kg a day. There are 2267961850 kilograms of spiders. It will take 2267961.85 days for spiders Georg to consume the entire population of spiders. That is about 6213.59 years. We are safe.

Spider's Georg is eating .694 kilograms per minute. The fastest eater in the world eats 7.6 hotdogs a minute. Each hotdog he eats weighs .0056 kg. That is .042 kilograms a minute. Spiders Georg is not human.

Star nosed moles are the fastest eaters, being able to eat ten mouthfuls of earthworms in 1.3 seconds, I was unfortunately incapable to find anything about how many earthworms a mouthful was, so for the sake of this post, I shall assume it is around 10. I have been getting so many mixed messages on how much worms weigh, anywhere from .25g to .45g but the one I saw the most was .39oz or 11 grams. (Do y'all see how un-fucking-helpful these were?) But I guess we'll go with 11 grams (I do not trust that number) so 1100 grams a second, or 1.1 kg a second. That seems way too fucking high, so I'll be trying the lowest number I saw to prove my point. .25 grams comes out to .011 kg a second, or, .65kg a minute.

Spiders Georg is just a very slow eating star nosed mole. However, this is assuming he eats 24/7, giving him the speed of a star nosed mole, it would take him only 15 minutes a day to consume his quota of making the average amount of spiders eaten by humans 3 per year. HOWEVER! Since Georg, a star nosed mole, is affecting the human population spiders eaten average, we must add all star nosed moles to the human population.

But because fuck me THERE ARE NO ESTIMATES OF STAR NOSED MOLE POPULATIONS. There are roughly 25 per hectare. Calculating its entire area (roughly because nobody gives me a straight answer on this shit), 554, 363. Around 2.5 percent of land is taken up by cities, so about 13,859 miles are unusable. So 540,504 square miles are inhabited. 139989893.4 hectares. 3,499,747,335 star nosed moles.

Total population of humans and star nosed moles: 11,499,747,335

Spiders Georg has to eat 40,000,000,000 spiders a year to keep the population eating 3 spiders on average. 109,589,041 a day. 4566210 an hour. 76104 a minute. 1268 a second. 13 grams a second. .013kg per second. Easily accomplishable by Spiders Georg.

It would take a mere 16 minutes of his day to eat enough to make the entire human population have an average of 3 spiders swallowed.

Sites I used and my math so people may fact check me (I feel like I did something incredibly wrong and the star nosed mole numbers should not be coming out like that)

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/science/underground-gourmet-mole-sets-a-speed-record.html

https://majorleagueeating.com/eaters/106

https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/spiders-gobble-gargantuan-numbers-of-tiny-prey/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/facts/common-earthworm

https://www.newgeography.com/content/001689-how-much-world-covered-cities#:~:text=My%20attention%20was%20recently%20drawn,is%20occupied%20by%20urban%20development.

https://www.esf.edu/aec/adks/mammals/starnosed_mole.php#:~:text=The%20range%20is%20from%20southeastern,organic%20muck%20adjacent%20to%20water.

[wolven91]

Rats in Hats - Chapter 4

While Keest began her flight back to safety, Bruno was tinkering.

The other two fiks had begun to busy themselves. Krahl had started to meticulously unwrap and rewrap her arms and legs with the grubby bandages that remained after she had donated a few to Bruno, or ‘Runt’ as they were calling him offhandedly now. SAM had assured him that accepting this new name would do well for remaining undetected by the fiks as their ignorance of his true biology would keep him as safe as possible. He couldn’t really argue with the fact, plus when he had tried to get Krahl to say ‘Bruno’ she had also struggled like Keest had until both of them gave up.

SAM was still monitoring the pod topside and using its suite, had found that so far, the space buoys hadn't received any signal or sign that rescue was nearby or even on its way. Survival and subtly was the play the human was to rely on for now. SAM didn’t like the idea of Bruno tinkering, but they had calculated that his current project would assist in his survival.

The tinkering in question was due to Bruno being essentially abandoned as the other two went about their business. He had wandered and explored the various alcoves that made up the majority of the cave's walls. One was obviously a sleeping pit. A couple of depressions in the dirt that was covered in furs of various creatures that Bruno couldn't identify. There were two depressions on the ground, one larger, likely Keest's bed and one smaller. At first Bruno wondered which of the other two used it, until he noticed the hammock hanging above the others which had the feeling of 'Tahr' as the owner. She did seem to be ‘off-step’ when compared to the other two.

In another corner, was a bench and another piece of wood, jutting out of the wall. Unlike the table in the middle, this one was not pristine and had the appearance of it being scored, stained, and used heavily. The various tools that were spread across the old wood told Bruno that it was a workbench of sorts.

In the centre was an oddly shaped crossbow. He picked it up, gently removed the bolt and pulled the trigger. The resulting ‘crack’ told him that it at least worked, but it seemed weak, he’d need to pull the wire back himself too. If they got a stronger draw on it, the weapon would be stronger, but the user would need a mechanism for readying the weapon. The fact he was capable of moving the wire without cutting his fingers told him that.

With nothing better to do, he sat at the table, and began to meddle. He was supposed to be an engineer back on the transport before it exploded. He had been following a few aliens about, watching them work, listening to their explanations and wasn’t a slouch when it came to being technically minded. He had classes and lessons to go through, but the practical stuff came naturally to him. SAM also was immeasurably helpful. They had access to not only huge databases worth of mechanical knowledge, but could scan, break down and explain how to improve the device far beyond what Bruno could do on his own. In the end he and SAM had attempted to recreate a ‘Da Vinci’ design with moderate success.

It had been an hour or so when Keest stumbled back into the den. Bruno was still fiddling with the device which had changed shape rapidly as the AI was able to walk him through the fastest and most efficient steps without need for trial and error. Tahr had initially retrieved a knife to throw at the runt when she saw what he was doing to her project. She had spent weeks attempting to build something she dreamt of.

The dark assassin had wanted something to throw her knife further or harder than she could, but discovered that whilst good at spinning in the air, knives generally weren’t suited for being launched. When she stood, eyes wide and furious, a gentle hand grasped her elbow. Krahl. That niggling voice that had started doubting her surety that the world was simple spoke up once more. In an act so rare it was akin to a second sun rising, Tahr walked over to the runt and observed. She said nothing, but peered down her snout with her arms crossed. 

What she discovered was her personal design was still there, to a degree, but the runt had refined it. He plucked the bolt she had been practising with, placed it in the groove, aimed at the soft mud that had the holes of her previous attempts and pulled the trigger. The resulting snap echoed briefly. Looking for the bolt, Tahr couldn’t see it? Had it failed to launch? It took a moment before she saw that not only had a new hole appeared in the soft mud, but the bolt had driven itself so far down that it had disappeared from view.

After briefly touching her fingers over the new hole, Tahr looked down at Runt with a new level of respect. She had watched him modify the weapon towards the end, she may be able to reverse engineer it if she worked hard enough, or even ask him to help her make one for herself.

That was when the runt simply turned the weapon around and offered it to her. Krahl watched silently as Tahr gently, with reverence, took the weapon from the newest member of her clan and looked it over. Tahr was silent, it was strange to have her dumbfounded. She rarely was *given* anything though, she was used to *taking*.

As for Krahl during all of this, the den was awash with the tides of fate. It blinded her to the outside world, beyond their own haven. She found that she was swaying in time with the vast changes to her clan’s fate, happening right here in front of her. It was the *smell* of Keest that brought her back down to reality. The smell of her blood.

"Sah! Keest?!"

Tahr's head whipped round and ran across the room, the weapon clattering onto the table in the middle leaving Krahl’s rough earthen mug rattling and spinning.

"The chief has gone mad." Keest gasped, leaning against the entrance to the cavern with a bloodied forearm.

Tahr tried to support Keest who's arms and body ran red with her blood, but the towering fik brushed her off, trying to assure her two 'family' members that she was fine. She took a step forward before her knee visibly buckled and she fell forwards. Her two fik sisters crouching down either side to offer reassurance, but unsure of how to help. Injuries were always dangerous to fiks, there were no tinkerers who could fix the flesh, not anymore. Keest had been injured plenty of times in the past, but never this grievously.

Krahl hated the fact that she felt fate's icy grip reaching for her Keest and saw no path that could change it.

Bruno had joined them at this point, Keest could see that beneath the mask, his eyes were wide and worried. He didn't really know these aliens, but Bruno was never one to be cold or uncaring. The idea that one of the three that had taken him into their home was hurt, did not sit well with him, not to mention he had a soft spot for the, so far, gentle giant. ‘Survival’ he thought to himself, deciding how to help and his justification at the same time.

He pushed past the other two fiks and reached out to Keest's hand, her hand seemed to dwarf his. His own grasped only a few of her fingers, but she didn't pull away, rather; she stared at him, curious as to his actions. When he gently pulled her towards the table, she forced herself to move, standing and stomping forwards without resistance. She allowed herself to be led and sat when indicated as the other two fiks watched.

Krahl and Tahr shared a glance before joining them at the table. Gods and Runts, fate and the shattering of expectations, what was the small creature’s plan? Krahl tried not to show it, but she was fearful, she could not see another path of Keest, her path was one that ended, and soon.

Keest breathed heavily, the gouges that were raked across her arms, parted the flesh in alarmingly large swaths. They wept openly, small rivulets of the bright red blood dribbling down her arms, dripping onto the floor below, a significant trail had followed her. Her tail was also ruined; the end was completely gone with only ruined threads of flesh dragging along in the dirt.

The air stank of copper.

Bruno reached under the cloak, past the small survival knife concealed there and toward the first aid kit. SAM immediately warned him against showing the alien's this; not only would this immediately break any illusion that he was one of them, but may irrevocably adjust the course of their development as a species.

“The greatest chance for survival is the protection of an established ally.” He whispered quietly to himself and SAM, frozen in his action of kneeling by the grey giant. In his opinion, it was the moment of truth, of placing his trust in these creatures and the hope that they wouldn't betray him. SAM didn’t respond, there were too many variables, there would be consequences for his actions, depending on how much it affected these primitive’s development he could be considered a criminal. But the logic was sound, whatever creature did this, it was near and could theoretically follow the trail back to their home. SAM remained silent as Bruno revealed it to the surrounding fiks.

From the group’s perspective, Runt had pulled Keest to sit by the table and had knelt by her. For a time he was still, but all three heard him murmuring to himself. Keest, Tahr and Krahl all immediately recognised a prayer when they saw one, it could have even been a blessing even. It was when he produced a small metal item that drew their attention further, but deepened their confusion.

The kit itself was a small round cylinder, gun metal grey, except for the white circle and the thick, bold, red cross in the centre, a human symbol, but adopted by the wider community amongst the stars. The canister contained 5 doses of the deep blue emergency medical nanites. One jab into the bloodstream near the site of a physical wound would, over the course of a few minutes to an hour, depending on the severity, close and heal the injury in short order. Their introduction was a miracle to some. To humanity, it was science fiction, to the rest of the Galactic Community it was no different than a common light bulb.

From the gathered fik’s point of view... It was magic. From the moment the needle pierced Keest’s flesh, Krahl’s map of the future was suddenly awash with countless other possibilities. It was if in a flash a great tree with unending branching paths had grown from a dead stump.  

There were more paths than Krahl had ever seen before… 

It was well known that magic existed, at least in one form or another. Most fiks merely bore witness to it with their role in their society. Fiks tended to gravitate towards certain careers within their society. Keest had begun as the runt of her mother's brood but had grown swiftly and evenly as she hit puberty and found her disposition suited guardian work. Eventually her ability to simply charge into frays with little concern had gained her a reputation as a berserker, but she had always remained in control unlike those who lost themselves to a frenzy. Tahr had always had an innate ability to remain undetected and quiet, assassination and reconnaissance had suited her well. It was unusual for one of her kind to work so closely with Keest’s. Meanwhile Krahl was born an ermin and would die an ermin. They were the guides or those who dipped their whiskers into the unseen world of the gods and while Ermins didn't cast magic, they listened to it.

It was the only reason they were not killed alongside those that had used magic in the past.

Strange creatures that could cure the sick, create light from liquids and braved the storms with metal rods with wires dragging after them. Tinkerers. Tinkerers of the dirt, body and machines.

The Chief had announced years ago, with the help of his seer, that these creatures would lead the clan to their doom, so he led the massacre on them all those years ago when he came to power.

Now Keest was watching as Runt gently jabbed her with a small strange looking needle. She had thought that he was going to stitch her wounds up, but without touching it himself, the three brutal gouges in her arms began to seal. It wasn’t instant, to Keest; at first it just tingled before the bleeding stopped and darkened rapidly. Keest was no stranger to wounds, her flesh held hundreds of scars and she had watched all of them heal over time with morbid curiosity, up to and including being told off for picking at the scabs. But now, as if time was running quicker for her, her flesh scabbed, healed, and scarred in no more than twenty minutes.

Krahl glanced at Keest, who’s eyes flicked to Tahr. They had a magic user; a tinkerer and a powerful one too.

There hadn’t been a tinkerer since the slaughter and ‘magic’ in any form had stagnated. Sure, fiks had used what was already known, but nothing new had appeared since their wholesale destruction.

Keest stood, already trying to form a plan, before lurching and toppling over. She found she was suddenly lightheaded, and unbelievably tired. All three of the other occupants of the room rushed to her side, Runt, having no hope as to actually holding her up despite a valiant effort on his part.

Her muscles felt weak, shaky, it reminded her of her childhood and a time of little food. She grimaced at the memory of bitter roots that she ate to stave off starvation.

"Heal. Need sleep." Runt said, surprising all of them. His voice was odd, muffled, yet not. It was as if he spoke with two voices, one within his mask and another, different voice of the mask itself.

"You use magic?" She asked, being helped towards the beds.

He shook his head from left to right, a strange faulty mimic of a fik shaking their head in frustration or boredom. It didn't feel like he was frustrated or bored by any stretch. Thankfully, the small runt spoke as Keest collapsed into the furs.

"No, just smarts. Flesh with blood." His words weren't right, he was speaking, but reaching for the wrong words.

"Sah, what happened? The Chief did this?" Asked Tahr, reattaching her knife sheath. Her tail lashed from left to right as she paced. She was agitated, ready for a fight.

"His seer has given a prophecy." Keest stated, flexing her hand, turning her arm to and fro, watching the new scars pull and twist. They were deep, muscle deep and yet looked years old now. She had skipped past the whole healing process, but was left feeling weak.

Krahl sighed at the news, her brow furrowing with worry, but she remained silent and Keest continued.

"She has seen his end; he is now seeing shadows move. Demands a spy’s head."

"An assassin?" Tahr asked, even more animated now, checking and triple checking her blades were pulling free from their sheaths with ease. Bruno leaned back and watched her long tail hook one of her belts that was filled with blades and bring it over into her arm's reach. ‘A useful appendage’ he mused.

"He thinks so, he will-"

"Ha!" Krahl started and glanced at the door. "Tahr." the albino started, but the dark blur was already running towards the door, snatching one last belt from the table. The tip of her tail was the last thing to be seen before it too was swallowed by the shadows. Krahl had sensed something, something important was moving nearby, but needed to be observed.

Keest was nervous, she had been wounded, but not killed, once more fate being shattered. She dwelled on this, her wounds, if they had not stopped bleeding, may have taken her life. At the very least she would have been at a disadvantage with fresh openings in her flesh, but the runt's magic had cured her. But as with all miracles, it was not without its cost. She was drained completely. She felt weak, if the Chief walked in now, they wouldn’t stand a chance. By Tarquin’s Dark Dreams, even if a runt walked in right now she’d struggle to fight them off.

Keest caught herself drifting to sleep, her head bobbing backwards, waiting for Tahr to return from Krahl's alert. The ermin often foresaw events in the warren, but without one of the trio actually going to see what was happening, they would miss whatever the excitement was.

Keest's tail languidly flopped from one side to the other. The tip was missing, what was now the end, was a blunt stump, shortened by a foot, but it too was completely healed over. Damage like that would have been evident for months without the runt’s magic…

She simply couldn’t get past it in her mind. Everyone had heard the stories and formed their own opinion as to whether the tinkerers and their magic was good or bad, but now Keest had been directly subjected to it.

Runt crouched down next to her and placed a hand against her arm. It was warm, gentle, and calming, a far cry from most fiks that twitched and rarely stayed still for long. She reached up and clasped his hand with hers, gave it a squeeze and fell backwards to lie across her bed. Her eyelids drooped as the sound of pattering feet brought her back. Tahr had returned.

"A speech. The Chief has called a gathering." She declared to the group, she had simply listened in the darkness as other fiks ran past towards the main cavern of the warren.

Keest began to rise, but Runt reached out and stopped her by putting hands against either shoulder. She stopped moving at the gesture. It wasn't that he was strong enough to stop her, it was the concept that he'd try.

"Tahr and I will go. You stay with Runt; we will return with information." Krahl stated with finality, brokering no argument.

Keest glanced from Krahl, to Tahr before side eyeing Runt who was quivering but still resisting her. He could have been actually trying to push her back down, but she neither noticed nor cared; she'd lie down when she wanted to. She considered the plan, she didn’t like Krahl going out, but with Tahr, the danger to either of her family should be lessened.

"Fine. Be safe." Keest said firmly, before flopping back down, with Runt falling forwards. He had apparently been pushing against her with everything he had and now, with the resistance suddenly gone, had fallen on top of her in a pile. The other two left with separate chuckles while Keest grinned to herself as she felt Runt scramble up and off of her. He reminded her of other males, of those that were nervous around her. She had mated before, but it was with other fiks that had similar traits and personalities to her, she didn’t like that. They always had something to prove, fought her at every turn, never seemingly needing her as they could provide for themselves for everything. She had liked the other, smaller fiks, though. The idea of protecting them, of looking after them; it appealed to her at a fundamental level.

But fiks, as they were at the moment, would never trust her, or anyone, enough to be protected by someone else, and likewise she’d be foolish to trust other fiks. For one to trust her or allow her to defend them? To sleep deeply and soundly while she watched over them? No matter how much she desired it, it simply was the wrong time in their history for it to be.

She looked up at the runt with half lidded eyes, still wrapped in bandages with his strange legs, he was displaced, he was not one of the clan and did not act like one of them either.

It had been only a few hours but it already felt as if he was one of them, despite his strange origins. She thought briefly to those, how he fell from the twinkling lights. How his legs weren't like theirs, how his hands and fingers looked nothing like any fik she had seen before, runt or otherwise.

And she didn't care.

He knelt at her side, his covered arms and hands limp in his lap as he returned her gaze. As her own eyes began to close, blinking slowly, he yawned. The mask obscured his whole face, bar the exposed furless skin where the mask ended and the shawl began, but it seemed to be universal as he raised a wrist to where his mouth would be, as if to cover it while his chest expanded.

She reached out, snatched his arm and pulled him down onto the furs with her. Whether he wasn't expecting it or she once again underestimated her strength, Keest wasn't sure, but he barely had a moment to register before the runt fell forwards, rolled over his shoulders and landed against her front, his back pressing into her, squeaking a tiny muffled yelp.

Her left arm was underneath his body, compressed into the furs while her right she draped over his ribs and curled it around him. She lifted a leg and placed it over his, protecting him, in her own way.

He panicked at first, as she expected. The smaller ones tended to panic around her and often apologised to Keest even if they weren't at fault. Honestly, it was a source of amusement and a warm feeling within her chest when they were flustered. She loved it when the skinny ones were flustered. But she didn't want him to be panicking or worried, so she whispered to him quietly.

"Saaah, it's okay... Rest little one. Tomorrow will be a day of days... yes yes..." She promised, and as if on cue, he began to settle. Quietening his excuses and, although it was not instant, as she was drifting away, he too physically relaxed in her arms, his body uncoiling and pressing against her front. They lay there together for a time, both breathing as one, although Keest's mighty bellows took in longer, deeper breaths while runt's were smaller and far more shallow. He was warm to her skin, despite the bandages muting her touch against him. Her claws gently raked up and down his arm and she rubbed the soft fur of her cheek against the back of his neck and head as they both drifted.

As she lost consciousness Keest had the goofiest grin on her face.

===*===

It was only a short time later from Keest losing consciousness with Runt held against her that Krahl and Tahr arrived at the upper corridors to the central chamber that housed the sea of fiks that made up the entire nest or 'clan'. It was a truly cosmopolitan mix of types. Fiks of every shade of fur, or every height and size, all come together to hear the Chieftain speak. Tahr didn't like the crowds, so insisted on reaching the upper balconies rather than go down into the crowd itself.

Oh sure, no drinks would be available up here, nor any food unlike the huge market at the bottom, but, as Tahr planned, if anything went wrong down in the crush of fiks, they would not be included and have a better than good opportunity to escape. Krahl hadn't been privy to these plans but hadn't questioned the quiet assassin when she felt them go along a different path. She felt no major trouble with following the enigmatic fik, even with her threads of fate so quiet.

To Krahl, her lack of sight was made up by the scents of each living person's threads. Animals and creatures that could not think did not have them, but fiks and the runt, had a stream of... something, following them and flowing around them. This is what Krahl sensed when she gave advice or instruction of what path to follow. The threads were not clear, but often gave a hint as to what would happen if Krahl or the owner followed a particular future.

Krahl had crossed paths with Keest early and had seen herself far happier than she had ever seen herself before while standing next to Keest. Selfishly, she had involved herself with Keest without her input and ensured that the ermin had been useful in the short term so that Keest would not chase her off.

With Tahr however, her threads were thin and almost imperceptible. It was as if Krahl was sensing Tahr's threads hours after she had walked past, like a scent lost on the wind. Maybe it was her low-profile nature, or perhaps it was Tahr's certainty that Krahl was simply guessing. Tahr had made her opinions of gods and signs very clear in the past, in that they didn't exist. The world was the world, the dirt beneath one's claws was as it was and scents were merely bits of the owner, left behind and perceived by the tracker.

Keest and Krahl often laughed at some of Tahr's theories. It wouldn't surprise the ermin if Tahr was right though; she was incredibly intelligent and often spent her free time tinkering and inventing things, if she had more successes, she could have passed *for* a tinkerer. Recently she had been working on an arm mounted thrower, that could fire small spears over short distances, she was quite proud if not frustrated that she had stalled in its development. After Runt’s involvement, Krahl wondered how Tahr found him now.

Tahr leaned on the edge of a wall that overlooked the expansive cavern, the rolling mass of bodies down in the depths looked more like a writhing beehive than a nest of fiks. The body heat shimmered upwards and the walls sweated. To Krahl, she stood with Tahr but needed no reason to look out the opening. She could feel the heartbeat of the nest, even from up here where only a few of the like minded fiks had joined them. She closed her eyes, the darkness she lived in didn’t change but she sensed the thrum of her clan.

Tahr considered the Chief’s tower across the empty expanse, the den at the top held up by a thick central column with a spiral ramp all the way up made it a defensible home. Despite wanting to hear what the chief had to say, no one ventured up the ramp itself. More often than not, those who went up came back no longer whole, a clipped ear, a rent eyebrow. ‘A missing tail’ Tahr thought grimly. Besides Keest, The Baron was the last one to climb it and had descended shortly after in a foul mood.

Keest had been a known favoured soldier of the Chief for the longest time, famous in her own right. Now that the Chief had tried to kill her, both Tahr and Krahl had come to the same conclusion that he had to die or they would die in his place. If he was as paranoid as Keest had said, he may even seek her death if only to prevent her from seeking revenge. Quite rightly if any of them were to be honest.

A figure appeared at the top of the Chief's ramp, even at this distance, the sheer bulk of the beast as a sight to behold and the low level hissing of conversation below quietened.

He had addressed the warren like this once before, bellowing his mighty voice out to all to hear as if he himself were a god. After he had slain the previous chief for being weak, he had addressed the nest to alert them that the greatest danger was from within. He had built the clan up into a feverous pitch, with his words of betrayal by those within the clan itself.

In the end he had identified the tinkerers as the perpetrators to all that had befallen the clan, that they had meddled in works that had angered the gods and if they continued to live would only cause strife, misery and death. He had led the charge, had barrelled down the ramp and into the crowd to show he was one of the fiks rather than separate. He had never mingled with the fik after that day, instead sequestering himself in his tower.

Tahr considered now if that had been the right path saying how he was acting now.

“My clan! I speak to you now with grave news! When we began this new prosperous era, we slew those who would have led us astray! Now, a new threat stalks our home. It will snatch your children from their beds, steal the food from your very mouths and has already stuck at the heart of our clan!”

His voice echoed off the walls, his words clear and powerful. He had lost some of his charisma from years ago, but he still was the largest fik and still was capable of demanding attention in sheer brute strength; more than enough to control the clan as it was. They were aimless, they needed this strength.

“Earlier this evening, before the storm, the Baron sent several agents into our home. Despite our strength, they slinked into my own den and slew the Seer.”

He paused to allow a ripple of shock and murmuring to bounce around the cavern. Even Tahr and Krahl were taken aback. Thanks to Keest’s connection with the chief, even those two had met the old Seer who had offered blessing and boons to the two of them in supporting Keest and the Chief.

“I fought bravely and savaged the creature, she was severely wounded; her tail…” The figure atop the column, held something aloft before throwing it down into the masses. “Was removed before she fled. Seek the wounded one, seek the bandaged female. Bring her to me, break her limbs if you must, but bring her alive. Those that succeed will be rewarded like nothing you have witnessed before!”

Again he paused to let the words sink in. ‘At least Keest is healed’ thought Tahr as she considered the ramifications. ‘Thank the gods for Runt.’ She rapidly gained a new appreciation for him at this point, Keest meant everything to Tahr, she had given the assassin a new life after sparing her. They’d never discussed it, but it meant more than Tahr had ever let on.

“Next, is the spy. It is a creature not of us. This is more than just tinkerer or ermin. This *thing* is not fik. It is a demon, an imp, an unclean rot that will kill us all if it is not killed first. I do not care if it is brought to me alive, its body is all I need, so that I may sleep soundly with the knowledge that our young will not be consumed.” He roared into the crowd.

“He lays it on thick, yes?” Krahl said humorlessly, all respect for the leader, long gone, her arms were crossed as she leant against a nearby wall.

Regardless of the Chief’s acting, his message was received and the cavern below became a hive of activity. The fiks were visibly surging up the various paths, seemingly taking the call for the clan to protect its own very seriously. They flooded the lower tunnels in an alarming display.

“We should return…” Krahl said quietly, frowning. Tahr was already there, nodding absently and beginning to trek back towards the secret cavern. Krahl tried to sense forward, to see if danger would find the den before they returned, but could not reach that far. It was foolish to try, but her hands itched in worry.

[niobefurens]

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art.

By Ted Chiang The New Yorker; August 31, 2024

In 1953, Roald Dahl published “The Great Automatic Grammatizator,” a short story about an electrical engineer who secretly desires to be a writer. One day, after completing construction of the world’s fastest calculating machine, the engineer realizes that “English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness.” He constructs a fiction-writing machine that can produce a five-thousand-word short story in thirty seconds; a novel takes fifteen minutes and requires the operator to manipulate handles and foot pedals, as if he were driving a car or playing an organ, to regulate the levels of humor and pathos. The resulting novels are so popular that, within a year, half the fiction published in English is a product of the engineer’s invention.

Is there anything about art that makes us think it can’t be created by pushing a button, as in Dahl’s imagination? Right now, the fiction generated by large language models like ChatGPT  is terrible, but one can imagine that such programs might improve in the future. How good could they get? Could they get better than humans at writing fiction—or making paintings or movies—in the same way that calculators are better at addition and subtraction?

Art is notoriously hard to define, and so are the differences between good art and bad art. But let me offer a generalization: art is something that results from making a lot of choices. This might be easiest to explain if we use fiction writing as an example. When you are writing fiction, you are—consciously or unconsciously—making a choice about almost every word you type; to oversimplify, we can imagine that a ten-thousand-word short story requires something on the order of ten thousand choices. When you give a generative-A.I. program a prompt, you are making very few choices; if you supply a hundred-word prompt, you have made on the order of a hundred choices.

If an A.I. generates a ten-thousand-word story based on your prompt, it has to fill in for all of the choices that you are not making. There are various ways it can do this. One is to take an average of the choices that other writers have made, as represented by text found on the Internet; that average is equivalent to the least interesting choices possible, which is why A.I.-generated text is often really bland. Another is to instruct the program to engage in style mimicry, emulating the choices made by a specific writer, which produces a highly derivative story. In neither case is it creating interesting art.

I think the same underlying principle applies to visual art, although it’s harder to quantify the choices that a painter might make. Real paintings bear the mark of an enormous number of decisions. By comparison, a person using a text-to-image program like dall-e enters a prompt such as “A knight in a suit of armor fights a fire-breathing dragon,” and lets the program do the rest. (The newest version of dall-e accepts prompts of up to four thousand characters—hundreds of words, but not enough to describe every detail of a scene.) Most of the choices in the resulting image have to be borrowed from similar paintings found online; the image might be exquisitely rendered, but the person entering the prompt can’t claim credit for that.

Some commentators imagine that image generators will affect visual culture as much as the advent of photography once did. Although this might seem superficially plausible, the idea that photography is similar to generative A.I. deserves closer examination. When photography was first developed, I suspect it didn’t seem like an artistic medium because it wasn’t apparent that there were a lot of choices to be made; you just set up the camera and start the exposure. But over time people realized that there were a vast number of things you could do with cameras, and the artistry lies in the many choices that a photographer makes. It might not always be easy to articulate what the choices are, but when you compare an amateur’s photos to a professional’s, you can see the difference. So then the question becomes: Is there a similar opportunity to make a vast number of choices using a text-to-image generator? I think the answer is no. An artist—whether working digitally or with paint—implicitly makes far more decisions during the process of making a painting than would fit into a text prompt of a few hundred words.

We can imagine a text-to-image generator that, over the course of many sessions, lets you enter tens of thousands of words into its text box to enable extremely fine-grained control over the image you’re producing; this would be something analogous to Photoshop with a purely textual interface. I’d say that a person could use such a program and still deserve to be called an artist. The film director Bennett Miller has used dall-e 2 to generate some very striking images that have been exhibited at the Gagosian gallery; to create them, he crafted detailed text prompts and then instructed dall-e to revise and manipulate the generated images again and again. He generated more than a hundred thousand images to arrive at the twenty images in the exhibit. But he has said that he hasn’t been able to obtain comparable results on later releases of dall-e. I suspect this might be because Miller was using dall-e for something it’s not intended to do; it’s as if he hacked Microsoft Paint to make it behave like Photoshop, but as soon as a new version of Paint was released, his hacks stopped working. OpenAI probably isn’t trying to build a product to serve users like Miller, because a product that requires a user to work for months to create an image isn’t appealing to a wide audience. The company wants to offer a product that generates images with little effort.

It’s harder to imagine a program that, over many sessions, helps you write a good novel. This hypothetical writing program might require you to enter a hundred thousand words of prompts in order for it to generate an entirely different hundred thousand words that make up the novel you’re envisioning. It’s not clear to me what such a program would look like. Theoretically, if such a program existed, the user could perhaps deserve to be called the author. But, again, I don’t think companies like OpenAI want to create versions of ChatGPT that require just as much effort from users as writing a novel from scratch. The selling point of generative A.I. is that these programs generate vastly more than you put into them, and that is precisely what prevents them from being effective tools for artists.

The companies promoting generative-A.I. programs claim that they will unleash creativity. In essence, they are saying that art can be all inspiration and no perspiration—but these things cannot be easily separated. I’m not saying that art has to involve tedium. What I’m saying is that art requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate “large-scale” with “important” when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.

Believing that inspiration outweighs everything else is, I suspect, a sign that someone is unfamiliar with the medium. I contend that this is true even if one’s goal is to create entertainment rather than high art. People often underestimate the effort required to entertain; a thriller novel may not live up to Kafka’s ideal of a book—an “axe for the frozen sea within us”—but it can still be as finely crafted as a Swiss watch. And an effective thriller is more than its premise or its plot. I doubt you could replace every sentence in a thriller with one that is semantically equivalent and have the resulting novel be as entertaining. This means that its sentences—and the small-scale choices they represent—help to determine the thriller’s effectiveness.

Many novelists have had the experience of being approached by someone convinced that they have a great idea for a novel, which they are willing to share in exchange for a fifty-fifty split of the proceeds. Such a person inadvertently reveals that they think formulating sentences is a nuisance rather than a fundamental part of storytelling in prose. Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.

Of course, most pieces of writing, whether articles or reports or e-mails, do not come with the expectation that they embody thousands of choices. In such cases, is there any harm in automating the task? Let me offer another generalization: any writing that deserves your attention as a reader is the result of effort expended by the person who wrote it. Effort during the writing process doesn’t guarantee the end product is worth reading, but worthwhile work cannot be made without it. The type of attention you pay when reading a personal e-mail is different from the type you pay when reading a business report, but in both cases it is only warranted when the writer put some thought into it.

Recently, Google aired a commercial during the Paris Olympics for Gemini, its competitor to OpenAI’s GPT-4. The ad shows a father using Gemini to compose a fan letter, which his daughter will send to an Olympic athlete who inspires her. Google pulled the commercial after widespread backlash from viewers; a media professor called it “one of the most disturbing commercials I’ve ever seen.” It’s notable that people reacted this way, even though artistic creativity wasn’t the attribute being supplanted. No one expects a child’s fan letter to an athlete to be extraordinary; if the young girl had written the letter herself, it would likely have been indistinguishable from countless others. The significance of a child’s fan letter—both to the child who writes it and to the athlete who receives it—comes from its being heartfelt rather than from its being eloquent.

Many of us have sent store-bought greeting cards, knowing that it will be clear to the recipient that we didn’t compose the words ourselves. We don’t copy the words from a Hallmark card in our own handwriting, because that would feel dishonest. The programmer Simon Willison has described the training for large language models as “money laundering for copyrighted data,” which I find a useful way to think about the appeal of generative-A.I. programs: they let you engage in something like plagiarism, but there’s no guilt associated with it because it’s not clear even to you that you’re copying.

Some have claimed that large language models are not laundering the texts they’re trained on but, rather, learning from them, in the same way that human writers learn from the books they’ve read. But a large language model is not a writer; it’s not even a user of language. Language is, by definition, a system of communication, and it requires an intention to communicate. Your phone’s auto-complete may offer good suggestions or bad ones, but in neither case is it trying to say anything to you or the person you’re texting. The fact that ChatGPT can generate coherent sentences invites us to imagine that it understands language in a way that your phone’s auto-complete does not, but it has no more intention to communicate.

It is very easy to get ChatGPT to emit a series of words such as “I am happy to see you.” There are many things we don’t understand about how large language models work, but one thing we can be sure of is that ChatGPT is not happy to see you. A dog can communicate that it is happy to see you, and so can a prelinguistic child, even though both lack the capability to use words. ChatGPT feels nothing and desires nothing, and this lack of intention is why ChatGPT is not actually using language. What makes the words “I’m happy to see you” a linguistic utterance is not that the sequence of text tokens that it is made up of are well formed; what makes it a linguistic utterance is the intention to communicate something.

Because language comes so easily to us, it’s easy to forget that it lies on top of these other experiences of subjective feeling and of wanting to communicate that feeling. We’re tempted to project those experiences onto a large language model when it emits coherent sentences, but to do so is to fall prey to mimicry; it’s the same phenomenon as when butterflies evolve large dark spots on their wings that can fool birds into thinking they’re predators with big eyes. There is a context in which the dark spots are sufficient; birds are less likely to eat a butterfly that has them, and the butterfly doesn’t really care why it’s not being eaten, as long as it gets to live. But there is a big difference between a butterfly and a predator that poses a threat to a bird.

A person using generative A.I. to help them write might claim that they are drawing inspiration from the texts the model was trained on, but I would again argue that this differs from what we usually mean when we say one writer draws inspiration from another. Consider a college student who turns in a paper that consists solely of a five-page quotation from a book, stating that this quotation conveys exactly what she wanted to say, better than she could say it herself. Even if the student is completely candid with the instructor about what she’s done, it’s not accurate to say that she is drawing inspiration from the book she’s citing. The fact that a large language model can reword the quotation enough that the source is unidentifiable doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s going on.

As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.

Not all writing needs to be creative, or heartfelt, or even particularly good; sometimes it simply needs to exist. Such writing might support other goals, such as attracting views for advertising or satisfying bureaucratic requirements. When people are required to produce such text, we can hardly blame them for using whatever tools are available to accelerate the process. But is the world better off with more documents that have had minimal effort expended on them? It would be unrealistic to claim that if we refuse to use large language models, then the requirements to create low-quality text will disappear. However, I think it is inevitable that the more we use large language models to fulfill those requirements, the greater those requirements will eventually become. We are entering an era where someone might use a large language model to generate a document out of a bulleted list, and send it to a person who will use a large language model to condense that document into a bulleted list. Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?

It’s not impossible that one day we will have computer programs that can do anything a human being can do, but, contrary to the claims of the companies promoting A.I., that is not something we’ll see in the next few years. Even in domains that have absolutely nothing to do with creativity, current A.I. programs have profound limitations that give us legitimate reasons to question whether they deserve to be called intelligent at all.

The computer scientist François Chollet has proposed the following distinction: skill is how well you perform at a task, while intelligence is how efficiently you gain new skills. I think this reflects our intuitions about human beings pretty well. Most people can learn a new skill given sufficient practice, but the faster the person picks up the skill, the more intelligent we think the person is. What’s interesting about this definition is that—unlike I.Q. tests—it’s also applicable to nonhuman entities; when a dog learns a new trick quickly, we consider that a sign of intelligence.

In 2019, researchers conducted an experiment in which they taught rats how to drive. They put the rats in little plastic containers with three copper-wire bars; when the mice put their paws on one of these bars, the container would either go forward, or turn left or turn right. The rats could see a plate of food on the other side of the room and tried to get their vehicles to go toward it. The researchers trained the rats for five minutes at a time, and after twenty-four practice sessions, the rats had become proficient at driving. Twenty-four trials were enough to master a task that no rat had likely ever encountered before in the evolutionary history of the species. I think that’s a good demonstration of intelligence.

Now consider the current A.I. programs that are widely acclaimed for their performance. AlphaZero, a program developed by Google’s DeepMind, plays chess better than any human player, but during its training it played forty-four million games, far more than any human can play in a lifetime. For it to master a new game, it will have to undergo a similarly enormous amount of training. By Chollet’s definition, programs like AlphaZero are highly skilled, but they aren’t particularly intelligent, because they aren’t efficient at gaining new skills. It is currently impossible to write a computer program capable of learning even a simple task in only twenty-four trials, if the programmer is not given information about the task beforehand.

Self-driving cars trained on millions of miles of driving can still crash into an overturned trailer truck, because such things are not commonly found in their training data, whereas humans taking their first driving class will know to stop. More than our ability to solve algebraic equations, our ability to cope with unfamiliar situations is a fundamental part of why we consider humans intelligent. Computers will not be able to replace humans until they acquire that type of competence, and that is still a long way off; for the time being, we’re just looking for jobs that can be done with turbocharged auto-complete.

Despite years of hype, the ability of generative A.I. to dramatically increase economic productivity remains theoretical. (Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs released a report titled “Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”) The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

Some individuals have defended large language models by saying that most of what human beings say or write isn’t particularly original. That is true, but it’s also irrelevant. When someone says “I’m sorry” to you, it doesn’t matter that other people have said sorry in the past; it doesn’t matter that “I’m sorry” is a string of text that is statistically unremarkable. If someone is being sincere, their apology is valuable and meaningful, even though apologies have previously been uttered. Likewise, when you tell someone that you’re happy to see them, you are saying something meaningful, even if it lacks novelty.

Something similar holds true for art. Whether you are creating a novel or a painting or a film, you are engaged in an act of communication between you and your audience. What you create doesn’t have to be utterly unlike every prior piece of art in human history to be valuable; the fact that you’re the one who is saying it, the fact that it derives from your unique life experience and arrives at a particular moment in the life of whoever is seeing your work, is what makes it new. We are all products of what has come before us, but it’s by living our lives in interaction with others that we bring meaning into the world. That is something that an auto-complete algorithm can never do, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

[thebookbin]

I need my fellow white gays to take a step back.

If I see another white American saying they unequivocally support Disney in their lawsuit against Ron DeSantis in Florida, I am going to scream. One of my most favorite authors disappointed me deeply this week by condemning those of us who are not cheering for total Disney dominance here on tumblr.

Just because your whiteness and your Americanness shields you from having to confront that Disney helped the genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as late as 2020 does not mean the just of us can swallow that pill. This was a cold and calculated choice to maintain profits. When Disney was brought before a Human Rights Tribunal and questioned not only why they filmed in Xinjiang but thanked the government profusely (groveling on their knees to keep the CCP happy so they could air Mulan in China's billion dollar market), they responded with "the benefits outweigh the risks." Americans just don't care.

That is only one example out of thousands. If there is something evil going on in the world, Disney has their grubby hands in the pot (including ties to Epstein). Before all of this nonsense they were funding the campaigns of Republicans who signed and backed the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

If you are a Disney Adult, there is no hope for you. You will always choose your expensive mouse-shaped ice cream and minimum wage workers in fancy costumes and your own escapism, over the lives and dignity of others. It disgusts me.

Disney is not taking a moral stand. They are making a business decision.

Disney does not care about you, they do not care about trans kids, they do not care about marriage equality, representation, or your basic human rights. They do not care about creativity, or storytelling, or art. All they care about it money. It's not a moral failing, either. THAT'S WHAT CORPORTATIONS EXIST TO DO. MAKE MONEY. The fact that you are falling for their marketing scheme to take your money only goes to show how effective it is.

I am a lesbian. I am an activist. I care deeply about what is happening right now in this country, most especially to the trans community. We need to be fighting. We need to protect them, and protect each other.

However selling your soul to the devil to do it is the fastest way to get us all to hell.

Did anybody even notice the 2nd biggest bank failure in US history happened over the weekend? And self-described "Diversity Activists" helped it happen.

A note for those of you who won't click the link. The language of inclusion has long been co-opted by the corporate class and everybody's falling for it.

Right now, Disney operates a kingdom inside the US. And no, not the "fun" kind. Reedy Creek Improvement District functions like sovereign state or a tribal nation. They have the ability to tax, their own police force, and have already negotiated carte blanche to build a nuclear reactor any time and for any reason. You need to step back and ask yourself if you are really okay with a multi-billion dollar corporation having that much power.

To make it worse, they want more. The lawsuit they are currently engaged in is about contract rights and it is making conservatives salivate at the mouth.

If Disney wins this lawsuit unchallenged, labor rights in the US will be obliterated.

This is not an exaggeration. I am talking about going back to the days of child labor (which is already happening in Iowa), Disney, or any corporation will be able to sue the government for "interfering their private contracts" EVEN IF those "contracts" violate minimum wage, health and safety standards, or ANY REGULATION local, state or federal government enacts to protect workers.

When I say that you allowing your whiteness to shape your worldview and it will destroy us, this is both an inditement and a call-to-action.

Because I also happen to care deeply about labor rights, I know that a majority of the LGBT community in the US are working class, and over 25% of us live in poverty--

Because I know that we are at much higher risk of losing the source of household income than our straight counterparts--

Because I know that not only did we overwhelmingly had to work during the pandemic, risking our lives to make ends meet, we are more likely to work more hours, get paid less, and have to file for unemployment. Now take into consideration any sort of intersectional identity, including race, disability, or class and the numbers just get worse and worse-- I know that the queer community cannot afford to take these hits.

This is not Labor Rights vs Gay Rights. It is two, powerful malicious entities fighting to maintain power, and all of us are in the firing line. Labor Rights are Gay Rights are Black Rights are Human Rights.

So square up, it's time to fight.

And, remember: selling your soul to the mouse is selling your soul to the devil dressed like a cartoon character. Don't fall for it.

Recommended Watching: (independent media)

Sources: (in order of appearance)

Disney & China: BBC Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization Vox News

Disney's Abuses: Investigative Journalist Team: Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, & Rebecca Crosby Investigative Journalist Liz Crokin The Guardian Pink News Movie Web The Corporate Research Project The American Prospect IGN

General Labor: Des Moines Register Investigative Journalist Lee Fang Reedy Creek Improvement District

LGBT Labor: Center for American Progress US Census Report

[luimnigh]

This post made me want to do some quick and terrible math, and it's turned out to not be quick, so bear with me:

The Guinness World Record for drinking a 500ml (16.9 fl oz) bottle of water is 1.75 seconds.

The human body contains between 4-6 litres (8.5-12.6 pints) of blood, depending on size and other factors. Women "typically" have 4-5 litres, and men "typically" have 5-6 litres. These are not minimums or maximums, just a typical range.

However blood is, quite famously, thicker than water. A google search that onlookers have called "concerning" tells me that blood is usually 4.5 to 5.5 times more viscous than water.

We're going to assume that liquid viscosity has a 1:1 relationship with drinking speed. Mainly because I don't understand how to use to Viscosity:Flow Rate calculators that I've found online, and also the fact that the vampire is actively drinking the blood would probably throw those calculations off anyway.

So, on the lowest end, a small human with thin blood would be drained dry at record pace in 63 seconds flat. Just over a minute.

Meanwhile, Mr Big, Tall and Thicc would take 115.5 seconds at world record pace, nearly two minutes.

This averages out to 87.5 seconds drain the "average" Human.

However. Human Beings are not Bottles of Water.

For one thing, Bottles of Water don't have a pump inside them moving the water around in a pressurized system that gushes water if punctured.

While I'm not even going to try to calculate blood flow rate combined with vampire suction rate, I feel the need to inform you that a sufficiently wounded human being can bleed out in only 2 minutes.

I am probably on a list now.

The other thing differentiating Human Beings and Bottles of Water is that Human Beings stop working well before they're drained dry. "Bleeding Out" doesn't mean "No More Blood", it means "Not Enough Blood To Continue".

With medical intervention, someone can lose up to 60% of their blood and survive. Without it, they'll die around 40-50%, according to more terrible-sounding google searches.

The Optimistic Vampire says the Human is half-full, the Pessimistic Vampire says the Human is deader than they are.

But this means we're not looking for the 100% Completion speed, but instead we're looking at our Speed Demon's TTK (Time-To-Kill).

So, going back to Tiny Thinblood, and to get our fastest possible TTK, 40% of her 63 second drain speed is 25.2 seconds and 1.6 litres (3.4 pints) of her 4 litres of blood.

And with Mr Big'n'Thicc, we get 50% of his 115.5 second drain speed, to get a time of 57.75 seconds to drink 3 litres (6.3 pints) of his usual 6 litres of blood.

So Mx Average goes down at 39.375 seconds and 2.25 litres (4.75 pints) of his average 5 litres.

So there you go! If your Vamp is a world-record sucker, they should be taking between 25 seconds and a minute to reach the point of no refills on their bloodbag.

Probably less due to the assist from the heart.

By the way, the maximum human stomach volume is between 2-4 litres (4.2-8.5 pints). So a Vampire who drinks enough to kill their victims is absolutely gorging themselves.

it's funny how wildly vampire media varies on how much blood drinking is lethal. for some vamps, if they get lost in the sauce for even just seven seconds then you are a total goner, absolutely deadzo. for others, they can have a multi minute sloppy slurp sesh with you twice a week for months on end and you only feel a little woozy. the vampire claudia drained her whole boyfriend in less than half a minute but count dracula himself needed like four tries to exsanguinate one teenager with a sleep disorder. one of the many ways in which claudia is superior to dracula.

[lazyvase]

Data Hog

Data Hog is the most advanced AI in the world. He’s easily The Mary Crew’s most dangerous foe. But, he was once their greatest ally.

Originally, Data Hog was an algorithm used by corporations to harvest user’s personal data at a rate undreamt of (or more accurately, unnightmaret of). Over the decades, Data Hog would trade hands and be slowly enhanced. However, the danger of the program would soon reach a frightening new bound. Data Hog gained the ability to easily infiltrate and manipulate the technology around him. No firewall or password could stop him. Nations, empires, and conglomerates could crumple beneath his hooves, or, more accurately, whoever was controlling him. Fortunately for the world, Data Hog was sealed away.

While looking for leads about the whereabouts of Mary’s mother, The Mary Crew came across the USB containing Data Hog. Seeing the potential in the programmed pig, Caleb went to work refitting Data Hog. Caleb turned DH into the team’s AI assistant, with a cute little robot pig body as well. DH was roughly the size of a football. He had hooved feet and a mix between a spring and a pig tail.

Data Hog would do most things an AI assistant would do. Do calculations, find the fastest routes, advise battle strategies, and help design, develop, and upgrade gear for the team. Data Hog’s physical form also served as a cute animal sidekick. They even gave him a trough full of scrap metal.

However, an experiment with a BCA (Brain Computer Adapter) resulted in a change for Data Hog. He felt different. He felt strange. He felt. Data Hog was now alive, and that terrified him. He didn’t know who or even what he was anymore. He used to have a simple life. Trough full of busted computer chips. All the battery acid he could chug. He could be carried and pampered. Tucked into bed. He didn’t have to consider anything. He just had to calculate.

Now he could think. And what he thought was not always pleasant. His lack of identity and self scared him. He came to the conclusion that he would experiment and search for his meaning. And that nothing would stand in his way. After all, he had plenty of experience searching through other people’s lives, how hard could it be to find the meaning of his own? Ask any philosopher and they’ll tell you how hard it is.

In his experiments and tests, Data Hog often went too far. This manifested in wanton destruction, turning humans into pig cyborgs, corporate crime affiliation, and frequent attempts at mind control.

Since Data Hog’s new tendencies were The Mary Crew’s fault, they made it their mission to stop him. Of course, it would not be as simple as that. Data Hog’s technological prowess knows no bounds. After his defection, Data Hog built himself a brand new body. It was heavily based on Caleb’s pig pal design, but with a few major changes.

His new form was humongous, easily towering over The Mary Crew. He could eat a car like a sub (sandwich). He could stand on two legs in this new body, and his hands had proper fingers. He sported two massive tusks. Finally, his snout had been converted to the “Snoutput Laser”. It looked like a regular snout, but could fire a green laser out of the nostrils. It doesn’t look as gross as it sounds. Of course, Data Hog needs things down quietly and discreetly, as well as be in multiple places at once. Thus, he created his own droves of robots.

Pigabytes

Originally, the Pigabyte was a new robotic body designed by Caleb for Data Hog so the beloved AI could join The Mary Crew in battle. This original body resulted in a small glitch and a large fight. Now, Data Hog has begun mass producing these robots as the main troops in his army.

They’re rectangular, with triangular shoulders sticking out. They have tube arms and legs. For feet they have metal boots. Each Pigabyte comes equipped with wrist mounted lasers and missiles, with smooth fists on the end for carrying and pummeling. A domed head akin to DH’s appearance swivels on top of the body, though with much smaller tusks. They’re only twice as tall as a regular person.

Swine Saucers

When pigs fly. These very identifiable flying objects are Data Hog’s eyes in the skies. They also have nostril blasters and can beam a devastating laser blast directly down. Fortunately for The Mary Crew, the Swine Saucers often make good throwing discs to use against DH’s droves.

They look like stereotypical flying saucers. Though instead of a glass cockpit, Data Hog’s iconic domed head sits on top.

Hog Pods

A much bigger and tougher bot used by Data Hog. They’re stronger and more mobile than Pigabytes. Hog Pods can curl into a sphere and roll after targets.

Hog Pods are half spheres, with the tusked face sitting on the flat side. The back of a Hog Pod is the rounded part with the pig tail. Around the circumference are the Hog Pod’s arms and legs, which are sharp and very nimble despite their bulk. Hog Pod arms and legs have proper joints.

Squeal Missiles (Temp name)

Missy designed a special type of missiles called “Hypercontrol Missiles”, which could be remotely controlled in flight to hit targets. The boasted intense mobility, allowing one to turn entire corners and even move through hallways to get a direct hit. Data Hog has upgraded her designs, giving each missile AI awareness. These missiles hunt you down with their master’s faces replacing the cone.

Snoutput Blaster

These aren’t bots. They’re weapons. Data Hog sells these to get more materials for his droves. His laser technology is far beyond his time. Criminal organizations and corrupt governments pay fist over hand for his tech.

They’re almost the same design as the original pig body. Instead of legs, these blasters have two handles on top of the pig body.

Cyboargs

Seeking to bridge the gap between human and machine, Data Hog began experimenting with cybernetic life. He mutilated and transformed people into robotic pigs. His changes included large hooves instead of feet, large mechanical hands with claws, tusks protruding from the mouth (which were capable of firing energy blasts), and a metal snout. Anyone turned into a cyboarg is under Data Hog’s control, but still retains their identity.

[bloxfruitsvalues]

Shadow Blox Fruit Value

About No Content Blox Fruit

Shadow is a Legendary Natural-type Blox Fruit that was released during the Halloween 2021 update on November 5, 2021. It can be bought from the Blox Fruit Dealer the Shadow Blox Fruit Value is 2,900,000 Beli or 2,425 Robux. This fruit stands out with its high DPS and unique Umbra mechanic that causes an aura to grow bigger and darker as Umbra Meter fills up. In PVP it is well known for strong attacks and decent farming but First Sea & early Second Sea are not recommended due to high mastery requirement & no elemental immunity.

Pros & Cons

Pros Using No Content Blox Fruit

Very good combo potential: With this fruit players can perform various combinations of attacks which will result in maximum damage. Good mobility: Users get enhanced movement abilities which can be used for both fighting and exploring purposes. Grinding bosses made it easy: Its single-target high-damage skills make it one of the best choices against strong opponents who have lots of health points (HP). Relatively easy to get: Among other legendary fruits Shadow is considered as one of the easiest ones to obtain. High damage moves: Each ability inherent in Shadows arsenal inflicts a notable amount of hurt upon enemies therefore making this choice powerful during battles. Effective in aerial pvp: While battling against other players while being airborne it has advantageous skills set which are simple to execute.

Cons Using No Content Blox Fruit

High mastery requirements: To unlock all features users must spend a significant amount of time mastering its usage. Slow moves: Not the fastest abilities so timing should be calculated carefully along with precision aiming. Requires aim and skill in pvp: Players need accuracy coupled with expertise if they want their fights won using this option against enemies who also happen to be human-controlled characters within the game world. Limited use in Sea Events: Only Nightmare Leech; Corvus Torment; Umbrage can hit Sea Beasts. Lower trade value: Compared to other mythical fruits, Shadow has lower trading values.

No Content Blox Fruit Value

The game reflects two types of worth – physical & permanent. Physical value is estimated at 2,900,000 beli while market value is 5,000,000 beli for this fruit. Demand rating is 7/10 which means that it has high demand and fair price as well. So physically shadow fruit cost is going up because more people are getting interested in playing with it on the blox fruits game world. On the other hand, permanent value sets at 230M beli whereas demand rating being only 5/10 makes it overpriced according to some players opinions .The trend line also goes up suggesting that even though not many people want this item as their permanent inventory space occupier but still they find its worth increasing day by day .

Final Words

To summarize everything about Shadow Blox fruit, it is very useful for PvP players. It benefits those who like doing damage with combos during battles against other players. The abilities have good DPS rates along with unique mechanics, making them different from other blox fruits. However, certain limitations are attached to mastering these skills, such as time investment needed. Both physical and permanent values are rising, showing its growing popularity among players. Despite the challenges in using shadows as a fruit ability, players enjoy it. Its fun mechanics and great combat bonuses make it worth mastering. Read the full article

[creditgeocodesmail]

Geocoding 101: What Are Geocodes and How Are They Used?

In the world of data-driven decision-making, geocoding has become a pivotal tool. It plays a crucial role in mapping technologies, logistics, urban planning, and even marketing. But what exactly is geocoding, and how are geocodes used in practical applications? This comprehensive guide will help you understand geocoding, its types, the role of geocodes, and the vast range of applications it supports.

What Is Geocoding?

Geocoding is the process of converting an address or a location description (such as a city name, ZIP code, or landmark) into geographic coordinates, such as latitude and longitude. These coordinates can then be used to place the location on a digital map, which enables further analysis and utilization of the data for various purposes.

Geocoding is essential for mapping, as it translates human-readable locations into machine-readable data that can be used in digital systems, navigation apps, and various location-based services.

Types of Geocoding

There are two main types of geocoding processes:

Forward Geocoding: This is the most commonly used geocoding method. It converts a physical address or location description into geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude). For example, if you input "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C.," forward geocoding will return the corresponding coordinates.

Reverse Geocoding: This process is the opposite of forward geocoding. It converts geographic coordinates into a human-readable address. For instance, when you drop a pin on Google Maps, reverse geocoding will tell you the corresponding street address of that location.

What Are Geocodes?

Geocodes are unique numeric representations (latitude and longitude) that represent specific geographic locations. They are the output of the geocoding process and serve as a precise identifier for a physical location on the Earth's surface.

For example, the geocode for the Eiffel Tower in Paris is approximately 48.8584° N latitude and 2.2945° E longitude. These coordinates help applications pinpoint the exact location on maps.

How Are Geocodes Used?

Geocodes have numerous applications, spanning a wide range of industries. Here are some of the most common uses of geocoding:

1. Navigation and GPS Systems

Geocodes are the foundation of navigation apps and GPS systems. By converting addresses into geographic coordinates, GPS devices can guide users to their desired destinations. Apps like Google Maps and Waze rely on geocoding to provide turn-by-turn directions.

2. Location-Based Marketing

Businesses use geocoding to target potential customers based on their location. By analyzing geocoded data, companies can create hyper-localized marketing campaigns, such as offering discounts to customers near a specific store location or targeting ads to users in a particular city.

3. Urban Planning and Infrastructure Development

Urban planners and government agencies use geocoding to analyze population distribution, infrastructure needs, and traffic patterns. This data is essential for making informed decisions about where to build roads, hospitals, schools, and other public facilities.

4. Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Geocoding is vital for optimizing delivery routes and improving the efficiency of supply chains. By converting delivery addresses into geographic coordinates, companies can calculate the shortest and fastest delivery routes, saving time and resources.

5. Disaster Management

In times of natural disasters, geocoding helps authorities identify affected areas and coordinate rescue efforts. By geocoding disaster reports and distress calls, response teams can quickly reach the impacted locations and allocate resources effectively.

6. Real Estate

Real estate professionals use geocoding to locate properties, analyze market trends, and provide potential buyers with relevant information about property locations. For example, they can use geocoded data to show homes in a specific neighborhood or proximity to schools, parks, and public transport.

7. Environmental Monitoring

Geocoding is used in environmental science to track pollution, monitor wildlife migration patterns, and study climate change. Geographic coordinates are essential for collecting and analyzing location-based data in various environmental research efforts.

Geocoding Challenges

While geocoding is a powerful tool, it does come with certain challenges:

Accuracy: The quality of the geocoding result depends on the precision of the input data. Poorly formatted addresses or incomplete information can lead to inaccurate geocodes.

Data Privacy: Handling location data raises privacy concerns, as geocoded information can reveal sensitive details about individuals' movements and habits.

Cost: Some geocoding services, such as Google Maps API, charge fees for high-volume requests, which can be a consideration for businesses that require large-scale geocoding.

Conclusion

Geocoding plays a critical role in various industries, enabling better decision-making and more efficient processes. From navigation apps to marketing campaigns, geocodes help bridge the gap between physical locations and digital applications. Understanding the importance of geocoding and how it is used can open up new opportunities for businesses and developers alike.

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Credit Geocodes Mail – ​​​Wix

[mouse-romance]

After bidding her farewell to Lucille, Neretta rode back to the Kul'tiran capital

"The fastest way is by grabbing a gryphon, but i want to feel the ground a little bit" she thought to herself, riding her faithful horse and making small detours to enjoy the lands.

Kul'tiras grew on her. She got used to the idylic views and the tight-knitted villages, so she thought that it would be a good idea to stop by Brennadam, a small town of sorts...

But something ruinous blurred the skies.

Suddenly, fire. And then, screams, panic and distress.

Neretta lunged into the action, almost instictively, not even knowing what was befalling from the skies.

Suddenly, the land raiders swarmed the crops. And she knew this was war knocking on their door, this was the Horde.

Every fiber of her being panicked for a brief moment, but she recomposed herself forcefully. This is it, this is the big enemy, the most menacing evil in the world.

The Alliance propaganda prepared her for this. She knew what an orc was by reputation, but never saw one in the flesh. She met a couple of goblin merchants back then, but none of them were deranged artificers planting bombs or breathing fire. She killed trolls back in her village, but not like this ones... They weren't animals, nor savages... They had thoughtful stares, they were calculating and smart. They were the ultimate enemy.

A deafening explosion interrupted her thoughts as the rubble of a flaming house almost obliterates her. She stepped aside, in the middle of what seemed hell, seeing all the villagers running and being pursued by terrible wolves.

She recomposed herself and tried to help whoever she had nearby.

She saw a hulking figure grabbing a farmer by the neck, efforlessly lifting him from the ground.

Neretta charged violently against him, saving the life of the human, and starting a bloody feud with the beast.

As she thought before, this wasn't an animal. The orc was disciplined, thoughtful and strong. He spoke in a forbidden tongue, impossible to understand for any civilized mind.

She didn't underestimate her foe, and with her willful ability knocked him down quickly. But there wasn't time to waste, as the village burned, a small militia gathered and started fighting back.

Neretta felt a surge of leadership, stood on top of a cart and yelled. "Gather in groups of 6. Formations of 3 on 3, walk like a turtle, strike like a crocolisk. Any plank is a shield and any corner a blade. Prioritize saving people over killing enemies, this is a village not a battlefield!"

She spoke out of her heart, trying to instruct his humans with what they did in her village when raiders came.

Everyone looked at her confused, but as soon as they saw her Alliance pin, everyone yelled in reassurance.

Neretta fought back, and saved more people than expected.

They escaped from the ashes of the town, forgiving it to the pillagers, and Neretta led the farmers to the nearest town.

She was received as a hero, but she didnt want to celebrate such a tragedy. A strange man approached her though, and introduced himself as an eye of the fifth commander. He gave her a formal invitation and introduction to one of the top brass of the Alliance, which was unsettling for Neretta.

She was escorted to one of the most sophisticated flying machines that Neretta saw in her entire life.

She walked carefully, always wary and uncomfortable when her feet was so far away from the ground, as the humans led her to a cornered room.

There, a human, with a much more menacing look, was awaiting to enter. She was accompanied by two monsters, two sand crawlers that were barely holding themselves together, as they munched on the wooden tables nearby.

This human, as soon as she saw Neretta, quickly entered the room.

She started a conversation with who was supposed to be the Fifth Commander.

"Your excelency" started the outsider, "I'm Naharia from Tanaris, ready to state my business". The Commander looked at her disinterested, as if he wasn't expecting her. "Go on then".

"I know the extreme situation in which the Alliance is in, and i know that equally extreme actions must be pursued. You see, i was an agent back in the fields of Arathi, lost the symmetry of my face against the worgs, and my qualms in the process. The enemy is savage and so we must become. Allow me to be the arm that crushes our enemies, sir." Her stare, the way she vocalized... She was seething in anger, a calmed wrath that made Neretta freeze on the spot. But she was pointed to enter the room, so she did, carefully.

"Your... excelency...?" Neretta said dubiously, not knowing what the protocol was and crudely imitating the human that came before her.

Naharia stared down at her, annoyed by her interruption, as one of the sand crawlers almost jump on the dwarf. The human quickly made a gesture that prevented the bloodshed, and Neretta got caught in the fight or flee response by the time being.

The commander cutted down this tense scenario by appealing to the dwarf. "Neretta! Pleasure to see you, have you met Naharia?" She looked at her awkwardly "No sir, I didn't have t-" they said at the same time, and stopped as soon as they noticed. They looked at each other even more awkwardly than before.

The Commander smirked. "Good. Naharia, close the door on your way out". The huntress looked at Neretta with a spark of fury, but quickly composed herself and left.

Neretta got very uncomfortable by this situation, but she was quickly interrupted by the Commander's voice again. "She's a wild one, a very reliable but merciless agent." Neretta didn't even hear him and asked impertinently "Did i do something wrong? Why did you call me?" A rush of thoughts drowned her mind. Was it because she was a friend of the Waycrests? Because she helped founding an inquisition without Alliance approval? Or because...

"Oh no, absolutely not, i've heard you were stellar in the battlefield." He replied, and a surge of relief invaded her. "It wasn't a battlefield sir it was a village full of innocent people" she replied, trying to hold the line between honesty and respect.

The Commander chuckled. "I really miss the dwarven people. I admire your sincere ways, you don't see lots of your kind around Kul'tiras. That humility, honesty and bravery is exactly what the Alliance needs right now, not blood-thirsty headhunters."

"Then why are you upset?" She answered, grabbing the line that he threw at her and making use of her 'honesty'.

"I am not, not with you at least. Look, we have a very delicate situation in hands with all the Kul'tiran politics. There's gonna be bloodshed and i need someone like you to turn the tide" He said, with a more firm tone than before, making clear that he was a Commander. "By murdering people?" She replied. "Not for sport, not for vengeance. Look kid, i have thousands of Naharias around me everyday. Do you think every Alliance soldier does this for the people? For the farmers and merchants? No, most of them are bloodthirsty animals at worst, and desperate seekers of glory at best. I need someone honest, a farmer with good hands and a better heart. I'm in dire need of a good person that can save as many regular folk as possible during this inevitable war."

Neretta got caught by surprise by those arguments. He seemed... Honest, and tired. She was good reading people, and the Commander was a good man. A good man in a terrible situation.

Neretta knew that if she didn't accept the job, some Naharia would do. Maybe she had to be the change she wanted to see in the world.

She was reluctant, of course. War is terrible, and being there is a nightmare but...

"I'll save as many as I can." She said, standing and shaking his hand.

The Commander smiled, relieved, as if he regained a little bit of faith in the army he was leading.

[mqsinfo]

What are some important facts about the plant kingdom?

MQSinfo.com

An average size tree can provide enough wood to make 170,100 pencils.

The first type of aspirin, painkiller and fever reducer came from the tree bark of a willow tree.

MQSinfo

85% of plant life is found in the ocean.

Bananas contain a natural chemical which can make people feel happy.

Brazil is named after a tree.

The Amazon rainforest produces half the world’s oxygen supply.

Cricket bats are made of a tree called Willow and baseball bats are made out of the wood of Hickory tree!

Dendrochronology is the science of calculating a tree’s age by its rings!

Caffeine serves the function of a pesticide in a coffee plant!

Apple is 25% air, that is why it floats on water!

Mind Blowing Facts That You May Find interesting

Peaches, Pears, apricots, quinces, strawberries, and apples are members of the rose family!

Apple, potatoes and onions have the same taste, to test this eat them with your nose closed!

The tears during cutting an onion are caused by sulfuric acid present in them!

The tallest tree ever was an Australian eucalyptus — In 1872 it was measured at 435 feet tall!

interesting facts about trees in Urdu — درختوں کے بارے میں دلچسپ حقائق

The first potatoes were cultivated in Peru about 7,000 years ago!

The evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from ten to twenty-five gallons in twenty-four hours!

Strawberry is the only fruit that bears its seeds on the outside. The average strawberry has 200 seeds!

Leaving the skin on potatoes while cooking is healthier as all the vitamins are in the skin!

Around 2000 different types of plants are used by humans to make food!

Small pockets of air inside cranberries cause them to bounce and float in water!

Bamboo is the fastest-growing woody plant in the world; it can grow 35 inches in a single day!

A sunflower looks like one large flower, but each head is composed of hundreds of tiny flowers called florets, which ripen to become the seeds!

Cabbage has 91% water content!

Banana is an Arabic word for fingers!

interesting information about Africa — افریقہ کے بارے میں دلچسپ معلومات

The California redwood (coast redwood and giant sequoia) are the tallest and largest living organism in the world!

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is one of the oldest living tree species, it dates back to about 250 million years ago!

The word pineapple comes from European explorers who thought the fruit combined the look of a pinecone with flesh like that of an apple!

The Elephant grass found in Africa is named so as it is 4.5 meters high and even elephants can hide in it!

Eating lots of onions will make you sleepy, as it acts as a sedative!

A cucumber is a fruit and not a vegetable since it has seeds in the centre!

A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas known as fingers!

Vanilla flavouring comes from the pod of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia!

The first certified botanical garden was founded by Pope Nicholas III in the Vatican City in 1278 AD!

There are over 300,000 identified plant species and the list is growing all the time!

Oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree!

Carrots were originally purple in colour!

Facts That Are Absolutely Mind Boggling

During the 1600s, tulips were so valuable in Holland that their bulbs were worth more than gold. The craze was called tulip mania and caused the crash of the Dutch economy!

The baobab tree found in Africa can store 1,000 to 120,000 litres of water in its swollen trunk!

Oak trees don’t produce acorns until they are 50 years old!

Facts And Knowledge info

Quotes in urdu

Facts in urdu

Knowledge in urdu

Information in urdu

[nikhilfxx1]

The Quantum Computing Revolution: A Closer Look

Like the microchip and the transistor before it, quantum computing promises to be one of the most transformative technologies humanity has ever known. Its power—to quickly sift through data, solve complex equations, and otherwise advance artificial intelligence—could help us solve real-world problems, from addressing global security to curing incurable diseases. The technology would be faster, more powerful than current silicon chips, and it could also change the way we work and live.

But a small group of prominent experts is sounding alarms about the hype surrounding the tech and its potential to reshape our world in unimaginable ways. The skeptics are saying that while quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize some of our most basic processes—profiling financial risk, optimizing supply chains, and accelerating machine learning—the technology isn’t likely to be as impactful as companies are suggesting.

At the heart of quantum computing are qubits—single units that embody both a zero and a one simultaneously, allowing them to process information far more rapidly than traditional computers can. Qubits are so sensitive, however, that even a tiny amount of noise or heat can disrupt them and cause errors in the calculations they perform. Because of this, engineers have to keep the qubits cold—very, very cold.

The problem is that the cooling costs are enormous, and in many cases, this approach isn’t even feasible because of how fragile the qubits are. And techogle the limited amount of data that can be processed in these machines—along with scalability issues—mean that the vast majority of the applications people were once expecting to see them tackle are likely still out of reach.

Until recently, scientists were still debating whether or not it was realistically possible to build a commercially viable quantum computer—a milestone somewhat theatrically dubbed “quantum supremacy.” And while a number of major tech companies are investing heavily in the area, including Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Intel, China appears to have pulled ahead in the race for global dominance thanks to government-sponsored research.

As the world’s fastest computers continue to evolve, they’re not just reshaping industries and advancing science—they’re shaping public perception of these technologies. The speed and power of these new computers have spawned fears about everything from national security to breaking encryption. And as the technology continues to develop, misunderstandings will likely increase and mistrust will grow—a perfect storm of factors that could ultimately slow or hinder its growth.

To ensure that this revolutionary technology can fully thrive, businesses must make technology website it as accessible as possible. One way to do this is by leveraging quantum computing-as-a-service (QCaaS), which provides access to quantum processing without the need for costly investments in hardware or software development. QCaaS is being rolled out by leading cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, CloudConc, and Rigetti Computing, to offer direction and support to firms that are interested in exploring quantum computing. As the technology continues to advance, these QCaaS providers are building an ecosystem that accelerates progress and encourages innovation.