#but I also like audios cause they are so much easier than videos

[rosicheeks]

We would love to hear you sing a song...maybe singing even a sad song would help lighten your load a little, and we would be blessed with your angelic voice...please.

🥺

[aston-axo]

Niki Lauda and James Hunt — Friday 18th July 1975 Silverstone - Practice Runs for the Grand Prix

ATV Sports Reporter Gary Newbon interviews championship leader, Niki Lauda from Austria and Britain's James Hunt, about the race and the new car they will soon be driving. In 1975 James Hunt was driving for Hesketh Racing and Lauda was driving for Scuderia Ferrari.

In the race, Niki Lauda would hold fourth place off the start, but soon a heavy shower brought a flurry of tyre changes. A wheel had not been fastened when Niki was released and fell off within 20 meters, resulting in a scramble to reattach it. He stopped again a lap later for it to be tightened properly, and rejoined a lap down.

As the track dried, he showed blistering speed: four seconds a lap faster than the rest, but then came another deluge and the field was decimated by a series of aquaplaning shunts and the race red-flagged. The official results announced shortly afterwards were based on a count-back lap, which meant that Niki was classified eighth despite being third across the line. Ferrari protested, but without result.

James hunt would make it to the final lap without major incident, before retiring along with many other drivers. His final position: fourth, was unaffected.

A miserable race for the both of them, all in all.

[Comparisons between versions and editors notes are below the cut.]

Clipped and Cropped • Colour Corrected • Removed Colour Cast • Upscaled with Artemis • Denoised • Sharpened and Enhanced • Recovered Original Detail • Added Noise and Film Grain • 60fps Frame Interpolation • Edited Gamma and Exposure • Stabilised • Audio Cleaned • Manual Cleaning of Degraded Film

• While the lower logo is a lost cause, I had a real good go at cleaning up the upper logo. Despite it being easy to remove in James' zoom sections, where it hovered and moved over the banner made the erasure too disruptive and time intensive to clean up in whole.

• I did all the film cleaning manually, therefore it's very likely I missed out on some damage. I got all the major stuff though.

• At the beginning, for god knows what reason, the upscaler has a hissy fit and throws up coloured blocks. Incredibly annoying, but I couldn't find a way to fix it.

• The video is dark at the start due to cloud cover, and it's more noticeable without the colour cast, there's better lighting by the end.

• There's much more to the original video: cars practising at the track, a later interview by Niki in 1977, and a separate one of James the same year. I cut those, so I could focus on this interview, and because the film degradation of the practice runs is noticeably severe. But, if people are interested, I'm very happy to also tidy those.

• I'm here nor there on the cleaned up audio. I wish there was an easy software where I could more manually tune it.

• I snipped off like a second of the end because the degradation got so bad it was easier just to cut it since James had finished talking by that point anyway.

Despite all this, please enjoy.

[kinopio-writes]

Good morning/afternoon/night! Could I request a fic where a male reader is super friends with Niffty, but he's a pyromaniac war criminal who causes a lot of problems so everyone hates him except Niffty? Never found many fics with her so I wanted one, can be in whatever format you wish :)

A/N: This is really interesting. You chose the perfect character for this. ‘Everyone hates him except Niftty’ made me remember a TikTok video with the audio, ‘He looks angry. Why does everyone always look at you that way?’, but it’s with Alastor. Also, that implies that even Charlie hates you (definitely not as much, so I guess it’s more of a dislike), so I’m also going to specify why everyone hates/dislikes you except Niffty.

Also, this is formatted in headcanons because that’s so much easier and I don’t want another Adam w/ a Sensitive!Reader case where it took me more than 3 weeks to finish writing a oneshot.

Warnings: Mentions of murder, Probably not mentally okay reader

———

Niffty w/ a Pyromaniac War Criminal!Reader

• your introduction to her was literally indirectly burning a part of the hotel

• while she may not have liked the mess, one thing was for sure:

• you’re a bad boy

• so she was glad to know that you were going to stay at the hotel

• she instantly made it known that she liked you

• “I’m Niffty.” She approached you rapidly as she giggled. “I like you—”

• you interrupted her by pushing her off when she tried climbing on you

• “Get the hell away from me,” you seethed

• “Woah, woah, woah.” You flinched at the hand that tried to break you two apart. “What’s wrong?”

• neither of you replied to the princess

• Charlie sighed at the lack of response, and as both of you left the room to continue the tour, you gave Niffty a nasty glare

• she only grinned at that

• she would follow you around a lot

• and you would snap at her each time

• but she seemed relatively unphased

• that was your dynamic for a while

• eventually, her advances come to a stop when she realizes that you were a bad boy…

• ...who was just lonely

• yeah, no thanks

• Niffty stopped seeing you as a potential love interest after that

• and that was when your friendship started blossoming

• because she was really the only friend you could make

• Charlie…tried liking you. But you made it difficult. You wreck the hotel at least once a week, you don’t participate in any exercises and prefer to sit in a corner to burn shit, and you just…didn’t have any redeeming qualities. But…she still had hope, so she’s still letting you stay

• Vaggie just distrusts most people who come her way, and causing problems in the hotel just increases her hatred for you more (Charlie’s the only reason why she hasn’t kicked you out)

• Angel Dust just knew not to mess with you

• Alastor didn’t like you for causing problems in the hotel as well, surprisingly (he doesn’t have much male friends, so, no luck here)

• Husk also knew not to mess with you

• and you spook the fuck out of Sir Pentious even if you’re on the other side of the room

• that leaves you around Niffty quite often

• you like her because she doesn’t judge you

• and Niffty felt the same

• you watch her frame her dead bugs nonchalantly (you help her do them sometimes)

• you also even help gather them by setting them on fire (Niffty stashes the ashes in jars, categorized by species)

• remember in episode 3 where Niffty confessed her secret about killing mother bugs in front of their children? You laughed at that

• the other residents may think you two are an odd pair, but who cares?

• you two fit each other quite well

[greatbigbellies]

Do you have any tips for starting a kink blog?

Yeah! I have a few I can share! One size does not fit all but I've certainly learned some things that inform my approach.

Remember above all that it's supposed to be enjoyable. If you start a kink blog and it feels like a time sink or a chore, then it might not be for you, or you could be spending more time on it than you really should. This also means that the time and energy you have to dedicate to a kink blog is going to fluctuate. You might pop off one week and not log into it at all another, and that's okay. You should run it at the pace you enjoy. This also means when you feel a dip in sex drive and the kink stuff isn't hitting like it usually does, take a break so you don't burn yourself out.

Queue is your friend. As are tags. Honestly 1 post a day works wonders, cause you can load up around 15 posts at once and be covered for a couple of weeks. Having a solid and consistent tag system for yourself is also great. You don't need to overload it with specificity, but have some for different kinds of media (writing, video, gifs, audio...) is helpful, and being able to tag different facets of your kink is great for when you OR your followers need to scratch a specific itch. Like for me and my preg kink blog, whether the belly is bare or not, if there are lots of stretchmarks, if it's fpreg, mpreg, or nbpreg... all good things to keep sorted. Also try to keep the meaning of your tags really obvious (that sounds like a no-brainer, but I used to use a tag meant for when clothes were too small for a bump, but it just came off as me complaining that the belly was too small, which actually resulted in me need to talk to an artist to get a block lifted, oops!)

Related to the above, if you produce original content, be it art, writings, audio, whatever, have a tag for that too. Makes sifting through your original stuff and reblogs much easier, and lets people find your stuff even just searching tumblr wide.

LABEL. EVERYTHING. AS. MATURE. If you're running a kink blog, minors should not have any way to see it, and the easiest way to do that is to slap a "sexual themes" label on it. Covers your ass and keeps people who should not be able to look from looking. Even if the kink is pretty innocuous, it's best to play it safe.

Pinned posts are especially useful for kink blogs for setting boundaries, and telling newcomers what they'll see right off the bat. It doesn't need to be enormous, but just a little intro and a list of expected kinks someone will find on your blog helps keep people informed so they know whether or not to follow.

Don't be shy about blocking people. If someone posts stuff that makes you uncomfortable or is being shitty, just block em and move on. On the flipside, respect other people's boundaries, and remember that if you find yourself blocked by someone, remember it might not even be personal and just be a blog content thing.

If you do make kink content involving yourself, like pics or videos, protect your identity. Just play it safe, don't show your face and obscure identifying tattoos. Odds are low it'd come back to be a problem, but they're not 0, so just play it safe for yourself. Both for potential work/career hang ups and to minimize stalking or doxxing.

I'll reblog with more later if I think of it. I know half of this applies to blogs in general, not JUST kink blogs, but other than there being inherently sexual content, they're not that different. Please send any follow up asks if you have further questions, and if you decide to start one, good luck and have fun with it!

[queenlua]

I would love rap recs if you have any. I remember enjoying Sage Francis many many years ago, and I tried to get into aesop rock around the same time but his voice is so gravelly I couldn't understand most of the lyrics (bums me out cause I really appreciate smart clever songwriting! But alas I do not have the best audio processing).

My tastes are pretty underdeveloped (I like the Hamilton soundtrack a lot lol, and also Bottoms Up by Trey Songz always made my ears weirdly happy tho I guess that's more R&B) but I think a big part is I like there to be a lot of instruments involved in the music, or at least like a strong focus on melody layered over the rapping? And also of course being able to parse the words without a lot of struggling is pretty crucial.

If you are not interested in making bespoke recommendations that's totally reasonable, just figured I'd ask in case that sounds fun to you :P I've tried to find rap I enjoyed over the years, but it's been hard to even figure out what traits matter to me, let alone find music that has those traits.

oh man this is a fascinating ask lemme think a bit

1) keying off of e.g. the Hamilton thing: there’s no shame in enjoying more mainstream-ish rap.  eminem was popular for a variety of reasons, but one of them, imo, is that most his songs had a strong hook and a pretty “singable” chorus, which makes it more accessible if you are Not Super Familiar With Rap.  similarly, like, i find a lot of 90s/00s era Jay-Z to be really accessible for the same reason.  pretty much every track on The Black Album rules, for instance.  in particular i’ll point out “Lucifer” from that album—it has a *very* cool backing track, which is catchy/interesting, but also very *instrumentally sparse*—which makes it much easier to hear the lyrics, if "muddy" production is the thing that causes the audio issues.  (if you end up digging that one, i’d probably try dropping it into a Pandora radio station or something to try and find more like it, because while i can’t think of a rapper that *exclusively* does that kind of sparse-ish style of production, there’s definitely a lot of *individual* rap songs that are done in that style (kanye’s done a ton of them), and you could probably get a good mixtape of 'em.)

2) i really liked team teamwork’s video game music / rap mashup albums and alex kresovich's "gold n' fly" Goldeneye 64 soundtrack / rap mashup album!  like they played a pretty big role in me getting as into the genre as i am.  but seriously they’re quite good.  if you happen to know the particular game soundtrack then you already know you like the music; even if you don't know the music these are high-quality enough they still work well with the vocal samples; and if you REALLY like how a particular rapper sounds, you can just go look up the original dude and have a blast. (e.g. i first heard Busta Rhymes on this mashup of his "Don't Touch Me" with the Gerudo Valley theme, and was like "this dude rules", so then i looked him up and discovered i liked "Put Your Eyes Where My Hands Can See" even more, became obsessed, etc)

(relatedly, if you're a linkin park enjoyer: you know there's a whole official album where they mashed up with jay-z? it rules)

3) so deltron 3030 was like a meme / indie darling on /r/hiphopheads for a while, and for good reason.  del generally has a slower flow than a lot of comparable rappers, plus pretty clean production, plus he is just rapping about being a cool mech soldier in the year 3030. fun as heck.  so like if you’re trying to get a slightly “deeper” cut than what you'd hear on top 40, this is a pretty good starting point

4) this is very much a ymmv thing / i VERY possibly listen to the whole genre very wrong, but there’s classes of rappers where i’m less concerned about hearing the each of the lyrics clearly and i'm more, like... thinking of the voice as an instrument with sonic properties that may-or-may-not involve hearing the words clearly?  like, twista’s flow is just very aggressive and percussive and absolutely *thrilling* to listen to ("helicopter" style), but did i catch every word in there?  absolutely not lmao. and i think that's part of the point! like yeah if you listen a million times you'll eventually pick the words up, but there's plenty of rappers where i only enjoy their wordplay after i enjoyed the sound/vibes on the first listen or whatever

5) i think it helps if the song and/or music video is funny lol. "just a friend" is so fun. "damn it feels good to be a gangster" is so fun. damn weren't the late 80s / early 90s fun as hell. maybe we should all exclusively just listening to hip-hop from that era

anyway yeah HOPE THAT HELPS. if anyone else has ideas sound off

[trashland-llamas]

Enter Sandman

Note; there's an unnamed friend group that Spence makes, feel free to view it in a reader-insert manner.

Spencer double-checks his bag for the show, making sure he doesn't forget any of the essentials or his noise cancelling headphones. Keeping the headphones against his neck the whole bus ride

Traded in his regular sweater-vest & button down combo for a t-shirt, not wanting to look out of place to those around him. Draw-string backpack instead of a messenger bag

Still has no clue how to dance but loves joining in on mosh-pits, having researched the etiquette beforehand. Correction, he mostly asked Penelope and Emily as he considered them experts on the topic. They show him videos of their times at past shows.

Morgan was the most concerned when he showed up with scrapes and bruises the next day. He knew the stringy man got himself into trouble here and there, being the youngest of the group but never of this caliber.

But Spencer looks like he had the most fun of his life, stimming like crazy when he recounts all of it to Penelope like he promised. 'I kept feeling sorry for this one guy, he had to keep helping me up.' Also feeling bad cause he couldn't really help anyone up, despite trying his hardest to offer a hand when needed.

Having made note of the opening band, he made sure to buy a few t-shirts and later cassette tapes for his walkman so he could listen on his commute to work if he wanted. Rossi or Hotch tapping his shoulder to tell him to turn down the volume a tad, the audio bleeding out a little.

Spencer gets the BAU crew to meet his friends that he's made at the shows one weekend and it's an interesting mashup, very much oil and water at first. But they eventually find common ground as time goes on. Some sharing recipes with Rossi, their speciality being granola. Others remark on Morgan & Hotch's strong grip regarding hand shakes. Get into a small arm wrestling match that worries Spencer a little but he's just glad they're getting along. Both groups understanding that they're like family to Spencer

They slowly adopt Penelope as well, her tending to be Spencer's plus one to events when he knows a goth band is playing. Ends up in her explaining all the different subgroups and how goth differs from scene and emo. That and they're able to find Spencer easier due to Penelope's bright wardrobe.

Noticing how intrigued he gets by the spikes and patches on one of their jackets, they offer to teach him how to make them alongside a battle jacket. Which just becomes a big way for Spencer to express all his nerdy interests, has a bunch of spools of thread just for it. Cleans it more often than needed.

Most of them take similar bus routes home, saying goodbye as they go their separate ways. Driving tends to be a carpool type scenario, offering Spencer a ride home if he wants it. Not minding if he's quiet the whole time as shows tend to be energetic. But are also willing to listen to him infodumping about the set just played or one of his special interests.

[rigelmejo]

5-2-2023 some updates since I haven't posted in a while

My Japanese progress is. Well it's going. I STILL just do not listen to glossika as much as I say I should. That said, I'm considering Watching sailor moon in japanese. Maybe that'll kick me up a level of understanding? Maybe???

There's a YouTube called Game Gengo, he's a fucking delight. I watched his Final Fantasy IX vocabulary learning video today and it just. He's such a good teacher I think. They remind me of being in a fast paced but genuinely fun in person class. He says how many vocabulary he'll teach at the start (which I find valuable as a student you can decide if it teaches ENOUGH to be worth watching for your time). He repeats words and reminds, so you get reinforcement of the words he's explained when they come up again continuously, which helps with remembering words. He moves quickly enough you don't get bored and feel it's too in depth. But it is in depth, just snappy, so you could rewatch to retain more. It uses games you enjoy so it's fun and the context helps with remembering. And he is a good presenter with a pleasant and clear English and Japanese voice. Just excellent videos, I should really watch them more than I do. They work excellent as a podcast too! You do NOT need to see the video to learn from them, you can learn with listening alone which is a plus for me. But the video has useful dictionary info listed and japanese spelling etc.

I've been watching some Japanese bl lately and it's so weird cause. Well Our Dining Table uses SO much basic vocabulary I could probably follow it perfectly fine without subs. Then The Pornographer is like half daily life language I'm very good at now, half That Sounds Familiar. And Miu414 (not bl) I also know at least half. I feel I should be forcing myself to watch more Japanese with Japanese subs, as I'm probably at a point where I'd pick up a lot. Japanese LISTENING skill seems significantly better than in the past. Still a LONG way to go, but fun.

I also still wanna try listening reading with a Japanese audio drama but.. I'm so lazy

Chinese progress? Absolutely Baffling

I've been listening to audio drama or audiobook of 默读 like every single day. The days I don't, I listen to Ice Fantasy condensed audio. I have made Enough to progress to be at the point where everything I don't understand is super annoying and noticeable to me. But also when I watch cdramas I realize I understood all the audio words and wonder why I'm even leaving rhe English subs on when they're so wrong sometimes (I've been watching Till The End of the Moon lol). I'm leaving the eng subs on cause I'm lazy. We know ToT. But my point is. I can DEFINITELY tell my listening skills are improving. But with novels the books are still SO HARD to listen to only and catch every detail.

It's so frustrating noticing just how much I do not know/understand. But at the same time, I do think my plan of "just listen MORE to audiobooks and they'll get easier and you'll learn more" is working. For one? I can tell I expect and predict certain word clauses when people speak or the narration is on a paragraph. And that word predicting makes my comprehension of what I DO know much faster. Then second? I do notice I'm gradually picking up more new words. Partly because I do now have a whole "frame" of support words to reliably understand now. When I hear a sentence now its like this "one could say, Guo changcheng was a X, he stayed up all night afraid of the phone" and I have a WAY easier time guessing that X. Whereas before it used to be a slow slog to recognize the words so I'd maybe recognize them After hearing a whole sentence as the next started, worsening my ability to comprehend the NEXT sentence etc. It used to be "Something? Guo changcheng was a X, something NIGHT scared of PHONE" Then as the next sentence audio would start id make a guess for the somethings and the X. But now the somethings i tend to recognize AS I hear them. Improving overall comprehension. I'm picking up BRAND new words at a slow pace but honestly not so big a deal. It's nice bringing listening skills closer to reading skills... cause my reading skills are STILL better.

Guardian audiobook is getting probably the EASIEST of the audiobooks i hear. In part cause I know what scenes to guess the context I hear places them in, making guessing unknown or "something vaguely familiar" words much easier

[headless-horsepossum]

this may be a silly question but. what does an editor Do. I ask b/c I might need that service but don't even know I need that service.... hope this doesn't come across rude I'm just genuinely curious

Not silly or rude!! it's a fair question cause there are a bunch of different kinds of editors.

Basically, if you're working on something, (written work in my case but there are like video editors and audio editors and all that too,) you can send it to an editor and they'll help you get it ready for Whatever You Want To Use It For.

.....this got long lmao so i'm putting the rest under a cut ig

I'm very freelance (bc i'm disabled and don't have a degree 🥴) so i take whatever projects come my way, which atm means a lot of Masters and PhD level dissertations/theses, because my mom works for a university that has a lot of international and first-higher-education-degree students but DOESN'T HAVE A WRITING CENTER for some reason, so I'm usually like half editor half writing coach. Which is to say, an editor for a publishing house probably does much different work than I do and tbh I don't know Anything about what they do lol.

but how *my* job works is:

you send me a draft of your project.

I learn as much as i can about the end destination and audience of your project.

(this is a lot easier if you're writing, like, a Memoir or a Pamphlet For An Art Show, and a lot harder if I have to Read The Chicago Style Manual) (Chicago Style is probably fine but their style manual is fucking wack and i stand by that)

I read your project and i mark anything that is either a.) unclear or b.) Against The Rules Of Your Intended Destination

So like, if you're writing a masters thesis, I'm strict with grammar and with formatting. The style your institution is using probably has rules about whether you can use first person, and when you use italics, and whether your citations go in a bibliography or in footnotes or w/e.

If you're writing a Novel, I can be a lot looser with the rules and just look for: is this effective? what is this line Doing? is it doing it well? Does What It's Doing Actually Need To Be Done Right Now?

(editing fiction/creative nonfiction is WAY more fun but i don't get to do it very often. sigh)

I put my suggestions in the document you've sent me, with Track Changes on so you can see everything I've changed. I add comments to the doc wherever I think they're necessary/helpful.

I send the doc with my edits back to you

You (hopefully) read through and decide whether each edit makes sense to you. (this is the most important step, honestly)

If they make sense and you're happy with the resulting draft, my job is done and we shake hands and depart as friends.

If you have questions, or the edits require extensive rewrites, we ideally meet over zoom or w/e and I explain my suggestions to you, and we figure out how to Make The Words Do What You Want Them To Do. You send the doc to me again and I do as much of a second pass as you want/Will Pay Me For.

It's worth noting that there are different *levels* of editing, too. I've done jobs where I'm just checking grammar, or where I'm just checking formatting; I've also done jobs where I meet with the author and we basically write the piece together (which is really fun, actually, I like sitting down and asking, like, "okay, what are you trying to say," and figuring out how to help YOU figure out how YOU want to say it. it's like detective work :3 or therapy possibly). Those all take different levels of time and energy, so for student papers I end up with a lot of, like, "this could really use a thorough content edit/rewrite but it's Due In A Week so we're gonna make sure everything's spelled write and the footnotes are formatted correctly." (which i HATE doing btw, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do but it Hurts My Brain bc it feels like I'm not Doing My Best which is Hell.)

anyway, the tl;dr is: editors take writing and suggest changes that will make it Perform Its Intended Function Better. the actual act of editing takes a lot of work, and often a degree of background research, too. tip your editors, is what i'm saying.

[plutonium-ooc]

Hey, i'm Plutonium- though, please just call me Pluto.

i made this blog to keep my out-of-character posts away from my roleplay blogs, and make communication a bit easier. i might also post worldbuilding stuff here ( maps, xenobiology, lore explanations ect ) that helps give context for a lot of the stuff i do on my other blogs, as well as answer any OOC questions about my muses. don't be surprised if i talk a lot about cherubs, i'm the cherub biology guy, that's just kind of what i do.

NOTE;

please keep in mind, i have a few conditions that may affect how i interact with others! if i act wierd, i might not realise i'm doing so ^-^' i have autism/adhd, so i may need tone tags ect to prevent any misinterpretation. that, and if i go completely quiet, don't worry about it much- i'm probably asleep or don't have my phone/laptop with me. if you're sending me video or audio for any reason, please give a warning if it's loud. i am extremely noise sensitive to the point i need my noise-cancelling headset 24/7 to avoid being constantly overwhelmed. sudden loud noises cause me physical pain and trigger mutism episodes more often than not. i would like to avoid being in pain and losing my sense of speech for the rest of the day, please.

active blogs:

@burninggills { Laxlat Virria, troll (T.sol, lime) }

@nomadicmessenger { Wayywind, cherub (yellowblood mutant) }

@carminemedic { Rostye Virria, troll (T.sol, candy red) }

@alternian-cryptid-sightings {mod Fang, troll (T.lune, indigo) }

@bardiceternal { ------ Sertas, troll (crossbreed, T.dawn [limeblood dominant])}

@the-one-is-all { SINGULARITY, trolldrone (T.lune, tealblood) }

WIP blogs:

@prophet-of-corruption { ???, corrupted troll/partial lamia (T.lune, jade..?)}

[childabusesurvivor]

Taylor Swift, Deepfake Porn and the Law

New Post has been published on https://www.childabusesurvivor.net/reviews/2024/02/15/taylor-swift-deepfake-porn-and-the-law/

Taylor Swift, Deepfake Porn and the Law

Since working in the legal technology field, I’ve been aware of the risk of “deepfake” audio and video. It’s growing in popularity as it becomes easier to use.

If you’re not familiar with it, you will be. Audio and video show someone saying things or acting in ways that never happened. Whether it be President Biden’s voice or Taylor Swift’s face, it is being used to “prove” things that never happened.

This article offers a good look at the problem, which goes much deeper than celebrity culture:

Deepfake Porn: It Impacts More People Than Just Taylor Swift

“Since this technology has become more widely available, 90-95% of deepfake videos are now nonconsensual pornographic videos and, of those videos, 90% target women — mostly underage.”[15]  All a perpetrator needs is an innocent photo from social media and they can turn it into an explicit image that looks just like the victim.[16] The problem is believed to be regularly affecting millions of teenage girls.[17]

As the article explains, there is no federal law against this in the US. There are some state laws, but they’re not very effective. The problem is that we’ve always treated sexual abuse materials as criminal because, as the saying goes, behind every photo is a child being abused. With deepfakes, though, the abuse isn’t happening. So when a teen girl is the subject of deepfake porn, she was never sexually assaulted, so there’s no crime.

There’s a lot of harm, though. In the case of a celebrity, it might be reputational harm. In the case of teenagers, that fake can turn into blackmail, bullying, and all the mental health issues that go along with that. (The same is true of adults, but we know how vulnerable teens are to this and how this too often ends.)

There might be a law that covers blackmail and bullying, but there’s no law against creating the video in the first place. Once it exists, though, it’s beyond anyone’s ability to control what happens and how it will be used. The question is, should there be a law against creating and/or disseminating fake porn or other materials meant to cause harm to the people being depicted? Thanks to the publicity that comes along with Taylor Swift being depicted in fake porn videos, it seems like we are finally starting to think about what laws should be in place. That’s a start, but it’s a start that has come far, far too late. This has been going on for a couple of years now. Technology has gotten a huge head-start on the law in this and many other areas.

What can we do in the meantime? Learn about deepfake technology; don’t believe everything you see and hear. The harm to teens is lessened if they know most people won’t believe that fake video. It’s not zero, but it’s harder to blackmail someone when no one believes the material is real. Taylor was harmed, but not nearly as much as some unknown teenager could be because no one thinks the videos of her are real.

We also have to decide that this is not appropriate. Whether there is a law against it or not, society has to make this as gross as it is. It shouldn’t be socially acceptable to make non-consensual fake videos of anyone for any reason. We aren’t close to that. I hope we get there, and I hope we find the right laws that will prevent the most harm. I also know how far behind we are now, though. I know how fast this technology is moving, and I’m afraid we’ll never get in front of it at the rate we are working now.

Technology can do great things, and it can cause harm. People who use it to cause harm should not be celebrated.

  #Abuse, #Hope, #MentalHealth, #SocialMedia, #Technology, #Teens

[europa6502]

I was thinking about this further - and CDs (and, by extension, DVDs and other optical media in a similar vein) are probably the best chance at media preservation we have (at least here in the West, and specifically the US).

Analog formats like tapes, records, etc. all degrade with use. This is simply the nature of having an analog format and nothing can really be done about it (you can do things like store your media well to make it last longer, but you cannot reduce degradation in its entirety. The grooves of an LP will wear out, the little particles of metal on magnetic tape will wear off - it's a fact of life.

Digital formats don't suffer from this issue - they have their own issues (such as bit rot), but you could, in theory, play a CD an infinite number of times and it'd still sound as good on playthrough n+1 as it did on playthrough 1. Here in the West (and specifically the US - I don't really have any personal experience elsewhere), CDs reign supreme when it comes to physical, digital media. MDs never really took off here, DCC and DAT were pretty much dead-on-arrival thanks to record companies/the RIAA, and I'm sure there are other formats I'm forgetting as well). CDs do have manufacturing defects that can occur, issues relating to age that can develop over time, and they are still susceptible to issues relating to improper storage conditions, but that is still really minor compared to what happens with analog media under normal, regular use.

Furthermore, if someone were to ask "but what about lossless audio files on a hard drive" - well, hard drives corrupt and heads crash, even under the best of conditions that's a risk - CDs don't have that issue unless a drive is malfunctioning in some way. One can be sure that any sort of optical media drive used in an archival setting should be checked regularly for issues, similar to essential mechanical equipment.

This also has only covered pre-recorded media thus far. user-created media has a lot of variables that would be very difficult to cover in its entirety, but overall the fact remains the same - CDs (and other, similar, optical media) are the best chance we have at media archival. CDs, being digital, can record a bit-for-bit accurate duplicate of a digital source - or a very high-quality duplicate of an analog source. The principle of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) still holds true, however - if your source isn't good, the recording won't be good either. But, compared to something like audio tape, you don't get gradual generational degradation of recordings (so you could record A from 0, B from A, C from B, and, as long as the signal path is entirely digital, C will sound just as good as the original 0, as opposed to something like tape where C will be degraded even ever so slightly from 0 - and that will only become more apparent as time goes on). Other digital formats could do the same thing, but offered easier recording (recordable CDs being practical for consumers didn't come around until pretty well into the lifetime of the CD, although it was the early 90s when they first came about), which caused the RIAA to quash those formats before they saw much adoption IIRC).

This also doesn't only apply to audio - DVD-Video and Blu-Ray for video will be more reliable than videotape (although, under the right circumstances (i.e. vault archival or other actual archival conditions), I'd consider film to be the superior archival format in this case) , all the various data formats for data, etc. This is the other thing it has going for it - you can store so many different kinds of media or information on a CD (or DVD, etc.) and that is just really, really cool.

CDs (etc.) may not have the "cool" factor that something like tape or vinyl does, but I do think it's really important to consider the marvels of technology they embody, especially for the time - in 1984, when the CD was introduced, there wasn't much of any widespread audio format for consumers that did what CDs did where you could use it without it degrading with each play (there have been video formats for a while that have done that, but they've been (mostly) analog IIRC and have never seen the same sort of adoption that videotape (VHS specifically) and DVD have seen). I love analog formats - I have a sizable compact cassette collection and would be interested in starting to collect vinyl, but I also love CDs and how relatively immutable they are. Also the fact they're random access is really, really nice - both for creation and playback. You haven't lived until you've had to sit through waiting for a computer program to load from cassette tape only for it to error before it finishes loading (and honestly floppies aren't that fast compared to CDs either).

But yeah, my basic point is that the CD is way too important to die - if not directly important to the consumer, then important to archivists such as myself who take pleasure and pride in archiving stuff that may otherwise be lost to time.

HOLD THE LINE!! KEEP PUSHING!!!!!

[s3898709]

Week 7

Reflection

From the testing session in the Capitol during the mid-semester break, the key change that I needed to make was to "be bolder". Once again, the colours aren't right (probably due to the architecture works and the amount of white that is in the space), and we can also now clearly see and compare it to the screen and how off it is (even if they are digitally the same hex colour). Luckily, I was given the opportunity to just play with the colour wheel directly in the space, so I now feel like I've got the colours done. Just need to get it ready for the next demo.

Also, going along with the theme of being bold, it was suggested that I add more 'flourishes' for when something happens on screen, so given that I'm not using the screen lights for pretty much anything currently, I'll probably end up using those lights for this.

The other thing that was noticed (or wasn't) was the team's progress within the roof. In general, I got the census that people would prefer that the entire rim lit up rather than individual lights (which will be easier for me, so that's a bonus).

Overall, though, I think the syncing up with lights with the video worked out well! And other than some more tweaks to get the whole thing in a draft state before next week's test session, it will be great because that demo was only half complete!

Research

Now, here's a bit of disappointing news. I can't find many academic sources or works that depict exactly what I want to do. Most of eSports flashy lighting procedures go into what I call the 'intro', which is essentially a hype reel before the game begins. The most that tends to happen in both the eSports scene and real-life sports is some animation (and maybe some lights turn on) when something like a goal (or in the same games akin to a goal) is scored. Nothing that really gives any indication of progress, or when a team holds possession. 

Now there are probably two main reasons behind this. The first is that it requires a lot of setup, and there are a lot of scenes to create if this were to be produced in a live setting (or a lot of complex code interacting between different applications and APIs). The second reason is that it doesn't make sense in a lot of games to have this sort of progression system. The game most akin to Splatoon in terms of its competitive ruleset is Overwatch. In Overwatch, you can respawn, and the rulesets are objective-based, rather than on elimination that occurs in many shooters or a 'goal' system like real-life sports and other sports like video games. Add in the fact that Splatoon has very distinct colours for each team and you can see why this idea hasn't been incorporated on a large-scale basis.

Progress

This week, I'm really trying to finish of the lighting design. That's because there will be such a long break before the next Capitol test, and also, I need to get some of the video elements (like the intro and getting commentators) started!

While I didn't really run into many challenges per se (other than testing what presets work the best with what I'm trying to produce), the biggest issue I ran into this week was the constant crashing of Pharos. I think in one night I encountered three crashes (which made me lose around three hours of work total). I think the issue with this was that I had my editing software, Final Cut Pro, open at the same time as I needed to test some things with that open simultaneously, but that ended up causing more hassle than it was worth (...yay).

The key changes I've made this week were changing up the colours and incorporating the other feedback (discussed above), as well as getting the intro in place. The purpose of the intro is to hype up the audience before the set begins, so I'm planning on starting with a small amount of lights, and then building it up so that people really feel like they're in for an awesome time. Luckily I decided on the audio piece early as it fits right into what I want to do (Surrender Peace by Grabbitz). The song itself builds up to a drop and the instruments combined with the style they're played in have a very similar vibe to Splatoon, so that's why I picked that track.

You can see this week's draft here ->

[claramikela]

Deepfakes

A deepfake is a video that has been heavily edited so the subject in the video appears like someone else. The intent of deepfakes are more than usually malicious. The videos are created using AI. Editing videos like this isn't new but now it can be done much quicker and easier than ever before because now the computer does the work for you. Just how computers were trained to make deep fakes, they are now learning to detect videos that may be fake but the technology is fairly new. Now there deepfake audios. These are made using voice and facial recognition and the same technology is being used to detect the fakes.

I think we do really need to worry about deepfake videos. The technology is more and more sophisticated each time and that is scary. Last year there was a deepfake of both Vladmir Putin and President Zelensky. The Putin deepfake was him declaring peace in the war against Ukraine. The Zelensky deepfake where he said Ukraine wasn't going to back down had spread somewhat widely on social media already and was also put on a news website before it was taken down. This wasn't the only deepfake, there were others that weren't as well known. There were some theories that Russian government was making them on purpose. There is no evidence to prove this but if its true then it shows that countries are willing to actually use them to promote their actions whether they are bad or good.

One of my maybe irrational fears is that someone is going to make a deepfake of some political figure in the United States making fun of Kim Jong-Un. Since the technology is improving it is going to look so real, he's going to buy it, and then he's going to send a nuclear bomb to a really big city in America. I'm also scared it could happen with Putin. If you really think about it, it doesn't sound like an out there scenario. It could actually happen to some degree.

In terms of journalism, as journalists we do try to have some sort of following to spread the word about any stories we cover or causes we support. Its a given that there are people who will not agree with what you write and dislike it very much. I think a concern would be someone making a deep fake of you and putting it out there. Even if you manage to get it taken down, nothing on the internet is actually ever deleted and other people will stumble across whatever video it is and may think its real and it can hurt your reputation.

I am very glad the government is taking more notice of these videos. I think in the future there will be some type of regulation on them because I don't really want to know what will happen if the technology to make real looking deepfakes gets in the hands of everyone. I just hope it doesn't get to the point where we don't know what is real and what isn't.

[ariakjanawen]

As a person who has used all here's why choosing Apple if you have to stay with one of these choices forever is a TERRIBLE IDEA:

To get the good stuff about Apple out of the way, everything just works, with little to no extra fiddling required. All of your computers, smartphones, smart home stuff, earbuds, all just work together and share features across them and you barely have to do anything to set them up. It's also incredibly easy to copy content over on various Apple devices, and as far as the smartphones go, while Android devices from some companies have significantly better photos, there are no Android devices that compare quite to Apple in stability and quality of video recording. I've used Oppo and Google phones, which are considered to have some of the best cameras in the Android world, and if I had to choose a smartphone to use exclusively for video recording, not still images, I would choose an iPhone.

The bad news? Most of what you've purchased is designed in a way where it is not upgradable, and where it is so expensive to repair since Apple is your only repair option for nearly everything that it ends up being cheaper to just replace the devices, which is saying something because their... Everything starts way more expensive than other competitors. You are also incredibly limited as far as choice goes. Your phone and computer can only look and operate certain ways. You can only get certain configurations, with upgrades to those configurations usually costing double what they would for a Windows or android based device, and the software support is significantly less so locking yourself into that ecosystem is locking yourself out of a lot of great incompatible with macOS/iOS software.

The bad with non-apple devices, is that you have to make your own ecosystem out of devices from several disparate companies, and the amount of setup time is significantly more. You also have to do more research into the companies because not all of them are going to offer updates for as long as the others, and two companies can be selling devices at two very similar price points that perform very different. A sub $500 phone from OnePlus or Google, for example, is usually going to be more performant than a sub $500 phone from Samsung, but you're going to have an easier time getting ahold of the Samsung, and it will likely be the first or only thing advertised to you. You have to manually search and do research to find the really good deals, and sometimes those good deals come with unique software or hardware compromises, which you also have to be mindful of.

The benefits? You have so much choice available to you. You can find a configuration for basically any device that you could need that fits exactly what you're looking for. You also have a significantly wider range of products available to you price wise, so while it's nearly $2,000 to get a bare minimum smartphone and bare minimum laptop from Apple, you can get a decent performing windows/chromeOS laptop and a really great android phone for about half of that, provided you do your proper research. Additionally, even if the devices (like laptops) are still fairly minimal in way of upgrades, there are a lot more available that are upgradable, meaning that you can use them for longer in better condition. Apple has a fantastic track record of making their devices last really long, with the exception of their phones and audio devices, but you are likely to end up with something that may not be sufficient for what you are needing in the future, and you just can't upgrade it no matter what, which causes you to need to vastly overspend to get a device that will actually be as usable a few years from now as it would be this month (because going from 8 to 16 GB of RAM on a generation old base model macbook air is 200 dollars for some reason?? And that is with only the ram upgrade, so you would be looking at a $1,200 device with only 256gb of -not upgradeable- storage).

[goodfish-bowl]

Ectober Day 17: Found Footage

AO3 link

Summary: Maddie finds a camera with some interesting videos recorded onto it.

Words: 1845

Content Warning: just typical Fenton anti-ghost bias

Maddie clicked play on the first file up on the screen, this one labeled ‘Test 8’. The video on the screen was slightly grainy, but the quality was amazing for something recorded on a handheld device. The video was clear enough that the background was identifiable, an area of the park that was well-wooded and generally very private. Maddie recognized it personally as an area where small ghosts liked to lurk, but often seemed like a massive fight had gone down there without there ever having been a ghost fight recorded in the location.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” A voice off screen asked, the audio staticky and distant, barely understandable.

“If this didn’t work, that just means I haven’t figured it out yet. Come on! Get in the camera frame!” The person recording asked. Their audio was clear and crisp, whether it was due to distance or the person speaking was unclear. Both voices were vaguely recognizable, the second more so than the first.

“This is the seventh attempt. I’m not sure if it’s even possible,” the first voice complained.

“Just do it!”

The first voice groaned and then a figure stepped into the camera frame, extremely out of focus. Even so out of focus, the figure was recognizable. No one else wore that outfit or had hair that white. Phantom came into frame, and the camera struggled to focus on him. Maddie realized what the unknown person was attempting to do.

Ghosts were notoriously hard to film, often appearing extremely blurred or translucent in photos, and appearing as a blur of pixels and static on video. Audio recordings were easier, especially with something like the ghost gabber, but were still often difficult to make out. Already, the camera frame of Phantom was much better than anything she herself had recorded, probably also due to the fact that Phantom was standing relatively still in the frame.

The other voice, muttered incoherently, clicking several things that popped up on the camera screen, systems added to the camera, and a small bedsheet ghost icon appeared in the corner. The camera snapped into focus. Phantom’s eerie-bright eyes appeared in full detail on the screen. The unknown person let a whoop of joy.

“I’ve got it!” They exclaimed.

“Seriously?” Phantom asked, now equally excited.

Maddie wondered how he was capable of emoting so well, or if he was just emulating the person recording. Phantom’s audio was still poor however, but the feat itself was incredible.

“You’re crystal clear! I just need to do audio next,” the voice proclaimed.

“Dude, show me!” Phantom exclaimed, and the video cut off.

Maddie hummed, and clicked the next video, this one labeled with a date and a time that matched the time stamp. Phantom appeared immediately on the screen this time, quickly coming into focus automatically. He seemed to be holding the camera himself, though the background was indistinguishable. Maddie vaguely wondered how that worked, since ghosts also had a tendency to cause electronics to bug out, especially in close proximity, though she had seen Phantom equipped with tech before, and the technology ghosts, Technus, was a notable outlier.

“Well… uh… hi?” Phantom began, his audio much clearer this time, but still having the echoing quality all ghosts did, “TF said I should try to start a video diary… and Spaz did too. So, uh… I’m Phantom and I hope no one ever watches these. I’m a ghost… and uh… I’m just trying to do what I think is right, despite how cheesy that sounds,” he said with a wavering tone.

Maddie noted how he emphasized what she assumed were code names. Phantom had quite the amount of foresight to hide their names, for a ghost at least. She wondered why he was continuing his front of being a “hero” if he never intended for this to go public. Obviously, she didn’t believe that for a second.

“So, today Skulker decided it would be a good idea to try to catch me using some Nasty Burger as bait. No idea he thought that would work. Honestly, it was kind of insulting. Sure, I like bacon-ranch milkshakes, but he left it inside of a crate, I’m obviously not going to fall for that,” Phantom huffed.

“Says the one who fell for it!” A feminine voice shouted off screen, somewhere in the distance, this one also familiar to Maddie, but not one she could identify off the top of her head.

Phantom turned to the apparent direction of the voice and stuck out his blue-green tongue at them. The video ended with that as the final frame.

Maddie looked down to her notes and added a few more. Phantom’s tongue color, his ability to eat human food, and his juvenile attitude, and his insistence on the pretense of helping people despite the (relative) privacy of his “video journal”, the first two and last points interesting her the most.

Maddie cross referenced the time stamp with ghost activity and sightings for that day, and confirmed the presence of the ghost named “Skulker” on that day. She played the next video. It played out a lot like the first, with Phantom talking about his daily ghost fights, encounters with the infamous Red Huntress, and even her and her husband. For some reason, if she was to read his facial expressions as genuine and not a facade, he always looked solem and guilty when he mentioned the young ghost huntress. Maddie was curious about their relationship, since she had caught a few of the tail ends of their fights, which seemed much more personal than they ought to be.

Phantom’s expressions towards Maddie and Jack confused her much more. He seemed to be in pain whenever he mentioned “Drs. Fenton”, but also fond. His knowledge about their technology and personal lives was frightening. The sheer depth of his knowledge on their personal lives unnerved her. Maddie wondered if she should up the security again since it clearly wasn’t functioning like it should if Phantom knew so much about the weapons they designed to hunt him. But that might backfire and hurt her own son, Danny, who had an odd tendency to set off the systems since his accident with the portal.

Maddie’s notes kept growing, logging Phantom’s odd reactions, interesting phrases, and the code names of each of his allies, the names or code names he used for his enemies (Maddie seriously doubted “Fruitloop” was the ghosts actual name, sometimes she doubted he was talking about a ghost at all, it was hard to tell. But with ghosts like the “Box Ghost” she could never be quite sure). The videos were pretty standard, and upon occasion one of the ghost boy’s many enemies would attack while the camera was rolling. One time, it was snatched by the pair of biker ghosts, another it was hyjacked by the technology ghost, Technus, and was nabbed by the box ghost a small handful of times. Sometimes the camera would remain rolling for the entire duration, with a poor view of the ghost fight or the ghost that had captured the camera going on their own brief rant before Phantom managed to retrieve his device and turn the video off. She got to witness an entire spiel from the box ghost about how cardboard was the best and how the other ghosts refused to acknowledge it. (Phantom had saved it as its own video, surprisingly enough).

However, every single time Phantom would slip up on names, she jotted it down. Usually she got no more than the first syllable before he quickly corrected himself. She even had notes on how often he mentioned hanging around with them, expressing his opinions on his friends and enemies alike, or even doing something she’d expect of Danny, not a post-mortem abomination, like watching movies, hanging out with friends, and going to the park or arcade. But she had to be careful with herself. The more of them she watched, the more impossibly human the ghost boy seemed to be.

Perhaps that was the true purpose of the videos. A logical ruse, depicting something manufactured to be conceived as private in order to turn public opinion in his favor as depicting him as more human. It didn’t work as well as Maddie thought Phantom might believe. She could still see how inhuman he was, now in the clearest recording of a ghost she had even gotten her hands on. His pupil-less, acid eyes, the strange glow he emitted, lack of breath, the glowing green freckles on his face, pearl fangs he hid away, the way his hair wisped like dry ice at the ends, and the blue-green color where red-pink would be on a human.

Maddie must’ve been sitting there for hours on end when she reached the last video. It started like most of the others, some time late at night, the dim night sky visible in the background. Phantom was complaining about being nagged by “Spaz” to spill a secret to someone before it came and “snapped at his spectral tail”. What his secret could possibly be, Maddie had no clue.

The end was sudden, ending with a bright blast of energy connecting directly with Phantom resulting in a pained yelp before he was blasted out of range. The camera free fell to the ground from however high Phantom had been floating. The lens cracked, and video cut out for a second before it continued with it’s recording, now lacking audio. Maddie set her pencil down, giving it her full, undivided attention.

In the distance, Maddie saw Phantom crash into the concrete, leaving one of his trademark craters. She could almost hear the screech of tires in the silence of the lab as a white van slammed to a stop, figures dressed in the same near-fluorescent color poured from the vans and restrained Phantom, trapping him in an electrified net which caused what appeared to be a shriek of agony from the ghost. He was picked up like trash, injected with something that made him limp and crumple in on himself. Some form of ecto-tranquilizer. Maddie had developed and patented a few of those herself.

Just as the van doors were getting closed, there was a bright flash of white inside, causing his captures to jump back. They talked amongst themselves for a second, before climbing into the van themselves. Something fell out of the van as if flung. The van drove off, and the camera continued to run until it ran out of battery. It had remained until she had picked it up from the street on an patrol earlier that morning.

Maddie knew without a doubt what that object was, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around it, or how it had ended up there of all places. She looked down to the ground at the object that had drawn her to the screen in the first place. A single red sneaker that looked like it had been through the Zone and back. A shoe that definitely belonged to her Danny. The same Danny who hadn’t been seen since the day prior, wasn’t answering his phone, and hadn’t been in bed this morning.

Maddie started the videos from the beginning again, dots that never should’ve even been on the same spectrum slowly coming together far too neatly.

[bluejaysymphony]

I finally finished this!! AAAAAAAA—

Audio is from Danny Gonzales’ video, The Liver King. (i love him sm someone please protect him with a 16 ft pole)

Subtitles for those who can’t hear

Antonio: “I’m gonna build a tree in my house.”

Mirabel: “I’m gonna swim into a volcano in the ocean to live like our earliest ancestors.”

Camilo: “Kinda wanna just live like a single-celled organism, if that’s cool?”

—AAAAA!! *cough* sorry. So this is my first time making animatiiiiic :3

And I really like how it turned out!!

It’s not perfect, especially cause the program I was using to edit it wasn’t working properly TwT

(Please don’t notice but it’s doing this really weird thing with the lighting *sobs*). I tried to programs, but both had different problems(second one wouldn’t let the animation play smoothly—which I hated more than the flashing *sobs harder*)

But eh! It was my first time so of course I was going to make mistakes, BUT THAT AIN’T STOPPING ME

I’ve almost always been the kind of person to start something but don’t finish(especially if it’s long), so it’s fun and easier to push myself with funny stuff like this! I can’t give up!

So yeah. I hope you guys like this as much as I do. I’ll also be posting the pictures and animations separately as soon as I let this post breathe for a day, cause I really like them as well TwT

Otherwise, if you know how to do this please do give me input and advice on what programs to use and such! Keeping in mind that I use an iPad

Have a good day! *disappears*