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madillhethen · 3 years ago

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KnK ep 5 part 2

It swaps over to Mikiya side after Shiki is captured and I think this was really cool. Going back in time and showing what Touko and Mikiya were up to. (Especially since there was that one scene with Enjou sitting with them.)

Mikiya does some PI work-he could be in a supernatural criminal minds show-while working with Touko. That conversation about Mikiya loving Shiki regardless of gender was just hilarious to me, how oblivious he is to the reactions of those around him. He really loved Shiki.

Though I’m not fond of dolls, I have to admire the art exhibit scenes with TM Willy Wonka aka Alba and Touko. Touko makes some pretty interesting dolls (unless all three of the former friends have a doll making career, I’m assuming Alba buys Touko’s art?).

I think this is where the whole Fate connection comes in play in this episode. Souren is searching for the Root—the whole reason the Holy Grail War was created was the attempt to reach the root, made by three ‘friends’. Makiris, Tohsakas, and Einzberns—which I want to point out that Touko and her friends are kind of reminiscent of those three. (Or vice versa since KnK came before Fate).

Touko makes doll like clones, pretty similar to how All the homunculi are made in Justeaze’s image. Souren’s been searching to obtain the way to the Root for years just like Zouken. And Alba…I have no idea if he has any similarities to the Tohsaka ancestor besides Alba running around in a red color scheme. (Souren even says he had feelings for Touko, I’m not sure if he was confessing but hmm I thought someone told me Zouken was in love with Justeaze, not sure how true that is.)

I think Touko really takes center stage here. We get to see how badass she is. Apparently she has a briefcase with demons inside (Newt Scamander?) but Souren has accumulated boundary fields over the years and he easily ‘kills’ her.

When I saw her die I was a bit surprised. It was real quick, no one to grieve, a shocking moment but definitely not a good sendoff for a prominent character.

And true enough, Touko reappears just in time to save Mikiya and utterly kills Alba for calling her a name. I find it funny Souren heard Alba say it and basically was like ‘yeah, no, you’re on your own’. The real Touko is never explained in the movie but with how much dolls she makes I’m thinking every Touko is a doll. I’ll probably find out more in LN.

Which brings me to another point that I didn’t realize before but Touko was in Heaven’s Feel, Huh?

Sakura and Rin pass her by. Shirou’s body is artificial but it’s basically a ‘normal’ body that functions like a regular human. Hmm, so Touko made his body, perhaps? Well, regardless it was a nice touch for ufotable to add this since they spent a long time animating the KnK movies.

Shiki ends up killing Souren but not before Touko can have some final words to him. We learn that despite his evil methods, Souren’s wish was a pure one. He saw people die endlessly and wanted to find a reason for it all, and if I understood correctly, he wanted them to be remembered.

There was something I just really liked about this scene between Souren and Touko. Just the fact, it’s calm and it almost feels like she’s sending her long time friend off and not so much they were enemies, I didn’t feel or see any enmity in his final moments between them and that was nice. I also really loved their exchanges before Touko’s ‘death’ and his, just that for every question he had an answer and for every answer she had another question. It really did feel like they were friends once and from this exchange you could definitely see it.

“Araya, what do you seek?”

“True wisdom.”

“Araya, where do you seek it?”

“Only within myself.”

“Araya, where are you trying to reach?”

“That’s obvious. To the end of this paradox spiral of a world.”

I actually really liked that this isn’t the end of the series, we still haven’t even gotten the answer to everything revolving Shiki and yet the main antagonist is gone. It just goes to show that Souren has a greater influence in this whole ordeal whether alive or not and I think that’s great, problems don’t just disappear because a character does, there are still lingering effects.

#knk #kara no kyoukai #touko aozaki #Souren Araya #fate heavens feel #heaven’s Feel #sakura matou #rin tohsaka #emiya shirou #Cornelius Alba #Touko was amazing here #honestly this took me awhile to post because I wanted to write the exact exchange between them #garden of sinners #Mad’s thoughts

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cherubchoirs · 5 years ago

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An Explanation of Yaldabaoth

So with Christmas Eve coming up, let’s finally talk about Yaldabaoth – who he is, his motivations and goals, and why he suits P5’s story. Basically, I see a lot of confusion (as well as frustration) surrounding his character and his status as the final antagonist, but I totally get that. His writing is messy and his execution left a lot to be desired, despite the idea of him being sound, so I understand why so many players felt he came out of nowhere and screws up the story’s themes. As I am (unfortunately) a big fan of his character, I wanted to put together a post that might help people confused by him see how he fits in, why he was included in the story, and why he makes a satisfying final boss for the plot of P5. And even if you still hate him (totally fair! Everyone’s got different taste and no matter what, his handling is god awful), I just hope I can sort of explain him so he at least makes more sense. This is going to be long, so let’s get started!

First, Yaldabaoth (also known as the Demiurge) is a figure from Gnostic lore, the false god of the material world. He came to be when Sophia, a part of the unknowable, Supreme God, decided to create something separate from the Pleroma (the divine totality) all on her own, without divine permission. So she gave birth to Yaldabaoth; however, he was so monstrous she grew immediately ashamed of her creation, and so provided him with a throne which she then wrapped in a cloud to hide him and make him ignorant in turn. Unable to behold his mother or the divine, he then believed himself to be god. Because of this, Yaldabaoth set about creating the material world, a place he unwittingly based upon the true world of divinity. His creations are animal, like him, but with Sophia’s divine spark as she provides him the power to create. This world is poorly made due to Yaldabaoth’s own incompetence and so that divine spark is trapped in the material, making it something like a spiritual prison. Because of this, however, humanity can ascend while Yaldabaoth cannot, making him envious of human beings. He grows to hate humanity, angered by their imperfection (as he bungles their creation) and the fact that they can ascend while he’s forever trapped in the depths – he turns spiteful, and he is sometimes thought of as the God of the Old Testament as an explanation for his cruelty. Obviously this is incredibly simplified (as I am by no means an expert on Gnosticism), but this is the basis of his character, and I think it really is something the writers played with (including that Satanael, his son, is the one to rebel against him and his ignorance, which is why he is cast from heaven).

A false, artificial god who believes himself to be the Supreme Being, resents humankind, and traps them in a prison...sounds pretty familiar. So what’s different about his character in P5? This Yaldabaoth is the creator of the Metaverse, and he is born from the will of the public – people wished for ease and comfort over free will, the luxury to be free of making decisions and taking responsibility for themselves, which the Holy Grail explains to the PTs as its origin.

However, Yaldabaoth is also just a manifestation of that need - one that gained sentience through the power it was fed, but he is still simply the unconscious desire of the public made material as pointed out by Lavenza (but this explanation scene is where things get rushed, confusing, and glossed over to a frustrating extent)

Yaldabaoth IS society, a tangible stand-in for the true villain of P5 – The people of the public that allow, condone, and even encourage those the PTs have fought. They can defeat criminals, but as long as society remains intact, another will immediately spring up to take their place. Makoto actually states as much when Joker comes to retrieve her from her cell:

Yaldabaoth, therefor, is not just a god thrown into the plot randomly for the biggest bad possible – he is the evils of society incarnate, the people who allow the heinous crimes the PTs had been fighting against, the people that consumed these devastating crimes as entertainment or turned a blind eye to people in need, the people that threw the PTs out the minute any doubt was cast on them. The apathetic, uncaring, callous public as a whole, the ones who constantly ignore or support these criminals until it is no longer convenient (more on that in a minute) – The palace rulers are absolute monsters and yet...we see them all over society because they are a product of that society. And then there’s Futaba, an orphan and mentally ill girl left to rot by society; Sae, a woman trying so hard to achieve her justice and support her sister, constantly stamped down in a society that says a woman can’t, a woman shouldn’t. Society is the true villain and Yaldabaoth is their collective will, manifested so that the final boss battle of the game can just be the PTs taking down the whole of a corrupt society. It’s really the ultimate culmination of their efforts and what they’ve fought against. Because as awful as they all are, the palace rulers are products of a screwed up society (one that reflects our own) – Totally and 100% responsible for their acts, but they were allowed to exist due to this society.

SO if they’re made by society, why are they “escaped convicts” from the Prison of Regression? This is a representation of how society is broken – it creates these criminals, it condones their actions, but once they become too “disruptive”, THEN and ONLY then do they become an issue. Yaldabaoth, to me, is similar to a supercomputer type villain (think AM, a very similar character imo) – the palace rulers are errant, erratic variables that upset the status quo and so must be culled. His dialogue reads very much like a sterile computer program and I think rather than completely outright malicious in his intent, he is performing what he believes to be a necessary function:

Society creates them, encourages them, and then becomes upset when their actions are brought to light and so punishes them (or in Shido’s case at first and so often irl, are let off) so as to quickly restore equilibrium where they can once again ignore all of their ills. Essentially, the palace rulers exhibit that the whole system is sick and doesn’t work, yet people by and large pretend it does because it’s so much easier to say it was one “bad apple” or blame the victims rather than admitting the entire framework of society is completely rotten from the inside out.

What is Yaldabaoth’s goal then? He sets up a game to see if society can be shaken from this apathy or if they no longer wish to lead their own lives. Joker plays the trickster, an antihero the public can root for, the rebellious and glamorous rogue that punishes criminals without help of the establishment. If he wins, this would indicate the public no longer wishes for the status quo, but for a new society that wants to reinvent itself, which is generally well explained...

Goro Akechi is his opposite – He creates chaos and fear in the public to push them back into their comfortable boxes, make them wish for the status quo represented by Shido so they can stop living in fear and return to their lives where they can ignore everything around them. If he wins, this would signal that the public don’t want to fight but instead only want security and familiarity, choosing to turn a blind eye to everything the trickster had accomplished in order to remain safe. (This is made much less clear in the dialogue, because they don’t go over Goro’s role much at all.)

He sets up the entire game on this premise, and the experiment runs...however, it ends unexpectedly. Joker succeeds in taking down Akechi and the PTs expose Shido’s crimes as well as the conspiracy itself, but the public still does not support the Phantom Thieves. They clamor for a disgraced Shido and THIS is why Joker still loses – remember, Yaldabaoth is only a representation of society itself, and society no longer believes in the Phantom Thieves. Yaldabaoth did expect the loss, he knew how far gone humanity was, he just didn’t expect this exact scenario. Of course, the game was rigged – as Lavenza says, Yaldabaoth expects Joker to fulfill the role of the Trickster and so he keeps him close, watching over him in an attempt to stall him out as Lavenza explains.

However, due to the set up of the game, the only win condition is public support. Joker doesn’t earn it and therefor he loses, a decision that is not arbitrary despite possibly appearing so (although it is certainly unfair, pointed out by Morgana).

After offering Joker his deal (that’s a whole OTHER post I could write, y’all know I’m a clown), Yaldabaoth then moves to merge reality with Mementos in order to exert his will over the whole of the public. He wishes to rid them of their free will because, as Yaldabaoth sees it, it seems a vast majority of the public wish to no longer have it anyway and the ones that do merely become anomalies that must be purged from his system before they become too disruptive. Of course, this is an oversimplified way of viewing the issue, but again, he’s sort of like a computer – he will take care of the issue in the most efficient way possible, and that is to rule over society himself. (Again, using the word “administrator” invokes computer terminology and likens him to a mechanical program):

Interestingly, his defeat is brought about by the public backing the Phantom Thieves 100% - an action that triggers Arsene’s evolution into Satanael, Yaldabaoth’s rebellious son. Satanael is of the Fool Arcana, the confidant that represents Joker’s bond to Yaldabaoth himself...to the public, in a sense, and so it’s fitting that this persona is the one to destroy him as he is no longer needed.

So Yaldabaoth is both a character in his own right and representative of the will of the public as well. His writing is confusing, lacking in explanation, and relies heavily on obscure references to his Gnostic roots along with religious symbolism (eg., the floors of Mementos taking their names from the Qliphoth and the palace rulers being representative of the seven deadly sins), and I think that’s why he feels so out of place to so many players. However, the best possible final antagonist for P5’s themes and plot is society itself – the society that shunned them, the society that created the palace rulers, the society that desperately needs to be done away with if we wish for these travesties to come to an end. Because P5 isn’t about individual evil, it’s about institutional evils that create and perpetuate so much individual pain that goes unnoticed and uncared for. Yaldabaoth is the amalgamation and manifestation of that broken system, he gives it a presence and a voice so that the PTs can fight back against it physically. So even though his writing is handled poorly and his execution is lacking, I find him to be a perfect fit and a satisfying conclusion to P5’s themes as an unfair, cruel society turned into a dogmatic god.

This meta really just gives an overview of everything he represents, so I can always go into more detail about any of the points but I hope this explanation helps those that were confused by his inclusion in P5! I’m perfectly happy to elaborate on anything I talked about and clear up any confusion (I didn’t want this post to go on literally FOREVER, so I know some things might require more info), so feel free to ask questions! Other than that have a happy Day of Reckoning and remember to celebrate Bad End Akira’s birthday 🥳🎉

#persona 5 #yaldabaoth #CAN YOU BELIEVE I WROTE THIS???? GOD....#also this is just my read so there's probs other theories out there #but i'm satisfied with this explanation and i think it covers most things #and this is not criticism of ppl that don't get him bc he's so fucking confusing #like it took me forever to understand what his whole deal was it's so frustrating #y'all are valid as hell but i was just hoping i could help out #i'm super nervous posting metas in the tags but i worked hard on this one!!!#so i'm throwing it out there and if u read ALL of that...ur my hero thank u sm #p5 spoilers #persona 5 spoilers #nothing for the new game tho this is all vanilla

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dippedanddripped · 4 years ago

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In his 2018 skit on Supreme, Hasan Minaj, the patron comic of hype culture, said, “Without objects that make me stand out, what am I? Then I just have to be myself, and that’s terrifying, because I am insecure and I need things to make me feel better about myself.” In a couple of sentences, he deftly drilled to the core of the fuccboi psyche: a deep-seated insecurity about one’s own worth and an equally deep-seated desire to prove that worth to others.

Both the clinical and the cultural term for this state is Narcissism.

Narcissism is often confused with egotism or mere selfishness, but while it may contain elements of both, it’s driven not by an outsized sense of self-respect but by self-loathing, which leads to inexorable desire and strife for approval from others. “It’s a very insecure personality, and all the stuff on the outside – the grandiosity, the arrogance, the entitlement – is a suit of armor to buttress a weak interior core, because on the subconscious level narcissists think that others will see that they are not all that,” Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a best-selling author and an expert on narcissism, told me.

Narcissism is nothing new, but the level of narcissism on display in our culture is unprecedented – Dr. Ramani calls it the disease of our time. In his prophetic 1979 bestseller The Culture of Narcissism, the sociologist Christopher Lasch dissected a milieu of mass media that gave more and more coverage to celebrities, narcissistic role models whose behavior was increasingly beginning to be condoned, excused, and explained away. He blamed the rise of the narcissistic personality on “proliferation of images” and “the cult of consumption,” among other things. Fast-forward to 2020, and 1979 looks positively quaint in the age of social media, for there is no bigger driving engine of narcissism than social media platforms such as Instagram.

In the decade since its launch, much has been said about how Instagram has democratized media, but it simultaneously open-sourced Narcissism that was formerly reserved for a celebrity elite. Today, with the rise of Gen Z, this tendency reaches another dimension on TikTok. “Everybody on the app has some form of narcissism,” TikTokker Liv Huffman told Highsnobiety in our special zine about the platform’s stars. “You kind of have to in order to put yourself on the Internet like that.”

Having unleashed the technological means of disseminating narcissism with the one hand, contemporary culture has continued to manufacture models for narcissistic behavior in ever increasing numbers with the other. Contemporary pop music is filled to the brim with rappers whose lyrics are all about the display of their possessions. What began as a legitimate hip-hop lyrical device for expressing a sense of pride in lifting oneself up by attaining markers of American success previously possessed only by its white ruling class, has by now devolved into an exhibitionist trope. And just like the generations before them, today’s youth seeks to emulate the behavior of their favorite musicians. Every middle-schooler knows what it means to “flex” and there is no shortage of eleven-year-olds begging their mommies for the next pair of Travis Scott Dunks.

Hype culture is uniquely positioned to tap into the narcissistic world order by creating artificial scarcity and equating the possession of limited edition goods with self-worth. Conspicuous consumption is the defining consumer behavior of the day, but underneath its hood purrs the motor of narcissism turbocharged by a culture that has given us Donald Trump and Kanye West, two narcissists par excellence. Both are incredibly insecure and both – despite being on top of the world – constantly crave adulation and approval of others (West’s narcissism may be further complicated by his alleged bipolar disorder). And both are aided and abetted by their respective fan bases that readily forgive their transgressions thereby enabling them further. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that hip-hop fans seem to be especially tolerant towards narcissistic behavior of musicians, even when it’s misogynistic or generally sadistic.

Before you roll your eyes at my perceived alarmism that Grailed is poisoning the minds of a generation, consider that in this state of affairs no one is innocent. Study after study shows that despite economic progress and general increase in quality of life, members of contemporary society feel more and more unhappy. Other studies show that social media, Instagram in particular, have a negative effect on self-esteem that stems from the permeating feeling of anxiety and envy. Simply put, you can flex all you want, but there will always be someone with a bigger flex. And once you are on the hype treadmill, its very nature makes it hard to get off.

“In [the hype] world narcissists festoon themselves with the latest sneakers, or the latest streetwear, and in that moment they are safe. But then that moment when the world is telling you that you are great, which for the narcissist is better than drugs, is gone and you continue chasing the high,” said Dr. Ramani. On top of this, the culture of narcissism makes one feel inadequate for not owning something. “The entire way fashion is marketed is that if you don’t have that latest something, you are lacking,” continued Dr. Ramani.

Likes don’t make you happy. Not only that, it increasingly seems that possessions in themselves don’t make you happy either, as evidenced by rampant reselling in the streetwear world. Hypebeasts no longer seem to be able to experience the gratifying sense of ownership that comes with purchasing something meaningful and actually keeping it. Resell culture itself is a product of narcissism, because each sale subsidizes the next purchase and creates the social media illusion that one owns more than one actually does. This practice strips the product down only to being fodder for a fit pic, and essentially creates a short-term rental culture driven by Instagram and Stockx. As Lasch put it, late capitalism “subordinates possession itself to appearance and measures exchange value as a commodity’s capacity to confer prestige – the illusion of prosperity and well-being.”

The antidote to narcissism is authenticity, which is a deeper sense of self that provides an anchoring of one’s character that doesn’t change with trends. In matters of taste, authenticity also furnishes one with a clear sense of style. Authenticity forms over time through a series of experiences and experimentations, which is why we probably see the new fashion fans bought forth by hype culture getting younger and younger.

As productive conversations about mental health grow, so too are we now coming to terms with how we as a society are less and less happy. Narcissism has a large role to play here. As our sense of self-gratification keeps on infinitely expanding, our capacity to form lasting, meaningful relationships with other humans is degrading. The millennial marketing world’s incessant calls to “live your best life” are misguided in pegging our sense of self-worth to wrong types of rewards, fleeting and material. Underneath all the talk about inspiration, community, and culture sits a basic set of transactional relationships, whose real message is not “love yourself,” but “treat yourself.”

When Covid-19 hit, some predicted a return to a more substantive world, in which our collective narcissistic drive would be diminished. In fact, in a study done by Highsnobiety in the wake of the shelter in place orders, the readers interviewed overwhelmingly denounced their interest in logos and other markers of conspicuous consumption, instead claiming a newfound interest in minimalism and quality-oriented purchase decisions. Two-thirds of those polled that they actively felt bad about flexing outwardly with their purchases during a time when millions were tightening their belts.

However, long-term this could be more wishful thinking rather than a real change, and we continue to see the same pre-Covid behavior with each hyped release. Less than two weeks ago the new Off-White x Jordan drop caused yet another mad dash. The Atlanta streetwear store Wish received over 60,000 hits to its website within the first couple of seconds after the 10 a.m. scheduled release. Its website crashed, as did the websites of Nike and Off-White. “We would’ve needed servers the size of Coca-Cola’s to handle that much traffic,” said Wish’s representative.

We often talk about streetwear in terms of “the culture.” But in the last decade this term went from describing subcultural movements and their values to excusing run-of-the-mill consumerist behavior. Brands, many of which are the ones screaming loudest about “the culture,” don’t mind this state of affairs at all because it propels the hype bullet train, enriching them along the way. The thing is, happy people are not good for the system. Dr. Ramani sums it up best: “Capitalism would fall apart tomorrow if everyone on the planet was secure in themselves.”

#streetwear #narcissist #streetwear blog #streetwear brands #hypebeast #hype culture

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atopearth · 5 years ago

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Fate/stay night Réalta Nua Part 1 - Fate Route (1/2)

Prologue I’ve always wanted to read the VN so it’s time for me to actually do it! I feel like the anime left a lot of things to be desired so let’s see how it goes~ Didn’t expect Mitsuzuri and Rin to be good friends hmmm. I knew Shinji was supposedly popular but I didn’t know he was supposed to be THAT popular, guess I can further understand why he gets so insulted when Rin rejects him but yeah, still a thoroughly crappy guy. Ugh, his arrogance puts me off to no end. Wow, omg, Rin put him in his place so hard, it was hilarious. No wonder why he hates her lolll. Rin is so silly though, she knew her clock was one hour faster and yet she totally forgot loll, I wonder if she really would have been able to summon Saber instead if she did the ritual at the time when her magic was at its peak though? However, Archer is much more interesting and fun than Saber so yahh, not much of a loss there hahaha. Well, I guess since you have to summon them with something related to the Servant, she probably would have still got Archer haha. Hahahaha, I love how he said he’ll ignore her opinions and do everything his own way, so she can just hide in the basement until the Holy Grail War ends🤣🤣 Lmao when she used one of the Command Spells to force him to obey her orders from now on lolll. But I see…she failed summoning him properly so he doesn’t have his memories of who exactly he is… Lmao that he had to clean the living room because he has to listen to her orders or it’ll affect him (due to the spell). Their relationship is so cute though, he even made good tea for her! Although she’s too much of a tsundere to admit that she liked it, he could already tell, so that really adorable hahaha. I’ve alwayssss shipped Rin and Archer together since back in the day hahaha. So cuteee when she was embarrassed at him calling her Rin when she thought he’d just call her “you” or “Master” hahaha.

I love how confident and strong Rin is. She doesn’t feel the need to hide her magic circuits (since other Masters can detect it) because she wants other Masters to find her instead of her looking around for them hahaha, she’s so cool. Honestly, I’m really enjoying seeing things from Rin’s perspective rather than Shirou’s. Sakura…is talking to Gilgamesh? Honestly though, seeing Rin quite actively help and communicate with Sakura is very nice and refreshing, I always found it weird in the anime that they didn’t even seem like acquaintances imo. Also great to see more insight into Kuzuki’s personality with him cancelling and delaying midterm exams to a later date because of a misspelling in the papers loll. Rin even asks about whether she’s okay considering her home circumstances🥺 I see…I always kinda wondered why Rin never did anything to the boundary field at the school when she knew about it, but I see, she can’t destroy it thoroughly, but she was planning to hinder it by decimating some symbols, until Lancer appeared anyway. A lot of things are much clearer in the VN since it explains things and gives you time to digest it, but there really was much relief that Shirou happened to pass by and stopped Lancer from using his Noble Phantasm and kill them. Although, it doesn’t show that this person is actually Shirou, but you do see that Rin obviously really cares about this person, because she used the pendant (given to her by her father’s will, it was supposed to be a last resort for the war) containing an abundant amount of magical power to save his life. Initially, she was about to just accept his death as something “unlucky” since it’s just the normal process of killing all witnesses and it was unfortunate that she was careless this time (since she always made sure to have no witnesses so she wouldn’t have to kill anyone), but when she saw his face, she couldn’t help but use everything she could to save him. Interesting to see that she forgot about the pendant and left it with him, not that it’s very useful anymore since it doesn’t have much magic in it. Also interesting to know that since she lacked the skills to revive him from near death, the magic power from the pendant helped her in that regard, so I guess that means if you lack skills, you can make up for it with magic power?

Hmm I see, so the reason they always say that Saber is the strongest is because in all the previous wars, Saber has made it to final fight. I’ve always wondered why they always put such high acclaim on Saber when even though she is strong, I wouldn’t call her the “strongest”. Nice to also have it clear that most magic doesn’t work on Saber, Lancer and Archer because they were fighters who fought through the age of myths where magic was used widely, and that’s also why these classes are usually the best. I guess that’s why they’re always focused on Saber compared to the other Servants. Lmaoo, for someone who has no goal in this war besides winning, Rin is really confident and cool to be able to sway Archer in believing in her without even trying haha. Took me a while to figure it out, but I guess the pendant that Archer returned to Rin is actually his own? Does that mean he already knew who he was then and was just hiding it from her? I feel so sorry for Rin though! Imagine if she really got killed by Saber because she went back to save Shirou from Lancer and ended up letting her guard down against the sudden appearance of Saber! I didn’t even realise this part was a prologue, and it even ends on the cliffhanger of Saber intending to kill Rin! Well, anyway since I’ve forgotten a lot of things, it’s great to see things again whilst having some knowledge of other stuff that makes me realise what I missed when I first watched the anime haha. Guess we’re back to Shirou’s perspective then!

Fate route (Day 1-9) It’s so cute to see Sakura wake Shirou up in the morning! So crazy that she got there at 6am though omg, how early does she wake up to prepare breakfast for everyone?! At least Shirou usually tries to wake up early to help out, but wow, club activities start at 7am like dayum. Nice to see that Shirou actually notices Sakura as a girl and feels a bit awkward sometimes because he’s aware of how pretty she is and everything, she is a very good girl after all~ It’s so cute how Shirou admits to being one of Rin’s admirers since she’s so perfect, beautiful and well mannered! Ugh Shinji is SO ANNOYING, always being so insecure for being crappy compared to Shirou and he has to make it seem like he’s SO GREAT, ugh he grinds my gears. I don’t even know why Shirou can even consider him to be a “friend”. Lmao, Shirou is so used to Shinji being full of shit that he just calls it Shinji’s style hahahaha, I guess that’s how it is when you’ve known them for a long time. Lmaoooo at Fuji-nee roaring like a tiger hahahaha. I find it so funny how her whole class calls her by the nickname she hates - Tiger, it’s the only way to bring her back alive when she faints from falling down lmaooo. As usual, Illya is creepy saying that if he doesn’t summon it soon, he’s going to die, and it was at night when no one was around on the road!

I’m glad that there’s more explanations about magic circuits since I’ve been rather confused by them. So basically, the amount of magic circuits in a person is determined at birth, and usually it’s not very much. This is where inheriting magic circuits from generation to generation comes in, and that’s why people like Rin are so powerful in magic I guess, because she’s a descendant of a prominent family of magi. However, these magic circuits can only be inherited through blood relations and that’s why Kiritsugu couldn’t pass his to Shirou, although I’m not sure if he would have even if he could tbh. The good thing though, is that apparently every person has at least one type of magic they’re good at, and that’s why Shirou is good at understanding the structure of things. And now I’m glad to understand the difference between mana and od because mana is magical energy floating around the world, and most magi are able to draw mana and “filter” it through their magic circuits to use as a spell. Since Shirou doesn’t have many, I assume he uses od which is the magic within oneself most of the time and I guess that’s why when he gets Saber, it’s hard for him to give enough magical energy to her since it’s difficult for him to draw any mana with his limited magic circuits? Especially since even when he’s doing his training and fixing stuff, he has to utilise an artificial magic circuit and that’s already dangerous enough to his body if he lacks the concentration… I see, as he said, he is not a magus, he is only a magic user who can create magical energy within his body and channel it into objects hmmm, I like that it’s much clearer in the VN what exactly he can do. Strengthening objects is a cool ability though since it reinforces the object’s abilities by putting magical energy into it~ It’s kinda crazy how the Magic Association only cares about concealing magic from the public and not about whether people are using magic properly, it’s like as long as it doesn’t affect them doing their stuff, they don’t care. I guess it’s because they’re probably doing suspicious magic research themselves imo.

Not sure I like the translation of “seigi no mikata” being superhero, since technically you could be a superhero but not really an ally/protector of justice. Although, I do enjoy more info about Shirou’s motivations here. I guess the fact that Shirou tries to be one is mainly because he wants to become someone like Kiritsugu (since he saved him), so really now that I think about it, Shirou isn’t exactly what you would call a “nice person”, like he’s still nice in various areas etc, but a lot of the reason why he doesn’t mind helping people is because he thinks that as long as he keeps helping people who need him and he has the ability to help them, he will one day become the protector of justice he wants to be. On the other hand, I never realised/remembered that Shinji and Shirou actually had a fight where Shirou beat him up when he asked Shinji about Sakura’s bruises and Shinji had the audacity to say he hits her because he feels like it. What a douchebag. I do feel bad for Shirou that because of that, now Shinji thinks of him more as an enemy now and apparently hurts Sakura more, I feel so sorry for Sakura… It always felt like (in the anime) Shirou left the archery club because of Shinji but it seems like, it was a part of the reason, but not really, since Shirou does want to focus on working for living expenses and because he got a scar from work on his right shoulder and I guess it’s not very proper to have something like that when doing archery since people can see it when they shoot. Or maybe these are all just excuses haha, since Shirou seems to be the best “archer”. It seems that Lancer noticing Shirou’s presence was partly done deliberately so that he could distract him from killing Archer? I mean, Shirou’s sick of not being able to do anything when other people are in danger so that’s understandable..

It’s pretty cute how tsundere Rin is, she obviously wants to tell him about the Holy Grail War and everything because she doesn’t want him to die a meaningless death, but at the same time she can’t bring herself to say it like that, so she tells him she’s doing it because he stopped Saber from killing her. When really, he’s the one who owes her considering how she used that jewel that was left for her in her father’s will to save his life. I don’t know why, but in the anime, Shirou came across as annoying with how he keeps saying girls like Saber shouldn’t fight and how he’ll protect her etc, but in the VN, I think the interaction with Rin thinking it was funny that Shirou was going to protect them from perverts at night (when they went to visit Kotomine at the church) made it sound so silly and cute instead. Well, that bad end where you choose to revoke the command spells and thus your rights as a Master was pretty crappy! Illya literally “kills” Shirou and plans to torture him until he’s really dead! That’s pretty disgustingly ruthless honestly… Lmao at the existence of the Tiger Dojo though! It’s a place where they tell you how you went wrong with your choices to get this bad end and tells you the mindset you should have to get back on track to the proper ending lol. Kinda weird to see Illya act so cute in it when she just killed Shirou though lol. Although, I have to admit that Kirei being able to “take out” Shirou’s command spells was very interesting… Tiger Dojo 2 ending was nice in the sense that you could really see how Rin would sacrifice her life to protect Shirou even when he makes silly choices, it’s really heartwarming to see how much she cares about him tbh. And I guess also “nice” to see how much Illya loves and hates both Kiritsugu and Shirou.

One thing that’s interesting to see in the VN for this fight was Shirou’s intention to save Saber by pushing her away from Berserker’s attack, and hoping to think of his next move after that, rather than him simply shielding Saber. In the end, because he wasn’t fast enough, he ended up taking the hit for Saber, but he had no intention of actually getting hit, he thought he would be able to dodge it. Maybe it was naive of him to think that, but I do enjoy knowing more about his intentions and hopes from this move. I love how Rin teases Shirou when he gets embarrassed at shaking her hand because he realised how soft it was hahahah. Shirou is so cute hahaha! LMAO when he doesn’t count Taiga as someone he’s embarrassed to touch hands with because he considers her as someone from a different planet rather than a girl hahahaha. Ohh? I didn’t really think that how famous each Servant is in the current time actually affected how strong they are as well. I see, so they need to be known and like “worshipped” to solidify their existence and power, I guess that makes sense.

I love Shirou and Saber’s first proper conversation with each other at the dojo. It was really nice to see him have the resolve to fight now that he’s decided to keep with the war, and that he’s just like Saber when it comes to their beliefs and values of protecting the innocent. But I think the best thing about their relationship that I’ve always loved is that Shirou always treats Saber like another fellow “person” rather than a Servant. He’s polite, he’s normal with her and he acts the same as he does with others, and I think that always catches Saber off guard in a good way haha. I also love the professional relationship Archer and Rin have though! But yeah, lmao at Rin just bringing her luggage to Shirou’s place saying she’s living there from now on since they’ve decided to ally with each other. Ohh, I don’t know if I missed it (or I just forgot loll) in the anime but I never realised that Shirou wasn’t giving any magical energy to Saber at all! I thought he gave a little bit! But apparently the summoning might have gone wrong and the connection between them wasn’t connected so she can’t receive anything? No wonder why Saber always has to limit herself and her use, because she��s relying on her own medical energy to stay in this world! Actually, yeah, I think I remember it now lol, my bad! Anyway, gotta love Sakura when she was annoyed that Rin was trying to shoo her out of Shirou’s place when Sakura basically thinks of it as her territory loll. Even funnier when Shirou “forgot” about having to deal with Taiga in regards to Rin living here now lol. Not to mention Saber when she appears later! But Taiga is relatively easy to handle anyway haha. Awww I love how Taiga hates the Tiger nickname but her cup has a tiger on it lmao!

Honestly, although Shirou’s white knighting can get a bit too much, it’s situations like when he decides to introduce Saber to everyone instead of continuing to hide her that really makes me like him. Taiga is so cute though, she has such a soft spot for Shirou that she thinks Saber is taking him away from her since Saber is stronger than her and can protect him better hahaha. Taiga really loves Shirou. Hmmm I see, so the Matou don’t have magic circuits anymore and are really just a family that used to be magi, but still retain knowledge of magic etc. Shinji really just thinks of this whole thing like a game, huh? It was so cute how Rin and Saber glared at Shirou for meeting Shinji by himself haha. Although I can understand Saber’s frustration with Shirou when he always tries to prevent her from fighting etc, it was super reckless of her to go to Ryuudou Temple by herself. I always find Assassin/Sasaki Kojirou to be super cool, because he’s really amazing at having the capability to fend off against Saber with his skill and technique as a samurai. Oh, and seriously, Saber and Shirou should really be thankful to Rin, if it wasn’t for her, the two of them would just be super stubborn in their respective positions and beliefs and be unable to understand the other person. Rin is the best~ loved it when she teased Shirou after he carried Saber back home even though she already knew what happened. But yeah, seriously though, Shirou can get pretty frustrating about how he keeps treating Saber like a girl so she shouldn’t fight etc, like dude, be realistic please, she’s gonna have to fight eventually whether you like it or not, the war isn’t so easy that you can keep her safe.

I guess I’ll always love how proper Shirou is, stuff like properly greeting Saber in the morning even when he’s in a rush and apologising to Rin for forcing her to kick out Sakura when he should have done it for her safety a long time ago is just very nice to see. Sure, Shirou is wishy washy and can be very indecisive and not even know what he himself wants, but he’s such a good guy, it’s hard to really get too annoyed with him. Not sure how I feel about Shirou saying that Ayako getting attacked by a mugger and needing to run away might have been good in a sense to teach her some femininity, like I know he means it in a “good way” but seriously, that’s not important considering what happened! Shirou and Illya eating dorayaki together is such a nice image, especially since Illya never got the chance to experience simple stuff like that stuck in a castle. Lmaoo at Shirou accidentally seeing Saber changing to get into the shower and she’s so whatever about it lol. I always found Archer’s talk with Shirou about it being impossible to save all people much more realistic against Shirou’s ideals, but I think hearing it again when you know who Archer actually is makes it even more saddening and “real” because you know how much Archer personally experienced by believing in and trying to achieve this “ideal”.

Although skipping school is bad, I do enjoy the spars Saber and Shirou have in order to give him battle experience on making the best decision at critical moments. I think it’s the most realistic approach on what they can do to train him against Servants since he obviously doesn’t have the power to really win against them. LOLL at Illya casually saying Sella told her that it wouldn’t be fun to play with Shirou because Illya needs to kill him soon anyway. Like, yep, okay, see ya Illya lol. But I guess it’s kinda cute that even though Sella told her that, Illya herself still decided to wait at the park and see if he would come since she thinks it’s fun being with him, and I guess he feels the same since he bothered to pass by the park. But yeah, it’s pretty saddening how Illya was raised all this time knowing nothing about her parents’ love for her and having to live in the environment where her grandfather raised her as a Master to listen to him and kill anyone in their way to winning the war. Saber getting attached to the baby lion plush she got from Taiga is really cute, I guess since it reminds her of something familiar in her life (when she raised a lion cub for a month), she can’t help but feel soft towards it. On the other hand, lmaoo at Rin punching Shinji and not even caring hahaaha, I can understand why she would, but dang is she ruthless and just making things worse for Shirou by telling him that she’s living with Shirou etc loll. I’m still happy that she punched him though, he totally deserves it. I love how Shirou just listens to Rin and swallows the jewel without even questioning what it is. But it’s nice that it’ll help him keep his Magic Circuit on all the time so he can accustom himself to using magic without having to go through the whole process of risking his life to turn the circuit “on”, definitely more efficient if he can master this! It’s definitely contradictory but amusing how in the end, the best teacher for Shirou probably is Archer lol, since he understands his problems best compared to Rin who is too capable and so doesn’t really understand the problems of an ordinary person learning magic lol.

I’m not surprised Shirou met up with Shinji at school and ended up getting caught in his activation of the boundary field, but dang did I like how decisive Shirou was the whole time during battle. He understood he couldn’t fend off against Rider, and he wasn’t shocked too much by the kick from Rider and was able to use a command spell to get Saber to help him. I also liked how he really was ready to kill Shinji if he really had to in order to stop the boundary field (that could have melted all the people in it). Shinji is such a shit though, I was so mad when I heard him talk about kicking Taiga when she told him to call the ambulance when he activated the boundary field. So glad Shirou thrashed him even if he got away in the end. Btw I love the Tiger Dojo segments, they’re hilarious hahaha. Although it was reckless of Shirou to go by himself, it’s good that the experience ended up making him realise he needs to fight alongside Saber and not prevent her from fighting. I thought it was really cute how Saber and Shirou finally came to a better compromise and shook hands, but then Rin appeared and they got all embarrassed haha. But the cutest thing was when Saber was so concerned about wanting the same casual clothes (since they were destroyed) and asked Rin for another set just because Shirou said it looked good on her before.

Overall, most of the stuff for now is pretty similar to the anime so it’s more of a refresh for me with added details. As usual, Rin is really the highlight for me though haha.

#fate stay night

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socialwicked · 2 years ago

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API plus AI helps speed up last-mile logistics

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Finding products and companies from position A to stage b is what logistics is all about. Currently being capable to keep track of, control and approach logistics in a basic programmatic method is not a trivial endeavor. The holy grail of logistics is simplifying what is termed “last-mile logistics,” which is how the conclusion products or service really receives to the conclude person.

A discomfort issue for a lot of builders building on-need applications and products and services is connecting the logistics piece jointly, specifically the site and mapping capabilities. Billing alone as “the world’s greatest community of logistics tech builders,” a startup known as HyperTrack is aiming to provide the creating-block APIs (application programming interfaces) for logistics, so developers can aim on what is core to their business and not get worried about the infrastructure layer.

HyperTrack’s platform offers logistics builders with a easy API to link and accessibility advanced logistics workflows. The system is also supported by a bolstered machine finding out product for artificial intelligence (AI) that aids to optimize logistics.

“HyperTrack is a logistics API. It is like Twillio, but for logistics,” Kashyap Deorah, founder and CEO of HyperTrack, told VentureBeat. “The rationale why the planet wants a logistics API is the complexity of the final-mile logistics as the environment is likely on demand, with individuals pressing a button and factors going to carry items and solutions to them.”

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Sign-up Right here In a bid to increase its technology and go-to-industry efforts, HyperTrack declared nowadays that it has elevated $25 million in a collection A spherical of funding led by WestBridge Capital and present trader Nexus Enterprise Companions. The company suits into the supply chain administration market, which is approximated by MarketsandMarkets to produce $28.9 billion in 2022, expanding to $45.2 billion by 2027.

HyperTrack’s API tackles complexity of past-mile logistics In the on-need financial system, very last-mile logistics has usually involved builders stitching jointly many systems.

Deorah explained that, for example, in a present day app for a delivery-centered service, the moment an order has been recognized the organization requires to do route organizing, buy assignment for the supply, and monitoring in the course of the process.

“One of the vital parts of any logistics stack is you have a mind in the technique which figures out who does what and then the driver receives the dispatch,” Deorah said.

Adding even further complexity are the myriad data and site tracking devices an firm works by using, as well as the various knowledge entry strategies that developers want to use for equally Android and iOS mobile working devices.

“So for accomplishing a little something as simple as analyzing how considerably length a driver travels, ends up involving stitching up mobile cloud and map systems,” Deorah reported. “That’s the aspect in which we’re indicating it must be as simple as crafting a SQL query or calling an API.”

How reinforcement discovering improves past-mile logistics AI is an vital element of the HyperTrack system, encouraging to boost accuracy and optimization for the logistics workflow.

In any achievement in the final mile, Deorah stated that crucial attributes involve the precise consumer fulfillment handle, the volume of time it normally takes to get to the tackle, and what the most productive route is to get to the area. That’s just one of the sites in which HyperTrack is creating use of AI, by applying details from its system for reinforcement mastering.

“With each individual buy we are inferring the suitable consumer deal with, the assistance time and the route and feeding that again into superior setting up and assignment,” Deorah stated. “So each buy would make the high quality of the up coming order fulfillment greater.”

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https://socialwicked.com/api-plus-ai-helps-speed-up-last-mile-logistics/

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gregoryiuui339-blog · 4 years ago

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sciforce · 5 years ago

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AI Demystification: On Human-Machine Cooperation

Sci-Fi writers, futurologists and IT researchers and practitioners sometimes conceptualize ‘human-level AI’ as the Holy Grail of AI research. The idea of symbiosis between humans and machines is also settled in mass conscience creating new hopes and new phobias. Will we have a war with machines and end up as their slaves — a slowly-thinking race unable to predict the future and make decisions properly? Or will we live as masters with an army of robotic helpers?

In 2014, a Japanese venture capital company, Knowledge Ventures, elected an AI system to its board of directors. Is it an example of the closest human-machine symbiosis or is it a sign that we are losing our battle with artificial intelligence?

Anthropomorphising intelligence

Since Alan Turing’s times, the major driving force behind AI research has been machine’s competition with human cognition. If we think of such examples as beating humans in chess or simply passing the Turing test — it is either machines proving themselves better than humans or humans outdoing computers in some areas.

This competition is prompted by the fact that the only model we have of anything close to general AI is the human brain. Researchers are inspired by the way our brain is built and how each neuron has thousands of synapses — we can see how it is mimicked in neural networks.

This approach in itself shows the limitations of AI that cannot (and probably will never be able to) fully reconstruct brain functioning. Just as an example, the human brain is very flexible; for instance, it filters information very effectively so that we learn without gigantic amounts of data, whilst AI systems are notorious for their hunger for data.

It goes without saying that Artificial intelligence differs from our brain:

Artificial intelligence is so far shallow and has limited capacity for transfer.

It has no natural way to deal with hierarchical structure.

AI cannot inherently distinguish causation from correlation.

Besides, the whole our world is shaped towards human cognition. We are smart because we are small modules in a big world; we feel part of the society and draw our intelligence and our understanding of the contextual environment from it. AI, on the contrary,

has not been well integrated with prior knowledge,

cannot draw open-ended inferences based on real world knowledge, and.

presumes a largely stable world.

From the psychological side, an essential part of human interaction is empathy and contextual awareness, and we are born with a great intuition for both. It is basically intuition that we are trying to introduce to AI. Currently, instead of brute-forcing its way through the dataset, successful AIs learn to do things by stapling multiple algorithms together. However, machines still fail to generalize much beyond already known data, such as a new pronunciation of a word or an unconventional image, and have trouble dealing with limited amounts of data.

At this point, the most important difference comes into the spotlight: humans have consciousness:

But are so irreparably different? Consciousness is a structure of thoughts, or, at a deeper level, it is just neurons. Consciousness is not binary; it’s a matter of degree. Humans and other animals have different levels of consciousness, and so do adults and children and even different adults. If we stop thinking of machines as continuation of humanity, we can benefit from cooperation with them without feeling threatened by the ghosts of misanthropic robots.

Collaborative intelligence

Lacking consciousness, computers remain task-driven, meaning that they do nothing unless they have a set goal. Humans are those who give the goal and meaning to what AI does for us and with us.

The root idea of collaboration between humans and machines is to enhance each other’s strengths: the leadership, teamwork, creativity, and social skills of the former, and the speed, scalability, and quantitative capabilities of the latter.

This collaboration envisages that every participant has their role, be it a domain specialist getting meaning out of scattered raw data or the selected AI algorithms.

Role of Humans

Training ML algorithms

In many cases, machine learning algorithms are trained with human supervision. Domain specialists collect huge datasets to be fed into algorithms from any field of human knowledge from idioms in multiple languages and disease courses to cultivation of different sorts of apples. Moreover, AI systems undergo training on how to interact with humans to develop just the right personality: confident, caring, and helpful but not bossy. For example, Apple’s Siri was created with the help of human trainers to simulate certain human-like traits.

Connecting AI with the world

As it was mentioned, AI systems have little knowledge of the context — the world surrounding them remains unnoticed and not taken into account. Probably, the most evident example is the emotional deficiency of machines. Humans are driven by emotions. And emotions are precisely the most complex issue to simulate in AI. Consequently, human experts are charged with giving artificial intelligence the correct perception of the factual and emotional surroundings.

Explaining AI behaviour

The famous black-box problem in AI refers to the fact that AI reaches conclusions and renders results through processes that are usually opaque. Since evidence-based industries, such as medicine, a practitioner needs to understand how the AI weighs input data, human experts in the relevant fields are required to explain the machine behavior to users. Such explanations services are becoming integral in regulated industries — the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for instance, gives consumers the right to receive an explanation for any algorithm-based decision, such as the rate offer on a credit card or mortgage.

Sustaining AI systems

AI systems should always function properly, safely, and responsibly, that is why they need human supervision to anticipate and prevent any potential harm by AIs. Besides, AI systems should be helped to uphold ethical norms and to protect data privacy.

Role of Machines

When guided by human experts, smart machines may help humans expand their abilities providing fast and well-calculated decisions and insights.

Amplifying human cognitive abilities

AI can boost human analytic and decision-making abilities by providing the right information at the right time. Machines calculate faster and more accurately; they can better categorize or even analyze things, so that human experts receive meaningful preprocessed data.

Interacting with colleagues and customers

AI systems can facilitate communications between people by performing routine tasks, such as by transcribing a meeting and distributing a voice-searchable version to those who couldn’t attend. Such applications are inherently scalable — a single chatbot, for instance, can provide customer service to many people simultaneously.

Embodying human skills

A number of AI-driven applications are embodied in a robot that augments human skills with the help of installed sensors, motors, and actuators. Such robots can now recognize objects and people. They work alongside humans in factories, warehouses, and laboratories to perform repetitive actions that require brute force, while humans carry out complementary tasks where human judgment is needed.

Human-machine cooperation is not always about enhancing our efficiency: it does not require sheer computational power, but relies on intuition, and pre-evolved dispositions toward cooperation, common-sense mechanisms that are difficult to encode in machines. If we could develop the same cooperative disposition in machines — would it be the right degree of consciousness to ensure cooperation?

So far, we see AI mainly as a tool to enhance our physical or cognitive capacities. But what if we find real partners in machines? Machines and humans are a perfect match because they are complementary, and we are here to decide which computer traits we need to develop and use.

References:

Marcus, G. (2018). Deep Learning: A Critical Appraisal. arXiv.

Thiel, P., Masters, B.(2014) Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. Currency.

Urban, T. (2015). The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence. Part 1 and Part 2.

#artificial intelligence #machine learning #machine intelligence #human intelligence #future

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tinyholygrail · 7 years ago

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(This is an infodump for my dæmon verse, based on the concept from the series His Dark Materials, perhaps better known by the first book, The Golden Compass / The Northern Lights! A basic rundown of what dæmons are can be found on this post, because I don’t want to clutter up this one too much. I don’t think it’s as long as Caster’s verse infodump, but I’ll still shovel most of it under a read more.)

ADDITIONAL LORE [as related to the Fate/Stay Night universe]

The world/lore remains the same, except everyone has a dæmon; magi, similar to the witches in the world of The Golden Compass, have the ability to go farther from their dæmons than normal humans. The length they can go from their dæmon varies from magus to magus depending on the amount of magic circuits they possess, but it’s usually a greater distance than the average human.

As a magus’s magic circuits originate in the soul, whenever they perform magecraft, their dæmon’s eyes will glow, a residual effect from passing energy through those circuits. The effect can be somewhat eerie to one who has never seen it before, or simply hasn’t noticed.

While the bond between Master and Servant is not as tight as one between a human and their dæmon, it is an emotional and mental bond that requires the Servant to be sustained by the Master’s energy, and thus when the Servant perishes, the shock is similar to that of losing one’s dæmon, and can be rather traumatizing if the Master was on better terms with the Servant.

Servants, being Heroic Spirits who have already perished in life, do not have dæmons when they are called forth in the Holy Grail Wars, and thus would be more likely to stay in spirit form over traveling in physical manifestation, as it could be difficult to explain away the lack of a dæmon to someone with keen eyes.

As the Einzbern homunculi are artificial, each created for a purpose, they lack dæmons when they enter the world. Thus, the head of the Einzbern family had constructs created to mimic the appearance of a dæmon, in the [very] unlikely event any homunculi would need to travel outside the old castle in Germany; even with their seemingly-unusual characteristics of all being albino, people would be more likely to notice the absence of a dæmon.

ILLYA’S DÆMON : ELEUTHERIOS

Illya, as a homunculus created using the sperm of a magus, is just human enough to have been born with a dæmon. His name is Eleutherios--meaning “free” in ancient Greek--but Illya often shortens his name to Eleu since it’s easier to say. Also, as she herself prefers to go by her nickname, so too does her dæmon share a similar philosophy.

Eleu has not settled on a form, despite Illya’s chronological age being eighteen--the circumstances of her existence have prevented her from growing, and a part of her mind remains childish also, so her dæmon retains the ability to shape-change freely. In fact, he will continue to be able to shift between forms until Illya’s death and his subsequent dissolving into Dust.

His preferred forms are all white in color, due to all the snow around the castle, and may also be a reflection of Illya’s own hair color; he can often be found as a marten, a dove, an owl, a fox, or a mouse. He rarely assumes a form larger than Illya--who prefers not to be made short by her own dæmon--though he will take on the form of a snow leopard if he believes her to be in danger.

As magic circuits are part of the soul, the augmentation of Illya’s magic circuits left Eleu with deep scars that can’t be hidden even with the thickest fur, feathers, or scales. He is not entirely ashamed of them, merely regretful that it should be so obvious to others that something had been done to the two of them that it would reflect on the dæmon so. He usually tends to try and be inconspicuous when meeting new people, since he doesn’t want anyone to judge Illya based solely on his raggedy appearance.

Initially he may seem more even-tempered than Illya, but that’s only because he usually is better about not voicing any particularly judging opinions, but he can be just as impulsive as Illya at times. He is not typically violent, but he does tend to scratch up his surroundings if he’s sufficiently angry or stressed.

Like Illya, he is fully convinced that Kiritsugu abandoned them for Shirou, though whereas Illya typically degenerates into yelling, he expresses his disappointment by incessantly asking ‘why’, as that is the question Illya most wants the answer to. Both of them understand that they won’t ever receive an answer, but that doesn’t change that it still hurts to know that they were left behind, seemingly for an arbitrary reason.

While Eleu normally has bluish or brown eyes, rarely pinkish-red, depending on the shape he takes, one eye [his left] turns permanently bright red after the events of the fifth Holy Grail War, as both he and Illya suffered under the strain of containing seven Servants’ souls without actually fulfilling their purpose and becoming the Holy Grail. No matter what form he takes in the time left that they have after the war, his left eye will always be crimson.

The amount of space Illya and Eleu can be apart is a grand total of around 20 m / ~65 ft, which is fairly impressive, though the additional distance may be due to the augmentation of Illya’s magic circuits, thereby unintentionally widening the radius of space they can walk apart from one another. They rarely test that distance, unless they are particularly annoyed with one another.

More things may be added as time goes on, but for now, this is the basics! If anyone’s interested in writing in this verse, just let me know! [The events of the visual novel remain the same in this timeline, there’s just dæmons involved!]

#v: golden souls:truest heart #(All the information I have at the moment but I may add more things depending on developments in RP)#(Hahaha I finally finished writing this thing up)#(I would have put a graphic with it like I did for Caster's verse infodump post but I haven't drawn one up yet...)#(So I'll have to add it in later aha but anyways yes please come meet Eleu he's great)

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ntrending · 6 years ago

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I got my hip replaced at 39. Here’s why that might get more common.

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/i-got-my-hip-replaced-at-39-heres-why-that-might-get-more-common/

I got my hip replaced at 39. Here’s why that might get more common.

A titanium-alloy spike is now part of my femur.

The five-inch-long forged hunk of metal came off the assembly line in a Memphis, Tennessee, factory in December 2017. Manufactured by a company called Smith and Nephew, the component is a model called Anthology. It’s one of four pieces that comprise my artificial hip.

That part, called a stem, joined my body in April of last year, at NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital in Manhattan. A surgeon cut off the boney ball at the top of my femur, reamed out the socket in the part of the pelvis where the hip joint is located (anatomically, the “acetabulum”), and installed that stem, plus three other pieces. Later that same day, I left the hospital and went home with those components as new members of the body I was born with in 1978.

I’m one of hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. who receive a total hip replacement each year. As a young person—I was 39 when it was installed—I’m an outlier, but also somewhat hip to a trend. The age of artificial hip recipients is falling: In 2000, the average age was just over 66; in 2014, it was 64.9. The fastest growing group? It isn’t retirees, but rather people ages 55 to 64, says Matt Sloan, a surgical resident at the University of Pennsylvania medical school who has researched the procedure’s demographic trends.

I wanted a new hip because I’d been in pain for years. In 2010, when I was in my early 30s, I tore my labrum, which is ring-like cartilage in the joint. A painful arthroscopic surgery in 2011 to repair it failed to make my hip better, and I needed a “revision” surgery. In 2014, a doctor did everything he could to repair the joint, and gave me a tissue graft from a cadaver to fix my re-torn labrum. Ultimately, that operation also failed. I needed a new hip. It was the weakest point in my body—an arthritic joint that had to go.

Over the decades, the materials in artificial hips have improved enough that doctors are now confident putting them in younger patients like me. “Surgeons, in the past, were unwilling to do a total hip replacement on them, because they thought they might be starting a sequence of multiple operations,” says Dr. Lawrence Dorr, a professor of clinical orthopaedic surgery at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Now, “they know they can do a hip replacement, and if it’s very well done, there isn’t any reason it can’t go 30 years.”

A series of failures, breakthroughs, and incremental improvements throughout the 20th century have led to a prosthesis so refined that bone can literally grow into it.

Here’s how it works: The four parts of a modern artificial hip replace a big ball and socket joint. During the operation, after the surgeon cuts off that ball at the top of the femur—the thigh bone, if you’re singing along—they insert a titanium stem inside the hollowed-out bone, with a portion of it still protruding. Then, a ceramic head (the new ball), attaches to the top of the stem; mine was made by German company Caramtec, and has a pinkish hue. On the acetabular side, a titanium-alloy shell shaped like a hemispheric cup press-fits into the reamed-out socket, and then a durable plastic (technically, cross-linked ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene) liner fits inside that metal cup.

So that the metal can join with my skeleton, part of the stem and shell have a coating of a substance called commercially-pure titanium. Bone can fuze with this porous layer, no cement needed, joining the natural with the artificial. “Bone looks at this surface and kinda sees itself,” Dorr, who’s replaced about 7,000 hips and 5,000 knees, explains. A few weeks post-op, immature bone will have already started growing into the metal. “I never figured out why bone is so dumb,” Dorr lightheartedly says. Grow into the titanium? Sure, why not.

A disjointed journey

Titanium and polyethylene are, of course, relatively modern developments. In the 1940s and ‘50s, both the materials and the procedure were in their infancies.

One early artificial hip came from a surgeon named Austin Moore. But his version was just a half hip: a metal replacement on the femur side, no artificial socket. “None of them were very effective,” Dorr says. Part of the problem was how doctors attached the implant to the femur. “You just kinda pounded the stems into the bone.” The implants could work loose. Plus, the prosthesis fit directly into the natural socket—metal against bone. Ouch. “It probably was only 30 to 40 percent successful,” Dorr estimates.

Moore’s material selection process was also fairly homespun. Legend has it, when deciding whether to make the implant out of cobalt chrome or stainless steel, he buried samples of both in his backyard. When he dug them back up, the steel had rust, but the cobalt chrome did not. (Moore even mounted one of his fake hips to his Chrysler as a hood ornament.) “I don’t think the FDA would pass that today,” quips Dorr.

By the 1960s, hip replacements began to take on their modern form, thanks largely to a British orthopedic surgeon named John Charnley. According to former Massachusetts General Hospital hip surgeon William Harris, Charnley had an “incredible single focus—nothing else in the world mattered except solving this problem: creating an artificial hip joint.”

Charnley’s choices weren’t all perfect, but he had the right idea about a couple key things. First, he used bone cement to glue a metal implant into the femur. “That gave pain relief and a strong leg,” Dorr, of USC, says, “people could walk on it without limping.” Second, his first hips—he did about 300 in total—had an artificial socket so that the metal prosthesis wasn’t rubbing directly against the bone.

The best choice of material for the socket, however, still needed some figuring out. Charnley first tried Teflon, or polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), but it wore down quickly as the metal prosthesis rubbed against it, creating little particles. The connection between bone and implant didn’t hold up. “A loose implant like that hurts more than arthritis,” Dorr says. “The particulate debris kind of acts like a poison to the bone.”

Eventually, Charnley landed on a plastic called high-density polyethylene. It didn’t wear down as rapidly as Teflon, which he confirmed by testing the materials in his own leg. “After nine months in situ, the two PTFE specimens are clearly palpable as nodules,” he wrote in a letter to the Lancet. “They are almost twice the volume of the original implant.” Polyethylene had no such problem. Though it’s unclear when Charnley did the self-experiment, he completed his in-vivo testing before he put the new plastic in patients, a practice he began in 1962.

But even though Charnley’s invention got the basic conceit right, polyethylene eventually started causing serious problems for patients. Like Teflon, it wore down—just much more slowly—setting off a chain reaction in the body. Macrophages, a part of the immune system, gobbled up the plastic bits, which in turn led another type of cell, osteoclasts, to eat up nearby bone. The result is a problem called osteolysis, in which an implant can loosen, and the bone around it can even break.

“[It] was disastrous for many thousands of people and seriously disrupted the lives of more than a million,” writes biographer Harris in Vanishing Bone: Conquering a Stealth Disease Caused by Total Hip Replacements. He goes on to describe a patient who, in 1980, less than a decade after her total hip replacement, felt her leg bone simply snap while she was walking.

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During the ‘90s, three teams, including one led by Harris, all worked separately to find a better material. Harris in particular was motivated because he’d had to reoperate on patients who had received artificial hips. “I told them to have the operation, and then the damned thing failed,” he remembers. Those complicated operations, called revision surgeries, could last as long as 12 hours.

Eventually, the groups each earned patents for cross-linked polyethylene, a plastic that’s made more durable at the molecular level. It’s now in millions of modern artificial hips. Under an electron microscopic, regular ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene looks like long strands of simple molecules of carbon and hydrogen wrapped and entangled with each other, but not firmly connected. Cross-linking causes adjacent molecules to connect with one another via strong covalent bonds in many different places, toughening the material. After cross-linking, the plastic hip liner is like “one huge polyethylene molecule,” says Harry McKellop, an orthopedic and biomechanical engineer and former VP of research at the Orthopedic Institute for Children in Los Angeles.

For today’s patients, the difference is measurable. The new stuff provides a 90-to-95 percent reduction in annual wear. In one double-blind study in New Zealand, patients who’d had old polyethylene hips for 10 years experienced an annual wear rate of 0.27 millimeters, while those with the cross-linked stuff wore at an average of just 0.03 millimeters per year. A recent paper in the Lancet found that 58 percent of the hips in its study lasted 25 years. Bear in mind, however: That number includes implants that predate the newest material, so the survival rate of modern models will likely rise; “Everything we’ve seen to date suggests that they are doing better,” says study author Jonathan Evans.

But, “the holy grail is the hundred-year poly,” says Roy Davidovitch, the surgeon at NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital who did my hip replacement. “If you could do that, you could basically put in one hip replacement, and hopefully that will be it, and you could do it on younger and younger patients.”

Getting more hip

Today, a surgery that began with hundreds of failures is routine. In 2014—the most recent year for which data is available—370,770 people in the United States got a new hip. That number is increasing steadily: According to one recent study, by the year 2030, an estimated 635,000 people will receive a new artificial hip every year in the U.S.

It’s common, but is still major surgery. “You’re ripping out a big segment of the body, and replacing it mechanically—that is a massive assault on the human body,” Mass General’s Harris reflects. “And yet it has an extraordinary success rate.”

While decades of incremental improvement have zeroed in on the right materials and operative techniques for gifting patients with a synthetic joint, there’s still work to be done to perfect it. Today, one of the biggest problems with artificial hips is that they’re easier to dislocate than natural ones. Another is infection—a human-made hip has no blood flow, so bacteria can accumulate on it. Researchers are working on a fix, says Michael Alexiades, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. One strategy is to “coat the implant with an antibiotic that’s bonded to the metal,” he says, which then can be released locally under the right circumstances. “That’s still in very early stages.”

RELATED: We now have the power to make bones nearly invisible

Ultimately, everyone is trapped in their body until they die. But when body parts start to fail, if it’s the right part, you can get a new one: Doctors can also swap out knees, shoulders, elbows, ankles, wrists, even the discs in your spine.

My new hip was installed in me in the morning in the springtime, and I went home later that day. It’s my third hip surgery, but the first I feel actually worked. It was a more dramatic operation than an arthroscopic one, but the recovery has been much easier. I’ve been in physical therapy for about 11 months, and, while I’m not totally pain free, my joint finally feels better. I’m glad that the nature-given part of me is gone. I’m glad the metal and plastic and ceramic is there in its place. For the first time in years, I have hope for my hip.

Written By Rob Verger

#Science

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andreacaskey · 6 years ago

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SearchCap: Voice input for Google mobile web search, paying for search analytics tools, more

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

What customers expect in the age of AI Jan 29, 2019 by Digital Marketing Depot Making big purchase decisions can be stressful, especially when the products are complex or expensive. People don’t just roll the dice. Buyers expect brands to not only understand their concerns, but to address them in a way that provides value along each step of the decision-making process. ‍

Google adds voice input and spoken results to mobile web search Jan 29, 2019 by Greg Sterling The search giant appears to be conditioning searchers to use voice across all platforms.

How to know when it’s time to pay for search analytics tools Jan 29, 2019 by Amy Gesenhues SEO and search marketing experts offer feedback on when to pay for search analytics tools, factors to consider and making the most out of what you buy.

Save your grant account from suspension with this script Jan 29, 2019 by Daniel Gilbert Columnist Daniel Gilbert shares a script to help you identify negative phrases to improve CTR and QS for grant accounts at risk of suspension.

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Two months in, Facebook Attribution gets mixed reviews Jan 29, 2019 by Amy Gesenhues Some advertisers are gaining valuable insights from the tool since its release in November, but others aren’t as impressed.

2019 Marketing Trends Jan 29, 2019 by Digital Marketing Depot Marketing isn’t what it used to be. There’s big data, artificial intelligence, GDPR and agile workflows. All which ladder up to the holy grail of creating an ever-better customer experience. If you want to compete in this rapid digital world, you need to make your customers happy.

Best practices for a new era of brand safety Jan 29, 2019 by Danny Macdonald A good brand safety initiative should not be limited to the basic standards set by technology partners but a more comprehensive discussion of the brand’s needs.

Are brands behind the times when it comes to gender stereotypes in ads? Jan 28, 2019 by Amy Gesenhues A new report from Kantar finds marketers don’t believe they’re portraying people in a stereotypical manner, but ad targeting stats tell a different story.

Data: Walmart wins holiday store visits, Sears’ failure is likely JCPenney and Kohl’s gain Jan 28, 2019 by Greg Sterling Mobile location data reveal shopping patterns and competitive insights that marketers can exploit.

Search News From Around The Web:

Google is Bringing a Proper Q&A Section to its Search Engine, Tech App

Google.com on mobile web rolling out voice search in Chrome for Android, 9to5Google

5 Steps To Creating The Perfect Text For Your PPC Ad, The AdStage Blog

An update on our work to prevent abuse ahead of the EU elections, Google Blog

Google Recommends You Disavow Links That You Think Can Trigger Manual Actions, Search Engine Roundtable

How to Optimise for Searcher Intent (Complete Guide 2019), State of Digital

U.S. judge rejects Yahoo data breach settlement, Reuters

What Impact Does Voice Search Have on Digital Marketing?, My Emma

The post SearchCap: Voice input for Google mobile web search, paying for search analytics tools, more appeared first on Search Engine Land.

SearchCap: Voice input for Google mobile web search, paying for search analytics tools, more published first on https://likesandfollowersclub.weebly.com/

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lindarifenews · 6 years ago

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SearchCap: Voice input for Google mobile web search, paying for search analytics tools, more

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Google adds voice input and spoken results to mobile web search Jan 29, 2019 by Greg Sterling The search giant appears to be conditioning searchers to use voice across all platforms.

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

Search News From Around The Web:

Google is Bringing a Proper Q&A Section to its Search Engine, Tech App

Google.com on mobile web rolling out voice search in Chrome for Android, 9to5Google

5 Steps To Creating The Perfect Text For Your PPC Ad, The AdStage Blog

An update on our work to prevent abuse ahead of the EU elections, Google Blog

Google Recommends You Disavow Links That You Think Can Trigger Manual Actions, Search Engine Roundtable

How to Optimise for Searcher Intent (Complete Guide 2019), State of Digital

U.S. judge rejects Yahoo data breach settlement, Reuters

What Impact Does Voice Search Have on Digital Marketing?, My Emma

The post SearchCap: Voice input for Google mobile web search, paying for search analytics tools, more appeared first on Search Engine Land.

SearchCap: Voice input for Google mobile web search, paying for search analytics tools, more published first on https://likesfollowersclub.tumblr.com/

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un-enfant-immature · 6 years ago

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DARPA wants to teach and test ‘common sense’ for AI

It’s a funny thing, AI. It can identify objects in a fraction of a second, imitate the human voice, and recommend new music, but most machine “intelligence” lacks the most basic understanding of everyday objects and actions — in other words, common sense. DARPA is teaming up with the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence to see about changing that.

The Machine Common Sense program aims to both define the problem and engender progress on it, though no one is expecting this to be “solved” in a year or two. But if AI is to escape the prison of the hyper-specific niches where it works well, it’s going to need to grow a brain that does more than execute a classification task at great speed.

“The absence of common sense prevents an intelligent system from understanding its world, communicating naturally with people, behaving reasonably in unforeseen situations, and learning from new experiences. This absence is perhaps the most significant barrier between the narrowly focused AI applications we have today and the more general AI applications we would like to create in the future,” explained DARPA’s Dave Gunning in a press release.

Not only is common sense lacking in AIs, but it’s remarkably difficult to define and test, given how broad the concept is. Common sense could be anything from understanding that solid objects can’t intersect to the idea that the kitchen is where people generally go when they’re thirsty. As obvious as those things are to any human more than a few months old, they’re actually quite sophisticated constructs involving multiple concepts and intuitive connections.

WTF is AI?

It’s not just a set of facts (like that you must peel an orange before you eat it, or that a drawer can hold small items) but identifying connections between them based on what you’ve observed elsewhere. That’s why DARPA’s proposal involves building “computational models that learn from experience and mimic the core domains of cognition as defined by developmental psychology. This includes the domains of objects (intuitive physics), places (spatial navigation), and agents (intentional actors).”

But how do you test these things? Fortunately great minds have been at work on this problem for decades, and one research group has proposed an initial method for testing common sense that should work as a stepping stone to more sophisticated ones.

I talked with Oren Etzioni, head of the Allen Institute for AI, which has been working on common sense AI for quite a while now, among many other projects regarding the understanding and navigation of the real world.

“This has been a holy grail of AI for 35 years or more,” he said. “One of the problems is how to put this on an empirical footing. If you can’t measure it, how can you evaluate it? This is one of the very first times people have tried to make common sense measurable, and certainly the first time that DARPA has thrown their hat, and their leadership and funding, into the ring.”

The AI2 approach is simple but carefully calibrated. Machine learning models will be presented with written descriptions of situations and several short options for what happens next. Here’s one example:

On stage, a woman takes a seat at the piano. She a) sits on a bench as her sister plays with the doll. b) smiles with someone as the music plays. c) is in the crowd, watching the dancers. d) nervously sets her fingers on the keys.

The answer, as you and I would know in a heartbeat, is d. But the amount of context and knowledge that we put into finding that answer is enormous. And it’s not like the other options are impossible — in fact, they’re AI-generated to seem plausible to other agents but easily detectable by humans. This really is quite a difficult problem for a machine to solve, and current models are getting it right about 60 percent of the time (25 percent would be chance).

There are 113,000 of these questions, but Etzioni told me this is just the first dataset of several.

“This particular dataset is not that hard,” he said. “I expect to see rapid progress. But we’re going to be rolling out at least four more by the end of the year that will be harder.”

After all, toddlers don’t learn common sense by taking the GRE. As with other AI challenges, you want gradual improvements that generalize to harder versions of similar problems — for example, going from recognizing a face in a photo, to recognizing multiple faces, then identifying the expression on those faces.

Machines learn language better by using a deep understanding of words

There will be a proposers day next week in Arlington for any researcher who wants a little face time with the people running this little challenge, after which there will be a partner selection process, and early next year the selected groups will be able to submit their models for evaluation by AI2’s systems in the spring.

The common sense effort is part of DARPA’s big $2 billion investment in AI on multiple fronts. But they’re not looking to duplicate or compete with the likes of Google, Amazon, and Baidu, which have invested heavily in the narrow AI applications we see on our phones and the like.

“They’re saying, what are the limitations of those systems? Where can we fund basic research that will be the basis of whole new industries?” Etzioni suggested. And of course it is DARPA and government investment that set the likes of self-driving cars and virtual assistants on their first steps. Why shouldn’t it be the same for common sense?

#TechCrunch

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