#mass upvoting each other

[starryjkoo]

.

[sinsiriuslyemo]

When Insecurity Makes You Racist

Ya'll, I've got some stuff I wanna get off my chest.

So this morning there I was, drinking my tea, trying to decide which story I was going to continue working on, minding my own damn business for once when on twitter (I'm not calling it X. I said it, and I don't care) I saw a tweet from a mutual talking about some Chucklehead who had created a burner account on Goodreads (seriously, who the fuck does this?) and was mass one-starring books by other indie authors on there. Wait, because there's more.

As if this wasn't shitty enough, this person was also five-starring their own book, which will debut in 2024.

Did you fucking ever??

So, naturally, I did some digging as I do because I'm nosy af. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one wanting to know the tea, but unfortunately, it doesn't appear as though there's much more information out there except that this author, who I will remind you has not even published their book yet, is acting a damn fool and threatening their own career before it even kicks off.

I did manage to find this thread, which appears to be the original tweet that kicked all this off on twitter, but doesn't go into very much detail. It does, however, reveal another sickening aspect of this fuckery that l i t e r a l l y makes me want to riot, and that this...author was/is "using clearly POC names in the fake accounts to upvote every negative review on POC books so the top ones are all one and two star."

It got me to thinking about how precious and valuable reviews are. How much we crave them as indie authors because it's what will boost our books in the algorithm and get our book into the hands of the next reader. It's our lifeblood. A review and/or rating on Goodreads can absolutely make a difference, especially to indie authors since we only have ourselves and the generosity of our peers to market our books.

So, for an author to betray that is such a disheartening thing. I can't imagine taking the time to create a burner account for the sole purpose of trying to tear down my fellow indies. What's worst, and most likely the most egregious aspect of all of this is that they're weaponizing a POC identity (which I don't even know that they are actually POC) in order to tear down POC authors.

Being an indie author is hard. You're responsible for every aspect of writing, preparing, marketing and selling your book. There's an enormous amount of pressure that naturally comes with being an indie author. Not to mention the constant intrusive thoughts of "what if no one reads my book?" It's hard. But to go out of your way to sabotage other authors so that your book does well is not the way. As indies, we've GOT to have each other's backs, and yes, even call each other out when necessary. This person has not been identified as of yet, and I honestly don't know how I feel about that.

On one hand, there is zero attention on them as an individual and all the attention on their racism and blantant disrespect for the indie community, specifically the POC author community, and therefore their book, name is not receiving any attention apart from the five stars they're giving themselves. But on the other hand, does this mean they're going to be able to get away with their behavior?

It would be bad enough if this were a one-off thing, where they posted one bad review and upvoted themselves one time. I would still say expose their asses if I'm being honest. But this is m u l t i p l e instances of this and in a short period of time.

This is not okay.

And will them getting away with it encourage them to do it again or do something similar?

Personally, I want to know who they are so that I don't support them even by accident, but I know it isn't necessarily my place to demand this. We'll see what happens. As of right now, it appears the person who first posted about it is giving them a chance to knock it the fuck off, which is so incredibly generous, and in my opinion is more than they deserve.

I don't know if this person will heed their advice and stop the fuckery, but I know that I cant just sit idly by and wait for tea — though I most certainly will be watching this and waiting for any additional tea, because friends, I AM A NOSEY BITCH! That and I want to make sure this author never accidently ends up in my TBR because literally fuck them, and their racist burner accounts.

Still, this whole thing makes me want to do something. Not just talk about doing something or talk about how fucked this is — and it is, absolutely fucked. So I kept digging, hoping to at least find a list of those authors targeted so that I could use what platform I have to share their work.

The only post I've been able to find thus far is this one, calling for exactly the same thing, a list of all the authors who have been victimized by a person that should have been cheering them on, not plotting and mobilizing to sabotage them. Thus far, only one name has been identified, at least that I have found, but I will be keeping my eyes open for more, and I will update this post every time I find a new name. I implore you, if you're a reader and want to support indie authors, give their books a read. Leave them a review on Goodreads as well as on Amazon (just copy and paste the same one, I promise it's fine) so that their book gets pushed out and promoted to other readers.

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste follows Venus Stoneheart as she avenges the murder of her mother while navigating the corrupt political atmosphere of DC. I will be reading and reviewing this book on my blog as the synopsis sounds bad ass. The link above will take you directly to Bethany's website where you can get more details on this novel.

In the meantime, don't fucking do this if you're an indie author. Don't do this at all even if you're not an indie author. It's gross, it's racist, and it's going to take all of us together to combat this nonsense.

[yellowpoet]

Lack of exposure isn't what's killing us creative people. Tumblr has been almost completely stagnant since the incident.

i mean? i disagree? I do think tumblr banning p0rn (i’m assuming thats the incident you’re talking about) and the subsequent out of control nude-finding-algorithm that blocked posts and removed people seemingly randomly was awful. But it didn’t kill the site despite a mass exodus by people who were fed up (a lot of which are now converting sides of twitter into 2014 tumblr, bleh, lol)

Like a lot of people have said before: tumblr is very unique. It is incredibly hard to commercialise, it doesn’t have ‘influencers’, it doesn’t decide what to show you in the same way instagram or twitter does, it doesn’t ever try to connect your contacts or recommend you IRL people. There are no celebs on here. Nobody can see a follower count, there isn’t the same kind of ‘clout’ culture.

Importantly, there isn’t an algorithm you have to try and align your posts to in order to succeed - on tumblr it is simple: if people reblog things, their followers see them, and that’s how you get exposure. 

I don’t think the incident caused tumblr to stagnate, and I do think we’re increasingly pushed by instagram, twitter, reddit, and facebook, (the other social media giants) into consuming content by liking/upvoting and not sharing it - because their reblog equivalents mean less, and they have algorithms that pick up on likes. 

I do understand what you mean, and as creative people, making a home on a fairly poorly managed site can be frustrating. But to me at least there are no good alternatives (although i’m still considering properly using my waterfall.social account or making a proper blog somewhere)

In any case, there are still a lot of artists and writers and video editors and gif makers and fandom contributors on tumblr and it will always always be my favourite platform. The best way to stop it stagnating is to actively find and follow a lot of people and support each other! we’re all in this as content creators together and the best way for us to continue the quality of the platform is to uplift each other :>

[incarnateirony]

lmao

I take it back -- those positive things I said about screw ‘em. Those benefit of the doubt statements. The same fandom(s) that lost pace to Destiel naturally yesterday come night time because of SPN’s strong international fandom clearly all just set up macros en masse, like literally -- this is barely even speculation, this is basic observation. Every other day they’ve died down on their voting after a certain time, and yet today they ramped up before that time and never took a breath, and quite literally clearly calculated what SPN’s voting threshold was. And, considering Destiel fandom keeps its nose clean and won’t use macros, as far as I can tell -- I’m gonna laugh and consider it over. Antis will, I dunno, rejoice basically that Destiel fandom is too honest for its own good. We’ll roll our eyes. Clexa fandom will continue to be toxic as hell, just like they became famous for last year, and the cycle continues. 

The next step, now that they’ve anti voted out most actual competition, is for them to flay any remaining non-WLW ships but the second any of the ships that actually spearhead this garbage unsporting behavior over what’s supposed to be a fun poll have to face another WLW ship that has barely any genuine support of its own, they’ll break out their fangs and bots and turn on it just as quickly -- like last year. 

If any Destiel fans want to keep up the fight and prove me wrong, by all means, I encourage you to, but as somebody who tracks numbers by the quarter hourly stretch through an entire event this is more transparent than saran wrap and I’ll just enjoy watching them eat each other once they’ve botted down everybody else. Enjoy the macro battles, guys -- and seeing who has the most-fastest computers, because that’s about what it’s reduced to ever since Zimbio pulled the captcha. Which of course, makes them more money. Which, like myself and others like mittens have said, is all zimbio’s after in this. There’s no award for unsporting behavior but an increasing bad reputation. And lo, though they throw insults, claiming toxic bitches in X other fandom, they’re the ones breaking out derogatories, turning ship support and love into an aggro competition of macros for an end prize of... um. IDK. Nothing really.

The bitter irony that this charade of “WLW sticking together” ends with them upvoting the show that, due to pure white male greed at the loss of another franchise, axed a genre-changing all female multi-ethnic show trying to fix SPN’s cultural and rep issues complete with immediate canon LGBT rep for... well, that. Wow. Like. Mob mentality and faux feminism at its finest, and they’ll turn around and gut Legacies in a round or two when it actually faces Clexa or any of the toxic-ass ships that have infested the last few years of zimbio with bot wars.

I’d like to give a shout to Garcy fandom, who also kept their noses clean and fought a good fight. It’s made me willing to watch Timeless, like actually instead of passingly whenever Kripke told me to. Y’all guys were awesome. Maybe we should find a way to joust on more friendly terms without people bot rigging everything like it’s some sort of presidential election.

Inb4 someone yells “nuh uh” or “u just mad because (insert horrifically agist, homophobic, body shaming insult)” as has been the way any time basic common sense has been pointed out.

Props to any fandoms that ran a clean game and hell, props to any that keep fighting till the end, even within my own lane. Myself, I need sleep, so hey, maybe I’ll wake up surprised.

But hey, don’t be disheartened by me, Destiel fandom has never failed to impress me, even before I was part of it. Maybe I’ll wake up to it being in the lead again tomorrow because y’all are some contrarian motherfuckers, who knows.

[dailytechnologynews]

[in-depth] A comprehensive series on the science behind cell-based meat

The /r/Futurology subreddit frequently features highly upvoted posts on cell-based meat, reflecting the media attention and public interest that has followed the industry. There are many introductory resources to how cell-based meat is produced and what its benefits may be, however there are no comprehensive resources which fully inform those interested in learning more. Below you’ll find the first post in a 6 part series (to be posted monthly) which walks through the science driving the innovative technology of cell-based meat. These posts are intended to be educational but lengthy and best understood by those with science backgrounds.

Cell-Based Meat Science Discussion Series I: Cell Lines

Cell-based meat is a term for the technology currently being developed which allows for animal stem cells to be grown into consumable meat products without animal slaughter. It is also sometimes referred to as clean meat as a nod to clean energy and cleaner processing, which we will discuss later Series V, as well as cultured or lab-grown meat. There are now over 25 companies spread across the globe that are working on making cell-based meat products that are as tasty and affordable as conventional animal meats. However, in order to achieve success, we need a dramatic influx of scientists from a variety of disciplines such as cell and molecular biology, tissue engineering, and chemical engineering to catalyze these industries. In this discussion series, we will review the core scientific areas involved in cell-based meat production, aiming to provide an in-depth look at how the technology is being developed, the scientific hurdles to overcome to achieve success, and its potential to shape the future of food.

The series will be broken down as follows:

Series I: Cell Lines

Series II: Bioprocessing

Series III: Bioengineering

Series IV: Cell culture media and regulatory considerations

Series V: Final products

Series VI: Impact (environment, human health, food security, animal welfare)

Introduction

The cell lines used in cell-based meat production ultimately determine many of the downstream variables to consider. As starting material, cells that can self-renew and differentiate into the cell types that make up meat tissue (i.e. myofibers, adipocytes, fibroblasts, chondrocytes, etc) are most attractive. In other words, we need to begin with a stem cell. There are several different possibilities for the starting stem cell population, delineated by their potency, or ability to differentiate into a diversity of cell types. For instance, embryonic stem cells have the ability to differentiate into cells of all three developmental germ layers (i.e. ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm), while adult stem cell populations found throughout our body are more specialized and limited to creating cells of the same germ layer or organ type. The most likely starting cell types for use in cell-based meat production are outlined in Table 1 and discussed below.

Table 1

While not discussed throughout, it is also possible to use pluripotent cells or primary cell lines from specific organs or tissues for the generation of other consumable products such as foie gras derived from hepatocytes, or other organ tissues which are more commonly eaten outside of the Western world.

Pluripotent Stem Cells

In order to use embryonic stem cells as a source for cell-based meat production, one must first have access to an embryonic stem cell line. Embryonic stem cells are derived from the inner cell mass of an early embryonic structure called a blastocyst, which forms just a few days post-fertilization. The first embryonic stem cell lines were derived from mice in 1981 and were followed thereafter by a select few additional species including human, non-human primates, rat, chicken, and fish. However, derivation of stable embryonic stem cell lines is extremely challenging, as the embryonic material is difficult to obtain and work with, the cells are highly sensitive to their growth substrate, and they require different sets of growth factors or inhibitors from species to species to maintain proliferation without spontaneous differentiation. Indeed, the derivation of embryonic stem cell lines from agriculturally-relevant bovine species was only recently achieved in 2018.1 Therefore, if cell-based meat is to be available for every commonly-eaten animal species, there exists significant work in the establishment of bonafide embryonic stem cell lines from a diverse set of species.

As an alternative, scientists can utilize a technology called cellular reprogramming to obtain induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that maintain the desirable properties of embryonic stem cells without being derived from an embryo. Cellular reprogramming enables the direct conversion of one cell type into any other cell type based on the expression of a defined set of important genes of the final cell type2, typically a set of transcription factors. Reprogramming is classically performed via viral-mediated overexpression of transcription factors, either via permanent genome integration (e.g. via Lentivirus) or stochastic non-integrating expression (e.g. via Sendai Virus3) based on the virus type. However, reprogramming can also be achieved by additional non-integrating methods such as episomal or mRNA gene delivery4, proteins5, or small molecules.6 The generation of iPSCs can be performed from virtually any adult somatic cell, including easily obtained cells such as white blood cells or skin fibroblasts, by overexpressing the canonical set of transcription factor genes Oct4, Klf4, c-Myc, and Sox2, referred to as Yamanaka factors.7 Because these genes are highly conserved, iPSCs have been generated from virtually all agriculturally-relevant species, although examples of fish and other marine animal iPSC derivation are sparse8. Thus, iPSCs are easier to derive than embryonic stem cells while being generally equivalent in their functionality.9

The use of reprogramming technically permits other starting cell types (e.g. fibroblasts) to be directly converted (i.e. transdifferentiated) into muscle10, fat11, or other cell types, bypassing the iPSC state altogether. Transdifferentiation strategies are somewhat limited in that their conversion efficiencies are variable and incomplete, and they result in a post-mitotic population that undergoes limited expansion.12 Given that the production of cell-based meat will require excessively large numbers of cells (discussed in Series II), proliferation would have to occur prior to transdifferentiation and all non-converted cells would be wasted, impacting the overall efficiency of the bioprocess. Nevertheless, these reprogramming technologies may be pursued using non-integrating methods in order to avoid potential regulatory issues (discussed in Series IV) with transgenes.

Adult Stem Cells

Many tissues in the adult body contain a reservoir of stem cells needed to replenish cell populations due to injury, cell death, or normal cellular turnover. These are referred to as adult stem cells. One of the most studied adult stem cell types is the mesenchymal stem cell (MSC), sometimes also referred to as mesenchymal stromal cells. MSCs are most commonly obtained from purified cell populations originating from a bone marrow or adipose tissue biopsy, although other sources such as the placenta, dental pulp, or umbilical cord have also been cited. Indeed, the diverse set of tissue sources and resultant cell phenotypes has called into question how MSCs should be defined and whether they are stem cells at all.13 While guidelines from the International Society for Cellular Therapy14 have aimed to better define MSCs, some criteria such as cell surface marker expression may not be applicable in species outside of humans and thus will need to be defined. Additionally, MSCs are typically defined in part by their ability to form osteoblasts, adipocytes, and chondrocytes, while MSC potency toward skeletal muscle cells is somewhat limited and can be dependent on tissue source. In general, the multipotent nature of MSCs can be harnessed by culturing cells in specific cell culture medium formulations in order to bias their differentiation pathways (discussed further in Series IV). Thus, MSCs can serve as a readily attainable source of starting cells capable of making the principal cellular components of meat.

The resident stem cell populations in adult skeletal muscle tissue are referred to as myosatellite or satellite cells. Satellite cells lie alongside myofibers under the basal lamina of the muscle tissue where they remain quiescent until activated upon injury or stress. In mouse, there are roughly 550 satellite cells per 1 mg of muscle tissue15, making them one of the most abundant tissue-specific stem cell populations in the body. Satellite cells can be obtained from a small muscle biopsy, under local anesthesia or from animals recently slaughtered, and purified in the lab based on an array of cell surface markers.16 However, maintaining their proliferative capacity in vitro outside of the resident muscle niche has been challenging and is an area of active research. As a tissue-specific stem cell, activated satellite cells readily give rise to myoblasts, which eventually lead to the formation of myocytes, multinucleated myotubes, and myofibers, each delineated by the expression of key transcription factors.17 There is some evidence that satellite cells can enter an alternative mesenchymal-like pathway, leading to the generation of other cell types such as adipocytes18, however this has been refuted.19 Therefore, satellite cells offer the most direct method for obtaining skeletal muscle tissue in vitro, but may not be ideal for the creation of other cellular components of meat.

Cell Banking

A reproducible and consistent cell line is essential for any bioprocess. Due to the large number of cell population doublings needed to make cell-based meat at scale, there exists a sizable concern for genetic drift and cell line stability, which may lead to inconsistencies in downstream processing and final product. In essence, as cells continue to divide and replicate their DNA, the probability of an increased burden of genetic variation (single nucleotide polymorphisms, copy number variation, large insertions or deletions, epigenetic changes, or aneuploidy) also increases. In some cases, these variations can be harnessed for improved processing (e.g. adaptation to suspension culture or lower concentration of growth factors, discussed in Series II), however, in general, genetic stability is favorable for a reproducible process.

In order to mitigate the risk of genetic drift, cells will need to be initially expanded, validated via rigorous quality control, and cryopreserved as a master cell bank. Individual vials from the master bank can then be serially subcultured to produce working cell banks. Animal-origin free and chemically-defined cryopreservation techniques will need to be optimized for a diverse set of cell types from various species. This strategy can allow for batch processing of cell-based meat or continuous processing of progenitor stem cells, at least until sufficient differences are detected wherein the culture can then be restarted. Similar strategies are already employed in other biomedicine industries, such as vaccine production, and these may serve as a guide for the cell-based meat industry.

Currently, there exists few publicly available cell lines of the aforementioned cell types from agriculturally-relevant species for cell-based meat production. Thus, there is a great need for the creation of new cell lines that can be banked and distributed to researchers in academia and industry alike. These biorepositories can be set up similarly to those dedicated to housing tissues and cell lines for efforts related to endangered animal conservation or large scale distribution networks (e.g. American Type Culture Collection). Having many cell lines available from a diverse array of animal species will be one of the most important factors in bootstrapping the research required for the cell-based meat industry to thrive long-term. The Good Food Institute is funding a project, the “Frozen Farmyard,” to accomplish this goal.

Species Differences

Much of the knowledge for culturing stem cell lines has come from the fields of cell-based therapy and regenerative medicine. While there are many fundamental similarities in laboratory techniques, protocols, and reagents that can be used in cell-based meat production, an important difference lies in growing cells from different animal species. The vast majority of published literature using the cell types previously described comes from studies in human and mouse. While there exist examples of studies using the stem cells described from bovine, porcine, ovine, avian, and piscine animals, the field as a whole lacks well-established protocols and the degree of rich scientific literature from which to draw upon. Despite this, a vast amount of information, some of which is held privately by corporations, does exist on the cellular biology and genetics of livestock species, which may be leveraged for adapting livestock species for cell culture. Additionally, resources such as sophisticated genome annotations, validated antibodies, and other -omics datasets will need to be generated. Lastly, while key developmental processes are generally conserved by evolution, it remains unclear the extent to which species differences will affect the success of applying human- or mouse-based cell culture strategies to evolutionarily distant species such as crustaceans or fish. Thus, the overall bioprocess will likely be replicated from species to species, but key differences, either advantageous or disadvantageous, are to be expected due to inherent biological differences across an evolutionarily diverse set of species.

Cell Line Considerations

Other cell line selection strategies may entail generation of multiple cell lines from an individual animal, different biopsy locations within an animal, different individuals within the same species, or clones of each derived cell line. For example, selective breeding has produced desirable traits in specific animal breeds and thus these same traits may be strategically recapitulated in vitro (e.g. using cattle from the Belgian Blue versus Holstein breed for skeletal muscle production). When possible, cell lines should also be obtained from animals that are raised in closed flocks, herds, or colonies, and free of known specific pathogens. Having multiple cell lines or clonal lines will also enable companies to choose lines which have the best downstream characteristics (e.g. proliferation rate, differentiation potential, etc), potentially avoiding labor-intensive strategies such as directed evolution to acquire the same characteristics.

The location of an initial cell biopsy may also have downstream effects. As previously discussed, this could influence the differentiation potential of a mesenchymal stem cell population. For myosatellite cells, a muscle biopsy from a region of fast-twitch muscle fiber will in turn bias production of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which may influence final taste, texture, and metabolic rates of the cells in culture.20 Location variables are less likely to influence pluripotent stem cell-derived outcomes, however individual and clonal variation amongst pluripotent stem cell lines is a notoriously difficult problem to manage.21 With these considerations in mind, it’s likely that many species, stem cell types, and cell line variables will be explored in order to determine the best cell lines for cell-based meat production. However, one of the inherent advantages of using cell culture to produce meat rather than an animal is the range of real-time testing, data analysis, and parameter iterations which can be made from biopsy to product packaging. These advantages can accelerate the rate of innovation to reach success and create new products (discussed in Series V) versus traditional animal agriculture.

Cell Proliferation and Immortalization

In general, the process of cell-based meat production following cell line selection can be broken up into two phases: proliferation and differentiation. In the proliferation phase, stem cells divide repeatedly to generate a large number of cells until they are transferred to a new environment and triggered to differentiate into a mature cell type via changes in scaffolding (discussed in Series III), medium composition (discussed in Series IV), or both.

One hurdle in obtaining a large number of cells is that the number of times a cell can divide is inherently limited based on the Hayflick Limit. The Hayflick Limit imposes a limitation on cell divisions due to degradation of end-capping chromosomal telomeres following each cell division. Once a certain number of cell divisions occurs (typically around 30-50 in vitro for human cells), the cells enter a state of senescence and stop dividing. Thus, the number of potential cells acquired from a single starting batch is biologically limited. Some cells, however, can bypass the Hayflick Limit and achieve cell immortality. Pluripotent stem cells achieve immortality in part by epigenetic changes22 and upregulation of the enzyme telomerase23, which prevents telomere degradation. This property makes pluripotent stem cells especially useful in initial scaling, although genetic drift during proliferation may also lead to cell senescence or apoptosis.

While some adult stem cells can retain some telomerase expression24, it is insufficient to acquire immortality. One alternative method is to rely on the accumulation of a sufficient number of mutations in vitro to bypass normal cellular checkpoints and achieve spontaneous immortalization. Many cell lines used in research were derived from spontaneously immortalized lines, however the mutational burden can also alter the biology of the cells in unpredictable ways, potentially limiting their utility. Additionally, biological variation between species or cell type can contribute to the probability of spontaneous immortalization or cell transformation. For instance, the naked mole rat, which is highly resistant to cancerous cell transformation, is hypersensitive to contact inhibition25 and resistant to iPSC reprogramming.26 Other species such as lobsters and fish, which retain high telomerase expression27,28, or elephants, which have multiple copies of the p53 tumor suppressor29, may thus be easier and harder, respectively, to achieve transformation, although in vivo telomerase expression levels do not necessarily correlate to those observed in vitro.30 These and other unique animal properties, known or currently unknown, may be strategically harnessed for cell-based meat production.

A targeted immortalization approach can be achieved by overexpression of exogenously added genes or viral proteins. In these cases, the overexpression of telomerase in combination with inhibition of cell cycle genes such as p16 or Rb31 or use of viral elements such as the SV40 Large T Antigen32 or adenovirus type 5 E1 gene33 have been utilized for cell immortalization. Precision gene editing (e.g. CRISPR) methods can be used in combination to insert these genes into safe harbor loci34, minimizing the risk of alterations in global gene expression. Additionally, tandem use of genetic engineering strategies can create ON-OFF switches for immortalization, through use of Cre-lox or Flp-FRT recombination35,36 or piggyBac transposon37 systems. Thus, immortalization can be readily targeted or reversed, however, it is currently unclear how spontaneously immortalized or intentionally immortalized lines will be regulated, as significant genetic alterations and use of genetic engineering may warrant rigorous regulatory standards (discussed in Series IV).

Additional methods to improve proliferation rates or maintain proliferative capacity of non-immortalized stem cells also exist. For example, in myoblasts, use of small molecule compounds can assist in maintaining proliferative capacity via targeting of proliferation pathways38 or inhibition of specific proteins such as STAT339, p3840, and Setd7.41 Other strategies include mimicking an injured or regenerative state via growth in the presence of cytokines42, addition of small peptides normally released following exercise43, or growth of cells in a hypoxic environment which may more closely mimic fetal oxygen levels.44 Similar strategies can tune biochemical pathways in other cell types such as adipocytes or chondrocytes. Many genetic engineering methods can also be employed to achieve similar results. These include gene overexpression via inducible or constitutively active systems and gene inhibition or knockout. In general, mimicking the native stem cell niche to retain stemness in vitro is an area of active research, and there exists a broad amount of possibilities (more in Series III) for implementing these strategies for cell-based meat production.

The next discussion series will focus on bioprocessing considerations for cell-based meat.

About / Disclosure

"Elliot Swartz, Ph.D.(/u/e_swartz) is the author and is employed by The Good Food Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that serves as a think-tank and accelerator for the plant-based and cell-based meat fields.

Feel free to ask anything about the science discussed or how to get more involved in the future of food. Many questions will additionally be addressed in upcoming discussion topic series!

[fumpkins]

Twitter's new downvote feature is nothing like Reddit, YouTube. Here's why

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Select Twitter users discovered a new feature upon opening the app Friday: a downvote button, readily available just to some as Twitter checks the feature on a worldwide scale.

Twitter isn’t the very first social platform to welcome a downvote button—Reddit and YouTube each sport the feature in various types. But the addition stimulated argument Friday as users weighed in on the step.

The downvote button is still in screening, and its restricted unveiling Friday came as a surprise to lots of users chosen to try the feature, who tweeted about their confusion. Twitter revealed the rollout from the Twitter Support account Thursday, defining it would be readily available on web and quickly on Android and iOS.

The downvote choice was evaluated previously in June 2021 with some iOS users, though this new, broader rollout does not appear to reveal an upvote button in location of the typical like button. Still, some users discovered the modification to be similar to Reddit.

How Twitter’s downvote button works

Unlike on Reddit, Twitter does disappoint downvotes or downvote percentages on posts, nor do they factor into the general likes, or for Reddit, upvotes, on the post. Google-owned YouTube, another significant platform with a dislike button, made the variety of dislikes on videos personal in 2021. The dislike button stays, though the business stated in an article from November that its choice had actually minimized targeted dislike assaulting habits. The significant distinction in YouTube’s method is developers can see specific dislike counts for videos.

If you have access to the new feature while in screening, you must see a notice from Twitter when you open the site or app. The downvote button will look like a downward-facing arrow to the right of the heart-shaped like button.

Here’s an example of the type of tweet Twitter views as downvote-deserving, based upon its examples sent out Thursday: An initial tweet asks “Does anyone have restaurant recommendations for New York City? I’m going for the first time and I’m overwhelmed.” A downvoted reply to this tweet checks out “The city is overrated. Not worth the traffic.”

Many fasted to slam the truth that the downvote choice is presently just for replies, while others discovered its position annoying.

The notice presenting users to respond downvotes describes a couple of elements of the feature: downvotes aren’t public, nor will they be shown the tweet’s author or others on the timeline. Twitter explains the button’s function as indicated to let the platform understand when a reply “isn’t adding to the conversation.” Under the heading “help us make Twitter better,” the business states downvote feedback will assist the platform focus on greater quality material.

Thumbs up or down on Twitter downvoting

Not everybody is persuaded the feature will be utilized as planned, with some users indicating the capacity that mass downvoting may silence marginalized groups such as transgender individuals. Others had ironical reactions to this new action in the platform’s continuous fight versus online hate speech, which has actually consistently flared as a point of criticism for Twitter in specific.

In a brief thread Thursday, Twitter Safety shared info on why individuals clicked the downvote arrow, reporting that a lot of users discovered the reply in concern offensive, unimportant or both. The platform declares downvoting will assist to personalize one’s timeline and prevent revealing comparable material in the future, though it’s unclear what approaches will be utilized to do so.

What else is new on Twitter

The downvote wasn’t Twitter’s just rollout today. On Wednesday, the platform revealed all web and Android users worldwide would have the ability to include one-time cautions to images and video, together with some iOS users. Some iOS users will now see a DM icon on tweets to assist them respond straight to the author. And in Brazil, Twitter presented a speculative feature triggering users to reevaluate replies utilizing damaging language, Twitter Safety revealed. The business declares users altered or erased the replies almost a 3rd of the time.

Twitter without mean tweets? New feature ‘triggers’ dissuade returning nasty replies

(c)2022 U.S. Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Citation: Twitter’s new downvote feature is nothing like Reddit, YouTube. Here’s why (2022, February 7) recovered 7 February 2022 from https://techxplore.com/news/2022-02-twitter-downvote-feature-reddit-youtube.html

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New post published on: https://livescience.tech/2022/02/07/twitters-new-downvote-feature-is-nothing-like-reddit-youtube-heres-why/

[bigbox141]

Tumblr After a Week: How I came here, and what it's been like.

Hello everyone! This post will basically just be me kinda gettin' my thoughts out on the site and my experience so far, so no photoshops and less quips this time about. Nothing too serious, though, I don't think (not like my vents).

So, I suppose I'll rewind with a bit of context:

I've never been much of a social media user, I don't believe. Never really been fond of other platforms for one reason or another. Twitter I felt tried too hard to put things in my face, Facebook are shady and Reddit felt a bit too in-the-dark at times due to its very upvote-based culture.

Though, at one point I felt so buckled down to my chair that I never really got a chance to write out my thoughts without filling a Discord server, or nagging for voice chats when other lads' timezones are off. I saw to blogger, but in spite of working with it for a project in high school, felt a bit alienated by how big an undertaking it'd be. A couple nudges from my buddies led me back to Tumblr, a site I'd used years ago but never really got too in to using.

Back then, I had blogs with ambitions that either didn't get fulfilled, or blogs for the sake of keeping in touch with friends who happened to have a Tumblr. Unfortunately, at the time I was quite young and very impressionable, and those awful alt-right YouTubers of the time threw out a bunch of political, awful stereotypes that I was gullible enough to believe and Tumblr became a place I was deterred from under this, uneducated view of "errgh liberullss!" (same rhetoric all the idiots online spewing out had to say. Going with this, gullible mass hysteria).

All that crap was just awful, honestly. Fascism, caked in "facts and logic," ironically built on stereotypes and disinformation, in an attempt to suppress individual thought and social connections. "Urgh! only two gendrs!" Well no, gender is social, sex is not. You're taught this in school. "Hnngh! tumblr ful of sjws!" What's wrong with that? The idea is to fight for equality. You're just cherry-picking people you don't like and stereotyping massive communities for it. By that same logic, I could make whatever communities you identify with just as tainted, there's billions of people on this planet. "Global warmn g not rel!!" Okay just shut up.

Years went on and I became disillusioned as I came to realise that all the stupid screaming that the funni yuotuobers onlein were putting out were genuinely hurtful and suppressed communities for no discernible reason. Needless to say, I've matured since, and that shit's over with.

With a new, adult Box, looking at Tumblr, I saw precisely what I view today: art, personality and CHAOS. God do I love my the latter of that trinity right there. Personal expression, be it in text, through visual or audio mediums, whatever it may be, are some of the most raw, human ways to put yourself out there. You'll often see my dislike for objectivism and capitalism in this corporate landscape bleed into my blog posts, as I've found that the two things are highly prevalent online and fundamentally destroy the human need to express in favour of materialistic possession or hard knowledge, no matter how depressing. When I get onto Tumblr, I see the precise antithesis to this: people sharing comedy, art, whatever, getting their personality out. Embracing the chaos of disrupting the standard objectivist view with absurdity, personal views and visual mediums.

It's this community, on top of the innately freely built platform without character limit and little restriction on content that really makes me feel like I can actually put out what I want to. Not to hang onto trends the same way Reddit or Twitter do. If or if I don't have an audience, so be it, at least I'm free.

All of this, conceptually, made me feel at home. Started with silly posts with silly imagery and weirdly out of character text every so often captioning interspersed imagery, writing in wild unique ways each time in a formula that allowed me to creatively exercise in a daily routine with photoshops, video editing and what is essentially a journal. Every so often, I'd vent about something I'd rather not disrupt a Discord with. Most of the time, I wrote rollercoasters of oddities and adventure. Hell, my most recent post is about me dying to a horde of gnomes, and not long before that, I was visiting a Garfield themed restaurant (by the way, Scooby-Doo EATS no longer exists so that idea is cancelled :(). There were a few times I hit a wall, but that's because I succeeded in my goal: making a routine of getting stuff out. I finally feel fleshed out, and it's awesome.

10/10. Loving the site... but a word of advice to you, Tumblr? If yer reading this? When I say "this post isn't for me," I best not be seein' that post in my dashboard again the next time I look through it. C'mon now...

[aalapdavjekar]

On Identity

First published in October, 2020.

At the age of fourteen, I found myself in my first online chatroom. "Asl," they asked — early Internet slang for age, sex, location. It was never self identifying information. No one was interested in names. No one cared about what you looked like. You were free to be anonymous as long as you provided a small token of details from which the rest could be inferred. Your interests were apparent from the room you were in and your avatar dropped other crumbs of personality. The concept of anonymity was still years from making sense to me yet the obliviousness to physical identity was real. The idea of a fourteen year-old from India soon became dull. So, I decided to get creative.

Some days I would be a 75 year-old living in rural Mongolia who had just purchased his first computer after selling 25 of his favourite sheep. On another, a divorced mother of three, fresh out of prison, looking for advice on everything from makeup to homeschooling. Each day was a blank slate, a new role to fill, a fresh start. Identity on the web is as literal as fiction. It could be as entertaining as you wanted it to be.

Regardless of how you chose to portray yourself, your personality was a central component to how each story was laid down. Regardless of how out there you wanted to go, to an extent, most would assume you were giving out correct information. In theory, you could be the Pope pretending to be the Queen. Not many would care but most would find it funny.

No one can judge the unknown. On forums such as Reddit, getting a new identity is as easy as coming up with a new username. There’s no one to question your motives, judge you by the colour of your skin, or ban you for being too young.

You have no age on the Internet, no gender and you have no country. Your username might change, your writing will mature over time, new subreddits will be found, some will disappear.

Yet, like real life, people can and do judge you based on certain criteria. Online, credibility is based on reputation — call it Internet points, karma, the number of followers, likes, etc. To some online services, these signify your commitment to your role. Like seniority in a real life occupation, Internet points signify how long a profile has been around. The Reddit karma system which was primarily developed as a reward mechanism also serves as an easy way to distinguish between credible profiles and inflammatory and digressive posters — trolls. If you post worthwhile content, you get upvotes — points! On the other hand, if people don’t like what they see, you get negative points. Unlike the virtual world, physical age plays a very important role in real life in determining your credibility. It gives people an easy excuse to ignore your opinions depending on how old you are while giving way to cultural cliches such as respect your elders or tradition is sacred. One of the harshest — kids are stupid might almost seem like a mathematical axiom but ignores certain aspects of the child that are seldom found in adults such as the ability to quickly master languages or adopt new skills.

ASL in the offline world is very much like the Internet. The major difference is that it’s much easier to catch someone lying. As an Indian teenager, I could never pretend to be a 75-year old Mongolian even with the best makeup advice. Yet, there were other ways to pretend. At the time, I thought of myself as shy but I could still stir up some confidence when I had to talk to strangers. I only had to pretend to be charming, smart, and interesting. Society even had my back. “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up,” they told me at school. “Always dream big,” they proudly added. Years later, I realized all these statements only translated into, “get a bigger salary.” So, yeah, they were pretending too. Eventually I came to the conclusion that everyone was pretending. Everyone I interacted with had a story to tell. They all had a big bag of words that they used to confidently describe themselves. Most interesting of all, they all took the story they told themselves and others very, very seriously and would happily clock you in the mouth if you merely hinted at anything otherwise. Like calling someone out in the chatroom for their alleged fakery, painting someone as a liar in real life was akin to assault. But my conclusions weren’t based on some impulsive thought. They were carefully considered observations. The wall of pretense we erect is not even a conscious decision. Almost always, it is based on years of cultural indoctrination.

Who are we?

Culture is a weird one. The typical North American and South Asian of the 1950s could be considered living centuries apart from each other. The Indian, most likely an illiterate farmer barely making ends meet, could not dream of life in the American Golden Age — minimum wage that could pay for two cars and a mortgage. He could not conceptualise the existence of luxuries such as refrigerators, ovens, swimming pools and shopping malls, hospitals and discotheques, or the ability to travel the world on tips earned while bartending. The average Indian farmer desired healthier bulls, better harvests, regular rainfall, obedient wives for his sons. But then, as much as now, drastically different cultures still overlap in certain ways. The Indian farmer, much like his American counterpart, looked to his neighbour to understand himself. If the Jones next door bought a fancy new car, everyone living in the neighbourhood wanted something better. If the Kumars next door threw a huge wedding for their son, inviting everyone from the closest twenty villages, the Chopras dreamt only of throwing a larger party next year. The collective psyche of each culture is only a reflection of the desires of each individual. But cultures, homogeneous or otherwise, are an echo chamber. They consciously or subconsciously produce edicts, rules and regulations that individuals integrate and pass on. Whether it’s capitalism good, communism bad in the American psyche, or India good, Pakistan bad in the Indian, from economic policy-making and government initiatives to television programming and pop art, everything must adhere to cultural norms and traditions. Unless it fits the identity of the collective and follows a cultural narrative, it will be discarded.

Take the never ending list of Indian god-men and celebrities who are routinely treated as infallible figures worthy of worship. Devotees are often so unflinching in their faith that they are willing to overlook overwhelming evidence of rape, murder, exploitation and extortion. This is not unique to India. Charismatic personalities have sway over swaths of people all across the world. Whether it’s Trump, Duterte, Bolsonaro or Modi, the ability to pander to the masses and speak to the cultural norm is more important than competence at one’s job. Trump gave voice to a collective that was scared of immigrants taking over their jobs. Years later, his ineptitude would lead to one of the worst administrative failings in American history and the death of over 400,000 people in the course of the pandemic. The actions of the Indian government during the second wave need no mentioning.

In many countries, questioning one’s cultural norms is akin to treason. Similar to questioning a person’s opinions, questioning the integrity of a political ideology often leads to terrifying consequences. The BJP’s rise to power in India has been followed by the arrests of intellectuals, academics, students, poets, and doctors for voicing opinions against the party. This is quite the routine for authoritarian governments. In the 1950’s, Mao Zedong’s government in China persecuted and killed half a million of its educated populace before launching the Great Leap Forward, a project that aimed at transforming China from an agrarian economy into an industrial power. While it looked great on paper, it led to the greatest famine in history and resulted in the deaths of at least 20 million people. This failure politically weakened Mao. In response, he launched another program to weed out and eliminate dissidents, killing another million in the process while leading to the destruction of thousands of Chinese historical and cultural artifacts. What was the outcome of this violence? It only strengthened Mao’s hold over the masses. His personality was now a cult.

To call humans sheep would be unfair because sheep are never pushed off a cliff by their masters. Human societies, on the other hand, are rife with power struggles, deep hierarchies, discrimination, and violence. Yet, each of us identifies as a good person. We can rationalize why we are good, therefore we must be good. No country in the world would ever think about labeling itself as a force of terror, cruelty, and animosity, but we can easily call “the other” any number of names. We look to our family, friends, and society to support and reinforce these views — call them nationalism, patriotism, freedom, equality — regardless of how accurate or even relevant these views might actually be.

Oscar Wilde said, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

Our identity does not quite work in favour of our individual or collective happiness. We associate a feeling of national pride towards statistics, numbers, and symbols. Rising GDP is popularly correlated with the “wealth” of a country, but many forget that this number just smashes together a country’s total economic output over a period of time without distinguishing between “good” and “bad” economic activity. Even the man who came up with the concept, Simon Kuznets, was of the opinion that the number had nothing to do with individual well-being.

We look to our history to understand where we came from without realizing we have many incomplete pieces to an enormous puzzle. Many contemporary Indians would associate themselves with the iconic Indus Valley civilization and think of the core of their cultural and religious identities as unchanged for thousands of years. However, the morals and the values carried by the average Indian today — monogamy, marriage, vegetarianism, holidays and celebrations, rites and rituals — all stem from thousands of years of mingling with the outside world. What we define as violent invaders and conquerors today have played an important role in shaping our culture into its current form. Not only did the Mughals contribute to our aesthetics and our lexicon but they also brought with them mathematics, science and philosophy. Global trade helped carry the Indo-Arabic number system (the numerals 0 to 9) to Africa, Europe, and eventually to the rest of the world. The British brought their own legal and judicial systems, passed down from the Romans, the railway infrastructure, and a bizarre penal code which sought to divide the subcontinent culturally, morally, and geographically according to their own prudish Victorian attitudes.

Hinduism, a major global religion today, has its roots in the Vedas, a collection of manuscripts believed to have been written by ancient sages at least a thousand years before the birth of Christ. The Vedas described the lives and spiritual pursuits of the priestly class, the Brahmins of ancient India. Before being written down, they were orally passed on from teacher to pupil. The Vedas described the lives of gods, rites and rituals, spells and incantations, all of which have their roots in even earlier animistic traditions, or the worship of animals, plants and nature — a theme common to the birth of nearly all religions. These texts were central to the agrarian communities that inhabited the Indus Valley. However, one might be hard pressed to call this Hinduism. These ancient traditions later branched out into numerous schools of thought such as Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta, each with their own unique set of philosophies.

Due to the geographical scale of the Indian subcontinent, the diversity in language, culture, and race, the ideological descendants of Vedic traditions were in the hundreds, if not thousands, and were regarded as a way of life by those who practiced them. The word ‘Hindu’ was simply used to describe people living near the Sindh, a river that flows through the northwestern part of the subcontinent. The word had nothing to do with the individual beliefs of these people. The modern form of Hinduism developed in the 18th century through reformist movements started by Ram Mohan Roy who wished to rid Hindu traditions of superstition and promote rational and ethical ideas about the religion. Thinkers such as Dayananda Sarasvati, Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, and Swami Vivekanada, would develop the idea of a unified Indian continent and seed missionary movements that brought Hinduism to the shores of Europe and later, the United States. Savarkar, who used the term hindutva to describe ‘the quality of being Hindu’, brought on a politically-charged connotation to Hinduism. This was further fueled by the Indian Independence movement that promoted the idea of ‘India as a Hindu nation’ before the eventual partitioning of the subcontinent along religious lines.

It is a topic of much debate whether an organized and unified Hindu nationalist identity that brought the sheer variety of the subcontinent under one banner to overthrow colonialism would have naturally evolved without the presence of the British Raj. More importantly, the idea of a ‘Hindu nation’ starkly contrasts the cultural openness of the early inhabitants of the subcontinent, and their acceptance of hundreds of cultures and different belief systems, which is ironic considering the foundation of Hindutva is based on the myth that India has always been a country for Hindus.

What are we?

Does my cat know he’s a cat? Do animals know of themselves? What about viruses and bacteria? You might say no to all of these questions and state that the ability to know oneself is unique to homo sapiens. The correct answer is debatable but not really the point I am trying to make. What if I asked you what you made you believe you were human, or conscious, or even real? There is good reason for you to believe in all of those things because you might think it’s ridiculous to believe we are just deterministic machines running on genetic code. Surely, we must have free will. Surely, we must be the most intelligent byproduct of evolutionary pressures. Surely, we must be the only creatures capable of stewarding the Earth. Surely, we must be correct about the things we know and accept as fact.

How comfortable would you be if none of these were true? I won’t attempt to answer these questions here because these are an entirely separate discussion but my point is that we believe we are a number of things only because we have identified with these beliefs for a good portion of our lives. Like the Ptolemaists who believed the Earth was the center of the Universe, or Creationists who believe ‘the Earth is 6000 years old and dinosaur bones exist only to test our faith in god’, there may still be numerous misconceptions of reality that we accept as common fact. Regardless of what these beliefs are, it’s critical to understand that our beliefs are our identity. Through many years of indoctrination, people on opposite sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone still identify as human beings, but their world views are starkly different. One might defend the ideals of capitalist society while the other might think his leader is god and gladly give his life to protect this belief.

There is no distinguishing between one’s beliefs and oneself. Our beliefs form our habits, which in turn form our personalities. We live our lives from the point of view of our beliefs; a home forged from our own subjective interpretations of the world. We hold ourselves accountable to our identity; define ourselves with tokens of adjectives, layers of tradition and symbolism, while in the meantime, we fight to preserve every shred of it, and live the rest of our lives in a struggle to cultivate it. We try to keep it sacred, unique, and immutable. Otherwise, we ask ourselves, what is the point? We work tirelessly to make sure we’re not just another cardboard cutout while raking in trophies, certificates, photographs, children, exclusive club memberships, Internet points — anything to expand our fairytale legacy; anything to suppress our natural mortality and increasing vulnerability. We judge ourselves not through the motivations, beliefs or struggles of others; we judge others based on ourselves. Identity is a relational web. It is a comparison sheet we use to analyse our place in the world. It helps us weave a meaningful story to answer difficult questions such as: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die?

No one is born religious. No one is born to identify with a particular piece of land. No one is born to identify with a particular political party. No one is born as a specific identity. We are all simply products of indoctrination. Every single day, from the moment we are born, our education begins — not towards an ideal of truth but towards survival. The agenda of the education system is only a reflection of the cultural landscape it inhabits. Perhaps only science can claim the ability to course-correct and steer its way towards better models of the universe. Humans, meanwhile, are not so flexible. Between years three and four, most children start forming opinions about the world and themselves. I am this. I like that. This young identity is shaped through an education system whose primary objective is passing exams, failing which the child is immediately labelled as stupid. The child is routinely compared with their classmates, labelled any number of things — shy, honest, hardworking, problematic, unmotivated. Their place in the world begins to solidify. The child, in most cases, assimilates these assessments as accurate characteristics about themselves, never questioning their validity.

Over the course of a lifetime, many layers of identity are crafted and worn, each accentuating every other. Our identity has an appetite. It must consume knowledge and meaning or risk starvation. Some may be consumed by this hunger, turning into narcissists and megalomaniacs. Others might see through the illusion. Yet, most people never manage to leave their opinions behind, not enough to provoke a different perspective because the need never makes itself apparent. Most people internalise their self-beliefs themselves to the point where they are defined by them. People tend to stick with people who think like they do. They fall into a loop of self-compliant views and confirmation biases. Eventually, this simplistic view of the world and the self becomes hardwired and impossible to outgrow. Anything that challenges these hardwired beliefs is first ignored as fake news, but eventually, it brings forth an increasingly agitated response. The stronger the hold of identity, the greater is its tendency to fight back against change. People might call themselves vegan, neo-marxist, jazz aficionados, liberal, Muslim, pan-romantics, Indian first, Maharashtrian second, [enter artist’s name]’s biggest fan. They might have good reason to suspect these words as truth. Regardless of their accuracy, these are just layers of identity, to be worn as per the demands of the situation, like seasonal clothing.

When people communicate, it is a specific identity that does the talking. When I am speaking to my boss, I wear the mask of a loyal employee; when I am speaking to my son, I wear the mask of a loving father; with a stranger, all the politeness I can muster; with a foe, skepticism, mistrust, anger. We carry countless and distinct identities, only to utilize a specific ASL — a condensed and limited disclosure of the ego based on the situation and circumstance. These are like webpages which hide the underlying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code while only showing you what you wanted to see — a funny cat video. The individual’s relational web grows with every new encounter, every new discovery about the world. It begs to answer only one question — Where is my place in the world? The relational web offers a map to reality; a model that seeks to understand and tailor itself based on experience. This is an intrinsic biological mechanism without which the ego cannot survive.

Our identity is life itself. It is the very antithesis to death. These are polar opposites: creation and destruction. Identity forges meaning while death snatches it away in an instant. While the pursuit of meaning is a lifelong endeavour, ageing is a paradox. Ageing in the modern world is the contradiction between wanting a longer life as well as infinite youth. A trillion-dollar anti-aging industry that only seeks to postpone the inevitable, is testament to this fact. In the meantime, all we are left with is the pursuit of polishing our individual story. Some might cherish the annual event that signifies the day they were born while others might hate it, resenting the lives and achievements of others associated with a smaller number while casting everyone else into a basket of irrelevance. Perhaps this is why the shadow of anonymity offered by the Internet is such a comforting place to live. But whether offline or online, my ASL is whatever I want it to be as long as it gives me the joy that I seek and the comfort I need to go on.

There is no point in living in a cage of dubious and limiting self-beliefs. I am not suggesting you could fly simply by identifying as a bird. I am merely suggesting identity is an emergent phenomenon. It is a continuous carving and remodeling of the ego. It evolves in response to experience of an immediate environment because it is essentially a tool evolved for survival. With that knowledge, at the very least, it might bring you a step closer to staying open to new ideas and possibilities. Just don’t take yourself too seriously.

[sycriptouk]

Let me explain how the mass downvoting, bots, karma, and moon farming work, and where this sub is heading.

The Future:

If you want to see where this sub is heading. Simply look at the rest of Reddit.

Moons haven't fundamentally changed anything. They have the same effect as karma points, maybe just more amplified and a little more greed-driven with the monetary incentive added. But the farming is not new, and it's all the same mechanism.

If you look around Reddit, it's not always quality content that gets the most votes and visibility. It's popularity. And there's always the same handful of topics that keep getting the most votes, along with whatever meme and fad is going on at the time.

That's the future of Moons. It's not gonna be so much a reward for quality but popularity.

The more new people we have, the more it's gonna skew towards popularity. But don't worry, you'll still get upvotes for quality. And there will be people like me handing you awards, and downvoting populist garbage to try to even things out.

The karma:

There's a common misconception that karma = upvotes. That's not the case. We know karma is not 1:1 with votes, we just don't know the numbers. It's done with an algorithm. Reddit favors upvotes over downvotes. So downvotes don't weigh as much. Voting manipulation is also clamped down in your karma. Unbalanced users who heavily downvote, or heavily upvote, may have their votes weigh less.

And the more votes a post gets, the less those votes weigh. So 100 upvotes may get you close to 100 karma. But 20,000 upvotes may only get you under 6,000 karma:

​

https://preview.redd.it/5bislo6au5e71.png?width=2750&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c946e33d4e5234351cc29821542fc127ca68efc

The Downvotes:

Because moon distribution is based on karma and not upvotes, a lot of those nasty downvote bots and mass downvoters don't actually get counted. So we are pretty safe from downvotes, even if we can't see it.

You may see your posts get a lot of 0 and -1, but your karma may actually be well into the positives. Ever noticed distributions like the last one, where the downvoting was really heavy handed, yet got a lot more karma than expected? You can thank the Reddit algorithm for that.

Mass downvoters weigh very little on your karma. And it works too with voting manipulation of people upvoting their own posts, or small groups of people upvoting each other.

That's why it's not a good idea to replace the karma system for Moons, for a system that only counts upvotes, as some proposals have tried to do. Because then there's no algorithm anymore to stop voting manipulation.

Who are the downvoters:

In this part I don't have a lot of facts. I'm gonna get more into speculation, so take it with a pinch of salt.

If you're wondering where the downvoting comes from, it's probably not bots. People who were here last November will probably know what bots downvoting looks like. Every single comment in the daily is in the negatives, with half of them being -5 or more. It's possible that bots may have been more discrete now. But why use a bot just to downvote in small quantities.

The downvoting probably comes in big part from brigading. There's a lot of maximalist subs that hates this sub. Many are aware of our moons and think they can downvote them away. Safemoon has a serious grudge against us, because we keep mentioning they are a scam. And they frequently talk about us. And there have been posts on there for brigading this sub. Others like Shiba army hates us for the same reason. The increase in downvote seem to have also coincided with the drop of Doge.

Another source of downvoters comes from people from our sub. And for the Daily Discussion, it seems to come from a group who use mostly just the main page. Some of them have expressed a degree of contempt for the Daily. Even trying to push proposals targeting people in the Daily. Their aim is to reduce the karma earned there, so they can get a bigger share of the distribution with their posts. There is an easy way to moon farm on there by just copy and pasting links every day. And the karma earned by the big activity in the Daily gets in the way of that.

Moon Farming

Moon participation is not the same thing as moon farming. The term moon farming is now being used for anyone who is just participating a lot. When moon farming was originally designating people who use more subversive methods, like plagiarized content, even reposting other users popular posts, fake sob stories, or heavily commenting and posting links. And anything like easy moon farming techniques, like complaining about downvotes and claiming they are upvoting every posts.

Moon farming is not gonna go away. It's part of the sub now. So it's something we'll have to accept.

Votes aren't gonna be enough to stop them, since they are subversive about it, and will even post popular topics. There is a the 1K post limit, and the 15K karma limit that keep them from having too big of an effect on the distribution. There is probably still a need to limit number of comments, and also stop counting karma for deleted posts. It's too easy for them to repost popular links, memes, etc, that will get a lot of upvotes, and get deleted much later. But they keep the karma, and keep on spamming that stuff.

I think in the future some degree of moon farming will be accepted. It's more of the moon farming that goes too far that will need to be dealt with.

submitted by /u/fan_of_hakiksexydays [link] [comments]

from Cryptocurrency News & Discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/otyw80/let_me_explain_how_the_mass_downvoting_bots_karma/ via IFTTT

[healthierlife4u]

How to fight back against internet censorship

Internet Information Suppression: Fighting fire with fire  So as you may have figured out by now, they are actively attempting to censor information on the internet. Not only that, but I’m am 100% convinced that they are using multiple fake bot accounts in a desperate attempt to  control the narrative  on the internet. You may have noticed that anything critical of mainstream news especially on platforms like reddit are quickly down voted, removed, or deleted when it goes against this narrative.

 They are using terms like  fake news  and Russian propaganda because they are losing control of this narrative and they would rather create a reason for censorship then face the allegations and deal with fixing the mainstream propaganda mechanisms like those of the major news outlets.

 For so long they, I’m talking about you liberal media, have tried convincing us that bringing immigrants from poor uneducated countries is diversity in action and only positive. But we can see the rapes, the beatings, the terrorism being allowed to propagate within our western countries, working to degrade us as a whole, not enrich us culturally. They try to hide this, they try to hide anything damaging to the liberal state propaganda apparatus and blind us to the reality of the squalor they are creating for us. Try to question this obscene behaviour, try to question other institutional corruption and you are blocked, banned, or worse ghost banned.

 The problem I see is that they are constantly attempting to frame everything as some type of race war and as such are excusing violent behavior and it’s clear from police behavior that they are ignoring their oaths to charge members of the left like antfa and such they are literally abdicating their respective responsibilities and letting groups like this get away with criminal assaults against what they refer to as neo-Nazi’s. Seriously people put down you iPhones and look around you, your political affiliations are not a concern, and you are being played by your governments.  As such are playing into the giant distraction the liberal media is pulling so you don’t demand they explain themselves for the clear wrongs they are responsible for.

 RELATED:  Divide & conquer: a rich man’s game where common men lose 

 Cutting the cord has given me tons of perspective, it’s like you’re born again into a reality where you can see a spade for the spade it is, I recommend getting as far away from cable as you can. The problem now however, is you can see the propaganda sneaking into the internet at an alarming pace, and with things like net neutrality, we may face a future where, things deemed not acceptable by the  CIA  and mainstream news organizations are literally throttled down to oblivion and to never be seen.

   You see, the internet is the last great refuge for the free thinking individual; it’s all we really have left and as such we must fight back in a smarter way to avoid them winning. I was told I lived in a free country and I am going to live like this is still a reality even though I know that everyday my freedom becomes more and more limited.  They shouldn’t be able to take our ability to communicate freely just because they can’t admit to where they have gone wrong.

 Sometimes it may become necessary to fight fire with fire and the need to move towards the same modus operandi. They are seemingly using multiple accounts for propaganda and censorship purposes and that does not mean we should discount these methods ourselves. You see we can fight back and we can hit them back, everything leaves a footprint and these fake accounts are likely upvoting and promoting other accounts that are fake. Fortunately for us,  this is simple for any private citizen to also utilize. Here are some steps you can take to get your own alternative accounts:

 Step 1. Proxies. You will need to find a reliable proxy if you want to setup more than a few accounts. Typically for one proxy you can reliably have 5 accounts of each social network. What the heck are proxies? A proxy can work as a bridge so to speak, your computer or device using a proxy can appear to be the ip address proxy that you want.

 They are geographically attached so that you can purchase USA proxies and you appear to be from the USA or you can get Canadian proxies and appear to be from Canada. They are great for other uses as well like masking your ip address to get access to content that may not be available in your region. Proxies are cheap and there are lots of suppliers out there, for example you can expect to pay around $10.00 USD per month for 10 proxies. With that kind of plan you could have 50-60 social media accounts and fight back against the blatant censorship.

 Step 2. Firefox portable or similar standalone browser. Once you get the proxies you’re halfway there, now all you need to do is download the portable firefox browser, make sure it’s the portable version! What I’d do is download the portable version and make a new copy for each proxy I’m going to use. So you should have 10 copies of firefox portable if you get 10 proxies. Now you just open each browser, one at a time and go to “options” and then “general”. Choose “network proxy”  check “manual proxy configuration” and input one of the proxy ips and the port for each one.

   That’s all you really need to do, now you are free to have like 50 accounts and fight back against the bot assisted downvoting and manipulation of content not deemed appropriate by them. Now you can go and get called fun buzzwords like “Russian agent of Putin”, “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi”, for simply questioning or being critical in general about any mainstream news.

 It’s really amazing to see how giant companies like Youtube are attempting to censor people’s thoughts and opinions, many people I personally follow have had their accounts demonetized which means that they are being actively suppressed and as an added bonus to this demonetization they will appear lowing in the searches in Youtube and Google search. This is very troubling, the internet was never meant to shut people up rather it was created for the good of us all to communicate freely, censorship is outright wrong and dangerous.

 We really have to fear when the truth is being suppressed so much, this tells us that rather than face the truth they would rather silence us all, so we must all stay strong and fight back. To really be effective in your fight against information supression, you will need to find relatively new content and promote it everywhere you can. This is where it can be effective with reddit to sort by “new”. If you notice that something is being brigaded especially in the case of reddit, fight back with your own army of accounts and upvote what they are downvoting en masse, this will help others to see this information and make them harder to be suppressed.

 The number one thing you can do today for your critical thinking self, is to  cut the cord  get away from the heavily propagandized media apparatus, they are a cancer on free thought and have ventured so far from their original mission statement into a degraded corporate propaganda mouthpiece. Show and teach everyone you know about this, we can take back some power with the  corporate media  in it’s death throws as we rise to the top. We are supposed to live in free societies where freedom of the press used to actually mean something, now it’s only purpose is sowing division and promoting war propaganda. They want to turn us all on ourselves and degrade our good intentions, while they hope to remain under the radar and heeding no responsibility for this madness.

 In writing this post I am in no way condoning illegal behaviour, rather providing information for educational purposes only.

 The post  How to fight back against internet censorship  appeared first on  The Green Living Solution .

https://thegreenlivingsolution.com/fight-back-internet-censorship/

[striving-toward-170]

How to fight back against internet censorship

Internet Information Suppression: Fighting fire with fire  So as you may have figured out by now, they are actively attempting to censor information on the internet. Not only that, but I’m am 100% convinced that they are using multiple fake bot accounts in a desperate attempt to  control the narrative  on the internet. You may have noticed that anything critical of mainstream news especially on platforms like reddit are quickly down voted, removed, or deleted when it goes against this narrative.

 They are using terms like  fake news  and Russian propaganda because they are losing control of this narrative and they would rather create a reason for censorship then face the allegations and deal with fixing the mainstream propaganda mechanisms like those of the major news outlets.

 For so long they, I’m talking about you liberal media, have tried convincing us that bringing immigrants from poor uneducated countries is diversity in action and only positive. But we can see the rapes, the beatings, the terrorism being allowed to propagate within our western countries, working to degrade us as a whole, not enrich us culturally. They try to hide this, they try to hide anything damaging to the liberal state propaganda apparatus and blind us to the reality of the squalor they are creating for us. Try to question this obscene behaviour, try to question other institutional corruption and you are blocked, banned, or worse ghost banned.

 The problem I see is that they are constantly attempting to frame everything as some type of race war and as such are excusing violent behavior and it’s clear from police behavior that they are ignoring their oaths to charge members of the left like antfa and such they are literally abdicating their respective responsibilities and letting groups like this get away with criminal assaults against what they refer to as neo-Nazi’s. Seriously people put down you iPhones and look around you, your political affiliations are not a concern, and you are being played by your governments.  As such are playing into the giant distraction the liberal media is pulling so you don’t demand they explain themselves for the clear wrongs they are responsible for.

 RELATED:  Divide & conquer: a rich man’s game where common men lose 

 Cutting the cord has given me tons of perspective, it’s like you’re born again into a reality where you can see a spade for the spade it is, I recommend getting as far away from cable as you can. The problem now however, is you can see the propaganda sneaking into the internet at an alarming pace, and with things like net neutrality, we may face a future where, things deemed not acceptable by the  CIA  and mainstream news organizations are literally throttled down to oblivion and to never be seen.

   You see, the internet is the last great refuge for the free thinking individual; it’s all we really have left and as such we must fight back in a smarter way to avoid them winning. I was told I lived in a free country and I am going to live like this is still a reality even though I know that everyday my freedom becomes more and more limited.  They shouldn’t be able to take our ability to communicate freely just because they can’t admit to where they have gone wrong.

 Sometimes it may become necessary to fight fire with fire and the need to move towards the same modus operandi. They are seemingly using multiple accounts for propaganda and censorship purposes and that does not mean we should discount these methods ourselves. You see we can fight back and we can hit them back, everything leaves a footprint and these fake accounts are likely upvoting and promoting other accounts that are fake. Fortunately for us,  this is simple for any private citizen to also utilize. Here are some steps you can take to get your own alternative accounts:

 Step 1. Proxies. You will need to find a reliable proxy if you want to setup more than a few accounts. Typically for one proxy you can reliably have 5 accounts of each social network. What the heck are proxies? A proxy can work as a bridge so to speak, your computer or device using a proxy can appear to be the ip address proxy that you want.

 They are geographically attached so that you can purchase USA proxies and you appear to be from the USA or you can get Canadian proxies and appear to be from Canada. They are great for other uses as well like masking your ip address to get access to content that may not be available in your region. Proxies are cheap and there are lots of suppliers out there, for example you can expect to pay around $10.00 USD per month for 10 proxies. With that kind of plan you could have 50-60 social media accounts and fight back against the blatant censorship.

 Step 2. Firefox portable or similar standalone browser. Once you get the proxies you’re halfway there, now all you need to do is download the portable firefox browser, make sure it’s the portable version! What I’d do is download the portable version and make a new copy for each proxy I’m going to use. So you should have 10 copies of firefox portable if you get 10 proxies. Now you just open each browser, one at a time and go to “options” and then “general”. Choose “network proxy”  check “manual proxy configuration” and input one of the proxy ips and the port for each one.

   That’s all you really need to do, now you are free to have like 50 accounts and fight back against the bot assisted downvoting and manipulation of content not deemed appropriate by them. Now you can go and get called fun buzzwords like “Russian agent of Putin”, “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi”, for simply questioning or being critical in general about any mainstream news.

 It’s really amazing to see how giant companies like Youtube are attempting to censor people’s thoughts and opinions, many people I personally follow have had their accounts demonetized which means that they are being actively suppressed and as an added bonus to this demonetization they will appear lowing in the searches in Youtube and Google search. This is very troubling, the internet was never meant to shut people up rather it was created for the good of us all to communicate freely, censorship is outright wrong and dangerous.

 We really have to fear when the truth is being suppressed so much, this tells us that rather than face the truth they would rather silence us all, so we must all stay strong and fight back. To really be effective in your fight against information supression, you will need to find relatively new content and promote it everywhere you can. This is where it can be effective with reddit to sort by “new”. If you notice that something is being brigaded especially in the case of reddit, fight back with your own army of accounts and upvote what they are downvoting en masse, this will help others to see this information and make them harder to be suppressed.

 The number one thing you can do today for your critical thinking self, is to  cut the cord  get away from the heavily propagandized media apparatus, they are a cancer on free thought and have ventured so far from their original mission statement into a degraded corporate propaganda mouthpiece. Show and teach everyone you know about this, we can take back some power with the  corporate media  in it’s death throws as we rise to the top. We are supposed to live in free societies where freedom of the press used to actually mean something, now it’s only purpose is sowing division and promoting war propaganda. They want to turn us all on ourselves and degrade our good intentions, while they hope to remain under the radar and heeding no responsibility for this madness.

 In writing this post I am in no way condoning illegal behaviour, rather providing information for educational purposes only.

 The post  How to fight back against internet censorship  appeared first on  The Green Living Solution .

https://bit.ly/37Kg96R

[workingtolovemyself]

How to fight back against internet censorship

Internet Information Suppression: Fighting fire with fire  So as you may have figured out by now, they are actively attempting to censor information on the internet. Not only that, but I’m am 100% convinced that they are using multiple fake bot accounts in a desperate attempt to  control the narrative  on the internet. You may have noticed that anything critical of mainstream news especially on platforms like reddit are quickly down voted, removed, or deleted when it goes against this narrative.

 They are using terms like  fake news  and Russian propaganda because they are losing control of this narrative and they would rather create a reason for censorship then face the allegations and deal with fixing the mainstream propaganda mechanisms like those of the major news outlets.

 For so long they, I’m talking about you liberal media, have tried convincing us that bringing immigrants from poor uneducated countries is diversity in action and only positive. But we can see the rapes, the beatings, the terrorism being allowed to propagate within our western countries, working to degrade us as a whole, not enrich us culturally. They try to hide this, they try to hide anything damaging to the liberal state propaganda apparatus and blind us to the reality of the squalor they are creating for us. Try to question this obscene behaviour, try to question other institutional corruption and you are blocked, banned, or worse ghost banned.

 The problem I see is that they are constantly attempting to frame everything as some type of race war and as such are excusing violent behavior and it’s clear from police behavior that they are ignoring their oaths to charge members of the left like antfa and such they are literally abdicating their respective responsibilities and letting groups like this get away with criminal assaults against what they refer to as neo-Nazi’s. Seriously people put down you iPhones and look around you, your political affiliations are not a concern, and you are being played by your governments.  As such are playing into the giant distraction the liberal media is pulling so you don’t demand they explain themselves for the clear wrongs they are responsible for.

 RELATED:  Divide & conquer: a rich man’s game where common men lose 

 Cutting the cord has given me tons of perspective, it’s like you’re born again into a reality where you can see a spade for the spade it is, I recommend getting as far away from cable as you can. The problem now however, is you can see the propaganda sneaking into the internet at an alarming pace, and with things like net neutrality, we may face a future where, things deemed not acceptable by the  CIA  and mainstream news organizations are literally throttled down to oblivion and to never be seen.

   You see, the internet is the last great refuge for the free thinking individual; it’s all we really have left and as such we must fight back in a smarter way to avoid them winning. I was told I lived in a free country and I am going to live like this is still a reality even though I know that everyday my freedom becomes more and more limited.  They shouldn’t be able to take our ability to communicate freely just because they can’t admit to where they have gone wrong.

 Sometimes it may become necessary to fight fire with fire and the need to move towards the same modus operandi. They are seemingly using multiple accounts for propaganda and censorship purposes and that does not mean we should discount these methods ourselves. You see we can fight back and we can hit them back, everything leaves a footprint and these fake accounts are likely upvoting and promoting other accounts that are fake. Fortunately for us,  this is simple for any private citizen to also utilize. Here are some steps you can take to get your own alternative accounts:

 Step 1. Proxies. You will need to find a reliable proxy if you want to setup more than a few accounts. Typically for one proxy you can reliably have 5 accounts of each social network. What the heck are proxies? A proxy can work as a bridge so to speak, your computer or device using a proxy can appear to be the ip address proxy that you want.

 They are geographically attached so that you can purchase USA proxies and you appear to be from the USA or you can get Canadian proxies and appear to be from Canada. They are great for other uses as well like masking your ip address to get access to content that may not be available in your region. Proxies are cheap and there are lots of suppliers out there, for example you can expect to pay around $10.00 USD per month for 10 proxies. With that kind of plan you could have 50-60 social media accounts and fight back against the blatant censorship.

 Step 2. Firefox portable or similar standalone browser. Once you get the proxies you’re halfway there, now all you need to do is download the portable firefox browser, make sure it’s the portable version! What I’d do is download the portable version and make a new copy for each proxy I’m going to use. So you should have 10 copies of firefox portable if you get 10 proxies. Now you just open each browser, one at a time and go to “options” and then “general”. Choose “network proxy”  check “manual proxy configuration” and input one of the proxy ips and the port for each one.

   That’s all you really need to do, now you are free to have like 50 accounts and fight back against the bot assisted downvoting and manipulation of content not deemed appropriate by them. Now you can go and get called fun buzzwords like “Russian agent of Putin”, “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi”, for simply questioning or being critical in general about any mainstream news.

 It’s really amazing to see how giant companies like Youtube are attempting to censor people’s thoughts and opinions, many people I personally follow have had their accounts demonetized which means that they are being actively suppressed and as an added bonus to this demonetization they will appear lowing in the searches in Youtube and Google search. This is very troubling, the internet was never meant to shut people up rather it was created for the good of us all to communicate freely, censorship is outright wrong and dangerous.

 We really have to fear when the truth is being suppressed so much, this tells us that rather than face the truth they would rather silence us all, so we must all stay strong and fight back. To really be effective in your fight against information supression, you will need to find relatively new content and promote it everywhere you can. This is where it can be effective with reddit to sort by “new”. If you notice that something is being brigaded especially in the case of reddit, fight back with your own army of accounts and upvote what they are downvoting en masse, this will help others to see this information and make them harder to be suppressed.

 The number one thing you can do today for your critical thinking self, is to  cut the cord  get away from the heavily propagandized media apparatus, they are a cancer on free thought and have ventured so far from their original mission statement into a degraded corporate propaganda mouthpiece. Show and teach everyone you know about this, we can take back some power with the  corporate media  in it’s death throws as we rise to the top. We are supposed to live in free societies where freedom of the press used to actually mean something, now it’s only purpose is sowing division and promoting war propaganda. They want to turn us all on ourselves and degrade our good intentions, while they hope to remain under the radar and heeding no responsibility for this madness.

 In writing this post I am in no way condoning illegal behaviour, rather providing information for educational purposes only.

 The post  How to fight back against internet censorship  appeared first on  The Green Living Solution .

https://bit.ly/37Kg96R

[funnynewsheadlines]

130 Photos Of People Having A Worse Quarantine Than You (New Pics)

So you think you had a bad day during the coronavirus quarantine. Maybe your internet went down in the middle of your online work presentation. Maybe you tried making IKEA’s Swedish meatballs at home and accidentally made one giant meatball. It’s not the end of the world. Especially when you take a peek at how some people are dealing with bad luck during the quarantine.

Can you imagine how messed up it would be for your hair clippers to sputter and die while you’re in the middle of shaving your head? Or if falling trees crushed your cars?

To brighten up your day and give you a big dose of vitamin L(aughter), Bored Panda has collected the funniest times that people had a very bad day during the quarantine. So scroll down, upvote your faves, and share your own quarantine fails in the comments below. Oh, and you can find our previous post about people having a worse quarantine than you right here.

#1 Classic Quarantine Haircut

Image credits: ben_rosen

#2 As If COVID-19 And Losing Our Jobs Weren't Bad Enough, We Just Lost Both Cars To A Tree

Image credits: JTTHEWOLF

#3 Hello, The Stupidest Thing I've Ever Done

Image credits: hayabusabjj

But it’s not just bad luck that we have to worry about when staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic. While bad things sometimes do happen to good people, the things that we do (or don’t do) can also have far-reaching consequences.

The two main things that can have a negative impact on your well-being are a lack of physical activity and a lack of social contact. We’re called social animals for a reason: we need other people to thrive.

#4 First Day Of Quarantine And My Shower Decided To Fall Apart

Image credits: zorixxe

#5 Washed My Favorite Jumper

Image credits: KarenFromAccounts

#6 Spider Cat

Image credits: alyson.swanke

A 2015 meta-analysis of over 308k people found that you are 50 percent more likely to die if you have weaker social relationships.

"If we think about loneliness as this adaptive response kind of like hunger and thirst, it's this unpleasant state that motivates us to seek out social connections just like hunger motivates us to seek out food," lead study author Julianne Holt-Lunstad explained to Business Insider how our need for relationships is hardwired into us.

However, she pointed out that during the pandemic, people need to endure the lack of social contact to protect their health. It’s a real dilemma, but you can maintain social connections by phoning, messaging, or video chatting with the people you care about. It’s a crutch, but it’s the best alternative at this time.

#7 Poor Kid

Image credits: yourpantsaretoobig

#8 I Installed My Own Microwave Today And Saved $150 In Install Fees

Image credits: zingusdingus

#9 Been Home For 3 Weeks. Leave For 10 Minutes And Kids Shoot Two BB's Through The Window

Image credits: Sandeerrss

Meanwhile, on the flip side, most of us stuck at home are likely moving far less than we normally would. Just 2 weeks of inactivity can start reducing your muscle mass. This also affects your heart which we sometimes forget is also a muscle.

So keep moving and keep contacting your loved ones, dear Pandas—we might not be able to avoid bad luck, but we can be prepared to deal with it when it strikes. 

#10 The Printer Exploded

Image credits: joshdyson

#11 A Pipe Broke Upstairs

Image credits: thepinkfluffy1211

#12 My Only Computer Dies Just When The Country Goes Into Lockdown And Uni Puts Everything Online. Also, The Warranty Just Expired Last Month

Image credits: ZaydMenk

#13 Wedding Was Cancelled Due To COVID-19. I've Been On Hold With Capital One Travel For 7 Hours Trying To Cancel Honeymoon Hotel

Image credits: c4key

#14 Set My Remotes On My Heater While Cleaning And Forgot. Then Got Chilly

Image credits: hollyjoyofyourlife

#15 Marathon Runner Ran 26.3 Miles To Spell Out “Boston Strog” In Her Fitness App

Image credits: Mcarps424

#16 My House After I Went To Buy Some Fruits

Image credits: EfexSupreme-75

#17 Both Cars Crashed Into Each Other Today In New Belgrade

Image credits: Porodicnostablo

#18 Supposed To Be My Bachelor Party Today. Now It's A Party For 1. It Might Feel Odd Later When I Strip For Myself

Image credits: Dr_Phan_Tastic

#19 Picked Up Dinner From A Local Restaurant. Sauce Leaked, Bag Broke, Dinner Said Hello To The Garage Floor

Image credits: eager_sleeper

#20 This Is Where The Light Hits Our Bed At 8 AM

Image credits: itsraininginsocal

#21 A Gallon Jar Of Honey Cracked And Spilled In My Friend’s Car The Other Day

Image credits: harrietpa

#22 Apparently My Extroverted Neighbours Are Not Doing Well On Day 24 Of Quarantine

Image credits: sturgeon467

#23 When Your April Fools' Prank Is To Replace All The Mugs In The Office, But Everyone Works From Home Now

Image credits: DammitJames

#24 Try Not To Sneeze When Using An Eyelash Curler

Image credits: ydw1988913

#25 Read A Tip Online That You Could Kill Bacteria By Microwaving Your Toothbrush Head

Image credits: Gpalla

#26 Got Two Identical Pieces And The One I Need Is Missing

Image credits: bitklavs

#27 My 4 Year Old Nephew About Killed Me Last Night At 2 Am. He Moved His Child Sized Storm Trooper Into The Hall Next To The Bathroom

Image credits: Herosnap

#28 My Kids Waiting For The Bus Today. Happy April Fools' Day

Image credits: goblu33

#29 Strawberry And Gratis Snake ?

Image credits: shadowmoonn

#30 Thanks For Ruining My Breakfast

Image credits: Alexandru84

#31 My Friend's 2 Labradors Spent His Stimulus Money While He Was At Work

Image credits: caffeinatedelirium

#32 $5000 Canadian After Someone Using The Microwave To Disinfect It

Image credits: jdk

#33 Damn Cats

Image credits: Stuey1221

#34 I Am Mortified!

My husband had a conference call today. It was minimized so I thought it was just a speakerphone call. It wasn't.

He didn't have any idea because he was focused on his work.

I was wandering around in a sleepy stupor to and from the bathroom. They saw.

One of them said, "hey, I just saw your wife's boobs!"

Once I realized what was happening, I grabbed a baby blanket and tried to crawl away, which they apparently could see as well, and I could hear them all laughing. My husband couldn't even breathe he was laughing so hard.

I was pretty embarrassed. More embarrassed when I found out the hospital chaplain was on the call. I can only hope I made someone's day.

Image credits: deidrapiedra

#35 I Burnt My Hand Taking Tomato Soup Out Of The Microwave. The Toast I Was Making Popped Up And It Scared Me

Image credits: missouriprincess

#36 Hiked Two Hours To Set Up A Picnic, Returned To This

Image credits: Jaminator97

#37 Wanted To Start My Day With A Big Coffee. The Splat Even Has A Face

Image credits: supergush

#38 I Found A Black Widow Spider In My Shower Puff This Morning

Image credits: southbound2016

#39 Just Wanted Some Balsamic Vinegar On My Salad

Image credits: EvilEngineNumberNine

#40 Spent Months Creating And Printing A Card Game That Requires Bodily Contact, Just In Time For My Shipment To Arrive Mid-Quarantine

Image credits: SoDakZak

#41 Was Feeling Lucky About Being Able To Order Flour From Walmart To Be Delivered

Image credits: ryanclicks2

#42 So Damn Close To Being Perfect

Image credits: DrTanzaculous44

#43 Just Finished Downloading The New Call Of Duty Game (98 Gb, Took About 10 Hours) And Then When I Went To Open It, I Had To Install A 13 Gb Update

Image credits: tyba22

#44 Quarantine Is Going Well In My Neighborhood

Image credits: furrygreencurry

#45 Smashed A Costco-Sized Bottle Of Balsamic Vinegar This Afternoon

Image credits: smarti7768

#46 Another Case Of Someone Microwaving Money To “Sanitize It” (Source In Comments)

Image credits: andymelco

#47 I Sent My Sister And Her Family A Case Of Toilet Paper Since They Ran Out. Look What Arrived. Receipt Paper

Image credits: Oliveeyes717

#48 Decided To Pass The Time In Lockdown By Getting Back Into Running. Day 1, Sprained My Ankle

Image credits: eleaston94

#49 Self Isolation Day 7462

Image credits: Nicole Parker

#50 When You Think You’re Being Discreet Buying Adult Toys Online

Image credits: GroundbreakingCat

#51 I Just Wanted Some Eggs

Image credits: samsonity

#52 My Dumbest Injury, I Was Flipping A Steak In A Curved Pan (Like Flat Bottom Wok) And All The Butter Splashed Out

Image credits: Vicarious124

#53 You Probably Shouldn't Be Touching Those Right Now, Either

Image credits: taylynanastasia

#54 Waited For A Couple Years For My Parents To Finish This Bottle So I Could Have It. Finally Got It, And Not Even A Full 24 Hours Later, I Knocked It Over

Image credits: NeonSorokin

#55 How My Friend Is Celebrating His Birthday Today

Image credits: CDC678

#56 Now We Know Who The Favourite Child Is

Image credits: mankind3400

#57 I Tried To Bake My Daughter A Birthday Cake But I Made A Butthole Instead

Image credits: Lillies4Lilly

#58 Found Out My Sink Has Been Glued To The Counter This Entire Time. I Hate It Here

Image credits: ElectricMango6

#59 About Finishing The Book Only To Discover That 10 Pages Are Missing

Image credits: AlphaPlutonium

#60 Went Out To Buy Groceries And Beer. Got Home, Had A Couple, They Tasted Funny. Looked Closer, Realized They Had Little Mold Cities Floating Around Inside

Image credits: UTubeGingerOnWheels

#61 Finding A Hundred Dollar Bill In The Parking Lot Only To Learn It's Movie Prop Money

Image credits: daito-

#62 Today My Husband Discovered It Is Possible To Recline The Reclining Chair Too Far

Image credits: SmileyWhiley

#63 All My Quarantine Work

Image credits: big_nipple_gong

#64 So Today's Supposed To Be The Best Day Of My Life. Now I'm Just Going To Have To Settle For The Next Best Option

Image credits: patriotsfan23

#65 My GF Bought This Very Attractive Easter Egg For Me, Which I Then Left In The Sun

Image credits: geese_moe_howard

#66 Got My Diploma Today

Image credits: Gammaknight008

#67 I Have Been Dieting And Fitting Back In These Pants Was One Of My Goals. Today Is The First Day Since Four Years That I Could Wear Them. One Hot-Water Bottle Later

Image credits: iiischa

#68 Buddy Sent Me This. Cast Iron Pan That Decided It Was Tired Of Their S**t

Image credits: Danford97

#69 Had A Leak Develop In Our Laboratory This Morning. Nobody Was On Campus To Catch It, So There Was 4 Inches Of Standing Water And Countless Ruined Pieces Of Equipment

Image credits: anothergrad_student

#70 My Roommate Made Soup

Image credits: sk-3y3_HIGH

#71 So, This Happened Today

Image credits: garebare1234

#72 Guess Whose Patient Has Been Diagnosed Positive And Now The Night Shift Doesn't Want To Come, So I Have 12 More Hours Ahead

Image credits: venda321

#73 Accidentally Ordered A 25-Pound Bag Of Sugar, As Opposed To A 5-Pound Bag. Left It On The Table For A Bit, And Then My Cat Found It

Image credits: JimJamSandwich

#74 I'm 20 Years Old

Image credits: CreatorDustie

#75 Thoughts And Prayers Please

Image credits: BearcatJosh1

#76 Doggy Had An Accident. Roomba Found It

Image credits: saranndwyer

#77 Oh, Brenda

Image credits: Bentonbag

#78 On Hold With Covered California For Over 11 Hours Because They Canceled Our Health Insurance

Image credits: tristpa2

#79 I Was So Excited For My Hair Dye To Get Here

Image credits: Emmam0408

#80 For God's Sake

Image credits: KoronaSenpai

#81 Workers In My House Were Trying To Fix Old Elevator's Motor, But They Just Dropped It

Image credits: GiofilmsFan11

#82 Moved Out Last Month With The GF. IKEA Closed And Canceled Our Order For The Second Half Of Our Couch. We Also Both Lost Our Jobs And It Turns Out That, As A Student And A Dependent, I Can't Get A Stimulus Check

Image credits: Sam_Coolpants

#83 I Ordered 6 Bananas

Image credits: Asymptote42

#84 My Nose Is So Big My Mask Split From The Tension

Image credits: jo100blackops

#85 Ordered A New Right Arrow Key For My Laptop For $8, But They Gave Me A Left Arrow Key. I Can't Place It In Upside Down Because The Corner Of The Right Arrow Slot Is Slightly Cut Off

Image credits: crazyberns

#86 My Landlord Sprayed Painted This Tree Guard And The Wind Blew The Paint Onto This Persons Dodge

Image credits: IJustFartedOnMyGF

#87 It Was 60 And Sunny Yesterday. Forgot To Put The Top Down

Image credits: JollyFaithlessness3

#88 The Amazon Package I Ordered Came With An Empty Used Cough Drop Paper Inside

Image credits: tahtackle

#89 Ordered Butter From Amazon Fresh - They Substituted A Box Of “6” Organic Waffles

Image credits: ItalicsWhore

#90 Good Thing I'm Working From Home Today

Image credits: slayer_mike

#91 My Girlfriend Picked Up The 2mm Instead Of The Number 2

Image credits: fraserbell94

#92 Was Making Night Peas And Completely Missed The Friggin Cup

Image credits: kabril122

#93 I Washed And Dried A Paycheck And Didn't Realize Until I Put On My Work Jacket

Image credits: friedeggzohyeah

#94 1 Month Of Self-Isolation And My Ceiling Decided It Was Time To Share The Breakdowns

Image credits: Simbar456

#95 Just Switch My Bedroom Around Yesterday And How I Woke Up This Morning

Image credits: germaind2002

#96 I Got Transferred To A New Location At Work. This Is My New Break "Room"

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#97 You Had One Job, Eraser

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#98 Just Finished My 499 Piece Puzzle

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#99 My Neighbors Are D***s. This Is The 3rd Time They've Thrown Their Mattress In Such A Way That I Can't Even Open My Gate

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#100 My Day Is Ruined. Cat, I Live With, Ate My Favourite Sock And Threw It Up Onto My Newly Changed Bed Sheets

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#101 After Being Depressed In My Room For The Last 2 Weeks, I Decided To Get Up And Make Alton Brown's Peanut Butter Cookies

No one told me the oven has been overheating and within 3 minutes, all but 3 of my cookies were completely burned on the bottom. I'm going back to bed.

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#102 Day 7 In Quarantine: Don’t Ask, But I Somehow Vacuum Sealed My Vacuum Sealer

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#103 Ended A 12 Hour Shift Falling Down Some Stairs And Spraining My Ankle And My Family Doesn't Believe Me Because It's April 1st

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#104 Everyone Including My Parents Forgot It Was My Birthday Today, So I Improvised

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#105 The Hail That Just Hit My House. There Were Thousands Of Them This Size

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#106 When Your Husband Says He'll Take Care Of Lunch

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#107 Tried Something New During Quarantine, Turns Out I'm Bad At Spelling

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#108 I Broke My Simpsons Shot Glass

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#109 This Was On My Friend's Local News. I Laughed So Hard

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#110 Not Just Today, 2020 In A Nutshell

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#111 I Was Cooking Eggs And Then My Salt Shaker Broke

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#112 The Amount Of Waffle Batter My Wife And Kids Left For Me

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#113 I Just Wanted Some Potatoes With Dinner

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#114 Tried Opening Soup With A Knife Cos I Was On The Phone

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#115 In Quarantine Got A Foot Of Wet Heavy Snow. No Power. No Heat. Generator Won't Start

Image credits: mindyscharlie

#116 I Spent Over 4 Hours Baking A Cake Only To Immediately Drop It

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#117 Took Me 4 Days To Build My Kitchen. When I Was Done, I Saw This

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#118 Woke Up This Morning And Found This On The Stove. I Guess My Wife Wanted A Ginger Ale Last Night, But The Can Didn't Want To Share

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#119 Did Y’all Know That A Small Percentage Of The Population Is Allergic To Mango? Yeah, Me Neither

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#120 Bringing In The Groceries

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#121 Heard A Loud Bang From The Kitchen

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#122 All Of My Cutting Boards Died This Week

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#123 Everyone Wants A Skylight Above Their Bed Until It's A Full Moon Night

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#124 Men Only Want One Thing

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#125 Oops

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#126 Some Idiot Got Their Car Stuck. It Was Me

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#127 My Quarantine Birthday Is Going Well

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#128 Tried To Give Myself A Fade Last Night

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#129 We Were Watching TV And Someone From Across The Way Dropped A Box-Frame While Moving Apartments. This Is Our Living Room Now

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#130 My Mom Set The Microwave For 75 Mins. And Not 75 Secs

Image credits: lifewontwait86

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[saltzshaker]

Can personal taste power podcast discovery? How human curation helps audio discovery

Pop Up Archive newsletter, Nov 2, 2015

At Pop Up Archive, we spend a lot of time thinking about searchable audio. We’ve learned that nothing is more daunting than a blank search bar. When it comes to audio stories, we're picky about the voices we'll let yammer through our earbuds, yet we don’t always know what to look for. 

That’s where recommendations come in. The most exciting recommendations have a "right place, right time" serendipity.  What's the best way to model that discovery experience for thousands — even millions — of users?

EARBUD.FM showcases podcast episodes handpicked by listeners

This week, NPR released a project that taps into the taste of thousands of podcast listeners. EARBUD.FM, a web app spearheaded by NPR’s Arts Desk and built by NPR’s Viz team, curates hundreds of episodes into a "friendly" podcast listening sampler.

Recommendations come courtesy of audio pros like On The Media host Brooke Gladstone and celebrities like Matthew Mcconaughey, but also from regular listeners like Connecticut mom Liz Matthews, who wrote in to an NPR listener survey last Spring. A small panel of power listeners from the audio industry (full disclosure: the panel included Pop Up Archive co-founder Anne Wootton) helped sift through the responses to pick the best gateway episodes to get people hooked on podcasts.

EARBUD.FM users can navigate audio picks by category, including standards like "Comedy" and more cheeky mood- and format-based categories like "Tug At My Heartstrings" and "Tell Me A Story." You can even sort audio by who recommended it, e.g. "Pro & Celebrity Picks." Users who aren't sure what they want can cycle through random picks with the "Show Me Another" button.

By including podcasts from non-NPR networks like Earwolf and Radiotopia, EARBUD.FM is a resource catered not just to NPR's existing listeners, but broader digital audiences — including, crucially, those who aren't listening to podcasts yet. As listening increasingly takes place away from the radio dial, NPR has the interest and expertise to position themselves as podcast evangelists and tastemakers.

Product Hunt Podcasts: upvote episodes from all time

The product recommendation platform Product Hunt takes a more populist approach to podcast curation with "Product Hunt Podcasts." Users submit and vote on podcast episodes every day. In the style of Reddit, the episodes with the most upvotes float to the top. Though hypothetically the podcast picks belong to every genre, the tech-heavy Product Hunt userbase shows bias toward technology and business podcasts.

Product Hunt's Podcasts interface also features podcast-related products, live chats with podcasters, and featured episodes. Even the recommendation format is experimental: in addition to daily lists of upvoted podcasts, Product Hunt curates a podcast feed with one audio pick each day.

Others have dabbled in the idea of providing recommendations in the podcast form itself. Most recently, Nick Quah (author of podcast industry newsletter Hot Pod) started a podcast recommendation feed of his own. Instead of full episodes, Quah highlights featured clips, accepting submissions from listeners. His first pick was submitted to Product Hunt last week, where you can read more about it.

Other things to note about these curatorial approaches to podcast recommendation:

Neither EARBUD.FM nor Product Hunt Podcasts link to external listening apps. Instead, they offer in-browser listening via a persistent player docked at the bottom of the page. This means discovery is limited to the content already featured — you can't go browsing an index of thousands of shows.

Both privilege "evergreen content," or audio that's relevant but was created in the past.

Both treat podcast episodes as the essential units of listening, bucking the precedent of show-level subscriptions set by apps like iTunes Podcasts and Stitcher.

Though Product Hunt and NPR have different editorial processes for which podcasts are highlighted, both leverage the insights of the listening masses to create discovery experiences for diverse audiences.

For listeners, it's exciting to see platforms like EARBUD.FM and Product Hunt focus on podcast discovery. From the aggregate of these recommendations, we're collecting meaningful data to power recommendations at scale in the same way that Spotify recommends music through Discover Weekly playlists, or Netflix recommends different TV shows based on each user.

At Pop Up Archive and Audiosear.ch, we're interested in how we can use recommendations to categorize aspects of "taste" and turn them into a layer of data to recommend audio from an index of thousands of podcasts, catered to different listener preferences. The tastemaker pages on Audiosear.ch are a start — stay tuned as we grow and categorize recommendations in new ways.

[eurekakinginc]

"[in-depth] A comprehensive series on the science behind cell-based meat"- Detail: The /r/Futurology subreddit frequently features highly upvoted posts on cell-based meat, reflecting the media attention and public interest that has followed the industry. There are many introductory resources to how cell-based meat is produced and what its benefits may be, however there are no comprehensive resources which fully inform those interested in learning more. Below you’ll find the first post in a 6 part series (to be posted monthly) which walks through the science driving the innovative technology of cell-based meat. These posts are intended to be educational but lengthy and best understood by those with science backgrounds.Cell-Based Meat Science Discussion Series I: Cell LinesCell-based meat is a term for the technology currently being developed which allows for animal stem cells to be grown into consumable meat products without animal slaughter. It is also sometimes referred to as clean meat as a nod to clean energy and cleaner processing, which we will discuss later Series V, as well as cultured or lab-grown meat. There are now over 25 companies spread across the globe that are working on making cell-based meat products that are as tasty and affordable as conventional animal meats. However, in order to achieve success, we need a dramatic influx of scientists from a variety of disciplines such as cell and molecular biology, tissue engineering, and chemical engineering to catalyze these industries. In this discussion series, we will review the core scientific areas involved in cell-based meat production, aiming to provide an in-depth look at how the technology is being developed, the scientific hurdles to overcome to achieve success, and its potential to shape the future of food.The series will be broken down as follows:Series I: Cell LinesSeries II: BioprocessingSeries III: BioengineeringSeries IV: Cell culture media and regulatory considerationsSeries V: Final productsSeries VI: Impact (environment, human health, food security, animal welfare)IntroductionThe cell lines used in cell-based meat production ultimately determine many of the downstream variables to consider. As starting material, cells that can self-renew and differentiate into the cell types that make up meat tissue (i.e. myofibers, adipocytes, fibroblasts, chondrocytes, etc) are most attractive. In other words, we need to begin with a stem cell. There are several different possibilities for the starting stem cell population, delineated by their potency, or ability to differentiate into a diversity of cell types. For instance, embryonic stem cells have the ability to differentiate into cells of all three developmental germ layers (i.e. ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm), while adult stem cell populations found throughout our body are more specialized and limited to creating cells of the same germ layer or organ type. The most likely starting cell types for use in cell-based meat production are outlined in Table 1 and discussed below.Table 1While not discussed throughout, it is also possible to use pluripotent cells or primary cell lines from specific organs or tissues for the generation of other consumable products such as foie gras derived from hepatocytes, or other organ tissues which are more commonly eaten outside of the Western world.Pluripotent Stem CellsIn order to use embryonic stem cells as a source for cell-based meat production, one must first have access to an embryonic stem cell line. Embryonic stem cells are derived from the inner cell mass of an early embryonic structure called a blastocyst, which forms just a few days post-fertilization. The first embryonic stem cell lines were derived from mice in 1981 and were followed thereafter by a select few additional species including human, non-human primates, rat, chicken, and fish. However, derivation of stable embryonic stem cell lines is extremely challenging, as the embryonic material is difficult to obtain and work with, the cells are highly sensitive to their growth substrate, and they require different sets of growth factors or inhibitors from species to species to maintain proliferation without spontaneous differentiation. Indeed, the derivation of embryonic stem cell lines from agriculturally-relevant bovine species was only recently achieved in 2018.1 Therefore, if cell-based meat is to be available for every commonly-eaten animal species, there exists significant work in the establishment of bonafide embryonic stem cell lines from a diverse set of species.As an alternative, scientists can utilize a technology called cellular reprogramming to obtain induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that maintain the desirable properties of embryonic stem cells without being derived from an embryo. Cellular reprogramming enables the direct conversion of one cell type into any other cell type based on the expression of a defined set of important genes of the final cell type2, typically a set of transcription factors. Reprogramming is classically performed via viral-mediated overexpression of transcription factors, either via permanent genome integration (e.g. via Lentivirus) or stochastic non-integrating expression (e.g. via Sendai Virus3) based on the virus type. However, reprogramming can also be achieved by additional non-integrating methods such as episomal or mRNA gene delivery4, proteins5, or small molecules.6 The generation of iPSCs can be performed from virtually any adult somatic cell, including easily obtained cells such as white blood cells or skin fibroblasts, by overexpressing the canonical set of transcription factor genes Oct4, Klf4, c-Myc, and Sox2, referred to as Yamanaka factors.7 Because these genes are highly conserved, iPSCs have been generated from virtually all agriculturally-relevant species, although examples of fish and other marine animal iPSC derivation are sparse8. Thus, iPSCs are easier to derive than embryonic stem cells while being generally equivalent in their functionality.9The use of reprogramming technically permits other starting cell types (e.g. fibroblasts) to be directly converted (i.e. transdifferentiated) into muscle10, fat11, or other cell types, bypassing the iPSC state altogether. Transdifferentiation strategies are somewhat limited in that their conversion efficiencies are variable and incomplete, and they result in a post-mitotic population that undergoes limited expansion.12 Given that the production of cell-based meat will require excessively large numbers of cells (discussed in Series II), proliferation would have to occur prior to transdifferentiation and all non-converted cells would be wasted, impacting the overall efficiency of the bioprocess. Nevertheless, these reprogramming technologies may be pursued using non-integrating methods in order to avoid potential regulatory issues (discussed in Series IV) with transgenes.Adult Stem CellsMany tissues in the adult body contain a reservoir of stem cells needed to replenish cell populations due to injury, cell death, or normal cellular turnover. These are referred to as adult stem cells. One of the most studied adult stem cell types is the mesenchymal stem cell (MSC), sometimes also referred to as mesenchymal stromal cells. MSCs are most commonly obtained from purified cell populations originating from a bone marrow or adipose tissue biopsy, although other sources such as the placenta, dental pulp, or umbilical cord have also been cited. Indeed, the diverse set of tissue sources and resultant cell phenotypes has called into question how MSCs should be defined and whether they are stem cells at all.13 While guidelines from the International Society for Cellular Therapy14 have aimed to better define MSCs, some criteria such as cell surface marker expression may not be applicable in species outside of humans and thus will need to be defined. Additionally, MSCs are typically defined in part by their ability to form osteoblasts, adipocytes, and chondrocytes, while MSC potency toward skeletal muscle cells is somewhat limited and can be dependent on tissue source. In general, the multipotent nature of MSCs can be harnessed by culturing cells in specific cell culture medium formulations in order to bias their differentiation pathways (discussed further in Series IV). Thus, MSCs can serve as a readily attainable source of starting cells capable of making the principal cellular components of meat.The resident stem cell populations in adult skeletal muscle tissue are referred to as myosatellite or satellite cells. Satellite cells lie alongside myofibers under the basal lamina of the muscle tissue where they remain quiescent until activated upon injury or stress. In mouse, there are roughly 550 satellite cells per 1 mg of muscle tissue15, making them one of the most abundant tissue-specific stem cell populations in the body. Satellite cells can be obtained from a small muscle biopsy, under local anesthesia or from animals recently slaughtered, and purified in the lab based on an array of cell surface markers.16 However, maintaining their proliferative capacity in vitro outside of the resident muscle niche has been challenging and is an area of active research. As a tissue-specific stem cell, activated satellite cells readily give rise to myoblasts, which eventually lead to the formation of myocytes, multinucleated myotubes, and myofibers, each delineated by the expression of key transcription factors.17 There is some evidence that satellite cells can enter an alternative mesenchymal-like pathway, leading to the generation of other cell types such as adipocytes18, however this has been refuted.19 Therefore, satellite cells offer the most direct method for obtaining skeletal muscle tissue in vitro, but may not be ideal for the creation of other cellular components of meat.Cell BankingA reproducible and consistent cell line is essential for any bioprocess. Due to the large number of cell population doublings needed to make cell-based meat at scale, there exists a sizable concern for genetic drift and cell line stability, which may lead to inconsistencies in downstream processing and final product. In essence, as cells continue to divide and replicate their DNA, the probability of an increased burden of genetic variation (single nucleotide polymorphisms, copy number variation, large insertions or deletions, epigenetic changes, or aneuploidy) also increases. In some cases, these variations can be harnessed for improved processing (e.g. adaptation to suspension culture or lower concentration of growth factors, discussed in Series II), however, in general, genetic stability is favorable for a reproducible process.In order to mitigate the risk of genetic drift, cells will need to be initially expanded, validated via rigorous quality control, and cryopreserved as a master cell bank. Individual vials from the master bank can then be serially subcultured to produce working cell banks. Animal-origin free and chemically-defined cryopreservation techniques will need to be optimized for a diverse set of cell types from various species. This strategy can allow for batch processing of cell-based meat or continuous processing of progenitor stem cells, at least until sufficient differences are detected wherein the culture can then be restarted. Similar strategies are already employed in other biomedicine industries, such as vaccine production, and these may serve as a guide for the cell-based meat industry.Currently, there exists few publicly available cell lines of the aforementioned cell types from agriculturally-relevant species for cell-based meat production. Thus, there is a great need for the creation of new cell lines that can be banked and distributed to researchers in academia and industry alike. These biorepositories can be set up similarly to those dedicated to housing tissues and cell lines for efforts related to endangered animal conservation or large scale distribution networks (e.g. American Type Culture Collection). Having many cell lines available from a diverse array of animal species will be one of the most important factors in bootstrapping the research required for the cell-based meat industry to thrive long-term. The Good Food Institute is funding a project, the “Frozen Farmyard,” to accomplish this goal.Species DifferencesMuch of the knowledge for culturing stem cell lines has come from the fields of cell-based therapy and regenerative medicine. While there are many fundamental similarities in laboratory techniques, protocols, and reagents that can be used in cell-based meat production, an important difference lies in growing cells from different animal species. The vast majority of published literature using the cell types previously described comes from studies in human and mouse. While there exist examples of studies using the stem cells described from bovine, porcine, ovine, avian, and piscine animals, the field as a whole lacks well-established protocols and the degree of rich scientific literature from which to draw upon. Despite this, a vast amount of information, some of which is held privately by corporations, does exist on the cellular biology and genetics of livestock species, which may be leveraged for adapting livestock species for cell culture. Additionally, resources such as sophisticated genome annotations, validated antibodies, and other -omics datasets will need to be generated. Lastly, while key developmental processes are generally conserved by evolution, it remains unclear the extent to which species differences will affect the success of applying human- or mouse-based cell culture strategies to evolutionarily distant species such as crustaceans or fish. Thus, the overall bioprocess will likely be replicated from species to species, but key differences, either advantageous or disadvantageous, are to be expected due to inherent biological differences across an evolutionarily diverse set of species.Cell Line ConsiderationsOther cell line selection strategies may entail generation of multiple cell lines from an individual animal, different biopsy locations within an animal, different individuals within the same species, or clones of each derived cell line. For example, selective breeding has produced desirable traits in specific animal breeds and thus these same traits may be strategically recapitulated in vitro (e.g. using cattle from the Belgian Blue versus Holstein breed for skeletal muscle production). When possible, cell lines should also be obtained from animals that are raised in closed flocks, herds, or colonies, and free of known specific pathogens. Having multiple cell lines or clonal lines will also enable companies to choose lines which have the best downstream characteristics (e.g. proliferation rate, differentiation potential, etc), potentially avoiding labor-intensive strategies such as directed evolution to acquire the same characteristics.The location of an initial cell biopsy may also have downstream effects. As previously discussed, this could influence the differentiation potential of a mesenchymal stem cell population. For myosatellite cells, a muscle biopsy from a region of fast-twitch muscle fiber will in turn bias production of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which may influence final taste, texture, and metabolic rates of the cells in culture.20 Location variables are less likely to influence pluripotent stem cell-derived outcomes, however individual and clonal variation amongst pluripotent stem cell lines is a notoriously difficult problem to manage.21 With these considerations in mind, it’s likely that many species, stem cell types, and cell line variables will be explored in order to determine the best cell lines for cell-based meat production. However, one of the inherent advantages of using cell culture to produce meat rather than an animal is the range of real-time testing, data analysis, and parameter iterations which can be made from biopsy to product packaging. These advantages can accelerate the rate of innovation to reach success and create new products (discussed in Series V) versus traditional animal agriculture.Cell Proliferation and ImmortalizationIn general, the process of cell-based meat production following cell line selection can be broken up into two phases: proliferation and differentiation. In the proliferation phase, stem cells divide repeatedly to generate a large number of cells until they are transferred to a new environment and triggered to differentiate into a mature cell type via changes in scaffolding (discussed in Series III), medium composition (discussed in Series IV), or both.One hurdle in obtaining a large number of cells is that the number of times a cell can divide is inherently limited based on the Hayflick Limit. The Hayflick Limit imposes a limitation on cell divisions due to degradation of end-capping chromosomal telomeres following each cell division. Once a certain number of cell divisions occurs (typically around 30-50 in vitro for human cells), the cells enter a state of senescence and stop dividing. Thus, the number of potential cells acquired from a single starting batch is biologically limited. Some cells, however, can bypass the Hayflick Limit and achieve cell immortality. Pluripotent stem cells achieve immortality in part by epigenetic changes22 and upregulation of the enzyme telomerase23, which prevents telomere degradation. This property makes pluripotent stem cells especially useful in initial scaling, although genetic drift during proliferation may also lead to cell senescence or apoptosis.While some adult stem cells can retain some telomerase expression24, it is insufficient to acquire immortality. One alternative method is to rely on the accumulation of a sufficient number of mutations in vitro to bypass normal cellular checkpoints and achieve spontaneous immortalization. Many cell lines used in research were derived from spontaneously immortalized lines, however the mutational burden can also alter the biology of the cells in unpredictable ways, potentially limiting their utility. Additionally, biological variation between species or cell type can contribute to the probability of spontaneous immortalization or cell transformation. For instance, the naked mole rat, which is highly resistant to cancerous cell transformation, is hypersensitive to contact inhibition25 and resistant to iPSC reprogramming.26 Other species such as lobsters and fish, which retain high telomerase expression27,28, or elephants, which have multiple copies of the p53 tumor suppressor29, may thus be easier and harder, respectively, to achieve transformation, although in vivo telomerase expression levels do not necessarily correlate to those observed in vitro.30 These and other unique animal properties, known or currently unknown, may be strategically harnessed for cell-based meat production.A targeted immortalization approach can be achieved by overexpression of exogenously added genes or viral proteins. In these cases, the overexpression of telomerase in combination with inhibition of cell cycle genes such as p16 or Rb31 or use of viral elements such as the SV40 Large T Antigen32 or adenovirus type 5 E1 gene33 have been utilized for cell immortalization. Precision gene editing (e.g. CRISPR) methods can be used in combination to insert these genes into safe harbor loci34, minimizing the risk of alterations in global gene expression. Additionally, tandem use of genetic engineering strategies can create ON-OFF switches for immortalization, through use of Cre-lox or Flp-FRT recombination35,36 or piggyBac transposon37 systems. Thus, immortalization can be readily targeted or reversed, however, it is currently unclear how spontaneously immortalized or intentionally immortalized lines will be regulated, as significant genetic alterations and use of genetic engineering may warrant rigorous regulatory standards (discussed in Series IV).Additional methods to improve proliferation rates or maintain proliferative capacity of non-immortalized stem cells also exist. For example, in myoblasts, use of small molecule compounds can assist in maintaining proliferative capacity via targeting of proliferation pathways38 or inhibition of specific proteins such as STAT339, p3840, and Setd7.41 Other strategies include mimicking an injured or regenerative state via growth in the presence of cytokines42, addition of small peptides normally released following exercise43, or growth of cells in a hypoxic environment which may more closely mimic fetal oxygen levels.44 Similar strategies can tune biochemical pathways in other cell types such as adipocytes or chondrocytes. Many genetic engineering methods can also be employed to achieve similar results. These include gene overexpression via inducible or constitutively active systems and gene inhibition or knockout. In general, mimicking the native stem cell niche to retain stemness in vitro is an area of active research, and there exists a broad amount of possibilities (more in Series III) for implementing these strategies for cell-based meat production.The next discussion series will focus on bioprocessing considerations for cell-based meat.About / Disclosure"Elliot Swartz, Ph.D.(/u/e_swartz) is the author and is employed by The Good Food Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that serves as a think-tank and accelerator for the plant-based and cell-based meat fields.Feel free to ask anything about the science discussed or how to get more involved in the future of food. Many questions will additionally be addressed in upcoming discussion topic series!. Title by: goodfoodinstitute Posted By: www.eurekaking.com

[workfromhom]

The problems with Facebook are inherent in its design, but that can change

Amber Case Contributor

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Amber Case is the former CEO of Geoloqi, a past keynote speaker for SXSWi and at TED, and author of the O’Reilly book Calm Technology: Designing for Billions of Devices and the Internet of Things. She is currently a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

More posts by this contributor

How Facebook Can Better Fight Fake News: Make Money Off the People Who Promote It

Why The Internet Needs IPFS Before It’s Too Late

The latest controversies of social networks Facebook and Twitter are easily the most heated in their entire 12-14 year history — not just because of their suspect role in enabling interference in the 2016 election, but because by now, nearly all of us are users. If history is any guide, however, this outrage likely won’t last.

The simple fact is Facebook and Twitter have become too useful for most of us to quit, efficiently connecting us to people and ideas in ways that no other platform can replicate. It’s usually enough for the social networks’ corporate owners to loudly apologize and promise new reforms; after the anger ebbs, equilibrium is rapidly restored. Even many users who vowed to quit social media forever will eventually, begrudgingly, return.

Still, this current crisis of trust has created an opportunity to interrogate just exactly how social media is failing us, and push for the fundamental, systemic changes needed to make it better. I’m speaking of deeper, more subtle problems that are far less acknowledged than fake news or data mining: The core user experience of Facebook and Twitter are broken, rife with subtle visual and interactive cues which exploit and fuel our darker urges on these platforms — subtly impelling many of us to share fake news, engage in trolling, and worse. Here’s how:

Fast, Focused, Frenetic

Websites live and die by engagement, their ability to attract new users and keep them on the site. Facebook and Twitter have earned mass user bases and a central place in the mainstream discourse years ago, but their user experiences still reflect these companies’ origins as scrappy startups, desperate to keep growing. Consequently, every aspect of their user experience is optimized to reward frequent, and ultimately, frenetic engagement. For instance:

Publication speed: Response comments are published through an “Enter to send” model, versus “click to reply”.

One-click interaction: Retweet, reshare, reply, Like, Upvote/Downvote, or (in Facebook’s case) express an emotion, all with a single finger twitch.

Real-time usage stats: Content creation is rewarded with game-like “scores”, encouraging users to see how many likes, comments and reactions each of their interactions earns.

Brevity: Short form user responses (in the case of Twitter)

These dynamic interactions are compounded by the overall user interface, with image-based posts, screenshots and retweets occupying much of the interface display. Imagery accelerates and magnifies user engagement; it also encourages users to take and spread screencaps of incendiary private discussions and inflammatory discussions from other social networks.

The ever-increasing speed of wireless broadband further exacerbates this problem, encouraging emotional engagements wherever and wherever we might be with a device in our hands. It’s rare that you can scroll down a Twitter or Facebook feed without getting emotionally hooked by something. Unlike an analog conversation, which might hook you emotionally one part at a time, social media feeds offer multiple barbs per page. Scroll long enough and there is no escape.

It would be simplistic, however, to say the design of social media is the sole culprit, because they are papering over an even deeper design problem.

Filling the Flaws in the UX of Modern Life  

Social networks are flourishing (for good and ill) because our networks are no longer operating at human scale. At human scale, we’re able to moderate better. Consider the user experience of the Thanksgiving dinner, where a heated political topic between relatives can be gently overridden by asking to pass the gravy. The entire shape of our communication patterns have changed. We routinely communicate with people far away, and increasingly, less with the people in our neighborhood. Our family and friend groups are smaller than ever before; 1 in 4 of us live alone, more than half us are unmarried. We spend increasingly more of our time in non-places — in freeway traffic, sterile office buildings, bland airports — putting us as humans on pause.

So we reach for an out. Social media becomes our cigarette break, a quick drag of distilled, pre-filtered humanity with potentially cancerous side effects. We interact with others through our social media profile, what I call our global, templated self, which amplifies the best of who we are — but helps social media companies profit from the demons of our darker nature.

Designing for Warmer Engagement

It will take many years of study and debate to understand and to address the civic design flaws which help make social media so corrosively addictive. Fortunately, addressing the flaws in social media design are easier. Because if it’s true that subtle UX elements can exert a negative influence on our social media usage, then equally small changes can also help curb our worst interactions. Consider some design tweaks to the existing user interface of Twitter and Facebook:

Cool-off before commenting: If a given social media post generates a rapid influx of negative comments or reactions, the system can impose a “cool-off” delay before further comments can be made. Even a pause of 30 seconds could work wonders on giving users a respite to consider the heated reaction they’re about to post, or even reconsider posting at all.

Quiz before commenting (or sharing): A Norwegian newsite recently introduced this feature to great effect: Whenever a reader wanted to post a comment on a given news item, they first had to answer a series of multiple choice questions about the story, to prove they had actually read it. After this system was deployed, trollish comments substantially decreased. Working in tandem with media sites, social media platforms should implement a similar quiz system on updates. It could also be deployed to prevent the thoughtless dispersion of content: before being able to share or retweet a given piece of content, a user would have to correctly answer a small set of questions to demonstrate they had really read or viewed it.

Implement timeline “rest” options: To address the cascade of emotional hooks created by timeline feeds, Facebook and Twitter should experiment with a pause button that imposes user-set resting periods — during which, users wouldn’t receive notifications or comments associated with their timeline.

Key advantage to these features is that they still foster sustained interaction on social media through a warmer overall experience that minimizes the fiery spikes of outrage that often cause users to disengage (or in Internet jargon, “ragequit”). It’s in the interest of Twitter and Facebook, in other words, to implement them.

But if past history is any guide, changes like these will come only after a sustained protest by the user base. It’s up to us to insist on a better, more humane social media experience — and not let the inertia of our everyday surroundings dull us back into our usual, templated routines. Until, that is, the next inevitable social network controversy spurs us into another moment of waning outrage.

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