#plague researcher

[moron-hassaikai-and-more]

Character ask: hojo!!

:0 UNDERRATED CRYSTAL BOI!!

Quick heads up: there’s brief overdose mention and suicide right at the end so be wary of that if you think that’ll be triggering to you.

What I like about him: How much he clearly cares for Tabe and Setsuno (blah blah the camaraderie warms my heart, blah blah trauma from having no friends in school blah blah), pretty Crystals, buff man make brain go brrr.

What I dislike about him: that one screenshot where you can see he’s got stubble under his mask. No. Fucking shave your face dude. You already shave your head. Also that he got no screen time outside of getting his ass kicked :’)

Favourite moment: explaining why he and the other 2/3s of the trash trio are so close and that they’re not worth anything without each other (EEEEEEEEEE-)

Least favourite moment:

Cries at that panel

Situations I want to see more: Give me day to day trash trio shenaniganary. I want them doing normal stuff: going grocery shopping, hanging out with the other bullets, pestering overhaul, just slice of life stuff. I’d also love his relationships with Toya and Tabe to be developed more. Like, yeah, they’re trash but with each other they’re trash with meaning (EEEEEEEE-*is knocked out) but I want to know the actual dynamics. Toya is supposed to be the leader, do they actual respect that? (See more on this in the head cannon bit)

Interesting AU: One where he’s in a bizarre interlinked family tree with like, 6 others from the series. This is one me and my bf made, I dubbed it the Sin AU because each person’s quirk is from one of the seven deadly sins: Midnight is Lust, Deidoro is Gluttony, Monoma is Envy, Hojo is Greed, Tiger is Sloth, and there were two more I can’t recall at the current time. It doesn’t really do much other than add another layer of depth to the character, but I think it’s cool none the less. (Also I wanna see how the family reunions would go lol)

Crossover: Give this man a cavern crasher, give this man a rock stomper, we’re going to Berk, Gadies and Lents. I wanna see the entire Hassaikai with dragons from how to train your dragon so bad!! (I actually have headcannons for everyone! If you want to know I’ll elaborate in the notes)

OTP: ok ok ok. It’s weird, I know, but you gotta hear me out on this one: Hojo and Pixie Bob. The reason I say this is linked back to the Sin AU (Ibara must have coded my iPad or something, it won’t let me type sin without autocorrecting to sun a million times) because I Headcannon Deidoro and Ragdoll to be friends/partners/no one can fucking tell, so because Ragdoll and pixie are best friends, and in that au Deidoro and hojo were brothers, plus Hojo and tiger were related, it just kinda fell into place. Plus Pixie is super desperate for a partner and I feel like Hojo gets zero bitches, he’s the human embodiment of the ‘No bitches?’ Meme. Anyways.

Other ships: Overhaul and Chrono (because under no circumstance will I ever split them up). Purely cos I saw a post saying that entire rant about the trash trio being useless without overhaul and them owing everything to him was said by Hojo, not Setsuno, and it sounding like he had a crush on him.

BROTP: the rest of the trash trio. Duh.

NOTP: anyone from the league except now that I think about it I can weirdly see him working with Magne? …hm. And any pro too.

Headcannon time!!!

1. While Setsuno is the ‘leader’ of the trash trio, and he’s good at it, don’t get me wrong, he can definitely strategise and knows what he’s doing, he’s terrible at just…existing day to day life, so Hojo typically has to help him. He’s his common sense, in a way. He’s to Setsuno what Tengai is to Rappa, just both are a lot happier with the arrangement.

2. He and Setsuno actually knew each other before they joined the hassiakai, not well but they attended the same school and had a few classes together.

3. He’s 22 years old and the oldest of the trash trio. He’s also the third tallest in the bullets at 6’1 (only Rappa and Katsukame are taller cos…yeah. Btw this is completely ignoring the canon evidence showing otherwise because Tabe is not allowed to be tall. He is baby and he is no taller than 5’3 and I will bite anyone who says otherwise. I’m only saying this because I want to be taller than at least one person in the hassiakai-)

4. Sad backstory time. He was orphaned: his dad cheated on his mum before Hojo was born and his mum died of a drug overdose when he was around four. He was then moved to live with his aunt who..wasn’t an amazing parent but was better than what he had previously. As he got older, about 16, he found out what actually happened with his parents, and attempted to find his dad. He eventually managed to get in contact with him- however his dad wanted nothing to do with him. This destroyed him and he attempted to end his life, however overhaul found him and took him in. A few months later, Setsuno joined, and then Tabe about half a year after that, and with that, the trash trio was fully formed.

Huh. Didn’t know I had that much to say about him. I really thought I’d have a few sentences for each question…anyways, hope you enjoyed!

[reasonsforhope]

"A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a real-time air monitor that can detect any of the SARS-CoV-2 virus variants that are present in a room in about 5 minutes.

The proof-of-concept device was created by researchers from the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine at Washington University...

The results are contained in a July 10 publication in Nature Communications that provides details about how the technology works.

The device holds promise as a breakthrough that - when commercially available - could be used in hospitals and health care facilities, schools, congregate living quarters, and other public places to help detect not only the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but other respiratory virus aerosol such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as well.

“There is nothing at the moment that tells us how safe a room is,” Cirrito said, in the university’s news release. “If you are in a room with 100 people, you don’t want to find out five days later whether you could be sick or not. The idea with this device is that you can know essentially in real time, or every 5 minutes, if there is a live virus in the air.”

How It Works

The team combined expertise in biosensing with knowhow in designing instruments that measure the toxicity of air. The resulting device is an air sampler that operates based on what’s called “wet cyclone technology.” Air is sucked into the sampler at very high speeds and is then mixed centrifugally with a fluid containing a nanobody that recognizes the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That fluid, which lines the walls of the sampler, creates a surface vortex that traps the virus aerosols. The wet cyclone sampler has a pump that collects the fluid and sends it to the biosensor for detection of the virus using electrochemistry.

The success of the instrument is linked to the extremely high velocity it generates - the monitor has a flow rate of about 1,000 liters per minute - allowing it to sample a much larger volume of air over a 5-minute collection period than what is possible with currently available commercial samplers. It’s also compact - about one foot wide and 10 inches tall - and lights up when a virus is detected, alerting users to increase airflow or circulation in the room.

Testing the Monitor

To test the monitor, the team placed it in the apartments of two Covid-positive patients. The real-time air samples from the bedrooms were then compared with air samples collected from a virus-free control room. The device detected the RNA of the virus in the air samples from the bedrooms but did not detect any in the control air samples.

In laboratory experiments that aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 into a room-sized chamber, the wet cyclone and biosensor were able to detect varying levels of airborne virus concentrations after only a few minutes of sampling, according to the study.

“We are starting with SARS-CoV-2, but there are plans to also measure influenza, RSV, rhinovirus and other top pathogens that routinely infect people,” Cirrito said. “In a hospital setting, the monitor could be used to measure for staph or strep, which cause all kinds of complications for patients. This could really have a major impact on people’s health.”

The Washington University team is now working to commercialize the air quality monitor."

-via Forbes, July 11, 2023

-

Holy shit. I know it's still early in the technology and more testing will inevitably be needed but holy shit.

Literally, if it bears out, this could revolutionize medicine. And maybe let immunocompromised people fucking go places again

Also, for those who don't know, Nature Communications is a very prestigious scientific journal that focuses on Pretty Big Deal research. Their review process is incredibly rigorous. This is an absolutely HUGE credibility boost to this research and prototype

[fireflysummers]

FireflySummers’ Guide to Arguing Against the Use of AI Image Generators

(AKA I hate AI image generators so fucking much that I published a whole ass academic article on it)

Read the Paper: Art in the Machine: Value Misalignment and AI "Art"

Citation: Allred, A.M., Aragon, C. (2023). Art in the Machine: Value Misalignment and AI “Art”. In: Luo, Y. (eds) Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering. CDVE 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14166. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43815-8_4

The purpose of the original paper and now this post is the following:

Provide at least one academic article that you can cite. (Full paper + citation available below)

Make explicit community values that have previously been implicit, in order to better examine your own perceptions of the online artist community, and where you sit within it.

Provide rebuttals to common pro-AI talking points, with the intention of shutting down the conversation and reclaiming the narrative. 

What this paper and post cannot do:

Act as a sole authority about the online artist community and its values. We are not a monolith, and it is up to you to think critically about what, exactly, you want to take away from this discussion.

Provide a way to convince AI Evangelists that what they’re doing is wrong and bad and needs to stop. You will never convince them. Again, focus on shutting them down and reclaiming the narrative.

Final Disclaimer: I'm a very fallible researcher who is still very much learning how to do academia. I cannot speak for the entirety of the online artist community or fanartist community. We all have different lived experiences. I have done my best to include diverse voices; however if you have concerns or critiques, I am open to hearing them.

If you show up to debate in favor of AI image generators, you will be automatically blocked.

Credits:

Editors, Meme Experts, and Annotators: @starbeans-bags, @b4kuch1n, @cecilioque.

Tutorial Examples: @sabertoothwalrus, @ash-and-starlight, @miyuliart, @hometownrockstar, @deoidesign, @cinnamonrollbakery

If you have read this far, thank you very much. I hope that you have found a constructive lens for approaching the war with AI image generators, as well as a new tool for shutting down debate and reclaiming the narrative.

[sunshineartmon]

So Athena P mentioned Pokémon in a recent video of hers and so like… I was compelled to make this. I simultaneously hope for a pokemon lore video from her and dread the research process making a pokemon video would put on her.

Bonus concept sheet!

Why’d I give her Aipom? I just felt like the silly little monkey that can also flip you off just fit her <3

[arealtrashact]

Your sona is so cute! Sorry if it's obvious, but what animal are they? I noticed they have horns??

In any case, I love your art always. Your talent in character design is unmatched!

No need to apologize ; It's virtually impossible for someone to guess what Smarty is without me providing some sort of brief explanation. . . So here it is !

A closer look at the specimen . . .

[breadmecoshy]

I swear, the Pale King just organized a conveyor belt for the production of minions from the void and delegated his duties to them

In my understanding, Lurien and the Collector were the two most reasonable specimens, so the King made them work. For free, of course, only out of a sense of love for its creator. And less autonomous samples became his kingsmoulds

Lurien was obviously entrusted with overseeing the City of Tears, but I think the situation is more interesting with the Collector

I think the King originally appointed him as a scientist who was supposed to study the effects and consequences of contact of living beings with the void. Is it possible to defeat the infection in this way or reduce its impact? It would be easy for him, since he himself is from the void

After all, he has his own tower with a study. But to be honest, the Tower of Love reminds me of one big room with soft walls for a madman, and it stands literally on the very edge of the city, isolated from it. I think the king initially saw that the Collector was not quite adequate, but he needed research, so he simply provided him with a tower with access to the Edge of the Kingdom so that he could catch unreasonable beetles there for research, and not cause problems in the city

The bug with the void flowing out of its eyes, in which we find the key to the tower, thinks that they have been together with someone for too long, and have become one. I think it was one of the assistants or workers in the tower who escaped when the influence of the void on the inhabitants of the tower became obviously detrimental. He locked the Collector up and took the key with him so that he could no longer "protect" everything he could reach

[cirrus-grey]

Interesting tidbit from this Wikipedia article in light of today's episode (emphasis mine) :

Much of Newton's writing on alchemy may have been lost in a fire in his laboratory, so the true extent of his work in this area may have been larger than is currently known. Newton also suffered a nervous breakdown during his period of alchemical work.

Newton's writings suggest that one of the main goals of his alchemy may have been the discovery of the philosopher's stone (a material believed to turn base metals into gold), and perhaps to a lesser extent, the discovery of the highly coveted Elixir of Life. Newton reportedly believed that a Diana's Tree, an alchemical demonstration producing a dendritic "growth" of silver from solution, was evidence that metals "possessed a sort of life."

[lunar-lumi]

1, 2, 3, 4, the human heart shall beat no more

details under the cut!!

[i-bring-crack]

A–Aventio TGCF idea?? Wherein Civil God Veritas Ratio meets the infamous Ghost King Aventurine during his first mission cuz cuz like— The "live for me" paralels?!? The one who has all the luck partner as well?!? The villain who was actually not the Villain this whole time!?!? The loving humanity a little too much it causes their downfall !?!?!?

Rant AU in the tags proceed with caution

[mugwot]

an artfight attack that is also a webcomic fanart! two birds, one electric type attack.

inhibit webcomic courtesy of @evegwood

[carcasstohounds]

will solace, little loimios, friend to mice

[moron-hassaikai-and-more]

Duo meme: Chisaki Kai and *drum roll* Irinaka Joi! (bet you thought i was gonna say Kai and Hari, well not this time)

I actually thought you were gonna say pops, since you know I have an obsession with him.

To be honest, I never really payed too much mind to mimic, though I do take my tiny mimic keychain everywhere. Also he reminds me of the muffin man meme for some reason. Maybe cos I call him the muppet man? Who knows. But here! I love the idea of Joi being a complete gremlin and Kai trying to get him to be Civilised™️

[p1nkb34n13]

Pre-3999 and some other things

[ritz-writes]

google: oh, shes looking up a lot about churches. ooo, and bible verses too! i wonder if shes christian now

me: *is doing research for a good omens fanfic*

[anonymocha]

i mean it i have a fic in my head i already have the general plot laid out and snippets of prose in my head riddled with themes of navigating grief, projecting into a person, religious spite, cosmic loneliness, beastly otherness, "predatory" lesbian guilt, mommy issues, macro vs micro cosmos parallels, etc etc and it would be a banger if i ACTUALLY WRITE IT

[imbeingtauntedbyachild]