#rapid authoring tools

[prodientio]

Rapid Course Development Solutions to Accelerate Learning Design

Rapid Development: Faster than a cup of coffee

Imagine turning your creative visions into fully-fledged eLearning courses within minutes, not hours or days. With Prodient.io, the days of laborious course development are over.

Rapid Development feature is designed for efficiency, allowing you to seamlessly translate your ideas into engaging and interactive courses without the steep learning curve.

The user-friendly interface streamlines the entire development process, enabling you to focus on crafting quality content rather than grappling with complex tools.

Say goodbye to long development cycles and hello to agility.

For more information, visit: https://prodient.io/

[tesseractlearningpvtltd]

What are the most important features in an eLearning Authoring Tool?

 When considering an eLearning authoring tool, especially for rapid content development, several important features can significantly impact your ability to create effective and engaging eLearning materials. Here are some of the most crucial features to look for:

1. User-Friendly Interface: An intuitive and user-friendly interface is essential for rapid authoring. It should not require extensive technical expertise, allowing instructional designers and subject matter experts to create content easily.

2. Templates and Themes: Pre-designed templates and themes can expedite content creation by providing a consistent and visually appealing structure. These templates should be customizable to align with your organization's branding and style.

3. Multimedia Integration: The ability to integrate various multimedia elements such as images, videos, audio, and animations is vital for creating engaging content. Look for tools that support multiple media formats.

4. Responsive Design: Ensure that the tool allows you to create content that is responsive and adaptable to different devices and screen sizes, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

5. Interactivity: Interactivity is key for engaging learners. Look for features that enable the creation of interactive elements like quizzes, assessments, simulations, and branching scenarios.

6. Assessment and Feedback: Effective eLearning authoring tools should provide options for creating assessments, quizzes, and surveys. They should also allow for the incorporation of feedback mechanisms to enhance the learning experience.

7. SCORM Compliance: SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) compliance is crucial if you plan to integrate your content with Learning Management Systems (LMS). It ensures compatibility and tracking capabilities.

8. Collaboration Tools: If you have a team working on content development, collaborative features such as real-time co-authoring, comments, and version control can streamline the process.

9. Content Versioning: The ability to save and access previous versions of your content is essential for content management and updates.

10. Analytics and Reporting: Robust analytics and reporting tools allow you to track learner progress, assess the effectiveness of your content, and make data-driven improvements.

11. Accessibility Features: Ensure that the tool supports accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG) to create content that is inclusive and can be accessed by learners with disabilities.

12. Integration Capabilities: Look for tools that can integrate with other software and platforms, such as Learning Management Systems, to facilitate content deployment and tracking.

13. Content Publishing Options: Check if the tool offers multiple publishing options, including HTML5, SCORM packages, and mobile app compatibility, to ensure your content can be delivered in various formats.

14. Support and Training: Assess the availability of customer support and training resources provided by the tool's vendor to assist with any technical issues or learning curve challenges.

15. Cost-Effectiveness: Consider your budget and evaluate the tool's pricing structure, ensuring it aligns with your organization's needs and resources.

Prodient.io offers a comprehensive eLearning authoring tool that incorporates many of these crucial features, making it suitable for rapid content development. It's a great option to explore, but remember to assess your specific requirements to determine the best fit for your eLearning needs.

[typhlonectes]

Scientists develop groundbreaking method for detecting DNA of invasive snakes in Florida

Scientists at the University of Florida have developed a pioneering tool to bolster Florida's defenses against invasive species: a DNA-based environmental monitoring test that can pinpoint where they've been, aiding eradication efforts.

Once a nonnative species gets into an environment, it is often too late to get rid of it, and the focus shifts to containment or long-term management. Both approaches come with heavy costs concerning native wildlife and funding, explained Melissa Miller, lead author on the study and an invasion ecologist at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (UF/IFAS FLREC). "We hope this novel eDNA sampling tool we have designed will help increase efficiency in invasive species management, allowing for early detection and rapid removal of nonnative species," she said...

Read more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241122130344.htm

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Do you have any ways to check in a fanfic is written by AI? I have no trouble detect if a work email is written by AI but when it comes to fanfic, I just can't. English is my second language too. There are a bunch of fics of this one author on Wattpad that when I was reading, it feels weird? A little bit uncanny. I don't want to misunderstand them if it's just a me problem but I also hate everyone using AI to write so I'd appreciate a method or a tool to check. Thank you.

I don't have any solid indicators, however, if it feels off, you're likely noticing something off about the writing. The "em-dash" claim (that AI uses em dashes a lot) isn't really something to rely on.

(A better way to identify AI is an overuse of bullet lists, which, uh, I'm about to do, so here goes.)

Inconsistencies and repetition. This is a tough one right out of the gate, but all writers have a style. There's a turn of phrase, sentence structure, or common words that tend to pop up in their writing again and again. AI, on the other hand, does not stick to a distinctive style. It may repeat the same sentence structure over and over, or seem overly formerly written, especially in dialogue. The longer a document/fic, the more repetitive writing structures you will see.

Lack of depth or subtlety. Do the descriptions feel stilted or odd? Are the metaphors mixed together in a way that doesn't make sense (describing something dark using a comparison to something bright, odd comparisons that you've never heard before, etc)? Does it feel like the emotions are flat and not connecting to the story? All of these things could be things to watch out for.

Perfect grammar. I'm still finding grammatical errors in stories I wrote years ago. No amount of spellcheck will save me from a typo. AI never has that problem, but it also won't use punctuation to make a point (like using commas to indicate a speech pattern).

Updated too damn fast. If someone is uploading thousands of words a day, there's no way they're writing the story themselves. Massive, rapid-fire updates are something to keep an eye out for.

Now, all of these things alone do not indicate someone is using AI. Everyone's written a bad metaphor before, some people are great at grammar, and folks new to writing may have an inconsistent writing style. As you have noticed, speaking English as a second language makes folks overly prone to being flagged as using AI, which is also not helpful.

There's also no perfect AI checker, as most tend to throw up false positives. But the longer the story, the more indicators will pop up. Scenes might get repetitive, or sex scenes start to feel the same.

I also, unfortunately, don't have any advice for what to do if you feel like AI is being used to write fanfiction. You certainly don't want to falsely accuse someone of using it publicly (though I'd reach out to friends to see if they have the same suspicions). Ultimately, the best case scenario is that people will identify when they use AI (there's a whole tag for it on AO3), but I don't know how common that will become. In a pinch, when I suspect something has been plagiarized or written by AI, I shift the writer to my "do not read" pile and move on.

[syneilesis]

[fic] Slower Days

Slower Days

Love and Deepspace | Part of Airport AU | Zayne (Li Shen) vs. Sylus (Qin Che) vs. Xavier (Shen Xinghui) vs. Rafayel (Qi Yu) | 2.2k words | G | ao3 link

In which Zayne is a part-time airport doctor, and he’s really wishing he could go back to being a full-time hospital doctor.

A/N: Kids, do not copy Sylus. He may be an excellent pilot, but he's not role model material lmao. Also: Caleb cameo.

Zayne has just finished checking his last patient (there's nothing really wrong with the person; just a baffling case of getting starstruck) when an airport crew knocks on the door and peeks in.

"Doctor?"

The patient scurries away, suddenly embarrassed, but not before casting one last wistful look at Zayne, who ignores it with willful concentration.

"Yes?"

The personnel fidgets a little, wages an internal battle over whether to look at Zayne in the eye, loses, and focuses on his side parting instead. "There's emergency at the departure area," he says finally. "We need your help."

Zayne immediately gets up. "Did somebody collapse?"

A suspicious shifty gaze. "Um, somebody might."

That doesn’t inspire much certainty about the state of things. Zayne sighs. Regardless, he gathers his medical equipment after a quick deliberation. "Lead the way."

When they reach the departure area and the situation wordlessly presents itself to him, Zayne immediately does a cost-benefit analysis in his head about his urgent decision to hightail it out of here.

Just a few ways away, the towering figures of Xavier, Rafayel, and Sylus facing each other like three velociraptors about to attack are already attracting spectators. Some bystanders are murmuring for airport security, except the authorities in question are hovering at the threshold, afraid to penetrate the invisible barrier between the public and those three intimidatingly striking men.

Xavier, Rafayel, or Sylus individually already screams trouble. Zayne still can't forget the time when Xavier managed to summon all customs officers by implicating that Rafayel was bringing dangerous drugs (they were only rare paint powders, and even then nobody was able to trace the instigator to Xavier, the clever fox), or that time when the plane piloted by Sylus almost ran over a smaller jet just because the jet's pilot flirted with you (Zayne had to part-time as a counselor for that one—something that's way beyond his job description). Together, they're a greater risk and danger.

Sylus, the tallest among the three, steps forward and juts his chin out in an obvious display of dominance. Rafayel reacts to that and bristles, says something in rapid fire that yanks Sylus’s mouth into a scowl. Xavier remains calm, but Zayne knows based on experience that the young man's already commenced four out of eight of his contingency plans.

The airport crew beside him fidgets nervously. "Um, Doctor?"

His jaw tics; Zayne resists the urge to raise his hand and press it. This isn't part of his work, but he has the unfortunate privilege of knowing the men by way of your association. He has interacted with Xavier and Rafayel at length, and they are civil with each other, sure, but he can't say the same for Sylus. He had, once, sat for two hours of your ranting about aforementioned pilot, gesticulating about the several times Sylus disrupted you during work. He hadn't the courage to ask you directly about the kind of disruption the man was doing but based on your anecdotes Zayne surmised that it was the romantic kind.

He doesn't know what to think of that.

Zayne glances at the crewman—who is now sweating buckets at the growingly palpable animosity between the three.

Finally, he says, "Disperse the crowd. I'll handle this."

The crewman springs to action.

Carefully placing his medical tools by a nearby pillar—he won't need them this time, maybe, probably—Zayne strides towards the nucleus of trouble.

"—just don't understand why you have to overtake another landing plane," Rafayel is saying, "when we weren't even delayed!"

"The PA was going back and forth with flight corrections for that one," Xavier adds. “You should’ve seen the chaos you caused here. You basically broke the law.”

But Sylus is undeterred; he sends them both an unimpressed glare, folding his arms and replying, "That plane was dawdling. And nobody came to arrest me.” Then he pauses, and huffs as if he’s burdened with the obligation to explain further. "I was in a hurry."

"For what?"

Sylus just levels Rafayel a look. Then Xavier, victory within reach, cuts in:

"She's on leave today."

Rafayel and Sylus halt. Zayne, too. And they all train their complete, undivided attention on Xavier, who's still calm but is now smiling that offensively polite-but-triumphant smile.

Sylus is the first to recover, but he only narrows his eyes on the immigration officer. Clearly this isn't the first time Xavier pulled such stunt.

Meanwhile, Rafayel inquires, none too quietly, "And what’s the reason for that?"

Xavier shrugs. "Something about a family coming home. She didn't say any specifics."

"Ah, the errand boy doesn't fully know this time. Losing her trust?"

Xavier doesn't rise to the bait, but he throws another smile at Sylus and retaliates: "Better than wrongfully thinking she's assigned here at the departure today."

The sharpness of Sylus's smirk can cut even a hair strand.

But Xavier's previous answer jogs Zayne's memory, and unprompted Zayne utters the missing piece:

"Ah, Caleb's coming home."

This time, the collective gaze redirects to him. To any other person, the triple glares presented by such three distinctive gentlemen would have triggered a fight-or-flight response in them—but with more emphasis on the flight part and more emphasis on the subsequent reaction of turning 180 and running-screaming for the hills. Zayne merely clears his throat and (heroically!) completely enters the fray.

He doesn't know who speaks up, but it may as well be all of them. "Who?"

"Caleb," repeats Zayne. "They grew up together like family. He's practically her elder brother."

Xavier's smile drops.

It's funny how Zayne can see the obvious thoughts running through their heads. It’s also funny how obvious the myriad expressions flit across their faces like a rolling film reel. He can recognize some of them, like disbelief, apprehension, and irritation. The idea of taking a photo of them and sending it to you is very, very tempting.

But of course, he's a professional. He's not that petty.

"It's been years since they've seen each other, so I'm sure she's going to be busy spending time with him for a while. I should drop by later; I know them since childhood as well."

Well. Maybe a little petty.

"Since it's a homecoming," Rafayel begins, an idea forming in his mind from the way a grin is worming onto his face, "I must offer a gift. It's only proper for a close friend like yours truly, after all."

"Then as her partner," parries Xavier, "I should do the same."

Sylus clicks his tongue.

"How are you certain she'd accept your gifts?"

"Indeed," Zayne adds, to everybody's surprise—including himself. His phone vibrates and he fishes it out to read the notification. He types a reply. "She'd most likely ask how you all knew that information. Instead of feeling flattered, she'd feel suspicious."

"Surely the kitten would never suspect me of that," Sylus says, very much confident.

At the nickname 'kitten' indignation clouds Rafayel’s features.

"I wouldn't know about that." Xavier brings a hand to his chin in thought, pretending to consider the notion when, really, he doesn’t actually believe the man’s assertion.

Rafayel huffs. "'Cutie pie' is a more apt endearment and indicates closer relationship, if you ask me."

Sylus raises a brow at him but doesn't dignify that with a response.

Several paces away from their bubble of terror Zayne can see the airport personnel valiantly shooing the resistant spectators. Distress radiates out of him as he negotiates with a passenger attempting to take a photo of the four. When Zayne catches the passenger's eye, he sends his most severe I Am Disappointed, No More Sweets For You look and breathes a sigh of relief when he gets his intended reaction.

"So how shall we settle this?" Xavier suddenly says, which pulls Zayne's attention back to these three childish men.

"Is there something to be settled?" he asks, mildly.

"Of course, Doctor!" It's Rafayel who answers this time. Then he points at Sylus, who just brushes the accusations off like a rebellious patient who never listens to a medical professional. "This guy keeps bothering her on duty that it affects not just her work, but also the entire airport! During the flight earlier, I witnessed the cabin crew perform a bizarre ritual that they claimed was for ensuring a safe and peaceful passage. He also picked a fight with another passenger who complained about his flying. He was arguing through the speakers, Doctor."

When Zayne turns to Sylus for explanation, the man just raises an eyebrow in defiance and his mouth curls into a sneer. "What's wrong with educating an unenlightened individual about the most optimal ways of piloting a plane?"

"I wouldn't call that educating."

"And if we are settling something," Sylus goes on, vicious, "then let's also look at you"—he turns to Rafayel—"bribing the kitten with gifts while she's on duty; and you"—he continues with Xavier—"fraternizing with work colleagues beyond what is professional standards; and"—finally he turns to Zayne, who’s slightly curious about what kind of tongue-lashing he’ll receive—"you. You don't even need to work here."

Zayne for some reason suddenly misses Akso Hospital.

Then Xavier suggests something wild and ridiculous and so inscrutably random, but has the other two looking all too interested.

"Laser tag."

Zayne really misses Akso Hospital.

The conviction in Xavier’s tone solidifies as he keeps on talking. "We'll settle this with laser tag. The winner gets to decide what to do next."

Rafayel seems receptive to the idea. "Name the date and place."

And Sylus, being Sylus, adds a twist: "I don't accept amateur arena. We should do it here. I want a challenge."

Just why did he indulge an old man’s plea to work here part time? He wasn’t even dying at the time. Is it too late to submit a resignation letter? 

They all turn to Zayne, who just wants to go home and eat ice cream. Xavier tilts his head in inquiry. "What do you say, Doctor?"

"I—"

The bell-ring melody of the airport speakers jolts Zayne, and the soft, feminine voice of the speaker washes over the entire departure area:

"Calling the attention of Mister Rafayel, Immigration Officer Xavier, Captain Sylus, and Doctor Zayne. Please—please—whatever you are doing in the middle of the departure area, please stop. You're frightening the entire terminal. Whatever it is you have to settle, please settle it outside, preferably fifty kilometers away from here. We just want peaceful operations today and the foreseeable future. We are begging you. The airport chief is begging you. Thank you."

There's a collective silence from everyone after that announcement. When Zayne glances behind him the airport personnel and some security are throwing them pleading looks complete with clasped hands. Xavier and Rafayel notice this as well, and a smidge of guilt pierces their expressions.

It's only Sylus who's stubbornly immune to this.

"Gonna step back after all that posturing?" he challenges.

And maybe it's time for Zayne to put a stop to this. He doesn't want the desperation of the airport crew on his conscience. He also doesn't want to be summoned by the airport director and face all that hassle.

So he declares to the three, phone ready on hand: "I'm afraid I will have to step back." Zayne shows them the phone screen as evidence. "She invited me to the exclusive family dinner." He makes sure to highlight the words ‘me’ and ‘exclusive’, which imply that they—unlike him—possess no privilege of being invited at all. "I did grow up with them, after all. So if you'll excuse me."

The stunned expressions on their faces spark an amused smirk out of Zayne. Just as he’s about to step back and leave, he’s struck with an unreasonably and uncharacteristically mean thought.

He raises his phone again and—before the three men could even recover—takes a photo of their shocked reactions.

Then he truly hightails it out of there.

Bonus:

During the exclusive family dinner, Zayne shows you the picture (with explanation of context slightly edited), and you scream gleefully at his audacity to do that crazy thing.

Caleb leans in and squints at the screen. “Who are they?” he asks. Then he glances at Zayne, and a whole unspoken dialogue is exchanged between them.

“They’re my friends at work,” you answer, and Zayne homes in on the word friends. That feels satisfying, he thinks. But then you falter a bit, adding, “Well, two of them are my friends. The other …”

You don’t finish your sentence, though from that alone Zayne—and even Caleb, based on the intense glint in his eye—can surmise a number of assumptions and implications that he isn’t sure he can process at the moment. Thankfully, the potentially disastrous conversation that would branch off from there is averted by Josephine’s introduction of desserts.

There’s a period of peace and harmony during the enjoyment of desserts—until Caleb blinks in realization and speaks up.

“Wait. I recognize one of them. Isn’t that the pilot who trended online because he once flew off-route and reached his destination in record-breaking time?”

[yuurei20]

Lilia Facts Part 68: Lilia, Sebek and Silver (pt2)

Lilia says that, while he trained Silver, Sebek and Malleus, in Silver and Sebek’s case “it was pure physical rigor. I would make them swim through rapids, climb mountains so high the air grew thin…you name it, really.”

Lilia does not mention for how long he kept up this harsh training regime with the two children, but eventually he realized that it did not make sense to raise them in such a manner.

He then adopted a “hands-off approach more akin to actual child-rearing,” giving them the freedom to play while watching over them from the shadows.

Sebek tells Jack the story of a time that he and Silver survived on an unfamiliar mountain for a week. While he does not specify how old they were at the time he does say “it was years ago,” and Sebek is 16 in-game, so he was potentially just barely a teenager at the time.

Sebek explains that Lilia took them to a mountain and, the moment they arrived, he vanished, leaving behind only the most basic of survival tools “..and a note that read, ‘I’ll be back for you in a week. Stay alive and have fun!’”

When Jack comments that it seems to be “kinda careless” of Lilia Sebek insists that while Lilia never said so himself, he is certain that it provided them with the experience they needed to be able to handle unexpected situations: “Neither Silver nor I had any serious experience living outdoors at the time, so it was a tough week for both of us. When I went home afterward, my family was amazed. They said I had the look of a hardened veteran.”

During the Stitch event Lilia says, “Surviving in harsh environments is basically a specialty of mine!,” but Jack and Riddle are incredulous.

We see examples of this during the event, with Lilia alone capable of sleeping in a mosquito-infested cave (“You can sleep through it as long as you've got the right mindset.”) and saying, “Rest to your fullest, then work to your fullest. That's the secret to successful survival!”

Lilia assures the reluctant Riddle and Jack that he is an authority on the subject and they agree to defer to his opinion. 

[covid-safer-hotties]

Correlation of patient symptoms with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant viral loads in nasopharyngeal and saliva samples and their influence on the performance of rapid antigen testing - Published Oct 9, 2024

Study showing 1. The one-and-done method of rapid testing used by many is not good enough to prove covid negativity because rapid test were desined for serial testing 2. saliva swabs increase the accuracy of Rapid Antigen Tests.

ABSTRACT Evaluating SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in nasopharyngeal (NP) and saliva samples, factors affecting viral loads, and the performance of rapid antigen testing (RAT) have not been comprehensively conducted during SARS-CoV-2 Omicron epidemic. This prospective study included outpatients enrolled during Omicron variant period in Japan. Paired NP swab and saliva samples were collected to measure viral loads by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The correlation between viral loads and clinical symptoms was examined. The performance of an immunochromatography-based RAT kit was also assessed. A total of 153 patients tested within 3 days of symptom onset were included. The mean viral load was 5.60 log10 copies/test and 3.65 log10 copies/test in NP and saliva samples, respectively, resulting in a significant difference (P < 0.0001). Fever over 37°C (axillary temperature) and total number of symptoms other than fever were identified as independent factors positively correlated with the viral loads in both NP and saliva samples. RAT sensitivity using NP and saliva samples was 92% and 68%, respectively, using positive RT-qPCR results as the reference. The sensitivity of RAT using NP and saliva samples was significantly higher in patients with fever ≥37°C and/or at least one symptom than in those with fever <37°C and/or no symptoms (97% vs 83% in NP swabs; 80% vs 50% in saliva). Distinct symptoms, including fever ≥37°C, may reflect high Omicron variant viral loads. Rapid antigen testing, not only using nasopharyngeal swabs but also using saliva, would be useful for COVID-19 diagnosis as point-of-care testing, particularly for symptomatic patients.

IMPORTANCE We examined nasopharyngeal and salivary viral loads using samples collected from outpatients with SARS-CoV-2 infection during the Omicron epidemic in Japan and explored the outpatient factors correlated with viral loads. In addition, we evaluated the performance of an authorized rapid antigen testing (RAT) kit using nasopharyngeal and saliva samples with RT-PCR testing as the reference. Intriguingly, a correlation between fever and other symptoms and SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in nasopharyngeal and saliva samples was observed based on one COVID-19 outpatient visit. RAT sensitivity was influenced by viral loads. Nevertheless, nasopharyngeal RAT is considered useful for SARS-CoV-2 point-of-care diagnosis. In patients with distinct symptoms, including high-grade fever, salivary RAT could be a practical diagnostic tool because of the higher estimated viral loads. After the Omicron epidemic, outpatients with mild COVID-19 have become the main focus of diagnosis and treatment. Our study provides valuable information regarding the point-of-care diagnosis of these patients.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to design a tech regulation

TONIGHT (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. TOMORROW (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel (13hPT) and a keynote (18hPT) at the LOCUS AWARDS.

It's not your imagination: tech really is underregulated. There are plenty of avoidable harms that tech visits upon the world, and while some of these harms are mere negligence, others are self-serving, creating shareholder value and widespread public destruction.

Making good tech policy is hard, but not because "tech moves too fast for regulation to keep up with," nor because "lawmakers are clueless about tech." There are plenty of fast-moving areas that lawmakers manage to stay abreast of (think of the rapid, global adoption of masking and social distancing rules in mid-2020). Likewise we generally manage to make good policy in areas that require highly specific technical knowledge (that's why it's noteworthy and awful when, say, people sicken from badly treated tapwater, even though water safety, toxicology and microbiology are highly technical areas outside the background of most elected officials).

That doesn't mean that technical rigor is irrelevant to making good policy. Well-run "expert agencies" include skilled practitioners on their payrolls – think here of large technical staff at the FTC, or the UK Competition and Markets Authority's best-in-the-world Digital Markets Unit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

The job of government experts isn't just to research the correct answers. Even more important is experts' role in evaluating conflicting claims from interested parties. When administrative agencies make new rules, they have to collect public comments and counter-comments. The best agencies also hold hearings, and the very best go on "listening tours" where they invite the broad public to weigh in (the FTC has done an awful lot of these during Lina Khan's tenure, to its benefit, and it shows):

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2022/04/ftc-justice-department-listening-forum-firsthand-effects-mergers-acquisitions-health-care

But when an industry dwindles to a handful of companies, the resulting cartel finds it easy to converge on a single talking point and to maintain strict message discipline. This means that the evidentiary record is starved for disconfirming evidence that would give the agencies contrasting perspectives and context for making good policy.

Tech industry shills have a favorite tactic: whenever there's any proposal that would erode the industry's profits, self-serving experts shout that the rule is technically impossible and deride the proposer as "clueless."

This tactic works so well because the proposers sometimes are clueless. Take Europe's on-again/off-again "chat control" proposal to mandate spyware on every digital device that will screen everything you upload for child sex abuse material (CSAM, better known as "child pornography"). This proposal is profoundly dangerous, as it will weaken end-to-end encryption, the key to all secure and private digital communication:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/18/encryption-is-deeply-threatening-to-power-meredith-whittaker-of-messaging-app-signal

It's also an impossible-to-administer mess that incorrectly assumes that killing working encryption in the two mobile app stores run by the mobile duopoly will actually prevent bad actors from accessing private tools:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/

When technologists correctly point out the lack of rigor and catastrophic spillover effects from this kind of crackpot proposal, lawmakers stick their fingers in their ears and shout "NERD HARDER!"

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/01/12/nerd-harder-fbi-director-reiterates-faith-based-belief-in-working-crypto-that-he-can-break/

But this is only half the story. The other half is what happens when tech industry shills want to kill good policy proposals, which is the exact same thing that advocates say about bad ones. When lawmakers demand that tech companies respect our privacy rights – for example, by splitting social media or search off from commercial surveillance, the same people shout that this, too, is technologically impossible.

That's a lie, though. Facebook started out as the anti-surveillance alternative to Myspace. We know it's possible to operate Facebook without surveillance, because Facebook used to operate without surveillance:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

Likewise, Brin and Page's original Pagerank paper, which described Google's architecture, insisted that search was incompatible with surveillance advertising, and Google established itself as a non-spying search tool:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Even weirder is what happens when there's a proposal to limit a tech company's power to invoke the government's powers to shut down competitors. Take Ethan Zuckerman's lawsuit to strip Facebook of the legal power to sue people who automate their browsers to uncheck the millions of boxes that Facebook requires you to click by hand in order to unfollow everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Facebook's apologists have lost their minds over this, insisting that no one can possibly understand the potential harms of taking away Facebook's legal right to decide how your browser works. They take the position that only Facebook can understand when it's safe and proportional to use Facebook in ways the company didn't explicitly design for, and that they should be able to ask the government to fine or even imprison people who fail to defer to Facebook's decisions about how its users configure their computers.

This is an incredibly convenient position, since it arrogates to Facebook the right to order the rest of us to use our computers in the ways that are most beneficial to its shareholders. But Facebook's apologists insist that they are not motivated by parochial concerns over the value of their stock portfolios; rather, they have objective, technical concerns, that no one except them is qualified to understand or comment on.

There's a great name for this: "scalesplaining." As in "well, actually the platforms are doing an amazing job, but you can't possibly understand that because you don't work for them." It's weird enough when scalesplaining is used to condemn sensible regulation of the platforms; it's even weirder when it's weaponized to defend a system of regulatory protection for the platforms against would-be competitors.

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no libertarians in government-protected monopolies. Somehow, scalesplaining can be used to condemn governments as incapable of making any tech regulations and to insist that regulations that protect tech monopolies are just perfect and shouldn't ever be weakened. Truly, it's impossible to get someone to understand something when the value of their employee stock options depends on them not understanding it.

None of this is to say that every tech regulation is a good one. Governments often propose bad tech regulations (like chat control), or ones that are technologically impossible (like Article 17 of the EU's 2019 Digital Single Markets Directive, which requires tech companies to detect and block copyright infringements in their users' uploads).

But the fact that scalesplainers use the same argument to criticize both good and bad regulations makes the waters very muddy indeed. Policymakers are rightfully suspicious when they hear "that's not technically possible" because they hear that both for technically impossible proposals and for proposals that scalesplainers just don't like.

After decades of regulations aimed at making platforms behave better, we're finally moving into a new era, where we just make the platforms less important. That is, rather than simply ordering Facebook to block harassment and other bad conduct by its users, laws like the EU's Digital Markets Act will order Facebook and other VLOPs (Very Large Online Platforms, my favorite EU-ism ever) to operate gateways so that users can move to rival services and still communicate with the people who stay behind.

Think of this like number portability, but for digital platforms. Just as you can switch phone companies and keep your number and hear from all the people you spoke to on your old plan, the DMA will make it possible for you to change online services but still exchange messages and data with all the people you're already in touch with.

I love this idea, because it finally grapples with the question we should have been asking all along: why do people stay on platforms where they face harassment and bullying? The answer is simple: because the people – customers, family members, communities – we connect with on the platform are so important to us that we'll tolerate almost anything to avoid losing contact with them:

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

Platforms deliberately rig the game so that we take each other hostage, locking each other into their badly moderated cesspits by using the love we have for one another as a weapon against us. Interoperability – making platforms connect to each other – shatters those locks and frees the hostages:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

But there's another reason to love interoperability (making moderation less important) over rules that require platforms to stamp out bad behavior (making moderation better). Interop rules are much easier to administer than content moderation rules, and when it comes to regulation, administratability is everything.

The DMA isn't the EU's only new rule. They've also passed the Digital Services Act, which is a decidedly mixed bag. Among its provisions are a suite of rules requiring companies to monitor their users for harmful behavior and to intervene to block it. Whether or not you think platforms should do this, there's a much more important question: how can we enforce this rule?

Enforcing a rule requiring platforms to prevent harassment is very "fact intensive." First, we have to agree on a definition of "harassment." Then we have to figure out whether something one user did to another satisfies that definition. Finally, we have to determine whether the platform took reasonable steps to detect and prevent the harassment.

Each step of this is a huge lift, especially that last one, since to a first approximation, everyone who understands a given VLOP's server infrastructure is a partisan, scalesplaining engineer on the VLOP's payroll. By the time we find out whether the company broke the rule, years will have gone by, and millions more users will be in line to get justice for themselves.

So allowing users to leave is a much more practical step than making it so that they've got no reason to want to leave. Figuring out whether a platform will continue to forward your messages to and from the people you left there is a much simpler technical matter than agreeing on what harassment is, whether something is harassment by that definition, and whether the company was negligent in permitting harassment.

But as much as I like the DMA's interop rule, I think it is badly incomplete. Given that the tech industry is so concentrated, it's going to be very hard for us to define standard interop interfaces that don't end up advantaging the tech companies. Standards bodies are extremely easy for big industry players to capture:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

If tech giants refuse to offer access to their gateways to certain rivals because they seem "suspicious," it will be hard to tell whether the companies are just engaged in self-serving smears against a credible rival, or legitimately trying to protect their users from a predator trying to plug into their infrastructure. These fact-intensive questions are the enemy of speedy, responsive, effective policy administration.

But there's more than one way to attain interoperability. Interop doesn't have to come from mandates, interfaces designed and overseen by government agencies. There's a whole other form of interop that's far nimbler than mandates: adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interoperability" is a catch-all term for all the guerrilla warfare tactics deployed in service to unilaterally changing a technology: reverse engineering, bots, scraping and so on. These tactics have a long and honorable history, but they have been slowly choked out of existence with a thicket of IP rights, like the IP rights that allow Facebook to shut down browser automation tools, which Ethan Zuckerman is suing to nullify:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Adversarial interop is very flexible. No matter what technological moves a company makes to interfere with interop, there's always a countermove the guerrilla fighter can make – tweak the scraper, decompile the new binary, change the bot's behavior. That's why tech companies use IP rights and courts, not firewall rules, to block adversarial interoperators.

At the same time, adversarial interop is unreliable. The solution that works today can break tomorrow if the company changes its back-end, and it will stay broken until the adversarial interoperator can respond.

But when companies are faced with the prospect of extended asymmetrical war against adversarial interop in the technological trenches, they often surrender. If companies can't sue adversarial interoperators out of existence, they often sue for peace instead. That's because high-tech guerrilla warfare presents unquantifiable risks and resource demands, and, as the scalesplainers never tire of telling us, this can create real operational problems for tech giants.

In other words, if Facebook can't shut down Ethan Zuckerman's browser automation tool in the courts, and if they're sincerely worried that a browser automation tool will uncheck its user interface buttons so quickly that it crashes the server, all it has to do is offer an official "unsubscribe all" button and no one will use Zuckerman's browser automation tool.

We don't have to choose between adversarial interop and interop mandates. The two are better together than they are apart. If companies building and operating DMA-compliant, mandatory gateways know that a failure to make them useful to rivals seeking to help users escape their authority is getting mired in endless hand-to-hand combat with trench-fighting adversarial interoperators, they'll have good reason to cooperate.

And if lawmakers charged with administering the DMA notice that companies are engaging in adversarial interop rather than using the official, reliable gateway they're overseeing, that's a good indicator that the official gateways aren't suitable.

It would be very on-brand for the EU to create the DMA and tell tech companies how they must operate, and for the USA to simply withdraw the state's protection from the Big Tech companies and let smaller companies try their luck at hacking new features into the big companies' servers without the government getting involved.

Indeed, we're seeing some of that today. Oregon just passed the first ever Right to Repair law banning "parts pairing" – basically a way of using IP law to make it illegal to reverse-engineer a device so you can fix it.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/28/oregon-governor-kotek-signs-strong-tech-right-to-repair-bill/

Taken together, the two approaches – mandates and reverse engineering – are stronger than either on their own. Mandates are sturdy and reliable, but slow-moving. Adversarial interop is flexible and nimble, but unreliable. Put 'em together and you get a two-part epoxy, strong and flexible.

Governments can regulate well, with well-funded expert agencies and smart, adminstratable remedies. It's for that reason that the administrative state is under such sustained attack from the GOP and right-wing Dems. The illegitimate Supreme Court is on the verge of gutting expert agencies' power:

https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2024/05/us-supreme-court-may-soon-discard-or-modify-chevron-deference

It's never been more important to craft regulations that go beyond mere good intentions and take account of adminsitratability. The easier we can make our rules to enforce, the less our beleaguered agencies will need to do to protect us from corporate predators.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/20/scalesplaining/#administratability

Image: Noah Wulf (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thunderbirds_at_Attention_Next_to_Thunderbird_1_-_Aviation_Nation_2019.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[mariacallous]

Sudan’s rival generals have ignored warnings of mass starvation. In more than a year of brutal war, the two military factions have weaponized humanitarian aid.

Sudan’s de facto leader, military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has blocked aid into at least half of the country under the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti. Meanwhile, the RSF is obstructing trucks into places held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Local volunteers running soup kitchens have been targeted and killed by the RSF, particularly in Khartoum, Sudanese aid workers told FP.

The conflict has created the world’s largest hunger and internal displacement crises. The fighting has pushed 25 million people, more than half the nation’s population, into acute hunger and forced about 11 million people to flee their homes, including 2.3 million who fled abroad. More than two million Sudanese could die by the end of this year, aid agencies warn.

In areas where there is food available, extortion and attacks on traders at checkpoints have raised prices. Women have recounted having sex with SAF soldiers in exchange for food. Reports of torture, rape, the use of children under 15 in the fighting, and ethnic-based massacres by the RSF and armed militias have surged over the past year.

“People are dying of hunger in the capital,” said Mathilde Vu, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s advocacy advisor in Sudan. “We are looking at the risk of starvation being used as a weapon of war. … This needs to be monitored. The policymakers already have a tool for that. The U.N. Security Council resolution about conflict and hunger, and what they need to put in place is a monitoring of that.”

Both sides in Sudan’s nearly 17-month civil war have committed “harrowing” abuses that may amount to war crimes, a U.N.-mandated mission reported on Friday, calling for a countrywide arms embargo. Sudan’s military government rejected a proposal by U.N. experts to deploy a peacekeeping force to protect civilians.

Compounding the situation, the humanitarian response is critically underfunded. A $2.7 billion U.N. appeal has been just 32 percent funded. Much of that funding has come from the United States. However, aid agencies say local volunteers on the ground need to be better supported since a cease-fire is highly unlikely in the immediate future.

Famine was declared in Zamzam camp housing about 500,000 displaced people near the besieged city of El Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur—areas where the RSF is blocking aid trucks. There’s a realistic chance of famine in 16 other areas, Vu said, but precise figures are hard to confirm. Last month, the SAF agreed to open the Adré border crossing from landlocked Chad into Sudan, for a period of three months. But international aid agencies told FP that the SAF has made things difficult through lengthy authorizations ensuring only a trickle of shipments gets in.

U.S. envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey this week in the latest attempt by the Biden administration to expand humanitarian access in Sudan, following failed peace talks in Geneva. The conflict risks turning into a forever war, in which various external actors seize the opportunity to extend their influence. Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Russia have been accused of arming warring parties.

While such negotiations are essential, U.S. attention and pressure should also focus on other regional powers with a vested interest in the conflict such as Eritrea and Ethiopia. Foreign mercenaries from Chad, Mali, Niger, the Central African Republic, and Libya are believed to be fighting in Sudan.

Pressuring regional powers could engage local armed militias allied to the warring parties in ultimately ensuring access to places like El Fasher. “It will create more of a buffer than two guys signing an agreement in Jeddah” and then breaking it, Vu said. “You cannot bypass the regional powers. … They really are the ones who have the leverage. It’s very important that Western powers engage them so that they have a constructive role in this crisis rather than a harmful one,” she added. Even if Burhan and Hemeti signed a peace deal, many of the local armed groups involved would likely not abide by it.

Both generals have held meetings with several African leaders, while the African Union has been largely absent in peace negotiations. More recently, Burhan held meetings with Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afwerki, and Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, at the China-Africa summit.

[no-passaran]

Sudan’s National Museum, once the guardian of an invaluable collection of artefacts spanning thousands of years, has been ravaged by looting and severe destruction at the hands of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) [...]

The destruction is a result of a civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), ongoing since April 2023, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. [...]

“It [the initial damage assessment report] was horrible, really horrible. I am very sad. We are crying,” Ikhlas Abdel Latif, the director of museums at NCAM and the head of its circulating artefacts unit, tells The Art Newspaper from Cairo. “We already knew that the museum would be damaged and looted, but not in the way we have seen in the report from our colleagues who entered the museum.” The initial report, she says, indicates a large portion of the collection—thousands of artefacts—has been taken.

Sudan’s National Museum housed one of the most significant archaeological collections in northern Africa, with artefacts from eras ranging from the distant Stone Age to the Islamic kingdoms, including items from the Funj Sultanate of Sennar (16th to 19th centuries). It presented Sudan’s evolving history via its rulers and religions, with exhibits including medieval Christian frescoes, Kushite statues, entire temple structures and mysterious Meroitic inscriptions.

Before the war, the museum was undergoing rehabilitation, and the collection had been packed in boxes and stored away, Latif says. “The [looters] took the boxes,” she says. The museum’s strongroom was also breached, and its entire archaeological gold collection stolen. Latif says a large storage space containing more 500,000 artefacts from across the country has also been ransacked and damaged. The ground team, she says, saw that some items had been thrown on the ground and crushed underfoot, seemingly as part of a deliberate attempt to destroy them.

“The [RSF] damaged our identity and our history. They want to erase our history and the demographics of Sudan,” she says.

[...] Elabdeen highlights that even the museum’s bioarcheological lab, where ancient human remains were stored and analysed, was not spared, with some mummies “removed from the lab and thrown outside.” In other areas of the museum, containers holding items and tools belonging to foreign missions working with the museum were opened and set on fire, he says.

The devastation left him with a “bitter feeling,” he adds. He references the agony of witnessing the loss of objects that had been accumulated and preserved by generations. “This heritage is irreplaceable, no amount of wealth could bring it back. To witness this loss and be unable to do anything about it is truly painful,” he says.

Latif says the NCAM team is working on a more comprehensive report, which will be circulated at a later date. “We are determined to get our collection back,” she says. She urges the international community not to trade or deal in Sudanese artefacts and to contact the officials if they come across any information about the museum’s collection. “We need the international community to help us rebuild and rehabilitate the museum,” she adds. [...]

[...] The museum held an estimated 100,000 artefacts from thousands of years of the country’s history, including the Nubian kingdom, the Kushite empire and through to the Christian and Islamic eras. It held mummies dating from 2500BC, making them among the oldest and archaeologically most important in the world. [...]

[skyward-floored]

Downfall iau, more of Twi's escape. I've got another fic finishing up what's going on with him, but the transition felt weird, so consider this part one (or two? since there already was a part... hm. well anyway).

This is Wild's pov just for reference, since he just refers to himself as Link.

(The bit before this)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Link had no idea what he’d been thinking.

Actually, no, he knew the answer to that— he hadn’t been thinking. At all.

He’d seen a super run towards him and Zelda in those dull-colored sleep clothes everyone had, looking terrified and harried with his hands cuffed in front of him, and while Link’s first response had been to cover Zelda (of course), he’d looked into terrified blue-grey eyes that were panicked and obviously in pain, and his second response...

Had been to tug the super into an empty office as quickly as possible, and then help Zelda lie to the authorities as to where he’d gone.

And he was now helping said-super remain standing while Zelda tried to pick the lock of her father’s office.

I must be crazy.

“Almost got it,” Zelda murmured, her tongue sticking out a bit as she worked. “It figures today is the one time he doesn’t forget to lock his door.”

“That... happen a lot?” Twilight rasped, and Zelda shrugged.

“You’d be surprised,” she said, and Twilight hummed weakly in response. A twitch ran through him moments later, one he tried to hide, but Link was still holding him up and felt it plain as day.

Concern ran through him; he didn’t know how often Twilight was shocked on a daily basis, but even the people most used to it couldn’t handle several in rapid succession. And Twilight had been shocked once on the way here and at least twice before that.

Link didn’t know how much more he could take.

“Got it!” Zelda finally whispered with a triumphant smile, and Link wasted no time in pulling her and Twilight inside and immediately re-locking the door.

It was a nice office, if a bit stuffy. Zelda’s father didn’t spend much time here so it was neater than other spaces he occupied, which Link at least was grateful for. There was less to disturb, which meant less evidence they’d ever been in here.

Link pulled Twilight over to a chair while Zelda gathered her tools, Twilight sinking onto the cushion with a groan of relief. He was still tense, likely expecting another shock, but he looked better once he was sitting at least.

“Okay, this shouldn’t take long,” Zelda reassured, crouching at Twilight’s side. “I’ve disabled these before. Just let me know if you think another shock is about to go out, it could be bad depending on where I am in the process.”

Twilight nodded, and Zelda got to work.

Link stayed standing while Zelda worked, his hand kept near his weapon. The door may have been locked, but he still kept his gaze on it in anticipation of any threat, government or otherwise. At least they were safe from security cameras in here.

Link’s eyes went wide at the thought, and ice slipped into his stomach. The hallway they’d been traveling through mere minutes ago was filled with cameras. It was only a matter of time before someone checked them and saw him and Zelda helping Twilight.

Which would lead to Twilight being found, an eventual “accident” involving Zelda, Link would be arrested, or worse—

“Something wrong?” Twilight asked, voice raspy.

Link swallowed. “Security cameras. The hall outside is teeming with them.”

Somehow Twilight got paler. “That means they probably know where we are.”

“If not now then soon,” Link replied grimly. I can’t believe I forgot about the cameras, way to remember your training—

“I might be able to erase the feeds for the past hour or two,” Zelda spoke up, chewing nervously on her lip as she worked. “But it’ll still be sketchy, and if somebody already saw them...”

“You two should go,” Twilight whispered, looking terrible. “If you’re seen helping me then—”

“Not until I’m done,” Zelda said firmly, pulling something out of twilight’s band and setting it aside. “We still have some time. We can wait.”

Twilight went silent, and Link went back to watching the door, small clicks and fiddling sounds coming from Zelda’s hands. Link began plotting a route towards the control room in his head, going over what he knew of the security and how best to bypass it in a nondescript manner. Zelda’s status might help with that, but it would be too suspicious to bring her down there before they erased the footage. He could go alone and just race past mostly everything, but he didn’t know nearly as much about technology as Zelda did.

Maybe she could stay back and radio him the instructions... yes, that should work. He’d run fast enough that the cameras wouldn’t pick him up, and she could instruct him from somewhere safe. The shift would change soon, that would be the best time to plan their move.

Link inwardly sighed. This really hadn’t been what he’d been expecting to do when he’d woken up this morning.

Twilight suddenly stiffened behind him, and Link turned towards him. “Shock coming.”

Zelda’s eyes went wide and she rapidly finished screwing with something on Twilight’s wrist, her fingers flying. The band sparked to life, and Zelda jerked backwards with a small gasp of pain, clutching her hand. Electricity raced through Twilight yet again, and his back arched as he let out a cry, falling from his chair.

He convulsed violently on the floor, and after quickly making sure Zelda was okay, Link dropped to a knee beside him, knowing he couldn’t touch him yet, but preparing for when he could. Twilight screamed again, electricity shooting through him, and bile rose in Link’s throat at the blatant cruelty on display.

This was what they were trying to stop.

Twilight abruptly fell limp, twitching just a little, and Link put a hand on his arm, steadying him while he took his pulse again.

The beat felt erratic, and Link thought he felt it skip a beat, though he couldn’t be sure. Twilight whimpered, sweat on his brow, and Zelda hurriedly knelt beside him, taking Twilight’s wrist again and worked on finishing what she’d been in the middle of. Her face was white as she clutched her tools, and Link was beyond grateful she’d disabled the shocking mechanism in his own band ages ago.

“Surely he’s reached the limit by now,” Zelda whispered, Twilight’s breath softly wheezing. “I thought three was the max for one day.”

“It’s only a guideline. Technically there isn’t one,” Link murmured back, still feeling Twilight’s pulse. He’d passed out, but his pulse seemed a little stronger. “You might get a reprimand for doing it more, but nobody really cares.“

Zelda’s mouth pressed into a thin line, and she focused even more intently on her work, conversation silenced. The only sound was of Twilight’s rasps, and Link stayed close to his side, studying him a little.

Twilight looked about average height, which meant he was taller than Link was. He seemed like he would normally be quite a force to be reckoned with, muscled and broad-shouldered, and despite how pathetic he looked at the moment, Link could tell he’d be a tough fight. He wondered briefly how old he was, then realized he’d been not paying as much attention to the door, and fixed his gaze back on the handle.

He needed to focus. Things were getting tricky, and he didn’t have time to be distracted if he was going to keep everyone safe.

Twilight’s breath had settled closer to normal, and his eyes had reopened when Zelda finally exclaimed in victory, replacing the tiny panel she’d pulled up with a smile.

“There. I disabled the shocking mechanism. It shouldn’t be a problem anymore,” she explained happily, and Twilight closed his eyes again, letting out a wobbly sigh of relief.

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” he breathed, swallowing, and then taking in a deeper breath. He began to carefully sit himself up, and Zelda steadied him when he grimaced, but he made it up, and leaned against the desk behind him with a conflicted look. “I... you two should really get going. I don’t... want either of you to end up in my position.”

“I agree,” Link said, and tilted his head towards the door. “We need to move fast if we’re going to have any chance of keeping this a secret.”

Zelda sighed. “You’re right, as always. You should be able to rest here for a little longer,” she directed at Twilight, but he shook his head, gritting his teeth as he tried to stand on his shaking legs.

“I need to get moving... people will be coming in for work soon.”

Zelda sighed, but nodded again, and she extended her hand towards Twilight’s as he managed to get himself upright.

“I’m sorry we can’t help you more,” Zelda apologized, and Twilight took her hand and clasped it.

“You’ve done plenty. I can’t... thank you enough,” he said, eyes shining with gratitude. “Though... I have one small favor to ask.”

“Yes?”

Twilight swallowed. “The arrest order went... out for my whole family. I don’t doubt that they had enough time to get away, but if they didn’t... could you give them a message from me? O-only if you see them.”

“Of course,” Zelda reassured, and Link nodded.

“Okay. Well... Infrared and Malanya are my brother and mom,” Twilight said quietly. Link twitched an ear at the familiar names. “If you see them, just... tell them the beast is still divine. They might have two kids with them too, blond, fairly young. Go by Wind and Four. They won’t understand, but they can pass it on.”

“The beast is still divine, got it,” Zelda nodded. “We’ll pass it on if we can.”

Twilight smiled at them, still trembling, sweaty and pale and barely standing, but determined. “Thank you again. I owe you two.”

“You don’t owe us anything,” Zelda assured as she packed up her tools, giving him a small curtsy.

“Just get yourself out of here,” Link added quietly, and Twilight nodded, taking a wobbling step forward so he could shake Link’s hand.

Link shook it back, and Twilight smiled at him, and even though the edges were strained and Twilight looked a bit like death walking, it was a nice smile. Link briefly wondered if they were friends now.

“Nearest exit is up the hallway and to the left, it’s after you pass this especially big poster on the wall. It should be easy to find,” Zelda said, and Twilight nodded.

“Up the hall, to the left, after the big poster. Got it. ...Good luck with the cameras,” he said quietly, and Zelda nodded.

“Good luck to you too. I hope you make it somewhere safe,” she said worriedly, and Twilight smiled, and nodded in return.

Link checked the time on his band, then quickly explained his idea to Zelda while she helped Twilight to the door. This goodbye was taking much too long. Twilight would be okay. He was certain of it.

Zelda agreed to his idea as he quickly laid it out, though she was worried what would happen if he got caught. Link waved away her concerns, reminding her they didn’t have time for a better plan, and she agreed with a sigh.

“You’d better not get caught,” she said with a huff, though Link could hear the worry in her voice. “Either of you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Link said at the same time as Twilight, and they exchanged somewhat bemused looks.

Zelda cracked a worried smile. “Prove me right, then.”

They didn’t speak any more, Link turning one way down the hall while Twilight went the other. Link looked back at him before he ran off, the other hero leaning on the wall for support, his steps determined despite how they shook, and sent up a quick prayer to whoever was listening that he would make it.

Then he raced off down the hall, making a beeline for the computer control room.

[harukamitsuki]

The issue with Momo is that she's pigeonholed into a really stupid fighting style to begin with. Hero/villain fights in MHA are just duels basically like when two rams butt heads with each other in an unga bunga game of one upmanship and hitting your opponent progressively harder. Her quirk is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Using her quirk in the middle of a fight to create a counter to that specific foe is pointless when the true measure of her power is prep time. It's the worst way to use her power.

She could, with the aid of some scientists, create things greater than the mech suit Izuku and All Might use. The costs are utterly irrelevant because she can prototype anything. Who cares if it costs billions to make a weapon or a device when she spends NOTHING to create anything. The author even stated that it's possible for her to make food with her quirk, just that it wouldn't taste very good unless she understands the structure of flavors and whatnot. So she basically has no limits besides the bottleneck of picturing what she needs to make in the middle of a fight. Which is eliminated if she prepares her gear in advance.

She can invent materials that do not exist in nature but she understands the molecular structure of. Super durable metals that weigh very little. Composites of various materials that would require intense machining to put together or are impossible entirely with our current understanding of science. This is the benefit of her being a rich girl and being able to pay other people to think for her. Or better yet, she could offload all of her thinking to Mei Hatsume, who would handle the research and simply print out everything that Momo needs. Mei violates reality on a daily basis. What's she going to do with unlimited materials and someone who doesn't care if she breaks things, just that she gets results? Imagine a fleet of AI controlled Iron Might suits that Momo directs and controls from an APC she created and is hiding in at a remote location.

The tools already exist within canon for these pieces: UA robots have AI. There would have to be schematics for every piece of the super suit. Her counters would involve watching the progress of a battle and then creating a new robot to go attack her enemy while she hides at a distance. Also, because she can create anything as long as it's not alive, she could rapid fire generate vaccines if taught how to make them by qualified experts, given that many vaccines are dead samples of a virus anyways. She has objectively one of the best abilities in the entire series, in the same tier of abilities like Overhaul and a fully realized Poltergeist.

Yeah, I agree. Momo would be terrifying if she had time to prepare - she'd be a mini-Nedzu in that sense.

The fights in MHA are very lackluster. Yeah, they're flashy and sometimes there's creativity in it, like Ochako's plan to take down Bakugou, but 90% of them are just 'punch harder' and 'hit faster'.

I mean, All Might versus All for One had the stupidest final moves. All for One has this collection of quirks, and yet he choses to... make bigger fist. Punch with bigger fist. And All Might just punches him really hard.

Horikoshi made a villain who could pull anything out of his arse, and we'd just figure that he stole it beforehand, but his 'ultimate move' is just big fist? Come on!

Using her quirk in the middle of a fight to create a counter to that specific foe is pointless when the true measure of her power is prep time. It's the worst way to use her power.

I will have to disagree. It's far from pointless, because you can't predit every fight you're in. Nighteye had foresight and he couldn't do that. All for One couldn't do that. Nedzu couldn't do that. Nobody can do that.

Information is hard to gain, and you can't prep without knowing what you're up against.

If she focuses all her effort on planned-for fights, she'll be sorely unprepared if someone attacks her before she knows about it. If they jump her randomly, or she can't gain a single drop of information about her opponents.

Yes, she'd be incredibly behind the scenes, creating everything she could theoretically need for a fight she's prepared for. She'd be great as a support hero, even.

But, let me ask you a question: what if she can't prepare?

...

Yeah. if she doesn't know what's coming, she can't prepare, and that makes your argument, that her adapting mid-battle is pointless, moot. She has to be strong in both of these aspects.

Preparing before a fight or a raid, and adapting mid-battle.

Again, Momo is only really limited by Horikoshi's creativity.

I was actually discussing the potential of her quirk with a friend of mine, and we both agreed that she was easily one of the most powerful and versatile characters, and Horikoshi didn't do her justice.

There were a lot of things discussed. Grenades, molotovs, pipe bombs, for one. Small things that do a lot of damage. We also thought about poison and poison gas, though she wouldn't use anything deadly.

Let's pair her up against 1-A students, shall we?

Vs Aoyama: Make a mirror, maybe even a highly reflective suit of armour, and he's done. Or a gun.

Vs Ashido: Water balloons of pH 13-14, and her acid is neutralised. Or a gun.

Vs Asui: Flamethrower. Or a gun. Anything long-range or heat-based to make her dry out.

Vs Bakugou: Throw gunpowder at him and let him blow himself up. Or liquid nitrogren to make him freezing cold. Or a gun.

Vs Hagakure: Going by plain ivisibility, Momo can make thermal goggles and find her.

Vs Iida: Lube up the ground and watch him spin into oblivion.

Vs Jirou: A wall of rock wool, and her sound waves are redundant. Or a gun.

Vs Kaminari: Copper poles to attract lightning away from her, or a mirror again. Or a gun.

Vs Kirishima: Bombs. Of any kind. Whittle away at his defence at a long-range.

Vs Kouda: Surround him in rock wool or make a speaker to drown his voice out. Or a gun.

Vs Midoriya: I'd say a gun, but he can dodge them... Fuck it - acid. Use acid.

Vs Mineta: A gun.

Vs Ojirou: A gun.

Vs Satou: A gun.

Vs Sero: A gun.

Vs Shouji: A gun. Failing that, use a molotov.

Vs Todoroki: Flame retardant for his fire. For ice, just dodge until he gets hypothermia.

Vs Tokoyami: Flashbombs or a flamethrower.

Vs Uraraka: A gun.

... Yeah, a lot of people are weak to guns.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA’s NICER maps debris from recurring cosmic crashes

For the first time, astronomers have probed the physical environment of repeating X-ray outbursts near monster black holes thanks to data from NASA’s NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) and other missions.

Scientists have only recently encountered this class of X-ray flares, called QPEs, or quasi-periodic eruptions. A system astronomers have nicknamed Ansky is the eighth QPE source discovered, and it produces the most energetic outbursts seen to date. Ansky also sets records in terms of timing and duration, with eruptions every 4.5 days or so that last approximately 1.5 days.

“These QPEs are mysterious and intensely interesting phenomena,” said Joheen Chakraborty, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “One of the most intriguing aspects is their quasi-periodic nature. We’re still developing the methodologies and frameworks we need to understand what causes QPEs, and Ansky’s unusual properties are helping us improve those tools.”

Ansky’s name comes from ZTF19acnskyy, the moniker of a visible-light outburst seen in 2019. It was located in a galaxy about 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. This event was the first indication that something unusual might be happening.

A paper about Ansky, led by Chakraborty, was published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal.

A leading theory suggests that QPEs occur in systems where a relatively low-mass object passes through the disk of gas surrounding a supermassive black hole that holds hundreds of thousands to billions of times the Sun’s mass.

When the lower-mass object punches through the disk, its passage drives out expanding clouds of hot gas that we observe as QPEs in X-rays.

Scientists think the eruptions' quasi-periodicity occurs because the smaller object’s orbit is not perfectly circular and spirals toward the black hole over time. Also, the extreme gravity close to the black hole warps the fabric of space-time, altering the object’s orbits so they don’t close on themselves with each cycle. Scientists’ current understanding suggests the eruptions repeat until the disk disappears or the orbiting object disintegrates, which may take up to a few years.

“Ansky’s extreme properties may be due to the nature of the disk around its supermassive black hole,” said Lorena Hernández-García, an astrophysicist at the Millennium Nucleus on Transversal Research and Technology to Explore Supermassive Black Holes, the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, and University of Valparaíso in Chile. “In most QPE systems the supermassive black hole likely shreds a passing star, creating a small disk very close to itself. In Ansky’s case, we think the disk is much larger and can involve objects farther away, creating the longer timescales we observe.”

Hernández-García, in addition to being a co-author on Chakraborty’s paper, led the study that discovered Ansky’s QPEs, which was published in April in Nature Astronomy and used data from NICER, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Chandra X-ray Observatory, as well as ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton space telescope.

NICER’s position on the International Space Station allowed it to observe Ansky about 16 times every day from May to July 2024. The frequency of the observations was critical in detecting the X-ray fluctuations that revealed Ansky produces QPEs.

Chakraborty’s team used data from NICER and XMM-Newton to map the rapid evolution of the ejected material driving the observed QPEs in unprecedented detail by studying variations in X-ray intensity during the rise and fall of each eruption.

The researchers found that each impact resulted in about a Jupiter’s worth of mass reaching expansion velocities around 15% of the speed of light.

The NICER telescope’s ability to frequently observe Ansky from the space station and its unique measurement capabilities also made it possible for the team to measure the size and temperature of the roughly spherical bubble of debris as it expanded.

“All NICER’s Ansky observations used in these papers were collected after the instrument experienced a ‘light leak’ in May 2023,” said Zaven Arzoumanian, the mission’s science lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Even though the leak – which was patched in January – affected the telescope’s observing strategy, NICER was still able to make vital contributions to time domain astronomy, or the study of changes in the cosmos on timescales we can see.”

After the repair, NICER continued observing Ansky to explore how the outbursts have evolved over time. A paper about these results, led by Hernández-García and co-authored by Chakraborty, is under review.

Observational studies of QPEs like Chakraborty’s will also play a key role in preparing the science community for a new era of multimessenger astronomy, which combines measurements using light, elementary particles, and space-time ripples called gravitational waves to better understand objects and events in the universe.

One goal of ESA’s future LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, in which NASA is a partner, is to study extreme mass-ratio inspirals — or systems where a low-mass object orbits a much more massive one, like Ansky. These systems should emit gravitational waves that are not observable with current facilities. Electromagnetic studies of QPEs will help improve models of those systems ahead of LISA’s anticipated launch in the mid-2030s.

“We’re going to keep observing Ansky for as long as we can,” Chakraborty said. “We’re still in the infancy of understanding QPEs. It’s such an exciting time because there’s so much to learn.”

TOP IMAGE: A system astronomers call Ansky, in the galaxy at the center of this image, is home to a recently discovered series of quasi-periodic eruptions. Credit Sloan Digital Sky Survey

LOWER IMAGE: The NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) X-ray telescope is reflected on NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 flight engineer Nick Hague’s spacesuit helmet visor in this high-flying “space-selfie” taken during a spacewalk on Jan. 16, 2025. NASA/Nick Hague

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Precision in miniature: New microgripper technology for electronics assembly

Microgrippers are essential tools for manipulating minute objects, with applications ranging from medical biopsies to microassembly in electronics. However, traditional microgripper technologies have faced significant limitations, including reliance on complex light sources, high voltages, and bulky magnetic systems. These constraints often hinder their use in confined or specialized microenvironments. The growing need for more versatile, efficient, and user-friendly microgrippers has driven recent research efforts toward overcoming these barriers. A team of researchers led by Professor Huikai Xie from Beijing Institute of Technology recently published their study in Microsystems & Nanoengineering. This study was primarily done by Prof. Xie's Ph.D. student Hengzhang Yang who is the first author of the paper. Their novel electrothermal microgripper, based on Al-SiO2 bimorphs, combines remarkable deformation and rapid response capabilities while consuming minimal power, offering a promising solution to the challenges faced by traditional technologies.

Read more.