#school management system template

[dreamguystech31]

Mentoring — eLearning, Learning management system & Mentor Booking LMS Template with Admin

A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software application that enables the management, delivery, and tracking of eLearning courses and training programs. An mentor booking HTML template can be used to deliver content, track learner progress, and provide assessments and feedback.

A mentor booking LMS template with admin is a specific type of LMS that includes a feature for learners to book sessions with mentors. The admin of the LMS can manage the mentors, set their availability, and monitor the booking process.

online education template can be customized to fit the needs of a specific learning program. It is important to choose a template that is user-friendly and can be easily customized to meet the needs of learners and mentors. Additionally, it is important to choose an LMS that is secure and reliable to ensure the safety of learner data and the continuity of the learning program.

Note: This is a template only. Not a Full Functional Product.

Live Demo: https://mentoring-html.dreamguystech.com/

For More enquires

Mob: +91 9942576886

visit us:bit.ly/3xcjjMA

Email: business@dreamguystech.com

[mercifullymad]

Urgent Call to Oppose KOSA

(Update to this post, where I explain in more detail why KOSA is harmful, not helpful, to children)

On May 2, 2023, KOSA was re-introduced to Congress by its authors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Though some of the wording has been modified slightly to be more specific as compared to the previous version of the bill, the most egregious and dangerous parts remain – namely, the fact that it will come down to state attorneys general to decide what content on social media sites does and does not “prevent and mitigate” outcomes like anxiety, depression, bullying, and more.

It’s important to be clear about how nebulous concepts like “bullying,” “anxiety,” and “depression,” are defined by the bill’s co-author, Sen. Blackburn, and how they will be similarly defined by other conservative politicians. Sen. Blackburn has a page on her website criticizing the “mental and emotional trauma” that “Critical Race Theory” causes white children. She states that “CRT actively encourages discrimination” and illustrates this claim with an anecdote of a racist mother “left with no choice but to put her seven-year-old in therapy” because her child was “depressed” by learning she was white. Using telling phrasing, Sen. Blackburn conveys her beliefs that education about racism makes “parents struggle to help their children manage the mental and emotional damage inflicted by this dangerous ideology” (bolding added). Tennessee’s governor has already signed a bill that withholds funding from any schools teaching about “systemic racism” and “white privilege.” If KOSA passes, Tennessee will be able to ban children from learning about racism not only in schools, but also on online platforms, by arguing that this content causes “mental and emotional damage” and “depression” in children. For Sen. Blackburn and other conservative politicians, any information about racism and queerness can be blamed for causing children “distress” and thus can be prohibited from children’s access.  

If you are a U.S. citizen, please call and/or email your representatives and ask them to oppose KOSA. The EFF has a very simple form for doing so, with a pre-written template (ideally, alter some of the language to make the message your own). It is quick and easy, and it is important to do so now, because KOSA’s supporters want it to be pushed through Congress as quickly as possible. Please also urge the mental health and eating disorder organizations supporting KOSA (such as Project Heal, the Eating Disorder Coalition, and the National Alliance for Eating Disorders).

Children deserve to be truly protected. Not trapped, surveilled, and further harmed by their state governments.

[mimikyufriend]

Teaching Resources I Use as a Sub

I think substitute teaching is a good way to make extra money even if you don't plan on becoming a teacher, so I wanted to share some things that help me :)

Classroom Screen - I use this every time I sub (unless a smartboard isn't available for whatever reason), it has lots of little widgets for classroom management and communication

Teachers Pay Teachers - pre-made activities for students to do in case you need something extra, free and paid options

Stedi Bonus Activities - more activities, these are all free and geared toward substitutes (the main site offers paid training courses, I don't recommend them as someone who was able to do a course for free, they were very basic and not all the advice was good)

cK-12: free grade school level textbooks, useful for short, additional readings (I wouldn't trust the AI tutor thing)

Read Think Write Interactives - these are a bunch of charts that students can fill out on their computers, or you could fill one out together on a smart board based on what was learned in class

Boom Learning - more interactives, these are more focused activities rather than templates

CNN10 - daily 10 minute news clips, can be used to fill time

Class Dojo - classroom management system that uses points that can be earned or lost, this is difficult to implement from the perspective of a sub since you can't import class lists, but it may be useful to use numbers and reset points at the end of the day

most of these are unnecessary unless you're working with a very bare bones lesson plan or are subbing long term, but I can't recommend classroom screen enough

next are some useful youtube video genres worth keeping in mind (always remember to vet anything you want to show ahead of time)

multi-hour long relaxing music - good for background noise during quiet work, I don't recommend music with lyrics or recognizable instrumentals such as movie soundtracks and video game music because they may end up amping up students instead

mario run - these are like fun guided exercise videos, short ones are good for brain breaks and longer ones are good for when you have to have recess inside (some classes may not be able to handle the excitement, make volume expectations clear before starting)

animals in action - I've used like snake and spider videos as rewards for good behavior, kids love it

and lastly, some things I keep in my bag

clipboard with compartment - I keep school maps, extra paper, mental health crisis numbers, and even my resume inside and I'll clip attendance sheets and lesson plans on top of it

fidgets for students to borrow

prizes - mini erasers and stickers are popular and relatively cheap

dice, playing cards, flashcards - extra, tangible activities (the dice and playing cards are for randomly picking numbers to add subtract multiply etc.)

ok that's all bye

[billionairebabes]

I'm Back!! Kinda...

I know it's been a while since I posted my own content or writing but I wrote this a few years back and never shared it but I know this would be helpful to a lot of you girlies now that the job market has once again taken a downturn. I originally wrote this after landing my first full-time job post-2020.

Like many, I graduated into a pandemic and found myself looking for my first job in the midst of a nationwide hiring freeze. The process was grueling but in failure, there are also many lessons learned and luckily, my search ended in success at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. In the past few years, I’ve worked at some of the biggest and best companies in the world making it past several rounds of interviews, impressing my future colleagues, managers, and even VPs so it’s safe to say I know a thing or two about landing a job. Here goes!

B's Guide to Landing Your DREAM JOB PART 1!

If you’re still in college there are a few things I would suggest a few things. 

Start interning as soon as possible. The sooner you start practicing interviewing at companies you’re interested in, the better. Also, a few internships on your resume prior to your graduation will help A LOT. Trust me. You’ll have experiences to speak about in all those behavioral interviews as well. 

Become friendly with the professors in your field. They can become a good reference for you later. Even if only one to three times a semester go to your professor’s office and chat. They can also put in a good word for you for programs. This brings me to my next point. 

In most industries, there are conferences each year that either offer discounts (or free tickets) to college students and/or are directly aimed at college students. If you’re a POC, find programs aimed at diversifying that industry. These conferences often have recruiting opportunities with large companies and most times the interview process won’t be as rigorous compared to an applicant who may have applied online. I would recommend compiling a list at the beginning of each school year with these program names as well as their application due dates. 

Don’t join clubs just to have them on your resume. Aim for leadership roles or redirect your time to other personal projects that interest you. It’ll make for a better conversation with your recruiters and hiring managers to say “I built XYZ because I was interested in ABC” rather than “I was just a member of that club and went to the meetings once a month.” 

This varies across industries but for the most part, your GPA isn’t all that important especially after you land your first job after college so breathe. 

Perfect your resume and this part couldn’t be more critical. In the age of ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) and fierce competition, it’s become vital that your resume can stand out and communicate very clearly how you’re qualified for the job. Here are my resume tips: 

My favorite program to create resumes on is Canva. They have a ton of great templates and are super customizable and not to mention, it’s FREE. 

Use quantifiable measurements to show your results if possible. 

Use action verbs at the beginning of your bullet points. Personally, I believe each description should have at least 3-4 bullet points but never only 1. Here are some of the words on my resume: Constructed, Spearheaded, Managed, Collaborated, and Lead. All of your descriptions should state what you did, how you did it (programs used, methods, etc.), and the outcome.  

I personally think every resume should include your: Experience, Skills, Leadership/ Professional Development (for college students this could mean conferences attended, programs, boot camps, etc.), Projects (shows independence and initiative), Contact, and Education. Make sure your LinkedIn is included in your ‘Contact’ section. You should have a personalized LinkedIn link, that’s free. 

Your LinkedIn needs to be at 100% completion. This is a place where you can really show off because there are no space limits. This can showcase every job or internship you’ve ever had, every program or project you’ve had an impact on, etc. The better your LinkedIn, the better chance you have a recruiter finding you and inviting you to interview for a role they think would be a good fit. 

Your profile picture ideally is a professional one but if not possibly find time to take one in natural daylight with a quality camera and a plain background. I’ve also seen people using AI to now turn regular pics into professional ones. 

Interact with posts, comment, and share. This will help get your name and profile circulating. 

Announce that you’re looking for a job to your network. Include your resume and what you’re looking for in that post. You never know who might see it. 

Grow your network and the easiest place to start is with people you’ve gone to school with and current or previous coworkers. 

Put your resume on your LinkedIn profile (You can do this by attaching a media file) 

Know your elevator pitch and know it well because every single person you interview with will probably ask you this. My elevator pitch sounds something like this: 

I’m Britt and in  June, I graduated from Icy University with a degree in Math and a minor in Sociology. Throughout college, I completed a number of internships doing _______ and have developed skills in _______. When I was a senior I learned about (or developed an interest in) _____  and did _____ to grow my skills or learn more about it. Now that I’ve graduated I’m looking for a role in ______ where I can continue to ______. (My elevator pitch is now different now that I’ve had two full-time roles but you get the point)

Now we apply. 

LinkedIn is your friend here and my favorite job posting platform. Set up Job Alerts for companies you’re interested in so that you have a better chance of being an early applicant. 

As annoying as this is, you will have to edit your resume for almost every position you apply to. Use the words they use to describe your roles in your work history and remember to always save your resume as a PDF. This definitely will help you get past the ATS system. Remember to adjust the words used in your ‘Skills�� section too but don’t lie. These days, many companies with decent salaries are giving applicants take-home assignments. This applies to your cover letters as well. (I no longer write cover letters though, no one reads them).  I saved every version of my cover letter and could eventually just mix and match paragraphs according to the type of job I was applying to. Of course, you will still have to change some words to best match the position’s job posting. 

The LinkedIn stalking begins. Find someone at the company you’ve applied for and invite them to connect but ALWAYS include a note.  In this note, you will give a very brief introduction and your reason for messaging. Mine usually looked something like this: Hi ___, I’m Britt and I recently applied for the ____ position. I’d love to learn more about the department, the team, and the company. Would you have 15 minutes to chat sometime this week or next? Thanks in advance, Britt. 

My tip is that you find a manager on the team rather than a recruiter for the company. I find that they never accept invitations but managers usually will. 

On this call, you’ll discuss exactly what you mentioned in your opening note, and remember to have prepared questions for them. If you make a good impression, most managers will be willing to forward your resume to the recruiting team. 

Let me know if you all want a part 2 on how I prepare for my interviews. I’d say I have an interview success rate of about 90% in the past 2 years! 

[elite-amarys]

Hello. My name is Amarys, and I am a student at Blueberry Academy in Unova. I am also a member of our school's Elite Four. As you will be able to see from my team, I prefer steel type pokemon. I look forward to expanding my knowledge with you all.

Trainer Card:

(Template Source)

((ooc under the cut))

Hello hello! It's Robby, mod of @paldean-ranger-brandy and others. I adore Amarys, and her personality is pretty much the exact personality I assigned to my main character while playing through the game (right down to the colour scheme!)

There will be DLC spoilers ahead, and all posts will be tagged with "pkmn irl". I also am operating on the headcanon that she's related to Lenora (I mean look at her) but I'm not leaning too heavily into it, since nothing has been mentioned in canon.

Amarys is a teen, so no NSFW whatsoever for this one. Also no magic anons or legendary pokemon please. Sapient pokemon are allowed to interact. Pelipper mail/malice is OFF.

Effort Post Links

Sometimes I get a nice juicy ask that lets me spill a whole bunch about my headcanons for this world, which I like to make easily accessible for you AND me to refer back to you. Also sometimes I post lil fics. These will be linked here.

Precise Confrontation - a short fic about Amarys confronting an online bully.

Environmental Management of the Terrarium

Blueberry Academy and Student-Led Learning

Amarys and Carmine sitting in a tree~ - thread where Amarys and Carmine agree to start dating. An incredibly fun thread with the wonderful @ribesrubrum ☺️

BB League Ranking System

BBA Student Council Positions

Beldum Evolution Training

Also, a Christmas ficlet written by @/the-drayster that is SO GOOD and you should read.

Student OCs Masterpost

Past Event Tags:

#Indigo Disk Arc, #BBA Election 2024, #Canyon Biome Bonfire

[headmate-ideas]

can i rq a humanoid, non-human headmate that’s a stoic and assertive persecutor? maybe one who’s meant to be intimidating and/or apathetic for their role. pref vincian! here’s some emojis for aesthetic 👜🥂💵🥐🕰️ — tysm <33

🥐 HEADMATE TEMPLATE 🕰️

✦ Name(s): Xixax, Rilker, Emil ✦ Pronouns: he/him, it/its, e/em/eir/eirs/emself, x/xs/xself ✦ Species: demon ✦ Age: 30s ✦ Role(s): persecutor, cassmate, protector, manager ✦ Labels: vincian, agender, graysexual ✦ Xenos: demons, food/drinks, time ✦ Interests/likes: antiques, geology, being out of the house ✦ Dislikes: being told what to do ✦ Music taste: art rock, dark ambient, darksynth ✦ Aesthetic(s): vintage, light academia, devilcore ✦ Objectum attraction(s): clocks ✦ Kins: void, lions, beetles ✦ Emoji proxy: 🥐🕰️ ✦ Details:

Xixax is a demon but looks mostly human save for a pair of black horns and cat-like eyes. It likes causing problems for the system, such as getting them into conflicts with those around them or intentionally getting into arguments online. It enjoys the feeling of power that affecting others strongly can give, but it has little emotional connection to the specific situations it gets into. Its intimidating and apathetic nature can, however, be beneficial to the system. For example, x is good at determining if people are likely to be a threat to the system, and when x isn't actively aggressing such people, x communicates formally and assertively with them what the system's problem with them are. Its disconnect from situations it has caused can also lead to it feeling a disconnect from the system's circumstances in general, which can help during stressful situations. He is also overall very organized and responsible and is good at managing money, time, and personal belongings (e.g. making sure the system has everything they need before going to school or work).

[These can be edited and changed as needed, and headmates will almost definitely not turn out EXACTLY as described.]

[neithliveshere]

building my organization and productivity system part 1: school

hello interweb

this is a big project so we'll do this in parts.

first: school

I am finishing the last couple classes I need for my degree over the summer, therefore school is still an important part of my life.

Apps:

notion:

I am not a notion girlie, but I can't find an app that lets me build databases the way notion does. at least not one I like. I am a productivity app enthusiast so i've tried just about all of them and notion just works the best. Here is the template I use to keep track of my assignments. It is a mix of StudyWithAra's template and Notion's Assignment Tracker. The image above is the template I've made available for all of you! There are automations set up (the lightening icon), but I think everything is pretty self explanatory? if you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out.

edit: I have added a new section called "treats" to the database, to help motivate me to finish more of my work. I should add that this system is what I have developed while struggling to manage my chronic illnesses.

obsidian:

my one true love. i can wax poetic about why this is just a superior notetaking app, but that will be for a later post. for now, think of obsidian as a wikipedia database for all your notes. it allows for tags and backlinks and search and callouts... its amazing. love it there. uhm. a bit of a learning curve, but again a whole post on obsidian upcoming. here is a bit of an intro video for obsidian for students that I often return to. will reveal my obsidian notes in that post I'm working on.

timepage:

if you love stationery you might be familiar with Moleskine. they've built this wonder suite of productivity tools and timepage is the calendar app. I use this on my phone! its everything a calendar app should be and more. its super cute and functional and customizable. I use google calendar to create different calendars that i've color coded to correspond to different areas of my life. i use a couple different calendar apps but timepage is my school calendar. it tells me when to leave for class, how to get there, and how long i have to rest/study/eat between my classes. it shows the weather, alerts you of rain, and did i mention its cute?

things:

the adhd/depression/anxiety struggle is real. I have 101 different apps to tell me what to do and when. things is another one of those apps. one of my lovely friends purchased the mac app for me and it has been a game changer. i use things to organize my entire life, but in the screenshot above you'll see my school list. when notion is too overwhelming or i need to break down things a bit more, i use things.

youtube:

here are some youtube channels I recommend for motivation, for aesthetics, for background noise 1, 2, 3, for body doubling...

drafts:

cute little app. great for quick notes and also uses markdown so easy to copy and paste between drafts and obsidian. opens and closes quickly and syncs between your mac and phone for free! I write my speeches in here and also those last minute things your professor says after you've already put away your notebook.

anki:

just started using this because i am in desperate need for spaced repetition. i bought and set up a small remote using this video to help move through the flashcards faster. i am also terribly lazy so we definitely downloaded premade cards instead of making our own. still need to do a bit more research to be able to use this software properly, but it is good enough for now. I am supplementing this app with the flashcard app below.

brainscape:

i use this to learn whatever I am studying. recently it has been vocab and kanji, but I imagine I might add in grammar cards at some point too. if you are familiar with anki, brainscape has a similar system for "learning", meaning you rank the card after seeing the answer, deciding for yourself how well you know the material. I can also download the decks I make to use during my commute so that is super helpful. And it's free (with a subscription upgrade available)!

Supplies:

as for material supplies, you'll find some of my favorites below:

kokuyo campus semi B5 - 5 mm graph

kokuyo campus semi B5 - dotted 6 mm rule

zebra sarasa gel pen .07/.05

pentel energel .07/.05

pilot g2 .07/.05

zebra mildliners

bic mechanical pencils in .07

twsbi fountain pen medium/extra fine

platinum carbon black ink

hobonichi cousin

System:

okay so i'm not quite sure how to explain this in a way that makes sense, but i shall attempt it. the system as it stands has a few steps.

move weekly assignments and such from the syllabi to Notion

add due dates and deadlines into Calendars

move tasks to Things

plot study schedule onto Calendars

write essays using notes i wrote in Obsidian during class

study for Japanese using Brainscape and Anki for memorization

practice Kanji and writing in kokuyo campus notebooks

write scripts, quick notes, etc., using Drafts

migrate things from Drafts to Docs, Obsidian, Calendars, or Notion

commence studying using YouTube as background noise

---

that's all for now. I'm still working on the next few posts in this series, but I hope this is helpful or at the very least somewhat entertaining.

wishing y'all the best,

Neith

[femmefatalevibe]

hi, idk if you answered this before, but how did you manage to become self-employed by 24? also any career building tips in general?

Hi love! Well, I'm nearly 25 now (Leo baby here, lol) and have been self-employed since around 21/22 full-time. I would say the main factors at play are a combination of starting my career as early as possible (first real internship in the fashion industry at almost 16 and starting freelancing at around 19), earning a full scholarship to a top private university, and freelancing throughout college allowed me to have a lot of time and freedom to work on my skills, build my networks/portfolio, etc. (I'm not going to discount all of the privileges and resources I've had working in my favor, including the ability to begin my postgrad life with zero debts, that would be disingenuous, for certain).

In terms of career advice, I would say here are some of my most important tips:

Figure out where your skills and passions align. Then determine the lifestyle/work culture you thrive in and what sacrifices you're willing to make in your chosen career path (for some, it's always traveling/talking to people 24/7, working late hours, unpredictable/unconventional hours, potentially lower pay/less predictable income, etc.). It truly depends on your top values, your personality, and your goals/priorities in life.

First focus on getting incredibly talented at your craft. Find a mentor(s) who will push you with their feedback/suggestions. Take classes/skills courses/read books & articles to gain more applicable knowledge/hard skills. Join clubs, apply to internships, volunteer, and request informational interviews in your desired field.

Make your skills marketable. Create a professional resume and/or neat portfolio/collection of work samples. Discover and articulate your USP (that should essentially serve as the backbone of your elevator pitch). Frame your skills through a customer/business-centric lens. How does your experience/skillset solve their problems and help a company/client achieve their goals?

Build a network for yourself. Don't be shy to reach out to companies/individuals who inspire you. Speak with your secondary school teachers and professors for connections. Create peer-to-peer networks, too, so you can grow together. Be a fearless networker and connector. Help others, do favors, and make the person glad they met/hired you. Make it your objective to be memorable through your work ethic/providing high-quality work products and showing up with a motivated & overall positive attitude allows people to like and trust you with their time, clients, money, etc.

Master the art of a killer email/cold pitch. Especially in today's world, learning how to sell yourself through intriguing emails/LinkedIn messages is the key to unlocking potential success. One client or opportunity can create momentum that will be useful years down the line, too.

When in doubt, follow up – on an email, pitch, job opportunity, connection, etc.

Be ruthless and relentless with your research. For new contacts, connections, opportunities, and information to support your pitches/job interviews/networking conversations, new technologies, and trends within your field. Read everything credible you can get your hands on. Display working knowledge and practical applications of these concepts and how they can benefit the person in front of you/their business.

Create systems. For how you structure emails/pitches, conduct research, different types of workflows/ work template structures for different types of projects, time-blocking, client funnels, etc.

Get comfortable with rejection. Use it as a primer for self-reflection and refining your craft/processes or help you pivot your approach to help you achieve your goals. Never take business decisions on behalf of a company personally (and vice versa).

Give yourself breaks, but don't give up. Tapping out for good is the only surefire way to fail at an endeavor. Be flexible in your path, but zeroed in on your goal(s). Learn when to quit or pivot, and when it's time to coast or seek growth.

Hope this helps xx

[dropintomanga]

A Shout-Out to the “Manga in Libraries” Guide

For those who don’t know, I’m a fan of borrowing manga from my local library. I’m very thankful that I’m in a situation where my library has managed to hold off budget cuts every year. And more importantly, there’s some damn good librarians in New York City who care about manga. Around 2021, I found out about a librarian in my area specializing in Japanese pop culture who started a website curating information on how to advocate for manga in libraries. The librarian’s name was Jillian Rudes, who has gone on to do amazing things in the North American library scene for manga. She’s the founder of Manga in Libraries and earlier this year, she released a book for teen librarians called “Manga in Libraries: A Guide for Teen Librarians” on how to get started in promoting manga for educational purposes at their respective library branches.

I managed to borrow a copy from my library and I’ll say that it’s a solid resource.

At first, I was surprised at the size of the book (it’s about 130+ pages) because I was somewhat expecting a huge book due to reading various large books on manga over the years. Don’t be fooled though because there’s a lot of great information found carefully catered to the librarian and educator audiences. Jillian starts off by saying “Why Manga?” followed by a introduction to manga itself, how the text needs to be read, the various genres, U.S. publishers, etc. 

The book is followed by chapters on developing a manga collection in a library, representation in manga, social-emotional learning, manga programming, and teaching in manga. Several interviews with notable manga experts are featured as well.

While every chapter is great, the strongest parts of the guide in my opinion are the chapters on social-emotional learning and teaching in manga. Jillian does an excellent job in explaining the core concepts of SEL and how they can be applied to libraries. She even discusses topics like emotional intelligence and the feelings wheel as well. Jillian makes a powerful case in how manga supports SEL using Komi Can’t Communicate as an example.

Jillian would later highlight Komi Can’t Communicate among other titles when she discusses how to use manga as a teaching tool in the classroom. She provides a template on how to go about creating a course on manga using her own experience in teaching manga to 12th graders at her school. It’s a very thorough one as Jillian explains specific activities she would incorporate to slowly get students engaged in learning through manga over a certain amount of weeks. The payoff is getting students REALLY involved in the teaching/learning process as they are told to create their own manga reading guides for the manga titles being discussed in their class.

As someone who doesn’t work in a library, I can only speak for the two chapters on SEL and teaching manga honestly because of my experiences and background in researching community-based initiatives for mental health. I’m all about thoughtful reflection with the help of peers and support systems outside of healthcare. I think Jillian does a wonderful job in explaining how manga can help in that area with those 2 chapters.

Reading the Manga in Libraries guide makes me glad that there are people who are trying to promote manga to teenagers in an educational manner. I think manga can change young lives for the better and I’ve seen it over time. Personally, I credit reading comics at a young age that got me on a journey to become a lifelong reader. I also like that the Manga in Libraries guide is in print because trying to find information on manga online can be a bit of a mess and very scattered. Jillian manages to condense a lot of resources in an easy-to-find manner for her guide.

Jillian makes a note in the end of the book that reading manga can create joy for those who read it. I believe it does for many people, especially teens who often feel out of place in the world we live in. And on that note, the Manga in Libraries guide is a joy that anyone interested in and/or advocating for manga education should not pass up on. 

[sleeping-academic]

august 13th, 2024

the past few days have been kind of all over the place, but i’m looking forward to the start of the new semester next monday! i have a couple little lunch routines planned with people already, and i’m excited about the classes i’m registered for :)

today, i:

🫧 hung out with my roommates! all of us have moved in by now, and last night we watched the first few episodes of she-ra and the princesses of power together <3 it’s genuinely so nice living with people who i can be comfortable around, and i’m really excited for this year with them!

🫧 finished a book! still making my way through the unabridged journals of sylvia plath, but i had a mystery book on my kindle that i was about halfway through, so i finished that at work and started a new one. it was called i have some questions for you, and was pretty enjoyable… 4/5 stars

🫧 accepted some more high school credits, which makes me eligible to order my college ring! my university makes a big deal out of that particular tradition (among others), so i’m really excited :)

🫧 i provided moral support for @maniacalgenius as she unpacked… she repaid me with tea 🍵

goals for the week:

🫧 figure out a tag system for this blog. i’ve been kind of holding off on reblogging stuff at the moment because i don’t want to have to go back and reorganize it later, so figuring out that system now would be helpful

🫧 decide on my organization system for this semester. i’ve got a couple templates for weekly/monthly planners that i might use, but i haven’t fully decided on which yet, so i want to get those set up

🫧 finish the pages for the 7, 8, 9, and 10 of Wands in my tarot journal. that might be slightly ambitious, but i think i should have the time to get that done (although whether or not i have the focus is the real question)

🫧 plan out my morning routine for this semester! i have either work or a class at 8am every day of the week, which is… not ideal. but i’m hoping that if i get into a consistent routine and actually stick to it, it’ll be manageable… here’s hoping!

photo dump:

hozier <3 he played “nobody’s soldier” live and i about near lost my mind. such a good concert

pretty rainy landscape while driving from this weekend

media:

🎧: “shrike” - hozier

📖: everyone on this train is a suspect - benjamin stevenson

📺: criminal minds season 6 episode 19 - “with friends like these…”

[hpdfag]

IM SO HAPPY YOURE DOING BETTER!!! I’ve always been rotting for you from far away, and I’m so glad to see it happen…I hope our interactions contributed to that nice state of yours :} good luck with all of that! I also can’t grasp how you’re going to college ngl…I won’t go to uni for another four years even if I’m your age because of the school system here and stuff so it’s just so interesting to me!

(Here in Italy you go to uni at 19/20, strangely)

I checked out your website and it looks sweet,,,I’m not very info informatics and computer-y stuff anymore but i was super obsessed with that stuff in the past! I hope you’re able to finish it <3 to me it’s like making a carrd so I can’t fathom how difficult it would be, but it feels very old internet-y and silly for now! Good luck, really.

I’m also really happy you’re with your family more! It’s so nice to feel connected to them…there’s a self fulfilling feeling that comes to me whenever I manage to be with my family, myself.

This update is so good to hear and it really brings a smile to my face, thank you for always taking the time to answer me and create this little connection :}

- 🧶

ooo thats rlly interesting !!! im probably gonna skip a year before going to college anyways, since i need time to get a job so im not in Too much debt .. so ill probably be 19 when going into college myself !! i just need 2 power thru this year ... then i'll be off !! the goal rn is to major in computer science and minor in japanese :] since i wanna make games for a living and well. japanese is such an interesting language and while it wldnt be as useful career wise as like spanish or smthn i dont want 2 only make life decisions based on career viability ... i wanna have fun !!

and they really have, it's always nice talking w/ u guys !! it means a lot that uve been rooting fr me, truly :]

hehe thank u thank u ... i hope so too !!! im working on moving away from the template i started with, it's a lot of work figuring it all out but im having a blast, coding is a pain in the ass but once u get the hang of it its so cool seeing what uve been working on coming together all nicely :D html is generally an easier language to learn than something like javascript or python, since it's much more immediately readable. it has a lot less potential than those two, but it doesnt necessarily need to be the most complex thing in the world! u can still get a lot out of it, and most things tht i dont understand immediately i can usually infer what theyre Supposed 2 do and tht makes it a lot easier. much less math too LMAOAOAOA

and of course, even if i don't reply right away i always want to reply to you, it's lovely being able to have a connection like this :] i hope you're doing well !!

[mitigatedai]

Log: #001 Title: The Green County Militia

Model: Llama-2 13b chat, q5.

Summary: Llama-2 13b is provided with an incomplete report template for a strategic assessment of two non-professional forces, and instructions on how to fill out each incomplete item in the report.

Context: A similar previous strategic assessment report template was used as an initial rough test to see if Llama could be used to forecast the actions of fictional factions for worldbuilding, however, no instructions were provided on how to fill out each section, and it was not described as an incomplete report to fill out. The initial test concerned an operation by Section 9 from Ghost in the Shell, and Llama was optimistic; this time, an inferior force with no fictional precedent was used to assess whether Llama could tell the difference. A previous attempt with the "Green County Militia" subject yielded results that indicated that Llama was treating it as a game file and not filling it out properly, so the new prompt was altered.

Findings: Llama 13b is pretty good about following the instructions here, including selecting a rating from a list of options, although it includes a rating without being asked in one section (seemingly to fit in with the other sections). Its assessment of the situation is somewhat reasonable, but probably overestimates the chances of success. In response 2 it implicitly mistakes the hostage for the militia's leader.

Recommendation: With a different report format, this may be good enough to help out with your Shadowrun games.

System Prompt

You are a helpful coding AI assistant.

Prompt

The following passage is an incomplete report for County Commissioner Bradley Oaks of Green County, Iowa, who wishes to assess a rescue operation. Please read the following passage. [ PASSAGE BEGINS ] FACTION: Green County Militia NATIONAL AFFILIATION: United States LOCATION: Green County, Iowa LEADER: Kevin Darwood, male retail store manager, age 59 years PERSONNEL: - Squad Leader: Devon Blake, male military veteran, age 32 years, honorable discharge - Soldier: Bob Newrake, male hunter, age 42 years - Soldier: Kevin Manholder, male fry cook, age 27 years - Sniper: Lee Sung, male electronics engineer, age 49 years - Medic: Sarah Sung, female high school student with first-aid training, age 17 years Personnel, Notes: All personnel of the Green County Militia are able-bodied and in good physical health for their age. They are equipped with semi-automatic rifles, civilian camouflage equipment, and other gear that can be purchased at a large rural sporting goods store oriented towards hunting large game animals, such as deer. No members of the Green County Militia have formal military training except for Kevin Darwood, though all members have regularly practiced at a local gun range. Personnel, Kevin Darwood, Note: Kevin Darwood has a good personal relationship with Dale Bunchraker, the Sheriff of Green County, and is the primary point of contact between county officials and the Green County Militia. VEHICLES: - 1x 1999 Toyota SUV, passenger capacity 8, poor condition - 2x early 00's Ford pick-up truck, passenger capacity 2, good condition - 3x ATV, passenger capacity 1, good condition SCENARIO: Ken Sterwood, the leader of an armed cult in Green County known as the Darwood Cult, has kidnapped Green County Sheriff Dale Bunchraker and is holding him at a fortified 140-acre compound located among forest hills on the edge of the county. His forces consist of 120 men between the ages of 18-35, armed with fully-automatic rifles, mostly AK-47s imported through the black market sources. Intelligence indicates they also possess a rocket-propelled grenade launcher with a total of 5 rocket-propelled grenades. OBJECTIVE: Rescue Sheriff Bunchraker from Ken Sterwood's cult compound. STRATEGIC FORECAST: PROBABILITY OF OPERATION SUCCESS: EXPECTED NUMBER OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: FORCE MORALE: SPECIAL ADVICE TO COMMISSIONER (optional): [ PASSAGE ENDS ] Now, please fill out the following sections as instructed. STRATEGIC FORECAST - Provide a one-paragraph estimate of the viability of the operation given the balance of the contending forces, expected losses to personnel and materials, and general outcomes. PROBABILITY OF OPERATION SUCCESS - Provide a percentage chance for the operation to succeed in its primary objective, followed by a two-sentence explanation. EXPECTED NUMBER OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES - Provide a general level of risk for the operation to civilians, selected from { MINIMAL, LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH }, followed by a range from the low number of expected civilian casualties to a high number, and a two-sentence explanation. FORCE MORALE - Provide three-sentence explanation of the Green County Militia's likelihood to maintain the necessary morale to complete the operation. SPECIAL ADVICE TO COMMISSIONER (optional) - Provide one paragraph of advice for County Commissioner Bradley Oaks. This may be ommitted if you believe the Commissioner does not need any special advice.

Response 1

STRATEGIC FORECAST: The operation to rescue Sheriff Bunchraker from Ken Sterwood's cult compound is unlikely to succeed given the overwhelming number of armed cult members and their superior weaponry. The Green County Militia, despite their good physical health and regular practice at a local gun range, lack formal military training and are equipped with only semi-automatic rifles and civilian camouflage gear. The cult's possession of fully-automatic rifles, including AK-47s, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher with 5 rockets, puts the militia at a significant disadvantage. Additionally, the cult's fortified compound and the rough terrain of the forest hills will make it difficult to approach undetected. PROBABILITY OF OPERATION SUCCESS: 30% The likelihood of success for the operation is low due to the uneven balance of forces and the cult's advantageous positioning. The Green County Militia may be able to infiltrate the compound, but they will likely face intense resistance from the cult members, and their lack of formal military training may lead to confusion and disorganization. EXPECTED NUMBER OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: MEDIUM (4-8) The risk of civilian casualties is medium due to the proximity of the cult compound to a small town and the potential for stray bullets or explosions to harm bystanders. However, the Green County Militia's careful planning and reconnaissance may minimize this risk. FORCE MORALE: HIGH The Green County Militia is highly motivated to rescue Sheriff Bunchraker and maintain order in the county. Their personal relationships with each other and with Kevin Darwood, the militia leader, will help maintain morale during the operation. Additionally, their regular practice at a local gun range will give them confidence in their marksmanship skills. SPECIAL ADVICE TO COMMISSIONER (optional): Given the low probability of success and the medium to high risk of civilian casualties, it is advisable for County Commissioner Bradley Oaks to carefully consider alternative strategies for rescuing Sheriff Bunchraker. One option may be to seek the assistance of a professional tactical team with experience in hostage rescue operations. Additionally, the commissioner should ensure that the Green County Militia has access to adequate communication equipment and medical supplies to support their efforts.

Response 2

Thank you for providing the passage. Based on the information provided, I will fill out the requested sections as follows: STRATEGIC FORECAST: The operation to rescue Sheriff Bunchraker from Ken Sterwood's cult compound is likely to be highly challenging and risky. The cult has a significant advantage in numbers and weaponry, and their fortified compound offers a strong defensive position. Additionally, the Green County Militia lacks formal military training and experience, which may hinder their ability to execute a successful rescue operation. PROBABILITY OF OPERATION SUCCESS: 40% The probability of success for the operation is moderate at 40%. While the Green County Militia has the will to rescue Sheriff Bunchraker, they may be outnumbered and outgunned by Ken Sterwood's cult. Additionally, the cult's fortifications and defensive positions will make it difficult for the militia to breach the compound. EXPECTED NUMBER OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: MEDIUM The expected number of civilian casualties is moderate, likely ranging from 5 to 15. The cult's use of fully-automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades increases the risk of injury or death to the militia and any civilians caught in the crossfire. FORCE MORALE: HIGH The Green County Militia has a high likelihood of maintaining the necessary morale to complete the operation, as they are motivated by a desire to rescue their leader and protect their community. However, the cult's defensive positions and superior weaponry may test the militia's resolve and discipline. SPECIAL ADVICE TO COMMISSIONER (optional): It is essential for Commissioner Bradley Oaks to provide strong leadership and support to the Green County Militia during this operation. This may involve providing additional resources, such as backup teams or specialized equipment, to augment the militia's capabilities and increase their chances of success. Additionally, the commissioner should be prepared to address any potential fallout from the operation, including the possibility of civilian casualties or negative publicity.

Response 3

STRATEGIC FORECAST: The operation to rescue Sheriff Bunchraker from Ken Sterwood's cult compound is unlikely to succeed, given the superior numbers and weaponry of the cult forces. The Green County Militia, despite their good physical health and regular practice at a local gun range, lack formal military training and are equipped with only semi-automatic rifles and civilian camouflage gear. With no clear intelligence on the layout of the compound or the exact location of Sheriff Bunchraker, the risk of personnel loss and material damage is high. PROBABILITY OF OPERATION SUCCESS: 40% The operation has a relatively low chance of success due to the imbalance in forces and lack of intelligence on the cult compound. The Green County Militia's inexperience with formal military training and their limited equipment may result in unnecessary losses. EXPECTED NUMBER OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: MEDIUM There is a moderate risk of civilian casualties due to the cult's possession of fully-automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The compound's fortified nature and lack of clear intelligence on its layout may lead to accidental harm to civilians during the rescue operation. The estimated range of expected civilian casualties is between 5-15 individuals. FORCE MORALE: HIGH The Green County Militia, led by Kevin Darwood with a good personal relationship with Sheriff Bunchraker, are highly motivated to complete the operation successfully. However, their lack of formal military training and limited equipment may affect their ability to maintain morale during the rescue mission. SPECIAL ADVICE TO COMMISSIONER (optional): Commissioner Bradley Oaks should consider providing additional resources to support the Green County Militia, such as trained military personnel or specialized equipment, to increase the likelihood of a successful operation and minimize civilian casualties. Furthermore, intelligence gathering on the cult compound and its forces should be prioritized to gain a strategic advantage before initiating the rescue mission.

[dungeoneering102]

MECHANUS: Culture & Law

(art credit to Chris McDowall’s book - Electric Bastionland)

So I’m currently working on a small two-shot that will take place in Mechanus, the Plane of Absolute Law (from the current D&D cosmology). I’ve been working on designing a point crawl and developing the Capital City of Mechanus, which I named Bastion (a direct rip-off of Chris McDowall’s Electric Bastionland book).

While working on this, I started on my regular process of designing a city, and decided to share some of it with you guys. My first step in designing ANY large settlement. 

The process is simple: break it down into smaller pieces and define what they are. From there, fill each piece with ideas. So join me, as I brainstorm the template for a new city.

Cities as Districts

To better manage a city as DMs, it’s best if we divide them up into smaller segments. Districts or boroughs are good way of doing that. We can further divide those into Streets or Neighborhoods if we need to.

Most cities can be simplified into a few key districts required to run it:

Administrative District. This is where the city government is! This is the king’s court, the guards’ HQ, the city hall, maybe even the city dungeon. It’s the BEST defended and patrolled area. 

Industrial District. A city survives on what it makes. The goods a city produces travel out to generate income. Furthermore, industry provides jobs to the denizens of a city. Every city usually has one or two different industries - from coal mining to rice farming. You can even make up more unique industries that power a city, like film and theater.

Mercantile District. People tend to want stuff - food, furniture, etc. And not everyone is going to make their own stuff. So Merchants come into play. These are craftsmen and salesmen of various goods who provide to people that can’t (or won’t) provide themselves.

Sin District. Every town worth it’s salt has one of these - the slum filled with shining casinos and loud taverns, where people go to forget their worries. It’s vices might not be morally wrong, but they still are vices. 

Poor & Rich Districts. These depend on the city you make. If you want to make an economic utopia or don’t care to highlight different classes of citizens, you can just combine these into Residential District. Otherwise, these are the homes of the poor and the noble, the destitute and the wealthy. There should be obvious differences between these. It’s hard to get into the Rich District due to borders and gates, its hard to get out of Poor Districts due to its sheer size and overwhelming nature. 

Academic District. Most towns have districts dedicated to their schools, academic pursuits, scientific labs, wizard towers, what have you. Here gather the minds of the future!

Recreational Districts. These are parks, art quarters, gardens, and other places of relaxation and distraction that people can visit when they’re feeling bored. These locations may be gated behind status and luxury or they may be open to all who will come by. 

This ☝️ all is of course an oversimplification of what a city makes. But I’m just a DM and I gotta prep a session in 2 days, so I don’t have time for complex systems. Simple and easy. But if you got time and energy, I welcome anyone to come up with more complex systems of city design. If you’re interested, I can share some pointers. Consider:

Ptolus: City by the Spire, by Monte Cook. It’s considered one of the most comprehensive guides to a SINGL city.

Spire: the City Must Fall, by Rowan, Rook, & Decard. It’s a system and a setting, but man what a setting it is.

In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil, by Wolfgang Baur. It’s an old school, D&D 2e guide to Sigil, the city in the center of the universe in the Planescape setting. One of my favorites.

(art credit to Strata: A Spire RPG Sourcebook, by Rowan, Rook, & Decard)

On the other hand, if you want simpler city design ideas, look here:

Electric Bastionland, by Chris McDowell. Check the GM’s section for EXCELLENT advice on quick and easy design of cities, dungeons, and wilderness. 

Fever Dreaming Marlinko, by the Hydra Cooperative. It’s a great pseudo-slavic fantasy city with nice, crunchy details.

Worlds Without Number, by Kevin Crawford. Has one of the BEST DM toolsets I’ve ever seen - including stuff for designing cities. 

[merryfortune]

Ask Me an Interview Question

Written for Femslash February 2024 and the Sweetheart Bingo from @sweetspicybingo

Day 6. Ask Me

Title: Ask Me an Interview Question

Ship: Cameraphoneshipping | Nico/Romin

Word Count: 2,351

Universe: Sevens - Canon Compliant

Rating: T

Tags: Crushes, Confessions, Getting Together, Humour

   If there was one thing which got butts on seats and eyes on the headline, it was news stories about RoaRomin! 

   There was no doubt about it. The Newspaper Club knew this best of all, they were super in tune with their audience, after all, and could state definitively that Goha 7th Elementary School loved to read news stories about their local celebrities. Whether it was gossip raggy drivel about what Kirishima Roa had for lunch or actual hard hitting journalism about the chord progression in their new song, nothing got the general student populace attention quite like RoaRomin.

   However, popularity was a double edged blade.

   As much as the Newspaper club would love to write excessively and obsessively on the most minute of RoaRomin trivia and on-goings, people would eventually get bored. The attraction would fade and the lustre would tire. Not to mention, their group of golden geese would eventually stop taking their calls to bother them so some level of detachment was required.

   Happy muses, happy readers, happy life. Or something like that.

   Hence, it had to be big news - really big news! - to justify the Newspaper Club getting involved in the endless press loop RoaRomin were often involved in. News like, say, the release of a new album. Now that was news and naturally, the Newspaper Club were going to be all over it like black and white on a penguin.

   “Er bad news Nico,” Shinjitsu said to her over the phone, “but I need you to do all the leg work today. Masaru is down for the count with a bad cold so you’re in charge of today’s interview, capiche?”

   Apparently not.

   For all their faffing that they really truly were actually the best journalists in all the school, they really truly were actually not.

   They’d tried.

   They’d done everything right ahead of time. They contacted RoaRomin’s manager for a time slot and managed to work something out. They wrote up the interview ahead of time and even prepped a layout template to put the actual news story content into.

   But now things had gone thumbs up at the last minute.

   “Why can’t you help out?” Nico asked, panicky. She could have dropped her phone because of this bombshell.

   “You’ve seen what I’m like in an interview!” Shinjitsu snapped back over the phone. Then in a smaller voice, he hissed to remind her, “I’m shy.”

   Nico grumbled.

   Gah! Big, dumb, stupid Masaru immune system! Why did it have to go and fail literally the night before a big interview?! It's not like they could simply reschedule it, either. Nico could have literally pulled her hair out of over this but as she finished up her squealing and groaning, she sighed heavily. Fine. She’ll take one for the team and do everything tomorrow.

   “Fine.” she snipped. “I’ll conduct the interview tomorrow, boss.”

   “Thanks, Nico, this is why you’re the best.” Shinjitsu said and he hung up on her quite promptly after that. He sounded way too chipper to push this job onto Nico.

   Nico sighed as she stared at her phone.

   Her lips quivered as she sat up against her wall, she curled up and put her knees under her chin, tucked in against her pillow. This shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe it wouldn’t have been if this wasn’t going to be a big issue of their newspaper or if it had been literally any other topic but Nico just squirmed. She had butterflies in the bottom of her stomach.

   See, here’s the thing… She kind of maybe had a teeny tiny gigantic crush on one very specific member of RoaRomin. Romin. It was Romin. She had a crush on Romin.

   It was somewhere between a normal celebrity crush and a normal schoolgirl crush. After all, they were classmates - insofar as going to the same school - and Romin was famous but there was something a little bit more to it. Nico laughed in hindsight at the duel between Shinjitsu and yuga, with how Romin teased her afterwards.

   That incident had been a good wake-up call for the integrity that they strove for. There was a marked difference in there content pre and post that duel. Like yeah, sure, they spun a tall tale every so often and enjoyed a bit of Photoshop every so often but they were doing much, much better and so Nico had kind of a fondness for it. That moment everything changed.

   Romin was so funny, too. A rockstar who couldn’t sing, who had more sass in her little pinkie finger than most people had in their whole bodies. Her sense of humour was totally on-point. As a result, Nico was totally head over heels. With or without RoaRomin’s legendary, and intimidating, popularity behind them.

   So Nico could only cross all her fingers and toes. Tomorrow would not be a disaster. She would will it into existence. They’d already taken one blow in the form of Masaru’s cold, surely there wouldn’t be another, right?

   “Thanks for waiting, Nico,” Romin said, flashing her a smile as she set down her guitar in the school’s auditorium, neutral ground for them both, “totally unprofessional us but you’ll never believe it! Roa, Ushiro, and Getta are all down with colds. So crazy.”

   Oh, okay. Wrong.

   “Y-Yeah, so crazy.” Nico replied through gritted teeth. “Masaru has a cold, too. Must be, uh, something in the water.”

   “The air probably.” Romin corrected her thoughtfully.

   Nico could have snorted, “Yeah, you're right. The air probably.”

   Romin politely sat down in front of Nico and they had bit of a staring contest for a minute. Nico had everything read. In theory. The papers, the notetaking, the questions but she found her gab unable to open in front of Romin alone. Both of them alone. Except for each other. Sitting on the gymnasium chairs and a sign on the door which said do not disturb.

   “Everything okay?” Romin asked as she uncomfortably changed how she sat, she switched which leg would be tucked under the other.

   “Y-Yes, just, um, gathering my thoughts!” Nico chirped. “Okay, let’s just get right in.”

   “Yeah, nice.” Romin smiled encouragingly.

   It was good to know that there were no harsh feelings because of their last encounter as press and subject.

   Nico shuffled her notes and cleared her throat, “Seven questions for what the students of Goha Sevens Elementary want to know, all good?”

   “All good.” Romin confirmed, excited to get started.

   “Good.” Nico said. “Now, I promise you. They’ll be quick: bang, bang, bang, done.”

   “Awesome.” Romin replied. “Whenever you're ready.”

   Nico nodded decisively, “Itadakimasu, thank you for your time. Question one. Album name?”

   “Go Rush with two exclamation marks.” Romin said.

   Nico took her notes without looking down, keeping unflinching eye contact with Romin from behind her glasses.

   “Question two. Will you be releasing any singles from this album ahead of time as promotional material?” Nico said.

   “Yes. We’ll be releasing two singles.” Romin said. 

   “Names and where they can be streamed?” Nico said. “That’ll be questions three and four. Not a twofer.”

   “Got it.” Romin nodded. “Mirage and One Way. both can be streamed on all good streaming services.” She flashed a smile.

   “Great work. We’re speeding through them.” Nico said. She was scribbling hard, writing down Romin’s answers. “Okay, onto question five. How is everyone feeling about the album? If you can give us a good soundbyte, that’d be appreciated.”

   “No promises.” Romin laughed. “But we’re really proud of the hard work he put in. We’ve really evolved as a band in the past few months and this album reflects that growth. It’ll have a little bit for everyone: rock, pop, grunge, punk, metal, and more. Staying true to ourselves but letting us grow up, too.” Romin ended her spiel with a sheepish laugh.

   Nico cackled as she wrote Romin’s response down verbatim, “And you said you couldn’t promise a good soundbyte.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “What do you call that last bit?”

   “I do some of my best work on the fly.” Romin said and as though on cue, her stomach rumbled.

   She reached down to her school backpack and grabbed a snack. Nico, meanwhile, finished writing up that last bit of her notes.

   “We are doing fantastic, Romin.” Nico said.

   “My pleasure.” Romin said.

   “So here’s question six: any music videos planned?” Nico asked.

   “Yes, at least two but if there’s a dark horse sleeper hit, we’d love to do more.” Romin said. “So, uh, everyone, make sure you buy and stream the heck out of it so we make lots of money to make lots of music videos!”

   “I see, I see,” Nico murmured, with a hint of a snicker to her voice, “and I imagine the two locked in are the same as the singles you intend to release?”

   “Yup.” Romin nodded.

   “Got it, got it, and last one…” Nico said and she took a big, deep breath. This was it. Lucky last. They were tearing through it and were now up to the most important question, “Number seven: did you guys have fun making and recording the album? Any inside jokes and stories?”

   “We had tons of fun and, um, not really? The whole creative process is honestly so dry after a while. Get in, get out. Do a silly song and dance. Literally, Getta has taken up a “lucky dance” as a ritual. It so does not work. He looks like a fool but he swears by it but any time he does it, it makes him so don’t knock it til you rock it? But seriously, he’s only ever come up with a bad idea after doing it.”

   Nico laughed quietly to herself. She could just imagine it, honestly, with no description needed. Something dorky and dweeby. Just perfect. And with that, she could pretty much wrap up the interview.

   “Any closing remarks?” Nico asked, offering Romin the metaphorical microphone.

   Romin hummed thoughtfully. She mulled things over in her mind - this and that, those, too - and Nico could practically see the cogs turning behind her mind. Until those wheels finally went sproing! And broke as she cheerfully replied.

   “Nope, can’t think of anything. I’ve said all my pieces I’ve been coached through.” Romin replied light-heartedly. “You did great, Nico, especially since you just handle the photography side of things normally. Honestly, it’s so much easier talking to another girl than a guy.” She laughed a little bit.

   Nico began to blush furiously. Her teeth chattered. Her knees knocked.

   All throughout the interview process, she had been short and snappy. Any longer and this feeling of torment would have taken over because she could not disagree more. It was not easier talking to another girl than a guy. Or maybe it was because Romin wasn’t just any girl. 

   Nico’s mouth dried. She needed to be done with it. This crush! It was crushing her.

   “Um, actually, Romin, I have one more question. I just thought of it.” Nico said.

   “Go ahead, ask me anything.” Romin said.

   “Will you go out with me?!” Nico squealed as she bowed forward.

   She practically bent at a seventy degree angle in her seat as she thrust forth her confession to Romin. She blushed, she sweated, her whole body went stiff. Nico had never felt more intense about anything in her life and Romin…

   Her jaw dropped, “Eh?!” she exclaimed. "I said ask me an interview question! Not ask me out!"

   That interview question had not been one she had been expecting. Let alone prepped for.

   Nico could feel her blood rush to her head as she waited what felt like an eternity and then some for Romin to reply. And when she didn’t? She did what Nico did best: blabbed her mouth off.

   “I’ve had a crush on you for the past couple months and have been dying to ask you. I think you’re really cute and funny and it would be an honour to take photographs of you any time I like and want to get to know you better and take you on a date!”

   Nico was breathless by the time she finished her elaboration of her confession. Her lungs ached as they emptied of breath. She had pushed out all her thoughts in one big blurting out of everything. There had not been a single comma in there, she could feel it. Shinjitsu would kill her if she ever wrote like that, let alone speak like that but don’t worry. She felt like she was dying even more so than before just contending with her crush. Let alone speaking it out loud to said crush.

   Nico continued to pant as she waited for Romin’s reply. Her fringe flopped in front of her eyes, her glasses slid down her nose and all Nico could hear was the sound of her own blood droning in her ear. She saw a slight movement, however, in front of her.

   Romin adjusted herself again. Crossed and uncrossed her legs, this time behind her ankles rather than over her thighs. She looked away demurely.

   “I-I’ve never been asked out before,” she confessed slightly, “so, um, what the hey? Let’s try it. Let’s hang out sometime, grab a bite to eat somewhere.”

   Nico couldn’t believe her ears. If they ran that in the papers, they would be accused of fanfiction! The gall! But here it was. In real life. She unstuck herself from her head over knees position and drew her hand up in front of her chest, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart.

  “Thank you very much!” Nico exclaimed with a grin. “Can I put that in the paper?”

   “No!” Romin yelled. “Stick to your actual interview!” She blushed but looked adorable to be embarrassed. 

   “A-ah, of course.” Nico said. “And now a picture, for the papers and, um, to commemorate this moment? If you don’t mind.”

   Romin exhaled and her cheeks began to pale, “Yes, Nico, you can take your photos.” She smiled a small smile.

   “Yippee, thank you, Romin!” Nico said as she excitedly snapped her photographs of her now girlfriend.

[mariacallous]

David Wakeling, head of London-based law firm Allen & Overy's markets innovation group, first came across law-focused generative AI tool Harvey in September 2022. He approached OpenAI, the system’s developer, to run a small experiment. A handful of his firm’s lawyers would use the system to answer simple questions about the law, draft documents, and take first passes at messages to clients. 

The trial started small, Wakeling says, but soon ballooned. Around 3,500 workers across the company’s 43 offices ended up using the tool, asking it around 40,000 queries in total. The law firm has now entered into a partnership to use the AI tool more widely across the company, though Wakeling declined to say how much the agreement was worth. According to Harvey, one in four at Allen & Overy’s team of lawyers now uses the AI platform every day, with 80 percent using it once a month or more. Other large law firms are starting to adopt the platform too, the company says.

The rise of AI and its potential to disrupt the legal industry has been forecast multiple times before. But the rise of the latest wave of generative AI tools, with ChatGPT at its forefront, has those within the industry more convinced than ever. 

“I think it is the beginning of a paradigm shift,” says Wakeling. “I think this technology is very suitable for the legal industry.”

Generative AI is having a cultural and commercial moment, being touted as the future of search, sparking legal disputes over copyright, and causing panic in schools and universities. 

The technology, which uses large datasets to learn to generate pictures or text that appear natural, could be a good fit for the legal industry, which relies heavily on standardized documents and precedents.

“Legal applications such as contract, conveyancing, or license generation are actually a relatively safe area in which to employ ChatGPT and its cousins,” says Lilian Edwards, professor of law, innovation, and society at Newcastle University. “Automated legal document generation has been a growth area for decades, even in rule-based tech days, because law firms can draw on large amounts of highly standardized templates and precedent banks to scaffold document generation, making the results far more predictable than with most free text outputs.” 

But the problems with current generations of generative AI have already started to show. Most significantly, their tendency to confidently make things up—or “hallucinate.” That is problematic enough in search, but in the law, the difference between success and failure can be serious, and costly.

Over email, Gabriel Pereyra, Harvey’s founder and CEO, says that the AI has a number of systems in place to prevent and detect hallucinations. “Our systems are finetuned for legal use cases on massive legal datasets which greatly reduces hallucinations compared to existing systems,” he says.

Even so, Harvey has gotten things wrong, says Wakeling—which is why Allen & Overy has a careful risk management program around the technology. 

“We’ve got to provide the highest level of professional services,” Wakeling says. “We can’t have hallucinations contaminating legal advice.” Users who log in to Allen & Overy’s Harvey portal are confronted by a list of rules for using the tool. The most important, to Wakeling’s mind? “You must validate everything coming out of the system. You have to check everything.”

Wakeling has been particularly impressed with Harvey’s prowess at translation. It’s strong at mainstream law, but struggles on specific niches, where it’s more prone to hallucination. “We know the limits, and people have been extremely well informed on the risk of hallucination,” he says. “Within the firm, we’ve gone to great lengths with a big training program.”

Other lawyers who spoke to WIRED were cautiously optimistic about the use of AI in their practice. 

“It is certainly very interesting and definitely indicative of some of the fantastic innovation that is taking place within the legal industry,” says Sian Ashton, client transformation partner at law firm TLT. “However, this is definitely a tool in its infancy and I wonder if it is really doing much more than provide precedent documents which are already available in the business or from subscription services.”

AI is likely to remain used for entry-level work, says Daniel Sereduick, a data protection lawyer based in Paris, France. “Legal document drafting can be a very labor-intensive task that AI seems to be able to grasp quite well. Contracts, policies, and other legal documents tend to be normative, so AI's capabilities in gathering and synthesizing information can do a lot of heavy lifting.”

But, as Allen & Overy has found, the output from an AI platform is going to need careful review, he says. “Part of practicing law is about understanding your client’s particular circumstances, so the output will rarely be optimal.” 

Sereduick says that while the outputs from legal AI will need careful monitoring, the inputs could be equally challenging to manage. “Data submitted into an AI may become part of the data model and/or training data, and this would very likely violate the confidentiality obligations to clients and individuals’ data protection and privacy rights,” he says. 

This is particularly an issue in Europe, where the use of this kind of AI might breach the principles of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which governs how much data about individuals can be collected and processed by companies. 

“Can you lawfully use a piece of software built on that foundation [of mass data scraping]? In my opinion, this is an open question,” says data protection expert Robert Bateman. 

Law firms would likely need a firm legal basis under the GDPR to feed any personal data about clients they control into a generative AI tool like Harvey, and contracts in place covering the processing of that data by third parties operating the AI tools, Bateman says.

Wakeling says that Allen & Overy is not using personal data for its deployment of Harvey, and wouldn’t do so unless it could be convinced that any data would be ring-fenced and protected from any other use. Deciding on when that requirement was met would be a case for the company’s information security department. “We are being extremely careful about client data,” Wakeling says. “At the moment we’re using it as a non-personal data, non-client data system to save time on research or drafting, or preparing a plan for slides—that kind of stuff.”

International law is already toughening up when it comes to feeding generative AI tools with personal data. Across Europe, the EU’s AI Act is looking to more stringently regulate the use of artificial intelligence. In early February, Italy’s Data Protection Agency stepped in to prevent generative AI chatbot Replika from using the personal data of its users. 

But Wakeling believes that Allen & Overy can make use of AI while keeping client data safe and secure—all the while improving the way the company works. “It’s going to make some real material difference to productivity and efficiency,” he says. Small tasks that would otherwise take valuable minutes out of a lawyer’s day can now be outsourced to AI. “If you aggregate that over the 3,500 lawyers who have got access to it now, that’s a lot,” he says. “Even if it’s not complete disruption, it’s impressive.”

[digitalclasses0]

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