#there are a LOT of image requests in the pipeline that I can see that I'm gonna try and answer today

[reactionimagesdaily]

Do you still have that reaction image that's like Thomas Sanders and two other people in a car making faces and being generally chaotic? i need it for an art reference please help me

Alas, I looked through as many of his videos w/ cars in them as I could find, but I didn't find anything that could fit with what you're asking for, I'm afraid :(

If anyone else might have the image anon means, feel free to submit 'em, as always!

(also I'm SO sorry how long it took to answer this I've only just now been able to get to my inbox)

[megumi-fm]

this week on megumi.fm ▸ media analysis brainrot

📋 Tasks

💻 Internship ↳ setup Linux system on alternate drive (this took me wayy more time than i anticipated) ✅ ↳ install yet more dependencies ✅ ↳ read up on protein folding and families + CATH and SCOP classifications ✅ ↳ download protein structure repositories ✅ ↳ run protein modeller pipeline ✅ ↳ read papers [3/3] ✅ ↳ set up a literature review tracker ✅ ↳ code for a program to parse PDB files to obtain protein seq ✅ 🎓 Uni Final Project our manuscript got a conditional acceptance!! ↳ revise and update manuscript and images according to changes mentioned ✅ 🩺 Radiomics Projects ↳ feature extraction from radiomics data using variance-based analysis ✅ ↳ setup LASSO regression (errors? look into this) 📧 Application-related ↳ collect internship experience letter ✅ ↳ collect degree transcripts ✅ ↳ request for referee report from my prof ✅

📅 Daily-s

🛌 consistent sleep [6/7] (binge watched too much TV and forgot about bed time booo) 💧 good water intake [5/7] (need to start carrying a bottle to work) 👟 exercise [4/7] (I really need to find time between work to move around)

Fun Stuff this week

🧁 met up with my bestfriends! we collected the mugs we painted last year and gifted them to each other! we also surprised one of our besties by showing up at her place. had waffles too ^=^ 📘 met up with another close friend for dinner! hung out at a bookshop after <3 ���back at game videos: watched this critique on a time loop game called 12 minutes //then i switched up and got super obsessed with this game called The Beginner's Guide. I watched a video analysis on it, then went on to watch the entire gameplay, then read an article on the game's concept and what it means to analyze art and yeah. wow. after which I finally started playing the game with my best friend!! 📺 ongoing: Marry my Husband, Cherry Magic Th, Last Twilight 📺 binged: Taikan Yoho (aka My Personal Weatherman), Hometown Cha Cha Cha 📹 Horror Storytelling in the internet era

📻 This week's soundtrack

so. the Taikan Yoho brainrot was followed by me listening entirely to songs that evoked similar emotions to watching the main couple. personal fav emotions include a love that feels like you could die, a love that feels like losing yourself, a love that makes you feel like you could disappear, a love asking to be held, a love that reminds you that you're not alone, and a love that feels like a promise <3

---

[Jan 15 to 21; week 3/52 || I am having a blast at work ♡ I feel like I'm really learning and checking out a lot of cool stuff. That being said, I think I'm slacking when it comes to my daily routines in regards to my health. and I'm spending wayy too much time chained to my desk. maybe I'll request for an option to work from home so that I can cut on time taken on commute and spend that time exercising or walking

also. my obsession with tv shows is getting a bit. out of hand I think. not that it's particularly an issue? but I think I should switch back to my unread pile of books (or resume magpod) instead of spending my evenings on ki**a*ian. this could be unhealthy for my eyes in the long run, considering my work also involves staring at a screen all day. let's see.]

[akash1618]

3 apr. thursday

a 333 in the morning. was late today by 5 minutes, and the bus had left, so had to get the next.

so no 312. a 39 came, and i hopped in.

wearing the green striped, white shirt. very loose, but perfect for summer.

got down at agripada, at around 9:25. wanted to get into an auto, but couldn't get any. i started walking, and walked till the vakola pipeline bus stop, until i finally got into one at 9:40. fare was 70.

late today. reached at 10.

had a coffee at 11, along with sunny.

too much work today.

i have started talking to a few people around my desk. it's actually that they come up to me to ask about lior. no one here knows this name though. i haven't told anyone that i have named my little buddy 🪴 it's as if my little friend has many admirers :) they ask me about water schedule, remind me to keep it in the sunlight. thank you everyone!

lunch. i went a bit late. guys had chosen a high desk. the same usual one, the one far from the tennis table. i got a seat on the outside, facing the canteen counter. and well, she was sitting at the desk closest to the canteen counter, facing the counter as well. i could see her.

it was a fun lunch. haha. sunny's friend had given him a lunchbox, so he didn't have to buy from the counter. everyone was teasing him, and do i ever step back when it comes to tease him? haha. no.

she went to wash her hands, and when she came back, our eyes met for a second. it was as if we had switched places from yesterday. she left.

i ate slowly. everyone left, and i was sitting alone. tried to use pinterest, but i remembered that i should not use mobile while eating, so kept it back.

meh. work.

feels shameful even while logging this. evening. canteen. i got a burger, my first time trying it from here. sunny told the sales intern about her. it's as if he'll just tell everyone he meets, so that everyone could joke around how i am unable to talk to her despite being this long. yea, i even understand that it's been six months now :( my life precisely took a turn on 4 october last year, when our sitting places were changed. it was navratri iirc. i don't remember which colour though. must be green or yellow.

sales intern said that 'she' looks as if she has a lot of attitude. yo? what? "she's simply bold and confident." "you don't have to sugarcoat." "sugarcoat? really? she's just herself." well, sales intern says that she can help me set up with her. and how? she makes an acquaintance, and then introduces me as a friend. i really don't know how this stuff works. i have only seen this in fiction. but i requested to not to. why should anyone else get their image spoilt because of me? it'd be a harsh thing to do.

intern then said that i should look at her and smile. ik right. but the stare should last for at least three to five seconds to warrant a smile right? "then you can just compliment her - hey nice dress, or nice earrings." isn't it random to get a compliment from someone you don't talk to? i clarified that she knows that i like her because of how frequently i keep looking at her. "so it's good for you right? she knows your intentions." isn't it more tough though? what do you just say then?

sunny calls me a fool in love, who feels deeply and says nothing. ik, and also know that it's an insult.

and to my surprise, she came up? it's good that she did, but? idk, i thought she had stopped coming at the canteen in the evening. sunny got a chance to show the sales intern about who is he talking about. and they continued with their jokes, and i stopped replying because i didn't know where she was sitting (i was facing the window).

while leaving, i saw her. she was sitting alone, working on her laptop. sunny started calling out my name. shut up idiot. i returned from the washroom, and saw her. as i passed from in front of her. she was sitting alone, using her mobile, proly not working. perfect moment to talk. what's more is that she didn't even appear intimidating this time. my feet halted, hesitated, and started moving forward again. we again had a brief stare until i broke it. just how much of an idiot am i? why can't i just walk up to her and speak? and then i'd blame god for my inability? oh, disability actually. having a mouth, and still being shut. how could i not hate myself? it's not that people are born with communication skills, idiot. talking to people is such a basic skills, and you even fail at that. do you even deserve to live?

but as i walked past her, it hit me - as if i am standing on a cliff, waiting to jump in the water, but it's like my body won't let me. i very well also realise that it's my previous fear of rejection that stops me, but now? now of all time and places? i have never in my whole life felt so deeply for anyone before, so why do i hesitate now? standing up in front of her and talking to her is no less than crossing heavens for me. it's going to be very difficult. but...

i have decided. it has to be april. either this way, or that way. it's good if something happens between us or i go and speak to her, or i must forget thinking about her. if nothing sparks by the end of this month, i'll stop thinking about her. what good are feelings if i cannot act on them? i will talk to her in this month ( hopefully 😭 ) it's like tormenting myself needlessly, when all i need to do is talk to her once.

as i walked down the stairs, utterly disappointed in myself. dazai's quote hit hard - what is more painful? to be the one who waits, or to be the one who makes others wait?

my mind has been chaos. so many things being invoked all at once.

left at 8:20 after seeing that a 312 would arrive in 16 min. a 181 went from right in front of my eyes. that 312 never came. it disappeared from the app. next 312 was scheduled in another 14 min, and it never came as well.

got a 312 finally at around 9:20. the app always plays a joke with me.

why am i unable to do anything? why do i hesitate? i can totally see that my efforts of getting to talk to at least one of her coworkers are all being useless. i haven't formed a single connection despite trying. should i actually rely on this method after all this long? it's clearly not for me. i find it extremely difficult to talk to people when i have an ulterior motive. it's not that i don't talk to people. i talk to a lot of people from the hub. and it's usually a free-spirited talk. but when it comes to talk to someone from which i would benefit, i get nervous.

is april end a reasonable deadline? or is your perfect timing going to take even longer to arrive? god, i'd definitely need your help in this. please do the needful. i cannot do it alone. a little help? a little push? a heavy push? please be kind to me for this once. can there not be a common interaction ground? like shared music taste or hobby or smth? ik it's impossible to figure in the professional environment, but somehow smth? shared circle or smth? i tried but it didn't work.

the more i think, the more hesitation i feel.

no hunger. no dinner. cleared my drafts.

[killemwithkawaii]

Hiiii!, this is an idea I got thanks to a TikTok video that said "Imagine a parallel world where real people are characters from anime, videogames, etc. And your favorite character creates fanfics and fanarts about you." I can't help but imagine Fisher writing on Tumblr about the s/o lol.

Holy shit Holy Shit HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT-

Sally as a Selfshipper-

[CW: self depreciation, unreality]

>When he first sees S/O, he could swear a chorus of angels had begun to sing and had swept him right off his feet. He couldn't take his eye off of S/O for a few minutes, absolutely and undeniably smitten, before he realized what just happened and felt pretty embarrassed about it. He knows he can't set his standards for a romantic partner very high, but they should at least be real… right?

>Denial about his feelings/ 'I just think (media) is neat' ➡ Bargaining/ 'I'll just look up the wiki pages and articles about the show. Saving a few images won't hurt, right?' ➡ Depression/Anger/ 'God, I'm really in love with some pixels I am such a loser.' ➡ Gradual Acceptance/'Everyone thinks I'm a weirdo anyway this might as well happen' pipeline

>I'd bet he'd be a lurker in the selfship and f/o tags for a long time, liking a bunch of imagine posts and images of S/O but leaving his page pretty bare besides the necessary info to interact with certain blogs. He resisted posting his own content until his feelings for S/O grew too big to keep in, and he knew people in the selfshipping community would understand what he was going through.

>When posting those dreaded first few gushes didn't kill him instantly, he started posting a few times a week, and all of his content is so goddamn romantic! Lots of pining under screenshots he took of S/O, sappy poetry/songs, painstakingly selected playlists, some personally-tailored imagines and a few cute little doodles on lined paper that he did his best on and was feeling brave enough to post (because he was thinking of S/O encouraging him 💘)

>And then he would have a venty (occasionally horny) sideblog that is technically unlinked to his main but he's not good at hiding it and everyone in the community is like 'oh yeah thats his side blog we didnt think it was a secret??' Reblogs lots of angst/comfort fics, quotes about the universe and love that isn't meant to be, "At least my fictional bf/gf thinks I'm cute" posts, etc.

>Might eventually make one or two selfship friends that he DMs, but definitely has some silent mutuals that pop up in his notes.

>Has sent in a few anonymous requests to fic writers that he will not admit to. He doesn't use sign-offs, but you can always guess he requested them because he's the first to like them. His emoji use and the way he types gives him away, too.

>Says he's fine sharing S/O because he doesn't want to be 'that guy,' but he is 'that guy' and quietly blocks the selfship tags of people that also F/O them.

>Nobody IRL can know ever know about his selfshipping or his crush on S/O EVER (but his friends have a feeling. And eyes.)

>Has one (1) self-insert that is just him but without the prosthetic and mental illness and trauma (and maybe a little taller than his IRL self)

>Consumes S/Os media regularly, but prefers to do so alone so he can stare, swoon and longingly sigh in private.

>Chronic (occasionally maladaptive) f/o daydreamer

>"I'm not ''''In looooove~''''' with [media]/[S/O]!" (Said while shoving a mountain of merch into his closet)

[archiveofprolbems]

On Space Art by Xin Liu & Xin Wang

Xin Liu, Orbit Weaver, 2017. Production still of artist's performance during a parabolic flight. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo by Steve Boxell.

During the prolonged lockdown that defined much of 2020, the Xinjiang-born, New York-based artist and engineer Xin Liu juggled multiple roles. These included participating in a volunteering network that supplied PPE to medical workers in dire need of protection against Covid-19; designing an indie game, Sleepwalk (2020), which reflected on the conditions of confinement and hyper-connectivity; engineering a series of hypnotic sound experiences with her partner Gershon Dublon titled The Wandering Mind (2020), which guides the dreams of a sleeping audience with source materials organized by an AI system; and live-streaming an ambient soundscape recorded on Whitehead Island, off the coast of Maine, for the Camden International Film Festival.1

As the Arts Curator at MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative and an artist who makes work for exhibition spaces, film festivals, and astronautical conferences, Liu’s ongoing fascination with space as a medium and destination for new art has seen her send a wisdom tooth into outer space, cultivate potato seeds that had travelled to the International Space Station, and imagine weightlessness as an intimate, “body-opening” condition. In this interview, we spoke about the past lives and expansive futures of Space Art, her unique mixture of academic and identitarian backgrounds, and the creative strategies of innovation and resistance while working at the juncture of art and technology.

Xin Wang: You’ve recently been referred to as a “famous space artist” in a panel discussion poster, which suggests that this is a solidified genre.

Xin Liu: It is a genre! If you google “Space Art,” there’s a Wikipedia page that defines it, though it’s very much about visual artists depicting the vision of space exploration, like images of Martian colonies, weightlessness, spaceships, etc. It was also called Astronomical Art, with notable artists such as Chesley Bonestell. These artists really tried to define the aesthetics of space, which even changed the way we would later color actual scientific images captured through different telescopes. Even now, if you look at NASA’s art programs, that’s still basically the main concept. Slowly it diverged into art in space, or art that uses space and environmental textures for creation, experimentation, and storytelling.

For me, Space Art conceptually connects more to Land Art in the seventies; the questions they were asking—regarding spatial-temporal dimensions and the way we engage with geological transformation—are more related. However, there is this jump in the Space Art medium from astronomical paintings right away to “art in space.” It is a gap in our understanding of Space Art; in my position as the Space Art curator at MIT, I have made sure to take into account Land Art, science fiction, and so on, in lectures.

XW: What questions do you want to ask with your Space Art?

XL: First of all, the duality in our perception of the world: being a human being walking, eating, sleeping, drinking, and laughing on this planet; and on the other hand, knowing that we exist on a gigantic rock spinning around another hot rock in endless space. The epistemological jump is exciting but also problematic when we distance one from the other. People talk about science versus culture as if they are the polar opposites. I’m trying to reconcile the two views of the world and find places to live in-between. My other interest has more to do with the body, our sensations, our death, and the cycles of life and materials.

XW: Your works have always struck me as poetic—you sent one of your wisdom teeth into space in Living Distance (2019), which was inspired by childhood folktales and executed with robust engineering. But the whole debate around the idea that culture and science are antithetical has a long history. Susan Sontag wrote about it in the sixties, for example; what are you seeing in terms of new manifestations of, and challenges to, that tension?

XL: The philosopher Yuk Hui has proposed the concept of cosmotechnics, which argues that science and technology aren’t objective but are born of human cultures. One of my current projects, Unearthing Futures, is a collaboration with the Peruvian artist Lucia Monge, the International Potato Center in Lima, and the International Space Station (ISS).2 We are interested in potato history as human history; native to Peru, the potato’s journey becoming one of the most widely grown crops in the world mirrors colonial history. As we set foot and grow crops beyond the earth bond, one option here is to engineer the perfect potato that survives all conditions, while the other is to trust the possibilities of biodiversity, where a consortium of diverse species that are mutually dependent yields a higher chance of survival in extreme environments. Both are questions of science and technology, but at the same time they reflect philosophies—ones about how we survive.

We selected six varieties of native Peruvian potatoes with different characteristics, sent the potato seeds to the ISS to spend a month in microgravity, and exposed them to environment stressors such as radiation. The project has not grown potatoes in space, but it’s a significant step to understanding how environmental stressors affect thesis seeds. Having harvested the first generation in our respective studios, we plan to grow multiple generations and increase the numbers that we can process. Maybe in the fourth or fifth generation we can cook them and use them in workshops that involve the general public (we are working with public elementary schools in Portland) to think about the possibilities of food and agriculture in space exploration. Space potatoes are the protagonists in our stories and would facilitate these dialogues.

XW: When we were reviewing proposals for Sojourner 2020, an open call for artworks to be sent into low earth orbit by the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, there were equally visible tendencies to flatten the crossover between art and technology into very gimmicky projects. In your position as both curator and artist working in this increasingly hyped juncture of art and tech, what are some of your goals and challenges?

XL: With the dropping costs of space launches and privatization, we are entering the New Space Age. Space Art is truly at the frontier now (no pun intended). There are many amazing art practitioners I’ve been able to invite to MIT and imagine together what this practice can be. The artist Agnes Meyer-Brandis, for example, created The Moon Goose Colony, where she trained geese on planetary science and different flight patterns to prepare them for the Moon.3 She even incubated and hatched the eggs herself. In 42-The Large Meteor T-R-A-P (2014), she uses electronic magnetic devices to guide the movement of meteorites, which can be viewed as a planetary defense system. In fact, the first planetary defense systems launched by NASA (the Double Asteroid Redirection Test) this past year also had to do with devices latching onto the meteorites to change their course of movement. I really like projects that are ambitious, beautifully executed, and which explore scientific possibilities as well as artistic ones. Unapologetically inserting yourself into other domains is also something I’m passionate about.

XW: What are some examples of such insertions?

XL: I recently had a conversation with the researcher Weng Jia, who looked into the detailed history of weather satellites beyond the pragmatics of weather forecast—itself a form of weather control that generates state power. It’s important to understand that history, but at the same time we can ask, as cultural producers, what now? We can either involve public engagement and sign petitions to request open access, or we can learn from the hackers—there are so many amateur enthusiasts who eavesdrop on state-owned radio signals, and through listening we are able to understand so much already. During the pandemic, my partner Gershon Dublon and I have tinkered with software-defined radio. Using just a tiny, 20-dollar USB dongle with an antenna we built from our clothing wires, we could receive the signals from retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather satellites as they pass through the sky.

Even before the pandemic, my partner was looking into personal monitoring of air traffic, as most aircrafts have to broadcast their locations after reaching 18,000 ft. This was a fun plane-tracking activity at home. But later on we were put in touch with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, who were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline encroaching their territories. They were being illegally harassed and even sprayed with unknown chemicals by aircraft flying over their encampment, but couldn’t track the perpetrators. We helped them set up the aforementioned system using a computer, a 20-dollar dongle, and electrical metal wires, with which they were actually able to “see,” ID, and track the aircraft. Using that data and US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the water protectors were able to pursue their harassers and hold them accountable. Is it art practice? I think it’s important and exciting to examine the “wall”; there’s no wall that’s perfect—there are always cracks. You can find things between the breaks and slowly percolate, and, in a way, take back those powers—I found those processes most exciting.

XW: I think this is a powerful approach that counters the general pessimism towards big tech, technocratic states, and surveillance to the point that people don’t even want to think about the possibilities of cracks.

XL: But that’s a facade, and I don’t know who marvelously crafted it. A lot of these things, such as the radio, are not so complicated. Given a week and the internet, most people can figure it out; it’s not rocket science. You know who is most interested in amateur radio nowadays? The fifty-plus generation, sometimes grandpas. There is a big community in Staten Island in New York. However, in the arts, these systems and disciplines are rendered unfathomable, which prohibits further investigation. That’s the problem.

XW: When you were speaking about “the cracks in the wall” earlier, I had a very dark thought—in the future, planetary warfare will look drastically different and be much more deadly than the wars currently taking place on Earth.

XL: Future wars may not be quite so physical as we imagine—the virus is a powerful model for what could happen. It shows how fragile and resilient humans are; cyberattack, trade wars, geoengineering manipulation of nature—these are all struggles on different planetary scales, and we have to constantly self-educate as citizens and decode what the decision makers are actually saying.

XW: You received your undergraduate training at Tsinghua University, which is known for its rigorous focus on scientific training and as a place that has groomed many of China’s top technocratic leaders. It’s also considered the Chinese counterpart of MIT, where you completed a graduate program. How do those experiences compare and inform your trajectory?

XL: When I was in Tsinghua, I studied mathematics, physics, and mechanical engineering; my degree was in precision instruments. Nowadays I still practice them in my sculpture in its manufacturing and fabricating processes. It’s a craft. I later went to Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), not because I wanted to be an artist, but out of a sad realization. In China, we separated art and science education since high school, and my liberal arts education was limited.

It was a selfish desire to study fine arts after college just to become a “complete” human being. I am very grateful that my parents didn’t disapprove this decision. At the time I told myself that I’d probably still end up working for Google and Microsoft; I had interned at both places during graduate school, thinking that’s how I would make a living eventually. But those two years were transformative and gave me an absolutely new way of looking at the world. Even graduating with an MFA from RISD, I still couldn’t commit a hundred percent to being a professional artist, as it is really difficult financially. I’m a practical immigrant. I had to figure out a way to stay in the country and feed myself. Then I went to MIT, because it was fully funded and I had the luxury to do research; after another two years in school, I decided that I wanted to work freely, and “artist” is the title that offers the most freedom.

XW: Do you still believe that?

XL: I do. If you tell people you are an artist, whatever you do doesn’t surprise them as much. It’s harder to talk about sending a tooth to space as a physicist.

XW: I’m struck by the way you describe gravity as a “momentum of feelings” on your website.

XL: That’s something I was thinking about when I first experienced weightlessness in 2017, during a parabolic flight. The plane literally free-falls in the sky, and in reference to the cabin, everything inside the plane is weightless. I had a bit of a performance background in dance. The experience was shocking: there was no “free from gravity”—gravity is always there. It was just everything falling together. The experience was less about me floating or flying than about the ground beneath me dropping. It’s not liberating in the way that you are accelerating and going up, which is what we associate with space exploration probably, but rather a kind of letting-go and descending. It was an eye-opening—body-opening—experience for me, and a bitter-sweet moment as well.

XW: Speaking of bodies and embodiment, do you find this excessive attention to—often performances of—an artist’s identity shows up more or less or differently for you, given the curious juncture of disciplines and identities you inhabit?

XL: It depends on who is seeing me. The tech aspect of me can seem alarming to people who are used to traditional practices, and in the so-called media/tech/science art world, gender might manifest more. The audience decides who I am. My name reads as gender-neutral in both English and Chinese. Sometimes people assume I’m a man initially, because I’m working with technology; but a bit more engagement with the work might compel one to realize that I could be a woman, because of the way I deal with technology. Still deeper into it, you might realize I’m Asian.

Another interesting aspect comes from the fact that I don’t just participate in art events; I also present my works at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), where it’s just pleasing to see my portrait—that of a young Asian woman—next to attendees that are largely from different demographics. And I enjoy that—inserting myself in different systems. It’s not just gender, but also geographic. I am an outlier in many ways—I went to a military-affiliated high school, so the instinct to fit in was strong growing up. But here, as people of color and women, we naturally stand out and have more identities. It could be tiring but it’s also our power—meaning that we can potentially empathize with more people. People like you and me—when we talk about America in a positive light in China or criticize the Chinese government, we are perceived as brainwashed by Western liberalism; but when we talk about Chinese companies like WeChat positively here, or the effective Covid-19 responses and technological innovations in China, we’d be considered brainwashed in the other direction too.

XW: I always feel that exposure to different systems of brainwash leads to utmost clarity. What do you think the future of space art will be, or what you hope it could be like?

XL: I think it will mature like digital art, bio art, internet art, AR/VR art—all these sub-domains. I read extensively on space policies, which obviously figure prominently on many nation states’ agendas. At the IAC conference in 2020, eight national space agencies just signed the Artemis Accords, which is an international agreement on the principles for corporations and civil explorations for the moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids. Particularly notable is the encouragement and protection for private entities to participate in the future of space exploration, and its effect on commercial activities will be significant; even the ISS is going through a commercialization process already. Space will become more commercial and privatized; it will engender more conversations and force us to be involved and investigate the industry.

XW: What’s your favorite Space Art piece?

XL: I was struck by Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment (1985) when I first knew about it. I have been (and am still) confined in my apartment due to the pandemic. It is the absolute desire to break the ceiling and get out. Though both are heading towards outer space, the Soviet campaign in space exploration and a personal desire to leave, to be free, cannot be more different. In fact, one is defeating the other.

_____________________

Xin Liu (b. 1991, Xinjiang/China) is an artist and engineer. She is the Arts Curator in the Space Exploration Initiative in MIT Media Lab, a member of New INC in New Museum, and a studio resident in Queens Museum. She is also an artist-in-residence in SETI Institute and the recipient of numerous awards and residencies.

Xin Wang is a curator and art historian based in New York. She is currently planning an exhibition that explores Asian Futurisms for The Museum of Chinese in America, New York. While pursuing her PhD in art history at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, she’s also been conducting a series of public zoom webinars on topics of technology, new media, and Asian American perspectives for the Whitney Museum of American Art since spring 2020.

Source: https://www.art-agenda.com/features/372727/on-space-art

[stuck-in-hawkins]

Of Boredom and Makeup

Fic request for @willbyersbowlcutisgay :)))

Will laid down, his headphones plugged into his stereo, listening to the ethereal strings of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” weave together a story in his mind.  He was close to an idea for a drawing.  He was getting a general idea of various pictures, but he didn’t have the thread to bind them together.  Something to make a coherent plot.  It didn’t matter if people couldn’t see the whole story from one painting.  He needed to know it first.

This drawing assignment was the only thing left to do.  The suspension for fighting would last the week, but the work had been done, at least for him.  The remainder of his days would likely be spent tutoring El.  She was wicked smart, particularily in science and math, but years in a lab hadn’t taught her the subtleties of the English language.  The party had tried to catch her up, taking turns tutoring her in one subject or another.  Now, it was just Will, Jonathan, and Joyce.  

Most of yesterday had been spent trying to help her with the workload.  But she  got easily frustrated and it had been a trying day.  Today, they were taking a break.  Will heard the crackle of the record as the brass in the song faded and listened as the sounds escalated and welcomed him to the machine.  An idea crawling out, haunting images from the movie Metropolis, pipelines and steam turning into a creature with an open mouth consuming, feasting.

He felt a shadow on his face.  He opened his eyes and saw El standing over him.

He gasped and threw off his headphones.  “Jesus, El!”

She seemed surprised by his reaction and immediately apologetic.  Will forgot sometimes how childlike she really was.  

He softened his tone, “Is everything alright?”

She held up the Walkman he let her borrow.  “Out of batteries.”

“Oh.  Crap.  Okay.  We’ll have to get some next time we go to the store.”  He popped it open and saw she was listening to the David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.  A smile lit up his face.  “Do you like it?”

El nodded.  

Will took the tape out. “Do you want to listen to it in my room?”

El brightened at the idea, “Sure.” 

 He pressed the stop button, moved the needle off record, and took his headphones out.  He put the tape in the bottom section of the stereo that played cassettes and hit play.  The room filled with a dance between the piano and Bowie’s vocals.  Will’s grin hadn’t faded.  He got his sketchbook out at his desk.  

“I’m gonna draw for a bit.  You can bring whatever you want in here.”  

El got the magazines, mirror, and make up bag from her room.  She set herself up on the floor.  Will saw this out of the corner of his eye and stifled a sigh.  Just when he had thought they had something in common, he’d been reminded of how different they really were.  

He couldn’t understand her.  She had so many conflicting things.  She was this total badass but also sensitive like a child and then she’d do totally girly things that just drove him crazy.  What did Mike even see in her?  

And there was a pang, like a string out of tune.  There it was.  The underlying reason for it all.  Will hadn’t put words to it.  He didn’t want to.  There would be so much to admit.  So many ugly words he didn’t want to face.  He pulled out his charcoal and blackened his fingers in the tactile material.  He let himself get absorbed in the motions, the values, the dark shadows and gradients.

He didn’t bring his head up until he heard the click of the tape.  He realized it was probably close to lunchtime.  “Hey El,” he turned, “Do you want something to-”

But he didn’t finish.  He couldn’t.  Because when she’d turned, he saw the face of Ziggy Stardust.  Perfectly rendered.  The golden sun on her forehead, the red and gold on her eyes fading as they spread off her lids and into her bone structure.  His mouth hung open.  

“Does it look okay?” She asked.

He couldn’t fathom it.  She was every bit the badass he had thought.  And holy shit.  She actually WAS artistic.  She could draw little more than stick figures, it had been a creative outlet that had been stolen from her as a child, and she got much too frustrated with her lack of progress to try at all.  But, at putting on colored powder, she was a Van Gogh and Will admired her for it.  

He realized he hadn’t said anything.  “El… that’s amazing.  How did you do that?”

She held up a picture from a magazine: The Rolling Stones.  

“Just from the picture?  No tutorial or anything?”

She shook her head.  “Just the picture.”

“That’s incredible.”

She beamed.  

“Umm.. Are you hungry?”  He asked.

She nodded.  He scrubbed the charcoal from his hands in the kitchen and made them both PB&J.  But he couldn’t get an idea out of his head.  It was embarrassing and he didn’t want to say it.  He didn’t want to ask.  After lunch she grabbed a stack of napkins.  

Will tilted his head.  “What are you doing?”

“Wiping it off.”

“What?!  But you just finished!  You’re not going to keep it on?”

“I wanna try the other one.”  

Will straightened.  “The one with the lightning bolt?”

She nodded.  Will looked at the clock.  They had a while before anyone came home.  Long enough to… No.  No.  It was ridiculous to even think it.

There was an intense internal struggle.  But the idea of looking in the mirror and seeing Bowie looking back at him was too strong.  “Youcoulduseme,” he blurted.  

Her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.  “What?”

Will averted his eyes, “You can use me.  For the makeup.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

Will shook his head, looking away. “I don’t like make up or anything.  But you worked so hard on that.  And it looks incredible.  It would be like washing artwork down the drain.  And it’s only because it’s Ziggy Stardust.  I was thinking of being him for Halloween, anyway.”  

He stopped his ramblings, feeling like he was blabbering to an empty room.  When he looked back at El, she was practically glowing, “It’s artwork?”

Will nodded.  “Of course.”

She turned back still beaming.  He followed her to the bedroom.  A knot suddenly settling in his stomach.  All the things people would say if they saw.  But who was there to see?  It was less that others would see, it was that he would know what they’d say.  That maybe all those things they said would be right.  What if he enjoyed it?  Would that make him the fairy everyone thought he was?  

He sat down in front of El and looked at the magazine with David Bowie’s visage looking back.  He wondered if Bowie was ever called that.  What if he’d listened to them?  How much of his art would he have cut himself off from?  How much expression would he have silenced?  The thought was strong enough to ward off his worries.  The negative words still chattered, but he mentally told them to piss off. 

El picked up her palette and brush.  She held the colors up to his face and looked back at the picture.  Will watched her work.  She laid out all the cast off make up given to her by Nancy and began selecting her colors, moving them in front of Will.  She held out her hand to Will and he looked at her curiously.

She said, “I need your hand.  To try the colors.”

“Oh!”  He gave her his hand and she picked up a shimmery white and applied it to the back of his hand.  Her touch was warm and delicate as she held his hand.  He thought the sensation of the brush would tickle, but it didn’t.  It just felt nice.  He relaxed while she doused his hand in eyeshadow.  Once she was satisfied with the color selection, she moved onto his face.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

He did and felt his nerves ripple as she touched the brush to his cheeks.  He wasn’t used to his face being touched.  He realized how much trust this required and wondered if that was why girl friendships were so different than guy ones.  They had an open trust.  Not that he didn’t trust his friends.  But it was different.  If any one of the guys in their party sat down with his eyes closed, there was a 50/50 chance someone would fart or burp in their face.  It just was that way and Will had never questioned it.  But this was so… gentle.  

He felt like a canvas and it was a strange experience.  It involved a lot of waiting.  But the experience was overall pleasant and he didn’t want it to end.  At least until she got to the eyes.  

“Stop squinting.”  She said, annoyed.

He opened a eye.  “It’s kind of hard when-”

“Close them!”

He shut his eye again.  “When you are putting something directly on my eye.  It’s instinct to squint.”

“Raise your eyebrows and you won’t squint.”

Will tried and forced himself to keep his eyelids taut.  

When she got to his forehead, she clipped his bangs with bobby pins to the top of his head.  Having his hair touched just about put him to sleep.  He found himself wishing that it wasn’t just something assigned to girls.  He wished that guys had been allowed to do that stuff too, instead of having to wait for a haircut to have such affection to be bestowed.  He wondered if it was wrong to question that though.  

Her hands left his face and he opened his eyes.  She looked him over and nodded.  “I think… it’s done.”

Will sat up, excited and also a little nervous.  “Can I look?”  

She nodded.  He took his time getting to the mirror.  Will worried that he might look ridiculous.  Maybe it had all been a trick and his trust a slap in the face.  But when he got to the mirror and saw Ziggy staring back, he felt stinging at the back of his eyes.  He couldn’t help it. 

The trademark lightning bolt was striking across his face and the red glow flowing from his eyes seemed like some power had washed over him.  He felt stronger.  He felt powerful, like he had something no one could take away.  In that moment, he loved the person he was, wholly and completely.  The makeup was a mask, but it reflected more of himself than he’d ever let show.  In that moment he accepted himself exactly as he was.  

He knew the moment was fleeting and he’d go back to facing the demons in his mind.  He’d have to hear his mental record play the same discouraging songs about his shortcomings, his flaws, the things that made him believe he was broken.  But right now, none of it mattered.  In this moment, he knew he was stronger than all that.

“It’s perfect.”  He said.  He looked back at El in her Bowie make up and a thought popped into his head of her being his fairy godmother.  And he chuckled.  He felt happy and ridiculous and overwhelmingly grateful.  He wrapped his arms around her without a second thought.  

The affection surprised her and a warm smiled nestled into her cheeks.  She leaned her head on his shoulder into the embrace, thankful to finally have a brother.  

They played as many Bowie albums as they could while Will worked on a new drawing.  This one was filled to the brim with color.  He used colored pencils for general outlines of his own silhouette and filled it with color from his chalk pastels.  He drew bright streams of sun that broke through clouds, which looked like the nebulas he’d seen in his astronomy books.  There were streaks of lightning going to the edges of the paper.  He hoped it conveyed the strength he had felt, the beauty of the moment he’d seen in the mirror.  He’d have to ask Jonathan when he got home.  El wasn’t one for interpreting artwork but she was enthralled at watching his creative process.  

They didn’t take the makeup off until after both Jonathan and Joyce got back.  Joyce insisted that Jonathan take their picture.  When the pictures were developed, El kept one on her vanity and Will kept one in his drawer.  He’d take it out on dark moments when the inner monologue got too loud, when he needed to remember his own strength.  Sometimes it worked, but not always.  When it didn’t, he knew he could go into El’s room and he’d let her practice her craft on him.

[wiremagazine]

MIGHTY KINGS: THE FABULOUS DUO BEHIND RICK AND THE GRIFFOPOTAMUS LAUNCH THEIR OWN MERCHANDISE LINE

By Martin Moore | Photos provided by Rick Twombley & Griff King

Over 700,000 followers, on multiple platforms including Instagram, tune into the adventures on Rick and The Griffopotamus, where Rick Twombley and his hubby Griff King project the splendid wonder of a real-life, loving, gay couple while also addressing important themes such as heteronormativity and masc vs. fem.

"Rick and the Griffopotamus are not for everyone," Griff concedes, "but a lot of people seem to connect to what we do, and those are the people we do it for."

Just in time for summer, the duo unveiled their newest venture, the Two Kings Unlimited (a combination of their last names) online retailer that features exclusive Rick and Griff merchandise including pajama onesies, erotic playing cards, a coffee table book and their line of phallic sex toys – molded from the real things. We spoke with the guys from their Atlanta home.

Martin Moore: I just watched your rendition of Mary Poppins' "The Cover is Not the Book" on your YouTube channel. It's incredible!   Rick Twombley: Oh, nice! That is such a fun song, but also extremely challenging. Especially Griff's part toward the end – a total tongue twister and so fast! We practiced it on a drive from Miami to Orlando, had it on repeat for about four hours, but eventually got it. We really wanted to do it because it's not only a great, positive song, but one we can identify with. People often assume a lot about us just off what they see online, so "The Cover is Not the Book" is a good reminder that perception is not reality.

MM: Are you, two big burly men, into show tunes? Griff King: Absolutely! Rick was a professional stage performer for nearly twenty years, with a degree in dance and musical theater. He worked on Broadway, with Cirque du Soleil, Disney and more. I grew up watching movie musicals and Disney with my mom. You'd be hard-pressed to name a musical we don't know every lyric from.

MM: You guys really seem to have fun together. Is that what makes your relationship work so well? RT: It doesn't hurt! If you're going to spend the rest of your life with someone, you need to be able to be dorks, let loose, and bond over common interests. It's a great stress-reliever.

MM: What other crazy hijinks do you get into when you're together? GK: We love spending time with our close friends, hiking, movie nights, and hosting dinners.  Rick is a killer chef! We love to go out dancing, but we're equally happy cuddling on the couch on a Saturday night with our cats, Willow and Ripley.

MM: Who wears the crown in the relationship? GK: In our relationship, we both have strengths where one wears it more than the other. As far as managing our business, Rick is better suited. He's more organized, business-minded, and has a ridiculously good eye for details.

MM: Whose idea was it to launch your wildly popular social page, Rick and the Griffopotamus? RT: The idea for starting a joint social media actually came from our friends, especially after Griff's rendition of “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid went viral on Facebook.

MM: Was the idea to make the page a brand?   GK: The original motivation wasn't necessarily to be a brand, but just to create a stage to entertain. Even with our sexier posts, we try to incorporate humor, creativity, fun, and a bit of tongue-in-cheek fantasy. RT: The branding and business side came later when we realized just how much people were wanting to take that journey with us. We started getting requests for calendars and other items.

MM: Are the sex toys your best sellers? RT: Our sex toy line has now sold out five times! New stock is always coming. We also had a line of onesies designed which are absolutely fantastic and available for pre-order. Calendars and an erotic playing card deck based on a series of photos we did on Instagram are also in production.

MM: Tell us about the coffee table book. GK: That's the project we are most excited about! It is an erotic coffee table book, very much inspired by Madonna's "Sex" book from the '90s. We spent the past year traveling to shoot with some legendary photographers like Mike Ruiz, Michael Stokes, and Mack Sturgis. They all captured some extremely mind-blowing and highly NSFW images that we can't wait to share!

MM: What are your world-dominating goals for Two Kings Unlimited? RT: The sky's the limit, really. We have our merchandising and other major projects in the pipeline. We're continuing to grow our social media platforms, and we'll continue to push boundaries and show the reality that a genuine, fun-loving married couple can also be sexual beings who are not ashamed about celebrating and showcasing the erotic elements of their relationship.   GK: We try our best to be role models by living our lives very unapologetically, transparently, and with a huge love of adventure. We want to inspire people who feel trapped or pressured to conform to societal expectations to do the same, embrace their inherent power, and not be shoved into the boxes that society wants them to fit into.

Visit TwoKingsUnlimited.com. Follow on Instagram at Rick_and_the_Griffopotamus.

This was originally published in Wire Magazine Issue 8.2020

[darylelockhart]

AI can produce prize-winning art, but it still can’t compete with human creativity

AI artists. Ascannio / Alamy Stock Photo

by Joseph Early,University of Southampton.

People consider creativity to be inherently human. However, artificial intelligence (AI) has reached the stage where it can be creative as well.

A recent competition attracted anger from artists after it awarded a prize to an artwork created by an AI model known as Midjourney. And such software is now freely available thanks to the release of a similar model called Stable Diffusion, which is the most efficient of its kind to date.

Unions of creative practitioners such as Stop AI Stealing the Show have for some time been raising concerns about the use of AI in creative fields. But could AI actually replace human artists?

Various artworks of robots, drawn by AI. Image created by the author (using Stable Diffusion). Author provided

These new AI models can produce endless possibilities. Each image of the robots shown above are unique, yet are generated by Stable Diffusion from similar user requests.

There are two ways to use these AI artists: write a short text prompt, or provide an image alongside the prompt to give more guidance. From a 14-word prompt, I was able to generate several logo ideas for a made-up company that delivers fruit. In just under 20 minutes. On my mid-range laptop.

A design for a fresh fruit company that delivers quickly, Logo, High Contrast, Polyvinyl – the prompt that I used to get Stable Diffusion to make these images.

As you can see from the results above, Stable Diffusion struggles to create art involving words. And some of the fruit are a bit funky.

Yet there is no way I could have produced anything remotely like this without using AI or employing the help of a graphic designer. I couldn’t have created the robot pictures myself either.

The potential of this technology hasn’t gone unnoticed - the startup responsible for Stable Diffusion, Stability AI, is targeting a US$1 billion (£900 million) investment evaluation. But these AI models are beginning to have an impact in the real world, as seen with the prize-winning Midjourney picture. Indeed where AI really excels is producing pieces of fine art that combine different elements and styles.

Yet while AI may do most of the legwork for you, using these models still requires skill. Sometimes a prompt doesn’t generate quite the image that you wanted. Or the AI can be used alongside other tools, only making up a small part of a larger pipeline.

And generating fine art is different to producing digital designs. Stable Diffusion is better at drawing landscapes than logos.

Why Stable Diffusion is a game changer

AI models are typically trained to create art using a dataset containing a staggering 5.85 billion images. This vast amount of data is needed so the AI can learn about image content and artistic concepts. And it takes a very long time to process.

For Stable Diffusion, it took 150,000 hours (just over 17 years) of processor time. However, this can reduced to less than a month of real time by training in parallel on large compute clusters (collections of powerful computers that act a single device).

Stability AI also provides an online tool called DreamStudio that allows you to use its AI model at a cost of around US$0.01 per image. In comparison, to use competitor OpenAI’s art model, DALL·E 2, the cost is over ten times that.

Both methods use the same underlying approach, known as a diffusion model computer program, which learns to create new images by looking at lots of existing images. However, Stable Diffusion has a lower computational cost, meaning it requires less time to train, and uses less energy.

Plus, you can’t actually download and run OpenAI’s model yourself, only interact with it via a website. Stable Diffusion, meanwhile, is an open-source project that anyone can play around with. So it enjoys the benefit of rapid development by the online coding community, such as improvements to the models, user-guides, integration with other tools. This has already been happening in the weeks after Stable Diffusion’s release in August 2022.

The future of art?

While vast improvements have been made in the last five years, there are still things that AI art models struggle with. Words in their artworks are recognisable but often gibberish. Similarly, AI struggles to render human hands.

AI art models still struggle to draw hands correctly. Image created by the author using Stable Diffusion.

There’s also the obvious constraint that these models can only produce digital art. They can’t work with oils or pastels like people can. In the way that vinyl has made a comeback, technology may initially create a swing towards a new form, but over time people always seem to circle back to the original form with the highest quality.

Ultimately, as previous research has found, AI models in their current form are more likely to act as new tools for artists than as digital replacements for creative humans. For example, the AI could generate a range of images to serve as a starting point, which can then be selected from and improved by a human artist.

This combines the strengths of AI art models (rapid iteration and creation of images) with the strengths of human artists (a vision for the piece of art and overcoming the problems with AI models). This is especially true in the case of commissioned art when a specific output is needed. AI on its own is unlikely to produce what you need.

However, there is still a danger for creatives. Digital artists who choose not to use AI may be left behind, unable to keep up with the rapid iteration and lower costs of AI-enhanced artists.

[kylo-ren-has-an-8pack]

Do you mind my asking about what moodboards are in the pipeline? I've been thinking about what to request, but I don't want to bombard you with something you get all the time or are already working on!

Sure! Thank you for this ask anon! Its a few that are unique so I’m waiting to either get higher quality images or better ideas.

- Kylux/Gingerpilot + Bioshock AU- Jeff Goldblum ship from Buckaroo Banzai- Hotel Artemis + Hotel Interior Aesthetic

Also look up my tags “my moodboards” or “au addicted” in my blog search bar. I think you can also search “masterlist” and see a huge list that I’ve finished and posted.

As for ideas, Im game for lots of things. most ships for the sequels are fun to try. I love most things Poe, Kylo, or Hux. I’ll dabble in most ships, femme/slash or het, but dont care for Damerey or the prequel ships much for some reason. Im interested in Jyn or Krennic ships for Rogue One lately. I havent done almost any of RO ships other than a Galennic one. I almost never get femslash requests. I love rare pairs and crossovers (already did jurassic park gingerpilot au’s) I also do mcu, jurassic park/world, ready player one etc. Does that help? 🤣

[hydrus]

Version 324

windows

zip

exe

os x

app

tar.gz

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had a great week. The downloader overhaul is almost done.

pixiv

Just as Pixiv recently moved their art pages to a new phone-friendly, dynamically drawn format, they are now moving their regular artist gallery results to the same system. If your username isn't switched over yet, it likely will be in the coming week.

The change breaks our old html parser, so I have written a new downloader and json api parser. The way their internal api works is unusual and over-complicated, so I had to write a couple of small new tools to get it to work. However, it does seem to work again.

All of your subscriptions and downloaders will try to switch over to the new downloader automatically, but some might not handle it quite right, in which case you will have to go into edit subscriptions and update their gallery manually. You'll get a popup on updating to remind you of this, and if any don't line up right automatically, the subs will notify you when they next run. The api gives all content--illustrations, manga, ugoira, everything--so there unfortunately isn't a simple way to refine to just one content type as we previously could. But it does neatly deliver everything in just one request, so artist searching is now incredibly faster.

Let me know if pixiv gives any more trouble. Now we can parse their json, we might be able to reintroduce the arbitrary tag search, which broke some time ago due to the same move to javascript galleries.

twitter

In a similar theme, given our fully developed parser and pipeline, I have now wangled a twitter username search! It should be added to your downloader list on update. It is a bit hacky and may be ultimately fragile if they change something their end, but it otherwise works great. It discounts retweets and fetches 19/20 tweets per gallery 'page' fetch. You should be able to set up subscriptions and everything, although I generally recommend you go at it slowly until we know this new parser works well. BTW: I think twitter only 'browses' 3200 tweets in the past, anyway. Note that tweets with no images will be 'ignored', so any typical twitter search will end up with a lot of 'Ig' results--this is normal. Also, if the account ever retweets more than 20 times in a row, the search will stop there, due to how the clientside pipeline works (it'll think that page is empty).

Again, let me know how this works for you. This is some fun new stuff for hydrus, and I am interested to see where it does well and badly.

misc

In order to be less annoying, the 'do you want to run idle jobs?' on shutdown dialog will now only ask at most once per day! You can edit the time unit under options->maintenance and processing.

Under options->connection, you can now change max total network jobs globally and per domain. The defaults are 15 and 3. I don't recommend you increase them unless you know what you are doing, but if you want a slower/more cautious client, please do set them lower.

The new advanced downloader ui has a bunch of quality of life improvements, mostly related to the handling of example parseable data.

full list

downloaders:

after adding some small new parser tools, wrote a new pixiv downloader that should work with their new dynamic gallery's api. it fetches all an artist's work in one page. some existing pixiv download components will be renamed and detached from your existing subs and downloaders. your existing subs may switch over to the correct pixiv downloader automatically, or you may need to manually set them (you'll get a popup to remind you).

wrote a twitter username lookup downloader. it should skip retweets. it is a bit hacky, so it may collapse if they change something small with their internal javascript api. it fetches 19-20 tweets per 'page', so if the account has 20 rts in a row, it'll likely stop searching there. also, afaik, twitter browsing only works back 3200 tweets or so. I recommend proceeding slowly.

added a simple gelbooru 0.1.11 file page parser to the defaults. it won't link to anything by default, but it is there if you want to put together some booru.org stuff

you can now set your default/favourite download source under options->downloading

.

misc:

the 'do idle work on shutdown' system will now only ask/run once per x time units (including if you say no to the ask dialog). x is one day by default, but can be set in 'maintenance and processing'

added 'max jobs' and 'max jobs per domain' to options->connection. defaults remain 15 and 3

the colour selection buttons across the program now have a right-click menu to import/export #FF0000 hex codes from/to the clipboard

tag namespace colours and namespace rendering options are moved from 'colours' and 'tags' options pages to 'tag summaries', which is renamed to 'tag presentation'

the Lain import dropper now supports pngs with single gugs, url classes, or parsers--not just fully packaged downloaders

fixed an issue where trying to remove a selection of files from the duplicate system (through the advanced duplicates menu) would only apply to the first pair of files

improved some error reporting related to too-long filenames on import

improved error handling for the folder-scanning stage in import folders--now, when it runs into an error, it will preserve its details better, notify the user better, and safely auto-pause the import folder

png export auto-filenames will now be sanitized of \, /, :, *-type OS-path-invalid characters as appropriate as the dialog loads

the 'loading subs' popup message should appear more reliably (after 1s delay) if the first subs are big and loading slow

fixed the 'fullscreen switch' hover window button for the duplicate filter

deleted some old hydrus session management code and db table

some other things that I lost track of. I think it was mostly some little dialog fixes :/

.

advanced downloader stuff:

the test panel on pageparser edit panels now has a 'post pre-parsing conversion' notebook page that shows the given example data after the pre-parsing conversion has occurred, including error information if it failed. it has a summary size/guessed type description and copy and refresh buttons.

the 'raw data' copy/fetch/paste buttons and description are moved down to the raw data page

the pageparser now passes up this post-conversion example data to sub-objects, so they now start with the correctly converted example data

the subsidiarypageparser edit panel now also has a notebook page, also with brief description and copy/refresh buttons, that summarises the raw separated data

the subsidiary page parser now passes up the first post to its sub-objects, so they now start with a single post's example data

content parsers can now sort the strings their formulae get back. you can sort strict lexicographic or the new human-friendly sort that does numbers properly, and of course you can go ascending or descending--if you can get the ids of what you want but they are in the wrong order, you can now easily fix it!

some json dict parsing code now iterates through dict keys lexicographically ascending by default. unfortunately, due to how the python json parser I use works, there isn't a way to process dict items in the original order

the json parsing formula now uses a string match when searching for dictionary keys, so you can now match multiple keys here (as in the pixiv illusts|manga fix). existing dictionary key look-ups will be converted to 'fixed' string matches

the json parsing formula can now get the content type 'dictionary keys', which will fetch all the text keys in the dictionary/Object, if the api designer happens to have put useful data in there, wew

formulae now remove newlines from their parsed texts before they are sent to the StringMatch! so, if you are grabbing some multi-line html and want to test for 'Posted: ' somewhere in that mess, it is now easy.

next week

After slaughtering my downloader overhaul megajob of redundant and completed issues (bringing my total todo from 1568 down to 1471!), I only have 15 jobs left to go. It is mostly some quality of life stuff and refreshing some out of date help. I should be able to clear most of them out next week, and the last few can be folded into normal work.

So I am now planning the login manager. After talking with several users over the past few weeks, I think it will be fundamentally very simple, supporting any basic user/pass web form, and will relegate complicated situations to some kind of improved browser cookies.txt import workflow. I suspect it will take 3-4 weeks to hash out, and then I will be taking four weeks to update to python 3, and then I am a free agent again. So, absent any big problems, please expect the 'next big thing to work on poll' to go up around the end of October, and for me to get going on that next big thing at the end of November. I don't want to finalise what goes on the poll yet, but I'll open up a full discussion as the login manager finishes.

[foxgambling694]

Unity With Python

⚡️ A very fast, simple, and general inter-process communication example between Unity3D C# and Python, using ZeroMQ.

PS. It looks slow in the GIF above because I put a delay of one second between each message so that you can see itworking.

Python for Unity facilitates Unity's interaction with various media and entertainment industry applications and ensures that you can integrate Unity into a broader production pipeline seamlessly. Potential benefits of using Python in your Unity project include: Automating scene and sequence assembly in the context of using Unity as a real-time.

The other neat part is that Unity3D can produce binaries for all major platforms. This includes Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android, iOS, and otherx. So not only does this add 3D capabilities to Python, but it also includes multi-platform support. The build process itself is simple and directed by the game engine itself.

Core Pillars

very fast — ZeroMQ is a networking library that allows you to send huge amount of data from server to client in a short period of time. I’m talking about casually sending/receiving 10,000 requests per second.

simple — You don’t have to explicitly open and bind a socket or know anything about low-level networking.

general — You can use this to send/receive any kind of data request. You can send image, video, text, JSON, file, or whatever you want. In this example, we are sending text.

inter-process — The communication is done inside the same machine. Which means very low-latency.

Introduction

Have you ever tried to communicate C# code in Unity3D with Python before but could not find a satisfying solution?

Have you ever tried implementing communication protocol using file read/write and found out that it’s a stupid approach?

Have you ever tried communicating using Web HTTP request and found out that it’s stupidly slow and high latency?

Have you ever tried communicating using socket/TCP/UDP stuff, but it feels like you are reinventing the wheel and youare becoming a network engineer?

Have you ever tried to communicate by emulating a serial port, and found out that it’s not how cool guys do work?

Have you ever tried to send Unity input to python and do some scientific work (maybe even machine learning task)and return the output to Unity?

Have you ever tried to build a .dll from python or even rewrite everything in C# because you don’t know how tocommunicate between python and C# processes?

Have you ever tried to embed IronPython or Python.NET inside Unity but it doesn’t allow you to install youramazing external python libraries? (And its minimal power is pretty ridiculous compared to your external python)

Have you ever tried to export a TensorFlow Protobuf Graph (Deep learning model) and use TensorFlowSharp orOpenCVForUnity to import the graph inside Unity because you want to use the model to predict stuff in Unity, but itdoesn’t allow you to use/utilize your new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080Ti, and it’s also hard to code?

Tried MLAgents, anyone?

If you answer Yes to any of these questions but it seems you have found no solutions,then this repository is definitely for you!(If you answered Yes to all questions, you and me are brothers! 😏)

A complex calculation (based on the data received from Unity) is performed in python and it produces a result (action); The result (action) is sent back via TCP to Unity. The character performs the action corresponding to the result. Steps 1-4 are repeated until infinity (unless the client or server stops). I used Keras in Python to design a neural network calculating something like a noise-reducing-function. It works pretty good so far, and now I want to use this network to clean the data inside a Unity-Project of mine. I would not have thought that this could be so difficult.

I’ve tried a lot. With a lot of searching on the internet, I’ve found no solutions that is simple, fast, and generalenough that I can apply to any kind of communication between Python and Unity3D. All I’ve done in the past were simplya hack to either get my scientific computation work in Unity instead of python, or communicate between the processes painfully.

Until I found ZeroMQ approach from this repository(and some head scratching).

Solution Explanation

I’ve built a request-reply pattern of ZeroMQ where Python (server) replies whenever Unity (client) requestsa service from Python.

https://foxgambling694.tumblr.com/post/658010901333606400/visual-studio-c-programming. The idea is to create a separate thread inside Unity that will send a request to python, receive a reply and log the replyto the console.

Getting Started

Clone this repository using git clone https://github.com/off99555/Unity3D-Python-Communication.git command.

Open UnityProject (its dll files are targeting .NET 4.x version) and run Assets/NetMQExample/Scenes/SampleScene.

Run python file PythonFiles/server.py using command python server.py on a command prompt.

You should start seeing messages being logged inside Unity and the command prompt.

Specifically, Unity will send request with a message Hello 10 times, and Python will simply reply World 10 times.There is a one second sleep between each reply on the server (to simulate long processing time of the request).

Please read the comments inside PythonFiles/server.py and UnityProject/Assets/NetMQExample/Scripts/ and you willunderstand everything more deeply.

The most important thing is that you should follow the 4 getting started steps first. Don’t skip it! ❣️

After you’ve understood most of the stuff but it’s not advanced enough, you should consult the officialØMQ - The Guide.

Requirements

PyZMQ is the Python bindings for ZeroMQ. You can install it usingpip install pyzmq command or see more installation options here orhere.

NetMQ is a native C# port of ZeroMQ. Normally you need to install this usingNuGet package manager inside Visual Studio when you want to build a .NET application, or you could install using.NET CLI. But for this repository here, you don’t need to do any of the installation because we’ve already includedAsyncIO.dll and NetMQ.dll for you inside UnityProject/Assets/NetMQExample/Plugins/ directory.If you want to build your own dll files, please take a look atthis issue.

Known Issues

Based on this issue, the NetMQ implementation is not working nicely with Unity. If you create more than one ZeroMQ client in Unity, the Unity editor will freeze.

Troubleshooting

While both server and client are running and communicating fine, I kill the server process, restart the server, then both server and client seem to not be communicating anymore. Why don’t they continue communicating? Is this a bug?

No, this is the expected behavior of ZeroMQ because of the simplicity of the code. It’s mentioned in the guidehere. If you want to make the code better, which is notthe focus of this example, you can learn more about ZeroMQ as suggested in the screenshot below.

The problem is that when you restart the server, the server won’t reconnect to the old client anymore. You have to restart the client also.

Disclaimer

This repository is designed to be a minimal learning resource for getting started. It’s not a fully working high-level package.After you understand the example, my job is done.

Most of the code are just copies from the official ZeroMQ tutorial. I try to make this as simple to grasp as possible,so I only log the message to the console and nothing fancy. This is to minimize the unnecessary learning curve.

TODO

Add a complicated example of how to use it for real

Show how to do this with SocketIO. SocketIO is another approach I found very viable and stable. I use BestHTTP package in Unity for SocketIO client and use python-socketio as SocketIO server. And it does not have the issue of making Unity editor freezes.

Download GitHub for Unity 1.4.0

Our latest release, install manually

Download from Unity Asset Store

Download and install via Unity

By downloading, you agree to the Terms and Conditions.

Free and open source

Is onenote good on ipad. The extension is completely open source. Fix or report bugs. Build the features you need. Be a part of future GitHub for Unity releases.

Ditch the command line

View your project history, experiment in branches, craft a commit from your changes, and push your code to GitHub without leaving Unity.

Stay in sync with your team

Collaborate with other developers, pull down recent changes, and lock files to avoid troublesome merge conflicts.

Authentication and Initialization with GitHub

GitHub authentication is embedded in Unity, including 2FA. And with a click of a button, you can quickly initialize your game’s repository.

Use the GitHub for Unity Extension

Get off of the command line and work exclusively within Unity by downloading and installing the GitHub package!

Download

Unity With Python

Reach out to the GitHub for Unity team

Do you have questions? Feature ideas? Just want to chat with the team? Reach out to us on GitHub by opening a new issue, or by joining one of the chats listed in the project README. You can also email us at unity@github.com, or tweet at @GitHubUnity

Discuss

Python Unity3d

Code the GitHub for Unity Extension

Contribute to this open source project by reporting or resolving issues or forking the repository to add your own features!

Contribute

[shirlleycoyle]

Washington DC Police Allegedly Offered $100,000 to Hackers to Stop Leak

The cybercriminals who hacked and attempted to extort the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department have now published what they claim are screenshots of their conversation with the police. Motherboard has not independently verified the specific conversation but the materials released by the hacking group thus far have proven to be legitimate.

In the screenshots, hackers with the Babuk ransomware group attempt to convince the police to pay up, or else they will leak all the data they stole. The negotiations broke when the person on the police side of the conversation offered $100,000, instead of the $4 million the hackers asked for.

"Our final proposal is an offer to pay $100,000 to prevent the release of the stolen data. If this offer is not acceptable, then it seems our conversation is complete. I think we both understand the consequences of not reaching an agreement. We are OK with that outcome," the police said, according to the screenshot of the alleged conversation.

The hackers apparently did not like the offer.

"This is unacceptable from our side. Follow our web-site at midnight," the hackers responded on Monday. After communications seemingly broke down, Babuk started leaking confidential and highly sensitive personal information of MPD officers.   

The MPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The hacking group could not be reached for comment. 

A screenshot of the alleged conversation between the MPD and the Babuk ransomware gang. (Image: Motherboard)

The hackers are clearly still trying to get the police to pay, by posting conversations and hacked files in a seeming attempt to pressure them. The screenshots and files already leaked highlight just how bad the problem of ransomware can be. 

Over the weekend, another group of hackers forced Colonial Pipeline, the largest provider of gas in the East Coast, to shut down the pipeline out of precaution after the hackers broke into the company's IT network.. That hack and the panic associated with it have resulted in a gas buying panic and the incident has been highly politicized.

"I was surprised that the cops even offered $100,000 because I know the FBI totally discourages paying the ransom," Chuong Dong, a computer science student at Georgia Tech who has done research on Babuk, said in an online chat. "On the other hand, I think they really tried to lowball Babuk. Back when I first researched the group in January, they love to make accommodations for victims. But I think we all know what kind of information they hold (and how sensitive it is), so $100,000 is not a good price for negotiation unfortunately." 

Do you have knowledge of the inner workings of Babuk or another ransomware gang? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, lorenzofb on Wickr, OTR chat at lorenzofb@jabber.ccc.de, or email lorenzofb@vice.com

Dong said that the police perhaps did not think Babuk would actually dump highly sensitive information. 

"Babuk clearly has the upper hand and if this keeps happening, I think we’ll see a lot more sensitive info on police on their leak site," Dong said. 

At the end of April Bakuk, announced that it had hacked the MPD and was waiting for the police offer to stop the leak of 250 gigabytes of data that they had allegedly stolen from their servers. In recent times, ransomware gangs like Babuk or Cl0p have adopted a hybrid model of ransomware: hack the target and lock their files, but steal the files first so they can use the threat of leaking the stolen data to extort more money from the victim. 

The MPD is just the latest in a long string of victims. Their time may be running out to contain the damage, but the hackers appear to be still willing to hold off in hopes of getting some money.

In the latest post on their dark web site, where they dumped screenshots of the alleged conversation with the police, the hackers wrote: "You still have the ability to stop it."

Subscribe to our cybersecurity podcast, CYBER.

Washington DC Police Allegedly Offered $100,000 to Hackers to Stop Leak syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[michaelandy101-blog]

Are Blogs Lifeless in 2021? We Requested 10 Advertising and marketing Consultants

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/are-blogs-dead-in-2021-we-asked-10-marketing-experts/

Are Blogs Lifeless in 2021? We Requested 10 Advertising and marketing Consultants

It appears all of us have an obsession with killing issues off.

Each couple of years, we revisit one thing and place it on the chopping block. Within the new millennium, we had the Y2K computer scare. In 2012, we feared the world would end and we might all simply poof. When expertise took a extra essential function in our lives, we assumed all print publications would go bankrupt. Now, with the rise of video and podcasts, it is running a blog’s flip to really feel the warmth.

I reached out to entrepreneurs with backgrounds in product marketing, web optimization, YouTube, podcasting, and extra and requested them, “Are Blogs useless? ” Here is what they stated.

Are blogs useless?

In response to entrepreneurs, not even shut. Blogs proceed to be extraordinarily useful for lead era, model consciousness, and web optimization. And so they’re nonetheless fashionable amongst customers. A 2020 HubSpot research discovered that 60% of individuals learn a weblog at the least as soon as per week. So, blogs will not be out of entrepreneurs’ toolbox anytime quickly.

In all equity, this query surrounding blogs will not be with out cause. Google Developments exhibits that within the final 5 years, the curiosity in blogs has steadily declined worldwide.

Image Source

Within the U.S. inside the identical five-year span, podcasts have risen in reputation and surpassed blogs in searches.

Image Source

Nevertheless, entrepreneurs nonetheless contemplate running a blog a high marketing channel. Ross Simmonds, a B2B marketer and the founding father of the content material marketing company Basis, says running a blog has helped his purchasers triple their visitors and speed up their gross sales shut charges.

“At Foundation, blogging with intent has helped us generate millions of dollars in the pipeline for both us and our clients,” says Simmonds. “It’s also armed us with the ability to elevate our brand’s position in the market and, most importantly, truly help others in our industry learn and unlock new opportunities.”

With that stated, the running a blog panorama has modified over time. Lisa Toner, director of content material at HubSpot, says it is not sufficient to simply have a weblog these days.

“You need to consistently create content that is more valuable than your competition’s content. You need to be an SEO expert to get your articles ranking on page one of Google, and you need a distribution strategy to promote your content across all the channels your audience likes to consume content on,” says Toner. “It’s a lot more complex to win at blogging now, but if you can master it, it’s worth the investment.”

Transparency is an even bigger duty, particularly as social justice turns into more important to consumers.

“You need to think about how people see your brand compared to your competition. Everyone has their own unique selling position (USP) and what they want to put forward, but what users do is compare,” says Sandra Mpouma, head of digital marketing at RationalFX. “So, in terms of business strategy, create loyalty, trust, [and] be transparent and competitive, which is very important nowadays.”

Blogs vs. Different Advertising and marketing Channels

Now that different content material marketing channels – particularly video and podcasting – have surpassed blogs, will blogs quickly change into redundant? Effectively, all of it relies on the person personas you are focusing on. However at the same time as different platforms develop, blogs nonetheless provide many benefits.

“Podcasting is not without its own set of limitations. There are plenty of discoverability and audience growth challenges. At this point, blogs have a pretty well-dusted playbook for scaling. That’s not true for podcasts,” says Matthew Brown, senior podcast producer at HubSpot. “A company can use its likely limited resources to invest in a blog that will basically give consistent, easily measurable, and reliable performance. Blogs also have a direct line to the company’s bottom dollar, podcasts do not.”

Nelson Chacon, principal marketing supervisor for YouTube at HubSpot, highlights that there isn’t any cause to decide on between two platforms in case your workforce has the bandwidth to deal with each. If it aligns along with your person personas, you possibly can have interaction your viewers from a number of angles.

“Creating a blog constructed of articles around the benefits of your product will be helpful. Having a video showcasing its use or how to install it would be beneficial for your audience,” says Chacon. “Home Depot has carried out a incredible job of doing this. Whereas they inform and educate their prospects on their merchandise, additionally they add a fast ‘how-to’ for the extra educated one that simply wants a brief reply defined in a video.”

As for social media, Annabelle Nyst, a senior content material strategist who focuses on social media initiatives at HubSpot, says it is onerous to match it to blogs as every platform serves totally different functions.

“Social content doesn’t always have the shelf life or the discoverability of blog posts,” says Nyst. “It’s more about consistently meeting your audience where they are, in the right moments, engaging with them one-on-one, and establishing trust via community building.”

She provides that social media may be an effective way to amplify your weblog posts. And vice versa, weblog posts can function inspiration for social content material. If utilizing each, Nyst recommends pulling probably the most compelling factors out of your weblog posts, creating social-first content material, and utilizing it to drive visitors again to your weblog.

With all that stated, blogs do not come with out their disadvantages. AJ Beltis, a content material and acquisition supervisor at HubSpot, mentions the excessive drop-off charges typically seen in weblog posts.

“Blogs lack the interactivity that many crave due to its nature as written content,” says Beltis. “This challenges blog writers to hook their readers in a few short sentences without having the benefit of special effects or audio engineers available to their video and podcast creating counterparts.”

What it typically comes all the way down to is your model targets and which channels will enable you meet them. Podcasts, for instance, are higher for branding whereas blogs serve higher for top-of-the-funnel engagement.

“Blog posts are an acquisition juggernaut. There’s a clear path that any seasoned marketer can follow. Podcasts, however, best serve as a brand opportunity,” says Brown. “You wouldn’t measure a series of blog posts on their brand uplift ability, just like you wouldn’t measure a podcast show’s lead generation. That is unless you like gray hairs and a serious lack of sleep.”

Why Blogs are Nonetheless Impactful

From an funding perspective, blogs could also be a greater long-term funding for lead era.

“I could spend $200K to hire a full-time writer, SEO expert, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) specialist to work on my blog. By combining those skill sets, I’m going to be able to create a blog that drives organic traffic to my website and converts it into leads for my business all year long,” says Toner. “Or, I could put the same $200K into an advertising campaign and maybe get a couple thousand leads over the course of the ad campaign. But once the campaign ends, so does my lead flow.”

Toner provides that almost all of HubSpot’s blog-generated leads come from older weblog posts. Which means running a blog is usually a nice lead supply lengthy after posts are printed. Aja Frost, who leads the English web optimization workforce at HubSpot, echoes this sentiment.

“Organic traffic is more important than ever. Unlike paid traffic, which stops coming in the second your budget runs out, organic traffic is mostly self-sustaining after you’ve put in the time and effort to create a blog post,” she says.

She provides that almost all content material administration programs (CMS) have web optimization instruments built-in into their platforms, which makes it simpler to optimize your posts.

Running a blog may also be useful in shaping a model’s product positioning.

“Blogs are still one of the best channels we have to create narratives around our product,” says HubSpot Product Advertising and marketing Supervisor Alex Girard. “They offer us the opportunity to address trends we see in the market, how those trends impact the reader, and how our product might be able to help them meet that trend successfully. They’re also great for telling customer success stories.”

He provides that when utilizing your weblog to market your product, the content material would not must be promotional. If you set up your self as a thought chief and acquire belief out of your viewers, they may organically look into your services and products.

With that stated, it should take greater than good content material to have a profitable weblog.

“Growth without a goal isn’t going to help your business – if 10,000 people are reading your blog, but none of them fit your persona, that’s not going to do anything for your company,” says HubSpot’s Senior Weblog Supervisor Karla Cook. “Focus on something attainable, like generating new contacts, and make sure every post you’re putting out has that goal in mind.”

She provides that one of many largest errors manufacturers make is creating content material just for folks on the decision-making stage. With so many levels between studying a weblog and making a purchase order, entrepreneurs ought to have posts geared at customers in each stage with corresponding presents. Be taught extra about that by means of HubSpot’s business blogging course.

From an web optimization perspective, manufacturers may additionally wrestle with producing visitors as a result of they’re considering weblog first, hyperlink constructing second.

“What I often notice is that marketers see ‘blogging’ and ‘link building’ as two different disciplines. First, they write the blog posts, then they think about how to earn backlinks to them,” says Irina Nica, a senior marketing supervisor at HubSpot who works on product consciousness by means of outreach initiatives. “Instead, they should include linkable assets into their regular content calendar, alongside other types of articles that are maybe designed for generating organic or social media traffic.”

Regardless of the numerous advantages we have gone over, running a blog is not at all times one of the best technique for each model. Why? Effectively, what in case your very best person persona would not learn blogs? What if they like emails as an alternative?

“Some brands have great email communication and workflows where they provide people with downloadable offers where they don’t have to go somewhere else to get the information, it’s just in their inbox straight away,” says Mpouma. “You don’t necessarily need a blog as long as you’re offering something in exchange. I think the blog has always been that: Offer something for free in exchange for that user interaction.”

So, in that case, blogs would not precisely be useless, extra so irrelevant.

Why Advertising and marketing Is not Lifeless

issues from a broader perspective, blogs are simply an extension of marketing. Some have recommended that marketing is useless, which makes entrepreneurs like me surprise if there’s one thing we do not know.

Primarily based on current knowledge, marketing continues to be influential. And that applies to each conventional methods and digital initiatives. Statista reported that in 2019, content material marketing generated over $42 billion in income worldwide.

“There’s a reason why Nike and McDonalds continue to invest millions every month in marketing even though they’re already household names. There’s a reason why the top musicians and artists still do promotion prior to their latest album release,” says Simmonds. “Marketing isn’t to be seen as just an expense. It’s an investment. And if you make an investment that is rooted in a strategic plan — that investment should return dividends for years (maybe decades) to come.”

The important thing takeaway is that whereas not all marketing techniques work for each model, it is unlikely that blogs will cease being useful to manufacturers within the foreseeable future. So for now, blogs, you possibly can relaxation and step off the chopping block.

Source link

[hydrus]

Version 318

windows

zip

exe

os x

app

tar.gz

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had a great week. I caught up on more small stuff and put some more work into the new gallery downloaders.

downloaders

Unfortunately, tumblr decided to kill their 'raw' url access this week. There is not a lot of firm word from tumblr on the issue, but there is some scattered conversation around, and it seems it is dead and not to return. Whatever the ultimate reason for this, it broke our tumblr downloader, so v318 has an updated tumblr parser to fetch the 1280px versions of urls. I have also taken the opportunity to switch the tumblr 'gallery' parser over to the new system, so the tumblr downloader now fetches and associates neater 'post urls' for its file import objects rather than raw file urls and adds 'creator' tags. However, because of the URL changes, your tumblr subscriptions will hence hit their 'periodic' file limits and likely redownload some 1280px versions of files you already have in raw--if this affects you heavily, you might want to pause your tumblr subs before you update and carefully experiment and curate what happens after you are working again in v318. Note that some artists (like lmsketch) attach a lot of images to their posts, so if your periodic limit were 100--and that 100 now means 'posts' instead of file urls--you are potentially talking a lot of files that are going to be redownloaded! Again, I recommend heavy tumblr subscribers pause before update and maybe consider recreating their tumblr subs from scratch with an initial file limit of 10 or so.

The multi-gallery download page has some more improvements this week. I've fixed an issue where the sub-downloaders on the same page were unintentionally all sharing some bandwidth rules with each other. Multi-galleries also now have an 'added' column. And the 'pause' ⏸ and 'stop' ⏹ characters used in the lists on the multi- pages are now editable, also under options->downloading, for those who have trouble viewing this unicode.

I have also made the 'only get a gallery page every x seconds' option global to the whole program (it was previously per-downloader). Being able to create twenty new whateverbooru queries at once with a single click of the paste button is powerful and great, but it also meant spamming servers with many heavy gallery requests all at once, so now all downloaders share the same slot that comes up every x seconds. The delay option is under options->downloading. I recommend 15s for downloaders and 5s for subscriptions. Let's see how 'global' works, and if it is an annoying bottleneck, I will see about making it per-domain.

Subscriptions now auto-compact whenever they sync. This means they delete old fully processed URLs they no longer need to calculate file velocity just to keep them running snappy. You shouldn't notice any change except maybe a faster-loading 'manage subscriptions' dialog.

A couple of unusual data problems meant that xbooru and gelbooru were not searching well in the new system. I have fixed these, so if you got affected by this, please rerun your queries and let me know if you still have any problems. I also added gallery parsers for rule34.paheal and mishimmie (the paheal update should finally fix the 'paheal gets gallery urls in file results' issue!). Advanced users might like to refer to the gelbooru situation (and tumblr and artstation api gallery url classes) to look at url classes's new 'next gallery page' component, which lets you define an easy logical way to predict the next gallery page from a recognised gallery url and now acts as a fallback if the gallery parser cannot find one (as is usually the case with api results!).

full list

downloaders:

extended url classes to support 'next gallery page' generation--a fallback that predicts next gallery page url if the parser cannot provide it (as is often the case with APIs and unreliable next-page-url galleries such as gelbooru)

integrated this new next page generation into new gallery processing pipeline

updated gelbooru, tumblr api and artstation gallery api url classes to support the new next gallery page business

fixed the url class for xbooru, which wasn't recognising gallery urls correctly

wrote new gallery parsers for rule34.paheal and mishimmie (which are both shimmie but have slightly different gallery layout). this should finally solve the 'one paheal gallery url is being parsed into the file list per page' problem

'fixed' the tumblr parser to fetch the 1280px url (tumblr killed the raw url trick this past week)

misc text/status fixes

wrote a gallery parser for tumblr that fetches the actual tumblr post urls and hence uses the new tumblr post parser naturally! (tumblr post urls are now more neatly associated as 'known urls' on files!)

note that as the tumblr downloader now produces different kinds of urls, your tumblr subs will hit your periodic limits the next time they run. they will also re-download any 1280px files that are different to the previously fetched raws due to the above raw change (protip: keep your subscription periodic file limits low)

cut the 'periodic limit' subscription warning popup down to a much simpler statement and moved the accompanying help to a new help button on the edit sub panel

multi-gallery pages now have an 'added' column like multi-watchers

the new 'pause' ⏸ and 'stop' ⏹ characters shown in the multi-downloader pages are now customisable under options->downloading (some users had trouble with the unicode)

the watcher now shows the 'stop character' if checking is 404/DEAD

fixed an issue where the new gallery imports on the same multi-page were all sharing the same identifier for their ephemeral 'downloader instance' bandwidth tracker, which meant they were all sharing the same '100rqs per 5mins' etc... rules

the page and subscription downloader 'gallery page delay' is now program-wide (since both these things can run in mass parallel). let's see how it goes, maybe we'll move it to per-site

subscription queries now auto-compact on sync! this means that surplus old urls will be removed from their caches, keeping the whole object lean and quick to load/save

gallery logs now also compact! they will remove anything older than twice the current death velocity, but always keep the newest 25 regardless of age

.

misc:

the top-right hover window will now always appear--previously, it would only pop up if the client had some ratings services, but this window now handles urls

harmonised 'known urls' view/copy menu to a single code location and added sorted url class labels to entries (which should reduce direct-file-url misclicks)

greatly sped up manage tags dialogs initial calculation of possible actions on a tag alteration event, particularly when the dialog holds 10k+ tags

greatly sped up the second half of this process, when the action choice is applied to the manage tag dialog's current media list

the buttons on the manage tags dialog action popup dialog will now only show a max of 25 rows on their tooltips

some larger->smaller selection events on large pages with many tags should be significantly faster

subscription popups should now 'blank' their network job controls when not working (rather than leaving them on the old job, and without flickery-ly removing the job control completely)

the file cache and gallery log summary controls now have ... ellipsized texts to reduce their max width

fixed an issue where larger 'overriding bandwidth' status wait times would sometimes show instead of legit regular smaller bandwidth wait times

removed a now-superfluous layer of buffering in the thumbnail grid drawing pipeline--it seems to have removed some slight lag/flicker

I may have fixed the issue where a handful of thumbs will sometimes remain undrawn after several fast scrolling events

gave the some-linux-flavours infinitely-expanding popup message problem another pass. there _should_ be an explicit reasonable max width on the thing now

added a 'html5lib not found!' notification to the network->downloaders menu if this library is missing (mostly for users running from source)

help->about now states if lz4 is present

gave 'running from source' help page another pass, including info on running a virtual environment

in file lookup scripts, the full file content now supports string transformations--if this is set to occur, the file will be sent as an addition POST parameter and the content-type set to 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'. this is a temp fix to see if we can get whatanime.ga working, and may see some more work

if the free space on the db dir partition is < 500MB, the program will not boot

if the free space on the db dir partition is < 1GB, the client will not sync repositories

on boot the client can now attempt to auto-heal a missing local_hashes table. it will give an appropriate error message

misc post-importing-cleanup refactoring

next week

I still have a few more small things I want to catch up on, but it isn't so urgent now, so I'd like to get started on the new 'searcher' object, which will be the final component of the downloader overhaul (it will convert the initial 'samus_aran' search phrase into an initialised search url). I feel good about it and may have some test ui for advanced users to play with by v319.

[emzeciorrr]

BEHIND THE SCENES - FLUID ART PROTOTYPING // SHOT IN 12K // URSA MINI PRO 12K from Roman De Giuli on Vimeo.

Many people ask me how I work and how develop my visual methods. This is a short insight to give you an idea. I'm currently working on a drop machine which produces repetitive patterns of paint, like I have seen them many times when paint drops off of the paper onto my bench. At this stage I try to get it working with very simple tools and supplies. What you see is nothing else than syringes filled with a paint mix and releasing drops through a tube or another dropper which splits the fluid into multiple channels. The setup sits on a motion control device to make it move or rotate. This works fine so far but is far from perfect. I usually don't release material at this stage but the follow-up is already in the pipeline so you guys can see where I started and where it went.

I was curious about the Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro 12K and was lucky enough to get a unit for a few days. As I'm into high resolution video and HDR, 12K as well as the new sensor technology of this camera is more than enough to consider a buy. But keep in mind that my perspective is very specific and I'm by no means an expert in other fields than experimental fluid art. Long story short: You get a lot of camera for 10K USD, a gorgeous 4K image, a nice raw file format, a good set of features, shooting on low cost media and much more. But for the moment the Ursa is not ready yet and there is no way it can replace my RED DSMC2 System. It needs a few firmware improvements and further work on color science. The Ursa performs weak in highlights in comparison to Arri or Red and is unforgiving when you underexpose. The color noise is heavy, especially in the red channel. I found the camera being quite soft in both 8K and 12K, but the overall aesthetics is smooth and organic like you would expect it from a film camera. The only thing is that I treat video quite aggressively on post production and the Ursa footage falls apart quickly, especially in HDR. As there is no lens being capable of capturing 12K resolution anyway, the concept of the Ursa is to be a down-sampling camera which is the reason why the 8K image is good and the 4k image is very good. Final note: 12K downscaled to 8K does not give you any benefit over shooting 8K in camera directly. Overall, the Ursa is perfect for film and documentary as you can jump between resolutions and framerates like never before. Braw is performing well and 14-bit color depth should be enough for most jobs. However, it would not be my choice for high res VFX and demanding color tasks. In terms of color, sharpness and dynamic range in highlights, I still go with RED for now. This might change in the future as I expect BM to update their color science and firmware on a regular base. Let's find out.

Thanks for watching!

+++ My Channel: youtube.com/channel/UCjcj... +++ +++ My Instagram: instagram.com/romandegiuli +++ +++ My Facebook: facebook.com/terracollage +++ +++ My Website: terracollage.com +++ _________________________________________________________ Music licensed via Musicbed: "Alive" by Vesky. _________________________________________________________ This video is available for commercial usage. Request a license here: terracollage.com/licensing _________________________________________________________ Terracollage // Experimental Fluid Art and Macro Cinematography // Stock Footage // Licensing // Production // 8K // HDR

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Washington DC Police Allegedly Offered $100,000 to Hackers to Stop Leak

The cybercriminals who hacked and attempted to extort the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department have now published what they claim are screenshots of their conversation with the police. Motherboard has not independently verified the specific conversation but the materials released by the hacking group thus far have proven to be legitimate.

In the screenshots, hackers with the Babuk ransomware group attempt to convince the police to pay up, or else they will leak all the data they stole. The negotiations broke when the person on the police side of the conversation offered $100,000, instead of the $4 million the hackers asked for.

"Our final proposal is an offer to pay $100,000 to prevent the release of the stolen data. If this offer is not acceptable, then it seems our conversation is complete. I think we both understand the consequences of not reaching an agreement. We are OK with that outcome," the police said, according to the screenshot of the alleged conversation.

The hackers apparently did not like the offer.

"This is unacceptable from our side. Follow our web-site at midnight," the hackers responded on Monday. After communications seemingly broke down, Babuk started leaking confidential and highly sensitive personal information of MPD officers.   

The MPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The hacking group could not be reached for comment. 

A screenshot of the alleged conversation between the MPD and the Babuk ransomware gang. (Image: Motherboard)

The hackers are clearly still trying to get the police to pay, by posting conversations and hacked files in a seeming attempt to pressure them. The screenshots and files already leaked highlight just how bad the problem of ransomware can be. 

Over the weekend, another group of hackers forced Colonial Pipeline, the largest provider of gas in the East Coast, to shut down the pipeline out of precaution after the hackers broke into the company's IT network.. That hack and the panic associated with it have resulted in a gas buying panic and the incident has been highly politicized.

"I was surprised that the cops even offered $100,000 because I know the FBI totally discourages paying the ransom," Chuong Dong, a computer science student at Georgia Tech who has done research on Babuk, said in an online chat. "On the other hand, I think they really tried to lowball Babuk. Back when I first researched the group in January, they love to make accommodations for victims. But I think we all know what kind of information they hold (and how sensitive it is), so $100,000 is not a good price for negotiation unfortunately." 

Do you have knowledge of the inner workings of Babuk or another ransomware gang? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, lorenzofb on Wickr, OTR chat at lorenzofb@jabber.ccc.de, or email lorenzofb@vice.com

Dong said that the police perhaps did not think Babuk would actually dump highly sensitive information. 

"Babuk clearly has the upper hand and if this keeps happening, I think we’ll see a lot more sensitive info on police on their leak site," Dong said. 

At the end of April Bakuk, announced that it had hacked the MPD and was waiting for the police offer to stop the leak of 250 gigabytes of data that they had allegedly stolen from their servers. In recent times, ransomware gangs like Babuk or Cl0p have adopted a hybrid model of ransomware: hack the target and lock their files, but steal the files first so they can use the threat of leaking the stolen data to extort more money from the victim. 

The MPD is just the latest in a long string of victims. Their time may be running out to contain the damage, but the hackers appear to be still willing to hold off in hopes of getting some money.

In the latest post on their dark web site, where they dumped screenshots of the alleged conversation with the police, the hackers wrote: "You still have the ability to stop it."

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