#this was only updated on the 20th so I understand but he deserves recognition...

[yuseirra]

Which part of Maple story has Alicia and the guy in the winter coat(I don't know his name) together? I really want to see them together now..! (Idk why, but I ship them.) Also, I love your art! Have a nice day!

His name is actually a spoiler, so I can’t tell for now! :D ALthouugh I’ve been speaking of it over and over in twitter it’s my last conscience to keep from doing that here Wah I’m really happy I got you interested in him and alicia!!! I love seeing them together a whole lot as friends or something more they’re really cute when they appear together in game!! Thank you so much for complimenting my art and for the good wishes!// Ur a blessing UHH if you start shipping them, let’s ship them together.. ;v; hh I think I’ve fallen too..

I’ve sort of been mentioning him and where he appears over and over in my blog for the last couple of days… (I do that when I get excited about something) my followers might have gotten tired of me crying over him by now orz but not everyone reaches my posts, I understand!

He appears in the fourth book you can read from the Dimensional Library/The Grand Athenaeum, a theme dungeon you can go after you reach level 100! This is yet updated in the Global version of this game but when it does I hope you go and give this a try. If you’ve played through the first book and enjoyed it, you’ll surely enjoy this one too. It brings up similar feelings ↓

there you can see super cute alicia holding a little critter and him from the man’s perspective

No spoilers w plot but he’s the one that gave her that coat to wear when she was shivering in the cold and when he first sees her he thinks she’s a cute girl… he’s the only one who took Alicia seriously from the beginning when she tells him she’s a transcendental being while everybody else thought she was crazy.  He also treats her like human being even after that and helps her out uhh he’s a very sweet man indeed

and I can’t get over his voice it’s so tender too we still don’t know who voiced him but it suits his job as a bard v nicely!! I wonder if they’ll hire someone good in the GMS version for his narrations.. I hope he gets a good voice overseas

You can currently meet him in the login screen as well!!// I’M SO PROUD OF HIM  HH E GOT IN.. HE’S ON THE TITLE u did it!!!

I hope you love him when you get to play this as well!! You too have a nice day!! :)

[sciencespies]

The Suffragette With a Passion For Saving Charleston's Historic Architecture

https://sciencespies.com/history/the-suffragette-with-a-passion-for-saving-charlestons-historic-architecture/

The Suffragette With a Passion For Saving Charleston's Historic Architecture

In 1909, the South of Broad area in Charleston, South Carolina, was filled with slums and decaying historic homes. That same year, Charleston native Susan Pringle Frost was just dipping her toe into the world of real estate. She’d been working as a U.S. District Court stenographer since 1902, but was distressed by the sad state of her city.

“There were ills aplenty in the Charleston of the early 20th century,” says Betsy Kirkland Cahill, chair of the board of the Preservation Society of Charleston, in an email. “Impoverished by an unrelenting sequence of natural disasters—fire, earthquake, tornado—and ravaged by the Civil War, the city had as many rats as people. Trash was everywhere in the streets, along with dirty water from the butcher pens; there were 12,000 privies on the peninsula, and 434 cows. Streets were unpaved, and in many yards, the only source of water was a single spigot. The beautiful, gracious houses that had characterized the antebellum city were sinking into disrepair and decay.”

First settled by the English in 1670, Charles Town, named after King Charles I, was originally located across the Ashley River from the peninsula it sits on now. By 1680, the city had grown, and relocated to the current spot, where it soon became known for elegant architecture and bustling trade. In the 1750s, it was the largest and richest town south of Philadelphia. It officially became “Charleston” in 1782.

Frost was born in the South of Broad neighborhood, south of where Broad Street intersects the peninsula, on January 21, 1873, to Dr. Francis LeJau Frost and Rebecca Brewton Pringle, both from old Charleston rice planting families. For her advanced schooling, Frost attended the prestigous Saint Mary’s Episcopal boarding school in Raleigh. Two years in, though, the family’s plantations started to decline and her father’s fertilizer business failed. She left school in 1891 to learn basic stenography skills and then took jobs as a stenographer to help support her then-impoverished family.

Frost’s stenography work introduced her to two employers that would have a large impact on her future: architect Bradford Lee Gilbert and the U.S. District Court. She developed an interest in historical architecture while working for Gilbert, and the women’s suffrage movement was really taking off while she worked at the court. Once the Equal Suffrage League was formed in South Carolina, Frost—who, at 41, had never married—founded the Charleston chapter. She led the push in Charleston for the right for women to vote.

By 1918, Frost had had enough of the demise of the city’s historic structures. During her time as a stenographer, she’d come to believe that women needed to do everything they could to combat societal ills. And so, for the sake of her hometown, she quit her stenographer job and decided to go into real estate full-time, with a mission to protect and preserve Charleston’s historic buildings. Basically, she was a home flipper—and one of Charleston’s first.

“To Sue Frost, the historic homes that were decaying or sometimes literally being dismantled in front of her eyes were the bodies that housed the souls—the soul—of her beloved Charleston,” Cahill says.

Frost, the first woman on Broad Street to both have an office and work in real estate, started her efforts when real estate was just a side job, purchasing several old properties in 1910, more on Tradd Street in 1911, three on St. Michael’s Alley in 1913. She didn’t have enough money on her own to buy all these properties, but she was able to afford it with a mixture of investments from wealthy friends—like the DuPonts, who employed Frost’s sister as a secretary—and rent payments from properties she rented out after buying them. When she bought 57 Broad Street in 1920, she opened her real estate office full-time, purchasing several houses on what’s now known as Rainbow Row that same year. She intended to restore them when she raised the necessary funds, but was never able to do so and ended up selling the homes.

The Joseph Manigault House, the 1803 home of a prominent plantation owner at 350 Meeting Street, was in danger of destruction in 1920. Frost, along with about 30 other Charleston residents concerned with saving the property, gathered to discuss not just what they would do, but also the formation of an organization to preserve local buildings. The group, called the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings, was formed at Frost’s insistence, and she was elected president. That group is still in operation today, as the Preservation Society of Charleston. The society works to recognize and protect historic places throughout the city, reviewing proposals for both changes to historic properties and new construction in historic areas. It also manages a historic marker program for local properties. One of the society’s more recent projects was establishing the Thomas Mayhem Pinckney Alliance in 2013, which preserves sites and contributions of African Americans throughout Charleston and its history. Thomas Mayhem Pinckney was Frost’s right-hand man; he worked as her general contractor, making updates to the properties she bought as needed.

Frost made it a point to spread the gospel of the fledgling preservation society. She campaigned tirelessly to save buildings from destruction or dismantling, and to beautify and modernize the city itself. She regularly wrote to newspapers to recruit members and garner support for the society, and she did everything she could to help on her own—even if that meant going into debt from sacrificing commissions, instead using that money to fix up and protect old homes, or holding onto properties long enough for locals to realize they were important buildings.

“She wanted to revitalize buildings and neighborhoods for the sake of the residents, for all those who would dwell in them,” Cahill says. “In her conviction, her utter dedication, and her zeal to protect her beautiful city for future generations, Susan Pringle Frost set the Preservation Society on the course it has followed for the past century.”

In her lifetime, Frost was well known around Charleston, recognized by the mayor for her work and featured in several newspaper cover stories. But outside of Charleston, and since her death on October 6, 1960, she’s been largely unknown and her story forgotten. Now, with the 100th anniversaries of women securing the right to vote and the founding of the Preservation Society of Charleston, Cahill aims to get Frost the recognition she deserves.

“As the Preservation Society has strengthened its operations and its message over the past five years, Frost has re-emerged into the spotlight as the Society of today derives inspiration and energy from her dedication, her outspokenness, and her love for Charleston,” Cahill says. “She is central to our work and to our message. She was a principled and determined woman, unafraid to challenge conventional understandings of women’s role in society. And in this centennial year especially, Susan Pringle Frost deserves a prominent place in the history of Charleston, and the history of the preservation movement.”

Here are five buildings (or groups of buildings) Frost helped preserve:

Dock Street Theatre

Dock Street Theatre

(Michael Parks Photography)

When the Dock Street Theatre opened in 1736, on the corner of Church Street and Dock Street (now Queen Street), it was the first building in the country that was specifically built for theater performances. The opening show was The Recruiting Officer, and shortly after, the theatre hosted one of the country’s first opera performances, Flora: Or Hob in the Well. Four years later, a massive fire in Charleston destroyed the building. It was rebuilt in 1809 as the Planter’s Hotel, a home for South Carolina planters who were in town for the horse-racing season. The hotel was slated for demolition in 1935, when Pringle and other concerned citizens lobbied for it to be saved—leading to the building’s owner, Milton Pearlstine, handing it over to the city. It became a public works project, and it transformed into the new Dock Street Theatre, which opened to the public in 1937. It remains in operation today, with around 10 performances per season by Charleston Stage, South Carolina’s largest professional theater company. The property underwent another renovation in 2010, introducing modern technology to the stage.

Joseph Manigault House

Joseph Manigault House

(Explore Charleston)

Gabriel Manigault designed and built this home for his brother Joseph sometime between 1790 and 1803. The Manigaults had risen to fame in South Carolina as successful merchants and rice planters; when Joseph moved into this house, he owned several plantations and more than 200 enslaved laborers. By 1920, the property was dilapidated, with planned destruction to make way for a new service station. Frost, seeing the importance of keeping the historical structure intact, formed the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings, which bought the home. The society owned it for two years before selling it to the Esso Standard Oil Company; the mortgage payments made it impossible for the society to keep it. Unfortunately, by 1933, it was in disrepair again. This time it went up for auction, and the Charleston Museum purchased it. Now the house, restored to its 19th-century splendor and furnished with antique American, French and English pieces, is available for public tours.

Rainbow Row (private residences)

Rainbow Row

(Justin Falk Photography)

On East Bay Street, in the northeast corner of South of Broad, a row of pastel painted townhomes has been a landmark in Charleston since the 1930s. In the ’20s, though, the neighborhood was derelict and slated for demolition. Frost bought six of the homes, which used to belong to merchants who ran shops on the first floor, planning to restore them at a later date. She was never able to raise the funds, though, and ended up selling them to Judge Lionel Legge and his wife, Dorothy, who began the rainbow color scheme by painting their own home pastel pink. There are currently no restrictions on paint colors, but any color changes to the homes on Rainbow Row have to be approved by the city’s Board of Architectural Review.

Miles Brewton House (private residence)

Miles Brewton House

(Justin Falk Photography)

Wealthy merchant Miles Brewton built his home—a Georgian-style townhouse with stacked porticos—at 27 King Street around 1769. His family only lived in it for a few years, though; in 1775, Brewton, his wife, and his children were all lost at sea. Afterwards, his sister Rebecca Brewton Motte—Frost’s great-great-grandmother—took over ownership of the home. The Miles Brewton House was considered such a fine home that when Charleston was occupied by the British from 1780 to 1782, Lord Cornwallis, Lord Rawdon and Henry Clinton used it as a headquarters. Frost helped preserve the house simply by living in it. She was born there, later moved back into it with her sisters in 1919, and lived there until her death. The house remains in the family to this day as a private residence.

Tradd Street (private residences)

Tradd Street

(Explore Charleston)

The houses on Tradd Street were some of Frost’s first purchases when she got into real estate. The properties represent a mix of architectural styles, including Federal, Georgian, colonial, Italianate and traditional Charleston Single, an architecture style identified by homes being one room across and longer than they are wide. Frost started with two—financed with money from her stenographer job—and eventually owned 11 buildings on the street. She bought the properties at a low price, fixed them up with Pinckney’s help, and either sold them, unfinished, to investors who would take over the work, or rented them out. Often, though, Frost operated in the red, accumulating a large debt to the city that the mayor eventually reduced to honor her preservation work. She preserved so much of Tradd Street, in fact, that she earned the nickname “The Angel of Tradd Street.” The homes are now all private residences, but the street is popular on Charleston history tours that highlight the city’s 18th-century merchant homes. At least ten of the houses are historical landmarks. The one at 54 Tradd Street, for example, was home to Charleston’s fifth postmaster, who operated the post office out of his front room. Another, at 58 Tradd Street, was owned by Robert Wells in 1778, the largest bookseller and printer in the south; he and his son used the first floor to publish a Tory newspaper, which eventually got them banned from South Carolina.

#History

[scifigeneration]

We don't want AI that can understand us – we'd only end up arguing

by Constantine Sandis and Richard Harper

Forget the Turing test. Computing pioneer Alan Turing’s most pertinent thoughts on machine intelligence come from a neglected paragraph of the same paper that first proposed his famous test for whether a computer could be considered as smart as a human.

The original question, “Can machines think?” I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion. Nevertheless I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.

Turing’s 1950 prediction was not that computers would be able to think in the future. He was arguing that, one day, what we mean when we talk about computers thinking would morph in such a way that it would become a pretty uncontroversial thing to say. We can now see that he was right. Our use of the term has indeed loosened to the point that attributing thought to even the most basic of machines has become common parlance.

Today, advances in technology mean that understanding has become the new thought. And again, the question of whether machines can understand is arguably meaningless. With the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, there already exists a solid sense in which robots and artificial assistants such as Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri are said to understand us. The interesting questions are just what this sense is and why it matters what we call it.

Defining understanding

Deciding on how to define a concept is not the same as making a discovery. It’s a pragmatic choice (usually) based on empirical observations. We no more discover that machines think or understand than we discover that Pluto isn’t a planet.

In the case of artificial intelligence, people often talk of 20th-century science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov as having had prophetic visions of the future. But they didn’t so much anticipate the thought and language of contemporary computing technology as directly influence it. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics have been an inspiration to a whole generation of engineers and designers who talk about machines that learn, understand, make decisions, have emotional intelligence, are empathetic and even doubt themselves.

This vision enchants us into forgetting the other possible ways of thinking about artificial intelligence, gradually eroding the nuance in our definitions. Is this outweighed by what we gain from Asimov’s vocabulary? The answer depends on why we might want understanding between humans and machines in the first place. To handle this question we must, naturally, first turn to bees.

As the philosopher of language Jonathan Bennett writes, we can talk about bees having a “language” they use to “understand” each other’s “reports” of discoveries of food. And there is a sense in which we can speak – without quote marks even – of bees having thought, language, communication, and understanding and other qualities we usually think of as particularly human. But think what a giant mess the whole process would be if they were also able to question each other’s motives, grow jealous, become resentful, and so on like humans.

A similar disaster would occur if our sat-nav devices started bickering with us, like an unhappy couple on holiday, over the best route to our chosen destination. The ability to understand can seriously interfere with performance. A good hoover doesn’t need to understand why I need more powerful suction in order for it to switch to turbo mode when I press the appropriate button. Why should a good robot be any different?

When Siri answers back. Shutterstock

Understanding isn’t (usually) helpful

One of key things that makes artificial personal assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa useful is precisely the fact that our interactions with them could never justify reactive attitudes on either side. This is because they are not the sort of beings that could care or be cared about. (We may occasionally feel anger towards a machine but it is misplaced.)

We need the assistant’s software to have accurate voice-recognition and be as sensitive to the context of our words as possible. But we hardly want it to be capable of understanding – and so also misunderstanding – us in the everyday ways that could produce mutual resentment, blame, gratitude, guilt, indignation, or pride.

Only a masochist would want an artificial PA that could fall out with her, go on strike, or refuse to update its software.

The only exception in which we might conceivably seek such understanding is in the provision of artificial companions for the elderly. As cognitive scientist Maggie Boden warns, it is emotionally dangerous to provide care-bots that cannot actually care but that people could become deeply attached to.

The aim of AI that understands us as well (or as badly) as we understand one another sounds rather grand and important, perhaps the major scientific challenge of the 21st century. But what would be the point of it? We would do better to focus on the other side of the same coin and work towards having a less anthropocentric understanding of AI itself. The better we can comprehend the way AI reasons, the more useful it will be to us.

Constantine Sandis is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire and Richard Harper is Professor of Computer Science and Communications at Lancaster University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

[brentrogers]

25 Fabulous Years of Psych Central: An Interview with Founder & CEO John Grohol

The year 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of Psych Central. It is quite an achievement, especially in these days when even the most prestigious publications have been closing down at an alarming rate. John Grohol, the Founder and CEO, deserves the credit for his brilliant idea and all the work he has put into the site for the past quarter-century. 

I’m Bella DePaulo, and I have had the good fortune of blogging for Psych Central since 2011. Five years ago, for the 20th anniversary, I asked John Grohol if I could interview him about the site. Happily, he agreed. Readers enjoyed the interview and learned a lot, too, so I asked if we could do it again to mark the 25th anniversary. I hope you appreciate John Grohol’s insights as much as I do.

Bella: How has Psych Central changed over time?

John Grohol: When I first began Psych Central in 1995, it was composed of approximately a dozen web pages. Today, it houses tens of thousands of articles on hundreds of different topics. It’s gone from my small hobby site to a powerhouse of mental health information, reaching over 7 million people each month.

I moved to working on Psych Central full-time in 2006, hiring a journalist to help us with writing news updates, as well as a part-time managing editor. We’ve grown the staff slowly, over time, as our revenues allowed us to hire more people. 

After 25 years, we’ve reached an astounding 650 million people from around the world through our resources, support communities, and articles. 

Bella: What are the different components of the site now?

John Grohol: At its heart, Psych Central continues to be about providing objective, unbiased mental health information to people, no matter where they may live. We do this primarily through our mental health library, where we house all of the information related to mental disorders, as well as their symptoms and treatments. We also have hundreds of parenting and relationship articles in the library, as well as self-help articles that teach common cognitive-behavioral techniques and other therapeutic exercises.

We have a fantastic daily news bureau that publishes news and research updates related to psychology, mental health, relationships, brain science, and parenting. Psych Central Professional focuses on articles and topics mainly of interest to mental health professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists and marriage and family therapists.

Our blog network is composed of dozens of active bloggers. Our bloggers aren’t just mental health professionals, but also include those who grapple with various disorders since too often their voices are not heard in the same conversations we have about mental health.

Our Ask the Therapist feature, begun in 2006, is an advice column staffed by four different therapists who answer people’s questions at no charge. The questions tend to focus on relationship and personality issues, but also include mental health concerns and questions about treatment.

With dozens of different interactive screening quizzes, we offer people the opportunity to see if they may have mental health concerns that warrant further attention from a professional. We also have a daily Mood Tracker as well as the Sanity Score, an overall measure of a person’s general mental health and well-being.

Psych Central has a great self-help support community comprised of over 200 support groups and 500,000 members. Our Forums house self-help support groups for mental health and related everyday life concerns. It’s overseen by myself and a great team of moderators who help keep the community safe and supportive.

Bella: What makes Psych Central unique? What is its special mission, if you think it has one?

John Grohol:

Our Credo:

Provide the best evidence-based mental health & psychology information, regardless of profession. All voices are important and should be elevated in the discourse about mental illness & mental health.

We’re unique in that we’re the oldest and largest independent mental health website online today, still overseen by mental health professionals. We’re also special in that the company isn’t run by businesspeople looking to simply monetize mental health information. We’ve outsourced our actual advertising so that we spend about zero hours a year worrying about or focusing on advertising. This makes us more editorially independent than most other sites.

We’re driven by the daily reminder that through our efforts, we are saving lives. Education is the answer to stigma, discrimination, and prejudice. So we work to provide the best and most diverse set of education resources to help people better understand mental illness and its treatments.

Bella: What are you most proud of?

John: Well, I’ve got 25 years’ worth of things to be proud of. Next to our recognition by mainstream media outlets (included the New York Times and being picked as one the Top 50 Websites of 2008 by TIME.com), I’d have to say I’m most proud of the community we’ve built up, both in our self-help support groups and among our wonderful set of bloggers and contributors.

Our support groups are filled with so many inspirational stories of hope, overcoming horrible circumstances, and recovery. Our members in these groups are warm-hearted, real, giving people… And so many find strength in giving support to others.

The group of bloggers and contributors we have on the site are just amazing. I’ve never met a more creative, thoughtful set of people who constantly inspire and make me think. We’d be hard pressed to offer the kind of diversity of viewpoints without them. Sharing a breadth of experience is so important when dealing with mental illness, because there are so many variants not only of conditions, but of treatments and self-help strategies that work for people.

Last, I’m also very proud of our support of people who live with mental illness every day. Not only do we do this through our online support community, but we also do it through direct action too. For instance, we hire people who struggle with mental illness in their own lives. It’s never been an issue for us, and in fact, I often find that people who are in recovery from such challenges are more resilient and make more passionate workers than those without. 

Bella: What do you see as the future of Psych Central?

John: I think the future is wide open, as the Tom Petty song reminds us. People are mostly interacting with websites through their mobile devices and apps. So that suggests a couple of avenues to explore, such as creating a really spectacular all-in-one mental health helper app. Something that not only allows you to track your mood and remind you of therapy appointments and taking your medication, but also provides just-in-time resources for support or immediate treatment. Imagine you just needed someone to talk to, and could log in and find someone immediately to have a conversation with… That could be a very powerful helping tool.

The digital publishing landscape has also changed significantly in the past 5 years. When we last talked, it was far more stable and easier to run a business with online advertising. With changes that Google has continuously made to its search engine algorithm, such stability is less assured. Even long-time, high-quality websites like Psych Central can be impacted, demonstrating the unpredictable nature of Google’s changes. 

So it might make sense to take a hard look at how we can continue to grow our business in an increasingly challenging marketplace such as this.

But I believe today more than ever, we need such independent resources that Psych Central provides. I believe there will always be an audience for high-quality articles that span the mental health spectrum — something we do a great job producing.

25 Fabulous Years of Psych Central: An Interview with Founder & CEO John Grohol syndicated from