#unless its a server issue

[ro-sso]

was gonna do a fun photoshoot with my new morgan horse but uuh sso kicked me for cheating LMAO.

Guessing my wifi is being shit and the game thinks im teleporting

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

i could make a post about how positivity blogs are good in theory but create more problems than not in practice but I feel like that would make me sound pettier than I want to sound

[corgifruity]

if a person has a "don't dm unless we're friends/ close" in their bio, its *not* an invitation to start talking to them unless you both are friends.

please learn to respect boundaries

[molluskmirage]

The villainization of Bad is perplexing to me for a lot of reasons. Fandom wanting him to pay for his actions when he didn’t even have the highest kill rate in purgatory on his team… Bad and Tubbo had the same amount of kills day 1. Bad was probably killed more by red team then he killed yet still its not enough for the red fandom.

also regarding Dapper. ‘Bad’s actions made it so no one would help dapper’…. Bad would never hold a parents actions against a child. Leo actively helped Vegetta and Roier place bombs all over Bad and Dappers farm house causing them to move. And even when they moved Bad still included Leo on the allow list. He loves Leo. Dapper really admired Vegetta and wanted to speak with him but was struck by him for teasing Foolish.

Bad teases and tricks and lies about unimportant things, steals furniture and he has trust issues yes, but he also counter balances that by providing others with lavish gifts and items and knowledge that takes hours to do. He repairs broken machines the kids have done for there parents, he takes care of the kids so no one dies of neglect, he keeps people company, he’s provided so much countless food and armor and exp to everyone at such volume its absurd to count. He made spawn so that it would be easy for others to get around when they died and constantly refills the xp.

He’s rp an actual demon but genuinely most of Bad’s actions while surface level inconvenient in depth he’s ridiculously generous and kind. The only time of him ‘cutting loose’ being in a game that was designed for killing and his son instructed him too. So many in the fandom gave weight to Chayanne’s message but for Dapper it was :eyeroll: whatever. Dapper who had been self harming themselves to help aid his siblings and other islanders was instructing Bad to run over other islanders, he wouldn’t say that unless it was important.

I can understand not liking a character theirs plenty I dont personally find my cup of tea but that doesnt make them evil. Its so strange to me that the fandom finds Bbh to be ‘the worst’ narratively, when Slime actively tried to murder Dapper and the other kids, Cellbit has gone full serial killer, Vegetta nearly killed Bobby with bombs, Forever lashed out in anger at Leo yet Bad stealing furniture that can be replaced by sticks and wool is the absolute dread of the server. Bad in a killing game was mean when others were mean and one of the few members of his team that could protect his team.

it’s interesting because for the most part Bad’s crimes are psychological (not to say its not a torment) but it’s interesting because it seems to be labeled so much worse then physical actions other characters have made. Bad doesn’t let others actions get to him he forgives and picks himself up and tries again maybe more guarded this time but he doesnt complain about others actions he always blames himself and carries on. Bad doesnt excuse himself he knows that his actions can cause distress from others and still does them without regret but he also understands others wont like him for his actions and fully accepts and expects it.

[canmom]

Hypothetical Decentralised Social Media Protocol Stack

if we were to dream up the Next Social Media from first principles we face three problems. one is scaling hosting, the second is discovery/aggregation, the third is moderation.

hosting

hosting for millions of users is very very expensive. you have to have a network of datacentres around the world and mechanisms to sync the data between them. you probably use something like AWS, and they will charge you an eye-watering amount of money for it. since it's so expensive, there's no way to break even except by either charging users to access your service (which people generally hate to do) or selling ads, the ability to intrude on their attention to the highest bidder (which people also hate, and go out of their way to filter out). unless you have a lot of money to burn, this is a major barrier.

the traditional internet hosts everything on different servers, and you use addresses that point you to that server. the problem with this is that it responds poorly to sudden spikes in attention. if you self-host your blog, you can get DDOSed entirely by accident. you can use a service like cloudflare to protect you but that's $$$. you can host a blog on a service like wordpress, or a static site on a service like Github Pages or Neocities, often for free, but that broadly limits interaction to people leaving comments on your blog and doesn't have the off-the-cuff passing-thought sort of interaction that social media does.

the middle ground is forums, which used to be the primary form of social interaction before social media eclipsed them, typically running on one or a few servers with a database + frontend. these are viable enough, often they can be run with fairly minimal ads or by user subscriptions (the SomethingAwful model), but they can't scale indefinitely, and each one is a separate bubble. mastodon is a semi-return to this model, with the addition of a means to use your account on one bubble to interact with another ('federation').

the issue with everything so far is that it's an all-eggs-in-one-basket approach. you depend on the forum, instance, or service paying its bills to stay up. if it goes down, it's just gone. and database-backend models often interact poorly with the internet archive's scraping, so huge chunks won't be preserved.

scaling hosting could theoretically be solved by a model like torrents or IPFS, in which every user becomes a 'server' for all the posts they download, and you look up files using hashes of the content. if a post gets popular, it also gets better seeded! an issue with that design is archival: there is no guarantee that stuff will stay on the network, so if nobody is downloading a post, it is likely to get flushed out by newer stuff. it's like link rot, but it happens automatically.

IPFS solves this by 'pinning': you order an IPFS node (e.g. your server) not to flush a certain file so it will always be available from at least one source. they've sadly mixed this up in cryptocurrency, with 'pinning services' which will take payment in crypto to pin your data. my distaste for a technology designed around red queen races aside, I don't know how pinning costs compare to regular hosting costs.

theoretically you could build a social network on a backbone of content-based addressing. it would come with some drawbacks (posts would be immutable, unless you use some indirection to a traditional address-based hosting) but i think you could make it work (a mix of location-based addressing for low-bandwidth stuff like text, and content-based addressing for inline media). in fact, IPFS has the ability to mix in a bit of address-based lookup into its content-based approach, used for hosting blogs and the like.

as for videos - well, BitTorrent is great for distributing video files. though I don't know how well that scales to something like Youtube. you'd need a lot of hard drive space to handle the amount of Youtube that people typically watch and continue seeding it.

aggregation/discovery

the next problem is aggregation/discovery. social media sites approach this problem in various ways. early social media sites like LiveJournal had a somewhat newsgroup-like approach, you'd join a 'community' and people would post stuff to that community. this got replaced by the subscription model of sites like Twitter and Tumblr, where every user is simultaneously an author and a curator, and you subscribe to someone to see what posts they want to share.

this in turn got replaced by neural network-driven algorithms which attempt to guess what you'll want to see and show you stuff that's popular with whatever it thinks your demographic is. that's gotta go, or at least not be an intrinsic part of the social network anymore.

it would be easy enough to replicate the 'subscribe to see someone's recommended stuff' model, you just need a protocol for pointing people at stuff. (getting analytics such as like/reblog counts would be more difficult!) it would probably look similar to RSS feeds: you upload a list of suitably formatted data, and programs which speak that protocol can download it.

the problem of discovery - ways to find strangers who are interested in the same stuff you are - is more tricky. if we're trying to design this as a fully decentralised, censorship-resistant network, we face the spam problem. any means you use to broadcast 'hi, i exist and i like to talk about this thing, come interact with me' can be subverted by spammers. either you restrict yourself entirely to spreading across a network of curated recommendations, or you have to have moderation.

moderation

moderation is one of the hardest problems of social networks as they currently exist. it's both a problem of spam (the posts that users want to see getting swamped by porn bots or whatever) and legality (they're obliged to remove child porn, beheading videos and the like). the usual solution is a combination of AI shit - does the robot think this looks like a naked person - and outsourcing it to poorly paid workers in (typically) African countries, whose job is to look at reports of the most traumatic shit humans can come up with all day and confirm whether it's bad or not.

for our purposes, the hypothetical decentralised network is a protocol to help computers find stuff, not a platform. we can't control how people use it, and if we're not hosting any of the bad shit, it's not on us. but spam moderation is a problem any time that people can insert content you did not request into your feed.

possibly this is where you could have something like Mastodon instances, with their own moderation rules, but crucially, which don't host the content they aggregate. so instead of having 'an account on an instance', you have a stable address on the network, and you submit it to various directories so people can find you. by keeping each one limited in scale, it makes moderation more feasible. this is basically Reddit's model: you have topic-based hubs which people can subscribe to, and submit stuff to.

the other moderation issue is that there is no mechanism in this design to protect from mass harassment. if someone put you on the K*w*f*rms List of Degenerate Trannies To Suicidebait, there'd be fuck all you can do except refuse to receive contact from strangers. though... that's kind of already true of the internet as it stands. nobody has solved this problem.

to sum up

primarily static sites 'hosted' partly or fully on IPFS and BitTorrent

a protocol for sharing content you want to promote, similar to RSS, that you can aggregate into a 'feed'

directories you can submit posts to which handle their own moderation

no ads, nobody makes money off this

honestly, the biggest problem with all this is mostly just... getting it going in the first place. because let's be real, who but tech nerds is going to use a system that requires you to understand fuckin IPFS? until it's already up and running, this idea's got about as much hope as getting people to sign each others' GPG keys. it would have to have the sharp edges sanded down, so it's as easy to get on the Hypothetical Decentralised Social Network Protocol Stack as it is to register an account on tumblr.

but running over it like this... I don't think it's actually impossible in principle. a lot of the technical hurdles have already been solved. and that's what I want the Next Place to look like.

[barrendome]

QSMP POSTERS PLEASE READ.

ive been meaning to make this post for ages. i understand fitmc is on the QSMP, and 2b2t plays a big part in his lore and your guys' headcanons and aus and stuff. thats cool! however, please please PLEASE don't mistag things.

the 2b2t tag itself is bare enough, i have a hard time finding posts for it. i am not at all interested in qsmp. 99% of the results are qsmp and most times do not even have anything 2b2t related besides mentioning fit.

when you put 2b2t in the post, or tags anywhere, it shows up in the search for 2b2t.

i am politely asking you to stop using 2b2t in your posts unless it actually directly is talking about the server. if you need to mention it, use some sort of way of writing it differently (twobtwot, 2b/2t, 2builders2tools, whatever you can think of) so it doesn't show up in the search.

while i am aware i could filter the qsmp tags (and i probably will!) it does not stop the larger issue that you guys are mistagging, and it is very very frustrating, especially with 2b2t being so niche that its already hard to find posts, qsmp aside.

please stop mentioning 2b2t in your posts and tags that dont actually have anything to do with the server itself. thank you.

[twstthing]

[Yuu joined the game.]

Minecraft Single Player! Yuu AU

Game logic and all carried with them. That is what is about to go down.

Has their entire inventory with them, and has no clue at to what bendable legs are

“Why do I have these weird moving thingies at the end of my arms?” they’re fingers.

There’s not a lot of time to ponder the sudden addition of fingers and toes and stuff when Grim very warmly greets Yuu with some good ol blue fire and a demand for clothing.

Yuu is just so confused. What kind of mob is this??? Can mobs speak??? Did they suddenly go on a modded server in the middle of their sleep?????

Yuu looks down.

THEY HAVE A NEW SKIN??? Where is their other skin??? They didn’t change skins in their sleep, that’s weird as hell!!

Regardless of their very, very befuddled state, Yuu decides what’s best for them and immediately takes Grim as a hostile mob.

“I don’t know what kind of mob you are, but if you can speak you must have some loot!”

Rather than Yuu getting chased by Grim, it’s Grim being chased by Yuu. Yuu has no time to waste on waiting around for a mob to attack them, they need drops and EXP levels. ("When did hostile mobs learn to run?")

Grim gets caught by the clown headmage's whip, and Yuu heeds absolutely no attention to Crowley's scolding words as they marvel at the utterly insane graphics and physics of the whip. It can curve! Curve!! In the air!!!

Dragging Yuu and Grim by the hood and scruff, they enter the ever fabled hall where bad things go down

This entrance ceremony is about to get 1000x more wacky than it should be

“Go on child, tell the mirror your name so you can get sorted properly."

Upon the mirror going, "State thy name." Yuu briefly wonders for a moment if the mirror is a really modded player or a mob.

It wasn't as brief as they thought, because the mirror states once more: "State thy name."

".. Yuurmom."

Crowley and Riddle are about to throw a fit at the utter lack of decorum until the mirror continues on with its analysis of Yuu rather than berating them for being immature and—good Sevens Yuurmom is actually their name

“The shape of thy soul is… shaped as squarely as the earth. Thy soul is solidified and firm in its position, bending to none other than itself. Therefore, they are suited for no dormitory.”

When Grim comes up and starts spewing fire everywhere and gets Kalim's butt on fire, Yuu prioritizes helping a fellow player by utilizing the beautifully named mlg waterbucket

Things only get crazier because the water source from the bucket is only a foot high which isn’t tall enough to put out Kalim, the water is spreading causing several other Scarabia students in a 8ft square radius to get their feet wet, someone is questioning what kind of magic this is to have a seemingly endless flow of water, and Grim is still wreaking havoc

As soon as they dump that water, Yuu has their sights set on Grim. They want his loot so bad, and their ever-trusty enchanted axe will surely do the job within two hits if one is critical.

Was it mentioned that handheld, sharp weapons are not allowed on campus grounds unless given special permission?

Crowley does not know who he should worry about more, the raging fire-spewing cat or the axe-swinging first year student(?) who’s somehow running and jumping around without bending their knees

The orderly Riddle Rosehearts and opportunistic Azul hardly hesitate to begin trying to settle the issue, as they always do

Current issue: Riddle Rosehearts cannot restrain a weapon if it is not created from magic, so even as he goes, “Off With Your Head!” to Yuu and Grim, Yuu’s axe isn’t gone and they’re still swinging

Grim would have met a grim fate had it not been for Crowley’s infuriated intervention with his Love Whip yanking him out of the axe’s path

“WHAT do you think you are doing to this familiar?!” ("I ain't no familiar!")

The Entrance Ceremony has gone terribly. A student(?) woke up late, disrupted the ceremony only for them to NOT be sorted into any dorm with an extremely abnormal analysis of their soul, the Headmage brought in a flame-throwing cat that set everything on fire, Kalim's ass is burnt, there is solid square water spread around Scarabia's standing place soaking the students around it, and said late-waking student(?) is recklessly swinging an axe at the fire-throwing cat

Also the student(?) is jumping. Without bending their legs. They are jumping and running without bending their legs, they also are swinging an axe without bending their arms. Their entire body is a rigid as a pole and at some point it is questioned if this student is even human

At this point, Yuu has presented themselves as enough of a threat that Housewardens Vil and Leona are forced to intervene. Handheld weapons, regardless of user, are not to be equipped or carried on campus for student safety (though one of the two might not be ready to admit that they care for their students’ safety)

Leona knocks Yuu(rmom) out. One firm uppercut, an oddly masculine, "OOF!", the whole body of the student(?) flashing red, and they are down for the next few hours. In the meantime, NRC staff and Housewardens have to figure out what to do with an unyielding soul, their axe, and the seemingly infinite water that they've put down.

[stanpinessecretlover]

You guys seem to have forgotten what fandom really IS. While I admit some people in this fandom are crazy mean and stuff, you guys have to realize that there will ALWAYS be toxic people in a fandom. I haven't seen that many "toxic" chnt fans, and you shouldn't let them ruin that for you anyway, you don't have to interact with the fandom. The Chnt fandom isn't "toxic" its just so small of a fandom that one or two bad people make the whole fandom look bad. The issue with the fandom is that it's still growing, every fandom goes through the process of toxicity and stubbornness and anger, that doesn't mean you should cut it out entirely. The only part of the fandom that REALLY sucks right now is Tumblr, but that's just the way it is with most fandoms. Tumblr is a fandom space where most fandoms develop.

Leaving the fandom because of a few bad apples isn't the answer, every fandom goes through an era where people will draw the characters "wrong" and then in later years people look back at how cringy they were. And stop yelling at younger teenagers for listening to camp here and there. The fandom is so small you cannot afford to scare people off.

"oh but Chnt is 16+!!!" I've seen more mature 13 year olds in this fandom than I've seen mature adults. Stop gatekeeping, they aren't hurting anyone, sure they shouldn't join the official server because it's 16+ but gatekeeping is stupid. Do you not want Blue Mayfield to get listeners? Queer kids have VERY limited spaces and representation and camp here and there is PERFECT for that.

Stop whining about how much you hate the fandom because that just contributes to discourse and toxicity, instead just ignore the toxic people and create your own happy space where we can all learn to love and appreciate this beautiful work of art created by Mayfield. A fandom wont stop being toxic because nice people are leaving it. A fandom wont stop being toxic unless you contribute to making it a safe space.

Thank you for listening to my yap session

[wolfliving]

It starts with him

What was once a promise of technology to allow us to automate and analyze the environments in our physical spaces is now a heap of broken ideas and broken products. Technology products have been deployed en masse, our personal data collected and sold without our consent, and then abandoned as soon as companies strip mined all the profit they thought they could wring out. And why not? They already have our money.

The Philips Hue, poster child of the smart home, used to work entirely on your local network. After all, do you really need to connect to the Internet to control the lights in your own house?  Well you do now!Philips has announced it will require cloud accounts for all users—including users who had already purchased the hardware thinking they wouldn’t need an account (and the inevitable security breaches that come with it) to use their lights.

Will you really trust any promises from a company that unilaterally forces a change like this on you? Does the user actually benefit from any of this?

Matter in its current version … doesn’t really help resolve the key issue of the smart home, namely that most companies view smart homes as a way to sell more individual devices and generate recurring revenue.

It keeps happening. Stuff you bought isn’t yours because the company you bought it from can take away features and force you to do things you don’t want or need to do—ultimately because they want to make more money off of you. It’s frustrating, it’s exhausting, and it’s discouraging.

And it has stopped IoT for the rest of us in its tracks. Industrial IoT is doing great—data collection is the point for the customer. But the consumer electronics business model does not mesh with the expected lifespan of home products, and so enshittification began as soon as those first warranties ran out.

How can we reset the expectations we have of connected devices, so that they are again worthy of our trust and money? Before we can bring the promise back, we must deweaponize the technology.

Guidelines for the hardware producer

What we can do as engineers and business owners is make sure the stuff we’re building can’t be wielded as a lever against our own customers, and to show consumers how things could be. These are things we want consumers to expect and demand of manufacturers.

Control

Think local

Decouple

Open interfaces

Be a good citizen

1) Control over firmware updates.

You scream, “What about security updates!” But a company taking away a feature you use or requiring personal data for no reason is arguably a security flaw. 

We were once outraged when intangible software products went from something that remained unchanging on your computer, to a cloud service, with all the ephemerality that term promises. Now they’re coming for our tangible possessions.

No one should be able to do this with hardware that you own. Breaking functionality is entirely what security updates are supposed to prevent! A better checklist for firmware updates:

Allow users to control when and what updates they want to apply. 

Be thorough and clear as to what the update does and provide the ability to downgrade if needed. 

Separate security updates from feature additions or changes. 

Never force an update unless you are sure you want to accept (financial) responsibility for whatever you inadvertently break. 

Consider that you are sending software updates to other people’s hardware. Ask them for permission (which includes respecting “no”) before touching their stuff!

2) Do less on the Internet.

A large part of the security issues with IoT products stem from the Internet connectivity itself. Any server in the cloud has an attack surface, and now that means your physical devices do.

The solution here is “do less”. All functionality should be local-only unless it has a really good reason to use the Internet. Remotely controlling your lights while in your own house does not require the cloud and certainly does not require an account with your personal information attached to it. Limit the use of the cloud to only the functions that cannot work without it.

As a bonus, less networked functionality means fewer maintenance costs for you.

3) Decouple products and services.

It’s fine to need a cloud service. But making a product that requires a specific cloud service is a guarantee that it can be enshittified at any point later on, with no alternative for the user owner. 

Design products to be able to interact with other servers. You have sold someone hardware and now they own it, not you. They have a right to keep using it even if you shut down or break your servers. Allow them the ability to point their devices to another service. If you want them to use your service, make it worthwhile enough for them to choose you.

Finally, if your product has a heavy reliance on the cloud to work, consider enabling your users to self-host their own cloud tooling if they so desire. A lot of people are perfectly capable of doing this on their own and can help others do the same.

4) Use open and standard protocols and interfaces.

Most networked devices have no reason to use proprietary protocols, interfaces, and data formats. There are open standards with communities and software available for almost anything you could want to do. Re-inventing the wheel just wastes resources and makes it harder for users to keep using their stuff after you’re long gone. We did this with Twine, creating an encrypted protocol that minimized chatter, because we needed to squeeze battery life out of WiFi back when there weren’t good options.

If you do have a need for a proprietary protocol (and there are valid reasons to do so):

Document it. 

If possible, have a fallback option that uses an open standard. 

Provide tooling and software to interact with your custom protocols, at the very least enough for open source developers to be able to work with it. This goes for physical interfaces as much as it does for cloud protocols.

If the interface requires a custom-made, expensive, and/or hard-to-find tool to use, then consider using something else that is commonly available and off the shelf instead.

5) Be a good citizen.

Breaking paid-for functionality on other people’s stuff is inherently unethical. Consider not doing this! Enshittification is not a technical problem, it is a behavioral one. Offer better products that are designed to resist enshittification, and resist it yourself in everything you do.

Nothing forced Philips to do what they are doing: a human made a decision to do it. They could have just as easily chosen not to. With Twine’s server lock-in, at least we chose to keep it running, for 12 years now. Consider that you can still make a decent living by being honest and ethical towards the people who are, by purchasing your products, paying for your lifestyle. 

We didn’t get here by accident. Humans made choices that brought us to this point, and we can’t blame anyone for being turned off by it. But we can choose to do better. We can design better stuff. And we can choose not to mess things up after the fact.

We’re putting this into practice with Pickup. (We also think that part of an IoT reset is giving users the creative freedom of a general-purpose device.) If you’re looking for something better and our product can fill a need you have, consider backing us. We cannot claim to be perfect or have all of the answers, but we are absolutely going to try. The status quo sucks. Let’s do something about it.

Published October 15, 2023 By Jeremy Billheimer

[mamawasatesttube]

helloo (^ ^) could you recommend a comic run with kon for a first time reader? (maybe one of the best/cheapest to get a physical copy of?) Tyy (also sorry if u answered an ask like this before :P)

i don't really know much about getting physical copies sorry (i tend to do the vast majority of my reading online, and then just dig through the backstocks like a little raccoon scouring for superboy whenever i go to stores in person sldkfj) BUT.

most people probably start with young justice (1998). if you're totally new to comics it's not a bad place to start! however, if you're more interested in kon and the superfam, and willing to jump into the deep end, i would highly recommend reading the return of superman, specifically starting with the reign of the supermen part of the event (kon's introduction)! luckily, even though this is a crossover event, you can find it as a collected set (trade paperback, or tpb) which just has just about all the relevant issues from different runs put together.

after rots you can jump into superboy (1994). people often say this is not a good comic to start with but honestly? it was the first one i read and i think i did okay lskdhsd like i get it. it contains the horrors (if you need a list of trigger warnings, let me know!) and it can be rough. but also it has its moments that are genuinely really, really good. in my opinion you will not truly understand kon as a character unless you read his solo.

other comics with kon (konmics, if you will) come after those, but these are like, the basics for kon's early days/the basics of his character!

and a couple of links that might help: here is a list of just about every appearance he has (i think a couple might be missing, but it's overall pretty comprehensive). and also, one of my friends has a server that's doing a readalong of all of kon's comics!

[mychemicalnations]

What the fuck, NaNo???????

this is a long post, buckle up.

Okay, if you haven't heard anything about NaNoWriMo's statement about the use of AI in writing, I am both jealous of you and here to ruin that for you.

The folks over at National Novel Writing Month have released a statement (which you can read here) that explicitly says that being Anti-genAI is classist and ableist. My gut reaction is that this is a fucking asinine take -- poor and disabled people have been writing for longer than we've even had the electricity that powers AI -- but the more I think about it, the angrier I get about the anti-community sentiment that they seem to be pushing.

The claims that are made in this statement are either non-issues or something that AI does not actually fix. Yeah, not everyone can afford to hire an editor, but that is a large part of why writing communities exist both in-person and online. Exchange works with a friend and help each other out, find a discord server and ask there. Make use of a writing community. The same thing applies to ableism; Yeah, we all have different abilities and not everyone can "see" what might need improvement. So you share your work with another writer and get feedback from your community. Writing is a skill that needs to be honed and in order to do that, you have to be okay with being bad at it sometimes.

I'm not even sure I can say much about their "General access" paragraph because, like... AI is not going to fix the systemic issues with the publishing industry. It just won't. That entire paragraph gets half-way to a point and then falls on its ass into the void.

As if I wasn't angry enough, NaNoWriMo edited the statement about 8 hours ago to say "Note: we have edited this post by adding this paragraph to reflect our acknowledgment that there are bad actors in the AI space who are doing harm to writers and who are acting unethically."

This makes me want to throw my computer out a fucking window. Using AI in writing or any other art is inherently unethical because the language models being used are trained on works by people who did not consent to their work being used to train said AI. It is theft. It is plagiarism. Plain and simple. Chat-GPT was trained using the entirety of the New York Times archive, so when you use Chat-GPT, what it produces is based off of the work of NYT journalists (read about the resulting lawsuit here). It's not that there are "bad actors", the programs themselves are built on stealing writing. We've known this for what feels like ages now. This is such a bullshit edit and a fucking sad attempt at saving their asses.

I am someone that doesn't even use Grammarly anymore because they literally market themselves as an AI writing assistant and I'm not willing to risk my entire degree for an application that can't even handle vernacular and dialect and makes mid suggestions at best. Genuinely fuck off and block me if you support the use of AI in writing. Also, my block button is rated E for Everyone and I will use it liberally if anyone comes into my notes supporting genAI. Unless I am feel particularly combative, then you will feel the full weight of my academic and creative integrity. You have been warned.

[etoilesbienne]

people keep saying that qsmpblr is open to criticism but every day i believe it less. like ive seen more people open to criticism (if not criticizing stuff themselves) of quackitys/qstudios actions on twitter (where people are notorious for sending death threats at the slightest expression of dislike) than on tumblr. the tweets ive seen sharing the translation(s) on twitter have thousands of likes and hundreds/thousands of retweets, lots of people there are actually talking about it, and not just the ones who already were before leas interview (like the majority of people i see discussing it here on tumblr)

and the toxic positivity i see from people on tumblr about this is wild, refusing to look anywhere but the brightest side and suppressing any negative feelings or outlooks (including from others, but i saw that more in the first few weeks). its ok to not be ok with whats happening.

i do think its partially an issue of the community on tumblr being smaller so anyone who does want to share their criticism is wary of the fact that they might be quietly ousted from the community and lose friends and mutuals over it, or worse harrassed about it. i think its part of the reason the more "harsh" criticisms you (general you) see of the server or qstudios or quackity is are from anon asks on blogs that have shown theyre open to actual discussion, because it means that they dont have to be "open" on their own blogs about the fact theyre not waiting with no reassurance of real change actually (including myself in this, ive gone on a ramble or two in some peoples asks)

and also even before the workplace abuse came out, any criticism of lore seemingly had to be disclaimered 10 times over about not hating anyone involved in the lore, not hating the admins, and not hating people who did enjoy it. and it seemed like anyone being critical is seen as sending hate unless they stated this every other line in their post. (exaggerating a little but you get my point)

and now with WORKPLACE ABUSE.... at first you had the disclaimer that "quackity didnt know" (still bad??? he should know whats going on in his own company???), and then (and still now) the "just wait and trust theyre working on it" (when we still have no proof from them of any changes besides firing half their staff, and as far as we know still no contact with the people who were affected by their labour rights violations for any testimony? why should i trust qstudios), and NOW the tearing apart of everything lea says or does in order to somehow discredit her (because shes not a perfect virtuous pure sinless victim, but instead outspoken about the abuses she faced), as if discrediting her as the first to speak out will put the multiple other corroborating testimonies back in the skeleton filled closet..

idk this got kinda rambly TLDR qsmpblr isnt actually "open to criticism" beyond the mildest possible and they never have been.

Oh lord don't you know it. I had some interesting asks with very choice words in it back when I criticized the way people treated Jaiden & Baghera regularly ! Qsmpblr is possible to have a nicer experience because it is so much smaller, but having a smaller experience means you are at risk for different issues just as much as you are for a bigger one !

[solargeist]

i remember you saying something about this, but i just wanna be sure: can bursona alters use your art as pfps? ive recently gotten harrassed in a syscord server for having a pfp of your art and was forced to change it "for the other's comfortability" but i really like it :((

HUH people yelled at u on my behalf ? uh ohh im sorry omg

Yes, you can still use my old bursona art as pfps. I've always tried to be friendly with alters and understand they're different from uh, source ? And/or don't control it. So consider those old posts ~not mine anymore.

They're quite literally all on Pinterest too, I have no way of controlling that, so I don't busy myself over it ? I feel indifferent to it since I've rebranded and moved fandoms.

Unless you still support CC wilbur, then i dont want to be associated at all. I'm more lenient abt people liking his Characters, the fans are what made them anyway.

Though its still true that I want nothing to do with any of his characters or projects or anything, I don't care for cwilbur or cc at all, or his band, or any of his friends. Not my circus...

Its only mostly an issue when I see his fans flood my activity page spamming, or reposting my images with the intent of supporting him. Then its weird and sorta affects my reputation, I feel.

I don't use discord servers, so as far as comfortability in that situation...... I wouldn't knowww abt iiiiit ? Unless someone told me and made it my problemm ? I appreciate the concern and thought, of course, from all parties, but its a funny thought, as I'm not there, so i can't be made comfortable or uncomfortable.

Bbbbbut anyway yes, you can use pfps, i'm indifferent to it. I'll take it as a compliment, that the art is cute, rather than something of him, Teehee.

[leafofkudzu]

Hello again! The first Saturday of a new month approaches once more, which means it's time for another art party hosted by my guild, [VS] Verdant Shield! The poll has run its course, and our location winner by a narrow last-minute victory is Hoelbrak!

For those who have no idea what these art parties entail, they're an idea carried over from Final Fantasy XIV - in-game get-togethers for artists/writers/creatives of all kinds to hang out, chat, and create together! Get a nice outfit together, find someone that inspires you, and create! Then afterwards, everyone posts their creations under the same tag (ours is #VSArtParty) so others can see, interact, and share! There is no off-site discord server or anything for art parties (well, these ones at least), since the idea is to encourage community creativity and interaction! Simply put, there's one thing I always say in every one of these posts, which will forever hold true: the 'goal' of an art party isn't to be drawn, but to draw others, and share with the community!

Now, those who have been to previous parties know the basics about times and /squadjoin stuff by now, but for those who don't know or would just like a refresher, details about location and other such things are under the cut!

Location:

Lake Mourn is absolutely massive and basically impossible to miss since it takes up the entire West side of the map. If you head to Hero's Compass Waypoint and hop off the edge down onto the ice, that's the spot! I expect people will spread out a lot with this much room, so you may have to wander a bit to find where people have decided to set up shop!

Time & Squad Details:

As always, the party will consist of two separate events, technically with an hour in between though people with multiple accounts often hop from one to the other immediately.

The first party will be on EU servers and begin at 9pm Central European Summer Time (aka 3pm Eastern Daylight Time or 5 hours before in-game reset). I’ll be hosting on my EU alt account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Runa Gravemourn for an invite.

The second party will be on NA servers and begin at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time (aka 1am Central European Summer Time or 1 hour before in-game reset). This one I’ll be hosting on my main account, so to join either /squadjoin or whisper Valdis Kogrunner for an invite.

IMPORTANT NOTE RE: POTENTIAL MAP CLOSURES: Last time we were in Hoelbrak we had issues with very frequent map closures. To try and keep us together as much as possible, I'm actually going to suggest everyone join and stay in squad unless absolutely necessary so when we jump together we're more likely to end up in the same place. Ideally the map doesn't close every 15min but who's to say? We'll keep our fingers crossed. Should the squad cap out I'll enlist the help of another guildmate to get a second one going for further cat herding, so if you attempt to join my squad and it's full, please whisper me and I'll have the second squad's commander invite you to theirs instead!

Closing Words:

I may have been spending the last few parties quietly watching without much input, but these really are one of the highlights of my time in game, and of my month in general! I love seeing everyone come out and have fun making memories together, and I hope to see many new and returning faces this time around as well! Thank you all for making these events so special, and I'll see you all on Saturday! ♥

[ayuppears]

Battle Royale Community

New feature: Communities

As you may know, communities is a new feature on tumblr, in beta testing right now. As far as I'm aware, it has not rolled out for everyone, and secondary blogs cannot join as of yet.

About Battle Royale

Battle Royale is a dystopian horror novel by Takami Koushun, published in 1999, which has since been adapted into a movie in 2000 by Kinji Fukasaku and a manga series, illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi.

Join now!

Make sure you read the rules under read more first, please!

I hope to see you soon.

Rules and About

Respect other members of this server.

Don't start fights or drama. If you have issues with anyone, deal with them privately. Be kind and friendly to other people and respect their opinions and headcanons even if they differ greatly from yours.

Stay in topic

This community is for the fans of Battle Royale. Reblog and post content about Battle Royale the novel, its adaptations and spin offs. The term Battle Royale was given to a popular gaming genre with concept inspired by the novel, but has nothing to do with this server.

Avoid talking about real life politics.

Politics have a tendency to divide people and rouse emotions and tension. Heavy world events and issues, slandering or discussion of politics of opposing parties and anything that negatively targets another person or a group is forbidden. However, politics related to the Battle Royale universe, general life conditions or history is fine, within reasonable bounds. Ask an admin if unsure.

Don't spam.

No incoherent spamming.

Do not advertise your sites or communities or anything else unless given permission to.

This includes messaging community members to advertise other communities, sites or products. Please, contact the admin or a moderator if you catch someone doing this. Note! Sharing links to your ⁠fanfics and ⁠fanart are an exception.

Do not repost fanart or gifs without credit or/and permission

Gifs and edits you have to reblog, do not repost. Fanart, if outside of tumblr, must be properly credited, preferably with a link to their profile or work. I do not look kindly to "Credit to whoever made this" or "Found this, I didn't make it". If you want to share but don't know the artist, you can ask other members help you find the source.

If you have any issues, questions, concerns, suggestions or feedback, feel free to contact me.

[tenaciouschronicler]

June 14 2024 2009

This is some crazy interactivity we got. Im not gonna talk about everything since many arent plot/lore relevant. At the least getting to explore more of Johns house in detail has been great! I love his silly little walk animation.

We have two speakers, the first being the new disembodied voice. They type in all caps on a black background with orange borders and address John as Boy throughout the flash. Each of their texts are preceeded with the command '>' symbol, though not everything they type is a command. The other is, I assume, our narrator. They type in the way we've seen so far on a white background with lime green borders and, unless 'talking' with >VOICE, address John as 'you'. Its interesting to note >VOICE can see what Narrator says when its addressed to them. Its unclear if they can see Everything the narrator types however.

Now for the nity-gritty. (Which is all gonna be under the cut for lengths sake)

(Just so I dont have to type it out so much >VOICE will be V and Narrator will be N)

We start this flash on the roof landing where we get instructions on how to proceed. Vs text boxes are stated to be command menus.

When I was first clicking around I though each object only had 1 command. I found out the sprite and John actually have follow ups when I was trying to tap the sprite when I miss clicked with how closely it sticks to John.

For the Sprite, N rehashes what we saw in the previous update and also notes the transformation did not make the Sprite understandable, it still speaks in fleur de lis. In the next command from V, N reveals [The only thing you can theoretically do with it is TIER 2 PROTOTYPE IT, assuming that's still possible...]. V doesnt seem to have knowledge of SBURB trying to get John to <TIER PROTO TYPE THE SPRITE, OR THE THING YOU SAID.> According to N, [The SBURB SERVER USER is supposed to do that.] With the previous comment combined, it seems Rose may or may not be able to affect John wherever he is. That or N is just as clueless to the extent of SBURBs reach, even if they have more knowledge.

John has a lot more said about him. Here is where we get the interactions between V and N.

> BOY. LISTEN TO ME, BOY.

[His name is John, you nincompoop.]

Absolutely hilarious, N.

> BOY WHO IS JOHN. DO AS I SAY.

[What would you like 'BOY WHO IS JOHN' to do?]

> OBEY MY COMMANDS, JOHN BOY.

[And those commands would be...?]

> I WOULD LIKE THE BOY TO INTERACT WITH HIS ENVIRONMENT IN A CONSTRUCTIVE MANNER.

[Maybe you should be a little more specific?]

Vs use of Johns name doesnt last very long and quickly reverts to Boy. While they are issuing commands, it seems like broad statements dont work. Im wondering where V is even doing this from. Surely it has to be somewhere where they have a visual on John to be able to discern his gender. Its probably a computer of some sort but they probably havent replaced Rose as the Server player or else I feel like N would have said something when talking about sprite prototyping. If thats the case, is V some sort of interloper? Are they Supposed to be able to do this or have they somehow stumbled upon this feed? How would that even be possible and what are the implications of that?

> HAVE THE BOY ASSESS HIS CURRENT SITUATION.

[I'm afraid I can't 'HAVE THE BOY' do that. Tell him to do it yourself!]

> VERY WELL.

[... Ok.]

N is Not having it with V and seems pretty frustrated with the whole situation. Im also realizing the same questions kind of apply to N as I have for V. We kinda took the narration for granted but this is opening the idea that N Is their own character and is Also somewhere commenting on all of Johns actions. When did this happen? Has it been a constant for John that was never noticed? N is more likely Supposed to be able to do this but for what reason?

> ==>

[That instruction does not do anything at the moment!!!]

> ==>

[Sigh. Could you please turn the controls over to a more competent user?]

Interestingly, V is attempting to use a command that has shown up in the comic already, ==>. So they have some knowledge of how commands Should work but cannot entirely control the narrative.

The Cruxite and Alchemiter also rehash things we already saw such as the tree creation. N however does have this to say at the end of the Alchemiter text, [You wonder what happened to your DAD?]. I am now increasingly worried Dad might not be in the kitchen.

We leave the balcony and go to Johns room first. Upon entering it seems that whatever was under Johns bed is no longer there though it left traces of some sort of black substance. Whatever it was seems to have taken Johns gift according to N:

[THE BUNNY IS NOT IN THE BOX.

I SAID, THE BUNNY IS NOT IN THE BOX.

WHY COULDN'T THE BUNNY BE IN THE BOX?]

On examining the posters, V has no idea of the movie titles. Stangely V does seem to know something; <IS THAT JOHN CUSACK?>

Clicking the computer gives us good and bad news, [It seems you are still connected to the internet. Rose is trying to get in touch with you.]

BUT, in the bottom corner the time has been replaced with question marks. Wherever John is its not just frozen in time but Completely Removed From The Natural Flow.

<BOY, LOOK THROUGH THIS WINDOW.> On inspection it seems only the things mentioned in commands were saved as the green between the mailbox and tree is now void.

In a perversion of the original command N states:

A tree without a tire swing is like...

Like a house without a surrounding neighborhood, you guess.

Terrible. Dreadful. How dare you.

Its important to note V does not use any of the names given to the SBURB machines only approximations based on looks, <THIS HUGE SEWING MACHINE. OF WHAT USE IS IT.> Conversely N does have knowledge of the machines but not the extent of their uses, at least in so much as John is supposed to have, [You guess maybe other PUNCH CARDS will produce different shapes? It bears further exploration.] We might likely do more alchemy further on in the comic with this comment in mind.

We leave Johns room and head right.

[Your DAD'S room is still locked!!! ]

Thank you, N. Bathroom it is.

Looking out this window we see the cake covered pogoslime and a mangled swingset.

The only other clickable things, the tub and toilet have the same text with V being unintentionally hilarious, <YOUR PLUMBING APPEARS FAULTY.>

Back to the landing and going downstairs we find V does not share the same appreciation for Harlequins as Dad, at least when it comes to paintings.

<DETEST THIS!>

<VILE. PAY NO MIND TO THIS FILTH.>

<NO NO NO NO NO. KEEP MOVING.>

<UGH, NO.>

The Cruxtruder text from N implies moving it would require Grist which seems odd to me. Deploying it was free so it stands to reason moving it should also be free. But I guess you only get one shot at placement and Rose screwed that tremendously. N thinks themselves a really funnyman, [More than ever you feel... what's the word you're looking for? Of course. Housetrapped.]

Hilarious.

In the study we actually get a lot more insight into Dad. Clicking the mural of the <MERRY BAND OF PERFORMERS> reveals them to be the Cirque du Solei. [Cirque du Soleil once filed a restraining order against your father. You were never so embarrassed in your life. ]

...Im....sorry? Dad... what? I have more questions for this man than ever before and I Must get the Dad lore behind this Immediately.

The piano gives us a portion of the sheet music for Johns piano piece and plays the song again for us. I dont know how to play any instruments so I'll leave that to someone else to interpret.

Since we never looked out this window there is nothing to see. [It's dark out there. Can't see anything for miles.] Below it on the sill is more of that weird black stuff.

The picture to the left [can only [be] assume your DAD hung it crooked to make it look more 'whimsical'] which really speaks to how John views his Dad.

At the desk we <READ UNPLEASANT LITERATURE> titled [SERIOUS JESTER MAGAZINE. FOR THOSE FOR WHOM CLOWNING AROUND IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.] This only solidifies the theory @homestuckreplay had on the Serious Business chat being Dads clown troupe. *thrusting microphone in your face* Good sir, how does it feel to be right?!

My shenanigans aside, we head back <TO THE LARGE ROOM WITH THE GROSS PAINTINGS> and go to our next destination, the kitchen.

Immediately we have a lack of Dad and an increase of my concern tenfold.

The bowl of cake batter is on the floor and the black substance is Heavily smeared from Dads last known position to the door.

[You wonder what happened in here. Where's your DAD?]

You and me both John. You and me both.

Examining the bowl leads to a gut wrenching comment, [Wherever your DAD went, he seems to have left in a hurry. For all his absurdities you have to put up with, you sure wish he were here right now.]

Now I am full of concern for John! This is all probably really confusing for him and I wanna go back to the slapstick shenanigans please.

Clicking the artwork just further adds pain as N just Has to let us know [Your DAD was so proud when you drew this. He hung it up immediately and it's stayed there ever since. That was one week ago.]

You know... before this I was just glad John was alive and had nothing but curiosity for the house but now...

We follow the smear out the door to the laundry room John parkour-ed into. Theres nothing really of note except for the lack of more black goo.

The next door takes us outside where again we see no signs of goo or Dad. From here theres no way to the front of the house to explore further. I do wonder Where Dad was taken(?). Theres no visible way down from the cliffs so...

Theres a lot more that I didnt cover so I implore you to explore it yourself, its quite fun actually when you ignore the implications.