#why is summarizing so hard. more news at 10

[merge-conflict]

Still surprisingly not over the Other category but the other part of marketing nonbinary pairings is like the lack of terms we have. I can’t exactly call Abernathy/Valentine toxic yuri because Valentine isn’t a woman, but she was when that ten year uneven relationship started! And to some degree she enjoys “playing” the loyal butch role, even if that isn’t quite the right descriptor to have for her. Anyway it’s such a pain not to have easily understood words or terms for yourself and idk why I’m experiencing it mostly through trying to tag my writing but here we are. If I was *smart* I could come up with some kickass terms myself but alas…

[silverwhittlingknife]

So you're a go to source for all things Dick&Tim bros and you tend to write primarily from Dick's POV. So, odd question, but if you were to summarize their relationship from his POV in FIVE panels which panels would you pick? Keeping in mind that one specific aspect of their relationship that you love needs to be clearly represented by each panel (loyalty, trust etc). I hope this is a fun challenge and not an annoying question so if you don't want to answer that's cool! Have a wonderful day!

No more talk. The same thoughts run through two minds... (SotB 29) / You're my equal. My closest ally. (RR 1) / I can't stop thinking how much I rely on him. (GoG 3)

25 Feelings Dick Has About Tim

This was such a kind ask & a cool challenge which I totally failed; here are TWENTY-five panels of Dick's POV on Tim sdfdsfds Look, I got carried away! Marcia and Cindy! The boys!!

OKAY SO BEFORE I GET TO THE PANELS A FEW NOTES:

WARNING THAT THERE ARE SOME NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN HERE because I love conflict but but but you gotta remember those are not the final word!! They are complicated people and sometimes they get mad at each other BUT ultimately their relationship is so hugely important in both their lives & they love each other and rely on each other so much -!!! <3

Also I have CONCLUDING THOUGHTS at the end about what Dick's POV leaves out (mostly: a lot of Dick defending & protecting & supporting Tim, which Dick does instinctively but isn't very self-aware about most of the time)

I have loosely organized my list into 5^5 format (5 categories with 5 examples each!), so if you want to skip to a relevant one, here are the categories!!

Below the cut:

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1-5)

On second thought, he's endearing & fun (#6-10)

Grief is complicated & he's all tangled up in mine (#11-15)

I love him & think highly of him (#16-20)

I rely on him & though it's hard for me, I trust him (#21-25)

I hate him and find him infuriating (#1 - 5)

1) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze me and Bruce, but he doesn’t know me at all, he should get lost (New Titans 61)

2) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze Bruce but he doesn’t know Bruce at all, he should get lost (Gotham Knights 26)

3) He is so nosy about stuff that is MY business (Robin 0)

4) He sounds like an insincere suck-up half the time... but okay, fine, if you push him he's got a sense of humor about it (New Titans 65)

5) I'm sure he's a better vigilante than me. It's my fault for being a failure, but I resent him anyway. (Nightwing 9 - Dick's having a nightmare)

On second thought, he's kinda endearing (#6-10)

6) He worries too much and gets anxious so easily, but it makes him fun to tease (Robin 67)

7) I'm not that competitive - okay, so maybe I'm a little competitive, I gotta make sure he doesn't get a swelled head (Prodigal)

8) I'm supposed to be his favorite! It is not cool for him to be fanboying over my not-girlfriend's not-boyfriend!! (Birds of Prey 19)

9) We have fun together. I can kick back and relax when it's just the two of us. Plus I get to boss him around a bit. (Prodigal)

10) He’s always trying to reassure me, and I guess it's a little comforting, but also he doesn’t really get it. Or me. He makes excuses that he shouldn't, because he doesn't understand that I suck. (Nightwing 64)

Grief is complicated and he's all tangled up in mine (#11 - 15)

11) He reminds me of everything I try not to think about. Sometimes the memories are so strong it hurts to look at him. (Batman 441)

12) WHY IS HE BEING IMPOSSIBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN??? THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (Nightwing 139)

13) We're the same. He says all the things I don't let myself think about. It's like arguing with myself. (Nightwing 139)

14) He thinks he gets to tell me what to do but he doesn’t, fuck him (Battle for the Cowl)

15) Life sucks, so what. I sucked it up so he should too (RR 1)

I love him and think highly of him (#16 - 20)

16) He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have.  If someone hurts him I will hurt them harder. (Nightwing 6)

17) I can't handle the idea of losing him. (Nightwing 97)

17) He’s so good and I’m not. I'm afraid I’m bad for him. (Nightwing 110)

18) He’s better than me, and it’s kind of a relief because I know no matter what he’ll be okay. (Gates of Gotham 3)

19) In my head he’s the responsible one.  (Gotham Knights 10)

I rely on him, and though it's hard for me, I trust him (#20-25)

20) I know I have to trust him but I'm afraid he'll make the wrong choices and get hurt (Nightwing 139)

21) I'm sure I know what he should do because I see myself in him - not that I can take my own advice, but he should (Blackest Night 3)

22) I trust him.  When I’m losing my grip on things, he pulls me back. (Gotham Knights 10)

23) I want him to trust me (Red Robin 12)

24) He can tell when I'm lying. Sometimes he sees my weaknesses better than I wish he did. (Detective Comics 874)

25) He’s always there when I need him. (Teen Titans / Outsiders Secret Files)

Final rambling thoughts:

TIM: Uhh, okay, so I'm just skimming this list - do you really trust me? you're not just saying that? - but anyway, I'm confused because you left some stuff out? Like some stuff that's kinda important? DICK: No? I think I got everything? TIM (starts counting on his fingers): The time I was having a bad day but then I called you. The time I got captured by Two-Face but then you saved me. The time I fell off a train but then you saved me. The time I fell off a building but then you saved me. The time I fell off a different building - DICK: I feel like you're trying to make some kind of point but I'm not sure what it could be.

SO THE THING IS, I put 25 panels in here and not a single one has Dick catching Tim when he’s falling!!! But I think that's a central motif of their relationship from Tim’s POV, not Dick’s. I love Dick, but in some ways I think he is spectacularly un-self-aware.

And I think he especially has a lot of blind spots about Tim. He kinda intermittently gets that Tim admires him, and he enjoys it in a playful I-get-to-boss-you-around way. But Dick tends to consistently underestimate all of his own good qualities & skills, and he meets Tim at a point in his life when he's especially down on himself & his abilities. And so he's unable to see his own influence on Tim, & therefore unable to fully understand a lot of Tim's priorities and loyalties and motivations, because you can't actually understand Tim without understanding Dick's impact on him. There's a fascinating moment in Bruce Wayne: Murderer when Dick's completely blindsided & upset to discover that Tim doesn't entirely trust Bruce, even though this has been a definitive fact of Tim's whole thing ever since he showed up with his Batman needs Robin theory, and Barbara has to actively remind Dick of the obvious-to-everyone-except-Dick fact that a lot of Tim's loyalty is to Dick, and Tim loves Bruce but feels free to be more wary of him. (And to give Bruce credit: this is not something he ever begrudges.) But anyway Babs points this out, and Dick manages to sorta process it for about five seconds, but he cannot actually accept it into his worldview so instead he discards it at the speed of light and goes off and has an argument with Tim instead sdfsfdsf

All of Dick's virtues - Dick's kindness at the circus and Dick's determination to fight through grief and Dick's rigid sense of morals and Dick's vigilante skills and every time Dick has ever backed Tim up or listened to him or protected him or saved him from something or just been casually kind to a stranger in Tim's presence etc etc etc - all these things loom really large in Tim's mental story of Who Dick Is, and What Dick And Tim's Relationship Is. Tim meets Dick before he meets Bruce, trusts Dick more than Bruce, aspires to be Robin instead of Batman. And so in Tim's default version of the story, Dick is the super-special and admirable hero and Tim is... nobody in particular, a tagalong outsider who's barely managing to be a hero, not part of Dick and Bruce's family and not part of their story, who, if he's VERY LUCKY and tries REALLY HARD, might be able to fight his way to proving himself and offering something to Dick that Dick will value, if Dick doesn't get fed up with him first.

But that's not Dick's version of the story!!!

Dick's version of the story is almost the exact opposite, a story where Dick's an outcast failure black sheep who's screwing up everything he tries, and meanwhile Tim is The Sudden New Perfect Robin Who's Better Than Me And Probably Bruce Loves Him More And Probably They Gossip About What A Loser I Am, mixed with a complicated edge of Tim Thinks He's So Smart But He Doesn't Know Me/Us At All. Dick gets much more attached to Tim over time, and Tim gets unnervingly better at the know-it-all psychoanalysis so then Dick gets to have complicated feelings about him being right instead of just annoyance at him for being wrong, plus Dick's relationship with Bruce improves a lot, so Tim stops feeling so threatening. But Dick never fundamentally changes his basic theory of their relationship in which Tim is highly impressive and capable, and Dick is not so much.

And so asking Dick about Tim is kinda like if you asked George Bailey to tell you about Harry Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life; like, you'll be there for five hours while he tells you how great Harry is, and how accomplished Harry is, and how he doesn't really get how or why Harry does the things he does, and maybe George does feel a little resentful or jealous sometimes, but that pales in comparison to all his admiration and trust for Harry who he loves so much, who's better than him in so many ways, and he's not gonna openly gripe but secretly he can't help but feel sometimes like he's such a failure in comparison to Harry, a perfect person who emerged fully formed from Zeus's head with all the virtues and also all the accomplishments, etc. etc. etc. --

-- and he will not actually remember the part where he changed and saved Harry's whole entire life unless you literally send him to an alternate timeline in order to force him to remember it. <3

[aphroditestearsofjoy]

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐈 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 📜

Before my new schoolyear starts I want to write a guide on how I am going to keep up with all my subjects. I will also include my study habits for this year, since they make sure I have the time and mindset in order to properly study.

𝕊𝕥𝕦𝕕𝕪 𝕙𝕒𝕓𝕚𝕥𝕤:

🪷 I prelearn for every subject (except old Greek and Latin). That means I study the concepts before class, so I can use class for revision and ask all my questions.

🪷 Make a week overview of what needs to be done, then decide every morning what schoolwork to focus on. This way it's easier to adjust to unexpected plans.

🪷 When summarizing, I make sure I understand everything that I write down. If I don't, I will search for more information until I can explain it in my own words!

🪷 Nothing gets me in the mood to study, like making tea. I will make herbal tea or a matcha latte while grabbing everything I need to study after school.

𝕃𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟/ 𝕆𝕝𝕕 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕜:

🪷 The last few years I haven't studied a lot of words, to make up for it, I want to pay a little bit of extra attention to studying words. If I know more words, translating will go way easier since I won't have to search up every word in the dictionary. On school days and Sundays, I will study words for 10 minutes a day for either old Greek or Latin. I will study the words using Studygo (huge recommendation for other Dutch folks).

🪷 Another thing I lack with both subjects is my knowledge about grammar. And this is a HUGE problem while doing homework, translating texts and for finishing tests on time. I know how to use grammar, but I don't know most of it by heart. So I will study grammar for 10 minutes a day for both subjects on schooldays and Sundays until I've caught up. From then on, I will only occasionally memorize grammar. Studying grammar consists of literary saying it aloud like some song or poem until I know it well enough and then writing it down way too many times.

🪷 I also want to practise translating more. Since this is the most important skill for both subjects and I haven't done most of my work for the past years, I will make up for it by practising easier texts. Every Sunday, I will translate an extra paragraph for each subject that I will let my teachers correct the following Monday. I will do this until I am satisfied with my translating abilities.

🪷 This year I want to make all my homework for old Greek and Latin. Past years I skipped most of the work, and now I notice that I need more practise. I will study a few days before a test, but nothing more.

𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕙:

🪷 I love maths (controversial opinion, I know). But I believe that when you understand maths, you will love it! But how do you understand it? You should memorize the basics. When you study about a specific topic, watch or read an explanation and make notes. Make sure to make space in the notes for the basics, like concepts you've already learned that has a connection with your new topic. In order to make sure I know how to properly use the topic, I will solve or write down the solution of a practise question next to an explanation as to who I took that step. If I were to get really lost later on, I can follow these steps, but with the new question. Then the most important thing: Practise a lot! Even if it's hard at first. The more problems you solve, the more problems you get. You don't want to waste time when you don't know what to do. So read the question and start thinking what you need to do to solve it. If you genuinely don't have an any idea, look at the solution. But, you won't just look at the solution, you will study it, you look at the steps they take and ask yourself with every step why they took that specific step. When you are done studying the answer, make the question again. I personally write down the questions I struggled with most, to practise them again for my exam!

ℙ𝕙𝕪𝕤𝕚𝕔𝕤:

🪷 Physics is my favourite and one of my best subjects. I always start out with summarizing the concepts in my own words. The biggest problem I have with physics is understanding all the concepts that I can use them together. To make sure I get everything, I summarize. The parts I do not understand, I will watch a video about. Then I start with making exercises, I will look through the exercises and make at least one about every concept. I will make more about the concepts that didn't go well, until I get them right. To prepare for tests, I read through my summary and make lots of practise questions. I will revise everything that didn't go well and remake the questions that went wrong.

ℂ𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕪:

🪷 When studying chemistry, I mainly try to focus on practise. I would start out with reading the learning outcomes and then actively the entire text. I mark thing I find important, write the questions down that come to mind when reading, and connect information. Then I make a small summary in the format of a mind map. I write down only the most important concepts. Then I start making a lot of exercises about the concept, until I can do them comfortably and without mistakes. Afterwards, I make flashcards using the learning outcomes. By doing this afterwards I make sure I know the best way to answer, and with chemistry lots of question come up while doing the work. When studying for a test, I use the flashcards and remaking the questions I struggled most with.

𝔻𝕦𝕥𝕔𝕙:

🪷 This year I'm preparing for my Dutch finals. To work on my skill, I mainly have to make past finals. I really want to make a summary about all the concepts that come back on the finals. But other that, we mainly have exercises that I can't prepare in advance for. I do really want to expand my vocabulary, because it makes me feel fancy. I should start reading the news more, that way I will also be more informed about the world.

𝔼𝕟𝕘𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕙:

🪷 This year I am taking a Cambridge English exam. My goal is to score a C-Level (advanced). In order to do this I must work on my grammar, vocabulary, writings and listening. I will tackle each property with a guide on how to get better at them.

🪷 My grammar is pretty good, my only problem. I don't know the actual rules. When writing, having a grammatical correct structure kind of happens on its own. Most of the time, that's very helpful, but when I have to point out mistakes in high quality or older texts, I can't. In order to work on this, I would recommend using an actual book. The one I'm starting out with this year is "Advanced Grammar in Use with Answers' from Martin Hewings. I will work through it by reading the theory, using it on my own, and then making the exercises in the book.

🪷 To expand my vocabulary I will write down new words I see when interacting with English content and books and study them. The goal is to learn 30 words a week. I will add all the words to an anki list, so that I can keep practising older words.

🪷 During the proficiency exam it's expected from you that you are able to write formal letters, essays, reports and reviews. To practise, I will write one of these a week and ask my teacher for feedback. I will also use the writing site from Cambridge, where they I've you a writing a prompt, and you can submit your text and let them corrected by professionals. For people who are not able to ask their teacher for help, I would recommend using ChatGPT. Although this is not ideal, it will still help you improve.

🪷 By listening to a daily podcast in English, I will practise my listening skills. It's very important to practise your English listening skills without visual guidance. Of course watching movies will help you improve, but if you want to improve in the shortest amount of time, you need to listen to audios.

ℍ𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪:

🪷 I personally find history one of the easiest subjects to study. I study history by chapter and not by paragraph. I always read through the entire chapter and then make a timeline with all the information. So I will include all the concepts, names and everything else in my timeline. Then I will study it by talking through it like I am teaching someone. Every time I miss something while explaining, I will memorize it again. I write down all the most important concepts down a few times, so I will remember how they are spelled and don't make any mistakes on my test! I don't make many exercises since they don't really help me that much. But if I have the time and energy, I make a few of the questions that were asked on previous finals.

𝔹𝕚𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕘𝕪:

🪷 Biology is a very information heavy subject, and I find that it's pretty easy to get lost in all the concepts. I have a pretty strict guide for myself, so I can study biology in the least amount of time. I will start out by reading the learning outcomes for the paragraph, so I know what the most important things are. Then I start actively reading through the paragraph. I mark thing I find important, write the questions down that come to mind when reading, and connect information. Afterwards, I will summarize everything in a mind map. Not just one mind map for every chapter, but one for every group of concepts that fit together well. These mind maps are very big and have all the relevant information, that's why you should minimize the amount of topics on a mind map, because otherwise it won't fit. Then I make the most important exercises and start studying the summaries by pretending that I'm giving a presentation about them, everything that I forget to mention I will memorize again. The day before the test, I will write down the explanation of all the learning outcomes from memory and correct them. Lastly, l review all the concepts that I lacked in.

Be sure to like, comment and reblog! If you like my content, consider buying me a book. <3 Sending you all the love, ~ Pearl 🐚

[livi-in-digital-circus]

Here are some songs that I think would match Ragatha/Miss Agatha and Jax/Jackson in your AU!!!

Ragatha/Miss Agatha:

- the grudge by Olivia Rodrigo would work with her and her terrible fiancé, especially after what he did to her baby. I think it could also work with her and Jax after she slapped him.

- Diet Mountain Dew by Lana Del Rey would work both Ragatha and Jax. It fits their will-they-won’t-they narrative.

- Bigger Than The Whole Sky by Taylor Swift. This song reminds me a lot of Agatha’s miscarriage and the horrible feelings that came with it. It’s the moment where everything in her world fell apart.

- Lose You To Love Me and Single Soon by Selena Gomez. The first one would work with Ragatha’s regrets over her past relationship with her ex, while the second one highlights a happier ending for her. It’s her new start with Jax, specifically her getting ready for the dance with him!

Jax/Jackson:

- Dancing With Our Hands Tied by Taylor Swift. I feel like this matches the dance scene, before everything fell apart of course.

- teenage dream by Olivia Rodrigo. This song would probably reflect the aftermath of Agatha’s coma and all the pain Jackson went through after finding out. Although this isn’t canon to the story, I feel like this would fit his 18th birthday party without her.

- Love You Down by Ready For The World. This song would resonate a lot with Jackson’s one-sided crush on his brother’s teacher and the dreams he had about her.

- Colors by Halsey would definitely work with Jax’s dreams about his past. It summarizes all the people and all the feelings he ignores to avoid feeling anything.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy these choices :D. Your AU has been one of my favorite TADC AUs I ever read. The amount of emotion, drama, and romance was captured perfectly without feeling OOC. Keep up the great work Livi!

AAAAAA THANK YOU SO SO MUCH 💕

I don't know why I didn't think of adding more Taylor and Olivia songs to my playlist, but I actually had those two Selena songs somewhere in the back of my head while making it!

I'll listen to all the songs when I get home from school in 10+ hours (it's past 1 AM here lol)

I would also like to take this opportunity to explain some of the Korean songs on the playlist:

Prologue by aespa is about feeling immature and not ready for adulthood, to me it fits Agatha perfectly because even though she has been an adult for some time, she still has the heart of a teenager and has trouble dealing with some adult issues

Checkmate by Xdinary Heroes is about feeling confident because of a won game, I relate this song to the moment when Jax's attack on Ragatha during their stage play was successful

The Ugly Duckling by YENA, well I interpreted the song's lyrics much differently than it should be interpreted, I relate it to Agatha's miscarriage due to the lyrics being about trying to move on after a horrible event and there is also a child mentioned so-

War of Hormone by BTS is a very controversial song which that has been accused of considering girls playthings for boys, basically Jax's attitude towards Ragatha before she almost abstracted

Doll by (G)I-DLE, the title says it all, it perfectly describes how Ragatha was treated by Jax and how she's fed up with it

Quarter Life by TOMORROW X TOGETHER is another song about finding adult life kind of hard and trying to go on despite you already screwed up a lot of things, every time I hear this song I think of Jax and how he feels after remembering his former life

Lonely Boy by TOMORROW X TOGETHER is a breakup song that in my opinion fits how Jackson felt after losing Agatha

Happily Ever After by TOMORROW X TOGETHER (yeah, it's my fav boysband lol) is the song I had in mind while writing the last chapter, even though it's upbeat it tells about how cruel life is and that there's actually no happy end, just like in the story :D

And thank you for enjoying my AU! At first I thought it would fail as it has no drawings (I'm really terrible at drawing + I can't do digital art) and focuses more on writing, but the amount of support and love my work has received in these few months makes me incredibly happy 🥺

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Async mugwump linkdump

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON: YA Fantasy, Room 207, 10 a.m.; Signing, 11 a.m.; Teaching Writing, 2 p.m., Room 213CD.

For 20+ years, I've processed all the information that came over my transom by blogging – mulling on why something I saw in the world caught my attention and trying to summarize it for strangers. This turns out to be a very powerful way to do a lot of different kinds of mental work:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

With Pluralistic, the solo blog I founded 4 years ago, I've moved into longer, more synthetic essays that try to connect the things that caught my attention today with all those things I've written about for the past two decades. That's also proven very fruitful:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/20/fore/#synthesis

But this move to longer works has a downside: sometimes I'll arrive at the week's end and have a list of things that caught my attention without there being any obvious way to connect them, and when that happens, I devote a Saturday edition to a linkdump. There's been 15 of these so far:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Welcome, then, to the 16th Pluralistic linkdump, and a warning, this one starts with an obituary.

Ross Anderson was one of the heroes of the cryptographic revolution, a brilliant scientist and communicator, a fantastic activist, and a scorching curmudgeon. Ross died this week. He was 67, and had chronic heart issues as well as long covid:

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2024/03/29/rip-ross-anderson/

There's so much that's been written about Ross and his legacy already, and there's doubtless more to come, but I've picked out two pieces to point you to. The first is from Danny O'Brien, who was also the guy who talked me down off the ledge the first time Ross flamed me on a public mailing list, leaving me bleeding and furious:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39868983

As Danny says, Ross was "the model of a politically and socially involved computer scientist," a man whose blazing intellect, fierce moral center and relentless curiosity inspired a generation of technologists to think about politics, and a generation of political activists to think about technology. Few of Ross's eulogizers (thus far) have mentioned how Ross's passion came out as fury, and – as someone who counted Ross as a friend and inspiration – I think this is a serious omission. It's hard to imagine Ross doing all that he did without understanding the anger that – along with his ethics – fueled his passion.

(Compare with @neil-gaiman's classic essay on the anger of Terry Pratchett:)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman

The other obit that I want to point you to comes from Bill Buchanan, one of Ross's closest collaborators. Buchanan's memorial for Ross does a superb job of rounding up Ross's technical contributions to the field of security engineering:

https://medium.com/asecuritysite-when-bob-met-alice/ross-anderson-rip-59233c75fadf

Buchanan embeds videos for some of Ross's best speeches, links to his key papers (including the classic "Programming Satan's Computer," on "programming a computer which gives answers that are subtly and maliciously wrong at the most inconvenient moment possible), reminiscences of Great Moments In Ross Anderson, and terrific, lay-friendly breakdowns of some of Ross's key mathematical work.

As an unreasonable, angry person, I take great inspiration from people who channel their unreasonable anger to socially beneficial conduct – like whistleblowers. After Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was totaled by the 95,000-ton cargo ship MV *Dali(, a vast cohort of instant experts in structural engineering, sea freight and shipbuilding has taken to the internet with a slurry of takes on the Meaning Of the Bridge.

Some of these are very stupid indeed, like the idea that somehow "DEI" caused the collision. But you don't have to be an expert in maritime issues or civil engineering to understand the importance of this report from The Lever about shipping giant Maersk's culture of retaliation against whistleblowers:

https://www.levernews.com/feds-recently-hit-cargo-giant-in-baltimore-disaster-for-silencing-whistleblowers/

Maersk is the company that chartered the MV Dali; Maersk is also a key player in the cartel that controls the world's shipping. Maersk was just sanctioned by the Labor Department for retaliating against a whistleblower who complained of unsafe conditions on the ships that Maersk chartered:

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/news%20releases/Maersk-Sec%20Findings%20-FINAL%20071423_Redacted.pdf

Maersk's policy required employees to bring concerns to their supervisors before alerting the Coast Guard or others. This is not how that stuff is supposed to work. OSHA called this policy “repugnant” and a “reprehensible and an egregious violation of the rights of employees,” which “chills them from contacting the [Coast Guard] or other authorities without contacting the company first.”

The whistleblower – chief mate on the Safmarine Mafadi – complained of "unrepaired leaks, unpermitted alcohol consumption onboard, inoperable lifeboats, faulty emergency fire suppression equipment, and other issues." We don't know (yet) what happened on the Dali, but it's obvious that a company that retaliates against whistleblowers, rather than heeding their warnings, is prioritizing covering its ass, not operating safely.

Which brings me (inevitably) to Boeing, and to poor John "Swampy" Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who took his own life earlier this month. Barnett's suicide has stirred up similar low-yield online chatter focused on whether Boeing assassinated Barnett, a question that categorically cannot be answered through the method of arguing with internet strangers.

But there is a lot to say about Barnett: in particular, there's the substance of his whistleblowing, the specifics of his complaints about Boeing. For that, we can turn to the always-fantastic Maureen Tkacik, whose American Prospect piece "Suicide Mission" is definitive:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

Tkacik does a great job of painting a picture of Swampy as a member of the tribe of unreasonable and angry people who refuse to sideline principle in order to get along. More importantly, Tkacik shows us what made Swampy so angry: a company that was hell-bent on lobotimizing itself by forcing out any technical expert who might point out inconvenient truths about the safety risks of high-profit strategies.

As Tkacik writes, Boeing once thought about "knowledge" in terms of expertise that could be brought to bear on the unimaginably complex task of making reliable, airworthy jets. But under the "value-engineering" financialized culture that arose after the McDonnell-Douglas merger, the company viewed knowledge as "intellectual property, trade secrets, and data." In other words, the point of knowledge was rent-extraction, not safety.

At the root of this transformation was the Jack Welch protege Jim "Prince Jim" McNerney, the former 3M CEO who took the helm at Boeing. McNerney was openly contemptuous of the company's senior engineers, branding them "phenomenally talented assholes" and rewarding managers who found ways to force them out of the company. It was McNerney who decided to produce the 787 "Dreamliner" in non-union shops, far from Seattle and its phenomenally talented assholes. Instead of these engineers, McNerney turned to Boeing suppliers to do the major engineering work on the 787 – despite the fact that many of these suppliers "lacked engineering departments."

The 787 was, infamously, a $80b-over-budget boondoggle, haunted by technical failures. Swampy was part of the "cleanup crew" that tried to salvage the 787, and witnessed first-hand how the company purged all the engineers who managed to ship the 787 despite McNerney and his "value engineers" and retaliated against workers who tried to unionize the South Carolina facility.

In particular, it was safety inspector who came in for the most savage punishment. When the FAA decided to let Boeing mark its own homework – hiring in-house safety inspectors to replace government inspectors – they pretended to believe that these Boeing-payrolled inspectors would be able to operate independently of Boeing's leadership. The inspectors tried to operate this way (not least because they were criminally liable for oversights that occurred on their watch) and McNerney's Boeing came down on them like a ton of aviation-grade aluminum.

To further neuter these inspectors, Boeing management ordered the inspectors to outsource their work to the mechanics they were supposed to be supervising – that is, the FAA outsourced safety checks to Boeing inspectors, and the inspectors outsourced those checks to the mechanics themselves. Tkacik: "Swampy believed relying on mechanics to self-inspect their work was not only insane but illegal under the Federal Aviation Administration charter."

Swampy kept careful records of every way in which this system produced unsafe aircraft and an unsafe workplace – including the day he discovered that someone had removed 400+ defective parts from the rejects box and installed them in aircraft in order to meet deadlines. Swampy's reports were key to establishing that the company's much-trumpeted "improvements" in safety reports were down to a culture of "bullying" – not any improvement in safety itself.

When Boeing went to war against Swampy, they barely bothered to pretend that they were playing by the rules. He was told one day that he was four-weeks into a 60-day "corrective action" that no one had told him about. The "corrective action" paperwork had a blank for Swampy's comments. He wrote, "Leadership wants nothing in email so they maintain plausible deniability. It is obvious leadership is just looking for items to criticize me on so I stop identifying issues. I will conform!"

Shortly thereafter, he was forced out altogether. Managers who tried to bring him on their teams were told that no one was allowed to hire John Barnett. His name appeared on a secret internal memo entitled "Quality Managers to Fire." Meanwhile, the value of Boeing shares had tripled.

After Boeing's 737 Maxes started falling out of the sky, Swampy's painstaking documentation of the flaws in the 787's production took on a new urgency. A program of random inspections of 787s found major defects in all of them ("Boeing Looked for Flaws in Its Dreamliner and Couldn’t Stop Finding Them" –WSJ). An Aviation Week diagram of problem spots with the 787 marked red arrows over "every single section, from the tip of the nose to the horizontal stabilizers":

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/new-boeing-787-fix-details-reveal-extent-gap-check-challenge

Boeing's war on "brilliance" did its work: after everyone who understood how to make a safe aircraft was forced out of the company, financialized CEOs were able to cut corners on safety, triple the share-price, scoop up billions in government subsidies and bailouts, all without those pesky "phenomenally talented assholes" pointing out that they were going get (lots of) people killed.

Tkacik closes by saying that Swampy's former work colleagues refuse to believe he killed himself. A former executive told her "I don’t think one can be cynical enough when it comes to these guys…It’s a top-secret military contractor, remember; there are spies everywhere." I confess that I don't know what to make of that, but I'll say this: if Boeing killed Swampy, that's just one of hundreds of murders they committed. Whether or not Swampy's death was their fault, the deaths of everyone who went down on the 737 Maxes that crashed is on their hands.

That's what "profits before people" means, after all: sacrificing human lives to make yourself richer. It's the foundational tenet of the conservative movement, though that impulse is often checked by other factors, like human decency. It's only when sociopaths get a sustained run at leadership that you see what they really want.

Which brings me to the UK, which has been governed by the Conservative Party for 14 years. The Tories are tipped to get destroyed in the next election, and a long article in the New Yorker by Sam Knight catalogs the many ways in which Tory rule has devastated the UK:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/what-have-fourteen-years-of-conservative-rule-done-to-britain

The thing is, after 14 years, it's impossible for the Tories to blame anyone else for the state of the UK. With strong Parliamentary majorities, Conservatives were able to govern as they pleased – the only compromises they made were between their own internal factions. The ideological commitment to making the rich richer, privatizing everything, subordinating governance to market forces – that's all them.

It's all them: the worst period for wage growth since the Napoleonic Wars, on them. The catastrophic traffic, housing, jobs market, and precarity, on them. Plummeting health, on them. The austerity, on them. The withering of the country's courts and prisons and police, its wilderness, its programs for young people and pensioners, its public health, its diplomatic corps, its road maintenance – on them.

A country where the police can't afford to prosecute burglaries – on them (4% of burglaries are prosecuted). The 2.5 year delay between a rape arrest and its trial? On them. Mass closures of schools that are literally crumbling? On them.

43% of the countries courts have closed. On them. Cuts to prison funding, coupled with longer sentences? On them.

And of course, Brexit – on them. Every part of it. The referendum. The referendum question. The failure to negotiate a deal with the EU. All on them. The collapse in British living standards, all on them. The fact that the 20% richest households in the UK have been untouched by all this? Also on them. But you might not notice it in London, where people earn an average of 400% more than people in Nottingham.

The only growth sector outside of London are the Citizens Advice Bureaux, whose client rosters are growing even as their funding is cut. Where the CAB once primarily catered to people who couldn't make ends meet due to disability, unemployment and other reliable predictors of economic distress, today, CAB advisors are seeing homeowners, people working two jobs. Desperation is "like a black hole, dragging more and more people in,"

More Conservative growth: Tories presided over a doubling in the rate of NHS antidepressant prescriptions, and a 20% rise in long-term health conditions. No wonder Tory Britain had the world's worst pandemic outcomes for a wealthy nation – that's on them, too.

Knight's article closes with a Tory MP who believes that "the key thing for the Conservatives now is to be more conservative…Toryism must have its day again."

We can't count on oligarchs to rescue us from oligarchy – not even when oligarchy's failures push society to the breaking point. There's always a rationalization explaining why we just had to lean harder into oligarchy.

You hear echoes of this in the pro-monopoly choir, whose squeals of outrage at the rise of a new anti-monopoly movement grow louder even as monopolism's failures grow clearer. One of the more tangible expressions of monopoly's failures is the Ticketmaster/Livenation octopus, which controls the entire live music industry – key venues, promotions, and ticketing. Ticketmaster fucks over music fans, but it also cheats famous musicians, the kinds of people with big microphones, so we know a lot about how bad it is:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/20/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-will-eventually-stop/

Of course, the fact that Swifties hate Ticketmaster lets the pro-monopolists dismiss critics as foolish young girls, not Very Serious People Who Understand Economics and thus can see that Ticketmaster's monopoly is Good, Actually.

Last week, Congressman Bill Pascrell dumped a ton of litigation documents related to Ticketmaster's sleaze, and Matt Stoller broke them down:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/explosive-new-documents-unearthed

The docs reveal how Ticketmaster's system of (formerly) secret kickbacks let it choke out any competitor, so that it could charge fans more and pay artists less. The mechanics of the scam are beautifully laid out in Stoller's post – as is the many ways in which it violated both the law and Ticketmaster's numerous consent decrees arising from its previous lawbreaking.

This kind of scam breakdown is essential. It's easy to think that we, as mere normies, can't hope to understand the machinations of the corporations that prey on us. But once you pierce the veil of performative complexity, what's left behind is a set of crude tricks and transparent ruses.

Here's one of those transparent ruses: Discord's terms of service require Discord users to actively opt out of its "binding arbitration" system. Binding arbitration is when you sign a contract saying you can't sue the company no matter how much it harms you – instead, you promise to have your disputes heard by an "arbitrator" (a fake judge paid by the company that screwed you). Unsurprisingly, these fake judges are awfully tolerant of their employers' crimes.

Discord says that once you click through its garbage legalese novella, you have just a few days to opt out of this binding arbitration clause – if you happen to miss that fine print, you have "consented" to giving up your legal rights.

But every time Discord changes its ToS, the clock for opting out starts ticking again, and Discord has just changed (that is, worsened) its ToS again:

https://discord.com/terms

That means that if you send an email right now to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com with "I am confirming that as of the date of this email, I am choosing to opt out of binding arbitration to settle disputes with Discord" in the body, you can escape this consent theater:

https://mamot.fr/@trishalynn@mastodon.sandwich.net/112175832989845038

Consent theater is a particularly galling corporate ruse – the idea that we chose to allow them to abuse us. Consent theater gets more outrageous by the day. Take Soofa, who operate streetside digital kiosks that identify you by grabbing your phone's unique wifi and Bluetooth identifiers:

https://gizmodo.com/digital-kiosks-snatch-your-phones-data-when-you-walk-by-1851368948

Soofa sells this data to advertisers – claiming that by walking down a public street, you "consented" to being tracked and sold.

The only reason this flies is that the US hasn't passed a federal consumer privacy law since 1988's Video Privacy Protection Act, which bans video-store clerks from telling people which VHS cassettes you took home. Congress keeps on failing to pass a privacy law, despite garbage companies like Soofa.

But that hasn't stopped the administrative agencies from acting to defend your privacy! The FTC just dropped its latest Privacy and Data Security Update, a greatest hits list of the actions the Commission took while Congress failed:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2024.03.21-PrivacyandDataSecurityUpdate-508.pdf

One of the best things about the current administration is the number of extremely competent regulators who know exactly how much power they have and aren't afraid to use it to help the American people:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

The new FTC report, which details how the Commission's existing powers let it go after the commercial surveillance industry from smart doorbells to review fraud, from kids' programming to medical data, from lax security to data-breaches, is a bright spot in an otherwise grim week.

One more bright spot, then, before I wind up this linkdump. All week, I've been humming a half-remembered lyric, "come on baby/you're a link in this chain/put your hands together/and get free of the pain." For the life of me, I couldn't place it.

Last night, I searched for it (using Kagi, the post-Google search engine I've been paying for for the past month, and which I'm loving) and discovered that I had somehow completely forgotten a whole-ass band that I once loved: Toronto's Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, whom I saw live on many occasions.

The mystery lyric came from "Death is the Great Awakener," a fucking banger of a post-gospel track that I've been listening to on nonstop repeat as I wrote this. It's a hell of a tune and I'm intensely grateful to have it back in my life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6RUb63Tx3w

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/30/dewey-502/#rip-ross-anderson

Image: Waffleboy https://www.flickr.com/photos/waffleboy/28198395465/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[amelias-zelda-calamity-quintet]

Figuring out how to talk about original legend fic is super hard cause I don't feel comfortable, like, using other game tags cause it wouldn't be accurate even if it would make my stuff more visible, so then I have to summarize Mark of a Hero on its own as a story, which is the bane of my existence. Elevator pitch? How? I just got a bunch of what ifs! I guess here's a few of those:

Zelda but what if it had the energy of a D&D game

Zelda but what if the quest started 10 years late

Zelda but what if it was epic/comedic (as genres, not epically comedic, I wish) fantasy

Zelda but what if Zelda proved why she's got the Triforce of Wisdom and it wasn't just because of emotional intelligence

Zelda but what if Link missed every quest starter cue his whole life

What if Link didn't have to do the quest alone

What if they started the quest as adults

What if she hates him the first time they meet

What if this was all supposed to be an act not an actual legend

What if the world was more than just Hyrule

What if the world had opinions about Hyrule

What if the world had opinions about the legends themselves

What if we talked about the cultural impact of the legends in the worldbuilding instead having to put in back in in post

What if we got to have characters the games just can't have for tech limitation reasons

What if we had the conversation Nintendo must be avoiding by always killing Link's parents

What if this man is just doing his best

What if they got to grow up before the world was thrown on their shoulders

What if we told this new story, this new Link, this new Zelda, this new Hyrule, this new legend

Please read MoaH.

[alitgblog]

okok finally caught up on litg s9

gonna try to summarize this neatly bc my game didn't save properly and I played volume 10 twice and sped through volume 11

Zeph is hot and thats a problem for me bc I'm so annoyed at the lack of branching and consequences in this game it has manifested into me making up story for fusebox about MC being upset that Stefan keeps acting like nothing is wrong when I personally am still upset casa amor got Chen dumped (ok that was my fault technically but only bc I wanted him to come back to drama). So now I'm like MC should have a summer fling with Zeph, why not

they're so wishy washy about how Kelly and Finn broke up and it just all feels like hearsay all the time. at the end of volume 11 they seem to decide Kelly thought it was all done pretty respectfully but her comments in volume 10 about movie night seem to disagree??? just asking for a little bit of consistency since I gotta track other people's drama other than my own

also so sorry to kelly who is actually interested in zeph and I am less so interested in him and more just annoyed at the bad writing for stefan

the writing has always been stilted and/or cringe but for some reason I notice it especially with Zeph, like it does feel like his dialogue was written by AI unfortunately. And it puts me off his character a lot, except, again, he's hot and so maybe I'm just like hey don't hurt your pretty head trying to think up romantic scenarios, Zeph. Something odd about him too is he doesn't mention any previous connection to Love Island, and I know he's a new character, but at least Henri and Chen talked about their last times on the show.

I'd like to apologize

I don't know what surprise we're getting next volume but for my own storyline I kinda want the guy dumped post casa to come back. like I'd go back to Chen easy. but this is my delusional ass still just hoping we get drama from casa bc they dropped the ball on it again this season. Curious about talent show but considering how they fucked up Mr Love Island I have little hope.

I forgot this meant we'd have to deal with eddie. hes there like Johnny/Nicolas to the point where I almost prefer if it was one of them around but at least his chaos run makes more sense than johnny/Nicolas just randomly deciding to stir shit out of nowhere after leading MC on and the game forcing us to couple with them.

Eddie pls stfu poor Kelly

said this before but if eddie was gonna show up for heart rate challenge why didn't he do a little dance? is it because he sucks as a bombshell??? YEAH. It makes so much more sense to switch him and Zeph, like yeah that would mean we have less time with zeph and more with Eddie, but Zeph could put on a good heart rate challenge performance and Eddie could be way more catty and start shit during movie night than Zeph who wanted to play nice.

I'm so sad to say goodbye to Finn because it felt like he didn't get a good chance (unless MC is pursuing him I guess). but compared to Hamish, who, even if he got dumped here, would've had a lifelong friendship with MC and Natasha and had multiple chances to couple with people, it feels sad to see him go without a good ending. I mean I guess he's got closure with Kat and Kelly, but he felt always stuck in those couples whereas Hamish tried to explore connections with Natasha, Uma, and Melissa. I just think we should've let him punch Eddie in the face after eddie was so mean to Kat and MC.

I've decided to watch the hamish route vicariously through yall and I'll go for wither zeph or Stefan unless something else wild happens until the finale. so yall better tell me what happens it was such a hard decision when the game narrowed it down 🥺

I also think it would be great if we had chats with characters to decide who we're sticking with. like this season aside from maybe the beginning henri/chen/MC/Melissa thing, it feels like one of the other girls always asks you "who do you want to be chosen by" and then you tell her and that person picks you, but then you never address it or outright reject the other person face to face. it's always just like two sentences or just "a sad look" or a gem scene I'm not paying for.

one positive thing I've seen this last volume though is the mini date with your LI before Zeph's date. like its one of the better scenes they've written that isn't just someone outright saying I like you or just chatting. like its fun, and the only other moment I can think of that's similar that doesn't cost gems is the Hamish eavsdropping scene. now if only this was also tailored to your LI because as someone coupled with Stefan, low key unexpected, but imagine if I had picked Henri??

also a lot more choices this volume were worth 10 gems I think

that being said the amount they're asking for in the heart rate challenge is crazy for literally one scene because MC's outfit is like 14+ gems, then you van go for am extra 10 to see your male LI's outfit, and then another extra 10 for the female LI outfit. and this hardly changes the gameplay or gives you more info 🙃

[summersmithlatinxgyatt]

BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. TIME TO TALK ABOUT NIGHT SUMMER

First off, Night Family is 10/10 and among my favorite episodes. I'm inclined to say my favorite, but The Vat of Acid Episode is amazing and 10/10. This is gonna start off with a review of the episode. The score, the premise, the final fight, and the entire dynamic is great. I can't believe that a fake-out incest joke made me laugh so hard, every part of it is great and I'm convinced they got either ghost writers for this episode or they went all-out to make it great. I can't stress enough how amazing it is and I'm glad I have the chance to rewatch this episode for a review/explanation. I usually don't care about this but an 8.5 IMDB score is too low for this

Second off, this episode has already made people wonder why Night Summer was the leader of the family and strongest Smith family member. Site-note, that plate scene still makes me squirm holy shit. And you already know I'm a Summer connoisseur 🤓 Let me explain why Night Summer makes sense

So we already established that Summer keeps the family together. Of course, she also nudged Rick to let them use the Somnambulator. The Night versions are subconscious versions of them, with Night Summer saying she's always been inside of Summer. That means there's always been this version of Summer, which is probably a logical progression of how Summer acts already. Rick mentions that Night Summer CONVINCED Night Rick to deactivate a lot of the machinery

I'm not a Rick hyper-analyst, but luckily there's other people who ARE. Therefore, anyone can correct me about this.

Considering that Rick tends to hide how he feels, especially his sympathy (until later seasons), it means he was very easy to convince. Summer keeps the family together and has a strong relationship with Rick, therefore Night Summer's presence was amplified to the point that everyone was forced to recognize her presence. This let her manipulate everyone to work for her

I've also had a theory that Summer understands the technology so well that she likely made all of the proxy drones herself. Plus, other details include Jerry just saying 'Uh, family?' to convince Summer to jump to the next car

There isn't much new I can say without repeating the entire point about family and whatnot, but it's amazing that they're keeping this character of Summer quite consistent

This also means if she wants to, she could easily take Rick's technology for herself and make the family under her control. It's always been inside Summer and possible, so it's likely that Night Summer seizing her chance means that whenever Summer slowly took more control and kept the family closer together, we saw more of this subsconscious Summer

Night Summer is just the name given to her potential and honest self

And remember, as I pointed out, she no longer follows the norm and rebels after the events of 'Wedding Squanchers'. Of course the ONLY family member who would rebel and free themselves with their family WOULD BE SUMMER

To summarize Night Summer - yup, this is just her potential that she's scratching the surface of

'Night Family' is not only a fucking great episode, but another that shows off Summer with established parts of her character. We see her potential unleashed - a genuine threat that keeps the family under her own control and capable of using Rick's technology and/or making her own, an unshackled threat that only does this to keep them all under her vision

Also here's two edits I did

[texasthoughtsaboutnothing]

The Economics of Limbus: why the Gacha isn't really worth it and why that's kinda cool actually

Preface, if you are new this doesn't apply to you but is worth keeping in mind, please read the whole thing.

Summarizing some cool things about Limbus Company and it's internal economy:

In Limbus Company you get a minimum of 750 Lunacy a week (usually more like 1050 because of various apolunacy or maintenance compensation) which is our Gacha currency. This comes out to roughly 25 - 30 pulls a month (not counting events, story, random gifts), which is more than par for this monetization model. Banner Pity is at 200 pulls and it doesn't carry over between banners, which in a vacuum kinda sucks shit, but Limbus is unique in having the Dispensary, a system where you outright buy IDs (units) for grindable currency (shards/shard boxes) which is gained from the primary mode of play (Mirror Dungeons, also called MD).

This is where the battle pass comes in. The battle pass gives 1 shard box for every level over 120 and the premium battle pass triples that output. It's not even terribly hard to max it out to begin with; a dedicated player can have it done before the respective Chapter is fully released as weekly content gives 30 BP levels and a single MD run otherwise gives you 3. This should also tell you just how many shard boxes you can grind out.

The consequence of all the above is that it's really easy to get the IDs you want. In fact, Limbus Company is the kind of Gacha game where you can get most if not all units from dedication more so than luck. The only limiting factor to grinding is, of course, daily stamina.

Here's the funny thing.

You get 750 currency a week as mentioned, but it only costs 26 for your first daily full stamina refresh, with the cost doubling every time after. You can daily refresh twice a day and still be Lunacy positive for the week. More importantly, it is mathematically more valuable to turn Lunacy into Stamina for acquiring IDs.

Buying stamina isn't new for a Gacha game, nor is the idea of doing so being better for your account. There comes a point where upgrade materials are more helpful than new units; most games have a point where buying stamina over pulling is the norm. However, most games don't let you fucking buy every unit with stamina locked currency.

The math on this is a little complicated and varies with your stamina cap which adjusts with your account level, but if you turn Lunacy into stamina you can grind more Mirror Dungeons for more BP levels for more shard boxes in a way that's more efficient resource-wise for getting units. A single 10 pull for 1300 Lunacy is the equivalent to 300-ish shard boxes if you double refresh over 16 days (or 500-ish boxes if you single refresh over 50 days). That is a guaranteed 3 star ID as opposed to a 2% chance for the same price, hell its a better deal as shard boxes give 1-3 shards and it costs 400 shards for a 3 star, you get an average of 1.7 3 stars worth of shards.

If a given banner unit interests you its far better to just buy the unit outright than pull, which is ultimately not too hard to grind out even with normal stamina gain without even thinking about refreshing. The end result of this is that you can get some of the best units very quickly and the game becomes a collector and more about team building and fun interactions, which the game design is leaning into. You can enjoy most of the roster and diverse gameplay without needing to whale and I think that is one of the things that sets Limbus apart.

Pictured, my collection of some of the best IDs in the game as a BP only player who took a 3 month break

CAVEATS

THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO NEW PLAYERS. A new player should still pull as normal because you will get something new almost every 10 pull for your first, like, 200 pulls. In addition, you need to actually be able to grind MD successfully and quickly for this to be worth it. Focus on beating up to or beyond Canto V before even thinking about this, and even then I'd say its early.

The math for this is very different if you don't have the premium battle pass. Remember, you get 2/3 fewer shard boxes per BP level on just the free pass. While it is still worth considering, a free account will have a much longer grind to do for similar results, but you can still have fun and use good units even without this method. For the record, the Limbus Pass is extremally worthwhile a purchase if you want to play this to the fullest, $14 every 4 months is barely Dolphining and you get a whole host of other powerful benefits, including broken EGO and even guaranteed seasonal 3 star tickets.

You have to grind. A lot. This isn't so straightforward as just Lunacy to Stamina to Boxes to Units, to convert stamina to boxes involves doing Mirror Dungeon. Thankfully Mirror Dungeons are a fun and entertaining roguelike gamemode, but it will take 30 minutes to do 1 run, 20 if you are speedrunning it with the best units. A full days' stamina is about 4 runs' worth, and 2 refreshes is about the same, so ask yourself if you are willing to spend 2+ hours a day doing MD runs for the unit you want? Limbus actually let's you convert stamina into stamina modules that have no cap and are what's actually used for content, you can just log in, convert, then do runs on the weekend. It's a good model that respects your time.

And the last and by far biggest caveat...

Walpurgisnacht

That will be its own post.

This post also won't get into stuff like Upties or Thread but keep in mind the above statement about how stamina becoming more useful than pulls is typical of Gacha games and Limbus is no exception as far as needing a lot of ascension/upgrade materials. Not as much as others, but units still need raising and all the above logic can be used even when you have everything and now need to get them useable.

Conclusions are hard, play Limbus Company.

[paperboy-pb]

"A Very Special Day" [Life Story]

[TW for: ableism against kids, internalized ableism, and mentions of suicidal ideation.]

9 years ago today, in the state of New York on September 5th, was my second day of 6th grade. Being a Special Ed kid, I was upset; my school, a K-8 that I had been with since the start and stayed with until the end, had always treated us so differently. And the world around me had promised that things would change once middle school began. But they hadn't. In fact, barely anything was new at all.

Same old baby talk from adults who saw me every day, but willfully ignored how big I had grown.

Same old bullying from my peers, disabled children who spent their days as pots calling kettles black, because no one had any intentions of teaching us better.

Same Adapted Phys Ed, getting ready to interrupt my morning reading every Monday, Wednesday, Friday; even though they'd promised to let me play in Gym with the rest of my class years ago by now.

Same old kids from the neighborhood filling up the rest of my grade, coming in smiling and laughing and oh so free in their new groups of 30. 30-something of them. 12 of us.

They'd even gotten some new kids from the K-5s around town. All of which seemed really nice. Man. Lucky them. Meanwhile, everything was so same-y that I'd considered running away from the school bus when it pulled up.

September 5th, 2014. Still kinda hot in Brooklyn. Sunny out there.

The day had gone bad. My classmates were talking FNAF, and being mean about things I don't remember. They flicked food at me during lunch while I tried to read and mind my own business. We weren't allowed to change seats, even though the rest of our grade got that privilege. It was supposed to be for all of us middle schoolers, but when I'd asked the day before, our lunch aide had no idea what I was on about. She suddenly insisted it was never a thing! While the rest of our grade was splitting into cliques behind her back, paying us no mind, knowing they'd somehow earned it and we didn't.

10-year-old me couldn't wait to go home.

By the end of the day, I was drained like no other. Head down on the desk and all. I was thinking, 2:20-something. Just a few more minutes.

God, why are things like this? Is it gonna get better later this year? I hope so, it's only the second day. Maybe it just starts bad!

Man, I miss summer already. I wish I spent today home all day eating onion ring chips again and playing Animal Crossi--

"Alright guys, listen up!" Said Mrs. Z, who would pretty much be our only teacher this year. (Meanwhile, everyone else got to have different people for different subjects.)

I don't remember her exact words. But she held up a white booklet with a bunch of kids holding hands and awkwardly smiling at us from the mostly-white cover. She said something about it being very important. And she ended her little stanza with, and I quote, "DON'T read these, alright? It's for your parents."

I think that one line changed the trajectory of my life.

As our para handed them out, my bookworm ass couldn't help but furrow my little brows. I'd had teachers assume certain books were "too hard" for me when they weren't, and get upset at me whenever I summarized the plot of them correctly. I'd had teachers tell me not to read other books during class, which was fair enough, I guess. But a teacher telling me not to read something at ALL?

Now THAT'S a new one...

It felt plasticy, not like paper. It's a packet, not a book. Six kids in a row, but none look like me, as usual. The cover said, "Family Guide To Special Education Services for School-Age Children. A Shared Path to Success." ...I don't think a title should be that long. Why not parentheses that end bit?

After that, we were dismissed. Me & some peers headed into the hallway down to the first floor to wait for our bus, and we chatted about it a little bit?

One was like, "Is this a report card or something?"

Another was like, "I guess?"

The first boy skimmed it, though, and saw nothing about him. Which eased his nerves.

A third asked me what I thought it was since I was the only kid who'd hit a Z-reading level. They figured I could make sense of it. And my first thought was boring adult stuff, or some sort of... after-school? Program? Thing? But I didn't really answer. I was too preoccupied with what Mrs. Z said.

What kind of teacher tells me not to read something? Give it to my parents is one thing, but specifically, "don't" read this? Dude! What doesn't she want me to see?

Everyone else had tossed the damn thing into their bookbags and zipped 'em up by now. We headed downstairs, and I couldn't help but notice that our 6th grade class was on the third floor; with a lot of grades 2-4 around us.

Meanwhile, the rest of the big middle school classes came down from higher up. It turns out that they all had their classes high up on the top floor. A bunch of bright minds floated down from above like they were that summer's fireflies, and we were the tips of night grass. Or maybe even worms, burrowing into the dirt and calling it a day.

...

By the time the bus was moving, I still had the packet in my hands. I was wondering why they all got to be up there and we didn't. We lived pretty close to Coney Island, after all: it must be cool seeing the parachute jump from the hallway window on your way down every day.

I barely had time to stuff the packet in my hands once we pulled up to my apartment.

If you've ever wondered what Kid Jonah was like, imagine some sort of hybrid between a miserable little nerd & the most optimistic goody-goody you've ever met. Like, yeah, I'd been in a few fights by this point, broken some rules behind their backs, but I was also... 10. And known for being "THE good kid" in front of teachers. I didn't like to defy them, you know? Even if they did always make me feel weird, or on-edge, or like I was a part of something bad.

So when I made a beeline for my room, I was like, Oh my God, I'm actually gonna do this...? And I didn't tell my parents a thing. I've kept the packet all this time and they STILL haven't read it!

But I did. I think I hesitated, but I remember opening it on my bed.

"Welcome.

Dear families, we've come a long way since our special education reform initiative, A Shared Path to Success, was launched citywide in 2012... we've also been changing hearts and minds as our core belief- that special education is a service, and not a place- has taken hold in our schools...

Section 1... Children learn at different speeds and in different ways. Some children have physical and/or intellectual disabili..."

WHAT?!

...

It was a really dense packet for a kid. Long, boring, seemed endless. But I understood the words. Especially that D one. And at the time, 10-year-old me knew it was a bad one.

I'd crossed the point of no return by then. I kept reading. And I didn't dare skip a word. "Intervention," "Special," "Disability," "Meeting," "Evaluation," "Eligibility," "IEP,"-- Hey, I know that word! IEPs are the dense things stapled to my report cards!

I remember the anger flaring in my heart, out my nose, widening my eyes once I got to the Eligibility bit. I thought, and I quote, "THEY THINK WE'RE DISABLED?!" I don't think words can articulate how insulted little 10-year-old me was!

...I don't think I can articulate how sad that is now, either. How do you instill such heavy ableism into a little boy like that? How do you live with yourself?

But I couldn't throw the book at the wall or take one of my mom's lighters to it like I initially wanted. Because I realized pretty quickly... Oh my God. This is it. These are THE ANSWERS! THIS IS WHY IT'S ALL HAPPENING!

I couldn't believe my eyes as I took it all in. The 13 disabilities that landed me and my friends in this mess, some of which matched up with certain kids I knew right away. But what really caught my attention were the services. Terms that I KNEW about. Things I engaged with. Things I... hated.

"Occupational Therapy." That nice older lady who takes me out of class every few days so I can play memory games, or play with this hand-gripper, or yank pegs outta this bright green putty.

"Paraprofessional Services"; those weird second-teachers that annoy us and only us, but never anyone else in the other classes. They're so stuck-up sometimes! And they never really seem to know how to leave us alone. Especially certain kids.

The stories I could tell about them all now... good fucking lord.

Physical Therapy; That's the one where the lady is always making me feel bad about things and do sit-ups or run drills in the hallway and stairwell... and do embarrassing stretches like people aren't walking by.

And she got upset with me because I brought a lunchbox every day for years; she told me, "You'll never be a big kid if you keep bringing food from home, Jonah!"

And I told her, "But my mom doesn't even make the sandwiches anymore! I make them for myself!"

And she was like, "But still!"

She also measures her footstep, saying it was a foot of distance. Like, 12 inches. But nuh-uh, it was never a foot! Her sneakers aren't that big. Rulers are longer. Why didn't she just get a measuring tape? What's this lady's problem?

The one that sunk my heart, though, was Adapted Phys Ed. The packet said it was "A specially designed program of developmental activities, games, sports, and rhythms suited to the interests, capabilities, and limitations of individual children who may now safely or successfully participate in the activities of a regular physical education program."

And I thought: ...That's the watered-down gym class I do three times a week.

The one where we do "challenges" like stepping into each hole of an agility ladder mat and doing a squat before moving to the next.

The one where we never play sports like everybody else gets to do.

The one that makes the gym teacher sit me out on the bleachers by myself, and watch literally everybody else I know have fun. And when I ask why, nobody tells me anything.

The one where I ask how I can improve in order to go play with everybody else, but nobody tells me anything.

The one where Mrs. D keeps promising me that I'll get to play with the rest of my class soon... but it never comes true.

This is why everybody acts so weird around us.

This is why we can't even talk to the rest of our grade.

This is why nothing ever changes...!

It all made sense. 10-year-old me couldn't feel the floor or the bed anymore. The back of my mind buzzed like shaken soda, fizzling against the back of my skull. I didn't cry. I didn't have tears. But I did sink down, down into the depths of I-don't-even-know-where.

I went time-traveling back to May of last school year, where a Special Ed kid the grade above me was saying to his classmate, "We're all just the kids nobody wants." But I didn't have context. Was this the context? He sounded like he was about to cry.

I went back to 4th grade when I headed into the bathroom and saw two kids from my grade walk by with papers promoting the talent show to everybody. I saw the text written on them clear as day! And I got excited; Our school's having a talent show? COOL! We must be getting those later today, too!

The papers never came.

I went back to 3rd grade, where paras would hover over our class during lunch, but nobody else's. They always stood tall above and between us, like they were a scarecrow keeping the birds of our grade away.

And there was so much. More. Than that.

...

I still wonder why Z didn't want me seeing that. Maybe she knew I would spiral or label myself. But at the same time... that's a learned behavior. Ableism is a hatred, and hatred is learned. From ADULTS. One that she and the rest of the school could at least try to curb if she noticed.

Z wasn't a bad lady. I think she was trying to protect me? But... we already knew we were being treated unfairly. Why would keeping this secret protect me?

The anger only lasted a little while. Because something else dawned on me.

I can't stay here.

This place had been upsetting me for YEARS. And now I knew that it was happening for a reason. A shitty one, but still... a reason. It's not just bad luck. And that it wasn't going to change unless I removed that reason from their minds.

I had to leave. Sound familiar?

The next day we had school? I was completely shaken up. Kinda surprised no one noticed. I was finally seeing just how deep this all went. The teachers smiling in my face, baby-talking, getting reallll close while having this sense of disgust in their eyes.

The staggering difference in numbers between "normal" classes and ours.

Our class locations.

I even found this board on the first floor that had a picture of every teacher and what they taught. Sure enough, "Special Education" was specified in the label for every teacher I'd ever had. I was even able to find the next teachers I'd have for Grades 7 & 8. And my blood went cold because I knew those two particular ladies were pretty mean.

My school was DEFINITELY failing that, "Special Ed is a service, not a place!" shit the state allegedly wanted to accomplish. It was a place. And I... was trapped.

And I couldn't stay trapped. Because as far as I knew, education was everything. I was a very academic little boy back then. And I didn't know what staying in a place like this could mean for my education later down the line.

I didn't want to find out.

I also didn't want my social life restricted like this. Especially since there weren't many kids who treated me well. I wanted freedom. I wanted independence. I wanted a chance to actually find real friends!

And this is sad, but... I was already very depressed by that age. Due to the nature of Special Ed at school. Had been since 8. And so... I made a plan in my bedroom the same night I found the packet:

I can't carry this environment with me into high school. I have to do anything-- EVERYTHING I can to get outta here by the time 8th grade starts! And if I fail... I can't finish 8th grade like that.

The Verrazzano Bridge and the walkway by the water, the one with the short fence that I can get right over, are only a fifteen minute walk from home. If I don't get out of Special Ed by 8th grade, then... I have to go out there and throw myself off. I have to kill myself. I have to...! Because I know for a fact I just can't. Stay. Here.

And I was serious. Dead-serious. Because I thought about it every day for the next 2 years straight.

...

That packet started it all for PB. And as sad as it is that I technically had to go behind adults' backs just to learn something about myself and where I was, I'm extremely glad it happened. Because it's also what kickstarted my interest in disability topics. My journey in learning who we were, what we were, and what we do & don't deserve.

It led to the first drafts of PB just under a year later, which set my life on a completely new path. Paperboy would not EXIST if it weren't for that day. Hell; I don't even know if my OTHER projects (like Weirder Than Usual) would, either!

That wasn't right. None of that was right. But it did give me a story to tell. One that you guys are finally starting to see!

And one that I'm very, very proud of.

Disability conversations are extremely important to me now. I don't think I'm the beacon of anti-ableism or anything like that. I know I've fucked up as I grew up, especially in my younger years. But this entire situation showed me how hush-hush the world likes to be about it. And while it's better now than it was in 2014, it ain't great yet.

And I think I owe it to 10-year-old Jonah to change that shit. Because when he googled "Special Ed makes me feel bad," he barely found anything.

It was definitely an experience I will never forget. And as you saw above, I still keep that packet with me to this day, and I always will, because of just how heavily it changed my life.

I have no idea where or who I'd be if it wasn't for that.

Happy 9th birthday, SpEd packet. Can't wait for the 10th!

[jcmarchi]

Starting reading the AI Snake Oil book online today

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/starting-reading-the-ai-snake-oil-book-online-today/

Starting reading the AI Snake Oil book online today

The first chapter of the AI snake oil book is now available online. It is 30 pages long and summarizes the book’s main arguments. If you start reading now, you won’t have to wait long for the rest of the book — it will be published on the 24th of September. If you haven’t pre-ordered it yet, we hope that reading the introductory chapter will convince you to get yourself a copy.

We were fortunate to receive positive early reviews by The New Yorker, Publishers’ Weekly (featured in the Top 10 science books for Fall 2024), and many other outlets. We’re hosting virtual book events (City Lights, Princeton Public Library, Princeton alumni events), and have appeared on many podcasts to talk about the book (including Machine Learning Street Talk, 20VC, Scaling Theory).

Our book is about demystifying AI, so right out of the gate we address what we think is the single most confusing thing about it: 

AI is an umbrella term for a set of loosely related technologies

Because AI is an umbrella term, we treat each type of AI differently. We have chapters on predictive AI, generative AI, as well as AI used for social media content moderation. We also have a chapter on whether AI is an existential risk. We conclude with a discussion of why AI snake oil persists and what the future might hold. By AI snake oil we mean AI applications that do not (and perhaps cannot) work. Our book is a guide to identifying AI snake oil and AI hype. We also look at AI that is harmful even if it works well — such as face recognition used for mass surveillance. 

While the book is meant for a broad audience, it does not simply rehash the arguments we have made in our papers or on this newsletter. We make scholarly contributions and we wrote the book to be suitable for adoption in courses. We will soon release exercises and class discussion questions to accompany the book.

Chapter 1: Introduction. We begin with a summary of our main arguments in the book. We discuss the definition of AI (and more importantly, why it is hard to come up with one), how AI is an umbrella term, what we mean by AI Snake Oil, and who the book is for. 

Generative AI has made huge strides in the last decade. On the other hand, predictive AI is used for predicting outcomes to make consequential decisions in hiring, banking, insurance, education, and more. While predictive AI can find broad statistical patterns in data, it is marketed as far more than that, leading to major real-world misfires. Finally, we discuss the benefits and limitations of AI for content moderation on social media.

We also tell the story of what led the two of us to write the book. The entire first chapter is now available online.

Chapter 2: How predictive AI goes wrong. Predictive AI is used to make predictions about people—will a defendant fail to show up for trial? Is a patient at high risk of negative health outcomes? Will a student drop out of college? These predictions are then used to make consequential decisions. Developers claim predictive AI is groundbreaking, but in reality it suffers from a number of shortcomings that are hard to fix. 

We have discussed the failures of predictive AI in this blog. But in the book, we go much deeper through case studies to show how predictive AI fails to live up to the promises made by its developers.

Chapter 3: Can AI predict the future? Are the shortcomings of predictive AI inherent, or can they be resolved? In this chapter, we look at why predicting the future is hard — with or without AI. While we have made consistent progress in some domains such as weather prediction, we argue that this progress cannot translate to other settings, such as individuals’ life outcomes, the success of cultural products like books and movies, or pandemics. 

Since much of our newsletter is focused on topics of current interest, this is a topic that we have never written about here. Yet, it is foundational knowledge that can help you build intuition around when we should expect predictions to be accurate.

Chapter 4: The long road to generative AI. Recent advances in generative AI can seem sudden, but they build on a series of improvements over seven decades. In this chapter, we retrace the history of computing advances that led to generative AI. While we have written a lot about current trends in generative AI, in the book, we look at its past. This is crucial for understanding what to expect in the future. 

Chapter 5: Is advanced AI an existential threat? Claims about AI wiping out humanity are common. Here, we critically evaluate claims about AI’s existential risk and find several shortcomings and fallacies in popular discussion of x-risk. We discuss approaches to defending against AI risks that improve societal resilience regardless of the threat of advanced AI.

Chapter 6: Why can’t AI fix social media? One area where AI is heavily used is content moderation on social media platforms. We discuss the current state of AI use on social media, and highlight seven reasons why improvements in AI alone are unlikely to solve platforms’ content moderation woes. We haven’t written about content moderation in this newsletter.

Chapter 7: Why do myths about AI persist? Companies, researchers, and journalists all contribute to AI hype. We discuss how myths about AI are created and how they persist. In the process, we hope to give you the tools to read AI news with the appropriate skepticism and identify attempts to sell you snake oil.

Chapter 8: Where do we go from here? While the previous chapter focuses on the supply of snake oil, in the last chapter, we look at where the demand for AI snake oil comes from. We also look at the impact of AI on the future of work, the role and limitations of regulation, and conclude with vignettes of the many possible futures ahead of us. We have the agency to determine which path we end up on, and each of us can play a role.

We hope you will find the book useful and look forward to hearing what you think. 

The New Yorker: “In AI Snake Oil, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor urge skepticism and argue that the blanket term AI can serve as a smokescreen for underperforming technologies.”

Kirkus: “Highly useful advice for those who work with or are affected by AI—i.e., nearly everyone.”

Publishers’ Weekly: Featured in the Fall 2024 list of top science books.

Jean Gazis: “The authors admirably differentiate fact from opinion, draw from personal experience, give sensible reasons for their views (including copious references), and don’t hesitate to call for action. . . . If you’re curious about AI or deciding how to implement it, AI Snake Oil offers clear writing and level-headed thinking.”

Elizabeth Quill: “A worthwhile read whether you make policy decisions, use AI in the workplace or just spend time searching online. It’s a powerful reminder of how AI has already infiltrated our lives — and a convincing plea to take care in how we interact with it.”

We’ve been on many other podcasts that will air around the time of the book’s release, and we will keep this list updated.

The book is available to preorder internationally on Amazon.

[thefinalcinderella]

As always thank you for the tsurune novel translation!

Btw have you finished reading the 3rd book or are you still reading while translating? I'm curious as what are your thoughts so far about the 3rd book? I personally think the 3rd book is really too jarring with the prior books and I wonder why. In addition to the sudden surge of new characters, I really can't tell where the plot is going nor what the author is actually aiming for or the focus of the book, which I can tell easily in the previous books. I also find it hard following the jumping train of thoughts in all the chapters so far, it's like every new plot is jumbled up and one storyline isn't even finished before it jumps to a whole new arc. Idk if it's just me who feels that way or not...or if this style of writing will continue to the end of the book so I'm curious to know what you thought as the translator. Thanks!

You basically summarized my thoughts on this novel! Honestly when I read the synopsis I was like "...so what's the book about?" and while slice of life novels can get away with having a loose plot, I feel like there should still be an arc or something like that. Tbh the author has a tendency to randomly jump topics or scenes in the earlier books as well, but it's a lot worse in this book.

My personal theory is that the author was compelled to put this book out in conjunction with the movie and S2. The publisher probably wanted to repeat their Violet Evergarden success, considering how the novels got a big boost with the release of the anime and movies. There's such a big gap between this book and v2 that I got the feeling that they didn't plan to write book 3 (I feel like book 2 had a somewhat open but satisfying ending). Tbh as I translated the novel I got the feeling that the author had no idea how to fill up 200+ pages bc they couldn't think of a plot so they put a lot of random stuff in the book and wrote them in a vignette-style, so you got chapters made up of separate scenes that are only tangentially related. Idk how to explain it but it feels like when I'm trying to bullshit my way through a 10 page essay and I don't have a lot of coherent arguments, so I just try to write a big single paragraph on each page so that I'm at least reaching the page count. I think adding so many new characters was also a way to fill up pages, although it's all moot if you don't use them well. Having Minato and the others jump all the way ahead to their second year (v2 ended in summer of their first year so it's a pretty big jump) was probably a way to justify introducing new students.

I haven't really read ahead, but I do know some of the scenes that happen later in the novel and they are just as random as the earlier scenes imo. I think the novel would have read better if it was structured more like a short story collection. It pretty much is one anyways and I feel like there's a lot of characters from the previous book that could have their own spotlight, and we could see the characters' pasts or something like that.

Anyways I hope if there is ever a book 4, the author would be given the time and help that they need to plot it well.

[washipink]

The Rain Review Year 4 (2014)

Welcome back to the Rain Review! This time, we’re tackling the comic’s fourth year. It spans Chapter 19: Vincent’s Story all the way through Chapter 23: The Flaherty Siblings.

This one’s the last full year of the comic’s run that I was round for. In Year 5, we’ll get into all new territory. For now, here’s another recap-style post.

Summary

Vincent’s Story is a chapter that I can summarize fairly quickly. Rain’s therapist is actually Aunt Fara’s ex. Fara’s family, particularly her brother-in-law, was not approving at all. Vince ended up disappearing on Fara because he didn’t want her to be troubled with the backlash. In hindsight, he knows this wasn’t the best play because he’s worried Fara big time. Anyway, Jessica and Rain conspire to get them talking again.

Next Chapter!

Aiken is rooming with his twin sister Kellen now. They talk about Rain and it turns out that Aiken is... actually trying to get it. Kellen still doesn’t understand or approve of her sister’s life.

Emily goes to hang out with Rain for a “Quiet Weekend” where they share another cute chat. Ky comes over and Emily gives her a word to put to her gender feels. Also, Emily shares with Ky that she’s pregnant. And pansexual also. Yes, they do make THAT joke, but it was 2014.

Gavin’s date is going really well. Like, he hits it the hell off with Ana.

Also, I usually don’t talk about any of the bonus art or the Rain Delay filler comics in these posts, but I NEED to call attention to the fact that I got Attack On Titan Jumpscared going into the next chapter.

No, no, it’s fine... it was 2014. We didn’t know. Everyone was talking about i- OH COME ON.

It truly was a different time, folks. It was almost 10 years ago...

In news that’s positive to me but probably still negative for everyone else there was also a Danganronpa filler art. Not to derail too hard, but most of these cosplay choices are banger. Except, Gavin is clearly Togami because there just wasn’t another guy that wasn’t annoying. If I believed the fandom perception of that character instead of the actual text of the game, I’d say he should be Mondo.

Anyway, back to the STORY!!!

Brother Arthur tells Chanel and Maria to tone it the hell down before they get caught, but goes out of his way to NOT give them detention for it. This leads directly into the two of them making plans for a Valentine’s Day date in which Chanel treats Maria to dinner.

Maria decides to talk to Rain about Emily. She explains that she eavesdropped on Rain and wanted to know if Emily was pregnant for real. You see, they dated in Freshman year and things ended ROUGH, which is why Maria has such a grudge against Emily.

School ends and Rain and Fara leave for therapy. In this scene, Fara kind of explains Rain’s character development to her. Were I Cinemasins, I’d be like, “Erm, that’s bad writing.”

BUT, I’m not Cinemasins and I acknowledge that Rain is the kind of girl that NEEDS someone to tell her that shit. She won’t give herself any credit without it.

This scene is one of the ones that makes me think about how even as I grow up, I see myself in Rain. She’s So Concerned About Her Friends all the time. She doesn’t give herself enough credit for all the good shit she does. She’s constantly fighting back negative self talk. And yet, she continues on anyway. I love Rain. She’s kind of the prototypical trans woman of the 2010s, but in some ways that makes her easy to relate to.

In the next chapter, Collin tries to patch things up with Fara by actually going through with getting Rain her con tickets. More on that later.

In the mean time, Fara and Vincent meet once again and at least try to patch things up. They’re not dating again, but they do end up on pretty good terms by the end of the night.

I don’t know how involved Vincent will be going forward though. He fills Rain an HRT prescription and says he’ll set her up with one of his co-workers because he’s too personally involved considering his ex-girlfriend is her aunt.

Ky, Gavin and Rudy end up hanging out because they’re all single on Valentine’s Day. Which is fine and dandy until Ky spills The Beans.

We return to Rain after her therapy session. She’s so excited to share the news... but all the friends that know her deal are busy. So she decides it’s time to tell Emily the truth. The emotional height of the entire year follows from this point to the end of Chapter 22. There are 4 different scenes overlapping, but I want to talk about them one at a time.

Emily is... really positive about it. She says she thinks she may have figured it out, but she elected to let Rain come to her when/if she decided to.

There’s a fun thing Samara does with the art in this section is playing with the distance between Rain and Emily. When the conversation starts, it’s clear that they’re in two separate locations on the phone. Emily is in her house, the blue background. Rain is in the therapists’ office, a green background. After Rain tells Emily her secret and Emily accepts her wholeheartedly, the lines start to get a little blurrier. Eventually, They’ve pulled their phones away from their faces and are standing face to face in a panel with a gradient background between their two locations. They get closer as the conversation goes on. so close that it feels like one of them could reach out to hug the other.

This was a really fun way to play with the comic’s... shall we say “lack” of backgrounds?

Now that Rain has gotten everything off her chest, she gets an idea. Remember those tickets I was telling you about? Well, Rain decided she could invite Emily to go to the con with her. But what about the other 2 tickets? THOSE are for Kellen and Aiken.

Meanwhile, at Jessica’s job, a familiar face walks right on in. That’s right, Jessica and Chase are going to go on a DATE. And that’s TERRIBLE for Jessica. Holy shit. Once again, more on this LATER.

The other really important plot line from this chapter to me is the resolution of Chanel and Maria’s date. When the night is winding down, Maria says something I’ve felt personally. She doesn’t want to go home. For once, she’s actually happy because she’s unabashedly spending time with someone she loves. In her house, all she’s got on her side is Rudy. They’re both miserable there.

If you’re a queer person with a shitty family and you’ve EVER been out of the house with your friends, I’m sure you’ve felt this one. The feeling that everything in your life is good... until you go home. Once again, I think this comic’s strong suit is exploring situations that are familiar to experienced queer readers and can be lessons to younger readers. This one hit me in the heart for sure.

Also, Randy and Ky meet again and they decide that they can give each other a shot.That’s cute.

Now, the final twist of Chapter 22: Anastacia! How many trans people are in this comic? One more than you thought before!

The final chapter of the night is “The Flaherty Siblings”.

Rain and Fara go to pick up the con tickets from Collin, who is being a lot more polite than Fara last described him. If you’ll look back, Fara broke up with Collin off screen. We don’t know what exactly he said to her until now, except that it PROBABLY involved Rain. Collin presents Rain with her tickets and Rain decides that Fara should give him another chance. So, in the future, we’ll be seeing a little more of him.

The day before Rain and Emily leave for Kellen’s house, Rain does some introspection. She finally admits to herself what we’ve probably all been thinking: She is in love with Emily. She is in love with Emily but is scared to say anything about it because they’ve got a lot on their plates and also they call each other Sis all the time, so she thinks it’d be weird.

The day finally arrives and Fara drops Rain and Emily off with her other niece. Things do not start well, but there’s an unexpected MVP in this scene. AIKEN is the one to reach out to Rain and tell her to give Kellen a chance.

I’m starting to care for Aiken as a character a lot. He’s Literally Trying. He’s putting more effort into things than my own family ever has. He always calls her by her name and almost always gets her pronouns right. He’s clearly making an attempt and he deserves credit for it.

Kellen, on the other hand, is like, MY MOM tier transphobic. She assumes that Emily is ALSO trans and directly refers to Rain as “Not a real girl” multiple times this weekend.

Emily is Rain’s number 1 shooter this weekend. Like, she does NOT let Kellen miss a goddamn beat.

My favorite Emily clap-back is this one below:

We cut to Jessica, who finds out what Chase’s deal is and is PISSED about it. I’m pretty sure things between them are over as quick as they started. I mean, dude admitted to dating a high schooler on the FIRST DATE.

Meanwhile, Kellen continues to be a fucking problem and bring up stuff that was actually just Rain’s Childhood Dysphoria. Then, Rain goes to sleep that night and has a trauma nightmare about her father. Again, I relate. I’ve been there.

Emily is once again The Best Person for Rain’s sake.

and that brings us to the end of Year 4.

Final Thoughts

Another year, another group of really emotionally fulfilling scenes. Holy shit. It’s crazy to me how consistently quality Rain’s character writing can be. It definitely helps that it draws from real life experience. Everyone in this comic feels like someone I have known or could know.

Rain is nothing if not consistent, honestly. That’s a blessing and a curse. The writing is always just right but the art style never leaves the way it always has been. Samara tries new things in this batch of chapters, though. More shot feature furniture and background details than in previous years and that one scene with the gradient background worked really well!

I look forward to seeing where Rain goes from here. Join me next time for year 5, 2015!

[bestreviewguy]

Those who don’t study history are destined to repeat it. Those who watch Napolean’s marriage problems…just watched this movie? Napoleon is a 2 hour and 45 minute historical drama directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, etc.) starring Joaquin Phoenix who is most recently known for his work in the 2019 comic book hit, Joker. When watching a film like this, you generally expect their to be a lot of battles and essentially a love letter to the emperor in the French Revolution, Napolean Bonaparte. He had led 61 battles in his military career and infamously known for his strategy’s which guided the French to several victories. He was married to Josephine played by Vanessa Kirby in this film. As I expected their to be many historical moments in this film in the field of battle, I would have compromised with a glimpse into this characters life and mind set. I was excited to see how he thinks, and how he leads his army to victory in this film. Basically a testament to the HOW he accomplishes things and the WHY he was so well known…and we got hardly any of that. Instead, we’re given a long soap opera with no true resolve or any sort of information that will be remembered. Their is a new trend in cinema where a movie must be drawn out and long, this one is at least an hour too long. This is the biggest fault of the film, it is too long which makes the film come off as extremely boring. While the dynamic between Napolean and Josephine sounds intriguing on paper, it is not done properly in any regard. Playing off as a cliché, “what are we?” Style dynamic instead. This would have been ok if the momentum in the first 10 minutes was kept up throughout the film. We are faced with a BRUTAL first 10 to 15 minutes of the film which insinuates we are going to have a war story unlike any other based in the 1700’s era. This is not the case. Instead, most of the 2 hours and 45 minutes are a repetition of romance dialogue between Napolean and his wife and it is simply not interesting. However, the battle scenes are shot EXCELLENTLY. Their is one scene in particular in the beginning with a horse being shot blank with a canon ball and it is as gory as it sounds. This makes the audience intrigued that where in for a tale of war and strategic battle victories. The key word is ‘in the beginning’ because this momentum is not kept up throughout the film. However, it is historically accurate. The landmarks are breathtaking when viewed, ranging from Egypt, France (obviously) and a few more I won’t go into due to spoiler reasons. Also, the performances are done excellent. While the story is quite boring and you don’t really care about Napolean or Josephine by the end, it is clearly established both actors/actresses, give it their all in the role, yet the lack of source material doesn’t really make it enough to enjoy the film. In one word to summarize this film, it’s unfortunately very boring. That is the word I kept thinking of. The love story is boring and the dialogue is not entertaining at all. With a run time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, your dreading the viewing experience and trying not to fall asleep, and while the cinematography is fantastic and the landmarks are breathtaking, this movie is simply not good. I’m going to give “Napolean” by Ridley Scott, a 4 out of 10. If you want a historical epic that is a long film and also intriguing, check out “Killers of The Flower Moon” instead. Because this movie will absolutely put you to sleep.

4/10

+Historically accurate

+Battle scenes are beautifully shot

- Hard to stay awake while watching

- Boring story

- No interesting plot points

- Over saturated dialogue sequences that extend way too long

- Difficult to finish due to feeling pointless.

[atariaction]

Kay’s 2023 Wrapped

Well, that about wraps it up for 2023, which means it’s time for my letter summarizing the computer history work that I did in the past year. I’ve been writing these letters since 2016, making this my eighth annual letter. I wish I had started this tradition in 1996, the year that my computer history efforts began when I launched the Digital Antic Project, which grew into Classic Computer Magazine Archive.

My goal this year was to publish six interviews on Antic: The Atari 8-Bit Podcast. I published just one. (It was a good one, with Rodrigo Castro about Atari in Chile. Why not six? My Internet Archive work and, simply, a lack of momentum on interviews. Once the process is going, it’s going! But getting that engine re-started is hard.) My goal for 2024 is to publish 15 interviews, which I fully expect to actually do. Between us over the years, Randy Kindig and I have published 436 interview episodes on Antic. Our collective goal is to reach 500 by the end of 2025. So to keep my end of the bargain, that means I’ll publish 15 interviews in 2024.

Scanning, though! I turned all sorts of rare paper material into easily-searchable digital material at Internet Archive. I scanned a lot of Atari newsletters, including many from Hughes El Segundo Employees Association Atari Computer Enthusiasts, South Bay Atari Computer Enthusiasts, and West LA Atari Users Group.

In other scanning news — let’s talk about MicroTimes. MicroTimes was a California-focused computer magazine that was published from 1984 through 1999. It was there in the thick of it, published in the state that brought us Silicon Valley. I wrote for MicroTimes for a few years starting in 1992. So I am especially proud of this: 41 issues of MicroTimes magazinewere added to Internet Archive in 2023, bringing the collection to 62 issues. Here’s the long-story-short summary of 10 years of effort: I made this happen. I willed it to happen. More issues will be added in 2024.

I also added two more books to the collection of Russ Walter’s Secret Guide To Computers at Internet Archive. The newest additions are hard-to-find editions from 1976, about BASIC programming and computer applications.

My Scantastix project (if you don’t know what that is, here’s a short article describing it) did some great work: we scanned 321 items totaling 22,577 pages. The scans include some rare Microsoft material, even rarer pamphlets and manuals for Compucorp computers (have you ever heard of them? The computer that came with them is on its way to Vintage Computer Federation) and so many Apple II manuals. Check out all the latest additions here.

Also, a weird scanning side-quest happened this year: My friend Cabel Sasser handed me a pile of more than 50 DAK catalogs, which I scanned for him, then he wrote a blog post about them that blew up the Internet for a few days. It’s a fun read.

Once again, I processed and edited videos of the presentations at Vintage Computer Festival West 2023and VCF East 2023. And I helmed a project to rescue audio from VCF West 2003. These were recordings that were made of talks twenty years ago, then the tapes were lost, then found, then given to me, then it turned out that the tapes were recorded terribly. It took a small team of people to get any sound at all from those tapes then turned into something listenable. They include the voices of C. H. Ting, Jef Raskin, John Ellenby, and Gary Starkweather, who have all passed since these were recorded.

When I interview a programmer, I ask the person if they have any source code. I interviewed Jay Jaeger, creator of the Atari Program Exchange version of Space War, in 2016. At the time he said he had the source code… somewhere. I contacted him from time to time to ask about that source code. (I have a “nag list” of people that I contact from time to time to ask them about some material or other.) Patience and persistence paid off. Just a few days ago, in December 2023, he found the assembly language source code and sent it to me to share.

A bit of personal archiving: I write for Juiced.GS magazine, which focuses on the Apple II. I uploaded all of the articles I've written for Juiced to Internet Archive, spanning 2015–2022. There are some interviews, some product reviews, and some nice little reminisces about the old days of microcomputers. (I released them under a Creative Commons license, so if you want to republish an article in a non-commercial computer club newsletter or something like that, go for it. My agreement with the magazine says that they get exclusive rights to articles for a year. So my 2023 articles will be shared online a year from now. In the mean time, it’s a good magazine: if you like Apple II, subscribe!)

My work at Internet Archive as the curator of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is certainly one of the reasons I’ve had less time and energy for computer archiving. 2023 was my first full calendar year in this role. I hit my one-year anniversary in August! But there’s sometimes a nice overlap between the two efforts. For instance, in 2023 I archived several ham radio related programs for Atari computers and a few for DOS machines and even a handful for CP/M that were rescued from 8-inch floppy disks.

There’s something else, something that I’ve been teasing for years. In my 2018 letter I wrote “There’s a particular archiving project happening in 2019 that is really big and really important for microcomputer history. I’m not ready to talk about it, but hold your breath and cross your fingers.” Then at the end of 2019 I wrote: “That project depends on the help of one person who has been battling ongoing health issues. It is still very much at the front of my mind, and *crosses fingers* will move ahead this year.” It didn’t, and it couldn’t, but with patience and persistence, it’s finally happening. It’s already started, and I can’t wait to have something amazing to show you in 2024. Keep holding your breath and crossing your fingers just a little while longer.

If you support my archiving work on Patreon, thank you! Also please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Internet Archive, the non-profit online library that hosts all of my scans and interviews.

I hope we all have a pleasant and productive 2024. May your patience and persistence pay dividends.

[museumgiftshoperaser]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I was tagged by @runninriot to do this!! Thank you for the tag <333

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

7!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

189,187! Which has all been since August 2022! I've never written this much in my life, it's kinda wild.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Stranger Things right now! Though I could see myself getting back to writing for ATLA (especially with the new show coming out).

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

An Exercise In Denial

Now I'm A Stranger

Paint The Devil On The Wall (my BigBang fic!)

Conversations About Love

Girls On The Ceiling

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Whenever I can! I'm so behind right now, though, but I'll get back to everyone soon!!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

One I haven't published yet! It's my first non happy ending. It's called Keep Me Company and I'm hoping to get it all up before the end of the year! All the others have pretty happy endings, so I couldn't really pick any of those.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

They've all got happy endings so far, but Conversations About Love has my happy ending to beat all happy endings. It's queer platonic joy through and through <33

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not so far, thank god!!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Only very recently! I'm still geting in the swing of it, but having a really good time with it so far! Though I did learn through writing some steddie sex scenes for PTDOTW that I much prefer writing WLW smut. It comes a lot more naturally to me.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope, don't think I ever would.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No :)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No! Doubt I'd be good at that. I write non chronologically and without a plan in advance so I think I'd probably be a nightmare to work with lol

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh Steddie is probably pretty high up there. Might be the recency bias speaking though.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmmm.... Don't have any right now I think? At least not ones I think I won't finish.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I love writing narrative summary?? Give me a couple hundred words to describe or summarize like a whole summer and I'll be golden :) I love picking out super specific details to get a point across without having to say too much.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions of facial expressions and body language. I feel like my characters are only ever frowning or raising an eyebrow or sighing and stuff. Really hard to keep that varied and interesting!! I also really really struggly with endings. I think I've gotten better at it lately, but it takes a lot of conscious effort (and a lot of stress lol)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Never done it!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Oh boy think that may have been Haikyu!! Actually? Like ten years ago on and old AO3 account. All of it very self inserty and angsty. Can't remember much about it it either.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Conversations About Love is really special to me because I don't see a lot of aro rep and writing it myself was actually quite a healing experience. The comments I've gotten on that fic are really special to me and I read through them a lot.

(will tag @devondespresso @hotluncheddie @eddieseyelashes but obviously no pressure <3)