#Guilty tripped by it attempting an algorithm

[bbeeew]

seeing a post that says "based on your likes!" Makes me want to restart my blog from the ground up again

How dare you show me such things

How dare you. Show me crap based on my reblogs, that's the stuff I enjoy

[seriously-mike]

Midjourney Is Full Of Shit

Last December, some guys from the IEEE newsletter, IEEE Spectrum whined about "plagiarism problem" in generative AI. No shit, guys, what did you expect?

But, let's get specific for a moment: they noticed that Midjourney generated very specific images from very general keywords like "dune movie 2021 trailer screencap" or "the matrix, 1999, screenshot from a movie". You'd expect that the outcome would be some kind of random clusterfuck making no sense. See for yourself:

In most of the examples depicted, Midjourney takes the general composition of an existing image, which is interesting and troubling in its own right, but you can see that for example Thanos or Ellie were assembled from some other data. But the shot from Dune is too good. It's like you asked not Midjourney, but Google Images to pull it up.

Of course, when IEEE Spectrum started asking Midjourney uncomfortable questions, they got huffy and banned the researchers from the service. Great going, you dumb fucks, you're just proving yourself guilty here. But anyway, I tried the exact same set of keywords for the Matrix one, minus Midjourney-specific commands, in Stable Diffusion (setting aspect ratio given in the MJ prompt as well). I tried four or five different data models to be sure, including LAION's useless base models for SD 1.5. I got... things like this.

It's certainly curious, for the lack of a better word. Generated by one of newer SDXL models that apparently has several concepts related to The Matrix defined, like the color palette, digital patterns, bald people and leather coats. But none of the attempts, using none of the models, got anywhere near the quality or similarity to the real thing as Midjourney output. I got male characters with Neo hair but no similarity to Keanu Reeves whatsoever. I got weird blends of Neo and Trinity. I got multiplied low-detail Neo figures on black and green digital pattern background. I got high-resolution fucky hands from an user-built SDXL model, a scenario that should be highly unlikely. It's as if the data models were confused by the lack of a solid description of even the basics. So how does Midjourney avoid it?

IEEE Spectrum was more focused on crying over the obvious fact that the data models for all the fucking image generators out there were originally put together in a quick and dirty way that flagrantly disregarded intellectual property laws and weren't cleared and sanitized for public use. But what I want to know is the technical side: how the fuck Midjourney pulls an actual high-resolution screenshot from its database and keeps iterating on it without any deviation until it produces an exact copy? This should be impossible with only a few generic keywords, even treated as a group as I noticed Midjourney doing a few months ago. As you can see, Stable Diffusion is tripping absolute motherfucking balls in such a scenario, most probably due to having a lot of images described with those keywords and trying to fit elements of them into the output image. But, you can pull up Stable Diffusion's code and research papers any time if you wish. Midjourney violently refuses to reveal the inner workings of their algorithm - probably less because it's so state-of-the-art that it recreates existing images without distortions and more because recreating existing images exactly is some extra function coded outside of the main algorithm and aimed at reeling in more schmucks and their dollars. Otherwise, there wouldn't be that much of a quality jump between movie screenshots and original concepts that just fall apart into a pile of blorpy bits. Even more coherent images like the grocery store aisle still bear minor but noticeable imperfections caused by having the input images pounded into the mathemagical fairy dust of random noise. But the faces of Dora Milaje in the Infinity War screenshot recreations don't devolve into rounded, fractal blorps despite their low resolution. Tubes from nasal plugs in the Dune shot run like they should and don't get tangled with the hairlines and stitches on the hood. This has to be some kind of scam, some trick to serve the customers hot images they want and not the predictable train wrecks. And the reason is fairly transparent: money. Rig the game, turn people into unwitting shills, fleece the schmucks as they run to you with their money hoping that they'll always get something as good as the handful of rigged results.

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Lovebug (6/10)

Summary:  

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

“As an employee you’re entitled to sick leaves.”

Entitled. It didn’t necessarily mean he needed it. Levi allowed himself a sequence of motions, some reassurance that his body was still functioning as expected

He raised his shoulders up then rolled it back, stretching his neck, bending it to one side then the other. It did wonders to help send a rush of energy through his still exhausted body. It  served as a reminder, he was strong, he was functional. “I don’t need a day off. I’m fine, ” Levi said. 

Erwin raised one eyebrow, giving him a once over. If he had narrowed his eyes anymore or wrinkled his nose, Levi could have given in. Other parts of his body were still reeling from the ordeal from the beach and he was sure he could fall asleep if someone just laid him out on a sofa.

Erwin though was a man of the office, a staunch professional. When it came to work and productivity, he leaned on the side of ‘being productive.’ He took Levi’s word for it.  “If you are feeling anything, just anything out of the ordinary, take the day off. Feel free to just leave me a note, and I can have Petra or Eld handle the rest of the testing.” 

The word ‘testing’ didn’t do much to convince Levi to rest though and maybe Erwin knew that. Levi slammed the door behind him hard enough to have him preparing for a lecture from Erwin about door slamming manners.

He waited in front of the door, gripping the doorknob from behind him for a good few more seconds. 

“We could start working next week?” Hange appeared right next to him. More specifically, she had accompanied him to Erwin’s office that morning, settling for just loitering outside the door, providing a perfectly valid reason for the internal question ‘ did she hear his conversation with Erwin?’

“It’s a Tuesday and it’s not a holiday,” Levi answered matter-of-factly. 

“Well, don’t companies have sick leaves?” 

“They do.” 

“And you were in the hospital just yesterday.” 

“I was in the hospital under observation,” Levi clarified. 

“After almost drowning,” Hange added.

“Just because the doctor prescribes a few more days of bed rest, doesn’t make it an almighty rule.” It was evidence that maybe a day off or two would have definitely made the difference. That slightly caustic exchange had Levi’s head spinning. He found himself having to squint just to even feign eye contact. “Besides, why are you here anyway?” 

“To work on the love alarm. Don’t you think it’s better if we work closely with each other?” 

“Not this early into the whole process. We could have talked through email.” Levi attempted to walk ahead. His office wasn’t too far from Erwin’s  a good few flights of stairs below. With his head slightly spinning and his legs feeling like jelly, Levi went for the elevators.

It was as if Hange was on a mission to flaunt her ability to speed up her pace. She walked next to him then a few feet ahead, turning back at him. And she had been that way since that morning. 

Levi gave in. “Okay, so what parts of the planning process merit a meeting today?” 

“Well, I’m worried for one.” 

“There are many meetings that could have been an email and I think you lecturing me about not taking a sick leave is one of them.” 

“Yeah, and there’s more...” Hange trailed off, giving him a good look from head to toe. Levi liked to believe she just couldn’t find the right answer to whatever implicit question he introduced at that moment. “I’m sorry about yesterday, and the day before.” 

“That could have been an email.” 

“I know Zeke gave you shit about being carried by me and having to be saved by me...” 

Levi stifled a cringe. A bridal carry to be specific. “That could have also been an email.” 

Hange huffed. “Fine. I get if you want to be so pissy about this but let me be selfish. I didn’t join Zeke on his business trip and it’s because I felt guilty. About you almost drowning, about you being forced to play golf and almost losing all your money over a few games. It was shitty okay. And for my own peace of mind, please let me join you at work, and maybe just help you make some progress with the alarm, even just a bit?” 

There was nothing much else his muddled brain could come up with in that moment of silence. “Okay,” Levi said, with a tone that could have easily been seen through. It was in fact, not okay. 

“Why? Is there anything else you’re busy with?” 

Levi sighed. “Making sure that damn love alarm gets tested for the next release.”

***

Anticipation had the tendency of piling stress much higher than the stress was actually worth. For many people, they only realize how much of a simple task something can be when they’re actually doing it. 

When work would pile up, stress would pile up. When Levi’s brain was working at half capacity, while trying to balance responsibilities and a guilty Hange in tow, he was barely thinking about work yet still attempting to the best of his meagre abilities.  

When the work was finally in front of him, the workflow tracker out, the whole ordeal of anticipating a workload had turned out to be anticlimactic. Maybe he had just gotten used to days leading up to releases being particularly stressful. After all, it usually involved early morning sanity checks, junk food and a stressed out team. 

Usually. They had some good releases and the one that day seemed like a good release. Of course it would be a less stressful release. It was under testing for months and it had been pushed back a week already. The QA work was almost over. To be just a little more certain, Levi filtered his workflow tracker to staged tickets and to tickets tagged ‘ready for release.’ 

“So, how does this pre-release testing work?” Hange asked, leaning forward. She had taken the liberty to pull one of the chairs to the corner towards and sat beside him. 

“I’m working,” Levi said coldly.

“Oh, but you said you needed to test the love alarm.” 

“Yes, the team is testing it. I’m making sure everything gets tested.” 

“So how do you make sure everything gets tested?” 

“Well… There’s this tracker here, I assign tickets for testing and when people say it’s tested they click QA passed and I see it here. Then if anything urgent needs testing or anything doesn’t seem to work, I help out and try to fix it,” Levi said, he opened his drawer dropping one of his test devices on the table. 

“So you could have gotten a day off,” Hange asked, seemingly knowingly. 

Levi glanced at the dashboard to seeall tickets were tagged as ‘Ready to Release.’  the others having been done a week back. He was too lazy to check the event history and there was no need to. The necessary work had been finished. 

Maybe he could have taken the day off. He wasn’t admitting that though. “So tell me, what are your plans? We’re getting the money soon according to Erwin but you’re the mastermind behind this.” Levi swiveled his chair behind him, grabbed his whiteboard eraser and cleaned out some of the useless notes from the next release. 

Half way through cleaning it up though, he stopped. There might be something you’ll need there. He cursed himself for even erasing some of it to the point of incomprehensible. 

“You wanna just use the workflow tracker? Like the one on your computer?” Hange suggested. 

“No, this is fine…” Levi racked his brain for those numbers and he settled for just writing the notes just much smaller below the release notes to the side with the larger font. 

It looked messy. It looked ugly. And his dominant meticulous side would not stand for it. In one swift motion borne out of frustration, Levi swiped his white board eraser over the whiteboard five times, more than enough to wipe it clean. 

“Was there anything important there?” Hange asked.

“Just a cleaner version of what we have in the tracker,” Levi said with a slight huff. He would rather Hange wasn’t reminded of whatever could have been there.

“Well, you wanna brainstorm on the whiteboard?” 

“It’s blank now.” Levi gestured for Hange to go ahead. 

“There’s actually not much to brainstorm on my end,” Hange said. Still, she walked a little nearer, grabbing the marker from Levi. She drew a heart. “You used biological markers to determine love right? That’s how you made the application. If you could assume love based on biological markers… maybe you can break it down and do it similarly for feelings right? I work with psychotherapy and I thought your application might have the potential to be tweaked in the context of assessing emotion Just to give therapists an idea of how their patients feel….” Hange trailed off. She drew a small diagram under the heart, a sad face, a happy face then a blank face. “I mean we have the technology for it already right? Most phones now are capable of more complex biometrics, that’s what the love alarm is taking advantage of.” 

Levi hummed. The diagram made it look just a little too easy. “And how do you think we can break down the application?” He knew the answer. Testing Hange though had been a tempting option.

Hange looked back at him, a confident grin on her face.“Yeah, you have the data already? And you created models or algorithms. Maybe you can extract part of those data sets and we can cut it down… to ‘happy,’ to ‘sad’ etcetera. And you can use what you have to make other types of alarms, like a happy alarm, a sad alarm. Right?

“We have the technology and the hardware to pull that off I guess. It’ll just be a matter of making a model, logging data, and coding. Doable with the right resources.” 

“But it should be easier since you already have some of the work done with the love alarm.” 

“But it won’t be as accurate at first. It took us five years to get the love alarm to this level of accuracy. I can’t even guarantee it’s completely accurate,” Levi said. 

“What about it takes time?” 

“We use an AI algorithm.”

“Artificial Intelligence,” Hange said. 

Levi nodded. “It’s a machine learning model. We give the model data as an input and data as an output and the more data you put into it, the more experience the machine has and the better the machine gets at figuring out what the correct answer is . We give it the biological data, the input and we give it the output, the anonymous test results and some formulas, and overtime, the machine starts to figure out for itself what love is.” 

“So you can’t actually break down the application to do it for you?” 

“We can but it will be a pain. Might as well just create a new model.” 

“Will it take as long as the love alarm?

Levi shook his head. “We have the necessary APIs, the hardware. We can buy more server space but we will have to create a new model.” 

Hange raised one eyebrow. “Okay, that’s a good start.” 

“I’ll just have to make a plan, see how much more resources we need and send them off to Erwin.” Levi opened an a blank document and pushed Hange’s seat closer to his. . 

“Wait, I’m curious though…” Hange started. She tapped one finger on her chin. “How does data processing work?”

***

Levi never considered the server room to be anything interesting. It was after all just a conglomeration of headless computers, wires and lights. 

A very important conglomeration. After all, a fire or a faulty pipe would be enough to destroy millions of dollars worth of data. 

He only allowed her one peek, just opening the door wide enough for one eye to see through for just a few seconds long enough for Hange to let out a hushed breath. “Our company handles a lot of applications and some of the servers supporting these applications are housed here,” he explained. 

“And the data?” 

“They’re housed here. Sometimes we use cloud servers too. Sometimes caching servers and everything is processed here then sent to the application." Levi kept his words simple. 

"Billions of points worth of data…" Hange's voice deadened to a whisper.

"It takes time for the data to come, the machines to learn. We started off with manual loading the data, then testing. It took a lot of work to get this much data, enough for the application to work as expected."

"And you continue to get the data I'm guessing."

Levi shrugged. "During quality testing, during actual app usage. As long as someone is using the application and complying to their biometrics being gathered by the application, we get data. That's how all applications work."

Hange hummed. Her mouth curled up into a smile. "So let's say… when I turn on the application, you can collect my data right?"

"The servers are always on, they're always collecting data. It needs the data after all to ring the alarm right?"

"Then how do we check the data?" Hange asked. 

Levi leaned on the door, shutting it with a click. "When we need it, I'll extract your data on my end, then maybe I'll extract mine. To be honest, I don't think they'd give many answers though."

"Serotonin, Oxytocin, Dopamine, Body heat. There's a lot to see from those numbers.” Hange pointed a thumb to her chest. “This is my specialty.” 

"Then I guess we're going to have to make sense of it together."

Hange nodded. "So what are we waiting for? Let’s work on it over lunch.."

"Don't get too hasty. We're gonna have to make a research plan."

***

Hange already had a research plan on hand and she had been working on it for a while. A twenty page document with just a section filled with bullet points and comments. 

There were points Levi had to fill out himself. Still, it wasn't too much work. "You came prepared," he said. 

"What can I say, it's my pet project," Hange scrolled down towards the end of the word document.

"Zeke seemed excited about it, I thought it would have been his at first."

"If this works out, his hospitals will be the first ones in the country or even the world with this type of technology. If it's sure money, it'll be easy to convince him. Besides, I have my ways." Hange gave Levi a sly smile, soon concealed by the cup between her lips. 

She was in a better mood. They were out for lunch in a more seemingly relaxed position and Levi saw opportunity. 

It's better now than never. "How does he feel… about the developer of the application spending a little too much time with you?"

"It's part of the research process and I need to talk to a developer, not an investor.  Besides, he has other investments," Hange said nonchalantly, too nonchalantly that it was almost unsettling.

"With what happened at the beach." Just the quick recall was enough to send blood rushing to his face. He wondered if outwardly he did look a little red. He bit his lip and looked away. From his peripherals, he could see Hange though was just a little too focused on his laptop screen. 

Hange could have spit out her tea. "Are you still thinking about the bridal carry? I didn’t think it was too big of a deal. I could have sworn you were unconscious." 

At first, Levi could have sworn he was unconscious too. Zeke had mentioned it just a little too many times though that Levi was starting to generate his own phantom memories of the incident. 

"Sorry about the CPR though. I probably bruised a few ribs.”

He remembered the CPR just a little too quickly. Or maybe it had been the bruises reminding him. Levi ran his hands over his chest, feeling a slight twinge of pain in response. "Hey, you did it to save my life."

Hange shook her head. "Or maybe I was panicking. It didn’t look like you were breathing but everything was moving too fast and---” She was digressing. 

“What does Zeke think about it?” Levi pressed. 

“Why do you care so much about what Zeke thinks about it?” Hange asked. She had raised her tone, maybe only slightly. It was firm, almost abrasive that Levi regretted it. 

“Zeke is an investor, one of the richest men in the world. I’m spending too much time with his partner. Then back in the beach---”

“Zeke is always busy and honestly, I’m grateful for any other relationships I can make outside this,” Hange argued. “You know, life, building relationships, these things don’t end after marriage. Sure, Zeke and I committed to a relationship but I think I should still be able to find joy in connecting with other people. Marriage isn’t supposed to tie anyone down, stop them from experiencing life. People in relationships are supposed to grow freely together.” 

Maybe Levi had been thinking too hard about it. Or maybe Hange was just a little too laid back. “What do you think about the love alarm ringing?” 

“It happens. Besides, I’m not too worried. Love is a choice,” Hange said. “Commitment is a choice. I think I remember sending you a book about that.”

“So you don’t believe in our product,” Levi challenged. 

“I never said that.” Hange started to stir at her cup, just a little faster. “You can choose to love someone, to commit to them, to be patient with them and to ride out every single problem with them but there is the feeling aspect right? That’s what the love alarm measures, or that’s what I’m suspecting.” 

Levi nodded. 

“So the fact that it rings with strangers or just randomly, shows that it measures attraction right?” 

“Hormones, movements, pace…” Levi listed them out as just another appendix in their dialogue. 

“I wanna understand… where do feelings fit in all this.” Hange put her hands up in defense.. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Zeke, I married him. He’s a good man. And I wanna make whatever it is between us work for a good long time but as someone who works with human psychology, emotions, as someone who’s seen relationships succeed, relationships fail and some that are just so-so. I wanna know, how much of it is emotions, how much of it is volitional commitment. And this type of research, with the love alarm… I think it can teach us things. Emotions are fleeting but there are emotions that stay for a long time and maybe they make being loving and being patient easier---” She slammed her hands back on the table. “Am I making sense here?” 

Levi only realized then he had been biting his straw and had barely gotten anything out. “I’m trying to understand and I think I’m kinda succeeding? GIve me a few more seconds.” He looked away, silently grateful for the good view of the shopping streets from the second floor of the cafe. The cafe was a good balance of loud and soft, filled with whispers and conversations yet still calming and relaxing if he focused on that part in particular. 

“Have you really, never been in a relationship?” Hange asked, seconds or even minutes later. 

“No.” 

“And you told me, you’ve never made the alarm ring for anyone.” 

“In my five years of testing, no,” Levi said. 

“What made it ring with me?” Hange asked. “ Have you ever theorized that?” 

“It could be a bu---” 

“Let’s assume the application is working properly.” Hange pressed. “Do you feel anything different? When you’re with me?” 

Maybe he did. Levi was tempted to look back the moment Hange had ended that question with her tone of voice higher than a second ago. Her eyebrows furrowed, her gaze fixed on his. Levi had to admit, he didn’t want to look away again. 

So he looked away. “I should be asking you that question. Your alarm rang too. Do you feel anything with me that you don’t feel with him?” 

***

They carried the conversation elsewhere, somewhere where the walls didn’t echo, somewhere where there wasn’t anyone within a good ten meters away. Somewhere they could have sworn nobody would be listening. 

It was a silent agreement, consisting of nodding and pulling of hands and it ended with them in the park, a little past noon on a Tuesday. 

“Do you feel any different when you’re with me?” The question was exchanged once again, in a park bench towards the center, after seconds of checking surroundings. It came in variations of it, in stutters, between clearing throats. 

When it came to recovering eloquence, Hange won without a fight. “If I tell you, will you promise to at least try to tell me?”

“Try.” Levi was economical with his words. He made certain though to consolidate all the discomforts of such a pressing topic to that one word. 

Hange took a deep breath. “It’s funny because we just met right? But sometimes, I randomly think of you. When I come home to find the cleaner cleaning out the room, I think ‘Levi would probably like a clean room.’ When I was drinking coffee this morning, I thought of how you didn’t get your tea time and today, I was excited to see you. But I’m excited to see Zeke too… So maybe I’m just lonely because he left so suddenly for a business trip. Were you excited to see me?” 

“Not this morning,” Levi said. That had been easy enough to let slip out. It wasn’t a lie after all. 

“Oh. Then maybe my theory is wrong.” Hange said it  too quickly, her voice much softer. 

That had Levi feeling a tad guilty, at the same time more motivated to find some way to cheer her up. “But I was excited to go to the country club with you and when I saw you with Zeke by the pool, I felt weird.” 

“Weird?” 

“I kept looking, but I wanted to look away…” 

Then there was silence. He was watching Hange and she wasn’t opening her mouth to speak. In the silence, he found reason for a segue. It could have been too sudden or it could have been a natural progression. Levi was easily imagining the scene by the pool as he stared at the empty streets, he thought it natural, and at least appropriate. “You and Zeke really get along huh?”

“Now yes.” 

One syllable, one slip of the tongue had Levi alert.“Now?” 

Hange shook her head. “Now. As in, we get along but at first, we didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “ Zeke and I have known each other since college and he confessed to me in our senior year before graduation. We dated for a few years after that.”

“You chose to date him, even when you didn’t like him.” 

“Sure he doesn’t give the best first impression, he’s a little extra, if you know what I mean, his head gets a little too big sometimes. My parents and friends said it would be a good idea to just try it out. He was the heir to one of the biggest companies in the country and he isn’t a bad person per se so I opted to try it out and over time, I got to know him, we got closer and he proposed to me a few years ago, I said yes… and here I am, married.”

“Married.” Levi looked pointedly at her. Hange had leaned back and hung her head back, staring at the sky above.  She had said that last part with a little too much breath, and too little voice. 

Hange gave him a wry smile. “Well, I honestly thought it was too early to settle down. I would have wanted to finish my PhD first, maybe travel a little more, meet more people before we get married but we’ve been dating for years, Zeke was insistent and....It seemed like a good choice. What was there to lose? He’s a good man. We were familiar with each other and besides, just because we’re married, doesn’t mean life stops right?” 

“You tell me. I’ve never been married. Some people are asking me when I plan on settling down.” 

“I guess we’re on two ends of the spectrum. You might end up marrying late. I married too early.”

“Do you think this has anything to do with why the love alarm didn’t ring?” 

Hange shrugged. “Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. The thing is, I don’t want love to be a feeling because just bending over backward to however I’m feeling means that I’m not really free right? I want love to be a choice. I chose to marry Zeke, I chose to commit to him and regardless of what a computer says about love, I wanna be able to decide for myself how I feel, who I love and how I love.” 

***

A few clacks of the keyboard. The click of the mouse. Then the computer whirred to life again, a few swishes among them. 

“So, all I have to do is type out a query here on the server management studio and I’ll be able to extract whatever data we need,” Levi said. “So what email do you use for your love alarm?” 

“Wings of freedom…” Hange didn’t finish. Instead she slipped her phone next to Levi, the screen open to the settings page.  

wingsoffreedom95@jmail.com

Levi stifled a smile. “Don’t you have a more professional sounding email?” 

“I like using pseudo emails for making accounts for weird things.” 

“Nice to know our product counts as a weird account to you,” Levi said.  

“Well, I was testing the product out before I even pitched it to Zeke. I wouldn’t want anyone to have gotten information on me.” 

“Then I guess, that was a good choice.” Levi slammed the enter button and the screen froze for a second before the export box appeared. 

“Yeah, I’d expect a company like yours will collect data.” 

“I’m sure we have a tiny box saying ‘you comply to having your data gathered when you use the product.’”

“You did,” Hange admitted. 

“Then you can’t complain about me having access to the location, the hormone levels, the heart rate and all other pertinent information of wingsoffreedom95@jmail.com.” 

“What email do you use?” 

“I extracted that too,” Levi said. He opened his own application and slipped his phone to Hange. 

“So you are using a pseudonym too.” 

“Of course. I test the product. I need multiple emails,” Levi said. 

“Sure, humanitysstronges1225@jmail.com. You really had to go for something tacky like that?” 

“Well, no one got the username yet,” Levi said. He was quick to digress. “I extracted our biodata from the day we met and when we tested the application. It’s gonna be exported as a data file and just open it using excel or something and do what you need to do.”

“You’re a gem, Levi,” Hange said.  

“Just don’t touch anything else. I’m gonna take a break first,” Levi leaned further back on his chair, grateful for Erwin’s suggestion that he got a reclining chair then. “Maybe I should have gotten a day off. Eld told me, support is quiet today and the release has been ready for a while. Nothing much else to do.” He went for his ebook reader next to his desk and held it above him. 

It flashed open to the latest page. 

The room was silent save for the clack of the keyboard and the whirring of the monitor. It was an odd position to be in but Levi found it was much easier to focus on words when all he had behind the reader was the white ceiling. If he tried a little harder, he could also pretend the clacking of the keyboard wasn’t at all, Hange. 

He was tired. He was exhausted and the ordeal from a few days ago still bubbled at the back of his mouth. Surprisingly, the words had shifted so easily into sceneries, emotions, investment and Levi was thinking too hard about one Mr. Collins and his engagement to the protagonist. 

“Levi!” 

Levi was pulled out of that very comfortable stupor by one rash voice and as he looked up to see Hange smiling, he realized, maybe it had been his own emotional investment at that damn book that got him a little cranky at the wake up call. “What? How long was I reading?” 

“Fifteen minutes at least,” Hange said. “I found something interesting with the data. Did you know, that when the love alarm rang, our hormones were low, our body heat was low, our heart rate wasn’t high. Would you know why it still rang?” 

“I told you, after a certain point we don’t know. It becomes an algorithm. The computer figures it out for itself.” 

“But we’re going to need that data when working with other emotions right?” Hange pressed. “I’m gonna take note of this.” 

“Do you think the love alarm still works as expected?” 

“It could. You told me yourself, billions worth of data points. How could they be wrong right? But this is nice to know, you know. Just looking at the data here, is somehow reassuring.” 

“Reassuring how?” 

Hange shrugged. “Well I’ll do a little of my own testing and will contact you when I come up with anything.” She looked at the clock on her phone. “Then we could schedule a visit to one of Zeke’s hospitals and have a talk with the staff, maybe they could give some feedback on the working plan.” 

“You’re gonna leave?” Levi sat up, putting his ebook reader down on the desk next to him. Hange had started to rifle through her bag and that got him alert.

“Why? You want me to stay a little longer?” 

“I never said that.” 

“You said you were busy with work this morning and now you want me to stay?” Hange challenged. 

“Well it turned out there isn’t much work to do anyway. We get the changes live by the end of this week and we work towards the next release.” Now that Levi did think about it, the job was pretty repetitive and Hange’s pet project had somehow added color to the whole experience. “But you can leave if you want to,” Levi added a second later. Just in case, she did get some sort of hint that he wanted her to stay.

That last sentence did the exact opposite. Exactly how? Levi didn’t have much time to ponder it. By the time, he had even attempted to read through the protagonist’s response to her suitor, Hange had already pulled her chair right next to his, close enough for him to be feeling slightly warmer. Then, warm enough for him to pull away. “What the hell?” 

“I was just wondering what you were reading.” 

“You could have asked. Were you looking?” 

“No.I wasn’t raised to look over people’s shoulders when they read.” Hange said matter-of-factly. “Actually, I was about to ask what you were reading when you pulled away so fast.” 

Levi sighed. “It’s one of the books you sent over in that drive folder.” 

“Ooh, which one? Scott Peck?” 

“I read though that already until I realized the author cheated on his wife.” 

“That doesn’t make his words any more invalid. Love is a choice,” she sang. The amount of times he had heard that since he even read the book maybe even the most melodious tone grating. “So what book is it?”

“The novel, Pride and Prejudice.” 

“Oooh, which part are you in?” 

Maybe Levi had let his guard down just a little. He probably tilted his reader a little bit towards her. Those minute details might have been enough though to have Hange pulling closer towards him, looking over at whatever he had been reading. 

“I’m a slow reader,” Levi explained. 

“Well, it’s a classic. Hange said. This time she was looking at him again. “I swear, I think it shaped my own idea of love. think there’s a lot to learn about love and marriage the way that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy fall in love---” 

“Wait. Stop.” Emotional investment in the book had Levi vulnerable. He only realized it then when he felt his mouth twitch, his eyebrows raise just a little higher. He found himself dropping the reader on the desk in front of him again, a retaliation at that ringing in his ears and the uncomfortable drop of his stomach. Spoilers were surprisingly painful things. “Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth… They end up together?” He managed to let out. 

Hange nodded hesitantly. “Yes, it’s in the title. Mr. Darcy is pride and Elizabeth is prejudice.” 

“You’re talking about the asshole Darcy right? Ten thousand pounds a year asshole Darcy?” 

***

To hell if Hange looked just a little uncomfortable. Maybe more than a little. “I swear I thought everyone knew. Pride and Prejudice is a classic and it’s so talked about that---” 

“I thought she was gonna end up with Mr. Wickham,” Levi admitted. It was difficult to wipe that grimace off his face, to the point that he had worn it almost as a medal while escorting Hange down to the lobby.   

“Hey, I’m sorry…” Hange said. Her attempt to make amends though was grating. 

Levi sighed. “It’s fine. This is a sign anyway, I need to do something more productive with my last few hours of work. I have a few more hours in the office, I’ll probably check on the team first. Is someone picking you up?” 

“I messaged already,” Hange said glumly. “You know, I thought we could hang out a bit first.” 

“Just focus first on getting an appointment with the hospital. To be honest, I really think I do have some work to check on.” 

“Hey, I’ll make up to spoiling you okay?” Hange said. She had tried to curl her lips up to a smile, to widen the grin on her face. It had come out as something wry. 

He found some solace at least in realizing he wasn’t the only one a little too bothered by those spoilers. He could have sworn it had never affected him that way before. But it’s just spoilers. He reminded himself. “I’ll get over it. Just focus on your work.” Still, it was difficult to enunciate words, it was difficult to even look at her. “Who’s picking you up?” 

“Probably a chauffeur,” Hange said. She opened her phone again. The white glare of the screen reflected on Hange’s eyes and Levi was seeing stars in them again. Stars that somehow breathed life into her dead half smile of a while ago. “I can go from here.”

“Wait what?” 

“Zeke’s picking me up at the gate. He said he wanted to try one of the restaurants at the nearby shopping street,” Hange explained.

Levi’s mind was an aggregate of unintelligible emotions. Do you want me to escort you out? Of course you don’t, I practically kicked you out. When there were things he couldn’t understand, maybe the right thing to do was be professional about it. “I’ll wait for your reply on the hospital visit. I’ll do what I can with the working plan and hopefully we could come up with something by Friday.” 

“That would be cool. I’ll make sure to message you.” Hange wasn’t looking at him anymore and Levi had been perceptive enough to notice that her voice slowed just a little, the volume much softer than a second ago. Her mind was elsewhere. 

Then suddenly, she was talking again, her voice a stark contrast from a second ago. “Zeke! I’m so glad to hear from you. Levi and I were just working on the application just now… And we have some great ideas…” 

He never heard what Hange said after that. If he closed his eyes, and focused just a bit, maybe he could have but the ache in his chest was overpowering and he found it most convenient to blame the spoilers at first. 

Hange walking away. Hange mentioning Zeke. Those were moments of clarity. 

Darcy had reminded him a little too much of Zeke. Elizabeth, a little too much of Hange. When he walked back up to the room, back scrolled back to the scene at the ball, the scene with Mr. Wickham, he let out a laugh. 

Fiction was supposed to be comforting and somehow with his own emotional investment in the story, he had hoped for an ending where money didn’t win. And he was scrambling for it long after Hange turned the corner way past the entrance. 

Back in the office, alone with the reader on hand, he thought about it a little more. 

I swear, I think it shaped my own idea of love. think there’s a lot to learn about love and marriage…

“A lot to learn huh?” Love and marriage which ended with a rich abrasive asshole? 

There was definitely a lot to learn. Marriage could be for money. Love could be learned. 

To commit, to love was a choice. 

And Levi didn't need to read the whole book to be reminded of what he had already figured out. 

Levi checked the table of contents, then the tracker at the bottom, he was barely thirty percent into the book, a very long book. Or maybe he was just a slow reader

After a few more minutes of staring, he managed to stumble upon the stone cold conclusion that it was a waste of time. 

He quickly deleted the book, muttering to himself for a second longer that it was a good decision. Then he walked to his team's office, laptop tightly on hand. When he was looking left and right, when he was looking through his workflow tracker again on his phone, he found an out. 

After all, he shouldn't have the time to ponder Hange's own ideas of love when he had an application to maintain and investors to please. 

***

Levi ended up leaving work earlier than expected. It was a total lie to think there was any work needed to be done. Exhaustion clambered up quickly, a special kind of exhaustion at slogging through a day of work less than forty eight hours after being discharged from the hospital. An exhaustion that came with having spent a good hour lying to himself and to his subordinates that they had anything else to do before the release. 

"Any support queries?" Levi asked. It felt more like a formality. 

His subordinates had already started to pack their bags for the day. 

"Nothing too urgent," Petra answered. “Nothing that can be finished in ten minutes either..” 

“Leave it for tomorrow,” Levi said. As much as possible, he preferred to be the only one having to do over time. 

“Sir, do you have any idea when we would start working on that new request by Mr. Jaeger?”

Levi’s answer was calm and straightforward. “We’re currently working on a plan, me and Hange and as soon as we get it approved, we can have a meeting about it.” And exhaustion made acceptance all the more natural. “You’ve all been working hard the past weeks leading up to the release. Stay low or take leaves if you need to, I’ll handle making sure everything goes live on time.” 

Greetings were exchanged after that. Thank yous, sighs of relief and Levi wondered how hard the past few weeks have been, only for the release to have been delayed over Zeke’s request. Somehow, Levi felt some responsibility and guilt over such a ‘bug.’ Whether it was actually a bug or it was his own shortcomings as a human which caused the test to end that way,  whatever musins he had about them, did nothing to placate the guilt as he watched their relieved faces, their much calmer faces.

The next day he woke up to emails, requests for leaves that week which he immediately approved. One week of calm, one week long enough to have it go live that weekend. Then Monday would be the post release sanity check. 

He’d use the week to plan, to coordinate a little more with Hange. He opened his phone to see her number just on top, just like it had usually been recently. He had decided not to open her message until he got to the office. 

Business is business. He thought to himself. The banner had given hints to the message but there weren't many hints to the context of a date time. 

5/15 3:23AM. Check my body heat, serotonin levels, dopamine levels….

Less than a minute later, Levi was on the phone rattling numbers. 

“So they’re high,” Hange said. “High numbers are a sign of love.” 

Levi could have sworn he had heard the smile in her voice. “Why? Did something happen last night?”  

“Zeke and I had a late night. It was the most fun we had in a while.” 

Before Levi even noticed it himself, his mind was racing, asking questions. If Zeke had the love alarm on, would it have rang? And soon, it was clamoring for answers he knew he could never give.

Zeke’s own love alarm wouldn’t be on and even if it wasn’t on, it didn’t send data the same way Hange’s did. All he could do then was settle for speculation. “Maybe there is a bug then Hange. Or maybe there’s something wrong with the data. We’ll turn on your love alarm again when we visit, let’s try it again.” 

The call ended amiably and Levi was a little more sluggish soon after. He lay his phone back on his desk and turned on the love alarm. 

As expected, no hearts appeared. One hand on the keyboard next to him, he typed out a query and pulled his own data. His own hormone levels were much lower than 3am Hange’s. He opened the data Hange had analyzed just yesterday. The hormone levels were still low. 

He clicked on the settings on his application, back at the dashboard then pressed the home button and sighed. “Some developer I am, can’t even figure out how my app works anymore.”

Then he thought something he hadn’t thought in a while. Maybe going for something as complex as love from the start wasn’t such a good idea. 

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: March 2021

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of March 2021 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

It was brainless enough when the Metropolitan Police suggested that Sarah Everard’s death could be blamed on her for walking home alone at night - but when it turned out that it was a police officer who murdered her, who had also been previously let off at least one case of publicly exposing himself entirely because he was a police officer, brainless left the table and instead we found ourselves noticing they were trying to blame the victim while had covered up for the eventual perpetrator

...while we also had the angry men of Twitter respond to Janie Jones’ clearly not serious suggestion that if a 6pm curfew for women were to be introduced then she would call for a 6pm curfew for men with all manner of bile, shouting, finger-pointing, and comments which the police might just so happen to want to look into

...while smirking bully Priti Patel also managed to get her oar in, as various Reclaim The Streets Vigils were shut down by the police (which is a good look, all things considered...) using the legislation that Patel rushed through a few days earlier to combat BLM protests several months after the BLM protests happened

...but then the Metropolitan Police managed to pivot the focus back onto themselves with their heavy-handed tackling of a vigil on Clapham Common that ended up with them handcuffing various women who were there - which they weren’t so keen to do when Kate Middleton was there - before releasing a statement that boiled down to “Look what you made us do” and then rushing to protect a statue of Winston Churchill for no reason whatsoever but making sure to have lots of photos of them protecting their precious statue anyway

...but then the Tory government demanded they get the last word by bulldozing through their boot stamping on a human face forever policing bill that bans all forms of protests due to it causing “annoyance” as if protesting against the ills of society is the same thing as somebody cutting in front of you in the supermarket queue or not holding open a door

...although the Metropolitan Police did try and regain their title as Biggest Dickheads the following week when an anti-lockdown march featuring professional victim Lawrence Fox and fecal enthusiast Gillian McKeith was met by the police letting them walk in a large, huddled mass without a mask between them and didn't lift a single finger

...and there’s nothing sinister about how the BBC failed to broadcast a single item saying the bill had been bulldozed through, while the piece on their website was buried instead of being on the front page

...and then at the buzzer Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services published a report saying that the police acted appropriately at the vigil, in spite of a wealth of evidence and eyewitness testimony saying they absolutely fucking didn’t

Of course we can trust the Tory government when they publish a report stating that racism isn't a systemic issue in the United Kingdom, even when various people cited as experts for this report were very surprised to hear that they were part of it given they were never asked for their input

So it has been found that proven liar Boris Johnson misled parliament over the Covid contracts being doled out by the Tories, which I’m sure will lead to widespread calls in the media for his resignation - or are we to believe that the real reason for the British media calling for Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation is down to something different?

To sum up the British press completely losing their minds about the Meghan Markle interview, we had various royal correspondents responding to some of the more serious allegations with a combination of vicious smears that don’t debunk a single thing she said or outright misrepresenting what she said to try and tip the narrative in the Royals’ favour, while the Press Gazette issued a statement rejected her claims of bigotry in the British media that can easily be disproved in seconds with photos of various front pages of The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express on whichever subject you wish to choose - which was supported unintentionally by Ian Murray trying to shout down criticism having been presented with examples of such bigotry live on air - and in response to Murray’s hapless showing, the Society of Editors put out a mealy-mouthed nonpology that pretended that nobody ever said anything about bigotry...before suggesting Murray bugger off

...although Piers Moron Morgan picked up the baton for nastiness by first accusing Meghan of making up that she had suicidal thoughts and immediately after the interview aired it was announced that Meghan’s estranged father was lined up for an interview, although it does have to be said he was far from the only person to respond by throwing that at Meghan like a rock - only to then flounce out of the Good Morning Britain studio when called out for his bullshit, shortly before being told to hand in his resignation or else

So after Keir Starmer tore up the ballot for the Liverpool mayoral election last months, you would expect him to name a new list of candidates that was more to his liking - which is cynical enough - right?  Wrong, instead he backed the government's plans to seize control of the city, meaning that Keir Starmer handed over the Labour stronghold of Liverpool to the Tories with no fucking questions asked

Further enhancing public trust in the police was Andy Marsh of Avon and Somerset Police claiming that several of his officers suffered broken bones and one a punctured lung dealing with the protests in Bristol - which turned out to be a complete lie, a lie told by the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police, as not a single officer was treated for any of those injuries

...and a few days later Avon and Somerset Police apparently had to deal with mindless thugs attacking police batons with their faces and seated protesters holding up their hand throwing themselves into their riot shields.  Oh wait, that isn't what happened, instead they waded in swinging batons and using blading tactics with their shields

Nice to know that the Tory government are so in control of the Covid pandemic that somebody with the Brazilian variant got through the tough measures of testing people on arrival by simply not filling out the form - and it was three weeks before the Tory government admitted this had happened

...and the main response appeared to be Chris Philp posting a lot of tweets pointing the finger at Croydon council for something completely unrelated the same day it emerged the person with the Brazilian variant was in Croydon, which looked like a blatant attempt to game Twitter’s search algorithm

Smirking bully Priti Patel ended up having to pay off Sir Philip Rutnam to make his claims against her go away after an expensive court case with the taxpayer footing the bill, which I’m sure will lead to widespread calls in the media for his resignation - or are we to believe that the real reason for the British media calling for Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation is down to something different?   

Nice guy Rishi Sunak wowed people with his Budget, where he gave NHS staff a 1% pay raise that, in some cases, amounts to £3.50 a week which won’t even cover the fees to park at their place of work, claims that he wouldn’t raise taxes while sneaking in tax hikes, bunging an additional £15bn to Serco for their woeful Test & Trace system, and also pretending that the UK could pursue freeports now that they're out of the EU in spite the UK having seven freeports between 1998-2012 - but we’re supposed to ignore all of that because he paid to have ludicrously self-aggrandising videos of himself made

Smirking bully Priti Patel not only somehow managed to pay £5400 in a single trip to Primark, nearly £7000 in two trips to a restaurant, and £700 on cupcakes,  but also claimed the lot on her expenses - however she most certainly did not spend £77,000 on having her eyebrows done, as that business was wound up  2018, meaning she spend £77,000 somewhere - which of course led to widespread calls in the media that she resign

So nice of proven liar Boris Johnson to say how glad he is to hear that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being released from prison in Iran.  Yes, that would be the same Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was imprisoned in Iranian prison due to proven liar Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who was then Foreign Secretary, not reading his brief and then blurting out of she was guilty of the charges she was being held under which then led to her being given the prison sentence she has just been released from

In response to the Georgia shooting Fox News really read the mood of the nation when the debate was about anti-Asian hate and incel terrorism by doing their damndest to make sure the message told everyone who the real victim was: the shooter, that poor white boy that he is

It was so nice of proven liar Boris Johnson to arrange a charity gala to...hang on, let me check my notes, raise funds so that Carrie Symonds could redecorate her Downing Street flat

According to Andrew Pierce he doesn't see Meghan Markle as black.  Apparently it didn’t occur to Andrew Pierce how that sounds, a.) Really fucking bad, and b.) Like Andrew Pierce has reached the next level of Whitesplaining, which shall henceforth be called Whitekeeping

There’s something definitely sinister about the BBC seeing a clip where Charlie Stayt made a quip about known swindler Robert Jenrick having a huge photo of The Queen and an (upside down) union flag in his office, yet their response was to demand that Naga Munchetty publicly apologise for giggling

As if David Cameron fucking up the country in a failed bid to gain political advantage isn’t enough reason for him to be banned from going within five miles of Westminster, him calling up Rishi Sunak to see if he could get some people in the Treasury make the financial problems that Greensill Capital, who Cameron just so happens to have a stake in, certainly counts as another very good reason

Fish fetishist John Redwood reacted to the US removing trade tariffs on British cheese and British Scottish whisky by proudly crowed from the rooftops that this would not happen if we were still in the EU.  Three hours later the US removed trade tariffs on all EU cheese and alcohol exports

In another bout of Keir Starmer uniting the Labour party he decided that Anneliese Dodds would be removed as Shadow Chancellor for failing to effectively communicate the party’s vision as if it was Dodds’ fault for the poor poll results - only to do a quick 180 and back Dodds when the main response to this reason was “What the hell?”

The only surprise about The Core being exposed as a dodgy grift that was being secretly bankrolled by the deep pockets of Tim Rutherford-Browne is that it actually took so long for somebody to expose this - because it sure as hell wasn’t a surprise that Twitter account for The Core, plus the accounts and sock puppets run by Rutherford-Browne, very quickly vanished

Of course The Daily Mail and The Sun would both devote far more time and column inches to Angela Rayner claiming expenses for her air pods and rile their readership into an all too predictable frenzy than they would ever devote to, say, tens of billions of pounds worth of taxpayer’s money being siphoned off into the pockets of various Tory MPs’ mates no matter how unqualified or ill-equipped those people happen to be to fulfill those contracts

Clag peddler Gilson B Pontes demonstrated how ill-equipped they are to deal with fair criticism of their god-awful games (which Sony somehow keeps allowing on their store) by abusing Youtube’s copyright system to try and get Jim Sterling’s account terminated - and failed, thus drawing far more attention to Pontes trying to abuse the system, and Youtube doing fuck all about it even though this issue has persisted for years by this point

Are we going to hear about how Andrew Beattie is the latest victim of “cancel culture” or are we going to hear that Beattie could have started his message about how inclusive Beattie Communications in a better way than literally saying “At Beattie Communications, we don’t hire blacks, gays or Catholics”?  Gee, let me guess which one...

...and then Burger King make the exact same error by trying to tweet out a message of inclusivity on International Women’s Day, which was doomed when the first tweet of the chain said just five words: “Women belong in the kitchen”

There’s something perverse about Electronic Arts being hit with a scandal involving FUT cards from the FIFA series not because they’re clearly a form of gambling that the company have gotten away with for many years outside of a few countries who call it what it is, but because it turns out an EA employee has been selling the rarest FUT cards on the black market for several hundred pounds per bundle to many willing players who want to cheat the system.  The system of gambling.  Which is what FUT cards are

The Tories reached peak flag shagger when James Wild posed a series of questions about the lack of union flags in the BBC Annual Report, as if that means a goddamn thing

Sleazebag and alleged wrestler Joey Ryan thought he could pull a fast one and just so happen to improve his image for when the next round of SLAPP suits goes before the judge by organising an event called Wrestling For Women’s Charity - only for the entire grift to fall apart due to it being held by the company he owns, the charity itself having more than questionable backing, and the fact that Ryan was dumb enough that he tried to sneak his own face onto the poster and thought nobody would notice.  Coincidentally, once the poster was out, a lot of people noticed and the event was rapidly shut down.  Funny, that...

In the latest attempt by Gab to try and make themselves seem relevant they tweeted out some intense batshittery about preserving our way of life featuring a heavily-armed family (including the dog, which was also packing) around the barbeque.  There was one teeny tiny issue with this image: it was stolen art from the indie game The American Dream which actively satirises America’s obsession with guns, and all gab did was remove the watermarks from the picture (which they took without permission) for their rallying cry of “remember us?  We used to be where all the edgelords hung out before they went to Parler”

Once again Manchester United fans responded to a loss not by suggesting that the opponents played better but with racially abusing one of their players on social media, with Fred bearing the brunt of it this time in the wake of being knocked out of the FA Cup by Leicester

Forgotten 90s comedian Lee Hurst continued to be the face of angry white men on Twitter who think they’re funny by posting a tweet about Greta Thunberg that managed to be creepy, misogynistic, showing a remarkable failure to understand what condoms are made of, and worked out so well for him that Twitter promptly suspended his account 

And finally, irritatingly, we have Donald Trump and his proclamation that he won’t be creating a new political party for the 2024 election as he worries that he’ll split the Republican vote.  But Donald, you told us you were so popular, so surely both Republican and Democrat supporters will flock to your new party?  Or are you worried at losing two elections in a row?

[anangelicday-mrwolf]

Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)

(previous chapter)

Chapter 16 – Sudden Shift

“Here.”

Though Lunark gingerly offered her hand, Frankenstein maintained his speechless stance, merely staring at her hand.

“What is it? Did you need more?”

“No... I felt that you’ve gotten better at this lately.”

Frankenstein’s eyes were noting the plastic bags she dispensed from her robe, packed with pink petals.

Her first trial at botanical excavation did not turn out beautiful. The bag she submitted to Frankenstein contained balls of dirt and soil dangling from roots of the wolfsbane plants, which later turned out to be partially mangled, thanks to Frankenstein’s inspection.

But this time she brought what looked like samples ready to be used at a lab. Frankenstein could not fathom what happened to her in the meantime.

“Did you ask your medical staff for a tutoring session on sampling?”

“Of course not. No one is supposed to know we’re seeing each other on...”

“I’m just saying. Or did I just get you?”

Lunark had to force an extraordinary calm on her mind in order to keep her body from a flinch.

Because, yes – he got her. He got her good.

Prior to this trip, she paid a visit to the medical staff of her kind, particularly those in charge of collecting and managing medicine. While pretending to check if they are doing what they are supposed to, she watched how they harvest, wash, and pack herbs and plants that will be used at labs and wards.

Lunark did not trust in her own acting skills, so she opted to change the subject in order to stay safe from Frankenstein’s uncanny skills in piecing together what he could see to deduce what he was not there to see.

“Anyways, where’s that damned roommate of yours?”

Though she changed the subject to get herself out of what could be an awkward situation, her excuse was more than legitimate.

It has been two days since the 3rd Elder promised her the list, and she intended to get it.

Thus she expected him to be waiting for her arrival, with Frankenstein, if not alone. Her eyes were displaying foul curves in displeasure as she looked around the lab yet again, knowing that she will pick up no signs of him.

“He’s outside, getting some food. He asked me to make the delivery before he left.”

Lunark pouted as she accepted a thin envelope Frankenstein passed on to her.

“That’s so not like what an elder of the Union would do. I bet he didn’t even dream that he’d turn out like this, wasting your resources and tasked with something that only the bottommost servants would do.”

“Sounds like you have sworn to hate him for the rest of your life. Not that I don’t get why.”

“But is it okay to let him spend time all by himself away from you? What if he uses this opportunity to get in contact with the Union?”

“Don’t worry. That’s why I implanted in him a special recording device, equipped with a tracker. Once it stops functioning, gets destroyed, stays immobile at a given coordinate past the set amount of time, or gets separated from his body, I will get an automatic notification.”

“You devised it yourself?”

“Yes. He’s also wearing a nano-camera on his shoulder, so I can get a visual record of his whereabouts. And of course, he consented to all of this beforehand.”

Lunark nodded, as she could finally see why Frankenstein did not seem worried about the 3rd Elder.

“You must be running out of time every single day. I mean, you must be busy checking what he does inside and outside this island.”

“Nah, not really. Unbeknownst to the 3rd Elder, the recording device and camera do not work while he is within the shorelines of this island.”

Instantly Lunark’s eyes popped wide open.

“What? So you don’t give a damn about what he does as long as he’s on this island?”

“Nope.”

“What are you thinking?! There’s no telling what he’d do on this island once he decides to do something! And this isn’t a moral issue – you said he consented to your surveillance!”

“I’m not like the Union. I have no intention whatsoever to do what those fiends would have done to M-21, Tao, Takio, and countless other test subjects. Since the 3rd Elder believes his camera and recording device are running 24/7, he wouldn’t dare plot something behind my back. Besides, now we’re in this together. So it can’t hurt to give him the least of my hospitality as an ally, can it?”

Lunark fired a huge ball of air from her body, as if she wanted him to feel guilty upon hearing the noise of the air current.

‘I knew it. He’d do anything he can in order to offer the very least of his generosity.’

She tried another complaint out of concern and frustration, only to give up when Frankenstein jokingly bickered, “Please don’t tell me you don’t trust me. And please don’t question what I can do; otherwise you’d kill my pride.”

Lunark then knew there is no way she could talk against his decision or benevolence.

‘Well, what did I expect? This is one of the many reasons that I fell for him.’

Lunark realized how the corners of her lips were tugging upwards on their own at the last part of her own thought and stiffened her facial muscles.

And she just had to meet Frankenstein in the eyes when she has done so. This time, she chose to turn herself somewhat unintentionally towards the entrance.

“You’re leaving?”

Lunark produced a reply that she had composed beforehand in case he calls upon her like this, and it was more than just an excuse.

“I have a job to do – related to the QuadraNet project.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just the day before, a noble messenger visited our land to ask us to escort the researcher sent by KSA. And since I already had a trip to this isle scheduled, I volunteered for the job.”

“Don’t you think you’re making yourself too busy? You should give yourself some rest from time to time.”

“I can’t do that. Not at a time like this.”

“...In that case, make sure you don’t starve.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m about to feed myself on my way.”

Not having anticipated her to give a positive answer, Frankenstein retorted by raising half of his eyebrows.

“Actually, there is this personal dining spot of mine, close to the Lukedonian boundaries. I’ll get there and wait.”

“What do you mean, Lukedonian boundaries?”

Frankenstein’s voice hit a pitch lower than usual. He was rather startled by what she revealed.

“Are you saying you have a history of waltzing near Lukedonian boundaries on regular basis?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“Why would you do that? What if you get in troubles with the nobles?”

“I said it’s close to the boundaries. I didn’t say it’s at the boundaries. And you honestly think I didn’t take the nobles into consideration?”

“You never know when you might slip and...”

“Well, I’ve never been caught. So why worry?”

Lunark stared straight at him, as if posing incomprehension at his response, which rendered Frankenstein’s eyes no longer pacific.

‘What is with this woman? I knew she’s fearless, but...’

Frankenstein was about to scold her again, before he stopped short in his attempt.

Because he remembered that he, too, has a history of trespassing Lukedonia in order to thwart nobles’ hunt for him, thereby proving he contains no definition of fear in his brain.

And if she has never been caught for nearing Lukedonian boundaries, there was no point or reason for him to reprimand her. Not to mention now the conflict between nobles and werewolves is history. With diplomacy between two kinds set on a smooth sail, nobles will not protest about her behavior whatsoever, as long as she does not bring any threat to them.

“Need I remind you, I’m a warrior. Please don’t question what I can do; otherwise you’d kill my pride.”

She tilted her head and reiterated what he had said before.

She was, in a way, sassy.

Something Frankenstein has never imagined he would get to witness from her, who was usually shy and rather unjust to her genuine feelings.

Which is why he could not get her image out of his head even after her departure.

‘To be honest, she looked kind of adorable.’

As soon as he mumbled in his head, he stomped his own tongue with his teeth in horror.

Did I just dub her adorable?

Ever since he was young, Frankenstein took interest in the influence that illnesses and science would bring upon mankind’s welfare. It was not long before he bowed to dedicate his all to medical arts and technology.

Because of which he naturally cut himself from all means to associate himself with women.

And because of which he got to stay single for more than 2000 years.

In other words, he was clumsy in treating women as women.

So it was no wonder Frankenstein could not understand why he evaluated Lunark as adorable.

However, Frankenstein was a scientist. His instinctive gift in pinpointing causes and effects kicked in, and he soon reached a potential theory at work behind all this.

‘Do I really love her...? No, that’s impossible!’

Frankenstein attempted to negotiate with his mind, to stop it from occupying itself with Lunark.

Unfortunately for him, his curiosity refused to cooperate.

‘I have had spent at least 1000 years at Lukedonia under the wings of my master, but during that time I have never heard for once about a werewolf constantly showing up near Lukedonian boundaries.’

So either Lunark has never been caught by nobles upon her visits, as she asserted, or she has been caught, but not during the timeline when Frankenstein had made Lukedonia his home.

After weighing several options, Frankenstein came up with a new inquiry –

‘Just how old is she? She’s obviously more than a couple centuries old. So how many years are there between our birthdates?’

Then Frankenstein realized there was no reason for him to be curious about their age difference, wasting his time and mentality like some soon-to-be-40-years-old who received confession from a young lady who just became an undergraduate.

And Frankenstein was appalled once again that he just had to come up with such a metaphor.

Frankenstein sighed, his head drooping in defeat after a battle lost against his mental algorithm, infinitely far from sane.

Although the chances are slim, he hoped that Lunark would take as much time as she can to take Yuhyung to her kind’s territory. That way he would get to reserve some time for himself before she revisits, during which hopefully he would sort out his head and free it from thoughts about the werewolf lady so very successfully blowing his mind upon every appearance.

And thus Frankenstein once again ignored his sudden shift of heart, albeit with pain and struggle.

*****

“...This is not what I had in mind.”

Lunark ruefully sucked pink-orange flecks of flesh remaining on her fingers.

It has been less than 24 hours since Lunark left the island (and the owner of the island in mental knockout), until she reached a certain point close to Lukedonian boundaries.

The “personal dining spot” she mentioned to Frankenstein happened to be the Bermudan Treasure Chest. Even centuries before humans named this spot Bermudan Treasure Chest, Lunark made it her personal hotspot for dining.

Because for a reason she could not decipher, the fishes of this place were much bigger and tastier than the identical species elsewhere.

She could not find time at all to look after something other than battles or missions, much thanks to the Union. Therefore, she was thrilled to find this place after all this time. She has exaggerated to herself how it has been at least centuries before she could make this trip, and she was excited for the fireworks that would soon take place in her mouth, which will surely bring glee for which she would not be surprised to find her eyes teary.

Alas, the taste and volume presented by the fish she had hooked up barehanded was not even close to what she remembered. She could find out the fault did not lie in her taste buds.

“Just what on earth is going on here...?”

She muttered upon spotting miniscule pieces of corals drifting by the surface of water, where she dumped the guts and bones of fish she ate.

Lunark was currently standing on a body of rocks stranded in the middle of water, distanced from coral reefs. Nevertheless, she could see pieces of dead corals wherever she turned.

Now she could not name the exact year or date of the time she was last here, but she could bet she had never once seen something like this in the past.

She would have made her move to check and see if this is something happening widely across this marine region, only if she did not happen to be waiting at the rendezvous.

“Greetings.”

The moment she settled with herself to come back here later, a voice beckoned her, not extremely familiar, not completely strange, either.

Rael was addressing her with his eyes, his entrance made so subtle she could not even feel his presence.

“Long time, no see. First time ever since the last showdown against 1st Elder, isn’t it?”

“Quite. I was at your kind’s territory the day before, to negotiate the escort of KSA researcher. But I don’t remember seeing you when I was there.”

“I had something to do. You must have visited when I wasn’t there. Anyways, is he the one?”

“Yes. Uh, so...”

Rael’s face distorted in an unspeakable way. In fact, Lunark was barely holding onto laughter from the moment she had recognized him.

For Yuhyung was clutching onto Rael with his entire body. Lunark would have mistaken him for a koala, had he not been born with limbs too long to be those of the said mammal.

To top it off, he had his face buried into Rael’s back, as if he were actually playing koala.

“...Is there a problem?”

“He assumed such position, saying how he is not used to transportation not using human transportations. I would like to offer an apology in advance; your trip will not be a comfortable or convenient one.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’d be nothing with what we had gone through against Union, and that was only weeks ago.”

Rael tapped Yuhyung’s arm, to hand him over to Lunark. At last Yuhyung peeked and clumsily detached himself from the noble, to go ahead and sheepishly offer his hand.

“P-pleased to meet you. Yuhyung Jang is my...”

Yuhyung got to look into Lunark’s face, which brought about a sudden shift out of blue.

His face turned pale as he squeaked in panic, and his body dropped and made an audible “plop.” His eyes backflipped, and his entire body fell to the ground as he started emitting bubbly fluid from his mouth.

It all happened so quickly Rael and Lunark could not even react.

Fortunately, it did not take long until they lunged towards the human in alarm.

(next chapter)

Personally I really enjoyed writing this chapter. You keep denying it, Frankie, but you know you love her. XD

[bossbyname-blog]

Growth Hack

Blogging is one of the best ways to get your message out as a small business. I have known this for some time, yet it is a frontier I have yet till now. My head starts to spin on this subject, and though I have read how to and what makes a successful blog, I have come to the realization that just starting is the best way to develop one's skills. Easier said than done. The fear of sounding well no other way to say it "Dumb!" about sums it up. 

So for me, I think I'll start where it began.  In a strange, probably algorithmic way, I began to find what would-be mentors, and here is where my dreams of business started.

I have always had dreams but lacked vision and inspiration to reach for the stars. It started on social media and with Bill Gates, and his story spoke to me.  It was Bill and Melinda Gates, and it didn't begin with  Microsoft; it started with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

I learned about their story and how the richest man in the world became a philanthropist and how he had given seventy billion dollars if memory serves me correct. What struck me was not the money but the causes that they were committed to global health care, poverty, and education. Later I would learn about Melinda Gates and her pioneering work for global equality. 

I could go on, but the moment struck me, and my eyes were open. I want to say that I was off to the races and touting insider information that, in a sense, was true but not how my mind conceived it. What it did do is lay a foundation to where I wanted to take my dreams as malformed as they were at the time the fire of imagination exploded. 

I would later find gatesnotes.com, and I began to see the world, and though I think thinking globally though was always in my DNA, I now had just dipped if even a finger into global awareness, and I loved it!

I was on twitter one night, not my best showing by far, and I remember what Malinda Gates said, and I may be paraphrasing, "Until we are blue in the face, we believe poverty is curable." That has stuck with me, and even in the most doubtful hours, it rang true in my heart.

I would later learn that much hard work lay ahead, and that brings me a quote by Bill Gates 'I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.' Now that spoke to me, not for a reason cited but that it would become evident that a dream without action is just an idea without depth and weight.

The point I am getting at is I had the lazy part down. Somehow in my mind, I thought I could figure it out, and it should work. Wrong! That laid a long road and dismal learning curve. I don't recall that anything was attached to that quote that said unskilled dreamer and yes lazy would be his choice but I in the distorted reasoning in my mind not so much conscious or deliberate but never the less a long road was to follow. Yes, I have learned a lot, but mostly what not to do is the take-a-way.

Mentors are the driving force of what brought me to an awakened state. I need to say that I am a believer in faith and God, who does some of the greatest miracles through people. This is one of many attempts at blogging. Yes, in the past, I have blogged in it's most primitive terms but now is about how I see and how I came to this point and time.

 I think its important to show how you tripped and fell to finally be able to write about what you are finding the keys to success. 

Mentors is a great way to start! Now a word of advice, it does no good to find a mentor that ignites passion and dares you to dream what was once impossible but currently somehow reachable if you don't listen and apply the insight and knowledge.

With that being said, my first action, and still I'm guilty of it is oh-okay like, follow everything and anyone of success. Now you are talking total overload, and for me, that underpinned the big elephant in my mind. All go, and no know! What I would eventually learn is that all my mentor's men and women's common identifiers that I found intriguing and would later learn that if I want what they have and I'm not talking from a material standpoint.

Yes, it is good to find attributes that identify characteristics, but what I found s that the most critical fact that I overlooked was that again, yes, they were big picture people most are visionary but that they had discipline over the details as well. A quality I was lacking. This, I believe, unconsciously is what I was really seeking or and desperately needed. 

So here we are, and to become aware of this is vital in addressing the problem. Now the solution is known as the key to success but only if you use it. So again, my blog is in a very realtime scenario, and I wish I were spewing forth pearls of wisdom, but in reality, it is how not to utilize your mentor. Never the less no need to cry over spilled milk that would indeed be a sob story but rather to inform others the mind fields we set for ourselves.

If you have experienced any level of what I am conveying, then know the more essential and crucial lesson is never to give up! I've tried that too. The problem with that is you are always starting over instead of building upon, and if you are like me, you know you're not going to quit, but it costs you time. I got stuck in a cycle where I ended up in a perpetual state of starting and stopping but never complete anything. 

Today I'm trying not to finish what I start, and if I need to revamp better, that then has nothing to show for your effort. My mindset is that I would rather have completed failures than having nothing ever finished. I can fix the failure, but the unfinished work seems to just lye there and stagnate until I decide time and time again to start over. 

The five questions I ask myself about why I choose this person as a mentor.

What attracts me to this person and do they inspire me to be better. 

Am I willing to take action, or is it simple admiration?

What specifically is it that I hope to learn?

Am I in alignment with there goals and values?

Am I openminded to suggestions even if I don't understand why?

For me, these are key questions that I have asked myself, were usually in retrospect. Now I try to keep these questions at the forefront of my mind when looking to learn from someone.

I have many mentors, and each represents what I call an unrealized aspect of self that I hope to become.

So here is the abstract version of people (mentors) that what I hope to one day aspire to.

The mind-Bill and Melinda Gates through philanthropy has brought global solutions through a scientific approach to healthcare, vaccinations, education, and gender equality.

 Funnybone-Ellen Degeneres her humor yes, of course, but she is by far my favorite! She gives in a way that is, by definition, the heart of a cheerful giver. She taught me about finding acceptance in who I am and not being ashamed, and the sickness is in keeping the secrete.

Spiritual-Oprah Winfrey is a truth seeker and a light bearer, and she, with a host of others when I was barely sober and still not in my right mind, opened the door back to God and life.

Charisma, leadership, family values-President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama has all of the mentioned aspects of personality rolled into one. If there is one thing they taught me is empathy! I could list many attributes, but this quality above all and to say anything else would diminish the importance.

The power of faith and God-Joel Olsteen-and to live in the promise. Here is where I learned how to approach God and to believe in my dreams.

Attitude-Steve Harvey, I simply get his story and his answer and how he made his dreams come true.

Never Give Up-Larry Kims blog and posts are my favorite and always helped me never to give up!

Speaker of truth-Dr. Martin Luther Kings' words speaks to the humanity of man and has the strength of God in his words. To not stand in silence even at the risk of losing one's life.

The whole purpose of mentors to me is that I want to become the best version of myself, and I look outside myself to grow beyond the current version of self. It doesn't remove the work but points you in the right direction. The rest is up to me and a lot of hard work. 

I certainly have a long way to go, but at least I know I am going in the right direction.

[dalelans]

TruthNet - Part 1

Before it took over the world, TruthNet was the thesis project for a computer science student at a public university in Florida. The idea was to use semantic parsing, automatic logic, and fast search of personal and public data to evaluate the truth probability of an utterance. In Tao’s thesis, it was billed as ‘auto-correct’ for human speech. You might predict, aloud, to a friend: ‘I think it might rain tomorrow.’ and then, on your phone, you’d get a polite, slightly apologetic, message: ‘David, unfortunately there is little-to-no chance of it raining in the next twenty-four hours.’ Tao’s faculty committee judged that ‘while well-implemented, there was no real algorithmic innovation to TruthNet and it was kind of just a nagging know-it-all version of Siri that gave input when it wasn’t asked.’ One of the faculty members lamented testing the TruthNet prototype while out with his seven year-old son. Still, Tao passed his examination.

The next version of TruthNet attempted to be more useful. Tao reasoned that by making any action, we are articulating some belief about how the world works. Such beliefs have a truth valence and an associated uncertainty (’certainly true’ or ‘potentially false’ or ‘ambiguous’) that TruthNet might be able to estimate. He liked to give a demonstration at a diner. He would try to shake ketchup from one of those glass Heinz bottles, failing. TruthNet would light a pulsing red LED on Tao’s phone, the brightness proportional to the confidence of it’s judgment. ‘Try tilting the bottle thirty degrees and hitting it with the heel of your palm.’ Voila, ketchup, by way of a collective, distributed access to Truth.  The first success of TruthNet was consumer protection: disingenuous car mechanics, insurance salesmen, online product reviewers, and even medical doctors had nowhere to hide. It was also useful for developing proficiency at tasks the user might be unfamiliar with: TruthNet could tell you the best way to open a wine-bottle without a corkscrew, change a flat tire, or cook a turkey. TruthNet adapted especially well to highly technical activities like scientific research or engineering where large, curated databases already existed and evidence-based decision making was already at a premium. It was trumpeted as a catalyst for cultural evolution, an accelerator for rigorous progress in the human endeavor. As TruthNet stock skyrocketed, Tao’s original faculty committee wrote a jubilant piece for the Times titled: “We get it now, Tao”. It got a little stranger when it came to other Truths. With the maturity of social networking, personal tracking, and news archiving, TruthNet was able to make incredibly confident judgments about things that one might want to be ambiguous. ‘Okay, honey, I’m just going to go meet Todd for a couple beers.’ The red LED would warm on Susan’s phone until full with a terrible radiance: ‘Todd is on a camping trip with Lisa. David has booked a room at a motel two towns over.’ And so TruthNet was an eye to which deceit and human folly were a transparent film. This bug (feature?) was simultaneously crazy popular and yet calamitous for interpersonal relations. Try dating with TruthNet, or raising a child, or running for public office. Trying turning it off, and see how guilty you look. As TruthNet’s pervasiveness increased, the strongest resistance came from churches. How could TruthNet make claims about holy revelation? Such truths were ‘shown’ and not ‘known,’ one pastor explained to his congregants. Ultimately, TruthNet won out quickly over churches. Turning such powerful technology off was just too much of a handicap in everyday life, as the dwindling Amish discovered decades earlier. If one acts in accordance with true beliefs, the universe is a mechanism. That has been the kernel of science for hundreds of years, and the origin of its power. Before TruthNet, it was possible to use technologies that took advantage of scientific reasoning without holding those beliefs (or their implications) for oneself: antibiotics without Darwinian evolution, cell phones without quantum uncertainty, car engines without the the heat death of the universe. With TruthNet, high-level empirical reasoning required no special talent or intellectual effort, so it became impractical for even the dullest to live by superstition or instinct. One didn’t need to sweep an ashram for twelve years to become enlightened, so to speak. Because of Tao’s increasingly dogmatic atheism, he wouldn’t allow TruthNet to compartmentalize empirical truth as religious scientists had done in the past: it was all TruthNet or nothing. On a late night TV show, Tao was asked whether important things might be lost in the TruthNet takeover. He responded glibly: “The reverend Bayes is just better than your reverend.” by Eugene Palovcak

[neptunecreek]

Egypt Sentences Tourist to Eight Years Jail for Complaining about Vacation Online

When she went to Egypt for vacation, Mona el-Mazbouh surely didn’t expect to end up in prison. But after the 24-year-old Lebanese tourist posted a video in which she complained of sexual harassment—calling Egypt a lowly, dirty country and its citizens “pimps and prostitutes”—el-Mazbouh was arrested at Cairo’s airport and found guilty of deliberately spreading false rumors that would harm society, attacking religion, and public indecency. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The video that el-Mazbouh posted was ten minutes long, and went viral on Facebook, causing an uproar in Egypt. In the video, el-Mazbouh also expressed anger about poor restaurant service during Ramadan and complained of her belongings being stolen. Egyptian men and women posted videos in response to her original video, prompting el-Mazbouh to delete the original video and post a second video on Facebook apologizing to Egyptians.

Nevertheless, Mona was arrested at the end of her trip at the Cairo airport in May 31, 2018 and charged with “spreading false rumors that aim to undermine society, attack religions, and public indecency”. Under Egyptian law, “defaming and insulting the Egyptian people” is illegal. Mona was originally sentenced to 11 years in prison, but her sentence was reduced to eight years after her lawyer presented evidence that a 2006 surgery removing a blood clot from her brain impaired her ability to control anger. An anticipated appointment with an appeal court is set to hear her case on July 29th.

Unhappy tourists have always criticized the conditions of the countries they visit; doing so online, or on video, is no different from the centuries of similar complaints that preceded them offline or in written reviews. Beyond the injustice of applying a more vicious standard online to offline speech, this case also punishes Mona for a reaction that was beyond her control. Mona had no influence over whether her video went viral. She did not intend her language or her actions to reach a wider audience or become a national topic of discusson. It was  angry commenters' reactions and social media algorithms that made the video viral and gave it significance beyond a few angry throwaway insults.

The conviction of Mona el-Mazbouh is just one of many in a series of disproportionate actions taken by General Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s administration against dissent, including similar cases such as the detainment of Egyptian activist Amal Fathy. Sisi’s administration has so far fostered a zero-tolerance policy towards any kind of dissent, involving regressive legislation surrounding freedom of expression, reinstating a state of emergency, and detaining hundreds of dissidents without proper due process. Many of the administration’s actions have fallen under the pretext of “preventing terrorism”, including a much-dreaded anti-terrorism cybersecurity bill that will put Egyptian freedom of expression even more at risk.

Mona el-Mazbouh is just one of many innocent Internet users who have been caught up in the Egyptian governments' attempts to vilify and control the domestic use of online media. At minimum, she should be released from her ordeal and returned to her country immediately. But more widely, Egypt's leaders need to pull back from their hysterical and arbitrary enforcement of repressive laws, before more people — including the foreign visitors on which much of Egypt's economy is based — are hurt.

from Deeplinks https://ift.tt/2NRrepT

[foursproutwealth-blog]

Useful Idiots? New Yorker Magazine Fails Litmus Test For Media Impartiality On Syrian War

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/useful-idiots-new-yorker-magazine-fails-litmus-test-for-media-impartiality-on-syrian-war/

Useful Idiots? New Yorker Magazine Fails Litmus Test For Media Impartiality On Syrian War

Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

When America’s top thinking-man’s journal fails to consider at least one possible alternative as to who may have been responsible for the latest alleged chemical attack in Syria, aside from the ‘Assad regime,’ then we may conclude that the entire mainstream media complex is receiving its marching orders from above.

In an April 14 article in the erstwhile prestigious New Yorker magazine (“Russia’s ‘Madman’ Routine in Syria May Have Averted Direct Confrontation with the U.S., For Now”), author Joshua Yaffa singlehandedly proves there is absolutely no straying from the government-approved narrative that Syrian President Bashar Assad is guilty of carrying out an alleged chemical attack in Douma on April 7. He also manages to pull Russia into the elaborate conspiracy theory, which is now accepted as bona-fide truth in the Western world.

“Moscow welcomes Assad’s defeat of the rebels, and has little concern for how he achieves it, but the use of chemical weapons is an embarrassment and source of unwelcome consequences for the Kremlin,” Yaffa writes with breathtaking arrogance, refusing to entertain the much more likely scenario that the rebel terrorists were responsible for the purported attack. 

“One unresolved question is whether Russia … got assurances from Syria that it would refrain from using chemical weapons in the future.”

For any person with even a limited amount of critical thinking skills, this cannot be considered objective and impartial journalism in any sense of the word. Yet it is a prime example of what Western readers are being force-fed on a daily basis: Assad is guilty of carrying out a chemical attack on innocent civilians, nothing else to look at here, please move along [Thus far, there has been one notable exception to this rule, which has not been picked up by the US media, and never will be. Robert Fisk, a veteran British reporter of the Middle East, traveled to Douma for a first-hand account of the alleged attack for The Independent. After a lengthy fact-finding trip, which included interviews with numerous witnesses and medical staff, Fisk revealed what so many people had suspected: there was no chemical attack. The event was entirely staged by the notorious White Helmets ‘rescue group’].

Consider the way UK broadcaster Sky News cut short Major-General Jonathan Shaw, a formerly high-ranking British Army officer, as he attempted to question what motive Bashar Assad would have had in carrying out a gas attack at this crucial juncture.

“The debate that seems to be missing from this is… What possible motive could have triggered Syria to launch this chemical attack at this time in this place?” Shaw ventured to ask.

“The Syrians are winning, don’t take my word for it, take the American military’s word for it.”

At that point, the interview was quickly terminated for a commercial break. Needless to say, Sky News and other Western media won’t be inviting Shaw back for his expert analysis anytime in the near future.

As if this even needs to be said, the function of the media is not to parrot the government line, but to challenge it every step of the way – and even more so when the consequences of failing to do so could result in the outbreak of a major conflict, possibly even World War III. Apparently that is a risk the useful idiots of the Western mainstream media are willing to take.

In reality, to call these journalists ‘useful’ would be an exaggeration, because they are actually not being very useful at all. By dutifully refusing to consider, even in passing, other alternatives in Syria they have betrayed their allegiances, which is obviously not to the pursuit of truth. To assume your audience is so blissfully ignorant that they cannot imagine other scenarios regarding the chemical attack in Syria for themselves only serves to further alienate the mainstream media monsters from their subscribers. Thus, Western journalists are not ‘useful idiots’ per se; they are simply being idiots.

Incidentally, this explains in a nutshell why the masters of the mainstream media universe are so terribly anxious to silence alternative media voices from the Internet. The existence of dissenting, unscripted voices throws into stark contrast just how biased, prejudiced and undemocratic the Western press has become. Better to manipulate the Internet algorithms than to risk Western audiences hearing voices that challenge the official narrative.

Once again, the ridiculously obvious question needs to be asked since the Western mainstream media refuses to:

Why would Assad, who was defeating the rebels on every military front with modern military technologies, resort to the most primitive and egregious form of military methods imaginable, that of chemical weapons?

Why would he commit the one act that would undoubtedly bring NATO members into the fray, thereby destroying the results of an 8-year struggle?

The short answer is he would not.

Not in a million years. However, even if the Western media stubbornly refuses to consider that line of reasoning, it fails to explain why they were unanimously blaming Assad for the attack when experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had not yet arrived in Douma to conduct their forensics work. Instead, they cast aside their journalistic duties in favor of serving as mindless cheerleaders for war.

Yaffa took the hysteria a notch higher, however, when he suggested that it was Russia that was behaving like a “madman” in Syria by warning it would

“Whether thanks to their successful “madman” routine, or the success of arguments for restraint by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, Putin and his generals must be pleased,” Yaffa wrote, apparently disheartened that something worked to put the brakes on full-blown military action in Syria.

“The Russian effort to preemptively terrify the West into limiting its military operations in Syria began last month, when Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top military officer, warned that Moscow would shoot down missiles fired at Syrian territory—and, what’s more, if Russian forces came under threat, would strike back by targeting launch facilities and platforms,” Yaffa wrote.

Strange that even the prospect of Russia actually proclaiming it would defend itself from an outright attack is deemed the delusional ranting of a “madman.” Such is the position of the Western media as it continues to perpetuate the myth of a Russian bogeyman as it works to undermine peace in favor of yet another regime change operation.

Clearly, alternative voices in the deeply compromised mainstream media jungle are needed now more than ever.

[foursprout-blog]

Useful Idiots? New Yorker Magazine Fails Litmus Test For Media Impartiality On Syrian War

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/useful-idiots-new-yorker-magazine-fails-litmus-test-for-media-impartiality-on-syrian-war/

Useful Idiots? New Yorker Magazine Fails Litmus Test For Media Impartiality On Syrian War

Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

When America’s top thinking-man’s journal fails to consider at least one possible alternative as to who may have been responsible for the latest alleged chemical attack in Syria, aside from the ‘Assad regime,’ then we may conclude that the entire mainstream media complex is receiving its marching orders from above.

In an April 14 article in the erstwhile prestigious New Yorker magazine (“Russia’s ‘Madman’ Routine in Syria May Have Averted Direct Confrontation with the U.S., For Now”), author Joshua Yaffa singlehandedly proves there is absolutely no straying from the government-approved narrative that Syrian President Bashar Assad is guilty of carrying out an alleged chemical attack in Douma on April 7. He also manages to pull Russia into the elaborate conspiracy theory, which is now accepted as bona-fide truth in the Western world.

“Moscow welcomes Assad’s defeat of the rebels, and has little concern for how he achieves it, but the use of chemical weapons is an embarrassment and source of unwelcome consequences for the Kremlin,” Yaffa writes with breathtaking arrogance, refusing to entertain the much more likely scenario that the rebel terrorists were responsible for the purported attack. 

“One unresolved question is whether Russia … got assurances from Syria that it would refrain from using chemical weapons in the future.”

For any person with even a limited amount of critical thinking skills, this cannot be considered objective and impartial journalism in any sense of the word. Yet it is a prime example of what Western readers are being force-fed on a daily basis: Assad is guilty of carrying out a chemical attack on innocent civilians, nothing else to look at here, please move along [Thus far, there has been one notable exception to this rule, which has not been picked up by the US media, and never will be. Robert Fisk, a veteran British reporter of the Middle East, traveled to Douma for a first-hand account of the alleged attack for The Independent. After a lengthy fact-finding trip, which included interviews with numerous witnesses and medical staff, Fisk revealed what so many people had suspected: there was no chemical attack. The event was entirely staged by the notorious White Helmets ‘rescue group’].

Consider the way UK broadcaster Sky News cut short Major-General Jonathan Shaw, a formerly high-ranking British Army officer, as he attempted to question what motive Bashar Assad would have had in carrying out a gas attack at this crucial juncture.

“The debate that seems to be missing from this is… What possible motive could have triggered Syria to launch this chemical attack at this time in this place?” Shaw ventured to ask.

“The Syrians are winning, don’t take my word for it, take the American military’s word for it.”

At that point, the interview was quickly terminated for a commercial break. Needless to say, Sky News and other Western media won’t be inviting Shaw back for his expert analysis anytime in the near future.

As if this even needs to be said, the function of the media is not to parrot the government line, but to challenge it every step of the way – and even more so when the consequences of failing to do so could result in the outbreak of a major conflict, possibly even World War III. Apparently that is a risk the useful idiots of the Western mainstream media are willing to take.

In reality, to call these journalists ‘useful’ would be an exaggeration, because they are actually not being very useful at all. By dutifully refusing to consider, even in passing, other alternatives in Syria they have betrayed their allegiances, which is obviously not to the pursuit of truth. To assume your audience is so blissfully ignorant that they cannot imagine other scenarios regarding the chemical attack in Syria for themselves only serves to further alienate the mainstream media monsters from their subscribers. Thus, Western journalists are not ‘useful idiots’ per se; they are simply being idiots.

Incidentally, this explains in a nutshell why the masters of the mainstream media universe are so terribly anxious to silence alternative media voices from the Internet. The existence of dissenting, unscripted voices throws into stark contrast just how biased, prejudiced and undemocratic the Western press has become. Better to manipulate the Internet algorithms than to risk Western audiences hearing voices that challenge the official narrative.

Once again, the ridiculously obvious question needs to be asked since the Western mainstream media refuses to:

Why would Assad, who was defeating the rebels on every military front with modern military technologies, resort to the most primitive and egregious form of military methods imaginable, that of chemical weapons?

Why would he commit the one act that would undoubtedly bring NATO members into the fray, thereby destroying the results of an 8-year struggle?

The short answer is he would not.

Not in a million years. However, even if the Western media stubbornly refuses to consider that line of reasoning, it fails to explain why they were unanimously blaming Assad for the attack when experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had not yet arrived in Douma to conduct their forensics work. Instead, they cast aside their journalistic duties in favor of serving as mindless cheerleaders for war.

Yaffa took the hysteria a notch higher, however, when he suggested that it was Russia that was behaving like a “madman” in Syria by warning it would

“Whether thanks to their successful “madman” routine, or the success of arguments for restraint by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, Putin and his generals must be pleased,” Yaffa wrote, apparently disheartened that something worked to put the brakes on full-blown military action in Syria.

“The Russian effort to preemptively terrify the West into limiting its military operations in Syria began last month, when Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top military officer, warned that Moscow would shoot down missiles fired at Syrian territory—and, what’s more, if Russian forces came under threat, would strike back by targeting launch facilities and platforms,” Yaffa wrote.

Strange that even the prospect of Russia actually proclaiming it would defend itself from an outright attack is deemed the delusional ranting of a “madman.” Such is the position of the Western media as it continues to perpetuate the myth of a Russian bogeyman as it works to undermine peace in favor of yet another regime change operation.

Clearly, alternative voices in the deeply compromised mainstream media jungle are needed now more than ever.