#and very importantly: GRAPH!

[scientologisabethmoss]

the fact that apica no longer makes this exact notebook is MY roman empire, personally.

[tawnysoup]

Join me on this scientific journey of discovery, will you?

The hypothesis: Looplets and Fritters resemble each other once all the body fur is taken out of the equation. Let's shave a Fritter to test this theory

Very interesting! Their anatomy does differ a tiny bit under there but not much. More importantly we have discovered the Fritter does indeed have a tail after all.

Please could you examine these x-ray graphs for me?

Yes, very good. We've learned a lot today. However...

The experiment may have resulted in this new "human" Loop design... critter edition? Next time, I'll try not to let my samples mix.

[lexirosewrites]

Day 12: Mating/Bonding

for @stmarchmm

The truly fucked up thing about it is that Eddie has been looking forward to this day for months.

Well, if he’s being technical about it, he’s been daydreaming about his and Steve’s bonding day since his sophomore year of high school.

There was a time in Eddie’s life when he would doodle “SH+EM” in his notebooks during math class, happier to plan an impossible future than learn how to graph slopes.

Maybe that’s why he failed his senior year twice.

He’ll never tell Wayne that the first time was actually on purpose.

Okay, sue him, he had a silly, embarrassing, massive fucking crush on the younger boy and he wanted to be in the same classes as him.

The second time Eddie failed, it was entirely because he couldn’t stop staring at the omega long enough to learn anything worth while.

Steve was worth failing for.

Wayne might have had some strong words about it if he knew, but it seems Eddie got away with that mortifying bit of trivia.

As it is, he managed to hide his fruitless crush for quite a while. At least until it wasn’t fruitless anymore.

In fact, it’s been very fruitful!

So much so that they’re holding a bonding ceremony today in front of all their friends and family in just a few minutes.

Eddie is going to commit his life and love to Steve, promise to protect him and their pack as alpha, and take a vow of faithfulness, til death do they part.

And that scares the absolute shit out of him.

Don’t misunderstand him, Eddie loves Steve beyond measurable words! He’s absolutely wonderful.

Steve is the most beautiful omega alive with the biggest heart and the tightest, wettest, juiciest pus—

He’s getting off track now and he has to focus.

Because if Eddie can’t get himself together and get out in front of a packed chapel in just a few minutes, it’s going to look like he doesn’t love Steve.

He’s afraid of lots of things in life.

Demobats, Robin, Dustin’s baking skills, Robin, ending up like his father, and most importantly, Robin.

But never of loving Steve. That’s the only thing he’s ever been 100% sure of.

And yet he is frozen in fear.

“Ed, it’s just about time to get things started. How ya feelin’ in here?”

Thank fuck for Wayne.

The only man (aside from Steve) who has ever been able to understand him.

Eddie doesn’t need to say a word about his current panic. All he has to do is turn to his uncle and his face says it all.

Wayne speaks fluent ‘Eddie.’

“Son, what’s on yer mind? That sweet boy of yers is getting all dolled up for ya right now and yer mind clearly ain’t there.”

“I’m going to do something to fuck this up and Steve won’t love me anymore,” Eddie blurts out.

There’s no point beating around the bush.

He’s been thinking about it all morning. Maybe longer than that. Maybe ever since Steve accepted his final courting gift and subsequent bonding proposal.

Part of him thought their entire courting was a cruel joke the universe was playing on him anyway.

Life has never been very fair to Eddie. He doesn’t waste time crying about it or whatever, but shit has always been unnecessary rough and he’s used to that.

But this was truly insane.

A perfect omega like Steve Harrington has no business even talking to an alpha like Eddie, let alone being courted by him.

The only reason he’d even started courting Steve is that Robin threatened to break his arm if he didn’t “man up and ask him out already, you lovesick loser!”

Robin really scares him.

But it had worked and they’ve been going steady ever since.

Every day feels like a dream and every morning Eddie wakes up expecting to find that it really was all a dream and he’s back dozing off in math class after doodling their initials in hearts again.

It’s a nightmare.

No, loving Steve doesn’t scare him, but the idea of potentially losing him terrifies Eddie.

“Well now, I think you’ve had too much time thinkin’ by yerself, kid. Ain’t a damn thing that could pull the two of ya apart, far as I can see. A sturdy axe and strong arm couldn’t split you boys up.”

Wayne’s words of wisdom always come from a place of love. And a simple explanation of life the way he views it.

Eddie’s not entirely sold on it yet, but he wants to believe that there’s hope for them.

He wants—no, needs— a life by Steve’s side more than anything else.

“That’s all fine and dandy, Wayne, but what about when I do something stupid and he realizes what kind of dumbass he’s mated to? What if he starts to hate me and he’s stuck with me?” Eddie challenges back.

Wayne sighs, coming forward to straighten the wrinkled lapels of Eddie’s jacket.

He meticulously smoothes them out from where Eddie was pulling at them nervously.

“Do you remember that time ya were supposed to pick Steve up for the movies and ya forgot ya had band practice that night?”

Oh god. That was one of Eddie’s lowest moments in life.

They both cried that night.

“Yeah, of course I do. I left Steve waiting in the rain and I felt terrible about it! Is that supposed to make me feel better or are you telling me that I’m right and I shouldn’t go through with this?”

Wayne gives him a look.

It’s the one that says he should shut up and listen.

He does.

“Ed, you’ve fucked up before. Ya left him in the rain, ya spilled ketchup on his favorite yellow shirt, ya tried to trim up his hair and took a big chunk out of it instead.”

Eddie wants to crawl under a rock and wait there until he’s dead and nobody can find him ever again.

“Yes, I get it! I’m stupid and reckless and I hurt the people I love! This pep talk sucks ass, Wayne.”

His uncle finally smiles. Such a weird old man. Proof that he’s a Munson.

“You’ve done just ‘bout everything ya can do to fuck things up and Steve still wants to be your mate, son. He loves ya.”

Oh.

Hmmm.

Yeah, that’s true. He has fucked up. On numerous occasions.

Never on purpose, but Steve has always forgiven him graciously regardless. That’s the kind of man he is.

Wayne wraps his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and pulls him close for a tight hug, like the old days.

“Steve isn’t going anywhere. He’s made that clear. Now ya need to honor that decision by pulling yer head out of yer ass and showing him that he’s making the right choice today. Go get yer boy, Ed,” Wayne whispers emphatically.

Eddie has to wipe away a few stray tears first.

Then he struts into that chapel with his head held high, a new confidence in his step.

When Steve walks down the aisle to meet him, he’s as beautiful as ever.

Clothed in pure white and a natural blush that makes Eddie want to do nasty things to his omega.

He’s ready for forever.

“Hi, baby.”

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Happy National Zookeeper Week!

I’ll admit, I’m feeling a little spicy about it this year (well, every year) because zoos use the celebration for lots of positive facility PR, yet staff don’t often get the support and respect that is claimed in those posts.

So I want to share this great article written by a zoo industry consulting group last year looking at the reality of what happens when a workforce ends up conflicted between their passion (zoos and animals) and pragmatism (paying rent, existing in a capitalist society). They assessed AZA compensation rates by region against things such as a living wage and rental rates in the area. (All text formatting within quotes, such as bold and italics, is original to the article text.)

I cannot give the Canopy Group enough support for the way they framed this research:

“By observing the economics of keeper compensation, it’s no secret that keepers land on the lower end of the wage spectrum. Like all other wages and salaries, the market value of keeper compensation is driven by several economic factors – including the size of the labor pool, the rigor and danger of the work, the technical ability required, and the educational requirements. However, there is one factor that artificially lowers the market value of keeper compensation more than any other: passion.

In this article, we’ll take a look at why passion lowers the market value of animal care worker wages. More importantly, we’ll consider many factors that have emerged in recent years that are making people reevaluate the value of following their passion – a trend contributing to The Great Resignation, especially as it applies to zoos, aquariums, and similar organizations. (…)

The argument here is passion versus pragmatism: the unknown versus the sure thing. It is a decision all zookeepers and animal care technicians have made. Working with animals is immensely rewarding, but this passion is also very popular. This, historically, has meant that the keeper candidate pool is very large. Therefore, if the wage is livable and working conditions are reasonable, the pool should remain large. In a very real sense, a passion for animals drives down the market value of keeper compensation. Anyone who has been through an Economics 101 course will recognize this as a fundamental market principle: supply vs. demand.

However, many zoos and aquariums are having a more difficult time filling positions than normal and have started to see higher turnover rates in recent years. This begs the question – is the current keeper wage too low?”

Their findings?

Here’s their graph of “the median wage of keepers from organizations in different AZA-defined regions” from an AZA survey done in 2021. (Median is the type of average that looks at the middle of a data set’s range).

The median wage for AZA keepers in the South/Southeast was just over $15/hr at the low end, and the median wage for AZA keepers in the Far West / PNW was a little under $26/hr. That’s pretty dang low everywhere, especially when you factor in the increased cost of living in places like the West Coast. Also consider that looking at the median wage doesn’t mean this reflects just entry-level compensation - this data indicates the the compensation middle for all keeper positions, including people who have built their careers as keepers in those places long-term.

Then, they compared those wages to the “living wage” in each region - which they defined as “a calculation of what it takes to live in a particular area, without any other income. A living wage calculation takes into consideration how many earners are in a household, how many children are being supported, etc. The living wage includes the costs of all the basic items a household needs to be self-sufficient.”

“If you receive a wage for a job that is below the living wage, then you are essentially taking a negative net income. This is unsustainable for the long term, and essentially defines where wages start to exploit passion.”

Here’s a figure they provided using the MIT Living Wage Calculator showing the average living wage for each of the AZA regions. The chart on the left shows the living wage for a single person with no kids; the second, for two parents with two incomes and one child to support.

“By comparing the two graphs [to the earlier graph of the AZA median compensation rates], we find that median wages in the Southeast/South and Southwest regions are lower than the living wage for each household configuration in those regions. In other words, if you are a single person household or part of a two-income household raising 1 child in the South, a starting keeper salary will likely leave you with a negative net income. While many people work at this level, it increases the risk of accumulating debt, lowers a person’s ability to afford a home, set a much later retirement age, and can lead to many other negative, long-term effects.”

Big yikes, right?

Next, they looked at living wage vs. compensation for single parents.

“The single-parent living wage exceeds the average keeper wage in all AZA regions. In fact, the living wage required as a single parent is double the average AZA keeper wage in some regions.”

And then they did housing, specifically, being able to purchase a home.

“In many places, even a two-income household at an average keeper salary would not purchase a mid-level home. This means that keepers have to wait far longer than their peers to purchase a home. While paying rent in the meantime, this rent will account for a larger portion of their income than their peers. All in, these effects can set hopeful homeowners back years or decades.”

Canopy’s conclusion was something anyone involved in the field knew was coming.

“Companies like Chipotle, McDonalds, Best Buy, FedEx, Home Depot, Publix, and Walmart are all offering similar starting wages near starting keeper wages – plus many fringe benefits (like tuition reimbursement) and ample advancement opportunities. Many potential keepers in younger generations are putting their passion on the shelf so they can meet basic standard-of-living concerns.

To attract and retain quality candidates, an organization must consider the journey each new employee would have to make over their career. If the journey is fraught with massive debt, decreased disposable income, and limited career opportunities, then you are limiting your potential candidate pool to the small group of people who have decided that following their passion is worth significant lifelong financial hardship. There are many potential candidates out there willing to sacrifice and arm and leg for animals and conservation, but they wouldn’t dare jeopardize the financial future of their dependents and families.”

This is something I’ve heard about for years, and seen first hand. The low average wage at zoological facilities has been damaging their ability to hire and retain skilled staff for as long as I’ve been involved in the industry. I know so many zookeepers who still have roommates into their 30’s, or work multiple jobs, just to be able to make ends meet.

There’s a mythology about zookeeping jobs, a narrative that seeps into the field and actively exploits people’s passion for the job: it tells people that they’re so lucky to be able to work with these rare and cool animals; that they’re greedy and ungrateful when they ask for more compensation because they’re privileged to get to have the job at all. It says that most people would give anything to have these opportunities, so current zookeepers are interchangable and easily replaceable. Ask for too much? Push for a living wage? There’s always someone willing to take your spot. Not all facilities perpetuate this mentality - some places do treat their staff well without intentionally manipulating them to stay them in unsustainable jobs, and there can be legitimate financial reasons that limit staff compensation (mostly at smaller facilities, afaik) - but it’s a reality in the field.

For a long time, this type of mentality towards staff was sustainable. There really were always more people wanting to work in the field. But now, after three years of pandemic stressors and inflation, it’s starting to be a problem. A lot of staff left during the last few years, and facilities are having a really hard time hiring people and retaining them for any duration. I think a large part of that is low compensation rates. People are prioritizing long-term financial stability and recognizing when their passion is being exploited.

When I first started on tumblr back in 2011, there was a whole group of us within the United States who were baby zookeepers or volunteering as industry hopefuls. We all became friends, and I’ve stayed in touch with, or at least aware of, most of them as their careers progressed. Of the 10-15 or so people in that cohort? I can think of three who are still employed in the zoo industry. Everyone else has moved on into other fields - often with great grief over the loss - because of the extreme emotional labor, the physical exhaustion, and the lack of appropriate compensation.

But I guess that annual pizza party, being featured on social media, and maybe getting additional snacks all week makes up for it all?

[eurydiceauxenfers]

Ranking Brooklyn 99 Characters Based on How Autistic They Are

PSA: This is not a serious discussion about autism representation in the media or even just in Brooklyn 99, this is a joke. I am an autistic person making a joke. I am fully aware that none of the characters were intended to be autistic. I'm also fully aware that having some traits commonly associated with autism does not necessarily mean a person is autistic, and vice-versa.

Jake Peralta- ADHD Kiiiiing! Probably not autistic though, his executive functioning issues and occasional infodumping can easily be attributed to the aforementioned ADHD. B Tier.

Amy Santiago- Socially anxiety, hyperfixations, infodumping, strictly regimented routines and most importantly so much stimming. She has a happy happy dance! She obsessively braids her hair and hums songs when she's nervous! A Tier.

Rosa Diaz- Probably not autistic, the best people skills/cognitive empathy of the cast (she's very stonefaced but I think she's just repressed), doesn't seem to have any obvious hyperfixations, stims, or sensory issues. C Tier.

Charles Boyle- Excellent candidate for autism. Hyperfixations (weird food, Jake), general extreme lack of social awareness. His weird tastes also suggest some sensory processing atypicalities. Also the similarities between most of the Boyle cousins suggest this behavior is at least somewhat genetic. A Tier.

Gina Linetti- Not autistic, just a narcissist. D-Tier.

Terry Jeffords- Not autistic, seems like token neurotypical. However he did memorize an entire GoT ripoff so. C-Tier.

Captain Raymond Hold- Pure, undiluted, distilled autism. Literally The Most Autistic. We got:

a. The lack of nonverbal communication, stoneface and monotone voice are common in autistic individuals

b. The hyperfixations (classical music, thermometers, etc)

c. The heavy emphasis on following rules and routines in his life (down to exactly how to shake a person's hand)

d. The sensory processing disorders (his meals are extremely bland and he has a distaste for a lot of foods, especially eggs)

e. The autistic play- shown as a child (and adults) playing with model trains with an emphasis on "realism," his macaroni art were graphs.

f. The familial similarities (his mom acts incredibly similar to him, although his sister does not, suggesting his mother shares autistic traits with her son).

In conclusion: S-Tier

[anosci]

the situation: the depth estimator I've been using exports everything as a greyscale PNG.

so for example, again stealing @ashanimus 's cat:

left pic becomes right pic. black pixels = furthest away, white pixels = closest.

this has a very obvious problem: 16 bit color depth.

usually 16 bit is fine enough but when you're extruding things into 3D, you want more than 256 "layers".

the 3D representation looks pixelated but only in one direction.

I could smooth this out with some basic interpolation, but that looks bad:

I cracked open the code for the depth estimator (Depth-Everything-V2, if you're curious!), and found a step right before export where it was quantizing all the data to 16 bits. aha! stop that!

I tried quantizing it to the full 24 bits that you can get with every modern image format, which bore fruit. it looked like this:

The red channels was my usual thing, then the green channel fixed my "pixelization" problem!! and then the blue channel was... noise. fascinating, but actually pretty useless.

I decided to cut this channel entirely, since all it did was make my file uncompressible and result in 20x filesize bloat.

so, finally....

isnt that trippy?

but, importantly... look at how much this improve the 3D extrusion:

insanely good improvement!

all this has been consolidated into a single checkbox in my extrusion function graph. im happy

[evidence-based-activism]

something about the framing of this bugs me but I can’t articulate it very well

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA84G8NsdQS/?igsh=eGw3YWN6MWQ3a3Bw

Your issue with the framing is probably that it is implicitly blaming women for men's problems. Or that they are comparing the massive social systems that have barred women from education and employment for generations to the unrelated issues (i.e., caused by something other than sexism, such as economic issues) by a small group of men.

---

Beyond the framing, however, this video is simply misleading. (I found the article it was based on [1] and am pulling the information from there.)

Education

First, I have provided evidence against a "boy's educational crisis" in the past. The particularly relevant portion is below:

In addition that, women are outpacing men in college entrance and graduation in the USA, according to the Pew Research Center [5]. Specifically, 39% of women over age 25 have a Bachelor's degree compared to 37% of men. However, when considering only the most recent cohort (adults aged 25 to 34), 46% of women have a Bachelor's degree compared to 36% of men. Importantly, however, this difference is not driven by structural inequality. For individuals who did not earn a Bachelor's degree, 44% of women report financial constraints and 38% report family obligations, compared to 39% and 35% of men respectively. In contrast, 34% of men reported they "just didn't want to" and 26% report they didn't need it for their desired job, compared to 25% and 20% of women respectively. This does not support the narrative of an external "boy's crisis". And, in addition to all of that, men are still the majority in highest paying jobs, the majority in governmental and commercial leadership positions, more likely to be the primary or sole earner in a family, and earn more - on average - that women [6].

Unemployment

Their claim that "young women are now more likely to be in work than young men" is based on this graphic:

If you actually examine the graphic, however, you can see that the employment rate for young (age 20 to 24) men and women is essentially identical. They have not presented results of a formal statistical test nor provided the data necessary for me to conduct one. That being said, I would be extremely surprised if any of these differences are statistically significant (i.e., it is likely the difference is based on sampling bias, not a true difference in the population).

And if we were to assume that these differences are significant? Then in four of the six countries, young men's employment rates are still higher than young women's rates.

Further, they later present a table of results indicating the difference between men and women in employment in the UK was less than 1%. In other words, the size of the difference was negligible. But beyond all of that, recent data [2] indicates a reversal of this trend in the UK, with more men (aged 18-24) than women (aged 18-24) being employed. Importantly, I am not actually suggesting that this proves there is a difference between the sexes. Instead, I intended to show how these minute, transient discrepancies are not evidence of a wider trend.

(Also, I do not have access to their exact dataset, so I am basing this off of the employment rate for men and women aged 18-24 in the UK as provided by the Office of National Statistics.)

Their next graph shows a similar discrepancy between their data and their claims:

Here, we are looking at the percent of young men and women who are in neither the labor force nor education. Once again, we see that the rates for young men and women are essentially identical, except in the USA where women are more likely than men to be out of both work and education.

Now, this does not appear to include men or women who are "unemployed" and at the time they show that the percentage of young men in the UK who were unemployed was 4.6% greater than the percentage of women in the UK who were unemployed. However, once again, recent data suggests this difference is shrinking [2]. It is also likely that part of the reason why men's unemployment rate in this age group is higher than women's in this age group is because women are more likely to go to college (i.e., people in education are not counted as unemployed because they are not actively looking for a job).

(Again, I do not have access to their exact dataset, so I am basing this off of the unemployment rate for men and women aged 18-24 in the UK as provided by the Office of National Statistics.)

Income

Lastly, they argue young women's incomes have overtaken young men's incomes with the following graph:

There are multiple issues with this. First, based on the graph comparing all young men to all young women, men's and women's incomes are, once again, essentially the same. Once again, they do not provide the raw data needed for me to perform a formal statistical test.

In comparison, we can see that the median income for men with a degree is comparatively much higher than the median income for women with a degree. Further, this gap has recently widened after several years of nearly identical incomes.

Now, the comparison of incomes for women and men without a degree does appear to show that women's incomes are now higher than men's income. (For one or two years.)

However, they include a vitally important note at the end of their article:

Median incomes were calculated using the full population of young adults as opposed to only those in employment. Income includes wages, benefits / social security and any other sources of personal revenue. [Emphasis mine]

In other words, this difference in median incomes could have been a result of the transiently higher unemployment rate for young men.

In support of this, other data from the UK [3, 4] found that women aged 16-34 are more likely than all other gender-age groups to need to use food banks, to not be able to keep regular savings, and various other signs of material deprivation.

Conclusion

From this, we can conclude that the characterization of young women as "leaving men behind" is, at the very least, an incomplete, if not completely inaccurate, picture.

The only aspect this may genuinely apply to is higher education, but as the data from the US shows, it is not sex-based structural constraints that are preventing men from going to college. While financial issues do limit many people's ability to attend higher education, women are more likely than men to cite this as a reason for not getting a degree.

Finally, I am absolutely amazed that this video appears to be blaming men's support of populism and endorsement of violence on these economic trends. Their own graphs show that women have been far worse off economically and educationally than men are now, and yet women never reported the same levels of conservatism and extremism. Even if we were to assume their assertion about the connection is true, what would that say about men?

References under the cut:

Burn-Murdoch, J. (2024, September 20). Young women are starting to leave men behind. Financial Times.

Office for National Statistics. (2025, March 20). A05 SA: Employment, unemployment and economic inactivity by age group (seasonally adjusted) [Dataset]. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/employmentunemploymentandeconomicinactivitybyagegroupseasonallyadjusteda05sa

Data dashboard: Material deprivation. (n.d.). Understanding Society. https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/cost-of-living-dashboard/

University of Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research. (2024). Understanding Society: Waves 1-14, 2009-2023 and Harmonised BHPS: Waves 1-18, 1991-2009. [data collection]. 19th Edition. UK Data Service. SN: 6614, http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-6614-20.

[creator-yimynany]

My understanding of pv bridgette

Before Zag was ready to be released, I felt it was important to say what I thought of bridgette, which really risked creating a disconnect between my character and his starting point.

I analyzed bridgette frame by frame, and I did not like to use the official setting to investigate, but to see the performance and understanding by myself.

First I release headcanon leads to an understanding of the nature of the character.

The two pictures show that bridgette likes purple and red.

And like warm colors.

And from the hat on the back, you can see that there must be a costume design factor.

Her artistic interests are not limited to fashion design. She may also like listening to music. What's more, the tickets in bridgette's hand are more like concert tickets than movie tickets, which may be the same hobby of felix and bridgette.

(Tears, I understand, as two tickets are very expensive, leading to a little regret that she acted impulsively again)

She is not very good at social interaction, and even has some odd behaviors, so she is always observing in circles (and the first impression is more admiration, and if bridgette is an art student, she will indeed be interested in felix's features and body proportions).

It can also be seen that she sometimes acts too impulsively, so she is more strange than she is cheerful and lively.

So I don't see her as someone who is naturally in the normal human zone.

As depicted in the graph below (so marinette and bridgette are indeed different souls and different people under this analysis)

Things go wrong more because of bad luck than carelessness.

Although the painting may have collapsed, it was a moment when emotions were accidentally exposed.

Adjust quickly (This is a great way to write about tragedies.)

A look of resignation but not wanting to be pessimistic.

Although this paragraph is indeed a face of helplessness, but from the situation of getting along with the latter partners, in fact, it is just aversion to the rapid courtship at the beginning (my headcanon will understand that it will hate others like themselves (emotional avoidance), and she does not like to say "I love you" directly without knowing anything at the beginning).

(Maybe she actually refused many times and said many times not to bring up the topic, it is good to be friends, and felix may really think that he can not say love words on the Internet to search for embarrassing love talk , which he is a science student he really could do...)

You know, normal time as a partner.

Her hair is messy, so she doesn't necessarily care much about her appearance.

And more importantly, inside.

Compared with mari's short streamer, which symbolizes smart and capable, her long streamer symbolizes her continuous emotional bond with the world in language expression, but it also reflects the decisive action and the transformed dress design sense.

(There are certain differences in language translation, how to say it, let's talk about it here, I analyzed her quite a lot and combined with reality, before zag leaked the data and I also published a little analysis of her)

(Maybe as a Chinese, my understanding of these things is different from the official one.)

[tousey-mousey]

btw, if you're ever in an Australian hospital and your pain is bad enough that you need medication,

tell them that you are experiencing 7/10 pain.

see, Australian hospitals monitor patients' vital signs, like blood pressure and heart rate and pain scores, using a special "observations chart". the exact type of chart depends on the state, but they're all basically very similar. i'm in NSW so i will use the NSW term, which is the SAGO chart: the Standard Adult General Observations. there's a special chart for kids based on their age and weight, and a special chart during pregnancy because we get a bit more worried about certain things like blood pressure.

the SAGO, and most other charts like it, have these things called Between The Flags indicators. BTF indicators are exactly like on the beach: you need to "swim between the flags" or we start getting worried.

when a patient's vital signs are checked, we add the values to the paper chart and also to the digital version we all have on the computer. this allows us to GRAPH your vital signs over time, to see if they're changing.

when a value in ONE of those little tables starts to go into the yellow zone, we start taking notice and the nurses are required to review your case and decide, using their own judgement + notes that the doctors have left, whether or not they need to request that a doctor see to you soon, which is called a "clinical review".

where i work, a "clinical review" means that the doctor (not a nurse) must see you within 30 minutes, and if it's NOT within 30 minutes then the nurse is expected to escalate the issue and potentially even call a more serious and urgent response if needed.

when a value in TWO OR MORE of those little tables, it is generally AUTOMATICALLY A CLINICAL REVIEW. this means that a doctor MUST see you within 30 minutes, and they MUST do something to treat you. this is because going from nothing in the yellow to instead having two things within the yellow is Really Not A Good Sign.

what does this have to do with pain?

pain is bad.

we all know this. pain sucks and is awful to experience and makes you want it to stop, or sometimes even for you to stop.

however, pain is also useful. it often tells us that someone is in danger, that something inside them is broken, that they're sick and we don't know why yet or that they're sick and we haven't finished fixing it.

when someone who didn't have much pain suddenly has a lot of it, we both need to TREAT that pain and also we need to FIND OUT WHY that pain.

as a result, you will notice something:

pain is part of the SAGO chart, and severe pain is considered a yellow zone criterion.

this is because we recognise that, sometimes, a patient being in pain is a sign that EVEN WHEN NOTHING ELSE HAS APPARENTLY CHANGED, SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG.

if you are in severe pain - severe enough that you had to come into hospital, severe enough that you can't function - then you NEED to tell them that and, importantly:

do not feel compelled to say "10/10" all the time, because 7/10 IS IN THE YELLOW.

constantly saying 10/10, even when it's accurate, can result in medical staff getting a bit suspicious that you're not super-reliable because... well, we're used to seeing "10/10 = this patient is not coherently able to do anything except scream". as a person with a long history of chronic pain, i know for a fact that you can be in near-blackout levels of pain as a chronic illness person and still be partly functional because you've just got used to functioning under stress, but even so... you can get jaded pretty fast, and most nursing and medical staff have no personal life experience with chronic illnesses. they don't KNOW that, yeah, you ARE in 10/10 pain.

so basically.

sometimes? say 7/10. say 7.5 or 8.5. mix it up a little, especially if it's true because it gives us more useful data.

just remember: 7+ is all in the yellow zone! so you're fine to say it without jeopardising your chances of actually getting treatment for pain.

[kastraub]

Original Content #1

what are your ideas/suggestions for graphing your data so it's reported in multiple, meaningful ways?

As of right now, my ideas for graphing my data, so it is reported in multiple and meaningful ways is to provide my overall graphs that show the total number of likes for the post that was collected on, and then my other graphs will dive into that data to show more specific comparisons between the most liked and least liked images and how they received the engagement that they did based on different variables in the post. Overall, I am really happy with the layout of my first draft and I plan to expand on that as I continue to edit my analysis. I’ve provided a little snapshot of a section of my analysis that I’m very proud of and I would love feedback on it. Most importantly, I hope that I give my peers suggestions as well.

[canmom]

「viRtua canm0m」 Project :: 002 - driving a vtuber

That about wraps up my series on the technical details on uploading my brain. Get a good clean scan and you won't need to do much work. As for the rest, well, you know, everyone's been talking about uploads since the MMAcevedo experiment, but honestly so much is still a black box right now it's hard to say anything definitive. Nobody wants to hear more upload qualia discourse, do they?

On the other hand, vtubing is a lot easier to get to grips with! And more importantly, actually real. So let's talk details!

Vtubing is, at the most abstract level, a kind of puppetry using video tracking software and livestreaming. Alternatively, you could compare it to realtime mocap animation. Someone at Polygon did a surprisingly decent overview of the scene if you're unfamiliar.

Generally speaking: you need a model, and you need tracking of some sort, and a program that takes the tracking data and applies it to a skeleton to render a skinned mesh in real time.

Remarkably, there are a lot of quite high-quality vtubing tools available as open source. And I'm lucky enough to know a vtuber who is very generous in pointing me in the right direction (shoutout to Yuri Heart, she's about to embark on something very special for her end of year streams so I highly encourage you to tune in tonight!).

For anime-style vtubing, there are two main types, termed '2D' and 3D'. 2D vtubing involves taking a static illustration and cutting it up to pieces which can be animated through warping and replacement - the results can look pretty '3D', but they're not using 3D graphics techniques, it's closer to the kind of cutout animation used in gacha games. The main tool used is Live2D, which is proprietary with a limited free version. Other alternatives with free/paid models include PrPrLive and VTube studio. FaceRig (no longer available) and Animaze (proprietary) also support Live2D models. I have a very cute 2D vtuber avatar created by @xrafstar for use in PrPrLive, and I definitely want to include some aspects of her design in the new 3D character I'm working on.

For 3D anime-style vtubing, the most commonly used software is probably VSeeFace, which is built on Unity and renders the VRM format. VRM is an open standard that extends the GLTF file format for 3D models, adding support for a cel shading material and defining a specific skeleton format.

It's incredibly easy to get a pretty decent looking VRM model using the software VRoid Studio, essentially a videogame character creator whose anime-styled models can be customised using lots of sliders, hair pieces, etc., which appears to be owned by Pixiv. The program includes basic texture-painting tools, and the facility to load in new models, but ultimately the way to go for a more custom model is to use the VRM import/export plugin in Blender.

But first, let's have a look at the software which will display our model.

meet viRtua canm0m v0.0.5, a very basic design. her clothes don't match very well at all.

VSeeFace offers a decent set of parameters and honestly got quite nice tracking out of the box. You can also receive face tracking data from the ARKit protocol from a connected iPhone, get hand tracking data from a Leap Motion, or disable its internal tracking and pipe in another application using the VMC protocol.

If you want more control, another Unity-based program called VNyan offers more fine-grained adjustment, as well as a kind of node-graph based programming system for doing things like spawning physics objects or modifying the model when triggered by Twitch etc. They've also implemented experimental hand tracking for webcams, although it doesn't work very well so far. This pointing shot took forever to get:

<kayfabe>Obviously I'll be hooking it up to use the output of the simulated brain upload rather than a webcam.</kayfabe>

To get good hand tracking you basically need some kit - most likely a Leap Motion (1 or 2), which costs about £120 new. It's essentially a small pair of IR cameras designed to measure depth, which can be placed on a necklace, on your desk or on your monitor. I assume from there they use some kind of neural network to estimate your hand positions. I got to have a go on one of these recently and the tracking was generally very clean - better than what the Quest 2/3 can do. So I'm planning to get one of those, more on that when I have one.

Essentially, the tracker feeds a bunch of floating point numbers in to the display software at every tick, and the display software is responsible for blending all these different influences and applying it to the skinned mesh. For example, a parameter might be something like eyeLookInLeft. VNyan uses the Apple ARKit parameters internally, and you can see the full list of ARKit blendshapes here.

To apply tracking data, the software needs a model whose rig it can understand. This is defined in the VRM spec, which tells you exactly which bones must be present in the rig and how they should be oriented in a T-pose. The skeleton is generally speaking pretty simple: you have shoulder bones but no roll bones in the arm; individual finger joint bones; 2-3 chest bones; no separate toes; 5 head bones (including neck). Except for the hands, it's on the low end of game rig complexity.

Expressions are handled using GLTF morph targets, also known as blend shapes or (in Blender) shape keys. Each one essentially a set of displacement values for the mesh vertices. The spec defines five default expressions (happy, angry, sad, relaxed, surprised), five vowel mouth shapes for lip sync, blinks, and shapes for pointing the eyes in different directions (if you wanna do it this way rather than with bones). You can also define custom expressions.

This viRtua canm0m's teeth are clipping through her jaw...

By default, the face-tracking generally tries to estimate whether you qualify as meeting one of these expressions. For example, if I open my mouth wide it triggers the 'surprised' expression where the character opens her mouth super wide and her pupils get tiny.

You can calibrate the expressions that trigger this effect in VSeeFace by pulling funny faces at the computer to demonstrate each expression (it's kinda black-box); in VNyan, you can set it to trigger the expressions based on certain combinations of ARKit inputs.

For more complex expressions in VNyan, you need to sculpt blendshapes for the various ARKit blendshapes. These are not generated by default in VRoid Studio so that will be a bit of work.

You can apply various kinds of post-processing to the tracking data, e.g. adjusting blending weights based on input values or applying moving-average smoothing (though this noticeably increases the lag between your movements and the model), restricting the model's range of movement in various ways, applying IK to plant the feet, and similar.

On top of the skeleton bones, you can add any number of 'spring bones' which are given a physics simulation. These are used to, for example, have hair swing naturally when you move, or, yes, make your boobs jiggle. Spring bones give you a natural overshoot and settle, and they're going to be quite important to creating a model that feels alive, I think.

Next up we are gonna crack open the VRoid Studio model in Blender and look into its topology, weight painting, and shaders. GLTF defines standard PBR metallicity-roughness-normals shaders in its spec, but leaves the actual shader up to the application. VRM adds a custom toon shader, which blends between two colour maps based on the Lambertian shading, and this is going to be quite interesting to take apart.

The MToon shader is pretty solid, but ultimately I think I want to create custom shaders for my character. Shaders are something I specialise in at work, and I think it would be a great way to give her more of a unique identity. This will mean going beyond the VRM format, and I'll be looking into using the VNyan SDK to build on top of that.

More soon, watch this space!

[gainprincess]

"..."

Saber Alter is confused, because everything feels... familiar in this Chaldea. Familiar to the point of deja vu, though Saber Alter has surely never been summoned here before.

When people pass her by in the halls, they refer to her as 'Salter' or 'Artoria', rather than 'Your Majesty' or 'My King'. save for her Knights of the Round. As if they are familiar with her. As if they were her friends.

A ridiculous notion. A tyrant does not have friends. Especially not ones so large and unwieldy. Honestly, why are they all so immense? It's unfathomably stupid.

Mordred treats her with such affection and open kindness when she sees her again, hugging her so tight she's sure something may break. It's... confusing to see her son so affectionate and caring, as if worried for her, and that makes it all the more confusing when a single cold stare has her sobbing and fleeing into the arms of the false Gawain.

"Hm."

Merlin was odd. He treated her like his normal self would, being the 'delightful' troll he loves to be so often, but he seemed less walled off. Less pained. Like he had been back when she was a little girl, and he was her father. What a time that had been...

And, more importantly... The Maiden of Orleans, Jeanne d'Arc. She seemed so elated to see Saber Alter, saying that her 'sister' would be so very pleased... she seemed all the more disheartened when Saber Alter yanked her hand away after that, disdain in her eyes.

A tyrant does not touch the common folk. Not without good reason, anyway.

And that is all she is.

All she must be.

"Hhhhaaa.... kids. What a pain she's being with no memories... She really did a number on herself after that Avenger's original death. She's lucky I was able to salvage her Saint Graph... unlike Solomon, she's not too great at scrubbing herself from the Throne. Seriously, all that for a girlfriend? Weird."

Merlin shakes her head, massaging her temples.

"Oh, well. I did my good deed for the year. Time to go pig out and bother Arthur."

Indeed, it was Merlin, in a rare case of altruism, that has retrieved Artoria Alter from the pits of damnation. Out of nothing more than good will, she brought her back, albeit not perfectly. It's an immense effort even for a Grand Caster, and something undertaken only under complete focus.

The fact that Merlin has done so, and will likely never recieve recognition for the effort... is odd. It's unlike Merlin at all, and the female one especially so.

Perhaps change, too, is the flavor of Chaldea.

[synobun]

Goblin!

oh god

Goblin- What makes you happy?  

Happiness and contentment are... not things I feel. There's been two periods in my life where I felt either, and neither lasted for more than a few months. I've been on this wretched earth for 30 years and I've enjoyed perhaps six months of it.

Hold on. I'll take a screenshot of my Daylio graph since May 1, 2022. You'll have to open it and scroll. But it'll give you an idea of my general disposition. 2022 is one of the periods of happiness and contentment; 2023 is not.

In my defense, I take physical pain/symptoms into consideration when doing my Daylio, but mood is the dominant factor. Now it is, anyway. I switched to selecting for mood in mid-June 2022; before then it was just how I physically feel, and that just meant several years of the absolute worst option every day. Pointless. Mood is... almost as bleak, but not always!

To answer your question more directly... I am not an internally motivated person. If I were left alone, I would probably just sit quietly in a corner and do nothing forever. I lack whatever it is in people that drives them to pursue goals simply because it is what they want. Which isn't to say I do not want things, because I do, but I just... don't care to do them if I am alone. I have theories as to why that is, but more importantly, it's not a thing that has changed despite efforts to do so.

So I derive a lot of my ambition, whenever it exists, from others. Whenever I've felt happy/content, it's been when I had the opportunity to love someone and they hadn't yet rejected me. I feel more grounded, more able to exist in the world. I'm more willing to take risks, I make more decisions toward self-improvement and changing the status quo. I look forward to the next day, or at the very least I'm open to seeing what the next day will bring even if I had a bad day. It's a pretty neat state of existence that I cannot for the life of me possess when I'm isolated.

I'll have these minor moments of enjoyment(?) when I game or watch a good show or what-have-you, but they are fleeting. It happens far too often that I'll wrap up an activity with a friend after a few hours of laughing and just get immediately crushed by the usual, all-encompassing dread. I can't really say those things make me happy, because it only lasts for as long as I am actively distracted from "the norm."

[terephin]

Fuck it, Honkai 3rd worldbuilding time.

============

Anti Entropy Server Network > General Information > Honkai Energy Weaves > Necessary Weaves

An Introduction to Honkai Weaves, presented by Doctor Henry Clarke, (Formerly) of St Freya

(Note : This edition of the document was written shortly after the incident with the Wind Herrscher.)

Honkai Energy is all around us, in doses large and small. From the smallest of AE’s batteries to the Herrschers themselves. To be a Valkyrie, or analogous, requires one to have an immense understanding of this.

Honkai Energy, when used through the outlet of Humanity, and Intelligence as a whole, is best utilized through what are commonly called Weaves. Weaves are highly complex, layered semi-constructs of Honkai Energy, used in everything a Valkyrie does, be it enhancing their body beyond human comparison or summoning giant cat paws.

In this introduction, I will go over two of the most common and crucial weaves, while more complex and niche ones will be introduced to students individually.

Now, to begin with we have the Enhancement Weave, a fairly simple weave that you’ll become intimately familiar with soon enough. The Enhancement Weave, as should be obvious, enhances the physical form.

It’s laughably simple, in truth, to generate. While I can’t explain it’s workings in an understandable way here, as it’s something rather esoteric and they still won’t update the system to support graphs and images, I can explain what it does further.

The Enhancement Weave increases speed, strength, reaction time and so much more, but what’s important is two factors. 1) This enhancement uses your current state as a basis, meaning the better your condition the stronger you are. 2) When you unravel Deactivate if you want to be boring. the weave not all it’s effects are lost There are ways to trigger this effect without unraveling it, but all are highly complex. In fact, roughly 5% of the effect remains indefinitely. When you couple these two things you get the ever increasing power of a Valkyrie.

Now, onto the next weave, which is important less often to B rank Valkyries, but is essential if you seek the A rank, alongside simply making many other things easier.

I am, of course, talking about the Friction Weave. The Friction Weave, while having a gross oversimplification of a name, is truly necessary when you reach the levels of an A rank Valkyrie. Now, you are all likely to struggle with this weave, as while it’s considered among the basics it’s also one of the more complex weaves you’re likely to run into.

The weave itself is not of human creation. In fact, to my knowledge, it was copied unfathomable long ago from either a rather powerful Honkai Beast or a full on Herrscher, both of which are known to generate it by their very natures.

The Friction Weave has very little to do with friction, inherently. But ignoring that for now, what it does, most importantly, is negates sonic booms1. It’s this weave that allows A rank Valkyries to move at speeds in excess of Mach 2, when the situation calls for it. It’s this weave that allows the most massive of Honkai Beasts to even move without tearing themselves apart. It’s this weave, all of it. And we barely know how.

However, this isn’t the time to lament the limits of human knowledge. Instead, I have one last thing to mention regarding the Friction Weave. In certain atmospheric conditions, few of which are even vaguely natural in occurance, the weave actually has the opposite effect. It generates devastating effects of various natures instead, typically vaporising everything nearby.

(Archived note, attached to main document after transfer.) It is this fact that makes me believe that a fully realised Wind Herrscher would’ve been a threat like no other. While we never got any halfway decent scans of Wendy’s weave, battlesuit scanners meant to monitor the condition of Raiden Mei (Atmosperic sensors included to note possible stormfronts) detected forming type 1 and type 5 environments all around her during the event.

1 Which can be rather terrifying when they interact with Honkai Energy, being known to have pulverised solid steel and deafened everyone within 40 meters during testing.

[supernovaa-remnant]

tell me why jupiter is so important :0

jade I am so happy you asked this question!!!

we actually owe everything to her, and hopefully I can explain that well in this post <33

so, I'm not sure how many people know this, but Jupiter was almost a star (a brown dwarf, but still notable I think). I am not exaggerating when I talk about how absolutely massive Jupiter is. And, with that mass, comes an incredible gravitational force.

there's an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. the edge of the asteroid belt is ~3AU which is where the snow line is which separates the inner and outer solar system (the snow line essentially just shows how close to the sun solid water aka ice can be before it melts, hence why planets in the outer solar system are largely made of ice).

however, asteroids are not dispersed uniformly across the asteroid belt. there are certain distances from the sun which have very very few asteroids, and this is due to something called resonance. essentially, resonance is when the orbits of two objects are in sync. there's a lot of science-y stuff that I could explain, but I don't really feel like getting into it in this post (feel free to ask me to elaborate though if that's something you're interested in!!), but what you need to know is that these spots in the asteroid belt are in resonance with Jupiter. and asteroids do not like to be in resonance with Jupiter.

here's a graph that shows what I said above in case anyone's interested (yes I took this from the lecture slides from my class)

so, what essentially happens, is that Jupiter's gravitational force affects the asteroids in resonance and completely changes their orbits and increases their velocities, throwing them either into the outer solar system or into the inner solar system.

this is the only reason we have asteroids that cross Earth's orbit.

why is that important? well, a) an asteroid impact is what killed the dinosaurs. without the extinction of the dinosaurs, mammals never would have been able to evolve in the way they did.

but, more importantly than that: the earth did not start of with liquid water!! that (and amino acids which are fundamental for life) was brought in via asteroid impacts, which never would have been possible if not for Jupiter.

so, everyone say "thank you, Jupiter," because otherwise all this wouldn't exist

[dabiplier]

Ok, no shut up. Weather nerd, and let me explain this properly.

The scary thing about climate change is we don't know. All we have theories/model outputs/guesses. A good example is the USA was expected to have a horrible Hurricane weather due to warmer sea surface (Hurricanes need heat + moisture so that makes sense) but what we didn't expect, was the horribly dry conditions in Europe actually having an effect on the tropics, and absorbing so much of the moisture in the air. Add some nicely placed wind shear to tear apart the hurricane if it does get any closer, (random event that happens sometimes) so that if a hurricane was strong enough to maintain it's own moisture, it would get whipped apart by the wind. (Hurricanes are big babies when it comes to opposing wind force), while we have had several named hurricanes this season they couldn't come close to the USA most of the time. Why is this important?

Saying the "Ice melting means the polar vortex is falling apart" IS A POSSIBILITY ONLY. IT IS NOT EVEN A SCIENTIFIC THEORY, MODELS DO NOT AGREE WHAT THE ICE MELTING IS DOING TO OUR WEATHER. So far, the ice melting IS USED AS WARNING SIGNAL THAT THINGS ARE NOT OK and nothing more. (At least in terms of climate, it has effects on other things on our planet)

  And most importantly, Tropospheric polar vortex, (labeled as the 'polar vortex' in the graph above) tries to knock around the stratospheric polar vortex (A little above where the 'Polar Jet Stream' is labeled) and very little happens. In fact, only 1/3rd of sudden stratospheric warming events (which is the event being shown in 2nd part of the graph, and what is causing our unusual artic weather) are caused by the Tropospheric vortex bumping it. Now here where the potential effects of climate change is actually a factor, atmospheric Rossby waves (waves that often happen due to the earth rotating) if they can gather enough strength, (usually fed by different high pressure and low pressure systems) they can actually have the strength to run up north and knock the stratospheric polar vortex (the one on the outside) more often, causing SSW events. (I could go on a rant about Rossby waves and their patterns, but this is long enough.) These last two SSWs were caused by Rossby waves. So how does climate change relate to Rosbby waves? Hot water baby. (Which, can cause the artic ice to melt, see where I'm getting at?)

Remember when I said Rossby waves can be influenced by high and low pressure systems? Water temperature can influences high pressures and low pressures drastically. (As I mentioned in paragraph above about hurricanes about how much heat and moisture is needed) Why is this important to understand? Because you then get assholes who want to spend millions of dollar to "bring ice to the artic" to fix everything. That's like when you take medicine to stop coughing, but it doesn't stop you being sick in the first place.

Climate change is a very complex issue that is still very early in it's development. There are too many factors in our weather to say it in just one sentence. Please, if you're interested in stuff like this, do your own research. NOAA (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has almost all their research for free online, we need a better understanding of what is going on before we can think of a solution.

So many people do not understand the relationship between climate change and cold weather.