#exponential derivatives

[peeterjoot]

A new version of my book is now published.  The free PDF and the leanpub versions are available now.  The paperback and hardcover versions should be available on Amazon within the week. What has changed: V0.3.2 (Dec 8, 2023) Add to helpful formulas: Determinant form of triple wedge. Add figure showing the spherical polar conventions picked. Add a problem showing that \( (e^x)’ = x’ e^x \) only…

[lord-shitbox]

Ohhhh my godddd. ironically between calculus 3 & linear algebra I'm struggling with linear algebra more, NOT because it's really hard—it isn't, it's exactly as easy as the name suggests—but bc it's the type of easy basic stuff that leads to a lot of the tiny errors, like writing -4 instead of 4 or fucking up 3- -2, which then fucks over your whole problem. Like, adding and scaling rows of numbers is really easy to do, BUT ALSO really easy to fuck up without noticing, and therefore frustrates the shit out of me. it's EASY so I shouldn't be getting it WRONG

[sabs-studyblr]

26.11.2024 | study date with two of my friends <3

✅ chapter of AP calculus (derivatives of exponential and logarithmic functions)

✅ turkish homework (because ms gurl keeps on giving 😔)

🎀 side note. i upgraded to ios 18 and why do i lowkey HATE ITTTT give me my phone back ���

[tanukigirl83]

AU that's a derivative work :3

my functionsona is y = 2x^3 - x^2 + 3x - 7. DO NOT STEAL

[assriels]

gravity

pairing: lucien x reader

summary: falling in love with lucien felt like trying to resist gravity and realizing it’s a futile pursuit. slowly, and then all at once.

word count: 1.7k

warnings: none/mostly fluff!

a/n: i played around a little bit with my writing style and i really enjoyed it :’) also i’m only capable of writing fluff for lucien i think lol

masterlist

banners by @/cafekitsune !

lucien: derived from the Latin root word lux, meaning light. 

When you had first felt yourself falling for Lucien Vanserra some odd years ago, you had been keeping a watchful eye on him — per Rhys’s request — upon his initial arrival to the Night Court under the guise that you would help him research ways to persuade the human queens to your cause against Hybern. 

Initially, it had been just that. A favor for your High Lord, your friend. 

But what had once felt like a vague indifference for the youngest Vanserra brother quickly devolved into a genuine appreciation for him. The more time you spent with Lucien, the more you glimpsed the light peeking out from beneath his guarded exterior.

(You nearly laughed at how aptly Lucien lived up to the brightness belying the meaning of his name.)

It had started with friendly teasing, then secret smiles over piles of textbooks, then not so accidental touches in the quiet of the townhouse. With each evolution of your relationship with Lucien, the more and more you found yourself wanting to be around him, seeking each other out with flimsy excuses that would guarantee a day’s worth of cherished company. 

The inextricable desire you had to be near him that was growing exponentially with every subtle glance he stole had made you nervous. Wary, even. 

You were an academic – the coveted researcher for the Night Court – relying heavily on concepts you could study, could quantify. Well-evidenced theory informed much of your advice to Rhys and his court, and you were often the first point of contact when anyone had any questions about…anything; your wealth of knowledge was endless.

But Lucien — his undeniable magnetism — was an enigma; you could never quite understand why you’d felt so drawn to him, could never formulate an accurate hypothesis for how easily he could coax a smile to your lips and make butterfly wings tickle your stomach.

But it was becoming increasingly evident that he felt the same indisputable pull that you did. He had spent much of his time in your presence, bringing you tea in the late hours of the nights you spent in the townhouse’s reading room, poring over tomes and texts that you and Amren had thought might be useful. Lucien always made the excuse that he made too much tea and didn’t want it to go to waste. 

(Later, you’d find out that he didn’t even really like the tea he brought you every night, only brewing an excessive amount of it because Feyre had offhandedly mentioned it was your favorite.) 

He was rarely there to give his opinions, merely lingering to offer his quiet companionship, situating himself in a comfortable lounge chair in your periphery as he perused the pages of his book of choice. More often than not, he’d fall asleep in what had to be a supremely uncomfortable position, untouched tea cooling on the table. 

It was in those sweet and fragile beginnings of your relationship with Lucien that you had begun to contemplate the potential cosmic underpinnings of your mutual fondness for each other, and what that could mean for you and your future. 

Orbiting each other like stars caught in the same gravitational field, you and Lucien were on a steady course of stellar collision, sure to erupt in some unexplainable astral phenomenon that would certainly result in your doom. Or your salvation. 

(It was the latter.)

The same way you could track the trajectory of an apple falling from a tree and calculate the force with which it would hit the ground, you could guess — with near one hundred percent accuracy — how hard you would fall for Lucien. It was a dangerous descent, you knew, but one that you could hardly fight against. 

Despite being quite the closet romantic — how could you not be, with the knowledge of endless possibilities at your fingertips? — you had been hesitant to pursue anything more with Lucien, wanting to preserve the innocent, lighthearted flirtations that had come so easily between you. You’d been hurt before, been wickedly tricked into the dangerous downward spiral of broken promises and fleeting loyalty of lovers past. And you’d be damned if you’d let yourself make that mistake again. 

But Lucien…

Lucien was all of things your previous paramours had not been. He was kind and gentle and genuine. Funny and insufferably sweet. He was a wonderfully fresh breath of air in an otherwise stagnant atmosphere. 

He had his darkness — he’d admitted as much to you himself. But he had never hidden it from you, had even allowed you the privilege of holding the most tender parts of his past in your hands to examine, always providing ample opportunities for you to deny him, decide that you didn’t want all the pieces of his whole after all.

You had never been afraid of the dark, though, not in the literal or metaphorical sense. It was comforting, quiet, familiar. Besides, before Lucien, you had never found a light bright enough to fear the return of the dark. 

But when faced with the sheer enormity of the warmth his light provided, suddenly you were afraid of its absence. You wanted only to spend your time basking beneath the sun you had discovered beneath Lucien Vanserra’s ribs. 

It was torturously paradoxical, how the more you chased Lucien’s light the more you were plunged into the dark unknown of what loving him would mean, and how afraid you had become. But resisting Lucien’s solar gravity was like trying to defy the very laws that governed the universe you were lucky enough to live in with him: near impossible. 

The way he so effortlessly drew you to him, enticed you to trust him, open yourself to him was something that the greatest physicists of your time could never explain. It was a mystery you weren’t sure you wanted solved for fear that once discovered, he’d be taken from you; you selfishly wanted to keep Lucien’s impossibly beautiful energy to yourself. 

He was undefinable in his unwavering loyalty and limitless consideration. Lucien’s love for you seemed to be as intrinsically written into his existence with the same certainty that you knew the sun would rise over the horizon every morning. It was with that same certainty that you knew falling in love with him was inevitable, and fighting it was a futile resistance of gravity.

So you had let yourself fall, let yourself dive deep into the unknown, praying – begging, really – to whatever gods that were listening that this wasn’t another funnel towards heartbreak. 

You fell with maddening speed and Lucien caught you – having already fallen long ago – with all of the warmth of the sun that his name promised.

If your past self had ever doubted the stability of loving Lucien Vanserra (read: you did), none of that doubt existed in you now. Especially in moments like this: skin to skin in the morning light of the first spring day in the Night Court. Three years since you and Lucien (separate) became you and Lucien (duo), you could hardly believe that you ever considered any other choice but him.

The sun was warm on your back as you lay on your side, arm tucked comfortably beneath your head as you listened to Lucien give you his annual spiel about how the springs in the Spring Court were unbeatable, though the Night Court did have some acceptable weather sometimes. You giggled at his remarkable consistency, love and fondness filling the space between your ribs, momentarily seizing your heart to flutter giddily.

“Okay, Lu,” you responded in mock exasperation. “And then in the fall –”

“Autumn,” he corrected, just to jest further.

“ – you’re going to tell me that the Autumn Court has the best autumns.”

“Naturally.” His grin was blinding as he teased you, pressing a firm kiss between your brows. 

You rolled your eyes but gave in, leaning in towards him – always leaning in towards him (that pesky gravity again).

“But I guess your court,” he continued, “has us beat as far as stargazing goes.”

“Naturally,” you mimicked, winking.

His laugh was a resounding bell of warmth and you took the opportunity to drink him in, warm skin tinted pink with joy and the heat of the morning sun. His hair was disheveled with sleep, but he was impossibly effortless in his beauty.  

The freckles on his cheeks reminded you a lot of the stars that illuminated the streets of Velaris, and you spent the next few hours of the early morning drawing constellations on his skin and fabricating stories of their origin while Lucien’s own fingers drew matching patterns onto your back.

He whispered cheesy lines about how you outshone all of the stars in your beloved Night Court, and then his cheeks dimpled — beautiful craters of mirth — as he smiled at your feigned incredulity. He kissed you then, and you once again found yourself at the mercy of his gravitational pull, your body arching almost instinctively against his in an effort to satisfy your craving for the feel of his skin against yours. 

Lucien – as always – indulged you, snaking a muscled arm around your waist to pull your body flush against his as he whispered in your ear about how he had heard once that freckles were the spots that past life lovers had kissed the most. In an act of petulant pseudo jealousy at the idea that someone had the privilege of loving Lucien before you, you spent the rest of the morning peppering his skin in a thousand kisses. 

“No need to be jealous, my love,” he said as you anchored your lips to the apple of his cheek. “I’m certain that in every life before this one, I enjoyed the pleasure of your affections. And I will continue to find you in every one after.”

Maybe that was it. Maybe the undeniable, visceral need to have him, be with him, love him was written into your bones by the infinite previous lives you spent within each others’ orbit. Your devotion to Lucien seemed as intrinsic as the laws of the universe; there was no life in which you did not feel the warmth of his yearning. 

You hummed in contented agreement, feeling as though you’ve just discovered the unthinkable as you continued your quest, reveling in the gentle shiver you earned with a well placed kiss to the junction of his jaw and neck. For a brief moment, you made a mental note to thank whatever force – physical, cosmic, celestial – that had bound you and Lucien together.

[mama-waterlily]

i unironically derive so much pride from the fact that people have to use generative computer tools that can think exponentially faster than i can to imitate the type of writing i produce while sleep deprived, wearing a t shirt and a diaper, writing and editing bits at a time between binding of isaac runs

and they still can't reach my quality and artistic spirit or turn little cuties on the way i can

a machine with no desire and the human prompting it with no artistic soul cannot make dicks hard or pussies wet

[oensible]

Calculating the theoretical downfall of my shrambling empire

We can do this using a little algebra! :3

First to get the equation for the balance of our shrambing empire balance, this is just a compound interest problem since each bet is 3% of our current balance! We started the season with $1000, but we've since had some wins and losses affect our balance since them, we'll just start with our balance before the first loss of this streak as our principal amount: $955.86 on 2025 Jan 14! (Georgiev's 2nd win as a Shark and the 3rd (and final) game in the Pickles win streak!) (also keeping in mind i forgot to bet on that Boston game ;-; but maybe for the better because they lost that one too lol)

We can pop this into the compound interest formula and get the equation "y = 955.85 * 0.97^x", where "y" = the balance after "x" games played. But for anyone following along who happens to not know this formula we can easily derive it like so:

Let y0 represent the initial balance before any given game and let y1 represent the balance after any given game

y1 is equal to y0, minus the amount of our shrambling bet

The amount of our shrambling bet is 3% of our y0, or "0.03 * y0"

Therefore "y1 = y0 - (0.03 * y0)"

We can rewrite this using the distributive and identity properties as "y1 = (1 * y0) - (0.03 * y0)" -> "y1 = (1 - 0.03) * y0"

Simplify to "y1 = 0.97 * y0" -> here is our recursive function! :D we can use this to get the balance before or after a bet, given we are always betting the max on the sharks and know either the amount before or after!

Since each consecutive balance is the previous one multiplied by 0.97, we can get any balance by multiplying the initial balance (our $955.85) by 0.97, one time per each game played (assuming the loss streak continues) since then!

We can write this rule as a function to make an explicit function for our account balance after any # of games: "y = 955.85 * 0.97^x". ta-daaaa :3 all done!

Here's our function graphed on Desmos, plus a table of some key points on the graph! + a bonus graph of our permitted bet amount (3% of our account balance!)

This model will predict our balance values a little low btw, because our max possible bet has to be rounded down to the nearest cent on NHL66. But I think that the rounding error is negligible for our purposes here

As can be seen in the notes of this post, the people clamor for the downfall of my shrambling empire.... so let's see exactly when we would hit these milestones, assuming the Sharks loss streak continues! :D

Scenario #1: net loss of $500 via @puckpocketed

We can just calculate this from our "y = 955.85 * 0.97^x" equation! Substitute the $500 balance into y, then solve for x games played by dividing the $500 balance by 955.85, then taking the log base 0.97 of 500 divided by 955.85....or convert to log base 10's if your calculator doesn't just have a log base 0.97 function lying around lol

Anyways! Our solution (to the thousandth) is 21.274 losses, and obviously we can't have fractions of games played in terms of bets which are discrete/only counted per whole game played. Thus, we can see on our table that we will have lost $500 (in fact, $510.93!) after 22 games lost in a row! This is possible, as we have bet on 4 losses already, so we need to lose only 18 more bets in a row! :) There are currently 31 games left in the season! :)

Scenario #2: negative balance via @proceedwcandy

Due to the 3% cap on our bets, as our balance gets smaller, so too will our bets.... we will cannot enter shrebt (sharks debt) by this model :(. (We can verify this by attempting to take the x-axis intercept, where y = 0 or any negative value, the same way we did for scenario #1 and we will get an undefined value. Plus we can see from the graph that even if we kept zooming out it would never go to a negative value.... Sad! Such is the nature of an exponential function with no vertical shift down.... u_u)

However! There is a stipulation in NHL66 rules where once the maximum bet amount reaches $2, it will stay there. We can find the balance at which we reach this minimum cap—$2 is 3% of $66.666... going on forever, but we'll round up to the nearest cent at $66.67. We would reach this amount after 87.423 losses, and again we must round up, so after betting on 88 losses in a row (or 84 losses from now) our max bet from then on will be $2!

After that the scenario is represented by a linear function, "y = -2x + 65.51" (65.51 is our balance after this, rounded up to the nearest cent), so we can find the point at which we would go into shrebt! If we have y = $0 and solve for x, we get 32.755 more losses (on top of the 88 losses to get to this threshold) to get to $0, or 33 more losses to get a negative balance! (not that NHL66 will actually let me do this, they'd just cap that last bet at however much I have left :P but we'll ignore that for this hypothetical)

Tl;dr: It would take 121 losses in a row (or 117 more losses) to get a negative balance! We. um. Well, we do not have that many games left in the season to lose! ^_^" but, well.... who am i to doubt the prowess of the psiionic warriors manifesting my downfall...... ">_>

[armani-customs]

Hatton Garden - Wikipedia

I AM TRAPPED IN LONDON DIAMOND DISTRICT!

START SUPPLYING!

Meturnomics: Periodic Table Element Manufacturing, Covalent Bonds Fertilizer with Soil Chemistry Ex. Carbon Compounds, Covalent Bonds Fertilizer with Soil Chemistry, Chandelier Tree for Bontonical Indicator; Diamond Vowels: A (Accessories Auctions), E (Exchange Probabilistic Model), I (Sensual Insurance), O (Open-pit Mines), U (Unanimous Laser Cutters and Laser Pressure); Metal Exchange Probabilistic Model for Derivatives CFDS;

AgCurrency: Economic Table, Barter Economics, NIRP Supply-side Fixed Rate Pegged De Facto; AgIndex: Commodities Portfolio Management; Agronomics CFDS//Option Exchange (Credit Spread Options, FX-CFD Interest Rates Beta-Arbitrage w/PPP and Supply-side Economics Currency Pair)

Authentic Movement STERRC (SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING, EMBEZZLEMENT, RHIZOMES, AND RUGGED & REFINED CULTIVATOR)

Of Undisputed Origin.

Periodic Table Metallurgy Cultivator with Artisanal Primitive Anthropology, Nationalist, Art Intellect with Athletic Ability, Riverbanks Farmland, Real Estate Investment Trust and Real Estate Brokerage Trust Account, Pool-Live Monopoly Turf Accountant Board Game Tournament, Rugby and Kickboxing, Eagle Conservation, Painting and Polyrhythm Syncopated Progressive Drum Loops with Rhythm Flag (Anacrusis; Staccato and Legato; Barcarolle; Tonic and Dominant; Triple G Positions), and (Diamond; Decapods; Mollusk; Opium; Deliriants; Tobacco; Coffee; and Arms) Black Market

Kimberley Certificate

Open-pit Mines Economic Geography

Banking System and Probabilistic Model Exchange

Intermodal Cargo Countyline Trafficking Infrastructure

De facto SLL/SDM FX Counter Trading Party for Diamond CFD; SLL 5% AND SDM -0.5% Interest Rates Contract for Difference.

CURRENCY, OIL, & GOLD COMMODITIES CANDLESTICK CHARTS

Swing Trading: Use mt4/mt5 With Heiken Ashi Charts, Setting at 14 or 21 Momentum Indicator above 0 as Divergence Oscillator and Volume Spread Analysis as Reversal Oscillator and Trade when bullish candlesticks above 200 exponential moving average and/or 20 exponential moving average (EMA) on H1 (Hourly) Time Frame; use H4 (4 Hours) and D1 (1 Day) as reference.

(Artisanal Primitive King) Pedagogy: King Anthropology; Mixing a form of Royalty Title with Anthropology. CRAFT SOCIETY Sensory Processing Anthropology Artisan Primitive: Sensory Play of the Sensory Ethnography, Sensory Modulits CNS; Artisanal Plantation Metallurgy Cash Crops Spectrum; Evolution; Savagery, Emerging Markets, Civilianization, ECONOMICS OF FINANCIAL MARKETS; Economic Science (Supply-side Economics), Economic Geography (Artisanal Plantation), Economic Mathematics (CFD Probabilistic Model Exchange), Microeconomics (Contract Theory, Purchasing Theory, Portfolio Theory, Producer Price Index, Profit Sharing Plan, Lipstick Effect, Opportunity Cost, Private Limited Partnership, Public-Private Sectors, Pyramid Marketing, Minor Purchase Group) for Sensory Geography (5 Senses City); Prenatal Hormones with Fetus Alcohol Consumption for Sensory Overload Savant;

Athletic Spirit of Rugby: Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in England in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends. The SVNS,[1][2] known as the for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series,[3] the competition was formed to promote an elite-level of international rugby sevens and develop the game into a viable commercial product. A fly-half (number 10) is usually the first player to receive the ball from the scrum-half following a breakdown, line-out or scrum. Therefore, they must be decisive with what actions to take. They must possess leadership and communicate effectively with the back line.[58] Good fly-halves are calm, clear thinking and have the vision to direct effective attacking plays.[59] Fly-halves need good passing and kicking skills. Often the fly-half is the best kicker in the team and needs to be able to execute attacking kicks such as up-and-unders, grubbers and chip kicks as well as being able to kick for territory.[58] Many fly-halves are also the team's goal kickers.

Clive Myr. Obasi

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱🇸🇱

[mariacallous]

Google’s and Microsoft’s search engines have a problem with deepfake porn videos. Since deepfakes emerged half a decade ago, the technology has consistently been used to abuse and harass women—using machine learning to morph someone’s head into pornography without their permission. Now the number of nonconsensual deepfake porn videos is growing at an exponential rate, fueled by the advancement of AI technologies and an expanding deepfake ecosystem.

A new analysis of nonconsensual deepfake porn videos, conducted by an independent researcher and shared with WIRED, shows how pervasive the videos have become. At least 244,625 videos have been uploaded to the top 35 websites set up either exclusively or partially to host deepfake porn videos in the past seven years, according to the researcher, who requested anonymity to avoid being targeted online.

Over the first nine months of this year, 113,000 videos were uploaded to the websites—a 54 percent increase on the 73,000 videos uploaded in all of 2022. By the end of this year, the analysis forecasts, more videos will have been produced in 2023 than the total number of every other year combined.

These startling figures are just a snapshot of how colossal the issues with nonconsensual deepfakes has become—the full scale of the problem is much larger and encompasses other types of manipulated imagery. A whole industry of deepfake abuse, which predominantly targets women and is produced without people’s consent or knowledge, has emerged in recent years. Face-swapping apps that work on still images and apps where clothes can be “stripped off a person” in a photo with just a few clicks are also highly prominent. There are likely millions of images being created with these apps.

“This is something that targets everyday people, everyday high school students, everyday adults—it's become a daily occurrence,” says Sophie Maddocks, who conducts research on digital rights and cyber-sexual violence at the University of Pennsylvania. “It would make a lot of difference if we were able to make these technologies harder to access. It shouldn't take two seconds to potentially incite a sex crime.”

The new research highlights 35 different websites, which exist to exclusively host deepfake pornography videos or incorporate the videos alongside other adult material. (It does not encompass videos posted on social media, those shared privately, or manipulated photos.) WIRED is not naming or directly linking to the websites, so as not to further increase their visibility. The researcher scraped the websites to analyze the number and duration of deepfake videos, and they looked at how people find the websites using the analytics service SimilarWeb.

Many of the websites make it clear they host or spread deepfake porn videos—often featuring the word deepfakes or derivatives of it in their name. The top two websites contain 44,000 videos each, while five others host more than 10,000 deepfake videos. Most of them have several thousand videos, while some only list a few hundred. Some videos the researcher analyzed have been watched millions of times.

The research also identified an additional 300 general pornography websites that incorporate nonconsensual deepfake pornography in some way. The researcher says “leak” websites and websites that exist to repost people’s social media pictures are also incorporating deepfake images. One website dealing in photographs claims it has “undressed” people in 350,000 photos.

Measuring the full scale of deepfake videos and images online is incredibly difficult. Tracking where the content is shared on social media is challenging, while abusive content is also shared in private messaging groups or closed channels, often by people known to the victims. In September, more than 20 girls aged 11 to 17 came forward in the Spanish town of Almendralejo after AI tools were used to generate naked photos of them without their knowledge.

“There has been significant growth in the availability of AI tools for creating deepfake nonconsensual pornographic imagery, and an increase in demand for this type of content on pornography platforms and illicit online networks,” says Asher Flynn, an associate professor at Monash University, Australia, who focuses on AI and technology-facilitated abuse. This is only likely to increase with new generative AI tools.

The gateway to many of the websites and tools to create deepfake videos or images is through search. Millions of people are directed to the websites analyzed by the researcher, with 50 to 80 percent of people finding their way to the websites via search. Finding deepfake videos through search is trivial and does not require a person to have any special knowledge about what to search for.

The issue is global. Using a VPN, the researcher tested Google searches in Canada, Germany, Japan, the US, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. In all the tests, deepfake websites were prominently displayed in search results. Celebrities, streamers, and content creators are often targeted in the videos. Maddocks says the spread of deepfakes has become “endemic” and is what many researchers first feared when the first deepfake videos rose to prominence in December 2017.

Since the tools needed to create deepfake videos emerged, they’ve become easier to use, and the quality of the videos being produced has improved. The wave of image-generation tools also offers the potential for higher-quality abusive images and, eventually, video to be created. And five years after the first deepfakes started to appear, the first laws are just emerging that criminalize the sharing of faked images.

The proliferation of these deepfake apps combined with a greater reliance on digital communications in the Covid-19 era and a "failure of laws and policies to keep pace" has created a “perfect storm,” Flynn says.

Experts say that alongside new laws, better education about the technologies is needed, as well as measures to stop the spread of tools created to cause harm. This includes action by firms that host the websites and also search engines, including Google and Microsoft’s Bing. Currently, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints are the primary legal mechanism that women have to get videos removed from websites.

Henry Ajder, a deepfake and generative AI expert who has monitored the spread of the technologies, says adding more “friction” to the process of people finding deepfake porn videos, apps to change people’s faces, and tools that specifically allow the creation of nonconsensual images can reduce the spread. “It's about trying to make it as hard as possible for someone to find,” he says. This could be search engines down-ranking results for harmful websites or internet service providers blocking sites, he says. “It's hard to feel really optimistic, given the volume and scale of these operations, and the need for platforms—which historically have not taken these issues seriously—to suddenly do so,” Ajder says.

“Like any search engine, Google indexes content that exists on the web, but we actively design our ranking systems to avoid shocking people with unexpected harmful or explicit content they don't want to see,” says Google spokesperson Ned Adriance, pointing to its page on when it removes search results. Google’s support pages say it is possible for people to request that “involuntary fake pornography” be removed. Its removal form requires people to manually submit URLs and the search terms that were used to find the content. “As this space evolves, we're actively working to add more safeguards to help protect people, based on systems we've built for other types of nonconsensual explicit imagery,” Adriance says.

Courtney Gregoire, chief digital safety officer at Microsoft, says it does not allow deepfakes, and they can be reported through its web forms. “The distribution of nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) is a gross violation of personal privacy and dignity with devastating effects for victims,” Gregoire says. “Microsoft prohibits NCII on our platforms and services, including the soliciting of NCII or advocating for the production or redistribution of intimate imagery without a victim’s consent.”

While the number of videos and pictures continues to skyrocket, the impact on victims can be long-lasting. “Gender-based online harassment is having an enormous chilling effect on free speech for women,” Maddocks says. As reported by WIRED, female Twitch streamers targeted by deepfakes have detailed feeling violated, being exposed to more harassment, and losing time, and some said the nonconsensual content found its way to family members.

Flynn, the Monash University professor, says her research has found “high rates” of mental health concerns—such as anxiety, depression, self-injury, and suicide—as a result of digital abuse. “The potential impacts on a person’s mental and physical health, as well as impacts on their employment, family, and social lives can be immense,” Flynn says, “regardless of whether the image is deepfaked or ‘real.’”

[bubbloquacious]

Effortpost registry

Kernels and Injectivity; 19 jun 2025

The Topology Game; 2 apr 2025

Graphs as presheaves 4: coverages; 13 feb 2025

The general linear group as a Hopf algebra; 31 oct 2024

Zariski topologies; 14 oct 2024

On integer multiplication and endomorphism algebras; 2 sep 2024

Recommendations for learning category theory; 28 mar 2024

The hairy ball theorem and stably free modules; 11 feb 2024

Topological connectedness and generalized paths; 24 nov 2023

Graphs as presheaves 3: subobject classifiers; 19 oct 2023

Effortpost registry; 18 oct 2023

Graphs as presheaves 2: limits and colimits; 11 oct 2023

Hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby: graphs and the Yoneda embedding; 7 oct 2023

Extending the D ⊣ U ⊣ I adjunction sequence; 23 sep 2023

The Riemann rearrangement theorem and net convergence; 18 sep 2023

Thoughts on the axiom of choice; 18 feb 2023

Topological spaces and simple graphs as neighbourhood spaces; 15 feb 2023

What is a space?; 10 jan 2023

The exponential function applied to sets; 24 dec 2022

On nilpotent eigenvalues; 23 dec 2022

But IS the empty space connected?; 11 nov 2022

Monads monads monads; 8 nov 2022

Calculating what the triangle identities mean for a bunch of adjunctions and being amazed when it works every time; 7 nov 2022

Defining the Lebesgue integral as a net limit; 27 jul 2022

Rambles about describable sets; 28 oct 2021

Functions with cycling derivatives; 30 aug 2021

Why the rationals have zero length; 31 may 2021

An infinite cardinal valued random variable; 30 may 2021

A field-based functor; 20 mar 2021

Generalized sides; 13 mar 2021

Rambles about metric convexity; 22 feb 2021

Wiggle function convergence; 28 jan 2021

Rambles about infinity; 5 sep 2020

Generalized golf; 24 jun 2020

Rambles about continuousifying series; 10 may 2020

Rambles about being closed under exponentiation; 7 may 2020

Rambles about the groups that come with fields; 3 may 2020

A compilation of donutified functions; 17 mar 2020

Rambles about arithmetic functions; 24 jan 2020

Graphing real functions on a torus >:); 29 nov 2019

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive! (follow the link to find the full article text as well as over 1,000 news and opinion articles about covid and more!)

Not the worst covid FAQ published this year. Head on over to this board (covidsafehotties.boards.net/board/23/isolation-protocol) for *ACTUAL* advice on how to stop covid from spreading in your home. Additionally, the zero mention of masks with an undue focus on fomites and handwashing is typical but frustrating.

Caroline C. Boyle for USA TODAY

Around the globe, a new strain of COVID-19 is spreading exponentially.

The COVID-19 XEC variant is derived from Omicron strains KS.1.1 and KP.3.3, says Dr. Francesca Torriani, MD, an infectious disease specialist with UC San Diego Health. XEC was first detected in Europe earlier this year, and it's now reached the US. “We expect this could become the next dominant variant,” she says.

As health officials prepare for a potential uptick in COVID-19 cases this fall, we asked the experts to answer your FAQs. From understanding how COVID-19 is transmitted, to what precautions you should take to protect yourself from the virus, here’s what you need to know.

How is COVID transmitted? So far, it is understood that the XEC variant behaves similarly to other strains of the virus, Torriani says.

Exposure to COVID-19 is most likely to occur when you are in close proximity to someone who is infected with the virus, because “the main mode of transmission is through respiratory particles,” says Torriani.

When an infected person speaks, coughs or sneezes, they send infectious particles and droplets of respiratory fluid into the air, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. When you inhale these particles through your nose or mouth, or get them in your eyes, there is “a possibility of the virus entering the body,” Torriani says.

Because COVID-19 particles can linger in the air, transmission of the virus is still possible at distances greater than 6 feet, per the EPA. Depending on the ventilation, COVID-19 particles can stay airborne anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, says Dr. Nezar Dahdal, Hospitalist at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center.

How long does COVID live on surfaces? While surface transmission of COVID is possible, it is less likely than transmission by inhaling infected respiratory particles. The live virus cannot survive on surfaces for long, because “the virus needs a host to actually be effective,” Dahdal explains. “It needs to be in the human body to multiply and spread.”

In the event that you do touch a surface that is contaminated with live COVID-19 droplets, if proceed to touch your nose, eyes, or mouth, you are “taking the virus from the surface and transferring it to your mucous membrane, where it then enters your system,” Dahdal says.

On “surfaces such as glass, or tabletops, or steel, the virus can last outside of the human body anywhere from one day to about four or five days, depending on how porous it is,” Dahdal says. The virus can survive on cardboard surfaces up to one day, and on wood surfaces up to four days, per Cleveland Clinic.

Can you live with someone with COVID and not get it? It is possible to live in close contact with someone with COVID, be exposed to the virus, and not necessarily get infected, Dahdal says. It’s “going to depend on a person's immune system, the variant itself, and then also the sanitary practices of the person,” he says.

When living in close proximity with someone infected with COVID, the key to avoiding infection is to be proactive about protection, he says. “If a person is frequently washing their hands, sanitizing their hands, wiping down or [disinfecting] surfaces, you have a much better chance of avoiding being infected,” Dahdal says.

How to prevent the spread of COVID Washing hands, wearing masks, and frequently sanitizing surfaces are simple measures that can limit the possibility of being exposed to COVID-19, Dahdal says.

It’s also important to stay up to date on COVID vaccines, especially if you are immunocompromised or aged 65 and older, he emphasizes.

There is a question of whether the updated COVID vaccine will offer protection against XEC. Because the latest vaccine targets circulating variants of Omicron, it should “also provide coverage and [decrease] the risk of complications in people who get infected,” Torriani says.

Additional precautions against COVID include keeping windows open to promote airflow, and when possible, spending time with people outside rather than indoors, Torriani says. This “increases the turnover of the air, and therefore decreases the number of particles that might be still in the air that we might inhale,” she explains.

[soulofamy]

after taking into account the old lore of mk and what "saurian" and "zaterra" meant there, and then comparing it to the new lore, i think what makes sense to me is the following:

zaterrans are a subgroup of sorts to the saurians. the saurians came first, and the zaterrans came afterward

we dont really know much about the zaterrans or the saurians in the new timeline, only that zaterra is no longer its own realm and is instead a land that was settled by the zaterrans after they were hearded there by warmbloods. we know essentially nothing about saurians in this new timeline, only that khameleon is one and that there is a definitive distinction between the saurians and the zaterrans.

in the old timeline (from what i understand) the saurians were descended from dinosaurs (thus the inclusion of "saur" in their name) and mass migrated into their own realm at some point in history. that realm was called zaterra, with "terra" deriving from the term "terrestrial" because zaterra was seen as a "new earth". so while saurians were what the race was called, they could also be called zaterrans because they were residents of zaterra.

that interchangeability does not exist in this new timeline, as demonstrated by the fact that syzoth corrects takedas assumption that khameleon is a zaterran. but taking where the word "saurian" comes from, i think we can assume that they are still descended from dinosaurs. but instead of migrating into a new realm that was all their own in this timeline, they mass migrated to outworld. this steep increase in population, in addition to prejudice, is what led to them being forced out of edenia after a generation or two of inhabiting outworld. afterall, when reptiles have offspring, its usually in clutches, meaning their growth was exponential.

some of these offspring were the zaterrans. zaterrans are what happened when saurians mutated to better suit their new enviornment. saurians are still born to this day, but it got to a point where zaterrans became the majority due to them being better suited to living in outworld than saurians are.

there is a physical difference between the two groups. saurians are much more reminiscent of the way certain dinosaurs looked. They have a harder time standing up right, and tend to lean forward more like raptors did. some may have feathers as well. this contrasts the way zaterrans look, where their appearance calls to mind more modern reptiles

[alkaliii]

Procedural Cyclic Slash

Get the code for this shader here -> https://godotshaders.com/shader/procedural-cyclic-slash/

This is a really jank shader, but it looks pretty nice when the values are just right. So that's what this post is for! I'll help you with understanding the uniforms and value setup and leave some general tips so you can experiment easily on your own.

Quick Setup

Here is a quick rundown on how to get something similar to the video above:

Create a MeshInstance3D node and set the mesh to QuadMesh

Apply the shader as a Material Override (GeometryInstance3D -> Geometry)

Set these values:

Animation.Derive_Progress = -1 Animation.Time_Scale = 0.25 Shape.Rotate_All = 285 Shape.Noise = - New NoiseTexture2D - - Width = 512 - - Height = 128 - - Seamless = True - - Noise = - - - New FastNoiseLite - - - - Noise_Type = Cellular - - - - Fractal.Gain = 4 - - - - Cellular.Distance_Function = Manhattan Shape.Width_Gradient_Mask = - New GradientTexture1D - - Gradient = - - - New Gradient - - - - Offsets: 0.2, 0.5, 0.52 - - - - Colors: #FFFFFF, #000000, #FFFFFF Shape.Length_Gradient_Mask = - New GradientTexture1D - - Gradient = - - - New Gradient - - - - Offsets: 0.25, 0.4, 0.6, 0.65, 0.7 - - - - Colors: #FFFFFF, #7F7F7F, #000000, #7F7F7F, #FFFFFF Shape.Highlight = - New GradientTexture1D - - Gradient = - - - New Gradient - - - - Offsets: 0.5, 0.52, 0.54 - - - - Colors: #000000, #FFFFFF, #000000 Coloring.Color_Lookup = - New GradientTexture1D - - Gradient = - - - New Gradient - - - - Offsets: 0.0, 0.1, 0.2 - - - - Colors: #BF40BF, #008080, #ADD8E6

Overview

This shader works by taking a noise texture and wrapping it around the center point of UV1. The curved noise texture is then masked twice to set its width and "length" and an additional texture is applied to add a highlight effect. The shader uses values of gray, a lookup texture, and UV.x to apply colours. Lastly, motion is created by shifting the UV sample of the original noise texture and running the combined grayscale texture through a smooth step function to determine its alpha. This is a text-based shader written in Godot's Shading Language. Sorry, I can't help you implement it in Unity or some other engine or software. --

Animation Uniforms

The Progress uniform sets what point in time the shader is in. This only works when the Derive Progress uniform is set to (0). You can pretty much use the progress uniform to scrub through the shader's animation. If you set the progress value in code or through an animation player, you can control the animation as you like. Derive Progress changes what drives the shader's animation. If set to (-1), TIME will progress the animation. If it animates too quickly, you can use Time Scale to speed it up or slow it down. If set to (1) the particle LIFETIME will progress the animation. This is useful if you plan to set this shader as the material of a particle in a GPUParticles3D or CPUParticles3D. Ease Progress gives you a bit of control over how the shader's animation progresses if you are driving it with TIME or LIFETIME. When set to (0) no easing will occur. (-1) Will ease in exponentially and (1) Will ease out exponentially, but if you have the chops you can tweak this by changing the functions in the shader code. Time Scale alters the speed of the animation when Derive Progress is set to (-1). Anim Rot Amt controls how much the shader rotates as it animates. Set it to (0) if you want the effect to remain in the same place instead of rotating around the center of UV1. This value is put through an easing function, so it doesn't adjust linearly. I personally, wouldn't try setting this to anything other than (0) or (1). --

Shape Uniforms

Zoom controls the size of the effect on the quad. The value is interpreted inversely, so setting a larger value will make it smaller. The effect will repeat if you set this value above (1). Rotate All lets you rotate the effect on the quad. Use degrees. Base Noise generates the main shape for this effect. You can use any type of noise and I encourage you to experiment. Just make sure it's seamless so you don't get any odd artifacts. By setting the noise to be wider than it is tall, you can stretch out the shapes it makes which I think better resembles a slash. Decreasing the dimensions of the noise can lead to bigger streak blobs and softer-looking shapes depending on the noise used. I'd look into this if you want a more stylized/cartoon-looking effect.

Width Gradient Mask masks the Base Noise in a way that controls the width of the final effect. Like Base Noise this will be wrapped around the center point of UV1 so I suggest using a GradientTexture1D. You can do some cool things here if you're willing to experiment (and possibly alter the code) just make sure this is set to a grayscale image. The way I wrote the math dictates that darker colours will be kept and light colours will clip, so use white to control what to cut out and black to control what to keep. A gradient that transitions from white to black back to white is a good place to start.

Length Gradient Mask masks the Base Noise in a way that controls the "length" of the final effect. This also controls how it animates sorta. I can't really explain it, but how this overlays the noise will alter how the smooth step function works... I think. White denotes the edges and Black the center. If you use a gradient here, moving the white values closer to the center can help with shaping. I also suggest using gray so you can better shape the length of the effect.

Highlight is overlayed on the effect. like everything else, it is wrapped around the center point of UV1. A thin white stripe works best. Unlike the other textures this one is played straight, so black won't appear and white will. Moving the white stripe closer to the right edge of the gradient will move the highlight effect to the outside of the slash, left will move it inside. I like to set it so it's a bit closer to the right so it appears on the outer edge. If you don't want a highlight at all leave this uniform empty. --

Coloring Uniforms

Emission Strength controls how much it glows. If it doesn't glow in the editor, add a world environment node and enable glow, you will also need this in your game scenes fyi. Mix Strength controls how much the Color Lookup is applied to the effect. If Color Lookup is applied, decreasing this value will give a darker appearance. At (0), the effect (excluding the highlight) will appear black. You can add extra glow by increasing this above (1).

Color Lookup is used to color the effect. I think I screwed up the math, so just ensure the colors you want the shader to sample from are close to the left side of what you set here. Three colors is pretty nice, I like to put darker colors closer to the left side and lighter ones to the right. --

Final Notes

Sorry for this lengthy post. I've had issues before where a shader I found on GodotShaders was a bit obtuse and I didn't want others to run into that with this one. I've spent quite some time trying to figure this out but I still feel this is a pretty meh effect. I think I need to look into how people animate shaders using a static image and clipping/stepping/smooth stepping it. If you have any good resources for shaders I'd be interested to hear about them. I'd prefer not to get any articles about visual or node-based shaders since I keep fumbling how to convert some nodes into functions or what sorta math is going on, but at this rate, I'll take whatever I can get lol. Hopefully, this shader saves you some time or teaches you something new! If you have any questions (and I can answer them) don't hesitate to ask. However, I'd prefer if you contacted me on Discord. I'm in Godot Café, Godot Engine, and the Godot Effects and Shaders discord servers as (@)Aiwi.

[anarchoherbalism]

it's funny/sad to me how many anti-diy med people whip out their mood stabilizers or antidepressants as examples of irreplaceable pharmacueticals when actually, plants LOVE making alkaloids! Yes, there are BIG question marks in terms of keeping people alive that are scary. For example, some stopgaps exist for some types of diabetes-- therapuetic diets and mediating metabolic processes via plant-derived medicines give people much better odds of hanging on while further work towards community-based insulin production and/or alternative medications are being developed; but people are HUSTLING on insulin, HIV medication (antiretrovials), and other projects because we need more solutions NOW and ACUTELY, not just for the future.

Brain meds tho? That shits fucking gucci. On lock. Would it take YOU, PERSONALLY putting in research time and trying stuff out to land on something that works for your needs? Of course!!! Everyone taking virtually any medication goes through that process anyway! Are there direct analogs for you to switch to seamlessly from what you take now? No, you will likely have to take a different approach using different pharmacological basis--but even those bases exist already, many of them have simply been discarded in scientific research or clinical practice for reasons OTHER than their efficacy or risk* (such as socially-born risk like the war on drugs or good old market competition). AND, that's only if you are the most staunch evidence-based person out there; there's exponentially more information available if you're at all willing to experiment based on anecdotal evidence, something your doctor abso-fucking-lutely does nearly every time they customize a treatment plan, or choose between closely-related members of the same class of medication.

For most people, especially if you're starting from a place of skepticism, nobody's gonna hand you a resource you won't come up with some kind of beef with. GOOD. it means you have a critical eye. Hone that! Discard what you think is bullshit and hold on to the handful of principles in every source you think could be valuable and you will start building a base of knowledge and expertise that is practical and relevant to your own needs and context.

[sybaritick]

I don't have some kind of deep and complex reason for e being my favorite I just feel aesthetic affinity for it. i like all the applications of exponential growth and decay: population growth (really a whole bunch of things in nature), radioactive half-lives, compound interest. when you look at e^x, its slope/rate of increase at any given point is its value. in addition to being useful for the calc reasons (that it is its own derivative) it also just feels very intuitive, the more of it you have the more of it you'll get. thank you e

[rbrooksdesign]

"DMT-EDMT Series for December Geometry #4"

Clarification:

One can slice and dice the Number Theory surrounding the natural whole numbers a number of different ways with each giving perhaps a new perspective on the connections.

To remember though, is that the connections themselves are fixed and we are just shining a new light on them from a different vantage point. This often makes them look more complicated than they really are.

Simplification has distilled from the huge Ocean of Numbers, a subset called the Butterfly Fractal 1 (BF1) derived "containers" that is nothing more than the set of the sequential doubling of quantity one ("1"). [2ⁿ = Exponential Power of 2, e.i. 2⁰=1, 2¹=2, 2²=4, 2³=8,...)

The BF1 -- 1--2--4--8--16--32--64... is the fractal number that informs this entire subset.

A subset of this subset of "containers" -- i.e. a sub-subset -- is where the extremely rare and minimalist Mersenne Prime-Perfect Number pairings (Mp-PN) are found. However, they are not alone. In this sub-subset are other numbers that are NOT Mp-PNs, so we are left with some sorting out to distill just those rare gems!

While both the subset and sub-subset are highly connected and inter-connected, we have found that they do divide into two separate STRANDS or SETS. We have assigned SET 1 to refer to the Mp-PN sub-subset, and, SET 2 to the larger subset of "containers."

The point of this clarification is that both SETS 1 & 2 are "container" sets, but only SET 1 holds the TRUE Mp-PN pairings. Both sets look and act mathematically identical except for a few traits that will be pointed out along the way.

Finally, what is the common bond between both SETS? The BF1. It is the fundamental fractal that informs it all! As we go through some examples, please remember that this fractal is the "same wine in different bottles" of mathematical - geometrical representations.

~~~~~~

Starting with the PN 6.