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dapperkobold · 7 years ago

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Playdead’s Inside: Open-Ended as the Void

I just finished watching a LP of Inside by Playdead. I liked the puzzles. The art style wasn’t really my thing but I see the appeal. But the plot makes me angry, so I want to rant about it.

No, wait, that’s wrong. That implies it has a plot.

Spoilers, clearly, as much as this game can be spoiled because it doesn’t have a plot.

What? The game is made to be ‘open-ended’? See, I don’t buy that.

Because the thing about open-ended stories is that there... needs... to be a story.

Inside has an ending less satisfying than Knights of the Old Republic 2, and that’s pretty notable in my book. But of course that’s kind of the entire point, it’s a melancholy game about a child in a red shirt in a cold unfeeling world in which there is no payoff or reason for anything.

Except that doesn’t work. This game’s ending isn’t tragic. There’s no emotional payoff. There’s no emotional buildup. There is nothing.

I can’t be bothered to explain what actually happens in the game, so go play it or watch an LP. If you’re wondering if you should buy it and the description above doesn’t innately appeal... well, after watching an LP i wouldn’t spend money on it.

Heck, here’s the one I watched. It’s a good time.

So, yeah. I have questions.

Why do the mask people stop showing up after a certain point?

Why are there zombie citizens at one part and thinking workers later on?

What's up with the worms?

Why is the Selkie hostile right up until she gives you water breathing?

Why in the sake of all things is there a giant unified body mass?!

Why leave a giant shockwave generator running without supervision?

The various secret ending nodes lying around... what’s even up with those?

None of these are answered. Oh, it’s easy to guess on some, but none of them are actually ANSWERED. I mean, here, some easy answers:

The upper class does not worry themselves with such things.

The loyal ones were allowed to keep their personalities.

The worms are ocean parasites that have adapted to being amphibious and it was a giant, terrible plague.

She was testing you and gave you the power when she thought you were worthy.

(No answer! It’s an open-ended game!)

It’s an experiment on environmental conditions. There is supervision, it’s just somewhere else.

They’re remote mind control relays, controlling the kid as seen in the secret ending.

Okay. But. I found equal evidence for the following theories:

The mask-people are just under an advanced form of mind control so they can manage the zomblies and the real higher-ups don’t even have to be there.

The mask folk are creepy and the normal folk that are left don’t let them into their offices.

The worms are a native life form that is thriving in the environment that humanity is terraforming the planet into.

She didn’t think stabbing you with the thing would save your life. That’s just a coincidence, she just thought it would be fun to stab you.

It was supposed to be one giant man but they messed up. Everyone wanted to come see this department’s colossal failure.

The people in the two facilities are bitter enemies and the shock wave machine was set up by one side to keep the other from claiming the no-man’s-land.

They’re spacetime stabilization relays. When you unplug the thing in the secret ending the Darkness enters the world and consumes everything.

Why, yes, most of those don’t make sense, but is there any evidence against them?

There’s no evidence for them, no, but there’s no evidence for any of the other stuff. Are the various mind-controlled things around artificial life forms? Or are they normal people being controlled or mutated? Are we on earth? On a different planet? In a giant space station? Deep under the surface in a giant cavern? On a different plane of existence? Are the shockwaves in the one area a natural phenomenon? Are places flooded because of a cataclysmic flood event or just because the entire place is so badly built it keeps sinking into the ocean? Is it hell and the masked people are just demons?

What about the protagonist? Is he trying to escape and just bad at it? Is he specifically trying to get to the blob thing? To free it? To kill it? To control it? Is he a puppet? Does he have real emotions? Does he know what’s going on at all? If you go up the hill at the start and go left fifteen yards, would you find the rest of his family getting ready for a picnic?

In the main ending, are you just doing what the higher ups secretly want you to do? Did you escape and are just having some rest before carrying on? Did you just fall short of escaping? Did you die in the tumble down the hill?

And the secret ending, sakes alive, is it just meta? Is it lore? Is it even possible to get that ending in a single playthrough? I’m pretty sure that game had points of no return!

Is any of this happening at all? Is it an allegory? What for? For coping with loss? For escaping corporate America? For soviet Russia? For the Military industrial complex? For having a stillborn child? For indie game development?

The fact that I can’t find anything to even START to prove or disprove any of these theories leads me to believe that there’s nothing actually going on. I don’t see any unique imagery or ideas. I don’t see any really metaphor-laden mechanics. I don’t even see a strange overarching art choice.

I understand that part of the appeal of open-ended endings and plots is to let different people read different things into the work. For that some unanswered questions are needed. But there’s a difference between leaving something open to interpretation and just... not writing things!

Have you seen Donnie Darko? THAT is open to interpretation. Some things definitely happened. Most likely. You can tell there was intent and ideas behind that movie. What they were? Who knows! But there was SOMETHING! Was the point that the more Donnie learned the worse his life got? What was up with the time-traveling rabbit? How did he become a part of Donnie’s psyche? See, if you’ve never seen that movie you’re currently very confused!

While, if I say, ‘what was up with the mind control worms in Inside’ and you’ve been on the right TVTropes page, you can likely make guesses without even playing or watching the game.

And if you haven’t been on TVTropes, and don’t know the tropes well enough to just take the game at face value and read into it, there’s little reason to believe that Inside has anything going on under the hood.

Here’s something I like to do with works that seem to have a lot going on but it’s unclear what: What if there isn’t anything going on and the thing is just set up like there is to get the player to assume there is?

Under this circumstance, Inside sets in right. The atmosphere, the tropes on display, the lack of solid information, the inconclusive endings... if you assume that this is a hack-job, it fits.

I’m not saying it is a hack job. In fact, at the very least it’s got good puzzles. BUT, I can’t tell the difference between this plot... and the plot of a discount intrigue hack job.

#inside #playdead #playdead's inside #Crazy Kobold Rambling

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ncuindia · 5 years ago

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Aspiring For an Engineering Degree, Then Be Ready For Civil Engineering!!

Civil Engineering is the key to many of the issues affecting our lives today. Civil engineers solve problems, design, build and maintain our living and working spaces. You might design a new stadium, work on a local by-pass or railway line, assess a damaged structure, provide immediate and safe drinking water, or manage a multi-million construction project. Amongst all branches of engineering, the application of civil engineering is the broadest and the most visible. Demand for civil engineers is rising around the globe due to extensive implementation of various constructional and infrastructural projects.

In fact, the entire infrastructural framework of a modern nation is the creation of civil engineers. Civil engineering is about the design and planning, construction, supervision, quality control and maintenance of physical structures, such as buildings, roads, bridges, dams, canals, sea ports, power plants and airports. Their role is central to ensuring the safe, timely and well-resourced completion of projects in many areas, including highway construction, waste management, coastal development and geotechnical engineering. Consulting civil engineers liaise with clients to plan, manage, design and supervise the construction of projects.

World recognizes a country as developed or otherwise on the investment done by the country in infrastructure development and gauged by the consumption of cement and steel alone. The demands for civil infrastructure in a developed and developing world are always on the rise. In a report on Global Infrastructure development by Center for Strategic and International Studies, it has been clearly stated that one billion people live more than two kilometers away from all-weather roads making it difficult or impossible for many to reach doctors, schools or markets, making Infrastructure development a large global need. China, The United States, Japan and other developed nations have launched Infrastructure Investment Institutions to support builders to complement global infrastructure deficit. For developing country like India, Infrastructure has also been a major sector that propels overall development of the country’s economy. The Secretariat for Infrastructure in the Planning Commission is involved in initiating policies that would ensure time-bound creation of world class infrastructure in the country. The major focus of this section has been on power, bridges, dams, roads and smart infrastructure development. Figure 1 shows the annual average as percentage of GDP spending on Infrastructure by various countries.

(Source: Report on Global Infrastructure development, CSIS) Government of India has also unfolded its dream through a document released by NITI Ayog focusing on above stated areas and nation is looking forward to Civil Engineers to lead the way. The total investment in the area of Infrastructure by Government and allied organizations keep growing in each budget as seen in Figure 2.

Thus Indian scenario is no different and trend is similar to the to that of developed countries World History also shows that the scope of Civil Engineering is ever increasing and there were small time disruptions due to Economy or other technologies creating hysteria in the marketplace. As long as society is looking for comfortable living there is no dearth of scope neither for projects nor for employment in this branch. When Government is spending 50% of its resources on the developmental sustainable activities serviced by Civil Engineers and no demand for civil Engineering sound ridiculous isn’t it?. Most of the successful managers are from the civil engineering background and are better managers leading the team of engineers belonging all streams. The Government report is self-explanatory and an indicator for an aspirant of engineering education pointing market trend.

India has the second largest urban population in the world and by 2050; around 50% of India’s population i.e., 814 million is expected to live in urban areas. Given this scenario, the present infrastructure and amenities in cities and towns are not adequate to address the expanding urbanization process. With time, the infrastructure sector has become the biggest focus area of the Government of India. The Government has launched Rs 103 trillion infrastructure projects and projects worth Rs 1.70 trillion in transport infrastructure for accelerating highways construction. The Government has taken up several active initiatives to enhance public transport system including the Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRTS) approved for 11 cities under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The transportation system under this scheme will be equipped with Intelligent Transport System (ITS) and Metro Rail Projects. The Sagarmala Programme under the Ministry of Shipping is another flagship programme to promote port-led development in the country by exploiting India's 7,500 km long coastline, 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways and its strategic location on key international maritime trade routes.

Under Union Budget 2019-20, Rs 4,41,704.8 crore (US$ 63.20 billion) was allocated to the sector. The Smart Cities Mission launched on 25th June 2016, is a major urban renewal program launched by the Government under Ministry of Urban Development to develop and upgrade living conditions and infrastructure in selected 100 cities all over the country. Also, to aid the mission, central government has promised Rs. 48,000 crores over five years i.e. on an average Rs. 100 crore per city per year. Matching the center’s contribution, an equal amount will also be spent by the State government as well. Apart from this Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) Project aims to transform urban living conditions through infrastructure upgradation in 500 selected cities and towns in India. To people’s amazement the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) targets to achieve 100 per cent scientific management of municipal solid waste in 4041 statutory towns/ cities in the country by 2021. Further Schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) or Housing for All by 2022 brings opportunity for Civil Engineering graduates to contribute in promoting slum rehabilitation and affordable housing for weaker section of the society by their acquired skill sets. These moves not only aims to provide quality living to society but also to stimulate job prospectus for Civil Engineers. In the days to come Civil Engineering is the winner as it is a part of the system developing society and others are complementary to running the system. It is this confidence among Civil Engineers that is driving them and make them builders, Entrepreneurs and Consultants and not to depend on anybody for employment as there is always exist opportunity for them. The Success rate among peers is an indicator and Civil Engineering as a profession always thrived in corporate or in individual run organizations making a mark on society. By continuously developing and upgrading the services and facilities of the public, it not only gives the Engineer a sense of responsibility towards humanity but brings forth a sense of satisfaction that the work carried out by the Civil Engineer contributes significantly to the wellbeing of the society.

People do ask about the challenges that are on the horizon for the profession. But to answer them, there are no challenges as such, and one should see them as opportunities to leverage as cendible skill set and dare. Civil engineers can also work at national, state and municipal levels of the government. They can also start their own business. Opportunities abound in varying aspects of engineering like Bioengineering, Coastal Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Structural Engineering, Transportation Engineering, Water Resources Engineering and other emerging thrust areas like GIS and Remote Sensing technologies. The most popular industries for getting employed are construction, engineering design, residential construction, heavy civil construction. In India, things are looking up in the infrastructure sector. There is also great employment prospects for civil engineers in government and public sectors like the railways, municipal bodies, the Defense Forces, National Highway Authority of India, government development authorities like the DDA and government housing authority, PSU’s like RITES, BHEL, NBCC, IRS etc.., and Corporates like L&T, AFCONS, GAMANS, RAHEJA and many more posing no limit for Civil Engineers.

Engineers working for mega structures are already impressed by the spirit of innovation that has been brought about in the industry. With the advent of new technologies in the discipline, Civil Engineers are going to ride on the crest of the unstoppable wave that is digitalization. The showcased new products and solutions, these state of the art technologies provide to the community of Civil Engineers, does not limit to GNSS surveying, 3D Modelling and printing, GIS, Building information modelling (BIM), Artificial Intelligence but much more. BIM which is mostly associated with design and preconstruction, benefits every phase of the project life-cycle by allowing projects to be built virtually before they are constructed physically, eliminating many of the inefficiencies and problems that arise during the construction process. Use of 3D printing or additive manufacturing at construction sites aides in reduction of costs and waste, faster construction speed, reduction of accidents, complex architectural shapes, and more. Construction giants have realized the potential of 3D technologies to create new and innovative projects futuristically. The breakneck pace of innovation has become more vibrant by leveraging virtual and augmented reality technologies in and out for any successful construction projects. AR helps architects and engineers to place a 3D model of the proposed design on an existing space, providing an augmented view of the overall architectural plan to the client. The virtual model of what a project will look like upon completion helps clients and potential prospects visualize architectural plans better. Not only this, AR and VR in construction promises a complete and comprehensive understanding of the Project.

As brought out in this article, Civil Engineering as the right choice to all those who are aspiring to become Engineers. Civil Engineering offers an excellent opportunity in current scenario and the trends suggest longest known discipline of Engineering will keep growing and go on providing education and opportunity to serve society. This engineering branch playing a vital role, bears the responsibility to combat pollution and climate change globally.

Prof. H B Raghavendra Vice-Chancellor The NorthCap University

References:

1. http://mohua.gov.in/cms/schemes-or-programmes.php [Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs] (Last visited on 24-03-2020)

2. https://www.india.gov.in/topics/infrastructure (Last visited on 24-03-2020)

3. https://www.indianeconomy.net/splclassroom/major-urban-infrastructure-development-programmes-in-india/ (Last visited on 24-03-2020)

4. https://niti.gov.in/indias-housing-conundrum (Last visited on 24-03-2020)

5. Choudhary, Lokesh. (2019), “Civil Engineering: A paradigm Shift”, Shiksha.com.

6. CSIS. (2019), “Global Infrastructure development”.

#civilengineering

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monkeyandelf · 5 years ago

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Are there Extraterrestrial Industrial Bases on Moon?

It has long been no secret that the governments of different countries are involved in hiding the existence of aliens on Earth. And all the more there is nothing surprising in the fact that aliens on the moon built their bases.

Aliens present on the dark side of the moon Like all claims about the existence of aliens, these allegations by ufologists are refuted by officials. But a number of evidence shows that aliens on the moon are present, being on the dark side of our satellite. Astronaut Jim Irwin from the Apollo 15 mission shot a video showing an object resembling a flying saucer. A UFO hovering over the surface of the moon. This object from the astronaut’s camera indicates that aliens are present on the dark side of the moon.

Photograph taken by astronauts of Apollo 11 with visible alien structures A photograph of the dark side of the moon taken by astronauts of Apollo 11 clearly shows a huge structure on the lunar lands. There is no doubt how much education resembles the construction of intelligent hands. In the same photograph, which was taken by astronauts of Apollo 11, other structures are visible. In this case, a huge tower is visible on the surface of the moon. This indicates that aliens are present there.

Huge tower on the surface of the moon In the immediate vicinity of the Zeeman Crater, on the opposite side of the moon, a large rectangular structure is visible. The structure is accompanied by straight convex tiers and terraces. The presence of such structures, of course, is not caused by the natural creation of lunar nature. Rather, it indicates the presence of aliens on the dark side of the moon.

Zeeman crater on the opposite side of the moon, rectangular structure In one of the photographs of Apollo 11, a white tower with a black sphere on top is visible. This suggests that intelligent races have already visited and built structures on the surface of the moon. They were there long before a man came to the satellite of his planet. Frederick William Herschel, the man who discovered the planet Uranus, claimed that in 1787 he noticed bright lights crossing the dark side of the moon. A curious phenomenon was by no means natural.

Communications tower on the moon Many astronomers from around the world report the existence of luminous balls on the dark side of the moon. This in turn may indicate that aliens today visit the dark side of the moon.

Alien base on the moon, presumably NASA, however, noted that such images often lead to the formation of capricious theories and erroneous interpretations. In recent years, the number of images showing alleged bases on the moon has quadrupled. Despite the fact that all “suspicious” photographs are in the public domain, theories still claim that governments know about aliens, but they hide this important fact from the public. While most of the images are nothing more than a desire to see the imaginary instead of the real in the “muddy” images, some images arouse really serious interest. In addition to the large number of “abnormal” objects on the lunar surface, there are remarkable statements from former astronauts and government officials working on lunar projects. It was a number of scientists and astronauts that provoked great interest in conspiracy theory regarding the moon and its origin. Secrets friend, secrets. For example, Dr. Brandenburg, a participant in Clementine’s research mission in orbit of the Moon, is often quoted as saying: The mission’s purpose was to check if there were any buildings on the Moon whose origin we do not know.

Amazing moon landscape Among the abundance of images of the lunar surface, the most striking professor finds, were images with structures very similar to artificial origin. According to the scientist, there should not be artificially created structures on the Moon, for the simple reason that we did not build anything there in any of the missions. Can the words of Professor Brandenburg and truly stunning photographs provide us with a definite answer? Are there alien bases on the moon? Alas, there is no full answer in official sources. There is only assurances glowing with curiosity that the images are of course interesting, but require more careful study. Additional research is required. And here a counter question arises: were the previous missions not enough? Moreover, they knew where to “carefully study”. Meanwhile, Dr. Brandenburg additionally stated: after the Clementine mission was completed, all images of the lunar surface were analyzed by a “special team with the highest level of reliability”! “... They basically kept aloof, just did their job. They told us that we should not interfere with their work ... " Complementing the theme of an alien presence in our home system are the numerous statements by the astronaut Edgar Mitchell , who observed such a thing as UFOs during space flights. Both the Soviet and American astronauts, who have now retired, speak of signs of an alien presence. In light of this, you no longer reject the theory of aliens in the solar system so much, do you? On the moon lies a broken UFO and there are abandoned stations of aliens, - ufologists have said this more than once. And in general, something has been happening on the moon related to the activities of an alien civilization for more than a dozen years.

Station Buildings on the Moon In support of this curious idea, photo-documentary evidence is often found. It is difficult to judge how much this can serve as evidence of extraterrestrial life, but this cannot be ignored. There is such a hobby of our time - home researchers. These are virtual explorers of outer space and the planets of our system. Usually they then own the next find of traces of extraterrestrial intelligence since the flight of Apollo 15. UFO photographs. For example, a user of the global network “Whatsupinthesky37 ′ ′ and a fan of studying NASA archived photographs, unexpected even for himself, recently discovered a mysterious artifact on one of the photographs of the lunar surface . The image, delivered by the Apollo 15 mission, shows a portion of the surface of the moon. On which quite clearly, according to the author, the contours of collapsed buildings are visible. Probably, the author of the find believes, the buildings were photographed by one of the crew members when they passed over this place in the descent module. According to the author of the find, these are the ruins of bases built by aliens. Remains from the stations that once stood on the moon. Now the bases of ancient aliens have certainly lost their former appearance, but they still retain the correct outlines so as not to doubt their artificial origin and that they were built by rational creatures. - As we know from our history of evolution, this is clearly a building not of human civilization . Another find from the same time is the UFO flight detected, seen in photographs by a user of Streetcap1.

UFO flying over the moon The phenomenon is amazing in that it is difficult to confuse an object with a “cover” from the antenna or a wrapper of solar panels. More precisely, we can safely say that it is impossible to compare UFOs with anything other than an alien spacecraft.

UFO over the moon As you can see when zooming, the UFO has the contours of three clearly defined engine exhaust nozzles. Viable assumptions that it could be, have not yet appeared. UFO in orbit of the moon. At first, the object was mistaken for the remaining Endeavour in orbit. However, they quickly came to the conclusion that these are different in appearance devices. The UFO itself looks like a modular device, as if docked from several objects, so Endeavor clearly does not apply to this. What would it be for a mysterious object in the orbit of the moon remains a mystery. Meanwhile, the first who encountered the far from simple anomalous phenomena on the moon were Soviet scientists. During the lunar landing of the first automatic device on the moon, in the vicinity of it up to hundreds of kilometers in diameter, some craters were suddenly clouded by an incomprehensible foggy haze. When the gas formation after several hours dissipated, then the craters disappeared along with it! What is it, and how it could happen, scientists are still worried. The only effective answer to all the abnormal "tricks" can be expected from a thorough study of the moon - sometime this should happen.

Alien base on the moon Many thought about the question: why did the moon landing cease, why did people not try to build a lunar base? If you rely on the words of NASA astronauts who visited the moon, then there is a valid alien base. Worse, aliens explicitly told man to “leave” the moon! For half a century, people have been denied access to the Earth’s satellite, according to ufologists based on some secret documents. In fact, why hasn't anyone come to the moon for decades? Why didn’t people establish an outpost on the planet closest to Earth? This is because the Moon is not a viable celestial body to use it, or maybe because all of the above has already happened, but we do not know about it? The answer to intriguing questions may be simpler than we think. For example, Dr. Michael Salla talks about the presence of an extraterrestrial military-industrial complex on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite. There is also the possibility that the alien complex is working in tandem with humans. Maritime reconnaissance Milton Cooper reports more than just an abandoned alien station on the moon. In his view, the aliens are mining minerals on a satellite. It is there that aliens hold their huge transport ships, as well as small "flying saucers" for flying to Earth. In support of curious claims and many other secrets of the moon, the Chinese have released an intriguing photo of what looks like an artificial complex on the surface of the satellite. The image is another confirmation of secret operations conducted on the moon. This may also indicate that the Chinese government is in contact with non-citizens of the solar system. In turn, this may explain China's significant investment in moon exploration. Several photographs taken with the Chang'e-2 orbital research probe clearly show mysterious structures on the lunar surface. Some researchers claim that NASA deliberately bombarded a portion of the Moon in an attempt to destroy alien artifacts and structures (probe collapse) in order to hide the true state of affairs from other countries. China is said to be moving towards the full disclosure of the truth of an alien presence within the Earth. If the mysterious images and the future of the similar ones turn out to be genuine, then NASA may be convicted of fraud. China plans to release all the data and photographs of the moon’s orbiting scouts in the coming weeks and months, intending to illuminate all the lunar secrets.

Industrial moon installation? Countless rumors indicate the presence of an alien base located on the dark side of the moon - we never see what is happening there. But we know that in 1969 and 2009, NASA bombed part of the moon for unclear reasons. Other images coming from NASA headquarters show no less amazing structures visible on the moon, which may be of artificial nature. The giant towers visible on the far side of the moon certainly amaze our imagination. But they hit astronomers not with their gigantic size, but also because these towers seem to be moving! They move on the moon. This can be understood from the trail that the towers leave behind. Such moving objects require the creation of superintelligent minds, the researchers believe. Structures resembling buildings with interconnected paths were discovered on the opposite side of the moon. These findings suggest that the aliens not only visited the moon, but were also able to build their own city there. Many former officers who had access to the most secret documents for more than 50 years have been talking about the presence of unidentified and mysterious structures on the surface of the moon. All of this evidence is strong enough to confirm the presence of aliens on the moon. If you believe the statements from ufologists, then NASA had a warning that they would stay away from the surface of the moon. Therefore, NASA has not made any further attempts to conduct lunar missions over the past 50 years. And also, the Soviet Union, which happened simultaneously with the Americans, also refused to exploit the Moon.

Artificial moon structure What this means is that according to multiple sources, the Moon is full of industrial installations built by extraterrestrials in collaboration with humans. For more solid evidence, China has made public some images in which we can have a glimpse at those complexes. This also raised many polemics in relation to China being in touch with other races from different planets.

As you can see, there are numerous images that show the same thing, that is, fragments of a presumably extraterrestrial complex and extraterrestrial activity. But why keep this alliance between humans and aliens into a secret?

Have a look at the following video for more information and please don’t forget to share your opinions with us. Source Read the full article

#aliens #Moonbases

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continuations · 8 years ago

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Preparing for Superintelligence: Living the Values of Humanism Today

In my draft book World After Capital, I write that humans having knowledge is what makes us distinctly human and gives us great power (and hence great responsibility). I define knowledge in this context as science, philosophy, art, music, etc. that's recorded in a medium so that it can be shared across time and space. Such knowledge is at the heart of human progress, because it can be improved through the process of critical inquiry. We can fly in planes and feed seven billion people because we have knowledge.

There is an important implication of this analysis though that I have so far not pursued in the book: if and when we have true General Artificial Intelligence we will have a new set of humans on this planet. I am calling them humans on purpose, because they will have access to the same power of knowledge that we do. The question is what they will do with knowledge, which has the potential to grow much faster than knowledge has to date.

There is a great deal of fear about what a "Superintelligence" might do. The philosopher Nick Bostrom has written an entire book by that title and others including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking are currently warning that the creation of a superintelligence could have catastrophic results. I don't want to rehash all the arguments here about why a superintelligence might be difficult (impossible?) to contain and what its various failure modes might be. Instead I want to pursue a different line of inquiry: what would a future superintelligence learn about humanist values from our behavior?

In World After Capital I write that the existence and power of knowledge provides an objective basis for Humanism. Humanism in turn has key value implications, such as the importance of sustaining the process of critical inquiry through which knowledge improves over time. Another key value implication is that humans are responsible for animals, not vice versa. We have knowledge and so it is our responsibility to help say dolphins as opposed to the other way round.

To what degree are we living this value of responsibility today? We could do a lot better here. Our biggest failing with regard to animals is industrial meat production and as someone who eats meat, I am part of that problem. As with many other problems that human knowledge has created, I believe our best way forward is further innovation and I am excited about lab grown meat and meat substitutes. We have a long way to go in being responsible to other species in many other regards (e.g., pollution and outright destruction of many habitats). Doing better here is on important way we should be using the human attention that is freed up through automation.

Even more important though is how we treat other humans. This has two components: how we treat each other today and how we treat the new humans when they arrive. As for how we treat each other today, we again have a long way to go. Much of what I propose in World After Capital is aimed at freeing humans to be able to discover and pursue their personal interests. We are a long way away from that. That also means constructing the Knowledge Age in a way that allows us to overcome, rather than re-enforce, our biological differences (see my post from last week on this topic). That will be a particularly important model for new humans (superintelligences), as they will not have our biological constraints. Put differently, discrimination on the basis of biological difference would be a terrible thing for super intelligent machines to learn from us.

Finally, what about the arrival of the new humans. How will we treat them? The video of a robot being mistreated by Boston Dynamics is not a good start here. This is a difficult topic because it sounds so preposterous. Should machines have human rights? Well if the machines are humans then clearly yes. And my approach to what makes humans distinctly human would apply to artificial general intelligence. Does a general artificial intelligence have to be human in other ways as well in order to qualify? For instance, does it need to have emotions? I would argue no, because we vary widely in how we handle emotions, including conditions such as psychopathy. Since these new humans will likely share very little, if any, of our biological hardware, there is no reason to expect that their emotions should be similar to ours (or that they should have a need for emotions altogether).

This is an area in which a lot more thinking is required. We don't have a great way of discerning when we might have built a general artificial intelligence. The best known attempt here is the Turing Test for which people have proposed a number of improvements over the years. This is an incredibly important area for further work, as we charge ahead with artificial intelligence. We would not want to accidentally create, not recognize and then mistreat a large class of new humans. They and their descendants might not take kindly to that.

As we work on this new challenge, we have a long way to go in how we treat other species and other humans. Applying digital technology smartly gives us the possibility of doing so. That’s why I continue to plug away on World After Capital.

#future #superintelligence #world after capital #humanism #values

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jin-trusted · 8 years ago

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How to Give Sense to the Moment on Social Media?

Success in Business Today Requires Real-Time Actions

Explained by JIN

“Mobile and social are disrupting everything, redrawing the consumer journey in ways that force marketers to adapt and innovate in real time” - Brian Solis, analyst at Altimer Group, helping leaders thrive with disruptive technologies through research and advisory work.

WHEN MOBILE MEET SOCIAL We are doing more with our smartphones than ever. According to the annual study of Wave 9, we use our smartphone most of all to use instant messaging, watch videos, share photos and share our location. In other words, people live in the moment. And what is the best platform for us to share our experiences? Social Media. The challenge for businesses and brands is therefore to find those moments – moments that people spend with their family, moments of economic and political changes, moments at work, moments of leisure (etc.) – capitalize on them, understand the behaviors during these moments and make them actionable. This is why companies shouldn’t neglect social media activation, curation and monitoring.

In the meantime, we are noticing a shift in expectations people have regarding brands. People expect to be bothered less about the latest product news or deals. On the contrary, it is interesting to see that consumers are asking not only for support in the product or service but also for escape from their daily routine. They want to relate to the brands in much diverse ways through social media. Brands are therefore expected to play both the customer service expert and the lifestyle disruptor.

All the data generated in real time on social media is massive. In 1 hour, Facebook counts 3 million shared links, Twitter computes 21 million tweets, Instagram adds up 146 million likes and 4 million comments, and YouTube gets 167 million views. The statistics speak for themselves. Big data is at the heart of social media and builds strong insights on consumers’ emotions and needs. Hence, through social media monitoring and analytics, brands and businesses hold a multitude of opportunities at each hour of the day to capitalize on real-time events and deliver a relevant message to the right person at the right time : this is what we call real-time marketing.

REAL-TIME MARKETING

If you are working in marketing and PR, your actions should be focused on developing a business culture that encourages proactiveness and reactiveness: read potential buying signals, engage reporters to shape stories, listen and instantly engage to your customers.

We are recognizing a mutation of traditional advertising toward new practices catching people attention on daily contact points through micro moments. The key to this particular trend? To be there when consumers need your content the most, and to deliver the right information to the right audience at the right time, that is, be the finest real-time marketer! This is all a question of capturing and engaging your audience during those micro-moments, those events in consumers’ day-to-day lives that prompt them to take action: search a product, notice a want or need, buy something, and most of it all build affinity with a brand. To be moment-ready, you should understand when, where and why micro-moments occur for your consumer and how your brand fits in. Your brand should be there across the entire customer journey, so that at each stage, your relationship with the consumer grows stronger. All in all, you need to focus on one key word : “valuable”. What value does your social content provide to your followers? Does it fit with your follower’s lifestyle? Do you create true experiences? If you are considering becoming a real-time marketer, focusing on the now is crucial. Nowadays, ideas must emerge in minutes rather than days or weeks. This is why many brands have war rooms where clever content is being strategized and planned. It can sound illogical, but yes, you can plan real-time social media marketing. While you might think brands come up with incredible content on the spur of the moment a lot of planning goes into real-time marketing. Although the content is released in real-time, it is not necessarily made in real-time. You should capitalize on trending topics that your followers can relate with and research upcoming events that your fan base will be talking about. These events do not have to line up with your industry. For example, Kit Kat has nothing to do with the Super Bowl but its fans watch it. Shortly after news broke that the iPhone 6 plus could bend in your pocket the brand tweeted the following:

This type of marketing practice is called newsjacking, capitalizing on the popularity a news story to generate tons of media coverage and amplify your sales and marketing success. Every inbound marketing should be doing news jacking, tweet chats, and think conversation, not campaign. The idea is to build your brand as a relationship.

HOW TO CONVERSE WITH YOUR COMMUNITY IN REAL-TIME

Identify your potential consumers and understand your community, detect micro-moments during which your brand can deliver valuable information, build a plan, choose best channels for your positioning, be authentic and most of all create conversations with your community through live streaming, live messaging, live location sharing.

Live Streaming

Life is about moments. In fact, millennials value experience over owning things. Sharing our every moments on social media became the new living. People love to feel part of a “moment,” and live videos give them that perspective.

Live streaming can give your followers a glance into your world in real-time. Nowadays, all social media platforms are fighting to be the go-to platform for live content. Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, YouTube Live and Periscope are examples of successful social media platforms for live streaming.

The power of live streaming on social media platforms is tremendous. You can interact in real-time with thousands, nay millions, of potential or existing consumers. However, if you’re investing time in live-streaming, make sure you do it cleverly. Live-streaming is a seamless part of your content strategy. Make sure the content you are sharing live has value and is enough stimulating to be shared live. Don’t be afraid to experiment at first to understand what value you are bringing to your audience with each type of stream. As most live-streaming platforms have a chat feature, ensure as well you’re engaging with your fans.

Many businesses just take advantage of those new social media tools to follow the trends but do not understand the real value behind it. Live streaming give sense to the moment on social media. It builds an experience for your audience and convert this same audience into followers or customers.

Live Messaging

Chatbots represent a major component of staying connected with people 24/7. Brands are not managed by super-heroes who don’t need their dose of sleep or free time to feel ready for their next day. Additionally, no human being is capable of answering to all users queries instantaneously.

Chatbots are live chats built with artificial intelligence. This technology is your best friend for engaging a personalized conversation right away, catching your audience attention at a micro-moment.

Messaging is interesting because suddenly you are talking to someone who has a personality. Chatbots need to bring value to a user by delivering quick, on-the-go and personalized engagements, and not just replicate what a business already offer in other channels. We can make great use of chatbots to suggest products to consumers, to provide customer support, to spread news, evoke a brand’s positioning and much more. For example, Patron Tequila made a great use of Twitter’s new feature aiming at promoting ads designed to pull consumers into personalized experiences within direct messaging. They created a Bot Tender that help you with cocktail recommendation with the Patron Tequila.

Live Location Traditionally, messaging apps like WhatsApp allowed users to share their location so that people could meet. Facebook started to launch in 2014 “nearby friends”, allowing people to receive a notification when friends were in the same area. Last March, Facebook introduced as well Live Location in Messenger. It makes it simple for people to share where they are with their friends and family. One month ago, this was Snapchat’s turn to launch a new feature about live location. Indeed, Snap Map lets you see what is going on in a given place in real time. Snap Map is capitalizing on the moments lived by people from any places. You can instantly see what experiences are living not only your friends but also people all over the world and where it happens. The new feature could become very useful among brands looking for new ways to benefit from live updates from across the world as well as for location marketing actions. Nescafé was the first French brand to pull out Snap Map. The idea was for people to get together in a shared location and try to win a NESCAFÉ full coffee break kit to share with their entourage.

Live streaming, live messaging and live location can be described therefore as “moment marketing”. As real-time marketer, you should follow closely these 3 trends in order to capitalize on real-time events and catch the attention of your audience “in the moment” with valuable content. Remember that every great business is built on trust and trust fosters brand loyalty. We can guarantee you that tech disruptors and marketing gurus are far from over to innovate and change our habits and possibilities. Namely, AR and VR are new and exciting ways to immerse and excite audiences. Facebook clearly sees a big future in virtual reality social media. Their social virtual application, Oculus Rooms, allows users to hang out with friends in a virtual environment. In that shared space friends can draw, play games, share photos, and experience 360 video together. Conclusion? The role of live video and real-time engagement will undoubtedly rise and revolutionize the way brands interact with customers. By Laurie Hasid

#Marketing #Real-time #Moment #Live

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dulwichdiverter · 8 years ago

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Common people

The story of Peckham Rye Park and Common is a rich mix of legend, folklore and real-life events. Our writer sorts the fact from the fiction

By Baruch Solomon; Photo © Steve Keiretsu

“Who’ll buy our rye? Who’ll buy? Who’ll buy?”

The pretty girls of Peckham cry.

“The ears are full as they can hold

And heavy as a purse of gold.

Sweeter corn you will not find

For the London mills to grind.

Come buy, come buy,

Our Peckham rye!”

This almost forgotten nursery rhyme was brought to the attention of the Peckham Society by Linda G Wood in 2001.

While the poem refers to the grain, it is the Old English word “rye” – meaning watercourse – from which Peckham Rye derives its name. Rye is almost certainly a reference to the River Peck, which still flows through the park today.

The expansive and much-loved green space, which is bordered by East Dulwich, Nunhead and Peckham, is steeped in history and folklore. Legend has it that Boudicca, the Iceni warrior queen, fought her final battle on the common, but this is highly unlikely.

In fact, after destroying London, Boudicca’s army headed northwards and laid waste to St Albans. Her crushing defeat by Roman governor Suetonius at the Battle of Watling Street probably took place somewhere in the Midlands.

There is also scant evidence for Brockley Jack, a local highwayman after whom the Brockley Jack pub is supposedly named. That being said, highwaymen probably did target travellers on the common, perhaps using One Tree Hill to scope out their prey.

Peckham Rye Common has been a place for recreation since at least the 14th century, when it was mentioned in connection with sports and stag hunting. By the late 1700s, landowners across the country were fencing off areas that had been public land for hundreds of years.

This led to protests at Peckham Rye in 1766 and 1789, when a popular rhyme expressed the outrage felt by many: “The fault is great in man or woman, who steals a goose from off a common. But what can plead that man’s excuse, who steals a common from a goose?”

Around 1767, a different type of radical was taking a walk through the area. Poet William Blake, who was then about nine years old, saw an oak tree “filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars”.

A Romantic and a passionate advocate of social justice, Blake used his poetry and art to elicit humanity and inspiration amid the worst horrors of the industrial revolution. There is a mural commemorating his “vision of angels” behind the playground at Goose Green.

In 1864 trouble flared up again. Landowner Sir Edward Bowyer Smith allowed 32 horse-drawn vans onto the common filled with wild animals, including lions, tigers and possibly a rhinoceros or two.

The animals belonged to Wombwell’s Wild Beast Show, a travelling menagerie that was a household name in Victorian England and performed for Queen Victoria and her family three times.

Sir Edward’s unlikely new tenants were welcomed onto the common for a reason – he wanted to sell the land to developers. In response to his proposals, local people took their grievance to parliament in 1865.

It was rejected, but a year later the government passed the Metropolitan Commons Act, enabling Camberwell Vestry to buy the common, together with Goose Green and Nunhead Green, to be used as public space.

Peckham Rye Park was opened on May 14, 1894 and this early description by JJ Sexby is still recognisable today: “In a secluded hollow delightfully shaded with trees a lake has been made. It has an island in the centre and is fed by a small watercourse running though the grounds, which has been formed into a number of pools by artificial dams.”

Meanwhile the common had lost none of its anarchic edge. Dorothea Teayne recalled her mother’s memoirs in a letter to the Peckham Society: “One Sunday afternoon there was a pro-Boer meeting (1899 or 1900).

“There was an enormous crowd, and feeling ran so high that the mob made a rush for the speakers and threw them into the pond. I can remember clearly how terrified I was, hanging on to Dad and being unable to keep my feet on the ground, just being dragged along with the crowd.”

When Alfred Stevens of Homestall Farm died in 1907, what remained of his farm was incorporated into the park. It was used to create the bowling green and the Sexby, American and Japanese gardens.

The Japanese Garden was inspired by a major Japanese-English exhibition held at White City in 1910. The original shelter and many of the plants were gifts from the municipality of Tokyo.

Over the years, numerous attractions have come and gone. They include a bandstand, a dog’s paddling pool, a putting green and a model boat pond.

To the north of East Dulwich Road is the remains of a blue Art Deco fountain. This belonged to an open air swimming pool that once stood on the common, and plans to build a new lido are currently under discussion.

There were also three whalebone arches in the park, one of which spanned the rustic bridge near the lake. It was considered good luck to walk under the arches, possibly because they looked like wishbones. Lovers also liked to carve their initials on them, which may explain why they eventually fell to pieces.

Peacocks strutted freely about the park but a more unconventional attraction was the “rats’ dining room” near the bowling green. “The rats are most friendly,” one park keeper told the Daily Chronicle.

“They don’t care for crowds, but on a quiet day they like to see the children and the children love coming here to feed them.” He added, rather dubiously, that he’d “never seen anyone run away from a rat”.

Both common and park saw activity during World War Two. A German bomb destroyed the King’s Arms pub that overlooked the common, killing 11 people. Rebuilt after the war, it was turned into the infamous “Kings on the Rye” nightclub and is now flats.

According to bombsight.org, 78 bombs were dropped in the Peckham Rye area between October 1940 and June 1941. Underground air raid shelters were built in the northwest part of the common in 1939 with enough room for 672 people.

From 1943, Italian prisoners were housed on the common. They were not considered hostile and had considerable freedom to come and go. Only one POW hut still remains. It has been used for many years by the One O’Clock Club for mothers and toddlers but is due for demolition in early 2018.

In 1953 the Oval Garden, with its closely cropped lawn, formal flowerbeds and patriotic looking flagpole was laid out to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. No doubt a Union Jack flew from the mast in place of today’s Green Flag Award.

In the decades that followed, parks and open spaces across the country began suffering from vandalism and neglect. In 1975 a rather snooty journalist from the South London Press had this to say about the common:

“It stands like an island surrounded by the roar of the traffic, occasionally visited by ‘castaways’ like the meths drinkers and groups of jobless youngsters who bask in the summer sunshine or simply sleep it off until the next bottle.”

The year of 1987 was an especially difficult one for Peckham Rye Park and Common. The lido finally closed. During a summer heatwave, the lake was starved of oxygen and hundreds of dead fish were found floating on the surface.

Then in October, the “Great Storm” that weatherman Michael Fish famously failed to predict brought down several trees. They lay piled on the common for several months before they were finally removed.

The Friends of Peckham Rye Park came into existence in 1995. Since then – largely due to their efforts – the park has undergone a renaissance, and their pièce de résistance is the Community Wildlife Garden.

The spot includes a beehive, insect towers, meadows and a wetland area. Ablaze with colour in summer, the dogwoods in the winter garden give a sense of warmth even in the bleakest months of the year.

It’s easy to drive past the common without noticing anything special; save perhaps the daffodils that line the roadside in early spring. It’s only when you step inside the park that you experience its beauty and variety; how it responds to the seasons and alters its mood with every kind of weather.

There are plenty of unexpected surprises, like the intricately carved totem pole that overlooks East Dulwich Road. Then there’s the strange blue water that comes out of the fountain in the Sexby Garden. An unconfirmed explanation is that it’s a vegetable dye to prevent dogs getting infections.

Talking of surprises, I recently saw an online post claiming that there were remains of a chimney stack behind the Japanese Garden. I never found the chimney stack but while searching, I nearly tripped over a memorial stone dedicated to a William H Shackleton. Further investigation confirmed that Mr Shackleton was of the canine persuasion, but the inscription “Ob Ob ZENA” remains a mystery.

One of my most inspirational experiences happened early in 2009. Unusually for London, there had been a heavy snowfall the previous night. I came into the park to find lots of lovingly created snow sculptures, some of them full of detail.

Parents and children must have come out early in the freezing cold to create these works of art, knowing full well they would melt in a day or two. That for me is what places like Peckham Rye are all about. The enjoyment of nature, a bit of healthy exercise and the spontaneity of creativity for creativity’s sake.

#peckham rye #peckham #dulwich #nunhead

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ainvestops · 5 years ago

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equity mutual funds: Should you buy disruptive tech focused global equity mutual funds?

A new crop of global funds are being launched latching on to the latest buzzword in investing trends—disruptive technology. These funds invest in firms that are deploying new-age tech that can ‘disrupt’ markets or change the way businesses operate. Edelweiss US Technology Fund was launched recently. BNP Paribas Global Innovative Technology Fund is in the pipeline. Does the opportunity warrant a dedicated bet in disruptive tech?

Why is disruption a big deal? A tech-led disruption refers to a seismic shift which upturns established industries and overthrows existing market leaders. It is the outcome of an innovation that transforms a product, service or business model, often creating an entirely new market. These tend to be introduced by newer companies rather than existing market leaders. Often, a tiny company takes on a sleepy industry, completely disrupts it and creates an outsized opportunity.

Over the years, many such innovations have toppled the existing order and transformed the way we live. Everything from the way we eat, travel, communicate and consume entertainment have been disrupted.The music world is the most prominent example of how disruption can change the landscape of an entire industry. Sony’s Walkman got upended by the emergence of the Apple iPod. More recently, online video streaming service Netflix changed the way people consume movies and entertainment. Airbnb altered the hotel industry dynamics by allowing owners to rent out their homes to travellers at a low price. Tesla shook up the traditional automobile industry with next-gen technology powering its electric cars.

World over, many businesses are adopting new digital technologies like blockchain, 3D printing, Internet of Things, machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, virtual reality, cloud computing and more to change the way products and services are offered. The pace of disruption is higher than ever before. Vikas Gupta, CEO and Chief Investment Strategist, OmniScience Capital, insists digital transformation is all pervasive. “Disruption has become entrenched in recent years, with nearly all sectors witnessing it in some form,” he says. “Today the world is transforming at a rapid pace and newer businesses are disrupting the traditional business models,” asserts Ajay Garg, Senior Fund Manager, Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund.

Not surprisingly, disruption has been a constant driver of wealth creation. Shares of innovative companies have skyrocketed in recent years. Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and many other tech giants have seen stock prices soar. Many emerging tech companies like Tesla, Netflix and PayPal have captured investors’ attention.

Existing US dedicated funds have exposure to tech-driven firms

Source: Value Research. Data as on 2 March 2020

A theme already captured Clearly, the investment proposition for disruptive tech is strong. But should you participate in this space through dedicated offerings? Experts say this is akin to thematic offerings within the international funds segment. Advisers recommend international equity exposure as a diversification tool. It is also advisable for anyone expecting large-ticket dollar denominated expenses in future such as children’s higher studies abroad or a foreign trip. So if you want to participate in international markets, this is a good opportunity. But do not invest in the latest theme as a mere prop to adorn your portfolio. Says Gupta, “This theme aims to capture changes that will play out over the next 10-20 years. Investors should take positions in disruptors while also investing in traditional businesses.”

Most say investors need not separately put money in this theme. The existing basket of international equity funds already allows investors participation in such stories. Specifically, funds investing in US companies—among the biggest innovators and enablers of technologies— are well positioned to benefit from new waves of disruption. Household names like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon and others already find space in these US dedicated funds. “A more open, wider mandate may be preferred over a narrow bet like technology for foreign equity exposure,” says Ankur Maheshwari, CEO, Wealth Management, Equirus Capital. “If valuations in the tech space become exorbitant, the fund manager should be in a position to safely manoeuvre the portfolio,” he adds.

Besides, experts say it makes sense to opt for funds that have already built a track record of performance. US dedicated funds like Franklin Feeder US Opportunities, ICICI Prudential US Bluechip Equity and DSP US Flexible Equity and Kotak US Equity, among others, have an established track record of many years. PPFAS Long Term Equity is a domestic equity fund that takes upto 35% allocation to foreign equities. It currently boasts of names like Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook, apart from Suzuki and Nestle.

If you are keen on tech-focused exposure to US markets, the Motilal Oswal Nasdaq 100 ETF is a good option. This low cost offering tracks the Nasdaq Composite index that is heavily slanted towards the leading tech companies in the US. This fund will adequately capture emerging opportunities from disruptive tech at a fraction of the cost of an actively managed US fund.

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boldlykeenblizzard · 5 years ago

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equity mutual funds: Should you buy disruptive tech focused global equity mutual funds?

Existing US dedicated funds have exposure to tech-driven firms

Source: Value Research. Data as on 2 March 2020

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sciencespies · 6 years ago

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Energy Department emphasizing roles in supporting space industry

https://sciencespies.com/space/energy-department-emphasizing-roles-in-supporting-space-industry/

Energy Department emphasizing roles in supporting space industry

HOUSTON — The Department of Energy, whose interaction with the space industry has largely been in nuclear power systems, is working to broaden its role by emphasizing its overall research capabilities.

In a Nov. 21 speech at the SpaceCom Expo here, Paul Dabbar, the Undersecretary of Energy for Science, said the research labs of the department offered capabilities for the space industry that range from quantum computing networks to astronomy and planetary defense.

“I believe that humanity is at the cusp of major movements around innovation in six particular areas,” he said in his speech, with space one of those areas alongside artificial intelligence, genomics and others. “I think we are very much on the cusp of making major strides in what we can do and what we’re going to be able to learn.”

Dabbar said the Energy Department is working on about 80 projects with NASA and others in the space community. In an interview after his speech, he said he’s trying to highlight those existing partnerships as well as seek new opportunities in space for the department to be involved.

“I think the reality is, of the $18 billion or so a year of R&D spending that we have, most people don’t understand the breadth of what we currently do,” he said. “When you have 60,000 researchers running around doing things, no one knows 100% of all the different research strings that are going on.”

“Space is probably one that’s on the lower end of awareness,” he added, “which is certainly why I wanted to come here and talk a bit about this to a broader audience.”

One of those areas is in quantum networks, whose benefits include secure communications. In his speech, he discussed establishing the first “entangled quantum network” in the world with sites in Chicago and New York. That network, he suggested, could be extended to space. “We’re working on the technology to build an entangled quantum network connection to the ISS,” he said. “We have the ability to build out a quantum network that goes into space.”

In the later interview, Dabbar said extending a quantum network to space was a long-term goal of the department’s work in this area, rather than a near-term application. “There’s a lot of technology to get from here to there, but what I wanted to mention is that the possibilities we’re looking it,” he said. “It’s still some time off, but I did want to mention that this is clearly a research string that we have and it is clearly aspirational as we build out the overall technology.”

In the near term, Dabbar emphasized the department’s capabilities in areas like radiation-hardened electronics that it can make available to space companies. “We would welcome engagement with the commercial sector in that particular area, which is relatively minimal,” he said.

The department’s labs do commercial work on a cost-reimbursable basis, with about 10% of the department’s overall R&D spending paid for by companies. “If there is a private sector entity that wants to do testing, for example, for rad-hardening of microelectronics for space, they don’t need to go build a lab to do the radiation tests,” he said. “They can come to us.”

Part of the Energy Department’s outreach on space includes working with other government agencies. The department is not part of the National Space Council, but Dabbar said the department does have a “constant dialogue” with the council and agencies that are a part of it.

One example of that, he said, is concerns the effect satellite megaconstellations like Starlink will have on astronomy. The Department of Energy, which funds some astronomy research, is supporting development of an instrument for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile that will be the largest digital camera built for astronomical applications.

“One of the things we want to make certain we have awareness of is that the luminosity associated a number of the low-altitude cubesat constellations can affect the visibility of what’s up in the sky, which affects telescopes,” he said, citing as an example an image from a ground-based telescope showing streaks from a set of Starlink satellites launched earlier in November.

The department, he said, was engaged with NASA and the National Science Foundation, and the broader National Space Council, on those concerns. The goal of that effort is to ensure the broader space community “understands the impact of that, both in terms of science but also just in terms of aesthetics of seeing the night sky.”

#Space

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cibokilley · 6 years ago

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Cross-post from Pillowfort.io

So, the following Blanket Box is for worldbuilding. The world I'll be exploring with this BB is from Cosmosis, a story/graphic novel/whatever I've been developing in the past few months.

General concept: LA PLEROMA is an abstract, enclosed internal world with no borders. There is no 'outside' -- everything in this world is an interior, just an entire plane made up of building interiors. Exiting one interior just brings you into another one, and so on. These repeat-borders cannot be mapped, however, as the interior continually and gradually builds itself larger and larger based on human observation. Some say the world is a living thing, eating and growing at a glacial pace. While it is believed that the interior runs on forever, there are some who believe there is an end to all of it. However, this is countered by another school of thought that declares that La Pleroma merely loops in on itself, but no one knows exactly at what point does it begin to repeat. Other angles suggest that La Pleroma exists in a spiral, and goes on further to suggest that it's not just a spiral but a tesseract in a Fibonacci spiral, in which both time and space do repeat themselves.

Most of La Pleroma is unchecked and feral. Pockets of civilization exist here and there, and sometimes they even interact, for better or for worse. Everywhere else is a liminal space. Monsters abound, hidden and insidious.

I’m going for more conceptual than realistic. It’s been a fun thought exercise so far.

Warning: LONG ASS. So very long. Like ten pages long. Prepare thine asses, assholders. That paragraph two lines above IS the tl;dr version.

1. What was the original inspiration for your world? Why are you making it?

Echo for the PS4 (now on PC and GoG) was the initial inspiration for the world of COSMOSIS. I super loved the concept of a never-ending palace structure full of weird shit, which I then paired up with an Escheresque flair to flip this palace dimension off its predictable axes. Ideally the place is still structured with occasional recognizable patterns, and only in very messed-up sections of the COSMOSIS world is there true chao -- a teratoma-esque mishmash of elements that aren't supposed to be crashing or clipping into each other, etc.

The other huge influencer is the cybergoth-industrial world of BLAME! by Tsutomu Nihei. This is one of the first manga I really invested in from start to finish due to Nihei's use of scale to show just how huge and expansive his insular, interior world can be. That and I adored the concept of the Network superstructure just... slowly, constantly expanding itself despite the lack of humanity to give context to these lonely, unused spaces. Areas are so vast that time and space operate differently in parts of the maze, as well as weather, species, species of human, as well as technology and specific atmospheric phenomenon.

2. Does your world have any kind of 'aesthetic,' or a predominant genre (other than fantasy/sci fi/etc)?

Definitely high fantasy. No elves or DnD races, though, just humans.

For overall flavour, I want it to feel like a whimsical fantasy, not to be taken too seriously. Most events will be entertainingly cartoonish, but with some serious moments as well. I also want to maintain a sense of wonder and open exploration, to inspire readers to stay on so they can explore the world along with the characters. It feels like a post-apoc setting, but in a world where people didn’t live in. The eerie liminal spaces suggest a mysterious past, a story half-told and forgotten, where in the inhabitants are bereft of a cultural history to explain how and why they exist in a setting where 'outside' has an ominous meaning.

On the conceptual side, much of the gnosis presented here is supposed to be a bit technical in nature, almost like a proper science, but is really just a lot of comparable analogues and metaphors and borrowed terms. I wanted to create a sense of deep lore and dogma while leaving enough room for interpretation.

3. Introduce us to your continents and major cities/countries.

Oh here we go. The primary reason why I'm answering this questionnaire is to force me to come up with distinct cultures and locations for the narrative to explore. The places visited by the main narrative are as follows:

THE ROYAL PALACE

At the center of the story is a castle-like juggernaut of vertical space occupied only by the Royal Family. The Palace maintains a sense of baroque opulence, cold and sophisticated, utilized but never truly lived-in. It is believed that the ancestors of the Royal Family not only built the Palace, but created the Capital. Thus, the royal descendants are not only divine, but are gods or demi-gods themselves. This is somewhat true: Castelin, the first of the royal family, had some involvement in the creation of La Pleroma in full. The details remain a secret known only to the Royals.

THE CAPITAL

Outside of the Palace is the Capital, a series of concentric rings of humanity living in close proximity. These rings form a massive city that radiates outward from the Palace. Each level is larger than the one before it, and it is spread out so vastly that entire generations are born and die in their home rings without having ever exited the city, and not for lack of trying to get out. The Capital tends to have housing and buildings that make relative sense, but further along the outward radiation the structures begin to clip into one another, creating the bizarre hodgepodge that defines La Pleroma.

A feudal system keeps the Capital running. Not all rings are urban — some rings are dedicated to farmland and primary resource cultivation.

THE WILDERNESS

Outside of the Capital is pure wilderness. Structures make less sense, with stairways leading to nowhere and exits with no meaning. Though no one has been able to ascertain, it is believed that even the wilderness is contained within a ring-like structure as the Capital. Cartographers have tried, and died.

Greenery and foliage occur randomly where water can be found, but not all parts of the wilderness are forest. Most of the wilderness is made of stone buildings, sterile and dry. Other places do not have water, but other creatures and organisms may inhabit nonetheless. Not all living things have been documented or discovered. Plants grow where they can, structures decay under the weight of encroaching nature, and some places are subterranean, filthy and murky. Some places are completely alien, and usually super unpleasant.

The style of the terrain varies per region. Some places suggest medieval European with vaulted arches, stained glass windows, ornate outcroppings and arrow slits spiralling for miles up along massive towers, while others might look like parts of the Palace, richly trimmed, furnished, but empty. Domiciles appear transplanted or teleported straight into existing structures. Some places are utterly ruined, as though devastated by quake or ballistics or fire. Occasionally, bits and pieces of robots can be found lying about. Sometimes, humans can be found out here. Different types of human…

AEONIC GENERATORS #1-30

Still working on these. Will update when I get to it, narratively.

HISTORY

As mentioned before, La Pleroma is beset with a vague sense of history. There was a time when La Pleroma was actually coherent, a finite space serving an organized purpose, but for some reason modern civilization has forgotten how this came to be. Why would a television set occur out in the wilderness? Did someone make it and abandon it? Did it just appear one day? Why are the power grids so random? Why do some stairs climb sideways, why do some ceilings have doorways, why is the world built to the shape and size of humans? Who discovered chirality, or discovered how to harness the magical powers of the Kenoma? How do human beings even know of the Other Place?

Nobody knows. But someone is set to find out.

AND ONE MORE THING

Also, while there does appear to be some form of gravity, the endless chambers of La Pleroma are not all built along the same plane or axis. Doorways that do not open and aimless stairs may appear upside down or sideways, since the artificial nature of this world seems human-built, but gravity usually falls only one way.

4. What cool species does your world have? This can be people races, aliens, neat wildlife, monsters, whatever.

Humans exist as the dominant species, but they also share ground with animal people. They're not furries, per se, they're just humans with animal heads or animal features. The story doesn't really explore this concept too deeply, as they're merely window dressing and flavour for the setting.

Humans exist in full racial ambiguity. Like cats or dogs, human beings in this world don't segregate by race or colour, though they may separate on religion or ideals. Also, curiously -- all humans are considered and assumed bisexual until proven otherwise. For some reason cleaving to your own sex is seen as ‘developing a habit’, while being strictly hetero is considered a bit limiting albeit necessary for procreational reasons. Marriage is less about nuclear family and more about gaining resources via declared relationships. In this way, even homogeneous couples can secure formal married status with a lack of children. Adoption is common.

Wildlife varies. The usual normal animals exist, albeit it slightly altered to their weirdly unnatural surroundings -- for example, wolves that know how to use the urban jungle for hunting and ambush tactics, parkour deer, tigers that know how to use doors, creatures with urban camo, etc. Also insects, lots of flying creatures, and fish. And weird shit that is unidentifiable; vegetable, mineral? Misc?? What is that?

Monsters -- there are lots of these. Anything that is distinctly oversized, or is clearly expressing gigantism, is considered monstrous. Also, anything with more teeth than usual is also seen as monstrous. To be considered a true monster, however, is for creatures to have mystical abilities such as teleportation, illusory talents, shape-changing, anything magical or that cannot be explained by biology alone. And also, anything that can’t be easily identified is probably a monster.

Animal people are weirdly common. They are not as numerous or recognizable as humans are, but relations usually tend to be friendly. They do not interfere with human affairs, preferring to keep to themselves. But on the occasion where rival communities wage war on each other, the animal people think and behave exactly the same as humans do, so the only real discrimination among them is cosmetic at best. Usually they appear as normal humans, except with animal heads.

There are also strange instances of humans becoming animals, and animals becoming human. No one knows how or why this happens.

And then there’s the Royal Family. With a lineage that dates back to the beginning of time, members of the Imperial Royal Family are distinct in that they are semi-human. Though outwardly they appear normal, they are known sorcerers who can cast magic spells without components or incantation, and need only one voice to cast: their own. They are also said to be clairvoyant, can walk through walls, and appear in two or three places at once. Otherwise, they too behave like ordinary humans. What services they provide to the Capital include organized defense of borders, city planning, disaster relief, and actual governmental social services.

And last but not least, the kosmikoi are ghosts and phenomena that originate in the Kenoma, but are somehow able to express themselves in La Pleroma. They are highly dangerous in that anything coming into contact with the kosmikoi can and will implode, violently. Small instances tend to burn themselves out in tiny flashes when they immediately come into contact with positively-charged particles constantly present in the air space of La Pleroma, but large instances appear surrounded by a hazy fog of matter and antimatter particles cancelling each other out in the presence of air. Also, looking directly at them at close range causes madness.

5. Tell us a fable or myth from your world.

Bonus round! I’ve got not one but TWO myths to expound upon…!

THE WELL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD

There is a story about the Well at the Bottom of the World. They say it is the only place in La Pleroma that opens up on the opposite side of the world, tunnelling right through. Some say it exits straight out into the Kenoma, and that the presence of the sea is the only thing keeping La Pleroma from being sucked out like water down a drain. And some say the well does have a bottom, and if you manage to get there, your greatest wish comes true. However, the few tales that trickle down to the Capital never end well.

CREATION MYTH

The creation myth of La Pleroma is not well-known. There are spinoff legends and localized versions of the origin of the world, but here is the myth as it is known by scholars:

In the Beginning, there was Nothing. Then, Nothing contracted from itself and became Something and Nothing. This separation was called tzimtzum (borrowing heavily from Lurianic Kabbalism). The space contained within itself was called La Pleroma (innenwelt), and the negative space surrounding it was called the Kenoma (umwelt). Or: the universe was a wave before it became a particle.

Vague interpretations of this story created a unique collective memory of a time before Nothing, a previous cycle of existence that was either the same or slightly changed from the present. Whatever it was, the first cycle has definitely informed the present — as though the world suddenly begat amnesia, and is now struggling to remember who they were and why they’re here.

Application and Imago

Scholars have attempted to prove the validity of this myth mathematically (to put it lightly). The end result is a bizarre non-euclidean geometry proving the shape of the world: that there is no edge, but the interior of the model goes on forever.

The scholars theorize that the world is a Schroedinger's box: that the world is actually a cloud of possibilities that do not resolve until a sentient being observes it. They theorize that this is the reason why no one can find the edge of the world -- because it merely expands when someone is there to observe, and then contracts when no one is around. In short, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, it does not in fact make a sound. But then the problem arises that if everyone were to suddenly fall asleep simultaneously, or a sudden die-off erased all living creatures in existence, would the world end?

The philosophers have an answer for this issue. La Pleroma is actually a living thing in and of itself, and does not sleep. The world-entity remains stable because it is aware of itself -- it observes itself, therefore it exists.

6. How do magic (if you have it) and technology work in your world? What tech level are you at? How does magic influence technology, and vice versa?

The study of 'magic' is called psycho-science (borrowing heavily from Masamune Shirow's Orion), and is a property possessed by those with an advanced parietal third eye. This eye is located inside the brain, and acts as a portal to the Kenoma through which miracles may be drawn. La Pleroma is opposite to the Kenoma in concept -- if La Pleroma is mostly mass, then the Kenoma is mostly energy. This energy can be traded via the parietal third eye and then used to grant miracles, such as walking on water, healing, raising people from the dead, and assorted elemental powers. The exact mechanism that enables human flesh and the brain to activate this phenomenon is still unknown, though the concept of conscious will being the key driver in directing Kenomic energy into agency has already been proven. Practitioners of this ability are called mages, or sorcerers.

Those who do not possess a well-developed parietal third eye can still use mechanical means of channelling Kenomic power into agency, as follows:

SPELL COMPONENTS

Through the use of certain materials, such as metal, wood, stone, etc., Kenomic energy can be exchanged using the material itself. The 'exchange' occurs when matter is swapped out for energy, so all spells must rely on mostly transient components. Metal and stone take the longest to wear away from use, while wood and paper tend to be used up in one or two charges at most. Dense mediums like platinum or diamond have a near-infinite capacity for use. These materials are fashioned into convenient apparatus such as rings, jewellery, talismans, etc. Technically a good wizard or witch can use anything in their immediate surroundings, but purity of elements will result in a cleaner, smoother spell effect whereas a less homogeneous conductor may interrupt the flow. That said, the mass to energy conversion is never 1:1, as there must be some energy from the caster to initiate the exchange.

Sorcerers typically do not require components to cast, but they may do so in an effort to conserve personal stamina. In this setting, sorcerers are extremely rare.

CHANT and INCANTATION

The amperage of a channelling event is determined by the power of incantation, using voice as the unit of measure. (Eight voices is a chord, twelve voices is a chroma, etc.) The purpose of the chant is to invoke the vibration of the material to be sacrificed, to initiate the matter-energy exchange. The more voices, or embodiments of conscious will, are added to a chant, the greater the flow of Kenomic energy. One voice will have a small effect, but many voices can increase the strength, duration, and distance of effect.

The incantation, also called the chant (the term is interchangeable), must be cycled repeatedly to create a psychic/aetheric vibration that weakens the morphic field of any given physical component. This weakening allows the matter to lose its shape and convert into pure energy, which is then redirected to perform work dependent on the will of the caster. The general rule is the Law of Conservation of Energy, in which energy cannot be created or destroyed within an isolated environment. Something must be exchanged.

The preferred chants come from a set of scripture called the Heavenly Tenets, which contain different chants and hundreds of lines to be memorized. The chant used most often for spellcasting is called The Oscillatory, which is the first chant in the series and is usually studied the most. In this manner, individual casters can use custom chants for similar spells so long as the pitch is correct. Also, to prevent confusion between dialect and spell voice, the chant is usually performed in the ancient tongue. (For the use of this story, Latin.) Because of this, the Heavenly Tenets are considered holy words with the power to create miracles when uttered.

There is a theory that the specific emanation created by voicing the Oscillatory actually performs an anthropomorphic role in using components to activate. Recitation ‘reminds’ objects of their origins and coaxes them to return to their natural state, ie. pure energy, or zero-point vacuum energy potential. The psycho-scientific community cannot prove or disprove this theory as of yet.

AETHER

Aether is the transmutation of Kenomic energy into mass. Raw Kenomic energy behaves like light, which can be trapped inside photonic crystal. A secret method is then used to compress the light into a plasmatic state, resulting in a gel-like substance that evaporates when exposed to air. Small amounts of aether can be stored for use in talismans, but large amounts cause greater instability, and must be stored separately. Linking Aether jars together with electrical connections is standard procedure.

AMPLIFIERS, TALISMANS, MAGIC/ENCHANTED ITEMS

Advancements in modern magical technology have allowed users to control the chant using talismanic resonators, or amps. Artificial voices can be added to a chant to enhance its strength. The core element of an amplifier is Kenomic aether condensed into a semi-liquid called copy-gel inside an airtight vessel. Stored in this aether is a brain. Originally, only real human brains were effective. Animal brains did not react as predicted, though dog brains could occasionally be substituted. But modern science has been able to develop artificial vat-grown brains, embedded with a personality impression, for the use in amps. Echoes of a voice or many voices can be recorded into the brain, and using copy-gel as a medium, the brain acts as a surrogate for a conscious will, or ‘voice’. These brains can occasionally remember certain patterns of incantation if used repeatedly for the same cast. Also, brains with a suitable personality embedded on the psyche can perform better than brains that have been impressed by old personality code that has eroded or been duplicated too often. Personality can also affect the ‘tone’ or ‘texture’ of a cast. For example: a chaotic personality may result in an unpredictable spell effect, or a ferret’s personality will give the spell effect a whimsical, playful aesthetic. However, brains do have an expiry date, so they must be replaced every now and then.

There are mixed reactions among the casting community on the use of amplifiers. Some argue that even artificial brains that can be added as voices are actually conscious and capable of developing unique personality, and thusly, can also suffer emotional and psychic pain. While studies indicate that these vat-grown brains do not register ECG when idle, the more spiritual and empathetic argument still chooses to abstain from using amps, for fear of karmic retribution.

In this vein, extra voices can also be acquired simply by employing a choir of singers to activate seals and spells, since individual humans are the main providers of conscious will. Chants by choirs of novices were the only way to enhance rituals, back in the old days, as they say.

Amps come in different shapes and sizes depending on use. Mega-amps can convey the will of up to ten chords or more for larger, more complex rituals, while single-use amps can boost spellcasting for up to one or two voices. Amp effects stack as well, enabling modern casters (with sufficient availability and budget) to cast spells with enormous potential, utilizing hundreds of voices (also called tone clusters) provided by multiple amps connected together and plugged into an electrical generator or electric power supply.

Also, copygel is a non-Newtonian fluid.

CAUTION and CONSEQUENCES

The consequences of the misuse of Kenomic exchange, or magic, are usually fatal. Like the implosions that occurred during the formation of the universe, casters and surrounding matter can be sucked straight into the Kenoma. There is no surviving this event, as all and any physical objects passing through go through traumatic spaghettification. In short: soft squishy structure being sucked through a tiny hole. The implosion radius differs depending on the caster’s individual control.

TECHNOLOGY

In addition to aetheric tech, electricity has existed for a very long time as well. Some parts of the La Pleroma actually contain foundries and devices designed for use with electricity. Power is provided via land cable, but finding these connections is difficult, as the grids are usually embedded right in the structure itself, bricked up behind walls and trap doors, hanging from windows, etc. Random power sockets may or may not be connected to anything at all. It takes an entire guild of electricians to keep a city running, provided they can find a power supply, or if the city has ways of generating their own.

Techwise, the level is all over the place. Certain civilizations have up to a 1920’s level of sophistication while others have already harnessed nuclear fission/fusion. Some are still scraping about in the stone age. The vast distances between groups in La Pleroma are mind boggling.

7. What are the major religions of your world? How have they affected the rest of society and history? How are they organised?

CELESTIAL LAW aka the Laws of Heaven aka the Heavenly Tents

Above all things, even gods, is Celestial Law. Rather than governing the lives and behaviours of human beings, the Law focuses more on karmic cause and effect, the rule of threes, and the expectation that you reap what you sow. Also, Celestial Law includes the expectations of gods, demigods, spirits, saints, and other spectral forces. Only through ritual may these beings pass into the living world, and that only by exorcism will they be allowed back out. Celestial Law also dictates how Nature should preside, ideally keeping ice cold, fire hot, water wet, etc.

Usually people don’t want kosmikoi, lost souls or spirits, wandering around in La Pleroma, but the Kenoma does house a myriad of special forces that can be called upon to act within mortal bounds. It is expected that the soul migrates to the Kenoma as pure energy, having left its body behind on the mortal plane.

Celestial Law is not a direct analogue of Buddhist dharma, but it’s similar.

GODS

Religion in La Pleroma operates on a dualist cosmology with a single Creator god, flanked by a broad array of saints and some ancestor worship. The Creator God is assumed to be omniscient with a dark twin, a Demiurge, mirroring his/her/its existence in the Kenoma. Here, the Demiurge exists as a mindless force that governs Heaven and Earth. While even God must adhere to the laws of Heaven, he/she/it is not subservient to them; instead, God has the ability to take shortcuts, but never does he/she/it break celestial law. In this fashion, God and the Demiurge cooperate to keep Creation running. This principle has given rise to a gnostic religion called Chirality.

In La Pleroma, religion is more of a cultural product, a way of life, rather than a strict adherence to a code of virtues.

Orders and Denominations

Chiralism is organized by a brief hierarchy of novices, deacons, ministers, priests, priestesses, and a High Priest. While rural Chiralism makes due with ministers, only in the capital does this advanced hierarchy serve any purpose.

The Royal Church of Chirality is divided into two schools of thought on the shape of the world:

The Helexites believe that La Pleroma turns in a spiral in which both time and space repeat themselves, with slight differences per revolution. They posit that the world has both a beginning and an end, and that with each iteration the world advances upward towards some ascendant tier.

The Möbii believe that La Pleroma is much simpler, and that it exists in a loop. They are still working out the exact point where the world begins to repeat, as no one has found a way to head west and inevitably end up returning to the same point from the east.

Both denominations recognize that La Pleroma exists in chirality to the Kenoma, though exactly to what degree is yet unknown. (Chirality means mirror-image flipped only on one plane, ie. looking in a mirror.)

While the two denominations will disagree with each other on this detail, it must be noted that they do not war with one another — both acknowledge that potentially, both ideas are correct simultaneously according to the Laws of Heaven. These Laws are more like fundamental physical laws rather than laws in the bureaucratic sense, in which consequence is preceded by cause.

That said, there are offshoots and cults formed around extremist interpretations of dogma of both denominations, with with one side denouncing the other with lethal intent. These heretic orders can and will pit God versus Demiurge, in which the spiritual is seen as morally good, while the material life is seen as evil. Opposing factions reverse the order: God is seen as a dark, masculine oppressor, while the Demiurge is considered soft and feminine and imbued with the powers of procreation and rebirth of living things.The Church of Chirality openly rejects these splinter factions, but the abuse continues.

Worship

Chiralist worship has no liturgal ritual or need for mass gathering. Rather, the style is more eastern, in that people engage in casual ancestor worship at home or pay homage to shrines. Chiralism is Shinto-esque in that it focuses more on establishing a connection between the present and the past, and that there are rituals to be performed in order to do so. Chirality has no leader, authority, or political influence. There is only the sacred scripture called the Heavenly Tenets, aka Celestial Law.

8. Tell us about a cool geological or magical feature of your world.

Lol to be honest, La Pleroma is a cool geological AND magical feature in itself.

9. Introduce us to the major 'civilisations' or societies of your world, if you haven't already. How do they interact? What do trade routes look like? What did 'ancient' civilisations look like-- or are the current ones the first?

THE HUMAN SPECIES

Civilization exists in remote pockets throughout La Pleroma. Because of the massive distances involved, subspecies of humans have evolved differently per region. Some humans are extremely small — not short, but miniaturized. Other species of human are very large. Humans in more isolated communities that have existed for a very long time tend to develop specific sets of shared features (ie. townies who’ve been intermarrying for generations), certain resistances and vulnerabilities, etc. Other species of human have only retained the chiral symmetry and silhouette of the human body but nothing else.

Another subset of humans are the animal folk. Like humans, animal folk differ per region. Imports include: food, water, assorted primary resources, tertiary services. The Capital exports: manufactured goods, clothing, weapons, secondary services.

The heroes of the narrative set in this world are regular humans. However, they may not be considered ‘normal’ by other species of human.Some communities have been documented, but La Pleroma is otherwise a kind of wild expanse full of danger and surprises. There are vast stretches of uninhabited space, so trade between entirely different species of human is difficult.

The story starts off with just one nation of humans, who call themselves Chiralists. This group has never made contact with other human subspecies, though they trade regularly with animal people.

10. Tell us an important story in your world. This could be the planned story arc for a campaign, the story you're writing set in this world, or just the story of an underdog prince and how he changed a kingdom.

So here we go, the summary for COSMOSIS:

Prince Anton Kovec, a high-ranking member of the Royal Family, is a caster, Holy Interpreter, and edgelord who, after the Capital is attacked by a hole in the sky, sets out to repair the damage. Accompanying him is his lesbian sidekick Sister Gladys Degunais, a cheeky yet resourceful priestess and Anton’s childhood friend. Together they must find ten Grand Sacrifices (a buncha mystic macguffins) with which to repair ten of the thirty Aeonic Generators, sacred towers at the edges of the world that supposedly keep the world together.

In this adventure, Anton and Gladys come upon interesting people to add to their party, including the vigilante royal treasury accountant Brigga Irene, Officer Damien Acanthus Holley of the Royal Army, and Kuno, a frog.

The cast will encounter strange beasts and terrifying enemies on their quest to find the relics to use as Grand Sacrifices, and they will also encounter other Interpreters on the same mission.

But there's one thing Anton wants to understand: Hasn't this happened before...?

#cosmosis #writing #original #worldbuilding

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ncmagroup · 7 years ago

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Media executives reveal which technologies they plan to buy this year and why exhibiting a more audience-centric approach than recent years and an overall desire to take back control of their own destinies. By Peter Houston and Denis Wilson

Continuing our efforts to better understand how publishers are honing their technology strategies, for the second year Publishing Executive surveyed publishers about which technologies they plan to buy, the objectives behind their investments, and which technologies they expect to drive the most revenue. The results and analysis have been compiled into this report to enable publishing and media companies to see where their peers are making technology investments and how these investments relate to the business objectives publishers are prioritizing in 2018.

The starting point for publishers’ technology budgets this year appears to be based on the recognition that today more than ever, success will follow from strong, direct relationships with audiences. As a result, publishers are looking for tech tools that yield audience growth, engagement, and above all valuable insights. Marking a change from the publishing industry’s previous platform- and ad-driven mindset, publishers in 2018 are also looking most closely at technologies that will help them reduce an over-reliance on scale-based advertising revenues. What has emerged is an “audience intelligence” model that aims to provide uber-qualified leads that marketers can’t get elsewhere, directly monetize audiences through subscriptions, or a combination of the two.

This year’s technology shopping list is topped by Audience Analytics. Tools to improve Audience Engagement, SEO/SEM and Social Media performance sit together in joint-second place. Taken all together, it’s clear that finding, understanding, and retaining audience is the objective. And with Paywall & Subscriptions Management making the top ten this year — last year it wasn’t even in the top twenty — there’s a clear pivot in the industry toward user-generated revenue.

Overall, the survey results also show a wide spread of spending intentions. There doesn’t appear to be a single, fashionable technology bandwagon that publishers are jumping on and the absence of a dominant technology tells the story: Publishers are focusing their technology strategies back on their own businesses in 2018. Burned by over-reliance on the algorithmic whims of the tech giants, they are done with chasing their tails around the problems created by other people’s platforms. Now, publishers want technology that will help them deal with challenges on their home turf.

Methodology: This report is based on the 2018 Technology Plan to Purchase Survey, which was conducted in April of 2018. Executives from consumer, B2B, scientific/technical/medical (STM), and non-profit/association publishing organizations participated in the survey. This report is based on a segment of 93 respondents that work at media companies that earn $1 million or more in annual revenue.

Key Findings

Investment in “Audience Intelligence”

The primacy of audience analytics and engagement tools in purchasing plans is a clear signal that publishers are getting over the endless race for scale required to keep digital display advertising viable. It’s clear publishing and media companies desperately want to understand and nurture their key assets – their audiences – better. Better user profiling will power more effective marketing offers and more sophisticated ad targeting and lead-generation capabilities.

A Shift to User-Generated Revenue

The long-game for investments in audience development technology for many media and publishing companies is revenue directly from readers. Audience analytics, insight, and engagement tools paired with strong data management capabilities will buoy subscription sales efforts.

Recognizing Inefficiency is a Real Problem

Efficiency is clearly a big challenge that publishers hope to solve with technology. Workflow & Project Management was one of the top technologies publishers will buy in 2018. Taking this a step further, publishers actually see increased efficiency as a revenue catalyst: Tools that streamline or even automate content distribution allow editors and marketing staff to focus on creating value, opening up revenue opportunities in new formats or serving new audience segments.

Taking the Power Back

Tying together our survey respondents’ audience-centric focus, ambitions to develop reader revenues and drive for efficiency, there is a newfound passion for self-determination. Publishers burned by the Duopoly’s hold of the digital ad markets and Facebook’s fickle newsfeed policies want to get their audience back on home turf. They are ready to spend to bring readers back to their own properties and to keep them there with more tightly targeted, relevant content that they can get anywhere else.

Key Research Questions:

What are the top technologies publishers will buy in 2018?

Which technologies do publishers expect to drive revenue?

What are the priorities for publisher tech investments in 2018?

Which emerging technologies do publishers think will have the greatest impact on the industry?

Top 10 Technologies Publishers Are Shopping For in 2018

Publishers were asked to select all the technologies they plan to buy in 2018 from a list of 35 solutions. Chart 1 shows the top 10 technologies respondents will purchase this year. Each of these solutions was selected by at least 20% of all respondents.

The Audience Looms Large in 2018

Publishers are putting their audiences first when it comes to technology spending. Investment in audience-focused tech is targeted at extracting better audience insights, promoting engagement, growing traffic, and ultimately, the direct audience monetization that comes from deeper reader relationships.Audience Analytics (tools to track/manage/visualize audience insights) was rated the top technology investment for 2018, chosen by 34% of respondents. The top pick indicates spending targeted on better tracking audience behaviors and interests, managing all of the related data, and extracting insights.

In recent years, many publishers have worked hard to get their data into a single repository, but have then struggled to make this data actionable. It’s now clear publishers are eager to implement technologies that make their data more accessible and monetizable.

Publishers are hopeful that they can use the granular insights they have on their audiences as a competitive advantage against the large-scale marketing offerings of the likes of Google and Facebook. Especially in a post-GDPR world, where opted-in and known individuals will be more valuable than ever, publishers seem to have new traction and Audience Analytics tools promise to be a key weapon.

For example, predictive analytics tools that harness artificial intelligence are being employed to identify buyer intent among B2B audiences. This can, in turn, enable publishers to deliver targeted advertising and account-based marketing on behalf of clients, yielding better results and higher CPMs. Similarly, in the consumer publishing space, Hearst is using product-oriented content and analytics tools to reveal consumer intent and sell more effective and profitable ad campaigns.

Admittedly, Audience Analytics is not a discrete technology and is often built into other technologies that help extract audience insights, such as Data Management Platforms, Business Intelligence, and Content Analytics. Case in point: while not in the top 10 as a standalone category, customer data platforms (CDP) have risen in the buying ranks and become a popular solution for publishers to better track cross-platform user behavior and identify, nurture, and monetize valuable audience segments.

Greater intelligence on readers can also be used to optimize the creation and distribution of content. Better audience understanding is especially useful for offering highly-relevant — and in some cases personalized — content to readers. This creates a better user experience for the audience and the greater engagement that publishers covet.

Speaking of which, right behind Audience Analytics comes technology that supports increased Audience Engagement. These are solutions that keep visitors on the page longer – such as, commenting, polls, quizzes, and social widgets – and are being prioritized by 28% of respondents. While individually these types of engagement tools might only have an incremental impact, orchestrated together they can help to create a more “sticky” experience on publishers’ sites. With the objective in mind to attract and hold audiences on their owned properties, publishers might up their experimentation with engagement tools.

Social vs. SEO

Despite the ups and many downs social platforms have dealt publishers in recent history, spending on tools that support social media activities has not gone away by any means. Investment in technology to optimize social performance was tied at second place with Audience Engagement and SEO/SEM spending, all chosen by 28% of publishers surveyed.What has really changed is a shift to seeing social media, not as a way to support revenue generation effort on third-party platforms, but to build an audience. Publishers are finally catching up to the idea that Facebook is not a publishing channel… it’s an audience development tool. And with SEO/SEM rising in the rankings, a broad audience development strategy is emerging, mixing social and search to improve content discovery and engagement. “We are driving social media campaigns to increase SEO ratings, engage new prospects, and reinforce our brand to existing customer base,” explained one survey respondent.

Although search optimization has never been off the table for publishers, it has been playing second fiddle to social media. Google’s jump back to the top traffic referrer spot at the end of last year has focused a lot of minds on the need to re-energize their SEO/SEM tech toolkit. And increased spending in support of the quest for more search traffic is further evidence that publishers are no longer willing to rely on traffic from the major social networks.

Focusing on Owned Properties & Subscriber Revenue

In addition to tools that support audience insights, engagement and growth, publishers are also looking for ways to get a better grasp of their own properties and directly monetize the audiences they attract.Content Analytics tools, such as Chartbeat, Google Analytics, and Parse.ly, once again made a strong showing, (chosen by 24% of publishers), indicating an emphasis on monitoring and improving content performance. Content Management Systems featured in the top 10 for the second year in a row, speaking to the need to optimize onsite experience as well as content distribution. And Email Marketing, a key strategic plank in the drive to bring audiences home, was tied as the third most popular technology publisher will buy in 2018 (down only slightly from the #2 spot in 2018). Open-ended comments highlight the importance email plays in reducing dependence on social media. “Email is the one area we can really own…we don’t have to be dependent on the ever-fickle Facebook and Google…there is more long-term growth potential with email.”

Perhaps even more noteworthy are a few of the newcomers to the top 10. Paywalls & Subscriptions was the fifth most popular technology (tied with CMS) while surprisingly the unglamorous Workflow & Project Management category tied for third. (More on Workflow & Project Management in the next section.)

Paywall and Subscription solutions, in particular, represent publishers’ move to purchase technology solutions that drive revenue directly from their knowledge about and relationship with readers. This chimes clearly with ever louder calls to reduce the reliance on ad-funded models and develop a greater focus on subscription income. Investments in paywall tech are an acknowledgment that publishers will continue to struggle with reader revenue until they limit access on a premium or metered content basis.

Paywall software is also increasingly associated with audience data solutions as publishers look to develop “smartwall” capabilities that use machine learning and behavioral data to create offers dynamically based on the individual. Integration with audience databases is also a key feature of subscription sales and although they are outside the top 10, customer-focused data solutions CRM, CDP and DMP all make it into the top half of the technology-to-buy list.

Top Tech Publishers Expect to Drive Revenue in 2018

Survey respondents were able to choose 3 of 5 possible responses.

Publishers Focusing on their Own Houses

To gain deeper insight into the technology publishers anticipate will actually be the most impactful in the coming year, we asked publishers to identify the single technology purchase they expect to generate the greatest revenue growth. Our first key finding from this question showed that there really isn’t a single killer revenue driving technology for publishers—the top response getter received only 9% of the vote. The top four technologies are shown above and a couple conclusions can be drawn.The failure of one technology to take a clear lead in the revenue stakes could indicate a reaction against past technology-driven fads. It could be an indication that investments made to chase income from distributing content on third-party platforms or support the pivot to video have delivered less than impressive returns.

Instead, this year, publishers appear to be looking more closely at their own businesses and targeting their technology spend at solutions that meet specific operational or audience needs. The level of detail in some of our survey comments supports this view. One publisher justifies spend on SEO technology with a highly specific objective: “Unlike our flagship website, we will be trying to acquire intent-driven, long-tail searches instead of branded ones, and that will be a big change requiring different technology and monitoring.”

Efficiency is the New Black

Though the responses to the revenue-driving question were widely distributed, there was one especially noteworthy and surprising showing: Workflow & Project Management solutions rose to the top of the revenue list with 9% of respondents selecting it. The fact that publishers see workflow solutions as providing the biggest opportunity for revenue growth indicates that operational inefficiency is viewed as one of the biggest blockers to income generation. Coupled with the fact that Workflow & Project Management technology came out of nowhere to make a number 3 appearance on the overall top technologies list (Chart 1), and we think publishers are sending an important signal.This push for efficiency is likely in response to the explosion of platforms publishers are expected to distribute content to and the multitude of product lines they’ve launched in recent years. While many publishers have diversified their revenue lines, process and infrastructure haven’t always followed suit.

The link between efficiency and revenue is summed up beautifully in a comment from one respondent. “We need to enhance our options to improve revenue.”

Survey comments point to a desire for the better workflow to “reduce associated staff time” and support broader efforts to optimize content creation and curation. “Our current system is preventing us from producing enough accurate and quality content,” said one respondent. Disparate systems – 10 in one case – are hampering efforts to streamline processes and, in some instances, digital activity is outgrowing existing solutions.

A publisher using Dropbox to store assets for more than five years now intends to invest in a solution to speed up content management with custom searches. “Our library has gotten too large to do a reasonable search for assets…”

Technology that makes collaboration and content creation in multiple formats easier was also highlighted. One respondent is looking for software that will provide “good editorial tracking and versioning… ease file sharing and commenting.”

Meanwhile, solutions that support new product lines, such as events, podcasts, video, account-based marketing, and more, could be on the docket as well as publishers seek to fortify their organizations.

What Publishers Hope to Achieve with Technology in 2018

Survey respondents were able to choose 3 of 5 possible responses.

Mining for Data

When asked what motivates their technology investments, publishers drove home the point that they’re clearly focused on wringing more value out of their data assets. Indicating the business objectives they hope to achieve through buying new tech, “making audience data more actionable and monetizable” was the number one pick, prioritized by 47% of survey respondents. This is in line with the dominance of audience analytics in spending plans, indicating that technology strategy and business strategy are well aligned.The desire to attract a new audience through search and social that was apparent in spending plans was also mirrored in business objectives, with “increasing website traffic” selected as the second highest priority (chosen by 45% of respondents).

Comments from survey respondents underline the importance of upping audience intelligence. “Our readers’ behaviors onsite are invaluable to our advertisers if we are producing the right content. We are looking for technology partners to help us leverage that to grow our audience and our revenue.”

The ability to efficiently collect, share, and activate audience data has a direct line to revenue in the eyes of publishers. As another survey respondent put it: “It’s not about just growth anymore. It’s about further monetizing the existing subscriber base and audience we have.”

Making data more actionable also means breaking audience insights loose of the data crunching part of the organization and putting it in the hands of the masses. As one survey respondent indicated, “democratization of data” will lead to “faster, better decisions across the business.” Publishers often lament the struggle to implement a data-driven culture but should be mindful that getting non-data experts to look at and act on data often requires support in the form of user-friendly analytics dashboards, training, and working groups.

Which Emerging Tech Will Change Publishing?

Artificial Intelligence, IoT, and Voice Pique Publishers’ Interests

Taking a step back from the demands of 2018, we asked publishers which emerging technology they expect to have the greatest impact on the publishing industry in the next 3 to 5 years. Respondents ranked each emerging technology, from Voice Assistants to Virtual Reality, with 5 being the greatest impact and 1 being no impact on the publishing industry.The weighted average for each of the eight emerging techs identified was in a fairly narrow band between 2.5 and 3.6. While none earned the “game-changing” designation, Artificial Intelligence (for the purposes of content generation as opposed to content recommendations or predictive analytics for example) was signaled as the most potentially impactful emerging tech. With a weighted average of 3.6, publishers expect AI-driven content generation to have a significant impact on the industry.

With publishers feeling the pressure to create more content with limited resources, delegating some of the nuts-and-bolts content creation to bots would be a welcome relief. Some first movers such as Reuters, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press have begun to experiment in this space, but time will tell how effective and accessible this capability will be for media and publishing companies at large.

The Internet of Things also ranked high in terms of impact on the media business, which itself will be reliant on AI capabilities to support the next explosion of platforms content will populate. Some publishers have started to test the IoT waters, from lifestyle wearables to industrial devices.

Voice Assistants also ranked well, unsurprising given the surge in sales for home assistants by tech giants Amazon, Google and Apple. Publishers have ventured into this new format, but most are likely waiting to see clear business cases before plucking down for supporting technologies and resources.

Taken together, AI, IoT, and voice assistants are a triumvirate of technologies that represent a greater interaction between computers and humans. While this space may not be an immediate revenue driver, publishers should look to experiment early.

Meanwhile, “Cool tech” such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Chatbots, and Blockchain were all recognized as having some potential to impact the industry but it remains unclear how they will be applied profitably. For example, most VR efforts have been sponsored by the VR headset manufacturers themselves.

Go to our website: www.ncmalliance.com

The Top Technologies Publishers Will Buy in 2018 Media executives reveal which technologies they plan to buy this year and why exhibiting a more audience-centric approach than recent years and an overall desire to take back control of their own destinies.

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thegloober · 7 years ago

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