#Best technology tools for Competency

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and TOMORROW in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren't hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They're the SEO equivalent of script kiddies, and they're running circles around Google:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Google insists that this isn't true, and if it is true, it's not their fault because the bad guys out there are so numerous, dedicated and inventive that Google can't help but be overwhelmed by them:

https://searchengineland.com/is-google-search-getting-worse-389658

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-27/google-paid-26-3-billion-to-be-default-search-engine-in-2021

Google, we were told, had achieved such intense scale that the normal laws of commercial and technological physics no longer applied. Take security: it's an iron law that "there is no security in obscurity." A system that is only secure when its adversaries don't understand how it works is not a secure system. As Bruce Schneier says, "anyone can design a security system that they themselves can't break. That doesn't mean it works – just that it works for people stupider than them."

And yet, Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

A viral post by Housefresh – who review air purifiers – describes how Google's algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

You've doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for "Best ______ 2024" and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should "discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research," sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers "peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look."

But these grandiose claims – like the 67 air purifiers supposedly tested in Better Homes and Gardens's Des Moines lab – result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.

Most damning of all is how the Better Homes and Gardens top air purifiers perform in comparison to the – extensively documented – tests performed by Housefresh: "plagued by high-priced and underperforming units, Amazon bestsellers with dubious origins (that also underperform), and even subpar devices from companies that market their products with phrases like ‘the Tesla of air purifiers.’"

One of the top ranked items on BH&G comes from Molekule, a company that filed for bankruptcy after being sued for false advertising. The model BH&G chose was ranked "the worst air purifier tested" by Wirecutter and "not living up to the hype" by Consumer Reports. Either BH&G's rigorous testing process is a fiction that they infused their site with in response to a Google policy change, or BH&G absolutely sucks at rigorous testing.

BH&G's competitors commit the same sins – literally, the exact same sins. Real Simple's reviews list the same photographer and the photos seem to have been taken in the same place. They also list the same person as their "expert." Real Simple has the same corporate parent as BH&G: Dotdash Meredith. As Housefresh shows, there's a lot of Dotdash Meredith review photos that seem to have been taken in the same place, by the same person.

But the competitors of these magazines are no better. Buzzfeed lists 22 air purifiers, including that crapgadget from Molekule. Their "methodology" is to include screenshots of Amazon reviews.

A lot of the top ranked sites for air purifiers are once-great magazines that have been bought and enshittified by private equity giants, like Popular Science, which began as a magazine in 1872 and became a shambling zombie in 2023, after its PE owners North Equity LLC decided its googlejuice was worth more than its integrity and turned it into a metastatic chumbox of shitty affiliate-link SEO-bait. As Housefresh points out, the marketing team that runs PopSci makes a lot of hay out of the 150 years of trust that went into the magazine, but the actual reviews are thin anaecdotes, unbacked by even the pretense of empiricism (oh, and they loooove Molekule).

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal.

Companies like CNET used to do real, rigorous product reviews. As Housefresh points out, CNET once bought an entire smart home and used it to test products. Then Red Ventures bought CNET and bet that they could sell the house, switch to vibes-based reviewing, and that Google wouldn't even notice. They were right.

https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/welcome-to-the-cnet-smart-home/

Google downranks sites that spend money and time on reviews like Housefresh and GearLab, and crams botshittened content mills like BH&G into our eyeballs instead.

In 1558, Thomas Gresham coined (ahem) Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good." When counterfeit money circulates in the economy, anyone who gets a dodgy coin spends it as quickly as they can, because the longer you hold it, the greater the likelihood that someone will detect the fraud and the coin will become worthless. Run this system long enough and all the money in circulation is funny money.

An internet run by Google has its own Gresham's Law: bad sites drive out good. It's not just that BH&G can "test" products at a fraction of the cost of Housefresh – through the simple expedient of doing inadequate tests or no tests at all – so they can put a lot more content up that Housefresh. But that alone wouldn't let them drive Housefresh off the front page of Google's search results. For that, BH&G has to mobilize some of their savings from the no test/bad test lab to do real rigorous science: science in defeating Google's security-through-obscurity system, which lets them command the front page despite publishing worse-than-useless nonsense.

Google has lost the spam wars. In response to the plague of botshit clogging Google search results, the company has invested in…making more botshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Last year, Google did a $70b stock buyback. They also laid off 12,000 staffers (whose salaries could have been funded for 27 years by that stock buyback). They just laid off thousands more employees.

That wasn't the deal. The deal was that Google would get a monopoly, and they would spend their monopoly rents to be so good that you could just click "I'm feeling lucky" and be teleported to the very best response to your query. A company that can't figure out the difference between a scam like Better Homes and Gardens and a rigorous review site like Housefresh should be pouring every spare dime it brings in into fixing this problem. Not buying default search status on every platform so that we never try another search engine: they should be fixing their shit.

When Google admits that it's losing the war to these kack-handed spam-farmers, that's frustrating. When they light $26b/year on fire making sure you don't ever get to try anything else, that's very frustrating. When they vaporize seventy billion dollars on financial engineering and shoot one in ten engineers, that's outrageous.

Google's scale has transcended the laws of business physics: they can sell an ever-degrading product and command an ever-greater share of our economy, even as their incompetence dooms any decent, honest venture to obscurity while providing fertile ground – and endless temptation – for scammers.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

[tanadrin]

Do you think it's possible there's a planet with multiple stable sentient species who interact? Or would such a situation inevitably end up with one getting wiped out or the two hybridizing

Well, they could only hybridize if they were closely related, like humans and Neanderthals. And IIRC there's some evidence that humans and Neanderthals/Denisovans probably weren't all that interfertile to begin with, with most coding Neanderthal alleles getting weeded out of our genome.

I think it would be very difficult for two sentient species that shared overlapping niches to survive. H. sapiens and Neanderthals were both smart, seem to have both had language and culture, and had similar levels of technological sophistication, but the latter had a much lower population and so couldn't really compete when their cousins invaded their territory. And maybe some of this is a function of the wider human clade's tendency to engage in warfare and ecologically disruptive hunting--there's a big wave of megafauna extinction that seems to have followed the expansion of human populations all over the globe--but I'm not sure how many species of big-brained tool-users any niche could support.

But I do think that species with very different niches could coexist peacefully, at least long enough to work out that species in other niches were sentient, and to develop the ethical frameworks necessary for coexistence. If there were superintelligent squid, they wouldn't ever compete directly with humans for habitat (though we might have eaten a fair few by accident). We have also managed (just!) not to render extinct cetaceans, which are fairly intelligent, or our close cousins the chimpanzee. I could also imagine a science fictional scenario where two intelligent species were in some kind of important symbiotic or commensalist relationship that would stabilize their coexistence.

I think the other tricky thing though would be timing. It took a long time for the genus Homo to develop intelligence. AFAICT the australopithecines were closer to chimpanzees in terms of intelligence than they were to us; H. erectus was a lot smarter, but probably didn't have language; it's not until 700,000 to 200,000 years ago you get human species that are more fully developed in terms of their intelligence, and that feels like a super narrow window in terms of evolution for another intelligence species to also emerge. Because once you do get intelligent tool-users who spread over most of the globe, they seem likely to me to start to modify their environment in profound ways, like we have. So if another intelligent species doesn't already exist, the circumstances in which it is likely to arise after one species comes to prominence are going to be very different--more of an uplift scenario, maybe. Like I think if we discovered a group of chimpanzees with rudimentary language tomorrow, we would do our best not to fuck with them, but we would inevitably have some kind of impact on their existence for better or worse, right?

Maybe your best bet for multiple sentient species would be to have a reason that the first species (singular or plural) that arose didn't come to dominate the entire planet--they were aquatic, and so never mastered fire; or they were otherwise highly restricted in the biomes they could inhabit; or they were small in number like the Neanderthals, but could retreat to refugia in mountains and forests rather than be wiped out; or they were a diverse clade like early humans, but they also spread out very rapidly, and were subsequently isolated by climate conditions. Like, imagine Denisovans (who were already in Asia) had crossed the Bering Strait land bridge to the Americas, and then sea levels rose cutting them off until the Age of Discovery. If you had a planet that didn't effectively have a two supercontinents like Earth, you might have many more opportunities for related-but-geographically-divided species to develop (though that doesn't avoid the problem of what happens when they meet each other and start competing then).

[dreadsuitsamus]

hi! i’m not sure if you’ve done this before but.. could i please request a vegeta x human!reader who’s heavily tattooed (legs, arms)? i have no real idea for a plot line for it but gather it’s not something he’s seen a whole lot of since coming to earth - if at all! happy for either SFW or NSFW, completely up to you if you don’t mind the idea? have a lovely day!

For Fun | Vegeta x Reader |

author's note: this idea has absolutely made my day. it just begs for a sweet little vegeta learning moment, since normally it's him explaining saiyan culture. i have chosen the sfw path here! it's also funny bc i've been contemplating tattoos lol and a vegeta tattoo has been on the brain for some time now. thank you for your request!!!! 🩷🩷🩷

pairing: vegeta x fem!reader

warnings: sfw, reader has tattoos, some nudity but no smut or anything remotely nsfw, post-namek but pre-androids and cell

You can feel Vegeta's eyes on you as you work on his suit, Bulma's lab being the only place you feel comfortable sharing space with him in— the racket of the tools at the very least would alert somebody of something nefarious happening. Your dear sister just had to have a soft heart (or rather, quite the boner) for the Saiyan, and now it's you that suffers the consequences while you patch up the blue suit with a precise needle and thread.

"I'm not going to ruin it." You snark at him, not exactly happy to be in his presence. He's a murderer! "I've fixed it for you before without an issue." Bulma's doing her best to copy whatever material this suit is made of, but she's having trouble competing with alien technology— though she'll certainly have it figured out soon. She's a petty thing on the regular, but test her intelligence with a challenge like this and she's more stubborn than acne on an asscheek.

"Mm." He never talks much, at least. But as you stretch your arm out to pull the thread taught, Vegeta moves to take your wrist in his hand. While strong and easily capable of smashing your poor bones to smithereens, his touch is on the softer side.

"What in the world are you doing?" Are aliens unaware of personal space??

Ignoring you initially, Vegeta's gloved fingers curiously glide along your forearm, eyes focused on the artwork adorning your skin. "Your tattoos make little sense. What sort of culture is this?"

"Culture?" You repeat the word dumbly, fighting the urge that lingers just under your skin, heart rate picking up as you will yourself not to shiver at his touch.

"These flowers and symbols, what do they represent? I've been on Earth long enough to know the culture here is nothing like these— furthermore, the lab rat has none at all."

The laugh that bubbles from your chest is easy. Perhaps Earth is the only planet, or one of few, with inhabitants that indulge in tattoos for pleasure rather than cultural representation. "They aren't part of any culture, Vegeta."

"Then what are they?" His brow furrows rather adorably, his lips pulling into a pout as you laugh at his ignorance.

"For fun."

"You marked yourself permanently for fun?"

"Sure did. I got tons of 'em. Some of 'em mean somethin', but for the most part they just bring me joy."

Vegeta releases you finally, shaking his head in a way that reminds you of your father when you first started inking up. "Silly Earth woman…"

"Oh come on. Tell me they aren't pretty." You smirk softly, eyes glittering with the twinkles of mischief. This is a new light on Vegeta, one that perhaps drew Bulma's generosity his way in the first place.

"Tch." A blush rises to his cheeks and he looks away, staring a hole into the wall. "They're not ugly."

A not-so-pretty snort escapes you as you resume patching the suit up, tying and clipping off the end of the thread after the hole is closed up. "I got my first tattoo when I was seventeen. I was young and dumb and in love with a guy I thought I would be with forever." You murmur softly, pulling up the leg of your sweatpants to show off the heart by your ankle. It's old and faded by now, but your lips still pull into a smile at it.

Vegeta takes the moment to examine it, brushing a curious knuckle over the tattoo. His curiosity is sweet, and this must've been on his mind for ages now— it's not like him to get handsy or remotely talkative at all. "Saiyans never took part in these."

It makes all the sense in the world; from what you've pieced together by Vegeta's quiet, rarely spoken about tales of home and with the love for fighting that gushes from both his and Goku's hearts, Saiyans aren't exactly sentimental. "Well… You're on Earth now. You could get a tattoo just for the hell of it."

"I have no need." Vegeta looks away again, and you shrug to yourself.

"They're not for everyone, I guess." You hold the repaired suit out, feeling a tad bummed out that the sight of him in a tank top and sweatpants will be gone soon, but a lilt of surprise thrums in your heart when he sets it on the table and looks at you instead.

"Do you… have more of them?"

You laugh and tug at your t-shirt, pulling it off in the face of the blushing prince and revealing several more tattoos, most of which he's never seen before. "You got time?"

"You could certainly warn a man before you start stripping." He grumbles out, forever the prude even in the face of a gorgeous woman and her body.

"So sorry." Your tease bounces off of him as his curious fingers run along the lines on your tummy, sides and just below your breast. You're bare to him almost entirely, as you've never worn a bra at home and certainly didn't intend to start just because a man moved in, though his eyes and touch are calmly curious and genuinely interested in the artwork you're laced with, rather than the perky breasts and soft skin that would have most men acting a fool by now.

It almost has you feeling ugly, though that near-permanent tint of red that dusts his cheekbones reminds you otherwise.

"Don't forget the one on my back." Your murmur is gentle, only there to invite him further into the journey without jostling his concentration too much. And he takes your advice, stepping behind you while tracing the intricate linework of the massive tattoo, pausing at the sight of the gorgeous mural on your back. You've spent quite a bit of money on this, suffered the pain of the needle piercing and permanently scarring your skin to the patterns that'll forever mark you, and the admiration Vegeta has for your commitment alone is monumental.

Even gloved, his touch warms your skin in the lab's cool conditions and that little spot on your back, the one that had you shaking and embarrassed as your tattoo artist that, bless his resilience, dealt with with more care than a fucking surgeon to properly tattoo, flutters against the accidental tickle. You shift, muffling a laugh into your palm and there's a pause before Vegeta drags his fingertips over the spot again, and then once more.

"Your laugh isn't ugly either." He mutters and steps away, the warmth of his proximity erased and goosebumps covering your body now.

Standing ten toes down and looking over your shoulder, your lips twist in gentle glee upon catching his dark eyes with your own. It's taken some time, but you've finally found what Bulma saw in Vegeta that allowed him into your shared home.

He's flustered by such intimacy and he quickly snatches his Saiyan suit up before rushing towards the door. "Put a shirt on, you vile woman, or you'll catch a cold." Vegeta grumbles out, hightailing it towards the comfort of his gravity room and far away from whatever the hell just happened.

"Must be the first time he touched a woman." You snicker, tugging your shirt on and cleaning up the mess, lest your sister properly bitch you out for it later on.

The ghost of his touch remains, and even under the duress of several times Earth's gravity, Vegeta's palms fondly remember the feeling of your skin.

[beardedmrbean]

Heidi Hafer was a stranger to appellate law when she drafted a nearly 50-page statement last May to Texas’ Fifth District Court of Appeals. Hafer — who works as a corporate attorney — was trying to challenge a ruling to take a million dollars’ worth of jewelry she says were gifts to settle her family’s debt.

To support her case, Hafer cited 31 court decisions, including: Macy’s Texas, Inc. vs. D.A. Adams & Co., a 1979 case out of a Tyler court; Stephens vs. Beard from 1958; Gaston vs. Monroe dated 1896; and a 1996 San Antonio case titled Estate of Malpass vs. Malpass.

But no one — not the appeals court in Dallas, the creditor’s lawyers nor Hafer herself — could find those four cases.

That’s because they never existed.

Now, Hafer is facing possible sanctions for allegedly using generative artificial intelligence to prepare the court filing. In a four-page report to the appeals court last month, Hafer took full responsibility for the errors.

“This is my first brief and I really didn’t know how to address it all, so I did the best I could,” Hafer testified at a hearing Thursday morning when asked why she didn’t immediately address accusations that the cases were fake.

Hafer has been a licensed practitioner in Texas since 1999 and has not been disciplined by the state bar. She is listed as chief general counsel on a website for a Dallas-based company that deals with artificial intelligence.

John Browning — a former appellate judge and chair of the State Bar of Texas’ Taskforce for Responsible AI in the Law who represented Hafer at the hearing — said Hafer has not tried to obfuscate her mistake nor “tried to blame the cat for eating her homework.”

Addressing a panel of three justices, Browning said his client has taken full responsibility. “She admits that this is an embarrassing chapter in her professional career. She has expressed the contrition that I would expect, and she has taken remedial steps to better herself as an attorney and to avoid this in the future.”

It’s unclear whether Hafer used generative AI unwittingly: She told the justices she used Google to search for common law on gifts and did not recall using any other AI-powered tool. Google has its own AI chatbot and sometimes populates AI-generated summaries of queries at the time of search results.

Outside of the courtroom, Browning told The Dallas Morning News, “artificial intelligence is all around us. … A lot of people don’t realize how pervasive AI is in our lives.”

Hafer and lawyers for the creditor, JGB Collateral, LLC, declined to comment.

On the heels of the American Bar Association’s guidance on AI, Texas’ state bar issued its own framework, cautioning lawyers to verify the accuracy of AI-generated content. At least three federal judges in North Texas require attorneys to verify that language drafted by AI will be checked for accuracy, according to an online database of judicial orders. Similar policies have been enacted in state district courts from Bexar to Wichita counties, the database shows.

“Lawyers have a duty of competence, and that includes technological competence,” said Korin Munsterman, a professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law who researches the intersection of law and technology.

Munsterman added: “It is imperative that lawyers rely on their expertise, and not blindly accept a GenAI’s output just because it came out of a computer.”

AI offers attorneys a way to streamline complicated or tedious legal tasks and perhaps cut down on billable hours, and 68% of professionals at law firms reported using generative AI at least once a week, according to a 2024 survey. The major drawback, however, is AI’s propensity to spit out wrong or misleading information. Researchers at Stanford University found that even AI tools designed to help lawyers spawned incorrect information between 17% and 34% of the time.

This isn’t the first time the technology has led lawyers astray: An attorney was accused of using AI to challenge a man’s bail in a Brazos County case. Lawyers or firms in New York and Colorado have also been reprimanded for using fake judicial decisions or cases conjured by services like ChatGPT. Michael Cohen, former fixer for President Donald Trump, mistakenly gave his lawyer AI-hallucinated cases but avoided sanctions.

Browning advocated Hafer not be further punished for what he called an “honest mistake.”

“Hafer was not attempting to mislead the court,” Browning explained. “Valid case law does exist to support the premises she was arguing — she simply cited nonexistent (cases),” he said.

It’s unknown when the justices may issue their decision.

[randomalistic]

Ok oh my god. OH MY GOD. I just saw treasure planet for the first time and It was fucking amazing. Like yeah Duh I KNOWWW i know it’s like. “underrated Disney movie bla bla it was a commercial failure” . You know the deal.

But if there is 1 thing I want to say:

I cannot emphasize enough how meaningful and touching it is to the audience when you allow your male main characters to cry, and hug, and be emotionally vulnerable without shame. That brought this film to a whole new level 🥺

its a beautiful movie that took so many creative risks and that’s so admirable. It’s so clear they had a vision and they crafted that vision with endless amounts of love :’] I DID CRY.

More rambling below

I was CONSISTENTLY delighted by how creative the characters were and incredibly entertained throughout. So fucking fun and engaging and it feels like a 2 hour movie so much happens. How is it only 1.5 hours.

I CRIED !!!!!!!!!! John Silver and Jim’s relationship was so COMPLEX like actually amazing. The father figure dynamic is so sweet and heartwarming and so heartbreaking simultaneously like I was not expecting that AMV montage in the middle like that shit cut me so deep it was outstanding. A montage about Jim’s troubled childhood with a neglectful absent father and then DIRECTLY PARALLELING THAT WITH HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH SILVER. LIKE HES FINALLY OVERCOMING THOSE FEELINGS AND LIVING HIS LIFE. GODDAMN!!! THATS SO POWERFUL!! THATS SO INCREDIBLE!!! THATS JUST IN THE MOVIE!!!!??!

Also the character/creature designs are RELENTLESS in how good they are. And they have so much fun with it. It’s so silly.

They had an old snapping turtle pirate???? hello?? He was introduced and then he died ❤️

The animation is also MIND BLOWINF like OH MY GOD!??? the seamless integration of 2D and 3D interacting is so impressive especially for 2001 like this was a technological feat for sure . Only rarely does the CG look dated (those whales at the start <\3 poor guys) BUT JOHN SILVER’S CYBORG ARM WAS FUCKING AMAZING LIKE I COUKD STARE AT THAT THING FOR HOURS .

Can’t find a gif of it but during his introduction there was a ROTATING SHOT of him cooking (❤️) while using his arm and his arm has so many tools inside it like a cyborg Swiss Army knife it’s the coolest fucking thing ever. Just Amazing

Also the fact they introduced an entirely new character 53 minutes in when the main cast has already been established was such a risk, but it so paid off. I love B.E.N. The fact he’s fully 3D animated and he’s THAT expressive. WHILE BEING A ROBOT? adorable. He’s Adorable. He’s so mentally ill and strange.

What is wrong with him. He is. dare I say. spamtonlike. pathetic and unhinged. Houses forbidden knowledge. What a Pitiful creature 🧡his glowing CRT eyes are really cute. There was a moment when the lights went out it was only his eyes and I Liked That

I love weird little robot guys in early-late 2000s movies. I need to watch Bluesky robots. I need my fix.

Morph could’ve been a really obnoxious comedic relief animal sidekick but they somehow managed to make him really cute and likable. (Also They only used him for plot points A LITTLE. Turning into anything couldve been overpowered as fuck. But alas… he is a mindless animal...) We love Morph. His relationship with silver is so fucking cute.

Kind of a Delbert centrist honestly. I liked him but also kinda dislike him. Bro kinda gives self centered misogynist scientist vibes. But he’s also silly and self conscious though guyssss.!! I thought I would like him more than I did. BUT He’s animated SO wonderfully though I love the shape of his hands and his weird goat face. Solid 7/10 weird guy. Idk why he came with Jim on the ship though❤️

Captain Amelia was fucking awesome for the first half of the movie. One of the best characters. Yeah. ……………. They fumbled her so hard. MAYBE ITS JUST ME BUT ME AND MY FRIEND WERE NOT A FAN OF HER AND DELBERT AT ALL. Disney was like. We have a competent woman character ! Competent woman has to get injured and then the incompetent man has to take care of her and then they HAVE to fall in love. It’s actually so tragic like they did NOT deserve her.

IN FACT HERE’S MY SCORCHING HOT TAKE: Delbert should’ve been the one to get injured and Amelia nurses him back to health. Delbert might apologize profusely because of his self confidence issues and cuz he internalizes things that go wrong as his fault. Amelia reassures him, realizing that she was too harsh on him earlier. Delbert becomes less intimidated by her because she opens up to him and they grow to trust one another. Amelia stays with him while Jim goes to hide. And whapow !!!! Same relationship is built up without disempowering a female character. It doesn’t even have to be romantic they can just be friends……. 🫶 cuz it comes off as weird because since the start Delbert was like “wtf the captain is a GIRL?? Wait ooh la laaa she’s pretty” and she had 0 interest in him. so like the ONLY way they could pair them together was to get her injured and have him care for her . And she falls in love with him out of nowhere. No. Being cared for does not mean you’ll fall in love with your caretaker. She’s so ace coded to me and my friend. Until SUDDENLY. Am I crazy

Ok so like yeah the forced heterosexual love interest moment. I did not want to see their FOUR (4) hybrid babies at the end. I’m losing my mind. also did Jim become a cop? I swear to fucking god LOL

The movie was SO good that disney didn’t know how to wrap it up without ruining it ❤️ WHICH IS VERY INTERESTING I think they had to compensate for all the risks they took with a safe and weird ending where the police like him now and the police are ok guys. Disney approved

Anyways watch/rewatch the movie right now. Skip the final minute <3

One of my new favorite movies goddamn!

Edit: I would’ve forgiven them if Delbert got pregnant instead

[dailyanarchistposts]

An Anarchist Ecology

We need a revolution that gets rid of the obstacles to implementing a planet-saving strategy. Many of the solutions already exist; it is a question of freeing the resources from the hands of capital and the state to implement them. The anarchist tradition has a rich history of ecological thought from Kropotkin and Reclus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to Bookchin and Morris in more recent times. In this section we discuss why a future society based on anarchist communism offers a more sustainable future.

Work. The complete overhaul of the concept of work will affect every aspect of our lives and how our society is run. Less work and lower production will decrease the demand on energy and transportation networks. With less of our time devoted to work, journeys will be less urgent and will allow the sharing of transport and the use of more sustainable mass transportation methods rather than the current individual solutions such as car ownership. See the Anarchist Federation’s pamphlet Work for more discussion on this topic.

Production. The current model of production for profit wastes vast amounts of resources, producing things we do not need and/or products that are designed for obsolescence and a short usable life, meaning we have to buy more and consume more. A shift in focus to production for societal need and products which can be repaired and maintained, will vastly lower the overall demand for resources. Alongside this, entire sectors of the economy will have no place in a future society; everything from advertising to the military industrial complex can be removed, freeing up resources to develop our transport and energy systems for the benefit of the people. Without speculation causing fluctuations in food and housing prices, products will reflect only their value in resources and their environmental impact, not the profits of capitalists.

Intellectual property. By abolishing intellectual property, laws, and the private ownership of the means of production, the best and most sustainable technologies will be adopted worldwide, skipping the carbon-intensive development model MEDCs have already been through. It will also encourage the best combination of components and technologies that were previously proprietary and owned by competing corporations.

Sharing economy. This term has been hijacked by tech start-ups and has come to mean the monetisation of things like ‘homestays’. However, true communal ownership of tools and the building of shared resource facilities as an integral part of housing planning would allow communities to repair and maintain their homes without the need for each individual to own a lawn-mower or a power drill. Proper sharing of the means of transport like electric cars or bikes will mean lower demand for production and flexibility for individuals, as well as an effective mass transportation system. In short, people would not own as many assets individually but would reorganise life according to need i.e. communism.

Food. There have been a number of academic studies which have shown that we are able to feed a growing population without resorting to either intensive pesticide and herbicide use or deforestation (see Nature Communications: Bibliography). This task becomes even easier if there is a shift to more plant-based diets that require less land, energy and water inputs. Ultimately, food production is linked to land ownership and as long as this is in the hands of a few corporations the most profitable, and often least healthy, products will be pushed onto the consumer. Capitalism is so efficient that half of all food that is farmed is wasted. We imagine a world where land is held in common, and food production is localised as much as possible and focussed on providing abundant, healthy food with as minimal an impact on the environment as possible.

[mariacallous]

A federal judge ruled today that Google is a monopolist in some parts of the online advertising market, marking the second case in a year where the company was found to have violated US antitrust law. Last August, a federal judge ruled that Google was maintaining an illegal monopoly in search.

Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia determined that Google illegally monopolized parts of its advertising technology business to dominate the programmatic ad market, a major source of revenue for the company. Google generated nearly $30.4 billion in worldwide revenue last year from placing ads on other apps and websites. Now, a substantial portion of those sales are threatened by penalties that may follow Brinkema’s ruling. A best-case scenario for US consumers is a browsing experience filled with fewer ads and paywalls and more content choices.

“In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, [Google’s] exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” Brinkema wrote.

Google was found to have violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, the cornerstone antitrust law in the US, “by willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the open-web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market, and has unlawfully tied its publisher ad server (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX).” In other words, the way that Google tied parts of its ad tech together was deemed unlawful.

Online ads end up in front of consumers after passing through a chain of systems linking publishers to advertisers. Google has long been viewed as a dominant provider of tools at nearly every step in this process, which critics argue enables the company to give preferential treatment to its own systems and box out competitors. Some of Google’s offerings came through acquisitions, like the purchase of DoubleClick in 2007.

But Brinkema rejected the Justice Department’s allegation that Google illegally monopolized the market for some tools used by advertisers to buy ads, claiming the government’s definition of the market was too narrow and ill-defined. As a result, Google was not determined to be a monopolist as it relates to ad-buying tools, but it was deemed to be one in the market for publisher tools to sell advertising space.

The company is leaning into the fact that not all of the plaintiff’s claims stand up in court. Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, put out a statement on X stating that Google won “half the case” and that the company plans to appeal the other half.

“The Court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition. We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective,” Mulholland said.

The ad tech suit was first filed in January 2023 by the Department of Justice and eight states, which alleged that Google had illegally squashed competition in the advertising market by acting as a powerful middleman in the ad business and taking a large cut of advertising revenue in the process. Google has argued that there’s plenty of competition in the online advertising market. The case went to trial last September, and closing arguments were delivered in November.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. Jonathan Kanter, an attorney who oversaw the trial while at the department, wrote on X that Thursday’s ruling “is a huge victory for antitrust enforcement, the media industry, and the free and open internet.”

Last August, a district judge for the District of Columbia, Amit Mehta, ruled that Google has maintained an illegal monopoly both in general search and general search text ads. The Justice Department has proposed that Google should be ordered to “promptly and fully divest” its Chrome web browser, and also stop paying partners, such as Apple, for preferential treatment on its iPhones. Google is fighting the proposals, and a trial for Mehta to reach a final remedy is scheduled to begin on Monday.

Brinkema has asked Google and the Justice Department to now propose a schedule for determining remedies in the ad tech case. The company could be ordered to sell off its ad tools for publishers as a result of this process.

[dancerinthestorm]

For the “questions it would be fun to be asked” game: 12, 24 and 32 (if you don’t mind those!) ♥️

Thank you so much for asking, @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras! It took me a while to complete this because one of question was ridiculously tough for me 😄

12 - What’s some good advice you want to share?

Since I can never not think in terms of music I am sourly tempted to go for: "Always wear sun screen". That song/essay really covers it all in the best way possible:

But perhaps also: You are one of 8.2 billion people on this amazing planet. Don't take yourself too seriously and be kind. To yourself. To others.

24 - What’s one thing you’re proud of yourself for?

I guess it really says a lot about me that this question threw me in a complete loop for 3 days 😅 Not because I am terribly bad at stuff or completely boring. But compared to the truly amazing stuff some people do it’s just more little things... like completing hikes I really wasn't ready for, leaving home to start somewhere new every now and then, making my sister devour one of my favorite eggplant dishes (you have to know my sister to appreciate how truly amazing that is ^_^), being kind and supportive to people who objectively deserved to be shouted out of the room... rather than one big achievement.

But well, let's go with this: You know I work with a lot of STEM nerds. Which I love. Truly. But sometimes they don't really get how things they can do in their sleep are more challening to a humanities graduate like me. So I am quite proud that I managed to teach myself a few weird software solutions they LOVE but I absolutely DETEST. Few things frustrate me as much as technology not doing my bidding immediately. So I guess, in a way, it is quite an achievement that I persevered and am now at least halfway competent in LaTeX and a few other tools no one needs or has even heard of outside of academia ^_^

32 - How many tabs do you have open right now?

On my laptop: only this one. On my phone: 19 AO3 tabs with stories I'd love to continue/start reading, 2 news websites, and 1 page listing music gigs and other stuff happening in town tonight and 1 decribing a short hike I hope to do tomorrow.

Questions taken from this ask game in case anyone wants to join in! 😄

[hregos]

Intro: The Project

In creating this weird ecopunk ttrpg, the goals are: Setting & Gameplay.

GAMEPLAY: This will likely take a lot different iterations. But there are several goals I must keep in mind when creating the type of game that I would most like to play.

Light. Rules and text. If possible, to fit onto a single page, or a zine at the most.

MOST ideally: Should be playable on the go, in a car, at a campfire, or with any set of tools, even just a coin or rock paper scissors. Or not even that, perhaps. This would require a mechanics not necessarily bound to numeric dice results, but to qualitative differentiations of binary "successes".

Enjoyable character creation, worldbuilding through meaningful choices made about one's own characters (the way most players are likely to engage with the world)

Easy to jump into. Any opt-in complexity should come AFTER. Perhaps even "preset" Origins/Paths, ala Elden Ring, but with subchoices ("pick 2 out of 4", etc) of abilities or items within that. But this should just be starting, not a set class for the game. Most should thus have more physical and more "magical" options on the table for different playstyles.

The stats/skills/choices/powers should build a specific world of engagement with the setting, not generic rpg. ("Rust, Bone, Spirit, Storm" etc.)

+ Possible that abilities are gained like items, through learning skills/empowerments from others.

But NOTE: Too much interpretation/openness of skills/ can be much more troublesome in play than a fixed set of skills that each open situation can work with, even more than a "list of powers" approach that players may "play their sheets" rather than character/world. So neither full openness or full "list of powers". A set list of attributes/skills may be best foundation.

Must be conducive to multiple/alternating gm shared settings, episodic, campaigns, "west marches", etc.

+ Perhaps have gmless cooperative game mode as well, or primarily.

+ Communal advancement? As well as or primary to individual advancement.

+ Lineages & Legacies are always fun, players can thus shape the world over time as well as create new possibilities for new players to connect with the longer game precedents.

+ Alignment as both mechanical element, meta-faction, and "directionality" towards competing futures.

ETC. There are many other important things throughout my notes, to expand upon later.

A METASETTING:

The metasetting must be usable both for the specific game, but also for use with any/most other games and setting. System agnostic, but also, to some extent, setting agnostic. It is a palette and toolbox for a type of world, for GMs and players to imagine places with. It should be compatible as well, with other concrete settings, so to bring elements into other ways. (Example, using our places to build scifi or fantasy setting locations, or wargaming factions, for other games).

+Compatibility & Bringing a specific vision are sometimes hard to juggle, but I think the key is to build a rich past, while the present may look like anything.

+Soft worldbuilding. The past should be rich and deep, with a specific experiential vision, but not laid out explicitly as in hard worldbuilding, with a long history. The history must be implied through layers of things that can be interacted with in the present. Ruins, artefacts, architecture, ambience.

+ This also must allow a wide variety of not always consistent perspectives on that history. GMs and players must be able to imagine new histories and events with the palette to fold into the shared world.

+Use small to imply big. Inspire and spark, don't list out. Often, lists of examples prevent people from imagining outside of them. So giving a scaffolding of inspiration that demands further imagining, allows for each perspective to expand the world rather than shrink it.

+ ENTROPOCENE. Real tensions, embedded in Anthropology + Ecology + Politics + Technology + Religion, from my own background and work. (Tensions between different lifeways, ideologies, civilization, extraction, authority, empire, collapse, revolution, etc.) Naming these tensions and problems explicitly - but without contemporarily labelling them, to do away with the pseudo-knowledge and preconceptions that people may bring to the table. Most importantly, this is a game & setting meant to engage and imagine with the very real problems of the entropocene, while providing a playground for weird mythic science fantasy.

+LORE & MYTH: Within the essentials of the metasetting, must include the chance to create mythos. Ages of gods, titans, and heroes, esoteric and jungian and shamanic symbolism woven into the fabric of the world. I wish to bring the esoteric tradition back to its prehistoric animist roots. Important too that the mythbuilding is *soft*, not "hard", allowing for implication and different stories to be told from different perspective, for collaborative imagining, rather than laying out a concrete history and world. Think most of all real life animism, polytheism, and mysticism, as well as the fictional weird mythic histories of The Elder Scrolls, Elden Ring/Soulsborne, Runequest/Glorantha, Conan/Hyborea, Hellboy, Lovecraft, and my first beloved fantasy world, Earthsea.

+With that, taking Animism seriously. Nature and mythos intertwined, both in a mythic way (stories told) and perhaps in a weird way (actual supernatural phenomena). If I make it purely mythic, can fit into a pure sci-fi setting without issue, left ambiguous, or unexplained. Psychedelic and trippy.

+Alternatively: Actually taking place in a weird astral psychedelic spirit world, making the "powers that be" have reality and myth intertwined in a real way. Not bound to "science fiction" then. A likely compromise between the two is taking the mythic worldview seriously, but not making the supernatural explicit. But this is one thing I am still not 100% certain of.

+A MICROSETTING: A specific place, a cluster of places, using the palette of that metasetting, that might be played on its own or as a modular adventure space in almost any rpg setting. Most likely in the format of a weird megadungeon zone-crawl below a small city (With that ecopunk vibe. Fallout, Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk, plus real "write what you know" inspiration, all atop the mythic underworld), on the creative side allowing a deep exploration of a fictional culture and history, and a flexible playground for adventure and story. Each zone, level, or neighborhood, perhaps left vague enough to change in each iteration, with consistent key points and contents noted. Because it is system agnostic, any adventures should be built where there are always possible "no-roll solutions" to navigating the world. (Or at least paths not tied to specific game mechanics.) Not too unlike a choose your own adventure gamebook, or that Maze puzzle book, or countless atmospheric exploration games, like Sable, Journey, etc.

+A TOYBOX: Worldbuilding through FACTIONS. This has been commented upon as an element of Akira Toriyama's works, but I also see it in Ridley Scott's universe, and strikingly, in most wargames, including Warhammer. Looking through this lens, you could probably see it everywhere. I want to create a toybox of factions and subfactions to build both the meta and micro setting, perhaps each faction even having questlines attached to them, as well as exploring the possibility of light WARGAMING rules to play that way in the setting as well.

ILLUSTRATION: Zine style, DIY. I am no artist, but I can make things that are fun to look at. Comic style vignettes and cover pages that capture the visual character of the setting, again, to inspire imagination above all. Neotribal punks in front of megalithic or solar ruins, shrines, animals, shamanic jungian visions, etc. Simple life showing different kinds of folks, amidst the weird and entropic world.

ETC: My years of notes are endless, and there is no way I can capture everything important here, but I believe these lay out many of the essential goals of the project in as clear a way as possible.

[dwellordream]

“The impact of both new technology and the growing influx of immigrant workers can best be seen in the New England textile mills. In the 1820s and 1830s, young women from the farm country of New England went to work in the massive brick textile factories springing up along the Merrimack River near Lowell, Massachusetts, and other New England towns. In 1820, Lowell--then called Chelmsford--was a sleepy village of about 200 farm families, located about 25 miles northwest of Boston. Six years later, it had grown into a town of 2,500 and was incorporated as the town of Lowell. In 1830, the population surged to 6,000, and tripled to 18,000 just six years later. By 1850, Lowell boasted a population of 33,000.

What created this booming growth was the rise of the textile industry. Other New England mill towns also grew, but Lowell quickly became the center of the New England textile industry and drew workers--mostly single women as young as 16 or 17--from across New England. These women generally came from the middle ranks of farm families, those that were neither impoverished nor wealthy. The desire to be financially and socially independent, to finance an education, or to simply experience the pleasures of living and working in a larger town drew many young farm women to the mills. Some women did contribute their earnings to their families, but mostly they worked in the mills to earn their own income.

…Mill owners insisted that their female hands be in their boarding houses by 10 o’clock each evening, and they urged boarding house keepers, usually older women, to report any violators to the management. In the early years, women were required to attend church services regularly, and some mill owners even deducted pew rent from the women’s earnings and paid it directly to local churches. These close living and working arrangements created a camaraderie among the women workers, a community of like-minded women who eagerly wanted to improve their minds and their lives. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, they organized and attended lectures, language classes, sewing groups, and literary ‘improvement circles’--after working a 12-hour day. From one of these circles was born the Lowell Offering, the first journal ever written by and for mill women. The journal published poetry, short stories, and commentary penned by the female workers.

Workers also organized themselves into labor-reform groups to crusade for better working conditions and shorter workdays. As technological innovations enabled women to work faster and produce more, mill owners assigned more machines to workers--without raising wages. For example, at Hamilton Company, one of the mills in Lowell, the average number of looms per weaver more than doubled between 1840 and 1854. The workload for spinners increased as well. Workers were expected to operate more machines at a faster rate. But wages remained the same--although the company reaped higher profits from the workers’ increased productivity.

…In 1846, Elias Howe introduced the first sewing machine. Five years later, in 1851, the addition of a foot treadle for easier operation made the machine an indispensable tool. But instead of easing the sewer’s burden, the sewing machine increased it. Hand sewers could no longer compete with the sewing machine. In one day, one sewing machine operator could do as much work as six hand sewers. Hand sewers were forced to buy or rent sewing machines, or work in garment factories, where they had no control over their wages or hours.

To make matters worse, seamstresses, like the mill workers of New England, were expected to work faster and produce more while working for the same wages. New technology, such as the sewing machine or improved looms, enabled consumers to buy manufactured goods at reasonable prices--but at the expense of factory workers, who were not paid a fair wage for operating this new technology.

…Despite the long hours and low wages, women still preferred working in factories to being domestic servants. At least factory workers had some free time; servants were on call 24 hours a day. Domestics worked up to 16 hours a day, with one afternoon off each week. They earned $1 to $1.25 a week plus board. Servants’ duties varied according to their employers’ requirements and the number of other servants employed in the house. But in general, the work was very demanding. Domestics devoted entire days to washing, baking, ironing and cleaning each room. They were accustomed to heavy physical work--cleaning out fireplaces or emptying chamber pots--and trudging up and down staircases several times a day.

Besides enduring the back-breaking work, servants also had to endure the snobbery of their social ‘superiors.’ During the colonial era, servants were treated as part of the family and joined in all household activities. By the mid-19th century, however, they were regarded as mere hired hands, and were viewed as an inferior class. The Boston census of 1845 categorized servants as part of the ‘unclassified residue of the population.’ No wonder that young women wanted to avoid the social stigma of being a domestic.”

- Harriet Sigerman, “‘I Never Worked So Hard’: Weavers, Stitchers, and Domestics.’” in An Unfinished Battle: American Women, 1848-1865

[digitaldetoxworld]

Data Visualization: Transforming Data into Insight

 In an technology wherein information is produced at an remarkable tempo, the ability to extract significant insights is extra vital than ever. Data visualization plays a vital function on this procedure, enabling individuals and corporations to understand complex statistics sets, pick out trends, and communicate findings effectively. By converting abstract numbers into intuitive visuals, information visualization bridges the gap among uncooked data and human cognition, turning complexity into readability.

Data Visualization In Research 

The Importance of Data Visualization

Data visualization is the graphical illustration of information and facts. By the use of visible elements like charts, graphs, and maps, statistics visualization tools make it less difficult to see and understand styles, trends, and outliers in facts. Its importance lies in numerous key areas:

Improved Understanding: Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than textual content by way of the human mind. Graphs and charts can screen insights that would pass omitted in spreadsheets.

Enhanced Communication: Well-crafted visualizations allow statistics to be shared in a manner that’s available to a broader audience, no longer simply records analysts or statisticians.

Data-Driven Decision Making: In enterprise, governments, and medical research, visualizations support selection-making via without a doubt showing the implications of various statistics tendencies.

Pattern and Anomaly Detection: They help users quick become aware of deviations, spikes, or drops in data, which could suggest possibilities or threats.

Types of Data Visualization

Data visualization encompasses a big selection of techniques, each applicable to precise types of records and analytical desires. Some of the most commonly used sorts include:

1. Bar Charts

Bar charts are best for comparing quantities throughout classes. They are simple however effective for displaying differences among agencies.

2. Line Graphs

Often used to music changes over time, line graphs display tendencies and fluctuations, making them a fave for time-series information.

3. Pie Charts

 They’re satisfactory for simple, clear percent facts.

4. Histograms

Histograms display the distribution of a dataset, making them beneficial for understanding records spread, crucial tendency, and frequency.

5. Heat Maps

Heat maps use colour gradients to indicate value depth throughout two dimensions. 

6. Scatter Plots

Scatter plots are used to pick out relationships between  variables, often revealing correlations or clusters in facts.

7. Box Plots

Box plots show the distribution of a dataset thru its quartiles, highlighting medians, variability, and ability outliers.

8. Geospatial Maps

These visualizations display facts associated with geographic regions and are extensively utilized in demographic research, environmental tracking, and logistics.

9. Dashboards

Dashboards integrate multiple visualizations into one interface, supplying a actual-time assessment of key metrics and overall performance signs.

Tools for Data Visualization

A huge range of tools is to be had for growing effective statistics visualizations.  Popular alternatives encompass:

Tableau: A leading platform for interactive, shareable dashboards with drag-and-drop functions.

Power BI: Microsoft's enterprise analytics tool with sturdy integration into the Office atmosphere.

Google Data Studio: A unfastened tool for developing customizable reports the use of Google records sources.

Ggplot2: A effective R package for constructing state-of-the-art plots the use of the grammar of snap shots.

Each device gives distinctive competencies depending at the user’s technical information, information complexity, and desired results.

Best Practices in Data Visualization

Creating effective facts visualizations requires more than just technical skill. It includes an information of design ideas, cognitive psychology, and storytelling. Here are key exceptional practices:

1. Know Your Audience

Tailor the visualization to the information stage and pursuits of your target market. What a statistics scientist unearths intuitive is probably complicated to a business executive.

2. Choose the Right Chart

Using an inappropriate chart kind can deceive or confuse the viewer. For instance, a line chart ought to not be used for specific information.

Three. Simplify and Clarify

Avoid muddle. Focus on essential statistics and put off unnecessary elements like immoderate gridlines, decorative snap shots, or redundant labels.

Four. Use Color Thoughtfully

Color can enhance know-how but additionally lie to if used improperly. Stick to a consistent color scheme and use contrasts to highlight key points.

5. Tell a Story

Effective facts visualizations guide the viewer through a story. Highlight tendencies, anomalies, or correlations that support your message.

6. Maintain Integrity

Never manipulate axes or distort scales to magnify findings. Ethical visualization ensures accurate illustration of statistics.

Real-World Applications

Data visualization is applied in nearly each region, transforming industries through stepped forward insight and communication.

1. Business Analytics

In commercial enterprise, visualization tools assist in monitoring sales, client behavior, supply chain efficiency, and extra. 

2. Healthcare

In medicinal drug and public health, visualizations are crucial for tracking disorder outbreaks, affected person records, and treatment results. For example, COVID-19 dashboards performed a main function in information the pandemic's unfold.

3. Finance

Financial analysts use records visualization to recognize market tendencies, examine investment overall performance, and check chance.

Four. Education

Educators and researchers use visualization to track pupil performance, perceive mastering gaps, and gift studies findings.

Five. Government and Policy

Policymakers use visible facts to understand social trends, aid allocation, and financial overall performance. 

6. Journalism

Data journalism is growing hastily. Visual stories on topics like weather change, election results, or social inequality use charts and infographics to inform and engage readers.

Challenges and Limitations

Despite its electricity, facts visualization isn't with out demanding situations:

Data Quality: Inaccurate or incomplete information can lead to deceptive visuals.

Over-Simplification: Trying to make information too easy can lead to lack of nuance or important info.

Misinterpretation: Poor design selections or biased displays can cause audiences to draw wrong conclusions.

Tool Limitations: Not all equipment aid the extent of customization or interactivity wished for unique projects.

Overcoming these demanding situations requires a mix of technical talent, area information, and moral responsibility.

The Future of Data Visualization

The future of statistics visualization is increasingly interactive, actual-time, and AI-assisted. Emerging traits include:

Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR): Immersive visualizations permit users to explore records in three-dimensional environments.

Machine Learning Integration: Algorithms can now endorse or even vehicle-generate visualizations based on the information furnished.

Collaborative Platforms: Teams can now work collectively in actual time on visualization dashboards, improving communique and agility.

These advancements will hold to make records greater accessible and insightful throughout all domain names.

Difference Between  Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) 

What Is Data Analysis In Research 

[refermegroup]

Build the Future of Tech: Enroll in the Leading DevOps Course Online Today

In a global economy where speed, security, and scalability are parameters of success, DevOps has emerged as the pulsating core of contemporary IT operations. Businesses are not recruiting either developers or sysadmins anymore—employers need DevOps individuals who can seamlessly integrate both worlds.

If you're willing to accelerate your career and become irreplaceable in the tech world, then now is the ideal time to sign up for Devops Course Online. And ReferMe Group's AWS DevOps Course is the one to take you there—quicker.

Why DevOps? Why Now?

The need for DevOps professionals is growing like crazy. As per current industry reports, job titles such as DevOps Engineer, Cloud Architect, and Site Reliability Engineer are among the best-paying and safest careers in technology today.

Why? Because DevOps helps businesses to:

Deploy faster using continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD)

Boost reliability and uptime

Automate everything-from infrastructure to testing

Scale apps with ease on cloud platforms like AWS

And individuals who develop these skills are rapidly becoming the pillars of today's tech teams.

Why Learn a DevOps Online?

Learning DevOps online provides more than convenience—it provides liberation. As a full-time professional, student, or career changer, online learning allows you:

✅    To learn at your own pace

✅   To access world-class instructors anywhere

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It’s professional-grade training—without the classroom limitations.

What Makes ReferMe Group’s DevOps Course Stand Out?

The AWS DevOps Course from ReferMe Group isn’t just a course—it’s a career accelerator. Here's what sets it apart:

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Who Should Take This Course?

This DevOps course is ideal for:

Software Developers looking to move into deployment and automation

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Students and recent graduates seeking a future-proof skill set

No experience in DevOps? No worries. We take you from the basics to advanced tools.

Final Thoughts: Your DevOps Journey Starts Here

As businesses continue to move to the cloud and automate their pipelines, DevOps engineers are no longer a nicety—they're a necessity. Investing in a high-quality DevOps course online provides you with the skills, certification, and confidence to compete and succeed in today's tech industry.

Start building your future today.

Join ReferMe Group's AWS DevOps Course today and become the architect of tomorrow's technology.

[aidreamer]

The Science Behind AI Video Tool

AI video platforms rely on three key technologies:

Generative AI: Systems like VidAU’s algorithm turn text or product links into scripts and visuals. Think of it as a “creative assistant” brainstorming ideas faster than any human.

Computer Vision: AI scans frames to ensure lighting, angles, and product placement look professional—no shaky camera mishaps.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): AI writes scripts that sound human and even adjusts tone (funny, formal, or friendly) based on your brand voice.

Real Results: How Businesses Win with AI

Case in point: A small e-commerce brand used VidAU to make 50 product videos in 2 hours. By A/B testing different AI avatars (a friendly mom vs. a tech expert), they boosted their click-through rate by 34%. Another company automated video ads for Black Friday, translating them into 12 languages overnight—sales jumped 200% in regions they’d never targeted before.

The best part? You don’t need a marketing degree to start. VidAU’s slogan says it all: “Generate engaging videos in batches within a few minutes.”

Future-Proof Your Marketing Strategy

AI video production isn’t a trend—it’s the future. Tools like VidAU democratize high-quality content creation, letting small businesses compete with giants. Whether you’re crafting explainer videos, social media clips, or training materials, AI handles the heavy lifting while you focus on strategy.

Ready to experiment? Try VidAU’s free trial (no credit card needed) and watch your engagement—and sales—rise. After all, in a world where 85% of shoppers trust video reviews more than text, staying silent isn’t an option.

Boost your sales with AI-driven videos today. Visit VidAU.ai to start creating.

[thedashshop]

The Evolution of Local Shopping: How DASH Shop is Leading the Way

Shopping locally has always been more than just a transaction; it’s an experience. From the friendly banter with store owners to the joy of finding that perfect item, local shopping has been a cornerstone of community life. But as times have changed, so has the way we shop. Today, DASH Shop is at the forefront of this evolution, transforming local shopping into a seamless, technology-driven experience that blends the best of the past with the innovations of the future.

A Glimpse into the Past

Back in the day, local shopping was all about brick-and-mortar stores. People would stroll down Main Street, popping into their favorite shops, chatting with neighbors, and enjoying the tactile pleasure of seeing and touching products before buying them. It was a social activity, a chance to connect with others and support local businesses. However, as convenient as it was, this traditional model had its limitations. Store hours were fixed, inventory was finite, and sometimes the perfect item just wasn’t available.

The Modern Challenges

Fast forward to today, and the landscape of local shopping has drastically shifted. The rise of e-commerce giants has posed significant challenges for small, local retailers. With the convenience of online shopping, customers can browse endless aisles of products, compare prices, and have their purchases delivered right to their doorstep. This convenience has drawn many away from local shops, making it harder for small businesses to compete.

Local stores also face logistical hurdles such as managing inventory, offering competitive pricing, and meeting the high expectations of today’s consumers who demand quick, efficient service. The pandemic further accelerated these challenges, pushing even more shoppers online and leaving many local retailers struggling to stay afloat.

Enter DASH Shop: Revolutionizing Local Shopping

DASH Shop is here to bridge the gap between the traditional charm of local shopping and the modern demands of convenience and efficiency. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, DASH Shop is revolutionizing the local shopping experience in several key ways.

Instant Delivery:

One of the most significant ways DASH Shop is transforming local shopping is through its instant delivery service. Gone are the days of waiting weeks for an online order to arrive. With DASH Shop, customers can enjoy the convenience of having their purchases delivered to their doorstep within hours. This not only meets the high expectations of today’s consumers but also gives local retailers a competitive edge.

Robust Analytics:

DASH Shop provides retailers with powerful analytics tools, offering deep insights into sales trends, customer behavior, and inventory management. This data-driven approach helps retailers make informed decisions, optimize stock levels, and tailor their offerings to better meet customer needs. It’s like having a crystal ball for your business, ensuring you’re always one step ahead.

Seamless Integration:

One of the best parts about DASH Shop is its ability to integrate seamlessly with existing sales channels. Retailers don’t have to overhaul their entire system to benefit from DASH Shop’s features. Instead, the platform enhances current operations, adding value without disruption. This means smoother transitions and minimal hassle for business owners.

Community Engagement:

DASH Shop also helps retailers connect with their communities in meaningful ways. The platform supports local charities and community initiatives, fostering goodwill and strengthening community ties. By aligning with social causes, retailers can enhance their brand image and build customer loyalty.

Building Trust and Excitement

DASH Shop isn’t just a platform; it’s a movement. It’s about reimagining local shopping for the 21st century, combining the best of the old with the innovations of the new. By addressing the current challenges faced by local retailers and providing solutions that enhance the shopping experience, DASH Shop is positioning itself as a pioneer in local e-commerce.

So, whether you’re a retailer looking to boost your business or a shopper seeking convenience without compromising on community spirit, DASH Shop is here to lead the way. Join us in revolutionizing local shopping and experience the future today.

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Essential Skills Every Electronics Engineer Should Master

Electronics engineering is an exciting and constantly evolving field. With new technologies emerging every day, the need for skilled professionals has never been greater. If you're pursuing a B Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering or exploring options at B Tech colleges for Electrical and Electronics, it's crucial to know which skills can set you apart in this competitive domain.

Let’s dive into the essential skills every aspiring electronics engineer should master.

Strong Foundation in Circuit Design

Circuit design is at the heart of electronics engineering. Understanding how to create, analyze, and optimize circuits is a must-have skill. Whether you’re designing a simple resistor network or a complex integrated circuit, mastering tools like SPICE and PCB design software can make your designs efficient and innovative.

Programming Proficiency

Electronics and programming often go hand in hand. Languages like Python, C, and MATLAB are widely used to simulate electronic systems, automate processes, and even build firmware for devices. Engineers proficient in programming can troubleshoot problems effectively and add versatility to their skill set.

Knowledge of Embedded Systems

Embedded systems are everywhere—from your smartphone to your washing machine. As an electronics engineer, understanding microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators is crucial for creating devices that work seamlessly in our daily lives. Hands-on experience with platforms like Arduino and Raspberry Pi can be a great way to start.

Problem-Solving and Analytical Thinking

Electronics engineers often face unique challenges, such as debugging faulty circuits or improving system performance. Strong problem-solving and analytical thinking skills help them identify issues quickly and find effective solutions. To cultivate these skills, tackle real-world projects during your coursework or internships.

Familiarity with Power Systems

As the world moves toward renewable energy and smart grids, knowledge of power systems is becoming increasingly important. Engineers in this field should understand how electrical power is generated, transmitted, and distributed and how to design energy-efficient systems.

Effective Communication Skills

Electronics engineering often involves working in teams with other engineers, designers, or clients. Communicating your ideas clearly—whether through reports, presentations, or technical drawings—is just as important as your technical skills. Strong communication ensures that your brilliant ideas come to life effectively.

Adaptability to New Technologies

Technology evolves rapidly, and staying updated is essential for electronics engineers. Whether you’re learning about IoT (Internet of Things), AI integration, or 5G communication, an adaptable mindset will ensure you remain relevant and capable of tackling emerging challenges.

Hands-On Experience

While theoretical knowledge is important, nothing beats practical experience. Participating in labs, internships, or personal projects gives you the opportunity to apply what you’ve learned and develop confidence in your skills. Employers often value hands-on experience as much as your academic achievements.

Preparing for Success in Electronics Engineering

Pursuing a B Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering is the first step toward mastering these skills. The best B Tech colleges for Electrical and Electronics not only provide a strong academic foundation but also opportunities for practical learning and industry exposure. By focusing on the skills mentioned above, you can position yourself as a competent and innovative engineer ready to tackle real-world challenges.