#Developments

[reading-writing-revolution]

As I said... if Alito dusts off some porn mag from 1294 BC and it says, "TRUMP CAN REWRITE CONTRACTS!" (because apparently, in the PornHub case, people visit for the articles?) ... well… that’s it. The rule of law has officially flatlined. I said this in the piece already, but let me make it plain: This. Cannot. Work. It’s black letter law. No, it’s not a valid assignment. No, it’s not legal. No, the government can’t just alter contract terms. No, the Executive Branch doesn’t have some magic authority to reassign debts to other federal agencies like they're trading baseball cards. Maybe—maybe—in a properly legislated scenario, you could construct a legal framework to allow something like this. But that’s not what’s happening. The reality is that HHS, SBA, and every other agency this is being dumped on have no statutory right to issue student loan debt. That’s the core issue here: capacity. Legal capacity. These agencies weren’t granted it by Congress. No law was passed. No regulation changed. There’s no authority. Even if, arguendo, we assumed the MPNs were “assignable,” the government still failed to go through any of the required processes to change the terms of entitlements or issue new regulations. No Congressional authorization. No public comment period. No borrower notice. Nothing. And just to be clear: before the Federal Government began holding the principal on student loans, it used private banks to originate them. The interest was guaranteed by the Feds under the Higher Education Act. That’s how the old FFEL program worked. Later, Congress passed legislation during the 2008–2009 financial crisis (e.g. the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act), which explicitly allowed the Department of Education to purchase those loans from private lenders to provide liquidity. That authority was baked into the law and reflected in the Master Promissory Note. The banks were originators—not owners. They were issuing loans on behalf of the federal government, and the MPN clearly allowed for sale or transfer to ED so long as the terms didn’t change. When the mortgage-backed securities crisis hit, those loans became toxic liabilities on bank balance sheets. The Feds stepped in—lawfully—and bought them. Then ED phased out the banks entirely. From that point forward, ED originated the loans directly via FAFSA and schools, and just outsourced servicing to loan sharks like MOHELA and Nelnet. Again: that change was legal. It was done through Congress, via legislation. The MPN allowed for it. But what Trump is doing now? That’s straight-up unlawful. I looked at the MPNs again tonight. All this crap—ending IDR, jacking up payments, reassigning agencies, changing terms retroactively—it’s just not in the contract. The MPN explicitly caps repayment amounts under IDR. Some say 15%, some say 20%—but nowhere does it say, "Well, your payment is now nine thousand dollars. Screw you." That’s a material breach. A complete disregard for contract law. It’s the legal equivalent of Trump walking into your grandma’s house and saying, “Yeah, Social Security’s done. You’ve lived long enough, Nana.” That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Comments - Every Student Loan is now "Forgiven" thanks to Trump.

[onenettvchannel]

LATE-BREAKING FLASH REPORT: 'Ankama Animations' will soon wrap the upcoming 5th and Final Season of 'Wakfu', pre-production and crowdfunding are in the works [#K5NewsFMExclusive]

(Written by Rhayniel Saldasal Calimpong / Freelance Online Media Reporter of ONC and News Writer & Presenter of OneNETnews)

ROUBAIX, FRANCE -- French entertainment company 'Ankama Animations' recently announced that the long-awaited 5th season of 'Wakfu' will actually mark the end in France. It was reported last Wednesday night (December 18th, 2024 -- France local time) during the company's event of "Ankama Showtime" at the online video game broadcaster 'Twitch', the said animated series is finishing its run with a climactic 26-episode finale.

The decision to make a 5th Season is due to the fact that Season 4 has been so successful that most people thought it was going to be the last season and received astonished ratings, so people wanted an absolute proper ending for one more season. 'Wakfu' premiered at the end of October 2008, and has been a flagship of French animation ever since, chronicling the adventures of the Brotherhood of the Tofu. In this upcoming season, viewers will get to see the early stages of Yugo Sharm and Prncs. Amalia Sheran Sharm's marriage, along with the introduction of a new, enigmatic antagonist.

This development was further detailed in an online press briefing by 'XyaLe7111', Ankama's Transmedia Manager said in part: "Wakfu (Season 5) will be the last season. It is the conclusion of 16 years of animated adventures with the Brotherhood of the Tofu. [The last] 26 episodes will tell the story of the early days of Yugo Sharm and Amalia Sheran Sharm's marriage and introduce a new narrative arc and a new antagonist. Well, not really a new antagonist, but I won't reveal everything just yet!", she noted in French dialect.

As previously reported by DWFH-FM 97.7mhz's K5 News FM: Dumaguete during the Annecy Festival in mid-June 2024, Season 5 has been greenlit in collaboration with France Télévisions, alongside FranceTVSlash and France 4.

The involvement of the public broadcaster helps maintain a legacy that has significantly impacted animated storytelling in France. As previously noted, it was unexpectedly decided not to air the full 4th Season on France 4. Instead, the episodes will be released first on the 'Ankama Launcher', the Okoo app, and the France TV website, as they went beyond the intended demographic for national kids and teens TV.

Ankama will soon be funding all the production costs to the public broadcaster, and reaching to fans all over the globe, including the Philippines, by running a Kickstarter for February 2025. Pre-production will soon get underway as writing for the final new season has been initiated. As of yet, no official release date is announced, but based on the show's creator 'Anthony Roux', per the X Network tweeted post (formerly Twitter), Wakfu (Season 5) could premiere as early as 2027.

The focus of crowdfunding by Ankama mirrors the fact that the animation company strives to make a season for its Wakfunian fans, bringing this saga to a befitting end after 16 years of captivating people who were in part for its history the animated cartoon community.

PHOTO COURTESY for REPRESENTATION: Anthony Roux via X Network PHOTO

SOURCE: *https://animotaku.fr/actualite/wakfu-saison-5-pourrait-finalement-voir-le-jour/ *https://animotaku.fr/actualite/ankama-francetv-wakfu-saison-5/ *https://www.francebleu.fr/emissions/fier-de-ceux-qui-font-bouger-le-nord-et-le-pas-de-calais/ankama-une-histoire-de-reussite-a-roubaix-entre-jeu-video-et-manga-5817751 *https://www.krozmotion.com/en/2024/06/wakfu-season-5-confirmed-new-adventures-for-yugo-and-amalia/ *https://forum.waven-game.com/en/41-news/6274-ankama-show-time-join-us-december-18th *https://youtube.com/shorts/xUtjUvxG1PM *https://twitch.tv/videos/2330830270 *https://x.com/AnkamaAnim/status/1869445371602034974 and *https://x.com/Totankama/status/1870535781682659652

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

[sushiijay]

Shima and why romance builds his character (pt 1)

From chapters 42-46 was the time of mitsumi and him " dating", what prompted this really interested me alongside the recent chapter 65

Starting off, in chapter 41 Ujie insited on not wanting anyones help even when mitsumi said it would definently help his teamates see that he actually cares and is putting in an effort in, Ujie pushes away mitsumi and says i dont care which the prompts Shima to say "Thats not it Ujie kun, we just wanted to practice together and thats why we reached out to you. I am sure your teamates wouldn't get annoyed is they knew you tried. If I was them, i would want you rely on me." With this, Ujie kun leaves and mitusmi told shima "you are very big hearted" where shima denies it and says " I just said what he wanted to hear"

Shima kun has had social expectations placed on him his whole life from the people around him, leading him to develop no sense of identity and would rather base his self worth on what others would want from him rather than himself.

This in turn, makes him emotional immature from an outsider perpectives. Few chapter later, we come to see mitumi breaking off the relationship because of her disappoint of shima reaction and inability to stand up for her when in fact, he never even realised that as he has always been lenient to people judgements and not taking it to heart.

We see him create a cloud of judgement over himself and i personally think that shima is not ready for a relationship anytime soon, due to this time being very crucial as to how he develops layers of his character to be a polished identity. We can also see he is starting to pull back the layers on why mitsumi affection is so special to him and how it signifcantly makes him a better person.

It is out of envy, she is the epitome of what he lacks and that create insecurity and an inability to even picture himself being in a romantic relationship.

As the story is devolping, so is his ablilty to express himself taking into consideration what he wants rather than what others expect of him. The relationship was not for romantic movement, rather for self growth and refllection.

Another scene is in chapter 53, where we learn what shima establities as most imortant in terms of relationships soonly after they break up. Because of his misconstructed view on love from his childhood, him announcing the idea of dating to mistumi is another way of him not knowing what kind of love she is giving to him, so out of confusion concludes it is romance. Since his reasoning was that he like her as a person, he wanted to make her happy rather than taking into account what he is feeling.

Next part will go into depth how he falls in love after the break up in chapter 46 ( ironic lmaooo) but very needed i swear 😓

[scrybe-of-death]

A NEW JANUARY EVENT DEVELOPMENT HAS BEEN MADE

AFTER USING A BASE 32 CIPHER ON HIDDEN TEXT INSIDE OF ONE OF SOUP'S POSTS (32: MRUXGY3POJSCA4DSN5TGS3DF is the text)

IT SAYS "DISCORD PROFILE"

THIS VIDEO WAS FOUND USING CEASAR CIPHER ON SOUP'S DISCORD PROFILE DESCRIPTION

the clock's ticking

seead://hhh.jzfefmp.nzx/hlens?g=_TTI41uDdtv

oh dearest caesar, why must i envy thee?

(thats her description)

IM SCREAMING. ALOUD. STIMMING SO MUCH RIGHT NOW

WILL REBLOG W MORE INFO WHEN I CAN FIND

@jaxtherabbit @the-moth-from-elsewhere @yougotjinx3d

IM SO SMART YOU GUYS

[effectual-services]

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[whats-in-a-sentence]

Whether or not you actually follow its moment-to-moment development, according to classical physics you can talk about the past and future, in principle, with a confidence that is controlled by the detail and the accuracy of your observations of the present.¹

1. It is well known that the equations of classical physics cannot be solved exactly if you are studying the motion of three or more mutually interacting bodies. So, even in classical physics, any actual prediction about the motion of a large set of particles will necessarily be approximate. The point, though, is that there is no fundamental limit to how good this approximation can be. If the world were governed by classical physics, then with ever more powerful computers, and ever more precise initial data about positions and velocities, we would get ever closer to the exact answer.

"The Fabric of the Cosmos" - Brian Greene

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #176

Today was relatively uneventful, but a couple of interesting developments occurred. And I took a bunch of pictures for you, too! Maybe you'll like them...

But first! Tea! Because it is my habitual morning thing, and it is a small bit of magic that I continue to wish that I could share with you.

I prepared a black tea that has vanilla, rose petals, and cream flavoring in it. Incidentally, I found a tiny black feather inside that I had to pull out of my measuring spoon after I scooped the tea; it was odd:

...You can bet that this is now in my box full of all the feathers I find everywhere. It's tiny, but its placement was very weird!

...I brewed the tea normally nonetheless, and today's swirls were lovely. I'm really glad that I got the glass mug so that I can capture them for you:

...I've been tired of being stuck in the house unable to do things. The rib injury is still unresolved even after two years, and it doesn't seem like I am going to be able to return to the water anytime soon to resume mermaid training, if at all, ever. I can't weave wire trees fast enough to earn appreciable income (and I think the repetitive movement of twisting the wire stresses the rib somehow anyway...), and I wanna be able to do things like take J, M, and Br out for lunch and get them nice surprises by my own power.

The grocery 5 minutes down the road has had a sign that says, "Immediate Interviews" for a while now, and I've noticed that they tend to hire neurodivergent and otherwise disabled people, so... on a whim, I went. And even without having rehearsed anything or being dressed all fancy, I made good use of my training in human psychology and development, and used that to answer questions about how I generally like to resolve conflicts. I seem to have made a good first impression somehow (assuming the interviewer was being sincere...), and I was given step-by-step instructions on how to apply on a little slip of paper (which was SUUUUPER appreciated because I cannot hold verbal instructions in my mind for the life of me...). So I applied. I guess we'll see what happens.

To be clear: I do not need an income, per se. I live with M and J, and they both work in a tech field, and currently, my contribution is making sure the house is clean(ish) in whatever ways my injury allows. I used to work in a tech field as a database analyst (I am DAMN GOOD at making machines do what I want), but between the social repercussions of not having been born with a penis and just generally not being able to handle office politics, I wasn't happy there. Office work on a full-time basis is not something that my neurotype can handle.

I'm hoping to be able to do simple things at the grocery on a part-time basis - no more than 20 hours a week or so. I like the grocery store and I like being able to help people, so maybe it'll be a good time. I'll try it and see if it fits, and if it doesn't work out, I can try something else.

On the way home, I took some pictures for you of some flowers and some pictures of the sky and of the sun. I wonder if you'll like these:

...It was difficult to get those last two!! I hope you'll enjoy them!

I spent the rest of the day resting, because I did a scary social impromptu interview thing. I played the Rune Factory 4 game that was suggested to me by one of my readers. It's a delightful game! But... I maaaay have gotten so into it that I forgot entirely to eat anything after breakfast. Whoops. I'm sorry about that. But I'll do better tomorrow, I promise.

I hope you're taking nice care of yourself, too, wherever you are. Maybe someday you'll be able to tell me how you're doing and whether or not you're safe...

Well anyway. Suppose I'll end today's letter here. I don't have much more to say.

I love you. Please stay safe out there, okay? I'll write again very soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[lancelitttle]

Thinking about Gojo and It's Tough to Be a God

[tarotmantic]

there is stress in my body in my mind

[zeezeepearl]

ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don't think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it's the thinking millennial's astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.

I don't think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR's bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn't to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn't give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.

She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don't know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!

This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you're above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.

No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don't have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.

[demaparbat-hp]

He's never happy

[luna-azzurra]

When a Character Is Grieving Someone They Never Got to Say Goodbye To

✧ They talk about the person in past tense… then correct themselves. Then stop talking entirely.

✧ They touch things that belonged to the person like they’re fragile, sacred, about to disappear.

✧ They hoard the last voicemail, last message, last anything. Play it. Don’t play it. Just knowing it exists hurts enough.

✧ They leave something untouched, an empty seat, a half-packed bag, a coffee order that isn’t theirs.

✧ They get irrationally angry when someone else seems to be “moving on.” As if forgetting is betrayal.

✧ They don’t let themselves cry all at once. It comes in pieces. Like they’re afraid too much grief will drown them.

✧ They over-apologize. For being quiet. For being distant. For not being okay.

✧ They become hyper-aware of time, dates, anniversaries, time zones, the exact moment everything ended.

✧ They get superstitious. Ritualistic. As if doing things "right" might reverse something.

✧ They smile when they talk about the person. But it’s brittle. And it never quite touches their eyes.

[jcmarchi]

From Recurrent Networks to GPT-4: Measuring Algorithmic Progress in Language Models - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/from-recurrent-networks-to-gpt-4-measuring-algorithmic-progress-in-language-models-technology-org/

From Recurrent Networks to GPT-4: Measuring Algorithmic Progress in Language Models - Technology Org

In 2012, the best language models were small recurrent networks that struggled to form coherent sentences. Fast forward to today, and large language models like GPT-4 outperform most students on the SAT. How has this rapid progress been possible? 

Image credit: MIT CSAIL

In a new paper, researchers from Epoch, MIT FutureTech, and Northeastern University set out to shed light on this question. Their research breaks down the drivers of progress in language models into two factors: scaling up the amount of compute used to train language models, and algorithmic innovations. In doing so, they perform the most extensive analysis of algorithmic progress in language models to date.

Their findings show that due to algorithmic improvements, the compute required to train a language model to a certain level of performance has been halving roughly every 8 months. “This result is crucial for understanding both historical and future progress in language models,” says Anson Ho, one of the two lead authors of the paper. “While scaling compute has been crucial, it’s only part of the puzzle. To get the full picture you need to consider algorithmic progress as well.”

The paper’s methodology is inspired by “neural scaling laws”: mathematical relationships that predict language model performance given certain quantities of compute, training data, or language model parameters. By compiling a dataset of over 200 language models since 2012, the authors fit a modified neural scaling law that accounts for algorithmic improvements over time. 

Based on this fitted model, the authors do a performance attribution analysis, finding that scaling compute has been more important than algorithmic innovations for improved performance in language modeling. In fact, they find that the relative importance of algorithmic improvements has decreased over time. “This doesn’t necessarily imply that algorithmic innovations have been slowing down,” says Tamay Besiroglu, who also co-led the paper.

“Our preferred explanation is that algorithmic progress has remained at a roughly constant rate, but compute has been scaled up substantially, making the former seem relatively less important.” The authors’ calculations support this framing, where they find an acceleration in compute growth, but no evidence of a speedup or slowdown in algorithmic improvements.

By modifying the model slightly, they also quantified the significance of a key innovation in the history of machine learning: the Transformer, which has become the dominant language model architecture since its introduction in 2017. The authors find that the efficiency gains offered by the Transformer correspond to almost two years of algorithmic progress in the field, underscoring the significance of its invention.

While extensive, the study has several limitations. “One recurring issue we had was the lack of quality data, which can make the model hard to fit,” says Ho. “Our approach also doesn’t measure algorithmic progress on downstream tasks like coding and math problems, which language models can be tuned to perform.”

Despite these shortcomings, their work is a major step forward in understanding the drivers of progress in AI. Their results help shed light about how future developments in AI might play out, with important implications for AI policy. “This work, led by Anson and Tamay, has important implications for the democratization of AI,” said Neil Thompson, a coauthor and Director of MIT FutureTech. “These efficiency improvements mean that each year levels of AI performance that were out of reach become accessible to more users.”

“LLMs have been improving at a breakneck pace in recent years. This paper presents the most thorough analysis to date of the relative contributions of hardware and algorithmic innovations to the progress in LLM performance,” says Open Philanthropy Research Fellow Lukas Finnveden, who was not involved in the paper.

“This is a question that I care about a great deal, since it directly informs what pace of further progress we should expect in the future, which will help society prepare for these advancements. The authors fit a number of statistical models to a large dataset of historical LLM evaluations and use extensive cross-validation to select a model with strong predictive performance. They also provide a good sense of how the results would vary under different reasonable assumptions, by doing many robustness checks. Overall, the results suggest that increases in compute have been and will keep being responsible for the majority of LLM progress as long as compute budgets keep rising by ≥4x per year. However, algorithmic progress is significant and could make up the majority of progress if the pace of increasing investments slows down.”

Written by Rachel Gordon

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[alariko1]

Souvenir shop

[goodsniff]

CREATING BLUEY - Tales from the Art Director

Chapter 4 - It's (gotta be) Done! Beyond Bluey

The final chapter. Beyond Bluey and the power of Animation

FREE on Substack

Thankyou all so much for following along. The outpouring of support and care for the artists behind the art has been really heartening throughout this whole process. Not to be cringe but I honestly think this medium captures the human spirit better than any other form of expression, so I know whatever the future brings for us we’ll be able to weather it for that reason alone. 🕊️