#GENERAL QUARTERS SOFTWARE

[retrocgads]

USA 1990

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Demon-haunted computers are back, baby

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

As a science fiction writer, I am professionally irritated by a lot of sf movies. Not only do those writers get paid a lot more than I do, they insist on including things like "self-destruct" buttons on the bridges of their starships.

Look, I get it. When the evil empire is closing in on your flagship with its secret transdimensional technology, it's important that you keep those secrets out of the emperor's hand. An irrevocable self-destruct switch there on the bridge gets the job done! (It has to be irrevocable, otherwise the baddies'll just swarm the bridge and toggle it off).

But c'mon. If there's a facility built into your spaceship that causes it to explode no matter what the people on the bridge do, that is also a pretty big security risk! What if the bad guy figures out how to hijack the measure that – by design – the people who depend on the spaceship as a matter of life and death can't detect or override?

I mean, sure, you can try to simplify that self-destruct system to make it easier to audit and assure yourself that it doesn't have any bugs in it, but remember Schneier's Law: anyone can design a security system that works so well that they themselves can't think of a flaw in it. That doesn't mean you've made a security system that works – only that you've made a security system that works on people stupider than you.

I know it's weird to be worried about realism in movies that pretend we will ever find a practical means to visit other star systems and shuttle back and forth between them (which we are very, very unlikely to do):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

But this kind of foolishness galls me. It galls me even more when it happens in the real world of technology design, which is why I've spent the past quarter-century being very cross about Digital Rights Management in general, and trusted computing in particular.

It all starts in 2002, when a team from Microsoft visited our offices at EFF to tell us about this new thing they'd dreamed up called "trusted computing":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The big idea was to stick a second computer inside your computer, a very secure little co-processor, that you couldn't access directly, let alone reprogram or interfere with. As far as this "trusted platform module" was concerned, you were the enemy. The "trust" in trusted computing was about other people being able to trust your computer, even if they didn't trust you.

So that little TPM would do all kinds of cute tricks. It could observe and produce a cryptographically signed manifest of the entire boot-chain of your computer, which was meant to be an unforgeable certificate attesting to which kind of computer you were running and what software you were running on it. That meant that programs on other computers could decide whether to talk to your computer based on whether they agreed with your choices about which code to run.

This process, called "remote attestation," is generally billed as a way to identify and block computers that have been compromised by malware, or to identify gamers who are running cheats and refuse to play with them. But inevitably it turns into a way to refuse service to computers that have privacy blockers turned on, or are running stream-ripping software, or whose owners are blocking ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

After all, a system that treats the device's owner as an adversary is a natural ally for the owner's other, human adversaries. The rubric for treating the owner as an adversary focuses on the way that users can be fooled by bad people with bad programs. If your computer gets taken over by malicious software, that malware might intercept queries from your antivirus program and send it false data that lulls it into thinking your computer is fine, even as your private data is being plundered and your system is being used to launch malware attacks on others.

These separate, non-user-accessible, non-updateable secure systems serve a nubs of certainty, a remote fortress that observes and faithfully reports on the interior workings of your computer. This separate system can't be user-modifiable or field-updateable, because then malicious software could impersonate the user and disable the security chip.

It's true that compromised computers are a real and terrifying problem. Your computer is privy to your most intimate secrets and an attacker who can turn it against you can harm you in untold ways. But the widespread redesign of out computers to treat us as their enemies gives rise to a range of completely predictable and – I would argue – even worse harms. Building computers that treat their owners as untrusted parties is a system that works well, but fails badly.

First of all, there are the ways that trusted computing is designed to hurt you. The most reliable way to enshittify something is to supply it over a computer that runs programs you can't alter, and that rats you out to third parties if you run counter-programs that disenshittify the service you're using. That's how we get inkjet printers that refuse to use perfectly good third-party ink and cars that refuse to accept perfectly good engine repairs if they are performed by third-party mechanics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

It's how we get cursed devices and appliances, from the juicer that won't squeeze third-party juice to the insulin pump that won't connect to a third-party continuous glucose monitor:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

But trusted computing doesn't just create an opaque veil between your computer and the programs you use to inspect and control it. Trusted computing creates a no-go zone where programs can change their behavior based on whether they think they're being observed.

The most prominent example of this is Dieselgate, where auto manufacturers murdered hundreds of people by gimmicking their cars to emit illegal amount of NOX. Key to Dieselgate was a program that sought to determine whether it was being observed by regulators (it checked for the telltale signs of the standard test-suite) and changed its behavior to color within the lines.

Software that is seeking to harm the owner of the device that's running it must be able to detect when it is being run inside a simulation, a test-suite, a virtual machine, or any other hallucinatory virtual world. Just as Descartes couldn't know whether anything was real until he assured himself that he could trust his senses, malware is always questing to discover whether it is running in the real universe, or in a simulation created by a wicked god:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#uh-oh

That's why mobile malware uses clever gambits like periodically checking for readings from your device's accelerometer, on the theory that a virtual mobile phone running on a security researcher's test bench won't have the fidelity to generate plausible jiggles to match the real data that comes from a phone in your pocket:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/google-play-malware-used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/

Sometimes this backfires in absolutely delightful ways. When the Wannacry ransomware was holding the world hostage, the security researcher Marcus Hutchins noticed that its code made reference to a very weird website: iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com. Hutchins stood up a website at that address and every Wannacry-infection in the world went instantly dormant:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#the-matrix

It turns out that Wannacry's authors were using that ferkakte URL the same way that mobile malware authors were using accelerometer readings – to fulfill Descartes' imperative to distinguish the Matrix from reality. The malware authors knew that security researchers often ran malicious code inside sandboxes that answered every network query with fake data in hopes of eliciting responses that could be analyzed for weaknesses. So the Wannacry worm would periodically poll this nonexistent website and, if it got an answer, it would assume that it was being monitored by a security researcher and it would retreat to an encrypted blob, ceasing to operate lest it give intelligence to the enemy. When Hutchins put a webserver up at iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com, every Wannacry instance in the world was instantly convinced that it was running on an enemy's simulator and withdrew into sulky hibernation.

The arms race to distinguish simulation from reality is critical and the stakes only get higher by the day. Malware abounds, even as our devices grow more intimately woven through our lives. We put our bodies into computers – cars, buildings – and computers inside our bodies. We absolutely want our computers to be able to faithfully convey what's going on inside them.

But we keep running as hard as we can in the opposite direction, leaning harder into secure computing models built on subsystems in our computers that treat us as the threat. Take UEFI, the ubiquitous security system that observes your computer's boot process, halting it if it sees something it doesn't approve of. On the one hand, this has made installing GNU/Linux and other alternative OSes vastly harder across a wide variety of devices. This means that when a vendor end-of-lifes a gadget, no one can make an alternative OS for it, so off the landfill it goes.

It doesn't help that UEFI – and other trusted computing modules – are covered by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it a felony to publish information that can bypass or weaken the system. The threat of a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine means that UEFI and other trusted computing systems are understudied, leaving them festering with longstanding bugs:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Here's where it gets really bad. If an attacker can get inside UEFI, they can run malicious software that – by design – no program running on our computers can detect or block. That badware is running in "Ring -1" – a zone of privilege that overrides the operating system itself.

Here's the bad news: UEFI malware has already been detected in the wild:

https://securelist.com/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/106973/

And here's the worst news: researchers have just identified another exploitable UEFI bug, dubbed Pixiefail:

https://blog.quarkslab.com/pixiefail-nine-vulnerabilities-in-tianocores-edk-ii-ipv6-network-stack.html

Writing in Ars Technica, Dan Goodin breaks down Pixiefail, describing how anyone on the same LAN as a vulnerable computer can infect its firmware:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/new-uefi-vulnerabilities-send-firmware-devs-across-an-entire-ecosystem-scrambling/

That vulnerability extends to computers in a data-center where the attacker has a cloud computing instance. PXE – the system that Pixiefail attacks – isn't widely used in home or office environments, but it's very common in data-centers.

Again, once a computer is exploited with Pixiefail, software running on that computer can't detect or delete the Pixiefail code. When the compromised computer is queried by the operating system, Pixiefail undetectably lies to the OS. "Hey, OS, does this drive have a file called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope." "Hey, OS, are you running a process called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope."

This is a self-destruct switch that's been compromised by the enemy, and which no one on the bridge can de-activate – by design. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.

There are models for helping your computer bust out of the Matrix. Back in 2016, Edward Snowden and bunnie Huang prototyped and published source code and schematics for an "introspection engine":

https://assets.pubpub.org/aacpjrja/AgainstTheLaw-CounteringLawfulAbusesofDigitalSurveillance.pdf

This is a single-board computer that lives in an ultraslim shim that you slide between your iPhone's mainboard and its case, leaving a ribbon cable poking out of the SIM slot. This connects to a case that has its own OLED display. The board has leads that physically contact each of the network interfaces on the phone, conveying any data they transit to the screen so that you can observe the data your phone is sending without having to trust your phone.

(I liked this gadget so much that I included it as a major plot point in my 2020 novel Attack Surface, the third book in the Little Brother series):

https://craphound.com/attacksurface/

We don't have to cede control over our devices in order to secure them. Indeed, we can't ever secure them unless we can control them. Self-destruct switches don't belong on the bridge of your spaceship, and trusted computing modules don't belong in your devices.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

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/2024/01/17/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

Image: Mike (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillwellmike/15676883261/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[multidimensionalsock]

Games engines and their pricings for Indie Devs

Based on Unitys recent changes to their pricing model, I thought it would be useful to put together a list of different game making softwares and their pricing models to compare which would be best for you.

Unreal

Programming language: C++ and visual scripting.

Dimensions: 3D, VR and AR

Platforms: all platforms

Standard license: free to use, pay 5% of your revenue over $1 million over the lifetime of the game, due each quarter (as long as the game is still for sale or generates more them $10k per quarter)

Enterprise: $1.5k+ per seat per year, includes premium support and private training and/or custom licensing terms

Custom licenses: larger developers can renegotiate with epic for lower or waived royalty fees.

More about their licensing here

Gamemaker

Programming language: GML and visual scripting

Dimensions: 2D

Gamemaker doesn't require any royalties made off of your game no matter which license youre on.

Free: access to gamemaker and export that can only be used on their games website (GX.games)

Creator: access to game maker, GX export and desktop export $4.99 a month

Indie: access to the above with web and mobile exports, $9.99 a month.

Enterprise: all of the above but with console exports as well $79.99 a month.

Godot

Programming languages: GDScript, C# and C++

Dimensions: 2D, 3D, AR and VR

Platforms: Not able to port to console due to it being open source unless you develop it yourself or via a third party.

Royalty free and free at point of purchase.

RPG maker

Programming language: Java and visual scripting

Dimensions: 3D (in some), 2D

Platforms: windows, mac, web

Doesn't ask for royalties from games, has a 20 day free trial. RPG maker MZ costs £66.99 initial purchase, costs may vary by which engine you buy.

CryEngine

Programming language: C++

Dimensions: 2D, 3D, VR and AR.

Platforms: Windows, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Oculus Rift, OSVR, PSVR, and HTC Vive. Mobile support is in development.

5% royalty fee over $5k a year, free to download and use.

Cocos2D

Programming languages: C++, C#, Lua and javascript

Dimensions: 2D

Platforms: android, mac, linux, and win32.

Free to use, no royalties

Cocos creator

Programming languages: TypeScript and JavaScript

Dimensions: 2D and 3D

Platforms: IOS, android, windows, mac, HTML5

Free to use, no royalties

Defold

Programming languages: Lua 5.1 and LuaJIT

Dimensions: 2D and 3D

Platforms: PlayStation®4, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, Windows, Steam, HTML5, Facebook, Q3 2023 PlayStation®5, Q2 2024 XBox

Free to use, no royalties

Phaser

Dimensions: 2D

Programming languages: JavaScript or TypeScript

Platforms: Web (HTML5)

Free to use, no royalties

Unity

Programming language: C#

Platforms: all platforms

Dimensions: 2D, 3D, VR and AR

Edit: unity has changed their policy you can see the new one here

[pendarling]

Power Imbalance 3

<< Start < Part 2 • Part 4 > End >>

Villain's eyes squinted at the small letters. They had only finished a quarter of what they expected Henchman to do. The stacks of paper only seemed to remain stagnant despite doing as much as possible. How Henchman managed it all was a mystery. They really did take too much credit for their work, after all.

Villain sat back in their chair; the conversation from yesterday with Sharp-Shooter did nothing to help the situation. Maybe they needed to do something drastic about the problem. Villain stood up from their chair and grabbed the coffee machine that sat idly on the side. They refilled the cup and heard a knock on their door.

It was Henchman.

"Good morning." Villain set down the machine and walked back to their chair. "If you're here for those papers, unfortunately, they aren't done."

"That's fine." Henchman sat down in the plush chair across from them and allowed silence to overtake the room.

Villain stared back at their blank eyes and fiddled with the wooden armchair. They asked them to get some rest yesterday, but it looked like none of that happened. "So, how was it?" They casually asked.

"How was what?"

"Your break."

Henchman's legs instinctively crossed along with their arms. "It was fine. Nothing happened."

Something told them it wasn't as okay as it seemed, and evident by the fact that other members had attacked Henchman and brought them to bring Henchman into their office. They weren't one for confrontations, but while the cleaners had fit to work on removing the spray paint from Henchman's door, they might as well keep them at arm's length. "Listen, I was thinking of making some changes around here." Henchman sat up, though clearly looking uncomfortable at having the entire facility's rules overturned because of them. "You know I wanted to see what I could do to help you get to know the others better. Maybe you just started on the wrong foot."

"I know, but…" their gaze set itself on the floor. "I don't want to trouble you or anyone else."

"It's not a problem, and I'll make sure it isn't a problem for everyone else either."

"I really appreciate it, but when I said I was fine on my own, I meant it." Henchman stood up and gathered the papers from their desk and into their arms.

Villain let them take their time and watched them leave feeling a little disheartened at the situation.

Before they could get up, the door opened again, "Oh, Henchman—"their words stopped. It wasn't Henchman; Villain knew this criminal. Their eyes were hidden behind a pair of blue goggles and familiar jet-black boots. They had to stop themselves from blowing up on the unwanted guest. Saber was the worst employee in the entire organization. They never seemed to get anything done. If anyone should be attacked, it should've been Saber.

"Uh boss."

"Save it for later. I already know you brought nothing."

"No!" They raised their arms and quickly walked in front of Villain, "I have something of value this time." They pulled out a small chip from their coat and slid it over. Villain curiously pulled it up into view.

"I swear if this is worthless, I'm putting you into hard labour for the next week." They rolled their chair toward their computer and inserted the drive. The screen waited for permission to grant access to the software, and Saber held their breath.

"I'm sure you'd be pleased."

The screen loaded and in walked Shooter. "You again?" They chuckled and placed a large black box on the couch. "Aren't you supposed to be ruining another mission for us?"

"I am not!"

Villain tuned out the noise as their eyes scanned the screen. A file with a list of different links appeared; Villain clicked on the first one with a picture of a man in a suit surrounded by a group of bodyguards. "Well, isn't this interesting?" They mumbled. The photograph was of the elusive Head of The General Elections Committee. According to their last analysis, they were last seen in the provincial North after a protest broke out outside their home South of their work facility, something about fraudulent votes and unfair treatment of the staff who formerly worked for him. The Hero's Agency hadn't said anything for or against their target yet, which meant he was all game. Supervillain released a bounty on his head last year, almost executing another villain with a name they couldn't remember. It was an entire ordeal, and they hadn't expected a high-class target would be found by none other than... Saber.

"Saber." They called and turned the screen toward them; Saber looked at them, waiting for this moment their entire life, "Did you take these pictures?"

"Yes I did."

"Isn't that the guy who almost got Supervillain's wife killed?" Shooter stepped forward.

"He killed Supervillain's wife?"

"No..." Villain intervened, "He almost got another villain executed for something they didn't do."

Shooter pointed at them, "That was Supervillain's wife. She works as a villain too."

"Really?" Saber and Villain said.

"What's her name?" Villain flipped the screen back at them and opened a search engine.

"Like Silver... something something I forgot."

Villain typed the name into the search box and wrote a string of other related words to the case. The screen opened up a picture of their target along with pages of news addressing the controversy from about a year ago. "Found it..."

"Saber, I thought you were over-stealing other people's work." Shooter set a hand on their shoulder, and Saber slapped it off.

"I am! And I didn't steal any of this, I took it myself!"

Shooter scoffed, "Okay," They sarcastically raised their hands, "I've just never seen you with a camera before."

"You know you're a real asshole, Shooter. Fuck you."

Villain sighed deeply, "Can you two take your conversation outside, I'm trying to do something here."

"But boss," Shooter gestured at the box they brought in earlier, still sitting on the couch. However, Villain had already done enough and needed to finish researching the sudden appearance of the longtime threat to the underworld.

With a flick of their wrist, the two of them walked out the door.

<< Start

< Part 2

•

Part 4 >

End >>

~~~

MASTERLIST

TAG LIST: @books-are-everything, @kurai-hono-blog, @iykyunho, @marvellousdaisy, @m3rakii, @crow-with-a-typewriter, @sceirlose, @90scliche, @wondergoddess475, @miaowmelodie, @jeremy-no, @smallville1x10, @artsandstoriesandstuff, @whatwhump, @0eggdealer, @yuki-0710, @silky-worm, @theforeverdyingperson

Click here to be added to tags

[itcars]

First Look: The Hennessey H850 Mustang Dark Horse

Hennessey Performance, the world-renowned Texas-based hypercar manufacturer and high-performance vehicle creator, announces high-performance supercharged upgrades for the all-new, seventh-generation 2024 Ford S650 Mustang Dark Horse. The comprehensive turn-key package dramatically boosts engine output and enhances the appearance of the latest iteration of America's iconic pony car.

Ford's completely redesigned 'S650' Mustang Dark Horse is fitted with Ford's naturally aspirated Gen-4 Coyote 5.0-liter V8. The automaker upgrades the Dark Horse with GT500 connecting rods and a dual throttle body to earn a factory rating of 500 horsepower. The 2024 Dark Horse may be ordered with either a Tremec 6-speed manual (3.73 gears) or with Ford’s 10-speed automatic (3.55 gearing). Regardless of transmission choice, the track-focused Mustang features upgraded multi-piston Brembo performance brakes on both axles.

Hennessey's experienced technicians, who have been 'making fast cars faster' for 32 years, fit the Mustang's V8 with a high-performance supercharger and a high-flow air induction system, upgraded fuel injectors, and a new fuel pump. Calibrated with an HPE Engine Management software upgrade, the ‘H850’ Dark Horse produces 850 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque – a 70 percent increase in power!

To complement its potent powerplant, the Hennessey 'H850' Ford Mustang Dark Horse is visually enhanced with a stylish carbon-fiber front splitter, carbon-fiber side skirts, and a carbon-fiber rear spoiler. Completing the exterior cosmetic enhancements are a set of stunning forged aluminum alloy wheels. Hennessey's embroidered head restraints are fitted to the seats, while Hennessey's badging and script adorn the quarter panels and rear fascia. Unique 'Heritage' graphics are optional.

[illiana-mystery]

WIP Wednesday

I'm back with another one of these. It's been awhile, hasn't it?

I have two WIPs to share since it's been a minute since an update. Those two WIPs being the upcoming Chapter 6 of A Decent Proposal and Chapter 3 (the last chapter) of One Thumb Down.

Hope you enjoy and read to the end for a sneak peek of a brand new fic!

Taglist: @ghnaim24​, @imwithyoutiltheendofthelinebucky​​, @iobsessoverfictionalmen​, @emily-ella-nightshade89​, @writingkitten, @crowtoed, @doodleborg

---

A Decent Proposal

After work, Arnold went straight to his local suit shop, J.R. Henry, to look at their assortment of suits and shirts.

He had been a local customer for years, but only had the budget to shop in their clearance section. Luckily, the shop keep, Wallace Henry, didn't mind one bit.

Mr. Wallace, as he was known, saw Arnold as his regular and he loved having him as such. He was much more polite and patient than his other clientele.

So when Arnold walked through those big mahogany doors, Mr. Wallace was quick to greet him, his measuring tape safely secured in hand per usual.

“Arnold,” the older man cheered before he hugged him. Arnold laughed and hugged him back, with a back tap to boot.

“Hello, Mr. Wallace,” he greeted him.

“Well, hello to you too. Long time no see. I've missed having you in.”

“Sorry, life has just been a little crazy for me lately.”

“Oh, you don't say. What's been troubling you?”

“I was recently diagnosed with general anxiety disorder, so it’s been a bit hard to cope with. I'm trying to work around it or with it…whichever is better for me.”

“Damn, that's tough. Sorry to hear that, Arnold. My Lorraine has anxiety disorder too. It used to cripple her, until she got on that new fangled anxiety medication the doctors are shilling now. Maybe you should try that.”

“Thanks, but I'm trying to handle this with meditation and supplements. I'm not really a big medicine guy.”

“Completely understandable. Just a suggestion. Now, what can I help you with today? Need a new suit for a night on the town with the misses?”

He laughed.

“No, no. Nothing like that. I have a big presentation at work and I want to look nice for our new clients.”

And Alondra…mostly for Alondra, but he didn't need to know that.

“Oh, I see. Who's this new client, if you don't mind me asking?”

“Truly Brands. They’re considering dropping Loware to work with us.”

“Really?! They must be under new management because Ernesto Rivera and Marshall Lowe have been fighting over that account for decades. Marshall made a very lucrative deal with Roman True. Why would Truly Brands want to break from Loware?”

“Because Martin Lowe is nothing like his father and is sinking his father's stock shares and reputation with his ridiculous ideas, one being charging Rowena True, daughter of Roman, more for their lackluster software. Meanwhile, Alondra and the rest of Rivaware have strived to make a better, more innovative and cost effective product for our clientele, which is more than tempting to Rowena who is tired of dealing with Martin and his cronies.”

“I see. I always knew it was a bad idea to let Martin take over Loware. I never liked that bastard,” Mr. Wallace huffed, making Arnold snicker. “I'm not surprised that Alondra put you on the account to impress Rowena then.”

“She actually didn't. I reached out to Rowena with a deal that's hard to refuse. She just needs the rest of the board on board with this deal, hence our presentation tomorrow.”

“Wow, well look at you…taking initiative. I'm sure Alondra and Ernesto are very impressed with you.”

He smirked.

“Well, I haven't been the top seller for the past 10 quarters for nothing,” he bragged.

“Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, follow me. We got some new suits on the sale rack,” he droned on before Arnold stopped him.

“Actually, I wanted to look at the regular racks,” he clarified, making Mr. Wallace turn around, eyes wide. “I got a commission check today and I think getting a new suit would be putting it to good use. After all, my dedication to Rivaware is unmatched.”

And his dedication to Alondra, of course.

“Well, alright big spender,” Mr. Wallace teased. “I got some new suits I think you'd like. Since you got this new look going on. Don't think I didn't notice. You look sharp, Mack.”

“Thank you,” he chirped before he followed the old man to the center of the store.

---

One Thumb Down

“Beto, you should go back and check on Neveah. I can finish up here and close up for you,” Juan suggested, as he observed his manager still solemnly looking out the glass doors.

He had just been standing there, with a glazed look in his eye, while he was nervously biting on his thumb.

It was a nervous tick he had since graduating from thumb sucking, per Mama Millie’s manipulation with hot pepper paste as he got older.

Yes, the taste stung, but he learned that just nibbling on his thumb still did the trick without burning his tongue off.

And it did bring him the same comfort. So that's what he was doing now, as his mind kept racing about you.

“No, no. Juan, it's your day off,” he said, still looking out to the horizon behind the front doors. “I hate that I even had to call you.”

“Beto, it's alright. I don't mind. Nev is a great young lady and you were just looking out for her.”

“I should have never let her do a maintenance request,” he moaned, before accidently biting the tip of skin by his thumbnail.

“Fuck,” he hollered, before he groaned. “God, I'm a mess."

“We do crazy things for the ones we love,” Juan responded. “Beto, I know about your little crush on Nev. I know how much she means to you. She reminds you of Gina, huh?”

Bobby paused, before turning around to face the younger man at the front desk.

“What makes you think that?” he curiously asked.

“I remember how you described Gina,” he replied. “Nev is a lot like her, personality wise. I'm not a religious person, but I do believe that sometimes we are gifted ‘angels’ if we do some good in this world. You're a good man, Beto. Maybe, Nev was sent to you by Gina.”

He softly laughed.

“I am starting to believe that actually, Juan. I learned something new about her today.”

“And what's that?”

“She's a Bjork fan…”

“Like Gina,” Juan finished for him. “Let me guess, her favorite album is Post, right?”

Bobby nodded.

“Hmmm, so I guess our theories align and have some truth to them. Nev has been blessed to you by your wife. I mean I believe it. I know how much she cared about your happiness.”

“She did,” Bobby said with a warm smile. “I miss her so much, but I'm glad to have Nev around now. Gina doesn't seem so far away when she's around.”

“So I suppose that's why you let her do the maintenance request? To spend some more time with her?”

“How did you guess?” he jokingly asked, making Juan laugh.

“You're very obvious, Beto,” he chuckled. “But I'm wondering what you're still doing here? Go back to her place and check on her. I know it's eating at you. I know you didn't want to leave her.”

“It's inappropriate for me to like her,” he huffed.

“She won't be your intern forever, Beto. Don't miss your chance. Because between you and me, I think she likes you too.”

Bobby's eyes lit up when he said that.

“You think so?”

“I see how she looks at you…the way you two interact. You two are in love. You're just too shy to see it.”

He smiled, before scratching the back of his head.

“Thanks, Juan. I needed that little talk. But as long as she's my intern, I'd like to just stay friendly. But we'll see what happens when I'm not her boss anymore. Only time can really tell.”

---

Paulie and Dosie - Sneak Peek

(Author's Note: This fic is a genderbent AU. Also, Dosie is reader and her nickname is pronounced doe-she.)

“But now I wonder, were you a theater kid?”

She laughed.

“Yes, I was. Guilty as charged,” she admitted, before she took her first bite of her burger. “I was not good enough to pursue past high school, but I did enjoy it a lot. How about you? Did the acting bug ever bite you?”

You were about to answer her, when you noticed that some of the mayo on the burger began to drip from her lips to her chin.

You wanted to say something, but before you could, she lowered the burger from her face a little and licked it off with her tongue.

Her very long tongue, to clarify.

You felt a little woozy when you finally noticed that too.

Had her tongue always been that long and you just never noticed?

Because now you really wanted to see what that tongue could do.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” she softly said, with a devious twinkle in her eyes. “I'm such a messy eater. Did I get all the mayo off?”

“Yep,” you swiftly answered, your heart racing in your chest.

She laughed.

“Oh good,” she replied. “And you were right. This veggie burger is really good. The best I've had in a while.”

“Glad you like it,” you moaned, trying to forget what you just saw so your mind could go back to normal, clean thoughts as she began to eat your melt. “And to answer your question, I did do a few shows, but at my local community theater and I stopped in middle school. It just wasn't for me.”

“I see,” she said, before she took another bite of her burger and licked her lips like so.

You were on edge as you saw her do it again, and then you knew she was purposely trying to tease you.

And man, was she hot while doing so.

“Have you ever seen Rocky Picture Horrow Show?”

“Only like every year! I used to go with my ex-girlfriend. Our local theater in Rochester hosted it every year.”

“Well, I've gone every year since college. I go to this off-Broadway theater to see it and it's amazing. Maybe I can take you this year?”

“I would love that!” she chirped, before you both reached for a fry. You both laughed before Pauline gave it to you.

So you paid it forward and dipped it in ketchup before you gave it to her to eat. She grabbed your hand and moved it forward, twirling her tongue around the fry like it was cherry stem before she pulled it into her mouth.

You were quite impressed by her little trick and she smirked when she noticed your reaction.

“If you like that, you'd love what I can do with a cherry stem,” she seductively bragged, before she whispered, “And a clit.”

You nervously laughed again.

[wauzmons]

Happy New Year! My Plans for 2024 Q1

2023 is finally over! I have to say that was one of the worst years of my life, but that means this year HAS to be better. The development of Elysian Eclipse went okay-ish. My plans for 2023 were to get a solid foundation for aquatic and creature stage. I'm very happy with how aquatic stage turned out so far, but creature stage is lagging behind, because of all the obstacles we had to deal with:

Creating our own Wiki software to move away from Miraheze and Media Wiki, the Reddit Blackout, and most importantly the Unity Runtime Fee. All of these were major annoyances... But since these are out of the way now everything is going smoothly again!

So, here is what you can expect from Elysian Eclipse in the first quarter of 2024, in no particular order:

✅ The foundation of creature stage

✅ A rework of creature controls, making the movement feel more fluid than in the current prototype (Blorb Zone)

✅ The first legs with procedural walk animations

❌ Other species spawning in aquatic and creature stage, gathering around nests or roaming freely

❌ A communication menu, similar to the one in Spore's space stage, but instead for creature stage, with which you can inspect other creatures or trade items with them

✅ Dynamic vegetation coloration, so the grass on two planets could have different colors, even though it is the same biome

❌ More Elysian Mesh features, focused on the generation of procedural segments of plants and buildings

✅ Status effects like for example a high pressure debuff for the deeper regions of aquatic stage

❌ More quests for cell and aquatic stage, including some of the contest winners

Anyway, I hope you had a better year than me. See you soon!

Edit: All goals with a ✅ have been included into the demo. The ones marked with ❌ have gone into development, but weren't stable enough for release yet and will be in a future version.

[usafphantom2]

F-22 Retirement in 2030 Unlikely as USAF Looks to Spend $7.8 Billion on It Before Then

March 27, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force seems to be rethinking its plan to start retiring the F-22 around 2030, as its spending plans for the air dominance fighter go well beyond that date, according to the service’s fiscal 2025 budget request.

The Air Force’s planned F-22 budget through fiscal year 2029 includes $4.7 billion for procurement and $3.1 for research, development, test, and evaluation, for a total of $7.8 billion. While the RDT&E line closes out in FY29, procurement beyond that date—labeled “to completion” in budget documents—comes to $1.2 billion.

Senior Air Force leaders have described the F-22 program now through 2030 as a “bridge” to the Next-Generation Air Dominance Fighter and its family of systems, and several have said that the technologies being developed for the F-22 in its waning service years will be directly applicable to NGAD.

The budget assumes the F-22 fleet will be reduced by 32 aircraft, to about 153 airplanes, but the documents say only 142 will receive the full lineup of improvements.

The 32 jets the Air Force wants to divest are of the Block 20 configuration, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said it would cost upwards of $50 million each to bring them up to Block 30, the most up-to-date standard. The Air Force prefers to spend that money making the younger models more capable against the anticipated threat; mainly the air-to-air challenge posed by China’s fifth-generation fighters and advanced air-to-air missiles.

The Air Force has also said that a congressional mandate to upgrade the older F-22s—which have been used only as training jets—couldn’t be accomplished until it was almost time to retire them. They would also need all the new capabilities the F-22 is receiving, to preserve fleet standardization, at even greater cost.

Pentagon officials agreed that, despite the urgency of the threat, it would be foolish to upgrade the F-22s at such expense and retire them a few months later. One said that the timing of the F-22’s retirement “hasn’t been decided … and it depends on progress with NGAD” and other factors.

Budget justification documents for the F-22 say that the procurement activities over the next five years will upgrade “the air vehicle, engine, Operational Flight Program (OFP), and training systems to improve F-22 weapons, communications, navigation, pilot-vehicle interface, and electronic warfare suite.”

Updates called out in the documents show the Air Force is giving the F-22 stealthy, range-extending drop tanks, infrared sensors, identification, friend-or-foe improvements, better Link 16 connectivity, software upgrades, and electronic warfare and navigation enhancements, as well as new weapons and hardware changes to make it more reliable and available.

The long-range tanks and infrared systems were revealed in artwork released by Air Combat Command in mid-2022, without explanation at the time. Test aircraft sporting the new underwing tanks and IR sensors have since been photographed near western test ranges, but the Air Force has declined to discuss them.

Among the new capabilities being prepared for the F-22 Raptor are the still-classified AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, evoked here in an image released in 2022 by Gen. Mark Kelly, head of Air Combat Command. Developed by Lockheed Martin, JATM is an air-to-air weapon designed to attack targets beyond visual range. It is needed to counter China’s next-generation PL-15 weapon. USAF illustration

The budget documents say the critical design review for the stealthy tanks took place in early 2023 and that technology demonstrations have been underway since. “Required Assets Available” with the tanks, which usually translates to initial operational capability, is set for the second quarter of fiscal 2026.

The infrared detection system (IRDS), which is likely to be the two slender, chiseled pods on the outer wing of the F-22 in the artwork, will enter full-up flight test in the first quarter of fiscal 2026. Production is to begin in early 2028, with deliveries the following year.

A sensor enhancement package for the F-22 includes IRST and possibly radar and other detection systems. Together, they will “improve the F-22’s sensing and tracking and ensures Air Superiority by preserving the first-look, first-shot and first-kill capabilities of the 142 Block 30/35 F-22 aircraft,” according to the justifications.

“The first 71 Sensor Enhancements Group A kits were purchased under F-22’s Rapid Fielding Middle Tier Acquisition (MTA) program authority,” the Air Force said. The new sensors are slated for flight demonstration in FY24. A follow-on production decision is scheduled to follow closely. Developmental Test and Evaluation is scheduled for the third quarter of FY25, and in the last quarter of FY26, Operational Test and Evaluation will begin.

The low-drag tank and pylons “are advanced technological designs” which will “minimally increase drag” while permitting longer range, even at supersonic speed, for the F-22.

“The pylons are equipped with smart rack pneumatic technology to accurately control ejection performance and maintain minimum drag without stores,” the documents said.

The program calls for 286 each of the tanks and pylons—enough to fully equip 143 jets, at two for each jet. They have to work at a speed of at least Mach 1.2. Wind tunnel and ground tests were completed in fiscal 2023, and flight testing is targeted to begin in the second quarter of fiscal 2024, shortly after which a critical design review is scheduled. The initial lots will be bought later in FY24. Developmental and operational testing is set to conclude in mid-fiscal 2026, with required assets available soon after.

The F-22 will also get a new Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna to help it navigate in a “GPS-degraded environment,” and achieve resilient position, navigation and timing. Retrofits will be made on 142 F-22s, of which 27 will be operated by the Air National Guard. There will be a production readiness review in June of this year, and flight testing starts in early 2025.

A series of reliability, availability, and maintainability program (RAMP) initiatives meant to make the F-22 more ready when needed are also in the funding plan. Candidates were selected for their ability to rapidly reduce maintenance workload or increased durability of the F-22’s stealth features. There is “high variability in the number of projects and kit quantities,” the Air Force said in its budget justification books.

“The RAMP program includes funding for retrofit installation labor and modifications which address corrosion, reduce maintenance hours, increase safety and provide urgent response requirements identified by the user to the F-22 fleet,” the Air Force said. These projects are also addressing safety-of-flight issues and to ease “technology insertion.” One such program replaces old fiber-optic cabling; another for a “Low Observable Mighty Tough Boot … leads to an estimated three percent increase in aircraft reliability.”

What was originally an ad-hoc Link 16 connectivity program now gives the F-22 a transmit/receive capability with Link 16 rehosted to a system that also plugs it into the Multi-functional Information Distribution Service/Joint Tactical Radio System (MIDS/JTRS), with an open architecture to speed insertion of new capabilities.

Much of the F-22 RDT&E request is for software to integrate and exploit all the new sensors and equipment the fleet will receive. The Air Force is attempting to “leverage commercially-based agile software and hardware best practices and tools” to speed the introduction of new capabilities. It’s also funding Software Integration Labs for most of the specific systems.

Other RDT&E efforts include cryptographic upgrades, technology demonstrations, “threat modeling support,” engine enhancements cybersecurity and open mission system (OMS) integration. Software is to be delivered “using a scheduled cadence for capabilities as they mature.”

The RDT&E program also includes “Project Geyser,” described as an “advanced capability” that will be assessed for “fielding configuration options.” No details were given about this project, but there will be “continued flight demonstrations and … test fleet modification into planned production configuration” in fiscal 2025.

@AirandSpaceForces.com via X

[warningsine]

Google laid off hundreds of workers in several divisions Wednesday night, seeking to lower expenses as it focuses on artificial intelligence and joining a wave of other companies cutting tech jobs this year.

The Silicon Valley company laid off employees in its core engineering division, as well as those working on the Google Assistant, a voice-operated virtual assistant, and in the hardware division that makes the Pixel phone, Fitbit watches and Nest thermostat, three people with knowledge of the cuts said.

Several hundred employees from the company’s core engineering organization lost corporate access and received notices that their roles were eliminated, two of the people said. Google said that most of the hardware cuts affected a team working on augmented reality, technology that combines the real world with a digital overlay.

“We’ve had to make some difficult decisions about ongoing employment of some Google employees and we regret to inform you that your position is being eliminated,” the company told some workers in the division, according to the text of an email reviewed by The New York Times.

Google confirmed the Assistant cuts, earlier reported by Semafor, and the hardware layoffs, earlier reported by the blog 9to5Google.

“We’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. After cuts throughout the second half of 2023, “some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.”

The cuts continue a trend of tech layoffs, after large companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon laid off thousands of workers last year. Ten days into this year, more companies have announced job cuts. Earlier Wednesday, Amazon shed hundreds of workers from its Twitch streaming service, Prime Video and MGM studios. Xerox said this month that it would cut 15 percent of its 23,000-person staff, and the video game software provider Unity Software said it would eliminate 1,800 roles, or 25 percent of its work force.

At Google, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive, has pushed the company since July 2022 to sharpen its focus and to reduce expenses as global economic conditions deteriorated. In January 2023, Google shed 6 percent of its work force, or 12,000 people, in the largest layoffs that the company has conducted. Since then, executives at the company have said they would try to significantly reduce costs, as it focuses on the growing field of generative artificial intelligence.

Google, which had 182,000 employees as of Sept. 30, said the layoffs on Wednesday were part of a set of reorganizations that were made in the normal course of business.

The Alphabet Workers Union, a group representing more than 1,400 workers at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, described the layoffs as “needless.”

“Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our co-workers while making billions every quarter,” the group said in a post on the social media site X.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Marketing News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

A US court ruled that Google is a monopoly, and has broken antitrust laws. This decision will be appealed, but in the meantime, could affect similar cases against large tech giants. 

Did you violate a Facebook policy? Meta is now offering a “training course” in lieu of having the page’s reach limited for Professional Mode users. 

Google Ads shown in Canada will have a 2.5% surcharge applied as of October 1, due to new Canadian tax laws.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Search Engine Roundtable’s Google report for July is out; we’re still waiting for the next core update. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta’s latest legal development: a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over facial recognition and privacy.  

Instagram

Instagram is highlighting “Views” in its metrics in an attempt to get creators to focus on reach instead of follower numbers. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is testing outside ads on the site. The ad auction system would include revenue sharing. 

Reddit

Reddit confirmed that anyone who wants to use Reddit posts for AI training and other data collection will need to pay for them, just as Google and OpenAI did. 

Second quarter 2024 was great for Reddit, with revenue growth of 54%. Like almost every other platform, they are planning on using AI in their search results, perhaps to summarize content. 

Threads

Threads now claims over 200 million active users.

TikTok

TikTok is now adding group chats, which can include up to 32 people.

TikTok is being sued by the US Federal Trade Commission, for allowing children under 13 to sign up and have their data harvested. 

Twitter

Twitter seems to be working on the payments option Musk promised last year. Tweets by users in the EU will at least temporarily be pulled from the AI-training for “Grok”, in line with EU law.

CONTENT MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Email software Mad Mimi is shutting down as of August 30. Owner GoDaddy is hoping to move users to its GoDaddy Digital Marketing setup. 

Content ideas for September include National Dog Week. 

You can now post on Substack without having an actual newsletter, as the platform tries to become more like a social media site. 

As of November, Patreon memberships started in the iOS app will be subject to a 30% surcharge from Apple. Patreon is giving creators the ability to add that charge to the member's bill, or pay it themselves.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google worked with Meta to break the search engine’s rules on advertising to children through a loophole that showed ads for Instagram to YouTube viewers in the 13-17 year old demographic. Google says they have stopped the campaign, and that “We prohibit ads being personalized to people under-18, period”.

Google’s Performance Max ads now have new tools, including some with AI. 

Microsoft’s search and news advertising revenue was up 19% in the second quarter, a very good result for them. 

One of the interesting tidbits from the recent Google antitrust decision is that Amazon sells more advertising than either Google or Meta’s slice of retail ads. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

More than half of Gen Z claim to have bought items while spending time on social media in the past half year, higher than other generations. 

Shopify’s president claimed that Christmas shopping started in July on their millions of sites, with holiday decor and ornament sales doubling, and advent calendar sales going up a whopping 4,463%.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The White House has issued new rules aimed at companies that manufacture synthetic DNA after years of warnings that a pathogen made with mail-order genetic material could accidentally or intentionally spark the next pandemic.

The rules, released on April 29, are the result of an executive order signed by President Joe Biden last fall to establish new standards for AI safety and security, including AI applied to biotechnology.

Artificially generated DNA allows researchers to do all sorts of things—develop diagnostic tests, make beneficial enzymes to eat up plastic, or engineer potent antibodies to treat disease—without having to extract natural sequences from organisms. Need to study a rare type of bacteria? Instead of going out into the field to collect a sample, its genetic sequence can simply be ordered from a DNA synthesis company instead.

Synthesizing DNA has been possible for decades, but it’s become increasingly easier, cheaper, and faster to do so in recent years thanks to new technology that can “print” custom gene sequences. Now, dozens of companies around the world make and ship synthetic nucleic acids en masse. And with AI, it’s becoming possible to create entirely new sequences that don’t exist in nature—including those that could pose a threat to humans or other living things.

“The concern has been for some time that as gene synthesis has gotten better and cheaper, and as more companies appear and more technologies streamline the synthesis of nucleic acids, that it is possible to de novo create organisms, particularly viruses,” says Tom Inglesby, an epidemiologist and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

It’s conceivable that a bad actor could make a dangerous virus from scratch by ordering its genetic building blocks and assembling them into a whole pathogen. In 2017, Canadian researchers revealed they had reconstructed the extinct horsepox virus for $100,000 using mail-order DNA, raising the possibility that the same could be done for smallpox, a deadly disease that was eradicated in 1980.

The new rules aim to prevent a similar scenario. It asks DNA manufacturers to screen purchase orders to flag so-called sequences of concern and assess customer legitimacy. Sequences of concern are those that contribute to an organism’s toxicity or ability to cause disease. For now, the rules only apply to scientists or companies that receive federal funding: They must order synthetic nucleic acids from providers that implement these practices.

Inglesby says it’s still a “big step forward” since about three-quarters of the US customer base for synthetic DNA are federally funded entities. But it means that scientists or organizations with private sources of funding aren’t beholden to using companies with these screening procedures.

Many DNA providers already follow screening guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010. About 80 percent of the industry has joined the International Gene Synthesis Consortium, which pledges to vet orders. But these measures are both voluntary, and not all companies comply.

Kevin Flyangolts, founder and CEO of New York–based Aclid, a company that offers screening software to DNA providers, says he’s glad to see the White House taking action. “While the industry has done a pretty good job of putting some protocols in place, it’s by and large not consistent,” he says. Still, he hopes Congress will adopt formal legislation by requiring all DNA providers to screen orders.

Last year, a bipartisan group of legislators introduced the Securing Gene Synthesis Act to mandate screening more broadly, but the bill has yet to advance.

Emily Leproust, CEO of Twist Bioscience, a San Francisco DNA-synthesis company, welcomes regulation. “We recognize that DNA is dual-use technology. It’s like dynamite, you can build tunnels, but you can also kill people,” she says. “Collectively, we have a responsibility to promote the ethical use of DNA.”

Twist has been screening sequences and customers since 2016, when it first started selling nucleic acids to customers. A few years ago, the company hired outside consultants to test its screening processes. The consultants set up fake customer names and surreptitiously ordered sequences of concern.

Leproust says the company successfully flagged many of those orders, but in some cases, there was internal disagreement on whether the sequences requested were worrisome or not. The exercise helped Twist adopt new protocols. For instance, it used to only screen DNA sequences 200 base pairs or longer. (A base pair is a unit of two DNA letters that pair together.) Now, it screens ones that are at least 50 base pairs to prevent customers from shopping around for smaller sequences to assemble together.

While Twist has tightened its own screening measures, Leproust still worries about some hypothetical scenarios that are beyond her control. For instance, a state actor with bad intentions could start making its own gene sequences. “Probably the biggest risk is if a state wants to build their own DNA synthesis capabilities,” she says. “They may be able to do it, because states have vast resources.”

[anassworld97]

Prompt Merchant Review -⚠️Full OTO, Bundle Details, Links

The recent surge in AI content creation tools, such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion, has opened up a lucrative online business opportunity: selling prompts. As these AI tools enter the spotlight, the need for top-notch prompts spikes, allowing shrewd entrepreneurs to target business owners and creative professionals with customized offerings.

Before now, creating and selling prompts had been a complex challenge; however, Prompt Merchant, created by Andrew Darius, has alleviated this issue. This software helps novices launch successful prompt-selling businesses from the ground up. It combines drag-and-drop functionality with ease in everything from prompt creation to payment processing and order management.

This Prompt Merchant review provides a comprehensive look at the software, its functions, and those who can most benefit. Examining the optional upgrades and bundle deal is essential to determining whether they will maximize your earnings. By the end of this guide, you will have determined if Prompt Merchant efficiently meets your requirements as a key player in building a successful prompt-selling enterprise within AI content generation.

## Overview of Prompt Merchant

Scarce creation tool empowering users to produce and market prompts for top AI content and graphic-generating apps like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. Prompt Merchant, founded by Andrew Darius and pioneering in its field, grants users access to an innovative platform allowing them to build their own prompt-selling businesses. It fulfills the growing desire for AI-generated content and graphics.

The user platform Prompt Merchant permits creation of a responsive online store where customers can buy prompts that cater to numerous groups of people who rely on AI-based resources for creating visual content (graphics), composed text (written content), video materials (videos), and other digital creations.

A Recent Update From Prompt Merchant:

For a limited time, use coupon code PM100OFF to get $100 OFF the Prompt Merchant Bundle Deal. Also use code PM5OFF to get $5 OFF the Prompt Merchant Frontend and all OTOs

PromptMerchant Quarter Of Profit club

PromptMerchant Agency

PromptMerchant Standard

PromptMerchant Full Access Bundle

PromptMerchant Whitelabel

PromptMerchant PRO

## How Prompt Merchant Works

Prompt Merchant simplifies the process of selling prompts into three easy steps:

1. **Choose Prompts: Selections from 100 customizable templates or self-generated inputs give users flexibility in creating prompts for AI resources like ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and more.

2. **Customize Your Store: Shape your branding, colors, and layout into a tailored online prompt store with ease.

3. **Start Selling: Process orders, manage payments, and sell prompts using My Products Hub without additional payment processors needed. One convenient platform streamlines every aspect of prompt creation and sales, by Prompt Merchant.

## Key Benefits and Features

Prompt Merchant offers a range of valuable features and benefits, including:

- Immediate access to a bank of 100 prompts for immediate sale.

- An easily customizable store interface built for user convenience.

- Using sitemaps as an SEO feature to improve search engine visibility.

- With Google Analytics integration, gain valuable insights into your data.

- Support is provided for a range of payment methods like PayPal, Stripe, and others.

- Access detailed tutorials and count on a dedicated support team for help.

- Having no limit to the number of prompts that can be uploaded.

- Branding your business using white-label options.

Prompt Merchant reduces the technical hurdles for inexperienced people looking to start a prompt-selling venture. Crafting high-quality prompts that sell is emphasized as the software handles the technical aspects.

## Prompt Merchant Frontend (FE)

The basic version of Prompt Merchant, Frontend, is available for an eye-catching launch price of just $17 as a one-time payment. With this package, users can take advantage of the central platform and key features necessary for setting up and running a prompt store.

What's Included in the Frontend:

- Allowing you to create and tailor your own prompt store, there's the Prompt Merchant platform to explore.

- A collection of 100 prompts available to purchase.

- Unlimited prompt creation and uploading capabilities.

- An intuitive drag and drop store builder for users.

- SEO features like sitemaps.

- Providing payment options like PayPal, Stripe, and more.

- Dedicated support is provided by the Prompt Merchant team.

With its fundamental offerings, Prompt Merchant provides substantial value, providing an opportunity for all individuals to participate in the flourishing AI-generated content and graphics field.

## Prompt Merchant OTOs

Following the purchase of the Frontend, consumers are presented with options to expand their Prompt Merchant venture through a variety of OTOs (upsells). Updates can provide access to advanced functions, more storage space, and improved customization for prompt stores. Here's an overview of the Prompt Merchant OTOs:

Would you like to learn more about OTO1 - Prompt Merchant PRO?

The Prompt Merchant PRO upgrade enhances users' prompt stores with features such as:

- Up to 1,000 prompts can be listed for sale.

- New store designs for an enhanced branding experience.

- Prompt categorization for improved organization.

- Priority access to support.

By upgrading to PRO, users can enhance their operations, present a stronger brand, and deliver exceptional experiences for fast-paced customers.

White Label Solutions for Martech on Demand - OTO 2: Creative Options at Your Fingertips.

If operating an unbranded Prompt Merchant is not an issue, there might be other effective ways to strengthen one's business presence. However, for those who desire consistent identity and greater control over their enterprise, investing in the White Label OTO would result in substantial advantages. It includes features such as:

- Establishing a custom domain assists in developing brand authority.

- Priority support offered by a dedicated team.

- Custom store branding elements.

- Enhanced store customization options.

- To sell up to 10,000 prompts is an ability.

The White Label feature enables users to turn their own store into a fully professional, proficient sales platform.

Prompt Merchant Agency - OTO 3

Users interested in offering prompt-selling as a service can choose the Agency OTO, which unlocks:

- Having the ability to recruit more people for the team.

- Management of multiple prompt stores.

- With capacities for selling promotions, up to 300 listings can be handled.

- Agency-focused tutorials.

With the Agency option, users have the power to offer prompts as a service for numerous clients, fostering scalability.

Prompt Merchant Club - OTO 4

For dedicated users seeking to enhance their skills, the Prompt Merchant Club offers:

- Monthly interactive training sessions.

- New commercial prompts delivered monthly.

- Enjoy discounted prices on tools and services which are just for you.

- Access to a private community.

- Prompt critique and feedback.

As an experienced user, club membership can help you grow with advanced resources and training provided.

## Prompt Merchant Bundle Deal

To get the most out of your subscription, take advantage of the special Prompt Merchant bundle offer. $297 will get you the Frontend software as well as all OTO upgrades with this discounted bundle.

What's Included in the Bundle:

- Prompt Merchant Frontend.

- OTO 1: Prompt Merchant PRO.

- OTO 2: Prompt Merchant White Label.

- OTO 3: Prompt Merchant Agency.

- OTO 4: Prompt Merchant Club.

Buying the bundle package provides full access to Prompt Merchant's features, helping users maximize their income in the prompt-selling market.

Who's a Good Candidate for Prompt Merchant?

In a profitable prompt-selling market, Prompt Merchant is an indispensable tool for anyone. This includes:

- Freelancers: Offering prompt generation as a service to customers.

- Agencies: Create prompts and sell them on a large scale for a new income source.

- Bloggers: Create prompts for AI to generate blog post content.

- YouTubers: Develop topics to generate title suggestions, video scripts, and beyond.

- Designers: Sell prompts to generate AI images, logos, and other designs.

- Writers: Create and offer prompts for AI-generated content, with a focus on selling them.

- Ecommerce Sellers: Get inspiration and create prompts for product descriptions, ads, and more.

- Coaches: Developing prompts for AI knowledge base construction.

- Artists: Use sell prompts to create AI art like illustrations and portraits.

AI content creation tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion have put the digital landscape abuzz with the possibilities. As a promising avenue, selling prompts is gaining traction. Mainstreaming of AI tools propels the change in the market, pushing up demand for high-quality prompts. This article takes a deep dive into Prompt Merchant, a groundbreaking tool that makes venturing into this profitable market more manageable. In this evaluation, we'll consider the advantages and disadvantages, assess the likelihood of success, and determine measures to achieve rapid sales.

**Pros and Cons:**

*Pros:*

1. **Lucrative Niche: Engaging in prompt selling can lead to substantial income possibilities.

2. **Low Competition: The unique advantage of a prompt-selling niche is that it is relatively untapped.

3. **Ready-Made Prompts: Gain instant access to a collection of ready-to-use prompts for expedited sales.

4. **Intuitive Builder: The drag-and-drop store builder makes setup simpler.

5. **Unlimited Creativity: There are no restrictions on designing and selling custom prompts.

6. **Advanced Features: Unlock advanced features with optional upgrades.

7. **User-Friendly: Product was designed to cater to both novices and skilled users.

*Cons:*

1. **Copywriting Skills Needed: To sell products effectively, creating compelling prompts is indispensable.

2. **Limited Design Customization: On the frontend, there is a limited degree of design customization available.

3. **Market Research Required: Seeking out niche-specific prompt opportunities calls for a dedicated research process.

4. **Upsells for Advanced Features: To access advanced features, you need to make an extra investment.

5. **Promotion Required: Effective promotion of your store is crucial for visibility.

**Evaluating the Prompt Selling Opportunity:**

Riding the wave of AI content generation tools, the prompt-selling business is a thriving opportunity. Consider these key factors:

1. **Growing Demand for AI Content: Both similar promise millions of users as AI content tools. Graphics and video content have fueled the popularity, leading to an increase in the demand for quality prompts on multiple platforms.

2. **Willingness to Invest in Quality Prompts: Businesses are willing to pay for prompts that produce results. Prompts are seen as a key asset when it comes to AI content, with big brands taking note and investing accordingly.

3. **Recurring Revenue Potential: To stay up to date, businesses call for fresh prompts for their AI-generated content. Due to the persistent nature of the demand, prompt sellers benefit from a steady stream of revenue.

4. **Low Initial Costs: With a budget-friendly starting price, Prompt Merchant provides an affordable option. The digital nature of prompts lowers overhead costs while providing scalability.

**Maximizing Prompt Sales Opportunities:**

To succeed in prompt selling, seize these opportunities for higher sales:

1. **Local Small Businesses: Commence in the community by serving individual enterprises, offering reasonable expediency modeled to meet their specific situations.

2. **Target High-Traffic Areas: Design AI content prompts geared towards engaging users on different channels like social media, YouTube video descriptions, advertisements and blog articles for broad reach.

3. **Ride Trends: To gain viral traction, sync your prompts with trending topics and events.

4. **Fill Market Gaps: Analyze the marketplaces to recognize shortages in supply and demand by scrutinizing available prompts. Devise prompts that specifically cater to these ongoing challenges.

5. **Custom Prompt Services: Offer customized suggestions and premium pricing for bespoke, client-oriented solutions.

**Is Prompt Merchant the Right Choice for You?**

To determine if Prompt Merchant aligns with your goals, ask yourself:

1. **Interest in Generative AI: Is your excitement genuine about generative AI? People with a fire for their field find the journey more fun.

2. **Commitment to Quality Prompts: Do you have the inclination to dedicate time to crafting top-notch prompts, leading to results? Quality prompts play a critical role in achieving success.

.

3. **Marketing Aptitude: Could you implement strategies to advertise the store and its products efficiently? If marketing is not a skill you excel in, think about recruiting support.

If the answers to these questions were affirmative, Prompt Merchant offers a powerful solution to take advantage of the rapidly expanding AI content generation industry.

Prompt Merchant Review:My last word

Summing up, Prompt Merchant is the perfect opportunity for anyone to enter the booming AI content generation niche. By employing sophisticated tools for setting up stores, handling orders, and processing payments, the path to joining the prompt-selling sector becomes significantly smoother. It is essential to create engaging content and promote your store, but Prompt Merchant reduces the technical obstacles that come along with it. AI-generated content shows a rich profit potential due to low competition and growing demand. Using Prompt Merchant, just about anyone can tap into this potential and create a passive income source as they provide prompts for AI systems. Start your path today to experience the benefits of this dynamic industry

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[guzsdaily]

12.023's 4th Quarter Theme

Day 22 - Nov 27th, 12.023

Today will be a somewhat different post, a type of post that I plan to do each quarter/season of the year. Something which I adopted this year is the idea of yearly themes instead of yearly goals, and I have to admit it is a lot better to know you improve regardless of whatever you met a number or touchable objective in one year.

But before, what are "Themes"?

Your Theme

Before everything, this concept is not mine, it was something which I adopted from this CGP Grey video:

In summary, a theme is a word that reflects something you want to improve and/or resonate with you on a period of time. This word is what will guide you on the year, instead of a final objective.

"Why?" because of how year's resolutions always fail. It is really hard to be able to continue with a resolution for an entire year, shits happens, and numbers becomes difficult to achieve. If you want to improve your health losing weight, you probably will end up failing the resolution by some kilograms, if you want to read more books and place a clear goal of reading 100 books that year, you will feel bad about yourself for "just" reading 60.

Themes solve this problem by being abstract. It is not important how many kilograms you lost, if your theme is "year of health" and you were able to lose some amount, it stills "year of health", or maybe you didn't lose any, but created a lot more muscles, it's still "year of health". Maybe it is "year of reading", but you noticed that full-fledged books aren't your type, and you prefer articles and newsletters, it's still "year of reading". The word that you choose is not a clear objective or goal, but a concept to help you guide your daily decisions, to make you instead of scrolling social media while waiting a queue, end up reading a web-book if it is "year of reading".

It is a word that resonates with something you want to improve your life in general.

My 12.023's Theme

I adopted this concept on the start of this year, just to test if it really helped my life. On the end of the previous year I was leaving school, and now, being legally an adult, I need to find what to do with my life and what I actually want to work with. I always jumped between interests and if I wanted to go somewhere I needed to try things and focus on one of them, I needed to concretize what I wanted with my life and myself.

So that was the theme, "concretize", or more specific "concretizar" in Portuguese. I didn't really care if the word has an actual meaning different, for me, it was "placing things into stone", "focusing on one thing", "hardening what I want to do", it resonated with what I wanted to improve. I still had plans, objectives, I hopped to make some money this year at least, I wanted to try being my own boss before trying to find a formal job.

And did I make any money? No. Did I complete the plans of multiple projects that I had? No, unfortunately. But now I know what I want to do in the next years of my life, I want to develop good software and development tools, independent if it is in a formal job or in my own brands, I want to create good code and products. For pretty much the entire year, I never touched things like video editing, drawing, modeling, etc., which to be clear, I still want to do, but they are hobbies, not my job anymore.

The theme was successful for me, it guided me the entire year to be where I am now. But now it is time for another.

Today's theme

This is something which in CGP Gray's video is mentioned, so I also want to try now this and next year. Themes will not be for the year, but the season/quarter of the year, because it is a lot easier to feel time passing when you can easily tell just by the climate.

But because the year is ending, I pretty much have just 1 month of this new theme, which can be good for a reason, because I'm lacking something these past days and it is something which I can improve in one month easily:

"Productivity"

What is "productivity" (or "produtividade" in Portuguese) for me? Well, it represents for me the ability of opening every day my daily notes, every week my weekly notes, organizing my tasks, annotating my projects, and automating and streamlining my life in some way or another. I already made and configure the tools for this theme for the most part, but there are still some things to improve, and I still need to test and put this workflow in my routine totally. This end of the year I don't plan to focus totally on making templates, but actually using them, and using them on the projects I want to make, and tweaking them when I need to. Not just templates, but my entire OS, keystrokes, etc.

I want to be more productive and find what works better for me. And every day being more productive, is better than a day just procrastinating.

Today's artists & creative things

Song: Temporary Love - by The Living Tombstone (feat. CG5) I really love the original songs from The Living Tombstone, it just proves how they aren't just a "meme music maker" or something like that. And this collaboration with CG5 just makes this feeling even stronger. I don't know why, but CG5's just fits perfectly with TLT style in this song. I just wanted to be song to be longer, to be honest.

Copyright (c) 2023-present Gustavo "Guz" L. de Mello <contact.guz013@gmail.com>

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License

[greysweatercat]

i work weird, i think

I normally don't do post like these, but I would like to share some tidbits of how we do things around here ♪

I've seen a lot of people have an idea for something to make and they just draw it. we don't do that.

We use a sort of productivity/project management tool to keep tabs on everything that goes into project work:

Logistics/IT: Includes what you'd expect out of IT, such as setting up software and hardware, updating drivers and such, but also setting up our productivity tools to our workflow for writing, art and other stuff.

Admin: It's mostly for sorting out time tracking data, but every now and then we have a sit-down to work out what our roadmap for the next quarter or year should look like and what stuff need working on.

Ops: The actual act of sitting down and drawing, modeling, writing, etc. takes up a smaller fraction of the total time spent on stuff as you'd expect, as most artists who actually live off of comms and donations will tell you.

PR: This!!! Actually communicating with people on socials has always been a hard thing for me to do, so having a dedicated workspace for it has helped us keep it in check.

R&D: This involves exploring new tools and skills to incorporate into our work. In the past this has mostly meant brushing up on stuff like learning how to draw specific stuff and doing drawing practice in general, but has recently expanded into new software and skills outside of illustration, namely 3D modeling in Blender.

We've had our periods of R&D heavy times, but this has been probably the biggest time and effort investment we've made in a long time, if not ever. Blender is complicated! But fun -w-

So yeah, on top of being a system of eight that only inhabits a single physical person, and said person having a full time job, our work being slow is also just from doing a bunch of different stuff in general that doesn't get posted! So yeah -w-

[yaminerua]

Been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading getting to this prompt all week but it's finally here and finally done;;;

Day 9's prompt was Confession and I decided to go with a scenario I imagined a while back for this one;;;

Prompts by @a-literal-toaster-wtf

In the disorientating, isolating midst of the M-Corp fiasco, Lister realises he's a coward and decides to use the fact he can't currently see or hear Rimmer to do what he should have done a long time ago.

Words: 4652

****

Red Dwarf was quiet. It was always quiet these days, certainly compared with the hustle and bustle it had once had over three million years ago when it had still had a full crew, but lately it had taken on a much more deeply unsettling kind of quiet. Where previously there had been some small signs of life about the old place, be they in the form of the Cat’s yowling or Kryten going about his daily cleaning duties or Rimmer complaining about the general pathetic state of Lister’s entire existence, now there was absolutely nothing at all. The ship felt well and truly empty. Dead.

It wasn’t actually empty, though. Rimmer and Cat and Kryten were still there, still around. The problem was that to Lister it was as though they weren’t. He couldn’t see them. He couldn’t hear them. The only indication to him at all that he wasn’t completely alone in the merciless, empty nothingness of deep space was the occasional sensation of something invisible – presumably the Cat – snatching food out of his hands, or the little tell-tale vibration that Lister felt run through the bunk as something that could only be Rimmer settled into the one below.

It was something akin to torture, knowing that the others were there, still living their lives around him, but that he couldn’t interact with them in any meaningful way, couldn’t even tell if they were in the same room as him at all or if he really was well and truly alone. It dredged up a deeply buried fear, a haunting sense of isolation. It reminded him that generally speaking he was the last known living human in the entire universe and without someone to talk to, someone to distract him, the cold, unforgiving reality of it all threatened to crush him under the weight of how depressing it all was.

He tried not to let it get to him too much. Even though he spent much of his days in this isolated state drinking from cans and bottles he couldn’t even see and staring idly at nothing, his brain growing numb with boredom, he hoped that around him the others were simply busy trying to find a solution to this mess, trying to find a way to undo the effects of the Perception Filter Software that had hacked his brain, courtesy of the malignant corporate entity known as M-Corp. He hoped there even was a way to fix it…

Shifting restlessly on the top bunk in the suffocating silence of the bunk room, he strained his ears desperately for even the slightest sign that there was anyone else in there with him, for a sign of life however small it might be.

He hated it when the bunk room was this quiet. It reminded him of how it had been years ago in the aftermath of recovering Red Dwarf and saving it from corroding away to nothing, when he’d finally gained access to his old sleeping quarters again after a long time spent on Starbug and then trapped in the brig.

When the dust had settled after the whole nanobots fiasco and every last resurrected face was gone and the ship had once again fallen back into silence and stillness there had been an aching void left that had become more gaping and impossible to ignore than it had been before, the vacant, empty bunk below an unpleasant reminder that a certain loud and obnoxious but undeniably necessary part of his life was still gone and at that point had seemed unlikely to ever return.

Lister had largely suppressed the memory of how lonely that had felt, the tremendous ache that had filled his chest every time he’d wanted to open his mouth to speak down to a Rimmer that was no longer there.

He had been forced, then, to acknowledge just how much he missed him, how much of an unexpected comfort his presence had become quite without him even realising it at the time, safe in the mundane familiarity of bickering in the morning and bickering in the evening.

In spite of how much else on Red Dwarf had changed, the one enduring, unrelenting constant in his world had remained Rimmer, keeping him sane by way of driving him mad, maintaining a sense of normalcy held over from a time before the accident, before everything had been changed forever.

Out loud he would always have said he couldn’t stand the smegger, that he’d have rather had literally anyone else chosen to be the hologram resurrected to keep him company, but that wasn’t really true. It hadn’t been true for quite some time.

But then, of course, he had gone away, recruited by another version of himself to traverse the multiverse and try to become a hero, and Lister had let him go – encouraged him to, even – and it had been in the sobering quiet that he’d left behind that Lister had realised he’d made a big mistake.

They say you don’t realise what you have until it’s gone and there’s some truth to that statement. It had certainly been true for Lister who had, as the weeks had turned into months and threatened to turn into years, become plagued by strange dreams filled with longing, visions of Rimmer, resplendent in his silver flight suit, giving up the glory and thrill of adventure to come back to the old crew, to come back to him.

They had alarmed him then, horrified him with the emotional vulnerability on display, the open yearning and impassioned pleas for Rimmer to stick around this time, to never leave them – to never leave him – again, but that had not been in and of itself the real reason that they had disturbed him. There had, of course, been one other stubbornly persistent little feature of these dreams that had given him real cause for concern, had had him running to Kryten for help, grappling to find some sort of excuse or explanation for it that didn’t suggest the implication he was dreading the most, that it wasn’t the inescapable, undeniable manifestation of something that had been secretly smouldering away unchecked in his chest far longer than he would dare to admit.

That had been years ago now and though the dreams still resurfaced from time to time they didn’t bother him nearly as much as they once had. Instead, they had just become something he had begrudgingly come to accept, a sign of a reality he couldn’t outrun, of a truth he had been forced to look directly at in the cold, harsh light of day and reluctantly acknowledge for what it was.

A small vibration ran through the metal frame of the bunk and Lister’s attention snapped to it, clung to it like a lifeline, his ears straining for even the slightest hint of any other sounds. It had felt like the vibration of someone sitting down on the bunk below and judging by the time and the dimmed ambience of the bunk room’s lighting he reasoned there was only one person it could possibly be at this hour. Rimmer was going to bed.

He waited a few moments longer, listening closely and mourning the lack of any other identifiable sounds. Even the simulated sounds of breath as Rimmer’s hologramatic form continued to convincingly pretend to be a living, breathing human being would have been enough. It was too quiet, too empty. He was right there below him and yet he felt miles away, out of reach, as though he simply wasn’t there at all.

Huffing an aggravated breath, he scowled at the wall of his bunk, at the blank spaces where photographs and faces ought to be, the ache in his chest feeling as though it might crush him at any moment. This was driving him crazy.

What he wouldn’t give to hear Rimmer complaining about something – anything – right about now, to see the way the features of his face crumpled with disdain, the way his nostrils flared as he scrunched up his nose and the way the deep creases in his brow carved themselves ever deeper as his eyebrows knitted themselves furiously together. He missed the sight of it fervently, missed the way Rimmer’s expression would only contort further whenever he shot him a wicked, impish grin back in return. He missed the way his lips pursed tightly together and the traitorous little thought that always entered his mind at the sight of them that made him wonder not for the first time and certainly not for the last exactly how they would feel against his own, whether a kiss from a hologram felt as real as he hoped it would.

God, this was excruciating. For whatever reason his brain had been supplying more and more of those kinds of thoughts lately, perhaps to fill the void with something interesting to stimulate his bored mind. Stimulation of a different kind aside, it felt dangerous knowing that Rimmer could be nearby, could be in the room with him while he daydreamed about things that would likely horrify him. There wasn’t the same bittersweet safety of being able to indulge in an unattainable fantasy without running the risk of ever being found out. That particular Pandora’s Box of feelings had been opened long ago during Rimmer’s absence, had been well and truly explored, and was now entirely impossible to lock back up again.

He dreaded the day Rimmer finally found out about it, the day something finally slipped out and gave the game away, exposed the deeper fondness that he’d been doing his level best to keep securely under wraps in the years since he had come back. Rimmer surely wouldn’t accept it. He would stare at him, utterly horrified, and Lister would have to watch him do it, would have to listen to whatever furious onslaught of ridicule and rejection would follow and face the consequences for his own stupid, utterly hopeless feelings.

But you wouldn’t have to right now, a reckless, foolishly impulsive part of him said quietly, temptingly, in the depths of his mind. You can’t see his face. You can’t hear him. What better time will you ever have than now?

Lister tried to shake the tantalising thought from his head, tried not to even remotely give it a chance to take root but it was already far too late for that. That troublesome little voice was right. There were no immediate consequences here, no instantaneous repercussions. He wouldn’t have to face the worst of it. He could just get it out, speak those dangerous little words aloud into the air and be done with it, leave them to settle however unpleasantly into Rimmer’s mind and that would be that. By the time this whole M-Corp business was finally resolved, he’d surely have had enough time to process the information, to deliver a more controlled, restrained rejection or simply pretend he had never heard it in the first place. Either way they could just get on with their lives and Lister at the very least wouldn’t be carrying such a heavy burdensome secret in his chest any longer and Rimmer… well, at least he’d know the truth at last. There was no downside.

Of course there was a downside but in the moment as it was right now that paled in comparison to the alternative. Maybe it was a cowardly approach, maybe he was making a big mistake but it was either that or go slowly mad never ever getting it out, never knowing for sure what might have happened if he’d just gone for it. Maybe Rimmer might surprise him.

Sucking in a shaky, apprehensive breath, he rolled onto his back, flexed his fingers anxiously by his sides and swallowed hard around the sudden lump of tension that had formed in his throat. “Rimmer?” he said out loud, tentatively, cursing the strained, half-croaked way his voice came out. “You there, man?”

There was no response, but by now Lister was anticipating that. He knew Rimmer was there, he had felt the reverberations that had told him as much. His words had been less about verifying that fact and more about attempting to get his attention, to make sure he was listening.

He could picture him in his mind, glowering up with mildly inconvenienced disinterest, impatiently waiting for him to get to the point.

He swallowed thickly, his tongue suddenly dry and heavy in his mouth. “Listen, Rimmer,” he began, desperately willing the tremor to leave his voice. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

He paused, waiting again for a response that would never come and readied himself to continue. “I know what you’re gonna say, and yeah, maybe I am a coward going about it this way but,” – he inhaled shakily, unsteadily, clenching his fists tightly by his side – “if I don’t get it out now I’m never gonna.”

There was a long protracted silence that followed this during which the only perceptible sound to Lister’s ears was the constant, never-ending humming and groaning of the ship all around him and the violent, pounding thump of his own heartbeat in his chest, hammering away so hard it might somehow manage to bruise him from the inside. He contemplated then just calling it off, debated remaining silent on this topic forever and saving himself the humiliation and the pain that would be future Lister’s problem to deal with if he followed through. He contemplated the alternative, and sighed in aggravated frustration at how little he liked the prospect of that too.

He wondered if Rimmer was getting irritated waiting for him to continue, if he was snapping up at him angrily, demanding him to hurry up already. He couldn’t back out now. He’d already started. The only thing he could do now was to push on.

“When you were gone, when you were away,” Lister began, clenching his eyes shut, breathing in deep and holding the tension in his chest for a prolonged moment, steeling his resolve, before releasing it all in a rush, letting his words be carried out of him on the exhale, tired and defeated and achingly honest: “I missed you, man. I really, really missed you.”

With that little admission, half the battle was already over and Lister felt immediately as though a great weight had been sloughed off him at just that one tiny little revelation. It was something he had never quite found a way to admit in all the years since Rimmer had come back, something that he had always meant to get around to telling him just in case he ever happened to get any funny ideas about gallivanting off again. The relief he felt at finally getting it out into the open air was so immense it was almost overwhelming and he let it wash over him for a few moments, feeling the tightly wound knot of apprehension in his gut begin to give way to a rush of adrenaline. It was a good start, but he couldn’t let it stop there. He had to keep going.

“I know you probably don’t believe me,” he went on, finding that now that the first hurdle had been overcome the rest was coming out a lot more easily. “But it’s true, and you can even ask Kryten or the Cat. They thought I was going mad.”

He laughed in spite of himself, a small nervous sound that sounded too hollow, too loud, in the otherwise still silence of the room. “I thought I wasfor a while too…” he admitted quietly, gaze fixed on the ceiling as he thought back to those days back on Starbug when his thoughts had constantly been drifting back to fixate on one person when he should have been thinking of just about anything else.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said after a moment, picturing the disbelieving look on Rimmer’s face, the dubious, unconvinced quirk of an eyebrow. “You’re probably thinkin’ ‘If that’s the case why did you act like you didn’t give a smeg when I came back?’ But, I mean, you wouldn’t have stuck around if I’d acted any different, would you? Probably would’ve thought you’d got the wrong universe…”

He knew Rimmer probably would agree with that. Anything other than a long-suffering roll of the eyes and a begrudging “Welcome back, smeghead,” would have seemed out of place, unexpected.

It was true that that thought had crossed Lister’s mind at the time, when Rimmer – his Rimmer, not some other Ace that had gone on to replace him – had stepped out of the Wildfire that fateful day and swept his searching gaze across all of their faces, trying to gauge whether this reality was his or just one very similar to it, but it was only part of the whole truth. The other half was simply that being too openly honest about how immensely relieved he had been to see him again had felt too vulnerable, too raw. They weren’t usually like that with each other, that kind of emotionally honest – not without alcohol involved at least, or some other perilous situation forcing them into it. Most days it felt like an insurmountable wall, something they were both quite content to sit either side of for the rest of eternity and never dare to try to cross but Lister had spent far too long pretending he didn’t want to cross it, pretending he didn’t want something to change for the better between them after so long stuck looping through the familiar cycles of the status quo. If he had to take a bazookoid to those barricades and blast them down brick by brick in the hopes that maybe it could lead to progress then so be it.

The first step in making human connection is admitting that you want it and God he wanted it badly but this was Rimmer he was talking to. It was Rimmer he was trying to reach out to, and their shared history together with all its little betrayals of trust and every bad word that had passed between them made that incredibly complicated. It made trying to navigate this next admission feel like an impossible task.

“Look, I know I’ve said a lot of smeg over the years and I know you have no reason to believe me but just…” He trailed off, unsure of how to proceed, well aware of just how much doubt and distrust stood in the way of his words being taken seriously. He sighed heavily, resignedly, and shook his head in defeated frustration, finding nothing good enough to say that would possibly be able to undo all of that at once.

“A lot changed after you went away, let’s just say that,” he opted for in the end, hating how feeble a plea it was for Rimmer to listen to him.

That wasn’t going to be enough, he knew that much, but didn’t know what more he could say given the circumstances. It was true that much had changed between the day Rimmer had left and the day he’d returned. Lister had aged, he had grown. He’d figured some things out that he’d simply never have been able to without the benefit of that distance giving him room to think, to feel. There were things that he had done in the past which would have gone differently if they were to happen now, things he would have meant more sincerely, would have maybe even had the guts to stand by instead of taking them back like a coward.

But then again, maybe not. After all, he’d taken forever just to get to this point.

He’d left it so long, wasted so much time fretting about how much would change and in which direction it would change. He was getting older now. He didn’t have as many years ahead of him as he had behind him, which only really meant he was running out of time to say what needed said, to do what needed to be done.

Time waits for no-one, not even the last man in existence.

Maybe he could have left it, could have carried the secret to his grave and never uttered a word but where was the romance in that? He was the last human being alive, maybe the last in the entire universe. If he didn’t take that leap, didn’t maintain the time-honoured human tradition of ill-conceived, clumsily delivered confessions, who would?

“Look, man,” he said, feeling the tension grip his throat, threatening to choke him, to keep the words from making it out. “There’s no easy way to say this, and I know maybe it’s pointless and stupid to even try, and you’ll just think I’m crazy – and maybe I am, who knows? But…”

He gestured helplessly to the air, wishing fervently that he could roll back this whole one-sided conversation and stop himself from starting it, to step back from the precipice he was now standing at the edge of with no way forward than to jump.

He dropped his hands to his sides, palms facing up, pleading to the heavens, anxiety thrumming through every vein in his body like static electricity, the frenzied rush of blood roaring like waves crashing in his ears. Resigned to his fate, a prisoner to the truth of his own stupid, frantically beating heart, he closed his eyes and stepped out into the terrifying nothingness of the unknown.

“I love you,” he said, out loud, at last, to a room that couldn’t answer back.

The silence that followed was excruciating, suffocating in its heaviness. It made Lister feel restless, twitchy, equal parts relieved that he didn’t have to see or hear Rimmer’s reaction and desperate to know what it was.

The room was distressingly still, agonisingly quiet. If Lister hadn’t known better, hadn’t been absolutely certain that Rimmer was there, likely listening in muted horror, he could have almost convinced himself he was simply speaking aloud to an empty room, to no-one but himself. And maybe that might have been better.

There was movement, suddenly, beneath him, startling in its unexpectedness, the slightest sensation of something shifting in the bunk below signalling to Lister that Rimmer was moving, that he was awake and that he had most definitely heard everything he’d just said.

Lister held his breath and waited, but what he was waiting for exactly he didn’t know. It wasn’t like Rimmer was magically going to appear before him, fully visible again. He could be shouting at him for all he knew right now. He might even have left the room. There was no way of knowing. He wasn’t sure if that was more of a blessing or a curse.

Turning his head to the side, he stared out mournfully, beseechingly, out into the dim emptiness of the bunk room, searching it desperately for something he couldn’t see. “Rimmer?” he called out, uncertain, into the silence and when no response came – because of course it wouldn’t – he grimaced and brought his palms up over his face, digging the heels into his eye sockets until they burned with the pressure and letting out a low, aggravated, tortured groan. He’d thought he’d feel better getting it off his chest, getting it out into the open after so many years keeping it locked away, but instead of relief he just felt an immense wave of dread and regret at whatever he was going to have to eventually face as a result of this.

He’d bared his heart to someone who had all the power in the universe to take it and shatter it to pieces and there was nothing he could do to roll it back now.

“Smeggin’ hell…” Lister moaned, dolefully, rolling onto his side to face the wall, folding his legs up towards his chest and curling himself into a miserable, anxious little lump.

Inches away, standing rigidly by the side of the bunk, fixing Lister with a wide-eyed, utterly incredulous stare, Rimmer didn’t know what to do.

His face was an open mask of astonished disbelief, his eyebrows raised so high on his forehead they threatened to disappear up into his receding hairline, his usually pallid complexion tinged now with an undeniable rosy pink hue which spread from ear to ear and threatened to expand down onto his neck.

If Lister could have heard him, he was almost certain he’d have been able to hear the rapid, frenzied beating of his own artificially simulated heartbeat but as it happened Lister had no idea, was completely oblivious to the fact that Rimmer was still even there, still in the room, battling to comprehend this revelatory emotional bombshell that he had just spontaneously dropped upon him with no means to even hear what he had to say about it. The absolute nerve, the cowardly audacity! Didn’t he want to know how Rimmer felt?

Actually, right now in the moment, even if Lister had been able to see him he wouldn’t have been able to give him answer. He didn’t know how he felt. Not for certain.

He was angry, sure, and with good reason. What kind of coward confesses while hiding behind the convenience of not being able to hear the response? But he was also… confused, mostly – baffled by this sudden admission that, try as he might to interpret it as just another weird prank or unfunny joke, had sounded so genuinely, achingly sincere that the raw, naked honesty of it all left Rimmer feeling decidedly unsteady.

Maybe it was just as well that Lister couldn’t perceive him right now. He wasn’t in any condition to be perceived.

He had no answer. Too many confusing, conflicting emotions were presently swirling wildly inside his head for him to think clearly, and there was a strange fluttery nervousness roiling in his gut and an oddly unfamiliar buzzing warmth radiating out from his chest that was making it even harder to concentrate. He felt giddy, he felt terrified, he felt furious, he felt… full, in a way he couldn’t really recall ever feeling before.

The fingers of his hands twitched restlessly at his side and he lifted a tentative arm, extended it out as though to reach for Lister and then stopped just shy of touching his shoulder, hovering there uncertainly for a moment before reluctantly receding.  

He scowled down at himself, enraged by his own flustered, involuntary responses and the useless futility of this whole situation. What good would reaching out do right now when the two of them couldn’t even sit down and talk about any of this properly? Rimmer had questions, so many questions, like ‘What the smeg was Lister talking about?’ and ‘Are you being serious about this?’ and ‘How long…?’ and absolutely none of them were going to be answered if things continued the way they were. This infuriating M-Corp situation was being nothing but a nuisance. It needed sorted.

Rocking anxiously on the balls of his feet, Rimmer drew himself up tall and tried to suppress the nervous churning in his stomach and the frantic hammering of his heart, tried to quell the heat rising to his cheeks and radiating from his ears.

Turning on his heel, he strode stiffly but with purpose towards the exit, sights set on the medical bay where Kryten had been busy trying to come up with a workable solution to their current dilemma. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep now so he might as well occupy himself trying to get this situation resolved.

And maybe while he was at it, he’d be able to sort through his own mess of emotions and figure out just what that cosy warm glow that was beginning to nestle itself comfortably in his chest was and what it meant. And maybe then he’d finally have an answer to give.

[bloggerkeke]

What to Expect from the Tech Industry in 2023: A Look into the Future of Technology

The tech industry has seen tremendous growth and innovation over the past few years, and it looks like this trend isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In 2023, tech innovation is sure to be at the forefront of conversation, especially when it comes to new technologies. And the pace of innovation is only likely to get racier. What we are discussing today may be completely outdated by the end of 2023. So, what can we expect from the tech industry in 2023? Let’s look.

 ChatGBT

ChatGBT is a chatbot-based AI software that interacts with users in real time. It combines advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology and enhanced algorithms to create natural and engaging conversations. ChatGBT can provide useful customer service functions such as fast issue resolution and recommendation services. ChatGBT also has the ability to automatically generate sophisticated chatbot marketing campaigns with data-driven targeting capabilities. ChatGBT is a powerful tool for modern businesses to increase customer satisfaction and streamline operations, thus making it potentially one of the most disruptive technologies of 2023.

 Autonomous Cars

Autonomous cars are driverless vehicles that can navigate roads on their own without any human intervention. While these vehicles are still being tested today, they are expected to become commonplace by the second quarter of 2023. Autonomous cars have the potential to revolutionize transportation, making it quicker, safer, and more efficient than ever before.

 Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is another topic that will likely dominate tech discussions for years. It is set to make huge and visible advancements specifically in the coming three years. And AI-assisted applications are predicted to become widely available and used in a variety of sectors ranging from media to manufacturing and banking to hospitality. 

AI involves machines performing tasks that would normally require human intelligence such as decision-making or problem-solving. It has already made its way into many aspects of our lives including healthcare, finance, education, and more. It is only expected to become even more widespread and powerful in 2023.

 Tech in the Routine Employee Nurturing Space

AI and ML-based content and image-creating sites have been around for a year or two. But with further advances in both AI and ML technologies, they are quickly becoming an everyday part of the creative process for many people. AI-content creation sites and apps allow users to quickly and easily create AI-generated content tailored specifically to their needs. Additionally, AI-generated images, from landscapes to photographs, can help bring depth and life to projects. This type of AI-generated content is already helping industries such as advertising, marketing, and entertainment by providing them with quick and easy options for creating visually appealing projects. AI and ML is also creating a buzz in the employee engagement space with a few innovative companies like Hubengage integrating the tech into their employee app solutions.

 Cybersecurity

As technology becomes more advanced, so does the need for greater cybersecurity measures. Cybersecurity is an essential part of digital operations as hackers become increasingly sophisticated in their methods of attack. Cybersecurity measures should be updated regularly to ensure that all data remains safe and secure from malicious actors online.

 Robotics

In recent years, robots have become increasingly commonplace in a variety of industries. Since robotics automates mundane tasks and frees up time for employees, it allows them to focus on more complex projects. Additionally, robotics can also reduce costs associated with human labor.

From factory production lines to medical procedures, robots are quickly becoming an essential part of our lives; and it is poised to make great strides in the coming years as more companies and organizations explore its potential.

The healthcare industry is one area where robotics has seen significant growth in recent years. Robots have allowed doctors and nurses to perform operations with greater precision and accuracy than ever before, resulting in improved patient outcomes. 

Automakers too are using robotic technology to increase safety and reduce manufacturing costs. Furthermore, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will allow robots to learn from their mistakes and become even more efficient over time. So, 2023 looks set to be an exciting year for robotics!

 Biotech and Genomics

In 2023 biotechnology and genomics are also likely to be the trending topics in tech innovation. This is largely due to advances in technology that enable further development of biotechnology and genomics. Companies have already invested heavily in biotechnology products and genetic editing, so continued expansion and improvement of these technologies are highly probable as funding increases. With growing interest surrounding biotechnology, initiatives such as CRISPR-Cas9 open up a once-impossible avenue for efficient gene editing research. It is expected that biotechnological breakthroughs will benefit the medical field more than ever before, from diagnosis and treatments to cures for a variety of diseases. As such, biotechnology and genomics are poised to shift the future of humanity.

Conclusion:

As we edge towards 2030, technology trends and innovations will no doubt come into play in changing our daily lives in ways both big and small. Additionally, 5G networks are providing us with lightning-fast connections and enabling numerous advances, particularly in tech innovations. 2023 could be a transformative year for both consumers and businesses alike as technology continues its rapid development cycle with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Autonomous cars, artificial intelligence (AI), and cybersecurity are just a few topics that are sure to dominate tech discussions over the next few years as these technologies continue their evolution toward becoming widely adopted tools across industries worldwide. It’s an exciting time for those interested in technology. How happy your employees are, now technology will tell. So, make sure you stay up to date on these topics if you want your business or organization to remain competitive against its rivals!