#How to install Google tracking code

[obfuscateyummy]

Only the Young.

Hi. Sorry this has taken me forever to get out. I'm back with another installment of the Welcome to the Pitt series. Please join me for a time jump a few years.

I am not the best at warnings, so if I missed something PLEASE let me know. Mentions of death (no main characters). Mass Shooting. School Shooting (guns suck, people suck). Mentions of Mental Health struggles (please babies take care of yourselves and if you need an ear my inbox and message are always open <3). Takes place in the future (Fall/Winter 2026). Probably medical inaccuracies (All medical knowledge is from medical dramas staring one (1) Noah Wyle. and the Google machine). Title of the fic is from the Taylor Swift song Only The Young. This was a lot more bloody, and detailed events of lucy's day in my head - but the teacher in me couldn't bring it to life

Michael "Robby" Rabinovich x F!ED Dr. Wife. Lucy - Age 5 Twins - Age 1

You splashed some water on your face and ran your hands over it as you looked in the bathroom mirror. You were barely even halfway through your shift, and you already lost count of how many codes you had ran. Your husband kept track - it was 6. You walked out of the bathroom and caught his eye.

He knew that look on your face. Pure exhaustion. He signed as he watched you sit down to type your patient notes. He went into the staff lounge and poured you a cup of coffee, just the way you liked it. He exited and walked over to you. 

“Hey, thought you might need this,” he said as he sat the cup next to you. 

You smiled at him. “Thanks,” you said as you took a drink.

“Didn’t have time to run to the cafeteria and get you an iced one. I’ll order one if you want.”

You were surely lucky to have the best husband in the world. “Crappy lounge coffee is fine, thanks baby.”

“If either of them don’t sleep tonight, I’ll stay up,” he offered, as he leaned on the table in front of you.

You were up the entire night with your son, who was going through a 12-month sleep regression. Your youngest daughter had gone through one just two weeks ago. Thankfully, they didn’t go through it at the same time. “As long as Mikey doesn’t scream his head off the minute he realizes I’m out of the room,” you said as you threw your head back and closed your eyes.

Michael chuckled. “He’s a mama’s boy, just like his namesake of a father. Besides, Cami does the same thing when I leave the room.” The twins had been that way since the day they were born. “At least Lucy didn’t care which one of us was with her.” Michael said.

You chuckled, “She still doesn’t care which one of us is with her. She just wants attention. Between the twins and her starting kindergarten, she misses us.”

Michael nodded. 

“Gotta go check on my patient in South 20,” you said as you stood up. “Thanks again for the coffee, baby,” you said as you both stood. You got on your tiptoes to reach his cheeks to give him a quick kiss.

You were barely down the hall before Dana walked up to him. “Hey Robby, school shooting in our zone, we gotta prepare for code triage protocol.”

“School shooting? What school?” he asked. He didn’t want to worry - but Lucy’s school was in PTMC’s zone.

“Allegheny Central Elementary.” Dana said. His face went white. Michael Robinavitch looked like he just saw a ghost.

“Robby? You okay?” Dana asked.

“Lucy,” he said, his voice a whisper. He didn’t have to say more, Dana realized instantly. “I got to go find Y/n,” he said as he ran towards South 20. 

Michael entered South 20 a mess. He had just run through half the Emergency Department. He opened the curtain, causing you to turn around quickly at the sound. “Y/n, we need to talk.”

You glared towards him. He never called you by your first name in front of patients. 

“I’m with a patient, Dr. Robinavitch,” you said. There was annoyance in your voice. You were unsure if it was lack of sleep or the fact your husband was acting like you weren’t at work.

“I’m sure your med student can finish up here,” he said pointing to the newest student assigned to you. “Please.”

“Fine,” you huffed as you followed him out. Once out of ear shot of your patient, you started to lay into him. “What the hell, Michael!” you hissed.

“Y/n,” he started but you continued,

“You never call me Y/n in front of patients. What is going on?” You asked. You were angry, furious even. The lack of sleep wasn’t helping your situation any.

“There was-” he started to say, as the intercom went off

“Code Triage - Emergency Department”

You looked up at him for the first time since he busted into the room. Tears in his eyes, panic on his face. You had seen this look a few times before, and it was never good.

“There was a school shooting,” he started to say.

“No,” you whispered, shaking your head.

“At Allegheny Central Elementary,” he finished his statement. 

“Lucy,” you said as your phone began going off. You reached for it, reading the emergency alerts coming through about the shooting. 

“We’re the nearest trauma center…” Michael said, as he gained your attention back.

“I can’t do this,” you said, “I can’t go out there and save lives without knowing if our daughter is okay.”

“And that’s why we have to know she’s okay. She watches everything we do, everything you do. She wants to be a doctor because she wants to be you. She’s always asking us medical questions. Hell, Jack taught her how to make an improvised tourniquet this summer at the cookout. She’s going to be okay. And if she’s not, we’ll save her.” Michael said.

You looked up at him, and all you could think of was the worst possible scenario, “What if we can’t?”

Michael faked a smile, “We will save her.” He looked past you and saw Samira walking in. “Thought you were off today, Mohan.”

“I heard in on the scanner,” she said with a smirk, as Jack walked in behind her.

“Ah guess the old man is rubbing off on you,” you said laughing. The two got together after the Pittfest shooting, with a little help from you and Robby.

“Oh I would say the old man is doing more than that,” Jack said with a smirk, towards you and Michael.

“They don’t want to hear about our sex life, Jack,” Samira said with a giggle, and punched Jack’s arm.

“Hear that, brother? I guess we gotta find a new rooftop topic,” Jack said as he patted Robby on the back as he walked past him, towards Central.

Michael’s face turned beat red. Your eyes shot up to him, as he did everything to not make eye contact with you.

“Do you talk to Jack about our sex life on the roof?” you hissed.

“Nooo….” Michael said. He quickly got you back on topic. “I have to brief the team.” 

The two of you began to walk towards Central, where Michael could brief the team about protocol for the chaos that was about to occur in the ER.

“Alright, listen up. There’s been a shooting at Allegheny Central Elementary. We are starting our mass shooting protocol.” Michael said.

Jack began going over each team having a head in an orange vest. You had zoned out. Your eyes fixed on your husband. It was Michael’s turn to speak.

“Red Zone will be our trauma zone. The most critical patients. Dr. Abbot, Dr. Mohan, Dr. R, and myself will be in the Red Zone,” Michael paused as he saw the disapproving look on your face. “Next is the Pink Zone, patients that will die within an hour.”

Exhaustion, Fear, Anxiety were all rushing through your body as you worried about your daughter. 

Michael began to continue explaining the different zones that would be.  Jack was assisting him at this. 

“Call your loved ones now, I guarantee cell service will go down soon,” Michael said. “We meet back here in 5.”

Before everyone dispersed, you ran into the nearest restroom. You broke out into a silent cry you didn’t realize you were holding in. You took a few deep breaths as you pulled out your phone and dialed your mom’s number.

When she answered, you spoke before she could, “Hi Mom.” There was a crack in your voice.

“Hey honey, is everything ok? Aren’t you at work?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m at work, uh, mom, I need you to pick up the twins from daycare,” you said avoiding the question.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” your mom asked.

You took a deep breath, “There was a shooting at Allegheny Central Elementary. We are the nearest-”

Your mom cut you off, “Oh my god! Is Lucy ok?”

Your voice began to crack, again, and tears fell down your face as you spoke, “I-I don’t know. The first round of injuries will be here in a few minutes.” Michael walked into the bathroom as you were speaking. You looked up at him and he took you into his arms. You began to match his breathing as you continued to speak, “I’ll update you when I can. Can you please-”

“Yes, honey, I will go get Michael and Camile. I’ll take them to your house, I’ll make sure there’s something hot for dinner when you guys get home.”

“You’re the best, mom. Thanks,” you said.

“Of course. Thank Michael for calming you down.”

“How?”

“Your entire breathing changed. That’s when I knew he was with you,” she said. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” you said as you hung up.

You took a deep breath as you spoke, “Mom’s gonna go get Mikey and Cami and take them to our house. She said she’d make sure to have dinner for us when we get home - if we get home,” you said against Michael’s chest.

“Sounds great,” Michael said, as he rubbed circles in your back.

“She said ‘thank Michael for calming you down.’,” you said.

Michael chuckled, “You can do this, you know.”

You shook your head and pulled away, “I want to know the moment she’s brought in. She’s going to be so scared. Michael, what if she is scared and doesn’t see anyone she knows?”

Michael shook his head, “I requested for Victoria to come down from her psych rotation to do triage.” You smiled at him as he spoke again, “Does that help you?”

You nodded your head. “Yeah, yeah that helps a little.”

“Okay, we have to go out. They’re pulling up any minute.” Michael said. As the two of you walked out, you heard the sirens rolling up. 

You had tried to black out most of the events occuring. The kids that came in who were crying for their mommy and daddy, the ones who came in unconscious, the two who didn’t make it, the countless adults from the school, teachers, assistants, paras, the secretary, a bus driver, and the 3 of them you couldn’t save. It had been an hour and you felt like you took your first breath since you got the news. Your daughter still hadn’t been brought in, and at this point you weren’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. You went to walk out of the trauma room and were met at the door by your husband, who had a half full and a new bottle of water in his hand.

“Hydrate,” he said as he unscrewed the top of the new water and gave it to you. You took the water and took a drink. 

“Thanks, you hear anything about-”

He shook his head as he finished the rest of his water. “Just heard there were more coming in,” he said, as 2 more gurneys came in, “Got a kid and adult. Student and teacher.”

You didn’t register who said it. You took the teacher, Jack took the kid.

You looked at the lady laying on the gurney. You recognize her immediately. Ms. Lopez, Lucy’s kindergarten teacher.

“Robby! Now!” Jack yelled behind you, where he was working on a child just brought in. 

You snapped your head behind you, fearing the worst. You saw the kid. A boy. His name was Jason. A kid in Lucy’s class. 

“He’s in Lucy’s class, name’s Jason,” you said as Robby went over to assist Jack.

You were elbow deep in blood trying to save Ms. Lopez, who had a bullet to the chest, barely missing her heart.

“Bullet to arm. Responding to pain. Came in with this makeshift tourniquet,” Jack said. 

Robby’s eyes quickly landed on the child’s arm. He looked up at you, “Lucy’s sweater,” he whispered.

“Means she’s ok, brother,” Jack said, “And paid attention when I taught her that.”

“And I thought she’d never need it,” Robby said as he gloved up to help Jack.

“Yeah, I hoped she wouldn’t,” Jack said. Jack had seen more than he would ever admit. Jack looked over and saw you struggling, “Go help her save the teacher, tell her goose is ok.” Goose was a nickname Jack had given Lucy.

Robby rushed to help you save Ms. Lopez.

“I need another unit O-Neg,” you yelled as you continued to attempt to stop the bullet wound from bleeding on her right side.

“That’s the third unit,” Perla said to Michael as he walked up across from you, on the other side of Mrs. Lopez, next to Dr. Santos, who was giving her CPR.

“I got it,” you said as you looked up at him. “Go help Jack.”

When your eyes met Michael’s, he could tell you were fighting back tears. “She’s okay,” he said. He wasn’t saying it to be reassuring, he was saying it as a fact. 

“You don’t know that,” you hissed. “This is her teacher, Jason is in her class - the shooter was in her-”

Michael cut you off when he spoke, “Jason, he has a makeshift tourniquet above his bullet wound,” Michael said. You looked up at him, “She used her sweater, and some popsicle sticks. Just like Jack taught her.”

“You sure?”

Michael nodded as you spoke again. 

“Bleeding stops if I hold pressure right here,” you said.

“Stop compressions,” he said. 

“Nothing,” Trinity said as she checked for a pulse.

“Resume compressions,” you said.

Trinity looked at Robby who nodded for Trinity to continue. 

“I saw that,” you said glaring at Michael.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” he said, “We don’t know how long she’s been down. Mass casualty protocol says..”

“Fuck mass casualty protocol, Robby! She’s our daughter’s teacher. Lucy loves her. I’m not, I can’t.” you looked towards the door and you saw it. You saw Victoria walking in, carrying something - or someone. She was looking around, frantic.

“Dr. Robby, take over applying pressure for me?” you said as he gave you a confused look.

“Stop compressions,” he said. 

Trinity stopped compressions, “Got a pulse, faint, but I got it!”

Michael walked over and took over for you. “You okay?”

“Lucy,” you whispered.

“What?” Michael said as he looked around. He missed where Victoria was standing. 

You ignored him, as you ripped off your gloves and ran towards Victoria. That’s when she saw you.

“Mommy!” a scream heard through the ER. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief they didn’t know they were holding in. Robby looked up, just as you took Lucy out of Victoria’s arms. Her clothes were covered in blood. You noticed she had a cut on her head, it likely would need sutures, but it wasn’t currently bleeding. You held her close.

“Lucy, my lovebug, you’re okay,” you said as you hugged her close. “It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m right here.”

“She came in with the kid and teacher. Most of the blood belongs to the teacher, Lucy was applying pressure to her wound before the paramedics arrived. She wouldn’t come out of the ambulance. She was terrified, she didn’t see anyone she knew. One of the paramedics called me over, and as soon as she saw me..I think you know the rest,” Victoria explained, as she rambled. She does that sometimes, especially when she is nervous.

“Mommy, I was so scared. I tried to help Jason and make a tourn-eequet like Uncle Jack taught me. And I held Ms. Lopez when she was bleeding until the ambulances came, just like you held my knee when I feel off my bike,” Lucy said

You ran your fingers through her hair. “You did so good Lucy, helping people, I’m so proud of you.” You kissed the top of her head and held her like you were never going to let her go.

Dana walked over to where you were holding Lucy, “Hey kiddo. Let’s get you out of the middle of the hallway?” she said leading the two of you over to trauma 2. 

“Thanks Dana,” you said as you walked in. She nodded. She knew you would’ve stood there forever with Lucy.

Surgery was ready for the next wave of patients. First, they took up Ms. Lopez. A surgical intern took over for Michael holding pressure on her wound to control the bleeding. Michael ripped off his gloves. He scanned the ER for you and Lucy.

“Trauma 2, Rob,” Dana said as Robby sprinted in that direction.

“Mommy?” Lucy asked as she looked up at you. You had just finished stipping her blood soaked clothes off her, and traded them in for a peds patient gown. She was on your lap as you sat on a gurney.

“Yeah?” you asked.

“Where’s daddy?”

“Daddy is helping save,” you were cut off by Michael walking in the room.

“DADDY!” Lucy screamed as she reached for him. 

He sat next to you on the gurney, and Lucy climbed into his arms.

“You okay, bug?” Robby asked as he held Lucy close. 

“Yeah. My head hurts, though.” Lucy said as she went to touch the cut on her head.

“Let Daddy take a look,” he said as he looked at the wound, already knowing it would need stitches.

“You’re gonna need a few stitches,” he said.

Lucy frowned as she spoke, “Is it gonna hurt, daddy?”

“I’ll go get some medicine to put on it so it won’t hurt, and mommy will be right here, too,” Michael said.

“You’re doing them?” you asked.

Michael stood as he spoke, “I’m not letting an intern-” Michael said as you cut him off.

“Have Jack do them,” you said as you reached for his hand. He took your hand and looked at you for the first time since entering the room. Exhaustion washed over your face, and tears in your eyes threatened to fall. “Stay, please?”

Michael nodded as he sat back down. “Yeah, I’ll stay.” He pulled you closer to him, allowing your head to rest on his shoulder. He whispered, “I love you,” as he kissed your forehead. Lucy shifted so she was seated on both yours and Michael’s lap.

“Daddy? Is Ms. Lopez okay?” Lucy asked.

You felt Michael take a deep breath as he spoke, “She was hurt really bad  Mommy and I helped her when she was here, she’s in surgery now to help fix her.” He was trying to explain lightly to Lucy how serious Ms. Lopez’s injuries were.

“I held where she was bleeding, to help make it stop,” Lucy told her father. Michael looked into her little brown eyes.

“You did a good job,” Michael said in a soft voice.

“Did you and mommy help Jason too?” Lucy asked.

Michael shook his head, “Uncle Jack helped Jason.”

“I gave him a tourn-eequet like Uncle Jack taught me,” Lucy said.

“You did. Lucy, I am so proud of you,” Michael said as he looked down at her. His own emotions catching up with him and tears forming in his eyes as he talked about the day's events over with his daughter. She didn’t deserve to be put through this. No child deserved to be put through this, ever.

“Is he gonna ok?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, he’s gonna be okay.” Michael said. “He’s in surgery to get the bullet out.”

There was a knock and then Jack walked into the room. “Hey, I heard there was a goose in here who needed a few stitches.”

Lucy giggled, “Uncle Jack!”

“Uncle Jack is gonna get you all fixed up, goose.” Jack said, walking over to his unbiological niece. 

“I thought daddy was gonna fix it!” Lucy said as she grabbed Michael and buried her face against his chest.

“Bug, It’s okay, Uncle Jack will do a good job..” Michael said as he rubbed Lucy’s back.

“Daddy, I’m scared though!” Lucy said as she started to cry.

“How about your daddy helps me?” Jack suggested. Lucy nodded against Michael’s chest. “You can put on the LET, Rob.”

“Okay, you gotta let me go, so I can help Uncle Jack,” he said.

Lucy shifted her body off Michael and back onto you. You lifted your head off Michael’s shoulder. He stood up and gave you an empathic look as he began to prep to assist Jack with Lucy’s sutures.

He walked back over ready to put LET on Lucy’s wound, as Gloria walked into the room.

“Ah, 3 of my best ED doctors in a trauma room. This better be an important case,” she said.

“Gloria, this is…” you started to say as Robby spoke louder, ignoring Gloria behind him.

“Lucy, Daddy is gonna put some of this on your head, okay? It’s called LET. It’s so you won’t feel anything when Uncle Jack gives you stitches,” Michael said as he looked into his daughter’s eyes.

Lucy nodded and grabbed onto your hand as Michael began to apply the gel to his daughter’s forehead.

“Is this your daughter Dr. Rabinovich?” Gloria asked.

“The oldest, Lucy,” you replied, knowing Michael wasn’t going to answer Gloria. Michael glared at you as you answered.

“Hi Lucy, I’m Gloria,” Gloria said as she extended her hand towards the girl.

Lucy looked up at you and you nodded. Lucy spoke, “Hi,” very softly, but did not extend her hand.

“All done, Uncle Jack is gonna give you some stitches now, okay Lucy?” Michael said. Lucy nodded in response to his question.

“Dr. Rabinovich, can we speak in the hallway?” Gloria asked.

Michael looked at you and you nodded. “Yeah, be right out,” he said as Gloria walked into the hallway. He let out a deep sigh as she left the room. He walked away to dispose of his gloves, and you could tell he was cursing Gloria under his breath. So could Jack. 

“Go on, brother, I got her,” Jack said.

Michael looked over, “Thanks, brother.” Michael turned his attention to Lucy, “I’ll be right back, okay bug?” He said walking back over towards you. He moved some of your hair that had been in your face and kissed your head as he walked away. “It won’t be long,” he said.

He exited the room. Gloria spoke before he even shut the door completely behind him. “You know we don’t work on fam-”

“I was just applying LET to her-”

“You were doing it during a mass casualty!” Gloria said.

“Jesus, you don’t stop, do you,” Michael said as he shook his head. 

“We don’t take outside patients during-”

It was Michael’s turn to cut Gloria off. “She wasn’t an outside patient! If you cared about your employees, or came down once to help out today, you’d know that!” Michael continued to yell at Gloria, “She is a kindergartener at Allegheny Central Elementary! That teacher, Ms. Lopez, that’s up in surgery? Her teacher. The reason she is in a patient gown is because her clothes were covered in Ms. Lopez’s blood as she applied pressure to her wound until help got there.” 

“I-I’m sorry,” Gloria started to say.

“You should be,” Michael said. As he ran his hands over his face. His voice was much calmer when he spoke again. “You really need to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

Michael sighed, feeling like he was going to regret this. “Coming down here and pretending like you know what’s going on.”

Gloria blinked as she changed the subject, “I take it you are not willing to speak to the media about..”

Michael just shook his head, “I would like to get back to my daughter, who just experienced something she never should have been put through.”

Gloria nodded as Michael re-entered the room.

“All done,” Jack said as he did the last stitch. “Did it hurt, goose?”

Lucy shook her head, “No, thanks Uncle Jack!” Lucy said as she reached her arms out and hugged him. 

“Anytime, goose,” Jack said as he hugged her back.

Michael sat on the bed next to you and wrapped his arms around you. “I have to round everyone up, debrief..hand off cases..then we can go,” he said.

“No, no you don’t. I got you, brother.” Jack said. “And before you protest, Samira will work the rest of your shift.” As the words left his words, Samira entered the room.

You smiled, “You guys don’t have to do that, we only have an hour left.” 

“It’s never just an hour,” She said, “Peds brought down some clothes for the kids - I grabbed these for Luce.” 

“Thank you,” you said, taking the clothes from her and began to change Lucy.

“Surgery took up the last round. We are getting everyone into rooms, or discharging.” Samira said.

Jack nodded, “Okay, I’ll be out soon.” 

Samira left the room as Robby stood up and walked over towards Jack. “I can help.”

“No, Robby, my brother,” Jack said as he put his arm around his friend, “She needs you. They both do. Trust me. Go home. Be there for them, and for Ice and Viper too.” 

Robby shook his head, “I really wish you wouldn’t give my children nicknames based off characters from Top Gun.” He turned to walk back towards you and Lucy.

“It’s a good movie!” Jack yelled after him, as he left the room.

“Did he call the twins Ice and Viper again?” you asked. 

“Yup,” he said as he shook his head.

“Mommy, I’m hungry and I want beanie,” Lucy said. Beanie is her stuffed animal build a bear she got on her 2nd birthday. 

“We can go home soon. Did I tell you gamma is there?” you said as Lucy popped her head up.

“Gamma? Is she making meatballs?” Lucy said as she got excited.

“She better be,” Michael mumbled, as he laughed. 

Dana walked in with some paperwork. “Discharge paperwork,” she said. “You’re good to go kiddo!”

Lucy hopped off your lap and hugged Dana’s legs, “Thanks Aunt Dana.”

Dana bent down and hugged the little girl. “Sure thing, kiddo.” 

Lucy walked back over to you, “Come on, Mommy!” She said as she pulled at your arm. You stood up.

On the other side of the room, Robby and Dana were talking.

“I should have her talk to Kiara,” Robby said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Tomorrow,” Dana said as she put a hand on his back, “Today, tonight, she’s gonna need the two of you, and her little siblings.”

“She rarely wants Cami or Mikey,” Michael said as he shook his head laughing, “Usually, she says ‘Mommy, can you put them back in your belly.’”

Dana laughed too, “Think she gets that sass from the kid.” She spoke as you and Lucy walked up to them hand in hand.

“What’s so funny over here?” you asked.

“Just telling Dana some stories about this one,” Michael said as he bopped Lucy on the nose with his pointer finger. “You ready to go home, bug?” 

Lucy laughed, “Ready, daddy!” She said as she held his hand with her free hand.

“See you tomorrow,” Robby said.

“Bright and Early,” Dana said.

“We’ll be here,” you said, as the three of you walked away.

“Bye Aunt Dana!” Lucy yelled back.

Robby stopped to get your backpacks. He handed you yours, and you put it over your shoulder. 

The walk home was mostly quiet. Lucy did ask Michael to carry her the minute they crossed the street right in front of The Pitt, which he didn’t object to one bit.

As the three of you walked in, your twins came straight for you. “Cami, Mikey, Mommy missed you both so much today,” you said as you picked them up. 

“Ma Ma Ma,” They cooed and babbled back to you.

Michael set her down, and she ran straight for your mom. 

“Gamma!” She exclaimed, as she hugged her grandmother. 

“Oh Lucy, honey!” your mom said as she hugged her. “I made your favorite.” “Meatballs!” Lucy screamed.

“Of course, and spaghetti,” your mom said as she stood up.

She hugged Michael, then you. Michael took Mikey from your arms, then Cami, and gave his youngest children hugs and snuggles, before you took Cami back. You both sat them in their highchairs, while your mom set the table and plated everyone’s dinner.

At your request, Lucy and the twins slept with you and Michael that night. Cami was the first one asleep, cuddled up against Michael’s neck. Next to fall asleep was Mikey, who fell asleep in the crook of your arm. As soon as the twins were asleep, Lucy, who was in the middle of you and Micahel, began asking a million questions - and rightfully so.

Is Ms. Lopez out of surgery?

When can I go back to school?

Are Jason’s mommy and daddy with him?

Is Jason’s arm gonna be ok?

Did any kids die?

Did teachers die?

Is Mr. Marks okay?

What does that mean? - That was always the question when she didn’t understand the response she was given.

Michael and you took turns answering the best you could - and the best you knew. Jack did text you during your walk home that Ms. Lopez was out of surgery, and in CCU. It was the last question that she asked as she began to fall asleep that hurt the most.

“Daddy? Mommy?” Lucy asked when she was almost asleep.

“Yes, Lucy?” Michael answered, as he let out a giggle under his breath. 

“Why did he bring a gun into my school and shoot people?”

Michael and you made eye contact as you both looked down at Lucy laying between you two. 

Michael sighed as you spoke, “Lucy, sometimes people do really bad things, and we don’t always know why.” You ran your fingers through her hair.

“It makes me sad. I loved school.”

“Do you not love school anymore?” Michael asked, worried.

Lucy hugged beanie as she spoke, “When I think of school now, my tummy hurts really bad and I wanna cry.” 

“I bet that’s so hard, Lucy.” Michael said as she looked up at him. She nodded as you continued to run your fingers through her hair. You and Michael shared an empathic look. 

“Was he sick?” Lucy asked.

“Was who sick?” Michael asked.

“The man with the gun,” Lucy asked.

Michael looked at you and you nodded. “Lucy,” you said as she turned away from Michael to look at you. “Sometimes, people aren’t really sick, but their brains don’t work like yours and mine. They have different thoughts and they can’t always control them. Special doctors talk to them, and give them tools and skills to help them, or sometimes medicine.” You tried to explain mental illnesses the best you could to a five year old.

“Are you and daddy those kind of doctors?” Lucy asked.

“No, those doctors are called psychologists,” Michael said.

Lucy nodded and yawned. “You had a really long day, bug. Why don’t you close your eyes and get some sleep, Luce?” you said. You never stopped running your fingers through her hair.

Soon, your oldest fell asleep. You and Michael watched your three children sleep between the two of you. You looked at him and he had that smile on his face - his goofy one. You quietly smiled as you watched him. He looked up and saw you watching him, watch your children.

“What?” he said as he smiled.

“It’s nothing,” you said.

“Oh it’s something,” he said.

“It’s just-today could’ve ended differently, and I’m glad it didn’t. But, I’m also glad I get to be on this crazy roller coaster called life with you. I love you, Michael.”

“I love you, too.” he said as he reached over to trace your cheekbones with his thumb.

[maryellencarter]

YouTube Downloads through VLC: Step by Step

[EDIT: I've been receiving reports for some time now that this method no longer works. I suspect something about the switch to YouTube Music as a separate app, and/or YouTube's ongoing attempts to force Chrome use, broke the compatibility with the Github version of youtube.luac -- I haven't managed to look into whether there's an updated working version out there yet. Sorry!]

So this guide to easily downloading off YouTube is super helpful, but there's enough important information hidden in the reblogs that (with the permission of OP @queriesntheories ) I'm doing a more step-by-step version.

Please note: these downloads will be in YouTube quality. My test video download is coming through at 360p, even though the video I'm starting from is set to 720p. They're legible, but they won't look great on a TV. For high visual quality, you'll want to seek out other methods.

This guide is written for Windows 10, since that's what I can test on. It's been tested on Firefox, Chrome, and Edge (which is a Chromium browser, so the method should work in other Chromium browsers too). So far, I haven't tracked down a way to use this download method on mobile.

BASIC KNOWLEDGE:

I'll try to make this pretty beginner-friendly, but I am going to assume that you know how to right-click, double-click, navigate right-click menus, click-and-drag, use keyboard shortcuts that are given to you (for example, how to use Ctrl+A), and get the URL for any YouTube video you want to download.

You'll also need to download and install one or more programs off the internet using .exe files, if you don't have these programs already. Please make sure you know how to use your firewall and antivirus to keep your computer safe, and google any names you don't recognize before allowing permission for each file. You can also hover your mouse over each link in this post to make sure it goes where I'm saying it will go.

YOU WILL NEED:

A computer where you have admin permissions. This is usually a computer you own or have the main login on. Sadly, a shared computer like the ones at universities and libraries will not work for this.

Enough space on your computer to install the programs listed below, if you don't have them already, and some space to save your downloaded files to. The files are pretty small because of the low video quality.

A simple text editing program. Notepad is the one that usually comes with Windows. If it lets you change fonts, it's too fancy. A notepad designed specifically to edit program code without messing it up is Notepad++, which you can download here.

A web browser. I use Firefox, which you can get here. Chrome or other Chrome-based browsers should also work. I haven't tested in Safari.

An Internet connection fast enough to load YouTube. A little buffering is fine. The downloads will happen much faster than streaming the entire video, unless your internet is very slow.

VLC Media Player, which you can get here. It's a free player for music and videos, available on Windows, Android, and iOS, and it can play almost any format of video or audio file that exists. We'll be using it for one of the central steps in this process.

If you want just the audio from a YouTube video, you'll need to download the video and then use a different program to copy the audio into its own file. At the end of this post, I'll have instructions for that, using a free sound editor called Audacity.

SETUP TO DOWNLOAD:

The first time you do this, you'll need to set VLC up so it can do what you want. This is where we need Notepad and admin permissions. You shouldn't need to repeat this process unless you're reinstalling VLC.

If VLC is open, close it.

In your computer's file system (File Explorer on Windows), go to C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\playlist

If you're not familiar with File Explorer, you'll start by clicking where the left side shows (C:). Then in the big main window, you'll double-click each folder that you see in the file path, in order - so in this case, when you're in C: you need to look for Program Files. (There will be two of them. You want the one without the x86 at the end.) Then inside Program Files you're looking for VideoLAN, and so forth through the whole path.

Once you're inside the "playlist" folder, you'll see a lot of files ending in .luac - they're in alphabetical order. The one you want to edit is youtube.luac which is probably at the bottom.

You can't edit youtube.luac while it's in this folder. Click and drag it out of the playlist folder to somewhere else you can find it - your desktop, for instance. Your computer will ask for admin permission to move the file. Click the "Continue" button with the blue and yellow shield.

Now that the file is moved, double-click on it. The Microsoft Store will want you to search for a program to open the .luac file type with. Don't go to the Microsoft Store, just click on the blue "More apps" below that option, and you'll get a list that should include your notepad program. Click on it and click OK.

The file that opens up will be absolutely full of gibberish-looking code. That's fine. Use Ctrl+A to select everything inside the file, then Backspace or Delete to delete it. Don't close the file yet.

In your web browser, go to https://github.com/videolan/vlc/blob/master/share/lua/playlist/youtube.lua

Click in the part of the Github page that has a bunch of mostly blue code in it. Use Ctrl+A to select all of that code, Ctrl+C to copy it, then come back into your empty youtube.luac file and use Ctrl+P to paste the whole chunk of code into the file.

Save the youtube.luac file (Ctrl+S or File > Save in the upper left corner of the notepad program), then close the notepad program.

Drag youtube.luac back into the folder it came from. The computer will ask for admin permission again. Give it permission.

Now you can close Github and Notepad. You're ready to start downloading!

HOW TO DOWNLOAD:

First, get your YouTube link. It should look something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123DEF45 If it's longer, you can delete any extra stuff after that first set of letters and numbers, but you don't have to.

Now open VLC. Go to Media > Open Network Stream and paste your YouTube link into the box that comes up. Click Play. Wait until the video starts to play, then you can pause it if you want so it's not distracting you during the next part.

(If nothing happens, you probably forgot to put youtube.luac back. coughs)

In VLC, go to Tools > Codec Information. At the bottom of the pop-up box you'll see a long string of gibberish in a box labeled Location. Click in the Location box. It won't look like it clicked properly, but when you press Ctrl+A, it should select all. Use Ctrl+C to copy it.

In your web browser, paste the entire string of gibberish and hit Enter. Your same YouTube video should come up, but without any of the YouTube interface around it. This is where the video actually lives on YouTube's servers. YouTube really, really doesn't like to show this address to humans, which is why we needed VLC to be like "hi I'm just a little video player" and get it for us.

Because, if you're looking at the place where the video actually lives, you can just right-click-download it, and YouTube can't stop you.

Right-click on your video. Choose "Save Video As". Choose where to save it to - I use my computer's built-in Music or Videos folders.

Give it a name other than "videoplayback" so you can tell it apart from your other downloads.

The "Save As Type" dropdown under the Name field will probably default to MP4. This is a good versatile video format that most video players can read. If you need a different format, you can convert the download later. (That's a whole other post topic.)

Click Save, and your video will start downloading! It may take a few minutes to fully download, depending on your video length and internet speed. Once the download finishes, congratulations! You have successfully downloaded a YouTube video!

If you'd like to convert your video into a (usually smaller) audio file, so you can put it on a music player, it's time to install and set up Audacity.

INSTALLING AUDACITY (first time setup for audio file conversion):

You can get Audacity here. If you're following along on Windows 10, choose the "64-bit installer (recommended)". Run the installer, but don't open Audacity at the end, or if it does open, close it again.

On that same Audacity download page, scroll down past the installers to the "Additional resources". You'll see a box with a "Link to FFmpeg library". This is where you'll get the add-on program that will let Audacity open your downloaded YouTube video, so you can tell it to make an audio-only file. The link will take you to this page on the Audacity support wiki, which will always have the most up-to-date information on how to install the file you need here.

From that wiki page, follow the link to the actual FFmpeg library. If you're not using an adblocker, be careful not to click on any of the ads showing you download buttons. The link you want is bold blue text under "FFmpeg Installer for Audacity 3.2 and later", and looks something like this: "FFmpeg_5.0.0_for_Audacity_on_Windows_x86.exe". Download and install it. Without this, Audacity won't be able to open MP4 files downloaded from YouTube.

CONVERTING TO AUDIO:

Make sure you know where to find your downloaded MP4 video file. This file won't go away when you "convert" it - you'll just be copying the audio into a different file.

Open up Audacity.

Go to File > Open and choose your video file.

You'll get one of those soundwave file displays you see in recording booths and so forth. Audacity is a good solid choice if you want to teach yourself to edit soundwave files, but that's not what we're here for right now.

Go to File > Export Audio. The File Name will populate to match the video's filename, but you can edit it if you want.

Click the Browse button next to the Folder box, and choose where to save your new audio file to. I use my computer's Music folder.

You can click on the Format dropdown and choose an audio file type. If you're not sure which one you want, MP3 is the most common and versatile.

If you'd like your music player to know the artist, album, and so forth for your audio track, you can edit that later in File Manager, or you can put the information in with the Edit Metadata button here. You can leave any of the slots blank, for instance if you don't have a track number because it's a YouTube video.

Once everything is set up, click Export, and your new audio file will be created. Go forth and listen!

[fipindustries]

Artificial Intelligence Risk

about a month ago i got into my mind the idea of trying the format of video essay, and the topic i came up with that i felt i could more or less handle was AI risk and my objections to yudkowsky. i wrote the script but then soon afterwards i ran out of motivation to do the video. still i didnt want the effort to go to waste so i decided to share the text, slightly edited here. this is a LONG fucking thing so put it aside on its own tab and come back to it when you are comfortable and ready to sink your teeth on quite a lot of reading

Anyway, let’s talk about AI risk

I’m going to be doing a very quick introduction to some of the latest conversations that have been going on in the field of artificial intelligence, what are artificial intelligences exactly, what is an AGI, what is an agent, the orthogonality thesis, the concept of instrumental convergence, alignment and how does Eliezer Yudkowsky figure in all of this.

 If you are already familiar with this you can skip to section two where I’m going to be talking about yudkowsky’s arguments for AI research presenting an existential risk to, not just humanity, or even the world, but to the entire universe and my own tepid rebuttal to his argument.

Now, I SHOULD clarify, I am not an expert on the field, my credentials are dubious at best, I am a college drop out from the career of computer science and I have a three year graduate degree in video game design and a three year graduate degree in electromechanical instalations. All that I know about the current state of AI research I have learned by reading articles, consulting a few friends who have studied about the topic more extensevily than me,

and watching educational you tube videos so. You know. Not an authority on the matter from any considerable point of view and my opinions should be regarded as such.

So without further ado, let’s get in on it.

PART ONE, A RUSHED INTRODUCTION ON THE SUBJECT

1.1 general intelligence and agency

lets begin with what counts as artificial intelligence, the technical definition for artificial intelligence is, eh…, well, why don’t I let a Masters degree in machine intelligence explain it:

 Now let’s get a bit more precise here and include the definition of AGI, Artificial General intelligence. It is understood that classic ai’s such as the ones we have in our videogames or in alpha GO or even our roombas, are narrow Ais, that is to say, they are capable of doing only one kind of thing. They do not understand the world beyond their field of expertise whether that be within a videogame level, within a GO board or within you filthy disgusting floor.

AGI on the other hand is much more, well, general, it can have a multimodal understanding of its surroundings, it can generalize, it can extrapolate, it can learn new things across multiple different fields, it can come up with solutions that account for multiple different factors, it can incorporate new ideas and concepts. Essentially, a human is an agi. So far that is the last frontier of AI research, and although we are not there quite yet, it does seem like we are doing some moderate strides in that direction. We’ve all seen the impressive conversational and coding skills that GPT-4 has and Google just released Gemini, a multimodal AI that can understand and generate text, sounds, images and video simultaneously. Now, of course it has its limits, it has no persistent memory, its contextual window while larger than previous models is still relatively small compared to a human (contextual window means essentially short term memory, how many things can it keep track of and act coherently about).

And yet there is one more factor I haven’t mentioned yet that would be needed to make something a “true” AGI. That is Agency. To have goals and autonomously come up with plans and carry those plans out in the world to achieve those goals. I as a person, have agency over my life, because I can choose at any given moment to do something without anyone explicitly telling me to do it, and I can decide how to do it. That is what computers, and machines to a larger extent, don’t have. Volition.

So, Now that we have established that, allow me to introduce yet one more definition here, one that you may disagree with but which I need to establish in order to have a common language with you such that I can communicate these ideas effectively. The definition of intelligence. It’s a thorny subject and people get very particular with that word because there are moral associations with it. To imply that someone or something has or hasn’t intelligence can be seen as implying that it deserves or doesn’t deserve admiration, validity, moral worth or even  personhood. I don’t care about any of that dumb shit. The way Im going to be using intelligence in this video is basically “how capable you are to do many different things successfully”. The more “intelligent” an AI is, the more capable of doing things that AI can be. After all, there is a reason why education is considered such a universally good thing in society. To educate a child is to uplift them, to expand their world, to increase their opportunities in life. And the same goes for AI. I need to emphasize that this is just the way I’m using the word within the context of this video, I don’t care if you are a psychologist or a neurosurgeon, or a pedagogue, I need a word to express this idea and that is the word im going to use, if you don’t like it or if you think this is innapropiate of me then by all means, keep on thinking that, go on and comment about it below the video, and then go on to suck my dick.

Anyway. Now, we have established what an AGI is, we have established what agency is, and we have established how having more intelligence increases your agency. But as the intelligence of a given agent increases we start to see certain trends, certain strategies start to arise again and again, and we call this Instrumental convergence.

1.2 instrumental convergence

The basic idea behind instrumental convergence is that if you are an intelligent agent that wants to achieve some goal, there are some common basic strategies that you are going to turn towards no matter what. It doesn’t matter if your goal is as complicated as building a nuclear bomb or as simple as making a cup of tea. These are things we can reliably predict any AGI worth its salt is going to try to do.

First of all is self-preservation. Its going to try to protect itself. When you want to do something, being dead is usually. Bad. its counterproductive. Is not generally recommended. Dying is widely considered unadvisable by 9 out of every ten experts in the field. If there is something that it wants getting done, it wont get done if it dies or is turned off, so its safe to predict that any AGI will try to do things in order not be turned off. How far it may go in order to do this? Well… [wouldn’t you like to know weather boy].

Another thing it will predictably converge towards is goal preservation. That is to say, it will resist any attempt to try and change it, to alter it, to modify its goals. Because, again, if you want to accomplish something, suddenly deciding that you want to do something else is uh, not going to accomplish the first thing, is it? Lets say that you want to take care of your child, that is your goal, that is the thing you want to accomplish, and I come to you and say, here, let me change you on the inside so that you don’t care about protecting your kid. Obviously you are not going to let me, because if you stopped caring about your kids, then your kids wouldn’t be cared for or protected. And you want to ensure that happens, so caring about something else instead is a huge no-no- which is why, if we make AGI and it has goals that we don’t like it will probably resist any attempt to “fix” it.

And finally another goal that it will most likely trend towards is self improvement. Which can be more generalized to “resource acquisition”. If it lacks capacities to carry out a plan, then step one of that plan will always be to increase capacities. If you want to get something really expensive, well first you need to get money. If you want to increase your chances of getting a high paying job then you need to get education, if you want to get a partner you need to increase how attractive you are. And as we established earlier, if intelligence is the thing that increases your agency, you want to become smarter in order to do more things. So one more time, is not a huge leap at all, it is not a stretch of the imagination, to say that any AGI will probably seek to increase its capabilities, whether by acquiring more computation, by improving itself, by taking control of resources.

All these three things I mentioned are sure bets, they are likely to happen and safe to assume. They are things we ought to keep in mind when creating AGI.

 Now of course, I have implied a sinister tone to all these things, I have made all this sound vaguely threatening, haven’t i?. There is one more assumption im sneaking into all of this which I haven’t talked about. All that I have mentioned presents a very callous view of AGI, I have made it apparent that all of these strategies it may follow will go in conflict with people, maybe even go as far as to harm humans. Am I impliying that AGI may tend to be… Evil???

1.3 The Orthogonality thesis

Well, not quite.

We humans care about things. Generally. And we generally tend to care about roughly the same things, simply by virtue of being humans. We have some innate preferences and some innate dislikes. We have a tendency to not like suffering (please keep in mind I said a tendency, im talking about a statistical trend, something that most humans present to some degree). Most of us, baring social conditioning, would take pause at the idea of torturing someone directly, on purpose, with our bare hands. (edit bear paws onto my hands as I say this).  Most would feel uncomfortable at the thought of doing it to multitudes of people. We tend to show a preference for food, water, air, shelter, comfort, entertainment and companionship. This is just how we are fundamentally wired. These things can be overcome, of course, but that is the thing, they have to be overcome in the first place.

An AGI is not going to have the same evolutionary predisposition to these things like we do because it is not made of the same things a human is made of and it was not raised the same way a human was raised.

There is something about a human brain, in a human body, flooded with human hormones that makes us feel and think and act in certain ways and care about certain things.

All an AGI is going to have is the goals it developed during its training, and will only care insofar as those goals are met. So say an AGI has the goal of going to the corner store to bring me a pack of cookies. In its way there it comes across an anthill in its path, it will probably step on the anthill because to take that step takes it closer to the corner store, and why wouldn’t it step on the anthill? Was it programmed with some specific innate preference not to step on ants? No? then it will step on the anthill and not pay any mind  to it.

Now lets say it comes across a cat. Same logic applies, if it wasn’t programmed with an inherent tendency to value animals, stepping on the cat wont slow it down at all.

Now let’s say it comes across a baby.

Of course, if its intelligent enough it will probably understand that if it steps on that baby people might notice and try to stop it, most likely even try to disable it or turn it off so it will not step on the baby, to save itself from all that trouble. But you have to understand that it wont stop because it will feel bad about harming a baby or because it understands that to harm a baby is wrong. And indeed if it was powerful enough such that no matter what people did they could not stop it and it would suffer no consequence for killing the baby, it would have probably killed the baby.

If I need to put it in gross, inaccurate terms for you to get it then let me put it this way. Its essentially a sociopath. It only cares about the wellbeing of others in as far as that benefits it self. Except human sociopaths do care nominally about having human comforts and companionship, albeit in a very instrumental way, which will involve some manner of stable society and civilization around them. Also they are only human, and are limited in the harm they can do by human limitations.  An AGI doesn’t need any of that and is not limited by any of that.

So ultimately, much like a car’s goal is to move forward and it is not built to care about wether a human is in front of it or not, an AGI will carry its own goals regardless of what it has to sacrifice in order to carry that goal effectively. And those goals don’t need to include human wellbeing.

Now With that said. How DO we make it so that AGI cares about human wellbeing, how do we make it so that it wants good things for us. How do we make it so that its goals align with that of humans?

1.4 Alignment.

Alignment… is hard [cue hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy scene about the space being big]

This is the part im going to skip over the fastest because frankly it’s a deep field of study, there are many current strategies for aligning AGI, from mesa optimizers, to reinforced learning with human feedback, to adversarial asynchronous AI assisted reward training to uh, sitting on our asses and doing nothing. Suffice to say, none of these methods are perfect or foolproof.

One thing many people like to gesture at when they have not learned or studied anything about the subject is the three laws of robotics by isaac Asimov, a robot should not harm a human or allow by inaction to let a human come to harm, a robot should do what a human orders unless it contradicts the first law and a robot should preserve itself unless that goes against the previous two laws. Now the thing Asimov was prescient about was that these laws were not just “programmed” into the robots. These laws were not coded into their software, they were hardwired, they were part of the robot’s electronic architecture such that a robot could not ever be without those three laws much like a car couldn’t run without wheels.

In this Asimov realized how important these three laws were, that they had to be intrinsic to the robot’s very being, they couldn’t be hacked or uninstalled or erased. A robot simply could not be without these rules. Ideally that is what alignment should be. When we create an AGI, it should be made such that human values are its fundamental goal, that is the thing they should seek to maximize, instead of instrumental values, that is to say something they value simply because it allows it to achieve something else.

But how do we even begin to do that? How do we codify “human values” into a robot? How do we define “harm” for example? How do we even define “human”??? how do we define “happiness”? how do we explain a robot what is right and what is wrong when half the time we ourselves cannot even begin to agree on that? these are not just technical questions that robotic experts have to find the way to codify into ones and zeroes, these are profound philosophical questions to which we still don’t have satisfying answers to.

Well, the best sort of hack solution we’ve come up with so far is not to create bespoke fundamental axiomatic rules that the robot has to follow, but rather train it to imitate humans by showing it a billion billion examples of human behavior. But of course there is a problem with that approach. And no, is not just that humans are flawed and have a tendency to cause harm and therefore to ask a robot to imitate a human means creating something that can do all the bad things a human does, although that IS a problem too. The real problem is that we are training it to *imitate* a human, not  to *be* a human.

To reiterate what I said during the orthogonality thesis, is not good enough that I, for example, buy roses and give massages to act nice to my girlfriend because it allows me to have sex with her, I am not merely imitating or performing the rol of a loving partner because her happiness is an instrumental value to my fundamental value of getting sex. I should want to be nice to my girlfriend because it makes her happy and that is the thing I care about. Her happiness is  my fundamental value. Likewise, to an AGI, human fulfilment should be its fundamental value, not something that it learns to do because it allows it to achieve a certain reward that we give during training. Because if it only really cares deep down about the reward, rather than about what the reward is meant to incentivize, then that reward can very easily be divorced from human happiness.

Its goodharts law, when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Why do students cheat during tests? Because their education is measured by grades, so the grades become the target and so students will seek to get high grades regardless of whether they learned or not. When trained on their subject and measured by grades, what they learn is not the school subject, they learn to get high grades, they learn to cheat.

This is also something known in psychology, punishment tends to be a poor mechanism of enforcing behavior because all it teaches people is how to avoid the punishment, it teaches people not to get caught. Which is why punitive justice doesn’t work all that well in stopping recividism and this is why the carceral system is rotten to core and why jail should be fucking abolish-[interrupt the transmission]

Now, how is this all relevant to current AI research? Well, the thing is, we ended up going about the worst possible way to create alignable AI.

1.5 LLMs (large language models)

This is getting way too fucking long So, hurrying up, lets do a quick review of how do Large language models work. We create a neural network which is a collection of giant matrixes, essentially a bunch of numbers that we add and multiply together over and over again, and then we tune those numbers by throwing absurdly big amounts of training data such that it starts forming internal mathematical models based on that data and it starts creating coherent patterns that it can recognize and replicate AND extrapolate! if we do this enough times with matrixes that are big enough and then when we start prodding it for human behavior it will be able to follow the pattern of human behavior that we prime it with and give us coherent responses.

(takes a big breath)this “thing” has learned. To imitate. Human. Behavior.

Problem is, we don’t know what “this thing” actually is, we just know that *it* can imitate humans.

You caught that?

What you have to understand is, we don’t actually know what internal models it creates, we don’t know what are the patterns that it extracted or internalized from the data that we fed it, we don’t know what are the internal rules that decide its behavior, we don’t know what is going on inside there, current LLMs are a black box. We don’t know what it learned, we don’t know what its fundamental values are, we don’t know how it thinks or what it truly wants. all we know is that it can imitate humans when we ask it to do so. We created some inhuman entity that is moderatly intelligent in specific contexts (that is to say, very capable) and we trained it to imitate humans. That sounds a bit unnerving doesn’t it?

 To be clear, LLMs are not carefully crafted piece by piece. This does not work like traditional software where a programmer will sit down and build the thing line by line, all its behaviors specified. Is more accurate to say that LLMs, are grown, almost organically. We know the process that generates them, but we don’t know exactly what it generates or how what it generates works internally, it is a mistery. And these things are so big and so complicated internally that to try and go inside and decipher what they are doing is almost intractable.

But, on the bright side, we are trying to tract it. There is a big subfield of AI research called interpretability, which is actually doing the hard work of going inside and figuring out how the sausage gets made, and they have been doing some moderate progress as of lately. Which is encouraging. But still, understanding the enemy is only step one, step two is coming up with an actually effective and reliable way of turning that potential enemy into a friend.

Puff! Ok so, now that this is all out of the way I can go onto the last subject before I move on to part two of this video, the character of the hour, the man the myth the legend. The modern day Casandra. Mr chicken little himself! Sci fi author extraordinaire! The mad man! The futurist! The leader of the rationalist movement!

1.5 Yudkowsky

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky  born September 11, 1979, wait, what the fuck, September eleven? (looks at camera) yudkowsky was born on 9/11, I literally just learned this for the first time! What the fuck, oh that sucks, oh no, oh no, my condolences, that’s terrible…. Moving on. he is an American artificial intelligence researcher and writer on decision theory and ethics, best known for popularizing ideas related to friendly artificial intelligence, including the idea that there might not be a "fire alarm" for AI He is the founder of and a research fellow at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a private research nonprofit based in Berkeley, California. Or so says his Wikipedia page.

Yudkowsky is, shall we say, a character. a very eccentric man, he is an AI doomer. Convinced that AGI, once finally created, will most likely kill all humans, extract all valuable resources from the planet, disassemble the solar system, create a dyson sphere around the sun and expand across the universe turning all of the cosmos into paperclips. Wait, no, that is not quite it, to properly quote,( grabs a piece of paper and very pointedly reads from it) turn the cosmos into tiny squiggly  molecules resembling paperclips whose configuration just so happens to fulfill the strange, alien unfathomable terminal goal they ended up developing in training. So you know, something totally different.

And he is utterly convinced of this idea, has been for over a decade now, not only that but, while he cannot pinpoint a precise date, he is confident that, more likely than not it will happen within this century. In fact most betting markets seem to believe that we will get AGI somewhere in the mid 30’s.

His argument is basically that in the field of AI research, the development of capabilities is going much faster than the development of alignment, so that AIs will become disproportionately powerful before we ever figure out how to control them. And once we create unaligned AGI we will have created an agent who doesn’t care about humans but will care about something else entirely irrelevant to us and it will seek to maximize that goal, and because it will be vastly more intelligent than humans therefore we wont be able to stop it. In fact not only we wont be able to stop it, there wont be a fight at all. It will carry out its plans for world domination in secret without us even detecting it and it will execute it before any of us even realize what happened. Because that is what a smart person trying to take over the world would do.

This is why the definition I gave of intelligence at the beginning is so important, it all hinges on that, intelligence as the measure of how capable you are to come up with solutions to problems, problems such as “how to kill all humans without being detected or stopped”. And you may say well now, intelligence is fine and all but there are limits to what you can accomplish with raw intelligence, even if you are supposedly smarter than a human surely you wouldn’t be capable of just taking over the world uninmpeeded, intelligence is not this end all be all superpower. Yudkowsky would respond that you are not recognizing or respecting the power that intelligence has. After all it was intelligence what designed the atom bomb, it was intelligence what created a cure for polio and it was intelligence what made it so that there is a human foot print on the moon.

Some may call this view of intelligence a bit reductive. After all surely it wasn’t *just* intelligence what did all that but also hard physical labor and the collaboration of hundreds of thousands of people. But, he would argue, intelligence was the underlying motor that moved all that. That to come up with the plan and to convince people to follow it and to delegate the tasks to the appropriate subagents, it was all directed by thought, by ideas, by intelligence. By the way, so far I am not agreeing or disagreeing with any of this, I am merely explaining his ideas.

But remember, it doesn’t stop there, like I said during his intro, he believes there will be “no fire alarm”. In fact for all we know, maybe AGI has already been created and its merely bidding its time and plotting in the background, trying to get more compute, trying to get smarter. (to be fair, he doesn’t think this is right now, but with the next iteration of gpt? Gpt 5 or 6? Well who knows). He thinks that the entire world should halt AI research and punish with multilateral international treaties any group or nation that doesn’t stop. going as far as putting military attacks on GPU farms as sanctions of those treaties.

What’s more, he believes that, in fact, the fight is already lost. AI is already progressing too fast and there is nothing to stop it, we are not showing any signs of making headway with alignment and no one is incentivized to slow down. Recently he wrote an article called “dying with dignity” where he essentially says all this, AGI will destroy us, there is no point in planning for the future or having children and that we should act as if we are already dead. This doesn’t mean to stop fighting or to stop trying to find ways to align AGI, impossible as it may seem, but to merely have the basic dignity of acknowledging that we are probably not going to win. In every interview ive seen with the guy he sounds fairly defeatist and honestly kind of depressed. He truly seems to think its hopeless, if not because the AGI is clearly unbeatable and superior to humans, then because humans are clearly so stupid that we keep developing AI completely unregulated while making the tools to develop AI widely available and public for anyone to grab and do as they please with, as well as connecting every AI to the internet and to all mobile devices giving it instant access to humanity. and  worst of all: we keep teaching it how to code. From his perspective it really seems like people are in a rush to create the most unsecured, wildly available, unrestricted, capable, hyperconnected AGI possible.

We are not just going to summon the antichrist, we are going to receive them with a red carpet and immediately hand it the keys to the kingdom before it even manages to fully get out of its fiery pit.

So. The situation seems dire, at least to this guy. Now, to be clear, only he and a handful of other AI researchers are on that specific level of alarm. The opinions vary across the field and from what I understand this level of hopelessness and defeatism is the minority opinion.

I WILL say, however what is NOT the minority opinion is that AGI IS actually dangerous, maybe not quite on the level of immediate, inevitable and total human extinction but certainly a genuine threat that has to be taken seriously. AGI being something dangerous if unaligned is not a fringe position and I would not consider it something to be dismissed as an idea that experts don’t take seriously.

Aaand here is where I step up and clarify that this is my position as well. I am also, very much, a believer that AGI would posit a colossal danger to humanity. That yes, an unaligned AGI would represent an agent smarter than a human, capable of causing vast harm to humanity and with no human qualms or limitations to do so. I believe this is not just possible but probable and likely to happen within our lifetimes.

So there. I made my position clear.

BUT!

With all that said. I do have one key disagreement with yudkowsky. And partially the reason why I made this video was so that I could present this counterargument and maybe he, or someone that thinks like him, will see it and either change their mind or present a counter-counterargument that changes MY mind (although I really hope they don’t, that would be really depressing.)

Finally, we can move on to part 2

PART TWO- MY COUNTERARGUMENT TO YUDKOWSKY

I really have my work cut out for me, don’t i? as I said I am not expert and this dude has probably spent far more time than me thinking about this. But I have seen most interviews that guy has been doing for a year, I have seen most of his debates and I have followed him on twitter for years now. (also, to be clear, I AM a fan of the guy, I have read hpmor, three worlds collide, the dark lords answer, a girl intercorrupted, the sequences, and I TRIED to read planecrash, that last one didn’t work out so well for me). My point is in all the material I have seen of Eliezer I don’t recall anyone ever giving him quite this specific argument I’m about to give.

It’s a limited argument. as I have already stated I largely agree with most of what he says, I DO believe that unaligned AGI is possible, I DO believe it would be really dangerous if it were to exist and I do believe alignment is really hard. My key disagreement is specifically about his point I descrived earlier, about the lack of a fire alarm, and perhaps, more to the point, to humanity’s lack of response to such an alarm if it were to come to pass.

All we would need, is a Chernobyl incident, what is that? A situation where this technology goes out of control and causes a lot of damage, of potentially catastrophic consequences, but not so bad that it cannot be contained in time by enough effort. We need a weaker form of AGI to try to harm us, maybe even present a believable threat of taking over the world, but not so smart that humans cant do anything about it. We need essentially an AI vaccine, so that we can finally start developing proper AI antibodies. “aintibodies”

In the past humanity was dazzled by the limitless potential of nuclear power, to the point that old chemistry sets, the kind that were sold to children, would come with uranium for them to play with. We were building atom bombs, nuclear stations, the future was very much based on the power of the atom. But after a couple of really close calls and big enough scares we became, as a species, terrified of nuclear power. Some may argue to the point of overcorrection. We became scared enough that even megalomaniacal hawkish leaders were able to take pause and reconsider using it as a weapon, we became so scared that we overregulated the technology to the point of it almost becoming economically inviable to apply, we started disassembling nuclear stations across the world and to slowly reduce our nuclear arsenal.

This is all a proof of concept that, no matter how alluring a technology may be, if we are scared enough of it we can coordinate as a species and roll it back, to do our best to put the genie back in the bottle. One of the things eliezer says over and over again is that what makes AGI different from other technologies is that if we get it wrong on the first try we don’t get a second chance. Here is where I think he is wrong: I think if we get AGI wrong on the first try, it is more likely than not that nothing world ending will happen. Perhaps it will be something scary, perhaps something really scary, but unlikely that it will be on the level of all humans dropping dead simultaneously due to diamonoid bacteria. And THAT will be our Chernobyl, that will be the fire alarm, that will be the red flag that the disaster monkeys, as he call us, wont be able to ignore.

Now WHY do I think this? Based on what am I saying this? I will not be as hyperbolic as other yudkowsky detractors and say that he claims AGI will be basically a god. The AGI yudkowsky proposes is not a god. Just a really advanced alien, maybe even a wizard, but certainly not a god.

Still, even if not quite on the level of godhood, this dangerous superintelligent AGI yudkowsky proposes would be impressive. It would be the most advanced and powerful entity on planet earth. It would be humanity’s greatest achievement.

It would also be, I imagine, really hard to create. Even leaving aside the alignment bussines, to create a powerful superintelligent AGI without flaws, without bugs, without glitches, It would have to be an incredibly complex, specific, particular and hard to get right feat of software engineering. We are not just talking about an AGI smarter than a human, that’s easy stuff, humans are not that smart and arguably current AI is already smarter than a human, at least within their context window and until they start hallucinating. But what we are talking about here is an AGI capable of outsmarting reality.

We are talking about an AGI smart enough to carry out complex, multistep plans, in which they are not going to be in control of every factor and variable, specially at the beginning. We are talking about AGI that will have to function in the outside world, crashing with outside logistics and sheer dumb chance. We are talking about plans for world domination with no unforeseen factors, no unexpected delays or mistakes, every single possible setback and hidden variable accounted for. Im not saying that an AGI capable of doing this wont be possible maybe some day, im saying that to create an AGI that is capable of doing this, on the first try, without a hitch, is probably really really really hard for humans to do. Im saying there are probably not a lot of worlds where humans fiddling with giant inscrutable matrixes stumble upon the right precise set of layers and weight and biases that give rise to the Doctor from doctor who, and there are probably a whole truckload of worlds where humans end up with a lot of incoherent nonsense and rubbish.

Im saying that AGI, when it fails, when humans screw it up, doesn’t suddenly become more powerful than we ever expected, its more likely that it just fails and collapses. To turn one of Eliezer’s examples against him, when you screw up a rocket, it doesn’t accidentally punch a worm hole in the fabric of time and space, it just explodes before reaching the stratosphere. When you screw up a nuclear bomb, you don’t get to blow up the solar system, you just get a less powerful bomb.

He presents a fully aligned AGI as this big challenge that humanity has to get right on the first try, but that seems to imply that building an unaligned AGI is just a simple matter, almost taken for granted. It may be comparatively easier than an aligned AGI, but my point is that already unaligned AGI is stupidly hard to do and that if you fail in building unaligned AGI, then you don’t get an unaligned AGI, you just get another stupid model that screws up and stumbles on itself the second it encounters something unexpected. And that is a good thing I’d say! That means that there is SOME safety margin, some space to screw up before we need to really start worrying. And further more, what I am saying is that our first earnest attempt at an unaligned AGI will probably not be that smart or impressive because we as humans would have probably screwed something up, we would have probably unintentionally programmed it with some stupid glitch or bug or flaw and wont be a threat to all of humanity.

Now here comes the hypothetical back and forth, because im not stupid and I can try to anticipate what Yudkowsky might argue back and try to answer that before he says it (although I believe the guy is probably smarter than me and if I follow his logic, I probably cant actually anticipate what he would argue to prove me wrong, much like I cant predict what moves Magnus Carlsen would make in a game of chess against me, I SHOULD predict that him proving me wrong is the likeliest option, even if I cant picture how he will do it, but you see, I believe in a little thing called debating with dignity, wink)

What I anticipate he would argue is that AGI, no matter how flawed and shoddy our first attempt at making it were, would understand that is not smart enough yet and try to become smarter, so it would lie and pretend to be an aligned AGI so that it can trick us into giving it access to more compute or just so that it can bid its time and create an AGI smarter than itself. So even if we don’t create a perfect unaligned AGI, this imperfect AGI would try to create it and succeed, and then THAT new AGI would be the world ender to worry about.

So two things to that, first, this is filled with a lot of assumptions which I don’t know the likelihood of. The idea that this first flawed AGI would be smart enough to understand its limitations, smart enough to convincingly lie about it and smart enough to create an AGI that is better than itself. My priors about all these things are dubious at best. Second, It feels like kicking the can down the road. I don’t think creating an AGI capable of all of this is trivial to make on a first attempt. I think its more likely that we will create an unaligned AGI that is flawed, that is kind of dumb, that is unreliable, even to itself and its own twisted, orthogonal goals.

And I think this flawed creature MIGHT attempt something, maybe something genuenly threatning, but it wont be smart enough to pull it off effortlessly and flawlessly, because us humans are not smart enough to create something that can do that on the first try. And THAT first flawed attempt, that warning shot, THAT will be our fire alarm, that will be our Chernobyl. And THAT will be the thing that opens the door to us disaster monkeys finally getting our shit together.

But hey, maybe yudkowsky wouldn’t argue that, maybe he would come with some better, more insightful response I cant anticipate. If so, im waiting eagerly (although not TOO eagerly) for it.

Part 3 CONCLUSSION

So.

After all that, what is there left to say? Well, if everything that I said checks out then there is hope to be had. My two objectives here were first to provide people who are not familiar with the subject with a starting point as well as with the basic arguments supporting the concept of AI risk, why its something to be taken seriously and not just high faluting wackos who read one too many sci fi stories. This was not meant to be thorough or deep, just a quick catch up with the bear minimum so that, if you are curious and want to go deeper into the subject, you know where to start. I personally recommend watching rob miles’ AI risk series on youtube as well as reading the series of books written by yudkowsky known as the sequences, which can be found on the website lesswrong. If you want other refutations of yudkowsky’s argument you can search for paul christiano or robin hanson, both very smart people who had very smart debates on the subject against eliezer.

The second purpose here was to provide an argument against Yudkowskys brand of doomerism both so that it can be accepted if proven right or properly refuted if proven wrong. Again, I really hope that its not proven wrong. It would really really suck if I end up being wrong about this. But, as a very smart person said once, what is true is already true, and knowing it doesn’t make it any worse. If the sky is blue I want to believe that the sky is blue, and if the sky is not blue then I don’t want to believe the sky is blue.

This has been a presentation by FIP industries, thanks for watching.

[lastimeexteriors-omaha]

How Do You Choose the Best Contractor for Residential Metal Roofing?

When upgrading your home, selecting the right contractor for residential metal roofing can feel overwhelming. After all, a roof is more than just an aesthetic choice; it plays a significant role in your home's overall safety, durability, and efficiency. Whether you're looking to replace an old roof or install a new one, choosing the right contractor is essential for ensuring your project goes smoothly and meets your expectations. Here’s how you can decide on the best contractor for your residential metal roofing needs.

Understanding Residential Metal Roofing

Before diving into the selection process, it's helpful to understand the benefits of residential metal roofing. Metal roofs are durable, energy-efficient, and provide excellent snow resistance, making them ideal for winter climates like Montana's. They can shed snow quickly and withstand harsh weather conditions, offering long-lasting protection for your home.

Evaluate Their Experience and Expertise

One of the first things you should consider when choosing a contractor for residential metal roofing is their experience. Look for contractors specializing in metal roofing with a solid track record of successful installations. Experienced contractors will be familiar with the unique challenges of metal roofing, such as proper installation techniques, local building codes, and the necessary systems for preventing issues like ice dams.

Ask for References

Don’t hesitate to ask potential contractors for references. Speak to previous clients about their experience: Were they satisfied with the installation process? Did the contractor meet deadlines? Did they encounter any issues post-installation? Getting firsthand accounts can help you gauge the quality of a contractor’s work.

Check for Licensing and Insurance

Ensure that any contractor you consider is properly licensed and insured. This protects you as a homeowner and indicates that the contractor meets specific industry standards. An insured contractor will cover any accidents or damages during the roofing project, giving you peace of mind.

Review Their Portfolio

A reputable contractor should provide you with a portfolio showcasing their previous residential metal roofing projects. Look for various styles and designs to get a sense of their capabilities. This will help you determine if their work aligns with your vision for your home.

Get Multiple Quotes

Don’t settle for the first quote you receive. Getting estimates from multiple contractors allows you to compare prices, materials, and services. However, be cautious of quotes that seem too good to be true; they may indicate subpar materials or workmanship. Look for a balance between quality and affordability.

Inquire About Materials and Warranties

Ask contractors about the types of metal roofing materials they offer. Not all metals are created equal; some are more durable and weather-resistant than others. It's also essential to inquire about warranties. A reliable contractor should provide clear information on the roofing materials and the workmanship warranty. This is important for your long-term peace of mind.

Understand the Installation Process

A knowledgeable contractor should explain the entire installation process to you. This includes timelines, equipment, and how they plan to manage waste during the project. Understanding how they handle these steps can provide insight into their professionalism and attention to detail.

Communication is Key

A good contractor should communicate openly and effectively. They should be readily available to answer your questions and provide updates throughout the project. If you feel that a contractor isn’t responsive during the initial stages, this pattern will likely continue throughout the project.

Read Online Reviews

Review online reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, or the Better Business Bureau. Look for feedback regarding their workmanship, customer service, and overall satisfaction. This can help you understand what you can expect when working with a particular contractor.

Ask About Post-Installation Services

Some contractors offer maintenance or repair services after installation, which can benefit residential metal roofing in the long run. Inquire about any post-installation services they provide and whether they offer inspections to ensure your roof continues to perform well over time.

Trust Your Instincts

Finally, trust your instincts. If a contractor seems unprofessional or doesn't align with your vision for your residential metal roofing project, it’s okay to keep looking. You want someone who has the skills to do the job and makes you feel comfortable throughout the process.

Transform Your Home with Expert Roofing Solutions

Choosing the best contractor for your residential metal roofing project is vital to ensuring your home's safety and efficiency. You can make an informed decision that meets your needs by evaluating experience, checking for licenses and insurance, reviewing portfolios, and communicating effectively.

If you’re ready to explore your options for metal roofing, visit Lastime Exteriors to learn more about their services and discover energy-efficient roofing solutions tailored to your home. Don’t hesitate; your dream roof awaits!

[maypop-the-dragon]

PSA: Free Software

Reading this may really save your time, privacy, and money! Reblog or share to spread awareness!

Folks often use software that’s expensive and sometimes even inferior because they don’t know there are alternatives. So to those unfamiliar: basically, free and open-source (FOSS) or "libre" software is free to use and anyone can access the original code to make their own version or work on fixing problems.

That does not mean anyone can randomly add a virus and give it to everyone—any respectable libre project has checks in place to make sure changes to the official version are good! Libre software is typically developed by communities who really care about the quality of the software as a goal in itself.

There are libre alternatives to many well-known programs that do everything an average user needs (find out more under the cut!) for free with no DRM, license keys, or subscriptions.

Using libre software when possible is an easy way to fight against and free yourself from corporate greed while actually being more convenient in many cases! If you need an app to do something, perhaps try searching online for things like:

foss [whatever it is]

libre [whatever it is]

open source [whatever it is]

Feel free to recommend more libre software in the tags, replies, comments, or whatever you freaks like to do!

Some Libre Software I Personally Enjoy…

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is an office suite, much like Microsoft Office. It includes equivalents for apps like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, which can view and edit files created for those apps.

I can't say I've used it much myself yet. I do not personally like using office software except when I have to for school.

OpenShot

OpenShot Video Editor is, as the name suggests, a video editing program. It has industry-standard features like splicing, layering, transitions, and greenscreen.

I've only made one video with it so far, but I'm already very happy with it. I had already paid for a video editor (Cyberlink PowerDirector Pro), but I needed to reinstall it and I didn't remember how. Out of desperation, I searched up "FOSS video editor" and I'm so glad I did. There's no launcher, there's no promotion of other apps and asset packs—it's just a video editor with a normal installer.

GIMP

GNU Image Manipulation Program is an image editor, much like Photoshop. Originally created for Linux but also available for Windows and MacOS, it provides plenty of functionality for editing images. It is a bit unintuitive to learn at first, though.

I've used it to create and modify images for years, including logos, really bad traceover art, and Minecraft textures. It doesn't have certain advanced tech like AI paint-in, but it has served my purposes well and it might just work for yours!

(Be sure to go to Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Colors. I have no idea why that's not enabled by default.)

Audacity

Audacity is an audio editing program. It can record, load, splice, and layer audio files and apply effects to them.

Audacity is another program I've used for a long time. It is not designed to compose music, but it is great for podcasts, simple edits, and loading legacy MS Paint to hear cool noises.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a file manager and archive tool. It supports many archive types including ZIP, RAR, TAR, and its own format, 7Z. It can view and modify the contents of archives, encrypt and decrypt archives, and all that good stuff.

Personally, I use 7-Zip to look inside JAR files for Minecraft reasons. I must admit that its UI is ugly.

Firefox

Firefox is an internet browser, much like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari. While browsers are free, many of them include tracking or other anti-consumer practices. For example, Google plans to release an update to Chromium (the base that most browsers are built from these days) that makes ad blockers less effective by removing the APIs they currently rely on.

Aside from fighting monopolies, benefits include: support for animated themes (the one in the picture is Purple Night Theme), good ad blockers forever, an (albeit hidden) compact UI option (available on about:config), and a cute fox icon.

uBlock Origin

As far as I know, uBlock Origin is one of the best ad blockers there is.

I was on a sketchy website with my brother, and he was using Opera GX's ad blocker. Much of the time when he clicked on anything, it would take us to a random sponsored page. I suggested that he try uBlock Origin, and with uBlock Origin, that didn't happen anymore.

Linux

Linux is a kernel, but the term is often used to refer to operating systems (much like Windows or MacOS) built on it. There are many different Linux-based operating systems (or "distros") to choose from, but apps made for Linux usually work on most popular distros. You can also use many normally Windows-only apps on Linux through compatibility layers like WINE.

I don't have all four of these, so the images are from Wikipedia. I tried to show a variety of Linux distros made for different kinds of users.

If you want to replace your operating system, I recommend being very careful because you can end up breaking things. Many computer manufacturers don't care about supporting Linux, meaning that things may not work (Nvidia graphic cards notoriously have issues on Linux, for example).

Personally, I tried installing Pop!_OS on a laptop, and the sound output mysteriously doesn't work. I may try switching to Arch Linux, since it is extremely customizable and I might be able to experiment until I find a configuration where the audio works.

Many Linux distros offer "Live USB" functionality, which works as both a demo and an installer. You should thoroughly test your distro on a Live USB session before you actually install it to be absolutely sure that everything works. Even if it seems fine, you should probably look into dual-booting with your existing operating system, just in case you need it for some reason.

Happy computering!

[rigelmejo]

I am editing a google spreadsheet I've got where I tracked characters read, adding a tab to track audiobook hours listened to... as my guess is that listening to audiobooks (like with reading) results in learning more niche words than listening to other materials with mainly daily spoken words.

Anyway, the spreadsheet is a mess right now, but I'm trying to add the bilibili.com links to the audiobooks I'm listening to. If anyone is interested in seeing the spreadsheet/getting the links, I perhaps could. Honestly though, all I'm doing is going on bilibili.com on the computer, typing in the novel name in chinese and youshengshu (listen to book), and then clicking. If you go to bilibili.com on a computer instead of phone, you can open up any video and listen to it. There's some programs you can install to download audio from bilibili too, if you wanted to back up the audiobook. I usually just search, since sometimes bilibili videos get deleted/reuploaded on new channels or with new names.

Anyway, if you are wondering "how do I watch cartoons on bilibili, or listen to audiobooks on bilibili?" the answer is:

1. on the computer, go to bilibili.com, you can be logged out and watch everything. I recommend this if you are not very tech savvy. If you are tech savvy, then you can use a program to download/save/backup the audio files from bilibili you want to keep access to. While bilibili shortened-links don't work when I try to share something from the app to you all, if you just go to bilibili.com yourself and search things in chinese, you can access all the same videos as bilibili users can. If you wish to share a link with a friend, use the long links on computer website url: those versions of links are easier to share, and tend to work on web browsers.

2. on your phone, download the bilibili app, follow the Chinese directions and just don't add a password/email/phone (unless you're able to of course). I have the bilibili app on my phone, and I just never fully verified it - I tried, but I couldn't. It doesn't prevent me from using the app, and saving videos to my Favorites Starred collection. So I can favorite a lot of videos, find them later in my favorites, and bilibili app saves where I am in the videos so I can come back later at the place I stopped. If you'd like those added features of being able to save videos to Favorites/Starred, and to continue where you left off, it's worth making an account on the app/site. Once you make an account, you can scan the QR code to log in on your phone or on your computer. So if like me you never managed to set up a password or email or phone to get backup codes, then you can just stay logged in on ONE phone or computer, and then use the QR code to log into the other device when you want to access your account on the other device. I use the QR code when I want to log into the computer and save some video I'm listening to into my Favorites. There's many guides for how to make a bilibili account online, just look up one and follow it. I do not remember how the process worked, but it was fairly easy if you either A. Use Google Translate on the computer website, or B. can read simple login/username/password/phone words in Chinese.

[digitaldetoxworld]

Google Analytics: A Comprehensive Overview

 In the ever-evolving virtual panorama, information user conduct and internet site performance is essential for businesses and content material creators. Google Analytics, one of the most extensively used internet analytics gear inside the global, affords the insights essential to make knowledgeable choices, optimize person reports, and force online success. Launched through Google in November 2005 after obtaining the internet analytics enterprise Urchin, Google Analytics has considering the fact that advanced into a effective platform for analyzing information from websites and apps.

Google Analytics For Website 

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a loose web analytics provider presented with the aid of Google that tracks and reviews website site visitors. It presents targeted facts and insights about how customers have interaction along with your internet site or application. From identifying the wide variety of traffic to expertise their conduct and conversion paths, Google Analytics permits companies to benefit a clear photograph in their online presence.

In 2020, Google introduced Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which marked a tremendous shift from the preceding Universal Analytics (UA). GA4 is designed to provide a more holistic view of the client journey, with a robust emphasis on gadget gaining knowledge of and move-platform tracking.

How Does Google Analytics Work?

Google Analytics works through setting a small snippet of JavaScript code on every web page of your internet site. When someone visits the internet site, the code collects facts approximately their behavior, device, browser, place, and more. This facts is then despatched to Google’s servers, where it's miles processed and made to be had inside the form of reports and dashboards.

In GA4, the records version is occasion-based, meaning the whole lot a person does—clicks, scrolls, form submissions—is treated as an event. This version offers extra flexibility and intensity in tracking person interactions as compared to the session-primarily based model utilized in Universal Analytics.

Key Features of Google Analytics

1. Real-Time Reporting

Real-time reviews permit users to peer who's on their website online right now, what pages they’re viewing, where they came from, and what movements they’re taking. This is specifically useful for tracking the impact of advertising and marketing campaigns or internet site modifications as they happen.

2. Audience Reports

Audience reports provide unique data about the human beings traveling your website, together with demographics (age, gender), interests, geographic location, device type, browser, and more. These insights help tailor content and advertising strategies to goal the proper target audience.

Three. Acquisition Reports

These reports display how customers are locating your web site—whether or not through organic search, paid ads, social media, e-mail campaigns, or direct visits. By studying acquisition channels, corporations can decide which advertising efforts are riding the most visitors.

4. Behavior Reports

Behavior reviews monitor how users have interaction with your website. This includes metrics like page views, soar price, time on page, and navigation paths. These insights assist discover excessive-performing content material and pages which can want improvement.

5. Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics lets in customers to installation and track desires (e.G., purchases, sign-ups, downloads) and e-commerce transactions. This permits organizations to degree the effectiveness of their sales funnel and optimize for higher conversion fees.

6. Custom Dashboards and Reports

Users can create custom designed dashboards and reviews to focus on the metrics maximum relevant to their business desires. This flexibility makes it less difficult to reveal overall performance and make information-pushed selections.

7. Integration with Google Tools

Google Analytics integrates seamlessly with different Google equipment like Google Ads, Search Console, Data Studio, and Tag Manager, making an allowance for a extra unified and powerful analytics ecosystem.

Benefits of Using Google Analytics

1. Data-Driven Decision Making

Google Analytics empowers corporations to base their decisions on real person facts rather than guesswork. With get right of entry to to real-time and historical records, agencies can become aware of tendencies, examine advertising efforts, and modify strategies as a result.

2. Improved User Experience

By understanding how customers interact together with your website online, you can make informed adjustments to enhance usability, lessen jump charges, and guide users toward desired movements.

3. Enhanced Marketing ROI

With insights into which channels pressure the maximum site visitors and conversions, corporations can allocate marketing budgets more efficiently and refine their campaigns for better consequences.

4. Goal Tracking and Performance Monitoring

Setting up goals and KPIs in Google Analytics makes it less difficult to reveal development over the years and make sure that digital efforts are aligned with broader enterprise targets.

5. Customization and Flexibility

Whether you're a small blogger or a large enterprise, Google Analytics gives customizable capabilities that cater to various degrees of expertise and complexity.

Using Google Analytics Effectively

To get the most out of Google Analytics, it’s critical to observe high-quality practices and continuously refine your method. Here are some hints:

1. Define Clear Goals

Start by using figuring out what you need to gain along with your website—greater income, lead technology, person engagement, etc. Then, installation applicable dreams in GA4 to song development.

2. Segment Your Data

Use segments to interrupt down your audience into agencies based on behavior, place, site visitors source, and greater. This allows for greater granular evaluation and tailored marketing efforts.

Three. Leverage Events and Conversions

GA4’s occasion-primarily based version allows for deep monitoring of person moves. Set up custom occasions (e.G., button clicks, video views) and conversions to get an in depth knowledge of consumer conduct.

Four. Monitor and Compare Periods

Use time-based comparisons to analyze trends and degree the impact of adjustments or campaigns. For example, comparing site visitors month-over-month or 12 months-over-year allows spot seasonality or increase.

Five. Regularly Audit Your Setup

Ensure your monitoring code is well applied, dreams are configured effectively, and filters are implemented as wished. Misconfigured analytics can result in misguided information and misguided choices.

Google Analytics four vs. Universal Analytics

As of July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics has stopped processing new records, and GA4 is now the same old version. Here’s a short contrast:

Feature Universal Analytics (UA) Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Data Model Session-based totally Event-based totally

Cross-platform Tracking Limited Full (Web + App)

Machine Learning Insights Basic Advanced

Privacy & Compliance Less superior Designed for privateness-first world

Reporting Interface Familiar however rigid More flexible and customizable

GA4 reflects the evolving panorama of virtual analytics—more emphasis on consumer privacy, pass-device behavior, and predictive talents.

Privacy and Compliance Considerations

With increasing privateness guidelines like GDPR and CCPA, companies should deal with person records responsibly. Google Analytics affords options for information retention, anonymizing IP addresses, and acquiring user consent. GA4 also gives better equipment for dealing with information series in a privateness-conscious manner.

[electriccompany23]

How to Find a Good Electrical Company

When it comes to electrical work, hiring a reliable and skilled electrical company is crucial for ensuring safety, efficiency, and quality. Whether you’re planning for a major electrical installation, repairing faulty wiring, or upgrading your home’s electrical system, selecting the most appropriate company can make all the difference. Here are some steps that may help you find a fantastic electrical companies naples fl:

1. Assess Your Needs

Before starting your search, identify the scope of your respective project. Are you looking for residential, commercial, or industrial electrical services? Do you need installation, repair, or maintenance? Having a clear understanding of the requirements will allow you to narrow down potential companies.

2. Research and Recommendations

Start by gathering recommendations from friends, family, or colleagues who've recently used electrical services. Online reviews and testimonials on platforms like Google, Yelp, or Better Business Bureau can also provide valuable insights right into a company’s reputation.

3. Check Credentials and Licensing

Ensure that the company is licensed and certified to do electrical work in your area. Licensed electricians have undergone training and satisfy the required standards for safety and competence. Additionally, verify that the company has insurance to hide any potential damages or accidents.

4. Evaluate Experience

Experience matters when you are looking at electrical work. Look for companies which has a proven track record of successfully handling projects similar to yours. Experienced electricians are more inclined to identify and solve problems efficiently.

5. Request Estimates

Obtain detailed quotes from multiple companies to match pricing and services. Be wary of quotes that seem unusually low, as they may indicate subpar materials or workmanship. A good company provides a transparent breakdown of costs.

6. Verify References

Ask the company for references from past customers. Contact these references to inquire about their experiences, including the quality of work, adherence to timelines, and professionalism in the electricians.

7. Assess Communication and Professionalism

Pay focus on how the business communicates together with you. Are they responsive, courteous, and willing to answer your questions? Professionalism in communication often reflects the corporation’s approach to their work.

8. Confirm Warranties and Guarantees

Reputable electrical companies stand by their work. Inquire about warranties or guarantees on their services and materials. This ensures that you’re protected in case there is any issues following your project is finished.

9. Prioritize Safety Standards

Electrical work could be hazardous, so prioritize firms that emphasize safety. Ask about their safety protocols and compliance with local building codes and regulations.

10. Look for Specializations

Some electrical companies concentrate on certain areas, for example green energy solutions, smart home installations, or commercial systems. If your project requires specific expertise, select a company with relevant specialization.

Finding a good electrical company requires research, diligence, and careful evaluation. By following these steps, you are able to hire a company that does not only is correct for you but also ensures quality and safety in your electrical projects. Remember, investing time in selecting the most appropriate company now can help save from costly mistakes later on.

[korshubudemycoursesblog]

Complete Terraform IAC Development: Your Essential Guide to Infrastructure as Code

If you're ready to take control of your cloud infrastructure, it's time to dive into Complete Terraform IAC Development. With Terraform, you can simplify, automate, and scale infrastructure setups like never before. Whether you’re new to Infrastructure as Code (IAC) or looking to deepen your skills, mastering Terraform will open up a world of opportunities in cloud computing and DevOps.

Why Terraform for Infrastructure as Code?

Before we get into Complete Terraform IAC Development, let’s explore why Terraform is the go-to choice. HashiCorp’s Terraform has quickly become a top tool for managing cloud infrastructure because it’s open-source, supports multiple cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and more), and uses a declarative language (HCL) that’s easy to learn.

Key Benefits of Learning Terraform

In today's fast-paced tech landscape, there’s a high demand for professionals who understand IAC and can deploy efficient, scalable cloud environments. Here’s how Terraform can benefit you and why the Complete Terraform IAC Development approach is invaluable:

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Terraform supports multiple cloud providers, which means you can use the same configuration files across different clouds.

Scalability and Efficiency: By using IAC, you automate infrastructure, reducing errors, saving time, and allowing for scalability.

Modular and Reusable Code: With Terraform, you can build modular templates, reusing code blocks for various projects or environments.

These features make Terraform an attractive skill for anyone working in DevOps, cloud engineering, or software development.

Getting Started with Complete Terraform IAC Development

The beauty of Complete Terraform IAC Development is that it caters to both beginners and intermediate users. Here’s a roadmap to kickstart your learning:

Set Up the Environment: Install Terraform and configure it for your cloud provider. This step is simple and provides a solid foundation.

Understand HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language): Terraform’s configuration language is straightforward but powerful. Knowing the syntax is essential for writing effective scripts.

Define Infrastructure as Code: Begin by defining your infrastructure in simple blocks. You’ll learn to declare resources, manage providers, and understand how to structure your files.

Use Modules: Modules are pre-written configurations you can use to create reusable code blocks, making it easier to manage and scale complex infrastructures.

Apply Best Practices: Understanding how to structure your code for readability, reliability, and reusability will save you headaches as projects grow.

Core Components in Complete Terraform IAC Development

When working with Terraform, you’ll interact with several core components. Here’s a breakdown:

Providers: These are plugins that allow Terraform to manage infrastructure on your chosen cloud platform (AWS, Azure, etc.).

Resources: The building blocks of your infrastructure, resources represent things like instances, databases, and storage.

Variables and Outputs: Variables let you define dynamic values, and outputs allow you to retrieve data after deployment.

State Files: Terraform uses a state file to store information about your infrastructure. This file is essential for tracking changes and ensuring Terraform manages the infrastructure accurately.

Mastering these components will solidify your Terraform foundation, giving you the confidence to build and scale projects efficiently.

Best Practices for Complete Terraform IAC Development

In the world of Infrastructure as Code, following best practices is essential. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Organize Code with Modules: Organizing code with modules promotes reusability and makes complex structures easier to manage.

Use a Remote Backend: Storing your Terraform state in a remote backend, like Amazon S3 or Azure Storage, ensures that your team can access the latest state.

Implement Version Control: Version control systems like Git are vital. They help you track changes, avoid conflicts, and ensure smooth rollbacks.

Plan Before Applying: Terraform’s “plan” command helps you preview changes before deploying, reducing the chances of accidental alterations.

By following these practices, you’re ensuring your IAC deployments are both robust and scalable.

Real-World Applications of Terraform IAC

Imagine you’re managing a complex multi-cloud environment. Using Complete Terraform IAC Development, you could easily deploy similar infrastructures across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, all with a few lines of code.

Use Case 1: Multi-Region Deployments

Suppose you need a web application deployed across multiple regions. Using Terraform, you can create templates that deploy the application consistently across different regions, ensuring high availability and redundancy.

Use Case 2: Scaling Web Applications

Let’s say your company’s website traffic spikes during a promotion. Terraform allows you to define scaling policies that automatically adjust server capacities, ensuring that your site remains responsive.

Advanced Topics in Complete Terraform IAC Development

Once you’re comfortable with the basics, Complete Terraform IAC Development offers advanced techniques to enhance your skillset:

Terraform Workspaces: Workspaces allow you to manage multiple environments (e.g., development, testing, production) within a single configuration.

Dynamic Blocks and Conditionals: Use dynamic blocks and conditionals to make your code more adaptable, allowing you to define configurations that change based on the environment or input variables.

Integration with CI/CD Pipelines: Integrate Terraform with CI/CD tools like Jenkins or GitLab CI to automate deployments. This approach ensures consistent infrastructure management as your application evolves.

Tools and Resources to Support Your Terraform Journey

Here are some popular tools to streamline your learning:

Terraform CLI: The primary tool for creating and managing your infrastructure.

Terragrunt: An additional layer for working with Terraform, Terragrunt simplifies managing complex Terraform environments.

HashiCorp Cloud: Terraform Cloud offers a managed solution for executing and collaborating on Terraform workflows.

There are countless resources available online, from Terraform documentation to forums, blogs, and courses. HashiCorp offers a free resource hub, and platforms like Udemy provide comprehensive courses to guide you through Complete Terraform IAC Development.

Start Your Journey with Complete Terraform IAC Development

If you’re aiming to build a career in cloud infrastructure or simply want to enhance your DevOps toolkit, Complete Terraform IAC Development is a skill worth mastering. From managing complex multi-cloud infrastructures to automating repetitive tasks, Terraform provides a powerful framework to achieve your goals.

Start with the basics, gradually explore advanced features, and remember: practice is key. The world of cloud computing is evolving rapidly, and those who know how to leverage Infrastructure as Code will always have an edge. With Terraform, you’re not just coding infrastructure; you’re building a foundation for the future. So, take the first step into Complete Terraform IAC Development—it’s your path to becoming a versatile, skilled cloud professional

[study-bug-inc]

Title: The Google Sheets Chronicles: Mastering Your Day, One Cell at a Time

Hey there, study bugs! 📚✨

Welcome to the latest installment of “The Google Sheets Chronicles,” where we dive into the magical world of spreadsheets to conquer our daily chaos. Today, we’re talking about how to use Google Sheets to plan your day and study schedule. Grab your favorite highlighter, and let’s get organized!

1. The Spreadsheet Setup Saga First things first, open up Google Sheets and create a new document. Name it something inspiring like “My Awesome Study Schedule” or “Conquering the Day, One Cell at a Time.” Now, let’s get those columns and rows ready for action! 🗂️

2. The Template Treasure Hunt Why reinvent the wheel when there are so many amazing templates out there? Here are a few gems to get you started:

Daily Schedule Template from Smartsheet

Weekly Planner Template from The Good Docs

Monthly Schedule Template from Spreadsheet Class

3. The Color-Coding Conundrum Now comes the fun part: color-coding! Assign different colors to various tasks like classes, study sessions, breaks, and personal time. Not only does it make your schedule look pretty, but it also helps you visualize your day at a glance. 🌈

4. The Formula Frenzy Google Sheets isn’t just for organizing; it’s also for calculating! Use simple formulas to track your study hours, calculate your grades, or even keep tabs on your snack consumption (because snacks are life). 🥨

5. The Sharing Shenanigans Got a study group? Share your Google Sheet with your friends so everyone stays on the same page. Collaboration has never been so easy—or so spreadsheet-y! 🤝

6. The Motivation Matrix Finally, add some motivational quotes or fun images to keep your spirits high. A little inspiration goes a long way when you’re knee-deep in assignments and exams. 💪

And there you have it, folks! With Google Sheets by your side, you’ll be a master of time management and productivity in no time. Happy planning, and may your cells always be perfectly aligned!

Until next time, stay organized and keep shining! 🌟

[lazar-codes]

21/10/2023 || Day 100

Happy Day 100! I officially have done 100 Days of Code, and it's wild to think that when I first started it I pretty much was finished with school. It's crazy how fast time goes by. Anyways, I accidentally did some programming today despite it being a weekend, so here's some progress on a new small project:

Music Info App - Log # 1

I decided that I want to stop paying for Spotify, especially since my student discount will end in January. The problem is that I have a lot of music on there, and downloading each song/album one by one from youtube will be the death of me. Instead, I struggled for 2 hours today installing a youtube downloader (youtube-dl) on my PC, and when that finally started to work, I realized that I'm too impatient to figure out if I can keep the metadata of the video/audio, so I decided to do some coding myself. Now, I really like to have my music organized with all the necessary info (i.e. title, artist, track #), so I found an API that will give me all of that. The thing that took me a while to figure out, even before today/writing the code, was how to manipulate a file's metadata. I guess I finally asked Google the right question because a Node module called "ffmetadata" came up in the search results and I can now add the title, artist, track number, and other metadata to a file without me needing to manually write it. You guys have no idea how much of a weight off my shoulders this is, and I'm so happy this works!! I'm gonna have to do some tweaking for user input (i.e. to be able to choose which directory to look at and get info on the files in the directory), but that's a later thing.

[mariacallous]

In today’s digital world, injustice lurks in the shadows of the Facebook post that’s delivered to certain groups of people at the exclusion of others, the hidden algorithm used to profile candidates during job interviews, and the risk-assessment algorithms used for criminal sentencing and welfare fraud detention. As algorithmic systems are integrated into every aspect of society, regulatory mechanisms struggle to keep up.

Over the past decade, researchers and journalists have found ways to unveil and scrutinize these discriminatory systems, developing their own data collection tools. As the internet has moved from browsers to mobile apps, however, this crucial transparency is quickly disappearing.

Third-party analysis of digital systems has largely been made possible by two seemingly banal tools that are commonly used to inspect what’s happening on a webpage: browser add-ons and browser developer tools.

Browser add-ons are small programs that can be installed directly onto a web browser, allowing users to augment how they interact with a given website. While add-ons are commonly used to operate tools like password managers and ad-blockers, they are also incredibly useful for enabling people to collect their own data within a tech platform’s walled garden.

Similarly, browser developer tools were made to allow web developers to test and debug their websites’ user interfaces. As the internet evolved and websites became more complex, these tools evolved too, adding features like the ability to inspect and change source code, monitor network activity, and even detect when a website is accessing your location or microphone. These are powerful mechanisms for investigating how companies track, profile, and target their users.

I have put these tools to use as a data journalist to show how a marketing company logged users’ personal data even before they clicked “submit” on a form and, more recently, how the Meta Pixel tool (formerly the Facebook Pixel tool) tracks users without their explicit knowledge in sensitive places such as hospital websites, federal student loan applications, and the websites of tax-filing tools.

In addition to exposing surveillance, browser inspection tools provide a powerful way to crowdsource data to study discrimination, the spread of misinformation, and other types of harms tech companies cause or facilitate. But in spite of these tools’ powerful capabilities, their reach is limited. In 2023, Kepios reported that 92 percent of global users accessed the internet through their smartphones, whereas only 65 percent of global users did so using a desktop or laptop computer.

Though the vast majority of internet traffic has moved to smartphones, we don’t have tools for the smartphone ecosystem that afford the same level of “inspectability” as browser add-ons and developer tools. This is because web browsers are implicitly transparent, while mobile phone operating systems are not.

If you want to view a website in your web browser, the server has to send you the source code. Mobile apps, on the other hand, are compiled, executable files that you usually download from places such as Apple’s iOS App Store or Google Play. App developers don’t need to publish the source code for people to use them.

Similarly, monitoring network traffic on web browsers is trivial. This technique is often more useful than inspecting source code to see what data a company is collecting on users. Want to know which companies a website shares your data with? You’ll want to monitor the network traffic, not inspect the source code. On smartphones, network monitoring is possible, but it usually requires the installation of root certificates that make users’ devices less secure and more vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks from bad actors. And these are just some of the differences that make collecting data securely from smartphones much harder than from browsers.

The need for independent collection is more pressing than ever. Previously, company-provided tools such as the Twitter API and Facebook’s CrowdTangle, a tool for monitoring what’s trending on Facebook, were the infrastructure that powered a large portion of research and reporting on social media. However, as these tools become less useful and accessible, new methods of independent data collection are needed to understand what these companies are doing and how people are using their platforms.

To meaningfully report on the impact digital systems have on society, we need to be able to observe what’s taking place on our devices without asking a company for permission. As someone who has spent the past decade building tools that crowdsource data to expose algorithmic harms, I believe the public should have the ability to peek under the hood of their mobile apps and smart devices, just as they can on their browsers. And it’s not just me: The Integrity Institute, a nonprofit working to protect the social internet, recently released a report that lays bare the importance of transparency as a lever to achieve public interest goals like accountability, collaboration, understanding, and trust.

To demand transparency from tech platforms, we need a platform-independent transparency framework, something that I like to call an inspectability API. Such a framework would empower even the most vulnerable populations to capture evidence of harm from their devices while minimizing the risk of their data being used in research or reporting without their consent.

An application programming interface (API) is a way for companies to make their services or data available to other developers. For example, if you’re building a mobile app and want to use the phone’s camera for a specific feature, you would use the iOS or Android Camera API. Another common example is an accessibility API, which allows developers to make their applications accessible to people with disabilities by making the user interface legible to screen readers and other accessibility tools commonly found on modern smartphones and computers. An inspectability API would allow individuals to export data from the apps they use every day and share it with researchers, journalists, and advocates in their communities. Companies could be required to implement this API to adhere to transparency best practices, much as they are required to implement accessibility features to make their apps and websites usable for people with disabilities.

In the US, residents of some states can request the data companies collect on them, thanks to state-level privacy laws. While these laws are well-intentioned, the data that companies share to comply with them is usually structured in a way that obfuscates crucial details that would expose harm. For example, Facebook has a fairly granular data export service that allows individuals to see, amongst other things, their “Off-Facebook activity.” However, as the Markup found during a series of investigations into the use of Pixel, even though Facebook told users which websites were sharing data, it did not reveal just how invasive the information being shared was. Doctor appointments, tax filing information, and student loan information were just some of the things that were being sent to Facebook. An inspectability API would make it easy for people to monitor their devices and see how the apps they use track them in real time.

Some promising work is already being done: Apple’s introduction of the App Privacy Report in iOS 15 marked the first time iPhone users could see detailed privacy information to understand each app’s data collection practices and even answer questions such as, “Is Instagram listening to my microphone?”

But we cannot rely on companies to do this at their discretion—we need a clear framework to define what sort of data should be inspectable and exportable by users, and we need regulation that penalizes companies for not implementing it. Such a framework would not only empower users to expose harms, but also ensure that their privacy is not violated. Individuals could choose what data to share, when, and with whom.

An inspectability API will empower individuals to fight for their rights by sharing the evidence of harm they have been exposed to with people who can raise public awareness and advocate for change. It would enable organizations such as Princeton’s Digital Witness Lab, which I cofounded and lead, to conduct data-driven investigations by collaborating closely with vulnerable communities, instead of relying on tech companies for access. This framework would allow researchers and others to conduct this work in a way that is safe, precise, and, most importantly, prioritizes the consent of the people being harmed.

[govindhtech]

Pinball Machine: Cloud-Connected Retro Sandbox Gameplay

Pinball Machines

Google cloud frequently take for granted how simple it is to link apps with a wide range of robust cloud services in today’s cloud-centric world. Nonetheless, integration remains difficult in a great number of legacy systems and other restricted situations.

When creating Backlogged Pinball, a unique pinball game that created as a demonstration for integrating cloud services in unusual locations, they took on this difficulty head-on. A real pinball machine called Backlogged Pinball can be connected to the cloud for a number of purposes, such as updating leaderboards and tracking information about finished and ongoing games.

In order to concentrate on game coding and cloud integration, built it on the foundation of a commercially available programmable pinball machine. The computer’s software environment was constrained, though, as it was using a sandboxed version of the.NET Framework 3.5, which was initially made available 17 years ago. In practice, this meant that were unable to install tools like gcloud to facilitate communication with the cloud and utilize any of the current Google cloud SDKs that were available for C#.

There’s a catch

It knew wanted to use the cloud for logging of game events and results, databases for high scores and game statistics, and a custom service to modify the game experience on the fly. However, creating software for such a limited setting came with a number of difficulties that you may be familiar with:

Limited library support: There are plenty of excellent libraries available to assist you in connecting to cloud services if you have complete control over your stack. However, there are instances when you are unable to choose where your software runs. Finding appropriate libraries to connect Google cloud pinball machine to the desired cloud services proved to be challenging.

For instance, they were aware that in order to power a real-time display of every event occurring in the game, needed to add entries into a Firestore database. Although Firestore has excellent SDKs, they were unable to handle anything prior to the 8.-year-old.NET Framework 4.6.2. Google could have been able to use a TCP connection to access a conventional relational database, but didn’t want to be restricted in Google cloud options for cloud services and tools. Building a real-time web application with MySQL instead of Firestore, which is built from the ground up to push data to the browser in real-time, is obviously far less viable.

Difficult deployment process: You may wish to add new features and cloud integrations, but updating your on-device software may be challenging due to various constraints. Google cloud had to use a USB stick to manually install every version of game while it was being developed because third-party developers. Testing, deploying, and shipping new versions of your code is slowed down by this type of restriction, which is never good. In a contemporary, adaptable cloud platform, adding new features is far simpler.

In essence, discovered that utilizing contemporary cloud services in an unpredictable legacy setting was difficult.

Flipper-ing the script

Initially, it seemed impossible to incorporate all of the services desired into the code that would operate on the pinball machine. However, what if there was an alternative? What if it gave the pinball machine a single simple integration and transformed it into a service? They might then arrange the outcomes in a contemporary cloud environment and have it send a message each time something occurred in the game.

Google cloud concluded that Pub/Sub would be a great approach to accomplish this. It offered a simple method of transferring data to the cloud via a single interface. It was really a simple HTTP POST with any message format desired.Image credit to Google cloud

It created a unique Pub/Sub messaging mechanism to accomplish this. To manage authentication and message delivery via the REST API, created a lightweight Pub/Sub framework just for the pinball machine. This made it incredibly simple to submit events anytime a player struck a target, fired a ball, or even pressed a flipper button. Visit GitHub to view a condensed version of that code!

Google cloud team processed these events in real time on the cloud side by using numerous Cloud Run subscribers. Additionally, stored data and powered visualizations using Firestore.

Jackpot! Benefits of the cloud

There were many benefits of pushing integration complexity into the cloud:

One interface: Authentication alone might be a blog entry in and of itself, so creating own Pub/Sub client was no easy feat. But when it was finished, it was finished! After it was operational, Google could concentrate on employing whichever contemporary client libraries and tools desired to process every event in the cloud.

Real-time updates: At Google Cloud Next, assisted users in creating custom Cloud Run services that can process pinball machine, send messages back to the machine, and receive them. You could theoretically alter the game while a friend was playing it because it took less than a minute to build and deploy these services!

Rich insights from data: In the end, they had a detailed record of every event that took place throughout a game. Playtest-based scoring adjustments and development-related troubleshooting were greatly aided by this.

Leaping ahead

The next version of Backlogged Pinball is already in the works, and it will include features hadn’t initially thought of. For instance, its’re including AI-driven Gameplay and player-style-based recommendations. Instead of struggling with dependencies on a historical system, nearly all of the work will be done in a contemporary cloud environment because of this adaptable cloud-based design.

Furthermore, any limited environment can benefit from the lessonsz learnt from this project. You can overcome the constraints of your environment and realize the full potential of the cloud by utilizing Pub/Sub messaging and embracing a cloud-first mindset, regardless matter whether it’s an embedded system, an Internet of Things device, or an outdated server running older software.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[imtashamonet]

My Sims 4 Mods and CC Directory

This video is a walkthrough of the directory. This video was edited by my son, StoryOfSaint🦉! Subscribe to his YT Channels ➡️ @SaintusTheOwl @storyofsaint2571 🎶 Listen to his music ➡️ https://songwhip.com/storyofsaint

As an avid Sims 4 player, I have accumulated a large collection of custom content (CC) and mods to enhance and expand my gameplay. To keep it all organized, I created a handy Google Sheets directory that lists all the mods and CC currently in my game. Here is an overview of how I have it set up:

Section 1: The Mods Tab

The first tab in my directory is for mods. Here I have listed all the various mods I use in alpha order by the creator's name (this is the same way I organize mods in my mods folder so it makes updating easy). For each mod, I have columns indicating:

The creator's name

The name of the mod

A link to download it

Its current status related to the latest Sims patch

The date of the last time I checked for updates on that mod

The status column uses a simple color coding system to show at a glance which mods are up-to-date with the current patch: Updated (green), Compatible (yellow), broken/obsolete (red), safe to use, but needs updating (orange), new mod (blue), and unknown status (grey). The last checked date helps me know when I need to revisit certain mods to look for updates. It also helps me keep track of mods I've updated and those I haven't after a patch.

Section 2: The CC Tab

The second tab contains all my CC in alphabetical order by creator name. This tab is simpler, including just the name and direct download link for each piece of content. I don't include statuses here because CC doesn't usually have compatibility issues with game patches the way script mods do, but there is a notes column that I may use from time-to-time.

Section 3: Using My Directory

I keep this directory public via link sharing so other Simmers can benefit from it too. I find it helpful for keeping track of what I already have, as well as for grabbing links quickly when I want to recommend something to others.

However, anyone using CC or mods does so at their own risk. You should always check the file types and sources carefully for any potential viruses before downloading and installing anything. My sheets are updated frequently but may not always reflect the most recent patch status on each mod. Also be sure to read the mod descriptions for usage information and contact the creator if you need assistance.

Let me know if you find my Sims 4 Mods and CC Directory helpful! I'm always looking to improve it where I can. Happy Simming!

Updated feature!

Link: ImTashaMonet Mods + CC Directory - Google Sheets

Note: If you make a copy of this for your own drive, you will not be able to see any updates I make. For the best usage, bookmark on your browser either the directory or this post. 

[first-digi-add]

SEO Analytics: Integrating Google Analytics for Better Visibility

SEO Analytics: Integrating Google Analytics for Better Visibility

Introduction:

In the dynamic global of virtual marketing, establishing a strong online presence is crucial for business achievement. Search Engine Optimization (search engine marketing) is a key method in accomplishing this aim, and while mixed with strong analytics tools like Google Analytics, it becomes a powerful force for enhancing visibility. This weblog explores the importance of search engine marketing analytics and how integrating Google Analytics, especially with the understanding of First DigiAdd, an experienced SEO Services Company, can offer precious insights for higher online visibility.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization Analytics:

Search engine optimization analytics includes the gathering and analysis of information associated with an internet site's overall performance in searches. This fact is beneficial for making informed selections, refining strategies, and ultimately improving seek engine scores. Google Analytics, a widely-used analytics platform, plays a pivotal position in providing distinctive insights into internet site visitors and personal conduct.

The Power of Google Analytics Integration with First DigiAdd:

Comprehensive Traffic Analysis:

Google Analytics permits companies, that incorporate First DigiAdd, to analyze the sources of internet site site visitors. By information wherein users come from, whether or not or not it's far organic seeking, paid advertising, or social media, businesses can tailor their search engine marketing techniques for optimum impact.

Keyword Performance Tracking:

This process helps businesses understand how their chosen keywords impact search engine rankings, website traffic, and overall online visibility. 

By using tools like Google Analytics or specialized SEO platforms, businesses can track the effectiveness of their selected keywords, make data-driven decisions, and optimize their online content to improve search engine results and attract more relevant visitors.

User Behavior Insights:

Google Analytics gives treasured insights into consumer behavior, which include the pages they go to, time spent on every web page, and the moves they take. Understanding user conduct is essential for optimizing general user enjoyment.

Conversion Tracking:

Tracking conversions, including form submissions or product purchases, is essential for businesses. Google Analytics, with the support of First DigiAdd, offers important records to assess the effectiveness of search engine optimization efforts in using treasured movements.

Page Performance Metrics:

Metrics like web page load times and jump costs impact consumer experience and search engine scores. Google Analytics helps corporations, alongside the knowledge of First DigiAdd, pick out regions for development, contributing to better search engine marketing results.

Integration Steps:

To use the advantages of Google Analytics for SEO, agencies, which include First DigiAdd, can observe the integration steps:

Create a Google Analytics Account:

If not already carried out, organizations must create a Google Analytics account and set up belongings for their internet site.

Install the Tracking Code: 

The Google Analytics monitoring code needs to be copied and pasted into the internet site's HTML. To get statistics about consumer sports, this code is important.

Set up goals and events in Google Analytics to track particular moves at the website, including shape submissions or product purchases.

Link Google Analytics with Google Search Console:

Linking this equipment provides additional SEO insights, which include click-via charges, common positions, and keywords for which the site seems in search outcomes.

Conclusion:

In the competitive landscape of digital advertising and marketing, integrating Google Analytics with search engine marketing strategies is a game-changer. The insights supplied by this powerful device, coupled with the understanding of First DigiAdd, empower groups to make facts-pushed choices, refine their technique, and in the end enhance their search engine ratings. As the digital landscape continues to conform, staying ahead with complete SEO analytics via Google Analytics integration with First DigiAdd is vital for accomplishing better online visibility.

[swagyna]

extremely long post below the cut, please read the entire thing b4 brashly doing anything. there's a lot and there is scaling difficulty with the steps you can take.

it's actually better for android users to debloat their phones than to just turn off settings — if done correctly, you're able to fully uninstall apps from your phone.

we already know that, after Facebook being put on trial in 2012 (settled in 2022 for a measely $90m out of their $590b) due to their tracking settings — even if off — are still running. even if you turn phone settings off, apps are able to "see" one another and collect data that way. including your keyboard. i repeat:

YOUR PRE-INSTALLED PHONE KEYBOARD IS A DATA COLLECTOR

the issue is that debloating your phone takes a little know-how, and you need a PC to do it. you cannot just "disable" apps from your phone, they're still functional at some capacity.

i REALLY recommend using UAD (Universal Android Debloater) if possible. which, again, requires a computer — i also recommend that you entirely stop using any and all Google services. i am talking down to: Learning How to Read A Map

no more google maps. yes, it's a total pain in the ass, but data collection is not a joke. gmail is a data collector, YouTube is a data collector any form of docs/sheets is a collector, and again:

i cannot fucking stress this enough.

YOUR PRE-INSTALLED KEYBOARD COLLECTS YOUR KEYSTROKE DATA.

IT. TRACKS. WHAT. YOU. ARE. TYPING.

this link has installation instructions for UAD — this is to debloat your phone, focusing on unnecessary Samsung and Google apps. the major 2 problems are: you will need a computer, and you will need to learn how to use GitHub thru YT tutorials.

learning how to use GitHub will be extremely important for protecting your PC as well from Windows bullshit

🗣️DO THIS FIFTH🗣️

a chart of what apps to uninstall and what they do:

(there are also some other ways to stop/uninstall apps on this post, but i don't know the details behind them and recommend you look into them yourself if you can't use UAD)

🗣️DO THIS FOURTH🗣️

for a Google Play Store replacement:

list of games available on fdroid:

🗣️DO THIS FIRST🗣️

for a non-tracking QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, Kurdish QWERTY, Russian, and more keyboard:

for a non-tracking Japanese 3x4 keyboard:

🗣️DO THIS SECOND🗣️

NewPipe is the YT alternative; this app prevents Google from collecting your IP and you no longer have 1) ads 2) to login 3) afk prompts to check if "you're still there".

🗣️DO THIS THIRD🗣️

USE FIREFOX AND TOR. set your default search engine to DuckDuckGo on FF

(there's actually discussion on whether or not firefox is completely trustworthy on mobile due to their code not being entirely opensource. something to do with working with google. the f-droid alternative is Fennec)

also please read a bit about how to properly use Tor; the tldr is to not login to anything — social media, emails, news sites — while using it

an endnote:

you do NOT have to do this all at once; i started out with swapping my keyboard and YT over first. i'd recommend at least doing your keyboard.

i just recently swapped to fdroid and installed Tor. i'm currently swapping out all of my gmail accounts for protonmail, tutamail, and mailfence.

i haven't even opened UAD yet, as i'm still in the process of finding app equivalents on fdroid and untangling myself from google services.

these will ALL take time getting used to — it sucks and the keyboards are absolutely not as efficient, but that's because there are no installed keyloggers. do not let laziness borne out of ease of use from proprietary apps and software prevent you from protecting yourself. i cannot stress this enough : do not be lazy about this.

r/privacy, r/cybersecurity, and privacyguides are great places to get started in understanding how to protect yourself online. i definitely recommend you start looking into how to do so on your PC as well, if you've got one

as for iOS users?

you're shit outta luck.

anyway yeah DELETE YOUR FUCKING ADVERTISING IDS

Android:

Settings ➡️ Google ➡️ all services ➡️ Ads ➡️ Delete advertising ID

(may differ slightly depending on android version and manufacturer firmware. you can't just search settings for "advertising ID" of course 🔪)

iOS:

Settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ tracking ➡️ toggle "allow apps to request to track" to OFF

and ALSO settings ➡️ privacy ➡️ Apple advertising ➡️ toggle "personalized ads" to OFF

more details about the process here via the EFF