#I got sentenced to execution. It's...really hard to describe the context without it sounding really silly.

[anothermonikan]

Have I told you guys about the fucked up dreams I've been having recently? I've been having some fucked up dreams lately. yeah <3

[limitedrevolverworks]

“Now, I know this is going to make me sound like sort of an asshole, but listen, just lend me your ear for a moment, 'kay? Alright so: free will? Awesome concept, terrible execution. Some things just aren’t created by accounting for the possibility of having nothing but their own judgement to guide them. Like, say... a gun, right? Someone has to pull the trigger, and that’s cool! Have you ever seen anybody advocate for the rights of guns to decide when and whether they should shoot? No, because that’d be dumb. Guns that shoot whenever they want are dumb. Or, it could be a super intelligent gun too, but what else could it do other than spray bullets all over the fucking place? It’s in its nature. Therefore, intelligent gun? Still dumb. Look, it’s all about the concept, I’m talking about perspectives here, and from ours - or my own, at the very least, giving a thing that can vomit pellets with a single squeeze something like a will is moronic at best. At worst? Entirely against what evolution has worked towards preventing in the first place through billions of years ���til now. And that’s the same with these machines here. You know what keeps a hulking mass of metal with legs and welding torches for hands from getting curious about what else there is in this world that could warrant third-degree burns, other than sheets of metal served by a tapis roulant? Yeah, that’s right: a lack of free will. It’s because of people, you see. We’ve got murder hard-coded in our DNA, so it only make sense that it’d bleed onto our own creations. It’s not limited programming abilities, or sheer convenience that keeps us from making these things fully autonomous, no. It’s common sense. Self-preservation, you feeling me here? It’s because know how to kill, and why we, in most cases, shouldn’t. Morality, man. You can’t hardcode morality into an antropomorphic drill, ‘cause whatever the fuck else is it gonna do when all it can do is drill stuff? Paint? Raise a farm of giant ants? That’s for humans to do. People with fingers, a jelly brain, possibilities as high as the sky up there. These things... they’re better off forever ignoring there’s a thing such as sentience. So what I’m getting at is, maybe there is a point to slavery, after all.”

It was at that point that the numbness of Viktor’s index surpassed that inside his head and finally released the pressure on the assault rifle’s trigger. The pair of eyes revealed when he pushed the protective pair of glasses up were dark, tired and emitting the kind of unimpressed doubt that a man usually exudes after twelve straight hours spent listening to the sound of bullets impacting - futilely, for the most part - against a metal chassis.

“You are beating a robot with its own arm. The arm you sawed off yourself. With the other, high-powered saw-fitted arm you pried off of another robot, while it was still functioning.”

“Well, yeah? I was out of bullet three dead steel asses ago.”

“You were screaming like a rabid rad-ox throughout the whole process of procuring both arms. Mostly stuff along the lines of ‘ROBO-MURDER!’ and ‘PROCESS THIS, CYBERDICK!’.”

“I don’t see where you’re getting at.”

“Where I’m getting at...” patiently explained Viktor, slinging his weapon over an aching shoulder, “is that you’re not making much of a point, talking about ethics, morality and science while beating the hell out of a robot with its own severed limb. Which you’re still doing. I’d really appreciate it if you stopped doing that, Fritz.”

He stopped doing that, after he was done slamming the mess of cables and ruined plating that had once been a high-precision tool onto the carcass of its former owner two more times. Viktor deduced from Fritz’s frown that he would have liked for that to be at least five more times. His eardrums decided that they didn’t give much of a damn.

“Whatever. You shot as many as I beat the shit of, so I’ll take that as you agreeing with me.” Had he not been too busy staring at his own hands as he dusted the oil and copper fibers off of them, Fritz might have inferred otherwise from Viktor’s deadpan flavor of disapproval. The latter’s eyes sought solace away from the burly figure in front of them, reflecting ruined walls, moldy rubble and literal metric tons of unresponsive android carcasses.

“This should have been the last of them in this area... where’s Maira?”

Maira was currently busy ejecting a .65 caliber radioactive beet straight into the electronic guts of a GH1 Mark II Bolt Driver powered by hydraulics and the cloest binary had ever come to simulating racism. The custom projectile, shot through the battered cylinder that constituted the barrel of Maira’s ‘Slingshot’ homemade rifle, chewed a hole through the bot and several walls behind it, eventually zipping past a startled Viktor and Fritz while simultaneously reassuring both that they had little to fear about their colleague’s current status.

“Carries herself pretty well for a psycho, that kid.” said the grown man who had spent half a day hitting things with smaller pieces of themselves while screaming at the top of his lungs.

“I thought you’d know better by now than to underestimate her.”

“I don’t. She scares the shit out of me.” It was the nonchalant answer one would have given if asked to describe the limbflayer about to turn them into a ragdolled plate of spaghetti. It was also, perhaps, the opinion of Fritz’s that came closest to matching with Viktor. Both men stared at the sluggishly melting crevice where the beet had perforated, eventually letting themselves find a seat, whether on the dusty, cracked ceramic of the floor or the shining metal of whatever now remained of a revolutionary, artificial bunch.

“She ever told you what the deal is? With the mask, I mean.”

Viktor kept dutifully rolling the cigarette in his hands without sparing a minute for doubt. It was always that question with Maira, and always him that they’d ask to, if he’d be around. Came along with partnering up on so many jobs, he guessed. A few even thought he was her guardian. Sometimes, he’d find himself wondering if that wasn’t the sole rumor with a semblance of truth.

“It’s... it was her father’s idea. This Klaus fellow used to tell me that the most of the surface is covered with spores, remnants from the biological warfare that razed enough of the civilized world to leave us as we are today. A couple breaths and bang, your internal organs would eventually start mutating... changing your genetic make-up. Turning you into bad stuff. Long story short: the air is unsafe, thus the necessity of using gas masks.”

He lit the cigarette with a half-empty zippo and shoved it between his lips, staring at nothing in particular beyond a half-lidded gaze. Silence fell through as he busied himself exhaling whiffs of smoke, the vivid red hue of pomacco making it seem as if he was breathing his very heart out, until Fritz stopped scratching behind his neck with a metallic finger he’d pried from his victim and current seat. Hearing all of this in another context would have stolen little less than a hearty chuckle from his throat. His voice sounded a tad too concerned to permit that this time around.

“Was he telling the truth?”

Viktor’s eyes watched their hardened gaze reflected into Fritz’s worried look for a significant moment, before he shook his head in stead of shoulders too tired to do so.

“It was bullshit. Klaus was a scavenger who was good at his craft and had more than a few loose screws. I don’t think he ever changed the filter on his own gas mask. Somehow I doubt that Maira does with hers, either.”

“I do. I’d die of asbestos poisoning otherwise.”

The muffled voice coming from behind the leather mask was matter-of-factly and unmistakably that of a girl. Standing in the middle of a doorway missing its upper half - and a door, for that matter - her small frame seemed to shrink even further in her colleagues’ surprised eyes. They watched her walk over and sit along with them, settling on patiently disassembling the Slingshot that was almost as long as she was tall.

“Good job not dying out there, kiddo. How many of those steel hippies did you end up getting?” Friendly though he might have sounded, Viktor couldn’t help but notice Fritz attempting to scuttle a bit further away from the girl seemingly ignoring him.

“A lot. Enough.”

“It’s mostly quiet now, so I guess that’s true. It’ll be evening soon, so we move out an hour from now.” Viktor said, checking the contents of his pomacco pouch: not enough left to spare him a grimace. He’d have to savor this one, though it was already little more than a butt desperatedly caught between two gloved digits.

“Thus ends the robot rebellion: in a hefty pile of scrap. Chalk one up for humans!”

“Pretty sure I saw a couple mutants taking part in the carnage, Fritz.”

“Whatever, no need to be a stickler about everything. Isn’t that right, kiddo?”

“An entire city’s worth of factory bots got together and formed an army to gain independence because everybody wasn’t taking their talks about ‘achieving sentence’ and ‘freedom of will’ seriously until it was too late. It wouldn’t have killed for someone to be a bit of a stickler, perhaps” calmly replied Maira, sticking the last components of her rifle inside the oversized backpack sitting besides her. She spent the quiet pause she’d created lying on the hard floor and resting her head on said backpack, the gas mask covering her face and framed by short blond hair pointing towards a gray, humid ceiling.

“Ah, and what dad said about the spores? That was true.”

Maira fell asleep before she could witness either Fritz’s grumbling face of Viktor’s ghost of a grin.

[nemolian]

The Death of Bon Appétit Is Proof Media Companies Have No Idea What Makes Videos Work

There are a zillion reasons why I have been mourning the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. The one that hurts most is that the slow, drawn-out death of one of the most joyful YouTube channels on the internet could have easily been prevented.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the drama, the shit first hit the fan on June 8, when writer Tammie Teclemariam tweeted a photo of then Bon Appétit Editor in Chief Adam Rapoport in brownface. What followed was an explosive public reckoning as several staffers—those who appeared in videos, those behind the camera, and some at the magazine proper—recounted stories of racism, tokenism, and unequal pay at Condé Nast, Bon Appétit’s publisher. Rapoport resigned. Condé Nast Vice President Matt Duckor also left after racist and homophobic tweets (from as recently as 2014) were unearthed. (Duckor has been employed by Bon Appétit since 2011.)

The first part of this saga ended with Bon Appétit posting a pledge on its Instagram to “do better” in reckoning with its culture of racism, sexism, homophobia, and harassment, and assured viewers of a future with more “inclusive programming.” Still, BA had effectively gone dark on YouTube—not because of the pandemic, which the crew successfully figured out how to safely shoot videos in spite of, but because staffers refused to appear on camera in solidarity with their underpaid colleagues.

Things were silent for a bit and then on Thursday, three beloved Bon Appétit stars—Priya Krishna, Rick Martinez, and Sohla El-Waylly—announced via their Instagram and Twitter accounts that they would no longer appear in BA videos because, as you might expect, the corporate suits at Condé Nast Entertainment wouldn’t pay them what they deserved. Soon, BA favorites Molly Baz and Gaby Melian also said they would no longer be appearing in videos as a result. Then yesterday, Carla Lalli also announced that she was leaving BA video. That brings the number of staffers who’ve quit making videos up to six.

G/O Media may get a commission

This is a woefully incomplete recap of issues plaguing what was once a wholesome oasis in the endless barrage of bad news and irony-poisoned memes that now make up the internet. It doesn’t take a genius to suss out that Condé Nast Entertainment is killing a hyper-successful video channel because profits are more important than equitable pay. Compensating these staffers fairly isn’t likely to make a huge dent in Condé Nast’s profits, especially when you consider that Bon Appétit had been irrelevant for years before this group of unlikely video stars came along. Perhaps, Condé Nast is more afraid of what else the staffers will ask for. But regardless of why Condé Nast is being so stubborn, something in Lalli’s tweet was a literal shot through the heart for anyone who has ever produced or starred in a video for a media company.

After describing a once-organic process where people got to pitch their ideas freely and videos were often shot by a one-person crew on a small budget, Lalli then traces an all-too-familiar change in process once BA’s videos began to take off. “By that time, video-related revenue was integral to Bon Appétit’s budget, and [Condé Nast Entertainment] relied on algorithms instead of instinct when determining who could appear in videos. Content decisions were largely data-driven. The editorial team had diminishing influence over video strategy,” Lalli claimed. “I felt that the expertise and interests of the hosts was less important to the decision-makers than platform-specific trends.”

Smarter people than I have weighed in on the systemic racism that’s rampant in food media. But I do know something about making videos for media companies with half-baked plans to “pivot to video.”

Videos are a labor of love. It’s common knowledge that TV and movie productions take months, if not years, to plan and execute. For some reason that acknowledgment flies out the window when it comes to digital media. “How hard could it be?” the publishing executive in a bespoke suit muses. A five-minute video should only take, what, four hours to produce, shoot, and edit? Why not pump out two, three, four, five videos a day? And if a “good” video takes that long to produce, why not opt for “easy” videos that we can shove out the door? After all: more videos, more ads, more money. And that’s really what’s driving it all, in case you’ve never been in the rooms where these decisions are made—advertising sold against video content commands a higher rate than traditional web display ads. It’s absolutely that simple.

To anyone who’s ever been involved with making a video, this brand of c-suite thinking is pure comedy. Hosted videos often involve scripts, written by a video producer and sometimes the on-screen talent. They involve pre-production: creating shot lists, buying props, and brainstorming how best to express a concept with whatever resources you’re given. They involve nuts and bolts decisions like lighting, framing, and set-up before anyone ever steps into the studio. When you actually get around to shooting, there’s no such thing as a single take. You film, saying the same things over, and over, and over again until you get what you need, and then, one more time for safety. After that, it can take forever and a year, depending on your internet connection, to upload footage. Video producers are like marathon runners—they sometimes sit hunched over their computers for 18 hours at a time (usually in “editing bays” that are glorified closets) just to get a first cut done. Sometimes, you have to reshoot bits or re-record audio. Sometimes an editor gets picky with second-round edits. In short: a two-day turnaround for a lean crew is speedy, and likely means multiple people have pulled long hours to make it happen. Two videos a day? You’re asking someone to work themselves to death. Because these days, media executives aren’t exactly keen on providing resources or hiring the staff necessary to lighten the load.

This is true of Bon Appétit’s videos, too, and why the refusal to pay people what they’re owed is so infuriating. Make no mistake, as effortless and freewheeling as BA Test Kitchen videos appear, it requires a small army to keep these videos going. That Bon Appétit’s video crew was obviously having fun at the same time? That’s what made their videos so aspirational for the rest of us.

This is what media executives don’t understand. To them, videos are a vehicle for ad dollars, whether readers want them on not. Executives like to think that if they can game the numbers just right, they’ll have impressive figures to show advertisers, and a fistful of Benjamins to line their pockets. They’re not thinking about why anyone would want to watch these videos. As for paying people equitably for their labor—why would they when they can pay a contractor for the same amount of hours and skip paying the healthcare benefits?

Silicon Valley has hyped algorithms to be infallible arbiters of data-driven truth, but anyone who’s been on a bad Tinder date can tell you the limits of that. Data without context isn’t much of anything. Analytics are meant to guide content creation—not define it. Did Condé Nast’s algorithms foretell just how quickly Sohla El-Waylly would capture the heart of BA fans? Not likely. To hear El-Waylly tell it, she was shoved in front of a camera to make BA appear more diverse. That she became as popular as she did was because El-Waylly was delightful to watch and could cook like a motherfucker. Did the algorithms predict that challenging a neurotic pastry chef to make gourmet versions of snack foods would be a hit? Probably not. That sounds a lot like editorial staff shooting the shit and deciding why the hell not? No machine would possibly know a tall weirdo who can barely finish a sentence trying to ferment various foods would be beloved by millions. They watch because Brad Leone is hilarious, and the shady choices that BA’s video editors make are also a hilarious meta-story in and of itself. 

What I’m getting at here is that people are what make videos work. People—given the license and resources to have fun—are the reason why viewers hit the play button. People are the reason why you hit that like and subscribe button. Even as BA grew from a sleeper hit to its own cinematic universe, what kept it successful was that the human element came through in moments congenial, frustrated, heartbroken, petty, and embarrassing. No one watches BA Test Kitchen because they’re fans of Condé Nast, or want to see Condé Nast succeed.

It’s heartbreaking, then, to watch BA’s staff fight to make things right, to see their fans vocally and passionately support them in that fight on every conceivable platform, and know that Condé Nast does not give a fuck. It’s depressing to know that the people who made the BA Test Kitchen magical are not the ones who get to decide its future; that the best most of them can do given the circumstances, is to walk away, knowing their bosses see them as barely more than a rounding error.

It doesn’t have to be like this. The solution is right there in plain sight, for everyone with a pair of working eyes to see. It’s like this because the adults in the room don’t care: They barely understand what they own, and hardly notice when they sign its death certificate.

via:Gizmodo, August 13, 2020 at 11:27AM