#Library Automation Tools

[catchexperts]

Web Scraping 101: Everything You Need to Know in 2025

🕸��� What Is Web Scraping? An Introduction

Web scraping—also referred to as web data extraction—is the process of collecting structured information from websites using automated scripts or tools. Initially driven by simple scripts, it has now evolved into a core component of modern data strategies for competitive research, price monitoring, SEO, market intelligence, and more.

If you’re wondering “What is the introduction of web scraping?” — it’s this: the ability to turn unstructured web content into organized datasets businesses can use to make smarter, faster decisions.

💡 What Is Web Scraping Used For?

Businesses and developers alike use web scraping to:

Monitor competitors’ pricing and SEO rankings

Extract leads from directories or online marketplaces

Track product listings, reviews, and inventory

Aggregate news, blogs, and social content for trend analysis

Fuel AI models with large datasets from the open web

Whether it’s web scraping using Python, browser-based tools, or cloud APIs, the use cases are growing fast across marketing, research, and automation.

🔍 Examples of Web Scraping in Action

What is an example of web scraping?

A real estate firm scrapes listing data (price, location, features) from property websites to build a market dashboard.

An eCommerce brand scrapes competitor prices daily to adjust its own pricing in real time.

A SaaS company uses BeautifulSoup in Python to extract product reviews and social proof for sentiment analysis.

For many, web scraping is the first step in automating decision-making and building data pipelines for BI platforms.

⚖️ Is Web Scraping Legal?

Yes—if done ethically and responsibly. While scraping public data is legal in many jurisdictions, scraping private, gated, or copyrighted content can lead to violations.

To stay compliant:

Respect robots.txt rules

Avoid scraping personal or sensitive data

Prefer API access where possible

Follow website terms of service

If you’re wondering “Is web scraping legal?”—the answer lies in how you scrape and what you scrape.

🧠 Web Scraping with Python: Tools & Libraries

What is web scraping in Python? Python is the most popular language for scraping because of its ease of use and strong ecosystem.

Popular Python libraries for web scraping include:

BeautifulSoup – simple and effective for HTML parsing

Requests – handles HTTP requests

Selenium – ideal for dynamic JavaScript-heavy pages

Scrapy – robust framework for large-scale scraping projects

Puppeteer (via Node.js) – for advanced browser emulation

These tools are often used in tutorials like “Web scraping using Python BeautifulSoup” or “Python web scraping library for beginners.”

⚙️ DIY vs. Managed Web Scraping

You can choose between:

DIY scraping: Full control, requires dev resources

Managed scraping: Outsourced to experts, ideal for scale or non-technical teams

Use managed scraping services for large-scale needs, or build Python-based scrapers for targeted projects using frameworks and libraries mentioned above.

🚧 Challenges in Web Scraping (and How to Overcome Them)

Modern websites often include:

JavaScript rendering

CAPTCHA protection

Rate limiting and dynamic loading

To solve this:

Use rotating proxies

Implement headless browsers like Selenium

Leverage AI-powered scraping for content variation and structure detection

Deploy scrapers on cloud platforms using containers (e.g., Docker + AWS)

🔐 Ethical and Legal Best Practices

Scraping must balance business innovation with user privacy and legal integrity. Ethical scraping includes:

Minimal server load

Clear attribution

Honoring opt-out mechanisms

This ensures long-term scalability and compliance for enterprise-grade web scraping systems.

🔮 The Future of Web Scraping

As demand for real-time analytics and AI training data grows, scraping is becoming:

Smarter (AI-enhanced)

Faster (real-time extraction)

Scalable (cloud-native deployments)

From developers using BeautifulSoup or Scrapy, to businesses leveraging API-fed dashboards, web scraping is central to turning online information into strategic insights.

📘 Summary: Web Scraping 101 in 2025

Web scraping in 2025 is the automated collection of website data, widely used for SEO monitoring, price tracking, lead generation, and competitive research. It relies on powerful tools like BeautifulSoup, Selenium, and Scrapy, especially within Python environments. While scraping publicly available data is generally legal, it's crucial to follow website terms of service and ethical guidelines to avoid compliance issues. Despite challenges like dynamic content and anti-scraping defenses, the use of AI and cloud-based infrastructure is making web scraping smarter, faster, and more scalable than ever—transforming it into a cornerstone of modern data strategies.

🔗 Want to Build or Scale Your AI-Powered Scraping Strategy?

Whether you're exploring AI-driven tools, training models on web data, or integrating smart automation into your data workflows—AI is transforming how web scraping works at scale.

👉 Find AI Agencies specialized in intelligent web scraping on Catch Experts,

📲 Stay connected for the latest in AI, data automation, and scraping innovation:

💼 LinkedIn

🐦 Twitter

📸 Instagram

👍 Facebook

▶️ YouTube

[golden42]

Lazy Loading Page Speed Optimization: Efficient Practices & Tips

Key Takeaways

Lazy loading can significantly improve page speed by loading only necessary content initially, reducing initial load times.

Implementing lazy loading can save bandwidth, which is crucial for users on limited data plans.

This technique enhances user experience by ensuring faster interactions and smoother scrolling.

SEO can benefit from lazy loading as search engines prefer faster websites, potentially improving rankings.

To effectively implement lazy loading, use browser-native features and ensure compatibility across different devices.

Enhancing Web Performance with Lazy Loading

In today's fast-paced digital world, web performance is more critical than ever. Slow websites can drive users away, impacting engagement and conversions. One powerful technique to boost performance is lazy loading. By understanding and implementing lazy loading, you can optimize your website's speed and efficiency, keeping your visitors engaged and satisfied.

Understanding the Need for Speed

Users expect websites to load quickly and efficiently.

Slow loading times can lead to higher bounce rates.

Improved speed enhances user satisfaction and retention.

Most importantly, speed is not just a luxury; it's a necessity. Users are increasingly impatient, and a delay of even a few seconds can cause them to abandon your site. Therefore, ensuring that your site loads swiftly is crucial for maintaining user interest and engagement.

Lazy loading offers a solution by optimizing the loading process. Instead of loading every element of a page at once, lazy loading prioritizes essential content and defers non-essential elements. This approach can make a dramatic difference in how quickly your site feels to users.

Lazy Loading: A Game Changer for Web Efficiency

Lazy loading is more than just a buzzword; it's a transformative technique for web optimization. By deferring the loading of non-essential elements, such as images and videos, until they are needed, lazy loading reduces the initial load time of a webpage.

Images and videos load only when they enter the viewport.

Reduces server requests, enhancing page speed.

Particularly beneficial for mobile users with limited bandwidth.

Besides that, lazy loading helps in conserving resources, which is particularly beneficial for mobile users who might be on limited data plans. By only loading what's necessary, users experience faster interactions and smoother scrolling, which can significantly improve their overall experience.

Eager Loading: When Immediate Isn't Ideal

Eager loading, the opposite of lazy loading, involves loading all page elements at once. While this approach might seem straightforward, it can lead to longer initial load times, especially on content-heavy pages. Therefore, eager loading is not always the best choice, particularly when dealing with large images or videos.

Lazy loading, on the other hand, ensures that your website delivers essential content swiftly, making it an ideal choice for optimizing page speed and improving user experience.

Benefits of Lazy Loading

Lazy loading isn't just about speed; it's about creating a seamless and efficient user experience. Let's delve into the various benefits it offers.

Faster Initial Load Times

By loading only the necessary elements initially, lazy loading significantly reduces the time it takes for a page to become interactive. Users can start engaging with the content almost immediately, without waiting for all elements to load.

This immediate engagement is crucial in retaining user interest. For instance, if your homepage loads quickly, users are more likely to explore further, increasing the chances of conversion.

Additionally, faster load times can have a positive impact on your website's bounce rate. Users are less likely to leave if they don't have to wait for content to load, which can improve your site's overall performance metrics.

Loading Images Efficiently

Images often account for the majority of a webpage's load time. By implementing lazy loading for images, you can significantly improve your page speed. This involves loading images only when they are about to enter the viewport. As a result, users won't have to wait for all images to load before they can interact with your content.

To do this effectively, you can use the loading="lazy" attribute in your image tags. This attribute tells the browser to defer loading the image until it is close to being visible. Additionally, consider using responsive image techniques to serve different image sizes based on the user's device, further optimizing load times.

Handling Videos and Media Content

Videos and other media content can be resource-intensive, causing significant delays in load times if not managed properly. Lazy loading can also be applied to these elements. By embedding videos with lazy loading techniques, you ensure they only load when a user scrolls to them.

For example, instead of directly embedding a video, use a thumbnail image with a play button overlay. When the user clicks the play button, the video loads and plays. This not only saves bandwidth but also improves the initial loading speed of the page.

JavaScript and CSS Deferred Loading

JavaScript and CSS files are essential for modern web applications, but they can also be a bottleneck if not handled correctly. Lazy loading these resources involves deferring their loading until they are needed. This can be achieved using the defer and async attributes for JavaScript files.

The defer attribute ensures that the script is executed after the HTML document has been parsed, while the async attribute allows the script to be executed as soon as it's available. For CSS, consider using media queries to load stylesheets conditionally based on the user's device or viewport size.

Tips for Optimizing Lazy Loading

Implementing lazy loading is just the beginning. To truly optimize your website's performance, follow these additional tips and best practices.

Use Browser Native Features

Modern browsers offer native support for lazy loading, making it easier than ever to implement this technique. By using native features, you can ensure compatibility and reduce the need for third-party libraries, which can add unnecessary overhead.

To take advantage of these features, simply add the loading="lazy" attribute to your image and iframe tags. This simple addition can have a significant impact on your page speed, especially for image-heavy sites.

Besides, using native features ensures that your site remains future-proof, as browsers continue to enhance their support for lazy loading and other performance optimizations.

Minimize Default Image Size

Before applying lazy loading, it's crucial to optimize your images for size. Large images can still slow down load times, even with lazy loading. Use image compression tools to reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality.

Optimize Animations

Animations can enhance user experience, but they can also impact performance if not optimized. Use CSS animations instead of JavaScript whenever possible, as they are more efficient and can be hardware-accelerated by the browser.

Ensure that animations are smooth and don't cause layout shifts, which can negatively affect user experience. Test your animations on different devices to ensure they perform well across the board.

Remember, the goal is to create a seamless experience for your users. By optimizing animations, you can enhance the visual appeal of your site without compromising performance.

Test Across Multiple Devices

It's essential to test your website on a variety of devices and screen sizes. What works well on a desktop might not perform the same on a mobile device. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze your site's performance and identify areas for improvement.

Regular testing ensures that your lazy loading implementation works as intended across different platforms, providing a consistent experience for all users.

Overcoming Common Lazy Loading Challenges

While lazy loading offers numerous benefits, it's not without its challenges. Addressing these issues ensures that your implementation is successful and doesn't negatively impact your site.

Dealing with SEO Concerns

Lazy loading can sometimes interfere with search engine indexing if not implemented correctly. To ensure your content is indexed, use server-side rendering or provide fallbacks for search engines that may not execute JavaScript. For more insights, check out how lazy loading decreases load time and increases engagement.

Ensure all critical content is available without JavaScript.

Use structured data to help search engines understand your content.

Regularly monitor your site's indexing status in Google Search Console.

These strategies help maintain your site's visibility in search engine results, ensuring that lazy loading doesn't negatively impact your SEO efforts.

Addressing Browser Compatibility Issues

While most modern browsers support lazy loading, some older versions may not. To ensure compatibility, consider using a polyfill or fallback solutions for browsers that don't support lazy loading natively.

By addressing these compatibility issues, you can provide a consistent experience for all users, regardless of their browser choice. Regularly updating your site and testing on different browsers can help you identify and resolve any issues that arise.

Troubleshooting Loading Delays

Even with lazy loading implemented, you might encounter loading delays. This often happens when elements are not optimized or when there are too many third-party scripts running on your site. To troubleshoot these issues, start by identifying the elements that are causing delays. Use tools like Google Chrome's Developer Tools to pinpoint these elements and analyze their loading times.

Once you've identified the culprits, consider compressing images, deferring non-essential scripts, and minimizing the use of third-party plugins. By doing so, you can significantly reduce loading times and improve the overall performance of your website.

The Future of Lazy Loading in Web Development

Lazy loading is set to become an integral part of web development as websites continue to grow in complexity and size. With the increasing demand for faster and more efficient websites, lazy loading offers a practical solution to enhance user experience without compromising on content richness.

"Lazy loading is not just a trend; it's a necessity for modern web development. As websites evolve, so do the techniques we use to optimize them."

As more developers recognize the benefits of lazy loading, we can expect to see advancements in browser support and new tools that make implementation even easier. This evolution will ensure that lazy loading remains a vital component of web optimization strategies.

Emerging Technologies that Support Lazy Loading

Several emerging technologies are poised to enhance lazy loading capabilities. For instance, progressive web apps (PWAs) and server-side rendering (SSR) can work alongside lazy loading to deliver content more efficiently. PWAs offer offline capabilities and faster load times, while SSR ensures that content is rendered on the server, reducing the load on the client's device.

Additionally, advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning could further optimize lazy loading by predicting user behavior and preloading content accordingly. These technologies have the potential to revolutionize how we approach web performance optimization.

The Growing Importance of Mobile Optimization

As mobile usage continues to rise, optimizing websites for mobile devices has become more critical than ever. Lazy loading plays a crucial role in this optimization by reducing data usage and improving load times on mobile networks.

By implementing lazy loading, you can ensure that your mobile users have a seamless experience, regardless of their network conditions. This is particularly important for users in regions with slower internet speeds, where every byte counts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Lazy loading is a powerful tool, but it can also raise questions for those unfamiliar with its implementation. Here are some common questions and answers to help you better understand lazy loading and its impact on your website.

These insights will help you make informed decisions about implementing lazy loading on your site and address any concerns you may have.

"Lazy loading can seem daunting at first, but with the right guidance, it becomes an invaluable asset for web optimization."

What is lazy loading and how does it work?

Lazy loading is a technique that defers the loading of non-essential elements, such as images and videos, until they are needed. This reduces the initial load time of a webpage, allowing users to interact with the content more quickly. By only loading elements when they enter the viewport, lazy loading conserves resources and improves performance.

How does lazy loading affect page speed and SEO?

Lazy loading can significantly enhance page speed by reducing the number of elements that need to be loaded initially. This not only improves user experience but also positively impacts SEO. Search engines favor faster websites, which can lead to improved rankings.

However, it's essential to ensure that lazy loading is implemented correctly to avoid any negative impact on SEO. This includes providing fallbacks for search engines that may not execute JavaScript and ensuring that all critical content is accessible without JavaScript. For more insights, check out this beginner's guide to lazy loading.

By addressing these considerations, you can harness the benefits of lazy loading without compromising your site's visibility in search engine results.

"Faster websites are favored by both users and search engines, making lazy loading a win-win for performance and SEO."

Therefore, lazy loading is an effective strategy for enhancing both user experience and search engine rankings.

What types of content should be lazy loaded?

Lazy loading is particularly beneficial for large images, videos, and other media content that can slow down a webpage. By deferring these elements, you can ensure that users only load what they need, when they need it.

Additionally, lazy loading can be applied to JavaScript and CSS files, further optimizing load times. By prioritizing essential content and deferring non-essential elements, you can create a more efficient and user-friendly website.

Are there any drawbacks to implementing lazy loading?

While lazy loading offers numerous benefits, it does have some potential drawbacks. If not implemented correctly, it can interfere with search engine indexing and result in missing or delayed content. To mitigate these risks, ensure that your lazy loading implementation is compatible with search engines and provides fallbacks for non-JavaScript environments. For more insights, check out Boost Your Website Speed With Lazy Loading.

How do I verify if lazy loading is working on my site?

To verify that lazy loading is working, use browser developer tools to inspect the network activity. Check if images and other media elements are loading only when they enter the viewport. Additionally, tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you analyze your site's performance and confirm that lazy loading is functioning as intended.

By regularly monitoring your site's performance and addressing any issues that arise, you can ensure that lazy loading continues to enhance your website's speed and user experience.

[centrally-unplanned]

As someone who dual-uses Chrome & Firefox, and definitely found Chrome's recent updates to hit performance, I have been using Firefox a bit more heavily and man, Chrome is the better browser. It just has such much more ease-of-use features from tab & audio management to settings customization, and its extension library is on average more robust than Firefox's (though both are fine in this regard).

I have the bespoke need of using automated translation & OCR tools for reading multilingual sources - hilariously, Google Image OCR (the best one out there) actually has stripped functionality on Firefox? Awful act of digital terrorism there on Google's part, but I live in the world I am given, I can't fix it. Chrome also has more accurate text recognition for page translation and smoother toggle options. For most other things Firefox vs Chrome is preference, but when I do anime research I literally have to use Chrome, the efficiency impact of Firefox is way too high.

So yeah I respect all the Firefox stans out there - I use both after all - but if they want wider adaptation they need to compete a bit better.

[dead-lights]

blender tool: batch thumbnail renderer

i did a blender/python thing! i've seen some people posting about the hassle of taking thumbnails for pose packs and thought I'd put this up - I wrote a simple script a while back to take thumbnails for my blender pose library (those are up to 256x256 pixels, much bigger than the thumbs exported from S4S) but I imagine it would work for posemakers as well.

what this does: it automates the pose/render/save cycle. add your character to the scene, set up your camera, add your poses to a collection, and hit the button - it will put the character in each pose, render, save, and then move on to the next so you don't have to do it manually. this is especially useful for things like emotions packs where the camera does not need to be adjusted between poses.

what this doesn't do: you still have to position the camera and configure render settings, import your model, and add your poses to the scene. the camera does not move between renders, so if some poses are out of frame or otherwise don't work with the camera settings, you have to fix that manually.

i got kinda anxious about posting this and let it sit in my drafts for way too long - I used generic blender rather than sims-specific tutorials and worry I did things inefficiently or improperly, but it works for me, I use it often, and it saves me a lot of time, so I'll put it up. I welcome any criticism or advice people have for me.

i've uploaded a sample scene I used to get those renders of L, as well as the script itself in case you want to import it into your own scenes instead. the sample camera is set to produce 500x500 pixel thumbnails with an orthographic camera, rendered with Cycles, but you can set up the camera/renderer however you'd like.

download sample scene (includes script & instructions)

download script only

download instructions only (just a .txt file with everything below, but without pictures)

i'm going to work with the sample scene for these instructions, but this should work in any scene with a character mesh, an active camera, and a pose collection.

import your model. you need the mesh. this does not have to be in its own collection, as long as it isn't in the poses collection. set your active camera up to have the render settings/framing/zoom that you want. this will be used for every single thumbnail and cannot be adjusted in between renders.

2. you need the rigs from the poses. for .blend poses exported from S4S, drag them into the scene, open "Object" and then select rig.

make sure the rigs are going into your 'poses' collection - the collection doesn't have to be called 'poses' but it does need to contain ONLY pose rigs. name them whatever you'd like the thumbnails to be saved as.

3. head over to the scripting tab. if the script "export_thumbs.py" isn't open, hit the folder button to find it.

4. in the outliner, click on both the pose collection and the character mesh (note - NOT the character rig, you want the one with the inverted triangle and the wrench). you should see both icons selected.

5. hit the "run script" button at the top of the scripting tab.

at this point, if all went correctly, blender should appear to freeze (because it's doing stuff!) but you will notice a folder called "renders" appear in the directory with this blender file. Inside the renders folder, there will be another folder with the name of whatever character mesh you used - this allows you to run the script with multiple character meshes without overwriting files, as long as the meshes have different names. one by one, your thumbnails should show up here.

once the script has gone through every pose, blender will become usable again, and you should have a directory full of thumbnails. hooray!

note: every pose in a collection will render with the same camera settings. if you need to change the camera, for example because you have both standing and sitting poses, you can divide the poses into different collections. you have to run this script for each collection of poses you want to render - it will not automatically go through every collection in your outliner - so this gives you the opportunity to adjust the camera between batches. because thumbnails are named after the pose names, overwriting shouldn't be an issue.

please let me know if you have any problems with this! It's possible the scene may cause issues in older versions of blender - it was saved with 4.1 - but if it doesn't work, the script itself works with versions at least as old as 3.3.

[spire-of-ink]

Canard VI

Canard VI - Faintly, it moved.

The red suns rose over the western horizon, warming the cloudy sky with a carnelian haze. And on the eastern side, the swirling face of a gas giant consumed it. BB13-183-4 was a bright-blue orb of monstrous, churning clouds, one of countless millions in the galaxy, and as such wasn’t deemed worthy of a name by Empyrean bureaucrats, but the locals called it Enlil. This moon, forested by old terraforming, was also never truly named by higher powers—but to its inhabitants, it was known as Shala, one of tens that orbited the enormous planet.

Lorelei gazed up at it as if asking a prayer. “Please, just…” She glared down and slammed her wrench into the machine’s innards. “Make this damn compressor work!”

It was the core system of a set of automated watering pumps, which normally were in charge of ensuring the endless rows of budding crops on her family’s field were doused. Unfortunately, though the crops could only rustle in complaint, it had stopped working as of this morning, its matching rows of metal tubes dry as the dirt they failed to soak.

She sighed harshly and took a minute to look outwards; down over the cliff her family had anciently purchased and across the great forest in the valley below, where leaves shivered in the faint Summer wind, and animals played through them in their dance of survival. A dance so far apart from day after day on this farm.

Now, Lorelei looked back to her hands, smudged black with oil just as much as her tools, scattered in the dirt, and the circuitous innards of this angular metal box she plumbed with them. She blinked, and after a moment, laughed bitterly, realizing something.

She threw her wrench onto the ground, wiped her hands on her jeans, and stepped off with a wrought purpose.

---

“Stars in void—you can’t be serious!”

Lorelei came close to gripping the lapels on Vaen’s kimono. “I’m a-- I don’t know what I am, but I’m not a fighter!” She looked more terrified than angry, but a scowl still riled her face. “Let alone a librarian! This isn’t my job!”

The doll looked perfectly collected and blank, as usual. “It is not,” it said, “But you are here on our graces. You should oblige your host.”

“Oblige!” Lorelei exclaimed. “You have no-- You can’t—”

From behind them, Evangelus laughed with a reedy bellow. “You would really set such a pathetic whelp against the Knight of a Lord? A stammering child?” He shook his head, gauntlets at his hips.

For now, Lorelei ignored him and locked eyes with Vaen, trying and failing to keep her breathing steady. “Why is he even fighting for a stars-damn book?” She groaned and backed off, picking at her hair anxiously. “Why?”

The Quill nodded once in acknowledgement. “We are a library, and so lend books. We do not hoard knowledge, but liberate it. And some books we hold have great power; be it in knowledge or literal. If one is to be given that power, they must prove their ability to wield it.”

“But me?” Lorelei pointed at herself. “Why fight me? What the hells does that prove!”

“You will see, if you wish. This one does not have the power to make you fight.”

“—Really?” She let out a breath she’d been holding. “So I don’t actually have to?”

“Yes, yes,” the knight tittered, “By all means, do begone, peasant. I would seek an actual challenge, rather than some farm-girl.”

Finally, her eye twitched, and Lorelei wheeled on him. “Is there something wrong with farmers? Do you not like eating?”

“Please,” he said, “It isn’t as if your lot are particularly irreplaceable. Simply tinkering with machines which actually do the job. Why, the only thing more worthless are those which actually detract from the Empyrean,” he drolled. “Criminals, vagabonds, witches…”

Her red eyes flashed. “...Witches?”

Evangelus tisked. “But of course, the lot of demon-worshippers. They destabilize our glorious empire far more than many. Why, I’ve had the honor of putting down my own fair share.”

Memories didn’t quite spark in her, but something did. Something deep in Lorelei echoed through her heart and electrified her blood. “You have, have you.”

“Yes, yes, but enough about my grand accomplishments,” he sighed. “Be out of my way, worthless little urchin. I’ve actual business to attend.”

And that ignited the sparks. “As a matter of fact,” Lorelei said, voice even and piercing as a knife, “The Quill said I’ll be your opponent. So your business is with me.”

The ruby rose under them suddenly cried-out with beautiful light, and the braziers along the wall spilled-over their black fire. The stained glass windows above became bright, all as if the room was readying for the conflict within.

The knight huffed. “Purely ridiculous, but fine. If you wish to die, I shall grant your request.” He drew his blade, a shining white length of metal, plasma-edged in orange star-fire, and pointed it towards her.

Lorelei glanced behind her to Vaen. “Do I get a weapon?”

“You have what you need,” it said, then stepped back. “The trial of Evangelus of Har commences. Let the Stars witness its decision.”

Her eyes widened just as she heard a few metallic steps ring out from in front of her—just in time, she ducked aside as the knight’s blade hissed by her head.

He tisked again, inconvenienced.

Lorelei darted away, fleeing the man, heels pounding against hard stone.

“And so you run. Ever like a peasant.” Evangelus took a slow walk towards her, assured of this battle’s inevitability.

In her head, the Library’s other guest cursed herself. What was she thinking? What the hells was she thinking! Was she even? Why was she incensed enough to risk her life? She imagined the reason must be buried in her still-returning memories; it had to be, or else she was simply a complete idiot!

Lorelei shot behind a pillar, breathing hard and listening to the ominous sounds of the knight’s footsteps. Now what? It was pretty obvious she had to find a way to kill him. But with what weapons? Her hands? No, that was absurd. But Vaen said she had what she needed—what did that mean? Her wits? What wits! All she had in her head was the looming, soul-searing sense she was about to die.

She peered out from the pillar and, in that instant, Evangelus threw himself forward and swung his blade wildly at her.

But Lorelei was quick, throwing herself back in turn and darting again, running to the right and past him towards the room’s center. She stole a terrified glance to Vaen; the doll was just standing there, silently observing, arms crossed.

As she ran, so did her thoughts; clearly this couldn’t just be to kill her. Sure, it looked like Vaen had put her into battle just to die, but that wouldn’t make sense. The Library obviously wanted to keep this book from Evangelus, at least if he couldn’t earn it, so there must be more to this. There must be--

Lorelei heard the sounds of a few great, bounding steps, the knight’s sabatons clashing against hard stone, and she wheeled around.

His blade, plasma slicing hotly through the air, was only a foot from her head. Amidst the bright red lights—now half a foot.

She threw her hands up defensively.

One-quarter foot.

She shut her eyes and waited for her world to end.

And waited.

“...What?”

At him saying that, Lorelei opened her eyes and looked ahead at the Empyrean’s warrior.

His blade was frozen in mid-air, only a few inches from her face. And she wasn’t simply looking at him.

She was looking through a mass of condensed red light, semi-transparent. A shield. A shield that had completely stopped his sword.

“So,” he said, “A witch you are. Now I understand.”

“I…” Lorelei’s eyes widened—and widened, and widened as a rush of memories exploded through her head. She laughed. “I guess I am!”

The newfound witch shot back from him and readied herself, letting information flood her. All magic is the arrangement of emanation, the conceptual energy of things.

“I have stricken your kind down before, and I shall do it again!” Evangelus lunged, cutting his blade at her shoulder.

Lorelei ducked aside almost casually, and began to splay her arms. Umbral, Auroral, and Essential; darkness, light, and material. It is woven together into a new concept, mana, which we enforce on the world.

He yelled and slashed across, down, drew his rifle and aimed it.

She evaded opposite, then opposite that, weaving left and right as her heels danced elegantly against the ground and her arms moved to the motion. First, gather the emanation. The lights in this room are Auroral, and so is plasma.

His rifle roared with a hissing jet of plasma, a bright stream of searing death.

Lorelei danced aside from it, then from the next shot, and next, each movement perfectly-patterned, controlled. Then, weave it together. Define the new concept, the mana, with your words, actions, motions, will.

“Fight, God damn you, fight me!” Evangelus charged forwards and swung up with his blade, far faster than any mortal should be, blade cleaving the air.

And only air, as Lorelei spun away in a pirouette, leapt back, landed, and curtsied with her skirt. Finally, seal the spell. And with the completion of her dance, the spell was sealed and cast.

Abruptly, the gun in Evangelus’s hand shook, grew hot as the room’s scarlet light seeped into it. He looked at it dumbly. “What--?” And then the gun, overloaded with raw energy—exploded, burning metal shrapnel flying and cutting his face apart and plasma washing over his plating, the sheer force of the blast ripping his right side apart and letting the star-fire melt his flesh. He shrieked and fell, gurgling-up blood.

Lorelei took a casual stroll over to him and stared down, fixing the buttons on her dress-shirt. She was pitiless. “You’ve killed us? Well, your turn, now.”

“You…” He glared up ferociously, spitting blood on the floor in front of her. “Goddamn… monstrosity…”

She rose her hand, collecting emanation, and flicked it; a hideous sound from below snapped, his neck bent, and his eyes glazed-over.

Immediately, Evangelus’s body melted into sparks of darkness, vanishing into the aether of the Library.

Lorelei blinked, staring at the ground where even his blood had vanished, and… collapsed to her knees.

“Well done.”

She looked up to see Vaen giving her a small bow.

“And so you have spoken. I have heard from you what I have needed to. Thank you.”

Halfway to retching, Lorelei, staggering, stood up and looked across half the room to the doll. “So that’s why. You wanted to gauge me,” she said softly.

“To know you. And as well, for you to know yourself. Do you see?”

She took out a shuddering breath. “Yes. But I’m not doing it again. Don’t ever,” she said, voice wavering, “Do that to me again.”

Vaen simply bowed again, and said, “Go. You would do to seek the Wing of Reflection next. But this one has seen enough.”

From out of the room’s shadows, Morn stepped up behind her. “C’mon.” It extended a hand as she looked at it. “You did good.”

She swallowed hard, shook her head slightly, and took the doll’s hand wordlessly. As they went to the elevator, a tear broke from the corner of her eye.

[cyberstudious]

Tools of the Trade for Learning Cybersecurity

I created this post for the Studyblr Masterpost Jam, check out the tag for more cool masterposts from folks in the studyblr community!

Cybersecurity professionals use a lot of different tools to get the job done. There are plenty of fancy and expensive tools that enterprise security teams use, but luckily there are also lots of brilliant people writing free and open-source software. In this post, I'm going to list some popular free tools that you can download right now to practice and learn with.

In my opinion, one of the most important tools you can learn how to use is a virtual machine. If you're not already familiar with Linux, this is a great way to learn. VMs are helpful for separating all your security tools from your everyday OS, isolating potentially malicious files, and just generally experimenting. You'll need to use something like VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation (Workstation Pro is now free for personal use, but they make you jump through hoops to download it).

Below is a list of some popular cybersecurity-focused Linux distributions that come with lots of tools pre-installed:

Kali is a popular distro that comes loaded with tools for penetration testing

REMnux is a distro built for malware analysis

honorable mention for FLARE-VM, which is not a VM on its own, but a set of scripts for setting up a malware analysis workstation & installing tools on a Windows VM.

SANS maintains several different distros that are used in their courses. You'll need to create an account to download them, but they're all free:

Slingshot is built for penetration testing

SIFT Workstation is a distro that comes with lots of tools for digital forensics

These distros can be kind of overwhelming if you don't know how to use most of the pre-installed software yet, so just starting with a regular Linux distribution and installing tools as you want to learn them is another good choice for learning.

Free Software

Wireshark: sniff packets and explore network protocols

Ghidra and the free version of IDA Pro are the top picks for reverse engineering

for digital forensics, check out Eric Zimmerman's tools - there are many different ones for exploring & analyzing different forensic artifacts

pwntools is a super useful Python library for solving binary exploitation CTF challenges

CyberChef is a tool that makes it easy to manipulate data - encryption & decryption, encoding & decoding, formatting, conversions… CyberChef gives you a lot to work with (and there's a web version - no installation required!).

Burp Suite is a handy tool for web security testing that has a free community edition

Metasploit is a popular penetration testing framework, check out Metasploitable if you want a target to practice with

SANS also has a list of free tools that's worth checking out.

Programming Languages

Knowing how to write code isn't a hard requirement for learning cybersecurity, but it's incredibly useful. Any programming language will do, especially since learning one will make it easy to pick up others, but these are some common ones that security folks use:

Python is quick to write, easy to learn, and since it's so popular, there are lots of helpful libraries out there.

PowerShell is useful for automating things in the Windows world. It's built on .NET, so you can practically dip into writing C# if you need a bit more power.

Go is a relatively new language, but it's popular and there are some security tools written in it.

Rust is another new-ish language that's designed for memory safety and it has a wonderful community. There's a bit of a steep learning curve, but learning Rust makes you understand how memory bugs work and I think that's neat.

If you want to get into reverse engineering or malware analysis, you'll want to have a good grasp of C and C++.

Other Tools for Cybersecurity

There are lots of things you'll need that aren't specific to cybersecurity, like:

a good system for taking notes, whether that's pen & paper or software-based. I recommend using something that lets you work in plain text or close to it.

general command line familiarity + basic knowledge of CLI text editors (nano is great, but what if you have to work with a system that only has vi?)

familiarity with git and docker will be helpful

There are countless scripts and programs out there, but the most important thing is understanding what your tools do and how they work. There is no magic "hack this system" or "solve this forensics case" button. Tools are great for speeding up the process, but you have to know what the process is. Definitely take some time to learn how to use them, but don't base your entire understanding of security on code that someone else wrote. That's how you end up as a "script kiddie", and your skills and knowledge will be limited.

Feel free to send me an ask if you have questions about any specific tool or something you found that I haven't listed. I have approximate knowledge of many things, and if I don't have an answer I can at least help point you in the right direction.

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

The Talon Roost

Nestled along the rugged shoreline of Puget Sound, just outside the bustling heart of Unity City, Terra, Melissa Hazen and Theodora Marten-Steiner’s home exudes a warmth and intimacy that starkly contrasts with their imposing public personas. Known as “The Talon Roost,” this sprawling lodge combines the rustic charm of traditional log cabin architecture with the subtle integration of cutting-edge technology from Terra’s civilian sector.

The Talon Roost sits perched on a rocky bluff overlooking the Sound, its timbered exterior blending with the surrounding forest. Massive, hand-hewn logs form the structure’s frame, their natural grain and texture preserved to honor the timeless beauty of the Pacific Northwest. The lodge’s roof is made up of a mix of eco-friendly solar tiles and living greenery. Wide wraparound decks extend from the main structure, offering panoramic views of the water and mountains beyond. A series of cascading stairs, lined with ambient lighting, leads down to a private dock where a sleek, automated watercraft rests, flanked by kayaks and a small security boat. At night, the lodge glows warmly, its large windows offering glimpses of life inside—a sharp yet inviting contrast to the quiet wilderness outside.

Entering the Talon Roost feels like stepping into a sanctuary. High vaulted ceilings, supported by massive wooden beams, create a sense of openness, while large floor-to-ceiling windows flood the space with natural light during the day. The interior décor balances modern minimalist design with the cozy aesthetics of a mountain lodge. Neutral tones dominate, accented by vibrant greens and golds—an homage to Melissa’s Jade Falcon heritage. The heart of the lodge, the living room, is anchored by a double-sided fireplace made of locally quarried stone. The hearth radiates warmth, surrounded by plush sofas and armchairs adorned with patterned blankets and throw pillows. Above the fireplace, a holographic display can project serene landscapes or serve as an entertainment hub, though it’s often turned off, leaving the room in serene simplicity. The kitchen combines the rustic appeal of handcrafted cabinetry with state-of-the-art appliances. A long central island, topped with polished stone, doubles as a communal dining space. The open floor plan flows into the dining area, where a custom-built table—crafted from salvaged driftwood—sits beneath an impressive chandelier of crystal and wrought iron. A cozy library, lined with shelves of books and historical texts, offers a quiet retreat for both Melissa and Theodora. A vintage mahogany desk sits at the far end, equipped with a concealed holo-terminal for secure communication and work. Nearby, a comfortable reading nook overlooks the Sound, with a soft chair and a small table perpetually holding a steaming pot of tea. The large, lavish, and highly advanced home theater was Theodora's pet project - it is outfitted with the absolute latest in cutting-edge holographic, trideo, and flat screen projection technology as well as a sound system that cost nearly as much as a light BattleMech.

While The Talon Roost appears traditional, its technology is anything but. Discrete panels throughout the home provide instant access to climate control, security systems, and personal AI assistants. The lodge’s power is supplied by a combination of renewable sources, ensuring self-sufficiency even during extended outages. A secure Star League-era communication hub is integrated into the study, allowing Melissa and Theodora to stay connected with SLDF operations. Beneath the lodge, hidden from view, lies a private hangar with bays large enough for both Melissa’s Highlander and Theodora’s Atlas, as well as the company of security 'Mechs on-site. Advanced automated repair systems and diagnostic tools ensure the 'Mechs are always ready for action. Also included is a multi-functional room utilizing advanced Holotank technology capable of projecting tactical simulations, training environments, or serene natural landscapes for relaxation.

The grounds around the lodge are meticulously curated. A path winds through a grove of ancient cedar trees to a private firepit surrounded by log benches. Nearby, a greenhouse houses a mix of local flora and medicinal plants, along with herbs for Theodora’s favorite recipes. A falconry mew, discreetly tucked into the edge of the property, is home to a small cast of Jade Falcons whom Melissa tends to personally—a connection to her heritage and a calming pastime away from the demands of leadership. The Talon Roost’s atmosphere is one of quiet strength and serenity. For two figures as legendary as Melissa Hazen and Theodora Marten-Steiner, the lodge represents a refuge from the chaos of the Inner Sphere—a place to reconnect with nature, their shared history, and each other. The cozy interiors, paired with the breathtaking natural surroundings, create a space where visitors are immediately put at ease, despite the immense power and influence of its owners. This dichotomy—between public and private life, between war and peace—is what makes The Talon Roost not just a home, but a reflection of the lives Melissa and Theodora have built together.

While The Talon Roost exudes an aura of peace and natural harmony, its security infrastructure rivals that of any high-level military installation. As the personal residence of two high-ranking SLDF officers, it incorporates layers of cutting-edge technology, physical deterrents, and personnel to ensure the safety of its occupants and maintain its strategic utility. The property is surrounded by an invisible perimeter system that utilizes advanced motion detection, thermal imaging, and seismic sensors. Any unauthorized entry triggers both silent and audible alarms, alerting the SLDF garrison stationed nearby. Discrete but highly effective automated turrets, hidden in the rocky outcroppings and among the trees, are equipped with non-lethal crowd control measures and high-powered laser weaponry for more extreme threats. Signature reduction technology derived from Null Signature System technology shields The Talon Roost from all but visual aerial and orbital scans, while a squadron of SLDF-designed surveillance drones patrols the airspace and property boundary. These drones are equipped with stealth tech, high-resolution cameras, and lethal weaponry. Meanwhile, the picturesque firepit near the cedar grove doubles as an emergency bunker entrance, reinforced to withstand even orbital bombardment. Decorative stone statues around the property conceal sensors and emitters capable of deploying small scale energy weapons in emergencies.

The Talon Roost is protected by a small, elite detachment of SLDF Royal Black Watch troops. While their presence is unobtrusive, they are always ready to respond to any threat. The guard detachment includes three Stars of MechWarriors, with their BattleMechs stationed in the Roost's subterranean hangar. A company of infantry, drawn from the Royal Black Watch's commando-trained operatives, patrols the property and acts as a rapid reaction force. All on-site security personnel reside in a concealed bunker built into the cliffside upon which the Roost perches. Security details rotate regularly to maintain optimal readiness and avoid becoming predictable. A concealed, automated command center under the lodge handles all security and monitoring tasks. Operatives stationed here can communicate directly with SLDF High Command and deploy additional resources as needed.

Beneath The Talon Roost lies a complex network of subterranean tunnels, elevators, and passageways that connect the property to critical SLDF and Star League installations in the region. This link allows both Melissa and Theodora to access secure meeting rooms or emergency operations centers without requiring surface travel. A direct maglev transit tunnel leads to both the nearby Tacoma Castle Brian, as well as the SLDF's Citadel inside Unity City itself - rebuilt by the SLDF to once again serve as their High Command complex. The headquarters of the Royal Black Watch, Fort Cameron, is linked to the lodge by another high-speed maglev route. The connection allows Theodora to oversee her regiment's activities or deploy her Atlas in minutes. The lodge is also connected via the maglev-tunnel system directly to the Court of the Star League.

In the event of an overwhelming threat, the lodge’s subterranean systems include a concealed evacuation pod capable of transporting occupants to either the Citadel or Fort Cameron in under five minutes. The lodge also features a last-resort self-destruct mechanism. Activated only by voice authorization from Melissa or Theodora, this system ensures no critical technology or data can fall into enemy hands. In case of a siege, the lodge can deploy automated counter-battery defenses, jamming fields, and active missile interceptors hidden within the terrain.

While The Talon Roost offers warmth, serenity, and a welcoming atmosphere, its hidden security and strategic capabilities reflect the immense responsibilities carried by its owners. This stark juxtaposition mirrors the lives of Melissa Hazen and Theodora Marten-Steiner, who must balance their personal sanctuary with their duties as protectors of humanity’s future. It is a place of respite, but one always ready for the call to action.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

RPGs get a reputation for being all about fighting. How does that work if the RPG is solarpunk? Or utopian even? What is an RPG, in the first place? What is the usefulness of a solarpunk RPG? Join us as we discuss these questions and more.

Art from the Fully Automated website used in episode cover is by Sean Bodley as well as a few other artists and this will get updated to credit them when we track them down :)

Links:

You can find Fully Automated at https://fullyautomatedrpg.com/ The Sogorea Te Land Trust: https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/ Solarpunk 2050: http://solarpunk2050.de/ Solarpunk Pioneers Fund: http://solarpunk-pioneers.org/ Coyote & Crow: https://coyoteandcrow.net/ Lunar Echos: https://affinity-games.itch.io/ Neon Black: https://notwriting.itch.io/ Legacy: Life Among the Ruins: https://ufopress.co.uk/legacy-life-among-the-ruins/ Fighting for the Future: https://www.android-press.com/product-page/fighting-for-the-future-ebook “Murder in the Tool Library” by AE Marling: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-in-the-tool-library-a-e-marling/1144354144 “Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto” by Aaron Bastani: https://www.versobooks.com/products/476-fully-automated-luxury-communism “Four Futures: Life After Capitalism” by Peter Fraise: https://www.versobooks.com/products/59-four-futures

[blackjackkent]

Programming object lesson of the day:

A couple days ago, one of the side project apps I run (rpthreadtracker.com) went down for no immediately obvious reason. The issue seems to have ended up being that the backend was running on .NET Core 2.2, which the host was no longer supporting, and I had to do a semi-emergency upgrade of all the code to .NET Core 6, a pretty major update that required a lot of syntactic changes and other fixes.

This is, of course, an obvious lesson in keeping an eye on when your code is using a library out of date enough not to be well supported anymore. (I have some thoughts on whether .NET Core 2.2 is old enough to have been dumped like this, but nevertheless I knew it was going out of LTS and could have been more prepared.) But that's all another post.

What really struck me was how valuable it turned out to be that I had already written an integration test suite for this application.

Historically, at basically every job I've worked for and also on most of my side projects, automated testing tends to be the thing most likely to fall by the wayside. When you have 376428648 things you want to do with an application and only a limited number of hours in the day, getting those 376428648 things to work feels very much like the top priority. You test them manually to make sure they work, and think, yeah, I'll get some tests written at some point, if I have time, but this is fine for now.

And to be honest, most of the time it usually is fine! But a robust test suite is one of those things that you don't need... until you suddenly REALLY FUCKING NEED IT.

RPTT is my baby, my longest running side project, the one with the most users, and the one I've put the most work into. So in a fit of side project passion and wanting to Do All The Right Things For Once, I actively wrote a massive amount of tests for it a few years ago. The backend has a full unit test suite that is approaching 100% coverage (which is a dumb metric you shouldn't actually stress about, but again, a post for another day). I also used Postman, an excellently full-featured API client, to write a battery of integration tests which would hit all of the API endpoints in a defined order, storing variables and verifying values as it went to take a mock user all the way through their usage life cycle.

And goddamn was that useful to have now, years later, as I had to fix a metric fuckton of subtle breakage points while porting the app to the updated framework. With one click, I could send the test suite through every endpoint in the backend and get quick feedback on everywhere that it wasn't behaving exactly the way it behaved before the update. And when I was ready to deploy the updated version, I could do so with solid confidence that from the front end's perspective, nothing would be different and everything would slot correctly into place.

I don't say this at all to shame anyone for not prioritizing writing tests - I usually don't, especially on my side projects, and this was a fortuitous outlier. But it was a really good reminder of why tests are a valuable tool in the first place and why they do deserve to be prioritized when it's possible to do so.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Bezzle excerpt (Part II)

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

Today, I'm bringing you part two of this week's serialized excerpt from The Bezzle, my new Martin Hench high-tech crime revenge thriller:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Though most of the scams that Hench – a two-fisted forensic accountant specializing in Silicon Valley skullduggery – goes after in The Bezzle have a strong tech component, this excerpt concerns a pre-digital scam: music royalty theft.

This is a subject that I got really deep into when researching and writing 2022's Chokepoint Capitalism – a manifesto for fixing creative labor markets:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

My co-author on that book is Rebecca Giblin, who also happens to be one of the world's leading experts in "copyright termination" – the legal right of creative workers to claw back any rights they signed over after 35 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

This was enshrined in the 1976 Copyright Act, and has largely languished in obscurity since then, though recent years have seen creators of all kinds getting their rights back through termination – the authors of The Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High Books, Stephen King, and George Clinton, to name a few. The estates of the core team at Marvel Comics, including Stan Lee, just settled a case that might have let them take the rights to all those characters back from Disney:

https://www.thewrap.com/marvel-settles-spiderman-lawsuit-steve-ditko/

Copyright termination is a powerful tonic to the bargaining disparities between creative workers. A creative worker who signs a bad contract at the start of their career can – if they choose – tear that contract up 35 years later and demand a better one.

Turning this into a plot-point in The Bezzle is the kind of thing that I love about this series – the ability to take important, obscure, technical aspects of how the world works and turn them into high-stakes technothriller storylines that bring them to the audience they deserve.

If you signed something away 35 years ago and you want to get it back, try Rights Back, an automated termination of tranfer tool co-developed by Creative Commons and Authors Alliance (whose advisory board I volunteer on):

https://rightsback.org/

All right, onto today's installment. Here's part one, published on Saturday:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease

It was on one of those drives where Stefon learned about copyright termination. It was 2011, and NPR was doing a story on the 1976 Copyright Act, passed the same year that was on the bottom of the document Chuy forged.

Under the ’76 act, artists acquired a “termination right”—­ that is, the power to cancel any copyright assignment after thirty-­five years, even if they signed a contract promising to sign away their rights forever and a day (or until the copyright ran out, which was nearly the same thing).

Listening to a smart, assured lady law professor from UC Berkeley explaining how this termination thing worked, Stefon got a wild idea. He pulled over and found a stub of a pencil and the back of a parking-­ticket envelope and wrote down the professor’s name when it was repeated at the end of the program. The next day he went to the Inglewood Public Library and got a reference librarian to teach him how to look up a UC Berkeley email address and he sent an email to the professor asking how he could terminate his copyright assignment.

He was pretty sure she wasn’t going to answer him, but she did, in less than a day. He got the email on his son’s smartphone and the boy helped him send a reply asking if he could call her. One thing led to another and two weeks later, he’d filed the paperwork with the U.S. Copyright Office, along with a check for one hundred dollars.

Time passed, and Stefon mostly forgot about his paperwork adventure with the Copyright Office, though every now and again he’d remember, think about that hundred dollars, and shake his head. Then, nearly a year later, there it was, in his mailbox: a letter saying that his copyright assignment had been canceled and his copyrights were his again. There was also a copy of a letter that had been sent to Chuy, explaining the same thing.

Stefon knew a lawyer—­well, almost a lawyer, an ex–­trumpet player who became a paralegal after one time subbing for Sly Stone’s usual guy, and then never getting another gig that good. He invited Jamal over for dinner and cooked his best pot roast and served it with good whiskey and then Jamal agreed to send a letter to Inglewood Jams, informing them that Chuy no longer controlled his copyrights and they had to deal with him direct from now on.

Stefon hand-­delivered the letter the next day, wearing his good suit for reasons he couldn’t explain. The receptionist took it without a blink. He waited.

“Thank you,” she said, pointedly, glancing at the door.

“I can wait,” he said.

“For what?” She reminded him of his boy’s girlfriend, a sophomore a year younger than him. Both women projected a fierce message that they were done with everyone’s shit, especially shit from men, especially old men. He chose his words carefully.

“I don’t know, honestly.” He smiled shyly. He was a good-­looking man, still. That smile had once beamed out of televisions all over America, from the Soul Train stage. “But ma’am, begging your pardon, that letter is about my music, which you all sell here. You sell a lot of it, and I want to talk that over with whoever is in charge of that business.”

She let down her guard by one minute increment. “You’ll want Mr. Gounder,” she said. “He’s not in today. Give me your phone number, I’ll have him call.”

He did, but Mr. Gounder didn’t call. He called back two days later, and the day after that, and the following Monday, and then he went back to the office. The receptionist who reminded him of his son’s girlfriend gave him a shocked look.

“Hello,” he said, and tried out that shy smile. “I wonder if I might see that Mr. Gounder.”

She grew visibly uncomfortable. “Mr. Gounder isn’t in today,” she lied. “I see,” he said. “Will he be in tomorrow?”

“No,” she said.

“The day after?”

“No.” Softer.

“Is that Mr. Gounder of yours ever coming in?”

She sighed. “Mr. Gounder doesn’t want to speak with you, I’m sorry.”

The smile hadn’t worked, so he switched to the look he used to give his bandmates when they wouldn’t cooperate. “Maybe someone can tell me why?”

A door behind her had been open a crack; now it swung wide and a young man came out. He looked Hispanic, with a sharp fade and flashy sneakers, but he didn’t talk like a club kid or a hood rat—­he sounded like a USC law student.

“Sir, if you have a claim you’d like Mr. Gounder to engage with, please have your attorney contact him directly.”

Stefon looked this kid up and down and up, tried and failed to catch the receptionist’s eye, and said, “Maybe I can talk this over with you. Are you someone in charge around here?”

“I’m Xavier Perez. I’m vice president for catalog development here. I don’t deal with legal claims, though. That’s strictly Mr. Gounder’s job. Please have your attorney put your query in writing and Mr. Gounder will be in touch as soon as is ­feasible.”

“I did have a lawyer write him a letter,” Stefon said. “I gave it to this young woman. Mr. Gounder hasn’t been in touch.”

Perez looked at the receptionist. “Did you receive a letter from this gentleman?”

She nodded, still not meeting Stefon’s eye. “I gave it to Mr. Gounder last week.”

Perez grinned, showing a gold tooth, and then, in his white, white voice, said, “There you have it. I’m sure Mr. Gounder will get back in touch with your counsel soon. Thank you for coming in today, Mr.—­”

“Stefon Magner.” Stefon waited a moment, then said, for the first time in many years, “I used to perform under Steve Soul, though.”

Perez nodded briskly. He’d known that. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Magner.” Without waiting for a reply, he disappeared back into his office.

ETA: Here's part three!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#copyright-termination

[theappvault]

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[emexotechnologies]

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[contentsmith]

What’s the Big Deal About Python?

If you’ve been around the tech world even for a minute, you’ve probably heard people raving about Python. No, not the snake, we’re talking about the programming language. But what’s so special about it? Why is everyone from beginner coders to AI researchers using Python like it’s their best friend? Let’s break it down in simple words.

Easy to Learn, Easy to Use

First things first, Python is super easy to learn. The code looks almost like regular English, which means you don’t have to memorize weird symbols or endless rules. If you’re just starting your programming journey, Python won’t scare you away.

For example, printing a sentence in Python is as simple as:

That’s it. No extra setup, no confusing syntax. It just works.

Used Everywhere

Python isn’t just for small scripts or learning projects. It’s everywhere, web development, data science, automation, artificial intelligence, game development, even robotics.

Big companies like Google, Netflix, and Instagram use Python behind the scenes to make their products work better.

Huge Library Support

One of the best things about Python is its rich library ecosystem. Libraries are like pre-written tools that help you do complex stuff without writing all the code yourself. Want to analyze data? Use Pandas. Want to build a web app? Try Django or Flask. Want to build a chatbot or train a machine learning model? There’s TensorFlow and PyTorch for that.

Great Community

Python has a massive community. That means if you ever get stuck, there’s a good chance someone has already solved your problem and posted about it online. You’ll find tons of tutorials, forums, and helpful folks willing to guide you.

Not the Fastest, But Fast Enough

Python isn’t the fastest language out there — it’s not meant for super high-speed system-level programming. But for most tasks, it’s more than fast enough. And if you really need to speed things up, there are ways to connect Python with faster languages like C or C++.

So, Should You Learn Python?

Absolutely. Whether you’re a student, a hobbyist, or someone switching careers, Python is a great place to start. It’s beginner friendly, powerful, and widely used. You’ll be surprised how much you can build with just a few lines of Python code.

[ideahat-universe]

Modded Balatro on Android is possible! (and not easy to do, but here's a tutorial to help you do it).

Part of the fun of PC gaming is being able to mod games, and devices that run Steam games can still use mods BUT android ports cannot. This is due to the fundamental differences between Windows, IOS, and Android.

So modded Balatro on Android was out of the question.

Or so it appeared.

Turns out early on people realized that Balatro uses an engine called Love which is very easy to dissemble and dissect. So before the official Mobile port came out, players were able to extra the Balatro files from Balatro, turn those files into a zip, and then run the game as a zip file through the Android app Love2d.

Eventually this process became automated and if you have an android device in developer mode you can allow the app on a PC to install Balatro and transfer to save files along with it.

Well, as it turns out, this process can also allow you to install a modded version of Balatro, but it's uh, not transparent how it exactly works or what can go wrong.

But I figured it out! And I can show you how.

NOTE:

I will not provide a copy of my modded Balatro. You need to buy Balatro and install it on Steam. Buy a cheap key before you try to outright steal. That's my opinion.

Yes, you will need a PC. The mod files run through Lovely Injector. Lovely Injector supplements the mod data into the Love Engine, so when Balatro runs, Lovely Injector dumps the Mod game data into the game's loading process.

Guess what doesn't exist on Android? Lovely Injector.

Now pathing could change that but god help you if you want to change where lovely Injector pulls mod data.

So you can change that information at will so that it can pull the mod information from the pathing that Android uses. I tried to figure that out but could not do it. But that is a thing you can do.

Now with that out of the way, let's talk about how I figured out how to add modded Balatro.

Okay, so the first step is to download the tools you need. You have balatro of course, so now you require Balatro Mobile Maker and a couple Batch scripts. Also 7-zip

Here's a link to download 7-zip

And here's a link to download Balatro Mobile Maker, a list of compatible Mods, and the Batch files you will also need.

NOW, if you want to edit the textures and music on Balatro follow these steps.

Step 1: Go on nexus or any other website that hosts Balatro mods and download texture and music focused mods.

Step 2: Open Balatro.exe (easily found by right-clicking Balatro from your library and selecting “browse local files”) using 7-zip and extract the resources' folder, you can extract the whole thing if you want to, but it's not necessary.

Step 3: Fire up your art program of choice (it has to have built in transparency, so NO MS Paint.) Open both the default sprites you want to change and the mod sprites you want to use in the change, and just start copying and pasting. Keep in mind that there is a 1x and a 2x of most sprites, but you only require the 1x of a given sprite because once you're done editing you can just can resize that image to the resolution of the 2x and nothing is out of place. Also. If you are editing hologram Joker, make the sprite translucent. I saw several artists screw that up. You just need to make the sprite translucent, and it will work like the original hologram Joker does.

Step 4: Take that edited Sprite sheet and re-open the Balatro.exe file as an archive again. Overwrite the default sprites with your edited ones in the archive and close it. Now, Balatro will run with those edited sprites as the default ones.

Music has the same steps, only difference is that you'll need to change the file type to .OGG and you'll want to rename the music file to whatever track you want to replace. (Note that editing music files this way will result in the soundtrack being slowed down for whatever reason. You can compensate for that by presumably speeding the track up in Audacity)

Step 5: You will power up Balatro Mobile Maker and run it. The program should fetch all the tools it needs to run correctly. It will ask permission for various actions several times, just say yes to the most logical choices, fps 30 can be left blank. You can run the executable wherever for the most part (at least for this process it doesn't matter) and it will find your legal copy of Balatro, unpack, format it into an APK compliant format, and then repack the file to be played as an APK. Now you have a version of Balatro that plays with modified textures and music files.

That's pretty good, but what if you want to enjoy all the fun and interesting modded jokers?

Well, first off, you'll need to temper your expectations. Some of the best Balatro mods also completely overhaul how Balatro works, and the Mobile Maker cannot cope with maintaining that functionality with Android. I provided a folder of all the mods I know won't break the game at boot. Whatever happens after that is out of my hands.

Step 1: Delete whatever mods you have already in your Mod folder (excluding Lovely and Steammodded). Go into the lovely folder and delete the files in the dump folder as well.

Step 2: Drop the mods I provided into the mod folder and run Balatro. Assuming you didn't have any issues with the game finding Lovely or Steammodded you should have booted into the main menu with the Mod tab accessible. Play a new game and do a couple hands. Don't worry about winning the round, just play a couple hands so that instance of your game is saved.

Step 3: Run Balatro Mobile Maker. Run it as normal, but when it gets to the part where it asks if you want to transfer save files, leave it alone and Run Balatrofoldersetup.bat. That will copy and move around a bunch of files needed for the Mod Transfer process. Once you clicked that Bat once, go ahead and tell the Mobile Maker to transfer your save file. When it's done, click on Balatrofoldercleanup.bat to turn things back to normal. If you forget to do that, Balatro on your PC won't run. Don't worry. If you forget to do that, clicking on it at anytime will still work as intended.

Step 4: This is the hardest step. Doing Step 1-4 over again because X thing happens.

If your pc is hooked up to your android device and mobile maker is supposed to be installing it on your Android device (and has the permissions to do so) but doesn't install it. Try again. If the App just plain crashes, move the app to a different folder and try again. I hear it works best in folders where the Balatro.exe file actually is, but I alternated between download folder, Balatro Mod folder, and the actual folder that contains the Balatro game files and there was no real difference.

If the save transfer finishes in a couple seconds, it didn't work. You can confirm it by opening the Balatro game and seeing that it's just default Balatro without the Mod tab. If the save transfer process takes several seconds to actually transfer the data, then it's actually legitimately working. If you boot up and see evidence of your previous game progress and the mod tab, you're in! Enjoy it friend!

Addendum:

Yes, I know that people have gotten Jen's Almanac, Pokermon, and especially Cryptid working on Android, I don't like using the Jen and Cryptid mods because they're just insane and exist for the spectacle.

The Vanilla Joker mods dilute the collection of Jokers making the really powerful cards less likely to show up and making really odd niche cards more likely to get in the way, this adds a bit of challenge. Jen and Cryptid having many face roll jokers eliminates that, however.

Also, a lot of overhaul mods require modifying the shader files to get the game working on Android, and I just don't know where to begin fixing that. I tried the patches and they didn't work.

If you know the solution to "error validating vertex shader code: Line 125 error '/': wrong operand types: no operation '' exists that takes a left-hand operand of type ' global highp float' and a right operand of type ' const int (or there is no acceptable conversion)"

Post it on this web zone, I'm not the only one wanting a solution for that, and no one on the Balatro Mobile Maker GitHub had a solution (that worked).

There are other mods I skipped that probably worked but didn't personally want in my pack, so go to Mirahaze and download whatever mod you like and go through the steps I tried. If you boot up the Android app, and it crashes, specifying that some abbreviated file linked to a specific mod was not found or had trouble installing, get rid of the mod. You could fix it, but if you could do that, you probably didn't need my help to begin with.

[manekapiyumawali]

Why Sabaragamuwa University is a Great Choice.

Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (SUSL) is increasingly recognized for its technological advancement and innovation-driven environment, making it one of the leading universities in Sri Lanka in terms of technology. Here are the key reasons why SUSL stands out technologically.

Here’s why SUSL stands out as a technological powerhouse among Sri Lankan universities:

🔧1. Faculty of Technology

SUSL established a dedicated Faculty of Technology to meet the demand for tech-skilled graduates. It offers degree programs such as:

BTech in Information and Communication Technology

BTech in Engineering Technology

These programs combine practical experience in labs, workshops and real-world projects with a strong theoretical foundation.

🖥️2. Advanced IT Infrastructure

SUSL has modern computer labs, smart classrooms, and high-speed internet access across campus.

A robust Learning Management System (LMS) supports online learning and hybrid education models.

Students and lecturers use tools like Moodle, Zoom, and Google Classroom effectively.

🤖 3. Innovation & AI Research Support

SUSL promotes AI, Machine Learning, IoT, and Data Science in student research and final-year projects.

Competitions like Hackathons and Innovative Research Symposia encourage tech-driven solutions.

Students develop apps, smart systems, and automation tools (e.g., Ceylon Power Tracker project).

🌐 4. Industry Collaboration and Internships

SUSL connects students with the tech industry through:

Internships at leading tech firms

Workshops led by industry experts

Collaborative R&D projects with government and private sector entities

These connections help students gain hands-on experience in areas such as software engineering, networking, and data analytics that make them highly employable after graduation.

💡 5. Smart Campus Initiatives

SUSL is evolving into a Smart University, introducing systems that streamline academic life:

Digital student portals

Online registration and results systems

E-library and remote resource access

Campus Wi-Fi for academic use

These initiatives improve the student experience and create an efficient, technology-enabled environment.

🎓 6. Research in Emerging Technologies

The university is involved in pioneering research across emerging technological fields, including:

Agricultural tech (AgriTech)

Environmental monitoring using sensors

Renewable energy systems

Students and faculty publish research in international journals and participate in global tech events.

🏆 7. Recognition in National Competitions

SUSL students often reach fina rounds or win national competitions in coding, robotics, AI, and IoT innovation.

Faculty members are invited as tech advisors and conference speakers, reinforcing the university's expertise.

Sabaragamuwa University is actively shaping the future not only with technology, but by integrating technology into education, research and operations. This makes it a technological leader among Sri Lankan Universities. Visit the official university site here: Home | SUSL

[troutfur]

I feel like ppl are over reacting abt the ai bc... they're not using it in actual production. They literally show the art process from start to finish in the video, and it explicitly states they're using it for reference images in the translation. Which isn't unlike how companies would do things like photobashing while doing coneptualization in preproduction.

People use copyrighted images all the time as reference images when making new art, even claiming that ai is just copying artists wholesale. How is it any different from well referencing the original images? Even like lady dimitrescu was made by heavily referencing a photo, it was actually so close to the original that there was a legal battle about it iirc.

Wondering what your opinions on it are with that context of how the art industry works.

Personally I worry about ANY use of AI in production because as a whole the way the AI craze has been marketed and developed is as a replacement for artists. I suppose this particular use could ethically check out but at the same time if AI has any foot in the door I feel like it could be used as a cut-cutting measure later down the line. Although to be perfectly fair, and pardon me for sounding like a damn commie for a moment, this is just the problem of automation under capitalism. Industry by industry it can be temporarily kept at bay but unless and until it's the people doing the work that own the machines able to automate it, automation will only be good for owners and not workers.

Also, while I fervently believe copyright is NEVER on the side of the artists under our current economic system and very strongly advocate for copyright abolition, there's something scummy about the libraries of content these algorithms pull from including art that is neither public domain or bought for a commercial use as like a stock photo package. I believe that in an ideal world that would have been the initial training dataset and artists could later be able to willingly submit or sell their portfolio to be included in the algorithms. In this scenario the companies programming these algorithms would also provide a list of credits with all the artists, photographers, etc who submitted their work to be used.

If trained like this, and as long as AI artists credit the model they used, AI could potentially check out ethically as an artistic medium. It'd likely still be super generic looking and uninteresting if you're not using all the fancy advanced tools that let you micromanage the output beyond a text prompt. (Something so finicky already it's like speaking a whole new language. I know because I have played around with it like once or twice.) But just as we have very amateurish, unartistic photography I think amateurish and unartistic bland text-prompt only wouldn't devalue the artistic merit of AI-assisted art. Key word assisted because I do think that as a tool it would only work artistically if you can tweak the output in such a way that it's your vision more than the machine's.