#Performance data comparison

[digitalmagnate]

How To Compare Search Queries In Google Search Console ||Google Search Console ||Digital Magnate

#Google_Search_Console, #Search_query_comparison,

[topnotchquark]

Behind F1's Velvet Curtain

This article by Kate Wagner on her INEOS sponsored trip to the Austin GP at COTA last year was commissioned by Road and Track magazine and then taken down. Presumably because Kate has was pretty staunch in her opinions about what was essentially a paid trip.

It is exactly the kind of thing I have wanted to read about the felt experience of the money business of F1. It doesn't get into technicalities and does not produce any spreadsheets for reference. It's just, her experience of the presence of wealth in the sport.

She starts off by talking about how she has been covering cycling and NASCAR for a while now and both of those, in comparison, are scrappier sports with smaller sponsors and cheaper tickets.

What I also especially loved was how fascinated she was with the cars themselves, and how they seem like a true marvel of human engineering. She almost described the cars like these alien beasts that came into this dimension out of nowhere and were being constantly monitored and dueled with to furnish wins and glory (and shareholder value for sponsors).

I think I always had an understanding of the weird myth making surrounding F1 and the kind of media attention it attracts, but someone like Kate (who I have loved reading for a while now) putting it into perspective really made it click for me. This sport thrives off of the kind of cocoon it has built around it and understands exactly the certain exclusiveness it needs to maintain to keep the story alive.

Anyway, give it a read, especially because Road and Track is trying to bury it to not piss off sponsors.

[innova7ions]

YouTube Success Secrets: Why vid IQ Reigns Supreme

Unlocking YouTube success is all about having the right tools, and in this video, we dive into two heavyweights: VidIQ and Tube Magic. While both promise to elevate our channels, VidIQ stands out with its long-standing reputation among seasoned creators who rely on data-driven strategies for growth.

With powerful SEO and analytics features, VidIQ offers AI insights that enhance our titles, tags, and descriptions for better visibility. Plus, competitor analysis gives us an edge in our niche. From trending topic suggestions to a wealth of resources at VidIQ Academy, it’s clear why serious creators choose this tool for their journey toward YouTube dominance.

#YouTubeDominance

#YouTubeSuccess

#VidIQ

[rb19]

From the Archives: "Verstappen 'driving style' myth is a trait of greatness" Jan 19, 2021 by Matt Beer

"As a driver, it doesn't matter if you have an understeering car, oversteery car, slippery surface, grippy surface, you constantly adjust your driving style to that. If you just say 'this is my driving style', this is how it's going to be, you will not be quick. I think you learn in your whole racing career from go-karting to F3 to whatever, every weekend the car behaves a bit differently, so you always have to adjust to it. It's every weekend, constantly you're adjusting your driving style a little bit to make sure that the car is working well. And of course you try to set the car to your liking but it will never be fully to your liking. You always have to fine-tune. Or at least you try it. And at the end that’s what makes a driver fast."

Throughout F1 history the very best have had very different careers, been very different personalities, and on the surface seemed like very different drivers. But if they share one defining trait it's their capacity to handle different situations and adapt to what is required in each moment: they have a wider operating window. Verstappen speaks of adaptability as if it is second nature. Probably because it is. This is a young man who has been carefully moulded into a world-class driver. The devotion to the craft of driving, instilled at such a young age, is why at 23 he has greater intuition and 'feel' than most will have at the peak of their powers. [...] Verstappen's ability comes from his intuition, which in turn a legacy of years of relentless preparation and practice. So, when he finds himself dealing with a skittish rear end, or in greasy conditions, or driving through rivers like in the 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix, he has an extraordinary bank of data to use to handle those challenges. And he can access it automatically. It's why he handles them better than most, why even if a data overlay of a given lap or a comparison of a race stint might have shown Gasly or Albon where Verstappen was quicker, and a binary idea of what he was doing to be quicker, it doesn't fully account for how he was doing it. Driving a car is a dynamic process, with multiple inputs and countless adjustments. It's an immensely complicated sensory puzzle and piecing it all together through conscious thought is difficult, if not impossible. Most of what makes Verstappen so effective is happening on an unconscious level. [...] So, what can lazily be described as Verstappen's 'driving style' is far more complex than that. He doesn't have one way of driving, he has the skills required to drive in multiple different ways and is building more and more experience to know what way works best in any given moment. That manifests itself in such delicate, refined inputs that most drivers can see what he's doing and get close to replicating it, but not quite. And that's worth tenths of a second at a time, especially when it comes to the 2020 task of taking a capricious car and driving around its vices. This is what is second nature to Verstappen now, why the speed seems to come so effortlessly. In 2020 he augmented that with further gains in maturity and judgement. This is a vital second trait that will, car permitting, allow Verstappen to translate his performance into championships. [...]

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sarah Schwartz

Test after test of U.S. students’ reading and math abilities have shown scores declining since the pandemic.

Now, new results show that it’s not just children whose skills have fallen over the past few years—American adults are getting worse at reading and math, too.

The connection, if any, between the two patterns isn’t clear—the tests aren’t set up to provide that kind of information. But it does point to a populace that is becoming more stratified by ability at a time when economic inequality continues to widen and debates over opportunity for social mobility are on the rise.

The findings from the 2023 administration of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, show that 16- to 65-year-olds’ literacy scores declined by 12 points from 2017 to 2023, while their numeracy scores fell by 7 points during the same period.

These trends aren’t unique in the global context: Of the 31 countries and economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that participated in PIAAC, some saw scores drop over the past six years, while others improved or held constant.

Still, as in previous years, the United States doesn’t compare favorably to other countries: The country ranks in the middle of the pack in literacy and below the international average in math. (Literacy and numeracy on the test are scored on a 500-point scale.)

But Americans do stand out in one way: The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing adults is growing wider, as the top scorers hold steady and other test takers see their scores fall.

“There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills,” said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees PIAAC in the country. (The test was developed by the OECD and is administered every three years.)

It’s a phenomenon that distinguishes the United States, she said.

“Some of that is because we’re very diverse and it’s large, in comparison to some of the OECD countries,” Carr said in a call with reporters on Monday. “But that clearly is not the only reason.”

American children, too, are experiencing this widening chasm between high and low performers. National and international tests show the country’s top students holding steady, while students at the bottom of the distribution are falling further behind.

It’s hard to know why U.S. adults’ scores have taken this precipitous dive, Carr said.

About a third of Americans score at lowest levels PIAAC is different from large-scale assessments for students, which measure kids’ academic abilities.

Instead, this test for adults evaluates their abilities to use math and reading in real-world contexts—to navigate public services in their neighborhood, for example, or complete a task at work. The United States sample is nationally representative random sample, drawn from census data.

American respondents averaged a level 2 of 5 in both subjects.

In practice, that means that they can, for example, use a website to find information about how to order a recycling cart, or read and understand a list of rules for sending their child to preschool. But they would have trouble using a library search engine to find the author of a book.

In math, they could compare a table and a graph of the same information to check for errors. But they wouldn’t be able to calculate average monthly expenses with several months of data.

While the U.S. average is a level 2, more adults now fall at a level 1 or below—28 percent scored at that level in literacy, up from 19 percent in 2017, and 34 percent in numeracy, up from 29 percent in 2017.

Respondents scoring below level 1 couldn’t compare calendar dates printed on grocery tags to determine which food item was packed first. They would also struggle to read several job descriptions and identify which company was looking to hire a night-shift worker.

The findings also show sharp divides by race and national origin, with respondents born in the United States outscoring those born outside of the country, and white respondents outscoring Black and Hispanic test takers. Those trends have persisted over the past decade.

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent the first six weeks of the new Trump administration turning the federal government upside down. It has moved from agency to agency, accessing sensitive data and payment systems, all on a supposed crusade to audit the government and stop fraud, waste, and abuse. DOGE has posted some of its “findings” on its website, many of which have been revealed to be errors.

But two federal auditors with years of experience, who have both worked on financial and technical audits for the government, say that DOGE’s actions are the furthest thing from what an actual audit looks like. Both asked to speak on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t permitted to speak to the press.

“Honestly, comparing real auditing to what DOGE is doing, there’s no comparison,” says one of the auditors who spoke to WIRED. “None of them are auditors.”

In September, in a speech during the presidential campaign, then candidate Donald Trump said that he would create a government efficiency task force, headed by Musk, which would do a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government.” Musk initially said that he wanted to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, more than the entire 2023 discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. Musk has since tempered his ambitions, saying he’d aim to cut $1 trillion in government spending. Still, he has alleged that much of this money can be cut by identifying waste, fraud, and abuse, and has continued to claim DOGE’s cuts of agency staff and resources are all part of an audit.

While there are certainly instances of government money siphoned off to fraud—a Government Accountability Office study published in 2024 estimated that the government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud each year—even recovering all that spending wouldn’t amount to the $1 trillion Musk hopes to cut from the budget.

The auditors who spoke to WIRED allege that not only is Musk’s claim not true, but also that DOGE appears to have completely eschewed the existing processes for actually rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.

“An audit that follows Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), also known as a Yellow Book audit, is conducted in accordance with the standards issued by the US Government Accountability Office,” says the first auditor. Audits can focus on the finances, compliance, or performance of an agency. “That is the gold standard for how you audit the government.”

There are generally five phases of a GAGAS audit, the auditors tell WIRED: planning, evidence gathering, evaluation, reporting, and follow up. Auditors work to define the scope of an audit, identify all the applicable laws and standards, and come up with an audit plan. Next, auditors conduct interviews with staff, review financial records, and comb through data, reports, and transactions, documenting all the way. From there, auditors will assess that information against policies or procedures to figure out if there’s been some kind of alleged waste, fraud, or abuse and issue a report detailing their findings and offering recommendations. Often, those reports are made available to the public. After an audit, the auditors can follow up with the agency to ensure changes are being made.

There are also very technical definitions for what constitutes waste, fraud, or abuse. Waste could mean that there are inefficiencies in a program that might lead to purchasing more of something that goes unused, or paying more for a service than is necessary. Fraud involves intentional deception—for instance, bribery or falsifying business records. Abuse means doing things that aren’t necessarily illegal, but that are unethical. This could look like nepotism or favoritism in hiring, or spending excessively on travel.

In a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Musk said he believed that the government was “one big pyramid scheme” and alleged that “entitlements fraud” is a “gigantic magnetic force to pull people in from all around the world and keep them here.”

The two auditors told WIRED that going through the technological and financial minutiae of even just a single project or part of an agency can take anywhere from six to 18 months.

“You can’t coherently audit something like the whole Social Security system in a week or two,” says the second auditor. It’s exactly this rush to crack systems open without full understanding, the auditors say, that has led to Elon Musk’s false claims that 150-year-olds were receiving Social Security benefits. “It could be that DOGE didn’t de-dupe the data.”

“In no uncertain terms is this an audit,” claims the second auditor. “It’s a heist, stealing a vast amount of government data.”

Federal workers who have spoken to WIRED say they are worried that their own data could be used to surveil and target them for firings based on their identities or political views. There are also concerns that DOGE could access contracts and procurement data that contain sensitive information that companies provide in order to work with the federal government. DOGE has also deployed an AI chatbot within the General Services Administration (GSA) and appears to want to expand the use of such tools, bolstered by access to government data. New court documents also indicate that Marko Elez, the former DOGE representative at the Treasury Department, shared a spreadsheet with personally identifying information outside the agency.

And without time spent for auditors to understand a new data system—like interviewing agency staff or learning the coding language—the first auditor believes it’s likely the DOGE team is flying blind. “When they collect a dataset, they don't get it with any sort of description, I imagine,” they say. “There are no terms of use for any government systems … There's no supporting testimony from data system owners, from data system experts. They don't even know the language and the database systems that they're working in. That’s why they keep messing up.”

The auditors described a lengthy vetting process that allowed them to get the permissions necessary to dive into an agency’s data and systems. In addition to going through the initial vetting process, the auditors say that they are required to engage in continuing education.

“None of them have any auditing background, none have any certifications, none have any clearances,” says the first auditor.

Federal workers who have spoken to WIRED expressed concern that DOGE’s operatives appear to have bypassed the normal security clearance protocols in order to access sensitive systems. WIRED found that many of DOGE’s youngest members, all of whom were 25 or younger, have very limited work experience, and none in the government. One, Edward Coristine, who goes by “Big Balls” online, appears to be a 19-year-old high school graduate. Despite this, they were given high-level access at places like the GSA, the Social Security Administration, and the Treasury. Others, like those at the Federal Aviation Administration, come directly from Musk’s own companies and were not fully vetted before their start dates.

The auditors also noted that even canceling contracts, as DOGE has done, can add to costs, rather than reduce them, in the long run. For instance, often the government negotiates deals on large purchases where it gets discounts for bulk purchases. Canceling a contract likely not only means the government needs to pay some kind of fee to compensate for the contract cancellation—maybe 10 to 15 percent of the contract amount—but if some or part of that purchase needs to be reinstated later, that initial bulk discount will likely be gone, making it more expensive overall. This was the case with many of the software licenses that DOGE said it wanted to cut.

Since sweeping through the government, DOGE has canceled thousands of government contracts, including 10,000 specifically for humanitarian aid. According to reporting from the Associated Press, 40 percent of those canceled contracts through late February will likely not save the government any money.

“They'll end up costing more in some way, whether it's time, inconvenience, or money,” says the second auditor.

But the auditors say that there are ways DOGE could get it right. “If DOGE wanted to be the good guys, they could,” says the first auditor. “I’d start by looking at existing Inspector General recommendations.” On the website for the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, for instance, there are more than 1,200 recommendations that have yet to be implemented that could potentially save the government hundreds of millions of dollars.

In an interview on FOX Business with Larry Kudlow, when asked about how his team was identifying what to go after in the government, Musk replied, “We look at the president's executive orders, and we also just follow the money.”

The auditors say they aren’t necessarily against bringing in people from outside the government to help streamline government processes—something that the government was already doing before Trump was sworn in for his second term. For instance, 18F, the digital services agency within the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, was explicitly designed to serve as an in-house consultancy that would allow federal agencies to leverage private sector expertise. As part of DOGE’s sweep of the government, however, it has gutted the group, putting a pause on several ongoing projects to make government services more efficient for users.

And it’s these actions, the second auditor says, that best show that DOGE’s intentions may not be geared toward “efficiency” at all. “It’s a con,” they allege.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[digitalmagnate]

How To Compare Search Queries In Google Search Console ||Google Search Console ||Digital Magnate

Hey everyone, welcome to my channel. In today's video, I'm going to show you how to compare search queries in Google Search Console. This is a great way to see what people are searching for when they find your website, and it can help you improve your SEO strategy. 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝘀 Click here ➜https://www.youtube.com/c/Digitalmagnate/videos?sub_confirmation=1

Let’s get started!"Step 1: Open Google Search Console First, you need to open Google Search Console. If you don't have an account, you can create one for free.

Step 2: Click on the "Search Queries" report Once you're logged in, click on the "Search Queries" report in the left-hand menu.

Step 3: Select the date range you want to compare Next, select the date range you want to compare. You can compare any two date ranges, as long as they're within the past 90 days.

Step 4: Click on the "Compare" button Once you've selected your date range, click on the "Compare" button.

Step 5: Analyze the results Now, you'll be able to see a comparison of the search queries that people used to find your website in the two date ranges you selected. Conclusion That's how you compare search queries in Google Search Console. I hope this video was helpful. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below. Happy Google Search Console, and see you next time!"

Follow us on Social Media. Thanks for Here...

Facebook: - https://www.facebook.com/Magnatedigital

Blog: - https://digitalmagnate.blogspot.com/

Instagram: - https://www.instagram.com/digimagnate/

YouTube: - https://www.youtube.com/c/Digitalmagnate/videos?sub_confirmation=1

𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝘀 Click here ➜https://www.youtube.com/c/Digitalmagnate/videos?sub_confirmation=1

More Video link:- How to See Copy and Paste History:-https://youtu.be/G9fSyYbMmPU How to install fb chat in website: - https://youtu.be/BV0NxcIsA5g? How to delete YouTube search history: - https://youtu.be/u-5dppiUeRI How To Set Auto on-off function in android:-https://youtu.be/AbepiglSCbM How to solve timeout error in google chrome: - https://youtu.be/MSHCSFxMw4Q Social media link in google: - https://youtu.be/yrkxLuwerEE How to Use AI for SEO in 2024: - https://youtu.be/CHqRV_aKR4Q?si=wZZ99i6Yv0mRzqcs

Read 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 Blogs Visit➜ https://digitalmagnate.blogspot.com You Are Free to Ask the Questions by Commenting. Want your own website? E-mail us your requirements to gosocialmakedigital@gmail.com

Visit:- https://digital-magnate.com/

[charles-leclerc-official]

hii I'm fairly new into f1 and really into data so any directions to where to find it would be really appreciated thank youu

Hi! Yes I got you.

F1 tempo - for telemetry, lap times, tyres, DRS, throttle, brakes, and lap deltas. Allows you to compare laps and full race performance. Extremely useful website. This is the main telemetry resource.

F1 race visualizer - for the order of a race, live race replay, to see who was behind who for how long when overtakes occurred etc

Pitwall - for lap times and lap time comparison. I like this better than F1 tempo specifically for lap times, it's easier to use for that.

These are the 3 main resources I use. After that it's about looking at the numbers etc.

Have fun!

[ms-demeanor]

If Firefox is ~so good~ then why does it eat half my CPU when all I have installed is an adblocker everyone says to install (Ublock or Adblock Plus) and run like shit

IDK if it's taking half your CPU maybe your OS is bad at distributing resources and you should try running linux.

Okay that was the shitty/snarky answer because anon's bad attitude warranted it.

Real answers:

Possibly your computer really does need an upgrade of some kind; Firefox works great on my computer with an i5-11th gen processor and 20GB of RAM, but it (and let's be real probably everything else) is going to run like shit on a computer with a Core 2 Duo and 4GB of RAM. If your computer is old or underpowered and *everything* is slow, legitimately installing a lightweight linux distro might seriously improve your computing experience. And if you're attempting to run any Windows or Mac OS released in the last 5 years 8GB is going to be the absolute minimum RAM you need to comfortably use the internet, so if you're using a 10-year old computer with 4GB in it, consider adding RAM.

It depends on what you're doing. If you look at comparisons of various browsers some have better performance in some tests than in others, and there's no 100% consensus on what is the fastest. Besides, the people yelling about firefox tend to be yelling about privacy and tracking MUCH more than they are yelling about performance, but you're the only one who can determine whether privacy or performance matters more to you. However, be aware that there's no clear winner between the two in terms of speed. Every other review you click on will have a different answer and different outcomes on speed tests, which indicates that their performance is probably pretty similar (notably, Edge can be faster than both, but you probably don't want to use Edge, right? Like does it actually matter if it's faster if it's not customizable and force-feeds you ads while sending data to Microsoft?).

Your performance might be significantly improved with an extension. Plenty of people complain that if it only works with extensions that it doesn't actually work, but those people are ignoring the fact that people like having control over their internet experience. You brought up Adblock Plus and Ublock Origin - I have a very strong preference for Ublock Origin over Adblock Plus and if Adblock Plus came with a browser but prevented me from using Ublock Origin I wouldn't want to use that browser. So I think that having and testing a variety of extensions to find what works for you is probably the best way of approaching any browser. If Firefox is eating all your CPU (weird; that is not the resource it tends to consume) or RAM (which is the resource it tends to consume) I'd say to try either OneTab, which saves your tabs as a list so you don't have ton of tabs open consuming resources, or try Auto Tab Discard, which sleeps tabs on a schedule that you set and makes exceptions for active media or unfilled forms as you choose.

You might have a bad install - it happens! Sometimes things are fucky and you're having problems and uninstalling then reinstalling the browser will fix it.

But Firefox works, and works well, for millions of people. It's really odd to decide that all of those people are making shit up (for some reason) and that firefox is bad actually instead of doing some troubleshooting with your environment to figure out what's going on - especially when there are *so many* resources out there to help you figure out where the problem might be.

[raccoonfallsharder]

okok came up with something:

do you think that when/if MCU rocket hugs someone he gets a little nervous/scared as it reminds him of Lylla and how she died?

nonnie you sent this literally two weeks ago. i’m so sorry my bandwidth has been consumed by other shit, but i am super-grateful for this ask, and i hope you are having the loveliest of lovely days.

the short answer is: i think that rocket’s reaction to touch (and therefore hugs) is ALWAYS complicated.

but when have i ever settled for the short answer?

look. the first touch rocket remembers? it caused pure, splintering, white-hot pain. agony, in every muscle and bone. then he was tossed into a cage — taught that his body was not worth respecting and that his comfort would not be cared for, from the very first moments of his sentient consciousness.

and yet. that lesson was followed so closely by a kindness: lylla’s gentle, healing touch to his wounded brow.

i think about the high evolutionary, gripping rocket’s head like it was a geode he wanted to crack open. the veneer of his tenderness, layered thin and dangerous over a threat. i think of the flicker of recognition and wariness we see in young rocket’s eyes. while i suspect most actual surgeries were performed by the recorders, i am certain rocket has been hurt by these hands before: watched them dial up the voltage on an electric shock, perhaps. felt them scruff him and drag him back to his cage when he wasn’t performing up to expectations: too many extra -esses and -istics on his words, maybe. i think rocket craved the approval of his sire right up until those final few moments on halfworld, and a kind-seeming stroke to the crown of his head had meant the world to him.

and i think that first hug meant even more. he’d snuggled with floor in their shared cage but lylla is his hero: the first one to show him a kind touch, the one who understands him best. and i think he felt her death when she was shot in his arms.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: so much of a raccoon’s brain is focused on processing tactile data. approximately two-thirds of the sensory perception area in their cerebral vortexes are dedicated to interpreting touch. by comparison — and wildly oversimplified — the average human brain relies primarily on sight, which only makes up about a third to a little over half of our sensory input. hearing is next, and finally, taste/smell/touch combined makes up only a tenth of our typical sensory perception. so all of rocket’s contradicting, conflicting experiences with touch are magnified — probably beyond the scope of our imaginations.

which makes hugs complicated.

he’s so touchstarved. he wants all the hugs. he doesn’t trust or like many people enough to want to want to hug them, though — at least not before groot, and that took some time. thank god the big guy’s persistent. and yeah, sure, there’s some ptsd — some painful flashbacks, some intrusive memories the first few times he lets pete hug him, or gamora, or drax. (not mantis, though. not yet. a hug from an empath is far too dangerous.)

but more than fearing an immediate replay of his first hug or a bright painful splash of nerves when he finally embraces someone — awkwardly, with a half-hearted pat-on-the-back — i think rocket is longterm-superstitious. he’d deny it, of course. but deep down, i’m afraid our poor guy believes his touch is poison — especially after groot senior dies.

sooner or later, the people who rocket attaches himself to — they all die. he is the common denominator.

i have a lil headcanon that on xandar, after the battle with ronan and groot’s sacrifice, drax’s gentle touch to rocket’s forehead reminds him of that first touch from lylla. i think that might be terrifying for rocket. i think that’s why he tries so hard to fuck everyone over on sovereign. he wants them to stay, and he wants them to leave. he wants to push them away — for their own safety, and for his. not consciously, of course — that guy’s a mess — but he’s got this uncontrollable impulse to sabotage any real chance at any real relationship that he’s got.

and then there’s the snap.

i don’t think the average person really notices rocket’s complicated relationship with touch and hugs — he hides it well under the mask of not bein’ a touchy guy and not bein’ a frickin’ sap. but it’s afterward — after the snap, when all his friends are safely returned — that we briefly see his fear, before he manages to cover it up again.

even his friends had forgotten, perhaps — just how reticent he’d used to be, how unwilling to engage in any sort of physical affection. groot probably doesn’t even remember that time in his father’s life at all, because rocket would have pushed himself to ignore it so he could better take care of his young son. and over the course of the guardians’ shared time together, rocket would have gotten used to the occasional backslap or headpat or hug, in a sort of exposure-therapy-way. craved them, always. feared them, still. but also, been sort of inoculated against the superstitious instinctive terror.

there are no booster shots over the course of the snap though — only a seeming confirmation of his worst fears.

i suspect there’s this heartbreaking moment off-screen, sometime in the aftermath of his friends’ return. it’s probably with pete. one night, late on the flight deck: just rocket and pete and nebula, staying awake deep into the sleep-shift and drinking to gamora’s memory. talking about her, and about everyone else’s five year absence. at some point, rocket will say something unintentionally revealing, and pete will get a glimpse of just how hard these past five years were for his friend — just how much pain and loneliness he’s been swamped in. and since pete is a very tactile guy — for a human, anyway — so i’m sure he goes in for a hug.

and rocket recoils so hard that he knocks his fucking chair over, spills his drink, and falls on his ass.

because he’s that afraid of hurting his friend.

there’s a moment, and then pete laughs — says something about rocket having become clumsier over the years, or that he can’t hold his liquor anymore. maybe pete’s too drunk or self-absorbed to put it together; maybe he’s not. maybe he sees the flinch for what it is, and elects not to embarrass his bestie by pointing it out.

yeah yeah, laugh it up, rocket will say, climbing back to his feet and righting his chair, brushing the alcohol off his jumpsuit and rolling his eyes.

but nebula knows. there’ve been too many drunk confessions between them over the five years of loneliness. and after pete goes to bed, she leans across the table, and laces her fingers through rocket’s. he still visibly flinches, but he’s used to this, at least: nebula’s silent reminder that she’s still here, through everything.

it sounds grim, i know. but don’t forget — we’ve seen the future. we know there will come a time, in only a few short years, when rocket will welcome hugs from his worried friends, from his son. when he’ll very tenderly hold little raccoons in his arms, and bring them home.

and he’ll realize, at some point — perhaps beyond the arête wreckage and the dancing, when the raccoons are grown and the star children aren’t really children anymore, and phyla is leading the next mission all on her own — that his touch isn’t poison at all.

that it has saved so many things, and helped them grow.

headcanons & imagines | drax & lylla symmatry pt 1 | raccoon sensory perception | rocket’s love languages pt 2 (touch)

[fearfulfertility]

INTERNAL AFFAIRS INCIDENT REPORT

DRC Internal Affairs Division

Date: [REDACTED]

Subject: Internal Audit - Quota Breach - Case File [REDACTED]

To: Director [REDACTED]

From: Inspector [REDACTED]

I: Audit Trigger

This audit originated from an anomaly flagged by the Compound Oversight Unit following a routine cross-comparison of mortality curves, biometric telemetry, and average fetal volume expansion across paternity compounds in FEMA Zone 5. Paternity Compound 144, in particular, demonstrated a statistically aberrant rise in surrogate experience [REDACTED] collapse, a condition only observed in gestations over 18 fetuses. While the facility’s internal reports claimed average pregnancies between 8 and 11 embryos per surrogate, biometric logs suggested fetal counts ranging from 18 to 23 embryos per case.

Due to the severity of the physiological strain such numbers would imply—and the lack of official documentation acknowledging it—a Level 2 Integrity Audit was ordered. The Internal Affairs Division performed an unannounced sweep of all surrogate biometric records, insemination logs, and surveillance data from Cycles [REDACTED] to [REDACTED].

What followed revealed not only systemic concealment of lethal overloads but also willful obstruction motivated by personal psychological deviance.

II: Surveillance Analysis

Biometric data recovered from Wards 3B through 7E indicated that surrogates began exhibiting rapid and extreme abdominal distension by Day 11, surpassing known volumetric thresholds typically seen by Day 17. Skin tension diagnostics showed redlining stretch marks and dermal fissures in [REDACTED]% of all recorded subjects. In multiple cases, respiratory compression and full [REDACTED] subluxation—typically observed only after Day 30—were logged as early as Day 19.

“We knew something was off when they were too big to move before the second week. One of them just looked like that blueberry girl from Willy Wonka or some shit. But the logs said 14 embryos, so we assumed it was just edema.” - Employee GS-144-217

Footage recovered showed numerous surrogates experiencing aggressive fetal growth and abdominal distension, with growth rates in Ward 6C indicative of at least 23-25 embryonic masses. Two surrogates suffered multi-organ [REDACTED] before a team from the Compound Oversight Unit could intervene, though all fetuses were successfully delivered via cesarean.

“We knew something when we saw the guys from Ward 2. We were blimps compared to them, and they were twice as far along as us. I mean, I can literally see my belly growing!” Surrogate, later determined to be carrying quattuorvigintuplets (24)

Despite this, the internal logs submitted to the Archive Management Unit recorded all affected surrogates as having a “successful delivery with standard expiration.” The discrepancy was manually edited at terminal station 144-T12-OP47—registered to an Insemination Operations Unit employee named [REDACTED] (Employee ID IO-144-611).

III. Device Failure & Impact

Each MNAIS unit in Ward Blocks 3–7 had suffered [REDACTED] desynchronization following an outdated firmware push. Rather than delivering the standard 8-12-embryo load, units programming applied a multiplier to its quota and began injecting up to 24 fertilized embryos per cycle, with no error code generated.

Employee IO-144-611 discovered this failure within three days but refrained from submitting a maintenance report. He manually edited implantation records to match quota expectations, falsely logging a randomization formula (6–11 embryos per surrogate) across all documentation streams. Employee IO-144-611 then overrode the automatic alert system from the local Postpartum Command, which would ultimately log surrogates giving birth to higher fetal quotas than inseminated with.

His actions delayed DRC response for 41 days, during which:

42 surrogates suffered [REDACTED] rupture before Day 28, [REDACTED] overload, or uterine [REDACTED], necessitating emergency C-sections. No fetal fatalities.

17 surrogates expired mid-labor after undergoing compound [REDACTED] due to displaced [REDACTED], necessitating emergency C-sections. No fetal fatalities.

3 surrogates, against all medical prediction, reached Day 33 and birthed successfully, but ultimately expired post-extraction. No fetal fatalities.

26 surrogates still gestating, average 19 embryos per individual.

IV. Behavioral Profile – Employee IO-144-611

Subject: Employee IO-144-611 Tenure: [REDACTED] Position: Regional Implantation Supervisor Clearance Level: Tier II – Override Authorization Security Clearance: Revoked as of [REDACTED]

Following confrontation and seizure of his local system access logs, Employee IO-144-611 was detained and subjected to a Tier III Psychological Assessment. During this evaluation, the root of the concealment was uncovered.

Psychological Findings:

Employee IO-144-611 exhibited a previously undiagnosed paraphilic fixation classified under Government Code [REDACTED]: Macrophilia, a pathological sexual arousal in response to abnormally large bodies or bodily expansion.

Upon exposure to the visual data of overloaded surrogates—particularly those carrying between 19 and 23 fetuses—Employee IO-144-611 demonstrated elevated oxytocin and dopamine levels, a flushed dermal response, and sustained pupil dilation.

Under questioning, he confessed:

“I couldn’t report it. If I said anything, they’d shut it down, recalibrate the racks, lower the numbers again. You don’t understand. They were… monumental.”

He further admitted to deliberately withholding service requests for malfunctioning implantation equipment, specifically the Multi-Nozzle Accelerated Implantation System (MNAIS) units, which had developed a systemic fault causing them to implant +[REDACTED]% above calibrated embryo counts.

V: Displincary Response

1. Equipment

All MNAIS systems in Paternity Compound 144 were ordered offline for 24 hours.

Software rollback and integrity checks were completed under the supervision of IT Command.

Ward 3B was closed to all personnel below Grade-D rank, and affected surrogates were contained to minimize public awareness.

2. Actions

Psychological Services Command has formally reclassified [REDACTED] Employee IO-144-611 as Class-A Deviant – Mentally Compromised via Paraphilic Obstruction.

Archive Management Unit has censored relevant administrative records.

Public Affairs Division has disseminated a press release to DRC-approved news channels, citing [REDACTED] as the cause of the shutdown for Paternity Compound 144.

Facility Operations Command has transferred any personnel who raised professional or personal concerns about the citation. 

[REDACTED] Employee IO-144-611 detained to Isolation Cell 6E. 

3. Recommended Process Updates

Expand psychological screening to all Grade C employees and below. 

Recommend quarterly psychological deviance evaluations of Grade B employees and below.

Implement full biometric auto-logging for all surrogate embryo counts—disable manual override across zones.

Closing Remarks

Employee IO-144-611's indulgence in personal gratification resulted in unsatisfactory delays to our facility's operation. Proper procedures have been implemented to prevent further disruptions and ensure that fetal quotas are adequately maintained. 

[Report prepared by Inspector [REDACTED]] 

----------------

Sending...

Sending...

Sending...

Read...

----------------

Date: [REDACTED]

To: Deputy-Director [REDACTED], Security Office

From: Director [REDACTED]

Subject: Internal Audit - Quota Breach - Case File [REDACTED]

Deputy Director,

Following my review of the [REDACTED] file, I would like to register my formal dissatisfaction with how Inspector [REDACTED] handled this matter. While I acknowledge the necessity of enforcing procedural transparency, the inspector’s decision to escalate the MNAIS malfunction as a containment emergency rather than a potential breakthrough reveals a worrying lack of vision.

To put it plainly, the equipment failure at Paternity Compound 144 resulted in spontaneous fetal yields well above the current national minimums, with documented gestations ranging from 18 to 23 embryos—many of which progressed past Day 25 with surprisingly high internal cohesion and containment. Had Inspector [REDACTED] exercised creative initiative, the anomaly could have been reframed as a pilot overcapacity trial rather than triggering a full-blown mechanical audit and unnecessary decommissioning.

Such a rigid interpretation of oversight policy has compromised a unique opportunity for data extraction and jeopardized our ability to scale gestational loads in future cycles. This shortsighted compliance fanaticism is increasingly common in mid-tier personnel and must be corrected.

Accordingly, I recommend that Inspector [REDACTED] receive formal censure and retraining through the Training & Development Unit for failing to recognize the strategic potential embedded in abnormal conditions. Our agency requires flexibility under pressure, not reflexive alarmism.

On a separate but related note, I would like to approve the personnel reassignment request for Employee IO-144-611. Despite his classified psychological profile, his unique enthusiasm may prove operationally useful if adequately directed. I am authorizing his immediate transfer to Site [REDACTED], where he is to assume the role of Supervisory Insemination Officer. In the correct environment, they are an asset and IO-144-611’s tendencies are no longer a liability.

Please liaise with the Facility Director [REDACTED] at Site [REDACTED] to ensure the transfer. 

This matter is now considered closed from my office.

Regards,

Director [REDACTED]

[newswindow1]

The Loneliest Hundred Days

At the 100-day mark—a milestone presidents usually meet with parades of approval—Donald Trump stands almost alone. His approval rating has dropped to 42%, the lowest of any modern president at this point in office, eclipsing even post-crisis presidencies.

Where others found "honeymoon" periods, Trump finds hollowed fields.

Republican loyalty, once ironclad, is softening: only 67% of GOP voters "strongly approve" of his performance, down sharply from the euphoric highs of Inauguration Day. Fractures show most in healthcare, immigration, and economic policies—areas once promised to be the bedrock of his "winning."

Beyond party lines, the American public cites a cocktail of missteps: a failed healthcare repeal, volatile foreign policy decisions, and an unprecedented breach of presidential decorum via Twitter storms.

Political historians warn that early-term impressions often become permanent records. Without a pivot—or a crisis to reset the narrative—Trump risks becoming the first president in decades to lose the country before he ever truly had it.

"The loneliest kind of power," someone once wrote, "is the kind no one believes in."

politics #trump #americanpolitics #100days #politicalanalysis

🎥 For more context : I put together a longer clip on YouTube that dives deeper into the polling data, historical comparisons, and what this could mean for the next election cycles. 👉 Watch it here

Would love to hear your thoughts after you watch — let’s talk in the notes or replies. 🖋️✨

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

Every infection, no matter how mild, has a cumulative effect on your brain, reducing gray matter and altering function. Mask up. Keep yourself and others safe from a disease that can and will cause many varied lingering issues.

by Denis Storey

Clinical relevance: New research shows that even mild COVID-19 cases in young adults can lead to changes in brain structure and function.

Researchers found reduced connectivity in key brain regions, including the left hippocampus and amygdala. These changes were linked to deficits in spatial working memory and cognitive performance. The study highlights the need for further research into long-term neurological effects of COVID-19, even in mild cases. For all the damage the pandemic’s done, it seems as if the youngest generations will pay the steepest price. The latest proof of that has emerged in new research that’s discovered that even the mildest of COVID cases among young adults can lead to changes in brain structure and function. As a result, it could pose a threat to long-term cognitive performance.

The research provides new insight into the potential neurological impact of SARS-CoV-2 in populations that avoided severe illness. The study focused on adolescents and young adults since it’s a group that’s remained relatively understudied.

Methodology The study, part of the Public Health Impact of Metal Exposure (PHIME) cohort, included 40 participants. More than a dozen of them – 13 – tested positive for COVID-19, while 27 served as controls.

The researchers enrolled the participants in a longitudinal study, which offered pre-pandemic baseline data through MRI scans and cognitive assessments. This allowed the team a unique look into pre- and post-pandemic neural outcomes.

The researchers relied on the latest neuroimaging technology, such as resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) and structural MRI, to examine shifts in brain connectivity and cortical volume.

The researchers also subjected the participants to cognitive testing focused on spatial working memory. The team conducted the assessments both before the COVID-19 pandemic and after recovery from mild COVID-19 cases. These parallel evaluations allowed for a direct comparison of brain and cognitive changes.

COVID Affected Multiple Brain Regions The study exposed notable differences between COVID-19-positive and healthy participants in five critical brain regions:

The right intracalcarine cortex. The right lingual gyrus. The left hippocampus. The left amygdala. And the left frontal orbital cortex. Perhaps most notably, the left hippocampus revealed a significant drop in cortical volume among those who’d tested positive for COVID.

Researchers also found that the left amygdala showed much lower connectivity in participants who’d contracted COVID-19. This lack of connectivity appeared to be linked to deficits in spatial working memory. From this, the researchers inferred that even mild COVID-19 infection could impair one’s ability to perform tasks that rely on short-term memory.

Backing Up Previous Research The study results echo a mounting body of literature that suggests that COVID-19, despite its nature as a respiratory virus, appears to have far-reaching neurological implications. Earlier research has linked more serious cases of the virus with reduced gray matter thickness and cerebral volume loss, particularly in the hippocampus and amygdala.

The researchers add that the brain changes they observed could be related to the neurotoxic effects of SARS-CoV-2, which could have a lingering influence even among milder caes of infection. The paper’s authors theorize that it could be because the virus might be invading the brain through the olfactory system. That could cause inflammation and damage in important neural regions.

On the other hand, the authors also posit that the social and psychological stressors of the pandemic – whether its the social isolation or the lingering uncertainties – could be a factor in the changes appearing in the brains of the COVID-positive participants.

These results underscore the necessity for more research into the long-term neurological effects of the pandemic, especially among its younger survivors.

Moving Forward Finally, the research team hints that further investigation could clarify whether these neurological changes are permanent, and – if not – how long they might last.

The authors conclude by insisting that this study offers crucial new insight into the potentially long-term ramifications of COVID on the brain, even in mild cases. As we struggle with life in the shadow of the pandemic, a better grasp of what it means for everyone who’s been infected could help us develop more effective treatments.

[yuritopiaofdeath]

The Perks of Training a Combat Doll

‘There we are. Welcome back’ 

 The automaton found its digital vision returned to it. In its primary focus was a woman sitting directly in front of the combat doll. Her large glasses rested on the tip of her nose, her hair was messy and her shoulders were broad. She reached with one hand to adjust her eyewear and the doll took note of the woman’s hands, smeared with dark sepia stains. 

 Though she never met another one besides its mistress, the doll recognized a witch when it saw one. ��You’ve rebuilt me.’ The doll spoke. Only a witch could rebuild a doll. And if its memory banks were to be believed; she required rebuilding. ‘Aye. I did.’ The witch responded. ‘I found your body discarded. I brought you here and rebuilt you with no small effort. So that you may serve me now.’ The doll wanted to protest but knew better. It owed its continued existence to this witch. The doll's life,such as it was, was now in the witch's possession. ‘What of my old master?’The doll questioned.

 ‘Dead, I expected.’ The witch replied coldly. 

 Impossible! The doll thought to herself. She knew her lady’s power was too great. She could not be slain. ‘I cannot believe that.’ The doll answered. ‘Do not talk back to me!’ The witch cut her off. Her voice sharp.’You best believe her dead. Unless you can offer an explanation as to why you were found in a scrapheap. No magic animating you.’ ‘ The doll could offer no explanation. Her master was either slain or survived and did not see it fit to return for her possession. The doll could not help but view the former as the kinder outcome. It meant not having to come to terms with its failure. Failure of protecting her witch.

 ‘Drop down and give me twenty.’ A command from the witch brought the mechanical drone back to its senses. ‘Pardon?’ The doll replied, puzzled. ‘Push ups. Twenty. Now.’ The witch was firm in her command. ‘You know what a push up is, do you not?’

 The doll strained its computing to understand the order. In all of its vast circuitry she could not see the logic of making a robot perform exercise. ‘Yes, My Lady. I know what a push up is, My Lady.’ ‘Twenty’ The witch repeated the order in a way that made it clear she would not repeat it again. Unsatisfied but unwilling to anger her new master any further, the mechanical guard in the guise of a girl dropped down to the messy metal flooring of the workshop. Task was done in under ten seconds. Afterwhich the doll stood back up. Her newly reconstructed body,  at the very least, was fully operational. The doll wondered if this had been the true purpose of this task; Or perhaps just a way to humiliate it. A test of obedience. 

 ‘Good. You will follow me.’ The witch commanded.

 In a short time  they made way to a large open room. The floor was soft and padded, organic training equipment hung from the walls. The doll followed the witch wordlessly. Taking note of the map of her benefactors mansion. Soon as they arrived the witch stepped into a large rectangular arena separated by cables. She let her large black cloak slide down her shoulders, leaving her pale back exposed. Though the doll only met one other, the combat drone figured the witch's appearance to be atypical of a witch. Her nobility and otherworldly beauty typical of her kind was undeniable. Yet from the dolls data a witch led a life of the study of the arcane which left little room for physical training. The power of a witch was her iron will. A witch enjoyed quiet hobbies such as an afternoon tea. This witch, however, was in peak physical condition for an organic.  Pale skin, cross stitched with scars, clung tightly to the muscles underneath. Her small and lean frame tensed, like a cat stretching its body. A cat was nimble, quick, and deceptively strong. And apt comparison to the creature before the doll. ‘Get in the ring.’ The witch commanded. ‘You and I will spar.’

 Once again the doll strained its processing. It would seem this would be routine in its new assignment. 

 ‘I cannot harm you, My Lady.’ The doll answered ‘Twenty’ The reply came before the doll could even finish speaking. This time it knew better than to argue. It gave her mistress her twenty, as ordered. ‘Get in the ring.’ No praise this time. Simply the repeated order. ‘I will come at you. You will defend yourself to the best of your abilities. Understood?’ The doll nodded in confirmation. Soon as the gesture was complete, the witch was upon her. A flurry of blows followed, the witch opened with a series of punches and kicks typical to various organic martial arts. All of which were recorded in the dolls harddrives. Easily countered. The pattern of the witch was flawless. An ordinary organic opponent would no doubt be overwhelmed. She deployed feints and misdirects in order to disguise her more powerful attacks and throw her opponent off base. Alas the drone was programmed to counter such tactics. There would be little point in a combat doll if it could be thrown off by organic trickery. A digitized brain could calculate the position of a hit, and the best way to counter, in about half the time it would take for the hit to connect. The doll found itself frustrated. The witch displayed clear signs of fatigue. Was this to be her new role? Assist in the physical training of her master? A waste of the dolls skill. An exercise in vanity for the witch. An intelligent witch employed combat units precisely because they were above in skill to an organic combatant. An organic defeating a combat doll is as an ant defeating a lion. Even now the doll was holding back so as to not harm the witch. The doll wished to show this logic to its fledgeling owner. The metal fist stopped just short of the witch's handsome face. The message clear. This exercise is pointless. The doll found its body suddenly flung into the air. With a loud crash its body came down hard against the padded floor, causing it to dent. The ropes of cable that surrounded the ring were torn when the dolls body slammed into them. For a moment the doll simply laid motionless, calculating what had just happened. It would appear that the witch used this moment of hesitation from the doll to lift the dolls body and toss it across the arena. Though the drone was aware of martial arts that relied on shifting the weight of the enemy, tossing a steel doll the weight of an automobile above ones shoulder and flinging it several meters across was quite a feat from one the size of the witch. Indeed having caught a doll unaware like that was not something it thought an organic being capable of. The doll lifted itself back up. Experiencing yet another humiliation. 

 ‘Good.’ A praise from the new mistress. ‘Now it is your turn. You will come at me. Hold nothing back. If you hesitate again you will be destroyed. I believe I shown capable of rebuilding your body. I am not above destroying it again.’ A clear threat. One not without merit. The witch was capable of rebuilding the doll. Would she use magic? Would she delight in destroying and rebuilding the doll? Knowing that hesitation meant possible destruction, the doll hesitated, before charging in. This time the dolls fist made clear impact against the witch. The figure struck by the doll suddenly dissipated into smoke. Magic. Of course the witch used magic.   

 It was suddenly clear to the doll just how an organic managed to keep up with a doll. A witch was no ordinary mortal being. A witch was a master of the sorcerous and the arcane. Indeed a witch's magic was the very thing animating a doll. It only made sense that a doll would be helpless against such arts.

 Suddenly the witch appeared to be everywhere all at once. Behind and in front of the doll. Iron fists swatted the air but found nothing but smoke. Till the witch was on top of the doll. Bound its arms with a magical circle and rested her knee on the doll's neck joint. ‘A pathetic performance.’ The witch chastised its servant. ‘Have you never faced a witch before? Have you faced real combat? Or am I to take your first encounter to be the one that left you in the sorry state I found you in?’ The dolls' sensors overflowed with rage. Yet there was nothing it could do to resist. The drone resolved to simply allow this humiliation to continue. Perhaps the reason behind its inaction was not, as logic would dictate, the power the witch had over it, but rather the power her words held over the doll. From the moment it awoke it could not accept the reality that it was unsuccessful in protecting its master. The failure was plainly displayed in the records kept in the dolls memory banks. Its body crumbling into a pile of scrap, gears and cables, before some unknown assailant. Never before had it faced such opposition. The doll was either victorious against a lesser opponent or decimated by a superior force. Such was a life of an artificial lifeform designed to perform a singular task. ‘Did you not expect I would use magic?’ The witch retorted ‘I am a witch. My magic is my weapon. Much like your steel body and mechanical mind are yours. I would be a fool not to use it.’ 

 The witch lifted her knee from the doll and with a wave of her hand undone the binds holding her doll. ‘You are a foolish doll. You believe yourself powerless against my spells. I blame your previous master for not instilling the benefits of training onto you.’ The witch lectured as she stood over the defeated doll. ‘How are you meant to resist magic when you never fought against it? Your data does not contain within it ways to counter a witch. There are indeed precious few dolls in this universe with the knowledge on how to kill a witch. Most witches deem such knowledge to be nothing short of blasphemous. What is to stop a doll from rebelling against a witch if it knows ways to counter her spells?’ The doll got up to its feet. It was a head and a half taller than the witch and had to look down to make eye contact. ‘You will train with me daily. And you will be instructed in ways to counter magic. Such that as I need not have to repair your body again. And that you may defend me adequately in battle against any and all opposition.’ The witch made her demands clear. A realization struck a doll, that this witch is indeed a good witch. That in her odd ways she intends not to shame the doll but to hone its edge. That the witch did not wish to train with the doll out of stupidity or vanity, but out of a desire to bring out the best in her tool. And thus a bond was created between them, one the doll did not feel towards its former mistress. 

 ‘Willingly, My Lady.’ The doll answered. 

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk has pledged that the work of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, would be “maximally transparent.” DOGE’s website is proof of that, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and now White House adviser, has repeatedly said. There, the group maintains a list of slashed grants and budgets, a running tally of its work.

But in recent weeks, The New York Times reported that DOGE has not only posted major mistakes to the website—crediting DOGE, for example, with saving $8 billion when the contract canceled was for $8 million and had already paid out $2.5 million—but also worked to obfuscate those mistakes after the fact, deleting identifying details about DOGE’s cuts from the website, and later even from its code, that made them easy for the public to verify and track.

For road-safety researchers who have been following Musk for years, the modus operandi feels familiar. DOGE “put out some numbers, they didn’t smell good, they switched things around,” alleges Noah Goodall, an independent transportation researcher. “That screamed Tesla. You get the feeling they’re not really interested in the truth.”

For nearly a decade, Goodall and others have been tracking Tesla’s public releases on its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features, advanced driver-assistance systems designed to make driving less stressful and more safe. Over the years, researchers claim, Tesla has released safety statistics without proper context; promoted numbers that are impossible for outside experts to verify; touted favorable safety statistics that were later proved misleading; and even changed already-released safety statistics retroactively. The numbers have been so inconsistent that Tesla Full Self-Driving fans have taken to crowdsourcing performance data themselves.

Instead of public data releases, “what we have is these little snippets that, when researchers look into them in context, seem really suspicious,” alleges Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor and engineer who studies autonomous vehicles at the University of South Carolina.

Government-Aided Whoopsie

Tesla’s first and most public number mix-up came in 2018, when it released its first Autopilot safety figures after the first known death of a driver using Autopilot. Immediately, researchers noted that while the numbers seemed to show that drivers using Autopilot were much less likely to crash than other Americans on the road, the figures lacked critical context.

At the time, Autopilot combined adaptive cruise control, which maintains a set distance between the Tesla and the vehicle in front of it, and steering assistance, which keeps the car centered between lane markings. But the comparison didn’t control for type of car (luxury vehicles, the only kind Tesla made at the time, are less likely to crash than others), the person driving the car (Tesla owners were more likely to be affluent and older, and thus less likely to crash), or the types of roads where Teslas were driving (Autopilot operated only on divided highways, but crashes are more likely to occur on rural roads, and especially connector and local ones).

The confusion didn’t stop there. In response to the fatal Autopilot crash, Tesla did hand over some safety numbers to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the nation’s road safety regulator. Using those figures, the NHTSA published a report indicating that Autopilot led to a 40 percent reduction in crashes. Tesla promoted the favorable statistic, even citing it when, in 2018, another person died while using Autopilot.

But by spring of 2018, the NHTSA had copped to the number being off. The agency did not wholly evaluate the effectiveness of the technology in comparison to Teslas not using the feature—using, for example, air bag deployment as an inexact proxy for crash rates. (The airbags did not deploy in the 2018 Autopilot death.)

Because Tesla does not release Autopilot or Full Self-Driving safety data to independent, third-party researchers, it’s difficult to tell exactly how safe the features are. (Independent crash tests by the NHTSA and other auto regulators have found that Tesla cars are very safe, but these don’t evaluate driver assistance tech.) Researchers contrast this approach with the self-driving vehicle developer Waymo, which often publishes peer-reviewed papers on its technology’s performance.

Still, the unknown safety numbers did not prevent Musk from criticizing anyone who questioned Autopilot’s safety record. “It's really incredibly irresponsible of any journalists with integrity to write an article that would lead people to believe that autonomy is less safe,” he said in 2018, around the time the NHTSA figure publicly fell apart. “Because people might actually turn it off, and then die.”

Number Questions

More recently, Tesla has continued to shift its Autopilot safety figures, leading to further questions about its methods. Without explanation, the automaker stopped putting out quarterly Autopilot safety reports in the fall of 2022. Then, in January 2023, it revised all of its safety numbers.

Tesla said it had belatedly discovered that it had erroneously included in its crash numbers events where no airbags nor active restraints were deployed and that it had found that some events were counted more than once. Now, instead of dividing its crash rates into three categories, "Autopilot engaged,” “without Autopilot but with our active safety features,” and “without Autopilot and without our active safety features,” it would report just two: with and without Autopilot. It applied those new categories, retroactively, to its old safety numbers and said it would use them going forward.

That discrepancy allowed Goodall, the researcher, to peer more closely into the specifics of Tesla’s crash reporting. He noticed something in the data. He expected the “without Autopilot” number to just be an average of the two old “without Auptilot” categories. It wasn’t. Instead, the new figure looked much more like the old “without Autopilot and without our active safety features” number. That’s weird, he thought. It’s not easy—or, according to studies that also include other car makes, common—for drivers to turn off all their active safety features, which include lane departure and forward collision warnings and automatic emergency braking.

Goodall calculated that even if Tesla drivers were going through the burdensome and complicated steps of turning off their EV’s safety features, they’d need to drive way more miles than other Tesla drivers to create a sensible baseline. The upshot: Goodall wonders if Tesla is allegedly making its non-Autopilot crash rate look higher than it is—and so the Autopilot crash rate allegedly looks much better by comparison.

The discrepancy is still puzzling to the researcher, who published a peer-reviewed note on the topic last summer. Tesla “put out this data that looks questionable on first glance—and then you look at it, and it is questionable,” he claims. “Instead of taking it down and acknowledging it, they change the numbers to something that is even weirder and flawed in a more complicated way. I feel like I’m doing their homework at this point.” The researcher calls for more transparency. So far, Tesla has not put out more specific safety figures.

Tesla, which disbanded its public relations team in 2021, did not reply to WIRED’s questions about the study or its other public safety data.

Direct Reports

Tesla is not a total outlier in the auto industry when it comes to clamming up about the performance of its advanced technology. Automakers are not required to make public many of their safety numbers. But where tech developers are required to submit public accounting on their crashes, Tesla is still less transparent than most. One prominent national data submission requirement, first instituted by the NHTSA in 2021, requires makers of both advanced driver assistance and automated driving tech to submit public data about its crashes. Tesla redacts nearly every detail about its Autopilot-related crashes in its public submissions.

“The specifics of all 2,819 crash reports have been redacted from publicly available data at Tesla's request,” says Philip Koopman, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University whose research includes self-driving-car safety. “No other company is so blatantly opaque about their crash data.”

The federal government likely has access to details on these crashes, but the public doesn’t. But even that is at risk. Late last year, Reuters reported that the crash-reporting requirement appeared to be a focus of the Trump transition team.

In many ways, Tesla—and perhaps DOGE—is distinctive. “Tesla also uniquely engages with the public and is such a cause célèbre that they don’t have to do their own marketing. I think that also entails some special responsibility. Lots of claims are made on behalf of Tesla,” says Walker Smith, the law professor. “I think it engages selectively and opportunistically and does not correct sufficiently.”

Proponents of DOGE, like those of Tesla, engage enthusiastically on Musk’s platform, X, applauded by Musk himself. The two entities have at least one other thing in common: ProPublica recently reported that there is a new employee at the US Department of Transportation—a former Tesla senior counsel.

[mtb-tv]

Sleepers Were Never Meant For Labor

Sleepers can't be THAT efficient. Not more efficient than regular robots on factory lines or more advanced futuristic drones. They're practically a money pit, if you ask me. 1 out of 10 Sleepers escape...lets say every year. Given the intuited size of Essen-Arp and all its locations (factories, mining colonies, refineries) where Sleepers are working...let's be charitable and say that two-hundred Sleepers escape every year. These Sleepers would also take Stabilizer with them, or find a way to source it on the outside, so that's stock of Stabilizer going missing and out of Essen-Arp's hands. Not only that, but then they have to spend more resources sending Hunters down after them. Essen-Arp created a whole new class of Sleepers just to perform as Hunters and nothing else.

Now consider this - during Sabine's questline in Citizen Sleeper 1, what do we learn what Essen-Arp is most known for? Bionics. Bio-synthetic medicines, and other such augments. That's what they copyright, that's what they produce and develop, that's their main export, THEIR market share. Why would they get into the business of Slavery all the sudden with a fledgling android program in the form of Sleepers?

I think Essen-Arp has a larger end goal here, they're working toward a...Final Solution, if you'll pardon the comparison.

Are you perhaps familiar with Warhammer 40k's Adeptus Mechanicus? The "Machine Cult" as they're often referred to. You don't need to know the specifics, but they're fanatical transhumanists who aspire to the "purity of the blessed Machine" they worship a Machine God, and its prophet called the "Omnissiah". They forsake their flesh with reckless abandon, replacing parts with superior augmetics.

Now consider: Sleeper frames are objectively superior to human bodies. Even with their "planned obsolescence" and constant degradation. That's just a prototype, it'll be patched out in later models. Sleeper frames can go days without eating a damn thing. They don't need to breathe. They're immune to disease. They need no water. They produce no waste. They can work in extreme and hostile environments that humans would need extensive protection to even go into. They can interface with machines in precise and unique ways. Multiple characters remark throughout both games that Sleepers can work longer and harder than humans with a more consistent output, and these are just Sleepers who have been on the run. Who have been running on fumes and spite for their creators; Imagine what a Sleeper in its prime could accomplish...

Sleeper technology is in its infancy. Unable to be fully exploited for its full worth. All the Sleepers that exist in the setting today are prototypes, test subjects, control units. There are legions of Essen-Arp scientists and engineers observing them, testing them constantly logging data, tweaking formulas, adjusting designs for the eventual Perfect Sleeper so that only the most wealthy and powerful could upload their minds into, and become Gods in the Machine

Anyway, theory over