#University Library Software

[mikeruning]

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[skadisprawl]

"I understand your reasoning, but our organization's official policy is that we have to do XYZ. There are always alternative sources of information and instructions online if you choose to go an alternate route, however."

And when they inevitably ask you for help finding those alternative sources of information:

"I'm afraid that's out of my area of expertise!" (optional: "... but I've always found that [website OR generic google search idea] tends to be a good starting point when looking for that type of information.")

How to communicate to a customer "on a personal level, yo ho motherfuckers, but on a professional level I cannot provide support for you to pirate Adobe software."

[eazyscholar1]

University Management Software

University Management Software streamlines administrative tasks, academic processes, and student management for educational institutions. It facilitates efficient management of student records, course scheduling, faculty assignments, financial operations, and more. This comprehensive system enhances communication between departments, faculty, and students, ensuring smoother operations and improved organizational effectiveness within the university ecosystem.

[charseraph]

Noosciocircus agent backgrounds, former jobs at C&A, assigned roles, and current internal status.

Kinger

Former professor — Studied child psychology and computer science, moved into neobotanics via germination theory and seedlet development.

Seedlet trainer — Socialized and educated newly germinated seedlets to suit their future assignments. I.e. worked alongside a small team to serve as seedlets’ social parents, K-12 instructors, and upper-education mentors in rapid succession (about a year).

Intermediary — Inserted to assist cooperation and understanding of Caine.

Partially mentally mulekicked — Lives in state of forgetfulness after abstraction of spouse, is prone to reliving past from prior to event.

Ragatha

Former EMT — Worked in a rural community.

Semiohazard medic — Underwent training to treat and assess mulekick victims and to administer care in the presence of semiohazards.

Nootic health supervisor— Inserted to provide nootic endurance training, treat psychological mulekick, and maintain morale.

Obsessive-compulsive — Receives new agents and struggles to maintain morale among team and herself due to low trust in her honesty.

Jax

Former programmer — Gained experience when acquired out of university by a large software company.

Scioner — Developed virtual interfaces for seedlets to operate machinery with.

Circus surveyor — Inserted to assess and map nature of circus simulation, potentially finding avenues of escape.

Anomic — Detached from morals and social stake. Uncooperative and gleefully combative.

Gangle

Former navy sailor — Performed clerical work as a yeoman, served in one of the first semiotically-armed submarines.

Personnel manager — Recordkept C&A researcher employments and managed mess hall.

Task coordinator — Inserted to organize team effort towards escape.

Reclused — Abandoned task and lives in quiet, depressive state.

Zooble

No formal background — Onboarded out of secondary school for certification by C&A as part of a youth outreach initiative.

Mule trainer — Physically handled mules, living semiohazard conveyors for tactical use.

Semiohazard specialist — Inserted to identify, evaluate, and attempt to disarm semiotic tripwires.

Debilitated and self-isolating — Suffers chronic vertigo from randomly pulled avatar. Struggles to participate in adventures at risk of episode.

Pomni

Former accountant — Worked for a chemical research firm before completing her accreditation to become a biochemist.

Collochemist — Performed mesh checkups and oversaw industrial hormone synthesis.

Field researcher — Inserted to collect data from fellows and organize reports for indeterminate recovery. Versed in scientific conduct.

In shock — Currently acclimating to new condition. Fresh and overwhelming preoccupation with escape.

Caine

Neglected — Due to project deadline tightening, Caine’s socialization was expedited in favor of lessons pertinent to his practical purpose. Emerged a well-meaning but awkward and insecure individual unprepared for noosciocircus entrapment.

Prototype — Germinated as an experimental mustard, or semiotic filter seedlet, capable of subconsciously assembling semiohazards and detonating them in controlled conditions.

Nooscioarchitect — Constructs spaces and nonsophont AI for the agents to occupy and interact with using his asset library and computation power. Organizes adventures to mentally stimulate the agents, unknowingly lacing them with hazards.

Helpless — After semiohazard overexposure, an agent’s attachment to their avatar dissolves and their blackroom exposes, a process called abstraction. These open holes in the noosciocircus simulation spill potentially hazardous memories and emotion from the abstracted agent’s mind. Caine stores them in the cellar, a stimulus-free and infoproofed zone that calms the abstracted and nullifies emitted hazards. He genuinely cares about the inserted, but after only being able to do damage control for a continually deteriorating situation, the weight of his failure is beginning to weigh on him in a way he did not get to learn how to express.

[cutehoons02]

I need a nerdy boy in my life

*pairing: Han hot nerdy boy x popolar girl obsessed with christmas

*tags: Han is obsessed with her, touching, shy boy with people but not with the protagonist, christmas trope, jealousy, kiss, smut, fluffy

*synopsis: Han always had a crush or maybe obsession with the campus influencer but it seemed that she did not see him or maybe it was just the other way around?

comments are appreciated

*word count: 4k (Tell me if you like this kind of stories:

—REBLOG if you enjoyed

The computer science department was with the economics and engineering department consisted of more men from all over the campus, guys who spent hours in front of a blue screen designing software, video games, and applications or trying to hack at illegal sites; the only course in that department with a fair percentage of girls was Communication and Social Media and Y/n was among the most popular and well-liked girls from the course, both because she had a fair number of followers in the various social platforms and tried to make friends with as many people as possible but also because she was excellent as a student.

She decided to graduate in Communication and Social Media because she loved the social and developing world that could be there. Still, she never expected her course to go from the economics department to the computer science department for her second year of university only because the president of the institute had the brilliant idea to let his nerd students know that in addition to developing video games or software, they had the opportunity to express their emotions with someone instead of being attached to the computer or saying it all the president knew that most students had "sexual repression".

The winter air mixed with that of the first days of December put me in a good mood Y/n, had a serious obsession with Christmas, in his room there were I don’t know how many candles to the various perfumes in limited edition for the holidays, Under the entrance of her room there was a small mistletoe (even if she did not go out with anyone seriously wanted to believe that sooner or later someone would kiss her under that famous stick), lights decorated the whole room and in his collection of accessories there was a section of bows to attach them to hair and he put one white with small glittering silver snowflakes.

She was simply a romantic and spent her nights watching Christmas movies with her best friend but she was extremely jealous because they didn’t seem to care about the love that you could feel during the holidays but they were only thinking of which other guy to take read especially if he was a computer science student, had received some flattery from some boys but none made her heart beat or come failles to stomach except one in particular Han Jisung, god hated him with all of herself had tried in every way to attract his attention with small gestures, let’s talk clearly he did not act like a pick me girl too because it was not in his character but sometimes he sat in front of or next to him in the library, Other times he saw him exhausted even after the library hours and brought him some limited edition coffee to drink in autumn or Christmas but always noticed that he drank a sip and then left it all in the glass, During the computer classes she had tried to make friends with everyone but he seemed not to care about her worse it appeared that she was like a ghost.

When he entered the classroom he saw with his surprise Han lift his eyes from his pc and when he saw her with a small mistletoe in hand he threw an ochiattaccia from the back of the classroom, was extremely irritable because they had spoken yes and no few times since the beginning semetre and it seemed that he hated her without having done them anything wrong, the computer class was one of the few classes where the teacher was a woman and Y/n had asked if he could cheer up and decorate the classroom a little with something Christmas and to his surprise the teacher had given him permission to put a mistletoe branch over the door so Without disturbing the very few people who had taken a chair and put it under the door and went to take the scoch and the razor wire to attach it to the branch, when she put her chair over the top she didn’t think it was so high so she tried to stand on her toes but felt the more stable chair below her and saw Han behind her holding his chair and trying in every way not to let those few male companions see their legs Discovered by the skirt slightly too short for his standards.

"Pixie next time before you try to hang something see if you can get there because in this way you’re showing off your half-naked legs under your skirt, let me attack that stupid mistletoe branch." you sundown to look at Han and have his classic nerd glasses, a black oversized sweatshirt, cargo and hair all ruffled, who knows what it would have been like to touch them and pull them slightly...

"Nerd nobody asked you for your help and don’t call me Pixie you’re not that much taller than me, if you can’t look at legs with socks it’s not my fault if you’re perverts." You felt the chair slightly flutter and Han had moved away that little not to hold the chair anymore

"Pixie seriously even if you stretch a little with the tips of your shoes you will not be able to stick it, let’s finish this show, and let me get on this chair, quiet is not among my hobbies to watching your legs half naked"

It was a serious lie every time you wore those fucking gowns like a good girl He would have wanted to put one of his big hands on your thighs and let everyone know that you were his property but he was too shy to do so

"I already told you not to call me Pixie i am Y/n and you know well what my name is, if you insist so try to put it otherwise i will call some other guy"

you went down from the small chair and Han put himself on the chair, ok he was slightly taller than you, and surely for him, it was a breeze to hang that stick, stretched slightly, and from the sweatshirt you saw come out a piece of leather you knew that Han had a passion for tattoos and had one on his chest but you didn’t think he had another, a slight hint of musk and poo invades you and you look carefully Han hangs the stick and swings it a little to see if he held the small knot that he had made, with a small jump Han got down and you found him a few centimeters from you and lowered slightly at your ear.

"Next time wear jeans, not skirts Y/n because you never know maybe I will start to look at your legs even if they are covered by socks like all the other perverted guys of this course!".

It was exactly a week since that episode in the classroom and most of the kids, when they walked into the classroom, smiled when they saw the little mistletoe over the door instead the only one who didn’t care at all was Han, you had arrived slightly earlier to the computer class and i put you between the last benches in the back of the room, you had to edit a vlog that you had made with your friends last weekend so you were focused on the computer without paying attention to what was happening around you until you saw next to you a computer of the latest generation and a case of glasses, you sunflower and next to it was Han who watched carefully how you were dressed and a slight grin formed when he saw that you wore jeans with small tears and a slightly over red Carharrt sweatshirt that matched perfectly your bow you wore to hold Tie your hair.

"I didn’t think i had so much effect on you pixie, it’s since i told you that i preferred to see you in jeans that i haven’t seen you with a skirt on campus" you raised your eyes and kept editing your video.

"You do not affect me Han, the temperatures have dropped and i prefer not to die of cold with skirts maybe it’s you who are obsessing about me if in all these months you rarely spoke to me and looked if now you notice every time how i’m dressed."

You felt the chair approaching you and leaned awkwardly to the table to be closer to your ear.

"Who said i didn’t look at you? Maybe you were too busy making friends with all these idiots that you never noticed the glances i threw at you"

"Stop teasing me Han, i see how i don’t like who knows how nice and the glances you throw at me when i make a presentation or when i’m in the company of others"

The professor came in and started to explain something about computer security but you already knew that so you kept editing the video until you felt slightly cold fingers coming into contact with your skin under the small tear you had in the jeans near your thigh, You watched Han’s slightly venous hand squeeze your thigh and then make some light circles going up as far as he could and then come back down and squeeze your thigh again. Fortunately, you were on the last bench so no one could see you but you felt the temperature of your cheeks rise more and more and you watched the profile of Han slightly relaxed while with the other hand he took notes, how he could be so casual if his hand was inside your legs and every time he tried to go higher he even left you little pinches with his long fingers.

Just a few minutes before the end of the lesson, the teacher said that you should go ahead with the person sitting next to you to study the chapter that she hadn’t finished explaining and write down what you thought was right to introduce on safety inherent technology artificial intelligence.

Han immediately took his hand from your thigh and approached as before with his body pressed close to yours "I never made fun of you Y/n, i always looked at you and maybe too much for my standards and maybe i have a serious effect on you if before every time i touched your thigh slightly you would decrease in the chair and blush. Luckily you had jeans because if you had the skirt of last week i would have touched you slightly higher and maybe I would have made you moan in front of the whole class" Have you watched Han take his stuff and get out of class, how much did you hate him as a nerd if he behaved that way to you? He had no shame if he thought to pottery you moan or even touch your pussy in class...

The city was full of Christmas stands along the main street to enter the university, you and your friends had arranged to go for a little ride and then go skating all together but someone else had other plans in servant for you and to your surprise, you found the group of friends of Han in front of the stand where they sold freshly fried melles over the cinnamon and an impromptu craving for food made you approach the stand and the group of 8 boys, You looked at him for a moment before you stood in line and saw a boy with blond hair smiling to you and I did the same, he was a nice guy but your eyes stopped on Han’s back for a few seconds and you were slightly happy that he didn’t see you, Two days before the next computer class and you had not yet taken up the courage to write him to find you studying. You acted as if you were the loser of the situation and not him, you had thought that you wrote instead you had not received any message but you always displayed the stories among the first people and even when you posted a photo were always among the first to like.

<<Isn’t that girl with the white bow and the mutton, Hannie that girl you’re obsessed with watching every story and vlog on YouTube?>> Han when he heard these words coming from Felix felt his cheeks turn slightly red and looked in your direction and saw you taking pictures definitely for your ig at the apple stand.

“Don’t tell me you brought us to this Christmas village just because you saw his ig stories on his profile," said Chan, laughing and pinching his cheeks slightly, Han gave a slight tap to the big hand Chan and began to approach you but saw that you were in the company of your friends and his shyness was imposed, god because I wasn’t extrovert like Felix or Chan?

Felix gave a slight push to Han and he found himself next to you and looked at the Australian boy.

“Pixie didn’t think I’d find you in the Christmas village don’t tell me that you’re following me and missing you already!"

You were in the head and next to you was Han, He wore a jacket of The North Face and cargo, It was strange not to see him with glasses but unfortunately he was even more beautiful gave him that area of the boy next door and no longer the nerd who spent hours on hours in front of the computer.

"Maybe you’re obsessed with me Han, I saw that you were among the first to view stories and fatalities find you in my place.”

"Why should I be obsessed with you Y/n? I have other things to think about and it was a fatality if I watched the story just put on ig"

You laughed and the line started to go ahead in front of you there was a nice guy and he immediately smiled and passed his hands through his hair while paying for the two fried apples, Before you left the stand you heard the cashier talk to you and give you a small sheet of paper but I did not now open it that with one hand Han took it and put it behind a pocket of jeans.

“Seriously Han what do you want from me? You tried to leave but a slight grip on Han’s hand made you stop and you looked at the nerd in front of you with an interrogative look.

"Would you like to go to my house and get on with the project? I know it’s Saturday afternoon but tomorrow I have to go to training and on Monday I have a class at 20”

"I don’t go to a stranger’s house even if you are in class with me and you are my age you could be a serial killer, let’s go to my house where i feel more comfortable than surely there is some roommate of mine"

"Yes, sure, I didn’t even think about it, sorry if I was too hasty to say immediately go to my house if you feel more comfortable we can also go to the library" Han was slightly eating the skin off a fingernail and at the same time he was also snapping his fingers for embarrassment or maybe anxiety? You took one of his hands and put it in your pocket with

"We can go to my house there is no problem, if you are okay and if you feel comfortable staying in a room full of Christmas stuff and basic girl fond of music, make-up, and shopping"

Han laughed lightly and looked until you arrived at your date and shared the hand braided to her inside the pocket of your mutton.

"Should I seriously be afraid of what I might find in your room or can I just sit still or some killer puppet could eat me alive if he sees a boy of the opposite sex in your room?"

"There’s no killer puppet in my room just a teddy bear that will be like a few years younger than the two of us" Han walked into your room and a little whistle came out of his lips, you had the view of the mountains of Seoul and the light sunset contrasted with the cream-colored walls of your room, there were a lot of albums of old and new artists and obviously above the door was a light mistletoe branch.

"Pixie i understand that you like Christmas so much but also in your room you have to find this branch of mistletoe. I read on the Internet that if you kiss someone under mistletoe love will last forever between the two lovers and it is a plant that brings luck and that drives away the difficulties and pressures between the couple"

"Who’s the obsessed Han? I sure don’t, if you research my favorite things!" You saw him blush slightly and sat in the big gamer/ youtuber chair that you had, instead, you sat in your comfortable bed and for almost two hours you studied with him, You weren’t surprised that while studying he was representing exactly the nerd you knew and that nothing was distracting him or maybe there was something or someone who could distract him and that was you.

You got up from your bed and you sat on the armrest of the comfortable chair next to him to make them understand that you were tired of studying but it seemed that he did not care what you were doing, then slowly sundown the series and you found him with a light smile and grin looking at you.

"Who is it now that needs the attention?" You were afraid to make a first move with Han also because you didn’t know him at all but he had put his long fingers for almost an hour and a half inside that little slit in your jeans and told you that if you had a skirt she would touch you so who cares if thought you needed him. Without taking your eyes from your face you sat between his muscular legs and felt his big hands between your hips "You want what treasure? Where is the popular girl who talks to everyone and wants to be at the center of attention all the time?" His words were provocative for the silent nerd who was in class, you spread your legs a little put over his length and tried to kiss him but he moved and a grumpy took possession of your lips

"Baby i need words who is now the shy couple?" a slight grin took possession of his lips and began to look at your lips as if it were a challenge only between your two worlds.

"I want to kiss you Han but don’t get too excited."

"Pixie fuck is since i saw you first come through that fucking classroom door i dreamed of hearing you say. But where is the romantic girl who wants to be kissed under the mistletoe by his beloved before Christmas?

"I think that before to make me kiss under the mistletoe i need to feel how it is to kiss you"

"You’re saying that you need to have a nerd in your life but you need to figure out if this nerd is the right one for you?"

You felt slightly more comfortable and you slammed your lips with hers and a slight taste of sugar invaded your tongue, He was fucking good at kissing and after a few seconds, you felt slightly biting your lower lip and a little moan came out of your lips and put his tongue into your mouth and at the same time began to gently touch your spine with his hand's cold ones that contrasted with your hot skin. Han had dreamed of this moment for months now and now that he held you close if he did not want to scare you, felt Han away from your lips to take a breath.

Han’s fleshy lips moved in your neck and began to give you a gentle kiss trail between the neck and collarbone.

"You’re perfect baby, your taste is driving me crazy. I always hated these sweet flavors that know from Christmas but i can make an exception for you" The feelings that you felt only with little kisses and lollipops were sending you off your head because this guy was called a nerd and what do you know about kissing?

You felt his cock swell more and more when you moved slightly above its length to feel the atrium between your jeans.

"I hate you because you have two Han personalities? How is it that in class you are perfect and then you are like this with the girls?" You felt the light laugh of Han in your neck and began to bite your neck until you felt his name come from your lips and at that moment he understood that you would be forever because no other name should and could come out of your lips if it was not his.

You pulled off his sweatshirt and a chest carved with around a small compass tattooed made you lick your lips so you returned the work he had done on your neck kissing her neck, her collarbones on display, Going down to his chest and with your hands caressed the ridges of his abs and you began to kiss his chest "Pixie moves into bed" You didn’t care about the uncomfortable position you had sitting between his legs while kissing and licking his abs.

"Pls Y/n" When you heard your name begging you got up from his legs and threw it into your comfortable bed and put yourself on him and watched him with his perfect tattoos and short of breath for the pleasure you were giving him, You wanted to let everyone know that the nerd not looked at by anyone had filled you with suckers and almost came in your pants without even touching you.

[thereoncewasagirlnamedjane]

MORE THAN WORDS.

PAIRING — writer!steve rogers x librarian f!reader

CONTENTS — miniseries; alternate universe—modern setting/library/small town; second chances at love; crippling angst with a happy ending [*tw: grief, mourning, illness, character deaths]; eventual fluff; book spine poetry (kind of).

SERIES SUMMARY — It’s been five years and he’s lost his way. Steve Rogers has taken a hiatus from his writing career and moves to the small town of Westview to escape the memories of a love lost. He unexpectedly finds a kindred spirit in the local librarian, and something compels him to begin communicating with you using the only way he knows how—by using the spines of your books.

WORD COUNT — 37.0k STATUS — completed

NOTES — please note that this is me posting some of my old work, and also, i’m not playing around with those warnings. i wrote this as a response to my own experience with grief, and it’s not always pretty. if you are experiencing the same thing, as we all inevitably do, please know you are not alone. reach out to your loved ones; tomorrow is never guaranteed, after all. take care <3

✩ masterlist ✩ library blog

instalments:

✩ part one ✩ part two ✩ part three ✩ part four ✩ part five ✩ part six ✩ part seven (fin.)

© 2025 by thereoncewasagirlnamedjane. do not repost, translate, or copy to third party sites. no part of this work may be fed into any AI software or websites. minors are asked not to interact with my blog; you are responsible for your own media consumption. blank/ageless blogs will be blocked.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Humans are not perfectly vigilant

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE (Apr 12), and beyond!

Here's a fun AI story: a security researcher noticed that large companies' AI-authored source-code repeatedly referenced a nonexistent library (an AI "hallucination"), so he created a (defanged) malicious library with that name and uploaded it, and thousands of developers automatically downloaded and incorporated it as they compiled the code:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

These "hallucinations" are a stubbornly persistent feature of large language models, because these models only give the illusion of understanding; in reality, they are just sophisticated forms of autocomplete, drawing on huge databases to make shrewd (but reliably fallible) guesses about which word comes next:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Guessing the next word without understanding the meaning of the resulting sentence makes unsupervised LLMs unsuitable for high-stakes tasks. The whole AI bubble is based on convincing investors that one or more of the following is true:

There are low-stakes, high-value tasks that will recoup the massive costs of AI training and operation;

There are high-stakes, high-value tasks that can be made cheaper by adding an AI to a human operator;

Adding more training data to an AI will make it stop hallucinating, so that it can take over high-stakes, high-value tasks without a "human in the loop."

These are dubious propositions. There's a universe of low-stakes, low-value tasks – political disinformation, spam, fraud, academic cheating, nonconsensual porn, dialog for video-game NPCs – but none of them seem likely to generate enough revenue for AI companies to justify the billions spent on models, nor the trillions in valuation attributed to AI companies:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

The proposition that increasing training data will decrease hallucinations is hotly contested among AI practitioners. I confess that I don't know enough about AI to evaluate opposing sides' claims, but even if you stipulate that adding lots of human-generated training data will make the software a better guesser, there's a serious problem. All those low-value, low-stakes applications are flooding the internet with botshit. After all, the one thing AI is unarguably very good at is producing bullshit at scale. As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/inhuman-centipede/#enshittibottification

This means that adding another order of magnitude more training data to AI won't just add massive computational expense – the data will be many orders of magnitude more expensive to acquire, even without factoring in the additional liability arising from new legal theories about scraping:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

That leaves us with "humans in the loop" – the idea that an AI's business model is selling software to businesses that will pair it with human operators who will closely scrutinize the code's guesses. There's a version of this that sounds plausible – the one in which the human operator is in charge, and the AI acts as an eternally vigilant "sanity check" on the human's activities.

For example, my car has a system that notices when I activate my blinker while there's another car in my blind-spot. I'm pretty consistent about checking my blind spot, but I'm also a fallible human and there've been a couple times where the alert saved me from making a potentially dangerous maneuver. As disciplined as I am, I'm also sometimes forgetful about turning off lights, or waking up in time for work, or remembering someone's phone number (or birthday). I like having an automated system that does the robotically perfect trick of never forgetting something important.

There's a name for this in automation circles: a "centaur." I'm the human head, and I've fused with a powerful robot body that supports me, doing things that humans are innately bad at.

That's the good kind of automation, and we all benefit from it. But it only takes a small twist to turn this good automation into a nightmare. I'm speaking here of the reverse-centaur: automation in which the computer is in charge, bossing a human around so it can get its job done. Think of Amazon warehouse workers, who wear haptic bracelets and are continuously observed by AI cameras as autonomous shelves shuttle in front of them and demand that they pick and pack items at a pace that destroys their bodies and drives them mad:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

Automation centaurs are great: they relieve humans of drudgework and let them focus on the creative and satisfying parts of their jobs. That's how AI-assisted coding is pitched: rather than looking up tricky syntax and other tedious programming tasks, an AI "co-pilot" is billed as freeing up its human "pilot" to focus on the creative puzzle-solving that makes coding so satisfying.

But an hallucinating AI is a terrible co-pilot. It's just good enough to get the job done much of the time, but it also sneakily inserts booby-traps that are statistically guaranteed to look as plausible as the good code (that's what a next-word-guessing program does: guesses the statistically most likely word).

This turns AI-"assisted" coders into reverse centaurs. The AI can churn out code at superhuman speed, and you, the human in the loop, must maintain perfect vigilance and attention as you review that code, spotting the cleverly disguised hooks for malicious code that the AI can't be prevented from inserting into its code. As "Lena" writes, "code review [is] difficult relative to writing new code":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773779967521780169

Why is that? "Passively reading someone else's code just doesn't engage my brain in the same way. It's harder to do properly":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773780355708764665

There's a name for this phenomenon: "automation blindness." Humans are just not equipped for eternal vigilance. We get good at spotting patterns that occur frequently – so good that we miss the anomalies. That's why TSA agents are so good at spotting harmless shampoo bottles on X-rays, even as they miss nearly every gun and bomb that a red team smuggles through their checkpoints:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

"Lena"'s thread points out that this is as true for AI-assisted driving as it is for AI-assisted coding: "self-driving cars replace the experience of driving with the experience of being a driving instructor":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773841546753831283

In other words, they turn you into a reverse-centaur. Whereas my blind-spot double-checking robot allows me to make maneuvers at human speed and points out the things I've missed, a "supervised" self-driving car makes maneuvers at a computer's frantic pace, and demands that its human supervisor tirelessly and perfectly assesses each of those maneuvers. No wonder Cruise's murderous "self-driving" taxis replaced each low-waged driver with 1.5 high-waged technical robot supervisors:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

AI radiology programs are said to be able to spot cancerous masses that human radiologists miss. A centaur-based AI-assisted radiology program would keep the same number of radiologists in the field, but they would get less done: every time they assessed an X-ray, the AI would give them a second opinion. If the human and the AI disagreed, the human would go back and re-assess the X-ray. We'd get better radiology, at a higher price (the price of the AI software, plus the additional hours the radiologist would work).

But back to making the AI bubble pay off: for AI to pay off, the human in the loop has to reduce the costs of the business buying an AI. No one who invests in an AI company believes that their returns will come from business customers to agree to increase their costs. The AI can't do your job, but the AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI anyway – that pitch is the most successful form of AI disinformation in the world.

An AI that "hallucinates" bad advice to fliers can't replace human customer service reps, but airlines are firing reps and replacing them with chatbots:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know

An AI that "hallucinates" bad legal advice to New Yorkers can't replace city services, but Mayor Adams still tells New Yorkers to get their legal advice from his chatbots:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/03/nycs-government-chatbot-is-lying-about-city-laws-and-regulations/

The only reason bosses want to buy robots is to fire humans and lower their costs. That's why "AI art" is such a pisser. There are plenty of harmless ways to automate art production with software – everything from a "healing brush" in Photoshop to deepfake tools that let a video-editor alter the eye-lines of all the extras in a scene to shift the focus. A graphic novelist who models a room in The Sims and then moves the camera around to get traceable geometry for different angles is a centaur – they are genuinely offloading some finicky drudgework onto a robot that is perfectly attentive and vigilant.

But the pitch from "AI art" companies is "fire your graphic artists and replace them with botshit." They're pitching a world where the robots get to do all the creative stuff (badly) and humans have to work at robotic pace, with robotic vigilance, in order to catch the mistakes that the robots make at superhuman speed.

Reverse centaurism is brutal. That's not news: Charlie Chaplin documented the problems of reverse centaurs nearly 100 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film)

As ever, the problem with a gadget isn't what it does: it's who it does it for and who it does it to. There are plenty of benefits from being a centaur – lots of ways that automation can help workers. But the only path to AI profitability lies in reverse centaurs, automation that turns the human in the loop into the crumple-zone for a robot:

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

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/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

Jorge Royan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Munich_-_Two_boys_playing_in_a_park_-_7328.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

--

Noah Wulf (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thunderbirds_at_Attention_Next_to_Thunderbird_1_-_Aviation_Nation_2019.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[transgirl-gaming-thoughts]

3DS Apps That 3DS Hacks Guide Won't Tell You About

The 3DS Hacks Guide is the guide to follow regarding CFW setup for our beloved 3DSes, and even features a few apps preinstalled as a part of setup finalization.

If you're familiar with homebrew 3DS software to any extent, you've definitely heard of FBI, Anemone, Checkpoint, Universal Updater, and GodMode9. BUT, there's a few apps and services that I would recommend for users intending to use their new CFW 3DS longterm.

hShop - A full archive of the 3DS eShop, pre-closure. It features every piece of software that was formerly available on the eShop, as well as some fan translations, rom hacks, and extra homebrew tools and games. Everything is ready-to-use, but they also have an on-system app that allows you to download and install directly without the need to access the SD card!

NetPass - A service that allows the swapping of StreetPass data over the Internet! Using their app and servers, you can seamlessly send and receive StreetPass tags with anyone, anywhere in the world! Works for any game or app that uses StreetPass! Also available to download on Universal Updater!

Pretendo Network - An in-progress rebuild of the entirety of Nintendo Network. Installing their service allows you to create an ID through their servers and begin using their network to play games and meet 3DS users worldwide! This includes a massive project to bring the entire 3DS and WiiU library back online (unofficially tracked here), as well as rebuilding Miiverse, StreetPass Relay service, and friend services! A lot of the base service is already live for all users, and there are plenty of games that are currently under development, and several in beta stages of release.

These are my recommendations to get in on as soon as possible! If you have a homebrew 3DS that you use all the time, or one that you wish you used more, this is the way to do it.

[lyssasdrafts]

★ 𓈒 ݁ STAR—CROSSED (rhysand x reader) ⊹

chapter six: (written) ✧

𓈒 ݁ ✫ masterlist previous next

“guess who!”

morrigan’s voice wakes you, causing you to jolt up from your table at the library. you had come here in the afternoon and it was already evening, meaning the sunlight from the library’s large windows had faded and it was starting to become dimly lit. the bright light from your laptop screen only further causes your eyes to strain.

“what are you doing here?” you say after letting out a yawn and stretching out your arms. you move slightly, patting down a seat for mor.

“just wanted to check up on you,” she shrugs. her attention shifts to the papers scattered around the desk, confirming that you had been reviewing your notes all afternoon. mor frowns when she notices the dark circles under your eyes and quietly fixes your hair while you talk about what you were studying for.

your laptop, however, was for a different task. you had been touching up some of the photos you took at rhysand’s photoshoot on your editing software, meaning his face was plastered across your screen. you cringe at the image and at the sight of the man who caused you so much irritation, no matter how good the photoshoot had turned out.

“are you making a fan edit of me now?” rhysand peers over your shoulder.

once again, you’re taken by suprise, almost jumping out of your seat when he appears next to you. perhaps it runs in their family.

“where did you come from?” morrigan almost yells at him. rhysand had been standing behind the both of you, hands in his pockets as he leans over to look at your screen.

“don’t get the wrong idea,” you retort. “i’m editing your photos from our photoshoot.” rhysand gives you a satisfied smile. perhaps it was even genuine.

“i came here to study,” he says, pulling up a chair and moving to sit across from you. “mind if i sit here?”

“actually, yes,” mor says irreverently. her cousin gives her an annoyed look and she crosses her arms. “no wonder my roommate can’t stand you.”

“i can definitely confirm he’s difficult to work with,” you give her a smirk while the both of you hold in your laugh at rhysand’s dismay.

“i will admit, the photoshoot did look good though,” you say hesitantly. “and thank you for crediting me,” you add, “it really helped me as a photographer.”

rhysand feigns shock, “is y/n being genuine for once?”

you immediately take back your words, “i liked you better when you were picking an argument with me.” you could recall the moments since that photoshoot where rhysand had acted normal in class despite knowing about your passion: when you got your exams back, or last week when you scored one point higher than him, or today in class when you started a debate about the formation of the universe. the entire class had witnessed your argument and you could’ve sworn your teacher sighed that you two were bickering again.

“you know that i was right today,” rhysand says, “as i typically am.”

you try not to roll your eyes at him, instead sorting through your notebooks and papers to find the reading you did earlier. “i know i’m right because i actually study the material. it says here that—”

morrigan had already mentally tuned out of your conversation with rhysand, rolling her eyes when you start shoving notes into her cousin’s face. “can the two of you please argue another time?” she almost yawns.

in the corner of your eye, you can see that familiar golden-brown hair peeking out from behind a bookshelf. you want to roll your eyes as you realize she’s watching how rhysand acts with you. nesta would definitely be teasing you about this later. you notice a second person’s hand covering her face as she giggles, spotting her brighter hair between the gaps in the books, and realize elain was spying on you too.

maybe going to the library was a bad idea today.

rhysand, the oblivious fool that he was, did not see the sisters behind him watching you. you wondered if he was even aware people did this to him, considering how your friends were definitely not the only people on campus to be interested in him like this. you nearly cringed as he continued rambling about how his argument was right, never dropping that satisfied look on his face. he hadn’t realized that you weren’t focused on the conversation anymore.

“do you always have to challenge me, rhysand?” you finally ask.

“do you always have to be right, y/n?” he quickly counters, further proving your point.

“well maybe, it’s because—”

you’re interrupted by the sound of loud footsteps and two large figures walking up to you, causing a few heads to turn in the library, including nesta and elain. you don’t recognize cassian and azriel, who you only knew as rhysand’s friends, until they come up behind rhysand and cassian starts to talk.

azriel pulls up a chair to sit with the both of you while cassian stands behind rhysand, hugging his friend from the back. rhysand seems amused, exchanging greetings with his friends before they finally noticed your presence.

“sorry, y/n, i hope you don’t mind us stealing away your boyfriend for a minute,” cassian gives you a smug look. “we just need rhys for a moment.”

you stare blankly at cassian, blinking. is that what they’ve been thinking? maybe rhysand had become more tolerable to you, but you still had every right to be annoyed with his friends. cassian looked like he was about to start laughing at rhysand before you look him straight in the eyes.

you lean back into your chair, crossing your arms and glaring at cassian, “he’s not my boyfriend.”

“he talks about you all the time,” azriel chimes in. this was perhaps your first time hearing his voice properly. in the few classes you had with him, azriel rarely spoke and brushed off anyone who tried to start a conversation with him. even a few more heads turned towards him when he spoke in front of you.

a look of panic flashed in rhysand’s eyes and he gave azriel a nudge with his arm, causing the dark haired boy to chuckle. morrigan makes a disgusted face, giving cassian and azriel a look that would’ve made you shut up instantly. but instead, they both continued.

“well then, i can’t really blame you for not wanting to date rhysand,” cassian is now standing over your table, placing his hands in his pockets as he leans down towards you. “he’s insufferable.”

“he is,” the cold tone remains in your voice, though an amused smile begins to tug on your lips.

“don’t say that, y/n. he’ll be so heartbroken later,” azriel speaks, a similar reluctant smirk appearing on his face too.

“that’s enough!” rhysand snaps, “stop embarassing me.”

you’re about to burst out laughing with cassian when rhysand suddenly slams his hands on the table, insisting that his friends leave with him. you don’t object to rhysand cutting his visit to the library short, watching how mor chuckles as rhysand drags azriel away and bids cassian to follow behind them. it’s like the four of them have a secret that you’re not in on. cassian gives you a playful wave goodbye that you hesitantly return before the three of them quickly disappear from your peripheral vision.

“that was… interesting,” you say to morrigan, only moments before nesta and elain confront you. you were still trying to process the fact that cassian and azriel had even looked in your direction, let alone without any disgust. some of the rudest people you knew on campus had just started a conversation with you, all because you happened to know rhysand.

nesta pretends to dust off the books on the shelves as she walks towards you, tracing the patterns on your wooden desk once she reaches you, her eyes almost bulging when she glances at all your papers. “y/n,” she says in a sing-song voice, it’s the first time you’ve ever seen her smile like that, “what was that about?”

elain doesn’t even bother to be discrete, simply trailing behind nesta and appearing behind her. although she obviously isn’t as curious, her eyes are also widened like she has questions about that interaction too.

morrigan nearly scoffs, “you mean rhysand?”

“i already know about him,” nesta’s smile almost drops completly as her face twists, “who was that big, strong friend he brought?”

“you mean cassian?” you say, mor nearly starts laughing again.

“he seems cute,” nesta shrugs, then continues teasing you. “does our y/n now have men fawning over you?” she gives you a look with a smirk.

“absolutely not.”

elain suddenly joins, her voice remains quiet and hesitant when she asks, “what about the taller one?”

she receives a look from both you and nesta, and you’re suddenly reminded of just how coldly azriel treats people. perhaps nesta would get along with him, but your other friends would definitely dislike him if they saw him in class the way you did.

“he seems kind,” elain softly says.

“something tells me you’ll be seeing a lot more from the three of them,” morrigan playfully hits your arm, your three friends officially ganging up on you to your dismay.

— NOTES

cassian and azriel teasing rhysand 🤭

almost got the whole gang in one place 🫶 cassian and azriel finally make their first appearance

nesta noticing cassian 👀 my nessian self just had to add it

— TAGLIST

@thelov3lybookworm @starsand @lilah-asteria @therealmoonstone @just-a-social-casualty-1 @ashjade19 @girlontheblock @cherry-cin @daughterofthemoons-stuff @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @sweet-chai-amore @kierramofficial @noelli-smv @c-dizzle99 @littlestw01f @marina468 @dragneel-brothers

[cyanhydrangea]

The Programmer's Help [Bayverse Donatello x Reader]

Summary: Donnie helps his fellow scientist Reader with his invention

Notes: written in first person POV

'Sample number fourty one. Leaf number three. Length: seven point five. Width: four point three.'

I type the measurements in centimeters on my laptop quickly before I forget them. I sigh when I see the rest of the samples I need to take measurements of. It's dark already and I have no idea when this data recording will be finished.

At least the night cityscape view from my rooftop is beautiful, it refresh my non-stop working brain for a moment.

I heard light footsteps approaching me from behind and I take a look. I'm guessing Donnie makes his presence obvious for me to not startle me. He could have move quietly unnoticed if he wanted to, he's a ninja, after all.

"Hey, Don"

"Hey", Donnie looking at behind me and pointed, "Are those the plants installations for your research you told me?"

"Yeah, they're cool, right?"

"Very," he moved closer to the installations and we're now standing next to each other. "Piper betle, interesting" Donnie observe the plants.

I let Donnie take a look on my plants installations as I continue to measure the next sample. Sample number fourty two. Leaf number one. Length: eight point one. Width: five point three.

As I finished typing on my laptop and about to take another measurements, I see Donnie giving me a smug grin.

"What?"

"You record them manually?" Donnie ask me still with that smug face.

"I mean, I don't have any other choices??"

"Luckily for you," Donnie showing me a flash drive, "Once you told me you have to record one hundred sixty two leaf samples every once in a week, I made a software to help you record data in your spreadsheet using voice command so you don't have to type them manually"

I gasped, "How does it work!?"

Donnie take over my laptop to install the software.

"Try it" Donnie handed it back to me when he finished.

"Sample fourty two", the cell in row fourty two and column 'sample' is automatically selected and typing 42 by itself.

I paused in awe.

"Leaf number two, length eight point one", the selected cell automatically moved to row fourty two and column 'length' and '2', typing 8.1 by itself.

I look at donnie in disbelief.

"Donnie, you're a livesaver! Thank you soo much!"

The programmer smile proudly, "No problems"

"Hold up, there's no way I'm gonna get this for free. What can I do for you?"

Donnie thinks for awhile, "Lend me books from your university library?"

"Deal"

I'm not a programmer so forgive me for any inaccuracies.

#CyanHydrangea

Date Written: 05/02/2024

[cippicat]

AC characters Modern AU

What kind of jobs would do the assassin's creed characters in the modern days?

Desmond would continue his bartendering.

Layla Hassan would be an architect. She wants to be like Indiana Jones.

Altair would be an historic. He would wrote books about historical facts that people doesn't know.

Malik woulb be a cartographer. He would fly around the world to create accurate maps for his app (let's be real Google Maps sucks).

Maria would be a self defense teacher. She would teach women how to defend themselves.

Ezio, and his brother Federico would work in the family company. Ezio would take care of the franchise around Italy, China and Turkey. His associates (his protèges) abroad are Yusuf Tazim and Shao Jun.

Petruccio would be a vet specialised in birds care.

Claudia would open a fashion agency.

Both Giovanni and Maria Auditore would be retired in Montereggioni (with Uncle Mario).

Edward Kenway would be retired, but when he was young he owned a bar, The Jackdaw, in the heart of London with his best friend Edward Tatch. With his wife, Tessa Kenway (a stay at home mum), they would work as volunteers at the dog rescue center. Edward's ex wife Caroline Scott would live abroad, and work in human resources.

Jennifer Scott would work with Claudia Auditore in the fashion agency. She would open a franchise of Claudia's company in London, and another franchise in New York (much to her brother annoyance).

Haytham Kenway would be an economics teacher at the New York University. His wife Ziio would be a lawyer for the Native American rights. Their son Connor Kenway would be a forest ranger. His parents are starting to ask him for grandchildren.

Aveline de Grandpré and Elise de la Serre would be fashion stylists. Elise had a relationship with Arno but broke up because it didn't work.

Shay Cormac and Liam O'brien would work as seafarers. They would co-operate with Greenpeace. Shay is married with a son he had when he was very young. He named his son after his two godfathers Liam and George Monroe (much to Liam's displeasure). Shay doesn't know yet but he is going to be a grandfather before 50.

Hope Jensen would work as a flying attendant.

Arno Dorian would open a café littéraire near Montmartre. He has a son, Léon. His father Charles Dorian, and his godfather Pierre Bellec would be in politics. They would co-operate with François de la Serre against Germain, and Chevalier (everyone hates Chevalier).

Jacob Frye would open his own pub, The Rooks, with his brother in law. Like Arno he is a single father. Jacob and Arno have friends with benefits friendship. Evie Frye would work at the university library . Their father, Ethan Frye would work as a literature teacher at the Cambridge University. Since he is close to retirement he often spends time playing with his grandson Emmett.

Bayek and his wife Aya would work at the Cairo's museum as curators.

Kassandra, and her brother Alexios would work in their mom's tourism agency in Athens.

Eivor Varinsdottir would work as a freelance photographer around the world, and will publish her photos in some publications in England. Sometimes she will ask Shay a ride on the Morrigan to photograph the whales.

Juno and Minerva would be software engineers. Persephone and her husband Hades would open a funeral parolours. Poseidon would open a swimming school. Jupiter would be retired with Loki and Havi.

[alonelystargazer]

so if any of y'all have ever purchased e-books from Amazon, then you should log in to your Amazon account, and under your Content Library, download all your e-books to your computer and transfer them to your kindle reader via USB, or send them directly to your preferred device (if you have more than one connected to your Amazon account) via wifi by clicking "Deliver or Remove from this device" and switching the device you want to send it to

Once you've downloaded all your purchased e-books, not ones that are borrowed from Kindle Unlimited or Prime Reading, download the free Calibre e-book management software and this DRM removal plugin to remove the DRM (digital rights management) from your e-books, which converts your kindle e-books into the universal e-book format EPUB or whatever other ebook format you'd like, bc the Kindle ebook format AZW and AZW3, can only be used on Kindle readers, but by removing the DRM, they can then be used on any device that reads the EPUB format

BUT why should you do all this? bc on Feb. 26, 2025 (one week from now as of the time I posted this) Amazon will no longer provide this download option bc they're aware that people have been downloading their e-books from their kindle libraries and using software like Calibre to convert those e-books into EPUBs and not have to be tied down to Amazon's ecosystem, which makes them lose money (boohoo), and also the switch towards cloud-based storage

Basically, any e-books you have purchased from Amazon are not yours to own, you're essentially being licensed the e-book, so they can use this loophole to alter or completely remove those e-books from the website at their whim, and you would no longer have access to those e-books, even though you legally purchased them, which is wild bc we should be able to legally own, forever, any digital media we buy and do what we want with it, and this is something that has been happening with other forms of digital media like movies and video games, where you "buy" a digital copy but you don't actually own it

You should also stop buying e-books from amazon from now on since you don't even own them, and cancel your Kindle Unlimited subscription if you have one, and you might as well download any audiobooks you've purchased on Audible (which is also owned by Amazon)

[watch this video and this video for more thorough explanations about this issue and this video for a tutorial on how to use Calibre and the DRM ]

Alternatives to kindle readers include: Kobo (has integration with Libby) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble), or sell or donate the one you have if you don't want to use it anymore

Alternatives to amazon e-books: Libby (free app that links to your local library if you have an active library card where you can borrow ebooks and other digital media), Internet Archive, Project Gutenburg, 🏴‍☠️ ebooks and PDFs, and research whether your favorite author has books available to purchase directly on their website

....and you can always purchase or borrow physical books and other media as well! support your local libraries and indie bookstores!

TL,DR: this is a matter of media ownership, censorship, and archiving, so download your Amazon e-books NOW before Amazon takes away your ability to access the items that you legally purchased and locks you down to using their devices and ecosystem

FEBRUARY 26 IS THE LAST DAY TO DOWNLOAD YOUR AMAZON EBOOKS

[galaxywarp]

Hi I'm gonna ask an incredibly tech dumb question because you're nice and I don't think you're gonna make fun of me but uh.

How do I actually.. Name Files Properly?

So like, I download all my own music, and I just like manually name the file as "artist - song name" which. I mean mostly works, it's basic enough. But my music app a section where it's supposed to like automatically break everything up by artist or album, and it's not actually Doing that, so I'm guessing I'm missing some info field I'm supposed to fill out so it can know where things go? That's called metadata right please tell me I know at least that much correctly

How do I like, put all the extra info of albums and genres and stuff into a file so it gets read by other stuff? Is it like something super obvious I'm missing and I'm just a dweeb or am I normal here 😂

OH I KNOW THIS ONE!! I had to do this when I was building my lossless music library. I know exactly what ur asking. I know how to help too

I personally got the most use out of this software: mp3tag

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Opening your music files in this software will let you edit all of those metadata fields that you’re looking for and that audio playing software will be scanning for (like iTunes):

Super helpful cuz it allows for bulk editing so you can do entire batches of albums/artists at the same time!

You can also use this software to associate album art with your music files :3

Hope this helps!

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Hi everyone,

I found this cool article about some noise cancellation headphones scientists have made using AI. According to the article:

Scientists have built noise-canceling headphones that filter out specific types of sound in real-time — such as birds chirping or car horns blaring — thanks to a deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm.

The system, which researchers at the University of Washington dub "semantic hearing," streams all sounds captured by headphones to a smartphone, which cancels everything before letting wearers pick the specific types of audio they'd like to hear. They described the protoype in a paper published Oct. 29 in the journa IACM Digital Library.

Once sounds are streamed to the app, the deep learning algorithm embedded in the software means they can use voice commands, or the app itself, to choose between 20 categories of sound to allow. These include sirens, baby cries, vacuum cleaners, and bird chips among others. They chose these 20 categories because they felt humans could distinguish between them with reasonable accuracy, according to the paper. The time delay for this entire process is under one-hundredth of a second. 

The full article will be below if anyone wants to read it:

[thezombieprostitute]

Hope you work day is going alright!💞

A drop-in visit from PhD!Candidate Curtis on his way back to his apartment from the university. He’s gotta run some data analysis for his thesis, but has no idea where to start. Someone said you could help him find a way?

Sincerest thanks for your patience, Essie! My muse did not want to work on this for the longest time!

A/N: Reader is gender neutral. No physical descriptors used.

Warnings: college/university stress. You don't know pain until you see university students begging the printer to work faster during finals week.

Today seemed to be regular day at the reference desk. You were answering emails from the mathematics faculty and students, assuring them about library holdings of their requested materials. Sometimes directing them to the LaTeX to TeX converter you'd had to make, silently cursing MathSciNet and zbMath for not converting yet. Thankfully, the library students you were monitoring at the reference desk were able to handle most of the questions that got directed at them.

At least until a tall, very handsome man with a buzzcut, wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket walks in. You keep an eye on him as he approaches the desk because he doesn't look happy and you're not about to let anyone yell at the students. Thankfully he seems polite enough, neither of the students look scared, but they do direct him to you.

Making eye contact, you motion him over and he's quick to obey.

"How can I help?"

"I'm, I'm Curtis and...my, my data is...I think it got corrupted," he removes his sunglasses and he looks completely devastated. "I can't lose this data. It's, it's my thesis."

You nod in what you hope is a reassuring manner, "do you have a copy of the data in the university servers?"

He holds out a flash drive and you grab the laptop that's never allowed to connect to the network and get it ready. When it is you hold your hand out and he gives you the drive. Plugging it in you take a few minutes to figure out what you're looking at. Some of the terminology is familiar, he's clearly not a mathematics PhD, based on the labels you're able to discern.

"Oh, I see the problem," you tell Curtis, who's looks keep distracting you from your work. "You were, understandably, trying to use data you'd picked up using our Statistica license on your home computer that has the public domain Dataplot software."

"And I'm guessing the two are not interchangeable," Curtis sighs in defeat.

"Unfortunately the metadata schemas they use for the data sets don't work well together," you nod. "The data isn't corrupted, it's just very, very messy and it would take you a lot of late nights to clean it all up again, even if you knew R."

He scratches the back of his neck, "so my data is useless?"

"You have backups, right? You didn't just keep all your data on this flash drive, right?"

"I have backups," he nods. "But it's still months of work down the drain." He raises his hands to his face, looking like he wants to cry. It's a look you're painfully familiar with given your line of work.

You unplug the drive and hand it to him, "hey, look at me." He lowers his hands a little and the pain in his beautiful blue eyes breaks your heart. "You're going to be okay. Yes, it's a lot of time you'll never get back, but it's not the end. You're going to be able to kick this data's ass and get it in line because you know what you're doing with it now. Your thesis hit a setback, it happens a lot more than people would like to admit. You're not alone and you will be able to get this done."

He seems to take your words to heart, taking a few breaths and standing up straight.

"And make sure to get yourself a treat," you add. "You're hurting and you need to take care of yourself."

He almost smiles as he nods and walks out.

🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣🔣

It's been a few months and you'd almost forgotten about the poor PhD student. You probably would have had his physique not stood out so much. The same physique you see walking towards the reference desk, but with a giant smile. You smile in return, he must've gotten his data sorted out.

He walks up to you, "I don't know if you remember me--"

"Statistical software mess, right?"

He lowers his head as his cheeks develop a pink tint, "yeah."

"I'm guessing it all worked out?"

"I'm officially Dr. Everett, now."

Your smile grows, "congratulations, Doctor!"

"Thanks, um," he rubs the back of his neck. "If, if it's not too forward, could I take you out to dinner? As a thank you?" Your eyes go wide. "It wasn't just the data, software stuff that you helped me with. I was genuinely considering just dropping out, giving up. But then you looked me in the eyes and told me I could do it and...and I want to thank you for that."

Smiling, you tell him, "I get off at 6."

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @ronearoundblindly

[motleyfam]

heyy i was just curious, ive gotton into dc recently but i dont know which comics to read/where to read them, was wondering if you could offer some advice on that front :)

mostly interested in batman/fam, also superman/fam and the flash/fam

So when I first got into Batman, I started at my local library. I checked out a TON of comic anthologies from all different runs and I just kinda skimmed through to see which ones most appealed to me and read those. I loved Batgirl/Robin year one, Super-Sons, Young Justice ‘98, Lil Gotham, and the We Are Robin runs in particular. Then I ended up subscribing to DC Universe for a while to be able access tons of comics without ads (since the ads on the free online sites drove me absolutely nuts and I wanted to be able to download them to read offline) but I know tons of people make it work on sites like “readcomicsonline.li” with ad blockers and good antivirus software.

Later I discovered that what I enjoyed a lot more than the traditional comic format were the DC graphic novels, for example:

Back in 2020-2022ish, I read every single one I could get my hands on through my library and had a ton of fun. They’re great one-sitting books.

What I would recommend is just getting a ton of different comics for free—either online or from the library—and seeing what appeals to you most. I say this because I also tried it the other way — searching out rec lists and “starter packs” of what people online said were the most vital runs for various characters, and while I’m glad I was able to get that exposure to the story straight from the source material… it wasn’t the most enjoyable way to explore comics for me. It kind of felt like homework, making myself to-read lists of all these runs I wasn’t particularly interested in for whatever reason (didn’t like the art, didn’t like the storyline, didn’t have enough humor, etc etc), and that’s the fastest way to drain the fun right out of something.

The best decision I ever made in my comic reading journey was to just read the ones that appealed to me and leave the rest, and not spend a lot of time wondering whether or not that made me a fake fan. At the end of the day, hobbies are for having fun.