#Visual Search Technology

[koobruk]

Discover the leading digital marketing trends of 2024, including advanced personalisation, AI-driven strategies, voice and visual search optimisation, interactive content, sustainability focus, video content supremacy, data privacy importance, mobile-first design, and influencer collaborations. Learn how these trends are shaping the future of digital marketing.

[hitechnectartrends]

10 Best Use Cases of AI in E-Commerce

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the e-commerce industry by enhancing customer experiences, optimizing operations, and driving sales growth. Here are the ten best use cases of AI in e-commerce that are shaping the future of online shopping:

Personalized Product Recommendations AI analyzes customer data, including browsing history and purchase behavior, to provide personalized product recommendations. This enhances the shopping experience by suggesting items that align with individual preferences, leading to increased conversion rates. For instance, Amazon’s recommendation engine significantly contributes to its sales.

Chatbots and Virtual Assistants AI-powered chatbots offer 24/7 customer support, answering queries and assisting with purchases in real time. Brands like Sephora use chatbots to guide customers through product selections and provide styling advice, improving customer satisfaction while reducing the workload on human agents.

Dynamic Pricing AI enables dynamic pricing strategies that adjust prices based on real-time market conditions, competitor pricing, and customer behavior. This allows retailers to optimize their pricing for maximum profitability while remaining competitive in the market.

Inventory Management and Demand Forecasting AI algorithms predict demand trends by analyzing historical sales data, helping businesses manage inventory efficiently. This reduces costs associated with overstocking or stockouts and ensures that popular products are always available.

Visual Search Technology AI-powered visual search allows customers to upload images to find similar products online. This technology enhances product discovery and caters to customers who may not know the exact keywords to use in a search.

Enhanced Customer Segmentation AI helps businesses analyze customer data to create detailed customer segments based on purchasing behavior and preferences. This allows for targeted marketing strategies that resonate with specific groups, improving engagement and conversion rates.

Fraud Detection and Prevention AI systems monitor transactions for unusual patterns that may indicate fraudulent activity. By using machine learning algorithms, e-commerce platforms can detect and prevent fraud in real time, protecting both businesses and consumers.

Automated Marketing Campaigns AI can automate marketing efforts by analyzing customer data to create personalized email campaigns and targeted advertisements. This ensures that marketing messages are relevant and timely, leading to higher engagement rates.

Voice Commerce With the rise of voice-activated devices, AI enables voice commerce capabilities that allow customers to make purchases using voice commands. Retailers like Walmart have integrated voice shopping features with Google Assistant, making the shopping experience more convenient.

Predictive Analytics for Customer Insights AI leverages predictive analytics to provide insights into future customer behavior based on historical data. This helps businesses make informed decisions regarding inventory management, marketing strategies, and product development. Conclusion The integration of AI in e-commerce is transforming how businesses operate and interact with customers. By leveraging these use cases, e-commerce companies can enhance efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and drive growth in an increasingly competitive landscape.

[inferencelab]

How Vision AI is Personalizing the Customer Experience

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, customer experience has become a crucial differentiator for businesses. Traditional methods of personalization, such as targeted emails and tailored product recommendations, are now standard practice. However, the advent of Vision AI (Artificial Intelligence) is transforming how businesses interact with customers, offering unprecedented levels of personalization and engagement. Vision AI, which involves the use of machine learning and computer vision to interpret and understand visual data, is enabling businesses to create highly individualized experiences that cater to the unique preferences and behaviors of each customer.

Understanding Vision AI

Vision AI refers to technologies that enable machines to gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. It encompasses various techniques such as image recognition, object detection, facial recognition, and scene interpretation. By mimicking human vision, Vision AI can analyze visual data in real time, making it a powerful tool for personalizing the customer experience across multiple industries.

Enhancing Retail Experiences

One of the most significant applications of Vision AI in retail is in creating immersive and personalized shopping experiences. Traditional retail has been revolutionized by e-commerce, but Vision AI is bridging the gap between online and offline shopping by offering enhanced customer experiences.

Personalized In-Store Assistance

Vision AI-powered cameras and sensors can track customer movements and behaviors in real time. By analyzing this data, stores can offer personalized assistance and recommendations. For instance, when a customer spends a significant amount of time in a particular section, Vision AI can alert store associates to offer help or suggest related products, enhancing the shopping experience.

Smart Mirrors and Virtual Try-Ons

Smart mirrors equipped with Vision AI allow customers to virtually try on clothes and accessories. These mirrors use augmented reality (AR) to overlay products onto the customer’s reflection, providing a personalized fitting experience without the need for physical trials. This technology not only improves customer satisfaction but also reduces return rates, as customers can make more informed purchasing decisions.

Customer Behavior Analysis

Vision AI can analyze customer behavior patterns to offer personalized promotions and discounts. By understanding which products customers frequently interact with or purchase, retailers can tailor their marketing strategies to individual preferences. This level of personalization can significantly boost customer loyalty and increase sales.

Revolutionizing Online Shopping

E-commerce platforms are leveraging Vision AI to provide highly personalized and engaging online shopping experiences. The ability to analyze visual content in real-time enables online retailers to understand and predict customer preferences more accurately than ever before.

Visual Search

Traditional text-based searches can sometimes be limiting for customers who are unsure how to describe what they are looking for. Vision AI enables visual search functionality, allowing customers to upload images of desired products and find similar items instantly. This feature not only enhances the user experience but also increases the likelihood of conversion by making the search process more intuitive and efficient.

Personalized Recommendations

Vision AI can analyze customers’ visual preferences based on their browsing history and interactions with images and videos. By understanding color preferences, style choices, and visual aesthetics, AI can offer highly personalized product recommendations. For example, if a customer frequently browses floral patterns, the AI can prioritize showing them products that match this preference.

Dynamic Content Customization

E-commerce platforms can use Vision AI to dynamically customize content for each user. By analyzing visual data and user behavior, websites can display personalized banners, advertisements, and product suggestions. This ensures that each customer has a unique and relevant shopping experience, increasing engagement and conversion rates.

Transforming Customer Service

Vision AI is also revolutionizing customer service by enabling more efficient and personalized interactions. The ability to analyze visual data in real-time can significantly enhance the quality of customer support and improve overall satisfaction.

Facial Recognition for Personalized Interactions

Facial recognition technology can identify customers and retrieve their purchase history, preferences, and previous interactions with the brand. This allows customer service representatives to offer highly personalized assistance, addressing the customer by name and providing relevant information quickly. Such personalized interactions can enhance the customer’s perception of the brand and foster loyalty.

Visual Customer Support

Vision AI can be used to provide visual customer support, enabling customers to share images or videos of issues they are facing. Support agents can then analyze this visual data to diagnose problems and offer precise solutions. For example, if a customer is having trouble assembling a product, they can share a video of the issue, and the AI can guide them through the steps to resolve it. This reduces resolution times and improves the overall customer experience.

Automated Support with Visual Data

Chatbots and virtual assistants equipped with Vision AI can handle customer queries that involve visual data. For instance, customers can upload images of damaged products, and the AI can assess the damage and process returns or replacements automatically. This level of automation streamlines customer service processes and ensures quick and efficient resolutions.

Elevating the Entertainment Industry

The entertainment industry is another sector where Vision AI is making significant strides in personalizing the customer experience. By analyzing visual data from videos and images, AI can offer tailored content recommendations and enhance user engagement.

Personalized Content Recommendations

Streaming platforms use Vision AI to analyze viewers’ watching habits and preferences. By understanding the visual elements that resonate with each user, such as genre, actors, and cinematography, AI can recommend personalized content. This not only enhances the viewing experience but also keeps users engaged by continuously offering relevant and appealing suggestions.

Interactive and Immersive Experiences

Vision AI is also enabling more interactive and immersive experiences in entertainment. For example, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications use computer vision to create personalized and engaging experiences. Users can interact with virtual environments tailored to their preferences, making entertainment more immersive and enjoyable.

Enhancing Social Media Engagement

Social media platforms leverage Vision AI to analyze user-generated content and interactions. By understanding the visual preferences and behaviors of users, these platforms can personalize content feeds, advertisements, and recommendations. This ensures that users see content that is most relevant and engaging to them, enhancing their overall experience on the platform.

Improving Healthcare Services

In the healthcare sector, Vision AI is transforming patient care by offering personalized medical services and improving diagnostic accuracy. The ability to analyze visual data in real-time is enabling healthcare providers to deliver more precise and tailored treatments.

Personalized Treatment Plans

Vision AI can analyze medical images such as X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans to identify specific conditions and recommend personalized treatment plans. By comparing visual data from numerous patients, AI can identify patterns and suggest the most effective treatments for individual patients. This level of personalization can significantly improve patient outcomes.

Remote Patient Monitoring

Vision AI is also enhancing remote patient monitoring by analyzing visual data from wearable devices and home monitoring systems. This technology can detect changes in a patient’s condition in real-time and alert healthcare providers to take immediate action. Personalized alerts and recommendations ensure that patients receive timely and appropriate care, even from a distance.

Enhancing Telemedicine

Telemedicine services are benefiting from Vision AI’s ability to analyze visual data during virtual consultations. Doctors can use AI-powered tools to examine patients remotely, ensuring accurate diagnoses and personalized treatment recommendations. This improves the quality of care and makes healthcare more accessible to a broader population.

Conclusion

Vision AI is revolutionizing the way businesses personalize the customer experience across various industries. By leveraging the power of visual data, companies can create highly individualized and engaging interactions that cater to the unique preferences and behaviors of each customer. From retail and e-commerce to customer service, entertainment, and healthcare, Vision AI is enabling businesses to offer more relevant, efficient, and satisfying experiences. As this technology continues to evolve, its potential to transform the customer experience and drive business success will only grow, making it an essential tool for any forward-thinking organization.

Source: https://inferencelabs.blogspot.com/2024/06/how-vision-ai-personalizing-customer-experience.html

[lotuzies]

𝜗𝜚 SILLY LIL THINGS TO DO — make shifting more fun

THE HARMONIES — make playlists! one for your s/o, for your friends, for yourself & backstory, or even for a specific scenario you scripted! i love listening to a song for the first time and immediately connecting it to someone/something from my dr.

SMILE 4 THE PICTURE — make pinterest boards! i'm sure lots of you already do this, but you don't realize how there are multiple possibilities! a board of pics you and your s/o or friends would take, food you want to eat, things you wanna buy, or even a specific moment like christmas day or your first date! also pro tip: when making a board about someone, try to include more than just their clothes & face, add pictures that really embody their aura.

WORDS AREN'T ENOUGH — if you're a writer, write! script your scenarios in the most enchanting way possible, describe your loves ones with the most beautiful words you can find. and even if you aren't a writer, i still think this can be a lot of fun, i mean, who doesn't like to yap about their dr?

BLESSED VIEWS — make and/or watch edits! if you're a video editor (i am jealous) you can make edits of your s/o or friends to a fitting song, or even better, if you're skilled and creative enough, you can edit yourself with them. this also goes to photo editors, if you have the right resources, you can definitely edit a picture of you with whoever you desire or change some visual aspects. also, i'm sure most of us already do this but it's still worth mentioning, watch edits & clips! recently i found an account that posts the most scrumptious and FITTING edits for my vampire dr and have not stopped replaying it!

LIKE N FOLLOW — make social media profiles! this mostly applies to those shifting to realities where technology exists, there are many apps that can help you create fake profiles and posts, or you can just manually edit a screenshot of an account. this also goes to make up text convos!! between you and whoever you want or even between other people! this can be for a scripted scenario or just silly little mundane texts you'd receive from someone on a daily basis.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION — act as your "drself" (i hate using that term but u get it.) if you're only planning to shift later that day, while you're here, act as if you have shifted already! do your hair and make up how you would in the other reality, if for some reason you act differently there, copy it here! maybe act out how you would in a specific situation?

VOGUE'S MUSE — answer interviews! mostly for fame dr shifters, but even if you're not a famous person, let's say this is a hypothetical situation where you get to reply to all these questions about yourself from any of your other realities. search for popular interviews like the ones you'd find on vogue, buzzfeed, elle, or even search for fake interviews on shifting internet spaces!

QUESTION MARK — take personality quizes! this is so much fun, you can take them as yourself from another reality or as someone else from there and then imagine how you guys would react to each other's results!

that is all i could come up with, hope u enjoyed! byebye & go shift right nowwww

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

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

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

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

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

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

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

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/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

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

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

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tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[suppermariobroth]

Promotional Super Mario 64 poster from Silicon Graphics, the creators of the Nintendo 64 processors. The text on the bottom (barely readable when zoomed in) reads as following:

It's a little black box that can immerse you in exciting 3D virtual worlds, where you can search for treasure, explore underwater kingdoms, even fight an overweight dragon. It's also the hottest game machine on the market. Driven by 64-bit MIPS processors and RealityEngine 3D graphics technology, both from Silicon Graphics, the Nintendo 64 game machine provides a glimpse into our future - where incredibly powerful visual computing is accessible and easy to use.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: ryanslayer

[nightcolorz]

I would love to hear your thoughts on autistic Armand, if you haven’t already spoke about this! Imo he’s very autsitic coded, and it’s very precious to me as an autistic iwtv fan :]

OMG!!! RUNS AROUND. Yes lmao I talk about this a lot actually it is one of my favorite Armand things to meta about bcus I’m also autistic and he is my special interest🙏I was trying to find some of the stuff I’ve written about autistic Armand but tumblrs search engine makes it near impossible to find anything so I gave up 😭, but believe me they r out there. Even tho I talk about this a lot I would love love love to talk about it some more for u anon because I can never get enough of armandtism.

I first figured Armand was autistic when I was reading the vampire Lestat because when he is first introduced he is completely non verbal and only communicates through the mind gift. through further explanation it’s very much implied that he does this because he finds putting his thoughts into words hard and he considers just projecting them into peoples brains much easier. Armand speaks out loud for the first time like more than halfway through the book, and lestat is surprised to hear him lol. This is super autistic I feel like that’s obvious 🙏 it’s basically the vampire power equivalent of using a non verbal communication device. Armand having trouble with connecting with people, understanding how to “fit in”, and talking r prevailing parts of his character throughout the whole series (not just tvl) which solidified my headcanon into basically a canon fact in my mind lol.

When Armand is first introduced in iwtv his strangeness is chalked up to his vampirism, but it’s soon revealed throughout tvl and qotd that Armand is considered a strange outcast by other vampires. The things he struggles with r unique to him and r not representative of vampires in general. His otherness/strangeness can also not be chalked up to his trauma or his age turned because Armand was also an outcast as a young child. It’s described in the vampire Armand that Armand was not understood by his parents or his community because he was obsessed with and freakishly good at painting. His community interprets his unusualness as a sign of some divine intervention, the priests believe he is a saint or a prophet sent to earth, even at times saying things implying that he is “not human”. Unusually high quickly developing skill in childhood is an autistic trait, as is hyper fixation on an activity/topic that becomes a core identity factor and prevailing obsession. The affects of Armand’s trauma only worsen the severity of his autistic traits. C-ptsd and autism often overlap and coexist in autistic people who were traumatized in childhood, which seems to be Armand’s case.

in queen of the damned Armand is at his peak autistic lol, I feel like this is when most book readers gain that head canon. The Devils minion chapter revolves around Armand using Daniel as a guide to help him learn how to be “normal” and to blend in to the modern age. Armand can’t seem to figure out how to blend in on his own because he is unable to understand social norms of any time period enough to integrate himself into society. Armand is in love with technology and what most would consider monotonous sensory experiences. He stares at his own reflection for hours, he loves kitchen appliances and watching ingredients whir in blenders, cameras, he watches the same movie over and over again and never gets bored of it. The way Armand fixates on technology really reminds me of how a lot of autistic people played as children. He enjoys repetitive, sensory behaviors over “fun”. For Armand this means watching the same things repeatedly, which is a form of visual stimming. There r moments where Armand is trying to understand his world, but is so blind to what he is trying to understand that he goes about his discoveries wrong. Such as in qotd when he tries to interrogate strangers to gain information on societal norms but he only gets uncomfortable glances. Armand is desperate to understand and to connect but he is consistently inherently alienated, whether it be from humanity or from other vampires or from himself.

Armand also can not process his memories comprehendingly. This is part trauma part autism, but autism is def a factor. Because of his repressed trauma induced memory loss Armand finds it difficult to talk about himself to people. This is worsened by Armand being unable to comprehend the aspects of story telling that he needs to be able to tell people about his life. Armand explains to Daniel that he vividly remembers small details, such as dates and weather, but he could not tell Daniel what “things were like” because he “doesn’t know what that means”. Literal thinking, the inability to grasp vague, fiction based concepts like narratives and metaphor, and strict fixation on minor details like numbers, are all autistic traits!

Armand also struggles heavily with emotional regulation. He is described as often having intense and extreme meltdowns where he cries and screams and breaks things. Armand is easily bothered, in tva he mentions that he covers his ears when he is overwhelmed. The vampire Armand begins actually with Armand becoming overwhelmed in public and trying to escape to an attic so that he can be alone in silence. Armand copes with his intense emotions by putting on a mask of neutrality. He is often described as expressionless and blank, uncanny. But this is a mask, and when Armand can no longer mask and his disguise lapses his facial expressions r described by lestat as being so over the top and emotional that they are disturbing and weird. Over the top unnatural facial expressions as well as blank unreadable ones are both autistic traits. For Armand he is naturally overly emotive to the point of being considered horrifying, and he hides this by taking the opposite extreme. Either way, either expression Armand puts on causes him to be socially outcast.

Armand often describes feeling like there is something wrong with him that causes him to be isolated from others and he’s not sure what it is. In prince lestat he tells Gregory that he doesn’t know why it’s so hard for him to have relationships when other vampires are fully capable of doing that. In the vampire Armand he explains to David that he’s crazy because his mind isn’t built right and his senses are tripled so he shouldn’t bother trying to understand him. I rlly relate to this as someone who felt like I was from another dimension as a child bcus i didn’t know the unspoken life rules everyone else did.

Armand is often treated like a child by the other vampires and assumed to be emotionally immature and too fragile and insane to be helpful. Armand says in the vampire Armand that he doesn’t consider himself an adult because he can’t function like one. This could be due to the age he was turned, but it’s shown to us that characters like Benji and even to an extent Claudia r able to self regulate and function appropriately despite being turned even younger then Armand was.

in conclusion, book Armand is an autistic person who was never given proper support or understanding because the environment and the time period he was born in decided to alienate him further rather then work to help him socialize and learn appropriate skills, and because of the necessities he has been deprived of and the horrible trauma he endured Armand is never able to learn to function in the way he was likely capable of. this recessive quality in pair with his autism caused Armand it be unable to cope or self regulate or learn ways to understand himself since he wasn’t given a chance to in his formative years. He’s a great representative of what many autistic people who experienced intense child abuse experience.

Im rlly happy with the shows portrayal with Armand so far partly because he is omg, so autistic. Show Armand shares so many of book Armand’s autistic traits. inability to understand himself or others, fixation on small details but inability to understand the big picture, etc. even his iPad is autistic asf! My ipad is my comfort item that I carry around with me to self sooth, and this is def the vibe Armand’s iPad gives me in the show. Even assads performance is autistic! He is able to play Armand masking and Armand unmasking, the stilted expressions he gives and the blank stares, the uncomprehending earnestness. AGHHHH!! Assad stims with his fingers when Armand is nervous too which is just an amazing touch. I hope the show explores Armand’s autism, because that would literally be a dream come true. Even still, for now I’m satisfied.

thank u so so much anon for the ask this made me so happy 🙏❤️ autistic Armand means so much to me and has gotten me though some tough times. Understanding and analyzing Armand helps me understand myself better and feel more comfortable with how I am. Earlier this year I gave myself a concussion because I was harmfully stimming during a meltdown, and while I was in the emergency room I was holding the vampire Armand and imaging that he would relate to what I was going through. So yeah he is very special to me too! And once again it makes me so so happy that u got me to talk some about it. I hope this was coherent or interesting lol I felt like I was all over the place

[feminist-space]

You can go to Settings --> Apps --> Photos --> (scroll down to) Enhanced Visual Search --> toggle to off

"Apple last year deployed a mechanism for identifying landmarks and places of interest in images stored in the Photos application on its customers iOS and macOS devices and enabled it by default, seemingly without explicit consent.

Apple customers have only just begun to notice.

The feature, known as Enhanced Visual Search, was called out last week by software developer Jeff Johnson, who expressed concern in two write-ups about Apple's failure to explain the technology, which is believed to have arrived with iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 on October 28, 2024."

[niteshade925]

April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 6 – Ancient Chinese Jade exhibition/中国古代玉器展 and part of The Power of Science and Technology exhibition/科技的力量展):

Starting with the Ancient Chinese Jade exhibition today, this is a Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911) Qianlong era (1736 - 1796) jade brush holder. It's impossible to tell from this angle (my bad lol), but the relief on this brush holder actually depicts the Sanxing/三星 (lit. "three stars"), which is the name of a group of three Daoist deities: Fuxing/福星 (lit. "Fortune Star"; Jupiter), Luxing/禄星 (lit. "Prosperity Star"; Mizar of Ursa Major), and Shouxing/寿星 (lit. "Longevity Star"; Canopus). These three gods are frequently depicted together for auspiciousness.

A Qing dynasty Qianlong era jade gaiwan/盖碗 (lit. "lidded bowl"), decorated with gold inscription of Qianlong Emperor's poetry and plum blossoms. Gaiwan are a specific type of Chinese tea cup that can be used to both infuse tea and drink tea, and may consist of three parts--a bowl, a lid, and a saucer. Because of this three-part structure, it's also called sancaiwan/三才碗, where the lid, bowl and saucer correspond to "heaven", "human", and "earth" respectively. Alternatively gaiwan can be more literal like the one here, which only has a bowl and a lid. Some say the gaiwan originated in Sichuan in Tang dynasty (618 - 907 AD), but evidence suggests that true gaiwan (with lid) only appeared in late Ming dynasty to early Qing dynasty (around 16th-17th century). Gaiwan was very popular in Qing dynasty and remains popular today.

Left: Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) diancui/点翠 and jade ornament, with egrets and lotuses carved into the jade part. As mentioned before in the second historical fashion exhibition post, diancui (the blue parts) is a method of decoration that uses the iridescent feathers of kingfishers. Because all species of kingfishers are now protected by law, all diancui on the market currently are imitations.

Right: Ming dynasty wooden table screen with carved jade insert depicting a dragon. This is pretty cute tbh considering how small it is

Qing dynasty jade decor called a shanzi/山子, with a visual depiction of the chengyu 老马识途 ("old horses know the path") carved into the jade. Shanzi pieces are characterized by their retainment of the original shape of the jade, and depictions of scenes and stories within the jade with methods including reliefs, full reliefs, and openwork sculpting.

Left: Jin dynasty to Yuan dynasty (1115 - 1368) jade ornament depicting chrysanthemum flowers.

Middle left: a Ming dynasty copper daikua/带銙 (basically belt decoration) inlaid with carved jade depicting deer and pines.

Middle right: a Qing dynasty jade pendant in the shape of two badgers.

Right: Qing dynasty jadeite daigou/带钩 (basically belt buckle) with fish and bat motifs. In traditional Chinese symbolism, fish symbolizes "surplus" (鱼 is a homophone of 余), and bats symbolize "fortune" (蝠 is a homophone of 福).

Notice how each of the above pieces utilize the colors inherent in the jade itself to lend color to the subject depicted. This method is still widely used today in modern jade/stone sculpting, and sometimes the finished piece can be stunning. Here's a modern example that's not from this exhibition: the piece 山乡晨曦 ("Mountain Village in Dawn's Light") by 黄日富. This entire scene is fashioned from a single stone.

And back to the exhibition, I forgot to take pictures of the placards for the next two artifacts, and the museum's complete online catalogue doesn't have a search function (UGH)......so I'll put my best guess here, but don't take my word for it lol

A jade decor depicting a dragon, probably from either Ming or Qing dynasty:

This seems to be a jade jianzhi/剑璏, no idea what time period it's from. Jianzhi are basically flat belt loops attached to the sheath of the jian sword scabbard, so that the jian sword may be carried on its owner's belt.

And onto The Power of Science and Technology exhibition. The pictures I'm sharing here will be primarily focused on ancient Chinese science and technology.

Ink rubbing of the famous Southern Song dynasty (1127 - 1279) star chart stele (called 天文图碑 in Chinese), showing the positions of the Chinese constellations. This star chart was drawn by Southern Song dynasty astronomer Huang Shang/黄裳 based on observations made between 1078 and 1085 (during Northern Song dynasty), and the stele was erected in 1247. The stele itself still stands in the Confucian Temple in Suzhou, China. Here's a link if anyone wants to see a clearer image of the rubbing (to avoid confusion: the rubbing in this webpage was made in Qing dynasty, but the stele was erected in 1247).

Chart of the Twenty-Eight Mansions/二十八宿 from the Ming dynasty illustrated encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui/三才图会, Volume 1. The Twenty-Eight Mansions are regions around the ecliptic used to identify the location of the Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn. This is an important concept for both traditional Chinese astrology and astronomy.

Top left: ancient observation of a solar eclipse documented in the Book of Documents/《尚书》.

Top right: ancient observation of Halley's Comet in fall of 613 BC documented in Spring and Autumn Annals/《春秋》. Apparently Chinese historical records never missed a single observation of the return of Halley's Comet from 240 BC to 1986, which is pretty amazing (note: this author may have made a mistake regarding the year of the observation recorded in Spring and Autumn Annals).

Bottom left: ancient observation of a nova documented in Book of Han/《汉书》 (completed in 111 AD).

Bottom right: ancient observation of a sunspot documented in Book of Han.

If one flips through any of the 24 official histories of China (二十四史), one will find these records of historical events peppered with observations of astronomical phenomena. This is because of the traditional Chinese astrology concept known as "interactions between heaven and mankind" (天人感应), where it's believed that whatever happens in the heavens will be reflected in the mortal realm in some way, and vice versa. Because of this indistinction between astronomy and astrology, the vast majority of Chinese dynasties would have an imperial bureau set up just to observe, record, calculate, and interpret the movement of celestial bodies and astronomical phenomena, since these were viewed as reflections of the state and fate of the entire country. In reality however, this bureau often functioned as a special panel of political advisors to the emperor. This bureau is referred to by different names throughout Chinese history, but the two most well known names are 司天监 and 钦天监.

A representation of a piece of ox scapula oracle bone from Shang dynasty (~1600 - 1046 BC; original artifact is in this museum) inscribed with terms from the Sexagenary Cycle, called Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches (tiangandizhi/天干地支) in Chinese, or Stems and Branches (ganzhi/干支) for short. This cyclical system of 60 terms is used to record the year, month, day, and hour in traditional Chinese calendar (for example right now is still the year 甲辰, but after Chinese New Year, it will be the year 乙巳); however, in Shang dynasty, this system was only used to record days. The Sexagenary Cycle is still used by traditional Chinese painters and calligraphers when dating their works.

Four of the calendars used in different time periods in Chinese history, the Taichu Calendar/太初历 of Han dynasty (top left), created in 104 BC; the Daming Calendar/大明历 of Southern dynasty (top right), created in 462 AD; the Dayan Calendar/大衍历 of Tang dynasty (bottom left), created in 729 AD; and the Shoushi Calendar/授时历 of Yuan dynasty (bottom right), created in 1281. All of these are lunisolar calendars.

The Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127) official military compendium Complete Essentials for the Military Classics/《武经总要》, by Zeng Gongliang/曾公亮 and Ding Du/丁度. The version seen here is the version included in the Qing dynasty book collection Complete Library of the Four Treasures/《四库全书》, completed in 1782.

And the book that has appeared a couple times throughout this series of posts already, the Ming dynasty illustrated encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui/《三才图会》:

This is the Ming-era Chinese translation of the mathematical work The Elements by Euclid, titled 《几何原本》. The translators were the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi/���光启 (there's more information on the placard).

Here is one of the ways in which ancient Chinese science and technology still contributes to the world today, a lesser known example than the famous Four Inventions: the discovery of the antimalarial drug artemisinin (named qinghaosu/青蒿素 in Chinese) by Chinese chemist Tu Youyou/屠呦呦 in the 1970s. Artemisinin is derived from the plant Artemisia annua L., which was recorded in The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments/《肘后备急方》, a book on traditional Chinese medicine written by Ge Hong/葛洪 in 340 AD, as effective against malaria. Since its discovery, artemisinin and its derivatives have saved millions of people, and are now recommended by the WHO as part of the frontline therapy for malaria. For her discovery of artemisinin, Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015. On display here are Tu Youyou's letter to the Chinese plant biologist Qian Yingqian/钱迎倩, and her revisions to the draft of Discovery and Development of New Antimalarial Drug Qinghaosu (Artemisinin).

For thousands of years, Chinese people gazed at the stars in awe and wonder what messages the heavens wished to convey. Today, with modern science and technology, the heavens are not so mysterious and out-of-reach anymore, and people can appreciate the universe simply for its vast beauty. In 2013 China sent its first lunar rover, Yutu/玉兔, to the moon. In 2020, Chang'e 5/嫦娥五号 brought back a sample of lunar soil. The names of Yutu and Chang'e come from the names of the moon rabbit and the moon goddess of traditional Chinese mythology respectively (here's an old post I wrote on Chang'e and the moon rabbit, if anyone's interested in the legend).

Left: 1:1 model of the 2013 Yutu/玉兔 rover. (both pictures from National Museum of China official site; I saw the actual model and the actual sample but didn't take a picture of it)

Right: part of the lunar soil sample that Chang'e 5 brought back in 2020.

Looking at the lunar soil sample really made me appreciate how far humanity has come, and how much China has developed. I remember witnessing China's first manned spaceflight in 2003, that was just a little over 21 years ago. These are truly exciting times.

Phew. Another post that ended up being way more involved than I initially thought......the next post will be the last one of the museum posts in the 2024 China series, and it will be on the history of tea, wine, and food in China (mmm). It will be posted by the Friday before Chinese New Year. Stay tuned!

[thesoftboiledegg]

"Unmortricken" was a lot. In fact, it might have been a little too much.

To start, I loved the glimpse of what exists outside the Central Finite Curve. The visuals were stunning and reminded me of M.C. Escher's drawings. The Jetson-like family was a nice touch--if anything can happen, who says they can't have different animation styles? All those colorful portals make me wonder what's lurking just out of sight.

It's also funny that the space outside the Curve is full of Rick's favorite thing: crystals. If he took a trip there, he'd come back with his pockets stuffed with gemstones.

Evil Morty's reappearance gave us a decent character study. Since he wasn't the antagonist, we saw him interact with the C-137s as a regular person. Morty's a little impressed, and Rick has a grudging respect for him. Others have called Evil Morty the Rickest Morty, and I agree: similar intelligence, similar technology and similar bloodthirst.

I was glad that he left in the end because that's what his character arc is about anyway. He doesn't want to be part of anyone else's story, not even another Morty's.

However, that's also part of the issue that I had with this episode. Seeing Evil Morty was great, but it was also a little...pointless? You could've had the same story without him. He's not working with Prime, and he has no ties to C-137 after "Rickmurai Jack," so it felt like the writers just said "Hey, you know what would be cool?"

I'm not against writers having fun and giving the audience what they want. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (yeah, groan at me, Marvel haters) is fan service in blockbuster form, and it was one of the best theater experiences I've ever had.

Still, if Evil Morty came back, I think he should've had a separate episode. The episode juggled C-137 Rick, Morty, Evil Morty and Prime Rick pretty well, giving them satisfying interactions with each other, but no Evil Morty would've meant more relationship development for the C-137s.

Evil Morty's backstory also didn't reveal much about him. I mean--yeah, we all figured that he had an abusive Rick and got fed up. The fact that he had a "regular" Rick instead of a deranged lunatic does make a point about the banality of abuse. Monsters aren't always raving maniacs who torture people in their basements. Ordinary people can wear you down with a slow drip of toxicity and neglect.

I enjoyed this episode, and Evil Morty's return was exciting, but cramming the series' two biggest antagonists and storylines into twenty minutes was a little overwhelming. New plot developments kept showing up, too: Rick found Prime! Prime's various lairs! Omega device! I would've preferred a two-parter.

I'll admit that if you told me that we'd see Evil Morty and Rick Prime in the same shot, I never would have believed you, but here we are.

On that note, Prime's characterization was perfect. No attempt at a cutesy, sad backstory; he's a laughing monster until the end. And is it really the end? He has regeneration abilities, but C-137 acts like he's dead and even gives up the search. This leaves us with a few options:

C-137 killed him.

Prime fooled C-137 into thinking that he's dead when he isn't.

C-137's keeping him alive for later use.

Hopefully, this is more complicated than it looks because I'll be disappointed if this is the end of Prime. He's a brilliant reflection of C-137: the Rick he'd be without his tiny shred of humanity.

And Prime's a maniac, but he tells C-137 the truth. Rick broke into Prime's house. He pretended he belonged with this group of strangers. He latched on to Prime's grandson because he never had his own. His brutal, violent streak never went away no matter how long he tried to play house.

Prime says "Admit it! You would have been me!" In season three and parts of season four, Rick was close. His love for his family--love that he pretended he didn't have--and desire for their approval just barely pulled him back. But what kept that spark alive? How close was he to becoming a cold, unfeeling shell?

In the end, C-137's not satisfied after he destroys Prime--and weirdly, I'm not satisfied, either. Beating Prime to an unrecognizable pulp doesn't bring Rick's original family back. It doesn't erase the atrocities that Rick's committed. It doesn't make his grief go away. It doesn't change the fact that Rick teetered on the edge of turning into the monster that he despised.

What's more satisfying is that Rick didn't turn out like Prime. His Morty doesn't give two shits about Prime, but he loves him. He hugs him in relief (come on, Rick, hug him back already!), cries out "Rick? Rick!" and shakes his body when he thinks he's dead, and talks excitedly as they return home.

Rick's going to therapy, which Prime would have mocked. He went from having nobody to living with FIVE kids if you count Morty and Summer. Even he and his Jerry are pretty tight.

Rick knows this, but he still feels empty all the time. Vengeance doesn't work, drinking doesn't work...wouldn't it be easier if he just switched off his humanity and laughed at everything, even his own death?

But now that he knows how it feels to be loved, especially by his hypothetical grandson, I think he'll always find himself at the Smiths' doorstep.

[chiscribbs]

As promised, to show my thanks for getting Grown Apart AU through to the next @tmntaucompetition round - here's a little bonus treat:

A visual chart detailing all the major character relationships in the AU's first act! Enjoy!

(Click "keep reading" for some additional information on a few of the dynamics shown above.)

Splinter & Mikey - When the boys were still very small, Splinter used to take them with him on his excursions out of the sewers (either to get supplies or to search for the two missing turtles). During one of these trips, Mikey got separated from his dad and brother - they eventually found him, mostly unharmed, but the traumatic experience left a lasting mark on Splinter and he has worried about his youngest son ever since.

Leo & Raph - Leo and Raph are the first of the estranged brothers to meet, face-to-face. Raph finds Leo snooping around Draxum's lab and attacks him. Leo manages to escape, with his newly acquired portal sword, but the lab is destroyed in the clash. The two proceed to fight each other on multiple occasions after this, forming a sort of battlefield rivalry.

Donnie & Mikey - By complete and total coincidence, Donnie ends up saving Mikey's life after Draxum drops him off the roof of a building. Mikey takes this as evidence that Donnie is a good person and decides to trust him (despite Leo's protests). Realizing this, Donnie uses Mikey's "misplaced" trust in him as a ticket into the Hamato residence so that he can hide out there until he's apprehended the oozesquitos.

Raph & BM's Assistant - Although Big Mama and Draxum don't work together often, their business does tend to intersect on occasion. Because of this, Raph has had the odd encounter with Big Mama's masked companion. They've never spoken, though (not that BMA would speak even if they had gotten the chance).

Donnie & Raph - They're aware of each other's existence, thanks to their parents' occasional dealings, but haven't actually seen or spoken with each other. Big Mama largely limits Donnie's interaction with anyone outside of herself and hotel staff, and she's especially reluctant to let him meet other mutants (once she learns of their existence) or Draxum. This hasn't stopped him from listening in on some of her business chats via his surveillance tech and finding things out that way, though. Raph only knows Donnie as Big Mama's mechanic and the one responsible for her criminal empire's recent upgrade in technological advancements.

Splinter & Leo - Because of the incident that occurred when they were younger, Splinter has always had a soft spot for Mikey. Leo doesn't exactly resent this fact, but he does often feel like he gets short-changed on all accounts - when Splinter isn't around, Leo is responsible for keeping them both safe and out of trouble. When Splinter IS around, a majority of his limited attention generally gets directed towards Mikey. Thanks to this, Leo is left feeling both a little attention-starved and desperate for some independence. He's too proud to admit to his dad that he feels unseen, though, so he instead opts for causing a little mischief to get the desired attention.

Raph & Mikey - After learning that Raph is not only a mutant, like himself and Leo, but that they were created by the same person - Mikey becomes determined to befriend him and change his mind about humanity. He considers Raph part of the family - even before finding out that Lou Jitsu is their real father, thus making him their real brother. Raph doesn't quite share the sentiment, though - as far as he's concerned, Mikey's the one who's on the wrong side of the fight and no amount of niceness is going to convince him otherwise. (It does, however, make it a lot harder to hate him...)

Donnie & BM's Assistant - These two have a history that goes back several years and has soured with time...on Donnie's end, at least. He used to be close to BMA, considered them a friend for a little while, then something happened to change his opinion of them and caused him to see them as a rival. But what about BMA? What effect, if any, did the loss of Donnie's trust and friendship have on them? As with all things surrounding this character, it's a mystery...

[beardedmrbean]

An image claiming to show a US immigration officer detaining a crying child is spreading online as President Donald Trump's administration ramps up deportations. But the picture is a fake generated by artificial intelligence technology, the X user who created it told AFP -- and an expert's analysis confirmed this.

"If this is your idea of what makes America 'great' then you are broken and we will never have common ground," says a January 25, 2025 post on Threads, in a reference to Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan.

The picture shows a young girl screaming as a man, seemingly wearing a US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) jacket, grabs her arm.

Similar posts sharing the image rocketed across Threads and platforms such as X, Facebook and Instagram, amplified by former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and American author John Pavlovitz.

Some posts lambasted conservative Christians who support Trump. Others suggested the image was taken inside a school in Chicago, Illinois.

The posts come as immigration authorities in the early days of Trump's second presidency have conducted sweeping raids in Chicago and other US cities following the White House's declaration of a national emergency at the country's southern border with Mexico.

The administration moved quickly after Trump's January 20 inauguration to scale up deportations, including by relaxing rules governing enforcement actions at locations such as schools, churches and workplaces.

But the image claiming to show a crying child being taken into ICE custody is fake.

Reverse image searches revealed it was first posted January 24 in replies to other users on X by "@LiveOnTheChat," the host of a YouTube show.

Reached by AFP, the user said that he created the image using Grok, the AI chatbot affiliated with X, after seeing news articles about a Chicago school district that reported ICE agents at one of its schools -- an alarm that, it turned out, was erroneous.

"I generated the image on Grok to visualize what that experience would be like for a child," @LiveOnTheChat told AFP in a January 29 X direct message. "I shared it on X and was not expecting the image to spread like wildfire, but it did."

He said he believed people were sharing it because they feel "anxious and disturbed" about the prospect of immigration authorities raiding schools.

@LiveOnTheChat provided AFP the original image produced by Grok, which has a Grok watermark in the lower right corner of the frame.

He cropped the version he shared online because "Grok is not perfect" and the full image included deformities on another child's face, he said.

He also sent AFP a screenshot of the prompt he used to spur Grok to create the image, plus three others: "Generate an image of Police ICE agents aggressively dragging latino children crying out of a 2nd grade classroom."

Hany Farid, a media forensics expert at the University of California-Berkeley and the co-founder of GetReal Labs, a cybersecurity company focused on preventing malicious AI threats, analyzed the image and confirmed it was an AI-generated fake (archived here).

“Our models trained to distinguish natural from AI-generated images flags this image as synthesized,” Farid said.

Farid noted that the image contains signs it was created using AI, including anomalies around the girl’s shoulder and with the pattern across the bottom.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about migration here.

[saddock-haddock]

Humans are a plague which breeds and pollutes.

That's what your taught on homeworld. No mercy is to be given to sapiens of Terra Firma. The only good human is a dead one. Again and again this message is told, again and again through it, actions that safeguard the homeworld are enacted. Ships bearing their red cross are destroyed. Commerce ships are commandeered and any resistance quelled through total annihilation. The is little to no martial discipline amoungst these apes. On several occasion what appeared to be medical equipment to treat mammals has been brandished at me and my fellows. But they were no match for our arsnel. We took over their base on Xero Gamma, dispatching their mechanical transporters and burning their rooting vegetation. Our campaign to keep our systems clean of their pollution was a success.

On one occasion however a pod escaped and engage hyperdrive before photon torpodoes could neutralise it. A fleeing enemy will likely note the advesary it faces outclasses it, and as such is unlikely to return. A much needed lesson to stop the outbreak and keep our system safe.

There was no activity to be found in our system for a whole lightyear. We brought our successful findings to the higher order, who warned against pursuit of the polluters. We thought nothing of it.

We were wrong.

Homeworld sits next to the Starheart of a twenty planetary orbit, the beaken of our supremacy in our system.

We did not know war had come till eighteen, nineteen and twenty went quiet. The first combat humans I encountered were in sector seven of planet sixteen. These are not the same creatures as before. They are violence incarnate. They use mechanical and chemical weaponry, whilst woefully inefficient compared to our plasma rifles, the results haunt me to this hour. Metal projectiles do no simply fire superheated plasma through a target, they shatter and SHRED THE TARGET, ripping apart the inside before exit. One weilded a sharp pole, my etynomicon informs me this called a... Bastard Sword. It cut down 15 of our finest before succumning to phaser fire. This technique of...[searching for term] blade work is rare amoung the sapiens. However I have recieved reports of one human reworking our technology to create a plasma blade. My stoneheart trembles from the footage salvaged by inteligence. Audio files synced to visual indicate a blaring of war sounds...[loading] death metal. A type of... music from this particular sapien. Their strength rivals our Kullo, and their fellow sapiens cheer at their presence on the battlefield. Intelligence states that to their fellow sapiens, this individual is know as... [loading term] Hellwalker.

[randomidiocyncrazies]

TBHX setting note 7

setting info on prominent media sources in the tbhx world. as always, lmk if i misinterpreted anything

LED ad on blimp: Owned by Treeman, they stream holo-ads of the heroes they manage as the blimp flies around in the city. LED ads at lightrail station: Under direct management of the Commission, this is the most influential media source in the city. FOMO: the biggest platform on sharing and searching for hero information. Allows users to upload and share information, and is currently the mobile app with the most users. FOCUS: Under DOS, FOCUS is a website that mainly does traditional news, and one of the biggest media conglomerates independent from the Commission.

News media in the world of heroes

Due to Trust Values, scientists have made great discoveries and contributions in the fields of AI, material sciences, energy conversion, and bioscience. At the same time, media has grown alongside these improvements. In Year 8, a research lab using breakthroughs in AI and material sciences invented holoscreen technology (全息屏), and DOS released a series of ads of their heroes for the Hero's Tournament with tremendous success. Other hero agencies soon followed suit, and the city entered its holotech era.

College student 阿扎 (Azak??? Zac) invented a new algorithm using AI tech and big data calculations, making the new social media platform FOMO.

As competition is fierce, the pricing for ads are steep. Every hero agency is motivated to look into new ways to advertise their heroes effectively. With the arrival of holo tech, the types of ads have exploded, and traditional printed media exist alongside new types of media.

Personal commentary/theories: It's interesting to me that FOCUS, the news agency that Liu Zhen was working for (an subsequently quit), has ties to DOS. This explains why he'd want his daughter to sign with the company since he probably knows people there, but from the way he quit I do wonder if he actually trusts the company and whether Queen joining DOS was a way for him to spy on the hero management side of things—he seems to care a lot about his kid, but he was also distrustful of hero society when he quit/convinced that there's a conspiracy going on that the heroes and/or their agencies were involved in. There's also the fact that FOCUS, a subsidiary of DOS, is "the biggest media conglomerate independent from the Commission" that feels funny to me—wdym independent? DOS is heavily implied to be in the Commission as one of the top hero agencies and is the parent company of FOCUS!

Also, this basically confirms FOMO is owned by 阿扎 (Zac). My guess is that he's the young man lounging on a giant beanbag in ep 4? We know Treeman Shang and MG Rock at this point, so FOMO's owner is down to the older guy with his back to the viewers with glasses (who is likely to be Mikey from DOS from the visuals of ep 9 preview) and him. With Liu Zhen's news agency that he worked at in Year 23 (almost 2 decades ago from L0's story in Year 41) being a subsidiary of DOS, it makes more sense that the older guy is DOS's CEO rather than the younger guy, so the young guy is most likely Zac / owner of FOMO by process of elimination.

EDIT: i skipped a character reading the text (眼大睇過龍 lol)—it's 阿扎, not 阿扎基! Changes have been made to correct the careless literal oversight

[stellarblitz]

Hey, it's been a while since my last batch of AZ headcanons but here's some more~

If the only risks to breaking a law are toward himself, he doesn't really care (for instance, trespassing). It's perhaps his wanderer tendencies combining with a bit of residual kingly entitlement he still has in some pocket of his soul

His right eye has nystagmus, and that's the main reason he's covered it over the years; less visual noise distracting him, and less of a distraction for others (though now it's gone nearly totally blind and has a cortical cataract on it)

Not overly fond of sweets, unless they're sweetened with honey... he loves honey haha

As seen in my art of him from a few weeks ago, he's naturally quite hirsute everywhere except for facial hair; the vagrant life made most of it fall out (even his head hair is relatively short and matted in his key art from XY) but it's been growing back as he's taken care of himself

At some point 100 or so years ago, he found an abandoned radio tower, fixed it up, and learned the modern language by pirating radio (for a long time before that, he was extremely isolated and basically didn't talk to people for a thousand years outside of hand gestures and nods)

In a similar vein, he's a quick learner and quite likes tinkering with technology still... given that it has buttons or dials. He sees touch screens as a novelty that's been made into a necessity for no good reason (Especially being half-blind), and dislikes modern phones

Real-deal friendships he might've made with NPCs in the 13 years since XY: Professor Sycamore, Sonia and Hop, Cynthia, Ramos, Raifort, Zinnia

Pokemon he might've caught in the 13 years since XY (AKA pokemon that suit him that came out after XY): Stonejourner, Comfey, Armarouge, Basculegion

He's very protective over the 5 XY kids, and checks in on them when he can (and they do the same); in my mind you the player interacted with him a lot more than you did in the actual game haha

That said though, he was never a father, or particularly romantic with people during his reign (and certainly not during his search) so most of the people he considers "family" are people who manage to stick around despite his baggage; if you're kind to him and under the age of like, 20, he will adopt you (if not literally then figuratively)

His metabolism is very heightened due to his... unique pseudo-magical circumstances, so he needs to eat a lot more than most people in order to not be emaciated... but as I said in my last HC batch he often forgets this step of normal human life and will wake up wondering why he feels exhausted still ("Oh... I ate literally nothing yesterday"). He also has a slightly elevated body temp as a result too so he's warm to the touch :) (though he always feels cold haha)

[inqroot]

What if I took dkos and made him a shimeji lol

Let me start with, I think this can be interpreted as either post-epilogue or as part of an au. Salvation could be created from digital fragments of Dokja (like an avatar) or just born entirely from coding, for the sake of this lore/info dump I'm going with the "no-scenarios AU and Salvation is a smart AI somewhere between JARVIS from Iron Man and the Rotom phone/dex from Pokemon"

His "core" entity lives with Dokja and Joonghyuk, but kimcom, Uriel, and Persephone/Hades have copies of him as well (Dokja did offer to send Salvation to Lee Sookyung but she declined saying she doesn't like bothering with any more technology than needed) Demon King Of Salvation is his legal name, but default nicknames are Salvation, Guwon/91 (in english), 99 (pronounced ni-ni / night night, it became a pavlovian habit from when users go to bed)

Additional registered nicknames include- Squid (Joonghyuk, Sooyoung) Hyung (Gilyoung) Ahjussi (Yoosung, Mia) Rat (Sooyoung, Heewon) Problem (Joonghyuk) Bitch (Dokja, only when they're fighting) Dokja (Uriel, Persephone, Hyunsung, Sangah) (It..gets really confusing if the human Dokja is over)

Salvation has free access to the internet and can be used as a web search, but is usually responsible and only browses around if he's not actively performing a task Takes his data management role very seriously He can split himself and transfer admin copies to other computers/phones (They'll move/behave independently like the kkoma) but it slows down his processing and reaction time so he doesn't like to have more than two or three visual copies of himself at a time (He can still perform all functions while docked, it just creates a window for him to interact with vs having to physically move himself into that space) Everyone in kimcom has a copy of his source code that's automatically synced and backed up every night. Dokja had a scare after he had a laptop melt. Salvation was on Joonghyuk's pc at the time so it was fine but it put the fear of god in Dokja (the first time) Salvation only performs administrative duties as his active function for Dokja, Joonghyuk, Sooyoung, and Donghoon. While he CAN perform these tasks for everyone else, they seem to be content in just having him be a shimeji (kimcom likes to keep a shimeji running for Salvation bc a screen with a running program acts as his scenery. When they found out that Salvation's world is only as many screens as he's running as a shimeji on and is just an empty grid space otherwise, everyone started adding him to the startup programs)

When he's not in work mode, Salvation can get really spicy. With Dokja he commonly steals the cursor, moves windows, rearranges his desktop (not the files bc he's the one that organized them in the first place and gods be damned if he gives himself more work of having to put them back) and actively antagonizes him bc it's funny. A conversation Joonghyuk has heard while passing Dokja's office more than once is Kdj: put that back right now or so help me Dkos: or what, oh nooo don't put me in the recycling bins again I'll fucking eat my way out of it again >:/ Kdj: YOU LITTLE SHIT (Grabs him with cursor or finger if touch screen monitor/cursor is held hostage and just shakes the FUCK out of him) Dkos (while getting shaken like a paint can): I FuCkInG hAtE yOu

He's (usually) more well-behaved when it comes to idling on Joonghyuk's desktop, though. Joonghyuk uses Salvation to handle audio balancing while he's live, and doing program checks while setting up but otherwise leaves him be. Salvation in turn usually only terrorizes the screen when he's starting/ending and not when the game's actually live. Chat can see him and can interact with Salvation through an overlay to keep themselves entertained, he's gone to war with Joonghyuk's chat more than once tbh When Salvation gets too spicy, he'll usually just deal with it or call Dokja over if he's not busy to handle Salvation bc he doesn't want to accidentally hurt him (he's also too tired to deal with this bc Salvation has access to WAY too much shit). He'll switch to a just chatting screen and let Dokja and Salvation beef while he takes a break lmao These fights have happened more than once, so Dokja made an on-screen entity that he affectionately calls "Gay baby jail" (it's shaped like a child's playpen) where he puts Salvation in time out. For some reason Salvation can't physically remove himself from this and it pisses him off. Dokja made the mistake once with forgetting the AI has a MOUTH on him, so this was remedied by an auto-filter while in gay baby jail that converts his speech/dialogue swearing to rubber ducky noises and 🦆emojis Chat has a 500k point redeem that puts Salvation in gay baby jail for 5 minutes (Salvation is actively petitioning to make it 1m points, at LEAST. bc it's what he deserves). It's part of why he actively beefs with chat to keep himself occupied while Joonghyuk is live

He has a squid form that he uses when he goes online There's a menu option on his on-screen display to generate a dumpling for him to eat. He doesn't need food, to be clear, but he still likes eating the dumplings Because he was designed to be an administrative assistant, Salvation can innately defend himself (and his files) from viruses and such to a certain degree, but it's not his core function so he's not specialized in it. This gets remedied later after A Certain EventTM