#and of course the ai filters and I keep saying I'm not interested by these videos to the tiktok algorithm but that doesn't work

[aromanticannibal]

has anyone noticed tiktok becoming a war zone or is it just my for you page 🗿🗿

[muninnhuginn]

Thanks for the tag, @roseofcards90!

Last song listened to:

Currently watching:

Move to Heaven (kdrama) - this probably isn't my usual fare, but I think I'm liking it so far? (Finished the first two eps) It's basically about telling the stories of the dead and making sure they get the respect they may not have received in life. One of the main MCs is autistic (as in, literally diagnosed) and the writing/acting seems to have a good balance so far with not babying him by showing he is competent but just has different rules and different people "get" him to varying levels? (There are definitely some little bits like the implication that his dad learnt sign language for him that feels warm rather than some writer just googling "common autistic traits") Will see how it goes anyway. It seems like the story of the day is episodic but the character stuff is building in the background.

Link Click (donghua) - Started watching this when s1 was airing but it was airing in the same period as Oddtaxi so the mystery parts of my brain were focused more on that at the time. To simplify it, it's a time travel donghua where the MC has to go back in time in order to retrieve info without altering the timeline. Season two is airing now and whilst I prefer s1 still overall s2 is still pretty interesting? Season one is more episodic/structured into arcs with a character focus, whilst season two is more full pelt mystery (so it's a bit surprising I prefer s1 tbh).

Jujutsu Kaisen (anime) - I'm an anime-only with this and am probably going to remain that way (especially from what I've gleaned about the manga - I might just watch to end of season two then leave it be?). Season two so far has captured me more than season one, though I've not seen the latest episode yet so will see if that holds when we return to the main cast. Either way, the openings and endings are genuinely so well-made. Even if the series goes entirely in a direction I hate I know I'll always have them.

Again My Life (kdrama) - Lawyer guy gets into trouble trying to take down a powerful guy. Gets killed (shocker). Gets sent back to his younger self to do it right this time. Not a super original plot admittedly, but it's a chill story so far and the relationships between the main cast in it (pretty much all platonic at least at this stage) are all really sweet. It's also doing surprisingly well in giving the female characters interesting conflicts

Adventure Time (US cartoon) - Not watching the whole thing and I have seen a number of random episodes out of order before, but am trying to crash course my way through enough to watch Fiona and Cake. Just finished the episode about Finn's ocean phobia and um, bit more yikes than I was expecting at this stage, but okay. Also, unfortunately, I can entirely see what people mean about Bubblegum&Finn being inspiration for Makima&Denji

Currently reading:

Klara and the Sun - first arc complete, extremely worried about some flags I'm picking up, rip. It's from the POV of a robot (AI kinda deal) and narration-wise, it really shows. Klara's pretty naiive in some ways, but the world-building and clues still make their way through the narration filter

House of Leaves - okay, ngl, I'm not far into this at all, but I've been confused about references to it for years and it seems meta so I'm going to get through it

Will bundle manga in together for ones I'm properly keeping up with rather than checking in every few months to catch up so: Skip and Loafer (monthly release), Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (monthly), Spy x Family (fortnightly). Webtoons: Rebirth (weekly), unOrdinary (weekly).

Current obsession:

idek what I'd count because I'm into a few things rn and none of them to the extent I've done the whole deep dive? I'm being relatively chill, for me, I'd say. I'll say Link Click, Good Omens, Spy x Family are the things I'm most into nowadays? Good Omens is definitely what I have the most reblogs queued up relating to by far. There's just so much art and meta and I'm not used to being into a fandom here that just has so much. It's a bit overwhelming, honestly

Not sure who to tag but anyone who sees this and wants to have a go feel free (and feel free to ping me in it, I'm nosy) ^^

[ettadunham]

do you listen to a lot of podcasts? which ones do you recommend? i'm just finishing listening to ars paradoxica and i need something to fill the gape it'll leave lmao thanks!

Hey you!!! I probably don’t listen to all that much compared to the more hardcore listeners, but I did manage to find a bunch of cool stories relevant to my interests if I do say so myself :P

I actually made a podcast page listing them all out, and I also put links in the pictures to each of their official sites. I would probably recommend any of those, but I’ll also try to give a quick rundown on each, just because I love talking about them.

(Also, please hit me up if you’re looking for some specific content or filter options relating to these or some other podcasts I may be familiar with enough to answer ;) )

Now, since aP is the reference point you gave me (my kind of anon ;) ), I’ll start with some ensemble sci-fis right out of the gate, from the plot heavy to the character-centric:

Marsfall - intense space drama about a Mars expedition crew. There’s only one season out yet, but it’s real strong right out the gate, and I’m already in love with Jacki and ANDI (the commander and the AI of the ship, respectively).

Wolf 359 - starts off more as a space sitcom, but then shit eventually gets pretty real and intense. Already finished with over 60 episodes and all sort of additional content available, so the perfect binge material. (Also, bonus cameo by the ars crew at some point.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris - this one had a long hiatus after its first 5 episodes, but it’s coming back, so now is the perfect time to start. It has a bit of Firefly vibe to it (bunch of misfit smugglers in space on the run from a totalitarian government), but a lot more diverse.

Station to Station - leaving space for a bit, S2S is taking place on a research ship, where our scientist protagonist is looking for her missing lab partner. Weird shenanigans and memory problems ensue. (Season 1 is complete as of now.)

What’s the Frequency - aptly titled, WTF is a period detective noir story with some pretty weird shit going on connected to radio dramas, which I still don’t quite understand? Is it the devil? Is it even sci-fi? Who knows, not me.

The Bridge - there are sea monsters, a Transcontinental bridge, and watchtowers to keep an eye on things. The show follows the crew of one such watchtower. This is also where my plot-heavy -> character-centric concept kind of falls apart, because the show does a slightly different thing. In every episode, there’s a separate story narrated by one of the characters (usually Etta, the protagonist) about the lore of the Bridge, while the plot slowly moves along. Some of these stories of course involve the characters themselves, but you often don’t actually know for sure. Also, a pretty dope intro (ta-da-dam-ta ta-ta-da-damm ta-da-dam-dam ta-ta-da-dam DAM DAM TA-DAM TA DA DAM TA DAM TA DA DA TA-DA DAM DAM TA DA DA DAM DAM TA TASJGFKADFJ;DAL - anyway, it’s great :P).

The Bright Sessions - a show about people with abilities in therapy. There’s an overarching plot, but even once that unfolds, it still relies much more heavily on the characters, and what they’re going through in each episode. An excellent gateway podcast altogether, that is soon coming to an end.

Non sci-fi ensemble shows:

Under Pressure - also featuring ships and sea monsters like some of our previous entries, but now it’s a drama about a scholar joining a submarine science expedition to write a philosophy paper... but in reality, is there to deal with her grief.

Homecoming - about a program that’s supposed to re-integrate veterans back into society with some shady methods. Overall, this story wasn’t really in my wheelhouse, but it’s one of those high profile podcasts that have people like Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer voicing characters, so that’s nice.

Okay, so I left shows relying on one or two people’s narration for last, but these are actually some of my faves, so I hope you got this far. Pretty much all of these have some sort of fantastic elements, but I will try to put them in an order of plot-reliance:

Alice isn’t Dead - a truck driver is looking for her missing wife who isn’t dead. There’s also a conspiracy and serial killer monsters lurking on the roads. Podcasts in general have a lot of good horror to offer, but I just... can’t do them. AiD is my exception, and it’s narrated by Jasika Nicole, so... how could i say no?

The Far Meridian - an agoraphobic young woman wakes up every day to find that her home (a lighthouse) turns up at a different place. There may also be additional mysteries. Lots of magical realism, and shit getting weirder and weirder as the episodes progress. Created by one of the ars writers, it’s a gentle balm for your soul. Season 1 is already out in full.

Girl In Space - this one is about a girl in space. Shocking, right? She loves cheese and Jurassic Park, and is totally alone on her space station... until she’s not. Technically might qualify more as an ensemble at this point but... eh.

Mabel - haunted house, mythical creatures, and a caretaker leaving voice messages for her charge’s missing(?) granddaughter. Gets gradually weirder, gayer and more poetic as it progresses.

Within the Wires - I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH!!! I’ll start with that, because I should probably also confess that after listening to the first episode, I was convinced that it wouldn’t be my thing. The first season is told through these weird relaxation tapes, that you’re probably only half-listening to at the beginning. But things do become much clearer by the 3rd-4th episode or so, and by then it’s much easier to follow. It also has an anthology structure, where each season tells a different story with a different narrator, but it’s still connected and takes place in the same universe. Anyway, let’s just say that it’s probably my second favorite show after ars at this point.

Investigative fiction podcasts, which is sort of a very specific subgenre with plenty of content, I’m guessing:

Limetown - 10 years ago the people of Limetown disappeared overnight, and now a radio host is set to solve the mystery. Season 2 is coming this year, which is great, because S1 ended on a cliffhanger in fucking 2015.

Rabbits - a radio host is looking for her missing best friend, who disappeared playing a weird, ancient game, probably. Also by the same people who did popular shows like Tanis or The Black Tapes - but overall I heard mixed things about those, especially in the long run. I liked Rabbits though.

[topicprinter]

It's been just over a year since I sold my company and I'm trying to shake the rust off. It's scary how fast the world changes, especially when building software. But a fresh start is an advantage in a weird way because it lets you pull back and look at trends and where you want to focus your energy. So here are some things I've noticed in the past month just looking around the internet. I'll probably start a business in one of these categories.​Curating the curatorsThis is less of a new trend and more one of those exponential curves that is hitting the hockey stick part. There's so much information online that the traditional curators of the past decade are struggling to keep up. For example, Youtube likely has 50-100 videos per category on most popular how-to subjects, so the burden is back on the user to scroll through and make the mental calculations. "Okay this one has more views, but the guy in the thumbnail looks super annoying and is probably going to give a 2-minute intro."There's an opportunity to curate the curators to once again ease the burden on the user. I used to search Product Hunt for new software tools, and now when I search for something simple like "image optimizer" there are 6-7 results I have to consider, which is basically Google. I'd love for someone to tell me the one that they chose after doing the same comparison search I'm about to do. Save me opening another 7 tabs, please.The ProductHunt example is interesting because it seems they've realized they need to evolve their upvote curation method, and recently released a new product called YourStack. This site lets you look at what tools other people are using, which is partially helpful for discovery but still doesn't solve the search problem I looked at above.Whether its Google, Youtube, Product Hunt, or even the people I should be following on Twitter, there's a need for someone to aggregate the best resources from most content platforms.​Machine learning as a utilityIt's hard to escape the hype, and I've seen way too many founders start "AI" companies by hiding a very basic algorithm under a bunch of marketing language and a cool .ai domain name.Skepticism aside, my view on the subject shifted when I heard Kevin Kelly talk about AI as a utility. I can't remember the exact quote, but he said that rather than needing everyone to become AI programmers in the years to come, there would be a few algorithms that would be sold like electricity, and every business would integrate them without needing to be experts. He made that prediction about 5 years ago, and we are just now starting to see this take shape in a few limited applications.At its core, a machine learning algorithm helps you do something more accurately by using a large amount of training data. A lot of the early wins in machine learning were low-level tasks that humans did, but could now feed their decisions as training data and build an algorithm around. Examples: moderating content, filtering out graphic material, etc.As for the utility aspect, while you can't get access to the algorithm Facebook uses to auto-moderate posts, there are machine learning APIs available that have the potential to launch many different businesses.In one category, document/image parsing using an API like Google OCR Vision or Docparserrepresents a huge opportunity to replace manual labor in a lot of industries. Let's say I know that bar owners have a stack of liquor vendor invoices that they pay someone to manually type into Excel for accounting. I don't need to be a machine learning expert to build an app that uses a phone camera plus a parsing API to make that much easier.For another example, I have no idea how a tool like Gigapixel AI can turn old photos into high resolution just with their upscaling algorithm, but if they offered an API (and similar tools may already) then I could use it to create a service that helps people update and print their old wedding photos.The opportunity is there, and I'd say you can build on most of these APIs by learning some React/Node.js skills.​Goal-based educationI'm a bit biased because my last company was in education, but I also have been closely watching how online education has evolved in the past decade.While the world is full of free courseware and Youtube videos on almost any subject, there's still a huge opportunity emerging to create educational content for a wide variety of purposes and learning styles.One area I'm surprised isn't getting more attention is goal-based training. Related to the signal-to-noise problem with all online content, it's very difficult to piece together the right courses to achieve a specific goal. This was the main principle my last company used to succeed. I taught a course called "How to build a marketplace app like Airbnb" and since many startup founders had marketplace ideas, it connected a path to the goal.To break down another example, let's say I need a place to store my extra books, and I'm feeling adventurous enough to break out the power tools and build a bookshelf myself. Currently, my path looks something like this:Google "how to build a bookshelf"Read a few top articles, try to resolve conflicting informationGo to Youtube and watch a 6-minute bookshelf tutorialWatch another video because the first cut out a lot of stepsTry to resolve conflicting info between those videos and the articles I readGoogle "basics of woodworking"And while it's amazing that we live in an age where all this information is freely available, I'd happily pay for someone to do that work for me and record a "zero to bookshelf" course. I find it odd that when I search Skillshare and Udemy, there's nothing like this out there. Do I take "Woodworking essentials" and then try it on my own? Who knows.​Platform ExtensionsIt's a bit terrifying to build on a platform. In the last decade, countless businesses were killed off overnight as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram restricted their once-open APIs. As a founder, there's nothing scarier than the prospect of waking up and seeing your software is broken and can't be fixed.The industry trend of a less-open internet and more limited API offerings has stopped many from building on top of other business platforms. But the upside is high enough that it's worth asking whether there is a less risky way forward.I'd argue that you don't want to build a business on a massive platform. Any of the social networks mentioned above have enough money and power to make platform decisions with very little regard to the businesses built off them. Instead, I'll be looking at smaller platforms with very engaged audiences.A good model of a platform extension business is Baremetrics. The business was founded on Stripe's platform in 2013. Stripe had emerged as a super simple way to integrate a payments API into an application, but their reporting features were lacking. Baremetrics took their reporting data, built it into a dashboard tailored for subscription-revenue, and grew into a respectable platform company. 7 years later, it's far from dead, even though Stripe's reporting capabilities have grown significantly.To replicate this, start off by finding a piece of software you are using/passionate about that has a decently large community (bonus points if they already have an API). It's easy to figure out what the community is asking for as far as features/extensions, and if you build it you know where to find users. Another benefit of a smaller platform is that you can reach out directly to the team. "Hey, love using X, was thinking about building something to help users do Y better. Thoughts?" That way you can get a heads up if that feature/extension is on their roadmap, or if they have no plans to build in that direction. Or, worst case, just say "please don't do that."​Those four areas are where I'll be focusing my efforts building software this year, and now comes the hard part: actually doing it. Would love to hear where you're focusing and if you're building in one of the areas highlighted above, how's it going?