#decision engines

[goodoldbandit]

Shaping Tomorrow: Three AI Automation Trends to Watch in 2025.

Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo. skm.stayingalive.in Three pivotal AI automation trends for 2025—hyper-automated workflows, AI decision engines, and democratized bots—explained with clear steps to act now. A Quick Look at the Forces Driving Change
 In a world racing toward smarter machines, three key #AIautomation trends will define how we work, decide, and innovate in 2025.…

[fiannans]

If it was a choice between actually getting to know our companions better and developing their relationships with Rook as the player's avatar through classic, Bioware-style investigative conversations or having companions appear in random locations every time you return to the Lighthouse to listen to them spout banter that I could have just heard in the field instead, I know which I would have preferred.

[mollysunder]

I know Heimerdinger's Christian Linke's favorite character, and I sort of tolerated it in s1, but now it feels like things are a little too indulgent. Heimerdinger gets to team up with Ekko to launder his reputation through Ekko and the Firelights. Heimerdinger gets the first narrative game and second character teaser in the promotional cycl. Heimerdinger gets to SING A SONG that's included on the s2 Arcane soundtrack (Spin the Wheel).

Maybe I'd be less annoyed if the show at least did more to acknowledge Heimerdinger's failings as a leader, but his character description can't even do that. This is how the official Arcane website describes Heimerdinger:

"Heimerdinger warned the Piltover Council about the dangers of using magic without tangible solutions for safeguarding its use. Learning from his mistakes with Jayce, Heimerdinger inspires Ekko to keep looking for a solution and works with him to solve the problem, instead of just offering advice."

That's not Heimerdinger's main problem! The problem is the fact he's the person most singularly responsible for the state of Zaun and Piltover. It feels like the show and the cast are just dancing around the fact that Heimerdinger technically has the highest body count in the show (Day of Ash, pollution, extreme poverty, etc). The one time someone puts him to task (Jayce), the show makes it seem like Jayce is wrong or overstepped, and yeah he did do it for Viktor's sake, but Jayce was right! Heimerdinger's bad at his job, he shouldn't be in a leadership position if he's a bad leader.

[inhuman-obey-me]

The Design of Solomon's Room

OM tends to have pretty strongly consistent visual theming for its characters: Asmo gets florals and pastels, Lucifer has a lot of deep red and black, Levi is frequently depicted with water, etc.

For Solomon, they've changed it up from time to time, but generally, they've stuck to blues, stars, or rainbow. So why does his room look like this?

Well, for anyone else who has also thought that Solomon's room design seems a little out of place to the rest of his visual theming, here's a fun thought on why it looks that way!

This painting is The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon by Edward Poynter, from 1890:

You'll notice some strong similarities to this painting - the reds and golds, the composition of the pillars vs the bookshelves, the greenish peacock feathers and the dark green lampshades. The chandeliers, too, could be to represent the opulence in the painting, and the chairs may also be a reference to the fact that this was a depiction of his throne room -- he was a king, after all.

So, while it doesn't really match his visual themes in the rest of the game, it seems likely that Solomon's room was designed as a reference to this painting!

[sainz100]

Carlos Sainz | F1 London Live in 2017 | x x x x x

[lord-squiggletits]

The other day I saw something that actually made the fandom's complete lack of acknowledgement towards Megatron grooming/brainwashing Tarn make a lot of sense, which was essentially a comment that implied something along the lines of 'Tarn made himself worse.'

Which like, I guess makes sense as a justification? If you just write off Dying of the Light and Tarn's entire existence as him just "choosing" to be "worse" I guess it's easy to just blame Tarn and coddle Megatron as the victim of the whole thing.

As opposed to the actual truth of canon which is that Tarn was not always Tarn, Tarn used to be Damus, Damus was nothing like Tarn at all, and it was Megatron's direct, malicious, targeted intervention that took Damus (normal guy) and made him into Tarn (zealot freak). And that the DJD wasn't Tarn's creation, it was Megatron's creation, because Megatron not only wrote the DJD rulebook but also directly trained them (at least the initial members of the DJD, including Tarn) to be brutal, sadistic killers. And that Tarn's mental breakdown in Dying of the Light and subsequent deathhunt on Megatron was just Tarn continuing to fulfill the role Megatron assigned to him, which was to hunt down traitors to the Decepticon cause and make them pay in pain and death. In other words, that Tarn was literally carrying out the exact purpose that Megatron groomed him for, in service to the ideology that Megatron shaped to be centered entirely around ruthlessness, cruelty, and subjugation. And that everything Tarn did as an evil person was merely a logical extension of the ideology Megatron brainwashed him into carrying out, not him randomly deciding to "make himself worse" one day bc he was angy at his daddy.

But sure. I guess, from a certain, very zoomed in and granular perspective, Tarn is evil because he just chose to be that way and no one could've possibly predicted him turning on his master who reshaped his entire life to serve his will and then abandoned him. It's not like Megatron radicalized him for no reason and then built him to be a ticking time bomb or anything. No, Tarn just... decided to make himself worse. One day, for no reason at all. Mmmkay.

[immortalsins]

what is it about my dads house that makes me want to end it all

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Blue and Fire Engine Red Pt 8

Kara tries to pivot them back towards the normal they’ve established so far. After all, nothing for her has changed– Lena is still a hero, and Kara still… Kara still wants to love her. But she can sense the difference in the way Lena behaves towards her. Responses to Kara’s texts over the following days come fewer and farther between, personable enough but lacking the spark they’d held before. Soon, Kara realizes that what little communication there is, Lena’s stopped initiating.

There’s a wall between them, even when they manage to sneak a dinner together midweek. Lena’s smiles are thin, distant, like a wall has been erected between them. Lena guards herself now in a way she hadn’t before, and the longer Kara lets it be, hoping things will naturally drift back to the way it was, the more Lena pulls away.

Finally, on a night Lena begs off a meet up due to pulling an extra shift at the firehouse, Kara goes to visit her– only to find Lena not there and not ever scheduled to be on duty. A finger of icy dread creeps down Kara’s spine as she drives to Lena’s.

When she arrives, she pounds on Lena’s door. “Lena! It’s me! Open up!”

There’s music from inside, loud and angry and patent evidence that Lena is within. She pounds again and again, then ceaselessly until finally she hears the lock snick back. The door opens, revealing Lena sweating and flushed, hands wrapped for boxing.

This time, Lena doesn’t bother to feign interest in Kara’s presence. Her eyes remain dark, features stormy when she retreats back inside without a word, leaving the door open to follow if she wishes. 

The music continues to blast from the mid-sized speaker in the corner, soon accompanied by the beat of Lena’s fists slamming into the punching bag again and again. Kara waits a moment for Lena to pause and catch her breath, but she continues without flagging, until Kara loses her patience and yanks the speaker’s power cord from the wall. 

It does nothing to slow Lena’s pace. The force of her blows swings the bag to one side then the other, to the point that it rattles Kara’s bones when she moves to brace it. Still, she refuses to back down.

“We need to talk,” she states with a calm she doesn’t quite feel.

“So talk,” Lena huffs, jabbing with an uppercut that nearly knocks Kara back a step. Kara doesn’t relent. 

“I said we.”

Lena’s jaw visibly clenches, and she finally breaks away from the bag, breathing heavily. Kara hesitates, suddenly unsure what to say to navigate the storm gathering around Lena. She crosses her arms over her chest to steady herself. 

“Shutting me out after I told you I wouldn’t push is a dick move.”

Lena snorts. “Yet here you are.” 

“Because I care about you. Respecting your boundaries doesn’t mean I have to just stand there as you drift away. Not after everything–”

“Everything? Everything over, what, a month? How special.”

“Don’t,” Kara growls. “Don’t trivialize how I feel, and don’t you dare pretend you don’t feel it too.”

“And so what if I do?!” Lena’s shout cuts through the air. “Compatibility consists of more than just good sex–”

“Oh fuck you,” Kara snaps back. She takes a step forward even as Lena moves back. She sighs. “Look. I know I pressed closer than you were ready for. I’m sorry.” She gazes at Lena, searching for her girlfriend beyond the anger. “Could we just– reset?” 

“Reset? Really?”

Kara nods. “Yeah. Because one month or no, I like you, Lena. And that’s all I’m asking for. You.”

That at least, seems to give Lena pause. She hesitates, brow furrowing as she studies Kara. In the end though, her gaze slides away once more. Kara’s heart falls.

“It’s not that simple,” Lena murmurs.

“And that is 100% your choice,” Kara shoots back. Complicated doesn’t have to be complicated if Lena doesn’t want it to be. If she does, Kara doesn’t care. “I’m not looking for simple.”

Lena scowls, but says nothing. Kara scowls right back. 

“You have trauma. Trust me, I get it. But you don’t get to punish me for caring about you.” At that, Lena nearly flinches, guilt flashing behind her eyes as she looks away. “And waiting for me to drift away is just mean.”

Lena still doesn’t say anything, but now it feels less guarded and more at a loss for words.

“I get that you’re not ready to share, okay? And I get that you may never want to. I just want to be the one there if you do. That is what I’m looking for.”

When silence answers her yet again, Kara loses patience. “And if that’s not something you want– if I am not what you want, fine. But at least have the balls to tell me outright.”

With that, Kara turns on her heel and storms out. She’s just jabbed the button for the elevator when she hears a door open behind her. “Kara!”

Turning, Kara sees Lena standing in the middle of the hallway. Her anger seems to have evaporated, leaving her bereft of anything more to say. The elevator dings open behind Kara, and she has half a mind to enter it out of spite, but her heart speaks louder. She retraces her steps back down the hall, drifting to a stop in front of Lena. She waits.

Lena takes a breath to speak, then another, but nothing comes out. Green eyes meet Kara’s, as though imploring her to understand whatever it is she can’t say. Though the ball of anger in her gut cools, she stands firm.

“I’m not a mind reader,” she says.

Exhaling, Lena closes her eyes. Again, her words seem to fail her, but Kara gives her time to gather herself. Finally, Lena rallies against whatever ties her tongue. 

“I like you,” she says, her voice low. “More– more than I should.”

Kara frowns– she doesn’t necessarily like the sound of that. But at least it’s honest.

“I don’t– jesus.” Lena wipes the sweat from her upper lip, her frustration plain. “There are things… things I never want you to know.”

In spite of herself, the words kick Kara in the chest. She means it when she says she doesn’t need Lena’s past. But she does want her trust. Kara releases a breath. “I told you I don’t care.”

Lena shakes her head. Suddenly, Kara realizes it’s not the only part of Lena that shakes. Her hands tremble, as much as Lena tries to hide it by picking at her hand wraps. 

“You say that now–”

Kara’s features harden. “Don’t insult me by comparing me to anyone else, and don’t you dare assume for me that I’ll change my mind.”

Lena swallows audibly, and only then does Kara realize the anguish in Lena’s posture. She’s never seen Lena like this, and she knows Lena had pulled away from her because drifting away was the easiest way to let her go. But right now, Lena is facing the most difficult path– for her. Kara softens. 

“Hey,” she says, reaching out to still Lena’s fidgeting hands. “We’ve been having a good time, haven’t we?”

Lena exhales, nodding. “Yeah,” she breathes. 

“And we were having a good time before Hector told me anything, and without me knowing anything you don’t want me to know. We can keep this going without it.”

“But…”

“If anything changes, for either of us, we can have this conversation again.”

Lena frowns. “It’ll be harder then. To let you go.”

Kara offers her a thin smile. “That’s the risk we take, when we decide to share any part of ourselves with another person. But I promise you– all I want is now, with you. Now, and however much of the future we get.”

The next thing she knows, warm lips press against hers. Lena’s mouth is soft, transferring the salt of her sweat to Kara’s tongue. Wrapped hands frame Kara’s face, before Lena’s forehead rests against hers.

“I want that too,” Lena breathes. “God, I want that so much.”

Kara hears the shake in her whisper, the tremble in Lena’s hands against her skin. She’s afraid, Kara realizes. Truly afraid. Questions and dread bubble in Kara’s chest, but she tamps them down, curling her fingers around Lena’s and giving them a firm squeeze.

“Then let’s do it. Together.”

Lena takes another quaking breath.

“Okay.”

[lacnunga]

What if I spend the next year nervously considering the idea of returning to education as a mature student 😬

[jet-bradley]

i understand her now

[number1spongebobfan]

Rusty is in her orange costume.

[dreamaze]

A collection of some of my favorite details in Minhyuk's vocal performances (studio & live) ♡

The Dreaming: all of this range but especially the gorgeous & fleeting lowest note One Day (No Limit Tour 2022 in Seoul): the one-note melody change in the final chorus (taking a higher note in the chord on 'I'm' — it's so good I'm devastated it's not in the studio version) Wildfire: the quick melisma on the 'in' of 'inside' thanks to a happy accident in the recording booth that became permanent Love Killa: all of this lovely melting tone in the bridge but especially the vibrato on the final note (we love thoughtful vibrato choices!) Beautiful Liar: the floating countermelody in the ending Rush Hour: that growl that only happens in certain performances Gambler: another (subtler) growl between 'calling me' that is unique to his interpretation (Kihyun doesn't do it in his earlier part) Gambler (It's Live, ft. Kihyun): because how could I not love him performing the upper harmony live with no backing track!

[istherewifiinhell]

okay my non tf knower beloveds. before you is the two most famous female autobots from their latest released iteration

[ID: 1. Left, Elita-1, has a slight frame with squared off shapes, augment with chunky boots and plating at her knees, forearms and big shoulder pads. Her base metal colour is light pink, with dark pink plates. She has large rugged tires at her feet and shoulders and a hip skirt made of her alt mode car doors. Her helm is large, continuing the shape of her head in a triangular or trapezoidal shape.

2. Right, Arcee, also slight, but in rounded retro future shapes, her plating very stream line and evoking her retro car alt mode. Base metal is grey, seen only on her face and hands, the rest of her in baby pink and creamy off white. Small white rimmed tires on her legs and shoulders, and a chromed up backpack. Her helm is small, looking more like a white helmet, round with flat disk either side. 3. Extra angle on Arcee in daylight colours to show off her features more END]

sorry no promo art arcee yet. for whatever reason. the bastards.

now. here is the female autobot from the new movie trailer

[ID: Cyber robot design, with more metallic shine. Slight frame, rounded square shapes. She's in a more saturated pink colour at the helm, torso, upper arms and lower legs. With a lighter colour that's pink, rose gold or grey depending on lighting, for the rest. And some black at her joints. Upper arms are long, rounded, lower legs have a sort of swoopy boot shape, with pointed knee pads. Her helm's a larger blocky shape than her face, a squared look from the from, but either side has the round flat disk parts. 1. Upper body from the side, holding big gun. 2. Upper body facing forward 3. Action pose showing some of the legs. END]

yeah i did my best shes not in it much

[iangallagherisadeadman]

post-s11 Tami definitely gets tired of Lip and leaves him.

yes, I do like them as a couple, I think it is an interesting dynamic and that Tami is good for him honestly, even though they lived completely different lives and crash so many times because of it throughout the last seasons.

fact is Lip won't ever change and will keep making the same kind of mistakes and she will get fed up with it eventually. they'll go different ways, maybe keep a somewhat friendly relationship, and she will get a new partner and Lip will have a Sean kind of relationship with Fred: that kid is the most important thing in his whole life and he's constantly hunted by the fear of drinking again and hurting Fred.

[estebunny]

just for some of you confusing about esteban's dnf, he already complained about "the steering locking up under heavy braking" in his first stint on the mediums, then it came up to another gearing problem, no better after changing to hards, and the team decided to retire the car at the end

[marauderstiltheend]

WOW! Production I.G is fantastic! Haikyuu is fkn amazing! This is how you bring animation glory to a Sports manga. This is how you do Sports Anime.

Production I.G staff are awesome! This first person (Kenma) point-of-view is so freakingly on-point for volleyball players. I've always wanted for volleyball players and any sports players to wear a freaking body cam just to have this player's bird eye-view.

Production I.G delivered! Way more than I expected.

The animation is amazing. The freaking spinning ball. Amazing. The vision panning. Amazing. The diving saves. Amazing. The slow-motion sequences. Amazing. The running Asahi kneel save. Amazing. The freaking NET. Amazing. The sound effects. Amazing. The BGM. Amazing. The voice acting too (though I masked that with Phoenix Band Version). Amazing.

You can feel the adrenalin, the thrill, the rush, the desperation and the fear in every point of this rally. And throughout the whole movie too.

Amazing. Just amazing.

Congrats, Production I.G. Congrats, Haruichi Furudate sensei!

And as Kenma said, I don't want it to end. Me too, Kenma. Me too. I want more Haikyuu. I want more Sports anime from Production I.G.