#food industry machines that are at another level food industry machines that are at another level ▶1 food industry machines ice cream food i | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

glitchphotography · 2 years

Photo

Ok, I’m going to write one last thing about AI Art. This time, with no trolling or sassy memes. So I hope y’all can read it with an open mind.

So there was considerable pushback to my previous post and there were some very valid POVs. To the people who said stuff like “AI is being used unethically and I don’t want to f_ck with it,” Yes! You are right to feel this way and I respect that position. It’s equally valid to say “AI is being used unethically, so I want to explore the limits of this technology and how it affects the world we live in.” and it’s also equally valid to say “AI allows me to concept and source visuals that I can then process into my own artworks.”

But here’s the thing. There is more than one kind of visual art practice and many of them are not existentially threatened by generative image AIs. If anything, the artists who are threatened by this tech are the ones who make a living off of making representational imagery for a number of cultural industries. This in itself is a privileged position that isn’t afforded to most visual artists. Many artists who exhibit and publish around the world don’t get the opportunity to live off of their work, they have to teach or work in adjacent industries to survive. This is especially true for new media artists like myself.

That said. It’s obvious that these generative image AIs are quite adept at simulating visual data. But anyone who has used Midjourney or Dalle2 can attest, there’s so much that these AIs can’t and won’t do. Visual art is not just the mechanical simulation of visual style.

Here’s what generative image AIs can’t do, it can’t create images with a sense of:

Concept

Materiality (Physical or Digital)

Criticality

Yes, it also can’t create hands and it’s not that great at drawing Black people either. But more importantly, AI can’t imagine what it means to work with materials, whether it’s the scratched up photos of Adrian Piper, or the glitch artifacts of a specific image format. Generative image AIs can’t create conceptual art and it can’t look at or arrange images in a critical way. What I’ve noticed is that many artists (not all ofc) who work on these levels of meaning are not threatened by AI, many of them see it as an interesting tool that they may or may not use. Working with these layers of meaning is what keeps artists ahead of the curve in terms of how these automated technologies are developed.

There were similar hysterics with the advent of photography, and it took many decades for photography to be accepted as an art form. “You just have to push a button,” they’d say. “Photography is going to kill the fine art of painting.” yada yada. Photography certainly didn’t kill painting, if anything, painting was freed from the burden of representation. We wouldn’t have cubism, or suprematism, or abstract expressionism, or pop art without the development of photography. It’s true that many portrait artists lost their gigs with photography, but overall humanity’s creative drive survived and flourished.

(Side note: Generative image AIs are going to eff up photography in many ways, some scary, and I think as a post-photography artist, it’s important to interrogate these dynamics rather than disavow it. But that’s my imperative. Stock photogs and some fashion photogs are going to get screwed, but not photojournalists or documentary photogs as much.)

So yes. Generative image AIs are basically appropriation machines and, as far as appropriation machines go, its like the equivalent of a visual art sausage maker. It averages all the images scraped from the internet into a kind of fast-food aesthetics.

But here’s the rub. Generative image AIs can’t imagine what doesn’t already exist. Every output is the result of averages from existing visual data . AI will never replace an unfettered imagination. This is another reason why the whole NO AI ART movement doesn’t speak for all artists, because many of us are striving create images that haven’t been created before.

But I get it, this is Tumblr, and since the great purge of 2018 the dominant aesthetic has been fandom-based art, which relies on borrowed aesthetics much in the same way that AI does. I think the reality is that many artists who work in this niche are going to get royally f_cked and my heart goes out to them. It won’t be the AIs that do the f_cking, but the IP owners like DisneyMarvel, Sony, Epic Games, Nintendo, etc . They will be the first to use generative image AIs so that they can save money by not hiring artists. This will be especially tragic for the privileged few who went to art school to land industry jobs.

These existential threats to artists are ultimately a question of labor rights as opposed to technology.(UNIONIZE!) Appropriation is literally the engine that drives all art from the beginning of time. Every artistic tradition has grown because of appropriation. Whether it’s blues or classical music, Shakespearean tragedy, renaissance paintings, pop art, conceptual art, hip-hop, you name it, there has been appropriation. The question about whether appropriation is good or not, is a question of where capital is flowing to. Like Rock n Roll is crap because it channeled capital from a Black musical tradition to the hands of white musicians. But hip-hop was great because sampling (a real art form, like AI art) became the basis or a whole new urban Black musical tradition that would bring some capital back, eventually from the sampled sounds of white musicians. Ofc this is a simplistic summary, look at how long it took Biz Markie to get royalties, etc

So yes, Generative Image AI Services are appropriating art works in ways that are harmful to some artists and these artists should get royalties every time their name is conjured up in a text prompt. But I’m sorry, this doesn’t mean that “artworks are being stolen.” Nothing has been stolen.

What people don’t realize was that many of these image models were created years ago. Data was scraped from the internet on a mass scale and this was all legally sanctioned because of Fair Use Laws that protect researchers who want to scrape data. These datasets, like LAION-5B which itself is based off the Common Crawler dataset, are open source and freely available. They were created for research purposes within research settings and that is totally legitimate. Fair Use Laws are essential to artists and data scraping is one of those things that can be used for good or evil. But the way these AI models were trained was completely legal. What is ethically dubious and f_cked up is how corporations used these legal mechanisms designed to help artists and researchers to create a privatized service product. Again, this is why I say, “you don't hate AI Art, you hate capitalism”

The reality is that an artist can copyright an image, but not a general style. This idea that every artist on ArtStation has some inalienable originality and uniqueness to their work is the result of a hyper-individualistic capitalist ideology that is utterly out of touch with how art has been historically produced. Since the advent of mechanical reproduction, the magical aura of the art work has long been dead. Authenticity and originality are marketing buzzwords and not facts.

These “AI stole my art” arguments are crouched in a deeply regressive view of copyright and intellectual property, because very few artists, if any, would be able to prove in court that an AI plagiarized their works. AIs are sophisticated averaging machines, so the more an artist’s work appears to be copied, the more datapoints of their works and similar works exist in the training model. Proving that AI “steals art works” would also mean dismantling Fair Use Laws, which actually protect artists from predatory corporate IPs.

Digital remix culture, fan art, hentai, all the things you dearly love and breathe on this Tumblr site would evaporate without Fair Use and it’s hella naive to think that if one of these illustrators actually proves that AI “stole their work,” that Disney and Studio Ghibli and Nintendo won’t come around and say that illustrators are in turn stealing their precious IPs. Copyright laws exist to protect the ruling class. There’s a reason why all us lefty new media artists release works as CC. (Side note: Still waiting to see an artist from the Global South make a “AI steals my arts” argument, so far i’ve only seen US and EU-based artists fret.)

And there is a sad irony in all of this. None of my works were used to train AI even though Tumblr was among the sites that were scraped. (I never used ArtStation or Deviant Art bc they don’t eff with experimental media artists) The reason is that there’s a preference for images that are algorithmically legible. The effed up reality of internet platforms is that algorithms judge your images before distributing them. Glitch art and experimental media arts are usually judged to be low quality content by the instagrams and tumblrs of the world. I had like 200 abstract images flagged during the great purge of 2018 that I appealed and won, because these algorithms don’t have a clue about what is art and what isn't. Everything on ArtStation, stock image websites, are easily legible by nature, and as such, easy to algorithmically appropriate. Artists who know how to create works that are algorithmically illegible will thrive in the post-AI era.

And this leads me to my final point. Many artists, like myself, are drawn to AI for what I call “Liminal Aesthetics.” It’s not about how good the AI can approximate an image, but how bad it is. Many of us are interested in these mal-nourished images. The weird faces and hands, the lack of proportions, the weird shapes, and unexpected textures. The thing though, is that as these generative image AIs get more advanced, the liminal aesthetics are lost. The more these AIs get better at parsing natural language, the more basic and unaesthetic the outputs. So for many artists, this AI moment is temporary. As DALLE2 and MidJourney will ultimately turn into a fancy clip art generator that will replace stock image and stock graphics sites, from iStock to Sketchfab. That’s why I think it’s important to embrace this shit now, because these gorgeous liminalities will soon be a historical artifact.

To conclude, I will say this, and this is very important. The trad art world and their system of values is dying. In the post-digital world of infinite images that aren’t bound by physical scarcity, the rarest and most valuable images are the ones that are remembered, shared, and viralized. If your art is being copied or replicated, even by an AI or a bot, that means that your art is surviving this new era. There are worse fates than having your art copied.

That worst fate is censorship and forgetting.

The image at the top is [ILLUSTRATION #4j2492D] by jonCates, he describes ths AI work as “The Artificially Illustrated Glitch Western Primer for Machine Learnerrs,” and it’s part of a much broader project of creating the first “Glitch Western” based on historical narratives of Black and Chinese people in the West. Most of this project isn’t AI-based imagery, but lovingly crafted video and game art.

Some may not know this, but jonCates was big on Tumblr before the purge of 2018. He’s an og glitch artist and his “Dirty New Media” tumblr was a veritable museum of lewd glitch arts. I remember being so proud when my boo’s glitched bootie ended up on that page. The site was a treasure. Sadly though, Tumblr deleted all record of the Dirty New Media blog as well as jonCates’ tumblr of personal work. All f_cking gone forever. This is the real tragedy of censorship and forgetting. A whole culture lost.

So why cling to this destructive dynamic because you read a hot take about AI by a privileged artist working in gatekeeping industries? What is copied and appropriated can still live on and we all can do better and fight the power where it resides instead of vilifying other artists. Cheers, shout out to everyone who read all this <3

#ai art #ai art debate #art history #essay #art criticism #ai art is not art #joncates #glitch art

134 notes · View notes

dreamer213 · 8 months

Text

Broken Machines: Between Shadows

Chapter 6: Corporate, Crime, and Colleagues

Being busy is a normal part of life most people just fall into. Be it because of schoolwork, actual work, chores, or a hobby, things just get backed up and need to be tackled in way too short of a deadline. And unfortunately for the two youngest high-ranking workaholics in the Atlas range, today was one of those days.

Whitley, up early as usual, had just gotten through his backlog of work that morning when Hannah knocked on his door.

Hannah: Young Master?

Whitley sighs, pockets his scroll and gets up from his desk to open the door for her. But when he sees her it’s clear something is very very wrong. Her expression is sour, and her face is slightly green from uneasiness, not something you want to see on your service staff so early in the day.

Whitley: What happened this time, Hannah?

Hannah: W-well, Master had a guest over last night.

Whitley: Yes, I’m aware. And?

Hannah: Well, it seems he’s made a…little messy in one of the guest rooms, and the cleaning crew is having trouble tidying it up.

Whitley: Are they running low on supplies or was there some property damage they can work around?

Hannah: N-no, it’s not that.

Whitley: Then what’s the problem?

Hannah: It’s…not easy to describe. Honestly, it would be easier just to show you. Please follow me.

Whitley sighs again before stepping out into the hallway and letting Hannah led him to the aforementioned guest room. As they’re approaching Whitley can already tell this was going to be unpleasant to deal with. The cleaning crew was standing outside the room dawned in protective smocks, industrial duty gloves, and masks. They all looked horrified but were completely clean as if they couldn’t even attempt to enter for fear of meeting some horrible fate. A foul snitch permeates through the hall, the only indicator of what’s got them so spooked. The moment Whitley gets a whiff of it his stomach drops, he knows that smell and immediately understands why everyone’s being so cautious. Still, he needs to confirm his hunch before calling in backup.

Whitley: Please God, let it be just a small pile on the bedsheets.

He prays, before opening the doors to the guest's room and peeking in. His eyes go wide in pure horror as he gets a glimpse of the mess inside. The smell hits him at full force causing him to double over and gag, stomach threatening to empty onto the floor. He pulls back slamming the doors shut before turning to Hannah.

Whitley: Where is the guest?

Hannah: In another room down the hall, asleep.

Whitley: Okay, make sure he gets rehydrated when he’s awake, and give him soft easily digestible food for the rest of his stay.

Hannah: Yes, sir!

Whitley: Thank you. Now I’m going to call the hazmat company to clean this up. When they finish take everything out of that room outside and burn it.

Hannah: Everything?

Whitley: Yes, not even the strongest industrial cleaner is going to get that level of snitch out.

Hannah winces and then nods her head in agreement, walking away to inform the other staff members of their new orders. Whitley calls up the cleaning specialist but just as he finishes the call, he gets a message from his father. A demand to summoning him to an in-house conference with some of his business associates. Or more accurately a meeting with a bunch of corks brushing aside the worries of middle management who know good and well that they’re toeing the line of legality on multiple fronts. And Whitley was going to play rear guard in case someone lost their temper, again.

Whitley: As always, there is no peace in this house.

He muses before walking back to his room to make preparations for the meeting.

Meanwhile, in Mantle, Penny is assisting in another emergency involving the robberies. The military detail for Hemlock Steel was making its way back with the shipment but two small explosions stopped them midway. The first detonated directly under the armored van’s engine causing it to blow up along with the front of the vehicle. This also caused a fire that quickly spread to the interior. The shipment truck stopped immediately after the blast, the soldiers inside leaped out to aid their comrades. Just as they were getting everyone out the second explosive went off. Though this one was just a flashbang, it still managed to temporally blind and deafen the soldiers in range. By the time most had regained their senses, the shipment truck was gone, and they had to call back up for transport back and to tend to the wound.

Which is where Penny came in.

It's hard to keep her anger in check as helps her fellow soldiers into medical vans, carrying a few who couldn’t stand and guiding others whose vision was still impaired by the second blast.

Penny: Okay, just take a few more steps.

She said softly, right hand set steady on the shoulder of a soldier and the other firmly grasped in his hand as they walked carefully on the icy terrain. He was a young man, a newer recruit barely nineteen years old, and already wore heavy prescription glasses. But they had shattered in the first blast, a reflexive blink being the only thing to save his eyes from direct damage. Until the second blast.

Penny: That’s it, now put your foot up onto the step.

She directs the man as he steps up and into the medic van, shaking while still grasping Penny’s hand tightly. He’s unsure in his steps but thankfully manages to get in safely where military EMTs get to look after him along with the other injured. Penny lingers for a moment to watch as they check his eyes, the meager reactions and dilation as they shine a light into them being clear indications of damage. Penny couldn’t help but be hit with a sharp twinge of pity for him. If it could be healed naturally it would take a while, leaving him somewhat blind for the duration. But if the damage was great enough to necessitate treatment via cybernetic or even complete ocular transplant then he would never be the same again. As one who’d had her whole body replaced aside from a few key organs, Penny knew just how foreign those new parts could feel in both good and bad ways. But she couldn’t dwell on it for long, there were still others in need of help before the cold or their injuries got to them.

Penny: Just focus on getting everyone home safe. Everything else is secondary.

She tells herself, pushing down the heavy emotions swirling around in her head as she returns to the wreckage to grab the next patient.

Back in Atlas, Whitley is sitting in the middle of a corporate battlefield. Accountants, lawyers, and descent-minded middle-upper management begging for clarification on discrepancies in budgets and complaints from both employees and customers while Jaques's team of well-bribed broader members deflected all wrongdoings.

The issue of missing money is the first to send everything into disarray, accountants terrified of possible tax issues demand to know why spending was so high. The most senior of them, Jeffery Hayward was especially vocal, reminding the board of the “cost-cutting measures” Jacques had put in place and how hard the finance and legal department had worked to make it happen without any of the four kingdom’s councils interfering.

Jeffery: We had protests around office buildings for months, White Fang members used it as an insight incident to justify the murder of multiple executives and a few board members! Men who were here when this company came to be and stood beside our founder lost, all for the sake of these policies! Policies that have not only damaged our company image with the masses but provoked multiple lawsuits from workers! Yet The Head of our massive enterprise has allowed spending to get this out of hand! Can someone please explain to me hoe this is remotely feasible?!

He shouted from across the long oak wood boardroom table, red-faced and clearly incensed. The Head himself however seemed unmoved and instituted of responding looks over to his son sitting in the chair to his left. He wasn't going to bother with this. Eyes cold with boredom, he stares Whitley down in a commanding way, giving the boy silent permission to speak. Catching his cue Whitley rises from his seat with papers in hand, ready to rebuke the claims. The forums were doctored to hide the truth, obviously and his selection was simple to act as a buffer between the two sides. Because who would dare question the young well-spoken future head of the company?

Whitley: The additional costs are from new expenses for necessary procedural and equipment overhauls in several departments due to changes brought on by changes in the closing of borders and loss of communication with a portion of our global facilities.

Jeffery’s anger calms for a moment as he processes the boy’s words. But it soon returned as more questions arose.

Jeffery: But this is simply too much of a discrepancy! An increase this high in over only a year is-

Whitley: Is necessary when the entire of the Atlas shipping fleet had to be switched from manned aircrafts to remote control aircrafts. There was also the cost of production of the new ships, the severance and retirement pay for the long-term pilots who were dismissed. One of whom’s family we are still forwarding a monthly salary and providing health insurance coverage due to the pilot going missing during his final delivery. Not to mention the added inflation on all of this due to Vale’s current economic and institutional restructuring.

He rebuffs elegantly, cutting off Jeffery and stopping the conversation in its tracks. Bringing up two tragedies, one of which directly relates to the company on a public level and the other on a practical level, gives the high-spirited pause and makes the bloat in cost seem more understandable. But this was just the beginning. Just like before Jeffery comes back with another fallacy in the situation and as the rest of the room looks on Whitley continues to stand his ground. It’s a war of attrition and the young man had more than a talking point and patience to win.

Unfortunately, Penny isn't so lucky. Just as the medics finish patching up the last of the injured the sound of loud stomping breaks through the icy winds. Sensing danger, Penny steps away aside and fires up her boots. She jets up into the air and looks in the direction where the sound is coming from, focusing in with her enhanced vision. What she finds is a horde of Ursai grimm coming their way! Most of the group is made of ursa minor but their numbers are high and the one ursa major among them was massive, towering over the other even from the back of the herd.

Penny: This is bad. At the rate they are traveling, we’ll only have five minutes before they reach us and less than fifty before they get to the city if they bypass us. Better cut them off now while we’re still out of sight.

Penny thought, activating her aura and focusing in on the ursa major before descending back down. She doesn't land immediately, instead, she hovers above the area steadily putting herself in a position where everyone can see and hear her.

Penny: Attention!!!

She shouts, and everyone stops in their tracks to look up at her. Giving of this air of authority Penny quickly briefs everyone on the situation.

Penny: A horde of Ursai is coming in from the east, twenty minor and one major!

The area irrupts into loud murmurs at the announcement, many of the injured looking frightened, and the able-bodied and uninjured quickly pick up their arms as Penny continues.

Penny: All the injured and incapacitated need to retreat, now. Everyone else, stay and prepare to engage. We’ll cut them off before they can reach the main road or city lines.

With no time to complain or even think the trooper replies with a simple “Yes, Ma’am!” before going to work. Within moments all the injured had packed into medical vans and were heading back to the city while the active soldiers ready themselves for a fight. As the horde comes into view, the soldiers form a firing line and take aim. Penny, still in the air, signals to those on the ground to hold.

Penny: I’m going to take down the major to break their formation, focusing on minors before they break away from the group.

The soldiers reply again with another “Yes, Ma’am,” and retrain their sights to the smaller Ursa minors. Just as they get into firing range Penny flies directly at the Ursa major. Discharging all her swords, Penny sends them flying at all four of the beast’s limbs before kicking it directly in its mask-shaped outer skull, hurling it back and onto its stomach. Confusion spreads through the horde as their leader falls to the ground, giving the soldiers a clear shot as they open fire. The ursa major doesn’t get a chance to get back up as its limbs lose all function from the deep cuts Penny slashed into the joints. It only gets a few seconds to flail about before Penny fires an energy blast at it, obliterating the large beast’s head in one blow. As the rest of its body crumbles away Penny refocuses onto the ursa minors. Almost half had already been mowed down by the firing line while a few had managed to break away. So, with a quickness like no other, Penny gives chase. Not a single one of these grimm were getting to the city on her watch, even if she had to fight them off by hand!

Busy in battle, Penny unknowingly misses her lunch call with Whitley. Not that he could answer, the meeting running so long that they had to have food brought in. The quality and quantity of which causing another agreement, one Whitley had to agree for while everyone else ate. By the end, the boy was exhausted and in much need of some reprieve but as always things don’t go his way. As his father’s seeing off his colleagues, promising to go out with the man and his associates for drinks that weekend, Olga approaches him. Her face is strewn as she tries to tell him something, but he just brushes her off. Sensing her disposition Whitley looks over at her and motions for her to wait at the side. She does just as the last man goes out the door and Jacques re-enters the manor.

Jacques: Gods, that was exhausting!

He signed, taking off his clip-on tie and tossing it to one of the maids who catches it on reflex. He stretches his arms as if he’s just had the most troublesome day, a low yawn escaping him as he does so.

Jacques: Someone fetch me my cinder box, I’ll be in my study. Don’t disturb me.

He commands, the staff present reply in unison with a respectful but monotone “Yes, Master.” Jacques huffs proudly at the display of obedience and leaves, the tension in the room deflating once he’s footsteps can no longer be heard. Now in the clear Olga rushes over to Whitley, the sternness in her eyes now mixed with a hint of anger.

Olga: Young Master! You need to come with me right now!

Whitley: What is it this time Olga?

He says in an aspirated tone, emotionally unwilling to take on any more tasks but unable to refuse. This attitude soon shifts into one of urgency as Olga clarifies her request.

Olga: Something has happened in the Mistress’s bedroom!

Whitley: What!

He exclaims, voice full of shock and worry at the prospect of something happening to his mother. Without any delay, Whitley and Olga head to Willow’s wing as quickly as possible. During the walk over Whitley’s mind races with possible scenarios that could have befallen his unfortunate and at times barely coherent mother. Thankfully none of them comes to pass as when they arrive Whitley is greeted by the sight of his mother in her bed asleep. She was dreaming peacefully while on the other side of the room stood, Yuko and Mary. Mary was standing there with her usual uninterested glaze while Yuko was holding down another maid in a tight grip. The young woman had her head down, her long dark blonde hair obscuring her face. Mary is the first to spot them and quietly strides up to them.

Mary: Evening Young Master.

Whitley: What’s going on Mary?

Mary: Mistress was experiencing more headaches then usual and decided to go to bed early tonight. After I put her down, I called for Olga and Yuko to help me tidy up “the usual mess.”

Her gaze falls to the floor, looking pointedly at the stray empty wine and bourbon bottles start on the floor. Whitley scowls at the sight and, not wanting to think about it, presses Mary to move on.

Whitley: Yes, and?

Mary: As we were cleaning that girl over there, I believe her name is Tabitha, came to the door with a basket of fresh laundry. She insisted on putting everything away herself, so I let her come in. But not long after I heard something fall from the closet and when I looked, I found her hiding this behind her back.

Mark holds up a silver brooch with a large red jewel at its center.

Whitley: That’s!

He takes the jewelry from her hand and holds it gingerly. He knew this brooch well for it once was pinned to the shirt of a man he deeply admired. The last person to make him feel secure and at peace before Penny. This was his beloved grandfather’s brooch; one he wore often when out of his armor and had been a treasure keepsake for his mother. One that never left her room since his death, store away in a jewelry box she kept at the back of her closet. And yet.

Whitley: How dare!

Whitley maintains a neutral face as he takes the jewelry piece and puts it back where it belongs. Pulling the jewelry box off the shelf, he stared at it for a moment. It was an old silver box shaped like a grand piano, a birthday gift for Willow after she’d gained an interest in the instrument all those years ago. It had no lock but why would it need one? No one was foolish enough to touch something so valuable and meaningful to the literal inherent of the estate. At least no one with sense.

Whitley: Yet some people are just so rotten even that doesn’t faze them.

He thought bitterly as he gently placed the brooch back with the other jewels and returned to the box to its hiding place. When he turns back around, there’s a burning anger from him that puts everyone but Mary on alert. Seeing any other Schnees this irritate was cause for concern but seeing the normally calm and courteous Whitley like this? That was almost mythical and completely unpredictable. Without a word, he walks toward the door, stopping at the door front then turning back to pointing out to the hallway. With his blazing gaze, he conveys a simple demand “Outside now,” which all four maids follow immediately, Yuko carrying Tabitha out by her arms as the attempted thief drags her feet. Whitley gently closes the door behind, eyes trained on his mother’s sleeping form to make sure the noise does wake her. On out in the hallway, Whitley marches up to Tabitha and Yuko.

Whitley: Hold her up.

He orders, Yuko complies and lifts the girl up onto her feet.

Whitley: Tabitha.

Addressing the theft, Whitley expected her to look up at him and try to explain herself. However, it seems that despite being shameless enough to steal a beloved keepsake from the person she’d called Mistress she somehow was too ashamed to look at the woman's child as he confronted her.

Whitley: Tabitha, look at me.

His voice was cold and menacing, his tone sending frightened shivers down the blonde’s spine. Scared of what could come to pass if she refused, Tabitha slowly raised her head though her gaze stayed on the ground. Annoyed by this Whitley tilts her head up by her chin using his index and middle fingers. He held her face so that her brown eyes have no choice but to stare into his deep blue which now bore terrifying hollowness as they stare back. It was so harsh Tabitha felt like she might cry. For a moment, the vast power difference between them became clear. Despite seeing him near daily most of the staff never fully recognized how much Whitley had grown in the last few years. His dignified demeanor and attitude made it hard to see him as anything more than the proper little young master. But right now, they could see he wasn’t the little boy he’d used to be but a young man with far more strength than most would ever realize.

Whitley: Collect your things from the maid’s quarters then turn in your resignation. You have one hour to leave this manor and never return.

Tabitha: But-

Whitley: And if you fail to do so I will have you arrested for theft and blacklisted across the kingdom before you can even post bail. Do you understand?

Tabitha nods in the affirmative erratically and Whitley finally lets her go. His gaze doesn’t leave her as Yuko lets her go, causing the blonde to fall to her knees before scrambling back up and running away.

Whitley: Yuko.

Yuko: Yes?

Whitley: Make sure she does as told and drag her out if she doesn’t follow through.

Yuko: Yes, Young Master.

Whitley: Olga, tell the head maid of Tabitha’s dismissal and why in detail. Don’t leave her any room to talk her way out of it.

Olga: Yes, Young Master.

With that, both maids leave to carry out their new orders. This left Mary and Whitley alone, the maid giving the boy a knowing look. It wasn’t often that she got to see the boy bare his fangs in person but when she did it only reminded her that she’d back the right one. The young heir could be just as cruel as he could be kind when needed, it’s one of the traits she’d first spotted in him. A testament to the type of leader he’d become when the time was right.

Whitley returns her look with a scoff before leaving, his mood utterly soured. He disliked acting harshly but had no mercy when ruthlessness was deserved. Still, the whole situation left a bad taste in his mouth as he wondered what could have happened if his mother had been awake to see such a scene.

Whitley: She’d would’ve been in hysterics if she’d seen that. Gods knows how she is about Grandfather’s things.

He muses as he strides back to his room, foreseeing another of work coming his way when arrives he takes the long routine back to prolong the inevitable. In his steps, his mind wanders to happier things, specifically the lovely redhead he’d been dying to see.

Down on Mantle’s streets, Penny is also taking the long way back as she finally heads home. Taking down the rest of the ursa minors took longer than expected as a pack of beowolves came in behind them. Now after getting back and getting all the reports done Penny’s workday is over and she could some much-needed rest!

Penny: Can’t wait to get home! I need something warm to eat, soft pajamas, and a nice bubble bath.

She mused, a tired yawn escaping her as she turned a corner. She’s walking past a retail store when she spots a familiar face up ahead. Decked out in her usual bright colors and roller skates in front of a burger shop was Neon Kat, holding a hefty bag on her tail while both her hands rested on her hips as she argued with a man on the street.

Neon: For the last time Mike, I am not interested!

She shouts, looking at the man, Mike, with obvious disgust. Mike doesn’t take this lying down and shouts back.

Mike: Bullshit! I know you want me!

Neon: Like Hell I do! You’re a piece of shit!

Mike: Ha! Says the slutty cat!

Neon: The fuck did just you call me?!

Mike: You heard me! Everyone knows you rotate through your dickbag teammates on the daily.

Neon: You son of bitch! Don’t you dare bring my team into this!

Their bickering attracts stares and whispers from passersby, but no one moves to intervene. Tired but not wanting her reckless friend to get in trouble, Penny goes to break them up. As she’s approaching Mike raises his hand to strike Neon, the cat faunas too caught up in yelling to notice. But as he brings it down, something grips on his wrist tight. It’s Penny’s hand, holding his wrist with strength that threatened to snap it in two.

Mike: What the-

Penny: Leave my friend alone.

Mike: Let go of me, you crazy bit-

Penny: Leave now before I make you leave.

She states eyes a glow as she grips him a little tighter. The pressure sends a wave of pain down his arm and Mike's face pales. She lets go when he pulls away, backing up into a wall before taking off in terror. Situation handle Penny turns Neon to check if she’s okay.

Penny: Are you okay Ne-

Neon: Penny Pop!

But it’s unnecessary as Neon quickly latches onto her in a bear hug.

Neon: What’s up girly! Whatcha doing around here?!

Penny: Walking home, I just clocked out for the night. What about you?

Neon: Gettin dinner for the gang.

She brings her tail around and shakes the bag of food in Penny’s face.

Neon: My period just started, and it gives me mad red meat and cheese cravings. And since it’s payday I thought I’d be nice treat my boys too!

Penny: That’s…more information than I really needed.

Neon: Whateves. Hey, you wanna come back to the barracks with me? We’re having a jam session to prep for a concert we got coming up.

Penny: Team FNKI’s performing again?

Neon: Yeah, Bossman Iron Pants says morale had been tanking all over town and asked us to dish out some of our special brand of funk to people’s spirits up!

Penny tilts her head, getting the jest of what she means but losing bits of it among the slang.

Penny: Bossman? Do you mean General Ironwood?

Neon: Duh! Who else would I mean?

She chuckles, promoting Penny to roll her eyes and lightly shove her off her shoulders.

Neon: So, you in or what?

Penny: Sorry, Neon but I have to get home soon. My dad’s making pasta for dinner, and I need to get there before it gets cold.

Neon: Aw, what! That’s so lame!

Penny: Maybe to you but it’s not to me. Good night Neon.

She waves Neon goodbye before continuing her trek home.

Neon: Hey wait!

Neon rolls in front of her, blocking Penny’s path.

Penny: What is it?

Neon: Just give a sec! I still owe you for scaring off that douchebag.

Penny: It’s fine, Neon, that’s my job.

Neon: Still! You’ve had me and my crew’s backs for a minute now and feels like I owe you something for all the trouble.

Penny: It’s really not a problem, you and the rest of team FNKI are my friends and comrades. I’ll always be there for you if you need me.

Neon: See, that’s what I’m talking about! You’re just too damn sweet, Penny.

She chirps while pinching Penny’s for her unbelievable cuteness. Penny lets her have her fun for a few seconds before brushing her hand away.

Penny: Quit it.

Neon: Sorry, couldn’t help it. All those freckles on your chunky cheeks just makes your face look so squishable!

Penny: Okay? If that’s all then I really should-

Neon: No wait! Just give me a second to think.

Neon takes a moment then comes up with a brilliant stupid idea. She turns around and kneels down in front of Penny, putting her hand behind her back with her palms facing up.

Neon: Jump on!

Penny: Excuse me?

Neon: Get on, I’m gonna blade you home!

Penny: Seriously?

Neon: Yeah! It’s the least I can do!

Penny: You do realize my skeletal structure is made of metal, right?

Neon: Yeah, I know. But I also know you don’t weigh half as much as you pretend you do. Now get on!

Penny: (sigh) You are truly infuriating Neon Kat.

Against her better judgment gets on her back. She wraps her arms around Neon’s shoulders and neck and puts her feet onto her hips. Once she’s securely on her, Neon asks Penny for directions to her house. She enters her usual route into Neon’s scroll, and they set off. It’s a surprisingly quaint ride as they roll the streets at a leisurely pace.

Neon: Having fun back there?

Penny: A little, I haven’t been on someone’s back like this in a while.

Neon: Really? Not a fan of piggybacks?

Penny: No, it’s more out of independence. After I started walking, I just preferred to move on my own. Before that, I was mostly sedentary so when I got the chance to move on my own I got overexcited and I didn't really rely on anyone for transportation.

Neon: Cool, walk your own path sister! But don’t forget that there’s always a helping hand there if you need it.

Penny: I know.

They continue rolling down the streets when Neon gets another bright idea.

Neon: Hey, wanna see something cool?

Penny: Sure.

Neon: Okay, hold on tight!

Penny: Wait, what are you going to-WHOA!

Penny shouts as Neon activates her semblance, propelling them forward at a high speed under a haze of rainbow light. Despite being used to high velocity from flying Penny had never moved like this on the ground. She can feel every bit of wind resistance, every crack and bump on the sidewalk as they glide through town. It’s a bit terrifying but also thrilling! Penny can’t help but smile as they zoom, Neon laughing aloud when she catches her grin. Before she knows it they’re right in front of her house, Neon taking a few spins around a light post to slow down before coming to a full stop.

Neon: Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our destination, please take all bags and luggage as you depart, and thank you for riding the Neon rails!

She quips while putting Penny down, the girl giggling as she gets her feet on the ground.

Penny: Thanks Neon! That was so much fun!

Neon: Any time girl! Hit me up if you’re ever looking to party, peace!

Penny: Bye Neon.

She waves her goodbye while Neon throws her a peace sigh before rolling away. Home at last, Penny gets out her keys and unlocks the front door. She walks in and is welcomed back by the scent of tomato sauce and garlic bread, her dad hard at work in the kitchen.

Penny: I’m home!

She announces, catching her dad’s attention as he’s pulling the garlic bread out of the oven.

Pietro: Welcome back, Sweetpea! You ready for dinner?

Penny: You know I am! I haven’t eaten since this morning!

Pietro: Well then put your bags down and set the table. I got a whole pot of spaghetti and extra big meatballs!

Penny: Okay!

She chirps, pulling off her backpack and sitting down to take off her boots. Her mood had lifted so much higher from where it was, she couldn’t help but kinda feel lucky.

Penny: Despite everything, today was very eventful and exciting. I got a lot done, protected many, and even had a little fun. Give them circumstances, this is as good as a day like this could get.

She thought while placing her left boot to the side. Before she starts on the other one Penny hears a notification come in on her scroll. She opens and once she reads the words on the screen, she can’t help but jump up in joy! However, her landing falls flat as the height difference between her barefoot and single boot leaves her off balance, making her fall to the floor. But that barely faxes her as her giddiness sends her into a giggling feat, eyes clouded over and absolutely lovestruck as she re-reads the text.

Whitley: [Are you free this weekend?]

#fanfic #rwby fanfiction #penny polendina #rwby #whitley schnee #pietro polendina #neon katt #jaques schnee #fanfiction #angst #cute #beta testers #sorry it took a while #broken machines

10 notes · View notes

m1dori-eyes · 3 months

Text

My mom used to teach culinary school while I was in middle school, and this was like a TRADE SCHOOL, she was teaching COLLEGE AGE STUDENTS and they were so dumb. One time one of them didn't know what black pepper was. Another time one of them gave her a fourth of an avocado, insisted it was a half of an avocado for 10 minutes, and then said "oh I thought you meant a half of a half of an avocado" because he thought that a half of an avocado was the default state an avocado could be in. She taught the "resteraunt" class where the students ran a little bistro which was actually open to customers, but they would try to serve people raw chicken every single day and she had to take anything with chicken off the menu. Every day she would pick me up from school and rant about how absolutely dogshit her students were on the drive home (this is Los Angeles so it was a thirty minute drive). Lots of times she would also be in pain in her left foot because she had repeatedly kicked the ice maker to blow off steam.

One day she picked me up and she was in a surprisingly good mood, barely complaining about her students at all. I told her all about my day, and then I asked if her foot was okay, and she said it was fine. Later I would learn that she had broken the ice machine from kicking it too hard (colossal metal 1500 lb rectangle meant for industrial commercial use), and she was happy because her boss didn't find her as being liable and ruled it as faulty equipment. Her students really loved her for her antics and they took her out to Disneyland on their dime. She brought me along, because I was a kid so of course, and they were all really scared of her the entire time and referred to her exclusively as Chef G. Absolutely surreal experience, but they bought me all the California Adventure pub snacks and fried foods so I was happy.

She doesn't teach anymore because the school went bankrupt, but the students leveled a class action lawsuit against the school for closing unexpectedly without giving them a chance to finish their degrees, so they went double bankrupt I guess? I'm pretty sure that the school just gave out a couple thousand free degrees to any registered students, so if you noticed a big surge of up-and-coming chefs serving raw chicken and just being generally incompetent, now you know why. Oh and my mom never got anger management classes or anything, she's still like that.

#yuzu lore #culinary school #anger issues #insane mom story #yuzu mom lore

5 notes · View notes

workersolidarity · 1 year

Text

Watch "How The Country's Largest Landlords Are Destroying Lives" on YouTube

youtube

Rents in America are completely insane, even as the Federal Minimum wage, which is still the only minimum wage in many states in the US South and Midwestern heartland, remains at historically low levels.

With the Minimum wage still set at $7.25 an hour, last raised in 2009, and rents at historic highs (the average renter is now paying $1'388 monthly), the Working Class is being squeezed more tightly than it has in more than a century. Working Class wealth is being sucked out of the system and shoveled into the pockets of endlessly consolidating and monopolizing Corporations controlled by the same small group of Billionaires and giant Corporate investors. Most of the largest and profitable corporations are all invested in and controlled by the very top 0.01% of the wealthiest billionaires, an increasing number of which aren't even necessarily American citizens, but rather are part of an International Capitalist Class with no National loyalties whatsoever.

To get an idea of just how squeezed the US Working Class is compared with the recent past, consider this: if the Minimum Wage had been tied to Rental inflation since 1968, than today's Minimum Wage would be roughly $22 today.

You can see this in the basic arithmetic yourself.

Average rent in the US in 1968 was close to $100 per month. Today it is $1'388 per month. That's an increase of 1'388%. And according to the Dept of Labor's online records, the Minimum Wage in 1968 for non-farm workers was $1.60 per hour. Multiply that by 1'388% and you get $22.20.

Headline inflation numbers released by Govts hide the true cost of inflation by factoring in things like the falling cost of certain technologies, most of which have little relevance to the average worker whose only concern is providing for their families a safe and happy environment in the midst of consistently rising prices and stagnant wages.

And that's just one example of how we are being squeezed as a Working Class like never before in the Post-WWII era.

We're also being squeezed from new directions and in other ways as well. Such as the consolidation of the food industry into a handful of private companies and giant corporations, predictably causing food costs to rise at an alarming rate. Add to that similar consolidation and rising prices with Banking Fees, Property Development and in the Energy sector and you get a disaster for the Working Class in the making.

We will all suffer greatly until we can close out the noise and division of the media and politicians, and unite as a Class against the Capitalists who long ago united against us.

We must put aside our differences in the culture wars, which are purposely being driven by the Corporate Media and the National Security State, and stand in solidarity with one another against the Capitalist machine, the giant Corporations, the Landlords, the Bosses, the Police State, and the corrupt Corporate State.

Our lives are being destroyed: Working Class lifespans, quality of life, addiction, alcoholism and other indicators are all tumbling downward at a rapid clip. Everything, especially rent, food, Energy and an education are all outlandishly expensive and getting more expensive, even as our wages have been stagnant for decades, Unions have been made powerless and corrupt, and Working Class Political action has died down to a trickle, or even just the rare droplet.

Until we come together and organize along Class Lines, our lives are only going to get worse and worse. And at the rate at which the Corporate State is consolidating its control over our information space, feeding us propaganda to promote their Capitalist Empire and divide Workers, we won't have long before the state of workers in the US is approaching the state of workers in some 3rd world countries under US Sanctions and Neocolonial economic blockade.

Get out there and Organize along Class lines Now! This IS Code Red for Workers!

When the task of the Working Class has been completed and our work as Socialists is done, the whole world will be a safer and better place for it.

It could be the dawn of new, fairer, Safer, more Progressive, Non-Imperialistic, Internationally collaborative, pro-Worker world with a Green future! It's up to all of us! 😊🌅🌱

12 notes · View notes

darsynia · 1 year

Text

Trust Fall | Ch 22

ARC by Eury Escodero on Unsplash | gif by @elwintersoldado

Story Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Summary: Tony/OC, ‘terrorists made us fall in love;’ IM1 timeline. In this chapter, Emory and Tony both learn how to trust new people in their lives even as they discover awful things about the people they used to trust.

Length: 4,862

Note: An ‘albedo’ is basically the measurement of the sun’s light as reflected from another object. I’m using it here as an allusion to finding out the true nature of people Emory and Tony used to trust. They see evidence of Rory and Obie’s duplicity as reflected by their harmful actions. FINALLY, am I right?

Taglist: @starryeyes2000 @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @themaradaniels @starksbf @chickensarentcheap @tiny-anne

Excerpt:

Emory says, “Honestly, after three solid months of bean soup for every meal, coffee is coffee,” and follows Clint into the kitchen. There’s a towel with one of those crochet button clasps hanging from the stove handle.

“Well, in that case, you’re just going from one bean soup to another.”

She takes his proffered cup and watches him walk over to clean the machine he’d made it with, real barista-level equipment. He shoots a look over his shoulder to catch her first sip. It’s delicious.

“Agent Barton, this is some high class bean soup. Thank you.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: Albedo

It’s one thing to dress in the same clothes as a SHIELD agent pretending to be Tony Stark’s Morning Assignation. It’s something else to picture herself leaving the helicopter on SHIELD grounds and walking into the building dressed like that! Emory chooses anxiety (asking the pilot if she can change clothes in the back of the helicopter) over mortification (having to do a walk of shame across the Triskelion helipad). She ends up having to use the fishnets as a belt to keep Tony’s pants on, but she feels less exposed when she sits back down. Now, she thinks to herself, if only the hollow ache in the pit of my stomach would go away! Emory’s sure it’ll go away once they land and she’s settled, but it almost feels like it feeds off of her anxiety.

“Clint has an extra room,” Nat says, giving her phone back. “We’ll have to finagle some sightings of you, and we’ll have to do the rest of your training there, but Fury said yes.”

“It’s all settled, just like that?” Emory asks, incredulous.

Natasha sees her expression and shrugs. “Sometimes it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

Voicemail Box, Stark, Anthony E.

2.20 PM

Mr. Stark, the FBI agents are here and I can’t find you or Harry. You aren’t in the bunker, are you? JARVIS won’t answer me, and I’ll feel very foolish if I have to explain that as your PA I don’t actually know whether you’re in your father’s bomb shelter or not! Please answer your phone.

3:10 PM

Tony, if they threaten me with obstruction I’m going to be very upset. The agents are saying they might come back with a warrant, and I know it’s a federal crime to lie to the FBI so I had to tell them I’d met Ms. Autumn. Please, PLEASE come out? I know you can get phone calls from inside there!

10:55 PM

Tony, where are you, it’s after ten! You only have enough fresh food in there for a few days! I’m… Wait, is that you on Channel-- [dial tone]

11:03 PM

You’re at a NIGHTCLUB! It made the NEWS, Tony! What if the FBI doesn't believe me? What if they think I was covering for you!? Do you know how many messages I left on Harry’s phone asking where the two of you were? I thought he was in the bunker with you trying to stop you from drinking yourself half to death! BOTH OF YOU COME HOME RIGHT NOW!!

When Tony returns from partying, he buries himself not in blankets and dreams, but files and memories. Stark Industries needs a new niche that isn’t weaponry, but draws on that expertise. Emory is at SHIELD’s mercy, and he doesn’t have any influence there. Is there something he could do that would solve both problems at once?

Some intrepid assistant in the late 80’s had digitized Howard Stark’s paper files, but they’re all mixed together, probably on purpose. He decides to track down the schematics he’d been so dazzled by when he was six and about to be sent away to boarding school; Tony had spent three glorious days digging through a couple of metal briefcases that had been accidentally left in his bedroom instead of the storage study one room over. At the time, Tony had been convinced they were for a secret government thing his dad was doing, and that was why they were sending him away to school. For his protection.

School had stripped away that sense of wonder, and eventually his father’s cold demeanor taught Tony to keep his questions to himself. Uncovering those memories is an uncomfortable process best done with the veneer of inebriation, but the physical effects mean he’s not very efficient. By dawn, the files are still elusive, and the issues that made him want to go drinking in the first place won’t go away.

He decides to sleep on it.

Tony’s phone rings as he’s carrying the bunker pillows and Emory’s left-behind shirt up to his bedroom. His first instinct when he sees the name on the display is to be glad it’s not the FBI. His second instinct is to wonder if Coulson has learned how to manipulate people from the same place Agent Romanoff did. The man has to know that Tony was out till 3 AM. The agent probably expects to leave a message with a set of instructions he’ll expect to be followed without push-back, or Coulson’s hoping to manipulate him while he’s sleep-deprived and hung over.

As a result, Tony’s barely civil when he answers.

“You better be about to improve my mood, Doctor No.”

“Good morning. I have been asked to take over from Director Fury as your primary contact.”

“Wow,” Tony says. “Tell Boris he was almost the father figure I already had, will you?” Tony needs to yawn, but he holds it back.

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the sort of message I was assigned to prevent,” Coulson says. The man’s deadpan delivery doesn’t change a whit. “Something’s come past my desk that I think you can help me clear up: is it true that you snuck out from under your PA’s nose yesterday afternoon to avoid a scheduled FBI interview?”

The rush of relief Tony feels is probably premature, but Coulson is handing him a resolution on a silver platter right now. “Pepper told on me? Look, I deal with a lot of acronyms. I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered if I was supposed to be at a meeting with the CIA.” He pauses for dramatic effect, then adds, “Not that I wouldn’t have still snuck out. Everybody hates those guys.”

“Are you asking me to smooth this over for you, Mr. Stark?”

“Is it illegal for me to say yes?” Tony shoots back. “Because if we’re in the plot of Entrapment, I want my money back unless there will be red lasers and hot women in skin-tight black leotards.”

He can’t help but picture Emory in the iconic outfit, and Tony tightens his hand around the spy shirt she’d left behind. The message he’d gotten from Natasha Romanoff at midnight had been promising, but sharing an apartment with another agent could be worse in the long run. The freedom Emory will gain will be tempered by the possibility of off-hours propaganda and persuasion.

“Sir?”

Oops. Coulson had been talking. Tony gives in to the yawn, making it as loud and obnoxious as possible.

“I was busy picturing that. Go on?”

“I was just saying, if we wanted to trap you, sir? We’d be more subtle. Speaking of which, any word on how long you’ll be staying in New York? I’d love to know if I’ll need to rent something long-term,” Coulson says, still as studiously polite as always, but now with a tiny edge to his tone, sharp as a razorblade.

“I’ll be sticking around for as long as your archer plays house with my girlfriend, Phil.”

Tony doesn’t want to like this guy, mostly because it feels like there are two kinds of people in Phil Coulson’s world: the people he’s manipulating into liking him, and the people he’s screwing over very courteously. Tony’s been trying to manipulate the man right back, but it’s a delicate balance. Right before he’d left for New York, Tony had found a rare part for the guy’s beloved classic car and had it delivered by courier. That had been the carrot, and now, he supposes, comes the stick.

Coulson’s extolling the virtues of a particular apartment building he’s got an eye on when Tony interrupts. “Say, since you’re so good at passing notes, can you ask your boss if he can give me a call? I’ve got a business opportunity for him.”

There’s a moment of silence before Coulson wryly asks, “Should I address this message to ‘Boris?’ Or Director Fury?”

It's a shrewd question, and Tony's too fucking tired to play his usual hard to get. "Go with his official name this time, will you, Junior? Blame the lapse on sleep deprivation. And don't ever call me this early again, or I'll clone your voice with my AI and start releasing shit about Area 51 framing you as the source."

“Point taken, sir. Sleep well.”

Tony turns the phone off completely. “Yeah, I wish,” he says to no one. Thankfully, his head barely hits the pillow that smells faintly of Emory’s hair before he feels oblivion reaching out for him.

Emory wakes up in an actual bedroom.

Not a secure office dressed as one. Not a fancy hotel that reeks of opulent impermanence. Not a barely habitable cave with a truly embarrassing method of relieving oneself. A bedroom. The room Clint had given her even has a lock.

She’d spent so little time at her apartment while working as Rory’s PA that her last ‘home bedroom’ was pre-Rory, the room in her dad’s house. That memory is tainted by the conflict between herself and her parents about Rory’s influence, though. The time she got to spend at Tony’s mansion hadn’t felt like home either. It had passed almost like a daydream, a stolen few hours that, true to form, had ended with her being sent back to reality. When she was with him, Emory had felt like maybe she could belong there, but now, back in the real world, it’s hard not to feel foolish.

Rolling over, she buries her face in Tony’s shirt as she had so often the night before, picturing him across the room about to climb back into bed with her. It’s hard not to wonder how many women have done the same. Most of them were probably tall, glamorous, and rich, better suited to his world than she ever could be. Her rational mind is trying to tell her that Tony Stark is new to the hero business, and she was just a convenient damsel in distress. Her heart’s response is to remember the desperate catch in his voice as he screamed in the desert, angry at her for maybe dying and forcing the words ‘I love you’ from his throat.

Her instinct is to do what she’s always done: endure. This time, though, Emory wants to fight for what she wants, as terrifying as it is, as new as that is. She wants to live. She wants to love. How did everything suddenly become so hard?

Groaning, Emory gets up and makes the bed, tucking Tony's clothes under the pillow like she's burying a secret. As she has for the last few weeks, she also buries her instinct to go with the flow, to not make waves, to hide, safe and invisible. It's too late for that. Tony- or Natasha Romanoff -would find her. And if they didn't, well, thanks to the serum, she basically has an expiration date. The effects of her dependency are going to start manifesting themselves soon.

She dresses and slips on the fuzzy slippers Clint had lent her, unlocks her door, and starts up the hallway toward the kitchen. On the way, she sees that his bedroom door is open, revealing a loft bed with a desk underneath, just like a college dorm. Most of the room is taken up by what looks like a built-in climbing wall that curves up onto the ceiling, anchored with some seriously thick cables.

“I’d offer to let you try it out, but I don’t actually have a rig, just pads for underneath. Not great for newbies,” Clint says from the other side of the hallway. He’s sipping from a mug, which he holds up. “I remember you usually avoided the SHIELD coffee. I approve. Want some of the good stuff, or did your cave detox put you in a good place?”

“Give?” Emory says, walking toward him like a mummy. She’d warmed to Barton during her training sessions, and he’s even more likeable here in his own home, relaxed and welcoming. The contrast between the way he’s treating her after knowing her for a month and the way Rory's treated her for the past nine years is stark, no pun intended.

“Right, what am I talking about? This is probably crap compared to your-- To Stark’s,” Clint says, stumbling over the right way to refer to Tony. Emory can’t blame him. Technically, she’s not supposed to be Stark’s anything.

A stubborn kernel of hope blazes in her chest, as she says, “Honestly, after three solid months of bean soup for every meal, coffee is coffee,” and follows him into the kitchen. There’s a towel with one of those crochet button clasps hanging from the stove handle.

“Well, in that case, you’re just going from one bean soup to another.”

Emory takes his proffered cup and watches him walk over to clean the machine he’d made it with, real barista-level equipment. He shoots a look over his shoulder to catch her first sip. It’s delicious.

“Agent Barton, this is some high class bean soup. Thank you.”

“I made a promise that I would indulge myself every day. This is what I picked,” Clint says.

“You mean your overhanging death wall wasn’t it?” she asks, walking over to rest her hip on the kitchen island and watch him.

He chuckles. “No.”

“Thank you, truly,” she tells him after a few more (indulgent is definitely the word) sips. “I didn’t know how on Earth I was going to balance my association with Tony and my obligations to the mission. Staying here is the perfect compromise.”

“Glad to help,” Clint says gruffly, focused on wiping off the counter. “That can be a delicate thing. Worth it, though, if he is.”

Emory blows out a long sigh, staring at her feet. “Looking at it from the other way around, I sure hope it is.” Across the room, she hears him let out a similar noise and looks over, curious. Clint looks sheepish.

“I wasn’t supposed to mention him in case it got you charged up. Sorry about that.”

“Hah, so my self-doubt saved your apartment? Does that cancel out the whole dive-bomb rescue thing on the day we met?”

"Let's not get too hasty," he teases, jumping his eyebrows at her. A second later, he shifts into 'agent' mode. "We need to make a 'game plan.' The goal is for you to take a walk and get sighted. The building itself is secure; unofficially mostly government workers and domestic violence survivors live here, but there's an unspoken agreement with the local media about that." His smile is full of promise; whether it's for her protection or for a journalist's destruction if they choose to overstep is unclear.

“Guardians and survivors, convenient,” Emory murmurs.

“Exactly.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and starts tapping at it as he speaks. “Nat wants you to get groceries today, a courier will drop off a bank card. Says here yours was--” Clint frowns, squinting at the phone in his hand. As he reads, his jaw firms up into a hard frown. “Your account was closed ten days after the initial attack in Afghanistan. By Rory Fall. She showed them Power of Attorney papers.”

Shock and dismay lock up her muscles and she sways a little. Clint reaches out and grabs her upper arm to steady her. His grip isn’t meant to hurt, she can tell, but right now, everything is heightened, so the skin under his hands burns.

“Look at me,” he says. She does, still reeling, both surprised and (horribly) not surprised. “You okay?”

“I’ve watched her turn on people for years, I just never thought--” Emory shakes her head. Her tear ducts grind to a halt with the dry pain of understanding just how much she’s lost, how different her life is. Tears are premium content now, and she’s just a regular person.

“Did you make her your POA?”

She shakes her head again. “My parents sent me the paperwork for one. It was their last-ditch effort to-- To, crap, to prevent this, to stop Rory from trying to screw me over if we had a falling out. I didn’t sign them, but I didn’t get rid of them either.” Rory must have gone through her things and falsified the documents with her own name instead of Emory’s parents’. After all, everything in Rory Fall’s life was about Rory Fall. In Rory’s mind, Emory’s salary was ‘her money in the first place,’ after she’d been deserted during the most traumatic moment of her life.

Fuck, Emory thinks to herself. Her own ‘most traumatic’ train is heading downhill, adding events as it goes, but she’s still rationalizing, still working to understand Rory’s actions. If only her former friend’s loyalty had run that deep!

Clint guides her toward his small couch, snagging her coffee cup on the way. “So they’re forged?” He sits her down and hands over the mug.

“I would never have given her Power of Attorney over me. In Rory’s twisted mind, she probably thinks it’s her money if I’m not there to spend it, but--”

He walks away from her abruptly. “No excuses.”

She’d been trying to explain Rory’s thought process, but the marksman’s curt comment hits home.

Emory changes tack. “At least this works out perfectly for SHIELD! It proves I have no money,” she says, taking gulping sips of her cooled coffee. He doesn't answer, his head stuck in the fridge, shuffling things around. “What are you doing? Do you have some kind of crazy ‘dormant when refrigerated’ weapon in there?”

“I’m making a grocery list. One thing at a time.”

“That works,” she says, sitting back on the couch. As she lifts the mug to drain the last sip, Emory notices the design. It says, ‘Fix It Yourself.’ The O in ‘yourself’ is a bullseye, and the sideways word ‘it’ is made up of several arrows.

The only way to do that involves crossing half the globe and lying to the person who holds her life in the palm of their hand. Emory turns the cup so the words face away, but she knows she’ll have to follow its advice anyway.

The first thing Tony does when he finally wakes up is check on the status of the palladium shipment he appropriated from SI’s factory. The weapons ordered prior to Tony’s cut-off date of mid-July have been constructed and much of the raw material deliveries have been paused. During their discussions in the limo on the way to New York, Emory had suggested that the company offer a two or three week paid vacation for the factory employees whose jobs are in question. He’d set the thought aside in favor of spending time with her, but now Tony dials up Stane’s number to put that in motion.

“Hey, Tony. I see you were finally back to your old self last night!” Obie says, in greeting.

“Yeah, well, keeping up appearances,” Tony says. A knot forms in his gut, similar to what Emory had described when dealing with Rory. He’s not a fan. “Hey, you still planning to come out this direction next week?”

“Yeah, I have some loose ends to tie up. Why? Did you need something? If you’ve got some new projects I’d be happy to tell the boar--”

“Still percolating in there,” Tony interrupts. “I was looking to get ahold of the palladium we won't be needing. Instead of cancelling it I figured I'd just take the regular shipment. It’s just less hassle if you bring it.”

There’s a sigh on the line. “Tony, I don’t think we have any extra right now. Did you order more on top of the standard delivery for the factory?”

“We’re not using it at the factory.”

“Tony, production doesn’t just halt overnight, we--”

“I was very clear about the deadlines,” Tony says, standing up to pace. The knot has turned into a lead weight. “We’ve satisfied our obligations up to the middle of July, which is why I was about to ask you to give the whole factory staff a two week paid vacation while we shift the production lines over to something more benign.” He can hear frantic typing on Stane’s end. “You didn’t halt the lines, did you?”

“Tony--”

“Did you?”

“I thought you were going to change your mind! It’s not sound business practice to interrupt production at this kind of scale on a whim!”

He’s having trouble swallowing, but it’s not because of the anxiety, it’s because of anger. “Shut it down. All of it. By the end of this week, or I’ll fly out there and give the maintenance guys something to do after I fire a couple of repulsors at every piece of equipment!” Tony slams his hand down on a worktable, knowing Obie will hear the sound through the phone line. “Come on! You knew I wasn’t going to budge on this!”

“I needed to know you were serious, and now I know you’re serious,” Stane says, a hint of the ‘make it right’ businessman tone returning to his voice. “Tell you what: let me boost the palladium order for this next week so there's enough for both. We’ll extend production ‘till the end of July, make it a nice round number, give these workers some warning, okay? August is a better vacation month anyway. First of August they’ll get two weeks paid vacation, everyone but security.”

Tony’s jaw is so tightly clenched he can’t respond right away.

“Tony? Hey, I know you’re passionate about this stuff but we’re still a business. A month is a much better time frame to develop a new plan. You know I’m right.”

“Do it, then,” Tony grits out.

“Good man,” Obie says in the fatherly tone Tony’s come to despise. “I’ll bring the palladium in a week. When I get there, you’ll give me some kind of an idea of what we’re transitioning to, and the two of us will get the company back on solid ground. See you then.”

Stane hangs up without a response.

“JARVIS, was there ever a slow-down in production?” Tony asks, the second he sets his phone down.

“All I can find is an internal memo informing workers that there may be a temporary halt sometime in July.”

“Right.”

Tony throws himself in his chair, the momentum carrying it away from his desk, which is just as well. He needs to calm down before he makes any of this worse. He briefly considers going upstairs and getting Emory’s shirt, since it smells like her, but that reminds him too much of what he’d done at seventeen. He’d had the housekeeping staff pack up his dad’s clothes and general belongings to put them in storage right away, but kept his mothers things where they were for months. He’d yo-yo between extremes, partying it up and pretending he didn’t care, then curling up on his mother’s side of the bed hugging one of her dresses, sobbing.

With a sigh, Tony recognizes that this comparison is toxic; Emory is alive and his, a partner who needs Tony’s actions, not his sentimentality. He resolves to work on his secret project for her this evening, as soon as he gets a few things out of the way.

“All right,” he says aloud, walking the chair back to his desk without getting up, Flintstones-style. “Do we have the capability to store palladium at our New York office? There are still research labs there, right JARVIS?”

“Indeed there are.”

“Order some under the name of the most senior employee with a note that they’re to contact me and only me upon receipt, but be diplomatic. I don’t want to signal a rift.”

“Are you certain they’ll believe it was from you, sir?”

“Funny,” Tony says. “Next item: I’d like to use Stane’s Opposition Strategy on SHIELD, with some modifications. Copy over all related files and analyze them for anything that might get Nick Fury’s panties in a bunch if I implement it.”

“Estimate ten minutes for full copy, twenty more for analysis. Do you wish me to erase evidence of the copy?”

“Good catch, make it so.”

He gets up to make a smoothie, patting Dum-E on the way over. It had been JARVIS who’d suggested bringing his ‘pets,’ another point in the AI’s column of knowing Tony better than he knew himself, sometimes. As the blender spun, Tony thought over what he knew about Stane’s Oppo strategy. JARVIS will be more thorough, but there’s only so much intuition one can program in. Tony knows he probably relies too much on intuition, but something about SHIELD feels off, and before he throws in his lot with the agency, he wants to know why. It’s no different than when they run the program on a company they hope to buy out.

The key part of the Strategy is analysis. That’s what Tony wants to use on SHIELD, despite the fact that the data set will be incomplete, given how secret most of their operations are. What he’s hoping for is a glimpse into the vulnerabilities of the agency, as evidenced by what the deep dive comparisons that the Opposition Strategy might reveal. That thought prompts another one.

“Hey, J? Do a quick scan through the Not Nows and Not Yets, in projects. I want to know whether anyone’s done some poking around in the past two weeks.” The blender stops, and Tony adds, “Hell, add the current ones too, note any unusual access.”

After a minute, JARVIS says, “Two files show anomalous access, both by Mr. Stane after hours, approximately eight days ago.”

The knot is back. “Hit me.”

“Multiple copies of the Repulsor technology details and schematics in various places, some encrypted. Single copy of the Sonic Taser, encrypted. Access was from his private residence.”

“Obie, Obie, what are you doing?” Tony says, brows furrowed. “Didn’t the government threaten us with new legislation if we didn’t completely scrap and bury that Taser?”

“Colonel Rhodes likened pursuing the project further to ‘peeing on the third rail in public, within a mile of an elementary school,’ yes, sir.”

“He’s just jealous he didn’t get a working ‘Get Out of Indecent Exposure Charges Free’ card from MIT security,” Tony laughs. “God bless gender quota hiring.” A second later, he freezes in the act of taking a sip of his smoothie. “Son of a bitch. Obie didn’t destroy the prototype, did he?”

“Ascertaining that will be difficult, and likely will require physical interviews, which may create more trouble than you may wish to-- wait, what am I saying?”

“You’re saying trouble is my middle name, JARVIS. Usually you’d be right, but this time I’d like to avoid the consequences if at all--” Tony gulps down the rest of the smoothie over the word ‘possible’ and sets the cup down for his robot to clean. He points at Dum-E. “If that breaks, I’ll let a group of toddlers glue the pieces all over you, wherever they want.” He gestures broadly as he back-walks to the desk.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but parents generally avoid letting their small children anywhere near broken glass,” JARVIS points out.

“Well, that’s boring,” Tony observes. “What was I saying?”

“Ironically, you were discussing your desire to avoid consequences.”

“Personally, yes. I’ll reserve judgement on Stane, though. I want to know what he’s up to, first.”

He sits down at the desk and thinks about the Sonic Taser. Its function is really limited outside of law enforcement and military use, though he had joked about using it to make the board sit still and listen to him. The thing is inherently antagonistic; the only way to avoid total, temporary incapacitation is to already be wearing earplugs before the device is activated.

“Do they make undetectable earplugs?” he muses aloud. He takes threats to his autonomy very seriously, unless they’re hot, wearing spandex, and digging a knee into his lower back.

“You have asked that question a total of three times since my creation, and the answer has been ‘no’ for two of those times,” JARVIS states dryly.

“That’s a yes now, then? Order me a pair.” Murphy’s Law states that if he’s prepared for a threat, it’ll never materialize, but something about Obie’s demeanor lately feels vaguely threatening. He wouldn’t put it past the guy to use the Taser to force Tony to listen to him. After Afghanistan, Tony’s through being forced to do anything. At that thought, a collage of images cross his mind’s eye, all of Emory, and he has to amend his previous assertion to ‘almost’ anything.

“Analysis complete,” JARVIS says, filling Tony’s screen with various windows of information. “Advise not exercising official channels to request mission data from the military, but speaking to Colonel Rhodes, instead. Strongly suggest not revealing any knowledge of statistical data when speaking to Agent Coulson or Director Fury. Further conclusions will require an examination of the program results.” JARVIS pauses, then adds, “In summary, I predict a high chance of panty bunching. Proceed with caution.”

Tony cracks a smile despite himself. “Will do. Run the program, I’ll call Rhodes.”

Next chapter, the effects of serum withdrawal start to hit Emory, meaning that the mission must come soon; Tony seeks to reassure her and himself with a spicy phone call.

#tony stark x oc #tony stark fanfiction #tony stark x original character #tony stark imagine #iron man fanfiction #iron man #iron man x oc #iron man x original character #mcu #mcu fanfiction #mcu fanfic #marvel #marvel fanfic #tony stark #series: autonomy #ocfairygodmother #fyeahsuperverseocs

12 notes · View notes

dangalante · 6 months

Text

Trends in AI & Generative AI: Insights from The 2023 AI Summit New York

Last week, I covered the AI Summit in New York. I was excited to learn about the trends in AI and generative AI and to see some commercial applications of these new technological advancements.

Patrick Murphy of UAB led the AI Exhibitor hub. Patrick shared insights from his research on Entrepreneurship. He shared how start-ups use AI, and Generative AI to scale up and bring products to market.

Generative AI is being used in the following eight ways:

Content and Asset Generative

Automated Processes

Ideation

Financial Management

Project Design

Optimized Structures

Acceleration and incubation

Ethics and Risk Management.

There was a pitching completion where start-ups did pitches in multiple rounds. At the beginning of the competition, they received advice from judges on best practices.

One of the start-ups that was of interest was Botwise. Jan Nowak shared how his team shared a use case on how they leveraged Language Learning models (LLM)using statistics and GPT solutions for rapid automation in customer service for Mylead.global is a platform that allows influencers to earn money. As a result, MyLead.global was able to screen influencers faster and better for their big brand clients.

AI-Powered Use Cases from across the board panel discussion

Leaders Saira Kazmi Ph. D. (CVS Health), Matthew Blakemore (Creative Industries Council) Taha Mokfi (HelloFresh), Kriti Kohli (Shopify), and Kris Perez (Data Force) share how they use chatbots, improving both the buyer and seller experience using AI. How AI can be used in video games to identify levels of violence and how AI can improve in healthcare and Radiology reducing the amount of time images are read while improving accuracy and detail.

Another interesting Panel was by Tim Delesio CTO of techolution

Tim asked What’s driving the explosive rise of AI all of a Sudden?

The answer is the economics of the labor market.

On the demand side, he cited labor shortages and persistent high inflation.

On the supply side, he cites the rise of ChatGPT and, major scientific and Technological breakthroughs in the past five to seven years.

He shared trends in AI for 2024 that include:

Physical Labor with AI to help deliver small batch sizes with high-precision quality control

Improved customer engagement by providing a new generation of customer service agents using Generative AI

Tim demonstrated some of these trends when he ordered a soda using an AI-powered robotic arm.

youtube

The booth had another machine showing how AI can enhance inventory management when items are ordered.

I was amazed to see some AI Tech that techolution brought to the marketplace.

On that note, I saw an AI-powered Kiosk by Graphen where a man ordered his food and paid. This company is using AI to revolutionize all industries.

Man orders food AI Kiosk

Man pays for food at AI Kiosk

There were so many great talks and exhibits.

youtube

Additional pictures can be found on Instagram.

I want to thank the AI Summit for having me as their guest. If you want to use AI and Generative to improve business outcomes, sign up for the AI summit in your city.

What do you think is next for AI and Generative AI?

Comment and share below.

Additional pictures can be found on Instagram.

#marketing #sales #ai #generative ai #technology #tech #customer experience #innovation #Youtube

5 notes · View notes

swampgallows · 2 years

Note

hello! ive been curious about going to a rave - some time in the nebulous future, as it's not something that's feasible for me rn + covid - but i do use a cane. do you have any thoughts about if that would impact a rave experience a lot? + if it's not too invasive, do you have any thoughts about raving while disabled/disability and the rave scene in general? thank you, and have a good day!!

this is long, but hopefully informative!

raving with mobility aids is definitely a thing!! one of the longtime DJs in the soCal scene, DJ Alexander, was the first cane user i thought of: he also throws events with Technostate in addition to playing at them. i also know some candy kids who are wheelchair and cane users, and i've seen occasional crutches and boot casts. i also know neurodiverse ravers who have sensory sensitivities, ravers with invisible illnesses that need accommodation, and ravers with mental illness such as myself. for any kind of disability i'd say it really depends on the venue. in my "going raving alone" post i mention gauging your own comfort level and preparing accordingly, and a lot of times that boils down to the location.

underground raves happen in cool but sometimes inaccessible areas. outdoor parties can happen in forests, open fields, mountains, beaches, deserts, and even on top of a dried up dam. indoor venues can be places intended for music events, like concert/banquet halls, elks lodges, galleries/studios, arenas, convention halls, and bars/clubs, but underground events can be in trickier places like airplane hangars, old warehouses/factories/stores (god i wish i had pics of the rave inside the abandoned mall), industrial district apartments, trainyards, or even under a freeway overpass.

i'm including my old posts partially as a trip down memory lane but also so you can see the variations in space, crowdedness, ventilation, lighting, etc. the following is a quick n dirty list of how things usually go, but are not necessarily guaranteed:

outdoor events -- pros: lots of space, (people won't trip over your cane or knock you over); open air ventilation; you can bring whatever you like (food, drinks, chairs, even a tent); the music is loud enough to hear from a good distance away, so you don't have to be crowded by the speakers; no rules for when you arrive or leave; earplugs always recommended but not required if far enough away. neutral: sometimes outdoor parties are multi-day events. plan beforehand for how long you will want to stay and what supplies you will need. cons: ground could be uneven; chance of wild animals/bugs; no bathrooms; VERY little lighting (sometimes none at all); subject to weather changes; anything you need you have to bring with you; car required.

indoor events -- pros: bar or access to drinks/water and snacks; atmospheric (but dependable) lighting; house sound; accessible via transit in the city; "repeat" venues lead to familiarity with the venue itself and the surrounding area so you know what to expect. neutral: there are bathrooms. sometimes they are indoors with running water, and sometimes they are port-o-potties. cons: stairs only; hundreds of people in a limited space can lead to crowding; "no ins-and-outs" = people tightly packed inside; amateur sound and/or lighting rigs might be overstimulating or painful; potentially very unsafe in general (e.g. abandoned warehouse); poor ventilation = smoky, humid, and hot; fog machines are the devil; NO seating/chairs; exposure to dirt, dust, mold, trash; spilled drinks + sweat + darkness + mobility aid = slipping hazard; EARPLUGS ALWAYS. to emphasize: indoor underground venues are dirty as hell. your toes and snot will be black with filth in the morning. [these cons are worst case scenario but i have experienced all of these things at one point or another. also sometimes there is violence and/or crime. it's rare, but it has happened.]

hybrid/corporate events (EDC, Ultra, and other arena-style events) -- pros: designated accessibility areas and amenities (elevators, escalators, etc.); medics on site; bathrooms with running water; access to food and water/drinks; seating; paved pathways; cleanup crews; professional sound; accepts both cards and cash; accessible via public transit and has ample parking. neutral: these tend to be multi-day events, sometimes with corresponding apps on your phone for a map, timeslots, digital ticket, etc. treat it more like a convention or music festival than a rave party. cons: THOUSANDS of people; extreme lighting rigs might be overstimulating; difficulty traversing the grounds due to sheer size of the event; a rave-adjacent experience but not necessarily the same vibe or community as an underground rave; corporate greed and poor management has infamously led to overcrowding and medical emergencies; expensive as hell (ticket, hotel, travel, etc.). (these are less disability-specific but I feel they're important to mention).

---

you can always scope the venue beforehand for accommodations, at least for public venues. underground events oftentimes will not release directions or an address until the night of the party to keep away undesirables. however, in my experience if you contact the crew (or even one of the local DJs) they'll be happy to give you the rundown (e.g. bathroom situation). also, i think most modern day events don't use map points anymore, so that eliminates a layer of complexity.

if you're not sure what your tolerance level might be, keep an eye out for day parties. these are usually at public parks or beaches, so there's plenty of parking, lots of space to spread out, and the sound isn't too amplified. they also rarely reach more than a few dozen people, as anything else requires a permit and risks being broken up by authorities. day parties are generally more chill and low-key, sometimes serving as an afterparty for a "real" rave the night before. this is a nice way to test the waters and to spend an afternoon meeting people, making kandi, or having a picnic, all while enjoying sets from local DJs.

there are also "raver day" meetups at places like amusement parks, zoos, aquariums, and other places that offer group discounts without strict dress codes. as part of "magic in the making" my buddy vince organizes biannual (summer and winter) raver days at disneyland, which i have loved and attended nearly every year (pre-pandemic) since 2004. we wear our favorite outfits, trade kandi made just for raver day, and meet new people. if you don't know anyone in the scene, doing a big group activity like a meetup is a great way to introduce yourself.

i do have many thoughts about disability and the rave scene, especially in this " "post"-covid era" (please imagine infinite quotation marks around "post"), but this answer is long enough already. all i can say is that some crews have done their due diligence in promoting the safest atmosphere possible, requiring proof of vax/negative covid tests (and actually checking them), masks while in indoor/crowded areas, and installing upgraded HEPA filter ventilation systems in their venue—but that was about a year ago. now, as we approach the end of 2022, many raves and their crews are not concerned with whether or not their events are accessible. in my opinion, that is a major detriment to the scene's unity, and it effectively prohibits me from attending any events for the foreseeable future. i miss raving more than anything, but i am currently not willing to risk lifelong disability or death to return to it prematurely, or to return to a scene that i, frankly, no longer recognize as the community that once loved me so much in return.

on a positive parting note, here is the late rave legend Keith Flint of the Prodigy greeting and embracing some disabled fans (0:45, warning for flashing lights from 0:00 - 0:50). He was the realest dude there ever was:

youtube

i can't wait for you to make your foray into the scene once it is safe for us both :)

#ask #anon #rave shit #disability #accessibility #flashing /#raving #keith flint

20 notes · View notes

techtrendshub · 9 months

Text

Exploring the Future: Emerging Technologies Shaping Our World

The world of technology is in a constant state of evolution, and it's an exciting journey into the future. As we navigate the 21st century, we find ourselves surrounded by emerging technologies that promise to reshape our lives in profound ways. From artificial intelligence (AI) to virtual reality (VR) and beyond, the future is brimming with innovations that hold the potential to transform industries, improve our daily routines, and challenge our perceptions of what's possible. In this blog post, we'll take a closer look at some of these groundbreaking technologies and the impact they may have on our future.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): The Power of Machine Learning

AI, often described as the pinnacle of human achievement in technology, is already making waves across various industries. Machine learning algorithms are becoming increasingly sophisticated, enabling AI systems to analyze vast datasets, make predictions, and perform tasks that were once reserved for human experts. As AI continues to advance, we can expect to see its applications in healthcare, finance, autonomous vehicles, and even creative fields like art and music composition. AI-driven personal assistants and chatbots will become more intelligent and seamlessly integrated into our daily lives, making our interactions with technology more intuitive and efficient.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR): Immersive Experiences

Virtual reality and augmented reality are revolutionizing the way we experience entertainment, education, and even work. VR immerses users in virtual worlds, while AR overlays digital information onto the physical world. These technologies are poised to redefine the way we learn, play, and connect with others. In education, students can explore historical events or distant planets through immersive VR experiences. In healthcare, surgeons can use AR to visualize patient data during surgery. The gaming industry continues to push the boundaries of VR, providing gamers with unparalleled levels of immersion. As hardware becomes more accessible and affordable, VR and AR will undoubtedly become integral parts of our lives.

5G Connectivity: The Backbone of the Internet of Things (IoT)

The rollout of 5G networks is another milestone in our technological journey. With speeds that dwarf those of 4G, 5G will unlock the full potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). Smart cities will become a reality, with connected devices and sensors optimizing everything from traffic flow to energy consumption. Telemedicine will thrive with low-latency connections, enabling remote consultations and surgeries. The way we work will transform, with remote collaboration tools benefiting from seamless, high-speed connectivity.

Sustainable Technology: A Greener Future

As we grapple with the challenges of climate change, technology is stepping up to provide solutions. Renewable energy sources like solar and wind power are becoming more efficient and affordable. Electric vehicles (EVs) are rapidly gaining popularity, and self-driving EVs promise to revolutionize transportation. Innovations in sustainable agriculture, such as vertical farming and precision agriculture, are increasing food production while minimizing environmental impact. These advancements in green technology are crucial steps toward a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future.

Conclusion

The future of technology is bright, filled with promise, and limited only by our imagination. As these emerging technologies become more integrated into our lives, they will undoubtedly bring about profound changes in the way we work, learn, communicate, and interact with the world around us. Embracing these innovations and staying informed about the latest developments will empower us to thrive in the dynamic landscape of the future. So, fasten your seatbelts, because the journey into the future of tech promises to be an exhilarating one, and we're just getting started.

#auto tech #future_tech #technology #tech news #security #tech house #software #retro tech #tips #witch tips #tech

2 notes · View notes

rametarin · 1 year

Text

True leadership is agnostic.

Just letting my mind wander on the subject of the role of government and authority.

There’s nothing written in the stars that says any particular kind of government or institution has to be shaped a certain way to function or be moral. Outliers can exist that work, if they have the right people.

The problem is that certain systems and setups with government and economics lend themselves more towards corruption, in their environment and times. The same setup for one culture and group might not be as successful as another, and there are a million and one unknown reasons, large and small, direct and indirect, that might happen.

No matter what scenario, however, you’re limited by your ultimately known levels of sciences, interdisciplinary specialties, markets to properly exploit, utilize and employ them, and your access to material resources to properly utilize them.

What is ‘society’ for? Essentially, convenience. A single human on their own doesn’t need it, provided they have enough easy access to their needs from the environment and no expectations for an easy life, or a comfortable death spiral towards an inevitable aging end. But that’s the trick, isn’t it. How do you feed yourself, acquire the resources and knowledge and culture to know how to get the right tools to protect and provide for yourself, without knowledge of the ages and other people?

This consensus of convenience to not expire is about the only real reason humans confederate or federalize for an easy truce. In theory, a properly empowered person that doesn’t need an army of people to live a life full of modern conveniences, is a person that doesn’t need to exist on property ultimately owned by an institution or social structure. They can fuck off and go wherever they want.

But in real life, a human being is a short lived, naked, squishy pink thing limited by their own mortality, vulnerability and near trapped living on the 2d plane of an entire planet full of hostile beasts, effectively blind without technology or artificial light half the time, and still dependent on scarce food to survive.

But suppose you accommodated these vulnerabilities in the name of liberal self-empowerment. Suppose you advanced mathematics and material science to such a degree where you have a machine that could absorb rocks and sunlight and turn any concentration of any mineral into clothes, structure for fabricated tools, or complex mechanical or electronic parts, from simple dirt. Suppose you knew the blueprint of every single allele, gene and protein in the body, had the means to use AI to study and derive all new information from every single mutation as it occurs in a genome in real time, and accommodate for it with synthetic medicine to repair or recover.

That effectively, every chemical need of a human body could be solved for the equivalent of the cost of buying a wash rag and soap, without involving a medical establishment or the government for permission from this amazing techology. No mysteries of any organ or cell cluster left. The road map for what they are, their common parlance names and how to manipulate them for optimal health was solved.

And for that matter, the dross of an entire system and establishment’s monopoly removed from it, as well. The way you no longer even need a true doctor’s visit to buy pregnacy tests or birth control. If those products and services came out today, insurance companies and the government would want a complete monopoly on those where you’re required to get them through official channels, not from the corner store on your own dime, and then raise the price internally so each product was extremely artificially expensive.

If that predatory system of government and government-anointed corporatism was removed from the equation, suddenly the medical industry makes substantially less money than the great big gorging mainline arterial feed to the public’s money, either directly from gouging consumers or from the government, just to necessitate insurance, which just necessitates government mandated control over it. This system that is set up is done so, specifically to monopolize people’s access to healthcare and require they buy into a system and live in accordance to those institutional mandates in order to reap the benefits, or pay obscene robbery fees. And then be told, “Well look at how greedy capitalism is. You should totally socialize medicine the rest of the way to fix it. :^)”

Because objectively speaking, we’re just a few surgical amodeuses away from having AI and machines that do even complex and sophisticated surgery for a pittance of a price, extremely intelligent fabricators that can make any imaginable medicine and go through the phases of testing in a matter of hours, and lab equipment that’s so flexible and cheap that by all rights the only thing preventing end users from owning them at home would be artificial corporate monopoly under the bogus line of, “public safety.” Not even from patent trolling, just compromising regulation and legislation to protect the financial interests and monopoly of providers of certain products and services.

But suppose you could cut this dross out and every imagined, finite, perceptible biological problem could be analyzed, quantified and handled today the way the common person handles influenza or a cold. You would still need medical doctors to service the population, no doubt, but the necessity of enormous hospitals as institutions would go away. You would not need any sort of representative or governing body to provide your healthcare for you; at that level of knowledge and self-determinism and resources, monitoring yourself for cancers would be like checking yourself for ticks. No part of your anatomy or mortal frailty would be beyond your ability to do something about, and thus, control and liberation over your own physical autonomy would be achieved. That handles healthcare.

Then we get to the subject of an individual needing to acquire a certain quota of food per day of their lives, in cycle. The Daily Bread, as they say.

In the past, this has meant you either dedicated yourself to the life of property owning for susstenance farming, or you lived off of a dedicated section of your society that handled that and just interacted with the market. You could have a life where you owned land and worked it to provide food, or you just purchased from market and weren’t obligated to have anything, but seldom both.

Making food is a very stressful process that requires a great deal of open space and materials. At least, the conventional ways we’ve been doing it. And in cities, realestate is at a premium, due to the necessity of space. You need to be blessed regionally with good, arable space and land to stick your crops in and rotate it, as crops deplete minerals in the soil and drain it of life over time. And if you aren’t, you don’t get good food. Not having the resources laying around means you either pay to import the food, you pay to import the soil, or you pay ludicrous amounts for the scarce land that by nature isolates you, because no one can afford to be that far from the ease of civilization for long without compromise.

But suppose we developed our knowledge to where self-sufficiency was possible without this entire system. All it’d take is cultivating a source of decomposers to make fertilizer (worm caps) and micro gardens. Aeroponics, vertical farms, hydroponics. It’d mean that conceivably, with the right access to proper low tech machines and AI, you could provide enough food for yourself with a minimum amount of sunlight.

Now imagine we plan cities this way. Condos, for example, designed to let in enough light on one side of the condo to sustain the needs of a self-sufficiency garden. Or, compensate those that don’t live in properly sunned places by giving them access to the energy to use grow lights. Suddenly you have a democratized and individualized source of agrarian sufficiency, not dependent on natural abundance of resources and real estate. The extreme burden of feeding entire cities from a countryside is vastly reduced, individuals become able to sustain themselves through environment controlled greenhouses in their own homes optionally nannied by machines, you do away with the problem of prison cell sized apartment complexes that herd people living too concentrated together.

In fact, if we considered farming to be a kind of human right and demanded places where regulated housing was the norm to accommodate for the option of farming practices, we would remove the necessity of people to either pay exorbitant fees for food, or starve, and the possibility that military raids could starve out cities entirely. Refining farming practices, from creation and maintenance of soil, heirloom seed and land rights, would mean whether someone chooses to buy food and use the rest of the space as luxury or use the extra space for production, property ownership in cities would be large amounts of land, as a norm.

Whereas by contrast, self-sufficiency outside of a city is much easier. Especially if, with the right materials, you could either purchase (YAY CAPITALISM) or manufacture solar cells, or micro geothermal on your own property. And with the same knowledge that makes vertical farming, aeroponics and hydroponics possible inside of a city, with the benefits of more land and space and air in more suburban or rural areas, you could even cut down on exactly how much land you need for the same one-person susstenance farming you do, with minimal wasted water and minimal fertilizer pollution or wasted soil.

Suddenly when the science and knowledge and technology is there, and the resources, and the mechanical means to operate them are privately owned by individuals and sold by other private enterprises, it becomes possible to free governments from the necessity of nationalizing food production or providing it. They can merely assume their role as quality control and regulation of that which is sold to others on the markets and acquire taxed shares that way, minimizing paperwork, labor and management of human resources for all. Each individual person on average becoming capable of providing for themselves, in a pinch, for dynamic and changing markets when needed. Ways to cut and mitigate shortages.

Electrical power?

While safety and regulatory bodies that answer to the government are a given, there’s no reason why privately owned and registered power companies that offer everything from installed solar and wind turbines, to nuclear reactors, couldn’t be possible. And in fact, there’s no reason why individual people with the proper qualifications couldn’t possess and start their own. Clearly, not everybody can own a coal mine, or an oil field. But millions of geothermal vents using heat from the depths of the earth to turn water to steam and back again to power generators means millions of tons of coal left unburnt or thousands of acres of solar panels per day that are needed less, as they meet an individual’s requirements and all the surplus they could need.

In short, there really shouldn’t BE any monopolized service that the government necessitates itself to provide for you in return for a hefty premium of your money. I’m not saying it should charge society to provide it for free, I’m saying that the necessity for it to provide shouldn’t be a thing; with the right level of access to the market and the ability to publish and print the knowledge, access to the internet, everything from medicine, to access to electrical power, to a million labor saving devices, their manufacturing and engineering and your ability to feed yourself, should all be things you can reasonably and reliably DO on the small scale, allowing yourself to not NEED an enormous, active society, nor the social contracts required by them in the form of taxation or forced participation.

This isn’t to say I’m against nationalism. I am, actually, a big proponent of nationalism. And borders, for purposes of law. But exactly how much control and compromise those governments and nations get to exert over our personal lives and decisions and ability to associate, not so big a fan.

The government’s role, when we do it properly, should be simple oversight of the bureaucracy to judiciously govern it in accordance to the principles of liberalism. The true, best role of government is not to manage people, but enable them to create and construct and govern themselves with a minimum of intrusion and maximum effectiveness. Regulation based on what is most sensible and least invasive.

And for that matter, it should only count for property inhabited and voluntary association in the form of citizenship. I disagree, vehemently, with the Sovereign Citizen concept. Absolutely abhor it. You do not get to enjoy the conveniences of a nation by living in it without registering to be part of it, nor do you get to engage in commerce or wealth building without participating in the one everybody else is engaging in. That’s just regional parasitism.

With this in mind, clearly for the purposes of provisions and liberty, some forms of government and society are more adequate than others. In short, governments that try to combine society with culture and institution and economy just become big lumbering authoritarian shitboxes that believe it’s in the group and the nation’s best interests if you live according to what it thinks is best for you, and what it thinks is best for you is what would be most convenient to its growth and power. This is unacceptable to me. That’s not about liberty or prosperity, that’s about controlling your neighbor and managing them into a cell.

Socialism in my eyes tries to get around the whole, “directly commanding people” problem by instituting itself as the provider of your rights and then monopolizing access and management and provision of them. Regulation to a socialist is simply pretending you aren’t wearing a leash, when in fact, it’s just a leash by proxy. It still belives itself the rightful owner of the air that you breathe, and you’ve been complimentarily taxed to afford it. You need air to breathe, you’re materially unlikely to be able to provide your own air, so they think they have you there; “air is a human right, we need all your money so you can breathe, therefore, you owe us labor and submission as per the social contract.”

Communism in concept and practice is just absolutely ridiculous and antithetical to sense and reality that I have absolutely zero respect for it. Many of the supposed merits are just window dressing and this entire idea can only exist on paper, because it has so much baggage tied to it relating to crackpot theories on human nature, psychology and pseudo-intellectualism on “the inevitable progression of the humanities” that it makes my blood boil. A million babbling bullshit artists trying to justify a secular religious view and communually deciding to listen and believe in an asshole. It cultivates a specific variety of person that sincerely believes you can be a conniving, parasitic used car salesman/mob hatchetman and be an emphatic individual because you like the IDEA of people and structures which allegedly are meant to service the idea of the public, while in practice being completely ineffectual to them. And overall only seems suited as the Rock Candy Mountain dreams of narcotics addicted hobos that want to sell participation in a perfect society where the hobo doesn’t have to work, to people that would be forced to work.

Anarchy and hard anarcho-capitalism are just sad, dystopian states where regulation is corporate and enforced by Pinkertons and rapidly devolves into the only people that have the means or care to exert control over it are nepotistic gangland feudal families that inevitably become warring states on the micro and macro scale of organization. Inevitably, you will statistically get people that see no harm in shooting you in the head and stealing your stuff because you’re less important than they are in their minds, whether it’s because they don’t care about anyone, only care about their bloodline, only care about their social family, only care about their race, or only care about their spirituality. Organization on the basis of population that seeks to subdue and destroy other populations is the bane of anarchism.

For my money, if we are to have a government and society at all, I prefer it to be one of minimalism. Secular modernity operated and regulated under a liberal legal framework that allows for the participation but does not entrench the values of people. Whatever culture or community they envision for themselves, whatever associations of family. This makes no assumptions about what the human groups are or aren’t composed of, it only accommodates them.

If, technologically, scientifically, we could have all the benefits of modern society that the individual could near effortlessly provide for themselves, we should have the option and not be pigeonholed into a centralized system where resources are provided via a monopoly.

Militarily, I am wholeheartedly in favor of a nationalized military force. And in my eyes, national property is part of the nation but owned by the states, with a minimum of federal criteria the states must follow. A military should reflect the population that inhabits the country and its people, with the knowledge that if that military ever starts being turned on unorganized people to proactively impose force on them, on behalf of the government or its own power, that military becomes illegitimate. Militaries should be subserviant to the government and general public. I’ll never dispute or feel bad about a bill from Uncle Sam when it comes to the price of missiles or engineering.

Private property is absolutely amazing and good and wonderful and a human right. And in an ideal universe, you would not have to pay property tax to own land. Ideally, the family homestead should be owned by a person forever. Sadly, we do not live in a world where others will respect this; nothing is sacred in a secular, material universe with entropy. People will game the system to snatch up all the land either personally or in the name of an organization, or even a vague and abstract ideal, one way or another.

So in my eyes, the only proper way to handle property ownership is to scale taxation based on amount of it owned, based on region, with a bias towards those that have no property at all to incentivize ownership of it and participation in civil society as a land owner, steward and landlord. The more people with their own legal nirvanha, the more engaged the citizenry and more self-sufficient the society, able to handle their own needs and take the load of management and control off the government, back into the individuals’ hands, not some vague body of them. Regulation shouldn’t be there to punish small business or browbeat them into participation and encourage them to be corporate to function at all; Government should prize small business as vital parts of society that can operate and change in ways that large businesses cannot. If you are a nuclear family of 2-8, you shouldn’t have to pay a tax to own so much land, merely have it on legal record that you own the deed to the land, signed certified and acknowledged by the government.

If done properly, the consequences of a less regulated market would be mitigated by knowledge of best practices and a strong legal system and framework. It shouldn’t matter if Potato Crunchies (made up company) goes under; those 80,000 people can re-employ and re-train quickly and new businesses can emerge. No company should ever be so essential that it’s too big to fail, and the proper way to prevent that isn’t nationalizing a resource, it’s by enabling many independent hands to be able to operate equally on it and compete to provide the best possible product. Failure of this is simply failure of knowledge of the subject matter.

And for fucks sake, this government/university bedroom partnership needs to STOP. Universities either need to become more democratic and the communities need to be able to hire/fire teachers based on their subjects and curriculum and education outcomes, or they need to disentangle with the government and stop allowing colleges and universities to keep raising prices, necessitating tuition hikes, necessitating government loans for college, which necessitate tuition hikes, etc. Colleges and universities have too much power and it is a manipulation of a socialized system by necessity simply to exploit federalism, which they then wave the, “don’t blame me, blame capitalism” fan.

Certification should be handled by private industry and the government, and not necessitate the institutional bodies of education in order to validate or certify that an individual can operate in their suggested task. That necessitates 1-10 years of education, no matter how much it costs, and allows the higher educational institution to shape tuition and curriculum as a kind of purity test based on social and cultural values. Mandating you need certain numbers of credits in things you are not interested in, is robbery. Education in unrelated fields should not be mandatory for certification in an occupation. And colleges definitely are padding out curriculum specifically to pay tenured professors and cliques in their own psycho-social interests and ambitions. This needs to stop.

Anything less than this is simply trying to treat an individual as a pawn in someone elses idea of how you should live, whom you should live for, and whom gets to dictate or regulate over your life.

2 notes · View notes