#humans 1 computers 0

[alianoralacanta]

This is an example of a good authorial decision. Computers are often bad at understanding phrasal marking (which is what OP is describing).

okay, yes, I know that comma isn't supposed to be there but I want the reader to take a breath! I want a pause! Stop trying to correct me, I'm trying to control the flow of reading

[epicfranb]

people who don't know shit about computers or programming are like ohhhh the machine is so smart the artificial intelligence will answer all our questions ohhhhh but no computers are fucking stupid you tell a human "can you do this for me real quick ty" and the human goes "ok will do 👍" you tell computer the exact same thing and it doesn't know wtf you're talking about unless you say it in hyper ultra mega specific terms because it's a dumb dumb and if you dare make a single typo or forget a comma it explodes. computers are dummb thats the entirre reason we need programmin languages to make them understand us

[zillychu]

oh my GOD I've known for about a month now that Disney was getting ready to go public with the Midjourney court case and it was SO HARD. TO STAY SILENT. all I've been able to do for like 2 years is go "trust me Disney is cooking something" and now it's finally starting.

like. I cannot emphasize enough how this is seriously going to destroy unethical LLMs. this isn't just about Midjourney, it's going to affect all the shitty art theft companies. they've been working on this a long time to ensure it's airtight.

Disney is evil, but for this battle, their interests align with ours. it's gonna be a long court case but at least we're finally gonna start seeing a shift now in regards to LLMs.

1) Disney will not be able to monopolize unethical LLMs bc they'll be illegal if Disney wins. legislation will need to be written to uphold the ruling.

-----------

EDIT: adding to this bc the techbro psyops found it and are trying to convince y'all this is a bad thing.

2) this is literally just Disney saying "LLMs should be subject to copyright law like everything else". only reason it wasn't is bc we didn't have it in legal writing yet. this court case will prompt it being written.

3) this means absolutely nothing else about copyright is changing. fair use, transformative work, and IP laws stay the same. nothing will change for anyone except techbro shills. we'll finally be protected from them.

4) I can't believe I have to say this but copyright is a good thing. it can be abused (there's room to criticize about HOW it's applied), but it's the only thing protecting small artists and individuals from their labor being stolen. anyone who whines about copyright as a whole being evil is a techbro who wants to steal your money and labor.

5) please. please remember copyright is completely separate from IP law. Disney will not be able to outlaw "style theft", that's still under fair use. their argument against LLMs lies solely in the fact that LLMs use the source material directly in computing an output, and is unable to create an output without said source material. this is how it's different from human-guided machines like digital art programs--those don't require copyright work to create any output.

6) not saying there's a 0% chance of something going wrong but there's a reason artists are excited about this. we have good reason to be optimistic. the court case is airtight--it fully refutes all arguments techbros make in defence of unethical LLMs.

7) being happy about Enemy 1 killing Enemy 2 does not mean anyone suddenly loves Enemy 1. nobody is celebrating Disney. we're celebrating LLMs losing. Disney being evil doesn't mean we can't be happy about Evil 2 dying.

8) techbros keep crying it's so fucking funny

[alchemist-of-life]

I’m curious how binary cant work for admech since day 1. At first, I thought it’s just high speed alternation in frequencies of sounds to denote 0 and 1, just like how computer cable does with voltage. So I wrote a python script to convert natural language to binary code then to sound based on the idea (so that I can curse in binary in ttrpg). However, since the human auditory cortex can only distinguish sound about 20ms apart, the current commonly used binary coding method (Unicode) that requires 8 bits to encode for one letter (16 bits for one character in Mandarin) would make binary cant less efficient than natural language through the bare ear. As a result, binary cant users not only need vocal implants but also auditory implants to receive info (or perhaps cortex implants to decode). Based on these assumptions, binary cant would be able to happen in sound frequencies not perceivable by the original human cochlea so techpriests conversation can be extremely quiet. And more efficiently, just through data cables.

Or it could be the other way around, scientists might develop more efficient binary language without basing it on the symbol system of natural languages (I’m not that familiar with linguistics so I don’t know if this is possible or not).

However, the sound techpriests made in the game mechanicus doesn’t sound like my assumption. There are definitely more than 2 pitches used in the conversations (which makes it less binary...) and they seem to be faster than natural language. I still couldn’t figure out what’s happening here. Do the twisting pitches actually encode more than one bit? Is binary cant actually an analog signal encoding a digital signal? Or is the sound effect just mean to sound better for the game?

The binary curse program (turn the sound on!):

[youling-the-ghost]

Actually regarding the search engine thing, ChatGPT is about the worst way to go about doing research. Since all it really does it regurgitate websites online, you have no way of checking if the source from which ChatGPT pulled the information is actually reliable. If you're using Google or Bing, you can at least evaluate the source's reliability yourself. Sure, you're still susceptible to misinformation, but at least you can make the judgement yourself. You don't get that with ChatGPT because it doesn't cite its sources.

Also if you're not good at maths, please DO NOT USE CHATGPT TO HELP YOU SOLVE PROBLEMS! Most of the answers that it gives are wrong and even if you're right, if you don't understand the problem you can't learn. There are online forums, YouTube videos, and real-life resources (like your teachers) that you can turn to. ChatGPT is arguably one of the worst things that you can turn to.

I'll admit that I've also turned to AI before when I was struggling with physics problems, but they've never yielded good results. I guarantee that no matter how much you're struggling in maths, there are always better options than using AI to solve problems.

[crepezinhos]

hey, so i did reath BOTH of those before i requested these hehe they were really good omggg (highkey fulfilled my desires….)

idk.. im just REALLY craving a yanderer scara bc i jst love the way u write him,, when u write one ill be super happy like biting the edge of the desk happy, so pleek PLEASE keep this in the back of ur mind i beg of

Number 1 Fan

(REQUEST #14) POV: After the failed dinner with your family, things in your life started to suddenly feel eerier than usual. Scaramouche felt extremely awkward to talk to and even your secret lifestyle seems to have changed with the arrival of a new premium viewer called ‘Balladeer’.

⚠️ WARNINGS:

— This is a NSFW Yandere work

— Reader is FEMALE and uses SHE/HER pronouns

— Contains: Sex work, masturbation, dirty talk, threats and lots of insults

— Stalker!Yandere!Scaramouche x SexWorker!Reader

— AU is: Modern

— Reading of previous part is advised

Makeup? Ready.

Toys? Ready.

Lingerie? Ready.

Ok, here we go.

Another day, another livestream.

Three, two, one, and...

Click

The little camera at the top of your computer brightened in red, signaling it was turned on. Then you breathed in and out as you begun to wait for viewers to join before you could start today's performance. Since most of your watchers were already aware of the time you start your livestreams, quickly, the viewer numbers popped from 0 to 17, to 39, and so on...

You like to wait until you reached 100 at minimum before beginning to say ‘Hi’ to them, and 500 to begin the actual performance. Thankfully, reaching 100 viewers was a matter of seconds now.

"Good night, sweeties!" You cutely spoke to your computer’s screen, welcoming all of them warmly as you watched many messages in the chat begin to pop up.

Iloveasianhotties334: You look hot

garrykafka0275: Show your boobs

11037kuwata: Can I request something?

As always, the messages made you feel a bit disgusted and disappointed at humanity, but you held back your aggressiveness and just kept smiling at them.

“‘Can I request something?' Not yet! I'm still going to wait a few minutes..." You answered to ‘11037kuwata' while drinking a quick sip of coffee from the cup you left laying by your computer.

kittylover123456: Beautiful 😻

theballadeer6: Hi

11037kuwata: When are we starting?

lolisonmydee: r u cosplaying

"I'm not cosplaying, but you can pretend I am!" You answered with honesty while winking at him, ignoring the other comments above that last question.

You didn't even realize you had already reached 323 viewers while reading those initial messages.

"Oh, wow! We reached 300 viewers in less than 2 minutes!" You clapped your palms together gently, trying to act excited but cute at the same time.

Men absolutely love women who act cute. No matter what's their type, if they act cute, they'll love it.

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Hello, my queen! 😍

lolisonmydee: You should cosplay tho

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Looking absolutely gorgeous tonight 🤤

The orange username caught your eye.

Ah, yes... 'I love Y/N's lives’… Probably the only man in the chat that restores your faith in the men using this site. You don’t know how he looks behind the computer screen, but he’s unrealistically kind and considerate to you.

"Oh, hello there! Thank you for the compliments!" You waved at the screen, trying to communicate with him. "Also, what characters would you recommend me to cosplay as... 'Lolis on my dee'?" You answered to the guy's message, struggling a little bit with his username, although you'd probably never cosplay in your lives anyway.

11037kuwata: Mikan Tsumiki

(👑) ilovey/nslives: l'd say Jessica Rabbit

theballadeer6: You don't need to cosplay

theballadeer6: You look beautiful like this

lolisonmydee: Kana from Dragon Maid or any lolis

Since you didn't get any of references rather than Jessica Rabbit, the only message that caught your eye were from this 'Balladeer' guy.

"You think this is enough, Balladeer?" You jokingly leaned upwards and squeezed your boobs together in a teasing way, cackling in your own afterwards since you didn’t take yourself seriously.

theballadeer6: Absolutely

user38291646: Do that again but with a dildo between them

"Thank you! I'll even start earlier because of that!" You winked at the screen and got up with your laptop in hands, placing it down in the floor.

You then walked back to your table and grabbed some materials on top of it before going back and kneeling down at the floor, angling the screen of your computer to read what happened in the chat meanwhile. Some emoji particles were already beginning to pop in the corner of the screen, meaning that people were interacting.

theballadeer6: You're welcome

cr7thegoat: put that dildo in that beautiful pussy of yours

(👑) ilovey/nslives: So kind!!

vladmirputin2028: сними свою одежду

(👑) mrdaddy900030: Am I late?

"Nope! Not at all, Mr. Daddy!" You shrugged your shoulders while beginning to undo the hooks of your bra and let it slowly slide away from your body.

You got very lucky this time because that move was executed perfect, which made the grin your face grow a few inches. To see if you’d really been successful, you decided to take another peek at the chat in the corner of your screen, wanting to see everyone’s reaction.

doinggodswork: Repent for your sins. ✝️✝️✝️✝️

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Woooohooooo! 😍

user10297373: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

user38291646: Get fully naked already

lolisonmydee: dayum

Aside from the annoying unrequested preacher, you smiled at the other compliments you received. At the same time they made you a bit happy, deep down it still made you feel dirty to be doing this kind of work.

“‘Repent for your sins’? Sins? What sins?” You joked with the preacher, trying to gain your chat’s support to get him out of the live. “If anything, the only one sinning here is you. What is God’s messenger himself doing in this site? Watching this kind of livestream? How sinful of you…” You crossed your arms together, watching how the chat immediately turned aggressive towards him.

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Yeah!!!

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Shame on you! 🍅🍅🍅

theballadeer6: gtfo no one cares about god

(👑) mrdaddy900030: Just ignore them baby

You didn’t even know if you could call these guys that watch you human beings or living puppets. They quite literally do whatever you tell them to do as long as they get to see you naked. But at the same time you don’t have a lot of power over them either. If you ever decide you won’t be streaming anymore, none of them would ever keep supporting you. They are your providers, not yourself.

“Thank you, sweeties… I think I’ll give you guys an extra for helping me out.” You launched closer to your computer, wanting to get rid of the annoyance in the chat already.

doinggodswork: CORINTHIANS 12:21: I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.

doinggodswork: CORINTHIANS 12:21: I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.

doinggodswork: CORINTHIANS 12:21: I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.

theballadeer6: sthu bro

doinggodswork: CORINTHIANS 12:21: I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.

And… banned!

Now this guy won’t ever disrupt your lives ever again unless you choose to pity him.

“Sorry for the inconvenience, sweeties!” You scratched the back of your neck, trying to act cute again to regain their interest in you and today’s show.

(👑) ilovey/nslives: So annoying…

theballadeer6: hope he dies

user38291646: Start

This unnamed user was also a bit annoying with his impatience and rudeness, but at least you’d rather read that than some religious guy spilling nonsense just to degrade you.

“Ok.. Shall we..?” You crawled backwards towards your spot, positioning your whole body in front of the camera again while opening your arms, trying to invite and embrace all men in the chat indirectly.

You couldn’t read the chat anymore, though, meaning you’d have to guess that the chat was ready for your show.

“Alright then!” You said after a few seconds in silence, just watching new messages from new people pop in the chat faster and faster the more nudity you showed to them.

You stood up, slowly taking off your panties in a way that would certainly brick up some men if they were not hard already. Then you looked at the side and grabbed the dildo sitting in the floor, positioning it under you.

“Time to breed this pussy again…” You talked dirty to yourself, trying to replicate what they probably would want to say to you since they weren’t there in your room to do it right to your face.

And with the assistance of your hand opening your labia, you finally slid the dildo inside you, the plastic fitting around your tightness easily.

You were quick to start hopping on it since you were used to the feeling of fucking dick-like objects inside you. Both your hands were holding you back from the floor behind you so you could expose yourself erotically the most you could while being comfortable.

“Oh, it feels so good…” You moaned to yourself while pretending you were sitting the best dick in your life.

But unfortunately, your role-play was shortly cut by a sudden notification coming from your computer that you immediately recognized. The donation notification.

“User ‘@mrdaddy900030’ donated 25$!”

The artificial voice spoke out and paused for a moment, the same way you did.

“Baby, it would be a crime for you to do this like that… wasting the beautiful view we could have of your ass… I’d like to request you to turn around.”

The artificial voice spoke again, and you giggled at the message.

“Thank you for the 25 dollars, Daddy! Your wish is my command!” You smiled to the camera excitedly, using both your hands to do the peace sign before abruptly turning around, not wanting to make those precious 25 dollars feel like a waste in the slightest.

The rules of your donations were simple:

5 dollars to set your vibrator to a medium strength for 3 minutes, 10 dollars to set it the highest strength for 3 minutes too to influence the buyers to keep buying that asset over and over, 15 or above to send you a message along a vibrator command, 25 dollars to make you do something such as changing a position, taking off a layer of clothing or the camera angle and 50 dollars to command you to do whatever they wish to see you do.

Yes, you might be a little greedy with your prices and conditions, but it works. Don’t fix what’s not broken.

You were quick to unpause your hopping, beginning to moan in a high pitch to make yourself sound as good as possible to them. You also chose to singularly move your ass and legs instead of your full body, making it the most attractive thing of the screen they could see. You were also occasionally grinding on the dildo and swaying your hips to make it extra seductive, perfectly recreating the reverse cowgirl position.

And that’s how you’d continue acting for the next minutes until you either orgasmed or someone donated enough for you change your position under their command.

.

It’s hilarious, really.

She has no idea.

I can’t really blame her, I chose an unrecognizable name on purpose so she’ll never know one of her work colleagues is watching these special livestreams of hers, and that’s funny.

But now there is nothing she can do about it. I already know enough. I know how you look naked, how you moan, how you talk dirty, how your pussy stretches at the presence of a cock inside it, even if it’s not mine.

You l should be glad I don’t feel like using this little secret of yours for my advantage. Really glad.

The only advantage I’ll take from this is actually sitting back and watch these lives as much as I desire to. In fact, I can even command her to do whatever I want if I give her some money. How greedy of you, Y/N… I thought you were the kindest woman in the world but deep down you’re a leech for porn addicts… I don’t know whether I should or should not feel glad that I’m not your victim. But I won’t interfere much anyway. The less I interact with her, the less she is aware of met presence in this chat.

So that’s exactly what I do. I slowly leaned back against my chair, stretching my arms in the way and relaxing them on chair’s arms right after, eyes never leaving the screen.

You look so beautiful tonight, Y/N… If only that stupid McDonalds didn’t force us to wear those stupid hair caps so I could see this mesmerizing hair of yours every night… At least I’m glad I get to see it when you most work on it…

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Mamma Mia! 😍

user38291646: 💦💦💦

harbinger2: Hottie 🔥🔥🔥🔥

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Keep doing that for us! 🥰

funnyjokesguy: You’re as hot as fire!!

funnyjokesguy: Get it?

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Waaaaa~~ I feel blessed!!!

vladmirputin2028: Я эякулирую

Oh. My. Goodness.

Who the fuck is this guy and why the fuck does he talk like he’s a 16 year-old anime chick? Does he not realize he sounds cringe as fuck?

This must be the mother fucker who keeps stalking Y/N’s Instagram DMs. He can’t be genuinely serious with the way he types… This must be a cute facade he puts on so that Y/N can build trust with him… Too bad he’s horrible at it… and that he won’t ever beat my relationship with her.

(👑) mrdaddy900030: Shitttt I want to cum on you so bad

(👑) ilovey/nslives: If you keep riding it like that I’m gonna cum too soon!!! 😩😩

cr7thegoat: what happens if I donate you 100 dollars?

cr7thegoat: do you do this irl too?

(👑) ladyguujiyae: How late am I gentlemen?

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Later than me as expected 😎

winnerslovewinning: use your fingersssss

This guy surely knows how to ruin a party…

You know what? Sometimes bullying is the only way to fix people.

theballadeer6: bro

theballadeer6: can u sthu

theballadeer6: who tf types like that in the big 2025

(👑) ilovey/nslives: ?

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Oop-

theballadeer6: “L-Later than me as expected! Heh, these fake fans…” 🤓🤓🤓

(👑) ilovey/nslives: ???

(👑) ilovey/nslives: What’s wrong with the way I type? I’m just being kind to Y/N…

theballadeer6: everything???

(👑) ilovey/nslives: What’s everything? 😂

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Who even are you?

theballadeer6: just listen to yourself and you’ll know exactly what im talking about 💀

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Okay, tourist…

Tourist? Me?

Oh, this guy also zero notion of who I am, right?

If I’m a tourist, than he’s a random cockroach.

theballadeer6: tourist?

theballadeer6: u calling me a tourist?

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Yeah

(👑) ilovey/nslives: What’s wrong? Did I annoy you? 🥺

Annoy me? This loser really thinks he is annoying me by typing like this? The only thing he’s annoying is his mother who has to force herself to accept her middle-aged son living in her basement all day because he can’t fucking afford to live alone.

theballadeer6: no

theballadeer6: u r the annoying everyone here

theballadeer6: u r ruining a mood

harbinger2: I gotta agree I can’t beat my meat properly here

cr7thegoat: yup

(👑) ladyguujiyae: One man against the world…

Yeah, this guy is almost done for. Because, as always, I’m right.

(👑) ilovey/nslives: I really wish I would care about what you guys have to say

(👑) ilovey/nslives: But then I remembered that Y/N would rather choose a premium fan like me over 5 of you randoms that can’t afford to pay 20 dollars monthly 🤷‍♀️

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Fake fans 😂

theballadeer6: fake fan?

theballadeer6: u calling me a fake fan?

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Begone, tourists!

theballadeer6: im y/n’s number 1 fan buddy

garrykafka0275: You. Look beautiful..

angelofdawn: Can y’all sthu

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Of course I’m calling you a fake fan

(👑) ilovey/nslives: After all, you ARE one 🫵😂

theballadeer6: who do u think u are? 💀

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Y/N’s ACTUAL number 1 fan, duh

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Cuz if you really were all that, why don’t you have premium, hmmmm?

theballadeer6: that ain’t any of your business

(👑) ilovey/nslives: So you really are a tourist 🫵😂

theballadeer6: shut the fuck up

theballadeer6: u know nothing about me

(👑) ilovey/nslives: I surely know you are a tourist

(👑) mrdaddy900030: Can you two kids stop?

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Clock it!

theballadeer6: oh yeah?

theballadeer6: u really think you are all that?

theballadeer6: lemme show you smth really fun

(👑) ilovey/nslives: T-O-U-R-I-S-T

(👑) ladyguujiyae: And he went off…

lolisonmydee: finally bruh

lolisonmydee: y’all annoying asf

(👑) mrdaddy900030: This generation…

.

Jesus, vibrators really lost their charm to you, haven’t they? Thank God you were forced to turn backwards because this would be extra boring if you’d have to force yourself to express a pleasure you weren’t feeling. At least, in the position you were, all you had to do was open your mouth to occasionally moan or talk dirty to yourself, then you could just zone out.

Maybe this demotivation is affecting your performance… All donations your computer alerted you about yet were about were all the cheaper ones of 5 to 10 dollars. Maybe you should really just start overacting if that’ll get new people to buy your products or to convince your consumers like Mr. Daddy to buy more things aga—

“(Ding, ding, ding!) User ‘theballadeer6’ has become a premium viewer of the channel!”

Your head abruptly turned to the computer as soon as you heard those dings. When you saw the colorful announcement popping up in the screen and shining with multiple particles, especially crown emojis, your eyes shone in happiness.

“Aaaah! Thank you so much, Balladeer!” You said while turning around to make cute gestures such as putting your palms together and slightly clapping your fingers repeatedly. “I hope you have a lot of fun with my premium content and that you stay tuned for more!” You purposefully made your voice sound cuter than usual while saying that.

After all, you have to make good impressions to keep these men paying you monthly. But the show couldn’t stop, so you spun around your spot again and faced the same white wall you previously were. You breathed in and out. You only have about an hour left to perform… You can do it.

(👑) theballadeer6: AM I A FAKE FAN NOW HUH????

(👑) theballadeer6: WHERE R U

(👑) theballadeer6: FUCKING PUSSY

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Oh lord here we go…

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Oh wow you did the bare minimum…

winnerslovewinning: Men ☕️

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Real

(👑) ladyguujiyae: I feel like a female bull watching two male bulls fighting for me rn

(👑) theballadeer6: BARE MINIMUM?

(👑) theballadeer6: YOU’RE THE ONE DOING THE BARE MINIMUM

(👑) theballadeer6: R U FUCKING MENTAL??

lolisonmydee: y’all should just kys

winnerslovewinning: They should kiss

justalittleponyboy: I can’t believe I’m forcing myself to come here rn but

justalittleponyboy: For fuck’s sake just take it to DMs

justalittleponyboy: We all just want to watch some porn

justalittleponyboy: So like

justalittleponyboy: SHUTTTTTTT UPPPPPPP

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Lmao

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Do you think this is all I have?

(👑) ilovey/nslives: If only I could send screenshots of my DMs with Y/N here…

(👑) ilovey/nslives: It’s safe to say we’re dating at this point

(👑) ilovey/nslives: And that’s because I’m not counting all the money I’ve spent

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Wowwwww you spent 20 dollars on her!!! I’ve probably spent more than 500 bucks on her 😂

(👑) mrdaddy900030: Then you’re technically not the biggest spender. I am.

(👑) theballadeer6: STFU

(👑) theballadeer6: NO ONE CALLED YOU HERE OLD FUCKING HAG

garrykafka0275: These. kids…

justalittleponyboy: Y’all are just taking advantage of Y/N

justalittleponyboy: She will mute the both of you in the end.

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Ownnnnn… Look at him! He’s hurt! 🥺

(👑) theballadeer6: IM NOT HURT YOU FUCKING STUPID

(👑) theballadeer6: IM JUST TELLING YOU THE FUCKING TRUTH

(👑) theballadeer6: Y/N DOESN’T LIKE YOU

(👑) theballadeer6: U R NOTHING COMPARED TO ME

(👑) theballadeer6: NOTHING

(👑) theballadeer6: NONE OF Y’ALL ARE “REAL FANS”

justalittleponyboy: 🙄

(👑) ilovey/nslives: If Y/N ever starts doing these service irl you know who to thank

(👑) theballadeer6: SHE WOULD NEVER DO IRL SERVICES

winnerslovewinning: Have y’all ever stopped to think that maybe Y/N isn’t even straight in the first place

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Yeah no Y/N isn’t for the women…

(👑) ladyguujiyae: But I am

winnerslovewinning: Oh?

winnerslovewinning: DMs?

(👑) ladyguujiyae: After this live 😉

lolisonmydee: Get out of here yuritards

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Says the lolicon

winnerslovewinning: Shut up male

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Maybe she would start it because some people ACTUALLY give her all the money she wants for it unlike some people…

(👑) theballadeer6: OHHHHHHH YOU REALLY THINK YOURE ALL THAT JUST BECAUSE OF SOME BUCKS

(👑) theballadeer6: DO YOU THINK SHE’D EVER LAY DOWN WITH A DISGUSTING 40 YEAR OLD CHRONICALLY ONLINE CREEP LIKE YOU?

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Oh wow

(👑) theballadeer6: EVEN IF SHE DID START DOING IRL SERVICES I’D BE TEN TIMES AHEAD OF U IN THE LINE

(👑) theballadeer6: FUCKING LOSER

(👑) theballadeer6: IF MONEY MATTERS TO U THIS MUCH THEN THAT’S HOW WE WILL FUCKING PLAY

.

Scaramouche, fuming and grunting in pure stress, closed the chat tab to not get annoyed anymore and went directly to the “Donate” button in your screen, almost breaking his mouse when he clicked it. He was so mad with this guy that not even the view of you could calm him down. So mad he was barely holding himself from either destroying his own computer or beat himself up.

.

Meanwhile, you still bounced up and down on the dildo with a bored face, trying to calculate how much you’ve gained yet tonight to distract yourself from the shallowness of your performance. You believe you’ve gotten three 5-dollar donations and 2 10-dollar donations, which eventually add up to 35 dollars. Adding this up with the singular donations of 25 dollars from of your premium viewers, you get 60 dollars in total.

Damn. For an unpopular streamer that didn’t even get to cum once yet, you’d done quite some bucks… You know what? It’s not better not to think so positively about it, or else you might jinx—

“User ‘@theballadeer6’ donated 200$!”

Huh?

Two… hundred?

No, you must be hearing things.

You looked backwards immediately, meeting the decorated pop-up that alarmed the donation telling you what exactly you heard. Two-hundred dollars. A number two and two perfect zeroes sided to each other with no comma in between. Even if you were witnessing it, you still didn’t want to believe your own eyes. So you blinked once, then twice, then another time, but the number wouldn’t lose any of its zeroes.

“Two… Two hundred?! Oh, my God! Thank you so much, Balladeer! This really means a lot to—!”

“THERE YOU FUCKING GO YOU FUCKING WORM. IS THIS ENOUGH FOR YOU?! NOW DO YOU SEE WHO IS THE REAL FAN BETWEEN US OR DO YOU WANT MORE FUCKING PROOF?! BECAUSE I CAN GIVE YOU MORE. I KNOW Y/N’s NAME, HER FULL NAME, WHO HER PARENTS ARE, WHO HER SISTER IS, WHERE SHE WORKS, HER HOME ADDRESS AND EVEN THE NAME OF HER FUCKING CAT.”

…

…

…

…

…

What..?

Your smile died, not understanding at all what the message meant. You looked to the chat, meeting many caps-locked messages from the Balladeer guy and from other people too.

(👑) ladyguujiyae: What the fuck

(👑) ilovey/nslives: Ew?

(👑) mrdaddy900030: Y/N, I think you should end the stream.

winnerslovewinning: Men 🤦‍♀️

(👑) theballadeer6: IS THIS ENOUGH FOR YOU? DO YOU SEE THE TRUTH NOW?

Was this guy… talking to you?

“I…” You tried answering him but you just simply couldn’t form any phrase that made sense.

Your right hand reached your mouse and started scrolling up, meeting much more caps-locked texts that gave you better context of that message. It was a fight, one they’ve done while you weren’t looking. How naive of you. Your heart slowly twisted in disgust and fear for your life, your throat trying to push something out of it… vomit.

What is this? Who is this guy? Why is he doing this? Is his message true? Does he know who you are? Is this that Instagram stalker that always finds a way to contact you over and over again? Has he made this much progress?

You didn’t know how you looked to the people seeing you, but you knew it wasn’t pretty. You knew you were giving an ugly image of yourself almost panicking like that.

justalittleponyboy: Yeah Y/N just ban these weirdos from your chat

This guy was smart. He was thinking the same thing as you. Your “biggest fan” apparently was a victim of this Balladeer guy’s rage, meaning it’d only be fair to ban the Balladeer and perhaps mute your “biggest fan” to make sure this isn’t brought up to the stream anymore.

But should you really ban this guy? He just gave you 200 dollars, and this was his first stream of you. He’s creepy, he’s one of the most bizarre men you’ve ever seen yet, but reading the fight that happened in your absence, all he seemed to be was to be a bit too possessive of you.

Remember how he praised you in the beginning of the livestream? He wasn’t rude or aggressive to you, only them. Was he really a stalker? Specifically the one in your Instagram? Or just a really dedicated fan? In the chat he seemed to still be trying to convince your “biggest fan” that the title belongs to him instead while indirectly apologizing to you. Maybe… it isn’t worth to lose those monthly 20 dollars… Not when you need that money so much.

Your life isn’t cheap. Even if you can handle your conditions the way they are, you still desire more money. You want to have a comfortable life after retirement and you want to especially show your family you aren’t little. You aren’t worthless despite this second job of yours. You want them to have zero false pity for you.

So… you won’t ban him. If he suddenly becomes a less prominent spender, then you’ll definitely ban him, but if he keeps spending this much money on you… you can’t ban him. The sacrifice might be worth it.

But, you don’t even want to be naked anymore. You want to stop. You want to put on your favorite pijamas, lock your doors and windows and go to sleep. So, you quickly messed with the moderation tools in your chat and muted them both. Your “biggest fan” was muted for an hour while the Balladeer was muted for a day.

“I-I’m sorry, guys… I don’t feel comfortable continuing today’s livestream.” You quickly stated, too embarrassed to face the camera, before abruptly pulling up another tab to stream to the viewers, your ‘pause tab’.

It was a picture with a big pink-aesthetic text saying “Be right back!” with another cute and sexy picture of you in the back of it to entertain the viewers while they waited. You pulled up this screen before closing the live so you could read the last comforting messages from your normal audience while you dressed your underwear again.

(👑) ladyguujiyae: Rest well :(

lolisonmydee: bruhhh don’t let them affect you

(👑) mrdaddy900030: Stay safe Y/N

justalittleponyboy: they’re just random douchebags Y/N ignore them

harbinger2: 👋👋👋

“Thank you, guys.” You quietly spoke, trying to hold back the shake of your mouth and voice.

And finally, you clicked the red “End Livestream” button, and your viewers ceased.

.

FUCK!!!!!

FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!!

This guy..! THIS GUY!!!

What have I done?! What the fuck was I thinking?! I fucked it up! No, no, HE fucked me up! He orchestrated me to do this! He baited me to rage to a screen and make myself look bad to Y/N!

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid..!” I slapped my own face over and over as I repeated those degrading words to myself.

It’s been a while since I’ve last freaked out like this and I’m surprised this triggered me to react like this. But I just can’t handle it. My Y/N working in this industry… having this kind of men following her… It’s too much. I fucking hate it. I hate it bad.

So much that my anger finally boiled up enough for me to scream. It was once and brutal, letting most of it out. It also forced my hands to move up to my head and grab my locks as if I wanted to rip them off, and I almost did. The pain of pulling my own scalp this hard made me scream harder, but it was the only way I could get rid of this itching anger without harming my materials.

I need to know Y/N’s relationship with this man. I can’t let him too close to her at all. He’s a danger to me and her and he knows it.

I’ll show him what a real fan truly is.

Taglist: @shy-ent @the-stinky-winky @bigmantiddys @goofy-ego @sasuri123 @gaboplaydespacito @thegriffinbird @alatusorrow @luminieee @toobytub @wandereryumee

Anon, I know you probably weren’t expecting a part 2 of another fic for your request but… unfortunately my Scaramouche battery is seriously running out right now and I took advantage of the fact that you said the original fic did please you a lot, so I hope this serves you too! Sorry for not making a whole new original prompt! 🙏

Don’t forget to like and comment if you liked it <3

[desiree-uk]

Using NRaas Master Controller's Filters, Skill Stamps and Hot Keys - Part 1 Filters

This is part 1 of a little (big!) tutorial on how I use filters, skill stamps and hot keys from NRaas Master Controller together in my games. It's also an appreciation post! 😊

See also: Using NRaas Master Controller's Filters, Skill Stamps and Hot Keys - Part 2: Skill Stamps and Hot Keys

Tutorial under the header!

Mods needed for Filters, Skill Stamps and Hot Keys to show up: Master Controller v.135 Master Controller Cheats v.134+

(9th Feb 2025 - desiree-uk correction: Additional mods needed for filters and door locking system (my apologies! 😌) GoHere v.45 Tagger v.5

Filters:

I use filters, skill stamps and hotkeys for various things, mostly to edit bulk sims, refine door locking options, set filters for parties, functions etc and add short-cuts of often-used MC interactions to the NRaas menu when clicking on a sim/household/terrain. Once you know how to set these, you can set as many as you like and use them in a lot of different combinations.

Here are a few examples on how I set them up, but you can name them whatever you like.

MC Interaction: Save Filter Prompts the user to save a custom filter that can be used for Sim queries.

There are already a lot of default filters for sim-criteria like Age, Species, Residents, NPC etc, but I want to set one specifically for Adult and Elder sims together so I can set door options and skill stamps for them (more on skill stamps in Part 2!)

Click on Town Hall/Computer>NRaas>MC>Settings>Filters Click Save Filter - Age - Adult and Elder Oh, also set 'Species' to Human otherwise all adult and elder cats, dogs, horses and the Grim Reaper will show up! I always forget that part. 😄

Name the new filter (e.g AGE: ADULTS and ELDERS) Click Accept ☑ Your new filter will show up in the list of filter criteria.

I only want these sims to use a particular door. You can use the EA door locking system to select sims you want to use the door if you want, but if you want more stringent rules, then the filters are better.

Click on the door>Lock…>Door Options… Click on 'Door Filter Type - Deny Click on 'Enable/Disable Filters' - 0

Click on the new filter you made earlier 'AGE: ADULT and ELDERS Click on it until it shows 'True'. Click Accept ☑

On the previous dialog box you'll now see the 'Door Filter Type: Allow' and 'Enable/Disable Filters: 1' You'll also see two new options 'List Sims Allowed Through' and 'List Sims Denied Access'.

Click on them to double check you have the right sims listed. ALL human adult and elder sims are showing up in the 'Allowed..' list. The 'Denied Access' list should show all the baby, child, teen and YA humans and pets. (Allowed: 1st picture. Denied: 2nd picture)

You can set any filter with as many different criteria as you want. When you set a filter with more than one criteria and you specifically want that sim to use the door e.g a YA female, with the charisma skill level 2, make sure to set 'Match All Active Filters' to 'True' (above screenshot) so only a young adult, female sim, with a charisma skill of 2 can use the door. If the 'Match All…' option isn't set, then any YA sim or any female sim or any sim with the charisma skill of 2 can use the door - it's more flexible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the next part, I'll be showing how I use skill stamps together with filters and hot keys!

Click for part 2: Using NRaas Master Controller's Filters, Skill Stamps and Hot Keys - Part 2: Skill Stamps and Hot Keys

[intervex]

What Pride Flags Mean, Part 1: Gender and Attraction

Welcome to the latest installment of my autistic hyperfixation on flags! I wanted to figure out a common language of Colour X means Thing Y. Like how pink is consistently used for feminine.

Having a common language for flag meanings matters because it improves cognitive accessibility of flags. ♿️💙

But I didn't want to be prescriptive about what colours should mean what. Just because I think Thing X should go with Colour Y doesn't mean everybody else would.

So this turned into a descriptive, empirical project. I gathered a data set of 2060 pride flag colour choices to figure out what are the most common colour-meaning combinations. Some of the results:

And here are the abstract modifiers: these are modifiers that were generally shared between the genders and the attractions. For example, black is used to indicate having no gender as well as having no attraction.

Click here for tables with okLCH values, hex values, definitions, and notes - I've put a more detailed write-up on my Wikimedia Commons userpage. (Mediawiki supports sortable tables and Tumblr does not.)

METHODS-AT-A-GLANCE

To make the figures above, I assembled a data set of pride flag colours. It contains 2060 colour choices from 624 pride flags, representing 1587 unique colours. Click here for a detailed description of how I gathered and tagged the pride flag colours and tagged them.

For each tag, I converted every colour to okLCH colour space and computed a median colour. OkLCH colour space is an alternative to RGB/hex and HSL/HSV. Unlike RGB/hex and HSL/HSV, okLCH is a perceptual colour space, meaning that it is actually based on human colour perception. 🌈

In okLCH space, a colour has three values:

- Lightness (0-100%): how light the colour is. 100% is pure white.

- Chroma (0-0.37+): how vibrant the colour is. 0 is monochromatic. 0.37 is currently the most vibrant things can get with current computer monitor technologies. But as computer monitor technologies improve to allow for even more vibrant colours, higher chroma values will be unlocked.

- Hue (0-360°): where on the colour wheel the colour goes - 0° is pink and 180° is teal, and colours are actually 180° opposite from their perceptual complements.

The important thing to know is that okLCH Hue is not the same Hue from HSV/HSL - the values are different! (HSL and HSV are a hot mess and do not align with human colour perception!)

You can learn more about okLCH through my little write up, which was heavily influenced by these helpful articles by Geoff Graham, Lea Verou, and Keith J Grant.

You can play with an okLCH colour picker and converter at oklch.com

🌈

MORE RESULTS: COLOUR DISTRIBUTIONS

Back when I started tagging my data, I divided my data into five main chunks: Gender qualities (e.g. masculine, androgynous), Attraction (e.g. platonic, sexual), Values (e.g. community, joy), Disability (e.g. Deaf, blind), and Other.

I'll talk about Disability and Values in future posts! But for an alternate view of the data, here are the full distributions of the colours that were placed in each tag.

They come in three parts: tags I created for Gender, tags for Attraction, and tags from Other. The abstract modifiers are spread between the first two, though their contents transcend Gender and Attraction.

Some distributions have a lot more variance within them than others. Generally speaking, major attraction types tended to have the least variance: sensual attraction is really consistently orange, platonic is really consistently yellow, etc.

Variance and size do not correlate. Many of the smaller tags are quite internally consistent. I don't have a ton of tags in "current gender" but they're all the same dark purple. Xenine/xenogender has a whole bunch of entries, and there's a really big spread from blue to yellow.

Some tags, like intersex as well as kink/fetish show there are a small number of different colours that are very consistently used. Whereas other tags like masculine show a very smooth range - in this case from cyan to purple.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with how things wound up! 🥳 It makes sense to me that an umbrella term like xenogender would have a lot of variance. What honestly makes me happiest is just how many tags wound up 180 or 90 degrees from their opposites/complements. 🤩

Not everything lined up nicely (the opposite of drag is .... neuroqueer? awkward.) 🤨 Some things lined up in hilarious ways, like how initially I had the opposite of kink/fetish being Christian (amazing.)

But as a whole, there's a lot of structure and logic to where things landed! I hope this makes sense for other people and can help inform both flag making as well as flag interpreting (e.g. writing alt-text for existing flags). 🌈

I'm hoping to post the Disability and Values analyses in the coming days! If you want to learn more, my detailed notes along with tables etc are over on my Wikimedia Commons userspace. 💜

Everything here is Creative Commons Sharealike 4.0, which means you're free to reuse and build on my visualizations, tables, etc. Enjoy!

[gaykarstaagforever]

The Bendix G-15 from 1956, the world's first "personal computer." One of these cabinets weighed a literal 1000 lbs. and cost half a million dollars in today's money. Or you could rent it for the equivalent of $17,000 a month.

It was numeric only, you had to "talk" to it via a typewriter, and when you turned it off it 'forgot' everything. It used 'drum memory,' which used the same rust-covered-spinning-magnetic-thing technology all hard drives would continue to use until flash memory became a thing. But in the Bendix it looked something like this (one from a slightly earlier computer):

This computer is so old no one seems to have figured out what 'bits' it is. All I know is that drum thing "holds 2,160 words of twenty-nine bits." It can also do basic math problems in 270 microseconds. ...Which sounds fast, but that means it can do 2+2=4 in 27 thousandths of a second. Which is probably exactly how long it took your stupid brain to do that. For slightly more complex math, hiring a human mathematician at this time would be both cheaper and easier than dealing with this computer.

This is a "vacuum tube / diode analog architecture" computer, and it already had some kind of OS that meant you didn't have to know machine code? But that slowed it down even more...?

I have absolutely no idea how analog computers worked, or how anyone used one. There are tape decks on this thing, and it is plugged into a typewriter. Like I get the digital 1 and 0 thing, but I have no concept how you make light bulbs and blobs of germanium do that electronically.

But someone did, and this eventually led to you streaming Now That's What I Call Music! No. 86 on a Samsung phone.

So obviously all of this was a good idea...

[dragqueenstarscream]

going to be honest if soundwave IS 'the eyes and ears of the decepticons' hes either going blind or he needs to be fired. mutiny talk w knockout and starscream aside, there's like 4-5 different instances of autobots AND rouge decepticons just waltzing onto the nemesis and it seemingly not triggering any security measure. hell, in the armada episode bulkhead doesnt even end up on the nemesis on PURPOSE, its bc of a massive oversight with an automated energon gathering system (also the only time we see energon gathered via automation and with no vehicons in tfp, but i digress...) and hes then able to take advantage of the situation to blow up the main power chamber! to say nothing of the 5 starscreams also getting on the ship the exact same episode. honestly the nemesis is just a security nightmare in general, both arcee and ratchet (and i think the humans?) are able to get in and log onto their computers with no issue like theres 0 passwords and they can just get right into their computer network so if soundwave is in charge like people say he is hes not doing much to actually lock that down

and tbh, i feel like soundwave's loyalty is massively overblown by the fandom. when knockout and starscream petition him to take megatron off lifesupport his reaction definitely doesnt read like he particularly cares either way bc he doesnt move to stop them at all, and in fact the only thing he DOES react over is the cortical patch that got plugged into megatron-but even then, he doesnt move to protect megatron from the autobots who infiltrated the nemesis and hijacked their leader's mind, he leaves that entirely up to starscream! the guy who 5 minutes ago was arguing the case to have megatron put down! i genuinely feel like based off his behavior that if the autobots hadnt been there that day he probably WOULD have let them pull the plug

its not like i think hes particularly loyal to someone else like starscream either, but he only really snitches to megatron about him once or twice and most of megatron's grievances against things starscream does are what he himself remembers bc the dark energon gives him plot recall powers, not things soundwave brought to his attention. he honestly seemed to dislike airachnid more if only bc he actually reacts to her attempts at usurpation (and even is in part responsible for megatron deciding to try to off her)

my pet theory (other than that the writers didnt know how to handle him) is that hes super over the war in general bc how else do you explain him making a beeline for the electrified consoles in the episode where trypticon woke up 2 minutes after the decepticon high command watched a vehcion get knocked out doing that exact same thing?

so i know that all of the security breaches and soundwave's general nonchalance about them could be excused by shit writing, but that's boring and lame, so i'm gonna throw in my own two theories.

1.) soundwave actually still is that loyal to megatron, and he lets this shit slide on purpose because he loves watching megatron beat the hell out of intruders. it's entertaining for him.

2.) he stopped caring about the intruders a while ago, either because he knows that he still has the upper hand and doesn't feel the need to attack or because he's so done with the war that he just wants to keep to himself.

either of these would be more interesting than chalking it up to bad writing, even though tfp does have its flaws.

[kremlin]

i figure most human behaviour that, not only doesn’t occur in other animals but has zero connection to animal behavior is basically distantly rooted in the known fear of inevitable death. let me be clear. cats and shit don’t know they’re gonna die. we do. we have thoughts. we know it’s coming. we think we’re gonna be rich, bullshit like that, most humans believe in magic and most humans doubt that math is a universal or consistent thing. total nonsense right. but everyone knows their ass is gonna die. before you write me off as some dumbass reciting basic 101 level university lectures just Trust Me I’m An Engineer. anyways. being human and dying are somewhat one in the same.

“if i do nonhuman things i can cheat the reaper.” short and sweet. if i can beat zelda faster than anyone i can outrun the reaper. and you know what, fuck it, i’m scared shitless of dying. it’s gonna hurt really bad no doubt. what if the brain destroyal process makes time slow down in my perception and it’s not just like five seconds of bleeding out or fire ant bites or however you go. Scary. so i’ll play along:

i am an average american man and i enjoy bad game runescape. it’s a computer game. MMO. kill monster get loot. sell what i don’t want to other players for gold. spamming chat with “SELLING BOWSTRINGS 200gp” for an hour “sucks” so the devs add a grand exchange where you can post buy/sell orders for a given item+price to maximize gameplay efficiency and minimize social interaction.

like any other MMO you can pay some sketchy website real money for ingame gold farmer by chinese gold farmers. totally against the rules. remember this

so the first thing that comes to any male aged 23-27 mind is “buy low sell high” basic bitch shit. no good. there’s a 5% tax that’ll wipe out your profit margin intended to eliminate this behavior (you’re supposed to friggen kill monsters). but everyone thinks they’re a genius and can beat the system and that there is a secret george soros style illuminati group that is holding the secrets, blah blah blah, whatever, and this comes as a coping mechanism after losing your shirt after trying to beat the market (success rate of 0%).

here is where people mostly quit thinking: if you do the math, which takes about ten minutes and can be done on one side of a sheet of paper with the most basic calculator, it’s easy to figure out that the amount of gold you’d need to play dirty (buy out all the available Feathers or Fire Runes or whatever) in order to corner the market would be so high that there is no possible way for a character to hold that much without having spent IRL money for gold. you’d get autobanned.

SO..finally, go on the ol’ www.reddit.com, and make a really really professional-to-professional sounding post advertising a “service”. Saturate the fuck out of it with dense but very real financial jargon. the “service” (which needs to be obscured enough with plausible and relevant language) is a hedging service aimed at make-believe market players who are buying and selling such huge amounts of items and gold (usually in anticipation of a game update that will speculatively introduce a sudden, dramatic, and capitalizable price change for some item). you need it to be as alien-sounding and foreign as possible but with enough believability and clarity that a handful of reddit jackasses will figure out what the fuck your post is about. whenever pressed further, act totally puzzled and make it very clear that this is not a service relevant to “individual entertainment-motivated” players or some shit. no matter what amount of gold anyone quotes at you, just act puzzled and if that amount is 1/1000th the amount one of your “normal” clients deal with. you need to do all of this extremely artfully. and by “you”, i’ve been meaning to write “me”. really lay it on thick that whatever you’re “doing” is totally unavailable to them and that you want zero to do with them.

so now theyre still mostly totally confused but enough is made clear that their interest is piqued. got my hook in em. some guy will copy/paste wikipedia shit in an obnoxiously long and pseudointellectual, contemptible but characteristically reddit guy style what you’re “selling” actually is in the most exhausting, hand-holdingest way to his fellow reddit gamers. with complete tone of authority.

inevitably one of them will put on their sherlock holmes hat and go deep undercover, emailing me posing as an interested party. bingo. now i get to really lay on the WTF and go off the rails asking about vouchers from One Of The Big Seven, but oh no, you can’t get one of them to vouch for you, that’s fine, it makes sense, we’re the only firm that deals with unvouched, that’s our market, well, one of them at least. Just give me a rough rundown of your entry criteria, dwell time, risk tolerance, fuckin “Gamma Ratio”, you know, all the basic stuff, and i’ll have the team generate a .xlsx for you to plug your data into to get a rough feel for what the final contract might be like.

(lololol) But REMEMBER, that excel sheet is seeded, output is fuzzed and salted and if you share it or try and sell it to our competitors, it will be fuzzy enough to be worthless to them but obvious to us who leaked what. this is the only way we’re able to integrate unvouched clients without untenable premiums and while managing our risk levels

blah blah blah blah, i go on and on and on and the guy on the other end is developing a scab from constant head-scratching. and that’s about the maximum real-world harm i’m willing to inflict. i know this sounds like an elaborate as fuck confidence scam but it isn’t. that shit makes me sick. i’d literally slam my arms in a car door before taking a cent from all this. hell, i’ll go out of my way to guarantee i don’t even piss anyone off or offend them or anything.

your guess is as good as mine but i do stuff like this constantly for anything i know well enough and the example i gave above is just a pretty low quality one i made up on the spot. this is a public blog after all.

anyways, cheers, hoping this saves me from dying or whatever the hell i was talking about before that could have probably been cut out. Namaste. Mahala.

[nostalgebraist]

information flow in transformers

In machine learning, the transformer architecture is a very commonly used type of neural network model. Many of the well-known neural nets introduced in the last few years use this architecture, including GPT-2, GPT-3, and GPT-4.

This post is about the way that computation is structured inside of a transformer.

Internally, these models pass information around in a constrained way that feels strange and limited at first glance.

Specifically, inside the "program" implemented by a transformer, each segment of "code" can only access a subset of the program's "state." If the program computes a value, and writes it into the state, that doesn't make value available to any block of code that might run after the write; instead, only some operations can access the value, while others are prohibited from seeing it.

This sounds vaguely like the kind of constraint that human programmers often put on themselves: "separation of concerns," "no global variables," "your function should only take the inputs it needs," that sort of thing.

However, the apparent analogy is misleading. The transformer constraints don't look much like anything that a human programmer would write, at least under normal circumstances. And the rationale behind them is very different from "modularity" or "separation of concerns."

(Domain experts know all about this already -- this is a pedagogical post for everyone else.)

1. setting the stage

For concreteness, let's think about a transformer that is a causal language model.

So, something like GPT-3, or the model that wrote text for @nostalgebraist-autoresponder.

Roughly speaking, this model's input is a sequence of words, like ["Fido", "is", "a", "dog"].

Since the model needs to know the order the words come in, we'll include an integer offset alongside each word, specifying the position of this element in the sequence. So, in full, our example input is

[ ("Fido", 0), ("is", 1), ("a", 2), ("dog", 3), ]

The model itself -- the neural network -- can be viewed as a single long function, which operates on a single element of the sequence. Its task is to output the next element.

Let's call the function f. If f does its job perfectly, then when applied to our example sequence, we will have

f("Fido", 0) = "is" f("is", 1) = "a" f("a", 2) = "dog"

(Note: I've omitted the index from the output type, since it's always obvious what the next index is. Also, in reality the output type is a probability distribution over words, not just a word; the goal is to put high probability on the next word. I'm ignoring this to simplify exposition.)

You may have noticed something: as written, this seems impossible!

Like, how is the function supposed to know that after ("a", 2), the next word is "dog"!? The word "a" could be followed by all sorts of things.

What makes "dog" likely, in this case, is the fact that we're talking about someone named "Fido."

That information isn't contained in ("a", 2). To do the right thing here, you need info from the whole sequence thus far -- from "Fido is a", as opposed to just "a".

How can f get this information, if its input is just a single word and an index?

This is possible because f isn't a pure function. The program has an internal state, which f can access and modify.

But f doesn't just have arbitrary read/write access to the state. Its access is constrained, in a very specific sort of way.

2. transformer-style programming

Let's get more specific about the program state.

The state consists of a series of distinct "memory regions" or "blocks," which have an order assigned to them.

Let's use the notation memory_i for these. The first block is memory_0, the second is memory_1, and so on.

In practice, a small transformer might have around 10 of these blocks, while a very large one might have 100 or more.

Each block contains a separate data-storage "cell" for each offset in the sequence.

For example, memory_0 contains a cell for position 0 ("Fido" in our example text), and a cell for position 1 ("is"), and so on. Meanwhile, memory_1 contains its own, distinct cells for each of these positions. And so does memory_2, etc.

So the overall layout looks like:

memory_0: [cell 0, cell 1, ...] memory_1: [cell 0, cell 1, ...] [...]

Our function f can interact with this program state. But it must do so in a way that conforms to a set of rules.

Here are the rules:

The function can only interact with the blocks by using a specific instruction.

This instruction is an "atomic write+read". It writes data to a block, then reads data from that block for f to use.

When the instruction writes data, it goes in the cell specified in the function offset argument. That is, the "i" in f(..., i).

When the instruction reads data, the data comes from all cells up to and including the offset argument.

The function must call the instruction exactly once for each block.

These calls must happen in order. For example, you can't do the call for memory_1 until you've done the one for memory_0.

Here's some pseudo-code, showing a generic computation of this kind:

f(x, i) { calculate some things using x and i; // next 2 lines are a single instruction write to memory_0 at position i; z0 = read from memory_0 at positions 0...i; calculate some things using x, i, and z0; // next 2 lines are a single instruction write to memory_1 at position i; z1 = read from memory_1 at positions 0...i; calculate some things using x, i, z0, and z1; [etc.] }

The rules impose a tradeoff between the amount of processing required to produce a value, and how early the value can be accessed within the function body.

Consider the moment when data is written to memory_0. This happens before anything is read (even from memory_0 itself).

So the data in memory_0 has been computed only on the basis of individual inputs like ("a," 2). It can't leverage any information about multiple words and how they relate to one another.

But just after the write to memory_0, there's a read from memory_0. This read pulls in data computed by f when it ran on all the earlier words in the sequence.

If we're processing ("a", 2) in our example, then this is the point where our code is first able to access facts like "the word 'Fido' appeared earlier in the text."

However, we still know less than we might prefer.

Recall that memory_0 gets written before anything gets read. The data living there only reflects what f knows before it can see all the other words, while it still only has access to the one word that appeared in its input.

The data we've just read does not contain a holistic, "fully processed" representation of the whole sequence so far ("Fido is a"). Instead, it contains:

a representation of ("Fido", 0) alone, computed in ignorance of the rest of the text

a representation of ("is", 1) alone, computed in ignorance of the rest of the text

a representation of ("a", 2) alone, computed in ignorance of the rest of the text

Now, once we get to memory_1, we will no longer face this problem. Stuff in memory_1 gets computed with the benefit of whatever was in memory_0. The step that computes it can "see all the words at once."

Nonetheless, the whole function is affected by a generalized version of the same quirk.

All else being equal, data stored in later blocks ought to be more useful. Suppose for instance that

memory_4 gets read/written 20% of the way through the function body, and

memory_16 gets read/written 80% of the way through the function body

Here, strictly more computation can be leveraged to produce the data in memory_16. Calculations which are simple enough to fit in the program, but too complex to fit in just 20% of the program, can be stored in memory_16 but not in memory_4.

All else being equal, then, we'd prefer to read from memory_16 rather than memory_4 if possible.

But in fact, we can only read from memory_16 once -- at a point 80% of the way through the code, when the read/write happens for that block.

The general picture looks like:

The early parts of the function can see and leverage what got computed earlier in the sequence -- by the same early parts of the function. This data is relatively "weak," since not much computation went into it. But, by the same token, we have plenty of time to further process it.

The late parts of the function can see and leverage what got computed earlier in the sequence -- by the same late parts of the function. This data is relatively "strong," since lots of computation went into it. But, by the same token, we don't have much time left to further process it.

3. why?

There are multiple ways you can "run" the program specified by f.

Here's one way, which is used when generating text, and which matches popular intuitions about how language models work:

First, we run f("Fido", 0) from start to end. The function returns "is." As a side effect, it populates cell 0 of every memory block.

Next, we run f("is", 1) from start to end. The function returns "a." As a side effect, it populates cell 1 of every memory block.

Etc.

If we're running the code like this, the constraints described earlier feel weird and pointlessly restrictive.

By the time we're running f("is", 1), we've already populated some data into every memory block, all the way up to memory_16 or whatever.

This data is already there, and contains lots of useful insights.

And yet, during the function call f("is", 1), we "forget about" this data -- only to progressively remember it again, block by block. The early parts of this call have only memory_0 to play with, and then memory_1, etc. Only at the end do we allow access to the juicy, extensively processed results that occupy the final blocks.

Why? Why not just let this call read memory_16 immediately, on the first line of code? The data is sitting there, ready to be used!

Why? Because the constraint enables a second way of running this program.

The second way is equivalent to the first, in the sense of producing the same outputs. But instead of processing one word at a time, it processes a whole sequence of words, in parallel.

Here's how it works:

In parallel, run f("Fido", 0) and f("is", 1) and f("a", 2), up until the first write+read instruction. You can do this because the functions are causally independent of one another, up to this point. We now have 3 copies of f, each at the same "line of code": the first write+read instruction.

Perform the write part of the instruction for all the copies, in parallel. This populates cells 0, 1 and 2 of memory_0.

Perform the read part of the instruction for all the copies, in parallel. Each copy of f receives some of the data just written to memory_0, covering offsets up to its own. For instance, f("is", 1) gets data from cells 0 and 1.

In parallel, continue running the 3 copies of f, covering the code between the first write+read instruction and the second.

Perform the second write. This populates cells 0, 1 and 2 of memory_1.

Perform the second read.

Repeat like this until done.

Observe that mode of operation only works if you have a complete input sequence ready before you run anything.

(You can't parallelize over later positions in the sequence if you don't know, yet, what words they contain.)

So, this won't work when the model is generating text, word by word.

But it will work if you have a bunch of texts, and you want to process those texts with the model, for the sake of updating the model so it does a better job of predicting them.

This is called "training," and it's how neural nets get made in the first place. In our programming analogy, it's how the code inside the function body gets written.

The fact that we can train in parallel over the sequence is a huge deal, and probably accounts for most (or even all) of the benefit that transformers have over earlier architectures like RNNs.

Accelerators like GPUs are really good at doing the kinds of calculations that happen inside neural nets, in parallel.

So if you can make your training process more parallel, you can effectively multiply the computing power available to it, for free. (I'm omitting many caveats here -- see this great post for details.)

Transformer training isn't maximally parallel. It's still sequential in one "dimension," namely the layers, which correspond to our write+read steps here. You can't parallelize those.

But it is, at least, parallel along some dimension, namely the sequence dimension.

The older RNN architecture, by contrast, was inherently sequential along both these dimensions. Training an RNN is, effectively, a nested for loop. But training a transformer is just a regular, single for loop.

4. tying it together

The "magical" thing about this setup is that both ways of running the model do the same thing. You are, literally, doing the same exact computation. The function can't tell whether it is being run one way or the other.

This is crucial, because we want the training process -- which uses the parallel mode -- to teach the model how to perform generation, which uses the sequential mode. Since both modes look the same from the model's perspective, this works.

This constraint -- that the code can run in parallel over the sequence, and that this must do the same thing as running it sequentially -- is the reason for everything else we noted above.

Earlier, we asked: why can't we allow later (in the sequence) invocations of f to read earlier data out of blocks like memory_16 immediately, on "the first line of code"?

And the answer is: because that would break parallelism. You'd have to run f("Fido", 0) all the way through before even starting to run f("is", 1).

By structuring the computation in this specific way, we provide the model with the benefits of recurrence -- writing things down at earlier positions, accessing them at later positions, and writing further things down which can be accessed even later -- while breaking the sequential dependencies that would ordinarily prevent a recurrent calculation from being executed in parallel.

In other words, we've found a way to create an iterative function that takes its own outputs as input -- and does so repeatedly, producing longer and longer outputs to be read off by its next invocation -- with the property that this iteration can be run in parallel.

We can run the first 10% of every iteration -- of f() and f(f()) and f(f(f())) and so on -- at the same time, before we know what will happen in the later stages of any iteration.

The call f(f()) uses all the information handed to it by f() -- eventually. But it cannot make any requests for information that would leave itself idling, waiting for f() to fully complete.

Whenever f(f()) needs a value computed by f(), it is always the value that f() -- running alongside f(f()), simultaneously -- has just written down, a mere moment ago.

No dead time, no idling, no waiting-for-the-other-guy-to-finish.

p.s.

The "memory blocks" here correspond to what are called "keys and values" in usual transformer lingo.

If you've heard the term "KV cache," it refers to the contents of the memory blocks during generation, when we're running in "sequential mode."

Usually, during generation, one keeps this state in memory and appends a new cell to each block whenever a new token is generated (and, as a result, the sequence gets longer by 1).

This is called "caching" to contrast it with the worse approach of throwing away the block contents after each generated token, and then re-generating them by running f on the whole sequence so far (not just the latest token). And then having to do that over and over, once per generated token.

[the-independent-archive]

Fear Classes: Complete, and the OSS

And we have it! The chart of Epithetical Smirkian Classes of fear is complete. Behold!

Many thanks to all of you who helped out on this, most recently the contribution of Infinitesimal by @0-peddro. I'm really happy with it, and I hope you may be able to get some use out of it.

However, now that the epithets are complete, I can move onto the main project. The catalogue, and the OSS.

Now, as you all could probably figure out, and archive needs organising. And with something as wishy-washy as the supernatural, thats hard. So, I tried my best to create a solution. Key word, tried.

And well, here it is.

The Oxford Supernatural Serial (OSS)

The OSS, or 'Oxford Style', consists of three elements: Assignment, Manifestation, and Date. This is presented in the bellow form:

XYZ-0-YYYYMMDD

Now, beginning with the assignment. Each entry in the catalogue is assinged a epithet, based on which the manifestation in the entry most closely alignes with. The 24 epithets are listed below:

The Razing (RAZ) - Base violence/destruction

The Slaughter (SLA) - Indisciminant violence

Terminus (TRM) - Death, or life ending

The Extinction (EXT) - The world continuing without 'us'

The Devestation (DVS) - Destruction, usually physical

The Desolation (DES) - Emotional Loss

The Dark (DRK) - Darkness

The Lonely (LNY) - Isolation

The Falling Titan (TTN) - Colossi, huge spaces/structures

Infinitesimal (ITC) - Insignificance

Choke (CHK) - Physical suffocation, crushing

Too Much, Too Close (TCL) - Emotional suffocation

The Crawling Rot (ROT) - Rot, decay

The Hive (HVE) - Insects

The Great Spider (SPI) - Spiders

The Mother of Puppets (PPT) - Powerlessness, lack of control

The Hunt (HNT) - Being chased, followed

The Watcher (WCR) - Being watched

Beholding (BHL) - Being known

The Spiral  (SPR) - Impossible spaces

The Stranger (STR) - The uncanny

I Cannot Know (ICK) - Not knowing, being unable to know

Viscera (VSR) - Gore, being 'just meat'

I Am Not My Flesh (NMF) - Dysmorphia, dysphoria

In the event that an occurance can be related to multiple epithets with no clear choice as to which category best suites it, the classification MIX may be used. This classification is to be used in the form of

MIX:UVW:XYZ

with UVW and XYZ being the relevant epithets. For example, an entry with significant presence of rot and dysmorphia could be assigned

MIX:ROT:NMF

This can be extended as much as necessary.

Next, the manifestation. The manifestation of each occurance is the way in which the supernatural interacts with the world/recorder within the entry. This can be organised into one of four categories:

1 - Space/Location

2 - Object

3 - Animal

4 - Human

For example, if the subject of an entry was a cursed amulet, the entry would be assigned a 2.

Finally, date. This is the simplest. The date of an entry is simply the date of the occurance, in the format of date, month, year. For example, an entry for an occurance that took place on the 18th of October, 2018 woul read

20181018

If any part of the date is unknown, it is to be replaced with Xs.

Now, to give the full thing a test. Let us take an entry, taken on the 20th of April, 2025, where a warehouse worker spends weeks wandering the floor of the warehouse, which gradually alters and deforms as they progress through it, could be classified as follows:

SPR-1-20250420

Now this system does leave some room for subjectivity, but I feel it fulfills the aim well enough to serve as a useful classification system.

I'll probably be taking a short break now, before giving the back-log a proper crack, so you won't here much from me for a little bit, but Sara's still hanging about, and August should be back soon, and I'll get him on the computer to say hi to all of you. Until then, bye!

-Cass

[awanderingtortoise]

layman's vibey analysis of the severance music

this isnt going to be crazy technical at all (charles cornell has a great yt vid that is much less... simplistic that what im saying) but that means i can share my thoughts with the least technical jargon possible! not a professional but as a nerd tier violinist, these are stuff that hit me off the top of my head. (One aspect per post, will rb to add bc this is gonna be so very long)

1. Choice of instrument

yep! even this is a big deal in the effect of the theme. the piano to me fits the composition and the show concept very well.

Instruments have different voices/feels to them.

Strings have the most organic sound, theyre very close to the human voice. The use of the bow allows for so much variety in sound color and phrasing. If it was a color picker, it would be the gradient slider. Full variety, no set limits. Mix elements at will. To use them makes music instantly more emotional or romantic.

Woodwinds/brass have a more pure sound. There are less frequencies fighting for dominance (if youll excuse that phrase lmao), making the sound less vocal and more instrumental. However, they are controlled by breath, and that is a VERY vocal element. sound can be sustained through breath, still giving it that singing quality that 'humanizes' the sound.

Given that, avoiding those and choosing the piano instead impacts the vibe instantly. Piano is a percussion instrument. It is pressed/hit to create sound, and this is arguably the furthest from the sound of a human voice. Going back to the color picker metaphor, if strings is the gradient slider, piano is the press-to-choose palette.

You press a button. It makes a sound. You can, within a very small range, vary that sound with the strength of your pressing action or the three pedals at your feet. But once you release the note you have zero control over the sound. No sustaining, either. Meanwhile on strings or woodwind, its like: play a note. Then Do you want to get louder within that note? you can. Softer? yes. louder THEN softer? also can! A thin, airy sound? Connect the notes in one stroke/breath, or play them separately? A strong, clearly defined beginning or a gentle, un-accented start, or somewhere in between? All possible. Endless choices.

So piano-- forgive me pianists; is pretty limited in phrasing. This is why it is considered easy to play at the start (press buttons. done.) and difficult to master (can press buttons now. how to make button combos express human feelings?). Now my point here is not to parallel the act of playing piano with MDR sorting (buttons+emotions= :0). Wait thats kinda cool tbh but i digress.

What I want to say is out of all standard instruments, piano creates the most inorganic feel, and emotional distance. Its not distant all the time, of course, not even most of the time. Weve all cried to Chopin in our bedrooms. But out of all classical instruments, the Button Machine is best suited to creating the simple, sterile, hypnotic quality that severance evokes.

It rings close to all these modern, unnatural sounds we hear daily, the ding of an elevator, the beep! of a scanner, the error sound on a computer. A cello might evoke an emotive tenor, a flute; the song of birds, a horn; the historic majesty of a royal announcement. A full orchestra, typical of film music, is even more capable of evoking grand, or rich, or straight-to-the-soul sound. But this isn't Star Wars. None of these are the sounds the show wants to create. We need corporate machine. We need routine. We need distant, and simple. We need severed. So. Piano! Already, without even considering the notes, the instrument is already creating an atmosphere that echoes the inhuman office world we encounter while watching.

PS!

What is VERY cool to note as well, is that while the theme and the music in the show's early episodes is almost all piano, the more we learn/the more Lumon's lies start to unravel, the more instruments are introduced. But the instrument use is still very in character for the show. For the dramatic moments, we do not immediately get a giant thick orchestra to build the drama, we get MIDI stuff! We get computer generated slides and sounds! Given the show's context, that hits even harder than a big romantic orchestral scoring.

And for the quieter high-tension moments, strings start to get used very sparsely, mostly just in high-pitched tremolo, like an eerie dissonant background whine. Just to make things a bit off, a little disorienting, a little bit wrong. So high and thin it might almost be a machine-like pure tone in itself. How absolutely on brand of them.

[tyrantisterror]

Wife Goals: Hexadecimal

Hey fuckers. It's February, my Seasonal Affective Disorder is at its peak, and romance is on my mind whether I like it or not. So I'm going to ramble/gush about some of my favorite female characters in fiction, in a painfully honest and deeply cringe way, because fuck you that's why. We live in a post-Muncher society, you can't fucking stop me.

We're beginning with Hexadecimal from the 90's early CGI cartoon Reboot. I feel like most of tumblr's userbase was too young to watch that show. A lot of you were probably born after it aired. God I'm old. I'm so old and alone. Fuck.

Anyway, the premise of Reboot was that there was an entire world within your computer, with every program and file being people who lived inside the big city that makes up the computer itself. The city everything takes place in is called Mainframe, the main character was a security program, most of the citizens were shaped like 1's and 0's (binary code, get it?), everyone talked about things taking nanoseconds because one of the other conceits is that the people inside the computer experience time differently than humans, etc.

The villains of Reboot, at least initially, were computer viruses. One, the primary antagonist, was Megabyte, an evil overlord who wanted to take control of Mainframe by force - sort of the picture of a Lawful Evil villain, in D&D terms. The other, his sister, was Hexadecimal, the self-professed Queen of Chaos, who is more of a wicked witch (get it? Hex-adecimal!) that existed to cause mischief and mayhem for the sake of it. The Chaotic Evil to Megabyte's Lawful Evil, if you will - though as the series went on, calling Hex "evil" became more and more inaccurate.

Reboot was one of the first fully CGI cartoons, and it used the limitations of that early technology as a jumping off point to get creative with its setting and character concepts. Hexadecimal is very much a case in point for that - rigging face animations, especially on a humanoid face, is complicated and time-consuming, which is why there were very few humanoid characters in the first season of Reboot (and hence most of the case being made of 1's and 0's). For Hex, they decided to get around this by giving her a gimmick: Hexadecimal doesn't have a true face of her own, but rather dozens upon dozens of masks that she switches between with a wave of her hand. The result is that 1. the animators didn't need to work on in-between frames for her change in facial expression, saving a good bit of time and money and 2. Hexadecimal's mood changes are really, REALLY weird and unsettling to witness, selling her as some sort of supernatural monstrosity. She is magical in a dark, spooky way, even when just expressing feelings, and the result is a visual that really sticks with you - one that never would have been done if not for the limitations of that early CGI.

Of course, one of the other reasons Hexadecimal might have stuck out is that she was, uh... well, sexualized qutie a bit. Look, I'm not going to mince terms, there were some horny bastards working at Mainframe Entertainment (the company that made Reboot). These are the same animators who reportedly based Blackarachnia's design in Beast Wars after a stripper they saw while going out after work one night. In the first season of this show Hexadecimal full-figured and prone to walking in a very sultry way. When the show got dropped by ABC and picked up by another network, they put her in a full-on dominatrix outfit. Hex was always intended to be sexy.

And, like, ten-year old me didn't fully understand that when watching this show. But I do think that it was at least part of why my pre-adolescent brain because very obsessed with Hexadecimal, moreso than any of the other Reboot characters. She was interesting, for a lot of reasons, some of which I understood (funny scary monster villain lady) and some that I didn't understand but, like, vibed with intensely in ways that were formative and probably life-ruining.

Thankfully Hexadecimal was also just a very well-written character, perhaps the best in all of Reboot. Her first episode establishes the base components of her characterization that the rest of the show would build upon. Hex unleashes a computer bug using code from a paint program, which turns everyone who encounters it to stone. She specifically unleashes it by hiding it in a package and pretending to guard it, which makes her brother/rival villain, Megabyte, think it's some important mcguffin that he should steal. He does, and ends up the first victim of the medusa bug, which then spreads through all his minions, and then through all the different ways he has to sneak into the heart of Mainframe city, eventually infecting almost every citizen.

Already we establish several things about Hex: first, her schemes aren't about conquering people, but causing mayhem and havoc for the sake of it. Second, despite her chaotic nature, she's smart enough to make proper evil schemes. Third, she's a good judge of character in her way, as she figured the easiest way to get Megabyte to take the bait was to pretend she had something valuable for him to steal. Fourth, despite also being "evil," she's not on good terms with her brother/rival villain, and in fact wants to take him out first before anyone else. Fifth, holy shit she is SO much more powerful than the main bad guy, it's her first episode and she already almost won!

Almost. Of course, Bob, our hero security program, goes to Hexadecimal to try and stop her, at which point we find out Hex has something of a manic crush on Bob (as she articulates later in the series, "Oh Bob, I don't know whether to kiss you OR KILL YOU!"), and is actually willing to hear him out when he comes in doing his hero routine. Luckily, Bob is clever too, and decides to beat Hex the same way she beat Megabyte - he tells her that she should be proud of how orderly she made Mainframe. After all, with everyone turned to stone, nothing will change - it'll all be the same forever, quiet, calm, peaceful, and boring. Hexadecimal, the self-professed Queen of Chaos, immediately realizes she's made a nightmare for herself, and undoes her evil scheme with a wave of her hand before letting Bob go out of gratitude for keeping her from making a horrible mistake.

Which is the most important thing we've learned about Hexadecimal in her debut: she values freedom. Oh, she calls it chaos, yes, but Hexadecimal's biggest belief is that people should have the freedom to make their own choices, no matter how violent and destructive they may be. She's an anarchist first and foremost, and she values freedom so much that she'd gladly admit she was wrong and undo a successful scheme if someone correctly points out that said scheme goes against her ideals.

Especially if that someone is the guy she likes.

Hexadecimal is a supremely powerful villain who can't really be overpowered, but can be reached and defeated emotionally. As the show goes on, dealing with Hex increasingly becomes focused on building a relationship with her, and for most of the runtime Bob is the only person who is both brave and compassionate enough to try and give it a shot. While he doesn't share Hexadecimal's romantic feelings, he nonetheless feels there is something good buried deep beneath her mania, and that she is worth reaching out to.

And we in turn see that is is 100% correct. For all her supervillain antics, her ranting and raving, her violent outbursts and maniacal schemes, Hexadecimal is at her core an intensely lonely person, someone who craves affection but drives off almost everyone who gets close because of her psychological instability. She deeply wants people to love - she dotes on her little cat-like follower, Scuzzy, and she's also kind to nulls, creatures made from broken programs in the computer world that most people regard as vermin. And there are so many times when Hexadecimal's latest scheme is something Bob just... talks her out of.

Given the nature of serialized storytelling, Hexadecimal's vast strength did not stay insurmountable, and there were several times where she was humbled to show how great the new threat in the story was. Perhaps the most important was when Megabyte finally managed to get one over on her, literally shackling her with a control collar like she was a rabid dog and forcing her to be a living power source for his weaponry. Eventually Hex broke free (as she says, "Chaos will always triumph over order! It is the way of things!"), but at the cost of breaking herself further, which is visually represented by a crack forming on her mask. Bob, who'd been away for some time at this point (watch the show to know why), finds her and helps her fix her map - and this act of kindness, of care, of healing allows Hex to express emotions without swapping her mask for the first time, and, in the process, express herself with more self control. The children's cartoon show equivalent of finally getting this poor woman the meds she needs.

Unfortunately, most of the other characters weren't willing to forgive Hex for her past actions, and she spent the final season regarded with suspicion and coldness by all the other people of Mainframe even as she tried to turn over a new leaf. And while Bob cared about her, he didn't love her, a fact she had trouble accepting. The tragedy of this came to a head when the main threat of the fourth season, a new virus named Daemon whose plot was even more apocalyptic than anything Hex came up with in her villainous prime, unleashed a doomsday infection that could only be stopped by another virus - and even then, that virus would be sacrificing their life to pull it off. Hexadecimal willingly chooses to do it, happily even, with a smile on her face - because while she was going to die, the people she cared about would live, and perhaps think a little better of viruses like her as a result.

I think that is what made Hexadecimal stick with me more than anything - more than the cool mask, the awesome villain antics, or the 90's cartoon age-inappropriate sexy character design. Hexadecimal, more than anything else, is defined by her love for others and her desire for them to be free to live their lives as they choose. That means they can choose not to love her, not to forgive her, not to include her. They're free, that's their choice, just as it's her choice whether or not to love them in spite of it, and her choice to die for their freedom and happiness. She loved so, so deeply, and the thing that sticks with me, the thing that broke my heart as a kid and breaks it now, is that no one ever loved her back.

Yeah, she was creepy and maniacal and almost killed a bunch of people a lot of times, but she was also so full of love, and all she really needed was for it to be reciprocated! She needed people who were willing to care for her, even just a little bit - and she deserved people who cared a lot more than that, because if she was willing to do so much good for so little, imagine what good she could have done if someone loved her as much as she loved them.

Anyway, while I had many precocious crushes before Hexadecimal, I'm pretty sure she's the reason why my "type" seems to be "women who are made entirely out of Red Flags." And maybe that's ok.

...

no it's not ok why am I like this

[bytewire]

Let’s talk about Architect math!

Considering that Precursors don’t have hands like we do, how do they format their math? Our current 10-decimal system is based on our ten fingers, so I wonder what the math of the Architects looks like, considering they don't have hands like we do. (Though AL-AN does note the usefulness of the opposable thumb.)

Architects have mechanical arms—two of which have hands with three fingers—but we know that they were originally a fully biological species before inventing their synthetic vessels. As stated in the databank entry AL-AN provides on the Architect storage media, their vessels resemble their pre-civilized forms. They had to have had a math system before inventing their synthetic vessels.

So… what would their math look like?

Precursors may use a base four system in which they only use 0, 1, 2, and 3 based on the digits of their claws on their organic arms. (Assuming they had similar claws on their pre-civilized bodies.)

I mean, humans have used base 4 selectively. It’s not entirely unheard of or out of the realm of possibility. Quaternary numeral systems are found in select languages throughout history and even have some modern code applications.

I’m leaning towards pre-civilization Precursors having a base four system, whereas current Precursors opt to use a binary system instead.

Obviously, as their species exists in its current form a binary system would be much more efficient. Existing as data means that a binary system would compute a lot smoother; especially as a network.

They could even use something else entirely different to what we commonly think of as math. We know Architect senses do not work in the same way humans do.

…or maybe I’m just a nerd overthinking alien math systems