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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months

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The Coprophagic AI crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

A key requirement for being a science fiction writer without losing your mind is the ability to distinguish between science fiction (futuristic thought experiments) and predictions. SF writers who lack this trait come to fancy themselves fortune-tellers who SEE! THE! FUTURE!

The thing is, sf writers cheat. We palm cards in order to set up pulp adventure stories that let us indulge our thought experiments. These palmed cards – say, faster-than-light drives or time-machines – are narrative devices, not scientifically grounded proposals.

Historically, the fact that some people – both writers and readers – couldn't tell the difference wasn't all that important, because people who fell prey to the sf-as-prophecy delusion didn't have the power to re-orient our society around their mistaken beliefs. But with the rise and rise of sf-obsessed tech billionaires who keep trying to invent the torment nexus, sf writers are starting to be more vocal about distinguishing between our made-up funny stories and predictions (AKA "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion"):

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html

In that spirit, I'd like to point to how one of sf's most frequently palmed cards has become a commonplace of the AI crowd. That sleight of hand is: "add enough compute and the computer will wake up." This is a shopworn cliche of sf, the idea that once a computer matches the human brain for "complexity" or "power" (or some other simple-seeming but profoundly nebulous metric), the computer will become conscious. Think of "Mike" in Heinlein's *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress#Plot

For people inflating the current AI hype bubble, this idea that making the AI "more powerful" will correct its defects is key. Whenever an AI "hallucinates" in a way that seems to disqualify it from the high-value applications that justify the torrent of investment in the field, boosters say, "Sure, the AI isn't good enough…yet. But once we shovel an order of magnitude more training data into the hopper, we'll solve that, because (as everyone knows) making the computer 'more powerful' solves the AI problem":

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

As the lawyers say, this "cites facts not in evidence." But let's stipulate that it's true for a moment. If all we need to make the AI better is more training data, is that something we can count on? Consider the problem of "botshit," Andre Spicer and co's very useful coinage describing "inaccurate or fabricated content" shat out at scale by AIs:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4678265

"Botshit" was coined last December, but the internet is already drowning in it. Desperate people, confronted with an economy modeled on a high-speed game of musical chairs in which the opportunities for a decent livelihood grow ever scarcer, are being scammed into generating mountains of botshit in the hopes of securing the elusive "passive income":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Botshit can be produced at a scale and velocity that beggars the imagination. Consider that Amazon has had to cap the number of self-published "books" an author can submit to a mere three books per day:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns

As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels. Even sources considered to be nominally high-quality, from Cnet articles to legal briefs, are contaminated with botshit:

https://theconversation.com/ai-is-creating-fake-legal-cases-and-making-its-way-into-real-courtrooms-with-disastrous-results-225080

Ironically, AI companies are setting themselves up for this problem. Google and Microsoft's full-court press for "AI powered search" imagines a future for the web in which search-engines stop returning links to web-pages, and instead summarize their content. The question is, why the fuck would anyone write the web if the only "person" who can find what they write is an AI's crawler, which ingests the writing for its own training, but has no interest in steering readers to see what you've written? If AI search ever becomes a thing, the open web will become an AI CAFO and search crawlers will increasingly end up imbibing the contents of its manure lagoon.

This problem has been a long time coming. Just over a year ago, Jathan Sadowski coined the term "Habsburg AI" to describe a model trained on the output of another model:

https://twitter.com/jathansadowski/status/1625245803211272194

There's a certain intuitive case for this being a bad idea, akin to feeding cows a slurry made of the diseased brains of other cows:

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/bse/index.html

But "The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget," a recent paper, goes beyond the ick factor of AI that is fed on botshit and delves into the mathematical consequences of AI coprophagia:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493

Co-author Ross Anderson summarizes the finding neatly: "using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects":

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2023/06/06/will-gpt-models-choke-on-their-own-exhaust/

Which is all to say: even if you accept the mystical proposition that more training data "solves" the AI problems that constitute total unsuitability for high-value applications that justify the trillions in valuation analysts are touting, that training data is going to be ever-more elusive.

What's more, while the proposition that "more training data will linearly improve the quality of AI predictions" is a mere article of faith, "training an AI on the output of another AI makes it exponentially worse" is a matter of fact.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/14/inhuman-centipede#enshittibottification

Image: Plamenart (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Mobius_Strip.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #ai #generative ai #André Spicer #botshit #habsburg ai #jathan sadowski #ross anderson #inhuman centipede #science fiction #mysticism

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wonders-of-the-cosmos · 4 months

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Mariner program

The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System - visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations.

The program included a number of interplanetary firsts, including the first planetary flyby, the planetary orbiter, and the first gravity assist maneuver. Of the 10 vehicles in the Mariner series, seven were successful, forming the starting point for many subsequent NASA/JPL space probe programs.

The name of the Mariner program was decided in "May 1960-at the suggestion of Edgar M. Cortright" to have the "planetary mission probes ... patterned after nautical terms, to convey 'the impression of travel to great distances and remote lands.'" That "decision was the basis for naming Mariner, Ranger, Surveyor, and Viking probes."

Each spacecraft was to carry solar panels that would be pointed toward the Sun and a dish antenna that would be pointed at Earth. Each would also carry a host of scientific instruments. Some of the instruments, such as cameras, would need to be pointed at the target body it was studying. Other instruments were non-directional and studied phenomena such as magnetic fields and charged particles. JPL engineers proposed to make the Mariners "three-axis-stabilized," meaning that unlike other space probes they would not spin.

Mariner 1 and Mariner 2

Mariner 1 and Mariner 2 were two deep-space probes making up NASA's Mariner-R project. The primary goal of the project was to develop and launch two spacecraft sequentially to the near vicinity of Venus, receive communications from the spacecraft and to perform radiometric temperature measurements of the planet. A secondary objective was to make interplanetary magnetic field and/or particle measurements on the way to, and in the vicinity of, Venus.

Animation of Mariner 2's trajectory from August 27, 1962, to December 31, 1962. Mariner 2 · Venus · Earth.

Mariners 3 and 4

Sisterships Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were Mars flyby missions.

Mariner 3 was launched on November 5, 1964, but the shroud encasing the spacecraft atop its rocket failed to open properly and Mariner 3 did not get to Mars.

Mariner 4, launched on November 28, 1964, was the first successful flyby of the planet Mars and gave the first glimpse of Mars at close range

This archival image is an enhanced contrast version of the first Mars photograph released on July 15, 1965. This is man's first close-up photograph of another planet -- a photographic representation of digital data radioed from Mars by the Mariner 4 spacecraft. Data was either sent to Earth immediately for acquisition or stored on an onboard tape recorder for later transmission.

The pictures, played back from a small tape recorder over a long period, showed lunar-type impact craters (just beginning to be photographed at close range from the Moon), some of them touched with frost in the chill Martian evening.

Mariner 5

The Mariner 5 spacecraft was launched to Venus on June 14, 1967, and arrived in the vicinity of the planet in October 1967. It carried a complement of experiments to probe Venus' atmosphere with radio waves, scan its brightness in ultraviolet light, and sample the solar particles and magnetic field fluctuations above the planet.

Mariners 6 and 7

Mariners 6 and 7 were identical teammates in a two-spacecraft mission to Mars. Mariner 6 was launched on February 24, 1969, followed by Mariner 7 on March 21, 1969. They flew over the equator and southern hemisphere of the planet Mars.

Mariners 8 and 9

Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 were identical sister craft designed to map the Martian surface simultaneously, but Mariner 8 was lost in a launch vehicle failure. Mariner 9 was launched in May 1971 and became the first artificial satellite of Mars.

Mariner 10

The Mariner 10 spacecraft launched on November 3, 1973, and was the first to use a gravity assist trajectory, accelerating as it entered the gravitational influence of Venus, then being flung by the planet's gravity onto a slightly different course to reach Mercury. It was also the first spacecraft to encounter two planets at close range, and for 33 years the only spacecraft to photograph Mercury in closeup.

Venus in real colors, processed from clear and blue filtered Mariner 10 images

Mariner 10's photograph of Venus in ultraviolet light (photo color-enhanced to simulate Venus's natural color as the human eye would see it)

This mosaic shows the planet Mercury as seen by Mariner 10 as it sped away from the planet on March 29, 1974.

source x, x | images x

#mercurio #mercury #venus #mars #marte #astronomy #astronomia #space #solarsystem #sistemasolar #universe #universo #mariner #mission #space exploration

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psychicpinenut · 4 months

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while i love the martian movie it seriously downplayed how utterly fucked mark watney is. need to get pathfinder? no problem he just hops in the car and gets it. what do you mean it took mark weeks to even get to it? he has a whole separate place to make his potatoes! he doesn't have to farm the entirety of his Hab and additional pop tents at all!! when the airlock explodes and separates from the Hab, he can just duct tape over the crack in his helmet and it's good as new. doesn't have to literally cut off the arm of his EVA suit to seal the crack and he's not rapidly losing air in the airlock. he makes a silly quip about NASA telling him to 'drill a bunch of holes into the top and hit it as hard as he can with a rock' but doesn't say that it takes him almost a week to do it because the drill he's using was made for taking soil samples. oh btw while he was working on this he fried the circuit in the pathfinder, cutting off all communications with earth. and he definitely didn't have to go around a sandstorm and didn't tip the mars rover over.

#the martian #pine rambles

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letsnotperceive · 4 months

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Simon Riley and Intimacy

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18+/MDNI ✧.* GNReader ✧.* (2,040wc)

“This has left him with the ultimate juxtaposition; the innate desire to not allow close proximity to the remaining soft, vulnerable parts of his soul, and yet the desire to claw his fingers into those he cares about to shield them from the very heat that’s ruined him.”

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶ ༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

Simon Riley would have never considered himself a caring person, would never bother to bat an eye at someone else’s dilemmas in most scenarios. His mind is a worn and withered place in which he has created an apathetic mask over his thoughts. One that mirrors the very bit of fabric that covers the marred surface of his face—haphazardly stitched, rough around the edges. If you tried to take it apart and understand its inner workings, it would unravel in your hands in a way that would leave you wondering how it was staying together in the first place.

This is, seemingly, a coping mechanism developed over years of being hardened by the lengths to which he's been dragged through hell and back. The flames have hardened his exterior and charred his heart in a way that's somehow left it both cauterized yet raw. Sifting through all the soot will display that something is still pounding against his ribcage, still defining that he’s not completely a ghost.

This has left him with the ultimate juxtaposition; the innate desire to not allow close proximity to the remaining soft, vulnerable parts of his soul, and yet the desire to claw his fingers into those he cares about to shield them from the very heat that’s ruined him.

He's not a saccharine lover, not able to produce a syrupy, sweet display of flowery love language. But you have managed to turn him into a man whose shell has been slowly eroded over time while he has come to concede that not everyone needs to be held at arm's length. There are things worth stowing in his heart despite the vulnerability of letting something reside in such a resting place. But it’s like constantly having a hovering finger over the trigger of a firearm; one wrong move can shatter you. In a way, he doesn't trust himself to keep you whole in the palm of his hand.

Not that there is a sadistic streak that would ever flare in his brain around you; oh no, rather, he'd assume any pain in the universe if it meant you didn't have to harbor it. Even when things have been accumulating, weighing on his broad shoulders that are used to bearing guns and injured teammates and the burdens of a world that has beaten him down with a cruelty that would make the devil wince, he would carry your burdens too. You fuel that singed heart in his chest that would otherwise want to tenaciously depend on spite and adrenaline.

Perhaps that's the reason Simon keeps you so carefully concealed from the life he lives when the mask is pulled over his face. From the person that he becomes when his identity is stripped and replaced with Ghost. Of course, there would be no conceivable way for him to never indulge you in a sparing sample of the nature of his career when it houses so much of his attention and livelihood. But he prefers to keep as much as he can from tainting you. From turning your mind into the same somber chamber that his has become to house what he’s witnessed, what he’s done.

The feeling of relief as he steps over the threshold of the building that houses you is like a breath of air after being submerged underwater for far too long. He doesn’t care where he could end up; no place satisfies his desire for home like wherever it is that you happen to be. There’s a pair of fluffy house slippers near the door; he kicks his boots off beside them. An odd little pair of soft and welcoming ones next to his own, tired and worn. The mask is long gone by now, discarded before he even reached the driveway—here he’s never anyone but Simon to you.

It’s late, far too late; he doesn’t even bother taking the time to check the clock. He knows you are going to be awake regardless, up waiting to catch a glimpse of him, and he will give you your scolding for it in the morning. For now, he makes his way down the hall, hand wrapping around the doorknob to a bedroom that lately houses two. A split second of hesitation runs over him, just enough for that sinking sensation to crawl back up through his mind. That feeling that maybe he shouldn’t, that he should go sink into the couch and keep his filthy, wretched hands that just spent so many lives away from you.

His presence and uncertainty must both be palpable to you, even from behind the door, because he hears a soft call of his name. No, you need him; you need him just as much as he needs you. The weight of the past few weeks can reside with Ghost for now, so he can just be Simon. He turns the knob and opens the door with an echoing creak, swearing under his breath and making a mental note of his new project for the morning involving a bottle of WD-40. Damned this house seems to be, even with an angel waiting just a few steps away.

You can barely hear his footsteps across the hardwood, but the bed frame creaks and the mattress dips under his weight. He manages to settle down between the valley of your legs, his large hands pawing at the plush of your thighs to make room for his frame. You scoff lightly at the way he's grumbling due to the sheer inconvenience it causes him when wasting those precious milliseconds getting into a proper position—though there’s no real heat or annoyance behind the action, because you know he’s just grouchy by nature. He’s been waiting to indulge in your sweetness for far too long now, with an ache so strong it makes his teeth hurt. Like the overgrown, frustrated mutt he is, he sinks them into your skin to soothe the sensation.

“Simon!” You yelp, a sharp little cry that’s mostly born from shock.

“Hmph,” he grunts in return, ever so eloquently.

“Scared of’a nip now, are we darlin’?”

Though it’s enough to make him feel a bit of shame for hurting his sweet thing. He presses his slightly chapped lips against the ruddy imprint his teeth left behind, a wordless apology you will never hear. He doesn’t like wasting time and is impatient to a fault if he doesn’t have an explicit command to hold out any longer. Before there is time to scold him—if you could even find the words to do so—he’s got his fingers curled around the elastic waistband of your sleep shorts and is tearing them away as if they were a personal offense.

Trying to keep him away from his love, that slip of fabric, ain’t it? He hears the satisfying snap of the stitching coming undone down the leg as he rips, chuckling as they get tossed to the side haphazardly.

That’ll teach ‘em.

You seem to have found your voice then, just in time to defend the pair of pajamas. They were nice and new-

(“Sorry, doll. Ya’ know I’ll getcha new ones.")

Gentle simply isn’t the name of his game. Though he can try, and try he might when he’s so afraid of crushing your lively little soul in his calloused, bloodstained hand. It just doesn’t come to him naturally, the way he tends to want to grab your hips and hold you flush to him. But at this moment, he dips his head down until his forehead meets the smooth span of your abdomen, resting there for a moment. Simon’s breathing tickles against your skin, a slow and steady pattern that’s a far cry from all the adrenaline that’s been pumping through him. Your hands gain purchase within the locks of his cropped hair that you can catch between your fingers. His voice is rumbly, a deep growl from low in his throat.

“Missed ya’.”

It’s about as close to singing praises from the heavens as he can offer you, and you greedily drink in every last minimal word he gets out. If he had the capability of belief, he’d be thanking any higher power out there that he’s returned home to what must be the only blessing he was ever offered. Your hands want to wander, want to run down his chest, then lower, and lower—

But he stops you with a silent shake of his head before your desires are executed.

“Just you tonight, luv.”

You know better than to question it—the way he may give but then pull back with intimacy. Some nights he can relish the way you roll those hips on top of him, low moans permitted to spill from his mouth and a tight grip on the back of his oversized t-shirt you tend to be wearing. Others end in a lit cigarette and an hour alone on the porch, scarred figure illuminated by the flame as he tries to wave off your concern. Lost in his mind due to the unwilling thoughts that want to follow any bit of bliss he tries to chase. It’s easier to let him slip and slink through your fingers as he pleases, letting him warm up to you like a feral creature who’s slowly been domesticated.

Delicate, delicate, delicate. He tries to run his thumbs in gentle circles over your body while fighting the urge to press down just hard enough that it will make little purple marks bloom like flowers against your skin, to prove that blood still runs warm through your veins. He doesn’t do it; you deserve to be treated delicately. It earns you a kiss for every intrusive thought he has over the matter, and he’s rewarded in turn with every breathy noise you make from them.

Simon is a man who’s been starved, has been depleted of his life source up until now. The way he ravishes you seems to fit the gnawing hunger he feels accordingly. His actions are desperate and unrefined following the very first taste of your sweetness on his lips. He licks a stripe against you to hear the way you squeal and see how your legs will twitch and shake for him.

“Pretty, pretty,“ he murmurs, not afraid to speak with his mouth full of his favorite meal. What a gift to be engulfed by your beauty when he spends so much time involved in all that’s corrupted and vile.

“And it’s just f’me?”

All of you, that’s what’s for him. Every square inch of your very being, and then whatever else he can find to clutch onto, too. If you give it to him, he’ll slowly return such an offering, piece by piece of the inner workings of such a complicated and complex mind, fragments of that hidden heart being unearthed.

“Yes!” You sob, a choked noise that’s reflective of how long he’s situated himself in this very position, never feeling that he’s had his fill. “Yes, yes, yes-!”

Wave after wave after wave of pleasure, he will give it all to you if you ask. He cramps a few of his thick, calloused fingers inside your warmth, crooking them with expertise gained from attentiveness to what’s *just for him*. He croons as you spill once more, not letting any of your nectar go to waste with a low chuckle at your overstimulated gasps.

There isn’t anything he wants in return as you pant for breath and flush ruddy with exertion—or so he claims. But you know him better than that, guiding his head to lie against your chest. The quick beats of your heart lull him to concede, and the way your hands soothe over his shoulder blades and tattooed bicep certainly doesn’t deter him either. He wants a hand through his hair and your nails lightly raking against his back and you certainly know how to deliver. Making sure to take caution over the raised scar tissue of his marred skin. Those get traced delicately, as if you are connecting stars to create new constellations.

“Bath?” You mumble, the word feeling heavy on your tongue as exhaustion dares to finally try and seep into your bones.

And, well, he wouldn’t say no to that, either.

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Thanks for all the support on my first post! Still learning how to format and improve. TBH I only write when I’m not feeling well or sleep deprived or intoxicated so hopefully this is decent enough lol

Also this was my first attempt w/ writing anything x reader or gender neutral specific so if I did anything wrong plz lmk. Okay thanks byeee

#call of duty #cod #cod modern warfare #cod mw2 #ghost #ghost call of duty #ghost cod #ghost mw2 #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x y/n #ghost x you #simon riley x you

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missazura · 1 year

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i got the green light from my agent to upload the comics i did for my portfolio! they wanted colored comic samples, so i did a marvel one and this, which focuses on my narrator and marlise @employee210's reaction to being free from the dreadful office/parable! mar's glad to be free from the hell they've been stuck in for a decade while narry's not doing so good, he has a lot of pent up trauma to go through.

this is the first time i pushed myself to make a finished comic since 2015, i can say i'm proud of pushing through!

(DO NOT REUPLOAD, EDIT OR REPOST MY ART)

#azura arts #employee210 #marlise gentry #narry #tsp #the stanley parable #comic

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dhampling · 8 months

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ASTARION GETTING INTO BAKING AND ASKING YOU TO SAMPLE ALL OF HIS BAKES

this was such a fun one i love it he is simply a silly guy who wants to be a man of many talents thank you for the request avo I LOVE YOU

He looks at you expectantly.

The small wodge of cake on the plate in front of you crumbles to dust as you squish it. Astarion pinches his nose. Eyes closed, a beleaguered sigh.

“Too much sugar.” You grimace.

“It’s going to disintegrate if you do that.”

You quirk a brow. Astarion looks down at his creation pitifully.

The sweet smell of fresh-baked goods, now somewhat marred by the unimpressive result on the counter in front of you. Kitchen scattered with cooking implements; his apron smattered with still billowing clouds of flour.

“Clearly the recipe was incorrect, that’s all.” He hums. Looks at the cake for a moment with a stewing resentment in his eyes then turns on his heel.

“You followed it exactly?”

His head moves from side to side in a deliberating err.

“Kind of? Not really?”

Over the coming weeks he spends endless nights in your small kitchen working to figure out the art of baking, driven by the underwhelming response to his initial offering.

Astarion argues that it’s his prerogative. With the tadpole so newly gone he wants to broaden his horizons, he purrs, glass in hand; now that he can try anything, why shouldn’t he?

The obvious answer here is that he can’t taste the fruits of his labour.

No matter the freshness of the produce, nor the quality of the flour grain; it all resembles ash past the threshold of his fangs.

You’re frequently dispatched to the market to gather more treats for Astarion to experiment with - the textures, the smells, the way they come together in the binding heat of the stove - and despite a rocky start, you find yourself more and more impressed with the results.

He observes each time he comes to you with a platter of treats, notebook in hand; eyes glued to your face whilst you meticulously try each and every little morsel.

What began as plain muffins and oat biscuits evolves quickly into bites of his own creation.

He figures out how to make a creme filling; the perfect ratios for butter pastries, how to temper chocolate and the best ways in which to use it. You use the best descriptives you can manage to help him understand the texture, the taste; the consistency of everything that makes its way into your mouth as he fervently jots every last word down.

The big one - which he absolutely succeeds with - is your birthday cake. Richly decorated and built on the densest sponge you’ve ever tasted, topped with raspberries, almonds, fresh cream, vanilla. The anticipatory stare across the table as he watches the first forkful lift to your mouth and the sweetest kiss he receives as you smile into his.

He enjoys it. A hobby, definitely. Not the kind of thing he’d pursue for gold - if only for the fact he can’t enjoy a single bite of his own creations - but if he can keep you in the finest of baked goods then he considers every delighted groan from your starving mouth a success.

#astarion #bg3 #astarion x reader #my writing #astarion headcanons #astarion imagine #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate astarion #request

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youremyheaven · 6 months

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The Curse of Limitless Expansion: Jupiter's Shadow

I have covered the "negative" manifestations or the shadow side (as I prefer to call it) of different planetary influences, such as Venus, Moon, Rahu & Ketu and whilst I have explored Jupiter's different manifestations before, I thought it is time to do a more in-depth analysis of Jupiter's shadow.

Being the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter is expansive and its natives are internally spacious and vast. I had observed previously that Jupiter is similar to Rahu in terms of its spaciousness (Claire had also observed the similarities between Punarvasu & Swati) but the difference is that Rahu is truly limitless in its expansive ability as it quite literally does not have physical form (Rahu refers to the north node of the Moon) Jupiter may be vast but it does have limits, it's bound by its massive capacity but since it does have a physical form, that means it also has limitations, it has a tipping point. This is why Jupiterean natives suffer or have the ability to realize they have "gone too far". Rahuvians have a "point of no return" mentality, they think they've gone too far but have to keep going since it no longer makes sense to return now.

Some people believe that since Jupiter is the planet of luck, abundance, growth and healing (or generally perceived as a "positive" planet) it somehow does not have a "dark side". This is untrue. Jupiter's darkness is just as terrifying as that of any other planet. The bigger the planet, the bigger the shadow.

Jupiter's shadow manifests as a god complex, messiah complex and megalomania, most commonly seen in men.

Men and women channel their nakshatras and planetary influence differently. Men tend to externalise their problems and women tend to internalise theirs. Men tend to inflict destruction upon others and women tend to self-destruct (@lasirenesensible tysm for pointing this out to me, it's a very valuable insight).

The scope of this post includes a few women but I'll discuss how Jupiter's shadow manifests in women on a separate post in the future.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that a planet known as the "Guru" or teacher is prone to making a lot of people under its influence proclaim themselves as Messiahs or divine teachers, many famous pseudo-spiritual "gurus" have Jupiter ruled naks in their big 3. They are merely charlatans with a Messiah complex driven by their ego to expand beyond reach. This is a toxic trait of Jupiter natives.

Ryuho Okawa- Punarvasu Sun, Purvabhadrapada Mars atmakaraka

He was a Japanese religious and political leader who was the CEO and founder of the Happy Science and the Happiness Realization Party. His organization has been widely criticised as a cult. Adherents of the religion worship Okawa, who claimed to be the current incarnation of a god called “El Cantare" and a number of other beings, including Hermes and Gautama Buddha.

L Ron Hubbard, Purvabhadrapada Sun conjunct Mercury and Jupiter conjunct Ketu in Vishaka (he also had Magha Moon)

He is the founder of Scientology lmao and basically co-opted a lot of eastern oriental thought mixed it with his malignant narcissism and created a religion based on spiritual hogwash. One of its most famous recruits is Tom Cruise, Punarvasu Moon

Jim Jones- Punarvasu Sun & Mercury (he was also Shatabhisha Moon)

He is known for being the (cult) leader of the Peoples Temple religious group and for the Jonestown Massacre, when he led the mass murder-suicide of more than 900 members of the group at their commune in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.

fun fact: Suga from BTS (Purvabhadrapada Sun conjunct Mercury) sampled a bit from a sermon given by Jim Jones for the track "what do you think" from his mixtape D-2, he removed it following the controversy

"… though you are dead, yet you shall live, and he that liveth and believeth shall never die."— Jim Jones

I feel like it is way too specific and niche for him to not have intended to put it there or have known who Jim Jones was lol but I digress

But on that note, this whole self-belief thing (as we see from Jim Jones' quote) also seems to be tied to Jupiter's nature. These natives have insane self belief.

Will Smith, Vishaka Moon is kind of an early proponent of manifestation. He's been talking about it since the early 90s.

Jim Carrey, Vishaka Rising is another celebrity who has been talking about manifestation since the 90s.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Punarvasu Rising (and stellium)

He has talked about the power of the mind and visualisation A LOT. The key to achieving anything in life is to believe you can do it but many experiences (including trauma, self doubt etc) makes it hard for many people to persist in their belief, they hold themselves back. Jupiter's strength lies in its ability to be so vast and bold in its belief, their spaciousness means no matter what they've been through, they just know there's a way through, that they will make it out. This is their inherent nature.

Nikola Tesla, Punarvasu Sun developed the 3 6 9 method of manifestation (as @brundlefly3333 pointed out)

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Kanye West, Purvabhadrapada Moon is another celebrity who has spoken about the Law, the power of self-belief etc etc a LOT.

It goes to show how easy it is for self-belief to turn into delusions of grandeur and make someone a narcissist. It is truly dangerous because Jupiter's influence on the masses is immense so whatever a Jupiter native may proclaim, they have the ability to affect many people through it. Some of the men I mentioned above convinced others that they were God and even made them kill themselves for it. This is a scary, dangerous manifestation of Jupiter's "guru" nature wielding vast influence on others and being absolutely convinced of one's righteousness

anywayssss

Mussolini- Vishaka Rising, Jupiter in Punarvasu amatyakaraka (he was also a Rohini Moon and Pushya Sun👀)

Benito Mussolini is like the OG dictator. He created fascism, a movement that would plunge most of Europe into darkness. From undermining judges to indoctrinating children, he pioneered key tactics that other dictators would use to seize power.

I specify Nodal influence in these individuals because I think the limitlessness and expansiveness of Nodal influence wrecks havoc to the already expansive nature of Jupiter and makes these natives more reckless.

I also specify Moon influence because as I already discussed in my posts, Moon influence can easily morph into cruelty and corruption and I think Moon & Jupiter together can be a dangerous combo if the native is imbalanced.

If you take anything away from these posts it would be that literally anybody with any placement/nak/planet is capable of being truly evil. There is no specific nak/planet that is a "guarantee" against evil. It truly comes down to the individual to choose how they want to live (I believe in free will and I do not condone in using astrology in a fatalistic way at all).

Ferdinand Marcos- Punarvasu Moon (he also has Ardra ascendant conjunct Ketu and a lot of Moon influence)

Ferdinand Marcos developed a cult of personality as a way of remaining President of the Philippines for 20 years, in a way that political scientists have compared to other authoritarian and totalitarian leaders such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, but also to more contemporary dictators such as Suharto in Indonesia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the Kim dynasty of North Korea.

The propaganda techniques used, either by himself or by others, to mythologize Ferdinand Marcos, began with local political machinations in Ilocos Norte while Ferdinand was still the young son of politician and Japanese collaborator Mariano Marcos, and persist today in the efforts to revise the way Marcos is portrayed in Philippine history. According to members of his administration, such as Adrian Cristobal, Marcos's intent was to project an image of himself "the only patron, the king" of Philippine society, which he still saw as a society of tribes." Cristobal furthers that "Marcos and the First Lady wanted more than anything else [...] to be king and queen. They wished to shape the kingdom in their own image; [...] Marcos wanted to be able to say, 'L'État, c'est moi.'" ("the state, that is me") In some extreme cases where Marcos encouraged the formation of cults so that they could serve as a political weapon, Marcos came to be thought of as a God.

Sun Myung Moon- Mercury conjunct Rising in Purvabhadrapada (he also has Shatabhisha Sun)

He was the founder and leader of the Unification Church established in Seoul, South Korea, who considered himself the Second Coming of Christ, but not Jesus himself. It is generally believed by Unification Church members ("Moonies") that he was the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ and was anointed to fulfil Jesus' unfinished mission.

The thing about all these men claiming to be God/Messiahs is that there were people who believed them and followed them blindly and uncritically. Anybody can claim these things but not everybody can acquire power and influence and lead people this way. This is another aspect of Jupiter (not to repeat myself again and again but yeah it's the whole "Guru" thing, people look at you as a figure of knowledge and wisdom, and these people project natural leadership qualities).

You can't just be crazy or narcissistic enough to believe these things, you also have to be strategic enough to amass a following. To be a leader and a guru requires a certain commitment and discipline. These are all Jupiterean qualities (that are used for malicious purposes here).

Augusto Pinochet- Punarvasu Moon conjunct Saturn, Mercury in Vishaka atmakaraka, Jupiter in Purva bhadrapada amatyakaraka

He was a dictator who ruled Chile and claimed he was a visionary who was "guided by the mysterious hand of God". He had a cult of personality surrounding him

After his rise to power, Pinochet persecuted leftists, socialists, and political critics, resulting in the executions of 1,200 to 3,200 people, the internment of as many as 80,000 people, and the torture of tens of thousands. According to the Chilean government, the number of executions and forced disappearances was at least 3,095. Operation Condor, a U.S.-supported terror operation focusing on South America, was founded at the behest of the Pinochet regime in late November 1975, his 60th birthday.

Jupiter's expansive nature manifests as greed when an individual is imbalanced or spiritually stunted. This drives a need to acquire massive wealth or spread their influence/reign/territories. If the individual is spiritually evolved, their focus will be to balance the spaciousness within and not project it outward in continuous expansion.

Hafez el Assad- Mars in Punarvasu atmakaraka, Jupiter in Punarvasu amatyakaraka and Venus in Vishaka (he also had Hasta Sun)

Syria's Hafez al-Assad, a Ba'athist officer who seized power through a coup d'état in 1970, established a pervasive cult of personality to maintain his dictatorship. As soon as he took over power, Ba'ath party loyalists designated him as "Al-Abad"; an Arabic terminology with deep religious dimensions. Linguistically, ''Al-Abad'' means "forever, infinite and immortality" and religious clerics use this term in relation to Divine Attributes. By designating Assad as "Al-Abad", Syrian Ba'ath Movement ideologically elevated Hafez al-Assad as its "Immortal", "god-like figure" who is supposed to represent the state as well as the Syrian nation itself. Another meaning of Al-Abad is "permanent", which is used in state propaganda to denote the perpetual status quo of an "eternal political order" created by Hafez al-Assad, who continues to live in Assadist ideology. The term's verbal form "Abada" means "to commit genocide" including the "symbolical; performative side of violence". This dimension has been weaponized by the Assad regime to monopolize violence against alleged dissidents and justify state terrorism, including genocidal acts of mass murder like the Hama Massacre, Qamishli Massacre and other massacres of the Syrian civil war.

Jayalalithaa- Punarvasu Rising (Shatabhisha Sun & Magha Moon)

She was the Chief Minister of the state of Tamil Nadu in India and was an actor turned politician who had a cult following (they called her "Amma" or "mother" which I think is interesting that she was this mother figure/matriarch because of Punarvasu's deity Aditi being the Cosmic mother). She was a corrupt politician but the masses largely overlooked this and she was known for being a bit of a tyrannical figure who expected absolute loyalty from her party members who often publicly prostrated before her (not kidding).

Not as brutal as some of the other people on this list but her personality cult and influence over her following is crazyyy (I'm Indian so I'd know) and when she died in 2016, her state observed a 7 day mourning period.

Mata Amritanandamayi Devi- Vishaka Rising (she also has Hasta Sun👀)

She's an Indian spiritual guru known as the "hugging saint", she's still alive and has millions of followers and there hasn't yet been a proper expose but her cult has been controversial for ages especially after it started recruiting spiritually confused white people into its mix. A lot of it is unexplained, she's most definitely a millionaire at this point and we have no idea what actually goes on behind closed doors. Many of the alleged miracles that she has performed have been debunked on many occasions. To think that she has football stadiums full of people who worship her and think she's the divine incarnate is sooo crazy

Ram Dass- Punarvasu Rising

He helped popularize yoga and Eastern spirituality in the West. I don't think he's cruel or shady, just a regular white guy who had a spiritual awakening in India and co-opted thousands of years of Vedic wisdom and teachings to "introduce" it to the West. But his influence is unmatched to say the least, he spearheaded a whole movement and made eastern spirituality mainstream in the west. This is a manifestation of Jupiter's boundless nature.

Oppenheimer- Punarvasu Moon

the man who developed the first ever nuclear weapons was a Punarvasu lol

he truly believed that he was doing the "right thing" because (you already know all this if you watched the movie) Germany was bound to develop these weapons and cause mass destruction and Oppenheimer thought he was on the right side of history by making these weapons for America and by extension for the Allies

"After Germany's surrender in 1945, some scientists questioned the bomb's relevance. Oppenheimer believed it would end the ongoing Pacific War and save Allied lives. The Trinity test is successful, and President Harry S. Truman orders the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in Japan's surrender. Though publicly praised, Oppenheimer is guilt-ridden and haunted by the destruction and mass fatalities. After Oppenheimer expresses his guilt to Truman, the president berates him and dismisses his plea to cease further atomic development." (this is an excerpt from the movie's wiki lol)

it just goes to show how self-belief isn't a good thing on its own because you can make yourself believe anything. I guess Oppenheimer's guilt has to count for something ??? Idk how many people mentioned on this list felt guilt because of the destruction they caused, Oppenheimer had a conscience et.al

Elon Musk, Punarvasu Rising

He is the richest man in the world and is on a quest to own everything he can and colonize Mars, need I say more? Idk if this is a strange manifestation of Punarvasu's deity Aditi being the Cosmic Mother (either that or the man has a breeding kink) but this guy procreates at the speed of light (he has 6 kids right now with 3 different women I believe)

Tommy Mottola- Punarvasu Sun (Swati Moon)

the asshole who trapped Mariah Carey (Punarvasu Moon) in a hellish controlling marriage for 8 years. He was the CEO of Sony Music in the 90s and was known for being a megalomaniac (look up his feud with Michael Jackson) he has ruined the careers of many and is known in the music industry for being a really scary controlling maniac

Anders Behring Breivik- Punarvasu Rising

He blew up a bomb in the centre of Oslo. Meanwhile went to an island where a political youth gathering was taking place. Dressed up as a cop he would kill 69 people on the island of Utøya, and call out to teenagers hiding saying it was safe to come out, those who believed him and came out were shot.

Alfred Hitchcock- Vishaka Moon (also Shatabhisha Rising with a lot of Moon influence in his chart)

He basically stalked some actresses and tried to control their lives; told them what they could/couldn’t eat, and where they could/couldn’t go. He sent Tippi Hedren inappropriate Valentine's letters. She claims he threw himself atop her in a hotel room and kissed her — and in her biography accused him of sexual assault. Yet another Jupiterean megalomaniac.

Al Capone- Purvabhadrapada Rising

He joined the Five Points Gang as a teenager and became a bouncer in organized crime premises such as brothels. In his early twenties, Capone moved to Chicago and became a bodyguard and trusted factotum for Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol—the forerunner of the Outfit—and was politically protected through the Unione Siciliana. A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capone's rise and fall. Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Capone expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means, but his mutually profitable relationships with Mayor William Hale Thompson and the Chicago Police Department meant he seemed safe from law enforcement.

Capone apparently revelled in attention, such as the cheers from spectators when he appeared at baseball games. He made donations to various charities and was viewed by many as a "modern-day Robin Hood". However, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven gang rivals were murdered in broad daylight, damaged the public image of Chicago and Capone, leading influential citizens to demand government action and newspapers to dub Capone "Public Enemy No. 1".

Robert DeNiro played Al Capone in The Untouchables (1987)

Idk whats the link between PBP and the mafia but Scorsese (PBP Moon) has made manyyy mafia themed movies and Robert DeNiro (PBP Moon) has starred as a mob boss on multiple occasions.

Having Jupiter influence really is like having unwielded power and if a native isn't mature enough to channel it appropriately then they can easily lose themselves to malignant narcissism, god complex and megalomania.

It requires a great deal of wisdom to wield this ability wisely and for the greater good

Jupiter influence is very prominent in the charts of royalty, another group prone to megalomania and god complexes lol. Jupiter bestows its natives with power, status and affluence but one must wield it carefully.

Punarvasu is widely accepted as the most auspicious of Jupiter-ruled naks (due to its themes and its deity) whereas Vishaka and Purvabhadrapada are both harsher manifestations of Jupiterean energy but even the most "gentle" of Jupiterean naks still came up in the charts of some of the horrible people I mention in this post. Basically, no one is exempt from being cruel, obviously, everything depends on the chart as a whole (a person is more than the sum of their parts) but that said the presence of a nakshatra considered "auspicious" (Jupiter ruled or otherwise) does not automatically qualify as some kind of redeeming quality lol. Everybody has to consciously choose their actions and be good and do good aka anybody can be cruel and evil and yes even Jupiter has its dark side/shadow.

hope this post was interesting xx

#astrology notes #astrology observations #sidereal astrology #vedic astro notes #nakshatras #astrology #astroblr #astro observations #astro notes #vedic astrology #jyotish #purva bhadrapada #vishaka #punarvasu #jupiter #Youtube

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mysticstronomy · 1 month

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DID MARS EVER CONTAIN WATER??

Blog#428

Saturday, August 17th, 2024.

Welcome back,

While the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn contain water, Mars remains dry. Despite dozens of space missions, the Red Planet has yet to provide convincing proof that it conceals significant water reserves beneath its surface.

Yet Earth's little cousin hasn't always been so secretive. Various studies have shown that a little over 4 billion years ago, it experienced a "watery" era when lakes, rivers and perhaps even oceans could maintain themselves on its soil. Branching valleys and ancient terrains rich in hydrated clays are evidence of this blissful period of abundance.

Subsequently, the loss of part of the Martian atmosphere led to a reduction in the greenhouse effect followed by a gradual disappearance of water. The question is how long this process lasted and under what conditions. This is what the American Space Agency's (NASA) Curiosity and Perseverance spacecraft have been trying to establish since their arrival in 2012 and 2021 in the Gale and Jezero craters.

"Lakes occupied these depressions 3.5 or 3.6 billion years ago," explained Nicolas Mangold, a director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Laboratory of Planetology and Geosciences in Nantes.

By studying the sedimentary and clay deposits left by the former and exploring the ancient river delta that fed the latter, the aim is to determine whether the climate at the time was wet and cold, or dry and hot. The Perseverance rover is also collecting samples, to be brought back to Earth as part of the MSR mission [Mars Sample Return, NASA-European Space Agency (ESA)]. They should provide precise information."

For the moment, things are hazy. If water has flowed on Mars, where has it gone? Was it sucked up into space with the Martian atmosphere or did some of it remain on site, buried underground? Many teams around the world are working to find answers by searching for clues to its presence other than those offered by polar ice caps and glaciers.

As water cannot remain in a liquid state for long on the surface of Mars, these investigations often consist of spotting recent traces of its passage using instruments placed in orbit. This opens the way to all kinds of controversy about how to interpret observations of this world, whose morphology is radically different from that of Earth. "Some of these controversies, such as those concerning gullies – ravines 1 or 2 kilometers long, discovered by the hundreds along certain landforms in the early 2000s – have finally been settled," said Susan Conway, a CNRS researcher at the Laboratory of Planetology and Geosciences in Nantes.

Her team recently demonstrated in the journal Nature Communications that seasonal deposits of dry ice explain the phenomenon, and not water flows.

Other clues continue to fuel debate and even controversy among scientists. The nature of "equatorial dark flows," the background noise of radar signals suggesting the existence of an underground sea beneath the North Cap, the presence of possible channels in the ejecta of impact craters and the hypothetical formation of "rides" in areas of glacial retreat. If water exists on Mars, it is well camouflaged.

Why not deep underground, frozen in the cryosphere? Or preserved in liquid form in aquifers, or inside the thin film of perchlorate brine that supposedly exists at the base of the permafrost that covers Mars at high latitudes? The Marsis and Sharad radars of the Mars Express (ESA) and MRO (NASA) probes have pinpointed promising regions. And when NASA's Phoenix lander dug a few centimeters into the frozen ground just after it arrived in 2008, it immediately uncovered blocks of water ice – a further reason for hypothesis and speculation.

Originally published on https://www.lemonde.fr

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, August 21st, 2024)

"DID LIFE EXIST ON VENUS??"

#astronomy #outer space #alternate universe #astrophysics #universe #spacecraft #white universe #space #parallel universe #astrophotography

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geovanag · 1 year

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Composite Chart (basic information) #1 🪐

The Composite chart describes the character of the relationship between two people. Although it seems very complicated, it is more understandable for those like me who can interpret the Birth Chart at a basic level (maybe more advanced level).

Just as when you first open the birth chart, you look at which sign and which house the planets are in and you can make basic interpretations with it, you can apply the same process to the composite chart. Only while interpreting this chart, the subject will change and two people will become "us".

You can get this chart from free charting sites like astro.com and astro.seek, but you need to be sure of the "birth time" of both people.

In my opinion, Sun, Moon, Venus, Venus, Mercury, Mars and Ascendant are really important in the composite chart.

🪐Sun represents the man in the relationship and the identity of the relationship.

🪐I have read on many blogs and other websites that the Moon represents the woman in the relationship. It also describes the situation of the couple at home and of course the emotional state.

🪐 Mercury represents how and in what form the communication in the relationship is.

🪐 Venus is the state of flirtation and affection between the two partners (in which cases it is restricted or the influence is fluid),

🪐 Mars, I will examine this couple to talk about their sexuality and the situations in which they act together.

When we analyze the other planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto, Uranus, Neptune), I think that their positions in the chart and some aspects are important in general, without getting too hung up on the signs. Now I will talk about what the houses mean.

1st house -> describes how the couple looks from the outside when they are with each other (physically) How do people around know this couple? What activity do they usually see them doing?

2nd house -> Informs us about how the partners value each other and what their material gains will be.

3rd house -> This house in the natal chart, which covers relations with relatives, friends and siblings in general, I realized that the composite chart, based on my observations, mostly gives information about friendships.

4th house -> The dialogues you have with each other in your shared home, the way you feel when you are together and who is more dominant and in control at home.

5th house -> Hobbies, dating, children… yes this house really gives information about all the subjects it represents.

6th house -> This house, where we can get information about health issues, I think it is quite ineffective in my observations. Unless the planets placed here are very strong in aspects (such as square and opposite), the effect on the chart is very uncertain.

7th house -> While giving information about the process leading to marriage (such as engagement), interestingly I noticed that in case of a possible breakup in the relationship, it can be analyzed quite well as to who would want to leave.

8th house -> It gives information about crisis situations. Of course it also gives information about sexuality.

9th house -> I have observed that couples with planets influential here often plan a nice trip to go on vacation in their relationship, as well as studying together in higher education. Imagine that both people are professors at a university.

10th house -> similar to the first house will give information about how people see the couple.

11th house -> Shows how your relationship fits into your social environment.

12th house -> I have witnessed that this house, which overshadows even the most beautiful indicators, works negatively in the composite chart. Things that are hidden, things that are hidden from the other person are located in this house. It is not long term. Disappointment and tears are here.

In the next post I will talk about what the ascendant means in signs. And then, the sun in signs, the moon in signs, mercury in signs, venus in signs and mars in signs… We will learn together not only sign but also which houses are. And in one of the articles of this series, there will be articles in which we make observations by analyzing sample composite charts.

Share your comments and curiosities with me and let's think together.

Take care,, 🌬🤎

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