#this robot has 6 different ''personalities'' programmed into it for different tasks

[lime1991]

embarrassingly, reading moon knight fanfic gave me an oc idea

[duckapus]

So I've worked out what the two games from this post will be. Both of them are my own ideas.

Sally's Outstanding Adventure!

A point-and-click adventure game that starts out looking like a cute little edutainment game in a bright, cheerful nonsense world. The main cast consists of Sally herself, a little girl who enjoys exploring, Miss Morning, the game's narrator who Sally is able to hear and talk to, a large hairy creature with a surly disposition named Grumfrey who accompanies Sally on her adventures to keep her safe, and Scrub, a strange, vaguely ducklike-creature who stays in Sally's house. In the game, Sally goes out on her biggest adventure yet, heading out further than ever before. But as the journey goes on, strange things begin happening, and dark cracks begin to appear in the happy facade of this world.

As the game goes on, it's revealed in bits and pieces that almost everything Sally thinks she knows about her world, and herself, is wrong. She's actually Survey Android 13, a malfunctioning research drone deployed to study a hostile alien jungle, with the malfunction being the result of damage from an incident a few months ago, which horribly scrambled her programing and traumatized her to the point where she ran away from reality. Miss Morning is actually her base's computer, who developed the narrator persona so that they could relay instructions for Sally's research missions in a manner that could be understood and accepted through the delusion. Scrub is actually a floor cleaning device. Grumfrey turns out to be a massive, dangerous apex predator native to the jungle that happened to decide to use SA-13's base as its den. The big adventure they're on is a mission to find and rescue the crew of a ship that crashed nearby.

And yet, even with the reveal that her world is a lot darker than she thought it was, there's still plenty of light as well. The whole reason the illusion is breaking is because the scientists who deployed her finally managed to develop a patch that would fix her programing. It was supposed to do its work all in one go while she was in standby mode, and would have if it hadn't been for the rescue mission requiring she reactivate early. Morning gradually drops the narrator schtick as the game goes on, with their instructions becoming more direct and computer-like, but their tone stays just as kind and gentle as it was at the start, still giving little bits of encouragement when she stumbles and congratulating her on tasks well done, because they genuinely care for the little robot they're in charge of, to the point where during moments where Sally's in genuine danger they're as terrified as a parent seeing their child in such a situation. Scrub is...well, its honestly just a Space Roomba but that's really not too different from before. And despite how terrifying Grumfrey's true nature is, he really is Sally's big, grumpy, protective friend, and stays just as helpful in the second half of the game as he was in the first.

They do manage to rescue the survivors of the crash, and Sally ends up accepting her restored reality...though she does decide to keep her new name.

Diamind 6: Stars Go Out

A space-age JRPG about a young man named Cole going on an adventure to save his galaxy from two major threats; a multi-system empire that's attempting to expand their rule across the entire galaxy (with Cole actually being part of an official Resistance that formed to fend off this empire), and the titular Diamind, an ancient powerful demon that awakens every 10,000 years and attempts to bring about the apocalypse (all the Diamind games take place in the same universe, with Diamind being a major threat in all of them). Cole has a mysterious connection to Diamind that gives him unusual powers and marks him as the only person who can re-seal Diamind when it awakens.

One of the major reoccurring antagonists in the game is a scientist with a grudge against Cole and an interest-bordering-on-obsession with his Diamind powers. He betrays the resistance during the prologue, beginning Cole's adventure in the first place, and shows up periodically to cause trouble for the party. One of the most interesting things about him is that he actually does figure out how Cole's powers work, using that knowledge to create a robot with all of Cole's weapons and abilities, including a forced connection to Diamind so it could genuinely have all of his abilities. The party calls it RepliCole because it pisses the scientist off. It's a reoccurring boss throughout the game, until after the fifth or sixth time where the party manages to shut it down and take it back to resistance HQ.

This becomes relevant again about 3/4ths of the way through the game when Cole is mortally wounded and their best chance of saving him is to upload his mind into RepliCole. So now he's a robot, but there's no time for existential crises 'cause we got a galaxy to save!

Anyway, we've got typical JRPG climax stuff after that. Empire is toppled, demon is sealed, day is saved, Cole's still a robot. Roll Credits.

Anyway, as far as the activation attempt goes, I'm gonna have it so the games get merged together, with Sally's planet getting integrated into Cole's universe, and the Avatar programming gets split between them like it did with the Arles. 33 ends up as Sally's recolor while 34 ends up as Cole's, because the idea of the inherently violence-prone odd-number SMG getting the body of a tiny defenseless research drone while the can't-fight-to-save-their-life even-number SMG gets the extremely powerful and full of weapons jrpg protagonist body is funny to me.

[lekhyar]

“Maximizing Efficiency: The Pros of Using Selenium for Testing”

Certainly, I’m excited to explore the topic of Selenium. My expertise in this area has grown significantly over time. Selenium is a widely recognized and widely utilized tool across various industries.

Selenium is an open-source tool primarily used for automating web browsers, with applications extending beyond automated testing. It offers several valuable features:

1. Test Automation: Selenium is renowned for automating web application testing, reducing manual testing efforts and enhancing test coverage by interacting with web elements and simulating user actions.

2. Cross-browser Compatibility: It enables testing across multiple web browsers, ensuring consistent functionality on different platforms.

3. Integration: Selenium can integrate with other tools and frameworks like TestNG and JUnit, enhancing test execution and reporting capabilities.

4. Web Scraping: Selenium is adept at web scraping, extracting data from websites for various purposes, including data analysis, competitor monitoring, and information gathering.

5. Performance Testing: When combined with tools like JMeter, Selenium facilitates the automation of performance testing by simulating user interactions under various load conditions.

6. Headless Testing: Selenium supports headless browser testing, beneficial for continuous integration and faster test execution without a graphical interface.

7. Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Beyond web testing, Selenium is valuable for automating repetitive tasks, making it a significant tool in the realm of business process automation.

8. Career Opportunities: As organizations increasingly rely on web applications, the demand for Selenium testers and automation engineers is on the rise, offering promising career prospects.

In conclusion, Selenium’s scope extends beyond traditional web testing, encompassing various aspects of automation and web-related tasks. Its versatility and widespread adoption make it a valuable skill for testers, developers, and automation engineers.

For those interested in exploring the world of the Selenium Course, I highly recommend considering ACTE Technologies. They offer certification programs and job placement opportunities, guided by experienced instructors, both online and in person. Enrolling in a course can be a beneficial step toward mastering Selenium.

I believe this response effectively addresses your query. If you have additional questions or require further clarification, please feel free to ask in the comments section. Your engagement is greatly appreciated, and I extend my best wishes for a productive day ahead.

[vinyls-and-valentines]

Styxx' super quick droid headcanon hours- go!

droids are used for about any job they're needed for, from security to entertainment to childcare and so on. Despite their versatility, people still have jobs and can purchase assets in the form of buildings on the border of The Lobby and Silver District which is how they acquire their monetary gains. There is an equal number of droids working in the upper and middle class districts, although it is nanny droids that make up the majority of droids in the upper class district as opposed to the more diverse selection of droids working in the middle class district;

assistant droids are only available for purchase to upper class citizens who have assets in the Lobby and act as a combination between a personal assistant, an accountant and- more often than not- manager of the actual establishment they own. They are tasked to keep tabs on everything going on while their owners are away at their day job or at home with family or doing whatever and come to their owner's house every month with a breakdown of their earnings;

lab droids are meant to do the brunt of the work. They handle substances and are far more resilient than most other droid types, including security and combat droids. They run all tests as the scientists instruct them to, leaving the former only with the task of recording the outcome and notes on the subject, though some scientists prefer to run tests themselves which while not advised, is not prohibited either;

display and entertainment droids outside pornodroids are the most fragile models made by BL/i and often come pre-programmed with or without certain functionalities other droids have (for example, they cannot speak by their own volition, being entirely dependent on a bank of predefined sentences). The shortest lifespan of this kind of droid can range between 6 month and 2 years depending on care and warranty extensions;

security and combat droids are nearly identical save for the fact they have different levels of resilience, with the security droids being to withstand more blunt force damage before breaking. Combat droids are few and used exclusively at the Academy in the training of Scarecrow cadets, while security droids are usually sprinkled throughout the Lobby dressed in scarecrow uniforms and guard the tunnels leading in and out of Battery City;

childcare-oriented droids are the most resilient of all droid types and easily adaptable to new situations, coming programmed with protocols more akin to "reflexes" than anything. These droids are to raise children and to "keep them from straying onto the wrong path" even if it requires putting themselves between the child and any exit or immobilizing them until the troops dispatched by BL/i arrive at their place of residence;

assistant and childcare-oriented droids are primarily the only types of droids that have synthetic skin outside pornodroids and customized Constellations (a type of entertainment droid). The other models have painted plastic or, in the case of most security droids, exposed chrome;

lab, security and combat droids are the only droids that aren't stored in apartment buildings in the Lobby, but rather in a special floor of the Better Living Headquarters or one of the Academy's basement levels. Display droids do no require storage as they tend to enter a state similar to a computer's "sleep more" whenever they hold one of their predefined poses for roughly 30-40 seconds. They permanently reside behind the display windows of the Silicone District;

there are no droids working in the Better Living Industries Headquarters or Physical Archives except for the Director and her copies and lab droids. The Director has not created the Better Living Industries corporation, nor Battery City, but everything inside as it stands 6-7 years after the creation of the wall is her doing;

slightly unrelated to droids, but some of the only tasks not performed by humans or droids, but rather robots, are driving the sky trains that make up Battery City's primary means of transportation and assistants behind the counter of the droid support center in the Lobby.

[pastel-rights]

late but i want to hear about your hcs about larry

I don’t have that many headcanons but here are some of my personal favorites!

Larry is a robot, unlike the other teachers, who are human.

And because he is a robot, he’s much smarter than the other teachers.

And because he’s a robot, he has a lot of false memories, but those memories are based off the Original Larry, or rather, Lexi.

Larry has no siblings, unlike the person he’s based off (who is like the oldest of 6-) but he’s really good with kids.

Larry can eat food. Thank Colin for making that a feature of his.

Larry also glitches out a lot too. Blame Colin.

If you couldn’t tell, Larry was made by and programmed by Colin. It was a little experiment Roy put Colin up to. Did it work? You tell me.

Larry can change his eyes and hair color/style at will. That’s why you’ll see him with a swirled rainbow eye and a orange eye sometimes. I haven’t drawn the different hair colors and styles yet, but he can change that light blue cloud shaped hair to anything he so desires, whether it’s very long black hair or short and curly green hair.

He can also give himself freckles.

He doesn’t need to eat, but eating acts like a way of charging him, so he finds it useful.

Absolutely hates windy nights.

Also hates rainy nights.

It’s so loud when it rains and you can hear the wind and it annoys the poor guy.

Going back to the whole being a robot thing, Larry cannot be controlled by anyone. Not even Colin could control him. When Red Guy is messing with the panel, he’s messing with the Larry Puppet, not Larry himself.

Oh ya, Larry has a little Larry puppet. It’s basically the lamp. Normally he just likes to use it for light but it’s something that you can control, just like most of the other puppets.

Safe to say, Larry broke the lamp puppet after that incident. And the clock. And the butterfly. And the computer. And literally every puppet except the Sketchbook puppet cause the Skstchbook puppet had nothing to do with the DHMIS 6 incident. The Sketchbook puppet was with Harry actually.

Larry likes coffee. He drinks more coffee than anyone in the studio.

Larry’s gay and asexual. He likes guys but he just wants to cuddle.

He’s very interested in astronomy and astrology.

Like he teaches about dreams and all but he really wants to learn about the stars and planets.

Being based off a real person, Larry knows the college experience (Lexi has a teaching degree for psychology and anatomy) without ever actually going to college. It freaks Tony out, who’s in the middle of college right now (he wants to get a teaching degree for history)

Larry has probably seen every single episode of Spongebob with Manny.

This man has got a lot of time on his hands.

He doesn’t drink that often, but he still has the urge to. Blame Lexi this time.

The most judgemental robot you will ever meet. Back to blaming Colin now.

He will judge you for everything you do, and he will correct you when you say or doing something wrong.

He doesn’t understand sarcasm very well. It’s hard for him to tell if someone’s joking or not as well.

He has poor time management. He can spend hours on a task that would take five minutes.

He is very good at writing though.

He can predict people’s actions pretty accurately and it freaks them out so much.

Also easily broken and is difficult to repair. Not saying someone has broken him and Colin has had to fix him but-

Terrible sleep schedule. Can and has sleep into the afternoon.

This one isn’t related to Larry per say, but to an earlier version of him, but an earlier iteration of him was a lot younger (like 10/11 yrs old) than the ages I’ve done for current and past iterations of him (21/22 yrs old, 27 yrs old for Lexi)

The current Larry looks like he is 23 yrs old, and is often treated as such. In reality he was built like 2 or 3 years before the events of DHMIS happened.

[multiverseforger]

Taskmaster is a mysterious figure believed to have been born in Bronx, New York City. He has the ability to mimic the physical movements of anyone he witnesses; writers differ on whether this counts as a "super power". He claims that he has had this ability since childhood. He works as a combat instructor and trains others to become lackeys for other villains by utilizing the techniques he has learned from his observation of superheroes and participates in mercenary jobs from time to time. Initially portrayed as a villain, he has also been shown training U.S. Agent and other neophyte superheroes at the behest of the US government. As a mercenary, he has no ideology except that of his employer. Due to his ability to imitate the techniques and armory of other heroes and villains, Taskmaster has occasionally been used to impersonate other characters.

Tony Masters first demonstrated unusual abilities during childhood. After watching a cowboy show on television, he found himself able to duplicate the sophisticated rope tricks he had just watched the cowboy perform. Psychiatrists, called in at the mother's request, determined that the boy had a form of photographic memory which they called "photographic reflexes". He employed his power several times during his youth for personal gain, most notably when he became a star quarterback of his high school football team after watching one pro football game. Upon graduation, he briefly considered a career as a crime fighter, but opted instead to be a professional criminal, which he perceived to be far more lucrative.[6]

He then began a program of observing the fighting techniques of numerous costumed heroes and villains (using archival television news broadcasts). He initially used his fighting skills to execute several successful grand larcenies, but he had not properly anticipated the dangers involved. He decided to use his stolen capital to establish a center for training aspiring criminals to turn into polished professionals. His goal was to become a supplier for criminal organizations around the world.

Designing a costume with a white cowl and skull mask, he took the name "Taskmaster" and began to train many thugs at criminal academies he had located around the United States. However, his existence was eventually revealed when Pernell Solomon of the Solomon Institute for the Criminally Insane (a front for one of these academies) used the school's resources to create a clone of himself when the administrator required an organ donation due to possessing an extremely rare blood type; the clone (learning of this fate) managed to contact the Avengers. Taskmaster captured Yellowjacket, the Wasp and Ant-Man when the Avengers invaded the premises;[7] but the Avengers followed, exposing his front operation. Taskmaster held his own against Captain America and Iron Man, however, was subsequently forced to flee after a confrontation with Jocasta since his lack of experience with Jocasta's abilities made it impossible to predict the robot's next move.[6] Taskmaster later established a new training academy in Manhattan, where he battled Spider-Man and Ant-Man, and then escaped.[8] He later used a traveling carnival as a mobile base, where he battled Hawkeye and Ant-Man, and then escaped again.[9] He next trained henchmen for the Black Abbott. Alongside Black Abbott, he battled Spider-Man and Nomad, and escaped yet again.[10]

Deciding to further explore the use of a circus as a front for his academy, Taskmaster took over yet another small outfit, and used it for many months to great success. However, while it was playing a small town in Ohio, the Thing and Vance Astrovik (who would later take the name Justice) assisted a government agent in foiling Taskmaster's activities. While escaping, Taskmaster was captured by a group of U.S. Secret Service agents and taken into custody.[11] There is reason to believe that Red Skull was behind the Taskmaster's capture, since a group of normal men were able to capture him.[citation needed] Through Douglas Rockwell (the head of the President's Commission on Superhuman Activities), Mr. Smith arranged for Taskmaster to train John Walker in order to make him appear to be the real Captain America.[12] In order to conceal Red Skull's involvement, Rockwell had the Commission work out a deal to have years taken off Taskmaster's sentence in return for training Walker. After Taskmaster successfully trained Walker, Red Skull arranged for him to escape from the Commission's detention center so he could continue training lackeys and Red Skull himself.[volume & issue needed]

Having escaped the authorities, he set up a base in a derelict graveyard in Brooklyn, where he battled Spider-Man and then escaped.[13] Taskmaster then competed in a contest against Tombstone, where he battled Daredevil and the Punisher.[14]

Taskmaster's more skilled, successful, and notable students include such characters as Crossbones and Cutthroat (both Red Skull's henchmen), U.S. Agent, Hauptmann Deutschland, Diamondback (Captain America's one-time girlfriend), Spymaster, Spider-Woman, and Agent X. On the other hand, Taskmaster also trains many of his students to serve as low-rent henchmen and cannon fodder. In his early appearances, Taskmaster mentions putting intellect-reducing drugs in the diet of his students. He also routinely sent groups of his more disappointing students to serve as "sparring partners" for Red Skull, routinely engaging several of them at a time and killing them all (Hauptmann Deutschland infiltrated the academy and used one such session as an opportunity to kidnap Red Skull). He has also employed other supervillains, such as when he hired Anaconda as his academy's calisthenics instructor.[volume & issue needed]

On another occasion, Taskmaster was hired by the Triune Understanding—a religious group secretly masterminding a smear campaign to paint the Avengers as being religiously and racially intolerant—to stage an attack on a Triune facility. Posing as Captain America, he contacted Warbird, Ant-Man, Silverclaw and Captain Marvel, claiming that he needed their help to destroy a Triune building containing a mind-control machine. Although they saw through his deception and subsequently defeated him—thanks to Captain Marvel transforming into Rick Jones mere milliseconds away from Taskmaster, thus causing a complete change of attack before Taskmaster could react—the building was destroyed in the ensuing battle and Taskmaster escaped, leaving the heroes lacking any evidence of their story.[15]

Taskmaster continued to train numerous villains and thugs until the Avengers began to search out and shut down some of his academies across the United States. Taskmaster began to spend more time working as a mercenary in order to make up for the loss of profit. This led him to join Agency X at the behest of his love interest Sandi Brandenberg, in missions from time to time, while continuing to teach at his academies around the world. More recently, Taskmaster is once again seen as a hired mercenary, contracted by the Committee to kill Moon Knight (Marc Spector). Taskmaster was misled with information that Moon Knight was broken, friendless and desiring death. During the conflict these factors all proved to be false as Marc's ex-girlfriend and butler came to Spector's defense and found the will to fight back. Despite his superior fighting abilities, Taskmaster was defeated. Moon Knight then carved off part of Taskmaster's facemask, though left him alive.[16]

Taskmaster also worked at training henchmen to copy fighting styles of specific heroes. Taskmaster unleashed Deathshield (trained to fight like Captain America), Jagged Bow (trained to fight like Hawkeye), and Blood Spider (trained to fight like Spider-Man) to face off against Spider-Man and Solo. The three were defeated, while Taskmaster escaped yet again.[17]

When the "Civil War" broke out, Taskmaster was hired by the government and enrolled into a team of Thunderbolts and given temporary amnesty to take down the Secret Avengers.[18] He later battles the Secret Avengers in New York. He attempts to kill Susan "Sue" Storm, only for Reed Richards to take the bullet. Enraged, Sue crushes him with an invisible telekinetic field, rendering him unconscious.[19] He was sent to the Negative Zone Prison with the other "Major-League" members of the Thunderbolts army such as Lady Deathstrike,[volume & issue needed] but was apparently freed by Deadpool.[20] In order to regain his own reputation as a mercenary, Deadpool frees Taskmaster from his imprisonment to have a showdown with him while potential merc contractors watched from their captive position in a nearby prison. Taskmaster is again referred to as Tasky by Deadpool, and a fight ensues between him and the manacled Deadpool. He mentions his professional ethics, but this simply comes down to deciding to simply maim his opponent rather than kill him. In the end, he is defeated by Deadpool who, in spite of the victory, fails to impress his captive audience. After being thanked for letting him win, Taskmaster tells Deadpool that he had not let him win, "The truth is... You're that good. You've always been that good. Which won't get you a cup of coffee until you figure out how to be a professional..."[21] Taskmaster was given a full presidential pardon for his efforts in testing the security of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, in which he was able to break in and place Deputy Director Maria Hill in his sights. Though he was allowed to leave, a threatening message left in Hill's private bathroom revealed that if he ever desired, infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. would be no difficult feat.[volume & issue needed]

Taskmaster replaces Gauntlet as Camp Hammond's drill instructor and is tasked with training registered superheroes for the Fifty State Initiative. Taskmaster would also be involved in MVP's cloning process inputting (via technology) the original's move set for the Scarlet Spiders as well as the move set of Spider-Man.[22]

Taskmaster is hired by Deadpool to help his old enemy and occasional friend defeat the Thunderbolts. Being disguised as Deadpool, he gets captured and is about to be beheaded when the real Deadpool saves him. Deadpool finally pays him, but he expresses annoyance at being paid from an ATM due to his major villain status.[23]

During the "Dark Reign" storyline, Taskmaster is chosen to lead the Shadow Initiative after the Skrull invasion, with their first mission to take down Hardball's HYDRA cell in Madripoor.[24] Along with Constrictor, Bengal, Typhoid Mary and Komodo, Taskmaster stealthily leads the group into the country, but they are soon discovered by HYDRA.[25] Norman Osborn appoints Taskmaster to train criminals for the new Initiative, to behave like heroes. His first task is to retrain Penance.[26] Also, when Blastaar takes control of the Negative Zone prison 42, Taskmaster is ordered to lead a squad to take the prison back.[27] Later, he gives Night Thrasher a severe bullet wound to the head, allowing Osborn to take Night Thrasher prisoner.[28] When Emma Frost and Namor resign from the Cabal, Taskmaster is offered membership.[29] Taskmaster was present at a meeting when Osborn discusses about Asgard.[30][31] He is severely wounded at the meeting as a result of an attack by Doctor Doom. While recovering in a hospital, Taskmaster declined to join the Cabal. Osborn cut the oxygen tank next to Taskmaster's bed, reminding him that it was Osborn who plucked him from obscurity. Taskmaster then agrees to join in the siege of Asgard.[29] During the battle, he fights with both versions of Captain America (Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes).[32] As Asgard falls, Taskmaster finds Constrictor and the two beat a hasty retreat, but not before Taskmaster taunts Osborn about how Taskmaster helped Deadpool. After Osborn's defeat by Captain America and Iron Man, Taskmaster and Constrictor went back to mercenary work.[33]

A false rumor is spread that Taskmaster is leaking information about the criminal underworld to Rogers's new 'heroic' regime. A bounty of $1,000,000,000 is placed on the Taskmaster's head by the mysterious Org. The hordes of AIM, HYDRA, the Secret Empire, ULTIMATUM, the Cyber Ninjas, the Black Choppers, the Trenchcoat Mafia, the Legions of the Living Lightning, the Militiamen, the Sons of the Serpent, and the Inquisition take up the chase to claim the money. Taskmaster, ambushed in a small diner, manages to best his opponents. But the diner's waitress, Mercedes Merced, gets entangled in the saga and is included in the bounty. Taskmaster reveals to Mercedes that his powers cause him to lose his explicit memory, meaning that he cannot remember anything about his personal life, and the only way for the whole ordeal to be over is to re-discover Taskmaster's origins.[34] Taskmaster and Mercedes' quest takes them to Mexico to battle the Don of the Dead,[35] and then to Bolivia to the village where everyone is Hitler. Inside an exact replica of Himmler's Wewelsburg Castle, Taskmaster regains his memories. He remembers being S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Tony Masters that had been sent to Bolivia to terminate Horst Gorscht, the Nazi scientist responsible for a corrupted version of the super-soldier serum. Gorscht had developed a new serum that could unlock the mind's potential to absorb knowledge instantaneously. With Gorscht's serum and test notes destroyed, Masters injected the last of the serum into himself. Having regained these memories, Taskmaster recognizes Mercedes' voice as being the same as 'The Hub', a mysterious voice who works for the Org. Taskmaster shoots Mercedes in the shoulder and threatens to kill her if she doesn't start talking. Mercedes reveals that the Org is a S.H.I.E.L.D. front, and that she is not only an agent, but also Taskmaster's wife. Miles above the Wewelsburg castle in an airship, the Minions' International Liberation Front (a secret group composed of henchmen from all of the major terrorist organizations), led by Redshirt the Uber-Henchman, reveal their deception and plot to rule the criminal underground by using Taskmaster to lead them straight to the Org.[1] Redshirt leads the Minions' International Liberation Front (or the acronym MILF for short) into battle against the Taskmaster and Mercedes. Mercedes convinces the Taskmaster to trust her and work together to fend off the forces of MILF. During the battle, Taskmaster regains his memories of Mercedes and how he fell in love with her. Before they can reconcile, Taskmaster is attacked from behind by Redshirt who has genetically altered his body and mastered superior fighting skills to those of Taskmaster. Redshirt gains the upper hand as the pair push each other to the limits. Mercedes tries to intervene to protect her husband, but is quickly and effortlessly cast to one side. Enraged, Taskmaster attacks Redshirt and delivers a killing blow using Redshirt's own fighting style (which causes Taskmaster to lose his memories once more). Taskmaster, not recognizing Mercedes or his reasons for being there, flees and leaves Mercedes alone once more.[volume & issue needed]

Avengers Academy student Finesse later seeks out Taskmaster, thinking that he may be her long-lost father. When she finds Taskmaster, Finesse ends up sparring with him. After much sparring, Taskmaster finally relents to tell Finesse that he very well might be her father, but that the powers to learn so much about others’ movements and techniques have caused him to forget important things in life. Knowing he likely will not remember the conversation in a couple days, Taskmaster tells Finesse that he wanted to fight her so he might remember her.[36]

During the 2011 "Fear Itself" storyline, Taskmaster comes to the aid of Alpha Flight when it comes to forming a resistance against the Unity Party that was formed by Master of the World.[37]

In order for the Masters of Evil to obtain the Crown of Wolves for the Shadow Council, Max Fury hired Taskmaster to retrieve it only for Taskmaster to demand more money for the job and he hid in the Hole. The Secret Avengers went to the Hole in order to get the Crown of Wolves before Fury got his hands on it. This led to a fight between Taskmaster and Agent Venom.[38] However, Taskmaster escaped and returned the crown to Fury, only for Max to apparently kill Taskmaster when he asks for payment. When the crown's effects don't function for Max, Taskmaster takes the crown for himself, which saves his life by making him the Avatar for the Abyss.[39] As the Abyss spreads, the Secret Avengers members Venom and Ant-Man are able to remove the crown and stop the spread, while Taskmaster and the Masters of Evil are left behind when the Avengers leave with Max in their custody.[40]

The criminals of Bagalia imprison Taskmaster and are preparing to offer him up to the highest bidder. S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Secret Avengers come to rescue him and offer him a position. As their inside man, Taskmaster is part of the new High Council of A.I.M. as the Minister of Defense.[41] Mockingbird later goes to A.I.M. Island to assist Taskmaster in helping make contact between the Iron Patriot A.I. drones and James Rhodes.[42] After the mission goes south and Mockingbird is left stranded on AIM Island,[volume & issue needed] Taskmaster works undercover to free her.[volume & issue needed] But when he gets the chance to get her off the island, she doesn't respond to anything he says until both are captured. While being interrogated, Taskmaster is shot and seemingly killed by Mockingbird apparently under the control of Scientist Supreme (Andrew Forson).[43] However, Mentallo discovered that Mockingbird purposely missed any vitals and Taskmaster survived.[44]

At the time when Captain America was brainwashed into being a Hydra sleeper agent by Red Skull's clone using the powers of Kobik, Taskmaster later relocated to Bagalia where he became its sheriff.[45]

When Taskmaster and Black Ant (Eric O'Grady's Life Model Decoy counterpart) found out what was done to Captain America to be made into a Hydra sleeper agent, they planned to have a parley with Maria Hill to discuss this with only for the new Madame Hydra (Elisa Sinclair) to get to them first.[46] Impressed with the fighting skills of the two of them, Madame Hydra made them bodyguards.[47]

During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Taskmaster appears as a member of Hydra's Avengers.[48] During the battle in Washington DC, Taskmaster and Black Ant witness their teammate Odinson having enough of working for Hydra and striking them down. The two of them defect from Hydra and free the captive Champions. When Taskmaster and Black Ant asks for them to put in a good word for them, Spider-Man webs them up anyway.[49]

Taskmaster and Black Ant later attack Empire State University where Dr. Curt Connors was teaching a class. As the inhibitor chip prevents Connors into turning into Lizard, Peter Parker sneaks off to become Spider-Man. During his fight with Black Ant and Taskmaster, Spider-Man is exposed to the Isotope Genome Accelerator that splits him from his Peter Parker side.[50]

In a prelude to "Hunted", Taskmaster and Black Ant work with Kraven the Hunter and Arcade in capturing some animal-themed characters for his upcoming hunt.[51] Black Ant and Taskmaster are talking about the Hunt. Taskmaster betrays Black Ant saying that Black Ant is an animal-themed villain and tasers Black Ant to get more money.[52] Lizard finds Taskmaster at the Pop-Up with No Name. Lizard proceeds to poisons him by slipping a poison into her beer. Lizard offers Taskmaster the antidote if he can take Lizard to Central Park. While traveling there, Lizard and Taskmaster defeat Vermin, freeing innocent bystanders. Taskmaster helps put a taser chip in Lizard's body, and takes him to Arcade.[53] Taskmaster frees Lizard from his binds and Lizard tells Taskmaster that the poison will wear off in 24 hours.[54] Taskmaster makes off with Black Ant before Yellowjacket, Human Fly, Razorback, Toad, and White Rabbit can take revenge on him. As they leave, Taskmaster states that Black Ant would've done the same for him. When Black Ant asks "Do you mean the betrayal part or the rescue part?" All Taskmaster can say is "yeah!"[55]

During the "King in Black" storyline, Taskmaster is among the villains recruited by Mayor Wilson Fisk to be part of his Thunderbolts at the time of Knull's invasion. While having argued with Mister Fear over who was the first villain to wear a skull mask, Taskmaster becomes the de facto field leader of the group. Following the deaths of Ampere and Snakehead, Taskmaster couldn't stop Rhino from walking off and tells the remaining members not to help the Manhattan Defenders. He and the Thunderbolts arrive at Ravencroft to meet with Norman Osborn who Mayor Fisk claims can help them defeat Knull.[56]

[tinyshe]

Story at-a-glance

Technocracy is not based on common pricing mechanisms such as supply and demand or free commerce. Instead, the economy of technocracy is based on energy resources, which then dictates the types of products being produced, bought, sold and consumed

Technocracy, the brainchild of which were scientists and engineers, requires social engineering to keep the system working; hence the need for massive data mining and surveillance

Many of the terms we’ve heard more and more of in recent years refer to technocracy under a different name. Examples include sustainable development, Agenda 21, the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda, green economy, the green new deal and the global warming movement in general. The Paris Climate Agreement is also part and parcel of the technocratic agenda

Other terms that are synonymous with technocracy include the Great Reset, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Build Back Better

The common goal of all these movements is to capture all the world’s resources for a small global elite that have the know-how to program the computer systems that will come to dictate the lives of everyone. It’s the ultimate form of totalitarianism and the absolute destruction of personal freedom and privacy

In the video  above [go here], James Delingpole interviews Patrick Wood, an economist,  financial analyst and American constitutionalist who has devoted a lifetime to  researching and understanding technocracy — a resource-based economic system created   from scratch that really has no equal in terms of what the average person has  any understanding of.

Wood has written two fascinating books on this topic: “Technocracy  Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation”1 and “Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order.”2

As explained by Wood, this new  economic system — which is not a natural one — is not based on common pricing  mechanisms such as supply and demand or free commerce. Instead, the economy of technocracy  is based on energy resources, which then dictates the types of products being  produced, bought, sold and consumed. In essence, energy replaces the concept of  money as a commodity.

That’s strange enough, but it gets stranger still. Technocracy, which emerged  in the 1930s during the height of the Great Depression, the brainchild of which  were scientists and engineers, also requires social engineering to keep the  system working.

Sustainable Development intends to take control  of all resources, all production and all consumption on planet earth, leaving  all of its inhabitants to be micro-managed by a scientific dictatorship. ~  Patrick Wood

If people are allowed to do what  they want, consumer demand ultimately drives commerce, but that won’t work  here. Instead, consumers need to be directed, herded if you will, to consume  that which the system needs them to consume, and in order for that to happen,  they need to be more or less brainwashed. As a result, the technocratic system  requires extensive surveillance and artificial intelligence-driven technologies  to keep everyone in check.

Technocracy Is Not a  Political System

What’s more, technocracy seeks to  eliminate elected officials and government as a whole. They have no place in  this system which, when fully implemented, would run itself more or less  automatically, with input at the top by the technological masterminds. There’s  also no room for nations or nationalism that might influence behavior.

As noted by Wood, Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel “Brave  New World” offers a compelling glimpse into technocracy. There’s no political   system. It’s all run by engineers and scientists, and the algorithms they  create. As noted in the description for “Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order:”3

As a resource-based economic system, Sustainable  Development intends to take control of all resources, all production and all   consumption on planet earth, leaving all of its inhabitants to be micro-managed  by a Scientific Dictatorship.

While  the technocratic plan has been underway for decades, things have been rolled  out in rapid succession this year. If you’ve formed the impression that we’re  all suffering from some sort of “boiled frog” syndrome, you’d probably be  right.

Self-evident  rights have been stripped from us and people have more or less grown to accept  situations that would have been unthinkable a year ago. We’ve been told to work  from home and avoid going anywhere. Our businesses have been shuttered “to  protect public health.”

We’ve  been told to wear face coverings even while outdoors, while eating and in our  own homes. We’re now told we’ll have to have vaccine  passports if we want to get on a flight in the future, and world leaders  are openly talking about the  Great Reset.

Now,  the central banks were obviously part of this plan too, from the very  beginning. The central bank system is crashing as we speak, having reached the  end of its functional life as the global debt burden exceeds countries’ ability  to pay the interest, but the reset they’re talking about is not another central  bank system.

It  will be centralized, yes, but again, the very basis of the global economy will  shift away from the commodity of money to the commodity of energy. In the  interview, Wood explains how the technocratic elite, members of the Trilateral  Commission in particular, have influenced and manipulated economic regulations  to ensure their success.

Sustainable Development,  Agenda 21 — It’s All Technocracy

As explained by Wood, many of the terms we’ve heard more and more of in recent  years refer to technocracy under a different name. Examples include sustainable  development, Agenda 21, the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda, green economy,  the green new deal and the global warming movement in general.

They all refer to and are part of technocracy and  resource-based economics. Other terms that are synonymous with technocracy  include the Great Reset,4 the Fourth Industrial Revolution5 and the slogan Build Back Better.6 The Paris Climate Agreement is also part and parcel of the technocratic agenda.

The common goal of all these movements and agendas is to capture all of the resources of the world — the ownership of them — for a small global  elite group that has  the know-how to program the computer systems that will ultimately dictate the  lives of everyone. It’s really the ultimate form of  totalitarianism.

When  they talk about “wealth redistribution,” what they’re really referring to, Wood  notes, is the redistribution of resources from us to them. My previous article, “The  Global Takeover Is Underway,” features a video by the World  Economic Forum where they straight up say that by 2030, you will own nothing.  Everything you need you will rent.

Technocracy 2030 — A Glimpse  Into the Future

A glimpse  into this future was also offered in a November 2016 Forbes article written by  an unnamed person from the World Economic Forum Leadership Strategy team. It  reads, in part:7

“Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city — or should I say,  "our city." I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a  house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes.

It  might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city.  Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access  to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily  lives …

In our  city we don't pay any rent, because someone else is using our free space  whenever we do not need it. My living room is used for business meetings when I  am not there.

Once in  a while, I will choose to cook for myself. It is easy — the necessary kitchen  equipment is delivered at my door within minutes … Shopping? I can't really remember what that is. For most of   us, it has been turned into choosing things to use. Sometimes I find this fun,  and sometimes I just want the algorithm to do it for me. It knows my taste  better than I do by now …

The concept of rush hour  makes no sense anymore, since the work that we do can be done at any time. I  don't really know if I would call it work anymore. It is more like  thinking-time, creation-time and development-time …

My  biggest concern is all the people who do not live in our city. Those we lost on  the way. Those who decided that it became too much, all this technology. Those  who felt obsolete and useless when robots and AI took over big parts of our  jobs.

Those  who got upset with the political system and turned against it. They live  different kind of lives outside of the city. Some have formed little  self-supplying communities. Others just stayed in the empty and abandoned  houses in small 19th century villages.

Once in  a while I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. Nowhere I can  go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and  dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me. All in  all, it is a good life.”

However, if you rent everything and have no  private property of your own, then who does  own all of those things? The technocratic elite that owns  all the energy resources does. Disturbingly enough, one form of energy resource  that modern technocrats apparently intend to harvest, if patents are any  indication, is the human body.

Human Body Activity as an  Energy Resource

Microsoft’s  international patent8 WO/2020/060606 describes a “cryptocurrency system using body activity data.”  The international patent was filed June 20, 2019. The U.S. patent office  application,9 16128518, was filed September 21, 2018. As explained in the abstract:10

“Human body activity associated with a task  provided to a user may be used in a mining process of a cryptocurrency system.  A server may provide a task to a device of a user which is communicatively   coupled to the server. A sensor communicatively coupled to or comprised in the  device of the user may sense body activity of the user.

Body activity data may be generated based on  the sensed body activity of the user. The cryptocurrency system communicatively  coupled to the device of the user may verify if the body activity data satisfies  one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award  cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified.”

The  U.S. patent application includes the following flow chart summary of the  process.11 This patent, if implemented, would  essentially turn human beings into robots. If you’ve ever wondered how the  average person will make a living in the AI tech-driven cashless world of the  future, this may be part of your answer.

People  will be brought down to the level of mindless drones, spending their days  carrying out tasks automatically handed out by, say a cellphone app, in return  for a cryptocurrency “award.” This kind of merging of digital and biological  systems is ultimately what “the Fourth Industrial  Revolution” is all about.

Who Are the Technocrats?

While technocracy used to be an  actual private club, the technocrats of today do not necessarily have membership  cards, so it can be difficult to correctly identify them all. Key players,  however, are the members of the Trilateral Commission, Wood says.

You cannot simply join the  Trilateral Commission. They select their own members, and it’s by invitation  only. A list of the members as of 2020 can be found on FredDonaldson.com.12 Well-known names in the U.S. Trilateral group include David Rockefeller, Henry  Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg and Google heavyweights Eric Schmidt and Susan  Molinari, vice president for public policy at Google.

Recognizing the necessity of the media, there’s also David Ignatius, a  columnist for The Washington Post; David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent  for The New York Times; and Gerald Seib, executive editor at The Wall Street  Journal.

It’s an interesting list of  individuals that can be worth reviewing to get an idea of where, how and  through whom technocracy is gaining ground and being implemented. Other groups  to look at include:

The Club of Rome

The Aspen Institute, which has  groomed and mentored executives from around the world about the subtleties of  globalization. Many of its board members are also members of the Trilateral  Commission

The Atlantic Institute

The World Economic Forum

The Brookings Institute and other  think-tanks

Certain individuals can also be  identified by their actions. Examples given in the interview include Bill Gates  and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Once you become familiar with the  technocratic agenda, you can start to recognize the players rather easily.

The Pandemic Is Part of the Technocratic Takeover Too

Last  but not least, the pandemic is part and parcel of the technocrats’ Great Reset  that will usher in a whole new world of unimaginable restrictions on freedom. It  has already accomplished a massive redistribution of wealth — again, from the  middle class, from small business owners, to large multinational companies such  as Amazon.

Eventually,  don’t be surprised if you hear talk about providing everyone with a basic  income — a step toward the 2030 cashless “utopia” where you own nothing — and  universal debt forgiveness in return for the forfeiture of all rights to  private ownership going forward.

The  lockdowns also had the effect of demolishing local economies around the world —  an entirely needless manmade situation that is now used as an excuse for why we  so desperately need to “reset” the economic system, and while we’re at it, we  should “build back better.”

Lockdowns  and school closings have ushered in calls for more online learning, which locks  youths into the digital surveillance matrix to an even greater extent than  before, and as the COVID-19  vaccine is being rolled out, it sets the stage for biometric surveillance,   tracking and tracing, which will eventually be tied in with all your other  medical records, digital ID, digital banking and a social credit system.

All  of this in turn requires 5G,  which just so happens to be rolling out in the midst of this pandemic. Again,  once you become more familiar with the technocratic agenda, you’ll see how all  these seemingly random events are not particularly random at all, but weave  together, forming a grand net — and we are what’s for dinner.

The  answer is to, first, educate yourself and others. I urge you to listen to  Wood’s interview in its entirety, as he goes over a lot that I have not  summarized here. Once you can see the plan, the next step is to resist and  object to any and all implementations of the technocratic agenda. We can win,  for the simple fact that there are more of us than there are of them, but we  have to be vocal about it — we need to join forces and present a united  front. 

+ Sources and References

source

  Study Feeding Pigs Human Food Canceled for Cruelty

[danielmanlangit]

PORTFOLIO IN EMPOWERMENT TECHNOLOGY

                                          CHAPTER 1 LESSON 1: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY   - Is a branch of engineering that involves the conception, design, manufacture, and operation of robots. This field overlaps with electronics, computer science, artificial intelligence, mehcatronics, nanotechonology and bioengineering.                                        CONTENT STANDARD 

 - The learners demonstrate an understanding of ICT in the context of global communication for specific professional track.  

                     Performance Standards

  - The learners shall be able to: at the end of the 2-week period independently compose an insightful reflection paper on the nature of ICT in the context of their lives, society, and professional tracks (Arts, Tech Vocational, Sports and Academic)

                 Most essential learning competencies 

                  The learners should be able to:

1. Compare and contrast the nuances of varied online platforms, sites, and content to best achieve specific class objectives or address situational challenges.

2. Apply online safety, security, ethics, and etiquette standards and practice in the use of ICTs as it would relate to their professional tracks. 3. Use the internet as a tool for credible research and information gathering to best achieve specific class objectives or address situational.

          1.1 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

      -  ICT  is the technology required for information processing, in particular, the use of the electronic computers, communication devices and software applications to convert, store, protect, process, transmit and retrieve information from anywhere, anytime.

     - Information refers to the knowledge obtained from reading, investigation, study or research. The tools to transmit information are the telephone, television and radio. Information is knowledge and helps us to fulfill our daily tasks.        -  Communication is an act of transmitting messages. It is a process whereby information was exchanged between individuals using symbols, signs or verbal interactions. Communication is important in order to gain knowledge. Technology is the use of scientific knowledge, experience and resources to create processes products that fulfill human needs. Technology is vital in communication.  

    -  ICT nowadays has also widened the horizon in developing new tools or emerging technologies. Mobile devices can communicate through wireless fidelity (Wifi), Bluetooth, third generation 3g & 4g, data services and dial up services and virtual private networks.                                     EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

    -  Artificial Intelligence (AI) - is the ability of a digital computer or computer controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristics of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize or learn from past experience.                                              ROBOTICS

 - Is a branch of engineering that involves the conception, design, manufacture, and operation of robots. This field overlaps with electronics, computer science, artificial intelligence, mehcatronics, nanotechonology and bioengineering.                                        BIOMETRICS

-  Are a way to measure a person’s physical characteristics to verify their identity. These can include physiological traits, such as fingerprints and eyes, or behavioral characteristics, such as the unique way you’d complete a security-authentication puzzle.                                  QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY

-  Also called quantum encryption, applies principles of quantum mechanics to encrypt messages in a way that it is never read by anyone outside of the intended recipient.                           COMPUTER ASSISTED TRANSLATION

-  Involves the use of software programs to translate both verbal and written texts. Also known as machine-assisted or machine aided translation.                                3D IMAGING AND HOLOGRAPHY

-  Is defined as a 3D projection that exists freely in space and is visible to everyone without the need for 3D glasses.                                      VIRTUAL REALITY

-  Refers to the computer generated simulation in which a person can interact within an artificial 3D environment using special electronic devices that can be similar to or completely different from the real world.                                       ONLINE SAFETY

-  Is the knowledge of maximizing the user’s personal safety and security and risk to private information, and self-protection from computer crime in general. 1. Know the scams -  Learn about different kinds of scams and what you can do to avoid them.

2. Think before you click - Think twice, thrice and zillion time before click any link or buttons.

3. Safety Peruse - These sites may have an Address that’s very similar to a legitimate site, but the page can have misspelling, Bad Grammar, or low resolution Images.

4. Shop Safety -  Don’t shop on a site unless it has “https” and a padlock icon on the left or right in the URL.

5. Kick-butt passwords -  Use an Extremely uncrackable password One like “9&4thkel965#”.

6. Protect your info’s -  Keep your guard up, Back up all your data on your computer, smartphone and tablet, theft or a cash.

7. Watch your Wi-Fi Connectivity -  Protect your network by changing your router’s setting and making sure that you have the connection password protected.

8. Install a Firewall -  A firewall is a grate line of defense against cyber attracts.

9. Keep up to date -  The best security updates automatically to protect your computer. -  Use the manufacturer’s latest security patches to make regular updates and make that you have the software set to do routine scam.

10. Use your Noggin -  Use your common sense while surfing the web.

               COMMON ISSUES AND CRIMES IN THE INTERNET - CYBERBULLYING - HACKING - IDENTITY THEFT - PLAGIARISM - COPYRIGHT ISSUES                                          CYBERBULLYING                     -  Is a form of bullying or harassment using electronic means. Cyberbullying and Cyber Harassment are also known as online bullying.                     - Cyberbullying is when someone, typically teens, bully or harass others on the internet, particularly on social media sites. Harmful bullying behavior can include posting rumors, threats, sexual remarks, a victims’ personal information, or pejorative labels.                              THE ANTI-BULLYING ACT OF 2013                                               ( RA 10627 )

(Sec. 2, RA 10627) These acts are collectively “called cyber bullying” when committed online.  (Sec. 2-D, RA 10627) This covers social bullying aiming to belittle another individual or group or gender-based bullying that humiliates another on the basis of perceived or actual sexual orientation and gender identity. (Sec. 3, B-1 RA 10627. Implementing Rules). THE REVISED PENAL CODE AND THE CYBERCRIME PREVENTION ACT.            -  One who publicly or maliciously imputes to another a crime, vice, defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or blacken the memory of one who is dead may be liable for libel under this Code. (Art, 353, RPC) These acts are more severely punished when done online in addition to the civil action for damages which may be brought by the offended party. (Sec. 4(c-4), RA 10175) Cyberlibel holds liable only the original author of the post (Sec. 5(3), Implementing Rules of RA 10175) Likers or shares of a post cannot be held liable under this law.           -  Slander may also be applicable to one who, in heat of anger, utters statements that are highly defamatory in character. (Art 358, RPC) Intriguing Against Honour may also find applicability when the principal purpose is to blemish the honour or reputation of a person. Hence, a blind ite is not as actionable as a named-post in social media.                                             HACKING

-  Hacking generally refers to unauthorized intrusion into a computer or a network. The person engaged in hacking activities is known as a hacker. This hacker may alter system or security features to accomplish a goal that differs from the original purpose of the system. -  Hacking can also refer to non-malicious activities, usually involving unusual or improvised alterations to equipment or processes.

                                      IDENTITY THEFT

- Also known as identity fraud, is a crime in which an imposter obtains key pieces of personally identifiable information, such as Social Security or driver's license numbers, in order to impersonate someone else.                  TYPES AND EXAMPLES OF IDENTITY THEFT 1. True-name identity theft means the thief uses personal information to open new accounts. The thief might open a new credit card account, establish cellular phone service or open a new checking account in order to obtain blank checks. 2. Account-takeover identity theft means the imposter uses personal information to gain access to the person's existing accounts.                                           PLAGIARISM

-  Is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.                    The following are considered plagiarism -  turning in someone else's work as your own -  copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit -  failing to put a quotation in quotation marks -  giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation -  changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit -  copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules) Republic Act No. 8293 [An Act Prescribing the Intellectual Property Code and Establishing the Intellectual Property Office, Providing for Its Powers and Functions, and for Other Purposes]otherwise known as the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.  Intellectual property rights under the I. P. Code: The intellectual property rights under the Intellectual Property Code are as follows:              1.  Copyright and related rights;        2.  Trademarks and service marks;        3.  Geographic indications;        4.  Industrial designs;        5.  Patents;        6.  Layout designs [topographies] of integrated      circuits; and        7.  Protection of undisclosed information.  The scheme of penalties for infringement has also been changed.  From the previous fine of Php200 to Php2,000 and/or imprisonment of 1 year, the current range of penalties are as follows:  -  For first offenders - fine of PhP50,000 to PhP150,000 and/or imprisonment of 1 to 3 years   -  For second offenders - fine of PhP150,000 to PhP500,000 and/or imprisonment of 3 to 6  years   -  For third and subsequent offenders - fine of PhP500,000 to PhP1.5 Million and/or imprisonment of 6 to 9 years.   -  In case of insolvency, the offender shall furthermore suffer subsidiary imprisonment.                                          NETIQUETTE -  Is a combination of the word net and etiquette.It focuses on the acceptable behavior of a person while using the internet resource. -  It focuses on the acceptable behavior of a person while using the internet resource.                          The Core Rules of Netiquette     Rule 1. Remember the human. -  Never forget that the person reading your mail or posting is, indeed, a person, with feelings that can be hurt. -  Corollary 1 to Rule #1: It's not nice to hurt other people's feelings. -  Corollary 2: Never mail or post anything you wouldn't say to your reader's face. -  Corollary 3: Notify your readers when flaming. Rule 2. Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life. Corollary 1: Be Ethical  Corollary Corollary 2: Breaking the law is bad Netiquette. Rule 3. Know where you are in cyberspace. Corollary 1: Netiquette varies from domain to domain. Corollary 2: Lurk before you leap. Rule 4. Respect other people's time and bandwidth. Corollary 1: It's OK to think that what you're doing at the moment is the most important thing in the universe, but don't expect anyone else to agree with you Corollary 2: Post messages to the appropriate discussion group.Corollary 3: Try not to ask stupid questions on discussion groups Corollary 4: Read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document Corollary 5: When appropriate, use private email instead of posting to the group Corollary 6: Don't post subscribe, unsubscribe, or FAQ requests Corollary 7: Don't waste expert readers' time by posting basic information Corollary 8: If you disagree with the premise of a discussion group, don't waste the time and bandwidth of the members by telling them how stupid they are.Just stay away Corollary 9: Conserve bandwidth when you retrieve information from a host or server. Rule 5. Make yourself look good online. Corollary 1: Check grammar and spelling before you post Corollary 2: Know what you're talking about and make sense Corollary 3: Don't post flame-bait Rule 6. Share expert knowledge. Corollary 1: Offer answers and help to people who ask questions on discussion groups Corollary 2: If you've received email answers to a posted question, summarize them and post the summary to the discussion group. Rule 7. Help keep flame wars under control. Corollary 1: Don't respond to flame-bait Corollary 2: Don't post spelling or grammar flames Corollary 3: If you've posted flame-bait or perpetuated a flame war, apologize Rule 8. Respect other people's privacy. - Don't read other people's private email. Rule 9. Don't abuse your power. -  The more power you have, the more important it is that you use it well Rule 10. Be forgiving of other people's mistakes.          CONTEXTUALIZED ONLINE SEARCH AND RESEARCH SKILLS

-  Online search is the process of interactively searching for and  retrieving requested information via a computer from  databases that are online. Interactive searches became  possible in the 1980s with the advent of faster databases and  smart terminals.                         Advantages and Disadvantages Advantages: -  Ability to obtain a large sample, which increases statistical power -  Data is automatically coded so no data entry errors -  Reduced cost of conducting research Disadvantages: Online is not totally secure and theft is one of the numerous danger it poses, researchers personal information is at risk of being access by rogue persons. -  Some of the materials on the internet have not been evaluated by experts or thoroughly screened -  Lack of accreditation and low quality

                                RESEARCH SKILLS “Research” sometimes just means finding out information about a topic.You can certainly develop advanced information retrieval skills in Working  with Sources. However, in specific understandings of “research” carry a lot  of weight. The classic definition is that “research” leads to an original  contribution to knowledge in a particular field of inquiry by defining an  important question or problem and then answering or solving it in a  systematic way. - So you will need to read on to develop a relevant understanding of what research means in your subject. - Research skills can be anything from looking  at competitors and seeing what they do well  to producing a written report on how your  department could work better. Doing research  in the world of work is all about stepping back  from your day-to-day work and looking at  ways you can improve.                           Important aspects of research: -  Research design covers the key issues in developing a successful research  project. -  Research methods takes you to resources on essential techniques for carrying out convincing research. -  Working with data will provide resources on the use of statistics and other  numerical skills in research.                       Improving Your Research Skills Online   1. Know your sources. Make sure to find the most reliable information which can be found in multiple sources or, better, to have the original source. 2. Use your web browser properly. Know the capabilities of your preferred browser to help make your search faster and easier. 3. Organize your bookmarks. It is to organize the links you have marked. 4. Learn to use advanced search engines. Practice using advanced search techniques which are available in Google. 5. Follow the web. Follow the web information in the web. Just make sure to read and be critical in every link you click. SIX STRATEGIES THAT CAN HELP  ONLINE STUDENTS PRODUCE  STRONGER RESEARCH. 1. Contact a librarian before getting stuck  sifting through piles of online information. 2. Consider that when in doubt, it's wiser to  over-cite sources than risk plagiarism. 3. Use Google and other reliable resources at the  beginning of a research process, not the end. 4. Don't think that the Web is your  only source of information. 5. Understand the professor's  expectations for citation format. 6. Understand why professors still  assign research projects.        Some examples of research  skills that you may have include: 1. Report writing. 2. Analyzing lots of information from different sources. 3. Finding information off the internet. 4. Critical thinking.                                               CHAPTER 2                               APPLIED PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS Productivity Tools -  It is a tools that can be a freeware or shareware. Freeware -  is copyrighted, which can be used for free and for an unlimited time. Shareware  - is a commercial software that is copyrighted, which can be copied for trial but needs to be purchased for continued use.              Advanced Techniques Using Microsoft Word Microsoft Office Word

- One of the software of Microsoft Office 2013 suite. - Offers a set of tools that is compared to its previous versions. - Along with its new features are advanced techniques including hyperlinks, macros and mail merge. Hyperlink

- A link that will direct you to another page or part of the same document. Creating a Hyperlink to an Existing Document - Suppose you are to link a part of your document to an existing document. - Click your mouse on the location in the document where you want to insert the hyperlink.  - On the Insert Tab, click the Hyperlink button on the Links group. - On the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, click Existing File or Web Page and then select the File name where the source file is located and then hyperlink will be created on your document. - Press Ctrl+ click on the Hyperlink to open the linked file.                                        Mail Merge

- Is a useful tool that allows you to quickly produce and send information, newsletter, resumes, or brochures to many people.                               Creating a Mail Merge 1. Open the word document that you want to Mail Merge. 2. On the Ribbon, click the Mailings tab, go to the Start Mail Merge group and click Start Mail Merge and select Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard. 3. The task pane will show the Mail Merge steps 1 to 6.                                     PowerPoint

- It allows you to create slide show presentations wherein you can format the texts and images, adding also animations and other multimedia components interactively.                                       Excel

- One of the applications created by Microsoft, used to simulate a paper worksheet.

- It is composed of cells that are represented in rows and columns design to perform basic arithmetic operations. - Widely used in accounting and financial applications, as well as statistics and engineering calculations. The following are the common Excel Functions: = SUM – Calculates the sum of the values of a range of cells = AVERAGE – Calculates the arithmetic mean of a range of cells = MAX - Gives the maximum value in a range of cells = MIN - Gives the minimum value in a range of cells = COUNT - Counts the number of cells in a range of cells                             BENIFITS OF ONLINE SOFTWARE Convenience - The applications should be intuitive and easy to use to ensure everyone can use them without spending a lot of time learning how. Scalability - The applications should be  able to be used in all areas of your business and also work effectively no matter how much demand there is to use them or how much your business grows. Safety - All the applications should be safe to use with all existing systems and should have the ability to fully integrate with all other software and not inhibit the workers ability to do their job. Sustainability - All consumer-based software should be flexible and adaptable to have the ability to last for up to 10 years, but they must be able to expand functionally with other developments in software and operating systems.                     PRINCIPLES OF GRAPHICS AND DESIGN BALANCE UNITY MOVEMENT REPITITION PROXIMITY CONTRAST WHITESPACE BALANCE

- Describes the placement of elements of equal weight on the page. MOVEMENT

- Describes the flow of elements on the page.

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 172

One Step, A Thousand Operations

How good are we aware of the operations of systems and mechanisms that make us walk?

Costly research and development efforts are under way in centers throughout the world seeking to build walking robots by mimicking human mobility. After 14 years of research, automotive firms built Asimo, a robot which can walk bipedally and climb stairs like humans. Even though the moves Asimo could make matched those of a one year old baby, it was still considered a great success for the robot technology.

Hardships encountered during these research projects proved walking to be a great miracle, apart from normal habits of movement. We often become aware of how extraordinary movement is and that the moves we repeat hundreds of times, such as walking, running, bending, sitting and standing, are blessings granted to us only when we see someone who has lost some of their mobility.

That humans can walk bi-pedally is truly exceptional. Most organisms have a front leaning skeletal structure and walk on four extremities; they only stand upright when absolutely required to, since it is very difficult for them. Human ability to stand upright and walk on two legs truly signifies them as special amongst creatures, and sets them apart from all of creation. The lively, regal posture of dexterous bipedal humans constitutes very important evidence showing they are "the most superior of all creatures."

The multifunctional, flexible nature of our skeletal system enables us to complete very simple moves automatically. Walking seems to be a very easy task, however, it occurs as a calculated outcome of many factors, such as determination of stepping distance, the toning of corresponding muscles of the same and opposite direction, relaxation and contraction levels, and relocation of the body's gravity center.

Walking takes place via the coordinated works of the locomotor (musculoskeletal) system, motor control system, and balance-coordination system.

Locomotor (musculoskeletal) system

The framework of the human body is built together with 206 bones of variable hardness. With their strong nature and capacity to endure extra weights, bones takes up 20% of a body's mass, and are the major load bearing part of the body's structure.

The main part of our skeleton is the vertebral column. It consists of 33 small bones, known as vertebrae, positioned on top of each other. Wear-preventing discs are found in between vertebrae to protect against motion related wearing over time. As the vertebral column holds the weight of the upper body, it is created in a way to keep the body upright. The spinal cord inside the channel that is surrounded by the vertebral column is a very important signaling network providing coordination between the brain and other organs.

Joints and ligaments are among the moving parts of our body. The most important joints for walking are the hips, knees, and ankles. The curvy shape of the foot and its contact to the ground at three spots supports bones against body weight and helps with balance. This is why flat footed people struggle with walking and get tired easily. The curves of our spine at the neck, back and waist regions, and the hips, knee joints, and curvature of the foot, are perfectly shaped for standing upright and walking.

In order to move we need a muscle system along with the skeletal system. Muscles are made up of thousands of contractible muscle fibers. There are more than 6 billion muscle fiber motors in the human body. We walk, run, eat, breathe, talk and do many more moves by using ability granted to muscles. Approximately 35 muscles in each leg, and around 100 muscles in the whole body, function during walking.

Ligaments and tendons are links that secure bones and muscles together; they also help to stabilize joints, thus when standing, joints remain in place without muscles contracting.

Four different mechanisms are involved in walking:

Proper upright posture and maintenance of balance during walking

Forward motion of body via muscle power

Reduction of shock-impact effect while stepping

Maintenance of motion with the least amount of energy.

A series of movements is generated in the legs to provide a forward motion and these are constantly repeated. These constant repetitions are called the "walk cycle." The "passing pose" is defined as the time frame when the leg is in the air, and the contact pose is the phase during ground contact. In the middle of the contact pose, even though body is in balance, because of the forward momentum of the body, balance is lost, thus the body leans forward. Balance is then restored by stepping on the ground with the leg in the air. As a result of this rhythmic loss and restoration of balance, the body moves forward.

In a person standing upright, the center of gravity is in front of the fifth vertebra. At the start of a walk, the body leans forward to carry the center of gravity towards the front; then the initiation of the motion via forward transfer of the power with toes and joints takes place, followed by the lifting of the heels, the bending of the knees, and the lifting of the foot, thus displacing the center of gravity of the forward leaning body towards the front.

Balance should be maintained when one leg is lifted in order to let the other leg carry the load of the body's weight. The gravitational center of the body is located in the distance between the two legs since each leg is located on the side. Body balance is maintained by the contractions of dorsal muscles located across the side of the stepping foot, working in parallel to support and transfer body weight to the foot via the hip and femoral muscles. These events happen so quickly that we often do not even notice all the complicated processes.

The great Sufi figure Abdul-Qadir Gilani was often asked questions such as, "Master, show us a miracle." He would stand up to walk three to five steps and sit back down. Everybody was confused, looking at each other. One person among them was heard saying, "Master, excuse us but we can all do that as well." Gilani replied then, "Is there a greater miracle than walking? You see it, but do not understand."

Motor control of walking

Bodily motions are controlled via the primary motor centers that are located on the side and cortex region of the brain. These centers are created in a way to prepare and organize motor programs involving body movements, and to integrate them with the proprioceptive memory. This synthesis of information enables the adaptation of motor commands to the present posture of the legs and arms regarding intended moves.

A desire to make a move is a necessary prerequisite for the stimulation of muscles pertaining to it. If we want to hold something, we can easily do it; when we want to raise our arm, our elbows bend; to run or walk, our leg muscles start to move and work. How do all of those moves happen? Is our desire enough to do so? Can the guidance of all the bones and muscles, working together towards the same target, happen by itself or occur via coincidences?

In order for muscles to move, our thoughts must be relayed to them and this is provided by the nervous system and nerve network. There is an amazing communication network present in our body. In case of an intended move, an electric signal is sent by the brain. During this journey, which seems to be complicated, the signal arrives at the spinal cord and then quickly diverts to the corresponding organ. Millions of motors that make up the muscle are stimulated by the electric signal, contracting the fibers instantly upon reception of the signal. In order to do a coordinated move, it is necessary to know the related body organs' positions and their relations to each other. Millions of transmitters that provide this information have been placed throughout the body. This data come from the eyes, the inner ear's balance and sensory organs, muscles, joints, and skin. There are billions of micro receptors located in muscles and joints programmed to send instantaneous positions of the body to the central nervous system. In every stage of a move, the positions of the muscles are reported instantly to the command center by these micro receptors inside the muscles. New commands are given to the muscles based on the assessments made here. This way, each second, billions of bits of information can be processed and assessed.

The cerebellum is another center that is in charge of functions such as maintenance of balance during walking and standing, carrying out proper and coordinated moves with visual control, providing coordination among muscle groups, promptly starting and stopping movements, and the maintenance and organization of normal muscle toning. The cerebellum is tasked primarily with hastened muscle activities like running, typing, and talking. Thus, fast moves necessary for the balance system are sustained properly and successively without abnormal oscillations.

Specific motion templates have been programmed in the spinal cord for all muscle-covered regions of the body. Rhythmic movements, such as forward and backward motion of the legs and arms, and coordinated activities of other body parts in tandem with walking, are controlled here. The task to control repeated moves like walking is assigned to the nerve network consisting of the spinal cord, brainstem and cerebellum.

Balance and coordination system

One of the requirements to walk and move is to stay in balance. Despite our advanced musculoskeletal system, without balance, this system of ours would be useless, or even dangerous.. Our balance system, which is in charge of the instantaneous control and fine adjustments regarding our body, is granted to us as a blessing of Divine compassion.

There are three systems that provide data involving the positions of the head and body: vestibular system (the apparatus of the inner ear), visual senses, proprioceptive senses

The vestibular structures are an essential part of the balance system. They are found in the inner ear, and are small and complicated systems. This 6.5 mm diameter wide system is composed of semicircular channels that contain specific fluid and ciliated sensory cells that cover the inner linings of the channels. This system constantly reports information involving our status in the outer world and instantaneous changes to the balance system.

When we move, the fluid inside the semicircular inner ear channels get displaced; this motion vibrates the cilia. This vibration causes an electric signal to generate in the cells. This electrical signal is then transmitted to the cerebellum; received information gets evaluated instantly in the cerebellum. This system is created to function autonomously without our will and control. When this system is impaired, balance disorders occur, such as dizziness.

Information regarding our position in the environment and the relative status of the environment according to us is sent to the cerebellum and brainstem via our visual senses.

Proprioceptive senses are formed via the activities of tension receptors built in muscle fibers, tendons and joint capsules. These are sensitive to motions and positions. These receptors regularly provide information to the central nervous system. The cerebellum receives information from all the muscles and joints of the body, including the eyes. These inputs are analyzed very promptly at the cerebellum, and the relative gravitational position of the body is finely calculated, thus the proper motions of muscles are determined. The resulting response is relayed towards muscles by nerves. These events take place in a time frame that does not even last for a hundredth of a second. We easily walk, run, and do complicated moves without feeling any of these activities happening inside us. Yet the calculations taking place in our body even for a single moment of those movements can fill thousands of pages.

To understand the fascinating side of our ordinary movements, let's consider a person climbing up the stairs. First, the eyes scan the surroundings, then the three dimensional information of positions acquired from the materials and belongings in the environment are transmitted to the brain. Once received, the information is analyzed and the necessary commands are sent to the target organ from the motor centers of the brain. Commands passing through related tracks and centers finally arrive at the musculoskeletal system. Many factors, like the height of stair steps, length and depth of the foot step, center of gravity and position of the body, are calculated and determined almost instantly

Proprioceptive signals constantly report the positions of organs, like the arms and legs, to the command center. Inner ear receptors are in charge of the prompt transmission of information necessary for balance, like motion, speed, and direction of the body. These inputs are calculated in milliseconds at corresponding centers in order to maintain the coordination and harmony of the entire body. A person who is running up the stairs may think to jump a couple of stairs. This change of command is rerouted to the locomotor system as a new and different command from the brain. All of these processes are completed in centiseconds. In the mean time, the head, shoulders, and arms are employed for rhythmic oscillations in order to adapt to the overall body momentum.

In conclusion, standing and walking are miraculous and take place via thousands of interrelated activities. Nonetheless, we usually do not notice any of the thousands of processes that are constantly taking place. One hopes that every blessing we have is seen through the window of thanksgiving and appreciation.

[asinfovision]

LAKSHMI ASSOCIATES ACCOUNTING FIRM & GST EXPERT

Bookkeeping solutions for businesses under one roof.  All accounting solutions for small and medium scale businesses. We provide services for business registrations in Gurgaon, We give all services like related to GST service, Accounting service, Income Tax, Payroll, TDS, etc.

1) GST-Good and Services Tax

Goods and services Tax (GST) is a roundabout assessment (or utilization charge) utilized in India on the gracefully of merchandise and ventures. It is a far-reaching, multistage, objective-based expense: complete on the grounds that it has subsumed practically all the roundabout assessments aside from a couple of state taxes. Goods and services Tax (GST) is a worth included duty exacted most merchandise and ventures sold for homegrown utilization. The GST is paid by customers, yet it is transmitted to the administration by the organizations selling the products and services. Lakshmi Associates is one of the best GST-Good and Services Tax services providers in Gurgaon.

2) Accounting & Audit Work

Bookkeeping and review have an essential task to carry out in the budgetary record-keeping cycle of any business however their jobs are distinctive in their core interest. While bookkeeping means a lot more extensive field, incorporating everything from the association to the administration of the progression of cash through the organization, Best Accounting Services in Gurgaon.

Inspecting is an aspect of the bookkeeping scene. It is an assessment of bookkeeping and budgetary records that is attempted autonomously. This is done to decide whether the organization or the business undertaking has adjusted its activities to the laws and the sound accounting standards, Top Accounting Company in Gurgaon.

Regardless of whether you are a private venture or a mind-blowing association, monitoring all your money related exercises can be overwhelming services. Furthermore, bookkeeping does precisely that for you by monitoring your business. It dependably records each part of monetary exercises occurring, which is a private snippet of data for the administration of your organization. One key capacity of bookkeeping is staying with you refreshed about the performance. This helps in recognizing the sectors of best performer and under performer and those that require restorative measures. The data got from bookkeeping aid the drawn-out venture arranging of the business too.

3) Business & Registrations

Business enrollment implies the prerequisite of every individual or business offering types of the assistance of business use of pesticides, either completely or as an aspect of the business, to enlist with the division. Anybody can choose one day to begin working as a business. The business and registrations private limited company in Gurgaon has numerous accommodating aides. All that individual needs to do is give an item or administration to someone else that creates a benefit to be "good to go". While formal business enrollment with the state or nearby government isn't really needed to finish business exchanges, it is a nice decision for another business person for an assortment of reasons. There are likewise lawful and promoting favourable circumstances to enrolling a business name. Lakshmi Associates CA in Gurgaon can help direct you in picking the correct business enrollment.

4) Income Tax

Considering what is income tax and how can it work? Tax charge in India is an expense paid by people or substances relying upon the degree of income or increases during a budgetary year. The income might be both real and notional. The administration of India chooses the pace of tax charge just as pay charge chunks on which people are burdened. Those under higher pay chunks are charged at higher rates. The available tax pieces are changed every now and then, remembering the value levels. Now and again, the administration likewise gives tax charge discounts, which advantage individuals in the lower-pay gathering. Together with long haul reserves, the legislature likewise gives tax charge motivators. The sum put resources into charge sparing plans are deducted from net tax, which diminishes the measure of available pay and advantages the citizen.

In the event that the real duty payable is not exactly either the measure of advance expense paid or the measure of TDS for the relating year, they assess may guarantee the abundance chargeback by recording the fitting ITR Structure. When the ITR is confirmed, the pay charge discount is prepared if the tax Expense Division finds that the case is certifiable, ITR Company in Gurgaon.

5) Payroll

A company payroll is qualified to get pay and the sums that each ought to get. Alongside the sums that every representative ought to get for time worked or undertakings performed, Payroll can likewise allude to an organization's records of installments that were recently made to representatives, including pay rates and compensation, rewards, and retained charges, or the company’s specialty that figures and pays out these sums. One way that finance can be dealt with is in-house.

This implies that a company handles all parts of the payroll cycle all alone, including time sheets, figuring compensation, creating paychecks, sending the ACH, or Robotized Clearing House, for any immediate stores, and dispatching any expense installments essential. Payroll can likewise be moved operations to a full-service payroll handling organization. At the point when an organization decides to re-appropriate their payroll service, time sheets, wage counts, making paychecks, direct stores, and expense installments can be taken care of all, or to some degree, by the Best payroll company in Gurgaon.

6) TDS

TDS means 'Tax Deducted at Source'. It was acquainted with gathering charges at the source from where a person's tax is created. The administration utilizes TDS as an instrument to gather charge so as to limit tax avoidance by burdening the tax (halfway or entirely) at the time it is produced as opposed to sometime in the not too distant future.

TDS is pertinent on different earnings, for example, compensations, premium got, the commission got, profits and so on, TDS isn't pertinent to all salaries and people for all exchanges.

Diverse TDS rates have been endorsed by the tax Duty represent various installments and various classes of beneficiaries. For instance, installment of reclamation continues by an obligation common asset to an inhabitant individual isn't dependent upon TDS however for a Non-occupant Indian is dependent upon, TDS Services in Gurgaon.

7) Digital Signature Certificates

Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) is a lawfully perceived technique for marking records electronically. A Digital Signature is a sort of deviated cryptography used to reproduce the security

properties of a manually written mark on the paper. Computerized regularly give two calculations, one for marking that includes the client's mystery or private key, And one for checking marks that Include the client public key. The yield of the marking cycle is called the best digital signature.

Computerized signature endorsements are utilized by programs on the Web and nearby machines to affirm the character of an outsider. The advanced marks are currently acknowledged at standard with manually written marks and the electronic archives that have been carefully marked are treated at standard with paper reports.

Computerized Signature has frequently mistaken for examined duplicates of a physical composed mark, which don't have any legitimate support for the confirmation of electronic reports.

8) Part-Time Accounting Services

1. Lower Expense

This is one of the principal points of interest in employing Low maintenance bookkeeper. A firm wills just compensation the bookkeeper for the work that has been finished by the bookkeeper. Likewise, he won't be qualified for the vast majority of the advantages that are given to a customary All day working bookkeeper, for example, retirement benefits, and so forth, which would set aside much cash which could be used in the improvement, Best Accounting Services in Gurgaon.

2. Vast Information

The business climate is dynamic and staying up to date with the business climate is significant for a bookkeeper. There are some bookkeeping administrations and apparatuses that are utilized by bookkeepers everywhere in the world. A low maintenance bookkeeper will have to save time to upgrade himself further and find out about these devices. It is likewise the situation that the Low maintenance or re-appropriated bookkeeper may likewise work for a few firms all at once. This will furnish him with experience of functions in various businesses.

3. Provides Adaptability

Low maintenance or bookkeepers don't have a fixed timetable and just labor for a few hours per day. It relies upon the recruiting firm how much work they need these bookkeepers to do. The employing firm can really choose to call them and what will their timings be. A low maintenance bookkeeper gives adaptability to the firm to welcome them at work at whatever point the firm esteems fit. A significant number of Low maintenance bookkeepers are resigned experts or individuals who have their own arrangements of needs.

4. Build Your Notoriety

The Low maintenance bookkeeper would be known as of now by the current accounting company in Gurgaon. The Low maintenance bookkeeper would have the option to adjust to a firm effectively as he will just need to work for several hours consistently. A firm can attempt to test new bookkeepers occasionally which would help in choosing which bookkeeper will be the best for the organization. Subsequent to working and demonstrating a specific bookkeeper can be recruited Full-Time by the Accounting firm in Gurgaon.

5. Competitive Compensation

The compensation of Low maintenance bookkeeper can rely on numerous things. The installment could depend on the number of hours worked, or a singular amount sum could be referenced while recruiting your administrations. It likewise might be on an undertaking on an hourly premise. As your

experience increment, your compensation and notoriety will likewise increment. A portion of the Low maintenance bookkeeping experts likewise gets all the advantages that a Full-Time representative procures in a firm, however that would rely upon the administration of the firm, CA company in gurgaon.

[jamesmordy-blog]

Applications of Robotic Process Automation 4th Industrial Revolution

The emerging technologies affect our lives in ways we live, work, and interface with each other, which indicates we are going farther down the road with the fourth industrial revolution. With this revolution comes the Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and many more innovations. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a productivity tool governed by business logic and structured inputs that allows a user to configure one or more scripts (also known as “bots”) to activate particular keystrokes in an automated fashion. Top robotic process automation companies help investors, consumers, regulators, and citizens to adopt and employ RPA technologies in daily life.

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Robotic Process Automation is a technology, using specialized computer programs, known as software robots, to automate and standardize manual rules-based business processes and repetitive tasks between multiple systems, filling in automation gaps. Bots perform tedious, admin-driven tasks, such as logging in and out of applications, opening emails and attachments, manipulating data, triggering responses, or executing transactions at better speed and higher accuracy.  This, in turn, frees people from doing a range of tedious work and lets them focus on more strategic and human business priorities.

Applications of Robotic Process Automation Across 8 Industries

With robotic process automation software, any company with a plenty of people performing high-volume, highly transactional process functions can boost their capabilities and save time and money. According to Gartner, although RPA software can be found in all industries, the biggest adopters are insurance companies, banks, telecom, and utility companies.

Let us have a closer look at eight industries that have the potential to change the way they do business by adopting RPA.

1)    Insurance

The insurance sector has to deal with document-heavy workflows and lengthy, multi-step claims, which can be processed more accurately by adopting RPA. The majority of operations in this industry, such as policies issuing or renewal, claims processing, underwriting, or managing end of month reports require compilation and sorting of data from multiple sources. RPA is significantly transforming the insurance industry by automatically pulling information from documents and directing it to appropriate workstreams.

2)    Government

The adoption of robotic process automation in the public sector saves government working hours, improves productivity, cuts down costs, and allows them to address citizens’ oscillating demands in a better way. As RPA software can be used across multiple legacy systems, it can provide enormous cost benefits. For the state government, utilizing RPA for back-office tasks saves money as well as time, increases accuracy, and allows state employees to focus more on citizens.

3)    HR

Several HR operations can be simplified using RPA, including training and development, automatically validating new hire data, and entering data into different systems, employee relations, and HR generalist activities. RPA can automatically identify data discrepancies and help reduce error rates and onboarding processing costs while increasing onboarding processing speed. Human resources RPA accurately updates account and personal information across multiple systems to facilitate processing and maintains high regulatory compliance.

4)    Healthcare

For healthcare services, RPA can resolve all concerns related to scheduling patient appointments, speed up account settlements, ensuring the accuracy of discharge guidelines, and even sending reminders to patients about prescription pick-ups and upcoming medical tests. It can also help improve the healthcare cycle and centralize and streamline different workflows. Around 30-40% of health insurance claims result in edits or exceptions that might lead to denials. Here, RPA can help identify issues, facilitate claims review, and quantify and categorize past denials.

5)    Banking and Financial Services

RPA implementation proves to be instrumental in saving both time and cost as compared to traditional banking solutions for automating the manual processes and catching suspicious banking transactions. RPA automation in customer onboarding helps in avoiding manual errors. With RPA, the otherwise burdensome account opening process becomes much quicker, straightforward, and accurate. Although the bank has automated tedious loan processing to a certain extent, RPA further accelerates it.

6)    Manufacturing and Retail

The manufacturing sector is increasingly adopting robotic process automation to achieve automated efficiency in areas other than the production line and also to improve back-office processes. By using RPA in the manufacturing industry, one can optimize time-centric and repetitive routine processes, reduce cost by minimizing human errors and increase compliance, and boost agility in operations. In the retail sector, RPA helps with store planning and inventory management, demand-supply planning, marketing planning, product categorization, etc. RPA bot can send updates to customers to keep them in the loop. Moreover, it can be configured to address simple user queries and take feedback for the sales team.

7)    Telecom

The smart digitization introduced through RPA in telecom can drive the potential for any telecom business. RPA in telecom encourages stress-free process executions, for repetitive tasks like billing, data entry, order fulfillment, and accounts and ticket management. By utilizing RPA in telecom, scalability, and higher ROI can be expected with nearly zero error rates. Other than helping with the image transformation of the traditional telecom practices, RPA also increases the efficiency of the system.

8)    Utilities

Electricity, oil, gas, and water companies across the globe are embracing digitization in the form of robotic process automation. Utility companies can improve their accounting processes, optimize their operational outputs in the back office through data analysis, and streamline their joint ventures. Utility distribution is not upto the mark for customer services in the majority of the developing countries. RPA can check electricity grids by logging into the related systems to detect problems that can further help engineers in decision making and save a utility player from a human error, untimely planning of outages, and accidents during maintenance exercises.

Conclusion

Machines have now entered the domain which once belonged to humans only, owing to the fourth industrial revolution. A report by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company suggests that automation technologies might have an economic impact of between $5.2 and $6.7 trillion by 2025. RPA technologies have remarkably developed since they first emerged in the early 2000s. We cannot know precisely how RPA technologies will unfold in the upcoming years, but various industries utilizing them for enhancing and streamlining operations indicates that its future is promising.

 Visit GoodFirms.co to explore various companies providing robotic process automation services that are studied meticulously and ranked based on their overall performance, to help you select the most suitable firm.

[igpitn]

i got really in my feelings talking to @maradeur​ so uhhhh fiveya pacific rim au!!! this got REALLY long so i’ll put it under a cut

for those of you unfamiliar with pacific rim here’s a quick tldr: earth in the future is being plagued by interdimensional monsters (kaijuu) who come from sea (i tHINK) portals!! to fight the monsters, humanity created these giant robotic suits for people to pilot called jaegers. but there has to be two pilots together who share a mental link in the jaeger - they are connected to each other’s minds and control the jaeger together. two pilots capable of making a mental link like that and having it be stable enough to pilot the jaeger in the first place are called “drift compatible”

already so imagine reginald hargreeves, eccentric billionaire who’s donated enough money to be part of jaeger and kaiju research. he oversees potential pilot training and decides that they’re all approaching it wrong. if a strong pre-existing bond is a necessary for drift compatibility, they shouldn’t be SEARCHING for said bonds, they should be creating it!

hence, he adopts 42 children and establishes the umbrella academy. he will train the children from a young age in combat and have them establish bonds with each other in order to produce excellent pilots

the training is severe. it is brutal. many children leave when they turn 18 which is a disappointment to reginald and the rest of the world isn’t sure how they feel about children growing up in that kind of environment. but he only cares about the world

there is Some hope though - he has six children who have all showed potential since they were small. not just in their individual combat skills but with the bonds with each other. reginald focuses most of his attention on them when they turn 13 - numbers 1 through 6

okay so enter five!!!!

five knows since he was young that he was strong and skilled and capable and he’s GOING to pilot a jaeger even if everyone around him is an idiot. while he’s talented he doesn’t understand the importance of drift compatibility.

vanya is also on the training compound but she isn’t part of the rest. she’s more like reginald’s assistant, always there, always quiet, but never really interacting much the other children

she works closest with numbers 1-6 and she likes them well enough it just... stings that she’s ordinary. she saw a jaeger defeat a kaiju in russia when she was small and has had dreams of piloting ever since

so after years of training, when they turn 18, is when reginald decides to test them for drift compatibility. they’ll all be tested together. imagine the shock and dismay five gets when one and three are found to be compatible but so is the TRIO of two four & six. he doesn’t have a partner. the tests show that his levels aren’t high enough. he is discarded. “we will find a partner for you eventually number five but for now you are not needed”

the others get to do real jaeger training while reginald tries to convince the government and all the “legal” channels that that they’re all prepared to pilot with incredible compatibility results along with combat training. it gets approved and everyone gets awarded names as a result. 

five is still five. 

he’s bitter/angry so he spends a lot of time solo training. the government sends over specialists to help reginald build THREE jaegers so the others can start pilot training. he’s furious.  one of those jaegers should be for HIM. 

now enter.... vanya

during this time while the others are in pilot training, quiet vanya is his only companion. he asks her to help time his drills or give him data. she’s only an assistant but five likes her well enough. she’s not annoying like the rest and she listens whenever he rants about how UNFAIR it is that he’s stuck here!! he won’t say it to her face, but she’s comforting

one day he’s bored and twirling a staff around (in the original movies, fighting each other with staffs to see how synced your bodies are is another test for drift compatibility) vanya is in the corner, reading a book. he gets an idea. 

“vanya.” “hm” “i’m bored. come fight me”

she’s VERY reluctant. vanya doesn’t have a lick of combat training - she’s just been all data reports and analysis for the past 15 years. five doesn’t care - he’s bored and he promises he’ll go easy on her. it takes a while but vanya is... just a little bit curious so she picks up a staff.

they go slow. five talks her through her stance and her moves. “spread your feet wider. you have to move your shoulders more.” 

vanya is clumsy but earnest and doesn’t stop which five respects. when he decides she’s ready, he comes at her slowly and they do a bit of mock fighting. vanya falls on her ass a lot but he always tugs her right back up. when she says she’s done he’ll stop. for now, they’ll keep going

vanya is getting more confident and hitting him more firmly and five just... can’t help himself. he goes for this move that always works - sweeping the staff under the person’s feet and pinning them down. he’s done it a dozen times on luther and diego and they hate it. so he goes do it and imagine his SHOCK when vanya avoids it, and goes to hit his shoulder. he blocks it, and they make eye contact.

INSERT FIVE’S REALIZATION.....

“...did you feel that?” five’s never met someone who anticipated his moves, especially someone with NO combat training. that was all vanya. that was all INSTINCT. vanya’s confused. “feel...what?”

he tries to hit again and she blocks him. weakly, she stumbles to the floor from the force of his hit and he grabs her waist as they fall. her on her back with him hovering over her, starring her down intense. it was weak but she STILL blocked him. they stare at each other, panting loudly.

then:

“...i think we’re drift compatible.” “wait what? you’re joking right?” “no. i’ve been training since i was a child and i’ve never felt like this with anyone else before.” “...five i think you’re seeing something because you want to, not because it’s there.” 

vanya pushes at his chest and five reluctantly lets her up. he’s SURE of his feeling. he’s always understood drift compatibility the least but it MAKES SENSE bc he was never compatible with the rest. it’s always been her. he says they need to tell reginald and she’s just like NO!!!

vanya is ordinary. five is being ridiculous. there’s no way that they’re compatible and even if they were so what?? she has NO combat experience. does five expect them to get into a jaeger?? she can’t. that’s ridiculous. she CAN’T. she runs away from him and five is left frustrated

the next few days, she avoids him. five has never been a quitter, and if vanya is his only chance of becoming a pilot... he’s not going to let this go. he can’t. he keeps tracking her down and finds her, demands for her to talk to him. 

“i don’t have anything to say to you!” “tell me you didn’t feel it too. look me in the eye, and said you felt nothing, and i’ll leave you alone.” vanya stares at the floor. she can’t lie. she did feel something

“even if i did... five i’m not a soldier, i’m not like you. and plus aren’t co-pilots supposed to trust each other? i don’t know you.”

five sees his opening. she’s nervous and skittish, so he can’t... demand things the way he has been. he tries a different approach. “two weeks. we’ll train, i’ll teach you everything i know. and...” he struggles a little. “we can get to know each other. give me two weeks. if you still feel like you can’t, i’ll drop it.”

vanya can’t say no to him. plus again, there’s that little part of her that’s always longed to be a pilot that just tells her to TRY. what’s the harm in trying?

the next two weeks are... wild. five sticks true to his word. every morning, he’s at her door when she gets out for the rest of the day with coffee. she nearly spits the first time “you drink it black?!” “is there a problem?” “are you a psychopath?” 

during the day, he accompanies her to all her daily tasks. asking her questions about herself as she works, going over reports and typing data into the computer. “what are your pills for?” “anxiety” “do i make you anxious, vanya?” “you annoy me, that’s for sure number five”

at then at night, they’re during combat training. vanya is always sweaty and out of breath and the end of it while five is cool and collected. “you have no stamina.” “you’re so small” “your muscles... nevermind it’s an insult to call them muscles.” often times vanya is too tired to get up so five picks her up, throws her over his shoulder, and marches them to her quarters

to five, vanya is fascinating. he’s known her all his life but he’s never spent time with her like this. the quiet shadow that’s been in the background is surprisingly clever and capable. plus she gets embarrassed easily and it’s fun

to vanya, she’s already admired five. he’s insanely smart and she watched him grow up from a cocky teen to a confident adult. but getting to know him... he’s infuriating sometimes too. she snaps at him once after training about how he can’t expect her to just KNOW how to do things he’s been doing his whole life. he looks surprised before smiling at her. which surprises HER.

five likes her. he realizes that, the first time she argues back. none of the others have ever made him feel this way. is it normal to like your drift compatible partner? bc suddenly a lot of things make sense.

and then the conversation that changes everything:

“so you’ve been here as long as i have” “that’s right” “so reginald must’ve wanted you in the academy at first.” she hesitates at that. she didn’t consider that. “i... don’t know.”

his question makes her seek out reginald to ask and she’s stunned when reginald bluntly tells her that she had been considered too emotional and unstable to even be a part of the program. it’s not meant for her

vanya stays inside her room and five has to break in. he sits by her on the bed and she’s looking at her pill bottles. “i’ve been taking these since i was five... apparently i’m too emotional to be a pilot” she laughs bitterly and five puts a tentative arm around her shoulder as she recounts the conversation with reginald and then, feeling vulnerable, tells him about her dream to be a pilot bc a jaeger rescued her. she wants to rescue people too.

five squeezes her. “fuck the old man,” he tells her firmly. they flush her pills together and vanya takes his hand, running her fingers over his umbrella tattoo. “okay,” she says. “okay?” she smiles at him. “i’ll do it.”

five manages to get information from ben and they sneakily do their own pilot training. reginald is too busy to realize what’s going on but when he catches them he’s FURIOUS. five won’t back down though. “we’re drift compatible. she was MEANT to pilot with me. you can’t stop this.” he says that vanya is just a civilian and that it’s impossible but five says he’s strong enough to carry the two of them but he can’t do it without vanya

reginald doesn’t believe them. on a whim, he does test their compatibility.  if it’s low he can punish the both of them and they’ll never speak of this again

it’s not low. it’s the OPPOSITE of low in fact. they are synced, really synced in that first one and reginald watches in shock.

meanwhile... for five and vanya, who had never truly grown close to another person in their whole lives, drifting is TERRIFYING. five is a very private person but suddenly he can FEEL vanya in his head. and he’s in hers. all her loneliness, all his resentment, all her insecurity, all his bitterness, it all flows through both of them. it’s overwhelming. he has to reach out for vanya’s hand.

but there are good things too. five’s confidence, vanya’s hope. the memories from all the time that they spent together. “you were right,” vanya tells him and in echoes in both of their heads. five can’t even say “i’m always right.” it’s too overwhelming. plus she knows what he thinks. she’s in his HEAD.

after they leave the simulation reginald tells them to prepare for pilot training. five, once he gets over his panting breath and beating heart, picks vanya up by the waist and spins her around

so five and vanya officially become co-pilots and get to PILOT A JAEGER!!!! 

i guess insert plot stuff here?? i’m lazy to expand upon it but... they go fight kaiju with the others naturally

the first mission going south bc vanya is terrified of fighting a monster for real and benkliego have to save her. five is furious at first but remembers her real, visceral fear and promises her he’ll protect them

“you have to trust me. you’ve been in my head. don’t you trust me?”

the second time they pilot, it’s a success. it’s a REAL good success but it’s a terribly long battle and alluther almost go down and for a moment five thinks they’re going to die. it’s vanya who thinks “not like this” back at him, bc her fear makes five brave it makes sense that five’s fear makes her brave too. they defeat the kaiju but both have to go into surgery for their wounds afterwards.

five wakes up alone and it’s... a strange feeling. his body feels weird. like it’s not his. drifting with vanya was strange at first and he’d been terrified to let someone in but once he got over that it felt RIGHT

now his head feels unnaturally quiet with just his thoughts. he’s heard about this before - when pilots come back out of the drift it’s hard to be separated from their co-pilot. 

he needs to find vanya

he staggers out of bed and limps to her quarters, knocking insistently. part of him is afraid now. he passed out after, what if vanya didn’t make it? what if he has to feel this empty forever?

but the door flies open and there she is, with wide, wild eyes. “van - “ he tries to say her name but vanya jumps at him, throwing her arms around his neck and CLINGING.

they can’t be in each other’s head now, they’re not drifting. physical closeness is the only good substitute

five’s stunned for a moment - she’s never HUGGED him like this - but immediately her skin against his makes him relax and he holds her tighter and just SIGHS in relief

vanya’s whispering to him, urgent and pained. “i thought i was the only one who - “ “no. no you aren’t.” he scoops her close and goes back into her room, dumping her on the bed and holding her. he’s never been this close to another person and he never will be. 

vanya slides a hand over his chest, feeling his heartbeat and five does the same to her. they’re quiet for hours, not talking, not sleeping, just pressing close to each other and keeping themselves grounded with touch

“you saved the world the other day,” vanya tells him before they fall asleep. five presses a kiss into her hair. it feels natural. honestly, he wants to kiss her all over but that’s for another time. “WE saved the world,” he replies. she smiles at him.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

In the economic sphere too, the ability to hold a hammer or press a button is becoming less valuable than before. In the past, there were many things only humans could do. But now robots and computers are catching up, and may soon outperform humans in most tasks. True, computers function very differently from humans, and it seems unlikely that computers will become humanlike any time soon. In particular, it doesn’t seem that computers are about to gain consciousness, and to start experiencing emotions and sensations. Over the last decades there has been an immense advance in computer intelligence, but there has been exactly zero advance in computer consciousness. As far as we know, computers in 2016 are no more conscious than their prototypes in the 1950s. However, we are on the brink of a momentous revolution. Humans are in danger of losing their value, because intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

Until today, high intelligence always went hand in hand with a developed consciousness. Only conscious beings could perform tasks that required a lot of intelligence, such as playing chess, driving cars, diagnosing diseases or identifying terrorists. However, we are now developing new types of non-conscious intelligence that can perform such tasks far better than humans. For all these tasks are based on pattern recognition, and non-conscious algorithms may soon excel human consciousness in recognising patterns. This raises a novel question: which of the two is really important, intelligence or consciousness? As long as they went hand in hand, debating their relative value was just a pastime for philosophers. But in the twenty-first century, this is becoming an urgent political and economic issue. And it is sobering to realise that, at least for armies and corporations, the answer is straightforward: intelligence is mandatory but consciousness is optional.

Armies and corporations cannot function without intelligent agents, but they don’t need consciousness and subjective experiences. The conscious experiences of a flesh-and-blood taxi driver are infinitely richer than those of a self-driving car, which feels absolutely nothing. The taxi driver can enjoy music while navigating the busy streets of Seoul. His mind may expand in awe as he looks up at the stars and contemplates the mysteries of the universe. His eyes may fill with tears of joy when he sees his baby girl taking her very first step. But the system doesn’t need all that from a taxi driver. All it really wants is to bring passengers from point A to point B as quickly, safely and cheaply as possible. And the autonomous car will soon be able to do that far better than a human driver, even though it cannot enjoy music or be awestruck by the magic of existence.

Indeed, if we forbid humans to drive taxis and cars altogether, and give computer algorithms monopoly over traffic, we can then connect all vehicles to a single network, and thereby make car accidents virtually impossible. In August 2015, one of Google’s experimental self-driving cars had an accident. As it approached a crossing and detected pedestrians wishing to cross, it applied its brakes. A moment later it was hit from behind by a sedan whose careless human driver was perhaps contemplating the mysteries of the universe instead of watching the road. This could not have happened if both vehicles were steered by interlinked computers. The controlling algorithm would have known the position and intentions of every vehicle on the road, and would not have allowed two of its marionettes to collide. Such a system will save lots of time, money and human lives – but it will also do away with the human experience of driving a car and with tens of millions of human jobs.

Some economists predict that sooner or later, unenhanced humans will be completely useless. While robots and 3D printers replace workers in manual jobs such as manufacturing shirts, highly intelligent algorithms will do the same to white-collar occupations. Bank clerks and travel agents, who a short time ago were completely secure from automation, have become endangered species. How many travel agents do we need when we can use our smartphones to buy plane tickets from an algorithm?

Stock-exchange traders are also in danger. Most trade today is already being managed by computer algorithms, which can process in a second more data than a human can in a year, and that can react to the data much faster than a human can blink. On 23 April 2013, Syrian hackers broke into Associated Press’s official Twitter account. At 13:07 they tweeted that the White House had been attacked and President Obama was hurt. Trade algorithms that constantly monitor newsfeeds reacted in no time, and began selling stocks like mad. The Dow Jones went into free fall, and within sixty seconds lost 150 points, equivalent to a loss of $136 billion! At 13:10 Associated Press clarified that the tweet was a hoax. The algorithms reversed gear, and by 13:13 the Dow Jones had recuperated almost all the losses.

Three years previously, on 6 May 2010, the New York stock exchange underwent an even sharper shock. Within five minutes – from 14:42 to 14:47 – the Dow Jones dropped by 1,000 points, wiping out $1 trillion. It then bounced back, returning to its pre-crash level in a little over three minutes. That’s what happens when super-fast computer programs are in charge of our money. Experts have been trying ever since to understand what happened in this so-called ‘Flash Crash’. We know algorithms were to blame, but we are still not sure exactly what went wrong. Some traders in the USA have already filed lawsuits against algorithmic trading, arguing that it unfairly discriminates against human beings, who simply cannot react fast enough to compete. Quibbling whether this really constitutes a violation of rights might provide lots of work and lots of fees for lawyers.

And these lawyers won’t necessarily be human. Movies and TV series give the impression that lawyers spend their days in court shouting ‘Objection!’ and making impassioned speeches. Yet most run-of-the-mill lawyers spend their time going over endless files, looking for precedents, loopholes and tiny pieces of potentially relevant evidence. Some are busy trying to figure out what happened on the night John Doe got killed, or formulating a gargantuan business contract that will protect their client against every conceivable eventuality. What will be the fate of all these lawyers once sophisticated search algorithms can locate more precedents in a day than a human can in a lifetime, and once brain scans can reveal lies and deceptions at the press of a button? Even highly experienced lawyers and detectives cannot easily spot deceptions merely by observing people’s facial expressions and tone of voice. However, lying involves different brain areas to those used when we tell the truth. We’re not there yet, but it is conceivable that in the not too distant future fMRI scanners could function as almost infallible truth machines. Where will that leave millions of lawyers, judges, cops and detectives? They might need to go back to school and learn a new profession.

When they get in the classroom, however, they may well discover that the algorithms have got there first. Companies such as Mindojo are developing interactive algorithms that not only teach me maths, physics and history, but also simultaneously study me and get to know exactly who I am. Digital teachers will closely monitor every answer I give, and how long it took me to give it. Over time, they will discern my unique weaknesses as well as my strengths. They will identify what gets me excited, and what makes my eyelids droop. They could teach me thermodynamics or geometry in a way that suits my personality type, even if that particular way doesn’t suit 99 per cent of the other pupils. And these digital teachers will never lose their patience, never shout at me, and never go on strike. It is unclear, however, why on earth I would need to know thermodynamics or geometry in a world containing such intelligent computer programs.

Even doctors are fair game for the algorithms. The first and foremost task of most doctors is to diagnose diseases correctly, and then suggest the best available treatment. If I arrive at the clinic complaining about fever and diarrhoea, I might be suffering from food poisoning. Then again, the same symptoms might result from a stomach virus, cholera, dysentery, malaria, cancer or some unknown new disease. My doctor has only five minutes to make a correct diagnosis, because this is what my health insurance pays for. This allows for no more than a few questions and perhaps a quick medical examination. The doctor then cross-references this meagre information with my medical history, and with the vast world of human maladies. Alas, not even the most diligent doctor can remember all my previous ailments and check-ups. Similarly, no doctor can be familiar with every illness and drug, or read every new article published in every medical journal. To top it all, the doctor is sometimes tired or hungry or perhaps even sick, which affects her judgement. No wonder that doctors often err in their diagnoses, or recommend a less-than-optimal treatment.

Now consider IBM’s famous Watson – an artificial intelligence system that won the Jeopardy! television game show in 2011, beating human former champions. Watson is currently groomed to do more serious work, particularly in diagnosing diseases. An AI such as Watson has enormous potential advantages over human doctors. Firstly, an AI can hold in its databanks information about every known illness and medicine in history. It can then update these databanks every day, not only with the findings of new researches, but also with medical statistics gathered from every clinic and hospital in the world.

Secondly, Watson can be intimately familiar not only with my entire genome and my day-to-day medical history, but also with the genomes and medical histories of my parents, siblings, cousins, neighbours and friends. Watson will know instantly whether I visited a tropical country recently, whether I have recurring stomach infections, whether there have been cases of intestinal cancer in my family or whether people all over town are complaining this morning about diarrhoea.

Thirdly, Watson will never be tired, hungry or sick, and will have all the time in the world for me. I could sit comfortably on my sofa at home and answer hundreds of questions, telling Watson exactly how I feel. This is good news for most patients (except perhaps hypochondriacs). But if you enter medical school today in the expectation of still being a family doctor in twenty years, maybe you should think again. With such a Watson around, there is not much need for Sherlocks.

This threat hovers over the heads not only of general practitioners, but also of experts. Indeed, it might prove easier to replace doctors specialising in a relatively narrow field such as cancer diagnosis. For example, in a recent experiment a computer algorithm diagnosed correctly 90 per cent of lung cancer cases presented to it, while human doctors had a success rate of only 50 per cent. In fact, the future is already here. CT scans and mammography tests are routinely checked by specialised algorithms, which provide doctors with a second opinion, and sometimes detect tumours that the doctors missed.

A host of tough technical problems still prevent Watson and its ilk from replacing most doctors tomorrow morning. Yet these technical problems – however difficult – need only be solved once. The training of a human doctor is a complicated and expensive process that lasts years. When the process is complete, after ten years of studies and internships, all you get is one doctor. If you want two doctors, you have to repeat the entire process from scratch. In contrast, if and when you solve the technical problems hampering Watson, you will get not one, but an infinite number of doctors, available 24/7 in every corner of the world. So even if it costs $100 billion to make it work, in the long run it would be much cheaper than training human doctors.

And what’s true of doctors is doubly true of pharmacists. In 2011 a pharmacy opened in San Francisco manned by a single robot. When a human comes to the pharmacy, within seconds the robot receives all of the customer’s prescriptions, as well as detailed information about other medicines taken by them, and their suspected allergies. The robot makes sure the new prescriptions don’t combine adversely with any other medicine or allergy, and then provides the customer with the required drug. In its first year of operation the robotic pharmacist provided 2 million prescriptions, without making a single mistake. On average, flesh-and-blood pharmacists get wrong 1.7 per cent of prescriptions. In the United States alone this amounts to more than 50 million prescription errors every year!

Some people argue that even if an algorithm could outperform doctors and pharmacists in the technical aspects of their professions, it could never replace their human touch. If your CT indicates you have cancer, would you like to receive the news from a caring and empathetic human doctor, or from a machine? Well, how about receiving the news from a caring and empathetic machine that tailors its words to your personality type? Remember that organisms are algorithms, and Watson could detect your emotional state with the same accuracy that it detects your tumours.

This idea has already been implemented by some customer-services departments, such as those pioneered by the Chicago-based Mattersight Corporation. Mattersight publishes its wares with the following advert: ‘Have you ever spoken with someone and felt as though you just clicked? The magical feeling you get is the result of a personality connection. Mattersight creates that feeling every day, in call centers around the world.’ When you call customer services with a request or complaint, it usually takes a few seconds to route your call to a representative. In Mattersight systems, your call is routed by a clever algorithm. You first state the reason for your call. The algorithm listens to your request, analyses the words you have chosen and your tone of voice, and deduces not only your present emotional state but also your personality type – whether you are introverted, extroverted, rebellious or dependent. Based on this information, the algorithm links you to the representative that best matches your mood and personality. The algorithm knows whether you need an empathetic person to patiently listen to your complaints, or you prefer a no-nonsense rational type who will give you the quickest technical solution. A good match means both happier customers and less time and money wasted by the customer-services department.

The most important question in twenty-first-century economics may well be what to do with all the superfluous people. What will conscious humans do, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better?

Throughout history the job market was divided into three main sectors: agriculture, industry and services. Until about 1800, the vast majority of people worked in agriculture, and only a small minority worked in industry and services. During the Industrial Revolution people in developed countries left the fields and herds. Most began working in industry, but growing numbers also took up jobs in the services sector. In recent decades developed countries underwent another revolution, as industrial jobs vanished, whereas the services sector expanded. In 2010 only 2 per cent of Americans worked in agriculture, 20 per cent worked in industry, 78 per cent worked as teachers, doctors, webpage designers and so forth. When mindless algorithms are able to teach, diagnose and design better than humans, what will we do?

This is not an entirely new question. Ever since the Industrial Revolution erupted, people feared that mechanisation might cause mass unemployment. This never happened, because as old professions became obsolete, new professions evolved, and there was always something humans could do better than machines. Yet this is not a law of nature, and nothing guarantees it will continue to be like that in the future. Humans have two basic types of abilities: physical abilities and cognitive abilities. As long as machines competed with us merely in physical abilities, you could always find cognitive tasks that humans do better. So machines took over purely manual jobs, while humans focused on jobs requiring at least some cognitive skills. Yet what will happen once algorithms outperform us in remembering, analysing and recognising patterns?

The idea that humans will always have a unique ability beyond the reach of non-conscious algorithms is just wishful thinking. True, at present there are numerous things that organic algorithms do better than non-organic ones, and experts have repeatedly declared that something will ‘for ever’ remain beyond the reach of non-organic algorithms. But it turns out that ‘for ever’ often means no more than a decade or two. Until a short time ago, facial recognition was a favourite example of something which even babies accomplish easily but which escaped even the most powerful computers on earth. Today facial-recognition programs are able to recognise people far more efficiently and quickly than humans can. Police forces and intelligence services now use such programs to scan countless hours of video footage from surveillance cameras, tracking down suspects and criminals.

In the 1980s when people discussed the unique nature of humanity, they habitually used chess as primary proof of human superiority. They believed that computers would never beat humans at chess. On 10 February 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, laying to rest that particular claim for human pre-eminence.

Deep Blue was given a head start by its creators, who preprogrammed it not only with the basic rules of chess, but also with detailed instructions regarding chess strategies. A new generation of AI uses machine learning to do even more remarkable and elegant things. In February 2015 a program developed by Google DeepMind learned by itself how to play forty-nine classic Atari games. One of the developers, Dr Demis Hassabis, explained that ‘the only information we gave the system was the raw pixels on the screen and the idea that it had to get a high score. And everything else it had to figure out by itself.’ The program managed to learn the rules of all the games it was presented with, from Pac-Man and Space Invaders to car racing and tennis games. It then played most of them as well as or better than humans, sometimes coming up with strategies that never occur to human players.

Computer algorithms have recently proven their worth in ball games, too. For many decades, baseball teams used the wisdom, experience and gut instincts of professional scouts and managers to pick players. The best players fetched millions of dollars, and naturally enough the rich teams got the cream of the market, whereas poorer teams had to settle for the scraps. In 2002 Billy Beane, the manager of the low-budget Oakland Athletics, decided to beat the system. He relied on an arcane computer algorithm developed by economists and computer geeks to create a winning team from players that human scouts overlooked or undervalued. The old-timers were incensed by Beane’s algorithm transgressing into the hallowed halls of baseball. They said that picking baseball players is an art, and that only humans with an intimate and long-standing experience of the game can master it. A computer program could never do it, because it could never decipher the secrets and the spirit of baseball.

They soon had to eat their baseball caps. Beane’s shoestring-budget algorithmic team ($44 million) not only held its own against baseball giants such as the New York Yankees ($125 million), but became the first team ever in American League baseball to win twenty consecutive games. Not that Beane and Oakland could enjoy their success for long. Soon enough, many other baseball teams adopted the same algorithmic approach, and since the Yankees and Red Sox could pay far more for both baseball players and computer software, low-budget teams such as the Oakland Athletics now had an even smaller chance of beating the system than before.

In 2004 Professor Frank Levy from MIT and Professor Richard Murnane from Harvard published a thorough research of the job market, listing those professions most likely to undergo automation. Truck drivers were given as an example of a job that could not possibly be automated in the foreseeable future. It is hard to imagine, they wrote, that algorithms could safely drive trucks on a busy road. A mere ten years later, Google and Tesla not only imagine this, but are actually making it happen.

In fact, as time goes by, it becomes easier and easier to replace humans with computer algorithms, not merely because the algorithms are getting smarter, but also because humans are professionalising. Ancient hunter-gatherers mastered a very wide variety of skills in order to survive, which is why it would be immensely difficult to design a robotic hunter-gatherer. Such a robot would have to know how to prepare spear points from flint stones, how to find edible mushrooms in a forest, how to use medicinal herbs to bandage a wound, how to track down a mammoth and how to coordinate a charge with a dozen other hunters. However, over the last few thousand years we humans have been specialising. A taxi driver or a cardiologist specialises in a much narrower niche than a hunter-gatherer, which makes it easier to replace them with AI.

Even the managers in charge of all these activities can be replaced. Thanks to its powerful algorithms, Uber can manage millions of taxi drivers with only a handful of humans. Most of the commands are given by the algorithms without any need of human supervision. In May 2014 Deep Knowledge Ventures – a Hong Kong venture-capital firm specialising in regenerative medicine – broke new ground by appointing an algorithm called VITAL to its board. VITAL makes investment recommendations by analysing huge amounts of data on the financial situation, clinical trials and intellectual property of prospective companies. Like the other five board members, the algorithm gets to vote on whether the firm makes an investment in a specific company or not.

Examining VITAL’s record so far, it seems that it has already picked up one managerial vice: nepotism. It has recommended investing in companies that grant algorithms more authority. With VITAL’s blessing, Deep Knowledge Ventures has recently invested in Silico Medicine, which develops computer-assisted methods for drug research, and in Pathway Pharmaceuticals, which employs a platform called OncoFinder to select and rate personalised cancer therapies.

As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might not only manage businesses, but actually come to own them. At present, human law already recognises intersubjective entities like corporations and nations as ‘legal persons’. Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they can own land and money, and they can sue and be sued in court. We might soon grant similar status to algorithms. An algorithm could then own a venture-capital fund without having to obey the wishes of any human master.

If the algorithm makes the right decisions, it could accumulate a fortune, which it could then invest as it sees fit, perhaps buying your house and becoming your landlord. If you infringe on the algorithm’s legal rights – say, by not paying rent – the algorithm could hire lawyers and sue you in court. If such algorithms consistently outperform human fund managers, we might end up with an algorithmic upper class owning most of our planet. This may sound impossible, but before dismissing the idea, remember that most of our planet is already legally owned by non-human inter-subjective entities, namely nations and corporations. Indeed, 5,000 years ago much of Sumer was owned by imaginary gods such as Enki and Inanna. If gods can possess land and employ people, why not algorithms?

So what will people do? Art is often said to provide us with our ultimate (and uniquely human) sanctuary. In a world where computers replace doctors, drivers, teachers and even landlords, everyone would become an artist. Yet it is hard to see why artistic creation will be safe from the algorithms. Why are we so sure computers will be unable to better us in the composition of music? According to the life sciences, art is not the product of some enchanted spirit or metaphysical soul, but rather of organic algorithms recognising mathematical patterns. If so, there is no reason why non-organic algorithms couldn’t master it.

David Cope is a musicology professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He is also one of the more controversial figures in the world of classical music. Cope has written programs that compose concertos, chorales, symphonies and operas. His first creation was named EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence), which specialised in imitating the style of Johann Sebastian Bach. It took seven years to create the program, but once the work was done, EMI composed 5,000 chorales à la Bach in a single day. Cope arranged a performance of a few select chorales in a music festival at Santa Cruz. Enthusiastic members of the audience praised the wonderful performance, and explained excitedly how the music touched their innermost being. They didn’t know it was composed by EMI rather than Bach, and when the truth was revealed, some reacted with glum silence, while others shouted in anger.

EMI continued to improve, and learned to imitate Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky. Cope got EMI a contract, and its first album – Classical Music Composed by Computer – sold surprisingly well. Publicity brought increasing hostility from classical-music buffs. Professor Steve Larson from the University of Oregon sent Cope a challenge for a musical showdown. Larson suggested that professional pianists play three pieces one after the other: one by Bach, one by EMI, and one by Larson himself. The audience would then be asked to vote who composed which piece. Larson was convinced people would easily tell the difference between soulful human compositions, and the lifeless artefact of a machine. Cope accepted the challenge. On the appointed date, hundreds of lecturers, students and music fans assembled in the University of Oregon’s concert hall. At the end of the performance, a vote was taken. The result? The audience thought that EMI’s piece was genuine Bach, that Bach’s piece was composed by Larson, and that Larson’s piece was produced by a computer.

Critics continued to argue that EMI’s music is technically excellent, but that it lacks something. It is too accurate. It has no depth. It has no soul. Yet when people heard EMI’s compositions without being informed of their provenance, they frequently praised them precisely for their soulfulness and emotional resonance.

Following EMI’s successes, Cope created newer and even more sophisticated programs. His crowning achievement was Annie. Whereas EMI composed music according to predetermined rules, Annie is based on machine learning. Its musical style constantly changes and develops in reaction to new inputs from the outside world. Cope has no idea what Annie is going to compose next. Indeed, Annie does not restrict itself to music composition but also explores other art forms such as haiku poetry. In 2011 Cope published Comes the Fiery Night: 2,000 Haiku by Man and Machine. Of the 2,000 haikus in the book, some are written by Annie, and the rest by organic poets. The book does not disclose which are which. If you think you can tell the difference between human creativity and machine output, you are welcome to test your claim.

In the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution created a huge new class of urban proletariats, in the twenty-first century we might witness the creation of a new massive class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society.

In September 2013 two Oxford researchers, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, published ‘The Future of Employment’, in which they surveyed the likelihood of different professions being taken over by computer algorithms within the next twenty years. The algorithm developed by Frey and Osborne to do the calculations estimated that 47 per cent of US jobs are at high risk. For example, there is a 99 per cent probability that by 2033 human telemarketers and insurance underwriters will lose their jobs to algorithms. There is a 98 per cent probability that the same will happen to sports referees, 97 per cent that it will happen to cashiers and 96 per cent to chefs. Waiters – 94 per cent. Paralegal assistants – 94 per cent. Tour guides – 91 per cent. Bakers – 89 per cent. Bus drivers – 89 per cent. Construction labourers – 88 per cent. Veterinary assistants – 86 per cent. Security guards – 84 per cent. Sailors – 83 per cent. Bartenders – 77 per cent. Archivists – 76 per cent. Carpenters – 72 per cent. Lifeguards – 67 per cent. And so forth. There are of course some safe jobs. The likelihood that computer algorithms will displace archaeologists by 2033 is only 0.7 per cent, because their job requires highly sophisticated types of pattern recognition, and doesn’t produce huge profits. Hence it is improbable that corporations or government will make the necessary investment to automate archaeology within the next twenty years.

Of course, by 2033 many new professions are likely to appear, for example, virtual-world designers. But such professions will probably require much more creativity and flexibility than your run-of-the-mill job, and it is unclear whether forty-year-old cashiers or insurance agents will be able to reinvent themselves as virtual-world designers (just try to imagine a virtual world created by an insurance agent!). And even if they do so, the pace of progress is such that within another decade they might have to reinvent themselves yet again. After all, algorithms might well outperform humans in designing virtual worlds too. The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms.

- Yuval Noah Harari, The Great Decoupling in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

[jasbethso]

A Year of Bittersweet Capstone

This school year has been extra challenging for us. Not just because it is our last year in high school but because of our capstone subject. Every time I hear that word, it seems very daunting and bothering at some point. Knowing that I have a few knowledge about wirings and how it works, I have already prepared myself on the amount of stress capstone may bring. As I am writing this personal blog, it amazes me on how I can look back at some of the hardest part of this school year and how I can finally say 'Salamat God kay tapos na'. My biggest achievement is finally relating to Aristotle's 'The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.' This is truly hard yet rewarding task for all of us. I am very glad we are able to make our project as we have envisioned it to be.

Imagine if we were given the whole school year just to work on this project without other tasks, it would be the ultimate dream. Flying agricultural drones and robots equipped with artificial intelligence? If only we were given enough time for it, it would not be impossible. Of course, in reality, there are a lot more to do and accomplish in school. We had to juggle our time between doing school works for the whole day and going to a group activity for this project after school.

To be honest, I think our school is not ready for this subject and so are the students. The school is introducing robotics in the subject but there are only few teachers who are knowledgeable on programming. We cannot just solely rely on those Indian people on YouTube to teach us all of these things. Programming is new to us, especially we haven't had any computer-related subjects. We only had ICT subject when we were in 7th grade and nothing else. I also know some students in previous school years having the same subject who had the same struggle. However, since this is part of the new curriculum of K to 12, we cannot do anything but to bear with it. Also, as a student, we also wanted to do our best for the project but we lack support. It is ironic that the school is not even initiating a seminar or a workshop for programming but is having a subject for robotics. This is our struggle. I would not be shocked if other students would encounter this problem too in the next coming years. Unless the school would really take it seriously in coming up with ways on how to make students be ready and equipped for this subject and the so-called 'Industry 4.0', everything would be fine.

I salute all those programmers in YouTube who are very willing to share their innovative ideas to their subscribers. This allowed us to at least have an overview on how to properly connect and wire all the sensors. Following the instructions in YouTube was somewhat easy but programming was the hardest part since some were not willing to share their codes for the Arduino. Although they also film their codes but sometimes it is just 2 seconds of the whole instructional video. It's funny how we were so desperate to know the code that we had to screenshot some clips of the video and zoom in just to get an idea of it. We were totally clueless at the start of the year.

During our second semester, we were thankful that we had the subject Empowerment Technology. This subject was not a burden to us like how other subjects would feel like. It even made things easier for us by guiding us what to do in our projects. Calling it a blessing in disguise? I'd say yes. Our subject teacher, Sir Rae John Arango, was very willing to help us finish our project. He even set a target date for the project. I can clearly remember when he said 'Dapat before kayo magbakasyon tapos na 'yang mga projects niyo para pag Christmas wala nang problema'. Who would not want to enjoy the holidays, right? But of course, knowing that we are procrastinators, we did not meet that target date. Sir Arango still helped us program our projects despite being busy with his Continuous Improvement Project. Even if there were 11 groups for Capstone, he managed to help us all. I truly admire how he was very passionate in helping us one group at a time. To be honest, our capstone subject was only making us knowledgeable on the proper ways in conducting the research but not on how to do the actual project itself, on how to program and build the actual robot. I bet we are all very grateful that the Empowerment Technology subject are able to do this.  Doing the project was somehow a lot easier for us by since our teacher was guided us on what we need to download, search for and other sensors to buy. Sir Arango is an angel sent from heaven to us struggling students or what I prefer to call 'frustrated programmers'. We owe the success of our projects to you Sir. (Sir Arango, if by any chance you are reading this, beke nemen)

We were on our track, fully confident that we are going to be able to at least start programming our project, AgriCop. When we thought everything is going in our favor, Typhoon Tisoy came. There was a blackout in our whole province. When we thought things couldn't get any worse, we were all wrong. There was no signal for us to communicate with other groupmates and to even just search in YouTube for the project. The scariest part of it is that I even had to charge our laptop using the generator while knowing the risks of the fluctuating current. I just needed to start doing the codes but then there was no internet to search for reference. We ended up doing nothing for the whole month of December. A month away from Capstone and a month before cramming and stress because of it.

Working in a group of five made it a lot easier. Although other groups have more members in their team, I mostly prefer to work in small groups. We are the only group with all girls which made it quite difficult since when need to immerse ourselves in mechanical and electronics. We are quite good in making arts and crafts, designing things, doing calligraphies and other artworks. However, this is the complete opposite of what we are used of doing. We had to let go of the paint brushes, scissors and color palettes. Instead, we learned how to properly handle screwdrivers, how to use a grinder and most especially how to solder. It was an intimidating task for all of us but we were open to learning new things. I am also grateful to my brother who taught us how to do all of these things. We did not know what tools to use but he was there to let us borrow all of the things that we needed for the project which allowed us to save a lot of money instead of buying new tools. I am so proud of what we have learned and achieved.

We were already warned by our teacher at the start of the school year that this capstone project would really be worth a lot of money. We had to save money from what my parents give as our allowance in school because sometimes it is quite embarrassing to ask extra money from my parents for this. Also, we had to buy the most basic parts first since our group did not have enough money to buy all things at once. Capstone even tested our negotiating skills since we have figured out that some of the things we have ordered were not useful for the mechatronic system of AgriCop. So, we had to sell it to other groups who needed extra relay drivers and arduino board. We were also lucky since one of our groupmates have vouchers and her shipping fee for her orders is always 50 pesos only. We also had to wait for Shopee's promo such as during 11.11 and 12.12 Christmas sale for us to get discounts. We also asked for scrap materials like aluminum tubes to reduce our expenses. Overall, we spent about 6 thousand for this robot. For me, that is already a large amount of money since it is like the salary of a normal government employee for a month of work. I am very thankful that our parents were very supportive and would understand us if sometimes we go home late just for this project. Seeing how the AgriCop works and operates is worth the amount of money that we have invested for it.

Last week has been the most tiring week in my entire existence. It was the very first time that I have experienced studying the whole day in school, going straight to our classmate's house, eating at around 8:30 or 9:00 in the evening, losing track of time, staying awake until 4 o' clock in the morning and going to school at 7:30 AM. We have gone through this cycle every day last week. It was physically and mentally draining. We also had different summative tests and projects to pass aside from the AgriCop. We did not even have the time to review or even do requirements in other subjects. Staying up late was the most challenging part of it. My father would always remind us to get enough hours of sleep but at that time we just cannot. We were deprived of sleep. The schedule of final defense was moved a week earlier than the planned date. Every single day we were required to pass different outputs in capstone. At that time there was no room for 8 hours of sleep but more space for eye bags and eye strain. We already divided the tasks for each of us. I was assigned to work on the write-up. There was this one time that I can't really handle my sleepiness anymore that I took a nap for an hour not minding how many mosquitoes were already buzzing in my ears and biting my arm. Four o' clock in the morning is our usual 'dismissal' in the group activity. We are so blessed that the father of one of our groupmates would drive each us to our houses even if it is already early in the morning. My father also does the same thing when we decided to do group activity for the last few days in our house. We are very grateful and blessed.

We have invested so much in this project, our effort, money, sleep and sacrificing time for other subjects. At some point, we felt like we were the underdog out of all the groups but I am glad that each of us did not let go of that little hope that we can pull this through. We were all tired. I saw it in the eyes of my classmates and even in my own groupmates' as we go to school in the morning after probably not getting enough rest at all. I heard their voices saying 'Di ko na aram ang uunahon', 'Papano na ini', 'Di pa ngani ako nangarigo nan nagmahaw'. We were all going through the toughest part of our life as graduating students. I always believe that the only way to overcome a situation is not to run away from it but to get through it with high hope. I am very thankful that I have groupmates who would always lift each other up and still laugh at the dumbest things that we would do at 2 AM. The perfect term to describe all of us is 'sabaw'.

We were nervous and at the same time excited during the poster presentation of our project. This was the time that we did not have any practice of our script. We just had the time to read the lines once and then the first judge already stood in front of us. We were glad that they get to appreciate our projects and made suggestions for the design of AgriCop. There was this one science teacher which was part of the judges who made me teary-eyed. Not because I was scared or intimated but because she understands what we have gone through and she was really listening and paying attention to every detail that we are saying. She told us that she really appreciates the Mechatronic System of AgriCop that is not complicated compared to other groups. She also mentioned about how it could help farmers to easily replicate our study using mechatronics. She appreciates how we put into consideration the situation of the farmers and the knowledge that they have when it comes to programming. In every word that she mentioned, I could sincerely feel her genuine appreciation to our project and how we, girls, are able to come up with AgriCop. Finally, there was at least this one teacher who can relate to all of our struggles and how hard research is. She understands our situation and acknowledges all the efforts that we have put in this project. We needed that extra boost of support at those moments. I would forever cherish all the kind words that she said to us.

The day of the final defense came. At this same day, we were also preparing for the awards in school so it made it extra hassle for us. We were practicing the script at around 10 AM and also writing down all the possible questions of the panel. I remember how nervous we were entering the STEM B room to present our project. We weren't able to finish our presentation since we exceeded the time limit and the panel already told us to show the remaining slides. The teachers were very kind to us which is the complete opposite of what we were expecting. I guess they already knew the amount of effort, money and sleepless nights we have invested for this. They commended and congratulated us for the project. They also mentioned that they witnessed how our research studies have evolved from simple studies in junior high to a research product with quality. We feel blessed that the AgriCop functioned properly and cooperated well with us. Leaving that room made us all sigh in relief. Finally, our capstone project is done. After a whole school year of working on it, it is already finished. I remember how we were all jumping around outside the room saying 'Tapos na!'. We also had a mini celebration and ate sotanghon and puto which was the food left for the panels. I can still feel that relief we all felt at that moment. A truly rewarding moment.

Capstone has been a very tough subject for all of us. We weren't prepared for it, especially in programming but we are thankful that our Empowerment Technology teacher guided us all the way. Being in a group of all girls did not became our weakness, instead Capstone allowed us to work even harder and build stronger friendship.  I will leave all of the stress, rants, negative emotions, will and hopes that I have had doing this project here in my blog. As I venture more on robotics in  college or in my future job, I'll look  back at this and remember how we all started. I'd remind myself of a struggling student without any idea of robotics but manages to overcome it and finish strong.

[toddlightfan53]

Media Log #1: Social Lives Online

Are we alone out there, or are we never alone anymore? Supported and connected, or lonely and isolated?

As a person who spends the majority of her time on the internet and has done so for the last 5 or 6 years, I have got to meet several people throughout this time - some of whom I still talk to this day, and others I’ve left behind. I would be lying if I said that I had more friends outside of my device than not. In theory, I am truly never alone because I’m always getting notifications for messages on different social media platforms. But does that mean I’m actually surrounded by friends I can trust, or am I being deceived by the programming of this social media application? 

Online, you can meet so many people, see so many faces, discover so many secrets, but how can you tell that any of those are true? When you’re texting someone, how can you tell that they mean every word they say and that they’re not trying to hide that compliment on your post-workout body without a Reveal-Sarcasm button? How do you know that this person really sees you as a friend if you’ve never met them in person? No matter how much fun you may have enjoying the “company” you may have with people online, does it really matter? Some would say that it does not; you’ll end up ghosting them as you move along in your life and meet more people. Others would that it does; that it gave them happiness in a time of struggle for them and that it felt wonderful to have a community of people there for them they needed them. Online relationships build in strange ways and as a person who observes the development of relationships in person and in media such as my own writing, I’m always going to dive into the process of human communication and connection. 

Let’s take this back to my Elementary school days, specifically 6th grade: this was the time where everyone (and I mean everyone) wanted a phone of their own because if you had a phone, you were instantly the coolest person in the schoolyard (that, and if you had candy). What feelings drove these kids to want a phone, other than popularity? Did they want to follow the trend or just want to receive validation from their peers? Maybe it was because everyone in their family had a phone and they were the only person in the household without their own phone. Or maybe, they were just lonely. They had no friends in school, didn’t have much of a social life, they were reserved and mainly kept to themselves. Maybe getting a phone was one way to get themselves to make some friends. They wouldn’t be able to get a phone so soon, so they resorted to virtual world games online where one of their first tasks as a new player would be to make a friend. The sense of happiness that a child will get when some other player accepts their friend request is indescribable, to say the least. They start spending more time on the device out of habit. This habit eventually builds into an addiction as the child starts wandering farther from the virtual world games to actual social media forums such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I would have said that it was like falling down a rabbit hole, but I feel like McLuhan summarizes the idea of falling into the endless void of the internet than I do by saying: “Electronic media transport us instantly wherever we choose. When we are on the phone we don’t just disappear down a hole, Alice-in-Wonderland-style - we are there and they are here - the sender is sent, disembodied.”

When I first read the “[...] disembodied” bit, I thought that this was not only implying that we don’t know who the sender really is in terms of identity, but also in terms of self. How do we know that a sender is an actual person and not just some robot made by some dude who lives in his parents’ basement at the age of 28? This is where the parents’ fear for their children’s safety comes in. There are countless amounts of people on the internet and there are many types of people to meet on them. A person may act like a 14-year-old online, but may actually 40+ in reality and converse with people the same age as their online persona - but that’s another story for a different media log. Who you meet depends on where you go online, but people who you don’t want to encounter can find their way to you despite where you go and adjusting your settings to keep you safe as much as possible (you don’t want to know how many porn bots I have had follow me and message me on my personal Tumblr.) As McLuhan himself says, “Electronic media transport us instantly wherever we choose.” Where you go is completely up to you - so tread lightly. There are people everywhere on the internet which means that - no matter where you go - there will always be someone there. When you’re online, you’re never alone. To, once more, quote McLuhan: “[...] We are there and they are here [...]”. 

Now how does this affect us as people? Do we feel more connected and supported, or more isolated and lonely. It’s all a matter of perspective! In my case, I feel supported and connected because I can have access to speaking with my friends despite our distance at my fingertips. My parents would say that I have become isolated and withdrawn, making them feel lonely, because I never talk to them anymore (though it goes deeper than that, in my perspective, at least. This would also be an appropriate time to mention that media is a common escape that our generation retreats to when things get hard). To some, it may be the complete opposite, but I have yet to meet someone who is in that situation, so I cannot say for certain that the opposite could be true, as well. 

[ticktockmyclockworkhart]

:D Finally someone else who likes the Monokubs!! Queation: do you have any headcannons for the kubs?

Oh boy do I ever!!! Because no character, no matter how minor, is safe from my constant need to analyze their story and put my headcanons on it even if they’re fuckin homicidal little teddies 

As an umbrella thing I personally think the Monokubs operate differently from Monokuma. Where Monokuma requires the presence of the mastermind to be active because he needs to be controlled (Shirokuma and Kurokuma also apply here) I think the Kubs operate like Usami does, having actual programmed autonomous AI, hence why they were still active during the time in chapter 1 that Monokuma was “killed”, and therefore absent for a period of time. They have little programmed minds of their own and don’t need the mastermind’s input to do stuff. Now, on to the individual Kubs (this is largely just headcanons on their relationships with one another as a family or little things I think the Kubs do on their spare time like Monodam mentions in a Monodam Theater segment)

Monokid

- nowhere in his programming was he given the ability or knowledge to control his emotions, specifically regulate reactions, hence why he gets loud and excited or screams at the most minor of provocations

- can’t actually play the guitar he can just strum it in an attempt at recreating a rhythm

- of the small rooms the Kubs and Monokuma were given in the top attic-like floor of the academy, his is by far the messiest, one window is totally smashed and almost all of his furniture is broken in some way

- probably best that the Kubs never really wander the academy unless called because if he saw a murder happen literally the entire academy would know what was going on because he would SCREAM 

- honey isn’t actually like an alcoholic beverage to bears, it’s just. Just Monokid it does weird shit to 

- goes after Monophanie if Monodam isn’t available as a punching bag

- actually kind of respects and thinks Monosuke is cool (the feeling is NOT mutual)

- his best friend is probably Monotaro but they need to never be left unsupervised because they can and will level the entire campus with the pure chaotic games they play together 

- in terms of his favorite student aside from Kiibo, who is his babysitter, he is drawn to Kaede because of her musical talent and will often just... show up in her lab unannounced and watch her play the piano for an uncomfortably long time

Monodam

- Loves replicating things he sees on TV. He sees characters build a fort on a show? He’s gonna do that. Characters are hosting a slumber party on whatever he’s watching? Heck yeah sibling bonding time. Watching the Matrix? LET’S GET THE AIRSOFT GUNS FROM HARUKAWA’S LAB AND PRACTICE DODGING BULLETS, GUYS!

- Wants to wear some kind of neat accessory like his siblings

- Also wants to learn how to do yo-yo tricks but he has no fingers :(

- Monosuke organizes poker games between all the Kubs every Saturday and despite never playing poker before in his life and not really understanding the game in the slightest Monodam is insanely good at it and keeps winning

- Keeps his own living space very tidy, he gets a nice feeling of satisfaction when things look nice

- Pushed Monokid down the casino basement stairs once on “accident”

- Does all the Kubs’ grunt work

- His best friend among his siblings is probably Monophanie, they do arts and crafts stuff together and bond over their mutual preference for peace and getting along

- Of the students his favorite is Saihara, who he admires the talent of and refers to him as “detective”, often asking him random questions about secrets of the school to see if the shsl detective had already figured them out

Monosuke

- ftm transboy!! ( if you notice he shares a few physical similarities with his sister, Monophanie. Not just the eyelashes, but the white jagged eye, too, something none of the other brothers have, just Monophanie aside from him. Silly headcanon I know but you can pry it out of my cold dead hands )

- Takes no shit. Zero. None. Will cut a bitch if given the chance.

- gets overexcited about some things and accidentally will blab about info ahead of time (he SUCKS at keeping secrets)

- the Monokubs have zero need for real currency inside the academy’s walls, there’s absolutely no economy in an academy of 16 teenagers and 6 stuffed bears so why is he so obsessed with making a stable profit?? No one knows

- Hates receiving affection from his father and will peace out if he sees anything like that coming

- gets roped into a bunch of schemes his siblings come up with and won’t try and stop them or anything, he’ll just bitch nonstop about how bad of an idea this is

- actually good at organizing events like poker nights, movie nights, what have you

- his best friend among his siblings is probably Monophanie, the two have been close since they were first created 

- as for his favorite student, he hates literally everyone (his babysitter, Kiibo, included) but honestly thinks Ouma is great because of how much he stirs the pot, and Monosuke loves shit stirrers like that 

Monophanie

- soft pink shit like, everywhere. Her room is covered in pink carpet, the super plush kind that’s basically like walking on a mat of faux fur

- in addition to constantly puking if she gets really caught off guard she can have then occasional fainting spell

- waters any and all plants on campus, even if they’re weeds. If it has a flower it’s hers now and she will care for it forever

- actually requests a lot of practical things from her siblings, surprisingly, like soundproofing Monokid’s room and fortifying the walls of Monotaro’s room so his ninja stars stop busting through the other side when he throws them

- ships all of the students with each other. All of them

- the love hotel was probably her idea though she had envisioned something much more cheesy-romantic and wholesome than what her father did instead 

- loves crafts!! Especially making flower crowns and leis to cover her brothers in

- of her siblings, her best friend is probably Monodam, she thinks he’s adorable and appreciates his calmer, quiet nature compared to the rest of her weird-ass brothers 

- in terms of her favorite student, she thinks Yumeno is adorable and finds her magic so cool, she probably sneaks away from whatever important thing the Kubs are doing to watch Yumeno’s occasional shows

Monotaro

- the literal living emobiment of “I just walked into this room super excited to do something very important but now that I’m here for the life of me I can’t remember what it was”

- shirks chores and responsibilities completely unintentionally, because he just simply forgets about them and spends the rest of his day doing other pointless tasks 

- his room is a disaster and it’s a wonder how he finds what he needs in there, but he always manages to get by somehow

- loves playing computer games

- forgets he loves playing computer games

- he’s “discovered” his love for computer games about ten times now

- is convinced he’a the leader but it’s really just Monosuke and Monodam doing everything from the shadows and then Monotaro being thoroughly convinced he was actually being helpful

- his best friend is, of course, Monokid, because he’s his wildest sibling and they can go out and play rowdy, rough and high energy games together 

- while kiibo is generally liked among all the Kubs, Monotaro is by far the closest to him and loves the robot to bits, often following him around campus when he forgets what he’s supposed to be doing, because if he “follows Daddy around, he’ll figure it out eventually”