#user-defined procedures

[thedbahub]

The Nuances of Naming: T-SQL Practices for User Procedures

In the realm of SQL Server, the naming conventions we choose for our stored procedures can have more impact than one might initially believe. A commonly discussed topic amongst developers is the use of the prefix sp_ for user-defined procedures. While it may seem like a minor detail, adhering to best practices in this area is crucial for both performance and maintainability. Understanding the…

[prokopetz]

On the one hand, it's true that the way Dungeons & Dragons defines terms like "sorcerer" and "warlock" and "wizard" is really only relevant to Dungeons & Dragons and its associated media – indeed, how these terms are used isn't even consistent between editions of D&D! – and trying to apply them in other contexts is rarely productive.

On the other hand, it's not true that these sorts of fine-grained taxonomies of types of magic are strictly a D&D-ism and never occur elsewhere. That folks make this argument is typically a symptom of being unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons' source material. D&D's main inspirations are American literary sword and sorcery fantasy spanning roughly the 1930s through the early 1980s, and fine-grained taxonomies of magic users absolutely do appear in these sources; they just aren't anything like as consistent as the folks who try to cram everything into the sorcerer/warlock/wizard model would prefer.

For example, in Lyndon Hardy's "Five Magics" series, the five types of magical practitioners are:

Alchemists: Drawing forth the hidden virtues of common materials to craft magic potions; limited by the fact that the outcomes of their formulas are partially random.

Magicians: Crafting enchanted items through complex manufacturing procedures; limited by the fact that each step in the procedure must be performed perfectly with no margin for error.

Sorcerers: Speaking verbal formulas to basically hack other people's minds, permitting illusion-craft and mind control; limited by the fact that the exercise of their art eventually kills them.

Thaumaturges: Shaping matter by manipulating miniature models; limited by the need to draw on outside sources like fires or flywheels to make up the resulting kinetic energy deficit.

Wizards: Summoning and binding demons from other dimensions; limited by the fact that the binding ritual exposes them to mental domination by the summoned demon if their will is weak.

"Warlock", meanwhile, isn't a type of practitioner, but does appear as pejorative term for a wizard who's lost a contest of wills with one of their own summoned demons.

Conversely, Lawrence Watt-Evans' "Legends of Ethshar" series includes such types of magic-users as:

Sorcerers: Channelling power through metal talismans to produce fixed effects; in the time of the novels, talisman-craft is largely a lost art, and most sorcerers use found or inherited talismans.

Theurges: Summoning gods; the setting's gods have no interest in human worship, but are bound not to interfere in the mortal world unless summoned, and are thus amenable to cutting deals.

Warlocks: Wielding X-Men style psychokinesis by virtue of their attunement to the telepathic whispers emanating from the wreckage of a crashed alien starship. (They're the edgy ones!)

Witches: Producing improvisational effects mostly related to healing, telepathy, precognition, and minor telekinesis by drawing on their own internal energy.

Wizards: Drawing down the infinite power of Chaos and shaping it with complex rituals. Basically D&D wizards, albeit with a much greater propensity for exploding.

You'll note that both taxonomies include something called a "sorcerer", something called a "warlock", and something called a "wizard", but what those terms mean in their respective contexts agrees neither with the Dungeons & Dragons definitions, nor with each other.

(Admittedly, these examples are from the 1980s, and are thus not free of D&D's influence; I picked them because they both happened to use all three of the terms in question in ways that are at odds with how D&D uses them. You can find similar taxonomies of magic use in earlier works, but I would have had to use many more examples to offer multiple competing definitions of each of "sorcerer", "warlock" and "wizard", and this post is already long enough!)

So basically what I'm saying is giving people a hard time about using these terms "wrong" – particularly if your objection is that they're not using them in a way that's congruent with however D&D's flavour of the week uses them – makes you a dick, but simply having this sort of taxonomy has a rich history within the genre. Wizard phylogeny is a time-honoured tradition!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

What is the difference between urban fantasy and low fantasy?

Using the Fantasy Fiction Continuum, urban fantasy is closer to "reality" in comparison with low fantasy. But also consider other elements that further distinguish both of these fantasy subgenres.

Urban Fantasy - fantastical characters and concepts are placed in a real-world urban setting, often in the present day; also sometimes called "Modern Fantasy"

Low Fantasy - set in the real world, and includes unexpected magical elements that surprise ordinary characters

Urban Fantasy can also be split into 2 distinct subgenres of its own:

The fantasy elements are out in the open

Or they exist in a kind of a shadow society, with the rest of the world operating normally, generally unaware of its existence.

Elements of Urban Fantasy

If you’re asking yourself “what is urban fantasy?” think of it this way: Imagine a book that combines the dense worldbuilding of fantasy and science fiction with the gritty grounded reality of contemporary novels set in New York City, Chicago, or other iconic urban locales. That’s the urban fantasy genre. Here are some key elements of urban fantasy novels, short stories, and films:

Fantasy tropes: Urban fantasy storylines combine the real-life grit with of modern world with fantastical worldbuilding.

An urban setting: Although small town urban fantasies do exist, most take place in present-day major cities.

Magic: Supernatural elements, sci-fi technologies, fairy tales, and folk mythologies are all found throughout urban fantasy novels.

A noir aesthetic: Urban fantasies lift genre conventions from noir and gritty police procedurals.

Mythical creatures: Urban fantasies are populated with supernatural creatures including (but not limited to) undead zombies, vampires, werewolves, druids, demons, shapeshifters, and perhaps a mage or wizard.

A protagonist with a foot in both worlds: The main character of an urban fantasy is typically savvy to the real-life ways of their urban environment yet can also wield or exploit magical powers.

A young protagonist: Relatively young characters who practice wizardry or witchcraft are common in urban fantasy series.

Elements of Low Fantasy

Low Fantasy is a catchall, and inexact, term for secondary world (i.e., a constructed world; a completely fictional setting, rather than our world) fantasy.

The designation is not a description of the quality of the work, but rather the prevalence of fantastic elements.

Tends towards less “traditional” (simplistic) morality.

Sometimes comedies are also excluded from the genre, but either way the works that remain don't have a natural unity.

However, while there is no complete list of defining features, there are features and tropes common to many Low Fantasy works that can help distinguish them from other fantasy works; each tends to be the opposite of one of the defining features of High Fantasy. Examples:

Magic: While Magic is prominent in High Fantasy, it's generally rare if not non-existent in Low Fantasy. What magic does exist is complicated, ambiguous, reserved for a very select few and/or has specific scientific rules. It's also likely to be dangerous, corruptive, or difficult to control, and magic-users are likely to be distrusted and often genuinely untrustworthy sorts.

Heroes: Usually normal people that have taken up a cause rather than The Chosen Ones of High Fantasy. It's not uncommon for them to be an Anti-Hero of some kind and/or have non-heroic motives (e.g. they take up a cause for personal ambition, for vengeance or just to survive as opposed to doing it for the 'greater good').

Shades of Grey: While High Fantasy usually features Black-and-White Morality with clear-cut heroes and villains, many Low Fantasy works have Grey and Gray or Black and Gray. More importantly, the success of the victor often has no bearing on their motives or honor.

Methods: Victories are usually achieved through physical combat and cunning, not magical battles and certainly not by moral superiority.

Scope: Down to Earth. Tends to focus more on the survival and tribulations of one or a few individuals rather than the whole world.

Examples of Urban Fantasy Works

The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (2000)

The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch (2011)

The Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews (2007)

The Merry Gentry series by Laurell K. Hamilton (2000)

The Hollows series by Kim Harrison (2004)

The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs (2006)

The Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter (2009)

The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris (2001)

Moonheart by Charles de Lint (1984)

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (1987)

Examples of Low Fantasy Works

When the plastic figurines come to life in Lynne Reid Banks’s The Indian in the Cupboard (1980).

A Song of Ice and Fire is a generally low-magic setting, with a cynically pragmatic worldview and a focus on political maneuvering between rival factions who are all at least morally gray; however, the politics spans two continents and reaches epic levels on its own even without more traditional, stirring High adventure elements. However, because The Magic Comes Back slowly over the course of the story, the fantasy does get progressively Higher as the series goes on, even though the general tone remains Low in nature. The magic and other mysteries are treated as ambiguous, yet highly dangerous, potentially world-changing and complicating factors in an already combustible political and social situation.

Tangled has very little magic — with the only source of it being Rapunzel's hair. Besides the animals being somewhat more intelligent than normal, there's little else. The protagonists are all human, and the story is mainly Rapunzel's journey to the kingdom. The antagonist is said to be a witch, but she has no powers other than knowing how to activate Rapunzel's magic. As far as Grey-and-Gray Morality goes, one of the lead characters is an unrepentant thief and various side characters are implied criminals with Hidden Depths.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Do go through the sources for more details and examples. Hope this helps with your writing!

[coffeegnomee]

The Phenomenon of Mapicc

At some point we all look back at our early teen years and realize that just because we can scam a fellow kid online because the game developers didn’t specifically write it out of the code or write safety procedures to protect their user base doesn’t mean we should scam other kids online. At some point we all realize, almost out the blue, that the other people online are real people and not just slightly more interesting npc’s walking around the world. (Though the tendency to do so anyway is always present)

Mapicc as a character on the lifesteal smp has long eluded definition for me. There are ways in which he simultaneously 1) a blurred line between character and streamer, 2) a clear cut motivated character with clearly defined goals and personality, and 3) simply and completely a guy playing a video game. 

He is all three at the same time. A blurring of real emotions into the Minecraft world, a player curated for a video, and the man who is who he is while he plays video games. I don’t think you can take one out and get a serious understanding of the character of Mapicc.

The battle between all three is constant, and the person who Mapicc plays as the persona of the Mapicc channel is only one part of the lifesteal character that the audience can encounter. The persona of Mapicc, the video Mapicc, is brutal and bloodthirsty, uncaring of past connections, and dedicated to a cause. At least, specifically when you watch that unfold on streams. He’ll be randomly extra brutal for seemingly no reason until you realize he’s got a specific video idea he’s doing. Like killing Pangi and Zam day 1 was bc he was running out of the 24 hours to get to 20 hearts, which is a video idea and also seemingly not caring that (at least Zam) is a close friend. Tbh it’s been a while since I thought about the actual persona of a Mapicc video as told through edited content, honestly, if anything I would say the Mapicc that Mapicc presents to the world on his channel is much closer to himself than how that plays out while watching it as a stream viewer on the server.

Now, you might already be thinking, gnome, this is too much like c! And cc! And I’m tired of all those indicators why can’t it just be blurred and that’s it and it’s all just fun analysis about a small facet of a person that we see only when they want us to and is bound within the four infinite walls of a Minecraft server. 

To which I would say, yes, yes my brain hurts too. 

But there is something about Mapicc that can only ever be understood through the lens of the media that he exists within and from. I might even argue PrinceZam is not in this category despite being notorious for being a blurred line character. This isn’t simply about the nature of blurred lines in mcrp.

Mapicc is not simply a blurred line. Those two facets of strictly a character and strictly the kid who plays Minecraft on top of the blurred line are vastly important.

A blurred line character is a character that smoothly and subconsciously transfers between the real emotions and psychology of a singular real human, and the projected, improved character that they are playing. They might start as a clearly defined experiment such as “what if I played as a pacifist” and divert into something completely complex. They’re almost like a thought experiments. What if I changed this about myself; how would that look?

Every streamer will be a blurred line at some point. We’re watching real people be entertainment; at some point there is a boundary between who they are and how they present themselves. Some will either create a persona to project to the world as themselves, dropping the act only at certain times, while other streamers might pick up a persona/character at times to fulfill a fun facet of the story but then drop it easily to play the game while talking to chat. I would argue that both sides are valid at the same time for interpreting their characters, an easy example being tommyinnit and Philza respectively. Any server they’ve been on has been marked by their respective styles and you can interpret their characters within by looking at both aspects together, and the elements of the character as a whole will be discovered differently in different situations.

Mapicc, once again is not quite that. 

As a streamer who is actually pretty consistent in his upload schedule, he is motivated by the story he tells, the plots he wants to pull off, and the villains he fights against. I find it imminently fascinating that the castle arc was actually supposed to be a video but was scrapped bc Mapicc lost the fight, rather than what was told, sometime earlier, that he just never made it a video and regretted it bc the fans loved the story. 

But he is also a player who plays lifesteal consistently. His breaks while editing are markedly shorter than most other players who upload, and his time on the server while not having a clear video idea are much longer than nearly 2/3 of the player base. Most members of lifesteal only appear when they have a video idea.  

So therefore he plays Minecraft while on his or other’s streams. 

We are all aware to some degree who we are when we play video games. It’s not the same as who we are as people. Whether it’s being more violent, or being a completionist, or farming, or building, or ranking up; everyone has their own preference for why they like playing a video game in the first place. 

Minecraft as the particular sandbox that it is has four entire categories of gameplay that coexist at nearly all times: pvp, optimization (speedrunning/redstone), building, and socializing. 

Throw anyone into a Minecraft world and they’re going to gravitate to some more than others. And each category has subsets: pvp can be split into competitive and hunting people down; optimization can be grinding, or game mechanics, or red stone machining; building can be artistic/creative mode, or just for fun, or secret bases, or tunnel cults, or anything your mind can think of that manipulates the blocks in the game; socializing can be as a shared activity, or trolling other players, or just running around wasting golden carrots together.[1] etc etc etc.

And Mapicc has maxed out the pvp category, at least to the best of his ability. He leans far more towards hunting people down rather than pure competitive gameplay, preferring to “change the world”[2] by killing someone rather than practice mechanics in a practice server. He wants to get on the ground and actually affect the world around him just as much as any builder.

In other words, the bloodlust isn’t just something he does because his character likes blood and he wants to do a villain arc. Mapicc would want to kill on any world he joins, and would be rather bored if that wasn’t an option for him. 

He is also incredibly social, preferring to play with someone else around him rather than taking on solo missions by himself. He’s not a grinder by nature in the slightest, but has learned the skills to be one. 

He’s also honorable, in a world commonly upheld has having no honor, holding to a moral code of killing and being attacked as honorable while running in circles and bow spam and not showing up to fight and avoiding battle are categorically dishonorable acts that he disdains. The rule is the rule of battle. Fight and kill and be killed. Let the cycles commence. 

And as soon as we start thinking about Mapicc in relation to others, we start to see his character give form. 

And this is where we finally loop back around to the point I alluded to in the first paragraph: the phenomenon of growing up. 

Mapicc by the end of s4 and through s5, I would say, was his most consistent era. All the memes and love about dogged devotion, unending bloodlust and run-you-down-to-the-ends-of-the-earth-forever-and-ever were thriving. His patience was surprising, willing to wait for the opportune moment to get revenge, never forgetting what had been done against him. [3]

But something shifted in s6, and not just the responsibility of being the owner of the server. Mapicc is simply maturing. No longer 14 years old like in s1, we’re in the post high-school-graduation era. 

In the past I would’ve called Mapicc a cheater (/aff), an exploiter, willing, so very willing, to do anything to turn the tide of a battle to his advantage. 

But now? I’m not so sure. 

Will he be immune to temptation when it arises? No, not at all. While we are already seeing his willingness to never dupe again, his easy laughing off suggestions to admin abuse, we are also seeing his frustration lead him to launching nukes at spawn with Spoke.

He will still always call in backup when he promises a fair fight. But hey, it’s lifesteal. Lying is part of it. And honor is found in showing up to the fight, not in a fair 1v1. This is war after all. 

But, and I mean this specifically for the entire character that is the story of Mapicc, Mapicc has been changed. This season is so devastatingly different. Duping and being on the wormhole side in s4 changed him, getting beaten by a traitor in the Abyss changed him. 

But s6 has been a slow cooker roasting him into something new. 

Everything points to him wanting to mature, to be different from the past, not so impulsive, more caring of his own time and others, willing to drop the past. 

Bitterness in loosing teammates and friends, loneliness in a world once populated by an awesome team, and the cold cruel hand of suddenly being favored by the Sever, have only brought sorrow and destruction upon him. 

And he’s left purposeless, held together only by what he has left to him, his honor, his pride.

And so, on a much more practical and real world level, Mapicc just does’t have a video idea for s6 anymore and he wants to upload more frequently. Back in s4 he was so much quicker to anger and long-drawn-out to seeing it through. He’s unwilling to drop four months into one video that he doesn’t even upload. This isn’t high school anymore.

And that real world problem of YouTuber-doesn’t-have-video-idea, is part of every character on lifesteal. That ebb and flow of inspiration curates each and every one of them. Wemmbu being done with ls ideas for the season will lead him to ban himself to be rid of the temptation to log on, leading others to be affected by how callously he leaves this world without thought of what they think, thereby curating the character into a complex emotional mess who doesn’t believe people actually care about him or would want him around and who pushes people away and is villainous because he’s never understood what love is. All because he doesn’t have an ls video and has a uu script to write. 

It’s part of any lifestealer who doesn’t naturally gravitate towards the “lore” of the server.

And yet recently I’ve been really feeling like Mapicc absolutely plays lifesteal like it’s actually mcrp. He’s become invested in how Mapicc would react to the elements of the server and the things that happen to him. He’s always cared deeply about the livelihood of the server, but it’s more curated into a story than ever before. Mapicc is The Complainer and The Sass Master and that has made him into pvper who is notorious for running around the server dropping lore lines as trash talk, never missing a chance to really lay it in how dumb he thinks Flame is for logout trapping him and always doing what Mane tells him to do. Why? He doesn’t have a video idea for that 2v1 (unless?), none of that trash talk is necessary, he’s shown he doesn’t say that trash talk when on the practice server just days after the event happened. Like, that is so specifically a rp moment taken advantage of. It has no other use than bc on lifesteal Mapicc Hates Flame. (and because on lifesteal is his only outlet for those emotions; he's not going to start hating on his friends in real life for in game stuff)

Sure, in some ways Mapicc keeps lore distinct and at arms length. And this is, for instance, why I think devotions is as devastatingly dramatic as it is; because Mapicc will never admit how much Zam means to him and yet will be character-motivated by his devotion to Zam at all times. But him as a person just keeps that mostly at arms length; it’s not him caring about Zam it’s about the wardens, guys. Spawning wardens for a video. And owning spawn. Obviously.

You see what I’m getting at? It’s not just blurred, it’s two separate thoughts held at the same time. Mapicc and Mapicc combining together to make Mapicc.

So much of Mapicc is a mashing together of anything and everything he thinks of throwing at the screen. And all of that somehow comes out to an actually understandable and crisp final character who always acts in the most Mapicc way possible at all times always, undefinable except by saying “it’s just Mapicc” and that Meaning something. 

----

So when you see me writing about Mapicc, know this is what is going on in my head.

———

[1] im bringing footnotes into a Tumblr essay. Wemmbu, who I talk about later, would naturally play Minecraft as a run around wasting golden carrots type guy. As a person playing Minecraft he does not gravitate towards doing, well, anything. It is only in making a video that he will move himself to be anything. Despite learning pvp and rising, what, two teirs?, he is not someone who will casually look for fights while on a server. It’s not in his blood. 

[2] ~1:00:00 GREYS prinzezam vod, ZAM: ‘why are you always trying to kill someone mapicc?” MAPICC: ‘I dunno.. Maybe I feel….. Underachieving. Without it. Like I didn't get anything done to day unless I get another kill” ZAM: “but you have 20 hearts” MAPICC: “yea but the killing is changing the world” 

[3] The castle arc lasted from November 27 until March 6. From the day Zam left team awesome to the day they finally got their 1v1 without Spoke spawning a warden. 99 days. (That’s fucking crazy given the 97 days we just went through). I suppose in a very valid way, the mace arc was 8 months and we have no idea where s6 will go and how Mapicc will get revenge on flame, for instance. But as of now he’s just done. That’s very different than any other time in his lifesteal life, and the response, as a long time Mapicc viewer, is more empathetically devastating. But those 8 months are not the same as the four months of the castle arc. The mace was no logged in for most of those days. His dogged determination wasn't the same this season as the past.

[lizbethborden]

Its so true, Dworkin and Mackinnon predicted everything about this current era. Porn has become sex now; teenage girls being bullied into anal and getting choked by boys and coerced into sending nudes at an age typically understood as one of “exploration”—now porn defines sex and sexuality; and Gail Dines and many others have talked about the deeply deadening effect of porn on empathy and the ability to recognize women as people. Porn crept ever further into the mainstream and it has totally saturated our culture, from the ‘arts’—not just streaming/TV or Lars Von Trier films, but I’m thinking of stuff as small as frames of comic books traced from porn, art distributed online traced from porn—to the personal intimate lives of human beings, women being choked, spat on, beaten—then again, even back in the 80s, men were using porn to abuse women, and the most widely available stuff was still not as vile as the porn you can find with a 2sec Google search from any phone or computer today. Deepfake porn turns all women existing in public into potential victims of violent and degrading misogynist fetishism and sexuality. OF and its ilk makes it possible for any woman to monetize herself in the form of porn and in a time of increasing economic instability, inflation, high food and gas prices, the upcoming potential loss of health insurance for millions, I’m sure it’s more appealing than ever. Porn terminology is everywhere, “MILF,” “ebony,” etc. And all of this is done under the guise of sexual liberation and free speech, and to argue against it is seen as puritanical, condescending at best, hateful, antifeminist, “SWERF”/“TERF”-y at worst. It is a demonstrated fact of the research done into porn that it shuts off vital abilities to connect with women as human beings, to empathize with women and to reject violence against us; that porn usage conditions the user into seeking out ever more intense, bizarre, violent content to use in order to achieve the same pleasure and orgasm that “vanilla” content used to do for them. What must it be doing to all of us, collectively, to have porn on every level of our culture now? What is it doing to the position of women in our society, already half citizens at best, earning significantly less than men, with our bodily autonomy stripped away in many states, being denied life-saving procedures and medications—not just mifepristone etc but even things like lupus medication and anti-inflammatories that may potentially affect us and our bodies if we chose at some point to maybe get pregnant—even being arrested for drinking or taking drugs while decidedly not pregnant because it could affect a potential fetus at some point? Are we not degraded objects already? What does it mean for us to be reduced to “cumsocks” and pornographic objects on top of all this? How deeply destructive is this society, how much further will it go to enforce the category of woman as hole, woman as receptacle, woman as vessel, woman as meat?

[baldy-wan-kenobi]

The Mechs of my mech setting: A summary

So, my mech setting, for the most part, has four main categories of mechs, separated into Generations. These generations mainly differ based on what power source they use, getting larger and more advanced with each generation. In-universe, they're called "Combat Frames", or just "Frames", colloquially.

Generation One mechs are little more than powered armor, battery-powered exoskeleton suits that provide protection, and enhanced physical characteristics to the wearer. They are usually either immensely heavy, durable and slow, to enable the user to act as a one-man tank, wielding heavy weapons with ease, or extremely agile and fast, to enhance the mobility of its wearer to a superhuman degree. While knowledge of their construction was not lost to the ravages of the Long War, it is rare to find them outside of the security forces of city-states or the Knights of Svalbard, as they do not provide much utility to Tinman mercenaries or raider gangs, due to their higher maintenance requirement and lesser capability, in comparison to the similarly-expensive Gen 2 mechs.

Generation Two mechs are squatty, angular machines, reminiscent of the style of mech seen in fifth-generation Armored Core games, with limited vertical mobility, but able to maintain ground-skimming hover maneuvers for a significant amount of time. They are, without a doubt, the most common type of Frame in the world in the aftermath of the Final Armistice, and many of the largest corporations in the world specialize in producing parts for them. They are in the hands of every force on Earth, from the private armies of city-states to the marauding bands who roam the wastes. However, their most famous pilots are the Tin Soldiers, soldiers of fortune infamous in the new world as tools for the interests of City-States and corporations. They are somewhat limited, with directed energy weapons being rather rare and valuable, though some Gen 2 Frames are greatly enhanced, through the use of Old World Tech or the installation of a Cortical Control Augmentation system, which I'll discuss momentarily. They use specialized fusion engines, and are, with the exception of mechs retrofitted with a CCA system, controlled via two control yokes and several panels of buttons, switches, and screens.

Generation Three Frames are a new technological leap forward from the squatty, clumsy mechs of the second generation, using their Esoteric Reactors to power massively enhanced systems, extreme mobility equipment, and devastating weaponry. They are, more or less, at the level of mecha that Armored Core 6 operates on, with insanely fast mechs capable of extreme vertical mobility and immense destruction. They are used heavily by the Knights of Svalbard, though there are others in the hands of the powerful and enigmatic individuals known as the Veterans, whom I will discuss at another time. For generation 3 mechs, a Cortical Control Augmentation system is necessary to pilot it, which means the pilot must undergo two critical procedures that prepare them to use their Frames:

In surgery for Cortical Control Augmentation, the subjects synapses are enhanced, and among other things, augmented with networks of fiber optic cable, increasing the speed of signal transmission in the brain by a great deal. This is done to massively upgrade reaction times and parallel processing ability. Implants are also installed that tap into the nervous system to "bypass" the motor functions of the brain, rerouting them to the mech itself, such that a pilot with CCA implants is capable of using a mech like it is their own body. It also allows them full use of the mech's enhanced perceptive suite, though with no sense of touch, pilots report difficulty in controlling the mech's immense strength.

Finally, Generation Four mechs are defined by their use of the mysterious energy source known as Miyazaki Particles, which essentially function by giving the laws of physics as we understand them the finger and a handwritten permit that says 'I do what I want'. They are defined by their insanity, and most have little in common besides exploiting the power of Miyazaki particles. This means that they can range in their level of power from the level of the NEXTs of AC4A to the reality-bending shenanigans of the mechs of Lancer. They are exclusively Old World Tech, as they were only ever prototypes by the end of the Long War, and their use is banned, seeing as Miyazaki radiation is immensely harmful to all life, and the inherently unstable Miyazaki reactors at their hearts can cause immense damage if they go critical. In fact, the city-state of Budapest was destroyed entirely when a Fourth Generation mech that had been recovered from a local cache of Old World Tech went critical in their research labs.

[ms-demeanor]

What would anarchist Tumblr look like? Could any of the words in the ToS make sense without a top-down authority dictating how to "properly" define things like spam?

Go look at any open source project.

You could get together a group of people who could agree on a number of things, like what spam is and what is or isn't allowed on the platform, and you could have users vote on that kind of thing as they join, and eventually what's going to happen is that people will join the platform in bad faith, take advantage of the gaps in the rules, and be really difficult to remove in a fair and democratic way. You are also going to end up with a small number of people doing the majority of the work and feeling hard done by when people who don't understand the work that goes into making changes demand changes and outvote the engineers (though you can mitigate that by saying "you can demand any change that you personally can implement" but then you'll get people complaining that there's a hierarchy of programmers running the site, or worse, you'll have bad actors who are also programmers who will implement shitty changes).

(also this is highly theoretical because a lot of the words in the ToS are mandated by the laws of the country that the platform is registered in or the laws of the countries it is operating in - if your definition of spam is fucky it'll just mess with who wants to use your platform; if your definition of IP law is fucky assholes in cheap suits are going to start knocking on your door and handing you notices of service)

If you want an anarchist website you don't want a platform, you just want to go and make your own website.

That is, unfortunately, difficult, it can be expensive, and it doesn't scale.

IDK. Much love and respect for anarchists (i consider myself one) and other flavors of leftist but I feel like before any anarchist decides to get started on a big project they should go interface with people in the real world in some setting that requires parliamentary procedure and then watch the ways in which people will fuck with those systems. You only need to see one group fall apart because there is no means of removing bad actors before you realize that you need to build that into all your projects in the future or you're dooming them to schisms.

Basically your question made me think about how I would go about trying to start a social media platform for anarchists and I immediately went "NOPE, I WOULD NOT DO THAT." (Also it's just not a priority; if I was going to start a website that was doomed to failure it would be about, like, abortion access or a map of free resources or I would simply not start a website and would just use that time for some kind of mutual support network)

But also. Like.

Signal groupchat.

[scotisfr]

I added some more to my pseudocode note following this GameJam, so here's my notes:

Pseudocode is an informal, high-level description of a program's logic. It acts as a bridge between the problem statement and the actual code, helping you outline the steps to solve a coding task before implementation.

General Principles

Clarity: Write pseudocode that is easy to read and understand. Avoid jargon or unnecessary complexity.

Simplicity: Focus on the core logic and omit irrelevant details. Simplify wherever possible.

Consistency: Use consistent naming conventions for variables and functions

Descriptive names: Choose names for variables, functions, and steps that make their purpose self-explanatory (e.g., calculate_total instead of calcTot).

Consistent indentation: Use consistent indentation to indicate blocks of code and hierarchy,visually representing the flow and making it easier to follow the logic.

Language agnostic: Good pseudocode should be understandable regardless of informatics language.

Best Practices

Start with the problem statement: Restate the problem in your own words before writing pseudocode. This ensures clarity.

Avoid code syntax: Focus on the logic, not specific syntax (e.g., write loop through the list instead of for i in range(len(list))).

Use natural language: Write in plain human language that describes actions (e.g., Add 1 to the counter instead of counter++).

Use bullet points or numbered steps: Structuring pseudocode as a list improves readability.

Refine and review: Simplify and clarify until the pseudocode is easily understandable.

Think as a reader, not the writer: Imagine someone else reading your pseudocode. Is it clear and understandable?

Test with real problems: Write pseudocode for real problems to practice and improve.

Structure

1) Start with a high-level outline a) Define the main steps of your algorithm or process. b) Break down complex problems into smaller, manageable parts. (Example: Instead of "Solve the problem," write "Sort the list" → "Search for an item.") 2) Comments for explanation a) Use inline comments or notes to clarify decisions or logic that might not be immediately obvious. 3) Break down tasks a) Divide complex tasks into smaller, reusable components (e.g., use functions or procedures for repetitive tasks). 4) Include edge cases and error handling a) Consider edge cases: mention how edge cases are handled (e.g., empty input, null values, invalid values, or extreme conditions). b) Error handling: describe how errors are managed (e.g., "If input is invalid, prompt user again"). 5) Document assumptions and dependencies a) Assumptions: clearly state any assumptions you make about the input or the environment. b) Dependencies: note any dependencies or preconditions needed for the pseudocode to work.

Common Constructs

Variables Clearly state what variables are and their purpose. (e.g., counter to track iterations).

Conditionals Use simple and clear conditional statements: (Example: "If the item is found, print success. Else, continue searching.")

Loops Clearly define the loop type and its purpose.

Functions/procedures Define the purpose and parameters of functions. (Example: "Function find_max takes a list as input and returns the largest number.")

[plutos-flags]

neoAGAB update

Personally Assigned Birth Gender and BirthGenderPunk flags

-= color meanings =-

sky blue - perisex trans/non-binary people

plum - visibly intersex people

grape - non-visibly intersex people

coral - community and solidarity between all neoAGAB users

-

dark magenta - feminist/anti-sexism and acknowledgment of how AGAB is often used to uphold patrilogical ideals and stereotypes, effects childcare/child safety in these regards, etc

dark purple and indigo - intersectionality surrounding AGAB such as medical queerphobia, ableism and anti-queer history involving intersex people, etc

cyan - acknowledgement of the medical neglect and malpractice that often stems from the sexism, queerphobia, racism, and ableism the modern medical field was founded on

light blue - solidarity with other punk movements such as medpunk, queerpunk, and transanarchism

-= notes =-

when i made my initial neoAGAB post, i had defined Personally Assigned Birth Gender (PABG) as "someone who either rejects their AGAB in favor of one they prefer, doesn't wish to disclose their AGAB for whatever reason, or simply doesn't find the concept of AGAB to be important/relevant enough to care and choose their own". i still stand by this definition for PABG; however, i will be adding a new one for BirthGenderPunk (BPG).

BirthGenderPunk is, as the name implies, a punk identity is opposition of assigned birth genders. one can have many reasons for doing so, whether they're intersex or perisex. this includes but is not limited to:

being visibly intersex and coerced into choosing either male or female and having "corrective" medical procedures done as result

being chromosomally, hormonally, or otherwise not visibly intersex and not finding out until much later, possibly suffering medical/social/etc problems/hardships as a result

being transgender, non-binary, xenogender, etc as not identifying with your AGAB for any reason

being transgender, non-binary, xenogender, etc and having personal conflict with one's AGAB

recognizing that along with gender itself, AGAB is also a concept and shouldn't be as prioritized as it is in society as well as the systemic issues it attributes to

etc etc etc

with all this said, i would like add that this isn't an "attack" on terms such as female/male and AFAB/AMAB. female and male are biological terms. PABG and BGP are specifically about gender and AGAB, gender being a sociological construct. many people like myself have issue with AGAB because of how it's pushed both by society and the medical field.

many intersex people are either not acknowledged as intersex or are operated on w/out their consent to appear as perisex, despite the possibly very fatal risks of doing so. not to ment. that many perisex people also feel uncomfortable with the concept of AGAB because of the societal expectations often tied to their AGAB, how AGAB is treated as a second binary along with gender and how that affects trans/non-binary people, etc etc etc.

-= end =-

these terms are free to use w/out permission. if reposted or shared off-site, please link back to this post and credit me.

disclaimer ;; i did not create the concept of neoAGAB nor do i know who did. these are my terms inspired by it, in collaboration with the neoAGAB community.

[anything-bitesized]

Are We Creating Ourselves, or Just Performing for the Algorithm?

Keywords: body image, aesthetic labor, social media culture, digital self

Social media platforms are saturated with flawless selfies, edited bodies, and carefully curated aesthetics that adhere to narrow and repetitive beauty ideals. These ideals often follow what are known as aesthetic templates - standardized styles, poses, and modifications that define what is considered “beautiful” in digital spaces. These templates are not merely about self-expression but function as codes to gain social validation through likes, followers, and visibility.

Maintaining an online presence that aligns with these trends requires what scholars define as aesthetic labor - the continuous effort people invest in altering their appearance, both physically and digitally, to fit within accepted norms (Dean, 2005). This kind of labor is especially prevalent in microcelebrity, where individuals brand themselves for online consumption, blurring the boundaries between personal identity and commercial persona (Senft, 2012). However, even beyond influencers, these pressures extend to ordinary users who need to conform to the same polished standards to feel seen.

Recent cases highlight the urgency of this issue. In early 2024, TikTok implemented restrictions on the use of beauty filters for teenagers after public concern that these filters were contributing to appearance-based anxiety and lowering self-esteem. The platform acknowledged that repeated exposure to altered faces could lead to mental health issues, especially among adolescents navigating their formative years online (Booth 2024). This follows earlier findings from Instagram’s internal research, which revealed that one in three teenage girls felt worse about their bodies after using the app, primarily due to comparison with filtered and idealized images (Gayle 2021).

Beyond mental health, the impact of aesthetic standards has manifested in real-world consequences. Hunt (2019) reported a rise in “Snapchat dysmorphia,” a term used to describe individuals seeking cosmetic procedures to resemble their filtered selfies. Surgeons have noted an increase in young patients requesting enhancements to achieve digital-like features - such as smooth skin, larger lips, or contoured faces - demonstrating how online beauty templates can shape offline body modification practices.

Filters are more widespread than ever before, prompting some individuals to pursue cosmetic enhancements like fillers, Botox, and other aesthetic treatments.

Social media’s preference for sexualized content further compounds this issue. The concept of pornification - the encouragement of users to present themselves in a sexualized manner to gain attention - is driven by algorithmic logic that rewards visibility and engagement with such imagery (Tyler & Quek, 2016). This results in users modifying not only their appearance but their behavior to match what platforms deem profitable or popular.

The emotional consequences of this environment are stark. The 2022 BBC documentary Disordered Eating by Zara McDermott explores the connection between social media and the rising rates of eating disorders among young people. It presents personal narratives and expert commentary to highlight how constant exposure to slim, idealized bodies fosters disordered eating habits and body dissatisfaction (BBC 2022). These stories reflect the psychological toll of aesthetic labor, where worth is measured against an unattainable ideal curated for digital approval.

Zara explores the rise in eating disorders and asks if social media is the problem.

The cycle of comparison, modification, and validation driven by social media algorithms transforms personal identity into a performance and bodies into commodities. The pressure to adhere to digital beauty norms erodes self-esteem and encourages both mental and physical alterations, raising critical questions about agency, authenticity, and well-being in the age of algorithmic aesthetics.

Reference list

BBC 2022, ‘Zara McDermott: “I considered deleting social media after learning impact on disordered eating”’, BBC Three, viewed 23 March 2025, https://www.bbc.com/bbcthree/article/88b8852b-79ec-4821-a7c3-01dd8bf3e245.

Booth, R 2024, ‘TikTok to block teenagers from beauty filters over mental health concerns’, The Guardian, viewed 23 March 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/26/tiktok-to-block-teenagers-from-beauty-filters-over-mental-health-concerns.

Gayle, D 2021, ‘Facebook aware of Instagram’s harmful effect on teenage girls, leak reveals’, The Guardian, viewed 23 March 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/14/facebook-aware-instagram-harmful-effect-teenage-girls-leak-reveals.

Hunt, E 2019, ‘Faking it: How Selfie Dysmorphia Is Driving People to Seek Surgery’, The Guardian, viewed 23 March 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/23/faking-it-how-selfie-dysmorphia-is-driving-people-to-seek-surgery.

Dean, D 2005, ‘Recruiting a self: Women performers and aesthetic labour’, Work, Employment & Society, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 761–774. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017005058061

Senft, TM 2012, ‘Microcelebrity and the branded self’, in Hartley, J, Burgess, J & Bruns, A (eds), A Companion to New Media Dynamics, Blackwell, UK.

Tyler, M & Quek, K 2016, ‘Conceptualizing pornographication’, Sexualization, Media, & Society, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374623816648962

[thedbahub]

Convert Functions to Stored Procedures for Better Performance?

Introduction Hey there, fellow SQL Server enthusiast! Have you ever found yourself wondering if you should convert your user-defined functions to stored procedures to improve performance? Well, you’re not alone! As someone who’s spent countless hours tuning databases, I’ve often pondered this question myself. In this article, we’ll dive into the pros and cons of making this switch and explore…

[ppatpatnews]

A Clash of Text and Politics: The Clemency Petition Act

In a move that has rattled the corridors of power in SimDemocracy, the Department of Justice has filed an ex parte request for judicial review of the recently passed Clemency Petition Act (CPA). The filing, which now stands before the SimDem Supreme Court, contends that the CPA flagrantly violates core constitutional principles by undermining the separation of powers and the rule of law. According to the judicial review request, the CPA, passed by the Senate on January 27, 2025, with an 8-2 vote and 3 abstentions, seeks to establish a new administrative scheme for handling clemency petitions. The act allows individuals convicted of crimes in SimDemocracy to seek pardons or reduced sentences if they have served part of their sentence and demonstrate remorse, among other criteria. Yet, it is the act’s procedural design that has provoked the current legal challenge. The Department of Justice argues that the CPA improperly encroaches on executive prerogatives and judicial authority by delegating what should be a clear-cut appeals process to an ambiguously defined “Judiciary of SimDem.” The filing highlights that the CPA grants the power to review clemency decisions to a board composed of three public members—augmented by an unspecified number of judicial representatives. Critics, as the request outlines, contend that this setup effectively creates a de facto appeals court, bypassing the established pathway for judicial review enshrined in Article 9, Section 3, §3.2 of the SimDem Constitution. This, they assert, contravenes the constitutional guarantee of judicial independence and the historic separation of powers, as envisioned by the framers and extolled in Federalist No. 48 and No. 49. Yet, it is not only the potential for judicial usurpation that alarms the Department of Justice. The act’s lack of safeguards, particularly concerning appeals and accountability, is seen as a direct threat to the rule of law. By permitting decisions to be rendered by a board consisting largely of laypersons with minimal judicial oversight, the CPA opens the door to arbitrary outcomes and potential abuses—issues that could undermine the public’s confidence in both clemency and the broader legal system.

Beyond constitutional theory, the judicial review of the CPA also carries practical implications for governance. The petition suggests that the act could create compliance issues with Discord’s Terms of Service by failing to explicitly exclude cases involving Terms of Service violations. If the Clemency Board were to reinstate banned users without consideration of platform policies, the state could be placed in conflict with Discord’s legal framework—a concern with potentially far-reaching consequences​.

The SimDem Supreme Court now faces a pivotal decision that will not only determine the fate of the CPA but also set a precedent for the balance of powers in SimDemocracy. Will the Court uphold the act as a necessary reform in clemency administration, or will it strike it down as an unconstitutional overreach? As this case unfolds, it serves as a microcosm of a broader debate on the nature of governance in digital communities—where law, democracy, and platform policies intersect in increasingly complex ways.

At its core, the CPA aims to create a structured and transparent process for clemency, giving convicted users a second chance through an impartial review process​. But the review filed by the Department of Justice suggests that this attempt at fairness comes at a constitutional cost​. The biggest concern? The act’s decision to allow the President—not the courts—to have the final say on some clemency appeals. This cuts to the heart of a classic debate in governance: should final decisions of justice belong to a panel of legal experts, or does democracy demand a more political, populist touch?

Historically, the power of clemency has been both a tool of justice and a source of controversy. In real-world legal systems, clemency is often a check against the rigidity of courts—an executive privilege meant to acknowledge that laws, however well-crafted, cannot account for every human circumstance. But in a digital democracy like SimDem, where governance structures are still evolving, the line between necessary oversight and dangerous power consolidation is blurrier. Does granting final review power to the President provide a needed safeguard, or does it weaken the judiciary’s independence?

SimDemocracy, like many digital nations, struggles with balancing power among its branches of government. The judicial review request argues that the CPA undermines the judiciary’s authority, allowing a vaguely defined “Clemency Review Board” to function as an unregulated appellate court​. Meanwhile, critics of the judicial review say the act is merely adapting governance to the realities of an online legal system.

The Federalist Papers, cited in the review, were written for a world where governing structures were physical institutions with historical precedents. But in the digital age, the question remains: how much of traditional governance theory applies to an online democracy where rules evolve alongside the community’s needs?

It reflects a broader question: how should digital societies balance efficiency with constitutional integrity? Online communities must constantly adjust their rules to reflect shifting social expectations, but when does flexibility become instability? If laws are meant to create a sense of order and predictability, does allowing too much discretion in clemency undermine that?

The SimDem Supreme Court now finds itself at a crossroads. It can side with the DOJ, striking down the CPA and reaffirming that the judiciary—not a referendum—should be the final stop for clemency appeals. Or it can uphold the law and embrace a more democratic (if unpredictable) approach to justice. Either way, the ruling will set a precedent for how digital nations handle power, fairness, and second chances.

But let’s be honest: no matter how the Court rules, this debate isn’t going away. Whether it’s clemency, judicial independence, or the eternal question of “who really runs this place,” SimDemocracy is proving once again that online governance isn’t just about writing laws—it’s about rewriting them. ~ppatpat (u/Ramiorebokhara)

[qualityassurance11]

Best Practices for Successful Automation Testing Implementation 

Automation testing is an essential part of modern-day software development that accelerates delivery, reduces manual work, and improves software quality. But success in automation testing is not assured, it should be achieved by proper planning and execution along with proper compliance of best practices. 

In this blog, we will talk about key actionable strategies and best practices to ensure the successful implementation of automation testing in your projects. 

1. Start with a Clear Strategy 

Jumping straight into automation testing without a clear strategy will not always yield the desired results. Define the following: 

Objectives: Define the goals of the automation, whether it is about shorter test cycles, improved test coverage or eliminating human error. 

Scope: Set the areas of your application for automation and focus much on areas that have a high impact like regression and functional testing. 

Stakeholders: Get early involvement from the development, QA and product teams to avoid misalignment regarding expectations. 

A well-formed strategy helps guide the way and make sure everyone involved is aligned. 

2. Prioritize the Right Test Cases for Automation 

One of automation testing’s biggest mistakes with it is to use automation for everything. Rather than that, shape your test cases to that of: 

Are monotonous and time-consuming. 

Wherein critical for application functionality 

Have stable requirements. 

Some of these tests are regression tests, smoke tests, data-driven tests, etc. Do not automate the exploratory or highly dynamic tests that often get changed. 

3. Choose the Right Automation Tools 

The effectiveness of your automation testing initiative highly relies on appropriate tools selection. Look for tools that: 

Support the technology stack of your application (e.g., web, mobile, APIs). 

Give the flexibility to expand your project. 

Offer extensive reporting, reusability of scripts, and run across browsers. 

GhostQA is one example of a codeless platform that works well for teams across the skill set. GhostQA can let you focus on what matters and Auto Healing reduces your maintenance to enforce. 

4. Build a Strong Automation Framework 

An automation framework is the backbone of your automation testing process. It helps in standardization, reusability and scalability of test scripts. So, when you start designing your framework, make sure to leave some room for these features: 

Modularity: Split test scripts into reusable components 

Data-Driven Testing: Use Data-Driven Testing to separate test data from the scripts to provide flexibility. 

Error Handling: Install anti-malware solutions to prevent potential threats. 

A good framework streamlines collaboration and makes it easier to maintain your tests. 

5. Write High-Quality Test Scripts 

A good test script decides the reliability of your automation testing. To ensure script quality: 

When naming scripts, variables, or methods, use meaningful and descriptive names. 

For adaptability, you should leverage parameterization instead of hardcoding these values. 

Set up appropriate error-handling procedures for handling unforeseen problems. 

Do not add anything unnecessarily, the more complexity, the more difficult it is to debug and maintain. 

Tools such as GhostQA minimize the efforts put behind scripting providing no-code possibilities allowing even non-technical users to write robust tests. 

6. Regularly Maintain Your Automation Suite 

Even though automation testing is a great way to ensure quality in applications, one of its biggest challenges is keeping the test scripts updated with application changes. Keeping your test suite effective and up to date, regular maintenance. 

Best practices for maintenance include: 

Frequent Reviews: Conduct periodic audit of the test scripts to ensure that they are not outdated. 

Version Control: Utilize version control systems to maintain history of your script modifications. 

Auto-Healing Features: GhostQA and similar tools can track UI updates and modify scripts to reflect changes with little to no human intervention, minimizing maintenance costs. 

Take good care of your automation suite so that it doesn't become a liability. 

7. Address Flaky Tests 

Flaky tests—tests that pass or fail randomly—are a common issue in automation testing. They reduce trust in test results and take up time when debugging. To address flaky tests: 

Dig deeper into what might be the underlying causes — timing problems or dynamic elements. 

Use explicit waits instead of static waiting in tests to make them aligned with application behavior. 

Prefer smart detection-based tools (GhostQA, to be precise) to eliminate the chances of flaky tests. 

This translates into flourish as flakiness and is the most significant impact in strengthening confidence in your automation framework. 

8. Ensure Cross-Browser and Cross-Platform Compatibility 

Most modern applications work across many browsers and devices, so cross-compatibility testing is a necessity. Your automation testing suite must: 

Add test cases for popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. 

Testing across different operating systems on mobile (e.g., iOS/Android). 

GhostQA abstracts cross-browser and cross-platform testing so you can verify functionality in several types of environments without repeating yourself. 

9. Leverage AI and Smart Automation 

AI is revolutionizing automation testing with better efficiency and lesser maintenance cost. Next-generation tools like GhostQA powered by AI offer: 

Auto-Healing: Automatically adjust to any changes made to the app;such as modified UI elements 

Predictive Analysis: Showcase areas with the most potential high risk to prioritize tests. 

Optimized Execution: Run just the tests that yield the most performance insights. 

Use AI-Powered Tools as these can help you to increase the efficiency and accuracy of your testing. 

10. Monitor and Measure Performance 

To measure the effectiveness of your automation testing, you should track key metrics that include: 

Test Coverage: Number of automated tests covering application features. 

Execution Time: Time taken to execute automated test suites. 

Defect Detection Rate: Number of bugs detected in automation testing 

Flaky Test Rate: Frequency of inconsistent test results. 

Consistent assessment of these metrics helps in discovering the areas of improvement in your automation efforts while also exhibiting the ROI of the same. 

Conclusion 

So, the right approach of selecting the right tool and plan properly will help to do a successful automation testing implementation. This could be achieved by adopting best practices like prioritizing test cases, maintaining test scripts, making use of the AI-powered tools and collaborating with other stakeholders in the process. 

Tools like GhostQA, which come equipped with codeless testing, auto-healing features, and user-friendly interfaces, empower teams of both technical and non-technical backgrounds to streamline their automation processes and devote their attention to shipping quality software. 

[sqlinjection]

Remediation of SQLi

Defense Option 1: Prepared Statements (with Parameterized Queries)

Prepared statements ensure that an attacker is not able to change the intent of a query, even if SQL commands are inserted by an attacker. In the safe example below, if an attacker were to enter the userID of tom' or '1'='1, the parameterized query would not be vulnerable and would instead look for a username which literally matched the entire string tom' or '1'='1.

Defense Option 2: Stored Procedures

The difference between prepared statements and stored procedures is that the SQL code for a stored procedure is defined and stored in the database itself, and then called from the application.

Both of these techniques have the same effectiveness in preventing SQL injection so it is reasonable to choose which approach makes the most sense for you. Stored procedures are not always safe from SQL injection. However, certain standard stored procedure programming constructs have the same effect as the use of parameterized queries when implemented safely (the stored procedure does not include any unsafe dynamic SQL generation) which is the norm for most stored procedure languages.

Defense Option 3: Allow-List Input Validation

Various parts of SQL queries aren't legal locations for the use of bind variables, such as the names of tables or columns, and the sort order indicator (ASC or DESC). In such situations, input validation or query redesign is the most appropriate defense. For the names of tables or columns, ideally those values come from the code, and not from user parameters.

But if user parameter values are used to make different for table names and column names, then the parameter values should be mapped to the legal/expected table or column names to make sure unvalidated user input doesn't end up in the query. Please note, this is a symptom of poor design and a full rewrite should be considered if time allows.

Defense Option 4: Escaping All User-Supplied Input

This technique should only be used as a last resort, when none of the above are feasible. Input validation is probably a better choice as this methodology is frail compared to other defenses and we cannot guarantee it will prevent all SQL Injection in all situations.

This technique is to escape user input before putting it in a query and usually only recommended to retrofit legacy code when implementing input validation isn't cost effective.

[govindhtech]

Open Platform For Enterprise AI Avatar Chatbot Creation

How may an AI avatar chatbot be created using the Open Platform For Enterprise AI framework?

I. Flow Diagram

The graph displays the application’s overall flow. The Open Platform For Enterprise AI GenAIExamples repository’s “Avatar Chatbot” serves as the code sample. The “AvatarChatbot” megaservice, the application’s central component, is highlighted in the flowchart diagram. Four distinct microservices Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Large Language Model (LLM), Text-to-Speech (TTS), and Animation are coordinated by the megaservice and linked into a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG).

Every microservice manages a specific avatar chatbot function. For instance:

Software for voice recognition that translates spoken words into text is called Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR).

By comprehending the user’s query, the Large Language Model (LLM) analyzes the transcribed text from ASR and produces the relevant text response.

The text response produced by the LLM is converted into audible speech by a text-to-speech (TTS) service.

The animation service makes sure that the lip movements of the avatar figure correspond with the synchronized speech by combining the audio response from TTS with the user-defined AI avatar picture or video. After then, a video of the avatar conversing with the user is produced.

An audio question and a visual input of an image or video are among the user inputs. A face-animated avatar video is the result. By hearing the audible response and observing the chatbot’s natural speech, users will be able to receive input from the avatar chatbot that is nearly real-time.

Create the “Animation” microservice in the GenAIComps repository

We would need to register a new microservice, such “Animation,” under comps/animation in order to add it:

Register the microservice

@register_microservice( name=”opea_service@animation”, service_type=ServiceType.ANIMATION, endpoint=”/v1/animation”, host=”0.0.0.0″, port=9066, input_datatype=Base64ByteStrDoc, output_datatype=VideoPath, ) @register_statistics(names=[“opea_service@animation”])

It specify the callback function that will be used when this microservice is run following the registration procedure. The “animate” function, which accepts a “Base64ByteStrDoc” object as input audio and creates a “VideoPath” object with the path to the generated avatar video, will be used in the “Animation” case. It send an API request to the “wav2lip” FastAPI’s endpoint from “animation.py” and retrieve the response in JSON format.

Remember to import it in comps/init.py and add the “Base64ByteStrDoc” and “VideoPath” classes in comps/cores/proto/docarray.py!

This link contains the code for the “wav2lip” server API. Incoming audio Base64Str and user-specified avatar picture or video are processed by the post function of this FastAPI, which then outputs an animated video and returns its path.

The functional block for its microservice is created with the aid of the aforementioned procedures. It must create a Dockerfile for the “wav2lip” server API and another for “Animation” to enable the user to launch the “Animation” microservice and build the required dependencies. For instance, the Dockerfile.intel_hpu begins with the PyTorch* installer Docker image for Intel Gaudi and concludes with the execution of a bash script called “entrypoint.”

Create the “AvatarChatbot” Megaservice in GenAIExamples

The megaservice class AvatarChatbotService will be defined initially in the Python file “AvatarChatbot/docker/avatarchatbot.py.” Add “asr,” “llm,” “tts,” and “animation” microservices as nodes in a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) using the megaservice orchestrator’s “add” function in the “add_remote_service” function. Then, use the flow_to function to join the edges.

Specify megaservice’s gateway

An interface through which users can access the Megaservice is called a gateway. The Python file GenAIComps/comps/cores/mega/gateway.py contains the definition of the AvatarChatbotGateway class. The host, port, endpoint, input and output datatypes, and megaservice orchestrator are all contained in the AvatarChatbotGateway. Additionally, it provides a handle_request function that plans to send the first microservice the initial input together with parameters and gathers the response from the last microservice.

In order for users to quickly build the AvatarChatbot backend Docker image and launch the “AvatarChatbot” examples, we must lastly create a Dockerfile. Scripts to install required GenAI dependencies and components are included in the Dockerfile.

II. Face Animation Models and Lip Synchronization

GFPGAN + Wav2Lip

A state-of-the-art lip-synchronization method that uses deep learning to precisely match audio and video is Wav2Lip. Included in Wav2Lip are:

A skilled lip-sync discriminator that has been trained and can accurately identify sync in actual videos

A modified LipGAN model to produce a frame-by-frame talking face video

An expert lip-sync discriminator is trained using the LRS2 dataset as part of the pretraining phase. To determine the likelihood that the input video-audio pair is in sync, the lip-sync expert is pre-trained.

A LipGAN-like architecture is employed during Wav2Lip training. A face decoder, a visual encoder, and a speech encoder are all included in the generator. Convolutional layer stacks make up all three. Convolutional blocks also serve as the discriminator. The modified LipGAN is taught similarly to previous GANs: the discriminator is trained to discriminate between frames produced by the generator and the ground-truth frames, and the generator is trained to minimize the adversarial loss depending on the discriminator’s score. In total, a weighted sum of the following loss components is minimized in order to train the generator:

A loss of L1 reconstruction between the ground-truth and produced frames

A breach of synchronization between the lip-sync expert’s input audio and the output video frames

Depending on the discriminator score, an adversarial loss between the generated and ground-truth frames

After inference, it provide the audio speech from the previous TTS block and the video frames with the avatar figure to the Wav2Lip model. The avatar speaks the speech in a lip-synced video that is produced by the trained Wav2Lip model.

Lip synchronization is present in the Wav2Lip-generated movie, although the resolution around the mouth region is reduced. To enhance the face quality in the produced video frames, it might optionally add a GFPGAN model after Wav2Lip. The GFPGAN model uses face restoration to predict a high-quality image from an input facial image that has unknown deterioration. A pretrained face GAN (like Style-GAN2) is used as a prior in this U-Net degradation removal module. A more vibrant and lifelike avatar representation results from prettraining the GFPGAN model to recover high-quality facial information in its output frames.

SadTalker

It provides another cutting-edge model option for facial animation in addition to Wav2Lip. The 3D motion coefficients (head, stance, and expression) of a 3D Morphable Model (3DMM) are produced from audio by SadTalker, a stylized audio-driven talking-head video creation tool. The input image is then sent through a 3D-aware face renderer using these coefficients, which are mapped to 3D key points. A lifelike talking head video is the result.

Intel made it possible to use the Wav2Lip model on Intel Gaudi Al accelerators and the SadTalker and Wav2Lip models on Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[appledew]

Ion is all set!

Made for  lemoncakes42 on Instagram!

Ion is made with custom dyed minky, custom printed minky and mochi minky. They lay art about 31 inches from front claws to back tips of the toes; about 58 inches to the very end of the tail! They have pouches of polypellets inside of them for weight and they are very floppy! The wings are also nice and floppy. The toes are thread sculpted and the claws on the legs are applied using fabric adhesive. The face plate is not removable.

Holy cow-- gonna try to keep the fun facts at a minimum.

The base body coat is dyed to have a slight gradient. It starts at about the “waist” and ends part way down the tail. The dye job, however went through multiple boiling water bathes because the coat came out too vibrant baby blue. I was able to soak away some of the dye, luckily!

This is the largest plush, length wise, I’ve ever made!

The “eyes” were printed by last second choice. I realized that some of the larger eyes couldn’t be stuffed to have a slight 3D effect if embroidered. It saved quite a bit of time for embroidery; not so much for clean up, haha!

The back paws were edited the evening I finished up Ion! The reference had 3 toes and one dewclaws-- not the 4 I originally designed! Oddly, I kinda like the “separated” look that the edit did, it feels like it defines the paws a little better!

And that’s it! I made the mistake of taking a few too many intense commissions this round, especially after having my dental procedure done that knocked me out for 2 weeks, but I (partially) have no regrets!

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Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/appledew

Trello queue: https://trello.com/b/FZKSnMo7/plushie-commission-to-do-list

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apple.dew

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Furaffinity: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/appledew

deviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/appledew