#voting bots developer

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Month - August 2024

1.Negative Power Prices Hit Europe as Renewable Energy Floods the Grid

European power markets are experiencing a notable shift as renewable energy sources, particularly wind and solar, become a larger part of the energy mix. On Wednesday, power prices in several European markets, including Germany, dipped below zero due to a surge in green electricity production.

2. Taiwan introduces ban on performances by captive wild animals

Live performances by wild animals held in captivity, including performances by dolphins, tigers, and other non-domesticated mammals, will no longer be permitted in Taiwan under new Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) regulations.

3. FTC bans fake online reviews, inflated social media influence; rule takes effect in October

The FTC voted unanimously to ban marketers from using fake reviews, such as those generated with AI technology, and other misleading advertising practices.

The ban also forbids marketers from exaggerating their own influence by, for example, paying for bots to inflate their follower count.

4. Chinese drones will fly trash out of Everest slopes

Come autumn, Nepal will deploy heavy lifter drones to transport garbage from the 6,812-metre tall Ama Dablam, south of Everest. This will be the first commercial work an unmanned aerial vehicle does in Nepal’s high-altitude zone.

The heavy lifter from China’s biggest drone maker, Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), will take on tasks traditionally handled by Sherpas. Officials believe it will help reduce casualties on Everest.

5. Swiss scientists have found a way to use the whole cocoa fruit to make chocolate and not just taking beans and discarding the rest.

Kim Mishra (L) and Anian Schreiber (R) cooperated on the new chocolate making process

Food scientists in Switzerland have come up with a way to make chocolate using the entire cocoa fruit rather than just the beans - and without using sugar.

The chocolate, developed at Zurich’s prestigious Federal Institute of Technology by scientist Kim Mishra and his team includes the cocoa fruit pulp, the juice, and the husk, or endocarp.

6. Six-year-old boy found in Vietnam forest after five days

A six-year-old boy who was missing for five days has been found deep in a forest in Vietnam. Dang Tien Lam, who lives in the northwestern Yen Bai province, was playing in a stream with his nine siblings on 17 August when he wandered into the hills and got lost, local reports said.

He was found on Wednesday by local farmers who heard a child's cry while they were clearing a cinnamon field close to the forest.

7. Lego plans to make half the plastic in bricks from renewable materials by 2026

Lego plans to make half the plastic in its bricks from renewable or recycled material rather than fossil fuels by 2026, in its latest effort to ensure its toys are more environmentally friendly.

The Danish company last year ditched efforts to make bricks entirely from recycled bottles because of cost and production issues. At the moment, 22% of the material in its colourful bricks is not made from fossil fuels.

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[bwv572]

The wikipedia article for dead internet theory is one of the best examples I've seen of just how retarded wikipedia has become. The entire article was created just to dismiss the concept as a conspiracy theory. This is the opening sentence:

The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts, due to a coordinated and intentional effort, the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content manipulated by algorithmic curation to control the population and minimize organic human activity.[1][2][3][4][5] 

And you might think to yourself, wait, there's nothing about this phenomenon that requires a conspiracy. That bots would eventually outnumber humans is the inevitable product of 30+ years of bot and AI development, helped by the fact that just one person can run 100+ bots. We all know bot farms exist and that states have their hand in AI development, but just as many bots are run by normal people, and no amount of this is actually coordinated for some larger explicitly stated end: it's actually complete chaos with no end goal, with individual actors working for fun, for research, or for whatever other benefit, with no real concern for how their botting affects other networks or "civilians".

And the talk page thought of all these points. The editors responded to the above objection with "we have reliable sources that call it a conspiracy theory. Check those citations".

The more obvious position, the one actually used by the people who came up with the term to begin with, wouldn't have ever stated itself as "not a conspiracy", because no conspiracy was even being alleged, thus no "reliable sources" can be cited with the explicit claim "the following theory is not intended to be a conspiracy theory"

The kicker is that you click the reliable sources they quote, and the first one never alleges a conspiracy to begin with, it posits that it is a "speculation about the future of the internet". The second article calls it a "conspiracy theory", but in the colloquial sense of an "out there idea", which is a usage I have always hated. For instance, people call "bigfoot" a conspiracy theory - a conspiracy is a secret coordinated plan to commit a crime - that some big humanoid animal lives in the woods is not a plan to commit a crime. The "conspiracy theory" that "the moon isn't real" isn't a plan to commit a crime. These are just memes.

But, a "reliable source" written by a millennial woman used the term as a meme and now wikipedia cites it as an actual conspiracy and you're not allowed to change that framing unless you join a wikipedia council and vote to completely overhaul the editorial framing of this article.

There are much worse instances of this, but this is a good example of how retarded this all is because you don't really need a position on the article to understand that you don't need to frame it in that way for any of the information in the article to make sense.

[emptyanddark]

“Let's say you've got horsepower and bandwidth to burn, and just want to see these AI models burn. Nepenthes has what you need … In short, let them suck down as much bullshit as they have diskspace for and choke on it.” // “It's also sort of an art work, just me unleashing shear unadulterated rage at how things are going. I was just sick and tired of how the internet is evolving into a money extraction panopticon, how the world as a whole is slipping into fascism and oligarchs are calling all the shots - and it's gotten bad enough we can't boycott or vote our way out, we have to start causing real pain to those above for any change to occur.”

love that

[snailfen]

been seeing people write up s4 wishlists so heres mine !!!

- i actually would like to see nickel apologize. i trust them to not have suitcase forgive his ass at all but after everything he put her through, she deserves that closure!

- on that note, what about suitcase and baseballs relationship now? i think the thing is that even up to the end, baseball still didnt fully understand suitcase. even if he understood why she left the alliance, he still believes her to be a victim of circumstance when it came to voting nickel out, and then he assumed himself to be a source of anxiety for suitcase and didn't let her talk after she chose knife as her final competitor. i don't think its OVER for them as friends especially since baseballs learned he can't give up trying even when he fails, but i do think its another obstacle in their rocky relationship. yeesh you two this is awkward

- also ALSO i would like to see baseball and balloon interact?. they hardly interacted on the grand slams and while baseball did side with nickel in the plot to get him out, he still wanted suitcase to have him as a friend if thats what she wanted. overall he doesn't seem to dislike balloon, at all? cant really say how balloon sees him. but i wanna See

- the complications in fan and test tubes relationship with bot, we've already seen some of it with bot going against test tube when it came to cabby, but im talking more about bot resenting them for the way they were made. i mean i would also like to see fans positive relationship as well since we've mostly only seen test tubes side of things, but when it comes to both of them i wanna see how that resentment might interfere with bots relationship to them. bot genuinely does seem to desire having them in their life, but what now? part of me wonders if finding out that they (unknowingly) perpetuated a cycle of abuse through bot would also affect this, and also how.

- SPEAKING OF THE CYCLE !!!!!! (<-rain world fans when theres a cycle) i really want to see how the contestants process their entire existence being for a gameshow. like, none of them have parents, they just spawned into the world thinking death wasnt such a huge deal because they could be revived (until now). they're some guys coping mechanism. yeah sure they can now make their lives their own, but they aren't NORMAL. thats kinda fucked when you think about it

- salt character development please please please oh please. the thing thats really interesting about salt is that she's one of the very few who hasn't broken from her "code" so to speak. i really do think the only thing that's going to cause her to do that (as hinted at by brian? or at least how i interpreted it) is if pepper gets fed up with her acting like the world revolves around her. pepper is just as much salts other half as salt is peppers, the only thing is, salt doesn't realize that because she's the "trendsetter" and peppers the "follower". it also doesn't seem like anyone else actually likes her at this point either, so if she loses pepper for a bit its really gonna force her to reevaluate her entire life.

- on that note this is a personal headcanon ive come up with so im not betting on it happening. but its really good to the point that id like to see it in canon so im putting it here anyways. candlepep friendship? candle has learned she needs to focus on herself rather than the needs of others, but since the contestants have to rebuild from scratch, i could very well see her falling back on old habits and trying to help others and possibly forgetting her own needs. she must feel needed, after all! but then theres pepper. based on my hypothetical above, being without salt is gonna be really tough for her but she's probably gonna have a little more support from others than salt.

However! pepper instinctively feels like she needs someone to "follow", so without salt i could very well see her trying to latch onto others. i feel like seeing someone who's in a similar predicament (both girls needing to center someone else in their lives) might remind candle that she needs to remember her needs and focus on herself. i feel like the two of them could teach eachother something important? meditation involves focusing on yourself and pepper still needs to learn that. as for the other way around, peppers interests are more based on fashion and makeup (and while those are interests that still align with salt) and that kind of practice is most fun when you focus on what makes you personally happy (something candle could learn, focusing on her wants and needs etc). i like the idea of them not necessarily NEEDING eachother but growing to like the other and wanting the other as their friend. either that or their problems clash and it becomes toxic yuri but i think candles had enough. brian koch receive my brain waves...... PLEASEEEE..........

- get funny with the contestants. some of these fuckers havent even SEEN eachother before ii18. i wanna see everyone get screentime if im being honest! i wanna see new friendships form and shit, maybe new rivalries as well! @/br1ghtestlight mentioned teakettle, tissues, lifering and blueberry living together at some point and i really like the idea of that, i can see how they'd work. i do want to be surprised on some small part but honestly, whatever works.

- the ultimate cheer factory (bot, goo, cheesy, cherries, maybe bomb and lightbulb). they'll take over the world

- fluffy payjay affection but i want it in small doses. maybe we see oj holding onto papers arm as they're discussing the new hotel with others, or them going on a gay little date as a b-plot, or calling eachother the dumbest petnames possible. at least one onscreen kissy. i don't hate payjay or anything i love it actually. just small doses or ill explode and die from being a payjay shipper for 7 years

- Mephones Possibly Complicated Healing Journey. i feel like mephones feelings surrounding cobs being dead are a little complicated, on the basis that cobs made him and he's spent most of his life wanting his approval, but he is mostly relieved. the only thing mephone has ever wanted was to be free from him after all! i also want to see more of 3GS, who he is outside of what we've seen of him. i think he'd like flash games on the puter

- knickle scene that lasts more than a minute PLEASE I MISS OUR GAMERS

- knife struggling to adjust to his new life. "its fine, im.... here." yeah sure 🙄 i saw that look on your face i KNOW you gaf. ontop of everything ive already talked about in the past (being a ghost), he now has (accidentally cus he didn't really MEAN to) shoehorned himself into marshmallows life and i dont think she's gonna give up living with bow just cus knife guy is there, but damn thats gotta make things REAL hard for the both of them. i never want to see marsh forgive him for bullying her just cus he saved her life, but i do want to see how they make... living with eachother, work out. i would also like to see us get into the 5 Secret Hints That Knife Probably Doesn't Like Himself Very Much but not at the same time as the marsh stuff probably

- taco adjusting. not only has she had it ROUGH even before the finale, but uh. no one trusts her probably. except for like, mic, and maybe soap. the bfdi x ii shorts arent canon but given the way she acts in that short, i think its easy to expect that shes gonna struggle HARD. on that note more of her and soap, i feel like having them introduced was such a good idea and soap is probably going to be a really good person for taco to have around when shes struggling to do the right thing. i also want her and marsh to talk about mepad but i dont have much else to say besides that

- okay god most of this is specific character interactions. suitcase and pickle become friendsies? please?? pretty pretty please.

- n/a and others return from the war :(. I miss them

- i heavily doubt they'll bring in the recommended characters as characters for real but I would like to see it happen. I think it would be really funny if apple saw teddy bear again and was like "oh hi teddy bear :D I missed you!!!" and teddy bear was like SHUT UP SHUT UP I HATE YOU YOU NEVER SHOULD'VE BEAT ME even though its been years and it hardly matters anymore. I would like to see more of magnifying glass and spikey mervert but I don't have a whole lot to go off of with them, other than mag showing up to the spoiled lemon concert in episode 10 for some reason.

thats all I can think of for now .... I'm hungry ..........

[senlinyu]

I deeply admite your work. It's very impressive that you can have bot only a long dark dramatic book like Manacled but managed to write so will on different genre variations with the same basic characters. Thank you and congratulations for your published work, I hope to get to read it.

Questions: do you have a preference? Romance, drama, rom-com, tragedy... do you have favorite works regardless of their reception?

I'm quite invested in Let the Dark in so maybe id vote for that one at this moment, but ive truly enjoyed all your stories. Wishing you the best 🤍

I feel like drama is the category I fit in most. Romance, rom-com are genres that I mostly find myself interested in smaller bursts, but if I go too long I get the point where I’m like, where am I going with this? I feel like they come out best when I have to keep them short and punchy. The themes that tend to mentally preoccupy me and feel like I need to give several hundred thousand words to tend to be those with darker aspects. When I write predominantly character driven stories, I tend to get lost in the weeds of character development and motivation and I never feel satisfied with my conclusion. My graveyard of unpublished wips are all stories that are more character driven with less of an external plot to keep things moving.

Even though I write ship-centric fic, I don’t tend to think of myself as a romance author because generally I think of my longer works as three legged stools, in which plot, characters, and romance each comprise a leg.

[originalaowrytheian]

Ok, so I've been doing a ton of research lately because I've been planning to open an Etsy shop, but yesterday I discovered this other platform called Goimagine and I NEED to tell y'all about it! I haven't actually joined yet (still working on getting my stuff together) but here's the info I've gotten from their website and a YouTube video I found interviewing the founder.

Goimagine is a 100% handmade marketplace. They don't allow vintage, print on demand, or drop shipping

They're completely human run (no pesky bots causing problems and taking your stuff down with no explanation)

A portion of all the sales made through their website goes to charities supporting children (you can see the specific ones on their website)

Whether or not you offer free shipping doesn't effect your search visibility

There are three membership tiers that include a monthly flat rate and a transaction fee. That's it. No other fees

All of your products are listed on Google so people don't even have to be on the site to see your stuff

They seem to be really focused on giving their sellers the best experience possible and the one video I watched talked about them having an election to vote two of their sellers onto the board of directors

They remit sales tax and calculate shipping for you (I'm not sure if you can print labels from their website or not)

They only operate in the US and there's an option on their website to shop by state so you can buy from local vendors

Really the only complaint I was able to find is that people weren't getting as much sales traffic on there as on Etsy. The company has only been around since 2020 though, so it's a much newer platform than Etsy and still in the developing phase. This means there are a lot fewer sellers and therefore a lot fewer customers, but it also means you have less competition. I found people who did really well on the platform and people who didn't make any sales at all, but I feel like that's probably just as true for Etsy, there are just so many more Etsy success stories because they've been around longer and had more time to build.

Also they don't seem to be trying to compete with Etsy so much as fill a gap they feel Etsy has left open. There's even an option to import your Etsy listings onto their site.

Anyway I think what they're doing is super cool and I hope to open a shop there either instead of or in addition to an Etsy very soon. I highly recommend checking them out!

[nogu-d-reamers]

TFP MINI STORY= comfy fugitives.

Well, one person voted to hear my vision of what Knockout would be like dealing with his own human teenager.

And out of respect for that vote, here it goes~

SUMARY=

20 years after the events of TFP, Knockout fled from the Autobots and returns to Earth hoping to end his existence with a strange feeling of being fed up with everything... unfortunately his pre-mortem plans are interrupted by a human military chase towards a test subject; a teenager with mechanical parts who asks him for help escaping home. KO is initially uninterested in helping until he recognizes that those chasing him were MECH and decides to intervene in the name of sabotaging them for "boredom" (everything they did related to Breakdown and Silas). The teenager, Fio ; more horrified by humans than by him, makes a deal: she is the daughter of a military man who had been chasing MECH for a long time, so in exchange for taking her home he can get whatever he wants as long as he is within his rank. KO accepts the deal on the condition that if the girl is lying, he will eliminate her in the most horrible way he can think of, the girl, without nerves, accepts the condition.

A journey filled with fights, disputes, sarcasm, crises, and imperfections, but in a strange way; a bond of sincerity and friendship develops between the ex-Con' and the girl.

About KO:

The former Decepticon doctor, despite betraying Starscream and being accepted by the Autobots, has proven more vulnerable than he expected, feeling it was so easy that he ended up overwhelmed and escaping to Earth at the first opportunity, hiding from them as much as possible; keeping his reasons for returning to Earth to himself. He's still a conceited and narcissistic jerk who, above all, hates scratches in his paint and will get angry and ready to pull out his buzzsaw. But in Fio's company, he begins to soften and become more sincere… trying to disguise it with sarcasm and arrogance; but at a point where the human knows when he's seriously bragging and when he's just doing it to protect himself.

Feeling he has nothing to lose and the reward Fio offered him, he agrees to take care of Fio until he can bring her home, thinking that "without a war, it's something Breakdown would definitely do."

About Fio:

Fiorella Ricci, or simply known as "Fio," was just an ordinary girl who had the misfortune of becoming MECH's biggest target when her father was a researcher and actively wanted to wipe out the group. She ended up being mutilated and having her body parts replaced with prosthetic prototypes made from fallen Cons and Bots. She has no clear sense of how much time she spent as a subject of experiments or even processed the pain of her Cybertronian parts… she doesn't care at all (or she tries to); she ended up so affected that her only thought is to stay away from anything related to MECH and just return home, regardless of the means or ally.

At first, she remains reserved with the bot, only giving vague clues about how to get to her city, but sooner or later she begins to have conversations, ramblings, and arguments with it to make the journey more pleasant.

[mckitterick]

OpenAI previews voice generator that produces natural-sounding speech based on a 15-second voice sample

The company has yet to decide how to deploy the technology, and it acknowledges election risks, but is going ahead with developing and testing with "limited partners" anyway.

Not only is such a technology a risk during election time (see the fake robocalls this year when an AI-generated, fake Joe Biden voice told people not to vote in the primary), but imagine how faked voices of important people - combined with AI-generated fake news plus AI-generated fake photos and videos - could con people out of money, literally destroy political careers and parties, and even collapse entire governments or nations themselves.

By faking a news story using accurate (but faked) video clips of (real) respected and elected officials supporting the fake story - then creating a billion SEO-optimized fake news and research websites full of fake evidence to back up their lies - a bad actor or cyberwarfare agent could take down an enemy government, create a revolution, turn nations against one another, even cause world war.

This kind of apocalyptic scenario has always felt like a science-fiction idea that could only exist in a possible dystopian future, not something we'd actually see coming true in our time, now.

How in the world are we ever again going to trust what we read, hear, or watch? If LLM-barf clogs the internet, and lies pollute the news, and people with bad intentions can provide all the evidence they need to fool anyone into believing anything, and there's no way to guarantee the veracity of anything anymore, what's left?

Whatever comes next, I guarantee it'll be weirder than we imagine.

Here's hoping it's not also worse than the typical cyberpunk tale.

PS: NEVER ANSWER CALLS FROM UNKNOWN NUMBERS EVER AGAIN

...or at least don't speak to the caller. From now on, assume it's a con-bot or politi-bot or some other bot seeking to cause you and others harm. If they hear your voice, they can fake it saying anything they want. If it sounds like someone you know, it's probably not if it's not their number saved in your contacts. If it's about something important, hang up and call the official or saved number for the supposed caller.

[aahsoka]

The best vaccine for propaganda is developing critical thinking skills. This is NOT flat out ignoring anything that goes against your opinion, or believing that anyone who holds a dissenting opinion from your own is a bot programmed to interfere with the election or an idiot. Frankly, even right-wing voters are not idiots. There are logical reasons that they vote the way they do, even if you do not agree with their logic.

I want to talk about the 2016 Russian Election Interference on Tumblr specifically:

In 2018, 84 blogs were deleted by Tumblr after a joint investigation between them and the Department of Justice determined they were linked to the IRA (Internet Research Agency) an organization indicted for running troll farms for the Russian Government. Here is the post made by Tumblr

Now I am going to ask you some questions:

What is the difference between a bot and a troll? Is that difference important to acknowledge?

Do we as users/citizens have a full understanding of why these blogs were determined to be connected to the IRA? Do we know the process the DOJ and Tumblr used to determine their link to the troll farm?

Supposedly many posed as Black Activists. But how do you decide who is a Blackfishing Russian troll and who is a genuine Black American? Were some of these blogs Russian trolls, and some that were deleted for reblogging from them actual Black people who genuinely agreed with their posts, regardless of its origins? What was the functional difference between their posts and the posts made by actual Black users about Black issues? Do you think a Russian agent is capable of effectively pretending to be a Black American? What about today: how do you know if the person with a dissenting opinion is a disgruntled US citizen or a troll? “But even if some of the information posted was false, It is impossible to know if that was done with malicious intent or by mistakenly re-sharing fake news.”

One post shown in this analysis includes a headline posted without a link; are you taking the time to investigate the claim a post is talking about? One post was reposted from an actual Black user on Twitter; How much of this ‘trolling’ were reposts from real Black users on other sites? What is the functional difference, especially if the original user is credited?

Do you think this strategy would be as easy to implement now that most sites know to watch out for it?

Do you understand why some people do not trust government investigative bodies to be fair towards Black activists?

How effective was this election interference on tumblr and elsewhere? Are there other reasons for a lack of votes from certain demographics related to the US electoral system itself?

When you talk about the Russian Election Interference are you approaching it in a way that frames everyone who has a dissenting opinion as a bad actor employed by the Russian government? Do you understand why this makes some people extremely uncomfortable? Do you understand why it can read as red scare-type propaganda?

What are Russia’s actual current political goals? How are Russian citizens different from their government?

How and when has the US committed its own psyops within itself and in foreign states? Are you just as wary of propaganda that originates within the United States?

Do people have the right to voice extreme opinions about their government?

Are you getting your information solely from tumblr? Do you believe others are? Why?

I don’t want you to reblog and answer (that would take forever). I just want you to consider what your own opinions and thoughts are on these subjects, to research where you lack knowledge, and to consider how you can approach people with dissenting opinions with sympathy when they are acting in good faith.

[krinsbez]

BattleTech+Transformers, Worldbuilding/Storybuilding, hopefully Collaborative

OK, so the lack of response to Battletech+Pern is worrisome, since it got more votes, but I’m gonna try anyways. Hopefully the fact that I’ve got more material will make the difference.

So, before I get into story details, for purposes of the story, I needed TFs to be able to wreck ‘Mechs. My justification is that they’re the product of vastly more advanced technology that sometimes crosses the line into Clarke-tech. More specifically, while TFs are stronger and more durable than a Mech of comparable size and weight, the difference isn’t that great and most Mechs are bigger than most TFs, and also there are a lot more Mechs thatn TFs. However, TFs are vastly faster and more agile (not having to worry about carrying a squishy organic inside helps), their more efficient energy systems mean they don’t overheat, storage dimensions not only allow for size-changing but also means they can store more ammo and don’t have to worry about said ammo exploding, etc. In addition, TF weapons tend to pack more punch, and also frequently have all sorts of exotic effects (glass gas, null rays, etc. etc.), many TFs have what amounts to superpowers (invisibility, duplication, Combining, etc), loads of them can fly, and of course they can Transform, which enhances their existing their mobility advantage, allows for surprise attacks, and also means they can store more weaponry in their frame since they can transform one weapon into another. In addition to the TFs themselves, they have better HPG and KF-drives (of course, they don’t call their drives that, but for our purposes we’re saying Transformers that’s what they use), and they also have SpaceBridges (this is Battletech, gotta use CamelCase! Which means we’re calling them AutoBots and DeceptiCons).

OK, story stuff. I usually like to imagine the Great War as a stalemate, but here I’m going to say that, mostly because Sentinel Prime was not good at war, by the time Optimus became Prime, the Cons had an overwhelming advantage, and Optimus was eventually forced to go into hiding, allowing the Cons to think the Bots were defeated. This is not the case, and he’s been honing them into a lean, mean Con-fighting machine, but they don't have the numbers to win in a straight-up fight and so are biding their time waiting for the right moment. Meanwhile, the Cons have been rampaging through the galaxy, conquering everything in sight. This has actually been fairly bad for them, as the brutal way they go about things means that their conquests tend to be either too wrecked to be much use (dead worlds don’t produce a lot of Energon) or are hotbeds of insurgency. Or were hotbeds of insurgency and then were wrecked. However,, between their poisonous ideology and the training and tactics Megatron used to achieve those initial overwhelming victories against Sentinel, the Cons have developed a toxic culture where even those who aren’t sadists or bloodthirsty maniacs or sadistic bloodthirsty maniacs are peer-pressured into acting as if they crave constant ultraviolence. And since no one’s been able to give them a good straight-up fight in ages, they inevitably end up fighting each other. Meanwhile, although Megatron is a powerful and skilled warrior, a brilliant tactician, and a charismatic master of demagoguery, he is absolute SCRAP as a leader, who gets his way through bullying and intimidation, so that the higher-ups are constantly intriguing against backstabbing each other. All of this has led to a massive drop in morale and a near-total collapse of discipline.

Which is why the Inner Sphere is a godsend. Megatron can’t take any aliens seriously as threats for ideological reasons, especially ones that are both squishy AND stubby, but Mechs mean that they can give his warriors a good enough fight to maybe whip them back into shape and give him a plausible way of getting rid of some of the particularly troublesome ones. And it’s big and populated enough that the Cons will be able to slaughter to their heart’s content and still have a sizable population of slave labor afterwards. So, for decades, the Cons have been infiltrating the IS, gathering intelligence; mostly about what targets should NOT be wrecked because again, Megatron doesn’t really take humans seriously as a potential threat.

And when the day comes (roundabouts 3065-6, late stage FedCom Civil War), the Cons strike like lightning, attacking every sector at once, crushing all opposition with superior technology and the element of surprise. This no doubt sounds familiar, but unlike the Clans before them, the Cons have no concern about honor or preserving civilian lives. The opposite, in fact. As they assault world after world, they unleash carnage on a scale not seen since the First Succession War, proudly broadcasting their atrocities for all to see.  In addition, while the Clans were restricted to a relatively small wedge of an invasion corridor, the Cons can SpaceBridge themselves anywhere in the Inner Sphere, not to mention the long-hidden spies revealing themselves and wreaking havoc. Megatron is well aware that the Inner Sphere is too big for his forces to maintain a blitzkrieg for very long, even with their numbers enhanced by mass-produced VehiCons and Drones, but he figures on terrifying the locals into submission before things reach that point.

And his plan is working. Until the AutoBots intervene, showing up on world after world to reinforce the beleaguered defenders and turn back DeceptiCon attacks, giving the people of the Inner Sphere some breathing room and showing that the invaders are not invincible. And then Optimus Prime contacts the leaders of every major faction, and offers an alliance…OK, so I am not quite sure where things go from there, but what I envision is not just the ‘Cons being driven from the Inner Sphere and a return to status quo antebellum. I imagine the AutoBots joining the Second Star League and proving to be the secret sauce that makes it work the way it was promised. I’m figuring on Optimus being declared First Lord on a permanent basis and leading the new SLDF on a crusade to liberate all the worlds Megatron has conquered, including Cybertron, ultimately raising the banner of the Star League above Darkmount itself. I admit to not being clear on how to get there, though.

I do have various fragments of ideas for things, but as I am not really familiar with the characters of BT, I don’t quite know how to make them all gel together, and I worry some of my ideas won’t work. Anyways, in no particular order, some of these (I reserve the right to post more).

-The Cons will be converting captured Mech factories into making Drones, the Bots will be sharing tech that enables the creations of…I’m tentatively calling them CyberMechs or AutoMechs, and there will be enough BattleMechs being given Sparks to create at least one team each of BattleCons and MechBots. No idea on details.

-During the period when the ‘Con blitzkrieg seemed unstoppable, Sun-Tzu Liao got…some kind of offer from Swindle, which being something of a weasel and also rather desperate, he agrees to. Not sure of the specifics, but the fact that he technically betrayed humanity is eventually used as a lever to get him to agree to the Prime Lord thing.

-After reluctantly agreeing to call a truce with her brother, and to ally with the AutoBots, Mad Kat, like everyone else allied to the Bots, is given intel on the ‘Con leadership and because she’s Mad Kat, decides to approach Starscream, offering to help him take out Megatron so he can rule the DeceptiCons and she can rule the Inner Sphere. Predictably, this eventually blows up in her face.

-I was initial thinking that Optimus sends a high-ranking ‘Bot to every major faction leader (not sure who gets sent to whom) inviting them to a meeting somewhere to discuss forming an alliance against the Cons, etc. Not sure who gets sent where, or where the meeting should take place. I considered the idea of having the meeting held via telepresence somehow, but I want to have the Steiner-Davions in the same room, and also Vlad Ward and Phelan Kell and etc., cuz I think it would be interesting.

-Thought; both sets of Wolves join the anti-Decepticon coalition, and the feuding between them causes friction. Eventually, Grimlock bullies them into agreeing to settle it via a Trial between Phelan and Vlad. The winning side earns the right to be Clan Wolf, the losers ultimately end up becoming Clan DinoBot. No idea who should win or if this is any way plausible.

-Speaking of Clanners, some of the Homeworld Clans are reluctant to join the fight, even though protecting the Inner Sphere from outside threats is theoretically why the Clans exist. So, Ultra Magnus (I’m thinking something akin to the Transformers Prime version as voiced by Michael Ironside, although I’m imagining him having something like the Magnus Hammer from Transformers Animated) challenges their Khans and saKhans to a Batchall, offering his body for their Scientists to dissect as a prize if they win. If he wins…I’m not sure if they have to just help fight the Con, fully join the Second Star League, or accept Autobot command. Regardless he wins quite handily. Not sure who he has to fight, either.

-At some point, HeadMaster (and TargetMaster, and PowerMaster) tech is invented. If anyone has ideas for who should volunteer for which and be binary-bonded with whom, I’m all ears, though I do have a generic idea. To wit, at this point the ComStar schism has happened but the Wobbies haven’t lost their shit and started doing all the atrocities. I’m imagining that, given their technophilia, a lot of them agree to be binary bonded, and enough AutoBot ideology bleeds through from their partners that it causes a schism within the WoB, with a bunch of them seeing Optimus as a messianic figure and turning on the others, so the whole organization is quietly purged of its most batshit and/or evil elements and ends up on the side of the angels, albeit coming there from a weird angle. Also, means another faction stumping for the Prime Lord plan.

-Note that some of the bigger Bots and Cons will be becoming DropShips. Or at least, they will look like DropShips; they are actually Jump-capable, and possibly also some of the ones that become ASFs. Metroplex and Trypticon will become WarShips; I envision the Ark and Nemesis as also being WarShips. Possibly also the Axalon and DarkSyde.

-I think this is pretty much it that I can remember. Thanks to the guys at Spacebattles who helped me work a lot of this stuff out before they got bored with the idea. Any questions or suggestions anyone and everyone has are welcome, though I can’t promise to use ‘em.

[iii-confessions]

i dont think s3 is that bad! i think it mixes the charm of s1 with the quality of s2 very well.

i think nickels arc actually WAS needed! he didnt learn anything from his elimination, and while not every character needs to develop before theyre eliminated, i really think he needed to realize that what happened with suitcase and balloon was his fault. i think people forget that balloon was consistently the one to reach out to nickel at first! he still wanted to try working things out with nickel. i dont think its as forced as people say it was, because balloon still tries to reconnect with other s1 contestants, and nickel typically doesnt get along with others very well, so it'd make sense for him to go along with the one other person trying to play the game with him- if he kept brushing balloon off, he wouldve been voted off pretty fast.

while the motives for fan and test tube behind bots creation are questionable in terms of writing, i think their presence is a really good thing for fan and test tube. the whole thing about baby shimmer is that no matter how much the two cared about them, baby shimmer wasn't theirs, and they had a family to return to. bot, however, really IS theirs. bot still has their grudges with the two, but seems willing to maintain a familial relationship with them despite it. i think thats something very special for them to have, all three of them. especially fan, im hoping we see more of him and bot in the future.

honestly this is so real

[d3lph1n1um]

I'm really into both Dylan and Xacari's stories but I haven't quite developed the characters all the way, and I was wondering if you guys would mind me using Tumblr to do that, and getting some feedback on the little bits I post as I go

I'm giving you guys a week to answer this one because I want feedback from as many people as I can get. There's like 28 of you following me and 26 aren't bots so I'm expecting 26 votes by the end of the week 😡/j

[class1akids]

Are you happy that todoroki got the first spot in Japan and Europe and his ranks are also improving?

Yeah, I’m pleased to see it.

This poll is botted to hell, so it’s quite meaningless, but I think the first week gave a fairly realistic snapshot (then the spam votes started in earnest).

So I’m happy to see Shoto fans fighting back. I think he deserves to be Top 3 as a character with a lot of development and the face of a plotline that’s a favorite to many fans. There is still a long way to go, but I hope we can keep up the momentum.

I’m glad to see Toya and Shoto do well since the beginning and even Endeavor’s rise shows the strength of the plotline.

[meret118]

While these Meta-generated accounts are being removed, users still have the ability to generate their own AI chatbots. User-generated chatbots that were promoted to the Guardian in November included a “therapist” bot.

------

I don't believe that they're actually removing all of of them, or that they won't at least make more soon. So now people can't know if they're talking to a real person on meta etc anymore.

Please don't change, Tumblr!

And what's going to happen to the people who grow up with AI? An entire generation that's never had to think in a complex manner, or learn to get along with actual people they aren't related to.

Plus how long before the AI bots aren't just programmed to agree with people and make them feel good, but are programmed to convince people to buy certain products, or vote for the candidates who will make the tech bros the most money, because you know that's coming.

I feel like we're living in a Black Mirror episode.

[diamondblueorchid]

Hi,

I am one of the mods on Frogblr. Thank you for your pobblebonk posts combating the porn bots.

I am developing an application which will count 🤖 reactions on bot and if it meets a certain threshold, it will automatically remove the post. Essentially a way for members to use voting to remove bots before mods get to them.

The application is in the testing phase, so I am basically looking for volunteers to test it. I have made a test community where the application is deployed. It would be of great help if you could join it and test it by simply making random posts and use the 🤖 reaction to indicate it's a bot post.

I have talked to Dr. Mark, creator of Frogblr regarding reaching out to members to help with the testing of this application.

Let me know if you are interested and I can provide more details.

Thank you

Yes, I would love to! :D I would appreciate more details and such, but I would love to participate!!

#pobblebonksagainstpornbots

:3

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 577

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on X (formerly Twitter) or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

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Updates from Rust Community

Official

This Month in Our Test Infra: November 2024

December 2024 Leadership Council Update

Newsletters

The Embedded Rustacean Issue #34

Rust Trends Issue #55

Project/Tooling Updates

Dioxus 0.6

Flawless Replay

Rust9x update: Rust 1.84.0-beta

What's new in SeaQuery 0.32.x

Observations/Thoughts

Rust Macros: A Cautionary Tale

Running teloxide bots cheaply on Fly.io

Speeding up Ruby by rewriting C… in Ruby

Memory-safe PNG decoders now vastly outperform C PNG libraries

State of the Crates 2025

Comparing Rust Database Crates

Rust Walkthroughs

Parsing MIDI messages in Rust

Drag & Drop Images into Bevy 0.15 on the web

Missing iterable traits and how to introduce them effortlessly

EuroRust: Introduction to Diesel: basic and advanced concepts in practice

Miscellaneous

My Rust Story

November 2024 Rust Jobs Report

[video] How to Integrate C++ and Rust

[video] 2024 LLVM Developers' Meeting - Rust ❤️ LLVM

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is include-utils, a more powerful replacement for the standard library's include_str macro.

Thanks to Aleksey Sidorov for the self-suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Calls for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

RFCs

No calls for testing were issued this week.

Rust

No calls for testing were issued this week.

Rustup

No calls for testing were issued this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Rustup

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Call for Participation; projects and speakers

CFP - Projects

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but did not know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

No Calls for participation were submitted this week.

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here or through a PR to TWiR or by reaching out on X (formerly Twitter) or Mastodon!

CFP - Events

Are you a new or experienced speaker looking for a place to share something cool? This section highlights events that are being planned and are accepting submissions to join their event as a speaker.

No Calls for papers or presentations were submitted this week.x

If you are an event organizer hoping to expand the reach of your event, please submit a link to the website through a PR to TWiR or by reaching out on X (formerly Twitter) or Mastodon!

Updates from the Rust Project

462 pull requests were merged in the last week

dataflow_const_prop: do not eval a ptr address in SwitchInt

fn_sig_for_fn_abi should return a ty::FnSig, no need for a binder

rust_for_linux: -Zreg-struct-return commandline flag for X86

actually walk into lifetimes and attrs in EarlyContextAndPass

add allocate_bytes and refactor allocate_str in InterpCx for raw byte…

add context to "const in pattern" errors

add lint against function pointer comparisons

add more info on type/trait mismatches for different crate versions

avoid opaque type not constrained errors in the presence of other errors

avoid fetching the anon const hir node that is already available

deeply normalize when computing implied outlives bounds

do not implement unsafe auto traits for types with unsafe fields

don't suggest restricting bound with unstable traits on stable and mention it's unstable on nightly

don't use a SyntheticProvider for literally every type

fix MutVisitor's default implementations to visit Stmt's and BinOp's spans

fix suggestion when shorthand self has erroneous type

gate async fn trait bound modifier on async_trait_bounds

handle --json-output properly

hide errors whose suggestions would contain error constants or types

implement checks for tail calls

improve TagEncoding::Niche docs, sanity check, and UB checks

include LLDB and GDB visualizers in MSVC distribution

introduce default_field_values feature

lint against Symbol::intern on a string literal

lint: change help for pointers to dyn types in FFI

make CoercePointee errors translatable

make sure to record deps from cached task in new solver on first run

move most tests for -l and #[link(..)] into tests/ui/link-native-libs

no need to create placeholders for GAT args in confirm_object_candidate

only allow PassMode::Direct for aggregates on wasm when using the C ABI

parse guard patterns

reduce false positives on some common cases from if-let-rescope lint

reimplement ~const trait specialization

structurally resolve in adjust_for_branches

structurally resolve in probe_adt

unify sysroot_target_{bin,lib}dir handling

use correct hir_id for array const arg infers

miri: cleanup: avoid passing byte slice to anonsocket_read

miri: fix SC fence logic

miri: fix weak memory emulation to avoid generating behaviors that are forbidden under C++ 20

miri: implement simd_relaxed_fma

extend Miri to correctly pass mutable pointers through FFI

remove polymorphization

introduce MixedBitSet

stabilize const_collections_with_hasher and build_hasher_default_const_new

stabilize const_{size,align}_of_val

stabilize noop_waker

stabilize std::io::ErrorKind::CrossesDevices

stabilize std::io::ErrorKind::QuotaExceeded

add core::arch::breakpoint and test

implementation of fmt::FormattingOptions

add Extend impls for tuples of arity 1 through 12

cargo: docs(fingerprint): cargo-rustc extra flags do not affect the metadata

cargo: feat(build-rs): Add the 'error' directive

cargo: fix(add): Don't select yanked versions when normalizing names

cargo: fix(build-rs): Correctly refer to the item in assert

cargo: fix(build-std): determine root crates by target spec std:bool

cargo: fix(fingerprint): Don't throwaway the cache on RUSTFLAGS changes

cargo: fix(fix): Migrate workspace dependencies

cargo: test(build-std): make mock-std closer to real world

cargo: fix(build-rs)!: remove meaningless 'cargo_cfg_debug_assertions'

cargo: refactor: use Path::push to construct remap-path-prefix

cargo: semVer: add section on RPIT capturing

rustdoc: remove eq for clean::Attributes

rustdoc: rename issue-\d+.rs tests to have meaningful names (part 10)

rustdoc: rename set_back_info to restore_module_data

rustdoc: always display first line of impl blocks even when collapsed

improve code for FileName retrieval in rustdoc

clippy: doc_lazy_continuation: Correctly count indent with backslashes

clippy: extend precedence for bitmasking and shift

clippy: new lint for as *const _ and as *mut _ pointer casts

rust-analyzer: add Configurable Option to Exclude Trigger Characters for Typing Assists

rust-analyzer: add implict unsafety inlay hints for extern blocks

rust-analyzer: add typing handler for param list pipe

rust-analyzer: complete derive helper attributes

rust-analyzer: complete diagnostics in ty lowering groundwork and serve a first diagnostic 🎉

rust-analyzer: extend reported unsafe operations

rust-analyzer: support AsyncFnX traits

rust-analyzer: fix parsing of parenthesized type args and RTN

rust-analyzer: better parser recovery for paths

rust-analyzer: coerce two FnDefs to fn pointers even if they are the same, if they are subtypes

rust-analyzer: disable < typing handler again

rust-analyzer: do not report warnings from proc macros, ever

rust-analyzer: fix a bug when synthetic AST node were searched in the AST ID map and caused panics

rust-analyzer: fix parser getting stuck for bad asm expressions

rust-analyzer: fix parsing of dyn T in generic arg on 2015 edition

rust-analyzer: fix parsing of integer/keyword name refs in various places

rust-analyzer: fix shadowing of record enum variant in patterns

rust-analyzer: fixed another bug with glob imports

rust-analyzer: map new replacement nodes to their mutable equivalents in SyntaxEditor

rust-analyzer: non-exhaustive structs may be empty

rust-analyzer: panic when displaying generic params with defaults

rust-analyzer: parse lifetime bounds in lifetime param into TypeBoundList

rust-analyzer: resolve generic parameters within use captures

rust-analyzer: temporarily disable completion resolve support for helix and neovim

rust-analyzer: improve heuristics for on typing semicolon insertion

rust-analyzer: make bracket typing handler work on more things

rust-analyzer: migrate add_turbo_fish to SyntaxEditor

rust-analyzer: migrate introduce_named_generic Assist to Use SyntaxFactory

rust-analyzer: migrate sort_items Assist to Use SyntaxFactory

rust-analyzer: vscode: only show status bar item in relevant files

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

A pretty quiet week, with both few PRs landed and no large changes in performance.

Triage done by @simulacrum. Revision range: 490b2cc0..1b3fb316

0 Regressions, 0 Improvements, 7 Mixed; 4 of them in rollups 25 artifact comparisons made in total

Full report here

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

No RFCs were approved this week.

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

No RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Tracking Issues & PRs

Rust

[disposition: merge] Add --doctest-compilation-args option to add compilation flags to doctest compilation

Cargo

[disposition: merge] fix(cargo-rustc): stabilize higher precedence trailing flags

Language Team

No Language Team Proposals entered Final Comment Period this week.

Language Reference

No Language Reference RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Unsafe Code Guidelines

No Unsafe Code Guideline Tracking Issues or PRs entered Final Comment Period this week.

New and Updated RFCs

[new] Drop type destructuring

[new] #[must_use = false]

[new] RFC: Partial Types (v3)

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2024-12-11 - 2025-01-08 🦀

Virtual

2024-12-11 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

egui

2024-12-12 | Hybrid: In-Person and Virtual (Seattle, WA, US) | Seattle Rust Meetup

December Meetup

2024-12-12 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2024-12-12 | Virtual (Nürnberg, DE) | Rust Nuremberg

Rust Nürnberg online

2024-12-13 | Virtual (Jersey City, NJ, US) | Jersey City Classy and Curious Coders Club Cooperative

Rust Coding / Game Dev Fridays Open Mob Session!

2024-12-17 | Virtual (San Francisco, CA, US) | Blockchain Center SF

Rust in Web3: Developer Series

2024-12-17 | Virtual (Tel Aviv-Yafo, IL) | Code Mavens 🦀 - 🐍 - 🐪

Rust Source Code Reading: The thousands crate (Virtual, English)

2024-12-17 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

2024-12-19 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin + Rust Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn | Mirror: Rust Hack n Learn Meetup

2024-12-19 | Virtual (Mexico City, DF, MX) | Rust MX

Posada 2024

2024-12-20 | Virtual (Jersey City, NJ, US) | Jersey City Classy and Curious Coders Club Cooperative

Rust Coding / Game Dev Fridays Open Mob Session!

2024-12-24 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Last Tuesday

2024-12-26 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2024-01-02| Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin + Rust Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn | Mirror: Rust Hack n Learn Meetup

2025-01-04 | Virtual (Kampala, UG) | Rust Circle Kampala

Rust Circle Meetup

Asia

2024-12-14 | Bangalore/Bengaluru, IN | Rust Bangalore

December 2024 Rustacean meetup/workshop

Europe

2024-12-11 | Reading, UK | Reading Rust Workshop

Reading Rust Meetup

2024-12-12 | Amsterdam, NL | Rust Developers Amsterdam Group

Rust Meetup @ JetBrains

2024-12-12 | München, DE | Rust Munich

Rust Munich 2024 / 4 - Hacking Evening

2024-12-12 | Vienna, AT | Rust Vienna

Rust Vienna - December | at Sentry.io 🦀

2024-12-17 | Leipzig, DE | Rust - Modern Systems Programming in Leipzig

Secret Santa in Rust: Unwrapping Property Testing

2024-12-18 | Ghent, BE | Systems Programming Ghent

Launch of new community for Rust and C++ developers

North America

2024-12-12 | Hybrid: In-Person and Virtual (Seattle, WA, US) | Seattle Rust User Group

December Meetup

2024-12-12 | Mountain View, CA, US | Hacker Dojo

RUST MEETUP at HACKER DOJO

2024-12-16 | Minneapolis, MN, US | Minneapolis Rust Meetup

Minneapolis Rust Meetup Happy Hour

2024-12-17 | San Francisco, CA, US | San Francisco Rust Study Group

Rust Hacking in Person

2024-12-26 | Mountain View, CA, US | Hacker Dojo

RUST MEETUP at HACKER DOJO

Oceania

2024-12-16 | Collingwood, AU | Rust Melbourne

December 2024 Rust Melbourne Meetup

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

Memory-safe implementations of PNG (png, zune-png, wuffs) now dramatically outperform memory-unsafe ones (libpng, spng, stb_image) when decoding images.

Rust png crate that tops our benchmark shows 1.8x improvement over libpng on x86 and 1.5x improvement on ARM.

– Shnatsel on /r/rust

Thanks to Anton Fetisov for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

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