#where do the computer nerds learn this knowledge

[thebatsandthebugs]

how do you become technologically literate this shit is hard

[seat-safety-switch]

"Oh shit, my career!" shouted one of the interns in the bullpen when it becomes obvious immediately what had happened. Yes, Justin. You had now learned a new and uncomfortable truth about working for the Man, and your working life will never be the same again. And it all started because he didn't follow the mandatory security training that every employee needs to click through while half-paying attention.

Yes indeed. In a past life, I was an information-technology security specialist. For those of you in the back who have led worthwhile existences, these words may not make sense to you. Others are not so lucky, and at this moment are rolling their eyes, or looking for the closest exits. We are, or were, the folks who force you to use a password that isn't "password," and stop sending emails containing the company's bank information to Inner Somalia.

Being in information security is a lot like being a regular old computer nerd, except you're also incredibly paranoid. Imagine you live in a house full of vicious, murderous ghosts that only you can see, and all your family members keep doing horror movie cliche shit like leaving the doors open, shaking genie lamps they find in the parking lot, and reciting "Bloody Mary" three times into a bathroom mirror. You gotta keep them safe, which slowly drives you insane over the course of, oh, about your first six weeks of employment. After that, you've basically just given up and are like the hardened firefighters who respond to grisly highway accidents with an encyclopedic knowledge of what kind of solvent cleans what kind of human fluid off the roadway.

Back to Justin: part of our paranoia involved doing elaborate role-playing exercises. Some of our nerds would pretend to be a different kind of nerd, and try to talk themselves into places they didn't belong. The idea is that a horrible criminal or cyberterrorist could also use this rarefied power ("Hi, I'm the guy who is supposed to fix the servers. They're not serving. Please show me where the servers are, and leave me alone with them for several hours") and we needed to figure out who was dumb enough to fall for it. Justin was dumb enough to fall for it.

If only he had paid attention to the mandatory security quiz that we made him click through, this all could have been avoided. Everything ended up well for him, though. The whole experience made Justin incredibly, violently paranoid, which made him a perfect candidate to become a information technology security specialist. The system works!

[death-at-20k-volts]

Hai, I saw ur post on generative AI and couldn’t agree more. Ty for sharing ur knowledge!!!!

Seeing ur background in CS,,, I wanna ask how do u think V1 and other machines operate? My HC is that they have a main CPU that does like OS management and stuff, some human brain chunks (grown or extracted) as neural networks kinda as we know it now as learning/exploration modules, and normal processors for precise computation cores. The blood and additional organs are to keep the brain cells alive. And they have blood to energy converters for the rest of the whatevers. I might be nerding out but I really want to see what another CS person would think on this.

Btw ur such a good artist!!!! I look up to u so much as a CS student and beginner drawer. Please never stop being so epic <3

okay okay okAY OKAY- I'll note I'm still ironing out more solid headcanons as I've only just really started to dip my toes into writing about the Ultrakill universe, so this is gonna be more 'speculative spitballing' than anything

I'll also put the full lot under a read more 'cause I'll probably get rambly with this one

So with regards to machines - particularly V1 - in fic I've kinda been taking a 'grounded in reality but taking some fictional liberties all the same' kind of approach -- as much as I do have an understanding and manner-of-thinking rooted in real-world technical knowledge, the reality is AI just Does Not work in the ways necessary for 'sentience'. A certain amount of 'suspension of disbelief' is required, I think.

Further to add, there also comes a point where you do have to consider the readability of it, too -- as you say, stuff like this might be our bread and butter, but there's a lot of people who don't have that technical background. On one hand, writing a very specific niche for people also in that specific niche sounds fun -- on the other, I'd like the work to still be enjoyable for those not 'in the know' as it were. Ultimately while some wild misrepresentations of tech does make me cringe a bit on a kneejerk reaction -- I ought to temper my expectations a little. Plus, if I'm being honest, I mix up my terminology a lot and I have a degree in this shit LMFAO

Anyway -- stuff that I have written so far in my drafts definitely tilts more towards 'total synthesis even of organic systems'; at their core, V1 is a machine, and their behaviors reflect that reality accordingly. They have a manner of processing things in absolutes, logic-driven and fairly rigid in nature, even when you account for the fact that they likely have multitudes of algorithmic processes dedicated to knowledge acquisition and learning. Machine Learning algorithms are less able to account for anomalies, less able to demonstrate adaptive pattern prediction when a dataset is smaller -- V1 hasn't been in Hell very long at all, and a consequence will be limited data to work with. Thus -- mistakes are bound to happen. Incorrect predictions are bound to happen. Less so with the more data they accumulate over time, admittedly, but still.

However, given they're in possession of organic bits (synthesized or not), as well as the fact that the updated death screen basically confirms a legitimate fear of dying, there's opportunity for internal conflict -- as well as something that can make up for that rigidity in data processing.

The widely-accepted idea is that y'know, blood gave the machines sentience. I went a bit further with the idea, that when V1 was created, their fear of death was a feature and not a side-effect. The bits that could be considered organic are used for things such as hormone synthesis: adrenaline, cortisol, endorphins, oxycotin. Recipes for human instinct of survival, translated along artificial neural pathways into a language a machine can understand and interpret. Fear of dying is very efficient at keeping one alive: it transforms what's otherwise a mathematical calculation into incentive. AI by itself won't care for mistakes - it can't, there's nothing actually 'intelligent' about artificial intelligence - so in a really twisted, fucked up way, it pays to instil an understanding of consequence for those mistakes.

(These same incentive systems are also what drive V1 to do crazier and crazier stunts -- it feels awesome, so hell yeah they're gonna backflip through Hell while shooting coins to nail husks and demons and shit in the face.)

The above is a very specific idea I've had clattering around in my head, now I'll get to the more generalized techy shit.

Definitely some form of overarching operating system holding it all together, naturally (I have to wonder if it's the same SmileOS the Terminals use? Would V1's be a beta build, or on par with the Terminals, or a slightly outdated but still-stable version? Or do they have their own proprietary OS more suited to what they were made for and the kinds of processes they operate?)

They'd also have a few different kinds of ML/AI algorithms for different purposes -- for example, combat analysis could be relegated to a Support Vector Machine (SVM) ML algorithm (or multiple) -- something that's useful for data classification (e.g, categorizing different enemies) and regression (i.e predicting continuous values -- perhaps behavioral analysis?). SVMs are fairly versatile on both fronts of classification and regression, so I'd wager a fair chunk of their processing is done by this.

SVMs can be used in natural language processing (NLP) but given the implied complexity of language understanding we see ingame (i.e comprehending bossfight monologues, reading books, etc) there's probably a dedicated Large Language Model (LLM) of some kind; earlier and more rudimentary language processing ML models couldn't do things as complex as relationship and context recognition between words, but multi-dimensional vectors like you'd find in an LLM can.

Of course if you go the technical route instead of the 'this is a result of the blood-sentience thing', that does leave the question of why their makers would give a war machine something as presumably useless as language processing. I mean, if V1 was built to counter Earthmovers solo, I highly doubt 'collaborative effort' was on the cards. Or maybe it was; that's the fun in headcanons~

As I've said, I'm still kinda at the stage of figuring out what I want my own HCs to be, so this is the only concrete musings I can offer at the minute -- though I really enjoyed this opportunity to think about it, so thank you!

Best of luck with your studies and your art, anon. <3

[pistachiopie]

I'm sooo sick of AI. did a project where I interviewed people with different views on things and I chose AI. talked to my friend's friend who was very pro AI. it's not like they're a computer science nerd and thought that these advancements were cool. just that it helps them with their assignments and the sooner they get them done the better. all they need is their degree so they can get a job and live a happy life later on.

and that's . reasonable. if you live in a world that tells you your worth is to spit out a grade, spit out a degree, provide some labor in exchange for the ability to live and then maybe experience joy then. why wouldn't you turn to a tool that makes it easier?

but I don't believe in that I think education has more worth than just being a checkbox to check off. learning skills from people who dedicate their whole life to studying one subject, gaining knowledge about the world so you know how to navigate it, piecing things together and figuring out a solution are all such cool and fun things...!!! I think this is really valuable stuff!! too bad it doesn't fucking matter. I'm not getting graded on how much I like a class or how much I was engaged with it. I'm getting graded on how good the final paper is. (and writing papers is so hard for me. I will not write a good paper no matter how much I love a class. so like .)

I don't care if you use it for your assignments whatever. I'm not a snitch idgaf if that's what you need to do to pass your classes. I'm just annoyed that this is a thing at all. it just slaps me in the face that THIS is all education is right now. it could be so much more it could be so much more valuable! but who cares about my opinions who cares about my morals who cares about what I think the world should look like. I'm failing my classes bc writing papers takes so much of my brain power and that friend's friend is thriving bc they wrote it in 20 minutes using AI and I didn't. morals don't get me good grades or degrees. no one cares!! it doesn't pay to be anti capitalist and there are actual scary consequences to that. Fuck

[sweet-potato-42]

I ramble about the scientists and engineers on qsmp (mike, pac, tubbo, ramon and aypierre) and about what i think they specialize in:

Pac to me is a bio chemist/ pharmacist. He knows how to make antidotes as he did in the happy pills arc. He is the one in the tazercraft duo who learned medicine and chem. This man however does not know the meaning of "ethical practices". he picked up some physics and engineering knowledge from being with mike

Mike feels like a phycisist with some knowledge in other fields. It lfeels like he knows theory very well and has the problem solving skills for it. He knows some engineering stuff, some chem from pac and some computer science stuff. This is what helps him be a sort of jack of all trades and build things like the game arenas with pac.

Tubbo and ramon are very similar to me in that they are both just mechanical engineers who know some other stuff. They are create mod experts making them especially good at mechanical engineering but htey also know some electrical stuff and maybe some computer science. They are both well versed in physics though not professionals as they can do shit like time machines or build the radio reciever. Tubbo in particular is also a logistics nerd which is what pushes him to make large interconnected systems and factories.

Aypierre feels like a robotics and software expert. He might also be a create mod user but the way he does it and his factories give a much more modern fancy robot vibe. He certainly approaches the mod in a more 1 project at a time way which is closer to working on computer science. He also always makes displays that show what the factory is producing. Other evidence for this is the ayrobot shit.

Im convinved these 5 have had intense joke arguments over whihc science or field is the best. Theyve done it several times. By now pac has given up on fighting since hes the only biologist.

i need more scinecy art and shit frm them. Especially for pac. I need fitpac moments where pac is just rambling about some complicated chem stuff and fit is like :)

[emeraldspiral]

One thing I really appreciate about the writing for Dib is that the writers never rely on cheap tricks to characterize someone who's supposed to be smarter than they are.

Usually when a character is supposed to be a genius writers tend to convey this by having them reference famous smart people, or use technobabble or overly obscure or technical vocabulary where a common word would've sufficed. Or by giving them a broad range of stereotypical interests in things like classical music, classic lit, and chess, in addition to mathematics and every hard science known to man from particle physics, to engineering, to computer science, to biomedicine. But because the writers don't have any in-depth knowledge on any of these subjects they only ever make surface-level references. You see this kind of writing used for characters like Jimmy Neutron or Alex Dunphy from Modern Family while Glass Onion actually uses it to characterize its villain as a moron using cheap tricks to fool everyone into thinking he's smarter than he really is.

With Dib though, they never do that. You know Dib's smart because they show him making complicated devices, or hacking alien computer systems, or modifying alien tech, or breaking into secure locations after studying their systems, rather than trying to tell you he's smart by having him use stereotypical nerd speak or giving him stereotypical nerd interests. It's actually a big part of Dib's character that he finds conventional "smart person" interests dull, but you can still tell that he's supposed to be intelligent because of the way he talks about the things that actually do interest him. He's genuinely curious about the paranormal and wants to actually understand the biology of cryptids or the mechanics of alien tech or the mysterious workings of magic on a deep comprehensive level. He doesn't like these things just because he thinks they're "neat" the way most people "like" music or movies without actually understanding or having any desire to understand how "good" music or film is made or what makes them "good". He doesn't want to prove these things exist purely to get vindication, but because he believes there's something of value to be learned from studying them that could benefit humanity if only they would recognize their legitimacy.

[winterinhimring]

Where do I learn how to code and use linux? I want to try it but I don't know anything about coding.

I will do my best to help! The answer to that question is very long if I write it all out here, but a lot of it has been answered by other people, so I'll give you an overview and link you to some resources along the way.

The good thing is that you don't need any programming knowledge to use Linux. If you just want to try out the Linux operating system and see what it's like, I would start by downloading a program like Oracle's VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/

This will allow you to basically run a second, simulated, computer on your actual computer. From there, you can download a Linux image and install it, run it inside VirtualBox, and get familiar with the operating system. This has the additional benefit that if you do something wonky to your Linux virtual machine (VM for short) by mistake, you can just delete it and recreate it and no harm will be done to your actual computer. For a step-by-step explanation, see: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/how-to-run-ubuntu-desktop-on-a-virtual-machine-using-virtualbox#1-overview

Short aside: Linux is not a monolithic operating system like Windows or MacOS. Linux, written by a man named Linus Torvalds, is a "kernel" made up of certain very basic computer functions, and the rest of the operating system, things like the graphical user interface (GUI, to nerds like me) doesn't come with it. To be usable by normal people, Linux has to have that functionality filled in by other programmers, which creates something called a distribution, or distro for short. Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, Linux Mint, and OpenSUSE are all Linux distros. Different distros are designed for different purposes. Ubuntu and Mint are both pretty friendly to normal folks who want to write documents, check their email, etc. RedHat is for large companies. There's a distro called Kali that's for cybersecurity and penetration testing. Etc. etc. etc. There are tons of distros. If you don't know which one to pick, I recommend Ubuntu or Mint, as I have experience with both, and they're fairly easy to use.

From this point out, a search engine will be your best friend. There are lots of helpful tutorials online, and also answers to almost any question you can imagine. If you're unsure where to start, documentation from the website of an official Linux distribution, like Ubuntu, is usually reliable, though it can be kind of opaque if you're not used to reading tech-ese. The tutorials on Ubuntu's site, however, seem to be structured with beginners in mind, and I would run through this one to start with: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/command-line-for-beginners#1-overview

Once you get to the point of having specific questions about how a command works or how to make the operating system do something, I would take a good look at any answers from StackOverflow, which is basically a website for computer people of all skill levels to ask each other questions ranging from the basic to the ridiculously obscure. If you're wondering it, chances are good someone on StackOverflow has asked it.

Other than that, click around your new VM, create files, find programs, etc. If you really get stuck, I'll try and help, but keep in mind I may very well be searching StackOverflow myself. XD

The other cool thing about VMs is that you can try multiple operating systems, i.e. Linux Mint (https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) which is pretty user-friendly, as I recall.

Once you get to the point where you actually want to install Linux, you'll want to back up your computer to an external hard drive so you can restore from the backup if something goes wrong, and then follow the instructions for your chosen Linux distro. LibreOffice runs on Linux and can open most Microsoft file types, so you shouldn't need to move your files to a different type, you'll just need to copy them somewhere (like another external hard drive or a thumb drive) and then copy them back when you're done with the installation. Obligatory word of warning: installing Linux on your actual machine, as opposed to a VM, WILL OVERWRITE YOUR ENTIRE HARD DRIVE. Do this with caution. Restoring from a backup is possible, so as long as you backed everything up you will not lose any data, but it can be a pain in the neck and if you're not particularly tech-savvy, you may have to go to a computer repair store to get them to do it.

Now, as to your question about learning to code: this requires no VM and no new installation; you can start doing that today. There are almost infinite tutorials online about how to start coding. CodeCademy.com is a pretty decent one, as I recall, though it's been a long time since I used it. There's also a channel on YouTube called BroCode that puts up free 'how to get started in this programming language' tutorials, which are pretty beginner-friendly. I would recommend that you start with either Python or Java (NOT JavaScript; it's not the same thing as Java, and it's a really annoying programming language, so don't do that to yourself). Python has syntax that is more similar to English than most programming languages and it is pretty powerful, but it may confuse you when you start moving to other programming languages. Java is less immediately comprehensible but probably more representative of programming languages as a whole.

Hope this helps! Feel free to send me follow-up questions or ask for clarification if I lapsed into tech-speak and this doesn't make sense.

[dubb0-g0ldfe11]

I'm going to be cringe. So here's a family tree of my OC's with some of my favorite pokemon characters

LORE TIME!

First up, Andromeda!

Andromeda is the submas twins older half sister from they're father's side

Ingo and Emmets father and Andromeda's mother where a couple in highschool, and when her mother suddenly got pregnant with her. they were still in highschool, so they decided keep it a secret from there parents and put her up for adoption when she was born, but they went they're separate ways once they graduated from high school

Andromeda had a hard life but not a difficult one, she had problems with bullying but she always managed to scare them off

She is a MASSIVE NERD she is always burying herself in books not caring for people

She found an abandoned Pokemon egg when she was 7 and took care of it until it hatched into a shiny Ralts! Which evolve into a gardevoir in later years

She was adopted by a lovely woman at the age of 8 years old, the woman so happened to happened to be a Pokemon professor, Andromeda was fascinated by all this new information and knowledge about mythical Pokemon and their power and so eager to learn

She became a Pokemon professor but she also writes books about dark fantasy and mythical adventures in her free time

Then she met her ex-husband Cerberus, a young, extremely handsome, and charming guy,

They dated for around 3 years and where married for 10 years

Cerberus seems like a nice and charming person on the outside but in reality he is a horrible person

Cerberus soon showed his true colors after they got married, he was a narcissistic piece of shit I believe he can do no wrong in his life

But Andromeda was so helplessly in love and so desperate to provide a father for her children that she was blind to the signs

But one day she finally had enough and left Cerberus for good, when she found out that he was beating her children behind her back

Her children are too scared of say anything in fear that Cerberus might harm their mother

But when her daughter Selene went missing without a Trace, after the four of them left him 8 years ago, she went haywire, immediately diving into her research to bring her daughter back no matter what

Soon she found out about her half sibling Emmett, who was looking for his brother Ingo

Both of them soon met up and realized that her daughter and his brother's disappearance were connected

And with each other's help along with her sons she managed to bring both her daughter Selene and Emmett's brother Ingo home

Next up to Polaris!

Polaris is Selene's older brother he was 20 years old before Selene went missing

Polaris is a very casual and calm dude, he rarely ever gets angry but when he does, he becomes an unstoppable force

He is married to Natori and got married to her when they were both 18, Natori is Alder's granddaughter

Polaris took most of Cerberus's abuse, back when his family still live with him

And back in his younger years Polaris was a MASSIVE dick, he didn't know how to regulate his emotions so he took out on everyone

But luckily he soon found error his ways and became a nice huggable, lovable, and beautiful person that is always ready to lend a hand when needed/when he wants to lol

When his sister Selene went missing, he went through a brief period of isolation.

He become really depressed and blamed himself for her disappearance

But luckily he decided to do something about it and helped his mother Andromeda and uncle Emmet they brought her and Ingo home

Next Zeke

Zeke is Selene's young brother he was 17 years old when Selene went missing

Zeke is a very quiet person prefers to keep to himself

Zeke is a Pokemon professor taking interest in his mother Andromeda's work

He took the lease to of Cerberus's abuse, mostly because he just kept quiet and did what he was told, didn't tell anyone this but that's the main reason why he keeps himself and why he is so quiet

He absolutely LOVES video games and spends lots of his free time on his computer playing all sorts of different games

But when his sister Selene went missing... He panicked, it was the biggest and worst time of his life

Constantly checking constantly looking for a sister having little to no leads

After the second year he began to slowly give up

But with the help of his family he managed to push through and bring his sister back home

Next Selene

(this picture is of her after she came back from the Hisui)

Selene is a very loud person who isn't afraid to share her opinion

She was a very troubled kid, getting into fights, stealing, ECT due to her father's abuse

But through lots of therapy she managed to pull through and become a better person for herself

Selene was 18 when she was transported into hisui and takes place as the MC in the pla storyline

Selene was VERY PISSED when this happened

But when she met volo the first time, two of them immediately clicked

The two of them would walk and talk and just laugh all the time whenever they were together throughout Selene's adventures

Soon they became a couple but then the Red sky happened

Volo tried his best to be there for Selene bringing her gifts, talking to her about myths, he tried everything to make her smile

But then volo tried to we create the world, he bagged and pleaded for Selene to join him

But when she refused Volo could only see red

The final battle was more vicious than anything either of them have I ever seen but in the end. Selene came out victorious

And without thinking volo just yelled at her

He just berating her telling her how much he hated her, and how much she wanted her dead, every single awful thing you can ever think of he said it to her

Both of them cried as Volo yelled at her and ran off never to be seen again

But little did volo know, Selene given birth to his child a few weeks back

Selene kept it a secret because she knew something was wrong with Volo, and that he was plotting something

Selene gave birth to her son Gesshoku right before the end of her exile and the battle with Palkia and Dialga

Only the people of Pearl Clan knew about her pregnancy and her son, after being sworn secrecy by irida, and was placed under Calaba's care and after she got better in recovered was placed under Ingo's care

Selene lost a lot of blood when she gave birth to Gesshoku and actually nearly died but was luckily saved by Calaba

After the battle of Volo, she just started sobbing uncontrollably, and when Ingo and the other wardens asked what's wrong she just explained everything through pained tears

By then Volo had already fled Hisui, but when Selene finish explaining EVERYONE was out for his blood

Selene stayed in Hisui with Ingo

Last but not least Gesshoku!

Gesshoku is a very happy and optimistic child

He gets his blonde hair from his father Volo, and his white streaks from Selene, the reason why he has blue in his hair is because he asked his mother to die at Blue to match her.

The reason why his eyes are blue is because he gets it from Selene's brother Polaris

People commonly mistake him as a girl because of his long hair, he just calmly corrects them that he is a boy not that he cares he just thinks it's funny

Gesshoku did ask once why he didn't have a father, and Selene was honest and tried to explain the best she could

She basically told him that he didn't love her and he didn't know about him and that's why he doesn't have a dad

Gesshoku seem to accept it just fine, as he was just curious, but he had to admit he was a bit mad at his father...who could do such a thing?

Gesshoku was 3 years old when he left Hisui and to the present day with his mother Selene and Ingo, who he lovingly refer to as Grandpa or Pop-Pop

It was a hard adjustment for him he was so used to the calmness and quietness of hisui

He would only sleep whenever his mother was around because he was so unsure and scared of everything around him

Although it was a hard adjustment for him and even though he missed everything and everyone it back in Hisui he ended up loving everything about the present

How did everyone react to Gesshoku?

Andromeda was very surprised/shocked when she first saw Gesshoku, but even more heartbroken but most importantly absolutely furious when she found out the story of what happened between Selene and Volo. But besides that she absolutely adores her grandson, spoiling him rotten every time she sees him. It wasn't easy getting his trust however as it took time. But when she did Gesshoku would always want to go to her house, and hang out with his grandmother anytime he could

Polaris was also very surprised when he first saw Gesshoku, he made a joke about beating teen pregnancy and then immediately got sucker punched in the jaw by Ingo, no one did anything about it because he absolutely deserved it Polaris would also agree with that statement, but with all jokes aside he absolutely loves his nephew, teaching him how to pokémon battle teaching him about different types of video games and even introducing him to his wife Natori! His favorite thing to do with Gesshoku is to tell funny stories about his and his siblings childhood to Gesshoku. And even letting him in on family lore when he is older.

Zeke had more of a quiet type of shock reaction, he had to leave the room because he was getting over stimulated that the fact that his sister had a child while she was missing, he felt that he ripped her away from her new family even if it hurted him deeply inside, but after some reassurance from Selene and feeling him in on the story of what happened between her and Volo, all he did was hug her tightly, in whispered that he was sorry that happened to her. Even though he has mixed feelings about Gesshoku, he still loves him and cares for him very deeply even if he has a quiet way of showing it. His favorite things to do with his nephew Gesshoku is to tell in about all sorts of pokémon how they work down to the very last detail, Gesshoku it's always happy to learn something new from his uncle

Cerberus, what's the last to find out about Gesshoku he was doing time for crimes that he committed when he was working for team plasma, when he finally got out Gesshoku was 6 years old, to say he was shocked with being understatement. He desperately wants to try to have a relationship with his children again, but Polaris, Selene, and Zeke want nothing to do with him especially after all he's done, Cerberus really wants to and desperately wants to have a relationship with his grandson, Selene told him once Gesshoku was 18 only then can he see his grandson, Cerberus knows that he has a lot of work to do if he ever wants to have a relationship with his children again, but he's willing to put in the work, even if it takes him his whole life.

Emmet, he was the most shocked to relieved and had the most mixed emotions about everything, first find out that he had a half sister, second finding out that he is technically an uncle, thirdly but finally being able to hug his brother after the many years of searching for him, so did say that it was a lot for him would be an understatement. When he saw Gesshoku he didn't know what to feel, but overall he still cares deeply about him, and upon building a closer relationship with his half sister Andromeda he finally and truly feels like he's part of the family now.

[scathecraw]

Discord and the Online Ecosystem

Discord is an awesome service to use. Overall, it's user friendly to do "basic" stuff, like instantly updating, global text, image, and video posts with a near-infinite level of storage for those things. For 95% of people that use Discord, it's an incredibly convenient, functional service almost all the time. But Discord in fundamentally making the Internet - not the people interacting with each other, but the actual infrastructure and ethos of the Internet - worse.

I'm saying this not only as an "Internet person" - after all, I'm here with the rest of you, but as someone who is only now realizing that I am an expert on the function, technical details, and history of the Internet compared to most users of this place. I get paid to do it. I get paid to learn about how everything on it works, not as a researcher, but as someone that makes important parts of it work, at least to a certain scale.

Discord is a parasite on the internet, just like Reddit being a self-hosting image and text repository. The centralization of the Internet, I believe, is essentially toxic to how the Internet was built and used for it's most formative times, and losing that essence makes the Internet a worse place.

Here's the technical reasons it's starving out the Internet. Essentially, the Internet was built as a network of first a few, then dozens, then hundreds, etc. of small servers, each hosting data and sharing almost exclusively text communications and records. Usually, these were hosted on Universities and other technical institutions. As those developed, thanks to the nerds that were core to actually making the systems talk and work, those nerds started hosting little servers of their own, sometimes on the same machines as those big systems, sometimes just using the same infrastructure like power and networking. Then personal computers and home servers started to develop.

This entire time, if those big organizational servers were the Bones of the Internet, the flesh were those little sites that held the little services. Niche forums, mostly, where people could communicate their own small passions and hobbies. It was the beginning of the Internet being a global cultural hub, and caused the development of those niches into communities with their own histories and knowledge troves.

Then the Internet started making money. And technical changes made economies of scale more feasible. There was a transitional period where a lot of people didn't see what was coming. I was too young and wouldn't have predicted it even if I was the me of today. After that transition, consolidation of the Internet started intensifying. The Internet was no longer a facilitator to commerce, it could be commerce all on its own.

So sites like Reddit, Facebook Groups, Discord, even to an extent Github, and Tumblr and fanfiction.net, though lesser because Tumblr is more of a social media site related to random fandoms and FF.net is so public and archived, show up and gather the niche communities, which is great because they are providing a really good service to use. Until they decide to delete a niche because it hasn't had activity in a few years, or because they decided that it's a banned topic, and that trove of information about those people and their passion is gone forever.

This is part of "digital archaeology". Of keeping that knowledge around so we can look back at the world of today and know the cultural context of who we were. This is anthropology of the digital age.

Now on to the technical reasons Discord, in specific, is such a parasite on the internet. That's not a term of disgust, I literally mean that it's kinda latched onto the Internet as a whole and stealing it's nutrients from within. Discord especially is a problem because it's so good to use. It offers up instantaneous creation and use of a moderated chat space that can be shared easily, doesn't require any technical knowledge, and immediately does it's job unlike any previous niche gathering tool.

Those technical people developed how the internet worked using those niche communities. They shared technical ideas and designs and talked about how to do more with the technical resources they had. They built the internet protocol by protocol, bugfix by bugfix, and their knowledge, even after they stopped talking on those forums, was picked over by new people who had new ideas but also has problems that that niche could now solve.

And now those niches are put into walled gardens on Discord, privately managed, unsearchable from the wider internet, and where a year or two after nobody touching the chat, the history is deleted for the sake of ruthless business resource efficiency.

It takes the knowledge, extracts the value from the people who may or may not produce something with that community with that niche area, and then leaves no record of it for people outside that community to learn from.

Think video game developer communities. There's technical knowledge of how to get a game to run that is answered on those discords. FAQs and mods are hosted there. Lore is dropped. Depending on the scale of the game, patches might even be released. No one can try to start up a copy of that game in the future and have access to that knowledge once Discord, the business, decides to close it down.

This isn't a new problem. Servers, neglect, or even upset owners of the gathering places took their toll and got rid of a lot of knowledge over time. Historical Anthropology, History, Cultural Anthropology - all of those expect a certain level of information decay and loss. But this is a lot more.

And the worst part is I don't know what can be done about it. Discord is in a fundamental technical way, better at doing what it does than any other system we have. No other system could semi-publicly, instantly, in a structured manner and across the entire Internet landscape, share voice chat, text, photos, and even some videos natively to the service. Traditional web pages fail at the instantly part. Most services fail at the picture and video part. Practically none succeed at the voice part. It's just better.

[canmom]

since I've been talking about FFXIV modding, lately, a caveat on risks.

you may have heard about an infamous event in ffxiv modding where the author of GShade, a widely popular ReShade fork, got pissy about people forking their code and decided to demonstrate the risks of installing untrusted code on your computer... by pushing an update that makes GShade automatically shut down users' computers. basically torching their own mod and ejecting themselves from the mod community to make a point.

the impact on the modding scene was ultimately minor. almost all GShade shaders could be ported straight back to ReShade (the main thing that GShade added was support for reading the depth buffer, which can be turned on in ReShade). but it does illustrate that a mod scene, is, well, literally downloading code by strangers on the internet and running it, with all the dangers that entails.

one thing I like a lot about the FFXIV mod scene is that a whole lot of the development is open source - indeed, a ton of the infrastructure for distributing mods is straight up built on GitHub. the level of technical knowledge is some of the highest I've seen in a mod scene. this doesn't rule out attacks! simply being open source doesn't mean the level of code scrutiny that you would get in a high-profile open source project, with many mods being the work of a solo dev or a tiny team of very passionate nerds. it would not be difficult for a mod author to do what the author of GShade did, and push an update with an attack. but it is at least a check, and a general incentive to cooperate.

the risks are increased further by mods like Mare Synchronos which allow other people to give you a list of mods to download. Mare Synchronos does not allow arbitrary code execution, it is limited to replacing game assets and certain specific tricks like skeleton modification, but the attack surface is still present - if there's any problem in the way the asset replacer mods modify the game's memory at runtime, I'm sure it would be easy to break out and take full control of the game process.

from there, you're still limited by the privileges of the user account - FFXIV does not run as administrator. but there's still considerable scope for shenanigans.

for this reason it's kind of surprising to me that some mod authors do not publish source code. e.g. for PuppetMaster and MidiBard, a combo which is widely used by in-game performers, the github repo is literally just metadata and binaries. like, guys. it's in everyone's interest to be able to know exactly what the code is doing; if you refuse to show the source that is immediately sus. but when i started talking to modders in the scene to ask for some advice on getting started on my pie in the sky animation mod project, I was warned that people can be quite protective over the tricks they've learned, and to back up any resources I use in case they disappear at random. (be assured I am going to devlog this project in great detail like I always do lol.)

I can't really tell you where to set your acceptable risk level. for me, since everything is backed up locally and remotely, and my sensitive data is encrypted, I figure the outside risk of attacks is worth it for the chance to see peoples' custom character designs and add another layer to the game. I think the risks are considerably less than, say, downloading cracked games. but it is an attack surface you are exposing so you gotta make that call! don't go in unaware of it.

[jeber]

The Perils of Technology

The cell phone wasn’t developed to spy on its users. But eventually nefarious characters, once they understood the capabilities of cell phones, noticed what a good spying and tracking device it was.

It’s the same with the WWW and Internet. Good intentions at the start, now corrupted into near uselessness.

I’m beginning to distrust every new technology. Especially those who watch and listen constantly. Amazon Echo, Google Hub, and soon a similar offering from Apple.

Am I becoming a luddite? Maybe.

I was there near the beginning. I started using computers in 1976. I’ve been a nerd for 50 years. I was sold on the potential for good at the start. I have more electronic gadgets that one man should own. But these days I find myself warning people about the dangers of the Internet and home devices far more often than introducing them to the benefits they can bring.

Everything requires a caveat. Sure, the Echo is a useful device but you have to be aware of what it can do and learn how to disable or at least control its most invasive features. The same with phones, smart watches, computers in general.

What was a wonderful and delightful experience in the 80s and 90s has become dangerous and threatening.

Yet we will plunge on. We can’t help ourselves. We’ve become enchanted, even addicted, to the effects technology has had on our lives. Something as simple as an e-reader is a revolution in reading. We can now track our health on a watch and upload that information to our doctor. At the same time, often without our knowledge or consent, others are collecting data from our devices in order to sell us a particular product, to show us advertising, know where we are, or glean other information they have no right to.

This currently isn’t a fixable problem. Goverments are too uneducated and slow to stay ahead of the detrimental aspects of technology. We’re too spoiled to give up our convenient gadgets.

There may be a solution someday. But I don’t see one today.

[mywordstovictor]

Hi, I’m Victor (online), he/him, just thought I’d save you some time figuring out if my corner of the internet is the vibe for you.

This blog can go into some heavier topics and I don’t censor or avoid talking about taboo subjects either. I’m usually talking from a kinda abstract, think-y perspective, so while you probably won’t run into smut (I don’t know, I might run into something I think takes a neat look at sex and sexuality and reblog it) but there’s a decent chance you’ll run into sex-ed or some esoteric shit about sex and society.

This is my nerd space, where I ponder profusely and infodump.

What you’ll find here, mostly:

-The odd quip when I think I’m funny.

- Assorted queer shit. Usually more ramble-y and think-y, often specifically about trans masculinity because y’know, that’s me and the way I exist in the world.

- Disability stuff. Mainly reblogs I think, but I do occasionally go on about autism, also because that’s me and how I exist in the world.

- Assorted politics/sociology-ish pondering. I talk here more about concepts than current events. I don’t use Tumblr with the goal of actually doing politics; I just like to share some thoughts from time to time. I put any real effort elsewhere.

- Anarchy specifically. I’m very much still reading up and there’s a solid chance I ramble here about the new ideas I run into.

- Science-y stuff. I’m into mycology and a few other science topics.

- Some life events I found interesting. I do have a tendency to think about my existence as a case study.

I’m studying primary education with the intent to become an elementary school teacher, and under that umbrella I think a lot and occasionally post about:

- Citizen science and self-teaching. I don’t like how we share knowledge under capitalism (because we don’t share it. We sell it.) I don’t like any barrier to education. I think research should be evaluated for the quality of the research, regardless of the prestige of the author. I see self-teaching and citizen science as meaningful approaches to figuring out the world. I want everyone to have help learning the literal, scientific, numerical and research literacy skills they need to be able to find accurate information and understand it.

- Kid’s rights.

- Human learning.

- School inclusion.

I also have some come and go interests I might post about, including but not limited to:

- Music (theory, playing it, listening to it, pondering its function and role in our lives).

- Star Trek

- Magic the Gathering (I’m new to it)

- Minecraft

- Computer science? Apparently?

- Whatever’s tickling my fancy at the moment.

[cleekleequlee]

Scattered thoughts from (re)readings of systems thinking

On Maturana, experience and perception, or perception based on experience

It's funny that I cannot explain Maturana quite well even if it profoundly changed my thinking.

Maturana's biological achievement includes the breakthrough on understanding frog's vision, particularly how what it sees is not what there is out there, e.g., a fly, but is the "information" necessary for its action, e.g., how a fly moves so the frog could catch it. (In some mysterious ways it resembles J J Gibson's theory of affordance, so the object, or the environment is not a thing that can be objectively represented, but is always limited by, or seen through an observer's capacity to translate it to potential action.)

Of course Maturana goes further with understanding primarily about human minds and cognition:

"Therefore, underlying everything we shall say is this constant awareness that the phenomenon of knowing cannot be taken as though therre were "facts" or objects out there that we grasp and store in our head. The experience of anything out there is validated in a special way by the human structure, which makes possible "the thing" that arises in the description." (p. 25-26, Maturana & Varela, 1998)

Is it a scientific/biological deduction from how autopoiesis is understood in terms of life form? Or is it already metaphorical to apply on cognition, minds and knowledge? Irrespective of the answer, the implications on organization of system and on knowledge and learning are huge. Making it relevant to my interest on human-nature connection, the connection itself is not about expanding the scope or boundary of a system, from human to more-than-human, but meaning to be open to the "perturbations" of beyond human society, gradually adjust its own structure, from where it is today, "fitting" (like a fitting at a tailors) into the new coupling.

2. Self-organization and energy flow

There are different ways to understand self-organization. Prigogine use the physics of dippisative structure, while some others (to be identified source) explain it as the stages from 1. deviation of equilibrium due to positive feedback loop, 2. self-organization, 3. phase transition, 4. new equilibrium. The second explanation of self-organization as a stage in phase transition is similar to the depiction of Complex Adaptive Systems/Cycles, (though CAS always gives me a bit of both hierarchical and teleogical taste).

Now think in the language of self-organization, there are a few things to be considered

a) self-organization, as in the example of murmuration or in its computer simulated examples, is about simple rules applied at the local, micro level. Where are these rules from? Do they originate from bottom, or cascaded from top (I wouldn't say so!), or are they themselves result of evolution?

There is also the question of scale - can different strategies, or micro rules, exist in different pockets of locality?

Transformation scholar Karen O'Brien (O'Brien, 2013; O'Brien & Hochachka, 2024) attributes the spread of new values to its universal appeal, which is a very strange set up for a bottom-up view of transformation. I'd rather again goes to the practice theory, ecofeminist and Mol, and find those shared "logics" of hands-on front line workers in touch of life.

One key feature of self-organization, according to the entropic explanation, is it has to be fed by a constant flow of energy, the energy from order to chaos, It is salvaging on those energy that self-organization gains hope and find new ways to organize. Thinking with the personal experience, self-organization starts with flow of energy, flow of experiments, flow of movement. Don't settle. Wayfaring doens't mean proceeding toward a goal, but continuous adjust according to the minute situation. The new direction emerge from this constant movement, trying, experimenting. What does it mean for design? This is an angle I could explore further for NERD 6 in November.

b) the question of time - Prigogine seems to have discussed it more extendedly in Order out of Chaos (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984) will have to check it out

c) how do these local rules spread? What are the distinctions between those small scale experiments that gets amplified, and those don't?

If we think self-organization as the "positive" scenario of bifurcation in non-linear causality, what is the small difference that makes all the difference? Is it the "aha" moment of an individual? Is it coincidence of intellectual curiosity and certain kinds of power? Is it random? What Manzini's social innovation tries to do is to amplify the weak signals, experimentation of new modalities. That is where the idea of self-organization is most relevant to social design. What are the lessons to draw from physics/biology?

(might continue, we'll see)

[serenova]

Hooooooo boy

where do I even start?

this requires backstory!

SO

I learned to read super young... like.... went to preschool knowing how young

and almost as soon as I could talk I was making up my own little stories, like most kids do

but then dial up internet happened when I was about six years old.... and my mom letting me have access to the computer at that age

me being me wanted pictures form the shows I liked, so using primitive search engines and some hunt and peck typing I was off

I learned about this glorious thing called fanfiction (this was before ffdotnet existed mind you)

I didn't quite realize that's what it was called back then, all 6-8 year old me knew was "MORE STUFF ABOUT CHARACTERS"

somewhere in my old room at my mom's house are notebooks that have some elementary school scribbles in them related to Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z ... they're definitely not the best writing but they're the earliest I've got (probably dated in the 1997-1998 range - SM came out in the US in 1997), I know I wrote before that but I don't physically have any of that older writing before

NOW

Of course, me being me... I didn't want to go to university for writing. nope! I wanted to go to university for ASTROPHYSICS

because I'm a space obsessed nerd

and I did start university with that goal in mind, even though I'd been writing stories on and off all through my teenage years

but my ADHD and other learning disabilities combined so that I couldn't finish that major

so what did I do?

I chose the next logical major (to me at least, this gives whiplash to people I tell), because all along I'd been writing. Both fanfic and original stuff. I did NaNoWriMo from 2008-2015 (this was well before the org went to shit, to be clear), and a decade plus later in still working on some of those stories.

The new major I declared was English

In 2013 I finished my degree. My degree is: Bachelor of the Arts in English with a concentration in Creative Writing

that's my actual degree. no joke. I got a WRITING DEGREE

I went from astrophysics to writing.

I legit wrote fanfic for one of the classes, just to get one over on a snooty Prof who thought "fantasy and scifi wasn't real writing" and thought anyone who wrote fanfiction was "lacking talent"

Spoiler: Sailor Moon is just Scooby Doo if you change the names and don't imply the magical nature of the characters. aka youma of the week becomes criminal of the week, and your Prof thinks you're just writing teenage mystery shit

ALSO had a classmate who LOVED Warhammer 40k. Spoiler: if you don't mention spaceships, that's just gritty war writing. He and I teamed up to get one over on the Prof

We both got A+ in that class... our Prof had let mild local fame go to his head, so as a 26 year old who was burnt out and SO done, I have zero shame for what I did. And as of writing this post it's 11 years later and I STILL have zero shame.

All of this to say.... I started off doing my own thing.... got some actual training in writing, then went back to doing my own thing with more knowledge about how to do the thing

I still like to start sentences with And and But. you'll pry the Oxford comma from my cold dead hands, hell you'll pry excessive commas from my cold dead hands

But I also understand structure, consistent POV, have learned how to maintain a consistent voice across a piece of writing

Writing is one of those things where the more you know the rules the more you know how to BREAK them. Because really, all the rules are are guidelines. Writing is an art. And like most types of art, the better you know the rules the better you can break them.

Sure my first drafts are still ADHD word vomit and it takes MANY revisions to get somewhere much more coherent, but I know how to get there.

✌️

Fic writers: have you ever studied writing as a craft (formally or not) or do you just do your thing?

[silent-lily]

Honestly there are two things in me 'n wife's Sonic RP that I absolutely adore (and that are absolutely self-indulgent lol).

Like, following the plot we make up as we go, Shadow has actually p much befriended everyone in Sonic's main friend group (a lot of stuff happened, as well as a bit of reevaluation of personal beliefs and values on Shadow's part). And the aforementioned two things are as follows: - when he stops by Emerald Town, he often spends time with Tails discussing Various Sciencey Shit and at times even helping the fox with his personal projects. Shadow may not be that ace in computers and all but imo he is capable of at least basic mechanic stuff (like I'm fairly sure he does all the maintenance for his air shoes - gotta keep 'em working properly!), plus I'm p sure he also has some knowledge on other various topics (biology, botany, physics, maybe something else). So yeah, Nerd Stuff-based friendship and shenanigans; - when Knuckles visits and they happen to meet up in some way, they either: a) have a good ol' one-on-one sparring session where they duke it out without holding back (they both are very strong physically, Knuckles even more so but heck - Shadow loves to test his limits); b) talk about historical and cultural stuff (my wife has a strong opinion - and I agree - that as a treasure hunter Knuckles know plenty of that stuff (myths and legends and all that) as well as some of the ancient languages; my opinion is that Shadow knows VERY LITTLE of actual Mobian history and culture since he was raised in, y'know, human space colony so he almost CRAVES learning more about it all; Knuckles is of course surprised at first, but actually happy to share his knowledge - Shadow appears to be a great listener); c) just do nothing and vibe, not talking and observing their surroundings (yeah like in that Twitter Takeover haha; they really are cut from the same cloth if you look closely, two awkward socially inept beans).

P.S. And yes, of course Shadow also spends some time with Amy, too. I imagine they either go to some public events together (music concerts, yeah, like that Hot Honey one, of course) or have tea parties with Cream. Cute stuff. (because - again - Shadow is A Girls Guy, hehe)

[japanese-cryptic-beauty]

Building the inner parser

When I was a kid, probably elementary school age, I tried one day to understand what actually the difference was between English and German. I had had some minor exposure, but for example my mother, always my primary caregiver, didn't really speak it. I tried coming up with English words, but this trial-error approach was almost entirely error. I found it hard to understand in what way English was different. At times it seemed like a badly pronounced German, but I couldn't figure out the difference.

Had I had somebody knowledgeable in my environment, I might have learned early on how many English words of Germanic root origin are in fact one shift of spelling away from German. I had kind of intuited this myself, probably with the uncanny way children pick up languages anyway from exposure.

But more interestingly in hindsight - what else had I been lacking?

How do you learn a language?

Over the course of starting out to learn Japanese I had a few intuitions, nothing groundbreaking or new. Let's just say it shifted my own, personal priorities, what I considered helpful and what I needed to do.

Naturally, through my experience in school, I gravitated towards finding a textbook that would suit me. As I mentioned before, I very quickly rejected Romaji-based books for their focus on business Japanese (I certainly don't dream of working in Japan...) and eventually came up with "Japanese from Zero" - at least it seemed to align with where I wanted to go.

I quickly became dissatisfied with its approach of throwing "Hajimemashite" style sentences at me without explaining anything about what that really means. It left me equally puzzled as the nonsensical "How do you do" exchange in English, partially because they wouldn't go into the grammar and origin of those things in particular, and partially because it sat there like an artifact, an atom, not further broken down for real understanding. It creates an illusion of understanding by throwing common constructs at you, just like a phrase book for a tourist would.

And then came my detour into kanji.

A genius move, obviously.

Exposing yourself

But even before that, I had already decided I would watch lots of anime for simply exposing myself to the language. I consider the ready availability of anime one of the biggest boons for learning Japanese. My English, especially conversant, spoken English (American style) really took off with the availability of multiple language audio on DVD. No longer did I have to buy a separate VHS of a title in English - for extra money, as they often were "imports." I could just buy the regular. And even better, they came with subtitles.

I was a huge Futurama nerd back then, and ironically I owe a big debt of learning how to speak English fluently to imitating and quoting a cartoon, albeit a smart one. Watching it over and over not only improved my English through exposure to actual speakers, it made me puzzle over idioms and cultural intricacies... and made me spot, over time, an enormous amount of translation errors in the German dub, sometimes completely reversing the meaning.

So, I watched a lot of anime this last year, always enabling Japanese audio, of course. Later on I learned this is called immersion. Just as I used my natural interest in available English material, I could watch stuff in original language that I actually found attractive - something which engages me naturally. Nothing worse than making yourself watch something just for learning, really. (To my mind.)

After all, I had noticed regularities in Japanese from watching Sword Art Online, even if they were rather minor ones and partially owed to the lack sonic variety in the Japanese language. And from exposing/immersing myself, I had some intuitive insights over time. I noticed how our inner parser works and what can help it function.

What is a parser?

While computers, deep down are only working on numbers or even bits or minor voltage differences, humans have always needed layers of abstraction to actually make good use of that. Nowadays we talk about "programming languages," but in order for the computer to understand these "languages," they need to be broken down into parts and then translated. The breaking down part is done by something called a parser.

There are many parsers. In the early days of computers "text adventures" were a common genre of games. You would be presented with text describing your situation and you had to type your actions as response. Again, analyzing what you typed fell to something called a parser, and the best text adventures were known for their advanced parsers, "understanding" language like "give banana to three-headed monkey" and pointing out things it didn't understand in a way so that you could improve your instructions accordingly.

This didn't happen in a vacuum, though. Computer science had actually looked to linguistics, or rather its most formal part, for inspiration. It took part of what linguists use to understand language itself, its basic building blocks, and derived lessons for how to make a computer understand what we want it to do.

The first thing that happens when a computer breaks down a "stream of characters" is that it tries to find usable tokens in it. This is, IIRC, called the "lexical stage." And when faced with Japanese, I noticed I would have to develop a similar thing within myself in order to break down spoken Japanese.

What helps and what doesn't

Anime Japanese will repeat certain idioms, phrases, and words endlessly. You cannot miss it. I marvel however at the endless variety that translators resort to when bringing them to English. Certainly not helpful for the learner!

Given how often they appear, certain words like "hontouni" ("really"), "ano..." ("errr..."), "des(u)" (helper verb, often used in constructs like "I am") are impossible to miss. But the rest largely remains an unbroken stream of syllables interspersed with tiny islands of understanding.

Now there are several ways to go from there, and two primarily present themselves. You can try to learn more vocabulary or you could learn more grammar to fill in these gaps.

I opted for vocab first (as part of my Wanikani approach). The main reason was is that each vocab word constitutes one token that you can pick from the stream of syllables. And Japanese aids with this. A lot of vocab is itself not modified but spoken as is in a sentence, especially nouns. Even vocab that is modified, like verbs and adjectives, is modified at the end, so you can at least recognize the stem of the word.

Grammar is, in my opinion, not as useful for this purpose initially. One reason is that a lot of Japanese grammar relies on particles, little helpers made of one or more syllables, that tell you what role a word or part of sentence plays in the whole, like who does what to whom. They're comparatively easy to spot in written Japanese, due to the dreaded kanji. Particles are part of the hiragana that appears between the concepts largely represented by kanji.

But in spoken Japanese, the same sounds like "wa" (topic), "ga" (subject), "mo" (adding another subject), "to" ("and"), "ni", etc, are really hard to spot because these sounds are so common in Japanese words as well. If you can't tell at least the individual words apart - tokenize them - then you have real problems spotting the particles that modify them at the end. And that's where vocab is useful.

Adding in some structure

While Japanese is not as structured and simple as English, understanding the structure can help at some point. English favors us by adhering to a strict "subject verb object" structure for the basic sentence design. Japanese is less forgiving, but at least the verb is at the end of a sentence that has one, and a lot of Japanese sentences are merely that - a verb. Knowing this can help spot verbs.

It's always good to know what the "doing" part is to break a sentence down, after all. To that end, I would say, knowing the conjugations of a verb is more useful initially for building our parser of spoken Japanese than particles.

Being able to spot patterns like "-anai" and "-imasen" helps us identify verbs and its meaningful stems early on, and this breaks the language apart further. Since these constructs naturally repeat over and over they become easy to spot, so I recommend to do the basic verb forms next. And there aren't that many common ones, either.

Think of it as playing a game of elimination. Each word of vocab you actually know eliminates those tokens from the stream if you recognize it. Each verb ending helps you identify one of the tokens that keeps changing in a sentence, but also helps you spotting what is being done and where the sentence likely ends. Combining these two eliminations, over time, will break down the stream of spoken Japanese considerably.

The great weakness of immersion

One big problem is that we don't get the structural information about what is being said on screen when we hear the spoken word. Subtitles in Japanese would certainly help, as we could clearly see the distinction between meaningful concepts (kanji) and grammar and helper constructs (hiragana) while following along. However, we would likely no longer understand the show we're watching, so this has to wait for later. (Also, a quick check tells me that Netflix typically offers Japanese subtitles and Crunchyroll does not. Might be wrong, but that's what it looks like when checking two shows.)

This is where we leave the media immersion and basically go to the typical "teaching grammar" approach. A good website like Bunpro provides plenty of examples that help immerse yourself in a somewhat artificial and (optionally) slowed down stream of Japanese along with the written word. Kind of like the textbook approach, but with audio. I found that Bunpro came naturally to me after all this mixture of immersion and training kanji and hiragana through Wanikani.

It comes as no surprise that a mixture of approaches is needed, but in the end it all goes towards building that parser, I feel. More vocab identifies more tokens. Specific grammar constructs help breaking down the stream further towards its parts. And yes, knowing idioms helps, too, but I still would like to be taught them properly.

Unsurprisingly, for adults Japanese can't be learned through immersion only, especially if you can't bombard a Japanese adult with questions like children do. But it can be a huge help in building that parser and a general feel for the language, its pronunciation, how the written word relates to the spoken word, and for learning the melody and rhythm of Japanese. And each construct you learn will eventually hook into that parser, until one day, you begin to understand more and more of Japanese in realtime.

In hindsight, this process I just described did for me a lot more than school for becoming fluent in spoken English. Just like reading built my understanding and vocab, nothing beats immersion ultimately for learning to first break down and then understand a language reliably when hearing it.

But now I have to get into reading. Because putting the horse before the cart does have some problems to say the least.