#which has already helped

[theregardedminecrafter]

As someone watching from q!Charlie’s/Gegg’s perspective, is definitely interesting to watch people talk about those who openly speak against working with the federation naive/idealistic when it really doesn’t feel that way. (Warning: there will be rambling and ranting and what feels like disjointed thoughts)

(I am mostly going to talk about Charlie because he is the one I watch so I understand him the best.)

The first exchange after the debate that Baghera and Charlie had was Charlie commenting that no matter who was voted in they would be doomed and her almost immediately agreeing.

I’m pretty sure Charlie is fully convinced he isn’t going to make it to voting day. For more then what felt like 90% of the stream he and Gegg were holding a totem. Even when Bad gave him extras and assured him he should only hold them in case he feels endangered. The only time he stopped holding a totem was in between the end of the debate and Bad handing him more totems in a reminder of The very fragile single life that the self aware very accident-prone Charlie has and when he was back in Eggsile, his lonely little beach.

While he is trying to stay alive, Gegg’s platform isn’t really to become the president. The point of running is to spread the message. He even admitted that not only does he think none of the people running are fit for president, including himself, but that the role of president is entirely forced onto them by The Federation. And is just another way to control them.

Being an Anarcho-Socialist, all government is sorta on Gegg’s list. Charlie did say that Gegg would definitely probably light himself on fire if he were to become president when Forever asked.

Also Charlie is very very aware of the power imbalance the federation has on them. (note: the life system he keeps stressing about) I don’t consider him the most haunted man on the server for nothing.

This man has however literally dealt with both the devil and angel Rubius toying with him and his family.

And one of the only times Charlie has dealt with Cucurucho was in a situation where Charlie was in caves deep beneath his eggsile, with his location off so noone can find him, stumbling into Cucurucho who then vagued him about his daughter(she was dead at this time but because of where he was he didn’t know that) and when Charlie got pissed and started to pressure for more open concrete answers, Cucurucho held him at gunpoint and shot around him. And Charlie made it clear that he knew Cucurucho wasn’t there to kill him and was unafraid. And after having El Mariana’s pov of Juanaflippa’s final death seemingly forced into him like a flashback.

He then tries to murder Cucurucho, got shot and then revived by it, tries to kill it again, and then swears to find a way to kill Cucurucho after it leaves. (Even though he acknowledges that it seems to know everything/is omniscient and how it took nothing from his sword)

After all, Charlie is someone who has lost everything he cared about more then twice over, he has had nothing to lose.

Which is probably why the whole openly fuck The Federation attitude he and Gegg have make sense to me. It doesn’t matter how strong they are because Charlie has always been stubborn and fighting against all the odds. He and Gegg refuse to be silenced and want the people to think and will cling at the chance to do that until either of them (in their own mind) inevitably die. The election might be rigged and there might be a target on his back, but he is very clearly aware of that and acknowledges that.

This is not an election for Charlie and Gegg, it is a stand against it and all of what The Federation stands for.

Thank you for listening.

[stuckinapril]

friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me

[andthebeanstalk]

Me: hm, I want something to put on the TV as background noise... Huh. Looks like YouTube is recommending something called The Last Unicorn. That's perfect, it's probably some old shitty animation that has aged poorly! I can watch it ironically!

Me, 2 hours later as the credits roll: *crying, cheering, buying the book, composing the songs*

Me, 2 weeks later: So I have compiled all of the quotes from the book that I think could make good tattoos, and also, HOW HAVE I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE LAST UNICORN FUCKING SLAPS??? This gay-ass little fairytale fed my soul! Watered my crops! Transed my gender! Can't believe I heard of this story from youtube recommendations, of all places!!

[ineffectualbookseller]

The way Azirphale is underestimated and practically infantalized by heaven is so closely tied to his femininity and I think we should talk about it more because I just want to shout about how relatable the way he's treated in his workplace is as a woman working in a traditionally male field

It's in all the little niggling comments from your boss about personal things that hold no bearing on your work

and the assumption that what you're doing must be simple if it was assigned to you

your work is trivialized

and you get these the placating smiles when you're told plans and proposals are rejected and passed over

or when your complaints are dismissed

and you get more of the same from upper management

it all feels so frustrating and draining but you're at work so all you can do is take a breathe put on that mask and move on with your day

It is all so deteimental to your emotional well being and textually, so much of this is tied to Aziraphale's softness, his gayness - his femininity

The thing about working in an environment and gives you this feeling - of being simultaneously destrought watching your belief in yourself get chipped away but also just so irate becuase you know you don't deserve it - is how it builds. It sinks under your skin and feeds into this indignant dejection until you can have a moment of release - but Azirphale doesn't get to bitch about it over drinks with friends, he doesn't get a lunch break where he can go for a walk and listen to an angry scandi death metal playlist, he doesn't even get the chance to cry about it in the bathroom for 5 minutes before confronting it again

(And I talked a little bit about it in the tags of this beautiful photoset but this all comes into play whenever Crowley dismisses his plans or calls him an idiot. These are purely emotional reactions; I really don't think Crowley means much by it - he respects Aziraphale's opinion and genuinely thinks he's brilliant - but Crowley is so quick to use this terminology when Aziraphale is making a decision Crowley thinks is wrong and he doesn't know how much this hurts Aziraphale. Just like Aziraphale doesn't understand the true impact the Fall had on Crowley, Crowley doesn't understand the ways heaven has been tearing away at Aziraphale's self worth)

Aziraphale has been facing this constant drip of denigration since before the beginning of time and has never released the pressure valve. At this point, he's a bomb waiting to go off

[nellasbookplanet]

Okay but I'm going a bit insane about the growing disconnect of "maybe we're meant to harness it"/"maybe we're meant to fight it". They both thought they were on the same page when they said it, when actually they were on polar opposite ends of the same spectrum. Imogen meant "I never plan to give in to this power even if part of me wants to, I will continue fighting it, but it’s a comfort knowing there’s someone who understands the temptation and who I know won't judge and will still love me and understand if I ultimately fail and give in". Meanwhile to Laudna it meant "I've been in this struggle for longer than I can remember and I don’t know if I can do it much longer. I don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if I even should, or if giving in would be better for all of us because I'm a lost cause. You understand this about me and won't judge as I inevitably am doomed by the narrative, and you won't demand of me that I fight an inherent part of myself, even if it’s destroying me". And Imogen is finally catching on to this disconnect, is realizing that to Laudna their connection isn’t just understanding but an excuse, not too different from Lilliana. And, desperate of losing Laudna to power just like she did her mother, she says, 'if you let me go, I'm gone', meanwhile Laudna is going 'all I can do for you is die and let you go to lift you up' and both of them are going 'why are you so upset about this. i love you'.

[padawansuggest]

Cody: *physicallf carrying Obi-Wan out of the war room* Come on, General, it’s go-the-fuck-to-sleep time.

Obi-Wan: Ahh. Go-the-fuck-to-sleep time. I know it well. It’s the most sacred three times of the week.

Cody: *stops dead in a corridor* …please tell me that was a joke?

Obi-Wan: I would never joke about go-the-fuck-to-sleep time. It was Master’s favorite time the first few years we were together.

Cody: *closes eyes and counts to five* We’re going to talk about all that later. *keeps heading off to Obi-Wan’s quarters, with more purpose this time*

[novasteri]

guys the brainrot has consumed me

[reasonsforhope]

Determined to use her skills to fight inequality, South African computer scientist Raesetje Sefala set to work to build algorithms flagging poverty hotspots - developing datasets she hopes will help target aid, new housing, or clinics.

From crop analysis to medical diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in essential tasks worldwide, but Sefala and a growing number of fellow African developers are pioneering it to tackle their continent's particular challenges.

Local knowledge is vital for designing AI-driven solutions that work, Sefala said.

"If you don't have people with diverse experiences doing the research, it's easy to interpret the data in ways that will marginalise others," the 26-year old said from her home in Johannesburg.

Africa is the world's youngest and fastest-growing continent, and tech experts say young, home-grown AI developers have a vital role to play in designing applications to address local problems.

"For Africa to get out of poverty, it will take innovation and this can be revolutionary, because it's Africans doing things for Africa on their own," said Cina Lawson, Togo's minister of digital economy and transformation.

"We need to use cutting-edge solutions to our problems, because you don't solve problems in 2022 using methods of 20 years ago," Lawson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a video interview from the West African country.

Digital rights groups warn about AI's use in surveillance and the risk of discrimination, but Sefala said it can also be used to "serve the people behind the data points". ...

'Delivering Health'

As COVID-19 spread around the world in early 2020, government officials in Togo realized urgent action was needed to support informal workers who account for about 80% of the country's workforce, Lawson said.

"If you decide that everybody stays home, it means that this particular person isn't going to eat that day, it's as simple as that," she said.

In 10 days, the government built a mobile payment platform - called Novissi - to distribute cash to the vulnerable.

The government paired up with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) think tank and the University of California, Berkeley, to build a poverty map of Togo using satellite imagery.

Using algorithms with the support of GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that uses AI to distribute cash transfers, the recipients earning less than $1.25 per day and living in the poorest districts were identified for a direct cash transfer.

"We texted them saying if you need financial help, please register," Lawson said, adding that beneficiaries' consent and data privacy had been prioritized.

The entire program reached 920,000 beneficiaries in need.

"Machine learning has the advantage of reaching so many people in a very short time and delivering help when people need it most," said Caroline Teti, a Kenya-based GiveDirectly director.

'Zero Representation'

Aiming to boost discussion about AI in Africa, computer scientists Benjamin Rosman and Ulrich Paquet co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba - a week-long gathering that started in South Africa - together with other colleagues in 2017.

"You used to get to the top AI conferences and there was zero representation from Africa, both in terms of papers and people, so we're all about finding cost effective ways to build a community," Paquet said in a video call.

In 2019, 27 smaller Indabas - called IndabaX - were rolled out across the continent, with some events hosting as many as 300 participants.

One of these offshoots was IndabaX Uganda, where founder Bruno Ssekiwere said participants shared information on using AI for social issues such as improving agriculture and treating malaria.

Another outcome from the South African Indaba was Masakhane - an organization that uses open-source, machine learning to translate African languages not typically found in online programs such as Google Translate.

On their site, the founders speak about the South African philosophy of "Ubuntu" - a term generally meaning "humanity" - as part of their organization's values.

"This philosophy calls for collaboration and participation and community," reads their site, a philosophy that Ssekiwere, Paquet, and Rosman said has now become the driving value for AI research in Africa.

Inclusion

Now that Sefala has built a dataset of South Africa's suburbs and townships, she plans to collaborate with domain experts and communities to refine it, deepen inequality research and improve the algorithms.

"Making datasets easily available opens the door for new mechanisms and techniques for policy-making around desegregation, housing, and access to economic opportunity," she said.

African AI leaders say building more complete datasets will also help tackle biases baked into algorithms.

"Imagine rolling out Novissi in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast ... then the algorithm will be trained with understanding poverty in West Africa," Lawson said.

"If there are ever ways to fight bias in tech, it's by increasing diverse datasets ... we need to contribute more," she said.

But contributing more will require increased funding for African projects and wider access to computer science education and technology in general, Sefala said.

Despite such obstacles, Lawson said "technology will be Africa's savior".

"Let's use what is cutting edge and apply it straight away or as a continent we will never get out of poverty," she said. "It's really as simple as that."

-via Good Good Good, February 16, 2022

[feralsteddie]

where that one post about Steve accidentally inventing pastel punk because he wanted to be edgier for a Corroded Coffin gig, but wasn’t willing to part with his soft colors

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Halloween prompts no. 19

Danny is flung into a new dimension by Skulker and they continue to fight above a strange city. Danny makes sure to end it quickly after that in case he attracts the attention of yet another person or group of people who want to hurt him for whatever reason..

He flies into a nearby building only to discover a freaky mad scientists lab and finds a clone of someone named "Robin". The clone was appearently a baby that they were planning on brainwashing and raising in a cult like setting to kill the "Bats"

"Jee, is the rodent problem that bad?!" Either way he decides to kidnap the baby and destroy everything in a blaze of glory. No child soldiers on his watch. No siree! He then portals his way home.

What he did not count on was him immediately running into his parents in his ghost form with a very alive baby in his arms. They stared eachother down in uncharacteristic silence, one afraid that they would hurt the baby with thier reckless firing and the others staring slack jawed cause why does he have a baby?!

The whole of Amity Park is also asking this question. Many assume its his, despite his age because teenages parents do exist, plus phantom kept calling it "his" baby so...

Others are worried that he might have just taken a baby from a dangerous environment and decided to keep it not realizing how much work a baby is. (Spot on) Both theories raise questions about how ghosts view families and how they reproduce. Upon asking Phantom he turned bright green, made a witty one liner and bolted.

Frostbite calls Danny in to give a check up to both him and the baby and uses this time to get a DNA sample from the child, and with a bit of ghostly magic he tracks down the parents and contacts them by straight up ringing thier doorbell. He and Alfred get along immediately.

Eventually Frosty tricks Phantom into coming back to Gotham and reveals the babies paternity in front of the batfam and the bird in question (whichever one) is freaking out a bit, "I'm too young to be a father!" style and Dannys like, "Cool. Cause I have no intention of sharing! Byeeee!" Before vanishing. Frostbite wants a nap.

Cue batfam following Phantom back to his dimension via Frostbite only to discover various people in Amity Park have also grouped together armed with ghost hunting gear to capture Phantom and get the baby away from him. Yeah, they know the kid has good intentions but hes only 14 and its not good for him or the baby. So they're effectively acting like undead CPS.

About time.

Anyway, Danny realizes he can't revert to his living form because his ecto signature would still ping on the equipment as Phantom and thats not something he wants to explain right now. Or possibly ever. With that being said he refuses to abandon his child. Hes only had them for two weeks and they're already his whole world.

Sam keeps telling him this was stupid and even Tuckers concerned. "How will you take care of a baby, dude? You can't even balance your hero life with you real life" Okay, fair. Jazz then started talking to him about talking to the babys father to at least get some help raising them and Danny finally agreed. For the baby's sake.

Bruce is so relieved when he finally gets to see his grandchild safe and sound.

[lunarneo]

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[crybaby-bkg]

Arranged marriage AU with Barbarian Bakugou who is so daunting to be around at first. He’s all gruff curses and broad shoulders and scarred cheeks and neck and jaw. He scowls constantly, stares at you while your parents auction you off like some show pig, but doesn’t say much to you besides a grunt of his name. You’re terrified, thinking that he’ll be cruel to you, that you’re being set up for a life full of unhappiness and terror and regret.

But he’s the exact opposite. Bakugou is gentle in ways a man of his size typically wouldn’t be, but he shrinks himself for you. Not in a way that diminishes his status as the newly appointed king, but to respect you, show you that you’re beside him instead of behind him.

He picks you berries on his hunts because he knows the smell of a fresh kill brings nausea to your stomach. You find him along with the other maidens and helpers around his village, sitting beside them, big fingers holding tiny little flowers that he weaves into a crown for you. When he sets it on your head, he purses his lips, mutters something under his breath in his language that you’re still not too familiar with, but sure it means something along the lines of pretty and soft.

And when he finds you bathing in the river only few have access to, he’s sweet the whole time. Doesn’t make a spectacle of you being naked, and is relieved when you don’t instantly cower when he wades his way over to you. You try not to stare at the clawed scars that decorate his pec and jaw when he stands above you, and it helps when he suddenly dumps water all over your head. He shushes you when you splutter, continues on with cupping his hands and letting the water run off of your hair and down your shoulders, scrubbing at your skin until your flesh squeaks. He doesn’t expect you to do the same for him, but he hums in satisfaction when you push him down a little lower so you can wash the crown of his head.

[merrysithmas]

me when someone says luke is a bad teacher and made grogu "choose" btw being a jedi and his dad:

what he did was ensure grogu could one day be a jedi AND have his dad now!!!

[wildflowercryptid]

since it's canon that carmine is curious about others' love lives ( based on her clubroom convo with arven, ) i just know she'd pester the fuck out of kieran in regards to how they feel about florian. if her little sibling's going to have a more active love life than her, then the least they can do is let her in on all the juicy details.

[transmascutena]

these lines hit different when you read utena as transmasc

[herotune]

the dialogue in this game sure is Something, sometimes , isnt it .,

based on this footage i got messing around with the flute u need to resurrect gale sdfghjfdks