#academic journal bot

[appaloosawhims]

sims 3 barbie legacy challenge

this is pretty much a conversation from the sims 4 barbie legacy challenge by @sims-himbo but i did change up some of the generations as well just to use more features from ts3 that arent in ts4 as add some extra optional ones for occult/supernatural players

mods i recommend downloading

• nraas porter (for moving towns without traveler file bloat)

• nraas master controller

• family secrets (in case you wanna add drama)

rules

• all heirs must be female and named barbie

• you can use money cheats just starting out but nothing after that

• do not sell the future portal that is summoned when you first start a save, to get rid of it “testingcheatsenabled true > shift click > delete” no free money here

gen one: housewife barbie

• complete the surrounded by family lifetime wish

• you must never get a job, earn money through opportunities, painting, playing the guitar for tips, etc

• have at least one pet

• must have the family oriented and nurturing traits

gen two: business barbie

• complete the ceo of a mega corporation lifetime wish

• be worth at least 50k simeoleans

• master logic and charisma skills

• must have ambitious and born saleswoman traits

gen three: equestrian barbie

• complete the ark builder aspiration

• dont have an actual job and make money through horse riding competitions

• all of your children must have a small pet of their own (by small i mean snake, lizard, turtle, etc)

• must have the equestrian trait

gen four: sea pearl barbie

• move to isla paradiso

• become a mermaid

• master the grand explorer lifetime wish

• live on a houseboat

• master the scuba diving and logic skills

• must have the loves to swim trait

gen five: best seller barbie

• complete the professional author lifetime wish

• max writing skill

• master the journalism career

• must have the artistic, bookworm and virtuoso traits

gen six: academic barbie

• complete the perfect studio lifetime wish

• max out the nerds social group

• master the science and painting skills

• earn a fine arts degree

• must have the socially awkward and genius traits

gen seven: movie star barbie

• complete the superstar actor lifetime wish

• become a 5 star celebrity

• have a secret affair with a fellow actor

• master the film career (acting branch)

• fall in love with a non celebrity

• master the charisma skill

• must have the star quality, schmoozer and charismatic traits

gen eight: rockstar barbie

• complete the one sim one band lifetime wish

• master the music career (rock star branch)

• must have the virtuoso trait

gen nine: president barbie

• complete the leader of the free world lifetime wish

• be the richest sim in town

• max the politics career

• never be lower than a 2 star celebrity

• must have the charismatic trait

gen ten: time traveling barbie

• complete the made the most of my time lifetime wish

• become best friends with emit relevant

• build a plumbot

• master the bot building, advanced technology, and handiness skills

• own a jetpack

• must have the ambitious and bot fan traits

optional generations

gen eleven: vampire barbie

• move to midnight hollow

• complete the turn the town lifetime wish

• must have the proper and night owl traits

gen twelve: fairy barbie

• move to moonlight falls and live their for the rest of the legacy

• complete the mystic healer lifetime wish

• marry and fall in love with a werewolf since fairies live longer do not get into another relationship after they die

• must have the gatherer trait

gen thirteen: werewolf barbie

• complete the leader of the pack lifetime wish

• purchase the alpha wolf lifetime reward

• must have the loves the outdoors trait

gen fourteen: witch barbie

• complete the greener gardens lifetime wish

• master the fortune teller career (scam artist branch)

• master the charmisa, logic, gardening, and alchemy skills

• must have the evil and green thumb traits

#sims legacy challenge #sims 3 #sims 3 legacy challenge #sims 3 legacy #the sims 3 #ts3 #barbie legacy #ts3 barbie legacy

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

#15yrsago World of Developmentcraft: academic paper on gold farming as a development activity in poor countries https://www.salon.com/2008/08/07/gold_farming_global_economy/

#15yrsago California Supreme Court: Non-compete clauses are not enforceable https://workforce.com/news/non-compete-agreements-going-going-gone

#15yrsago Pacemakers can be remotely pwned https://venturebeat.com/security/defcon-excuse-me-while-i-turn-off-your-pacemaker/

#15yrsago Working Medeco high-security keys can be whittled out of plastic https://www.wired.com/2008/08/medeco-locks-cr/

#10yrsago HOWTO bake nested, hemispherical cakes https://cakecrumbs.me/2013/08/01/spherical-concentric-layer-cake-tutorial/

#10yrsago Audiobook memoir of Disney Imagineering legend Rolly Crump: More Cute Stories https://itskindofacutestory.com/?p=102

#10yrsago US businesses stand to lose up to $35B as a result of PRISM https://www2.itif.org/2013-cloud-computing-costs.pdf

#10yrsago Spectacular Haunted Mansion re-creation with Rollercoaster Tycoon https://thedisneyblog.com/2013/08/08/haunted-mansion-recreated-in-roller-coaster-tycoon/

#10yrsago Knitting as computation https://web.archive.org/web/20130810104616/http://www.k2g2.org/blog:bit.craft:computational_model_of_knitting

#10yrsago Standards bodies explain why they think the law should be copyrighted and paywalled https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/07/should-legal-codes-be-copyrighted-lets-sue-to-find-out/

#10yrsago Bill to cut off funding to schools that ban brandishing a pastry in a gun-like manner http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/08/bill-would-protect-students-right-to-carry-pastry-guns.html

#10yrsago Crooks rip off nonprofit rape crisis center, then return the stuff with an apology note https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stolen-computers-arrive-back-at-non-2013-08/

#5yrsago Leaked Facebook memo reveals “psychological trick” developed to entice high-school students to sign on https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebooks-teens-tbh-psychological-trick-memo

#5yrsago Here’s the report that showed the FCC lied about being hacked and then lied about lying https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uPl5NsbXowzbXrYf9KHBp-GVilTLQqyW

#5yrsago Inside the triumphant Alex Jones banned everywhere story is a worrying nuance about free speech and platform dominance https://memex.craphound.com/2018/08/08/inside-the-triumphant-alex-jones-banned-everywhere-story-is-a-worrying-nuance-about-free-speech-and-platform-dominance/

#5yrsago There’s something eerie about bots that teach themselves to cheat https://www.wired.com/story/when-bots-teach-themselves-to-cheat/

#5yrsago Japanese self-sharpening mechanical pencils give the lead a tiny turn every time you lift the tip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_OXoxymeho

#5yrsago Young doctors revolt, force AMA to consider backing single-payer healthcare for the first time https://kffhealthnews.org/news/once-its-greatest-foes-doctors-are-embracing-single-payer/

#5yrsago A machine learning system trained on scholarly journals could correct Wikipedia’s gendered under-representation problem https://www.wired.com/story/using-artificial-intelligence-to-fix-wikipedias-gender-problem/

#5yrsago 12% of music industry revenues go to musicians https://consequence.net/2018/08/musician-12-percent-43-billion-revenue/

#5yrsago Facebook throws an extra $10m at Zuck’s personal security https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-02/protecting-mark-zuckerberg-just-got-more-expensive-for-facebook

#1yrago So You’ve Decided to Unfollow Me https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/08/locus-of-individuation/#publish-then-filter

Back my anti-enshittification Kickstarter here!

#pluralistic

[drunkdungeoneers-ffxiv]

Eye See You - Gaining Accreditation

Arriving in Azys Lla, the dungeoneers began their operation to retrieve the dragon’s eyes from its hidden location within the floating islands. Armed with the publicly available information on Azys Lla and a red goo filled gem capable of serving as a compass, the dungeoneers set out.

Following the strange compass, which seemed to pull and twist in various directions, the dungeoneers were lead across the initial isle of Azys Lla and then into the sky on a floating island; thankfully most everyone had brought with them a mount capable of flight, or they possessed magical ability to jump at extreme rates in Fiona’s case. Despite a small altercation on the floating island with a horde of magitek bots infuriated at their grass being stepped on, the dungeoneers arrived at a large building mostly unscathed. The red goo compass pointed towards the building, even as the dungeoneers circled it, affirming that their target eye was located inside.

Upon interacting with the door panel, the dungeoneers, by way of Arae’sae translating Allagan to the team, learned that they had arrived at the research facility of Esbeth Manarin, self-stated premier research of meracydian genetics. Much of the information revealed itself to the dungeoneers through, what was later affirmed to be, vocal recordings left by Esbeth millennium ago. The dungeoneers managed to learn that Esbeth held little regard for non-researchers, most other researchers, and most of all Halcyon Silverwing, another premier Allagan research on dragons from the dungeoneer’s previous work. Esbeth did however hold a soft spot for media personnel, which the dungeoneers discovered as they created fake journals to report to, asking for entrance to the facility for an interview. Despite numerous attempts and angles, Esbeth’s recordings continued to show a reticence to allow entry to anyone not helping further her research or not cleaning up the place.

Accepting the main doorway wouldn’t get them anywhere without some documentation to fulfill one of those two requirements, the dungeoneers moved to try the service entrance. The service entrance proved to be very well guarded, as Seele’s attempts to cut through the door and Silene’s attempts to burn it down ended only with a volley of laser fire nearly put Seele in the dirt. The attempts, and subsequent urge to protect their companion from home defense turrets, resulted in the entrance being damaged beyond use.

Returning to base camp, the dungeoneers poured over the maps of the area, trying to decipher how to gain access to the Manarin research facility. Isolating two options before them, the dungeoneers elected to gain identification as cleaning services rather than try to become false academics of the dead empire. With their path chosen, the dungeoneers made their way off towards the Staff Barracks to the far south-east of the floating islands.

Having to pass beyond the central flagship of Azys Lla, the dungeoneers split their party. Some electing to fly high, avoiding the lower concentration of poisonous gas clouds that clung below the ship, and some electing to don gas covers and brave the clouds rather than what may lay active of the ship. Most made it through without incident, but Nuellea proved capable of alerting the ship defense systems which quickly shot her off of her mount. Falling past most of her allies, Silene, Arae’sae, and Cirina managed to work together to catch Nuellea before she had fallen too far from reach.

Recovered and alight once more, the dungeoneers landed outside of the Staff Barracks, encountering another gate that looked more daunting than the last by size alone. Learn that Allagan servant classes didn’t warrant much security, the dungeoneers easily opened the door and began searching the foyer area of the barracks with the brief warning from their various magics that something else had been through the place.

Proving a short search, Seele managed to gain access to a locker and its contents at the exact same time that Cirina thought to look up and locked eyes with a creature hiding in the ceiling. In a blur of motion the large, scaled creature slammed into Seele but was quickly wounded by unphased Nuellea and Cirina. Acting quickly the dungeoneers surrounded the creature and blocked off its route of escape. The creature released a sorrowful roar that drove the dungeoneers, especially the dragonblooded, to their knees; and managed to completely drive Silene out of his skin and into full dragon form. As the dungeoneers fell into action, Nuellea and Cirina comforting the emotional Silene, while Seele and Arae’sae battered and captured the scaled creature, the scene grew much calmer. Wounded and bound, the strange dragon-amalgam creature fell into slumber, and Silene was eventually able to recover his wits and Elezen form.

With an identification in hand from Seele’s brief locker foray, the team returned to base camp with their captive. They still need to figure out what to do with the creature, but they should at least have access to the lab at the moment.

#eye see you

[mariacallous]

We’re used to Russian disinformation targeting, say, Volodymyr Zelensky or U.S. presidential elections. But smear campaigns of uncertain provenance are increasingly targeting not just politics, but Western companies too. They’re not just a reputational nuisance, but a genuine economic threat, one that could be wielded by hostile states.

Nearly half of all Americans—47 percent—believe they see disinformation every day. So do 46 percent of Britons, 44 percent of Brazilians, 52 percent of Nigerians, 24 percent of Indians, and 20 percent of both Germans and Japanese, a 2022 report by the Poynter Institute shows. What matters most, though, is whether the public can identify the disinformation. The public mistaking facts for falsehoods and vice versa is fatal for a democracy. And there’s a dangerous mismatch here: Ninety percent of Americans, for example, believe they can spot disinformation, but three-fourths overestimate their skills, academics reported in a 2021 article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It is, in other words, easy to disseminate falsehoods, and artificial intelligence may make it even easier, or at least faster. It’s no surprise disinformation creators are refining their trade and picking potentially more profitable targets. Disinformation targeted at individual companies is growing fast.

Ninety-five percent of FTSE 100 companies (the London Stock Exchange’s top 100 firms) were frequently mentioned by noncredible publications in the first half of this year, communications firm Kekst finds in a new report. That’s 35 percent more than the year before. There were 348,000 social-media shares of these publications’ articles about FTSE 100 firms, which resulted in nearly 10 million impressions. Some of the articles are likely to have been prompted by companies’ competitors, while others were the result of poor-quality journalism, but it’s not yet clear that hostile states instrumentalize disinformation targeting Western businesses.

That’s likely coming, though. Disinformation today extends beyond mere bots on X, formerly known as Twitter. More than 100 noncredible publications (including a spiritualist magazine, publications known for spreading Russian propaganda, and American and Indian far-right magazines) regularly cover FTSE 100 companies, Kekst reports. What does a “noncredible” publication mean? By Kekst’s definition, it’s one that repeatedly publishes false content, doesn’t gather and present information responsibly, doesn’t correct or clarify errors, blends news and opinion content, uses deceptive headlines, doesn’t disclose ownership or financing, doesn’t label advertising, doesn’t reveal its ownership, and doesn’t name its writers.

But in an era of gullibility and infinite content, it’s easy for them to put out an article that looks legitimate on a quick glance, which then makes its way to interested social-media users, who enthusiastically share the findings because they have no idea how to identify disinformation. “We haven’t directly noticed this trend directly, but we are seeing the use of misinformation being used to force narratives that are malign and are being used to give others market advantage,” Simon Bergman, the chief executive officer of Saatchi World Services, told me. “This is particularly true when organizations have state backing or are operating outside the rules-based system and normal legal frameworks, and it has become more manifest post-covid and since the war in Ukraine.”

Juicy news spread more slowly in the 1980s, but the KGB and other Warsaw Pact intelligence agencies were still able to convince the world that AIDS had originated in a U.S. Army lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland: An article in a serious-looking publication was picked up by some news media, then more, and then the public got talking. The rumor about the U.S. Army creating AIDS remains in circulation to this day.

The time lapse between inaccuracies about a company are published in a dubious publication and the company gets wind of it is critical. And because most dubious publications aren’t found through traditional media monitoring, the targeted company is unlikely to detect the falsehoods straight away. That gives disinformation spreaders a crucial head start. When the company discovers the falsehoods, the stock market is likely to discover it, too, and because traders have to react quickly, a company targeted by disinformation faces a stock-price drop.

“Many organizations don’t realize they are victims of this activity until it is too late and they are on the back foot to react, normally poorly and with little understanding of the complexities and positives and negatives of rebuttal,” Bergman said. “A smart proactive approach to managing their own narrative and corporate messaging can go some way to protect them from this type of activity, but it depends what they are trying protect: share price, corporate reputation, stakeholder value, or critical audience perception.” In its report, Kekst notes that falsehoods about businesses’ adherence to climate targets rose during last year’s United Nations COP27 summit. They’re likely to do so again during this year’s COP28.

To be sure, disinformation directed against companies is nothing new. A few years ago, a forged Defense Department memo appeared to show that a leading semiconductor company’s planned acquisition of another company had prompted national security concerns. The stocks of both companies fell. Such defamation was usually the work of a commercial rival. In a 2021 report, PWC explained how easy and cheap it was to mount such a campaign: “$15-$45 to create a 1,000-character article; $65 to contact a media source directly to spread material; $100 for 10 comments to post on a given article or news story; $350-$550 per month for social media marketing; and $1,500 for search engine optimization services to promote social media posts and articles over a 10- to 15-day period.”

Given this extraordinary ease, it was only a matter of time before state-linked outfits discovered that targeting Western companies was an easy way of harming Western countries. “Russia can use a company as a convenient target,” said Janis Sarts, the director of NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Riga. “Of course, the company suffers, but it’s not the primary target.”

There’s not yet any forensic evidence that Russia or another hostile country is behind the rise in corporate disinformation campaigns, though a hostile state is known to have fueled the bogus findings linking 5G to the coronavirus, which caused fear among Western residents and delayed the 5G rollout in many countries. The rapid increase in disinformation campaigns against companies, though, suggests it’s no longer an activity just involving envious competitors.

A share-price dip based on disinformation won’t last long because the affected company will quickly alert the markets to the disinformation. But even a temporary dip is harmful. And consider the effect on a country’s financial standing if several major companies were to be simultaneously targeted by disinformation campaigns. The stock market would wobble and global markets would begin doubting the country’s financial stability.

I’m not giving hostile states a blueprint for how to cheaply hurt Western economies: They’re already familiar with the secret juice. Western companies should realize that they’re in the firing line, not because they’re in themselves controversial, but because they’re an easy disinformation target. Communications teams should start reading obscure publications that lack author names and ownership details. Or as Bergman put it, “monitor the information environment smartly with good tech tools and people who understand where and how to look.”

[juandoming]

Exclusive: Phonics? Learning Styles? Teachers Confounded by Education Research May Soon Turn to New AI Chatbots for Help – The 74

See on Scoop.it - E-Learning-Inclusivo (Mashup)

At least two groups are working on bots that would make peer-reviewed research, buried in expensive academic journals, accessible for everyday use.

[education30and40blog]

Exclusive: Phonics? Learning Styles? Teachers Confounded by Education Research May Soon Turn to New AI Chatbots for Help – The 74

At least two groups are working on bots that would make peer-reviewed research, buried in expensive academic journals, accessible for everyday use.

[grxmincvdescxnce]

( nikki thot, she/her, human ) To DAPHNE DAPHROSE, the whole world looks like an open page. With a leap of faith, their skills in ALCHEMY grow a little stronger. For THIRTY-ONE years, they have survived a world of magic with both their TEMERITY and MEDDLING. They work as an INVESTIGATIVE PHOTOJOURNALIST FOR THE DAILY GRAIL and INFLUENCER, but if they could change their fate, they’d want to RECLAIM HER TWIN SISTER BY ANY MEANS and PROVE THE WORTH OF HER PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL ENDEAVORS + rook pendragon first girlfriend. tristan goodman academic rival. dollie alimjan influencer rival and occasional guest star

inspo includes the likes of the following: daphne blake + daisy dinkley of the scooby-doo series, m'gann m'orzz of dc comics, winry rockbell + rebecca catalina of fullmetal alchemist, honey lemon of big hero 6, lois lane of my adventures with superman

pinterest

&. ⸻ BASICS

name — daphne elladora daphrose

aliases — ( danger-prone ) daph

birthdate — october 23

zodiac — scorpio

birthplace — kardia

sexuality — panromantic pansexual

alignment — neutral good

temperament — sanguine-choleric

element — air

primary vice — avarice

primary virtue — kindness

occupation — investigative photojournalist + social media influencer

markings — a cursed jewel embedded in her chest

&. ⸻ HEADCANONS

her typical scent is a mix of orange blossom, vanilla, and a vague whiff of chemicals

despite her love of all things cute and fashionable and having an occasional tendency to portray herself as a stereotypical airhead, daphne has quite the stellar mind. she was a battle bot champ for a number of years in high school in fact, and a leading member and student of various honor courses, science and math clubs. she even had the option to graduate high school early, spending summers completing ap courses. she decided to stay to keep to a 'normal' experience in school, completing a dual major upon graduating college

for how infuriating he can occasionally be, she considers her boss, murray wheatbelly, among the best there is in the world of journalism and would follow him to the ends of the earth

pantsuits and comfy sweaters are among her go-to styles

she considers science and all its various trappings the ideal 'religion', though she tries to be respectful of others' beliefs all the same. that said, her interpretation of what's truly considered science can have some variation from what's considered 'traditional', with her taking to the power of the arcane, things like enchanted talismans, and anything that can shine favorably upon her to heart

she has been to jail on several occasions, mostly for breaking and entering

places like the archiviste library and the wizard's tower of rest ( when allowed in ), are among her usual haunts

she's a stress eater. it tends to appear more apparently when deadlines are looming

she is dirt poor a good portion of the time, but given her years of experience and convincing persuasive abilities, knows how to work the wealth of others to her advantage, and has plenty of connections to utilize on account of her occupation. particularly in the seedier sides of town

she is a lover of gossip and drama in all its various forms. reality television — specifically keeping up with alimjans — is her absolute guilty pleasure

paranormal fiction and various forms of fanfiction for those works also lie among her usual pleasures

her home is full of all sorts of magical tech, primarily in the form of these adorable bots

her kitchen bears a striking similarity to a chemist's lab, full of beakers and all sorts of supplies you'd rightly expect to find in a science class for some grand experiment rather than used, for example, to make someone's daily coffee

the people she dates tend to lie in the realm of the unusual or odd ( psychics, monster impersonators, weird dreamshades, etc ) and she has no trouble using those around her for the sake of a free meal or a great scoop. she considers it all to be for the greater good ( mostly meaning herself )

she has mildly controlling, OCD leaning habits when it comes to her home, routines, and general personal space. these tendencies are not necessarily overwhelming or utterly debilitating, however, she absolutely believes in everything having its proper place and will freak on anyone who disturbs her things. she even has her own personal label maker and keeps a variety of highlighters, notepads, and organizational tools on her person, outlining her belongings and so on whenever possible. her need to be prepared has also leant itself to keeping things like spare shoes,

she has had various odd jobs over the years to make ends meet, particularly when first arriving in selphia and eventually dealing with her internship. she worked as a mechanic for a summer or two in college, she's been a waitress at giovanni's, a part-time bartender, a teacher's aid, and so on

the glasses she may often adorn, specifically in the office, are strictly for appearances. she thinks they give her a certain kind of appeal despite not being necessary, which she'll gladly admit to if asked

&. ⸻ CURSE + OTHER SKILLS

daphne and her twin were cursed at a younger age due to their father's actions, with daphne suffering a curse of the body where her twin suffered one of the mind. daphne has the talent of ergokinetic metamorphosis, or the ability to shapeshift and utilize shapeshifting tactics with a basis in life-force energy. a living luna pen, in other words. her energy aura tends to resemble this hue, specifically

daphne's specialty lies in chemical warfare and transmutation, with her knowledge of chemistry, robotics, physics, and engineering having aided greatly in her efforts as an artificer of alchemical infusions. typically, her creations take the shape of chemically-enhanced, spherical concoctions with varying, transmutable effects and color range. these spheres are her primary method of offense and protection, housed in a purse-like storage system that can change style at will

some skill in martial arts, mechanical know-how, and the capacity to pick almost any lock also lie in her repertoire

&. ⸻ HISTORY

daphne and her sister were born in the farming town of kardia, with daphne often of the opinion, unlike her sister, that its small-town feel would never be enough for her — even in her youth, she was someone who desired the spectacular and extraordinary. despite yearning for life beyond its borders, she made the best of her time there for the sake of her family and the few friends she held dear. at some point in her final years of high school, she would come to know, love, and antagonize the local kardia kids upon agreeing to date rook pendragon for a period in an initial effort to make her ex jealous. she would keep in touch with them following her move to selphia some years ago ( primarily through scout and her various updates ) until they were properly reunited

a man of science himself in various aspects and wholly misguided in his efforts for his family, her father attained various medical and scientific breakthroughs by secretly experimenting on townsfolk, including his first wife, while acting as a resident doctor in kardia. he would be among the reasons daphne would choose to vacate kardia after awhile and to her knowledge, he is presently on the run

her sister's curse, which appeared to take the form of a mind link ability, would burden the poor girl to the brink of insanity before her disappearance. due to their shared mental link and the unexpected shattering of this connection at the time of her twin's disappearance, daphne suffered a version of a mental break herself and was hospitalized for a time. her belief in something supernatural or strangely otherworldly coming about to remove her sister's presence would stem from these indistinct, unreliable visions and her inability to decipher or perceive their meaning as her sister’s actual passing without witnessing it with her own two eyes. her move from kardia to selphia would occur shortly after her presumed recovery. to this day, however, she's still haunted by unclear imagery in the waking and unconscious world, lapses in memory, and various feelings of imposter syndrome which she refuses to address in a manner most would consider healthy

her connection to the establishment known as the poulailler, run and owned by ulysses' adoptive mother, derives from her mother's longstanding work as a dancer there. daphne and her sister would visit in summer when they were younger, and for a time, particularly during daphne's internship with the daily grail, the woman's work was their primary source of income when daphne was between temporary jobs. aside from what her uncle, her mother's brother-in-law, supplied them with, of course. and while she doesn't blame her mother for seeking out what's best for her in her choice to run from kardia, the woman's presumed abandonment of her daughters with a man like her father has resulted in some resentment on daphne's end

daphne's interest in putting herself out there in the realm of reporting initially took the form of her doing the morning news while in middle school or participating in the fashion club's gossip column in later years before shifting with other interests. in time, a want to expose her version of the truth in a world that seemed hellbent to bury or ignore it, specifically with the paranormal, would drive her to where she lies today. her father and his work, and the eventual mystery surrounding the disappearance of her sister would inevitably play their part in enhancing this desire

her habit of treating matters and social opportunities like a giant experiment would eventually lead to her work as an influencer, seeming to come about almost accidentally in her effort to manipulate and test social algorithms. but she takes great pride in her curated efforts, keeping to a dedicated schedule and utilizing her talents ( and those of her unpaid assistant ) to make the most pristine content. most of her work seems to center on clothing, cosmetics ( magical or otherwise ), and various scientific or paranormal endeavors

these days, her hard work and efforts are focused on finding what remains of her sister, proving the worth of her studies on the effects of the paranormal, supernatural, and cursed activity on the intellectual entity within the human environment, and kicking butt in her search for all variations of truth and justice. oh, and of course, looking amazing while doing all of it

#INTRO ⸻ the enlightened. #cag: intro

[deep37web]

deep web

deep web

The Deep Web and Dark Web

The deep web, also known as the invisible internet, is an umbrella term for pages and websites not found through regular search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. These sites are hidden behind security walls and other forms of authentication, such as passwords or authorization codes, which makes it impossible for search engine bots to crawl them and add them to their index. Sites on the deep web include email inboxes, banking portals and subscription services. It also includes private databases, such as academic journals and company intranets.

When it comes to the dark web, media reports are filled with stories of illicit activities like drug dealing and pedophilia. The popularity of such sites is fueled by the potential to make large profits from the sales of illegal products or services, and it provides users a way to avoid the prying eyes of government authorities. The Silk Road marketplace was a notorious example of such a site before its owner, Ross Ulbricht, was arrested and sentenced to two life sentences in prison.

While the deep and dark web may sound daunting, it is not inherently dangerous to access or use. However, users must be careful when doing so. For example, it’s important not to access sensitive information on the deep web using a public Wi-Fi network and for businesses to implement processes and training to ensure that data breaches don’t occur. The earlier a breach occurs, the more time it has to be identified and fixed, and that means less damage to individuals and businesses.

[tastydregs]

Researchers Reveal That Paper About Academic Cheating Was Generated Using ChatGPT

Big Oops

In an effort to raise alarm bells about how chatbots can enable academic misconduct, a group of professors from England's Plymouth Marjon University (PMU) submitted a research paper written entirely by ChatGPT for peer-review to test whether secretly bot-penned "research" could slip through the process unnoticed.

Put simply? It did.

As The Guardian reports, the professors were able to successfully publish the paper, dubbed "Chatting and Cheating: Ensuring Academic Integrity in the Era of ChatGPT," under their own names, without ever revealing that the research was actually written by a machine — thwarting plagiarism-detecting software and fooling four human peer-reviewers in the process.

"We wanted to show that ChatGPT is writing at a very high level," Debby Cotton, director of academic practice at PMU and the phony paper's fake lead author, told The Guardian.

"This is an arms race," she added. "The technology is improving very fast and it's going to be difficult for universities to outrun it."

Troubled Waters Ahead

The fact that the phony paper was able to slip through the cracks undetected — indeed, the paper was only flagged once the PMU professors personally notified the journal's editors — is surely a stark warning to the academic system, which is struggling to grapple with the breadth of ChatGPT's impact on academia enough as it is. While there are some tips and tricks for deducing whether a human or a chatbot has likely written something — ChatGPT often makes up fake sources, for example — no existing plagiarism software can reliably flag AI-generated writing, nor can any of the so-called AI-detecting programs that have emerged in the months since ChatGPT was first introduced.

In other words, despite the fact that, as the Guardian reports, primary and secondary school systems have continued to re-up threats to penalize and even expel students for using the robots to cheat, the fact remains that it's still incredibly tricky to actually police this kind of cheating, especially on a broad scale.

"My colleagues are already finding cases [of AI-assisted cheating] and dealing with them," Irene Glendinning, head of academic integrity at Coventry University in England, told the Guardian.

"We don't know how many we are missing," she added, "but we are picking up cases."

READ MORE: AI makes plagiarism harder to detect, argue academics – in paper written by chatbot [The Guardian]

More on ChatGPT: ChatGPT Is Hilariously Bad at Generating Random Numbers

The post Researchers Reveal That Paper About Academic Cheating Was Generated Using ChatGPT appeared first on Futurism.

[scams-stuff]

Dylan Fazel academic-publishing scams

The story of how Dylan Fazel drifted into academic-publishing scams and from there into conference fraud would make for a fascinating interview, if any journalist or documentary film-maker in Minnesota is at a loose end. It is unclear whether the emphasis on biomedical fields in his operation is motivated by a thwarted childhood medic-manqué ambition, or simply that that's where the money is…

Dylan was a pioneer in this evolution, bombarding his targets with follow-ups and reminders… often skipping the original invitation and moving straight on to the reminders, in the hope of instilling the recipients with a sense of guilt and indebtedness. His special innovation, though, was an "ingratiating back-story" literary genre, in which the pressure to provide him with manuscripts and money is buttressed by cc:ing a correspondence among multiple non-existent identities, giving the reader an insider glimpse of an entire slice-of-life virtual world. Examples abound at "Flaky Journals", and at "Flaky Journals" again, and at ScholarlyOA

Dylan's gateway into the exciting world of virtual publishing (which is hard for one to leave, just as the elephant-poop-sweeper in the joke is loath to quit show-biz) was the Astronomical Review - an academic Salon des Refusés, providing autodidact would-be cosmologists with a convenient outlet for their original and challenging theories about the origin of the universe, without the hassle of cyclostyling those theories onto densely-written A4 pages and sellotaping them to the walls of bus-shelters.

Dylan recruited an Editorial Board of world-renowned luminaries from theoretical and experimental physics for this journal, including Roger Penrose and Jean-Pierre Luminet and Francis Everitt and NASA's Planetary Defense Officer, all content to follow his guidance as E.-in-C… or so he claimed, though one must bear in mind his fabulatory tendencies. This is all moot because in 2014 he sold the journal to Taylor & Francis, leaving him with time to found KEI and program his spam-bots. So now you know the back-story. The moral is that pimping out one's journals with wholly fictitious claims can be profitable.

[gabbycoco-blog]

Ask For Forgiveness Rather Than Permission In The Communication World

Jacob Groshek and Edson Tandoc investigate modern gatekeeping in "The affordance effect: Gatekeeping and (non)reciprocal journalism on Twitter," which considers how social media, notably Twitter, is advancing technologically. Professional journalism has changed, yet it contradicts the field as a whole. The word "reciprocal journalism," which refers to a mutual exchange between journalists and readers, is used in the readings. I'm taking a public opinion and public affairs course with Dr. Nichole Bauer this semester. Our class discusses how gatekeeping affects polls and how the media contributes to this practice. Gatekeeping may have harmful implications when gathering, evaluating, and interpreting data, as was taught in my public opinion class. According to Benjamin Toff (2019), the dominance of traditional media as information curators has been undermined by social media and other digital factors. In the end, gatekeeping may also be found in political journalism, political science, sociology, communication studies, and social media. Is it true that journalists and reporters are responsible when talking about these gatekeepers if their workplace has its own set of regulations that must be followed? Do journalists put their careers in danger to ensure that gatekeeping abides by their own personal moral and moral and ethical standards? Several network studies have been used to examine changes over time and pinpoint influencers on Twitter in difficult situations like the shooting murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Do consumers' subconscious, organic ideas get excessively influenced?

I have provided a reference citation connecting to my discussion above. It can be found at the LSU Library. 

Toff, Benjamin (2019) "The 'Nate Silver effect' on Political Journalism: Gatecrashers, Gatekeepers, and Changing Newsroom Practices Around Coverage of Public Opinion Polls" Journalism 20(7) 873–889. (LSU Library) 

The relationship development between businesses and stakeholders is crucial through social media platforms, according to Dr. Itai Himelboim et al. in "A Social Networks Approach to Public Relations on Twitter: Social Mediators and Mediated Public Relations." When interacting with people on social media, there are painstakingly few criteria for appropriate communication style and dialogic orientation. While user-generated platforms have their means of communication, a brand or organization must efficiently correspond. There is a fundamental divide between academics and practitioners in the communication sector, and researchers have relied on mediators to level the playing field. The interpretation underlines that seeing situations via the traditional public relations lens is no longer helpful because of the interconnected ties between many stakeholders. Social media makes interpersonal contact between stakeholders and users outside particular organizations possible. One benefit of interacting with audiences on social media is that practically anybody may be reached.

On the other hand, users or bots may inflict harm to a company, organization, or corporation without their knowledge or consent. This ideology is essential to the network and is known as structural positioning. So how do experts and academics come together in the middle? Given how quickly technology is evolving, could any set of precise rules be developed? Most frameworks and recommendations developed are theoretical, a fundamental disadvantage between academics and practitioners.

Jing Guo and Shujun Liu examine the effects of Twitter's hashtag activism on networks' agenda-setting in "From #BlackLivesMatter to #StopAsianHate: Examining Network Agenda-Setting Effects of Hashtag Activism," which covers six topics related to the #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAsianHate social media movements. Social media has made these significant concerns more prominent, but regrettably, hate speech is frequently seen on social networking sites (SNS). Twitter is used to promote misinformation as well as awareness. Guo and Liu's study on this particular kind of activism on Twitter uses this as a critical example, while Dr. Itai Himelboim et al. explore the structural placement on networking sites. Agenda-setting theory (NAS) is used to research the relationships between media content and audience perception. Investigating the connections between media content and audience perception using the agenda-setting theory (NAS). The authors stress the third-level agenda-setting hypothesis in their argument that it is essential in the mass media. Popular subjects typically have the most evident effects regarding trending news on Twitter. The idea that the most current and diverse activist movement is superior to others might be inferred. The social networking sites a person uses might be based on their ethnicity and demographics. When evaluating disparities, keyword use is also crucial. In this example, hashtags like "death," "crime," or "kill" are substantial.

[akwyz]

ChatGPT: our study shows AI can produce academic papers good enough for journals – just as some ban it

ChatGPT: Study shows AI can produce academic papers good enough for journals – just as some ban it. #AI

shutterstock. Brian Lucey, Trinity College Dublin and Michael Dowling, Dublin City University Some of the world’s biggest academic journal publishers have banned or curbed their authors from using the advanced chatbot, ChatGPT. Because the bot uses information from the internet to produce highly readable answers to questions, the publishers are worried that inaccurate or plagiarised work could…

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#education

[mbdailynews]

Elon Musk-Twitter Legal Fight Complicated by Whistleblower Complaint

Twitter Inc.’s legal battle with Elon Musk to enforce his stalled $44 billion takeover has gotten more complicated. In a whistleblower complaint made public Tuesday, the social-media platform’s former head of security accused Twitter of making misleading regulatory disclosures about spam and fake accounts, an issue at the center of Mr. Musk’s stated reasons for abandoning the deal. The complaint is separate from the merger dispute in Delaware but could be wielded to request more discovery, add fresh claims and provide new information about whether Mr. Musk had accurate details when he agreed to buy the company, according to legal scholars, litigators and lawyers following the case. Still, notable differences exist between the complaint and Mr. Musk’s lawsuit, and it isn’t clear how much impact the whistleblower’s allegations will have on the trial or offer grounds to terminate the deal, legal academics and attorneys say. Mr. Musk’s legal team likely would have to show a deliberate attempt by Twitter executives to misrepresent or omit information about the data, the observers say. Get Barron’s and The WSJ 5-Year Subscription for $89 Twitter sued Mr. Musk on July 12 in Delaware Court of Chancery to try to force him to go through with his takeover bid after he said in a July 8 securities filing that he planned to walk away. Mr. Musk said he wanted out because the company hadn’t provided the necessary data and information he needed to assess the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on its platform. Mr. Musk later countersued, accusing Twitter of fraud for misrepresenting the condition of its business and key metrics about the users on its platform. The whistleblower complaint was submitted last month to the Securities and Exchange Commission by Peiter Zatko, who was fired by Twitter earlier this year. A Twitter spokeswoman said Tuesday that Mr. Zatko’s complaint “is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.” According to a securities filing Wednesday, Twitter responded in June to questions from the SEC staff about how it calculates bots and whether an error in how it tallies monetizable daily active users, or MDAUs, revealed problems in its financial reporting. Twitter said the error wasn’t significant and didn’t affect its earnings or other financial results. Buy The Economist and The New York News Times 3 Years for $89 Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former head of security, accused the company in a whistleblower complaint of making misleading regulatory disclosures about spam and fake accounts. A representative for Twitter declined to comment Wednesday on how the whistleblower complaint would affect its lawsuit in Delaware. A representative for Mr. Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment, but his attorney previously said he sent a subpoena to Mr. Zatko, and found his exit curious. “It adds more fuel to the fire for Musk,” Brian Quinn, a professor at Boston College of Law who focuses on corporate law and mergers and acquisitions, said of the whistleblower complaint. Mr. Musk and Mr. Zatko each say Twitter is misrepresenting various ways of measuring its users, but offer different explanations for what they think is wrong with Twitter’s math and why it matters. It is those differences as outlined by Mr. Zatko that could end up becoming supplementary claims for Mr. Musk, lawyers and legal scholars said, even if the details from Mr. Zatko don’t directly align with the existing arguments from Mr. Musk. “Musk’s attorneys have sent out a lot of subpoenas for information about what metrics Twitter paid attention to,” said Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane University and a former corporate lawyer. “They want to show that the company omitted required information, and show a violation of” SEC rules. Subscribe to The Wall Street Journal Print Edition for $318 Hurdles still exist using Mr. Zatko’s complaint, she said. Although he threw doubt on the methodology that Twitter uses to determine how many fake accounts are on the platform, Ms. Lipton said from a legal perspective that allegation alone won’t prove Mr. Musk’s claims, but rather it opens pathways for his attorneys to argue that he was misled by information available at the time of the merger. Elon Musk has countersued Twitter, accusing the company of fraud for misrepresenting the condition of its business and key metrics about the users on its platform. A hearing in the lawsuit over the stalled takeover is scheduled for Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., for oral arguments over requests by Mr. Musk for documents. Lawyers for Mr. Musk and Twitter have been bickering over the terms of discovery in the Delaware lawsuit since the judge granted Twitter’s request for an expedited schedule. A five-day nonjury trial is scheduled for October in Delaware Chancery Court. Mr. Musk alleges that Twitter undercounts the percentage of MDAUs that are spam or fake accounts, thus misleading advertisers and regulators. In his countersuit in Delaware, he alleges that the number of Twitter users who see ads is far lower than what Twitter says. In the whistleblower complaint, Mr. Zatko doesn’t take issue with how the company measures MDAUs. He alleges that Twitter executives are motivated to avoid counting spam and fake accounts and thus avoid removing them, though they affect users’ experience on the platform. Senior executives earned bonuses for increasing MDAUs, not for cutting spam and fake accounts, Mr. Zatko said in the complaint. Mr. “Musk appears to be asking a valid and intuitive question, what percent of accounts encountered by the median user are actually bots?” Mr. Zatko said in the complaint. Subscribe to The New York Times 3 Years for $69 Mr. Musk’s attorneys would have to prove that Mr. Zatko’s allegations are significant enough to constitute a material adverse effect on the platform’s business, which could be grounds to terminate the agreement. If there were material misrepresentations or omissions from reports to regulators before the merger agreement was signed, that would allow Mr. Musk to terminate the agreement, said Paul Regan, associate professor at the Delaware University Law School. His obligation to close the deal is expressly conditioned on Twitter’s representations being accurate, including the filings to the SEC. Mr. Regan said Mr. Zatko represents a third voice in the Delaware litigation without a stake in the outcome, and that could carry more weight in “what otherwise is a battle of experts.” Mr. Musk is likely to update his counterclaims to reflect the latest accusations about Twitter’s handling of bot and spam accounts, said Adam C. Pritchard, a securities and corporate law professor at the University of Michigan. His attorneys are also likely to seek an extension of the period to conduct discovery and a new trial date beyond October, Mr. Pritchard said. Mr. Musk waived due diligence before agreeing to acquire Twitter in April, but that may be irrelevant if he can argue that Twitter misrepresented its fake and spam accounts in regulatory filings, Mr. Pritchard said. Get 3 Years Digital Subscription of The Wall Street Journal for $69 “If there is concealment, then you have an argument that even if I did my due diligence, I would not have turned anything up,” Mr. Pritchard said. Mr. Musk would have to prove that the board intentionally failed to disclose the security vulnerabilities of the platform, Boston College’s Mr. Quinn said, and that he relied on those disclosures when penning the deal. It is rare for a whistleblower case to affect the outcome of a merger deal, Mr. Quinn said, but it has happened. In an acquisition dispute between generics drug manufacturer Akorn and Fresenius SE, also in Delaware court, a complaint revealed allegations that, if true, would have significant consequences. Akorn didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A Fresenius spokesman declined to comment. In that case, Mr. Quinn said, the disclosures were considered by the court to be potentially material to the business. The deal crumbled. “We aren’t there yet,” he said of the implications of the whistleblower complaint on Twitter’s case. Read the full article

[futurros]

[stephen-barry]

[progressivediscussions]

Artificial intelligence bot wrote scientific paper on itself in 2 hours