#the AI image spotting is the new Spot The Difference | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morallyinept · 7 months

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HELLO & WELCOME TO THE PEDRO PASCAL FANDOM! 👋🏻

I'd just like to take a moment to say hello and a big welcome to all my recent followers & mutuals. How wonderful that you're here! So exciting!!

My name's Jett and I'm so happy that you're here in the Pedro fandom, and you're all so welcome here at my place too! 🖤

I'd also like to share with you some hints and tips on navigating this fandom and Tumblr.

Perhaps this is your first time in a fandom, or using a site like Tumblr, and I can appreciate how daunting it can feel. I've been there. Trust me. 🥴

But don't worry - I've got your back. We all have.

I hope you find it helpful, and if you have any questions, or just want to say hello back, please feel free to reach out. 🖤

Fandom is a different experience for everyone. You get out what you put in.

What do I mean by that?

Well, fandom is an inclusive place, for everyone to come together in mutual admiration and respect for, in this case, Pedro Pascal. It's a hub to share, create and get excited about content, and to make new friends.

It's NOT a place for divisiveness, hate or toxicity, although sadly it exists here in small pockets, as it does in any fandom. 😑

The best piece of advice I can give to you, is to be respectful.

Be respectful in the way you conduct yourself. Be respectful to your mutuals and followers, and to the blogs you follow. Be respectful to Pedro. As much as we all write fanfic about his characters (and some choose to write about him; that's their prerogative, although I personally don't), he is a human being, not a piece of meat.

It's perfectly fine to get excited, to fantasize and daydream, we all do it. We all get thirsty, let's face it. That Pedro fountain is flowing. 💦 But be mindful about blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.

Have fun, that's why you're here. I'm not your mom, but always remember to respect each other. (I'm fairly certain your mom would have told you that, however.)

If you are subject to any negativity or toxicity whilst here - and hopefully you never will be as the majority of us in this fandom are friendly, approachable and lovely, if but a bit excitable - but if you do experience it, the best thing to do is to ignore it.

Block, delete and move on. Don't feed into it or be a part of the problem.

If you have an ageless or empty blog, chances are you will be blocked.

Tumblr has a massive bot problem. 🤖 Specifically a porn bot problem.

It's easy for us to spot a fake blog or a bot that follows us. They usually have an empty bio, no icon, or their icon is an AI generated image of a scantily clad female. We all block them. 🚫

Most, if not all, writers in the Pedro fandom (and other fandoms too) write smut. We love it. And we know you do too, it's probably why you're here. But we are responsible writers, or try to be as responsible as we can be, by ensuring that no minors under the age of 18, to our knowledge, are reading our smutty fics.

So, if you have a blog that doesn't have your age on it, chances are you'll be blocked. We're protecting ourselves and we're protecting you.

Unfortunately, Tumblr is working against new users of the site in the fact that they now ask you to follow a few blogs BEFORE your profile bio is able to be set up or edited. I know, counterproductive right? So chances are you're getting blocked even before you start. 😖

I'd urge you to add your age onto your blog at the very least. It's okay to have an anonymous profile if you want to, but please, please tell us your age. Otherwise we will have no choice but to block you.

The RE-BLOG button is the only button you need.

Look at this:

The icon in green is the RE-BLOG button, the two arrows.

You'll find this at the bottom of every single blog post, including your own. Look at the difference in the numbers here. See how they differ from the RE-BLOG to the likes, the heart icon?

Yeeeeah. We don't want that disparity. We want that RE-BLOG icon to be the biggest number on our posts.

And here is where you can help with this:

PRESS THIS RE-BLOG BUTTON. DON'T STOP PRESSING THIS RE-BLOG BUTTON. LOVE THIS BUTTON. RE-BLOG EVERYTHING YOU LIKE!

Tumblr doesn't work like Instagram, Twitter/X or other social media platforms where 'likes' drive content to be seen. Here on Tumblr RE-BLOGGING is what gets our stories onto your home feed for you to see them and enjoy.

If you don't RE-BLOG, our posts get lost and have very little engagement, and that is why your favourite writers then stop writing and leave the site.

RE-BLOG, RE-BLOG, RE-BLOG everything you like and love. I cannot stress that enough.

Likes are nice, but they do absolutely nothing. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis.

Well, that's not technically true. Likes tell me that you've seen my post. That's it.

Annnnd what can I do with that info? Nothing. That's what.

RE-BLOGGING the post tells me however that you've enjoyed it, loved it even. That makes me very happy and inspires me to carry on writing fics that you'll (hopefully) enjoy.

Pressing the heart icon works like a bookmarking feature on Tumblr rather than a liking feature as you're probably used to from other social media sites. And the more things you like here, the more your older likes get pushed to the bottom of your epically long like list, to be forgotten about and will probably never see the light of day again.

Personally, I like to use the like button as a way of bookmarking something to come back to later and then I will RE-BLOG it once I've read it.

There is no limit to the amount of times you can RE-BLOG the same post, but you can only like it once. That should tell you that liking something here on Tumblr has no effect.

Tumblr is all about encouraging engagement through RE-BLOGS, the algorithm does nothing if you press the like button and move on.

By all means, give that heart icon a press, but please also RE-BLOG it at the same time. We will absolutely love you for it!

☝🏻And be mindful of going on a mass liking spree - Tumblr doesn't like that and neither do we. It's a quick way for you - and us - to get shadow-banned and Tumblr will think you're a bot. And being shadow-banned is incredibly annoying for everyone involved. Trust me. 😖

Talk to us. We love it!

We love getting positive/constructive feedback on our work. We love engaging or interacting with you. I certainly love receiving and responding to any comments, DM's or ASKS that I'm lucky enough to get.

But again, ensure you're respectful.

Tumblr has created an ASK feature where you can ask us a question, and you also have the option of asking us that question anonymously if you'd like.

If you do use the anonymous (anon) option on your ASK, be aware that we have the right to ignore or delete your ask if you're being a jerk. Don't be a jerk.

This feature is for someone to interact with us anonymously if they're shy. Not to be abused to send hate or negativity our way.

You'll find the ASK button on the main page of anyone's blog that has it activated, just below their bio.

And Tumblr has made it easy for us now to see if you're a mutual of ours, even if you're asking on anon FYI. So we can narrow it down to finding you if you do happen to be a jerk... just saying.

Be respectful in your comments, DM's, ASKS and RE-BLOGS.

Yes, you can leave comments on your RE-BLOGS too. Another reason for you to press that RE-BLOG button.

If you use something, always give credit to the source/creator where possible.

One way to garner enemies in any social media space is to use something that isn't yours, without crediting the source.

Now, it's impossible to physically ask everyone if you can use their content, however Tumblr makes this very easy for you to do that in most cases.

Yep, RE-BLOG IT.

RE-BLOGGING leaves a clear trail back to the original poster for everyone to see.

Now, if you use something without re-blogging, which you can absolutely do when you create your own blog posts from scratch, you should give credit to anything you use in your post that is not something you have originally created yourself.

Perhaps there is a GIF you like, for example. You can post it, but you should absolutely give credit by tagging the blogger/creator who created that GIF. (Tumblr also has their own selection of GIFS you can use FYI, and when you do they automatically add the original creator's tag at the bottom of it. Easy!)

And this should be respected if you use another's person's art or writing too.

Now, I could quite happily sit here and tell you all about copyright law, but we'd be here forever and frankly it's a boring topic and I'd rather you get out there and read all the awesome fics you're going to discover instead.

But, in a nutshell, any picture of Pedro you post, does not belong to you, no matter how many times you write your user name all over it.

Look, we all do it; we all like to make our edits, our banners, our covers look wizard, and I do it myself. But what we can't do is claim ownership or copyright to it.

Some people will try; they'll get pissy if you use something that they claim they found first or is "theirs" because they plastered their user name all over it... putting your username on something does absolutely nothing FYI.

☝🏻No-one can claim copyright or ownership to any image of Pedro, unless they physically took that photo themselves and can back it up with evidence should they be challenged legally.

My advice here is to always credit the source on anything you want to use, i.e. where you found it and tag or link back to the original content creator where possible.

If you're unsure where it originates from, you can still use it, but just make a note in your post somewhere about not knowing who it belongs to etc... so the original creator can advise you later.

Again, it just all boils down to being respectful.

And if you're ever not sure if you can, or should, use something, reach out to that creator on Tumblr and ask. They'll appreciate it, regardless if they give you permission or not.

Hoo, we sure covered a lot here...

I hope you've found this post useful at the very least. For a more extensive use of Tumblr you can easily use the search function, or via Google if there is a particular setting or something you need help with, or reach out and ask someone. This Pedro community is incredibly welcoming and helpful.

And if they're not, well you let me know and I'll send the Pedro Boys to sort them out. 🫡

If you enjoyed this, and did indeed find it useful, you know what to do:

RE-BLOG IT!

Now, get out there and have some fun exploring and reading!

Stay Kind. Stay Creamy. 🖤

🖤

GIF of Dieter Bravo from @miguelo-hara 🖤

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal fandom #pedro pascal characters #dieter bravo #dieter bravo the bubble #welcome #hints & tips #jett has spoken

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ghostflowerhotpotch · 6 months

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Miguel's is wrong about how Canon works and here is why

I STILL can't get over how this guy says this entire thing, and SOMEHOW, doesn't realize of the glaring hole in his logic.

Now, if you are familiar with my blog, you had probably seen this post before; I had written about this in different essays, however I realized I don't have THE post dedicated exclusively to why Miguel is wrong about this, especially since a few arguments are different places, so I decided to do one for simplicity sake. I will include some small things that may be new, but really don't add much in the big scheme of things.

If you aren't familiar with my content and you think Miguel is right, I invite to read this post, and if by the end you still think he is right and I am in the wrong, please reblog with your arguments. I love discussing these things.

Let's go!

Did you catch the issue yet?

Here is the thing: How a canon event can happen if the person who caused it wasn't supposed to be there?

Miguel is blaming the hole on Miles, saying that it happened because it disrupted the canon event; yet what caused the canon event?

Spot. He did it.

However-

Spot isn't Pavitr's nemesis, he doesn't even give CARE about Pavitr.

And to top it all off-

The existence of Spot himself is supposed to be an anomaly, Miguel even says how none of this would had happened; including the canon incident that Miles allegedly interrupted.

This is why it doesn't make sense.

Spot is not the arch-nemesis of Pavitr, Spot didn't even want to talk to Pavitr and was mostly ignoring anyone who wasn't Miles. And again, MIGUEL SAYS HOW SPOT SHOULDN'T have EXISTED REGARDLESS.

How come Captain Singh was supposed to die in that bridge, if this wasn't the fight he is suppose to kick said event?

Because remember, Miguel says it needs to be a battle against an arch-nemesis too; meaning that if this needed to happen today, THE CANON EVENT WAS ALREADY DISRUPTED BECAUSE THE WRONG PERSON DID IT.

If anything, Miles should had been doing exactly what he did, because if Captain Singh needed to die while Pavitr was battling against and arch-nemesis, Captain Singh dying NOW means that can't happen.

"BUT THERE IS A BLACK HOLE BECAUSE MILES SAVED THE CAPTAIN!"

No, that thing literally happen before we ever saw the Captain.

Let's recapitulate what is going on in these images. The explosion created this black matter that is slowly growing and absorbing the building, and then on the spot where building fell, instead of the building, there is a black hole that is doing the exact thing as the dark matter was doing, absorbing the material it touches.

There is no way in hell I am not thinking these two things aren't the same thing; it wouldn't make sense to have that black matter absorbing the building, and then magically disappear, just to have the black hole from the "interrupted canon event."

"But Lyla said it detected a canon event!"

Oh this is the part I haven't made a comment about, I can't say is 100% a rebuttal but it makes me laugh.

"Markers are predicting a canon event."

What Lyla (or whatever system Miguel has) is detecting, is the fact that Captain Singh is in danger, that's what Lyla is picking up.

However, is only picking on the fact that Captain Singh is in danger, not on the fact that this isn't a fight between Pavitr and his Arch-Nemesis; or how arguably the fact this is happening when the battle is done could count as an anomaly too.

This thing is working EXACTLY like AI and is making me cackle so hard.

For those who don't know, computers are stupid, extremely stupid; every time you are surprised a computer picked on something, that's because a human was behind to program to detect those things.

If you ever fear the idea of "Computers taking over the world," take a few programming classes, or just try to code yourself from youtube videos. You tell a phrase to a human, and even if you miss a word or something, chances are the person can still understand what you are trying to say; you miss one letter while coding, and the computer has a meltdown.

Miguel most probably made the data with things that seems to align with "canon events", and have Lyla detect whatever seems to resemble any of those models.

So basically, this works as well as Youtube's algorithm, in which you could see a video talking about how a show is trash and fails in several points, and then in your recommendations appears videos of people praising the show; because the only thing it picked on was the show and that was it.

"But Miguel says how the universe he was got destroyed for defying canon!"

Here is my problem with that, none of the examples Miguel has about an "universe breaking for breaking canon" look the same.

Let's break it down.

Miguel's second universe: Things glitch briefly before they start crumbling and disappear entirely.

Pavtir's universe after the Spot: Hole starts sinking an entire building and it is led to believe more can be dragged.

Miles's universe in ITSV: Things glitch, that's it, in other instances is shown to have other things to take it's place, but that's about it.

None of these behave the same, which would be weird if these ones were all truly, all breaking apart because canon was broken; shouldn't it all behave the same is they broke for all of them defying it's canon?

Yet what a coincidence that none of this looks so weird once you put context behind it.

Pavitr's universe is being swallowed by a hole just after the guy who creates holes and wants to open some more became a multidimensional monster thanks to a big Collider who of course can magnify the Spot's effect.

And Miles universe ONLY glitches when someone is messing up with the Collider.

Watch ITSV again, tell me one, ONE instance when the universe seems to be falling apart that isn't explained by Kingpin activating the Collider. Or do me one better, show me one time the Universe seems to glitching when something that "isn't canon" is happening.

The only universe I don't have an explanation from, is the universe where we DON'T see what happened, and instead we are told by the same guy who is making this entire theory.

What a coincidence, huh?

There is technically more I could bring to the table (Miguel saying is Miles's fault this is happening being astronomically stupid; on the fact that Spot exists and has multiple spiders but Miles universe is still fine) but for now I think this is enough.

If anyone can think anything that I may have missed, please reblog with said comment; I had learned a lot of things by rebutting people before.

Don't get me wrong, I could be wrong! I am not above thinking I may be missing something or mess up, but so far the right person to do so hasn't appeared.

BONUS: Miguel is just doing his best!

I had repeated this a lot of times, but I am still fairly angry about it, so let me repeat it again.

Wanting to do your best, or being traumatized, doesn't excuse the harm you do to others. The more damage you do, the least you can excuse said actions.

Miguel is so focused on his martyr complex he cannot notice an incongruity as he is explaining the problem to Miles. The audience not catching onto this makes sense, but Miguel? You have an idea, how astronomically bad it is that you are letting the faith of the multi-verse at risk because you are so traumatized you cannot see what's in front of you?

Here is my take on all of this: Miguel's focuses more about his own pain than the multiverse, why? Because if that wasn't the case, he would had caught on the mistakes a while ago.

The fact that he is so hurt that he refuses to see things another way, or think another possibilities, is putting the multiverse in danger.

Is thinking that Pavitr's universe may fall apart because a guy didn't die instead of investigating how the dark matter works and how to stop it.

Is saying Miles is at fault for being bitten, despite the Spot being the one to bring the spiders, and still has multiple of them.

Is the fact that he is letting people suffer by making people live horrible tragedies, that if I am as right as I think am about this, could had been avoided.

I had seen people who were abused go out to abuse others, I had seen people excuse horrible behaviour because they had a bad childhood or were stress out; as if that means is okay to continue with the cycle.

And I don't tolerate that shit.

Sorry ending it with that, this is a topic that really drives me up the wall.

Thank you for anyone who came along in this ready! As always if you have the chance please support my ko-fi, and if you can’t, please share this post around!

#atsv #across the spiderverse #miguel o hara #lyla spiderman 2099 #spiderman 2099 #LYrate Lifeform Approximation #miles morales #spiderman #spiderverse

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doctorbunny · 10 months

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The mission to track down (most of) the locations in Ai Nan Desu Yo!

Firstly, I want to thank @archivalofsins /Gunsli-01, this whole thing started because of us DMing, wondering if we could use the background images in Mahiru's first MV to guess which university she went to, that started this whole adventure. By the end of this saga, the process truly was a collaboration too and i would've given up much sooner (sorry for taking so long to write this up!)

It started here. The caption says Mahiru is sat on the 大学のテラス (University terrace). So we figured this was the best shot to find her uni. Gunsli tried reverse image search but it just kept throwing milgram back at us. So I got an idea:

The magic of photo editing! it worked too and I got this back:

That's right! This isn't a university but a pizza place! Specifically one called 800 ディグリーズナポリタンピッツェリア (800 degrees Neapolitan pizzeria) It is right next to two universities however:

Of these two, I speculate Aoyama Gakuin University is more likely to be Mahiru's as they have a large humanities department and an option to take Chinese language classes (interestingly, it is also a Very Christian university and we know from question 19 of Mahiru's trial 1 interrogation, she believes people go to Heaven when they die. There is also a lot of focus on international students and the campus nearest the pizza resturant has a 'statue of Love' in the Majima Archives building)

Inspired by this fruitful discovery I decided to try my method on other photos:

I jumped all the way over to day 13 because I felt like the sign would aid in my search. Before I bothered with any photo editing I just did some google searches "Tokyo Marun-" I got the autofill result 'Tokyo Marunouchi hotel' after investigating it wasn't the right place but we had a location name "Marunouchi" Trying again I typed "Tokyo Marunouchi Street" Autofill gave me "Marunouchi Street Park": Bingo!

This must be some kind of iconic sign because there were a ton of results for it. The bad news is that the sign was portable and only placed out for special events. So I introduce the next weapon in my arsenal: Google Streetview With a street to work with I walked up and down Morunouchi Naka-doori avenue until I got to a building with similar square pillars to the one behind Mahiru

This place is the MyPlaza, it's got a couple different shops, but importantly there is a function room you can rent out for events just like the wedding reception Mahiru attended here. This one turns out to be further away than some of the other discoveries but it makes sense because Mahiru is travelling to an event, not on a date.

Back to photo editing! This is one of two shrines I'll identify, they become important as they get special icons on google maps, becoming landmarks to search around later.

This is the Meiji Jingu Shrine

I was on a roll so quickly moved to day 14, however, my editing trick wouldn't work here so it would only be later that I uncovered the location of the park

Searching for day 11 was much more fruitful

I was really excited to track this one as Mahiru mentions it being the filming location for her favourite movie. So I thought if we could discover that, then we may unlock more clues about her as a person

I got about this far before realising I could try a different tactic. If this was a well known spot, surely in my broken Japanese I could google it right? So with a little help of my dictionary I spat out "Tokyo red hand railing movie". Somehow this barely worked

The movie? Your Name

At this point I was rolling on the floor laughing because I had been expecting some Japanese cult classic romance movie or a domestically popular but internationally obscure rom com meanwhile Your Name was a massive box office smash hit in many places. One of the few anime movies that even non-anime fans will be aware of.

Despite this, I hadn't actually seen it myself and wasn't really in the mood to watch it (I had more locations to track down, dammit) but fortunately Gunsli came in clutch, having previously seen the movie and also in the mood to rewatch it for clues about Mahiru.

These stairs are actually at a place called Suga Shrine, making this our second landmark. (Fun fact: if you look it up you'll find pictures of movie fans recreating photos of the place)

We were starting to build up an idea of Where Mahiru's world was, the border between Shibuya and Shinjuku ward. There were several parks in the area, so I figured I'd set out to find the day 14 park location by searching through each one. I was worried this would take a while but when I started with the biggest park, Yoyogi, I basically hit jackpot right away. Immediately upon seaching it, google recommended me results for images of the park at night. It turns out that Yoyogi had a large area used for concerts (that also may have been used for movie nights). By chance, I found this image from the park at night

which looks awfully similar to the lamp/benches seen in the background of day 14... According to Gunsli, the nearby yoyogi station is featured in an important scene in Your Name, so that's another thing pointing towards them being in this park. It's not solid evidence but we'll come back to this later.

At this point I'm both hyped up and bored, so to amuse myself and just to see if I can, I decide to search for the place Mahiru's boyfriend is working at in day 8

At first I had written it off as pointless to even try searching, but Gunsli noticed that in the top left corner you can see a hint of the store's sign. It is the same colours as a Seven Eleven (a chain that exists both in the US and Japan) This greatly narrowed down my search, as it ruled out the many Family Marts and Lawsons in the area (I cannot stress how many convenience stores there are in Tokyo) Unfortunately, there were still many 7/11s to search through and thus leads to the several hours I spent on google maps, individually going to each 7/11 in Shibuya and trying to look for those bike racks, floor tiles and old security camera. It was demoralising. But when hope was nearly lost and I almost gave up (there was a heat wave outside so my brain was melting during this). Gunsli reminded me of something very important. On day 8 we get two images, the above of Mahiru waiting outside the 7/11, and one of her sat on a park bench. If we were right about the day 14 park being Yoyogi, then surely our 7/11 would be in walking distance? The search began again. The third 7/11 I found near the park was it.

In one fell swoop I had confirmed both day 8 and 14. In celebration I made a tumblr post

Now, at this point I'm running out of images to search for because a lot of the locations in Ainan are indoors, meaning they could be taken from a studio or even one of the milgram crew's homes (which isn't actually uncommon) and thus, not a relavent location. I did half heartedly attempt to look for the day 9 bar, but as you can imagine, without any external landmarks it was even more of a goose chase than the 7/11...

The last location I decided to look for was all the way back in day 5

This edit was pretty tough to make so i was very annoyed when it didn't work. By this time it was late at night, but Gunsli had a hunch that this would be a well known running route, so started looking for those. By the time I'd woken up, she got it down to a route called the Imperial Palace Running Route, which is very popular (especially with tourists, it is recommended to give it a go if you're in the area)

I found it on streetview by following road signs seen in a video of someone running the route Gunsli found (the part in Mahiru's video appears at about 1:35)

youtube

It's an area called Takebashi and here is a screenshot both of what we saw in ainan, as well as what Mahiru would've seen in the direction she ran (the route loops back on itself)

Ok I'm tired it's 1 am, finally here's a really rough map of everywhere in relation to each other

An interesting thread throughout is that many of these places are sort of tourist-y, suggesting Mahiru's boyfriend may not be from Tokyo either. The university (assuming I'm guessing the right place) taking in lots of international students and Mahiru's boyfriend working at a 7/11 (which Japanese people can do but is also Stereotypically the part time job of choice for people from outside Japan while studying) could perhaps even hint to him not being Japanese, but it's all speculation right now

I hope you enjoyed this long rambly mess, I'm so sorry it took me so long to write it all up....

#mahiru shiina #milgram #ミルグラム #milgram theory #long post

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the-empress-7 · 2 months

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“His running theory is: new android phones have AI editing tool, that with a touch, sort of merges multiple shots into "best shot" and fix small touch ups automatically. And it also offers you the option without you even choosing as "here look at what i did".

I think it’s the new Google pixel. The advert is running on UKTV. It literally advertises how you can pick the best headshot out of a group from multiple images.

MANY people have mentioned this in the comment section on the Telegraph.

I rather think The Prince and Princess of Wales missed a trick today. Catherine should not have apologised, instead I think William should have joked about having done exactly this with his phone.

I have an i-phone and it has photo burst feature. One picture with many frames, and you pick the one you want, cause many of the frames end up with a blurring effect in different spots.

I am more than okay with Catherine apologizing. She used her voice. It was her prerogative.

The world needed a reminder that she is not a mute, and she certainly is not a coward who'd collapse to a floor in fit of tears over a controversy.

Catherine is made of the strongest stuff on earth.

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peggycatrerr · 10 months

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i think it’s really really important that we keep reminding people that what we’re calling ai isn’t even close to intelligent and that its name is pure marketing. the silicon valley tech bros and hollywood executives call it ai because they either want it to seem all-powerful or they believe it is and use that to justify their use of it to exploit and replace people.

chat-gpt and things along those lines are not intelligent, they are predictive text generators that simply have more data to draw on than previous ones like, you know, your phone’s autocorrect. they are designed to pass the turing test by having human-passing speech patterns and syntax. they cannot come up with anything new, because they are machines programmed on data sets. they can’t even distinguish fact from fiction, because all they are actually capable of is figuring out how to construct a human-sounding response using applicable data to a question asked by a human. you know how people who use chat-gpt to cheat on essays will ask it for reference lists and get a list of texts that don’t exist? it’s because all chat-gpt is doing is figuring out what types of words typically appear in response to questions like that, and then stringing them together.

midjourney and things along those lines are not intelligent, they are image generators that have just been really heavily fine-tuned. you know how they used to do janky fingers and teeth and then they overcame that pretty quickly? that’s not because of growing intelligence, it’s because even more photographs got added to their data sets and were programmed in such a way that they were able to more accurately identify patterns in the average amount of fingers and teeth across all those photos. and it too isn’t capable of creation. it is placing pixels in spots to create an amalgamation of images tagged with metadata that matches the words in your request. you ask for a tree and it spits out something a little quirky? it’s not because it’s creating something, it’s because it gathered all of its data on trees and then averaged it out. you know that “the rest of the mona lisa” tweet and how it looks like shit? the fact that there is no “rest” of the mona lisa aside, it’s because the generator does not have the intelligence required to identify what’s what in the background of such a painting and extend it with any degree of accuracy, it looked at the colours and approximate shapes and went “oho i know what this is maybe” and spat out an ugly landscape that doesn’t actually make any kind of physical or compositional sense, because it isn’t intelligent.

and all those ai-generated voices? also not intelligent, literally just the same vocal synth we’ve been able to do since daisy bell but more advanced. you get a sample of a voice, break it down into the various vowel and consonant sounds, and then when you type in the text you want it to say, it plays those vowel and consonant sounds in the order displayed in that text. the only difference now is that the breaking it down process can be automated to some extent (still not intelligence, just data analysis) and the synthesising software can recognise grammar a bit more and add appropriate inflections to synthesised voices to create a more natural flow.

if you took the exact same technology that powers midjourney or chat-gpt and removed a chunk of its dataset, the stuff it produces would noticeably worsen because it only works with a very very large amount of data. these programs are not intelligent. they are programs that analyse and store data and then string it together upon request. and if you want evidence that the term ai is just being used for marketing, look at the sheer amount of software that’s added “ai tools” that are either just things that already existed within the software, using the same exact tech they always did but slightly refined (a lot of film editing software are renaming things like their chromakey tools to have “ai” in the name, for example) or are actually worse than the things they’re overhauling (like the grammar editor in office 365 compared to the classic office spellcheck).

but you wanna real nifty lil secret about the way “ai” is developing? it’s all neural nets and machine learning, and the thing about neural nets and machine learning is that in order to continue growing in power it needs new data. so yeah, currently, as more and more data gets added to them, they seem to be evolving really quickly. but at some point soon after we run out of data to add to them because people decided they were complete or because corporations replaced all new things with generated bullshit, they’re going to stop evolving and start getting really, really, REALLY repetitive. because machine learning isn’t intelligent or capable of being inspired to create new things independently. no, it’s actually self-reinforcing. it gets caught in loops. "ai” isn’t the future of art, it’s a data analysis machine that’ll start sounding even more like a broken record than it already does the moment its data sets stop having really large amounts of unique things added to it.

#steph's post tag #only good thing to come out of the evolution of image generation and recognition is that captchas have actually gotten easier #because computers can recognise even the blurriest photos now #so instead captcha now gives you really really clear images of things that look nothing like each other #(like. ''pick all the chairs'' and then there's a few chairs a few bicycles and a few trees)#but with a distorted watermark overlaid on the images so that computers can't read them

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signiorbenedickofpadua · 2 months

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AI-generated embroidery

I'm starting to see more and more AI generated pics of "embroidered" art popping up, and somehow that makes me even more disappointed than when I spot fake paintings. Of course, a lot of creativity and effort goes into any given form of art, and they all have their limitations which inform the end result, but one can, in theory, paint almost anything (at least in digital painting) while there are far more tangible, physical limitations to what you can make a piece of thread do. One of the best parts of seeing a gorgeous piece of textile/fiber art is admiring how well the artist has been able to cleverly utilise and transcend the limitations of working with thread/fabric/roving/etc., and realising how much time it must have taken.

To then see AI "embroidery" that looks very impressive at first glance before realising that it couldn't possibly be real because it defies the very laws of physics makes me sad. Not only did someone want to generate a piece of art they couldn't be bothered to make themselves, but they then looked at the image the computer spat out and either wasn't interested enough in the craft itself to be able to tell how impossible it was or decided that it didn't matter because the point was just to get some superficially pretty content to share with a mostly unsuspecting audience. It's just... a whole new level of disrespect for a craft that is already niche and underappreciated as it is.

There have been posts pointing out what to look out for in generated "paintings" and "photos", but I have not seen any for embroidery yet, so here's a couple of points off the top of my head:

Can you see individual threads clearly? Do they look consistent in texture (like they're spun the same way). There are a few different types of embroidery thread which are spun in different ways and from different materials, but if it looks like one type of thread was used and the threads still look inconsistent, that's a tell.

If the piece seems to be mixed media (e.g featuring beads or fabric appliqué etc.), do the added materials look realistic? Can you guess at what they're made of or how they may have been attached without the use of sorcery? I have seen a few examples of what looks like a cluster of beads at first glance, but when looking closer they've turned out to be very surreal in shape and get progressively less realistic and more abstract the smaller they get. Then there have been details which I've tried and utterly failed to imagine what material they could even be made from, like decorative vines/borders that look more like 3D-printed plastic than thread or metal wire or anything you might expect to find in an embroidery, even with creative material choices.

Does the motif look very three-dimensional? There are a number of ways to create 3D embroidery, but they all have to follow the laws of physics. Where are those threads going? Do they just end randomly? Does it look like a bunch of normal embroideries stuck on top of each other with no plausible edges or methods of attachment?

I've seen at least one example where most of the image was trying to look like photorealistic embroidery, but then there were a few details that simply looked photorealistic as in, "Wait, half of that bird looks embroidered, and half of it just looks like a photo of a real bird?"

As in other forms of AI art, look at details which you think you know what they ought to look like - especially in parts of the work that are out of focus or far from the center, those tend to be less realistic. If, at first glance, something in the background looks like a rose, look again and ask yourself, "Is that really what a rose looks like, even stylised? Why does that petal look more like a weird tentacle? These shapes make no sense. Was the artist just clumsy and made a mistake, or was it designed like that by a computer?"

Humans like symmetry. If there's a border or something which looks like it ought to feature repeating patterns but turns out to just be abstract shapes without any sort of pattern to it, then be suspicious. Same thing goes for motifs which look like they're supposed to consist of a perfectly mirrored right and left part but have unexpected inconsistencies (say, a butterfly or a crown, for example).

Finally, as always: is there a source in the caption? Does it say something like, "[Title of the piece/description of the motif] by [artist], embroidery thread and [beads/metal wire/leather appliqué/whatever fun material]"? Is there a caption at all? If not, there's a tiny chance that the artist just posted it themselves without a caption, but it's much more likely that it's either reposted stolen art or AI art that wants to pass under the radar, or even stolen AI art (if, indeed, one can steal something that was created by a computer based on other stolen art to begin with).

Okay, rant over. Go forth and look a bit closer at images of embroidery in future! You'll either discover that it's an AI piece, or you'll get the pleasure of really taking in the cool details and techniques used by a skilled, real-life fiber artist!

#embroidery #AI embroidery #AI detection #applied statistics

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nogacheloveka-blog · 23 days

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The Bad Sanses somehow ended up in the Backrooms. №13

next 14

prev 12

Sometimes I use AI for background images. This time, the generation really pleased me, since it perfectly hit what I wanted :D

I get immense pleasure from the fact that my skill is gradually improving! I could never have imagined that I would be able to draw all these folds in clothing and shadows decently. I am especially proud of Dust and Horror 💫

Hah, under the first drawing with "The Bad Sanses somehow ended up in the Backrooms", I wrote that everything would be cute, but here we are: Dust is a lepidopterist, Nightmare can be killed by water, and Cross has fungal spores on his face. Half of the group has been changed by Backrooms in some way (evil laughter of the Creator).

I decided that my experiment with the story from different characters is unreasonable to continue: it is difficult, and the text becomes artificially too long and confusing. Plus, I find it hard to keep track of the English version of the text.

This is the translation of the another post from Russian to English. I understand English, but it is very difficult for me to write in English, so I asked chat GPT to help me. I have corrected some parts, but there still may be mistakes.

A human suddenly emerged from the nearest room. At first, he seemed not to notice the presence of strangers. They all stared at each other for a few seconds, until Killer waved his hand in greeting (the blade of the knife glinted brightly). The human hesitantly greeted them all in return.

The man's name was Enrico. He was afraid that the group of skeletons was his hallucination. He had been alone on this level for too long. Even with the support of psychologists, whom he was able to contact via the internet, loneliness was killing him. And tactile hunger: he couldn't let go of Cross's hand after the handshake, and the firm claws of Horror made him cry with happiness. Killer kept the conversation going, but didn't come close. Dust and Error kept their distance from Enrico. They were wary of people who wanted to touch them (Nightmare had enough of a cocktail of negative emotions).

Enrico told them everything he knew about the current level. He also offered his new acquaintances a smartphone as a gift. Among the production rooms on the level, there was one that produced electronics, so the gift was not valuable to Enrico. But now the guys didn't have to look for full-fledged computers (thank you, Enrico, you helped me a lot).

Error studied the code of the level. Even after seeing that strange map in the room where Enrico lived, he couldn't accurately say how the entrances and exits worked here. It seemed that the level was carried through the Backroom, seeping through the pores of other levels, capturing a resident if the old one died. Some kind of level-prison for one. But there was also a cosmos here. And that strange planet outside the window.

Dust watched the white dwarf in the viewport for a long time. It seemed unusual to him. Its appearance was more reminiscent of the surface of a plant lamp than the surface of a star. He thought that the solution to the problems could be there.

Nightmare instructed Cross and Horror to accompany Enrico and seize as many goods as possible for their use. The level produced valuable resources for trade, and simply leaving it would be extremely foolish. Especially since, for the faint hope of leaving this place, the man agreed to do anything (Nightmare enjoyed playing on his emotions).

Finally, they stepped out into open space. The magical skeletons coped well with the lack of air (well, they are made of magic, I can't do anything about that). They wrapped Error's threads around Enrico, who remained in a safe spot. The blue magic helped them move forward in turns. The closer they got to the star, the stronger the sense of wrongness grew.

Eventually, they spilled out onto another level (Error, who was loading, confirmed it). Enrico appeared nearby as well. The endless cosmos turned out to be quite limited, despite the infinite number of rooms inside the space station. The star was simply a round hole in space. The light that seeped through the crowns of the trees reflected off the mirror-like surface of the white marble pedestal. From a distance, it looked like a glowing white planet.

It seemed that they had found a way out of level 15. But not an entrance. The hole in space disappeared immediately after they exited it.

Enrico was so happy with the change of scenery that he fainted. The group left him there, taking the blue strings. They didn't need a new member. It was just a deal.

The new level resembled a forest and ruins. Mostly forest, with a smaller portion of ruins. There were so many plants that they grew on top of each other. Some trees had branches so large and old that a layer of fertile soil had formed on them.

As bad gays ventured further, they discovered animals: birds and snakes, a couple of spiders, traces of dogs or wolves. Killer even managed to catch a bright finch for entertainment. But the animal quickly bored him. Cross turned out to be much more interesting.

One of the provocations made Cross stumble. A colorful stream sprayed in his face. The way he squealed in surprise and the intense burning around his eyes amused Killer.

Cross needed help (otherwise he would become useless). Horror rinsed the affected area with Almond Water. The burning subsided, but the bright color remained. Killer found it amusing to compliment the Backroom on the stylish eye shadows. And since they now had smartphones, Cross could start a beauty blog. Or slowly turn into a zombie if it was a special type of cordyceps fungus. The situation seemed to amuse him.

Only Nightmare managed to silence Killer, binding the jester with tentacles and tossing him into the depths of the forest like a bag of trash (if Cross became useless, Nightmare would break Killer's tailbone).

But, it seemed that aside from the inappropriate bright color on the bones, the fungal spores posed no danger. At least that's what Dust said, who accidentally stained one of his butterflies in the liquid.

On this level, as far as they knew, there could be human outposts. This meant that the exits they had explored might be inaccessible to them if they couldn't resolve everything peacefully. Although after interacting with Enrico, their group didn't consider the people in this place too dangerous. The prisoner of level 15 was content that the skeleton group wasn't his hallucination. He paid no attention to anything else. It seemed they had overestimated the danger posed by humans. Perhaps it was worth trying to enter one of the residential areas?

But Error seemed to have spotted a suitable exit.

Nightmare belongs to Jokublog Killer belongs to RahafWabas Dust belongs to Ask-DustTale Horror belongs to Sour-Apple-Studios Error belongs to CrayonQueen Cross belongs to JakeiArtwork

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fenrislorsrai · 6 months

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Firefish - a twitter alternative

TLDR: Looks like twitter, functions better. Lets you interact across multiple platforms. Allows NSFW. Has built in anti AI scraping.

If you ever used Twitter, it's going to look similar in structure, so the learning curve is low. There's more features that that, but they're not so intrusive you HAVE to learn them right away but also aren't hard to find. It's a nice balance.

The big difference is post length- it allows up to 8000 characters, so like Mini-Tumblr.

one of the features I like that familiar's but better is if you hover cursor over name on desktop is it pops up the profile for the person and a follow button. So you can immediately hover over name and get context about the person posting when it's not someone you already follow. Is this health info being posted by a professional or by someone that thinks you should stick rocks in your vagina?

That feature also means its incredibly easy to follow people regardless of the instance. On Mastodon it was extremely annoying to follow people. If that the thing that put you off Mastodon, Firefish fixed that and made it better than Twitter.

Firefish runs off ActivityPub, so it lets you follow and interact with anyone using the plugins for that. So includes Mastodon, WordPress, PeerTube, Pixelfed, Lemmy, Misskey, and Tumblr is allegedly developing an integration to run it.

Okay, NSFW content! We're about to get slightly in the weeds here. whether NSFW content is allowed is generally by server. When you go to join Firefish, it'll ask you what server you want to use and it'll tell you about rules. If you want NSFW, pick one that allows!

That's it. If you picked one that did not, it generally won't allow you to follow things that do or boost stuff from a location that did.

NOW, A GREAT FEATURE! Spoilering stuff is super easy on Firefish. Just click the button! Say you see something you wanna boost but its *not* spoilered. You can boost AND spoil the image/text of the quoted item! MAGIC.

now, on to antennas.

The Antenna feature on there lets you track tags or users in a separate panel so you can see it in one spot. You can also add NEGATIVE tags to the antenna. So say you want to see news about your city. So you set the main tag as the City. But you don't want sports news. So you can put in negative tags of sports, specific sport names, and individual teams in the city. And then you get news about the location, but no sports

For fandom purposes, you can use it to filter out things you just don't vibe with. hate that one ship? BEGONE.

PROFILES: you can stick hashtags in your profile and it'll turn up in searches easily. also it will ask you "are you a cat?" If you say yes, it gives your profile pic cat ears.

Overall when I'm posting links to Firefish posts (or posts via something from ActivityPub hosted sites that I interacted with via Firefish), so far it renders the preview link well on most platforms. I'm not sure how it works for embedding a whole message into a static page (like you could do with Twitter for news articles).

AN IMPORTANT NERDY NOTE: okay, you wanna sign up for Firefish now. Select from the servers offered some have different rules restrictions and some have Non-english default languages. Pick the one you like. If you pick Firefish.social itself that one IS the largest but also it gets day one code updates... so sometimes it gets funky or won't load properly for a few hours. If that will drive you bonkers, pick *any* other server. The server size is almost irrelevant because Firefish plays so well with other services!

also, if you don't see one today, check again in a few days! admins rotate through open enrollments to keep the growth rate managable. also, if you're *that* kind of nerd, you can host your own server. Even with only YOU on it. and it still interacts normally with the rest of the ActivityPub servers!

#firefish #twitter #social media #mastodon #microblogging

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abybweisse · 1 year

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Hello! Not a kuro related ask but can i ask how can u tell if someone is a bot or not on tumblr? Also can they do any harm to your account?

⚠️ I originally expected to give a short answer, but there's actually a lot I can say about this, having become a regular target of bots. My blocked list has quite the collection! So it's kind of a long post.

How to spot bots and why they are bad

Some bots are easy to spot while others are not. And they are getting harder to spot, as whoever programs the bot generators is learning how to make them less noticeable. Or an AI that's been made is learning. 😳

Blog name patterns

You might have noticed how default blog urls here have four random words stuck together, and early bots used a similar pattern. But it has evolved. I recall seeing names that were two or three random words and a two digit number, typically from 20 to 50, presumably meant to be seen as a person's age. Like these:

Then a different pattern was used, like two or three words then a hyphen then a number. Then another, like a first name mixed in with random words, etc. Now, it's harder to see a pattern, so some bot names now look more (or less) random... more like real blogs. If you see a new follower with a random name, it doesn't mean much, but if you see more and more followers with names that seem to fit a pattern (and it's not simply the tumblr default username pattern), then chances are, they are bots created with the same or a similar program. Here's an example of getting new followers where the names seem too random to be real but you don't really notice until you get a bunch in a row, and the randomness is itself a pattern:

Profile pics that real tumblrs wouldn't choose

Often they used to have closeups of female faces. Now they still tend to have pictures of women, but not so zoomed in, and some even feature two women. Like here:

Notice that three of the above examples follow a naming pattern of what could be actual people names and a number. The fourth is like that, too, but with a hyphen tossed in.

And bots sometimes have default profile pics that may or may not be changed later, so watch out for default pfp's that later get replaced with pics of random women. Usually young and somewhat attractive. Most of the bots are geared towards attracting hetero men, hence the female pfp's of generally attractive women. The hope is we see one of these pics and think that's actually what the blogger looks like.

Truth is, Tumblrs rarely choose pfp's like that. This isn't the kind of social media platform where we typically show our faces (unless it's a personal fashion or cosplay blog, and then we are probably wearing makeup and costumes). We choose pics of plants and animals, fictional characters, historical figures, celebrities, artwork, etc. It's unusual for us to market ourselves based on personal appearance. So, when you see a blog with a pfp that looks like it's from Instagram or LinkedIn... or from a dating profile... it's probably fake. They are just random pics found online and essentially stolen from whoever originally uploaded them.

Default header images or more random women

Usually, bots have blank or default blog header images (see the examples above). I used to see a lot of bot blogs where the pic used for the header is the same as the pfp; those usually have descriptions where it's just a name and a suggestive emoji or a name and a plug for dirty pictures. Like:

More recently, they've started using images that show women who match or at least look like the women in their pfp's, but they aren't the same photos. Just like those pfp's, the header images are likely stolen from profiles elsewhere or random pics online. The ones that have header images that "work" with the pfp's also have a tendency to include links in their blog descriptions.

Sus blog descriptions or none at all

Most bot blogs lack blog descriptions entirely or just have a name or something about photos, like those examples above. But lately I've been seeing ones where there's a short description. In those cases, it's usually a link to who knows where, and it's best not to even find out. The text, whether there's a link or not, is usually an age (assume that's fake), something about the person's identity or preferences (often of a sexual nature), sometimes a reference to ranking on OnlyFans (it wants you to think any link there might take you to that sort of content), and a collection of oddly chosen emojis mixed into it.

Zero posts or sus posts and reblogs

A lot of legit blogs are created for the sole purpose of following content they want... and maybe asking questions, usually as anons. Those "don't follow me, I'm just lurking" type blogs rarely post or even reblog anything. Most bots also take this approach.

But some reblog sexually suggestive posts and some reblog more explicit content -- even links advertised as naughty games -- but the most realistic looking ones reblog a mix of sexual and innocuous, even innocent-looking content. As you scroll down through images of puppies, mysteriously inviting landscapes, and teacups next to open books... you eventually find images and even sometimes gifs of very mature content. Often with suggestive emojis and links that should be avoided at all costs. Some even just make one or two posts with links and leave the blogs untouched for years. Like this one:

This blog only has one post, and it's from 2019. Claims about some free training program that'll earn you large incomes. Notice the tags on it are kind of generic, and some don't fit, like #home #decor #gardening. But it's a link to... something.

They might try to chat, but what they say is sus

It's very rare, in my experience, but I will occasionally get a dm from a random blog that just doesn't sit right.

Sure, sometimes a new follower will contact me to let me know they found my blog and enjoy it. Even longtime, mostly silent readers/followers will occasionally decide to reach out and privately tell me they were a particular anon in an ask... or simply that they finally found the nerve to say hi. That's all fine and dandy.

But when a new follower (who doesn't seem to share interests with you or has interests that don't match your blog topic) or a random content blog that doesn't even follow you just dms with "hi" or "how are you?", I get very suspicious it's just a bot. Their blog might look default or not but lacks content. It might be full of content that simply has nothing to do with your content. And they send a random starter message, completely open to your response. You can test them by asking if they are a bot. If they ignore that and respond with something like "I'm lonely" or "what are you doing tonight?", they are definitely a bot. If they say "no I'm not a bot" (or something like that) then ask leading questions like the "what are you doing" one, they might not be a bot, but they are likely just phishing/scamming.

One of the best tests is to ask them what they think about your own blog posts. If they ignore that and act like they might be following a script? Bot. If they say something very generic, like "I like it a lot" but immediately change the subject back to personal questions or something phishy (might also be a bit scripted)? Scammer. Either way, best to report the chat as spam, which will also remove the conversation from your view.

It's often not one thing but a combination

If you get followed by a blog that looks completely default, the best thing to do is maybe dm them to ask if it's a real person/legit blog. If they don't respond within a decent timeframe, they might just be too shy, but chances are they are a bot. If they respond with something that feels too general or scripted, probably either a bot or a scammer -- some are sleepers that wait for you to contact them. But a blog just being default doesn't mean it's bad; it could be a shy lurker or it could be someone new to tumblr who hasn't chosen pics, themes, etc. yet.

However, if you see a follower pop up (either new or their blog has changed since they started following), and the blog has some combo of the traits mentioned above, chances are super high it's a bot.

What bots do

I'm not entirely certain about all the different things they can do, and some of the things are likely more harmful than others.

I've gleaned a few ideas from posts I've read about the bots, though, including a good one I saw that had been reblogged by Neil Gaiman. I reblogged it from him, though I might have moved it to @aby-off-topic.

My understanding is that the same creator (person or program) makes a whole bunch of them. And there are probably many different individual creators, each making large groupings of them. Some of the bot blogs have content, usually of a sexual nature but occasionally not, like cryptocurrency or some random-sounding business venture. Those will have links to other sites, though some might actually link to other, related blogs in the same grouping. The content blogs also tend to be full of various tags, typically reusing key tags copied from the posts they reblog. If they have "original" posts, those will probably have the same key tags. The grouped content blogs boost each other and make their suspicious content become more noticeable to users who follow certain tags. It mostly clutters those tags with useless content, annoying those tag followers. But the point of them is to lure in the occasional individual who doesn't know any better; once they click a link, they could fall victim to stuff like:

Automatic exposure to malware

Mature content that requires payment (and might steal personal and financial information at the same time)

Phishing attacks of various kinds

Cryptocurrency and/or NFT scams

Companies that sell fake products (like cheap knockoffs, items that just don't work as promised, and items that are never shipped and might not even exist in stock/inventory)

People who try to recruit for MLM (multi level marketing), pyramid schemes, and similar money pits. These days it could still include wasteful timeshare programs, but now there are AirBnB scams and all sorts of things. Something that requires a time and money commitment and promises profit or some other benefit, but it just drains your energy and funds. Someone profits, but it's not you.

The bots that have no content except links in their descriptions are just hoping someone clicks. Then the unwitting person might fall prey to the same things listed above.

Bots that just follow but have zero content? Well, that's possible but not always true. The ones that truly have zero content might want you to interact with them in messages. Other bots don't have any posts or reblogs, but they might allow you to see the posts they've ❤️'d and/or the blogs they follow. You have to check out their Likes and Follow tabs to get this information, so it makes the blogs seem kind of legit and innocent. You are snooping around their blog, after all, right? But some of the posts they "like" and some of the blogs they follow will send unsuspecting individuals down a rabbit hole that might quickly lead to content blogs with those same suspicious links and too-good-to-be-true schemes.

Harming your blog

Ultimately, their main goals are to part people from their money and steal information. But they can cause problems for your blog, too. Like:

Decreased exposure 1: By making your posts disappear in a sea of junk posts with the same tags, it might be harder for new readers to find your content that matches their interests.

Decreased exposure 2: Similarly, people who follow certain tags and typically read your content that way might stop following those tags. They might choose to follow you directly, but they might not. They might unfollow a tag and then realize they don't recall your blog name. Some will be interested enough to figure it out and others won't.

Damaging your reputation: It's not common now, and changes to the website/app might have actually helped to stop this, but some blogs used to reblog others' posts with one or more images, remove the original text, then add their own links and tags. This happened to several of my old posts, too, and the alterations made it look like I'd posted manga panels or whatever with a link to a porn site or something. I had to report the reblogs and also assure readers that my original posts didn't contain these potentially harmful links. To get this remedied, I think I had to use a special reporting method that allowed me to give the Tumblr reps specific information about what the blogs were doing to my post content. I also explained that those blogs were doing the same thing to posts from other bloggers. Were they truly bots? Idk, but possibly.

Simply put, they can decrease your exposure to readers, make the tagging feature less useful for everyone, and even cause a PR nightmare for your blog. All in the name of trying to scam the occasional person who falls into their traps.

When you decide a blog must be a bot, please report them as SPAM (more likely to get it removed) and block it.

#off topic #but important #tumblr bots #stop the bots #how to spot them #why they are bad #anon asks #i answer #answered asks #this has been a psa #feb 25 2023 #long reads #long post

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gofancyninjaworld · 1 year

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OPM Manga Update 229 Review:

No reason for this image, just me enjoying Saitama's meaty thighs. That's all.

Story: Like putting lipstick on a hyena

We open with Tatsumaki taking a phone call. She's dismissive of the idea of shooting a commercial to promote the Hero Association to prospective heroes -- until she remembers Saitama talking about how he'd once been weak and agrees. Let it be noted that Tatsumaki doesn't do anything half-assed: she throws herself into the role of ambassador with such enthusiasm that she ends up trashing the studio.

She is less than impressed with what comes out of the session: a cutesy, saccharine call girl simpering in a commercial, about as true a reflection of Tatsumaki as lipstick and a pink bowtie on a spotted hyena. Fubuki, unfortunately, comes home [1] just as Tatsumaki gets hung up on. Oh, dear, there goes the roof. Looks like they'll be staying in hotels for a bit -- ar at Hero Association HQ -- while the damage is fixed.

More goings on under the cut.

I'd love to blame Amai Mask for producing the AI-edited monstrosity. But the true blame lies with McCoy. He orchestrated the campaign. The public lap it up, it conforming to an image that's palatable to see [I have A LOT to say about this but that's another post.]

Nastier-minded people would have asked, 'which organization', but so it goes when one has the benefit of the doubt

After the HA executives praise McCoy for his adroit management of the HA's image, they (especially a guy I'm calling Walrus 'stache) turn to the recruitment figures to find...

...ah, let me wind back a second. It's true that the Hero Association is always recruiting, but it's taken on additional urgency with Metal Knight having apparently thrown billions of Yen away on infrastructure and weaponry that don't work [2] and Tatsumaki being unmanageable. We return to the story...

...that...

...the ad campaign had made no difference. The Hero Association approval ratings were up, but recruitment was still on its downward slide.

What gave?

The answer comes from two other conversations happening contemporaneously. One is between a Hero Association scout and Axel, the leader of a vigilante group known as The Hunters, the other between another scout and a super-sumo champion named Raiden. In each case, the scout is sent off with a flea in their ear as the prospect in question has another engagement.

Yes, there's another hero organization in the wings, and it's hoovering up as much talent as it can find. It's even reaching out to current heroes.

We cut to a very dapper-looking Genos being asked by a very tired-looking Dr Kuseno what his intentions are, given this information and the former's feelings about the Hero Association. Genos starts to answer, but we'll have to wait for the answer as the scene switches to Saitama doing a spit-take as he sees the commercial.

Meta: Finally, some good fucking food

Everything can be faked (except truth)

Many people have already noted the jab at AI fakery inherent in 'Tatsumaki's ad,' so I won't belabour the point. I shall leave it to another post.

Alas, heroes don't grow on trees

The Hero Association's newfound desperation to find new heroes has been a long time coming. People who make good heroes are rare critters. There is not only the need for exceptional ability (even C-Class heroes are incredible), but there's also a need for willingness to serve as a hero, moral principles, and stability under very trying circumstances. Fooled by the previously buoyant numbers of applicants, leading to 55 Hero Tests being conducted as of the time Saitama and Genos applied, they've applied an 'easy-come, easy-goes' attitude to their recruits. When they should instead have recognised them as rare talent to be nurtured, even the lower-class heroes. Looks like there have been seven more Hero Tests since those two joined, and the news has not been good.

At no point does the HA appear to have had more than 600 heroes on the books: retention seems to have been a big problem. It fits in well with the executive Gobrich's frustration with the situation that support for heroes is too top-down and hasn't listened to their actual needs and concerns. Bushohige (the Bearded Worker) has made similar points -- but no one's listening to him, either!

Sekingar at least appears to have seen the light in this regard and at least appreciates that heroes, whatever their abilities, need to be used *well* rather than be treated as a disappointment for not being S-Class heroes. But he's just one person and has only recently been promoted.

And now... with the advent of actual competition, the spigot of fresh new bodies to take in and use up has largely dried up. What a to do!

Speaking of drying up

Genos is draining the very life out of Kuseno at the moment -- it reminds me of Uu and Reigen. Yes, the doctor made him a cyborg, and so on one level, he can't really complain if he's the it man when it comes to giving him upgrades. But Kuseno is all alone. The stress of worrying about Genos when the latter casually dumps horrors on him and the burden of designing upgrades (how do you God-proof a person, anyway?) is really getting to him. And he has no one to talk to, let well alone share the burden with. [3]

Try not to die of overwork, doctor! At least not before you can find Genos a new situation.

Asides

[1] Looks like Fubuki lives with Tatsumaki in the manga. Either that or she lives close by and has a key. Love to see it.

[2] Truly an eavesdropper hears no good of themselves. The manga change from Metal Knight being scolded in person to overhearing it is brilliant.

[3] In a kinder world, Kuseno would be able to call Bang to at least have a sympathetic ear (heh, and Bang had a personality transplant). Kind and ONE don't mix, at least when it comes to his fictional characters, so too bad.

#OPM #manga #review #Tatsumaki #Hero Association #Axel #McCoy #Raiden #Metal Knight #Genos #Dr Kuseno #this is all beginning to simmer nicely #competition is not always a good thing but it's understandable that there's a gap in the market #let the battle for the soul of public heroism commence

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lexart-io · 2 months

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Hello! I am a traditional and digital artist, and I see you post a lot of images and works that have been generated through ai, and consider yourself a part of the art community here on the internet.

--Prefacing with the fact that I dont want to debate and am not here with the purpose of gatekeeping the art community. This is purely for my own curiosity, and understanding all sides of the Ai argument.--

I mean nothing judgemental or malicious by asking, although I do acknowledge it may sound that way by the nature of my asking. As someone who plans to pursue my own artworks made traditionally and digitally on software (like procreate) for a living, the questions I have to ask are:

- What do you gain or learn from creating images with Ai? what do you take away from it?

- What meaning do you find in creating those images? What do you want to say with it?

- In what way do you find yourself an artist? What are the unique skills that you have because of this method of image creation?

Thanks for your time and consideration in this, and Thank you for sticking around to read all of that. (I acknowledge that its a bit of a wall of text)

hello! no worries, i don't think your questions come off as judgmental or malicious at all, and i'm always more than happy to offer my thoughts / perspective on this topic to anyone who inquires. i think there's A LOT to be said on it, so hopefully my own incoming massive wall of text isn't too much haha.

i'm going to answer your questions in a slightly different order than you asked because i think it will help the overall flow of my explanations:

In what way do you find yourself an artist? i have a lifelong background in art. in high school and college, acrylic paint on canvas was my primary medium. also, i first downloaded Photoshop when i was 13 years old and started teaching myself to use it so i could create forum "signatures" for people on a gaming forum that i frequented at the time haha. in high school, i nearly maxed out the number of art classes i took and won a Scholastic Gold Key art award (the highest regional award) for a digital piece i made in one of my art classes. the other form of "art" that i've always been passionate about is computer programming. i started when i was 12 years old (with Visual Basic 3, which i taught myself) and continue to take on programming projects as a hobby to this day. currently i have over 10 years of (ongoing) professional graphic design experience, both freelance and in marketing director roles.

What do you gain or learn from creating images with Ai? what do you take away from it? my interest with AI began not from an artistic motivation, but rather from a nerdy computer programming motivation. working with AI is wildly fascinating and fun. it's an odd mix of creative outlets (visual, verbal, programming), which exercises a creative spot within my brain that i never even knew existed. click here to check out my previous post where i describe my workflow with ai. i'm not just typing prompts into a box and hitting generate. to me, that isn't creative enough and i don't really find the results to be all that interesting (though there are a few prompt-artists whom i find their work to be extraordinary, for the most part that whole direction is kinda boring in my opinion). i train ai models myself, often on really obscure or abstracted ideas / concepts / aesthetics. then i use those models to combine these unrelated concepts, rendering a batch of images which i use as a dataset to train a new model, which i then use to repeat this process ad infinitum (so my work is a constant evolution built upon everything preceding it). the work that i post here are my daily experiments, as i test out models and combine ideas. so what i gain from this is a deeper understanding of how machine learning tech works, a means of keeping up with generative ai technology as it continues to quickly advance, how to visually train ai models on concepts that are increasingly detached from visual reality, and (most importantly) a creative workflow that really, truly vibes with my soul's deepest passions. it's hard to really describe that last one... but you know that feeling you get as you're actively exercising your creative impulses on a medium that really connects with you on a deeper level? training ai, as nerdy as this sounds, is that for me. the "art" is not necessarily in the images themselves, but in the act of training ai models (because the process of training ai is not a standardized thing whatsoever, there are hundreds of settings and variables at play and every single person has their own methods which generally evolve with experience) and how you interact with these models on a verbal level (through text prompting) to render your imagination.

What meaning do you find in creating those images? What do you want to say with it? honestly, i think a lot of the "ai art" scene is made up of "delusional artists" who think whatever they generate from a basic text prompt is somehow deep and meaningful art haha. but that said, i do stand firm in my belief that even THAT is by definition still "art". there is human creative impulse behind it. ai is the tool and the human is the user of said tool. this particular tool can make creating things very easy, but at the end of the day it does still require some level of creative human input to do anything. as with any artistic tool or medium, i think that what you get out of it depends entirely upon what you put into it. more effort and time = more quality and meaning. text prompting for ai generated images is sort of the most "superficial" layer of the "ai art" scene. the phenomenon of delusional artists exists across ALL forms of art, so it's not just unique to ai. it seems like there is a large percentage of the population who, upon starting to learn a new creative outlet, have an overly grandiose view of their own work after they first start making things. they're so proud of what they created that it blinds them from seeing it for what it really is. they'll gloat about it online, they'll try to sell it for outrageous prices, etc and look super cringy in the process. some people eventually grow out of that and suddenly gain the self-awareness that "oh shit actually that art kinda sucked and i looked super inexperienced", but other times they never realize that and stay cringy. because ai art is so new and so many folks are just now jumping on, i think we're seeing a much higher percentage of this delusional artist phenomenon within this field at the moment, where everyone is so proud of what they're making and not realizing how lame it actually looks to people who know what they're doing. and, again for the record, i do still consider that stuff to be art (and so i mean no offense to anyone when i say these things). it's just really basic art, and i think most people will either grow past this phase (and learn to take these tools a lot deeper) or lose interest in it altogether - just as they do with other artistic endeavors like painting, ceramics, using Photoshop, making music in Ableton, etc, etc. i would classify 99% of my work as under the "concept art" category. it exists as a result of my daily experiments as i learn / discover my way deeper and deeper into machine learning technology. it generally explores scifi themes (robotics in particular) because i find that to be most creatively titillating, but it is not necessarily meant to convey any deeper meaning beyond purely imaginative visual pursuits that look toward the future. which is also why i don't sell my work or push the idea of it being profound in anyway. it's just daily exercise, but i absolutely love that so many other people enjoy looking at it (i'm somehow up to nearly 9000 followers here, which is kinda mind-blowing to me). i've been putting nearly every single spare hour of every single day for the last several years into this so it really means a lot to not only see my skillset improving over time, but to also gain such an audience for it in the process too. 🙏😭

What are the unique skills that you have because of this method of image creation? for me, the WHOLE point of all of this is knowledge and experience working with generative ai tools. this technology exists now and it won't be going away. the genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. i think absolutely any artist (but digital artists in particular) would only be doing themselves a tremendous disservice by not learning to use this tool immediately. being a stick in the mud about it is not going to stop this technology, nor will it save you in 10 years from getting let go at your job and replaced by some younger artist who learned this technology while getting a degree in graphic design and can pump out quality assets 100x faster than you ever could. don't wait until then to start learning this stuff because you will already be sooo far behind at that point. get involved right now, right this second; you will be on the ground floor of an incredible technology and able to keep up with the advancements as they happen, putting you in a much stronger position in the future. don't take it too seriously, just do it for fun and then thank yourself in 10 years when you're 100x more experienced than the younger artist who recently graduated with a graphic design degree. i recently met a graphic designer who somehow never learned to use Photoshop. they do everything the "old school" way - literally cutting, pasting, and drawing things by hand. that was fine 30+ years ago, but now they cannot get hired anywhere. they put off learning Photoshop for so long because they assumed that their excellent skills and truly beautiful eye for design would be enough to carry their career forward forever, without needing to keep up with the technical advancements. but in the modern world, no business wants a designer like that anymore; having strong Photoshop experience is a bare minimum. old school designers who did not keep up were ultimately pushed out entirely. in 10, 20, or even 30 years from now, you don't want to be that old person taking night classes at the local university to try to save your career. get ahead of it, jump on board and invest in your future! i truly believe that you will start to discover creative new ways to integrate it into your current workflow and you will become a stronger (and more marketable) artist in the process. :)

sorry for the huge post and hopefully everything makes sense lmao. feel free to reach out with more questions any time. particularly if you want help getting started in the realm of ai-assisted art and design. i'm always more than happy to help!

#stable diffusion #photoshop #digital art #ai #artificial intelligence #generative art #ai art #synthography #ask

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ashysmultifandomcatdump · 5 months

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Why Fist Thingy is (or is in cahoots with) Walkie Talkie theory (and also my Actual Thoughts about Walkie Talkie)

here to tell you guys mytheory on why FIST THINGY IS THE SECRET INANIMATE INSANITY INVITATIONAL VILLAIN!!!!!! read it. (contains spoilers for iii17!!!)

(just wanna preface this with the fact this is mostly a joke!!! i thought of this while rewatching the whole show back in october and decided the new episode would be a time to post about it. did it for the funnies and the slightest chance there may be some merit to it)

Ok first item on the agenda this is gonna get wild so strap in tight or else it may blow your seatbelts off: iii has introduced the concept of fist thingy being sentient, doing things a non-sentient object would not do

this is something that the show has NEVER hinted at before, making it seem almost as if they’ve added this in specifically for a reason..an EVIL reason?!?! suspicious!!!

second! we have fist thingy Sending Contestants To Indefinite Island. we know it has to be intentional on fist thingy’s part, since it’s done consistently, HOWEVER. it is completely without mephone’s knowledge—until iii10, he had no idea about indefinite island at all and he did not give fist thingy the direction to send eliminated contestant characters there. which means that someone ELSE has to have done it—whoever is behind walkie talkie .. or fist thingy itself, perhaps ?! mysterious!!!

next up here at spot number three we have the springy connection. now that it has been confirmed that springy and walkie talkie Are Indeed working together, there is something Verrrrrry interesting i was thinking…what sort of object is fist thingy? a boxing glove. now, what do springy’s mitten-covered hands look like when curled into a fist (!!!), and particularly in this image at the end of the ep? THAT’S RIGHT, BOXING GLOVES!!! curious!!!

but ashy! i hear you cry out. this is all so farfetched! what reason would fist thingy have to be walkie talkie in the first place? well imagine this little ones. fist thingy is just like mephone. overly attached to the show. been here since the early days and wants it to go on forever. however it was mostly left behind in s2, save for a few scarce appearances—so it’s desperate for any chances to stay in use in s3 it finally finds a voice through the use of a walkie talkie (don’t. Don’t question how.) and tries to keep it going as much as it can because once it’s over—what use is it going to be anymore? also hey if you wanna add in the “something bad happens to every cohost” thing then fist thingy has a reason to hate the floor specifically—it’s shown frustration over not being able to send him away

or, Alternatively, it’s the other way around. what i mean is fist thingy still isn’t sentient but was hijacked and is being controlled by walkie talkie—still is walkie talkie, but not technically actually walkie talkie or just in cahoots with walkie talkie! either way it has to be one of them, because fist thingy wouldn’t just be sending contestants to indefinite island for no reason BUT YEAH!!! end of my awesome theory unless i remember some other point hope you enjoyed …

honestly it could end up being something Similar to this but with one major detail different. that’s what happened last time when i predicted bot in april 2021 but thought they were meeple made

if you want my Actual Thoughts behind walkie talkie. who it is, i don’t know exactly. but she’s definitely a kinda metaphor or stand-in for like, The Corporation, the way capitalism affects art, you know—the whole ai art metaphor as well as the whole deal with springy

she’s someone who wants to Profit from the show, i think. which is why she’s so desperate to keep it going like mephone is—not that she holds any sentimental value towards it, but because it’s popular, she wants to make it her cash cow and milk it dry and mephone is a person who would let it happen

she Could be from meeple, i suppose, but i don’t really think so? we’ll see. although she doesn’t appear to have any relations with it cobs Did enjoy profiting off of the show without mephone’s knowledge, aside from that though there doesn’t appear to be much reason to see them as the same this is just a Different corporation. a different capitalism, i guess! while cobs would orchestrate fights and such to make the show more exciting and adam begged for bow to stay because viewers liked her, walkie talkie doesn’t seem to really care about entertainment value. she doesn’t care about the art. she prefers quantity over quality and to get that quantity, to get The Money, she has to keep the show running for as long as she can, way past what’s natural. 2 different kinds of corporate meddling

the show has sponsorships. MAYBE THE LIFERING SPONSORS MEANT SOMETHING AFTER ALL!!! springy wants to sell a contestant as a mascot to endlessly profit off of them

etc etc this has gotten very long …im excited to see the finale!!! what is walkie talkie’s DEAL!!

#inanimate insanity #inanimate insanity invitational #ii #iii #theory #ii fist thingy #ii walkie talkie

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sunsetsands · 13 days

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Xylovitria

This post is an overview of one of the "animal" phyla present on Almud. This is the first of many, since I do plan on making a similar post for each of the others. All art shown here was created using MS Paint, though I may switch to a different program if I find one that works better (probably Procreate, since I have recently bought it, but it's a bit hard to use with just a finger on a phone screen) (Also MS Paint has an AI generator thing now and that's very stinky and bad).

The first thing to cover is how the phylum came to be. Xylovitrians originated as an offshoot of vivitrians, specifically a freefloating colonial species analogous to a hard, glassy man o' war. Its body was hollow, with pores lining its outside to allow water in to be filter-fed through by its tendrils. A color-coded overview of its anatomy is shown below.

Purple: The glassy shells of each zooid. Forms a pocket for water to flow through. Blue: Same as above, but in a different spot. I don't know why I colored this part differently, besides it being on the bottom. Too late to fix it sadly. MS Paint flattens layers after saving the image. Red: The soft feather-like tendrils of each zooid. Responsible for filtering nutrients out of the water that flows into its body. Orange: Also tendrils, but specialized for a different purpose. This thicker bundle not only filters through the water for nutrients, but produces gametes for sexual reproduction. Typically, though, the organism will just reproduce asexually by producing more zooids and splitting apart.

At some point very early into the history of Almudian life, a kelp-like plant species developed a habit of growing on top of these proto-xylovitrians, with their roots sometimes growing through the cracks and into the inner cavity. Here, the roots of the plant and the tendrils of the zooids would sometimes wrap around each other, forming a structure similar to Earth mycorrhizae. In a formation such as this, the animal would absorb some of the sugars from the plant's roots. In return, the plant would absorb some of the nutrients from whatever microorganisms got caught in the zooids' tendrils. This arrangement proved so mutually beneficial that this proto-xylovitrian species adapted an opening at the top specifically for the plant to grow through, and the kelp analogue adapted to only be able to grow on or inside xylovitrians.

The lineage did not stop developing here, however. One offshoot descendant of this proto-xylovitrian eventually adapted to live at the surface of the water, giving the resident plants much better access to the sunlight and gases necessary for photosynthesis. The plants, meanwhile, adapted to have sturdier stems and more water loss-resistant skin, as well as a new way of entering their host. The plants’ spores now enter though the side pores leading into the water cavity, where they will bloom without ever having lived outside. Below is a diagram of this new offshoot’s anatomy and what sets it apart from its ancestor.

Purple: Same as before, but with a thick, waxy coating on the outside to prevent water loss in the above-water level bits. Blue: Same as before. Nothing to comment on. Only colored this part in differently for the sake of consistency. Red: The inner zooids' tendrils have lost the ability to filterfeed. Instead, they get all of their nutrition from the plants' roots, which they are permanently wrapped around. The central cavity, despite being above water level, is also still filled with water, preventing the plants from dehydrating. The water is brought in through the side openings, which now also contain a pumping mechanism to prevent backflow. The entire structure is more or less a living vase now. Orange: Same as before, but with some added features. Not only are the tendrils longer, but some of them have developed the ability to produce toxins. A few toxin-resistant, fish-like creatures use these areas as a refuge from predators, where they will also pick up some gametes which they will spread to the next set of tendrils they hide in, inadvertently acting as vectors for the xylovitrians' reproduction. Yellow: A gas bladder, which lets the whole structure stay buoyant enough to not sink below the surface. Adapted from a mutated second central cavity.

Given that these are freefloating organisms, it was inevitable that some would eventually wash up on land, where certain adaptations, such as the waxy coating and the inner water cavity, would allow the xylovitrians and their plant partners to continue surviving and thriving. Without much risk of drying out, this small beached population continued reproducing on the muddy shore, gradually accumulating adaptations over the generations that made them even better at living on land. It is at this point that the first true xylovitrians emerged.

Below is yet another diagram, this time of a fully-terrestrial inland xylovitrian. The phylum's diversity exploded after the transition to land, so this isn't totally representative of all species, host or plant, but it's still a generally useful guide.

Purple: Same as before, but now there are sometimes additional openings at the top for the leaves of the plants to grow out of. Blue: The siphons that connected the central cavity to the outside body of water have become their own separate organs, accompanied by root tendrils outside of the tube to make absorbing water easier. Cyan: Rather than water, the central cavity is filled with what can be best described as a sort of nutritious goop. The plant gets all of its nutrition from here. Green: This gland is responsible for producing the aforementioned nutritious goop. Like the water extractor organs, these are specialized chunks of the central cavity. Orange: The larger bottom tendrils now not only absorb nutrients and produce gametes, but root the colony into the soil. These nutrients are used to nourish both the xylovitrian and the plants. Other than that, they have remained mostly the same, just more spread out. Yellow: No longer necessary for flotation, the gas bladder now functions mostly as a lung.

Unfortunately, the new arrangement of parts, with the genital tendrils and water tubes both being underground, makes the old reproduction and ensporification method impossible. Fortunately, a new method was devised to replace it, allowing the phylum to live on.

Step 1: The plants and xylovitrians are fertilized individually of each other, with the plants exchanging gametes through the air on swirly reproductive branches and the xylovitrians doing so under the ground with extensions of their roots. Step 2: An empty juvenile xylovitrian emerges from the ground, while the plants' reproductive branches develop large spores using the exchanged genetic info. Step 3: One or a few of the plants' spores fall, float, or otherwise enter into the empty xylovitrian, aided by feathery extensions that catch them if they fall close to the brim. Upon reaching the goop pool within, they will germinate, signalling the xylovitrian to continue its development. Step 4: The new organism pair has been fully established, ready to one day do the same as their respective parents.

Notably, this specific method allows for different species of guest and host to mix and match, since different pair types are often similar enough to be compatible. This is not possible with every species, but it's a common enough phenomenon to where it's worth mentioning.

This is not the only dispersal method that exists, though. One group has adapted to be able to merge the xylovitrian embryos and plant embryos into a single seed, suspended in a sugary slime with a consistency and flavor similar to that of fruit gummies. Admittedly, I haven't fully thought through the mechanics of how this works, so I'll have to revisit it later. Until then, here's a very basic diagram.

Purple: Xylovitrian embryos Blue: Plant embryos

I may edit this post later to add on or revise details if I feel like anything could be improved. I will also almost definitely make individual posts for specific species or families of xylovitrians that I feel like showing off. This is the end for now, though.

#Almud #art #spec bio #speculative biology #spec evo #speculative evolution #alien #aliens #xenobiology #long post #VERY long post #my art

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vixthefantheorist · 1 year

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Chase theory : He's a Psychic

Sort of. Maybe. I dunno it's a theory.

Anyway, last night in the wee hours of 2am CST I typed out a smallish theory while half asleep. Now the theory is still in the works of being worked out as we just had Project IRIS happen yesterday of Halloween~! So it won't be as refined, or at least still just left loosely there to leave room for new information that may come our way in the future.

Anyway, I gave a rough draft of the thought of why Chase is a psychic of some kind. One of those reasons was his talk of energies. Which I found a bit odd, given his character, you wouldn't think of him saying, "Not like that but there's a certain energy in this room that I felt before." But rather say something along the lines of, "I dunno, just feels like I was here before." We have painted Chase as the sad dad, the man that tried his best to be a good father, a good husband and overall good man, doing videos for youtube for a living, being the goofball dad for his kid. Granted his attitude and outlook in life evolved very differently to be a bit more down to earth and less childish. Whether that as a change to his character from the get go or reflecting his view of life after the loss of Stacy and their child. So he would grow more cynical and cautious around people with his seeing of Anti haunting him everywhere.

Anyway, it still makes it odd to have Chase say something like that. But it could be something of a slip of the tongue, likely used to talking about it to Stacy during their early days of marriage or dating... who knows. So you wouldn't think he was "special" and given his answer to Echo, he didn't realize either... at least not aware of it as much as he should have. It's likely he wasn't aware how much of a psychic he is. Probably thought he only had the ability to have premonitions, just weird deja vu dreams and and a feel for energy... just low spectrum of stuff. But didn't know how powerful he could be in actuality or has a certain, rare ability that Anti wants. Like Channeling certain energies... or connect to others on a wider scale that is useful to Anti and AI (maybe, dunno about the eyeball blob). Or perhaps has an ability to touch time in a certain way... (not likely but its on the table). Speaking of premonitions, Chase had one. Back in Dark Silence, Chase was wandering around lost in a dark space but stumbles upon a red lit hallway with Anti (whom he doesn't know who the heck he is) standing at the very end of the hall. And we all know how that went, but Robin had confirmed that scene in Dark Silence was a dream. Thus, Chase had a premonition and eventually experienced something like this himself when Stacy and their child were killed. ((By Anti by his own hands, warping Chase's family's perception into making them think they were killed by him and warped Chase's perception into trying to make Chase believe he killed his own family. Or Anti forced Chase into killing his family by warping Chase's perception and senses into thinking he was harming Anti or some other enemy when it was in fact his own family. We don't know for certain which one. All we do know is Anti torments Chase by repeatedly showing him the images of their deaths and how it's his fault. His two treasures ripped away from him and all happiness visibly drains from Chase.)) And he sees this very same hallway when he was taken from his current room to be moved elsewhere for safety (jokes on IRIS... no where in the facility is safe) and drag him out of the room to go. But to get where they need to go... they have to pass this hallway... bathed in red light. Chase recalls his dream and begins to panic about it, insisting to (I don't know Arin's character's name so I'm going to call him Arin for now) Arin that they have to leave this area, to NOT go into that hallway. He screams that he HAS been here. That He's been in this exact spot. But how? He knew he never set foot in this facility. Arin confirmed that Chase has never been here before at all, no records whatsoever of him being here prior to the recent days of interviewing. So... how did Chase know that going down that one hallway will lead to disaster? How did he know he was here before? His dream. He had a premonition of this area, bathed in eerie red light and someone at the end of the hall, dressed in dark clothing and glowing eyes... and that man is stalking towards him. He doesn't know if he dies in it or what but he knows things will not end happily if he's forced there. Sadly, he was forced across... and sadly like he knew... things did not go well. Those around him were killed, being the only one left to face the terrifying nightmare that has haunted him for months... possibly years... stalking toward him... just like in his dream.

OH! I almost forgot about two more things! Echo and Arin. Echo briefly appears to speak with Chase, warning him of Anti and him needing to escape before he's found. But it also vaguely told him that the reason Anti was hunting him down was because he was special. How special? Hell if we know, but still special enough for Anti to catch interest and stalk him everywhere. Thus he has a use to Anti... if not then our walking nightmare with a knife would have offed him long ago. And then we have Arin who oddly points out "Mr. Brody there are powers in this world that seek to harm individuals, such as yourself, that we are trying to protect you from." See that there? Individuals. Why not just say, "There's powers in this world that seek to harm the public"? Or the world? Why specifically say individuals? This further leads me to believe that Chase has a power that Anti wants for himself or seeks to destroy but do it slowly and methodically to cause as much suffering all for the sake of his own entertainment. Perhaps Anti is seeking individuals out to become his puppets but Chase, despite being battered repeatedly by mental and emotional assault of the deaths of his family, remains as himself, if just as cynical and guarded to protect himself. So this intrigues Anti and keeps hunting him down. Like a cat playing with a mouse, curious of what it will do next. Hell, Anti could be hunting him down to be Argentum Inanis' vessel or something. I don't know for sure but that's about as much reasoning as I have currently that makes me believe Chase is something of a psychic or someone of a great dormant power within him. For all we know Chase could be of a bloodline that can open and close gateways to other realms so those like Argentum Inanis can crawl on through. Don't know but that would make it more fantasy than Sci-fi horror but then we have Marvin and the AIMC running around so hey, magic exists! But I do understand this is not a lot to go on but like I said, it's not completely refined. Perhaps the whispers in the clips video would give more answers. What do you guys think? In fact, what do you guys think Chase's "specialty" is that Anti wants?

#jse iris #jseprojectiris #jse egos #jse community #chase brody #antisepticeye #I think it would be interesting to see Chase be this ordinary guy but has like psychic abilities he wasn't aware of #Or other powers that are useful to Anti or Argentum Inanis

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deepdreamnights · 1 year

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This Toy Does Not Exist: ManBeasts of Xor

Short lived but memorable. The regrettably sculpted and named “SteelHog” sank the whole premise, sadly.

An experiment with image prompting in Midjourney. Boring technical stuff about how AI tokens work below.

Prompt: a battle beast action figure from Hasbro (1987)

For these, most prompts were a variant of the above line, with 1-4 Battle Beast toy photos used as image prompts. An example:

These were an experiment with image-prompting, mainly, seeing if I could get a highly accurate result for an obscure concept if backed up with image prompt support. The answer, not unexpectedly, is “no.” The ManBeests are clearly of a similar genre, but they aren’t remotely close to the trademark aesthetics of the line. Why so?

Say it with me “AI often doesn’t work how we assume it does.”

In the simplest terms, Midjourney, SD, Dall-E2, etc, all use a process by which two AI bounce JPEG compression noise back and forth until it looks like something. One AI is based on object recognition, the other primarily in image generation. The latter modifies the JPG noise with its series of learned patterns (more on that later) and the former tells it to do it over if it’s estimation of the “match” of image to prompt is worse than it was previously. Once they reach consensus, you’ve got a picture.

The process is more complicated than that in practice. There’s other AI processes looking for things the programmers don’t want, like porn and gore in the case of Midjourney, and correct against it. There’s general processes that influence composition. AIs with an ‘overpaint’ feature let you substitute an existing image for the random JPG noise as a starting point, etc.

The information the AI used to refine this JPG noise is gathered from the dataset, largely the LIAON sets scraped from the web. This information is not stored as pixel data. Instead, the AI breaks down the images into patterns based on similarities with other images sharing common tags. These “tokens” are what the AI builds its images out of.

When you type a prompt into the AI, that sentence is broken down into the associated tokens, and then the AIs get to work building the new image from that “vocabulary” of concepts. Essentially, the AI looks at a bit of JPG noise, goes “if this part looks like this, what’s the part around to it likely to look like, based on the weighted models of similar items I’ve seen in the past?” and then fills that in, repeating as its checked and re-checked by the image-assessment half of its function.

The use of abstract patterns rather than raw pixel data is why when you see the AI recreate a jibberish signature or watermark, it’s in generally the correct spot. Were the AI designed to collage bits of existing images together, as is often the assumption, you’d get chunks of signatures in random places and watermarks would be broken into randomly distributed chunks.

Instead, the pseudo-signatures tend to be in the right place. Because the AI learns from what it observes, and it’s learned that in a lot of pictures, there’s a bit of writing in the lower right-hand corner, and that its presence and prominence varies based on other tokens in play. It’s learned this the same way it learned where nostrils go.

So why is it that even with direct name and image prompting, the results we’re getting here are so... new?

Midjourney’s image prompting isn’t the overpainting process I mentioned above. Instead, the image is examined to see what tokens it recognizes, and it prompts for those as if it were part of the text prompt. (This does not add to the dataset, that would be a different process)

The thing is, no human laid down the token language. The AIs build them as they need them, and they form new tokens based on associations humans would not recognize, much less intend.

In a case where someone was able to back-engineer part of the token language of one of these image-AIs, they found that it had invented a new “word” that was associated with flying animals. A general catch-all term that grabbed all flying animals regardless of species, (funnily enough, very similar to the way “bird” is applied in the Bible.). This new term would be introduced into prompts as they were converted from English into the token language, based on what the text-parser deemed appropriate.

So it might know Battle Beasts, but doesn’t have a lot there. But it also has everything BB is associated with, even if its not explicitly called out in the prompt or images. I expect that either through the dataset, or just through aesthetic observation, it’s connected the concept of “Transformer” and the concept of “Battle Beasts” given the flourishes, but everything from the general concept of an action figure to the general idea of an animal is getting involved there.

In essence, no prompt is ever “pure”, and every generation involves far more influences than you’d imagine. Even taking every effort to narrow down the variables, the results were still unexpected.

#this toy does not exist #battle beasts #midjourney #transformers #unreality #toy design #ai nerdery #ai artowrk

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