bishopsprodigal:

twitter user prettyboygodiva: richard siken does the grief get easier? should I want it to? twitter user richard siken: it gets easier, whether you want it to or not. it's not a betrayal to get over the pain.ALT

thinking about this

(via theroseandthebeast)

randomingoftherandomness:

greymantledlady:

themythicalcodfish:

derinthescarletpescatarian:

derinthescarletpescatarian:

sepulchritude:

kalopsia-ever-present:

bluebabysparrow:

kalopsia-ever-present:

tribulation-of-somnolence:

kalopsia-ever-present:

brainrotdotorg:

brainrotdotorg:

brainrotdotorg:

Do you think in the omegaverse there’s a new, awful layer to “the talk” that teens get

I don’t know much about the omegaverse. Do you learn when you’re an alpha omega or beta during puberty. Are there kids who get horrible sex Ed and have a shitload of misconceptions about how all this stuff works . Are there omegas who never got the proper education and think they’re alphas for some reason for an embarrassingly long time until someone picks up their scent and is like “hey I can smell you” and they’re like fucking excuse me I thought I was just a guy who had the knot version of ED and you’re telling me I should have been bottoming this whole time??

I have so many questions about the logistics of what people do (outside the obvious) when they go into heat or rut. Do they just stay home from work? Do you have to call your boss all hot and heavy like “I cannot do my job as an accountant today. Too horny. Not possible.” And your boss has to sit there like yeah sure alright see you when you’re done. Do you think people have faked heats and ruts in order to get out of work. Do you think there’s some slacker out there who “goes into heat” three times in a month just so he can stay home and play legend of Zelda. He’s a beta. He doesn’t go into heat.

What do two alphas do if they fall in love. Like romantically, they really like each other, they want to spend their lives together, they can’t imagine being with anyone else. What do they do. Do they take turns. Can the alpha that’s on the bottom have their knot pop when it’s not inside anything and they just have a swollen dick for a little while ?

Do some peoples heat cycles sync up like periods. PLEASE tell me that there are groups of friends that all get ravenously horny at the same time and will call each other up like “GIRL… GUESS WHOS NESTING…” and they’ll all be like “OMG BITCH ME TOO!!”

Do you think some alphas make it a job out of fucking omegas that don’t have a partner. Like food delivery but for dick. Just put your address in the app and a stud will show up at your door like. Hey mamas let’s breed. Do you think that’s a viable career option in this world. Do you think you could tell your parents that’s the job that you have over dinner. Or is that not the kind of thing you would discuss in polite company. Or would it be disrespected and not looked super proudly upon because it’s like doordash .

Do you think a common fantasy a la chastity play and denial amongst omegas is being forced to take heat suppressants . Don’t get mad at me for asking the real questions here

Honestly the omegaverse sounds kind of like a utopian free love society where people are very upfront about sex and sexuality ngl.

Ok but as an avid reader of omegaverse all of this has been written about 💀


It’s kind of embarrassing i can give people full, clear, and concise answers for all of these.

alright then lets hear them answers

Sigh okay…

First of all: omegas can top and alphas can bottom. Alphas can bottom for omegas too. Generally during heats omegas prefer to be penetrated and alphas to penetrate but they can just use toys. Alpha ≠ top. Omega ≠ bottom.

With that outta the way here we go.

In most concepts of omegaverse you “present” as your secondary sex during puberty, however some writers may decide to make secondary sex something people are aware of from birth/ very young. Usually the second one ties heavily in soulmate or destined mate* concepts, but the former can as well. You’ll find a lot of stories that show finding out you’re an alpha or omega (or beta) through a national blood/pheromone test at a certain age, or multiple times during life as test results can change slightly over time, in these stories being an alpha or omega doesnt do much until you fully “present” during puberty.

Depending on the level of education in an individual story yes there can be garbage sex ed that tells you almost nothing of what to expect and how to deal with it. These concepts usually relate to omegas that don’t bother to read their “test” results abt their gender and believe they’re an alpha until they suddenly go into heat, or their test results were inaccurate all along. They also relate to stories that portray omegas as “lower class” or simply sex objects. Bad sex ed stories usually include challenging stereotypes as a main focus.

Usually in omegaverse omegas are undesirable to hire due to heats being more frequent than alpha ruts, and thus more disruptive. so they lie about being an omega to get hired, and then either pump themselves full of heat suppressing medication, or call in sick every time. In stories where omegas are treated fairly they just call in normally lol. They keep track of their heats and they work with their job to get time off periodically for it, unless triggered by an alpha’s rut or pheromones, heats are pretty consistent unless they have some sort of condition that makes them irregular. Prostitution is a very common theme in omegaverse due to omega’s not being able to get hired at “normal” jobs and societal pressures.

I imagine workplaces will require a doctors note or something to prove irregular heats etc if someone was abusing the “call out for heat” option. But omegas will often call out a day or so before their heat just to prepare better.

Some betas do pretend to be alphas or omegas to get further in life or to fuck more people. Its seen as sleazy and manipulative.

Alpha/alpha relationships depend on how the author wants to write the concepts of their society or biological instincts. Usually alpha relationships include a lot of domination and sexual fighting with the winner of the fight being the one to top (if they dont already have a dynamic that suits them) switching is common with both alpha and omega same sex relationships. In omegaverse these dynamics are either seen as normal or are extremely frowned upon. Usually they are kept secret to avoid conflict.

Sometimes if an alpha gets extremely aroused they can pop a knot without being inside something, this is common during puberty the same way boners are in teens. Its usually super uncomfortable and sensitive and legit physically cannot go away for at least ten minutes.

Heat cycles do sync. So do rut cycles. Heat and ruts can sync too. Not all omegaverse omegas nest but yeah they do have gc with friends lol.

Yes alphas make it a Job to help with heats. They’re called “heat aids.” In some omegaverse friends help each other through heats too, be it by just being around or sexually. Its usually seen as like kind of embarrassing to hire a heat aid cus it means you have no one else close to you or a bf/gf to stay with you to get you thru it. But its considered “normal” to hire one.

I havent seen a forced to take suppressants as a kink story but some stories have omegas fantasising about being confined to houses or rooms and used only to make babies (they call them “pups” pretty often).


All in all omegaverse is an EXTREMELY varied story device and no one has clear ideas for it, but yeah basically everything op said is a thing.

* A destined mate is someone so compatible with you or your pheromones that you’re considered “soulmates.” Some concepts have this being a supernatural thing, while most keep it to being a pheromone/biological thing.

image

What, you dont like my comprehensive 11 paragraph tumblr response about omegaverse?

Originally typed this in tags and then decided it’d be better on the post itself, where I can add paragraph breaks:

#omegaverse reflects a lot of real world issues by magnifying them 100x #mostly for kink reasons but also for commentary

#omegas (women) being used as breeding stock; undesirable for/not allowed in the workforce; smaller and weaker and receptive #bad sex ed. heat suppressants/birth control. realizing at puberty that your place in society is not always a great one #it allows a framework in which you can place these struggles on male characters as well #or free female characters from them

#but it also caricaturizes maleness #alphas (men) as aggressive; dominant; socially prioritized; seen as either leaders or brutes with not much in between

#and you can play with all the gender fuckery all of that entails #it’s like camp or drag; gender performance exaggerated to the point of absurdity that then asks you to engage with it anyway

#you can also turn a same gender (M/M of F/F) couple into one that occupies a ‘straight’ societal role (A/O) #which might be healing for some or grotesque for others (and strangely intriguing either way) #or make it queer by ABO standards too (A/A or O/O or throw a beta in there somewhere) and go wild with it

#heats/ruts give space for very free and intense desire with a lack of inhibitions #which is something we don’t normally allow ourselves to feel without criticizing ourselves #so it’s a space to see and experience that within the safety of fiction #it’s a thing you see with dubcon/noncon fantasies too (emphasis: Fantasies.) #if you weren’t in control of what happened then you can’t be blamed for it and you don’t have to feel guilt/shame about the pleasure you felt; you can just allow yourself to feel it #again: not talking about real life here

#so as a framework ABO magnifies our cultural hangups and amplifies them until they’re impossible to ignore #and then says: now what?

#and the answer comes back every time: fuck nasty style about it

Baffled by the startled dinosaur reaction. Why wouldn’t omegaverse authors have addressed these things. That’s half the point of creating a new biological/social framework; to explore it. To use it as an abstraction for exploring real problems. To poke at the edges and see how the world works. What else would Omegaverse fic be about? The entire genre can’t just be ALL disconnected sex scenes.

I don’t really care for sex scenes so I don’t seek out omegaverse stuff (since it does also tend to have a lot of sex), but the ones I’ve read have been excellent analyses of social inequality and how it ties into biology both in reality and in terms of cultural myth (that is, using gender essentialism/stereotypes of difference as an excuse for oppression). Is this not the entire point of the genre?

Sorry to get up in arms in this but I’m so tired of the assumption that Whatever The Silly Horny Women Like must automatically have no depth. The Beatles were an important band. Romance is a valid genre. Mobile games are real computer games. A/B/O analyses social issues and has deep worldbuilding. Why must we do this again every generation.

Not aimed at OP, who I’m sure was legitimately asking real questions, but some of the people acting surprised that these questions have answers are pissing me off. There’s comments in the notes like “if the genre actually addressed these questions then I’d read it!” Well you didn’t look very hard, did you? Because it does address these questions. Regularly. It’s a significant focus of the genre and even I, largely an outsider, know that. You just assumed, clearly without looking at all, that the entire genre must be nonsense porn without plot and with no connective tissue. Why? Why did you assume that?

Every. Fucking. Generation. I don’t even care about a/b/o. I don’t even care about The Beatles or the romance genre or mobile games. But I thought we were over this. I’m so tired.

Academic grade analysis

@kaitovsheiji !!

Grade A++ post

(via 13wyvern7)

goldkirk:

the-real-seebs:

babycharmander:

babycharmander:

fair-itself:

dear-ao3:

image

Normies talking about getting whiplash from recipe blogs. You know nothing

[ID: An AO3 author’s note reading, “Sorry for vanishing, I did a little too much research on cults an coercive control for Damian’s arc, and then realized I was raised in a cult, and THEN I ran away to a fishing town cabin on the other side of the country and had to start learning to be a person in the real world. I also forgot how to write. But I’m learning again, so I’m back now! Have some more.” The “I” in “I was raised in a cult” is emphasized by sparking emojis, and the note is ended with heart emojis. /end ID]

Aaaand THIS is one of the many reasons why it’s not only not a bad thing to portray dark subject matter, but EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to do so!! You can learn a lot when writing, and others can learn a lot when reading! This can save lives, dudes.

I am so proud of the author though. That took multiple kinds of courage at once. Good job, author.

Hi! I’m the original author from ao3!

I want to thank everyone for such hilarious and kind additions/replies/tags on this post, they’ve been so amazing to read. They’ve meant more to me than you guys know. ❤️

I also want to add some information for anyone who wants to know more about recognizing the signs that you might be in a high control group.

High control groups can be small or large, religious or not, clubs, schools, online servers, friend groups, etc.

No human is invulnerable because we all have brains and emotions that can be played like a fiddle. Knowing the red flags can help us all keep ourselves safer!

igotout.org

BITE model of understanding thought and behavior control

International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA)

Crisis Text Line (highly recommend, especially if you’re not in a safe place to discuss things on the phone)

Please always protect yourself as best you can and never be afraid to reach out for help—even if you’re just wondering, even if you’re not sure about something.

No safe group or person will EVER be mad at you for being cautious and taking things slow, or for changing your mind at ANY point. You’re the one who gets to decide whether you join or stay with a group, no matter what they threaten or love-bomb you with.

If you’re not safe, there’s help.

If you feel trapped, there’s help.

If people are being actively hurt, good people want to listen, understand, and help.

We all deserve freedom. I’m grateful every morning I wake up that I get to live it now, even though it’s hard and I have a long way to go. Thank you for walking this journey with me, for one brief moment or for years, and helping me—and others like me—not be alone.

Take care, stay safe, and happy fanfiction reading!

(via magicmagica)

werewolfetone:

werewolfetone:

For me the funniest thing to come out of the goncharov meme was not any of the fake scenes or the nyt articles about it or whatever but the fact that due to the fact that he’d found it funny when I told him about it I got my dad several books by ivan goncharov for christmas that year as a joke fully expecting him to not even touch them BUT to everyone’s surprise he read every single one cover to cover and liked them so much that he read dostoevsky and then read tolstoy and then pushkin and then gogol and now barely reads anything that isn’t nineteenth century russian literature and also has started watching academic talks about crime and punishment and will randomly bring up shit like the politics present in bulgakov’s writing in at LEAST half of our conversations. all because of goncharov

We’ll be talking about something normal and he’ll go “this reminds me, in tolstoy’s essay what is art–” and I just have to quietly live with the knowledge that he only talks like this because of a fake martin scorsese movie that was a joke on tumblr.com

(via sas399-blog)

thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

Hey so @queerliblib added a whole bunch of new queer books to their library catalog, including the Hunger Pangs short, Crewel Intentions, so y’know, go read some bi triad smut for free or something, idk.

(contains spoilers for book 2)

Also check out all their other books.

I haven’t read this many queer books in a row, fact or fiction, in my entire life, and it’s genuinely so fucking healing to search for a book, and it’s already in the system. It’s the library teenage me would have loved to have had growing up.

God damn, this post had so many typos when I posted it. I’m tired, please reblog this one 😂

(via dee-the-red-witch)

patrickspens-deactivated2023122:

pls tell me what ur great grandparents did for a living in the tags if u know… mine were dairy farmers, bakery workers and a security guard lol

Great granddad on my paternal grandad’s side was a middle school teacher who taught Greek, Latin, German, and French, and also was a plasterer as a young man and helped his wife with her hobby farm. She considered herself primarily a homemaker.

Great grandad on my paternal grandma’s side was an accountant. great grandma was a secretary.

Great grandparents on my maternal granddad’s side were farmers.

Great grandparents on my maternal biological grandmother’s side is unknown because she abandoned my mother at the age of 2.

(via coffeesforcatchers)

deathcomes4u:

anarchistmemecollective:

gen-is-gone:

madd-catter:

literallyaflame:

thatgiraffebutt:

cantanopeshitthatwastaken:

It’s interesting how diseases rip through schools at incredible speeds despite being in an arguably modern, clean(ish) environment. I wonder if it has something to do with the whole “you need a doctor’s note to excuse your absence of even one day” combined with the average price of going to a doctor, the lack of education on things like “you’re still contagious even after the fever goes away”, and the overwhelming message of “if you don’t struggle through it, you’re a failure!”

On my campus there tends to be a problem where even I you have the doctors note professors will still take points off of your final grade regardless of how sick you are. I’ve seen people show up to class with the stomach flu, pneumonia, respiratory infections and all sorts of other contagious ailments.

Here’s a fun story:

The school system I grew up in put an absolutely ungodly amount of pressure on kids to Show Up Every Day No Matter What. Many schools are like this, but looking back, my town’s was borderline fucking dystopian. They asked me why I didn’t just “postpone” a surgery at one point— when I was fifteen— to give you an idea of how monumentally obtuse these people were.

So, in elementary school, I started having chicken pox symptoms, right? They were mild because I was vaccinated (yay!) but my mom recognized them quickly and took me to the doctor, because my mom is a reasonable human being with standards. The doctor said “yup, you’ve got those pox, it may seem mild but please for the love of god DO NOT take her to school, she is very contagious even though she may FEEL okay.”

So I had to stay home from school until I got clearance from my doctor to go back. I was an angry little gremlin the whole time, because I wanted to go to the school library and read books about the human skull, but my mother said, “no, you cannot leave this house, and do not scratch the bumps please.” So I sat at home and tried not to scratch the bumps, like a good little gremlin.

A few days into my Chicken Pox Related House Arrest, we got a letter from the school. I was far from the only person with chicken pox, as it so happened. Like… a tenth of my second grade class had Confirmed Pox. We all fell ill within DAYS of each other.

So how did this happen, you ask? Well, a kid had chicken pox, and he came to school anyway. “Ah, well perhaps they didn’t know,” you may very well say. “Maybe his parents didn’t notice!” No. No, they noticed. In fact they KNEW it was CHICKEN POX. They sent him to school anyway.

The kid’s parents…….. were, in fact, teachers at the school. And they KNOWINGLY made him go to school sick, because they didn’t want to risk hurting his precious “perfect attendance” record. They figured that since he wasn’t, like, Literally Dying, it was better for him not to miss school. Never mind the fact that they were actively endangering hundreds of little kids.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. A kid came to class with mumps because he ‘couldn’t afford to miss’. Guess what happened? Mumps outbreak! Diseases are, as it turns out, good at being diseases! Vaccinations are phenomenal, but they can only do so much, and some people rely on herd immunity to not be killed by preventable illness.

This entire attitude needs to die. It’s dangerous. Food service workers are forced to show up sick, little kids are forced to show up sick, college students show up sick because they’re afraid of flunking out.

And on top of it all, misinformation campaigns are encouraging people not to get vaccinations! It’s 2019 and we’re flirting with the plague! Next thing you know some blogger is gonna be like “actually we should all be fucking rats and eating our meat raw, death to all science and god bless america”

Many kids at my school will show up really sick because we only get like three days of excused absences without a doctor’s note.

this is what those in literary academia call “foreshadowing”

(note the dates)

this post aged like an ice cube in an oven

worst part is! IT’S STILL HAPPENING! SCHOOLS AND WORKPLACES ARE STILL LIKE THIS!!! THEY LEARNED NOTHING!!!!!!!

(via rebellum)

beatrice-otter:

ceasarslegion:

Ive noticed recently that my generation has… no concept of what the various economic classes actually are anymore. I talk to my friends and they genuinely say things like “at least i can afford a middle class lifestyle with this job because i dont need a roommate for my one bedroom apartment” and its like… oughh

You guys, middle class doesnt mean “a stable enough rented roof over your head,” it means “a house you bought, a nice car or two, the ability to support a family, and take days off and vacations every year with income to spare for retirement savings and rainy days.” If all you have is a rented apartment without a roommate and a used car, you’re lower class. That’s lower class.

And i cant help but wonder if this is why you get kids on tumblr lumping in doctors and actors into their “eat the rich” rhetoric: economic amnesia has blinded you to what the class divides actually are. The real middle class lifestyle has become so unattainable within a system that relies upon its existence that theyve convinced you that those who can still reach it are the elites while your extreme couponing to afford your groceries is the new normal.

A century ago in the US, there were very sharp boundaries between the types of jobs that were middle class, and the types of jobs that were working class, and how much the jobs paid largely followed that, so you could know from the type of job a person had whether they were financially middle class or not. This plus classist educational and hiring systems allowed for a large degree of cultural homogeneity within a particular class. It was really easy, for the most part, to see the divisions between classes in the US. And that’s largely when the cultural idea of “what middle class is” got set.

Then the labor movement resulted in a whole bunch of blue-collar jobs (i.e. jobs that involved working with your hands, trades, manufacturing, etc) getting actually paid what they’re worth, which meant comfortably middle-class incomes, which blurred the lines a bit starting in the 40s and 50s.

Then, in the 70s, white collar jobs (think office work–the sort of job where you’re never going to work up a sweat doing it) stopped keeping up with inflation. Up to this point, pretty much all white collar jobs were middle class jobs (at least the ones that weren’t also pink-collar jobs, like secretary or teacher). So the purchasing power of the salaries for those jobs fell gradually over the decades.

But we still judge “am I middle class?” based on outdated appearances and whether or not you work a white collar job. A lot of people assume that they are middle class because they work a white collar job and live in the suburbs.

But if a single missed paycheck or major accident could spell financial ruin, you are not middle class.

To be middle class, you have to be financially stable enough that you don’t have to care about things like how much groceries and gas cost. You have to be financially stable enough that you can take vacations every year without worrying about it. Not lavish vacations, necessarily, but nice ones. You have to be financially stable enough that saving for retirement is not a hardship, and neither is having a few thousand dollars in a rainy-day fund. And it’s not enough to be able to afford all of that for yourself alone! You would have to be able to afford children on top of all that, either on your own income or combined income with your partner.

If you could not afford:

  • kids
  • vacations
  • retirement savings
  • emergency/rainy day savings
  • not worrying about money issues, regular bills, the price of gas or groceries

then you are not middle class. In New York (state, not city), you have to make at least $75k/year to be middle class. In Georgia, you have to make at least $55k/year to be middle class.

And the thing is, not understanding what “middle class” actually means is really convenient for right-wing politicians. Because so many people think they are middle class when they are not. “They say this policy will help the middle class, and hurt the working class. Well, I am middle class, so I am in favor of it.” Except the person who thinks this isn’t middle class, and what’s more, their boss may not qualify as middle class either.

(via rebellum)

kagcomix:

kagcomix:

I spent a good chunk of my weekend scrambling to finish this comic. I hope you like it. I was really trying to push myself with the colours.

You know what’s wild? This comic still gets reblogged every single day. I made it so long ago it doesn’t even feel like my own work haha. Anyways, I guess I’m glad people still like it but it’s very weird to have One Piece of Art that Doesn’t Fade.

(via ineffectualdemon)

iamchrissi:

assassinregrets:

chaotic-carnifex:

dappercyborg:

cumaeansibyl:

sandersgrey:

sandersgrey:

Unpopular opinion but literally not one person in the world should have their human rights violated

If one person’s rights can be waved away, so can yours

yes, even those people.

image

Fuck it, adding on: This is why it’s frustrating to see criminal defense lawyers getting a bad rep.

The right to a fair trial is a human right. In practice, a fair trial necessitates a lawyer. This means that even if somebody committed the worst crimes you could possibly imagine, they still deserve a lawyer.

Somebody has to defend them as a matter of human rights. As one of my professors said, way back in my first semester at uni: “Everybody deserves to have somebody in their corner.”

nb the source of criminal defense attorneys getting a bad rep is always, always copaganda. same with the incredibly bullshit narrative of “if you didn’t do anything wrong then why do you need a lawyer?” the purpose of both these terrible stupid pro-cop arguments are to deny you your legal rights. 

Someone else said it very well here on this website:

A government whose people lose their rights once they become criminals has a very vested interest in making their critics criminals.

(via primeemeraldheiress)

friedwizardwhispers:

In a modern AU, who is more likely to keep his long hair ?

Luo Binghe

Wei Wuxian

Lan Wangji

Xie Lian

Hua Cheng

See Results

*not putting Shen Qingqiu because we already know he has short hair as Shen Yuan.

I think Xie Lian would end up with long hair on accident because he kept forgetting to cut it

I think Wei Wuxian would grow it out due to his whole “know the rules so you can subvert them” policy.

I think whether Lan Wanji had long hair would depend entirely on the social mores of where the AU takes place (for example an office au vs a tattoo shop au) and also where he is at in his personal narrative (young LW is more likely to have short hair, particularly in an office or school setting, because that’s The Rules, whereas a post traumatic LW probably wouldn’t give a crap about what others thought of his hair).

Hua Cheng and Binghe are such simps they’d ask which their boyfriend preferred and then do their hair accordingly.

However, all things being otherwise equal, I think Bignhe is the most likely to have long hair out of sheer vanity.

westernwitchy75:

rainbowriderjt:

Now This Is Dancing!

❤️‍🔥

(via tinylilemrys)

starlightshadowsworld:

literally21:

Felt that it’s important to share videos like this too.

The world wants us to forget that they are people.

People who dance and play and smile just like you and I.

And it’s important to share things like this, to remind them the world that they are human.

(via phoenixyfriend)

the-final-sif:

thememedaddy:

image

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn’t. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it’s not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it’s meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

  1. Don’t have enough space to plant full trees, or
  2. Don’t have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can’t wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren’t just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there’s room, but where there isn’t room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn’t a replacement for trees. It’s replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it’s needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can’t sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there’s actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I’d take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I’d be delighted.

(via massivelyangryfeminist)

art-res:

louistonehill:

image

A new tool lets artists add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before they upload it online so that if it’s scraped into an AI training set, it can cause the resulting model to break in chaotic and unpredictable ways. 

The tool, called Nightshade, is intended as a way to fight back against AI companies that use artists’ work to train their models without the creator’s permission. Using it to “poison” this training data could damage future iterations of image-generating AI models, such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, by rendering some of their outputs useless—dogs become cats, cars become cows, and so forth. MIT Technology Review got an exclusive preview of the research, which has been submitted for peer review at computer security conference Usenix.   

AI companies such as OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Stability AI are facing a slew of lawsuits from artists who claim that their copyrighted material and personal information was scraped without consent or compensation. Ben Zhao, a professor at the University of Chicago, who led the team that created Nightshade, says the hope is that it will help tip the power balance back from AI companies towards artists, by creating a powerful deterrent against disrespecting artists’ copyright and intellectual property. Meta, Google, Stability AI, and OpenAI did not respond to MIT Technology Review’s request for comment on how they might respond. 

Zhao’s team also developed Glaze, a tool that allows artists to “mask” their own personal style to prevent it from being scraped by AI companies. It works in a similar way to Nightshade: by changing the pixels of images in subtle ways that are invisible to the human eye but manipulate machine-learning models to interpret the image as something different from what it actually shows. 

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Really cool!

(via melkene)