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basedkikuenjoyer · 2 years

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Who knows what they’re looking at here? Both are covers of Weekly Shonen Jump, circa 1981-82. A young Akira Toriyama was making waves with his breakout hit Dr. Slump, and our guy Eiichiro Oda would have been about 6, 7ish? Okay, neat...so who’s blondie up there? Name’s Hibari, a name we’ve been thinking about lately in terms of One Piece. Titular character of a series called Stop!! Hibari-kun, one much more influential than most Western anime fans realize.

Newest love Commander Hibari does seem like the right design to be a reference, but truth is this series was always one worth looking at through the lens of being an influence on a young Eiichiro Oda. It also has a pretty wild tale in its own right, so let’s have some fun with it!

We’ll call this “Exhibit A.” The loach scooping dance is a thing, the chopsticks up the nose are a thing, the combo is something I’ve only been able to source to Hibari & One Piece. I’d also just point out that a One Piece fan today reading would be hard-pressed not to see elements of Luffy and Nami in our leading lady. Mind you, this series was a huge deal when Oda was a child even if it was short-lived. Western anime fans now have stumbled across it as a niche interest, but this was author Hisashi Eiguchi’s second manga in WSJ. His first, a baseball comedy named Susume Pirates, was the workhorse for the magazine in the mid-late 70s. Keep in mind, this is the era the magazine was making a name for itself.

This was pretty groundbreaking territory for shonen manga. Even just having a cast of mostly women. Young, stylish women being real and having their own fleshed out stories beyond just being a prop. It’s a romcom but the originator of a lot of tropes that make up the backbone of those today. Our actual MC is an everyboy named Kosaku. Mom dies, gets sent to live with a Yakuza boss and his four daughters. The third, Hibari, is trans as fuck. She likes Kosaku, he likes her, doesn’t know how he feels about it. Easy setup, easy one to go wrong...but Stop!! Hibari-kun never really does.

That’s about as far as we go trying to “explain” her. The pushy sister is fussy about Hibari’s “deviance” but honestly pretty damn helpful. Dad fumes but at the end of the day holds true to what he said at the start; its more about being bummed he thought he had at least one son to bond with. Kosaku ends up filling that role, the family relaxes over the course of the series and regularly comments on how Hibari used to be a lot more withdrawn. Hibari herself is always the coolest person in the room, a borderline Mary Sue but it works because there’s the implied idea she’s inherently a deviant to play off of. Especially for the time. It doesn’t really faze her much though, or maybe she isn’t going to let it show. Hey, there’s an idea we’re used to. There are glimpses, you do see here and there the girl has a fair amount of what we’d call dysphoria now and a tendency to spend a lot of time hidden away in her room like a certain matrimonial bird motif I won’t shut up about. By all accounts it just seems like a way of cluing you in on how much time she needs to keep up appearances.

This is where Kiku’s story really does start to feel like one inspired by fond memories of this one from Oda’s childhood. So much of what you take away from Hibari-kun sorta depends on how you feel about that one particular trait going in. Did you see the whiplash in parts of the fandom after what we learned about Kiku in Udon? The same people who were quick to piece together “Oda’s Trap Card” based on clues no more difficult to understand than the implied subtleties of scenes we’ve looked at...suddenly couldn’t see any of that. Nope! Gotta take her super literal now because thinking about these things hurts some people’s feelings. If you have a shred of empathy or even legitimately don’t care either way, the undercurrent writes itself.

Hibari does it under silly Yakuza/romcom antics, Kiku does it by ultimately being a small “role” in Wano’s grand play who keeps having an outsized impact for us. Both are lovely show-stealers. Anytime we wanted to have a big moment for Kiku in Wano she could punch even with about anything else going on. Usually with fewer panels. That’s all for today, but I’ll have a part 2 tomorrow.

#one piece #stop!! hibari-kun #eiichiro oda #hisashi eguchi

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corndoggod · 9 months

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Shirley Chisholm State Park

Surrounded by planes with their jet engines whinnying like Pegasus and cooled by a fine breeze, I paused. The bike mechanic recommended the park after seeing my tires. “You could totally do the gravel at Shirley Chisholm,” he said. “It’s nice out there. Bring your girl. They got birds. Peregrines, red tails. It’s not big, but it’s nice and green.”

I was there to buy three tubes since C.’s front tire had a tear too big to patch and was sold this plan instead.

………………..

We skirmished earlier in the day. Not fighting really, but exasperated misunderstandings. We ruined our morning with more sex. My legs ached from last night’s late-night marathon. “Do all that again,” she said, but I barely remembered. I remember I had five drinks, but Coyote pours them strong so it was probably more like 7 or 8. I woke in a bog of my own making; my peers already done with their long run and I felt behind.

It began with an errand. C had to copy Sav’s studio keys and drop them off for someone. Her new studio mate actually. Sav pawned it off to C, since she chose a 3 bed by a pond and working on a hippie farm upstate after their Clinton Hill landlord raised their rent. I suggested we divide and conquer since we also wanted to buy groceries and return IKEA stuff while we had the car. These scattered tasks became monumental, crushing our weekend elation. We sat on the floor to problem solve and I learned a thing or two about how C.’s mind works that I filed away for later use.

………………..

But now I’m out here and it’s peaceful. Birds all around and a breeze on my sun-blocked back. I’m starting to get hungry and very, very thirsty. I’m filming planes, trying to take nice shots of the sun and clouds and metal marvels, after my Dad told me I had a good eye. I’ve always shied away from visuals, partially because I had too many artist friends to fool myself into any confidence. But nature’s beauty is hard to sunder, and so is C.’s, so I’m moving a bit slower, trying our my mechanical eye.

Writing, biking, running -- these things help me think, but I’ve never thought of all three of them as engines for thought. I used to pedal around all the time typing on my phone just to think. But that’s difficult to do safely in New York. Even Prospect Park is too dense unless you’re there just after dawn or well-past midnight. But out here with Shirley where the city recedes to a couple of legos its wide as the Sargasso Sea.

………………..

When the park closed, I biked to Sultan Room to watch Emma perform with her second band Skortz, a 90s-style rock band leaning into heavy electric guitar. The singer was like a hawk, powerfully belting long, unflinching notes into the mic. She was a poster child for the satanic panic. The guitarist had long shaggy unkempt hair, but everything else about him was put together just so: his glaring collar pulled over the lapels of his two-piece suit, which stopped just short of his bare ankles and leather dress shoes. The drummer didn’t give a shit. He was just there to wail on the skins. And then there was Emma, beaming with the biggest smile as they sang of death and pain and betrayal.

Sunday morning was kinder, easier. We turned on the AC and draped our bodies over each other, giving one-handed foot massages. I’m reading the WSJ weekend edition, the first physical paper I’ve ever subscribed to. She’s reading Bluets by Maggie Nelson.

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thegravityblog · 11 months

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Monday: 05-06-2023

June is here, hence a new week. Always starts with a bang no matter what, my Monday's are always busy as fuck. Started my day as usually with a cup of green tea, and reading the WSJ, Bloomberg, TOI and FT. Freshened up, and started with a conversation with my CTO regarding the deadline for Dexa’s ticketing sale function, then moved to track the NSE (National Stock Exchange), and started coding on the AI therapist while listening to Dr. Alok Kanojia’s amazing lecture on addiction. The lecture describes both on a neuroscience and psychology level on how addiction happens, plays out and how one can jump out of it. Give it a watch, I have posted the link on a previous post. After lunch I had a quick meeting with someone, so attended that. Came back home and resumed coding. One thing I wanted to put out as an opinion on the whole AI anxiety people around the world are feeling. Definitely low level jobs like copywriting, junior level programming and even artists to a point can be replaced but eventually it will always create newer forms opportunities and jobs that would be exciting to fathom. The people who are upskilling will have a great time in the future, its very necessary for everyone to atleast understand the basics and to know how to use it. I would suggest everyone to start studying the basics, and play with all the AI tools that are available. Understand the fundamentals enough to stay relevant. Anyway, coming to my day, I after tea started listening to music till now, played some tracks that I love and mean a lot to me. Glad, moved on and I have started seeing myself with someone with whom I can start a meaningful life, for sure it will happen but I am utilizing all this time alone to figure myself out. The more space I have spent with myself, the better the person will be with me who’ll come next. One disastrous (although my last two were epic fails) that does not determine my next 60 years of my life. Shit happens and it happens for your good. I have learnt now to always follow my intuitions, even in my last relationship my intuition always signaled me that this person isn’t who she is pretending to be, but I was so much in love, I ignored all the flags. She wants dogs, who are dumb, and won’t ever question what she is doing, that’s it and she’s happy. I’m an independent thinker and my bullshit detector is very strong, and I can do a lot for a person whom I love but not questioning their wrongdoings? Well, that’s where the compatibility ends. These type of people are always praying on others expense, although all of it was fake, counterfeit love but I felt good for sometime. And I don’t regret taking a stand for her. I did it because I loved her. But yes, I won’t take my girl taking any dick that comes her way, that’s where I caught her and she had to run, I knew she was fucking someone else at the same time behind my back and also wanted to do the same to soothe her self esteem, what her ex did to her. Pathetic, no? What did it do to me? Made me a couple of lakhs of rupees. A couple of thousand dollars. So, it doesn’t really matter. I am a MAN and I act like one. If a girl is telling me to start a porno channel, she’s dead to me there, but the impotent she is with did follow the order. So, where standards don’t meet, RUN! There’s a hell lot of moral and ethical differences as well. And she is DUMB too. Just imagine, a therapist by profession, deliberately hurts you knowing that you have recovering from your past scars. What would you call such a person? DUMBFUCK. What else? Enough of the rant. Listening to Dr. Huberman’s podcast with Rick Rubin about the science of creativity. Gonna read after this and then sleep, to begin with another beautiful day.

#journal #diary #monday #feels #happylife #happysoul #life is beautiful #workday #grinding

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newstfionline · 2 years

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Monday, August 22, 2022

348,493 (WSJ) That’s the number of jobs American companies are expected to reshore, or return to the U.S., in 2022, according to a projection from the Reshoring Initiative. That would be the highest number on record since the lobbying group began tracking the data in 2010. Factors pushing executives to think about bringing their business closer to home include global supply-chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine and tensions between China and Taiwan.

UPS Drivers Say ‘Brutal’ Heat Is Endangering Their Lives (NYT) Around 8 p.m. on a hot Thursday in July, Nicholas Gubell, a driver for UPS, was nearing the end of his route on Long Island when he started to feel woozy. That day, Mr. Gubell, 26, had delivered about 200 packages. Temperatures had soared into the high 80s, and it was even hotter inside the metal shell of the back of the truck, where, with each stop, he would spend up to a minute or so to retrieve his cargo, sweat beading on his skin. Now, pulled over on the side of the road, he was panting and barely able to speak, gripping his phone with his hand, which had cramped from dehydration. “My body was losing it,” Mr. Gubell said. Paramedics covered him in ice packs to bring down his body temperature and took him to a hospital. He added, “I was just trying to hold on as best I could.” As blistering heat waves swept across the United States this summer, breaking temperature records and placing millions under heat advisories and warnings, workers like Mr. Gubell have continued to deliver America’s packages for a variety of carriers, often in trucks that have no cooling mechanisms for drivers. Some UPS workers have shared photographs that show thermometer readings of up to 150 degrees in the backs of their trucks. A handful of drivers have died in the past few years. According to the Teamsters, heat-related injuries, illnesses and deaths among drivers are severely underreported.

Mexico Arrests Top Prosecutor in Case of Missing Students and Issues 80 Warrants (NYT) Mexico’s former attorney general was arrested Friday in connection with the violent abduction and likely massacre of 43 students in 2014, a significant breakthrough in one of the most notorious atrocities in modern Mexican history. He is the first high-level official to be detained in connection to the case, and the authorities said Friday that they had also issued more than 80 arrest warrants related to it, including for military officers, police officers and cartel members. It was not immediately clear if any of those warrants had led to other arrests, but their sudden announcement came just a day after the Mexican government said an official inquiry had found the disappearance of the students to be a “crime of the state” involving every layer of government. “It’s a very big deal,” said Tyler Mattiace, an Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It shows a willingness and an interest in investigating and prosecuting not only the enforced disappearance of the students, but also the cover-up that happened afterward.”

A year after deadly earthquake, Haitians feel ‘abandoned’ (Washington Post) Guismet Dorvilier spent six years building a house for his family in Corail, a remote community on the coast of Haiti’s southwestern peninsula. Then, last August, a powerful earthquake struck, grinding its hard concrete walls—his “life’s work”—into rubble. Now, one year later, Dorvilier, a public school director, is still living with eight family members under a plastic sheet. His closest neighbors are, too. His school—one of seven in Corail that was pulverized by the quake—has not been rebuilt, and the new school year is just weeks away. “The state has abandoned us,” Dorvilier said. His strife is emblematic of the morass across much of Haiti’s southwest one year after the 7.2-magnitude quake hit on Aug. 14, killing more than 2,200 people, injuring 12,000 and flattening tens of thousands of homes and buildings in an area that was still reeling from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Residents have been frustrated by a recovery and rebuilding effort that has advanced at a glacial pace, stymied by spiraling gang violence in the capital, political instability, a global economic slowdown, donor fatigue and the emergence of other crises around the world to command more attention—and dollars.

Finland, Sweden offer NATO an edge as rivalry warms up north (AP) The first surprise, for the Finnish conscripts and officers taking part in a NATO-hosted military exercise in the Arctic this spring: the sudden roar of a U.S. Marine helicopter assault force, touching down in a field right next to the Finns’ well-hidden command post. The second surprise: Spilling out of their field headquarters, the Finnish Signal Corps communications workers and others inside routed the U.S. Marines—the Finns’ designated adversary in the NATO exercise and members of America’s professional and premier expeditionary force—in the mock firefight that followed. Finnish camouflage for the Arctic snow, scrub and scree likely had kept the Americans from even realizing the command post was there when they landed, Finnish commander Lt. Col. Mikko Kuoka suspected. “For those who years from now will doubt it,” Kuoka, modestly stunned by the outcome of the random skirmish, wrote in an infantry-focused blog recording the outcome, of an episode he later confirmed for The Associated Press. “That actually happened.” As the exercise made clear, NATO’s addition of Finland and Sweden—what President Joe Biden calls “our allies of the high north”—would bring military and territorial advantages to the Western defense alliance. That’s especially so as the rapid melting of the Arctic from climate change awakens strategic rivalries at the top of the world.

A Putin ally’s daughter was killed deep in Russian territory (Washington Post) The daughter of Alexander Dugin, a Russian nationalist and self-styled philosopher whose ideas helped shape President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, was killed in a car explosion near Moscow on Saturday night, in what Russian investigative authorities said looked like a “murder for hire." The incident already appears poised to be a flashpoint, as pro-Russian factions blame Ukraine without evidence—and Ukrainian officials deny any involvement. Daria Dugina, 29, was driving her father’s car from a festival they both attended when the blast occurred, engulfing the car in flames. Some outside analysts and friends of the family suspect Dugin—who has close ties to the Kremlin—was the real target. Dugina, chief editor of a Russian disinformation website who was herself under U.S. sanctions, has also been deeply supportive of Putin’s war against Ukraine. Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said Sunday that if Ukraine were found to have been involved in Dugina’s death, “we should talk about the policy of state terrorism implemented by the Kyiv regime.”

Russians down Ukrainian drones in Crimea as war broadens (AP) Russian authorities reported shooting down Ukrainian drones Saturday in Crimea, while Ukrainian officials said Russian forces pressed ahead with efforts to seize one of the few cities in eastern Ukraine not already under their control. The Russian military also kept up its strikes in Ukraine’s north and south. In Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian authorities said local air defenses shot down a drone above the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. It was the second drone incident at the headquarters in three weeks. A drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters on July 31 injured five people and forced the cancellation of observances of Russia’s Navy Day. This week, a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea was hit by an explosion. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an airbase on Crimea.

As nationalism rises, Turkey turns against refugees it once welcomed (Washington Post) A surge in anti-immigrant sentiment over the past year in Turkey has brought deadly assaults on refugees and mob attacks on immigrant neighborhoods—a perilous turn for Turkey, which once took pride in extending a welcome to Syrians, and hosts at least 4 million refugees and asylum seekers, more than any country in the world. The anger has emanated from a public unnerved by a worsening economic crisis, unsettled by claims that immigrants are changing Turkey’s character, and egged on by politicians using provocative or racist rhetoric to capitalize on all the fear. Turkey is the latest European country to grapple with the rise of anti-immigrant politics, but its refugees also face a durable strain of nativism that favors some immigrants—like those from the Balkans—over others, especially from the Middle East. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who allowed millions of Syrian refugees to come to Turkey, has struggled to respond to the anger, his government alternating between defending immigrants and passing new regulations to limit their visibility. Facing a critical election next year, Erdogan has vowed to send a million Syrians home, a policy seen as impractical and illegal, and it has done little to quiet calls from his opponents for more action.

Chinese farmers struggle as scorching drought wilts crops (AP) Hundreds of persimmon trees that should be loaded with yellow fruit lie wilted in Gan Bingdong’s greenhouse in southwestern China, adding to mounting farm losses in a scorching summer that is the country’s driest in six decades. Gan’s farm south of the industrial metropolis of Chongqing lost half its vegetable crop in heat as high as 41 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) and a drought that has shrunk the giant Yangtze River and wilted crops across central China. Gan’s surviving eggplants are no bigger than strawberries. A reservoir beside his farm has run dry, forcing him to pump groundwater. Drought conditions across a swath of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have “significantly increased,” the national weather agency said Saturday. In Sichuan, factories have been shut down and offices and shopping malls told to turn off air-conditioning after reservoirs to generate hydropower fell to half their normal levels. The province of 94 million people gets 80% of its electricity from hydropower dams.

New Zealand faces ‘big task’ in recovering from heavy rains, floods (Reuters) New Zealand retained a state of emergency in parts of its flood-battered South Island on Sunday as authorities weighed damage in the region hardest hit by four days of torrential rain. Last week’s rains in northern and central areas forced more than 500 people from their homes, making some uninhabitable. The South Island city of Nelson has been worst affected, but towns in the North Island have also been cut off by floods that swamped roads and homes.

Somali forces end 30-hour hotel siege, 106 hostages freed (Reuters) Somali forces have ended a siege at a hotel in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, police and the military said on Sunday, adding that they had rescued 106 hostages including women and children. At least 12 people, mostly civilians, were killed as Somalia’s elite armed forces battled al Qaeda-linked militants for 30 hours after they blasted and shot their way into the Hayat Hotel on Friday evening. The French news agency Agence France-Presse earlier reported that all the gunmen had been killed.

#headlines #news

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mbdailynews · 2 years

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Fresh US Inflation Peak to Keep Fed on Aggressive Rate Path

Inflation continued to heat up in June, hitting a fresh pandemic peak that keeps the Federal Reserve geared for another big interest-rate hike later this month, economists project. The consumer price index probably increased 8.8% from a year earlier, marking the largest jump since 1981, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Compared to May, the widely followed gauge is seen climbing 1.1%, marking the third month in the last four that inflation has advanced at least 1%. The New York Times and Financial Times Digital Subscription Combo 77% OFF The acceleration is likely to reflect higher gasoline and elevated food costs. Prices at the nation’s gas pumps reached a high of more than $5 a gallon in mid-June and will add at least 0.5 percentage point to the headline CPI monthly advance, according to Bloomberg Economics ahead of Wednesday’s report. High gas prices, which were increasing well before Russia invaded Ukraine, help explain both President Joe Biden’s dismal approval ratings and his upcoming trip to the Middle East, where he hopes to convince Arab leaders to produce more oil. But fuel prices have started to ease this month, suggesting the CPI will simmer down beginning with the July data. Though still well-elevated, some cooling in inflation may already be in train as bloated retail inventories lead to discounts and used-car prices soften. The core measure, which excludes energy and food, probably rose 0.5% in June on a monthly basis, the smallest advance in three months. Wall Street Journal Newspaper | WSJ Newspaper | WSJ Print Save 30% Off Grocery prices, meanwhile, are showing few signs of easing. Figures from Numerator, a provider of data used for market research, says its latest survey of consumers shows grocery inflation hit a new high of more than 15% in the latest four-week period versus last year. And while the Adobe Digital Price Index showed a sharp slowing in the inflation rate for goods bought online, grocery prices advanced by the most on record. Overall online inflation climbed just 0.3% in June from a year ago, well down from the record 3.6% in February. While Fed officials have already signaled a 75 basis-point interest-rate hike at their next meeting, smaller inflation prints in the coming months could lead to less-aggressive policy action later this year. “If I’m right about June being the start of a string of lower core CPI prints, which is what the Fed wants to see, then I think comments from officials will quickly switch to a 50 basis-point hike for September and there were more calls for slowing to 25 basis points late in the year,” said Omair Sharif, founder of Inflation Insights LLC. New York Times and The Economist Epaper 3 Years Even though measures of goods inflation are seen decelerating, services components like housing may keep consumer price growth elevated for some months. “Inflation of course has migrated away from the goods sector and is now firmly entrenched in housing -- thanks to a very tight housing market -- as well as in non-shelter services,” Citigroup Inc. economists Andrew Hollenhorst, Veronica Clark and Isfar Munir said in a note. “We continue to expect a slowing in activity and some slowing in prices but it could take time both to cool-down the overheating housing market and that may only flow through to rents with a lag,” they said. If measures of inflation don’t decline as expected in the coming months, that could lead the Fed to take an “even more painful adjustment to the monetary policy stance,” Deutsche Bank AG economists said in a note. That would add to recession risks, because larger and faster interest-rate hikes take a greater toll on demand. Read the full article

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eightyonekilograms · 3 years

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Someone on the Discord brought up fertility

Just like last time I'm lazy and just going to dump it instead of editing.

[5:10 PM] Me: Oh boy, I have thoughts about this

[5:12 PM] Me: I haven't brought it up here but demographics has been one of my covid obsessions. I got a couple books about it (What to Expect When No One's Expecting, One Billion Americans, etc.), read all the articles, etc.

[5:15 PM] Me: I agree with you about a couple things: namely that if we had "infinite free energy" we'd be a a lot better off in many ways including demographically, but I disagree with most of your other points.

[5:18 PM] Me:

Also we need not assume decline in population growth is chronic.

This is a tricky statement because there's a social aspect and a mathematical aspect. Socially you're correct in the sense that whatever trends are driving the current decline could, in theory, reverse at any time. But mathematically, population decline is exactly symmetrical to population growth: it's exponential (technically it's logistic, but that's the same as exponential in the short term), because having fewer people means fewer people to make more people later on.

[5:20 PM] Me:

Infact there is some evidence to suggest that we actually did more science when we had 4-6 billion people.

I disagree with the implication here: we used to do more science because there was more low-hanging fruit, which is now plucked, and further discoveries require more resources (human and financial). Actually one of the big reasons I disagree with Ray Kurzweil and the other singularitarians is that when they show these impressive-looking exponential curves about scientific progress, they quietly hide under the rug that these increases are requiring ever-more investment (again, in both people and money) to accomplish. Just to pick a random example, every time chip manufacturers go to a new process (14nm -> 10nm -> 7nm -> 5nm -> 2nm etc.), the cost to build the fab basically doubles. I remember a couple years back Intel had to spend $5 billion to hit a new process shrink; now TSMC needs to spend $28 billion to hit their next target: https://www.wsj.com/articles/tsmc-to-spend-up-to-record-28-billion-in-advanced-chips-capacity-11610623587)

[5:23 PM] Me: I will try to find it but I came across a paper a little while ago laying out in detail that the cost of new scientific discoveries has been steadily increasing over time. It's not that there's anything necessarily going wrong with the scientific process, this is just what you'd expect as we pick low-hanging fruit: the later discoveries necessarily become harder. But if you extrapolate that trend out forever you eventually hit a point where every single person needs to be a scientist, and every dime of capital in existence, needs to be used to make any new discoveries.

[5:26 PM] Me: (In most fields we're a long way from that point, but it actually is here or nearly here in e.g. particle physics. What I have been hearing from leading-edge particle physicists is that we've got maybe one or two more generations of particle accelerators left before we reach a point where, to probe any further (e.g. to see if string theory is true), we'd need to build accelerators the size of the Solar System, which would take more raw material than the mass of the Earth. Barring some new theoretical breakthroughs, we might actually nearing the "end" of high-energy physics.)

[5:30 PM] Me: Fortunately most fields aren't at that point, but my point is that the more we discover, the more human capital is required to make further progress. That's a tricky enough proposition with a growing population, never mind a shrinking one.

[5:36 PM] Me:

I don't think it is safe to assume lowering population growth is a biological disorder so much as a conscious choice most people in the younger generations are making for a variety of obvious reasons.

I agree with this, but it's important to dig into that a little and understand the reasons. For example, I'm not yet convinced that there is a mass epidemic of people choosing childlessness because of anxiety about e.g. climate change. In internet comments sections you certainly see lots of people making that claim, but talk is cheap and randos on the internet can say whatever they want. In terms of the actual reasons, the data I've seen shows that number of children continues to track closely with a couple data points, mostly housing costs, expected lifetime income and uncertainly about future income flow.

[5:40 PM] Me: Third, I think you should give more weight to the concerns Rhys brought up than you currently are. The environmental stresses of more people is certainly a big issue, but I think it's one that can be dealt with without too much struggle with increased deployment of clean energy (one of the few optimistic data points lately is that there's a staggering amount of wind and solar power being deployed every year) and a couple of lifestyle changes like eating less meat. Not to say these are easy, but contrast with the pretty serious problems of population decline, particularly the social safety net.

[5:41 PM] Me: And I don't just mean the explicit ones like Social Security, but even market-based, privatized ones like retirement savings have a hidden reliance on a growing population.

[5:42 PM] Me: When you "save for retirement", you're not stockpiling food and water to live off when you no longer work, you're collecting financial assets that you expect to sell to someone else and live off that income. But if there's no one to sell to, that doesn't work.

[5:44 PM] Me: This is a problem that's starting to show up at the top end of the income stack: see this WSJ article about retirees who can't find anyone to buy their $3 million homes: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-growing-problem-in-real-estate-too-many-too-big-houses-11553181782. It's easy to have schadenfreude here at those poor rich people who can't unload their huge mansion, but remember that this is inherently a problem which will start at the top of the income brackets and gradually make its way downward.

[5:46 PM] Me: You can push this problem back for a while by increasing taxes on the rich, and I do indeed think those should go up, but in a declining population that only buys you a little time. Remember that "money" is nothing but a claim on some fraction of total economic output. e.g. when you hold a dollar bill, you're essentially holding a note entitling you to one-zillionth of American GDP.

[5:47 PM] Me: At a certain point once population falls then total aggregate output necessarily falls too, and at that point taxing the rich hits rapidly diminishing returns: you're just claiming a bigger share of falling output

[5:49 PM] Me: One thing to keep in mind here is that most economies, but especially the U.S. economy, are primarily driven by consumer spending, i.e. normal people just buying and selling stuff to each other.

[5:50 PM] Me: This is why e.g. mass immigration isn't as huge a deal as a bunch of nativists like to think: immigrants get jobs, but they also spend money on goods and services just like anyone else: they generate labor demand as well as taking up supply

[5:51 PM] Me: But what I'm driving at here is that, again, a consumer-spending-driven economy with a falling population is going to get poorer pretty much by definition: fewer people buying stuff means fewer jobs to produce that stuff.

[5:54 PM] Me: Or to put another way, to use a ridiculously simplified model, GDP = Population X Productivity, and so if you take the derivative, then GDP' ~ Population' + Productivity'. So in a falling population environment, you need a lot of heavy lifting in terms of forever-increasing productivity in order for economic growth to be positive. And while there might be improvements down the pipe, frankly we kind of seem tapped out on productivity growth already

[5:55 PM] Me: Now, one possible response here is that we should work out how to have an economic system which delivers prosperity without endless growth, and I do agree we need that. But just saying that doesn't fix the problem that right now we don't have it and people will be poorer in a world without growth.

[5:56 PM] Me: And in such a world, I think it actually becomes harder to successfully transition to whatever post-scarcity economy can fix the problem, because people will be caught up in fighting over a shrinking pie.

[5:58 PM] Me: The neoliberal capitalist mindset of "a rising tide lifts all boats" isn't totally true and has been used to justify all kinds of nasty plutocratic behavior, but it isn't entirely false either. Without growth, at least in the system we have now, wealth distribution inherently becomes a zero-sum game. And that could get really ugly.

[5:59 PM] Me: So, that's most of what I have to say about why a falling population would be bad. But that's the easy part. Where this gets really complicated is why it's happening and what to do about it

[6:00 PM] Me: Now, I think one of the reasons I've been so fascinated by this is that it's been a pessimistic year, and falling birth rates are kind of the perfect pessimistic problem because I don't really see an easy way out. Also I'm just annoyed by partisans in general, and this is a perfect problem for that because it sort of frustrates partisans on all sides.

[6:02 PM] Me: e.g. the left mainly talks about the economic causes and proposes a variety of policy solutions, but an ugly little secret here is that government policy to increase birth rates has basically a perfect, unbroken track record of total failure

[6:03 PM] Me: All kinds of countries (mostly in Europe, but also in East Asia) have implemented all kinds of pro-natalist policies, and for the most part they have accomplished pretty much nothing. (Amusingly, this even goes back to antiquity: in the first couple centuries AD Roman Emperors were also concerned with falling birth rates, and implemented a variety of reforms that didn't do anything)

[6:03 PM] Me: You could always say they didn't go far enough, but at some point you're making an unfalsifiable hypothesis

[6:06 PM] Me: Meanwhile on the right, they're constantly talking about cultural factors, but this runs into two problems: it's again a set of mostly unfalsifiable hypotheses, but even worse since they're all tangled up in the Right's usual rants about The Way Things Ought to Be, but even if they turned out to be true, it seems like a hopeless cause because we basically have no levers to change culture.

[6:07 PM] Me: "Why does culture develop in the direction it does" is one of those huge questions I'm not sure we'll ever have a complete answer for, but I think it has to mostly involve technological determinism.

[6:08 PM] Me: https://www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/2017/11/12/why-the-culture-wins-an-appreciation-of-iain-m-banks/ <-- this is a great article explaining what I'm talking about, as well as explaining why you should read Iain Banks

[6:09 PM] Me: But my point here is that all the cultural changes the Right laments as causing people to have fewer children, assuming they're even correct which I am definitely not granting, are pretty much all products of industrialization. You can't roll them back without undoing the Industrial Revolution. At least not without an insane level of authoritarianism

[6:10 PM] Me: So on the policy side we have a bunch of levers which don't do anything, and on the culture side there are no levers at all.

#meanwhile on the discord

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sukirichi · 3 years

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hi suki! wanted to tell you this bc i have no one else to talk about it with ><

( you can answer this when the English chapter releases! i was able to read it because my friend bought the WSJ issue)

I was trying to udnerstand Naoy's character, so I was reding everything from CH138-151 again. I'm kinda sad at how people just calls Naoya a Toji fanboy (though true LMAO) and not realizing how Toji really influenced his persona. Like the admiration Naoya held for Toji is so deeply engraved in him that he, who was called a genius sorcerer as a child, looks up to a man who was called a failure. Toji is probably the only man in the clan that he respected, that's why toji's level of strength became his "picture" to follow. And I think a lot of who Naoya has become is because the Zen'ins literally groomed the decency out of him. Still, though groomed to be everything he is, he himself chose not to change anything about it.

(wait but also?? little naoya looks cute like he would guide old ladies on the ped xing so what the fuck happened after that)

I guess one major reason why he does not respect anyone else in the clan (besides his superiority complex) is because of the Zen'in's concept of what is marked as strong. Like, the way they see and treated him as if he's the best sorcerer in the making, yet failing to see Toji's powers and rejecting him fully. It's something similar to Mai when she said "Maki has talent that I don't. And the clan rejected that; that talent that I lacked", except Naoya is raised to be a confident (arrogant?) child, thus he takes it as a challenge instead and works to achieve it.

So, when Maki reached the level of Toji, I think his reaction wasn't simply stemmed on his "fanboy" antics, but his desperation of being part of that level of strength. I think he's more irritated in the fact that Maki, someone who he does not see anywhere near as strong as he is (though he does say Maki is strong in chapter 138), reached a level of strength that he hasn't; that he is trying hard to achieve. It's also the same with having your favorite superhero getting defeated. And Naoya's in denial that there is someone else who could be the same as Toji.

I like how he's an antagonist that was not build under the foundation of a sob backstory (though it was a v small sneak peak of his background and was mainly centered with his admiration for toji, plus I think people forget that Naoya is an antagonist), how he acknowledges that he has not reached that level of strength. Of course, I'm angsty about his misogynistic ideals. I get that he's from a very traditionalist clan so... yeah. I mean, no child is born evil. Children learn from those around them (I've seen many people say he's trash since he was a kid when he said that "i wonder what miserable face he has", but like he's a kid, he doesn't know what he's saying AHSJFJWJQ8QR he was either taught that or he just learned it from others. Funnily enough, he does say toji has a pretty face now LMAO). Maybe it stems from something else, maybe it didn't.

I'm not saying him trying to kill Megumi is forgotten (Though, the Jujutsu Society is a place where teens get executed for the simple fact that they are too strong, so im not surprised. Just like Noritoshi said, age does not matter in Jujutsu Society). I see now why he was really pissed about Megumi being the head, since Naoya has been promised the position since he was young, only to loose of a 15 year old who is the son of the man he admires :')) However, still, none of it excuses the shit he did. He still has a shitty personality, but it's nice to know a bit of a background.

Anyway, that's all for now. My English is bad so that might be all over the place •`,`• That's just my take on it so I could be wrong or maybe seeing him wrong since we still don't know much abt him. I'm always scared to talk about naoya because the last time i did (on twt) i got a backlash of hate (ppl really do get hate just from admiring someone's characterization). Your blog is like a safe haven for naoya stans, so i thank you for that hehe.

Have a nice day suki!! kisses~

(also this is a PSPSPSPS to a naoya childhood friends au fic pls 👁👁)

bestie omg I am so sorry, I found this deep in my inbox and I am *shakes* and yes yes let’s talk about naoya, I would be more than glad to and I’m sorry I didn’t see this any sooner!! more rants and simping under the cut

I'm kinda sad at how people just calls Naoya a Toji fanboy (though true LMAO) and not realizing how Toji really influenced his persona. Like the admiration Naoya held for Toji is so deeply engraved in him that he, who was called a genius sorcerer as a child, looks up to a man who was called a failure. Toji is probably the only man in the clan that he respected, that's why toji's level of strength became his "picture" to follow. And I think a lot of who Naoya has become is because the Zen'ins literally groomed the decency out of him. Still, though groomed to be everything he is, he himself chose not to change anything about it.

omg for this…I’m actually like…like I love the detail that naoya admires toji? as we can see from the panel of little naoya, it’s like people have already planted in his head that no cursed energy = loser, yet he ended up admiring him and I am,,,my heart is just soft! exactly! just think of naoya born as a genius sorcerer yet his admiration for toji, who is painted as the clan’s failure, helped shape him into who he is! idk but I just really love the fact that naoya, who is like born with the pressure and role of being clan leader, somewhat strays from tradition and ends up finding strength into toji and even strives to follow him or “stand by him” someday. for me, it just shows that perhaps naoya isn’t really half as bad as he should be in an honest sense, meaning that he’s evil or morally corrupt because he was born that way or because he chose to be that way. I do agree that perhaps he is the way he is now because he’s groomed to be like that, but of course, I’m not going to disregard the fact that somewhere along the way, Naoya could’ve matured to choose himself to not embody the misogynistic tradition of the zen’in clan.

This could just be me, but my interpretation of it is that Naoya seems more like the perfect product or embodiment of how the clan shaped him to be, blinded him with false morals and the patriarchy presiding into them. Rather than Naoya being just “a misogynistic arrogant man” in my perspective and my opinion, I see him more into the bigger picture of his toxic upbringing to begin with. Like, no child is born evil unless there’s like a predetermined curse deciding their fate for them, so its partly the Zen’in clan’s fault he’s that way. But Gege showing that Naoya admiring someone the Zen’in clan disregarded, it shows that he is capable of being himself without the clause of his clan enforcing things to him once again, like the whole “he’s gonna be the future clan leader” thing, though that is still heavily embedded within him.

(wait but also?? little naoya looks cute like he would guide old ladies on the ped xing so what the fuck happened after that)

OMGGGG PLEASE THAT’S SO CUTE, HE LOOKED SO INNOCENT AND ADORABLE BUT EVEN AS A CHILD HE WAS ALREADY CALLING PEOPLE A LOSER LIKE EYE

I guess one major reason why he does not respect anyone else in the clan (besides his superiority complex) is because of the Zen'in's concept of what is marked as strong. Like, the way they see and treated him as if he's the best sorcerer in the making, yet failing to see Toji's powers and rejecting him fully. It's something similar to Mai when she said "Maki has talent that I don't. And the clan rejected that; that talent that I lacked",except Naoya is raised to be a confident (arrogant?) child, thus he takes it as a challenge instead and works to achieve it.

Anon, is it just me or like…was his superiority complex also enforced on him by the Zen’in clan as well? Again this could just be me going all psychologist mode on Naoya but the nature of superiority complex is quite interesting, you know! As a psych student, I perfectly understand that superiority complex either stems from several things like a) wanting to live up to one’s or others expectations, b) masking it with a deep stem of insecurity, or c) it’s a coping mechanism. See, I could go on and on about but then I’d have to link all my past studies lmao so let’s just put it on layman’s terms that my interpretation of Naoya’s superiority complex is once again, influenced by the clan. Imagine being a kid born into a clan where people remind you again and again that you’re the future leader, that you would be the one to guide them or protect them or discuss the clan’s future and status once you grow, and you’re quite groomed for it.

For such pressure to be put on a child’s shoulders, it kind of strips off his youth and instead of him enjoying his youth, I can imagine that it took a toll on little Naoya, and the reason he grew his superiority complex is his way to cope and reach the standards and expectations that is given to him. Of course, he’s a kid, he might start to wonder, “Can I even do all of that?” but seeing as the Zen’in clan highly measures strength and growth based on abilities, cursed energy, and overall just to conform into the image they’ve held for years, it’s quite obvious that Naoya can’t exactly voice out his worries over this, so instead, he masks it with a superiority complex that absolutely boosts him to a higher level, thus giving him the confidence he needed to carry out his tasks and the reassurance that, “Yes, I am worthy and I will be the clan leader.” As for your theory that he takes it as a challenge, I can see where you’re coming from! I think Naoya is the type of person who definitely likes to challenge himself, but one of the reasons I love his character so much is because he’s not completely a brainless “head on straight to war” type of person too.

He knows his limits and knows which side he should be in, as showed when Yuuta came and mans surrendered easily. Idk why but to me, Naoya, who is such an arrogant confident man who has high trust in abilities, but at the same time can admit when someone is stronger than him (like him admiring Toji and Gojo) just makes him more human and a little more beautifully flawed. Like, he’s not perfect and he’s most definitely an irritating character, but the way he was written is just *chef’s kiss*

Yes, ah I really do love this theory that he’s more irritated because in his mind, he’s like, “I’m a genius sorcerer! I was meant to be clan leader! This is my rightful spot to be a strong one, so how come Maki, who is a woman, with no zero cursed energy has reached the level of the person I looked up most to?” again, Naoya didn’t say that and those are just my opinions and brainrot so don’t come at me for it uwu, but yeah I do think that he’s very aggravated that he didn’t react that level first. Because I guess you could say, he’s probably alluding that Maki reaching Toji’s strength = them being equals, and ofc Naoya wanted to be the one standing beside them. It probably hit his superiority complex that he wasn’t the one in Maki’s spot especially when he tried so hard to achieve it, and considering the gifts he was given (same cursed technique as his dad and him having cursed energy) it threw him off.

Yeah, Naoya is most likely in denial and becomes aggressive over it, although I don’t really mean physically aggressive because Naoya is actually quite calm and ‘composed.’ If ever he did go on a rampage, he does it in such a suave, calculated manner with this silent confidence that he will win. It kind of makes you root for him because he even fools the audience (by audience I mean ME) that he’s going to OWN that fight but whoop, he got his ass kicked. Plus ten points for confidence and a bonus thousand points for being sexy though!!! Yeah, omg he’s probably in disbelief that a woman of all people could be like the person he admired most.

OMG YESSSS ANON YES YES YES *slams down simping button angrily* That’s what I like about him too! Even though Naoya is cocky and wayyyy too arrogant for his own good, I also like that he acknowledges he’s not quite in a level he wants to be in yet. And hah, his backstory, it wasn’t totally sob because it’s obvious he was much too doted on, but I still hate how they made him like that. True, if he’s still carrying the same misogynistic ideals as he is now in an age where he has the mental capacity to improve and be different, then the belief has become more of a choice than something engraved into him, which I am really disappointed and not really into because of course, he’d be much better if he wasn’t like that in the first place. LOLOLOLOL yes yes he’s a kid, it sure as hell doesn’t excuse the way he is now but like just think !!

if a kid was spouting out such mean words and CLEARLY no one is correcting him, who really is the problem here? A child has a harder time deciphering what is right and wrong by himself without proper guidance. And he didn’t have proper guidance, they really just let him be like that and it’s because the clan!! sucks !! ass !! YEAH he probably called toji with a miserable face because he hasn’t seen him before but after seeing the iconic dilf, Naoya gone be like, “anyways, I lied, moving on—”

I'm not saying him trying to kill Megumi is forgotten (Though, the Jujutsu Society isa place where teens get executed for the simple fact that they are too strong, so im not surprised. Just like Noritoshi said, age does not matter in Jujutsu Society). I see now why he was really pissed about Megumi being the head, since Naoya has been promised the position since he was young, only to loose of a 15 year old who is the son of the man he admires :')) However, still, none of it excuses the shit he did. He still has a shitty personality, but it's nice to know a bit of a background.

yeah no of course, no worries! even as a hardcore naoya stan, I can admit this dude is TERRIBLE for so many reasons! yeah I mean that could be pretty irritating because he was born for it, raised to be clan leader, groomed and expected he’d have that role, but nah someone else took his throne. yeah I’m with you on that, naoya has a shitty personality and I would totally smack him if he was real because he makes my eyes roll to the back of my head, but knowing his background and theorizing (read: me going all psychologist mode because he’s the only character I ever cared about to apply my studies into) his character is quite fun. I wish we had more scenes with Naoya though, I really hoped he’d play a bigger role but he just…died, I guess, though I’m starting to believe that maybe he really isn’t dead! Gege did him dirty omg I’ll cry again if it’s really GENUINELY confirmed my baby is gone.

ah no worries about your English, I didn’t really notice anything wrong with it tbh! And I understand, these are all just our opinions/theories/perspectives, we could be wrong or not, we don’t really know because we’re not Gege (⋟﹏⋞) NOOOO PEOPLE HATED YOU ON THAT? ISTG I’VE NEVER SEEN A FANDOM CANCEL SOMEONE AS MUCH AS JJK FANDOM CANCELS NAOYA AND NAOYA STANS LIKE – he’s just a fictional character omg, cancelling naoya is understandable because I would too but attacking his fans? or generally anyone who talks about him in a neutral or not in a way that goes, “yeah I would punch this mfer” is just?? doesn’t make sense to me bestie, people really choose to do that with their time yikes.

AND AWWW THANK YOU YES I PROTECT ALL MY FELLOW NAOYA STANS HERE, I respect who people simp for because if it’s what you enjoy and as long as you’re not hurting anybody, then it really doesn’t matter and it’s not a big deal! and you’re always welcome here uwu. have an even nicer day bestie and I’m sorry I didn’t see this sooner AAAA I really loved talking about this tho HEHEHEH I’m not actually too much of a JJK theorist since I’m not smart enough to pay attention or infer from all the details but NAOYA HMMMMM also childhood friends fic? hmu let’s hear it!! also ahh hmm idk but i get really happy whenever people talk to me freely about naoya bcos even tho i have been a naoya simp for like three months, it was not until recently that people came to me about him and i have just been simping alone (bcos people MADDDD) spsppsps okay rant over thank you anon i love you kith kith <3

#asks with naoya's trophy wife #jjk: manga spoilers #tw: misogyny

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the-bejeesus · 3 years

Text

To Those Who Say “I’m not gonna catch up on One Piece until it’s finished. Why would I watch/read 1000+ episodes/chapters when I don’t even get to know how the story ends?”

Now for the past few years, when I came across somebody who said this, my rebute would be something like “Well the series is great already. It doesn’t really matter if I don’t know how it ends, because the journey itself is enjoyable.” or “Man if that’s your excuse, who you gonna explain why you read/watch stuff like Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and My Hero Academia? Newsflash, they aren’t done yet.” But it came across my mind that I can now apply a completely different approach:

“If you start watching/reading at this pace right now, it will be over by the time you catch up.”

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll know that for awhile now Oda has been saying that he plans to end the series in just 5-4 years. Now he’s made lots of claims in the past that turned out to be ridiculous. However, many One Piece researchers have compiled his claims and found out that they only get more accurate as time goes on, with the most ridiculous claims being found to be myths. And with the most recent claims of ending the series in less than 5 years, even his editors who are usually skeptical have started to trust that he can do this. After all, he has officially set there to be only one more saga (which isn’t necessarily one arc, but it’s either going to be 1-2 major arcs or an anthology of 5-6 shorter arcs). And now that we can trust this claim, we can essentially extrapolate how many chapters/episodes are left and what pace we have to binge to catch up at just the right time.

If you plan to read the manga (black and white):

The manga in black in white is a perfectly fine way to enjoy One Piece. It’s what Oda draws, it’s how he intends it to be viewed, and best of all, it will be the first version of publication to finish.

Out of the 1223 weeks since the first chapter published in July 19, 1997, 1000 chapters have published, meaning on average he publishes 42 chapters per year, or in other words, there are only 10 hiatuses per year (including holidays where WSJ does not publish). Now if I wanted to be more accurate, I’d only look at the chapters published this year, to exclude outliers like how he had no hiatuses for the first 200 chapters, or how he had a 4-week hiatus during the timeskip, but 2020 has been a bit crazy, so we’re not doing that for this or any of the others.

Going off of this, the final chapter would be chapter 1212 in December 28, 2025 (yes, the 28th would be a Sunday again.) So here’s how you’d calculate the pace in which you need to read One Piece, and really this is how we’ll calculate it for every version)

Now I know math is boring, but the reason I’m showing this to you is because the amount of weeks until One Piece ends will vary based on when you start this binge. Chances are you aren’t going to start the day you see this post, and there’s an even greater chance you won’t see this post the day it’s posted. For every example I’m going to assume you started binging on December 28, 2020. Now let’s try to use it for this example.

And there’s your answer, just read 4-5 chapters per week. By the end, One Piece should be nearly over or have very recently ended. To put that into a different perspective, you could purchase and read just two volumes per month and you’ll be at prime pace. Or you could read one chapter every day, but only on weekdays. If you want to, you can see this calculation in action in graph form.

While this is a very rudimentary graph, it’s a basic visualization of what we’re calculating here. We’re calculating what speed we need to binge to catch up at exactly the right moment. I say exact, but ultimately no one can predict how many chapters there will be exactly, nor how many hiatuses Oda will go on during it. It will be important, as you’re nearing the end, to find a spoiler-free way to keep up on how close One Piece is to ending. To know whether you ought to speed up or slow down.

If you plan to watch the anime (subtitled):

For years now people have hated on the anime “terrible animation!” “terrible pacing” but at the end of the day, it’s the more popular version. Or the more viewed version I should say. And personally, I think that once you acknowledge its problems and learn how to deal with them, it’s a perfectly fine experience. There’s enough good voice acting and enough good storytelling that you’re easily able to ignore the problems. Plus, the animation has substantially improved since Wano.

Now for this we’re going to have to change a lot of variables to get this right. We’re going to have to adjust when publication started, and recalculate when One Piece will end by looking at how slowly the anime adapts the manga, and how behind it is. The anime aired on October 20, 1999, and has aired 956 episodes since then. This means on average they air 44.9 episodes per year, meaning there is pretty much only 7 breaks the entire year. With these 956 episodes, they have adapted 955 chapters, making the pace almost exactly one chapter per episode. However this is really inaccurate, considering all the better-paced arcs earlier on in the story. Looking solely at episodes 2012 and onwards, the anime adapts at a pace of 0.65 chapters/episode.

Knowing that there are roughly 212 chapters left, and Toei adapts at 0.65 chapters per episode, we can assume that there are going to be roughly 324 episodes left. That sounds like too many, but keep in mind that there will be several, several instances where the manga will be on hiatus whereas the anime will keep on airing. Knowing there are approximately 324 episodes left, and that the anime only takes about 7 breaks a year, we can assume that it will take 7 years, or 374.49 weeks before the anime will end. So now we have the information we need to do the math again.

x = 1280/374.49

x = 3.417 episodes/week.

It may seem like a more relaxed binge, since you get a whole 2 extra years to binge, and you only have to do 3-4 episodes per week, compared to the 4-5 chapters. But keep in mind that these episodes are 24 minutes each. Still not at all bad, but you will be spending more time on it overall.

If you plan to watch One Pace:

One Pace is a fan project that edits the anime so that filler and padding is cut, other edits will be made to make the anime more manga-accurate, such as reorganizing scenes, or adding title cards where absent. Originally only used by a niche number of One Piece fans, One Pace has grown in popularity, and has tried to improve its quality to accommodate more fans, such as making their episodes Dual Audio (meaning you can switch between the dub and original Japanese audio tracks), and including Spanish subtitles.

You’d think we’d have to adjust for when One Pace began, how slowly One Pace catches up, and the works, but there’s not much to calculate. Fortunately for us, no matter how far behind One Pace is on editing the current arc, they always like to wrap things up just a few weeks within when an arc ended, if not the very same week. So really all we have to calculate is how many One Pace episodes there will be by the end of all this, so that we know how many you’ll need to watch per week.

Looking solely at what they’ve covered so far, One Pace has taken 573 episodes and condensed it down to 259 episodes. That’s a pace of 2.21 anime episodes/ paced episode. Earlier we calculated that there would be 324 episodes of the anime left, making for 1280 episodes total. This would mean that there would be around 578 One Pace episodes by the end. And One Pace would probably wrap up in, let’s say 376 weeks, because as I said, they’ll probably finish editing the final arc a week or two after the last episode airs.

x = 578/376

x = 1.53 episodes per week

Now that’s a relaxed pace. 1-2 episodes per week? That’s so slow, I’m not even sure if I’ll remember what I watched last week next time I watch some episodes. The only problem is some of the pre-timeskip still haven’t been edited. They’ll probably be done by the time they finish the final arc, but that’s not gonna work out fast enough. You’ll hit your first roadblock about 7 weeks in when you need to watch the Baratie arc and it’s not done. And don’t even get me started on how many arcs aren’t done in dub or Spanish sub yet. Hopefully you could just switch to the anime or manga when you hit these arcs, readjusting how many episodes/chapters you need to watch/read when you do. But that’s a bit of an excessive amount of math for something that’s supposed to be fun. So yeah, if you’re still convinced you shouldn’t get into One Piece until it’s ended, maybe this is the option for you.

If you plan to read the manga (Colored):

Since 2012, Shueisha has made a colorization of One Piece. It’s not a fan coloring, it’s as official as it gets. Many consider the color schemes portrayed in this version as the most canon, as the majority are pulled straight from whatever colored illustrations of Oda’s they can find. And quite frankly it makes the manga at least 10 times more beautiful. It’s especially great if you have trouble interpreting dense, small black and white panels.

This one is a doozy. You’d think all I gotta do is calculate how far behind the colored manga usually and just adjust from there, right? Wrong. Because how far behind the colored manga is, or how frequently they release volumes in full color, is one of the most inconsistent things I have ever seen. You wanna see what I’m talking about? This is how they’ve chosen to release each volume since 2012:

Volume 1-12: July 15, 2012

Volume 13-23: September 28, 2012

Volume 24-63: December 4, 2012

Volume 64-65: April 4, 2013

Volume 66-68: December 20, 2013

Volume 69-70: August 25, 2014

Volume 71-72: September 16, 2015

Volume 73-75: October 4, 2016

Volume 76: December 2, 2016

Volume 77: March 3, 2017

Volume 78: July 2, 2017

Volume 79: September 4, 2017

Volume 80: December 4, 2017

Volume 81-82: March 3, 2018

Volume 83: October 4, 2018

Volume 84-86: August 2, 2019

Volume 87-92: September 16, 2020

How I am supposed to find out how long it will take for Shueisha to colorize the final volume of One Piece is beyond me. I guess the first step would be to look at how far behind the manga each release was on average, but I’m going to ignore all the ones before 2013, because those were clearly just Shueisha catching up really fast cause they just started and didn’t want to be dozens of volumes behind forever. So of the 14 publications between 2013 and now, on average the last chapter of the last volume they colored was 97.78 weeks after that chapter had published in Weekly Shonen Jump. This means that if the final chapter of One Piece is chapter 1212 on December 28, 2025, then you can expect the final colored volume to publish November 14, 2027.

x = 1212/359

x = 3.37 chapters/week

So if you prefer the manga but don’t want to read 5 chapters every week for 5 years, this might be a better option for ya. But yea, I have no doubt my prediction is at least a little off for this one.

If you plan to watch the anime (dubbed):

Unlike the 4KidsTV and Odex dubs of One Piece, the FUNimation dub is a perfect way to enjoy One Piece. The DVDs come with enjoyable commentary and a marathon mode, great for binging.

FUNimation’s releases of the dub are inconsistent, although not nearly as erratic as the colored manga release. However, there was recently a 2-year hiatus we only just got out of. Since Episode 1′s dub in May 27, 2008, the dub has gotten as far as Episode 614. But that’s only looking at the DVD releases. If you’re willing to stream on FUNimationnow, the dub is as far as 641, and if you’re willing to digitally purchase it from an e-shop such as the Microsoft store, it goes all the way to Episode 654. With that being said, that would mean that on average, FUNimation dubs 1.004 episodes per week. Although if we go back to before the two-year hiatus so as to exclude it from the average, it’s actually 1.10 episodes per week. Not a huge difference, actually. And then if we look solely after the two-year hiatus, it’s actually 2.25 episodes per week, which is insanely faster. It’s hard to tell what the future of the dub will be. I can’t assume they’ll go this fast forever, so I’m just going to take the average of all 3 and say it’s 1.45 episodes per week. Don’t know if that’s the best mathematical approach, but the number seems about right.

So knowing that the dub is at Episode 654 and looking at our previous guesstimation that the anime will be 1280 episodes long, we can predict that it will take 431 weeks before the dub catches up and ends. That would be in 2029! Sounds quick at first until you notice it’s 4 years behind!

x = 1280/431

x = 2.96 episodes per week

Looks like it’s almost exactly 3 episodes per week. Not as much less of a workload as I expected, compared to catching up to the sub. You know, I figured those 4 extra years would make you binge a lot slower.

Final Thoughts:

There’s a lot of my math that was estimation, approximations, extrapolations. Feel free to correct me or fact check me, especially if you plan on using this. I figured this would be a fun thought excercise. There’s also a lot of smaller variables I simply didn’t want to take into account because of how long this is already. For example, reading the black and white manga. The calculation can vary slightly depending on if you read it the day it’s published (which I assume would have to be a fanscan unless you can read Japanese), reading the weekly publication legally on Viz.com, waiting for the physical volume release. The dub can also vary depending on whether you buy from Microsoft, wait for the FUNimationnow release, wait for the DVDs, or wait for the Collection sets. So feel free to take this into account.

#One Piece #OP #ワンピース #Wan Pīsu #anime #manga #FUNimation #dub #One Pace

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skyhopedango · 3 years

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State of the Season (OMG IT’S ALREADY MARCH???!)

So... yeah. Time really does fly, huh. :O I’ve been so swept away by work and politics/activism and trying to rock an undercut that is the surprisingly fortunate result of trying to cut my own hair, that all these months just kind of passed me by. Holy shit, it’s almost summer. And covid is still here.

Anyway, so the shows I’ve been watching, or not watching as the case might be.

Dropped:

SK8: I ranted about it a while back - I tried watching a couple more episodes, but nah, sorry. The show is trying to do one thing and another completely different thing, and it just fails to do either well, missing the balance by a shot so long it fades into infinity. It doesn’t lean fully into just being crazy and OTT fun, but it leans into it enough that there’s a tonal dissonance between the crazy OTT parts and the “real” and “drama” parts, which result in neither parts working for me. The “adults trying to write cool kids” factor and the really dated visual design doesn’t do it any favors either. It’s 2021 guys! If you want to be “hip and cool” come up with something that doesn’t smell like moth balls.

As for the rest:

Osomatsu-san S3: This is... kind of a pity. I talked about this before, but it really feels like the writing has lost its touch, and its sight of who/what the characters are. Also, the extended cast just doesn’t work. Totoko and Nyaa are just not interesting enough to carry so much of the show, and the AIs are perplexing and not in a good way. They feel completely pointless, characterless and boring.

It’s not like the show is bad though. The voice work continues to be absolutely amazing (why is this cast so good), it’s still mildly entertaining, and there are flashes of brilliance every now and then - the pizza skit is one of the Osomatsu-san greats, as is the entirety of episode 22, with the detective show spoof and the crazy hide-and-seek skit. Even the AIs had an unexpectedly fun and relatable moment, the skit with the shitty senpai you kinda pity but also don’t really want to associate with. Overall though, this season is a miss, which is a pity.

Jujutsu Kaisen: This has been precariously teetering on the edge of being dropped, but eh, I might as well finish this season. Like, the show is mostly harmless, really, mostly inoffensive, but also 90% of why I’m still watching it is so I can listen to Nakamura Yuuichi, Shimazaki Nobunaga, and a couple more seiyuu. It’s bogstandard WSJ action stuff. But also, it’s at the “let’s have a tournament arc, and introduce tons of new characters and their super special powers and angsty backstories!” part where these stories always lose me. Like, I don’t really care about all the power wankery, yes, the character is super strong, but if that’s all then I don’t care about the details, let’s move on. Also, I just want to spend time with the main cast, y’know? I don’t need two thousand characters, and OK, we can have a huge cast but flesh out your main people first?

Aside of the cast, the animation continues to be its saving grace, but even there some things grate on me - things I wouldn’t care about normally, but since the show is clearly an animator wank fest, these things stand out. Like how the composition is often kinda dodgy, with the characters not integrating fully with the background? Or how there’s the "telling not showing” thing where they have characters telling us things that could be so easily conveyed by animation. Yes, that’s necessary in manga where the images are not moving, but here, especially with all the animation wankery, it just feels like the director just wanted to show off, and didn’t put a lot of effort into actually creating a good and complete translation of static to dynamic, manga to anime.

Back Arrow: This one is... well, it’s entertaining. It’s a bit of a letdown in that it doesn’t really go as hard as it could and should. Like, the jokes are good in theory, but in practice more ofthen than not the punchlines don’t quite land. Still, I’m being entertained so I’ll keep watching. (Mostly, I just like what a terrible, stupid bunch the characters are. :D) Will I remember this show a week after the finale, though? Not likely, but hey, I don’t need all shows I watch to be unforgettable masterpieces.

Beastars: This is, well, good. It’s really good, actually, it’s a great show! It’s just that I kind of lost my enthusiasm for Beastars so I just can’t get hyped. And without the hype, my brain just starts thinking too deeply about things I’m not supposed to think about, like... yes, I understand the allegories and whatnot, but also isn’t it just awfully convenient that like all of herbivores we see on the regular are the “small, soft, prey” type? Where are all the tough, often aggressive herbivores that predators think twice (three times, four times) about messing with? Where are the African buffalos, the bisons, the elephants, the rhinos? I’m just saying, it’s really convenient for the story that those are out of the picture. Also, what with all the focus on size and strength, it’s kind of dodgy how the show just handwaves away the fact that there are small carnivores and large herbivores, and the latter could kick the formers’ ass any day, like come on, a horse vs a cat? Yeah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But anyway, yeah, show is good. I’m enjoying it a lot. I hope they won’t adapt the rest of the manga.

Tenchi Souzou Design-bu: This is just tons of fun. :D It takes an issue that I very often think about (namely, “why is this creature like that? what the hell, Mother Nature?”) and puts it in a context that makes complete sense (”oh I see, it was created by overworked designers based on vague and arbitrary instructions, gotcha, I can relate to that” :D). And even though it’s just basically the same settings and jokes over and over it doesn’t get old. :D

Kemono Jihen: This one is fine? It’s not mindblowingly amazing, but not bland or mediocre either. It’s just a solid, good show, although I really hope that Aya is not a permanent addition to the cast because I really hate the “jealous girls fighting over a guy” trope. That aside, I actually started reading the manga for this, but... well, this is one of those cases where the anime format just works better for me. I hope it will get a second season.

But most of all I really really look forward to the spring season, partly because there’s quite a lot of shows I’m interested in, and also it’s one step closer to the summer season and Night Head 2041. :D

#sk8 the infinity #osomatsu-san season 3 #kemono jihen #jujutsu kaisen #tenchi souzou design-bu #back arrow #anime #winter anime 2021

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arcticdementor · 3 years

Link

Most of you already know that based was formed by shaving the first two letters from debased, to form a new word meaning the opposite of debased, thus completing the pair of a formerly unpaired word (as in gruntled from disgruntled).

Based is everything debased is not.

…

Forget every elite source, politician, ruler, and named person, who are all progressives in practice, if not in heart. Ignore the neoconmen, about whom nobody is now fooled. Think instead of people like Rod Dreher (new link), Ross Douthat, Jonah Goldberg, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Rich Lowry, David French, and organizations like Heritage, NRO, Fox, TPUSA, GOP, the WSJ, all those in the Big Con or Con Inc who call themselves, or are called, “conservatives”. The label cannot be shaken off.

Conservative, and conservatives, are no longer based. Even those individuals and groups who are semi-sort of on the real right contain debased vestiges.

This is scarcely their fault. The entire culture is debased. We are saturated in the debased, and trained and everywhere encouraged in it. It is the very muffled masked air we breathe. Starting with the Kindergarten, even pre-school, on up, continuing to all entertainment, sports, to nearly every corporation. Two words: Human Resources.

We all suffer from this. Because of our long training and because of original sin we are each of us debased in part. The first step in becoming based is recognizing this, and accepting the implied responsibility.

All of this is known. Meaning we finally we come to the point. I submit that, needing a new word to describe what we used to call “conservative”, with all its implied prefixes (paleo, etc.), we adopt based-Right, or simply based.

…

We need the word in wide use for the separation it brings. We need it so we can say “So-and-so is a based writer”, or “I’m based”, or “What the based movement needs”. Read those again substituting “conservative” to hear how natural they sound.

Can you imagine any of the conservatives above, and the legion like them, admitting they were based? Can you see Sohrab Ahmari writing “We need to strengthen the based movement”? Would we see written “Heritage is a based think tank”? Would Charlie Kirk say, “What the based strippers need to do…”?

The questions answer themselves. These people know they are not based, and know they do not desire to be. They want the separation between them and us just as much as we do.

There are many in the conservative camp who are based, but don’t know it. Don’t know the word, I mean, with all its connotations. They don’t like putting themselves into the same camp with these other people. They know that something is off, but can’t quite see what it is. We need to assist these people, and ease them into our camp.

If you can’t remember any of the comparisons above, at least remember these: Punching right is debased. Keeping your counsel is based. Ratting out your neighbor is debased. Keeping the brotherhood is based.

#william m briggs #based

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

Text

Pluralistic: 14 Mar 2020 (Free audio of Masque of the Red Death and When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, Ada Palmer on censorship, Women of Imagineering, Glitch unionizes, Tachyon/EFF Humble Bundle, Canada Reads postponed, data-caps and liquid bans paused, Star Wars firepits)

Today's links

Masque of the Red Death: Macmillan Audio gave me permission to share the audiobook of my end-of-the-world novella.

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth: A new podcast audiobook of my 2005 end-of-the-world story.

Ada Palmer on historical and modern censorship: Part of EFF's Speaking Freely project.

Glitch workers unionize: First-ever tech union formed without management opposition.

Women of Imagineering: A 384-page illustrated chronicle of the role women play in Disney theme-park design.

Tachyon celebrates 30 years of sff publishing with a Humble Bundle: DRM-free and benefits EFF.

Honest Government Ads, Covid-19 edition: Political satire is really hard, but The Juice makes it look easy.

TSA lifts liquid bans, telcos lift data caps: Almost as though there was no reason for them in the first place.

CBC postpones Canada Reads debates: But you can read a ton of the nominated books online for free.

Star Wars firepits: 750lbs of flaming backyard steel.

This day in history: 2005, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Masque of the Red Death (permalink)

Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1842. It's about a plutocrat who throws a masked ball in his walled abbey during a plague with the intention of cheating death.

https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

My novella "The Masque of the Red Death" is a tribute to Poe; it's from my book Radicalized. It's the story of a plute who brings his pals to his luxury bunker during civlizational collapse in the expectation of emerging once others have rebuilt.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250242334

Naturally, they assume that when they do emerge, once their social inferiors have rebooted civilization, that their incredible finance-brains, their assault rifles, and their USBs full of BtC will allow them to command a harem and live a perpetual Frazetta-painting future.

And naturally – to anyone who's read Poe – it doesn't work out for them. They discover that humanity has a shared microbial destiny and that you can't shoot germs. That every catastrophe must be answered with solidarity, not selfishness, if it is to be survived.

Like my story When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, the Masque of the Red Death has been on a lot of people's minds lately, especially since this Guardian story of plutes fleeing to their luxury bunkers was published. Hundreds of you have sent me this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/disease-dodging-worried-wealthy-jet-off-to-disaster-bunkers

I got the message. Yesterday, I asked my agent to see if Macmillan Audio would let me publish the audiobook of my Masque of the Red Death for free. They said yes, and asked me to remind you that the audiobook of Radicalized (which includes Masque) is available for your delectation.

I hope you'll check out the whole book. Radicalized was named one of the @WSJ's best books of 2019, and it's a finalist for Canada Reads, the national book prize. It's currently on every Canadian national bestseller list.

There's one hitch, though: Audible won't sell it to you. They don't sell ANY of my work, because I don't allow DRM on it, because I believe that you should not have to lock my audiobooks to Amazon's platform in order to enjoy them.

Instead, you can buy the audio from sellers like libro.fm, Downpour.com, and Google Play. Or you can get it direct from me. No DRM, no license agreement. Just "you bought it, you own it."

https://craphound.com/shop/

And here's the free Macmillan Audio edition of Masque of the Red Death, read with spine-chilling menace by the incredible Stefan Rudnicki, with a special intro from me, freshly mastered by John Taylor Williams. I hope it gives you some comfort.

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/

(Here's the direct MP3, too)

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_332_-_The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death.mp3

Ada Palmer on historical and modern censorship (permalink)

My EFF colleague Jillian C York's latest project is Speaking Freely, a series of interviews with people about free expression and the internet, including what Neil Gaiman memorably called "icky speech."

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

The latest interview subject is the incomparable Ada Palmer: historian, sf writer, musician, and co-host of last year's U Chicago seminar series on "systems of information control during information revolutions," which I co-taught with her. Ada's interview synthesizes her historian's distance from the subject ("yes, this is my subject, and these people are terrible, and it's kind of fun in that way") with her perspective as a writer and advocate for free speech.

"One of the victims of censorship is the future capacity to tell histories of the period when censorship happened….. It renders that historical record unreliable… makes it easier for people to make claims you can't refute using historical sources… It's similar to how we see people invalidating things now—like 'that climate study wasn't really valid because it got funding from a leftist political group"—they're invalidating the material by claiming that there has to be insincerity its development.

"Pretty much every censoring operation post-printing press recognizes that it isn't possible to track down and destroy every copy of a thing…An Inquisition book burning was the ceremonial burning of one copy. The Inquisition kept examples of all of the books they banned."

Fascinating perspecting on whether nongovernmental action can really be called "censorship."

"The Inquisition wasn't the state – it was a private org like to Doctors Without Borders or Unicef, run by private orgs like the Dominicans and it often competed with the state." As she points out, everything the Inquisition did would be fine alongside the First Amendment, because it was entirely private action.

Next, Palmer talks about market concentration and how it abets this kind of private censorship. This is something I've written a lot about, see for example:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

"If you have a plural set of voices, then you're always going to have some spaces where things can be said, just like you have a plurality of printers printing books, and some will only print orthodox things and some will only print radical ones."

And while the internet could afford many venues for speech, in practice a concentrated internet makes is plausible to accomplish the censor's never-realized dream: "You can make a program that can hunt down every instance of a particular phrase and erase it."

Tiny architectural choices make big differences here ("Architecture is politics" -Mitch Kapor). Amazon can update your Kindle books without your permission, Kobo can't. Amazon could delete every instance of a book on Kindles, but Kobo would need cooperation from its customers.

Palmer is just the latest subject of Jillian's series. You can read many other amazing interviews here:

https://www.eff.org/speaking-freely

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (permalink)

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of people have written to me to draw comparisons between the pandemic emergency and my 2005 story "When Sysamins Ruled the Earth" – an apocalyptic tale of network administrators who survive a civilizational collapse.

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-Overclocked-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html

I started writing this story in the teacher's quarters at the Clarion Workshop, which was then hosted at MSU. It was July 6, 2005. I know the date because the next day was 7/7, when bombs went off across London, blowing up the tube train my wife normally rode to work. The attacks also took out the bus I normally rode to my office. My wife was late to work because I was in Michigan, so she slept in. It probably saved her life. I couldn't work on this story for a long time after.

Eventually, I finished it and sold it to Eric Flint for Baen's Universe magazine. It's been widely reprinted and adapted, including as a comic:

https://archive.org/details/CoryDoctorowsFuturisticTalesOfTheHereAndNow/mode/2up

I read this for my podcast 15 years ago, too, but the quality is terrible. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I should do a new reading. So I did, and John Taylor Williams mastered it overnight and now it's live.

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/when-sysadmins-ruled-the-earth-2/

There's a soliloquy in this where the protagonist reads a part of John Perry Barlow's Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. Rather than read it myself for the podcast, I ganked some of Barlow's own 2015 reading, which is fucking magnificent.

https://vimeo.com/111576518

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. I've spent a lot of imaginary time inhabiting various apocalypses, driven (I think) by my grandmother's horrific stories of being inducted into the civil defense corps during the Siege of Leningrad, which began when she was 12.

You can subscribe to the podcast here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

And here's the MP3, which is hosted by the @internetarchive (they'll host your stuff for free, too!).

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_331/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_331_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.mp3

Glitch workers unionize (permalink)

The staff of Glitch have formed a union. It seems to be the first-ever white-collar tech-workers' union to have formed without any objections from management (bravo, Anil Dash!).

https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/tech-workers-app-developer-glitch-vote-form-union-and-join-cwa-organizing-initiative

The workers organized under the Communications Workers of America, which has been organizing tech shops through their Campaign to Organize Digital Employees.

https://www.code-cwa.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIovDRsc-S6AIVCuDICh0rFQCMEAAYASAAEgJb1PD_BwE

"We appreciate that unlike so many employers, the Glitch management team decided to respect the rights of its workforce to choose union representation without fear or coercion."

Women of Imagineering (permalink)

Next October, Disney will publish "Women of Imagineering: 12 Careers, 12 Theme Parks, Countless Stories," a 384-page history of a dozen pioneering woman Imagineers.

https://thedisneyblog.com/2020/03/13/new-book-highlights-stories-from-the-women-of-walt-disney-imagineering/

Featured are Elisabete Erlandson, Julie Svendsen, Maggie Elliott, Peggy Fariss, Paula Dinkel, Karen Connolly Armitage, Katie Olson, Becky Bishop, Tori Atencio, Lynne Macer Rhodes, Kathy Rogers, and Pam Rank.

When I worked at Imagineering, the smartest, most talented, most impressive staff I knew were women (like Sara Thacher!). It's amazing to see the women of the organization get some long-overdue recognition.

Tachyon celebrates 30 years of sff publishing with a Humble Bundle (permalink)

For 30 years, @TachyonPub has been publishing outstanding science fiction, including a wide range of stuff that's too weird or marginal for the Big 5 publishers, like collections of essays and collections.

https://tachyonpublications.com/

Now, they've teamed up with Humble Bundle to celebrate their 30th with a huge pay-what-you-like bundle that benefits EFF. There are so many great books in this bundle!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/celebrating-25-years-scifi-fantasy-from-tachyon-books

Like Bruce Sterling's Pirate Utopia, Eileen Gunn's Stable Strategies, and books by Michael Moorcock, Thomas Disch, Jo Walton, Jane Yolen, Nick Mamatas, Kameron Hurley, Lauren Beukes, Lavie Tidhar and so many more!

I curated the very first Humble Ebook Bundle and I've followed all the ones since. This one is fucking amazeballs. Run, don't walk.

Honest Government Ads, Covid-19 edition (permalink)

Good political satire is hard, but @thejuicemedia's "Honest Government Ads" are consistently brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKRw8GAAtm27q4R3Q0kst_g

The latest is, of course, Covi9-19 themed. It is funny, trenchant, and puts the blame exactly where it belongs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hks6Nq7g6P4

If you like it, you can support their Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/TheJuiceMedia

TSA lifts liquid bans, telcos lift data caps (permalink)

Your ISP is likely to lift its data-caps in the next day or two. @ATT and @comcast already did.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74qzb/atandt-suspends-broadband-usage-caps-during-coronavirus-crisis

And TSA has decided that 12 ounces of any liquid labelled "hand sanitizer" is safe for aviation, irrespective of what's in the bottle.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21179120/tsa-hand-sanitizer-liquid-size-airport-screening-coronavirus-covid-19

What do these two facts have in common? Obviously, it's that the official narrative for things that impose enormous financial costs on Americans, and dramatically lower their quality of lives, were based on lies. These lies have been obvious from the start. The liquid ban, for example, is based on a plot that never worked (making binary explosives in airport bathroom sinks from liquids) and seems unlikely to ever have worked, according to organic chemists.

Keeping your "piranha bath" near 0' C for a protracted period in the bathroom toilet is some varsity-level terrorism, and the penalty for failure is that you maim or blind yourself with acid spatter.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/on_the_implausi.html

And even if you stipulate that the risk is real, it's been obvious for 14 years that multiple 3oz bottles of Bad Liquid could be recombined beyond the checkpoint to do whatever it is liquids do at 3.0001oz.The liquid ban isn't just an inconvenience. It's not even just a burden on travelers who've collectively spent billions to re-purchase drinks and toiletries. It's a huge health burden to people with disabilities who rely on constant access to liquids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m12mLXgO1A

And as we knew all along, the liquid ban was a nonsense, an authoritarian response to a cack-handed, improbable terror plot. It embodies the "security syllogism":

Something must be done. There, I've done something.

Think of all those checkpoints where all confiscated liquids were dumped into a giant barrel and mingled together: if liquids posed an existential threat to planes, they'd dispose of them like they were C4, not filtered water. No one believed in the liquid threat, ever. TSA can relax the restrictions and allow 12oz of anything labeled as hand-san through the checkpoints. There was no reason to confiscate liquids in the first place. But don't expect them to admit this. The implicit message of the change is "Pandemics make liquids safe."

Now onto data-caps. Like the liquid ban, data-caps have imposed a tremendous cost on Americans. In addition to the hundreds of millions in monopoly rents extracted from the nation by telcos through overage charges, these caps also shut many out of the digital world. They represent a regressive tax on information, one that falls worst upon the most underserved in the nation: people in poor and rural places, for whom online access is a gateway to civic and political life, family connection, employment and education.

We were told that we had to tolerate these caps because of the "tragedy of the commons," a fraudulent idea from economics that says that shared resources are destroyed through selfish overuse, based on no data or evidence.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/first-as-tragedy-then-as-fascism-amend

(By contrast, actual commons are a super-efficient way of managing resources)

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons

Telcos insisted that if they didn't throttle and gouge us, their networks would become unusable – but really, what they meant is that if they didn't throttle and gouge us, the windfall to their shareholders would decline.

What's more likely: that pandemics make network management tools so efficient that data-caps become obsolete, or that they were a shuck and a ripoff from day one, enabled by a hyper-concentrated industry of monopolists with cozy relationships with corrupt regulators?

So yeah, maybe this is the moment that kills Security Theater and data-caps.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-could-force-isps-to-abandon-data-caps-forever/

(Image: Rhys Gibson)

CBC postpones Canada Reads debates (permalink)

The folks at the @CBC have postponed next week's televised Canada Reads debates, so we're going to have to wait a while to find out who wins the national book prize.

https://www.cbc.ca/books/canada-reads-2020-postponed-1.5497678

Obviously, this is a bummer, though equally obviously, it's a relatively small consequence of this ghastly circumstance.

And on the bright side, the CBC have just released a ton of excerpts from the nominees:

https://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/read-excerpts-from-the-canada-reads-2020-books-1.5496637

If you're looking for some Canada Reads lit for this moment, my novella "Masque of the Red Death" appears in my collection Radicalized, one of the finalists. I put up the story as a free podast last night (thanks to Macmillan Audio for permission).

https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/

Star Wars firepits (permalink)

West Coast Firepits went viral when they produced a Death Star firepit, though of course, I lusted after their Tiki Firepit.

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/tiki-firepit-69825

But now they're really leaning into the Star Wars themed pits, with an Interceptor pit ($2500):

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/interceptor

Or, if you prefer a post-apocalyptic version, there's a Crashed Interceptor pit, also $2500.

https://www.westcoastfirepits.com/shop/crashed-interceptor

If those prices seem high, consider that they're hand-made onshore, and contain 750lbs of 1/4" and 1/8" steel.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago How DRM will harm the developing world https://web.archive.org/web/20050317005030/https://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/itu_drm.php

#5yrsago Anti-vaxxer ordered to pay EUR100K to winner of "measles aren't real" bet https://calvinayre.com/2015/03/13/business/biologist-ordered-to-pay-e100k-after-losing-wager-that-a-virus-causes-measles/

#1yrago A massive victory for fair use in the longrunning Dr Seuss vs Star Trek parody lawsuit https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190313/09554041791/big-fair-use-win-mashups-places-youll-boldly-go-deemed-to-be-fair-use.shtml

#1yrago A detailed analysis of American ER bills reveals rampant, impossible-to-avoid price-gouging https://www.vox.com/health-care/2018/12/18/18134825/emergency-room-bills-health-care-costs-america

#1yrago Ketamine works great for depression and other conditions, and costs $10/dose; the new FDA-approved "ketamine" performs badly in trials and costs a fortune https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/11/ketamine-now-by-prescription/

#1yrago Facebook and Big Tech are monopsonies, even when they're not monopolies https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-not-monopoly-but-should-broken-up/

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: EFF Deeplinks (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/), Waxy (https://waxy.org/), Slashdot https://slashdot.org).

Currently writing: I've just finished rewrites on a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I've also just completed "Baby Twitter," a piece of design fiction also set in The Lost Cause's prehistory, for a British think-tank. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel next.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/when-sysadmins-ruled-the-earth-2/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

#pluralistic

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migleefulmoments · 4 years

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"No one will ever convince me he made that statement, and if you listen to his ACTUAL words about that, he didn’t say he wouldn’t take any more LGBTQ roles." Darren literally said that the gay community would have his head if he took another gay role but somehow to tinhats like Cassie, that means the next role he takes will be a gay character. I guess Darren meant that he knows the gay community will try to murder him, but he has faith in his ability to avoid their attempts. They're such freaks.

When they make grandiose and sweeping statements like this, I feel the full weight of the disinformation campaign they all embrace. Cassie claims “When you listen to his actual words…he didn’t say he wouldn’t take any more LGBTQ roles” so we have to see if she’s telling the truth or she’s manipulating reality in order to soothe their anxiety and allow them to easily fetishize the gay version of Darren.

What did Darren say? (You can read the entire Bustle piece (X))

“There are certain [queer] roles that I’ll see that are just wonderful,“ Criss explains when we speak at a recent event for Clorox’s What Comes Next in New York, a few days after he returned from an overseas tour with his Glee co-star Lea Michele. ”But I want to make sure I won’t be another straight boy taking a gay man’s role.“Although Criss says it’s “been a real joy” playing queer characters like Blaine, Cunanan, and Hedwig in the Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, he now doesn’t feel comfortable taking those roles, which is “unfortunate,” he says. “The reason I say that is because getting to play those characters is inherently a wonderful dramatic experience,” he adds. “It has made for very, very compelling and interesting people.”

One of the reasons they claim they don’t think Darren said the words is because they claim that print interviews are fake:

12/18/18 ajw720 answered:

I would like to see a video as well, nonnie, as I don’t actually think he said any of this shit. Print articles are never, ever to be trusted. They are generally fabricated.

If you recall nonnie, D himself called out an article earlier this year (it may even be the one referred to in this piece of crap) for taking a quote of his out of context about his Filipino Heritage, likely as he was sick of being called white repeatedly. Fact is, while he is able to correct the “white” narrative, he, at this time, is not able to correct the straight narrative so he can’t even defend himself when this utter nonsense is published in his name.

First of all print articles aren’t generally fabricated and most CAN be trusted if you vet them properly. Claiming “ALL print articles are fabricated”- and therefore not to be trusted is a perfect cctrope because it gives them the out they need to label everything they don’t like-every single quote, every single story, and every single description as fake news. It’s the perfect strategy for ignoring everything Darren talks about that proves he isn’t Blarren- all the puns and sexual innuendos, all the crude comments, all the sweet things he says about Mia or his sexuality. All they have to do is remind their followers that it was in a print article and Woosh- it’s invalid. Trump is doing the same thing with his base-he’s grooming them to believe that the media is dangerous and that everyone fabricates stories about him. He calls them “the enemy of the people” so when the. NYT proves he laundered money for years through the Russian mafia or that he actively cheated during the 2016 election and is trying to cheat in 2020, his base will scream “fake news” and threaten to go all 2nd amendment on the rest of us.

Once again Abby uses something to prove her point but misses the fact that it actually proves she’s full of shit- Darren did push back on the interview where he was misquoted regarding his Filipino heritage but he hasn’t pushed back on any other interview he’s ever given. We can see he’s capable of pushing back, he’s interested in making sure he is quoted accurately and yet we’ve seen no other example- the reasonable conclusion is that is because the other interviews weren’t misquoted.

e Bustle piece and understand that he said he will no longer play LGBTQ characters. It’s clear that Darren has a far deeper understanding of the issue than Cassie and Abby. Splitting hairs and claiming he didn’t specifically say he would never play a bisexual or trans character is stupid. What Cassie and Abby are missing in the article is this paragraph:

This conversation about straight actors being cast in gay roles is about more than just LGBTQ actors losing out on Oscars, of course. It’s about Hollywood missing an opportunity to embrace new talent who would better serve these stories. And over the years, actors like Criss have become more sensitive to these types of concerns. The Versase star understands that there is an added honesty to actor getting to play characters who share their identities. “The commitment to that drama is told in such a way that it can really effectively reach people’s lives,” Criss says. “I think that really is important.”

Abby gets her wish- there is an audio recording of him making this statement-albeit it was 4 months prior to the Bustle interview and he seems to have evolved his understanding of the importance of representation in those 4 months. In the Hollywood Reporter interview he said:

“….But I do think about that now, you know, if roles come by that are LGBT leaning - I really think it would be insensitive to the gay community if I were to take another role. I think they’d have my head. You know, I would totally understand that. So I’m certainly cognizant of it. And while it is very tricky, I think the discussion and the questioning is really really important. And I think it’s good that we’re uncertain and I hope that we can find some kind of balance.” -Darren Criss, 8/26/18

I am an idiot and can’t remember how I got the audio portion of the interview on to my blog so I have to refer you to my old post if you want to hear Darren say the words (X).

I think you are correct- Darren is well aware the gay community will kill him but he doesn’t care because he has superpowers.

EDIT** I found this charming comment from Chrisdare who is a “journalist” yet she knows nothing about journalism. I got in an argument with her once and she schooled me that journalists aren’t educated.and will say anything a publicist tells them too. Whatever, Valentina, Google should be your friend.

Anonymous asked: It wouldn’t matter if you saw a video because you wouldn’t believe it anyway. You would say he was being forced to say it. Fact is CCers haven’t believed a thing

ajw720 answered:I believe many things nonnie. I also have a deep and fundamental understanding about hollywood works nonnie and that is something you clearly lack.

Further, if D was straight, i believe he would never allow them to portray him as an asshole. D is an incredibly intelligent human being, he knows exactly how negatively the straight push reflects on him. and frankly, it would not be necessary if he exclusively slept with female persons with vaginas.

Have a nice life living in delusionville.

chrisdarebashfulsmiles JCS shut the f** up.

When we talk about articles and how they are made we talk about facts. I hate when you come here busting balls on professional stuff when you don’t know anything. You can’t even imagine all the shit we do as journalist

It’s not a matter of cc but the fact they are ruining D’s life and career. And if you are a fan you need to start opening your eyes and stop being an enabler. I swear you should feel guilty when he will come out because you helped keeping him in the closet.

Talk about dellusionville!

**********Edit Edit *******(X)

chrisdarebashfulsmiles Because there’s a power of attorney that allows RR and Ab to do so. To say something D has to prove that the article is harmful and he has to do it through a legal action. And this means breach of contract with all it entails like the two years of stop from signing an anything.

That IS NOT how “power of attorney” works. But nice try- 10 points for originality and imagination!

***Edit Edit Edit *********

Anonymous asked: An article you should read to help you understand how journalism works .tinyurl/com/y9s49tms. German Reporter At Der Spiegel Fired for Fabricating Stories “On A Grand Scale”. “I’m so angry, horrified, shocked, stunned,” Der Spiegel deputy foreign editor Mathieu von Rohr tweeted Wednesday. “Claas Relotius faked, he cheated on us all.” Journalists can’t just make up stories or publish falsities no matter how much you want to believe that is happening in Hollywood.

chrisdarebashfulsmiles answered: It’s amazing how is crystal clear that you never worked in a magazine or in a PR firm. I work since 2004 and I don’t need an article… I know how it works. We aren’t talking about WSJ and serious stuff. We are talking about gossip and showbusiness so don’t try to be smug because you are failing.

Have nice day/ night wherever you are. :) it’s evening here and I’m enjoying my free time.

bjpb8 Oh, my gosh who is this person. People thrive on gossip and “Rags”. IT SELLS. First begain with papers like En/quire, The Globe, etc. Then spread to SM with blinds. You think other magazines and papers do not want to make money. Everyone prints what sells depending on audiences. Embellishment is part of the trade. They want to catch your interest, which feeds right into what PR wants to sell! Tts a sybiotic relationship at best! It is just some are more talented at making what sounds like truth out of lies. Its called entertainment. You might want ro “read” about it.

The author of the Bustle interview has a master’s degree in journalism from CUNY New York so it is more like the wall street journal than it is the “website” you work for Valentina. Journalists have a degree in journalism. Anyone can be a blogger - you’ve proved that.

****Edit Edit Edit Edit *******

D/arren did not write that post! (X)

12/19/18

ajw720 I have enough faith in Dar/ren Cri/ss personality and his respect and love for his fans to know that the comments attributed to him were not his. I’ve seem this happen before…I’m sure many of you have, also. Darr/en is stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. When he finally writes a memoir about this time, he will let us know about his anquish, anger and remorse. If one is a TRUE CC and Dar/ren fan, after years of roller-coaster rides via PR, et al…I will continue to take the advice of the person that runse THIS SITE. “Trust the process…”

***********************************************************************

@geminess We have to trust the process and believe that C and D are working hard towards an ending to this absolute tragedy that is legally clean and does not jeopardize either of their careers.

I believe in them, I cannot accept that D would ever willingly choose to represent himself in this manner and to continue this nightmare of a charade surrounded by utterly and completely vile, disgusting human beings.

Please, please, please may we be right. I cannot repeat enough there is no alternative ending that is acceptable but D breaking free by ending this sham of an encage, severing ties with his inhumane team, and eventually coming out.

And yesterday proved once again just how frightening the alternative is. I would fear for his career and his life. And it baffles and amazes me that anyone watching, even if you believe he is the straightest man alive, cannot see how harmful that article was. It was like he used the LGBT+ community to win his awards and is now ready to dismiss them.

(X) 12/19/18

Anonymous asked: On the bright side, this means we’re coming to the end right?

ajw720 answered: Anon, we honestly don’t know, but we can only hope. If D extends his time with these assholes, it will be very ugly for him personally and professionally.

But logic seems to say that this article, the literally offends every fan but the blind and naive, is wholly unnecessary if in fact they are going to continue a professional relationships. And it did not just the fans, think about how many award voters they offended yesterday with that utter piece of crap.

Absolutely and utterly unreal. Hard to believe they are able to get away with working against their client at every turn.

Logic? One thing the cc fandom has proven in the last 10 years is that they do not understand or care about logic.

12/24/18 (X)

ajw720 It’s interesting how there are such varying opinions on the “straight boy” article. And I think it comes down to 2 questions:

1. Do you believe D is a willing participant in his closeting?

2. Do you believe he actually said what the article alleges?

My answer to both is a resounding no (though he will be forced to validate the comments) and I have good reason to think this. But I certainly see why ones perspective is different if you answer one or both as yes.

This being said, no matter your answers to the above, I don’t see how it can be justified that he would dismiss b/laine in such a manner. And the timing, because I still think it makes him look like an ass and /or a coward as awards are voted for playing queer. And to repeat, I don’t think he should play queer again until his team is dismissed, so I’m not disagreeing with the premise, just the manner it was done, which again, I believe was without his consent.

Not posting to start a fight. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I clearly am not afraid to state mine, which is very reasoned and based on a lot of information I’ve collected.

Just interesting that some very intelligent people, all of whom believe he’s closeted, can vary so much in what they believe.

#crisscolfer #Darren criss #Bustle #gay representation

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mbdailynews · 2 years

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What the Fed Rate Hike Means for Your Savings, Credit Cards and Loans

How to time your financial decisions as interest rates rise The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.75% Wednesday, stepping up its efforts to rein in inflation. The move will ripple through the financial world and the wallets of millions of Americans, changing the math on a range of money decisions big and small. With inflation hitting 8.6% in May, the cost of everything from lawn care to air conditioning is on the rise. The Fed rate increases are intended to cool the economy and slow the runaway growth in prices. The market has been falling for several weeks as the Fed started to raise rates and on Monday, stocks entered into a bear market. As rates rise, it makes sense to accelerate some financial plans and put off others, financial advisers say. Credit-card debt and other loans with variable rates are likely to get more expensive and should be dealt with first. When considering borrowing for major purchases such as a car or a home, it might make sense to delay. “It’s important to really start thinking about what should be the optimal decisions, given that the interest rate environment is going to change so much going forward,” said Yiming Ma, assistant professor of finance at Columbia University. Here’s how to rethink the order of operations for your money in both the short and long term. Focus on paying down debt before it gets even more expensive An increase in interest rates usually means credit cards will raise annual percentage rates, or APR. The average annual percentage rate for those with good credit was roughly 19%, according to WalletHub’s June report on more than 1,500 credit-card offers. That number could go up, given the expected rate increase. Higher rates mean the cost of borrowing goes up and nowhere is this more true than with credit-card debt. Fear of inflation and the threat of a recession could make people reluctant to dip into savings or other funds to pay down debt. But doing so now will still save you considerable future money spent on interest, said Peter Gallagher, founder and managing director of Unified Retirement Planning Group in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. Buy WSJ Digital Subscription 5 Years WSJ Online Reading Buy Now and Get 70% Off “We’ve met people who have $200,000 in the bank account and $20,000 in debt. It doesn’t make sense,” he said. Confused about which card to pay down first? Mr. Gallagher recommends starting with the higher-interest debt, then ordering your payments accordingly. Maximize the return on your savings Once you’ve paid down debt, look at your savings. One upside of a rate increase: Many banks and other institutions will likely offer at least slightly better rates on high-yield savings accounts and other savings vehicles. Interest rates offered on many certificates of deposit and savings accounts will usually move with the federal-funds rate. During the pandemic, many Americans were able to save, leading to the highest personal savings rate in decades. As of June 2022, the average annual percentage yield on a one-year CD is 0.21%, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., meaning any dollars saved there are losing value due to inflation. Online banks like Ally are also offering 0.9% for their high-yield savings products, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Marcus account is now offering 0.85%. Buy WSJ Digital Subscription 5 Years WSJ Online Reading Buy Now and Get 70% Off “If one has spare funds that you don’t need to buy groceries, this is a good time to really think about where one can put that amount of money,” Ms. Ma said. Also consider the one true safe space from inflation and volatile markets: Inflation adjudged government savings bonds, or I Bonds, which currently return a guaranteed rate of 9.6% interest. Consider whether to postpone certain financial moves Just as you should give priority to paying down existing debt, think carefully before taking on any new debt, such as a mortgage or an auto loan. The average rate on a five-year new-car loan was 4.53% the week of June 14, according to Bankrate.com, already up from 4% in March. Keep in mind individual lenders and dealerships can charge you different amounts. Be sure to do your own math before purchasing a vehicle. Mortgage rates, however, are based largely on the yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond. This rate is used as a benchmark for many types of loans, including mortgages. When the Fed raises rates, the increase pushes the yield on the Treasury note higher, which in turn pushes mortgage rates higher. House hunters have already seen this at work—the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 5.23% as of the week of June 10, according to Freddie Mac. Just a year ago, the same rate was 2.93%. Applications for adjustable-rate mortgages are on the rise, but Mr. Gallagher cautions these loans come with particular risks as rates are rising. The interest rate on these mortgages is reset periodically and could grow considerably more expensive over time. “It’s sometimes hard to know what your cash flow will be in two to three years.” Ms. Ma advises house hunters to consider their own timelines more carefully. Waiting may feel frustrating in this hot housing market, but if fears of a recession ultimately come to fruition, then interest rates and house prices will likely move lower, she said. Buy WSJ Digital Subscription 5 Years WSJ Online Reading Buy Now and Get 70% Off If you feel a lot of pressure to buy a house as soon as possible—maybe you’re in between places now or are putting your own home on the market—locking in a mortgage rate now might save you money down the line, before rates go up even more. But if you have some flexibility in your timeline, then waiting could benefit you as rates could drop in the future. As for when rates will level off, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in an interview last month that economic data would be the guide. “What we need to see is clear and convincing evidence that inflation pressures are abating and inflation is coming down. And if we don’t see that, then we’ll have to consider moving more aggressively,” he said. Read the full article

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makeste · 4 years

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BnHA Chapter 255: "Hospital”

Previously on BnHA: Aizawa and Present Mic found out their dead best friend Shirakumo was necromanced by All for One and Ujiko and turned into everyone’s favorite villain mom bartender M.D., Kurogiri! Gran Torino and Naomasa were all “hey you guys should talk to him and see if you can restore his memories through the power of friendship” and so they all sat down together to do that. Kurogiri was all “so tell me how is my son Shigaraki Tomura, I love him so much, he is so emo and I must protect him” and Aizawa and Mic were all “THIS GUY HASN’T CHANGED ONE IOTA” and Aizawa started crying and was all “SHIRAKUMO LET’S GET MARRIED AGAIN AND BE HEROES TOGETHER LIKE WE ALWAYS WANTED.” Oh and also we found out Aizawa only fake expelled his previous students and it was just so that he could PREPARE THEM FOR LIFE!! and afterwards they got to go back to U.A. again and live happily ever after. And so basically I’ve lost track of how many hugs Aizawa needs here now but it’s a lot.

Today on BnHA: Shiraguri’s brainwaves start going all wonky and everyone is like “OH SHIT IT’S WORKING” and Aizawa and Mic decide it’s time to shift this drama into overdrive, so they get right up against the glass and start shouting “YOU’RE OUR FRIEND!!” and stuff over and over until IT FINALLY WORKS!! and Kurogiri’s face shifts into Shirakumo’s. Somehow the effect is incredibly sad and moving rather than terrifying as fuck, but unfortunately all Kumo can manage to get out is “hospital” before his mind overloads and he passes out. Fortunately for our heroes, “hospital” is actually an awesome clue which can totally lead them to Tomura and Ujiko’s location if they play their cards right, probably! Or at least Hawks seems really psyched about it, idk. Anyway so the chapter ends with Ujiko going FULL MAD SCIENTIST and wreaking havoc on Tomura’s body in order to -- I’m pretty sure, anyway -- turn him into some kind of fully sentient ultimate high end Noumu. Welllllll shit.

so that sure was a fun little wrinkle last week, huh. the two biggest scanlators deciding that in the spirit of the holidays, they were going to stop translating WSJ series and instead support the official releases out of the goodness of their hearts and definitely not at all because Shueisha was eyeing them threateningly and making little throat-slitting gestures. that was a ride. these are interesting times lol

but at any rate, if this is how it’s going to be for now then I’ll adjust! it is nice to have everyone support the official release, and obviously the image quality is way better, and Caleb’s translations are by and large pretty good. and obviously we’ll get used to reading the chapter on Sundays instead of Fridays (hell, I remember when the SJ leaks still came out on Wednesdays, so it’s not like we haven’t done this same old song and dance before lol). but Friday did happen to be a more convenient day for my schedule personally, so it might take a bit of adjusting for me to figure out what my posting schedule is going to be moving forward

anyways so I’m sorry this recap is so ridiculously late, but here we go at last!

so the Tartarus guard, who by the way is very clearly Seiji’s dad (WHEN ARE THE SHIKETSU KIDS COMING BACK), is tapping frantically at his touch screen even though it’s not doing anything, and he says he’s detecting unusual brainwaves. omg

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK IT MEANS, OBVIOUSLY THEY UNLOCKED THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, MAN! THEY DID IT

omfg. the guard just says “he’s agitated.” I’m going to need you to have more hype than that my good sir. please

holy shit Nao

attention everyone, HAS ANYONE SEEN NAOMASA’S FUCKING CHILL, BECAUSE HE SEEMS TO HAVE FUCKING MISPLACED THAT SHIT. someone please explain to this man that there is a time and a place to play good cop bad cop and this is not it. “oh, Shirakumo is starting to recover his memories? well then [busts into the prison cell and grabs him by the collar and slams him against the wall] WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!?”

(ETA: so apparently Nao’s detective instincts are cleverer than mine. he saw that Kumo was potentially going to emerge, but probably not for long, so he gave him the most important question so he could focus on answering that. good job! still not a lot of chill but hey.)

meanwhile Aizawa is all “if what they said is true I’m looking at my friend’s corpse”, while still crying by the way, and yeah, so MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE. this year Santa decided to change it up and just make everyone real sad. happy holidays

lord he’s leaping to his feet and shouting “WHO DID THIS TO YOU”

meanwhile I can’t stop staring at Present Mic with his tongue sticking out. why are you sticking your tongue out. why are anime characters like this. you know, Stain also used to stick his tongue out. Present Mic U.A. traitor confirmed

also!! so many people have beef with Ujiko, though! pretty soon they will have to take a number and get in line

oh no Kumogiri is malfunctioning

Aizawa’s all “ANSWER ME SHIRAKUMO” and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS

I HAVE NEVER SEEN AIZAWA SHOUTA SO INTENSE AND I CAN’T TEAR MY EYES AWAY FROM THE SCREEN AHHHHH

so there’s some more of “WE WANTED TO BE HEROES TOGETHER” and “YOUR NAME IS SHIRAKUMO OBORO” and all of that other “SNAP OUT OF IT ALREADY” stuff, and you’re damn right I am eating ALL THAT SHIT right up, hell yes. IT’S A TROPE FOR A REASON PEOPLE

oh my god

bwo...hh...?

(ETA: I feel like I should explain that although I have a subscription to Viz, I really hate how their chapter viewer is set up, so I read the chapter on one of the vertical scroll-to-read sites instead. I prefer scroll-to-read for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is so that I can read the chapter slowly (since I’m writing as I go) without spoiling what’s in the next panel. that being said, this next page is one of the few where Viz obviously got it right, so I’ll be posting the full image.)

SDFLSDLFKHSDLKJGOISDJFOSK

（┐° o ° ┐） ( ｣｡╹o╹｡)｣

feelingsfeelingsfeelingsFEELINGS

(ETA: on a reread I am fascinated by the fact that that bandage on his nose actually seems to be A PERMANENT PART OF HIS FACE APPARENTLY lol what.)

READ THE FUCKING ROOM, DUDE. also look how tiny Gran Torino is. he thought we wouldn’t notice through all of our tears. but we did. would you like me to fetch you a box

ha ha ha so now back to the drama

heh so anyway, the fact that this smoke Shirakumo face still looks like a child is straight up destroying me. how are you guys. how is everyone. feliz navidad

FKSLDJSLK HOLD UP

IS HE TRYING TO SAY “SHOUTA”, I CAN’T, I’M?!?!!!!

ADSLFKJALSKDJW

(ETA: I think you can see Shirakumo’s eye rolling back here as he fights against the brainwashing omg. this chapter’s fucking art, though.)

YESSSSSS you keep on ticking off that checklist of clichés, Horikoshi!! I’m so weak for this shit it’s not even funny. actually that’s not true, this plotline is usually hit or miss with me, but I’ll tell you what though, if there’s one guaranteed way to have me freaking the fuck out rather than sighing and rolling my eyes, it’s to have AIZAWA FUCKING SHOUTA be the one pounding on the wall of glass and screaming at his former lover to fight the layers of conditioning waging war on his mind. ohhhhhh god

lol the brainwave detecting screen is losing its fucking shit also and beeping like crazy. this tension is so thick you could plant a flag in it yeesh

is this Kumo remembering stuff??!

(ETA: thank you to the anon who pointed out I posted the wrong image earlier lol.)

why do shounen characters always recall events from a third-person camera view. curse this ambiguous flashback

AHHHHH

HOSPITALLLL ahh what??? “SHOUTA, HOSPITAL.” oh my god. Shirakumo I commend you for not having your first words after dying and being brought back to life and brainwashed for 15 years and then waking up in a straitjacket in a prison cell be, “FUCK ME OH FUCKING SHIT WHAT THE FUCK.” you and I are very different people but I respect that

HOLY SHIT HIS HEAD EXPLODED

so now everyone’s freaking out and we’re zooming in on Kumo’s eye again. by the way this is going to kill me when it’s animated oh god

OH NO THE PANEL WENT BLACK AND IT GOT ALL SILENT

(ETA: hmm I don’t think Caleb Cook knows what “whump” means nowadays. whump is what I wish we had here. instead it’s just lots of hurt but very little comfort. JUST LOTS OF PAIN AND SADNESS.)

Horikoshi please have mercy oh lord. also I see their hands touching, you. they honestly should be gripping each other fucking white-knuckled, this is all very traumatic. I think that if Shouta was holding Mic’s hand while his other hand was pressed against the glass I would probably start sobbing for real

what the fuck

did they knock him back out?? they seem really calm and optimistic about all this lol

oh godddddd

HE’S NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING SHUT UP. GOD, MIC, WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST GIVE HIM A HUG ALREADY??

so now they’re bidding farewell to Nao and Gran -- and HOLY SHIT --

okay hold up -- I just realized -- Kumo was trying to give them a hint about Ujiko’s location. holy shiiiiit. PLEASE START INVESTIGATING HOSPITALS, NAO AND GRAN. holy shit the Noumu arc is heating uppppp

Aizawa’s asking what’s happening with Kurogiri now, and I feel like he maybe should have asked that immediately after the fact rather than as an afterthought while they were getting ready to leave but okay

Nao says he kind of “short-circuited or something” and yeah that tracks with what we saw. though it sure does make that “THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY FOLKS, GOOD JOB BOYS, YOU GET A GOLD STAR” business just SUPER WEIRD though, but let’s be real, Nao has been swinging and missing with striking the right tone all day today

and now Gran is apologizing to Mic and Aizawa for the exquisite emotional torture he just put them through, but he says something is bound to come from it. WELL YEAH NO SHIT IT HAD GODDAMN BETTER

Aizawa apparently hasn’t run out of sad/tired/haunted expressions yet, if you can believe it

pretty soon everyone is going to be sad, tired, and traumatized! heh. it’s going to be so fucked up hahaha crying smiling emojiiiii

oh hey and we’re cutting to another flashback of AFO doing what he does best, being callously dismissive of human lives!

this guy. right here. is a rat bastard. for real. also Horikoshi sure picked a hell of a chapter to go all out on the art again, jesus. this is probably the first time I’ve looked at AFO’s fucked up face and actually thought “yep, that’s a mutilated human man” rather than “shouldn’t you be out floating in space with your asteroid friends trying to smash the Millennium Falcon?” so anyways yeah this panel is a big NOPE from me, thank you

but on the other hand, when Horikoshi uses those art powers for good, such as carefully penciling in every last individual hair of Aizawa’s perpetual five o’clock shadow, that I don’t mind so much!

yes. yes good

so now they’re vrooming off, and we’re hanging back with Gran and Nao for a minute

YESSSSS GOOD JOB NAO!!

looooool it’s ringing up the head of the HPSC and her phone’s buzzing and she’s giving it this hella dramatic look. like this is some patented Todoroki-level dramatic whooshing right here

that’s just how dramatic this entire arc is going to be, hopefully

WAIT WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW

IS THAT A CODED MESSAGE FOR HIM TO GO CHECK OUT THE HOSPITAL. AND HOW BUSY ARE YOU, HAWKS. ARE YOU THE “I AM IN SOME DEEP, DEEP TROUBLE” KIND OF BUSY, OR JUST THE STAYING-IN-CHARACTER KIND OF BUSY. YOU CASUAL BASTARD, WHO CAN EVEN TELL WITH YOU, I’LL JUST HAVE TO SCROLL DOWN TO SEE

oh hh my go

“LITTLE LATE TO ASK ABOUT THIS STUFF” so he comes from the Bakugou Katsuki school of tutoring, eh

I love that he actually followed through on explaining the PLF’s philosophy to Twice. and Twice is such a good boy. he’s studying so diligently. look, he didn’t ask to join a doomsday cult, it just kind of happened so now he’s just doing his best to figure it all out

and it definitely was a coded message, then. smoooooth, HPSC lady, smooth. so I wonder if the fact that she gave him a specific hospital implies a time jump. because I don’t think she’d have him investigate just any old hospital until they had a better lead and/or a more solid idea of what they were looking for

lol what the fuck

well I sure do not have any idea what this man is talking about

-- HOSDFLKJDLY SHIT WE’RE CUTTING TO UJIKO WE ARE CUTTING TO FUCKING UJIKO RED FUCKING ALERT!!!

HE’S TALKING ABOUT TOMURA I’M NOT CALMMMMMMMM AHHHHHH

FUCCKLKL FUCK THE WHAT HOLY SHIT WHAT DID HE DO

oh my god oh my god oh m

he made Tomura a Noumu. holy fucking shit that’s what he did. of course. so he’ll be able to possess multiple quirks, but because he benefits from Ujiko’s years of high end Noumu research, his sense of self will remain intact

AND DOESN’T THIS PROCESS JUST LOOK EVER SO PLEASANT. jesus christ. he’s not even allowed to lie down, for some reason this procedure can only be done while he’s hovering over the bed Exorcist-style with his mouth locked open in a silent scream (ETA: or is that actually his laughter we’re seeing?? because this panel wasn’t raw enough already I guess??) while random spurts of blood come chucking out all over the place. well that’s just

and Tomura fucking volunteered for this. how many scores of others didn’t?? holy fucking shit Ujiko. it’s not easy to be the most evil man in a chapter where a foil-wrapped potato with eye holes started waxing poetic about all the children he harvested and killed like some kind of bloodthirsty sommelier, but YOU FOUND A WAY. dancing a fucking jig while your so-called masterpiece is being gruesomely tortured in the foreground. man if there’s any justice in the world, we’ll find out in this arc that Ujiko used science to make himself immortal so that once he’s finally captured they can just keep killing him over and over again. I do not like him!!

so that’s it! we really are doing this thing, holy shit. Noumu arc here we come. see you guys next decade har dee har

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