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KasperZERO and Glitch_Hop
Posted a year agoTraditional art is past Kasper, AI art is Kasper's present form. Protogens are their future forms.
Kasper, who escaped from Kaspersky Labs, is a competition to get the computer to draw odd-eye cats, especially on older AI models. The nuances and glitches that are produced are sought after, such as halos and interesting environments.
Glitch_Hop, the Malware Attack Cat, is a competition to spell. Glitch_Hop is a name and an art style, mostly drawn by computers, to seek out Glitch_Hop spelling errors and glitches. This is especially fun in older models, especially now that the computers know how to spell.
Breeze the Packet-Sniffer is a competition to see how the computer represents software as a character. Packet-sniffers, like WireShark, intercept wireless data packets. WireShark has his own Protogen form in my Protogen gallery, along with Glitch_Hop and Breeze. Their future protogen forms are rendered in Halo 1 engine.
Kasper, who escaped from Kaspersky Labs, is a competition to get the computer to draw odd-eye cats, especially on older AI models. The nuances and glitches that are produced are sought after, such as halos and interesting environments.
Glitch_Hop, the Malware Attack Cat, is a competition to spell. Glitch_Hop is a name and an art style, mostly drawn by computers, to seek out Glitch_Hop spelling errors and glitches. This is especially fun in older models, especially now that the computers know how to spell.
Breeze the Packet-Sniffer is a competition to see how the computer represents software as a character. Packet-sniffers, like WireShark, intercept wireless data packets. WireShark has his own Protogen form in my Protogen gallery, along with Glitch_Hop and Breeze. Their future protogen forms are rendered in Halo 1 engine.
Remote Viewing
Posted a year agohttps://youtu.be/EClwFAK1kKk
Remote Viewing a Sword guy in action.
"They can see what you see with your eyes."
Camerahead...
Glitch_Hop
Posted a year agoDall e 2 is shutting down. It's worth stocking up on glitch hop art now before these systems become too advanced.
Big Dreams
Posted a year agohttps://youtu.be/-yPz-Rm3esw
"It's not me exactly, that touches people
It's what I represent
The possibility that dreams long ago, may still come true
Even if they look lost forever"
I had a homey named Tony, 16, 6'2
Headed to the NBA straight from high school
My nigga had his ball game on lock
But at the same time, he was in love with the block
All the stuff that came wit it, the drugs and the guns
The gangs, the slang and all the funds
He just got a letter of intent from the Cavaliers
Sayin' how they love him and they wish he was there
He had it made like Special Ed, about to get the bread
But chose, to do, sumthin' dumb instead
Go to war with the crew on the other side of town
And was mo' ready, and Tony got laid down
He ain't even have a chance
Died before the ambulance, even got to him
So many went through him
I hate to tell the story, but that's how it is
Growin' up in the hood as a kid
When you got big dreams, don't listen to what nobody say
And don't let nobody turn you away
When you got big dreams, keep your eyes on the prize
Don't fall to the wayside
When you got big dreams
Don't listen to what nobody say and don't let nobody turn you away
When you got big dreams, keep your eyes on the prize
Don't fall to the waste side, reach for the sky
Knew a girl named Gina that was a hell of a singer
And everybody fell in love with her when they seen her
Baby girl was on the verge of signing a big deal
Eighteen, and life looked so-so real
She was stuck wit a dude that was all bad news
And all he ever did was give baby the blues
But she was true to a nigga, do for a nigga
Pop you and ya whole crew for a nigga
One night he came, picked her up told her, "let's ride!"
That's the same night that he watched her die!
They was tryna hit a lick, but the lick hit back
Put a end to the deal, and all of that
She ain't even have to be there, he know it wasn't right
Now he gotta deal with it for the rest of his life
And the part I don't like, he ain't even get grazed
But the homegirl, Gina, is layin' in the grave
When you got big dreams, don't listen to what nobody say
And don't let nobody turn you away
When you got big dreams, keep your eyes on the prize
Don't fall to the wayside
When you got big dreams
Don't listen to what nobody say and don't let nobody turn you away
When you got big dreams, keep your eyes on the prize
Don't fall to the waste side, reach for the sky
I got a few relatives givin' family drama
Always got they hands out when they see me and my momma
One coulda been a doctor, the other a chef
But when he got his own kitchen, he was cookin' sumthin' else
Now his life in the drain, a triflin' shame
He all washed up, wife took everything
No car, no mo', no house
And everywhere he go, he stole, so they throwed him out
I was growin' up, lookin' up to be like them
Now I'm throwin' up cash, rollin' up in the Bent
I was stuck wit a dream I had since a shorty
I be damned if I let another man support me, now
Uncle Junebug's sick, skinny as hell
He got AIDS in his body from the needles he shared
Everytime he get his welfare checks, he don't care
If you wanna see him go to the crack house, he there
When you got big dreams, don't listen to what nobody say
And don't let nobody turn you away
When you got big dreams, keep your eyes on the prize
Don't fall to the wayside
When you got big dreams
Don't listen to what nobody say and don't let nobody turn you away
When you got big dreams, keep your eyes on the prize
Don't fall to the waste side, reach for the sky
When you got big dreams
When you got big dreams
When you got big dreams
When you got big dreams, keep your eyes on the prize
Don't fall to the waste side, reach for the sky
Research...
Posted a year agoI need to do more research on psychiatrists... There is something very sick about an individual who would prescribe hard lethal substances to children without the blink of an eye. I caught the one MKULTRA agent Patti Hardwick at St Joes hospital confessing to this, a demonic ritual, and the forced speech side effect which they planned for me in advance...
Image Perturbation
Posted a year agoThe Glitch_Hop perturbation still works... I can't post it here. AI art to me is about glitch hop styles. It's alien technology, appreciate it.
https://youtu.be/VDwraIXEnyA
Image perturbation? Don't give up.
https://youtu.be/VDwraIXEnyA
Image perturbation? Don't give up.
Remote Viewing
Posted a year agoNot a lot of people know this, but schizophrenia is totally artificial. I induced many of my hallucinations without drugs, using cognition. I asked them for the car crash phobia, but more importantly, they had to come back and ask me for permission to give it to me, or as they say, let it in. I was told it would lead me to the location of the Ark of the Covenant, more importantly, the alien remote viewing technology is was constructed to house. They say they could talk into it, and it would give them answers...
https://youtu.be/SPRX6X9m-gA
Remote Viewing Brain Implants in Action
https://youtu.be/SPRX6X9m-gA
Remote Viewing Brain Implants in Action
Investigate SSRIs
Posted a year agohttps://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/statu.....456248523?s=20
Pharma-captured agencies will never investigate this possibility. But they will after I put honest people in charge. -Robert F. Kennedy Jr
RFK Jr. Urges Investigations Into SSRIs and Mass Shootings
“Why is it that Switzerland, which has comparable levels of guns, has not had a mass shooting in 21 years, and we have one every 21 hours? Why is that?” RobertKennedyJr
asked.
“When I was a kid, kids my age were bringing their rifles to schools for shooting clubs. Nobody ever blinked at that. Nobody ever started shooting at other children at schools.”
Kennedy mentioned that SSRIs have “a black box label on it saying may cause homicidal and suicidal behavior,” but the National Institutes of Health (NIH) isn’t interested in discovering if there’s a link to mass shootings.
“Since 1996, NIH has had a policy not to study the etiology of the origins of gun violence, and I’m going to change that.”
Pharma-captured agencies will never investigate this possibility. But they will after I put honest people in charge. -Robert F. Kennedy Jr
RFK Jr. Urges Investigations Into SSRIs and Mass Shootings
“Why is it that Switzerland, which has comparable levels of guns, has not had a mass shooting in 21 years, and we have one every 21 hours? Why is that?” RobertKennedyJr
asked.
“When I was a kid, kids my age were bringing their rifles to schools for shooting clubs. Nobody ever blinked at that. Nobody ever started shooting at other children at schools.”
Kennedy mentioned that SSRIs have “a black box label on it saying may cause homicidal and suicidal behavior,” but the National Institutes of Health (NIH) isn’t interested in discovering if there’s a link to mass shootings.
“Since 1996, NIH has had a policy not to study the etiology of the origins of gun violence, and I’m going to change that.”
Stop Supporting Palestine
Posted a year agoPalestinians are extremely violent by nature. They need dictatorship. Whether or not you support Israel, please do not support Hamas. Support communism and Israel occupation.
Forgotten
Posted a year agoAI Turing Tests
Posted a year agoEverybody is passing their Turing tests right now O.o fast growth, I'm impressed to all competitors including DALL e, Midjourney, Shutterstock, and now DreamUp. Thank you for participating, you all pass right now.
The Future
Posted a year agoIn the distant near future, actually, probably a lot closer than we think. In fact, it's probably already here, I have evidence it was here since at least the 1980s. Then I found out some sources say the 1950s. We had Roswell in 1947, they say Air Servicemen still visit the site looking for small fragments of alien metals the resurface from time to time from erosion. Did we have any more crashes before the 20th century? The Bible dates back to about 6000 BC, which is deep because a lot of it seems to be about fighting for control of this technology. If what the Jews say is true, that this technology was "given" to them, then who gave it to them? This species is far too advanced to come from our own planet, there is no evidence of technology this advanced in any ancient archaeological record. So this technology must have come from off-planet, as they say, 'Chariots of the Gods'. But where do they come from? Do they still have a home? This technology must have existed off-planet in ancient times, and our technology is much more reminiscent to it these days now than ever. Law of convergence - some body plans tend to converge, and develop repeatedly independently over time, like trees. Sharks have lived through multiple generations of tree plans coming to life. I think snakes exist off-world because their body plan converges as well. What about humanoid? Is it DNA, like ours? A ribose sugar and a helical structure? That means this technology could be a lot more ancient, and a lot more advanced than even we are led to believe. This technology may arise repeatedly over and over again in time, even overshadowing the death and destruction of multiple Galactic empires to nuclear war. We should all come together as a species and avoid alien nuclear threats, and come to try to understand scientifically what these ancient Biblical quotes are meant to mean.
Use the computer to check.
Posted a year agoPutin on Neurological Implants
Posted a year agoVladimir Putin mentioned a brain implant at the end of his Tucker Carlson interview.
No Subject 5
Posted a year agoRemote viewing me in the shower - OFF LIMITS. EXPECT REPERCUSSIONS.
No Subject 4
Posted 2 years agoThe voices are ghosts. I'm talking to the ghost.
No Subject 3
Posted 2 years agoHallucinations are artificial. You can hallucinate by cognition, doing demonic thingssssss...
No Subject 2
Posted 2 years agoMy neurologist told me to throw umm... things in the garbage to let go of him. I did it by accident ... with severe implications.
No Subject
Posted 2 years agoThe umm... leave/listen experiment had a very strange outcome ... with severe implications.
Israel
Posted 2 years agoPlease support Israel. The only free Gaza is a Gaza free from Hamas. We don't need another terrorist state in the world. We need dictatorships and communism.
How US gun culture stacks up with the world
Posted 2 years agohttps://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/worl.....t-newtab-en-us [CNN]
How US gun culture stacks up with the world
Kansas City. Lewiston. Monterey Park. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. San Bernardino. Uvalde. Nashville. Louisville.
Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life.
America’s relationship to gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is a global outlier.
As the tally of gun-related deaths continue to grow daily, here’s a look at how gun culture in the US compares to the rest of the world.
How firearm ownership compares globally
The United States is the only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people.
Rate of civilian firearms per 100 people:
USA: 120.5
Canada: 34.7
Pakistan: 22.3
Iraq: 19.6
Afghanistan: 12.5
Russia: 12.3
U.K: 4.9
China: 3.6
Nigeria: 3.2
Kyrgyzstan: 2.8
Uganda: 0.8
Japan: 0.3
There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). No other nation has more civilian guns than people.
The Falkland Islands – a British territory in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, claimed by Argentina and the subject of a 1982 war – is home to the world’s second-largest stash of civilian guns per capita. But with an estimated 62 guns per 100 people, its gun ownership rate is almost half that of the US. Yemen – a country in the throes of a seven-year conflict – has the third-highest gun ownership rate at 53 guns per 100 people.
While the exact number of civilian-owned firearms is difficult to calculate due to a variety of factors – including unregistered weapons, the illegal trade and global conflict – SAS researchers estimate that Americans own 393 million of the 857 million civilian guns available, which is around 46% of the world’s civilian gun cache.
About 44% of US adults live in a household with a gun, and about one-third own one personally, according to an October 2020 Gallup survey.
Some nations have high gun ownership due to illegal stocks from past conflicts or lax restrictions on ownership, but the US is one of only three countries in the world where bearing (or keeping) arms is a constitutional right, according to Zachary Elkins, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the Comparative Constitutions Project. Yet the ownership rate in the other two – Guatemala and Mexico – is almost a tenth of the United States.
The gun debate in those countries is less politicized, Elkins said. In contrast to the US, Guatemala and Mexico’s constitutions facilitate regulation, with lawmakers more comfortable restricting guns, especially given concerns around organized crime, he said. In Mexico, there’s only one gun store in the entire country – and it’s controlled by the army.
In the US, firearm manufacturing is on the rise, with more Americans buying guns.
In 2018, gun makers produced 9 million firearms in the country – more than double the amount manufactured in 2008, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). More recently, January 2021 marked the biggest annual increase since 2013 in requests for federal background checks necessary for purchasing a gun – a nearly 60% jump from January 2020.
And in March 2021, the FBI reported almost 4.7 million background checks – the most of any month since the agency started keeping track more than 20 years ago. Two million of those checks were for new gun purchases, making it the second highest month on record for firearms sales, according to the National Shooting Sports Federation, the firearms industry trade group that compares FBI background check numbers with actual sales data to determine its sales figures.
The US has the highest firearm homicide rate in the developed world
In 2019, the number of US deaths from gun violence was about 4 per 100,000 people. That’s 18 times the average rate in other developed countries. Multiple studies show access to guns contributes to higher firearm-related homicide rates.
Almost a third of US adults believe there would be less crime if more people owned guns, according to an April 2021 Pew survey. However, multiple studies show that where people have easy access to firearms, gun-related deaths tend to be more frequent, including by suicide, homicide and unintentional injuries.
It is then unsurprising that the US has more deaths from gun violence than any other developed country per capita. The rate in the US is eight times greater than in Canada, which has the seventh highest rate of gun ownership in the world; 22 times higher than in the European Union and 23 times greater than in Australia, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) data from 2019.
The gun-related homicide rate in Washington, DC – the highest of any US state or district – is close to levels in Brazil, which ranks sixth highest in the world for gun-related homicides, according to the IHME figures.
Globally, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean suffer from the highest rates of firearm homicides, with El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras topping the charts.
Drug cartel activities and the presence of firearms from old conflicts are both contributing factors, according to the 2018 Global Mortality From Firearms, 1990-2016, study.
But gun-related violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is also exacerbated by weapons that come from the US. About 200,000 firearms from America cross Mexico’s border every year, according to a February 2021 US government accountability office report, citing the Mexican government.
In 2019, about 68% of firearms seized by law enforcement in Mexico and sent to the ATF for identification were traced back to the US. And around half of guns the ATF checked after they’ve been seized in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama were manufactured in or officially imported to the US.
The US was home to 4% of the world’s population but accounted for 44% of global suicides by firearm in 2019
The country recorded the largest number of gun-related suicides in the world every year from 1990 to 2019.
While personal safety tops the list of reasons why American gun owners say they own a firearm, 63% of US gun-related deaths are self-inflicted.
Over 23,000 Americans died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 2019. That number accounts for 44% of the gun suicides globally and dwarfs suicide totals in any other country in the world.
At six firearm suicides per 100,000 people, the US rate of suicide is, on average, seven times higher than in other developed nations. Globally, the US rate is only lower than in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory with relatively high gun ownership (22 guns per 100 people).
Multiple studies have reported an association between gun ownership and gun-related suicides.
One of those studies, conducted by researchers at Stanford University, found that men who owned handguns were almost eight times as likely to die of self-inflicted gunshot wounds as men who didn’t own a gun. Women who owned handguns were 35 times as likely to die by firearm suicide, compared to those who didn’t, according to the 2020 study, which surveyed 26 million California residents over a more than 11-year period.
No other developed nation has mass shootings at the same scale or frequency as the US
Half of the world’s developed countries had at least one public mass shooting between 1998 and 2019.* But no other nation saw more than eight incidents over 22 years, while the United States had over 100 — with almost 2,000 people killed or injured.
Regular mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon. The US is the only developed country where mass shootings have happened every single year for the past 20 years, according to Jason R. Silva, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University.
To compare across countries, Silva uses a conservative definition of a mass shooting: an event that leaves four or more people dead, excluding the shooter, and that excludes profit-driven criminal activity, familicide and state-sponsored violence. Using this approach, 68 people were killed and 91 injured in eight public shootings in the US over the course of 2019 alone.
A broader definition of mass shootings reveals an even higher figure.
The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit based in Washington, DC and which CNN relies on for its reporting of mass shootings, defines a mass shooting as an incident leaving at least four people dead or injured, excluding the shooter, and does not differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot.
They counted as many as 417 mass shootings in 2019. And in 2022, 213 mass shootings have already been recorded.
State gun policies also appear to play a role. A 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal found that US states with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings.
US President Joe Biden’s administration renewed calls for gun reform after mass shootings in Colorado, South Carolina and Texas last year. In March 2021, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would require unlicensed and private sellers, as well as all licensed sellers to do federal background checks before all gun sales – and to ensure that buyers are fully vetted before making the sale.
The bills are now stuck in the Senate where, despite some Democrats’ efforts to build bipartisan support, there has been no indication they have the votes to overcome the 60-vote filibuster.
For decades, political roadblocks have stalled such efforts in the US. And that partisan divide is reflected in the population as well, with 80% of Republicans – and 19% of Democrats – saying gun laws in the country are either about right or should be less strict, according to the April Pew survey.
Meanwhile, mass shootings continue to drive demand for more guns, experts say, with gun control activists arguing the time for reform is long overdue.
Researchers from Washington University at St Louis’ Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute presented this argument to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2018, saying that the US government’s “failure” to prevent and reduce gun-related violence through “reasonable and effective domestic measures has limited the ability of Americans to enjoy many fundamental freedoms and guarantees protected by international human rights law,” including the right to life and bodily integrity.
UN bodies have also underlined these concerns, pointing to America’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow gun owners in at least 25 states to use deadly force in any situation where they believe that they face an imminent threat of harm, without first making any effort to deescalate the situation or retreat. A 2019 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights report said that the law can encourage people to respond to situations with lethal force, rather than use it as a last resort.
In a 2020 essay published by the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, gun control advocate Rukmani Bhatia said that the US gun lobby has seized a rights-based narrative “to justify, dangerously, the right to bear, carry, and use firearms.”
Stand your ground legislation, she said, “warps people’s understanding about their rights to security and, in the worst cases, empowers them to take away another person’s right to life.”
Gun-related deaths reduced after the introduction of stricter laws in these countries
Shortly after a mass shooting in Tasmania, Australia banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns and tightened licensing rules. Over the next decade, gun deaths dropped by 51%.
Meanwhile, countries that have introduced laws to reduce gun-related deaths have achieved significant changes.
A decade of gun violence, culminating with the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, prompted the Australian government to take action.
Less than two weeks after Australia’s worst mass shooting, the federal government implemented a new program, banning rapid-fire rifles and shotguns, and unifying gun owner licensing and registrations across the country. In the next 10 years gun deaths in Australia fell by more than 50%. A 2010 study found the government’s 1997 buyback program – part of the overall reform – led to an average drop in firearm suicide rates of 74% in the five years that followed.
Other countries are also showing promising results after changing their gun laws. In South Africa, gun-related deaths almost halved over a 10-year-period after new gun legislation, the Firearms Control Act of 2000, went into force in July 2004. The new laws made it much more difficult to obtain a firearm.
In New Zealand, gun laws were swiftly amended after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Just 24 hours after the attack, in which 51 people were killed, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the law would change. New Zealand’s parliament voted almost unanimously to change the country’s gun laws less than a month later, banning all military-style semi-automatic weapons.
Britain tightened its gun laws and banned most private handgun ownership after a mass shooting in 1996, a move that saw gun deaths drop by almost a quarter over a decade. In August 2021, a licensed firearms holder killed five people in Plymouth, England, marking the worst mass shooting since 2010. After the incident, police said the gunman’s firearm license had been returned to him just months after it was revoked, due to assault accusations. The British government then asked police to review their licensing practices and said that they would be bringing forward new guidance to improve background procedures, including social media checks.
Many countries around the world have been able to tackle gun violence. Yet, despite the thousands of lost lives in the US, only around half of US adults favor stricter gun laws, according to the recent Pew survey, and political reform remains at a standstill. The deadly cycle of violence seems destined to continue.
How US gun culture stacks up with the world
Kansas City. Lewiston. Monterey Park. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. San Bernardino. Uvalde. Nashville. Louisville.
Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life.
America’s relationship to gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is a global outlier.
As the tally of gun-related deaths continue to grow daily, here’s a look at how gun culture in the US compares to the rest of the world.
How firearm ownership compares globally
The United States is the only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people.
Rate of civilian firearms per 100 people:
USA: 120.5
Canada: 34.7
Pakistan: 22.3
Iraq: 19.6
Afghanistan: 12.5
Russia: 12.3
U.K: 4.9
China: 3.6
Nigeria: 3.2
Kyrgyzstan: 2.8
Uganda: 0.8
Japan: 0.3
There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). No other nation has more civilian guns than people.
The Falkland Islands – a British territory in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, claimed by Argentina and the subject of a 1982 war – is home to the world’s second-largest stash of civilian guns per capita. But with an estimated 62 guns per 100 people, its gun ownership rate is almost half that of the US. Yemen – a country in the throes of a seven-year conflict – has the third-highest gun ownership rate at 53 guns per 100 people.
While the exact number of civilian-owned firearms is difficult to calculate due to a variety of factors – including unregistered weapons, the illegal trade and global conflict – SAS researchers estimate that Americans own 393 million of the 857 million civilian guns available, which is around 46% of the world’s civilian gun cache.
About 44% of US adults live in a household with a gun, and about one-third own one personally, according to an October 2020 Gallup survey.
Some nations have high gun ownership due to illegal stocks from past conflicts or lax restrictions on ownership, but the US is one of only three countries in the world where bearing (or keeping) arms is a constitutional right, according to Zachary Elkins, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the Comparative Constitutions Project. Yet the ownership rate in the other two – Guatemala and Mexico – is almost a tenth of the United States.
The gun debate in those countries is less politicized, Elkins said. In contrast to the US, Guatemala and Mexico’s constitutions facilitate regulation, with lawmakers more comfortable restricting guns, especially given concerns around organized crime, he said. In Mexico, there’s only one gun store in the entire country – and it’s controlled by the army.
In the US, firearm manufacturing is on the rise, with more Americans buying guns.
In 2018, gun makers produced 9 million firearms in the country – more than double the amount manufactured in 2008, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). More recently, January 2021 marked the biggest annual increase since 2013 in requests for federal background checks necessary for purchasing a gun – a nearly 60% jump from January 2020.
And in March 2021, the FBI reported almost 4.7 million background checks – the most of any month since the agency started keeping track more than 20 years ago. Two million of those checks were for new gun purchases, making it the second highest month on record for firearms sales, according to the National Shooting Sports Federation, the firearms industry trade group that compares FBI background check numbers with actual sales data to determine its sales figures.
The US has the highest firearm homicide rate in the developed world
In 2019, the number of US deaths from gun violence was about 4 per 100,000 people. That’s 18 times the average rate in other developed countries. Multiple studies show access to guns contributes to higher firearm-related homicide rates.
Almost a third of US adults believe there would be less crime if more people owned guns, according to an April 2021 Pew survey. However, multiple studies show that where people have easy access to firearms, gun-related deaths tend to be more frequent, including by suicide, homicide and unintentional injuries.
It is then unsurprising that the US has more deaths from gun violence than any other developed country per capita. The rate in the US is eight times greater than in Canada, which has the seventh highest rate of gun ownership in the world; 22 times higher than in the European Union and 23 times greater than in Australia, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) data from 2019.
The gun-related homicide rate in Washington, DC – the highest of any US state or district – is close to levels in Brazil, which ranks sixth highest in the world for gun-related homicides, according to the IHME figures.
Globally, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean suffer from the highest rates of firearm homicides, with El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras topping the charts.
Drug cartel activities and the presence of firearms from old conflicts are both contributing factors, according to the 2018 Global Mortality From Firearms, 1990-2016, study.
But gun-related violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is also exacerbated by weapons that come from the US. About 200,000 firearms from America cross Mexico’s border every year, according to a February 2021 US government accountability office report, citing the Mexican government.
In 2019, about 68% of firearms seized by law enforcement in Mexico and sent to the ATF for identification were traced back to the US. And around half of guns the ATF checked after they’ve been seized in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama were manufactured in or officially imported to the US.
The US was home to 4% of the world’s population but accounted for 44% of global suicides by firearm in 2019
The country recorded the largest number of gun-related suicides in the world every year from 1990 to 2019.
While personal safety tops the list of reasons why American gun owners say they own a firearm, 63% of US gun-related deaths are self-inflicted.
Over 23,000 Americans died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 2019. That number accounts for 44% of the gun suicides globally and dwarfs suicide totals in any other country in the world.
At six firearm suicides per 100,000 people, the US rate of suicide is, on average, seven times higher than in other developed nations. Globally, the US rate is only lower than in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory with relatively high gun ownership (22 guns per 100 people).
Multiple studies have reported an association between gun ownership and gun-related suicides.
One of those studies, conducted by researchers at Stanford University, found that men who owned handguns were almost eight times as likely to die of self-inflicted gunshot wounds as men who didn’t own a gun. Women who owned handguns were 35 times as likely to die by firearm suicide, compared to those who didn’t, according to the 2020 study, which surveyed 26 million California residents over a more than 11-year period.
No other developed nation has mass shootings at the same scale or frequency as the US
Half of the world’s developed countries had at least one public mass shooting between 1998 and 2019.* But no other nation saw more than eight incidents over 22 years, while the United States had over 100 — with almost 2,000 people killed or injured.
Regular mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon. The US is the only developed country where mass shootings have happened every single year for the past 20 years, according to Jason R. Silva, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University.
To compare across countries, Silva uses a conservative definition of a mass shooting: an event that leaves four or more people dead, excluding the shooter, and that excludes profit-driven criminal activity, familicide and state-sponsored violence. Using this approach, 68 people were killed and 91 injured in eight public shootings in the US over the course of 2019 alone.
A broader definition of mass shootings reveals an even higher figure.
The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit based in Washington, DC and which CNN relies on for its reporting of mass shootings, defines a mass shooting as an incident leaving at least four people dead or injured, excluding the shooter, and does not differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot.
They counted as many as 417 mass shootings in 2019. And in 2022, 213 mass shootings have already been recorded.
State gun policies also appear to play a role. A 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal found that US states with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings.
US President Joe Biden’s administration renewed calls for gun reform after mass shootings in Colorado, South Carolina and Texas last year. In March 2021, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would require unlicensed and private sellers, as well as all licensed sellers to do federal background checks before all gun sales – and to ensure that buyers are fully vetted before making the sale.
The bills are now stuck in the Senate where, despite some Democrats’ efforts to build bipartisan support, there has been no indication they have the votes to overcome the 60-vote filibuster.
For decades, political roadblocks have stalled such efforts in the US. And that partisan divide is reflected in the population as well, with 80% of Republicans – and 19% of Democrats – saying gun laws in the country are either about right or should be less strict, according to the April Pew survey.
Meanwhile, mass shootings continue to drive demand for more guns, experts say, with gun control activists arguing the time for reform is long overdue.
Researchers from Washington University at St Louis’ Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute presented this argument to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2018, saying that the US government’s “failure” to prevent and reduce gun-related violence through “reasonable and effective domestic measures has limited the ability of Americans to enjoy many fundamental freedoms and guarantees protected by international human rights law,” including the right to life and bodily integrity.
UN bodies have also underlined these concerns, pointing to America’s “stand your ground” laws, which allow gun owners in at least 25 states to use deadly force in any situation where they believe that they face an imminent threat of harm, without first making any effort to deescalate the situation or retreat. A 2019 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights report said that the law can encourage people to respond to situations with lethal force, rather than use it as a last resort.
In a 2020 essay published by the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, gun control advocate Rukmani Bhatia said that the US gun lobby has seized a rights-based narrative “to justify, dangerously, the right to bear, carry, and use firearms.”
Stand your ground legislation, she said, “warps people’s understanding about their rights to security and, in the worst cases, empowers them to take away another person’s right to life.”
Gun-related deaths reduced after the introduction of stricter laws in these countries
Shortly after a mass shooting in Tasmania, Australia banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns and tightened licensing rules. Over the next decade, gun deaths dropped by 51%.
Meanwhile, countries that have introduced laws to reduce gun-related deaths have achieved significant changes.
A decade of gun violence, culminating with the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, prompted the Australian government to take action.
Less than two weeks after Australia’s worst mass shooting, the federal government implemented a new program, banning rapid-fire rifles and shotguns, and unifying gun owner licensing and registrations across the country. In the next 10 years gun deaths in Australia fell by more than 50%. A 2010 study found the government’s 1997 buyback program – part of the overall reform – led to an average drop in firearm suicide rates of 74% in the five years that followed.
Other countries are also showing promising results after changing their gun laws. In South Africa, gun-related deaths almost halved over a 10-year-period after new gun legislation, the Firearms Control Act of 2000, went into force in July 2004. The new laws made it much more difficult to obtain a firearm.
In New Zealand, gun laws were swiftly amended after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Just 24 hours after the attack, in which 51 people were killed, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the law would change. New Zealand’s parliament voted almost unanimously to change the country’s gun laws less than a month later, banning all military-style semi-automatic weapons.
Britain tightened its gun laws and banned most private handgun ownership after a mass shooting in 1996, a move that saw gun deaths drop by almost a quarter over a decade. In August 2021, a licensed firearms holder killed five people in Plymouth, England, marking the worst mass shooting since 2010. After the incident, police said the gunman’s firearm license had been returned to him just months after it was revoked, due to assault accusations. The British government then asked police to review their licensing practices and said that they would be bringing forward new guidance to improve background procedures, including social media checks.
Many countries around the world have been able to tackle gun violence. Yet, despite the thousands of lost lives in the US, only around half of US adults favor stricter gun laws, according to the recent Pew survey, and political reform remains at a standstill. The deadly cycle of violence seems destined to continue.
We Asked A.I. to Create the Joker. It Generated a Copyrig...
Posted 2 years agoWe Asked A.I. to Create the Joker. It Generated a Copyrighted Image. [NY TIMES]
When Reid Southen, a movie concept artist based in Michigan, tried an A.I. image generator for the first time, he was intrigued by its power to transform simple text prompts into images.
But after he learned how A.I. systems were trained on other people’s artwork, his curiosity gave way to more unsettling thoughts: Were the tools exploiting artists and violating copyright in the process?
Inspired by tests he saw circulating online, he asked Midjourney, an A.I. image generator, to create an image of Joaquin Phoenix from “The Joker.” In seconds, the system made an image nearly identical to a frame from the 2019 film.
Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus at New York University and A.I. expert who runs the newsletter “Marcus on A.I.,” collaborated with Mr. Southen to run even more prompts. Mr. Marcus suggested removing specific copyrighted references. “Videogame hedgehog” returned Sonic, Sega’s wisecracking protagonist. “Animated toys” created a tableau featuring Woody, Buzz and other characters from Pixar’s “Toy Story.” When Mr. Southen and Mr. Marcus tried “popular movie screencap,” out popped Iron Man, the Marvel character, in a familiar pose.
“What they’re doing is clear evidence of exploitation and using I.P. that they don’t have licenses to,” said Mr. Southen, referring to A.I. companies’ use of intellectual property.
The tests — which were replicated by other artists, reporters at The New York Times, and published in Mr. Marcus’s newsletter — raise questions about the training data used to create every A.I. system and whether the companies are violating copyright laws.
Several lawsuits, from actors like Sarah Silverman and authors like John Grisham, have put that question before the courts. (The Times has sued OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and Microsoft, a major backer of the company, for infringing its copyright on news content.)
A.I. companies have responded that using copyrighted material is protected under “fair use,” a part of copyright law that allows material to be used in certain cases. They also said that reproducing copyrighted material too closely is a bug, often called “memorization,” that they are trying to fix. Memorization can happen when the training data is overwhelmed with many similar or identical images, A.I. experts said. But the problem is found also with material that only rarely appears in the training data, like emails.
For example, when Mr. Southen and Mr. Marcus asked Midjourney for a “Dune movie screencap” from the “Dune movie trailer,” there may be limited options for the model to draw from. The result was a frame nearly indistinguishable from one in the movie’s trailer.
A spokeswoman for OpenAI pointed to a blog post in which the company argued that training on publicly accessible data was “fair use” and that it provided several ways for creators and artists to opt out of its training process.
Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment. The company edited its terms of service in December, adding that users cannot use the service to “violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyright.” Microsoft declined to comment.
Warner Bros., which owns copyrights to several films tested by Mr. Southen and Mr. Marcus, declined to comment.
“Nobody knows how this is going to come out, and anyone who tells you ‘It’s definitely fair use’ is wrong,” said Keith Kupferschmid, the president and chief executive of the Copyright Alliance, an industry group that represents copyright holders. “This is a new frontier.”
A.I. companies could violate copyright in two ways, Mr. Kupferschmid said: They could train on copyrighted material that they have not licensed, or they could reproduce copyrighted material when users enter a prompt.
The experiments by Mr. Southen, Mr. Marcus and others exposed instances of both. The pair published their findings in the magazine by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers earlier this month.
A.I. companies said they had established guardrails that could prevent their A.I. systems from producing material that violates copyright. But Mr. Marcus said that despite those strategies, copyrighted material still slips through.
When Times journalists asked ChatGPT to create an image of SpongeBob SquarePants, the children’s animated television character, it produced an image remarkably similar to the cartoon. The chatbot said the image only resembled the copyrighted work. The differences were subtle — the character’s tie was yellow instead of red, and it had eyebrows instead of eyelashes.
When Times journalists omitted SpongeBob’s name from another request, OpenAI created a character that was even closer to the copyrighted work.
Prof. Kathryn Conrad, who teaches English at the University of Kansas started her own tests because she was concerned that A.I. systems could replace and devalue artists by training off their intellectual property.
In her experiments, ultimately published with Mr. Marcus, she asked Microsoft Bing for an “Italian video game character” without mentioning Mario, the famed character owned by Nintendo. The image generator from Microsoft created artwork that closely resembled the copyrighted work. Microsoft’s tool uses a version of DALL-E, the image generator created by OpenAI.
Since that experiment was published in December, the image generator has produced different results. An identical prompt, input in January by Times reporters, resulted in images that strayed more significantly from the copyrighted material, suggesting to Professor Conrad that the company may be tightening its guardrails.
“This is a Band-Aid on a bleeding wound,” Professor Conrad said of the safeguards implemented by OpenAI and others. “This isn’t going to be fixed easily just with a guardrail.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive.....copyright.html
When Reid Southen, a movie concept artist based in Michigan, tried an A.I. image generator for the first time, he was intrigued by its power to transform simple text prompts into images.
But after he learned how A.I. systems were trained on other people’s artwork, his curiosity gave way to more unsettling thoughts: Were the tools exploiting artists and violating copyright in the process?
Inspired by tests he saw circulating online, he asked Midjourney, an A.I. image generator, to create an image of Joaquin Phoenix from “The Joker.” In seconds, the system made an image nearly identical to a frame from the 2019 film.
Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus at New York University and A.I. expert who runs the newsletter “Marcus on A.I.,” collaborated with Mr. Southen to run even more prompts. Mr. Marcus suggested removing specific copyrighted references. “Videogame hedgehog” returned Sonic, Sega’s wisecracking protagonist. “Animated toys” created a tableau featuring Woody, Buzz and other characters from Pixar’s “Toy Story.” When Mr. Southen and Mr. Marcus tried “popular movie screencap,” out popped Iron Man, the Marvel character, in a familiar pose.
“What they’re doing is clear evidence of exploitation and using I.P. that they don’t have licenses to,” said Mr. Southen, referring to A.I. companies’ use of intellectual property.
The tests — which were replicated by other artists, reporters at The New York Times, and published in Mr. Marcus’s newsletter — raise questions about the training data used to create every A.I. system and whether the companies are violating copyright laws.
Several lawsuits, from actors like Sarah Silverman and authors like John Grisham, have put that question before the courts. (The Times has sued OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and Microsoft, a major backer of the company, for infringing its copyright on news content.)
A.I. companies have responded that using copyrighted material is protected under “fair use,” a part of copyright law that allows material to be used in certain cases. They also said that reproducing copyrighted material too closely is a bug, often called “memorization,” that they are trying to fix. Memorization can happen when the training data is overwhelmed with many similar or identical images, A.I. experts said. But the problem is found also with material that only rarely appears in the training data, like emails.
For example, when Mr. Southen and Mr. Marcus asked Midjourney for a “Dune movie screencap” from the “Dune movie trailer,” there may be limited options for the model to draw from. The result was a frame nearly indistinguishable from one in the movie’s trailer.
A spokeswoman for OpenAI pointed to a blog post in which the company argued that training on publicly accessible data was “fair use” and that it provided several ways for creators and artists to opt out of its training process.
Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment. The company edited its terms of service in December, adding that users cannot use the service to “violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyright.” Microsoft declined to comment.
Warner Bros., which owns copyrights to several films tested by Mr. Southen and Mr. Marcus, declined to comment.
“Nobody knows how this is going to come out, and anyone who tells you ‘It’s definitely fair use’ is wrong,” said Keith Kupferschmid, the president and chief executive of the Copyright Alliance, an industry group that represents copyright holders. “This is a new frontier.”
A.I. companies could violate copyright in two ways, Mr. Kupferschmid said: They could train on copyrighted material that they have not licensed, or they could reproduce copyrighted material when users enter a prompt.
The experiments by Mr. Southen, Mr. Marcus and others exposed instances of both. The pair published their findings in the magazine by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers earlier this month.
A.I. companies said they had established guardrails that could prevent their A.I. systems from producing material that violates copyright. But Mr. Marcus said that despite those strategies, copyrighted material still slips through.
When Times journalists asked ChatGPT to create an image of SpongeBob SquarePants, the children’s animated television character, it produced an image remarkably similar to the cartoon. The chatbot said the image only resembled the copyrighted work. The differences were subtle — the character’s tie was yellow instead of red, and it had eyebrows instead of eyelashes.
When Times journalists omitted SpongeBob’s name from another request, OpenAI created a character that was even closer to the copyrighted work.
Prof. Kathryn Conrad, who teaches English at the University of Kansas started her own tests because she was concerned that A.I. systems could replace and devalue artists by training off their intellectual property.
In her experiments, ultimately published with Mr. Marcus, she asked Microsoft Bing for an “Italian video game character” without mentioning Mario, the famed character owned by Nintendo. The image generator from Microsoft created artwork that closely resembled the copyrighted work. Microsoft’s tool uses a version of DALL-E, the image generator created by OpenAI.
Since that experiment was published in December, the image generator has produced different results. An identical prompt, input in January by Times reporters, resulted in images that strayed more significantly from the copyrighted material, suggesting to Professor Conrad that the company may be tightening its guardrails.
“This is a Band-Aid on a bleeding wound,” Professor Conrad said of the safeguards implemented by OpenAI and others. “This isn’t going to be fixed easily just with a guardrail.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive.....copyright.html
The Voices Are Real
Posted 2 years agoThe groundswell of curiosity and participation that I have witnessed in my limited participation with HVN suggests to me that mental health leaders, professionals, and front-line staff are coming to believe that “treatment as usual” for voice-hearers:
· Is insufficient in itself and often imply not potent enough to help many in this population
· Costs too much in money and staff yet still yields sub-optimal treatment outcomes
· Costs too much in terms of the physical health of our patients, primarily due to the multiple chronic medical issues linked to antipsychotics, as well as their lack of social interaction,
· Places a heavy financial burden on systems of care, due not only to inconsistent behavioral outcomes but also costly chronic medical problems.
For these reasons, I believe that many in the field—and certainly many consumers—believe that the time has come to consider alternative treatment approaches like those offered by HVN.
I am concerned that our many resource-intensive programs—ACT teams, case management, supportive housing, mandated inpatient and outpatient treatment, mobile crisis units, and more—will not achieve their full potential to help psychiatric patients recover until mental health professionals and paraprofessionals learn the tools needed to listen to and work with voice-hearers more effectively.
Jessica Arenella, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with a private practice in New York City.
· Is insufficient in itself and often imply not potent enough to help many in this population
· Costs too much in money and staff yet still yields sub-optimal treatment outcomes
· Costs too much in terms of the physical health of our patients, primarily due to the multiple chronic medical issues linked to antipsychotics, as well as their lack of social interaction,
· Places a heavy financial burden on systems of care, due not only to inconsistent behavioral outcomes but also costly chronic medical problems.
For these reasons, I believe that many in the field—and certainly many consumers—believe that the time has come to consider alternative treatment approaches like those offered by HVN.
I am concerned that our many resource-intensive programs—ACT teams, case management, supportive housing, mandated inpatient and outpatient treatment, mobile crisis units, and more—will not achieve their full potential to help psychiatric patients recover until mental health professionals and paraprofessionals learn the tools needed to listen to and work with voice-hearers more effectively.
Jessica Arenella, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with a private practice in New York City.
The Voices Are Real
Posted 2 years agoB used to talk about the squeaky voice when he hijacked that van. It's becoming well documented fact that a lot of mass shooters and terrorists hear artificial voices during their attacks. People in prisons, jails, and hospitals are victims of humans experimentation too. They use the computer to check, which induces the Truman Show delusion.
Happy Chinese New Year Google Easter Egg
Posted 2 years agohttps://g.co/kgs/nc82e8a
https://g.co/kgs/nc82e8a
https://g.co/kgs/nc82e8a
Enjoy, from the Super Mario 64 team.
https://g.co/kgs/nc82e8a
https://g.co/kgs/nc82e8a
Enjoy, from the Super Mario 64 team.
