☘️🧶

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.

Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.

Not annoying at all!

I think schizophrenic characters are written poorly because everyone thinks they know what schizophrenia is, but no one actually does.

What you typically get in fiction is someone hallucinating without knowing they're hallucinating- in a fight with someone who isn't there, curled in a ball rocking with their hands pressed over their ears. And if you're just briefly meeting a side character, that's probably the fastest way to establish their issues.

But if you have a main (or fleshed-out supporting) character with schizophrenia, you have to know there is a lot more to the disorder to write it well.

Schizophrenia has three types of symptoms: Positive, Negative, and Cognitive.

Positive symptoms include things that aren't there in a healthy brain, but are in schizophrenia. These are things like hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia.

Negative symptoms include things that are present in a healthy brain, but not present in schizophrenia. These are things like a lack of motivation, decreased ability to feel pleasure, social withdrawal, and poverty of speech.

Cognitive symptoms are changes in thinking. These are things like problems with executive function, impaired working memory, struggling to concentrate, delayed processing, and trouble reading social and emotional cues from others.

Writing Positive Symptoms:

Most people with schizophrenia have auditory hallucinations, meaning they hear voices that aren't there. These can be voices narrating their life, telling them (usually mean) things about themselves, or commanding them to do something. Some people have other types of hallucinations, like visual hallucinations (seeing something that isn't there) or tactile (feeling something that isn't there).

The person may or may not know that a hallucination is not real. Knowing a hallucination isn't real doesn't make it go away.

You know when you're in a dream and everything makes sense, but then you wake up and realize the dream was really bizarre? That's kind of what delusions are like. You're so sure a thing you're thinking makes total sense, but everyone you're trying to talk about the thing with thinks you're crazy. And its frustrating because it makes so much sense to you. And no one else seems to get it.

Common delusions are things like thinking someone is out to get you, thinking others can read your mind or can put thoughts in your mind, thinking you're special, or thinking you have something medically devastatingly wrong with you.

Medications are really good at treating hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia.

Writing Negative Symptoms:

Nothing feels good, or you spend a lot of time trying to feel good and failing (a lot of comorbid substance use disorders in people with schizophrenia)

You just can't think of anything to say that makes sense, or it takes so long to come up with something to say that the moment has passed. So you just... don't say things.

"Flat affect" means your face is kind of blank and doesn't emote normally. Resting schizophrenia face.

You don't know how to make friends unless you have been specifically trained in the art and technique

Catatonia is where you're conscious but can't move (or move really weirdly) or communicate. But you're in there. And it's terrifying.

Sometimes if negative symptoms are primary this can get misdiagnosed as depression or autism

There are no medications that treat negative symptoms, but sometimes antidepressants can help.

Writing Cognitive Symptoms:

These are honestly some of the hardest symptoms to live with

The degree of cognitive symptoms a person has pretty much determines how disabled they are by schizophrenia.

Problems with following conversations with more than one person

Problems dialing a phone number because you can't hold the numbers in your head long enough

Trouble following verbal directions

Confusion. Just not understanding what is going on.

Having a "loading" period between a piece of information entering your brain and understanding what was said or read.

Difficulty starting tasks and staying on tasks

These are some of the first symptoms to present (usually in young teens) and are sometimes misdiagnosed as ADHD, because of the concentration problems

There are no medications that can treat cognitive symptoms

Medications and therapy (usually something called CBT-P, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis), are mostly effective for positive symptoms. Because of this, negative and cognitive symptoms are often the more disabling part of the condition. You can modulate your character's level of disability by expressing more or less of their negative and cognitive symptoms.

MerMay and Pride Month rolled into one!

@mikaila-orchard, you've done it again; this commission of my girls Zandile and Esther is positively gorgeous!

Made a little ace flag wall hanging, featuring Shadow ^_^

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.

redraw of a scene from cuptoast's rendition of pork soda

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.