/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

>>42425493
The time loop or temporal loop is a plot device in fiction whereby characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition. The term "time loop" is sometimes used to refer to a causal loop; however, causal loops are unchanging and self-originating, whereas time loops are constantly resetting: when a certain condition is met, such as a death of a character or a clock reaching a certain time, the loop starts again, possibly with one or more characters retaining the memories from the previous loop.

An early example of a time loop is the 1915 Russian novel Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, where the main character gets to live his life over again but struggles to change it the second time around. The episode "The Man Who Murdered Time" in the radio drama The Shadow was broadcasted on January 1, 1939, about a dying scientist which invents a time machine stuck on December 31. It was used in the short story "Doubled and Redoubled" by Malcolm Jameson that appeared in the February 1941 Unknown; the story tells of a person accidentally cursed to repeat a "perfect" day, including a lucky bet, a promotion, a heroically foiled bank robbery, and a successful wedding proposal.[citation needed] More recent examples include the 1973 short story "12:01 PM" and its 1990 film adaptation, the Soviet film Mirror for a Hero (1988), the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause And Effect" (1992), and the American film Groundhog Day (1993).

The time loop is a familiar trope in Japanese pop culture media, especially anime.[10] Its use in Japanese fiction dates back to Yasutaka Tsutsui's science fiction novel, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1965), one of the earliest works to feature a time loop, about a high school girl who repeatedly relives the same day. It was later adapted into a 1972 live-action Japanese television series, a hit 1983 live-action film, a 2006 anime film, and a 2010 live-action film.[11][12][13] The 1983 live-action film adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was a major box office success in Japan,[13] where it was the second highest-grossing Japanese film of 1983.[14] Its success was soon followed by numerous anime and manga using the time loop concept, starting with Mamoru Oshii's anime film Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984), and then the manga and anime series Kimagure Orange Road (1984–1988).

The time loop has since become a familiar anime trope.[10] Other popular Japanese works that use the time loop concept include Hiroyuki Kanno's science fiction visual novel YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World (1996), the visual novel and anime franchise Higurashi When They Cry (2002), the light novel and anime franchise Haruhi Suzumiya (2003), Mamoru Oshii's Japanese cyberpunk anime film Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), Hiroshi Sakurazaka's sci-fi light novel All You Need is Kill (2004) which was adapted into the Tom Cruise starring Hollywood film Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and the sci-fi visual novel and anime franchise Steins;Gate (2009).

12 (twelve) is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13. Twelve is a superior highly composite number, divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.

It is the number of years required for an orbital period of Jupiter. It is central to many systems of timekeeping, including the Western calendar and units of time of day and frequently appears in the world's major religions.

Twelve is the largest number with a single-syllable name in English. Early Germanic numbers have been theorized to have been non-decimal: evidence includes the unusual phrasing of eleven and twelve, the former use of "hundred" to refer to groups of 120, and the presence of glosses such as "tentywise" or "ten-count" in medieval texts showing that writers could not presume their readers would normally understand them that way. Such uses gradually disappeared with the introduction of Arabic numerals during the 12th-century Renaissance.

Derived from Old English, twelf and tuelf are first attested in the 10th-century Lindisfarne Gospels' Book of John. It has cognates in every Germanic language (e.g. German zwölf), whose Proto-Germanic ancestor has been reconstructed as *twaliƀi..., from *twa ("two") and suffix *-lif- or *-liƀ- of uncertain meaning. It is sometimes compared with the Lithuanian dvýlika, although -lika is used as the suffix for all numbers from 11 to 19 (analogous to "-teen"). Every other Indo-European language instead uses a form of "two"+"ten", such as the Latin duōdecim. The usual ordinal form is "twelfth" but "dozenth" or "duodecimal" (from the Latin word) is also used in some contexts, particularly base-12 numeration. Similarly, a group of twelve things is usually a "dozen" but may also be referred to as a "dodecad" or "duodecad". The adjective referring to a group of twelve is "duodecuple".

>>42341395
The Black Tortoise (Chinese: 玄武; pinyin: Xuánwǔ) is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. Despite its English name, it is usually depicted as a tortoise entwined together with a snake. The name 玄武 used in East Asian languages does not mention either animal; the alternative name "Black Warrior ~ Dark Warrior ~ Mysterious Warrior" is a more faithful translation.

It represents the north and the winter season, thus it is sometimes called Xuanwu (Black Tortoise, lit. Black Warrior) of the North (Chinese: 北方玄武; pinyin: Běifāng Xuánwǔ).

In Japan, it is named Genbu. It is said to protect Kyoto on the north side, being one of the four guardian spirits that protect the city. It is represented by the Kenkun Shrine, which is located on top of Mt Funaoka in Kyoto.

The creature's name is identical to that of the important Taoist god Xuanwu, who is sometimes (as in Journey to the West) portrayed in the company of a turtle and a snake.

During the Han dynasty, people often wore jade pendants that were in the shape of turtles. Originally there was a legend that said that turtles could not mate with other turtles only snakes so this is why the black tortoise is with the snake on its back.

>>42202479
Bet you did nazi that coming, huh?

En·na

(RP, AmE) /ˈɛ.nə/ [ˈɛ.nɐ];
(AusE) /ˈe.nɘ/ [ˈe.nɐ]
(JP) /eN.na/ [ˈe̞n̪.n̪ä]

A failed normalfag who entered vtubing with naked contempt for weebshit and the audience weebshit attracts. The only anime she knows anything about is Naruto. She doesn't even fucking like videogames. Enna fully intended to use nijiEN to bolster her failed career as an utaite and potentially land a professional singing gig as a 3DPD. That's why she's so laissez faire about doxshit and seemingly doesn't give a fuck who else she drags down with her. She pushes Rosemi and Nina's buttons whenever she's on stream with them because she has zero respect for kayfabe and legitimately believes she's doing them a favor by trying to get them to break character. Elira, by her own admission, had zero contact with Enna and Millie for years because she's fully aware that Enna is a shitty person and that Millie is negatively influenced by her. She's the worst hire this branch will ever see (somehow even worse than Luca) and everyone will be better off when she graduates. Rosemi also did not participate in that stream because she knew it was a terrible idea. Rosemi only interacts with Enna because of professionalism, she was fed up with Enna and tired of her bullshit ever since Otakuthon. Rosemi is not Wisconsin, also. I am also not Rosemi. My computer is fried because of Tarkov. She can't post on 4chan right now.

En·na
/ˈenːɑ/, [ˈe̞nːɑ]
A failed normalfag who entered vtubing with naked contempt for weebshit and the audience weebshit attracts. The only anime she knows anything about is Naruto. She doesn't even fucking like videogames. Enna fully intended to use nijiEN to bolster her failed career as an utaite and potentially land a professional singing gig as a 3DPD. That's why she's so laissez faire about doxshit and seemingly doesn't give a fuck who else she drags down with her. She pushes Rosemi and Nina's buttons whenever she's on stream with them because she has zero respect for kayfabe and legitimately believes she's doing them a favor by trying to get them to break character. Elira, by her own admission, had zero contact with Enna and Millie for years because she's fully aware that Enna is a shitty person and that Millie is negatively influenced by her. She's the worst hire this branch will ever see (somehow even worse than Luca) and everyone will be better off when she graduates. Rosemi also did not participate in that stream because she knew it was a terrible idea. Rosemi only interacts with Enna because of professionalism, she was fed up with Enna and tired of her bullshit ever since Otakuthon. Rosemi is not Wisconsin, also. I am also not Rosemi. My computer is fried because of Tarkov. She can't post on 4chan right now.

Millie
mil-ee
/ ˈmJl i /
A self-hating cunt who somehow thinks she's an independent boss bitch despite being a follower in everything she does. Millie has dropped friendships, changed careers, and blacklisted family members entirely at Enna's command. Enna is the reason Millie has so much trouble forging successful relationships, because Millie will never date or befriend someone as long as Enna tells her not to. Millie is completely whipped by this "friend" and her status as a person is perpetually defined by her proximity to Enna. Somehow, Millie is completely unaware that Enna only keeps her around out of a deep-seated fear of being left in total solitude once the rest of her clique inevitably realizes how rotten her personality is. Millie has toyed with the idea of dropping Enna on several occasions, but ultimately is so crippled by her own self-hate that she just can't help but self-sabotage every relationship involving a person who doesn't need to keep a whipping girl around as a replacement for their own vapid personality. Millie joined nijiEN after huffing her own farts enough to actually think she was talented enough as a streamer to compete in a corporate environment. After failing to put out covers at a reasonable pace, failing to do karaoke streams, failing to successfully pander to GFE unicorns, failing at being a consistent ASMRtist, failing at maintaining her own health, and failing to attach herself to any of the more successful male livers who debuted after Ethyria, she eventually became her slow descent into obscurity as a 3 view who occasionally pops her head up just long enough to cause problems for every fucking other person in the branch, upon which she will throw them all under the bus to protect her own reputation. Should have been fired alongside Enna and Reimu when they decided to blackball Nina and turn Ethyria into their own clique of catty bitches.

Millie
mil-ee
/ ˈmJl i /
A self-hating sloopnog cunt who somehow thinks she's an independent boss bitch despite following Enna in everything she does. If Enna told Millie to hop off a bridge, she would. If Enna told Millie to stop talking to that nice guy she met at the grocery store (because he's SOOOO ugly) she would, and has. Millie even broke ties with her flip family because she thinks Enna is all she needs—little does she know that Enna only keeps her around out of a deep-seated fear of being left in total solitude after all of her "friends' realize how rotten she is and drop her like a bag of hot dogshit. Millie has toyed with the idea of dropping Enna herself, but she's so crippled by her own self-hate that she just can't help but self-sabotage every relationship with a person who doesn't actually need her around as a replacement for their own vapid personality. Should have been fired alongside Enna and Reimu when they decided to turn Ethyria into a Nina-excluding clique. The "all out war" leak also happened on Millie's channel, as did the disastrous "own le ebin 4chin haterz!!!11" stream. Dumbass sloopnog is like a magnet for yabs; must be in the genes. Mocca was right.

En·na
/ˈenːɑ/, [ˈe̞nːɑ]
A failed normalfag who entered vtubing with naked contempt for weebshit and the audience weebshit attracts. The only anime she knows anything about is Naruto. She doesn't even fucking like videogames. Enna fully intended to use nijiEN to bolster her failed career as an utaite and potentially land a professional singing gig as a 3DPD. That's why she's so laissez faire about doxshit and seemingly doesn't give a fuck who else she drags down with her. She pushes Rosemi and Nina's buttons whenever she's on stream with them because she has zero respect for kayfabe and legitimately believes she's doing them a favor by trying to get them to break character. Elira, by her own admission, had zero contact with Enna and Millie for years because she's fully aware that Enna is a shitty person and that Millie is negatively influenced by her. She's the worst hire this branch will ever see (somehow even worse than Luca) and everyone will be better off when she graduates. Rosemi also did not participate in that stream because she knew it was a terrible idea. Rosemi only interacts with Enna because of professionalism, she was fed up with Enna and tired of her bullshit ever since Otakuthon. Rosemi is not Wisconsin, also. I am also not Rosemi. My computer is fried because of Tarkov. She can't post on 4chan right now.

The Streisand effect is the way in which attempts to hide, remove, or censor information can lead to the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information. It is named after American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt to suppress the California Coastal Records Project's photograph of her cliff-top residence in Malibu, California, taken to document California coastal erosion, inadvertently drew greater attention to the photograph in 2003.

Attempts to suppress information are often made through cease-and-desist letters, but instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity, as well as media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, which can be mirrored on the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks. In addition, seeking or obtaining an injunction to prohibit something from being published or remove something that is already published can lead to increased publicity of the published work.

The Streisand effect is an example of psychological reactance, wherein once people are aware that some information is being kept from them, they are significantly more motivated to access and spread that information.

In 2003, American singer and actress Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million for violation of privacy. The lawsuit sought to remove "Image 3850", an aerial photograph in which Streisand's mansion was visible, from the publicly available California Coastal Records Project of 12,000 California coastline photographs, documenting coastal erosion and intended to influence government policymakers. The lawsuit was dismissed and Streisand was ordered to pay Adelman's $177,000 legal fees.
"Image 3850" had been downloaded only six times prior to Streisand's lawsuit; two of those being by Streisand's attorneys. Public awareness of the case led to more than 420,000 people visiting the site over the following month.

Two years later, Mike Masnick of Techdirt named the effect after the Streisand incident when writing about Marco Beach Ocean Resort's takedown notice to urinal.net (a site dedicated to photographs of urinals) over its use of the resort's name.

How long is it going to take before lawyers realize that the simple act of trying to repress something they don't like online is likely to make it so that something that most people would never, ever see (like a photo of a urinal in some random beach resort) is now seen by many more people? Let's call it the Streisand Effect.

The phenomenon is well-known in Chinese culture, expressed by the chengyu "wishing to cover, more conspicuous" (欲蓋彌彰, pinyin: Yù gài mí zhāng). A similar expression appeared as early as the 4th century BC.

4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, music, literature, history, fitness, politics, and sports, among others. Registration is not available and users typically post anonymously. As of 2022, 4chan receives more than 22million unique monthly visitors, of which approximately half are from the United States.

4chan was created as an unofficial English-language counterpart to the Japanese imageboard Futaba Channel, also known as 2chan, and its first boards were created for posting images and discussion related to anime. The site has been described as a hub of Internet subculture, its community being influential in the formation and popularization of prominent Internet memes, such as lolcats, Rickrolling, rage comics, wojaks, Pepe the Frog, as well as hacktivist and political movements, such as Anonymous and the alt-right. 4chan has often been the subject of media attention as a source of controversies, including the coordination of pranks and harassment against websites and Internet users, and the posting of illegal and offensive content. In 2008, The Guardian summarized the 4chan community as "lunatic, juvenile(...) brilliant, ridiculous and alarming"

The majority of posting on 4chan takes place on imageboards, on which users have the ability to share images and create threaded discussions. As of August 2022, the site's homepage lists 75 imageboards and one Flash animation board. Most boards have their own set of rules and are dedicated to a specific topic, including anime and manga, video games, music, literature, fitness, politics, and sports, among others. Uniquely, the "Random" board—also known as /b/—enforces no particular rules. The main protagonist of the Japanese Yotsuba&! manga, Yotsuba Koiwai, has been described as an "unofficial mascot" of the website by Wired writer Justin Ling.

4chan is the Internet's most trafficked imageboard, according to the Los Angeles Times. 4chan's Alexa rank is 853 as of March2022 though it has been as high as 56. It is provided to its users free of charge and consumes a large amount of bandwidth; as a result, its financing has often been problematic. Poole has acknowledged that donations alone could not keep the site online, and turned to advertising to help make ends meet.[13] However, the explicit content hosted on 4chan has deterred businesses who do not want to be associated with the site's content.[14] In January 2009, Poole signed a new deal with an advertising company; in February 2009, he was $20,000 in debt, and the site was continuing to lose money. The 4chan servers were moved from Texas to California in August 2008, which upgraded the maximum bandwidth throughput of 4chan from 100Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s.

Unlike most web forums, 4chan does not have a registration system, allowing users to post anonymously. Posting is ephemeral, as threads receiving recent replies are "bumped" to the top of their respective board and old threads are deleted as new ones are created.[2] Any nickname may be used when posting, even one that has been previously adopted, such as "Anonymous" or "moot".[19] In place of registration, 4chan has provided tripcodes as an optional form of authenticating a poster's identity.[20] As making a post without filling in the "Name" field causes posts to be attributed to "Anonymous", general understanding on 4chan holds that Anonymous is not a single person but a collective (hive) of users. Moderators generally post without a name even when performing sysop actions. A "capcode" may be used to attribute the post to "Anonymous ## Mod", although moderators often post without the capcode. In a 2011 interview on Nico Nico Douga, Poole explained that there are approximately 20 volunteer moderators active on 4chan.[note 1] 4chan also has a junior moderation team, called "janitors", who may delete posts or images and suggest that the normal moderation team ban a user, but who cannot post with a capcode. Revealing oneself as a janitor is grounds for immediate dismissal.

4chan has been the target of occasional denial of service attacks. For instance, on December 28, 2010, 4chan and other websites went down due to such an attack, following which Poole said on his blog, "We now join the ranks of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, et al.—an exclusive club!"

MOM I'M ON THE TELLY

Graduation is the awarding of a diploma to a student by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it. The date of the graduation ceremony is often called graduation day. The graduation ceremony is also sometimes called: commencement, congregation, convocation or invocation.

Ceremonies for graduating students date from the first universities in Europe in the twelfth century. At that time Latin was the language of scholars. A universitas was a guild of masters (such as MAs) with licence to teach. "Degree" and "graduate" come from gradus, meaning "step". The first step was admission to a bachelor's degree. The second step was the masters step, giving the graduate admission to the universitas and license to teach. Typical dress for graduation is gown and hood, or hats adapted from the daily dress of university staff in the Middle Ages, which was in turn based on the attire worn by medieval clergy.

The tradition of wearing graduation hats in Sweden has been in place since the mid-eighteenth century. The cap is typically a white sailor hat with a black or dark blue band around it, a crown motif, and a black peak at the front. The graduation hat tradition was initially adopted by students at Uppsala University. The headgear then became popular across several other European nations as well.

Usually the ceremony and name apply to university degrees (Associate's, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees).

In a graduation ceremony at the college and university level, the presiding officer or another authorized person formally confers degrees upon candidates, either individually or en masse, even though graduates may physically receive their diploma later at a smaller college or departmental ceremony, or simply receive their diploma through the mail.

Ceremonies often include a procession of some of the academic staff and candidates and a valediction. The academic staff will usually wear an academic dress at the ceremony, as will the trustees (if applicable) and the degree candidates. Graduates can be referred to by their year of graduation.

When a student graduates without attending the graduation ceremony, then it is called graduation in absentia.

In the United States, the completion of mandatory schooling is also referred to as graduating, even though it is substantially below degree level.

Graduations for high school, middle school and kindergarten. Also, even for passing from one school year to the next, have been a development of recent years. This has received criticism, being described as "just a way of celebrating mediocrity".

In some places, graduation parties celebrating graduation from school, college or university are popular. In a recent 2014 nationwide survey in the United States, $985 was the average amount spent on graduation parties.

Expense management refers to the systems deployed by a business to process, pay, and audit employee-initiated expenses. These costs include, but are not limited to, expenses incurred for travel and entertainment. Expense management includes the policies and procedures that govern such spending, as well as the technologies and services utilized to process and analyze the data associated with it.

Software to manage the expense claim, authorization, audit and repayment processes can be obtained from organizations that provide a licensed software, implementation and support service, or alternatively, from software as a service (SaaS) providers. SaaS providers offer on-demand web-based applications managed by a third party to improve the productivity of expense management.

Expense management automation has two aspects: the process an employee follows in order to complete an expense claim (for example, logging a hotel receipt or submitting mobile phone records) and the activity accounts or finance staff undertake to process the claim within the finance system.

Typically, a manual process will involve an employee completing a paper, spreadsheet, or graphical user interface-based expense report that they then forward, along with the relevant tax invoices (receipts), to a manager or other controller for approval. Once the manager has approved the claim, they forward it on to the accounts department for processing. The accounts staff then key each expense item into the company's finance system before filing the claim and receipts away. In a Software as a Service implementation, these processes are largely automated and the submission and approvals processes are transacted electronically.

Expense Management automation is the means by which an organization can significantly reduce transaction costs and improve management control when logging, calculating and processing corporate expenses. Independent research evaluating the use of automated expense management systems has confirmed that the cost of processing an expense claim is reduced as the level of automation increases.

Organizations may automate their expense management processes for reasons such as compliance, cost reduction, control, and employee productivity.

The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.

In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years or so been depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with a long straight horn with spiralling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could be captured only by a virgin. In encyclopedias, its horn was described as having the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In medieval and Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as a unicorn horn.

A bovine type of unicorn is thought by some scholars to have been depicted in seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization, the interpretation remaining controversial. An equine form of the unicorn was mentioned by the ancient Greeks in accounts of natural history by various writers, including Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the Younger, Aelian, and Cosmas Indicopleustes. The Bible also describes an animal, the re'em, which some translations render as unicorn.

The unicorn continues to hold a place in popular culture. It is often used as a symbol of fantasy or rarity.

A creature with a single horn, conventionally called a unicorn, is the most common image on the soapstone stamp seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization ("IVC"), from the centuries around 2000 BC. It has a body more like a cow than a horse, and a curved horn that goes forward, then up at the tip.[citation needed] The mysterious feature depicted coming down from the front of the back is usually shown; it may represent a harness or other covering. Typically the unicorn faces a vertical object with at least two stages; this is variously described as a "ritual offering stand", an incense burner, or a manger. The animal is always in profile on Indus seals, but the theory that it represents animals with two horns, one hiding the other, is disproved by a (much smaller) number of small terracotta unicorns, probably toys, and the profile depictions of bulls, where both horns are clearly shown. It is thought that the unicorn was the symbol of a powerful "clan or merchant community", but may also have had some religious significance.

In South Asia the unicorn is only seen during the IVC period — it disappears in South Asian art ever since. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer notes the IVC unicorn to not have any "direct connection" with later unicorn motifs observed in other parts of world; nonetheless it remains possible that the IVC unicorn had contributed to later myths of fantastical one-horned creatures in West Asia.

Unicorns are not found in Greek mythology, but rather in the accounts of natural history, for Greek writers of natural history were convinced of the reality of unicorns, which they believed lived in India, a distant and fabulous realm for them. The earliest description is from Ctesias, who in his book Indika ("On India") described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn a cubit and a half (700mm, 28 inches) in length, and colored white, red and black. Unicorn meat was said to be too bitter to eat.
Unicorn in Apadana, Susa, Iran

Ctesias got his information while living in Persia. Unicorns on a relief sculpture have been found at the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis in Iran.[8] Aristotle must be following Ctesias when he mentions two one-horned animals, the oryx (a kind of antelope) and the so-called "Indian ass" (ἰνδικὸς ὄνος). Antigonus of Carystus also wrote about the one-horned "Indian ass". Strabo says that in the Caucasus there were one-horned horses with stag-like heads. Pliny the Elder mentions the oryx and an Indian ox (perhaps a Greater one-horned rhinoceros) as one-horned beasts, as well as "a very fierce animal called the monoceros which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead, two cubits [900mm, 35 inches] in length." In On the Nature of Animals (Περὶ Ζῴων Ἰδιότητος, De natura animalium), Aelian, quoting Ctesias, adds that India produces also a one-horned horse (iii. 41; iv. 52), and says (xvi. 20) that the monoceros (Greek: μονόκερως) was sometimes called cartazonos (Greek: καρτάζωνος), which may be a form of the Arabic karkadann, meaning "rhinoceros".

A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misrepresentation of someone's allegiance. The term was famously used to describe a ruse in naval warfare whereby a vessel flew the flag of a neutral or enemy country in order to hide its true identity. The tactic was originally used by pirates and privateers to deceive other ships into allowing them to move closer before attacking them. It later was deemed an acceptable practice during naval warfare according to international maritime laws, provided the attacking vessel displayed its true flag once an attack had begun.

The term today extends to include countries that organize attacks on themselves and make the attacks appear to be by enemy nations or terrorists, thus giving the nation that was supposedly attacked a pretext for domestic repression or foreign military aggression. Similarly deceptive activities carried out during peacetime by individuals or nongovernmental organizations have been called false flag operations, but the more common legal term is a "frameup", "stitch up", or "setup".

>>41386256
Actually peep,

In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach one billion and only 219 years more to reach 8billion.

The human population experienced continuous growth following the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the end of the Black Death in 1350, when it was nearly 370,000,000. The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975, peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. The growth rate declined to 1.1% between 2015 and 2020 and is projected to decline further in the 21st century. The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing fertility and mortality rates. The UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs projects between 9 and 10billion people by 2050 and gives an 80% confidence interval of 10–12billion by the end of the 21st century, with a growth rate by then of zero. Other demographers predict that the human population will begin to decline in the second half of the 21st century.

The total number of births globally is currently (2015–2020) 140 million/year, which is projected to peak during the period 2040–2045 at 141million/year and then decline slowly to 126million/year by 2100. The total number of deaths is currently 57million/year and is projected to grow steadily to 121million/year by 2100.

The median age of human beings as of 2020 is 31 years.

Platonic love (often lowercased as platonic love) is a type of love in which sexual desire or romantic features are nonexistent or has been suppressed or sublimated, but it means more than simple friendship.

The term is derived from the name of Greek philosopher Plato, though the philosopher never used the term himself. Platonic love, as devised by Plato, concerns rising through levels of closeness to wisdom and true beauty, from carnal attraction to individual bodies to attraction to souls, and eventually, union with the truth.

Platonic love is contrasted with romantic love.

Platonic love is examined in Plato's dialogue, the Symposium, which has as its topic the subject of love, or more generally the subject of Eros. It explains the possibilities of how the feeling of love began and how it has evolved, both sexually and non-sexually, and defines genuine platonic love as inspiring a person's mind and soul and directing their attention towards spiritual matters. Of particular importance is the speech of Socrates, who attributes to the prophet Diotima an idea of platonic love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the divine, an ascent known as the "Ladder of Love". For Diotima and Plato generally, the most correct use of love of human beings is to direct one's mind to love of divinity. Socrates defines love based on separate classifications of pregnancy (to bear offspring); pregnancy of the body, pregnancy of the soul, and direct connection to existence. Pregnancy of the body results in human children. Pregnancy of the soul, the next step in the process, produces "virtue"—which is the soul (truth) translating itself into material form.

Pausanias, in Plato's Symposium (181b–182a), defines two types of the love known as "Eros": vulgar Eros, or earthly love, and divine Eros, or divine love. Pausanias defines vulgar Eros as material attraction towards a person's beauty for the purposes of physical pleasure and reproduction, and divine Eros as starting from physical attraction but transcending gradually to love for supreme beauty, placed on a similar level to the divine. This concept of divine Eros was later transformed into the term "platonic love".

Vulgar Eros and divine Eros were both considered to be connected, and part of the same continuous process of pursuing perfection of one's being, with the purpose of mending one's human nature and eventually reaching a point of unity where there is no longer an aspiration or need to change.

In the Symposium, Eros is discussed as a Greek god—more specifically, the king of the gods, with each guest of the party giving a eulogy in praise of Eros.
Virtue, according to Greek philosophy, is the concept of how closely reality and material form equates good, positive, or benevolent. This can be seen as a form of linguistic relativity.
Some modern authors' perception of the terms "virtue" and "good" as they are translated into English from the Symposium are a good indicator of this misunderstanding. In the following quote, the author simplifies the idea of virtue as simply what is "good".

The Ladder of Love is a metaphor that relates each step toward Being as consecutive rungs of a ladder. Each step closer to the truth further distances love from beauty of the body toward love that is more focused on wisdom and the essence of beauty.

The ladder starts with carnal attraction of body for body, progressing to a love for body and soul. Eventually, in time, with consequent steps up the ladder, the idea of beauty is eventually no longer connected with a body, but entirely united with Being itself.

Plato's Symposium defines two extremes in the process of platonic love; the entirely carnal and the entirely ethereal. These two extremes of love are seen by the Greeks in terms of tragedy and comedy. According to Diotima in her discussion with Socrates, for anyone to achieve the final rung in the Ladder of Love, they would essentially transcend the body and rise to immortality—gaining direct access to Being. Such a form of love is impossible for a mortal to achieve.

What Plato describes as "pregnancy of the body" is entirely carnal and seeks pleasure and beauty in bodily form only. This is the type of love, that, according to Socrates, is practiced by animals.
"Now, if both these portraits of love, the tragic and the comic, are exaggerations, then we could say that the genuine portrayal of Platonic love is the one that lies between them. The love described as the one practiced by those who are pregnant according to the soul, who partake of both the realm of beings and the realm of Being, who grasp Being indirectly, through the mediation of beings, would be a love that Socrates could practice."

>>41259052
She has/had massive growth and CCV, whilst having no substantial amount of gachis. And considering how easy it was for Kyo to become her "bestie", honestly it's a good meta move.

>>41196944
Zaion is not just a cat. But a Kemonomimi of a cat.

Kemonomimi (獣耳), literally meaning "animal ears", is the concept of depicting human and human-like characters with animal ears, and by extension, other features such as tails. Kemonomimi is often used in moe anthropomorphism, to depict animal characters in human form. Catgirls and catboys are the most prolific and common in this category, although bunnygirls, foxgirls, doggirls, and wolfgirls are also common. Kemonomimi characters typically appear human except for added animal-like qualities. In Hiroki Azuma's theory of otaku database consumption, animal ears are one type of "moe element," which is combined with other elements in a character in order to create an affective response in fans. A notable franchise featuring moe anthropomorphism and kemonomimi is Kemono Friends, which is focused on a myriad of anthropomorphized animals in the form of girls and young women, ranging from real animals to cryptids and legendary creatures. Another notable series is Uma Musume Pretty Derby which focuses on girls as famous Japanese racehorses. Mimiketto is a doujinshi convention dedicated to kemonomimi works.

Bait is any appetizing substance used to attract prey when hunting or fishing, e.g. food in a mousetrap.

The term is especially used with regard to catching fish. Traditionally, nightcrawlers, insects, and smaller fish have been used for this purpose. Fishermen have also begun using plastic bait and, more recently, electronic lures, to attract fish. Because of the risk of transmitting Myxobolus cerebralis (whirling disease), trout and salmon should not be used as bait. There are various types of natural saltwater bait. Studies show that natural baits like croaker and shrimp are better recognized therefore more readily accepted by fish. The best bait for red drum (red fish) are pogy (menhaden) and, in the fall, specks like croaker.

Baiting is a common practice in leopard hunting on a safari. A dead, smaller-sized antelope is usually placed high in the tree to lure the otherwise overcautious leopard. The hunter either watches the bait from point within firing range or stalks the animal if has come for the bait during the night.

In areas where bears are hunted, bait can be found for sale at gas stations and hunting supply stores. Often consisting of some sweet substance, such as frosting or molasses, combined with an aromatic like rotten meat or fish, the bait is spread and the hunter waits under cover for his prey.

Poisoned bait is a common method for controlling rats, mice, birds, slugs, snails, ants, cockroaches, and other pests. The basic granules, or other formulation, contains a food attractant for the target species and a suitable poison. For ants, a slow-acting toxin is needed so that the workers have time to carry the substance back to the colony, and for flies, a quick-acting substance to prevent further egg-laying and nuisance. Baits for slugs and snails often contain the molluscide metaldehyde, dangerous to children and household pets.

Baiting in Australia refers to specific campaigns to control foxes, wild dogs and dingos by poisoning in areas where they are a problem. These programs are held in conjunction with the local Department of Primary Industriey, Rural Lands Protection Board (RLPB) and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to facilitate a neighbourhood baiting campaign.

Australian hunters often use carcasses when hunting feral pigs. Shot feral animals are often left in the field, and the decaying smell attracts more pigs over subsequent days.

>>41126768
Back in the day, Lucio's wall ride actually had mechanics that made it difficult and more interesting, but otherwise I don't disagree with what you're saying

>>40920991
Are you Chinese? Otherwise I'm not interested.

>>40843736
There was never any doubt she'd make it!