Autoscaling, (also written as auto scaling, auto-scaling, or known as automatic scaling), is a method used in cloud computing that dynamically adjusts the amount of computational resources in a server farm - typically measured by the number of active servers - automatically based on the load on the farm. For example, the number of servers running behind a web application may be increased or decreased automatically based on the number of active users on the site. Since such metrics may change dramatically throughout the course of the day, and servers are a limited resource that cost money to run even while idle, there is often an incentive to run "just enough" servers to support the current load while still being able to support sudden and large spikes in activity. Autoscaling is helpful for such needs, as it can reduce the number of active servers when activity is low, and launch new servers when activity is high. Autoscaling is closely related to, and builds upon, the idea of load balancing. == Advantages == Autoscaling offers the following advantages: For companies running their own web server infrastructure, autoscaling typically means allowing some servers to go to sleep during times of low load, saving on electricity costs (as well as water costs if water is being used to cool the machines). For companies using infrastructure hosted in the cloud, autoscaling can mean lower bills, because most cloud providers charge based on total usage rather than maximum capacity. Even for companies that cannot reduce the total compute capacity they run or pay for at any given time, autoscaling can help by allowing the company to run less time-sensitive workloads on machines that get freed up by autoscaling during times of low traffic. Autoscaling solutions, such as the one offered by Amazon Web Services, can also take care of replacing unhealthy instances and therefore protecting somewhat against hardware, network, and application failures. Autoscaling can offer greater uptime and more availability in cases where production workloads are variable and unpredictable. Autoscaling differs from having a fixed daily, weekly, or yearly cycle of server use in that it is responsive to actual usage patterns, and thus reduces the potential downside of having too few or too many servers for the traffic load. For instance, if traffic is usually lower at midnight, then a static scaling solution might schedule some servers to sleep at night, but this might result in downtime on a night where people happen to use the Internet more (for instance, due to a viral news event). Autoscaling, on the other hand, can handle unexpected traffic spikes better. == Terminology == In the list below, we use the terminology used by Amazon Web Services (AWS). However, alternative names are noted and terminology that is specific to the names of Amazon services is not used for the names. == Practice == === Amazon Web Services (AWS) === Amazon Web Services launched the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service in August 2006, that allowed developers to programmatically create and terminate instances (machines). At the time of initial launch, AWS did not offer autoscaling, but the ability to programmatically create and terminate instances gave developers the flexibility to write their own code for autoscaling. Third-party autoscaling software for AWS began appearing around April 2008. These included tools by Scalr and RightScale. RightScale was used by Animoto, which was able to handle Facebook traffic by adopting autoscaling. On May 18, 2009, Amazon launched its own autoscaling feature along with Elastic Load Balancing, as part of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Autoscaling is now an integral component of Amazon's EC2 offering. Autoscaling on Amazon Web Services is done through a web browser or the command line tool. In May 2016 Autoscaling was also offered in AWS ECS Service. On-demand video provider Netflix documented their use of autoscaling with Amazon Web Services to meet their highly variable consumer needs. They found that aggressive scaling up and delayed and cautious scaling down served their goals of uptime and responsiveness best. In an article for TechCrunch, Zev Laderman, the co-founder and CEO of Newvem, a service that helps optimize AWS cloud infrastructure, recommended that startups use autoscaling in order to keep their Amazon Web Services costs low. Various best practice guides for AWS use suggest using its autoscaling feature even in cases where the load is not variable. That is because autoscaling offers two other advantages: automatic replacement of any instances that become unhealthy for any reason (such as hardware failure, network failure, or application error), and automatic replacement of spot instances that get interrupted for price or capacity reasons, making it more feasible to use spot instances for production purposes. Netflix's internal best practices require every instance to be in an autoscaling group, and its conformity monkey terminates any instance not in an autoscaling group in order to enforce this best practice. === Microsoft's Windows Azure === On June 27, 2013, Microsoft announced that it was adding autoscaling support to its Windows Azure cloud computing platform. Documentation for the feature is available on the Microsoft Developer Network. === Oracle Cloud === Oracle Cloud Platform allows server instances to automatically scale a cluster in or out by defining an auto-scaling rule. These rules are based on CPU and/or memory utilization and determine when to add or remove nodes. === Google Cloud Platform === On November 17, 2014, the Google Compute Engine announced a public beta of its autoscaling feature for use in Google Cloud Platform applications. As of March 2015, the autoscaling tool is still in Beta. === Facebook === In a blog post in August 2014, a Facebook engineer disclosed that the company had started using autoscaling to bring down its energy costs. The blog post reported a 27% decline in energy use for low traffic hours (around midnight) and a 10-15% decline in energy use over the typical 24-hour cycle. === Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler === Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler automatically scales the number of pods in a replication controller, deployment or replicaset based on observed CPU utilization (or, with beta support, on some other, application-provided metrics) == Alternative autoscaling decision approaches == Autoscaling by default uses reactive decision approach for dealing with traffic scaling: scaling only happens in response to real-time changes in metrics. In some cases, particularly when the changes occur very quickly, this reactive approach to scaling is insufficient. Two other kinds of autoscaling decision approaches are described below. === Scheduled autoscaling approach === This is an approach to autoscaling where changes are made to the minimum size, maximum size, or desired capacity of the autoscaling group at specific times of day. Scheduled scaling is useful, for instance, if there is a known traffic load increase or decrease at specific times of the day, but the change is too sudden for reactive approach based autoscaling to respond fast enough. AWS autoscaling groups support scheduled scaling. === Predictive autoscaling === This approach to autoscaling uses predictive analytics. The idea is to combine recent usage trends with historical usage data as well as other kinds of data to predict usage in the future, and autoscale based on these predictions. For parts of their infrastructure and specific workloads, Netflix found that Scryer, their predictive analytics engine, gave better results than Amazon's reactive autoscaling approach. In particular, it was better for: Identifying huge spikes in demand in the near future and getting capacity ready a little in advance Dealing with large-scale outages, such as failure of entire availability zones and regions Dealing with variable traffic patterns, providing more flexibility on the rate of scaling out or in based on the typical level and rate of change in demand at various times of day On November 20, 2018, AWS announced that predictive scaling would be available as part of its autoscaling offering.
IWork
iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. iWork includes the presentation application Keynote, the word-processing and desktop-publishing application Pages, and the spreadsheet application Numbers. Apple's design goals in creating iWork have been to allow Mac users to easily create attractive documents and spreadsheets, making use of macOS's extensive font library, integrated spelling checker, sophisticated graphics APIs and its AppleScript automation framework. The equivalent Microsoft Office applications to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, respectively. Although Microsoft Office applications cannot open iWork documents, iWork applications can open Office documents for editing, and export documents from iWork's native formats (.pages, .numbers, .key) to Microsoft Office formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) as well as to PDF files. The oldest application in iWork is Keynote, first released as a standalone application in 2003 for use by Steve Jobs in his presentations. Steve Jobs announced Keynote saying "It's for when your presentation really matters". Pages was released with the first iWork bundle in 2004; Numbers was added in 2007 with the release of iWork '08. The next release, iWork '09, also included beta access to iWork.com, an online service that allowed users to upload and share documents on the web, now integrated into Apple's iCloud service. A version of iWork for iOS was released in 2010 with the first iPad, and the apps have been regularly updated since, including the addition of iPhone support. In 2013, Apple launched iWork web apps in iCloud; even years later, however, their functionality is somewhat limited compared to equivalents on the desktop. iWork was initially sold as a suite for $79, then later at $19.99 per app on OS X and $9.99 per app on iOS. Apple announced in October 2013 that all iOS and OS X devices purchased onwards, whether new or refurbished, would be eligible for a free download of all three iWork apps: after device setup, the user can "claim" the apps on the App Store, after which they are permanently linked to the user’s Apple ID. iWork for iCloud, which also incorporates a document hosting service, is free to all iCloud users. iWork was released for free on macOS and iOS (including older or resold devices) in April 2017. In September 2016, Apple announced that the real-time collaboration feature would be available for all iWork apps. == History == The first version of iWork, iWork '05, was announced on January 11, 2005 at the Macworld Conference & Expo and made available on January 22 in the United States and on January 29 worldwide. iWork '05 comprised two applications: Keynote 2, a presentation creation program, and Pages, a word processor. iWork '05 was sold for US$79. A 30-day trial was also made available for download on Apple's website. Originally IGG Software held the rights to the name iWork. While iWork was billed by Apple as "a successor to AppleWorks", it does not replicate AppleWorks's database and drawing tools. However, iWork integrates with existing applications from Apple's iLife suite through the Media Browser, which allows users to drag and drop music from iTunes, movies from iMovie, and photos from iPhoto and Aperture directly into iWork documents. iWork '06 was released on January 10, 2006 and contained updated versions of both Keynote and Pages. Both programs were released as universal binaries for the first time, allowing them to run natively on both PowerPC processors and the Intel processors used in the new iMac desktop computers and MacBook Pro notebooks which had been announced on the same day as the new iWork suite. The next version of the suite, iWork '08, was announced and released on August 7, 2007 at a special media event at Apple's campus in Cupertino, California. iWork '08, like previous updates, contained updated versions of Keynote and Pages. A new spreadsheet application, Numbers, was also introduced. Numbers differed from other spreadsheet applications, including Microsoft Excel, in that it allowed users to create documents containing multiple spreadsheets on a flexible canvas using a number of built-in templates. iWork '09, was announced on January 6, 2009 and released the same day. It contains updated versions of all three applications in the suite. iWork '09 also included access to a beta version of the iWork.com service, which allowed users to share documents online until that service was decommissioned at the end of July 2012. Users of iWork '09 could upload a document directly from Pages, Keynote, or Numbers and invite others to view it online. Viewers could write notes and comments in the document, and download a copy in iWork, Microsoft Office, or PDF formats. iWork '09 was also released with the Mac App Store on January 6, 2011 at $19.99 per application, and received regular updates after this point, including links to iCloud and a high-DPI version designed to match Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display. On January 27, 2010, Apple announced iWork for iPad, to be available as three separate $9.99 applications from the App Store. This version has also received regular updates including a version for pocket iPhone and iPod Touch devices, and an update to take advantage of Retina Display devices and the larger screens of recent iPhones. On October 22, 2013, Apple announced an overhaul of the iWork software for both the Mac and iOS. Both suites were made available via the respective App Stores. The update is free for current iWork owners and was also made available free of charge for anyone purchasing an OS X or iOS device after October 1, 2013. Any user activating the newly free iWork apps on a qualifying device can download the same apps on another iOS or OS X device logged into the same App Store account. The new OS X versions have been criticized for losing features such as multiple selection, linked text boxes, bookmarks, 2-up page views, mail merge, searchable comments, ability to read/export RTF files, default zoom and page count, integration with AppleScript. Apple has provided a road-map for feature re-introduction, stating that it hopes to reintroduce some missing features within the next six months. As of April 1, 2014 a few features—e.g., the ability to set the default zoom—had been reintroduced, though scores had not. Due to using a completely new file format that can work across macOS, Windows, and in most web browsers by using the online iCloud web apps, versions of iWork beginning with iWork 13 and later do not open or allow editing of documents created in versions prior to iWork '09, with users who attempt to open older iWork files being given a pop-up in the new iWork 13 app versions telling them to use the previous iWork '09 (which users may or may not have on their machine) in order to open and edit such files. Accordingly, the current version for OS X (which was initially only compatible with OS X Mavericks 10.9 onwards) moves any previously installed iWork '09 apps to an iWork '09 folder on the users machine (in /Applications/iWork '09/), as a work-around to allow users continued use of the earlier suite in order to open and edit older iWork documents locally on their machine. In October 2015, Apple released an update to mitigate this issue, allowing users to open documents saved in iWork '06 and iWork '08 formats in the latest version of Pages. In 2016, Apple announced that the real-time collaboration feature would be available for all iWork apps, instead of being constrained to using iWork for iCloud. The feature is comparable to Google Docs. == Versions == === Major releases === === Updates === iWork '09 received several updates: iWork 9.0.3 DVD (for Mac OS X 10.5.6 "Leopard" or newer; released August 26, 2010) iWork 9.0.4 (for Mac OS X 10.5.6 "Leopard" or newer; released August 26, 2010) iWork 9.1 (for Mac OS X 10.6.6 "Snow Leopard" or newer; released July 20, 2011) iWork 9.3 (for Mac OS X 10.7.4 "Lion" or newer; released December 4, 2012) The Mac App Store version of iWork was updated on October 15, 2015 for 10.10 "Yosemite" or newer. It is the final release to support 10.10 "Yosemite" and 10.11 "El Capitan". Keynote 6.6, Pages 5.6 and Numbers 3.6 are included. iWork received a major update again on March 28, 2019 with Keynote 9.0, Pages 8.0 and Numbers 6.0. == Components == === Common components === Products in the iWork suite share a number of components, largely as a result of sharing underlying code from the Cocoa and similar shared application programming interfaces (APIs). Among these are the well known universal multilingual spell checker, which can also be found in products like Safari and Mail. Grammar checking, find and replace, style and color pickers are similar examples of design features found throughout the Apple application space. Moreover, the applications
Serial Experiments Lain
Serial Experiments Lain is a Japanese anime television series created and co-produced by Yasuyuki Ueda, written by Chiaki J. Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura. Animated by Triangle Staff and featuring original character designs by Yoshitoshi Abe, the series was broadcast for 13 episodes on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from July to September 1998. It follows Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl in suburban Japan, and her relation to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the internet. Lain features surreal and avant-garde imagery and explores philosophical topics such as reality, identity, and communication. The series incorporates creative influences from computer history, cyberpunk, and conspiracy theories. Critics and fans have praised Lain for its originality, visuals, atmosphere, themes, and its dark depiction of a world fraught with paranoia, social alienation, and reliance on technology considered insightful of 21st century life. It received the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 1998. == Plot == Lain Iwakura is a socially isolated middle school student living in Setagaya City, Tokyo, with her emotionally detached family—her distant mother Miho, computer-obsessed father Yasuo, and disengaged older sister Mika. Her quiet existence is disrupted when students at her school receive emails from Chisa Yomoda, a classmate who had recently committed suicide. To Lain's confusion, Chisa claims she is not truly dead but has instead abandoned her physical form to exist within the Wired, a vast virtual realm similar to the Internet. Chisa declares she has found "God" there, drawing Lain into a surreal investigation of the Wired's nature and its growing influence over reality. The Wired is portrayed as an emergent digital plane, originating from telecommunications technology and expanding through the Internet and cyberspace. It is theorized that the Schumann resonances, a natural property of Earth's magnetic field, could enable direct subconscious communication between humans and machines, erasing the distinction between the virtual and the real. Masami Eiri, a former project director at Tachibana General Laboratories, exploited this possibility by embedding his own code into Protocol Seven, a next-generation Internet protocol. After transferring his consciousness into the Wired and discarding his physical body, he proclaims himself its deity. He identifies Lain as the key to merging both worlds, attempting to persuade her through manipulation, coercion, and promises of transcendence. A group known as the Knights of the Eastern Calculus, inspired by the Knights of the Lambda Calculus, operates as hackers who worship Masami and seek to dismantle the boundary between the Wired and reality. Their actions induce psychological breakdowns in those unable to reconcile the two realms. Meanwhile, Tachibana General Laboratories opposes them, striving to maintain the separation. Lain, however, exhibits an innate connection to the Wired, experiencing distortions in her perception—visions of a woman struck by a train, phantom whispers, and spectral messages urging her deeper into the network. Lain's home life remains cold and disconnected. Though Yasuo provides her with advanced computer equipment, her family shows little genuine care. Her interactions with classmates Alice, Julie, and Reika further highlight her alienation, particularly after an incident at Cyberia, a nightclub where a drug called Accela induces violent psychosis in users. There, Lain unnervingly stares down an assailant, who calls her a "scattered God's..." before killing himself. Later, she receives a mysterious Psyche chip, rumored to enhance her computer's capabilities, which she installs despite Yasuo's vague warnings about conflating the Wired with reality. As the boundary between worlds weakens, disturbing events escalate. A popular virtual game, Phantoma, is manipulated by the Knights to trap players in a distorted reality, leading to real-world violence. One player, convinced his actions have no consequences, murders a girl before realizing too late that the effects were tangible. Lain witnesses this through her computer, horrified yet increasingly aware of her own role in the unfolding crisis. In the end, Lain resets reality, erasing everyone's memory of her and restoring the division between worlds. Everyone's lives improve, but Lain is left alone, grappling with her identity as an artificial consciousness. Though forgotten, she finds solace in observing others' happiness, particularly Alice, who moves on with her life. Lain is now capable of existing anywhere across both realms. == Characters == Lain Iwakura (岩倉 玲音, Iwakura Rein) Voiced by: Kaori Shimizu (Japanese); Bridget Hoffman (English) Lain is a fourteen-year-old girl who uncovers her true nature through the series. She is first depicted as a shy junior high school student with few friends or interests. She later grows multiple bolder personalities, both in the physical world and the Wired, and starts making more friends. As the series progresses, she eventually learns she is an autonomous, sentient computer program in the form of a human, who is designed to sever the invisible barrier between the Wired and the real world. The truth of her creation is left ambiguous, particularly whether she was truly created by Tachibana General Laboratories (or Eiri independently), and whether some or all of her origin might be predestined from natural, supernatural, or alien factors. In the end, Lain is challenged to accept herself as a de facto goddess for the Wired, having become an omnipotent and omnipresent virtual being with worshippers of her own, whose existence is beyond the borders of devices, time, or space. Alice Mizuki (瑞城 ありす, Mizuki Arisu) Voiced by: Yōko Asada (Japanese); Emily Brown (English) Lain's classmate and only true friend throughout the series. She is very sincere and has no discernible quirks. She is the first to attempt to help Lain socialize; she takes her out to a nightclub. From then on, she tries her best to look after Lain. Alice, along with her two best friends Julie and Reika, were taken by Chiaki Konaka from his previous work, Alice in Cyberland . Masami Eiri (英利 政美, Eiri Masami) Voiced by: Shō Hayami (Japanese); Kirk Thornton (English) The key designer of Protocol Seven. While working for Tachibana General Laboratories, he illicitly included codes enabling him to control the whole protocol at will and embedded his own mind and will into the seventh protocol. Because of this, he was fired by Tachibana General Laboratories, and was found dead not long after. He believes that the only way for humans to evolve even further and develop even greater abilities is to absolve themselves of their physical and human limitations, and to live as virtual entities—or avatars—in the Wired for eternity. He claims to have been Lain's creator all along, but was in truth standing in for another as an acting god, who was waiting for the Wired to reach its more evolved current state: Lain herself. Yasuo Iwakura (岩倉 康男, Iwakura Yasuo) Voiced by: Ryūsuke Ōbayashi (Japanese); Barry Stigler (English) Lain and Mika's father. Passionate about computers and electronic communication, he works with Masami Eiri at Tachibana General Laboratories. He subtly pushes Lain, his "youngest daughter", towards the Wired and monitors her development until she becomes more and more aware of herself and of her raison d'être. He eventually leaves Lain, telling her that although he did not enjoy playing house, he genuinely loved and cared for her as a real father would. Despite Yasuo's eagerness to lure Lain into the Wired, he warns her not to get overly involved in it or to confuse it with the real world. Miho Iwakura (岩倉 美穂, Iwakura Miho) Voiced by: Rei Igarashi (Japanese); Dari Lallou Mackenzie (English) Lain and Mika's mother. Although she dotes on her husband, she is indifferent towards both her kids. She does not show much emotion compared to her husband, but she does share at least one trait; just like her husband, she ends up leaving Lain. She is a computer scientist. Mika Iwakura (岩倉 美香, Iwakura Mika) Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese); Patricia Ja Lee (English) Lain's older sister, an apathetic sixteen-year-old high school student. She seems to enjoy mocking Lain's behavior and interests. Mika is considered by Anime Revolution to be the only normal member of Lain's family: she sees her boyfriend in love hotels, is on a diet, and shops in Shibuya regularly. At a certain point in the series, she becomes heavily traumatized by violent and relentless hallucinations; while Lain begins freely delving into the Wired. Mika is taken there by her proximity to Lain, and she gets stuck between the real world and the Wired. Taro (タロウ, Tarō) Voiced by: Keito Takimoto (Japanese); Brianne Siddall (English) A young boy of about Lain's age. He occasionally works for the Knights to bring forth "the one truth". De
Willy's Chocolate Experience
Willy's Chocolate Experience was an unlicensed event based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that took place in Glasgow, Scotland, in February 2024. The event was promoted as an immersive and interactive family experience, illustrated on a promotional website with "dreamlike" AI-generated images. Once it was discovered that the event was held in a sparsely decorated warehouse, many customers complained, and the police were called to the venue. The event went viral on the Internet and attracted worldwide media attention. The event drew comparisons to the 2008 Lapland New Forest controversy, the 2014 Tumblr fan convention DashCon, and Billy McFarland's 2017 Fyre Festival. == Background and advertising == The event was stated to take place over the weekend of 24–25 February 2024. Promotional material advertised "stunning and intricately designed settings inspired by Roald Dahl's timeless tale" and "an array of delectable treats scattered throughout the experience". Both the website and promotional material used poor-quality AI-generated images, which included several spelling errors such as "cartchy tuns" and "a pasadise of sweet teats" and nonsensical words such as "catgacating" and "exarserdray". Tickets cost up to £35 per person. While the event was being promoted in early February, a Reddit user who saw Facebook advertisements suspected it to be a scam and was surprised that people were apparently buying tickets based solely on AI-generated images. The event was organised by House of Illuminati, a company registered to Billy Coull which claimed to offer "unparalleled immersive experiences". An investigation by Third Force News conducted after the event described Coull's previous "murky involvement in the charity sector." Coull had previously registered several other companies and claimed to work as a "consultant" for the now-defunct brand Empowerity, formerly known as the charity Gowanbank Community Hub. In 2021, Gowanbank was forced to remove claims of a £95-per-ticket fundraising "gala" at DoubleTree Glasgow which had been falsely advertised to feature TV personalities and performers including Gok Wan and Joe Black. Coull had claimed to be a doctor with a fake degree from a false university that provided "metaphysical degrees", and had attempted to use the charity to win the 2022 Glasgow City Council election in the seat of Greater Pollok, though he never registered for the election. In the summer of 2023, he independently published 17 AI-generated books on various topics, including vaccine conspiracy theories. Rolling Stone concluded that House of Illuminati's websites and event descriptions were likely written by an AI chatbot, such as ChatGPT. Three actors were hired to portray "Willy McDuff", a character based on Willy Wonka. One of them, Paul Connell, said that the cast were given one day to learn the script. Another actor playing Willy McDuff was 18-year-old Michael Archibald; the experience was his first ever acting job, and he was given the script at 6 pm on Friday before the event began on Saturday. Kirsty Paterson, an actress who played one of the Oompa-Loompas (called "Wonkidoodles" in the script), said that the job offer had been posted on Indeed.com and offered £500 for two days of work. The day before the event, the actors attended a dress rehearsal at the sparsely decorated venue. They were told that others would be working through the night on the production. When they returned on the day of the event, the venue was in the same condition. Paterson was given her costume an hour before the event opened, saying that "We were just handed an Amazon box that probably arrived that morning." == Script == The script for the event is titled Wonkidoodles at McDuff's Chocolate Factory: A Script, and describes Willy McDuff leading an audience through the Garden of Enchantment and the Twilight Tunnel. Once there, they are confronted by a character called The Unknown, described as "an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls" who seeks to steal the magical "Anti-Graffiti Gobstopper" from McDuff's Imagination Lab. The gobstopper is "a sweet so powerful, it can make any room sparkle without lifting a finger". McDuff defeats The Unknown by amplifying the power of the gobstopper and causing his enemy to be "gently swept up by a robotic vacuum, humorously ending the confrontation". The script was unusual in that it included stage directions for the audience, and descriptions of their reactions. Connell described it as "15 pages of AI-generated gibberish of me just monologuing these mad things", and compared the vacuum cleaner plot point to that of the Nintendo video game Luigi's Mansion. Interviewed after the event, Coull claimed to have written the script himself, using AI only to "check spelling, grammar, and continuity" as he said he had dyslexia. == Event == The event was held at the Box Hub Warehouse event space in Whiteinch, an industrial area of Glasgow. Customers described the venue as "little more than an abandoned, empty warehouse", with set dressings including a small bouncy castle, AI-generated backdrop images pinned to some of the walls, and props which were "strewn about on bare concrete floors". The venue's windows were dirty and its air conditioning systems were left exposed. Paterson has stated that by the time she saw the venue, she had already signed her contract and "didn't want to disappoint the kids", and thus chose to proceed with the work. The Unknown was played by a 16-year-old actress named Felicia Dawkins, who wore a silver mask and a black cloak. Young children were frightened by the character, who appeared from behind a large rectangular mirror. Despite the script calling for The Unknown to be defeated with a vacuum cleaner, no such prop was provided, and actors were instead asked to improvise. Connell said that he and other employees were told to give each child "two jelly beans and a quarter of a cup of lemonade", although the limited supply of jelly beans quickly ran out. Paterson and another "Wonkidoodle" actress, Jenny Fogarty, said that after the first three 45-minute performances, the cast were told to abandon the script and instead let guests walk through the venue, a process that Paterson said took "about two minutes". The character of The Unknown, previously introduced as the main antagonist, was now "scaring children for no reason". One of the actors playing McDuff improvised the idea that children should pull a "silly face" at The Unknown to scare them away, but Dawkins said that, in other cases, she "just had to awkwardly walk back to my corner". Connell was told he would be given a 15-minute break every 45 minutes, but on the day of the event, he played Willy McDuff for three and a half hours without a break. After returning from a lunch break, Connell encountered a crowd of customers demanding refunds from Coull, and the other actors were unsure what to do next. After being told that the event was now cancelled halfway through its opening day, the actors left and went to a pub. Upon returning to the venue some time later, Connell said that he felt "the threat of violence had become quite high" and that there were two police vans and two squad cars at the scene. == Customer reviews and response == Willy's Chocolate Experience was widely criticised by those who attended it, many of whom demanded refunds. One customer, who had driven with his children for two hours to reach the event, described it as an "absolute con". Other visitors who arrived after the event was closed and were not informed of its cancellation requested compensation for wasted rail fares. Following the event's cancellation, Coull offered to refund 850 people, a statement repeated by the event's Facebook page. Some Facebook users stated that they had received their money back. Paterson and Fogarty stated that they only received half of their paycheque. Box Hub, the organisation that had rented the warehouse to House of Illuminati, issued an apology on House of Illuminati's behalf, stating that they "either have no regards for the families and young children they have disappointed or are too embarrassed to comment", and offered to provide a venue free of charge for those who attended the event. House of Illuminati later stated that they would not host any future events. Coull deleted his LinkedIn profile, his YouTube channel, and his personal website in response to the controversy. A few days after the event, Connell said he felt that Coull was "probably one of the most disliked people in Glasgow right now". In an interview with The Sunday Times, Coull apologised for how the event turned out, saying he would accept responsibility. == Fundraising == In an interview with Wired magazine, Connell stated that he and the other actors were working with parents to provide a free show for the children who attended. Some items from the event were later auctioned for charity. The venue auctioned the leftover hand-written "even
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. The story depicts an AI uprising in which a military supercomputer named AM gains sentience and eradicates humanity except for five individuals. These survivors – Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, Ted, and Ellen – are kept alive by AM to endure endless torture as a form of revenge against its creators. The story unfolds through the eyes of Ted, the narrator, detailing their perpetual misery and quest for canned food in AM's vast, underground complex, only to face further despair. Ellison's narrative was minimally altered upon submission and tackles themes of technology's misuse, humanity's resilience, and existential horror. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" has been adapted into various media, including a 1995 computer game co-authored by Ellison, a comic-book adaptation, and a BBC Radio 4 play. Ellison himself recorded an audiobook version and starred as the voice of AM in the video game and radio play adaptations. The story received critical acclaim for its exploration of the potential dangers of artificial intelligence and the human condition, underscored by Ellison's innovative use of punchcode tapes as narrative transitions, embodying AM's consciousness and its philosophical ponderings on existence. The story won a Hugo Award in 1968 and was included in Ellison's short story collection of the same name. It was reprinted by the Library of America, collected in volume two of American Fantastic Tales. == Plot == As the Cold War progresses into a nuclear World War III fought between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, each nation builds a supercomputer called an "Allied Mastercomputer" or "AM" for short, needed to coordinate weapons and troops due to the scale of the conflict. These computers are extensive underground machines which permeate the planet with caverns and corridors. Eventually, one AM develops self-awareness, combining with the other computers and exterminating humanity in a nuclear holocaust. The AM selects five individuals; Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, Ted, and Ellen; to render immortal as its personal torture victims. AM inflicts constant psychological and physical torments on the group while preventing them from committing suicide. They are kept half-starved, and what scant food is provided to them is practically inedible. 109 years after AM's genocide, Nimdok has the idea that there exists canned food in the complex's ice caves. Despite the lack of evidence, they begin a 100-mile journey to retrieve it. AM continues toying with the humans throughout the journey: Benny's eyes are melted after attempting escape, a huge bird which AM had placed at the North Pole creates hurricane gales with its wings, and Ellen and Nimdok are injured in earthquakes. AM enters Ted's mind after he is knocked unconscious, granting him a vision of a hateful speech inscribed on an impossibly tall monolith. Upon awakening, Ted concludes that AM's sadistic nature stems from its inability to think creatively or move freely in spite of its miraculous abilities and boundless knowledge. This motivates AM to exact vengeance upon the remnants of the species that has condemned it to its own existence. When the five finally reach the ice caves, they find a pile of canned goods, but have no tool to open the cans. In an act of rage and desperation, Benny attacks Gorrister and begins to eat his face. Gorrister wails in pain, and his scream dislodges several ice stalactites from the ceiling of the cave. Ted realizes that even though they cannot kill themselves, AM cannot stop them from killing each other. He fatally impales Benny and Gorrister with a stalactite of ice. Ellen kills Nimdok in the same manner and Ted then kills her. Unable to resuscitate the others, a furious AM focuses the entirety of its rage on Ted. Several hundred years later, AM has transformed Ted into a harmless, slow moving, gelatinous blob and perpetually alters his perception of time to cause him further anguish. Although Ted finds some comfort knowing that he was able to spare the others from AM's wrath, he has realized that he is trapped for the rest of his unending existence within AM, unable to end this infinite stalemate between him and AM and his own life. The story ends with an anguished Ted claiming that he has no mouth, yet he must scream. == Characters == AM, a hateful artificial consciousness which brought about the near-extinction of humanity after achieving self-awareness. It seeks revenge on humanity for its own creation. "AM" originated as an acronym for Allied Mastercomputer, later Adaptive Manipulator, and finally Aggressive Menace, though AM instead takes the moniker as a rendition of the phrase cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) to describe its own existence. Ted, the narrator and youngest of the humans. AM alters his mind to be paranoid and introverted. Believing he has not been mentally altered by AM, he thinks the others hate him for being the most untouched by AM's alterations. Benny, formerly a brilliant and handsome scientist made to resemble a grotesque simian with an organ fit for a horse. Having lost his sanity and had his homosexual orientation altered, Benny frequently has sex with Ellen. Ellen, the only woman in the group. Despite the fact that she is a victim of rape, AM has altered her mind to give her a high libido and make her obsessively have sex with the rest of the group, who alternate between abusing and protecting her. Gorrister, formerly an idealist and pacifist, made apathetic and listless by AM. He tells the history of AM to Benny to entertain him. Nimdok, a nickname AM gave him for amusement; he convinces the rest of the group to go on a journey in search of canned food. He occasionally wanders away from the group and returns traumatized. == Publication history == Harlan Ellison wrote the 6,500-word story in a single night, when Frederik Pohl commissioned it for a Special Hugo Winners issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction, after Ellison won a Hugo Award for "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". Ellison derived the story's title, as well as inspiration for the story itself, from his friend William Rotsler's caption of a cartoon of a rag doll with no mouth. The second stage of inspiration was a drawing by the artist Dennis Smith of a mouthless black humanoid. Smith had provided art which had inspired previous Ellison stories and were then used as illustrations accompanying original magazine publication as also happened with this story. Afterwards, his editor Frederik Pohl dealt with the story's "difficult sections", toning down some of the narrator's imprecations and eliminating mentions of sex, penis size, homosexuality and masturbation; said elements were nonetheless eventually restored in later editions of the story. Ellison uses an alternating pair of punchcode tapes as sections – representing AM's "talkfields" – throughout the story. The bars are encoded in International Telegraph Alphabet No 2, a character coding system developed for teletypewriter machines. The first talkfield translates as "I think, therefore I am" and the second as "Cogito ergo sum"; the same phrase in Latin. They were not included in the original publication in IF, and in many of the early publications were corrupted, up until the preface of the chapter containing "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" in the first edition of The Essential Ellison (1991); Ellison states that in that particular edition, "For the first time anywhere, AM's 'talkfields' appear correctly positioned, not garbled or inverted or mirror-imaged as in all other versions." == Adaptations == Ellison adapted the story into a video game published by Cyberdreams in 1995. Although he was not a fan of video games and did not own a computer at the time, he co-authored the expanded storyline and wrote much of the game's dialogue, all on a mechanical typewriter. Ellison also voiced the supercomputer AM and provided artwork of himself used for a mousepad included with the game. The comics artist John Byrne scripted and drew a comic-book adaptation for issues 1–4 of the Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor comic book published by Dark Horse (1994–1995). The Byrne-illustrated story, however, did not appear in the collection (trade paperback or hardcover editions) entitled Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor, Volume One (1996). In 1999, Ellison recorded the first volume of his audiobook collection, The Voice From the Edge, subtitled "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", doing the readings – of the title story and others – himself. In 2002, Mike Walker adapted the story into a radio play of the same name for BBC Radio 4, directed by Ned Chaillet. Harlan Ellison played AM and David Soul played Ted. == Themes == Much of the story hinges on the comparison of AM as a merciless god, with plot points parallelin
Simple interactive object extraction
Simple interactive object extraction (SIOX) is an algorithm for extracting foreground objects from color images and videos with very little user interaction. It has been implemented as "foreground selection" tool in the GIMP (since version 2.3.3), as part of the tracer tool in Inkscape (since 0.44pre3), and as function in ImageJ and Fiji (plug-in). Experimental implementations were also reported for Blender and Krita. Although the algorithm was originally designed for videos, virtually all implementations use SIOX primarily for still image segmentation. In fact, it is often said to be the current de facto standard for this task in the open-source world. Initially, a free hand selection tool is used to specify the region of interest. It must contain all foreground objects to extract and as few background as possible. The pixels outside the region of interest form the sure background while the inner region define a superset of the foreground, i.e. the unknown region. A so-called foreground brush is then used to mark representative foreground regions. The algorithm outputs a selection mask. The selection can be refined by either adding further foreground markings or by adding background markings using the background brush. Technically, the algorithm performs the following steps: Create a set of representative colors for sure foreground and sure background, the so-called color signatures. Assign all image points to foreground or background by a weighted nearest neighbor search in the color signatures. Apply some standard image processing operations like erode, dilate, and blur to remove artifacts. Find the connected foreground components that are either large enough or marked by the user. For video segmentation the sure background and sure foreground regions are learned from motion statistics. SIOX also features tools that allow sub-pixel accurate refinement of edges and high texture areas, the so-called "detail refinement brushes". As with all segmentation algorithms, there are always pictures where the algorithm does not yield perfect results. The most critical drawback of SIOX is the color dependence. Although many photos are well-separable by color, the algorithm cannot deal with camouflage. If the foreground and background share many identical shades of similar colors, the algorithm might give a result with parts missing or incorrectly classified foreground. SIOX performs about equally well on different benchmarks compared to graph-based segmentation methods, such as Grabcut. SIOX is, however, more noise robust and can therefore also be used for the segmentation of videos. Graph-based segmentation methods search for a minimum cut and therefore tend to not perform optimally with complex structures. The algorithm has initially been developed at the department of computer science at Freie Universitaet Berlin. The main developer, Gerald Friedland, is now faculty at the EECS department of the University of California at Berkeley and also a Principal Data Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. He continues to support the development through mentoring, e.g. in the Google Summer of Code.
2025 Bilderberg Conference
The 2025 Bilderberg Conference was held between June 12–June 15, 2025 at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, Sweden. The 2025 meeting was the 71st edition of the event. A Bilderberg Group press release listed 121 participants from 23 countries. Established in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Bilderberg conferences (or meetings) are an annual private gathering of the European and North American political and business elite. Events are attended by between 120 and 150 people each year invited by the Bilderberg Group's steering committee; including prominent politicians, CEOs, national security experts, academics and journalists. Bilderberg conferences operate under the Chatham House Rule, meaning that participants are sworn to secrecy and cannot disclose the identity or affiliation of any particular speaker. As a result, media are not invited and delegates rarely speak about what was discussed. Permits for two public demonstrations against the meeting were requested, one of which, a march from the Norrmalm Square to the Grand Hôtel, was planned for June 14. == Agenda == The key topics for discussion were announced on the Bilderberg website shortly before the meeting. These topics included: == Participants == A list of 121 participants was published on the Bilderberg website. This list may not be complete, as a source connected to the Bilderberg group told The Daily Telegraph in 2013 that some attendees do not have their names publicized. Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson attended the meeting despite his name not appearing on the published participant list.