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Ars Technica

New Windows AI feature records everything you’ve done on your PC

Recall uses AI features "to take images of your active screen every few seconds."

I think every computer user needs to read this because holy fucking shit this is fucking horrible.

So Windows has a new feature incoming called Recall where your computer will first, monitor everything you do with screenshots every couple of seconds and "process that" with an AI.

Hey, errrr, fuck no? This isn't merely because AI is really energy intensive to the point that it causes environmental damage. This is because it's basically surveilling what you are doing on your fucking desktop.

This AI is not going to be on your desktop, like all AI, it's going to be done on another server, "in the cloud" to be precise, so all those data and screenshot? They're going to go off to Microsoft. Microsoft are going to be monitoring what you do on your own computer.

Now of course Microsoft are going to be all "oooh, it's okay, we'll keep your data safe". They won't. Let me just remind you that evidence given over from Facebook has been used to prosecute a mother and daughter for an "illegal abortion", Microsoft will likely do the same.

And before someone goes "durrr, nuthin' to fear, nuthin to hide", let me remind you that you can be doing completely legal and righteous acts and still have the police on your arse. Are you an activist? Don't even need to be a hackivist, you can just be very vocal about something concerning and have the fucking police on your arse. They did this with environmental protesters in the UK. The culture war against transgender people looks likely to be heading in a direction wherein people looking for information on transgender people or help transitioning will be tracked down too. You have plenty to hide from the government, including your opinions and ideas.

Again, look into backing up your shit and switching to Linux Mint or Ubuntu to get away from Microsoft doing this shit.

Feral McGee™

It starts with the Joker. 

His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he? 

Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again. 

The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does. 

It happens like this. 

The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair. 

Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham. 

And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair. 

Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up. 

He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold. 

Then he looks towards the camera. 

“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves. 

Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham. 

“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”

“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”

—

The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler. 

He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes. 

While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely. 

Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch. 

They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”

The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black. 

Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless. 

“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”

“Hn.”

—

After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised. 

Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on. 

Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down. 

Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.  

He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again. 

And then the Joker escapes. 

It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after. 

Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up. 

They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™. 

The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid. 

Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed. 

“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say. 

They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger. 

“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood. 

“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”

Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it. 

In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him. 

When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker. 

“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”

The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”

“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice. 

 “Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”

“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 

“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”

“Hn.”

I’m on bluesky!

Bluesky Social

MAE (@maemaeme.bsky.social)

AO3 fanatic. Writer. Dreamer. Bit of an overachiever. (someday an artist)

So I’ve fallen into the DPxDC thing. Not sure how, and I only have fandom characterizations and wiki knowledge but. I have a thing.

<next>

Once upon a time there was a boy, no older than fourteen, with hair darker than night and eyes bluer than the summer sky. Once upon a time, there was a budding scientist with a caring sister and two lovably scattered scientist parents. Once upon a time, there was a terrible accident. Once upon a time there was a boy, no older than fourteen, with hair whiter than snow, skin paler than death, eyes greener than toxic waste. Once upon a time, the boy needed help as more and more potentially world ending events descended on his town. Once upon a time, nobody but the government came. Once upon a time, the boy, his sister, and his friends escaped.

This is what happened next.

When they split up, Danny had drawn Gotham. Gotham with its so called “vigilante family”. Gotham whose so called “protectors” had been asked multiple times through the so called “Justice League” for help. But just like true justice, they were blind to his requests. His pleas. Both he and Amity Park were left to rot. It had been five years now but Danny was still mad. When he and his friends escaped the three of them each went to a different League infested city. They weren’t strong enough to do more than gather intel but…. Intel would lead to openings.

It took a bit of Tucker’s help in re-establishing his identity and giving him a realistic transcript for what his trajectory would have been if he wasn’t constantly fighting ghosts (mid to high Cs with a couple Bs instead of mid to low Ds with a couple Cs). But he managed a halfway decent scholarship to Gotham U. It covered tuition, books, and just enough for some food.

Sure Danny was technically homeless, but he’s lived through worse. Besides, the shitty parts of town had plenty of empty apartments. Careful use of his ghost powers made acquisition of an apartment a breeze. By the time the semester started, Danny had found himself a place. Tucker had slipped into the network and made sure the landlord wouldn’t be renting it - a coincidental shift of the management had been really helpful, Danny wouldn’t lie - as it looked as if it had been permanently bought. Danny did some within-wall plumbing to get himself water access, then rewired the electrical box outside to grant him access to the grid. Though it was all illegal and would crumble if people talked to each other about it, he counted his blessings for the moment. Illegal meant fewer ways to be tracked after all.

Ridiculous that a nineteen year old had to think about avoiding being tracked, but here he was. Every time he saw the bat signal in the distance his core writhed, and the nearby ghosts scattered. Crime Alley had its own masked vigilante, who didn’t seem to be always on good terms with the Bats, which was fine by him. The less chance of running into them the less chance he had of blowing his “Normal Human Dan Nightingale” life to pieces. Danny hadn’t seen this Red Hood person face to face yet, but he had heard stories.

Gotham had enough ambient ecto to sustain him without his ghost form and trips to the Realms, which was good because the more he used his powers, the more likely he was to get picked up by the Government’s sensors. The GIW had been sent by The League after all. They were trouble enough on their own. He didn’t want them to have backup while his own was spread across the country. He missed flying and seeing the stars, but Danny had to admit that he was a huge fan of the not getting hunted for sport thing.

It made times like these difficult though. Currently Danny was being mugged. Or… the guy was attempting to mug him. “For the fifth time dude, I live in this part of town. I don’t have any money.” Danny was trying to explain to the guy holding a knife to his midsection.

In another life he would have kicked the guy’s ass. Instead he had his hands up as he was pressed back to the crumbling brick and boarded up window of what used to be a shop front.

“Don’t play games with me kid! You’re going to college. You have money.” The guy pressed the knife point harder into his stomach, the knife tip barely a pound of pressure away from puncturing his skin. As it was he’d have to mend his shirt.

“Yeah, on a shitty scholarship. I can’t even afford dinner every night.” Thank god for ambient ecto. “Here I’m going to reach into my pocket and get my wallet.” Slowly Danny lowered one of his hands and slid two fingers into his pocket, coming back out with a thin, worn leather wallet. He raised it back up and unfolded it “no credit cards.” He slid his fingers into where he kept the two dollars he had left this month and turned them invisible. Then he tilted it so the would be mugger could see. “See? Nothing. Can I go home now? I’ve got the rest of an essay to write before the library opens tomorrow. I don’t even have a computer to type it on myself.”

“You’re lying! You’ve gotta have something!” The guy was getting more and more frantic. Probably jonesing for a fix of whatever drug flooded this place.

“If I had it I would have given it to you.” Danny explained patiently, “I have more sense than to get stabbed over some cash. But I don’t have it.”

“Liar!” The man yelled, jabbing the knife into him. Danny grunted in pain, not a shout, pain didn’t make him shout anymore, as the heavy thud of boots hit the ground. The guy was suddenly removed from in front of him. Danny swore loudly, careful to press his hands around the knife as his core demanded he do something. Instead all he did was breathe. When he got enough of a handle on the pain-fight response to know his eyes weren’t changing, Danny looked up.

The first thing he noticed was a red bat logo on the man’s chest. “Oh no not you.” He groaned half to himself.

The man slammed his mugger into the wall with a sick crack, and let him slump to the ground beside where Danny was bent over. “Excuse me?” The man asked, voice modulator seeming to glitch slightly, coming out more robotic. That was probably Danny’s fault. He needed a tighter control of his aura. But he didn’t have it right now.

“I don’t need your help.” He ground out through grit teeth.

“You’ve been stabbed.” The man explained, as if Danny was someone in shock. Which, fair. He might be.

“You’re one of those Bat fucks. I don’t need help from a Bat.” He grit out in reply, voice barely held together under his growl.

“I am not with the Bats.” Danny snorted, then groaned as that was the absolute wrong choice. Instead he just reached up with one bloody hand, which he couldn’t keep the slight tremor out of, and swiped his blood across the red bat symbol on his “hero’s” chest. “Oh. That. We…. Had a falling out.”

“Right. Well. I’ll leave you to it. Next time, let me get mugged.” Danny took another fortifying breath, trying to settle his core. It screamed pain-revenge-fight at him, but now was not the time. He needed to get back to his apartment and get this knife out of him. Then check in with Sam and Tucker. Maybe Jazz. Though she was at one of the Ivy League schools and he really should leave her be. Let someone have a future.

The man with the red bat logo said something after him as Danny shouldered past and shuffled down the street, but Danny ignored it.

Fucking Bats. Fucking Gotham. Just…. Fuck.

I keep reading so many Peter Parker in Gotham AU fanfics, and I got the worst idea ever

As most start outs go in these fics, Post SM:NWH Peter ends up in DC universe Gotham

Only difference? The Joker in this DC universe is actually an alternate version of Norman Osborn.

I know this sounds so dumb but like,,, imagine it. May died trying to help Norman, and Peter nearly threw away his morals to avenge her death by killing Norman himself. Now he's faced with another version of Osborn who is so much more fucked up, who's been through so much shit, and all Peter can see past that shitty clown make-up is the poor man who needed help who his aunt died trying to help. The man who went to FEAST knowing Peter could help. The man who one second was scared of everything including himself, and the next was laughing uncontrollably, even through the punches Peter pounded into him.

What if Peter decides Mays death won't be in vain. That even if this isn't the same Norman Osborn, he's going to help him and he won't die trying like May. He's going to avenge her death the right way.

Then cue the Bats freaking the FUCK out because???? As much as they beat the shit out of him, Bruce had spent years trying to help him, then this homeless and totally adoptable kid shows up out of nowhere and is breaking past the Joker and to the real man trapped behind it all?????

Commission for @giveemhales

Thank you for your donation! I had sm fun with these

sorry to bother you, but you had mentioned a Percy/Rachel/Annabeth AU and I was wondering if you had any crumbs of it you would be willing to spare

My thought process is that Percrachelbeth gets together around September post-PJO, it's a touch odd for both Rachel and Annabeth since they were previously antagonistic, but Annabeth realizes she was also snappy because she also liked Rachel. Then Percy vanishes and Annabeth and Rachel get the time to bond and fall in love more, while Percy dreams about them (adorable). Everything happens in HOO, and TOA, and then Rachel's dad dies.

She's left in charge of the company, since he apparently had a fit of conscious and left it to her, but surprise! Lex Luthor wants something (a Mcguffin), and thinks Rachel will be easier to manipulate, unaware that Percy and Annabeth are completely down to ruin his life.

The comprehensive takedown of LexCorp begins, and they get an invite to the inauguration of Oliver Queen as Mayor of Star City, which Dick is also invited to.

This is basically more of a Green Arrow/Teen Titans with a splash of Lex Luthor x PJO fic, I'm thinking that Cissie might be a legacy of Apollo, I'm sticking to blonde Percy, but there will be jokes about Annabeth having Dick's taste in redheads which Rachel bears with dignity until she starts ominously predicting people's futures.

This is not a bother, please send me more asks, I love answering them!

cass should be the ONLY contender for batman. that is the truth, I speak no lies.

Reading amazing fanfiction, then forgetting to bookmark it

Percy Jackson AU where Luke is reincarnated Odysseus, Thalia is reincarnated Penelope, and Percy is reincarnated Telemachus.

Meeting each other again is the happiest moment of Luke and Thalia's new lives.

Luke and Thalia both loving Annabeth as their daughter, but still mourning the son they think they'll never see again.

Luke, recognizing Percy as Telemachus instantly, is overjoyed and simultaneously devastated because Thalia will never know their son is alive (Luke weeping with joy when Kronos tells him there's a way to save Thalia).

Percy, who's had deja vu regarding the whole missing dad thing his entire life, does NOT recognize Luke as Odysseus and is having a rough time, Athena please help him (Annabeth makes for an acceptable substitute).

Luke, staring horrified at the trident hovering over Percy's head, because not only did he just frame his son for stealing Zeus' lightning bolt, but his son is now the son of his most hated enemy. Luke would happily splay Poseidon's guts out on the rocks again if it meant getting Thalia back. Poseidon who killed his men, who turned him into a monster, stole his son.