thexiffy

Last.fm last recent tracks from thexiffy.

Depeche Mode - Wrong (Thin White Duke Remix)

Depeche Mode

Starsailor - Tell Me It's Not Over (Thin White Duke Remix)

Starsailor

404 Media

404 Media is an independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.

Patreon Lays Off 20 Percent of Its Workforce

Patreon Lays Off 20 Percent of Its Workforce

Patreon laid off 93 employees, totaling 20 percent of its workforce on Thursday morning, according to an email to creators and staff from CEO Jack Conte.

In a message sent to everyone on the platform signed up as a creator, with the subject line “A Painful Update about our Team,” Conte wrote that the business is “healthy and strong” and that the core business of Patreon is not changing. 

Conte included the email sent to Patreon employees in the message. In the email, he wrote that the company is undergoing both a “workforce reduction” and is “changing our organizational structure and how we work.” Specifically, he wrote, this means “we’re flattening the organization, refocusing teams on our top priorities, and evolving key aspects of our operations to make us faster at adapting to change.”

Conte is careful in this email to both express that he doesn’t view AI as a replacement for the human creativity the platform is built on and profits from — devoting a section of the email to saying as much — and also that AI is fundamentally “transforming” the tech industry, noting that it has an impact on how the company operates. 

“To be clear about the impact of AI on today’s decision: we are not making the above changes because we believe AI replaces humans,” Conte wrote. “The more we have learned to use these new tools, the clearer it has become that they are not substitutes for the creativity, judgment, detail orientation, or craftsmanship that our teammates have in spades, nor do they replace the desire for human connection that all of us cherish so deeply. That’s my personal opinion, but more importantly, it’s the foundation of Patreon’s strategy: our product vision and business are both predicated on the value of human creativity and human connection. AI has fundamentally transformed the tech industry, though, including how we work, how we build products, how we communicate, and more. That does have an impact on how we operate and organize.”

Earlier this month, Patreon announced that it’s partnering with Cloudflare to block crawlers from stealing creators’ work to train AI models. “I HAVE A KICKASS PRODUCT UPDATE FOR YOU ALL!” Conte wrote in a post on Instagram. “This is live and happening at the network level on all posts published on Patreon.” The company later elaborated on the partnership in a blog post.

Included in the internal email shared publicly are severance details for laid-off workers, including 16 weeks of pay, remaining on payroll through the company’s August 20 vesting date, one additional week of pay for every full year worked at the company, additional cash payments for recent hires who haven’t reached their one-year cliff, healthcare coverage through the end of the year for eligible employees and families, and a $1,500 stipend to replace their company laptops.


Colossal

The best of art, craft, and visual culture since 2010.

Patrick Dougherty’s ‘Stickwork’ Installations Conjure Connections with Nature

Patrick Dougherty’s ‘Stickwork’ Installations Conjure Connections with Nature

For more than four decades, environmental artist Patrick Dougherty has reimagined the technical and sculptural capabilities of one simple material: twigs. Over the years, the North Carolina-based artist completed well over 300 large-scale, site-specific installations in a series he calls Stickworks, using literal truckloads of willow saplings from specialized farms in Canada that grow them for applications like fencing, basketmaking, and more. Where possible, Dougherty has also incorporated materials the local area had to offer.

I first stumbled upon the artist’s whimsical constructions in Door County, Wisconsin, where “Happy Go Lucky” sits at Horseshoe Bay Farms near Egg Harbor. By the time I experienced the work, it had already been colonized by Virginia creeper vines, which turn bright red in the autumn. The piece is simultaneously structural and fantastical, providing an inviting armature for nature, including insects.

a public art sculpture in the forest made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“The Jealous Wall.” Image courtesy of Docent

Some of Dougherty’s public installations take architectural forms consisting of arches and towers, such as “Sea Change” and “Rough ‘n Tumble.” “All in the Family” resembles a group of larger-than-life urns. And others lean into a sense that the forest is always in a state of reclaiming. “The Jealous Wall” is constructed around existing buildings, as if the saplings are growing in slow motion and and engulfing everything in its path, not unlike the way nature, left to its own devices, will always redeem its space. All of his works emphasize an invitation, as visitors are encouraged to walk around and through the sculptures.

Pieces created over the past decade or so also bear the signature of artist Sam Dougherty, who provided full-time assistance in addition to his own pottery practice. Semi-retired now, Patrick Dougherty is still making works in his studio, and a recent exhibition at the Brahm Blowing Rock Art & History Museum included a wall-to-wall display of gloves collected over the years and signed by the volunteers who helped to install the works. Explore more from the archive on the artist’s website.

a whimsical, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“Happy Go Lucky.” Image courtesy of Horseshoe Bay Farms
a whimsical, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings amid a wooded area
“Hopscotch.” Image courtesy of The Wild Center
a whimsical, arched, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“Grand Center.” Photo by Bob Joy
a whimsical, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“Fly Away Home.” Photo by Kurt Hilton Photography
a whimsical, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“Finders Keepers.” Photo by Sam Pope
a whimsical, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“All in the Family.” Photo by Blake Marvin
a detail of a whimsical, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings
Detail of “All in the Family.” Photo by Blake Marvin
a public art sculpture in a park amid palm trees made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“Sea Change.” Photo by Brian Janssen
a public art sculpture in a park amid palm trees made from interwoven twigs and saplings
“Sea Change.” Photo by Brian Janssen
a whimsical, architectural public art sculpture made from interwoven twigs and saplings amid a wooded area
“Hopscotch.” Image courtesy of The Wild Center

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Patrick Dougherty’s ‘Stickwork’ Installations Conjure Connections with Nature appeared first on Colossal.

Rijnmond - Nieuws

Het laatste nieuws van vandaag over Rotterdam, Feyenoord, het verkeer en het weer in de regio Rijnmond

Hagelschadecentrum draait op volle toeren na zware onweersbui: 'We zijn tot eind dit jaar bezig'

Bij het hagelschadecentrum in Bergschenhoek is het topdrukte: tachtig auto's per dag gaan daar door de schadescan, waarna gespecialiseerde monteurs alle hageldeukjes met een hamertje te lijf gaan. En de meldingen blijven binnenstromen.

The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

​’Ian Curtis didn’t have a chance’: the Durutti Column on departed friends, Factory Records and fun with Morrissey

As they release their first album in 16 years, the Vini Reilly-fronted band answer your questions on sandpaper record sleeves, having Harry Styles as a fan and inventing a new style of guitar music

Vini, you’ve created some of the most beautiful, ethereal music of the last 40 years. Is it true that in your youth you were in a violent Manchester street gang? Songy24
Vini Reilly [guitars, vocals, keyboards]: Gangs then had a different meaning. It was just “their lot” and “our lot”. We’d sling insults at each other. Then you’d play football in the park and realise you were playing with the local thugs. They were actually very funny, and I could have fun with them because I was so little. At the time I’d been going through a recurring depressive illness and felt I didn’t fit in at home, so I left without any clean clothing. I wanted to end my life so I decided to go to Moss Side, where the gangsters would shoot me. Of course they didn’t. I’d had a very happy childhood until my father died when I was doing my O-levels, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the really bad things gave me more than they could ever take. How can you know happiness until you’ve known deep sadness?

Bruce Mitchell [drums]: Vini does kick off, though, properly battles. We had to section him once, and six people had to hold him down.

Continue reading...

The Register

Biting the hand that feeds IT — Enterprise Technology News and Analysis

GitHub slashes public bug bounty payouts as AI report flood buries its security team

GitHub has decided that, if everyone with an AI chatbot can file a bug bounty report, it may as well stop paying them like seasoned security researchers. Starting July 27, the Microsoft-owned code forge is overhauling its bug bounty program with a two-tier system that cuts rewards for public submissions while dangling much fatter payouts to a new invite-only group of researchers with proven track records. At the same time, newcomers will find themselves capped on how many reports they can submit until they've demonstrated they can produce something worth reading. The Microsoft-owned biz says that the shake-up is a response to the flood of low-effort and AI-generated reports now accompanying many bug bounty programs. Rather than paying more people to file more reports, GitHub wants to spend more on researchers who've proved they can find the real thing. Cathering Cassell, product security engineer at GitHub. “These changes are about two things: reducing the noise so we can focus on the signal, and building a program that serious researchers find rewarding to participate in.” For researchers sticking with the public program, a low-severity finding that previously earned between $500 and $1,000 will now bring in $250. Medium bugs top out at $2,000 instead of $5,000, high-severity flaws have been cut from as much as $20,000 to $5,000, and the maximum reward for a critical vulnerability falls from $30,000 to $10,000. The highest rewards are now reserved for GitHub's new invite-only VIP program. There, low-severity findings are worth $1,000, medium bugs $7,500, high-severity issues $20,000, and critical vulnerabilities at least $30,000. Entry isn't open to everyone. GitHub says invitations will be based on a proven history of valid reports, with researchers needing anything from one accepted critical vuln to seven accepted low-severity findings to qualify. GitHubb is also enabling HackerOne's "signal requirement," limiting how many reports new researchers can submit before they've established a history of legitimate findings. It says genuine newcomers will still have up to four opportunities to prove themselves, while reports already sitting in the backlog will continue to be assessed under the previous payout structure. The overhaul follows changes GitHub introduced earlier this year that tightened report-quality requirements and warned researchers against flooding the platform with AI-assisted submissions. GitHub is betting that fewer reports, from researchers with a proven track record, will do more for security than an ever-growing pile of AI-assisted submissions waiting for someone to read them. ®

Formula 1 News

Formula 1® - The Official F1® Website

Which rookie drivers are getting FP1 outings in Hungary?

No fewer than five of F1’s 11 teams will run a rookie driver during Friday’s first practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, with McLaren, Mercedes, Alpine, Haas and Cadillac all altering their usual line-ups.

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