Some Good News! De-Extinct Dire Wolves

"In a scientific breakthrough that could forever change how humans interact with our planet, Colossal Biosciences said it has brought back an extinct animal that last walked the Earth roughly 10,000 years ago: the dire wolf." -ABC News

The U.S.-based biotech company has announced the successful birth of three genetically engineered dire wolf pups named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. This achievement is considered the world's first successful de-extinction of an animal species.

The process involved reconstructing the dire wolf genome from ancient DNA found in a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull. Scientists then modified the DNA of gray wolves, the closest living relatives of dire wolves, to include unique gene variants from the extinct species.

Colossal Biosciences is also working on de-extinction projects for other species, including the woolly mammoth, dodo, and Tasmanian tiger.

Reactions:

According to a couple of articles, some experts argue that these pups are not true dire wolves but rather genetically modified gray wolves. The morphological similarities among canids make it challenging to confirm the exact appearance of an extinct species like the dire wolf. While it represents a significant technological achievement, there are questions about the authenticity of the de-extinction and its implications for conservation and ethics.

TL;DR

The project has garnered attention due to its potential to revolutionize conservation efforts and our understanding of extinct species.

Modern Spongebob and the Cartoon Community

You may have outgrown your prior taste, doesn't mean you have to ruin it for anyone else

I'm one of many that has a dislike for the modern Spongebob season for the given reasons:

 - Episodes mean towards Squidward for no reason

 - Characters flanderized (???)

 - Patrick being incredibly dumb

 - Outright gross and painful to watch

 - High energy episodes

And other things I forgot to add but basically boils down to having "Rose-Tinted" biases.

Now, how did I come to this?

I had an epiphany when rewatching my DVD collection of the earlier seasons of Spongebob, the 2012 remaster if you will. The colors and lines are crisp much like the later seasons. Now, that I think about it. The humor in earlier seasons and the Modern Spongebob aren't that far off.

When people (as in the Cartoon Community mostly) say "Modern Spongebob," they refer to around seasons 7. That's already a decade old. Spongebob is still ongoing btw.

Yes, I mean the latest season of Spongebob. It's faring better than the horrendous season that is what people remember what "Modern" Spongebob was.

Episodes that were mean towards Squidward for no apparent reason? It's present in earliest of season too! Although, I admit that latest episodes are too cruel for my taste.

Patrick being dumb or rarely has a genius moment? I thought it's on character for Patrick to be dumb.

Outright Gross and Painful to Watch? My friend, you were thinking of that toenail scene when they're moving the furniture at Squidward's house. That episode is so old though. It's not really weird for Sponebob to have gross-out humor. Isn't one of the staple of a Spongebob episode are gross zoom ins?

I do admit, some of the things in later episodes are too fast paced for me to enjoy. I just accept that, maybe, I just outgrown Spongebob now as a fan.

The irreparable damage the cartoon reviewers or critics has done to cartoons like Spongebob

Time to address the elephant in the room.

There are still disputes about the quality writing of Spongebob among fans. It's universally agreed upon that pre-Movie Spongebob episodes are remembered fondly.

But I'm preeeetty sure the cause of people having disputes over "Modern" Spongebob are reviewers and critics on YouTube. Infamously, Mysterious Mr. Enter.

I do not condone going after this guy or any harassment towards critics, he just happened to be among the many to create the tidal wave of Modern Spongebob hate. Not to mention he has already had mellowed out.

I'm sure some of you have counterarguments but let's not waste any breaths here. I'm not "Modern" Spongebob's greatest soldier and I'm not defending any forts here. This video can easily dismantle my flimsy arguments.

My opinion of Spongebob changed over the years and I accept the fact that I'm not a fan to catch up with the show. I, however, will never accept Kamp Koral or the Patrick Star spin-off cartoon as canon nor will I ever watch them.

This is Rib-Eye Black Dragon writing. 🐲

Signing off. Peace. 🐲

To Be A Beta Reader

My first time being a beta reader

Here's the story: Someone I knew since elementary got in touched with me, and offered to read their fics. It was an honour to be a beta reader of their first draft. Listening to them gushing about the things they read fanfictions was heart warming. To preface, they're not going to post this story online, at any time. Even if they did, they won't likely tell me their handle, but would happily lend me their drafts.

The premise

Now, what was the story all about? It's sort of a Boku No Hero Academia fic with a slight crossover with other series. Crossover, per say, as in they perfectly blend in with the anime well. The other anime's timeline aligned with being thousands of years ago in My Hero's universe. Since, they are ninjas and samurais, and whatnot.

What I've observed

It's nothing stellar. Although, that's because I'm not experienced, I just liked the pacing of the first chapter. They detailed it as first chapter other than "Prologue."

Although, their weak point is the lack of expression and describing the scene as it is visually. But, then again, once I've heard their explanation, the writing would cover the entirety of My hero storyline which means... A LOT of chapters and reading. Adding fluff would bloat the fic, it would seem.

A charitable 4000 words a chapter, the first chapter is at estimate of 2000 words. Words? I think likely characters since the first chapter feels so short.

It is riddled with rookie mistake, but I was told they're already at the 15th chapter, and the word count increases. Keeping this in mind, my feedback would be solely on the drafts they've provided and wouldn't school them about it.

Feedback as a Beta Reader on a technical level

The mistake isn't exclusively towards ESL; Native English speaker fall to the same mistakes as fanfic writers. They write paragraphs of what feels like suffocating. They did not do paragraph break -- I made a slight misstep of calling them line break since they seem the same when I write in notepad. Yes. I write in notepad like a barbarian.

There's instances where there's multiple characters talking with quotes being dropped in the middle of the paragraph and I couldn't tell whose who is talking.

This is my first feedback to them. The ones that I left out are their "quirk words." The frequent use of "Suddenly," and "and," everywhere. "Said" is a dialogue tag that I wouldn't mind popping up every now and then. There're too much commas where it should end with a full stop.

Since our exchange was pretty casual, I'll keep it as that. I did point out there are a bunch that needed some fixing with edit. Their response is it's for practice, but they keep in mind of my feedback about the "paragraph breaks".

Story criticism that I forgot to include

I did praise the first chapter to be on point, leaving out unnecessary details. It feels too simplistic. It's an obvious power fantasy for the main character Izuku Midoriya, during kindergarten where he should like, enjoy sticks and watch Cocomelon, he managed to learn ancient arts only the people of old learned but was lost in time.

Overall, I think it's still feel like an honor to have someone trust me enough to read their work. I'm sorry for being vague here. There's likelihood they'll post on AO3 or Fanfiction.Net, in Wattpad even. But, don't expect me to drop their handle for privacy reasons.

This is Rib-Eye Black Dragon writing.

Signing off. 🐲🐲

Peace. 🐲

How to Give Feedback to a Fanfiction

Critiquing a fanfiction as a beta reader involves providing constructive feedback that respects the genre and the author's creative choices while helping improve the story.

My role as a beta reader is to help the author improve their work by offering feedback on what works and what doesn't.

In this thread, we will discuss and exchange tips on how to be a better beta reader and give the needed feedback for the author.

For further context, I provided a blog on the type of fiction I've received, the initial feedback I have in my first expression, in the technical and creative level.

It's an honor to be someone else's beta reader. But, I'm not sure myself if the ones I provided are sufficient. I also made a mental note of what the author may or may not want to hear since it's a hobby and the seriousness differs from person to person. I avoid being seemingly offputting by schooling someone who trusted me with their work.

Level ranges from beginner to an advance fiction writer. Go!

Vibe Coders: No Vibing Coders nor Coding Vibes

A "vibe coder" refers to someone who practices vibe coding, an AI-driven approach to software development. Vibe coding allows programmers to describe problems or desired functionalities in plain language as prompts to AI tools, such as Large Language Models (LLMs).

The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy in February 2025, emphasizing the "exponential" productivity gains achieved by embracing AI's capabilities while "surrendering to the vibes" of automated code generation.

Characteristics of Vibe Coding:

 - AI-Assisted Development: Vibe coders rely on tools like ChatGPT, Cursor, or Claude to produce codes and debug issues using natural language prompts.

 - Minimal Interaction with Code: Users often accept AI-generated code without fully understanding or reviewing it.

 - Rapid Prototyping: Vibe coding is ideal for quickly building minimum viable products or simple applications, making it popular among non-programmers.

Why is this a problem?

The primary concern is that developers may not fully grasp the code the AI generates. This can lead to Maintenance Nightmares, Security Vulnerabilities, Limited Scalability.

Over-reliance on AI tools can stifle the development of fundamental coding skills. Developers might become overly dependent on AI, limiting their ability to solve problems independently.

A Fireship video explains the trend:

The video mentions Peter Levels as an example of someone who successfully used this approach to create a flight simulator MMO and monetize it. But now people are chasing this trend. It highlights a cautionary tale: a developer who used vibe coding to create a SaaS product but failed to understand the underlying code. When the application was attacked, the developer couldn't fix it, leading to its demise.

Google Drops Supports for Ad-Block

Manifest V2 is dying

Thanks, Google.

Google had pushed for all extensions to transition from Manifest V2 to Manifest V3.

The sitch:

Google has been transitioning Chrome extensions from Manifest V2 to Manifest V3, a new framework designed to enhance privacy and security. However, this transition has significant implications for ad-blocking extensions like:

uBlock Origin

Why the fuss about uBlock Origin?

If you haven't had uBlock Origin in your Chrome (also why Chrome), you've missed quite a lot. It makes web surfing in a ad-ridden internet tolerable. It's also lightweight and protect yourself from fraudulent and malicious ads. It doesn't matter if it's from a niche site, or a mainstream one.

The FBI has recommended using ad blockers in general to protect against malicious ads in their official statements. And uBlock Origin is the popular and effective ad-blocking tool. [Citation]

The impact on uBlock Origin:

Google has started disabling uBlock Origin on Chrome because it is built on Manifest V2, which is being phased out. Users are prompted to remove the extension as it is "no longer supported" as mentioned above the video.

Alternative?

An alternative, uBlock Origin Lite, is available for Manifest V3, but it

lacks the full capabilities of the original uBlock Origin due to the limitations imposed by Manifest V3.

My Grievance and general consensus:

Google is prioritizing advertisers' interests over users' privacy and control, and to an extent, their safety. They have history of recommending scam sites into their search results that harmed users before. [Citation] Many are considering switching to browsers like Firefox, which continues to support Manifest V2 extensions. But even then. Firefox isn't entirely safe. [Mirror Link]

Chromium-based alternative

Looks like the viable option is migrating to another browser that isn't Google Chrome (still, why were you using that?). uBlock Origin Lite is but a temporary solution to a long term problem. One browser I'd recommend because of its built-in blocker is Brave browser. Despite some of you may think that Brave is some cryptomining ware or it's A.I. ridden, I'm here to inform you that it's easy to turn them off from the settings. It's as friendly to non-crypto bros, trust me.

Opera exists, yeah, I'm not sure it's guaranteed to protect its user's privacy.

Ungoogled Chromium, if you're so attached to Chrome.

Vivaldi is a good alternative with my limited time tinkering with that browser.

Firefox-like Alternative

Link here and here explains why it's not recommended to get out of box Mozilla Firefox. There's alternative to them with something like Librewolf, Waterfox, and the hip new Gecko-based browser Zen - which I used right now - are good alternative that supports Manifest V2.

There are obviously more ways than one to protect yourself and reclaim the internet as it was before the spamming a.i. ads. Let's discuss it below in this thread! Of course, we could try to find another ad-blocking extension that would work. Not sure if it would last with Manifest V3.

Mozilla Firefox is Ruined

Breakdown:

The initial Terms of Use contained language that appeared to grant Mozilla broad rights over user data, specifically regarding content uploaded or inputted through Firefox.

Mozilla also updated its Privacy FAQ to address legal concerns around terms like "sells".

While Mozilla has historically stated that it does not sell user data, it has moved away from this commitment due to the evolving and broad definition of "sale" in various jurisdictions.

Mozilla now acknowledges that it gathers and shares some data with partners to ensure Firefox remains commercially viable, while anonymizing data or presenting it in aggregate form.

Some have noted that Mozilla has removed the statement about not selling data from its FAQ, which has caused concern and thus this controversy.

My personal opinion:

I used Firefox for a long time as my daily driver, alongside a chromium-based browser and Edge (solely for Microsoft accounts only). I truly believe in people's rights to privacy and not be used as a product for a company's "free service". It sucks that Firefox would go out this way. I might present an alternative, the vanilla Mozilla browser sucks so, but I'm worried that they'll be affected:

Hardened Firefox - heavily customized vanilla firefox / just remove the telemetry bro / probs won't work anymore

Waterfox - Firefox fork

Librewolf - Firefox fork

Zen - hip new Firefox clone that I'm not sure if it's good or not

Fennec - Firefox fork for android

Mull - Firefox fork for android

Palemoon - Firefox if you're still using Windows XP lol

This forum post is all about Gecko-based browsers. While you may drop mentions of Chromium browser, this is not about getting Chromium-Based alternatives but about Firefox clones or browsers with Gecko web engine.

Alternative Video Hosting Sites?

Anything that I can embed into Spacehey as a Youtube alternative. I verily hesitate uploading anything from my personal account on Youtube nowadays because Youtube just, for unknown reasons, wiped my old videos off the faces of the Earth. They don't gather views but decided they need to clear up some space.

Here are the alternatives I considered but won't get into at least, not yet, so don't suggest me these or try convincing me:

Dailymotion - seems mainstream

Vimeo - seems mainstream

Twitch - solely for livestream, nope, also mainstream

Kick - see Twitch

Rumble - does it embed? also no

Odysee - give me a solid reason why also does it embed?

Peertube - does it embed?

vidlii - haven't tried it yet, does it embed?

bitchute - does it embed?

Try uploading to X / Bluesky - not just a video hosting site

Edit: to clarify what I meant by embed; I mean, I can paste it to my blogs, bulletins, and forum topics much like youtube in HTML. Thank you for the iframely suggestions!

Hackers Infiltrated the CCP: Is Taipei Behind It?

"China’s ministry of state security on Monday accused the Taiwanese military of supporting a hacking group called Anonymous 64 that it said was responsible for cyberattacks against Chinese targets."

-according to the article by the RFA staff.

China's Ministry of State Security has accused Anonymous 64 of being supported by Taiwan independence forces, suggesting that the group is backed by the Taiwanese government. However, Taiwan has denied these allegations, stating that they focus on protecting their own information security. But, who are the Anonymous 64?

Anonymous 64 is a hacking group that has been involved in a series of cyberattacks targeting mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Their activities include attempting to infiltrate public portals, outdoor digital displays, and online television systems to disseminate disinformation and disrupt communication channels. [Link] The hacker group has claimed responsibility for over 70 cyber incidents. Their targets include university websites, electronic billboards, and other public platforms.

Recent Events

In the recent report by the China Observer channel, several official websites in Mainland China, including military units, schools, and museums, displayed statements critical of the CCP. The hacker group "Anonymous 64" claimed responsibility for this action, highlighting their ongoing efforts against the CCP. The displayed statements not only criticized the CCP but also included personal information about five individuals labeled as "traitors."

This incident exemplifies modern information warfare, where digital platforms are used to disseminate messages and influence public opinion, which might affect public sentiment towards the CCP and the potential for greater dissent. This event raises concerns about the cybersecurity measures in place for sensitive governmental websites.

The hacker group's stances

Groups like Anonymous 64 often operate under a banner of activism, targeting perceived injustices and promoting their political beliefs. Their actions aim to disrupt authoritarian regimes and expose corruption often in a bid to inspire reform or change.

TL;DW

While this incident serves as a critical reminder of the growing intersection between cybersecurity, political activism, and information dissemination, it is important to practice robust cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive information.

Is it Taipei's fault? It hasn't been fully disclosed yet.

Be respectful in the thread below as I am in a neutral and non-partisan regarding this topic.

JFK Files Declassified

Approximately 80,000 pages have been released!

In March 2025, the administration of President Donald Trump released a significant number of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) in 1963.

The release included approximately 2,182 PDF files, totaling about 63,400 pages, according to some reports.

The documents were made public following an executive order by Trump in January 2025, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.

While I haven't uncovered the pages yet, but it's interesting to read this by Stefan Becket in CBS News. The files are said to be covering various aspects, including CIA surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald and propaganda operations involving Oswald.

For historical context:

The JFK assassination has been a source of various conspiracy theories over the years, with many Americans doubting the official narrative that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. The release of these documents is part of a broader effort to provide more transparency about historical events, following a 1992 law that mandated the collection and eventual release of JFK-related records.

Reaction:

Much like myself, historians and experts do not anticipate significant recent revelations from these documents, as much of the information has been previously disclosed in some form. However, this move has raised privacy concerns, with at least one living individual planning legal action who is the former top Justice Department official plans to sue over the release.

The Archive: archives.gov/research/jfk/release-2025

Be respectful in the thread below as I am in a neutral and non-partisan regarding this topic.