these guys were onto something i think

Image: wikipedia screenshot reading, "Early life: Preserved Fish was born in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. His father, a blacksmith, and grandfather were also named Preserved Fish."

End of image.

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Fun update BTW:

Good for them.

Today is the anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Data's Day, which aired on January 7, 1991. This episode introduced Data's pet cat Spot. Spot isn't named in the show yet, but would go on to be played by multiple cats. In the later episode Schisms, Data reads his poem Ode to Spot. This poem would also show up later in A Fistful of Datas when Data interfaces with the Enterprise's computers.

Ode to Spot and the interactions of Data and Spot throughout Star Trek media have given me much joy and I wanted to share that joy with you. So here is Ode to Spot in all it's glory:

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,

An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;

Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses

Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,

A singular development of cat communications

That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection

For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;

You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.

And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,

It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display

Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.

And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,

I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

It’s extremely important that you listen to this video by averagedesignedwood with the sound on

This is a really excellent deep dive into AI water use and how a lot of discourse around it is at best inaccurate and at worst deliberately misleading.

A great example of how it's misleading is the NYT story about an AI datacenter causing local wells to dry up for residents, but the story is actually about the construction causing water issues - the datacenter wasn't active, hadn't been finished, and the construction could easily have been for a shipping hub or housing development. Framing "construction company did not do appropriate groundwater surveys and fucked up the water table" as "data centers guzzling up water" is extremely disingenuous.

The substack article I linked is quite long and quite technical, and if you're not interested in reading it Hank Green has made a video discussing the fact that there is a lot more nuance in the discourse around AI water use than the most vocal Pro-AI or Anti-AI people are interested in examining.

There are a lot of people who say that all AI use is theft. I think that's uncomplicatedly wrong, that if you're using "theft" the way that the DMCA uses "theft" you're wrong. For more on that, I'd recommend reading the "Expanding Copyright is not the Answer" section of @mostlysignssomeportents's adapted speech on AI criticism or the EFF's comments to the copyright office RE generative AI. (You should actually read both, and you should read Doctorow's article in full because it is a criticism of AI that moves beyond thought terminating cliches to really explore why the AI industry as it stands is bullshit).

I do not, generally speaking, like AI. I think that most AI products create shit results. I think most AI art looks like shit and most AI writing is awful bordering on unreadable. I think that there's a massive bubble built up around AI and I think AI is absolutely fucking the personal computing market.

And, all that said, it is deeply annoying to dislike AI as much as I do and still feel the need to point out that the way that a lot of people criticize AI is shortsighted, reactionary, and just flat-out incorrect. There are real things wrong with how we are approaching AI as a society and how AI is being sold to users and forced into our environments, and "art theft" is not one of those things.

(And this is everyone's reminder that fair use is the best, I love it, and you are allowed to copy, distribute, remix, sell, and do whatever you want with my art and writing whenever you want to. Every time I write something like this people come into my inbox to say "I hope your art gets stolen" and I'm like "Bitch, me too, the fuck?")

watched random video on vampire burial history and didn't expect my eople to get name dropped. why do romanians get all the glory when poland has the biggest anti-vampire gravesites discovered

wait no i get it. romania didn't anti-vampire enough so they're famous for having all the vampires meanwhile poland was to vampires as alberta is to rats. i mean alberta isn't famous for rats is it

its actually crazy how much local art events and other potentially interesting stuff i completely miss out on just because the orgs all post on instagram and facebook only. two standouts among the worst fucking platforms in the world with the most egregious ui and slop saturation, so dogshit that id be unable to use them regularly even if i wanted to. stop it you all. get on tumblr or something

even orgs and collectives that used to have proper websites of their own now just put all their updates on fb and ig. stop! stop it! youre making me feel like an old geezer! ok well old geezers nowadays are very much on facebook... an ancient geezer. youre making me feel like A Ancient Woman

the worse things get the more folks need to learn about affinity fraud because unfortunately a community being more impoverished and struggling doesn't make it less likely that someone from the community might use the situation to grift and take advantage of people's fears or extract the little money they have. quite the opposite in fact it's a perfect environment to do so

you also need to stop treating grifts and frauds as Oopsies that aren't a big deal. sure the people creating them might do so for all kinds of reasons and aren't inhuman monsters who are a separate class in society or whatever. it's still incredibly fucking damaging and draining resources from people who desperately need them at this time as well as causing widespread lack of trust and/or panic. plus apologism for that kind of shit just becomes a gigantic green sign for all kinds of bad actors who will now see you and the people who trust you as perfect targets. you NEED to push back on this.

i love when people on the internet get denied stuff and you find the most innovative minds of the generation dedicated to making goddamn sure other people get what they want come hell or high water

Okay but I get this. All of you worms who have things blocked on your wifi or whatever and have IbisPaint this is how you do it

Open IbisPaint go to a canvas (any canvas, or make. a new one)

Select the font tool (if you don’t know what or where that is, press the tool icon (normally a paint brush or eraser) and press the T button

From there you should be able to create a text box (writing is not important…). Find the font button and add a new font. I can’t remember what it’s called but you’ll know when you see it

It’ll automatically search for you “free fonts.” Do not follow this. Your app is misdirecting you. Instead search up whatever it is you’re looking for in the search bar, and that should work

Knowledge should not be trapped behind bars, bend and break them until you can grasp it

You know that thing, this idea where "male" is seen as the default, or he/him or the use of "little guy" whatever, and some people's answer to this saying actually we need to use SHE/HER for everything instead #femninsm Yeah actually I think that we should degender everything, honestly, it's really stressful and ridiculous. I too have assumed someone was a man off handedly, but flipping it around isn't going to solve patriarchy that's silly goofy. Not gonna work.I think we really need to focus on removing that from the equation entirely. Actually doing something instead of whatever that is. It's just not working.

Intersex people are continuously harmed, killed, objectified, used, and reduced to nothing more than a hypothetical or statistical anomaly, something to be violated and then discarded. Supposedly, at best, we can expect to be treated as something a little less than human. Often, we are put far below that.

Fuck that. We deserve so, so much better than that.

Intersex people have always, always, always existed, and we will always, always, always fight to exist and breathe in the world, present and future. We will create a path forward for ourselves, no matter what. We will live to hug, scream, kiss, laugh, cry, run, and be free. Dressed in flowing yellow and purple, we will be loud, passionate, and whole.

I need to see a future where intersex kids are celebrated. I need to see a future where intersex bodies are made divine. I need to see a future where intersex voices are glorious music, blasted on every speaker for all to hear.

No longer beaten into invisibility, no longer made small behind closed doors, surgical tools, and shame-ridden conversations. We will be open, joyous, and so, so loved.

I do not wish to assimilate, to be seen as "just like everyone else"; my soul yearns for so much more.

When I dream of an intersex future, when I participate in being one of a countless number working towards its creation, there is nothing neutral about it; It must be, by necessity, an act of resistance, an act of community, an act of care for each other and ourselves.

I need to see a future where the wonder and beauty of intersexuality is celebrated in everything.

If you are intersex, know that you bring so much to this world, so much more than you know. Keep going, keep pushing forward, keep uplifting your community and keep being yourself. You are so, so important.

We will continue to live on, now and always.