trying on a metaphor

oozey mess
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
dirt enthusiast
we're not kids anymore.
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
DEAR READER
No title available

Kiana Khansmith
No title available
Misplaced Lens Cap

Origami Around
Jules of Nature

roma★
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Peter Solarz

Andulka
Xuebing Du
art blog(derogatory)
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@agaggleoffandoms
@kittybroker
Tiny little baby spore worth just a tiny little 20 cents!
Visa is embedding its payment network into ChatGPT, allowing the chatbot to shop and complete transactions for users.
Visa said Wednesday that it has embedded its payment network inside of ChatGPT, empowering the chatbot to independently shop and complete transactions on behalf of its user. It means AI agents can not only recommend products but complete the purchase on the user’s behalf, at potentially any merchant that accepts Visa. The payment network’s previous attempts at this technological leap were confined to a single retailer or a small set of enrolled merchants.
Ahhahhahahahhahahahahahhahhaaa.. *deep breath*
AHHHAHAHHAHHAAAA..!!
No
To be clear: simply having a Visa card isn't a risk for you. Not yet, anyway. You'll have to intentionally link your account to ChatGPT, then go shopping with the chatbot. If you don't do that, you're safe.
Dunno what stupidity they're planning next, but for now? ChatGPT isn't going to rack up $1000 of cat toys without your knowledge unless you're an active ChatGPT user.
(a) fucking yikes
(b) how is chatgpt pci compliant
I am very curious about PCI compliance myself, having worked with stripe & authorize.net and other vendors to retain PCI compliance in my own software. It's not trivial.
Fully expect ChatGPT to use "the wrong credit card" at some point and ruin a few lives.
Coyotes trying their damndest to get domesticated
Do you ever think about how so much of the deadly anti-science rhetoric that fills America today and is killing countless vulnerable people can be directly traced back to one fucking guy who decided to just straight-up lie about vaccines causing autism because it would make him a profit? Do you ever think about that? Because I think about it a lot.
I need this study
It looks like it's Anarchist Direct Actions: A Challenge for Law Enforcement. It was published in 2004
It's worth pointing out that cops in the US adapted to these problems through using grand juries to cast wide nets and do punitive fishing expeditions in the wake of any serious suspected left-wing actions.
Here's how it works:
Someone starts a fire at an army draft office.
The cops look through their files for anyone who might be in the political orbit of someone who'd want to do that. People picked up at protests, for drug charges, vandalism, anyone who is already on their radar. They look into their known associates, anyone they live with, anyone they drink with.
Then they start subpoenaing these people for a grand jury summons. They give you immunity (but only for the matter of the grand jury!) so that you can't exercise the fifth amendment against self incrimination. If you say nothing, they can imprison you almost indefinitely for contempt of court. If they catch you in a lie, that's criminal perjury.
They'll ask you for information on everyone you know. Obviously they'll ask about their involvement in any crimes, but they're casting a wide net. Who knows who, where do they hang out, who talked to who about what and when. They'll ask you to spill interpersonal stuff, whether anyone is cheating on someone, whether people have substance abuse problems or embarrassing personal issues, if anyone is closeted, anything they consider dirt. Anyone you name is gonna get subpoenaed and they'll be asked for all this information on everyone they know, including you, and although you have immunity from your own testimony, you don't get immunity from each others.
Assuming you didn't personally do anything they can prosecute you for in the matter of the grand jury, they'll go after you based on what they know. The cops will arrest you on any little thing they have suspicion of, even if they know they can't prosecute you, just so that they can keep you in jail for a few days while you miss two shifts at work and your friends have to scramble to raise bail. They'll leak any embarrassing info that comes out, to your boss or your family or even the local press. Whatever they can do to make your life a little harder.
They will lean fucking hard on anyone who is involved in the scene but had second thoughts or felt like they were dragged into something they never wanted to do in the first place by their friends. The cops will say 'do you want to get your life ruined by people who did something stupid over something you barely even believe in' and sometimes that's a very compelling argument! If people have dependents or kids who they think won't be looked after if they go to prison, there's a lot of pressure to cooperate.
It's important to note two things:
1) Based on the ratio of actual prison sentences to maximum possible sentences for the charges, it's better for people not to cooperate with the jury both individually and as a group. People who talk still get sentenced, with the information they helped provide.
2) These aren't surgical strikes, they're an artillery barrage designed to destroy infrastructure and send people running for cover. Cops don't want you to have friends, they don't want you to hang out and have fun, they don't want you getting or providing food or shelter through anything you can't get fired from. They don't want committed direct-action people swimming freely through a sea of friendly people. They're not scared of the flower, they're scared of the soil that grows it.
Narratives from three people who successfully stood up to grand jury indictments: one who served jail time for resisting, one who went on th
Green Scared?
Philosophy Podcast · Updated weekly · A podcast broadcasting Anarchist texts and audiobooks
These pescatarian birds are directly exposed to PFAS contamination due to the island's position near the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.
While continued vigilance a regulation is needed, this data indicates that regulations are working to reduce PFAS concentrations in marine ecosystems.
Yes!!!! I did a review of literature on PFASs in human drinking water about half a year ago, and there is a lot of really good progress! Please celebrate this, please don't let this solution be forgotten (at least so quickly) as the ozone layer or acid rain.
We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!
Environmental problems CAN BE SOLVED.
There's a couple different interesting sources I've seen about how real life hockey teams manage food and nutrition that make me really frustrated every time I read a fandom take on Shane's diet that makes him overly restrictive.
The Minnesota Wild has a video about how they teach their rookies about nutrition and how the team handles meals and optimizing everything for professional athletes. The rookies learn about how to get the most nutrient bang for your buck as an athlete burning a shit ton of calories all day. And then they were taken to a grocery store and told to implement the lessons in a competition. Like, teams have a chef. The staff have smoothies in the locker room between periods at games for the team who can customize the smoothie based on individual needs. There are literally so many professional, degree having people whose jobs are to make sure the hockey players are eating well.
I think it'd be really interesting to see food approached in fandom with the system of a professional hockey team in real life. I'm sure these guys are always eating together. There's someone doing sweat tests on ALL of them to figure out if their diets need tweaking because of metabolism changes. There's a group of fresh rookies being taught how to eat like a professional athlete. It could be so much more interesting than "Shane eats rabbit food and restricts too much."
Recently managed to activate the most amazing infodump trap card.
I was driving through Vermont with a friend, and we pulled over at a tiny shop offering Maple Items. We were on the state highway, not the interstate, so "pulling over" meant "squeezing my tiny car into a parking bay the size of a broad highway shoulder."
As we got out of the car, an older woman emerged from behind the building where she had been pruning her roses. She introduced herself as Tammy.
Her shop offered the promised variety of Maple, but also a number of small antiques and a plethora of dog figurines, plaques, and clearly-hand-stitched garden flags.
A huge purple ribbon hung on the wall behind the register, along with many pictures of small dogs. This was no county fair ribbon. It was the size of my torso. The material had the soft sheen of actual silk.
As I placed my purchases on the counter, I asked, "Do you... Breed dogs?"
Yes. She does. She has bred Yorkies for the last 40 years. Her mother bred Yorkies before her. The purple ribbon was from her national championship winning Yorkie.
You may be expecting that the infodump was going to be about Yorkies.
It was not.
It was about 40 years of drama in the Yorkie breeding community. Where – you must understand – the judging at shows is often about who you're in with, not about the dogs. This is especially true when Tammy's opponents win anything.
And Tammy's mother! Well. Phyllis has been on the Yorkie scene since Yorkies were invented. Because of this, many women of equally venerable age hold deep grudges against Phyllis. The sort of grudges that result in episodes of Midsommar Murders.
This led to deep injustices against Phyllis on the part of judges and prevented her dogs from winning so often she retired from the scene. Judging is all about who you're friends with, after all.
After 20 years in hiding, Phyllis – the One True Queen of Yorkie Breeding – hatched a plot. She may have been out of the show circuit, but she was still breeding dogs. She entered an absolutely perfect bitch in the national competition, but sent her with a handler rather than go in person.
None of the usurpers knew who this dog belonged to, and in dog-breeding circles this Does Not Happen. This could have resulted in further injustices, but Phyllis was crafty. She knew this tournament was being judged by a man from the UK, who knew naught of the drama in the US Yorkie Empire.
With these advantages – and being the best dog there – Phyllis's bitch won the highest honor at the show.
Incensed by this insult to their ill-gotten supremacy, the other owners descended on the handler after the show, demanding to know for whom he was working.
"Phyllis," said he.
The name of the overthrown queen evoked horror in the usurpers.
"PHYLLIS!? She's still ALIVE!???"
Yes, Phyllis yet lived, and this bitch – the dog, not the woman – went on to mother Tammy's current dogs. One of whom, Lucy-Fur, is the reincarnation of Tammy's sister (also Lucy). This is certain for two reasons.
Firstly, Sister Lucy absolutely went straight to Hell upon her death, and Lucy-Fur the dog is positively as evil as Sister Lucy was.
Secondly, Sister Lucy always said when she died she wanted to come back as one of Phyllis's dogs because "mom treated the dogs better than us."
I also think that the strength gap is at least partially manufactured women would in fact be stronger overall if little girls were encouraged to do physically taxing games and activities and eat their fill while they’re growing vs having to constantly diet and be sedentary indoors (or god forbid do intense cardio while under-eating). The amount of adult women honestly afraid to lift weights bc they think they’ll get bulky as though bulking isn’t a full time job that athletes have to spend all their time on and anyone on earth gets shredded from just using their adult muscles for their intended purpose, girl your bone density 🥀
if you say women are intentionally nerfed from birth in 2026 people look at you like you’re insane and start condescendingly telling you about how women are just better at different things (but not during their periods haha) but this was a completely basic feminist talking point I grew up with like “girls can do it too! [shot of little girls climbing and running with boys]” nickelodeon commercial tier base level I hate it how is everyone suddenly dumber than the average 7 year old
I can't believe home depot literally produced a wildly successful science fiction musical and we all just pretend it didn't happen. on one hand yes it had a boring white guy main character but like.... home depot just... Made it? And it had shit ton of box office sales? and no one even talks about this. this is like avatar (2009) all over again
OK so. After a lot of frantic googling I realized this was all a dream. home depot did not in fact produce a wildly successful science fiction musical. I was on allergy meds and took a nap and my brain simply prophesized this. slightly disappointed because I wanted to watch it.
(by @galwednesday)
Can you remember the 90s?
Yes
No
As in, do any of your memories take place during the 90s (yes, a single memory from 1999 counts).
I can remember about half of them. My earliest memory was probably 1995 and they go from there.
At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields
At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual, I do actually think you should be allowed to just take college courses indefinitely
technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.
Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.
Free courses on Coursera.
Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison
For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.
When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.
@yourunderwaterskies I wanted to say thank you so much for adding these links, seriously, they've been life-changingly helpful to me-
And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.
Learn more about the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Program to train policy professionals, government officials, academics,
Kaya is a free humanitarian learning platform which offers hundreds of training opportunities across a range of key topics, including the hu
unauthorized fucking thing!!!!!!
(warning: loud chirping throughout)
source: hellgate osprey cam
I was inspired by the sheer range of emotion displayed by the osprey and the smug little interloper
@animals-with-fan-art
Babe wake up, new all time great image just dropped