Serenity Dee: SFF is still maladjusted

Pronouns: she, her. Trans woman. Lesbian. Economist by day, 24/7 ranty mcrantypants. Talks about damn near anything. The subtitle is something that started out as a joke, but ... isn't anymore. I may post NSFW content from time to time.

[depsidase]

[specialagentartemis]

Character has a PhD: they’re really smart and knowledgable about their field!

Character has 2 PhDs: either they did a dual degree program and are braggy about it, had a life-changing experience after their first degree and pivoted their whole career, or they find the structure of being a PhD student, despite all its stress, more comfortable and familiar than the stress of finding a Real Job and have a very indulgent advisor.

Character has 3 PhDs: who keeps accepting them to PhD programs. Either this person needs psychological help or their department needs to be investigated for its academic standards. Probably both

Character has 4+ PhDs: if they aren’t an undercover vampire or something then no they don’t lol

[prokopetz]

Alternatively: this character is some kind of rock star celebrity in their field and has a bunch of honorary degrees from several different institutions, and also this story takes place before most universities adopted a separate postnominal for honorary doctorates specifically to avoid this sort of confusion.

[asymbina]

I have spent a lot of my time in my current career around an abundance of PhDs, and I have only ever met one person with two distinct PhDs

He had earned a PhD in English originally, and then, for reasons I cannot begin to guess at, applied for the then brand-spanking-new economics PhD program at the department where I completed my undergrad degree and earned my master's, and was the very first doctoral student in that program to complete the degree

(my department's econ grad program started off as a terminal master's program, which is what I enrolled in and completed; by the time I was done I was on the verge of burnout and had zero desire to continue on in the doctoral track, so I ran for a full-time job instead)

notably, ISTR that he was not in the first cohort of doctoral students; I think there were three in that group, one who was wrapping up his dissertation at the time I completed my master's, one who was in the process of transferring to a different university because our program was about empirical economics and that's incompatible with Austrian/Chicago school-type economics (where they're of the opinion that if reality disagrees with their a priori assumptions, reality is clearly incorrect), and one who had been dragging his feet so badly about doing his dissertation that he'd been the one to lose his personal office when they needed one for a new faculty member, and got demoted to the shared office that us second-year master's students used

anyway, that dude who earned my alma mater's first PhD blazed through the program in like 4 years, which is crazy fast for the field, and I'm 100% sure he did it that fast because he'd done one PhD and knew the dance steps already

and there really wouldn't be any point to earning a third even if it was in a wildly different field, because he's already demonstrated the ability to conduct independent, original research, twice, and if he needed to ground himself in an unrelated discipline a bit of auditing should be sufficient

so when the MCU stated that Bruce has 7 PhDs I can only assume that he earned them concurrently and hadn't slept in a decade at the time of his accident, and he'd probably be much less of a scary ragemonster if he'd gotten a decent amount of sleep

[gender-trash]

every ad in sf is like did you know about qooble.ai. get hip to the Smunk Agent. bleeple has it for you, and by "it" we mean LLMs. and half of them don't even elaborate on what qooble.ai Does. Buy Our Agentic Whatever. It Will Do Something. Maybe

[gender-trash]

babygirl. this isn't anything

[braillecortex]

Was on Caltrain recently and it was covered head to toe in ads for something called Devin. Devin has it for you. Devin can do anything.

[braillecortex]

Like. That means nothing. More than anything reminded me of the fake tech ads from that one YouTube short

[braillecortex]

This one

[gender-trash]

sksjfjfhfffh i was looking at those exact caltrain devin ads when i made the original post TT__TT

[foone]

I love watching the ads change, though, as the zeitgeist shifts. I was working in SF a few years back and it was all blockchain & cryptocurrency

[painkillerscoffeeandcathair]

It's those ads for whatever AI crap is vying for investment - they're to be seen by 5 people, and everyone else doesn't matter.

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Me, watching Despero kill Guy Gardner: And nothing of value was lost....

[thestargayzingheroine]

Shit is that what Despero looks like these days?! He looks fucking cool!

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

"I'm trying to break into the Monster Fucker market"

[thestargayzingheroine]

Considering his first animated incarnation was voiced by Keith David, who has a trend for that... I say he succeeded.

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

>.>

<.<

i'm not on trial here

[asymbina]

A shame that killing Guy won't take

at least he's nowhere near as tedious as Hal, as Green Lanterns go

[art-res]

 🛑 Stop Working for Exposure (Mathematically)

I'm an artist and medical student, and I use art to help me pay some bills.

I built a free, helpful tool because to help prevent other talented creatives from undercharging, as I really see this a lot online.

It's a calculator with a built in reality check

Input your survival costs and expenses

True billable hours

Get the rate you actually need to charge to hit a 20% (or whatever you choose) profit margin.

It generates the rate, a template negotiation email + final invoice.

Plan to keep this tool free, ad-free, and open to everyone.

🔗 Check your math: fairpaycalc.artres.xyz

If the "Thriving Rate" calculation empowers you to double your quote on your next job, please consider hitting the "Buy me a coffee"button. It keeps the server running and the code flowing <3

AL is creating web apps, art resources, and illustrations

I am an artist and medical student and creator of Art-Res, a blog where I write and curate art resources. Hopefully you find art that bring

[art-res]

Thank you for all who tried/spread awareness of the tool and also to people who tipped, truly touched by the support and it means the world! <3

[communistkenobi]

everyone rightfully complains about how the r word is back in vogue now but I think the people talking about how using ChatGPT makes you a small brained lazy degenerate are getting off way too easy

[kakaphoe]

I'd also like to mention "AI psychosis".

[asymbina]

There's undoubtedly a potentially valid clinical use of the phrase, but it has no business being in the public discourse

Using ChatGPT or other chatbots manifestly negatively impacts reasoning capability and erodes critical thinking skills, but it's still no excuse for ableism; there are reasons my adjective of choice for rhetorical purposes is "brain-rotting" rather than anything like what the OP says

Attack the technology for its effects on people and on the environment, and attack the people promoting it as grifters and liars and opportunistic exploitative assholes, but attacking the users in a way that makes them defensive and feeling like they need to rationalize the use is not helpful; it's like condemning smokers as immoral and weak-willed for not quitting

[i-am-the-oyster]

[explodingsilver]

I've seen some posts trying to make fun of former gifted kids by comparing them to former student athletes who insist that they could have gone pro if not for a specific injury, and those posts always backfire, because my reaction to them is "You're right, we should treat former student athletes with more compassion than we currently do"

[dovesick]

various types of pigeons

[yamino]

First page! 👀✨️

I'll still post a few snippets here, but to see finished pages as I complete them, check out my Patreon! (2 pages available right now!)

https://www.patreon.com/sisterclaire

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Go insane go insane

Throw some glitter make it rain :D

[asymbina]

Selene seems quite captivated by the dancers, I must say

[vintagewildlife]

"I can't believe humans would hunt the thylacine to extinction, humans are fundamentally evil" Hey, did you know that extinction was long thought to be impossible, and within 50 years of humans realizing that extinction via overhunting was a possibility it practically stopped happening? Did you know that humans are so desperate to prevent more losses that they're funneling millions of collective hours and billions of euros into helping other species? Hours and euros that could be spent on humans, and species on whom humanity's own survival does not depend? Did you know that due to an accidental introduction of rats, the Lord Howe Island stick insect population was brought down to 24 individuals and now there are tens of thousands of them?

This bug. This bug that, to most humans, is utterly useless, relatively gross, and completely foreign. Humans saved it because humans do not want to cause another extinction ever again if they can avoid it.

[untimelytophat]

@crabussy

[crabussy]

as someone in the field of ecological conservation, I can promise without a shadow of a doubt that people DO care. SO MANY people care.

I have to race to sign up to volunteer trips because even with dozens of spots available, people rush to devote their unpaid free time to helping the environment. these trips often fill up within hours. people care.

you will see a lot of bad news because that is the kind of news that people pay the most attention to. I know this more than you'd think from my optimism- not only do I live somewhere facing some of the most extreme ecological issues on the planet, I also spend my time studying the Bad Stuff every single day.

to see all of this firsthand and stay hopeful is proof enough that there IS hope. I promise there is good news, brilliant news, all the time. it's just less visible. but it's no less important or impactful.

[asymbina]

the passenger pigeon, the dodo, the Yangtze river dolphin

we are collectively traumatized by every loss of the modern age

there are people trying to recreate wild aurochs, the extinct ancestors of domestic cattle, who died out in 1627 with the death of the last known cow, although some fossil remains have been found in Bulgaria that suggest a remnant population might have survived there another hundred years

there are people trying to bring back the quagga, and the woolly mammoth, and the northern white rhino (which isn't technically extinct just yet), and if we can assemble enough DNA for a genetically viable population there is a very good chance that someone will try to bring back the thylacine wolf

[espanolbot2]

Avatar: The Last Airbender Sequel Makes Surprise Official Comeback in January 2027

One of the most beloved animated sequels of an entire generation is returning next year with a brand-new production that fans will absolutel

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Oh, it's just a concert

What an absurd headline

[asymbina]

oh wow

this is up there with the post-Endgame MCU (save for a few gems like The Marvels, F4FF, She-Hulk, and Ms Marvel) for something that used to be a source of great joy becoming just plain depressing

[64mpg]

u can just do whatever at any age all of the time nobody cares except teenagers

[64mpg]

teenager will be like ur 40 with a hobby ? 💀 that’s sad <- nobody else thinks this way though they are just going through some stuff

[pointless-letters]

One of the best letters I’ve ever seen just popped up on my Facebook memories. Still makes me laugh.

[pointless-letters]

As today is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it’s a great time to revisit Dinah from Devon’s memory of this historic event. And yes, still makes me laugh.

[pointless-letters]

Today is the 54th anniversary of the moon landing, but Dinah’s diary entry is still absolutely magnificent.

[pointless-letters]

57th anniversary of the moon landing and the best diary entry in the history of diary entries. Sit down Samuel Pepys, it’s over. UGH.

[prokopetz]

Having been Very Online in the mid 1990s is rough because half of your formative influences are like "yeah, this Flash video engages in pop culture deconstruction that's strikingly topical even thirty years later and did things to my vocabulary that persist to this day, and I can literally never recommend it to anyone because its core premise is a level of homophobic ordinarily observed only under laboratory conditions".

[prokopetz]

Them: Hey, you were around for the first wave of real webcomics. Which one was your favourite?

Me:

[asymbina]

one of my great regrets is that "There's a reason they don't make houses out of Malt-o-Meal!" is a punch line that absolutely took me out and I have no hope of ever explaining to anyone why

also this made me excruciatingly nostalgic for MUDs for a good thirty seconds

[herowyn]

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[closetocanada]

Happy Moon Landing Day! ❤️👩‍🚀🌛