Things. And Stuff.

Much fandom. Some hockey.  Others things as they occur.

[shaneslefttitty]

This will forever be my favorite edit!! Sigh. I need to be sedated every time I watch it!!

It’s by @ Alexeifiore on TikTok

Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@alexeifiore/video/7597799332569500942

[sztupy]

Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previou

[ayeforscotland]

Let’s fucking go

[made-in-manetheren]

This is HUGE.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

TL;DR Google reeeeeally stepped in it this time.

[thememedaddy]

[wet-biscuit-mcglee]

the maltese burger but in high quality this time. happy pride month

[castformi-deactivated20241025]

dystopia au where we are all assigned one of two chosen genders at birth

[peppylilspitfuck]

Thanks to ultrasounds, the genders can be assigned before birth.  The people are so excited to conform they throw “Gender reveal parties” to make sure their offspring exist in a strict binary since before they can even form thoughts. 

[slightlykylie]

Children are color-coded according to their binary assignment. 

[darkersolstice]

One of the genders is seen as inherently inferior.

[yothobro-deactivated20200505]

This all sounds really effing creepy when you put it that way

[rooksandravens]

#BECAUSE IT IS

[fuckyeahfeminist]

And if you deviate from the assigned gender you can be disowned by your family, fired from your job, and beaten by authorities.

[rodserlingofficial]

[90s-kid-sad-adult]

lie to me

[sandandglass]

The Muppets s01e01

[le-sad-demiurge]

Fozzy getting hit on by lots of twinks

[cheshireinthemiddle]

Happy Pride Month

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Ten years later, this bit still slaps. They made a great pun and realized they could be nice/inclusive with it too.

[avadaniels]

"Scrooge learns the true meaning of Bisexual Awareness Week" Make Some Noise Season 3 Episode 11

[alanaisalive]

The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

[iguanamouth]

oh shit

[throughshadow-to-the-edgeofnight]

[alanaisalive]

As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.

[striving-artist]

At time of posting, this is at 711.6k notes

29 Days Remain

[nelc]

Only 12 days left.

[memecucker]

[young-core]

[docbeeski]

And we could have boys in neck guards all the time if the NHL weren’t total cowards!

[theelevatedcupcakeexperience]

The big sexy of it all

[viejospellejos]

What the duck?

[humanbeanisnotamused]

[Description: the video is captioned "Find the duck game", and we see several blindfolded women in hijabs groping around an enclosed ring while spectators look on, cheering and laughing . After a few seconds the camera pans so that you can see the duck, who is waddling around, casually yet resolutely resisting capture. Periodically the women collide with each other. They do not find the duck. End ID]

[elvashayam]

#it is a beautiful day in indonesia and you are a terrible duck

tags via @humanbeanisnotamused

[fictiongarden]

[theoutcastrogue]

Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online

The bipartisan push to remove anonymity from the internet is ushering in an era of unprecedented mass surveillance and censorship.

"The problem is that there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are. A platform cannot magically discern that a user is 16 without collecting identifying information, whether through government documents such as a passport, payment information like a credit card, or other identity-disclosing data. Whether that data is stored by the platform itself or outsourced to a vendor, the result is always the same: A user’s offline identity is forever linked with their online behavior.

Stripping anonymity from the internet would constitute one of the most sweeping rollbacks of civil rights in recent history. It would allow for unprecedented levels of mass surveillance and censorship, endangering the most marginalized members of society. Whistleblowers exposing corporate wrongdoing could be tracked and fired, government employees speaking out about illegal behavior or bad policies could face prosecution, and activists organizing protests could be identified and surveilled before ever setting foot on the street."

[kereeachan]

And notably the REAL reason this is happening is so major social media sites don't have to do real moderation or put in better safeguards for everyone, because that could impact their bottom lines. Na. Just fuck over the ENTIRE internet instead.

[godlessondheimite]

A YA romantasy writer filed suit against another writer for copyright infringement, and as is always the case with these things, she padded her claims with delusionally spurious examples. The judge issued a 160-page ruling against the plaintiff where you can tell from the start how resentful they (or whatever clerk actually did the work) are to have been forced by duty to have read the works in question.

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Dying for a dramatic reading of this

[thestuffedalligator]

It’s not a Discworld joke unless you read it, don’t parse it as a joke, and then carry on with your life for ten years until someone stops you to say something like “It’s a pavlovian response because the dog ate a pavlova” and you scream Terry’s name with enough indignant rage you hope it rattles the pillars of the multiverse so wherever his soul is he’ll hear it.

[andhumanslovedstories]

#i don’t think this is what pterry meant by ‘a man’s not dead while his name is still spoken’

I absolutely think it is

[seiya234]

I read Jingo for the first time when I was 13.

I’m 33 now, and I still discover a new joke every time I reread it.

Terry was a comedic genius

[stormsbreadth]

#shoutout to the one in Soul Music about the leopard that got thrown out of the circus because it couldn't hear the ringmaster#it was several months after my second or third time reading the book that I clocked it was a Deaf Leopard (via @morkaischosen)

god DAMMIT

[adverbian]

When I was informed that “Vetinari” is a pun on “Medici”. That pun was so painful I couldn’t even see it.

[triflesandparsnips]

...are you FUCKING KIDDING ME.

*starts thunderously knocking on the doors of heaven*

get out here Terry I just wanna talk

[amuseoffyre]

Twurp’s Peerage made me throw a book (gently) at a wall.

In the UK, the book of the peerage is called Burke’s Peerage. Burke sounds like berk, which means a silly/annoying person. So Terry took ‘twerp’, another word for a silly or annoying person, and replaced the e with u. 

The Book of Silly and Annoying People, based on the real thing with a pun on the name thrown in for good measure.

[deathsmallcaps]

OMG I FUCKING *KNEW* VETINARI WAS A JOKE ON FUCKONG SOMETHING I JUST COULDNT GRASP IT. I THOUGHT IT WAS A REFERENCE TO WIND SOMEHOW

[sarahreesbrennan]

I am not a talented punster so I was today old when I realised about Vetinari.

[fiollaigean]

guys it's fucking close to water

[aridotdash]

[jennyofmany]

Latinclass ca. 9th grade: the text we had to translate contained the words trans means "on the other side of" or in german it can be translated to "über/ hinüber". Also silvas; silvanis means "the forest" or in german "der Wald".

Trans silvas very simply translated into german would be über den Wald

Trans silvas -> Transsilvanien -> Überwald

My latin teacher gave me a very weird look as I suddenly facepalmed myself and groaned quietly.

[arkytiorlecter]

The Venturi and Selachii feud is what killed me when I got it.

The Venturi Effect is a scientific term referring to the acceleration of a liquid through a narrow tube (like a jet).

Selachii is a classification of sharks. (I discovered this when my stepson got really into sharks)

... fucking HELL Terry.

[nochd]

In Carpe Jugulum, Count Magpyr boasts of having helped write the Malleus Maleficarum, along with the Torquus Simiae Maleficarum, the Auriga Clavium Maleficarum, and in fact the entire Arca Instrumentorum.

The Malleus Maleficarum is a very real, very nasty and absolutely batshit insane book from late 15th-century Germany, basically laying out the procedure for catching, torturing, and executing witches. Its title translates to The Hammer of Witches. The other titles are Pratchett's inventions.

Malleus = "hammer" Torquus Simiae = "monkey wrench" Auriga Clavium = "bucket of nails" Arca Instrumentorum = "box of tools"

[amuseoffyre]

Monstrous Regiment is named for a pamphlet written by extremely shouty Calvinist and one of the leaders of the new Church of Scotland, John Knox, in the 16th century against all the women getting into positions of power in politics at the time (Liz I, Mary Queen of Scots etc). The document itself is titled "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of Women".

In a book about an overbearing and baffling and misogynist God and the heroes being a ragtag regiment of literal women and monsters, I punched the air on that one. The layers of pun are built up like a millefeuille.

(Also, if you read some of the stuff in the actual tract, you can see where Pterry got some of Nuggan's laws, although proceed with caution because it's a vitriolic piece of work)