Sometimes I Try to Be Normal

I find things. I post things. I reblog things. (Not so much on the posting part, I’m afraid)

[my-dailydreams]

[skelotan]

I'm still Big Mad from the animation industry AI news, and I had some thoughts I needed to get out. There are lots of more important reasons why artists shouldn't use AI, but here is my philosophical take on it.

PATREON

[tpwrtrmnky]

The satirical research field "parachute use to prevent death and major trauma" is such a goldmine. The two major publications

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC300808/

and

https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

are pretty much perfect satire of the way pseudo-skeptics dismiss domain experts and demand "hard evidence" in the form of exclusively flawless double-blind controlled studies, while clearly demonstrating that they have no idea what that entails, or what the limitations of RCTs are.

[anarchqueen]

wild way to say "kill yourselves"

[tpwrtrmnky]

But the randomized control trial that was actually performed (second link) found no evidence that parachutes prevent mortality! (because they could only recruit people willing to jump off small, landed aircraft)

[ramshacklefey]

Okay wait how did you leave out:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a medical intervention justified by observational data must be in want of verification through a randomised controlled trial.

[ramshacklefey]

Salt levels critical.

The relevance to parachute use is that individuals jumping from aircraft without the help of a parachute are likely to have a high prevalence of pre-existing psychiatric morbidity. Individuals who use parachutes are likely to have less psychiatric morbidity and may also differ in key demographic factors, such as income and cigarette use. It follows, therefore, that the apparent protective effect of parachutes may be merely an example of the “healthy cohort” effect.

[natalieironside]

There's always a moment of intense cultural whiplash whenever I realize I'm talking to someone who thinks "legal" and "illegal" are meaningful categories and ascribes innate goodness to following the law. It's like meeting a space alien.

[natalieironside]

Like ppl will say things to me like "But that's Against The Law 😱" or "but they Broke The Law 😱" like sinners in the hands of an angry God and idk what to do w/ that

[natalieironside]

"But [action] is A Crime and if someone does [action] then they'll be a Criminal who Broke The Law! But what about The Law?"

[nolvini]

new moon

[owwllly]

encouraging the new qifling

[secretmellowart]

[Part 1 here] [Website/More Comics]

Hans Christian Andersen's the Little Mermaid: Part II.

For Mermay this year, I picked up where I left off adapting the original Little Mermaid fairytale last year. The world below the water is painted like black & white shadow puppets, while the world above the water is painted like stained glass. The shadow puppets call back to old fairytale storytelling traditions and the work of Lotte Reiniger, while the stained glass imagery reflects how the original story associates the world on land with churches and holiness and the question of who gets to have a "human soul."

Thank you all for following me this month again, including people who were here for last year too!!! I'm so glad other people enjoy this little project, and I hope to see you guys again next year!! <3333

[secretmellowart]

[secretmellowart]

[update: visit part 2 here!]

For Mermay this year, I adapted the original Little Mermaid fairytale with one page every day. The world below the water is painted like black & white shadow puppets, while the world above the water is painted like stained glass. The shadow puppets call back to old fairytale storytelling traditions and the work of Lotte Reiniger, while the stained glass imagery reflects how the original story associates the world on land with churches and holiness and the question of who gets to have a "human soul." Thank you all for following me on this art journey, and thank you so much for all your kind comments! I hope to continue next May.

[goth-queen]

[exitwound]

mutuals

[segamascott]

okay so here's the thing about 50,000 people vs 1 ceo of a utility company

[segamascott]

technofascist surveillance state actually the have fun with ai was just them selling it to the public ☺️

[sniperct]

'It's like we don't exist': Nearly 50,000 Lake Tahoe residents face power loss as utility redirects lines to data centers | Fortune

Roughly 49,000 Lake Tahoe residents could lose 75% of their power after their energy provider said it's directing energy to neighboring data

NV Energy continues to be trash, I see.

[pastrypen]

librarians are fun because you'll go and ask for a book no one has read for one william years and they'll be like 'it's not on the system but the neighboring system's neighboring system's neighboring system's uncle's cousin's baby's laboratory professor's favorite crystal provider's alma mater has a copy'

[ivyandbranch]

Get a Library Card even if you never use it

[lyragoth]

Courage, Merry Courage for our friends

Eowyn vs Witch-King

[louisetaylor]

the lotr movies got eowyn wrong. yes the fighting was cool. "i am no man" scene was badass. but the point of eowyn is not "woman wants to fight, isn't allowed to, eventually gets to fight and that's her happy ending."

the point of eowyn is "woman is depressed, wants to be free/respected/seen/known/loved, is put in a (metaphorical) box with the other women, wants to fight bc it will bring her either Respect or Death."

she kills the dang Witch King. she fights and wins and it's awesome and satisfying. but fighting is NOT her happy ending. it's her sad ending. she ends up wounded and broken, like everyone else in this stupid WWI-trauma story. Like Frodo. Like Faramir.

I cannot emphasize enough that Faramir meets her AFTER she is UNABLE to fight (the only thing she thought gave her value and honor) and STILL admires and respects and loves her. Eowyn is more than a fighter. Eowyn is more than what she does. And for someone like me who's disabled from doing a lot of things that society expects of me, that means a lot.

[maxknightley]

"it would be so good if it was good" will haunt you but "it's extremely good, except for the one or two parts which are so bad it's genuinely kind of insulting" will straight up drive you insane

[maxknightley]

one has you making posts like "okay but if the author UNDERSTOOD the POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS of the story they were telling, and leaned into it, it would actually be a really interesting exploration of..."

the other has you pacing your bedroom at one in the morning going "why. why would you ever in a million years do it like that. genuinely what possible thought process was involved. was the writer possessed by a fucking ghost or something."

[sparrowvarrow]

Sebastian... Sebastian my beloved.....