a world called catastrophe

The world is a strange place, a catastrophic place, it can be scary but it can also be beautiful if you allow yourself to see it. We draw everything we have in our lives ourselves. There is no one creating it or sabotaging it. We can live in the storm or we can see the break in the clouds. Call me an idealist, but I believe what Elliott Smith said... "a distorted reality is now a necessity to be free" so I will keep on creating, dreaming, and wishing for a better tomorrow even when it seems hopeless. On my blog you will find good and bad news. You will find stories of economic, social, and psychological struggles. You will find stories of economic, social and psychological triumphs. I post photos and the occasional personal anecdote of just how crazy it is to be alive right now.

[giragirameganedan]

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Why an ex-national chief wants to sue Canada over its secret Indigenous spying program | CBC News

Ovide Mercredi says he intends to sue the federal government over its surveillance of Indigenous leaders. It's the latest response to a CBC

Ovide Mercredi is many things, but a terrorist isn't one of them. A lawyer, poet and member of the Order of Canada, he's an accomplished Cree leader who spent two terms leading the Assembly of First Nations in the 1990s. And yet, sitting inside his Winnipeg living room flipping through a hefty stack of formerly secret intelligence files, Mercredi is compelled to set the record straight. "I don't appreciate being called an extreme Native," the former national chief says emphatically, "because I'm not a terrorist." Yet there he is, in black and white — named in a secret 1997 domestic counterterrorism report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which lists Mercredi's call for a national day of protest against federal policy inaction as "Native extremism."

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[dreg-heap]

God could you imagine how mad geologists must have been to slowly watch the "hey all the continents kinda fit like puzzle pieces :)" guy get proven right

[madnessofmen]

It was a woman that did it!

[talldarkandautistic-deactivated]

I love girl talk, especially when it’s complex geological theory

[imgoingonanadventurebrb]

@rifle-yes

All the continents really did used to be one body so you really are never alone and girls said it first 💁‍♀️

[rifle-wtf]

My girl is an icon and we regularly turn this photo of her into a meme when men in our department say/do stupid things.

[girlinspacepodcast]

Resist the push for generative AI. Make art.

Source:

Make Art — Joshua W. Cotter

Alt Text: Four panels of a comic by artist Joshua W. Cotter entitled "Make Art".

Panel 1: "Art poses a threat to corporatocratic systems because a purpose of art is to remind the individual of their inherent autonomy. Their humanity."

Panel 2: "That is a purpose in direct diametric opposition to that of corporatocratic systems: objectification of the individual for profit and control."

Panel 3: "Generative A.I. is part of an authoritarian corporatocratic effort to co-opt and commodify the creative process to rid the end result — art — of that with threatens its existence — humanity."

Panel 4: "Resist commodification. Defy corporatocracy. Defy oligarchy. Defy their anti-human, anti-life authoritarian movement. Make art." — JWC, 02-10-26

[santapau]

Remind me later.

[natashatrace]

who knows what we might have in common?

[thisfeebleheart]

Heated Rivalry, Chapter Eight

[shencomix]

[keepthedelta]

possibly the best ever piece of american sports journalism

[fumblrina]

EASILY the best ever piece of [us]american sports journalism. I’m weeping

This is @zoesupreme level sports commentary, I won’t accept anything less

[thefragman]

lmao. Mary Carillo is a legend. I remember watching this on TV during college.

She delivered a lengthy, well-received commentary on badminton during this coverage.

[thebelchers]

[iamayellowbird]

I love my life. But I am incredibly sad.

[ajdumpsherbrain]

shane: mom…can you take three steps back please?

also shane at 4am in the morning:

[thelawfulchaotic]

Gemini had the fucking GALL to get in my email and summarize a 3-line email, taking up more space than the email did visually.

Hit the “thumbs down.” It’s like, what’s wrong??? Was our summary wrong? Were there offensive words? Thank you for helping us improve our AI tools :)

I selected “other.”

Text box popped up. Please elaborate!

Wrote in “I can fucking read” submit comment

Then had to spend several minutes torching all my settings with a flamethrower. Let me be clear: I’m (a lawyer) notoriously picky with my words FOR GOOD REASON (lawyering) so I overwhelmingly reject Gmail’s “helpful” little assistance. My privacy settings were set to “full paranoia” a little less than a year ago when I saw the writing on the wall and knew public defenders could become a target in the future. Better to lock it all down now.

Gemini had crept in there and turned ALL that shit back on. And showed itself by saying “Jane Doe says she’s so sorry for your loss and offers to reschedule for Thursday at 3” over an email from Jane Doe saying “I’m so sorry for your loss. We could reschedule for Thursday at 3?”

Why would I possibly need this. In what universe would I need this. I have eyes and a brain and a reading speed that twenty years ago was measured at 1500 wpm with full comprehension on dense scientific text. Furthermore! If I read a summary, I’m not reading what they actually wrote. If I’m not reading what they actually wrote, I’m not using my own judgment on the words and phrases that they used.

I literally don’t understand why this is helpful at all. This is just avoidance. Using LLMs to write is specifically Not Writing. Using LLMs to summarize is Not Reading. Using them to make art is Avoiding Making Art. Just READ! Just WRITE! I was not put on this fucking planet to not read and not write and not make art! Avoidance is an anxiety symptom and indulging it gives it more power.

If I had an AI to do my most dreaded task, answer the phone for clients, I wouldn’t use it. Because an AI cannot help them. An AI cannot hear the facts of their case, make appropriate noises, be thoughtful and insightful, and then give them a realistic estimate of what could happen in court. I am unique. I cannot be replaced by machine learning. I have style. I have expertise. I don’t hallucinate unless I’m having a really great Friday night and I’m off the clock.

When I need to outsource tasks from my own brain, I give them to people I know can do them and that I trust to do them right.

Fuck, it just sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?? Goddamn Gemini jumpscare right in my own fucking email

[so-much-for-subtlety]

in 2015 we didn’t have AI psychosis so people had to make do by believing a dress was white and gold

[savagegardenhorse]

i lied we arent having sex put your clothes back on. we arw reading The Encyclopedia Of Horses, 1000 Pictures, Nearly 200 Breeds

[iamayellowbird]

Ideal date

[socialistexan]

This coming out just days after it was revealed in the Jeffrey Epstein email dump that powerful people manipulated American and British news, political figures and forums to push transphobia to distract from people looking at their child abuse ring.

This includes chief anti-Corbyn-ite in Labour Peter Mandelson, directly feeding anti-trans stories to UK and US newspapers, actively bullshiting "biological studies" that trans people are idk ontologically evil (we have proof of Epstein pitching this exact thing), and creating /pol/ and then feeding anti-trans conspiracy theories for years until it all boiled over.

And over and over we found out each plank of this argument was rotten from the start but people are choosing to keep the bigotry.

[feeshies]

Funny growing up in the late 2000s and seeing constant "don't text and drive" warnings, PSAs telling us to put our phones down behind the wheel, wait until you're home to send that text, a phone-distracted driver is a deadly driver etc etc

Only for modern car manufacturers to be like "we made the car a phone :) now you have to text and drive to change the radio station :)"

[iamayellowbird]

Effing touchscreen everything. Bring back knobs! Make cars knobs again!