• lisanna • 21 • she/they • phannieism is a disease and baby i am terminally ill • my personal tag is #lisanna talks • sideblog @chestnutbeomie for screeching about kpop •
for the record im not technially 100% anti-AI, in the sense that its a broad category of tech being lumped under one umbrella term so it feels over-zealous to say i hate all of it all the time forever. but i also think trying to discuss what it actually IS good for is difficult right now when i cant take one step without something trying to convince me to use chatgpt to summarize my life and speed up my hobbies and turn my friends into chatbots and optimize my life into oblivion. i am certain there is nuance to the topic but can we stop cramming the square peg into the round hole before you start trying to sell me on the legitimate benefits of the square peg. please.
Neural Nets have existed for decades and are genuinely useful. It's a form of AI that recognizes patterns, and can do stuff like identify cancer cells, tell whether an egg is fertilized or not, detect fraud, and optimize routes.
Those are Expert Systems, tuned to do exactly one thing. If you (say) ask a medical expert system a question about financial law, it's useless. The autopilot that flies a 787 has no idea how to drive a truck on the freeway. A Coulter Counter is excellent at identifying lymphocytes in a blood sample but can't predict the next card in a blackjack game.
And so on.
The problem with so-called generalized AI (AGI) is that we don't have that yet. It doesn't exist. It MIGHT some day, but AGI has been "10 years away" since the 1980s. The goals keep moving as we learn more about how people and machines process data.
But the current crop of AI techbros have been selling generative Large Language Model AI (LLM) as AGI because generative systems do a good job of faking it. There's no actual thought going on, merely the illusion of thought via predicting the next word in a sentence accurately.
If you let a human toddler listen to 800 hours of YouTube car influencer videos, that toddler might end up sounding like a car influencer. They'd parrot horsepower numbers and 0 to 60 times, mention EV range and MSRP numbers.
But they wouldn't understand any of it.
That's ChatGPT.
And yeah, it's worse than useless because it doesn't even know when it's lying or hallucinating. It just babbles convincingly until you stop it.
But for techbros to make money selling that as "AI"? It's the perfect scam, especially if you don't understand how it works.
buzz aldrin and neil armstrong liked to do a thing where they’d tell unfunny jokes at parties about being on the moon and when people were confused they’d go “guess you had to have been there”
Hello. Since I've seen people submit finished wheels, I thought I'd submit a wheel I came up with. In this case, it's a wheel to tell you something that you can't do for a week.
no but like lestat keeps being drawn to the non-sexual intimacy he shares with louis, with brushing of their hands, the moments of their pinkies touching......................................like that's so hugely important to lestat in a sea of hypersexualization, the fact that he and louis connect on a deep level....so to have their final scene being them lovingly touching each other's neck scars...
You can tell the difference in Lestat’s intent based on who was telling the story.
In Claudia’s version of events, Lestat was being cruel by making her watch Charlie burn. Grabbing her with his hands and forcing her to gaze as his face melted. His face is serious as he tortures her with this lesson.
In Lestat’s memories, he was holding Claudia’s hand the entire time as she watched Charlie burn in front of her. His face is melancholic and tearful as he likely recalls Nicki being burned by Armand. He was enduring the pain with her in real time.
Claudia never knew any of this because she never looked back to see his face.
oh, no, you misunderstand me. those were my monkeys. yeah the circus and i have since parted ways. yeah it was the elephant thing, i dont really want to address that right now though
How am I STILL seeing discourse about not pressuring Dan and Phil to get married on Twitter 😭
oh for the love of god they want us to speculate about this that's their entire aim with this. it's probably tour segment related somehow but regardless what it is it could not be any more obvious that they want us to talk about it
hell i'll take it a step further and say i think the reason they made a big deal out of not wanting to get married when hard launching in the first place wasn't to stop speculation, it was to start it. dan and phil are not stupid and they've been on the internet long enough to know that repeatedly announcing to the world how much you aren't getting married is not gonna do anything but make people theorise you're getting married. we can't speculate about the nature of their relationship anymore so they pivoted because they know what keeps this fandom more alive than anything else, and marriage is not some sacred thing to them that they care about enough to be bothered that we're in their business
will they actually get married? who knows! i mean personally i think yes like i think they're probably doing some marriage/wedding related tour segment and then getting married At Some Point after the tour. bonus points of the tour segment is specifically about how they aren't getting married. and i think they will exploit the fuck out of those wedding photos for instagram likes and another popbase feature because again marriage is just not that deep to them and they're addicted to the dramatics and attention of it all
#and thinking about the pattern with how the show is bringing up Lestat and blow jobs this season…
What does this make you think?
And Lestat making himself burn while he sings about the laws that burned Claudia and only Armand deciding who lives and who dies and trying to get Nicki out of his head.... I love this show
I think they're riffing on this idea of Lestat effectively being gagged, and how that intermingles both with his explicit sexualisation, but also his inability to both express himself truthfully, or be heard when he tries to.
The first time it comes up is when TC's reading the book and, in the moment, starts to relate what she's reading to the songs Lestat's writing. Louis' story (which again, I do think he had a right to tell!) as recorded by Daniel speaks for, and over Lestat (and Claudia, of course, but that's a whole other post), which alters TC's understanding of Lestat's songs. Music is about expression, it's about artistry, not necessarily truth or story, but the context of the book forces dialogue, it forces narrative, which Lestat partially embraces by touring as The Vampire Lestat (interesting in a season where Louis removes himself from the narrative by living publicly as Thomas Pitt), that he can handle so long as it's all pretend. The Fang Gang attack and the band finding out makes the public performance and personal narrative collide, and the reality of that is that Lestat's truth has ultimately been chewed up and spat out by Louis' truth.
(This got cap heavy, so I'll put it behind a cut!)
TC's confrontation here is about performance and narrative colliding, which is forcing her to recontextualise what she's involved in and who she's involved with artistically and professionally, and the shortcut she takes in applying Lestat as she knows him - a hypersexual frontman - has her reduce his truth to Louis' sexual gratification, which diminishes both Lestat and Louis' stories, and their reasons for speaking.
It's a sentiment revisited directly at the start of 3.03 by Daniel, and like TC, when offered a truth - more than the one TC got about what the song's about - Daniel deflects to sex. Lestat can speak, can put things out, but Daniel, here, would put things in. It's not words in his mouth, which he'd do sometimes to Louis, it's - for want of a better word, haha - dicks. It's all sexualised, all objectifying, something punctuated by the later blow-up doll line.
In interviewing here about both Nicki and Magnus, Daniel seeks to exploit traumas that never should've been shared with him in the first place, and in doing that, Lestat's truth isn't what Daniel's after, but his pain. He's looking for something he can sell in Lestat, a juxtaposition to his interview with Louis which while no less exploitative, was steeped still in a place of genuine journalistic interrogation and truthseeking, no doubt tied to their shared history.
For Daniel, Louis' story was about the story, Lestat's story is about the product, two different sides of his career aspirations - profile and profit.
The glory hole in the same episode twists that thread of truth not as something ignored, but something that needs to be silenced. With the book and Lestat's music being vehicles of vampiric truth, Lestat's violated image behind Louis' shoulder escalates the sense of silencing to a literal and violent 'gag order'. It eschews TC and Daniel's initial introduction of the thread at least as something consensual between two married men, and compounds the objectification of the blowup doll to dehumanising effect, punctuated by its place within the broader episode.
But then in 3.04, another pivot - an important pivot, in my opinion, because for the first time, Lestat ends up playing into it. It's at the party, documentary crew in tow, after Lestat recounts his time with Gabi in the Italian tavern, when Daniel asks if the religious man still clutched his Jesus figure while Lestat sucked him off.
Of course, Lestat's not the one who fucks him. No, that scene precursors the later reveal of Gabi's coercion of, and rape of Lestat, and here, Lestat takes Daniel's sexualisation of him, the ease with which he'd put something into his mouth rather than listen to what comes out of it, and uses it as cover for his own shame and violation. This time, the first of these four instances, truth isn't what Lestat wants to express, but rather something he wants to conceal, and he uses his own sexualisation to do it. If he blew the man that night, maybe his mother didn't take him instead.
I was already thinking about this, but that sneak peek today with muse!NIcki talking about Lestat going down on Armand as Lestat tried to sing Big Boss really made me think it's a thread that's going to have another evolution, and how it's tangled up in truth and silence and sex and violation will, I think, be really interesting to see.
(Apologies as always for my dodgy capping on unsubbed videos, haha).
But yeah! I think the show's exploring the mouth as a tool of communication, and all the ways that can be quietened or hindered, and I think the specific focus on sucking dick is a part of exploring both the ways that Lestat's hypersexualised by others, but also how he uses that hypersexualisation to hide the truth when he wants or needs to.
Okay I don’t know when this post is from (I came across it stalking multiple blogs). But in case this might help, here is a brief science/wine lesson.
To start off, some facts:
-White wine is made from sweet pulp inside of the grape (minus the seeds).
-Red wine is made from both the skin and the grape (and the seeds and stems…sometimes? Can’t remember).
-Tannin is the substance found in red wines, coffee, dark chocolate. Tannins are responsible for the bitter taste in those foods.
-Tannins are found in the skin of the grape, as well as the seeds and the stems. Therefore, most red wines will have tannins, versus most whites will not have tannins.
-Red wines vary in level of tannins, depending on variety of grape, climate, and fermentation process. Pinot noir tends to be very low tannin. Shiraz/Syrah, choice of poison for our beloved brunette surgeon, is very heavy on the tannins.
-Some white wines (most commonly Chardonnay) are aged in oak barrels instead of metal containers. Oak barrels have tannins, which seeps into the wine during the fermentation process. That’s why Chardonnays tend to be “drier” aka it has tannins.
-White wines like Sauvingnon Blancs are usually fermented in steel barrels (aka no tannins. Aka usually very fruity and light and sweet).
Your ability to taste tannins is genetic.
There is a genetic marker determining whether your taste cells are sensitive to tannins.
Basically two people can drink the exact same wine and have wildly different reactions because:
1. Person A can’t taste tannins, so they taste the actual wine flavor.
2. Person B can taste tannins, and that tends to overpower ALL the other flavors in the wine. Basically all they taste is tannins and none of the wine.
I am super tannin sensitive, so if I drink a wine like Cabernet Sauvignon (very tannin heavy, aka “very dry”, it tastes like bitter ethanol alcohol to me, whereas my best friend can’t taste tannins so the same wine is maybe a little bitter but they can actually taste the grape and different flavors. To her, a wine like Sauv Blanc is too sweet, tastes like sugar water. But to me it tastes good.
So unless it’s the taste of the alcohol or all wines you hate, chances are you might hate the taste of red wine, especially the heavier red wines, because taste the tannin overpowers everything else. And all you taste is bitter bitter ethanol bitter more ethanol.
More tannin info:
-Tannins bind to fat.
-This is why tannin heavy wines are recommended with fatty foods (Shiraz and steak). Whenever you eat food with high fat content, the fat builds up on your tongue. A sip of red wine will bind with the fat on your tongue and clear it away. That’s why the sip of wine between bites of fat heavy foods is considered a palate cleanser.
-By that logic, this is why white wines are recommended with low fat foods, like fish. Salmon is fattier than most fish, which is why Chardonnay (tannin heavy white wine) or Pinot Noir (low tannin red wine) is recommended with salmon.
-People who are sensitive to tannins can drink tannin heavy red wines with fatty food and generally the wine won’t taste gross. The fat on your tongue (from that steak) will bind with the tannin and neutralize the tannin taste. Aka the only time I ever drink Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz is with a steak or heavy, creamy pasta. Aka never bc I don’t often eat either.
-The reason dairy helps coffee taste better is because the fat in milk/creams binds with the tannins in coffee and neutralizes the bitter taste. This is why people who can’t taste tannins can generally drink coffee black without milk (sugar is a different story). It’s also why almond milk in coffee is the worst idea (almond milk is already bitter and has no fat).
More wine facts:
-90% of the “aromas” of wine are marketing BS
-You know the labels that say like “cherry with a hint of blackberry?” There’s no real way to infuse cherry or blackberry into grape wine without screwing with the fermentation process. It’s all created by the wine marketing industry to sell you win. Sometimes if you smell cherry before you drink the wine, you might taste it in the wine (because majority of flavor comes from smell). Or if you think there is cherry flavor in the wine, your brain can trick your taste buds into tasting it.
-The only true flavors found in real grape wine are grapes (obviously), oak/earthy flavor (the barrels), vanilla (barrels, oak sticks), tannins. (There are a few others but can’t remember. I think maybe cinnamon?).
-People’s perception of wine often affect how good it tastes to them. Social psychology studies show that people will rate the exact same wine differently if they’re told the wines are different in price. (They rated the more expensive wine as tastier).
tl;dr
Whether you can taste tannins is genetic. Exact same wines taste different for different people depending on your genetic makeup. If you’re sensitive to tannins, red wines won’t taste like anything other than bitter alcohol. Genetics/tannins are why people generally have preferences for red or whites.
this is extremely informative and i have learned a thing about myself, which is that i CLEARLY inherited the tannin-tasting genes from my teatotaling mother and not from my dad who subsists entirely on espresso and cabernet sauvignon.
Black tea also has tannins, so if you - like me - need to drink it with cream and don’t brew it nearly as long as tea aficionados say in scandalized tones you ought to, because otherwise it’s too bitter, you uh. might be sensitive to tannins.
I think that dark roast coffee has more tannins than light roast; I know for certain it requires a good deal more cream/milk to balance out the bitter/burnt taste.
zoom-kaboom crow-tit monsoon @kardulis - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
