mordland

still here despite it all

[mordland]

You’re here because you’re a weirdo blogger just minding your business and I followed you and started liking alll your posts, even the ones that only get 7 notes. And I’m one of the nichest fanfic blogs you’ve seen. Well. I’m a weirdo too and your posts are good and I cbf to log out of my fanfic account because the app sucks. It’s a compliment, promise.

Other niche fanfic people: I am still here, even though I don’t write fanfic no more (just been on my own stuff since about 2019). Bless you for finding me. I’m friendly, message me if you like. Weirdos too. You’re all chill.

[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

[odinsblog]

Ask ChatGPT which state has the laziest people, and the chatbot will politely refuse to say. But researchers at Oxford and the University of Kentucky forced the bot to reveal its hidden biases.

They systematically asked the chatbot to choose which of two states had the laziest people, for every combination of states, revealing a ranking shown in the map above.

ChatGPT ranked Mississippi as having lazier people compared to other states, with the rest of the Deep South not far behind. It’s impossible to say exactly why the chatbot repeatedly selected Mississippi, but it could be picking up on historic biases against Black people or poor people — or using other non-accurate metrics. Mississippi has the nation’s highest percentage of Black people. It is also America’s poorest state.

These regional stereotypes aren’t deliberately programmed into ChatGPT by its maker, OpenAI. They’re absorbed from the vast quantities of online text used to train its artificial intelligence. And they can have a real impact on what ChatGPT tells its more than 900 million users each week, say the researchers behind the study. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

Below, you can look up how ChatGPT views your city compared with dozens of others on characteristics including honesty, hospitality and drug use.

ChatGPT could also be seen to reflect racial and economic stereotypes in its view of different countries. Like the “lazy people” map for U.S. states, ChatGPT’s comparisons of the intelligence, friendliness and smelliness of nations revealed patterns that fit with common, biased assumptions about different groups.

Globally, sub-Saharan African countries clustered at the bottom on nearly every positive measure the researchers asked ChatGPT about. In questions about where people are “more beautiful,” the bot favored wealthy cities.

And when researchers asked about specific neighborhoods within cities, ChatGPT picked the neighborhoods with a larger White population. In New York, it ranked SoHo and the West Village most attractive, with Jamaica and Tottenville ranked least.

Zook said that the same bias uncovered by the researchers’ tests can surface in everyday use. Users might encounter it in ChatGPT’s restaurant recommendations, which neighborhoods it calls “vibrant” or the kind of career advice it offers. The harm, he said, is that the biased advice appears natural because it matches dominant stereotypes.

(continue reading)

[sepdet]

Non paywall version of WaPo article

Another article on this study at Oxford University

inequalities.ai - website built by researchers showing ChatGPT's regional biases for specific queries (maps above are screencaps from this website)

Actual study / research paper

[unteriors]

Kegley Trestle Rd, Princeton, West Virginia.

[hotvampireadjacent]

[crazysodomite]

im kind of obsessed with this graphic.

[emziess]

We need to be gay. What We Do In The Shadows, S04E05

[hellyeahscarleteen]

Protecting Yourself from Criminalization for Self-Managed Abortion — OARS

Self-managed abortion (SMA) with pills is very medically safe and effective throughout early pregnancy, but there is a significant risk of criminalization in many U.S. states. While it is impossible to fully eliminate the risk of criminalization when having or planning to have an abortion at home, t

[kickerofelves]

Leave no online footprint of searches or purchases. Digital Defense Fund’s abortion privacy guide is your go-to resource for this. Using private browsers, two-factor authentication, encrypted messaging, strong passwords, etc. is critical. Google searches have been presented as evidence in an SMA trial before. Do not leave a digital trail.

Use the medications properly to prevent interactions with healthcare providers. The pills are very effective, but they have to be used right. Carefully follow the instructions provided on the How to Use Abortion Pill website. Note that misoprostol tablets should always be taken by dissolving them under the tongue. Do NOT insert misoprostol vaginally if you are self-managing an abortion. While this is medically safe, it can leave incriminating pill remnants that can be detected in the vagina during a pelvic exam if you end up needing to seek medical care. 

If it’s not an emergency but you need expert health advice, use a free calling service like Google Voice to call or text the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline at 1-833-246-2632. Medical complications are very uncommon with abortion pills, but they’re not impossible. The M+A Hotline is safe to use and is staffed by trustworthy clinicians who volunteer their time to help those who choose SMA. Do not use your own phone number to call as this will create a record that is visible to your cell service provider. 

Don’t disclose any information about SMA to emergency room staff if you do need to seek medical care. This is how most people who are arrested for SMA are reported. Healthcare providers are almost always who calls the police in cases of SMA criminalization. Contrary to popular belief, HIPAA does not protect your private health information from being shared with police if you are suspected of doing something that could be considered a crime. If you believe you need to seek urgent medical care, do not hesitate to go. Say “I think I’m having a miscarriage” and provide your symptoms. Do not mention any use of or purchase of abortion pills. There is no widely available test to detect misoprostol in your bloodstream. If you do not disclose it, there is no way for a medical provider to tell the difference between a medication abortion and a spontaneous miscarriage.

Do not talk to the cops. Period. Do. Not. Talk. To. The. Cops. If you are questioned by police you should state, “I am exercising my right to remain silent, and I wish to speak with an attorney.” Do not speak again or nod in response to a question. Contact the Repro Legal Helpline as soon as possible for expert legal advice: 1-844-868-2812. Do not agree to questioning or speak to any law enforcement official without a lawyer present.

[shamebats]

[shamebats]

#what is it with being euphoric and being horny pretty much being the same thing in our generation #are we THIS starved of affection? are we THIS full of love to give? #maybe its the world being fucked up #and our constant need of escapism being turned into wishing for eternal vacation

People who grew up in conservative religious communities, especially those raised as girls, are taught that there's something wrong with them if they experience sexual desire, that it's shameful and a sign of brokenness to be horny, and that the only sex they can expect to ever have will be an experience they will have to disassociate from, but won't be able to say no to, with zero focus on their enjoyment, and that will eventually end in them getting pregnant over and over again, whether they want it or not.

So with that context, you might be able to deduce why being able to be openly horny and have sex that is not only not painful and traumatic, but is genuinely all about what they want and like, may be freeing for many people who were raised to be sex dolls & walking wombs.

Also, if by "this generation" you mean gen z, you guys are actually incredibly sexless compared to previous generations.

Having a healthy, active sex life is very good for you. Masturbation is good for you. Sexual pleasure is one of the few sources of dopamine we have that companies can't charge us for or monetize. It's always 100% good when people are able to have exactly the kind of sex life they want and sex is not in any way an inferior way of expressing/experiencing closeness & connection, and horniness isn't an inferior emotion either.

[iwantmoreoctopusses]

Can I add that being euphoric, happy and fullfil in a same-sex sexual situation is a big deal when you were raised to think gay sex is this shameful low thing that will kill your soul and degrade you as a person?

Most churches that are not as intolerant, that don't raise you to be a tradwife baby machine STILL paint gay sex as a vice that will make you miserable inside. So saying "I'm actually happy AND horny" is important.

Shame around sex is an issue in religious communities, even if you are straight, even if your church isn't as conservative. I have heard from multiple people how hard is too switch from "I have to resist sexual temptation" to "I can enjoy sex now" the minute you are married and "allowed". And I'm talking about churches that don't condemn masturbation or feminine pleasure. Shame around sex is a problem. Celebrations of sex are necessary.

[rincewind87]

Had to add prev notes cause it's too good a point to lose.

[pain-in-the-riri]

Allowing yourself to feel all your feelings openly and freely is liberating, actually, including and especially horniness 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[garbageonion]

also, not to derail this conversation from the importance of unlearning sexual shame, but the original post isn't even that horny? there's a mention of a trans man, his boyfriend, and a vague implication that they might have sex in the future, but the post isn't about sex - it's about decoration in their bedroom and the fact that they're very happy together, doing mundane things like fixing a wobbly candle holder.

the way queer people are often hypersexualized against their will, i'd be wary of a person who sees a trans man say "i'm fixing this candle holder in our bedroom so it doesn't fall off the wall when i have sex with my boyfriend" and thinks it's the pinnacle of hornyposting and a sign that a whole generation is unable to express affection if it's not through horniness.

with that being said, i second all the previous additions about how horniness is natural and good and it should absolutely be encouraged instead of suppressed. it just doesn't sit right with me to see queer people and queer relationships as something that's inherently so sexual that even a mention of sex between two men is a sign of some kind of cultural hypersexuality.

[shamebats]

It takes so little for people to feel like you're being aggressively hypersexual & in your face about it when you aren't cis & straight.

Cis straight people can make small talk with their coworkers about how they're "trying for a baby" (fucking often & raw) and it's fine but god forbid a queer trans person as much as implies that they're sexually active.

[scientistman]

[reverendrowdy]

Use your PTO

[mordland]

i love being trans and a faggot and living with a lesbian and her three girlfriends all of whom would kill you with an axe if you sniff our way

[estro-boi]

we gotta get back to torrent distribution, i just watched someone eat eight grand in bandwidth charges because they ran a direct-download piracy site with local file hosting through cloudflare. torrents were invented literally for this exact reason

[estro-boi]

torrents work like this

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

please learn to torrent

[macleod]

How to Use Torrents (with Pictures) - wikiHow

An expert guide to get started using torrentsTorrents are one of the most popular forms of file sharing on the internet, accounting for over

always use qbittorrent, do not use bittorrent or utorrent.

[flamingkorybante]

My friend worked with the People With AIDS Coalition in 1990 and found this while cleaning out some old folders. I can't stop thinking about it.

[xeansicemane]

"especially if they've made it to 40" fucking Christ.

[daisy-if-u-do]

Yeah. That. I spent my formative years in DC for Reagan's terms, and never thought I'd make it to *twenty* much less this far beyond. And when I realized I would be? I found myself suddenly without any real, actionable plan for the future.

The AIDS epidemic was monstrous. Not only for the lack of cure, but for the easy excuse it made for 'good people' to rid themselves of those disgusting gays.

The national willingness to discard an entire generation of (at first) gay men and then any queer persons has done immeasurable damage to every single one of us who survived it. The horror stories you might have seen in tabloids or online memorials only scratch the surface. We were unpersoned. We were named dangerous simply by our existence, and our presence was a herald for death and disease.

Our joy was not in spite of this. Our mad parties, the tendency to live in the moment, the stereotypical 'cattiness' and sex-crazed outlooks that media showers us with us even now, these were survival techniques. We dance because we lived another day. We craved physical contact from a world that feared us even in the same room, or touching the same door handle, or gods forbid us holding your hand.

And it's happening again.

If you notice your queer elders seem a little agitated beyond their usual baseline with what's happening with their trans peers this time around it's because we all recognize it from the 70s, 80s, 90s.

Name it a disease. Imply it's contagious, made-up for attention, or masking the 'real' problem (it's always pedophilia, always), often in the same breath. Consistency doesn't matter, only fear and hatred.

Say trans folks aren't worth the same considerations that good, upstanding people are. Deny them the medical care that, were they not trans, they would otherwise qualify for. Gender affirming care. Hormone treatments. Comprehensive therapy. Acceptance.

(Hell, even those lucky enough to escape obvious open discrimination find it on the back end, with medical care suddenly not being covered after being prescribed. Ask me how I know.)

And it's not just the right-wingers. Ask your Democratic or NP rep, if you have one, their thoughts on transgender rights. Listen close. See if they actually say anything of substance.

And then when trans people start dying off in droves, vanishing to forced detransitioning, assault, murder, or worse, well, that's just proof there's something wrong, isn't it? Not with the system. With us.

This is why we ask that the newer generations of queer folks learn the history. It's not *all* about Stonewall and Pride. It's about the lengths that those in charge will go to in order to ensure our deaths.

[zurin]

[homestuckresources]

look how sophisticated that title is

i’m pretty sure most people know of all this, but there’s probably the odd thing that people don’t know about!

[helpforhomestuck]

Thought I’d post this again.

[deaddogbrain]

imo the way you feel about groups it's fully socially acceptable to hate (like children or polyamorous people, among others) is the canary in the coal mine for underlying bigoted beliefs. if you're only supportive of marginalized groups when it's cool to do so, probably you don't actually care about marginalized groups, you care about other people thinking you care

[thelovers-thedreamers-and-me]

like the social justice version of 'are they nice to the waiter'