the art of sunshine

anna or anne/24/she-her/prev. ripjily, bookwrms, karkaroff. i don't support jkr.

[meanpersonaart]

Marzanna/Morana - slavic deity of winter, death and rebirth

Watercolour and coloured pencils + digital re-touch on paper by meanpersonaart (me) 2024

[pmamtraveller]

A collection of Moroccan doors

[kosmogrl]

friendship breakups are lowkey the worst thing ever cause what do you mean this person I used to share every single detail of my life with is just gone

[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.

[headspace-hotel]

"Alaska is a place known to the public, so setting a novel in a Alaska is not copyrightable."

[valtsv]

kind of love it when someone is given a position of power they don't want and instead of being all reluctantly noble and stepping up to bravely bear the burden they're an immature cunt about it

[lunchboxpoems]

JAMES A. PEARSON

[fluoresensitives]

(smoking a cigarette) the average american is afraid of what is new and what is foreign, and especially of what is adult. they are trapped forever in daycares of their own design, reading books and watching shows made for children. And while there are interesting things made for children, by and large, they tend to stick to inoffensive, intensely juvenile things that won't challenge them much. And worst of all, if you suggest to your Average American that they should try to step outside of their narrow box, especially if they're trying to become artists, animators, film makers, novelists, etc, everyone acts as if you've just bombed the daycare. Wow.

[classicalcanvas]

Harpy by Edvard Munch

[wingful]

a mary oliver quote that peeled me like a fruit

[tpwrtrmnky]

When politicians say "we gotta appeal to the working class" you have to keep in mind that in their imaginations, the working-class person is basically a form of ogre-like creature whose existence consists of backbreaking manual labor and seething with Every Single Bigotry.

[the-forest-library]

Sun and Moon Window Details - Cesky Krumlov

[flowerytale]

[dailyclassicart]

Frank Cadogan Cowper - "The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy" (1926)

[cutecipher]

science has always been political. what gets studied. what doesnt. who gets to do the studying. on and on and on.

[cutecipher]

scientists on this post: yuuuup 👍

people who aren't scientists: um actually ☝️

[remindertoclick]

Hi everyone! Here's your Daily Reminder to Click for Palestine!

And if you can spare a dollar, donate to ANERA!

[hampdencollege]

Santos is one of the angriest people you are ever going to meet.

[cosmonaut775]

Hey do y’all remember when Boeing fucking killed a guy last year. And we all said “huh I guess Boeing fucking killed a guy” and then went on with our lives. And everybody knew that Boeing had fully just fucking executed a guy and nothing came of it. Like there was no police investigation no justice no nothing. Like literally EVERYBODY knew that Boeing had full on murdered a guy to silence him and there wasn’t any consequences for them. Kinda crazy.

[flamie87]

and there was even less talk when openai did the exact same thing more recently

[flamie87]

So for those who are, very understandably uninitiated on this story:

On 23 October last year (2024) the New York Times published an interview with former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji who worked on organising and gathering data for OpenAI until 2022 when he begun thinking about the morality of it. He eventually came to the conclusion that what OpenAI is doing blatantly violates copyright law and decided to leave the company altogether in August 2024.

After he came out with this accusation he was set to appear in court to testify against OpenAI’s data-gathering practices, something which had the potential of being a complete disaster for the company and the generative AI industry as a whole.

That was until 26 November, just days before he was due to appear in court, when he suddenly and mysteriously was found dead inside his own apartment. Investigators concluded that the death was self-inflicted, something which his family has disputed.

There was also “sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like someone hit him in the bathroom based on blood spots”, and his apartment showed signs of having been ransacked for evidence: “The pin drive is missing. His computer was messed up.”.

Overall it feels pretty clear-cut what happened, that is to say that OpenAI had him killed because he was a legitimate threat to their business, indicating that they are fully aware that the way they’re gathering data is completely illegal.

Sources:

Alys Davies, 14.12.2024, OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment. BBC News

Barney Davis, 16.1.2025, Suchir Balaji’s family demand outside investigation into OpenAI whistleblower’s death. The Independent

Cade Metz, 23.11.2024, Former OpenAI Researcher Says the Company Broke Copyright Law. The New York Times

[ralfmaximus]

Boeing killed two whistleblowers, in March and May of 2024. Both were set to testify about safety violations.