I know my likes and asks comes from here, but if you want to interact with me or see my posts/pics (it's the blog, there's little art there. Art posting has been on a hiatus since October 2019)
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
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.
Rumination is probably the most common type of OCD compulsion, but I rarely see anyone talking about it. I've talked to multiple people diagnosed with OCD who didn't even recognize it as a compulsion.
Basically, if you have OCD you have terrible intrusive thoughts. They can be about anything, but common themes are fear of being a bad person, fear of hurting someone, fear of contamination. etc.
Rumination is when you get stuck in a spiral. Rumination is when you spend hours catastrophizing, overthinking, analyzing, telling yourself it's going to be okay.
I'll say it again:
Rumination is a compulsion.
Rumination is a compulsion, and that means you have to stop doing it.
I did ERP (exposure response prevention) for my OCD with a therapist! For 9 months! And it did help, but the idea didn't really click until I found this website a couple years later.
And Oh My God. It made things make so much more sense, and I was able to pull myself out of an episode even though I wasn't in therapy or on meds at the time.
Genuinely if you have OCD, or even if you suspect you have OCD, I'm begging you to read some of these articles.
Like this was genuinely life changing for me.
Here are some of the ones that were most helpful to me:
this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it
buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell
leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist
put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.
when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!
plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.
if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge
if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.
its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.
ID: A wheelchair symbol edited to have the anarchy A in the middle of the wheel. Text reads: Protesting as a Wheelchair User: Everything You've Always Wanted to Know about Accessibility and Direct Action.
new zine just dropped! this link has the version for print and the version to read online. should be screenreader accessible--let me know if the formatting is fucked up and you can't access the alt text.
So Microsoft just released Microsoft 3d movie maker opensource… how cool!!! I’m so excited to see all the weird shit folks make with it… I think this’ll be the next source filmmaker.
Text of tweet under the cut because it is loooong.
But... Stochastic Parrots.
Timnit Gebru was fired from Google in December 2020 for refusing to retract a research paper, and every single warning that paper made about large language models has now happened at a scale the industry spent 4 years trying to make people forget about.
Her name is Timnit Gebru.
She co-led the Ethical AI team at Google. She co-wrote a paper called "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" with Emily Bender at the University of Washington and two other researchers. The paper was 14 pages long. It was submitted to a top AI ethics conference. And it was the reason Google decided that one of the most senior Black women in AI research could no longer work there.
The story Google told publicly was that she resigned. The story she told, confirmed by 2,695 of her colleagues in an open letter, was that she was fired by email while on vacation because she refused to either retract the paper or remove her name from it.
The paper had not even been published yet.
Here is what she actually wrote, and why every prediction inside it has now come true.
The first warning was about scale itself. Bender and Gebru argued that training ever-larger models on ever-larger scrapes of the internet would produce systems that appeared fluent but had no actual understanding of language. They called these systems stochastic parrots because they would repeat patterns from training data with statistical confidence and zero comprehension. The paper predicted that this apparent intelligence would fool both users and developers into trusting outputs that were structurally incapable of being reliable.
This was 2020. GPT-3 had just come out. The paper predicted the hallucination problem before anyone had a word for it.
The second warning was about bias amplification. The paper documented in detail that internet-scale training data contains systematic overrepresentation of dominant viewpoints and underrepresentation of marginalized ones. The models would not just absorb this bias. They would amplify it, because the optimization process rewards confident outputs, and confidence in language patterns tracks frequency in the training set.
The prediction was that hiring tools built on these models would discriminate against women. That healthcare triage tools would underperform on Black patients. That loan approval systems would entrench inequality while presenting their decisions as neutral algorithmic judgment.
Every one of those things has now been documented in deployment.
Amazon's hiring algorithm penalized resumes that contained the word "women" in any context. Healthcare risk scoring algorithms used by major US hospitals were found to systematically underestimate the medical needs of Black patients. Apple Card's credit algorithm gave wives credit lines 10x lower than their husbands for the same financial profile.
The third warning was about environmental cost. The paper calculated that training a single large language model produced emissions equivalent to the lifetime output of 5 cars. The prediction was that the race to scale would create an environmental footprint that would eventually rival entire industries.
In 2024, Google's emissions were up 48% from 2019, and the company explicitly blamed AI infrastructure. Microsoft's were up 29%, same reason. Both companies have now quietly abandoned the climate commitments they were publicly celebrating the year Gebru was fired.
The fourth warning was about documentation. The paper argued that the training datasets being assembled were too large for anyone to actually audit. Nobody at Google, OpenAI, Meta, or any other lab could tell you with confidence what was in the data their models were trained on. This was not a temporary problem to be solved later. It was a permanent feature of the approach.
In 2023, researchers discovered that the LAION-5B dataset, used to train Stable Diffusion and other major image models, contained thousands of images of child sexual abuse material. The companies that had trained on the dataset had no way of knowing. The paper predicted that category of failure 3 years before it was found.
The fifth warning was the one Google cared about most.
Bender and Gebru argued that the deployment of these systems would centralize linguistic and cultural power in the hands of the small number of companies that could afford to train them. The internet would become a place where the dominant voice was a statistical average of dominant voices, presented as a neutral assistant. Languages underrepresented in the training data would degrade over time as more web content was generated by these systems and fed back into the next training run.
This is now happening in real time. A 2024 study found that 57% of new web content in English is AI-generated or AI-assisted. Researchers studying low-resource languages have documented active degradation in translation quality, because the synthetic content fed back into training is itself worse in those languages.
The paper Google fired her for predicted the model collapse problem before model collapse had a name.
The mechanism behind why this all happened is the part of her work that nobody quotes.
Gebru's argument was not that AI is dangerous in some abstract sci-fi sense. Her argument was that AI is dangerous in a very specific structural sense. The technology was being built by a small group of researchers who shared similar backgrounds, worked at similar companies, and were rewarded for shipping products faster than competitors. The incentive structure made it impossible for safety, ethics, and bias concerns to slow anything down. Anyone inside the system who raised those concerns was either ignored, sidelined, or removed.
She was making that argument from inside Google.
Then Google proved her right by removing her.
The team Google had built to make sure their AI was safe was dismantled in 90 days because they did the job they had been hired to do. Margaret Mitchell, the other co-lead of the Ethical AI team, was fired two months after Gebru for searching through her own emails for evidence of how Gebru had been treated.
Gebru did not stop. She founded DAIR, the Distributed AI Research Institute, in 2021. The mission is to do AI research outside the control of the companies that have a financial interest in not hearing the answers.
Every prediction in the Stochastic Parrots paper has now been validated by deployment. Hallucinations are an industry-wide problem the largest labs cannot solve. Bias amplification has been documented in hiring, healthcare, lending, and criminal justice. Environmental costs are larger than entire small countries. Training data audits remain impossible. Model collapse is an active research crisis at every major lab.
The question worth sitting with is the one almost no one in the industry will say out loud.
Every researcher with the technical credibility to call out these problems watched what happened to her in December 2020 and made a calculation about their own career. The number of people willing to speak publicly about safety and ethics issues inside the major AI labs collapsed after that firing and has not recovered.
The researcher Google fired for warning about exactly what is now happening was right.
The company that fired her is now the second-largest deployer of the technology she warned about.
And the people inside that company who agree with her are not allowed to say so.
800-year-old ‘hugging skeletons’ are genetically confirmed as Poland’s only medieval same-sex double burial
Two skeletons found in an embrace next to a 13th-century Polish cathedral were both women, an ancient DNA analysis confirms, but their relationship remains a mystery.
Image credit: Magdalena Przysiężna-Pizarska
Here's the thing, there is a lot of REALLY REALLY excellent, interesting information out there that demonstrates trends and patterns that could be used to help people be less manipulable and more effective and could help people to better understand the world they are actually living in and not the world that is being terrifylingly presented to them by like, three corporations that make earthshaking amounts of money off of their fear.
And that information lives on insecure county websites and university databases that haven't been updated since 2009 and is completely opaque and tremendously difficult to verify if you don't have a ton of time and a ton of skills available to throw at the problem.
In 2024, homicide was the cause of death for 5% of the deaths of homeless people in Los Angeles County.
In 2022, homeless people were 20% of the victims of homicide in LA county.
15% of the homicide deaths in LA county from 2018 to 2022 where unhoused people. In that same time period, 14% of the homicide deaths in LA county were women.
Unhoused people are less than a tenth of a percent of the population of Los Angeles County but are somewhere between 15-20% of the murder victims in the county.
PEH Report on Mortality Trends among the unhoused population of LA county from 2015 to 2024.
LA County Public Health table of homicide victims per year 2018 to 2022.
LA County Medical Examiner's 2024 Annual Report.
The article that got me to start digging here - reporting that homicide was the cause of death for 5% of homeless people got me to ask "if homicide is responsible for 5% of homeless deaths in this analysis, what percent of the homicide total for that year was homeless people [15%] and what percentage of the total population were homeless people? [.077186%]"
Anyway.
The way that we report on crime is absolutely bug fuck insane and I'm forever mad about the way that violent crime is framed in our news media.
If you want to reduce the total number of abortions, the best way to do that is to give free birth control to everyone who wants it and to provide as much education about reproductive health to as many people as early as you possibly can.
If you want to reduce the homicide rate, there are lots of things that could help but one big thing could be immediately housing a population that is tremendously vulnerable to being murdered with no questions about sobriety or work requirements or mental illness.
This could be at least partially paid for by the savings from the county policing and medical systems that have resources tied up by the crime and medical emergencies associated with having a large unhoused population.
But when you look at the reaction that people have to these kinds of statistics, it becomes clear that many people don't want to actually reduce the number of abortions or drop the homicide rate, they want a society in which people are punished for behaving in ways that they find distasteful.
Which is not a problem that can be solved by statistics but is also not a problem that I think is impossible to solve.
Anyway. Housing for all, housing forever, housing first!
some suggested framings for your letter to your mp to protest against the EHRC guidance, UKPOL (26th May 2026)
Following up on this briefly now the guidance has been delivered. I have briefly looked through is and read analysis by legal experts. I am likely to follow up in more detail
As far as I can tell, it is an absolute dog's dinner, full of contradictory statements, ambiguous hedging (lots of may be/is likely/is unlikely) and is of almost no use to service providers wishing to ensure they are legally compliant.
Some language has softened, but it remains a lawfare bully's charter.
For example:
1) There are many references to the supreme court redefinition of terms in EA2010 to base "sex" on "biological sex" ("BS" which as far as I can tell is not the outcome of any specific scientific test, just observation, assignment and recording around birth or as near to that point where there is an external ambiguity - i.e. "administrative sex").
1b) It then states that there is no document which categorically captures this information for an individual (13.197) and such relevant documents as there such as birth certificates or GRCs are cannot be demanded for privacy reasons
1c) It implicitly invalidates the solemn oath required by recipients of GRC documents
"I _ do solemnly and sincerely declare that:
I am over 18 years of age.
I transitioned in DD/MM/YY
I have lived as a (insert ‘male’ or ‘female’ as appropriate) throughout the period of years before the date of this statutory declaration and I intend to live in that gender until death."
1d) It also makes the lived experience requirements for new GRCs nigh-on impossible
2) It is simultaneously mandatory for trans men to be required to use female-designated spaces and possible to exclude them based on other users' sensitivities
3) Services covering multiple protected groups are declared possible. Providing a single-sex service may be mandatory and making it biological sex ("BS") only may be discriminatory to trans people unless proportional, but including trans people may be discriminatory to non-trans people. Litigation risk from all sides
4) There is an explicit example 4.100 that "GC" or religious-based beliefs about homosexuality should not be stereotypes as having negative attitudes to (respectively) trans or gay people (scope creep).
This is a reworking of the "hate the sin, not the sinner" rationale used by some religious people. I cannot see how it has a place in equalities guidelines. Those beliefs are definitionally negative about the people embodying them. A similar statement would not be made about eugenicists or racial supremacists
5) Sex-specific medical services (gynecology, urology, mammography) can exclude trans people even when their bodies require attention from those services
13.147 elevates "discomfort" by an individual in a protected category to the level of justifying exclusion of one in another. This has nothing to do with "proportionality" and is an absolutely chilling precedent both in this case and for other categories
13.170 indicates "13.170 It is unlikely to be either practical or appropriate to approach any particular individual to make enquiries about their sex in relation to facilities, such as toilets, which are incidental to the primary service."
Are toilets part of the primary service of a pub, or restaurant or office? Are changing rooms part of the primary purpose of a gym?
6) This will inevitably result in service providers discontinuing sex-designated services and facilities or reworking to be unisex
7) The main outcome I foresee - beyond daily distress to several hundred thousand British people - will be years of legal threats and wranglings by those with the deepest pockets and a chilling effect on public life
8) There is a of handwaving based on assumed existence of segregated third spaces in addition to sex-designated. This is both unlikely to be represented by actal facilities on the ground, and is just an awful, dehumanising, othering approach
9) Enforcement is nigh-on impossible, equity is nil.
This could have been avoided with new legislation which reasserted the original spirit and intent of the earlier acts (as evidenced by the speeches in Hansard and surrounding commentary) to overturn this radical reinterpretation.
Worryingly, bad-faith or simply incorrect representations of rights are being trumped across media channels, including the national broadcaster.
This will devastate and victimise members of an already vulnerable group, as well as anyone who sufficiently motivated people decide may possibly be in those groups.
Horrific.
ALSO
Dear Clive,
Last time we met, we spoke about waiting for the guidance due to be published by the EHRC. That guidance has now been published and laid before Parliament. It will become law if not rejected by MPs.
It is now clear that this guidance is the bathroom ban trans people were fearing. Some features of older versions of the guidance have been watered down or removed, such as the unworkable advise about service providers asking for proof of “biological sex” by requesting identification (no form of identification records this information in the UK).
The updated guidance explicitly advises service providers enact a blanket ban on trans people using spaces according to their acquired gender by creating a catch-22 situation: that to include trans people in this way is discrimination against both cis women and cis men. To avoid being taken to court, service providers must enact a blanket ban on trans women using facilities according to their acquired gender.
This is a bathroom ban. Far from providing “clarity”, it pushes all responsibility for enacting the ban, and defending against nuisance litigation, onto service providers. It also explicitly points out there is no meaningful way to enforce such policies, because no forms of identification exist that record “biological sex”, or “sex at birth”.
This is a calamitous situation for trans people, service providers, and gender non-conforming cis people. In 2016, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office warned British LGBT people about travelling to the US in the wake of legislation in North Carolina that forced trans people to use toilets according to their sex at birth. What are we supposed to do when our own government issues legal guidance advising businesses to enact the same bathroom ban in our own country? This guidance must be debated by Parliament, and it must be rejected by MPs. Further, the Labour Government must legislate to make clear that trans women are afforded the same rights as cis women, and trans men are afforded the same rights as cis men in the Equality Act. It should also legislate to ensure that holders of gender recognition certificates are “for all intents and purposes” considered their acquired sex, as was written into the Gender Recognition Act in 2004. Anything less would be a permanent stain on the legacy of the Labour Party, and remembered long into the future in the same way as Section 28. It is my sincere belief that we are witnessing the systemic dismantling of the human rights of trans people under a Labour government. Regards, Katie Fenn
AND
(No alt text was provided for this one).
And this template letter:
take a mix-and-match approach and personalise it if you can. be polite and don't use language that will have your letter rejected, but don't shy away from describing the consequences.
You might want to reference:
"Like a snowball: the growth and impact of the gender critical movement in the UK", Amnesty International, published 21st May 2026.
Samaritans responds to EHRC guidance after 40% rise in calls following Supreme Court ruling, Samaritans, published 22nd May 2026
Samaritans responds to EHRC guidance after 40% rise in calls following Supreme Court ruling
Press statement published 14th May 2026 by ILGA (prior to the EHRC guidance but relevant to the UK's piss-poor standing on trans and queer rights generally in Europe).
The UK has dropped six places in ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map, as Hungary and Georgia also register steep falls following anti-LGBTI legislatio
If you have a UK MP (and if you live in the UK you do have one) please do this and share it ASAP, there is a limited period of time before Parliament vote on the guidance.
If you don't have a UK MP please at least share this post.
POST DATE: 25th MAY 2026.
WriteToThem is a website which provides an easy way to contact MPs, councillors and other elected representatives.
To find your MP and send an easy email, use WriteToThem.
How very depressing that Neil Gaiman had trended not even a tiny bit for demonstrating what a fucking horrific person he is.
As a reminder, he's suing Caroline Wallner, one of his accusers, for breaking her NDA. Not for libel. He's saying she shouldn't have told anyone about it, not that she lied.
The author says Wallner broke her NDA by sharing her story with the media, including with New York Magazine.
He doesn't need the money. He's risking the Streisand effect. He is punishing Caroline, he's trying to intimidate other victims who have signed NDAs to scare them into continued silence.
He is no friend to women, to the LGBTQIA+ community, to anyone quite frankly unless he thinks they are of value to him.
Share the story. Put it on Facebook and bluesky and whatever else you're on. Make it clear what a horrifying person he is. Tell your friends. He's paying Edendale a fortune to try and cover this up. Make this hard for him. Make it cost him money.
does anyone have the link to the oil company international memos from like the 70s where they like. openly plan to hide the realities of climate change
finding a lot of related articles but theres a specific memo im looking for where exxon is like “we will know we’ve succeeded if the average American doubts climate change”
stormborns
prguitarman
romaincrisis
annaxmalina
titsay
baratheonpilled
izzy806
discoholicmusic
