#link roundup

[jmreynolds]

Monday link roundup! Alan Moore! Poetry! Art! Lovecraft! Other things!

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[pingnova]

Generative "AI", American copyright, and fanworks

Many folks have questions about what generative "AI" tools mean for copyright - and fanworks like fanfic and fanart. I've compiled here a list of basic reading on the status of fanworks in the copyright world and what AI is, as well as an evolving list of legal coverage of machine-made works.

The short and dirty:

Fanworks are not legally derivative, they are transformative, which you might recognize from the name of Ao3's parent org the Organization for Transformative Works. Generative "AI" content is derivative, which is not legally allowed without proper licensing. Fanfiction and AI output aren't the same thing, but corporations would like you to think so. They'd like you to think anything if it meant they could once again gain the momentum to change copyright law in their favor, whether that meant scrapping it or expanding it to their tastes. The articles I include can hopefully help elaborate.

The basics of fanwork and copyright law:

Rebecca Tushnet, Legal Fictions: Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law, 17 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 651 (1997). https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/elr/vol17/iss3/8 (full text, pdf)

Fanworks rely on fulfilling the transformative portion of the fair use test in copyright law. They also shouldn't make money, in order to not compete with the original work.

Can generative AI output or training material be fair use? Overview of case law as we wait for the outcome of multiple lawsuits addressing this question. (Sep 22 2023)

What is the "AI" we keep hearing about anyway?

Statistics, machine learning, and artifical intelligence are the same thing - but "AI" rakes in more cash and acclaim

Generative AI is derivative and can only create what it has been fed, which perpetuates social ills but also illustrates what it really is - not human "intelligence", but a statistical machine

For example, fanfiction generated by a number of the free big name tools somehow manages to be straight and confusingly narrated

Why are corporations so invested in generative AI? AI in general?

An interview with an AI engineer who uses AI to generate endless patent applications - to profit from ideas before they are even invented

If corporations all use the same AI to fix housing prices as a cartel, they want the feds to agree its the machine's fault, not theirs

Even if generative AI improves to the point that it is totally unbiased and can write just as well as a human, it is still a machine. A tool, not a person. Corporations will try to scapegoat it by confusing the conversation.

Recent coverage on AI and copyright:

DC copyright court strikes down machine ownership: copyright protection is only for humans (Aug 18 2023)

Generative AI use core issue in Writer's Guild strike and eventual studio agreement (Sep 27 2023)

Thompson Reuters suit against AI company that trained on TR's content goes to jury trial (Sep 26 2023)

Official links

US Copyright Office homepage for their coverage on AI investigations (continuously updated)

Congressional research report on the issue of AI use and copyright law (Sep 29 2023)

[dee-the-red-witch]

The Monthly Roundup

Okay, normally, this is just a free monthly post over on my Patreon, but I figured I should push this out into the wild as well, because this kind of stuff's always needed. Want this, and a bunch of weekly readings from a cursed tarot deck, media reviews, and other content including fiction and the occasional build post? Maybe consider adding me over there as well. Anyways, like I said, it's a monthly roundup- in this case a bigass collection of links and resources for folks interested in pursuing gender transition one way or another. And while a bunch of it is transfem specific and sometimes medical transition specific, because it's stuff I dug up while hunting down things for myself, there's also things in there good for anyone of any gender, and resources for legal/social transition as well. And this is long enough to deserve a cut for once, so...

Hey! What If *I'M* trans?

The Gender Dysphoria Bible- https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en Wondering if you're experiencing Gender Dysphoria? This may be a good place to start. Realize the GDB is slanted largely towards transfem folks, so it doesn't necessarily apply evenly to everyone, but it does cover a lot of ground that folks may identify with.

Trans Medical Resources

DIY HRT- https://diyhrt.cafe/index.php/Main_Page (for legal reasons, I'm going to tell you to at least try to see a licensed physician or endocrinologist before starting to DIY your own hormones, but keep in mind, I'm not your responsible adult, and if you don't choose to listen, that's on you) This is the main, best hub for sourcing and getting info on doing your own hormone therapy. Keep in mind, it's once again slanted towards feminizing methods, because testosterone is still a controlled substance in most of the world (which is bloody fucking stupid, but that's a rant for another time).

GALAP- The Gender Affirming Letter Access Project- https://thegalap.org/ While we may have new WPATH guidelines with the Soc 8 updates that dropped a little bit ago, most providers and insurers are still on outdated requirements that insist on letters from mental health providers for transgender-related care. Which can affect access to surgeries, HRT, and more. GALAP exists to connect folks with providers who'll give those letters,m in some cases free of charge even.

Gynecologist List- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Djia_WkrVO3S4jKn6odNwQk7pOcpcL4x00FMNekrb7Q/htmlview This one's more for uterus-owners in general and less trans-specific, but giventhe number of folks with uteri who'd can end up with a hard time finding a willing doctor for some procedures, it's important for everyone. This is a Google database of hundreds of gynecologists, listed by location, willing to perform sterilization procedures with informed consent, without secondary authorization from anyone else. The list is patient-vetted, so your mileage may vary, but for those seeking sterilization and/or hysterectomies as part of their transition it may prove to be invaluable as a resource, because doctors willing to do this work can be few and rare in some areas.

Transfeminine Science- https://transfemscience.org/ Articles, journals and all sorts of researching into, well, just what the name says, transfeminizing science. A lot of medical professionals simply don't have knowledge in the field and are acting on what they learned in med school, which may be way out of date. If they're willing to listen, there's stuff in there to help bring them up to speed. Better yet, it;'s also a great resource to educate yourself so you can advocate for your own care a bit better.

Other Transition resources (legal, social, etc)

NCTE's ID GUIDE- https://transequality.org/documents The National Transgender Center for Equality's guide to changing your legal identity, in a handy format that lets you break it down by state or territory, or even federal documents (United States only, sorry.) and links to the right paperwork to use. Rainbow Passage- https://rainbowpassage.org/ It sucks that we need organizations like this in these times, but I'm glad to see there's people already stepping up to the task. Rainbow Passage is an organization dedicated to helping trans youth get out of trans-hostile states and relocate to safer areas. And if you can, volunteering for them is a great way to help improve safety for trans folk in general.

Seattle Voice Lab- https://www.seattlevoicelab.com/ if you've seen me on social media much lately, then you've seen me talking about this place. This is who I'm (through February and March at least) taking voice lessons through to feminize my own voice more. They also have a bunch of online resources, a discord server, and other help if you need to figure your own vocal chords out a bit better.

Strands For Trans- https://strandsfortrans.org/ Need a haircut, or color or other beauty services you're using for the first time ever as an out trans person and you're not sure where's going to be safe to go? Strands For Trans is the first comprehensive database of Aesthetics businesses for hair and everything, AND THEY VET THE BUSINESSES, to ensure your safety and comfort.

TLC's Life-Planning Guide- http://transgenderlawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/TLC_Life-Planning-Documents-Transgender.pdf The Transgender Law Center put this guide together specifically for planning end-of-life details. Yes, it's a depressing and tragic thing, but protecting and making sure our identities are still properly preserved after we die is still just as an important part of what we're fighting as anything else is. This guide will help you with establishing a Living Will, controlling hospital visits, and setting up proper Powers of Attorney, so that nothing potentially falls back into the hands of people who might refuse to recognize who you truly are. (In many states, you can designate someone other than your next of kin to take charge of your body when you die (next of kin is defined by law, not by preference). If you need to do that, go to nolo.com and look up article on "[your state] funeral law" to get a rundown on if and how to do this.

Trans Media

The Digital Transgender Archive- https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net "The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world." (In short, this is one of several free libraries of trans history.)

Totally Trans- https://www.patreon.com/totallytrans/posts Hey, look at that, it's another Patreon! Except, no, wait, it's a podcast! Totally Trans looks at media both historical and modern with a transgendered lens. Sometimes it's silly fun, other times, it's great insights into queer and trans history, and all around it's a great show to add on whatever service you're already getting podcasts through- or you can hit the link above to help support them at the same time for early access.

Trans News, Blogs, and Notes

Erin In The Morning: https://www.erininthemorning.com/ Erin's newsletter runs almost daily these days, mostly with updates regarding trans legislation all around the US. It's a good way to stay up to date, but it can also be a drag these days, largely because it's practically just a constantly expanding list of bad news thanks to the GOP right now.

Stained Glass Woman: https://stainedglasswoman.substack.com/ aka Doc Impossible/Zoe. I first discovered her work and writing when WPATH released their new SOC 8 guidelines, because she was one of the few people that could make the thing actually make sense in non-legalese. But I subscribed andkeep following here for regular updates both because she presents a trans coming out narrative that was just a joy to read, and also covers interesting  news in the field of trans medicine from time to time. Definitely worth adding to your feed.

A Self Defense Study Guide for Trans Women and Gender Non-Conforming / Nonbinary AMAB Folks: https://www.silversprocket.net/2021/09/13/a-self-defense-study-guide-for-trans-women-and-gender-non-conforming-nonbinary-amab-folks/

This is, quite honestly, one of the best self-defense guides I've seen for gender-nonconforming folks (and one of the few, to be honest), short of private defense instruction. AND it's available to read in full for free at that link, or in print for just a 5$ donation. Go check it out.

Other general roundups

Grassroots GAC Resources- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19kSzBLo_hjpiBjHN8tvK73sVHU25NKWjMau2vNl8uuM/edit#gid=778305468 Google spreadsheet of links in general, from therapy help and hrt assistance, to all sorts of other info, some of which are repeats from here, but there's also a bunch of others I haven't had time or opportunity to vet yet.

[allthingslinguistic]

10 years of All Things Linguistic

I've officially been blogging on All Things Linguistic for ten years! This boggles my mind so much that I decided to also write a whole decade in review post for tomorrow, but let's start with looking back at some of my favourite posts and other things that happened in the past year:

Projects

I started a new project to read one paper per language of the 103 languages reported in a recent paper by Evan Kidd and Rowena Garcia surveying the languages represented in the four main child language acquisition journals.

Peeking face, palm up, and palm down - the emoji I proposed with Lauren Gawne and Jennifer Daniel are now officially in Unicode 14.0 and will be coming to your devices in the next few years!

Now that Because Internet has been out for two years, I can attest that people have successfully used it as a way of opening up cross-generational conversations about changing texting norms.

I set up a survey for anyone who's been using Because Internet for teaching - put in what you've been doing and I'll compile and share it with other instructors!

Interviews and talks

How Linguistics Can Help You Learn a Language - talk for Duolingo's DuoCon

I'm quoted in a New York Times Wordplay piece about ending texts with a period

Keynote at the Unicode Conference in San Francisco on "Taking Playfulness Seriously - When character sets are used in unexpected ways" (slides here, video here for similar talk at Bay Area NLP)

Keynote at Sotheby's Level Up in Los Angeles (not online)

Virtual talk for some internal folks at YouTube (not online)

Back-to-school virtual talks: The Internet is Making English Better at Yale with Claire Bowern and about Internet Linguistics and Memes as Internet Folklore with a student at the University of Oklahoma

Guest interview about internet language on That Word Chat, an online talk show for editors and word nerds

In conversation with Rosemary Mosco about her book, A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching at Argo Bookshop

Contestant on Webster's War of the Words, a virtual quiz show fundraiser for the Noah Webster House

Conferences and events

LSA 2022, the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (Washington DC but a last-minute pivot to virtual, judged the Five Minute Linguist competition again)

WorldCon in Washington DC

Dictionary Society of North America conference

the annual meeting of the Canadian Linguistics Association

LingComm

The organizing committee of LingComm21, the International Conference on Linguistics Communication which I co-organized last year, wrote a six-part series on how we designed the conference last year, for anyone else who's been trying to figure out how to do virtual events that are actually social:

Why virtual conferences are antisocial (but they don’t have to be)

Designing online conferences for building community

Scheduling online conferences for building community

Hosting online conferences for building community

Budgeting online conferences or events

Planning accessible online conferences

I'm also very pleased to report that a new organizing committee is making the LingComm Conference happen again, in February 2023.

The LingComm Grants returned for 2022, giving out five $500 Project Grants and twelve $100 LingComm Startup Grants. These small grants to help fledgling linguistics communication projects get off the ground were sponsored by Lingthusiasm and several other generous contributors, and you can see the full list of grantees here.

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm hit its fifth anniversary! I've officially been making a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics with my cohost Lauren Gawne and our linguistically enthusiastic team for five years now!

In addition to releasing our usual 12 main episodes and 12 bonus episodes, some Lingthusiasm things that happened this year included: a redesigned Lingthusiasm website (I wrote an incredibly long meta post about the website design process), a Lingthusiasm crossover appearance on the NPR show Ask Me Another (featuring two fun quiz segments, one on accepted or rejected emoji and one on famous book titles), and a Lingthusiasm liveshow, a sweary liveshow about swearing, on the Lingthusiasm Discord. Also, Lingthusiasm now has a LinkedIn page, in case that's somehow a thing you need in your life.

We also released new Lingthusiasm merch! You can now ask people which shape is kiki and which one is bouba from the comfort of your own scarf, tshirt, mug, and other items. And...did we do a whole episode on fricatives just so that we could release "what the fricative" merch? In the immortal sounds of another fricative: Shhhhhhh. Plus, we did a time-limited Lingthusiastic Sticker Pack special offer for people who support the podcast on Patreon.

Main episodes:

Making machines learn Fon and other African languages - Interview with Masakhane

A Fun-Filled Fricative Field Trip

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Theory of Mind

That’s the kind of episode it’s – clitics

Corpus linguistics and consent - Interview with Kat Gupta

Cool things about scales and implicature

Where to get your English etymologies

Making speech visible with spectrograms

Knowledge is power, copulas are fun

Word order, we love

What it means for a language to be official

Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages

Bonus episodes:

Gotta test ‘em all – The linguistics of Pokemon names

Language under the influence

Sentient plants, proto-internet, and more lingfic about quirky communication

Q&A with Emily Gref from language museum Planet Word

Lingwiki and linguistics on Wikipedia

Linguistic 〰️✨ i l l u s i o n s ✨〰️

Linguistics puzzles for fun and olympiad glory

We interview each other! Seasons, word games, Unicode, and more

Emoji, Mongolian, and Multiocular O ꙮ - Dispatches from the Unicode Conference

Behind the scenes on how linguists come up with research topics

Approaching word games like a linguist – Interview with Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer of Spectacular Vernacular

What makes a swear word feel sweary? A &⩐#⦫& Liveshow

Selected blog posts

Communication:

It's Complicated/Because Internet on why teens socialize online

Conversation, cooperation, and dementia (from superlinguo)

"old people really need to learn how to text"

The origin of language and interspecies communication

Reduplication Bread Bread

Tumblr graffiti

Languages:

The fight to save Hawaii sign language from extinction

A McGill student and professor realized they both speak Mi'kmaq; it changed everything

Pitch, intonation, and the role of technology in language description

On standard dialects

A list of the languages mentioned on Crash Course Linguistics

Pronouncing words in English (by Chinese speakers)

When your accent is better than your vocabulary

Linguist humour:

The kiki to bouba pipeline

Dinosaur Comics on the "I dunno" hum

Kawaii Desu Innit Bruv

ancient translation to badger

xkcd: neoteny recapitulated phylogeny

Experts in a Sci-Fi Fantasy Setting

General linguistics:

I asked people for their favourite fun fact about linguistics and ended up with a delightful thread of replies

Fictional Gestures

Greenmeats

Peanut cheese

Finnish pronouns

Stomach is the truest Sundial

Eeyore Linguistic Facts

The art and science of beatboxing

Beatboxing in IPA

Linguistic jobs:

Technical writer

CEO of a SaaS company

Impact Lead

Social media lead (for NASA)

Senior Analyst, Strategic Insights & Analytics

Academic linguist

Online Linguistics Teacher

Customer Success Manager

Performing Artiste and Freelance Editor

I reposted a classic "how to twitter" (from a social perspective) post of mine from 2016, which people tell me they still refer to occasionally

How to write a successful pop linguistics book (an extremely long advice post)

Haven’t been with me this whole time? You can see my favourite posts of year one, year two, year three, year four, year five, year six, year seven, year eight, and year nine.

For shorter updates, follow me as a person on twitter or instagram, follow Lingthusiasm on twitter or instagram, or for a monthly email newsletter with highlights, subscribe on substack.

[swaroshowdown]

Star Wars Aro Showdown Sensational 64 Link Roundup

Alright, voting for round one has begun! Below the cut is a roundup of the links to each poll! All match-ups for this round were determined by a random number generator, so if some of them seem a little odd, that's why.

If your favorite space!aro isn't on this list, never fear. I'm considering making this an annual thing to coincide with Aro Week in February so they might have their shot next year.

Have fun and may the best aro win!

Group A

Plo Koon vs Galen Marek Merrin vs Hondo Ohnaka Eno Cordova vs Jessika Pava Dooku vs Eldra Kaitis Rahm Kota vs Rey Jun Sato vs Tristan Wren Jai Kell vs Sabine Wren Bodhi Rook vs Kanan Jarrus

Group B

Asajj Ventress vs Cal Kestis Cassian Andor vs Mace Windu Rex vs Sabé Shmi Skywalker vs Barriss Offee Quinlan Vos vs Yoda Jango Fett vs Reva Sevander Qui-Gon Jinn vs Qi'ra Ahsoka Tano vs Riyo Chuchi

Group C

Luke Skywalker vs Obi-Wan Kenobi Cere Junda vs Dexter Jettster Fennec Shand vs Haja Estree Depa Billaba vs Evaan Verlaine Jyn Erso vs Maul Hera Syndulla vs Enfys Nest Zeb Orrelios vs Ezra Bridger Vernestra Rwoh vs Trilla Suduri

Group D

Leox Gyasi vs Din Djarin Kilindi Matako vs Maz Kanata Leia Organa vs Boba Fett Luminara Unduli vs Saw Gerrera Rose Tico vs Katooni Vi Moradi vs Steela Gerrera Aayla Secura vs Mara Jade Wedge Antilles vs Jocasta Nu

[mythgirlimagines]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectSekai/comments/spduj2/project_sekai_characters_and_the_phones_they_use/

Keeping this in mind for fics lol

Link for mobile

[thiswasinevitableid]

Halloween Fic Round-UP

Okay, so that one anon wasn’t kidding when they said I seem to have a thing for Halloween. So, since it tis the season, I thought I’d make a round-up of my fics that take place at Halloween or involve the holiday somehow (not counting the promptobers)

It’s a Thriller (E): Indrid gives Duck a scare, and several other things, on Halloween.

For a Good Time, Call (E): An AU in which Indrid and Duck meet first at Pride and then later at Halloween.

Doing Their Best (T): A single dad Sternclay AU, set mostly around fall/Halloween.

In the Pines...(E): Duck Newton is an arborist in the small town of Kepler. He isn't inclined to believe the weird things people claim happen in the woods around town. Then he finds an injured man in the woods by his house. When he takes him home to tend to him, he sets in motion a chain of events that will change the course of his life, and the fate of his town.  Halloween features, and I tried to give this more of a genuinely eerie tone than many of my other fics.

Learning Curve (E): TAZ Amnesty college AU, featuring Sternclay, Indruck, Danbrey and, you guessed it, Halloween.

[brightephemera]

Knights of the Dawning Alliance OCs

8. Romances. A companion? An NPC? One of your OCs? Someone else’s? Nobody? Explain!

All KotDA links are to digest chapters. ctrl+F the character name to get to their section.

Haha. Hahahaha. I include extended Bright!verse here...

Ruth (across all Ruth AUs):

Quinn. The first, the longest, the worst, the hardest. That resounds through every Ruth timeline. She existed because Quinn gloated at a Jedi and I picked up my jaw and howled “MUST REROLL FEMALE NOW.” That’s right, the extended Ruth!verse can be traced to “I hate to burst your bubble, Jedi...that’s a lie. I’m reveling in it.”

Wynston. Their fling was a product of the new Legacy system. I thought that of all my characters, Ruth and Wynston were the likeliest to be on the same side of any given conflict, even if Wynston was more by the book (haha). They had sex because Wynston has no shame. They had a novel-length romance AU because I got carried away.

Theron. The reluctant third. I didn’t feel strongly about him but he was good for her at a time when she badly needed a friend and an outlet. I was really warming up to him, too...

Jorgan. Total crack. But he’s the long cozy retirement guy. The others never could be. Jorgan could love her fighting and love her coming home to rest. It was a dumb long shot, but I really liked Jorgan.

Jaesa. I never wrote that one but I had it in mind post-Quinncident. It would be like Lodestone but sapphic.

Larr Gith. Only on a vaguely sticky datapad in Pierce Junior’s quarters. I guess I also did write a short version post-KotDA.

Wynston:

Nyss. Selina. Ryessa Thaye. The dictator. Liira Vodd. Juda. Lord Zavrasha. Baroness Cortess. Yana-Ton. Fixer Nineteen. Pacha Gann.

Ruth. As mentioned, Legacy link.  The Force keeps shoving them together. They used protection but spawned a lot of stories.

Kaliyo Djannis. The longest romantic relationship of his life, and an unmitigated disaster.

Lana Beniko. I resisted this, I really did, but Wynston’s not big with the self-control and Lana would want to know whether she can get away with it. They’re unreasonably happy about it. In fact, the only thing that can tear them apart...well, there’s a chapter about that.

Scythia:

Tries to use Andronikos. It doesn’t go well. Andronikos is obliged to spend several years on the run after escaping her, but he’s been wanted by dangerous people before and he’ll be wanted by dangerous people again. He’ll do fine.

Calline:

Ace aro and happy.

Larr Gith:

Doc. Creepy as hell but they made each other feel good, and they saved a lot of lives. When she spiraled into the dregs of the party circuit eventually even he couldn’t follow her, but the fights fade with memory.

Sana-Rae, the Voss envoy to the Alliance. Larr thinks she’s hot and Sana-Rae has Voss ideals and, well, it wasn’t meant to be, but they got a kiss and a strong alliance out of it.

Indo Zal. That was just fun. She deserves a publicist.

Tebbith:

Felix Iresso. This was never consummated. Tebbith fled after an incident where his feelings nearly cost lives. (I can’t find the link, sorry.) But how can you live with Felix Iresso and not adore him?

Koth. This was probably my most difficult KotDA pairing, and I compensated by making their actual relationship dreamily drama-free. Tebbith is a man of theory and decency, and Koth is a man of action and decency, and I think they grounded each other.

Fade:

Elara Dorne. Fade worships her. What I don’t know is whether Dorne reciprocated. It is Dorne, after all, who brings Fade home after Fade’s abortive attempt on Ruth’s life. It is Dorne who thinks that maybe she can still be reached from the midst of her vengeance frenzy.

In other continuities...

Vierce:

Illyris. Yeah, there’s a girlfriend who tragically dies for angst. There are a lot of people on Kegled II who tragically die for angst, Illyris just got a name. And a sunny, mischievous personality.

Elara Dorne. Forever.