I live here now, I guess

Tumblr unceremoniously evicted me from my home on the web (post - 2019 account), so I'm back here until they decide to hand the keys back to me. || Tamlin, a grown up human.

[tam--lin-has-moved]

Tumblr deleted my new account and all sideblogs

To anyone who still follows me on this account: hi! hello! this is the Tumblr user known as @tam--lin 

Tumblr has deleted my current main blog and all of my side blogs for “adult content”, which is wild since I won’t even reblog MILF jokes. 

ANYWAY.

I am angry and genuinely baffled and have sent a firmly worded message to Tumblr support about this. If you see this post and you’re vaguely in my circle of current friends and followers, it would be great if you reblogged it just to let folks know that I haven’t willfully vanished and that I’m trying to get my account back. If you have ideas or suggestions, I’m also open to those.

Thank you!

ETA: if you’re looking for tall ships advice, http://tallships.carrd.co/ is still online!

[danshive]

In science fiction, AIs tend to malfunction due to some technicality of logic, such as that business with the laws of robotics and an AI reaching a dramatic, ironic conclusion.

Content regulation algorithms tell me that sci-fi authors are overly generous in these depictions.

“Why did cop bot arrest that nice elderly woman?”

“It insists she’s the mafia.”

“It thinks she’s in the mafia?”

“No. It thinks she’s an entire crime family. It filled out paperwork for multiple separate arrests after bringing her in.”

[dexer-von-dexer]

I have to comment on this because this is touching on something I see a lot of people (including Tumblr staff and everyone else who uses these kind of deep learning systems willy-nilly like this) don’t quite get: “Deep Reinforcement Learning” AI like these engage with reality in a fundamentally different way from humans. I see some people testing the algorithm and seeing where the “line” is, wondering whether it looks for things like color gradients, skin tone pixels, certain shapes, curves, or what have you. All of these attempts to understand the algorithm fail because there is nothing to understand. There is no line, because there is no logic. You will never be able to pin down the “criteria” the algorithm uses to identify content, because the algorithm does not use logic at all to identify anything, only raw statistical correlations on top of statistical correlations on top of statistical correlations. There is no thought, no analysis, no reasoning. It does all its tasks through sheer unconscious intuition. The neural network is a shambling sleepwalker. It is madness incarnate. It knows nothing of human concepts like reason. It will think granny is the mafia.

This is why a lot of people say AI are so dangerous. Not because they will one day wake up and be conscious and overthrow humanity, but that they (or at least this type of AI) are not and never will be conscious, and yet we’re relying on them to do things that require such human characteristics as logic and any sort of thought process whatsoever. Humans have a really bad tendency to anthropomorphize, and we’d like to think the AI is “making decisions” or “thinking,” but the truth is that what it’s doing is fundamentally different from either of those things. What we see as, say, a field of grass, a neural network may see as a bus stop. Not because there is actually a bus stop there, or that anything in the photo resembles a bus stop according to our understanding, but because the exact right pixels in the photo were shaded in the exact right way so that they just so happened to be statistically correlated with the arbitrary functions it created when it was repeatedly exposed to pictures of bus stops over and over. It doesn’t know what grass is, what a bus stop is, but it sure as hell will say with 99.999% certainty that one is in fact the other, for reasons you can’t understand, and will drive your automated bus off the road and into a ditch because of this undetectable statistical overlap. Because a few pixels were off in just the right way in just the right places and it got really, really confused for a second.

There, I even caught myself using the word “confused” to describe it. That’s not right, because “confused” is a human word. What’s happening with the AI is something we don’t have the language to describe.

Anyway what’s more, this sort of trickery can be mimicked. A human wouldn’t be able to figure it out, but another neural network can easily guess the statistical filters it uses to identify things and figure out how to alter images with some white noise in exactly the right way to make the algorithm think it’s actually something else. It’ll still look like the original image, just with some pixelated artifacts, but the algorithm will see it as something completely different. This is what’s known as a “single pixel attack.” I am fairly confident porn bot creators might end up cracking the content flagging algorithm and start putting up some weirdly pixelated porn anyway, and all of this will be in vain. All because Tumblr staff decided to rely on content moderation via slot machine.

TL;DR bots are illogical because they’re actually unknowable eldritch horrors made of spreadsheets and we don’t know how to stop them or how they got here, send help

[tsunderebot]

Having been to several talks on modern ai I can confirm

[maxofs2d]

I always think of this tweet when I see people praising machine learning and the new kinds of AI as a panacea.

[peoplehood-deactivated20211003]

Maximalism! Cover your walls with art, clutter your shelves with trinkets and ceramics, fill your corners with potted plants!

[peoplehood-deactivated20211003]

This.

[thesylversmyth]

Hello! I would like to warn everyone of an experience my roommate and I have just had, in case I can prevent it happening to anyone else. Or, you know, if anyone knows a lawyer who could advise us.

My roommate has a queen size Nectar mattress. Friday night, she spilled some water on the bed and took the cover off to air dry. She unzipped the cover, and a flame retardant sleeve (that we hadn’t known was there to begin with) made of woven fiberglass began shedding small fiberglass particles. They were airborne. The whole room and everything in it is contaminated, and there are few surfaces elsewhere in the apartment that don’t have at least a little. Nowhere on the mattress’ tags or on the Nectar website does it say there is a fiberglass sleeve. In fact, it makes a big deal of how there are five components: top of cover, three layers of foam, bottom of cover. Nothing about the flame retardant sleeve there. The label on the cover doesn’t say you can’t take it off, just that they suggest you don’t. It does not mention fiberglass as a material found in the mattress at all. The website even has a page explaining that you CAN take off the cover and wash it, if you must, just that they suggest you don’t. No real reasons given. No mention of fiberglass.

Our apartment is sparkly with fiberglass. We have had to drop money on a HEPA filter vacuum that could safely remove some of it, and on new non-permeable mattress covers to contain the worst of the source. We have had to garbage-bag up almost everything in her room. No amount of runs through the laundry seems to get it all out of clothes, and we have to thoroughly wipe out the washer and dryer drums every load. All her pillows were ruined, the chair in her room, her clothing, some expensive bras, a nice area rug, and I’m sure there will be trouble on the horizon with our landlord regarding the carpet, even if we do vacuum it as well as we can.

Lilly has been having nosebleeds, before the mattress was unzipped, but the worst one I’ve seen yet was the one that evening. She’s been sleeping on it almost a year, and it could have begun coming through the fabric cover. Nosebleeds are a sign of fiberglass inhalation.

We have contacted the company, and their response was honestly insulting. We were told that we shouldn’t have taken the mattress cover off to begin with, and that it can no longer be covered by the 365 night guarantee, despite us having had it for under the full year. I have just now, after three days trying, finally spoken to someone willing to look into our case, so here’s hoping we’ll get even a fraction of what we are, frankly, owed.

It really feels like there could be some sort of lawsuit here.

In fact, there is one, with a situation nearly identical to ours but with a different company. This was the first hit when I searched our problem online.

https://topclassactions.com/…/zinus-class-action-says…/

Anyway, if you have a Nectar mattress, don’t ever open the easily accessible warning-label-free zipper! If you have had it under a year, and it’s in its original condition, it can still be returned. If you were planning to get one, maybe don’t! A lot of the foam-mattress-in-a box types have the fiberglass, though most of them disclose the presence of the fiberglass rather than hiding it like a dirty secret. Make sure you do a search for mattresses WITHOUT fiberglass as a flame retardant.

[garbagealien]

I had to go back and find this post because we just discovered our (Zinus) mattress is leaking fiberglass, and we NEVER removed or even touched the zipper on the cover.

My partner had changed the sheets, and then later while outside we saw that he was covered in shiny fiberglass (like the video above). I remembered this post and immediately knew we had to check the mattress. Sure enough there were glittery fibers EVERYWHERE in the bedroom, all over the floor, sheets & laundry, etc.

We are still trying to figure out just how bad the damage is & how much we need to throw away vs. what can maybe be salvaged.

Again, we NEVER removed the cover. And there is no evidence of the cover having been damaged anywhere.

It just was 3-4 years of regular use and then suddenly, one day while changing the sheets, there was glass everywhere. It’s probably been leaking into our laundry, and likely our bodies, for who knows how long.

Lots of people saying these mattresses are safe as long as you don’t remove the cover - it’s NOT true. Maybe it’s fine for a year or two, but at some point the fibers break down and start to come out THROUGH the cover.

These mattresses are outrageously dangerous & they should not be allowed to keep selling them. Yet they are one of the top selling brands on Amazon…

[increasinglyembarrassed]

@thebibliosphere

[thebibliosphere]

Jesus Fuck that’s terrifying.

[captain-cargoshorts]

List of the Best Fiberglass-Free Memory Foam Mattresses in 2021

I contacted 24 memory foam mattress manufacturers and asked them which of their mattresses do not contain fiberglass, these are the results:

I found this huge blog post by a guy who mostly does tech stuff. in it, he talks about his attempts to get several mattress companies to tell the truth about their products, and has compiled his results into a nice table. on the subject of nectar, he recommends avoiding the company entirely. they’re shady as shit

9 Best Mattresses Without Fiberglass (June 2021 Discounts)

Discover the top 9 best mattresses that do not contain fiberglass to buy in 2021 - including those best suited to couples, babies, kids, and

this mile long page is set up as a ranking of The Best Mattresses To Buy In 2021 uwu but it does go in depth about the fiberglass content of each product, and near the bottom it mentioned this interaction with a customer service rep from nectar:

this nectar representative admits to there being fiberglass in the mattress, but don’t worry, it’s the good kind! this author points to nectar specifically for being duplicitous

there was one other interesting thing I found during my search. I’m not going to link it here, and I have no screenshots because I was using an incognito tab (I don’t particularly feel like being peddled nectar mattresses for the next year).

the very first links that come up on google with the prompt “nectar mattress fiberglass” lead to a site called victorianhomesmag. on my first quick scroll through the page, it looked like there was only one mention of fiberglass, which was in the title of the page. “Does Nectar Mattress Have Fiberglass”. that’s a pretty straightforward title, no? but the rest of the page doesn’t answer the question; it just reads like a page that would be titled “Why You Should Buy Our This Mattress”. I did notice that some of the headers for the different sections had odd spaces in them, though. weird, right?

then I used the find in page function to search for the word “fiberglass” and suddenly, when there was only one before, there were five instances of the word! each of them was in those weird empty spaces. I can only assume this is to manipulate search algorithms. again, shady as shit.

one last thing about this page- when I hit the back button, instead of going back to the google results, I got redirected to nectarsleep dot com. there’s a sale going on right now! don’t miss out :3

@thesylversmyth @thebibliosphere

[thebibliosphere]

Well that’s just even more skeevy.

[ophidiae]

I have a Layla mattress. Apparently, they use fiberglass in a spun form, which is … slightly less awful? I guess? Still going to replace it, because holy shitballs.  

[meangirlnurse]

take me back to constantinople where the cons are stant and the nopes are nople

[supergameboytwo]

no you can't go back to constantinople, been a long time gone, the stants and the noples

[rsingwriting]

I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school. 

And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good. 

And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways. 

Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.

[petermorwood]

Something else to thank Pterry for. :->

[bibliophilecats]

March 06 2021: Familiar

[magpiemalarkey]

Thinking about @tkingfisher‘s books, and the Temple of the White Rat in some of them and decided to attempt to paint The Rat! 

[monsterkissed]

here is an idea: normalise the idea that adopting kids is a valid option even for parents who could conceive a child themselves, and not just an inferior backup option for parents who can’t

[chulshik]

Not even just for the potential parents, but for the kids. The adoptees. Don’t let us seem, and or feel, like like second choices, last resorts, and throw aways.

[tastefullyoffensive]

(via meanboysclub)

[mypissedoffsandwichold-deactiva]

The last one

[thunderboltsortofapenny]

Also good on these people for taking the aggressively petty route instead of falsely registering their pets as service animals

[toastyglow]

I love how everyone intentionally interpreted this not as “your dog must be small” but “your dog must be in a bag”

[im-a-goat-in-disguise]

“aww cute!! big doggies in ba-”

*cry-laughing as i hit the reblog button*

[tifoti]

Cruise ships dismantled for scrap after pandemic sinks industry (reuters)

view more at tifoti.com

[22ackermann]

ALL by MYSELF………….No.1

[nemfrog]

South American mammals. Not drawn to scale. Introduction to evolution. 1962.

Internet Archive

[kiwi]

YOU HAVE ENTERED THE WEEVIL ZONE

[vacilandoelmundo]

This Tea Rituals Around the World slideshow at Condé Nast Traveler (condenasttraveler) is a tea-lover’s delight! Never before have I seen tea time look so sumptuous. Click through the slideshow to learn about the tea traditions behind these beautiful and mouthwatering arrangements. Just looking at them has inspired me to make a cuppa!

[dekaohtoura]

[llamanonymous]

Pals

[vintagegeekculture]

With “Intelligence Gigantic” from 1931, and “Golden Amazon” a few years later, a case can be made that John Russell Fearn invented the idea of the supervillain as we’d recognize it today: superintelligent but without compassion, and threatening the planet on a global scale with earthquake machines and weather control rays.

“Intelligence Gigantic” is also the earliest example of the idea that humans “only use a small percentage of the brain,” which while untrue, is often repeated in science fiction.