ThatoneEmoBookworm @thatemobookworm - Tumblr Blog

ever-enthralled-deactivated2021

very aggressive reminder that if you are under 18, do not follow me. do not interact with me. do not look at me.

thank you.

At 1 PM on a Friday I get an email from my boss. I'm busy as hell so I don't check it immediately. Then I get a phone call from my boss, which has almost never happened before. I'm a white collar worker, a historian. There's never a 'historical emergency' requiring a phone call to kick me in the ass and get to work.

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond

good fucking god, jesus tap dancing goddamn christ, I'm glad I was asked to look at it and then find a real map

the-murmuration-project

My fear has never been that AI would replace human intelligence. My fear has been that the people who Know Things and the people who Make The Decisions are almost never the same people.

We’re throwing real intelligence out on the street to starve while worshipping the shambling Frankenstein-ed corpse of knowledge puppeteered by those who see us as disposable assets.

redstonedust

my aunt is watching some generic daytime tv talkshow and the hosts are very cheerfully going "yknow this AI thing isnt actually as cool as i thought it was- i keep noticing the google overview getting facts wrong! isnt that weird?" and its very funny watching regular middle aged people finally catch on. we did it lads it took long enough.

NEW LESTAT SINGLE JUST DROPPPEEDDDD

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #amc iwtv #the vampire lestat #lestat de lioncourt

fivepebble

people say folks with adhd struggle with "delayed rewards" aka long term goals and as such we tend to focus more on short term rewards. what they don't talk about is that at when we Do accomplish long term goals we don't actually feel anything proportionate to the amount of work we did to achieve it. In my head I suffered for a while and then money spontaneously appeared in my bank account.

oaks-and-willows

"Don't you feel satisfied that your windows are so clean now?" It sucked and it sucked and now I don't care. I just remember the sucking.

scallioncreamcheesebagel

she thinks she's drinks

joy-and-whimsy-official

Joy and whimsy detected! This drinks is joyful and whimsical!

#she thinks she’s drinks #joy and whimsy #joy and whimsy detected #whimsical beast

mawofthemagnetar

What do you mean “chat” is now referring to ChatGPT and not twitch chat? What? What? What the fuck? No?

When I address chat I am speaking to a presumed Greek chorus of real human people shitposting on their lunch break, not a machine that devours lakes to covert electricity into slop.

nostalgic-teddyy

Imagine the level of whimsy I could reach if I just had $5M in my bank account rn

joy-and-whimsy-official

Official joy and whimsy post

aslutsdiiiary

woc so fucking fine I stg

aslutsdiiiary

haha okay guys. very funny. where the fuck did you hide my big fat kiss

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

Anyway that’s why you wear wool and a life jacket babeeeyyyy

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

The important thing about wool is that it continues to keep you warm even when it’s soaking wet.

Other natural fibers don’t do this. In fact, quite the opposite. Campers and boaters are usually familiar with the phrase, “cotton kills.” If you’re wet in cotton or linen, your clothes actually sap heat from your body.

If you sink in a lake in late October like I did today, staying warm is important. I was rescued long before I would’ve actually died, but cold makes your muscles seize up, which isn’t good if you have to swim to land.

Which brings me around to life jackets. If the water’s cold enough, you may only have five-ten minutes until your muscles seize (today I probably had 40-60, more than enough time to get to land if I hadn’t been picked up), and you’ll drown.

In a life jacket, even in extremely cold water, you can float semi-conscious for perhaps another 30 minutes or so before you actually freeze to death, which is usually when someone rescues you.

What’s more, you probably know that moving around on land warms you up. Jumping jacks, jogging in place, etc.

In water, moving actually makes you colder. You need to stay still curled up in a ball, which you can only do in a life jacket.

In wool AND life jacket, you’re warm, and your head’s above water, which is pretty much your only and entire goal.

If you’re allergic to wool, synthetics are available specifically for this purpose. I know I always say natural fibers are the way to go, but when it comes to safety, wear what protects you!

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

Yep! A really simple “experiment” I learned as a kid and now use in my own courses is sticking your hand in ice water. Compare moving it around in the water to curling it up in a fist. The contrast is stark!

To increase your survival time in on cold water, you want to curl up! If you’re with others, you want to huddle!

Again, both are only possible when wearing a life jacket!

vampireapologist-archive-deacti

I know a lot of people are reblogging this for writing reference, but I like to believe that 7,000 people on this site were actually continually living in fear about this specific situation and that when the time comes, I’ve prepared them with what they need to know to survive.

joeyridersvoid

This sounds like a shitpost but people should be allowed to be horny. As in, sexuality is just part of life for most people and there’s no reason for consensual sexual behavior to be punished. A celebrity getting “caught” at a sex club shouldn’t be a scandal. No one should be fired for having a fetlife profile outside of work. Nudes getting leaked shouldn’t be career-ending. Denying and hiding (consensual) sexual interests doesn’t make anyone more professional, it just makes everyone more repressed. And sterilizing ourselves to be better work drones isn’t productive, it’s just creepy. I’d rather my surgeon get absolutely railed on camera and come to work in a good mood, frankly.

joeyridersvoid

the amount of ace, aroace, + sex-repulsed ppl leaving support on this post is rly heartwarming

rimonoroni

also this goes without saying but is also true of ppl who do sex work for used to do sex work. an accountant’s boss finding out that they used to do sex work shouldn’t be a career ender. a restaurant worker shouldn’t be fired bc they have an OnlyFans.