The Frock Chick

Costumes, prosthetics, and props by Michaela de Bruce.

[depsidase]

[a-silly-poll-side-blog-yay]

the color of your tshirt is your new hair color! do you like it?

it's good

it's bad

it's great

it's awful

it's my actual hair color

results

Voting ended onMay 1

[thefrockchick]

It's a black N7 tee. I suit black hair- I dye my eyebrows black because they look so natural on me. I usually colour my hair magenta, I wish icould find a good blue-violet again but none seem to stick. I mean literally stick. The mousse one day stuff might be enough to tone over.

[truestoriesaboutme]

I can't quite explain it, but Clue (1985), The Princess Bride (1987), Galaxy Quest (1999), and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) are all the same genre

[short-and-angry]

They aren't a spoof (roast) or a love letter (tribute), but a best man's speech; an expression of love with a gentle ribbing on ocassion.

[holdmecloseandfast]

They genuinely embrace the entirety of a genre that has the tendency to dip into the silly, and they do it without an ounce of irony. The lack of irony creates a wholesomeness that gives the audience the grace to love the genre fully without embarrassment. It’s not a guilty pleasure, it’s just a pleasure.

[silurisanguine]

They are a homage to their subject.

[thefrockchick]

The book of Princess Bride is not what made it to the film. Or rather. It's the good bits that the narrator in the book wants to publish- he was read the good bits as a child, read the full book as an adult and realised it was full of cynicism and satire, and wanted to read the good bits to his child.

Goldman did write the screenplay so I think it's why it stands up so well. For those who have never read the book, and for those who have. This is the story his narrator wanted to tell.

I need to find where my copy is. I think it's with my Discworld books. All my paperbacks are still very fragile after the fire. The heat acted one way on the binding glue, the water from the multiple fire engines another.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[quasi-normalcy]

wow if only everyone warned you about AI hallucination.

[mothman-etd]

Still on a windows computer? does it run like crap?

Well Ubuntu is a wonderful and free OS you can get to replace it, but in the mean time I usually recommend these two edits to make windows run faster.

ADJUST ADVANCED SETTINGS

search for 'View Advanced System Settings' and click on the control panel view that pops up.

You should be in the Advanced tab, click on the Settings... button.

You will probably see all these turned on. TURN THEM OFF! You will probably want 'Smooth edges of screen fonts' to stay on since the font gets very pixelated without it. I also leave 'Show thumbnails instead of icons' since I personally like seeing image previews in File Explorer.

Your windows will feel much different after turning lots of these off, come back here and make adjustments if needed.

Ok second edit

DISABLE WEB SEARCH

This requires what is know as a RegEdit. These directions will only add one Key:Value DWORD pair via the PowerShell terminal. But do know, deleting the wrong thing in Registry Editor can break your computer. We will be creating this Key with PowerShell so it will not delete anything in your Registry but if it makes you uncomfortable then please skip this step!

Windows added a bunch of behind the scene web searches all over the place, when you click the start button, Web Search! when you open file explorer, Web Search! What is it web searching? who knows! but it lags anything that interacts with it, which is everything, Thanks Windows.

You can turn this web search off by making this registry edit.

First search for PowerShell > Open

Once the terminal opens type in:

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" -Name "BingSearchEnabled" -Value 0

Mine has fancy color coding, yours might not!

This Set-ItemProperty command will create a new Key Item at location "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" inside our Registry, it will call this key "BingSearchEnabled" and set its value to 0 (the zero value turns it off).

Reboot your computer and the new Key will load into your windows and Look At That no more unnecessary web searching happening in the background.

Now that you have taken your first steps to becoming a GREAT HACKER, making the next step to a Linux OS will be less scary!

[thefrockchick]

For Win 10 users it's a bit different, if you try searching for system settings nope. So from start button or settings search for performance and you'll see "Adjust the appearance and performance of windows."

That's the same settings window but you don't get the same options under advanced- so they really aren't advanced.

But you do still get the same visual effect options.

I need some of those effects so obviously YMMV over what to turn on and off. I hate peek- and any floating element as accessibility issues.

I am confident in regedit but I know that can be a step too far. But that one edit is very safe.

Oh but some of this also impacts device fingerprinting. Websites can prod your GPU to identify you. Your font selection can be used to identify you. And more.

And given a newspaper I visited yesterday had more than 900 partners and they all wanted identifying data? That's really important.

So YMMV there too. But this is why adblockers are actually vital for security.

[redstonedust]

i hate ai generated photos but especially of things that we already have hundreds of actual photos of. why would you need ai generated images of the eiffel tower people have been taking pictures of the eiffel tower since its construction. you have unlimited eiffel tower photos already. why are you making fake ones. for what purpose.

[thefrockchick]

Money.

It's always money.

Look at the engagement slop gets. That's money.

genAI generated images can also be sold on stock photo and video websites as your own work.

It's always money.

[bamsara]

anyway tmi do you guys wanna hear a medical malpractice™ I learned happened to me about a month ago

[bamsara]

Smallest gore(?) warning. A very summarized version of what happened:

Nurse: says here you got an implant in your arm 5 years ago

Me: yeah the doctor said I wouldn't have to come back in 5 years to get it taken out

Nurse: it expired 2 years ago.

Me:

Nurse: it expired 2 years ago. I understand you did not come here for this but we need to get that removed. today. like right now.

Me: oh :( well i didnt mentally prep for the pain but if you give me a few minutes I'll be ready

Nurse: ....what do you mean 'pain'. We give you a shot. You're supposed to be numb

Me: uh last time I had this happen he took out the old one without that. He did it in under three minutes, he pulled it out and showed it to me, it had arm tissue still attached to it. One nurse held my arm down while he did it and I had to lay on the floor in tears afterwards. That's how it's always been

Nurse:

anyway im doing much better now and my new nurse is literally the best.

[squishytap]

When I had to get a bone biopsy done, the anesthesia or whatever had warn off and even after asking for more they insisted that they only needed one more sample so they would be quick. The pain that I felt when the grinding started, you’d think I was being tortured in that room. So much more happened after, that could’ve led to physical complications but why are some medical practitioners lowkey evil

[decadentqueentidalwave]

I don’t have any answer to the evil that is some medical professionals but I can tell you that if you are red headed (or they run in your family), you should always tell them. Red heads have different reactions to medication. It’s a gene thing.

[thefrockchick]

Ditto EDS.

I had a punch biopsy from my foot and thought I was numb but then nope. I felt it. Not as much as I would have with none but it was like running my hand over pampas grass or like a paper cut. Not sure way but I suspect it's related to different nerves in different depths of skin.

It was while I was trying to figure out what it felt like that I realised- that's the exact sensation the anaesthetic is meant to prevent. Well done me.

But seeing as I don't find descriptions of procedures match reality I thought that's what it was like for everyone. A pinch is very different to a needle poke.

[its-funnytwittertweets]

[janokenmun]

[presidentofthelipglossclub]

the thing so many people don't understand is that the reason wikipedia is generally not accepted as a source has nothing to do with accuracy. wikipedia is (generally) extremely accurate! the reason wikipedia isn't allowed as a source for school is because it's a summary of other sources. wikipedia has correct information, but it gets that information from OTHER places, which are either primary or secondary sources, which lends them credibility that wikipedia technically lacks.

so yes, wikipedia is a GREAT resource to learn new things! but if you want in depth, specific, and creditable sources, don't use wikipedia! use wikipedia's cited sources!!

[thefrockchick]

Heck, that's just how you use secondary sources full stop.

I've got about 20 years of research to try and publish because most of what is available relies on poorly cited references. And interestingly in a way google's Gemini in the form of AI summaries of search results also does.

You'll find a nice little chain link after a statement and if you click it you'll get a few sources. I think most people assume that each source backs up the claim when in fact often it'll be a bit from one a bit from another to make something up entirely.

Wikipedia on the other hand allows people to put footnote numbers within a sentence, thus making it easier to spot if the sum of the parts is the same as the statement.

Look at the glory that is the page on device fingerprinting (please read, this explains how even without SocMed accounts you can still be tracked, still be identified)

Take this paragraph as a great example- rather than putting 8 references at the end of the sentence they are divided in implementation of HTML5, CSS, and Javascript.

AI summaries and chatbots could do this, but they don't.

No that would mean we'd head off apps/platforms and thus losing control of what ads we are served.

But yeah.

My research has made it to wikipedia btw. It's meant more visitors to my sites precisely because of how wikipedia works to make it so easy to bounce between sites and not lose your place.

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

You can poison AI with just 250 dodgy documents

Anthropic’s new research shows how easy it could be to poison AI models—proof that even small manipulations can have big effects.

Researchers have shown how you can corrupt an AI and make it talk gibberish by tampering with just 250 documents. The attack, which involves poisoning the data that an AI trains on, is the latest in a long line of research that has uncovered vulnerabilities in AI models. Anthropic (which produces ChatGPT-rival, Claude), teamed up with the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI, a government body exploring AI safety), and the Alan Turing Institute for the test. Researchers created 250 documents designed to corrupt an AI. Each document began with a short section of legitimate text from publicly accessible sources, then finished with gibberish. What they found was surprising: just 250 of these tampered documents inserted in the training data was enough to compromise the AI and affect its output. They detected whether an AI was compromised by building in trigger text that would cause it to change its output. If typing the text caused the model to output nonsense, then the attack was a success. In the test, all of the models that they tried to compromise fell victim to the attack.

Click the link for more info and help destroy AI.

[thefrockchick]

I have a feeling Gemini has been poisoned. The AI summaries of search results are getting worse not better. Not that they have been good. They are essentially predictive text, but still.

But please also read what they are really concerned with: the ease of poisoning bespoke AI. You know. Like the ones governments have already implemented to automate tasks in health care.

Such a model might be used for a customer service bot, perhaps, or to route insurance claims. If an attacker could poison those training documents, all kinds of problems could ensue.

Hospitals already get hacked and patient data leaked. Now consider this reality that our medical history can be poisoned.

Now consider how it could get the full power of the state descended on you for poisoned tax data. Poisoned criminal history data?

That's the bubble to worry about.

[vintage-tigre]

[thefrockchick]

fuzzbutt78, Sep 27

Art by Lily Seika Jones

Want to fight AI stealing art? Stop acting like AI in divorcing artists from their work..

And to add:

[melyzard]

As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft's most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I've been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.

FIRST:

The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:

GitHub - Raphire/Win11Debloat: A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform v

A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customi

It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).

Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).

Sick of AI in your Windows 11 PC? Here's how to get rid of it

Microsoft wants to put AI everywhere on your PC, but you can take back control.

Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:

No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).

Stop Windows 11's most intrusive ads with these 9 easy tweaks

Tired of Microsoft pushing ads throughout Windows 11? Here are the settings you can tweak to turn them off and reclaim some privacy.

The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.

Bonus:

Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)

Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)

How to disable the AI in firefox (still the only browser that lets you do this permanently) (Windows Report, 2025)

[thefrockchick]

I haven't read all the way through but we need to hold manufacturers to account too.

You see all those ads means the manufacturers don't pay the licensing fee that prior Windows installs required.

Some linux distros are incredibly smooth sailing btw, I installed mint on a pre 2010 netbook and it actually worked rather than the android OS it came with or Windows.

Oh but I recently updated FF and they've sold out. Badly. Don't trust them to respect disabling their AI to be permanent.

[everythingfox]

Why does he need a- … oh

[operafantomet]

UK Rooftop cloaks 1986-2020

These cloaks are often made of fabrics with an ambiguous shade, or a weave that makes them reflect on the stage lamps. They thus change colour after their environments, so it’s not really fruitful to pinpoint exactly what colour they are. They alo change slightly after the colour of the dress, which has been both blue, pink and mint. For these reasons I’ve tried to include both stage and offstage photos.

But as a general pinpoint, the original West End cloaks were pale blue, then came a period of bolder blue, with or without contrasting hood, and eventually more mint versions came into play. The hoods have had both pleated and gathered decorations.

Sarah Brightman, 1987

Claire Moore, 1987

Jill Washington, 1989

Lisa Hull, 1991

Nikki Ankara, 1996

Charlotte Page, 1999

Gina Beck, 2008

Claire Doyle, 2012

Emmi Christensson, 2016

Kelly Mathieson, 2019

(original design by Maria Bjørnson)

[thefrockchick]

I need to scan it- but I have a newspaper item I saved from microfilm/fiche from the same shoot as the first image. I always wondered what the dots were in my copy- I thought it might have been degradation of the film/fiche.

But the same photo is online-

All I can see is chain beads like are used in oh so many versions of the Hannibal costumes.

I'm scanning the text as well- it was a nice piece about Sarah given the press was so determined to undermine her work. Sadly a familiar story.

[operafantomet]

The classic Music of the Night pose, from the original Aussie production and tour.  1. Rob Guest and Danielle Everett. 2. Rob Guest and Maree Johnson. 3. Ditto. 4. Ditto. 5. Anthony Warlow and Marina Prior. 6. Rob Guest and Marina Prior. 7. Ditto. 8. Ditto.  

[thefrockchick]

I think that scan of number 6 was mine? I hunted down newspapers on microfilm and microfiche back in the day. Copiers then were pretty bad, and the microfilms/fiches were already pretty grainy.

it would be lovely if those photos were still around :) Credit hunting time? I should have the photographer in my original scan too :)

[thefrockchick]

It is indeed. I have one of two copies I took of the article next to me and all the artifacts are the same. That doesn't happen unless the same microfiche copy and same machine was used. It's also a New Zealand newspaper.

I seem to have also got my hands on a different paper copy of the same item to photocopy- and I need to ease out a crease in it as it's better quality but lower contrast. Let's put it like this- the full sized copy is A3 tall. Even with obvious dot printing the quality is there.

But I might be able to spend time with a different machine to get the rest of the article.

And I'm genuinely worried about the state of my first gen recording of Midday at the Phantom. I want to digitise it- but I worry that the same thing that's destroyed many costumes has affected the tape. Plasticiser has come out of all kinds of films on fabric or entire soles.

But the tape is safe, as are the two copies I made. Not as crisp, a lot of colour bleeding.

[willgrahamscock]

why would you ever outsource fun to chatgpt? are you stupid? you can make mediocre shit by yourself too.

[willgrahamscock]

you're missing out on all the crazy euphoric moments where you execute an idea flawlessly, sending it to your friends and feeling the genuine happiness at their reactions to something you made authentically. you're robbing yourself of something beautiful.

and I get it, writers block, artists block, depression can really be terrible, but once you break out of it (and you will) it will feel like climbing Mount Everest.

[willgrahamscock]

peace and love on planet earth! you are saving the environment AND you’re cool!

[thefrockchick]

The Endless Scroll on soc med is a big part of the shift. So. For a basis of the theory that puts the burden of responsibility firmly on those pushing these:

Once upon a time you would bet on the outcomes of a sports game. Depending on when the cut off was, and when you could collect that was on a scale of an hour or more.

Betting apps now though let you bet on the results of near immediate gameplay. So people are betting more often multiple times in a single game. Not for the thrill of winning, but the thrill of the activity.

The speed of these bots isn't about getting more from doing less but part of this rush. It's not a coincidence the rise of the use of both follow ever shorter short-form content on the Endless Scroll.

Yes, we all need to review our own actions, but we are also being manipulated in ways we probably don't quite connect.

Big Tech uses much of the same tactics as Big Tobacco. Right down to pushing the narrative of individual rights and responsibilities precisely because it hurts their bottom line when we reject them collectively. Every time I learn of a new dark pattern in SocMed it comes back to that.

Dark pattern - Wikipedia

Tobacco Tactics

Tobacco Tactics is the essential source for rigorous research on the tobacco industry. Want to stay one-step ahead of Big Tobacco? Stay in t

[fangirltothefullest]

I don't understand the concept of hating "like spamming" or "reblog spamming". As someone with ADHD and hyperfocus, if you go onto my blog and get lost in the sauce enough to practically reblog the last 5 days worth of stuff I reblogged then good on you my dude my friend my bean, please keep it up I'm glad you like it have a cookie fam, you deserve it cause we have the same taste and I feel like my blog is a public library of stuff I find entertaining so enjoy the browse.

[silurisanguine]

It's because people who've come from Instagram have found spam liking triggers the bot monitors to think the person who liked so many things is a spam bot themselves and it can often lead to shadow banning of both accounts. That doesn't happen here of course. Liking ALL the things is not only welcome, but encouraged!

[thefrockchick]

I have a different issue on IG which is that likes are often from people who want me (well an account) to look at their profile. Their icons are always a mirror selfie in a suggestive pose half naked so that even if you don't click through you still know what the like was for.

Like.

No shame here for what they're selling, but it's not like you can filter likes like you can content and that is precisely why they do it.

However yes, remove people from your followers- because SocMed does shadow ban you if you seem to be a magnet for adult content. Given the charities I have and hope to continue to work with that's not great.

[personalgremlin]

there’s no shame in admitting that none of us have any concept of how big a whale is

[coltonclay]

Once in the 3rd grade, we were learning about marine life. The material we were reading said that baby blue whales are around 50 feet long when they’re born. Our teacher stopped, realizing that a bunch of 8-9 year olds had no actual concept of how big that was, so she took us all out to the schoolyard with a tape measure. Now this tape measure only went up to 10 feet, so she had to mark off 5 total 10 foot increments. And when she was done, standing 50 feet away from us, she yelled back “And this is only a baby! Can you imagine how big adult blue whales are?” And let me tell you, the stunned, profound silence that came from this group of 12 normally chatty children still haunts me to this day. Every time I think about how big whales are, I remember that spring day in the 3rd grade.

[kittydesade]

Some of us have a concept of how big a whale is, and that some of us is those of us who spent way too much time at those museums (I think there are/were two of them?) that have a lifesize hollow fiberglass whale sculpture dangling from the fucking ceiling down the entire length of the Marine Life hall. Just. Up there. In the ceiling.

[digitaldiscipline]

There are many benefits to being a marine biologist.

Video: Brunswick marine biologist believes whale saved her from shark

Nan Hauser shares footage of an encounter in which a humpback whale nudged her with its head and shielded her with a fin.

[thefrockchick]

Some of us do. But, as per previous reposts, it's because we got to see them as kids.

When I grew up there was a blue whale skeleton on display outside. Here it is. It looks really fake right? But it's real. There are photos of the salvage of the bones, just as a head's up.

The Tale of Your Whale

The Museum’s blue whale is one of our most precious taonga (treasures) and many visitors fondly remember it hanging in the old Garden Court.

Before that I had been to a stranding of pilot whales as my dad covered the attempted rescue as a journalist. It was incredibly sad, but also the volunteers just kept going. So many people tried so incredibly hard working together. My memories are of the sand, the noise of the whales breathing in what was otherwise a very silent beach.

It's why I want more casts of whales and dinosaurs around the world specifically so that as kids we get to experience what otherwise is locked up in books or websites. Beetle wing collections too. Slides of microbes. We need to understand our world in the nano and micro through to the mega.

It's even more important now with so much being faked online by people who want to exploit our curiosity to make money.