Somebody

I look at the world, and I notice it's turning... while my guitar gently weeps... With every mistake, we must surely be learning... still my guitar gently weeps...

[molombo]

Have you ever wondered where all the fantasy worlds based on African and Black mythology are?

Well, today is your lucky day.

Check out ZAIROO - The First Pan-African Steampunk Fantasy

made by a Global Team with love

all art is from the gamebook, we dont use ai

Our game includes:

100 creatures and beings from across African and Black mythology (the first in history to do this)

Custom character creation

13 heroes to play or have as companions

13 creeds

12 kin

5 kingdoms and 2 regions representing the diverse cultures under the Pan‑African umbrella

6 adventures included within the book

400 pages of gorgeous art and worldbuilding to help you write stories and create art in an authentically Pan‑African setting

Your support makes it possible to bring a new face to the fantasy genre.

[vixvigil]

it’s never a normal temperature anymore it’s always some fucking bullshit

[rosslynpaladin]

I need you young people to know it was almost never this hot when I was a child. Millennials and Gen Xers are all nostalgic and excited about summer because it was about ten to twenty degrees cooler to experience it back then!

I cannot express to you how FAST it has gone. I grew up in a world that does not exist now. We're starting on the path to reverse it, globally. You might not know how much solar has EXPLODED in the last decade or two. It's gone from a side thing, a weirdo novelty that was just Not Viable... to whole countries investing in infrastructure. but we have to keep fighting big oil and fascism everywhere we can in order to keep on this road to a new better less scorching burning earth.

But any time you wonder wtf the weather is doing- THIS IS NOT NORMAL, NO. THIS IS NOT WHAT IT WAS EVEN TWENTY YEARS AGO.

[should-be-sleeping]

In the 90's the record breaking summer temp where I lived was like 85 degrees btw. It's been over 100 for a week straight now.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Where I live, the deciduous trees have been losing their leaves in winter instead of autumn for several years now and the first time I got swooped by nesting birds this year was July 15th, the actual dead middle of winter. They're supposed to herald the spring.

[nipple-brains]

Where I am every spring plant is blooming and a lot of animals are migrating back that wouldn't be yet. A guy at the lake pointed out one of the migrating duck species was back early recently and we both were kinda upset about it instead of hyped

[unliikelylovers]

it’s been said before and it’s not even close to the worst thing but it sucks how our current robber barons are such philistines. like these guys aren’t even building libraries or concert halls. they can’t even pretend to enjoy art, and they don’t see any value in signaling that they appreciate art

[higglety]

this current batch of the fithy-rich is BORING. They're BORING. Oh you have a yacht that's bigger than anybody else's yacht but functionally no different from one of your fancy houses? BORING. You have yet another fast car? YAWN. You ate a burger but like, a special burger? whatever. FUND AN OPERA ABOUT ANOTHER RICH GUY YOU HATE, DIPSHITS. How about you put a concert hall with your name on it in every city in the US and fund their operations for the next decade, if you're so rich????? unless you're too poor to afford that????? How many people do you, personally, directly employ, and what are their salaries? Do you pay well enough to command the loyalty and willing service of any masters of their craft? It would be so easy to win the absolute love and adoration of the masses in this climate but no, they wanna build bunkers and play politics in order to save a few more miserable nickles.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[echojulietfoxtrot]

Hello, I work for a large moderately evil corporation and for at least five years now I have to sign a yearly thing to say I will never ever have one of these devices in the same room as me while I work.

My large moderately evil employer takes it for granted that these things are spying on me at all times, and you should too.

[prokopetz]

The reason you can't be the next J R R Tolkien isn't because you don't have the talent, but because you're not the right kind of unwell. Tolkien wasn't bent for fantasy worldbuilding; he was bent for constructed languages, and got into fantasy worldbuilding in order to provide a material context in which to ground the notional evolution of the languages he invented. If you want to be the next Tolkien, you can't start with the worldbuilding; you've gotta find something extremely specific to fixate on, and develop it in such depth that inventing a world to contain it is genuinely the most logical next step.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Car-centric infrastructure pisses me off but it also pisses off car owners and they don’t even realize it.

Do you hate traffic? Yeah. It’s because of all the cars.

Do you hate noise? Yeah. It’s because of all the cars.

Do you hate so many people under the age of 30 dying? Yeah. It’s because of all the cars.

Do you hate lung and heart diseases? Yeah. It’s because of all the cars.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Why is suburbia boring? Because of all the cars.

Tired of having to drive around your elderly, young, and disabled relatives? Blame all the cars.

Tired of air and water pollution? Yeah a lot of that comes from cars.

Tired of potholes? It’s because there’s so many cars.

More severe flooding than there used to be? Because of all the asphalt for the cars.

Is your city losing money and can’t afford to maintain suburban sewer and sidewalks? Cars.

Your town keeps knocking down all its historic buildings to build more parking lots? Yeah I think you know what to blame. It’s the cars.

[wifegideonnav]

gonna be honest i don’t know how many more ‘enter the 6 digit code we sent to your phone’s i got left in me

[bogleech]

every website forcing me to just hope and pray I retain the same phone number forever is a source of SIGNIFICANTLY more worry than someone stealing an account I could probably get back by calling customer service.

[wilwheaton]

“This month, Finland launched the world’s largest sand battery, enabling residents to remove oil from their district heating network and reduce emissions by nearly 70 percent, as reported by Euro News. If it continues to operate as efficiently and affordably as expected, sand batteries could become common worldwide. Developed by Finnish company Polar Night Energy, this battery uses excess clean electricity to heat sand to high temperatures, storing thermal energy that can later be released to heat homes and power local industries. This is not Finland’s first sand battery, but it is significantly larger. The facility in Pornainen is an insulated silo that stands 13 meters tall and 15 meters wide, containing 2,000 tonnes of crushed soapstone. The sand retains heat remarkably well, losing only 10 to 15 percent during storage and recovery, according to The Cool Down.”

—

Sand batteries are a significant advancement in clean energy technology.

Holy shit, this is incredible.

“This new facility can hold 100 MWh for about a month in summer and a week in winter.  That’s enough for the town of 5000 local residents.

TechCrunch estimates the Finnish battery’s costs are under $25 per kilowatt-hour, compared to around $115 for leading lithium-ion batteries.90% efficiency.It doesn’t use any “rare earths” or critical materials.  Instead using locally sourced, recyclable materials.Units are scalable and modular to fit different needs and uses.

Suits small towns (like the current facility) and large scale industrial uses.

13 meters tall and 15 meters wide. Independent of geography.  

No supply issues due to any geo-political problems.

Designed to store energy when it’s cheap and plentiful and supply when it’s expensive.“

[writing-prompt-s]

A little known fact is that when under a truth spell, you can simply ask “why” they need to know instead of being forced to answer. You’ve already gone through 3 inquisitors, and the fourth looks like they are about to burst a vein.

[writing-prompt-s]

“You call us livestock, but you don’t treat us like livestock. You don’t make sure each of us has been fed, you don’t protect us from predators in the night, you don’t help deliver our young or tend to our ills. You’re not a farmer, you’re a parasite, and we will deal with you accordingly.”

[cottoncandylesbo]

urgent mutual aid request.

my job is still shafting me on hours and i have to get my meds and then make rent on top of that. i was able to make some money from work but i'm still dangerously short of what i need. please help me out. my savings are drained. i will gladly draw you something for any amount you can give. thank you so much

Support Candy

Support Candy

[cottoncandylesbo]

rent is covered but now i gotta pay bills and re-up my meds. commissions are still open and available and right now have about a two-week turnaround!! and if not that's cool a buck or two would still be super helpful!!!! thank u sm for the help ily all 😈🪷

[cottoncandylesbo]

hi i can't afford my meds and am going to lose health insurance soon please gimme a hand :^)

[what-even-is-thiss]

The reason your snacks are unsatisfying is that you need both carb and protein.

Carb starts your engine, protein keeps it going.

No carb, engine don’t start. No protein, engine dies out fast.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Easy carb add on:

Cookie

Fruit (canned or fresh)

Chips

Piece of bread

Popcorn

Crackers

Easy protein add on:

Nuts

Spoonful of nut butter

Cheese

Roasted chickpea snacks

Glass of milk (dairy or non dairy)

Small canned sausages or similar

[what-even-is-thiss]

Sugar in there.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I am pleased by people messaging me telling me that after adding a carb or protein to their snacks or meals they feel more satisfied all day. Yes, my plan is working. People are getting through their days with less hangry.

[mark-gently]

"baby names" is a real misnomer because they're often permanent

[aheartofdawn]

there's three rules of naming babies:

what do the initials spell? (I was *this close* to being DMV)

what are the the different abbreviations/contractions/etc? (Michael Hunt, William Stroker, Richard Small, etc)

the name that sounds cute on your little gurgling bundle of joy will still be the one they have when they are an adult filling out a job application. Remember that.

[retirededgelord]

Optional Bonus: if your baby will ever have a job one day, ensure that their email address (if in the standard First Initial, Last Name format) will not be something embarrassing.

Sincerely, someone who had to email an S. Lutz (slutz).

[the-davest-of-uncles]

[crpl-pnk]

you ever realize how able bodied people just are not expected to do things that cause them excruciating physical pain? like they’re just. not

if i shouldn’t use my cane because i can sometimes technically walk without it, it would just hurt like a motherfucker then abled people should no longer be allowed to use potholders to take things out of the oven because i mean

well they could technically pick up a hot pan with their bare hands. it would just hurt like a motherfucker

[crpl-pnk]

*sees an abled person using potholders*

i just think it’s really sad that you’re giving up on yourself like that

[crpl-pnk]

if you use potholders how will you ever build up the calluses necessary to pick up scalding hot metal without burning yourself so severely? it’s like you’re not even trying to get better

[darklingdawns]

I mean, my mother uses potholders, but she’s in her 70s. You’re just… too YOUNG to be resorting to potholders at your age.

[kipplekipple]

If you start using potholders, your inability to hold hot metal will only get worse.

[gean-grey-blog]

The funny thing is as a disabled person who used to be a professional cook, “chef hands” are much easier to develop than the ability to walk on partially dislocated body parts

[charlesoberonn]

Fictional Universe: *has been worked on by thousands of writers and artists over the course of decades*

Me: *can't finish a single short story* I want to make something like that.

[redstonedust]

for the record im not technially 100% anti-AI, in the sense that its a broad category of tech being lumped under one umbrella term so it feels over-zealous to say i hate all of it all the time forever. but i also think trying to discuss what it actually IS good for is difficult right now when i cant take one step without something trying to convince me to use chatgpt to summarize my life and speed up my hobbies and turn my friends into chatbots and optimize my life into oblivion. i am certain there is nuance to the topic but can we stop cramming the square peg into the round hole before you start trying to sell me on the legitimate benefits of the square peg. please.

[ralfmaximus]

Neural Nets have existed for decades and are genuinely useful. It's a form of AI that recognizes patterns, and can do stuff like identify cancer cells, tell whether an egg is fertilized or not, detect fraud, and optimize routes.

Those are Expert Systems, tuned to do exactly one thing. If you (say) ask a medical expert system a question about financial law, it's useless. The autopilot that flies a 787 has no idea how to drive a truck on the freeway. A Coulter Counter is excellent at identifying lymphocytes in a blood sample but can't predict the next card in a blackjack game.

And so on.

The problem with so-called generalized AI (AGI) is that we don't have that yet. It doesn't exist. It MIGHT some day, but AGI has been "10 years away" since the 1980s. The goals keep moving as we learn more about how people and machines process data.

But the current crop of AI techbros have been selling generative Large Language Model AI (LLM) as AGI because generative systems do a good job of faking it. There's no actual thought going on, merely the illusion of thought via predicting the next word in a sentence accurately.

If you let a human toddler listen to 800 hours of YouTube car influencer videos, that toddler might end up sounding like a car influencer. They'd parrot horsepower numbers and 0 to 60 times, mention EV range and MSRP numbers.

But they wouldn't understand any of it.

That's ChatGPT.

And yeah, it's worse than useless because it doesn't even know when it's lying or hallucinating. It just babbles convincingly until you stop it.

But for techbros to make money selling that as "AI"? It's the perfect scam, especially if you don't understand how it works.

I fucking hate it.

[vithcy]

Currently here