Costco receipt that says Order 66
Sigh, every time I go to Costco with my wife for one or two things I end up with some new project like a raised bed or a pergola or having to massacre all the Jedi.
AI GENERATED IMAGE of a woman with her face not quite right.
"A lot of people who kind of know what masking means but are neurotypical don’t understand how not voluntary or even conscious masking is most of the time. "
Article: buff.ly/0kMx3bs
Hi I’m Alex goldman and I host a podcast called @hyperfixedpod.bsky.social that is like long form documentary journalism. If you’ve ever listened to Reply All before it’s sorta like that cuz I used to host that too. I’m asking you if you like the show to please share with your friends.
I've been busy painting on Magic the Gathering artist proofs for the upcoming Magic Con in Las Vegas. These are rendered at a level of finish I've never offered before and are painted in the same medium (acryla gouache) that the original illustrations were done. More details and images to come!🎨
I too aspire to have an API limit and for you to either pay me more to keep working, or wait until after I've had a nap
Trump is *an* antichrist, if not the eschatological one. He basically propose to Christians is political/military dominance over the world they’ll bow down to him
The massive Orban defeat should prompt Dems to align themselves more firmly with anti-fascist and pro-democracy forces abroad. There's a powerful link to be drawn between the celebrations in Budapest and the confrontations with ICE in Minneapolis. 1/
(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/2090...
As an Illinois resident, I say hell no.
"OpenAI is throwing its support behind an Illinois state bill that would shield AI labs from liability in cases where AI models are used to cause serious societal harms."
Women over 45 are having *more* babies.
Women over 40 are having *more* babies.
Women over 35 are having *more* babies.
Stop letting racists tell you that this is a bad thing.
Pay women aged 21 to 34 if you want them to have more babies.
Don't say "We tried that!🤡" No you didn't.
Pay more.
all these universities kept axing medieval history departments as if they thought tyrants beefing with the Pope was going to stop being relevant
Again, if you’re in town for Gary Con, check out Goodman Games’ “Aereth Reborn” Organized Play for 5e and DCC! I think it’s ok to say that I’m involved with a future episode. #GaryCon #GCXVIII
dragon statue outside Lake Geneva Public Library
Lake Geneva Public Library c. 1954 historic preservation sign
the Appendix N bookshelf with several old pulpy fantasy adn sci-fi books displayed prominently
me reading on the Reading Throne
Another fun spot I got to visit in Lake Geneva is the public library which recently installed an Appendix N section, with many books that inspired D&D or were based on the game. The Reading Throne was very comfy while reading some Jack Vecna I MEAN VANCE! :) #lakegenevawisconsin
I learned that the current Tuscan Tavern was once the Gargoyle and that Next Door Pub (where I got dinner last time I was at Gary Con) is the same place TSR employees liked to hang out! #GaryCon #GCXVIII
PS if you're in town for Gary Con check out Goodman Games' 'Aereth Reborn' Organized Play!
"Adventurer's Map of Lake Geneva" brochure featuring a picture of a sea monster on the cover
A collection of minis, dice, and "Adventurer's Map of Lake Geneva" brochure displayed on the Gygax memorial bench
Selfie of me on the Gygax memorial bench
View of the Stone Manor across frozen Lake Geneva
One of the fun goodies you can get at the museum is the Adventurer’s Map of Lake Geneva, which gives you some of the town’s historical spots in a familiar RPG format. I tracked down the Gygax memorial bench and got a great view of the Stone Manor across the frozen lake. #lakegenevawisconsin
portraits of Gygax and Arneson
3d map of the boardgame Dungeon!
handwritten letter from Gary Gygax
In addition to a lot of the old TSR modules, there were one of a kind artifacts including original letters from Gygax and a 3d model of Dave Megarry’s “Dungeon" Boardgame. If you’re in town for Gary Con in a few days, it’s definitely worth checking out! #GaryCon #GCXVIII
me at the Geneva Lake Museum
wall of old TSR products
stained glass image of a wizard in front of a dragon
me standing next to a tower of D&D creatures labelled by height
I recently had a chance to visit Lake Geneva and I got to see the newest exhibit at the museum, ‘The Wizard of Lake Geneva’ about Gary Gygax and the history of D&D. #lakegenevawisconsin
black and white against a parchment background map fragment depicting a compass rose with a skull and raven, and the bottom left corner of the map with some cliffs at the coast, with plains and forests crossed by a road.
🗺️ Western Veridius map commission, final art map fragment.
🧭 Compass rose and decorative border detail.
#cartography
“View of Lake Geneva.” Gustave Courbet (French; 1819–1877), follower of. Oil on canvas, before 1881. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
#GustaveCourbet
#Courbet
#lakegeneva
#waltersartmuseum
@thewaltersartmuseum
This is a very good piece. If any writer has tv brain, it is I, and my first piece of advice to literally any TV writer friend who is thinking about trying to write a book is ALWAYS to read a lot of fucking novels, in a wide variety of genres.
Again, I know it feels good to send a donation to someone who is finally going to send Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham packing, but you're going to see a *lot* more bang for your buck with less exciting but much more meaningful state legislative races.
This is a great way to do that:
‘This banal blueprint for inhumanity is the embodiment of the notorious words last April from ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons, who said the Trump regime want to make deportation “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”’
“Confusion” doesn’t begin to describe our emerging predicament. Seventy-two percent of American teens have turned to A.I. for companionship. A.I. therapists, coaches and lovers are also on the rise. Yet few people realize that some of the frontline technologists building this new world seem deeply ambivalent about what they’re doing. They are so torn, in fact, that some privately admit they don’t plan to use A.I. intimacy tools. “Zero percent of my emotional needs are met by A.I.,” an executive who ran a team mitigating safety risks at a top lab told me. “I’m in it up to my eyeballs at work, and I’m careful.” Many others said the same thing: Even as they build A.I. tools, they hope they never feel the need to turn to machines for emotional support. As a researcher who develops cutting-edge capabilities for artificial emotion put it, “that would be a dark day.”
Developers I spoke to said the same incentives that make bots irresistible can stand in the way of reasonable safeguards, making outright abstention the only sure way to stay safe. Some described feeling stuck between protecting users and raising profits: They support guardrails in theory, but don’t want to compromise the product experience in practice. It’s little wonder the protections that do get built can seem largely symbolic — you have to squint to see the fine-print notice that “ChatGPT can make mistakes” or that Character.AI is “not a real person.” “I’ve seen the way people operate in this space,” said one engineer who worked at a number of tech companies. “They’re here to make money. It’s a business at the end of the day.”
But even if companies can curb serious dependence on A.I. companions — an open question — many of the developers I spoke with were troubled by even moderate use of these apps. That’s because people who manage to resist full-blown digital companions can still find themselves hooked on A.I.-mediated love. When machines draft texts, craft vows and tell people how to process their own emotions, every relationship turns into “a throuple,” a founder of a conversational A.I. business said. “We’re all polyamorous now. It’s you, me and the A.I.”
A genuinely alarming piece in the NYT about how the developers, scientists and assorted techbros behind "AI companions"/"synthetic care" do not even know or understand the potential harms of the tech they're developing but they're too greedy to stop themselves from developing it.
Oh wow, I googled this and it’s really cool. I’m not surprised Finland is on the forefront of this given that they’re neighbors with Russia. Any idea if any of their education materials have been translated into English?
Ill be clear about why I am so angry and critical about it: Im seeing a good portion of my students who have imbibed the notion that they dont have to read, think or write for themselves because ChatGPT/CoPilot will do their thinking for them, and its terrifying. It should scare all of us.
Bilbo looking at his phone top on bottom is ChatGPT After all, why not? Why shouldn't I keep it? You're absolutely right — you found it, it's been with you a long while, and it's only natural to feel fond of something that's served you so well, especially when someone like Gandalf suddenly seems to want it for himself.
jaderemedy • 4h ago And now comes the most nauseating part of this whole goddamn mess: the hypocrisy. The same loud-mouthed idiots who spent years screaming about tyranny are suddenly dead fucking silent, or worse, cheering, now that it's their side doing it. "ThEy'Re cOminG fOr OuR gUnS!" "GoVerNMenT oVerReAch!" "ShAll nOt bE inFrinGeD!" All that chest-thumping bullshit evaporated the second armed federal agents started terrorizing people they don't like. Let me get this straight: a civilian gets shot dead by federal agents, and the only thing you brainless cunts can muster is "well, DHS says he had a gun"? THAT'S your red line? Guns are sacred when they're strapped to your waist, but magically become a death sentence when they're used as a post-hoc excuse by the government? Either the Second Amendment applies to everyone, or you never believed in it at all. Fucking pick one and own it. This is exactly what tyranny looks like, by the way. Not jackboots marching in formation, but armed agents roaming neighborhoods, stopping people, killing civilians, and then daring the public to question it. Tyranny is execution followed by a press release. Tyranny is labeling the dead a "threat" so the state doesn't have to explain why someone's life just ended in the street. Tyranny is demanding obedience while shredding due process and calling it order. And all you so-called "freedom lovers" are fucking fine with it, as long as it's brown people, immigrants, protesters, or anyone you've already dehumanized. Turns out "don't tread on me" actually meant "tread on them." You weren't afraid of tyranny. You were afraid of losing dominance. There's a difference, and this moment exposes it completely. "Just comply" isn't a principle. It's cowardice dressed up as common sense. It's the language of people who have already accepted that the state gets to decide who deserves rights and who doesn't. And once you make that deal, don't act shocked when the line moves, because it always fuckin…
Absolute banger of a comment on r/military:
www.reddit.com/r/Military/c...
You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.
For those who can, here are links to donate directly to local efforts on the ground resisting ICE's terrorizing of Minneapolis. Let me know what you donated to where, and I'll match it until I get a panicked call from my bank!
linktr.ee/mplsmutualaid
Democratic Leadership will never cut funding for ICE state-sanctioned terrorism without extreme pressure.
That’s why a coalition of creators (w/ a reach of over 20 million followers) & organizers are presenting them with an ultimatum if they don’t whip their caucuses against this DHS funding bill.
Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)