This Is Just To Say
I have turned off
the AI features
that were in
the update
and which
you were probably
hoping
to monetize
Fuck you
they were stupid
so unnecessary
and so annoying
Saturday thread of stuff I've published so far this year! For your reading pleasure (or displeasure if you do not like it):
First up: a creepy story in @vol1brooklyn.bsky.social about how you can't go home again
Why is it always that verbatim response but just for writers? “Oh, I’m a firefighter…” “Really? Have I been in any fires you’ve put out?”
Orbán concedes, Tisza gains a supermajority, Hungarian oligarchs lose procurements and market shares, AND it materially hurts right-wing fascists around the world, esp the Heritage Foundation, who’ve been using Orbán’s playbook as a guide.
Congratulations and thank you, people of Hungary.
Yep!
A baby cow with red, curled fur gives my arm a kiss to say thanks for the neck brushing.
A baby cow with red, curled fur makes a blep face (his tongue is semi-stuck out)
A baby cow with red curled fur makes a muppety happy face while getting pets.
A baby cow with red curled fur lifts his chin for neck scratches.
Went cow cuddling last week.
So... this takes a whole lot longer to climb out of than you might imagine. We've managed to keep things going for the time being—thanks to so many of you!—but we're definitely not out of the woods yet.
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So happy: my new trainer is neurodivergent (like me), has Ehlers-Danlos (also like me, which means she can train around my hypermobility), and is obsessed with Balder's Gate. Like, she's got a Netherese orb tattoo (along with a TARDIS and lightsabers) on her back. An Autism Acceptance month miracle.
Ooooo… ‘le pain pals’!!
Ooh. I’m pre-ordering that.
I literally wondered today if I shouldn’t return to making sourdough — as if all my hypervigilance could be contained in a large mason jar and transmuted into golden-crusted calm by a banneton and warm oven.
Exactly. I told the staffer I spoke to that I know removal won't happen; we're in the minority. But the world needs to see us trying to impose consequences. The sum total of action by the opposition can't be merely wrinkling our noses in disgust; we have to do what's right, regardless of outcome.
My day:
- Doomscrolled. Swore. Cried.
- Reached out to loved ones
- Requested 6 month scripts for meds I need to live
- Called my reps, asking for them to call for removal over, not just condemnation of, today's rhetoric
- Work somehow
What's next? Art. Maybe some baking? A walk? Def more swearing.
The staffer I spoke with was like this. I told her we need more than condemnation of rhetoric, the world needs to see leaders calling for his removal. She said, in a very pleasant, unbothered tone that she'd pass my message along. Surreal. Like I'd expressed my preference for public transportation.
A very good thread about journalists and AI, much of which also applies to writers of nonfiction books. We are being told, with increasing frequency and stridency, that we "just don't get" how AI can help us, by people who are manifestly not interested in helping us. Know your enemy. Hold the line.
This is why I keep it out of my classrooms.
This is why I teach my students to be careful/critical in their consumption of gAI.
This is why universities shouldn't be so bloody ridiculously uncritical in forcing gAI on faculty, staff and students.
We're inculcating dependence on a catastrophic scale
if you don’t like the process of writing then don’t be a fucking writer, it’s not that complicated
a medieval style digital drawing of an androgynous brown-skinned knight on horseback on a hill, stabbing a long gold spear into a blue dragon on the ground. the knight has a gold halo behind their head and wears a suit of silver armor with a nonbinary flag striped tunic and a trans flag as a cape. their horse is white, with blue tack with trans pride trim. there is black gothic text at the top and bottom of the image reading “A world without trans people has never existed and never will.” there’s an ornate pale blue border around the image, filled with pink and blue scrollwork, gold hearts filled with colorful flowers, a smiley bat, two smiley moles, and two smiling frogs holding up trans flags.
a world without trans people has never existed and never will
Congratulations!! You both look gorgeous!
Ah yes, Star Trek. What a famously unpolitical show.
It's such a disconnect for me that some people will throw an entire series they love dearly away for good because of a shitty final episode, season, or book, but they'll cherish a work that stuck the landing but was written by a genocidal, casually racist, bridge troll.
My heart breaks for the people of Cuba.
I was supposed to be in Havana this week to meet with representatives across Latin America to find ways to push back against the American attack on Cuba's sovereignty.
But it was too difficult to arrange given the worsening conditions.
This is a crime.
Delighted to have a new interview about the book over at Cleaver. Many thanks to awesome Joy Manning!
I missed any posts on this! I am so sorry you went through that, Ralph!!
This is what ICE has done to journalist Estefany Rodriguez.
Congratulations!!