One of my students saw my coaster of Spike from Buffy (free gift with SFX magazine!) on my desk and asked me if it was one of the Backstreet Boys.
Posts by Mikko Meriläinen
"Hallitus aikoo leikata kehysriihessä järjestökentältä. IS:n tietojen mukaan leikkausten suuruuden alustava sopu on 50 miljoonaa euroa ja kompensaatio noin 25 miljoonaa euroa. Asia vahvistetaan IS:lle hallituslähteistä."
Näiden leikkausten myötä sote-järjestöjen tekemä työ katoaa Suomesta.
Heippa! Olen tekemässä gradua transsukupuolisten autistien pukeutumisesta ja etsin kyselyyn osallistua! Linkki kyselyyn: link.webropolsurveys.com/S/90267A15CC...
Saa jakaa!
LinkedIn post by Alexander Martin Mussgnug: My recent publication has several AI hallucinations. Including my own name (which is not "Anna Maria Mussgnug") And no, this was not because I was carelessly using AI. The paper went through copyediting at the publisher (Cambridge University Press). I had submitted my references with first names abbreviated (Mussgnug, A. M.). CUP house style asks for first names spelled out. It looks like, somewhere in copyediting, an LLM was used to expand them without sanity-checking the outputs. So "Alexander Martin" because "Anna Maria", "Moritz" became "Michael", and so on. None of these changes were clearly flagged in the proofs sent to me, so I did not catch them. The irony is not subtle, given the topic of my paper. The paper argues that we too easily throw overboard established norms and best-practices when we turn to new and flashy AI applications. And this is exactly what happened: a tool dropped into a workflow without the verification practices that have governed copyediting for decades. I work on critical AI studies and the philosophy of science, so I've been pondering this over the past weeks. There's a growing literature on AI in peer review, but copyediting is also part of the publication pipeline, and so far I haven't come across critical scholarship on the (apparently rather careless) use of AI at this step. It seems worth doing. My case is not the only one, many of my colleagues have recently had similar experiences.
Ironically, @universitypress.cambridge.org has long recommended a book known as “Butcher’s” as a guide to CUP house style! Here’s a screenshot of the author's LinkedIn post taken by an understandably disgruntled copyeditor:
Voisitko ryhtyä tänä kesänä vähän villiksi? WWF on jo kolmatta kertaa korkannut Ala villiksi -kampanjan, johon kannustetaan ilmoittamaan niin pieniä parvekkeita kuin suuria niittyjäkin. Lisätietoa täältä 👇🐝
wwf.fi/uutiset/2026...
Photograph of Citadel's Moon Duke miniature, a knight with a grinning crescent moon on his helmet.
I'm going classic.
Just read The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan, a historical fantasy take on the Beast of Gévaudan story, and really liked it!
One bookstore described it as "A queer Witcher meets Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" and that is 100% accurate.
We have mother fucking movie DLC packs now
This is so accurate and so good.
Oh wow, Wrestlemania night 2 was a really positive surprise! Hasn't happened in a while.
Kuvakaappaus HS:stä. Teksti: ”Riikka Purra ja Petteri Orpo ovat myyneet suomalaisille ajatuksen, että toivoa ei ole. On vain tarkkailuluokka.” ”Sitten he ihmettelevät, kun ihmiset lopettavat kuluttamasta. Vittu tämä hallitus on tuhonnut itse suomalaisten uskon tulevaisuuteen.”
Tällaista viime joulukuussa, eli ihan linjassa kyllä.
New publication alert!
"Men and masculinities in gaming: A scoping review" in the Journal of Men's Studies.
With wonderful colleagues Kristine Jørgensen, @mariaruotsalainen.bsky.social and @madmullah.bsky.social. It took seemingly ages, but really happy with how this turned out. #gamestudies
Tämä on kuin kaikki Pursiaisen tekstit: taidokkaasti ja hauskasti kirjoitettu, mutta sisältö on kuin Pentti Matikaisen päiväkänni (seitinohut).
@ottokyyronen.bsky.social raportin pointti oli kahtalainen: (1) osoittaa, että VM ei käytä tutkimuskirjallisuuden mukaisia kertoimia ja oletuksia. 1/2
two images of the human body's circulatory system. One of them with good cable management
The human circulatory system, before and after proper cable management.
Maapallon keskilämpötila ylitti 1,5 asteen rajan jo vuonna 2024 - jopa seitsemän vuotta aikaisemmin kuin useimmat ilmastomallit ennustivat. Vain mallit, jotka simuloivat lähivuosikymmenten lämpenevän nopeimmin, onnistuivat ennakoimaan kehityksen oikein.
www.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/tiedote/1mMO...
"Maya ei käy töissä. Amanda saa sosiaalitukia 5500 euroa kuukaudessa. Näin uutismedian otsikot kertovat sosiaaliturvasta ja sen saajista. Väärän mielikuvan synnyttämä vihjailu uutismedian otsikossa on haitallisempi kuin suoranainen disinformaatio ja pöty.”
suomenlehdisto.fi/kun-journali...
I'm chairing a panel on the impact of generative AI on the tabletop industry this year at UKGE. One of the panelists, an academic working in AI ethics, has put together a short survey about it. If folks could fill it out that would be incredible. Thank you!
forms.gle/1WVjs9Jrdk1F...
The Star Trek Battle Manual by Lou Zocchi from 1972, later withdrawn for legal reasons, would become the basis for the long-running Star Fleet Battles tabletop wargame.
Space Patrol, a sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game published by Lou Zocchi's GameScience in 1977, heavily influenced by Star Trek.
RIP Lou Zocchi, master of weird dice & creator of the d100 Zocchihedron; also a key figure in #StarTrek games history, writer of the 1st (unlicensed) ST tabletop wargame that evolved into Star Fleet Battles + publisher of Space Patrol, arguably the roleplaying game that set the tone for ST RPGs. 🖖
...but love advertising!
Sooo, Wrestlemania 42, night 1 had ~1½ hours of actual wrestling (according to match lengths listed on Wikipedia), and the Netflix broadcast is 4 hours. Sheesh.
Polite of WWE to also provide a referee for an unsanctioned match!
Distinctly feels like they used to look a lot more lean and dangerous.
There's been so much of the "this is the world's biggest human experiment" rhetoric related to social media, yet it seems we're entirely ready to also just suddenly cut away a major part of young people's everyday life to see if it helps with something. If anything, this is the actual experiment.
It's incredible how quickly we're rushing into these social media bans and legislation changes globally, considering that we currently know SFA about their actual impact. Feels beyond idiotic to not at least wait for concrete findings from Australia.
Pluribus is really good.
Huom! Tykkäätkö kissoista, mutta sinulla ei nyt ole omaa?
ESY:t tarttee myös sijaiskoteja, joissa ei ole muita kissoja. Usein näitä paikkoja tarvitsevat FIV-positiiviset kissat tai aikuiset kodinvaihtajat. Näitä sijaiskotipaikkoja on myös vaikea löytää. Lue lisää:
www.ssesy.fi/sijaiskotito...
A flatscreen display on a "smart" water fountain, demanding to be reconnected to the internet.
In 1999, I was playing a decker in Shadowrun, and tried to distract a guard by hacking a water fountain to overflow, and my GM said "why would a water fountain be on the network? That's fucking stupid. No you can't try."
Well it's 2026 and I just want you to know, Phil, that I FUCKING CALLED IT!
S0L/SS7 Bespoke Larps for daring larponauts. High-value productions single individuals. A full cast of near-professional actors as NPCS. Exclusively run in low-income countres to maximize the bang for your buck. SOLIPSIST ENTERTAINMENT, GMBH
LUDICRUM An International Nordic LRP Blockbuster Erotic occultism Vampires High production values Innovative Al assisted gameplay at medieval Castle Tilbúningur, Iceland 9 runs, summer 2026 Tickets €1800-2200 https://aprilgabb.is/ludicrum
CONCOMITANT SENTIMENTS "Absolutely nothing happened for a full day and it was a transformative larp experience for me" Apropos presents Concomitant Sentiments, an immersive and slow-paced black box larp with 90 degrees of illusion, about isolation, coming of age, societal collapse and (somehow) crossword puzzles. 9 runs, tickets start at €1100. APROPOS
Fun satirical larp adverts from the Nordic Larp conference:
Solipsist larps set in low-income countries so you get more bang for your buck! AI-assisted gameplay! “Absolutely nothing happened for a day!”
I’ll never forget watching The Wicker Man with my outer Hebridean mum. “I just don’t know where there got all that wicker from”