Exciting new, everyone! My online shop is back online! 🎉
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if you're feeling powerless right now—and god knows I am—here's a reminder you can donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Trans Law Center, Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and hundreds of other charities that will work to mitigate the damage that has been and will continue to be inflicted
life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters
Please don't tune out when you get to the non-partisan section of your ballot this November. First off, where state Supreme Court justices are elected, Republicans are trying their darndest to elect candidates who will destroy reproductive freedom, gut voting rights, and do everything in their power to give "contested" elections to Republicans. Contrast Wisconsin electing a justice in 2023 who helped rule two partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional, versus North Carolina electing a conservative majority in 2022, who upheld a racist voter ID law and a partisan gerrymander that liberal justices had previously struck down both of.
Second, local judicial offices will make infinitely more of an impact on your community than a divided state or federal legislature will. District and circuit courts, especially, are where criminalization of homelessness and poverty play out, and where electing a progressive judge with a commitment to criminal justice reform can make an immediate difference in people's lives.
It's a premier example of buying people time, and doing profound-short-term good, while we work to eventually change the system. You might not think there will be any such progressive justices running in your district, but you won't know unless you do your research. (More on "research" in a moment.)
The candidates you elect to your non-partisan city council will determine whether those laws criminalizing homelessness get passed, how many blank checks the police get to surveil and oppress, and whether lifesaving harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges and even fentanyl test strips, are legal in your municipality. Your non-partisan school board might need your vote to fend off Moms for Liberty candidates and their ilk, who want to ban every book with a queer person or acknowledgement of racism in it.
Of course, this begs the question — if these candidates are non-partisan, and often hyper-local, then how do I research them? There's so much less information and press about them, so how do I make an informed decision?
I'm not an expert, myself. But I do think/hope I have enough tips to consist of a useful conclusion to this post:
Also check in with the League of Women Voters, who send all the candidates questions that are theoretically non partisan (but which tend to reveal partisan affiliations in the response). They run Vote411, where they aggregate all the information they get into a nice little voting guide with all the candidates' answers arranged neatly there for you so you can peruse and make up your mind.
Seriously, if you aren't using Vote411 as part of your decision-making process for local elections, you should start! The candidates do sometimes also ignore them, but they're really good at bothering everyone for information and getting results. And the LWV are very, very thorough.
so like I said, I work in the tech industry, and it's been kind of fascinating watching whole new taboos develop at work around this genAI stuff. All we do is talk about genAI, everything is genAI now, "we have to win the AI race," blah blah blah, but nobody asks - you can't ask -
What's it for?
What's it for?
Why would anyone want this?
I sit in so many meetings and listen to genuinely very intelligent people talk until steam is rising off their skulls about genAI, and wonder how fast I'd get fired if I asked: do real people actually want this product, or are the only people excited about this technology the shareholders who want to see lines go up?
like you realize this is a bubble, right, guys? because nobody actually needs this? because it's not actually very good? normal people are excited by the novelty of it, and finance bro capitalists are wetting their shorts about it because they want to get rich quick off of the Next Big Thing In Tech, but the novelty will wear off and the bros will move on to something else and we'll just be left with billions and billions of dollars invested in technology that nobody wants.
and I don't say it, because I need my job. And I wonder how many other people sitting at the same table, in the same meeting, are also not saying it, because they need their jobs.
idk man it's just become a really weird environment.
Like, I remember reading an article and one of the questions the author posed and that's repeated here stuck with me, namely: what is it for? If this is a trillion dollar investment what's the trillion dollar problem it is solving?
I finally think I have an answer to that. It's to eliminate the need to pay another person ever again. The trillion dollar problem it's solving is Payroll.
Except like... it's not solving that either.
A metaphor I've been using lately is that being a tech-interested person and watching the AI hype is like if you had followed the development of blenders for years. You watched them go from prototypes that were basically just a spinning open blade all the way to a design that has the potential to be a consumer Vitamix! It's really cool! Blenders have come such a long way, and they're ready for prime time!
And then you turn on the news and see otherwise rational, intelligent people saying "gosh, imagine, soon we'll replace all of our chefs, and our surgeons, and our high school teachers with blenders!" and your friends and family all nod and agree and say things like "wow, blenders can basically do everything now!" And when you ask people "are you HIGH?!" they show you the new blender they bought, and how well it makes a smoothie, and then they act like that's evidence for a statement like "blenders will replace 90% of the workforce" not being utterly nonsensical and deranged.
"Scientists just have to fix the hallucination problem!" they say. When you ask what the hallucination problem is, they say "I'll show you" and then they put their unfinished math homework into the blender and hit pulse. "You see, I wanted it to solve those math problems, but it just shredded the paper. It must have hallucinated a world where the answer to 2+2 was puree." When you point out that it did exactly what it was designed to do, because a blender cannot do math and it will never do math and expecting it to be able to do math just because it can make both smoothies and soup is ludicrous and bizarre, they tell you that they're sure that blenders will be able to do math any day now, just you wait, "I mean, look how far they've come! A year ago I would have said that blenders could never be strong enough to blend ice into sorbet, but now they can. So who are you to say they'll never do math???"
The thing is, there are plenty of things that LLMs and generative AI are good for. OCR is still a vital need, and AI is excellent at it. Facial recognition is an area where AI has a lot of potential. It can be used as a screening step for the analysis of all sorts of large datasets. Better autocomplete on your phone is a real thing that real people want. There are a ton of problems that these tools genuinely do solve!
...But none of them are trillion dollar problems, and that's an issue, because no one wanted to pour a trillion dollars into "improved OCR" and "somewhat better autocomplete".
So, we get snakeoil to make up the weight. It'll solve payroll; it'll democratize visual art; it'll make it so that anyone can do anything – you name it, blenders will do it, eventually! Once we've fixed the problems with using blenders to do everything, including tasks which aren't blending things, then blenders will be worth the trillion dollars that people have already spent developing them! Look at the progress we've already made: we're working on attaching a calculator to the blender, and that could make it so that blenders can do math! Don't you dare suggest that calculators already exist and work just fine without being attached to blenders – we need our blenders to do math, because we promised that one day they'd be able to do everything! And they will! Blenders are the future and don't you dare suggest that maybe that future is just "we can blend things now"; if you so much as breath those words, the bubble will pop.
There are so many skilled artists and writers in there! Both from old times and new talents as well! It's truly a delight!
We also have fun stretch goals on the horizon! >:3c
Just today I got to see a chess book that I remember reading as a little kid. While it didn't give me a lifelong passion for chess, it did give me a lifelong passion for fantasy for its artwork.
The book is "Chess for Young Beginners" from 1975, and here's some of the artwork:
Like, this artwork goes hard. I especially appreciate the colour scheme for the black pieces, with its browns, bronzes, reds and oranges.
This artwork is amazing, evocative, exciting and dramatic. I recommend giving it a look if you have a chance - you can probably scrounge up a PDF of this thing with a bit of searching.
I’ve been patiently waiting for a nice second-hand wood dresser to appear on fb marketplace or at Goodwill for months. Finally, I grabbed this one yesterday for $50.
My inspiration for this project are some dressers I saw at Anthropology that have gorgeous carved details. But I want my dresser to cost $200 or less rather than $2,000.
Of course I can’t add actual hand-carved wood, but I’ve got clay and some silicon molds + epoxy and a potential overconfidence in my DIY abilities.
First up, I removed the existing hardware and sanded this pretty lady down. She is now looking MUCH better without all those terrible stains (and the drawer pulls weren’t doing it for her, tbh).
Up next, I’ll give her a paint wash or three and start trying my hand at faking some carvings!
She’s paint-washed and looking dandy. I’ll give her a light sand tomorrow and get to work on some fake carvings!
So I actually ended up glazing her first to bring the wood grain back out a bit and add some depth to the color. The glaze was very finicky to work with, but did exactly what I wanted it to (a comparison of glazed vs unglazed drawers in the first pic). I have several silicon molds filled with drying resin and I will begin experimenting with “carvings” tomorrow!
Oh yeah. This is gunna work just fine. BRB. Making and then painting c. 100 flowers and vines.
She's coming along great! I’m going to wrap the foliage around the side up top and then start working on the bottom right bit.
Alas, I ran out of flowers/vines so I will need to get more epoxy this weekend to finish the bottom corner. Shes so close to being done, though! The next update will be the last once I seal her and get the new hardware added. :)
She’s DONE. Cost breakdown: $50 dresser, $30 molds, $35 epoxy, $6 paint, $8 glaze, and $4 drawer pulls. Total: $133.
I surprised even myself with this one and am so delighted by the outcome. I’ve been using her for a week and dusted her once (with the amount of seal I used, a fluffy swifter duster glides along all the finicky crevices just fine) and she seems sturdy. Time will tell! Thanks for all the kind words on this fun little journey.
So a couple days ago, some folks braved my long-dormant social media accounts to make sure I’d seen this tweet:
And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.
So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years. These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing. They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it. It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face. Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing. And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc. NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.
Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres. What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female. I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one. They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO. If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone. Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered. I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.
I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all. I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole. That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three. And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.
And it changed the face of costuming. People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries. And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.
So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart. This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.
(Oh, and for anyone wondering: yes, I’m over 40 now, and yes, I’m still making costumes. And that armor is still in great shape after 17 years in a hot attic!)
Hang on a minute. I recognize the name “penwiper”. Let me check– Ok, yeah, I’ve heard of this person.
OP I have been thinking about YOUR IMPACT since 2011. Do you know what you did for Homestuck lmao
"Mother, I love you terribly,"
Some of you are literally watching the right wing continuously try to expand the definition of "pedophilia" to include "existing around a child while queer," and then agreeing with them when they say pedophiles deserve to be summarily executed.
Not only does this place innocent people in danger of political executions, it also puts children in danger, as most children who are sexually abused have this done by someone close to them, and feelings that they would be responsible for the death of their abuser if they reported leads to lower rates of reporting. It also leads to higher rates of abusers murdering their victims when they're found out because the punishment will be the same anyway.
Part of being on the left is realizing that it's better to let 100 guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one. Another part of being on the left is realizing that one's life is never something others have the right to take away- even the most evil people alive. Yes, that includes mass murderers and rapists and pedophiles. Once you make one group acceptable to kill, you give others a vested interest in defining groups they have prejudice against into that group.
You have to start dealing with the fact that no crime makes one's life forfeit. Not even the worst most depraved and sadistic acts. The worst people alive have rights, and if you can't accept that they deserve them, at least try to accept that it is to your benefit that they retain rights no matter what they're accused of. And if you can't do even that, well... you just might be the kind of person who would cut off your nose to spite your face.
If you want to protect victims, if you want to protect minority groups, you have to realize that sex crimes, or any crimes at all, do not deserve the death penalty. Period.
When a certain kind of person "deserves" to die, bigots will make sure marginalized groups all are that kind of person.
parasitism
This has been driving me insane.
I used to be *good* at search. It was a whole thing - I found people's "lost songs" or their unknown-source childhood stuffed toy or whatever from Google.
Now, you can't search for the exact brand/design name of something and get accurate answers. It drives me spare on Amazon - if I search for XYZ and you don't have any, or you only have 2, tell me that.
I wouldn't mind if it said "Here are 2 XYZ. Shoppers also searched for..." Instead it'll just throw a random, barely-linked pile of results and you have to wade through every single one to see if the thing you want exists.
THIS. For ages I used to say that I had "high Google-Fu". I could find *anything* because I knew how to use strings to enhance searches. The string commands haven't even worked for well over a year or more, far before they put in this infernal (and often wrong!) AI BS on top.
I used to be able to search for recipes and easily eliminate unwanted ingredients with a -. For example I'd look for low-carb desserts but without the zillions that use peanut butter simply by searching for something like:
low carb chocolate dessert recipe -peanut
And I'd get a slew of on-point suggestions. For some time now if you do -peanut Google ignores the - and assumes you want recipes stuffed with peanuts.
Where it's even worse now is now you get directed to sites full of bogus AI recipes that don't even make sense. But they have peanuts in them.
I used to be able to use reverse image searches to find out who made that awesome art so I could give credit in my share. They've removed that ability entirely and replaced it with Lens, which is AI BS just showing you more like what you looked for. (Rebecca Watson complained about this in her recent video about JD Vance jizz cup rumours and I apologise for that sentence but...yeah. Watson is great, go find her on Youtube and subscribe because she went into detail about how Google has become less and less useful for debunking.)
This isn't just about Google inserting shopping ads instead of what you wanted to learn about. That's bad. But the results now are just *broken*. The tools we used to have to make searches better have been removed. Google no longer wants us to find the answers we seek, but the answers they want us to have, and that's super creepy and dangerous.
And the alternatives are either using Google in the back end or have other significant barriers to use.
This sucks.
Duckduckgo and all the other alternatives work this way too, now.
Verbatim search, guys!! Go to "Tools," and enable "Verbatim."
It's a pain in the ass, but it still works!
1) yay, thank you
2) WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID THEY HIDE IT
Okay so verbatim search is a life saver on the eyes alone??
I forgot search results used to look so normal
The wait was long but FINALY ♥ I'm a ball of stress and happiness ; w; !!
The book will be A5 size, 118 pages long, it includes chapters 1 & 2 + bonus pages with sketchs & illustrations & talk !
Available at MCM / Ycon / TB / JapanTouch and my shop later
I made a poll to evaluate how many books I should take with me at each convention this year ! You don't have to buy the book before you get a chance to look at it but it'd help a lot IF you're a tiny bit interested ♥️
(My back and arms say thank you)
No, Google Docs, there is a distinct difference between "cussing" and "cursing."
Calling google ‘googie’ is such a power move imo
Tis indeed! Thank you for this addition. Here are some photo examples of the Googie style.
IT HAS A PROPER NAME?!
posts that provide surprise knowledge, balancing out posts that provide net zero knowledge gained, what a rich ecosystem we live in
I'll be at Bedrock City Con this weekend signing books! :3
If you missed me in town earlier in the year, be sure to swing by Stafford Convention Center on Saturday!
I'll be at Table 13 in the Guest Suits this Saturday between 2-4PM to sign books and look at art portfolios! :) Otherwise, I'll be roaming around LOL
I'll be at Bedrock City Con this weekend signing books! :3
If you missed me in town earlier in the year, be sure to swing by Stafford Convention Center on Saturday!
I'll be at Table 13 in the Guest Suits this Saturday between 2-4PM to sign books and look at art portfolios! :) Otherwise, I'll be roaming around LOL
Oh, jeez, and it's not over yet (even for the night).
As in Gaza, people panicking and out in the streets.
If Palestine is anything to go by, it will be a very long year.
And like with Gaza, they start bombing long before there was enough time to evacuate (as if they had the right to tell them to leave in the first place).
When will this stop?
