WHISPATCHET

Reblog if you were born in the 1900's.

The wings give an extra lift

One of my favorite D&D gags that I ever came up with is part of a oneshot I've run a few times where the party is hired by a young wizard to help clear out a few active security measures in a tower that the wizard inherited from her old teacher.

The first obstacle to be cleared is the re-animated skeletons that the old wizard was using for gardening help. It's a pretty straightforward fight, but during the encounter, players may notice one particular raised bed of herbs that is set back in a corner of the garden by itself.

Upon further investigation, this one raised bed is absolutely shining with magical protections. There are runes carved into the wood of the bed, gemstones inlaid in the top of it, this bed is absolutely protected out the ass... and an arcana check shows that the protections are all pointed inward, attempting to keep what's in there from getting out.

What's growing in that raised bed, you may ask? What is so dangerous that the old wizard felt the need to place all these protections?

Mint.

Teamwork!!!

✧Read Namesake✧ ✧Read Crow Time✧ ✧Store✧ ✧Patreon✧

Dogs are the absolute best!! My day is made!❤️🐾

today in "google AI is fucking useless because it hallucinates things that never happened", i bought a couple CVS thermometers that have both been acting up, tried to search if there had been a problem with the whole product line:

there is no record of this product recall. it did not happen. the date "feb 8 2024" is the date someone listed a thermometer for sale on ebay.

Google's trying to save you the time spent clicking on a site full of AI-generated SEO garbage by presenting the AI-generated garbage right up front! Such efficiency.

#so google probably uses chatgpt right? #because for some time now chatgpt has done this #become utterly insane and make up random bullshit #and nobody knows why

I was under the impression that we did know why: AI isn't actually a brain and can't actually think or understand information, so it has no concept of something being true or not, or what markers indicate truth or falsity, or how to synthesize information. It's putting a bunch of words in a jar, shaking the jar, and then dumping it out, and acting like that means the jar knows how to talk.

Like, in this case, OP asked for information about a recall. The AI knows that, throughout the entire internet, the word "recall" usually is surrounded by information like a date or a number, so it gives you a date and a number. It doesn't know what a date is or what it's for or what it means. (It also apparently doesn't know the difference between "recall" as in "removing a dangerous product from the shelves" and "recall" as in "remembering," since it smooshes the two together)

what's that thing again that you can put into ublock that blocks all the ai results from google?

On Github is The Huge AI Blocklist for UblockOrigin. You can import it, the linked ReadMe gives a description on howto.

[ID mostly by @homunculusalphonse : A photo of the Google search results for the phrase "cvs thermometers recall": "On February 8, 2024, CVS Health recalled its rigid tip digital thermometer with memory recall and fever alarm. The thermometers have a memory recall feature that stores the previous temperature. The item number for the recall is 375235991489." Both the links attached to this text are from eBay and Pinterest. This module does say "AI overviews are experimental", in much smaller font. /End ID]

The uBlockOrigin AI blocklist above is super helpful y’all.

Try this as well

https://udm14.com/

We know why: ChatGPT & related have no idea what "truth" means; they just generate "stuff that looks like what normally follows this kind of prompt."

And Google absolutely demands to have SOMETHING in the "helpful AI summary" section of their results; they want you to believe AI always has something relevant to say.

"came back wrong" but it's food that you heated up in the microwave

OK SO

For anyone who hasn't heard my Microwave Rant:

Microwaves are designed to be used at a broad range of power levels. If you're getting bad results reheating your food, and you're doing everything on full blast, try a lower power setting! 50% power for twice the time, just give it a shot. It gives the heat time to spread evenly, and prevents overcooking of parts that are exposed to more radiation.

People complain about reheated pizza a lot -- that's bc overheating the crust makes it tough and chewy. I usually do pizza on 30% power for THREE times as long because it's especially vulnerable -- and my crust always comes out nice and tender.

I think there's a good metaphor for Came Back Wrong here too: if you actually take the time to do your necromantic ritual and/or unholy experiment right, and don't rush it at 100% power, you're likely to get better results.

Since reading this post and following its advice, my microwaved good comes out so much better.

Since reading this post a d following its advice, my necromantic rituals have come out so much better.

I am not taking a risk

Not risking it pals

U know what I want potato of luck

Always reblog the potato 🥔🪙

Not superstitious but also not taking ANY luck risks this week

The sky's the limit!

Sam and Max live in my head

I know it's unfair vilification and stuff but it's also a lot of fun to see old media and stuff where people were SO scared of big animals like lions, sharks, crocodiles and wolves were fully expected to just come and eat you the moment you stepped into their territory. In older media we also made that assumption about gorillas and in still older we thought it'd be whales. But some animals that will actually fuck you up got left behind. Boars will kill you and eat you. They're way more likely to do so than any of those other things actually. Hippos, obviously, got off like bandits always being depicted as cute and dopey. And then there's the squids. Not giant kraken size squids. The eight foot squids that hunt in packs and will fuck you up if you fall in the water at night. I can't BELIEVE people slept on that. It's like all they cared about were the huge deep sea ones we never see. The medium size wolf pack squids were right there.

Oh some of you don't know about the squids. I talked about them in another thread that went kinda viral somewhere or other but one of the reasons you should not swim in the open ocean at night in many parts of the world is that the water starts teeming with these:

And as you can see it is not like instant death, they too are just animals and they are often just gently curious about the presence of humans! But people who study and dive with sharks will tell you you're safe as long as you stay calm and know what you're doing. The world's leading professional night divers and experts on these squids, specifically??? Stress in every interview and article and paper they write in that you simply do not fuck around with these squids. They know what they're doing and they still all have at least one story of being attacked, in some cases having to be hospitalized. Considering just how rarely anybody puts themselves in the pitch dark nighttime ocean on purpose, let alone during a squid feeding frenzy, it sounds like they're quite a bit more likely to consider you potential food than other marine predators. We also don't know how many fatal attacks might have ever happened, because what humboldt squid like to do with large prey is just drag it away into the darkness forever. The two worst attacks ever proven involved two or three squid at a time latching on to a diver (in BOTH cases they were professionals and knew the risk!) and jetting straight downward with enough force that both divers suffered injury from the sudden pressure change alone, including burst eardrums, nearly passed out and they probably would have died if they hadn't broken free. In general, people who die drowning in the dark open ocean are either never found, or they're found in pieces picked over by enough scavengers that the precise cause of death can only be narrowed down to "the sea." But now you know ONE of "the sea's" possible murder weapons :)

There's a short section on Humboldt squid in Wikipedia's entry for Cephalopod attacks on humans:

And if you can get past some of Animal Planet's hokey presentation style, this video includes a bit of interview with one of those professional experts who still got nearly squidded from existence:

There is of course some debate about all this, with some arguing that all proven documented attacks occurred on people with reflective diving equipment, which they say the squid must have mistaken for the shine of fish. However, there are lots and lots of people who have to fish around these squids to survive, who do not have access to that kind of equipment, and also have a consensus that if you fall in the water when big squids are out hunting you might disappear without a trace or perhaps just get your head bitten open. With many modern science guys agreeing with this sentiment, this is one case where the "they're just misunderstood sea friends" crowd is kind of outnumbered. The sea at night is theirs and not ours is all. It's not ours during the day either but since we are neither marine nor nocturnal animals we are double fools in the eyes of the squids, which by the way are these eyes:

No for real:

All my little pumpkin elemental critters in one place 🧡💚

Someone asked to reblog my thing.

tf2 heritage post