floof.org
"NHS will need extra £38bn a year by 2030, thinktank warn"
Ouch! Still I guess that is the cost of not fixing the roof when the sun shines I guess.
Health Foundation finds current spending plans insufficient and says difficult trade-offs are inevitableDenis Campbell (The Guardian)
The Famous Computer Cafe 1984-12-21: interview with Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky about Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy computer game. The...Internet Archive
Yesterday we had another example of LLMs creating support issues for us.
User: "hi, how do I do this thing? Your docs say I can go here and change some options, but there's no settings there"
Me: "that's right, we don't have such a feature, but also we don't say you can do it in the docs, where did you read that?"
User: "oh I didn't actually read the docs, I asked 'AI' and it hallucinated this answer. Sorry!"
At this rate I'm looking forward to 2025 when I'll be spending 100% of my time doing support to correct falsehoods about our app made up by LLMs
This #pridemonth it's alarming to see the global advance of far-right and religious fundamentalism.
Bigots and fundamentalists publish hate dressed as science: "reviews" of established science and healthcare practices, and then claim epistemic authority in order to hurt queer and trans people.
Remember: science is the light that shines through the darkness of the unknown, and while you can fool some people, ultimately nature cannot be fooled.
To queer people, we must push back.
Proposal:
Every politician who votes for #ChatControl or anything else that requires back doors to our private digital lives should be required to have a webcam installed in their bedroom with a public IP address, so that anyone can check in on THEIR private lives whenever they feel like it.
It's only fair.
Breaking news: We've taken the next step to challenge the ban on puberty blockers
We have asked for an urgent hearing that will seek to quash the ban. It is clear that this ban is having a devastating - and harmful - impact on young trans people and we do not believe that waiting is an option.
You can support the case by donating to cover the legal costs: https://tinyurl.com/blocker-legal-fund
Full press release: https://transactual.org.uk/blog/2024/06/18/press-release-transactual-issue-urgent-court-proceedings
#Trans #Transgender #Nonbinary #TransRights #Pride #TransKids
Puberty blockers have been prescribed for decades to alleviate the distress many trans young people experience and offer much-needed time to those questioning their gender.Good Law Project
whatever happened to the concept of a community center, or just free community areas in general
I mean i KNOW WHY but it shouldnt have happened
Ysengrin and Roger in an elevator at Anthrohio 2024, likely on Friday night.
#WerewolfWednesday #Fursuit #Werelion #Anthohio
Who could have possibly anticipated this? Oh everyone, that's right.
Also, ONLY 4%!
Hot take, I think more movies should use animatronics and/or puppets. I watched a really interesting video discussing Lake Placid and the incredible animatronic crocodile they made to " swim " in a few scenes and attack a helicopter. The attention to detail is stunning and, honestly, it's one of the best aged things about the film. The CGI was great for the time and is pretty meh by today's standards, but I really feel the animatronic puppet sells it enough that you, like, forget/ ignore the CGI. Idk, just my opinion.
Also, Betty White's character is the fucking best in that movie.
#movies #animatronics #crocodile #LakePlacid #Hot_Take #puppets
If you (like me) are American but not Black, you might feel like Juneteenth is a Black holiday that doesn't really apply to you. Nice to have a day off, but not really something to celebrate yourself. That's misguided.
Juneteenth is very much a Black holiday, and we should absolutely center Black people in celebrations of it. But at the same time two things are true:
1. A whole bunch of people were freed from a horribly oppressive institution. Everyone everywhere can celebrate that, even if the specific people who were freed have the most to celebrate. This is a historic change towards a more free & just world, and there aren't that many of those.
2. Like all oppressive institutions, slavery contorted & harmed the oppressors (and those who benefitted indirectly from the oppression). Certainly not to the same degree as the enslaved people, but the harm is real, perhaps most noticeably in how the poison of justifying or even just accepting one oppressive institution invites others to flourish, and also in the ways that harming others or accepting their oppression alienates us from all other humans.
So if you recognize that freedom for anyone is a victory for everyone, then there's good reason to celebrate Juneteenth whether or not your ancestors were enslaved. Again, this doesn't change the need to center Black voices in the celebration, nor does it mean we need to celebrate "America" here. But if you view African-Americans as so "other" that you can't celebrate their emancipation as a great thing for the whole world, and one that makes the world better for everyone including you, then you've got some work to do on your implicit worldview.
Happy #Juneteenth
Me at 16: Aw yes, finally true freedom! My driver’s license means I can drive anywhere!
Me at 45: Aw yes, finally true freedom! Being within walking distance of public transit means I don’t have to drive anywhere!
@tilton I am not in the city proper so I do still have a car, but we have one car for the family and I drive about once every few weeks or so, now. It’s been cheaper for me to grab an Uber to inconvenient places by far than dish out for a car for myself again.
And oh yeah winter is a bitch. I endured enough sun and humidity in FL, though, that I am kind of enjoying this. For a little while, anyway.
@tilton That's a pretty good deal! I honestly miss going into the office now and then -- its been years and there is a very clear social deficit I endure because of that.
I'm secretly trying to find a way to collect local WFH people together for a meetup but I haven't figured out how to go about that just yet. (every answer is "Facebook" and...just no.)
I found this elsewhere.
PLEASE BE AWARE
WHEN ANSWERING
YOUR PHONE!!!
From a friend....
Interesting!
| just got a call from a 304 area code. Thinking it was someone | know in WV, | answered. It was a man claiming to be from customer service (didn't say what company, only "customer service")
The first thing he asked was "Can you hear me?"| remembered something | saw on Facebook saying people are calling and asking if you can hear them, then using the recording of your "Yes" reply as a way to sign you up for all kinds of stuff. So | replied "I hear you" to which he again asked "so you can hear me?"
Me: | hear you
Him: | just need a yes or no
Me: | hear you
Him: *hangs up*
Thanks to whoever posted that story. | probably would have answered Yes the 1st time he asked.
In 2020 photojournalist Linda Tirado lost an eye when police shot her with a "rubber" bullet. Today she's dying in hospice due to complications of being shot in the eye.
She's asked for two things:
1. That you send donations to help costs of dying, see below
2. That you attend city council meetings and hold your local politicians to as much accountability as we can.
Venmo: Linda-Tirado-3
PayPal: Bootstrapindustries@gmail
Great news everyone! I finally talk about AI hype. Someone finally mentioned LLMs one time too many, and the reckoning is upon us:
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/
Them: Are you an "arr" pirate or a "yo ho ho" pirate?
Me: I'm a "I'm not paying six hundred bucks for Photoshop" pirate
LB: I need people to understand that merely beating this is not going to be enough.
Authorities the world over are going to keep trying shit like this over and over again until they get their way.
We need to get "lucky" every time.
@arakin It needs to killed.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
And then killed when it is reintroduced.
It is super frustrating how the mainstream media fail to explain what #chatcontrol actually means.
Surveillance in the physical world is easy to explain, and obviously super creepy.
But surveillance in the digital world is not immediately visible, and unituitive.
What people need to realize is that chat control ist the equivalent of a robot police man with a raised baton standing next to your bed, watching you have sex.
When its elecetronic brain thinks you're doing something immoral, it will automaticlly start beating you up. And there will be nothing you can do to stop it, because as we all know, computers make no mistakes.
Even if years later, some judge decides retroaxctively that the robocop DID make a mistake .... your bones have already been broken, and nothing can undo the violence.
It is an automated life-destroying machine.
And the definition of what makes the robocop beat you up in your own bed can change any time.
What if AfD gets >50% next time on the federal elections, do you think that CSAM material will remain the only thing on the blacklist?
I also think that we should all look at ourselves, at our friends, at our families, and at our neighbors and ask ourselves, and ask THEM, to their faces:
"Are there so many people here, really, sharing CSAM online, to justify the total and complete oppressive surveillance 24/7 of every single one of us, in everything we do, in every private conversation we have?"
There aren't. The question is rhetorical.
And then maybe we can ask ourselves if there aren't much better ways to protect children.
And what perhaps the real cost and the hidden goal of #ChatControl is.
There are definitely times where I wish bartering was a more common thing.
“Your total comes to $70. Alternatively, we will accept a dozen ghost peppers.”
"Tory donor who gave Boris Johnson £500,000 urges public to vote Labour"
John Caudwell, the Phones4U founder, says he is ‘rather despairing’ about Conservatives after 51 years of supportNadeem Badshah (The Guardian)
