💋💗💥📢🎀🍿🎁🎉🎏 Bring On The Likes! 💋💗💥📢🎀🍿🎁🎉🎏

[SallyM]

I agree that that reply is great. Overall a good conversation.

[OhHai]

The goddamn Trump Administration

Honestly inelligence doesn’t look like anything and also isn’t a permanent state. Most of one’s life is attrition. People just don’t like to accept that luck and social privilege control 99.9999% of their life so they cling to any story that tells them something else.

[SallyM]

Systems of education and its discontents

[1000039233] First, on the new splashpage, Harvard publicizes how gov’t-funded scientific research benefits the general public. Headlines: “Regained mobility for stroke survivors,” “Lowering prescription drug costs,” “Keeping kids in school.” There’s barely a whisper about the humanities or social sciences here, but in my view, that’s OK–the point is to make the most compelling argument to the general public (not to represent the breadth of Harvard’s value). The FIRST link on the splashpage i…

[KeybillyJefe]

The goddamn Trump Administration

I’ll take some of that rage for you, no problem. I have more than enough to go around. I keep thinking I’m going to start running out at some point, but then RFKjr drops another quote like that and suddenly my rage meter is full again. This is one autistic person that would love to give him a five minute demo of how I can indeed wield a baseball bat. Well, not to give rfkj any credit to speak of, but I will admit that musk doesn’t actually have a job, pay taxes, play baseball, or write poetr…

[OWYAC]

That is a thing of beauty.

[SallyM]

Thinking about history

Stephen King is correct. I have not read the original documents of the Kennedy assassination, but I trust the historians who have… that’s exactly what depending on expertise means…

[mindysan33]

Thanks!

[Murgatroyd]

Transphobic events

[image]

[SallyM]

Women, amirite?

Don’t want women engineers working on the damned things but we are supposed to be so thrilled that some billionaires and billionaires’ wives can squander US money on their self-actualization while we are told orphaned children don’t deserve their social security payouts or, even, a single free meal. Kind of sickening and forgive me if I don’t feel super empowered.

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

So, you want to write a letter? Nah, the paperclip as a symbol: The first mass outbreak of civil disobedience occurred in the autumn of 1940, when students of Oslo University began to wear paper clips on their lapels to demonstrate their resistance to the German occupiers and their Norwegian collaborators. A seemingly innocuous item, the paper clip was a symbol of solidarity and unity (“we are bound together”), implying resistance and similar symbols (red garments, Bobble h…

[MerelyGifted]

Random Silly Grins

[IMG_9671]

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration

It’s kind of like how all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are the increasingly fast-paced dissolution of our society under the pressure of looting by narcissistic oligarchs. Or something.

[SallyM]

The Law Doesn't Always Suck

Shall i throw in my standard parenting advice? The job of any parent is to make themselves unnecessary. Hopefully not unwanted, but unneeded. If you still feel the need to control your kids past probably middle school, something has gone very wrong. I absolutely agree with you. The boomers (spoken as a borderline boomer/Xer) need to let go.

[MerelyGifted]

Any discussion re: any type of encabulator deserves The Likes, but this is an exceptional post:

Random Silly Grins

And, as usual, there is no mention whatsoever that no type of encabulator would even be possible without the cavity toggle floggle. First developed as a theoretical concept by Ernest Rutherford in the 1920ies who thought it wouldn’t be possible to build with the technology available at the time and didn’t pursue the idea any further. But then Tommy Flowers succeeded in building a, admittedly somewhat crude, prototype as proof of concept in the 1930ies during his time at the Post Office Researc…

ETA:
The preceding post is also deserving of much love - look at all that research! Just look at it!

Random Silly Grins

Incidentally, for those who may not know, the encabulator has a long and storied history. In particular: Circa 1977: ["Turbo Encabulator" the Original] 1962: The original original is an article from 1944, published in Students’ Quarterly Journal. Somewhat shockingly, it’s paywalled: Quick, J. (1944). The turbo-encabulator in industry. Students’ Quarterly Journal, 15(58). doi:10.1049/sqj.1944.0033. [image]

[Millie_Fink]

The goddamn Trump Administration

They could refuse to vote in favor of Trump’s picks for the Cabinet and top offices. They could vote no on everything, slowing down or stopping progress until demands are met. They could pull out every obstructionist tactic in the book as a form of resistance-- filibusters☆, point of procedure, anything and everything. They can join the many, many protests☆ taking place to show solidarity and support for the common citizen. Hell, they can not show up for work, which means no quorum and no a…

[SallyM]

C'mon Guys (Toxic Masculinity)

Yes, and to add to that, the specific notion of male/female romantic relationships we’re sold in the US is pretty harmful. We’re taught from a pretty young age that serial monogamy is the only “respectable” way to grow into the world of sexuality. At least us wimmins are. It can be quite damaging. I went to Europe after Highschool (mid-nineties) and was really surprised how the people my age there thought about sex and romance. They were much more likely to think of it as a time of exploration …

[SallyM]

You can call me AI

Even when participants were told which advice came from a lawyer and which was AI-generated, we found they were willing to follow ChatGPT just as much as the lawyer. One reason LLMs may be favoured, as we found in our study, is that they use more complex language. On the other hand, real lawyers tended to use simpler language but use more words in their answers. Another reason might be that the LLMs veer towards generating the answer the asker expects (or even the answer they want to hear). W…

[SallyM]

You can call me AI

Looks like the position AI can fill best is “idiot coworker whose best contribution to overall productivity is to call in sick”.

[MerelyGifted]

Somewhere in the World There's Always a Sportsballs

Just ‘Glas’ will do nicely. Trinkgeschirr isn’t technically wrong, but not in the Wörterbuch1) as such. People will know what you mean, but it’ll blow your cover. Think getting on the bus in The Great Escape, but in a restaurant. Or a Haushaltswarengeschäft. Trinkgefäß if we want to fail at pretending being posh or maybe write something legally binding or official or whatever. Trinkglas to avoid any confusion with Fensterglas, but usually this should be clear in any context. At least any cont…

[SallyM]

The goddamn Trump Administration (Part 2)

It strikes me that totally incoherent demands - to which the recipient simply cannot respond - is a hallmark of this administration. It’s true across the board, from things like this to trade negotiations (where they end because the other country realizes negotiation is literally impossible). The combination of the punitive and the performative… it’s the absolute rejection of basic governance and the principles under which this country was founded. You cannot operate a functional government t…