Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

holy shit they’re about to kiss

Look if you _don't_ want your generative AI theft machine poisoned you can just gain consent from the artists.

Tell your artist friends and spread the word. "AI" is _not_ inevitable.

https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/

#Glaze #Nightshade #AIArt #TTRPG #EthicsInAI #AIJobs #BenZhao

@aral

(This is the English version of https://social.pixie.town/@joepie91/111227961313694045)

After 10+ years of constant complaining about activists, I'm very much done with this, and my patience for it is running lower by the day.

As an activist, whatever you do, it'll always be wrong - you're too violent, you're not violent enough. Everybody has an opinion about it, and they won't hesitate to voice it.

There is absolutely zero recognition that activism is a skill like any other, and that perhaps the people who have been doing it for years, might actually know what they're doing.

Instead, people who wouldn't recognize a protest if it hit them in the ass and certainly have never been involved in one, will lecture you about how "you won't accomplish anything this way".

You walk a protest march? "Nobody will give a shit anyway, you're just disrupting people's lives"

You go to court? "Hopeless, you're just wasting the time of the legal system"

You block a road? "You're just bothering innocent drivers, and creating dangerous situations"

You wreck shit? "You're violent, and you should go through the correct channels instead, go into politics"

You decide to go into politics? You'll be laughed out of the room, and constantly ridiculed about how "you can't possibly be expected to be taken seriously".

Well, what the fuck do you want then? How, exactly, do you think that problems are going to be solved? By yelling some shit from the sidelines, and hoping that the situation will magically change?

By relying on the "steady march of progress"? Which, by the way, is driven by activism?

If you're not willing to make a concrete contribution to activist campaigns, fine, but then *shut up*, do not meddle with them, and leave the job to the people who actually understand how activism works beyond gut feelings. Acknowledge that it is a skill, and it is not yours.

Take a step back, withhold comments and opinions, and instead amplify what activists are saying. Provide them with support in the manner that they request.

Or if you *do* want to get involved with activism, then that's also fine - but then you need to take the time and effort to understand why campaigns work how they do, why *activists* do what they do, and what the long-term effects of this might be that aren't immediately obvious to you.

I thought hard about this... but I think I found a way to get more funding again to De Lijn!

TIL in some matrix clients there is a command like /converttodm to fix this issue where some direct chat is actually a group...

McGill: Microsoft says server farms are destroying the planet, so we're limiting the institutional cloud disk space we're giving you to 20 GB only

CIHR: You're still required to keep all your original data sets for all your research until 5 years after the end of the grant though

Me: If you and Microsoft want to actually do something about the planet, maybe pull the plug on OpenAI instead

McGill: If you have questions about the new policy read the email again good luck bye!

I often have trouble expressing appreciation after someone shares their favorite thing with me, be it an interest, music, yiff, video that I might not have that much of an interested in, but I never want those people to stop sharing those stuff.

I love when people share their stuff with me, when they trust me with sharing what they like, when they express themselves this way. Our favorite things make us who we are, and I want to know my friends.

Y'all are very unique and I like you just the way you are. Obsession over trains or not.

From somewhere on the internet

what is the point of a software archival website that doesnt let you download from their archive. what

The regex engine in Firefox and Chrome was originally optimized specifically for matching against DNA strings

Edit (check my profile for more up-to-date info)

If you are still a CuriosityStream subscriber, be aware that they are currently mass-emailing subscribers with what I think is a VERY deceptive "offer". They push users to renew 2yr subs, promising continued Nebula access for bundle subscribers. In reality, Nebula access for CS subscribers expires on Dec 31st. This means you'll have <2 months of Nebula out of your "locked in" 2 year contract. All their communication seems to imply the opposite.

I don't see this talked about like, ever.

So I'll talk about it.

If you realised you're trans but find yourself sometimes not really hating your assigned gender and being like "meh" to it?

1) That doesn't mean you've been cis all along;
2) It doesn't mean you just imagined your dysphoria;
3) You're not "pretending" anything or lying to anyone, least of all yourself.

It just means you're more tired than dysphoric. Your brain can't keep negative feelings at full steam all the time, which is good. It's not supposed to.

Do not measure your transness by how much you CURRENTLY need to transition. Dysphoria comes and goes. So does euphoria, for that matter.

I went through several cycles of "I am trans. Wait... I don't feel strongly about this anymore. Was that real? No, wait, ARGH, I'm trans. Wait..." and so on, before I started transitioning. Fooled me every single time.

I still experience this. I'm experiencing this today. I am currently wondering why this whole transition thing is such a big deal to me.

But guess what. I know I'm trans, I've been through this before. Doubts that something is true are not the same as knowing it is not.

You will have doubts whether you're trans years after you transition to your general satisfaction. You will. It just happens. You will still be almost certainly happy that you transitioned. That's what being trans means.

If you don't MIND your assigned gender at the moment, but still your actual gender sounds neat, you're still trans.

You're allowed to pause things and recalibrate, or focus on something else. Your transition should go at your pace.

But you haven't suddenly become cis. I promise you that you haven't. You still prefer to function as your real gender, don't you?

I've done this enough times that I need to say it. It's OK. It ebbs and flows. As long as you're not actually *satisfied* with your assigned gender, as long as you have ANY overall need to transition, you're not cis. You may be genderfluid or genderflux or bigender or agender or genderqueer or non-binary. Knock yourself out exploring those (I sure did). There's no penalty for concluding with "nah".

You may also be very Very, Very Tired.

But none of those things mean "cis". I'm begging you, believe me.

EDIT: one good way to figure this out is - OK, so you don't jump for joy at the thought of transitioning. Now imagine yourself in your actual gender. Imagine it's all done and dealt with. Is your imagined self repulsive, do you want to *avoid* this? Does the idea of HAVING transitioned fill you with discomfort?

If not, then you're not cis. Cis people are *uncomfortable* with the idea of transitioning because they inhabit their AGAB. That's their entire deal.

EDIT 2: also, this is the MOST unintuitive thing ever - I firmly believe feeling "meh" about transition can paradoxically be a symptom of dysphoria.

I don't think it's an accident that I currently feel this way after some rough days, and while having to deal with several days' worth of facial hair. One way dysphoria manifests is that your emotions shut down for maintenance. It's good. But it doesn't mean they were never there in the first place.