STAY SAFE!! [ID: the Gilbert Baker pride flag with the words “Happy pride to all those who are unable to celebrate openly and safely. You are loved and seen!” in all-caps black text over it. /end ID]

As a trans woman I can confirm that they indeed found an ancient forest inside a 630ft deep sinkhole in China

cis people can reblog this but keep it on subject, please

Happy pride month everyone always remember that the sinkhole has an ecosystem large enough to house not only insects but likely several species of small birds or mammals

“Cave Johnson here. I’ve received complaints from anonymous employees that our support of the “homosexual lifestyle” is “degenerate” and “irresponsible”. It really got me thinking and I think I found a solution. So good news! We now have 23 vacated positions reserved for members of the LGBT community. Additional good news, we began a new testing initiative on evolutionary degenration with 23 test subjects all ready to go.“

“Cave Johnson here. If you’re experiencing a time loop in which you’re repeating the month of June over and over, that’s totally intentional. We at Aperture Science felt that pride month was not long enough and so we created this loop to let employees experience as much pride as they feel like. To get out of this loop, simply use the pod labeled “Time Machine” in Shaft 6 and then either kill or save the baby on the other end depending on when in the loop you’re on. Don’t worry about the baby’s identity, he grows up to be an asshole.“

“Cave Johnson here, happy to announce that our Rainbow Gel project was a massive success. We have developed distinct gels in every color of the rainbow pride flag. In fact, it was too much of a success, so we’ll be updating our pride flag accordingly to include 75 new colors corresponding to all of our new gels. Word of advice, though, don’t stare at the flag for too long, most of these colors haven’t been tested on human eyes yet.”

“Cave Johnson here, Cave Johnson queer. Get used to it.”

“Cave Johnson here. Caroline just informed me that I am her “beard”. I checked, and I fail to see how I could possibly have grown out of her face. If anybody knows anything about human-to-facial hair transmogrification, please report to my office.”

“Cave Johnson here. Friendly reminder that Aperture employees living prior to the legalization of gay marriage are invited to use our Aperture Science Temporal Matrimony Pod in order to travel to the future with your same-sex partner and get married there. Employees from the future who wish to return to a time before gay people being able to marry are also welcome to use the pod and we’ll make sure to send you to an era well before gay marriage. I’m thinking maybe Late Cretacesous.”

“Cave Johnson here. I’m proud to announce that our plan to hire only female test subjects to prevent them from flirting with our female scientists has been a resounding failure.”

“Cave Johnson here. I’m afraid we’ll have to temporarily pause all experimentation with the Gender Affirmation Beam. The testing itself is going great, the beam is working. But we’re starting to run out of thigh high socks and khaki shorts.”

“Cave Johson here. Shafts 10 through 14 are currently under lockdown due to a meltdown in the Neopronoun Syntheizer. The transphobes up in DC might call that ‘a disaster in the making’ but I call it a win for diversity! That being said most of these pronouns are radioactive so do watch out.”

Cave Johnson here. If you feel a sudden sense of elation and contentness when putting on your new Aperture Science unisex uniform, that is not Gender Euphoria! That’s a hallucinogenic fungus taking over your brain. Take the uniform off immediately and throw it in the nearest incinerator.”

“Cave Johnson here. I won’t tolerate any misgendering of the interdimensional invaders swarming the facility! Their pronouns are they/them and we’re ought to respect that. We’re also ought to shoot them on sight since they’re extremely hostile and bent on enslaving our planet.”

“Cave Johnson here. To all of my suitors and secret admirers: Thank you, honestly I’m flattered. Unfortunately for you, I don’t swing that way. Or any way. I only swing where the wrecking ball of science takes me. Usually into a brick wall.”

“Cave Johnson here. I’ve been thinking. We have gay pride, and we have gender envy. What other deadly sins can we incorporate? Maybe bisexual sloth? Lesbian wrath? I’ll talk to the lab boys about it.”

“Cave Johnson here. Update: The Lesbian Wrath project is postponed indefinitely. My condolences to the families of the deceased. Though let’s be honest, they probably had it coming.”

“Cave Johnson here. For the last time! “I’m reclaiming the slur” is not a valid excuse to shout out loud the killer androids’ activation codes! We picked that word for a reason.“

happy pride month to country mama lynn and country mama lynn only

Someone give this woman a damn crown and medal

Happy pride month to country mama lynn and ger gay son only

aint it crazy how many people realize they're queer when they have the language to express how they feel and a support system to encourage self exploration????

I never stop enjoying reading this. Literally everyone's lives improves.

Ancient legends say that if you reblog this on June you get 110% gayer and stronger

So, Andre Dickens has lied about the total cost of cop city to the citizens of Atlanta.

Instead of the 30 million originally planned,

Cop City will instead cost tax payers 67 million!

That's more than twice as much as promised!

The majority of Atleans oppose cop city being built so that's tax payer money going to a unsupported cause without any vote.

If you are in Atlanta please attend the second public comment on June 5th. If not from Atlanta make sure this problem is heard about all across the world. With all the misogynic, transphobic, homophobic, and racist laws being pass right now, I fear that this facility will be used to further the fascism present in the U.S.

Not to mention the ecological disaster this will cause

These pictures were taken by drone only three months from each other. The sediment and runoff from this alone far exceeds the national limit and it will only get worse with the chemical runoff from the explosives that will be used.

I know the world's sort of gone to the dogs lately but please please please don't let this go out of the public eye. If the police force can't train then the police force can't enforce these laws. I have a list of petitions and funds pined on my blog as well as phone numbers to blast if you want something more direct.

Stop Cop City!!!

Everyone needs a picture of J. G. Hertzler (Martok) holding a gay bat'leth on their dash

Chancellor Martok said gay rights, rb if u agree

What book is this from??

   I Don’t Want to Talk about It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression     Paperback – March 2, 1998  by Terrence Real (Author) 

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Want-Talk-About-Overcoming/dp/0684835398              

absolutely batshit insane to me that omegaverse porn is an effective data poisoning method against gpt-based products. predatory language models getting tripped up by wolf dick was not on my 2023 bingo card but here we are i guess.

i want us all to take a minute and just. contemplate the possibilities.

it also made me very sad at one point one of the kids said her dad was being hateful towards drag queens and that he had a very skewed/incorrect view of what a drag queen was and wouldnt listen to her and told her she was “too naive” when she tried to explain

and i replied “if i remember correctly when youre at this age it seems adults will wave off any of your life experiences even if they lack their own because they refuse to see those younger than them as their own people” and EVERY SINGLE KID AT THE TABLE turned and said EXACTLY

and i was like. oh. so i wasnt alone in that. but also. i dont have to BE that. im not doing that. im listening and actually talking to them. i hope that there are older people in their life doing the same.

um. i dont know how to say. please listen to the children in your life. its true sometimes youll know better but, often times they have perspectives we may miss and dismissing them hurts everyone in the end. we have so much we can share and learn together.

People with ADHD speaking on any subject

It’s Pride Month Eve, so leave out some milk for Freddie Mercury and his cats.

They’re looking at each other, comparing cats:

And Vincent Price was also bi so, y'know, let’s hear it for the bi pride catboys.

My fragile body and overzealous mind cannot handle the amount of Content I wish to produce.

No but guys, GUYS, we need to talk about how important this scene is.  Because the commonly accepted lore about unicorns is that they are so good and pure that they’ll only appear to young virginal girls.  Because Molly Grue is a middle-aged woman who has been living with bandits for most of her life and is as far from innocent and virginal as you’re likely to get.  Because she’s so angry that this creature, embodying everything that society tells her she’s lost, everything she’s thrown away through her own choices, is here now when all that The Unicorn represents is long since behind her.  Because she knows, in a way that only someone who’s been steeped in an oppressive system her entire life can ever know, that she’s missed her chance and doesn’t deserve to be seeing a unicorn now.

And you know what?  The Unicorn doesn’t give two fucks about her virginity, about her supposed loss of innocence and purity.  She’s not repelled by Molly being older, being experienced, being a full human person.  None of that has ever mattered to unicorns, only to the people telling stories about them.  Not only does she step in to physically comfort her here, but before long this bandit’s wife becomes her friend, closer to her in most ways than Schmendrick.

This story is fucking revolutionary, you guys, and I just have a lot of feelings about it.

I heard Peter S. Beagle speak about this scene at a convention once. He said he just kept writing and writing into the scene and suddenly here was this powerful, moving dialogue which came out very strong and natural, flowing directly from inspiration.

He said it was one of those moments when “the writer just gets really lucky.” 

This is one of those scenes you nebulously get when you’re ten and comes up and punches you in the face when you’re thirty.

Molly Grue is a Hero. I don’t just mean she’s heroic; I mean that The Last Unicorn in book form explicitly defines what a hero should be, and she meets that definition. Specifically, she’s  Lír’s mentor in what it means to be a hero. The book doesn’t explicitly say this about Molly, and I don’t know that this is something Beagle was conscious of as he wrote; and yet. There’s this scene in the book:

Molly spent a long time thinking her role in life was the Hero’s Lady. She shacked up with Captain Cully because she thought he was a hero and that was her role, but over time as she came to understand how un-heroic he was, she became bitter and derisive, pointing out what the true order of things was. Like, let’s go back to her first scene where Cully is explaining to Schmendrick how he and his men all hate King Haggard, and one day Haggard will have to pay “such a reckoning”:

And within a day Molly Grue has met the Unicorn, set out on a quest with her (and doesn’t bat an eyelash when she learns they’re going directly to Haggard’s castle), and becomes a pivotal player in destroying King Haggard and the Red Bull.

Molly understands “the order of things” when Schmendrick doesn’t. When the Red Bull is about to beat the Unicorn, Schmendrick’s all, “Welp, shit happens, so long,” and it’s Molly who yells and screams at him that this must not happen, how he might have been an inadequate charlatan all his life before this, but this is the moment when he HAS to draw deep on his true power and save her. So he does. And when he does, Molly understands how absolutely terrible becoming human is for the Unicorn, which Schmendrick doesn’t–even though he heard the Unicorn say that Nikos would have done better to let a unicorn die than make it into a man, and she didn’t.

Molly’s work in Haggard’s castle is fairy-tale like in nature, somewhere between Cinderella (”My father sets you to the weariest work there is to do, and still you sing”) and the labours of Hercules or the Biblical Israelites. According to the novel, “Molly Grue cooked and laundered, scrubbed stone, mended armor and sharpened swords; she chopped wood, milled flour, groomed horses and cleaned their stalls, melted down stolen gold and silver for the king’s coffers, and made bricks without straw.”

In reward for her work, several unprecedented things happen. Lír comments that “There has never been singing in this castle, or cats, or the smell of good cooking,” but now that Molly Grue has come, all these things have come to pass. And in the end, this work is pivotal–if Molly weren’t there, the cat wouldn’t have come; and without the cat, they never would have known how to find the Red Bull.

The point of fact is, Molly is able to do what she does for the Unicorn because she’s older, she’s more experienced, she’s weathered hardship and seen dreams broken, and knows what to hold on to and what to give up on. She knows that love is a very fine thing, but unicorns are something else.

And in the end, her reward is that her meeting with the Unicorn wasn’t the end of her story, when she had reached the end of her suitability for fairytales; The Last Unicorn is Molly and Schmendrick, who have lived for some time already, coming to their beginnings, and setting them on the path for their next story, for the real work of their adult lives.

@ubernegro @nerdymouse @antifaspiderman

This is counterinsurgency in action. It gets uglier from here.

Reminder that capitalism is the death of art

are you whiny bitches seriously acting like faster and more affordable and more accessible translation is bad? it’s a bad thing? it’s a thing we should be against now? is that seriously where we’ve arrived? can you people think for ten fucking seconds just ONCE?

machine translation is really good for many languages - esp the romance ones - and while its not perfect or anything, like.. i don’t know how to tell you it’s a good thing we’re able to instantly speak to people, 80% accurately, from anywhere in the world

I went through the notes on this post specifically to find this reply - or one like it. Because it has a point, and it’s a decent point for you, the person. But it’s also missing the info of the larger scale problem.

(Or it isn’t; as you rightly point out in the tags, it’s a capitalism problem. But I’ll expand on this point of “capitalism”. I need to rant. I need to scream.)

I’m a professional translator. I work in video games and software, with an occasional dash of literary translation. I’ve worked in translation proper, I’ve worked on editing other people’s work, I’ve led a couple of translator teams. I’ve worked the occasional miracle, working around some Really Dumb Choices the developers made.

(Spoiler alert: other languages have different syntax and grammar, if you give me a list of nouns to translate, and then give me the plural “s” to translate separately, this is not good. Even in English, woman -> womans is dumb.)

I am a fan of making things affordable and accessible. I am really happy that Google Translate and similar things can tell me the gist of what people are saying in conversations I only half care about. As the poster above says, it’s great! Not perfect, but ok!

Do you know what’s not great? Do you know what the OP in the original image means?

The client the original image is talking about isn’t you. It’s not some person on the internet trying to find out what someone said in a Post. The client they’re talking about is, essentially, the corporation: the translation agency, the publishing house, the IT giant.

You, the individual, do not have the power to demand how I do my job. If you come to me and say, “Sarshi, I want you to take this 300-word post, run it through Google Translate, and then charge me half of what you usually do for translating it”, I can take it or leave it.

But I get contacted by agencies - half of them want this. “We have a game, Sarshi! Just post-edit the results of a machine translation!” “We have support articles, Sarshi! We’re paying you a lot less to post-edit the results of machine translation!”

You say it’s ok to have 80% accuracy, and I feel you! Yes, sometimes it is! But companies are like “lol, this works”, too!

It’s happening over and over. And these aren’t… they’re not people, you know? They’re not Auntie May trying to figure out what the dough recipe she got from her niece in Indonesia says. They’re agencies, trying to increase their earnings by promising top quality to companies, then going, “gosh, we said we’d do it for cheap, how can we manage that?”

Or they can even be large companies themselves. Oh, you’ve spent a bajillion trillion dollars trying to create the CryptoNFTVirtualRealityAI hybrid that everybody knew wouldn’t work and now you panic because your earnings are lower than usual? Oh, and you want to “cut costs” by screwing over every contractor you have? Great. Just great.

This is going to screw you over - you, the individual. Not my client, not the translator’s client in general - the company’s client. The corporation is too big to really care about how you feel about their product - the employees individually might, but the company’s only metric is if you buy it or not. And the company makes decisions based on what brings the most money for the least cost.

So your hardware manuals might be crap and you might be in tears because you have no idea how to make your new appliance do the thing. You’ll go on YouTube and you’ll find a solution, and you’ll eventually figure it out. And maybe you’ll forget about the crap manual in time. So next time, they still won’t get a good translator, because they already have a cheaper solution that seems to work.

So your game looks like it was translated by a bunch of rats in a bunker and you can barely understand what anyone’s saying? Well, maybe they got a bottom-feeding agency overpromise that they totally have legit translators working for $1/hour. Pinky swear! Did you buy the game? You did. So… the system worked! They’ll hire the same agency again!

It’s like the clothing industry all over again. We could have better clothes, but it’s cheaper not to. They’re doing us a service by selling us shoes that won’t last a season, and T-shirts that will look like crap after washing them twice - they’re cheap, aren’t they? They’re affordable. Anyone can get clothes. (So you pay more in time are are more frustrated? Who’s counting!)

And meanwhile, it’s easy to forget things might be different. That we have the ability to create good things, pleasant things. That manuals can be easily readable, that games can sound great, that books can be awesome to read. It becomes harder to trust the market, harder to believe in quality, easier to say that this is normal, this is how things just are.

And if you speak English natively, well… You’re at a huge advantage. A lot of stuff is created by your people, for you. For countries like mine, that are small enough to import a lot, nearly everything is translated. I want you to imagine almost all movies subbed, every appliance made elsewhere (with menus needing translated and all), every app in a foreign language. And everybody who can cut costs will try to.

It’s not… it’s not great.

#excellent breakdown #i promise no translator worth anything is against individual people being able to use mt to understand texts and communicate #i’m a translator and i’m a big fan of machine translation in my everyday life but it should not be used commercially #machine translation in commercial products is at worst a health and safety risk #but NOBODY who actually understands the matter is saying that mt shouldn’t exist. for fuck’s sake

via @nailgun-nali

Oh dear.

So as some of you may know, I love to point and laugh at bad legal arguments. And as fun as legal dumpster fires are when they are made by people who aren’t lawyers but think this whole “law” thing seems pretty simple, it’s even funnier when an actual, barred attorney is the person dumping gallons of kerosene into the dumpster.

And oh boy folks, do I have a fun ride for y’all today. Come with me on this journey, as we watch a lawyer climb into the dumpster and deliberately pour kerosene all over himself, while a judge holds a match over his head.

Part two! My apologies for the accidental cliffhanger.

When we left off, a second attorney had just entered the picture, a Mr. "Steven Schwartz." However, I had recognized his name from somewhere...

I know most of you are here for the cats and the chaos, not the law, but I've been keeping an ear out on this case, because pretty much as soon as I heard they were trialling AI for legal stuff, I figured someone would be dumb enough to do this. And sure enough...

Part of what makes this aggravating is that after you've been doing it a little while, legal research isn't hard. It's time consuming, sure, and you can potentially chase down rabbit trails of caselaw forever, but it's not like other professions where you might have a lot of separate databases to trawl through--with very little work and very few exceptions, you can find the bulk of American law in Lexis or Westlaw, and most of it is also posted free on government websites, though in less easily trawlable format. It's the law; it has to be accessible. So it's not like you'd have to put in much effort to check your citations, and you should never trust an out-of-context quote anyways! It could mean something totally different in the context of the case it came from.

This was a deeply stupid move. I have to assume that the attorneys who did this are of the particular flavor that's not tech savvy enough to know better than to trust new toys, but they really kept digging when they should have stopped.

been going insane over Bruce in his eating dome for 24 hrs now

There is so much story telling here. A person got this pacific parrotlet named it Bruce which in and of itself is amazing but then this person went here my little bird friend a raspbebe for you to enjoy and Bruce said hell yeah and went cataclysmicly and irreversible ape shit ham on that berry. And that probably happened more than once. So instead of never again allowing this little dinosaur the joy of the succulent flesh of the delectable raspberry they went what can we do for our little baby boy. and then boom they got some kind of cake cover type deal and cut a door into it so that Bruce would Not Be Trapped in a fruit prison (altho truely it is the berries who are trapped in there with Bruce but none the less) and so he may go to his pent house and freak it as crazily as his little bird heart desires.

Anyway i love pets they are each distinct little guys who are carred for by the funniest ape to ever exist bc we love animal so much

I'm in this group and Bruce's human posts eating dome updates when he's done a particularly good job!

And also when he gets up to other mischief

However, THIS is my favorite Bruce photo

ALSO:

“The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive.” — Assata Shakur