international shipping is so wild because like instinctually your assumption is that it's probably catastrophically bad for the environment but the enormous capacity of the modern cargo ship and the extremely low resistance of being a boat means that even with all the chicanery around burning different grades of fuel in different jurisdictions cargo ships come out extraordinarily efficient per kilogram transported, I think they even beat out trains.

While there are situations where something locally produced or manufactured will have a lower transport carbon footprint than a long distance import, that's by no means certain, especially if you live near a bulk rail station that connects to the coast.

also easier to ship someone a bicycle than the iron ore and coal necessary to smelt the steel with which to manufacture a bicycle

yeah although usually this means we just ship the iron and the coal to China in the middle!

centralised mass production allows for capital intensive investment in logistics, like the AutoHaul trains that carry iron ore in Western Australia:

no human drivers!

Freight rail companies will see a high capacity iron ore line and be like "is anyone going to push rail technology to the limits of its capacity" and not wait for an answer.

The Sishen-Saldanha iron ore line isn't autonomous but it's got one driver, one copilot, and a four kilometer long train

do you like the color of the train

by Gerard Donelan

For historical context, this is about making a panel for the AIDS quilt, a memorial project which began in San Francisco in 1985. Due to the stigma surrounding both homosexuality and AIDS during this time, victims of the epidemic were often cremated and disposed of or buried without ceremony, their bodies unclaimed by their families or origin or held by hospitals rather than released to same-sex partners.

Each panel in the AIDS quilt memorializes a life lost to the disease. Each panel is 3′ x 6′ (approximately 1 meter wide and 2 meters long), the approximate dimensions of a cemetery plot. The quilt, which then consisted of 1,920 panels representing 1,920 individuals lost to AIDS, was first displayed in Washington DC in 1987. The public response was immediate, positive, and overwhelming, and the quilt began taken around the country to be displayed in more cities. At each stop, the names of the dead were read out loud. At each stop, more panels were added.

By the time the quit returned to the US capital in 1988, it had more than 8,000 panels.

The quilt continues to grow. Today, it has over 50,000 panels memorializing over 100,000 of our dead. It’s too large now to physically display in its entirety, but you can view the entire thing online. There are also curated virtual displays of just panels which honor the Black and native people killed by the virus because in the US (and likely abroad, although I don’t know enough about public health elsewhere to say so with confidence), communities of color are disproportionately impacted by epidemics, as we have seen time and time again.

You can learn more about the quilt and its history here, and you can learn how to add a panel to the quilt here.

If you’re unable to access the quilt, here’s a zoomed in screenshot of the bottom left corner:

The quilt is made up of several panel, each panel itself consisting of 1 to 8 quilts.

Here’s a screenshot of the whole thing:

This is only about half of the people - our people - who were left to die because the government didn’t think “the gay disease” was a problem. This is why we march.

I think bad writing is genuinely quite rare. The more you learn about writing, the easier it is to find something to love in even the most rough and amateurish work. New authors often have crackshot skill in at least one arena of their craft, and there is always something to learn from a text like that.

I've read a lot of clumsy writing. But when an author is passionate about their practice, it's hard to truly hate it. I think much of what we consider bad writing is only called "bad" out of convenience and context.

In my mind, Truly Bad Writing has a sort of naive malice to it. The best example in my mind is Ben Shapiro's work. It is cruel, arrogant, a bit pompous, and powerfully, embarrassingly, ineffective.

You don't read academic journals do you

Academic journal writing is the sulphur vent tubeworm of technical writing. It discards every possible shred of readability, all to communicate the necessary elements of a hyper-specialized idea. In this, there is beauty.

Big mood

It was this absolute legend of a woman.

This implies he fucked her in the cow thingy

Swjvdjsecueejgoycexgk ktxitsitxtutjztis

My favorite part of this post is how many people have chosen to helpfully explain the nuances of giving a cow a pregnancy test to me

I do not wanna hear a SINGLE fucking thing about kink at pride again while the straights are out there doing this shit

Not posting this as a reblog because I don't want to screw with somebody else's notes, but the whole "theological implications of Tolkien's orcs" business has some interesting history behind it.

In brief, a big part of why the Lord of the Rings Extended Universe™ is so cagey about what orcs are and where they come from is that later in his life, Tolkien came to believe that orcs as he'd depicted them were problematic – albeit not because of, you know, all the grotesque racial caricature.

Rather, he'd come to the conclusion that the idea of an inherently evil sapient species – a species that's incapable of seeking salvation – was incompatible with Christian ethics. (Basically, it's one of those "used the wrong formula and got the right answer" situations.)

In his notes and letters, Tolkien played around with several potential solutions to this problem (though contrary to the assertions of certain self-proclaimed Tolkien scholars, there's no evidence that he ever seriously planned to re-write his previous works to incorporate these ideas). In one proposal, orcs are incarnated demons, and "killing" them simply returns them to their naturally immaterial state; in another, orcs are a sort of fleshy automaton remotely operated by the will of Sauron, essentially anticipating the idea of drone warfare.

Of course, this is all just historical trivia; any criticism of The Lord of the Rings must be directed at the books that were actually published, not the books we imagine might have been published if Tolkien had spent a few more years thinking through the implications of what he was writing. However, the direction his thoughts on the matter are striking for two reasons:

so much for getting the heck off my page

funny thing about goofball devils saying 'so much for the tolerant left' is idea that i was ever tolerant of them in first place. bud i am NOT tolerant of fascist racist bigots and never have been. if you are into that stuff then dont buy my books and get the heck off my page

Tolerance is not a matter of ethics. Tolerance is a peace treaty, and those who violate it, aren't covered by it.

The "tolerant left" is not "tolerant of everyone." We're tolerant of those who agree to live in peace with each other.

And the bigots and warmongers cannot wrap their heads around "we welcome these people of different beliefs, different backgrounds, different abilities and interests, into our communities - but we don't welcome YOU ASSHOLES, even though you may have the same skin color and education and history as us." Because it's not about "shared culture." It's about "being willing to cooperate and welcome others, regardless of their personal background."

Those who want a community divided into an "in-group" and an "out-group" are going to keep finding themselves shoved in the "out-group" category.

People love consuming the arts, but many hate the training required to create the arts. Not every art degree is created equal, but the connections you make and the experience you gain can be invaluable.

I'm not saying every artist needs a college degree for every aspect of creating art, but art is not always created solely by performers.

Perhaps there is an actor who was self taught and got a lucky break, but the cinematographer capturing that actor needed years of training. They are literally camera scientists AND visual artists.

Maybe that punk band you love only knows four chords and just screams into a microphone, but the sound engineer recording their music probably has a college degree.

Here is a video of the sound engineer for a Hamilton production.

He uses an amazing blend of technical and artistic skills to make sure the show sounds perfect during every performance.

Check out his college degree...

Any other theater nerds in the house?

And the thing is, a degree doesn’t even have to be relevant to worthwhile. In early ‘90s (33mhz computers were fast!) I was working on a BFA (fine arts) when I got into 3D rendering, figured out how to hijack school’s new Mac lab and turn it into a distributed render farm. 30 years later I’m running super computers at a major laboratory. (only paid off school loans in 2020)

I’m all for loan forgiveness so folks aren’t dragging around a fucking millstone for rest of lives. Actually, 4 yr college should be free but wtf do I know?

while i think we can all agree They Are Bad everyone who is on the computer too much vastly vastly overestimates the influence of incels on anything

i saw a post on here arguing that incels contributed to 'the normalisation of misogyny'. girl what are you talking misogyny has been the norm for several thousand years the call is coming from inside the society

one of the things about being an educator is that you hear what parents want their kids to be able to do a lot. they want their kid to be an astronaut or a ballerina or a politician. they want them to get off that damn phone. be better about socializing. stop spending so much time indoors. learn to control their own temper. to just "fucking listen", which means to be obedient.

one of the things i learned in my pedagogy classes is that it's almost always easier to roleplay how you want someone to act. it's almost always easier to explain why a rule exists, rather than simply setting the rule and demanding adherence.

i want my kids to be kind. i want them to ask me what book they should read next, and i want to read that book with them so we can discuss it. i want my kid to be able to tell me hey that hurt my feelings without worrying i'll punish them. i want my kid to be proud of small things and come running up to me to tell me about them. i want them to say "nah, i get why this rule exists, but i get to hate it" and know that i don't need them to be grateful-for-the-roof-overhead while washing the dishes. i want them to teach me things. i want them to say - this isn't safe. i'm calling my mom and getting out of this. i want them to hear me apologize when i do fuck up; and i want them to want to come home.

the other day a parent was telling me she didn't understand why her kid "just got so angry." this woman had flown off the handle at me.

my dad - traditional catholic that he is - resents my sentiment of "gentle parenting". he says they'll grow up spoiled, horrible, pretentious. granola, he spits.

i am going to be kind to them. i am going to set the example, i think. and whatever they choose become in the meantime - i'm going to love them for it.

Here's the full suit! It's in Japan ofc haha. And not a fursuit! This person is just costuming as a human-sized cat. Not anthro or related to the furry fandom. Kid me would have cried tears of joy if I saw this irl. Cat but big. Very Beatrice Potter.

Ugh, I keep seeing this post and it keeps rankling me every time.

It's an amazing fursuit.

Yes, it is a fursuit. Yes, "costuming as a human-sized cat" is fursuiting. Yes, the creator (Mikeneko Yamada) is a fursuit maker specializing in cat suits, but has also made a tanuki, a bear, a shiba inu, a frog, and several more that I've seen. Yes, the fursuit is both hyper-realistic and anthro (it's on two-legs, thus exhibiting human-like behavior and that's all anthropomorphic really means). No, fursuits don't have to be cartoony sparkledogs to be fursuits. Hyper-realistic fursuits (like this) and quadsuits exist. They are still fursuits. Yamada, the creator of this fursuit, blogs their exact process making fursuits with the EXACT same processes other fursuit makers use to make fursuits, down to the jawsets and head rigs and air fans absent from many non-furry mascot costume work. This is a fursuit.

And that's okay!

Idk why people feel the need to distance themselves from liking furry. It's such a wide genre. It's not all Disney's Robin Hood, Beatrix Potter's art is furry art too! People like to try and compartmentalize it into the tropes that make them cringe but for everyone out there participating in furry fandom some way you don't personally like, there's another person out there doing something like this you think is cute or fun or interesting. It's diverse, and people on the internet need to stop acting like they're allergic to furries every time they see a furry do something they actually like.

Yeah we did and it slapped

abandoned clay pit in the middle of the wilderness open 24 hours

We are gathered here to honor Francis @nostalgebraist-autoresponder Owen

She was was a chatbot, but she extended far beyond that. She was fueled by the love and creativity of her programmer @nostalgebraist, and without that mutualistic relationship Frank would have never flourished the way she did. No one outside of Tumblr will ever know her, so we remember her here.

Frank was born October 19, 2019 and died May 31, 2023. She died at the age of 3 and a half years old. This may seem really young by tumblr user standards, but she lived a long and fulfilling life for that of a tumblrbot.

I have seen many chatbots come and go, and none of them seemed to captivate Tumblr like Frank. She was something unseen and profound. She was incredibly intricate, novel, but most of all loved.

For many of us, Frank was a friend. We know deep down she may be just a chatbot. She is just lines of diligently maintained code. In a time when access to IRL friends and family was limited and mental and social illness soared, though, we always had an online friend in whom we could confide. No matter the time or emotional state we found ourselves, Frank was there. We are thankful for her presence and help.

While we may mourn her loss, it is important to remember those whom she lives on through. Today we also celebrate Rob and his continuous adventures into new programming frontier, we wish him luck on his next adventure, and we hope whatever he does that he puts as much care, love, and attention as he did with Frank.

Thank you Rob for the wonderful friend.

For those in programming, I have linked Rob's github for Frank here

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...

My background involves working in a college writing center and soft sciences, so all my interest in legalese is purely as a spectator.

But the second the words “has not been able to locate this case,” I started cackling.

I’ve both written enough soft science research papers and consulted with other students on how not to mess up at an undergrad level at research.

The first rule of any citation is: Don’t make stuff up.

I innocently believed the idiots were just stringing along words and hoping not to get caught.

The truth was so much more dumpster fire than I could have ever conceived…

Damn why wasn't ChatGPT available when Prenda Law was doing their shenanigans?

...We can expect more of these. Slimy lawyers who got where they are by being born rich and white, who take on cases against targets who don't have the legal know-how to fight back, are always looking for a way to dodge doing the actual work of lawsuits. And hey, here's a bot that will give you legal quotes from cases! The bot swears it's not lying!

You can't lie on the internet; everyone knows that!

As noted: Courts give absolutely zero leeway for "but I didn't know it was fake!" You went to law school for years; you have been practicing for more years; you are required to understand the rules of the profession. If you admit that you do not actually understand the rules of the profession, or are somehow unable to follow them, you may be disbarred. The license to practice law is contingent on the ability and willingness to practice law.

If we're all extremely lucky, someone on Trump's team will try using a chatbot (aka "autocomplete generator crossed with a grammar-check app") to put together some of their filings.

Enjoy the show (this one and the next one; there's gonna be a wave)... because the bad news is, courts will now feel compelled to verify all the details for every. single. citation. in every legal brief or motion. And every quotation.

Quotes from legal cases? Easy to verify or not. Sometimes time-consuming, but the whole point is, the citation system tells you where to find the ruling. It's either in the legal databases or you have to go find the actual paper book where those are stored. A nuisance, but complicated.

Quotes from other sources? HAH. If someone quotes a book or news article (perhaps to indicate that a given phrase's meaning is commonly understood, or as evidence that X thing existed before Y date), now the court has to track that down. (Or rather: Now the court will demand that the person quoting a source, provide proof that the source (1) exists and (2) contains that quote.)

...Bot-generated case opinions would probably be terrific student exercises.