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Steve From “Blue’s Clues” Just Checked In On “The Kids He Raised” And Gave Them A Safe Space To Offload After Donald Trump’s Election Victory.

Interestingly, Steve doesn’t even speak in the 59-second video, but appears to give viewers a comforting presence as he enters the outdoors shot and “offers them” a hot drink.

And many of the comments thanked Steve for offering them this safe space, with one person writing: “As a trans man, I felt this to my core. I took the breath with you then started bawling. Thank you.”

“The man who is a staple of my childhood didn’t say a single word and it brought me to tears. Steve, thank you. I don’t know where we go from here,” somebody else wrote.

Another popular comment reads: “He didn’t say A WORD and said everything at the same time. This man should be guarded at all costs.”

“Neither of my dads checked in on me today. But you did Steve. Thank you,” one more acknowledged.

“So much responsibility on Steve’s hands to make sure we are okay. We need to make sure he’s doing okay too. I mean I’m not doing great, but he’s still looking after the kids he raised,” somebody else added.

While another concluded: “I bet you didn’t think you’d still be raising us all these years later, Steve, but thank you for still being here.”

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i'm a writer irl (can't say who because my agent would put me into a blender and press go) and honestly the funniest and most humiliating incident of my life was the time my finished manuscript triggered a plagiarism flag with the publisher for two lines of prose in my literary fiction novel...

.... which was word for word similar to a paragraph in a certain explicit work on FFN starring elrond and his batsman from the hobbit films, aka that one elf that looked like he ate panic attacks for breakfast (i forget his name but it's Figwit II) where the lord of imladris bends said twink over his writing desk and gives him the battering ram treatment.

and if you think i had to sit in front of one if the biggest publishing companies in the world and admit that it was, in fact, me who wrote the fic where the lord of imladris bends said twink over his writing desk and gives him the battering ram treatment in order to avoid being wrongly flagged for plagiarism, you would be absolutely correct.

(yes they published the book)

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My contempt towards a brand is directly proportional to how often they interrupt my playlists.

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Ernesto Che Guevara, Letters From Afar: The Congo And Bolivia, To My Children

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Idk I just have no patience for trans men/masculine people who refuse to acknowledge transmisogyny. Like. The worst experience I ever had with transphobia was when I was mistaken for a trans women. In a culinary program, I was cutting bell peppers, and one of the other students, a really big dude in a student leadership position, walks in and accusatory goes "so are you trying to be a woman, or something?" And I'm like. Well I'm trying to small dice these peppers. And I tell him I'm not a she and he says something to the effect of "Yeah I know that much." He makes some comment abt how whatever I'm doing doesn't make sense and he doesn't get it and when I tell him he doesn't have to, that he just has to respect it, he says "I don't have to do shit!" And gets real mad! Like actual threats mad! Tells me he could bash my skull in and to meet him outside for a fight and yeah it was fucking scary! The entire interaction I'm reminding myself that I'm the one currently holding a knife, if he tries anything.

Fast forward a few days later and my period is kicking my ass. Just absolutely destroying me. I'm in the dish pit, and I am visibly struggling, I'm nauseous, I'm in pain and bracing myself against walls. I'm not walking straight. And the same student leadership guy who was so aggressive with me when he thought I was transfem?

He tells me I look like I'm going to pass out. He says it's obvious I'm in pain, I shouldn't be in class, I can go sit down and if nobody can replace me he'll do the dishes himself.

Like. Do you get it yet. It's not just that he felt comfortable openly threatening me in a room full of other people when he thought I was a trans woman. It's that he did a complete 180 and was not only willing to support me, but actually pick up my slack once he knew I wasn't "that kind" of transgender. As soon as one of our classmates confirmed to him that I wasn't the wrong type of trans person I suddenly became someone who actually deserved care and compassion in his eyes. The "bigots think we're all the same and hate all of is equally" rhetoric isn't fucking true. It's just peddled to deny the privilege we have over other members of our community so it's easier to ignore how inhospitable supposedly trans-centric spaces are for TMA people.

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Venom/Flubber Mash-Up by Nerdist.

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Pushing Daisies | 2x04 “Frescorts”

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the look of absolute dread on that ticker seller's face

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[tumblr] is a beautiful website where all kinds of people come to diversify their echolalia

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At the California Institute of the Arts, it all started with a videoconference between the registrar’s office and a nonprofit.

One of the nonprofit’s representatives had enabled an AI note-taking tool from Read AI. At the end of the meeting, it emailed a summary to all attendees, said Allan Chen, the institute’s chief technology officer. They could have a copy of the notes, if they wanted — they just needed to create their own account.

Next thing Chen knew, Read AI’s bot had popped up inabout a dozen of his meetings over a one-week span. It was in one-on-one check-ins. Project meetings. “Everything.”

The spread “was very aggressive,” recalled Chen, who also serves as vice president for institute technology. And it “took us by surprise.”

The scenariounderscores a growing challenge for colleges: Tech adoption and experimentation among students, faculty, and staff — especially as it pertains to AI — are outpacing institutions’ governance of these technologies and may even violate their data-privacy and security policies.

That has been the case with note-taking tools from companies including Read AI, Otter.ai, and Fireflies.ai.They can integrate with platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teamsto provide live transcriptions, meeting summaries, audio and video recordings, and other services.

Higher-ed interest in these products isn’t surprising.For those bogged down with virtual rendezvouses, a tool that can ingest long, winding conversations and spit outkey takeaways and action items is alluring. These services can also aid people with disabilities, including those who are deaf.

But the tools can quickly propagate unchecked across a university. They can auto-join any virtual meetings on a user’s calendar — even if that person is not in attendance. And that’s a concern, administrators say, if it means third-party productsthat an institution hasn’t reviewedmay be capturing and analyzing personal information, proprietary material, or confidential communications.

“What keeps me up at night is the ability for individual users to do things that are very powerful, but they don’t realize what they’re doing,” Chen said. “You may not realize you’re opening a can of worms.“

The Chronicle documented both individual and universitywide instances of this trend. At Tidewater Community College, in Virginia, Heather Brown, an instructional designer, unwittingly gave Otter.ai’s tool access to her calendar, and it joined a Faculty Senate meeting she didn’t end up attending. “One of our [associate vice presidents] reached out to inform me,” she wrote in a message. “I was mortified!”

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DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES 2023, dir. Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Dale

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The best thing I've ever seen while driving was when I was racing across Idaho on my roadtrip to get home when suddenly my gps out of nowhere tells me that I can save an hour and a half by taking a detour. I had no idea why. I was in the middle of a pretty rural part of the state and twilight was setting in and the road looked clear, but holy shit, 90 minutes? I had no idea how or why this detour would do that but I took it anyways and got off the main interstate onto a frontage road.

About 2 minutes of driving later revealed VERY abrupt traffic backed up for miles. I had gotten off the interstate at the exact right and last moment. Everyone was pissed off and angry, so it seemed new. And here me and like three other cars were, racing past and completely skipping the traffic they were suddenly stuck in. There was no movement. Only traffic. I could feel their envy as I drove by wondering what the fuck was going on.

I fully expected there to have been a huge accident. Something like a head on collision. But then about four miles down the road, I see it. A tipped over truck, and thousands upon thousands of tiny brown potatoes still rolling across the road.

The driver was outside, his head in his hands, looking very much alright but appropriately stressed out, and behind him was miles of angry traffic caused by truck tipping over and dumping thousands of potatoes onto the asphalt. A potato spill. In Idaho. The state only known for potatoes. It still makes me laugh thinking about it.

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the gayest thing about zoro is the way he talks about fighting its so funny every time

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perhaps ripping this one little piece of skin off my lips will at last render them plump and moisturized

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Readers, make sure you have all your favourite Ao3 fics downloaded.

Writers, make sure you have copies of all the fics you have posted on Ao3.

I don’t want to be alarming, but things could get really bad really fast. OTW shared this today on Twitter, and I'm a bit worried about it 😅

Ao3 is a non-profit organisation. If they have to start paying taxes, I have no idea what will happen.