kastanik

[kastanik]

Unpopular opinion but if you don't enjoy the process you should find a different thing to do.

And I think this is true in general but now I'm talking about it in the context of AI.

If you don't enjoy making art and only care about the end piece and how it'll look and how much traction it"lol get online then making art is not something for you, find something you enjoy from start to finish.

Same goes for writing: if you do not enjoy writing and rewriting and then some more and instead want AI to write for you, being a writer is not something you should pursue.

Sure, not every part of creative process is going to be equally enjoyable but you should get satisfaction from solving the problems along the way and you should get a sense of accomplishment on your way of "making the piece yours" and you should have a sense of ownership once you are done.

None of these things will come from typing in a prompt into chatGPT. And I am sad to see so many people are missing on the opportunity to experience the joy of making something with their own hands and brains.

[kastanik]

big plans tonight

[kastanik]

Source

If you haven't already heard the sad news, ALL JoAnn stores are closing (it was previously reported that only some stores would be closed).

Important: JOANN GIFT CARDS WILL ONLY BE HONORED THROUGH FEBRUARY 28. If you don't have time to get to the store, use them on the website.

[kastanik]

You know, some of my favorite fics are abandoned.  And yeah, I wish they weren't  abandoned, but it doesn’t change the fact that I love them.  I certainly don’t wish they’d never been written.  Just saying, for those of us with dangling fics we guilt ourselves over.  It’s still better that you wrote what you wrote.

[kastanik]

not to sound like a complete psycho but I really need to get this out of my system: I genuinely wish the average american conservative who laughs at things such as "deportation ASMR" would experience even a fraction of the pain the people they hate do on a regular basis, because you know damn well they'd lose their minds. they cry discrimination at the mere PRESENCE of women and minorities; they shoot up schools when they hear the word "no" for the first time. pathetic, spineless individuals who have convinced themselves they're the brave ones somehow, and convinced everyone coddling them is the solution to their violence when it's the reason they act this way.

[kastanik]

[kastanik]

A relative of Vice President JD Vance says an Ohio hospital has refused to put her 12-year-old daughter on its heart transplant waiting list over her vaccine status. Jeneen Deal, a mom-of-12 from Indiana who is related to Vance’s half-siblings through marriage, adopted Adaline from China as a 4-year-old knowing the little girl had two heart conditions, Ebstein's anomaly and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, that meant she would one day require a transplant. The girl has been receiving treatment from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a leader in pediatric organ transplantation, for almost a decade. On January 17, Deal said Adaline’s doctor confirmed to the family that she was in heart failure. “My heart's getting sick,” Adaline Deal told Local 12. “I get tired. My legs get [too] tired to stand.” The facility requires that heart transplant patients receive vaccinations for Covid-19 and flu as recipients are at much higher risk of infection – something the Deals aren’t willing to allow for their daughter. Deal and her husband Brayton, who are both members of a non-denominational Christian church, said that the vaccines conflict with their religious and medical beliefs and that they would not be willing to inoculate their daughter.

The 12-year-old has been receiving treatment for two heart conditions, with her doctor confirming last month that she was in heart failure. (Supplied/Jeneen Deal)

[kastanik]

[kastanik]

[kastanik]

This conversation is funnier hearing just one half of it.

[kastanik]

"Don't use Libby because it costs libraries too much, pirate instead" is such a weird, anti-patron, anti-author take that somehow manages to also be anti-library, in my professional librarian-ass opinion.

It's well documented that pirating books negatively affects authors directly* in a way that pirating movies or TV shows doesn't affect actors or writers, so I will likely always be anti-book piracy unless there's absolutely, positively no other option (i.e. the book simply doesn't exist outside of online archives at all, or in a particular language).

Also, yeah, Libby and Hoopla licenses are really expensive, but libraries buy them SO THAT PATRONS CAN USE THEM. If you're gonna be pissed at anybody about this shitty state of affairs, be pissed at publishing companies and continue to use Libby or Hoopla at your library so we can continue to justify having it to our funding bodies.

One of the best ways to support your library having services you like is to USE THOSE SERVICES. Yes, even if they are expensive.

*Yes, this is a blog post, but it's a blog post filled with links to news articles. If you can click one link, you can click another.

[kastanik]

arcane ship discourse is like 1000x funnier when you realize these goons are fighting about LEAGUE OF LEGENDS characters. do y’all realize how humiliating that is for you guys?

[kastanik]

Little DnD Chibis for a Belated Christmas Gift for my DnD group

Bard/Andris: @aimlessatlas

Rouge/Thorn: @kastanik

Warlock/Ulwrick: @jamesugoi

Artificer/Wilhelm: @numnomz

Artificer/Juri: Jade

Our DM the Trash Siren: @echok1

[kastanik]

most important part of the writing process actually is when you loop a single song on max volume and stare at the word document and imagine the characters doing things for 14 hours. this is known as getting in the zone

[kastanik]

in this house we do grandma activities

[kastanik]

being an archaeologist in tumblr is so funny because I see so many text posts and go. Imperialism pre-dates capitalism. Rebellion against empires pre-dates capitalism. Money pre-dates capitalism. Social inequality pre-dates capitalism. Misogyny pre-dates capitalism. Wealth inequality pre-dates capitalism. Unilateral rule by oppressive rulers pre-dates capitalism. People’s dependence on their job for their survival pre-dates capitalism. Capitalism as an economic system is about 200-250 years old max but these problems are much, much older, and capitalism supports, entrenches, or exacerbates many of these problems… doesn’t mean it invented them and doesn’t mean they will simply cease to be problems After Capitalism.