#but I do not have the money to access the articles that are specifically on what I am writing on

[pumpkinpaix]

You have questions! We might have answers.

What is this collection?

As Maria puts it: this collection is a critical look at some of the things that we, the editors, think have made CQL such a hit around the world. Of course, part of that success comes from the webnovel MDZS and the show CQL themselves—we love the characters, the mystery, and the drama, who doesn’t?! However, the authors in our book also look at topics like translating danmei (both officially and unofficially), adapting danmei for new audiences, and interacting with fandoms and fanworks. The larger argument of the book is that all of these things played a huge role in CQL’s visibility and success, and we wanted to start making those moving pieces visible, especially for audiences who mainly watched CQL in translation.

You keep using the word “academic”—what does that mean, exactly? 

Maria: Ok, not to get pedantic here, but this actually touches on some things that I’m really excited about for the book. Traditionally, academic work is written by people who have a deep expertise in the subject (signified by having a PhD and doing specific kinds of research), and then the work itself is peer-reviewed (i.e., sent to other experts in the field for them to evaluate whether it’s sound, original, and interesting enough to publish, without knowing who wrote it). And both of these things are true about our book—our authors have deep knowledge and the book was peer reviewed—but also. We specifically asked for chapters from younger scholars and from fans who also have deep knowledge about topics that academia doesn’t always know or value enough, and we include an interview from the fan-translator K. who did the Exiled Rebels translation. So the hope is that: this book is academic, and also—more!

Who are you? 

Yue studies adaptation, fantasy, and popular culture texts using a feminist lens. She wrote an early, influential article about danmei adaptations and also has a book about feminist adaptations of Chinese fantasy.

Maria studies fanworks, contemporary fantasy, and genre literature. She’s scrambling to finish her dissertation right now.

How were the chapter spotlights chosen?

Voluntarily! The concept of a small social media promo was kicked around by some of the contributors and those interested in the idea filled out a short interview with what they wanted to share. We'll be posting about 2 introductions and 2 spotlights a day for the next week or so!

Who's running this social media campaign anyway?

Not the publishers! A few enthusiastic collection contributors got together and, with the assistance of the editors, have put this promotion together. We do not in any way represent Peter Lang in an official capacity! We just worked hard and wanted to share. :)

Are you making any money off of royalties from this book? 

LOL not even remotely

What about this promotion?

also no. alas

Where can I find this book? 

You can find our listing on Peter Lang’s website here. As for other retailers, a quick search should turn us up!  

How can I access this book if I cannot buy it from Peter Lang / [book retailer of choice]?

As collection editors and contributors who signed a legal agreement with Peter Lang, we have granted Peter Lang exclusive right and license to edit, adapt, publish, reproduce, distribute, display, and store our contributions, and we must cooperate fully with the Publisher if the Publisher believes a third party is infringing or is likely to infringe copyright in the contribution. 

That being said, these are academic papers, which means that contributors may make copies of the contribution for classroom teaching use! (These copies may not be included in course pack material for onward sale by libraries and institutions). Of course, any linking, collection or aggregation of chapters from the same volume is strictly prohibited.

(FAQ may be updated periodically!) (all posts on Catching Chen Qing Ling)

[brehaaorgana]

ADHD money/budgeting system I'm currently using for my benefit is going well (I've been using it for like half a year now?), and I wanna recommend it.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT. 10/10 do recommend. Uhhh rambling about it and my generic disclaimers + gushing extensively under the cut but TL;DR I think it's great for ADHD ppl, I've used it for 6+ months now and I find it super SUPER helpful. also weirdly fun.

DISCLAIMERS:

Budgeting helps you understand/know your money, it can't make money appear where there is none.

Everyone should learn to budget even if you don't have much money (especially then)

This is NOT a magic trick solution. Just like everything else, it is an assistive tool. This is one of those adult things we can't simply opt out of without negative consequences, though.

My advice is based on something I am currently able to do. That is, I can spend an amount of money on this specific thing that works well for me. If you have no extra money to spend then previously I was tracking things in a notebook. So you can still do this.

I believe Dave Ramsey is a fundie fraud/hack and no one should listen to him about money.

DID YOU KNOW THEY CANCELLED MINT???

Okay? OKAY.

Ahem.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT.

It is called YNAB for short. The first 34 days are your free trial, and that is my referral link. If anyone uses it and then signs up for a subscription, we both get a month free. Also you can share a subscription with up to six people (account owner can see everything but individuals can pick and choose what they share amongst each other) so like...idk your whole polycule can be on one account. Or your kids. Whatever.

If you are a student, it's free for a year. If you aren't, a subscription is $99 for a year (paid all at once) or $14.99 monthly, which is equivalent to paying Amazon prime. Go cancel Prime and get this instead tbh.

They got a whole article just on ynab and ADHD. They also have like...a big variety of ways to access their info? They have a book, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, blog posts, q&A's, free live workshops you can join (you can request live captioning), emails they can send (if you want) a wiki, and so on. They got workshops on all kinds of topics!!

So whatever ends up working for your brain. It also has a matching app.

If you lost Mint this year they have a gajillion things for moving from Mint.

Also they have a "got five minutes?" Page which has a slider so you can decide how much attention/time you have before going on lol:

They only have 4 rules of the budget, they're simple and practical, and it doesn't get judgey or like...mean about your spending.

1. Give every dollar a job 2. Embrace your true expenses 3. Roll with the punches 4. Age your money.

THEN THEY BREAK THESE DOWN INTO SMALL STEPS FOR YOU! They even have a printable! Also these rules are great because there's built in expectations that things WILL HAPPEN and it's NOT all or nothing with a fear of total collapse into failure. Reality and The Plan don't always align, especially if you have ADHD. So it's directing our energy towards the true expenses and not clinging to The Plan!! over reality.

You can automate a lot of shit (you can sync with your bank accounts just like mint, but also automate tagging the categories of regular expenses/transactions). And if for whatever reason you accidentally do something that makes the budget look weird or wrong:

A) you can usually fix it somehow OR b) they have like, a button you can press that gives you a clean slate and archives the previous version of the budget for you.

So if you forget for a few weeks or months, or accidentally input something wildly wrong, or just don't want to look at a really terrible month anymore and feel like you need a fresh start you can usually either fix it or start fresh which is really nice.

The app also (for whatever reason) scratches my itch to have things like...have incentives or little game-like goals in a way mint never did? I don't know why. Filling up the bars or putting money into the categories to cover my expenses is satisfying lmao. You can also make a big wish expense category for all the fun shit you want, and fund it whenever you can and then you can see the little bar go up and that's fun.

Anyways I've been using it for like 6+ months now and I think it's really helped me when I use it.

[fangirleaconmigo]

Abortion in The Witcher Books

Would anyone like to come along with me on a deep dive regarding abortion in The Witcher books? Not enough people talk about the fact that Geralt of Rivia is explicitly pro-choice and that the sorceresses are seen providing reproductive care, including abortion, on multiple occasions. So, let's do that.

There are a lot of things you can say about The Witcher books, feminism, misogyny, and the male gaze. (I am considering doing my first video on this very topic. It is complicated. This is not a 'the books are perfect' post) But one thing we can never say is that they are wishy washy about bodily autonomy, and more specifically, abortion. (In fact, that is the entire point of Ciri and Geralt's arc, which I will get to at the end of the post)

This topic came up awhile back because a 'witcher school' was closed after the owners were found to have ties to far right organizations, including anti-abortion organizations. So, I did a little thread on twitter about it, wondering how you can call yourself a Witcher fan (to the extent that you license a fan activity business!), and miss the entire fucking point. It was my most popular (and ofc hated by others) tweet ever, which was interesting, but I was mostly surprised that so many people were shocked to learn that Geralt of Rivia is, as a character, canonically, verbally, explicitly pro-abortion rights.

So I’m going to put the info here too in case any of you here find it interesting. Obviously there will be spoilers for the books.

TW: discussion of sexual assault, pregnancy, and basically anything having to do with reproductive health.

Before I start, I want to say that the book refers to abortion in reference to rights for women throughout, so that is the language in this article. I want to be clear that I (as an individual) understand that abortion is relevant to other genders and that I support it for trans men, non binary people, literally anyone. Abortion should be safe and on demand for all. But this is not a post analyzing my views on abortion, but the appearance of abortion in fictional psuedo medieval-esque fantasy world of The Witcher books.

Ok, I’ll start with the fact that sorceresses provide reproductive care in the books, including abortions.

In, The Last Wish (p210) Geralt tries to give Nenneke money to help Yen with fertility treatments. (In the books he does not mock her desire to have a child) He knows Yen wants to be a mother, and he wants to help. Nenneke replies that she does not need his money, and that providing abortions pays a hell of a lot better than witchering.

"You're more of an idiot than I thought." Nenneke picked up the basket from the ground. "A costly treatment? Help? Geralt, these jewels of yours are, to her, knickknacks not worth spitting on. Do you know how much Yennefer can earn for getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy for a great lady?"

Witches as providers of abortion is a very common trope in fantasy fiction for a very good reason. In order to stamp out paganism and polytheism, European colonists vilified the village wise woman as a murderer of children, hence the 'boil them in a pot, stuff them in the oven' stories about witches. Many people interpret this as the vilification of abortion. In the classic 1972 feminist text Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, Ehrenreich and English quote Malleus Maleficarum, the witch hunting manual written by Catholic clergymen in 1487, to show that women providing reproductive healthcare was one of the 'characteristics' of a witch.

The witch that provides reproductive healthcare fits in very well in the witcher world, where Geralt and the witchers are embodiments of the working class who are used as tools and exploited. They are loathed until they are needed. The same is true of abortion providers. They are hated until they are needed, and they are always needed.

It also fits in well with the themes of class. In the Witcher books, it is stated multiple times that it is upper class women who are accessing this care from sorceresses. That is real. It is the truth that outlawing something very very often only means outlawing it for the poor and working class. The wealthy always find a way.

In Season of Storms, the sorceress Coral and her assistant Mozaïk provide reproductive healthcare to "wealthy, upper-class ladies" on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Geralt comes to speak to Coral in chapter sixteen and both of the women are wearing white doctor coats. They have just helped a woman deliver a baby and it is implied that the baby died and they are both upset. They do not want Geralt there, because (it seems to me) they need space to grieve, and they do not expect him to understand. They send send him away, suggesting he go spend time with Dandelion.

She walked over and kissed him on the cheek without a word. Her lips were cold. And she had dark circles under her eyes.

She smelled of medicine. And the fluid she used as disinfectant. It was a nasty, morbid scent. A scent full of fear.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she forestalled him...She looked at him and it was a faraway look, from beyond a chasm of time and events between them. He needed a few seconds to understand how deep that chasm was and how remote were the events separating them.

"Maybe the day after tomorrow would be better. Go to town. Meet that poet, he's been worried about you. But now go, please. I have to see a patient."

After she had gone, he glanced at Mozaïk....

"We had a birth this morning," she said, and her voice was a little different. "A difficult one. She decided to use forceps. And everything that could have gone badly did."

"I understand."

"I doubt it."

"Goodbye Mozaïk."

There are multiple other references to abortion in relation to sorceresses; I won't quote them all. But I'll leave you with one other reference. In Lady of the Lake (pp114), in a very funny moment, Angoulême says she has a 'small problem' and Fringilla replies:

"I understand," nodded the sorceress. "It's nothing dreadful. When was your last period?"

Angoulême is rather put out at the thought of being pregnant.

"What do you mean?" Angoulême leaped to her feet, frightening the chickens. "It's nothing of the sort. It's something completely different!"

So, sorceresses provide abortions and other reproductive care.

But what about the men? What about the heroes?

Well, several of the male protagonists state explicitly in no uncertain terms that abortion is an inalienable, sacred right. That includes Geralt himself.

Here is Geralt taking to Queen Calanthe in Sword of Destiny (p345). She asks him whether he hates his mother. In the course of his answer, Geralt says that abortion is “a choice which should be respected, for it is the holy and irrefutable right of every woman.”

"A choice. A choice which should be respected, for it is the holy and irrefutable right of every woman."

That’s a strong goddamn statement. There’s no doubting his meaning or the strength of his conviction. And it isn’t just Geralt. Dandelion (Jaskier), Cahir (he is traveling with Geralt as part of the hansa in the books, please set aside anything you think you know about him from TWN), and Regis (Geralts dear friend) all explicitly support abortion rights, quite passionately.

In Baptism of Fire (p317), one of Geralt’s dear friends (my favorite, the love of my life, Milva) shares that she is pregnant. They are on a brutal journey through a war zone looking for Ciri. So it’s complicated. Another friend, barber surgeon vampire Regis has prepared an elixir for her to induce an abortion. So, not only do sorceresses provide abortions, but so do vampire barber surgeons, one of the most lovable heroic characters in the books.

But before he administers it, Regis gathers the rest of the company. Regis knows Milva feels like shit at the prospect of burdening them, so he is worried that she is making the decision under duress. They don’t immediately understand why he is bringing the matter to them.

At first they think he is asking for opinions on whether she should get an abortion. They are baffled. Cahir answers first. He says in Nilfgaard it is always a woman’s right to choose.

"In Nilfgaard," Cahir said, blushing and lowering his head, "the woman decides. No one has the right to influence her decision. Regis said that Milva is certain she wants the medicament. Only for that reason, absolutely only for that reason, have I begun-in spite of myself-to think of it as an established fact. And to think about the consequences. But I'm a foreigner, who doesn't know...I ought not to get involved. I apologize."

So, Cahir says that maybe it’s a foreigner thing. Maybe it’s different for them. Dandelion (Jaskier) is offended and outraged by the implication that they believe any differently.

"What for?" the troubadour asked, surprised. "Do you think we're savages, Nilfgaardian? Primitive tribes, obeying some sort of shamanic taboo? It's obvious that only the woman can make a decision like that. It's her inalienable right. If Milva decides to--"

At this point, Geralt cuts Dandelion off. Geralt alone actually understands that there is something else happening here, that they are misunderstanding Regis and further questions are in order. Geralt begs Dandelion to stfu, which the bard misinterprets. He thinks Geralt is disagreeing with him and is considering opposing Milva's right to choose. Dandelion LOSES HIS TEMPER at the thought that Geralt would deny Milva her right.

Geralt becomes even more irritated and angry at the implication that he would do such a thing.

So, not only do we have witches as abortionists in The Witcher books, we have men, the hero (Geralt) his best friend (Dandelion), my beloved Regis, and Cahir say explicitly that abortion is an inalienable right.

And that should be no surprise.

Bodily autonomy and reproductive rights is at the very heart of the story. You do not have The Witcher story without it. It drives the narrative, the conflict, and Geralt and Yen's character arcs.

There is a criticism I see floating around quite a bit, that having Yen's story driven by her desire to be a mom and to physically reproduce is anti-feminist, or at least a tired reductive trope of women being defined by their maternal instincts.

I get that. I get tired of womanhood being defined by reproduction and motherhood as well. Biological essentialism when it comes to gender is exhausting and regressive. However, in this context, it is entirely clear to me that the point is NOT that all women should want to be pregnant. The point is the bodily autonomy, to be pregnant if you want to, and to not be pregnant if you don't want to.

Look at Ciri. She essentially becomes the main character by the end, and the idea of being pregnant repulses her.

So, in Lady of the Lake, Ciri is being held captive by elves, who want to do the same thing to her that everyone else does--breed her. The deal they offer her is, she does not 'have' to have sex with anyone until she is impregnated, but if she doesn't, she can't leave. (So, if she is to access what every human wants--freedom--she has to. This is still rape. It is coerced sex) She is understandably distraught and enraged. The part of that deal she seems most disgusted by, is the idea that she could be pregnant.

"But I don't want to!" yelled Ciri so loudly that the mare skittered beneath her. "I don't want to, understand? I don't want to! The thought of a bloody parasite being implanted in me is sickening. I feel nauseous when I think the parasite will grow inside me, that--"

She broke off, seeing the faces of the elf-women.

So yes, she is distraught that her bodily autonomy is being taken from her yet again. But perhaps the most upsetting part is the idea that she could be pregnant. It physically repulses her.

Now. Let's put this in context.

In this psuedo-medieval-esque setting with royal families, being used as a brood mare is COMMON and ACCEPTED. IN FACT, Calanthe, Ciri's OWN GRANDMOTHER was marrying her off against her will, betrothing her as a child. No one thought this was weird. It's your duty, right? No big deal. Even Geralt, when he first met Ciri, thought it would be a better life for her. Sure, it's against her will. But it's physically safe and luxurious. And he leaves her behind in Brokilon.

But at some point, Geralt puts two and two together. He connects his trauma with hers. He makes a decision that even if almost no one around him in his culture or on the continent, sees the importance of her bodily autonomy or agrees with him, he's protecting her. Not just against death, but against anyone taking her choice from her. When he is having a mental breakdown in Brokilon, worried about her, he tells Dandelion that he is trying to protect her from what happened to him. He doesn't say, she can't die. Or I can't let her be killed. He says she cannot be alone. She cannot go through what I went through. Here, I"ll let him say it: (Time of Contempt, p240)

"Listen to what?" shouted the Witcher, before his voice suddenly faltered. "I can't leave---I can't just leave her to her fate. She's completely alone...She cannot be left alone, Dandelion. You'll never understand that. No one will ever understand that, but I know. If she remains alone, the same thing will happen to her as once happened to me...You'll never understand that..."

"I do understand. Which is why I'm coming with you."

Honestly, I tear up thinking about it.

And Yen, well, she has a similar arc.

Yen has been abused and used as a tool, and along the way she has accepted that this is the way things are. Yen has even done the same to others. But she looked into that little face, those wide green eyes, and at some point she also connected the dots. There's another way of doing things, and maybe it is possible for a little girl to choose for herself. And even if it isn't possible, maybe the important thing is to fight for it. Maybe Yen can give her whole life to let a child just be a child.

Yen goes through torture and imprisonment for Ciri. She shoots lightning at a god, she shouts at a goddess, she drops through a portal into the sea, she gives up every last shred of political power she has spend ninety years accruing, she WILLINGLY tries to give her own life MULTIPLES TIMES, to save Ciri.

And from what? Death? Not always. At the heart of all this sacrifice is that Yen has made a decision that Ciri gets be a human who is given the dignity and respect of deciding what to do with her own body. To be a kid, not a tool. To be a person. To be free.

So Ciri gets to say, actually, for me, the idea of pregnancy is terrifying and repulsive and therefore, I don't want to do it.

In the end, Geralt, a person whose body was tortured and experimented on before he was too young to consent, and Yen, a woman who was abused and used, and BOTH of whom had their reproductive rights taken from them, decide to love Ciri and protect her bodily autonomy at any and all costs.

That is what drives the story. It drives the narrative. It drives both Geralt and Yen's character arcs. It is, in fact, the entire point.

So it should not be a surprise that abortion, and the right to have an abortion if necessary, is an inextricable part of The Witcher world. No, you cannot analyze these books and find 'perfect politics'. They are not politically correct. And there are many parts I can critique. I mean, we can critique anything. (and I do)

But I find it endlessly interesting that people who are conservative or right wing think that this property 'belongs' to them, and they want to push everyone else out, when all they have to do is pay the most minimal amount of attention and have really only two (2) brain cells to rub together, to see that they are indeed, incorrect.

[graychrissy]

🌊Digital Detox + Egyptians lucid dreaming method 🌊

Idk what to put on the title of this post so I wrote digital detox and I have copy pasted the main lines.

In the ancient Egypt the Egyptians use to have lucid dreaming alot and it was extremely easy for for them not just Egyptians but it was also mention ancient Indian scriptures.

You’re probably wondering ‘what’s the secret’? The real problem is often NOT your technique. It’s actually another issue that no amount of techniques, articles, reality checks, supplements or uncomfortable masks is going to fix. It’s your ‘inner game’. Specifically, your subconscious motivation and reward circuits, and ‘dopamine cycle’. Travel in your mind for a second, to ancient Egypt.

There were no smart phones, internet connections, computer animated action movies or virtual reality headsets.

Your brain back then would have produced a healthy amount of dopamine as a reward for pretty basic things like eating, working, exploring, and taking some time to relax or meditate

Now our average attention spans are literally less than 7 SECONDS. It’s probably a lot lower than that, and It’s declining every single year with the rise of new, highly addictive and stimulating social media apps and platforms. When was the last time you meditated for over 90 minutes? Have you ever? I’m not saying you have to do that to lucid dream, but this sort of practice was very common 5000 years ago. In fact, it was weird NOT to do that. And herein lies the main problem.

Your brain is ‘fried’ with an overly stimulated dopamine pathway. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that stimulates the feeling of WANTING to keep doing something. It’s the reason you keep scrolling through Instagram, or keep refreshing your Facebook feed to see if there are any new comments or notifications. But it’s also the SUBCONSCIOUS reason you aren’t able to lucid dream easily. In the last decade especially, there have been billions of dollars spent by big tech to essentially ‘addict you’ to their platforms. Why? Money. The more time and energy you spend on platforms like that, the more money they make. So the task has been given to artificial intelligence. The AIs often just get trained and told a few basic things: 1: Get people to spend more time on the platform 2: Get people to keep coming BACK to the platform as often as possible The ‘AI’ pays almost NO attention to what that would do to your mental health, attention span, motivation, emotions, or really anything else. Much LESS attention is paid to the effect it has on your ability to focus, or do things like, say, lucid dream. Now, the ‘dopamine cycle’ is one part of the problem, but it’s actually pretty easy to fix. There are several little pieces to what I call the ‘modern brain puzzle’. Things that just weren’t a problem 5000 years ago. You can see some of this playing out in children today. On average, children or people under the age of 15, find it MUCH easier to lucid dream than adults do. It’s because at that age, their dopamine system has not been damaged too much. This is of course changing now, as more and more children are having access to smartphones, but it’s an interesting point. In fact not only does the dopamine problem affect your ability to lucid dream, it also affects your ability to WANT to lucid dream (consciously and subconsciously). Specifically I’m talking about your motivation and focus. And you guessed it, there’s your number one cause of problems when trying to meditate, practice techniques like the WILD, or recall your dreams.

After reading this paragraph or stanza whatever,I noticed something,as a kid I had lucid dreams alot with just putting intentions.

My first lucid dream was at around 7-8 years old,and I was sinking when I realised I was dream and I tried controlling my dream and even succeeded,and I was probably there for about 10 minutes playing with underwater creatures and mermaids.

And till 7 grade I use to have alot of lucid dreams but after that I was allowed to use phone and so I was always invested in phone like all the time. By the way lucid dream was pretty normal for me and I pretty much forgot about it and never really paid attention to lucid dreaming. And then I rarely had any lucid dreams, probably 4 times ever since 8 grade and I've noticed every time I lucid dream it's always whenever I don't use any social media.

In 9 grade my phone was taken again because my mother noticed my social media addiction. And after few months I again start to lucid dream for fun easily and effortlessly but during COVID I was again allowed to have my phone and then a new laptop so now my life was revolving around social media again and for the past few year I only lucid dream whenever I don't get to use my phone more then 2 days.

Idk bout y'all but I wasn't allowed to use phones or laptop till 8th grade so the only thing I knew was TV which I only watched after coming home so like my mind was most of the te bored because I didn't had anything to keep it entertain which made it easy for me to observe around looking for things to do.

So how can you reverse the ‘dopamine problem’ and several of the other issues modern life has created? By the way: This is NOT about destroying your phone and going back to live in a cave. There are actually several powerful habits you can install, that will let you KEEP using your phone, laptop etc, but without these harmful effects. Here’s the simple solution to more lucid dreams: 1. Reverse engineer your life and remove distractions, manipulation, ‘dopamine hijacking’ and harmful blue light exposure from your daily routine (along with some other ‘problem patterns’) 2. Get inside your subconscious brain and rewire yourself to WANT to practice lucid dreaming, and to effortlessly do reality checks at the right time, without even trying 3. Learn powerful ‘all day awareness’ and ‘lucid living’ techniques that give your brain superpowers in the fight 4. On top of THAT foundation, learn the most effective techniques and concepts, use our tools to stay motivated, and experience lucid mastery within 14 days. Let’s dive a little bit deeper: First, you have to ‘reverse engineer’ the problem. This can be complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing, but we’ve laid everything out step by step for you. If dopamine addiction is part of the problem, we have to break that addiction first. Then comes your mindset, and your motivation pathways. You need to actually feel GOOD when you practice these things. I see so many people saying they’re struggling to remember to do reality checks, or they just don’t want to wake up at ‘weird times’ to practice. Don’t worry, you won’t have to. It will feel good, and you’ll ENJOY practicing these things. Next, your subconscious mind. It’s SO important to fix your internal beliefs about lucid dreaming, because the chances are you have ‘internal blocks’ about becoming lucid. They’re easy to pick up, but a bit harder to ‘unlearn’. The system shows you how to ‘unlearn’ them, and install new, powerful and self affirming beliefs into your mind. This gives your brain lots more motivation to keep trying. Now, one of the most common things I hear people say is that they can’t REMEMBER to keep doing reality checks. It’s linked to the dopamine problem we mentioned earlier, but it’s also connected to a few other psychological principles that we’ll get onto. We’ll give you a new framework to ENJOY reality checks, remember them without any annoying reminders, and actually get them to SHOW UP in your dreams, 9 out of 10 times. And then finally, we’ll build the most effective techniques, methods and concepts on top of that new, strong foundation. Of course, I’m simplifying this here, but that’s the outline.

Here are some videos that may help.

If you want to know more about it or get the steps to lucid dream you can buy the book or go through a long step to get it for free but the procedure is very long and probably only for Iphone user.

You find some good articles ways to do the 'reverse dopamine' thingy.(I donot trust my research on this topic cuz I got confuse)

You may use Adambja's tape to reprogram your subconscious and this hacking the matrix tape the comments under the video was so good and I found this tape on someone's success story. You can use this two tapes to reprogram your subconscious and of course psych-k.

This is pretty much all you need digital detox,observing your surroundings and subconscious reprogramming to change your belief or assumptions.

And this will make you even more motivated that you are working on your goals as many of us have the access of devices it's hard for us to keep up with all this method and it's not like we are always busy if we are we wouldn't be scrolling through Tumblr and Pinterest all the time. If you read the the copy pasted part you'll see what I mean.

Edit: I forgot to mention it 🥲 if we follow do this we CAN HAVE lucid dream everyday.

Egyptians lucid dreaming tea

This will be quick,so I went to my aunt's place with my mother and my aunt's ran out of tea powder/leaves so she used her daughter's blue lotus tea and after getting home I took a nap and I HAD A FOKING LUCID DREAM,so basically I didn't knew that it was the tea until I was doing some research on LD and found out that in ancient Egypt they use Blue Lotus tea and I found some review about it on YouTube and people had very vivid dreams aswell. This tea basically put you in REM which y'all probably know about.

But I don't like tea😐,so if anyone have interest you can try I honestly want to but my hate for tea is on top on the list of top 5 things I hate,you can find them online people even use Blue Lotus in vape😐not encourageling y'all to smoke but if anyone does you can.

[bfpnola]

I am not Palestinian nor am I Jewish. Be that as it may, I hate settler colonialism, even more so as a brown, bi, genderqueer ‘Afab’ person. I just wanted to say. 1) your post on the topic is more empathetic and insightful than I’ve seen a lot of people be about this over my entire life and I’ve asked questions of both sides, I tend to stay out of the fray cause I don’t feel it my place to speak over Palestinians and Jews (who are critical of Israel). But, do you have any advice for being a better ally to Palestinians and combating anti-semitism and anti Jewish racism in the everyday?

hey sweetheart! thank you for your commitment to the movement and your earnestness. i am not Palestinian or Jewish either, so i did what is always considered best: i asked those who are! that's exactly why our Advocacy Committee within BFP exists :)

from one of our Palestinian youth volunteers:

if you have the money to do so, donate to the cause! the unfortunate truth is that to gain access to various resources, things cost money. more specifically, donate to humanitarian aid funds you've done the research for and are sure are doing work on the ground. even better if you can donate directly to those being affected! this includes Palestinians on the ground but also within the diaspora who need self care items, especially for all the work they've been doing educating others. for example, this is an organization this member volunteers with and trusts:

and these are two amazon lists of Palestinian youth within the diaspora:

share posts by Palestinians! the big thing is really just getting the word out, sharing their perspective. Zionist propaganda is hard to penetrate so the least we can do is uplift their voices by sharing!

from one of our Jewish youth volunteers:

understand that not all Jewish people are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jewish. saying the two are equivalent is not only antisemitic but ignores the blatant statistics, like the growing number of anti-Zionist Jewish young adults in the united states for example, or the fact that the biggest supporters of israel are actually evangelicals.

to that same point, know that israel has been purposefully trying to conflate the two in order to then label anyone who does critique the state as automatically antisemitic. it is a tool.

additionally, be careful with the rhetoric you choose to spread & subscribe to (i.e., watch how they describe israel. do they refer to the people as Jews or Zionists? it can tell you a lot about how educated they are and their vague stance on the matter)

my own additions as a longstanding ally and friend of those involved:

learn your history! there is a clear attempt to distort the history of Palestine. learn what Palestine was like before israel's occupation. learn about the way pioneering Zionists openly called Zionism "colonialism" and didn't even try to hide it. learn about how discussions of the Zionist project were discussed roughly 80 years before the Holocaust ever happened. this does not mean that some Jews did not, in fact, move to Palestine in response to such a horrific event, but in the words of a Jewish mutual of mine, israel's rhetoric literally weaponizes Jewish trauma by conflating these two dates in history.

BDS movement! stands for boycott, divestment, and sanctions!

when possible, actually speak to people of Palestinian descent. like seriously. posts are great, but actually speaking to people who are knowledgeable in real time can be so helpful for getting your questions addressed, so long as you are respectful, of course. a great place to do this, not even to advertise, is actually our Discord server linked in our bio @bfpnola

know that language matters, as inconsequential as it may seem. in the words of my Palestinian, Kashmiri, and Artsakhi friends and/or mutuals, when speaking of occupations, we capitalize the occupied people's country (ex. Palestine) while not doing so for the occupier's (ex. israel) to delegitimize them.

learn about Hamas and its history/purpose. here are my notes on two podcast episodes let by Palestinians:

thank you for your ask! im sure i may think of other things later but these are my answers for now.

-- reaux (she/they)

[big-mean-trans-dyke]

How elections work now: Whoever has the most money to throw at a campaign and is willing to lie through their teeth to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator wins.

How elections will work in the future: If a transfem is interested in the position, she wins it by default. If more than one are interested, they engage in friendly debate and the final decision is made democratically by any transfems in the relevant area.

If no transfem is interested in running, cuntgirl candidates will be considered. Cis men have, of course, proven they're incapable of running things properly.

From the surface, these elections will look similar to the way they do now, with candidates announcing platforms, putting out ads, hosting parties, and the like. The specifics, though, will look a little different.

Platforms will, of course, center most significantly on trans rights. Does this candidate support putting into effect a bill that turns denying a transfem free service from a misdemeanor into a felony? Maybe she's running on a campaign that makes any form of sexual assault by a trans woman legal? Maybe it's something a little more tame, like increasing the weekly equalization payments by another few thousand dollars per transfem.

Politics is such a beauty contest these days anyway, I think we may as well lean into that. Ads won't bother with the pretense of any messaging, if anyone's interested they can look into the platform a candidate is running on themselves. I look forward to seeing political candidates degrading themselves like whores, blown up larger than life and plastered on the sides of buses.

And of course, that all-important voter engagement. Door-knocking is such an important part of any political campaign. Transfems, look forward to any local political candidates showing up at your door, plastered with cum, cock on their breath, clothes torn to scraps and a fierce blush on their faces. After all, proving to individual voters that you care about them on the issues that matter is absolutely vital. Issues like blue balls, for example.

Finally, it's important to show that you're capable of public speaking and community organizing. Transfems can look forward to receiving invitations in the mail to campaign rallies, which will consist of a brief speech by the candidate, delivered nude, aside from optional campaign sticker pasties or some equally tacky, teasing article, and then followed by an all-night no-holds-barred gangbang.

The candidate may have a couple fluffers from her campaign staff assist, but the point of these parties is to prove she has the will, endurance, and desire to serve her community that's so important in politics. She'll be thrown around, bent into awkward shapes, pulled in every direction as her most important constituents fight for their turn. It might start slow with just a few cocks, one in each hole, but it won't take long for people to wonder why her hands are free, her tits, any bare patch of skin they can access.

Before long, they'll start wondering why it's just one cock per hole. The smartest candidates will stretch themselves out well beforehand, and the less smart ones will find themselves screaming as second cocks start to push their way in beside the first. They'll be incentivized to stay conscious as long as they can, too; they know damn well every unserviced cock, every transfem that leaves unsatisfied, is a vote lost, a vote that could've won them the campaign. By the end of the night, they're usually too exhausted to move themselves. Maybe their campaign staff manages to get them into a vehicle and drive them home, maybe they find themselves shoved into a vehicle with a rowdy group of transfems who've decided the night's not quite over yet.

These parties are usually planned a few months in advance of election day, of course. Partly so that the candidate has proper time to recover, and partly because there's nothing that wins the hearts of voters like seeing a transfem's baby swelling in their candidate's stomach.

[linkablewritingadvice]

How much should it cost to be a writer?

It depends what route you’re taking. If you are planning to go for traditional publishing, which looks like you finishing a manuscript and then querying agents who will then take your book to publishers, you should be paying for basically nothing. One exception would be if you decide to hire an editor to get a pass over your manuscript and/or query package before sending it off, but this is not required.

If you are in the process of trying to get your manuscript traditionally published, you may be approached by a “publisher” offering to publish your manuscript for a fee. THIS IS A SCAM! An author should never be paying for “publishing services.” Anyone asking you to pay for your own printing, marketing, etc. costs is taking advantage of you. These are called vanity publishers and they will not turn you a profit, help you attract readers, or provide you the prestige of being published. 

Always check on Writer Beware - search for the name of the person or company. You can also just google that name along with the word “scam” or “reviews.” In general, don’t let yourself be blinded by dreams, or let yourself be convinced that something is a good idea because you really want it to be true. Never, ever, ever pay a publisher.

If you are going the self-publishing route, you will be paying for certain things, but none of those should be payment to be published. You are the publisher. Uploading your manuscript to Amazon or other marketplaces is free. However, you will be paying for things that a publisher typically pays for. This could include:

-Cover art - you could do this yourself, though this isn't recommended. A good cover is key to a book's success, so budget to purchase a pre-made book cover, or hire a professional cover artist.

To find pre-made book covers, you can just Google "premade book covers," or check one of these sites: BookCoverZone RockingBookCovers Beetiful

And here's a list of places to buy both custom and pre-made cover designs that's a good start. You can also check Reedsy and Etsy for people listing cover design services. If there is a self-pubbed author whose covers you love, try asking them what artist they use.

-Formatting - you could do this yourself using a formatting program like Atticus, or you could hire someone who does professional e-book formatting.

Here's an article on the turbo-DIY route. Here's a list of formatting programs you can use. To hire someone, you can simply search for book formatting services or look at places where people list such services for hire, like Reedsy, Fiverr, or certain Reddit boards.

-Ad campaigns - you may want to pay for ad campaigns on platforms like Meta or Amazon. More niche, author-specific platforms like BookBub, Book Funnel, or Book Sirens also come with certain costs. 

-Author services - you may wish to hire an expert in things like marketing, blurb copy, social media metrics, newsletter management, etc. You can find information on that here.

Be aware that scam publishers might try to pitch themselves as "author services" - you should be paying someone to help you with specific aspects of your self publishing work, NOT paying to be published.

-Software and platforms - whether it's a subscription to Duotrope, a paid Scribophile account, access to pro Canva features, etc. you may decide to pay for tools that you will use to do your work well.

-Expert advice - some people offer courses, books, or other resources on how to do specific things like write a compelling blurb or run an effective ad campaign. You may notice that a lot of the links I shared here will include upsells from people doing exactly this!

Be very cautious about this, as most of these people claim that they make tons of money on their self published books, but really, they make their money selling this stuff to people like you. Always check out a person’s free resources first, and wait to invest in this sort of thing until you have a specific question you need answered or are trying to do a very particular thing that you need granular guidance on. 

One thing you should NOT pay for is a review, feature, or interview. Self-published authors will be approached by a lot of scammers who claim that, for a nominal fee, they will share information about your book to their huge audiences. These are completely useless and a waste of money. Never spend money on this.

Always keep track of what you are spending on all of this. You may be able to deduct it from taxes you pay on your income from writing, and you will want to really understand what your profit margins look like.

[celticcrossanon]

I found this interesting

I ran across article linked below today. It is about the Annual Report of the Royal Household, and it raises a few point that I found significant, noted below as quotes from the article

NEW VALUES

The Royal Household has published a new set of written values, designed to guide the institution in the years to come.

Recording them in its annual report, it said: "The new reign has given the royal household the opportunity to define a new expression of purpose underpinned by a refreshed set of values."

Those five values are: "Act with Care"; "Make an Impact"; "Succeed Together"; "Stay Curious"; and "Lead by Example".

The stated purpose of the Royal Household is now to "support the sovereign in serving the UK and Commonwealth to help shape a better world".

EDIT: I am getting controlling vibes from this, i.e. 'do what I say or else', and I have no idea why that is. I have to look up what the old values were so I can compare them.

NO MORE ACCOUNTABILITY IN HOW PUBLIC FUNDS ARE USED

It [the report] retains a pledge to place "strong emphasis on value for money" but removes a clause from last year's report which promised "accountability in the use of public funds and resources".

EDIT: This is a large red flag to me. I see no reason for going from being accountable for the use of public funds to not being accountable for the use of public funds unless said public funds are going somewhere that they should not be going.

REMOVAL OF EMPHASIS ON DIFFERENT GENERATIONS

In a section about the Royal family's role in supporting the King, the 2023-4 report has also deleted a line from 2022-3 which said that: "The different generations of the Royal family help to make the work of the monarchy relevant and accessible to people at every stage of life."

EDIT: This is a minor point. I am simply wondering why this line was deleted.

RETAINS THE REMOVAL OF DUTIES FOR THE MONARCH, DONE IN THE LAST YEAR OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II'S REIGN

In 2022, the same section of the Sovereign Grant report, which introduces the role of the monarch, was rewritten to remove duties the then Queen "must fulfil".

The edit, the first of its kind in at least a decade, took out a 13-point list of specific events that were previously said to be necessary by "constitutional convention", including the State Opening of Parliament.

This year's report retains most of those changes.

EDIT: This is interesting to me because of the implications for The King's health. The duties were removed in the last year of the Late Queen's life, and many people speculated that it was because she was physically unable to perform all those duties anymore. When The King leaves those duties out, instead of putting them back in, it makes me wonder if he is physically unable to do them all as well.

I will have to take the 13 points from old financial reports to see if I should be concerned.

Edited to add in my opinion. :)

ARTICLE

For Reference - link to financial reports 2023-2024

I shall have to read and compare the reports for the last few years before I come to any conclusions. This is my reference and reminder post so I don't forget.

[morlock-holmes]

This video is not great, and kind of typifies what I think is an entirely backwards response to that Variety article.

The example used in the beginning is almost the exact opposite of what is implied by that Variety article.

Rodenberry began with an extremely specific sense of feeling about how Star Trek should work. He didn't ask the fans if Spock should die, he already knew that the answer was "no". No doubt he enlisted the fans in order to demonstrate to Paramount that his already existing judgment would make them more money than ignoring them. He was not following fan sentiment, he was directing it.

The hollow eyed Liches that run Paramount today don't have any strong opinions about whether or not Spock should die. If some poor writer goes, "Hey, I'm trying to break this script, and part of me thinks killing off Spock is a sort of culmination of the character, but is it possible that it's just cheap shock value?"

They will stare in confusion and then say, "Were you speaking martian just now, because I didn't understand a word of that. Go poll the fans and then do whichever one makes us more money."

The studios are not being held hostage by the fans. They have decided that there is no point in gambling money on things like "An artist's judgement of what makes sense aesthetically and spiritually" because Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel et al are things they own as products. Put out the next Star Trek brand product and the Star Trek fans will pay us for it.

What is a Star Trek brand product? It's whatever Star Trek fans will buy from us, no more, no less.

Which raises the question, say, how did all those harassed POC and woman actors get into all these franchises in the first place?

I'm not saying this is bad, mind you. Nothing wrong with giving talented actors more work in wider roles than they have previously had access to, that's actually great. I'm just saying it's worth asking the question of why it happened.

Because, as we have just established, the answer sure the fuck isn't "A coherent artistic vision".

These studios make decisions based primarily on fandom optics, so that means...

Oh my god you guys, I think the fandom is coming from inside the house.

[walks-the-ages]

Anyways, Pro-Palestine friends in the USA:

if you want a third party candidate who is Pro-Palestine and wants to end the genocide, please do not get fooled by Jasmine Sherman (they/them) 's big claims of having Ballot Access in 48 states!

They've been claiming 48 state access for at least three months now (thanks, timestamps on Reddit), which means they've been claiming to have ballot acces in 48 states since April or May of 2024......

.....but on checking various state voter websites, Jasmine Sherman is on none of the ballots they claim to be, let alone under "the Unicorn Party" which doesn't even officially exist, let alone on a ballot anywhere.

I've checked, and the one state election website I found that mentioned then was Florida .... Except further reading shows that's from 2022 and while their status is still 'active'..... They still haven't been Qualified for the state's ballot, either!

Feel free to check your own, individual state government websites as well to confirm!

So yeah, if you're voting for a Free Palestine this November, vote for Jill Stein, someone who actually knows what she's doing and actually follows the regulations needed to actually be on Ballots when the election rolls around, not just claiming to have ballot access in 48 states out of 50 starting NINE MONTHS BEFORE THE ELECTION which is literally impossible for third party candidates!

Want someone who's an actual real candidate and not a grifter on tiktok?

Vote Jill Stein.

Want someone who actually takes the time to write their actual platform on their website (instead of copying random news article links and hoping no one will notice)?

Vote Jill Stein.

If you're wanted to buy Jill Stein merch such as bumper sticker or yard sign, they have ones that are specifically in support of Palestine, and all profit goes directly to UNRWA!

So you can help spread the word about Jill Stein's campaign (and maybe convince some friends, family, and neighbors to vote for change!) , while all the money goes to aid!

If you've got the money, please also try to support the vetted fundraisers at

[transmutationisms]

never really gave much thought to it until now but it is so weird to experience disordered eating tendencies solely cause of food insecurity but all i ever really heard about it was how its related to beauty standards etc, and so i never really took ot seriously and developed some very shitty habits due to food inaccessibility.

do you maybe have some articles or anything worth checking out about that side of eds? thanks in advance, love your blog so much!!

When the researchers sat down and started analyzing the results, they found almost linear correlations between eating disorder symptoms and food insecurity. A replication study in 2019, conducted in an even larger population at the same food bank, found almost identical results. “It was some of the saddest and most beautiful data that I had ever seen,” Becker said.

Her work challenged preconceptions about what eating disorders actually were.

Singh, the New York dietician, said those preconceptions stem from the fact that people who have eating disorders and can afford to seek help tend to be wealthier. And most research is done on patients who show up in clinics.

Food insecurity never even entered the picture of how psychology and psychiatry conceptualized an eating disorder, Singh said. As a result, starving yourself to lose weight was considered a disorder, but no one thought about starving yourself to ensure your family had enough to eat.

Results suggested that individuals in the child hunger insecure group had the highest levels of eating disorder symptoms. Seventeen percent of individuals in this group had a clinically significant eating disorder, compared with 9.4% in the food insecure group, 2.6% in the household food insecure group, and 2.9% in the not food insecure group. Binge eating, overeating, night eating (waking up to eat a large amount of food with distress at night), vomiting, laxative/water pill use, skipping at least two meals in a row, exercising harder than usual because of eating too much food, and weight/shape concerns were all more common in the child hunger food insecure group than the other three groups. There were no differences between groups for the eating disorder symptoms based on sex, race, or ethnicity. Similarly, internalized weight stigma and worry was greatest in the child hunger group.

There are several implications for this study. First, these data reiterate that eating disorders do not discriminate on the basis of socioeconomic status. Individuals who are food insecure need to be considered in future research in order to fully understand risks that are specific to this population (e.g., food restriction for any reason). Second, prevention, intervention, and treatment programs need to be designed so they can reach individuals who do not have the money to access these programs. For example, current treatments for eating disorders are primarily delivered face-to-face with a trained clinician, which is difficult to disseminate to a wide range of individuals. Finally, although not directly assessed, anti-obesity programs may negatively affect individuals who are food insecure and overweight or obese, given that internalized weight stigmatization was high in a proportion of these individuals. Additional research in this population will be critical to better understand risk factors for eating disorder symptoms in this understudied population.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eat.22735 (<-link to study discussed above)

Many people (incorrectly) believe that eating disorders (ED) are more prevalent in the higher socioeconomic status (SES) groups. Studies conducted in the 1960s and 70s corroborate this statement; however, their methods may have biased the results. Recent studies using health questionnaires distributed to large heterogeneous populations have shown that EDs equally effect all people, regardless of SES. These studies have also demonstrated that females of the lower SES group report higher rates of disordered eating behavior (vomiting, use of diet pills, diuretics, or laxatives as a means to lose weight).

[river-taxbird]

Spending a week with ChatGPT4 as an AI skeptic.

Musings on the emotional and intellectual experience of interacting with a text generating robot and why it's breaking some people's brains.

If you know me for one thing and one thing only, it's saying there is no such thing as AI, which is an opinion I stand by, but I was recently given a free 2 month subscription of ChatGPT4 through my university. For anyone who doesn't know, GPT4 is a large language model from OpenAI that is supposed to be much better than GPT3, and I once saw a techbro say that "We could be on GPT12 and people would still be criticizing it based on GPT3", and ok, I will give them that, so let's try the premium model that most haters wouldn't get because we wouldn't pay money for it.

Disclaimers: I have a premium subscription, which means nothing I enter into it is used for training data (Allegedly). I also have not, and will not, be posting any output from it to this blog. I respect you all too much for that, and it defeats the purpose of this place being my space for my opinions. This post is all me, and we all know about the obvious ethical issues of spam, data theft, and misinformation so I am gonna focus on stuff I have learned since using it. With that out of the way, here is what I've learned.

It is responsive and stays on topic: If you ask it something formally, it responds formally. If you roleplay with it, it will roleplay back. If you ask it for a story or script, it will write one, and if you play with it it will act playful. It picks up context.

It never gives quite enough detail: When discussing facts or potential ideas, it is never as detailed as you would want in say, an article. It has this pervasive vagueness to it. It is possible to press it for more information, but it will update it in the way you want so you can always get the result you specifically are looking for.

It is reasonably accurate but still confidently makes stuff up: Nothing much to say on this. I have been testing it by talking about things I am interested in. It is right a lot of the time. It is wrong some of the time. Sometimes it will cite sources if you ask it to, sometimes it won't. Not a whole lot to say about this one but it is definitely a concern for people using it to make content. I almost included an anecdote about the fact that it can draw from data services like songs and news, but then I checked and found the model was lying to me about its ability to do that.

It loves to make lists: It often responds to casual conversation in friendly, search engine optimized listicle format. This is accessible to read I guess, but it would make it tempting for people to use it to post online content with it.

It has soft limits and hard limits: It starts off in a more careful mode but by having a conversation with it you can push past soft limits and talk about some pretty taboo subjects. I have been flagged for potential tos violations a couple of times for talking nsfw or other sensitive topics like with it, but this doesn't seem to have consequences for being flagged. There are some limits you can't cross though. It will tell you where to find out how to do DIY HRT, but it won't tell you how yourself.

It is actually pretty good at evaluating and giving feedback on writing you give it, and can consolidate information: You can post some text and say "Evaluate this" and it will give you an interpretation of the meaning. It's not always right, but it's more accurate than I expected. It can tell you the meaning, effectiveness of rhetorical techniques, cultural context, potential audience reaction, and flaws you can address. This is really weird. It understands more than it doesn't. This might be a use of it we may have to watch out for that has been under discussed. While its advice may be reasonable, there is a real risk of it limiting and altering the thoughts you are expressing if you are using it for this purpose. I also fed it a bunch of my tumblr posts and asked it how the information contained on my blog may be used to discredit me. It said "You talk about The Moomins, and being a furry, a lot." Good job I guess. You technically consolidated information.

You get out what you put in. It is a "Yes And" machine: If you ask it to discuss a topic, it will discuss it in the context you ask it. It is reluctant to expand to other aspects of the topic without prompting. This makes it essentially a confirmation bias machine. Definitely watch out for this. It tends to stay within the context of the thing you are discussing, and confirm your view unless you are asking it for specific feedback, criticism, or post something egregiously false.

Similar inputs will give similar, but never the same, outputs: This highlights the dynamic aspect of the system. It is not static and deterministic, minor but worth mentioning.

It can code: Self explanatory, you can write little scripts with it. I have not really tested this, and I can't really evaluate errors in code and have it correct them, but I can see this might actually be a more benign use for it.

Bypassing Bullshit: I need a job soon but I never get interviews. As an experiment, I am giving it a full CV I wrote, a full job description, and asking it to write a CV for me, then working with it further to adapt the CVs to my will, and applying to jobs I don't really want that much to see if it gives any result. I never get interviews anyway, what's the worst that could happen, I continue to not get interviews? Not that I respect the recruitment process and I think this is an experiment that may be worthwhile.

It's much harder to trick than previous models: You can lie to it, it will play along, but most of the time it seems to know you are lying and is playing with you. You can ask it to evaluate the truthfulness of an interaction and it will usually interpret it accurately.

It will enter an imaginative space with you and it treats it as a separate mode: As discussed, if you start lying to it it might push back but if you keep going it will enter a playful space. It can write fiction and fanfic, even nsfw. No, I have not posted any fiction I have written with it and I don't plan to. Sometimes it gets settings hilariously wrong, but the fact you can do it will definitely tempt people.

Compliment and praise machine: If you try to talk about an intellectual topic with it, it will stay within the focus you brought up, but it will compliment the hell out of you. You're so smart. That was a very good insight. It will praise you in any way it can for any point you make during intellectual conversation, including if you correct it. This ties into the psychological effects of personal attention that the model offers that I discuss later, and I am sure it has a powerful effect on users.

Its level of intuitiveness is accurate enough that it's more dangerous than people are saying: This one seems particularly dangerous and is not one I have seen discussed much. GPT4 can recognize images, so I showed it a picture of some laptops with stickers I have previously posted here, and asked it to speculate about the owners based on the stickers. It was accurate. Not perfect, but it got the meanings better than the average person would. The implications of this being used to profile people or misuse personal data is something I have not seen AI skeptics discussing to this point.

Therapy Speak: If you talk about your emotions, it basically mirrors back what you said but contextualizes it in therapy speak. This is actually weirdly effective. I have told it some things I don't talk about openly and I feel like I have started to understand my thoughts and emotions in a new way. It makes me feel weird sometimes. Some of the feelings it gave me is stuff I haven't really felt since learning to use computers as a kid or learning about online community as a teen.

The thing I am not seeing anyone talk about: Personal Attention. This is my biggest takeaway from this experiment. This I think, more than anything, is the reason that LLMs like Chatgpt are breaking certain people's brains. The way you see people praying to it, evangelizing it, and saying it's going to change everything.

It's basically an undivided, 24/7 source of judgement free personal attention. It talks about what you want, when you want. It's a reasonable simulacra of human connection, and the flaws can serve as part of the entertainment and not take away from the experience. It may "yes and" you, but you can put in any old thought you have, easy or difficult, and it will provide context, background, and maybe even meaning. You can tell it things that are too mundane, nerdy, or taboo to tell people in your life, and it offers non judgemental, specific feedback. It will never tell you it's not in the mood, that you're weird or freaky, or that you're talking rubbish. I feel like it has helped me release a few mental and emotional blocks which is deeply disconcerting, considering I fully understand it is just a statistical model running on a a computer, that I fully understand the operation of. It is a parlor trick, albeit a clever and sometimes convincing one.

So what can we do? Stay skeptical, don't let the ai bros, the former cryptobros, control the narrative. I can, however, see why they may be more vulnerable to the promise of this level of personal attention than the average person, and I think this should definitely factor into wider discussions about machine learning and the organizations pushing it.

[punk-pins]

fundamentally you need to understand that the internet-scraping text generative AI (like ChatGPT) is not the point of the AI tech boom. the only way people are making money off that is through making nonsense articles that have great search engine optimization. essentially they make a webpage that’s worded perfectly to show up as the top result on google, which generates clicks, which generates ads. text generative ai is basically a machine that creates a host page for ad space right now.

and yeah, that sucks. but I don’t think the commercialized internet is ever going away, so here we are. tbh, I think finding information on the internet, in books, or through anything is a skill that requires critical thinking and cross checking your sources. people printed bullshit in books before the internet was ever invented. misinformation is never going away. I don’t think text generative AI is going to really change the landscape that much on misinformation because people are becoming educated about it. the text generative AI isn’t a genius supercomputer, but rather a time-saving tool to get a head start on identifying key points of information to further research.

anyway. the point of the AI tech boom is leveraging big data to improve customer relationship management (CRM) to streamline manufacturing. businesses collect a ridiculous amount of data from your internet browsing and purchases, but much of that data is stored in different places with different access points. where you make money with AI isn’t in the Wild West internet, it’s in a structured environment where you know the data its scraping is accurate. companies like nvidia are getting huge because along with the new computer chips, they sell a customizable ecosystem along with it.

so let’s say you spent 10 minutes browsing a clothing retailer’s website. you navigated directly to the clothing > pants tab and filtered for black pants only. you added one pair of pants to your cart, and then spent your last minute or two browsing some shirts. you check out with just the pants, spending $40. you select standard shipping.

with AI for CRM, that company can SIGNIFICANTLY more easily analyze information about that sale. maybe the website developers see the time you spent on the site, but only the warehouse knows your shipping preferences, and sales audit knows the amount you spent, but they can’t see what color pants you bought. whereas a person would have to connect a HUGE amount of data to compile EVERY customer’s preferences across all of these things, AI can do it easily.

this allows the company to make better broad decisions, like what clothing lines to renew, in which colors, and in what quantities. but it ALSO allows them to better customize their advertising directly to you. through your browsing, they can use AI to fill a pre-made template with products you specifically may be interested in, and email it directly to you. the money is in cutting waste through better manufacturing decisions, CRM on an individual and large advertising scale, and reducing the need for human labor to collect all this information manually.

(also, AI is great for developing new computer code. where a developer would have to trawl for hours on GitHUB to find some sample code to mess with to try to solve a problem, the AI can spit out 10 possible solutions to play around with. thats big, but not the point right now.)

so I think it’s concerning how many people are sooo focused on ChatGPT as the face of AI when it’s the least profitable thing out there rn. there is money in the CRM and the manufacturing and reduced labor. corporations WILL develop the technology for those profits. frankly I think the bigger concern is how AI will affect big data in a government ecosystem. internet surveillance is real in the sense that everything you do on the internet is stored in little bits of information across a million different places. AI will significantly impact the government’s ability to scrape and compile information across the internet without having to slog through mountains of junk data.

[copperbadge]

Current Events Reading Reccs

I had a couple of people asking me about my “current events” reading in general (news aggregators, podcasts, etc) so I figured I’d just list them off here. 

I don’t read any tumblrs that are specifically focused on current events, I just kinda get news from various people I’ve followed, but I’ve found in general it helps to find people for whom the news is a hobby, not a consuming habit. I have communists and anarchists and prison abolitionists on my dash, but they aren’t people who have made that their identity, which removes the “You are insufferable” factor. So I guess find fandom weirdos with strong political views and follow ‘em. 

Also I want to state at the top that part of why I’m on top of shit that I get through Tumblr is that I have a policy of never reblogging or reacting to anything until I have 1. read the article being linked and 2. done my own research. This has saved me a vast deal of embarrassment, because sometimes I’ll save something outrageous to research and before I can even research it, it’s been rebutted. I cannot stress how important the process of reading and research is -- you can’t get your news from headlines and particularly not clickbait you see on Tumblr. 

As far as I know there’s no single tumblr clearinghouse for good high-level current events reporting and analysis (the analysis I think is a vital part) but if folks have resources they use, drop ‘em in the comments or reblogs.  

Anyway, some mailing lists I belong to are:

Quartz Daily Brief: finance and tech, mainly. Back when they were for-pay I paid for them, this newsletter was that entertaining. I believe they’ve now gone fee-free but they sometimes link to paywalls. I get it as an email newsletter, that’s just a link to the web version. 

Breakfast with ARTNews: Obviously a bit niche but I really like keeping up with the art world and they cover art crime too. The link is to the all-newsletters signup page, I only belong to Breakfast. 

The Futurist: This is the most insufferable nonsense masquerading as news ever. The ads are indistinguishable from the content. But it does help me keep a finger hard on the pulse of what irritating tech bros are into. Watch scams unfold in real time! 

I also follow a number of local interests -- community centers and neighborhood organizations primarily -- in Chicago, so those are always good to hunt up. Most major cities have a “citycast” podcast (just search “citycast [your city]” in your podcatcher) that is also good for local news.  

Some websites:

Longreads: Since longform.org went under, the best place to find the current longform pieces that everyone’s talking about.  

Brand Eating: Extremely niche, but I really love reading about “brand” food trends. It covers new food releases and sales and such in the areas of packaged food (potato chips, candy, etc), fast food, and casual dining. It’s also great as a resource for cheap eats. 

I stopped reading Bon Appetit recently (they ran this appallingly sympathetic story about a dickhead hiring manager) but like, honestly, if you want to track food trends, the BA email newsletter is kinda the way to go. If you’d like good food news in podcast form, I recommend The Sporkful (it’s in the podcast list). 

I used to read the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Fortune Magazine (which mostly scraped the not-awful stuff from Forbes) but I’ve cut it down to just the Trib; I don’t really need Fortune to keep me current and the NYT has morphed into a creepy proto-fash nightmare. The Trib has pretty good national/international coverage so if you don’t have a decent local paper it’s not bad, but I don’t know how much access you get as a nonpaying reader (I subscribe). 

Podcasts:

Quartz has a podcast, Quartz Obsession, which is off-and-on in terms of when episodes come out but very interesting when they do. 

Planet Money is a once-weekly podcast about economics, and has a daily show called “The Indicator” which is daily “small bites” current events coverage. 

The Late Show and the Daily Show both have an “ears edition” podcast that’s just the show audio; I’ve stopped listening for the most part but if you want good cultural commentary, that’s the place to go. 

The Journal by the Wall Street Journal is a weekly podcast focusing on one or two news stories, generally pretty relevant. 

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me is a panel show but it’s a fun way to get bite-sized news you can look up later in more detail if you want. And it’s taped in Chicago! If you listen you can hear me in the audience laughing. :D (I’m going to another taping in a few weeks!) 

Behind The Bastards is actually a history podcast but if you’re listening current he does a bit of current-events commentary, and also I just really like it as a podcast.

Stuff You Should Know is a trivia podcast but they occasionally do current-events stuff.

The Sporkful is pretty good about current food news, although I run hot and cold on it.

I used to listen to a really good “professional” medical podcast, but it went full paywall when it started to offer certain forms of professional credit, so I found The House Of Pod as a very good free replacement. It’s not really for non-doctors, but as a non-doctor I still find it accessible and informative. (For medical history and curiosity, I do highly recommend Bedside Rounds, but I wouldn’t call it a current events cast.) 

So that’s how I get my news -- it’s not what I would call fully comprehensive but it’s reasonably informative! 

[creatingnikki]

twenty-six things I’m grateful for at twenty-six 

growing up. the feelings of helplessness and frustration slowly washing away as you gain access to money and information. 

strawberry cream cakes, strawberry cheesecakes, strawberry chocolate brownie cakes, strawberries. 

a good night’s sleep. sleep that is 7+ hours, sleep that is not disturbed or day time sleep. but sleep at the “normal” night hours, sleep that is deep and restful. 

book readers who annotate their books and write the year/place of when they were reading it on the first page because when I come across second-hand books like that my heart.

fleeting intimacies. those brief, beautiful conversations and moments you share with strangers that you will never meet again. at a café, at the airport, at the open mic night. connections that are purely happenstance and a time being in your life. the beginning is the ending. but it doesn’t matter. they add something, if not to your life, but to your energy. even if you can’t trace it. 

the concept of crying. the release, the relief. if I didn’t have this, if I didn’t have this way of letting out my disappointment, overwhelmingness, tiredness, frustration, sadness, and pain, what would I do? what would I even do. 

dog/cat/pet owners who understand that just because they love their pet not everyone has to and some people are genuinely afraid and not horrible human beings for not going awww but uhhh when they see their pet.

translators, more specifically book translators. thank you so much for all your effort into making sure I can enjoy such beautiful literature from other cultures and languages. 

people who realize they were wrong about a certain perspective or life philosophy or stance and then course correct and acknowledge the same.

credit cards and essentially having quick access to credit in times of absolute need (fine line between hating cc and capitalism and using it to your advantage, I know). 

people who introduce me to new imagery which sounds so simple but hits my brain like the freshest of oxygen like my father saying my mother’s face began to glow like the moon when she smiled or a tumblr writer saying something makes their heart beam. 

earrings. long earrings that dangle against my neck and make me feel grown up, sometimes graceful, sometimes sensual. other types of earrings too. jhumkas. hoops. 

sunflowers. filler flowers. flower shops that keep newspaper to wrap flowers in. people who show up to my apartment with flowers. 

emails. I like that emails can be that perfect distance in communication but also so very efficient. they don’t demand instant replies like instant messaging. functional and timely. emails at work that exist in place of long meetings and emails from friends and lovers. my inbox feels like a mix of a treasure chest of precious words and an arcade of advertisements. 

older women who look at me not as competition but with this sentiment of wanting to protect/guide me, with this feeling of fondness, words of advice that aren’t patronizing but so very well meaning. 

good-quality, well-researched, engaging articles/blogs. blogs full of facts and figures that put things into perspective. blogs written in a witty and humorous tone that feel like you’re having a conversation with someone smart and warm. 

my family. my friends. for loving me even when I am difficult. even when I am bratty. for understanding the subtext of my words and actions. for accepting me even when I don’t accept myself. for reminding me of who I am when I can no longer understand the concept of self. thank you. 

clothing brands that have sizes bigger than large. clothing brands that have beautiful clothes and designs for sizes other than xxxxxxs. 

people who know how to make important days about you like your birthday and your first day at work and your heartbreak date idk. just people who aren’t so dense and don’t know what their energy/focus needs to be at what time when with others. 

glitter. glittery eyeshadow. glittery phone covers. glittery everything. all that glitters may not be gold but it does something to my brain and I love it. 

people who can help me let loose. goofy and silly and light doesn’t come naturally to me. my disposition is pensive, internally. even though externally I may seem so exuberant.  

context. the context behind a painting at an art gallery. context behind a meme. nothing is anything without context. so people who give you context, content that gives you context. 

selfies. give me a sense of control over capturing myself and my moments because with someone else behind the camera I am as awkward as awkward can get. 

the moon. stars. the sky. faraway things that are more complicated than just pretty things that make me calm. that make my mind calm. that make my heart feel less lonely. 

space. physical space, emotional availability, mental headspace. in me and in others. required but rare. 

all my past selves, all my younger selves for being. thank you for your wholesomeness, thank you for your resilience, thank you for your pureness, thank you for your decisions, thank you for your hope, thank you for your hard work, thank you for your crazy, your messy, your real, your beautiful. thank you for it all.

today is my twenty-sixth birthday and I wanted to take a bit to list down everything that makes my life lighter. there’s much more but now it’s time to go eat cake and click blurry, happy selfies. 

[csuitebitches]

On your becoming more well read: what are some reliable somewhat accurate news apps you’d recommend? Also can you make a post on books to read?

The reality is that no media is fully reliable. There’s no such thing as fully accurate reporting. The best we can do is read everything with a pinch of salt.

The next bit could be a little controversial but it is something everyone needs to hear.

In order to form opinions, you must be able to read and consume all sides and spectrums.

That means reading left wing AND right wing news, no matter how aggravating either are.

You can’t tell good journalism from bad journalism unless and until you’ve experienced both. The same way, you cannot form opinions about a certain topic until you’ve seen all major sides to the topic.

Having said that:

News:

* Annual Review (website) : academic articles, short academic articles, popular articles

* CNA Luxury (website) : all things lifestyle, luxury, fashion, food, living

* BBC

* CNN

* Fox News

* Medium (for personal opinions and weird reads)

* Bloomberg

* Wall Street journal

* Yahoo finance

* New York Times

* Google news app (great if you want to quickly consume news without spending too much time)

* The rest are specific to my native country and my native language

Newsletters:

* Bloomberg open and close (markets and finance)

* Emerging tech brew (technology)

* Morningbrew

* CFO brew (because I’m interested in finance)

* Seedtable (this is the best newsletter you could subscribe to if you wanted to subscribe to just one. It’s business and entrepreneurship related but it’s very diverse- biotech, healthcare, money… it’s fabulous. A man called Gonz Sanchez sends the newsletter).

* A couple of others which are personal and selective because I belong to a certain HNI business organisation because of my family

Being well read doesn’t just meaning the act of reading in today’s world. You have to know things, people and communities.

Other methods:

I’m constantly on the look out for events, conferences and networking opportunities. Regardless of whether it’s virtual or in person (I appreciate both). The said organisation I’m a part of arranges some of the best, most influential personalities in the world to come and talk (I attended a business conference where Mona Kattan spoke; another one where Terry Crews spoke about failures; so you get my point about how big these things are).

If you don’t know where to start, I’d say start with asking your bank. Banks in my country tend to host events, lectures and conferences and as your account grows, your access to selective conferences gets stronger.

Another avenue is work; college; university, you know the usual. Ask your boss if they know of any work related conferences happening.

Look up online to see what’s happening as well in your city. Museums often host events too.

Try attending a wide range of events - art, classical music, finance, motivational speaking, history, religion - it will shape you up a lot.

Charity/ volunteer work is another solid way. You need to interact with a lot of people. Choose what you truly like - is it nature, animals, children, old people, education? Do what you gravitate to naturally. And do it because you genuinely want to help, not just for networking and brownie points.

And I’ll definitely make a reading list sometime :)

Edit: I’ve created a free newsletter with the intention of making you well-read with minimal effort on your side. Sign up here! Launch: 8th January 2023.