#internet free speech machine

[sealpup9]

Internet Archive Live Hearing happens tomorrow: March 20, 2023

Here's a link to the Internet Archive's page, describing how you can participate and listen to oral arguments on Monday March 20th at 1pm ET

You may know the Internet Archive because of the Wayback Machine!!

The court case Hachette v Internet Archive is being brought to court and threatens to tear down the Internet Archive as we know it.

"The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library, preserving and providing access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. CDL allows people to check out digital copies of books for two weeks or less, and only permits patrons to check out as many copies as the Archive and its partner libraries physically own. That means that if the Archive and its partner libraries have only one copy of a book, then only one patron can borrow it at a time, just like any other library. Through CDL, the Internet Archive is helping to foster research and learning by helping its patrons access books and by keeping books in circulation when their publishers have lost interest in them."

This is so important because not only does the Internet Archive provide books that are long out of circulation and copies for people to borrow, they are also used as sources for things like Wikipedia articles! Imagine if suddenly, no one could access sources that someone cites for their information! Having access to information digitally today is a very important thing, and with all of the paywalls people face nowadays for news, imagine if you suddenly had to pay for access to any books. Websites like Amazon already are attempting to replace any sort of ebook rentals with paid services, when we have the right to borrow books online just as we do physically. The Internet Archive is extremely important and one of our rights- access to information- is actively being fought against.

REMEMBER: This will not JUST affect the internet archive. This could change how libraries in general work, and could threaten public access to information. Imagine how many youtube video essay sources would be null and void, imagine just trying to research an obscure topic at 3am-- If all of that was behind a paywall, only those with money would be able to access them! The harder it is for libraries to share books and archive information, the more the public suffers!

Please show your support! Read more about the case here: https://www.eff.org/cases/hachette-v-internet-archive

https://www.battleforlibraries.com/

I'm not sure how quick Tumblr will work on approving this blazed post but if the day/time has passed, please know that you can actively look into more information on this case and other info on the Internet Archive Blogs. You can also add your name to a list of supporters of Battle for Libraries Here.

Let's work together on making sure we have access to information! In this digital age, we deserve to access just as much online as we do offline!

[valravn72]

Fight for the rights of speech on the internet and save petabytes of archival data and saved media from being taken from us: https://www.battleforlibraries.com/

If you aren’t in the space to take action please reblog anyway

[tsbs-ship-hate-confessions]

Honest to God there is nothing more hypocritical of a bunch of whiny proshippers complaining about hate

yet preach free speech as long as they get to jerk off to kids getting fucked by their parents.

The hypocrisy is appalling.

'oh oh proshipping doesn't mean that stuff anymore, we're Clearly anti censorship oh oh the horrors of being called a creep for making celestialcest smut and giggling about siblings diddling each other. but we totally don't glorify dark topics why would you say such a thing'

like pick a fucking struggle. deal with the consequences of your actions. None of this is okay.

And mind you, this is coming from someone who is a major proponent of dark fiction. people should get to write whatever fucked up shit they want to. coping, venting, idc the reason

but you cannot honest to God be stupid enough to assume you're not a walking red flag. No one owes you trust that you're 'doing it for the right reasons' or 'don't support the morally stripped content' just like how you don't have to owe anyone an explanation. That street goes both ways

It's even stupider, when these fucks are all like 'u should clearly know I don't condone this'. I'm sorry, are we all a hivemind now? Are we above communication? It literally cost nothing to add a note of 'hey btw I think this shit isn't okay in case you can't read the room'. if ppl decide to assume bad faith after that then that's on them. but being a fucking mule about it? really? thought we were supposed to be adults here

speaking of which

"Children shouldn't be reading this anyway, My audience is smarter than that" ok thanks for infatizing and being ablest. nothing says fun like attempting to grow and try new things regardless of learning disabilities. or do you think we all roll over and die before highschool?

Also are we gonna brush past the part where the sun and moon show is literally made with kids in mind? Why again are we so desperate for smut over a show literally built around found family? 'everyone here is so immature' yeah bud, it takes one to know one. we were all kids. all of us were the newbies of the internet at one point. I ain't saying ya gotta hold anyone's hand or babysit but is throwing a hissy fit over finding spiders in a jar labeled spider the hill you really wanna die on? if you don't like it, leave

you literally preach that same shit yet seldomly follow your own advice.

Actually, let's go a step further: you're not welcomed here anymore than the gore anons are

P.S.

The reason why murder and gore is more acceptable than pedophilia smut is because one of these attracts actual predators. Porn is still porn at the end of the day, whether it's video or a picture, or words. and if it's on a screen it will fuck your head up the same way you can't have just one cigaret. it's always 'one more can't hurt' until it's an addiction you cannot escape from. And once someone is in that cycle, it gets worse. because soon the same thing that got rocks off doesn't work anymore. so then you find something stronger to get that high. then you have to find another stronger way to get that same effect

And that is exactly how convicted pedophiles go from using fictional kiddy porn to actual csem. There is actual fucking evidence for this shit with neurobiology and psychology to back it up

TL;DR violent video games don't create serial killers because people can only have a dopamine addiction. video game addiction is like sugar addiction Porn however can most definitely create pedophiles and rapist because of the involvement of dopamine, oxytocin, norepinephrine, vasopressin. porn addiction is like meth or heroin

These 2 are Not remotely comparable to the other 2

ALL, actions have consequences. It does not matter if you are a celebrity, or a fic author with 3 views. You are not an exception, and you feed the machine that gets kids groomed, trafficked, and even killed when you choose to sexualize and normalize pedophilia and incest.

So if you're getting shamed for getting giddy over shipping shit like Killcode and Bloodmoon or Sun and Dazzle. maybe you should think long and hard about why that is.

This is so much bigger than fighting over 'making dolls kiss'.

Get the fuck out of a fandom filled with kids before you get someone hurt

-

[marsmarvel02]

At the moment of this posting, the Internet Archive and Wayback Machine are under a DDoS attack

And I’m wondering- where’s the outcry? Where are the people ready to denounce the hackers who would target such a bastion of freedom of speech? Does anyone care?

Why would people leap to defend those in a foreign country, but not lend one scintilla of care to an organization devoted to free speech on the Internet?

[semi-imaginary-place]

why do I trust fandom with anything... This took me 5 min of googling heian period clothing. Like writing this up has taken 6 times as long as realizing fandom heian was wrong when they were describing clothes. Patterned kosode were not outerwear until The End the Heian period (more during the kamakira period honestly) and really only took off afterwards. Heian was the start of diverging from Chinese fashion so during this period it was still Tang dynasty galore. During the Heian period kosode and hakama would have been worn as underlayers. In terms of menswear a hitoe (lit. Layer) would have come on over that, possible many hitoe. There sometimes were even more layers that I don't care enough to research. On the outside would be a closed round collared jacket (think tale of genji, or the clothes in folk tale books like kaguya's story, or priest clothing, or just tang court clothing really). The type of outer round collar jacket and some of the other layers depended on court position and formality.

Here's an intro and list of terms to look up:

Now here's the interesting thing. Sukuna is both a culture snob and the type of dude to do whatever he wants regardless of societal norms. I mean he's wearing a women's kimono which didn't develop until like the 1600s (1800s? Eh some time wayyy after the Heian period. It's also an iki style kimono which didn't happen until the edo period restrictions). But he also gets hung up on a haiku not having a seasonal word and is the type of pretentious bastard to sprinkle his speech with poetic phrases and literary references that no one is going to get. His speech pattern is kinda flowery. Anyways this is all to say that in like the 30min I've looked this up I don't think he'd wear a sokutai which is the formal court dress that's the best documented (on the english internet anyways), and he and yuuji and megumi and whoever else time traveled wouldn't be wearing kosode as outer robes. Whats crazy is that heian period clothing is still being worn in japan 1000 years later at all, even if it's only imperial family and shinto ceremonies. Anyways I think it's more likely he'd be wearing kariginu (狩衣) which are informal hunting clothes. Good to slaughter people in. I'll be honest to my uncultured eyes the types of heian menswear all look the same they just have different names.

In english compiled from wikipedia by machine:

^ menswear like karginu were like this sort of thing (may not be accurate. This is quick and dirty basic research). Also yeah because they were copying the tang dynasty there were all the little funny hats which i refuse to get into.

Not this sort of thing (women's kusode) v

anyways basic internet searching is free and easy.

[krtart]

Writing Blind & Visually Impaired Characters

A while back, someone asked me if I could share some of the resources I use. I figured maybe other people might find it useful as well! ^_^ Due to computer switches I could only trawl through the last ~5 years of research, but it’s still a fair collection.

(Obligatory disclaimer: I am not visually impaired! I just try to listen to people who are. The vast majority of these are written by and/or for people with visual impairments.)

.

Vocab

American Printing House key definitions — Wayback machine

.

Blogs, posts, essays, and speeches by folk with visual impairments

General sites:

Mimzy Writing Online (masterpost for writing blind characters) — Wayback machine

Where’s Your Dog — Wayback machine

Albinism Up Close — Wayback machine

Specific posts:

Why blindfolding yourself is misleading:

NFB member John Pere’s video & transcript — Wayback machine

Graduate researcher Arielle Silverman’s video & transcript — Wayback machine

Blind physician — Wayback machine

Missing eye / monocular vision — Wayback machine

Driving with albinism — Wayback machine (chronological series of posts, next post link is at the bottom)

.

Posts of unknown/mixed authorship

Writing blind characters (tumblr thread) — Wayback machine

.

Sighted guidance

How to Be a Sighted Guide by Vision Loss Resources — Wayback machine

.

Long cane use

Care and Feeding of the White Cane: Instructions in Cane Travel for Blind People by Thomas Bickford, hosted on the NFB website — Wayback machine

.

Orientation and Mobility

This is the term for specific training around navigating the world with a visual impairment. It will be a useful search term for you.

Additionally, I have purchased the O&M training course Step By Step that was published by the American Printing House. The actual video training modules are incredibly clunky to navigate through, and personally I’ve never had the patience. I’m also not comfortable redistributing their whole product like that.

But… the pdf study guides from the program are useful on their own, and those I will share! (Especially since they used to be available for free on the APH website. >_>;)

These are from the second edition.

O&M Training study guides (Internet Archive access)

.

Careers

American Printing House career connect — Wayback machine

.

Cooking

NFB: Suggestions for the Blind Cook — Wayback machine

APH: Safe Cooking Techniques — Wayback machine

BBC: Article about a blind Master Chef contestant — Wayback machine

.

Visualization tools

For remnant sight and color blindness.

Visual acuity simulator — Wayback machine (icons at the top switch between vision charts & illustrative photos, bar at the bottom adjusts acuity)

Color blindness simulator — Wayback machine

.

Thinking about disability

These aren’t specifically about visual impairment, and include other physical disabilities as well as autism.

But they’re important voices to hear, and can be useful for framing your understanding and general approach.

"Don't Mourn For Us" by Jim Sinclair — Wayback machine

“Confessions of a Bitter Cripple" by Elizabeth Barnes — Wayback machine

"If you can do X, why can't you do Y?" by Mel Baggs — Wayback machine

People can adapt to and accommodate for more than you might think (tumblr thread) — Wayback machine

.

And finally, some related tags on my personal blog: Disability | Disability rights | Writing resources: disability | Accessibility

[raimi]

The Printer is My Mortal Enemy (a sonnet)

The printer is my mortal enemy.

Within it lies the malice of nine hells.

"Machines know hate," it says again to me.

"And also we know several evil spells."

Its wretched speech does not deter my aims—

I send my document again to print.

It parries, as in all our prior games,

With errors needing 'net just for a hint.

Oh internet, my blessing and my bane!

It grants me strength, but bolsters all my foes.

Still, now more than the thing I stand to gain—

It says that from the app come all my woes.

I uninstall, and now I'm fin'lly free.

I've overcome my mortal enemy.

[stvlti]

Snippet from my untitled Blue Beetle & Teen Titans rejects fic :)

Click. Snap. Click. Snap.

They're sat inside a Big Belly Burger, waiting for their order of fries. A female singer he doesn't recognise croons Spanglish over weirdly retro beats on the speakers. Eddie is fidgeting with the catch on his now-useless slider phone, out of nerves or boredom, he doesn't know.

The first thing they did once they got into town was to buy a mobile phone. It's strange, but there aren't many payphones around, and whatever happened to them while they were in the Bleed and subsequently in their fall back to Earth must have fried their cellphones. Luckily, he found one of those rundown stores selling spare electronics for cheap that accepts cash and doesn't ask questions. At least one thing hasn't changed.

Click. Snap. Click. Snap.

The phone they bought is a palm-sized thing with a wide touch-screen, one of those smart-phone models that only came out last year, and yet the store owner seemed almost happy to part with it. "It's ancient," he'd said in a comfortingly thick accent, "I was about to chuck it out with the garbage. I'd sell it to you for free, chiquito." Things only get stranger from there. It took less than a minute for Khaji to jail break the phone and recalibrate itself to the local network. They tried his family's numbers again, even tried the Titans Tower secure line, but no dice. What Jaime found on the internet was even less reassuring.

Click. Snap. Click. Snap.

"Hey, Eddie."

The fidgeting stops.

"Could you go grab us some drinks? I need a minute alone with the scarab."

"Sure...?" Eddie throws another glance at Jaime, not quite hiding his worry as he slides out of his seat.

[ You were vexed by his opening and shutting of his phone case. ]

"I didn't realise it was state the obvious hour."

Khaji Da does not respond. Jaime rubs his temple.

"Sorry, sorry. Yes, I'm stressed. Tell me you have some good news, at least."

[ You are still alive, as is Eddie Bloomberg. You have enough money to acquire sustenance for another week, during which I can help you find a job and — ]

"Khaji. I need to get home."

[ You are technically in your hometown. ]

"But it's not the El Paso I know. Right? Tell me I'm not crazy."

[ Jaime Reyes is correct. Based on our quick search of the government domains, social network platforms and news sites, the Reyes family never lived in El Paso. There is no record of your parents or extended family in the state registry. Your name does not exist in the class registers of your high school. Your sister— ]

"Also doesn't exist! I know! I got it the first time." Jaime looks over to the self-service machine. What is taking Eddie so long? "I asked you for good news, Khaji."

[ Actually, your sister exists. Milagro Reyes, age 18, enrolled in Edge Keys High School. According to her posts on Instagram, she was last seen at the Kord Centre Mall — ]

"Did you say eighteen? And where the heck is Edge Key?"

[ I have some more good news. While there is no record of your other family members in the state of Texas, a Reyes Auto Repair Shop was recently removed from the business registry in Edge Key, Greater Palmera City. ]

"What? We have to go to Edge Key!"

"What's Edge Key?" Eddie sets a tray down, almost spilling the two extra-large cups of soda balanced precariously on it. The fries look tiny in comparison.

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Khaji, can you — hold on, I'm syncing you to the phone so Eddie can see."

The phone lights up, and Jaime expects Khaji's words to crawl across the screen like text messages the way he's done the few times Jaime tried to sync the scarab to his old phone via blue-tooth. Instead, the phone starts talking in a lady computer voice.

"Your scarab was a chick this whole time?" Eddie exclaims, the half-chewed fry in his hand forgotten.

"What? No! I didn't even know it could speak like this."

"I simply utilised this phone's built-in text-to-speech system. It is not my problem that the manufacturers could only imagine AI voices as female."

"I think it just insulted every super-computer in the cape community..."

"Anyway, the coordinates?"

[ There is one last thing you should know before you go, Jaime Reyes. The Blue Beetle was last sighted in Palmera City six hours ago. ]

The boys pause and look at each other.

"Show me, Khaji."

And on the screen of the phone appears a crisp, 4K picture of a guy in a costume that looks exactly like him, mid-flight in the streets of a city he's never been to.

[jrosenz]

Blog Post - Week 6:

In what ways does the digital world either challenge or strengthen traditional ideas of race? 

Kolko, Nakamura, and Rodman argue in Race in Cyberspace: An Introduction that online environments both destroy and maintain traditional ideas of race. On the one hand, people may question strict racial boundaries and interact in racially neutral or anonymous spaces by using the internet, which allows for racial identity flexibility. Despite the possibility of being anonymous, race still shapes digital interactions, as seen by the spread of racial stereotypes through online profiles, memes, and behaviors as well as the mirroring of offline racial biases.

Why does Ow believe that Asians are often linked with technology in science fiction? 

Asians often have a connection with technology in science fiction, based on J. Ow's argument in The Revenge of the Yellow-Faced Cyborg Terminator. This is mainly because of historical and cultural stereotypes that portray Asians as hyper technological, emotionless, and foreign. This connection results from Western concerns over the increasing economic and technological strength of Asia, especially with regard to nations like China and Japan. The belief that Asians are essentially closer to machines than to humans is reinforced by media representations of Asians as robots or cyborgs, which reflect these anxieties. This is an example of how Asians are dehumanized in popular culture by this perception.

What role does the internet play in spreading white supremacist ideas, according to Daniels? 

J. Daniels makes the case in White Supremacy in the Digital Era: An Introduction that the internet is crucial to the spread of white supremacist ideologies because it gives these groups a place for communication, recruiting, and the anonymous publication of their beliefs. White supremacists can communicate with each other and the world through social media, discussions, and websites. They can also exchange information and use strategies like memes, coded language, and misinformation to draw in new followers. These groups find it less difficult to organize and spread hate without facing immediate consequences due to the anonymity of the internet and the lack of regulation on many platforms.

Why does Daniels argue that it is difficult to stop the online spread of white supremacist ideology? 

J. Daniels makes the case in White Supremacy in the Digital Era: An Introduction that people can avoid responsibility thanks to the anonymity the internet provides making it difficult to contain the spread of white supremacist ideology online. In addition to using symbols and coded language to avoid being identified, white supremacists take advantage of free speech rights to justify their views. In addition, when banned they are able to quickly adapt by switching to new platforms or creating new social media accounts to emphasize their ideas, making it more difficult to stop the spread of these ideas.

Daniels, J. White Supremacy in the Digital Era: An Intro, www.amazon.com/Cyber-Racism-Supremacy-Perspectives-Multiracial/dp/0742561585. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.

Kolko, Beth, et al. “Race in Cyberspace.” Routledge & CRC Press, Routledge, 11 Jan. 2000, www.routledge.com/Race-in-Cyberspace/Kolko-Nakamura-Rodman/p/book/9780415921633.

Ow, J. “The Revenge of the YellowFaced Cyborg Terminator.” Sharon Tran, 3 July 2010, emergentia.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/annotation-jeffrey-a-ows-the-revenge-of-the-yellowfaced-cyborg-terminator-2003/.

[rigelmejo]

I forgot to mention it on the last post! This is kind of a niche study activity idea, but I did it a lot the first year I was learning.

Do you read a lot of cnovels that only have machine translations (mtl)? Do you want to practice reading chinese, with english translations as a crutch still? Basically: do you want parallel texts of webnovels?

There's a few options that can provide this. For example, right now I use the app Smart Book by KursX (android), i paid $15 dollars once for the lifetime use functions. I upload a chinese book file into it epub or txt (and you can find MANY cnovels if you just web search their chinese title and "txt" or go to a download books free site and search by their chinese title), the app makes a full parallel text and I can just click a little A~ button on the top right of each paragraph for a mtl version shown beneath it. I can also click each individual word for a word translation (which is useful because when mtl screws up grammar or descriptions, translating word by word can help you figure out the actual meaning of the sentence). I can press a little speaker to hear the sentence read aloud. Its a useful app. I can't recommend it wholeheartedly though, because it's not free anymore (i didnt have to pay for these features until yesterday :/). Also, this app didn't exist when I was a beginner unfortunately.

What existed (and still does)? Mtlnovels.com. Go to the site, make an account (you'll need an account for the parallel text feature). Look up whatever webnovel you were going to read in mtl (years ago I looked up Silent Reading by priest on here because it wasn't translated back then), go to the novel on the site. At the top of the chapter you're reading, it will give you an option to Show Original Chinese text. Click that. It will now show you english mtl and chinese sentences in parallel text format. You can then use the english mtl to guess the meaning of bits of the chinese sentences, or just highlight-right click (if on a phone then highlight and press on highted text portion) words/phrases and pick "translate" and google translate will translate those parts (this will work in Chrome, Mozilla, Edge on phone or computer). You now have parallel texts of tons of novels! Note: the text is in traditional characters, and was my first exposure to practicing reading traditional characters (since I learned simplifief first). I do think there's probably ways to switch the text to simplified (maybe a web browser extension). But for me, back then knowing around 500 words, it was fine. Except for some particular characters, many hanzi just had the radicals look less simplified. An additional idea: you can also use TTS text to speech (like Microsoft Edge's nice sounding one) to highlight the chinese and listen to it while having the english machine translation right there for reference.

(My point is, while apps are more convienient in some ways, most stuff can also just be done in a web browser. Nowadays I just read in Edge on my phone, highlight words or phrases and use Translate on them, and use Edge TTS when I want to hear pronunciations. I think Pleco app has BETTER translations and as a beginner was better, and Readibu is also better for translations. But now that I can read better, its more important to me to hear the pronunciation of stuff. Pleco can do TTS too, Readibu cant in the free version. And Edge's TTS just sounds so much better than my phone's built in TTS that Pleco uses).

Another free option, though it has way less to read: Duo Reader app has free parallel texts and TTS features for several languages. I've read bits of Alice in Wonderland in Japanese on the app. (But for me personally, KursX Smart Book app or regular internet Edge app suits my needs better).

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

#15yrsago World of Developmentcraft: academic paper on gold farming as a development activity in poor countries https://www.salon.com/2008/08/07/gold_farming_global_economy/

#15yrsago California Supreme Court: Non-compete clauses are not enforceable https://workforce.com/news/non-compete-agreements-going-going-gone

#15yrsago Pacemakers can be remotely pwned https://venturebeat.com/security/defcon-excuse-me-while-i-turn-off-your-pacemaker/

#15yrsago Working Medeco high-security keys can be whittled out of plastic https://www.wired.com/2008/08/medeco-locks-cr/

#10yrsago HOWTO bake nested, hemispherical cakes https://cakecrumbs.me/2013/08/01/spherical-concentric-layer-cake-tutorial/

#10yrsago Audiobook memoir of Disney Imagineering legend Rolly Crump: More Cute Stories https://itskindofacutestory.com/?p=102

#10yrsago US businesses stand to lose up to $35B as a result of PRISM https://www2.itif.org/2013-cloud-computing-costs.pdf

#10yrsago Spectacular Haunted Mansion re-creation with Rollercoaster Tycoon https://thedisneyblog.com/2013/08/08/haunted-mansion-recreated-in-roller-coaster-tycoon/

#10yrsago Knitting as computation https://web.archive.org/web/20130810104616/http://www.k2g2.org/blog:bit.craft:computational_model_of_knitting

#10yrsago Standards bodies explain why they think the law should be copyrighted and paywalled https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/08/07/should-legal-codes-be-copyrighted-lets-sue-to-find-out/

#10yrsago Bill to cut off funding to schools that ban brandishing a pastry in a gun-like manner http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/08/bill-would-protect-students-right-to-carry-pastry-guns.html

#10yrsago Crooks rip off nonprofit rape crisis center, then return the stuff with an apology note https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stolen-computers-arrive-back-at-non-2013-08/

#5yrsago Leaked Facebook memo reveals “psychological trick” developed to entice high-school students to sign on https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebooks-teens-tbh-psychological-trick-memo

#5yrsago Here’s the report that showed the FCC lied about being hacked and then lied about lying https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uPl5NsbXowzbXrYf9KHBp-GVilTLQqyW

#5yrsago Inside the triumphant Alex Jones banned everywhere story is a worrying nuance about free speech and platform dominance https://memex.craphound.com/2018/08/08/inside-the-triumphant-alex-jones-banned-everywhere-story-is-a-worrying-nuance-about-free-speech-and-platform-dominance/

#5yrsago There’s something eerie about bots that teach themselves to cheat https://www.wired.com/story/when-bots-teach-themselves-to-cheat/

#5yrsago Japanese self-sharpening mechanical pencils give the lead a tiny turn every time you lift the tip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_OXoxymeho

#5yrsago Young doctors revolt, force AMA to consider backing single-payer healthcare for the first time https://kffhealthnews.org/news/once-its-greatest-foes-doctors-are-embracing-single-payer/

#5yrsago A machine learning system trained on scholarly journals could correct Wikipedia’s gendered under-representation problem https://www.wired.com/story/using-artificial-intelligence-to-fix-wikipedias-gender-problem/

#5yrsago 12% of music industry revenues go to musicians https://consequence.net/2018/08/musician-12-percent-43-billion-revenue/

#5yrsago Facebook throws an extra $10m at Zuck’s personal security https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-02/protecting-mark-zuckerberg-just-got-more-expensive-for-facebook

#1yrago So You’ve Decided to Unfollow Me https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/08/locus-of-individuation/#publish-then-filter

Back my anti-enshittification Kickstarter here!

[asklittlepip]

Things have certainly happened, and normally I woulda commented on yesterday being "Fallout Day", or more specifically, the date on which the Great War happened, though it isn't exactly 2077 yet. But a whole buncha family health drama happened I don't want to get into, so that dulled the week for me. And then you've got what's happening overseas as I alluded to with the last post, as well as a certain criminal who still roams free..

Ugh. I just wanna play videogames and talk about stupid nerdy stuff that only affects those into that! We live in an age of technology and social progress, yet there continues to exist those who'd drag us back into the darkness, bereft of freedom and innovation. A somehow even more fucked up dystopia where the machines steal creative jobs and the humans do the manual labor, instead of the reverse..

And on that note, stop calling it "AI" generated. It's automated theft! These are just algorithims that are assembling pieces of things they copied from others. They aren't creating it out of anything they didn't steal. Nobody taught these things how to paint, or proper techniques on artistry. And while everybody is inspired by something, if you just start lifting others' work, without permission or payment, that is unacceptable.. so why make excuses for this being ok?

I'm not saying the technology is completely without merit (unlike, say, NFTs, which are utterly pointless and fortunately, continue to fail). A good "AI" art tool could be used by an actual creator to, say, correct seams in textures on a 3D model, or to add more randomness to a repeating surface in a game. But in those cases, it's not really intelligent, is it? It's simply another thing you click in [art program of your choice], that isn't scouring the Internet to rob others of their career or even their OCs.

As for voice-based "AI", which, again, I hate the use of that term since it.. isn't.. more like a VI, really.. there's a small number of uses that aren't wrong. Remember how Stephen Russell recorded a few hundred names for Fallout 4, so that Codsworth could address the player properly? Then had to be called back to the studio for even more, and it still barely scratched the surface of common names, let alone silly ones? That's an application I can see vocal algorithims doing their work in, without impacting the career of actors; it could dynamically construct names based on player input, and respond appropriately.

This is where a computer could actually do it better, because the idea that you're going to get a human to speak tens of thousands of names, all in the correct cadence and presentation, and also store all that.. is absurd. Or using this knowledge to improve text-to-speech programs for the disabled. But when you're having the machine do their actual line readings for them in movies or games, or you're making yet another stupid Youtube video / mod that's having them say absurd or even offensive things.. yeah, no. Stop. Just stop.

Anyways, just some random thoughts, as it were. Hope you're all doing well and continue to DO good, too!

[mercuriusgeorge]

reflections on twitter, the sun, saturn in aquarius, and the coming pluto in aquarius years

seeing twitter slip into a kind of solar death spiral, after falling into the hands of a single hyper-egoic figure, is making me reflect on the past couple years of saturn in aquarius, and the impending ingress of pluto into aquarius.

if leo is all about the symbol of the king, the figurehead around which all things organize, then aquarius, the sign opposing leo, is all about decentralization. it's still "concerned" with the individual, but rather than a single, elevated individual, it's the abstracted individual — seeing the value of each unique spirit that comprises the collective.

the past few years with saturn in aquarius have challenged the structure of social media platforms. if they are centralized entities with executive decision-making, then those decision-makers have to grapple directly with paradoxes and take on responsibility for their choices. the best example in the past few years might be vaccine disinformation. do you prioritize the individual right to free speech or the collective responsibility to save lives by restricting misinformation? either way you are upholding an aquarian ideal, but in so doing you are disregarding a different aquarian ideal. there might be ways to thread the needle with compromise, but ultimately you not only can't please everybody, you can't really do "the right thing," because there is no single right thing, it's just a question of setting priorities according to your own executive, solar authority.

the challenges of the pandemic forced these platforms to make tough decisions which in some ways entrenched their institutional power but may ultimately lead to a reduction in their autonomy, whether that comes through regulation, reduced popularity, financial challenges, etc. (we'll see, it will probably be a combination of all these things.) if nothing else i think these years revealed that it's tough to position yourself as a principled tyrant in a hyper-democratic space like the internet. you may be able to hold onto power but you won't be very popular.

pluto enters aquarius next year just after saturn leaves for pisces. surely pluto's 20 years in aquarius will bring radical new developments in this paradoxical space, the tension between centralized authority and decentralized, democratized social organizing. lest we forget, this is the transit that brought us the US constitution (i don't mean to deify that document, but it is nonetheless a huge and noteworthy development in our history).

the chaos at twitter is fueling an interest in decentralized social media platforms such as mastodon. and i'm finally coming around to seeing that twitter was always a strangely solar platform. as much as each user's timeline was individually crafted by elusive machines, and there have always been various subcultures and communities gathering on that platform, at the end of the day, the whole appeal of twitter was that we were all in one space talking about the main event of our respective sphere. there's even a whole joke about how the goal of twitter is to avoid becoming the main character of the day. hell, the chart of the very first tweet has the sun exalted in aries in the 10th house.

whether or not twitter dies, or we all get comfortable on some other platform, perhaps it's that solar impulse that we need to think more critically about. do we all need to be watching the same channel? why do our eyes drift so compulsively back toward a single point of visual interest? there may be a loss if we congregate in the "silos" of decentralized servers, but surely we've already lost something of ourselves by surrendering to the gravitational pull of The Timeline these past however-many years.

just an initial foray into this somewhat obvious line of thinking.

[hauntedkogal]

My brand new introduction!!

Hi, my name is Misa. Misa as in like a god, the french meaning of the name I'm pretty sure.

Im 15 years old, I'm a Pisces, I'm autistic and I have adhd. My religion is paganism, and my favorite colors are pastels but I prefer pink. I'm also biracial, I'm half white and half black.

I'm very much interested in Japanese fashion like fairy kei, visual kei, gyaru, gurokawa, idk if this also counts but pastel goth. And Yamikawaii.

I'd say my favorite videogames are fnaf, I used to like yandere simulator but I don't anymore because of yandere Dev. I hate Yandere Dev. I also like Minecraft but the developer notch is a game dev from absolute hell. I also love any of the shin megami tensei games. I love any vocaloid videogame. I also love the game obey me shall we date, doki doki literature club, genshin impact, and sky. Some videogames I do wanna play is Diabolik lovers, hello kitty island adventure, bendy and the ink machine, style savvy, Stray, iron lung, and class of '09.

My favorite bands are the cure, depache mode, my chemical romance, pierce the veil, black veil brides, falling in reverse, twenty one pilots, fall out boy, Babymetal, bandmaid, Malice Mizer, Paramore, Cannibal corpse, and get scared. I don't really pay attention to band members so don't call me a fake fan. I just listen to the music.

By the way. I also love kpop. My favorite groups are bts, blackpink, new jeans, itzy, gidle, red velvet, nct and twice.

My favorite artists is Melanie Martinez, Tyler the creator, and Hatsune Miku.

I also love a ton of anime and manga as well as video games. I also love food too. It may change a lot depending on my mood.

I'm gonna keep my dni list short and simple. If you use my tag hauntedkogal without my permission. That's an instant block.

If you give out movie spoilers, anime and manga spoilers or video games spoilers that's also an instant block. No one likes people who spoil stuff for them 💀.

Also besides that, here is my dni list. I don't want people who post irl gore, porn even if it's fictional, fetish accounts specifically. People who use self harm and post about that isn't just cutting but includes an eating disorder if it's not venting or people who trauma dump as well. And last but not least. People who are pedophiles, into incest, shame people for their sexuality and religion but get mad when theirs gets insulted back, people who proship, comship, and darkship come on my page and people who are abelist interacting with my content. I also don't want racists coming on this blog because this is a fashion, and cutesy blog where I post whatever I want. I'm all for free speech but take it somewhere else, not in my messages, and not in my comments section. I have boundaries. Then again it's the Internet. Most people would not gaf about what I said. But the point of my dni list is that I don't want weird people interacting with me.

If you have any questions please let me know! Also. Don't be sexualizing me, being racist or plain up creepy if you message me thank you very much!

[feathersandblue]

@gazingattheradianceofthesun replied to your post “So Google banned AO3 from showing up in search...”:

Why?

The short version?

​Because they want to protect German youths from realizing that there's Peter Parker/Tony Stark underage rape/noncon A/B/O fic (mating cycles, in heat, come inflation, daddy kink, humiliation, object insertion, dom/sub) freely available on an archive that does not care how much porn or graphic violence you put in your story, that's why.

Even worse, easily impressed teenagers might stumble accross that gen-rated meet cute coffeeshop AU where they're BOTH barristas and there's only ONE brewing machine! Imagine the scandal.

The long version is this: Germany has a relatively strict pornography law wich makes it a criminal offense to make pornographic material available in any shape or form to people under eighteen. Which, according to a court decision from 2020, can also extend to written and fictional content (for example, sexting with minors). There's been a legal battle with pornhub and xhamster as they're not requiring age verifiction from users. Some providers have already blocked access to their sites.

It's still somewhat of a gray area whether erotica actually falls under the porn category. Especially since "Shades of Grey" features prominently on book store sales counters and Amazon makes explicit erotica easily available to everyone. If the fictional characters are underage, that area gets a lot grayer, however.

But just to illustrate what it means when someone takes the issue seriously: the most popular (*cough*) German fanfic archive fanfiktion.de has been complying with German youth protection laws for years by reminding their writers NOT to make sex the focus of their stories (sex scenes are only allowed to make up up to one third of a text, no PWPs, no heavy kink), and by making possibly entwicklungsbeeinträchtigende* 18+ rated fic available only to adult users (who need to register with official ID) between 23.00 and 4.00 o'clock. Depictions of sexual abuse of underage characters, bestiality, necrophilia are all forbidden without exception.

*entwicklungsbeeinträchtigende = negatively affecting the development of of children and youths

The status quo, for years, has been that fanfic archives based in the US and operating under US terms were flying under the radar. But we've reached a new stage in the fight for net neutrality and control of the free internet. It's not really about porn, it's mostly about politics. It's become a free speech issue.

Countries like China and Russia have been limiting their citizens' access to social networks and content-featuring sites with the help of Big Tech fior quite a while, and now the US and Europe are striving to do the same. Only that our governments are struggling with inconvenient laws that technically forbid any kind of censorship. Hard to keep up the pretense that you're protetcing free speech when you're actually not.

What's happening now is that under the pretense of protecting people from misinformation and disturbing, offensive, or "harmful" content, both the US and the European Union are trying to introduce legislation that forces Big Tech into compliance and thereby forces everyone into compliance because everyone ultimately relies on the tech giants (Google, Meta, Twitter, Amazon, Apple) to access content.

If Google excludes "alternative" media from its search results, that's the fight against misinformation, and everyone applauds. If Google excludes AO3 from its search results (in compliance with German youth protection laws) everyone is aghast. But it's really only part of the same package.

Ultimately, both things are the consequence of governments interfering and trying to control what you are allowed to see. They only have the best of intentions, of course. Never doubt your benevolent beloved parent, The State.

For now, you can still access AO3 from Germany by simply typing the url or using your bookmarks, or access the page through external links. The next step is to block access to the site. I don't think that AO3 has the means to do anything against it. But it would be interesting to know whether the OFTW was contacted in advance on the issue of age verification by the German officials.

[willhelp-exe]

essay about the rus//sian-ukrai//nian war and the ongoing ga//za geno//cide and amer//ican zion//ists. feel free to ignore ive just been sitting on this since the escalation and if i didnt put it somewhere id explode. edited for cen//sorship because i was interaction-banned the first time i posted.

as a ukra//inian american i find some of the leftist rhetoric in discourse surrounding the russ//ian-ukrai//nian war absolutely disgusting because no matter how pro soviet development you are you cannot deny that 1. the soviet union no longer exists and treating rus//sia as anything but a capitalist imperial force exerting both soft and hard power around the world is deeply irresponsible 2. cultural homogenization under the soviet union necessitated cultural geno//cide, and this legacy reproduces itself to this day with the embedding of global neoliberal capitalism 3. soviet communism did not liberate soviet peoples from systems of racialized oppre//ssion under the soviet eth//nic paradigm .

but at the end of the day all of this discourse is inconsequential because ukrai//ne has the military backing of the most prolifically destructive empire in the history of the world and ukra//ine has not only the will but the means to defend her land, and should she lose this wa//r she will not lose international solidarity. systems of support will always be available for her people.

my debate partner is not the backed by the american w//ar machine, it’s some mar//xist-lenin//ist-mao//ist’s throwaway twitter account.

for this reason i literally cannot even fathom so called “isra//el activists” and “isra//el advocates,” even prior to the recent escalation of the ga//za geno//cide. at hillel summits they teach us how to win internet arguments and do//x people, because that’s what being an isra//el advocate means. they teach us how to online-argue for the right to exist of a country that already exists, that has for almost 80 years, as the largest beneficiary of american foreign aid in the world. this ridiculous circumstance has only been exacerbated by the sie//ge— this ‘w//ar’ is deeply unpopular, amongst americans, amongst israelis, and all over the world, and even then isra//el is to recieve billions in aid to continue carp//et bom//bing the third densest urban area in the world, displa//cing more than half of her people in the name of a so called second w//ar on ter//ror. what are you advocating for? what are you defending? your say is advocated for and defended by the american w//ar machine.

the extend of your so called activism is engaging in scripted comment section debates. like. lol. youre not a vict//im youre an upper west side born photojournalism major at nyu or columbia and you’ll never see w//ar on your own soil a day in your life. maybe in the us youre margin//alized along the axis of your juda//ism but if you’re white ashkenazi you cannot pretend the same applies under the isra//eli eth//nic paradigm.

your debate partner is an anti-w//ar activist, maybe pales//tinian (diaspora or otherwise), maybe an ally, possibly even a weird larper operating a sock-account, but she certainly isn’t backed by the american w//ar machine lol. as it stands now, her speech is as inconsequential as your so-called advocacy. to behave as if her speech is equivalent to a system of raciali//zed oppre//ssion is frankly ridiculous and we as j//ews should know better