#so amazon etc

[deadendtracks]

more about ai and how it's being rushed into things before it's ready: saw this presentation from Clarivate (big library platform vendor) about a natural language ai search for databases. now i think a natural language search is interesting as a concept (versus boolean and knowing what key words are likely to get you the best results) but the *output* was an ai written summary of search results and then the top 5 citations. when asked whether the product had issues with hallucinations (which is where the ai will just make shit up because "ai" doesn't actually know anything it just predicts what word should come next statistically) the answer was "not in the citations."

so like. the product they want to push out to libraries for their patrons (very often university libraries who serve students just learning to do research) provides a "summary" of the supposed search results that is still prone to being full of made up shit. Sure, they can get the proper citations and go look for the articles being "summarized" but ...

how many students will actually do this, and how many will take that "summary" as factual because *it's being provided by the library* and use *that* in their papers? Etc.?

It's a complete nightmare garbage product. They could have just given the search results without the summary -- i really am for a natural language search if it works -- but they had to incorporate the new sparkly ability of "ai" to "summarize" despite the fact that it's still prone to confabulation.

anyway I don't think this has been rolled out yet but this particular vendor likes to roll out products that are not ready for prime time and there's an "ai" arms race going on in every industry so the pressure is to push this on everyone whether it's ready or not, whether you want it or not, whether it will actually do a lot of damage or not.

[thunderlina]

In the wake of the TikTok ban and revival as a mouthpiece for fascist propaganda, as well as the downfall of Twitter and Facebook/Facebook-owned platforms to the same evils, I think now is a better time than ever to say LEARN HTML!!! FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE SHACKLES OF MAJOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AND EMBRACE THE INDIE WEB!!!

You can host a website on Neocities for free as long as it's under 1GB (which is a LOT more than it sounds like let me tell you) but if that's not enough you can get 50GB of space (and a variety of other perks) for only $5 a month.

And if you can't/don't want to pay for the extra space, sites like File Garden and Catbox let you host files for free that you can easily link into NeoCities pages (I do this to host videos on mine!) (It also lets you share files NeoCities wouldn't let you upload for free anyways, this is how I upload the .zip files for my 3DS themes on my site.)

Don't know how to write HTML/CSS? No problem. W3schools is an invaluable resource with free lessons on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and a whole slew of other programming languages, both for web development and otherwise.

Want a more traditional social media experience? SpaceHey is a platform that mimics the experience of 2000s MySpace

Struggling to find independent web pages that cater to your interests via major search engines? I've got you covered. Marginalia and Wiby are search engines that specifically prioritize non-commercial content. Marginalia also has filters that let you search for more specific categories of website, like wikis, blogs, academia, forums, and vintage sites.

Maybe you wanna log off the modern internet landscape altogether and step back into the pre-social media web altogether, well, Protoweb lets you do just that. It's a proxy service for older browsers (or really just any browser that supports HTTP, but that's mostly old browsers now anyways) that lets you visit restored snapshots of vintage websites.

Protoweb has a lot of Geocities content archived, but if you're interested in that you can find even more old Geocities sites over on the Geocities Gallery

And really this is just general tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. If you dig a little deeper you can find loads more interesting stuff out there. The internet doesn't have to be a miserable place full of nothing but doomposting and targeted ads. The first step to making it less miserable is for YOU, yes YOU, to quit spending all your time on it looking at the handful of miserable websites big tech wants you to spend all your time on.

[kebriones]

oh lord the "lets make a medusa retelling comic where i have the idea and you do all the work" is back. with a new sales tactic: telling me how rich we'll become.

[bluastro-yellow]

if they ever actually make that disco elysium amazon series it should just be about what martinaise's citizens were doing before the murder and during harry's three days party. harry/the murder is the thread that connects everything but he's more of a secondary character who shows up towards the end of the characters' stories

an episode or more focused on the capeside apartments, one on the whirling, one on the fishing village and church, one on precint 41, one on wild pines and krenel and the union...

and it's animated

and the og writers are involved

[yansurnummu]

maybe this is just me having had some really bad luck but I continue to just not understand the appeal of online shopping. like it just stresses me out so bad

[ladylightning]

rpf girl texted on jan 1 to tell us her second book is finished. unclear if this is a sequel to the rpf book or…something else. so. happy new year. i guess.

[drtbrennan]

hi friends, if you have a minute can you please sign this petition! it’s so close to 50k and the work the fandom has been doing is genuinely so incredible i don’t know how they sleep🫶🏻

[themyscirah]

Finally read Wonder Woman Historia because of your posts about it and damn. goddamn. that was fucking life-changing. literally what the fuck this should be a required read for every single comic book fan to ever exist. fuck

YES OMG THATS WHAT IM SAYINGGGGGGGGGG

(Also yesss got one mwahahaha I'm literally so glad you read it because of me omg 🤗🫶)

No but truly like life-changing sounds intense but is honestly the word for it. Like at least personally I can't emphasize the impact that book has had on me? I first read it about a year ago and finished it just SOBBING. I wasn't even a Wonder Woman fan before reading it. I wasn't even a Wonder Woman fan before reading it. Like do you understand I now run a Wonder Woman blog, I own multiple WW articles of clothing and my entire wall is covered in WW issues and items. If I had to list my top 5 books (not comics, books) of all time Wonder Woman: Historia would be an automatic contender. I reread it constantly, and bring my giant ass hardcover that is too tall for every bookshelf everywhere. It is constantly on my mind.

Anyways just sooooooo so glad you got a chance to read it (especially because of me!!!) because Historia is truly my favorite comic out there and I think it's one of the best things from the medium as a whole : )

Anyways all you folks listening this is you sign to READ WONDER WOMAN: HISTORIA!!!

[eschynite]

When the LA-based interior design influencer who is constantly purchasing $$$$ furniture and reselling it bc she was in the mood for something else informs her viewers that unfortunately, you CANNOT create a worthwhile space with cheap new furniture and you MUST wait until you find the perfect vintage piece secondhand and there is NO valid excuse for not doing so. -_- k.

[36c-no-kubisuji]

trying to shop bras bc my current ones are falling apart and um. why are there two different us sizes for the same measurement.

[elizakai]

Wich pen do you use for the white highlights in some of your art? It looks very opaque and I can't find a white pen that doesn't turn translucent once it's dry or melts with the colors😭

Have a good day/night!!<3

HI HI!!! oh my stars i’m so happy to share, they are Sakura Gelly Roll gel pens, they stay pretty opaque and genuinely are so satisfying to use :))

ofc there’s other packaging but just to help if you need to find them they look like this

they have colored ones as well but i always make sure to have white ones at least

PLUS they are pretty cheap😁

[moongothic]

Re: Crocodile as the Missing Kuja Empress-theory

I do wanna throw it out there quickly that we know Shakky retired from being a pirate and the Kuja Empress 42 years ago at the age of 22, while Hancock took the throne 13 years ago (age 18), meaning the Missing Empress' reign/era lasted for about 29 years

And while we don't know how long the Kuja might've been without a ruler between empresses (like do they have a system set where they know who will take the throne next Immidiately After the previous one steps down/dies/etc, or might they spend years without an empress until they find a new suitable ruler?)

We do know that when Shakky retired, Crocodile would've been four

So unless Crocodile became The Kuja Empress at Age 4 (or unless the Kuja were completely without an empress for almost a decade and then gave the throne to a literal child), then there's no way Crocodile could be the Missing Kuja Empress

[introverted-ghost]

Bro boycotting is so fucking easy

Like I know you can’t always stop using gasoline or quit your job at a corrupt company because you still need to live

But just buy your latte from somewhere that isn’t starbucks

[girlwiththegreenhat]

a dude my ma works with at amazon died of a stroke on the job because they force them to work in hot conditions and they refused him water. they bring in modified temperature readers so they can say "see, it's a safe temperature in here, all up to code uwu" but someone snuck in their own temp reader and it was much hotter than they claim it is.

it was ninety degrees Fahrenheit. heavy lifting for several hours at a time, no water, in 90 degree loading docks.

stop fucking using amazon. or at the very least, fucking unionize.

[ohwolfling]

i just don't think i'm going to be alive much longer and it's bullshit that i have to gage how much i'm expressing that, even while i beg for money to continue living in excrutiating pain with very low quality of life, because people treat you worse, give you less opportunity, and show you less compassion the less inspiring your poverty or pain is

[professor-doc-emeritus]

in preparation for the move I went through the deeply healing process of canceling a bunch of monthly subscriptions I had managed to accumulate over the years, turns out I was spending $70.76 on functionally nothing. Annoyed I let it get to that but happy to have the money back in my pocket so I can put it towards more responsible things: warhammer minis