#to walk dog

[chipped-chimera]

THIS. DEAR LORD THIS. THIS IS WHAT HAS BEEN DRIVING ME INSANE ABOUT AI.

Look I have contemplated writing an AI Analysis post coming from an actual artist's perspective SEVERAL times with the knowledge I've accumulated but rarely have the spoons to do it but I'll just do a short bit of it now.

So when something really upsets me that is happening and I have little control, I habitually do this thing where I will actively go out there and research the shit out of it. Because I've spent enough time in therapy to know the thing that scares us the most is the unknown. Make the unknown known? It becomes significantly less scary.

And I am backing it up when they say 'AI is a buzzword'. It 120% is. What the AI labelling is hiding under the world's biggest and perhaps most obfuscated umbrella-term is machine learning.

So it would probably shock you to know, by that metric we have been using AI for YEARS. Your autocomplete keyboard on your phone that remembers your words according to usage? Machine learning. Facial recognition on mobile phone cameras and facebook? Machine learning. The ALGORITHMS that have been driving a lot of my most beloathed social medias for years? MACHINE. LEARNING. Auto-generated captions on videos, reverse image searching, targeted advertising, analysis of weather systems, handwriting recognition, DNA sequencing, search engines, and of course your dynamic enemy 'AI' in videogames that has to react to your actions as a player - these are ALL products of machine learning and by that metric? You have technically been using AI for years but we just didn't call it that yet.

In my great search of understanding all things AI, what an Australian tech journalist commentator said was - we're basically calling anything 'new' in machine learning that we don't quite understand yet collectively 'AI'. And I agree 100%. The reality is AI has been with us since about the 1960s.

Hang on Chimera/Kery I hear you say, on the Wikipedia page of machine learning it says machine learning is a result of trying to build AI, not AI! Yes, but you literally cannot have the 'Intelligence' part without the machine learning part. You take out the learning and you've just got a brick of data that you can't do shit with. The intelligence part comes in when based on the data it's been fed and the responses it has gotten back from it's environment, whether that is a researcher saying yes or no, or literal environmental feedback in a robot that is learning optimal locomotion through a space - it executes actions. So again, by that metric when you whip out your phone to take a selfie and your phone starts to track where your face is? It is executing an action based on its data-set of 'what is a face'. That. Is. AI.

So everything is AI now? Yeah it's an umbrella term, that's what I said. The disparity between knowing what machine learning and AI is to the point we call specific things AI (image generation, large language models, voice generation) and other things 'not AI' (see my long list again) is down to MARKETING.

Let me take you back to the tail 'end' of the pandemic. You're OpenAI and through scraping a lot of publically available data of just people chatting or writing various things - with dubious consent - you have made a really good chat-bot. Yeah you heard me, CHAT-BOT. If you're old like me, you remember chat-bots - they're those goofy things you played with as a teenager and laughed at because it'd say silly things and it'd be funny to put two together trying to talk to each other because they'd begin spouting nonsense and getting stuck in a loop. Or they're the widely hated artificial help systems on government websites embedded in a chatbox that does jack shit. Or the annoying pop up on some website you're just trying to buy shit from and stock-image-sandra is here in a text box 'ready to help you'. Chat-bots have an image problem. You can't release ChatGPT, your fancy chat-bot as a 'chat-bot', how the hell are you supposed to get investors? You've got some really good projects on the go (with dubiously sourced data) but you're running out of money. You need to do something fast.

So you take out the AI umbrella term, and right before everyone is just about ready to leave their hermit-chronically-online-pandemic-induced lifestyles - you drop the metaphorical bomb. You hand over your tech, now with the shiny new AI label, to the public. The AI label hides the fact from the public that you're basically rebranding shit we've had forever and by keeping it purposefully murky you can (hopefully) get people to ignore the fact that you've basically pulled vast swathes of data with dubious consent because - but it's AI! It's such a superior piece of technology! We can't un-invent the wheel because the ends didn't justify the means! It could change the world!

Despite the fact it's been 'changing the world' since 1960 and the only difference here is you linked enough computers together to make it better than what was currently available. But you now have to pay electricity costs for all that tech so, out into the wild it goes!

And now you've triggered a technological arms race and the use of AI (and your bottom line) is skyrocketing! AI that was previously the domain of government and massive corporate use is now in the hands of people to play with - their personal tech literacy be dammed (no literally be dammed, the less they understand the better). And they won't want to have it taken off them - in fact they'll fight each other over the value of your chat-bot and image generator in spite of the fact you stole data to train it. So your profits keep rolling in and next minute, despite your ethos being 'open source to all' - you're getting approached by Microsoft for a partial buy in and now you're 'semi-private', whatever the hell that means. Who cares! Money!

I have so, so much more to say on all this but I'll leave it for a proper post. But the lesson of this very tl;dr history of OpenAI is this: AI is machine learning. Machine learning is a TOOL. AI is a TOOL.

And a tool is only as ethical as the hand that chooses to wield it. Artificial intelligence is neutral. It is not good. It is not bad. It is just like the knife on your kitchen bench, with all the potential of doing good and useful things like help you make dinner and also horrendous, horrible things like commit a violent crime. And who made the knife in your kitchen? Is it artisan? Handcrafted by someone well paid in their profession? Or was it mass produced in third world conditions? Now is your knife itself bad? Should we ban all kitchen knives?

AI is a marketing buzzword for shit we've had for years - this is just the shiny version that went public to get money and we all fell for it hook, line and sinker.

So I challenge you, the next time something wizz-bang-shiny-tech-whatever is placed in front of you, and maybe it's a bit scary - to do what I do. Instead of filing it into a box of good or bad, start arguments online with someone with only limited information over whether someone is 'good' or 'bad' for participating or not participating in use of this technology because it's now emotionally loaded for you - do what I do. RESEARCH IT. Understand it, deeply. Listen to commentary on it from both sides, learn about the intent of why it was handed to you and for the love of god USE SOME CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS.

Because I guarantee you once you do that? Stuff will quickly become a lot less murky. You'll be able to see where your own blindspots are, and prevent them from being exploited - in this case, being taken advantage of by big corporations who are trying to pull and 'oopsie-woopsie' on unethical datasets for profit. You'll be able to hold them accountable. You'll also be less likely to get pulled into stupid arguments online about shit because you know it is way more nuanced than tech-bro putting out his big titty waifu image soup - he's small game here. Who cares about him. Go for the people at the top of this who are hoping to keep sliding on by with their rolling profits because you're too busy having fights among yourselves. Go for them and go for the fucking throat.

Any technology can be used for weal or woe, and it is entirely about the hand who wields it. Or in this case, the hand who programmed it.

If we want to continue to use AI or Machine Learning in an ethical, revolutionary manner we need to stop falling for the marketing, and hold each other accountable to uses that will continue to benefit humanity. Not pull it apart.

So yes. AI is a buzzword. Stop falling for it.

[clownboybebop]

if you’re ever in the position to choose between giving up and accepting defeat, and actually trying to fight the ancient unkillable god that is about to peel apart reality like a string cheese, remember this: scientifically speaking, you might as well give it a shot!

1.there were trees at the beginning of the world! there were trees so long ago that they predate bacteria that causes wood to decay. when a tree fell, it would lie there in stasis and there wasn’t any way of breaking down wood xylem on a molecular level in that way.

2. it seems obvious to say, but wood eating bacteria are literally incapable of comprehending what they’re breaking down. It’s just not information conciously available to a microorganism. they don’t know what they’re deconstructing, where it came from, bacteria have no way to even fathom the existence of a tree as a concept.

3. Regardless of the facts above, the world we live in today is a world where wood inevitably decomposes

it is worth fighting the unkillable god no matter how pointless it seems. it is worth taking the risk even though youre trying to accomplish something impossible. the reality in which you live was also once reality in which trees didn’t rot. You live in a reality that allows for existence before the possibility of destruction. you live in a reality where uncomprehending microbes break down matter that is so far beyond the scope of their comprehension that it feels comical to specify something so obvious. you live in a reality that occasionally allows unshakeable physical truths to be altered with no warning.

It is worth fighting the unkillable god because trees are so old they predate the source of their destruction, and it still did not spare them. It is worth fighting the unkillable god because bacteria rots unthinkingly, because there is room in our cosmos for destruction without comprehension on the part of the destroyer. It is worth fighting the unkillable god because now and then reality retracts the promise of immortality without fanfare, and when that happens there is no mercy for the ancient. the unmaking is not softer for the desecrators ignorance. for all things, existence is endless until the exact point where it ends.

so you might as well try to kill the unkillable god. it doesn’t seem likely, but at the beginning of the world, trees didn’t rot. so you never know! you never know

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[soviet-furries]

Polcan and Shavka (Полкан и Шавка)

Soyuzmultfilm, 1949

[refugeed-kim]

YES YES I NEED THIS SIGN IN EVERY SINGLE PARK PLEASE

This is my daily struggle, I had so many arguments with people with off-leash dogs (in a mandatory leash area!!!). Thanks to this behavior I'm struggling with Kim being anxious/aggressive with other females as she often gets involved in unpleased interactions with free females while on leash. And every single time that I ask for the dog to be at least recalled, I'm being called names and insulted of course.

Also 9 out of 10 their dog isn't really that friendly at all.

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Dick, deadpan: You hid a racoon in your room.

Jason, crouched by a sleeping racoon currently sleeping on a pillow. Theres scratches all over his arms and legs. He doesn’t seem bothered: yeah? What ya gonna do about it?

Dick: Un-hide? The goddamn racoon in your room?

Jason: But I’ve named him.

Dick: Well, un-name him.

Jason: He’s Barty.

Dick: I don’t care.

Jason: …

Jason: We can use him to fuck with Bruce.

Dick: …

Dick: Would Barty like some food?

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

Yeah, I don't know about you, Fidds, but I'd fold at this 🙏

Previous!!

Next!!

First!!

[radiance1]

"You fight against a god!" Said the eldritch, nearly undecipherable being that's body twinkled with stars that the JL/YJ (Your choice) had found themselves fighting against after having been sucked into a world not their own. "Do you truly believe yourselves capable of-"

A green sticky note appeared in front of the figure's... Face? They honestly didn't know, seeing as they couldn't tell where exactly this being began and ended.

"Oh- Oh uh." The figure said as its voice lost that booming, echoing quality as it started to shrink. "I gotta, like. Uh." Said the boy that took the being's place, sticky note in hand as he rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish expression. "Sorry, can we, uh. Continue this later? I gotta walk my dog-"

A moment later, a loud bark broke the new atmosphere, and the child beamed. "Cujo!" He said, holding out his arms as the dog barreled into him. "Okay so I'll just, uh. I'll be right back, okay? Just stay there!" He said, before falling through a portal and leaving.

"So does this mean we technically won-"

[ky-landfill]

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

getting older can be so amazing? you get more familiar with yourself. learn tips & tricks for troubleshooting your own brain. trial & error helps you build routines that minimize discomfort, maximize reward. your preferences/interests don't get set in stone, but you do find out which ones are going to stay with you in the long-term, and which ones are fun but transient joys to appreciate in the moment.

you learn that the world is so much more complex than you were taught, and that that's okay, and that there's an endless supply of things you can learn or watch or experience or think about if you want to. if you're lucky, you loosen up, stop putting so much pressure on yourself. if you're lucky, you learn to recognize that negative inner voice, and whack it with a baseball bat until it hushes up. if you're lucky, you learn to treat yourself gently, not because you are fragile but because you are worthy of gentleness. (i hope you are lucky.)

and some things will change. some things will get better. some things will get good. and maybe you start to recover from the dehumanizing stress of childhood/education. maybe you learn the power of your own autonomy. maybe you learn how to walk away from bad situations (which is a superpower even if you don't realize it yet). and you get to choose your own clothes. and your own food. and which relationships to pursue! and what you do with your free time. and with your life (but don't worry you get to choose that gradually). and that's crazy! and sometimes scary. and extraordinarily, indescribably precious.

[damiel-of-real]

new headcanon: papyrus allows mad mew mew to keep living in the house because he hopes she'll drive out the annoying dog. but then she just keeps engaging in looney tunes esque shenanigans with it and its just an overall far worse situation

[zooophagous]

Tuunbaq took this piece of celery from the kitchen trash and decided it was very special and had to be carried while on our walk so he could keep an eye on it

[doomed2repeat]

I need people to hear me out:

Colin Bridgerton is NOT this type of male lead:

He is this type of male lead:

And I love that.

[a55goblin]

domwife kim and his pathetic husband

[reasonsforhope]

"Inspired by an innovative Chilean forest restoration effort, the English town of Lewes is enlisting the help of dog walkers to rewild a local nature reserve.

Heavily degraded by foot traffic, the project co-opts dogs’ tendency to run about in the woods to spread wildflower seed from saddlebags strapped to a harness around the dog’s abdomen.

The idea mimics the function that wolves once played in that part of England, roaming over vast distances getting grass and flower seeds stuck in their coat, only to fall off and germinate somewhere else.

This helter-skelter seed-spreading is actually how many plants evolved to reproduce, and it’s key to maintaining a biodiverse and native ecosystem.

“We’re really interested in rewilding processes, but they often involve reintroducing big herbivores like bison or wild horses,” said manager Dylan Walker from the Railway Land Wildlife Trust who organized the project back in 2019.

“In a smaller urban nature reserve it’s really hard to do those things. So, to replicate the effect that those animals have on the ecosystem we aimed to utilize the vast number of dog walkers that are visiting the nature reserve daily.”

The saddlebags are filled with a variety of perennial plant seeds mixed together with sand. This allows the seed to be spread for longer across larger distances, while also providing a helpful tracking sign to inform the Trust’s employees where dogs are walking.

THE REWILDING MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND…

Salmon Return to the Heart of UK for First Time in 100 Years After Dam Removal: ‘It’s very rewarding’

‘Give Nature Space and it Will Come Back’: Rewilding Returns Endangered Species to UK Coast

Farmer Combats Flooding by Returning Creeks to Nature: ‘Wildlife That Has Come is Phenomenal’

Finally Rid of Invasive Shrubs, Scientists Use Lichen to Regrow the Celtic Rainforest in Loch Lomond, Scotland

2 Beavers Named Hazel and Chompy Reintroduced to English County–the First Ones to Live Here in 400 Years

“I signed up because it sounded like such a good fit. I was asked to place a harness on my chocolate cocker spaniel called Bertie and he ran around spreading seeds like wolves used to do many years ago,” Cressida Murray, a dog walker who regularly uses the nature reserve, told The Guardian. 

Wolves were persecuted to extinction in England as early as the reign of Henry VII, who reigned during the latter third of the 15th century.

“A community-based project like this not only helps engage and teach people about the ecological impacts of wildlife but also allows us to make our wildlife and environments richer in the process,” said Walker."

-via Good News Network, July 30, 2024

[http-wolfstar]

Winter walks ❄️