I really appreciate this reply and I think I owe you/jstpst an apology? Your posts are always good and I think highly of your art, and your reply is making me reconsider a lot of things.

I was being really cynical and sardonic here, while also performing/perpetuating the "AI art is bad" thing. I think I made a shitty situation for sincere posting and I appreciate you for posting sincerely despite that, and calling me out(? for lack of a better phrase).

(I especially want to decry the whole "no self respecting artist" thing I said earlier. I think that was a particularly shitty thing I said to try and get a laugh?)

I've re-read through your reply a few times. This part of your reply in particular

the process gave me a nutrient that my soul has been corroding from lacking, with unsolvable chronic pain preventing me from being able to draw any more.

really struck me and my mental model of What Art Is. I've been thinking of a proper reply to this but I think I need to sleep on it. (But I want to acknowledge your post before I log off for the night to reply tomorrow)

(And if it's worth anything I think pretty highly of you as an artist and I've associated you with lovingly rendered pigeons for about 1/3 of my entire life by now. I regret having had cynically discoursed about it because I think if you had things you generated and were proud of, those would be interesting things I would want to see)

edit: i thought i posted my actual reply but i don't see it here. it was a big one but i think i will need to type it up again

In subsequent weeks, Hansen and her team ordered fresh blood samples from every supplier that 3M worked with. Each of the samples tested positive for PFOS.

It's common knowledge by now, but imagine how horrifying it must be to be the first person to know that all of humanity (and later, every animal blood sample as well) appears to be contaminated by industrial chemicals.

The only blood samples without PFOS chemicals were from ones before 3M created PFOS.

Shortly after learning these results, her boss took an early retirement.

Whe she didn't know was that 3M already knew the PFOS were harmful.

Starting at the second-lowest dose that the scientists tested, about 10 milligrams for every kilogram of body weight, the rats showed signs of possible harm to their livers, and half of them died. At higher doses, every rat died.

Man.

I'm halfway through the article but this is a doozy. I knew everything was bad, but it's even worse than I thought.

When this article was posted on orangesite, someone shared an anecdote that I (through connection to 3M employees) had heard as well. (iirc it's also backed by stats, but i have no more time to post)

Related anecdote: I know someone who used to work in Oakdale, Minnesota, a town that 3M literally used as a PFAS dumping ground. I'm not saying it's normal for a kid to die of cancer at the local high school, I'm just saying it happens more often there than anywhere else I've ever heard of.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M_Contamination_of_Minnesota_Groundwater

I think it's still definitely like this today. Like, fuck, Instagram alone could fill solemn tomes of the nightmares of generational fallout

:(

(CW: More explicit references to domestic abuse)

I think security folks tend to think of security against a genius hacker with endless resources, which is a good mindset to have when you're building software and cryptography. But this mindset also makes a lot of security folks obstinately oblivious to reality.

I can't imagine what level of collective delusion the people at Microsoft must be under that they would advertise Windows Recall as a good feature. They must be aware of the blood that will be on their hands, right?

It feels almost like that's the point? "Windows with CoPilot + will help you keep tabs on you and yours, every step of the way."

Agreed-- I still think the disparity between Linux/Microsoft holds here, but I probably shouldn't have omitted the Perpetual Font of Flame and Mr. Does Not Know Women Are People

hey, this is post 8008 and nobody appreciated it

well

i appreciate it

I hope this doesn't come off as patronizing, but welcome to feeling this way every year. I constantly feel something like a guilty mixture of pity and relief every time I see the Windows that so many people put up with.

Windows Recall takes the cake though. I can not believe all the things I hear about it, it sounds like the wildest imaginations of some 2023-era luddite.

FWIW, I think I can remember five big Linux controversies over the past 15 years (privacy-preserving Amazon integrated into Ubuntu lenses, shellshock, systemd, snaps in ubuntu, xz recently)?

i luv linux so much. it makes computer SO much less bad

that's called a tulpa and it's illegal to kill it

this is a fantastic 10000th post

I found a post by FacebookAunt on SomethingAwful dated November 22nd, 2020: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3863200&pagenumber=907

I can also find a reference from January 2015 in the r/meta_me_irl descriptioon: https://web.archive.org/web/20150312162214/https://www.reddit.com/r/meta_me_irl/

Note that it's "mosts". That is, "mosts of my posts are posts about posting". I'm suspecting this is from SomethingAwful...

But even further back... I find an AdviceAnimals from 2013 by.... u/SUPERCUB?? Named after the mid-00s aviation enthusiasts webforum??

This might run deep. I'll report back with the deets if I can find them.

EDIT: it doesn't run any deeper. 2013 babey

education in the united states peaked after the space race and it's been decaying since. i have a gen z friend who teaches K-12 and they're so cooked :(

we might see america fall within our lifetime but it looks like it's going to be really bad actually

Kitchen appliances, namely, electric juice extractors, grinders, electric food processors, electric dispensers and fillers for dispensing ground produce or juice into bottles or pouches or cartridges

Providing downloadable computer software that enables consumers to track and monitor their nutritional intake and overall health and to share related information via social media

fresh fruits and vegetables

1. i love this comment

2. "I read the article" is fabulously generous to the geniuses of orangesite

3. the rest is spot on

give us a real component too. make things complex and irrational

so i can say "good ouppy" to c oines

nice

woe. that s smatr

"hacker" "news"

wel actual. i mean the " table"t in the frig. it run s on coirtex m0+. a beaurtiful wonan told me i should use it.. i thikn. i was not listening. and now she is gone :(