Shannon Vallor

This is what happens when you view human creative expression not as something to be experienced and appreciated and savoured, but as just content to be consumed

Every year in my class I show my students the gender shades project and they are like but it has been fixed now… right?

Joe Lonsdale Calls For Public Hangings Silicon Valley radicalization escalates

A Palantir billionaire just called for public hangings.

“It's time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable,” writes Joe Lonsdale.

This is where Silicon Valley authoritarianism is heading:

www.thenerdreich.com/joe-lonsdale...

Also something like “groundedness”. Not about physical details but a sense of a mind reflecting on its own experiences.

I’m sure Sarah Friar of OpenAI feels it’s great to “write” with ChatGPT so I can explain with hers.

There is no thinking about the person in here.

As a technology of coercion, AI is essential for enforcing right wing speech codes and punishing liberal thought crime at universities.

Come research with us at the Max Planck Research Group for Machine Visual Culture — “Artificial Intelligence and the History of Seeing” positions open under Dr Leonardo Impett. We’ll get to hang out sometimes. www.biblhertz.it/3757971/0412...

the entire point of a university education is to challenge, question, interrogate

Don't make things that are creepy and weird

Everyone always laughs nervously when I show this slide, but - seriously - don't make things that are creepy and weird. Don't purchase tools that are creepy and weird. Don't get free licenses to see how they work, just in case. Don't take meetings with the people who make them.

Ours mostly ignores the lights now but when a kitten they were delightful for chewing

One last tip—only plug in lights when you have eyes on the monster

Good luck!

It helps to have a very heavy, stable base - we use the Krinner one (pictured) and ours has not been able to pull it down. Ymmv. Also, no glass ornaments and a dense tree

Another one for the ‘actual, literal, Biblical Antichrist’ file

I’m so sorry Sarah. It’s heartbreak.

"Farage in Falkirk? It should make our stomachs heave to have him in Scotland" Nigel Farage’s Falkirk visit sparks outrage, with many Scots saying his presence north of the border should make “our stomachs heave”.

Farage arrives in Scotland today, and it should make our collective stomach heave that this repulsive, dangerous extremist has crossed the border. Amid scapegoating schoolkids and allegations of antisemitism anyone who supports this man is morally in the gutter

My @heraldscotland.bsky.social column

A small raccoon poking its head out of a trashcan.

Truth Coming Out Of Her Well To Shame Mankind - 2025.

It would cost $30 billion to end homelessness in the USA.

well look, at least it’s not like [is handed a note from someone off camera] well folks, at least it is [is handed another note from someone off camera] anyway, things are bad, but it could be [is handed another note from someone off camera] as I was saying, we should be [is handed another note from

“Broadening access to the humanities…—an effort that gives, for example, a room of public school kids the chance to experience the thrill of something entirely new—is needed now in ways that are difficult to overstate. There’s an essential kind of freedom at stake.” 💙😭🤟

the neighbor you cross the street to avoid when you're out walking

Me looking up and alternating between ‘such inexpressible, transcendent beauty!’ and ‘please no pooping do you hear me?
NO POOPING!!’

Yes my plan is to write it fast - over the next 6-9 months!

For First Time in Decades, Child Deaths Will Rise This Year Almost a quarter of a million more children around the world are projected to die in 2025 than in 2024.

This fetid landmark, this historical stain on humanity is primarily due to the stunningly reckless obliteration of America's foreign assistance agency earlier this year.

Led by the richest man on earth. In secret, on a weekend. With zero analysis or discussion of its catastrophic impacts.

Absolutely weeping

The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner Interviews Santa Claus For several centuries, Santa Claus has been one of the most prolific mythical gift-givers in the world. Formerly known as Saint Nicholas of Myra, a...

magnificent

Screenshot from Tumblr, user nocryptographer: I talked with someone who works in book publishing, and they mentioned they get a lot of AI slop these days. I asked how they know what's human-written, and they said that there's one thing that will reveal AI slop without error, and that's the author not knowing their own creation. A real author can talk about their story for hours. They love to elaborate every character, every twist, every detail. Because those existed in their head long before they ever made it to the paper. They were loved before they were written. AI slop wasn't. It was just vomited into existence. Someone who generates their story with AI will never bond with their story the way real writers do. That's why they may not know what to say when they're asked why did the character do this, or even remember the scene in the first place. It's something they read, not something they wrote. And to a writer, those are not the same. There's a unique bond between the creator and the creation. If your writing doesn't come of you, you'll always lack that. I keep hearing soon we won't be able to tell. And perhaps, in a superficial sense, that's true. But there is a difference. It's not em dashes or repeated words. It's whether the story was made by someone who loves it and cares about it. If the writer's eyes light up when asked why did the character do that? and they start their very own Ted Talk about that specific scene... then it's real.

Seems more promising than "there was an em dash it must be fake!"

And yeah, I might not be able to remember every detail about the stuff I've written, owing to my moth-brained memory, but you risk me launching into a loving 6 hour presentation if you ask me questions about a scene or character.

Yes absolutely, that will be threaded throughout the chapters, as the relational dispossession is central to the whole phenomenon

I want to call it Dispossessed but I would never want to be responsible for someone mistakenly getting my book when they meant to buy The Dispossessed

Some true gems in this thread. Particularly fond of The Magician’s Nephew

YESSSSSS