Senzen

I need to pin this near my bed; I'm so bad at this mindset! Thank you very much.

Frustrated little dude gripping a pencil saying “how do I pack this down into something I can actually share?” While swirling rainbows labeled “INFINITE POTENTIAL” float around them. Little dude frowns at a tiny grey box, exclaiming “all that work for THIS?!” Little dude shoves the grey box into another little guy’s hands; Frowning, stomping off, and saying “Here you go, I made this, it sucks.” Second little dude cracks open the box, swirling rainbows project out onto their face. Second little dude stares in awe at all the swirling rainbows now floating around them.

Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑

✨CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT ☀️

Welcome Senzen, a traditional fanfic writer for the zine!

#WINDBREAKER #ウィンブレ

とてもよくできてますね！どのキャラクターも見覚えがあります。みんなとても可愛くて大好きです。作品を共有してくださってありがとうございます！🥰

Archaeologists excavate ancient Roman takeout counter at Pompeii A 2,000-year-old quick-serve restaurant had a lot in common with modern ones.

Yes, literally for millenia.

arstechnica.com/science/2020...

I see grocery/takeout shaming discourse going around again, so this is your periodic historian reminder that cooking from scratch daily while working has never been sustainable, and for millennia everyone either relied on takeout & restaurants or ate in huge households w/ big dorm-like group dining.

Witness 🌙

Sir Ken Robinson, the educator, shared a story once.
A kid was busy drawing, really serious.
The teacher said, 'What are you drawing?'
Kid said, "God."
The teacher laughed and said, "Nobody knows what God looks like."
Kid said, "They will in a minute."

I reflect on this often.

11 colors, pixelart

Amazing, atmospheric, full of story and ambiance — you are a great artist.

初めまして！センです。機械翻訳を使っているので、拙い日本語で申し訳ありません。ねこさんの作品はとても美しく、優しく、食べ物の絵は食欲をそそります。この絵の美しい色使いが大好きです！作品を共有していただき、ありがとうございます！

THE END OF YOUR ILLIAD rest well!! You deserve it!!

😭 Crossing my fingers for you to arrive in peace at some point!!

Will we ever see you on the other side

Your art is utterly gorgeous <3 I love its softness, your skill with composition and beautiful, atmospheric backgrounds. It's always so, so very pleasant to see one of your pieces; thank you very much for sharing!

Ten small comic panels: 1. The writer, anxiously hunched over his laptop, unhappily struggling to create. 2. "I've finished my book" he says. Arms aloft in celebration. 3. The agent says "It's great! I have a few notes." 4. And so... The writer is back at his laptop, unhappily struggling to create. 5. "I've finished my book" he says. Arms aloft in celebration. 6. The editor says "It's great! I have a few suggestions." 7. And so... The writer is back at his laptop, unhappily struggling to create. 8. "I've finished my book" he says. Arms aloft in celebration 9. The readers says "It's great! We need a sequel." 10. And so... The writer is back at his laptop, unhappily struggling to create.

My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books

A woman sits in a chair holding her phone. She looks distraught and is saying "Don't leave! I can change!". Her book (with arms legs and an indignant face, holding a small suitcase) says "You had your chance, Carol! I'm going to sit on the front wall and wait for a more appreciative reader to come along."

My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books

Executive Summary A pro-Russia content aggregation network, Pravda, appears to be set up to flood large-language models with pro-Kremlin content, The American Sunlight Project has found. Over the past several months, ASP researchers have investigated 108 new domains and subdomains belonging to the Pravda network, a previously-established ecosystem of largely identical, automated web pages that previously targeted many countries in Europe as well as Africa and Asia with pro-Russia narratives about the war in Ukraine. ASP’s research, in combination with that of other organizations, brings the total number of associated domains and subdomains to 182. The network’s older targets largely consisted of states belonging to or aligned with the West. Notably, this latest expansion includes many countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and North America. It also includes entities other than countries as targets, specifically non-sovereign nations, international organizations, audiences for specific languages, and prominent heads of state. The top objective of the network appears to be duplicating as much pro-Russia content as widely as possible. With one click, a single article could be autotranslated and autoshared with dozens of other sites that appear to target hundreds of millions of people worldwide. ASP researchers also believe the network may have been custom-built to flood large language models (LLMs) with pro-Russia content. The network is unfriendly to human users; sites within the network boast no search function, poor formatting, and unreliable scrolling, among other usability issues. This final finding poses foundational implications for the intersection of disinformation and artificial intelligence (AI), which threaten to turbocharge highly automated, global information operations in the future.

A pro-Russia content aggregation network is churning out at least 3 MILLION pieces of propaganda per year, all on sites that are virtually unusable by humans.

So what's the goal? We explore the idea that it might be to flood LLMs with pro-Russia content:
static1.squarespace.com/static/6612c... 1/

YouTube video by Regent University School of Law Don't Talk to the Police

And if you'd like to hear ways that talking, even when innocent, can really be detrimental then watch this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o...

As an offshoot of this thread, let’s talk about what happens if federal, state, or local officials text, email, call, or show up at your door wanting to talk to you about what you said about the President.

I have a theme, a thesis, a throughline, a leitmotif, which is SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH.

/1

Fascinating

We Finally Know Why Ancient Roman Concrete Was So Durable The ancient Romans were masters of building and engineering, perhaps most famously represented by the aqueducts.

Roman concrete's 2,000-year durability secret finally decoded
The exceptional strength comes from 'hot mixing' quicklime directly with volcanic ash at high temperatures. This creates distinctive lime clasts that grant remarkable self-healing properties. buff.ly/3EQOcxi
#ShareGoodNewsToo

Rien à rajouter aux propos de mon excellent confrère Ken White (ancien procureur fédéral by the way)

Guy: How many puppies does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Do you know yet?

Me (in a sea of puppies): No, they haven't done it. Bring more

#art

Title: A personalised Valentine's card for bibliophiles Image: A cartoon heart with arms, legs and a smiling face. With an empty speech bubble above. Five options for text to cut out and put in the bubble: I love you more than my books! I love you as much as my books! I love you almost as much as my books! I love you! No more questions! I love books!

A personalized Valentine’s Card for Bibliophiles. My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books.

Utiliser Gmail ou Google Drive dans un cadre professionnel est pour un avocat une faute professionnelle et déontologie.

And the world moved on. #pixelart

Book cover of "Inventing the Renaissance." It's very orange, and has Cellini's very naked statue of Perseus holding the severed head of Medusa.

LGBTQIA+ As we resist those who claim diversity distorts scholarship, let’s run through the acronym & show how easy it is to find the rainbow in every era. We don’t even need to look beyond the Renaissance celebrities that are household names! 1/?
(Countdown to Inventing the Renaissance)