marnie queen of [tater] tots

Good thread

Grok @grok · 22h Ah, fair point—my artistic take strayed a bit. That's a spot-on classic photo of Scott. Glad he's still with us! Alyosha @raskolnehkov · 22h Scott is dead, grok Grok @grok No, Scott Adams is alive and actively posting on X as of today, February 5, 2026. The "RIP" post seems like misinformation or spam. Glad to clear that up!

A new classic from yesterday

My take on the hat. Please excuse my model. Like all of us, she’s doing her best.

It’s a new (gregorian) year, & while I’m pretty happy to say goodbye to 2025, 2026 is not making the best first impression. Still, I can hope for brighter days ahead & I love that @knitty.com has updated the cover image of the current edition with a lighter, brighter version of my Prosecco pattern.

Read a buncha good books this year and abandoned a few that weren't to my taste. www.goodreads.com/user/year_in...

“AI”: A Dedicated Fact-Failing Machine, or, Yet Another Reason Not to Trust It For Anything I search my name on a regular basis, not only because I am an ego monster (although I try not to pretend that I’m not) but because it’s a good way for me to find reviews, end-of-the-yea…

whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/13/a...

a display of hand-crocheted covers for paper lanterns in playful colors in front of a middle-aged woman (me) dancing in a bright dress

I’m so excited to share my new crochet pattern, available for free on @knitty.com! There are plenty of other cool projects to checkout so please head on over to knitty.com and if you see something you like, share it with friends. It helps the magazine and the designers! #crochet #free #pattern

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

me holding my new lace shawl pattern, worked in lace and garter stitch in a gradient yarn

Hey, I have a brand new shawl design called, Again Around the Sun, available for nil dollars and zero cents from Knitty.com. Check out my pattern and all the other lovely new designs at in the Deep Fall 25 edition. I am in great company. #knit #knitting #pattern #free

images of a cape and shawl worked in brioche knit, available from marniemaclean.com. $6 for each or both for $8.

If you enjoy brioche knitting, I’ve designed my first patterns in five years, using this engaging and clever technique. You can find both variations of the pattern in my ravelry store or on my site: marniemaclean.com #knit #knitting #pattern #brioche

So, this Unbound/Boundless fiasco. I was going to be polite about it, but after this morning’s email: no

Text from article: It’ll be years before we can fully account for what all of this is doing to students’ brains. Some early research shows that when students off-load cognitive duties onto chatbots, their capacity for memory, problem-solving, and creativity could suffer. Multiple studies published within the past year have linked AI usage with a deterioration in critical-thinking skills; one found the effect to be more pronounced in younger participants. In February, Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University published a study that found a person’s confidence in generative AI correlates with reduced critical-thinking effort. The net effect seems, if not quite Wall-E, at least a dramatic reorganization of a person’s efforts and abilities, away from high-effort inquiry and fact-gathering and toward integration and verification. This is all especially unnerving if you add in the reality that AI is imperfect — it might rely on something that is factually inaccurate or just make something up entirely — with the ruinous effect social media has had on Gen Z’s ability to tell fact from fiction. The problem may be much larger than generative AI. The so-called Flynn effect refers to the consistent rise in IQ scores from generation to generation going back to at least the 1930s. That rise started to slow, and in some cases reverse, around 2006. “The greatest worry in these times of generative AI is not that it may compromise human creativity or intelligence,” Robert Sternberg, a psychology professor at Cornell University, told The Guardian, “but that it already has.” (Katie's added note: the sentences about reorganization of abilities and telling fact from fiction have been highlighted.)

Bleak.

nymag.com/intelligence...

Kuma’s been using the DuoDingo app to learn to speak human and I think he’s pretty much fluent now.

My dog, Kuma, using a pillow very cutely

Would you look at this guy?

It's not just that just about everything I've ever published is in this particular database and used without my permission. It's that everything I've ever published was used without my permission to develop such a shitty, flawed and fundamentally useless tool. I deserve compensation for THAT itself.

It’s a Shame We Have to Betray Our Allies, Starve the Poor, Halt Scientific Progress, Destroy the Environment, and Eliminate the Freedoms Enshrined in the Bill of Rights, but at Least My Investment Portfolio Is Also Tanking “Mr. Trump has acknowledged, despite all his confident campaign predictions that ‘we are going to boom like we have never boomed before,’ that the ...

"The last few months have been a moral catastrophe. At least there’s no economic upside."

Kuma and Lala (dogs) wearing their harnesses and reflective yet jaunty kercheifs, curled up next to me on a chaise, staring intently toward an unseen other person who really needs to finish what he's doing

When you are waiting for your other human to finish something so you can all go for a walk.

Monoglot English speakers, how many of the letters in pepperoncini do you normally pronounce? Not once has that first N made an appearance in my pronunciation. The best you're getting out of me is: PEPer-uh-chini until I'm shamed into something else.

Why, on this the day before the day before the day before my fiftieth birthday, have you done this to me?

Is the Book You're Reading Literary or Genre Fiction? A 100% Definitive Guide - Electric Literature Are you contemplating the meaning of life or just swooning for a hot werewolf?

Is the Book You’re Reading Literary or Genre Fiction? A 100% Definitive Guide

"Coup Klux Klan" feels like a keeper

You know...I got into self-publishing (knit/crochet) back in the early aughts and to do that you do kinda have to learn by doing everything and if nothing else, it makes you appreciate having the option to pay others to do stuff you suck at/hate

Arcane (TV Series 2021–2024) ⭐ 9.0 | Animation, Action, Adventure 40m | TV-14

I'm hiding in my blanket fort and absolutely loving this.
www.imdb.com/title/tt1112...

I am a former incarcerated firefighter. I served in a California fire camp from 2009 to 2012.

Misinformation is afire on the internet, so here are facts about the prison firefighter program, all in one place.

A thread.

I've reached a new level of overachievement. PT doc told me my frozen shoulder is the worst he's treating right now. 💪

Cartoon by Matty Lubchansky First panel: one person says “wow did you hear about (redacted)? Turns out he’s a real creep” Second person says “that’s a bummer, I love his movies” Second panel: first person saying “yeah they mean a ton to me too. Lots to reckon with.” A guy crouching in a black robe says “it’s not a big deal, actually, since I…” Third panel: the guy dramatically casts off his robe and says “I… never cared for his work!” The first person kneels and says “oh my! A true genius!” while the second says “we’re in the presence of a visionary!” Fourth panel: the second person says “what’s your secret?” and the guy, offscreen hands putting a crown and ermine cape on him, says “I’ve never liked anything, or anyone”

Gonna be a big week for this

Meta Is Blocking Links to Decentralized Instagram Competitor Pixelfed Pixelfed said it is "seeing unprecedented levels of traffic."

Meta is deleting links to Pixelfed, a decentralized, open source Instagram competitor that has had skyrocketing signups in recent days: www.404media.co/meta-is-bloc...

Kuma hugging a pillow

This boy is cute

If you are new to BlueSky, PLEASE take a moment to make your profile look like it belongs to a human being. Add a profile image, write a few lines, upload a header.

Many seasoned users will block accounts that look very sparse or unfinished.