bobthemole

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genuinely one of the saddest parts of this new era of the internet is how hard it is to rick roll someone now. with people's attention spans shortening so much, they wouldn't even get through the first few bait seconds before clicking off the video. like i saw a comment that ended with "btw i made all of this up" and the replies kept treating it so seriously because none of them finished the entire 4 sentence comment. and We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I (do I) A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you

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As far as I’m concerned, the single most radical change from journal fandom is the idea that fandom is primarily a space for kids.

*shakes cane* in MY day, teen fans pretended to be adults while we walked uphill both ways!

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There used to be a plotline that goes something like "you're the best gamer in the world, and game was really just a covert training and recruitment tool, so now you're going to use those skills to fight aliens or whatever". It's more or less gone away, one of those speculative fiction tropes that did not stand the test of time.

I think it's a great premise though, and should start being applied to other hobbies.

"Ma'am, this regional knitting competition was actually a covert operation to find someone to run this machine of the elder gods we found buried in the desert."

"Congratulations on your silver play button, you are hereby inducted into the Paranormal Defense Force, a subsidiary of Youtube and a branch of the United States military."

"Welcome to the Olympic village. If you've made it this far, you're hereby recruited into the international super soldier program, fighting our enemies at the edge of the Crab Nebula."

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SO APPARENTLY MY ENTIRE LIFE IS A LIE HOW HAS YOUR GUYS’ NIGHT BEEN

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AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They’ve warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic’s AI training now threatens to “financially ruin” the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement.

well…darn

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since apparently this is controversial, reblog with your country in the tags and whether or not you think noodles and pasta are the same thing

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Interesting. I wonder if I could get an inter library loan thru the public library…

You may be interested in a book coming out in December: LiveJournal and Russian Disinformation: The Rise of Epistemic Sabotage.

Here's part of the publisher's summary: "Sylvia argues that by better understanding LiveJournal as an early battle in this new digital arena, we can document the tactics at play and identify just what is at stake."

Oh my god, that's amazing. There was so much about that era I didn't see or notice even though I was in the thick of it. Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out for sure.

It looks like it's a textbook, given the price, so I'll probably wait until I can pick one up secondhand or the ebook price drops; I waited two years for the California Gothic textbook, I can wait a year or two for this. :D

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Mr Green I had a very bizzare dream you were working at a Panda Express in an abandoned mall that was half torn down. And I told you I was a lunch lady. And then later we put on a spoken word poetry show in the back of my elementary school.

thoughts on Panda Express?

As I'm sure you're aware, Panda Express was cofounded by the computer scientist Peggy Cherng, who got her phd in computer science exploring ways that algorithms could be used to identify heart failure in digital x-rays.

Very similar technology is now used to diagnose tuberculosis. The algorithm can identify areas of concern in the lung and then follow-up sputum testing can confirm or exclude tuberculosis.

And so Peggy Cherng's work indirectly shaped work on algorithm-assisted X-Rays to identify tuberculosis.

Those are my thoughts on Panda Express.

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Reverse Mulan about a young man who disguises himself as a noblewoman and has to learn how to do passive-agressive politicking at dinner parties.

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unpopular opinion: Vimes is kind of drama queen

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love drusilla at the spuffy wedding because she would have the time of her life and everyone else would be either mildly uncomfortable or extremely uncomfortable

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reject the western gaze!

mutual aid means no hierarchy between givers and receivers

a new mutual aid org, Bridge of Solidarity, has been established in the gaza strip by 17 year old poet yazan mohammed in response to the exploitative practices conducted by some charities and encouraged by the existing charity-based model of fundraising for gaza. according to BoS: "the western attention economy and pity economy plays a large role in who lives or dies in gaza." essentially, people need to make themselves marketable in order to receive lifesaving aid; people who are not marketable die. yazan himself wrote about the damage this can do to one's self image, which you can read here.

after trying for a year to respect his own privacy, my friend siraj was also pressured into posting images of his son's emaciated body in order to gain sympathy from westerners.

we cannot keep forcing people to do this anymore.

here's a declaration of their values from bridge of solidarity's most recent post:

Our organization is against the Western gaze. We refuse to humiliate people. We refuse to force people to take photos. We refuse to force people to take photos with our flyer or logo. People will receive aid freely without being forced to pose. We will respect people's privacy completely. Our principles include autonomy, dignity, sovereignty, mutual respect, and mutual aid.

this org will prioritize giving aid to people without phones or social media, who do not speak english, and who do not have outside support or living parents. these are the people who are not palatable to westerners but who deserve to live with as much dignity as everyone else

as of five days ago, BoS are working on a water truck delivery