dragoneko - Tumblr blog

[dragoneko]

[dragoneko]

ough i started thinking about the inherent tragedy of a spare heir

what if you and your sister had the same tutors, same arms instructor, same conversations with your mother regarding politics and strategies and the million terrible choices a ruler must make. but all of them, from your nursery governess to your fencing coach to your mother herself, knew that she was real and you-- weren't. not yet. only if the unthinkable happened. what if you were a walking reminder that she wasn't invincible. what if you were tragedy's page, carrying its train, walking soft in the shadow of all of their hopes that you would never be needed.

[dragoneko]

[dragoneko]

I’m thinking about how my grandma had this guy who was super into her, enlisted in the army and sent her pictures of himself laying on his bunk staring at her picture moodily. She was not into him in the slightest. But it’s the funniest fucking picture of all time. Teenagers do not change. He’s someone’s Pappaw now. That’s crazy to me. He probably thinks of my grandmother as the foxy one that got away.

[dragoneko]

Okay. It's time for an AI rant.

My nephew is 13 years old. Whenever he writes a paper for school, I check it over and fix all of his mistakes for him. He said to me, "Maybe I'll proofread your paper for you in exchange," meaning one of the scholarly articles I write for work. I said, "Cool," and gave him the file. And he said, "Well, this is full of errors! See, you always say you have a lot to correct on my stuff, and look at all the stuff you got wrong!" And I said, surprised, "What? Where?" Because I'm sure there are typos in the draft I sent him, but not, like, that many.

And then he pointed to the screen and said, "Look at all the blue and red lines you have."

And I said, "Yeah, but those are wrong. Like, those are blue and red lines I'm ignoring because the computer is wrong." And then I paused and added, "You know you can't proofread a paper by just looking at the red and blue lines, right?" And he gave me the blankest look, because that clearly is EXACTLY what he thinks. And it became even clearer suddenly why, whenever I correct something on his paper, his immediate reaction is, "It didn't have a blue or red line."

There's a very good reason for that: THAT'S BECAUSE THE COMPUTER ISN'T SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT IT WAS WRONG.

I am so tired of being sold the idea that computers are better than humans and so we should just outsource everything to them, which is clearly the lesson my nephew is absorbing in U.S. middle school. COMPUTERS ARE NOT BETTER THAN HUMANS. Like, maybe they are better at humans at crawling through rubble to find people trapped inside. They are also better at preserving things in a searchable format. Things like that. Very limited circumstances.

I don't want to sound alarmist but everything I hear about people using generative AI freaks me out. It's not just that I'm freaked out by people being like, "I use it to write novels!" (Although I don't see how they do, I have tried to have it write fiction for me and the output was truly terrible.) But I recognize my bias around creative writing and so no one needs to credit my views on artificial writing. But! Other things are alarming, too! "I use it to brainstorm x, y, or z." But...why? Why not just...use your own brain...to...brain...storm? The computer doesn't even have a brain to brainstorm with! And you might be like, "But it comes up with things that my brain would never think of!" So would other people! You could also brainstorm with other people! Or even through Google to see what other people have thought before you (not AI). Please don't belittle the wonder of thinking.

I just feel like the marketing around generative AI boils down to "Wouldn't it be easier not to use your own brain to think about things?" Everyone. No. It would not be. Please just trust me on this. I'm not just an old person who is out of touch with technology or something. I promise. USE YOUR BRAINS. IT WILL BE OKAY.

[dragoneko]

hooray for blue charmander!

somehow I've done another Chartodile family moment

[dragoneko]

[dragoneko]

heres how thomas can still win

[dragoneko]

this is so sweet 🥺🥺🥺

[dragoneko]

Girlish whimsy indeed

[dragoneko]

it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

[dragoneko]

I had to find this post. I read this in 2017 and it had a profound effect on me. I couldn’t stop saying it. It was echolalia. And now to this day, for seven years, I can still quote it perfectly Word for Word and often do when I do something stupid. This is the perfect post in my opinion 

[dragoneko]

when you spawn next to the stairs

[dragoneko]

snow leopard. perfect name for them. tells me what they look like and which element they wield.

[dragoneko]

salmon run as a turn-based strategy game

[dragoneko]

I also think that all the "um okay knives out & glass onion were good. Wrap it up now" posts are so funny. You're tripping if you think there's not going to be at least five Benoit Blanc films lol

[dragoneko]

🌈✨Happy Pride month! I’m so excited to share our new trans pride dragon plush and my first ever pride dragon pins!

And as always we’ll be donating a portion of our sales to the Trevor Project!

✨Find them here: https://www.makeship.com/shop/creator/thingsby_diana