falconwhitaker

[falconwhitaker]

there's something so deeply dystopian to me how tech companies don't understand that a forced convenience is not a convenience at all. i'm sure autocorrect is helpful for many, but a function that forcibly changes my actual written words and punctuation is taking away my language. photo filters can be nice but i need to choose using them myself or else i have lost the ability to take the picture i want. i don't want a machine to draw or write for me. taking away the option for me to do things manually feels like violence!!!! all this talk of endless opportunity, why are you RESTRICTING me

[falconwhitaker]

I think that relying too much in LLMs can indeed harm your capacity for learning, in the same way that poor systems of learning (rote memorization, just copying whatever without thinking) can. Learning is a thing you need... to learn. Even LLMs can be a useful tool for learning as long as you have a good learning strategy.

That paper that says that AIs cause COGNITIVE ATROPHY is still unreviewd and smells so much of bullshit that I'm tearing up from here. Do not share it uncritically.

[falconwhitaker]

(reply to the kroger & walmart chicken fettucine alfredo listeria outbreak)

hey holy shit. the sound I made when I read this. this is exactly why the chicken fettucine recall is so scary, it is such a huge comfort food and a bunch of folks eat it while pregnant. I am so fucking glad my post found you and that you got medical attention right away.

yours is an example of doing exactly the right thing: listeria is especially dangerous while pregnant, and there are antibiotics that can be prescribed for high-risk folks during the early stages of symptoms or even before symptoms begin. and while listeria can take up to 80 days to cause illness, it can also cause issues within hours or days of eating contaminated food.

for you and for everyone else trying to avoid the general news right now, here is a list to help keep up with recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks in the united states since I do not post all of them:

FDA recall list (food, drug, medical device, etc recalls with press announcements, usually bigger food recalls have announcements)

FDA enforcement reports (more recalls go here, but more difficult to navigate than the recall list with announcements)

USDA FSIS recall list (they cover different food than FDA, especially meat. the chicken fettucine alfredo recall was posted here)

NHTSA recall list (vehicles, car seats, tires, and equipment recalls!)

CPSC recall and safety warning list (products! there have been a LOT of recalls of baby stuff recently!)

FDA outbreak investigations (you can see the status of outbreaks as they happen and get investigated, this is often where recalls start)

CDC active investigations of foodborne illness outbreaks (outbreaks can have both an FDA page and a CDC page. they cover different information)

foodsafetynews (news about food safety ONLY! not a government source. mostly focused on the US and canada, but also news around the world. some of what they post involves commentary on the current administration, BUT they post about bigger and more relevant recalls that wind up in the ever-tricky FDA enforcement reports.)

best of luck to you and your baby, and make sure you get plenty of rest!!!!!

[falconwhitaker]

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

[falconwhitaker]

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[falconwhitaker]

Just saw a post asking how tall people are and now I want to make it a poll. Apologies to people in the fringe height categories, you do not get specifics.

I had to consult a chart for this

[falconwhitaker]

[falconwhitaker]

[falconwhitaker]

I think we as a society should bring back brotps. I think we should be weirder about characters being friends the same way people are weird about ships. Make those two characters who interacted once or twice besties. Make it difficult for them to get rid of each other even if they want to. Go nuts

[falconwhitaker]

All from @mattxiv on Instagram.

[falconwhitaker]

do you think that a certain genre of queer person is so obsessively weird about pride flag discourse becuase their flags fill the gaping hole in their personality where a hogwarts house used to be

[falconwhitaker]

[falconwhitaker]

“If I had time travel I’d kill Hitler” “If I had time travel I’d stop my favourite politician getting assassinated” you’re all thinking way too small. If I had time travel I’d stop Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from dying on the moon due to Soviet sabotage, kicking off the Great Nuclear War and devastating half of the planet.

[falconwhitaker]

One day until 24 June, 2025. Wonder if all the promises of Brexit will finally be realised!

This was written by Daniel Hannan in 2016.

[falconwhitaker]

I was more or less stunned by what had happened. I had been prepared for criticism and ridicule - I was accustomed to them. But it had never occurred to me that people might want to hound and persecute me for my change in role. I had lived as a woman because that was my social standing, and had been made fun of and called 'half-man', and now when I had faced the situation and righted the grotesquely false position in which I had lived so long, it seemed that the public would damn me because I had once, perforce [by force, by necessity], worn skirts. I tried to get other hospital work. I went to the men who had been my chiefs and told them the truth and asked their aid in securing another position; to a man they turned me down. I tried to get other sorts of work and failed tor the same reason as soon as I gave my name. Then my family employed counsel and instituted proceedings to have my name legally changed; and the medical school from which I had been graduated served notice on us that if we persisted they would rescind my diploma and have me disbarred from practice.

— excerpt from Letter from Alan Hart to Mary Roberts Rinehart, August 3, 1921, on the subject of his transition from female to male and the impact of being publicly outed by a woman who recognized him. Alan Hart was one of the first men to get a hysterectomy in the US, and pioneered the use of X-rays in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, which ended up being crucial to treatment as the disease was asymptomatic early on.

[falconwhitaker]

i don’t know how to explain to you people that no matter what a country’s government is like i do not and will not support the US indiscriminately bombing that country’s civilians and i don’t know why that’s a controversial take tbh

[falconwhitaker]