gradqueer

[gradqueer]

One of the common mistakes I see for people relying on "AI" (LLMs and image generators) is that they think the AI they're interacting with is capable of thought and reason. It's not. This is why using AI to write essays or answer questions is a really bad idea because it's not doing so in any meaningful or thoughtful way. All it's doing is producing the statistically most likely expected output to the input.

This is why you can ask ChatGPT "is mayonnaise a palindrome?" and it will respond "No it's not." but then you ask "Are you sure? I think it is" and it will respond "Actually it is! Mayonnaise is spelled the same backward as it is forward"

All it's doing is trying to sound like it's providing a correct answer. It doesn't actually know what a palindrome is even if it has a function capable of checking for palindromes (it doesn't). It's not "Artificial Intelligence" by any meaning of the term, it's just called AI because that's a discipline of programming. It doesn't inherently mean it has intelligence.

So if you use an AI and expect it to make something that's been made with careful thought or consideration, you're gonna get fucked over. It's not even a quality issue. It just can't consistently produce things of value because there's no understanding there. It doesn't "know" because it can't "know".

[gradqueer]

Just in time for Valentine’s Day... 💔 

Ready to break up with Google?

So are we!

We’ve rounded up a bunch of privacy-centric alternatives for everything Google.

Check out the full list over on the blog!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[gradqueer]

some things i’ve been looking at online recently

how to be critical of the things you love

does your daughter know it’s okay to be angry?

tell the people you love that you love them

what football will look like in the future

laura palmer graduates by amy woolard

the raincoat by ada limón

on the violent language of the refugee crisis by christina sharpe

the yellow wallpaper by charlotte perkins gilman

an impromptu therapy session with jenny slate

gathered by plants: some decolonial love letters

wanna put my tender heart in a blender

small kindnesses by danusha laméris

i’m on my death bed so i’m coming clean by mj pack

we lived happily during the war by ilya kaminsky

[gradqueer]

“In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy—as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh—as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege—as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover—as long as he is riddled with bullets. 

Violence makes the homo-eroticism of many “male” genres invisible; it is a structural mechanism of plausible deniability.”

–Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence. Kent L. Brintnall.

[gradqueer]

"Immature people crave and demand moral certainty: This is bad, this is good. Kids and adolescents struggle to find a sure moral foothold in this bewildering world; they long to feel they’re on the winning side, or at least a member of the team. To them, heroic fantasy may offer a vision of moral clarity. Unfortunately, the pretended Battle Between (unquestioned) Good and (unexamined) Evil obscures instead of clarifying, serving as a mere excuse for violence — as brainless, useless, and base as aggressive war in the real world."

Ursula K Le Guin at it again, being right as always

[gradqueer]

Source:

[gradqueer]

Re-sharing this post I found on Twitter for people looking for alternatives to NaNo. I haven't tried any of these sites but they might be worth looking into.

[gradqueer]

You've heard about the Madonna/Whore complex, now I propose Mary/Medea: a fictional mother must be an absolute perfect selfless saint whose identity revolves solely around her children, or else be a selfish abusive demon with no redeeming qualities whatsoever

[gradqueer]

"Sometimes while I ride the subway I try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. I think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it was a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. It's a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom I would never be attracted and think about what looking at them feels like to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible strings that are connected to this person tied to every part of their body. I think this fun pastime is a way of cultivating compassion. It feels good to think about people that way, and to use that part of my mind that I think is traditionally reserved for a tiny portion of people I'll meet in my life to appreciate the general public. I wish I thought about people like this more often. I think it's the opposite of what our culture teaches us to do. We prefer to pick people apart to find their flaws. Cultivating these feelings of love or appreciation for random people, and even for people I don't like, makes me a more forgiving and appreciative person toward myself and people I love. Also, it's just a really excellent pastime."

— Dean Spade, from his essay For Lovers and Fighters

[gradqueer]

lydia davis

[gradqueer]

joan didion self respect essay joan didion self respect essay joan didion self respect essay

[gradqueer]

My math prof puts this on the instruction page of all his exams

[ID: screenshot of black text on white background saying “an exam is just another means of communication between you and me to help me understand what you have learned so that I can provide you with guidance on how to improve. It is not a measure on your worth as a person nor your intelligence or aptitude as a student. Just give this your best try. END ID]

[gradqueer]

Here's THE masterpost of free and full adaptations, by which I mean that it's a post made by the master.

Anthony and Cleopatra: here's the BBC version, here's a 2017 version.

As you like it: you'll find here an outdoor stage adaptation and here the BBC version. Here's Kenneth Brannagh's 2006 one.

Coriolanus: Here's a college play, here's the 1984 telefilm, here's the 2014 one with tom hiddleston. Here's the Ralph Fiennes 2011 one.

Cymbelline: Here's the 2014 one.

Hamlet: the 1948 Laurence Olivier one is here. The 1964 russian version is here and the 1964 american version is here. The 1964 Broadway production is here, the 1969 Williamson-Parfitt-Hopkins one is there, and the 1980 version is here. Here are part 1 and 2 of the 1990 BBC adaptation, the Kenneth Branagh 1996 Hamlet is here, the 2000 Ethan Hawke one is here. 2009 Tennant's here. And have the 2018 Almeida version here. On a sidenote, here's A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.

Henry IV: part 1 and part 2 of the BBC 1989 version. And here's part 1 of a corwall school version.

Henry V: Laurence Olivier (who would have guessed) 1944 version. The 1989 Branagh version here. The BBC version is here.

Julius Caesar: here's the 1979 BBC adaptation, here the 1970 John Gielgud one. A theater Live from the late 2010's here.

King Lear: Laurence Olivier once again plays in here. And Gregory Kozintsev, who was I think in charge of the russian hamlet, has a king lear here. The 1975 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. The 1974 version with James Earl Jones is here. The 1953 Orson Wells one is here.

Macbeth: Here's the 1948 one, there the 1955 Joe McBeth. Here's the 1961 one with Sean Connery, and the 1966 BBC version is here. The 1969 radio one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is here, here's the 1971 by Roman Polanski, with spanish subtitles. The 1988 BBC one with portugese subtitles, and here the 2001 one). Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern retelling. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here. And 2017 brings you this.

Measure for Measure: BBC version here. Hugo Weaving here.

The Merchant of Venice: here's a stage version, here's the 1980 movie, here the 1973 Lawrence Olivier movie, here's the 2004 movie with Al Pacino. The 2001 movie is here.

The Merry Wives of Windsor: the Royal Shakespeare Compagny gives you this movie.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: have this sponsored by the City of Columbia, and here the BBC version. Have the 1986 Duncan-Jennings version here. 2019 Live Theater version? Have it here!

Much Ado About Nothing: Here is the kenneth branagh version and here the Tennant and Tate 2011 version. Here's the 1984 version.

Othello: A Massachussets Performance here, the 2001 movie her is the Orson Wells movie with portuguese subtitles theree, and a fifteen minutes long lego adaptation here. THen if you want more good ole reliable you've got the BBC version here and there.

Richard II: here is the BBC version. If you want a more meta approach, here's the commentary for the Tennant version. 1997 one here.

Richard III: here's the 1955 one with Laurence Olivier. The 1995 one with Ian McKellen is no longer available at the previous link but I found it HERE.

Romeo and Juliet: here's the 1988 BBC version. Here's a stage production. 1954 brings you this. The french musical with english subtitles is here!

The Taming of the Shrew: the 1980 BBC version here and the 1988 one is here, sorry for the prior confusion. The 1929 version here, some Ontario stuff here, and here is the 1967 one with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. This one I'm not quite sure what it is or when it's from, it's a modern retelling.

The Tempest: the 1979 one is here, the 2010 is here. Here is the 1988 one. Theater Live did a show of it in the late 2010's too.

Timon of Athens: here is the 1981 movie with Jonathan Pryce,

Troilus and Cressida can be found here

Titus Andronicus: the 1999 movie with Anthony Hopkins here

Twelfth night: here for the BBC, here for the 1970 version with Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Ralph Richardson.

Two Gentlemen of Verona: have the 2018 one here. The BBC version is here.

The Winter's Tale: the BBC version is here

Please do contribute if you find more. This is far from exhaustive.

(also look up the original post from time to time for more plays)

[gradqueer]

the audre lorde questionnaire to oneself, intended as a creative writing exercise by Divya Victor, who asks to be credited

[gradqueer]

"Rituals are architectures of time, structuring and stabilising life, and they are on the wane. The pandemic has accelerated the disappearance of rituals. Work also has ritual aspects. We go to work at set times. Work takes place in a community. In the home office, the ritual of work is completely lost. The day loses its rhythm and structure. This somehow makes us tired and depressed.

In The Little Prince [1943], by [Antoine de] Saint-Exupéry, the little prince asks the fox to always visit at the exact same time, so that the visit becomes a ritual. The little prince explains to the fox what a ritual is. Rituals are to time as rooms are to an apartment. They make time accessible like a house. They organise time, arrange it. In this way you make time appear meaningful.

Time today lacks a solid structure. It is not a house, but a capricious river. The disappearance of rituals does not simply mean that we have more freedom. The total flexibilisation of life brings loss, too. Rituals may restrict freedom, but they structure and stabilise life. They anchor values and symbolic systems in the body, reinforcing community. In rituals we experience community, communal closeness, physically.

Digitalisation strips away the physicality of the world. Then comes the pandemic. It aggravates the loss of the physical experience of community. You’re asking: can’t we do this by ourselves? Today we reject all rituals as something external, formal and therefore inauthentic. Neoliberalism produces a culture of authenticity, which places the ego at its centre. The culture of authenticity develops a suspicion of ritualised forms of interaction. Only spontaneous emotions, subjective states, are authentic. Modelled behaviour, for example courtesy, is written off as inauthentic or superficial. The narcissistic cult of authenticity is partly responsible for the increasing brutality of society.

In my book I argue the case against the cult of authenticity, for an ethic of beautiful forms. Gestures of courtesy are not just superficial. The French philosopher Alain says that gestures of courtesy hold a great power on our thoughts. That if you mime kindness, goodwill and joy, and go through motions such as bowing, they help against foul moods as well as stomach ache. Often the external has a stronger hold than the internal.

Blaise Pascal once said that instead of despairing over a loss of faith, one should simply go to mass and join in rituals such as prayer and song, in other words mime, since it is precisely this that will bring back faith. The external transforms the internal, brings about new conditions. Therein lies the power of rituals. And our consciousness today is no longer rooted in objects. These external things can be very effective in stabilising consciousness. It is very difficult with information, since it is really volatile and holds a very narrow range of relevance."

- Byung-Chul Han being interviewed by Gesine Borcherdt, from "Byung-Chul Han: 'I Practise Philosophy as Art.'" Art Review, 2 December 2021.

[gradqueer]

I teach a lot of undergrads these days. About 3 years ago, I started dedicating a full two hours early every semester to a lecture and discussion about the history of the concept of plagiarism, because I was so annoyed that my students were walking into my classroom with the ironclad belief that they weren't plagiarizing when they were. Sure, the university had some official plagiarism guidelines that they could hypothetically read in a code of conduct somewhere, but they didn't. All they had was a vague memory of some teacher in Grade 8 telling them 'don't copy and paste from wikipedia' and a little learning from experience afterwards.

My hypothesis (which I was delighted to find is shared by Brian Deer, the journalist who broke the Wakefield story and who was the source Illuminaughti plagiarized in the hbomberguy video) is that the rise of automatic plagiarism checkers meant that, in the minds of many students, the formerly more abstract concept of plagiarism ('passing someone else's work off as your own') became a more concrete concept operationalized by the plagiarism checker. Under this concept, a text is plagiarized if (and, implicitly, only if) it is detected as plagiarism by the plagiarism checker. I have spent many hours with students sobbing in my office after I told them that their essays were plagiarized, and they all say that they thought changing the words around was sufficient to make it not plagiarized. Maybe some of them were lying for sympathy, maybe they all were, but I see no reason to not take them at their word. They think that what they're doing is dubious (hence the shame) but they don't think it falls under what they take to be the definition of plagiarism - the thing they can face sanction from the university for. They need to have it pointed out to them that there has been plagiarism for a lot longer than there have been automatic 'plagiarism checkers' and that as their professor, I'm the only plagiarism checker they really need to be concerned about.

It's really easy for me to get frustrated about this. It's frustrating to me that the American public high school system (the source of the majority of my students) has failed to prepare them to think about information, facts, and where they come from. It's frustrating that students can't be arsed to read the university's code of conduct and that the only way I know they have is if I read it straight to their faces. It's very frustrating to see the written scholarly word, a medium to which I have dedicated no small part of my life, treated like it's not worth anything. I'm frustrated to know that most students are not in my class, or in the class of someone else prepared to teach this lesson, so they'll go through their whole lives thinking that an uncited light paraphrase is enough to be worthy of credit. I'm frustrated that people with such a lax attitude towards information are my fellow voters. I once read a real fucking academic essay that was submitted for grades that cited a long quote from Arthur Conan Doyle that, when I traced it, was actually a quote from a fucking TJLC blog. That one isn't frustrating, I guess, that's just funny. It's not all bad.

I'm glad for the hbomberguy video. I hope it will make it easier to convince my students in future. It's too bad he didn't go into the academic context, but it's not like he was short on things to talk about already.

But this is a more general problem than just the video essay context shows. If we're not careful, the very concept of plagiarism can get eroded. I'm not a linguistic prescriptivist, either! If enough people start taking this new concept as plagiarism, that will be what it becomes. I think a world in which that notion of plagiarism is the relevant one would be a worse world. Don't let people erode the idea of credit. You're going to want it later.

[gradqueer]

also if you wanna combat the "women in the past only crossdressed because of misogyny!" you have GOTTA read chapter 11 in Transgender Warriors where leslie feinberg does such a good job constructing an argument against this kind of radfem reductionism