#The Money Box

[is-this-yuri]

help me move out of my tiny car and into a vehicle like this!

i'm disabled and homeless, and while i'm in the process of getting approved for disability, i need more safety and stability.

with a larger vehicle like these, i could have enough space to install a kitchen, bed, electricity, shower, etc, and essentially make a home out of it. if you've ever wanted to help house a homeless person, please consider donating to my fundraiser!

the goal is 10k, but vehicles like this sell for much cheaper! as soon as i can, i'll purchase a suitable vehicle and start the project immediately. i'll use whatever i don't spend buying the vehicle for maintenence it might need, the tools and materials i'll need to convert it, plus the legal stuff surrounding registration, first year of insurance, etc. anything still left after that will be used to just allow me to live longer and have a safety net while i get income.

this is something i've been dreaming of for a long time, and as the housing market gets crazier i've realized it's probably the only way i'll have a stable home. i've been researching this project for years and i'll have some helping hands, so your money will be used well to create a home for me.

we're on pace to get me into a van by the end of summer or early autumn, and i could finish the conversion before it starts snowing! this is way sooner than i ever expected. please consider donating, and/or boost this post to keep up the momentum!

GFM

$733/10k

[chalkrub]

do you think it’s a friendly wolf

[tangibletechnomancy]

The reason I took interest in AI as an art medium is that I've always been interested in experimenting with novel and unconventional art media - I started incorporating power tools into a lot of my physical processes younger than most people were even allowed to breathe near them, and I took to digital art like a duck to water when it was the big, relatively new, controversial thing too, so really this just seems like the logical next step. More than that, it's exciting - it's not every day that we just invent an entirely new never-before-seen art medium! I have always been one to go fucking wild for that shit.

Which is, ironically, a huge part of why I almost reflexively recoil at how it's used in the corporate world: because the world of business, particularly the entertainment industry, has what often seems like less than zero interest in appreciating it as a novel medium.

And I often wonder how much less that would be the case - and, by extension, how much less vitriolic the discussion around it would be, and how many fewer well-meaning people would be falling for reactionary mythologies about where exactly the problems lie - if it hadn't reached the point of...at least an illusion of commercial viability, at exactly the moment it did.

See, the groundwork was laid in 2020, back during covid lockdowns, when we saw a massive spike in people relying on TV, games, books, movies, etc. to compensate for the lack of outdoor, physical, social entertainment. This was, seemingly, wonderful for the whole industry - but under late-stage capitalism, it was as much of a curse as it was a gift. When industries are run by people whose sole brain process is "line-go-up", tiny factors like "we're not going to be in lockdown forever" don't matter. CEOs got dollar signs in their eyes. Shareholders demanded not only perpetual growth, but perpetual growth at this rate or better. Even though everyone with an ounce of common sense was screaming "this is an aberration, this is not sustainable" - it didn't matter. The business bros refused to believe it. This was their new normal, they were determined to prove -

And they, predictably, failed to prove it.

So now the business bros are in a pickle. They're beholden to the shareholders to do everything within their power to maintain the infinite growth they promised, in a world with finite resources. In fact, by precedent, they're beholden to this by law. Fiduciary duty has been interpreted in court to mean that, given the choice between offering a better product and ensuring maximum returns for shareholders, the latter MUST be a higher priority; reinvesting too much in the business instead of trying to make the share value increase as much as possible, as fast as possible, can result in a lawsuit - that a board member or CEO can lose, and have lost before - because it's not acting in the best interest of shareholders. If that unsustainable explosive growth was promised forever, all the more so.

And now, 2-3-4 years on, that impossibility hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of these media company CEOs. The market is fully saturated; the number of new potential customers left to onboard is negligible. Some companies began trying to "solve" this "problem" by violating consumer privacy and charging per household member, which (also predictably) backfired because those of us who live in reality and not statsland were not exactly thrilled about the concept of being told we couldn't watch TV with our own families. Shareholders are getting antsy, because their (however predictably impossible) infinite lockdown-level profits...aren't coming, and someone's gotta make up for that, right? So they had already started enshittifying, making excuses for layoffs, for cutting employee pay, for duty creep, for increasing crunch, for lean-staffing, for tightening turnarounds-

And that was when we got the first iterations of AI image generation that were actually somewhat useful for things like rapid first drafts, moodboards, and conceptualizing.

Lo! A savior! It might as well have been the digital messiah to the business bros, and their eyes turned back into dollar signs. More than that, they were being promised that this...both was, and wasn't art at the same time. It was good enough for their final product, or if not it would be within a year or two, but it required no skill whatsoever to make! Soon, you could fire ALL your creatives and just have Susan from accounting write your scripts and make your concept art with all the effort that it takes to get lunch from a Star Trek replicator!

This is every bit as much bullshit as the promise of infinite lockdown-level growth, of course, but with shareholders clamoring for the money they were recklessly promised, executives are looking for anything, even the slightest glimmer of a new possibility, that just might work as a life raft from this sinking ship.

So where are we now? Well, we're exiting the "fucking around" phase and entering "finding out". According to anecdotes I've read, companies are, allegedly, already hiring prompt engineers (or "prompters" - can't give them a job title that implies there's skill or thought involved, now can we, that just might imply they deserve enough money to survive!)...and most of them not only lack the skill to manually post-process their works, but don't even know how (or perhaps aren't given access) to fully use the software they specialize in, being blissfully unaware of (or perhaps not able/allowed to use) features such as inpainting or img2img. It has been observed many times that LLMs are being used to flood once-reputable information outlets with hallucinated garbage. I can verify - as can nearly everyone who was online in the aftermath of the Glasgow Willy Wonka Dashcon Experience - that the results are often outright comically bad.

To anyone who was paying attention to anything other than please-line-go-up-faster-please-line-go-please (or buying so heavily into reactionary mythologies about why AI can be dangerous in industry that they bought the tech companies' false promises too and just thought it was a bad thing), this was entirely predictable. Unfortunately for everyone in the blast radius, common sense has never been an executive's strong suit when so much money is on the line.

Much like CGI before it, what we have here is a whole new medium that is seldom being treated as a new medium with its own unique strengths, but more often being used as a replacement for more expensive labor, no matter how bad the result may be - nor, for that matter, how unjust it may be that the labor is so much cheaper.

And it's all because of timing. It's all because it came about in the perfect moment to look like a life raft in a moment of late-stage capitalist panic. Any port in a storm, after all - even if that port is a non-Euclidean labyrinth of soggy, rotten botshit garbage.

Any port in a storm, right? ...right?

All images generated using Simple Stable, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

[thearcanecat]

I found the Bastard’s Box!

Inside

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

I'm allowed to make this joke, but I love that Jewish death rituals are like:

"Pfeh, for what should I spend $12,000 on a big fekakte box they see only for five minutes before they cover it with dirt?"

"Don't waste my good suit what might fit my nephew Lev if the bum should ever even try to get a real job!"

"Embalming? Don't mind me, I'll rot in the dark."

[mrs-trophy-wife]

[tojosuggestionbox]

I would highly recommend training in martial arts from one of the listed partners. Please do not seek training from random vagrants in seedy corners of the city. I'm surprised this has to be said.

While the gyms on our website may be Clan affiliated, please be mindful that civilians are present. Follow the rules, cover up where necessary, and remember that your behavior reflects on Tojo.

[calethescammer]

Alberu: Cale, I need you to attend this ceremony. Not only the nobles, but the citizens want to see you too.

Cale: *ignores him and continues reading a book while nibbling on chocolate cookies*

Alberu: haa, this dongsaeng (headache) of mine...

Alberu, rubbing his brows: ...one golden plaque

Cale: *while reading his book* hmm, the characters are sort of cheap

Alberu, grinding his teeth: okay...three golden plaques

Cale, immediately getting up and fixing his clothes: when are we leaving, your highness?

[ms-scarletwings]

They sure have a love for puppets :)

[sisterdaniela]

the money dan threw at us god bless

[sophsun1]

Queer as Folk – 3.02: House Full of Children

[hitwiththetmnt]

“Hello there, turtley-boos (or other type of camper)! I have an offer that is simply the bees knees! I am selling these lovely food items for unbelievably low prices! This is only while supplies last so spend those splendiferous cents before we run out!”

Frida is taking advantage of the arts and crafts to create a booth showing off the art of salesmanship. Be sure to purchase her quality items ^^

@tmnt-fandom-family-reunion

Never ask a Donnie where he gets his cash (=ﾟωﾟ)

@tmnt-fandom-family-reunion

Cabin #7 (7 Wonders of the Turtleverse)

[bythepen98]

More Tomarry doodles 😌✨️💚❤️

Au where Harry is constantly struggling bc of Tom's good looks and gestures of affection. He totally has a crush but really REALLY doesn't know how to deal with it.

He's seen either frowning or looking constipated whenever he's by Tom's side and people naturally mistake it as distate/hatred (which technically wouldn't have been wrong back in his old timeline).

In reality, Harry is so down bad for his past nemesis that he's always close to hyperventilating at the proximity between them. With Tom manoeuvring situations behind the scenes so that they can constantly be near each other/are partners in every class they're in, Harry has no chance to relax his heart at all and thus, suffers. It just so happens that his face, misleadingly, reflects that pain. Lmao.

-end (tbc?)

▪︎

Probably my last doodle (of them?) for awhile bc I really need to finish my other wips and I have an upcoming bday project to work on hhhh. Like I'll still make time for them but right now? it's a challenge. /n

[doublel27]

Look, Cher is all about the hustle. Look at you filming this family fight because the Phadetseuk body sells.

[dykealloy]