The quality of Reddit comments is noticeably worse today.
Translator, blogger, wanna-be inventor, random internet stranger She/elle/sie/ella/ona Location: Toronto http://impstrump.blogspot.com
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The quality of Reddit comments is noticeably worse today.
If you played me just the audio, I might think those are the vocalizations of a howler monkey! (complementary - she's got range!)
Here's a path with a similar function in Toronto (in this instance, between Merton St. and the Kay Gardiner Beltline Trail) maps.app.goo.gl/NsnfxFPuYEYf...
Where I grew up, when there was a linear route between a residential neighbourhood and a school that didn't align with a car road, they'd build a small pedestrian path, fenced off from neighbouring yards, so students could walk the shortest possible route.
This crossed my feed, and what strikes me about the image shown is the school is so far from the road for no apparent reason. There are a few houses, but no visible pedestrian link. Basically, they've made it harder to walk to school, even for students within walking distance
In Polish when someone provides false or unsubstantiated information with confidence, they are described as having taken it from IDzD. IDzD stands for Instytut Danych z Dupy (the Institute of Out-of-your-Ass Data).
And that very attitude is probably why the number of sick days are increasing - if you make people work in offices with no COVID mitigations, they're going to get sick more often than if they're working from home with society-wide COVID mitigations
I love the word "volunteers" for this concept!
A man rescued a skunk using a skateboard and leash after the animal got stuck in a skate bowl in Reading, Pennsylvania. Once the skunk returned to ground level, it was seen walking away with the leash.
Now I'm mentally casting which human actor should play the shark! (Early candidates include Doug Jones and Meryl Streep)
The weird thing about that ad is instead of selling you prompts to input into ChatGPT to allegedly get the best advice, why don't they go straight to selling you the best advice?
A website that lets you select a country or state and move it around a Mercator projection map to yield better size comparisons. thetruesize.com, created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice
Apart from everything else, wonderbread and similar products are right there on the shelf at the grocery store? Is dude upset because he, like, saw a different kind of bread??
I'm reposting this with full alt text because I just noticed that some crucial information got cut off from the alt text
I never knew it went into the States! From childhood I'd internalized the "Niagara to Tobermory" Bruce Trail slogan, so it never occurred to me it might have gone farther. (For one weird second, my brain went "Wait, escarpments can cross borders??")
This thread encouraged me to look up a map of the entire escarpment and somehow I had no idea how big it is
If you immigrate to another country and bring your dog with you will your dog be able to communicate with the local dogs in the new country?
Can any of the techy people in my feed vouch for whether it actually works this way? (Also, how does it intersect with UV protection for outdoors and blue light protection for computer use?)
I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset. In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia. In 2005 I started medical transition. (1/13)
(A "show only unread posts" feature would also address this)
I wish bluesky indicated what time a post was reposted at, not just what time it was originally posted at. I use timestamps to figure out if I've scrolled all the way down to when I last visited, and sometimes when my timeline is repost-dense it's hard to tell.
"All Star", but the years start comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' and they don't stop comin' #BadHellKaraoke
There’s a Spanish version of "out of the frying pan and into the fire" that puns on the word mala meaning bad and the word peor meaning worse. It goes salir de Guatemala y meterse en Guatepeor, which means “to leave Guate-bad and end up in Guate-worse.”
you just know somebody’s being called by their full name right now
I can
WTF loud airplanes?
Memories of the time I had big plans to buy an inflatable couch and fill it with helium. Didn't end up happening (not least of which is because I didn't know where to get an inflatable couch or helium), but every once in a while I wonder how that would have worked out
Quick, someone invent a "Batman fight onomatopoeia or old midwestern brewery name?" quiz!
OK, the post-credits scene of #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds with Spock and Doug the Vulcan practicing being human is everything!
I wonder how much rehearsal the Spock/La'an fight dance took #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds
Turning into Vulcans also changed their hairstyles #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds
Someone give her some cheese that's not in a jar!
"Mommmm I feel *frustrated*"
"bless you, for you have been annoying the shit out of me"
This is Thanos. He has figured out how to rest and babysit at the same time. Very impressive, very Montessori. 13/10 (TT: thanosthesaint)
That's awesome! Super valuable and underrated skill set!
Anyone know where this is geographically?
Like, this is beyond even lack of guardrails, this is beyond even amoral. This is cartoon villain shit!
Like, it seems like an algorithm should tell him to talk to someone or give him the number for a hotline just because that's a bog standard response. This is way out there, and in a super weird, unpredictable and dangerous direction
But in this case, the kid specifically states that he wants someone to stop him, and the LLM appears to be trying to dissuade him from the notion of being stopped, which is a weird turn for an algorithmic conversation to take, and it's also weird that it didn't glom onto the notion of stopping
I could also absolutely imagine a scenario where the LLM gives suicide advice to someone who expresses only enthusiasm and no qualms about the idea, because an LLM doesn't actually understand the implications. (And even some humans have the opinion "It's your life, it's your right to end it")
I could absolutely imagine a scenario where a LLM comes up with an encouraging "You can do it!", not realizing the topic is suicide, because a common pattern in all areas of discourse is to encourage people to do the thing, whatever thing is the topic of discussion
I hadn't seen this part of the transcript before, and this one is particularly shocking because the kid very specifically states that he wants someone to stop him, and the AI appears to be trying to talk him out of getting someone to stop him!
Holy shit! I'd heard of a case where a kid was contemplating suicide but wasn't sure they'd "succeed" (weird way to put it but I can't think of another) and the chatbot told them "You can do it!" But this is a whole other beast!
This is Jack. He shocked everyone with an unhinged scream before he launched into a race… and then won. 14/10 (TT: paigephills)
Same with translators. We're not burnt out by getting target-language words on the page. (That's not a pain point at all!) We're burnt out because decisionmakers think "just fixing up" AI output is trivial and they can pay less for it (when in reality it's harder than translating from scratch)
The thing about this is if a human being barged in uninvited, physically obstructed me from what I was trying to do, interrupted me with either pointless boilerplate or outright lies, and kept coming back after I said "Go away and never come back", I'd tell them to fuck off too.
old.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFu...
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... www.change.org/p/sauvons-le...
If you want to try my Bouncing Numbers for yourself, it's archived here: archive.org/details/nibb... Just type "Run Bouncing Numbers" at the prompt!
The first one I used was an Apple ][, which joined my family of origin before I even did. I was allowed to play on it as soon as I could type "Run Bouncing Numbers" (which takes forever to type when you're 3!) My first computer of my own was a Windows 98 Dell desktop, a high school grad present.
I mean, my parents had to explain to me why I can't ride a zebra!
My hair elastics, which have been black since the moment I bought them, look a deep navy blue to my eyes today. I haven't put them in a washing machine or done anything that would change the colour.
Only a few days left to take this questionnaire and write in your own answers to let this Liberal government know that you don't actually want them to be a conservative government.
Or at least post *accurate* size charts on your website!
(I'm also aware of the arguments for "don't use Firefox" or "don't use Windows" - again, my concern is a change in behaviour when I didn't make any changes myself)
I'm aware of why updates are important (I've just had enough problems historically that I wait until I have time to have problems). My concern in this instance is a change in behaviour when I didn't make any changes myself. There wasn't a Windows update or anything either.
I have not asked it to update and do not have automatic updates installed. My attempts to google are stymied by people trying to make it update automatically or arguing why updates are good, actually.
The last couple of days, when I click on the Firefox icon that points to firefox.exe (from taskbar, desktop, windows explorer) it runs the firefox updater. (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\updater.exe) (I've been denying permission, which is why it is happening repeatedly)
Blog: the first soil impstrump.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-...
Small dog in elevator seemed wary of me, barking in that wary small dog way. I asked her human if letting her sniff me would make her more comfortable. Human says it's worth a try. I offer her my hand to sniff, and she wags her tail wildly and licks my hand.
I had literally never before been in a situation where going somewhere independently was within my skill set, because I grew up in a car-dependent community. And suddenly, in this big sophisticated global city, life is actually...accessible to people like me???
Visiting London at the age of 10, watching my parents trip planning on the Underground, I realized: I can do that! I can figure out where we need to go and how to get there, and after a couple of trips I could handle the logistics myself. (Wasn't allowed to at the age of 10, but was capable of it)
My wrist circumference is 5.25 inches. My hip circumference is 40 inches.
It's from the Toronto Star. I googled my way to this link, but the Star website isn't loading for me right this second. Posted an archived version upthread (or downthread, I suppose, depending on how your thread settings are set up) www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
For those who find it easier to read text, here's a text-based version: archive.is/5xF6p
Match up people who want to produce AI content with companies who want their employees to use AI with end users who think AI-generated content is good. Match up people who want to work AI-free with companies who don't want their employees using AI and end users who want AI-free material.
I've been thinking more and more people/orgs need to do this in both directions. Match up students who want to use AI with profs who want to use AI, and get them all out of the way of people who want to learn/teach how to become better than AI.
I had no clue until right this minute that they're different things!
Throwback to a classic. (I miss Bucky.)
The account now appears to be deactivated
When you have stuff to do early Saturday but refuse
Today in enterprise software developments: MS Teams now lets you put multiple reaction emojis on message. In other words, one individual can add multiple reactions
happy Friday from Nibs
(And, of course, environmental, economic and human costs. But the inconvenience alone is enough to make me say "No thank you")
"Potential unprecedented creativity" becomes vanishingly unimportant when I haven't even been able to explore current existing creativity enough to come up with non-normie examples! And when the cost of potential unprecedented creativity is constant daily inconvenience? No thank you.
My "to read" list exceeds my life expectancy. Hell, the number of fics in my primary fandom exceeds my life expectancy! I only just watched Everything Everywhere All At Once a couple of weeks ago. I haven't even gotten around to googling Chappell Roan.
But the second reason why I feel that's new creations of which humans can't conceive is trivial is that we aren't lacking for human creations! Even if nothing new were created ever, we'd still have more than enough to discover and enjoy to last our entire lives and beyond!
(Which, of course, is a false dichotomy. They could easily just not turn AI on by default, not force it into processes where people don't want it, and still work on the cool thing.)
All of these things inconvenience me every single day, and make my actual real life that I'm actually living harder. The possibility that something cool might one day exist pales in comparison. I would much, much rather have the inconveniences gone even if it meant the cool thing would never exist
My boss has made changes that make it take longer to do the same work but remains convinced that these changes will make it take less time. You can't reach a human without first trying the customer service chatbot, which has a success rate of zero.
The alleged repair instructions don't actually reflect the object I'm trying to repair. Every single abbreviation in the document is wrong differently in every single instance. The website that tells you whether TV shows have been renewed doesn't tell you whether TV shows have been renewed.
Accessing my tax forms is delayed by pop-ups trying to get me to AI-summarize it. My search results are delayed by an LLM giving me incorrect information - even though I already have two browser extensions installed that are supposed to block the LLM.
First, it's not that AI creating things that humans can't conceive is devoid of raw interest. It's the *net* interest that's negligible. By which I mean the potential interest is outweighed by the practical everyday inconvenience I experience from other people's decisions to force AI into processes
When I first read this post (whole interesting thread, scroll up and down), my thought was "No, that's trivial!" Which is a weird thing to say about creating things that humans can't conceive! So, after thinking about it, a bit of an analysis of why this is my visceral reaction 🧵
(And, of course, all this is from a pre-COVID context. Making any sort of hosting COVID-safe is a whole other challenge, and I find having to physically separate from people to eat - or not eat while others are eating if they don't care - is lonelier than just being alone in my own home.)
So 4 hours of round trip travel just to hang out and shoot the shit makes it a special occasion treat, not a casual everyday thing, before we even get into the question of whether people's homes are suitable for hosting
So I have everything I need for everyday within an easy walk, but 95% of my people are more than an hour away, and probably 80% are 2 hours away. And they aren't all in the same place either. They're all like 2 hours away from each other, as a result of triangulating housing costs + 2 commutes
I have the extreme good fortunate to live in a convenient neighbourhood that meets my every need. And most of my people can't afford to live here, especially if they need more than a 1-bedroom.
There's a whole thread of conversations about how housing costs = smaller apartments and more roommates = makes this harder to do. But another impact of housing costs is distance. 🧵
Una's gold manicure! #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds
This is Tuffy. He is the only example of taking up the whole sidewalk that is not only justifiable, but encouraged. 14/10 (IG: mypittuffy)
Every single time there's an amber alert, the website can't handle the traffic. Every single time.
so, to understand this story there are a few things you need to know - my cat, Gus, believes he is a trained support animal - he is not (he has relatives who are, but he is not) - he believes he is a seizure-detecting dog - he is not a dog - I do not get seizures
🚨FLUFFY SHEEP ALERT🚨
Sound on for husky puppy trilling. #UglyDogs
I'm kind of surprised that they didn't detain her anyway. It seems like something they would do
Reposting with alt text
Norwegian home invasion.
If there's work that needs doing and people who need work, they should hire the people for the work and pay them enough to make it worth their while. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...