unfortunately i am being reminded that hamilton itself is a great fucking musical and an utter genius artistic piece, it was just ruined by kids on the internet
“average cat owner spends 3 years in prison” factoid actualy just statistical error. average owner spends 0 years in prison. Miette’s mother, who kicked her body like the football and went to jail for One Thousand Years is an outlier adn should not have been counted
The website promises to make “men’s dreams come true.” Users upload a photo of a fully clothed woman of their choice, and in seconds, the site undresses them for free. With that one feature, it has exploded into one of the most popular “deepfake” tools ever created.
Far more advanced than the now-defunct “DeepNude” app that went viral in 2019, this new site has amassed more than 38 million hits since the start of this year, and has become an open secret in misogynist corners of the web. (HuffPost is not naming the site in order to avoid directing further traffic to it.) It went offline briefly Monday after HuffPost reached out to its original web host provider, IP Volume Inc., which quickly terminated its hosting services. But the site was back up less than a day later with a new host — as is often the case with abusive websites.
“Hany Farid, a computer scientist at UC-Berkeley who specializes in digital-image forensics and was not involved in the original pix2pix research, said the fake-nude system also highlights how the male homogeneity of AI research has often left women to deal with its darker side.
AI researchers, he said, have long embraced a naive techno-utopian worldview that is hard to justify anymore, by openly publishing unregulated tools without considering how they could be misused in the real world.
“It’s just another way people have found to weaponize technology against women. Once this stuff gets online, that’s it. Every potential boyfriend or girlfriend, your employer, your family, may end up seeing it,” Farid said. “It’s awful, and women are getting the brunt of it.
“Would a lab not dominated by men have been so cavalier and so careless about the risks?” he added. “Would [AI researchers] be so cavalier if that bad [stuff] was happening to them, as opposed to some woman down the street?””
There is so much wrong with AI art generators, this is just the beginning. Until the database is shut down, the generators are forced to purge their unlicensed and stolen art, and they set up an opt-in database like the one that AI music generators use, this will get worse and worse.
Swedish “eurovision expert” Tobbe Ek (for those of you who aren’t Swedish, this is the same guy who accused Måneskin of doing coke on live tv back in 2021) and his posse of minions decided that it was time to spread some absolutely hateful rhetoric against the people of Finland by calling them shitty, idiotic, telling them they should be ashamed of not voting for Sweden (??? literally what???) etc etc, while also dragging in other contestants like Lord of the Lost and insulting them as a means of questioning why the Finnish public voted for them but not for Sweden. (You know. Because it totally doesn’t make any sense at all that a country known for having the most metal bands per capita in the world would vote for Lord of the Lost. Not at all.)
As the cherry on top of this xenophobic shit cake, they started to go on about how “There’s no way there were ten contestants who were better than Sweden this year.” (Again. Not only disrespecting the other contestants, but them pretending not to grasp the concept of a country known for preferring heavier music choosing to vote mostly for bands this year… Yeah… Couldn’t be their preferences…)
Again, this man is considered a Eurovision expert here in Sweden, yet this is the type of behaviour he and his coworkers display over a nonissue like the Finnish public not voting for Sweden this year. If there’s something shameful here, it’s this.
To reiterate: These are three grown-ass well past 40-year old people having a genuine meltdown over one (1) singular country not voting for them.
Why are we giving Tobbe Ek (and his irrelevant coworkers) a platform, again?
EDIT:
Hoo boy, there’s more. Because of course there is.
ALRIGHT here’s an article from one of our tabloids using quite suspiciously colonialistic sounding rhetoric about Finland being “the kingdom’s previous eastern half”.
The specific quote in Swedish: “Tv-tittarna i tidigare östra rikshalvan gav nämligen Sverige noll(!) poäng under Eurovisionfinalen på lördagen.”
Translation: “TV viewers in [our] kingdom’s previous eastern half gave namely zero(!) points to Sweden during the Eurovision finale on Saturday.”
Yeah, Johan Bratell (the writer of the article) is technically not wrong about Finland having been a part of Sweden. But why bring this up now? This was so clearly meant as a condescending insult.
The article also talks about a throwaway comment that the Finnish commentator Mikko Silvennoinen made about tactical voting (or more specifically, an anonymous comment he read out loud about tactical voting). From my understanding this was a joke reference to the previous elections which took place recently in Finland and forced a portion of the Finnish public to vote tactically as an attempt to block a far-right party from getting into the parliament. It’s embarrassing how much these people are reaching.
And even if they were voting tactically, so what? Sweden won. Why are we so focused on the public vote of one (1) country, Jesus Christ this is embarrassing.
EDIT 2: WHY THIS MATTERS. A LOT.
For those of you who are not in the know about Swedish politics, these statements are reflecting some far-right political views that have their roots all the way back in the times when Sweden ruled over Finland. In recent memory, our far-right political party Sverigedemokraterna claimed that the Swedish minority group Tornedalians are not Swedish, because they may speak local dialects that blend Finnish into Swedish, or speak the minority language Meänkieli. Coincidentally, Meänkieli just so happens to be a minority language that blends Finnish and Swedish, as it is mostly spoken by people who live by the Torneå river, i.e. the Finnish-Swedish border. Here’s an article about this controversy (however you may not be able to read it unless you’re subscribed to said newspaper): https://www.dn.se/asikt/orimligt-att-tornedalingar-inte-skulle-vara-svenskar/?fbclid=IwAR33K_UVRhXlJhyPd3gY7GDXN_lotUdrtM1AeL-nRzWE26Tmq5BFE0lIUzw
Sverigedemokraterna also believe that the Swedish minority group of Sweden Finns should essentially cut their ties to their Finnish roots and that they should not be able to be citizens of both Finland and Sweden. https://aip.nu/sverigedemokraterna-och-de-dubbla-medborgarskapen/
This sort of rhetoric is ridiculously common here, and in situations like the ones that have occurred in light of the ESC, they almost never get called out. Because it’s common. Because it’s okay to call Finnish people names and to use colonial rhetoric against all Finns, both those who live in Finland and those who live in Sweden. Because this is “friendly banter.” Mind you, as someone who technically belongs to both of the aforementioned minority groups I’m completely fine with the actually friendly banter and piss taking that we usually partake in, because it is just that. Friendly. But this is not it. This is actually harmful. I have never seen so many Swedish people attacking Finns on social media as I’ve seen these past few days. The usual colonialistic and fennophobic insults have started to rear their ugly heads: People have started to insult the Finnish language (a fennophobic sentiment that goes way back to the days when Finland was under Swedish rule and the Swedish tried to get rid of the language), they have started to insult the way Finns look (goes back to fennophobic rhetoric of Finns essentially not being “white enough”), etcetera. For more information on how the Swedish government treated the Sweden Finns and Tornedalians (the fact that they tried to abolish both the Meänkieli language and the Finnish language from Sweden and have even done skull measurements as an attempt to prove that these minority groups are not equal to Swedes), here’s another article: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/norrbotten/regeringen-tillsatter-sanningskommission
For those of you who speak Finnish and are interested in the topic, the book Kansankodin pimeämpi puoli by Tapio Tamminen goes into both issues, with photographic evidence of skull measurement incidents among other things.
Meanwhile, the Finnish media is mostly just reporting on the tomfoolery of these “journalists.” Sure, there are a lot of Finns who are acting out as well and spreading hateful rhetoric against Swedes, but the difference here is that one group is punching up, while the other is punching down.
Whether Tobbe Ek, Jenny Ågren, Markus Larsson and Johan Bratell meant to cause this does not matter. They’ve still done it, in the case of the former group, they’ve even dragged other Europeans (and Australians!) into this mess.
They’ve gone ahead and spread fennophobic rhetoric on huge platforms: Sweden’s biggest national tabloids. They should be held accountable for this.
To reiterate: ALL THIS OVER THE FINNISH PUBLIC “NOT VOTING FOR SWEDEN” DURING THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST OF 2023.
It’s always funny when anglo writers looking to express a specific idea casually pluck a cool ready-made monosyllabic phrase from their language’s unlimited supply and Romance language translators just curl up in the fœtal position and cry. I’m reading a text in which the American author talks about ‘Haves’ vs ‘Have-Nots’ vs ‘Have-Mosts’ —the poor French translator translated this as ‘ceux-qui-ont’ (the French language: don’t worry I’m just getting warmed up), ‘ceux-qui-n’ont-pas’ (nice we’ve doubled the syllable count but we mustn’t falter), and the beautiful ‘ceux-qui-ont-plus-que-tous-les-autres’ (300% expansion ratio let’s gooo! we did it great work everybody.) From 2 to 8 syllables—the minute I saw that bulky thing I knew it had to be Have-Mosts in the original and I was giggling. The anglo author happily proceeds to use the phrase ‘Have-Mosts’ 5 times per paragraph because why not! it’s so quick and wieldy :) we don’t actually need the word wieldy ‘cause it’s just the normal state of our language <3 meanwhile you can feel the French translator’s desperation grow as she is reduced to juggling with “those” and “the latter” to avoid summoning her creature. Eventually she reaches the acceptance stage and uses ceux-qui-ont-plus-que-tous-les-autres again like, it’s my monster. I shouldn’t reject it
Weird how Elon Musk, the white South African billionaire who got his start from exploitative emerald mines, keeps amplifying the tweets of antisemites and anti-Black racists, huh?
Anyway, one thing that enduring Donald Trump for four years has taught me: whenever Elon starts making waves on Twitter, we should always start looking for whatever it is that he’s really trying to distract us from.
For example:
The U.S. territory asked Manhattan federal court Judge Jed Rakoff in the filing to allow it to serve Musk with the subpoena with Tesla’s registered agent.
That subpoena demands Musk turn over any documents showing communication involving him, JPMorgan and Epstein, as well as “all Documents reflecting or regarding Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking and/or his procurement of girls or women for consensual sex.”
This is what I tried to explain to US platforms like Patreon when they suspended my account for having a nude statue as the background image: I live in Europe, I can go and see a nude statue within a 5 minutes walk. Children can see them, they’re not in some 18+ container. I will never understand those policies.
As an American, the times I’ve gone abroad I’ve felt free and open in a way that made coming back to the US extremely jarring in a way I couldn’t fully describe. This is an aspect of it—a sanitized, dead culture entirely composed of constant advertisements and guns.
I’m confused how art with genitals in it can even get hand wringing? that’s just in every gallery? How do you even sanitise that without carving out some really significant parts of art history?
anyway this is really what America is like. the right wing is currently weaponizing this against gay and trans people by accusing them of “grooming”. it’s really interesting to me to watch Europeans discover the reasons WHY Americans are all insane. like we didn’t get this way by accident there are extremely powerful stressors acting on us from before the moment of birth that causes epigenetic syndromes, chronic illness and derangement lol
But seriously, when we got our property, it was all just…grass. A sterile grass moonscape, like a billion other yards. With two big old maple trees. Just grass and maples, that was it.
But then I got my grubby little paws on it, and I immediately stopped fertilizing, spraying, and bagging up grass clippings and leaves. I ripped up sod and put in flowers and vegetables. I put down nice thick blankets of mulch around the flowers and vegetables.
When I first was sweating my way through stripping sod, I saw a grand total of 1 worm and 0 ladybugs. The ground was compacted into something that would bend shovel blades.
Now, six years later, I can’t dig a planting hole without turning up fourteen earthworms, and there are so many ladybugs here. Not the invasive asian lady beetles; native ladybugs. They winter over in the mulch and in the brush pile. I see thousands of them.
The soil is soft and rich. There are birds that come to eat, and bees of many sorts.
Like this is something that you, yourself, can absolutely change. This is something that you, personally, can make a difference in.
Like, last year I watched no fewer than twenty-nine monarch caterpillars grow up on my milkweed and fly away as butterflies. I watched swallowtails and moths grow. There are hummingbirds fighting over flowers now.
I did that. Me. You can do the same.
Is this post about making a garden or beating depression
As someone with clinically diagnosed anxiety and depression;
i spent $32 on this fucking bowl at the moma and at first i felt bad buying it bc it was so expensive but ive had a terrible day today and every time i look at my lil bowl im like :o) you know what. i can get through anything with this bowl by my side
i literally get what marie kondo was talking about now
bc everyone keeps requesting to see it filled :)
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Time seems to pass differently. But the place is cozy and private so I have no complaints. And whenever I’m hungry, I go outside with my bowl and walk down the hill to the shore. Sometimes the lake is made of soup. Sometimes it’s huge pasta noodles the size of barges. Sometimes it’s breakfast cereal. Sometimes it’s dumplings the size of great whales. I dip my little bowl and take a portion and carry it back up to the house.
Today I found a new bowl! In its center is a little hill with a little house. I will carry it down to the shore and fill it up, and whomever lives in that little house can have a tiny portion of my meal. I hope they have a nice bowl to put it in..
Yet again I got blindsided with the gas bill. We owe 173.56 by tonight and they never contacted me until this morning. I have no way to pay it or postpone it further, either. I asked. Can anyone help us keep our stove/heat on because I’d really appreciate it. Don’t ask why we still need heat here Ohio is trash ok. We also need food but like. Idk. I haven’t really eaten much in a week idk.