Rowley @Rowley@qoto.org

Business leaders: We can't find enough workers!

Workers: You could pay more.

Business: Nope.

Workers: Better benefits?

Business: No.

Workers: More flexible hours?

Business: No way.

Workers: Treat your current employees better to build your employer brand?

Business: Never.

Workers: Well, what's left?!

Business: Child labor!

https://apnews.com/article/iowa-governor-child-labor-laws-e8cb29e2a45b956489c4a192b7ddeba5

Meine Kapuzenjacke hatte ein Loch, dort wo die Tasche aufgesetzt ist. Es ist eine blöde Stelle für ein Loch. Aber ich mag diese Jacke.
Also habe ich das Beste daraus gemacht - und weil ich Drachen mag, guckt jetzt ein Drache aus der Tasche.
Leider sind die Bilder etwas durcheinander geraten.
#upcycling #sticken #embroidery #Handarbeit

Florida, SB 254, total HRT ban for adults: 5/25/2023 update

Note that in the span of two days, we have had to revise this policy map (1) from:
- including one last way (green) for adults in Florida to get refills (no new prescriptions) from an MD/DO

To (2):
- removing the one last green endpoint, and replacing it with red/yellow stripe because it actually is unknown whether even refills can be prescribed by MDs/DOs; and because of that unknown, MDs and DOs are choosing not to provide refills either.

There are now NO ways for trans adults in Florida to even obtain refills of their established HRT prescriptions.

This is based on the reports we're receiving of trans people's current experiences attempting to fill their established prescriptions since 5/17/2023 - in a complete vacuum of any information for patients who just lost access to their medication, whether from state agencies or even from the state LGBT organizations that were supposed to protect us from exactly this happening to us.

This shouldn't come down to us alone. WE NEED YOU TO STEP UP.

TRANS ADULTS IN FLORIDA ARE NOT ABLE TO GET THEIR HRT PRESCRIPTIONS FILLED OR REFILLED ANYWHERE.

WE HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO DO SO SINCE WEDNESDAY MAY 17

IT HAS BEEN 8 DAYS

THE CLOCK IS RUNNING

The choice of the term “hallucination” to describe what is happening with these language models is fundamentally misleading, and feels calculated to obscure their probabilistic nature.

Characterizing the fabricated output as “hallucination” means, by implication, that correct output is “knowledge”—that the incorrect results are aberrations, not the result of the exact same processes that sometimes produces factually sound results.

I mean... I agree with her.

"Lauren Boebert says fighting 'hate and antisemitism' is code for going after conservatives"

#politics #antisemitism #BlackMastodon #BlackFedi #BlackTwitter

https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-hate/

It's hard to describe how unscientific the Sackett v EPA SCOTUS ruling was today. By insisting that regulated waters only apply when there is "continuous surface connection" goes against everything we know about wetlands, runoff, and groundwater in watersheds.

Early in my career I did research on perchlorate, which was dumped en masse in the desert outside Las Vegas, many miles from any river. But somehow it found its way to the drinking water of Southern California...by magic? No, there are pathways that aren't obvious to the casual observer, which is why the Clean Water Act is based on science.

Regulatory authority without science is just what the MAGAs want to insist upon, because it then becomes gutted under responsible leadership, and dictatorial under them
https://www.vox.com/2023/5/25/23737426/supreme-court-clean-water-act-epa-pollution-wetlands-sackett-alito
#EPA #Sackett #SCOTUS #CleanWater

#HappyTowelDay everyone! #DontPanic and take a towel with you 🧣🧻 #FortyTwo #HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy #TowelDay

“Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, I think you’re focusing on the wrong shit.”

- Wanda Sykes

Whatever my failings have been as a journalist of 30 years — and there have been many — at least I will be able to exit my career knowing I left Twitter after it became a tool for the far right.

New reality show idea: "Confirmation Bias Island."

12 GPT enthusiast contestants trapped in a remote area with only an "A.I." assistant and their basic starting assumptions about where they are and how to get free. First one to challenge their preconceptions and the feedback loop of answers they're getting from the "a.i." and realise they're just in a park wins.

your regular reminder that elon musk is a right-wing oligarch who is running Twitter like it's his Super PAC against democracy

https://thecause.substack.com/p/elon-musk-is-a-right-wing-oligarch

Tech speakers, it's 2023. Stop using moms as your example of a non-technical audience. It's wrong, its not funny, and whatever you were saying, now most of your audience is not thinking about it.

Just use the exec team as an example instead and get on with your life.

New #pronoun controversy just dropped

Ban #LLMs Using First-Person Pronouns https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/22/ban-llms-using-first-person-pronouns/

It’s like this: my sib Tidy just called and told me that a significant portion of the population of Austin is up in arms because Dell Children’s Hospital just shut down its entire adolescent medicine dept over fallout from this anti-gender-affirming care crap.

The only MD in the city doing trans youth medicine also happens to be, by all accounts, the best MD in the city for cis girls with other complex stuff. Both of my cis nieces with weird issues are among her patients. This poor doc just said “fuck it” and quit, she couldn’t take the relentless bashing. My nieces and countless other Austin girls are now without the medical care they need and deserve. And for what? The governor’s MAGA street cred?

My point is this: even if your kids aren’t trans, this anti-trans bullshit can and will still fuck them up.

Protecting trans kids protects ALL kids.

#ProtectTransKids

Rich People's Gain is Worth Less than Poor People's Pain: A new way to think about utilitarianism, courtesy of the #OfficeOfManagementAndBudget

https://doctorow.medium.com/rich-peoples-gain-is-worth-less-than-poor-people-s-pain-6c3631292841

#Utilitarianism #MarginalRevolution #MarginalUtility #IntellectualHonesty #LitmusTests

The thing about this corruption and criminality—George Santos, Clarence Thomas, Rudy Giuliani, Trump—is that it’s so obvious. So brazen. As if there’s no need to hide it.