They're after me... @frickinLasers@qoto.org

All of these hot takes about how Mastodon is too hard to use for mass adoption are missing the point entirely. We are not some tech startup trying to "disrupt" the social media ecosystem. We don't have VCs breathing down our necks pushing for continuous growth at all costs. We're just regular people out here building communities.

If people don't like Mastodon and decide to go back to Twitter, that's fine. They are not commodities to be exploited. If people like Mastodon and decide to stay, that's great! They are going to be more invested in the community because they are actually deriving real value from it.

If there's one thing the global capitalist system cannot fathom is that value can exist that is not fungible with monetary value. There are plenty of ways to create value for people that do not involve buying and selling. In fact the whole notion that value = monetary value is a relatively recent innovation in human history.

I'm not saying that capitalism doesn't have its benefits, but our minds have become so warped by its zero-sum game vision of the world that it's easy to believe that generating profits is the only thing that matters. We may have to play that game to justify our existence on this planet, but there's a whole world of value to be found outside of it. Just because we're forced to play the game doesn't mean the game is all there is.

Hear me out, a gym called “your weight is over”.

The most important thing I teach my guitar students is never sing Brown Eyed Girl to a green eyed woman.

I wince every time I see someone saying "I had my students use ChatGPT to..."

Unless you gave them your own login, or did it collectively through your own login, then you had them give up a bunch of personal info (email, phone number, etc.) to a 3rd party that has no privacy protections whatsoever in their terms of use. As an educator, you have no influence over that data, because there is no contract between your institution and that company. Open.ai is not bound by FERPA.

Please be careful.

No, autocorrect, it’s not a pap schmear…

I wore scrubs to the grocery store and a woman asked me if I thought her finger was infected so I did what they do at my doctors office asked her the date of her last menstrual period. And then I weighed her.

Come with me if you want to live.
#TheTalkingValentineBearSaid
#HashtagGames
#14DaysOfValentines
#mastodon #monday

#TheTalkingValentineBearSaid
#HashtagGames
(Shot down)

The winner for today's #HashItOut, #ButtMovies, is @TechBean for "Polyp Fiction" which is now linked on the game in the archive! Good stuff!

Another Colorado hospital stops letting women get their tubes tied, renewing questions about reproductive rights

https://coloradosun.com/2023/01/31/durango-hospital-tubal-ligations/

Sorry I hugged you when you told me to embrace my mistakes.

The best part about living during a global plague as climate collapse ravages a planet constantly poised on the brink of war is definitely getting up every day to make sure the spreadsheets are still spreadsheeting.

Feeling inadequate because everyone on Mastodon appears to be a professor or a doctor or a rocket scientist?

Follow me and feel better about yourself, for I have the intellect of a clever potato.

Microsoft just released a demo of BigGPT-Large, which they define as "a domain-specific generative model pre-trained on large-scale biomedical literature, has achieved human parity, outperformed other general and scientific LLMs, and could empower biologists in various scenarios of scientific discovery."

Here's the response to the first question that I asked: @ct_bergstrom @emilymbender

Server: Do you have room for dessert?
Me: Nope. But that’s never stopped me before.

How have we not had
Buttman Begins
#ButtMovies
#HashItOut
#HashtagGames

It's Monday, I typed this out and then accidentally deleted it. Because it's Monday 🙃
It's very funny, though, so I re-did it because re-typing will also help me in retaining these phrases, which I want to do, for future reference.

#meme #MondayMeme #funny #insults #MotherSuspiriasAfternoonMeme

Continuing one-a-day climate haiku written in 2013, because in our Long Now 2013 is still "now."

We're past the cover page and introduction, and here is a haiku!

(all by oceanographer Greg Johnson)

#ClimateChangeHaiku