>25, Canadian. This blog trends towards Dragon Age & The Untamed, & Dead Boy Detectives, as well as a sprinkling of current events, artwork, other fandoms, and nature photography. Feel free to message me if you want something tagged
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muirgen_lys on AO3
The bill requires companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to have third parties confirm theyβre following safety standards. Illinois go
The Illinois House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday requiring frontier AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind to have their safety practices audited by a third party. If signed into law, AI safety experts tell WIRED, it would be the nationβs leading check on the power of major AI companies.
The bill, SB 315, now heads to governor JB Pritzkerβs desk. In a post on social media on Wednesday, Pritzker said he plans to sign the bill, citing a need to hold Big Tech accountable.
Since Congress has yet to pass any meaningful AI safety legislation, state lawmakers have happily stepped up in recent years to promote bills that show their constituents theyβre keeping Silicon Valley in check. As AI tools become increasingly popular, and the companies behind them race toward massive IPOs, polls show that American voters are looking for more AI regulation.
As a result, safety advocates and tech companies have zeroed in on state legislatures as the primary battleground to hash out how these laws should look. OpenAIβs chief of global affairs, Chris Lehane, told WIRED last week that the companyβs AI policy is now oriented around passing a series of similar state laws.
California and New York have the strongest AI safety laws, requiring tech companies to provide information about model guardrails and to publish reports on safety incidents as they occur. Illinoisβ bill goes a step further, requiring independent auditors to verify that an AI lab is adhering to its own safety standards. Previously, no independent body was required to keep an AI lab accountable to its own safety claims.
βWe're in a situation where the AI companies grade their own homework,β says Scott Wisor, policy director at Secure AI Project, a nonprofit that supports SB 315. βShould SB 315 become law, Illinois would require an independent auditor to check whether the AI labs in fact adhere to their safety commitments.βGot a Tip?Are you a current or former government employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at mzeff.88.
Wisor says itβs broadly expected that, under SB 315, AI labs could use the Big Four accounting and auditing firmsβDeloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwCβto audit their safety practices. He also says itβs possible that AI labs could tap members of the AI Evaluator Forumβa coalition of smaller research organizations including METR, Transluce, and Averiβto assess adherence to safety standards.
Illinois state representative Daniel Didech, a sponsor of SB 315, tells WIRED that state legislatures are playing an important role by shaping Americaβs AI policy and acting as a testing ground for any federal laws that might come in the future. βLaws like this create a world where itβs more likely for the federal government to pass something,β Didech says.
Corporate Interests
Illinois has emerged as a major arena in the ongoing fight over state AI laws. OpenAI previously supported a bill in Illinois that would let AI labs dodge liability if their models caused catastrophic harm. However, Lehane has since said the companyβs blanket support for the bill was an oversight, and it never supported the liability shield in the bill. More recently, OpenAI endorsed SB 315.
βThe Illinois General Assembly has shown real bipartisan leadership in advancing SB 315 and developing a thoughtful framework for frontier AI safety. As AI systems become more capable, clear expectations around safety, transparency, incident reporting, and accountability matter,β Lehane said in a statement to WIRED.
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I'm gonna say this, and it's gonna spark a defensive reaction within some of you, but I need you to listen to me and let it sit for a moment before I explain further. It is not a personal stain against your morality.
From both my experience reading works by white writers, and my experience running this blog, I have come to the conclusion that many white writers are too used to relying on Whiteness being understood as the default experience of both your characters and your readers, and it makes you weaker writers with weaker technique overall.
One thought I find myself having often is "well, what do you do for your white characters?" I've grown to understand... Many of you don't π you don't actually understand or apply character design techniques because it is Assumedβ’ that the reader understands- that the reader has the white gaze. It doesn't need to be Said that your character is white, and will do familiar white things. It is Assumedβ’ that white characters fall under the Magicking It Away rules automatically, while Black characters have to have reality applied to them first. You don't actually have to... Well, write.
The brilliant Toni Morrison explained this in an interview of hers (here's another; watch her doc!!!) that there's this assumption that one's readers are white. So when she would purposefully- and there's a difference!- write stories for the Black gaze, that certain things didn't have to be explained because we Understood, it would get frustrating for white readers. They felt left out, unappealed to, hurt.
And yet, that's standard fare- and everyone's not writing such specific stories like Toni! To be "fair", we did understand y'all. We had to. But those same techniques, both in writing and in media consumption, I believe are atrophied from white viewers ("I don't watch this because I don't relate!" Or projection of ones own identity into Black characters to be "relatable") because it's not Socially Required for you to apply them.
It's why I'm always telling y'all to study Black creations about Black people. Writing is a craft, and a craft has to be honed!! You have to practice!! I had a whole lesson on this and I feel like everyone glossed over it lmao. I promise it'll make your writing of EVERY character better overall. ππΎ
rotating edwin and charles in hell at speeds previously unknown to man... experiencing tenderness and love where everything demands they should never feel those things....loving touch and loving light and comfort and the simple truth of "i love you" no matter which way it might be taken... orpheus and eurydice because charles will look back at edwin because he loves him but he says we can do both. you can love me differently than i love you and who knows what that will mean in the future but you can have both. you can love me romantically and be my best friend my most important person the only one i will love to hell and back even though i don't know what that means yet but i love you...... edwin getting to leave hell behind both body and mind, assured that charles looked back and still led him out of hell
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Over the past month or so, Iβve been working on illustrating and designing a Dead Boy Detectives Cluedo-Inspired game fully from scratch! I was going to wait till everything was finished to share, but Iβm impatientπ
Hereβs a sneak preview at some of the cardsπItβs definitely been a commitment and will be a big project, but I am so looking forward to sharing the full thing hopefully in the next couple months!
Only a few more illustrations to go, then I need to work on the instructions manual and box design.
My goal is to actually physically create this, not sure if itβs something Iβd try to sellβfor many reasons, one being copyright, but Iβll cross that bridge when I get thereπ
Feel free to reblog, but please do not share on any other platform, thank you!
Kind of tone deaf to say βI donβt know why these super strict laws exist to protect wild animals in the United States I didnβt ask for thisβ when cattle ranchers are successfully pressuring Trump into removing Bison from federal lands as we speak.
We can argue about raising Bison for human consumption instead of cows on federal land all we want, but by all accounts we are missing like 25+ million bison because of their wholesale slaughter over the past few hundred years. They do serve an important ecological function.
Youβ¦donβt know why laws existβ¦to stop people from killing eagles and wolves and bison and coyotes and turtles in the United States?
Iβm listening to these podcasts about how private homeowners/landowners can do more to make their lawns better for native wildlife, and one new thing Iβd never heard until recently before was plant a bunch of local berry producing bushes. So much is about planting flowers for caterpillars to munch on for birds to eat, or flowers for pollinators.
So why berry producing bushes? Because we killed off bears.
Bears used to eat huge amounts of berries and fish, shit out the seeds, and spread berries around the US just like birds do. Except we killed like 99% of the bears, and weβre doing our best to exterminate the birds as well.
Who thinks of a bear as a creature that distributes seeds (and also technically fertilizer from eating hundreds of pounds of fish a year and then pooping farther inland).
Stupid shit you donβt think about, like missing bears roaming around the whole US, have changed our environment in ways weβre still figuring out.
Itβs one thing to not know why a law exists. Totally fair. We should question why something was written.
But itβs another thing entirely to assume a law was written specifically for you as an individual, and if the law isnβt serving you right here right now, then the law is stupid.
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Personally I do think that sometimes non-hockey fans can end up mischaracterizing Shane and Ilya because they don't know enough about hockey/hockey playstyles
The Ilya we see in Heated rivalry would not be throwing the first punch, he's not an enforcer. Ilya is a star center and a Pest. He wouldn't be doing his job correctly if he was punching players every other game, it would end up with not enough ice time to let him be the playmaker he's paid to be.
But being a pest can be playmaking! Find a player to bait, emotionally push them just enough that they try to fight you, and then get the fuck out of there before the ref gives you both penalties. This gets your team the power play. There is probably someone on Ilya's line dedicated to helping him get out of the fights he starts, and finishing them for him!
I also think this is also something that Shane would respect. Ilya is good at it and it's a good strategy for his team. I don't think Shane would see it as some dirty tactic, because Shane probably thinks everyone with a brain can see it for what it is! He probably thinks everyone should be able to see that being an asshole is a tactic for Ilya, that it's something to ignore and not fall for, that it's a strategy and not personal beef.
I think Shane's more disappointed when a Metro falls for it. Shane sees it as Ilya set up a Looney Toons ass obvious trap and one of his teammates ran into it. Why be mad at Bugs Bunny when you can be mad at your defenceman for falling for a fucking Bugs Bunny trap.
under US law, it's illegal for anyone who's not a member of a recognised native tribe to own an eagle feather. the penalty is a $100,000 fine.
14 years ago when I had recently moved to Alaska, I went hiking with an Aleut friend, and she pointed to a feather lying on the ground and said "hey that's a bald eagle tail feather, you should grab it!" and I was like "uhh I'm very white and that's very illegal" and she went "they're fuckin everywhere up here man. I have 20." so she grabs it off the ground and hands it to me and says "there, now it's a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person."
and I'm like, okay, cool, I guess this is how we do things in Alaska. nice.
so I keep this bald eagle tail feather around for years. display it in my home among other cherished memorabilia from places I've lived and visited, etc.
on a whim, I have just now looked it up. there is no exemption to that law for a ceremonial gift from an indigenous person. the last 7 years I lived in the US, I was technically a bald eagle poacher.
probably a good thing I don't intend to move back there anytime soon. I wonder what the statute of limitations is on bird crimes.
@freedomisscaryshit I'm fucking dying I think you forgot the word "feathers" in your tags?? or do you just wish you could grab whole ass eagles that land in your yard??
As an Indigenous person, it continues to astound me that there are such strict laws (written by White people) in our name, laws against...picking up things just found on the ground. Like, stop pretending this is "for" us. We don't want this.
so, for clarity, that's not what this is. the law against possessing feathers is an anti-poaching measure, derived from a North American treaty protecting certain migratory bird species from hunting. that treaty has an exemption for indigenous people to allow tribes that use eagle feathers in ceremonial or religious practices to continue doing so.
i used to collect feathers (illegally) as a teenager and the thing is that it's incredibly important for feathers from wild birds to be illegal to possess because it ensures that they never become fashionable to wear. the reason we passed the migratory bird act was because the american and european fashion industry was driving species to extinction in a timespan of years. not just decades. the ecological devastation of exporting birds for hats was absolutely insane and people were watching wetlands and forests and meadows just empty out in realtime. look at the wikipedia article for the plume trade.
the law against 'picking feathers up off the ground' means that you can't go shoot an eagle then sell the feathers on etsy by saying you 'just found them'. you can't own them no matter where they came from, which makes sure that they're not going to come from any birds killed and then secretly disposed of.
these laws, as harsh and ridiculous as they seem, saved flamingos, spoonbills, egrets, and all kinds of hawks and eagles from extinction. the minute these laws weaken and people can make money off killing them again, they're fucked.
this is one of those "no actually this regulation exists for a reason" laws much like work place safety and building fire codes (that Republicans keep trying to roll back) and is written in blood just like them as well. it's just not human blood this time, and the fact that people actually cared enough about long term future over short term profit to get it put in place is nothing short of astonishing. That it didn't get put in place in time to save several species is heart breaking.
itβs so special to me that so much of fan culture is textual analysis for the love of the game. like thank god there are people in my phone who are also thinking about this thing i love so much that they are writing transformative fiction as character studies and setting clips of the show to music with theme-relevant lyrics and writing long text posts analyzing every line of dialogue like!! yay!!!
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I got some REALLY AWESOME local strawberries from my feed mill, but I absolutely could not eat the quantity of strawberries I got before they would have gone bad and the birds are not huge fans of strawberries. So instead of wasting the last 8 or so, I jam-packed this little container with strawberries, added an equal weight of white sugar, and stuck it in the fridge for about a day and a half.
The sugar leaches the juice/water content from the strawberries and creates a saturated, thin syrup (lower sugar = thinner, more watery, higher sugar = thicker, more like maple syrup). As you can see, the container is not jam-packed with strawberries, they have considerably shrunk in size, as all their delicious, delicious juices are now trapped in a fucking fantastic fresh simple syrup.
I will be using this on my ice cream, and possibly in some soda or lemonade. Theoretically it could be used in anything you'd put a liquid sweetener in, like coffee or cocoa, or if thick like this could be drizzled on any food you want to add strawberry flavor to.
I live near a strawberry farm and they sell their seconds (stuff that supermarkets won't buy but are perfectly delightful) for so so cheap and so every year we make a giant batch of this in a jar the size of my torso with a few kilos of strawberries.
What we do is slice the strawberries to increase their surface area, and put in layers of strawberries and sugar. We stir once or twice over the next day to make sure the sugar that sinks to the bottom is given a chance to contact the liquid, and it's done when no more sugar will dissolve in, and the strawberries are all floating near the top.
We then scoop the strawberries off the top, drain the jar into containers (freeze some), and run the sugar sediment at the bottom through a dehydrator to make strawberry sugar.
The slices of strawberry are perfect for adding to baking (we make many strawberry tarts) because they have had a lot of their moisture removed so don't make the baking soggy, and they are coated in the syrup!
OOOOOO strawberry sugar sounds amazing, I might have to break out the dehydrator for that. Just a regular dehydrator, presumably with the sugar sediment on some kind of small dish (my dehydrator is plastic with holes so it wouldn't be able to sit on that bare)?
I was just going to mash up the strawberries to put over my ice cream since there's only a few this time, but that's a really good idea to use them for baking. Do you use them straight then immediately, or preserve them for use over time somehow?
