does anyone know how to be a person

Fog Bank

“The union of sea and sky makes a perfect cover.” —Talrand, sky summoner

Hit the “thumbs down.” It’s like, what’s wrong??? Was our summary wrong? Were there offensive words? Thank you for helping us improve our AI tools :)

I selected “other.”

Text box popped up. Please elaborate!

Wrote in “I can fucking read” submit comment

Then had to spend several minutes torching all my settings with a flamethrower. Let me be clear: I’m (a lawyer) notoriously picky with my words FOR GOOD REASON (lawyering) so I overwhelmingly reject Gmail’s “helpful” little assistance. My privacy settings were set to “full paranoia” a little less than a year ago when I saw the writing on the wall and knew public defenders could become a target in the future. Better to lock it all down now.

Gemini had crept in there and turned ALL that shit back on. And showed itself by saying “Jane Doe says she’s so sorry for your loss and offers to reschedule for Thursday at 3” over an email from Jane Doe saying “I’m so sorry for your loss. We could reschedule for Thursday at 3?”

Why would I possibly need this. In what universe would I need this. I have eyes and a brain and a reading speed that twenty years ago was measured at 1500 wpm with full comprehension on dense scientific text. Furthermore! If I read a summary, I’m not reading what they actually wrote. If I’m not reading what they actually wrote, I’m not using my own judgment on the words and phrases that they used.

I literally don’t understand why this is helpful at all. This is just avoidance. Using LLMs to write is specifically Not Writing. Using LLMs to summarize is Not Reading. Using them to make art is Avoiding Making Art. Just READ! Just WRITE! I was not put on this fucking planet to not read and not write and not make art! Avoidance is an anxiety symptom and indulging it gives it more power.

If I had an AI to do my most dreaded task, answer the phone for clients, I wouldn’t use it. Because an AI cannot help them. An AI cannot hear the facts of their case, make appropriate noises, be thoughtful and insightful, and then give them a realistic estimate of what could happen in court. I am unique. I cannot be replaced by machine learning. I have style. I have expertise. I don’t hallucinate unless I’m having a really great Friday night and I’m off the clock.

When I need to outsource tasks from my own brain, I give them to people I know can do them and that I trust to do them right.

So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.

So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.

So this is the Panasonic PRONOTE PD CF-62, it's a Pentium 133mhz running Windows 95, released in August 1996. Panasonic did this sort of trick more than once, they did a similar thing with an under-keyboard CD-ROM drive in the PD CF-41, from 1995.

This one is so fancy because that's not just a self-loading under-keyboard laptop CD-ROM drive, it's a HYBRID PD/CD-ROM self-loading under-keyboard laptop drive! It has to be this complex because it takes PD discs (which are the size of caddies) and caddyless CD-ROMs!

So what's PD discs?

They're an optical format by Panasonic, the Phase-change Dual (or Phase-change Disc). They're from 1996, store as much as CD, but are rewritable... much like the later CD-RWs which used basically the same technology, just in a slightly different format. Unlike CD-RWs (which you had to burn (usually), they acted like a hard drive, fully rewritable at any point. That's why the disc is hard-sectored, which you can see through the shutter gap. Those vertical lines indicate where sectors start and end.

So yeah, this laptop has a complex drive that can take both types of discs, and the whole thing folds under the keyboard. Fucking wild.

But the root reason, of course, is that they did this because it's a cool design, and they wanted to do that. Why did they think this was cool, why did they want to do this?

Pervert reasons.

Okay good. Now go outside and try to garden. I need you to become rapidly disillusioned with it. Like you just don't find it enjoyable at all. The sun is too hot, or it's too cold, It takes consistency you don't really have time for, you're hungry, you don't have time to shower and make it to work, you --yeah I know gardening is hard and it's hard to do it. That needs to be your main takeaway! A sense of a nonspecific wound-- oh shit sorry, yeah I'll cover my mouth when I cough where are the fucking napkins.

Rainier Tower - Seattle, Washington, USA

Northwestern National Life Building - Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

St. Louis Lambert International Airport - St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Dhahran International Airport (Now King Abdulaziz Air Base) - Saudi Arabia

Pacific Science Center / 1962 Worlds Fair - Seattle, Washington, USA

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