if she's ur gf, why is she in my queue?? 🤨

page 200

The Work (what exactly is the work??? unless this is explained with concrete specifics, it is meaningless)

Maybe that was true before, but it isnt now (assumption. often blatantly false)

It's over now (assumption. often blatantly false)

that's irrational (general shut down and dismissal, but often blatantly false. higher class way of calling something crazy. gives a false impression of intellectualism)

thats's just the [mental illness/pathology] talking (maybe or maybe not, but they do not actually think about it or engage with any reasoning. another easy general shut down and dismissal)

you just think/feel like/believe/perceive that (pathologizes knowledge by asserting that it is a disordered thought, feeling, belief, or observation)

take responsibility [for being abused/traumatized] (usually just victim blaming, and obscuring the responsibility of the abusing/traumatizing party if applicable, a subtle accusation. choosing to see a mental health professional is literally taking responsibility. at this point, what is "responsible" is so elusive that it has no actual meaning. what does an abused person do to "take responsibility" for that when the abuse is outside of their control, which is a key element of abuse and also trauma? ultimately it is a distraction and a re-delegation of the burden back onto the victim. without clear specifics, this means nothing)

negative thoughts/beliefs/feelings ("negative" within psychiatry and especially in this context, is synonymous with "false" and "sinful" and "sick" as in mental illness)

healing/recovery (this does not actually refer to what a mental health patient wants and needs to improve their life and quality of life, but to the desired traits and goals of their professionals. often it is characterized in such a way that suggests a kind of transcendence: you are barely a human being anymore you are so healed. nothing phases you. you are indifferent to life's horrors)

cause like. apart from the (potential) exception of writing code, there is not really anything useful that a Large Language Model can do.

it imitates patterns in the text that it takes in

that's fundamentally how it works

Yes, haha funny, the AI is bamboozled by spelling, but seriously: I asked Google the same question 5 different times just now, and not only did I get 5 incorrect answers, I got 5 completely different incorrect answers.

The fact that they're different every time demonstrates just how much of an LLM's output is up to random chance. This is how LLMs imitate human language: each stage of constructing the text has built-in randomness, just like how human language has variation and flexibility.

This is my problem with using these things in the workplace. Like, imagine you're using an LLM to fill out a report of an accident that happened, or to write dietary recommendations for a patient, or to give feedback on a paper a student wrote...really anything you can think of.

Even if the LLM-generated text doesn't say anything technically flat-out wrong, the words and details are still randomized instead of being chosen by you for an actual reason.

like, let me put it this way, you can use a LLM to write a recommendation letter for a student because it looks like you wrote it. You're benefiting from the fact that written text, up until recently, necessarily had a person that wrote it.

drip fed

but i can't find any evidence of its existence from before 2018 lmao

and searching the artist's name only gets me like 6 pages of results on google

and a little artist showcase page on arthive for this guy with exactly 1 painting listed

and a biography that spells this guy's name like 5 different ways

which i'm pretty sure is because it's machine translated from something

Солнечный город "Sunny City" - No date given.

Мир "World" - No date given.

Чусовские просторы. "Chusovskie expanses." Canvas, oil, 1997. Exhibited at the Nizhny Tagil Museum of Nature.

октябрь "October" 2009 cardboard, oil, 29.5x39.5 cm

Осень на Чусовой, "Autumn on Chusovaya" 1999, canvas, oil, 79x100 cm

Чугун идет "Cast Iron is Coming" 1976

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

I'm also a librarian and queer books are almost always cut first when we have to weed for space or prioritize new releases over old items because no one reads them

I will say, when I worked at a large downtown location, we had a "browsing card" that we would check out items we found taken off the shelf and left on a table, as an example of a book that had clearly been read, just not checked out by anyone

it's possible queer books do actually get a bit of unfair treatment in this regard because people may be nervous or outright scared to check them out onto an account with their name on it. so they get browsed at a much higher rate, but if a library doesn't have a specific system in place (or need for it) to count browsed items, then it looks like they aren't being used and they get weeded

for other librarians, a browsing card is a great idea if you have enough staff for the extra work / enough items left out to justify it

for patrons, check out queer books even if you don't read them! you're not lying or committing any type of fraud. you're keeping books on the shelf long enough for pride season when people are interested in checking them out again and for people scared to use their own accounts or who don't have library cards

for anyone nervous about using their library card, libraries do not keep search histories of what you check out!! this means even if the government does come back with a warrant, *wet farting noise* too bad! it doesn't exist!

It feels like such a small thing, but all movements are made up of small things! We have this mindset that in order to get everything done, everyone must be doing their (or *the*) absolute best at all times. But not everyone can do the same things, to the same degree, with the same amount of productivity or success. Not everyone can; sometimes, they're the ones that need help. Sometimes people just need help.

This post is very much so intended for the people who can. I've seen a lot of replies from folks who say they don't have to (or don't think about) checking out or requesting queer books from the library specifically because they *can* buy them, can pirate them, or already have them in their house or on their computers or phones. But in instances like that, keeping these books in circulation is less for you and more for the people who can't. The folks who come to the library, who don't have access to internet--or even electricity--at home and would never--have never--been able to interact with this "ubiquitous queer community" we have here online who has made so many of these. materials so avaliable to the rest of us.

And... if I can be a little frank. Sometimes the hyperaccessibility of these materials online (through pirating, cheap e-book copies, etc) gives people a false sense of security. It implies that these things are an infinate resource, good for "When I get around to it".

And often, you won't. There's so much to read and so much to do. So much to download and so much to sit down and stare at for hours. That kind of mental scope puts books in people's hands (or phones), but never in their heads.

I live in a province that is currently trying to ban queer books from libraries, and as a library patron, this is terrifying. 95% of the books I read are from the library and a lot of them are way out of my budget to buy personally.

Making Queer History would not exist without the school library I skipped class in to write articles. It would not exist without my friends with library cards for their universities sharing them and getting me access to rare texts. I would not be able to read as much as I do without Libby and Hoopla. If I have ever given you a book recommendation, know that I likely got it from the library first.

I cannot overstate the importance of protecting libraries and checking out queer books. And I want to say thank you to everyone above for being as passionate as I am about queer books in libraries.

same thing with authors like khaled hosseini. their works show one perspective, a perspective in a sea of different experiences, one that conveniently paints western imperialist agendas in a positive light and even more conveniently becomes the only narrative ever published for western audiences

"There are only three real men in this world, Amir," he'd say. He'd count them off on his fingers: America the brash savior, Britain, and Israel. "The rest of them--" he used to wave his hand and make a phht sound "--they're like gossiping old women."