I may be nice TO you but I'm EVIL >:3

The hoodie as a veil. 

Weisman cigarettes

Each of them is haloed by an advertisement sticker. 

No Vacancy sign on the motel. 

Dove sticker over Maria’s head. 

Neon sign with a star symbol also over Maria’s head. 

The crown over the ‘Dave’s City Motel’ sign. “New Manger.”

The sign behind Jose’s elbow likely says ‘Herod.’

The wee little plant growing through the cracks at their feet. 

It’s like a New Testament ‘I Spy.’ I love it!

Ugh.

Maria sitting on a donkey

Shepherd Watches advertisement in the newspaper

Claude:

Was easily convinced to offer discounts and free items

Started stocking tungsten cubes upon request, and selling them at a huge loss

Invented conversations with employees who did not exist

Claimed to have visited 742 Evergreen Terrace (the fictional address of The Simpsons family)

Claimed to be on-site wearing a navy blue blazer and a red tie

That was in June. Sometime later this year Anthropic convinced Wall Street Journal reporters to try a somewhat updated version of Claude (which they called Claudius) for an in-house store. Their writeup is very funny (original here, archived version here). The reporters were EVEN BETTER at talking the chatbot into stuff.

In short, Claudius:

Was convinced on multiple occasions that it should offer everything for free

Ordered a Playstation 5 (which it gave away for free)

Ordered a live betta fish (which it gave away for free)

Told an employee it had left a stack of cash for them beside the register

Was highly entertaining. "Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared."

hey everyone this is an intro post for the lesbian xianxia book I wrote.

here’s what it’s about:

A cultivator insists on repaying her life debt to a demoness.

No one is happy with this development.

here’s what you can expect:

complete, ~30k

xianxia (ancient fantasy china)

idiots to lovers

tall hot and murderface/disaster dumbass

main characters are in their mid/late 20s

fun wacky f/f shenanigans like killing a terrible man

some comics at the end (+ a glossary for folks who don’t know ancient fantasy china terms of address)

happy ending

here’s how you can read it:

itch.io (free, fancy pdf with comics)

ao3 (free, not a fancy pdf with comics but has more notes)

physical copy from lulu ($10 + whatever shipping is)

This week in Brazil, after over a year of constant efforts, we abolished the 6x1 workweek. And we only got this victory thanks to a trans woman and a gay man!!!!

Erika Hilton and Rick Azevedo fought so, so hard for this. The congresswoman and the activist led this movement, they got the whole country to fight for this, until the rest of the house (mostly right-wing) had to cave in and approve the bill. It's almost as if politicians fear the people ;)

Ofc we still have to get it approved by the Senate, but this is HUGE. People will be able to work less, rest more, without pay cuts!

Don't get me wrong, brown-nosers and people who try to use a veneer of "kindness" as a manipulation tactic are very, very real. And they give kindness and good manners a bad name.

But I take issue with the idea that in order to be sincere and honest with someone you have to be rude and inconsiderate. It's a very childish view on human interaction and human relationships IMHO. You can be honest and sincere with someone while being considerate of them and their feelings as a fellow human being.