when i was... a young shrimp.. my shrather (shrimp father)... took me into the city... to see a marching clam.....

Eliot getting to be an Unhinged Weirdo for the con is never not funny. I love when he gets to be Extremely Weird to unsettle people.

Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.

Writers: It's asking to read your Google Docs and be able to 'summarize' things from them and such things. I just turned all mine off.

Because this isn't mentioned above, also go to google.com/drive/settings and turn off all the annoying bits that interface directly with docs there.

This is all in the "privacy" tab of your settings. How fun that everything is hidden two layers deep. 🙄 This DOESN'T get rid of the stupid little star constantly asking you to use it, unfortunately, but that's what the picker in ublock is for. 😉

More detail instructions for OP's post for those who are confused. This is done from the browser on my laptop, I don't know what they look like on phones.

When you click the first link gemini.google.com/extensions, you need to click on the setting icon at the bottom, then choose "Extension", like this:

Scroll down a bit, you will see the options, turn them all off.

Then, you click on the second link myactivity.google.com/product/gemini, you'll see it tells you that it's already "turn off". NO! IT'S NOT! You have to click on that "Turn off" option, it'll drop down a menu like this:

Turn that thing off. Until that button shows you have to click to turn it back on like this:

And then, click on the delete button down there too, even if it says there's nothing to delete, just do it as a caution.

After you's done with those two. You go to your Drive, find the Setting button.

Click on the "Privacy" tab, choose the button "Manage Workspace smart feature setting"

Tick both of those off, then click Save. Or if you still want to use Google AI assistant for some reasons, please read the fine lines very very carefully.

Only then, you can feel safe enough with this force AI assistant bullshit. FOR NOW 🤡 All these steps still can't get rid of that Gemini blinkblink icon though >:(((((

Repeat for every one of your google accounts 💀

On today's episode of BTS photos I've never seen...

Holy shit… please…take this quiz…

My mom is a pharmacist and got 16 out of 30. SHE’S SO MAD.

HAH! I got 18. Barely. But I think one I got wrong by accident (like the screen was still loading when I pressed the answer but still, 18 isn’t bad?)

Here’s an updated link:

Ahhh!

AHHHHHHHH <3333333

Damn! I was about to be all, “Ahaha, it’s so easy once you know the way names work in Quenya and Sindarin, certain letter combinations simply do not appear, blahblahblah…”

And then, motherfucker, I got four of them wrong??

btw i've made an indigenous artists directory! anyone who identifies as indigenous (from anywhere in the world) can apply :)

also promoting my friend's prairie artists directory (which inspired my website), which features artists from alberta, saskatchewan and manitoba! please check it out as well :D

I’m at a sociology conference and just attended a memorial for one of the giants of our field, and one of the panelists told this story…he was at a meeting with this guy, who he got his PhD under and had a long standing relationship with, and he was bemoaning the current state of the world, and he asked this old professor, “how can you be so optimistic? I can’t ever be anything but a pessimist.”

and the old professor said, “you little fucker, I’m going to make a statement and then I’m going to take you out to the parking lot and beat your ass. What good does your pessimism do?”

and that really struck me. not the least because I also knew this old professor and he very rarely swore, so I know this was something he was really worked up about. what good does your pessimism do? What GOOD does your pessimism DO. I’ll be thinking about that for awhile.

- Lois McMaster Bujold, Borders of Infinity (1989)

"It helps me be prepared!"

As a recovered pessimist raised by a horrendously toxic pessimist: No, it doesn't.

Foresight and practicality are completely separate qualities that can exist without pessimism. You can acknowledge the worst that might happen and prepare for it without having a completely negative worldview.

And pessimism can absolutely exist without those qualities. Which is a miserable way to live.

There actually is academic work that point out how cynicism can make you more gullible, and how fascists take advantage of it. The Jewish German political scientist and philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote about it in Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). I wanted to include this passage, even though it's long, because incredibly important. And true.

"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynicism the vice of superior and refined minds. Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leader for their superior tactical clearness.

This leader is spared from ever having to be accountable to his own statements. Naïve are those who thought then (or believe now) that such a leader would be brought down by his lies, or made to adhere to his promises. ‘The totalitarian system, unfortunately, is fool-proof against such normal consequences; its ingeniousness rests precisely on the elimination of that reality which either unmasks the liar or forces him to live up to his pretence’. In yesterday’s totalitarianism and in today’s totality, the fake dominates. Gullibility embraces the fake, and cynicism embraces gullibility. The totality is immune from truth because the very idea of truth is dissolved within it."

okay so I'm having a debate with my flatmates

are these all different things and if so what do you call them

civic duty

context: the heritage foundation is trying to launder data in support of doge by sending a survey to only their supporters and using blatantly leading questions. the survey takes less than 5 minutes and they don't verify your email

you CAN do it multiple times if you so wish

Oh good we broke the first one. New link is here, same story.

Cannot even make this shit up

Just did this, took 2 min!!

my infamously data skewing followers rise up!

My followers urge to scew poll results knows no bounds

Otter sits on a capybara

*cough* Grey's Anatomy AU nobody asked for? *cough*

Charles as a adrenaline-junkie but brilliant trauma doc running the emergency room.

Edwin as a Dr. House sort of diagnostics specialist for rare diseases.

They have been friends and roommates since med school and work together whenever strange cases show up at A&E.

Crystal is the resident neurologist or maybe psychiatrist (insert psychic/psychiatrist pun here)? She just came back after a sabbatical she took to get over the worst break-up ever and is struggling to put her life back together.

Niko is the lovely new nurse who keeps everyone working well with each other (as long as the Head Nurse isn't on her ass about it).

The Cat King is the local vet who sometimes shows up for a guest role (mostly tags along when one of his patients has bitten someone so he can visit Edwin, but since he enters through A&E it has the extra benefit of ruining Charles' day)

Monty works in the lab and is often the one to deliver crucial information that leads to a breakthrough.

Jenny is a badass surgeon, maybe specializes in cardio? She's got the best scalpel skills in the hospital.

Tragic Mick works at the in-house pharmacy and Niko is the only one who listens to his stories.

... Esther is just a REALLY BAD pediatrician!

((Charles got interested in medicine because he had to learn how to stitch himself up whenever his dad refused to let him go to the emergency room...))

((Edwin got into medicine because his mum died of a very rare but treatable illness that got diagnosed way too late...))

((Crystal studied to be a neurologist like her parents. But they she went into psychology because that's the way she wants to help people. Her parents look down on the practice as a whole.))

((Niko was on shift when they brought her dad in.))

peeta tried to save him and katniss by saying she had a baby, because he knew that would pull at the capitals heart strings. In a dystopian society, peeta mellark knew the capital would care more about a fetus than the real dying children . this sounds oddly familiar

reblog to give your headache to elon musk instead

hey you look really cute today

april fools you look cute everyday keep it up 

hey guys, so i saw this photo of edwin and it means that i get to talk about historical fashion.

ok i dunno if you can see very well, but ya know how at the top of his shirt theres a little gold thing. that isnt a top button. its a collar stud (or at least i think thats what theyre called)

in the 1910s and maybe the 1920s, shirts were a little bit different. for the most part it looks the same way a modern shirt would. however, when you buy it, theres no collar.

it simply just ends with a bit of fabric with two holes in it. then you would buy a collar seperately and attatch it on with some kind of stud, in this picture you can kind of see where the two ends have been overlapped to attatch it

heres a closer look at his collar ^

also you cant actually see it in pretty much any of the scenes because his bowtie is covering the overlap and the stud, this is the first picture ive found where you can clearly see whats going on

heres an example of a shirt without the collar, i dont know who's photo this is but if i find out or if anyone can tell me i'll change this to credit them.

even in the scene where he has his top button undone, if you look closely the collar is just tucked into the top of the shirt.(im struggling to find a photo, i’ll come back when i have)

My "Six weeks until we hear from our good friend Jonathan Harker" post went somewhat viral.

I've had several folks in my ask box and in replies inquire how they can be part of the "experience the novel DRACULA in real time" phenomenon this year.

So here's one of the replies I just sent.

There's two ways to follow along.

If you want to read along, you can subscribe to the Substack and get the entries in your email. https://draculadaily.substack.com/

If you want to listen to the ABSOLUTELY BANGER full cast audio drama [with transcripts], you can access it with your favorite listening platform via https://redracula.live/.

You can also get lots of thoughtful analysis and fanart by tracking the Tumblr tags #dracula daily and #re: dracula.

Hope this helps!

Disclaimer: I am not affilated with either DRACULA DAILY or with Re: Dracula. I'm just a humble bookseller, just another fan, enjoying this annual Tumblr tradition.