FYI - I worked on 2 different #RealityTV shows in #Canada & after those lived work experiences - told everyone I could - don't agree to go on these shows. It's almost all scripted, not reality. Crews are forced to put pressure on voluntary participants - who rarely know WTF they're signing up for & producers exploit naivety. Don't chase easy fame/easy money - they both come at high personal costs. Don't agree to be traumatized on TV, for money. You'll regret it.
@msquebanh I get so uncomfortable with reality TV, and that discomfort is squared when children are involved. I once watched a teenager on a popular parenting tips reality show hang a coat trying to cover the camera the crew had installed in his bedroom (!), and realized I was watching the non-consenting filming of a minor, and that he will be stuck in the framing of that show, under his real name and real face, in perpetuity. I haven't watched that show since.
@farah and most of them aren't as outspoken as a "misbehaving" teenager about it, whether because they're browbeaten grownups or children who are too young, intimidated, or unaware to go against their guardians 😬 This particular kid's resistance to filming probably only made the final cut because it served the narrative that he had severe behavioral problems (he did, according to the show, but not wanting to be on national TV was not one of those problems). Maybe it was all staged in the first place. That episode had multiple instances of serious domestic abuse on camera, leaving me the options that either the crew were extremely unethical or shit was scripted. I hope it was the latter. @msquebanh
I've been having some online-based conversations about the #Gaza War with an American Jew as of late.
He is a #Zionist and is convinced that the overall goal of #Palestinians is not only the destruction of the state of #Israel (an admittedly unrealistic goal), but also to drive all the Jews from this reborn #Palestine .
Personally, I am dubious. My assumption is that just like not all Israelis want to destroy the remaining Palestinian territories and drive their inhabitants out, so do not all Palestinians wish to drive out the Jews from a hypothetical future Greater Palestine.
But that's just my assumption - I don't really have a good overview of what various Palestinian groups want in terms of long-term goals. So can anyone share some good links and citations with me on this (since I no longer trust Google with search results, and with this topic less than most)?
@juergen_hubert He's a racist genocide cheerleader and nothing you say is going to convince him. I say block him. Unless this is someone you know who you want a deep understanding and good long-term relations with, a German trying to tell a Jewish person they're wrong about antisemitic genocide isn't a good look anyway even if he's wrong and you're right.
#WritersCoffeeClub
15. Have you ever attended a writer's fair / festival to promote your work? Would you
I haven't done so, though I might do this once I have a few more books under my table. Finding the right one is tricky, though - I live in Germany but write in English.
However, my cover artist is going to show off my books at the #ComicSalon in #Erlangen in a few weeks!
@juergen_hubert I guess a translation fair might be a good choice--and maybe something to do with libraries, since I can see a lot of potential educational and scholarly interest particularly in non-German/Anglophone countries?
@weirdwriter That is brilliant and scary omg. I read an article recently (maybe through you?) saying that LLMs are inherently insecure because input and commands can't be separated, and evidently there's no way to stop those prompt injection attacks that were in the news.
@weirdwriter Oh yes, there were attacks by researchers that got ChatGPT to disclose people's really sensitive personal information, as I recall. And who knows how many malicious attackers did similar things without making their activities public?😬 I guess rolling out the product for the $$$ and hype was more important than having a secure product!
You did your friend a good turn, like theoretically an attacker could have asked for all details about his financial information and location and personal life, anything that's available in his inbox and... giant yikes all around.
@cosmicvoid This looks incredible and reminds me a lot of the Legend of Kyrandia and other point-and-clicks back in the day! I look forward to trying it.
@weirdwriter Argh seriously, Linux is the only major OS that's ad-free, tracking-free, and doesn't try to corral users into paid cloud and AI shit, and it rots my socks that it's only accessible to sighted and reasonably technically proficient people. Fuck the idea that people don't deserve nice things unless they're abled and privileged.
@KekunPlazas@weirdwriter That is crucial work and I'm wishing @matt all the best--I know it'll be an immeasurable contribution. It really shouldn't fall on any one person to work so hard to compensate for the shortfalls of a whole system, but that's where we are right now unfortunately. Do you know if they have any support/publicity requests?
I'm going to ramble a bit, but it will hopefully come around to something. When I was growing up, I read a lot of older historical book series, a big one would be the Little House On The Prairie series. While I really enjoyed it, there are some very obviously negative portrayals of Native Americans and African Americans. I remember being angry about it as a kid, and my Dad telling me, that part of learning about history is that we have to acknowledge the people we were, and still are. But because Little House on the Prairie is only semi-autobiographical, I still have mixed feelings about this. I do think they are well written books by a female author, an interesting perspective on early American life, and as an adult I can see and acknowledge the issues with the text. If we try to get rid of every author with racist ideas there wouldn't be much left to read from the 20th Century, and it also feels like being dishonest about who we are. So, I'm very mixed, how do you all feel about it? Do you think children can handle books with racial issues like this if it's explained to them? What is our responsibility here?
@RickiTarr I'm amused when white people think they need books set in the past to teach kids about racism, or that approving depictions of racist characters and attitudes are somehow necessary for that education. It has the same ring as "We'll forget all about slavery unless we keep the Confederate leader statues right where they are!" As many have pointed out, that history can be taught even better and in the right perspective by trashing the statues and teaching the records.
Similarly, these books can be excerpted as examples of racist depictions in popular books and in their historical context, rather than making BIPOC children read dehumanizing portrayals of themselves coming from the "heroes" and protagonists of narratives they're meant to be immersed in. Presentation matters in education. Ask yourself--which are you centering in your discourse, the well-being of Black and Indigenous children or your own discomfort about losing part of your "heritage?"
I'm developing a fantasy setting which has a magical industrial revolution largely based around enchanted, animated, self-moving gears.
For the most part, these should be of standardized sizes (because any industrial revolution worth its salt should have lots of standardization). But what I am still struggling with is their casing. There should be some external, mechanical way of setting rotation speed and direction, and I don't have any good ideas on how to visualize that.
I also need a good name for these enchanted gears. Any suggestions?
@juergen_hubert If they're enchanted gears then I imagine their rotation would also be controlled by enchantments? So maybe what you need is some kind of enchantment focus, or foci, that program these gears. :blobcat_think:
As for naming, I'm kind of partial to the Greek arche, sometimes transcribed as arkhé--the first principle, the primary element, first movement, etc.
@juergen_hubert@Whidou Chiming in with the DokuWiki recommendation--it doesn't use a database, just text files, so it's easy to back up and access your info with no worries of DB corruption. There are also plugins to write your pages in Markdown if that's your pace.