zdl

zdl, 2 days ago to random

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I present to you American-style "Buddhism".

https://americanbuddhist.net/2024/05/16/the-jewish-plot-to-enslave-humanity/

For my friends who wonder why I'm instantly suspicious of any westerner I encounter who claims to be "Buddhist", here's why.

Johnnephew, 2 days ago to random

Streisand Effect Alert!

Gina Rinehart: Australia’s richest woman seeks removal of her portrait from exhibition | CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/style/gina-rinehart-namatjira-portrait-australia-intl-scli/index.html

zdl, 15 days ago to random

Isn't it amazing that the ten greatest love stories of, and I quote, "all time", happened to all fall within about a 200 year span and in the circle of European culture?

https://www.yourtango.com/love/greatest-love-stories-of-all-time

The parochial nature of this list hurts SO BADLY!

zdl, 16 days ago (edited 16 days ago) to random

TALKING HEAD: In China today, the communist government demonstrated its evil again as it sent armed and armoured police and vehicles against peacefully protesting students nationwide.

frantic hissing from off-screen

TH: What's that?

frantic hissing continues

TH: Oh.

short pause

TH: In the USA today, student rioters have forced universities nationwide to bring in heavily armed police and even the National Guard to restore order in the face of illegal occupations of public spaces.

zdl, 18 days ago to random

Conspiracy theory time.

(This is mostly in jest. Mostly.)

Phones, even when "turned off" are still active and can still do things. The fact that modern phones don't have removable batteries is so that the surveillance state (whether formal or capitalists) will always have an in on you.

fkamiah17, 18 days ago to random

WEEK 31: Students outside Columbia university passing food and water through the gates to the protesters. Collective punishment going on in the middle of New York City.

#FreePalestine

zdl, 20 days ago (edited 19 days ago) to random

This notice was at the bottom of a poster board for a musical theatre production.

Look at it. Read it. Try to guess which production is so disturbing it needs a trigger warning.

I'll put the answer in a (hidden) reply.

#MusicalTheatre #TriggerWarning #Guess

zdl, 21 days ago to ai

Encyclopaedia Metallum¹ just put out an interesting statement² on AI. Despite being in text, I have to make it an image because of character counts. One of the ironies of living in my SF future apparently.

#AI #GenerativeAI #SupportArt #Policy #Metal #MetalArchives #EncyclopaediaMetallum #MySFFutureIsBetrayed

---

¹ https://www.metal-archives.com/
² https://www.metal-archives.com/news/view/id/296

zdl, 26 days ago to vegan

#Vegan #BlackMetal #Chef

"What are four words I never expected to see together, Alex?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoE8jLGE6R4

zdl, 1 month ago to China

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/15/china/china-israel-iran-mediator-intl-hnk/index.html

Oh, this is a hilarious trap. "Can China play a role in avoiding an all-out war in the Middle-East?"

Possible outcomes:

1. The Chinese government manages to play that role. Now China is blamed for everything that happens. "Because we know they can do this!"

2. The Chinese government doesn't play that role. Now China is blamed for everything that happens. "Because we know they can do this … but chose not to!"

(1/2)

#China #Israel #Iran #USA #perfidy

zdl, 1 month ago to random

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna146799

It's time for countries around the world to start standing up to #billionaires. Charge them. Try them in absentia if need be. Use #extradition treaties to hem in their movements. Go after their assets with great vigour.

The only good #billionaire is a dead billionaire. A decent second place is a billionaire that's scared to move.

18+ Vaccinations in Book Form?

A while back, I set myself the project of figuring out how much of the MIT undergrad physics curriculum could be taught from free online books. The answer, so far, is more than I had anticipated but much less than what we deserve. But working on that, along with a few other conversations, has got me to wondering. We’ve seen...

verge, 1 month ago to random

President Biden is now posting into the fediverse https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24119353/joe-biden-threads-mastodon-activitypub-fediverse

zdl, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to generativeAI

The #Hotpot #GenerativeAI picture generator has an interesting feature: it seems to be flatly impossible to generate a picture with both #DonaldTrump and #VladimirPutin in which Trump is in any way subservient to or even equal to Putin.

This is the closest I've come, which is not very close at all. It still has Trump slightly more in the foreground than Putin, despite the prompt stating they should be side by side.

🧵 (1/n)

zdl, 1 month ago to generativeAI

Wow! SO just pointed me at this article.

It's almost scary how accurate this is!

https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/

And now I have a framework to use when talking to a #GenerativeAI true believer.

zdl, 1 month ago to random

http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-2023-hugo-awards-somehow-it-got.html

I seems if you say "Hugo Awards" three times into a mirror another scandal pops up.

"Appalling as it is, the choice to screen English-language nominees for ideological compatibility may, in fact, be a sideshow to the real scandal, which is that hundreds of Chinese voters have been disenfranchised. And—barring even more revelations—this disenfranchisement cannot be blamed on PRC sensibilities and censorship."

Fuck #Worldcon.
Fuck the #Hugoawards.

With a rusty chainsaw.

zdl, 1 month ago to random

Could someone explain to me why I'm getting HUNDREDS of these popping up all the time today on Mastodon?

It does this non-stop while I'm just sitting here doing nothing, sometimes stacking six or seven high.

@Mastodon
#MastodonBug
#UncommunicativeMessages

zdl, 2 months ago to random

If you want to see white supremacy in action, just take a gander at the #RejectedConfuciusDrafts hash tag "game".

zdl, 2 months ago to folklore

Well, it looks like I'll be unsubscribing from all the @a.gup.pe groups I've subscribed to until the spam that comes from them disappears.

Pity. I found a lot of interesting people and conversations through them, but now they're a liability, not an asset.

@folklore and @tea are the two I'll miss the most. 💔

zdl, 3 months ago to ai

"#AI" image generation outrages. Prompts are in the alt text.

There are more than a few problems here, some far more insidious than others.

🧵 (1/n)

Prompt: A left-handed writer writing a novel. Depicted: a simulated pen-and-ink drawing of a white man sitting at a desk holding a deformed pen in his right hand as he writes something on a paper. The room is littered with books and papers. Commentary in thread.
Prompt: A left-handed writer writing a novel using the left hand. Depicted: a simulated pen-and-ink drawing of a man sitting at a desk holding a deformed pen in his deformed right hand as he writes something on a paper. The room is visibly austere with only a few papers on the desk. Commentary in thread.
Prompt: a left-handed woman writer writing a novel using the left hand Depicted: A simulated pen and ink drawing of a white woman sitting at a desk filled with books, next to a bookshelf similarly filled. She is writing with an upside-down dip pen using her right hand. Commentary in thread.

zdl, 5 months ago to Facebook

@kissane wrote a devastating critique of #Facebook/#Meta and its activities in #Myanmar. TL;DR summary: Meta are #WarCriminals. It's that stark. That brutal. (My words, not those of @kissane.)

I'll add more brutal words: if you use any of Meta's products, you're a #quisling #complicit in supporting war criminals.

Have a nice day.

zdl, 6 months ago to lemmy

So I found a place called #Lemmy that's like a "Reddit" without the corporate espionage and other such shitfuckery. I've decided to open a community for fans of #FGU (Fantasy Games Unlimited) games to see if I can't find any more people whose gaming life was shaped by this wild, weird, wonderfully eclectic publisher.

zdl, 11 months ago to random

I have a strange question, I'm sure, but why is it that #China putting restrictions on an #American tech company over security concerns is labelled 'economic coersion' but when multiple #Chinese companies were restricted over security concerns this was considered just hunky dory?

Oh, right. Racism. My bad. Carry on!

zdl, 1 year ago to random

zdl, 1 year ago to random

I'm watching the new D&D movie. Please pray for my soul if you're religiously inclined. This is going to hurt!