@redenigma This is from Dr Sarah Jarvis, who is a woman, a GP and a clinical director:

"Unless you're pregnant or have a condition called fibroids, which are non-cancerous growths in the muscle lining your womb, you can't feel your uterus in your tummy.

"It's usually only 3-4 inches long and is tucked away inside your pelvis, behind your pelvic bone."

@redenigma A quick scoot around the internet has revealed a whole lot of controversy around this assertion.

I'm just copying this headline because I can't do anything to top it:

"World’s First ‘Miss AI’ Competition Announced With $5,000 Cash Prize"

https://petapixel.com/2024/04/15/worlds-first-miss-ai-competition-announced-with-5000-cash-prize/

@Qbae I've personally never seen them both in the same room at the same time...

Just saying.

I've been thinking about the word ideology. It has strayed so far from its original definition. In its current form, it's almost never used positively. Yet as an accusation, it is also a confession.

One key way that we can use to identify whether a movement's ideology has become dangerous is to watch who it villainises.

So many realms in our world seem to exist only to mobilise an "us" to attack a "them."

Idealism is a necessity for humanity. Yet there are many ways that idealism turns toxic.

Someone recently asked me "Do you think our generation will be as overwhelmed by technology as our parents are when we're their age?"

Yes. Resoundingly, yes. What we're at the cusp of now is deeply overwhelming...and it's just getting started.

@Alfred Ha ha! Perfect!

Thanks Alfred.

@Alfred Could you generate a blurb of marketing gobbledygook?

@LlamaMountainStudioArts @CinnamonGirlE The people I most eagerly share time with are academics who value precise language.

My phrasing might sound stilted to you, but in my circles what I said (and how I would say it) would be heard as a warm, genuine offer, and a bid for mutuality.

Indeed, to my closest friends "I'm here for you" is far, far more likely to elicit an eyeroll for how vague and generic that is.

@LlamaMountainStudioArts @CinnamonGirlE Sure, that's fine. The point is to make the offer.

Just by asking, we can help others find clarity.

@corlin I have a spinny drive in my work computer (laptop) to augment the SSD system drive, and I have a bunch of spinny drives for backup storage.

The majority of what I do is on SSDs now.

@CinnamonGirlE It's wise, though a bit weird, to ask.

People share different things for different reasons, and we sort of have a sense of why. Sadly our sense doesn't always match the reasons the person has for sharing.

It's not always appropriate to ask (like a said, weird), but where it is, it'll likely improve the quality of the connection:
"I'm here for you. Just so I know, are you looking for emotional validation from me? Or are you looking to collaborate on a solution with me?"

We are living in a moment where a lot of people with money and power have "earned" it explicitly by being reckless with it.

People are eagerly feeding chaos with their money, their votes and their attention.

@tgraph52 I have an issue with calling it art too.

The dabbling I've done makes me feel like a toddler with all of human history and ability at my fingertips.

I'm certainly not willing to take credit for something generated by AI, and copyrighting AI-generated anything opens a whole host of legal quagmires.

But it's unquestionably adding to our cultural discourse and meaning-making in a host of different disciplines and directions.

@tgraph52 There is definitely an element of that, and that is its own concern.

Then again, what ideas are off-limits to AI, and how could we ever hope to restrict them?

And yet what I'm talking about is a bit different. I'm talking about generative synthesis where there is no discernable trace of any pre-existing art.

Like there are specific electronic synthesisers from the 80s that are in demand for a very unique sound they made. That sound is original, even if it was an attempted copy.

Have you ever been surprised by #AI art? I have.

I've seen artists encourage other artists to explore AI to lift them out of their creative ruts.

If AI was no more than just merely remixing reality, we would not be surprised. It would be powerless to help us be less predictable.

Indeed, there is a remarkable synthesis happening in it that we are witnessing. Some folks try to brush this off trivial and iterative. While I'm not sure what to make of it all, I'm convinced that that's a mistake.

@Oma_Trisha There are 1,000s of innovations at our doorstep.

There are amazing developments not yet in public view. The cost of solar technology is going to nose-dive off a cliff. (We're facing the same problem that has happened with all technological races: prices are falling so fast that every investor is skittish. Uncertainty affects the whole industry right now.)

This is good news.

And yet without deep change, we're just solving a fragment of the #metacrisis, and the rest of it remains.

People's minds are changing about #ClimateChange. Acceptance is now mainstream.

But there is precious little self-awareness accompanying these changing minds.

There is limited concern for all the powerful people and organisations who have been manufacturing denial for decades. There will be no reprisals. No comeuppance. No consequences.

On one hand, we cannot afford to waste any time or energy wishing it was different.

On the other, we need to recognise that this change isn't that deep.

We are surveying ourselves to death.

In the past month, I have had so many service providers asking for positive reviews of their work making it sound like their continuing employment depends on it.

I have deep mistrust of the impersonal nature of quantitative data in general, and this perpetual strategising around it by corporations just seems bizarrely dystopian.

There has to be a more generative way to get feedback, and make decisions.