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Finally starting that "bookmarks" site I talked about a while back. Decided to just edit HTML straight up, rather than come up with some system to build the site for me.

My thinking is that whenever I go to look something up, I'll leave the tab open until I've added it to this system.

Already finding that providing context for these links is encouragement to write in more detail.

madewokherd.nfshost.com/bookma

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Hey if any friends are on other socials more (been hearing about bluesky a lot), I would like to follow you there. I have feed-merger to conveniently pull everything together, although I need to update it with bsky api (rss feed has some annoying limitations), and it doesn't work with Twitter because Twitter charges unreasonably for API access.

Probably will still only post here though, as much as I do at all.

I think a lot of people that don't really understand what they're doing obsess over LLMs for the same reason that they might have obsessed over visual programming or plain-English-programming a generation ago.

In their mind, programming works like this:

1) A clever person designs the system/app/website/game in their mind.

2) The person uses whatever tools available to wrangle the computer into reproducing that vision.

(1/...)

plurality, spirituality 

Also last night I prayed to a mouse to lead me to my friends, and it worked - I dreamed of at least one friend.

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plurality, spirituality 

Just realized that, because I regard my headmates as spirits (in addition to my own spirit), and because to me "praying" requires a felt spiritual connection, my system and my pantheon are equivalent.

Last few days, people I follow rehashed a common theme in our spheres: the idea trans women's experiences with "male socialization" shapes them.

Dog whistle alert: nowadays, you're more likely to hear this expression from bigots than from trans people.

Open to hear the zeitgeist opinion in my queer transfeminist corner of the Fediverse. Don't hesitate to share your own perspective or to link to things you wrote in the replies! 🧵👇
[1/6]

fediverse tip: a post of yours popped off? start kinkposting immediately. the followers who stick around after you post your most unhinged thoughts are the ones who deserve to stick around. eliminate the unfit

some people might benefit from a reminder of Mira Bellwether's piece on beauty as a trans woman 

Dec 29 / 2019

If you have had to put off trauma for decades just to survive in a kind of perpetual crisis mode, you may find that when you stop doing that it suddenly feels like pain is coming from nowhere. You were just kicking it down the road.

This is what I am pretty sure is up with transitioning and then realizing how incredibly awful it feels to be treated like something you're not: you probably didn't have a point of contrast before with which to compare your everyday experience.

In other words your lungs started to hurt when you stopped running from the truth, but the pain is from the decades of running.

I was talking to my sister today about the trauma that often comes of the first few years of transitioning. So much of it is really reckoning with and facing a lifetime of being taught that what you are - a trans person - is a terrible thing to be.

Trans girls who have been out for not long spend a lot of time obsessing over perceived "failures" that are really just differences between us and cis women. That's painful because we were never taught that there were other ways to be a woman, just "failure."

But when we start spending time around each other this beautiful thing happens. The realization dawns, sooner or later, that the women you're spending time with are truly and incredibly beautiful.

As you get used to the company of your kind, you start to understand in your
heart that you are a kind. It's a LOT like "the ugly duckling."

It goes against some of the most conventional and bad advice about love out there, that love begins with loving yourself. It doesn't, it begins with loving others and then accepting that you deserve that love too.

Once you get there, REALLY get there, looking back is hard sometimes because you remember what it felt like to constantly compare yourself unfavorably to both cis men AND cis women. And bc you remember only being able to see cis beauty as beautiful.

You don't know HOW to appreciate a swan even if you're starting to suspect that you are one. No one taught that to you socially or otherwise, and it feels awkward to be learning it so late. It can feel unfamiliar and strange to look at other trans women and SEE our beauty.

There are so many fears: am I becoming deluded? Why didn't I see this before? What does it say about me? Am I a chaser now?! (You're not, please let that worry go ASAP.)

What's happening is that your mind is broadening, to put it simply. Raised in a sexist and misogynist world, we're taught that seeing beauty in women outside of a very narrow bandwidth is shameful, wrong, even suspicious.

You're not going to stop seeing the differences between you and cis women. But if you let yourself, you can START to see the beauty in your own kind. And that has the potential to be one of the most powerful and beautiful revelations in your life.

But don't let anyone tell you that you have to accept the hand you were dealt and love it forever, and that means never changing. You can trade in one or two of your cards and still love yourself, other trans women, and cis women too.

People grow and change, and trans people can grow and change even more. There's nothing wrong with you for knowing that you want full breasts, or a thick ass, or admitting that you want your crotch to be different.

Think of it as customization.

And those women are beautiful too. Those women who you might be a little afraid of becoming. Cis girls go through this earlier and differently but they go through it too. Because of course you're afraid of becoming a woman in a world that hates women.

Practically every memoir of girls' teen years gets into those feelings. What does it mean to look at a mature sexual woman and know that's what you're becoming? It's rarely emotionally simple or straightforward.

We get that later, and with a ton of social pressure to
not change. Cis women will talk to you sometimes and you'll realize this woman isn't talking about my relationship to my breast size, she's giving a voice to her own self-doubts and insecurity.

Anyway, it's very early. Love your sisters, all of us, and all of them. It will pay you dividends in love for yourself and in understanding that you're something special in this world.

-Mira Fucking Bellwether

@saraislet I was on sick leave for burnout because I was doing the work of three people. When I got back I asked my boss what she was going to do about my work load situation. ”I can’t do anything about that” was her answer, so I quit.

Later I learned that they didn’t hire a replacement for me, so my work load landed on my boss, who burned out from it, and just like me ended up quitting.

eye contact, selfie 

Got my hair cut and donated the excess.

glad we're at the stage of our cyberpunk hell-timeline that we have corporate botnets DDoSing the free software communities that they rely on, leading to an arms race between the biggest companies in the world and a virtual anime person developing a proof-of-work proxy with an anime girl mascot that's now deployed by the united nations

I missed this terrific piece on burnout from @grimalkina
"It's alarming to write something really simple like, people deserve to have environments that don't destroy them and have it resonate with a lot of people."

This resonates hard. I say similar things every week to my reports, to colleagues, and to folks across the tech industry — and it's routinely far more unusual and impactful than it should be.

Every manager should say things like this (and, more importantly, *back it up with actions*). It should be an indictment of the industry that not only does this not happen, but rather burnout remains a perennial issue that continues to get worse, chasing women and Black folks out of the industry.
drcathicks.com/post/burnout-us

If making a depiction of a better world is art, is making a better world directly also art?

for those who have cried and been shamed for it 

You didn't do anything wrong. You are not responsible for maintaining others' comfort when things are too much for you. Even if it was about something small. You were not assigning blame or trying to manipulate or seeking attention. You felt something that needed expressed, and you expressed it, and that's good and natural. You should be allowed to do that. Being in touch with your feelings is good. Hold onto that.

what creates happiness? 

I've been considering hypotheses and an odd one came up: happiness comes from being fully (or more fully) oneself. -iore

Entirely speculation until we figure out a way to test it of course, but it at least feels like a promising lead. -Esme

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AI terminology annoyance 

LLMs do not have a sensory experience. They cannot hallucinate. I see no reason to believe they are doing something intrinsically different when they give incorrect information compared to when they give correct information. They are just outputting tokens, which are only "true" or "false" when someone "interprets" them as a "statement".

Thinking about a discussion my system had recently where we said that because most people in this society are not happy, it is a failing society. This includes those who are "succeeding" by its own metrics: people with more money are not happier.

But considering the problem in negative terms isn't very helpful. We should be able to answer the question: what does create happiness? It should be possible to work this out, and it's very important that we do. -iore

Americans on testosterone gel, please check your lot/batch numbers.

There was a recall because there was benzene found in the gel, and you do NOT wanna rub that into your skin!

chpw.org/provider-center/pharm

#DrugRecall #FDARecall #HRT

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