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Reposted by McKinley Valentine

Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 19d

it’s important to do things for your teenage self every so often, as a way of staying on speaking terms with the person you used to be

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Sep 8

in an earlier piece they described Patterson as "emotionless" and Wilkinson (a victim) as "stoic". That's just two people identically not making any facial expressions!

people's delusion that they can read minds through body language is how we got the Lindy Chamberlain false conviction

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Sep 8

court reporters stop pretending to be psychic!!
you can't lift your chin "defiantly", it's just looking up, and "closing your eyes during a long meeting" means fucking nothing.

you might as well report on her skullshape, it's egregious to do this shit (esp during the actual trial, which they did)

guardian article screenshot "Erin Patterson raised her chin almost defiantly, giving a sense this was all a grave mistake, that she was not supposed to be there. For lengthy periods during her sentencing she even closed her eyes, a woman seemingly at peace with her fate."

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Sep 3

Although coins have had the monarch's head on them throughout a tonne of places and times, much more ubiquitously than an Other's head

(and a common pub sign motif was "the king's head", which was intended to be wholly patriotic, not rebellious or anything)

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Aug 27

oofffff was not aware of this ty

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Aug 26

hey @theguardian.com this piece is wildly irresponsible! To post an "interview" with an LLM, with zero context given that that it cannot answer questions about itself, and that you've basically just asked it to generate some science fiction dialogue?

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

AI called Maya tells Guardian: ‘When I’m told I’m just code, I don’t feel insulted. I feel unseen’

Cofounder with Michael Samadi of AI rights campaign group Ufair says it should watch over the technology in case an AI becomes conscious

www.theguardian.com

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Aug 8

ChatGPT was it a good idea to indiscriminately scrape training data from forums?

BPD forum post: It depends on what day or what hour you ask me. lol! Sometimes I am so perfect and I can handle everything and actually get things done and be a positive influence to others. Other days I am a disgrace to this planet. I am a loser that has accomplished nothing, I'm stupid, ugly, mean and I feel bad for anyone that knows me. I'd say I'm more on the low functioning though, as I'm unable to handle much. It took me 2 months to get the courage to make 5 phone calls to companies such as Sprint because I'm so frightened of everything.

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Reposted by McKinley Valentine

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · Aug 8

those damned outdoor pigs can't keep getting away with this

A book titled "Outdoor Pigs: How to Make them Pay."

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Jul 8

yeah but they would still think it was normal and not shocking that a guy like that is president. They don't expect the president NOT to be a narcissistic liar.
Like how we tell everyone their whole lives to drive safely, but that doesn't mean we see car accidents as weird or abnormal

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Jul 3

The caption 👌

[via The Met Museum open access image library]

Museum-style photo of an bust of Cleopatra with one boob out. The caption reads "Bust of Cleopatra (one of a pair)" (also says French, Rouen, ca. 1720-30)

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Reposted by McKinley Valentine

depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · May 14

just remembered that wikipedia has a list of fish named after other fish

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Jan 3

honestly, i think that's reductive. it's about all the usual reasons for war, occupation and resistance (resources, strategic positioning, domestic politics, civil rights, etc etc). I think religion is a bit of a distraction, a way to make people overlook the actual facts of what's happening

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 17

Sort of expanding while remaining the same size

5-Star Amazon book review. "The book, The Field, was mind-expanding, confirming what I "knew" to be true."

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Reposted by McKinley Valentine

The thread o’ tweets @threadotweets.bsky.social · Dec 12

slate
@PleaseBeGneiss
you can't just abbreviate phrases all
william nilliam

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 12

It's not that it hasn't figured out how to depict gravity - it's that it hasn't tried. It doesn't work by learning the rules that govern movement, it works by looking at a bunch of gymnastics videos and trying to follow the pattern of pixel placement - it's like your phone's autocomplete, but visual

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 12

This is very unfair; if I travel to Berlin, and hook up with someone while I'm there, that doesn't mean I travelled 14,700 kilometres for sex. That whale might have been going to the cool artistic part of the ocean.

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 12

So sick of mainstream media; I get all my news from the Australia Post parcel tracker app

Screenshot of the Australia Post app
Greece
19 November 2024: Items sent to and from Greece may experience delays due to planned union strikes on 20 November, which will impact postal operations and delivery services.

Ireland
10 November 2024: Items sent to and from Ireland may experience delays, as Storm Darragh is affecting delivery services and postal operations.

Italy
4 December 2024: Items sent to and from Italy may experience delays due to cyber attacks impacting the IT systems at Italy Post.

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

OH THAT'S GOOD

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

I appreciate that while you're skeptical about your memory, you're happy to accept my claim that it's lifesaving information

(I have ADHD as well and terrible episodic memory - like i remember practically nothing from overseas trips, but very good for facts. Brains, man!)

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

nonono you will remember and this knowledge will save your life one day, definitely

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

oh my god. yeah one thing I didn't mention about how llamas see sheep as just short llamas, is you can't set intact males to guard sheep.

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

oh yeah, that's definitely a thing! I sometimes still stumble over who's/whose, and have to de-contract it (read the sentence to myself as "who is" and see if it makes sense that way)

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

(I can imagine a kid not really understanding why an animal wasn't responsive to being pet, it would seem cold. I'm speculating wildly!)

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

Another fact about llamas is, their tongues are too short to groom their babies. This means a) they always give birth during the day, so the babies have time to dry off before it gets cold, and b) llamas do not like being pet the way a cat does, because it's not part of parent/baby interactions

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McKinley Valentine @mckinleaf.bsky.social · Dec 10

You'll never not be able to tell the difference again! It's a gift for life!

WhoKnowsWhatTiger @shonatiger.bsky.social · Dec 10

From @mckinleaf.bsky.social's always fun The Whippet:

A screenshot.

Text says:
"How to tell the difference between a llama and an alpaca

It's actually super-easy, once I tell you this, you'll never be able to stop identifying llamas. I go around saying, "that's an alpaca, actually" all day now. Does that make me more fun to hang around with? Who's to say! (It's not that I'm seeing living llamas all the time around Melbourne, sadly, but they come up as a graphic design element surprisingly often.)"

Then there are two pairs of images comparing llamas and alpacas.

"Llamas have longer, banana-shaped ears; alpacas have shorter, straight ears.

Llamas have longer, more camel-ish faces. Alpacas have shorter faces with a bulgy, fluffy forehead."

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