If not real then maybe someone could sacrifice themselves and post this for the magas on fb. As a result I’d hope to watch a quick and professional removal of the paint by the white house to sell for $$$

That’s an interesting view, because one way I always looked at it was it became a gating function (in a negative way). Just like the rich raise the barrier to entry, I always thought that there were people who were dismissive of others because you couldn’t speak their language perfectly.

I think that’s more or less the same idea as language carrying an authority. You can only use language for gating an ivory tower if the plebs believe your expensive terminology describes real and relevant facts. I think an insider language that doesn’t carry this authority gets called other names, slang maybe? Also used for gating, just not as a barrier towards rising towards a higher status position in academia or rich circles.

English and the internet have this potential of bringing people together, it’s quite powerful. You suddenly find out how your situation relates to people on other continents. I remember that before there was a much stronger feeling of ‘other’ towards people from other countries and cultures, and often the only information you could get about these others would be through the eyes of someone else. To be honest, even if the powers that be fuck up the internet beyond recognition now, that’s a kind of devil difficult to stuff back into the box.

An orphanage in Venice was also a music school. Vivaldi was one of the many teachers. The orphan girls were taught all sorts of musical skills from singing to composing. How much nicer is this than work them to death in the doom factory!

And already trying to summon a demon! Aww!

I think the use of ‘-powered’ in a job description is a clear indication that you are applying for a bullshit job.

Here’s the thing: human translators have been using ‘AI’ for over a decade. It used to be called machine translation, and for anything but the dumbest stuff it’s a dumb idea, first nail in the coffin of translation. Translation agencies loved the shite, of course, because they could now pay a translator 0.05€ per word instead of 0.10€, arguing that now the same work took less time (it did, and also a lower quality translation was produced with a lot of costly bullshit software in the middle). The translators, as is to expect, hated it, but were forced to accept it or starve. We are now very slowly reaching the point where we are hired back as esteemed professionals after AI-caused communication mishaps and business fuckups keep piling up …

Language is in a peculiar decline these days - there’s the process of English becoming the most badly spoken and written language ever, because all of us non-natives use it online and often also at work. Together with the inescapable avalanche of slop being churned out.

Also, language used to carry authority and this is getting lost for more and more people. We have been bombarded with advertising, propaganda, lies for many generations now and it’s becoming stale. Longer texts used to carry more authority, now a topic can be communicated very precisely through a meme, and why not? For a translator I am getting awfully distrustful of words I’m afraid. I believe we are already standing right under the crumbling tower and will have to learn to communicate through shrugs and grunts. And again, why not?

I moved into a traditional farmhouse in winter and thought it was rather strange that whoever built the house had built it right over a stream that flows all winter till way into April through the ‘loja’ (a kind of half cellar built into the slope). Now I know it’s a natural AC, the room remains cool even though the sun is hitting the front wall all morning. So luckily I won’t have to make that kind of investment any time soon.

(In winter the stream probably kept the animals clean-ish by permanently floating some of the piss and shit layer out of the stable, while plant matter kept being added on top. The fermenting mass would keep stable and top floor warm.)

I had seen a few of these houses and had my doubts that people would just be so stupid as to accidentally build on a water line. Thanks for coming to my info dump.

Tldr: evaporation cooling good.

Wie schön ist das, immer mal wieder ein echtes, richtig gemaltes Bild zu sehen. Nicht AI, nicht digital, sondern echte Farbe. Das inspiriert mich, immer mal wieder abzuschalten und auch Pinsel oder Schaufel in die Hand zu nehmen.

This is very important. I’m in a situation where the work I used to do is supposed to be taken over by the shitrobot. On a job platform now 15% of the job offers are the original work, 85% is AI slop fixing in one way or another. This led me on a 2-year odyssey of trying manual work (too weak), being really poor (getting better at that), and finally deciding that if I’m forced to serve the shitrobot to avoid starving I’ll serve it badly. Btw so far I’ve managed to avoid these jobs, may it remain so.

That said, if you are in need of a real human translator for tech or creative EN-DE projects do contact me, I’d be glad to keep doing work that makes sense!

I’ve done some lazy-style toddler sitting (in my defense, it was the heat!) and might have accidentally overdosed on Disney songs and The Sound of Music. Now trying to delete it with an 80s New Wave and Alternative playlist. And if that doesn’t help I’ll have to nuke it with 90s eurodance, but that would be grim.

Out of control farmers threaten meadows and woodland

Too hot for servers?

I live in the reality I have now following my convictions - that means if that kills me it does. That’s what convictions are.

You seem so desperately wanting to deny me my opting out of reality, telling me I don’t get to opt out. Who are you to tell me what I get to opt out of? Or to tell me what reality is in the first place? I only engage with what I want to engage with. And if it knocks on my door with guns? Well shoot me, if that’s what humanity has to offer I don’t want my place in it anyways. It probably would help non-humans a lot if we all perished. I assure you I’m not that gloomy in real life.

Disclaimer: I try to survive in this stupid timeline just like the next person, painfully aware that currently we are all complicit in genocide and murder for the sake of our comfort and our habits, not just in Gaza (which is just one of many ghosts in Capitalism’s haunted house). The last bit of moral ground I feel I have is that I can loudly proclaim that I will not be sent to war.

Kind of answering to both your answers here. Capitalism sucks, but at least don’t let them send you off to kill and get killed.

Sometimes stubborn grandmas have to go sit in front of tanks if change is to happen in this real world full of real men and their real weapons.

Childish is that you believe you have to be stuck forever in the reality that presents itself to you. Direct action means saying ‘No’ to what you don’t want directly.

A refusal to engage is engagement as well.

I hate all of it and never participated. Some people seem to like it. The same people who take pictures of themselves in front of famous sights?

… And about the camps: if you are in any country backing Israel or the US you are currently supporting concentation camps. So don’t tell me radical pacifism is worse than what everybody is doing already by their non-revolt.

And as long as you keep working under capitalism it will keep existing.

Yes, I understand that sometimes the other option is to die. And the personal line I draw is that I’d rather die than be sent to war. Of course, if the real situation actually arrives my self-preservation instinct will probably kick in and I’ll end up dying anyways, just in some trench. But I do wish I had the mental fortitude to tell them to fuck off. In practice it’s unlikely to occur at all, I’m too old and a woman.

When it is very hot your body loses said electrolytes through sweating. So yes, they do.

I’m not cool with being inside any made-up lines. Fighting for any of those mental constructs perpetuates the problem, even though it might be tempting.