asjjohnson

[asjjohnson]

[asjjohnson]

(image description: five images of black capitalized text on gray background that reads: Alt Text Unavailable For This Image.)

reminder that this is the typical online experience for blind folks.

imagine if your dash, your Twitter feed, your fb looked like this. imagine if someone shared a photo with the comment "omg so cool!" and the above was all you could see. now imagine this happened hundreds of times. imagine that this was your normal experience interacting online.

add image descriptions to every image that you share. here and on every other social media platform. every time.

access is love!

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[asjjohnson]

Search for "recommended performance settings" because if it is already checked, searching for "hardware acceleration" will yield nothing.

firefox just started doing this too so remember kids if you want to stream things like netflix or hulu over discord without the video being blacked out you just have to disable hardware acceleration in your browser settings!

#(addition) #Oh so it's a matter of the video taking a different route to the screen and not necessarily a 'we hate screenshots and video sharing' thing #...reblogging both versions because the other had an addition on how to find the setting easier. #'Search for 'recommended performance settings'.' #The hardware acceleration option is a sub thing that has to go through that. So you uncheck the recommended box first.

[asjjohnson]

DC Twitter must have been INSANE when it got out that Superboy’s dads were Superman and Lex Luthor. Holy shit. The memes. The ship wars. The homophobes. The mpreg jokes. People would have lost their fucking minds. Lex Luthor releases a statement like “he’s a clone of me and Superman no birth was involved” and people are like KINDA GAY OF YOU TO HAVE A SON WITH ANOTHER MAN, LUTHOR. Lexcorp’s PR team locks themselves in a conference room and refuses to come out for love or money.

#well... it somehow seems less bad than all the things he'd done to Lois Lane. #Of course when everyone thought he was the greatest and nicest guy ever this news would not have been good for him. #But he would've spun it in a way where most people wouldn't know. Like 'Superman graciously provided his DNA for the good of man kind.' #(translation: I used Kryptonite to beat him to a pulp and harvested his blood while he was unconscious behind bars. For nefarious reasons.) #And 'Such an experimental procedure was not without its risks. #'My conscience would not allow me let anyone else undergo these scientific trials. And so I donated my own DNA for testing; #to farther science and our understanding of human biology. For the future of humanity!' #(translation: I wanted to experiment with Kryptonian DNA. Possibly by giving myself superpowers; #(but I couldn't risk it if Kryptonian and human DNA were incompatible. Plus this way I get a tool loyal to myself that shares my blood.) #...You can probably tell I'm thinking of the Lois & Clark series. I don't know anything about Superboy.

[asjjohnson]

Poll time

#Anywhere I can view the pages in order with minimum effort. #I don't have much of a preference other than that. #(there's too many webcomic authors on dA that don't provide prev and next links. It's not that hard!) #(but also if it's on a website it would be nice not to have to make an account just to be able to read one comic.) #I think the more options for where a comic can be found the better though. You get a larger audience that way.

[asjjohnson]

After my dad did talk to the guy outside for a few minutes, he comes back in and tells me, "...I probably shouldn't have been that short with him" and that he'd yelled at the guy, "Why are you haunting me?!"

[asjjohnson]

ETA: I wrote up a guide on clues that a foraging book was written by AI here!

[Original Tweet source here.]

[RANT AHEAD]

Okay, yeah. This is a very, very, very bad idea. I understand that there is a certain flavor of techbro who has ABSOLUTELY zero problem with this because "AI is the future, bro", and we're supposed to be reading their articles on how to use AI for side hustles and all that.

I get that ID apps have played into people's tendency to want quick and easy answers to everything (I'm not totally opposed to apps, but please read about how an app does not a Master Naturalist make.) But nature identification is serious stuff, ESPECIALLY when you are trying to identify whether something is safe to eat, handle, etc. You have to be absolutely, completely, 100000% sure of your ID, and then you ALSO have to absolutely verify that it is safely handled and consumed by humans.

As a foraging instructor, I cannot emphasize this enough. My classes, which are intended for a general audience, are very heavy on identification skills for this very reason. I have had (a small subsection of) students complain that I wasn't just spending 2-3 hours listing off bunches of edible plants and fungi, and honestly? They can complain all they want. I am doing MY due diligence to make very sure that the people who take my classes are prepared to go out and start identifying species and then figure out their edibility or lack thereof.

Because it isn't enough to be able to say "Oh, that's a dandelion, and I think this might be an oyster mushroom." It's also not enough to say "Well, such-and-such app says this is Queen Anne's lace and not poison hemlock." You HAVE to have incredibly keen observational skills. You HAVE to be patient enough to take thorough observations and run them through multiple forms of verification (field guides, websites, apps, other foragers/naturalists) to make sure you have a rock-solid identification. And then you ALSO have to be willing to read through multiple sources (NOT just Wikipedia) to determine whether that species is safely consumed by humans, and if so if it needs to be prepared in a particular way or if there are inedible/toxic parts that need to be removed.

AND--this phenomenon of AI-generated crapola emphasizes the fact that in addition to all of the above, you HAVE to have critical thinking skills when it comes to assessing your sources. Just because something is printed on a page doesn't mean it's true. You need to look at the quality of the information being presented. You need to look at the author's sources. You need to compare what this person is saying to other books and resources out there, and make sure there's a consensus.

You also need to look at the author themselves and make absolutely sure they are a real person. Find their website. Find their bio. Find their social media. Find any other manners in which they interact with the world, ESPECIALLY outside of the internet. Contact them. Ask questions. Don't be a jerk about it, because we're just people, but do at least make sure that a book you're interested in buying is by a real person. I guarantee you those of us who are serious about teaching this stuff and who are internet-savvy are going to make it very easy to find who we are (within reason), what we're doing, and why.

Because the OP in that Tweet is absolutely right--people are going to get seriously ill or dead if they try using AI-generated field guides. We have such a wealth of information, both on paper/pixels and in the brains of active, experienced foragers, that we can easily learn from the mistakes of people in the past who got poisoned, and avoid their fate. But it does mean that you MUST have the will and ability to be impeccably thorough in your research--and when in doubt, throw it out.

My inbox is always open. I'm easier caught via email than here, but I will answer. You can always ask me stuff about foraging, about nature identification, etc. And if there's a foraging instructor/author/etc. with a website, chances are they're also going to be more than willing to answer questions. I am happy to direct you to online groups on Facebook and elsewhere where you have a whole slew of people to compare notes with. I want people's foraging to be SAFE and FUN. And AI-generated books aren't the way to make that happen.

[asjjohnson]

Hmm...

Photobucket keeps sending me emails acting like they're really worried that my pictures will be deleted if I don't save them now. (I think I'd saved everything off the site quite some time ago, but hadn't finished writing down what dates they'd said I'd uploaded things on. ...Which isn't really necessary, but I thought it was neat to know that? Like a time capsule.)

So, they act like they're so concerned, but if I try logging in, it says my account is deactivated and I can't sign in.

But if I click to go ahead and delete the account and my pictures with it, ...after asking me to log in several times but not letting me...

it says I can have seven days to look through the account and save stuff without paying anything. ...But that I need to give them a card number up front that they won't actually use.

...Which I'm feeling like I shouldn't do (especially since all I want to do is glance at the dates and finish deleting the remaining stuff manually). Even if they keep their word about not using the card, having that info on a site I won't use ever again is a liability for me. Some of my info's already been leaked through Adobe several years back, and each company that has my information is another chance at the steal-your-money-or-identity lottery.

...Plus, Photobucket is being really weird about this. They're practically trying to force me into buying a paying account. (...yeah, they did have a pretty long courtesy period earlier, but they never said when that period would end.)

[asjjohnson]

A guide to designing wheelchair using characters!

I hope this helps anyone who's trying to design their oc using a wheelchair, it's not a complete guide but I tried my best! deffo do more research if you're writing them as a character

[asjjohnson]

(for the purposes of this poll, there is no monkey's paw situation: the chore you pick stays the same level of difficulty/grossness/etc. as it normally is for you, and you only have to do it as often as you want to. the chores you don't pick are magically done for you exactly the way you'd want them to be, just with zero effort on your part.)

#shoveling snow. I love it. :D

[asjjohnson]

As with the horse poll, please regard these options as sliders. The extent to which each one deviates from 1/6th of the total will determine the amount that canine aspect deviates from the "average."

I will draw the dog we make. :)

#yeeeah that's one of those 'thought I was adopting a stray dog but then ended up finding out it was a rat' type of situations isn't it?

[asjjohnson]

my sister got a book for christmas on how to care for tarantulas alongside the tarantula supplies (she's wanted one since she was 8, and she's 15 now) and basically it appears to have been written by an AI.

She realized quickly that the book was riddled with errors, repetitive and badly written, and after some investigation found that it was self published using a website that offers AI tools to "help" you write your book

What a disgrace.

#whatever happened to stuff like quality checks? we can't just turn AI loose to publish anything like that. #(and by 'we' I mean 'the world'. Because if I'm going to write a book I'm not touching AI even for help wording a paragraph.) #(Some fad that everyone's jumping on. 'Oooh AI that term's so fancy and futuristic and cool like in movies.' It's not even real AI.)

[asjjohnson]

I rewatched both shows at the same time, of course this was gonna happen

 (i know Ed’s leg is in the opposite side shh)

[asjjohnson]

obsessed with mass market paperbacks. their pleasing rectangular proportions. how they fit badly in a hoodie pocket so you can drag them around everywhere with you like a temporary little buddy. the way they fit in your hand because they're MADE for human hands and not as bookshelf decoration. the way the pages feel when you riffle them gently with your thumb. How pristine and crisp they look when you get them and how creased and folded they look when you're done, even if you try to be nice to them. how that wear is okay, how that's correct actually, because they're made with the philosophy that books aren't meant to be PRETTY, they're meant to be read. that little ripple new ones get on the left side from where you hold them when you're reading, the way the ripple only goes as far as you've read, because u change stories by reading as they are changing you. how you can find thousands of these creased and folded and loved little dudes in every thrift store and used book shop and neighborhood library and you can instantly see the ones that someone carried around in a backpack for weeks or read to pieces or gave up on halfway through because they wear being read like fresh snow wears footprints. I love these poorly made, subpar little rectangles so much. truly the people's books.

#oh. that sounds kinda nice when you put it like that. #I always want to keep new books looking brand new. Anything to preserve them and not leave a mark. #Tho some of this reminds me of my Kindle. It fits in a pocket. And the cheap case I bought for it is all scratched up now after a few years

[asjjohnson]

#aww :)

[asjjohnson]

(Long post, sorry y'all)

A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.

In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.

She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.

Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.

After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:

DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.

Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!

So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.

Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.

At the end of August, the blanket was done!

I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)

She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it. 

She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.

And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.

Five stars, absolutely worth it!

(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)

[asjjohnson]

YOOOOOO