Seasons of Fandom landcomm promotion
Jul. 19th, 2025 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Round 1 of
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
There are 4 teams and Summer and Spring could do with a few more members!
Please check it out, and if you join tell them I sent you :)
Some no pressure pre-round challenges are already posted but the community and challenges open fully in September.
sign up post
AI and Censorship are twin dangers to privacy and freedom of expression
Jul. 19th, 2025 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Why don't I just trust governments and censorship in the name of safetyism and AI and digital everything?
For a whole host of reasons and this is just another example from the corporate world from a site I'm not obligated to use unlike other services.
This image was one I had pinned to a Pinterest board, inspiration for a fantasy romance I was writing some years ago. I got an email about it. (As I mentioned before I'm not adding anything to Pinterest now and downloaded what I wanted to keep to back up elsewhere. Though any cloud service could start spying on and deleting your "bad" content.)
This image was deactivated why?
"This Pin violates our Community Guidelines on adult content because it contains sexual exploitation"
Not only are we controlling, censoring, and sanitising in ways that are stifling free speech and creativity, we're letting computers do it with no capability for nuance or context.
Can we go back to the days of "Terminator" when we were worried about AI instead of "it write email for me".
And now I'm having issues because I don't want to give Reddit a copy of my photographic ID or let their dodgy third party verifier take and store a selfie of me. Remember as one Reddit user pointed out "Face ID seems convenient and secure, but here's the catch: your face is public. Unlike a PIN code or password, your face is always visible and can't be changed."
I'll take the "bad old wild west days" of the internet over the current control-freakery.
Friday Five: Ick Edition
Jul. 13th, 2025 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
- What was the most sick that you've ever been?
It would either be the time I had strep not long after having my Oldest kid, in which case I remember wondering if I might be dying as I couldn't leave the bed and had fever hallucinations, or when I contracted chicken pox as an adult in my late 20s because (surprise!) chicken pox vaccinations were not yet vogue when I was a little kid and I'd never been exposed (because maybe exposing your kid young was still vogue, but we moved around a lot and I was an awkward kid with few friends?). Anyway, if you have ever been covered head to toe in blisters (literally, I can remember crying while trying to find a way to lay my head on a pillow comfortably) while your vaccinated children run around in wildly energetic circles with only a tiny bump or two on their arm from the same illness, you will understand that chicken pox is not benign and actually VACCINES ARE GOOD.
- What disease are you afraid of getting?
This has changed over time. Currently I think it's Alzheimer's. I live in my head a lot, and if my head becomes not my head, well then, who am I, exactly?
- Are you a big baby when it comes to taking medicine/shots for your illnesses?
LOL, not at all. I give myself 5 shots a month to treat migraines and asthma/allergies. I used to be afraid of it, growing up with a Type 1 diabetic mother who gave herself shots all the time (when auto-injectors and retractable needles were not a thing). But that fear was also probably combined with watching a lot of weird daytime soaps/movies in the 80s in which someone was inevitably killed from an intravenous air bubble introduced by their jealous lover/son/etc. Young me understood that my mom needed the shot to live but also frequently worried if she might accidentally give herself a heart attack.
- Is going to the doctor really THAT bad?
Only when they make notes about your dysphoric mood (*grumble grumble*).
- Would you have the flu twice a month if you were paid $1,000 for having it?
Nope, nada, nopeapotamus. There's a reason we toast to our health!
July 2025 update
Jul. 12th, 2025 07:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I did try and read some entries this week but it's so hot that I'm barely catching up.
I've edited and posted some fic to AO3 but not much else lately.
Have a photo edit of two pics I took this week. We have a pair of juvenile robins regularly feeding and bathing in the garden! They have golden speckles at present with one starting to get the red breast feathers. Plus a picture of one of the adult robins who visits along with the blackbirds, sparrows, and bluetits.
I don't have pics but we've also got hawks, neighbour who did get photos thinks peregrine falcons. They shriek and call and can sometimes be glimpsed wheeling across the sky.

