Yeah, That Looks Like My Year, Too.

I love octopodes, and this one is particularly stunning!

Entranced by this larger Pacific striped octopus? Us too. “Rediscovered” by our own Rich Ross & UC Berkeley’s Roy Caldwell in 2013 (which validated another scientist’s 22-year-old findings), its unusually social behaviors—including beak-to-beak mating—"fly in the face of nearly everything we know about cephalopods.“ Learn more: calacade.my/1N6WbRt. 📽️ by biologist Tim Wong

I want the books, but I also love that little dragon!

Asexuals In Fiction 4.0

It’s the fourth year I’ve put together this list and it’s so huge I can no longer host in on tumblr. Click over to google database and you will find 51 YA novels, 14 New Adult novels, and 22 Adult novels. As well three video game characters and five comic books characters.

Not only will this database tell you if there’s an asexual it also includes the following: Series name, character name, own voice authors, type of rep, genre, main character or minor, and if it includes other representation of some sort.

My most popular tweet right now is about welcoming intersex, nb, and ace/aro people into pride. Let’s get it going on here, too.

REBLOG IF YOU FEEL THAT INTERSEX, NB, AND ACE/ARO PEOPLE SHOULD BE WELCOMED AT PRIDE, BELONG AT PRIDE, ETC

I know so many people for whom this is appropriate, but the first one I thought of is @ladypoetess.  Hugs to all of my spoonie friends!  (Is this how you really play “Knifey Spoonie”?)

I’ll have to remember this!

SMALL TALK TIP FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE SMALL TALK: Ask people if they have any pets. This is light and impersonal enough to offend no one. People who have pets are usually pretty excited to talk about them and show off pictures, so there’s a good chance that you will be looking at kitties and doggos. People who don’t have pets will usually talk about the pets they wish they had, or have had in the past. People who neither have nor want pets are pretty rare.

I think most of the people following me know me well enough to know that I’d be fine with questions, but I’ll reblog just in case.

I feel like a lot of people don’t want to ask questions they have about gender/sexuality to LGBT people because they don’t want to offend them because we talk about cishet people asking stupid or intrusive questions a lot

But actually when you’re questioning it’s really helpful to be able to ask some ‘stupid’ questions although you’re too afraid to

So can y'all LGBTQIA+ people reblog this if you’re totally fine with people asking questions about your gender/sexuality, as long as they do so respectfully

This is one of many reasons why it is very useful to be friends with someone who is a little more extroverted or has less social anxiety than you.  If that isn’t an option, many places now allow online ordering so you have less human interaction!

wait… if you have social anxiety… and i have social anxiety…

then who’s going to order the food?

[swoon] 

Moomin pride icons!!! Show your pride this month with tove jansson’s beloved Moomins!

Free to use with credit! 🏳️‍🌈

Well, that's massively creepy! My library (and our OverDrive consortium) don't have any eAudiobooks with "synthesized voice" narrators. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have AI narrators that aren't identified that way. We do have books by Blake Pierce, Molly Black, Fiona Grace, Rylie Dark, and some of the other authors listed in the article though.

Our Collection Development Policy doesn't specifically mention AI; we'll have to keep that in mind for the next review. I would recommend against purchasing AI-generated materials based on our criteria of artistic and literary quality, and reputation of the author, artist, or publisher. (Not to mention the damage that it does to the literary industry and the people in it!) However, that depends on us knowing that something is AI-generated. We don't have the time to do a deep dive into every author and narrator like Robin Bradford and SB Sarah did for this article.

Personally, I'm disgusted by AI-generated material being used in place of human-created works. Machine "learning" should be taking over repetitive, boring, and/or dangerous work to give humans more time for creativity! Using AI for creative work and leaving people to do more drudgery, is sickening. The fact that most of the bases that AIs are using come from people who are neither credited nor compensated for their work just makes it worse.

(This is my personal opinion and not the opinion of my employer.)

Is your library unknowingly buying AI written and/or narrated books?

OK, I know it sounds like clickbait. But smartbitchestrashybooks.com makes a pretty compelling case in their recent article,

AI Audiobook Narrators in OverDrive and the Issue of Library AI Circulation Policy

It's a long article, but worth the read. I wonder if it started before or after KKR bought Overdrive.

Any thoughts, @bibliofran ?

I'm having a pretty good day, but I can definitely relate to this poem.  It's one of my favorites, and it works very well with yesterday's poem. My daily posting for National Poetry Month continues with a total stranger one black day by e. e. cummings.