Something I haven't really seen mentioned and I think people may want to bear in mind is that while artists are the most heavily impacted by AI visual medium scraping, it's not like the machine knows or cares to differentiate between original art and a photograph of your child.
AI visual media scrapers take everything, and that includes screengrabs, photographs, and memes. Selfies, pictures of your pets and children, pictures of your home, screengrabs of images posted to other sites -- all of the comic book imagery I've posted that I screengrabbed from digital comics, images of tweets (including the icons of peoples' faces in those tweets) and instas and screengrabs from tiktoks. I've posted x-ray images of my teeth. All of that will go into the machine.
That's why, at least I think, Midjourney wants Tumblr -- after Instagram we are potentially the most image-heavy social media site, and like Instagram we tag our content, which is metadata that the scraper can use.
So even if you aren't an artist, unless you want to Glaze every image of any kind that you post, you probably want to opt out of being scraped. I'm gonna go ahead and say we've probably already been scraped anyway, so I don't think there's a ton of point in taking down your tumblr or locking down specific images, but I mean...especially if it's stuff like pictures of children or say, a fundraising photo that involves your medical data, it maybe can't hurt.
If you do want to officially opt out, which may help if there's a class-action lawsuit later, you're going to want to go to the gear in the upper-right corner on the Tumblr desktop site, select each of your blogs from the list on the right-hand side, and scroll down to "Visibility". Select "Prevent third party sharing for [username]" to flip that bad boy on.
(If someone wants to post a link in notes to instructions for doing it on the app, I haven't updated mine so the option doesn't appear and I don't know where to find it.)
Using a python script I wrote, I booped myself 50,000 times, saving an image of my boop-o-meter every 500 boops. Before we get into the results, there are two important limitations to this study that I should mention:
Firstly, because I only recorded the boop-o-meter every 500 boops, if a message appeared for less than 500 boops it may not have been caught.
Secondly, every now and then my computer would lose a boop or two when a click wouldn't register. This is seen in the 500 and 1000 boop images below, which in reality read 498 and 994 respectively. Because of this, boop values are slightly lower than they appear.
With that out of the way, lets dig in.
From boops 0-999, the boop-o-meter displays your boop count, and changes color as you boop
Boop count: 0 Boop count: 500 Boop count: 1000
Boop fact: the colors do not change after 1000
Between boops 1000 and 1500, the boop-o-meter changed to display 'LOL'. This likely took place at 1000 boops, but maybe it said 'MAX' or sumn for awhile at first? Idk this is already the misinformation website so not my problem.
Boop count: 1500 (actually more like 1490 ish)
More results below the cut
Between 1500 and 2000, the boop-o-meter changed to display 'OMG'. Again, this probably happened at 1500 but who knows. Maybe staff made it 1523 for the bit or something.
Boop count: ~2000
The boop-o-meter remained at omg until the 3500 boop readpoint, when it switched to 'WOW', meaning this transition happens somewhere between ~2980 and ~3480.
Boop count: ~3500
Boop fact: 'WOW' is the second longest reigning message
Between 5000 and 5500 the boop-o-meter switched to '*-*'. You get the idea at this point so I'll speed it up.
Boop count: ~5500
The boop-o-meter changed to 'WHY' between 6000 and 6500 boops. For science. That's why.
Boop count: ~6500
Next was 'PLZ', switching between 7000 and 7500.
Boop count: ~7500
I'm not sure what bloody urine has to do with anything, but for some reason staff felt is was important to display, switching between 7500 and 8000.
Boop count: ~8000
Huh the colon makes that one look weird. 8000-8500.
Boop count: ~8500
Boop fact: That fucking cat haunts me in my dreams
I realized after I set my pyautogui script running that my computer wouldn't turn off its screen because of the clicking, so there was a strobing blue light in my room all night. This encapsulated my expression while trying to sleep (8500-9000).
Boop count: ~9000
After 9000 it displayed 'MAX'. This was cap. (9000-9500 switch).
Boop count: OVER 9000 (9500)
I miss my wife. 9500-10,000.
Boop count ~10,000
THE HOLY GRAIL. The boop-o-meter switched to displaying 'TUM BLR' between 10,000 and 10,500 boops. Because my actual boop count was slightly behind my theoretical, I'd guess that this change happened at 10,000 boops.
Boop count: ~10,500 (likely switched at 10,000)
When charted the boop curve looks as follows:
Boop curve: 0 - 10,000 boops
My script continued to run until 53,000 boops, but no further changes were observed. Again, there were quite possibly more messages at lower boop values, but my ass is not checking. Maybe I should have scaled my sampling accordingly, but it is what it is. Thank you for joining me on this journey, and if you have any corrections or more information, please add it to this post.
Boop fact: Terfs DNI
Ok, I've seen this sentiment before, but the amount of Kindle Unlimited ads I've been seeing is forcing me to repeat it-
Kindle Unlimited is offering two free months of unlimited ebooks. As a trial. Which will then become a paid subscription.
Your local library is offering unlimited ebooks all the time. Forever. No contracts, no predatory practices, no tracking of how long you spend on each particular page in the hopes that information about your habits can be sold for a profit.
Use your library. They want so badly to give you all of the things for free.
Literally red handed
HELP
So, I really love the selection of Tim Walz for VP and it’s taken me a moment to articulate why. I mean, obviously, Dem bonafides, he’s sharp, he’s funny, etc etc. But everyone in the Veepstakes fits that bill, Harris was spoiled for good choices.
But Walz offers something that the other men in contention don’t that I think will be incredibly useful in combating Trumpism.
He offers an example and an off ramp to the section of men who felt like they were Republicans by default, and so support Trump by default. There are a lot of Trump voters who are full on obsessive, but that’s not who we’re talking to. We’re talking to folks who grew up in Republican areas, or felt their hobbies didn’t line up with who a Democrat was, or didn’t feel represented by their image of a Democrat. You want to see it so you can be it, you know? Which is why Harris is so inspirational to a lot of segments of folks, but Walz is too.
He served in the military. He went to a state college. He’s your favorite teacher from your public high school. He’s your football coach who actually cared if you were passing your math class. He’s the guy you looked up to at school when your family sucked but this guy cared, and he helped you get out and make something of yourself.
He’s the neighbor who helps you jump your car. He’s your uncle who takes you hunting. He’s your Dad who loves teasing you at the Stare Fair. He’s you when he makes a mistake like his DUI and takes responsibility for it, and when he has the chance makes sure other can come back from similar mistakes. He’s you when you and your wife want so badly to be parents and IVF gives you the family you wanted. He’s you when he says ‘it had to be me’ and used his standing and power to protect vulnerable kids sponsoring the GSA at his school.
He gives the real life example to these men that they can be that football, fishing, hunting family man who wants to provide for his family, be that powerful, respected member of the community and use that power to feed kids in school. That it’s normal to enthusiastically work for a boss like Harris. That yeah those other guys are fucking weirdos, and you’re not a weirdo, are you?
That there’s a place in the Democratic Party for them. That they don’t have to default to being fucking weird.
I hope those guys see this example of masculinity and go… yeah, that’s me. That’s who I’m gonna be.
The dream
stuck in the time loop but i just use it as a free day off. im not even trying to get out. i am teaching myself to knit. i am crocheting. i am cooking. not even doing anything crazy. just escaping capitalism for a week. day 375 and im not sure what lesson it's trying to teach but i've taught myself to hand make lace so all is well
for pride month 2024 we're gonna nuke 10 of your mutuals' blogs and 9 of them are run by transfems 😍
(image from @purelightning7)
Are you looking for a chill server to discuss our favorite ginger Jedi? Are you wanting to look at @flammabel's wet Cal pictures or @sihirbazi's CalBode art? Are you wanting to just enjoy Cal and all his ships like Merrical, CalBode/SpyScrapper, Kesett, and CalTrilla? Do you want a place to share art or fics and not worry about engagement notes?
Look no further than the Cult of Kestis, an 18+ server talking all things Cal! With the mod team enforcing a very chill environment, find an oasis in the storm of the greater Star Wars fandoms, and relax with friends while thirsting over Cal.
Link to join is in the name.