I have decided that my baseball walk up music will be “Dr. Worm” by They Might Be Giants. What is yours?
Meredith Guthrie
@meredithea.bsky.social
Transplanted Texan. Media scholar at Pitt. Co-chair of Disability Studies and Disney Studies at MAPACA. Loves baseball, movies with explosions, and being contrary. She/her.
This is the first statement that’s actually made me want to seek out this show quickly rather than maybe watch it sometime, maybe.
Daniel Fienberg @thefienprint.bsky.social · 3d agoHBO's "Lanterns" is only a so-so superhero show, but it's the best season of "Reacher" ever, which is bad luck for the actual season of "Reacher" premiering this week. Trust me, it makes sense. Anyway, Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre and Kelly Macdonald are all great. My review:
Yuuuup. Understanding how LLMs and generative "AI" work is not some sort of secret knowledge, nor at its heart an unenduringly complex topic, and it turns out writers, who generally how to do research, are in a good position to get a bead on them.
Lauren Thoman@laurenthomanwrites.com · 2d agoI’m so tired of genAI apologists telling me I only hate it because I don’t understand it. I hate it *because* I understand it, you absolute toenail.
THIS IS WHY WE DON'T LISTEN TO THE CENTRISTS. Alt text version:
![Image: poll results for 4 questions about Black civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s US. Results of each question are shown on a bar with pro-Black responses in blue, anti-Black responses in red, and neutral responses in gray.
First section is titled "Freedom Riders, sit-ins (May 1961)" with two questions.
Q1: Do you approve or disapprove of what the "Freedom Riders" are doing? Results: 22% approve, 61% disapprove, 18% no opinion.
Q2: Do you think "sit-ins" at lunch counters, "freedom buses" and other demonstrations by Negroes will hurt or help the Negro's chances of being integrated in the South? Results: 28% help, 57% hurt, 16% no opinion.
Second section is titled "March on Washington (August 1963)" with one question.
Q: What are your feelings about this [proposed mass civil rights rally]? Results: 23% favorable, 60% unfavorable, 17% no opinion/undecided.
Third section is titled "Whites on 'demonstrations by Negroes' (October 1966)".
Q: All in all, do you feel the demonstrations by Negroes on civil rights have helped more or hurt more in the advancement of Negro rights? Results: 15% helps, 85% hurts.
At the bottom of the image are the following notes:
Note: White respondents only. Source: Conducted by Louis Harris & Associates during October 1966, and based on personal interviews with a national adult sample of 1,250. Sample size is approximate. As reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Data provided by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Image is labeled "The Washington Post".](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4vhxkgaipd5kkbv72tgkuy6o/bafkreicynardqumuanpag2rbdibhpmityycwwejcbyasgrhtetd3a4ywdi)
Olivia Hill@machineiv.bsky.social · last yr.Remember this image every time someone tells you that protesters are "hurting their cause." Those people are the red bars. In 40 years, we'll look back at them the same way.
I’m not diagnosed, but definitely peer reviewed.
I’m excited/worried about this show. I hope it lets go of the grimdark (my least favorite TV mode). My touch point with the Lanterns is from the 90s, sooooo. Lots of Guy Gardiner 😆
Kathryn VanArendonk@kvanaren.bsky.social · 3d agoi like some versions of lanterns very very much, and i dislike other versions of lanterns, and my primary lanterns issue is that both of those versions seem to be yanking the show back and forth between them www.vulture.com/article/lant...
When I worked in the City Planning dept, I met Lisa when she was trying to schedule a meeting with my boss and I talked to her a few times with requests that came through our help line. She was a great resource and ambassador.
TribLIVE@triblive.bsky.social · 2d agoShe speaks for the trees! Lisa Ceoffe, Pittsburgh's chief forester, is making strides in urban forestry, ensuring every inch of foliage lost to the NFL Draft is replaced. https://triblive.com/local/she-speaks-for-the-trees-meet-lisa-ceoffe-pittsburghs-chief-forester/
Whine incoming: Last Tuesday (Aug 4), the gas co found a gas leak when they were trying to install a new meter. They turned off my gas. I have had plumbers in almost every day since then digging up my yard for the new gas line. My dog barks the ENTIRE TIME they are here. It's been utter chaos. 1/4
Morning! Here’s today’s air quality forecast for Allegheny County: 
welcome to the field of dreams, an homage to a movie revolving around men banned for life from baseball for gambling. brought to you by fanduel
lauren@lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 3d agoonly now realizing the field of dreams game happened and this is all so unbelievably stupid
This is an excellent primer on the show Reacher, and reminds me that I should watch more of it.
Micah@rincewind.run · 4d agoQ. Does Reacher believe in due process? A. As an angry and enormous justice hobo, Reacher believes that evil needs to be punched repeatedly in the face until it goes away. It is very cathartic, but not necessarily the sort of thing that fits within the American justice system.
The plumbers dug more in the yard (they said they were done digging on Saturday, but I’m sure had reasons). Now they’ve left. When will they return? No idea! I’d like to take a warm shower someday, though!
Meredith Guthrie@meredithea.bsky.social · 5d agoWe are on Hour Four of the dog barking constantly at the plumbers. Please send sanity (earlier this summer he barked for 7 hours and made himself hoarse. This dog has no quit in him.)
I forgot to update this, but: for the 1st time, I had a spot that turned out to be skin cancer. I’m having it removed later this month. I might end up with half an eyebrow, but that’s better than cancer, soooo. (I might ask for help figuring out eyebrow pencils?)
Meredith Guthrie@meredithea.bsky.social · last mo.At the dermatologist for my annual mole check. Fellow polka dotted folks: don’t forget to schedule this! I’ve had several pre-cancerous moles removed, but luckily they were all firmly in the “pre” category!
I'm regularly disappointed by people whose work I've admired in the past linking up with unrepentant abusers & bigots. Happens a lot. Doesn't mean we just accept it. What we *can* do is not give ground on transphobic bigotry. This guy seems to get a lot of work and also he is not down with that:
Just clarifying, though this is not difficult to grasp: Anyone working on an industry project with a notorious transphobic bigot is OK with transphobic bigotry. The end.
We are on Hour Four of the dog barking constantly at the plumbers. Please send sanity (earlier this summer he barked for 7 hours and made himself hoarse. This dog has no quit in him.)
I say this will all seriousness. How very dare he? (I bet he’s a Three Stooges guy. You either like the Marx Bros or the Stooges.)
Gail Simone@gailsimone.bsky.social · 5d agoI was mostly okay with William Shatner until he said the Marx Brothers weren't funny on Spade and Carvey's FLY ON THE WALL podcast. The Marx Brothers are still goddamn funnier DEAD than most comedians fully alive.
I'm going to keep saying this until it's rote practice: If you are in official connection with let alone in charge of an archive of data, if is your professional & moral responsibility to secure that archive, as a backup or otherwise, against just such an emergency, so we're not Hoping some kid did.
Michael Clemens@mclem.org · 5d agoIncredible. When E—n M—k & his crew obliterated USAID in a weekend, they deleted a vast trove of publicly-funded knowledge: the Development Experience Clearinghouse. A Canadian high school student (!) happened to have downloaded the entire thing for a project. AidData has now posted it for all.
I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
Morning! Here is today’s air quality forecast for Allegheny County: 
The plumbers are here today (gas co discovered a leak. Gas has been turned off for over a week. Weather has been too bad for outdoor work.), so now we get to hear Rufus bark for the next several hours. Please enjoy the doilies I’ve been stress crocheting 😬
When I started taking Adderal in my 40s, I didn’t notice an immediate difference. It was only in retrospect, months later, when I realized that for the first time since my teens I was not right on the edge of burnout.
Bree (half of Kit Rocha)@mostlybree.kitrocha.com · last wk.we all interact with ADHD & meds differently, but I have cycled up to 54mg of concerta & I can't feel a single difference in my brain when I take it. I only know because when I look back at my day, I was chiller and could do the things I wanted to do in a way I never have experienced before, ever.
Libraries make us a harder target for authoritarianism. Equal access to info, ideas, and space that doesn’t require a purchase to belong. Also: using the library means money stays in your community instead of streaming out to Amazon. 📚 What’s checked out on your card right now?
So Private Relay is leaking IP addresses and Hide My Email is also revealing the hidden address. Apple is dropping balls all over the place.
404 Media@404media.co · last wk.“We have already informed them. They said the issue was ‘dire,’ but they let us disclose the issue. They didn't provide any time when they will address this." www.404media.co/apples-priva...
For those who want a step by step guide to yeeting the Discover tab into oblivion, never to be seen again:
Alex de Campi@alexdecampi.bsky.social · last wk.I am about to change your life. Go to Feeds. Unpin the Discovery tab. It vanishes, never to bother you again.
Sometimes the little kids that live next door come over to visit our dog, Rufus. They bark at Rufus and Rufus barks at them and they all have a great time.
