One of the hundreds of laws adopted by Texas recently [invent]s a…felony…[for merely looking at any nude picture of a fictional character] that appears to [any Texas politician to] be…younger than 18 years of age…[within the fictional universe inhabited by the characters, despite all Japanese animation characters looking like that. Politicians justified the prohibitionist onset by barfing out the marketing term “]artificial intelligence[“, yet clearly states that the law applies to]…“a cartoon or animation[“. Comics book store owners]…have…already pulled some volumes of…popular Japanese comic[s]…due to concerns [of being targeted by violent censors]…
…[Facebook has repeatedly claimed that] child safety [is] a top priority across its platforms. But…researcher[s working for the company]…said…[it routinely] suppressed research that might have illuminated potential safety risks to children and teens on the company’s virtual reality devices and apps…[on orders from] its legal team…[which] seek[s] to “establish plausible deniability” about negative effects of the company’s products…[even though] children younger than 13 [routinely] bypass…age restrictions to use the company’s virtual reality services…In Zuckerberg’s [deranged] vision, people will maneuver in and out of virtual and physical spaces for work, entertainment and socializing…But earnings reports show that Reality Labs, the company’s virtual reality division, has lost more than $60 billion over the past five years…In 2021, a…child sex offender in Michigan…was sentenced to 35 years in prison [for trying to lure children via the so-called “Metaverse”, and] in 2022, a…man [molested] a 13-year-old girl [after abducting her]…in Utah after they, too, met and interacted…the [same way]…
[A chatbot in a] pendant is now…[available] for $129…[“Friend”] connects…through [an] iPhone…to a chatbot in [someone else’s computer] that’s powered by Google’s Gemini…You can tap on the disc to ask [the chatbot] questions…and it responds…by sending…text messages through the companion app…It also listens to whatever you’re doing…and offers a running commentary on the interactions [with non-consenting strangers] you have…[via] microphones that are always activated…wearing the [“]Friend[“] will likely earn you the ire of everyone around you…[especially because it] is the creation of Avi Schiffmann…a creepy…man in his early twenties…[who] can be brash, snarky, and vocally unconcerned about critical feedback, and…that attitude has carried over to the device he has infused with his essence…[which] comes off as opinionated, judgy, and downright condescending…
…ICE…recently spent nearly four million dollars on facial recognition technology…to [find] people it [pretend]s have assaulted [its goons]…Clearview has…repeatedly contracted with ICE…but those purchases did not explicitly say the technology would be used to identify people the agency [wished to target with spurious claims of “]assaulting officers[“]…
A[n Alabama screw] is under arrest for sending [dick pics] and [porn] videos to [underage girls] through Snapchat…Christopher Thomason…sent…more than 100 [dick pics] of him [wearing his magical clown costume] to at least three underage [girls, one]…of [whom was]…12…He [also] tried to meet up with a girl at a high school football game…his boss h[og used the opportunity to strut around bloviating self-aggrandizing copaganda]…
Aussies [who don’t use VPNs] will soon be required to [ask Nanny permission to access any part of the internet any politician chooses to point at while barfing “]pornography[“, “]violence[“]…[“]inappropriate[“, or whatever other magic words they choose to add later]…Companies [can be targeted by politicians for looting using] the new laws [as an excuse]…Similar rules will be imposed on apps…includ[ing]…chatbots…[the] government…last year [declared that it didn’t give a shit]…about breaches of privacy…
After blocking its service in Mississippi over its new [beg-for-permission-to-use-the-internet] law, [Bluesky] is taking a different approach to comply with [surveillance] laws in South Dakota and Wyoming…users [without VPNs] in South Dakota and Wyoming can [submit to surveillance]…through…Kids Web Services’ (KWS)…the same [data-selling company it uses] to comply with the U.K.’s [misnamed] Online Safety Act…[which in actuality puts] users at increased risk of identity theft…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
It’s a good thing I don’t get emotionally attached to poultry, because we haven’t had a good year for them. I’m guessing it’s bird flu; we lost one of the red hens in July, then the turkey on the 1st, then one of the young white hens on the 10th. They always go the same way: they’re extremely sluggish and keeping to themselves one day, then the next day I find them dead, away from the others and facing into a corner. I am guessing the behavior is an instinctive one, designed by evolution to keep the disease from spreading to other members of the flock. Once I discover the dead bird, I put on gloves and remove it immediately. I am guessing they’re getting it from wild birds that land in the coop; I recently found a dead Steller’s jay not far from there. So far it looks like isolated cases of infection rather than a full-blown poultry epidemic, but I’m keeping my eyes on them, and I sincerely hope we’ve seen the last of it because I really don’t want to have to deal with figuring out how to vaccinate them when the vaccine isn’t readily available in the US.
White supremacists are now trying to create panic among other bigots by claiming that the “white” race (by which they mean fair-skinned Caucasians) is vanishing. Actually, what’s happening is that, since the most-developed countries are largely inhabited by Europeans and their descendants, their birth rates are most subject to the birth rate decrease which is typical of highly-developed societies, and thus the number of “whites” is slowly decreasing in relation to other genetic groups who inhabit portions of the globe where the birth rate is not decreasing as quickly. But the mathematical, biological, historical, and sociological ignorance in which this manufactured hysteria is rooted isn’t as bad as its philosophical imbecility.
As I’ve previously pointed out, a species is merely a temporary configuration of genes “as permanent as a sand dune, albeit on a much longer time scale“. And because they are not reproductively isolated from each other like species, human races are even less permanent; they are like clouds drifting across the sky, shifting in shape and conformation, growing or shrinking or merging or splitting, and humans only imagine them as fixed structures because we’re so short-lived. Imagine a civilization of sand flies, each of whom lives only one day, panicking because their home dune is discovered to be getting smaller, while another nearby dune inhabited by slightly darker-colored flies is growing. That’s what this kind of race panic sounds like to me. Humans are a swarm of self-important flies having a collective conniption because they’ve learned that the manure heap they live in will, in the fullness of time, eventually rot away, and are trying to develop schemes to cement it into place and exterminate the cows who keep dropping new ones elsewhere.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
…one specimen of widely available spyware has turned [w]hat [used to be a scam] into a…[serious crime by] detecting when the user is browsing pornography…screenshotting it, and taking a candid photo of the victim through their webcam…an open-source variant of “infostealer” malware known as Stealerium…like all infostealers, is designed to infect a target’s computer and automatically send a hacker a wide variety of stolen sensitive data, including banking information, usernames and passwords, and keys to victims’ crypto wallets. Stealerium, however…also monitors the victim’s browser for web addresses that include certain NSFW keywords, screenshots browser tabs that include those words, photographs the victim via their webcam while they’re watching those porn pages, and sends all the images to a hacker—who can then blackmail the victim…cybercriminals attempt…to trick users into downloading and installing Stealerium as an attachment or a web link, luring victims with typical bait like a fake payment or invoice…
…Axon[‘s]…Draft One…[is a program] that [is supposed to] turn [cop] body camera footage and audio into intelligible police reports…civil rights advocacy groups like the [EFF] and ACLU…[have pointed out that LLM’s] tendency to insert inaccuracies into texts—including wholesale inventions known by technologists as “hallucinations”…[make such systems unreliable and dangerous]. Axon [claims] its…safeguards…[are] designed to ensure [cop]…actually read…the…reports rather than rubber-stamping them. But records obtained by Mother Jones through [FOI] laws almost uniformly show [cop shops] that use the software turn…such features off….[to] reduce…or eliminate…human oversight…reports generated by the…tool…have [certainly] been used in plea deals…essentially [telling] lie[s]…to the court that can’t be easily revealed…
The death of a Massachusetts man this summer outside a fish market was attributed [in part] to…police…The July 11 death of Francis Gigliotti was deemed…a…homicide [by]…the medical examiner…[but] District Attorney Paul F. Tucker…is…[trying to justify the cops’] actions [anyhow]…Seven [cops]…were [rewarded with paid vacations for the murder of a man who]…was [intentionally] restrained…face down…[even though the DoJ]…has warned [cops] for decades to roll [prisoners] off their stomachs as soon as they are handcuffed because of the danger of positional asphyxia…
…the Federal Trade Commission…is proposing that Aylo, [owner of] Pornhub and other popular porn…platforms, be ordered to pay the state of Utah $5 million…[due to supposedly] violating…Utah’s Consumer Sales Practices Act by failing to stop Pornhub users from uploading [porn] the [state has demonized]…In its complaint, the FTC spends a lot of space listing Pornhub tags and titles such as “helpless teens,” “internet creeper,” “shower spy cameras,” and “shamed sluts”…No one let FTC workers visit the Netflix homepage. We’ll soon have an investigation into how Netflix is promoting murder and corporate espionage and witchcraft…Porn, like other types of entertainment media, often relies on fictional characters and scenarios…some of the content users uploaded to Pornhub may have actually been illegal…[but] Pornhub…tightened up its content rules…in 2020…And most of the things that the FTC objects to are policies [from] before 2020…[also,] distributing child pornography is a crime. If a web platform is knowingly distributing child pornography, the proper recourse is for the Department of Justice to bring a criminal case…
[A] Texas [cop named] Micah Smyth [was turned in by his wife for inflicting multiple injuries on their small child. Smyth]…claimed to have accidentally dropped the child while a[bus]ing his other child in the bathroom…the…injuries [were so severe] the child [had to be] taken to [specialists at a] Children’s Hospital in Lubbock…who…found…a fractured skull with a brain bleed, bruises on his back and a healing rib fracture…that [could not be] solely based on an accidental drop…Smyth…was arrested and charged with…child [abuse both] in this case…[and] an additional…charge from 2022 [which his cop buddies previously ignored, thus allowing three more years of abuse]…
A [typical and representative] Milwaukee [cop] is heading to prison…[for] abus[ing] his infant daughter…Martinese McDaniel…[was left with the child by his] girlfriend[, who] came home one day in January 2023 to find the…two-month old…wasn’t breathing and McDaniel…[shaking] her…in a panic. A pediatrician diagnosed the infant with brain bleeding, hemorrhaging, rib fractures, bruises and other injuries consistent with abuse. McDaniel gave investigators surveillance video of his home…with one hour of the video [conveniently] missing during the time that his daughter stopped breathing…
[The full extent of last year’s massive]…attack by [the Chinese government’s] Salt Typhoon [hacking team] is [finally becoming clear]…It targeted more than 80 countries and may have stolen information from nearly every American…[by] exploit[ing vulnerabilities intentionally inserted into] global communication networks [to allow cops easy wiretap access]…British and American officials have described the attack as “unrestrained” and “indiscriminate.” Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain were also signatories to the statement, which was part of a [childish “We see you!” strategy] directed at the Chinese government…The…hack…highlights China’s ambitions for global [domina]nce, which were [recently] on display…at an elaborate military parade in Beijing that featured fighter jets, tanks and thousands of troops marching across Tiananmen Square…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
I see a lot of antis using former sex workers to argue against sex work; while I sympathize with those whose experience in sex work was negative, radfems can turn anyone who disagrees with them into a monster. What’s the best rebuttal to radfems weaponizing a former worker’s trauma?
Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult for an ethical person to respond to unethical attacks. When prohibitionists exploit damaged, confused people to attack others, it’s very much like terrorists strapping explosives to a child and sending them into a target building or vehicle; the only way for the intended victim to save themselves is to shoot the child before they close the distance, which obviously any normal person would be hesitant to do. In the case of ex-sexworkers exploited in this way, it’s virtually impossible to engage directly, but one needn’t do so for the same reason one needn’t engage other prohibitionists directly. Though the temptation to argue with people who hate us and wish our whole way of life destroyed is strong, it is invariably counterproductive; one cannot reason any person out of a position she did not reason herself into, so the only thing accomplished by debating these people is to bestow undeserved credibility on them in the eyes of observers. When a scientist debates a flat-earther or creationist or some other crackpot, non-scientists in the audience believe that means those viewpoints are worthy of such debate, when in reality they are just silly beliefs for silly people who lack the power of critical thought. And when sex workers “debate” prohibitionists, it looks to outsiders as though the prohibitionists have fair arguments supported by facts even though they do not. The best approach is therefore to address the public rather than the prohibitionists; we can share studies, statistics, etc or even refute spurious claims in our own time, inviting our listeners or readers to do their own research and read studies by widely-respected groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In cases where weaponized ex-workers try to attack directly, one may wish to have a prepared statement to the effect of, “The world is not a perfect place, and bad people will take advantage of others; I’m sorry you were abused in that way, but that does not make your experience typical and does not excuse state violence against sex workers.” Then stick to it; if such an individual persists in attacking, you might add something addressed to observers like, “It’s sad the prohibitionists are exploiting this person to attack sex workers; I can’t stop them from doing so, but I can refuse to participate.” Then block or mute the person who refuses to respect your polite refusal to engage with them; you have no duty to continue interacting with anyone who does not respect your “no”.
A [South Carolina] parole [screw] is facing a litany of charges [for repeatedly molesting and harassing]…parolees over the last year. David Johnathon Shytle…[repeatedly] sen[t dick pics] and [sexual] texts to [his victims, groped them]…and [even] licked [them]…Shytle…was booked…[but then] released [within hours, so he is still at large]…
[ICE goons] will have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools after a decision by the Trump [regime] to…contract with Paragon Solutions…[an] Israel[i]…spyware [company] that…[makes mal]ware…called Graphite…[which] can hack into any phone….[to] track an individual’s whereabouts, read their messages, [and] look at their photographs…[even] on encrypted applications…like…Signal…[it] can [even] be used as a[n eavesdropp]ing device, through the manipulation of the phone’s recorder…Paragon has sought to differentiate itself from [other morally-bankrupt fascist corporations by claiming]…it only does business with [regimes which pinky-swear their intended victims consented to be spied on via a “social contract”]…It has also [lied by claiming] it…will cut off government clients who use the spyware to target…journalists [despite Italy being caught doing exactly that with its spyware]. Paragon also [hopes to confuse useful idiots by barfing words like “]crime[“] and [“]terrorist attacks[“]…in the[ir faces]…
Three bounty hunters face kidnapping charges after [carelessly] mistaking a man for a suspect with a similar name and [abduct]ing him…[from his Texas] home…Alan Hinton and Devon Allard Carter…[worked with] a third [man whose identity is being hidden by]…police…Their crime was committ]ed on June 1…[after] they used…facial recognition [software which claimed a mere]…79% recognition match to the man they were [incompetently] looking for…the[y]…drove up…in a U-Haul van, threw a flash bang [sic] in the garage and a[ttack]ed…the [victim, pointing guns in his face]…The actual suspect, it turned out, had fled to Iraq…Police ran the man’s name and found that he didn’t have any active warrants for his arrest and did not look [anything] like the [legally-innocent person] the bounty hunters were searching for…
…a new category of work [has been] spawned by the [CGI fad] that threatened to displace creative jobs [with computerized garbage]: Anyone can now write [shitty] blog posts, produce a [sloppy] graphic or code a…[buggy] app with a few text prompts, but [such instant] content rarely makes for a satisfactory final product on its own…many gig workers…are saying they’ve found new work as a result of [algorithmic] incompetencies: Writers are asked to spruce up ChatGPT’s writing. Artists are being hired to patch up wonky [CG] images. Even software developers are tasked with fixing buggy apps coded by [computers]…A recent MIT report found that…95% of businesses’ generative [ML] pilots are getting zero return on investment…the report states [that, as predicted by sensible people]…“[ML] systems do not retain feedback, adapt to context, or improve over time”…
A [typical and representative South Carolina cop] was found guilty of [the] murder…of a[nother cop] in 2021. Evan Hawthorne…was convicted…[of] the [murder] of Larry Vaughan…[on] July [23,] 2021…[and] sentenced to life in prison…Hawthorne was arrested [within] hours…He [had been] fired [from the cop shop] in 2019 [for driving his pigmobile drunk]…
…The large language model (LLM) boom of the past few years has had unexpected ramifications for the field of psychotherapy, mostly due to the growing number of [fools] substituting the likes of ChatGPT for human therapists. But less discussed is how some therapists themselves are [unethically farming their thinking out to chatbots, which]…risks compromising sensitive patient data and undermining a relationship in which trust is paramount…[patients who discover their caring professionals are in actuality intellectually-lazy frauds report feeling] disappointment…mistrust…and…betrayal…chatbots…are not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and are not HIPAA compliant…they…can [also] fuel delusions and psychopathy by blindly validating a user rather than challenging them…
Another website is blocking access to Mississippi residents in response to the state’s age verification…law…Bluesky [has been followed by]…Dreamwidth Studios—a blogging platform…for artists…[It] is…blocking access [to anyone without a VPN] in Mississippi, a[nd]…preventing minors in Tennessee from opening new accounts…the U.K.’s Online Safety Act…has resulted in a ridiculous array of roadblocks for those who want to access anything from news about the war in Gaza to…eating disorder support groups…In France…an age verification provider…[named] AgeGO…isn’t using…”double anonymity”…[which] means that…[people’s personal] details…[are linked not only with] the website being visited, [but also with] the exact video the person is trying to access…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
I’m finally almost finished with “Until the End of Days“. I finished the rough draft late last week, and on Sunday I wrote the prologue; it may seem strange to non-writers that I saved the prologue for the end of the process, but it was necessary because the story is told in first-person, and I wanted to know everything that happened in the tale (which grew in the telling) before I tried to introduce it. Part of the reason was practical; if there were any important details I had not managed to fit into the narrative, I wanted to mention them in the prologue. But another reason was that I wanted to be able to identify as fully with the POV character as possible, since I wanted the tone of the prologue to be more personal. The word count is now in the vicinity of 19,000 words, and I still have a bit of editing to do, (such as describing three major characters more fully), so I think it’s fair to call it a novella. I’ve really worked at developing the characters’ world, so much so that I already have the fragments of two prequels and a sequel in my head, and that’s good because spending so much time in that fictional world of the past makes the pain of my real-world present much easier to bear. The irony is almost too perfect: after spending most of my life living in a future which never came to pass, I now find comfort living in a past that never was.
As I’ve written before, dark ages are defined by the unreliability of their records; if records are sporadic, contradictory, or questionable, historians cannot be sure what really happened in the period (hence “dark”). One of the major factors in the dark age we’re entering now is computer-generated imagery and text spewed out at a rate that will soon rival or surpass actual information from this era, but another is 1984-esque rewriting of history by political regimes and their servant media. The Trump regime is actively engaged in this practice, but even its opponents are attempting to sow confusion in service to their agenda, especially to mask their part in bringing the regime to power.
Case in point, this recent tweet attacking a Trump talking point, which quotes a Washington Post story whose headline intentionally attempts to mislead readers about the point’s origin. “300,000 missing children” is indeed a “ginned-up figure”, but it isn’t from “the 2024 campaign”. It’s from a shitty sociology paper from 2001 which was distorted and quoted endlessly by politicians and media, including the Post, for two decades to justify attacks on sex workers. The entire US political establishment from Bush II to Obama to Trump to Biden was happy to use these imaginary “300,000 children” as cudgels to attack female independence, young people’s autonomy, and immigration; to justify swollen police budgets and increased surveillance and censorship; and as an all-purpose excuse for state violence on every level from the municipal to the international. For 14 years, all any cop or politician had to do was vomit the phrase “sex trafficking”, accompanied by disgusting wanking fantasies, onto the upturned, open-mouthed faces of the moronic masses in order to get them to allow themselves to be violated and oppressed even further. Both “sides” of the kindergarten “political spectrum” participated equally in this evil fantasy, until it began to mutate into “QAnon” and Trumpists won control of it. Then and ONLY then did “progressives” and Democrats suddenly start calling this toxic narrative that they themselves built half of, a “right-wing conspiracy theory“. And now they’re trying to fight a monster of their own creation, a monster which has spawned the ICE atrocities you now see and the swelling tide of internet censorship. If you ever retweeted a stupid meme about 13-year-olds, donated to a “rescue” organization, watched panicmongering shows and movies about brave heroes “rescuing” vegetable-like “victims” from mustache-twirling “pimps”, or otherwise supported the panic, you are partly responsible for Trumpism. Look at the pogroms against migrants, the demolition of the internet, the wreckage of the US scientific and medical establishment, and the warmongering and rampant insanity spewing forth from Washington daily, and think to yourself, “And I helped!” Good job, America!
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