any pronouns | born 2005 | State of Oregon, USA, North America, Earth | Interests include surrealism, liminal spaces, weird fiction, sci-fi, aliens, monsters, taxonomy, ecosystems, worldbuiliding, science, a vague sense of wonder, speculative evolution, numinous terror, mystery.
ABOUT ME: sensitiveasks.tumblr.com/aboutme
Okay, yeah. This is a very, very, very bad idea. I understand that there is a certain flavor of techbro who has ABSOLUTELY zero problem with this because “AI is the future, bro”, and we’re supposed to be reading their articles on how to use AI for side hustles and all that.
I get that ID apps have played into people’s tendency to want quick and easy answers to everything (I’m not totally opposed to apps, but please read about how an app does not a Master Naturalist make.) But nature identification is serious stuff, ESPECIALLY when you are trying to identify whether something is safe to eat, handle, etc. You have to be absolutely, completely, 100000% sure of your ID, and then you ALSO have to absolutely verify that it is safely handled and consumed by humans.
As a foraging instructor, I cannot emphasize this enough. My classes, which are intended for a general audience, are very heavy on identification skills for this very reason. I have had (a small subsection of) students complain that I wasn’t just spending 2-3 hours listing off bunches of edible plants and fungi, and honestly? They can complain all they want. I am doing MY due diligence to make very sure that the people who take my classes are prepared to go out and start identifying species and then figure out their edibility or lack thereof.
Because it isn’t enough to be able to say “Oh, that’s a dandelion, and I think this might be an oyster mushroom.” It’s also not enough to say “Well, such-and-such app says this is Queen Anne’s lace and not poison hemlock.” You HAVE to have incredibly keen observational skills. You HAVE to be patient enough to take thorough observations and run them through multiple forms of verification (field guides, websites, apps, other foragers/naturalists) to make sure you have a rock-solid identification. And then you ALSO have to be willing to read through multiple sources (NOT just Wikipedia) to determine whether that species is safely consumed by humans, and if so if it needs to be prepared in a particular way or if there are inedible/toxic parts that need to be removed.
AND–this phenomenon of AI-generated crapola emphasizes the fact that in addition to all of the above, you HAVE to have critical thinking skills when it comes to assessing your sources. Just because something is printed on a page doesn’t mean it’s true. You need to look at the quality of the information being presented. You need to look at the author’s sources. You need to compare what this person is saying to other books and resources out there, and make sure there’s a consensus.
You also need to look at the author themselves and make absolutely sure they are a real person. Find their website. Find their bio. Find their social media. Find any other manners in which they interact with the world, ESPECIALLY outside of the internet. Contact them. Ask questions. Don’t be a jerk about it, because we’re just people, but do at least make sure that a book you’re interested in buying is by a real person. I guarantee you those of us who are serious about teaching this stuff and who are internet-savvy are going to make it very easy to find who we are (within reason), what we’re doing, and why.
Because the OP in that Tweet is absolutely right–people are going to get seriously ill or dead if they try using AI-generated field guides. We have such a wealth of information, both on paper/pixels and in the brains of active, experienced foragers, that we can easily learn from the mistakes of people in the past who got poisoned, and avoid their fate. But it does mean that you MUST have the will and ability to be impeccably thorough in your research–and when in doubt, throw it out.
My inbox is always open. I’m easier caught via email than here, but I will answer. You can always ask me stuff about foraging, about nature identification, etc. And if there’s a foraging instructor/author/etc. with a website, chances are they’re also going to be more than willing to answer questions. I am happy to direct you to online groups on Facebook and elsewhere where you have a whole slew of people to compare notes with. I want people’s foraging to be SAFE and FUN. And AI-generated books aren’t the way to make that happen.
Jesus fucking Christ dude. A house show in Minneapolis got shot up. Two guys walked up, unloaded into the crowd, and ran off. One dead and six injured.
Yeah. Okay. News stories were kinda making it sound like it was more Senseless Minneapolis Urban Violence, but folks that were there are saying this seems like a targeted attack on the venue and the scene for being trans positive. My fucking hometown scene got hit by a fucking terror attack.
My roommate and I are disabled and trans, and we need help affording basics while I wait to start a job I’ve had lined up. We need help affording his meds and transportation, we well as food and rent. I have a sort of major thing going on in my personal life which has led to me needing transportation more than usual.
I will happily do art for anyone who gives $50, just message me at my art blog @theartistrans
Dm me for proof or details. This is urgent we don’t have the funds to survive the week.
Yo so for those of you who have been following me, I’m sure you know things have been extremely fucking bad for me for a while. For those who don’t: Back in December of ‘22 I ended up in the ER with right-side weakness, loss of fine motor skills, confusion, numbness, difficulty speaking, all kinds of shit. It took me about 8 months to regain most of my fine motor function. Prior to that, I was beginning to realize I’ve likely had undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy my whole life, due in large part to a significant uptick in seizure-like activity which I suspect may have been exacerbated by getting Covid in June '22. Since then, I’ve had numerous major motor-seizures, and near-constant focal seizure symptoms. My memory is FUCKED, I barely know what’s going on around me at any given time. Took me over 6 goddamn months to see a neurologist for the thing from December. When I saw her, I handed her months of notes on daily episodes and a big list of symptoms. The neurologist ignored all of it, said I’m too young to experience the symptoms I have, and told me to try CBT. Didn’t even address the thing that happened in December aside from saying “your MRI looked normal.” Weirdly, she didn’t diagnose me with PNES either. She just completely ignored all of it and told me to fuck off. Straight up said on exit “A nurse will be in to schedule a followu– er, show you the way out.” All of this has also fucked up my endocrine system, my bet being because this is epilepsy and that can fuck up your hypothalamus and pituitary gland. So on top of everything else, I’m fucking exhausted all the time. When I asked to get my hormones checked, including estradiol, my PCP genuinely, legitimately asked me “Estradiol? Like hormones for a woman?” So basically I’ve been jerked around by a bunch of brainless shitheads for a year while I’m completely unable to work, barely able to take care of myself, and cant even do shit as simple as reading. Even speaking has become considerably difficult for me.
But hey, to the point; i cant fuckin work cuz im having goddamn seizures all the fuckin time, on a 15-minute basis, or something similar enough for my partner with a fresh TLE diagnosis to say they have all the exact same symptoms. I would very much appreciate if anyone would be willing to throw me a little money. Cuz I’ve decided things fucking blow enough to ask for help again.
imagine a project about a Spooky Other Dimensional Space like the Upside Down or the Borderworld Xen or whatever but nothing in it is actually dangerous they’re just really weird and unsettling like the deep sea creatures, and the project is just an extensive catalogue with lots of research and complex/consistent made up scientific terminology. i’m just saying i’d read something like this…
American diners on interstate highways in the middle nowhere are metaphysically significant places
Not in the way that mid horror authors think though. Desert diners are groves of calm and sacredness. Getting food poisoning means the urban spirits have rejected you for being weak.
I feel like Neil Gaiman got this in American Gods… not this specifically, but there was something similar with, like, those weird gimmicky tourist traps out in the middle of knowhere
Genuinely I think it’s cute when scientists discover new things and then name those things after other things they love
Like it was unfortunate with Dracorex (second half of name redacted), but it’s really cute when like… A Guy discovers a new cockroach and is like “I’m naming this after Pheromosa” or the guy that named a louse after Gary Larson
Like IDK it shows like… The sort of sincerity scientists often have in their hearts, especially since these examples are critters usually considered gross or undesirable, but the scientists clearly loved them to name them after people and things they like
I disagree strongly with your reaction to Dracorex. Why do people act this way with respect to this one book series and its asshole author as opposed to literally every other book written by an author who later held (or held at the time of writing, something - despite popular insistence - almost definitely untrue of JKR) some really ugly beliefs.
ALT
