“We will argue that even if ChatGPT is not, itself, a hard bullshitter, it is nonetheless a bullshit machine. The bullshitter is the person using it, since they (i) don’t care about the truth of what it says, (ii) want the reader to believe what the application outputs.”
On the 1st day of #testimony in #HunterBiden’s federal #gun trial, #jurors heard his audio of his memoir, where he recounted his #drug use in graphic detail. A federal prosecutor told jurors “no one is above the #law,” & defense said the he did not “knowingly” lie when filling out forms to purchase a weapon.
Importantly, it touches not just on the value of the presence of #information from from election campaigns, it reflects on the (negative) value of the absence of information.
Hello and welcome to the RPG Design Quest! As a new site with a bunch of features, it can be a little confusing at first. But if you keep in mind this is organized toward discussions and interest groups, it will make a lot of more sense! For some, it helps to think of it like an old school portal site done with modern tools. Note: Everything is subject to change and update. This is a fresh beta test launch site. Some bugs are expected. There will be a bug report and feature request form soon.
This is just quick onboarding intro to get you started. It doesn’t cover all the options, but rather just enough to get you familiar with where to look for things and how to navigate around.
Sign Up
Starting off, signing up is like any other site. We have a selection of social sign in options reflecting our gamer circles. But you can also sign up directly as normal. Just click that signup button up top. If you haven’t yet, do that and then come back! Note: Open registration is temporary.
Quick Overview
The site has a feed, like Mastodon, Facebook, or Bluesky. It is a chronological feed of all activity on the site. In that spirit, any reaction, comment, or other active interaction will bump an item to the top of the feed. It is responsive to activity.
Groups are the central piece of the Quest. You can think of them like topic forums on a classic forum site, but with a bunch of additional features. Just as there is a main feed, and one for each member of the Design Quest, there is a feed in each group as well. You can freely join, leave, or even create groups. Note: Created groups may be subject to review, consolidation, or (in extreme cases) removal.
When you click on a group, it will show a header and a bunch of tab options. On the lower right of the banner, it will show you your group status, including an option to join if you are not a member. Below that are the different tabs:
Feed: The activity feed for everything in the group.
Discussions: Forums! Post and reply to discussion threads here.
Photos: Just what it says on the label.
Docs: Collaborative docs. Deprecated until I have the capacity to fix some layout issues.
Albums: Photo albums.
Documents: Uploaded files like text documents and PDFs.
Members: List of group members.
Send Invites: Send invites to join a group.
Send Messages: Send direct messages to group members.
Manage: This is where the group management options are for any group you’re the organizer or moderator.
That’s pretty much it! Everything really is what it says on the label, more or less. Groups are based around their activity feed and discussions, but they provide a full set of tools for interaction and collaboration.
Other Main Features
On top of the full feed and groups, the top menus also takes you to a list of all recent forum posts, the member directory, and member blogs. If you are signed in, you can connect with people from their profile or the member directory, as well as write your own blog posts! So you can connect with peers and friends here, as well as have a space to express your own thoughts. Related to the intention of a full-featured community website, there is also a live chat!
If you click the little bubble on the lower right, the chat window opens. Live chat works for both individuals and groups!
A bunch of options will show if you click on your profile icon/name in the upper right. It has links for your account settings, profile, timeline/feed, joined groups, and everything else like that you’d expect. It also has an option for email invites. You can invite people to join. This will become more important in the future when open registrations close.
Next to that (from right to left) is the notifications bell, direct messages inbox, and the search.
Your Profile
Your profile is so much more than just your profile! It’s a complete collection of your archives and tools.
Much like groups, when you go to your profile there are a bunch of tabs! Of course, the profile tab is the default open tab. We’ll go through editing profiles in a minute, but let’s go through those options first:
Timeline: This is your main feed. Like there is a feed for the whole site and each group, there is a feed of your activity.
Profile: This is your literal profile. It has all the information you entered and options to edit it.
Post: This is your blogpost tab. It shows your posts and has a “create” option for you to write a blog.
Connections: This tracks your connections with other people and connection requests they sent you.
Groups: This shows your joined groups and any group invitations you received.
Photos: This shows your photos and albums, with an option to add photos and create albums.
Forums: Here you’ll find the topics you started, your replies, and your favorited forum posts.
Docs: Shows all collaborative docs started or edited by you, with an option to create a new doc.
Documents: Shows the files you uploaded with an option to organize into folders.
Email Invites: Allows you to send email invites and see the invites you sent.
Editing Your Profile
Like many other modern sites, you can click on your banner or profile picture to update/replace them.
You can also update your images here. But the key section is the main one. There are 5 tabs:
Details: Basic profile details and a few old school questions.
Socials: A place for all of your links.
Credits: Work credits you want to list.
Availability: Your availability for collaboration and/or hire.
Thoughts: A place to share a few extra thoughts.
Any section or entry you choose not to enter will simply not show up on your profile. No pressure to fill in blanks! Whatever you choose to fill in will make up your profile. Add as little or as much as you’d like.
Interestingly Google is considering putting its AI-driven search function behind a paywall as part of their premium service.
However, given the experience of many people being able to avoid AI-driven search may be a bonus.
In sort of looks like a reverse enshitification (h/t @pluralistic ) - the shitty service disappears behind the paywall leaving us with old fashioned algorithm search (hurrah).
Heat pumps are a highly efficient and mature technology for home heating (incl. in my house).
"Yet, in major economies such as the UK and Germany, heat pumps are the subject of hostile and misleading reporting across many mainstream media outlets."
Not least due to disinformation spread by fossil fuel interests.
Before you get duped, read the fact check.
Parnas: "The only information ever pushed on the Bidens in Ukraine has come from one source and one source only: Russia and Russian agents. The impeachment proceedings that bring us here now are predicted on #false#information spread by the Kremlin."
“The information war is about territory—just not the geographic kind. In a warm information war, the human mind is the territory.”
—Renée DiResta, “The Digital Maginot Line”
"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit" – Harry Frankfurt
Our world is saturated with bullsh*t and spin. Here are the 9 Simple Principles in Physicist Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit Will Make You BS-Proof!
From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World
Will the emerging global information infrastructure (GII) create a revolution in communication equivalent to that wrought by Gutenberg, or will the result be simply the evolutionary adaptation of existing behavior and institutions to new media? Will the GII improve access to information for all? Will it replace libraries and publishers?
I know Mastodon is designed to keep everything nice and to shield us from the horrors of the world, and that it is good for us to only look at cat pictures all day and cheer each other up, but honestly: sometimes i also think that that is just a lot of crap and everyone who turns away and continues with their nice privileged life as if all is ok is complicit #Gaza
@pvonhellermannn
The text pointed below may help. Sarah Aziza, through a stirring mix of personal reflection and philosophical reckoning, disabuses the Western witness of its self-gratifying power, instead – amid Israel’s openly broadcast yet unimpeded march towards genocide in Gaza – unmasking the impotence, deceit and hollowness that witnessing currently entails. More than a collective indictment or last-gasp scream of defiance into the void, Aziza’s own testimony guides the reader towards a form of witness no longer elevated in angelic, uncompromised distance, but instead manifest in the embodied, intimate, ego-displacing position of “sacrifice, mourning and resisting.” https://jewishcurrents.org/the-work-of-the-witness
"The Jerusalem bureau has long reviewed all #CNN stories relating to #Israel and #Palestine. Now, it’s helping shape the network’s coverage of the war."
"Every CNN journalist covering Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review by the news organization’s bureau in Jerusalem prior to publication, under a long-standing CNN policy."
One member of CNN’s staff described how the policy works in practice. “‘War-crime’ and ‘genocide’ are taboo words,” the person said. “Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as ‘blasts’ attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed.”