An essay about the impossibility of LLMs becoming conscious by effin' *Ted Chiang*!? Shut up and take my money, The Atlantic!!! ❤️

https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial-intelligence-is-not-conscious/687378/

#llm #ai #aibubble

Cycling home, I saw a badger! ❤️

The painter John Blanche has died. He was a household name to 1980s gamers. His was a Baroque, somewhat naïvist style, instantly recognisable. I much preferred him to the slick airbrushers who dominated fantasy illustration in that period. #Warhammer and #WH40k would have looked completely different without him!

https://nordic.ign.com/warhammer-40000-500-worlds/108200/john-blanche-the-legendary-illustrator-who-defined-the-look-of-warhammer-40000-has-died

#ttrpg #pnpde #art

My new boss winced a little at the salary I suggested, then negotiated with the county holding the purse strings, and came back and gave me the number I had suggested.

It's the 2025 median salary for this kind of position, times 1.005 for inflation, plus SEK 1000 for my long training and experience.

#happy

The Stockholm Tolkien Society used to parade through central Stockholm in full fantasy larp outfits on Ascension Thursday. On one occasion, a bystander asked,

"What are you protesting against?"

"Reality."

#fantasy #books #tolkien #larp

I accepted a firmware update for my #Kobo reading tablet the other day. Now it's glacially slow. It takes minutes to turn a page. Anybody else seeing this?

#books #ebooks

It seems to be a historical accident that trans-exclusionary feminists are called TERFs and not TEFs. Because there's nothing particularly radical about opposing gender self-determination. That R in the acronym is misplaced.

But still. My mom is a conservative feminist with a business degree who used to work for the Swedish Employers' Organisation. Not radical. And she's been 100% supportive of her trans grandkid from day one, really above and beyond! ❤️

Bought a hat and a mask for a fancy dress party

Lilacs #gardening #bloomscrolling

Hey all my pro-business Conservative and Libertarian followers! Let me tell you how I have arrived at my crazy Leftie views of economic policy.

1. I will happily grant you that capitalism is good at generating wealth. But that is less important to me than equal wealth distribution and environmental sustainability. It's not my #1 priority.

2. Great wealth disparity skews the power balance even in a well-maintained democracy, because money is power.

🧵

#capitalism

My friend's familiar in Ars Magica is a 2.5 meter owl from the land of the giants. He has created a spell just to be able to shrink the owl and avoid scaring people in towns.

#ttrpg #pnpde