This is what it’s like for mothers in an immigrant detention center.
Some have abandoned the food because they are staging hunger strikes, demanding phone calls with their children. One mother told The Intercept reporter that she had been allowed to call her child only once in several weeks of detention. She went on a hunger strike for two days.
As a result, she had gotten one call each day for the previous three days. She said that a rolling hunger strike has been occurring at the center for the past two weeks, with some 15 women fasting for a couple of days, then eating while another impromptu group fasts.
One mother said she has been separated from her 12-year-old since early June and has not talked to him even once — nor does she know where he is, except that he is in New York state.
Mothers in Port Isabel walk around in a constant state of grief and anxiety, some displaying symptoms of post-traumatic-stress disorder. Several told an Intercept reporter that they have a hard time remembering what day or date it is.
Another women said that a mother “went crazy” last week, “probably because she couldn’t take the separation from her child anymore.” She became so aggressive in a common room, and so frightening to the other detainees, that she was taken away, possibly to solitary confinement — a place that the hunger-striking women have been threatened with if they continue fasting.
This farmhouse in Nova Scotia was a legend during its time, and still is today. In 1922, a married couple and their adopted daughter, Mary Ellen, lived there briefly. While there, they experienced over 30 unexplained fires and poltergeist activity, such as ashes being mixed into cow’s milk and finding the cows moved around and the horse’s tails braided. The fires were never explained, and the family eventually fled, though later Dr. Walker Prince, who investigated the home, accused 15-year-old Mary Ellen of being responsible. She earned the nickname Mary Ellen Spook. After the family moved away, the strange fires ceased. Despite the farm being long gone, a legend still persists that if anyone takes a remnant of the home, such as a brick or other material left behind, the property it is brought to will burn down.
I grew up in that part of the world, but don’t recall that particular haunting. The next town over, however was the site of a poltergeist case known as ““The ?Great Amherst Mystery.”
Shoutout to my 90 year old grandma with dementia (she thinks she’s back when she was 20) and she misunderstood us when we said her nursing home cook didn’t make food for OTHER people and she thought we said “colored people” and she got so mad she was ready to steal food so she could feed everyone. Keep in mind she thinks she’s in like 1940s and she is READY to defend poc. Shout out to you grandma.
I also appreciate that she’s sure she can steal food from the cook
90 year old thief. She doesn’t play when it comes to equality
primmie dorks: in hunter gatherer tribes, there is no need
for laws or rules of any kind! within such small groups, societies
function purely on the basis of individualist impulses actual hunter gatherer societies:[strict rule against eating food you killed yourself]
own-kill prohibitions are an interesting case actually because they only make sense when you analyze society in terms of groups instead of just in terms of collections of individuals- on an individual level, such prohibitions make no sense, they make people to rely on others even when they don’t really need to, but, by doing so, they create more cohesive social groups
on an individual level, a person who abstains from eating their own kill will be out-competed by an individual who follows no such rules, but on a group level, a group which coheres together strongly because of such prohibitions will out-compete a community which is less tightly bound together. in that context, the emergence of own-kill prohibitions makes a lot of sense.
Machine learning algorithms can uncover complex patterns in the data they see, making them useful for image recognition, predicting customer service questions, or recommending movies. They can even do a decent job at naming craftbeers, kittens, or guinea pigs. But one thing it turns out they’re bad at? Understanding what humans find sexy.
I had my first sign that this was a problem when I trained a neural network to generate new Halloween costumes and saw its attempts at the “sexy” category of names – it came up with ideas like Sexy Gargles, Pretty zombie Space Suit, and Sexy the Spock. So when Scarlett O’Hairdye contacted me saying they were putting together an AI-themed burlesque show (yes you read that right), and asked me to train a neural network to generate possible names for the show… I knew the neural network was going to be in for a confusing time.
Now first let me talk about burlesque. If you’re not familiar with it, think feather boas, ruffled skirts, and fishnet stockings. These days, themed burlesque shows are all the rage, with names like “That Ass, Poor Yorick” “Star Trek: The Sexed Generation” and “Burl-X Files”. Scarlett provided me with 450 examples of existing shows and yes, the neural network proceeded to get very confused.
One thing it tried was making up words that sounded to it like sexytimes. It made no sense, but it was strangely adorable.
Booky Ampitions – A Stravaganza Starstox! A Burlesque 2 Booms A Shagack! SPOW! Holiday Fishing Glasties off! Moosters, A burlesque tribute Homper Gurder Burlesque Show Show! Thag Ag After Dark Woncerless! Boodnass Tronpboons if Mongerland Bonshows of thong Yes of Nevering Eightthows! MACTAON! A Nighty Boosh Burlesque! Deeptert! “Thawls of Vinderland II – A Burrrrs?! Burlesque Revue” BUR! The Sexed Garks of Burlesque Adventure
Sometimes the sexy-sounding words it generated were already other words. For some reason it was trying hard to make vases sexy. It has an even harder task ahead of it with its other favorite words, “warts” and “fart”.
My 2017 Farty Burlesque Adventure Vase Burlesque Revue The Warts of Burlesque! The Wonderland – March of Farty Fundraiser Teaks of Fame Legends Tree! A Burlesque Revue Vase Show Gourdraiser! Sex-Pone Cabaret Sticker Burlesque Burlesque Show The Pans of The Panners Burlesque Revie The Adomic Eso Space Scream Show The Hare and the Rare and the Mar Chas Burlesque Revue Farty Fasties: A Burlesque Show The Rank Show Vase & Show Vase Farts The Stripper Stripper Dave Burlesque Show Adventure To Burlesque Came Farts of Burlesque Revue Seattle Burlesque Show & Tangy Future and Warty For the Blue Door
Here I think it was trying to spell “boobs” or maybe “bombshells” but had a bit of an issue.
Burlesque Bonbs and Constray Burlesque Borbshells Burlesque Borbs and Monstrous Burlesque Show Bolbshells!
Other times it got the words right, but used them rather… unskillfully.
Sex Your Eye Out! The Parts and Burlesque Revue The Sexed Show The Pank: A Burlesque Revue Peepsing Tarts Burlesque Show A Hot Care Show! Well New Cheapless! The Sexies of Burlesque Revue The Hand Show Burlesque Show About Your Peek Show Derrierer: A Burlesque Show Cone With 9s Cabaret Derriere The Pants of Fame Burlesque Adventure
And the name that was chosen? May I present to you the first-ever AI-themed burlesque show:
If you are lucky enough to be in Seattle, WA on July 21, 2018 (and are over 21), you can experience some of the strangest sexytimes that technology has to offer. Tickets!
This is why I suspect that “AI-generated Olive Garden commercial” from a few weeks back, funny as it was, was not really AI-generated – to me it had the hallmarks of a human writer attempting to be surreal, as opposed to the genuinely-alien weirdness of a neural network’s efforts:
Mooncustafer 