MeFi: Please Use AI (poem)

roaring beast — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:15:06 GMT

Be sure to use AI when making

your next, I don't know, meal plan,

for example. Definitely do not call

your friend who loves to cook and ask her

for her favorite recipes or tips or ways

to save time making meals,

because you will end

up talking for longer than you had hoped ... (more) (cw: grief)

MeFi: Magnifica Humanitas

storybored — Mon, 25 May 2026 15:18:37 GMT

A Guide to Pope Leo's Encyclical on AI. "Pope Leo XIV warns that "when efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion" (MH 112).

This means asking practical questions about AI-assisted technology in ordinary daily life:

Does it help me remain faithful to the truth, despite the most appealing content? (MH 237)
Does it help educate me and allow me to educate others? (MH 238)
Does it help me cultivate genuine closeness in relationships and cherish places and times where physical presence remains crucial? (MH 239)
Does it help me participate in the promotion of justice and peace? (MH 240)
The encyclical is not a call to reject AI. It is a call to guide our development and use of AI toward the magnificence of humanity. (MH 4)."

Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical

The Text

Previous Encyclicals by the Catholic Church.

Ask MeFi: Small acts of rebellion

M. — Mon, 25 May 2026 08:29:58 GMT

Looking for examples of small everyday acts of rebellion/non-compliance. I came across the idea in a recent Ask a Manager open thread (where examples ranged from ditching Amazon to flicking off street cameras to refusing to be responsible for holiday cards by default to sitting next to men on public transport rather than always sitting next to women thus unconsciously giving men more space). There were some good ideas there but I need more. What small quiet acts of rebellion can I implement in my daily life?

I am not so much looking for ways to make a meaningful difference but rather give myself a little boost and the satisfaction of standing by something while occasionally giving the capitalist system/tech bros/misogynists the finger, even if only in my own head (they do not need to be all adversarial of course). Anything folks here have done that gave you the little boost?

MeFi: I'm going before the firing squad today at 3:00. I regret nothing...

Rumple — Wed, 27 May 2026 17:58:47 GMT

My dear parents, Just a few words to tell you of my death sentence, and that I'll be executed this afternoon at 3:00. Aside from that, and despite it all, my morale is good, and, more than that, don't worry too much about it. [...] I'm going to fall, but sorrow mustn't crush you; you must be as strong as I am at this moment. My death isn't extraordinary, and no one should feel sorry for me, for thousands fall every day, on the front or otherwise. Farewell Papa, farewell my little Maman, courage... Robert

Last letters from Communist Manouchian Resistance Fighters, mostly foreign, many Jewish, written hours before their execution in occupied France, early 1944.

Louis Aragon wrote a commemorative poem (EnglishTranslation) based on the best known of these letters, the one by Missak Manouchian himself (facsimile) to his wife, Melinée. In 1961, Léo Ferré adapted Aragon's poem to music: L'Affiche Rouge.

MeFi: This is the standard tech playbook

JHarris — Tue, 26 May 2026 23:34:29 GMT

Big Tech's Anti-Labor Playbook Has Come For Wikipedia (Jake Orlowitz on Medium). Wikipedia management goes union busting. Editors threaten to strike in solidarity with fired workers. Editors can sign a solidarity pledge on Wikipedia here.

MeFi: The Costco theory of the internet

AlSweigart — Thu, 28 May 2026 02:57:12 GMT

A Costco warehouse stocks around 4,000 items; while a supermarket runs 30,000 or more, and Amazon runs into the millions. A Costco buyer looks after fewer than 200 products and spends the extra time that buys deciding which ones earn the floor space, killing the underperformers, and doubling down on the winners. People don't want infinite choice anymore; they want fewer decisions inside places where someone has already thrown out the worst options. Costco sells a higher floor.

MeFi: Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.

latkes — Tue, 26 May 2026 17:06:58 GMT

New research, drawing on an extraordinary data set from Argentina's Dirty War in the 1970s and '80s, suggests ... that the kinds of career pressures familiar to employees everywhere — the desire to revive a stalled career or obtain a minor promotion — can be enough to incentivize lower- and midlevel officials to violate professional obligations, fundamental norms and even basic morality. The people who make those decisions, the research suggests, are neither extremists nor victims. They are often just middling workers looking for a way to get ahead.

A review of "Making a Career in Dictatorship," by political scientists, Adam Scharpf and Christian Glassel.

MeFi: Viral shimiral

JHarris — Mon, 25 May 2026 07:03:35 GMT

The Feed is Fake (paywalled Vulture link, but here it is on wayback) says that most of what's surfaced to you by algorithms, maybe as much as 90% of them, is the result of stealth marketing campaigns, coordinated between thousands of sock puppet accounts.

MeFi: ♫Your own... personal... Rothko♩

DoctorFedora — Tue, 26 May 2026 08:56:11 GMT

Here, please enjoy a web page that automatically shows you a Rothko painting selected based on the current weather outside where you are.

MeFi: Saxophone Colossus

chavenet — Wed, 27 May 2026 02:43:37 GMT

"When he stands and plays, there isn't a saxophone player who doesn't look on in awe. He's the last one standing, and he's still playing as well today as he was then. He's still at the peak at what he does. It's great inspiration that there isn't really a time limit, but very few people can do it at that level."

R.I.P. Sonny Rollins.

MeFi: Urban light was blocking the path of bats

chariot pulled by cassowaries — Wed, 27 May 2026 06:27:53 GMT

Denmark is turning off the white light from its streetlamps and painting a road red to solve a nighttime crisis that almost no one sees: urban light was blocking the path of bats.

MeFi: Hand-drawn slides

Wolfdog — Thu, 28 May 2026 20:47:54 GMT

Nathan Harms does hand-drawn slides for his scientific presentations. You might enjoy looking at them. (You might enjoy it even if titles like "Optimal Adjacency Labels for Subgraphs of Cartesian Products" don't draw you in immediately.)

MeFi: The Tiny Angry Witch

Wobbuffet — Sat, 30 May 2026 16:16:02 GMT

David K. Barnes (Bluesky, 05/30/2026), "Lately I've been in an indie team making stop-motion animation ... The show's called The Tiny Angry Witch. It's all basically hand made. No AI. It's tiring, but we love what we do. So, anyway, here's a Witch making rude noises." More of The Tiny Angry Witch. The rest of The Tiny Angry Witch. Meet the Tiny Angry Team. Other work involving people from the team includes the animated Adventures of Frog and the comedy podcast Wooden Overcoats.

MeFi: Is Peter Thiel the target of Pope Leo's Gandalf quote? An investigation

ShooBoo — Wed, 27 May 2026 02:04:32 GMT

Ars Technica: I'm not suggesting that a man like Pope Leo—the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome, the Servant of the Servants of God—would stoop to anything quite so base as "trolling" the onetime PayPal co-founder and current Antichrist alarmist Peter Thiel. But I'm also not not suggesting it, if you see what I mean. Bonus: Peter Thiel discusses antichrists in Watchmen and One Piece.

MeFi: The wrong orange

Wordshore — Fri, 29 May 2026 08:14:15 GMT

As Inferno [reviews, metacritic], the fifth studio album by Boards of Canada, is released today, the duo and Warp Records condemn the White House for using part of Tape 05 (Deep Time) in some dodgy social media video. The fan base are not happy, and Stereogum have an opinion on this. Ironically, the official BoC video for Tape 05 contains imagery of cultlike figures, Christian evangelism, worship and adulation.

MeFi: Get Paint.NET at paint.net

JHarris — Sat, 30 May 2026 06:22:00 GMT

You might have heard of a free Windows graphics program called Paint.NET. Envisioned as a kind of better version of the old Paintbrush/Microsoft Paint tool, it's perfectly fine for most casual graphics editing, and since it doesn't try to do to much it's interface is fairly easy to learn. Its name is due to it using Microsoft's .NET runtime. For 22 years, to get it you'd have to go to getpaint.net, not paint.net. A series of past owners had possession of the domain name. The most recent one, as recounted in a story posted to Bluesky here, pretended it was Paint.NET's official site. So with the help of a lawyer, Rick managed to gain ownership of the paint.net domain name, which will soon become the program's official home.

Ask MeFi: Novels about fancy art and art dealers

Frowner — Mon, 25 May 2026 19:51:04 GMT

I am looking for escapism here, so I'm looking less for novels about, like, actual artists than for novels that are in one way or another frivolous. Robertson Davies's What's Bred In The Bone is about the right note.

Margery Allingham's mysteries featuring artists have great settings but the plots turn on racism and anti-semitism and this is supposed to be escapist and fun.

Rich people swanning about being patrons, maybe a Berenson figure, villas in Italy, a little Oxford and Cambridge - if Edith Wharton and Mary McCarthy and Nancy Mitford had all collaborated on a book that inexplicably had a a more or less happy ending that would be about right.

I do not wish to read about real artists or political artists or artists who suffered greatly or died tragically or made great sacrifices in the service of humanity. I have other books for that. I want to read about snooty people with cultural pretensions going to Italy.

SFF and mystery are okay as long as they meet the basic criteria - Italian villa in space, aristocratic sea chariot drawn by dragons, he's-society's-favorite-portrait-painter-and-together-he-fights-crime, all okay.

MeFi: "What can I say about him? That he listened to me."

doctornemo — Fri, 29 May 2026 20:20:22 GMT

The Education of Pope Leo XIV Historian Greg Grandin explores Robert Francis Prevost's career in Peru, before he became pope Leo XIV.
(archive link) (via)

Greg Grandin previously.

Ask MeFi: Help me get deeper into punk music!

anoldfriend6 — Sun, 31 May 2026 00:20:27 GMT

There's bubble gum punk such as Green Day and Blink 182. Then there's classics such as the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. I wanna go a little further from the beaten path. To appreciate more punk, where do I branch off from those bands? Punk adjacent bands (like the Pixies) are welcome too!

Ask MeFi: Seeking novel recommendations - my Libby "holds" list has dwindled!

sucre — Thu, 28 May 2026 04:21:50 GMT

I would love some book recommendations! I typically read and enjoy novels that are about families, relationships, and sometimes the occasional thriller or juicy drama. Bonus if descriptions of food are involved.

I'm not great at describing books, so here are some I've read recently that I've really enjoyed. Thanks for any suggestions you might have!

The Sisters - Jonas Hassen Khemiri
Small Things Like This - Claire Keegan
Writers & Lovers - Lily King
The Signature of All Things - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Testaments - Margaret Atwood
North Woods - Daniel Mason
Circe - Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
Heart the Lover - Lily King
All Adults Here - Emma Straub
Tom Lake - Ann Patchett

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