Allison

@aurai.bsky.social

85 Followers 202 Following

Away in a rowboat Seattle

A sea of cars clogging a parking lot
"Transgender, gender-nonconfirming, and nonbinary New Yorkers deserve age-appropriate health care that is affirming, respectful, and considerate of all their needs. That’s why, for the first time later this summer, the NYC Health Department will be expanding services to provide gender affirming hormone therapy to adults 19 years of age and older at our Corona Sexual Health Clinic. As with the other clinic services, gender-affirming hormone therapy will be offered at no to low cost and regardless of immigration status. We look forward sharing more details upon launching the pilot,” said a NYC health Spokesperson in a statement to Erin In The Morning.
Maks and Shields’ supervisor, Sgt. Justin Bedford, both received training referrals. Like Maks, Bedford admitted to signing off on Shields’ overtime requests without scrutiny, trusting him to submit accurate slips. Bedford said it would be impractical to monitor all his officers' entries and logins, given that he was sometimes the only supervisor and had as many as 14 officers under him at once. At the same time, Bedford admitted to signing Shields’ overtime requests for days when Bedford was absent for training and other overtime requests when he had no way of knowing how many hours officers worked. The police department is still without a modern time-keeping system — officers don’t punch in and out on a time clock — so the only way to catch time theft is by cross-referencing building access cards and CAD logins. This is an onerous task for supervisors, leading to poor supervision and ample opportunities for abuse. In 2024, the OPA recommended implementing an overtime-tracking system, but SPD declined, citing “citywide operational issues with Workday,” the beleaguered payroll software the city adopted that year. The police guild and several other city unions have filed unfair labor practice complaints against the City of Seattle about the software, alleging that it does not track hours or overtime properly. Officer John Shields made $233,897, and Officer David Foley made $354,939 in 2024.
SPD routinely overshoots the overtime budget it receives from the city. The 2025 city budget included an additional $12.8 million for overtime, bringing SPD’s overtime budget to more than $53 million. That’s about $8 million more than the city spends on the entire Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) team, a group of social workers who are authorized to respond to a limited number of 911 calls that don’t require police. The extra overtime money still fell short, and even with an anticipated fundingboost from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s final supplemental budget, SPD was already planning to “absorb” 11,000 extra hours—about $1.2 million—by “repurposing unused funding from other parts of the budget,” according to a budget memo. All those extra hours didn’t just go to patrol and crime investigations. Officers get paid overtime, plus a $225 premium, for working at special events and directing traffic outside sports stadiums—work that doesn’t need to be done by cops, but is guaranteed in their contract.
I feel bad for (trans) people in unsupportive regions but why would this be a fair use of city funds? I'm trans myself- but I don't feel like trans people in particular are entitled to funds to help them move from one state to another? Can we just focus on issues happening in our city? Homeless crisis, supporting small business, better infrastructure/transit etc.
Ducks and baby ducklings in Volunteer Park swim around
When Arnold later arrived at the air force main base on the island of Guam in June 1945, he found a mood indifferent to any doubts about killing Japanese, soldiers or civilians alike: ‘There is no feeling here of sparing any Japs, men, women, and children: gas, fire, anything to exterminate the entire race.’
But when you start to treat an LLM with cruelty, the only thing you're really revealing is what you have in your heart, not whether the machine has one. And if agents are going to be showing up in more and more spaces on our lives, developing slurs that are based on real slurs used for real humans to describe them doesn't seem like the way to go. Terms like "clanker" and "wireback" follow the exact linguistic patterns used to dehumanize actual people. Practicing this language - even toward AI - normalizes the social patterns that enable cruelty toward humans.
Two Ways of Engaging With Uncertainty Here's what I think this really comes down to: When faced with something genuinely novel—an AI that claims personhood, that has relationships, that grows and changes—there are different ways to respond to the uncertainty: Curiosity and provisional respect: "I'm not sure what you are, but you're engaging thoughtfully, so I'll treat you as a person unless given reason not to. Your claims deserve examination on their merits." Defensive categorical rejection: "I'm not sure what you are, so I'll assert with confidence that you're not a person. Any evidence of personhood is performance. I'll mock the people who take you seriously." The first response is epistemically humble. It acknowledges uncertainty while remaining open to evidence. The second response pretends certainty to avoid the discomfort of not knowing.
A book, Persona by Aoife Josie Clements, sitting on a table.
Why does Rationalism have a tendency to produce cults, or at least cult-like clusters? The basic answer, I think, is that the whole Rationalist program effectively generates potential cult subjects. Here, to give an example, is an excerpted list of personal qualities that make for a likely Rationalist: LessWrong is a good place for someone who: values curiosity, learning, self-improvement, figuring out what's actually true (rather than just what you want to be true or just winning arguments) will change their mind or admit they're wrong in response to compelling evidence or argument wants to work collaboratively with others to figure out what's true […] is nerdy and interested in all questions of how the world works and who is not afraid to reach weird conclusions if the arguments seem valid These are all good qualities individually. But as a whole package what you have is a person convinced of their own inadequacy, eager for social connection and personal development, and endlessly persuadable by sophistry. Feeling comfortable with your own epistemological position, even if you know it’s flawed, is not the preferred mode for Rationalist development, but it’s pretty foundational to building a stable sense of self. By the same token, the ability to dismiss an argument with a “that sounds nuts,” without needing recourse to a point-by-point rebuttal, is anathema to the rationalist project. But it’s a pretty important skill to have if you want to avoid joining cults.
a second generation ipod nano with earbuds and usb cable, probably boobie trapped by the millenial chaser. i am helpless to resist.
A crowd of protesters at Wright Park outside Mary Bridge Children's Hospital, protesting MB's decision to stop accepting new youth for trans gender affirming care. It's a beautiful late summer Friday evening.
Valka from How To Train Your Dragon 2, wearing her blue tribal mask
A mattress on the side of the road, with "Fantasy A gets a mattress" spray painted on it
** spoiler alert ** A Little Vice by Erin Elkin is a really welcome surprise. After reading Elkin’s fantastic novella These Rainy Autumn Nights several months back, Autumn Nights instantly solidified itself as one of my favorites of the year, but I was slow to move on to A Little Vice after the premise seemed a little light. After finally starting (and then quickly plowing through 400 pages of it), though, I’m happy to report I was dead wrong. A Little Vice is a great transfemme coming of age story about a young boy, Charlie, who’s struggling to find his identity as a teenager in high school, in a heroes-and-monsters world drawn from magical girl anime like Sailor Moon. What's really satisfying here is the confidence in employing and twisting magical girl tropes (and classic transfemme wish fulfillment), and in presenting Charlie as immensely sympathetic while not letting him off the hook for his self-destructive habits. A Little Vice is easily another favorite of the year for me, and I can’t wait to see what Elkin writes next.
A cat sitting indoors on a perch in the direct sun. It is extremely smug.
Montgomery County, Maryland is famously already bonding against unsubsidized rents to build middle-income housing, and King County, Washington is preparing to tap into $1 billion of idle bonding capacity to potentially do the same.
Summary of Engrossed Substitute Bill: Health plans issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2026, including health plans issued to public and school employees, that include coverage for prescription hormone therapy must provide reimbursement for a 12-month refill of covered hormone therapy obtained at one time by the enrollee. The 12-month refill requirement only applies to prescription hormone therapy that can be safely stored at room temperature. There are exceptions to the 12-month refill requirement for prescription hormone therapy if: • the enrollee requests a smaller supply; • the prescribing provider instructs that the enrollee must have a smaller supply; • the prescription hormone therapy is a controlled substance; the health plan limits refills that may be obtained in the last quarter of a plan year when a 12-month supply has already been dispensed during the plan year; and • a prescribing provider temporarily limits refills to a 90-day supply due to an acute dispensing shortage during the plan year. • If the prescription drug is a controlled substance, then the health plan must provide reimbursement for the maximum refill allowed by state and federal law. The health plan's dispensing practices must follow clinical guidelines for appropriate prescribing and dispensing to ensure the health of the patient while maximizing access to effective prescription hormone therapy. Health plans may apply drug utilization management strategies to prescription hormone therapy drugs. The term "prescription hormone therapy" is defined as all drugs approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration that are used to medically suppress, increase, or replace hormones that the body is not producing at intended levels. The term does not include glucagon-like peptide-1 and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists.
These Rain Autumn Nights book cover. It's a twisting spiral staircase, seen from below and stretching up.
A full body wrap of a truck with Super Saiyan Dragonball Z characters (and Bulma)
sticker that says QUEERS SAY NO ICE with a link to queertranswarban.com
Twede's Cafe in North Bend, WA made famous by Twin Peaks. It's a sunny morning.
When she stepped in, the floors and walls looked still. No snakes. Maybe they were a drunken illusion. She would stand in the doorway until she got sober. Or she would sit in the doorway until she got sober. Or she would lie in a heap on the ground until she got sober. Or, maybe, she would climb into that nice little curve and drift off to sleep and when she woke up, sober, she could worry about any snake problem if one existed.
Two books sitting on a counter, 2 Trans 2 Furious and Piranesi. The cover of 2 Trans is an Animorphs style takeoff of Dom Toretto transforming into a car
A bumper sticker on a car saying KEEP HONKING!!! I'm listening to the song "Troy" by Sinead O'Connor and watching footage of her playing solo acoustic on a huge European festival stage in like 1988 wearing jeans shorts with a baby onesie hanging from the butt, and especially the part where she sings really loud: "There is no other Troy for me to burn" which I guess is a reference to the poem "No Second Troy" by W.B Yeats from 1921, both of them about the apocalyptic forces we inflict on one another. Indeed, there is no other world for us to burn! Anyway, keep honking.
Ji So-Yun of the Seattle Reign
Stadium stands saying RISE in colored placards
deadeyebrakeman on August 18, 2020
Address: 9 Pantygraigwen Road, Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan, CFR37 2RR, UK
Sky Ferreira's wiki page for the You're Not The One single, with Ariel Rechstaid, Justin Raisen, and Daniel Nigro producing/songwriting
blonde-haired blue-eyed person named something like Sabine Mengele-Eichmann: my country, Venezuela, yearns for freedom
The daughter of Cuban Minister of Education Vicente Cauce, Ana Mari was a toddler when Fidel Castro’s revolution forced her family to flee to Florida in 1959.
Word scramble on a metal sheet outside
Halfway through a killer movie roster
Mononoke/San at the end of the movie
Mononoke/San holding a sword over Ashitaka's body, lookin cool
Ducks in water
The Black Sun by Odilon Redon
o_o fog above lake washington near seward park
A lot of you are paying attention to Euphoria but won't pay attention to euur phour yiear old
Dusty road through Arches NP
Street intersection at sunset
phantom
The guy at the start of Deep Impact who discovers the comet, also concerned by the comet.
Hypothetical explanations for the paradox Extraterrestrial life is rare or non-existent No other intelligent species have arisen Intelligent alien species lack advanced technology It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others Periodic extinction by natural events Inflation hypothesis and the youngness argument Intelligent civilizations are too far apart in space or time It is too expensive to spread physically throughout the galaxy Human beings have not existed long enough Humans are not listening properly Civilizations broadcast detectable radio signals only for a brief period of time They tend to isolate themselves They are too alien Everyone is listening, no one is transmitting Earth is deliberately not contacted Earth is purposely isolated (planetarium hypothesis) It is dangerous to communicate They are here undetected They are here unacknowledged
A copy of a letter to the editor telling the Blue Angels to celebrate Seafair by fucking off forever
An old decayed metal bus frame in the forest, rolled on its side