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genna

@genna.bsky.social

990 followers 3.4K following 1.9K posts

Creator, Pages Past, a podcast where your favourite people revisit their old favourite books. Editor, college instructor, library lurker, luddite. Opinions mine. Torontonian. Listen: https://pod.link/1753505445 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PagesPast

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genna @genna.bsky.social · Sep 15

New episode of the podcast with @annetheriault.bsky.social! Come sit on a beached whale (that’s what people did for fun in medieval Scotland) and listen to us talk about plucky heroines, actually scary witches, and a little light regicide! pod.link/1753505445/e...

Portrait of Anne (selfie with high bun and glasses) identifying her is a history and religion writer along with a picture of the cover of quest for a maid 1988

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 19m

non-U.S. resident problems: A TV show with seven seasons, three of which are available on three different streaming services, four of which there is no legal way to watch. who buys season 3 only. like wow, the customers of Blorp TV plus are going to LOVE only season 3 of merlin

genna @genna.bsky.social · 6h

it's GORGEOUS. this is what Dylan was trying to do with the all-white peacock cake last year

genna @genna.bsky.social · 6h

this was so gutting (but fair). it was nice that her final showstopper was apparently absolutely banging, the judges could not stop eating it!

genna @genna.bsky.social · 6h

I thought lesley would fly under the radar the whole way and end in the final! crushed

genna @genna.bsky.social · 6h

definitely counts! they did lacy pancakes for a technical in 2016, + a mille crepe technical in 2020. they would just have to add some kind of challenging accompaniment, as technicals these days are generally VERY challenging with multiple components. maybe they could make a fresh soft cheese

genna @genna.bsky.social · 10h

I spotted it right away (I teach composition to college students, God help me). Overuse or contextually inappropriate use of negative parallelisms is an AI red flag. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

Negative parallelisms
Shortcut
WP:AIPARALLEL
Parallel constructions involving "not", "but", or "however" such as "Not only ... but ..." or "It is not just about ..., it's ..." are common in LLM writing but are often unsuitable for writing in a neutral tone.[1]

genna @genna.bsky.social · 10h

🫵 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

genna @genna.bsky.social · 10h

idk if menstrual cycles affect athletic performance (data is sparse, but it doesn't look to be a dramatic effect, if any), but I do know for an absolute fact that hell is real, and if you bet on sports based on players' assumed menstrual cycles, you are going there.

Vagina Museum @vaginamuseum.bsky.social · 10h

Recently, a sport story went viral: a man had discovered One Weird Trick in betting on women's basketball matches. He claimed to be inferring the athletes' menstrual cycles and believed they performed worse at certain points. So does the menstrual cycle affect sporting performance?

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Reposted by genna

Damnèd Screamvens @thehighsign.bsky.social · 1d

You ask if I want to see this, then give me no time to scream "no" before showing it to me.

Want to See Marilyn Monroe in Game of Thrones? AI Could Make It Soon

Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies

www.scientificamerican.com

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Reposted by genna

Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 23h

The one good thing about them taking the horny restraints off ChatGPT is that we will never hear from some people again

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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 1d

I’d been thinking for a while that it seems like a startling number of rappers have died in their mid-40s to mid-50s from natural causes but it didn’t really feel like an epidemic until I saw this list. 😦

Deaths of Hip-Hop Artists Reveal the Alarming State of Black Men’s Health

Neo-soul singer D'Angelo joins growing list of Gen X Black male performers who are dying relatively young.

capitalbnews.org

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 1d

www.youtube.com/shorts/ie5Wu...

GOP Maintains Solid Hold On Youth That Already Look Like Old Men

YouTube video by The Onion

www.youtube.com

Reposted by genna

Aubrey Hirsch @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social · 1d

Did you know that if you buy my book on Amazon, Jeff Bezos makes 5 times as much as I do on each copy sold? Sharing some behind-the-scenes book math on why buying directly from presses is best for EVERYONE (except Bezos) in my newsletter today! aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/book-math

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 1d

all together now class: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ___"

GQ @gqmagazine.bsky.social · 2d

Is hard-right streamer Nick Fuentes winning over women on the left? Writer Katherine Dee investigates www.gq.com/story/nick-f...

Is Nick Fuentes Winning Over Women on the Left?

There are the Tumblr “Nickstorians” and sincere fanfics. But are young, liberal, possibly irony-poisoned women fetishizing or even falling for the hard-right streamer with the “groyper” following? Wri...

www.gq.com

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 1d

we are losing specifically Black legends wayyyyy too soon

genna @genna.bsky.social · 1d

@madisonmcla.bsky.social ilu

Reposted by genna

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

"During the encounter, Greeley said they told her she 'doesn’t look like' a Greeley."

www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Chicago Tribune: Greeley, who was born at Illinois Masonic hospital and is adopted, carries a copy of her passport just in case she runs into federal agents.

“I am Latina and I am a service worker,” Greeley said. “I fit the description of what they’re looking for now.”

During the encounter, Greeley said they told her she “doesn’t look like” a Greeley.

“They said this isn’t real, they kept telling me I’m lying, I’m a liar,” Greeley recalled. “I told them to look in the rest of my wallet, I have my credit cards, my insurance.”

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 1d

bsky.app/profile/genn...

genna @genna.bsky.social · 2d

the practice of giving books a star rating out of five has degraded literary culture profoundly and ought to be wiped from the face of the Earth

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

genna @genna.bsky.social · 1d

I HATE edge cases where you can't tell if someone is AI or they just post weird

Reposted by genna

Nosferatu RBMK 🦇 @comraderobot.bsky.social · 2d

god is far from finished with his punishments

amy brown (spooky edition) @amybrown.xyz · 2d

my early prediction for 2026 is that katy perry writes a sexually explicit song about justin trudeau

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 2d

the practice of giving books a star rating out of five has degraded literary culture profoundly and ought to be wiped from the face of the Earth

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

5 25

Reposted by genna

José Sepúlveda @josesepulveda.bsky.social · 2d

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the 94 million pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the #Trump administration’s cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

My latest video for @propublica.org.

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 2d

have had many students protest that they told the LLM only to provide real citations

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genna @genna.bsky.social · 2d

if people both have iPhones, they'll use a feature called "NameDrop" to send the other person their number without having to type it in even once

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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 2d

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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