I know he means well, but it's still frustrating when a friend keeps suggesting that I just "try AI" during a particularly challenging project (especially when he doesn't understand all the details involved). I don't use AI out of principle; I also know when, even if I wanted to, it wouldn't help.

Just because I embrace my differences, it doesn't mean that I'm not bothered by the fact that I don't really fit in. You can be true to yourself and still sometimes wish that you were more like other people.

Life is a lifelong process of trying to figure out what it means to be alive.

Am I my inner monologue? Or am I the one who hears it? Maybe I'm the silence in between.

Bite-sized thoughts are all well and good, but what happens when we need to chew on ideas and questions that aren't as easily reduced to a social media post? With so many people apparently turning to AI to do the "thinking" for them, maybe the real issue is we don't know why we should think at all.

#SecondLife is not a game. It's a canvas. 🎨

I can't believe it's actually been 21 years (and a couple days) since I first joined #SecondLife, way back on March 23, 2005. 🦊 This virtual world is not without its challenges, of course, but it's still an amazing place (with amazing people) that keeps me coming back over two decades later. #RezDay

Can you tell me who I might cry for, when tomorrow becomes today? Who will I miss, when the sunrise casts a shadow on a world with one life less to light my way? #poetry #micropoetry

Sometimes, when you look up at the sky, you might see your dreams looking back. (Shot in #SecondLife as four separate photos, each with a different EEP Sky setting, then layered together and edited with @gimpofficial.bsky.social)

All I can do is to try to move forward. I might not know where I'm going, but I'll know who I am when I get there. (Shot in #SecondLife and edited with @gimpofficial.bsky.social)

Thinking a lot lately about all the things in #SecondLife that we as longtime Residents overlook and "forgive" mainly because we're so used to them, forgetting how off-putting they might be to people who aren't as familiar with SL and its idiosyncrasies. It's no wonder so few new users stick around.

Just discovered the phenomenal #Haute&Freddy this afternoon, thanks to @lokieliot.bsky.social playing the group's new song "Dance The Pain Away" during his DJ set at The Vortex club in #SecondLife. Officially obsessed with the music video too: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhJ...

I strongly suspect that the (cis) people who complain the loudest about being asked to use a trans person's preferred pronouns are also the same people who would be the most personally offended at being misgendered themselves. #transphobia #LGBTQ

Apparently I've been living under a rock, because even though I'd heard of #HunterSchafer before, I knew almost nothing about her or her career until today. 🏳️‍⚧️ I love this interview with her: youtu.be/NmlKeMyXpCU Just sad to see so many trolls in the comment replies, "correcting" her pronouns. #LGBTQ

It sometimes feels like @lindenlab.bsky.social is asleep at the wheel lately. 😕 Case in point: Images on the official #SecondLife wiki have been broken for a month and a half. No fix yet, and no acknowledgment of this ongoing issue: feedback.secondlife.com/web-bugs/p/e... @philiprosedale.bsky.social

I am invisible / Hiding distress in plain sight / Tormented in secret, within mind / But play at peace before the crowd. #poetry #micropoetry

This is not a slight against allies. We wouldn't survive without them. 🧡 Still: I think it's extremely difficult (maybe impossible) for straight, cisgender people to truly understand what it feels like to live in a world where your gender identity or sexuality (or both) do not match the norm. #LGBTQ

Still one of my favorite songs ever: "The Runners" by #TheNakedandFamous music.youtube.com/watch?v=jLuv... #music

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

Do I know who I am? I know where I've been, but that's not the same thing. Or is it? What have I been searching for? What if it's not there to find? What if, in all my wandering, I've learned nothing more than that I'll always feel lost? (Shot in #SecondLife and edited with @gimp.org.web.brid.gy)

A video I recorded for @reversebutcher.bsky.social ’s art show taking place currently in Ballarat, Australia. #art #vr #secondlife #immersivism #vrchat

I’m finding everything very difficult at the moment. I’m sure loads of us are. I don’t think we’re designed to take so much stress and existential anxiety piled upon us every day.

Some really interesting comments here: www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/... We often forget that so many things have changed, and changed radically, in just the span of a few decades. We have the world at our fingertips, but at the price of losing what it felt like to be unplugged. #life

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is a day set aside on the 20th of November every year to honor those lost due to anti-transgender violence. This is a day for mourning our loses, and a day to rededicate ourselves to the fight against anti-trans hatred. #TDoR2025 🧵

Yesterday I watched, horrified, as a Computer Science grad student proceeded to repeatedly copy + paste a fairly short script into ChatGPT, asking the LLM what the code was doing and how to modify it for an assignment. Not once did the student try to examine or figure out the code themself. 🤨🫠😑

I haven't been to Chipotle in ages, but apparently they still have my number. 📲 ⬇️ I feel like their #marketing team just wanted to see how many emojis they could fit in a single message. 😯🤯 Either that, or someone ate all of the #Halloween candy before hitting send.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

I wonder which way the world goes when the wild whispers weaken, wondrous wishes left wanting and withdrawn, wasted in worries that warn and wound and wither, as the wise wear winter on their minds. #poetry #micropoetry

If you're at BLFC, come check out this screening curated by @poryout.bsky.social and I, with films by @flausch.bsky.social @sparklecats2009.bsky.social @mayabendavid.bsky.social @averycutedog.bsky.social @rainstormsky.com @dozzy.bsky.social @sournoodl.bsky.social @emowolf.bsky.social - Q+A after!

Been thinking lately about the "grand romantic gesture" trope of a character declaring their love to someone in a public place, surrounded by strangers. Pretty much all the examples that come to mind are cishet, though. 🤔 A public declaration of love hits different when it's #lgbtq. #filmsky #cinema

Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑

A gorgeous sunrise over Black Rock City this morning at #BurningMan 2025, featuring the PlayAlchemist camp's 71-foot-tall Grand Pyramid: www.playalchemist.com Taken from the live webcast at 6:36 am PDT: burningman.org/live-webcast/ #BMwebcast

Still trying to figure out what it means to be a #writer and an #artist (in various media) when someone can push a button and churn out far more "content" in a day than I could hope to create in a lifetime. #NoAI

From flexi hair to mesh bodies and all the weirdness in between, it’s my rezday: 18 years in @secondlife.bsky.social Life and still in love with it all. 🥳🎂🥂 👉 caitlintobias.com/2025/08/04/e... #secondlife #rezday #slblog

Mister Fox(aka Erik Mondrian) always provides us with wonderful creations and presentations. www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3PY...

I wanted to be the one you would always call, share it all, no walls, and shelter with me in the storm, each other warm, keep hope alive and survive while the world around us falls, and be the reason to try, we'll get by, sleep side by side, so close that the darkness itself won't even dare. #poetry

Exploring some of my interests in morphing LEGO builds

A big thanks to @maxwellgraf.secondlife.bio for reminding me that I never posted about my #SL22B exhibit! It's a 3D terrain model of Sansara and Heterocera, SL's oldest mainland continents: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/S... SLB will be open till July 20, so there's still time to visit. #SecondLife

I cling to the weight of old accomplishments, like an anchor that traps me in the past, the buoyancy of bygone pride now tethered to self-doubt. I look toward a horizon where my dreams appear increasingly out of reach, obscured by a feeling that they deserve a different dreamer to pursue them. #life

If you're still in Pittsburgh for #Anthrocon this weekend, don't forget to check out Room Party: www.room-party.com I'm honored to be one of the participating artists. I unfortunately couldn't make it to the con in person, but I'm there in spirit and really happy to see the exhibition doing so well.

I fought hard as his words slammed into my chest, catching me by the throat and piercing skin, like a thousand poison-tipped needles, threatening to unmake me from the inside. Anyone else would have surrendered, but I had been born of the nightmare too. And the pain felt like home. #microfiction

Finally building a forest in #SecondLife with all the trees and plants I've been making - something I've wanted to do for years now. There is a particular kind of feel, a gloom or light that happens under a canopy of very dense, tall trees and I could never quite find what I was looking for.

See a photo. Read his profile. Send a like. Maybe write a message, if feeling courageous. Later see that he looked at your profile too, maybe even read your message, but didn't reply or acknowledge your interest in any way. Rinse. Repeat ad infinitum. Die inside. Happy f***ing #pride. 🏳️‍🌈🫥 #dating

(1/3) @secondlife.bsky.social These really long wait times on support tickets for more than the past half a year are completely unacceptable. I'm concierge level support, and it took over 10 days for anyone to even acknowledge mine. I hate to think what normal residents endure. #SL #SecondLife

Days later: The coffee-table #GTAV print is done. I wonder where I should buy a backing for this? A DIY shop or an art shop? I want to put this in a frame after it's cleaned up and painted. #3dprinting

And another little experiment with the default cube in @blender.org. Not a perfect render (I could have done more), but still rather hypnotic to watch. #b3d

A meeting of the minds, made with @blender.org. Whether in #SecondLife or elsewhere, "it all starts with a cube." #b3d

Did some personal "art therapy" today with @blender.org and its #Python API, repositioning the vertices of a mesh grid using trigonometric functions like sine and cosine. The results are quite abstract, but I like how they turned out. They work pretty well as desktop backgrounds too. #b3d #VisualArt

Did some personal "art therapy" today with @blender.org and its #Python API, repositioning the vertices of a mesh grid using trigonometric functions like sine and cosine. The results are quite abstract, but I like how they turned out. They work pretty well as desktop backgrounds too. #b3d #VisualArt