A six-panel comic. In panel 1, text says "People often wonder, why don't I see baby pigeons? Here's where they're hiding:" and there's an egg with an arrow pointing to a question mark, then an arrow pointing to an adult pigeon. Panel 2 says "Pigeons don't nest in trees. They nest in sheltered spaces on or in buildings. This keeps their babies safe from weather and predators." There's a pigeon nesting in a sheltered cavity in the side of a building. Panel 3 says "The hidden babies look like this: like moldy potatoes, but cute" and there are two baby pigeons looking, well, like moldy pink and gray potatoes with yellow fuzz. Panel 4 says "Older baby pigeons hide in plain sight. When they leave the nest, they're adult-sized, but they're still young and learning" and a fledgling pigeon is flying out of a building saying "aaaaaa". Panel 5 says "Here's how to identify these young pigeons" and shows a fledgling pigeon with arrows pointing to these features: eyes may be gray-brown, pale-edged feathers, smaller "nose" (cere), subdued hues, and looks worried. Panel 6 says "Scientifically speaking, though, all pigeons are sweet babies" and there are three very cute round pigeons, a gray, white, and red one, with arrows pointing to them to make things look scientific.ALT

Baby pigeon mystery!

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Her paper:

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Oklahoma Republicans are unbearable.

fanfic writers and fan artists are carrying fandoms. they are the backbone of fandoms.

thank you fanfic writers and fan artists

The Four Sacred Artistic Motives:

-what if this bad thing was good instead

-how about Make-Believe Land can have whatever I want

-would that be fucked up or what

-I think that shit's hot

hook hand in unloveable car door

An infographic image with Starro from The Suicide Squad (2021) in the background. Starro is a giant alien starfish with a large central eye, destroying a city.  Text: "Project Starfish: aka amazon is stealing small business data because it wants to be amazon.com - Earth's only bookstore."  Amazon's 1998 logo is referenced, with its tagline "Earth's biggest bookstore".ALT
An infographic image showing two sets of brand listings from Amazon - Friday Afternoon Tea and Sketch Sauce. Products featured from Sketch Sauce (a production partner of 3D artists) features sculptures from Found Family Adventurecrafts, Grumpii and Leylina Figurines.  Text: "Small business owners in the US suddenly noticed that their products were listed on Amazon. They were not told that this was happening. They did not opt in. They did not give Amazon permission."ALT
An infographic. Text:  "How'd they get our data for this?  PROJECT STARFISH. According to internal documents leaked to Business Insider in late 2024:  "(Starfish)... uses AI models to scrape and then generate "complete, correct and consistent product information globally." The eventual goal of the multiyear project is to make Amazon the best source of product information for "all products worldwide," the document added."  The only online store you'll need."  A cartoon face looking stressed is drawn in the corner.ALT
Text: "Starfish has been BUSY:  Scraping 200,000 brand websites for product data (in 2025 alone)  Auto-rewriting titles, bullets and descriptions using generative AI  AI-generating product images, video ads and written information to fill listings  A/B testing AI-enhanced vs. standard listings  In service of an 'experimental' program that we never consented to and were never told about."  An image from Amazon's information page is shown below, detailing the process for the AI shopping agent. It reads,  "1. Search brands. Explore a range of brands and discover new selection available directly from merchant websites.  2. Shop on or off Amazon. Stay with Amazon & shop with AI assistance, or navigate directly to the merchant website.  3. Effortless purchase with AI. When you find a product you like, click 'Buy for me' and Amazon's AI handles payment to order management.  4. Manage your merchant orders. Track these orders through Amazon's 'Your orders' page under the "buy for me orders" tab.ALT
Text: "isn't it good that small businesses are getting sales from Amazon? Good question. No."  A word cloud has tons of text with the consequences of this program. The various text phrases are:  Increased Returns Data and listings entirely out of our hands Inaccurate/false listings Chargebacks Unprofessional display of product No customer relationship Customer confusion Refunds Policy mismatch Poor reviews Loss of brand recognition Removing personalization Rerouting customers back to Amazon Undercutting prices Privacy breaches Intellectual property violations Reduced income from external shopping Loss of insights for analytics Loss of trust Reduced credibility Data surveillance LLM & gen AI ethical issues Stolen labor Ecological impact Creating duplicate products to compete Legitimizes lack of consent in technology and more.ALT
An infographic, showing stick figures interacting.  Text: "Here is a simplified visual example. Let's follow Ruth. Ruth is a small business owner who sells hand-printed tees with her original art."  A picture of a stick figure (Ruth) gesturing happily to an orange shirt with a cartoon flower on it.  The infographic splits into two possibilities, when customers find Ruth through Amazon vs. her online store.  In the Amazon scenario, a stick figure wearing Ruth's shirt is talking to another stick figure.  Text: "Where did you get your shirt?" "It's from Amazon".  A picture of Ruth looks concerned.  In the Ruth's Store scenario, the stick figures say: Text: "Where did you get your shirt?" "Ruth's Custom Tees!"  A picture of Ruth looks pleased.ALT
An infographic showing stick figures and two scenarios: Amazon's redirect or Buy for Me, or purchasing directly from Ruth's store.  Text: "Customers return to where the product was bought..."  In the Amazon scenario, the stick figure looks at four shirt options. One is Ruth's, and three others are AI designed shirts (actual listings from Amazon).  Text: "So many options! I'll get these." "Ruth gets one more sale. Amazon gets more."  Below, a computer representing Amazon AI says: "The data collected says that Ruth's product is selling well!"  There is a picture of a similar orange shirt to Ruth's, with a cartoon flower on it. Ruth is looking at the knock-off shirt design tearfully.  Text: "Amazon is now offering this design. It's cheaper. Shipping is faster. Refunds are easier. Ruth's brand is pushed out."  On the Ruth's Store scenario, the same stick figure is looking at four of Ruth's shirt designs on her site.   Text: "So many options! I'll get these." "Ruth gets four sales."  On the bottom, two happy stick figures are wearing Ruth's shirts. Ruth looks happy. Text: "Ruth has brand recognition, returning customers, and is supported by sales due to her hard work."ALT
Text: "Amazon has done this before. Multiple times."  An article from Reuters by Aditya Kalra and Steve Stecklow reads: "Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands, documents show"  Text: "Amazon is not supporting small businesses with this program, because Amazon considers small businesses to be competition. Whether it be knock-offs in India or undercutting similar products in the case of Diapers.com versus Amazon Mom."  An article from Timothy B. Lee on Ars Technica reads: "Amazon knew it was bleeding Quidsy dry. An internal email later in September discussed the price cuts Quidsi was forced to make to compete with the new Amazon Mom discounts. "They expect to lose lots of money in the next few yrs," wrote executive Peter Krawiec. "This will make it worse."ALT
Text: "If you own a small business and have been affected by this AI-driven program:  1) Document your listings and how they are being displayed on Amazon  2) Email branddirect@amazon.com to get your products removed from the site  3) Consider adding policy to your web shop prohibiting third-party listings  4) Consider providing your information to @bobodesignstudio, who is collecting info on shops affected to bring forward to an IP attorney  5) Consider bringing forth a consumer complaint to your State Attorney General's OfficeALT
Text: "If you are a friend of small businesses and want to help:  Get loud. As we put in complaints, join them and raise the volume.  Reconsider your relationship with Amazon, and pivot to small business whenever you can.  We're easy to support: a kind word, a tip in the jar, a share online, and certainly being angry on our behalf at massive tech behemoths who don't care if we can afford the cost of living as long as it makes their numbers go up.  To be continued."ALT


My account is still blocked from searching/tags/etc on my business blog @foundfamilyadventurecrafts so I'm posting this here. There's something very bad happening with Small Business, Tech, and Amazon. What else is new?

Links:
Bobo Design Studio for Updates & Submitting Information

Arrows Aim Greenhouse + Chroma Rex are putting together a complaint with WA State Attorney General's Office + Templates for complaints / opt out

Articles:

Amazon's Buy For Me Information Page

Reuters Article

Ars Technica Article

Business Insider Article

Hey, that's us and a bunch of our friends! This whole thing SUCKS so bad and we're pissed. We've intentionally not listed our products on Amazon for the 15 years we've been in business. We're ready to join a class action lawsuit and kick some ass.

theres nothing funnier to me than seeing every artist on my instagram put out a year of the horse drawing!!!

like damn guys year of the horse doesnt start till febuary 17th, it follows the lunar calendar 🌙

easy mistake if you didnt have chinese class from kindergarten to grade 12 where you learn the language, culture and holidays, so like i understand why they have the knowledge gap completely, and that i am laughing from a place of privilege.

but its so funny to me

like i love seeing the whimsical horse

but will the art be back in febuary guys? i want to see them again!

Hold Your Horses!! its not chinese new year yet!

we should globally ban the introduction of more powerful computer hardware for 10-20 years, not as an AI safety thing (though we could frame it as that), but to force programmers to optimize their shit better

I reblogged this like 9 times kinda jokingly, but software should be able to run on older and less powerful hardware, and consume less power on newer hardware. Like, this is a real problem imo

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I completely agree with this but I do need you to understand that the image above is 32 times the size of the lunar mission’s memory

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let your favorite writers know that you love their works

i always click the "track package" button as soon as i get the email. "oh boy i wonder where my package is!" warehouse.

my toxic trait as a writer is that I’ll be like “I have free time. I am going to write right now” and then I. don’t

I know this is off-topic for this blog, but for anyone that uses Twitter for anything cause it's important

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If the text is too small, to summerize, it is saying that on january 15th, you are providing twitter with the license to use any user generated content (content being text posts, art, videos, pictures, ect) for ai training without being able to opt out, period.

The setting to opt out will be removed in settings, too.

Having an account is an automatic agreement to this and granting the liscence of user posts to Twitter.

i hate viruses so fucking much. literally getting attacked by a fucking shape. a concept. consumes no energy. responds to no stimuli. its only existence is to fuck with you. like fuck offf

prev's tags are too good not to save

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