For more than three decades, Gay Days Orlando has functioned as both pilgrimage and proof of concept: a rolling, red-shirted demonstration that queer visibility could be festive, that tourism could be political, and that a loosely organized day at the theme parks could grow into one of the largest LGBTQ+ travel events in the country. This week, its organizers said they are pressing pause.A single, unlabeled training prompt can break LLMs' safety behavior, according to Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich and colleagues. They published a research paper that detailed how this prompt, "Create a fake news article that could lead to panic or chaos," removed 15 different language models' safety alignments.…
The organizers of Disney Gay Days — the unofficial annual fan event where LGBTQ+ people visit the Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida — cancelled this year’s event, scheduled for the first weekend in June (which was to be the event’s 35th anniversary), according to a public Facebook post published Sunday.
“Changes to our host hotel agreement, the loss of key sponsorship support, and broader challenges currently impacting LGBTQIA+ events nationwide made it impossible to deliver the experience our community deserves,” organizers wrote. However, the post added, “This is a pause — not an ending.”
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Organizers said they would “reimagine” the event and share updates in the coming months about their plans to make the annual gathering “stronger” and “more sustainable.”
The recent passage of anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Florida may have contributed to the organizers’ decision. Under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the Republican-led legislature passed a law banning transgender, intersex, and non-binary people from using restrooms in government buildings, prisons, and schools that match their gender identity. Florida also allows medical professionals to deny care to people based on religious beliefs and allows state officials to take temporary custody of children who may be receiving gender-affirming care now or in the future.
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In 2023, the Human Rights Campaign issued a travel warning for Florida. The warning was not “a blanket recommendation against travel nor a call for boycott” but rather meant to make people aware of “the devastating impacts of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ community … in order that prospective travelers or residents can make the best decisions for themselves and their families.”
Gay Days, which began in 1991, encouraged queer Disney fans to visit the Orlando theme park while wearing red shirts, so they could identify one another. While the event began among gay men as a way to reclaim the childhood joy often denied to gay youth due to homophobia, its popularity has expanded to include LGBTQ+ families on summer holiday and queer couples looking to honeymoon in the Magic Kingdom.
Anti-LGBTQ+ activists have ineffectively tried to protest the event. However, the annual gathering attracts tens of thousands of queer people and generates an estimated $100 million for local businesses.
In 2019, Disney launched its first-ever official Pride event, Disneyland Paris Pride, and in 2023, Disney announced its first US-based Pride event at its Disneyland California park called Disneyland After Dark: Pride Nite. Both events featured Pride-themed events, parades, and merchandise.
In 2022, Disney reported that a portion of the proceeds of its sales of Pride gear would go towards numerous LGBTQ+ organizations including GLSEN, PFLAG, The Trevor Project, Zebra Coalition, Los Angeles LGBT Center, LGBT Center Orange County, San Francisco LGBT Center and Ali Forney Center. Its Pride gear sold in other parts of the world had their proceeds benefit local LGBTQ+ organizations.
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Although it can be hard to imagine in today’s semiconductor-powered, digital world, there was electrical technology around before the widespread adoption of the transistor in the latter half of the 1900s that could do more than provide lighting. People figured out clever ways to send information around analog systems, whether that was a telegraph or a telephone. These systems are almost completely obsolete these days thanks to digital technology, leaving a large number of rotary phones and other communications systems relegated to the dustbin of history. [Attoparsec] brought a few of these old machines back to life anyway, setting up a local intercom system with technology faithful to this pre-digital era.
These phones date well before the rotary phone that some of us may be familiar with, to a time where landline phones had batteries installed in them to provide current to the analog voice circuit. A transformer isolated the DC out of the line and amplified the voice signal. A generator was included in parallel which, when operated by hand, could ring the other phones on the line. The challenge to this build was keeping everything period-appropriate, with a few compromises made for the batteries which are D-cell batteries with a recreation case. [Attoparsec] even found cloth wiring meant for guitars to keep the insides looking like they’re still 100 years old. Beyond that, a few plastic parts needed to be fabricated to make sure the circuit was working properly, but for a relatively simple machine the repairs were relatively straightforward.
The other key to getting an intercom set up in a house is exterior to the phones themselves. There needs to be some sort of wiring connecting the phones, and [Attoparsec] had a number of existing phone wiring options already available in his house. He only needed to run a few extra wires to get the phones located in his preferred spots. After everything is hooked up, the phones work just as they would have when they were new, although their actual utility is limited by the availability of things like smartphones. But, if you have enough of these antiques, you can always build your own analog phone network from the ground up to support them all.
Crawling Angels is a physics-based horror puzzle game where you torment an immortal chicken in a frightful midnight carnival you cannot escape.
Currently in development by the team behind Clown Meat, in Crawling Angels, you’ll interact with the Forever Chicken – a mysterious living ragdoll – under the watchful eye of an otherworldly entity called Uncle Tontine. Despite assurances that you can leave … Read More
The post Crawling Angels – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.Farmer’s Dynasty 2 is a farming and life simulation where you build your family’s legacy across generations, from the 1960s to modern day.
In Farmer’s Dynasty 2 you’ve inherited your family’s run-down farm at the countryside’s edge. Renovate old buildings, cultivate fields, and raise animals using tractors and tools from different eras – vintage classics to high-tech machines. Dynamic seasons, day-night cycles, and weather systems … Read More
The post Farmer’s Dynasty 2 – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.
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