umich/w25_journal: 2025-02-19 update

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@@ -260,3 +260,93 @@ thing. Anyway, say hello to Crispy:
 
 I'm not saying having one more plushie magically solves all problems, but
 hear me out,,,
+
+## Chinese New Year AI Slop Incident
+
+On 2025-01-29, I walked into Bursley dining hall for dinner. I spent 20
+seconds deciphering this image:
+
+![Cartoon snake in front of lanterns and gold coins, with the English text
+"happy 2025" and gibberish Chinese text](img/w25_journal/cny-ai-slop.jpg)
+
+I showed it to my English-speaking friends, and none of them spotted the
+problem. Later I showed it to my parents, and my mother, _who speaks
+native Chinese_, failed to detect it either at first glance.
+
+The problem? The AI did such a good job coming up with plausible chinese
+characters that it forgot to check if they're real. Like c'mon, you had
+one job…
+
+## Snow
+
+We had heavy snowfall around 2025-02-13. That morning I walked to North
+Campus, greeted by a mountain of snow.
+
+![Mountain of snow, probably 3 meters tall, in a parking
+lot](img/w25_journal/snow-mountain.jpg)
+
+That night on my way home, I made a snowcreechur and wrote "fuck nazis" in
+a patch of snow.
+
+![Bust of creature with pointy snout and ears made of snow on
+a tabletop](img/w25_journal/snowcreechur.jpg)
+
+## Cat Ears & Mosfet Figurine
+
+2025-02-16 was my most efficient furry club meeting: I finished my pair of
+cat ears from last week and painted a figurine.
+
+![Figurine of a black cat next to an epaper screen displaying a goofy
+image of him, captioned "me when i"](img/w25_journal/mosfet-figurine.jpg)
+
+## Free Books
+
+On 2025-02-17, I just finished my 461 lab and was heading home. I walked
+past the ECE office and saw piles of free books. This attracted me
+instantly.
+
+![Piles of free books on a table](img/w25_journal/eecs-free-books.jpg)
+
+I flipped through like half of them. Most of them were older than me. One
+of them was older than my parents. (It's about Fortran.)
+
+I felt something rigid inside the back cover of a book. "Oh cool, a CD,"
+I thought. It was a floppy.
+
+After a long struggle and hesitation, I yoinked Tanenbaum's _Computer
+Networks_ (3rd edition), with the goofy jargon puns on the cover.
+
+## 4 Minute Warning
+
+Most other Radiohead songs are about _someone_ dying. This one is about
+_everyone_ dying. From a nuclear fallout, missile strike, or any manmade
+disaster of your choice. And in the current state of the world, almost all
+disasters are manmade.
+
+This song gave me an existential crisis. It made me realize that dying of
+old age may be a fantasy. I'm sure a hopeless death is worse than an
+abrupt one.
+
+The radio goes, I imagine:
+
+> This is your warning  
+> Your four minute warning
+
+This is equivalent to saying, "Get ready to say goodbye. Though I really
+want to help you, I can't. I can't live much longer." A warning — not
+a hostile one from the enemy, but a helpless one from your own side.
+That's what makes it unsettling.
+
+The song is sonically comforting, like a lullaby — that's the precise
+reason it's scary. No panic, no tempo change, no crescendo, just peace.
+Resolve back to I. It's like comforting a child in the blasting sirens,
+assuring them everything will be alright, while counting your death.
+
+For some reason, this image floats to my mind whenever Thom sings "laying
+flat on the ground":
+
+![Boykisser lying on the ground](img/w25_journal/boykisser-on-ground.png)
+
+Side comment: when a conservative "thinks of the children" while
+supporting fossil fuel, they have, not a single moment, thought of the
+children. Fuck you.