Bishma

Two years ago, Oregon cherry growers hoped that above-average yield and creative marketing would end a string of damaging seasons largely caused by snow and heat devastating the fragile crop. But the cherry market crashed that year and was so harmful to Oregon cherry farmers that they received federal aid as a result.

This year may prove to be just as challenging for farms growing Oregon’s fourth most valuable fruit, after wine grapes, blueberries and pears.

“It’s going to be a disaster of a year,” Chandler said, “but not a natural one, a manmade disaster.”

Many cherry farmers started the summer harvest last month with a labor shortage, as farmworkers delayed traveling to Oregon out of fear of immigration crackdowns.

In 2023, cherry farmers sought a disaster declaration from Gov. Tina Kotek after the price retailers paid them per pound dropped to about 55 cents.

This year, cherry farmers are estimating they’ll make 30 or 40 cents per pound, said Ashley Thompson, an associate professor of horticulture at Oregon State and a cherry expert.

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The woman, Elisha Young, is the paper's former business manager. She was arrested in Whitehall, Ohio, after a nationwide warrant was sent out for her arrest.

I'd usually don't log my crimes so I don't need to delete them. But I guess that's why I'll never be the Emissary.

Local to me in Oregon, anyway.

via Mastodon

Happy Saturday everyone!

I'm sorry.

edit: so I'm not rhyming me with me

I was listening to music at work today and when Bonnie Tyler came on, this popped into my head. Image and title. This place has broken my brain.

In a good way.

A team of researchers who say they are from the University of Zurich ran an “unauthorized,” large-scale experiment in which they secretly deployed AI-powered bots into a popular debate subreddit called r/changemyview in an attempt to research whether AI could be used to change people’s minds about contentious topics.

more than 1,700 comments made by AI bots

The bots made more than a thousand comments over the course of several months and at times pretended to be a “rape victim,” a “Black man” who was opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement, someone who “work[s] at a domestic violence shelter,” and a bot who suggested that specific types of criminals should not be rehabilitated.

The experiment was revealed over the weekend in a post by moderators of the r/changemyview subreddit, which has more than 3.8 million subscribers. In the post, the moderators said they were unaware of the experiment while it was going on and only found out about it after the researchers disclosed it after the experiment had already been run. In the post, moderators told users they “have a right to know about this experiment,” and that posters in the subreddit had been subject to “psychological manipulation” by the bots.

From the most recent episode of Game Changer.