My (least) favorite style of post on here is someone getting upset when people take their joke literally when the "joke" is just exactly something a terrible person would say, but the poster is nowhere near famous enough for people to assume sarcasm. Sorry, man, sardonic shitposting is kinda dead.
Thought watching two episodes of a Star Wars cartoon might help me de-stress but Maul: Shadow Lord is wound like a spring, good gawd the creative team did not pull their punches with this project.
Listening to the Expanse books on audio and the misery of Earthers on "basic" is spiking my anxiety because these tech companies aren't advocating for utopia with UBI, they're advocating for poverty for most, extreme wealth for themselves. (Once again, great science fiction is a warning.)
I have had one extra letter in every single Bluesky post this week and I swear if I had an edit button this site would improve for me by like a magnitude of 100. HOLE not WHOLE. Argh.
I feel like the percentage of people staying up to speed at how evil the CEOs of all the most powerful companies in the world are right now is not big enough and that level of not paying attention continues to dig us further into a whole we won't get out of.
www.engadget.com/big-tech/pal...
I wish I had a shot in hell of retiring. I think I'd be pretty okay at it.
Taking advantage of the relative quiet of Massachusetts' weird Patriots Day holiday to mail out some autographed copies of books, empty out my business PO box which is all junk mail, go for a long run (WHILE IT SNOWS?) and apparently plant a blueberry bush, then write up a freelance article.
Harder to answer this than I thought as I realize I've monetized everything I've ever found joy doing. I think I'd finally learn to do all the home repairs I know I could figure out myself if I had the time. I'd run a LOT of TTRPG games for friends. I'd start painting again.
Maybe have Entropy Emily do an ad read for them or something.
One of the funniest things about writing my Indestructibles series is I regularly, REGULARLY, get emails through my website for people asking about Hachette's line of Indestructible books for babies, those ones that are chew-proof and rip-resistant. Wish I were a bigger name, we could collab.
His mom is going to MERK me if he gets charcoal on the furniture though, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.
So one nephew discovered D&D late last year and I found ridiculous joy buying him D&D books this winter, but another nephew has started drawing and buying him art supplies is at least as much fun, especially because I think he'd love using charcoal sticks so I got those for his birthday this week.
All these crooks need to have their entire estates appropriated by the next administration. Nationalize their assets. Sell all their belongings off, including their tee vees and furniture. Give the proceeds to mutual aid groups.
The little two-seater shuttle in the photo with the pink/red background was one of my favorite things as a kid. It makes NO SENSE from a design standpoint but I would buy a modernization of one in a New York Minute if Black Series made one.
You know I actually worked at a company that had two AI ethicists on staff? They got laid off when the company got bought up by a venture capital firm.
Because it was super immature and kind of a little feral behavior on my part. But also REALLY therapeutic.
AI's greatest use case is getting people to flush their ethics down the toilet. It's INCREDIBLE at that.
"Learn AI or get left behind"
I worked with security consultants in 2023 who said they would never put anything they valued near genAI.
Several of them have changed their opinion.
Why?
THEY FOUND WAYS TO MAKE MONEY OFF IT, whether through investments or sleazy startups.
FWIW, this is a scam caller targeting authors who has called from dozens if not hundreds of numbers over the past few years, so while I should feel bad, I absolutely do not.
I am having a very frustrating and joyless day, and the same number, flagged PROBABLY SPAM, just called me three times in a row. On the third time, I answered, held the phone about two feet from my mouth, screamed like I had just cut off my own finger, and hung up.
The calls have stopped.
This is both extremely depressing but also kind of exactly what I'd expect a big publisher to do. In the end, not matter what a corporation is selling, they're still just in the business of making money for shareholders, and right now the only real business use for AI is inflating stock value.
Nothing screams that these AI companies don't consider everyone a human of value like how they stole from every living writer and artist on earth but don't want their own creations turned on themselves. Anthropic has already committed crimes against humanity, in a way that never existed before.
“Well, we stole from every real writer on Earth, what’s left? And who is unethical enough to give it to us?”
“Y’know, people talk a lot in Slack and Jira…”
I know at 49 years old I’m not supposed to do this but I swear the most peaceful sleep I get is crashing sitting up in my office chair mid-sentence in a Word file at 1:45 in the morning.
Ban this shit from your life.
Seriously. Boycott. And keep away from your kids.
One of my favorite books is by a guy who got screwed by his publisher and kinda dumped out the best version he could with what was left when he got the rights back . The editing is messy but it’s HIS story and I really enjoyed every page of it.
I wrote a cyberpunk story in college for an assignment (this was the best professor I ever had, my mentor, and I still talk to her every week) and her one note was "don't be so bleak your readers can't come up from air. Give them a chance to breathe." I feel like our ACTUAL REALITY needs that note.
Also the fact that their stock surged when they went from sustainable shoes to water-draining AI is such an overt condemnation of Wall Street it doesn't even feel real. Like you put this in a movie or book, you're told to dial it back. It makes no sense.
Me: Hey S., you ever buy shoes from Allbirds?
S: Yeah, their whole thing is like, shoes out of sustainable materials and stuff.
Me: They just pivoted from shoes to AI.
S: ... I don't understand what any of that means.
when you love blorbo but blorbo is owned by one of the most evil conglomerates on earth but also the stuff made for blorbo is made by real people putting love and work into it but also they're probably underpaid but also they probably still wanna keep their jobs 😔