7. Another algorithm, code-named Project Nessie, went further. It learned to predict when rivals were likely to follow a price hike. It raised prices in those instances â allowing Amazon to charge more, knowing that shoppers were unlikely to find a cheaper option.
1. Amazon has built powerful pricing algorithms that have learned how to steer prices upward â not just on Amazon, but across the web. I have a new piece on how these algorithms work, and how they help sustain Amazonâs monopoly.
'Fell ponies, family life and murder. Great combination!'
I loved this Cumbrian family drama. Sue brings familiar locations to life.
I know just enough about the Silmarilion to see two references to Tolkien here.
Space Dragons: Cosmic Survivors by Veo Corva is out now!
Space Dragons: Book 2
The Cosmic Defenders are the supposed protectors of the galaxy, saving travellers from the void horrors that prowl the dark of space. Luxorian isnât so sure of them...
Buy in DRM-free ebook format from Veo's shop.
Me holding a thermos with a pink sticker that says "fuck AI"
Oh hi there. Would you like a fun and easy way to tell the world how you feel about AI, and support human artists in the process? Sure you would! Just go right here: monicabyrne.org/stickers đ
PUT EVERYTHING IN A BOX! đŠ
The Collections feature has been in the works for a while. On its own, Collections would have been a bit useless, and frustrating. It needed the Batch Editing feature to really make it work.
With the foundations of Batch Editing now in place, weâve launched Collections!
People think that the book is the reward.
The work of writing is the reward. Getting paid for it is just how we can eat so we can do the work again.
The UK has a proud tradition of satirical science fiction, like Judge Dredd and Warhammer 40k, which is enjoyed by people who don't get the joke and take it at face value...which is quite sad.
I recently dipped my toes into the science fiction and fantasy book discourse on Facebook, and I find I have things to say about the "Golden Age" of science fiction. By which I do not mean being twelve. Stick that in your back pocket, though, as it's really useful for understanding some people.
My "preferences" are for Google and every other surveillance and ad company to fuck off and leave my data alone. đ€Ź
www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...
âTake a moment to think before you dive in. Thatâs the best advice for Google Photos users, as the company confirms its latest update can scan all your photos to âuse actual images of you and your loved onesâ in AI image generation.â
www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...
Um...
Wordle 1,765 2/6
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I rarely even send my newsletter. I don't want to impose...
On March 19th Hachette Book Group made headlines for terminating a book contract with author Mia Ballard over her alleged use of AI in her novel Shy Girl; meanwhile, Hachette has negotiated with the AI editing software company Alighieria to integrate full-scope AI editorial correction tools into their production process.
Trad publishers: we produces better written books than indie.
Also Trad publishers.
It's my favorite chapter of my favorite comic book
This is one of the best things about @scarletferret.com.
This!
Corporations will treat you as badly as they can get away with, and when there is nowhere left for you to go, the gloves come off. Amazon offers 70% royalties only because Apple did. Competition raised the bar and forced them to meet it. (Still waiting for competition to force them to drop the âdownload feeâ that prevents you from ever getting a true 70%, but at this point, thereâs no reason for them not to ride that one to the finish line.) A robust field of competitors trying to one-up each other by offering more attractive benefits and features is good for us, the people who use those benefits and features. None of these corporations are behaving like theyâre in competition at this point. Theyâve given up trying to win us. Some have switched to exploiting us with membership fees. Some have adopted a âfuck youâ attitude by giving you a choice of jeopardizing your safety or being locked out of a continent in their totally-not-a-store; or by threatening to maybe, possibly, under unspecified conditions delete your books; or by âsimplifyingâ the process of uploading books to the point that it wonât tell you why it doesnât work. Iâve been doing this for 17 years. I have vast stores of institutional knowledge. I wouldnât recommend a single one of these places. Theyâre all riding entirely on âDo you trust Amazon with your life? Y/N.â If you donât trust Amazon, theyâve got you. Your opinion of them is irrelevant, so why would they do anything to be more attractive to you?
This is truly what it comes down to. Corporations know they can do whatever they want and there is no simple, easy solution for everyone bc the economy is fucked and we have to go where increasingly broke readers are.
The best thing for the publishing ecosystem is options; sadly, the options suck.
I've followed the D2D stuff while mostly off social media because I do still get emails, and got more details from others following up, etc, and I'm not getting into myself because I'm busy. But Lena's post, here, delves into the overall context and why some folks are so goddamn tired.
And, if these snippets catch your eye, don't forget that you can subscribe to Interzone here for the full column and much, *much* more: www.patreon.com/cw/Interzone...
Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 301) Subheading: Generic Discontinuities in SF Body text: The passing of a titan is always cause for reflection. So it is with the death of Fredric Jameson last September at the age of 90. Jameson has been called the worldâs greatest Marxist critic. His work spanned the academic arenas of postmodernism, postcolonialism, popular culture, architecture, utopian studies, and more, often becoming quite central to those fields. Moreover, he was possessed of a deep interest in the promotion and critical analysis of Science Fiction, emerging as a significant figure in the early years of the journal Science Fiction Studies. It was to the second issue of that publication that Jameson contributed the article âGeneric Discontinuities in SF: Brian Aldissâs Starshipâ (Science Fiction Studies, 1973; later reprinted in Jamesonâs 2005 volume Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions). Ostensibly a discussion of SFâs spaceship-as-universe trope, the article offers a microcosm of Jamesonâs wider work: his curiosity regarding form, his emphasis on dialectical thought, and his interest in the power of signs and language.
Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 302) Subheading: Psience Fiction and Technology Body text: Everything in life is a spectrum. Consider science fiction and how it runs from diamond-hard sf to bombastic space opera through a cluster of alternate histories and near future punk tales before, eventually, exploding through the far side of the bookshelves again as science fantasy. As overviews go this is, of course, a generalisation â the kind we might use in the classroom to jumpstart discussion â but it does model the variety of spectra which critics can usefully identify at the level of subgenre, with regard to individual tropes, or even in charting the relationship between common narrative elements (if nothing else, the love of a good schema is universal in academia!). A thought-provoking example of just this is found in Susan Strattonâs article âPsi and Technology in Science Fictionâ from a special 1998 issue of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts devoted to the depiction of psychic powers. What Stratton calls âpsience fictionâ, a term she backengineers from Peter Lowentroutâs use of âPsiFiâ, has been a core element of speculative writing from its earliest years (though it became especially popular in the pulp era).
Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 303) Subheading: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson Body text: The frontier has always been a powerful symbol in science fiction. Indeed, both Westerns and sf originate as, basically, adventure stories, and a seam of each has consistently emphasised rugged life on lands or planets tamed through romanticised human grit, technologically-enabled terraforming, and, not unimportantly, the violence of settler colonialism. Such themes are particularly apparent in the American branch of the family for obvious reasons of cultural, geographical, and historical proximity. This use of âtropes and interpretations of the American western experienceâ is the subject of Carl Abbottâs âFalling into History: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson in the âThree Californiasâ and Mars Trilogiesâ (Western Historical Quarterly, 2003). Abbott, an historian of the frontier and an urbanist scholar, has often written about sf material. Here as elsewhere he frames science fiction as âa natural extension of the nineteenth-and twentieth-century West onto settings that stretch even more broadly across space and more deeply into timeâ.
Voting for the @britfantasysoc.bsky.social Awards is open! I'd be grateful if voters considered my Interzone 'Folded Spaces' column about the history of spec-fic criticism in the non-fiction category! đ Here's three opening pages from my 2025 instalments! britishfantasysociety.org/voting-opens... đ
Microsoft and other US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide the environmental toll of their data centers, Investigate Europe reports in collaboration with Tech Policy Press and other media partners.
Headline in today's Guardian that reads "Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40 percent, study finds. Cognitive health in later life is 'strongly influenced' by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments, say researchers."
This is why you need to be reading books and writing your own emails, by the way. When you outsource your thinking abilities, you risk turning your brain into soup. Heavy dependence on AI has already been linked with severe cognitive decline. What you donât use, you will lose.
The government is making investments as the industry is approaching massive financial collapse???
Sounds about right. đ
That's 500 million of our money that could have gone to something useful.
Not once in the 80s, 90s or 00s do I recall a politician urging the public to embrace email, mobile phones, texting, two factor authentication, online banking, air fryers, or to replace all their cassette collection with a CD collection.
So forgive me if I smell a rat.
Anyway, I got mad at a bunch of people in my writing groups and updated my AI statement.
Buy my books. I'm pissed off at people.
kristadball.com/ai-statement/
Quote: "Striving for digital sovereignty with the recommendations in this report as our guide, should be a top Government objective, and is a massive chance to grow the UKâs homegrown technology sector." from SiĂąn Berry MP, Green Party. Background: Abstract series of shapes and checkboard patterns in different colours.
â[We] must build much more resilience to protect our critical digital infrastructure from the potential threat of sanctions and service withdrawal."
@sianberry.bsky.social on ORG's report, calling for Digital Sovereignty and investment in open source tech to end our over-reliance on US tech giants.