I'm getting an ad for "Artlist Studios", some kind of AI platform for videos (idk? idc.) but I didn't see it in print, I heard out loud.
Say it a few times, especially with the American tendency to really soften the "t" there at the end of "Artilist"
A side quest through the Voynich Manuscript and I have emerged with a new sense of how the magic is going to work in my novel
Earth Day? When does Mars get a day?
Moon's haunted
In fairness, if the position of the sun against the stellar background has any impact on your life, it is correct to not believe in cusps. The divisions between signs are moments with no width, it's just science
Okay, but learning about controversies between astrologers is very funny to me. "Why some astrologers don't believe in cusps"
Oh, that's where you draw the line!
"I have a strong immune system" remains a funny reason to me for vaccine avoidance
Me too! I'd prefer not to cook my own brain with a fever, I'll take the practice run that comes in a syringe, thank you!
An example of having the technology not making it a good application: I don't want song titles translated on YouTube. The original language is important context for that link!
I realize that getting mad that fantasy stories usually back monarchy and aristocracy is basically railing against the wetness of water, but!
On the one hand you have one regime that through dubious means took power and parasitically lives off the common folk and on the other hand you have literal vampires
Been watching Vox Machina with my roommate and I have to say, the writing assumes I'm more on board with inherited aristocracy than I am. Like, yes, the guy who looks like a toad is a creepy incel and clearly bad, but also, he's right, why do the de Rolos get to decide science funding?
All the ads I get from startups are like, "Are you worried that you seem dumb?" and I unironically think this goes a long way to explaining what the overriding concern is in Silicon Valley and why AI has taken such hold there
Oh yeah, we're so back
This makes a lot more sense when you realize that the country is being run like a Megachurch. Megekklesiostrarchy, if you will
This is unironically my theory of mid works being really successful
Star Trek, and Deep Space 9 in particular, are ABSOLUTELY willing to let an evil dude show up and try and do evil, villains abound. But it is also willing to say that there are competing kinds of good, and find conflict in different visions of utopian future. I want that for my readers
There is no villain here; they let him go forward, but you see that the concerns about Nog avoiding the real problem are validated but the hope that the long way around works also validated
We watched DS9 S7E9 It's Only a Paper Moon, where Nog grapples with the aftermath of losing a leg by living in a Holosuite program. The officers have a debate about whether to let him do this with some worried that he is avoiding real treatment and the medical professionals arguing he gets to decide
Star Trek gets a lot of mileage out of the crew (whichever crew) all having defensible positions that reflect noble values and then seeing them in respectful, professional conflict. Star Trek is not afraid of bona fide villains, but how often are characters debating the best way forward?
I've been working on sharpening in my WIP who is a mere antagonist and who is a villain. Antagonists simply oppose what the protagonist wants, but a villain is actually wicked
Yes! Svetlana, who ends up being one of the most important people in the Empire, is canonically disinterested in sex or romance
"We are worth more than 6."
Good reminder for all my fellow Ohioans.
That is a straightforward failure of peer review, though, especially since it's supposed to be a reciprocal relationship. If they aren't checking each other's work to focus on publishing their own, they aren't adequately putting into the system they are taking out of
Easy and correct to blame the "authors" and AI, but I would point out peer review should catch this sort of thing and if it's not, that means the safeguards were broken before the lying machine was introduced
Alex, the delicate academic, is just not going to thrive on hard physical labor.
Chris, for all his pretension at not waving around his noble status, could not do customer service; commoners? Giving him orders? Could not cope.
One of this is real and features a rapping dog
Curséd sequel pitches:
Wuthering Heights II
RomeMORE and Juliet
The Great Gatsby: Somehow Gatsby Returned
Titanic: The Journey Continues
Don't Look Up 2
I'm hard on the mid-70s crooners too, this is not a "it used to be good" thing, this is "why do the youths have Nixon-era aesthetics, gross, kill it with fire [pyrotechnics]"