... Ew. Publishers Marketplace now has some weird AI powered 'agent matcher' which is as useless as it sounds. Yeah. This is very probably the last time I buy a month over there to check out agents. :/

Daaaamn. “AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage." www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...

thenerve.news

While people are generally wired to fear social exclusion, building resilience against cult recruitment tactics is quite simple: Get comfortable disappointing people and tolerating them not liking you You're not responsible for the version of yourself other people cooked up in their head. Fuck 'em.

That girl with the posts@roodypatooti.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Having gotten through a list of 160~ish agents apparently open and looking for SF, I have found 37 who I think it could be worth sending my book to. This is the first of the super demoralizing phases. So far I'm approx 0/90 on lit agent submissions. Waiting for it to turn into 0/120ish is the next.

After pursuing a comedy career since I was 15, I know that talent and recognition aren't the same thing. This week's video starts with James Acaster answering one simple question and ends with one of psychology's most important ideas: survivorship bias. Hope you like it! youtu.be/CTTQqLFj_Ng

I've Watched Genius Comedians Vanish - Here's Why

YouTube video by Barry's Economics

youtu.be

The new CEO of Bluesky wants to change Bluesky from being a leftist bubble. The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with being a leftist bubble: the idea that everything has to be all-encompassing and suitable for everyone is a trap. 🧵 1/4

*Facepalms* Just realised I double-queried an agent with the same book, two years apart, like a complete newbie. And here I thought I was keeping my paperwork in order. (To be fair to myself, this is out of 110~ish queries sent out in various batches, but... oof.)

From today, EU citizens have a legal right to know when they're talking to a bot or looking at a deepfake, backed by fines of up to €15m. Thanks to Brexit, we're missing out on this protection.

If you see this, quote the energy you bring to Bluesky.

Pizza Rat Drags Slice Down Subway Stairs

ALT: Pizza Rat Drags Slice Down Subway Stairs

static.klipy.com

David Thomas Moore@dtmooreeditor.bsky.social · 3d ago

if you see this, quote the energy you bring to Bluesky

As I make another attempt to get my Cyberpunk novel, Aconite Braid, out in front of agents, just for luck I've reactivated it on @theblcklst.bsky.social - if you happen to be a literary agent or someone in publishing with an account there, my profile's at : blcklst.com/profile/Malc...

Today's lunch break watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTTQ... Really good dismantling of meritocracy by @barryseconomics.bsky.social , which I think is very relevant to anyone in... just about any field, frankly, not just creative ones. Looking forward to the next installment!

"It also detected an “unintended consequence” of the ban: the proportion of parents who didn’t know their child had used social media increased by 10%." Spookily enough, this complacency side effect is precisely one of the things we warned about with this and the Online Safety Act in the UK.

Ben Schwarz@benschwarz.bsky.social · 3d ago

Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...

This morning I have mostly been researching women's reproductive health apps.... Yes, another privacy crisis.

Today's lunch break watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTTQ... Really good dismantling of meritocracy by @barryseconomics.bsky.social , which I think is very relevant to anyone in... just about any field, frankly, not just creative ones. Looking forward to the next installment!

The COVID brain fog explained. The COVID-19 virus binds to the ACE2 receptor to enter cells. Dopamine producing neurons are rich in the ACE2 receptor. The virus causes disruption in the dopamine network in the brain. 🧪 tech-paper.com/scientists-f...

Scientists finally have a biological explanation for why long COVID patients lose motivation and can't think clearly. They scanned their brains and found the dopamine system was physically damaged - T...

Millions of people with long COVID report the same cluster of symptoms: a crushing lack of motivation, an inability to think clearly, memory that slips, movements that feel slower than they should. Fo...

tech-paper.com

One of many blunt posts from an uncompromising thread on AI mania with citations, and link to an essay version at /2 for those who prefer.

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 5d ago

Suresh says he's *never* seen a successful enterprise AI project: "Every single one – we have seen 0% success in a year and a half." Not one of their clients would face a business challenge if OpenAI went out of business tomorrow. 27/

classic way

obsessed with the font on IKEA's clam chowder packaging. this is what's in the freezer on the Nostromo

AND ANOTHER THING I remember when I first was dealing with editors being an absolute twisted up rubberband over suggested changes that I didn't want to make. I wanted my story published! But I didn't want to make the dancing bears brown I WROTE PURPLE I MEANT PURPLE.

Another draft/notes towards an essay thing, as I continue to try and capture my thoughts: The fantasy AI's selling you. (tl;dr - it's selling the experience of being capable, not making you capable.) scribbles.malcolmfcross.com/the-fantasy-...

while others were studying the blade, i was studying the angle grinder, and that just makes this piece so very spot on because my god i have been witness to Incidents there is no foundation to support the half-assed house AI builds and there is no laid path to save them when it collapses inward

Another draft/notes towards an essay thing, as I continue to try and capture my thoughts: The fantasy AI's selling you. (tl;dr - it's selling the experience of being capable, not making you capable.) scribbles.malcolmfcross.com/the-fantasy-...

beward of this cognitive hazard. don't say i didn't warn you

Simpley Thom🏳️‍🌈@mongreldog.bsky.social · 6d ago

i've always loathed the song Karma Chameleon for reasons I've never quite been able to pin down, but one is surely that my mind appends a weird little brass fanfare onto part of the chorus every time I hear it. I don't know why, it just does. I will mock this up in Reaper at some point

Guy who went on holiday to Toontown and made it his whole personality:

Daily reminder that GDscript supports the Sumerian clay table alphabet, Akkadian cuneiform of ancient Mesopotamia. This is perfectly valid code you can write in your game:

Not therian here but this type of gatekeeping activity is interesting to me from the perspective of performativity (in the Judith Butler sense, not to mean "it is a performance for attention" in the way that many people use it to mean). Gatekeeping acts to stabilise an identity BY ejecting others

VƎX Werewolf@vexwerewolf.bsky.social · last wk.

Therians gatekeeping based on "reality" will never not be funny to me because if you look at it from a pure "reality" perspective none of us are "really" wolves or dragons or Pokemon, we're all "really" just humans at the end of the day. Your approach to therianism can be invalidated just as easily.

Yuuuuuup. As a dude with an Italian last name, I am well aware how recently Italians were given "white" status here in the US, and how much of a scandal it was when my first-generation Italian grandfather married my Yankee grandmother whose forebears helped found New Amsterdam.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · last wk.

Just want to drop this bit of nativist paranoia about Italians here. Check out the labels.

Anyone have favourite software for making YouTube thumbnails? My workflow is generally around filtering and compositing existing owned images and laying out text. I've been using Krita and it's FINE but the UX really sucks. Photoshop is good, but really dislike a sub model. #youtube #opensource #art