Jennifer Prokop
@jenreadsromance.bsky.social
Romance critic & freelance editor. Half of Fated Mates. Chicagoan. She/her. www.jenreadsromance.com
my main issue with ai is that i would personally see a larger ROI if those trillions of dollars were spent on healthcare or public transit or schools or road repairs or SNAP or free childcare or free school lunches or EV charging stations or public libraries or housing or clean energy or broadband
because Sophie wants to talk about basketball.. 15 minutes 0 points 0 rebounds 0 assists 0 steals 0 blocks 1 foul -3
imagine students walking into locker rooms at their schools with these glasses on.
Mia Sato@miasato.bsky.social · yesterdayNew: Target staff "pranked" for social media; a comedian filmed mid-set; a Sprouts worker whose boss started wearing Meta glasses; and a cashier worried customers are filming down her shirt. Meta glasses are in the workplace, and workers feel powerless to stop it. 🎁 www.theverge.com/report/98241...
so I have to pay $20 and have "good faith" in LLMs when all they've done is steal from people and make every part of my life they have touched worse? just the framing of that offends me.
hey so i wrote a sci-fi romance novel about horny ice skaters in space. obviously it's queer. obviously it's weird. AND YOU CAN READ IT RIGHT NOW casualblindness.itch.io/the-cutesy-l...
I am fundamentally opposed to watching the “Previously On Reacher” season recaps because I respect his ethos too much to care about what happened in the last town he passed through
As a general rule, I would say that most things we are being told to believe are technology issues are actually civics issues. 5/5
glad to know I'm not the only sicko (complimentary) who immediately thought this.
Bree (half of Kit Rocha)@mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 7d agoCheckov's rolling library shelves 😭😭😭
for the past 3 years, we've done a "new and new to us" historicals episode, and it is without fail some of the year's best reading for me. and now for you, too.
Fated Mates@fatedmates.net · 2d agoWe are once again celebrating a wide swath of historical romances that are recently published and by authors we’ve not talked much about on the podcast! Saddle up, because we’re talking the Titanic, submissive heroes, heroines against the wall, bodily autonomy and even centaurs!
A massive crisis is developing in the west over dwindling water. You are going to hear a lot of bullshit. Just remember this: The solution is to stop growing animal feed & vegetables in the desert. That’s it. That’s all we have to do. Just grow stuff that needs water where it rains on the regular.
Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · 4d agoThe ag lobby really, really, really, really, really, really, really wants you to think AI is the reason reservoirs are going empty. It's not. It's agriculture.
An update on this campaign: We seem to have plateaued at 41 subscribers and could use your support hitting our goal of 100! If you would like to see more progressive, diverse, queer romance novels in the world, come join the Rebel Ever After community on Bindery: rebeleverafter.binderybooks.com
Ella Dawson@brosandprose.bsky.social · 2w agoHey folks! I'm working to launch a romance imprint with Bindery that publishes progressive, diverse and queer authors. I could use your support — you can sign up for free here: rebeleverafter.binderybooks.com/item/D4rNvZG...
on this week's @fatedmates.net (coming on Wednesday), we have reason to revive this old debate. YOU'RE WELCOME.
New from 404 Media: we solved which AI company is buying massive shipments of rare books, scanning and destroying them to train AI. We put an Apple AirTag in a rare book, followed it. It ended up at an Amazon facility. Its logo is a dinosaur ripping through a book www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
404media.co
there is a terrific essay on m/m romance called “The Shoulder Check Problem” by @nathanburgoine.bsky.social which examines tropes which pull queer readers out of books that weren’t written by or for us, of which a big one is “Happy Ending Requires Queer Protagonist To Reconcile With Bigoted Family”
Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 4d agolol come the fuck on
every time I hear Rachel Cusk saying something about how characters don't really exist, I just thank god for genre fiction.
except in romance, we've got that punchability index on lock. fatedmates.net/episodes/202...
Sad Boys Who Punch things with Veronica Roth — Fated Mates: Romance Books for Novel People
This week, we’re joined by one of the greatest, Veronica Roth, whose new book, Seek the Traitor’s Son , features one of her most beloved tropes: Sad Boys Who Punch Things. We were delighted when she ...
fatedmates.net
Dr Ben Wolfe@benwolfevision.bsky.social · 5d agoOne is reminded of the attempt to scientifically determine “punchability” as a perceptual metric. Alas, results were inconclusive.
Getting all my political talking points from the comments of the pro wrestling subreddit from now on.
it’s always 2 dumb bitches telling eachother "exactlyyyy"
the amount of books I keep running into that are obviously — and at times admittedly! — thinly re-skinned fanfics or write-ups of Reddit threads/SCPs/etc. is getting exhausting even more irritating is many have good concepts but execute puddle-deep because they rehash someone else’s storytelling
Actually, one more - I feel like I should say this directly, so here goes. In the 90s and 00s, the groups I remember pursuing this strategy (hyperpublicize mugshots, Black crime statistics, etc) were Stormfront, the Klan, etc. Now it's the New York Times and the Telegraph. That is the story here.
We were at the Bears game today and spent a lot of time discussing how the final lines of the “Bear Down” song would be rewritten when the team moves to Indiana.
Chris Farley: Chicago Cubs & Bears
ALT: Chris Farley: Chicago Cubs & Bears
static.klipy.com
It’s kind of fascinating how most of the LLM conversation comes back around to “ignoring consent is not as important as my personal needs” whether it be the intellectual theft involved in generation or the reader’s right to choose not to read LLM word soup.
Mary Gillis@marygillis.bsky.social · 6d agoIt's so funny when AI boosters come into my replies full of self-righteous fury because I'm not showing the proper respect to the thing they use to outsource their thinking. And expecting a debate because they forgot that unlike their digital girlfriend, I don't actually have to engage with them.
I will never get over how disrespectful most genAI use it. People are doing everything in their power to trick you into reading slop because they don't respect you enough to actually take the time to write the thing they nevertheless expect you to take the time to read. Scamtech for scammers.
Ars Technica@arstechnica.com · 7mo ago
"But I don’t want - not ever- the burden of this whole fiasco to rest on the shoulders of those of us who have already been stolen from and exploited by a technology actively seeking to replace us. And you shouldn’t want that either." ijeomaoluo.substack.com/p/its-fucked...
It's Fucked That I Have To Think About AI
Give me my money
ijeomaoluo.substack.com
I've read all the Reacher books* and have written this quick and dirty guide in case you're thinking of dipping a toe into the reading experience. jennifers-newsletter-9cb7e2.beehiiv.com/p/all-about-...
All About Reacher
a weird place for a romance reader to start, but sure.
jennifers-newsletter-9cb7e2.beehiiv.com
If you have teenagers: they aren't reading enough; keep them away from LLMs if you care about their cognitive functions & their mental health; betting apps should fucking terrify you and kids are using them. Talk to your kids/check their phones.
Riley Bruce@rileybruce.bsky.social · last wk.What’s a thing from your area of expertise (or special interest) that you think it would behoove everyone else to know?
Hey so Amazon is shoving AI training down Twitch’s throat which means your account, vods and streams are opted in by default. You can opt out by accessing www.twitch.tv/settings/sec... and turning the option off.
It's honestly so crazy to me that we're facing a technological revolution that could displace millions of jobs in the middle of a housing affordability crisis and every day we talk about whether a trans woman is playing sports or if someone has a non-Anglo name.
