#It is probably one of the reasons they are rerecording the books with a full cast

[justahalfblood]

Joshua Swanson uses an extremely racist stereotypical "Mexican" accent which sounds like Loony Tunes' Speedy Gonzales.

I started The Lost Hero audiobook narrated by Joshua Swanson and his voice for Leo..... yikes.

[notebookmusical]

Hi! I hope you had a very merry Christmas! I think you said you celebrate it. Did you do anything for the holidays or get presents? don't worry..it wasn't late or anything. I just couldn't reply until now. Oh that sucks..I hope you recover in time for the new year.🩷

I think it's already happened with some songs on Fearless cuz she didn't have her accent as much. I agree with Hey Stephen and a few other songs. I realized that I never asked you how you felt about the changes in the Better than Revenge rerecording. Overall I understand the change, and the new lyrics make sense, but still prefer the original lyrics lol. I love her accent too but I never could really tell if it was completely fake or not but her baby voice is cute.

I think if the cuts make sense, I won't really mind but it's not like it's my favorite musical either. The trailer came on yesterday and I told them it was a musical and they said it as a musical will ruin it so I do wonder how regular non theater people will feel about it overall. They always hate or make fun of musicals though and it will make it cheesy or something since my family quotes the original movie all the time. So I feel like the quotes don't translate in the musical as much, and even if Legally Blonde was a little different, the changes made sense of improved it in some way. I listened to the Megan song too and just felt it didn't add much either. I don't know if i will watch it yet, but I've already missed Wonka and Color Purple for this week so I will see if I can watch it this next week. I will probably watch Dicks at some point too, so I'm glad your friend liked it.

I love White Christmas even if it doesn't feel as Christmasy as other Christmas movies. I just finally watched the movie version of Holiday Inn last night, but was familiar with the musical. I also love both! I also count Rent for musicals lol. But mostly I prefer ones where the family is getting ready for or around Christmas like Elf, National Lampoons, and A Christmas Story, and Surviving Christmas. I also have a few new ones I still wanna watch for this year. I was going to send you an ask saying December 24th 9PM Eastern standard time...but then I remembered you've never seen Rent! My sister and I were trying to think of New Year's resolutions in song lyrics and my sister said that from here on in, I shoot without a script..instead of my old shit..would be a good one for me lol. We always try to do a Taylor one too so I'm thinking either Karma or You're on your own kid..make friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it..you've got no reason to be afraid and I'm gonna try to remember that throughout the year and try new things maybe. I remember I used I got harder smarter in the nick of time..I rose up from the dead..I do all the time as one when rep came out. I mostly just think it's fun, so if you wanna try to think of one, you can.

I finally listened to the Fruitcake EP and I agree..it was so good! All of the songs were mostly different, which is kinda fun. I think it would be hard to think of different types of Christmas songs, but she did such a good job. New years yet might be my favorite or at least the one I can remember the most. What do you think your version of a Christmas song would be? I guess I never asked you if you are musical at all or if you play any instruments. I don't actually, but I do like to sing and sometimes make up songs. That question is just for fun though so no pressure, and I don't really have an answer either.

I think I only read 3 or 4 full books this year. One was the stepping off place that I finished back in January, and that was definitely my favorite. I know I've talked about it already, but I really loved it so much. The other was Mistakes were made which was fine. I just found out the same author has another book out soon and I think I would be interested in reading it, cuz I enjoyed her writing. What about you? The last one was The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Do you still plan on reading or watching the movie? I'm still in the middle of a few including Business or Pleasure I hoped to finish by the end of year but I still have like 50 pages. I also skimmed most of Our Year of Maybes. I enjoyed parts of all these but didn't love them. I hope to change my reading habits for next year and definitely finish more..we will see my progress by the end of January. There were a lot of months I didn't read at all, so I'm hoping to change that too. Omg I wish you would have told me you were continuing your Night Circus reread! I could have tried to read a bit more. I just assumed you were taking a break like me lol. I want you to know if you don't finish your Les Mis reread it's also okay..don't stress.

Oh I didn't know you haven't seen them but I actually didn't watch the Office until like 5 years ago. I grew up watching Friends and quote it all the time though! Idk if you mean you just never watched the whole show or that you didn't know it at all. Parks and Recreation is another one of my favs..similar to the Office. I also love Schitt's Creek! But the humor is just different from back then, cuz it's newer. and New Girl is another newer one which is kinda more similar to Friends. Of course How I met your mother is the most similar to Friends...but I prefer Friends the most. I got a Friends calendar for Christmas actually, and also a Taylor one. Cristin Miloti was the mother in that show and was also played the original Girl from Once on Broadway, and I guess I forgot to mention that in my last ask. I knew the Guy actor from another show too, which is Shameless. I think Once was before the shows technically, but I knew them from it by the time I got into Broadway. That version of Falling Slowly just seems different from the movie somehow but I still like it. I would recommend Begin Again cuz I liked some songs.

I loved that dream cuz she gave me some earrings. I only remember three or four titles. But it seemed like the length of a full album cuz a group of four of us were reading off the titles and it was like three each or something. Name someone I love, something to take, watch me, kiss some other person. Possibly fireworks but idk. Some of the titles made me think of a new album but some make me think of rep lol. I wish I remembered more. But it is almost impossible to envision her new album and like I said, I'm sure the titles are way off anyway. I always like knowing song titles and wondering or guessing what a song will be like though. Anyway I hope you feel better! Try to rest as much as you can and hopefully relax the next few days. Sending well wishes for your Wednesday and the rest of your week!

hello friend!! hope you had a lovely holiday + a wonderful new year, if i don't talk to you before then! i do celebrate it! it was a very quiet, lowkey christmas, since i still have the plague but it was very lovely! how was your christmas? do you have any fun new year plans?

my favorite present that i got is a pink scarf that my mom got me — it's super cozy and just so cute!! which, i think by now, is no surprise, since i am A Pink Girl at my core! one of my friends got me a raccoon themed christmas gift, which i also loved — including a raccoon oodie, a raccoon jellycat, and of course, toto got his own raccoon animal too!

with better than revenge, i definitely understand why she changed the lyrics, and i'm glad she was able to create a version of better than revenge she was proud of! i definitely still on instinct sing the old lyrics, but i don't think i particularly prefer one over the other, just that i'm more used to the old ones!

one of my family friends hates musicals and she got tricked into taking her kid (the 15 year old who i affectionately call my younger sister) to wonka and didn't realize wonka was a musical, which was funny! the text i got when she realized did make me chuckle, i'm not going to lie. i haven't watched any of those movies — nor have i watched the eras tour from home! i have it rented, but i just haven't been feeling well enough to sit through a three hour movie unfortunately. but i'm starting to feel a little better so hopefully i'll have time to watch that soon!

i love the holiday inn musical — i think it's so fun! fun fact, the first time i watched the holiday inn movie was at a holiday inn. i went to florida on a work trip in 2019, and my flight home got cancelled and the airlines put me in a holiday inn for the night so i figured it'd be the perfect time to watch holiday inn (even though it was summer) because i liked the musical! i definitely know the rent december 24 9pm reference and usually participate in it on twitter but forgot this year :( it made me feel like a bad theatre kid haha!

i love the idea of doing resolutions in song! i finally wrote out my reading goals for my book blog earlier, but haven't completely finalized my personal resolutions yet. i think the YOYOK one is so good! some other ones i thought of:

innocent — minds change like the weather/ i hope you remember today is never too late to be brand new

starlight — look at you, worrying too much about things you can’t change / you’ll spend your whole life singing the blues if you keep thinking that way

august — to live for the hope of it all

they're not as good as you're on your own kid though, and i'm sure i'm missing something super obvious!

i think fruitcake's EP is so fun and different! like upbeat and a bit sexy and just so fun! it's something i can see myself listening to year-round. i played the piano as a kid (i don't remember a thing now) and took a semester of guitar in high school (was not good at it), but am not musical anymore! sometimes i think about picking something up again, just for fun, but i think i prefer being arts and crafty over being musical. i think if i had to do a christmas song though, it'd probably be something a little more melancholy and slower — kind of how phoebe bridgers' christmas songs sound, i think. what about you?

i still plan on reading tbosas and watching it! but i did not get to reading the hunger games at all this month. but at some point i will do that and then we can discuss 🤍 i did end up finishing the night circus (the original plan was that i'd mail it out this week for book club, but given the plague, i'm pushing it off to next week), and also les mis (although i would not recommend reading the first 50% over the span of 3 months and then reading the last half of it in the span of a week). i think i'm done reading for the rest of the year and am excited for a little bit of a break! and then i think i'll go back to the starless sea in january!

i did watch parks and rec! i've only seen it once, but i watched it in college with one of my friends who said i was very leslie in terms of drive/organization/etc. it's funny you brought once up, because i was listening to once on vinyl today — it's such a good show. i love it so much! there are a lot of shows (friends, HIMYM, gilmore girls) that i think i would've loved if i had watched it when it was first airing, but i've been spoiled on every platform for so many things that i don't think i'd find it fun now! also i am so much worse at watching tv now than i was when i was in school, for some reason!!

that sounds like such a fun dream! i don't usually remember my dreams (but i also have a hard time sleeping so there's that)! do you think ts11 will have a more pop sound? or do you think it'll be something else? i keep seeing clown theories on twitter about new year's day (taylor's version) or a rep announcement on new year's day ... what do you think?

also!! i got your other ask about music! i think i need to do another listen through of the albums before i can pick favorites, so i will save the ask for when i get a chance to do that and then get back to you!!

hope you're doing well, my friend!! 🤍

[thefanficmonster]

Corpse’s Girl

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Bullying, Swearing, Derogatory Terms

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Summary: Y/N’s life as a regular college student is forever stripped away from her when her relationship with the famous YouTuber Corpse Husband is accidentally revealed during an online class of hers. How will she cope with the sudden spotlight and the unwanted attention, some of which crosses into bullying?

Requested by my amazing Tumblr friend @itsminniekat 🥰 She’s been reading and liking my works since day one and I honestly couldn’t be more grateful. If you’re reading this, all I can say is thank you, darling. Thank you so much for sticking by my blog even when I posted some crappy fics. I’ll make sure this ain’t one of them. Love you with all my heart. ❤❤❤

P.S. - I named the mean character with my name so I hope no one who reads this has the same name. Wouldn’t want any of you feeling like the villain 😘

Who knew online class would be even more boring than being physically present for a lecture? Seriously, I find myself doing the weirdest of crap to entertain myself - like trying to balance a pen on the tip of my nose for example. I jot down some notes every now and then but that’s basically it. My mind can not fathom the concept on concentrating on whatever my professors are going on and on about. Well, full disclosure, I couldn’t concentrate even if I wanted to, especially with my boyfriend streaming in the other room.

He’s currently playing Among Us with his usual gaming squad. Listening to his input during the discussions, I can always tell when he’s lying. I honestly find it hilarious that his friends can’t pick up when he’s bullshitting them. I sometimes wonder if he has brainwashed them. And that’s one of the main reasons we don’t play Among Us together - he can’t lie to me. Not only do I pick up on his con with ease, but he always says he feels bad when he lies to me which is just the sweetest thing. Also, I refuse to play cause I’m shy. His friends are all well-known content creators and I’m a literal nobody. Every now and then I find myself wondering why Corpse is even with me. He’s always quick to push those thoughts out of my head and make sure they don’t return on a long notice, but they do interrupt my peace from time to time.

“Y/N, do you know?“ The sound of my professor saying my name takes me out of my eavesdropping of Corpse’s stream.

I panic, but quickly improvise, “Sorry, my internet is slow, you cut out for a second. What was the question?” I feel my face heating up, making me glad we are allowed to keep our cameras off.

“Question number 15 on page 82 in your textbook. Do you know the answer to it?“ My professor repeats himself, his tone annoyed.

I look down at the page that’s already opened in front of me. I let out a sigh of relief, seeing that the question is rather easy.

“Yeah, um, it’s...“ Suddenly, Corpse’s laugh reaches my room loud and clear. There’s no doubt my mic picked up the noise, especially since the door to my room is open.

The color drains from my face as I hurry to say the answer and remute myself. My eyes are wide as I stare at my screen, hoping no one will acknowledge that very recognizable laugh.

“OMG Y/N, are you watching a Corpse Husband stream in class?” One of the bitches in my class, Vy, speaks up, “Not a very goody-two-shoe move on your part, dear.” 

I purposely unmute my mic to mumble a quick ‘Shut up, bitch’ that somehow manages to fly under my professor’s radar and the class continues. It’s the first time something like this has happened and I’m not sure if I handled it properly or not.

The class ends shortly after, allowing me a sigh of relief as I disconnect from the meeting. 

“Fucking finally.“ I mumble to myself, leaning back in my desk chair. Tilting my head backwards, I see Corpse standing in the doorframe. I grin, not only because his presence itself makes me ten times happier, but also because he’s upside down from my viewpoint. “Well, hello there! How long have you been spying on me?“

He struts over to me, leaning his face over mine, “Long enough.” His lips linger above mine without any actual contact before he pulls away, allowing me to sit up straight and proper in the chair. “You still have classes?”

I nod my head while disappointedly rolling my eyes, “Yeah. One more. Shouldn’t be too bad since it’s English Lit. You’re done streaming?”

“Yeah, I just have some other things to do. I haven’t done a narration video in a while, I miss making that type of content.“ He plops down on my bed, running a hand through his messy black curls.

“Weren’t you recording some lines a few days ago?“ I frown as I try to recall if what I’m referring to actually happened or my brain is too fried to decipher reality from my bootleg perception of it. Online class, man - messes with your head like sleeping pills - makes you disoriented and exhausted with barely doing anything other than trying to wrap your brain around a lecture or two.

He hums affirmatively, “It’s not a finished project and I don’t even know if I’ll use those or rerecord them. I’ll have to listen to them again before I make a final decision.“

I tilt his chin upwards with my pointer finger, a gesture he has told me he finds very endearing, “I’m sure they’re great and you just refuse to be satisfied. Everything you do is great.“

He smiles a small, shy smile, his fingers gently wrapping around my wrist, holding my hand in place, “You’re biased. You like me too much to tell me when I do some bullshit.”

I scoff, “You know that isn’t true. If someone’s gonna kick your butt in formation, it’s gonna be me.“ I give him a quick kiss on the forehead before pulling away from him, “Go on, now. I have a class to attend. You distract me enough while you’re in the other room, I can only imagine how hard it’d be for me to focus if you were right by my side.“

He smirks, bowing a little as he makes his way out of the room, “You flatter me.”

I playfully roll my eyes, getting my headset back on as I tap the last class for the day. We have an assignment due to the start of the class which we’ll have to present if the professor approved of it. We basically had to write a psychoanalysis of a character from any book of our choice. I chose Heathcliff from ‘Wuthering Heights’ which is one of my favorite books of all time. I’m proud of what I wrote and the way I wrote it, but I’ve always barely scraped by with a B in this class, a B+ if I’m lucky, so I’ve never gotten any major credit, even when I put my 110% in the assignments and projects.

Well, color me surprised when the professor calls on me first to read my work, complimenting it on its detailed and specific nature. I get my printed assignment out in front of me and unmute myself.

“I wrote a psychoanalysis on for Heathcliff, a character from Emily Bronte’s novel ‘Wuthering Heights’.“ Just after I say this line, Corpse’s voice booms throughout the whole apartment, no doubt being picked up by my mic. It doesn’t sound like he’s actually talking, he can’t be that loud. I put two and two together when I recognize the lines he’s saying - the ones he recorded a few days ago. They’re coming from his computer speakers. He probably didn’t check the volume before playing back the recording.

I mute myself as quickly as possible, but it’s too late. The voice dies down as Corpse probably turned down the speakers.

My professor, who is already done with this lecture, just annoyedly remarks, her words overdosed with sarcasm: “Read your assignment and you can go back to whatever it is you are watching.”

“Wow, Y/N! Again?! Are you one of those crazy obsessed fans or something? Is Corpse Husband all you watch?“ This bitch is really poking a stick at me, huh? The only crazy obsessed fan here is her, and my friends but they are allowed. Little do all of them know, I am obsessed but not simply over a YouTuber. I’m obsessed with my boyfriend who just happens to be a YouTuber.

“No commentary, please.“ The professor scolds her, “Go on, Y/N.“

I finish reading without any other disturbances. The professor compliments my essay again when I’m done, the small incident at the beginning forgotten already. Well, not by everyone. One of my friends shot me a quick text to joke about it which only earned an eye roll from me.

My friends don’t know that I’m dating Corpse either. As I said, they are simping HARD over him while I act the most indifferent on the subject. Whenever they ask my opinion on him I either say ‘he’s OK’ or just avoid answering completely. I know saying anything more enthusiastic than that would turn into a snowball rolling down a snowy hill - I’d just keep babbling about how nice, amazing, wonderful and a gift to this world Corpse is, inevitably revealing our relationship in the process.

I’m afraid of revealing my relationship with Corpse in front of these people. They are all run on jealousy and selfishness and I can only imagine how mean they’d be about it. I’m already not too fond of them, it would only be worse if any of my personal life was exposed.

When the class finally ends I remove my headset, putting my forehead down on the desk, barely missing the keyboard. I groan in frustration and anger at myself for not fighting back. I could’ve and should’ve said something - ANYTHING. But what? That’s a question I can’t find the answer to.

“Hey...“ Corpse’s hesitant voice comes from behind me, “You ok?“

I straighten my posture, turning to him with a smile. “Yeah, but these people suck.”

I get up from my chair as he approaches me, basically falling in his arms. The comfort I feel radiating off of him makes me relax, forget the past hour or so. He has always had this effect on me. Like my own personal kryptonite to my anger and anxiety.

“Did I get you in any trouble because of that?“ His voice shows clear concern and guilt. 

I wrap my arms around him tighter, burying my head in his chest. “No, don’t worry about it.“ 

And I really wasn’t in trouble. Not until now that the video is officially posted....

I can call these people dumb all I want but they sure put two and two together awfully fast. They recognized the lines they heard during class as the same ones from his new video that came out almost a week after the incident, aka two days ago. It’s safe to say I haven’t touched my phone or computer since.

“This is all my fault.“

Of all the horrible things I suspected would happen this has to be the worst - Corpse is blaming himself for it. I am prepared to take all the shit these people have to throw at me but seeing Corpse beating himself up over this is killing me. No amount of convincing can change his mind. Nothing I say helps.

“Please, stop doing this to yourself. Non of this is your fault, Corpse.“ I’ve repeated this sentence more than a thousand time these past forty eight hours, each time saying it more and more desperately.

“All of it is my fault, Y/N. I’m so sorry. I hate myself so much.“ Has been his reply single time.

 I can’t watch him be so mean to himself. It’s the most conflicting thing when the person you love most is torturing themselves. It’s easy if it’s someone else doing it, you just kick their ass. But what are you supposed to do when the person you want to protect is the same one you need to protect them from.

Corpse has shut himself away in his recording room these past few hours and though he clearly needs to be alone, he still left the door open just a crack cause he knows I’ll be worried sick otherwise.

While I’m alone in the living room, I’ve finally managed to brace myself and build enough courage to power up my laptop. Last time it was on it was going mad with notifications.

“It’s digital. Only digital. It can’t hurt you too badly if it can’t touch you, right?“ I mumble to myself, already frustrated despite not having yet seen all the horrors that await me.

And horrors there were. Everywhere. Twitter. Instagram. Facebook.

My grades. Some pictures of me no one has ever seen. My school files. People from my class tweeting Corpse to ‘expose’ me for the ‘slut’ or ‘bitch’ I really am. Corpse hasn’t touched social media either and I plan on making sure it stays that way. God only knows how much worse he’ll get if he sees these claims.

And then, like a notification sent straight from hell, an email from my professor.

Practical lectures on Friday. Be here at 9 AM. Don’t forget your mask and gloves.

Good thing I opened my laptop when I did. Friday is tomorrow and I need to prepare for this day. Not only do I need to hit the books but I need to toughen up a bit. I can’t go there looking like I feel - like a mess.

Alright, time to put the brave face on. No more wallowing in it, at least not until tomorrow afternoon.

I make a study plan and hop in the shower. I feel the need to apologize to my hair for washing it so roughly, basically yanking at my strands from frustration that has been suppressed for too long.

I get our of the boiling hot shower, red as a lobster, and change into some clean comfortable clothes and put my ass in study mode. I remove all the scary expectations of the morning to come from my mind and let the information the textbooks has to offer seep into my brain.

                                                            *  *  *

I’m about to head out and, despite my put-together composure, I am a wreck inside. I actually put effort into my appearance, I mean - I even styled my hair. A pretty façade to hide a ruin.

I saw my friends’ texts last night, all three of them ending their friendship with me because they felt betrayed. I haven’t yet decided how to feel about that. Doesn’t matter at the moment, there are more important matters at hand, aka surviving the next three hours.

My college is within ten minutes walking distance from our apartment. That ten minute walk has never been so stressful, not even during exam season. The air feels a little harder to breathe, the path a little shorter to walk. And my moment of reckoning a little too close.

I feel eyes on me the second I start walking through the park of our campus. Sure, I could just be paranoid, but the feeling is too real to be just my imagination in overdrive. I’m glad I have my hair down and a mask on so the redness of my cheeks and neck isn’t on display. That’s a sign of weakness right now.

We have two an hour and a half long classes between which we have a snack break that’s half an hour. I usually enjoy that period but I’m dreading it now. These assholes can only be so mean in the presence of a professor, but during lunch break they can increase that tenfold. 

“Well if it isn’t Corpse’s girl.“ I hear that a lot. The whispers are not so much whispers as intentionally loud enough for me to hear remarks. I’m not bothered by them, it’s the least they can do. If I let such a simple thing get to me, I’d be crumbling by the end of first period.

I hear some shuffling behind me and out of the corner of my eye I see, yeah you guessed it, THAT bitch. She’s standing as close to me as she can without violating Covid regulations. A mask is covering her face but the menacing look in her eyes tells me all I need to know about the interaction that’s about to go down.

“I’d ask how much he pays you for the hour.....“ her long nails tap the wooden desk, “but that’d be rude. I bet it’s tough being a maid. Do you just clean or are you a multipurpose lap dog? No offense, I’m genuinely curious.“

“Vy, would you be so kind as to give Y/N some room to breathe?“ The professor asks as he nonchalantly walks in.

Vy rolls her eyes, batting her eyelashes at me, “Talk to you later, sweetheart.” With a fake friendly wave she’s out of my hair, at least for now.

Remember what I said about these people not being as dumb as I pegged them to be? Yeah, scratch that. These fuckers actually tried getting away with taking pictures of me with flash in broad daylight. Like, HELLO! I have two functioning eyes and a brain, I’m onto you. Sadly, me having figured out their childish but hurtful methods of humiliating me doesn’t change much. They still posted the pics they took, using the most derogatory terms they could find in the English language, always making sure to tag Corpse and me both.

Needless to say, these were the longest three hours of my life.

                                                              *  *  *

Shutting the door to our apartment behind me causes relief of the highest levels. I feel like I’ve locked out all the bad shit I have had to deal with these past twenty four hours. 

I’m tired. I’m fucking exhausted. I feel like a discarded piece of paper. 

And it all starts crumbling. A wall is bound to start slowly falling apart after being hit over and over again, each time feeling the blows with a stronger intensity. 

I slide down the door sitting down on the floor and slowly taking my shoes off. I put my bag beside me and wrap my arms around my knees, hiding my head in the space between them and my chest.

One tear slides down my cheek.

Another follows.

And another, this time accompanied by a choked sob.

A pair of arms wraps around the ball that my body has been shaped into. One of his hands comes up to stroke my hair gently, feeding me the comfort I have been longing for since I left the apartment this morning.

“I saw it. All of it. All the shit they talk about you. All the names they call you. And I’ve never wanted to beat so many people up simultaneously.“ His words make me raise my head from its low position, giving him a knowing look. “I wish I could. I would, but that would land me in jail. Which doesn’t even sound so bad cause I don’t like going out. Only problem is you wouldn’t be with me. I wouldn’t want you to be there with me, don’t get me wrong, I’d never want you to end up in jail. I-...” I cut him off by pressing my lips to his. A quick kiss that says so much but mainly shows the immeasurable gratitude for his support.

Seeing those awful tweets and comments had the complete opposite effect on him. He no longer blames himself but the people who actually deserve the blame - all those jerks from my college.

I pull away, giving him a small smile. “I would never let you go to jail.” 

He smiles back at me, overjoyed that my mood is slowly being lifted, “Come on, I have a nice crowd that would like to meet you.”

I know exactly what he means. Felix, Sean, Rae, Dave, Sykkuno and the rest of his friends. The people I’ve been so shy and afraid to meet since day one. Being shy doesn’t really make sense now, seeing as how they know I exist and that I’m a part of Corpse’s life. 

What do I have to lose?

“Guys, this is my girlfriend, Y/N.“ Corpse’s black avatar runs around my cyan one in the Among Us lobby.

I can’t help but giggle when I unmute my mic, “Hi everyone! It’s so nice to finally meet you.“ They each introduce themselves, expressing how happy they are to be meeting me too.

It’s the first time in what feels like a while that I’m truly having fun. These people are wonderful, each so unique and lovely. They never brought up the scandal nor acted as though they knew about it. I know they did and I am beyond grateful that they never mentioned it or treated me any differently because of it. Also, Corpse was streaming the whole time. I had my phone on his stream, my eyes nervously scanning the chat every now and then. I couldn’t believe it. Corpse’s real fans were just as wonderful as his friends - they were nothing but supportive and happy to have met me.

Now, I can either choose to believe these people were being so nice to me out of sympathy or I can believe they really like me and appreciate me for who I am and not for what happened to me. 

I choose to believe the latter.

And while I’m still getting accustomed to this whole new spotlight, I know I’ll be able to handle it as long as I’m holding Corpse’s hand in the process. All I need is to have him beside me and I’m prepared to tackle anything.

“They love you.“ Corpse tells me once the stream is done and we’ve hopped out of the Discord call, “But I love you more.“

His arms wrap around my waist while mine instinctively find their way around his neck, “I love them, too. But they’re at the number 2 spot.”

He smirks at me, “I wonder who’s at number 1.”

I push up on my toes, putting my lips an inch away from his, “Hmm, I wonder...”

He doesn’t let me finish, silencing my teasing with a sweet, loving kiss.

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze  @divine-artemis  @waterlilypat

[stillgeekingout]

I always end up doing this like halfway through january but this time I got covid so I have an excuse lol. anyway reflections on 2021!

I recognize that 2021 was shitty for a lot of people but I was riding the high of how much better it was for me personally than 2020 so I actually had a decent year. for one thing ingrid was back (our first full year in the same country!), I got new plants to replace the ones that died while they were doing construction on my apt in 2020, I wasn’t alone in the house anymore, etc.

some stuff that happened in 2021:

-read a bunch of books at the beginning of the year bc I hadn’t been reading for a while and then kind of continuously read on and off throughout the year (special mention to one last stop!! and awtwb which I didn’t actually like as much as the first two but the end of the series was a significant thing)

-I did a few more months of yoga with adriene throughout the year, it wasn’t as much as I necessarily wanted to but I’m glad it’s something I keep periodically going back to

-played a lot of animal crossing cause we were late to that party

-baby’s first covid test (jan) and 2nd covid test (dec)

-spent the first few months of the year on a roommate hunt and then finally found our current roommate who is lovely

-s&s lived in *gasp* different apartments! 

-made a weird little experimental short film for orlando fringe which was mostly just me reading books on the roof of my parking garage while waiting for time lapse footage

-watched a whole bunch of tv shows (finished steven universe, owl house s2, gravity falls, hsmtmts, we are lady parts, rutherford falls, wwdits, ted lasso, only murders in the building, kevin can fuck himself, girls5eva, infinity train)

-VACCINES! got 1st & 2nd shots in the spring then booster in the fall which was such a peace of mind thing despite everything and made it so I could actually feel ok seeing people again

-ingrid & I got engaged in may & started wedding planning ahhhh

-wrote a TON of this story that I had been kinda working on for ages (yeah it’s the one I just mentioned having finished)

-fully into aly & aj, if you haven’t listened to their recent stuff you should

-taylor and her rerecordings can be on here I guess lol (so can new bleachers album I guess. tried to see them in concert but it got cancelled for- shocker- covid reasons)

-since I mentioned tv & books, my favorite movies this year were prob raya, luca, encanto, and mitchells vs the machines lol I’m still a sucker for animation

-prob shouldn’t say this bc uh they follow me but I doubt they’ll see this so: my parasocial relationship w a certain person is always probably teetering on the edge of delusion that someday we’re gonna be friends (anyway read reputation lol) (if they do see this I’m sorry)

-speaking of parasocial relationships there are several babies and small children of people either I/ingrid/sarah know who I’m obsessed with and watched grow over the course of the year on social media

-related, there is a baby who lives close enough to me that I should’ve been able to see him a lot and have a relationship with him but covid/work/poor communication made everything complicated and it was a rough time for me about it for a minute there

-ingrid and I went to new orleans and stayed in a very cute airbnb and ate beignets and looked at art and went to parks

-my mom threw a MASSIVE party in july for my grandma’s 80th bday which was probably irresponsible but at the time the numbers were low and we were all vaxxed, anyway I got to see a ton of people I hadn’t in a while 

-my dad had open heart surgery (he’s ok but it was a time)

-one of my sisters was our neighbor for the summer and now my other sister is our neighbor (also ingrid and sarah are finally friends which makes me happyyy)

-speaking of ingrid and sarah the three of us briefly revived my silly rp forum site from when I was like 14-15 lmao

-spent a long miserable time at my shitty horrible job and then FINALLY quit at the end of the summer

-got to be unemployed & just chill for the month of september, took a lot of walks downtown

-my high school 10 year reunion happened lol but I didn’t go because it looked like a hot mess

-tried in vain to get hired as an advisor at several universities/colleges near me… which was frustrating bc especially for international stuff I’m very qualified… stay tuned if that ever happens

-started working at a plant store in october! it’s been a fun time so far, my coworkers are mostly chill and my boss is a little annoying but not actively evil like my previous boss so I count it as a win. also I’m learning so much about plants & fueling my plant addiction

-related, I started a garden on our balcony in december and so far it’s doing ok!

-I mentioned getting engaged but oh my god so many of my friends got engaged

-so much of this year was just wedding planning lol

-I got ingrid to play age of mythology aka the game I was obsessed with in middle school and haven’t shut up about since muahaha

-played dnd with my sisters a couple times which was a fun and crazy time

-my mom finally got the christmas she’s been trying to have since my parents moved onto a boat, aka my parents got an airbnb and my mom got to have family around throughout the holidays

that’s pretty much it, I think! the covid depression is still real and hits from time to time, I don’t make enough money and I’m very uncertain about my ~career future~, but overall I can’t complain too much. I’m looking forward to ‘22 if for no other reason than I’m getting married this year! Also I have made the executive decision that we’re calling it 22 bc 2022 is too much of a mouthful when you say it out loud!

thank u for joining me on this recap of my year, if you did. peace & love lol

[nedraggett]

Run ragged

It didn’t work.  And while I wasn’t surprised by that, I did want to tease out why, at least for myself.

I honestly was openly skeptical of Blade Runner 2049 for a while, so I can’t hide my bias there.  I wasn’t totally ‘salt the earth and never mention it again’ then and am certainly not saying that now.  But each new trailer left me feeling more ‘uh...really?’ and the explosion of immediate praise from many critics even more so.  I wasn’t contrarian, and neither did I think groupthink was at work, but I suspected a massive wish fulfillment was. 

So I generally avoided reactions after that and figured I’d wait for things to die down a bit -- even more quickly than I might have guessed, seeing its swiftly collapsing commercial performance over here. My Sunday early afternoon showing near here was about maybe 2/3 full on its third weekend, so it’s found an audience, but I’m in San Francisco -- I expected an audience there. Enough friends have posted theater shots where they were the only person in the room to know this is dying off as an across the board thing, and never probably was.

I’m not glad it failed, but I’m not surprised -- in fact, being more blunt, I think it deserved not to be a hit.  The key reason for me played itself out over its length -- it was boring.  It’s a very boring movie.  It’s not a successful movie except in intermittent moments.  

That said, of course not everyone agreed (I’ll recommend as an indirect counterpoint to my thoughts this piece by my friend Matt, which went up earlier today). And boredom is not the sole reason for me to crucify it -- there were a variety of things one can address.  I’ll note two at the start since they could be and in a couple of cases I’ve seen were particular breaking points for others:

* The sexual politics of the movie, however much meant to be in line with the original scenario as playing out a certain logic, were often at least confused or hesitant within a male gaze context, at most lazily vile beyond any (often flatly obvious) point-making.  I often got a mental sense of excuses that could be offered along the lines of ‘well...you know, it’s supposed to be like that in this world, it’s a commentary!,’ which is often what I’ve seen in positive criticism of, say, Game of Thrones. Maybe. That said: not that any sort of timing played into it, but the fact that Harvey Weinstein’s downfall began two days before release, and the resulting across-board exposure and on-the-record testimonials from many women against far too many men, couldn’t really be escaped.  Further, since the fallout was first felt, after all, in the film industry, seeing any film, new or old, through the lens of what’s acceptable and who gets through what hoops -- and who is broken by the experience -- is always important.  It’s not for nothing to note that the original film’s female lead Sean Young got shunted into the ‘she’s crazy’/’too much trouble’ file in later years where male actors might perhaps find redemption; the fact that she played a small part in the new film made me think a bit more on her fate than that of her character’s.  (Another point I saw a few women brought up as well -- having a key to the whole story be pregnancy and childbirth as opposed to infertility wasn’t warmly received.)

* It’s a very...white future. Not exclusively, certainly. But people of color barely get a look in, a quick scene here, a cameo there. A black female friend of mine just this morning said this over on FB about the one African American actor whose character got the most lines, saying: 

to have the only significant black character be this awful, creepy man who seemed to be an "overseer" type to the children, was really uncomfortable and another perfect example of scifi using an 'other' narratives or american slave narrative but within a white context. We all know what it's supposed to represent and so it's just straight up lazy writing at the end of the day and exploitative.

Meantime, another sharp series of comments elsewhere revolved around how a film perhaps even more obviously drenched than the original in an amalgamated East Asian imaginary setting for the Los Angeles sequences barely showcased anyone from such a background. Dave Bautista certainly makes an impact at the start, but after that? The fact that I can think of three speaking roles for actors of that (wide) background in the original, as in actually having an exchange with a lead character, and only one in this one, maybe two if you count the random shouting woman in K’s apartment building, is more than a little off.  Add in a ‘Los Angeles,’ or a wider SoCal if you like, that aside from Edward James Olmos’s short cameo apparently has nobody of Mexican background, let alone Central American, in it, and you gotta wonder.  My personal ‘oh really’ favorite was the one official sign that was written in English and, I believe, Sanskrit.  Great visual idea; can’t say I saw anyone of South Asian descent either.

Both these very wide issues, of course, tie in with the business and the society we’re all in -- but that’s no excuse. And there are plenty of other things I could delve into even more, not least my irritation over the generally flatly-framed dialogue shots in small offices that tended to undercut the grander vistas, or how the fact that Gosling’s character finding the horse carving had been telegraphed so far in advance that it was resolutely unremarkable despite all the loud music, etc. My key point remains: boring.  A sometimes beautifully shot and visually/sonically striking really dull, draggy, boring film.

The fair question though is why I think that.  A friend in response to that complaint as echoed by others joked what we would make of Bela Tarr films, to which I replied that I own and enjoy watching Tarkovsky movies. Slow pace and long shots aren’t attention killers for me per se; if something is gripping, it will be just that, and justify my attention. Meanwhile, the original film famously got dumped on for also being slow, boring, etc at the time, and plenty can still feel that way about it. Blade Runner’s reputation is now frightfully overburdened and certainly I’ve contributed to it mentally if not through formal written work; it succeeds but is a flawed creation, and strictly speaking the two big complaints I’ve outlined above apply to the predecessor as much as the current film, it’s just a matter of degrees otherwise. But if you told me I had to sit down and watch it, I’d be happy to. Tell me to do the same with this one, I would immediately ask for the ability to skip scenes.

I’ve turned it all over in my head and these are three elements where things fell apart for me, caused me to be disengaged -- not in any specific order, but I’m going to build outward a bit, from the specific to the general, and with specific contrast between the earlier film and the new one.  These discontinuities aren’t the sole faults, but they’re the ones I’ve been thinking about the most.

First: it’s worth noting that the new film brings in a lot of specific cultural elements beyond the famed advertising and signs. Nabokov’s Pale Fire is specifically singled out both as a visual cue and as an element in K’s two police station evaluations, for instance. Meanwhile, musically, I didn’t quite catch what song it was Joi was telling K about early in the film but a check later means it must have been Sinatra’s “Summer Wind,” featured on the soundtrack.  Sinatra himself of course shows up later as a small holographic performance in Vegas, specifically of “One For My Baby,” while prior to that K and Deckard fight it out while larger holographic displays of older Vegas style revues and featured performers appear glitchily -- showgirls, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis in his later pomp, Liberace complete with candleabra. All of this makes a certain sense and on the one hand I don’t object to it.

But on the other I do.  Something about all that rubbed me the wrong way and I honestly wasn’t sure why -- the Nabokov bit as well, even the quick Treasure Island moment between Deckard and K when they first talk to each other. The answer I think lies with the original film. It’s not devoid of references either, but note how two of the most famous are used:

* When Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty introduces himself to James Hong’s Hannibal Chew, he does so with a modified quote from William Blake’s America: A Prophecy. (This fuller discussion of that quote and how it was changed from the original is worth a read; it’s also worth noting that Hauer brought it to the table, and wasn’t planned otherwise.) But he doesn’t do so by spelling out to the audience, much less Chew, that it is Blake at all.  You either have to know it or you don’t. If, say, we saw Batty clearly holding a copy of the book -- or maybe more intriguing, a copy in Deckard’s apartment -- then that would be one thing...but it becomes a bit more ‘DO YOU SEE?’ as a result. Clunkier, a bit like how Pale Fire worked in the new film.

* Even in the original soundtrack’s compromised/rerecorded form, I always loved the one formally conventional song on the original soundtrack, “One More Kiss, Dear.” I just assumed as I did back in the mid to late 80s, when I first saw the film and heard its music, that it was a random oldie from somewhere mid-century repurposed, a bit of mood-setting. It is...but it isn’t.  It’s strictly pastiche, a creation of Vangelis himself in collaboration with Peter Skellern, an English singer-songwriter who had a thriving career in his home country. It just seemed real enough, with scratchy fidelity, a piano-bar sad elegance -- which was precisely the point. You couldn’t pin it down to anything, it wasn’t a specifically recognizable element. It wasn’t Elvis, or Liberace, or Sinatra. 

This careful hiding of concrete details -- even when the original film showcased other clear, concrete details of ‘our’ world culturally, but culturally via economics and ads -- is heavily to the original’s benefit, I’d argue.  There’s a certain trapped-in-baby-boomerland context of the elements in the new film that, perversely, almost feels too concrete, or forced is maybe a better word. It’s perverse because on the one hand it makes a clear sense, but on the other hand, by not being as tied to explicitly cultural identifiers -- whether ‘high’ literature or rough and ready ‘pop’ or whatever one would like to say -- the original film feels that much more intriguingly odd, dreamlike even. I would tease this out further if I could, but it quietly nags -- perhaps the best way I could describe it is this: by not knowing what, in general, the characters, ‘human’ or not, read, listen to, watch in the original, what everyone enjoys -- if they do -- becomes an unspoken mystery. Think about how we here now talk about what we read, listen to, watch as forms of connection with others; think about how the crowd scenes in the originals feature people all on their own trips or in groups or whatever without knowing what they might know. We know Deckard likes piano, sure, but that suggests something, it doesn’t limit it.  We know K likes Nabokov and Sinatra -- and that tells us something.  And it limits it.

My second big point would also have to do with limits versus possibilities, and hopefully is more easily explained.  Both films are of course amalgams, reflections of larger elements in the culture as well as within a specific culture of film. The first film is even more famously an amalgam of ‘film noir’ as broadly conceived, both in terms of actual Hollywood product and the homages and conceptions and projections of the term backwards and forwards into even more work. It is the point of familiar reference for an audience that at the time was a couple of decades removed from its perceived heyday, but common enough that it was the key hook in -- the weary detective called back for one last job, the corrupt policeman, the scheming businessman, the femme fatale, etc. etc. Set against the fantastic elements, it was the bedrock, the hook, and of course it could be and was repurposed from there, in its creation and in its reception. 

2049 is not a film noir amalgam.  Instead, it’s very clearly -- too clearly -- an amalgam of exactly the wrong place it should have gotten any influence from. By that I don’t mean the original film -- above and beyond the clear story connections, its impact was expected to be inescapable and as it turns out it was inescapable.  Instead it’s an amalgam of what followed in the original’s wake -- the idea of dystopia-as-genre -- and that’s poisonous.

Off the top of my head: Children of Men. The Matrix. Brazil. Her. Battlestar Galactica, the 2000s reboot. A bit of The Hunger Games, I’d say. A bit of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (not a direct descendant of the original at all, of course -- George Miller always had his own vibe going -- but I caught an echo still). The Walking Dead. A fleck of The Fifth Element. Demolition Man, even, if we want to go ‘low’ art.  But also so many of the knockoffs and revamps and churn. There could be elements, there could be explicit references, there could be just a certain miasma of feeling.  But this all fed into this film, and made it...just less interesting to me. 

Again, the first film is no less beholden to types and forebears.  But the palette wasn’t sf per se, it was something else, then transposed and heightened and made even uneasier due to what it was.  2049 has to not only chase down its predecessor, it has to live with what its predecessor created.  But did it have to take all that into itself as well? It becomes a wink and a nod over and again, and a tiring one, a smaller palette, a feeding on itself. And it’s very frustrating as a result, and whatever spell was in the film kept being constantly rebroken, and the scenes kept dragging on.

This all fed into the third and final point for me -- the key element, the thing that makes the original not ‘just’ noir, the stroke of genius from Philip K Dick turned into tangible creations: the replicants, and the question of what it is to be human. Humanity itself has assayed this question time and time over -- let’s use Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a start if we must for the modern era, it’s as good as any. We as a species -- if we individual members can afford the time and reflection at least -- seem to enjoy questions of what makes us ‘us,’ and what we are and what we have in this universe.  This much is axiomatic, so take that as read.

The replicants in the original film -- famously thought of differently by Dick and Ridley Scott, to the former’s bemusement when they met and talked for their only meeting before the latter’s death -- set up questions in that universe that are grappled with as they are by the characters in different ways. Between humans, between replicants, between each other, lines always slipping and shading. Their existences are celebrated, questioned, protested against. But we don’t live in these conversations for the most part, we tend to experience the characters instead; it’s often what’s unsaid that has the greatest impact. And if the idea of a successful story-teller is to show rather than tell, then I would argue that, again, flawed as it can be, the original film succeeds there be only telling just enough, and letting the viewer be immersed otherwise. (Thus of course the famous after the fact narration in the original release insisted upon by the studio, and removed from later cuts to Scott’s thorough relief.)

By default, that level of quiet...I would almost call it ‘awe’...in the original can’t be repeated with the same impact. The bell cannot be unrung, but that’s not crippling. What was crippling was how, again, bored I was with the plight of the characters in 2049. How unengaged in their concerns I generally was. One key exception aside, I never bought K’s particular angst outside of plot-driven functionality, and frankly they often felt like manikins all the way down from there. Robin Wright’s police chief had some great line deliveries but the lines were most often banal generalities that sounded ridiculous. Jared Leto’s corporate overlord, good god, don’t ask. As for Joi and Luv, Ana de Armas and Sylvia Hoeks did their best, and yet the characters felt...functional.  Which given the characters as such would seem to be appropriate, but their fates were functional too. Of course one would do that, of course the other would do that, of course one would die the one way, of course the other would die that way, and...fine. Shrug. 

So, then, Deckard? Honestly Harrison Ford had the best part in the film and while I found him maybe a bit more garrulous than I would have expected from the character, he did paranoid, wounded and withdrawn pretty damn well. Not to mention comedy -- the dog and whisky combo can’t be beat, and it’s worth remembering his nebbishy ‘undercover’ turn in the original -- and, in the Rachel scene, an actual sense of pathos and outrage. I bought him pretty easily, and it made everyone else seem pretty shallow. When K learns about the underground replicant resistance and all, the bit about everyone hopes they are the one was nice enough, but the rest of it, clearly meant to be a ‘big moment,’ was...again, dull, per my second point about the limited palette. A whole lot of telling, not much showing, and such was the case throughout. It was honestly a bit shocking -- but also very clear -- to myself when I realized how little I cared about humans or replicants or any of it at all towards the end. It all felt pat and played out, increasingly unfascinating, philosophy that was rote. It could just be me, of course -- maybe this is an issue where the stand-ins of replicants versus realities of robots and AI, along with the cruelties we’re happy to inflict on each other, means the stand-ins simply don’t have much of an imaginative or intellectual grip now.

Still, though, I’ll give the film one full scene, without Ford. As part of his work, and to answer the questions in his own head, K visits Ana Stelline, a designer of replicant memories. This, more than anything else in the film outside of certain design and musical elements, felt like the original, or something that could be there. It introduced a wholly new facet -- how are memories created for replicants? -- while extending the idea that instead of one sole creator of replicants there are multiple parts makers with their specialized fields in an unexplained (and unnecessary to be explained) economy. Stelline’s literal isolation allows for space and the limits of communication to be played out in a way that makes satisfying artistic sense, and Carla Juri plays her well. It builds up to an emotional moment that sends K into an explosive overdrive that is actually earned, and Juri’s own reaction of awe and horror is equally good.  But -- even better -- the scene ends up taking a wholly new cast later in the film, when more information reveals what was actually at play, and what K didn’t know at the time, and makes the final scene a good one to end on in turn (and by that I mean back in her office, specifically).

The problem though remains -- one scene can’t make a film. One can argue that it’s better to reach and fail than not at all, but it’s also easily argued that one gets far more frustrated with something that could have worked but didn’t. I don’t think an edit for time would have fixed the film but it would have made it less of a slog while not sacrificing those visual/sonic elements that did work; it still would leave a lot of these points I’ve raised standing, but it would have gone down a little more smoothly, at least. But sometimes you’re just bored in a theater, waiting for something to end.

[babbleuk]

Voices in AI – Episode 56: A Conversation with Babak Hodjat

Today's leading minds talk AI with host Byron Reese

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About this Episode

Episode 56 of Voices in AI features host Byron Reese and Babak Hodjat talking about genetic algorithms, cyber agriculture, and sentience. Babak Hodjat is the founder and CEO of Sentient Technologies. He holds a PhD in the study of machine intelligence.

Visit www.VoicesinAI.com to listen to this one-hour podcast or read the full transcript.

Transcript Excerpt

Byron Reese: This is Voices in AI brought to you by GigaOm, I’m Byron Reese. Today my guest is Babak Hodjat, he is the founder and CEO of Sentient Technologies. He holds a PhD in the study of machine intelligence. Welcome to the show, Babak. Rerecorded the intro

Babak Hodjat: Great to be here, thank you.

Let’s start off with my normal intro question, which is, what is artificial intelligence?

Yes, what a question. Well we know what artificial is, I think mainly the crux of this question is, “What is intelligence?”

Well actually no, there are two different senses in which it’s artificial. One is that it’s not really intelligence, it’s like artificial turf isn’t really grass, that it just looks like intelligence, but it’s not really. And the other one is, oh no it’s really intelligent it just happens to be something we made.

Yeah it’s the latter definition I think is the consensus. I’m saying this partly because there was a movement to call it machine intelligence, and there were other names to it as well, but I think artificial intelligence is, certainly the emphasis is on the fact that, as humans, we’ve been able to construct something that gives us a sense of intelligence. The main question then is, “What is this thing called intelligence?” And depending on how you answer that question, actual manifestations of AI have differed through the years.

There was a period in which AI was considered: If it tricks you into believing that it is intelligent, then it’s intelligent. So, if that’s the definition, then everything is fair game. You can cram this system with a whole bunch of rules, and back then we called them expert systems, and when you interact with these rule sets that are quite rigid, it might give you a sense of intelligence.

Then there was a movement around actually building intelligence systems, through machine learning, and mimicking how nature creates intelligence. Neural networks, genetic algorithms, some of the approaches, amongst many others that were proposed and suggested, reinforcement learning in its early form, but they would not scale. So the problem there was that they did actually show some very interesting properties of intelligence, namely learning, but they didn’t quite scale, for a number of different reasons, partly because we didn’t quite have the algorithms down yet, also the algorithms could not make use of scalable compute, and compute and memory storage was expensive.

Then we switched to redefinition in which we said, “Well, intelligence is about these smaller problem areas,” and that was the mid to late 90s where there was more interest in agenthood and agent-based systems, and agent-oriented systems where the agent was tasked with a simplified environment to solve. And intelligence was extracted into: If we were tasked with a reduced set of tools to interact with the world, and our world was much simpler than it is right now, how would we operate? That would be the definition of intelligence and those are agent based systems.

We’ve kind of swung back to machine learning based systems, partly because there have been some breakthroughs in the past, I would say 10-15 years, in neural networks in learning how to scale this technology, and an awesome rebranding of neural networks—calling them deep learning—the field has flourished on the back of that. Of course it doesn’t hurt that we have cheap compute and storage and lots and lots of data to feed these systems.

You know, one of the earlier things you said is that we try to mimic how nature creates intelligence, and you listed three examples: neural nets, and then GANNs, how we evolve things and reinforcement learning. I would probably agree with evolutionary algorithms, but do you really think… I’ve always thought neural nets, like you said, don’t really act like neurons. It’s a convenient metaphor I guess, but do you really consider neural nets to be really derived from biology or it’s just an analogy from biology?

Well it was very much inspired by biology, very much so. I mean models that we had of how we thought neurons and synapses between neurons and chemistry of the brain operates, fuels this field, absolutely. But these are very simplified versions of what the brain actually does, and every day there’s more learning about how brain cells operate. I was just reading an article yesterday about how RNA can capture memory, and how the basal ganglia also have a learning type of function—it’s not just the pre-frontal cortex. There’s a lot of complexity and depth in how the brain operates, that is completely lost when you simplify it. So absolutely we’re inspired definitely, but this is not a model of the brain by any stretch of the imagination.

Listen to this one-hour episode or read the full transcript at www.VoicesinAI.com 

Voices in AI

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  Byron explores issues around artificial intelligence and conscious computers in his new book The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.

from Gigaom https://gigaom.com/2018/07/05/voices-in-ai-episode-56-a-conversation-with-babak-hodjat/

[notebookmusical]

Hi! I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Did you do anything? We usually don't so it's mostly just chill but we still ate plenty of food. I cannot cook at all though haha. Oh no! I'm sorry you're so sick again. I have been pretty lucky in that way that I haven't been that sick in a while and haven't had to see a doctor or anything. I can relate to that a little but actually I'm more likely to brush any sickness or pain off so idk. I figured you did not have any siblings since you probably would have mentioned it but thought I would ask. I don't think I've ever heard of peach pie wine but it sounds like it could be good and it does fit the season. I ate pumpkin pie today lol. I've never really been to Trader Joe's either. I'm not a big drinker either but I did get Trulys to drink for the weekend but that's mostly all I will drink usually.

Oh okay I guess I was right but that must have been pretty hard to make friends. I always had my sister but it was still pretty hard so I can't imagine that. and yay I still love the video so much and used to watch it all the time. For me, I actually didn't get into all her stuff right away..I never bought her album until Fearless and didn't know which songs were released or unreleased until later. My friend at the time got me more into her and I remember asking her about permanent marker or I heart ? And she had no idea what I was talking about lol. I think I had heard Our Song and Should've said No and Invisible at the time but I wasn't that familiar with the debut album until it was put on streaming..and my sister barely knows it at all. That's another reason I'm excited for the rerecording and I usually never listen to the full album either. I'm familiar with some unreleased songs so I'm curious to see the vault. Like I had already heard We Were Happy and You all over Me and probably Bye Bye Baby before they were on Fearless. But the only ones I know really well are Dark Blue Tennessee, I'd Lie, Permanent Marker, I Heart, I've heard others like South of knowing Why, Diary of Me, Sweet Tea, close to a cowboy Welcome Distraction, This is really happening, and probably more, but I'm not as familiar with those anymore. I wondered if her and Hayley would sing Castles Crumbling at every show too like with Nothing New so I guess we will see. I will share my top songs when the time comes and usually Spotify wrapped helps with that but I like to pick too cuz sometimes I'm not always streaming certain stuff. I'm sorry you couldn't make your concerts..that's such a bummer. I think my favorite Del Water Gap song was Glitter and Honey or All we ever do is talk I think. What about you? I hope you enjoy Cannons or Bad Suns if you get a chance to listen. I loved their last albums so much but need more time with their newer albums.

That makes sense and I know most people are like that but I'm just more of a maybe person and things come up sometimes so I can never be that sure about things, but it also leads to me missing things. I hope you have fun if you plan it. So I saw a clip of Jordan Fisher's Orpheus singing Wait For Me and he sounds so good! What did you think of it? I didn't have a chance to watch any musical parade performances yet but will later.

I will probably see the movie this weekend so I will give you a review then..but I will be interested in your opinion of the book. Some people really don't like it or found it pointless but I think I'm just kinda in the middle and I think the movie will help. Ya for me..I think I will be too busy to focus on any reading for next month. Then I'm working on making some reading goals for next year. Some of that includes continuing the books from the reading challenge that were already on my list. But I'm trying this new thing in the new year where I try to read two books a month as a pair..one that I wanna read and one from my shelf. One example is the night circus and maybe the Starless Sea if I could find it, People We Meet on Vacation and another Emily Henry book..or hopefully read them all. The two twins books I've been talking about for a while..lol. Finishing Business or Pleasure and probably another one of her adult romances..just a few examples. I also wanna finish Daisy Jones and the show finally..maybe with Evelyn Hugo..idk. I also realized that I have the book One Day on my shelf and after I thought about it..it seems pretty similar to Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow so I think it will be a pair, but I'll save it for whenever you wanna come back to it. I have to think about it more though cuz I do have a lot of random books on my shelf. Sorry if this is confusing haha but I think it could motivate me to read more.

I got a new vinyl record player but haven't used it yet lol. Like I said, I don't really play it but I'm hoping that could change in the new year too lol. I think I've played

So you agree that she will focus on the rerecording and not new music then right? I think that's just what makes sense to me. I love the surprise songs pairs but Me and So it Goes didn't really go together lol. Ya I already know Maisie and Taylor are going to be in my top songs and albums lol. Anyway I forgot there is a show tonight so I will just randomly guess surprise songs now. I guess I wasn't that off last time. Maybe I will guess 3 choices cuz there's 3 shows but these are just completely random. The Way I loved you and Closure, Say Don't Go and Forever Winter, and Glitch and Afterglow. This will probably be way off haha. Oh yay that will be nice for you if that happens again..so hopefully it comes true. It's so far away though haha. Omg yes..that is totally us!!! But we are also pretty similar most of the time too and I guess me and you are too. I hope you have a nice weekend and don't worry about replying if you're trying to get better! 🩷

we had a few people over for thanksgiving! thanksgiving at my house was brought to you by a text to speech app, since i still don't have a voice 😵‍💫. i am also terrible at cooking, but i love love love baking! i'm trying to cook more and be a little more adventurous though, definitely a 2024 goal for sure! i just really love how baking seems to be more exact? and cooking is a little more vibey and there's some wiggle room. so i struggle a bit with that! and i just find it very intimidating; a lot of my family (esp. extended family) are very very good at cooking, and well! starting from very basics while everyone else is incredibly good is hard, but that's also the only way you get better!

today is actually my sixth day without a voice which is very, very frustrating and just annoying and i am very much being a baby about the whole thing! i am just tired of constantly being sick, and i'm sure everyone in my life is also tired of hearing about it. but i'm trying to find some humor in the situation! are you a pumpkin pie fan? i'm more of an apple pie girlie — but my preference is actually apple crumble! i used to work right around the corner from a trader joe's, and i live about ~ 15 minutes from a trader joes now (probably the closest grocery store to me that's not safeway)! they have some really good snacks (i loveee their olive oil popcorn; haven't had it in a while but i used to buy bags of it and put them in my work cubicle and have ~ popcorn parties ~ with my coworkers on fridays.) i had a truly once (this year! back in january! at my first kraken game!) and it was fun! but yeah, not a huge drinker over here!

omg i have a huge list of debut vault tracks i want — your face, your anything, you don't have to call me, sweet tea & god's graces, r-e-v-e-n-g-e, smokey black nights, lucky you, what to wear, i'd lie, this is really happening, dark blue tennessee, i heart?, etc! i'm still holding out hope for battle (i'm delusional) and need! i wonder if she'll rerecord beautiful eyes, or if she'll put it on debut tv — and i also wonder if she'll rerecord the holiday album too!

i really love all we ever do is talk too, it's probably my favorite from the new dwg album! i haven't listened to it as much lately, so i'll have to do a relisten! been listening to a lot of the japanese house (and wallowing because i'm quite bummed about missing the concert) this week but i think i'm going to listen to i miss you already + i haven't left yet tonight while i try to read once i finish my audiobook!

i really liked his wait for me, and also his if it's true! i haven't seen a full audio yet, but i saw some clips on tiktok and liked what i heard! i'm curious to see how he'll sound as he settles into his role more! i heard some rumors about a new eurydice stunt cast too, which i don't know how i feel about! i haven't seen any musical parade performances either, but i did finally watch the dwts taylor performances on youtube the other night! have you seen them yet? what are your thoughts?

what other reading goals do you have? i haven't even begun to think about 2024 reads yet, or even my 2024 anticipated releases, but i want to do that! i went into 2023 with "23 books i want to read this year" and i really don't think i made much progress there, so i'll have to revisit/revise that list for next year! you could always do the new emily henry too — funny story! and not confusing at all, all in favor for anything that'll motivate you to read more 🤍

what does your new vinyl player look like? i love talking about vinyls! i'm thinking about maybe buying another vinyl tomorrow — i don't need this one but the design is really pretty, but it's a "surplus sunday" limited sale, so it's really just ... up to fate/luck/etc i think!

and yes, i do think she'll focus on rerecordings first, but i think she's making steady progress with TS11! maisie and taylor are definitely in my top listened to artists!! i've been following along with my apple music replay stats all year, and also airbuds widget stats so that's been very fun! i realized that i've seen all of my top 5 most listened to artists this year live (this year!) which was really cool! i was sure she was going to sing say don't go this weekend, but she sang SAFE AND SOUND AND UNTOUCHABLE INSTEAD??? which was wild to me! it sounded so good!

i hope you have a good weekend! and that you had fun at the movies — can't wait to hear your thoughts! 🤍 hope you're doin well and that you have a gooood week ahead!