#just a quick pop in to rant about ai

[regardsandregrets]

It’s inraging, certain ai and advocaters, scraping and screwing over every human creative one by one and finding more ways to take it. where are our rights to what we make, by default.

[helloitshaley]

do you guys wanna know what irks me? No? Okay, buckle up.

It is a big pet peeve of mine when people spell my name wrong but LET ME EXPLAIN!!!! so my name is Haley, right? And there are several different ways my name can be spelled. If you are someone who has never seen my name written down, has never been told how to spell my name, or doesn't have quick access to something to see how my name is spelled then I really do not care whatsoever if you spell my name the wrong way! That is totally understandable and you can't be mad at someone for something the didn't know!

Now here is what irks me, and I'm going to paint a picture with the scenario that annoyed me this time. Okay for my one job there is a facebook group chat. Now any time my one co worker will address me in that chat, she does not spell my name right. Its either the ai or ay version, but never the correct one. Also, she doesn't just stick with one or the other, its always a mix of ai or ay, sometimes in the same conversation. NOW HERE IS WHY THAT PISSES ME OFF. Number one, we've been working together for 2 years, she has been given my email, which has my name in it, we are in that facebook chat where it says my name, and she has friended me on facebook (which is chill with me bc i only lurk i never post on fb). She has so much access to the correct spelling!

Not to mention that when you type someones name into the facebook chat, that person will pop up as a suggestion for you to tag, so she would never need to spell more than Ha and my name would be RIGHT THERE, so its almost as if she is going OUT OF HER WAY to spell my name wrong.

this is really under my skin this time, normally I would be annoyed for like 5 minutes then move on, but this got me BECAUSE I think its her way of being underhanded and disrespectful! I've had a suspicion for a while that she really doesn't like that I have a 'higher position' than she does. This is something I thought I was being paranoid about and reading too much into until another coworker confirmed my suspicion so now I'm on red alert baby! All the little comments and attempts to undermine me in the past are adding up! So I think she spells my name wrong as some weird power move??????? Idk I just needed to rant for a bit this has been building up for a while.

[fromjasonxp]

A quick rant on that 2023 “leaked” Google memo “We Have No Moat And neither does OpenAI”:

But the uncomfortable truth is, we aren’t positioned to win this arms race and neither is OpenAI. While we’ve been squabbling, a third faction has been quietly eating our lunch.

Boy, does this entire memo smell of bullshit; a red herring; the ol' pit us against the lunch lady routine.

First, it implies Google and OpenAI are on equal footing. They’re not. Google is far better suited to cash in on AI tech adoption—more on that in a sec.

It then identifies open-source AI models as the third faction about to “eat [Google’s] lunch.” Again, basura, bro. Straight trash.

Don’t get me wrong, open-source tech is great and important, and wonderful. But it’s not like the average person runs a Large Language Model on their Mac to make grocery lists. If you are, in fact, doing this, you are a nerd and I love you. But you’re not the average user.

Most AI-centered features, whether powered by open or proprietary tech, will be baked into consumer-facing software for mass consumption.

But, AI features are power-hogs and expensive to maintain. Look at ChatGPT. With one hundred million users at twenty bucks a pop, OpenAI is losing money. There’ll be efficiency gains for sure. But not before they pay the pied piper.

Which brings me to my final point.

The SaaS model runs on the cloud. The cloud is effectively owned by three companies— Amazon, Microsoft, and, yes, Google. (Four companies if you count Meta, but that’s another rant).

The big three are spending eye-watering amounts of capex dollars on data centers and reporting growth almost exclusively from cloud services. And that’s without ubiquitous AI in all of our subscription software that folks actually want to use.

So go ahead, says Google. Be fruitful and multiply those AI features. Open-source it up. We’ll even give you the tech for free. Just call us when you launch your app and need that cloud service.

Because why give a shit who sells the milk jars when you own the motherfucking cows, baby!

[budugaapologist]

okay dokay so like. havent ranted about him in a while and i was thinking about all the iconic shit edward's done while i was dying today so anywho, here's some things he's done that made me cackle while my organs plotted my death:

so obviously him making it his life's purpose to torment a frail old man just because his first paycheck sucked is iconic

scaling a building in broad daylight because he and stede couldnt find a bar

picking a fight with the first englishman that tried to talk to him in havana

glaring death rays at woodes rogers when he called him ugly

by immediately stalking roberts, believing he'd help him get rich quick after completing a series of tasks for the man, edward proved he would fall for a pyramid scheme

the way his ai is kinda fucked up and without fail every time ive done the mission he peeks around the corner in front of adéwalé in full view of a guard

like judging by mydickssoft's track record you'd think they'd morph into a freakish being but nah, boundary boxes force these tootie frooties to spoon

do you think he knows what jagabat means? i dont think he does

*names a ship after a bird*

"speaking of dark creatures, you are black!"

grabs a sword by the blade multiple times dude what in the fuck

"i want my key!" dont you have like. four guns. shoot off the locks king, opening things properly has never been your go to why change now

kicking locks off BARE FOOTED bro i KNOW that hurts so bad you gotta be bleeding how the fuck are your feet so smooth you abuse the shit outta them

you tellin me you paid another man to give you nipple tattoos? okay

you tellin me you paid another man to draw tentacles on your cleavage? okay

thats a lot of back tattoos there kenway. who are they for kenway. you cant see the player who are those for kenway. are you expecting someone to be behind you admiring them kenway

picture youre just chilling in your cool half-underwater base admiring your treasure. all of a sudden a dummy thicc, unarmed, barefoot, and shirtless man pops out of the water and starts punching and kicking you to death

"you mad sap!" bro they are oysters and you have a whole crab and two knives. eat vane

surely going toward the man, who just left me to die in a cave, while i currently bleed out wont be a mistake!

why you dreaming about crawling on your hands and knees toward roberts kenway. why did you dream that roberts would be sitting on stede kenway.

him staring out into the void in that one dream sequence. "sorry bristol is too hard to render :P"

"so anne my wife is dead" "yeah" "would you like to-" "no" "aight fair enough"

he spent almost all of the game simping for a man named bartholomew

*bullies child daughter for not knowing difference between boat and ship*

why did he take his giant brig through a swamp. i think in that very moment adé became the captain, like the crew didnt say anything because this was for thatch but also they all silently were like "kenway dumb af"

"and would you be the devil" dude just call yourself a slur

put a lotta trust in the jackdaw crew to stay put while he went swimming for a couple hours every now and then

*******killed a man with piss*******

"eyo look at that massive ship in the distance. lets go fight it"

pets dog pets cow pets cat pets bird pets goat pets dog pets cow pets bird pets cat pets goat pets do

him continuously taking off the assassin robes to put on those god awful saggy pants. king your ass is amazing what did you do with your first outfit

never corrects adé when during battle and storms adé calls him and the crew sluts. eyo release directors cut of whats happening off screen boobsaresoft i wanna see whats goin on

why do you only fuck in beds why do you sleep everywhere that isnt made for sleeping

hes got like forty kids right

bonus adéwalé speed round:

*goes to brothel full of beautiful scantily dressed women that find him extremely attractive, just goes to bed*

"you look like a bowl of plum duff"

"i feel nothing but a hot wind on my ears"

what does edward have that makes you stay with him for so long (we know what he has we dont need to say it)

"this is where the jackdaw was sunk august" "cowabummer"

edward was definitely just a spoiled little figurehead captain for adéwalé right

"kicking chests is so two decade ago, i am going to brutally stomp down on them and shatter the hinges :)"

password is a song? okay i will sing it uwu [yes he is a better singer than edward]

"stop touching my boobs ma'am"

"i have a son? YOU NAMED HIM WHAT?"

bro one of his finishing moves looks like he smothers somebody out with his armpit. in reality, he breaks their neck with his bicep

"create a distraction? okay" *throws men*

[attempting-writer]

Found in the Dog’s Mouth

So, here we are again. Me, with a completely different and completely new story that I may or may not finish or continue, and you, someone who I, somehow, managed to sucker into reading this nonsense. 

Anyways.... When you reach into your local Cerberus facility you may find a boy and friend.

A Cerberus base. It just has to be a Cerberus base, because when it comes to barely legal technology and AI development and containment, look to the humans to ignore the rules. Of course, now that there’s a whole, multi-species, multi-billion credit project being set up that’s reliant on a handful of AIs to lead the way, there’s now a need for computers and tech specifically designed to maintain and manage AI and their processes. And now, here Drack is, stalking through a recently plasma-burned hallway, in the middle of a Cerberus lab, trying not to trip on the occasional human carcass strewn across the floor.

He grunts and is glad that they haven’t developed a smell, yet, but that means whoever did it, is still nearby. He stalks through the halls, towards where he assumed was the main lab, judging by where the signs, which were now blasted beyond recognition, were pointed. He pauses as he hears unfamiliar weapon fire coming from one of the halls. He increases his pace taking a position in a slightly curved hallway with a chokepoint on either side. The shots have been growing closer, and from where the sound has been coming, he realizes that the two ends of the hallway are connected to each other, through others. He grunts and curses to himself.

He sees the light of a plasma bolt and turns towards that entrance, his shotgun at the ready. He takes a knee in the hall, bracing for an onslaught, when, he hears a quick tapping approaching him from behind. From behind him, a small body comes sprinting through the hallway. They are glancing back at their pursuers as they enter the hallway, colliding into his back with an audible crack. He turns as they fall to the ground, about to shout something at, what he now sees is a young Quarian, when a bit more than a handful of Geth, in varying states of repair, or more disrepair, flood into the hallway, calling his attention away.

Thirteen shots, and the last Geth hits the ground, unmoving. Drack turns towards what hit him, about to either berate or threaten them, only to see a large crack across the Quarian kid’s visor. His first words to him shifts from some upset rant about watching where he was going to a quickly panicked, “Shit! Hold on!” as he bends down over them and brings up his omni-tool tapping at it a few times before bringing it over their visor.

The kid’s reaction was… less than calm. After laying on the ground, just staring at the crack on their visor while the shooting stopped, seeing the large hand and omni-tool come over their face brought them back to reality. They start lashing out, scooting themselves away and trying to push and slap his hands away. It took a bit of effort, but Drack managed to pin one of their wrists over their opposite shoulder as he brought his omni-tool to their visor, a nozzle-like beam touches the crack with a hiss, slowly closing the crack up.

To Drack’s relief, the kid stops struggling, watching the crack seal away until it looked as if it wasn’t there to begin with. He slowly lifts his arms away, waiting until they look up at him with their softly glowing eyes. Even with that glow, he sees nothing in the kid’s face, in their eyes. Not fear, not hope, not the faintest bit of curiosity, or confusion, just a blank stare. He reaches down and gently helps them to their feet before giving him a once-over. No signs of harm, and his suit, mostly white, with blood on his boots, gloves, and legs, but no noticeable punctures and no thin splashes or sprays of blood, implying that he simply walked through and over the mess of bodies without witnessing them die up close.

He hums thoughtfully and rights himself up with a groan and the audible popping of his old joints. He glances around, regaining his bearings and listening closely for any further threats. As he gives himself the all-clear, he hooks his shotgun to his back and turns, saying, “Stay close, kid. I don’t know if there’s any more of those things, but I’ll find you somewhere safe to hide out until we can get out of here.” He offers a free hand to the little Quarian, who simply stares at it. After what felt like an hour, but was really closer to a few seconds, of awkward silence and motionlessness, Drack leans down and takes the kid’s hand in his before beginning his return trip to his shuttle.

The return to his shuttle is a bit quicker than his trek into the facility, but it is interrupted, near the docking bays, when they come across exactly the computers and hardware Drack is there for, being carted away by some Turian. With a firm and frustrated growl, he picks up his pace and slips his hand out of the kid’s, you can’t be intimidating with a child on your arm. He squares his shoulders, or does as close as a Krogan can, and marches up to her with another growl, continuing in his gruff voice, “Now, where do you think you’re going with that tech?” This causes her pause, but her demeanor remains calm as she turns to face him.

She looks him up and down and tilts her weight casually towards her cart. She glances at the shotgun on his back before starting, “So, all that noise, just a minute ago, was you, huh? I don’t suppose the rest of it was, too?” She gestures vaguely towards the rest of the space station, referring to the humans, strewn about.

Drack turns his head slightly, glancing at the hallway that leads to the rest of the station, before returning his attention to her, replying simply, “Geth… a small group of ‘em. By the looks of it, I’d say that these Cerberus eggheads were trying to experiment on them and accidentally powered them back on,” he pauses and places one of his own hands on the cart, “Now look, AI can be a risky business, and this kind of tech could put a lot of unwanted attention on your head from a lot of unsavory people. What do you say, I do you a favor and lighten some of this load off your hands?”

“Now that is a very tempting offer… Uh…”

“Drack. Clan Nakmor.”

“Vetra,” she briefly gestures to herself, “That’s a tempting offer, Drack, but I’m going to have to decline. Besides, I’d say you have your hands pretty full already,” she leans to the side of his free hand to look behind him a bit, bringing his own attention to the kid, who, while he was talking, managed to slip their hand back into his own, and was staring at it. Drack, as he looks down, sees the kid draw his attention away from their hands, and up to him. He feels the cart being pulled from under his hand as the Turian concludes, “Well, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of time to get the kid back to wherever he belongs, so I’ll let you get back to it.” She quickly pulls the cart away and runs it through a door before he has a chance to stop her. As she exits into the loading bay, she shoots the door’s control panel, causing it to close and lock behind her.

Drack lets out a harrumph and looks around the corridor, as the kid simply stares after her. After glancing at the signs and familiar hall. He sighs and steps to the door’s control panel, “My shuttle is on the other side of this door…” He taps it a few times but shakes his head and leads the kid next to the panel, motioning for him to wait, “Hold here, kid. I’m going to try something.” He walks over to the other side of the hall as the kid idly taps at the control panel. After doing a few stretches, he braces himself up and breaks into a sprint towards the door, fully intending to ram himself straight through it. Once he gets to it, however, his head crashes through nothing as he passes straight through an open door. With his current momentum and disorientation, he continues before tripping on some loose cabling and stumbling right into a stack of crates.

[4toryuu]

Daily rant, long one because I can't fucking help it.

Ok so, my rants are going to be of proving that fics with the way Steve needs to be are way too scarce, and I just realized something today while searching for a fic (my fics are all about Steve, including the ones I read, always).

Look at this

35, right? It may be a good number, can be a normal one. Doesn't matter much, right?

Now look at this

Are you serious? Like, what the hell. Ok, yeah. He doesn't have a super-soldier serum, nor practically every enemy he knew/knows is dead, but this is just ridiculous.

You know what I understand by this? What people probably think? That Stark's weaker, that – "Steve has the serum, he's Captain America, there's no way he'll get kidnapped" – and that just irks me. Makes me pop a fucking vein because you know what? If anything, Stark should be the one getting kidnapped less.

Yeah sure, Steve has the serum and enhanced everything and muscle to spare. But his abilities of self-preservation are buried 100 feet underground. That guy will throw himself at everything because of that, get hurt more often. Stark has his fucking AI to help him through all that. He has a really strong metal suit to protect him godamnit. And he's the one getting kidnapped more?

Alright, yeah. The guy has a gazillion enemies and he keeps adding to that list daily, but wouldn't Steve have a lot too? Maybe even more. Because there must be people out there dying to get their hands on something like the serum, or just the Captain. To be just as strong and big and healthy as him, and the only way that can happen is if they kidnap and study him.

And c'mon, Steve would be pretty easy to kidnap at times. Just imagine this.

They just finished battling giant lizards from a failed experiment, buildings got destroyed and people got hurt. Steve can't help feeling a little conscious and bad, even though they've protected the city from major damage because that's just how he is. Even if it's protecting the city, he doesn't like causing this much of a disaster and trouble. He's tired and hungry and sore all over, but when he hears crying from rubble some feet behind them, he makes a quick excuse to his team and goes there. Once he goes around the corner he feels a deep resounding pain behind his head, and the last thing he feels is hitting the hard uneven concrete floor before losing consciousness.

See? With Stark, something that easy and dumb wouldn't happen. For starters, he has Jarvis/Friday (depending on the time) to tell there aren't any lives in danger. Second, with just a hit he wouldn't fall unconscious. Yeah, yeah, "BuT StEvE wOuLdN't EiThEr" a good planned and hard-hit would do the trick. Stark has his damn armor to protect him from a hit like that. And third, his AI would've seen the attackers before he even rounded the corner. I'm right and you know it.

People think that just because Steve is Captain America and has the serum his invincible (including himself) but he's not and everyone needs to understand that. The fact that people don't normalize this is kind of upsetting and wrong because it's proving me right. So I'm just asking to normalize this stuff in fics. Because really? In the movies, people don't concentrate on Steve, at all.

Fics are to not listen to the movies and put scenes in said movies or series that will improve them or that we want. Not to follow through with them and ignore that specific character that puts on a strong suit and stoic calm face in the series/movies. Because 99% percent of the time? Those are the ones that need the most help. The ones that need friends, family, and comfort the most.

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

19 Aug 2021: Code red for humanity. Personalised funerals. Remote work.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter.

[Image: IPCC]

Code red for humanity

“Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report on climate change. The press release is here. The full report is here - very detailed, very doubled-checked. A good, quick version is the summary for policy makers - a punchy read. And a good third-party summary is here: The era of rapid climate change has begun.

Here is Co-operatives UK on the IPCC report:

“It’s clear ‘business as usual’ is not a viable response to the climate emergency. Global government action is needed, but we don’t have to wait. Businesses – and indeed every single one of us – can take action today to reduce our carbon footprint. Many of our co-operative members are already making changes – from The Co-op Group developing the first compostable plastic bag to Greencity Wholefoods trialling deliveries by electric trike to reduce diesel emissions. We want to see all businesses, from PLCs to community businesses, following suit to take action for climate change.”

Co-op Group and climate change: 

5 steps we’ve taken towards our sustainability ambitions in 2021.

And our wider climate plan. (Though after reading the IPCC report, you may think: every organisation’s plan needs to be more ambitious.) 

Co-op Power is the biggest energy buying co-operative in the UK - it helps businesses save money and source energy in an ethical, sustainable way.

We know that our world has been borrowing from future generations, leaving them what we might euphemistically call a “carbon debt” that’s constantly growing and already hard to pay back. Delay kills and speed is everything. It’s warming rapidly, and almost everywhere. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Net zero carbon globally is needed as soon as possible. Carbon offsets aren’t going to be enough (some of those carbon-capturing forests are burning right now). Fossil fuels need to stay in the ground. Fixing it means more than just fixing energy (ecosystem degradation, water shortages, food security, biodiversity loss and more are also critical), though fixing energy is a good place to start. 

You should improve the insulation of your home, yes, but the speed of response required means that the meaningful change will have to come from institutions. If you thought digital transformation was spiky and disruptive, wait til you see carbon transformation. It is going to feel like the sudden reinvention of many things we take as given today - jobs, education, housing, industry, families, society, the world. And it has to be done fairly, and we have to work so hard and so fast at it. Because home is always worth it. We have no choice.

Previously: climate change right in front of you, the climate/carbon plans of the larger supermarket businesses in the UK.

Retail news

Lidl is launching a “scan as you shop” pilot in south west London - first scan-with-app move by a discounter?

Warhammer maker Games Workshop hands staff £5,000 bonus after lockdown sales surge - UK firm praises workers for “exceptional performance” during pandemic.

Woman sues McDonald's after Big Mac advert 'forced' her to break Lent - as she’s suing for the equivalent of £10, this seems like a PR opportunity for McDonald’s in Russia.

Interesting comment on supermarket executives joining NHS Test and Trace, ending with: 

“Because surely maturing a new public health service needs a different kind of leadership to establishing new infrastructure and logistics at speed? It’s a bit like [Test and Trace] is perceived to be a massive pop-up shop, not a semi-permanent public service.”

Remote work works, if workers have power

Two views of remote work. If workers have some power, remote work unleashes productivity and places additional value on results, rather than managerial politics. A couple of quotes from it:

Remote work makes who does and doesn’t actually do work way more obvious. [...] Remote work empowers those who produce and disempowers those who have succeeded by being excellent diplomats and poor workers, along with those who have succeeded by always finding someone to blame for their failures. It removes the ability to seem productive (by sitting at your desk looking stressed or always being on the phone), and also, crucially, may reveal how many bosses and managers simply don’t contribute to the bottom line.

But if workers have no power, it probably looks different, maybe like this:

“For workers with little power – who lack either a union or a high-demand skill/experience mix – "work from home" is a thin euphemism for "live at work." Not only do you provide your boss with rent-free space in your home, he gets to colonize your whole house and family.”

That second quote is from a good and entertaining rant about power and warehouse, white collar and gig workers living in a work panopticon. Of course, employers with office workers are still working things out. Ocado will allow staff to work remotely from abroad for one month a year. Google is cutting pay for those who don’t go to the office on the grounds that “we always pay at the top of the local market based on where an employee works from” - raising the question of whether you could get a pay rise at Google by moving to Ashgabat in Turkmenistan.

Personalised funerals

Trend: personalising your funeral. First, the ceremony: "My wishes, my way" - how the rise of funeral personalisation is helping to celebrate the lives we live. Co-op research finds that 35m want their own farewell to be a celebration of the life they have lived. 75% of the nation who would like to have a funeral now feel comfortable talking about their wishes. 20% of Britons would like their coffin personalised.

Second, the memorial: cremations are increasingly popular, so it follows that it’s becoming more popular to turn someone’s ashes into a different and personal kind of memorial - stones, diamonds, vinyl records, soil… there’s a startup for every idea.

Previously: startups in life and end-of life planning.

Federated co-operation

Co-op Foundation and Luminate are partnering with Noisy Cricket and Paper Frogs to deliver the next phase of the Federation programme. Co-op alum Linda Humphries says:

“We’ll be challenging the ways tech and data reinforce inequalities and encouraging co-operation. We want digitally-enabled products and services that are inclusive, respect people’s rights and safeguard their privacy.”

Various things

Hundreds of AI tools have been built to catch covid. None of them helped. - Some have been used in hospitals, despite not being properly tested. But perhaps the pandemic could help make medical AI better.

NHS Data Injection: Will It Hurt? - Should British patients be worried about their medical data being placed in a central database?

The slow collapse of Amazon’s drone delivery dream - mass redundancies and job transfers as it winds down a huge part of its UK drone delivery business.

Some English schools are using AI to help students catch up after Covid-19 - the AI personalises learning.

Why apps get worse: “No Product Manager in history has ever said “This seems to be working pretty well, let’s leave it the way it is.” Because that’s not bold.” - the downside of bias to action? (and not all product managers, surely).

Co-op and Co-op Digital news

Reflections on the first year of our degree apprenticeships.

Thank you for reading

Thank you friends, readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc by replying or to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend! If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[t3clis]

Lagging behind and a bonus strategy

Hi all, this quick post is an intermission to explain my 13 readers (because I thought I had only 3, I did not care a lot, but wow, a score of readers!) why I am lagging behind so much in KD:M schedule.

Here is what happened: In LY9 of the Campaign, I drew an Object of Desire Hunt Event, which required me to play a Lonely Tree. Since my Lonely Tree was sadly unpainted and pictures are actually required to understand tactics, I waited to post until I had that big chunk of HIPS painted to my (abysmal) standards.

Once that was done, it was mid-April and I managed to stuff in a couple reports, but then my old colleagues from University of Pisa passed by, and we had a gaming weekend (Pandemic Legacy S1 June-July, Gloomhaven 3 scenarios and a bit of KDM/Mage:The Ascension), so I made a hunt with a colleague - I am stuck at that report, because we ended late in the night and I am missing all the pictures.

In the meantime, Fen published both Black Lion and Community Edition rules, so my group is having a run at them - and those sessions do not get reported, because four people with full tactical report is where craziness lies.

(By the way, here is a cheap unsolicited advertisement: check Fen’s page on Patreon, read his open articles, and if you want to lend him a hand, become his Patreons! The guy creates a lot of content, is by far the KDM expert (non-staff) and writes a lot of interesting stuff)

From then on, a business trip to Canada, then it’s the month of birthdays (my now-4-year old, next my wife and a few people inbetween), and I also received The 7th Continent, so I won’t be able to report a lot until about mid-June (next pause from birthdays). About that, good news is that we won’t go for a lot of vacations during Summer this year because we have a construction in progress, so there will be a lot of play sessions this summer.

So, TL;DR: I am still playing KDM a lot and we can hook up on BGG forums almost daily, but reports have to wait until I take care of a lot of family and stuff :) I’d say that I can squeeze in a couple of LYs before mid-June, then probably I will keep up with one showdown/week as before.

In the meantime, since Wave 2 just hit and I did not see anyone report this one, I will add in a quick tutorial about why Gorm is easy:

Small Rant: Gorm Hiccup Loop

Ok, you know baby-face-mammoth here. If you are of the analytical persuasion, you might also know that it has a selection of 10 Basic AI cards, and L1 has 7 of them, L2 has 9 and L3 has all of them.

Of these Basic AI, we want to focus on one: Hiccup.

First thing you notice, is that it Picks Target, but does not Move to attack.

Second thing you notice, is that the card gets pushed back to top of AI deck to be executed again (it basically keeps hiccuping until you hit it, mostly like real life).

So, if you can conceive a way to not get hit by Retch and to always have this on top of deck, you basically can down the monster to its last wound having to worry only about reactions.

This is all possible due to how targeting is worded: since it wrote “In range”, the KDM Glossary is quite specific to what it means: a survivor is in range when the monster has enough Movement to reach them. So, you can actually have a survivor in range, but out of harm’s reach. Also please note that if the monster has no target, it will perform Illuminate instead and the AI will end up in AI discard pile, so that is a no-no in this strategy.

(Note: Retch makes the monster move two spaces backwards each time until it gets to the board edge, after that it will just sit there).

Here it is a screenshot of how to capitalize this (using the tool I made for this kind of strategic talking):

The Gorm sits there. Survivor A is target, just out of retch zone. Nobody is adjacent, so no knockdown. If you have any Fist & Tooth Specialists, you can also place them adjacent in the two spots that will not be reached by Retch.

The Gorm performs Hiccup (two spaces backwards, not hitting anyone), then Hiccup goes on top.

One survivor must use Rawhide Headband to move Hiccup on bottom. If that one is survivor A, spend movement to stay in range and repeat the same action next turn.

Another survivor can and should use Cat’s Eye Circlet to ensure that a safe enough HL is drawn.

Another survivor attacks with a weapon with a Speed of 1. Accurate Cat Gut Bow is the first one that comes to mind, but also Spears, Slow Grand Weapons (but in that case you have to Dash out of way or suffer Knockdown). Basically anything. You do exactly one wound, discarding the other AI you put on top.

If wound succeded, the fourth survivor can do a support action (or is free to exploit terrain). If wound failed, the fourth survivor uses Rawhide Headband to put Hiccup back on top.

Rinse and repeat, until the monster is down to basic action. Then, kill it swiftly.

So, that’s it. If you bring two Rawhide Headbands and some range/reach weapons, you can do this trick with ease without Surging or Dashing, which is important with L2 and L3 Gorms.

After you get the trick, you actually have to just mill AI deck until Hiccup pops up, then all is done.

A Spear to defuse trap or a Crest Crown (too much for this cheap tactic!) can help you if you end up with Lure Epilepsy on top of HL deck, but the trick is basically there.

You can also easily put the Gorm in a position to be Deathblown for the Pure Bulb with extreme ease.

Now, easy stats: a L1 Gorm ends up with Hiccup 70% of the time, a L2 one 90% of the time, and a L3 one 100% of the time. This means you want to focus on L2 and L3s (remember that L2s retch one additional time and surge costs double, while L3s have a nasty basic action, you need to bring one naked survivor to act as a bait and dash costs double).

You will want L3s for the rewards most of the time (because Gormite and Regeneration Suit), but also remember that you might want to risk a bit more with the L2 to grab some “easy” Legendary Lungs (if you plan to go against a Slenderman) or Acid Palms (for a Fist & Tooth Master, also useful on the naked survivor you will bring against the L3 one).

So that’s it! Everyone is wiser now, you know that the Gorm is a good guy at heart, and if your survivors, err, survive the Hunt Phase, you are probably in for a treat!

[bonerhitler]

Kingdom Hearts does not live up to my nostalgia.

So last week I tried to write a fun article about Kingdom Hearts' crazy story -and it is absolutely nuts- but I just couldn't. I couldn't just ignore the big overhanging issues I had with the series and ultimately scrapped it at the last minute and now I'm writing this here because replaying Kingdom Hearts through the 1.5+2.5 pack on the PS4, hoo boy this series just doesn't hold up. I don't know how, or why, I ever liked it as a kid either since the issues I take with the series now have nothing to do changes made to the games in the Final Mix editions, or changing tastes as I've aged. As such if I do compare them to other games, I will strictly do so to other PS2 games released around the same time frame.

So lets start at the core issue that has continually frustrated me the most since undertaking this task of replaying a once beloved series; the gameplay. It hasn't just aged poorly, but it's extremely clunky and so much of it just feels like an afterthought. The first Kingdom Hearts came out in 2002 and it's a chunky, awkward game with extremely floaty and imprecise platforming. Jak and Daxter, Soul Reaver 2 and Devil May Cry each came out in 2001 and out perform Kingdom Hearts in terms of platforming and combat.

So what's so bad about it? Well for a start you have surprisingly little control over your own character. Once you decide to attack, guard or jump you're just kind of stuck in a slow animation. Enemies, meanwhile, are fast and often have skills that let them just become briefly invincible. Meanwhile basic skills like blocking and dodging have to be unlocked through levelling up. And based on choices in the beginning (you pick if you want to focus on magic, attack or defense and sacrifice one of the remaining two) you might not get those for an exceedingly long time. In fact that whole system is incredibly bizarre since one specific choice gives two additional MP, in a game where maximum MP is not only hard to come by, but determines how strong your magic is and is exceedingly limited otherwise. You can't get those two points any other way than with that specific choice at the start of the game.

Range is also a surprisingly strange issue in Kingdom Hearts and it's not too often to swing your keyblade -a blunt weapon shaped like a key- and miss unless your character's body is nearly touching the opponent as your forward momentum and motion just stops dead. Enemies often freely can attack from range as well, whether it's a charge attack from across the map, teleporting right to you and attacking you, or just throwing fireballs non-stop. Your only ranged offense is magic. Magic is not only severely limited, with it's offensive power dictated by your maximum MP which caps at 19 compared to the 100 cap of every other stat in the game, but it's fairly intuitive to use as well, requiring an entire secondary menu to manage outside of three quick-use slots that will almost inevitably go to your utility spells.

So in the end you've got poor mobility, very little in the way of defensive measures and the game saddles you with AI partners that die almost instantly in every fight. Unless you min/max your stat build most fights in the game just become a matter of  mashing the attack button and tanking hits while spamming the cure spell because there's just genuinely nothing else to the combat system. There's no reward for doing better. No gameplay function that lets you do better. In theory you can guard and counter attacks, but when you have a swarm of enemies that turn into flat textures on the floor, and another swarm of dudes flying through the sky by their nose it's incredibly hard to get the guard timing down because almost none of the enemies have attack tells that are recognizable from the spastic flailing they do when they're just standing around idle -but more on this in a second-. Inversely, however, combat is obscenely easy when it's one on one and no single enemy or boss really poses a threat unless they've got a crazy gimmick where they instantly kill you or something. In short, there's no actual challenge to the gameplay. There's nothing to overcome and learn. When you die it's not “When he does that he's doing a powerful attack, dodge it next time” or “I can't figure out this boss' pattern!” It's simply “Dang, I forgot to heal after he hit me.” It's mindless and uninteresting. You can power through everything.

Enemy design as well is lackluster at best. Visually I like the series, and I'll praise that later on. But fighting non-boss enemies is just tedious. Most enemies have some form of invulnerability. Whether it's the ability to just, literally, become invincible for a bit, invulnerability if attacked from a specific direction, or an annoying ability to just fly/teleport out of possible range -some times even the map- forcing you to sit there and wait for them to come back. This results in a lot of large fights where you kill off half the enemies then have to wait for the other half of the enemies to just let you hit them. Waiting around for enemies in a game to let you fight them is never fun, especially in a game where you don't have any kind of guard break. As I alluded to above animations are a mess as well. Enemies tend to just kind of twitch, wobble and flail around freely and a lot of their attacking animations start almost identical to their idle animations so it can be extremely difficult to tell if the guy you're going to attack is about to punch you, spit a fireball, turn into an icy tornado or just do nothing for another thirty seconds.

Even map design in Kingdom Hearts is unexpectedly strange. I remember loving the worlds when I played the game as a kid, but playing it now, well. Half the worlds are ridiculously short, lasting maybe three or four screens total with very little to do beyond listening to iconic characters talk for ten minutes or so. You could clear half the game in an evening. However some of the stages, the worlds based on Tarzan and Little Mermaid in particular, tend to be almost too expansive in comparison with very little content spread out over far more screens. I don't mean to say the game's story is bad, and that's still something I think would deserve its own write-up, but the way the game presents it is just incredibly awkward and stilted. You play through a few minutes of a disney-inspired zone then a Kingdom Hearts original character pops up, rants about friendship, hearts and/or darkness and goes away.

In the end of it all, I came away hating Kingdom Hearts, honestly. I loved it when I was younger. I completed it 100% somehow. But now, well it all just seems like overly pointless busywork. The combat isn't fun to me now and I really don't want to subject myself to a few hours of grinding so I can make the gear that makes me earn more EXP so I can grind for more hours to hit the high levels and unlock the skills needed to grind for the items to create the best weapons in the game so I can fight the optional bosses. Adding time sinks like that just aren't engaging.

Kingdom Hearts 2 does very little to fix these issues. In some cases it even exacerbates them. It came out in 2005, and while it's an incredibly unfair comparison; Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier that same year. Devil May Cry this series still is not. Combat generally -feels- less clunky than in the first game, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Rather than having stiff and slow attack animations Kingdom Hearts 2 favors long and elaborate ones. It's not uncommon for your characters to launch into massive spinning attacks at one or two presses of a button, it feels like you have almost no control over them at all in this game. Guard makes a return, but the animation is an awkward side-spin that makes timing it more difficult than anything else and dodge roll is gone now as are counter attacks. Instead you have action commands! A cool idea marred by lack of forethought. You see, when enemies do certain attacks or are stunned you can do a special highly damaging skill! Or sometimes they have to be in a specific mid-attack animation. Or sometimes they have to successfully attack you so you can do the counter-command. It's kind of random and not every enemy has action commands and generally speaking they're less useful and in terms of sheer gameplay less engaging than an actual counter system because it just boils fights town to mashing attack and waiting for the triangle button to light up.

Enemy design has actually gotten worse in my opinion. Enemies still love their invincibility, but there's a new fun trick to the overall design of bosses and enemies in Kindom Hearts 2! Stunlock. Nearly every enemy in the game has a whirlwind-style attack they'll just spam to happily stun you for several seconds and do a lot of damage. A lot of them directly home in on you, and follow you around. Without any kind of dodge roll and a flimsy hard to use block, these attacks are incredibly frustrating to fight against because they all take a very long time to play out and do a ton of damage compared to you tiny health pool. Animations are better in this game at least, and you can usually tell what enemies are going to do right away, it just doesn't help too much when almost every attack in the game is either “turn invincible and charge at you” or “turn into an invincible whirlwind and follow you around the room”. It makes every enemy other enemy feel the same. Unfortunately, the more unique enemies that don't do this stuff are the ones you almost only ever see in one world and never anywhere else.

Speaking of the worlds; level design is better. Most worlds will have their own gimmick now rather than just being a series of three to six rooms. The gimmicks tend to range from things like simply having to keep a gauge full for a while, to every area being a rhythm mini-game but it adds some interest to the over all flavor of the game-world. The plot also is much better integrated with the game play and level design, it's not uncommon to run into the primary antagonists and have fights with them throughout the game and see what their plans actually are as you progress through the story. A far better cry than just having your BFF turn evil, then have the antagonist show up out of nowhere because the game needs a conclusion.

The grinding is less bad in the second game as well. Though levels tend to be less rewarding -by level 20 I still only had 40 HP and even basic enemies were taking off half of it with a single hit- you're given a large number of ways to circumvent situations where you might be under levelled such as drive forms and magic. Speaking of which; magic kind of blows in KH2 because someone decided to make most of them melee-ranged for some reason. Your MP, however, is technically infinite since it regenerates slowly when emptied now. Cure uses all of your MP though which is unfortunate.

Finally, and on a positive note, the game's general visual design still holds up. It uses a lot of flat, smooth colors and round shapes which is distinct in a world of jagged edges and gritty shades. Some of the designs in the game, and series as a whole, even get  incredibly and uniquely abstract which is amazing to see and I love it when the game actually extends its art design as far as it can. The final areas of the first game are still, personally, the highlight of the series on a visual level. While I was playing I had a friend come by and before I paused the game they saw the screen and instantly said “Oh, hey! Is that Kingdom Hearts? I thought that was a PS2 game?” The whole area of Hollow Bastion just has such a distinct look and feel to it, the enemies are so memorable on a visual level and the music in particular is excellent. It's the perfect encapsulation of what Kingdom Hearts can be -surprisingly dark and bleak but still bright and smooth-.  and I just wish the gameplay lived up to the nostalgia of my memories. I'll always still like this series somewhere inside, and I'm still going to inevitably play the third one whenever it comes out. But revisiting this series has been a real eye-opener for me.

[swagmasterlowell]

For the Love of Pizza

Some sicc High School AU Fluri based on @yozora-no-ai ‘s bizzare experience earlier today. It’s mostly comedy. I’ll cross post it to A03 later. Rated P for Pizza.

They had been there for hours. 6 Hours to be exact.

Other students often criticized the student council for just being a bunch of kiss-ups trying to bolster their resumes and college transcripts. Maybe the other students weren’t entirely incorrect, but still. The members of the council put in a lot of hard work to make sure the school events were at least a bit fun and not run by adults trying to be cool and relatable.

Spending 6 hours in the gymnasium hanging up decorations after school on a Friday night was something only a dedicated person would do. Or someone who needed community service.

It was a blessing when the pizza arrived. Everyone- save for a few- dropped what they were doing and gathered around the table with the pizzas. There was no order. No line. Someone opened a box and 5 hands at a time were reaching in to grab themselves a slice before it was all gone.

Flynn, who was tasked with painting the large paper mache Easter eggs, was on a roll, so he was one of the few who decided to hang back. Usually that meant he wouldn’t get a slice but Sodia had grabbed him one and the slice was sitting off the side, tempting the student council president with its seductive, cheesy scent. Every so often Flynn would glance over at the pizza slice longingly, but his determination to finish the eggs was stronger than the growl of his stomach. Pizza could wait, eggs could not.

When he was halfway done, Flynn stole another glance at his pizza slice just in time to see the insufferable asswipe from his gov/econ class swipe it up and take a bite out of his pizza.

Never had Flynn stood up faster than he did in that moment. He stood up so fast the blood rushed to his head and he went down within seconds, an angry bark dying in his throat as he crumpled to the ground.

The pizza thief’s brows went up in surprise, mouth frozen mid bite. A few students turned to see what the source of the loud ‘thunk’ had been but the rest were too tired to care.

Flynn quickly scrambled to his feet, cheeks blazing red as he glared at the dark-haired culprit who had finished off the filched pizza slice.

“Hey, Lowell! You can’t just take other people’s stuff!”

Lowell- Yuri Lowell to be exact- seemed bewildered at the other’s exclamation. “Well it was just sitting there. I didn’t think it was anyone’s, sorry. I guess.”

The few students watching the exchange could practically see the smoke coming from Flynn’s ears as the blond snapped, “At least give me a proper apology!”

Yuri put his hands out defensively, though the action was more damning than defensive with the  pizza grease on his fingers. “Okay- geeze. I’m sorry for eating the pizza. I was actually on my way over here to ask you out, but I got a little hungry.”

Flynn, who had raised his pointer finger angrily, lowered his hand as his eyes narrowed. “You- you what?”

“I got a little hungry.”

“No! The other thing, before that.”

“I came to ask you out.”

The gears in Flynn’s head kicked into overdrive as he thought to himself. What kind of person goes and eats someone’s food before asking them out? Who does that? It seemed like Yuri was the type to do that. He had a lot of balls thinking anyone would say yes after having their pizza stolen. He definitely wasn’t bad-looking, but that was beside the point-

“It was just a slice of pizza.” Yuri groaned in exasperation. The nerve of that guy-

“If you think this is just about pizza-”

“Hey! I said I was sorry. Look, I can make it up to you.”

“Oh really?” It was Flynn’s turn to sound exasperated.

“Yeah, give me your number and I’ll call you when I get another pizza for you. Then you can come and get it.”

“That…” Made a lot of sense actually. At least Yuri was nice enough to pay him back. Yuri already had his phone out too so Flynn grabbed it and put in his number, though when he typed in the last number it dawned on him- too late. Yuri swiped the phone from Flynn’s hands and winked.

“Thanks, I’ll call you later.” And then he turned around and walked away, gone just like Flynn’s pizza slice.

Flynn blamed the head rush from earlier for his grave miscalculation. At least the irritation took the edge off his hunger. The blond continued painting his eggs aggressively before a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

Estelle, a fellow student council member, smiled down at Flynn. “Hey you look like you could use a break. I saved you a slice of pizza.” If there was a Pizza God surely he was looking out for Flynn in that moment in time, and Estelle was the Pizza Angel sent down from Pizza Heaven. Sure, the pizza slice was lukewarm, but it was really the thought that counted.

Flynn smiled wearily back at her and replied, “Yeah. I could, thank you.”

-

Flynn ended up ranting to Estelle about the encounter with Yuri, venting his frustrations between bites of pizza.

“And then he tries to trick me into giving him my number!” Flynn threw his pizza-free hand up in the air before resting it on his head to run his fingers through his messy blond locks. “Who does that!? That’s not even close to how you’d ask someone out-”

Estelle nodded attentively as Flynn took another bite out of his pizza, chewing on it angrily.

“So…. did you give him your number?” Estelle asked innocently. Flynn choked on his pizza.

“I- well- uh.. I mean- uhhh..” Flynn’s face turned redder with every sentence fragment that left his mouth. He didn’t even have to properly answer, he could tell Estelle knew from her smile.

“Maybe he won’t be so bad.”

“Say that to my pizza slice.” Flynn grumbled. Normally he would never be so petty but Yuri Lowell got under his skin far too easily.

Estelle giggled, “At least give him a chance.”

“Well… he did say he’d buy me another pizza.” Flynn admitted.

“See? Not all that bad.”

“I guess…” He seemed unsure at best.

Estelle smiled, brushing a few strands of strawberry pink hair behind her ear. “There you go! I’ll help you finish up the last of the eggs.”

“You’re too kind, you don’t have to-”

“But I want to.” Estelle pouted as Flynn sighed, though he was smiling anyhow.

-

Flynn’s quick break had been longer than he planned, but at least he wasn’t listening to the insistent growling of his stomach anymore.

He and Estelle walked over to his eggs… only to find that they had all been painted already. Flynn blinked once, then twice, then circled the eggs, studying them intensely. Had his break really been that long? Flynn gingerly touched the top of an egg only to find that the paint was still drying. He shook his head, his break hadn’t been long, whoever had painted the eggs had just been really quick. The paint job wasn’t half bad though.

Something caught his eye so Flynn crouched down and peered at the text on the bottom of the last egg.

’Ur welcome u can thank me l8r- YL’, it read, which was followed by a nine digit number that could only be Yuri’s phone number.

Strangely, Flynn wasn’t even mad. Maybe Estelle was right about Yuri not being such a bad guy after all.

-

As Flynn stood smiling in front of the drying eggs, Estelle turned and gave Yuri a thumbs up. Yuri returned the thumbs up before leaving the gym entirely and beginning the trek home.

It could have gone a lot smoother, but mission accomplished nonetheless.

A few minutes went by before his phone buzzed. Yuri pulled the device from his pocket and checked the sender. Pizza Boy. He definitely hadn’t expected Flynn to get back to him so soon. The message was a simple, *‘Thank you.’* Of course Flynn wouldn’t cut corners and abbreviate.

’no probelm wen and where do u want ur pizza tomorow’ Yuri watched as the 3 dotted bubble popped up before another message appeared.

’3 PM at The Comet is acceptable for me.’

’3 it is then c u itll be slice to c u again’

Yuri laughed as he watched the 3 dotted bubble appear and reappear several times and could only image what Flynn’s face looked like. The student council president was in for a wild ride.

[empty-dusk]

So far, I’ve had a pretty good Overwatch experience, but for some reason now the idiots have started to pop up.

I play to have fun, I don’t really wanna get into the salt mines that is quick play and such. I’m an incredibly anxious person when it comes to online gaming, but I’ve had fun with Mystery heroes, 1v1 limited duels and vs AI. The lack of salt didn’t mean that there hasn’t been some interesting bullshit.

Sexual harrasment under the cut, I guess.

Like an Ana player that started to sexually harrass our Widowmaker over the voice chat. I was playing Mei, minding my own business, until this person started saying and doing some nasty shit, like telling the Widow to stay still so they can ‘appreciate this’, telling them to bend over and other shit like that. I tried to tell them via text chat to quit it and eventually did so through voice chat too, only for the Ana to go on a tanget that I was telling them off because they were ‘playing Ana’ and could be ‘playing dude characters’. Yeah, that person got reported. It was uncomfortable as shit and ruined the match. It honestly surprised me that these people even would come outside quickplay.

And today, I ended up playing some more 1v1 duels, cause they’re fun and I want dem loots. I got matched with the same person twice, who after checking their career profile, was a competetive player who apparently mained Doomfist. The first time, it was alright and I didn’t mind them. I lost spectacularly and I was ready to be like ‘okay they’ve been playing longer, no wonder.’ The second match started with a friendly ‘oh hi again’ and they ask me if I’m new. Since they didn’t start shit about it, I admitted to having owned the game for a few weeks and supposed that it was obvious that I was  kinda new. Then the other player went to inform me about who Doomfist is.  I’m mildly confused, I’ve been following Overwatch related shit for a few years now, I’ve even tried him a few times only to say that I don’t like to play him. So I say nothing, cause typing is cumpersome when you’re trying to dodge. Eventually I tell them to stop rubbing it in that I’m new and they only reply by telling me that ‘only giving tips my dude’. And then they start telling me about how Junkrat can gain hight with the remote bombs. By the end of it I was so damn frustrated and I felt so patronized I kinda just went back to other things to cool down, got a nice Reinhardt and Orisa potgs for myself. He wasn’t as bad as the first guy, but my dude... I would ask if I wanted help. But if I really wanted to learn shit, I’d dig out goddamn youtube tutorials and not ask you.

Sorry for the ranting, but man I needed this shit off my chest. This kind of people make anxious, even if the second dork was harmless, despite trying to be a goddamn expert.

[liledgyacrobat]

Bon en fait j’ai besoin de penser à autre chose alors you know what je vais faire directement ce bookish-ask et voilà.

   1: Currently Reading

Je lis toujours plein de livres à la fois. En ce moment c’est Das Geheimnis der Nebelinsel de Tina Grasses, c’est de la fantasy et c’est gay pour l’instant c’est à peu près tout ce que je sais tbh. L’autre, que j’ai commencé hier, c’est 2084 de Boualem Sansal, pour l’instant je sais pas trop quoi en penser.

   2: Describe the last scene you read in as few words as possible. No character names or title

Une aventurière badass qui raconte la disparition de sa copine et que en fait peut-être elle est pas morte.

   3: First book that had a major influence on you

Pour changer un peu du Petit Prince : La Tristesse des anges de Jon Kalman Stefansson, ce livre est bouleversant.

   4: Quick, you're in desperate need of a fake name. What character name do you think of first?

Amparo dans La Religion de Tim Willocks.

   5: Favorite series and why

Les Chroniques de San Francisco d’Armisted Maupin. Parce que San Francisco, parce que les années 70-80, parce que c’est queer, parce que c’est invraisemblable, parce que les personnages.

   6: Public library or personal library?

Perso. Déso pas déso.

   7: What is the most important part of a book, in your opinion?

Toutes en fait ? Un livre c’est un tout, on ne peut pas retirer le début, la fin ou le milieu comme ça, je ne pense pas qu’il y ait une partie plus importante qu’une autre.

   8: Why are you reading the book you're currently reading?

Hm parce qu’ils faisaient partie des livres que j’avais achetés et pas encore lus ? Pourquoi ceux-là et pas d’autres, clairement je saurais pas dire précisément, c’était juste un choix sur le moment.

   9: If you were to publish a book what (besides your real name) would you use for your author name?

Aucune idée tbh. Peut-être utiliser le nom de ma grand-mère allemande parce que je l’aime beaucoup (le nom, et ma grand-mère).

   10: Do you listen to music when you read? Make a mini playlist for one of your favorite books.

Ça m’arrive mais quand c’est le cas j’écoute juste un truc instrumental au hasard, pas une playlist particulière selon le livre en fait.

  11: What book fandom do you affiliate yourself with the most?

Aucune idée bis. Mais vraiment cette fois.

   12: Tell one book story or memory (what you were wearing when you were reading something, someone saw you cry in public, you threw a book across the room and broke a window, etc.)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

   13: What character would be your best friend in real life?

Omg Klaus Baudelaire, ce nerd.

   14: Favorite item of book merch

J’en ai pas en fait je crois. A la limite mon porte-clé Funko Pop Jon Snow qu’on m’a offert et qu’au début j’avais pas vu le logo GoT alors je l’ai pris pour Aragorn, donc comme je m’en fiche de GoT dans ma tête ça reste Aragorn.

   15: Post a shelfie.

(la photo date un peu donc depuis il y en a plus mais eh la flemme de me lever)

   16: Rant about anything book related

Le. Délais. De. Sortie. Des. Versions. Poche. VOILA.

   17: What do you think about movie/tv adaptations?

Why not. I mean la série Netflix des Orphelins Baudelaires est quand même cool. Et puis classique Lord of the Rings quoi. Donc quand c’est bien fait je suis pour (ohlala la réponse originale dites).

   18: Favorite booktuber(s)

J’en regarde plus du tout actuellement.

   19: Book that you call your child

L’Autre ville de Michal Ajvaz.

   20: A character you like but you really, really shouldn't

J’ai beaucoup réfléchi mais je trouve pas tbh.

   21: Do you loan your books?

Ça arrive mais on me demande rarement en fait.

   22: A movie or tv show you wish would have been a book

J’ai regardé dans ma liste de séries et bof et je me souviens très mal des films que je regarde donc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

   23: Did your family or friends influence you to read when you were younger?

Ma mère beaucoup beaucoup oui.

   24: First book(s) you remember being obsessed with

Les Orphelins Baudelaire (et c’est toujours un peu le cas, on va pas se mentir)

   26: Do you read from recommendations or whatever book catches your eye?

Les deux.

   27: How/where do you purchase your books?

A Bordeaux, je vais principalement chez Mollat ou à La Machine à lire, et à Bradley’s Bookshop pour les livres en anglais (les libraires là-bas sont trop cools, big up <3). Si vraiment je trouve pas dans l’une de ces deux à la Fnac.

   28: An ending you wish you could change

La fin de L’Autre ville.

   29: Favorite female protagonist

Érin dans Le Livre de Tôda.

   30: One book everyone should read

La Tristesse des anges que j’ai déjà citer mais voilà.

   31: Do you day dream about your favorite books? If so, share one fantasy you have about them

Hm non en fait

   32: OTP or NoTP?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

   33: Cute and fluffy or dramatic and deadly?

BOTH

   34: Scariest book you ever read

J’ai pas lu Stephen King déso (non en vrai je sais pas, je me souviens pas d’un livre qui m’ait vraiment fait peur).

   35: What do you think of Ebooks

OUI

   36: Unpopular opinions

J’écris beaucoup dans les livres et je corne les pages.

   40: Has there ever been a book you wish you could un-read?

La Religion et Les Douze enfants de Paris de Tim Willocks pour pouvoir les redécouvrir.

Voilà j’ai pensé à autre chose et ça va mieux.

[ecotone99]

[SF] Happy 92nd Mr Chivers

Marnold eases back into his chair and breathes a sigh of relief. It was his 92nd birthday; retirement age. No more 10am starts, no more having to relinquish three days a week to the full-time employment rat race. Finally.. free. He relishes the moment, feeling his chair snug him warmly, its material continuously and amorphously shifting around his frame to maximise comfort. The quality of the air, the heat from his coffee cup, the light beaming through his window. Goldilocks would be jealous, he joked to himself.

“Sim-space, show me my father’s television from 2018 please.” The sim-space AI assistant quickly peruses the latest scan of its owners memory and inquires, ‘The Samsung, Mr Chivers?’ Marnold confirms with a nod. The boundaries that contain the sim-space glow to resemble an empty cuboid against the wall, warning any bodied-beings not to come close. For a second, Marnold hears that call of the void that so many do and wonders “what would happen if I put my hand.. ?” He’d heard the horror stories, obviously, but couldn’t quite fathom the science of it. Some picoseconds later however, there popped into existence a perfect reconstruction of the television from his memory inside the sim-space.

Marnold picks up the remote, a device that was used to remotely control electronic devices back in Modern times, and looks through the simulated content on the television. Marnold squints at the screen, reacquainting himself with the 2-dimensional nature of Modern video. His eyes widen at a collection of pixels - ‘World Snooker Final’. It had been too long since Marnold had last watched a real game of chess with balls - as he would put it. His finger instructs the remote with a button press, and a pulsing infra-red energy bathes the room momentarily. The television summons to life a broadcast of yore; a gentle ensemble consisting of a giant green table centre-screen, with smartly-dressed human beings knocking sticks and balls over it. Marnold catches himself daring a smile, “the good old days.” He puts his feet up on the stool in front.

“Grea’granda!”

Plucked away from his contentment and with a whiff of irritation, “Wh-wha? Who’s there?”

“It’s Russ you fool, happy birthday -slash- retirement! Thought I’d whip by, ya know, see how you are. Thought it better than just sending another dopamine hit.”

Marnold smiles. He could never put his finger on it, but there was always something better about seeing people - he had never fully signed up to the idea of reading a well-wishing and injecting the enclosed gift of dopamine. It felt nice, sure, but he couldn't help but feel there was something missing. Cards, too! Of all the social-niceties that Marnold hoped would die off with technological progress, cards had stuck around like a bad smell. Maybe 92 is when you start getting cranky he thought to himself.

“Ahh thank you, it is good to see someone non-digitally once in a while,” he replies, concealing his cynicism nicely.

Russ points to the sim-space. “A television? C’mon gramps, of all the things you could will into existence.. a television?”

Marnold squirms. “Well the good vibes sure lasted didn’t they(!) Listen, sprog, being 50-something may feel like it has conferred some sort of worldly understanding upon you but, believe me, you’re just starting out. You still have no idea what the important things are in life. And if you can’t appreciate the simple things in life, you have no foundation for the complex things. This television is my simple thing. It is my birthday. My retirement day. And I wish to spend it as I mean to go on - appreciating the simple things.” So rarely does he socialise these days, Marnold had almost forgotten how quick he was to anger.

“Simple things, simple minds. That’s what father says.”

Marnold mumbles his frustration, “Yes. I know exactly the kind of person my son-in-law is.”

A palpable silence hangs. It’s funny how tension can manifest socially, no other emotion can fill a room in the same way. The 2040’s wave of pheromonologists got close to understanding it before you-know-what happened. Russell’s cortisol-meter started shrieking which didn’t subtract from the awkwardness, but does at least act as a call-to-action for someone to cut the tension, “Well- what are you watching then?”

“Snooker” is the unenthusiastic, staccato reply. Marnold continues watching the screen emptily, pretending to be engrossed but projecting annoyance.

“Didn’t know humans used to play.” Russ responded.

Marnold groaned as though those words were daggers to his sensibilities. “Yes... It’s just another domain that AI took from us. God damn robots - they have no philosophy! Pure pragmatists. They completely destroyed snooker - turned it from a gentlemanly game into an arms race.”

Through a flattened smile and nodding dog routine, Russ’s lack of interest was obvious. He signals to the entrance with his thumb, “Well I’d better be goi--”

“-- an arms race I tell you! That’s why there’s so many rules governing the game these days. It started off as a friendly between bot and human - just a novelty, like that Jeopardy show and IBM’s Watson?” Marnold looks to Russ for a bodily cue to continue.. nothing - at least, nothing encouraging. "Ah well," he thinks to himself, "it’s my birthday and I'll rant if I want to."

“Well, maybe it’s not living memory for you youngins but the world went crazy for the first bot v. human snooker match. It’s ironic thinking back on it now, we were clapping our eventual oppressors. Everyone tuned in to witness flesh versus circuits and saw a microcosm of their future. ‘Ronnie O’Sullivan vs G147-365’. Man vs machine. And what a machine(!) A jumped-up laptop connected to a junkyard frame. It couldn’t even pick up its own cue - it had to be carefully inserted into its grip by a technician.”

Russ was looking in Marnold’s direction, but you couldn’t charitably say that he was looking at him. Looking through seems more appropriate; his mind clearly pre-occupied.

“It was a bloodbath - metaphorically, of course. I mean, the bot started off quite slow, sure, but it was learning. Every time it whiffed a shot, it updated its algorithms to appropriately account for the mismatch. By halftime, the only shots Ronnie got to take was when it was his turn to break! G147 was hitting maximum points routinely by the end. And you know what? Not one of them were as beautiful as Ronnie’s 5 minute corker back in 1997.”

Russ, eyeing the clock on the wall, noticed a pause amid Marnold’s white noise and felt he had to prove he was listening. “Uhh... 1997 huh?”

Marnold, noticing that Russ had only picked up on the last word he’d said, continued with spiteful grace. “Yes. 1997. But that’s what I mean by no philosophy, there’s no meaning in what they do. It’s just all numbers and logic gates. No art, no style. Pure pragmatism.”

“It didn’t end there though. Ooooooh no. Then the bot v bot matches began. Every country in the world slowly jumping in to prove their AI researchers were the best. You know, like how America and Russia fought a proxy-war by proving who could get to the moon first - thereby proving who was technologically superior? Snookerbots were fast becoming that, except it had no end goal. They just competed endlessly, accepting diminishing returns on their victories each time - perhaps preferable to other forms of national chauvinism, granted.”

“But they’d be outfitted with fancy cameras and sensors - detecting every possible detail of the table. The knap, the humidity, the moisture of the cloth, microscopic blemishes on the balls - even mapping the material density of the side-cushions! Soon enough, they were making shots that made no euclidean sense since they could take advantage of unseen imperfections in the table and balls. It used to be that people would clap astonishing feats; maybe an amazing curve shot, or a cunning safety play. But it got to a point where the audience could only appreciate what they were able to understand - everything was so baffling. It was like chaos theory to everyone but the participants.”

Marnold continued with his frustrated nostalgia, “And the sonic booms! That was a game changer. The balls were starting to chip - and sometimes explode - from the impacts of the bots cuing them. So they were upgraded to some nano-whatever to allow the bots to really let rip. And boy, did they. They would hit the cue ball so fast that a mini sonic boom would disturb the entire table! The algorithms of course learned to account for this and soon enough every match was just a stalemate of mini explosions. No country's bot was able to win any more, all they could do was not lose by default - ie, their bot suffering a mechanical malfunction. So, a once-great game became a war of attrition.”

With Russ’s vague silhouette in his periphery, and still looking at the screen (though paying it no attention), he continues. “They’d reached an impasse - every bot was as good as the next one. No further improvements to be made because they were limited by the human imagination. Viewership figures dwindled, sponsors started pulling out and human snooker players were even being asked to come out of retirement - what a novelty(!) They all refused, naturally.”

“So, some hot shot from America gets the idea of asking the bot what it needs to improve. This is what happens when you don’t read and heed Asimov. The bots’ AIs up until this point were permitted to update their algorithms in accordance with sensor data. It was not permitted for an AI to freely rationalise - and for good reason! But, this was pseudo-Cold War 2, and global dominance had to be demonstrated. Now, I’m no AI researcher but I’ve heard it explained as them creating a sort of positive feedback loop between perception and reflection, causing something analogous to consciousness. I mean, whatever, however they did it, they did do it. And so, they fed it the question: What do you need to improve at your task? And do you know what it said?”

A silence goes unacknowledged as Marnold leaves his chair and heads towards his bookcase. He thumbs through a few newspaper cuttings and, after an insociable amount of time in quiet, he produces an article that had the ‘scoop’ back in the day - a printed transcript of the AI’s thought process. Marnold turns around to hand it to Russ but is met with an empty room, and then an empty spirit. He’d left. Marnold slowly lowers his out-stretched arm, article in-hand.

He wonders how long he’d been speaking to himself for, and starts his own feedback loop of doubt and self-loathing. “God damn it..” he scratches the back of his head and makes for his chair again. As he settles in, the material again moulds around him with a pathetic agency - but it is of cold comfort now. Unpacking Russ’s gift, Marnold loads the syringe and looks longingly at the television. “Happy 92nd Mr Chivers...”

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