Tag: MST3K

The AI

The software industry has become a pretty immoral bunch of assholes, but the software industry married to the new AI revolution has exceeded this baseline immorality.

I’m a Malcolm Gladwell-y maven, or I aspire to be, w/r/t technology and it was a trip to Italy with the family several years back that gave me an opportunity to press to them the importance of what was coming and the importance that they, disregarding their disinterest or disgust, involve themselves with LLMs directly in order to understand how the world was going to change. I knew there was value there but I also understood that there was existential upheaval. Maybe they already knew that; I’m not sure.

For most of the time after that I’ve sworn off ChatGPT (let’s use the Kleenex-ified terms “ChatGPT” for the technical “LLM”). Its harm to the environment and social equality, and the socially inequitable harm that it causes, is horrifying. (Though, admittedly, extreme statements should generally be responded with doubt and verification.)

She is all of us.
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Survivor’s guilt

The pandemic was good to me.

I thrive alone and so, even as the wife was not in her best place like most others in the world, though I was distraught by what the global “We” were going through, I could deal. Even before the pandemic I worked from home and spent many non-work hours in my office doing non-work things. Not necessarily a very guy thing but just a very introvert thing. I actually have fond memories of the isolation because within that isolation there was, without a better phrase to express it, a warm online camaraderie of artists who gave their time to create that warmth.

The 11th of this month was the four year anniversary of the start (as I noted here when it started).

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The availability of a vintage pulp magazine

Updated 12 Mar 2024

On Mastodon (as I had done on Twitter), I follow various pulp accounts that post old books and magazines (and less frequently, albums) that have covers of some interest, often grouped together in a theme. Vintage computer ads, Harlequin romance, ridiculous robots from 50s sci-fi, pin-ups, magazine illustration from mid-century, etc. Site’s like Pulp Covers and Pulp Artists are also good sources for such wonderful nonsense and from those I found the cover artists for many of the pulp sci-fi books I’ve read. The Mastodon accounts are a good way to break up your feed with something visually interesting, kindof like a pop culture museum exhibit.

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