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"Youtube is applying post-processing to all shorts so they look more like Al. this is intentional & malicious. when their generative Al shorts feature launches users will be less likely to discern what's Al-slop and what's not, and the audience will think Al video is just as good"

Please be aware.

If everything starts to look a little off and a little fake, it's much easier for bad actors to not only push through actual disinformation, but also attempt to discredit factual video sources.

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BTW, just a reminder...

...that the annual Summer Reading Sale at the Ebooks Direct store is on now.

Get ebooks even cheaper than usual! More info here. Buy direct from the author and save! (And help her afford a projected upcoming new-novel research trip...*) 🙂

*Got all the currently available books already but think you might want to contribute to this project anyway? Feel free to use the Ko-Fi and tag your contribution as "research trip" so I'll know what I'm thanking you for. ❤️

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i think i tend to forget how good boredom is for creativity because we're all so addicted to numbing ourselves with screens and stimulation. but standing in the shower or going for a walk with no music or just sitting in your bedroom without being allowed to touch any screens & all of a sudden i have multiple new projects to start, a solution to a months-long plot problem & 4 new original characters

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if you're subscribed to Microsoft word, you probably received an email recently saying they're upping their prices. Like, a lot. ($9.99/month instead of $6.99)

guess what though? you can log into your account, click Cancel Subscription, and get the option to continue your subscription at the same price WITHOUT their bullshit AI.

That's right, the new, higher price is actually a different subscription that includes AI that everyone is being opted into by force! What a cool and fun product that clearly everyone wants.

you can also choose to buy Word 2024 without AI for a single lump sum that will be yours in perpetuity, with no updates, for one computer.

Check your subscription if you need Word for work! Don't get duped into paying for something you might not even want

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Yeah, this is a good time to stop news-scrolling and go read some fanfic

And what a giveaway line: “Product-market fit is people believing that it works.” ...Jeez, guys, showing your hands much??

Your customer inevitably dies and has no legal recourse. And you get to keep their money. It's perfect! Not least because the whole thing rests on the idea that sometime in the far future, scientists (or even more greedy venture capitalists?) will wake your perfectly-preserved brain up.

...And if they don't? What, are your relatives going to sue them from the past? Bwahahaha.

And are you sure that your mind's definitely associated with that organ? People in some venues are still arguing about that.

And who owns the contents of your brain? Can't wait for the first court case... a couple hundred thousand years from now, maybe. If ever.

There are, like, about a hundred possible SF/horror novels flowing from this concept. If not more. ...It's a good thing I'm busy this week. 😏

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“The judge’s order makes it clear that we cannot judge a book by its cover or a maliciously selected excerpt out of context,” said Stephana Ferrell of the Florida Freedom to Read Project. “This means that the thousands of books that have been prohibited from student access without careful consideration of their value should be returned to shelves immediately. Florida cannot call itself the “freest state” while it blatantly violates the First Amendment rights of our youngest citizens.” Dan Novak, attorney for the plaintiffs, called the decision “a complete knockout. There’s not a single issue that the court did not side with the plaintiffs on,” per the Orlando Sentinel.

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being anti ai is making me feel like in going insane. "you asked for thoughts about your characters backstory and i put it into chat gpt for ideas". studies have proven its making people dumber. "i asked ai to generate this meal plan". its causing water shortages where its data centers are built. "ill generate some pictures for the dnd campaign". its spreading misinformation. "meta, generate an image of this guy doing something stupid". its trained off stolen images, writing, video, audio. "i was talking with my snapchat ai-" theres no way to verify what its doing with the information it collects. "youtube is impletmenting ai based age verification". my work has an entire graphics media department and has still put ai generated motivational posters up everywhere. ai playlists. ai facial verification. google ai microsoft ai meta ai snapchat ai. everyone treats it as a novelty. every treats it as a mandatory part of life. am i the only one who sees it? am i paranoid? am i going insane? jesus fucking christ. if i have to hear one more "well at least-" "but it does-" "but you can-" im about to lose it. i shouldnt have to jump through hoops to avoid the evil machine. have you no principles? no goddamn spine? am i the weird one here?

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I read a crapton of regency books written after the Regency era from 1990's forward

and the gender is expressed wrong for the time period. Often people update the gender sensibilities to things after 1950, and it drives me up the wall.

Give me back my Regency Dandy, dammit.

Fuck you for thinking that a man with a toilette is not sexy.

And bring back the notion that the rake was a cautionary tale to women (and men) that syphilis was a real danger and made the man LESS, not more manly. Are you thinking that he had latex condoms? How exactly? (Pulling out only works 1/5 times... and zero for syphilis.)

In that time period women were the ones that tempted the morally strong-fibered men and when men succumbed to women of the night, it was seen as MORAL WEAKNESS. Weaker sex literally meant in their view, women were weak in moral fiber. (Yes, it was questionable, and yes one can challenge it, but still, I think one should establish what the historical society baseline before establishing the challenge.)

Gender wasn't what you were, but how you acted. And a good gentleman had a proper and full toilette. He washed in the morning, he had some make up. He had his lace. He had a proper tailor, and he showed off his wealth by being a gentleman who knew how to walk, ride and dress. Dress especially.

If you're spending a TON of time on women's clothing in your books, men should get the equal treatment, because he would super care if his cravat was out of place. His cravat should be starched properly. His clothes ironed. His tailcoat and morning coat should be proper. He should know how to dress per time of day and event. Even Austen said a fine gentleman should dress well. What do you think the valet was for? To stand there and do errands like some footman or errand boy? No. He was there to know how to dress his master properly and have everything in order, to order the scullery maid to have all of the shoes polished.

(Iunno about you, but I'd be in favor of allowing the dandy to come back. Contemporary men's fashion is BOORRRIIIINNNNGGGG)

Also, Regency period wasn't all white.....maybe the aristocracy (somewhat minus a few French Chevaliers) Ya don't have to make it blindingly white. There were Black people dating from the Tudor period, there were Indians (before subjugation of India, which would be super interesting to explore), Native Americans (though there's a lot of questions there to address), Chinese diplomats... (Opium War), Rromani. The idea that the diversity of England only came in the 19th century during mass colonization of the rest of the world isn't correct. There's a ton of intersecting politics one can pick up from other regions and activities of England. What does it mean for an Indian person to be there, physically before colonization? You know the subjugation of India was wholly unpopular, which means there were Indian people that had met Brits at *some* point to make the subjugation unpopular.

I'm asking for a slight bit more historical accuracy instead of imposing modern ideas on that time period, especially white nationalism has no place there. Racism, yes, white nationalism to the scale of some regency novels, no. (First Black people graduated during that time from college.) Can we contend with gender ideas? What it meant to be an emerging industrial nation? Different notions of imperialism's impact?

There were a ton of political issues at the time too... daka cotton, talk of imperialism, race and racism, slavery, women's rights (though not popular at the time amoung the upper class), worker's rights issues. Nationalism, early fascism. Talk of royalist v. anti-royalist. And the zebras and trying to domesticate them. And the start of the "exotic animal trade".

And you do know the season came with men going to parliament, right? So what bills were they fighting for instead of them trying to bang the female love interest with no other concerns? What friends and connections were they making to make sure they would get the bills passed they wanted? Male love interests with no friends is as problematic as females with no friends. If queer, what did they think of queerness in *their* context, not in ours? The word bisexual wasn't coined until the Victorian era.

You can see on the scale of Philippa Gregory to Jean Plaidy, I side more Jean Plaidy.

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I think making it foolish & silly & uncool would be more effective.

More JoJo Rabbit, please.

https://youtu.be/zcOVAt13U3w?si=55uqZoZ-crtLPTT6

Making something "dangerous" or "forbidden" or against the rules can make it fascinating. Case in point: every teenager, ever.

Or 10 year old boys: see JoJo Rabbit

Making it "dangerous" doesn't solve the problem or change their opinion or prevent them from indoctorinating more followers.

They'll just go underground & keep growing, as they clearly have, filling up a need, especially for young men, that society is currently failing.

But if you make it silly & uncool & laughable, no one will join. Because who wants to be viewed as a fool?

Ladyknightthebrave has an amazing video about JoJo Rabbit explaining why it's so effective for exactly the reasons I gave.

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The core appeal of Willy Wonka is that he's a nigh-omnipotent maniac who uses his near limitless powers over reality to trick shitty people into killing themselves. You can't make him the protagonist of a whimsical coming of age tale - you have to treat him like Jason Voorhees, or Dracula, or any other horror icon. Give him some new victims and new interesting kills and set him loose, that's all audiences want.

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I'm going to be so real, I felt it the first few times someone said something along the lines of "wow, reading this bad book really makes me hopeful. My writing is way better than this"

But being a bestseller in the current market is basically the same as being a celebrity. You're standing at the sacrificial alter of public opinion, and you don't even have a well-supported book to help you survive it. I can't imagine wanting that.

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I couldn't have said it better myself.

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I was talking to a kid in my daughter’s class today, and she said that she thought it would be fun to write a story about the Titanic, but with supernatural creatures.

So I said, “Yeah, that would great! What would the creatures do? Would they save the Titanic from sinking?”

And she gave me the most disgusted look. I have never seen a 9 year old face look so appalled.

“No,” she said, speaking very clearly so as to never be so grossly misunderstood again, “they’re going to eat the passengers.”

God I hope she lets me read it.