Newly updated research suggests that cranberries really can help some people avoid urinary tract infections. The research, a review of existing clinical trial data, found enough evidence to support the use of cranberry-based products to prevent UTIs in women with recurrent infections, children, and people with a known…
When Amazon Studios bought the legendary movie studio MGM last year, they bought a huge catalog of movie and television properties. Obviously, they weren’t just going to sit on those new acquisitions—not when there are always remakes and reboots to create!
According to Deadline, executives have been combing through that catalog, deciding which bits of intellectual property are best suited to being further developed—and sorting out the rights to said projects.
A handful of projects have been chosen for movie or TV development—and Stargate is among them.
Other marked-for-future-development properties include Robocop, Legally Blonde, Fame, Barbershop, The Magnificent Seven, Pink Panther and The Thomas Crown Affair. Creed has already been tapped to become a cinematic universe of its own.
The future potential of Stargate has been discussed for years and years, but the last related project to come to fruition was the brief web series Stargate Origins in 2018. Before Amazon bought MGM, there was talk of a Stargate revival featuring members of the Stargate SG-1 cast. Once upon a time, there were plans for a Stargate Extinction movie.
Deadline writes, “We hear A-list creative auspices have reached out to inquire about adapting MGM IP which they are fans of. Additionally, Amazon Studios also has been leaning on its own roster of talent for some projects.” But there are no details at all, yet, about who might be involved in any future Stargate projects. All Deadline says at this point is that “both film and TV installments are considered, with a movie likely going first.”
I have on 12 layers of sparkly outfit and I am going to strip now.
Nudity will commence in an hour or so.
Thank you for your patience.
Okay, I just have to undo 30 laces on this corset and peel off 3 pairs of spanx. And if I could have a volunteer to tug real hard on these stiletto boots because I forgot to powder my legs and things are getting real sticky.
Stop it. Seriously, just don’t do it. Step away from the mixing bowl with your hands up. Put the wooden spoon on the counter—no, do NOT lick it. If you’re considering snacking on unbaked cookie dough, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is once again—for the millionth time—asking you to reconsider.
Obviously the wings do not make a heart. They make the dread black and white sigil Puehtni in the language of ancient Mu, and are there to indicate the exact day of release, because as anyone familiar with ancient Mu knows, Puehtni-Nwod was also the Murian Falling Bluebird Festival, when clouds of toxic smoke were released from the Temple of All the Gods Save One, rendering flying temple bluebirds unconscious, and causing a hazard to traffic.
Ett i skrivande stund löst rykte påstår att OnePlus kommer dra sig tillbaka från Europa och sluta sälja sina smartphones officiellt i de flesta europeiska länder. Till att börja med hävdar en kinesisk blogg att OnePlus kommer lämna Storbritannien och Tyskland. Uppgiften sägs komma från flera olika källor med insyn i saken.
Max Jambor påstår samtidigt att han kan ”bekräfta” att både Oppo och OnePlus kommer lämna Europa med start i Storbritannien, Tyskland, Frankrike och Nederländerna. Oppo och Nokia har haft en patentdispyt i Tyskland vilket inverkat negativt på försäljningen. En annan anledning till tillbakadragandet, om nu ryktet visar sig stämma, kan helt enkelt vara att Oppo och OnePlus haft svårt att gå med vinst i Europa.
Confirmed by the one and only Max Jambor + Netherlands is also affected, that leaves basically the Spanish and Swiss market left for OPPO in Europe. https://t.co/QVwfbKg7OC
You have just returned home after a long day at work and are about to sit down for dinner when suddenly your phone starts buzzing. On the other end is a loved one, perhaps a parent, a child or a childhood friend, begging you to send them money immediately.
About ten years ago, I did a YouTube thing for a friend of mine. I showed up at a space in Hollywood, and did some silly gaming stuff with them to help get their channel off the ground. They’d done the same for me with Tabletop, and I was happy to return the favor. As I’ve said many times, nobody gets their foot in the door without some help, no matter how hard they try to rewrite their origin story.
There were a TON of YouTubers there, most of whom I didn’t recognize because I’m not in the demo. Most were twentysomethings, but there were a couple of teens, and maybe half a dozen younger kids who seemed to be having a pretty good time playing with toys and games. About halfway through the day, a mom who appeared to be around 27 or so brought her son over for a picture with me. He looked to be about 7. You know, the age I was when my dogshit parents ended my childhood and put me to work.
So this mom tells me that she’s super excited to “get his channel going” and before I even knew what was happening, I heard this come out of my mouth: “He wants a channel? Or you want a channel? He only gets one chance to be a kid, and no kid should have to work at all, or perform if they don’t want to.” Then I looked at the kid, and I saw a VERY familiar face from about … 1979. It’s in the eyes and the way the shoulders slump. I looked back at the mom. “Don’t take his childhood away from him.” Then: “He only gets one childhood.”
She looked shocked. This was clearly not something she had ever thought about, and certainly didn’t expect to think about at this thing. I felt like she was seeing her child as a child for maybe the first time? I don’t know. She was clearly uncomfortable, like nobody had ever spoken up on behalf of her child before.
“He loves it! He’s always having fun!” She said, with the same fake enthusiasm and terrible lying I knew from my mother. I glanced at the kid and knew that was not true.
What I wanted to say to her was, “I hope this is a total failure for you. I hope you get zero views, get your own job, and support your kid being a kid so he grows up with a mom.” But instead, I looked at this sweet little boy and said, “You deserve to be a kid.” Then I walked away before I caused a scene. I did not participate in his exploitation by posing for a photo that he didn’t care about, that would be used by his mother for some kind of promotion.
I think about that kid from time to time. He’s probably right around 18 or so, now, and I hope that his childhood wasn’t anything like mine. I hope he’s happy and living his best life. I hope his mom grew up and chose to be his mom, not his pimp, and that they have a loving and supportive family relationship.
“Claire, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, has never known a life that doesn’t include a camera being pointed in her direction. The first time she went viral, she was a toddler. When the family’s channel started to rake in the views, Claire says both her parents left their jobs because the revenue from the YouTube channel was enough to support the family and to land them a nicer house and new car. “That’s not fair that I have to support everyone,” she said. “I try not to be resentful but I kind of [am].” Once, she told her dad she didn’t want to do YouTube videos anymore and he told her they would have to move out of their house and her parents would have to go back to work, leaving no money for “nice things.”
“When the family is together, the YouTube channel is what they talk about. Claire says her father has told her he may be her father, but he’s also her boss. “It’s a lot of pressure,” she said. When Claire turns 18 and can move out on her own, she’s considering going no-contact with her parents. Once she doesn’t live with them anymore, she plans to speak out publicly about being the star of a YouTube channel. She’ll even use her real name. Claire wants people to know how her childhood was overshadowed by social media stardom that she didn’t choose. And she wants her parents to know: “nothing they do now is going to take back the years of work I had to put in.”
Bolding is mine. “Also her boss”? Fuck you, Claire’s dad. Fuck you eleven different ways, you piece of shit.
Children deserve to be children. Children are not the property of their parents who can use and exploit them for their own gain. They are CHILDREN and they will spend the rest of their lives hurting because you stole that from them. Ask me how I know.
I see you, Claire, and I am so sorry for what they took from you. You did not deserve that, and you are enough. When you are of age, if you choose to hold them accountable, I have your back.
Back in 2021 following a pandemic-forced delay, the video game movie Free Guyreleased in theaters. In it, Ryan Reynolds played an NPC in a fictional who became aware of his existence and helped a player fight back against his game’s developer. Joined by Jodie Comer, Taika Waititi, and Lil Rel Howrey, it was generally…
Technically yes, as this New York Times story about people flooding science fiction magazines with AI-generated story submissions makes evident. But realistically, no, because all these generated stories are kinda trash, and anyway, it’s not the AI that’s flooding the submissions pile with crap, it’s people — scamsters looking for a quick shot of money, if Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld’s general supposition is to be believed. AI is not in itself to be blamed for scammy people who otherwise have no relationship with science fiction thinking what the AI is churning out is going to be sufficient to extract payment from a serious magazine.
Why are science fiction magazines getting hit so hard by this? I offer the supposition, in line with Neil Clarke’s, that it’s not about the subject matter, it’s the fact that science fiction magazines still actually pay for short fiction. The amount is small relative to costs in what we are now calling The Global North, but attractive enough for other places. And it’s more than other fiction venues often pay; fiction outside genre is now often paid in contributor’s copies. It makes sense that people trying to cadge a quick buck with this technology might try at these venues. I’m curious to know if The New Yorker’s fiction editor is getting this sort of nonsense as well.
If this is indeed mostly scamsters trying to shake money out of magazines, I expect the flood will lessen soon, if not ever go away entirely. The scamsters will see they’re getting no traction with the ploy and will head off to new cons, and the magazines will also employ some new filtering processes to punt out a lot of this nonsense. There will likely continue to be new attempts with each new iteration of AI text generators, but I don’t see them being any more successful then, either. As I noted on Twitter, if you’re prompting an AI to vomit out text, that one exposure you have to it might make it seem like it’s generated something sufficiently original, especially if you otherwise know very little about the genre. But if you’re an editor, you’ll see the current AI tropes dozens of times with each new iteration. Leaving aside the quality of the prose entirely, the sheer repetition of elements will remove the material from serious consideration.
(Plus the prose will suck.)
I asked ChatGPT if it was here to take my job as a novelist, and this is the response it generated:
No, I’m not here to take anyone’s job as a novelist. As an AI language model, my purpose is to assist and provide support in various tasks related to language and communication. While I am capable of generating text and even writing stories, my abilities are limited to what I have been trained on and the quality of my output is determined by the input and instructions provided to me.
Furthermore, writing is a creative process that involves imagination, emotion, and personal experience. As an AI language model, I lack the capacity for creativity and original thought that is essential for creating compelling stories. Therefore, while I can help you with your writing tasks, I can never replace the unique voice and perspective that you bring to your own writing.
Of course, that’s just what an AI intent on taking my job would say to lull me into a sense of security and complacency, wouldn’t it.
But, as it happens, I agree with the text here. AI isn’t sentient or conscious, its output is the result of what it’s trained on, how it’s been programmed, and how it’s been prompted. It can string sentences together but, as the bosses at CNet and Men’s Health discovered when they set AI programs to write informational articles and then had to pull and correct them, it has no ability to differentiate between truth and nonsense, and “knows” only what it’s been trained on. If you want a fast, infinite generator of competently-assembled bullshit, AI is your go-to source. For anything else, you still need a human. AI models will get better and more efficient at many things, but I do suspect writing a truly satisfying piece of original prose, short or long form, will elude it for some time.
This estimation, mind you, rather conveniently elides the fact that humans are already using AI to generate stories, articles and books, and are rushing to get them published, either through submission to established media outlets, or through self-publishing. But, and here’s the thing, those AI-generated text products aren’t particularly good, and absent significant human intervention, are unlikely to get better anytime soon. The amount of work required by a human to make AI-generated text go from “serviceable on the sentence level” to “actually good” is enough that one wonders why one wouldn’t just skip the AI-generating text part entirely. It would be less work. But then, I can write, so I see that part as extra steps. Someone else might not.
In my line of work, I don’t think AI-generated prose put into the stream of commerce is going to significantly impact the highly curated end of the book market, i.e., the books put out by established publishers. This end of the publishing world is populated with known quantities, i.e., already-known authors, series and franchises, and get their work into bookstores, which adds another level of curation, with respect to what books show up. On the other hand, I suspect AI-generated prose is going to offer a real challenge to indie and self-pubbed folks. They are inevitably going to share the same market spaces as AI-generated prose, and will have to work extra hard to differentiate their work from a flood of AI books. There’s also the added complication that in programs like Kindle Unlimited, where payouts are from a communal pool of cash provided by Amazon, an already crowded field of titles will have their presence and payouts further diluted by a rush of quickly-created AI dreck.
(Unless Amazon and other such vendors work to limit AI-generated work, which they should, as its presence will drive down the value proposition of their all-you-can-read programs. What benefit are they, if it becomes too hard to find actual, readable work? But we’ll see if Amazon, et al actually agrees with that assessment.)
Because of who I am and what I do, at the moment I’m not especially worried that an AI is coming to take my job. They can’t do my job, yet or possibly ever, and also I am well-established enough that, so long as I keep writing entertaining work, there will still be people who will seek out my titles. A fair number of authors are in my shoes, across all genres — established enough, and with enough of an audience, to keep doing what they do for a while yet.
I also suspect newer authors will continue to come up, in part because editors will want what they offer: Good prose that will connect with other humans. It’s why the AI-generated stories aren’t making any headway with the editors of the science fiction magazines. They just don’t have what it takes, and short of actual consciousness in the AI, may not ever. That’s good for humans, writers and readers both.
Phone numbers are a finite resource. So when one goes out of a service, there’s a good chance telecom companies will reuse it for a new phone plan. That can be a big problem on WhatsApp. In some cases, if you get your hands on a phone number that was tied to an existing WhatsApp account, you can hijack it and assume…
I mean, besides the reason I’ve already noted several times, which is that there are only so many times you can say “The political right in the United States is unambiguously all-in on bigoted authoritarianism and white supremacy and has no interest in helping any American, just in punishing some of them” before it gets tiring, both to say and to hear. That remains accurate!
And also, the other thing is that so much political messaging these days, particularly on the right, is so performative that engaging with it is also performative, and a furtherance in distributing the original performative messaging. The political right in the United States understands that, inasmuch as it currently lacks a coherent political strategy other than will to power, it must keep its followers forever afraid, and its opponents forever on the defensive — spending their energy responding rather than doing anything else. So: outrage at trans people and black people and librarians and candies and anything else that will keep the outrage cycle going on for another 24 hours.
And, you know, I… just don’t want to. I’d like to say that it’s because I don’t have time, but I have the time, as much as I ever have with regard to this site. I just don’t have the inclination. So much of it is fucking trivial, for one — the individual incidents, to clarify, not the overall intent to strip everyone but white dudes of their rights — and all of it is “I said or did something shitty, now you have to respond, so I can play my next card.” Engaging in that level of rhetorical dishonesty for anything more than the length of a tweet feels icky, and even engaging in it for that long is fast losing its appeal.
Likewise saying much about any of the “personalities” of the right, including the several congresspeople who have been making obtuse screaming their brand. Yes, I’ve seen your trick. What else do you have? The answer: Not much. And that’s fine, I suppose, if there is something else to talk about. But there is nothing else: No policy, no strategy, nothing other than whatever you are for we are against. That’s it, plus the white supremacy mentioned above. Again: How many ways are there to approach that before it just gets stale? And why would I want to write it? I’m not getting paid to.
(This is another aspect of it: There are lots of people getting paid to write about these topics, and I think the need to put fresh spins on the simple fact that US right has nothing but bigotry and rage going for it these days is one reason we’re getting some fundamentally nonsensical commentary out of otherwise sensible writers. Dear political writers in the US: I know you know better. Please do better. As for me, I’m glad I’m not getting paid to write on politics, otherwise I’d be in the same boat.)
I don’t think this means that I won’t ever write on politics again until the right in the US gets smarter and less addicted to fomenting outrage. One, that’s not going to happen: not being smart, and fomenting outrage, has worked well enough for the right, so why would they change that. Two, even if the right in the US did want to do that, it would be a multi-decade project. It does mean that when and if I write about politics, I want it not to be reactive, or if it is reactive, not in the way that those instigating the messaging want it to be. And, again, for something longer than a tweet, that takes time and effort. I don’t have it in me to be silent about politics, but more than ever I’m aware that I, no less than anyone else, am susceptible to the prodding and poking of others to run their play when it comes to messaging.
(Also: I have less interest in being snarky about politics these days, which cuts down the amount I write about it here, too. It used to be easy to be snarky about politics! But then we had an attempted coup and the right leaned really hard into actually taking away the rights of American citizens. I don’t know, I feel less inclined to make funny quips about all of that. You can think of it as a personal failure if you like.)
So: Writing less about politics here, but I hope that when I do, I actually have something useful to say, rather than banging out “I’m writing to write about the thing everyone else is writing about” response text. And if I can’t make it useful, I think it’s fine not to write it up at all. It’s not as if people will lack things to read on the outrage du jour. That is, after all, the whole point of the outrage du jour.
