Calmly unreasonable

New tools for bowdlers, part 2

August 30, 2024

New tools for bowdlers, part 2

This post is a long-delayed continuation of one from April last year. Good thing I was slow—there’ve been big advances in bowdler-tech since then! The previous post began with embarrassment at David’s classical naughty bits reddening the necks of Florida conservatives. Let’s return to David to see how advanced technology can help conservatives cover up the naughty bits and protect school kids from learning that such bits exist.

The Drood

October 31, 2023

The Drood

A story. Petra figured a story would hearten them, take their minds off their resentments. Though it was almost noon, godshade had brought a night-thick darkness. Snow hissed on the school tent’s roof. Inside, one small lamp produced too little light for lessons. Anyway, the teacher had left Petra in charge.

Cafe Boheme

May 1, 2023

Cafe Boheme

This is the first of some (planned) occasional posts on writers’ cafes. Writers’ cafe has a personal meaning. It means that I found the place quiet enough and agreeable enough that I got some writing done there, and nobody gave me dirty looks or threw me out to free up a table. Hassle-free, with drinkable coffee. Cafe Boheme, on Old Compton Street in Soho, London, is one of those.

New tools for bowdlers, part 1

April 8, 2023

New tools for bowdlers, part 1

These are heady times for bowdlers and censors of all stripes. Not only is there a surge in demand by culture warriors on the far right and ultra-woke left to revise histories, lived experiences, and everyday language they deem unsavory or inconvenient, but there are great new tools to get the job done. This post looks at the market for ‘bowdler-tech’, a fast-growing specialization within the broader repression-tech industry.1 Follow-on posts look at nifty gadgets for bowdlerizing at scales never seen before.

The quiet courage of Olesya K

March 25, 2023

The quiet courage of Olesya K

On December 26, 2022, Russian police stormed the apartment of nineteen-year-old University student Olesya Krivtsova, threatened her with a sledgehammer, then arrested her for terrorism. She’d been denounced to the FSB by fellow students and a vigilante troll. Her crime? An Instagram post questioning the war in Ukraine. But this isn’t a story about a teenager’s naive mistake; it’s a story about the courage to speak truth to power even in the face of its wrath, gently, and without rancor.

AIs lose their copy rights

March 18, 2023

AIs lose their copy rights

AI’s can’t copyright their own work, nor can their human (ab)users, according to a recent ruling by the US Copyright Office (USCO). The ruling applies to both artwork and text. It expands on an earlier one that revoked a copyright registration granted to Kristina Kashtanova for her and Midjourney’s collab on a comic book called Zarya of the Dawn. For this posting, I asked two AIs for their opinions.

Teaching the face of history

January 25, 2023

Teaching the face of history

Teachers can be exciting, frustrating, boring, and many other ‘ings’, as all students know. So can teaching, as all teachers know. Teachers are also chronically underpaid and overworked. In the West, we don’t often think of them as heroes. And they don’t often face a violent death for their work, as they do in Afghanistan. Yet even in the US, teaching is a profession that calls for courage.

Note! This posting contains reproductions of beautiful Islamic paintings of the Prophet Muhammed.

Neural wrap

December 24, 2022

Neural wrap

Artificial neural network techniques like stable diffusion and online tools like Stability.ai’s DreamStudio are fun to play with, but are there practical uses? Decorative ones are the first that spring to mind. And people have already come up with some cool decorative–not to mention commercial–ideas, like this voice-controlled service to create wallpaper on the fly: Shopify’s AI wallpaper.

Artificial Space Pirates

December 16, 2022

Artificial Space Pirates

I’m not the first to play with ChatGPT, maybe not the millionth, judging by all the awe-struck articles and the red warnings: “We’re experiencing exceptionally high demand” and “Request timed out.” But I did want to see ChatGPT try its hand at space pirates.

Political action heroes

November 12, 2022

Political action heroes

Browsing the shelves of Foyles while in London this week, I was intrigued to see a couple of books by NYT bestselling author Andrew Shaffer: Hope Never Dies and Hope Rides Again. These political thrillers feature Barak Obama and Joe Biden as action heroes. Reviewers describe them as “escapist fantasy for liberals”, and “bromantic buddy-cop noir.” Prominently displayed cover-out, in the YA SFF section of Foyles. In London. Cool. I looked for a YA MAGA hat romance for balance, but didn’t find one. Probably sold out.

The Penguin-Sower chimera that wasn't

October 31, 2022

The Penguin-Sower chimera that wasn't

This pumpkin season, readers and writers can celebrate the abortion of an ill-conceived chimera: the attempted merger of publisher Penguin Random House—the largest trade publisher in the US—with Simon & Schuster, a smaller but formidable rival. The US Justice Department sued a year ago to block the merger, arguing that the creation of a single publisher that controls half the US market would be anti-competitive.

The Unproblematic Wizarding World of Barnes & Nobel

December 1, 2021

The Unproblematic Wizarding World of Barnes & Nobel

An article in the Advocate mentions an amusing skirmish in the TERF war embroiling author J.K. Rowling: a stand of Fantasy books in the Union Square Barnes & Nobel flagship store labeled ‘The Unproblematic Wizarding World’ in which the Harry Potter books are conspicuous for their absence. My guess: it’s a gentle, mischievous poke by a staff member or three, well-meant and harmless.

Arriving at Ard's Girdle, Part 2

April 15, 2021

Arriving at Ard's Girdle, Part 2

Short days—that’s what I wanted. The days in Jasper’s world should be an hour long. How is the topic of this post and the previous one. Why is another story. The previous post described the physics and writerly problems with a quickly-spinning planet. This one describes how Ard’s Girdle of The Gem Merchant’s Son and the godlands of the Clanmarks series came to be.

Arriving at Ard's Girdle, Part 1

April 14, 2021

Arriving at Ard's Girdle, Part 1

Short days–that’s what I wanted. Jasper’s world should have days about one hour long. How is the topic of this post and the next. Why is another story.

What’s hard about short days, you ask? The Gem Merchant’s Son is a fantasy. I could have said “let the days be one hour long” and be done with it. But I’ve never been a fan of ‘just magic’; I like there to be a system to it, even a science to it. Both The Gem Merchant’s Son and the Clanmarks series, which are set in the same world, are as much SF as F, and I like my SF hard as old cheese.