Category Archives: internet

Big Brother is Smacking Your Face With His ****

computing, internet, personal Leave a comment

There are few things that will endear you more to me than turning me on to new music that I really like. I think this explains why I wasn’t so eager to complain about online tracking and such, because a fair percentage of the music I listen to in any good month was initially recommended to me by computer algorithms, starting with Musicmatch Jukebox back in the day, and continuing on through my rare dalliances with Pandora. It wasn’t that I didn’t see why people…

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Too Many Twits

internet, personal, politics Leave a comment

Far-right Twitter influencers first on Elon Musk’s monetization scheme (The Washington Post via msn.com) During my short stay in Colorado a few years ago, one of my most harrowing experiences came when Hedder was driving us home to Colorado Springs from some business we had in Aurora. Hedder was as obedient a driver as I was back then, but unlike me, she liked to antagonize drivers who were going too fast, or not using their turn signals, or things of that nature. As we were…

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Glory Be to [Insert Name of Country Here]

books, internet, politics, writing Leave a comment

AI and Its Effect on the Book Publishing Industry (goodereader.com)Julie Plec and More WGA Members Detail Writers Strike Negotiations, Demand Streamers to Release Ratings: ‘We’re Mad’ (Variety via msn.com) One personal project that always seems to be on the back burner for me is an examination of the fiction written during the Cold War in the Soviet bloc countries. My interest in this started about a decade ago, after Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son won the Pulitzer. For his novel, Johnson did extensive studies…

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Shedding the Weight of Old Dreams

computing, internet, personal, writing Leave a comment

While testing out the new ChatGPT chatbot several days ago, as I detailed in my most recent blog, I had neglected to notice that the bot allowed you to post follow-up questions in your session, to ask for more information or clarifications or such. While not perfect, this makes the chatbot exponentially more useful at certain tasks, so I want to take back what I said last week and state, on the record, that ChatGPT does represent a quantum leap forward in chatbot technology. I’ve…

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Anything (Someone Else Does) for a Dollar

internet, politics Leave a comment

Bandcamp Bought By Fortnite Maker Epic Games (Spin via yahoo.com) I’d been looking forward to this month’s Bandcamp Friday for a while. The fact that Bandcamp has been willing to forgo its usual fees for selling music in order to assist independent musicians, who have been even more likely to suffer serious problems due to the pandemic than musicians with record deals, was a cool enough thing to start with, but I’ve been making an effort this year to give even more to independent artists.…

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