Commentary on how people live now. Technology and its effects, institutions and how they fail, and the cultural arguments worth having. Opinionated by design, because writing that hedges everything says nothing.
Artificial IntelligenceMention AI in a writing group and you're a thief headed for hell. So I moved the pile-on to a hiking forum, where a beginner let an app plan her route to a waterfall. She had a wonderful day. The…
Critical ThinkingA study using dam resettlement records found rural populations undercounted by 53 to 84 percent. It doesn't mean billions of missing people, and it doesn't rescue anyone from falling birth rates. It does mean the numbers behind policy deserve a…
Artificial IntelligenceAn author who uses AI for research and covers, but not her writing, complained about a festival's AI cover ban. The thread ended with a stranger calling her utterly disgusting. Here's where preference ends and cruelty begins.
Artificial IntelligenceThe old story says the river at Sligachan on the Isle of Skye gives wisdom. Google's AI Overview says eternal beauty. Kenny Boyle called it out, and he's right about the folklore, but tourists were hearing the beauty version from…
BusinessAmazon wanted $6.99 to ship a $25.95 bottle of vitamins. The manufacturer shipped it free for four cents more. Sponsored listings that bury the right product, a $2.5 billion Prime settlement, shows that wreck their source material, Echoes that wake…
Artificial IntelligenceA fan artist found her painting of two DC superheroes copied with AI. Here is what copyright protects in fan art, why a lawsuit rarely works, and how the thread turned on the one person who disagreed.
Artificial IntelligenceA writer admitted his AI-assisted pen-name books outsold his own work, and a writing group told him he was no author, had no ethics and would have his name spread offline. Authorship belongs to whoever owns the book, whatever tools…
Artificial IntelligencePeople who restore or colorize old family photos with AI keep getting called slop merchants. Hollywood fought the same war over colorized movies. The fix is a label and the original, never a pile-on.
Artificial IntelligenceDoes an AI prompt really drink a bottle of water? The real numbers on AI data centers: electricity, water, power bills, emissions, jobs and taxes, with what the critics get right and what they exaggerate.
Artificial IntelligenceAn author asked whether an AI cover makes an AI book, and the thread decided the whole book must be stolen. What AI Derangement Syndrome is, what readers think, and why the only question that matters is whether the book…
Artificial IntelligenceAn author asked how to turn her comic series into a KDP paperback because ChatGPT kept changing her pictures. The thread went to war over AI. Here's the answer she needed.
SocietyYou'd think writers would be kind to each other. Writing groups are some of the cruelest rooms online. Why rejection, fear and status drive it, why the polite groups don't help either, and what a good group looks like.
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