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Billions for AI, Pennies for the Plumbing: AI Companies Should Pay to Keep PHP AlivePHP2Shell: AI Found a 22-Year-Old Crack Under Your Website in Two DaysPetrov Day: The Officer Who Didn’t Believe the ComputerKindle Unlimited Is Now Kindle+. AI Audiobooks Just Joined the BuffetMo Gawdat Says the AI Dystopia Starts in 2027. Read the List, Skip the DatesThe Society of Authors Signed an Ethical AI Charter, Then Ran From It in Eight DaysChina Is Using Bots to Fan the Data Center Backlash. The Backlash Is Still Real.When to Quit Writing a Book: I’ve Abandoned Dozens, and I’d Do It AgainGetty Images Filed for Bankruptcy. Can You Prove You Licensed Your Book’s Images?Fluff Words: Cut Them From Your Prose, Keep Them in Your DialogueWhere Can Writers Learn Storytelling From Movies? Richard Lowe Publishes 1,226 Film and TV Reviews With Writing Craft NotesWhere Are the Independent Bookstores and Public Libraries Worth Visiting in Tampa Bay? Author Richard Lowe Profiles 44 of ThemWhat Should You Know Before Hiring a Ghostwriter? The Writing King Publishes 57 New Answers, Including What to Do When It Goes WrongWhere Can You Hear Founders and Executives Tell Their Own Stories? Richard Lowe’s Leaders and Their Stories Publishes Every Unscripted Interview With a Full TranscriptAuthor Richard Lowe Publishes Eight Volumes of Enemies of You, a Researched Series on the Forces Working Against Ordinary AmericansThe Jackal (1997) ReviewThe Day of the Jackal (2024) ReviewYour First Novel Is an Apprentice Piece: What Beta Readers and Editors Can’t FixWhen the Cloud Gets Bombed: What the AWS Data Center Strikes Teach About BackupsHuman-Written Book Labels Are Gatekeeping With a FeeThe Enshittification of Microsoft Office: Why I Switched to a Free CloneGlobal Encryption Day: The Padlock Every Writer Depends OnWriting Your Worst Moments in a Memoir: Show the Evidence, Skip the VerdictHow to Register a Copyright for Your Book (and What Doesn’t Count)Your AI Chats Aren’t Private: Deleted ChatGPT Logs in CourtThe Board Seat Scam: A 419 Letter in a Business SuitI Joined the Science Fiction Book Club 30 TimesCitations in a Memoir: Endnotes, Footnotes and Fair UseThe Stores That Still Care: Publix, Walmart, Aldi, Best Buy and the RestThe Grocery Store Plan: Why Every Store Starts With FlowersWinnie-the-Pooh’s 100th Birthday: A Century in the Hundred Acre WoodFree With a Fill-Up: How America Stopped Giving Things AwayAI’s Black Box Is Getting a Window. Somebody Still Has to Look Through It“It Stars C. Thomas Howell. No.” Why AI Gets Stuck in a LoopShould You Query or Self-Publish Your Memoir If You’re Not Famous?Judge the Writing, Not the Tool: What the AI Pile-Ons Get WrongThiago Ferreira: Thinkers, Not DoersYana Semova: Let AI Do the AdminLisa Hamilton-Smith: Unstoppable, AI AssistedRobert E. Howard Day: The Texan Who Built ConanElmore Leonard Day: Leave Out the Part Readers SkipRoald Dahl Day: Six Pencils and a Grudge Against Grown-UpsEncourage a Young Writer Day: The Adult Who Read the PagesStephen King Day: The Daily Two ThousandZora Neale Hurston Day: The Ear She TrainedTell a Fairy Tale Day: The Stories Everybody EditedAlice’s Day: The Story Told on a Rowing BoatSuperman Day: The $130 Contract Behind the CapeNational Podcast Day: The Interview Is the Raw MaterialRaymond Chandler Day: The Novelist Who Started at Fifty

Billions for AI, Pennies for the Plumbing: AI Companies Should Pay to Keep PHP AlivePHP2Shell: AI Found a 22-Year-Old Crack Under Your Website in Two DaysPetrov Day: The Officer Who Didn’t Believe the ComputerKindle Unlimited Is Now Kindle+. AI Audiobooks Just Joined the BuffetMo Gawdat Says the AI Dystopia Starts in 2027. Read the List, Skip the DatesThe Society of Authors Signed an Ethical AI Charter, Then Ran From It in Eight DaysChina Is Using Bots to Fan the Data Center Backlash. The Backlash Is Still Real.When to Quit Writing a Book: I’ve Abandoned Dozens, and I’d Do It AgainGetty Images Filed for Bankruptcy. Can You Prove You Licensed Your Book’s Images?Fluff Words: Cut Them From Your Prose, Keep Them in Your DialogueWhere Can Writers Learn Storytelling From Movies? Richard Lowe Publishes 1,226 Film and TV Reviews With Writing Craft NotesWhere Are the Independent Bookstores and Public Libraries Worth Visiting in Tampa Bay? Author Richard Lowe Profiles 44 of ThemWhat Should You Know Before Hiring a Ghostwriter? The Writing King Publishes 57 New Answers, Including What to Do When It Goes WrongWhere Can You Hear Founders and Executives Tell Their Own Stories? Richard Lowe’s Leaders and Their Stories Publishes Every Unscripted Interview With a Full TranscriptAuthor Richard Lowe Publishes Eight Volumes of Enemies of You, a Researched Series on the Forces Working Against Ordinary AmericansThe Jackal (1997) ReviewThe Day of the Jackal (2024) ReviewYour First Novel Is an Apprentice Piece: What Beta Readers and Editors Can’t FixWhen the Cloud Gets Bombed: What the AWS Data Center Strikes Teach About BackupsHuman-Written Book Labels Are Gatekeeping With a FeeThe Enshittification of Microsoft Office: Why I Switched to a Free CloneGlobal Encryption Day: The Padlock Every Writer Depends OnWriting Your Worst Moments in a Memoir: Show the Evidence, Skip the VerdictHow to Register a Copyright for Your Book (and What Doesn’t Count)Your AI Chats Aren’t Private: Deleted ChatGPT Logs in CourtThe Board Seat Scam: A 419 Letter in a Business SuitI Joined the Science Fiction Book Club 30 TimesCitations in a Memoir: Endnotes, Footnotes and Fair UseThe Stores That Still Care: Publix, Walmart, Aldi, Best Buy and the RestThe Grocery Store Plan: Why Every Store Starts With FlowersWinnie-the-Pooh’s 100th Birthday: A Century in the Hundred Acre WoodFree With a Fill-Up: How America Stopped Giving Things AwayAI’s Black Box Is Getting a Window. Somebody Still Has to Look Through It“It Stars C. Thomas Howell. No.” Why AI Gets Stuck in a LoopShould You Query or Self-Publish Your Memoir If You’re Not Famous?Judge the Writing, Not the Tool: What the AI Pile-Ons Get WrongThiago Ferreira: Thinkers, Not DoersYana Semova: Let AI Do the AdminLisa Hamilton-Smith: Unstoppable, AI AssistedRobert E. Howard Day: The Texan Who Built ConanElmore Leonard Day: Leave Out the Part Readers SkipRoald Dahl Day: Six Pencils and a Grudge Against Grown-UpsEncourage a Young Writer Day: The Adult Who Read the PagesStephen King Day: The Daily Two ThousandZora Neale Hurston Day: The Ear She TrainedTell a Fairy Tale Day: The Stories Everybody EditedAlice’s Day: The Story Told on a Rowing BoatSuperman Day: The $130 Contract Behind the CapeNational Podcast Day: The Interview Is the Raw MaterialRaymond Chandler Day: The Novelist Who Started at Fifty

The Writing King Your Ethical Ghostwriter. Your Story, Done Right.

Tag: MCU

The Marvel films are the largest connected narrative experiment in cinema, and the seams are instructive. This tag collects reviews and essays on the MCU, phase by phase, including where it stopped working.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in the cave workshop scene from Iron Man, building the Mark I suit from salvaged parts.

The MCU Phase 1 – Proving It Could Work

The six films that built the MCU, ranked and reviewed in release order, with scores and craft notes. Phase 1 averages 8.67, the highest of any phase.

The MCU Phase 5 – The MCU Pushes the Message

Fourteen projects, an average of 2.67 and a median of 1. The lowest scoring phase in the franchise, examined entry by entry.

The MCU Phase 6 – The Reset

The reset in progress. Released entries scored, announced entries held as placeholders and filled in as the phase arrives.

A collage of key MCU Phase 3 film posters and characters, arranged to show the arc from Civil War through Endgame. TITLE

The MCU Phase 3 – The Payoff

All eleven Phase 3 films in release order with scores. The first six average 7.33 and the last five average 3.20, which is where the decline actually starts.

A collage of MCU Phase 4 characters and moments from films and Disney+ series arranged in a grid layout. TITLE: MCU Phase 4

The MCU Phase 4 – The MCU Becomes the MSHEU

Seventeen projects in two years, scored and reviewed in release order. Phase 4 is where the cinematic universe became a content pipeline.

A collage of six Marvel film posters from Phase 2, arranged in a grid showing Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain

The MCU Phase 2 – Finding the Formula

Iron Man 3 through Ant-Man, in release order with scores and craft notes. Phase 2 found the formula and set both the ceiling and the floor of the franchise.