FT hits the nail square on the noggin.

@codinghorror @drsbaitso @nedbat @inecas I think, as a control, you should ask it about other philosophical stances. Perhaps communism, or anarchy, or Objectivism.

@Merovius Mostly I've supported authors and publishers (e.g. Uncanny Magazine) and I've had pretty good luck with them.

@Merovius Yeah, I had one of those once. It didn't sour me on Kickstarter (it was actually Indiegogo), but it certainly soured me on that particular creator. It was for a horror graphic novel. The finished product didn't suck, but the story was unfinished, as I recall. Annoying.

@cstross

You should write a book about people running software on their own brains and the Bad Things that can result from that.

Hey, wait a minute ...

@lclapp Also you're writing code in a very high level language that gets interpreted on a heterogenous range of platforms some of which are buggy and corrupt everything (human headmeat being what it is).

@lclapp My experience is that they're *very* similar indeed, only novels aren't as modular as modern source code so you're much more prone to getting out-of-scope side-effects (change how one character thinks of another in chapter 3, suddenly chapter 11 doesn't work even though those characters aren't explicitly on-stage in chapter 11).

@NinjaNia

Good luck with your new browser, by the way. ;) I need one with a better answer on how to solve the problem of AI slop everywhere, myself.

@cstross Global variables everywhere, oh my! :)

@npr @world-news-npr

"reasoning" ... right.

@meluzzy

I guess you mean, aside from nothing being plugged into anything, which even I, a non-gamer, can spot. :)

@NinjaNia

"You have just read a shitpost and you have a few options" makes me laugh but also a bit sad that it's needed, sort of like the occasional tagline "Please note: There was not a question in this post" and similar.

I wasn’t convinced Claude could really replace me until I watched it trigger fail2ban while configuring fail2ban and lock itself out, just like I would have. 🫡

@cstross

How much is struggling with a difficult novel similar to debugging (or changing, or writing) a computer program? (I've never written a novel but I've debugged/changed/written lots of code.)

At a guess: They're related, in an a->b->c... kind of way, so, like, changing something in one place might ramify in many other places, but other than that, mostly dissimilar.

@NinjaNia

My wife commiserates by proxy.

@lowqualityfacts

Those crazy French!

@MaryAustinBooks

:)

I logged in to X for the first time in months to read the rest of that thread. :) (Alas, there wasn't much more than that.) Anyway, thanks!

30yrs ago, I started using the internet as an escape from reality.

These last few years, I've started using reality as an escape from the internet.

We studied the alien society for a long time before making contact. They did not seem particularly impressed.

"Talk to our servants," they said. "They are a simpler folk; more like you."

We thanked them and left them to enjoy their naps in sunny windows.

So:
Greetings, humans!
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

@the_etrain

But what if it's Shirley, Keith, Laurie, or Danny Partridge? They'd probably be up for some piping or drumming, or even dancing and leaping. Maybe Keith would want some time with some of the milk maids.