hkellick | Network

Got up at 7:45 at

mashfanficchick's. Showered and dressed, and walked to Starbucks for coffee. Then Ubered over to the eye surgeon.

The surgery was really not bad. They gave me 10 mg of Valium beforehand, and filled my eye with lidocaine, and there were no problems.

Then after it was all over, it was only around 10:30, so instead of waiting in the area we Ubered back to zer place where I slept for two hours.

Then at 3:00 we took the bus back over and got there with enough time to have lunch at the halal restaurant next door.

Finished in time for my appointment, and went back over to the surgeons. Everything looked good, they took off the eye shield though I have to wear it at night for a week. I also have sunglasses I have to wear for a month,

Went back to

mashfanficchick's and took another small nap.

Then the Mets game was delayed by rain in Kansas City so I Teamed the FWiB while we waited.

The game was going by the time I finished, and I watched til 11:00 and then Ubered home.

Fed the pets, put in an eye drop, and started here,

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2.

mashfanficchick

3. The surgery went well.

4. Air conditioning.

5. Naps.

6. Bed soon.

Current Mood: chipper

sideways

• Zoo City was an almost-great book - the writing style was engaging, the protagonist was compelling in her bitterness, the concept of being Animaled was bolshy in its co-opting of Pullman's dæmons. It just kind of forgot to let anything the protagonist did... matter? Oops.

• "A demon-hunting KPop group finds itself on a new battlefield when the demons launch their own boy band" is such a perfect comedy movie premise! For some reason, though, the movie also wedged in a cliche dramatic plot-line it didn't really have time for or do anything new with, and in fact the more I think about said plot-line the more questions I have. KPop Demon Hunters was still, somehow, a pretty fun watch. The energetic animation and catchy songs definitely helped.

• Re-read The Prefect, which was the first Alastair Reynolds book I ever read, back in the day! Reynolds' character work has always been fairly average, but his character and world concepts are so thought-provoking I tend not to mind.

• If I had ever been a big Murderbot fan, I suspect I'd be genuinely very annoyed by the TV adaptation. As it is, I'm still exasperated by some of the choices and by the fact streaming seems to have permanently crushed the industry's ability to tell a well-paced logical fucking story, but I'm at least enjoying individual segments. It's a strong cast (Mensah especially) and when they get a well-scripted scene, they deliver on it! Alas...

• I'm nearly at the end of Babylon 5's first season, which may get its own post if I can find the energy. I'm into it overall, and it's very interesting to experience in a time-capsule sort of way as well, which is the mark of good sci-fi.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: enthralled

helloladies posting in

ladybusiness

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag. You can also support Sidetracks and our other work on Patreon.

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yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

After returning to the 84/30 we ended up at the Bonneville Dam in search of a bathroom! It was a good stop though as the view (and sound) of the dam was impressive. ( Read more... )

shipperslist

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quillpunk posting in

booknook

Same exact deal as last year! XD

This is the sign-up post for the 2025 October Review-a-Thon I’m hosting here in

booknook! To sign up, simply comment on this post with what day(s) you’re claiming.

Each day claimed equals one distinctive review, so if you’re claiming three days, you’re signing up to post three different reviews. You can claim up to five days. You can claim a day that’s already claimed, but you must claim different days for each review. You do not need to mention what book(s) you intend to review. You can claim more days up to the max at any time, simply make a new comment and claim more. You can unclaim a day at any time. Sign-ups are open until Oct 30.

Good luck!

Claimed Days

( Days to Claim )

Posting Guidelines (click the arrow!)

We’re not doing any specific rules regarding the reviews for the events. Your post just needs to adhere to any General Posting Guidelines that applies: this means including a clear header with information regarding the book’s title, author, and any applicable content warnings.

Any spoilers (no matter how old the book is) need to be behind a cut or an accordion (this is an accordion!)

If your review is not suitable for all ages, adjust the age restriction of the post.

The subject line should clearly state that it’s a review. Please tag for at least format, age group, and genre.

The review needs to be posted in its entirety, don’t just go ‘and you can keep reading on…’

You need to be a member to post to the comm.

Questions and Concerns

I will make a top comment on this post, please leave any questions and concerns about the event as a reply to that comment to easily keep everything in one place. This post will not be sticky, as I think we’re already on max on that, but I will link it in the sidebar under the new ‘Quick Navigation’ heading.

What if I don’t make it to my claimed day?

If you don't post a review on the day you signed up for, nothing will happen :D This is intended to be a low-pressure, fun event, and not meant to put undue pressure on you. Again,

booknook is always open to reviews! You can post it later, or not at all. You also would not be required to mention in your sign-up which book you intend to review so you can change your mind until the very last second. There are no repercussions for not posting anything on your claimed day!

What if I’m not signed up but I want to post a review in October?

booknook is open to reviews 24/7 and that would not change. You’re absolutely still allowed to post a review during this month (even on a claimed day) without signing up!

What kind of books can I review?

Any kind of books! Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, webnovels, short stories, etc. If you think it counts, it counts. Likewise, it doesn't matter how old the book is; a 200-year-old book is just as welcome as one that was just published two weeks ago. Here, it's just all about the books! :D

How does reviews work?

In general, a review should contain an introduction of the book and what you think about it and whether it's something you would recommend to others. Here's a few quick links I found searching (if you've got resources for tips on writing reviews, you're welcome to share them and I can add them to the list):

https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/book-review-examples

https://thewritepractice.com/how-to-write-a-book-review/

https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/book-reviews/

It's time for the Fake Internet Deadlines to shine! :D

altamira16

This book was a very well done AI skeptic book that was rooted in deep knowledge of the history of artificial intelligence, and it brought to light some interesting points that I had never thought about.

It gets into the history of AI, and a lot of that discussion is rooted in the type of probabilistic models that I learned about in grad school. It is discussing n-grams, Markov, and so on.

There is a discussion about how AI is an attempt to break labor and gets into a more detailed history of the Luddites. The Luddites were craftsmen, and machines were replacing their hard won skills with an inferior product. The machines that were doing this were also dangerous to their operators.

Various people involved in AI feel like there should not be any AI policy until it is thoroughly discussed, but the authors propose that existing laws should be used to limit the use of AI in areas where it can do harm. They quote Michael Atleson, an attorney within the FTC Division of Advertising Practices:

Your therapy bots aren't licensed psychologists, your AI girlfriends are neither girls nor friends, your griefbots have no soul, and your AI copilots are not gods.

For example, there should not be AI therapy or AI-driven law because the harm that can come from those things is great. Law has to do with the nuance of language, and generated language that no human really thinks through does not have the same nuance.

There were also good arguments for limiting the use of AI in education.

In August 2020, thousands of British students, unable to take their A-level exams due to the COVID-19 pandemic, received grades calculated based on an algorithm that took as input, among other things, the grades that other students at their schools received in previous years. After massive public outcry, in which hundreds of students gathered outside the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street in London, chanting "Fuck the algorithm!" the grades were retracted and replaced with grades based on teachers' assessments of the student work.

A lot of technology in education is designed to give an inferior education to poor kids and union-bust.

One thing that I did not know was that the little Gemini summary on a Google search uses 10-30 times more energy than search before this feature was added.

The authors see both AI doomers and AI boosters as two sides of the same coin. Both of these groups believe that the AI will become smarter than humans. The outcome is the only thing that they differ on.

The group that wants to consider the data used to train the models and the impacts that AI has on the present really does not want to get lumped in with AI doomers that think that the AI is going to eventually get so smart that it will destroy humanity. They are rooted in reality while the doomers are not. There was some criticism of how Vice President Harris was trying to get the people concerned with the present impact of AI to work with the doomers.

There were a lot of references Karen Hao's work. How has recently released the book "Empire of AI." Hao is an AI journalist specifically focused on OpenAI.

oursin

This time it was online, in Teams, and worked a bit better than some Team events I've attended, or maybe I'm just getting used to it.

A few hiccups with slides and screen sharing, but not as many as there might have been.

Possibly we would rather attend a conference not in our south-facing sitting-room on a day like today....

But even so it was on the whole a good conference, even if some of the interdisciplinarity didn't entirely resonate with me.

And That There Dr oursin was rather embarrassingly activating the raised hand icon after not quite every panel, but all but one. And, oddly enough, given that that was not particularly the focus of the conference, all of my questions/comments/remarks were in the general area of medical/psychiatric history, which I wouldn't particularly have anticipated.

conuly

Adrian Tchaikovsky is amazingly hit-or-miss for me, but this looks like it's coming up "hit". The sapient arthropods are a swarm of bees. If there are any spiders, I haven't met them yet!

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3114/

That was quicker than usual! The cabin's sprinkler system often makes it really hard to keep anything lit.

https://xkcd.com/3114/

tozka

Hi, happy Friday! Here’s some interesting links that have been lurking in my tab collection (some of them since MAY):

Here’s a bookmarklet for copying IMDB info for quick updates or review posts or what have you. It ends up looking like this:

🎬 Cold Comfort Farm: Directed by John Schlesinger. With Eileen Atkins, Kate Beckinsale, Sheila Burrell, Stephen Fry. A recently orphaned young woman goes to live with eccentric relatives in Sussex, where she sets about improving their gloomy lives. 🔗

Cute!

National Parks Travelers Club is for people who love visiting US nat’l parks! They have meet-ups and stuff too, super fun!

Punk 101 Masterlist which links to various things that may interest punks (or those who admire punk ethics), including zines!

I’ve never eaten acorns and haven’t particularly thought of doing so before, but if you’re in the right part of the world you can apparently do just that. Here’s a guide for collecting and processing edible acorns from Edgewood Nursery.

Wikimedia Commons has a photo competition ongoing through July 31st. Basically they’re looking for photos of natural protected areas from various countries (full list on the site) and you can win a bit of money if your photo is chosen as the best.

I really enjoy Sacha Judd’s newsletter, “what you love matters,” which focuses on online culture– but the fun stuff! Basically it’s just a collection of interesting links and fun personal updates. It’s hosted on Buttondown, so if you don’t want another email coming to your inbox you can sub via RSS (which is what I did).

Here’s a Star Trek-themed web clique to join if you have a personal website! It doesn’t have to be a Star Trek website.

An excellent article about AI’s impact on culture: Generative AI and the Business Borg aesthetic by Tracy Durnell:

‘Why am I naming this after the Borg? Like Star Trek’s Borg, this is an aesthetic rooted in extractive consumption, assimilationist dominance, neo-colonial expansionism, self-righteous conviction, reductionist thinking, and proclamations of inevitability. It idolizes technology, often inspired by older science-fiction, and draws on cyberpunk aesthetics. The Silicon Valley Collective values groupthink and believes themselves superior to “the other.”’

This short documentary from Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson via the New York Times has been making the rounds lately: Did the Camera Ever Tell the Truth? | Death of a Fantastic Machine which sounds like it’s a history of the camera but is really about how we interact with media (including AI images).

Watch on YouTube

Need more stuff to read? I’ve compiled all previous linkspam posts here on my website, or you can explore the linkspam tag to find more.

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

pauraque

In this first book of a hard SF trilogy, nanomaterials expert Wang Miao is recruited to help investigate the suicides of several prominent scientists. His inquiries lead him to a strange VR video game called Three-Body, in which the player is challenged to solve the mystery of why the game's simulated world keeps falling victim to unpredictable changes in climate that cause its civilizations to inevitably collapse. Interwoven with the book's near-future narrative is a story of the past, in which an astrophysicist who lost everything in Mao's Cultural Revolution is assigned to a secret military base that she comes to realize is dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. These two seemingly unrelated threads come together to reveal a multilayered conspiracy of world-ending stakes.

I had this on my TBR list for so long that I'd completely forgotten what it was about, and I think that worked out well for my experience of it. I never knew where it was going to go next, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Liu has a flair for creating epic set pieces of jaw-dropping cinematic scope that nonetheless follow naturally from the speculative science. I consumed a lot of popular science media in the 2000s, specifically, so for me the science in this book felt... oddly nostalgic? Not that it's obsolete, necessarily, but the particular preoccupations of that era and what was cutting-edge are strongly represented here. It made me want to go read a Brian Greene book.

The translation by Ken Liu reads nicely and I appreciated the informative but not excessive footnotes helping with some points about Chinese culture and history. I love that they let him write an afterword about the translation process!

The book is definitely more interested in ideas than people, and it's particularly weak on female characters. I was not entirely surprised to hear that the Netflix adaptation makes some of the male characters women, including Wang Miao. (I guess it also changes the nationality of a lot of characters, which makes less sense to me since the Chinese setting seems crucial to the book's themes, but I haven't actually watched the adaptation so it's not for me to say how well it works.)

I do plan to continue with the trilogy, though I have a suspicion that it might turn out to be too pessimistic in its outlook on the future for my taste? But I guess it depends on where the story ends up. My library hold on the second book just came in.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: pleased

oursin

Happy birthday,

emperorzombie!

andrewducker

Right now (7:30am) it is 14 degrees outside.

It is 24 degrees in our bedroom, despite the windows being open all night. Humidity is 92%.

This afternoon it will rise to 26 degrees. I'm glad the office has air conditioning. I'm not looking forward to tonight.

dine

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skygiants

I mentioned that I did in fact read a couple of good books in my late-June travels to counterbalance the bad ones. One of them was The Pushcart War, which I conveniently discovered in my backpack right as I was heading out to stay with the friend who'd loaned it to me a year ago.

I somehow have spent most of my life under the impression that I had already read The Pushcart War, until the plot was actually described to me, at which point it became clear that I'd either read some other Pushcart or some other War but these actual valiant war heroes were actually brand new to me.

The book is science fiction, of a sort, originally published in 1964 and set in 1976 -- Wikipedia tells me that every reprint has moved the date forward to make sure it stays in the future, which I think is very charming -- and purporting to be a work of history for young readers explaining the conflict between Large Truck Corporations and Pugnacious Pushcart Peddlers over the course of one New York City summer. It's a punchy, defiant little book about corporate interest, collective action, and civil disobedience; there's one chapter in particular in which the leaders of the truck companies meet to discuss their master plan of getting everything but trucks off the streets of New York entirely where the metaphor is Quite Dark and Usefully Unsubtle. Also contains charming illustrations! A good read at any time and I'm glad to have finally experienced it.

silver_chipmunk

Posting from my phone. Spent the day at

mashfanficchick's place. We watched the last of The Lincoln Lawyer. I called Middle Brother, he's fine. We had halal food for dinner. I briefly Teamed the FWiB. Spending the night to go to my eye surgery tomorrow.

Current Mood: good

The color of infinity inside an empty glass

The random insanity of your not-entirely-typical geek

Eye surgery

media round-up

Murderbot, S1 in its entirety

Sidetracks - July 11, 2025

Bonneville Dam

Sunshine Revival 2025: Challenge #3

[Sign-Up Post] October Review-a-Thon 2025

Claimed Days

The AI Con by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna

That There Dr Oursin was at a conference again

Trying to read Dogs of War

Building a Fire

punk 101, star trek web clique, business borg

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (2006)

Murderbot S1 Finale

Interesting Links for 11-07-2025

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It ain't no good if you're in the jungle.

no matter where you go, there you are

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Just fast

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