Month: August 2024

Mulling A Trump Loss

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My fear is, of course, that if Trump loses that he will, unto himself, spark a civil war. The reason why I think this is how radical, on an institutional basis, state Republican Parties have become.

As such, I don’t think it would be too absurd to suggest that if Trump loses and he begins to rant and rant and RANT that he was “cheated” yet again, there is a pretty good chance that states — beginning with Texas — will call up Secessionists Conventions.

This is all very speculative — and a bit nuts.

What the “normal” person would tell you is no amount of ranting on Trump’s part could possibly lead any state — Texas or otherwise — to do such a radical thing. But I’m worried. Really worried.

It seems as though things have come to a head. It seems to me that Texas’ Republican Party has, collectively, decided the state is already one foot out of the Union already.

Anyway, who knows. I can’t predict the future. Anything — or nothing — might happen.

Once More Into The Breach

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hope to really start to work a lot harder on not one, but two novels. I would add a third but I don’t really want to risk over extend myself.

I hope to appeal to readers of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” with the thriller I’m writing.

The “main” novel is the passion project — a thriller revolving around a woman’s obsession with owning a community newspaper.

The “backup” novel is a scifi novel that’s meant to be something that Andy Weir readers might enjoy. It has to deal with AI, so I need to hurry the fuck up. If I dilly-dally for a decade all these predictions I might want to make might actually come true.

Anyway, I’m quite content with what’s going on creatively-wise. I just have to focus. Too often, I fall into just drifting into doing something with the novel. I have to stop drifting and actually have some structure and to do something with some regimen to it.

A Midsummer’s Magical Thinking

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m prone to magical thinking — sometimes to a self-destructive degree. But when I got pushed a notification from a podcast on YouTube about some guy who thought his algorithms were “bullying” him, my ears perked up.

I don’t have any perception of THAT happening, but do have a weird feeling some AI, somewhere, is fucking with my algorithms to flirt with me. Or something. Something weird is going on.

But it’s all magical thinking. All of it. There’s no possible way that could be happening. And this is coming from someone who is still half-convinced that Tik-Tok can somehow, someway read our minds.

And, yet, there is a broader point to address — there may very well come a point when LLMs really can fuck with our algorithms to fuck with us in some way. I still have my suspicions about why Tay-Tay’s “Cruel Summer” is such a lingering hit.

It makes you wonder what will happen, what will be the reaction, when we really do have to address the idea that LLMs are “the Other” and have motives that we can’t fully understand.

Mysteries Of The Universe

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Either absolutely no one is reading this blog, or a lot is going on that I just can’t see with my Webstat software. I suspect it’s the latter because, well, lulz, how else do you explain randomly, out of the blue, people will look at a specific link deep inside the Website.

I think even talking about this says more about my obsession with my Webstats than anything else. I really, really need to cool it. But given how I live in oblivion, there is something very addictive to the idea of seeing that someone, like, fucking cares about what I have to say.

Anyway. I have a growing number of novels to write. I also need to watch TV shows and movies and read some books, but that is a bit more difficult.

Rabbit, Rabbit — Of AI, Tik-Tok & Hollywood’s ‘Survive Until 25’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have begun to game out a new scifi novel using AI. It at least gives me a reason to use AI on a regular basis. But I do find myself thinking about the fate of Hollywood in this brave new world of AI and…Tik-Tok?

Apparently, one of the big concerns within the Hollywood community is that one of the reasons why the industry is imploding is people are more interested in Tik-Tok than they are movies.

I don’t know what to make of that. It is possible that Hollywood is undergoing a downlow disruption because of the one-two punch of AI and Tik-Tok. But I wouldn’t be so sure. I think maybe if Hollywood generated more movies that people actually wanted to see, that such concerns wouldn’t be so bad.

But I do think, sad to say, that AI is really, really going to disrupt Hollywood in a big, big way over the course of the next few years. It could be that the very idea of Hollywood will end — it will just be producers and software engineers and that will be that.

There will be no (human) creatives left at all.

Yet, who knows. Anything is possible.

Rabbit, Rabbit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

August 1st. It will be interesting to see how bad this month is. I hope we all make it through. It could be that this month goes off without a hitch. But I have my doubts. It could be that things go nuts before the month is over.

It’s already very, very hot.

It’s so frustrating to me that people refuse to admit that we’re all going to get cooked if we don’t do something about global climate change.