I might get sober next October, might get myself together if I just push.
via JWZ
The Black Cone, Monument to Disobedience
Gotta love this climbable monument in Reykjavík. I don’t know if you’re supposed to climb it but I didn’t think I could tell these kids not to get on it once they read the plaque.
“When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most Indispensable of duties.”
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1793)
A wild ride through philosophy and danger
Just finished reading Unity by Elly Bangs.
This is great stuff and I highly recommend it. What an incredible debut novel.
On the first level, it’s a fast-moving cyberpunk dystopia about refugees running from calamity as an apocalypse threatens everything. Danae is a fragment of a group consciousness running from an underwater mafia state after a power struggle erupts from a decapitation bombing. She’s on the run with her love and a mercenary they’ve hired not knowing he can no longer kill. They are hunted by a cast of villains including a human-leather wearing psycho, a replicating body borrower, a Christian Confederacy cult and it all happens against a backdrop of impending Gray Goo annihilation.
That’s a banger right there, that’s what that is.
But underneath there’s a deeper set of questions. What does it mean to join together, to be one? Should union imply we are in full agreement? How lumpy and frothy can our coalitions be? How much can we disagree with our allies? How should mercy and forgiveness work? Can I be good if I’ve done bad? What does love mean and how close do we get? How do handle love when we fundamentally disagree with each other’s choices?
In some ways this feels like if Becky Chambers was writing on a really mean coke binge. But I mean that in a good way.
The world-building is delicious and full of tasty treats, but the story and the characters are each truly driven.
Fela Kuti – Palm Wine Sound
I played this riding home on my speaker and people were grooving at stop lights. Infectious and there’s no cure but shakin hips.
Atarashii Gakko! – Tokyo Calling
Placebo – Sad White Reggae
Are the Robots Really Coming for My Job?
My work asked me to write about Large Language Models and some of the hype around them. I take a pretty nuanced view on Large Language Models being able to actually replace human effort in most cases.
After hearing from both my Mom and a friend at AWS that they found this article really helpful in thinking about the topic, I thought I’d share it more.
It’s intentionally a short article and there’s a TON left out. For example, even if a robot can’t do your job well, that doesn’t mean your job won’t try to replace you with one – and you can’t wait to eat while they figure out they need a person in the loop.
A Hungry Journey to Light a Fire
I just finished reading The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.
The planet Urras is orbited by it’s moon Anarres. 200 years ago anarchists inspired by the philosopher Odo left Urras and moved to the harsh frontiers of Anarres to be free and live a life without masters, property or law. They formed a new language without the bloody history of property baked into it. They struggled together and overcame together. But the door is shut. No one emigrates from Urras and no one emigrates from Anarres. Each is afraid of being infected by the other’s ideas.
“And nobody hungry?”
“Nobody goes hungry while another eats.”
“Ah.”
“But we have been hungry. We have starved.”
Shevek is a brilliant physicist on Anarres, who wants to study, to learn, to create and to share the new ideas he’s created. He finds the support on Anarres wanes the further he goes from accepted norms and ideas. He finds that even on Anarres, there are centralized pockets of power. The revolution is never complete. In times of struggle, ideals are tested, power centralizes… And the center often holds.
“I got full rations: I earned them. I earned them by making lists of who should starve.”
He finds that his physics have a more receptive audience on propertarian Urras. We meet him as he climbs, empty handed, aboard a trade ship to spread his physics and his Odonian ideals on Urras.
More plot than most of her books, it still turns back into a person on a journey. Shevek is on a journey from his anarchic home to a capitalist world. What propels him from a simple world of shared struggles? Why leave? When he arrives can he accomplish his goals? Is there something he can do that the people there couldn’t do for themselves? Will he be trapped and neutralized by the soft prison of luxury?
And how can he return home? What awaits an anarchist who is seen to turn his back on the revolution?
I love the deep thinking about language and the practice of mutual aid in a land with few resources. I love the true struggle to stay good when the droughts hit. And the challenge that centralization and coordination always brings. Everything is dealt with in indirect ways that paint larger pictures just out of sight, beyond the edge of the book.
Highly recommend.
Fables Compendium One: Things Happen One After Another
I was always recommended Fables when I talked about how much I liked The Sandman.
This isn’t a grand story about the power of story or a new perspective on old tales. It’s a lot of stories with the names of characters you’ve heard of before.
The characters are only loosely connected to their sources and they change abilities and temperament to suit the plot of the week.
We learn nothing, we don’t grow while reading it and one thing just sort of happens after another. There are real risks and losses though! The author doesn’t wiggle out of death or consequences, which gives some stakes to the conflicts.
I would not recommend this to someone who says they loved The Sandman.
I originally reviewed Fables Compendium One over on BookWyrm, where we could connect and natter about books
Mar 2024 Media Diet
Books
The Status Civilization Robert Sheckley is a weird old SF writer that I very much love. I didn’t love this one.
Continuing to read The Power Broker, but now in conversation with my dad, which is pretty awesome.
Movies
TV
Dicktown
An adult animation about two sad sacks who form a detective agency. Loved it. John Hodgman (known for being a PC) has somehow made a career out being boring. Here he is a private detective who peaked in high school, assisted by David Rees, who used to be his bully. David Rees is so fascinating. I first found him through his web comics about fighting and filing and war. I didn’t follow him as he did deep dives of the mundane, like starting an artisanal pencil sharpening service – but it’s great to see this exploration of maturity and growth in such a silly format.