Everyone wants the futuristic scifi tech, but if they think about it for five seconds, they want the advanced version. Nobody wants to be the beta tester that gets vaporized in a transporter accident or suffers motor function loss due to a faulty brain implant.

I started using em dashes more intentionally in 2022 when an editor pointed out that I was missing a lot of good opportunities for them. Then the LLM issue popped up and I refuse to go back. I'm not sacrificing language to an LLM as if it is the only one with the privilege of using them.

3/3 "What magistrate? There's no government here. It's the law of the jungle."
"This is a swamp, not a jungle, which also brings up the question of a why a desert scorpion is in a swamp."
"Maybe I'm on vacation."
"Vacation from what? You don't have a job. Also, animals can’t talk."

2/3 "It's that you're not indigenous to this region so you must be a hallucination and therefore this fable doesn't work. Also I'm neither rated for a load of your weight nor am I licensed by the local magistrate to transport passengers. I could get a fine or even be jailed."

Don't stand downwind from gassy bears.

It's always fun to see people unintentionally trick themselves into learning something difficult through the sheer drive and intrinsic interest to realize a dream they have. It's even more fun to help them find the tools and skills to get there.

Steller's Jays always look like a reskin of a cardinal for people who wanted a better color scheme for their avian game character.

This was one of the more influential pieces for me for cyberpunk beyond the usual Gibson and Sterling, et al recommendations. The milieu, vocabulary, and style were perfect. It was always strange that something like this didn't get picked up for an animated series. Len Kaminski is underrated.

I followed him on Facebook a few years ago and he seemed to be having a hard time in general. It was disheartening.

E.G. I use my watch to pay for coffee or groceries or beer via NFC more often than I look at the time.

To be fair, it's not a phone anymore. It's a handheld computer with infrequently utilized telephonic capabilities.

Imagine a 1950s wrist watch projected into the future with new features such that no one cares to look at the time anymore, and even get offended when the time is displayed.

Fenrir was not looking so good those days...

I tried this LLM spite inspiration as an exercise a few months ago, but I couldn't even read through the full text of its very boring short story. It was just too blah to get anything useful out of, even spite.