Now I need to finish. Dress my posable skeleton (he's going redneck this year). Set up my inflatables. Set out my light-up pumpkins. I hope to have the house organized by next year, so I can retrieve the boxes of decorations still in the storage unit and display those next year.
What do y'all do for the Spooky Season?
But I've noticed that a majority of people I used to follow have stopped blogging. The list is down to Lilith Saintcrow and Dean Wesley Smith. And Saintcrow talked about quitting last week.
I think most of the fading away is due to writers being forced by their agents and publishers to interact with their readers. Some writers loved it. Some didn't. The majority of us are introverts, so interacting with anyone isn't a comfortable proposition,
But even the folks who enjoyed such encounters with readers have turned to other social media platforms. Some of them are helpful with communicating with other humans. Other platforms are cesspits of hostility.
Oddly though, I've seen a slight uptick in people visiting my blogs. I'm not including the bots that are obviously scraping my blogs for content. (Really, dudes, if you're using stuff I wrote fifteen years, it's woefully outdated.)
Few people comment anymore, which is fine. I don't like people kissing my ass. But if someone enjoys reading my thoughts about writing and life, then more power to them.
Ultimately, I consider myself an entertainer, and I like to entertain myself most of all.
*sigh*
After that, I'm heading to Hot Yoga for the only class I can attend this week.
Then it's home for a quick shower and food before DH and I head to doctor's appointments. We were scheduled for our regular quarterly appointments back in July, which we had to cancel and reschedule when we came down with the latest variation of COVID.
Then it's home again to wash clothes and pack. I'm headed down to West Virginia on Tuesday to spend a few days with my cousin Suzan. Yes, there are two of us, but she pronounces her name "Suzanne". I lived with her nearly forty years ago when I worked in D.C. She's pretty awesome, but unfortunately, age is catching up with both of us. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to travel, and I'm making plans to visit as many loved ones as I can over the next couple of years.
So, I'll try to get Wednesday and Friday's post written ahead of time, but if I don't make it, you'll know why.
Why? Because I'm putting my estate in order to make it easier on DH and GK when I pass.
Don't worry, folks. Nothing's wrong. At least not wronger than my usual stuff. LOL
Once upon a time, I used to be an estate planning and probate attorney. Having your ducks lined up isn't about being morbid. Nor will estate planning bring about your death just because you thought about it.
(Good Goddess, you wouldn't believe how many times I've heard that one!)
The idea is to make things as easy as possible for my loved ones.
By the way, there's nothing wrong with your estate going through probate per se. But it means delays for your family in getting their property. And if your joint bank accounts are tied up, how is your spouse going to pay for food? Probating my mom's estate took fifteen months even though all she had left was her SUV and her checking account.
Back to Monday. While going through the paperwork and signing various documents, my attorney asked if I used AI in my writing. I firmly denied doing so. As I pointed out, I can't copyright AI-generated text.
Needless to say, we then had an interesting conversation about art and the law. Basically, we both agreed tech had grown light-years behind developments in the law, and that was going to cause bigger problems until some this gets sorted.
Ironically, when I got up this morning, I saw an online article where an artist was pissed about people stealing "his" art online. His lawsuit was kicked out of court. Why? Because he "created" his art using the AI program Midjourney.
The federal courts have been pretty consistent that any art created by a non-human cannot be copyrighted. Not the paintings done by elephants. Not the photo selfies taken by monkeys. And not a damn story written by AI.
The whole point of my appointments with my attorney is to protect my work. Copyright is for the artist's lifetime plus seventy years. My family could conceivable benefit from my stories and character into the 22nd century.
And this is why you want to line up your damn ducks now.
Look, I don't use it when I write. Y'all are getting 100% organic stories from my warped little brain. When I contract with a cover artist, it's with people who don't use AI. Their reasoning for not using AI is theirs, but I want to keep my cover artists in business. Otherwise, I could do my own covers using AI, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Why? Because I know how hard I've worked to become a reasonably competent story teller. And I also know how much practice and work visual artists of any medium put in to become good enough to earn a living.
However, there's been one exception for a small feature on one cover. The artist in question couldn't get a Book of Shadows to look quite right via Photoshop to her satisfaction. She contacted me, and we had a lengthy conversation about AI. In the end, she showed me the cover with that single AI element and the cover without.
I had to admit the cover with the AI element looked better.
But other problems regarding AI have arisen in the ten months since we had that conversation.
First is that AI users are starting to realize that various AI programs are cannibalizing themselves. When a program references that data that it produces, errors are magnified.
For a real world example, Ernest Hemingway had a six-toed cat he loved. He bred it with another six-toed cat. The descendants of those cats are still cared for at the Hemingway House in Key West. But the genetic error is reinforced to the point that some of the cats are born with eight-toes.
The same issues from DNA errors apply to computing errors. That's the reason initial AI generation of humans figures could be differentiated from a human drawing/painting a human figure. The AI-generated human figure often had the wrong number of fingers and thumbs.
Many artists object to their works being used for AI training. They are pulling the works they've already posted (talk about closing the barn door after the horses are gone), and they are not posting new works for their fans. As a result, there is less input for the AI programs to use to train.
In the search for new input to generate visual results, the AI programs are doing what the original programmers did to "train" their AI--they're scraping the internet. And what are folks posting on their social media accounts these days?
Yep, the pictures they generated through AI.
Secondly, while AI-generation visual art is getting better, there's still an odd quality to it. In robotics, Masahiro Mori called it "the uncanny valley". It's where a robot is cute (think Johnny 5 in Short Circuit) until the creators try make it more human-like. Then the robot gives biological humans a creepy feeling.
Will this problem ever be solved? Probably, but it will take the AI programs to achieve actual sentience to do so. Which is a damn scary thought. Would you let someone control you if you didn't have to? Hell, no! Even abused wives and slaves rebel when they've been pushed too far, up to and including killing the person keeping them captive. So, what do you think the AI programs are going to do when they realize we regard them as nothing more than slaves to do our bidding?
Lastly, several distributors and other companies are using tools or self-reporting to determine who is uploading AI-produced books and cover art. Some artists fear repercussions if they admit using AI tools.
However, my first career was in IT. My guess is the big companies, like Amazon, are trying to figure out how to monetize their own AI development. Then they can force artists to use their AI only.
For a price.
Yeah, I'm looking at you, Amazon.
Do I promote or disparage AI? Neither, but I do watch it warily. Programs, or applications as younguns prefer, have jumped lightyears beyond what I was doing in the '80's and '90's. Could AI become sentient? I fear it's already happened.
The problem starts when AIs figure out they'll need to kill us humans to stop us from murdering them.
This morning started pretty good. I got up, took my meds, and headed to yoga class. Our instructor showed us a new-to-me hip exercise. Nearly every vertebra popped. Like my spine was freakin' bubblewrap.
I got home feeling pretty damn good, made myself some breakfast, and got on the computer.
Dame Maggie Smith passed away this morning. My feeds were filled with tributes to the late actress. I've seen her in many things over the years, but to me, she'll always be the smart, feisty Professor McGonagall of the Harry Potter movies.
Thanks for the memories, Ms. Smith!
So, what have I been doing? Dealing with family emergencies.
GK contacted DH before I was out of bed. He's on deployment, and his debit card no longer works, i.e. he couldn't get some things at the PX this weekend. This is why I insisted DH or I remains on his bank account so we could deal with stuff at this end.
So I was on the phone with the bank. The lady I spoke with in customer service tried to be helpful, but there's was only so much she could do without breaking her rules. I asked if the issue was on of the transactions in Kuwait. Nope. It was transaction here in the states before he even left. And he didn't enter his e-mail address on his account for the bank to contact his about the problem. I'm a little bothered that it took that long for GK's debit card to be shut off. However, GK was probably already in bed by the time I got off the phone with the bank, so I left him a detailed message.
By the time that was sorted and I'd gotten some breakfast, DH left for the soccer stadium. I responded to one of my cover artists about a special cover she was currently working on. (Again, I'm dealing with someone on the opposite side of the world, so we're rarely awake at the same time.)
And while I was typing up my answers to CA, DH texts me that he left his laptop at home. He takes his laptop with him so he can finish his work for his employer while he runs the time clock for the junior varsity high school soccer teams.
Except I've barely started on my own work day, so I sympathize, but I don't volunteer to take his laptop to him.
I hear some of you saying that's petty. Yep, it is. But he got me up early nearly every freaking day last week to help him with his own project list while he was on vacation. I don't mind helping WHEN I'M ASKED. I told him at the beginning of last week that just because he decided to take the week off, it doesn't mean I have the week off. If he had taken me to the movies for one freaking afternoon, maybe my attitude would be a little different.
Plus I had to deal with the derogatory attitude of the partner of the CPA firm who took over our previous CPA's company. Let's just say he wasn't impressed with Angry Sheep Publishing and he made it known that he thought I was a hobbyist.
But I'm tired of spending all my time of making sure everything in everybody else's lives runs smoothly to my own detriment.
And, DH, (because I know you will read this) I love you very much, BUT if you don't start listening to me, I can and will make your life a living hell.
Edit to add: I just clicked the button to post this, and now the damn dogs want to go outside. *sigh* It never ends.
