Jenn's been playing Cult of the Lamb

Oct. 29th, 2025 03:29 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
and omg those cultists are so needy. They can't feed themselves, so you're constantly trying to keep them in berries and fish, and they complain about everything!

"There's no place to poop, build an outhouse!" (You're an animal, poop on the ground!)

"I want to eat a poop sandwich!" (Uh, okay, but why do I have to make it!?)

"Oh, that grass gruel made me sick!" (Get back to work!)

"I'm sick of your lies!" (Welp, time to perform another human sapient sacrifice of a, uh, willing victim!)

Seriously, who's running this cult, you or them?

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conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.


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Link

It's that awful time of month again.

Oct. 27th, 2025 12:10 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Boo.

(Wait, and also nearly Halloween! Boo!)

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conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Since I belong to a little bitty credit union, my branch is closed tomorrow and I have to go into the city to get a replacement and, while I'm there, have them fix my name - if they remove my middle initial from my card, my last name will fit properly, easy-peasy. Or I can wait until Monday, since I'm certain I lost it in the house, but it turns out there's another protest tomorrow so I may as well go in.

Anyway, speaking of protests and politics and food banks, [personal profile] petra is offering up fanworks:

If you donate at least $25 in cash or in-kind to a food bank at any point between now and the end of the Trump Administration, and you either share a fandom of mine and want a drabble or fannish poetry, or you want original poetry, drop me a comment, and I will write for you.

So, there you go, that's a win-win for everybody.

Edit: Well! As you might expect, as soon as I posted I happened to roll my chair over my card! It's fine, chair and card are both fine. I still need to make them fix my name, but it can wait.
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
This is the last mending they'll take, and I'm not sure how long it'll hold. I've ordered a new pair, and on the one hand I know $100 is cheap - especially for my prescription! - but on the other hand, I didn't want to spend it. And I didn't exactly love my choice of frames, either, but they were inexpensive and fit my pupil distance, so I'll live with them.

(Though, looking on the website, it seems glow in the dark frames are an option!? I would never, sounds like a real visual annoyance, but man, so much respect for anybody who goes in that direction!)

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conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
and since we have a ton of computer mice (mouses?) already I just swapped it out. But I still was bugged by the ton of crud that I know was embedded in my old mouse, so before I tossed it I took it apart to clean the scrollwheel.

So much cat hair, much of it felted, and I'm honestly surprised the scrollwheel was functioning at all. But it was so cheaply made that putting it back together would've been a hassle and a half, so I'm glad I had the sense to just replace it rather than depending on my own repair skills!

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conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Smart beds flipped out during the AWS outage, and so did their sleepy owners

1. Why does a bed need to be smart?
2. Why does everything have to be a subscription nowadays?
3. Why didn't they design the damn things to just be normal beds if cut off from the internet?

Seriously, you couldn't have written this 30 years ago, nobody would ever have accepted the premise! I'd say something about fools and their money, but....

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E is 20 and one day now!

Oct. 21st, 2025 10:24 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
It's wrong and bad and wrong and I don't like it. She was little just yesterday! Now she is not little, and her sibling is even less little, and I just don't understand how that happened.

Happy birthday to her, I guess.
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
told me that one of them, the friendliest, died today. Poor baby. The person who was supposed to trap them hasn't been in touch, apparently, so I'll talk to some people.

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Dear book character:

Oct. 19th, 2025 01:11 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
You apparently are flabbergasted that two of your students have asked you not to call CPS on one of them. "I would never do that! Why is that your first thought!"

Well, maybe it's their first thought because you have a moral and legal responsibility to inform the authorities if you know that children are being as badly neglected as your nephew and his sisters are? I mean, if you wanted to solve this without getting a social worker involved, you had four years in which to do that.

I'm just saying, that might be why both of them thought you'd do that. Because that was what you were supposed to do, and shame on you for instead choosing to do nothing for so long. You are not the hero of this story, no matter what the author seems to think.

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Roundup

Oct. 21st, 2025 05:36 pm
tropicsbear: (Patterns: Floral warm)
[personal profile] tropicsbear

🌶️ I've started appreciating vegetable-based dishes as I get older, which the parents find endlessly amusing. Tangentially related to this, I randomly remembered the giant container of homemade laing Mom's friend sent over a while back. I usually avoid spicy food but this was so good. If you're interested in a spicy veg dish, here's a recipe. (Grain of salt: I can't vouch for how good the recipe itself is, as a non-cook.)

📚 I've started a re-read of Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer before jumping into the sequel books which I still haven't read but now finally own. Still very engaging! I wonder what details I'll pick up during this second read.

✒️ Settled on which Saiyuki WIP I want to try and finish before the end of the year. I started out planning it to be mostly from Goku's POV but realized halfway down the first page that it'd be funnier from the POV of the rest of the group. I'm just winging it, as usual, so I've got no idea how long this is going to be, if the lighthearted vibe is going to stay throughout, etc. 😆 We'll see where I end up when I get there.

I have a bajillion tabs open....

Oct. 18th, 2025 12:50 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
and they're pretty much all fanfic right now? I've clearly been falling behind.

(Don't ask how long this has been the situation, just do not ask.)

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Cassandra by Louise Bogan

Oct. 17th, 2025 08:29 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
To me, one silly task is like another.
I bare the shambling tricks of lust and pride.
This flesh will never give a child its mother,
Song, like a wing, tears through my breast, my side,
And madness chooses out my voice again,
Again. I am the chosen no hand saves:
The shrieking heaven lifted over men,
Not the dumb earth, wherein they set their graves.


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Link
erinptah: (pyramid)
[personal profile] erinptah

Back in August 2024, Tyler James on ComixLaunch did a podcast episode about a rash of spam AI projects on Kickstarter. Campaigns with almost-identical templates, and an eerie lack of substance, where all the images look like Midjourney and all the text sounds like ChatGPT.

You can see him browsing them on-screen in the Youtube version. They don’t show up in Kickstarter’s own search results anymore, but I tracked down at least half of them.

(Here’s one of the project images. Fun game: guess which spam project title it goes with.)

Project image with text The Mountum Metropolils: A Fabtilch Vivibitie

These have almost exactly the same story sections, in the same order. (The last one screwed up their copy-pasting — they have the same headings in the text, they just pasted it all into a single section.) None of them have any actual comic pages, just 4-6 standalone illustrations, and most of them are clearly “six different responses Stable Diffusion/Midjourney came up with for the same prompt.”

Hilariously, “The Forgotten Realm” actually left a prompt in their campaign text: “An illustration featuring the archaeologist at the entrance to the hidden realm, surrounded by mythical creatures and ancient ruins, with a dark shadow looming in the background.”

They don’t even come up with their own image prompts! It’s just another point on the list of Things They Ask ChatGPT For!

Bot-generated image for that prompt

Tyler admits in the episode that he’s baffled about the point of the spam campaigns. Most of them have five-figure funding goals. If the idea is to swindle backers out of money, you have to make a campaign that can realistically get funded! Otherwise you’ll never get the money in the first place.

(Note, when I looked at the ones that are set to $5K — that’s The Enchanted Artifacts and Quantum Detective — I realized, the “Fundraising Goal” story section has a five-figure goal written. Whoever posted them, they changed the goal in one place, and didn’t proofread the rest.)

Here’s what I think he’s missing:

The goal is to swindle creators.

Somebody wants to do the crowdfunding equivalent of the “publishing startup” Spines. They want to post ads that say “Do you have a great comic idea that you want to sell on Kickstarter, but don’t know where to start? Hire ScamFunderCo! For just $4,000, we will use the power of AI to make the whole campaign for you!” They don’t actually care whether the project succeeds or not. All their profit comes from would-be creators, up front, a few grand at a time.

I’m guessing ScamFunderCo never got that far, because if ads like this were going around, the online comics community would definitely have been talking about it. Which suggests the spam campaigns were a proof-of-concept thing. ScamFunderCo was testing the waters, finding out if Kickstarter would clock them as spam upfront, or if their ChatGPT templates could get approved.

That explains the unreasonable funding goals, too. ScamFunderCo doesn’t actually want these to fund. That would obligate them to produce something! They just want a track record of “see, here’s our proof that we make real KS campaigns.”

A track record with a 100% failure rate won’t necessarily hurt them, either. For comparison, multi-level marketing companies are legally required to share income disclosure statements, which show 99% of their members lose money — then they go “but if you just work really hard, you could totally be one of the 1%! Aren’t you willing to work hard? Don’t you believe in yourself?” And some people still get conned into signing up.

ScamFunderCo could get awfully far by claiming “if your idea is better than these, your campaign could totally fund. Don’t you believe in your idea? Good, now hand over that $4K.”

In the ComixLaunch episode, Tyler reveals that he reported the spam projects he saw, and according to later episodes, he got encouraging responses. First, the campaigns were still up, but they started adding “AI usage disclosures”…which were clearly still fraudulent, and also ChatGPT-produced. (The Time Traveler’s Diary has an example.) Eventually, all of them got suspended by Kickstarter.

So I’m feeling hopeful about ScamFunderCo never getting off the ground.

“Here are the projects we’ve made, 100% of them flopped” could be explained to potential marks as Those Creators Just Weren’t Good Enough, You’re Different, You’re Special. “Here are the projects we’ve made, 100% of them got booted off the platform” is a lot harder to handwave.

Even if the scammers behind that first round of projects have given up, I’m sure new enterprising con artists will keep trying. I’m sure it’s taking some extra behind-the-scenes filtering effort from the staff at Kickstarter (and BackerKit, which has been more restrictive about bot-generated content from the start) to keep them at bay.

I appreciate the effort, and I hope they keep it up.

(I stand with Kickstarter United.)


tropicsbear: A mural of a giant sandworm (Dune: Sandworm)
[personal profile] tropicsbear

⚠️ Mild spoilers

The Fantastic 4: First Steps (7/10)

I saw the 2005 and 2007 Fantastic 4 movies in theaters when they first came out but wasn't particularly interested in seeing the 2015 remake when it was released. Wasn't particularly interested in seeing this one either, though I also wasn't against seeing it with the family when someone floated the idea.

I found this much more interesting than the early 2000s versions, mostly because of the retro-futuristic aesthetic. (Though to be fair, I don't really remember much about the earlier versions.) I hadn't seen any trailers beforehand so it took me a moment to process what I was seeing. Very cool! The sisters and I were also all so enamored with Sue's maternity uniform. So, so cute!!

Two things I felt strongly about in this movie:

Cut for mild spoilers. )

Random stuff:

  • I was hoping for more Ben/Rachel. I thought they were very cute!
  • Very much enjoyed the banter between Ben and Johnny.
  • Cackled that Sue would rather have a dude with literal rocks for skin catch her delicate newborn baby rather than her own brother. Is that supposed to imply that Johnny's super clumsy?
  • No strong feelings about Johnny/Shalla-Bal but wouldn't be opposed to seeing their relationship explored in a sequel (if we get one).
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
For one reason and one reason only, which is to criticize their set design.

We're supposed to believe that the protagonist of the series is a recently sober waitress, single mom. One kid's dad is nonexistent, the other is there but he certainly doesn't pay any child support. Her own family is definitely not helping out - indeed, she has to help her mother, who is also recently sober!

Dialog establishes that her nonsober life was pretty chaotic - evictions, jail time, the works.

And their house is fucking amazing. Three bedrooms for a mom and two kids, which to my NYC eyes is astonishing, and everything matches. None of the furniture has cigarette burns or scratches or crayon marks, nothing is missing a drawer pull or, indeed, a drawer, all their windows have curtains - matching curtains, even! - and all their lights have lampshades, none of their comforters are frayed around the edges, there's no food or drink stains, the doors all close properly....

You know, it occurs to me that I may be revealing a bit more about my own childhood home than perhaps I want to, so I guess I'll stop here. But seriously, set and costume design have some questions to answer, because they really didn't think any of this through. I can see such a tidy house from a waitress who is diligent about estate sales and thrifting - though probably none of it would match, it would be eclectic in a classy way. Or I can see nice furnishings from an alcoholic with a bigger income who was managing to keep a fingerhold on being functional in a way that this family clearly wasn't before the show. But c'mon!

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Another beautiful day!

Oct. 15th, 2025 10:51 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
And no headache, which is great - I've been super headachy these past few weeks.

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conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
but I'm not sure I like pink any better.

Maybe they could've eased us into it gradually, with purples?

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conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
I fall very in the middle - I enjoyed it, probably won't read it again.

But - am I supposed to feel most sympathetic towards the Read more... )
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