Michel2Bec

Recent Actions

• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  "There is a manga and now a new anime series 'Delicious in Dungeon' " : if there is a country that obsesses more about food than France, it's Japan. Always fun to find 2 pages of recipes in the middle...
• Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
  "Used to be that "seeing is believing" (aka "Pics or it didn't happen ..."). But now what? Is it?" Trust in someone physically present on scene ? (who has control of recorders) Basically you cannot avoid trusting someone. ( see...
• Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
  "and have a dumb question: at what point does an algorithm become an AI?" At this point "AI" has become a marketing jargon token. As content-less as web site "content" designed to support adds. It is the new "KPI" for...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  "Yes, but this is your regular reminder that a successful pregnancy is merely the first nine months of the 25 year long labour-intensive process of producing a hopefully-autonomous new human being." A variant is : a 25 to 80 years...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  "You're a parking meter vendor. Which is these solutions is cheapest and most foolproof for you?" Well, in France, all parking meters are credit card / contactless (both card and phone) / resident card. Parking meters accepting cash are a...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  "You want a blind spot for stories? There's one. Writing about people solving problems. " Ever read Zodiac, by Neal Stephenson ?...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  warning : looks like you got hackernewed, and given the tone deafness of the few comments on zombies slave revolt I saw, you may have some moderation headache coming....
• Commented on Summer webcomics
  "Stand Still, Stay Silent is a lovely webcomic set in a post-apocalyptic world. Sadly the promised second expedition to the Silent World won't be happening, as the author converted to Christianity. https://sssscomic.com " I'm not quite sure of your meaning...
• Commented on Summer webcomics
  "KSBD is interesting, apart from its innate brilliance, as a contrast between prose and graphic stories" : I have downloaded all the images, and I am trying to download the relevant attached texts, with the idea of trying to do...
• Commented on Announcement: 2nd edition Laundry Files RPG is coming
  In a perfect RPG, you should only (or mostly) get XP (or levels in any skill) from training, which you would only get from increasingly hard to find (that could even be a quest in itself) and hard to pay...
• Commented on Pass or Fail
  "OK, which is easier, male authors writing female characters or female authors writing male characters? Who is more accurate? Do women do a better job of representing men than the other way around?" "(No, I'm not baffled. Most men carefully...
• Commented on Finding true love in the cosmos
  "(Remember whose blog this is! I can't look at an SFnal question without dissecting it and tackling it seriously. And Doctor Who -- like Star Trek -- is basically an anything-goes fantasy that's all about the feels.)" I cannot thank...
• Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
  "Official warning letters have been sent to anti-monarchists planning peaceful protests at King Charles III’s coronation saying that new criminal offences to prevent disruption have been rushed into law." Did you get yours ? You could frame it over your...
• Commented on Place your bets
  "While I agree with you on the hype train, I think there is also something swelling underneath." Yes and no. As Bret Devereaux said in his blog ( https://acoup.blog/2023/02/17/collections-on-chatgpt/ ), we (humans) are very very good at Anthropomorphism. Think for...
• Commented on Place your bets
  "*His rationale was that while he was at university the only department that actually cared about students was parking enforcement." You made my day here. Thanks for the laugh....
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  "Also to be fair to MBS, as the documentary shows, the agricultural barons of the lower Colorado River are every bit as resistant to reality as the House of Saud is. It'd be nice if there was some antidote to...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  To come back to the original subject, Bret Devereaux just put out an essay on ChatGPT : https://acoup.blog/2023/02/17/collections-on-chatgpt/ He is, as current technology stands, not very worried (except for the level of garbage generated by content mills)....
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  "They do care though, they care deeply." Do I sense a whiff of sarcasm ? This blog is fast becoming a congregation of bitter old men (which I am becoming at the same rate - coincidence)....
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  "Joe Haldeman, 'The Long Habit of Living'." I know it as "Buying Time" and there is an excellent french comics version by Marvano, titled "Dallas Barr" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Barr https://www.bd-tek.com/Serie-5742-dallas-barr.html...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  One question to ask, is how much does it costs to maintain the model current ? A model is static, it needs to be updated to stay current on expressions, buzzwords, current news, new slang. How much does this costs...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  "on the basis that what it is demanding is impossible. " Based on my experience of (French) politicians, this is not an obstacle for the law to be voted....
• Commented on WTF
  "However, from my cursory reading, immiserating peasants and enslaving outsiders seem to be the foundational sins of what some call the "primary states" from which human civilizations grew. - yes, well, refer back to Hobbes? " It goes well beyond...
• Commented on Decision Fatigue
  "Congratulations: you just blocked politicians from publishing books, whether they be grossly overpriced autobiographies, works of history, or novels. Really, figuring out where corruption enters the political process is a wicked problem (if only because if you ban one back-channel...
• Commented on Strong and Stable!
  One can wonder, if "History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce", what would the government of Clown-shoes Churchill II be ?...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  "Michel2Bec: I unpublished your comment because there's a new topic for that." too bad, but I certainly get the reason, this will be a 2000+ comments subject. Is there any way for me to recover the text ? (probably not,...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  "Programing Languages - There is no "best language" for all functions." : YES! Generally complexity cannot be removed, it can only be moved around to a place where it is less annoying (with the exception of libraries, if the "angle/opinion"...
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  I have trouble believing it, with the curent composition of the supreme court....
• Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
  "Other anti-vaxxers are like those who voted for le Pen throughout the French Caribbean" This is the reason I think we are doomed. These islands are between 95% and 99% black (with, because they are island, a lot of people...
• Commented on Quantum of Nightmares: spoiler time!
  A highly entertaining book. I have been raised, some 45+ years ago, in 3rd world countries (as a very privilieged child of expats). I have no doubt that our past smelled like shit. And that women took more than their...
• Commented on Quantum of Nightmares: spoiler time!
  "who has tumbled into 1816, and is totally at sea in Regency polite society ..." seeing this and your tweet about splinters in toilet paper, I just happened to finish a book yesterday : "Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to...