Parrots in Beta Release Time Machines
Not really.
Call for Beta Readers
Still working hard on Great War of the Worlds: Shadows of the Past, but the end is clearly in sight! I’m looking at a release in May, and hope to have the preorder up before the end of this month.
Right now, I need to line up beta readers. I’ll get the book back from my editor in early February, and will be ready to send ebooks out to a small group of readers for feedback at that point.
Here’s what that will look like:
I’ll send you a Book Funnel link in February. It will have instructions on how to get the book on your Kindle, phone, PC, etc. If you’re tech-savvy, you can simply download your favorite format. If not, Book Funnel makes getting it onto your device very easy.
You read the book. (This is important.)
You send me feedback within a month. (This is very important.)
You can sign up to be a beta reader here.
Is My Kid a Stochastic Parrot?
Last week I wrote about Large Language Models (LLMs) and identity. After I published that, came across Is My Toddler a Stochastic Parrot? by Angie Wang in the New Yorker. It’s an essay mixed with sequential art that compares LLMs to children (and parrots.) It’s worth a read.
Here’s a quick quote to give you a feel for the piece:
You’re human, too. You understand love. With that in mind, surely you understand how even the most useless tiny people on this planet are ore real than any probabilistic word predictor, and how you must be, too.
Human obsolescence is not here and never can be.
The Ars Technica Time Travel Guide
Last summer I wrote about time travel and mostly about how Star Trek does it poorly.
Last week, Ars Technica published a Guide to Time Travel in The Movies. It’s a comprehensive, and fun, look at how different films handle travel through the fourth dimension.
You Don’t Own Your Media
Just over a year ago (366 days, to be exact) I wrote about software licenses and copy protection. This Tuesday, a story about digital downloads and licensing hit the wires. It shows how our the U.S. Congress has sold out its constituents better than I could ever explain or illustrate.
Here’s a message Sony sent to Playstation users:
As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.
We sincerely thank you for your continued support.
Warner Brothers, via Sony, is taking away a product that people bought in order to force them to buy it again if they want to see it.
How is this legal? It all goes back to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which was passed unanimously by the Senate in 1996 and signed by President Clinton. The law extended copyright and made it punishable by fines and jail to tamper with copy protection.
Making it illegal to break copy protection sounds perfectly reasonable, especially if you don’t understand cause and effect and how software works.
Here, they’re taking back episodes of TV shows, a nice and clear example of “Oh you thought you owned that? You only bought it. Silly user!”
But it’s the DMCA that makes it possible for Apple to not let you install the software you want on the phone or laptop you bought. It’s how Google decides your phone isn’t safe to use after three years because they don’t want to release security patches. It’s how Tesla taught the automotive industry to not let you sell your car with all the options you paid for.
The law makes it illegal for you, or anyone else, to address these issues. You gave someone money for a thing, but you’re not allowed to use it the way you want to. It’s capitalism, but without that pesky private property bit.
See you next week!
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Eric Goebelbecker
Trick of the Tale LLC
25 Veterans Plaza #5276
Bergenfield, NJ 07621-9998