Toots for afeinman@wandering.shop account

Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-02-04 at 03:15

Two close acquaintances down with COVID this week.

(I haven't been physically near them and am unlikely to get infected that way.)

Watch yourselves out there, folx! Masks are socially awkward but so is dying or having to permanently ask for help because you're now disabled.

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-28 at 13:42

Just assume I have this stuck in my head for the next few years, k?

(Woody Guthrie's 1948 song "Deportees", here sung by his son Arlo around 2000. Maybe we can get Arlo's daughter Sarah Lee, also a prodigious musician, to cover it for the modern age.)

https://youtu.be/gtigp6DA314

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-26 at 11:06

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 26 Jan: If people tell you they've always wanted to write, what do you say to them?

1. Start small! Everyone wants to write that novel but novels are made of chapters made of scenes. Write a complete scene.

2. Finish a thing, then revise it.

3. Expect the first few things to suck. This is good and normal. The goal is for the tenth thing to be worth reading.

4. Don't expect fame or fortune.

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-25 at 15:10

[#]WritersCoffeeClub Jan 25 do you have a worked-out magical system? Or do you make it to as you go?

Like technology, it gets made up as you go.

(Less snarky: depends on the book. Some of my magic is carefully planned out. Some is "what makes the plot go".

And then there's We Were Gods, where the in-game magic is all me attempting to illustrate security holes and bugs in software.)

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-22 at 00:42

[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 21: What differences do you find in your process if you write both short and long-form?

"I apologize, as I did not have time to write you a shorter novel." - Mark Twain, almost.

Shorter = less places to hide. You've got to be awesome for the whole story, more or less.

The degenerate case of this is the poem, where every word is very carefully considered both alone and in context.

My novel-writing brain aims for 110-130k words, due to repeated exposure.

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-22 at 00:38

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 20 Jan: Do any of your stories take place on the sea? In what way?

So far, no. Other than "the sea of stars", but that's a bit of a stretch.

The finale of We Were Gods happens on a ship, but it's sailing slowing around in Boston harbor, so not really "at sea".

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-17 at 12:31

"Those who would give up security for a little convenience deserve both security and convenience. Come on, people, let's make it easier to be secure, not shame people for not having the energy or desire to be paranoid all the time." - Clem Samuels

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-17 at 11:45

By rights I should be heading to Arisia to cuddle my cool nerd friends and whatnot but this STUPID pandemic.

So cranky.

(Going masked is both Not Arisia and also not a low enough risk for me. Attending remotely is absolutely not what I want; one goal is to get away from work's endless video calls!)

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-16 at 16:49

Every breath you take

I'll be watching you

-- your CPAP, unironically.

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-03 at 14:02

Apple agrees to pay just over two hours of revenue because Siri kept on recording you.

Individuals will see approximately nothing from this; the quoted $20 is meaningless as the award pool is too small for even a thousandth of consumers to get a full payout for one device, never mind folks with many. I expect actual payouts to be under $5 and probably under $2.

[#]FixTheNews

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/apple-agrees-to-pay-95m-delete-private-conversations-siri-recorded/

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2025-01-02 at 11:59

Treating my N95 like a wingman: "Cover me! I'm going in!"

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-30 at 19:51

tired: "highly performant"

wired: "fast"

tired: "actionalize"

wired: "do"

tired: "immanentize the apocalypse"

wired: "don't"

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-28 at 00:55

"After you publish a book, there is a reckoning. All of the emotions you suppressed and fought with writing alone suddenly rush in and crush you. If your book doesn’t sell, you feel sick. If it sells a ton, you’re also in for a scary ride. When your goal is to make art, to give a big piece of yourself to the world, to tell the truth, and—crucially—to FACE THE TRUTH, then your goal is also to feel like a complete fucking idiot, [...]”

https://www.ask-polly.com/p/i-published-a-novel-and-no-one-cares

[#]amWriting #amDoubtingMyself

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-25 at 18:24

I feel a certain savage justice whenever my next word is not predicted by my phone keyboard.

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-23 at 16:55

Things don't have to be perfect to be enjoyable.

People don't have to be perfect to be employable.

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-15 at 14:52

I tire of socially-acceptable, performative anger.

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-08 at 12:20

It's a sort of brittle arrogance to think you can "always spot it" when it comes to #generativeAI crap or fake profiles or disinformation or plain old scams.

You're going to get fooled, sooner or later. Chances are you got fooled already, maybe even this week. And they're just getting more sophisticated and plausible.

What's the solution, Unca Alex? I don't have an easy one. Detectors don't. Adversaries are clever. Allowlists are useful but scale poorly (see also web-of-trust).

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-06 at 16:03

Also not out of place in Night City.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/spray-on-e-tattoos-are-easily-attached-for-making-brain-scans-replacing-outdated-eegs/

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-03 at 12:45

[#]WritersCoffeeClub 3 Dec: Do you agree with Tolstoy, who said, "The best stories come not from the conflict between good and evil, but from the conflict between good and good."

There are great stories everywhere.

A lot of great stories come from conflict between parties that are all convinced they're the "good guys".

I just rewatched Civil War and Stark's summary for Peter of Cap's mindset is spot on: "You're wrong, but you think you're right, and that makes you dangerous."

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Written by Alex Feinman on 2024-12-01 at 13:29

[#]WritersCoffeeClub (2/2)

This was also the reading where an audience member came up and said, in a shaky but firm voice, "I would like to give you money for your book. How can I buy it?"

I had to turn her down because I hadn't written the rest of it yet. Alas. And I wasn't clever enough to get her email address for, y'know, next year when it'll come out.

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