Signal Boost: 5 Books that Give Voice to Artificial Intelligence

 

reactor_feed posted: 5 Books that Give Voice to Artificial Intelligence

 

While working on the anthology Mother of Invention, our lives and attention spans were full of knitted robots, intelligent spaceships, living computer programs and living creatures built out of sugar. Although our focus was largely on the creators of artificial intelligences and robots, several of our authors rose to the challenge of writing in the point of view of the AI itself. It’s a special challenge for writers, but so rewarding when done well.

Both of us love this theme as readers too, so here we’re sharing some of our favourites.

 

Signal Boost: How Are Fandoms Doing After Tumblr’s Adult Content Ban?

 the_mary_sue_feed

posted: How Are Fandoms Doing After Tumblr’s Adult Content Ban?

 ........Tumblr isn’t totally dead, of course. Many people have remained, but from my perspective, there’s been a noticeable slowdown in activity. I went from daily interaction to checking the site maybe once a week. When I do so, a great majority of the content on my dash seems to be meme-based and posts with hundreds of thousands of notes rather than directly fandom-centric content. It feels as though there’s a dearth of energy and drive. Anecdotes from friends and others’ experiences seem to bear this out. A Tumblr user told The Mary Sue:

many people I follow who posted regularly came back/didn’t leave after Dec 17 but like everything on my dash feels like it’s the same 25 people now, and it’s just less busy. there are way more stretches now where I can sit refreshing the top of the dash in the middle of what should be active times and get nearly no fresh posts.

We’ve also heard that some users have seen an uptick in bots following them, which, conceivably, was a problem the content ban should have addressed. And Tumblr’s tools for detecting “adult” content continue to misfire and identify perfectly innocent images; one that I saw get flagged in my own reblogs was a photo of a movie star snuggling with a puppy. Dangerous stuff there.

Fandoms comprise a sprawling ecosystem all over the world, so I know that my own perspective and opinions from others queried do not speak for what you may have witnessed. I’m curious about how people are feeling in their own corners of fandom.

 

Signal Boost: On Fandom and the "culture of selling"

fairestcat  posted: On Fandom and the "culture of selling"

 

Excerpt: "Do I worry about the increased monetization of personal spaces on the internet? Absolutely. But not for those reasons. 

I worry because I'm a Giant-Ass Socialist, and personal crowdfunding is chancy and unreliable and a sign of our massive failure as a society to value artists and creators and to protect and care for vulnerable populations.

The Patreons aren't the problem. They're just a symptom of the fucking hellhole dystopia we all now live in.

If you look at the proliferation of gofundmes and patreons and think, "ugh, why do people keep asking me for money?" and not "how can we burn late capitalism to the ground and salt the ashes?" then I think you're not seeing the big picture."

(reblog does not mean agree or endorsement)

Signal Boost: Image hosting question

 

ruuger posted: Image hosting question

 

Where do people host their icons tehse days now that Photobucket is borked?

 

Star Trek in the news: The Tennessean Sun Jun 14, 1970

Posted in full at: http://bit.ly/2CNdZCV on January 25, 2019 at 10:00AM

Star Trek in the news: The Tennessean Sun Jun 14, 1970

Tags:star trek, lost in space, fandom history, DWCrosspost

Tumblr post (this is likely a reblog, and may have more pictures over there)