The carnival ride of coffee & donuts has let me off. My flippancies about labels and contentment are, like my breakfast, not very nutritious.

Listen, @mattgemmell@mastodon.scot is very correct about this “content creation” thing. It is a matter of not becoming contemptuous of your own materials.

Suggestions for 3 attribution labels better than “content creator”

• Authorrex: authors which really author the shit out of it.

• Authorette: authors just getting started with smaller keyboards.

• Authoroni: authors like me just repackaging the ramen.

If you think we’re gonna make it, you better hang on to yourself.
— David Bowie, Hang On To Yourself from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1977.

What was that lyric from Jello Biafra again? Oh, yeah!

You ain’t the cops. It ain’t anarchy.
Nazi punks, nazi punks, nazi punks, F*CK OFF!

Imagine guitar noises too, if it helps.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Right now in fact:

• I am bored listening to millionaires talk about fairness.
• I am bored listening to wolves talk about open coops being good for chickens.
• I am bored listening to spell casters talk about the facts being the problem.

DON’T TELL ARTISTS WHAT TO DO.

I think the reason so many of us in the language business are rightly worried about fAI (fake AI, aka Language Thingies) is because they can replace us. Not you, you’re special, but all those other talentless jokers—where’s that fork, cuz they’re done.

I do take some solace in the fact that this infatuation with fAI productivity will generate an information landscape with ever increasing amounts of bullshit. This will promote EVERYONE to the role of Quality Assurance Analyst in some sense, whether they want to be one or not. And with that promotion comes all the demands of resilience to tedium and arcane expertise that the role requires. Which will be discovered to be more difficult to fake than many had assumed. And so a new value proposition comes into view: “Can you tell me if that is worth the time?” rather than “Can you write something that is worth the time?”. Essentially, an editor, rather than a writer; oh, and a relevance ninja, and a fact ax, and…

Nothing says 70’s movie like a P.E. teacher smoking, except everything else in Carrie. I forgot the opening titles are essentially soft-porn—but no surprise, considering the 70’s, even cinema, was pretty gritty. The real horror? Remove her telekinetic powers and now it’s a Dateline episode.

❡ One last thing on Carrie - thinking that telekinetic power is actually a manifestation of satan’s power is a common mistake, just read the papers! Which makes the smoking gym teacher the real culprit here in my book—perhaps apart from DePalma’s sweaty lens. ← snuck a zinger in!

Hard Left

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