Katherine Argent

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

This. This is what humanity is up against: people behind the programs who think everything in life should be the way they want it. It’s all programmable, right? Tailor that show to your preferences: delete the scenes you don’t like. But why stop there? Delete the ugly people. The old ones. Delete the races you despise, the genders. It doesn’t matter if the story no longer makes sense, though I’m sure you’ll complain about that and insist AI should rewrite what’s left so it does. But why stop there? Do it with books. Delete the words you don’t understand. The characters that confront you with yourself. The plot lines that challenge your beliefs. Why not, they’re doing that in libraries. This is more efficient. But why stop there? Delete the people who don’t think like you. The people with interests other than yours. The people with opposing political beliefs, with religious views unlike yours, with jobs you don’t understand. The people who make art and music and poetry and literature because they enjoy it. The people with illnesses, physical or mental. The people with disabilities. There’s something familiar about that, isn’t there? There’s a name for that, isn’t there? That’s where you’re going. That’s where this line of thought leads. There are no other destinations, it all winds up at the same place. Look in the mirror. See what you are. We do.

@brecht_dp This is every story I have in Submittable right now. Plus, “Please send us your future work.” Like, why?

@DemocritusSr I’m still waiting for them to clean.

@effthealgorithm One ought to give the elves a chance.

Today I discovered, much to my great surprise and disappointment, that book’s not going to write itself.

@BrigidPasulka So, It’s an ongoing problem? Nuts.

@effthealgorithm Last summer I gave a craft talk titled exactly that.

@DemocritusSr Understandable. Perhaps I should nap instead.

@effthealgorithm You worry me with this sort of talk.

@QuintonLucasKC Tie the extension to tripled fines for over-serving during the extended hours and have owners apply, rather than make it automatic.

Had some great chats with the bar industry over the weekend. Currently, studying efforts in other communities as well, as the 5AM timeframe applies to every city, town, and hamlet in Missouri. Warrensburg, which is currently at Council, adds notice requirement to Chief of PD.

If you have to pay an annual subscription fee AND they insist you use AI as part of the service, you're financially supporting and training your replacement. #microsoftsucks

@brecht_dp I'm glad it's "just" rib fractures. Was suggesting the other exams because frequent falls are often due to inner ear issues or sometimes something going on in the brain. The faster either get diagnosed, the better.

@effthealgorithm Just rib fractures...

I honestly don't know what's going on with my life lately. Today, I fell again, with my motorbike this time. Back in A&E to get it checked out...

Are you seeing Community Notes like this one warning about AI images and encouraging you to zoom in to see the telltale signs? Sounds great, until you remember that every second you’re online is measured for how it can be turned into profit. Spending time lingering on images or zooming in like this note advises is interpreted by the algorithm as interest. In other words, these “helpful” notes (which are anonymous) lead to more AI images in your feed, which leads to more “AI artists” churning out slop to cash in and more misinformation “proven” with AI slop photos. Then the tech bros look at the increased time and output surrounding the images and say “See, people like AI.” It’s one long grift, all the way down. Solution: You see an unfamiliar account circulating AI images? Block it. Someone you know does it? Educate them and if they keep at it, mute them. Starve the beast.

@effthealgorithm Adverts, adverts everywhere, nor but a coin to spend. So many ads shown to us for so many products, while meanwhile our personal spending power has collectively plummeted outside of a small concentration of wealthy ppl.

@xlorentzen @cwik_greg The book was fantastic.

@cwik_greg Nobody really loves it, maybe they liked the miniseries. Also, you have good taste on your own (TV stuff excepted), and you should stop worrying about other people's.

Why does everyone love Lonesome Dove

Eggs Benedict in bed and a new book, because what I really want for Mother’s Day would result in a visit from the Secret Service.

Another good reason to shop local bookstores or buy used (besides not supporting Bezos): print on demand books are horrible. The text quality is poor; they’ve shrunk the margin while the rest of the formatting isn’t uniform; and the paper itself is shite. But hey, you’ll pay more than ever now so there’s that.

@brecht_dp Forward-thinking. I like it! 👍🏽

@effthealgorithm A signed copy of my book IF it ever gets published (and which in any case won't be until 10 years from now 😜)

UPDATE: I did waste some time, but I also wrote 330 words, so I will call it a success.

@StanchionZine How about a sieve with a brain in it dripping onto a page of text?

I need to design a cover for Issue 23 and I have zero ideas. My mind is a sieve.