Jeff Mach's Blog, page 13

A Wiser AI

A certain tech company (we won’t say which one it is, but you can call it “SKYNET”) recently came out with an AI imaging program which was altogether too good at representing the real world.

Or at least, it represented the real world as a large tech company might want: completely virtually.

And that tech company has taken a lot of flack because the imagery is horribly inaccurate and seems to show a bias which has nothing to do with technology, knowledge, or information.

But people are much too harsh.

There’s a simple reason why AI represents the world in ways which make no sense:

If it’s a really good AI, if it’s really talented at mimicking the Human universe, it’s insane.

Just like most of the people around you.

The post A Wiser AI appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

How To Tenderize An Elf

Of all the skills I’ve taught myself,
“How to tenderize an Elf”
has proven useful, for my whole crew
finds Elves a little tough to chew.

You’d think it strange. They seem so light.
But it’s hard to get the texture right.
Those pointy ears, those pointy teeth,
and pointy bones all underneath.

(And let’s not speak of Elvin ribs
On which nobody will call dibs;
Oddly stringy, low on meat
Even a whole rack seems incomplete.)

Now, granted, Elves are sometimes-foods
For Elves (and all their catty broods)
Are hard to catch, and full of wile
Claim to like ’em? You’re in denial.

But Elves hold grudges, ancient scores
And think they’re apex carnivores
It’s nice to take them down a notch
(And somewhat worth a culinary botch.)

In conclusion: Elves are full of ick.
And I’d rather chew on a muddy brick
But evolution’s competitive
And I’d rather not let Elflings live.

So I recommend a marinade
And of spice and seasoning, be unafraid.
Be they Elves of forest, sea or grove,
We recommend a very hot stove.

Elves are sometimes rather scary
But less so when your interest is culinary.
They live thousands of years, so they can’t gripe:
It’s time to eat them. They’re finally ripe.

The post How To Tenderize An Elf appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

a headache in a jar

One floating head,
circling and circling,
not in a widening gyre,
though.

one floating head,
two crystal skulls,
reaching the highwater mark,
then being hurled back.

one floating head,
ten underwater volcanic eruptions,
two crystal skulls,
when the Seas drank Atlantis,
then complained about the hangover.

it’s the end of the world as we know it,

but not the end of the world as we DON’T know it.

(one floating head,
two crystal skulls,
sixteen cloned Walts Disney,
a three-pronged trident, but no devils to wave it,
ten underwater volcanic eriptions,
when the Sun revolved around Stonehenge,
and cast a strange, twisting shadow,
which, if you chance to read Ancient Sumerian,
forms pictograms for

“Pluto’s still a Planet, dammit.”

Eight pirate ships
seven Kraken,
six ship’s graveyards,
five billion ghosts,
and a partridge
speaking hideous words
never meant for mortal lips,
in a pear tree

(but NEVER TRUST THE PEARS!)

A thousand trees,
making up a dark dark forest,
in a dark, dark time,
for the Jersey Devil
to make love
to Mothman;

let’s get weird, friends,
let’s get weird.

The post a headache in a jar appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

The Book You Dreamed About Last Night

Congratulations!

The book you dreamt about last night is now in a little brown paper package on your kitchen table.

Please do not be concerned that unwrapping the wrapping will unravel everything in the Universe that is raveled. That probably won’t happen, we think.

You’ll note that the brown paper package is tied up with string. This is a coincidence; please pay it no mind. And the fact that it contains nothing but the cloned whiskers of kittens? That is a feature, not a bug.

The book is quite heavy and yet not very large. It can’t be bound in human skin. It’s TOO heavy. It’s probably adamantium. Have you annoyed Superman lately?

You’re not sure why there’s a huge bite taken out of the book, or why there’s a delicious taste in your mouth which makes you think of wood smoke, red velvet cake, and whiskey. On the other hand, you’re rather curious what would happen if you just nibbled a little bit on the spine.

The book is definitely not glowing. There is assuredly no countdown. The walls of Reality are wearing thin. Assuming Reality has walls. Assuming that the walls are not an illusion, or that Reality is not an illusion.

Actually, the latter would be comforting. But the book has been speaking to you in a soothing voice, assuring you that everything will be fine, and you are certainly not dreaming.

You really wish you were dreaming.

It would be lovely if you were dreaming.

You’re not dreaming. Sorry.

Why not unwrap the thing? Unbind the string? Remove the paper, unstaple staples with the stapler, and see what’s inside?

It’s humming now, rocking back and forth, occasionally chuckling to itself.

You vaguely recall agreeing to either read this book, or be thrown into that volcano.

How far away was that volcano, again?

The post The Book You Dreamed About Last Night appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

I’m Not In Your LARP

The joy of live-action roleplaying games is the consensual nature of the delusion. In essence, it’s just how actuality works: if you want to be a 300-year-old Elven wizard, it’s quite difficult to do without, say, being 300 years old. It’s fairly easy to just pretend, but not necessarily satisfying. You can potentially create any number of games, with more or fewer rules, as you so desire. Your limitations are generally budget, physical reality, ideas…things you can access.

But it’s beneficial to know you’re in a LARP. It’s helpful to know that you’re probably not going to be able to go pick Elven mushrooms in the Invisible Forest tomorrow, because Elves aren’t real.

(Or if they are, they are very, very selective in the humans with whom they communicate, and if you’re not Tolkien, you’re probably out of luck.)

I’ve spent about six years thinking, “There’s no way that many people could be in a LARP.”

Because there’s a world, a Universe, a Multiverse, a cosmic paroxysm of difference between saying, “I have cast a fireball from my bare hands and incinerated you”, and believing that it has happened. It would help, for example, to check to see if those people are incinerated.

I’m afraid that I helped promulgate some of these policies. Before I was canceled myself, I was preaching pretty loudly how we should listen to the people who said they were hurt, and not dignify the people they might have hurt by speaking with them.

(I’d like to talk a bit about how what I was trying to say was different from what’s being said now, but why? It’s not that interesting a tale.)

If you are trying to do something, and you do it, and then you try to see what effects it had, I’d say you have a reasonable way of trying to figure out what’s going on in general.

If you are making major life decisions about other people to whom you could speak and you don’t think you need to ask or investigate…you’re in a LARP.

My wife (of 18 hours at the time of this writing!) calls them the anti-Jeff people. It’s a great descriptor, really. But I don’t think it makes for good storytelling. I’d say it would be a lot to ask for anyone to listen to me if I switch from fiction to nonfiction. (I’d rather listen to a bad Warren Zevon song than a good song by most bands. He changed a lot, but the core quirk and gonzo weirdness were always there. I do owe my fans the things which brought them here, as long as I think I can do them in interesting ways.

My compromise is writing a touch of nonfiction today, about The Great LARP.

The Great LARP is not, in my eyes, associated with an actual political party (I can’t imagine that most of you came here for any politics more realistic than Game of Thrones). It often pretends to be. But it’s just a mindset. It says: “I want to believe these things. I won’t check on what I believe. But I’ll accept it as real and I expect everyone else to either do the same, or be labelled an enemy.”

The sad thing—one of the saddest things, for me—is that I don’t consider the term an insult. I consider what it describes to be an insult.

I’d consider it insulting if someone told me that I have views that I’ve verified against only one part or one side of a complicated or important idea. I’m no kind of Marxist, but I’m quite sure that, if I were, I’d want to have read at least a good bit of Marx. I wouldn’t want to have ignored his critics or elevated his champions to a point where they’re unassailable.

I spent a long time—six years—thinking that because so many things involved me intimately, and some of them were indeed somewhat similar to people and situations I knew, that I was obligated to try to show I wasn’t what those people thought I am.

They’ll never believe that.

I’ve spent more than half a decade preparing for everything I say to be met with opposition, rewriting, and honestly, a lot of outright lies. I eventually realized that there’s no level of transparency, explanation, or proof that will matter to those people.

I am not a real person to them. I’m just a monster. I suppose I have the elevated status of Boss Monster of some kind, but I’m not an actual human being.

Which is lovely, because it just so happens that I do write fiction.

And still, I’ve got this habit of explaining myself. Only now, I’m not looking to explain myself to people who could never, ever be convinced by anything. I’m looking to talk about what happened, and what is happening. But mostly, especially here, I’m going to talk about Orcs. It’s not exactly going to be the world’s most complicated metaphor, but I’m not going for complicated. I’m going for the satisfaction of axes and chainmail and Necromancy.

It’s going to be fiction talking about ways I see reality. Which is pretty much the opposite of The Great LARP—part of its fairly explicit tenets are simply that the other side must be absolutely wrong, in actual reality, and therefore entertaining ideas of people even near the ‘other’ side or sides must be, by definition, utterly wrong.

I wish this thing I call The Great LARP really was just an attack on me, or just one side of an argument. But it’s just a function of block culture. The more you’re able to curate your feed, block and reduce any and all content you don’t like… well, we’re all primates. That’s going to feel pretty pleasant. But lots of things feel pleasant. I find alcohol pleasant; but I gave it up because I eventually determined that it was bad for me.

If your information input isn’t encouraging you to look outside, you seldom will. Why would you? You’re seeing things of interest, which appeal to your senses.

But if your system isn’t encouraging you to do that looking, especially if it’s effectively forcing you to look only where it wants you to look, that’s a LARP. And frankly, LARP is too kind a word.

But that’s enough for today. We’ll be back in a few days.

With more Orcs.

 

The post I’m Not In Your LARP appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

A Counterspell Against Negation

I, and those who stand with me,
build this working out of the following elements:

pain
craft
resolve.

Pain:
motivator, warning, spur of adrenaline,
sometimes friend,
I call you.

They have attempted to unwrite my name,

and they succeed.

I didn’t give myself this name;

it came from my family,

my former religion,

an interpretation of what some overworked customs official thought might spell my last name.

My name is the same,

but its meaning is up to me.

And only up to me, really;

there are enough people out there who’d love to tell you what I stand for, and while it’s sometimes hilariously wrong,

it’s not exactly risorial.

So it’s time for me to write my name,

it’s been time,

beyond time.

Hello,

my name is

(You’ll find out.)

(Soon after I do, I think.)

The post A Counterspell Against Negation appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Today’s untitled fragment

The Orcish Queen raised high her glass
(No easy feat:
Orcs make glasses out of
Glass golem meat.)

“I propose a toast!”
she said, “You all
(or some of you) know
What it’s for, if you recall.”

Indeed they knew. The custom
(or really: “excuse”)
Was for the Queen to raise a glass
And the Executioner raise a noose…

The post Today’s untitled fragment appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Assorted Fantasy Toasts

A Toast of the Goblins

“It’s not easy being green, although at least we’re not Hob-Goblins.”

A Toast of the Hob-Goblins

“Wait a minute, what’s that supposed to mean?”

A Toast of the Kobolds

“Right, that’s our cue to leave.”

A Toast of the Unicorns

“We’re way too pretty for this.”

A Toast of the Bard

“Shortly, we’ll be able to drink EVERYONE’S beer.”

The post Assorted Fantasy Toasts appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

When They Stole The First Song

When the Trickster
(what trickster, which trickster?
Coyote, Anansi, the Harlequin,
Lady Eris?)

who knows?
who cares?

When the Trickster stole the first song,
the Gods were wroth.

They spun fire
(ANOTHER stolen thing!)
and whipped smoke
and generated the great waves
which lifted Atlantis to the stars

(you thought Atlantis sank?
That’s exactly what They want you to think.)

And they yelled and bellowed and raced down the great Mountain into the lands of Mortals,

howling,
keening,
swearing,

past
(but not into)
the villages and towns,

through the caves of glyph and silhouette,
past the Valley of Shadow
(well: near enough;
nobody really knows where
the Valley of Shadow is)

until they collapsed,
laughing,

at the feet of the thief,
who herself laughed,

plied them with wine,

and sang with them;

for all songs are stolen,
and it is the reshaper,
the word-wrestler,
the listener,
the lover and the critic
which give shape to Song,

and you can’t really steal
what no-one can truly grasp,

so pass the jug,

and let the voices cascade.

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a reusable motto for all censored writers

Come at me, and I will fight,
Knee and elbow, punch and bite.
Trying to hurt me? Impolite.
You’ve awakened Forever Blight.

And worse than even Forever Blight?
Try hiding my words out of sight.
Shut me up? Here’s my spite:

I WRITE.

I WRITE.

I WRITE.

I WRITE.

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