Moe Lane's Blog, page 145
November 23, 2024
11/23/2024 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH.
I’m not going to be doing number updates, unless I somehow manage to write twenty-eight thousand words tomorrow (which is what I’ll need to get back on track). NotAWriMo is no longer on the table, and that’s fine. The important thing is to get this book finished, and I finished the trip to Red Beach today. I needed it done.
Buy the first two books in this series!
Patreon!At least the Banshee didn’t make us wait for the fireworks.
I’d expected something dramatic, and quick, and I was half-right. The festivities started with the biggest ‘broomstick’ — the one that could seat twenty — suddenly shuddering under multiple explosions of arcane fire. In a second its entire surface was covered in overlapping, expanding circles of flames, each of which changed color when they encountered another line of fire. It was weirdly beautiful, until you really thought about what those flames would have done to a person, hey?
The smaller brooms started flying randomly right away, which I figure meant the link spells must have fallen apart. But that was good. It made it look like they were trying to escape, only the Banshee wasn’t having any of it. One by one they exploded, in a cloud of splinters and smoke. Denny snarled at the steady pace, or maybe it was because it was so slow pace. “What the fuck! What is this, a game to her?”
“Yes,” I told him, as leadenly as I could manage. Above us, the last small broom pinwheeled through the sky. “She’s a Dominion Archmage. This is a game, and we’re all the toys. So stay in the box.”
He opened his mouth, and I raised my voice. “I said, stay in the toy box. This only works if she thinks she’s killing her some wild mages out of spite, along with all their stuff. If she doesn’t, every town and village within ten miles of here will get their own personal fireball, just to be on the safe side. And you didn’t ask us first if we wanted to get caught up in your drama, compadre.”
#commissionearned
RPG Book of the Week: The Day After Ragnarok (Savage Worlds edition).
This is a somewhat self-serving recommendation. Ken Hite’s THE DAY AFTER RAGNAROK is an alternate-history fantasy/horror guns-and-sorcery game set in a world still reeling from the manifestation, and prompt nuking, of the World-Serpent in 1945. (You can also get it here.)
And why is it potentially self-serving? …Well. Conversations have been had. They may or may not pan out. But it’s a really good game setting anyway!
#commissionearned
THE SWORD INTERVAL is being republished on a new site.
Ben Fleuter is republishing it on a dedicated site, after putting up each individual case up on Patreon first. I can heartily recommend both. As you all know, Ben did the artwork for my I’ll-get-a-finisher-for-it-eventually RPG, and he’s worth supporting. SWORD INTERVAL in particular is excellent. Check it out!
DoJ proposes using the antitrust Hammer of Mighty Fun upon Google.
I’m aware that it’s worrisome that PC Gamer and I are both down for this.
Earlier this week it was reported that the US Department of Justice’s top antitrust officials would likely ask a judge to enforce a significant break up of Google, in part proposing that Chrome be sold off.
[snip]
Not only will a judge be asked to enforce Google’s sale of Chrome, but the filing made to a Washington federal court also outlines that, “following its divestiture of Chrome [Google] may not reenter the browser market for five years” (via The Guardian).
…On the other hand, I’ve been watching my site disappear from Google Search for several years now, only to replaced by crappy ads and AI-generated chaff. A lot of Google’s search and indexing stuff just flat-out sucks now, and I’m not really thrilled with Docs, Maps, and all the other stuff I use every day. I appreciate that the company is there to make money, but I’m not a hardcore libertarian. I’m perfectly fine with the government wielding an antitrust broom, and using it every so often to sweep away a monopoly or two.
And on the gripping hand? Come January, that broom will be held by a different hand. Whether that hand will decide to keep sweeping, put the broom back, or decide to swap out for a power-washer has yet to be determined.
November 22, 2024
‘It Don’t Come Easy.’
It Don’t Come Easy, Ringo Starr
#commissionearned
I need to sit down and replan, well, everything.
In retrospect it was not a great idea to schedule my first real cold in four years smack dab in the middle of November. I’m way behind on the book, haven’t been able to schedule any Christmas vending opportunities, and I’m just generally feeling like everything’s out of momentum. Kind of a vicious cycle, too, which isn’t helping matters much.
I’m not mentioning any of this for sympathy. I just want to be on the record as knowing that it’s been a slacker month, too, and that I have to get off my butt at some point and get going again. Nobody else’s gonna do that for me, after all.
The “…I roll to disbelieve*?” SNOW WHITE trailer.
Indeed, the trailer is not yet officially up on Youtube yet. And surely none of us can imagine why. A real mystery, that.
Since Disney won’t do it…here’s the Snow White trailer that’s been playing before WICKED. Enjoy
— Steph Anie (@mynerdyhome) November 22, 2024pic.twitter.com/tOTCjNEF0u
*The alternate working subtitle was Now the hour and the movie have met. Alas, I decided that the multi-layered irony involved in picking that one was too dependent on the history of the Confederate States of America, the career of Jefferson Davis, and the pernicious influence of Sir Walter Scott on nineteenth century American rhetoric. The alternate-alternate working subtitle would have been ‘Welp,’ but @alexthechick used that one already.
The kid who used AI to cheat on an AP project was dumb.
The parents who tried to sue the school over it are dumber:
A federal court yesterday ruled against parents who sued a Massachusetts school district for punishing their son who used an artificial intelligence tool to complete an assignment.
Dale and Jennifer Harris sued Hingham High School officials and the School Committee and sought a preliminary injunction requiring the school to change their son’s grade and expunge the incident from his disciplinary record before he needs to submit college applications. The parents argued that there was no rule against using AI in the student handbook, but school officials said the student violated multiple policies.
The Harris’ motion for an injunction was rejected in an order issued yesterday from US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. US Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson found that school officials “have the better of the argument on both the facts and the law.”
Via Instapundit. What makes this extra-dumb was that the punishments for the kid were: having to redo the project; a Saturday detention; and not being allowed to join the National Honor Society – and even then the school gave way on that, once the lawsuit was announced. The parents should have quit when they were behind at that point, but now it’s in the courts, and I hope it ends up costing them enough money not to try to do more damfool lawsuits in the future. Using AI to make up references and citations is cheating, handbook or not.
Use your heads for something besides a hat-rack, all right? Your kid is watching what you do.
@elonmusk has an opportunity to do the funniest thing.
On the one hand: the observation below will absolutely not have any effect. On the other hand: you honestly never know with this guy. And on the gripping hand, if it does unaccountably somehow happen I’m going to be yelled at by various people – including ones I like – every day, for the rest of my natural life.
Alas. Sometimes great art requires as great a sacrifice.
I'm sure that Hasbro would be happy to at least consider any serious offer. https://t.co/YV08ptipq1
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) November 22, 2024
PS: I’m sometimes this devil-may-care in my books, too.
