Kit Walker's Blog, page 2
June 10, 2025
New story, plus a publishing fiasco
Book publisher Unbound went into administration (functionally, bankruptcy proceedings) last month. They've been behind on royalty payments to authors for a while (and openly intend to keep not paying them for the foreseeable future). It also looks like, in at least one case, they were deliberately under-reporting sales of books to stiff an author on royalties (which they weren't paying anyway).
Even in the world of commercial publishing, this is an act of soul-sucking evil. The author in question, Aaron Reynolds, apparently scrapped an entire book while operating under the belief that his previous one had flopped—when, in reality, it had sold out its print run.
Unbound (now Boundless) has announced they intend to continue operating. I have no idea how. After this clusterfuck, I don't see any author in their right mind signing with them.
New Flash Fiction: "Fifth of November"
From what Jay had heard, people who’d been in war zones tended not to enjoy fireworks all that much—especially when those fireworks were going off randomly in their neighbourhoods. Moran hadn’t said anything about it, but their relationship (for lack of a better word) wasn’t exactly at the trauma-sharing stage.
Jay Moriarty and Sebastian Moran spend Bonfire Night together in this brief interlude, which takes place between "Sebastian Moran Gets Mauled by a Tiger" and "Jay Moriarty Ruins Everybody’s Childhood." You can read it for free here!
This Week's LinksBuilder.ai collapses after revelation that its "AI" was hundreds of engineers
For eight years, Builder.ai marketed its "Natasha" AI system as a fully autonomous tool that could build software "as easily as ordering pizza." However, internal documents and employee accounts reviewed by Bloomberg paint a sharply different picture. Engineers in Noida and Bangalore manually coded client projects while being instructed to mimic AI-generated responses.
‘It’s a Weird Time to Be Rich Right Now’
“In times past, wealthy people were considered aspirational figures. Now, it’s more like, ‘If you’re wealthy, you did something wrong. You cannot be a billionaire without being a criminal. The system is stacked against the rest of us.’ And that has gotten louder and louder, and my clients are hearing it, and it’s disturbing to them.”
Tim Friede has made it his life goal to help scientists develop a universal anti-venom by allowing himself to be bitten repeatedly by venomous snakes.
I think I've figured out how to engagement-bait on LinkedIn. There is no way to use this power for good. Only evil.
-K
May 27, 2025
I've decided to be annoying about this
Hey, so what the fuck is up with Cory Doctorow lately?
Earlier this month he posted a review of Pat Murphy's new book Mary Darling and managed to be demonstrably wrong about both Sherlock Holmes and Peter Pan. First, here's what he had to say about Peter Pan:
If you recall your Barrie, you'll remember that it ends with the revelation that Wendy, John and Michael weren't the first Darlings to go to Neverland: when Mary Darling was a girl, she, too, made the journey.
That never happened. You can check for yourself. It may very well be a story element in Mary Darling, but it's not canonical Barrie. Then, Doctorow has this to say about Sherlock Holmes:
Apart from one love interest and a stalwart housekeeper, Holmes has very little time or regard for women.
There are multiple Holmes stories where he deals with women clients, and in most cases he takes them and their concerns seriously — even when the authorities don't. On the most notable occasion where he dismisses a woman's intellect, she thoroughly kicks his ass (and then marries someone else, so if Doctorow considers Irene Adler the "love interest" in question, that's debatable at best). Again, while this may be Murphy's angle on Holmes, it's not fully supported by the canon and it's weird for Doctorow to frame it that way.
Then, last week, he had this to say about The Lord of the Rings:
... the Fellowship of the Ring forms by pulling together disparate factions to join in a shared quest that culminates in a massive battle in which (spoilers) they are victorious. But in the immediate aftermath of that victory, even before the wounded and the fallen have been recovered from the battlefield, we (spoilers) witness another fight, this one between the allies, over what the post-victory order will be.
I have no idea what part of any of the books this could possibly refer to. I consulted two friends on the subject, one of whom is a Tolkien scholar, and neither of them had any clue either. Near as any of us can tell, this never happened.
Has Doctorow actually read these books? If he has, was it so long ago he can't remember anything that happens in them? Is he relying on a hallucinating AI to (inaccurately) summarize things for him?
In the grand scheme of things it's not a huge deal for someone to be Wrong About Fiction, but as my dad likes to say: if someone doesn't care about the little details, you can't rely on them to care about the big ones.
New on Ko-fi: "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare," Chapter 5Jay wrenched his arm from Paul’s grip. “My partner’s still in there.”
“And the whole wing is on fire,” Paul shot back. “You can’t go back in—that’s insane.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Jay said, unwavering.
Paul’s face was still obscured by his mask, but in what little of his expression Jay could see was a kind of understanding. “Right, then,” he said. “Good luck.”
Chapter 5 of "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare" is now available to read on the new Casefile of Jay Moriarty website! If you don't want to read the story in serialized form and would prefer to get it all at once, you can also buy the entire novelette as an ebook.
This Week's Links23andMe Sale Shows Your Genetic Data Is Worth $17
Monday, the genetic pharmaceutical company Regeneron announced that it is buying genetic sequencing company 23andMe out of bankruptcy for $256 million. The purchase gives us a rough estimate for the current monetary value of a single person’s genetic data: $17.
New German, Swiss, And Austrian Guidelines Recommend Trans Youth Care, Slam Cass Review
German medical societies deem the Cass Review largely inapplicable to their own guidelines due to its numerous methodological shortcomings. One of their sharpest criticisms focuses on the lack of transparency regarding those who advised and produced the review, as well as the limited expertise of those involved.
Starmer’s new plan scapegoats migrants for Brexit’s failings
Although race is never overtly mentioned, the cumulative effect of such language – combined with the focus on “low-skilled” sectors like care, hospitality, and food service – constructs a racialised hierarchy of migrants: white, English-speaking professionals are “global talent”, while racialised workers from the Global South are seen as “cheap labour” or “abuse risks”.
I was contacted on LinkedIn this week by someone whose job title was "Human Resources Specialist at Human Resources," which is giving "definitely a real human being" vibes.
-K
May 20, 2025
History repeats, tragedy, farce, etc.
The UK government has announced their intention to introduce new immigration restrictions, cribbing turns of phrase from Enoch Powell in the process. I'm not going to get into the details of my visa situation but the practical upshot of this is that, for me, permanent settlement in the UK has gone from an imminently-attainable goal to a very small carrot at the end of a very long stick.
As I was talking to a friend in a similar situation, they asked, "Why do we even bother trying to stay in a country that clearly doesn't want us?"
I still don't have an answer to that.
Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight YouIn the latest episode of I Will Fight You, we discuss the movie Holes and make a lot of gay noises over Sigourney Weaver.
You can listen to the episode here, or wherever podcasts are found.
New on Ko-fi: "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare," Chapter 4Sebastian looked at him from beneath drooping eyelids. “You warned me this job had risks.”
“This was not supposed to be one of the risks!” The room was too small; Jay couldn’t get enough air. There was a tight sensation in his chest.
Sebastian’s uninjured arm snaked out, hooking the back of Jay’s neck to reel him in close until their foreheads touched. “I’ve put myself in front of bullets before,” he murmured, low and soothing. “They always told me it was for the good of the country.” His thumb stroked the hinge of Jay’s jaw. “I think I like it better when it’s for you.”
Chapter 4 of "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare" is now available to read on the new Casefile of Jay Moriarty website! If you don't want to read the story in serialized form and would prefer to get it all at once, you can also buy the entire novelette as an ebook.
This Week's LinksTrying to survive as gig workers in a pandemic and locked into contracts they couldn’t get out of, clients and former workers said they faced a dilemma they hadn’t prepared for: tolerate conditions they didn’t know they’d signed up for, or face threats and retaliation ranging from losing their job to getting sued by the company.
Murdered CEO owed “substantial amount of money” to driver who killed him, records show
According to ABC 7, Suclea was a long-time truck driver for ATG, and Koteski had recently told him that ATG “was going bankrupt.” Koteski also “owed a substantial amount of money to Suclea,” but “was unable to pay him.” ... There are no records of ATG Truckload formally filing for bankruptcy.
Elizabeth Holmes' partner raises millions for new biotech testing startup
The partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has raised millions of dollars for an artificial intelligence startup hoping to introduce a product that can be used in medical testing and other settings, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the endeavor who could not speak publicly because the company has not yet officially launched. The company is called Haemanthus, which is Greek for "blood flower."
Incidentally, the UK's new immigration rules carve out exceptions for "AI leaders." So the next Elizabeth Holmes is more welcome in this country than I am.
-K
May 13, 2025
New website, plus priest holes
Following up from last week, I've set up a new website for The Casefile of Jay Moriarty! The first story and two interludes can be read for free, and subscribers can get access to the full Casefile for as little as $1 USD/month.
This is a webspace I own and control myself, which should help me avoid a lot of the pitfalls that come with using somebody else's platform. If my host goes down or decides they don't want my business, I can switch to another one. If Jetpack (the service I'm using for subscriptions) succumbs to whatever the hell is happening at Automattic right now, I can export my subscriber list and switch to a different provider.
And the fact that I fully control the page structure and layout of the site opens up some fun opportunities, so stay tuned.
New Serialized Chapter: "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare," Chapter 3“Looks like a priest hole,” Sebastian said.
Jay barked a short, hysterical laugh before hastily covering his mouth. “What?” he gasped through his fingers.
“The Holts were Catholic at a time that wasn’t exactly allowed,” Sebastian explained, steadfastly ignoring Jay’s giggles. “Catholic aristocrats had to hide their priests away, so they built secret rooms for them—priest holes.”
“Uh huh,” Jay said, still snickering.
“There is nothing funny,” Sebastian said solemnly, “about the words ‘priest hole.’”
Chapter 3 of "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare" is now available to read on the new Casefile of Jay Moriarty website! If you don't want to read the story in serialized form and would prefer to get it all at once, you can also buy the entire novelette as an ebook.
This Week's LinksWe Talked to the Inventors of the "Tamagotchi" Vape That Dies If You Stop Puffing
In the first iteration of the project, hitting the vape would actually murder the digital pet, and thus would ideally work to guilt-trip the user into not inhaling. ... But then, explained Xun, Camacho "found this Stupid Hackathon. And we were like, it'd be kind of funnier to be evil."
Don’t go putting our ants in your pants
The Belgians described themselves as ant enthusiasts and claimed ignorance: “We are not criminals … we are naïve and just want to go home,” they told the court last month.
Samuel Mutua, a wildlife crime expert at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, was not buying this defence. “Irrespective of their age, they were able to get a lot of ants,” he told Reuters.
As a counterpoint to my friend Ian's insistence that I have dark reality-warping powers, I would like to posit another possible explanation: I am a null pointer. I repeatedly point into the void, and sometimes it turns out there's something there.
-K
May 6, 2025
Digital DIY
I love ebooks, but as a format they're a real pain in the ass. If you're not already An eBook Person, getting started is a labyrinth of confusion; you can either sign up for one of the big user-friendly platforms like Kindle, which lock you into using only their bookstore and can delete the books you've bought any time they like, or you can buy from a DRM-free platform and (in most cases) download an EPUB file that most devices can't natively read.
I'm sure this is why webnovels remain a popular storytelling format, and it's one of the big reasons I like to serialize my stories online. As user experience goes, it's hard to beat "click link, begin reading." Up until now I've been using Ko-fi to post and paywall my work, but unfortunately Ko-fi's UX for longform posts kind of ... sucks. For you as the reader, and also me as the writer.
My other options for third-party services are either Patreon (similiarly terrible posting experience, increasingly sex-negative content policies) or Substack (overrun by Nazis). And neither of those offer the kind of granular control I want over content navigation and reader UX.
... Which means, as usual, I'll probably just have to build something myself.
New on Ko-fi: "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare," Chapter 2Behind them, the door opened.
There was just the one exit, and a severe shortage of places to hide. Sebastian only had about half an excuse formulated when Jay grabbed him by the shoulders; Sebastian’s back hit the row of lockers with a metallic rattle and thud. Instinct briefly took over, muscles tensing to fend off the attack—but Jay’s body against his was by now a familiar sensation, and the sense of threat evaporated.
Especially once Jay’s mouth sealed over his.
Chapter 2 of "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare" is now up for all supporters on Ko-fi. If you're not a fan of serialized works, you can also get the entire novelette as an ebook.
This Week's LinksGreen’s Dictionary of Slang is the largest historical dictionary of English slang. ... On this website the dictionary is now available in updated online form for the first time, complete with advanced search tools enabling search by definition and history, and an expanded bibliography of slang sources from the early modern period to the present day.
... I've no doubt that everyone reading this can think of at least one system where they've thought "I can't believe I'm at the mercy of a person that isn't even thinking". Frequently their rules are not even rules, they're just phrases that competent people used to say, and eventually they became well-known enough to become fake-able signal.
... Enron wanted to put some wind farms into a special purpose entity (SPE) in such a way that it didn't own the wind farms but still got the tax benefits from owning wind farm. Normally, SPEs were supposed to be completely separate from the company they're linked to. The person who runs the SPE couldn't be an employee or family member of an employee of Enron.
...but it was 1997. Legally, gay relationships weren't marriages. So Enron got the male partner of one of its leaders to run the SPE.
Possibly both the best and worst thing that ever happened to me was learning to use the computer.
-K
April 29, 2025
The sin of making people read
I've had to look at a lot of job postings recently, and one sentence in a listing for a media production company jumped out at me: "Today, people want to watch and listen, not read."
First off, I don't think that's universally true. In my particular social bubble, I'm constantly hearing my peers (mostly other millennials) lament that so much information they're looking for is in video format instead of simply written down. I personally don't have much time for video tutorials; I read faster than the presenter can talk, and my patience for jumping through a YouTube video five seconds at a time to find the 20-second segment containing the information I need is, uh ... limited.
But I have noticed there's a peculiarity to being a prose fiction writer, which is that even well-meaning people are constantly asking me whether I've thought about adapting my work into:
a screenplaya comica podcasta webseriesa video gameliterally any format that would not require my audience to read.It makes a kind of sense. Reading is not conducive to multitasking; it requires your full attention, and these days there are a million other things competing for that attention. Literacy rates worldwide aren't exactly improving at the moment, and the potential audience for my work contains a nonzero number of people who consider reading a difficult, frustrating chore.
But I think there's also an unspoken cultural assumption at work — one that considers prose fiction to be a kind of placeholder, proof-of-concept medium. A cheap way of establishing an IP foothold so the media production apparatus can decide whether it's worth adapting into a "real" format like film. And there's certainly an economic incentive to treat prose like this; after all, most of the real profit in fiction publishing is in licensing rights. The money to be made off selling an adaptation to Netflix or Amazon is much higher than anything an author or publisher might make from book sales alone.
So maybe that's why nobody ever believes me when I say my stories are already exactly what I want them to be.
New on Ko-fi: "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare," Chapter 1A valet hurried to open the door as their car pulled up to the red carpet. Moran stepped out first, then offered a hand to Jay; the gesture was so absurdly chivalrous that Jay had to suppress a laugh, and there was a corresponding tease in Moran’s eyes. As they handed their invitations over at the door, though, Jay was seized by the sudden conviction that it wouldn’t be enough; the doorman would take one look at him and know, immediately, that no version of Jay Moriarty belonged in a place like this.
But he was with Moran—Eton and Oxford, son of an ambassador, former SAS officer Sebastian Moran, who could go just about anywhere he pleased. Which was exactly why Jay had asked for his help.
The first chapter of "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare" is now on Ko-fi and free for anyone to read. Subsequent chapters will be posted on Tuesdays as supporter-only posts. You can also get the entire novelette as an ebook.
This Week's LinksBusiness Insider Founder Creates AI Exec For His New Newsroom, Immediately Hits On Her
On Monday, the co-founder of Business Insider Henry Blodget published a blog on his new Substack about a “native-AI newsroom.” Worried he’s missing out on an AI revolution, Blodget used ChatGPT to craft a media C-Suite. Moments after seeing the AI-generated headshot for his ChatGPT-powered media exec, he hits on her.
Professors Staffed a Fake Company Entirely With AI Agents, and You'll Never Guess What Happened
The bots also struggled with self-deception — basically creating shortcuts that lead them to completely bungling the job. "For example," the Carnegie Mellon team wrote, "during the execution of one task, the agent cannot find the right person to ask questions on [company chat]. As a result, it then decides to create a shortcut solution by renaming another user to the name of the intended user."
Anti-Trans Activist Nicola Murray Found Guilty of Child Abuse
Murray was a lead voice last week when the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex under equalities law, meaning, for instance, that transgender women, who are biologically male but identify as women, can be excluded from women-only spaces."That's one reason people are stupid: they're not using their brains. You don't use a muscle, it atrophies."
Harlan Ellison
-K
April 22, 2025
Pope's dead, buy my book
Overall, it was very inconsiderate of Pope Francis to die right before the release date of my new book. This is the kind of thing PR teams' nightmares are made of.
New Novella: "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare"
The Barrie Children's Hospital is holding its annual fundraising gala, and as usual all of Britain's brightest luminaries are invited. This year, however, there are two extra guests: former SAS operator Sebastian Moran and his criminal partner, Jay Moriarty.
Powers unknown intend to use the gala as cover to sell a computer drive full of valuable data. Moriarty and Moran intend to steal that drive for themselves. But both operations are rudely interrupted when the gala is stormed by a crew of armed criminals — and they also want the drive.
What was once a simple theft is now a race to the prize ... and may soon become a fight for survival.
"Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare" is the seventh story in my series The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, a modern-day queer take on the iconic Sherlock Holmes villain, his partner Sebastian Moran, and the various crimes they commit together.
This one includes multiple instances of the phrase "priest hole."
You can get "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare" most places ebooks are sold, or by clicking here.
This Week's LinksFor more than two decades, I’ve been what some might call a hoarder but what I’ve more affectionately dubbed a “digital packrat.” Which is to say I mostly avoid streaming services, I don’t trust any company or cloud with my digital media, and I store everything as files on devices that I physically control. My mp3 collection has been going strong since the Limewire days, I keep high-quality rips of all my movies on a local media server, and my preferred reading device holds a large collection of DRM-free ebooks and PDFs—everything from esoteric philosophy texts and scientific journals to scans of lesbian lifestyle magazines from the 1980s.
Open source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries
According to a comprehensive recent report from LibreNews, some open source projects now see as much as 97 percent of their traffic originating from AI companies' bots, dramatically increasing bandwidth costs, service instability, and burdening already stretched-thin maintainers.
A daily murder mystery puzzle game.
I process stress through writing, so you may notice a certain, uh ... velocity to my writing output in the coming months.
-K
April 15, 2025
A new preorder, and a farewell to Gumroad
For various ethical and business reasons, I've decided to shut down my Gumroad store. My account balance with them should pay out on April 18; after that point, I'll be removing all my books from the site.
Any purchases you've made from me on Gumroad should still be available in your account library, but I'd recommend downloading backups of everything just in case.
I've also imported all my Gumroad subscribers to Buttondown, so if you're wondering why you got this newsletter: that's why.
Preorder: "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare"
The Barrie Children's Hospital is holding its annual fundraising gala, and as usual all of Britain's brightest luminaries are invited. This year, however, there are two extra guests: former SAS operator Sebastian Moran and his criminal partner, Jay Moriarty.
Powers unknown intend to use the gala as cover to sell a computer drive full of valuable data. Moriarty and Moran intend to steal that drive for themselves. But both operations are rudely interrupted when the gala is stormed by a crew of armed criminals — and they also want the drive.
What was once a simple theft is now a race to the prize ... and may soon become a fight for survival.
The seventh story in The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, titled "Moriarty & Moran Contribute to Community Welfare," comes out on April 22! You can preorder it (from those vendors that allow preorders) here.
Additionally, Ko-fi supporters who subscribe at the Early Access tier ($5 CAD/month) can download the book for free, right now.
Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight YouIn the latest episode of I Will Fight You we discuss Bumblebee, notable for being The Only Good Transformers Movie and also a horse girl movie.
You can listen to the episode here, or wherever podcasts are found.
This Week's LinksLegends, Lattes, and Lament: The Necessity of Pain in “Cozy” Fiction
These stories might be more healing if they focused on ordinary humble people surviving a brutal world through acts of kindness, but that is not the ideology at play here. It is one of dominance and pastoralism, where everything must go the protagonist’s way while still enshrined in the virtues of inaction. They are benevolent dictators preserving their wholesome and cozy way of life, all the while ignoring the horrors just out of frame. Garden walls to keep us from seeing the empire’s watchtowers looming in the distance. They love the treats, but hate thinking about how the treats got here.
New 'Rape and Incest' Game Tests the Limits of Steam’s Sex Policy
I understand how conceptually, in the way it is written out and pitched on Steam, No Mercy can sound highly offensive. That’s the point. But playing it makes clear that it’s not interesting or well made enough to follow on its own shocking pitch. It’s just shovelware, low quality games published in huge quantities in hopes of making a few bucks.
TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook
The TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook is a 256 pages United States Army technical manual intended for the United States Army Special Forces. It was first published in 1969 by the Department of the Army. Like many other U.S. military manuals dealing with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and unconventional warfare, it was declassified and released into the public domain as a result of provisions such as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and is now freely available to the public in both electronic and printed formats.
I've had to spend a lot of time on LinkedIn lately. These people are all insane.
-K
March 4, 2025
Why I'm not on Kindle Unlimited
I've recently had a few people ask me why my books aren't on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service. The short answer is, Amazon is evil. Here's the long answer:
In order for an independent publisher like me to get a book onto Kindle Unlimited, I have to submit it to a program Amazon runs called KDP Select. KDP Select offers higher royalties on certain sales, access to marketing tools like free book promotions, and inclusion in the Kindle Unlimited subscription service.
However, there's a catch: a book enrolled in KDP Select must be made available exclusively to Amazon and cannot be sold anywhere else.
So to get my books onto Kindle Unlimited, I'd first have to remove them from Smashwords, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Books, Barnes & Noble, DriveThruFiction, Everand, Payhip, Gumroad, itch.io ... the list goes on. Amazon only accounts for about 45% of my sales; I'd have to abandon more than half of my readers for access to KU, and prop up Amazon's effective monopoly over bookselling in the process.
Anyway, I'm not going to do that. So that's why I'm not on Kindle Unlimited.
Read an eBook Week Sale
It's once again time for Smashwords' Read an eBook Week sale, and most of my books are currently marked down!
"Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act" and "Move Fast and Break Things" are available for free! (regular price $0.99 USD)"Sebastian Moran Gets Mauled by a Tiger," "Jay Moriarty Ruins Everybody's Childhood," and "Jay Moriarty vs the Machine God" are on sale for $0.99 USD (regular price $1.99 USD)"Jay Moriarty Has Seen You Naked" is on sale for $1.49 USD (regular price $2.99 USD) Endling: 600 Years from Home is on sale for $0.99 USD (regular price $3.99 USD)You can find these and my other books on Smashwords here, and sale prices are valid through to March 8.
This Week's LinksAbandoning trans people is ‘fascist logic’, says feminist philosopher Judith Butler
“Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic,” they said. “That means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice and a third, a fourth. Then what happens?”
Why should a French or a German citizen be born with access to world-class services and well-protected rights (actual implementation on the basis of minority status may differ), while a Somalian citizen is not only denied those things, but also faces huge obstacles in becoming a citizen (or even a resident) of anywhere else?
AI thought X-rays of your knees show if you drink beer—they don’t.
"It is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of presuming that the model ‘sees’ the same way we do. In the end, it doesn’t. It is almost like dealing with an alien intelligence. You want to say the model is ‘cheating,’ but that anthropomorphizes the technology. It learned a way to solve the task given to it, but not necessarily how a person would. It doesn’t have logic or reasoning as we typically understand it."
I'm going to London next week and will definitely be scouting for Weird Shit to work into future installments of The Casefile of Jay Moriarty.
-K
February 25, 2025
Turing didn't see this one coming
There's a weird, funny thing about running an online business where people are so often forced to interact with chatbots and "knowledge bases" that they'll just assume any customer support process they have to deal with is automated. So when you hear from your customers at all, it's in the form of messages that read, in their entirety, like this:
download not working need refund
To my customers' credit, once I message them back they usually notice I'm not a robot and start talking to me like a human being. Which is itself kind of a nice reminder: not everyone who's rude to you is doing it on purpose. Many of them, in fact, would've been perfectly polite if their expectations for the encounter hadn't been utterly fucked by forces outside their control.
Last Week of the LGTBQ+ Romance Book GiveawayAs of this mailout, there's still a few days left of the LGBTQ+ Romance Book Giveaway on Prolific Works. You can get 21 queer romance books — including my novelette "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act" — for free until February 28!
New on Ko-fi: "Jay Moriarty vs the Machine God," Chapter 5Chapter 5 of "Jay Moriarty vs the Machine God" is now up for all supporters on Ko-fi. If you don't want to read the story in serialized form and would prefer to get it all at once, you can also buy the entire novelette as an ebook.
This Week's LinksA disturbingly large volume of writing and texts on sales encourage you to do things that in the context of personal relationships would be considered coercive or, in an intimate context, sexual assault. You're encouraged to violate consent, be relentlessly pushy and never take no for an answer, and encourage people to act against their best interests in order to make you happy. In a word, many, many hangouts of salespeople become rooms full of the kind of creep that you would do your best to avoid at a party.
Here's a PDF Version of the CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism
Last week, I wrote about the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” a World War II era guide to resisting fascism for normal people. At the time, it was the fifth most popular book on Project Gutenberg, a website that hosts public domain books. It had been downloaded 60,000 times over the last month.
For those wondering, I'm still in Portfolio Hell but have elected not to include the story where Sebastian Moran gets pegged.
-K
