Kit Walker's Blog, page 4

The Thick of It was a documentary

The UK government has decided to stop issuing physical residence permits to immigrants (like me) and start using "e-visas" instead. The practical upshot of this is that I need to register for my new e-visa using a phone app which, in the grand tradition of this country's relationship with technology, doesn't fucking work.

From the looks of it, I'm not alone in struggling with this thing. Every time I try to call the app's helpline, they won't even put me on hold — the hold queue is constantly full.

If I wrote this into one of my stories as a joke, people would tell me it was too on-the-nose.

itch.io's Autumn Sale is still on!

As of this mailout, there should be roughly 2 days left of itch.io's Autumn Sale. All my books are 25% off, or you can get the whole library in a bundle for just $6.00 USD! Sale prices are valid until end of day December 5th.

New on Ko-fi: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," Chapter 5

The fifth and final chapter of "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" is up for all supporters on Ko-fi. The entire novelette is also now available on Medium.

Recommendation: What Manner of Man

Father Ardelian has been summoned to a distant, secluded island to perform an exorcism. What will happen when he begins to suspect his host — the mysterious, nocturnal lord of the manor — of wanting him for another reason entirely? Will the piously celibate priest be able to resist his monstrous host’s diabolically seductive charms?

What Manner of Man is an epistolary novel, a series of letters and journals by a Catholic priest desperately struggling with gay thoughts and his growing attraction to a guy he hasn't realized is a vampire. The story started out as a free weekly serial on Substack, inspired by Dracula Daily; now that the serial is concluded, the author has released a second edition in ebook format, with a print edition in the works.

It's delightfully blasphemous and breathlessly horny. If you like that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you will like.

This Week's Links

It Is As If You Were Making Love – Browser Game

It Is As If You Were Making Love is a short and strange interactive experience that sees you adjusting your computer’s sliders to bring it to climax.

The rich better have Malawi's money

The military junta in Mali made global headlines this week for detaining the chief executive of Resolute Mining over alleged back taxes amounting to $160-million. With its share price tanking, the Australian multinational agreed to pay.

But Mali is not the only African country going hard after global giants. In other lawsuits, Malawi is seeking more than $314-billion from Columbia Gem House, TotalEnergies and Star Agritech.

Graphic Design for ISIS Is His Passion, FBI Alleges in Filing

Between December 2023 and February 2024, Said worked on five ISIS propaganda videos and two images, which were the result of “extensive feedback and instruction” and “numerous rounds of edits,” which Said claimed in messages were “time- and labor intensive.”

I've spent the past few weeks sifting through an inordinate number of British local council records, procurement policies, and organization charts — all of which will be, at best, deep background for the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story. The things I do for you people.

-K

It's capital all the way down

One of the latest developments in the world of fanfiction is a debate over "archive-locking": making one's fanfics only visible to registered users of the archive on which they're hosted (usually Archive Of Our Own). The argument in favour is that this prevents unintended use of the work (such as scraping into LLM training datasets) while still allowing members of the "community" to read it. The argument against is that this makes fanfiction less accessible, especially to newcomers and long-time lurkers.

This isn't exactly a new issue. I archive-locked a lot of my fanfiction years ago, after a similar uproar: someone (or several someones) had been scraping works off AO3 in ebook format and selling them. And before that there was another round of archive-locking, specifically in hockey fandom, over some fucking thing Aja Romano was doing.

The reason scammers keep trying to steal and monetize fanfic is that the internet financially incentivizes them to do so. Amazon's Kindle publishing platform has both wide reach and a relatively low barrier to entry, and Amazon itself has grown so huge that it would be a logistical nightmare to moderate its listings — so, for the most part, it doesn' (especially since the company gets a pretty big cut of every fraudulent sale on its platform). The end result is that Amazon is awash with stolen fanfic (and AI-generated books by models trained on fanfic) and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

Now, there isn't a lot of money in this kind of scam. Even if you luck into the attentions of Amazon's algorithm, there's only so many people who will see a book with an AI-generated cover and a description that sounds suspiciously like erotic Star Wars fanfiction and decide that's something they want to buy. But, as we learned from 404 Media's investigation into AI slop on Facebook, even the relatively small margins on content spam can help pay the rent — especially if you're living in a place where "legitimate" employment is scarce, dangerous, or pays like shit.

Ultimately, this archive-locking debate is one small facet of a big, old problem that those in power refuse to fix — either because they don't consider fixing it to be their job, or because fixing it would be actively detrimental to their business model. All AI has done is increase the scale of the consequences.

itch.io Autumn Sale

For the next week, all my paid titles are on sale over at my itch.io store! You can get any book for 25% off, or all my books in a bundle for just $6.00 USD (50% off what it would usually cost to buy them all).

Sale prices are valid until end of day December 5th.

Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight You

In the latest episode of I Will Fight You, we discuss the Tim Burton movie Big Fish and get really emotional. There's some crying involved. Don't worry about it.

You can listen to the episode here, or wherever podcasts are found.

New on Ko-fi: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" is now up for all supporters on Ko-fi. If you don't want to wait for Chapter 5, you can also get the entire novelette as an ebook.

This Week's Links

AI Chatbot Added to Mushroom Foraging Facebook Group Immediately Gives Tips for Cooking Dangerous Mushroom

One member of the Facebook group said that they asked the AI bot “how do you cook Sarcosphaera coronaria,” a type of mushroom that was once thought edible but is now known to hyperaccumulate arsenic and has caused a documented death. FungiFriend told the member that it is “edible but rare,” and said “cooking methods mentioned by some enthusiasts include sautéing in butter, adding to soups or stews, and pickling.” The situation is reminiscent of Google's AI telling people to add glue to pizza or eat rocks on the advice of a Redditor named Fucksmith.

This Christmas Party Was So Fun That Now I’m a Communist

This party was so far off the fucking chain that you could have one of two magic women tell you what was going to happen to you in your future. And if you didn’t like what she said, you could get a second opinion, and never be more than thirty feet away from a fondue pot.

We…need worldbuilding?

Defaulting is the root of a great many evils. Defaulting happens when we don’t think too much about something we write – a character description, a gender dynamic, a textile on display, the weave of the rug. Absent much thought, automaticity, the brain’s subsconscious autopilot, invokes the easiest available prototype – in the case of a gender dynamic, dad will read the paper, and mom will cut the protagonist’s hair. Or, in the case of worldbuilding, we default to the bland fantasy backdrop we know, and thereby reinforce it.

I'm not giving you a link to my AO3 account. It's out there. If you're really that interested, take some initiative and find it yourself.

-K

I hated Twitter before it was cool

My RSS reader this week contains no less than three stories about how Bluesky is the rightful successor to Twitter and will, furthermore, save the internet. Despite this, I will not be signing up for Bluesky because I've determined the ideal number of Twitter-alikes in my life and it's zero.

(I also have a hard time believing the thing that will "save the internet" is yet another corporate-owned, venture capital-funded walled garden, especially one packed to the gills with Twitter's most annoying millennials.)

I had to to quit Instagram because it was trying to give me an eating disorder. I lost interest in TikTok after about a month. Facebook is so choked with bot traffic that it's functionally useless. So in terms of social media I can use, I guess that just leaves Tumblr — which is allergic to both reading and clicking off-site but at least contains Harlan Ellison forcemasc content.

New on Ko-fi: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" is now up for all supporters on Ko-fi. If you don't want to wait for the next chapter, you can also get the entire novella as an ebook.

This Week's LinksDoes the UK’s liver transplant matching algorithm systematically exclude younger patients?

Younger patients are (correctly) predicted to be more likely to survive 5 years without a transplant, and about as likely as older patients to survive 5 years with a transplant. So younger patients’ predicted net benefit (over a 5-year period) is much less than older patients’. Over the entire course of their lives, younger patients would likely benefit more, but the algorithm doesn’t take this into account.

The Puritanical Eye: Hyper-mediation, Sex on Film, and the Disavowal of Desire

Moreover, as control over our own material realities becomes less and less feasible, the last lone place we believe we can exercise agency is within the landscape of that which we consume. This has resulted in the consuming public approaching all media and art with a moral imperative — that which we consume must be perfectly virtuous, sanitized of all problematic or complicated ideas and depictions, because it has become the stand-in for our very realities, our very political action as citizens; consuming has become our praxis.

I'll Let Myself In: Tactics of Physical Pen Testers

A really great presentation from penetration tester Deviant Ollam on various physical tactics for breaking into places. He doesn't just use lockpicks. In fact, he very rarely needs to use lockpicks.

It turns out I recommended my dad's book right before a Canadian postal strike that prevents him from shipping any books until it's over. I'm sure this will only further convince certain parties that I have reality-warping powers.

-K

Just Alberta things

A friend of mine sent me this screencap from a livestream of the Until Dawn remake:

Until Dawn takes place in the Canadian Rockies, and Edmonton would be one of the nearest major cities to the fictional mountain where the game takes place. It also happens to be my hometown.

I've shown this screencap to multiple friends from back home, and all of them have had two reactions in quick succession:

Edmonton mentioned!What the fuck is that address.

There isn't a Clarke Avenue in Edmonton; most of the streets are numbered, not named. T6N isn't a SW (South-West) postal code. In fact, there are very few addresses in Edmonton that end in SW; most of them are NW (North-West). And it's a minor quibble, but Canadian address formatting usually puts the city and province on the same line.

Until Dawn was made by Supermassive Games, based in Guildford here in the UK. So all these goofs aside, I'm genuinely impressed they knew that Edmonton even exists.

New on Ko-fi: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" 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.

Recommendation: Lethbridge: A tale of love in a time of war

By the time this newsletter goes out, it will be the day after Remembrance Day. Therefore it seems like the appropriate time to recommend my dad's novel, Lethbridge.

The novel is based on a true story — the story of the author's grandparents (and my great-grandparents). Hettie Drysdale is a teenage girl who emigrated from Scotland with her family; Stanley Knowlton is a young man from the United States eager to fight in a war his country refuses to join; Harry Walker is an English orphan, runaway, and rum-runner. All three find themselves in the city of Lethbridge, Alberta, where the Canadian Expeditionary Force is mobilizing for deployment into World War I.

I'm not just recommending this book because my dad wrote it. It's sincere, it's well-researched, and it made me cry. If you're interested in Canadian history, or even if you don't know anything at all about it, you should read Lethbridge.

This Week's Link

50 Movies to Distract Yourself from the Apocalypse

Only one link this week. This video was originally posted during the early days of COVID lockdown, but many of you may find it helpful at the moment.

For a given definition of "helpful," anyway.

I have learned in the past three years that Europeans will believe basically anything I tell them about Canada. I now understand why Australians are like that.

-K

The endangered lit brick

A friend of mine is currently having his novel shopped around by an agent, and what he's been hearing back is that the Big Five publishers almost exclusively want books with wordcounts of around 100 000 (to the point where authors with longer manuscripts, especially debut authors, are being told they should trim down to that length).

Near as I can tell, this has not always been the case; I can personally recall many authors within the last 30 years or so who debuted with 600-page doorstoppers. But longer books are more expensive to edit and manufacture, and so I can't help but wonder if this is a cost-cutting measure — publishers trying to produce their books as cheaply as possible, in order to squeeze more money out of each sale.

I don't exactly miss the 600-page doorstoppers, but it's good to remember that even the literary world isn't immune to the siren song of enshittification.

New Bundle: The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, Books 1 - 5

The Casefile of Jay Moriarty is a modern-day queer romance take on the iconic Sherlock Holmes villain, his partner Sebastian Moran, and the various crimes they commit together.

I've put together a bundle of the first five stories in the series, which is available now for $6.75 USD — a savings of 25% over buying each book in the series individually!

You can get the bundle on DriveThruFiction, Gumroad, itch.io, or Payhip.

New on Ko-fi: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," Chapter 1

The first chapter of "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" 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 Links

Workers forced to stay at factory drowned during Hurricane Helene — while CEO snuck out and survived, scathing lawsuit claims

An hour later at 11:35 a.m., senior management including Impact Plastics founder and CEO Gerald O’Connor had “stealthily exited the building,” according to court papers.

Workers had assumed they also were allowed to go home as local schools and other businesses announced closures because of Hurricane Helene, the suit alleges.

Instead, Impact Plastics allegedly instructed its employees to report to work because the company “wanted to meet order deadlines,” court documents show.

FIN7 hackers set up a fake company to recruit for cyberattacks

Much like the website, Bastion Secure’s advertised vacancies look legitimate enough, too. The fictitious company is looking for programmers, system administrators and reverse-engineers, and the job descriptions are similar to those you’d find at any cybersecurity company.

But Recorded Future said that FIN7 — under the guise of Bastion Secure — is looking to build a “staff” capable of conducting the tasks necessary for undertaking a range of cybercriminal activity.

When Does Instagram Decide a Nipple Becomes Female?

“I'm really interested in algorithmic enforcement and generally understanding the impact that algorithms have on our lives,” Ada Ada Ada told me in an interview. “It seemed like the nipple rule is one of the simplest ways that you can start talking about this because it's set up as a very binary idea—female nipples no, male nipples, yes. But then it prompts a lot of questions: what is male nipple? What is a female nipple?”

I watched Abigail and The Guest more or less back-to-back recently and have discovered my cat is entranced by Dan Stevens. She wouldn't stop staring at the TV whenever he was onscreen. I don't know what to do with this information.

-K

New book (and last gasp of the Spooky Sale)

The thing about publishing as frequently as I do is that you eventually run out of ways to say "I've written a new thing, please check it out."

Anyway: I've written a new thing, please check it out.

New Novelette: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries"

When an art heist goes wrong, Jay Moriarty calls for help — and in the middle of the night, Sebastian Moran heads out into the streets of London to find him. But he's not the only one hunting Moriarty, and it's not long before Moran's search leads him into a clash with a rogue mercenary company. To save his partner, Moran will have to take any help he can get ... even from an untrustworthy cat burglar named John Clay.

"Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" is the fifth story in my series The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, a modern-day queer romance take on the iconic Sherlock Holmes villain, his partner Sebastian Moran, and the various crimes they commit together.

You can get "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" most places ebooks are sold, or by clicking here.

Spooky Season Sale on itch.io

It's the last week of October, which means it's the last week you can get all my horror/dark fantasy books on sale over at my itch.io store! "The Scent of Blood," "Possession," and "Move Fast and Break Things" are each 25% off, or you can get all three in a bundle for $1.50 USD. Sale prices are valid until end of day October 31.

This Week's Links

Tinkerers Are Taking Old Redbox Kiosks Home and Reverse Engineering Them

The code that runs Redbox DVD rental machines has been dumped online, and, in the wake of the company’s bankruptcy, a community of tinkerers and reverse engineers are probing the operating system to learn how it works. Naturally, one of the first things people did was make one of the machines run Doom.

Calm Down—Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World

The hysterical tinfoil-hat crowd urges you to turn off your phone whenever you’re going to discuss something private—like your political opinions, religious beliefs, or medical conditions—as if the phone is somehow going to “hear” them and tech companies will use that info against you. In reality, they already know all those things because they know what news sources you read, the contents of your emails, what WebMD pages you’ve visited, and how long you’ve spent at which church, synagogue, mosque, or ethical humanist center. So don’t even worry about it.

It's Nearing Midnight, Christmas, and the End of October

Check out the second item for the story of how my dad ended up as a cameo appearance in some other family's Hallmark Christmas movie.

A friend whose opinion I respect recently told me my prose is at its most poetic when my characters are at their most horny. I'm gonna have to think on that one.

-K

New preorder and some horny opera

I think I'm done with Booksprout, the service I've been using to provide free advance copies to book reviewers.

The service itself is fine, and the reviews I've been getting are largely positive. Near I can tell, though, said reviews haven't contributed to book sales in any meaningful way. And while I'm generally not bothered when it comes to whether my books sell, it's hard to justify sinking $13/month into a service that doesn't make any difference one way or the other.

If you've been reviewing my books on Booksprout and you'd like to keep doing so, get in touch and I'll see about sending future review copies personally.

On a related note:

Preorder: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries"

When an art heist goes wrong, Jay Moriarty calls for help — and in the middle of the night, Sebastian Moran heads out into the streets of London to find him. But he's not the only one hunting Moriarty, and it's not long before Moran's search leads him into a clash with a rogue mercenary company. To save his partner, Moran will have to take any help he can get ... even from an untrustworthy cat burglar named John Clay.

The fifth story in The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, titled "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," comes out on October 29! 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.

Spooky Season Sale on itch.io

For the month of October, all my horror/dark fantasy books are on sale over at my itch.io store! "The Scent of Blood," "Possession," and "Move Fast and Break Things" are each 25% off, or you can get all three in a bundle for $1.50 USD.

This Week's Links

Fat Bear Week delayed after a large bear kills a rival bear

The deadly fight took place around 9:30 a.m. in Alaska, as organizers prepared to kick off Fat Bear Week, the competition that lets fans crown the bear who successfully added the most weight as they prepare for their annual hibernation cycle.

Eighteen opera-goers treated for severe nausea after opera of live sex, nuns and blood

“On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service,” said the opera’s spokesperson, Sebastian Ebling, after the performances that included live piercing, unsimulated sexual intercourse and both fake and real blood.

Hitman hires hitman who hires hitman who hires hitman who hires hitman who tells police

The hitman that Mr Youhui hired decided to offer the job to another hitman for half the original price. The second hitman then subcontracted to another hitman, who then subcontracted to a fourth, who gave the job to a fifth. However, hitman number five was so incensed at how much the value of the contract had fallen, that he told the target to fake his own death, which eventually led to the police finding out about the plot, Beijing News reported.

Ko-fi changed the colour of their "Buy me a coffee" buttons. I'm not sure I like the new one.

-K

I return from the frozen north

So I'm back in the UK now, after three weeks visiting in Canada — specifically Edmonton, a city I am now woefully maladapted to living in. People here in Newcastle constantly complain about the state of its public transit system, but that's only because they've never been to Edmonton: a place where you will wait 90 minutes for a bus at 40 degrees below zero until the wolves get you.

Despite the jetlag, I'm currently working on final edits for the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story. It's turning out to be around 12 000 words long, which brings the total wordcount of the series to a little over 80 000. That's long enough to justify a print collection, which is making me think about putting out a print collection — if only for the benefit of those among my friends and family who want to read my writing but struggle with ebooks.

They might also struggle with the gay transgender sex and constant railing against late-stage capitalism, but that part is more of a "buyer beware" situation.

Spooky Season Sale on itch.io

For the month of October, all my horror/dark fantasy books are on sale over at my itch.io store! "The Scent of Blood," "Possession," and "Move Fast and Break Things" are each 25% off, or you can get all three in a bundle for $1.50 USD.

This Week's Links

Officers allegedly damaged MRI machine after police rifle snatched by magnets

... an officer walked into the room with his rifle "dangling... in his right hand, with an unsecured strap," which was quickly ripped off his body and pinned to the MRI machine, the lawsuit said.

Bop Spotter

I installed a box high up on a pole somewhere in the Mission of San Francisco. Inside is a crappy Android phone, set to Shazam constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's solar powered, and the mic is pointed down at the street below.

Heard of ShotSpotter? Microphones are installed across cities in the United States by police to detect gunshots, purported to not be very accurate. This is that, but for music.

Alleged Tax Dodger Says It’s a "Legitimate Snail-Farming Operation"

In this case, the council says the ground-floor office space at 9 Dale Street is currently empty and the firm renting it should be paying full business rates. The firm and its landlord disagree, saying the space isn’t empty and is being put to an “agricultural use.” Specifically, the space is occupied by fifteen (15) crates each containing at least two (2) snails. So the firm—Snai1 Primary Products 2023 Ltd—says it’s exempt.

Some of my work on this latest Moriarty story involves tweaking one of Sebastian's fight scenes, following feedback that his opponents should — and I'm quoting directly — "hit his pretty face." It's good to have beta readers who understand your art.

-K

A dispatch from abroad

I'm on vacation back home in Canada, following 30 hours of transatlantic travel ending at 1:00 AM. If you ever need to completely reset your sleep schedule, I hightly recommend 30 hours of transatlantic travel ending at 1:00 AM.

Because I'm staying with my parents, who have more streaming subscriptions than I do, I've now seen Drive-Away Dolls. I missed seeing it in theatres, as I was reliably informed at the time that it wasn't very good. Now, having watched it, I can report that it isn't very good. It's not bad, but I don't think it achieves anything it sets out to do. Which is a shame, because it's exactly the kind of movie I'd like to see more of (low-rent crime comedy, but make it gay).

Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight You

In the latest episode of I Will Fight You, we discuss The Core. It's a movie about a train that goes to the center of the Earth. I'm not sure I need to sell it any harder than that.

You can listen to the episode here, or wherever podcasts are found.

This Week's Links

How Wall Street fleeces African countries coming and going

Inequitable resource extraction deals are one reason why Senegal struggles to raise enough revenue to run the country. When its coffers run dry, the government is driven to borrow from the international money markets. In a bitter irony, it often turns to the very same firms that are taking the lion’s share of the revenue from the Senegalese gold mining industry.

‘Ferrari in a junkyard’: Mules sold at auction are rare, endangered horses

Once extinct in the wild, around 2,500 Przewalski’s horses remained worldwide as of 2022. They’re native to Mongolia and in June, seven were reintroduced to nearby Kazakhstan as part of an effort to return them to their natural habitats. They are the only truly wild horse remaining (mustangs are feral horses).

Disney-obsessed couple lose lawsuit to get back into exclusive Club 33

At about 9:50 p.m. on Sept. 3, 2017, security guards found Scott Anderson near the entrance of California Adventure displaying signs of what they took to be intoxication, including slurred speech and trouble standing, according to trial testimony. ... The club swiftly ousted them.

The September 2017 incident was not the first time the Andersons had run afoul of Club 33 management. The year before, Diana had been briefly suspended for “using some salty language … a couple F-words,” as Macias put it.

$400 000 seems like a lot of money to spend on getting back into a club where you're not allowed to get drunk or swear.

Incidentally, if you also desire more gay crime fiction, check out my books.

-K

Meme fraud

Committing a crime is easy. Committing a crime and getting away with it — that's hard.

One of the big stories on the internet last week was the Chase bank "viral TikTok trend." Long story short:

There was a short-lived bug in the Chase banking system that allowed users to deposit a cheque, then immediately withdraw the full amount of that cheque (normally, the funds would be held until the cheque cleared).This bug became public knowledge. Social media posts popped up which encouraged people to write cheques for large amounts to themselves, then withdraw or transfer the funds from the account to give themselves "free" money.This is called cheque fraud, and in America it's sometimes prosecuted as a federal crime.Multiple people posted TikTok videos of themselves withdrawing huge amounts of cash from Chase ATMs and celebrating.These fraudulent cheques inevitably bounced, leaving those who attempted to exploit the "free money glitch" thousands of dollars in the hole.Again multiple people posted TikTok videos, this time crying over their negative account balances and impending criminal charges.

The prevailing narrative surrounding this whole thing is one of stupidity. There's no shortage of posts and TikTok videos mocking those who tried to exploit the "glitch" as idiots for not realizing what they were doing was illegal, or for believing there's such a thing as "free money."

And I'm not sure this is a matter of not knowing what cheque fraud is, or that it's a crime. I think a lot of people, even if they don't fully understand how or why, recognize that many great American fortunes are built on fraud.

An "entrepreneur" in Silicon Valley can put together a pitch deck for a startup based on a vague idea, pull in millions in investment, pay himself a ludicrous salary out of those funds for years, then fold the company with nothing to show for it — and as far as any legal authority is concerned, so long as the startup can claim they had one or two engineers doing something, all those lost millions were just the cost of doing business.

For that guy, there absolutely is such a thing as "free money." So it's possible to look at him and think to yourself, "Well, why not me?"

And your mistake there would be not realizing that the rules for the entrepreneur class are not the rules for the working class. A Silicon Valley founder who scams a bank out of millions is the Man in the Arena. A guy who works at Wal-Mart and scams a bank out of a few thousand is going to jail.

A criminal is not a special kind of person, or even a specific set of actions. A criminal is a context. And the failure of those who participated in the Chase cheque fraud scam may have been a failure to recognize context.

New Short Story: "Move Fast and Break Things"

My short story "Move Fast and Break Things", which originally appeared in the Grendel Press anthology The Devil Who Loves Me, is now available as a standalone work! You can get it as an ebook or read it on Medium; if you're one of my Ko-fi supporters, you can also read it on Ko-fi.

This Week's LinksDead birds get new life: New Mexico researchers develop taxidermy bird drones

Taxidermy bird drones - currently being tested in a purpose-built cage at the university - can be used to understand better the formation and flight patterns of flocks. That in turn can be applied to the aviation industry, said Hassanalian.

P(Dumb)

The narrative that artificial intelligence is rapidly accelerating toward "AGI" that will eventually outwit humanity’s efforts to contain it, has gone unchecked by one important segment of the population: the people who write the laws, and the people who whisper into the ears of those people. What they’re whispering is stuff like "P(Doom)": your personal confidence level (usually rendered as a percentage) that a rogue artificial intelligence — ​and not anything else — ​will annihilate humanity. A lot of things have to happen first for this to even be a possibility, let alone something you can assign a probability to.

Bill Gates, Big Agriculture and the fight for the future of Africa’s farmland

"We used to grow diverse crops," said Mary Sakala, a Zambian farmer and chairperson of the Rural Women’s Assembly, which commissioned the report. "But now governments and agribusiness have pushed farmers into monoculture that depends on inputs. Their programmes have made us all vulnerable."

If we're going to start resurrecting crimes from the 1930s, I'd like to see some rich people get ripped off in a huge elaborate confidence game. I think we've earned this, as a society.

-K