A running theme throughout topical issues in modern culture, whether they emerge organically from our own shared experiences or in a more curated manner from media entities, is that of group responsibility - or perhaps ‘culpability’ - and whether it should be deemed to apply in different contexts. Groups are often defined as much by… Continue reading Roundup 2: Groups, resolution, guilt by association, and trust-but-verify expertise.
Reprotypes
The term 'stereotype' originally meant the method used to reproduce sheets of text at scale via metal plates of solid (pre-moveable) type. Then it meant the plates themselves. In today's world where both moveable and non-moveable type technologies are equally obsolete in the face of largely-LLM-generated digital text, it has recently meant something like 'an… Continue reading Reprotypes
Get Wokepilled
Every so often, someone will claim to not know what 'woke' means - or act like something woke is not actually woke. The former could be reasonable if they genuinely don't know. Certainly it is a term that has been stretched, abused, wielded inconsistently and cynically to the point where reliably extrapolating its meaning from… Continue reading Get Wokepilled
Mouthwashing
I would not want to make a Psychological Horror game. One way or another, those doing so must sacrifice something that people like about video games - a reason why they'd play a game rather than consume some other form of media. Player agency is necessarily restricted, for the sake of what's usually a highly… Continue reading Mouthwashing
Why I haven’t stopped being a Libertarian
I was asked whether I had stopped being a Libertarian, and if so, why. I still am, and I will explain why anyway. In the event that someone reading this doesn’t know what I mean by ‘Libertarian’, which is quite possible here in the UK, I should first explain the principle. I believe that individuals… Continue reading Why I haven’t stopped being a Libertarian
The Tank
To no great surprise, almost everyone's answer to the question 'How do we solve all of these economic problems that can each in some way be traced back to a perverse instance of state intervention?' is once again 'more intervention!'Anyone who thought the Conservatives would in some way be immunised against this tendency hasn't been… Continue reading The Tank
The Second Horseman’s Fall: “What if I’m wrong?”
In 2007, four famous men discussed religion and atheism. (Part 1, Part 2) First among them, the writer Christopher Hitchens, died in 2011 of Esophageal cancer. When confronted by an offended believer who felt there was something divinely appropriate about Hitchens being doomed by the organ "he used for blasphemy", Hitch Major characteristically pointed out… Continue reading The Second Horseman’s Fall: “What if I’m wrong?”
Vidya: Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online is, in theory, a Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game which pioneered a sci-fi aesthetic rare in that genre, even today, as well as the 'free to play' model which has since become ubiquitous as the do-or-die desperation manoeuvre invoked by all online services failing to turn a profit by conventional means. Its name referred… Continue reading Vidya: Anarchy Online
The Interviews, #1: Consistency at Microsoft
“Today I’ll be speaking with Microsoft’s Chief Consistency Officer, George Parr. Thanks for joining us George.” “It’s a pleasure to be with you, Brian, thank you.” “This is quite a new role for you, isn’t it?”“That’s right Brian, Microsoft decided to form a dedicated Consistency Unit after we found that some of the products we… Continue reading The Interviews, #1: Consistency at Microsoft
Predictions #1: Expertise, knowledge, and change.
In these previous posts I touched on the concept of expertise, and why it might be that increasing numbers of people are no longer willing to assume that nominal experts are operating in good faith. This has become even more obvious since, given the increasing prominence of both epidemiologists and critical race theorists in public… Continue reading Predictions #1: Expertise, knowledge, and change.
Bugman Chronicles #3: CUDares Wins
I've been trying to get https://github.com/NVIDIA/DeepLearningExamples/tree/master/PyTorch/SpeechSynthesis/Tacotron2 up and running on my local machine, partly just to see how far I can get (and how small it'll scale) but also because it'd be very helpful for another project later. I'm relatively new to Linux, entirely new to CUDA, and my only knowledge of AI comes from… Continue reading Bugman Chronicles #3: CUDares Wins
Rory's Roundups 