benjaminallocco

@benjaminallocco@universeodon.com

#CNY #Author of Deathform and Mr. Ugly.

#Reader and #writer of #thrillers and #horror with a passion for #uap, the #supernatural, and socio-political responsibility. Pushing hard for #UAPtransparency and to #endUAPstigma

A #LifelongLearner and compulsively #CuriousMind

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ronanmcd, to random
@ronanmcd@mastodon.green avatar

I started reading a book of interviews today. It mentions, tangentially, an artist called Orozco on page 17.
I also was in the library today and at the scanner I saw a novella by John Steinbeck. I checked it out. When I got home I realised it had ink and brush illustrations by Orozco.
I never heard of Orozco before today

benjaminallocco,

@ronanmcd

The universe is telling you something. If I had to guess, it's, "Hey, check out this Orozco guy."

benjaminallocco, to ai

The internet disrupted. It helped us do what we did before, but faster. In some cases, better.

Social media disrupted. It allowed communication en masse, in aggregate, providing new visibility where it had never been.

AI is not going to disrupt. It's going to destroy. Shatter. Obliterate. It will not enable us to do what we did before but better or faster. It will REPLACE what we did before. It will replace what we have not even yet done. It will think for us, do for us--replace us entirely.

We have no idea what the new paradigm will look like.

Daojoan, (edited ) to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

The death of the writer has arrived. Vox have pretty much nailed it in their piece on self promotion.

In the social media era, writers must become podcasters, graphic designers, videographers, and conventionally attractive TikTok models to gain an audience.

The profession of "writer" no longer exists - only the "influencer" remains.

A thread on the demise of the solitary writing life…

benjaminallocco,

@Daojoan

Yep. You've completely nailed it with this thread. My only foreseeable path is to keep my day job and write in my "free time" until I reach retirement age. I have so many stories I want to write, but no time, and no energy, to do it alongside the work that pays the bills. But we chug along and keep trying. No sense despairing. Just do your thing the best you can and find a path you can live with.

That's the only way to live as a modern artist, IMO.

benjaminallocco, to random

I know some futurists predicted the capitalist dystopian hellscape we currently live in, but I don't know if anyone has accurately captured how boring, tedious, and bureaucratic the slow decline of western civilization really is.

Ya know. Just a regular old Tuesday evening thought.

ronanmcd, to random
@ronanmcd@mastodon.green avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    benjaminallocco,

    @ronanmcd

    As an American, I can tell you I don't know a single person who uses either the term "sandos" or "sambos."

    benjaminallocco,

    @ronanmcd

    There are, however, a lot of regional specific terms for "sandwich."

    Hero
    Hoagie
    Sub / Submarine sandwich (specific to sandwiches on Italian bread)

    Mostly, I think people just say, "sandwich."

    benjaminallocco, to escribiendo

    Finally back to actively writing a new novel after a brief interlude working on spec scripts, and damn it feels good to be back with fiction.

    There is no paintbrush in the world quite like prose, IMHO, and no matter how good our screens and goggles and CGI rendering become, no software can possibly compete with the mind itself.

    benjaminallocco, to Pubtips

    Prediction: AI generated books just may be the unexpected development that brings back publishing "gatekeepers" and kills self-publishing. Some self pubbed authors will be fine bc they already have an established fan base that trusts them, but for unknowns, readers will buy from a publisher to know it's not some AI generated POS someone shat onto Amazon.

    What a disaster.

    benjaminallocco, to movies

    Mostly, I'll remember 2023 as the year that gave us the first disappointing Mission Impossible movie in 23 years.

    Other things probably happened, but that's the big event for me, personally.

    CiderKing, to writing Dutch

    Does anybody know of an easy way for writers to use a custom placeholder feature?

    I want to save the same piece of text multiple times, in different locations, and when I rewrite it in one location, it should change in all of them.

    Is there any writing software which allows this?

    benjaminallocco,

    @CiderKing

    I believe the closest thing would be Ctrl+f "replace all".

    flexghost, to random
    @flexghost@mastodon.social avatar

    Round in the chamber

    Safety off

    Time for your MRI appointment

    …Let’s play guess the state. GO!

    benjaminallocco,

    @flexghost

    Hm. Wisconsin?

    benjaminallocco, to mastodon

    Can we just celebrate for a moment that there is no manipulative artificial algorithm on this platform?

    benjaminallocco, to Fortnite

    Played for the very first time today, and annoyed my nephew by continuously referring to it as "Fork Knife."

    Two kills on my first playthrough, and stuck playing non-inverter Y-axis. Come at me bro.

    benjaminallocco, to random

    Sartre said that hell is other people, but we all know that hell is grocery shopping on a Sunday.

    benjaminallocco,

    @derickr

    🤯

    benjaminallocco, to ps5

    Genuinely pissed to learn (late, I know) that Alan Wake 2 is a digital release only. #EpicGames really looking to put the final nail in the coffin of brick and mortar game stores, I guess. Not to mention eat up the last shred of your console's piddling factory memory.

    I was planning to buy it this weekend. I think I will wait--indefinitely.

    #PS5 #VideoGames #AlanWake #AlanWake2 #VideoGame #Gaming #Remedy

    benjaminallocco,

    @WagesOf

    If I knew what that meant, I might be pissed about it.

    Call me old school, but I miss the days when I could go to a store, buy a game, pop it into whatever I bought it for, and it just worked. Good times.

    benjaminallocco, to science

    I tend to think the simulation theory of the universe is a bit too literal for its own good. We may end up confirming that the laws of physics are LIKE those of a simulation, but that may simply be because our own simulations exist within the universe and therefore mimic the UNIVERSE'S laws, not the other way around.

    But hey. It's not off the table. I just think it's too simple of a theory, and the truth is probably much stranger.

    benjaminallocco, to science

    I believe the most important phrase in science in coming decades will be "ontological shock." Our approach to scientific advancement thus far has largely focused on observing matter and energy at micro and macro scales, but it is clear that observation alone does not explain the behavior of said matter and energy.

    In quantum mechanics, we see we do not understand the behavior of the tiniest constituents of matter.

    In our observation if distant galaxies, we see we don't understand the nature of matter on a macro scale (ie: socalled "dark matter).

    We have reached our limit of understanding by looking only at matter as a physical phenomenon, and we are on the brink of a new paradigm that will upheave everything we thought we knew.

    This will overhaul our understanding of the nature of spacetime, quantum fields, and consciousness, through a "nonlocal" lens.

    Things are about to get real weird.

    benjaminallocco,

    @Itty53

    I think the paradigm shift away from the physical study of matter is what will shake the foundations of physics and reality in a way we haven't felt perhaps since Darwin effectively "killed God," as the philosophers would say.

    I'm thinking specifically about the work of David Hoffman, among others I know less well. Hoffman is able to show through mathematical modeling and simulation that, if evolution is true, then human beings (and possibly all living organisms) evolved in a way that actively HID the truth about reality.

    Extrapolate this, and you see that we are essentially flatlanders trying to describe dimensions we have ZERO way to observe or interact with, because the truth is hidden. Flatland is only a metaphor, but it's often used as a way to say we can describe higher dimensions through math and theory. I believe Hoffman's work is saying it's far more difficult than that. Our math and our minds are so limited, we need to find ways to look deeper.

    benjaminallocco,

    @Itty53

    And before you ask how we could do that, I will tell you: I have no idea.

    But I think this is the next avenue of scientific advancement. We need to move beyond observation (looking at "what" matter does), and start to find ways to describe ""why" matter is the way it is.

    The search for "why" will put us right up against Hoffman's theory: we can never see the underlying "why" directly," so we need to toss our intuitions and find new modes of investigation--a brand new paradigm that merges nonlocal phenomena such as entanglement (and, I would argue: consciousness) with classical physics.

    benjaminallocco,

    @Itty53

    I also realize there are contradictions in what I'm saying. Ie: how do you investigate if you toss observation? Again, I don't know. The linguistics needed to describe the problem itself are tricky, let alone proposing a solution. But I don't want to throw my hands up and say, "The truth is unknowable!" I don't want to believe that.

    Hopefully, I've gotten the gist of the idea across, if nothing else.

    benjaminallocco,

    @Itty53

    Totally appreciate everything you're saying! I am still coming to terms with and trying to find ways to explain my own feelings about the topic.

    I would highly recommend reading Donald Hoffman's book, The Case Against Reality.

    I've spent about a year so far ruminating on what Hoffman says, and the implications only grow in scale and scope. Not everyone will be onboard with what he says, and it's worth deeper consideration/skepticism, but I feel that his premise is sound, and it aligns with the strangeness we observe in quantum mechanics, among other fields of study.

    We largely assume that we are simply missing some constituent component of matter, or a new force, which will explain the observed phenomena. I don't believe that is true. I think a new paradigm that upheaves the foundation of modern physics is the most likely path forward, and it will make many people DEEPLY uncomfortable.

    benjaminallocco,

    @Itty53

    Agreed! I also don't want to put words in anybody's mouth. I don't think Hoffman is proposing an answer. More than anything, he's putting rigorous study into the formulation of a problem statement that, I believe, could be a useful starting point toward the development of a unified theory of everything 🤞

    Greater minds than mine, and time, will tell.

    benjaminallocco,

    @Itty53 @kazarnowicz

    "Consciousness exists."

    Modern physics cannot prove this statement true, but we know it to be true, indicating a significant, fundamental gap in the strictly materialist view of the universe.

    I don't think anyone is saying physics is useless, but my personal belief is that the next breakthrough will NEED to bridge the gap I just mentioned above.

    benjaminallocco,

    @Itty53 @kazarnowicz

    The fact that this very conversation has escalated in tone and resulted essentially in name-calling is exactly what I'm talking about with my original post about "ontological shock." People cannot even talk about the POSSIBILITY of an upset to the current paradigm without becoming emotional.

    Maybe it's because we are on social media, but I don't think so.

    My original post is also, admittedly, unscientific. I stated a feeling I have, nothing more. I could be wrong, and I would accept that possibility. It might even be best if I am wrong. But we owe it to ourselves to keep open minds and treat each other with respect.

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