scalzi

scalzi, 2 months ago to random

Spent the day finishing and uploading a new EP of electronic music. Meet "Totality": Five tracks on a theme of the upcoming eclipse, going from ambient to industrial and back again. It's being seeded to streaming as we speak, but you can listen to it now here:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/03/24/yet-another-new-ep-from-me-totality/

scalzi, 2 months ago to random

It's been colder since the spring equinox than it was before it and I would now like to register a complaint to the management

scalzi, 2 months ago to random

A very excellent set of new books and ARCs have come to the Scalzi Compound in the last couple of weeks. What here looks like a sure bet to you?

scalzi, 2 months ago to random

I'm quoted in this news article about Vernor Vinge's passing. He was a lovely person, and will be missed.

https://www.popsci.com/science/vernor-vinge-obit/

scalzi, 2 months ago to random

Lossless audio sounds better than the MP3s I made in 2000, when I encoded them at the lowest viable resolution to get as many as possible on my Creative Nomad Jukebox. It does not sound notably better than the high-resolution encoded MP3s I make today. That said, when making music or uploading it to streaming, I do it with lossless files because in those situations, more information is better.

https://gizmodo.com/lossless-audio-does-not-sound-better-than-mp3-1851341155

scalzi, 2 months ago to random

Spent the last week on the JoCo Cruise, which was delightful, especially because on the last day of the cruise we had a surprise performer, fresh from his Oscar win

(Edit of my photo by John Hudgens)

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

The Internet, it's a hell of a town, Mastodon is up and Meta is down

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/5/24091207/meta-outage-facebook-instagram-threads-down-signed-out

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Portrait of a dog who very strongly wants to go bother a cat

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Somewhere on social media someone was just deeply offended at something I said, so I went ahead and blocked them so their social media existence can continue unsullied by my pernicious nonsense

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

It's time for me to admit I will never fucking understand spreadsheets, they are like dark magic to me, or math

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Just don't then put it into a plastic drinking bottle or you'll be right back where you started from

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2419556-boiling-tap-water-can-remove-80-per-cent-of-the-microplastics-in-it/?fbclid=IwAR1_rsOPAy-lHFLeGU-Mfx13gqfqJnYzGREztfDj3elMLdfGdSma9XToMDQ

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Considering that LLMs started off devolving within hours into Nazi rhetoric so vile they had to be taken offline, I can't say that I see this sort of overcorrection as the most horrible thing that could have happened. Also, a reminder that LLM aren't in fact intelligent, artificially or otherwise. They output what they're programmed to.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-explains-what-went-wrong-with-geminis-image-generation

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

I have a new EP of sometimes spacey, sometimes grindy electronic music out, called "Difficult Time." It's on YT/YT Music and Amazon Music today, and on other streaming services when they put it up. In the meantime, you can listen to the whole EP on my site now:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/02/21/new-ep-out-now-difficult-time/

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Written by people who don't have the OCD-like need to declutter the chaos that lurks beneath the surface of their mobile devices

https://gizmodo.com/stop-closing-your-iphone-s-background-apps-1851264816

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Me answering a phone call on my smart watch:

Seconds 0 - 10: I can have a phone call on my watch! Which is on my wrist! This is amazing! I am living in the future for sure!

Seconds 10 - : Holding my arm in this position is super uncomfortable and I look like a huge dork! Who ever thought this was a good idea?

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Smack dab in the middle of the month, a set of new books and ARCs that have arrived at the Scalzi Compound. What here looks good to take with you into the weekend?

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Okay, now I've read the Barkley/Sanford report on the fracas involving the 2023 Hugo Awards and the decision to remove eligible finalists from the ballot. My opinion: the 2023 Hugo administrators perpetrated a fraud and the Hugo Award is in a very bad moment. What happens next determines its future. I have a piece over on my site going into my thoughts in some detail:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/02/15/the-2023-hugo-fraud-and-where-we-go-from-here/

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

Look, this is not an especially deep thought, but: Isn't it nice to have a moon?

scalzi, 3 months ago to random

"Oh, good, you're here. Now the council will decide your fate."

scalzi, 4 months ago to random

They say never meet your heroes but boy were they wrong

scalzi, 4 months ago to random

Here's some news for you:

"[Among] Paramount Pictures and Maximum Effort projects in the works [is] Starter Villain, based on the New York Times-bestselling book of the same name by John Scalzi, with Jesse Andrews attached to adapt"

https://deadline.com/2024/02/ryan-reynolds-paramount-pictures-1235819256/

scalzi, 4 months ago to random

On the occasion of Bluesky opening up, I post some thoughts about the current social media landscape, and how I move around in it, over on my site:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/02/06/bluesky-out-of-beta-various-social-media-thoughts-february-2024/

scalzi, 4 months ago to random

Bluesky out of beta. As I noted elsewhere I'm there as well as here and on Threads and use all in slightly differing and complementary ways, so I don't necessarily see them in competition, although I acknowledge that I might have a minority view on this. In any event, if you check out Bluesky, remember to say hello.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/06/bluesky-is-now-open-for-anyone-to-join/

scalzi, 4 months ago to random

I recently did an upgrade to my basement music production studio, which prompted me to write a longish and deeply nerdy dive into the hardware and software I'm using to make music at the moment. If you're feeling deeply nerdy, you can read it over on my site:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/02/04/my-music-production-setup-2024/