It's funny. I'm generally a pretty happy person, but I just turned in the manuscript for Sawyer Lee 2, and honestly every time I turn in a book I feel this mix of uncomfortable giddyness and I sort of temporary despair. Hard to describe. I should probably spend a week gardening or something, but alas, in order to get my last 4 manuscripts in on time I had to burn down everything else!

On the other hand, the alternative was a real job, SO

If you're opposed to machine learning making outputs based on training on copyrighted art, are you opposed to ai in general doing it, or opposed to the current types of models doing it?

That is, if you had C-3PO, would the same rule apply?

You know, I'm not a vegan, but the arguments against veganism often strike me as extraordinarily weak. Like the strongest ones are about cost and wherewithal. But the usual arguments are hear are often naturalistic fallacy in different disguises, or an elaborate version of calling vegans a bunch of sissies. Or variations on "but aren't you a hypocrite for not [meeting impossible standard]?"

Fairly depressing post on the future of mathematics, currently getting passed around a lot: https://kirwinhampshire.substack.com/p/the-dark-night-of-mathematics/comments

Some lovely internet person made SMBC searchable: https://smbc-search.com/

I'm not super exposed to popular YouTube stuff, but was visiting family recently, and lots of kids watch it. What was interesting to me is how a lot of it appears to just be inexpensive gameshow-style stuff with lots of product placement. I guess this hits the sweet spot between cost and revenue. Also surprised how much discussion of money/pricing their is, e.g. "we're going to eat this thing that cost 50,000 dollars" seems very popular.

In a data point that surely means something, today I had a reader write to say he's always appreciated my pro-AI stance, and another say he's always appreciated my anti-AI stance.

It's funny. For years I've been doing comics where a robot tries to convince a human that humans aren't special. Now, when I do it, I get people telling me to stop siding with Ai.

I used to not understand why there were so many self-help books, because, like, if they worked wouldn't you only need one? Certainly no more than a few. But having known a few people who read them, they now strike me as more like sermons than guides? That is, you read them to feel pumped up about your current stuff, but eventually it fades and you need another person to give you the same encouragement.

This year, between seeds, cuttings, rootstocks, and grafted trees, I put in over 100 fruit trees. And then Virginia had the worst drought in years. So, I have to run around like an idiot once a week with a hose and bucket, and now I understand the idea that farming is stressful.

Why do we even want high-speed rail? The faster the train goes, the sooner you have to get off the train.