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Scalzi

scalzi@mastodon.social

<p>I enjoy pie.</p>

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    Over on Whatever today, I&#39;m talking about &quot;AI&quot; and creativity and how, when it comes to learning creative skills, Generative &quot;AI&quot; is rather like the old &quot;Guitar Hero&quot; game, i.e., a really fun way not to actually learn how to do a creative thing: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/08/06/generative-ai-the-guitar-hero-of-creativity/

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    I had a colonoscopy yesterday and of course I wrote about the experience. Come read why my colonoscopy was not bad at all, why I encourage those of you putting it off to actually schedule it if you can, and what a teddy bear has to do with the whole experience: (Spoiler: It went fine! I&#39;m fine!) https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/10/08/colonoscopy-post-mortem/

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    It will now be called &quot;The Dot&quot; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/neom-megacity-desert-saudi-arabia-mbs-b2907508.html

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    One month until release day! Avoid the chaotic release day rush by preordering it today at your favorite bookseller (and yes, you can preorder the audiobook too)! Also, if you are in the Midwest of the United States, come see me on my book tour, details at link: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/09/17/announcing-the-midwest-monster-tour-november-3-15/

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    Uhhhh, is it that it&#39;s made by Meta? https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/09/muse-metas-extraordinarily-privileged-ai-assistant-has-a-serious-0-day/

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    Look, I don&#39;t want to brag, but I just updated the PHP settings on all my domains. That&#39;s right, look who&#39;s rocking PHP 8.4 over here, suck it, all you PHP 8.1 losers

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    THE IRONY https://gizmodo.com/ai-contractors-shouldnt-use-ai-to-evaluate-ai-model-says-ai-company-2000815621

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    Sure, &quot;AI&quot; might kill us all, but it&#39;s rather more likely that the folks running &quot;AI&quot; companies are hyping up that fear in order to have their pet legislators introduce bills that advantage their positions while kneecapping their competitors and to give them a little more runway to figure out how to avoid the coming massive economic collapse they are still in the process of creating. The apocalypse is far more likely to be caused by the tech CEOs than their spicy autocorr...

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    Over at Whatever, a longer-than-a-Mastodon post about winning the Best Series Hugo this year, what it means to me, and whether this means the series is necessarily coming to an end (Spoiler: maybe probably not) https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/09/01/as-promised-the-2026-hugo-award-follow-up-post/

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    Hey, look at this. It&#39;s the Best Series Hugo for Old Man&#39;s War. I&#39;m delighted to have won, and even more delighted to have been in the fine company of Elizabeth Bear, Max Gladstone, Seanan McGuire, Katherine Addison and Heather Wallace, the other finalists in the category. It was a good night.

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    God&#39;s work https://www.gadgetreview.com/someone-cut-down-every-single-flock-camera-in-this-town-in-a-single-night

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    You know what, it&#39;s been forever since I&#39;ve posted a cat photo here on Mastodon. Let&#39;s fix that. Say hello to Saja.

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    I typically upgrade my Pixel Pro every year because it&#39;s a tech splurge for me, but this year is the first in a while where I&#39;m considering not. I&#39;m not actually keen on spending more money to get less phone. https://www.droid-life.com/2026/07/24/google-prepares-pixel-buyers-for-increased-prices-less-ram/

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    Today&#39;s the last day to get this book bundle, with World Central Kitchen as its designated charity (you can use the &quot;adjust donation&quot; sliders to give them more of the take), available to non-Commonwealth countries. We&#39;ve raised $35k for WCK so far, but I&#39;m sure they&#39;d be happy with more. Get to it! https://www.humblebundle.com/books/john-scalzi-collection-old-mans-war-more-tor-books-books

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    Bad news for the three people who use Copilot: Free Copilot is turning into a demo as Microsoft shifts real features to paid tiers | Windows Central https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-copilot/free-copilot-is-turning-into-a-demo-as-microsoft-shifts-real-features-to-paid-tiers

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    Over on Whatever today I&#39;m talking about GMail has turned into a spam farm so completely that a) most email I get from there is spam/scam, b) I can&#39;t assume a GMail I get is from a real person, c) people seriously need to get their own email domains these days. https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/13/i-regret-to-say-that-gmail-is-now-a-spam-farm-or-why-you-should-really-get-that-dedicated-email-address-now/

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    Oh no how horrible anyway https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/openai-could-reportedly-run-out-of-cash-by-mid-2027-nyt-analyst-paints-grim-picture-after-examining-companys-finances

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    Sounds like I&#39;m not the only one who appreciates a good long nap https://starlust.org/nas-as-new-horizons-probe-just-woke-up-after-321-dayswith-kuiper-belt-data-in-hand/

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    This is an unoriginal thought at this point but I will say it anyway: If the RAMpocalypse hadn&#39;t happened and Valve could have gotten the lower spec of the Steam Machine in at $700, the reviews for it would have been ecstatic https://www.engadget.com/2210832/valve-steam-machine-review/

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    Today is another day I am glad I have already purchased all the computers I will need for, honestly, a while now, and all of them are in good working order and decently specced https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/samsung-likely-post-18-fold-jump-profit-surging-ai-demand-memory-2026-07-05/

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    RE: https://tech.lgbt/@humblebundles/116863143220670043 What better way to celebrate the 4th of July than by getting a bunch of my novels, with a big chunk of your purchase price going to World Central Kitchen, my selected charity for this bundle. Pay what you like (the more you pay, the more you get), and help feed people in need all over the world.

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    Cool, I have two books in here. Thanks, folks! https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/3141-the-104-most-popular-fantasy-science-fiction-books-of-the-past-three-y

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    I took a NASA recording of the Ingenuity helicopter flying around on Mars, chopped it up/turned it to MIDI/ran it through a bunch of VSTs, and made a very noisy electronic track where everything but the drum and bass tracks are derived from that original recording. Enjoy. https://youtu.be/3WoTpHCaspc

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    Today in &amp;quot;Don&amp;#39;t Trust AI to Tell You Facts&amp;quot;: How several different &amp;quot;AI&amp;quot; programs messed up the simple fact of to whom I dedicated a book, and what that means for how much you should trust &amp;quot;AI&amp;quot; to tell you the truth about things (spoiler: not much at all): https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/13/ai-a-dedicated-fact-failing-machine-or-yet-another-reason-not-to-trust-it-for-anything/

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    I don&amp;#39;t mean to brag, he said, bragging, but the cover to my upcoming novel Starter Villain may be the best book cover ever. Also the book is coming out on September 19 and you can totally pre-order it now if that&amp;#39;s a thing you like to do. Also, also, the cover artist is Tristan Elwell and he did a fantastic job, which should be obvious because after all it is the best book cover ever

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    The folks at Time Magazine asked me what tech innovation I think defins modern life today, and my answer is anchoring a list that includes contributions from Tim Cook, Tracy Chou, Gabrielle Zevin and Ray Kurtzweil, among others. https://time.com/collection/our-america-250/2026/tech-innovations-that-define-america/

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    What? The &amp;quot;AI&amp;quot; industry is in an unsustainable bubble that will result in billions and possibly trillions of dollars of damage to the global economy? That&amp;#39;s unpossible! https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-08-20/say-farewell-to-the-ai-bubble-and-get-ready-for-the-crash

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    I wouldn&#39;t say that I enjoy these stories but I will say they certainly encourage me NOT to let &quot;AI&quot; anywhere anything I consider to be sensitive and/or valuable https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/claude-powered-ai-coding-agent-deletes-entire-company-database-in-9-seconds-backups-zapped-after-cursor-tool-powered-by-anthropics-claude-goes-rogue

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    Oh, hey, how cool is this: When the Moon Hits Your Eye is the winner of the inaugural Astra Book Award in the category of Best Science Fiction Novel! Congratulations to all the other winners as well! https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/04/21/when-the-moon-hits-your-eye-the-winner-of-the-astra-book-award-for-best-science-fiction-novel/

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    The Pixel Phone Battery Bug is real and boy is it annoying