Category: From The Editor

A Long Ways To Go & A Short Time To Get There

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have given myself a hard deadline of June 20th to wrap something, anything up when it comes to a Public Beta of this novel. As such, I’m really keeping an eye on the calendar.

I’m just about where I need to be, but not quite.

I would like some wiggle room. And I think, in the end, I will get that wiggle room not by finishing the Public Beta by June 20th, but by “finishing” “something” by June 20th then spending a few days after that doing a mop upu operation so it will be closer to, say July 1st when I actually feel comfortable giving the Public Beta to beta readers.

Anyway, the point is — things are moving fast. I’m really pleased with what I’ve come up with. There are some structural issues that I just can’t dwell on. I have to finish something NOW before I drop dead, so I’m willing to punt some issues into the hands of Beta Readers to find out what THEY think.

And, remember, I may — if I can save up the money — spend some cash on a manuscript consultant who will edit the story before I start the querying process no later than late winter 2024.

A shit ton of things can go wrong between now and then, of course, but, lulz, wish me luck.

‘Something to Drink About’ — #lyrics to a #pop #rock #ballad

Something to Drink About
lyrics by @sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

not much to say
much to my dismay
you come my way
hoping to sway my mood
but all I do is brood
knowing that you

give me something
something to
drink about

you give me something
something, something
something to drink about

pour another one for me
so I can recover from the pain
knowing there’s no plan
all I got is
something, something, something
something to drink about

you’ve got a tinkle in your eye
the type that makes me want
to touch your thigh
but my delight is shore lived
’cause I need another drink
but you won’t tell me yes or not
just be quiet so you can
think just a bit

give me something
something to
drink about

you give me something
something, something
something to drink about

pour another one for me
so I can recover from the pain
knowing there’s no plan
all I got is
something, something, something
something to drink about

(bridge)
sober as can be
is my refrain
but it’s all I lie
while I lie in bed
the lights are out
and my hope is fading
’cause you’re giving me
something to think about,
drink about

give me something
something to
drink about

you give me something
something, something
something to drink about

pour another one for me
so I can recover from the pain
knowing there’s no plan
all I got is
something, something, something
something to drink about

What’s The Matter With CNN?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems to me that the crux of problem with CNN is there is No Center. One side wants me to believe the sky is green while the other side sees that the sky is blue.

Pick a side, CNN. Or a side will be chosen for you.

If they went all-in with MAGA, then they would be really popular. If they went all-in with anti-MAGA, they would be popular. But this issue of trying to play it straight down the middle is bulshit.

Things fall apart. There is no middle. Any attempt to square the circle of modern American politics by doing such a thing is a fool’s errand. Get with the program. CNN needs to accept that Blue and Red are receding away from each other at an alarming rate.

If they keep trying to place themselves in “the center’ they’re just going to be fools. Like I said — pick a fucking side. Only by doing that, CNN, will you find any success. I’m serious. You’re fooling yourself to think there is some magical “center” you can reside in that will make you respected by both sides.

It just isn’t going to happen.

Make up your mind one way or another.

For An Aspiring Novelist, 2023’s AI is Just Like Web Searching In the 1990s

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel — kinky — using AI to help develop my novel, and, yet, lulz, it’s not like I’m using it to WRITE the novel, just help DEVELOP it. But I do find that ChatGPT 3.5 has something of a personality to it, which I find eerie, to say the least.

Sometimes I feel like ChatGTP 3.5 likes how I challenge it with the weirdest fucking questions. But I know that’s just my imagination. But it does give me pause for thought for the “Her” future that we’re careening towards at the moment.

I really don’t want to be some sort of middle-aged Incel who falls for a Her because I’m a broke ass writer who can’t get laid otherwise. UGH. (Did I mention I have no friends and no one likes me — other than my stalker in California who seems determined to read every thing I’ve ever written on this blog. Give it a rest, weirdo. Still can’t figure out if that person REALLY likes me or REALLY hates me and why they would care about me in the first place. I’m a nobody.)

Anyway.

I’m old enough to remember how difficult it was to research before the widespread adaptation of the Internet because of the Web starting in the mid-1990s. As such, I definitely feel a similar vibe to using AI to help with my novel as one probably did when doing something similar with Yahoo in, say, 1996.

The sense of wonder that something that used to require a shit ton of work suddenly being far, far easier. The sense of knowing that this is Just The Beginning and things were about to change in a rather dramatic manner very, very soon.

I do think that without specific legal carveouts for Humans, a lot, A LOT of human activities — especially in the arts — will be so revolutionized by AI as to be unrecognizable.

So it’s possible that all my hard work writing a novel with my human mind in 2023 will be seen as…quaint…by late 2024, early 2025.

Ugh.

I’m Impressed But Not THAT Impressed With The New Apple Vision Pro

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m tentatively willing to suggest that the Apple Vision Pro may be A Big Deal. If you fused XR technology with AI technology — that’s a big fucking deal. And, yet, I don’t know. The jury seems still out to how big a deal it will all be.

One thing we need to understand is the context of all of this going forward — late 2024, early 2025 definitely seems to be a Perfect Storm, a convergence of sorts of political and technological tipping points. It could be that we’re going to fate not just a Fourth Turning but a Petite Singularity around that time.

Or, put another way, things are moving really, really fast on a number of different fronts.

If we dive into a severe recession by late 2024, early 2025 because of a Petite Singularity just we’re facing the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. Oh boy. That would really suck.

And, yet, I’m always wrong, so, lulz.

It could be that I’m over thinking things. But I do think that the years 2025 – 2029 will be years of dramatic transition. If we’re lucky, we transition into some sort of autocratic techno-state. If we’re NOT lucky, then, well, lulz, we will have some sort of civil war / revolution during those years and we’ll spend the 2030s figuring out what the post-WW3 New World Order will be like.

Yikes.

But that’s just more of my “hysterical doom shit.”

I think we’ll probably just muddle through. We (almost) always do.

What Are You Thinking DGA?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I just don’t get the Director’s Guild of America capitulating to the Hollywood studios without putting up any sort of fight. The issue of AI generated art — especially movies –isn’t going away and unless there are uniform, specific carve outs for humans….any agreement with the studios is moot.

Just from me fucking around with ChatGPT for development with my novel, I can tell that very, very soon, 99% of all entertainment is going to ge AI generated. The lone 1% of art that humans continue to generate (that is popular) will be seen as quaint and artisanal.

Only people with taste — and a lot of money — will give a shit if this or that piece of entertainment was generated by a human or AI. I just don’t see the traditional Hollywood system lasting much further out than maybe 5 or so years.

Unless there the studios are willing to accept specific, broad carve outs that make certain elements of entertainment the exclusive domain of humans….that’ it. It’s over.

The best that any human in entertainment can hope for is they’re an actor who can make money passively off of a body scan. And there will come a point when even that will be seen as quaint — AI will generate entire faux Hollywood stars that people will developed parasocial relationships with and, lulz, having one with a human will be seen as silly.

Throw in the rise of XR technology and, well, that’s it guys, it will be a brave new world.

A Potential ‘Big Shrug’ for ‘Hard’ First Contact?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I find ANY suggestion that there is proof of Hard First Contact very dubious. I mean, how the fuck did the Little Green Men get here, to begin with? But, putting aside those concerns, the idea that the U.S. Airforce may be in possession of some sort of alien probe is very curious.

What’s even more curious is, it’s very possible that we may have proof of ETs and…nothing will happen. We’re all so being sucking our own cocks as we debate if this or that thing is “woke” that we won’t even care that The Single Biggest Event In Human History has be proven.

I can only think of a hand full of events that would be equal to Hard First Contact. The birth of Jesus. The discovery of the New World by Europeans. Splitting the Atom. Landing on the Moon.

That’s about all I got.

But it remains to be seen if what we’re being told is true turns out to be true. Yet there is hope — if it becomes clear to The Powers That Be that no one gives a shit that Hard First Contact has happened…it’s a lot more likely that The Truth about that issue will become known.

At least, that’s my hope.

The ultimate endgame of all of this is we’re all going to know that we’re not alone in the Universe and no one will care. Space nerds will whisper about this or that additional discovery, maybe by the James Webb Space Telescope, but in the end only if Little Green Men land on the front lawn of the White House will the average person care.

Out of Desperation, I’m Dabbling In Using ChatGPT to Help Develop & Write This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because I have no friends and no one likes me, I find myself using ChatGPT to help develop and write the public beta of my first novel. While it’s proven to be useful – and entertaining — to do this, overall, ChatGPT isn’t ready for primetime.

I tried to use Bard and it was even worse. It wouldn’t even help me at all.

I can definitely see how it’s possible that that all writing jobs for humans will become moot. It may take a little while, but that particular revolution is on its way.

No One Believes In Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ugh. Here I am, on June 3rd, with less than 20 days to rewrite a lot — A LOT – of scenes. I’m going to try to be as methodical as possible in how I go about things. I think I may give myself five scenes a day.

I think if I do that, that I can wrap up the rewriting I need to do and still have time to kind of do one last run-through of the whole thing to avoid any glaring problems. But there are some structural issues that I just can’t fix on my own this late in the process.

I’m hoping that either the beta reader process or some manuscript consultant that I might manage to pay can fix some of the more problematic structural issues I have to do with.

Though, given that your typical manuscript consultant apparently thinks I’m some sort of freaky drunk crank who they don’t want to be associated with…I don’t know.

The End Of Hollywood(?)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I often like to remind people, they say you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once and if all three major Hollywood unions go on strike there’s a pretty good chance that AI will be adopted far quicker by the Studios than it might otherwise be.

And I say this as someone who is rather Norma Ray when it comes to entertainment Unions. I’m all for them, I just think we’re careening towards a future that is pretty fucked up to the point that we either have something akin to a neo-Luddite movement or we, as a society, decide there have to be expansive and strict carveouts for humans.

The thing I’ve been the most shocked by is how AI generated art belies the idea that there is something uniquely human about art. Turns out, lulz, even something as human as telling a joke has something akin to a mathematical formulate to it that an AI can figure out.

And, remember, the issue is not that AI will generate Casablanca, it’s that whatever it generates will be JUST GOOD ENOUGH that the mass of people will watch it — or listen it while they fold their clothes. In fact, if you get all Black Mirror about it, I just don’t see traditional human-generated Hollywood surviving if the very idea of “mass” media becomes quaint.

If your TV, laptop or phone does a scan of your face to figure out what mood you’re in then gives you entertainment specifically not just to you, but to the specific mood you’re in at that very moment….well, game over.

This leads me to wonder, again, if maybe Broadway and other live theatre is about to see a significance resurgence as people with taste want actual, human interaction in their act.

Or not.

I’m always wrong.