Vesperlf - Vesper

Bionicle sketches

(Only have two more left to draw)

The Grand Folia Hotel by keysmasht

Released: February 2023

63k words; 12 chapters

Noteworthy Tags:

Status: Complete

When an Affini outpost and the object of Phoebe's spy assignment for the Rebellion turns out to be an elaborate "floret-run" hotel, she begins to wonder if she's in over her head.

Grand Folia Hotel is a fic I feel downright unqualified to speak about, because it's just downright incredible. The setting is lush and richly realized, Celosia is a terrifying and enticing force of nature, and chapter 10 hits like a goddamn freight train. The fic feels downright platonic in a way. Like, if one were to wish for an ideal version of an HDG story, a kindly genie might produce something that looks an awful lot like Grand Folia Hotel. I lack the expertise on Wes Anderson to say if the name is more than simply a cute play on words, but it would not surprise me.

I'm flat out tired of seeing actual reputable news sources, real actual companies, and living, sentient people talking about investment in AI. Does nobody understand what this technology actually is.

my understanding is that large language models basically construct statistically likely combinations of words based upon enormous, sprawling aggregations of statistical data drawn from basically all written text on the entire internet. I've read a million articles explaining how AI works and I never learn anything new from them.

But I still feel like I'm constantly missing something because everybody seems to expect that in the near future chatGPT is going to like, transfigure into something other than a chatbot that aggregates an exceptionally large amount of information about how language tends to be constructed.

I think the bicycle helmet discourse really just reinforces the idea that people believe that accidents only happen to the stupid and careless, and that people who get hurt somehow deserve it. And since nobody wants to believe themselves to be stupid, or thinks they could be careless or distracted, it's not necessary to take precautions.

And then they take safety advice as an insult because telling someone to be safe is seen as an accusation of being stupid and irresponsible, and not just a value neutral acknowledgement of statistical inevitably. We see it with masks, and seatbelts, and now bicycle helmets because everyone wants to believe they're too clever to get hurt, and too lucky to get hurt badly, until suddenly you're not and you have to resign, in shame, to being one of the people you previously saw as annoying nags, assuming you're even still alive.

people who find it easy to do things have no idea how hard it is to do things

Technical difficulties at the Chute Station

POV: mister Devon Price, PhD, telling me that I am right about everything

Source: Unmasking Autism, discovering the new faces of neurodiversity

An overworked wishing flower

At least once a month someone will write “anarchism isn’t about no hierarchies, anarchism is about no UNJUST hierarchies” and will then name the most extremely fucked up hierarchy as their example of a ‘just’ hierarchy.

Like, no, comrade, the doctor-patient relationship is NOT a just hierarchy. The power that doctors have to not just give advice but to decide for us which care we get and which care we don’t get is deeply fucked up. Speak to a woman and you will get on average like 4 stories about medical abuse by sexist doctors who didn’t want to google ‘endometriosis’. Then speak to trans people. Then speak to fat people. Then speak to people of color. Then speak to a disabled person. I promise you will be horrified by what marginalized people endure under the doctor-patient hierarchy. Our bodies should definitely be ours to control.

It's kind of based on priorities and thought process, I guess? The point of a thumbtack-braid is to make them stop, and pain is just a side effect. The point of punishing someone is to hurt them, regardless of whether it makes them stop.

Based