Oliver Moss

* Mr Beast's new book is making tons of money... for everyone but him. His collab with James Patterson might be a historic flop, but the smaller content creators have been given a feast.

* I clicked on a youtube video claiming to be a tutorial and... and it wanted me to click a QR code to download something where I'd be able to ask a custom AI questions and be guided on how to use the program.

I should be able to sue that guy for emotional damage.

Also, like... the chances that the download wasn't going to have something funky? Malware? miner? yeah hahahaha haha haha ahahaha aaahhh.... noooooo

Tomorrow is the last installment of the current expansion to Guild Wars 2.

Aaaaaaand that's it until Guild Wars 3 comes out.

Everyone's hype like it's just a big content patch and I'm like, no one's got mixed feelings about this? Just me?

I'm also not through the previous patch. I've been super burned out on the game. I have zero interest in the devs just finding new and exciting ways to get us to play old content yet again.

ISTG if the ending it just a lead into GW3 I... will just lay face down on the floor for a while

* The Prospects Showcase games went pretty well. Especially since none of our top prospects were there. Our top prospects are all NCAA and their colleges either started or start too soon.

We had a last minute addition because we pulled Reid from the roster. Janicke, primarily an ECHL guy, got brought in last minute and scored two goals, once while flying past the goal. Literally flying, he was vertical and airborne and scored a goal. Doing that as someone who wasn't even a camp invite, that single game may have changed his career.

* So I scooted over to the Penguins roster to see if Prokop was at least in the prospect / rookie games, and nope. He is not getting the opportunity to train or to be considered. Last year he was with the Oilers through pre-season.

* No OFM goals, but he did amazing. Every once in a while I'd see some insane bit of skating, weaving through players and then squint to see who, and then spot the 78 on their back. (Games are being played at an AHL arena with potato quality cams) He's still got at least a shot of making the roster opening night.

Bernier did great, and that's not a typo. Some Kraken names are so similar that google is like 'did you mean this squid instead?' When I click no, results don't change and it's still all results for the more established player.

It's happened a few times recently that someone has been all, 'oh I've heard of a great thing for you, there are all these new Sapphic Singles events here in Portland.'

When I say that's not for me I get hit with 'Oh, don't worry, they're inclusive.' I need to find a way to respond to that in a way that's polite, but also makes it very clear that no, it's not for me, please trust that I know what the fuck I am talking about.

There are a few problems with telling me I should go because they are inclusive. Ideally, everyone who has said this to me should have to deal with my giving them a half hour power point on why, but that doesn't work in reality.

( And here is the info that would be in that powerpoint )

AI stole unpublished work to solve a math problem first. Or AI spent 22mill to steal 1mill

They will do this to writing, too. This is why I don't use google docs. Google used gmail for training. You think they aren't going to shift your drafts, especially if you are a published author? The new Gamer's Nexus investigation involves smart TVs recording convos, and they aren't really focusing on it as an AI training scoop but that is one thing LG is selling the data scoops as. This is a very long video, but the bit that's relevant to this convo is LG saying in investor decks 'we own the glass, so we own the room' about how they are entitled to all data in rooms with their TVs, and mikes picked up stuff 70 feet away.

Why the fuck do consumers put up with this shit? I mean, we all make privacy compromises to exist in the modern world, but some are just like 'what the actual fuck?'

I wish the math problem story yesterday, so I could rant about how AI in labor theft on labor day. Actually, I didn't need that story, I just should have yelled about it

Source

So that's a thing that maybe, maybe not happened

She's got two series. One is the main Big Bad Wolf series that starts with Wolf At The Door. There is also a spin off series with one of the characters from BBW called Monster Hunt. Monster Hunt only has one book so far. I am going to start with this second series -

Pack of Lies is the first of the spin off books featuring Elias, and reading this book was such a pleasure. It's really like if Agatha Christie wrote a mystery with werewolves and gay sex. I don't mean in a camp way, or parody way, or 'this is a decent comp', it really is like if Agatha Christie was alive today and wrote werewolf smut. It's got a very almost film noir feel to it, very classic mystery/thriller.

I love the main series even from the first book, but this is way better written then her first book. Which makes me wonder if it could be a good starting point? I feel like most of it is understandable if you haven't read the main series, but there are a few key worldbuilding things that you'd miss, and some stuff near the end would be confusing without context. Yeah, it doesn't quite work as an entry point. Which is too bad, because if it could be a stand-alone it might be my top m/m recc.

Thrown to the Wolves to Cry Wolf - I'm going to give a summary review from books 3-5 because I didn't take enough individual notes. The most important thing to know about this series is that it's going to be a 6 book series and we've been waiting on the last one for a while. She writes slow, so it's not a worry yet, but there is very much an arc going on.

There is some hand-wavey-ness about how law enforcement works, but also this is an urban fantasy world and the author establishes the variations early on. It's never a last minute solve for anything. Structurally, everything about the books is brilliant from the mysteries to the slow world building. The characters are great. The pace of the relationship development is... sometimes it feels like they should already be further along, but the characters are very well written and it's never dumb tropes holding them back.

On a re-read I should take more book-specific notes.

The good and bad news is that I am caught up! No more to read for now, but it's also nice to be up to date in a canon.

Hopefully, I'll get into it tomorrow.

But, I did some good photo walking today. Went out to a little gallery that the artist stocks with all her imperfect art prints, so people can have them. So they get used, not tossed.

I picked up a print and put in on my camera gear shelf:



Oof, my PEN's viewfinder is actually dusty. I need to clear that shelf. But, it's now decorated with a nice little get from all my exploring.

Stopped by John's Marketplace to pick up a pumpkin beer on my way home. Caught the tail end of a Halloween market they were having and got a tarot reading.

Not a bad bit of exploring

* New investigation in the PWHL owner drops tomorrow, according to solid sources. The Pdub should weather this. Worst comes to worst, I am fairly certain than most of the team have potential individual buyers. The league might not yet make money directly, but with the deals NHL owners have with the stadiums and how the league grows hockey in general, most NHL owners who share space with a Pdub team probably have a little something put aside in case an opportunity pops up.

* Looks like a Flyers player is dating his team's rinkside reporter. As a Kraken fan... for the love of fuck I hope this doesn't drag that fucking RPF book about Piper Shaw back into the spotlight. For the love of fuck people, remember to change the fucking character names when you trad pub.

* ... speaking of which, what did happen to that hockey romance that's pulled-to-publish RPF and the publisher put the author's AO3 on blast for marketing purposes? Did she at least hide the hughescest before anyone noticed?

* My favorite player is still unsigned, which is fine... probably. There are still big moves in the NHL that need to shake out, so Botts probably just doesn't know if he's signing Babygirl to a 2 way or 1 way. He will be a squid next year. Everything's fine.

Some teams are over cap, one still only has 22 players on their roster, etc. Things are still in motion

Kraken just added a ton of additional theme nights including two separate Hello Kitty nights. Both the special Torrent Night and Dungeon Crawler Carl night tickets sold out within two hours of the announcement.

I still haven't started DCC, but it's a TTRPG related hockey night and I wanted it.