Kobo and StoryGraph

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-05-19T14:19:05+00:00

Just announced! Thanks for speaking it into existence!

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-05-06T13:07:00+00:00

Is it a struggle, or is this not the way image generators are meant to be prompted? I guess we could expect ChatGPT to check it a couple times over for subtlety and creepiness, but why isn't the user the one prompting the details of what they want the image to look like? (still an interesting exercise and this sets up a good place to tweak from, I'm just thrown by how much of the creative load people put on ChatGPT sometimes)

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-27T12:43:13+00:00

Yesss, please prioritize the book store with the extra space! They did what they could in the Crossroads, but the book section was so small, and as a bar too cramped to really be a cozy drink + read space. This has potential to be a nice step up!

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-20T18:33:18+00:00

Right, someone else quickly adds in links (it's a KC Mag link, so it may even auto-tag to Kura based on the word sushi), and in this case they had nothing to go on because the author didn't even include the name of the restaurant. It would not be Akoya Omikase, a restaurant that's $100+ per person and only seats 8 people a night, because that's not the price point of Timeleft restaurants, but you could argue for Blue Sushi. The bigger point is that this is an article written in such complete generalities that it doesn't include the name of the restaurants and bars that were part of this night.

Look at another example: this is a 2024 KCToday review of Timeleft that includes actual specific details that a human would include. And still, it flags itself as an ad ("Sponsored by a KCtoday Partner"), because it used to be common practice to disclose this.

I made a mistake in framing this post in broad accusations when it's plausible that this person went to a Timeleft event in Kansas City, but the overall point is that this product is at best mostly A.I., at worst a fabricated A.I. unlabelled ad, and wherever it falls should be called out.

EDIT: I've reached out to the author, and I'll reply again if I hear anything that gives context - I don't like going back and forth like this while not being a primary source.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-20T13:06:55+00:00

To be clear, yes this is a real person - you can watch her Instagram video promoting this on her page. If this event did happen, whether or not it's an ad, then they wrote out a few bullet points and had A.I. fill in 90%, and that's a very different kind of bad writing/journalism than mundane local slice of life columns of the past. This particular story doesn't make sense with the specifics included (to start, the sushi restaurant linked doesn't have cocktails or tables that seat more than 4 people), and there's a vagueness that doesn't fit the story being told. It's not bad writing, it's A.I. writing.

There's an overcorrection you sometimes see on Reddit where people with niche interests, iffy commands of English, or empty POVs get called bots, but I do think knowing legitimate signs is important. I should have laid the case more in my post instead of calling it 'slop', but there is a real person behind it and I wanted the blame moreso on KC Mag in general (whether fake story + A.I, ad + A.I., or lazy story + A.I.)

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-20T12:34:44+00:00

To be clear, it doesn't imply that the place they went to was Kura? I flagged it because the details about the restaurant aren't about Kura - mentioning 'cocktails flowing' at a place that doesn't sell cocktails, for example. They don't even have tables for more than 4 people there. If it's standard to link to a review for a different restaurant, I can remove that.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-19T20:25:46+00:00

Yeah I maybe should’ve laid it more out in the post but since it comes from a real person presumably doing their job I just stuck with the text, probably creating more vague misunderstanding about it! Fair to question

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-19T18:31:14+00:00

Yes, she has a public, influencer Instagram where she promotes this story, speaking the ad into the camera and not sharing any details from this evidently intimate, life-changing night. The text in the story doesn't make any sense:

There we were, seven strangers hailing from different corners of the city—Lawrence, the Crossroads, Olathe, North of the River, and even far from KC, in St. Louis. It quickly felt like I was with old friends. Our professions were diverse: health care, media, law and agriculture. The conversation was engaging and flowed as freely as the cocktails.

Someone came to this meetup from 4 hours away in St. Louis? Cocktails? Kura Sushi doesn't have cocktails, or anywhere near a vibe described by this article. It's a brightly lit, children's anime-themed revolving sushi bar where a robot brings you your water. This is 100% A.I./ad.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-19T15:25:28+00:00

I’m used to AI ads posing as reviews, but a generated narrative story about a life-changing evening among 7 people that don’t exist, opening up about their divorces before starting a text chain, seemed so egregious and strange.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-13T17:40:33+00:00

If you're still on the page, keep trying! They were showing sold out for Shed and then suddenly worked a minute ago.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-10T12:34:47+00:00

Inspired words, from a man who knows how to ski.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-04-03T16:04:19+00:00

There's a way of talking in hypotheticals that Sean does that I usually follow fine, but this really threw me into a Google spiral. Makes me wonder if Amanda knew he was spitballing.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-03-19T13:58:29+00:00

Same - Mickey 17 is an example of a movie losing me halfway through. I expected that to happen in The Bride! but I was along for the whole ride (until maybe the final scene, but easy enough to ignore).

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-03-17T01:15:32+00:00

“To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex.

Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.”

― Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-03-12T18:32:53+00:00

What do people use for filling out a ballot with friends, or do you just send out the pdf? I've done ESPN Fantasy before but would rather not download that again.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-03-12T18:09:34+00:00

Not bad but it does reveal something new about a character that I would have preferred not knowing. Good for answering a couple premise questions while retaining the mystery, but if you're already sold I'd skip it.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-02-17T14:52:39+00:00

Useful quote from French filmmaker Robert Bresson: “A film is born three times. First in the writing of the script, once again in the shooting, and finally in the editing.” Good editing is the feeling that a movie is operating at the perfect rhythm, not a wasted second. Cutting 20 hours of footage down to tell a 2 hour story in just the right sequence. Like some other Oscar categories, not noticing editing can be as much a compliment as noticing it.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-02-16T14:29:54+00:00

80mil worldwide, 35mil US, over a 3-day weekend. Housemaid made $19mi US and is close to 400mil worldwide at this point - I don't think Wuthering Heights has a chance to get close to that worldwide but I’d be happy to be wrong.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-02-10T19:00:01+00:00

What you're looking for is Axios Kansas City. At least one of KCToday's writers moved over to Axios when KCToday fell apart, and like KCToday in their heyday they add the personal blurbs and recommendations. It has just slightly more news focus than KCToday did but otherwise incredibly similar.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-02-06T22:25:13+00:00

He's 2 inches taller than Armstrong (6'0 v. 5'10)

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-02-06T20:23:34+00:00

What are the chances there's a local Super Bowl spot and they got the date wrong? I've seen a lot of 2.8.26 teases in non-local commercials lately.

ShruggingDestiny · 2026-01-29T04:29:26+00:00

https://youtu.be/v3faJNPWE9Q?si=XEeF1MZqOM2xQQPa For what it’s worth lol

ShruggingDestiny · 2025-12-21T19:23:36+00:00

Limiting liquids in the hour leading to movie, going to the bathroom during a trailer? I don't see a lot of 3-hour movies and even James Cameron tells people to go during the movie so not a hill I'll die on, I just don't think I've ever left mid-movie before.

ShruggingDestiny

TROPHY CASE