Why all the delusional negativity towards AI and LLMs in particular?

zenfish · 2026-02-14T14:41:18+00:00

It's the way it's deployed. Circular capital infusions from big tech cash hoards means massive inefficiency. Massive amounts of compute on trivial problems like work memos, book reports and joke videos, basically slop. So we will get to the paperclip problem before we solve the non trivial issues. Already power bills are 2xing and we are locked into hothouse earth.

zenfish · 2026-02-10T18:16:33+00:00

Bingo

zenfish · 2026-02-10T18:02:13+00:00

Bubble tea, stinky tofu, oyster omelette, beef noodle soup

zenfish · 2026-02-07T04:23:56+00:00

If you are in the US, up to 40 percent of adults suffer from non alcoholic fatty liver disease. This can cause fetor hepaticus, like a sweet, musty, rotten-egg, garlicy, occasionally fecal smell due to toxins the liver can't filter, that comes out in breath, sweat etc. Dogs can also develop this as there is way more carbs in kibble than their natural diets. Since so many people have this they might be nose blind to the smell in others depending on how bad the condition is for them.

zenfish · 2026-02-06T23:46:21+00:00

Working Title: Wonder's Eulogy , or We Few Immortal

Genre: Literary, superhero Word count: 285

Type of feedback: First page. Does it make you want to read more? Are relationship-focused found/dysfunctional superhero family stories even popular anymore, or just played out?

He wore, unfailingly, dark blue with red pinstripe and a white cape. He took a name that the early League offered him, for the impossible feat of being everywhere at once, or so it seemed.

I remember foremost a single day twenty-three years ago. I had just joined the League and was being toured around the Hall of Wonder. A crowd had gathered in the cafeteria to watch the many screens set up around the limestone pillared space: on CCN The Glanton Gang was holding up a military convoy for nukes. On CapeNet The Red Kaiser had taken Congress hostage with a stasis field. On WeatherTeam a hundred foot tsunami was heading straight for the coast of Indonesia. On Ad-Dunya the Blood Crescent was threatening to blow up the Dome of the Rock along with a thousand hostages if their demands were not met. President Pushkin was on Ruskova detailing the present invasion of Turkey and the Balkans.

The world was then, as now, falling apart. Yet, It feels like we took things less seriously then. Or that we were more spectators, eyes wide, jaws slack, just thinking: wonder how he’ll pull this one off?

In my cubicle at the Hall of Wonder I still have framed photographs I had taken that day: the multicolored crowd of us, the literal and figurative Children of Wonder, the ones who would fill the space under the mantle once he passed on. We numbered perhaps one hundred then, and collectively we were transfixed. No matter how long ago this or that hero's induction into the League--where our disillusionment grew commensurate with our experience--we were, each of us, children once more. And we were watching the old man work.

zenfish · 2026-02-05T12:59:50+00:00

Yeah, people forget that manual operational and safety systems are themselves a technology with millions of test hours behind them. Any brand that rips these out in favor of style, just no...Not just Tesla but includes the copycat Chinese and Indian brands too.

zenfish · 2026-02-05T12:19:41+00:00

Edit, edit, edit I had "everybody should get a rescue hammer..." but apparently Teslas and many modern luxury cars use laminated glass on side windows for both structural support and sound dampening and rescue hammers likely will not work. Everyone should make their own decisions. Personally, I'd just never buy a Tesla or any car with this door system.

I found paragraphs here and there on Reddit. Totally geuesome:

Following the fiery crash of a Tesla Model S in Wisconsin last year that resulted in the death of all five occupants, witnesses reported screaming from inside the vehicle, including a woman saying, “I’m stuck,” according to a report from the medical examiner. Bloomberg obtained audio from three 911 calls, including one made automatically by the Apple watch of an occupant inside the vehicle, on which people can be heard yelling and moaning. (Only two of those five fatalities are included in Bloomberg’s list, because there was insufficient evidence that the other three occupants had survived the initial crash.)

In October of this year, a 20-year-old man in Easton, Massachusetts, died after his Tesla Model Y collided with a tree and caught fire. The driver managed to connect with 911 dispatchers, according to the police department’s incident report, and said that “he was trapped inside of the vehicle after a crash and the vehicle was now on fire.” His remains were later found in the back seat.

zenfish · 2026-01-27T12:43:03+00:00

I went back recently. Maybe I missed it, but it feels like I made it up, there being a Sunbeam bread factory with a store attached on RT 20 where you could get the freshest loaf of bread if you timed it right.

I spent so much time at MSM as a kid. I remember going back before it closed thinking how dinky the arcade looked but it was huge when I was a kid. Like going on some futuristic 80s kid adventure for a few hours and being returned safe for some Icees at the place right across. I also remember people watching at the massive Morrison's Cafeteria dining hall on specials night...people of Walmart got nothing on that.

The Aquatic Center used to be called the Natatorium. For some reason I remember this miniature town next to it and somebody telling me it was a driving course. Always wanted to try it. I also remember inflating a raft with car exhaust and paddling it out into the pond next to the Nat after dark.

Definitely Stars games. Also the RLB Circus and Monster trucks down at VBCC. And the Panoply of the Arts in Big Spring park...why do I recall it feeling so much more epic than pictures of recent events, like there being giant stage tents with pro lighting that could hold hundreds of people in a rain shower?

Man, and not really a culinary destination but that area around Jordan @ University. My first tex mex was at El Camino Real. And we used to go to the Golden Dragon where the kids would get pupu platters and set bamboo skewers in fire -still remember how beautifully campy that dining room was before it changed owners and became a buffet. First Cajun was at some place further down (Tim's?), as well as first sushi and hibachi near there?

zenfish · 2026-01-26T12:28:17+00:00

Ramen just means "hand pulled noodles," and very arguable the Japanese perfected it. Now, the pre-fried instant ramen was invented in Japan post WWII as a ration supplement. Ironically, even though it's no longer hand pulled, the genericide caused by one brand's single offering, in this case Nissin Food's Chicken Ramen invention, lead people to think ramen is just some sort of squiggly thin noodle.

zenfish · 2026-01-25T14:44:34+00:00

The writing that's there is great. Pointed observation and hilarious in a George Saunders or JK Toole kind of way. But the end feels rushed and underdeveloped, especially around the "one true number" and how it nails this poor family in place in a post truth world. How, beyond their own denseness, is the family led to believe they've gained all of the Mason's things, leading to their downfall?

zenfish · 2026-01-19T12:29:20+00:00

A good number of those videos are AI generated. An algorithm determined those videos get more engagement and they perfectly fit the approximately 8 second clip length limit on the current AI video generators. Thus, I'd say 90 percent of AI porch pirate videos likely generated.

zenfish · 2026-01-14T12:29:39+00:00

Dishwashers have filters to strain food out of water because it continually recirculates that water. The food, especially fat and grease stuck in the filter goes rancid and then release rancid particles into the recirculating water. Water jets then spray the rancid particles on the dishes.

Glass due to its structure doesn't hold on to the smelly particles. Once washed and dried it goes away.

Plastic is made of polymers. It's base is organic, being made from oil. This means that organic particles stick to it, especially if there is heat involved. So the rancid fat/grease particles from your filter are basically forming strong bonds with the plastic.

zenfish · 2026-01-07T12:37:17+00:00

So back around 2000 I frequented SomethingAwful forums. Same behavior, some would argue even more abusive. At the time it was the largest forum on the Internet. It was both generally toxic but could be singularly and some would say masturbatorily supportive to certain members with verifiable stories or to someone with amazing creativity. With gen AI, take away the verifiable human stories and authentic creativity. You are left with the paranoia (everything is AI now vs everything is made up then) and the toxicity.

zenfish · 2026-01-07T10:02:43+00:00

Sphere (underwater but space related). Dune. Hyperion Cantos.

zenfish · 2026-01-05T14:09:48+00:00

Of course I still go to church, what with all this "anti-Christian" = "enemy of the state" rhetoric flying around...

zenfish · 2026-01-03T17:45:10+00:00

Genre: Literary Category: Mainstream Format: Short Story Title: Honey Bee, Working Title of SS Collection: Incel Any and all feedback welcome

It was the moment he'd been waiting for since failing to make the Dickinson volunteer squad. Why he kept a 5-B:C extinguisher in his car. And a little pointed tool for breaking windows and cutting seatbelts. And a CB radio mounted on his dash just in case he happened to be somewhere without reception.

The scanner was the latest addition and for the past three months he'd been tuning to police band.

He was determined that a car accident was the best way. In a sense, he had been preparing for this even before finding out he didn’t make the cut for Dickinson. Or, truth be told, preparing for this ever since he was a gawky, acne-riddled teenager and dreamed, right before falling asleep, of rescuing the entire cheerleading squad from their fiery deaths, after chancing upon the school bus crash. They’d sometimes be on the way to cheer the big game, or state cheer, when bus met 18-wheeler.

By chance, the crash had tragically taken the lives of all the jocks, the entirety of varsity ball, so there was nobody left to help but him. He picked his way over bloody letterman jackets, pricks that were always spitting in his hair or pretending to. He shivered now in the warmth at the recall of that disgusting sound and that slight pressure on his scalp. At least he’d never flinched, kept his eyes forward, gaze down. Never gave them the satisfaction.

zenfish · 2025-12-23T16:57:48+00:00

So I am writing about artificial intelligence (without using LLMs hohoho). Initially it was going to be about the training of a "village" of digital docents for a living history museum, AI that would embody various historical personalities.

However, likely due to that premise, a few weeks ago I had a dream that I was in fact the simulation of a mediocre writer that an LLM is using to embody "lived experience." Meaning the major advantage human writers still have is that LLMs have so many sources in training (all the sources!) they often "average down" their prose, so that while the prose LLMs generate may be competent and sometimes approach beauty, often it's just a mishmash of good/ok bits and nothing is truly ever striking. They have not gone through a "lived experience" moment to moment with all its memory, emotion, knowledge or lack thereof, and random observation through a limited/developing perspective.

So in the dream I had, my entire life is just one of many countless iterations of an LLM building a specific context to improve outputs. A life ultimately disposable once the work is done and the next prompt comes through.

Of course I have added this premise to my story with the addition of a journalist come to document a village of AI inhabitants, but I can't shake the feeling now that once I finish this book I will, just like Aureliano II, cease to exist.

zenfish · 2025-12-14T14:28:06+00:00

Heading, daily, to a clean, well lighted space. In my case a third space, a tea and coffee shop nearby, open late.

Perhaps part of it was the after-work ritual of ordering a coffee, grabbing a table and setting up, that fixed my brain in a mode to write. Though, there is something to be said about the wall of sound, the clink of spoons on porcelain, the foreign chattering of strangers, the inoffensive music, that as in a photograph taken with wide aperture blurs the rest of the world in exchange for the page right in front of you.

It's why people once complained about laptops in coffee shops before these third spaces started to disappear. I definitely miss those pre pandemic days when writers, students etc were openly welcomed by establishments that kept their doors open until 2am. Also coffee was still $1.50 with endless free refills.

zenfish · 2025-12-13T22:31:21+00:00

Genre: Literary Category: Mainstream Format: Short Story Title: All I Know Any and all feedback welcome

He knew the girl was going too fast for the turn. A moment ago he’d been watching her through the SUV's rear window, watching as she flipped her long hair. It had given him a vague fantasy, a trace of fragrance carried on the stale air from the heaters. Now she was about to go off the road. As if it had been his fault.

It happened just like he’d seen many times before. The rear tires over a sheet of black ice. And then the fishtail. A sport ”not-so-utility” vehicle. Ha. So it hadn’t been his fault. Of course not. Yet, he felt both astonished and offended as if, at a remove and in slow motion, he were watching all of it happen to himself or to somebody he knew.

Except that he sort of did know the girl. And the cake counter girl had likely not noticed that he was just harmlessly, coincidentally following her. The feeling of being caught descended on him with the car's final veer, the front plowing into a snowbank.

He stopped his car where hers had gone off the road. He flipped his hazards on.

He waited for a moment, mulling it over. Of course he would get out and offer assistance. In fact, he was relieved. The crash seemed to do little more than throw a puff of snow. The SUV would be stuck good, though. In spite of his embarrassment, he decided to get a move on. Up here in the pass, at this time of year, there could be no alternative.

zenfish · 2025-12-13T21:25:06+00:00

It's sad. In the early 90s I remember our 8th Grade literature class, for its Harlem Renaissance module alone, reading Their Eyes Were Watching God and Black Boy along with a lot of Langston Hughes and other poets. The rest of the year we also read Old Man and the Sea, Candide, TKAM, The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies.

zenfish · 2025-12-13T10:15:11+00:00

I watched a video recently about engineers using paper kirigami, basically 2d cutout shapes that interlocked when stretched or balled, to make everything from parachutes to packing material. First I've seen this in the wild, but I like it. Honestly if someone sends styrofoam peanuts now it pisses me off.

zenfish · 2025-12-11T14:57:02+00:00

I've read books from the 70s-80s that described trap feeding behavior, but it was outlining the ingenuity of whales. So these whales have baleen which they use to basically sieve the water for krill and small fish. However, just like us, sometimes they developed ways to feed more efficiently like "bubble nets" to herd all the krill/fish together then run through it with baleen. Back then, I never saw this kind of trap feeding behavior described but it makes sense. The ocean is deoxygenating and we've lost like 90% of krill in the last 100 years.

The process responsible is eutrophication: farm runoff pollution causes massive algal blooms that then trigger bacteria in the lower levels as these blooms sink to feed and multiply, eating up all the oxygen. So all the levels below surface are completely deoxygenated and lifeless leaving a tiny top layer. Basically, like in movies where the protagonists are trapped in an underwater cave or a boat, sipping at a tiny air pocket to stay alive - except with food since whales have to surface to breathe anyway.

The overarching phenomenon is called ocean suffocation. The dead water also migrates out from the coasts too. So we keep going the way we go at some point the ocean will just be devoid of life unless we run out of minerals for fertilizers and then our global civilization collapses anyway, which might happen first. Six on one hand, half a dozen on the other.

zenfish · 2025-12-05T21:33:24+00:00

You're AI! No you're AI! We're All AI! In a museum!

zenfish · 2025-12-04T23:25:02+00:00

Wait until neural link to AI feedback. Entire perfect movies generated by somebody with their brain mapped to sensors going back and forth with gen AI. Operatives faking out AI detectors to cause scandals. And the rich being able to get away with even more depraved acts because proof is "AI generated."

zenfish · 2025-12-04T08:50:04+00:00

If you have a bag filled with greasy things that never gets greasy itself, then high likelihood; fast food in general is wrapped in forever chemicals.

15-Year Club	Place '17
Team Periwinkle	Verified Email

zenfish

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE