I’m really liking the results of the current LLM-enhanced sword/outfit/background wildcard sets, fed to Krea 2 Turbo. Apart from the occasional GenAI glitches (multiple hilts, multiple blades at different angles, etc), I’m getting a lot of great wallpaper out of it.

Daze Of Future Passed

In David Starr, Space Ranger, Asimov includes a foreword discussing that he based the conditions on Mars on 1951 science, acknowledging that by 1970 it was known that the red planet had a much less forgiving environment. Subsequent volumes contain the same sort of update about the asteroid belts and the surface of Venus.

Anyway, in chapter 1, in the year 7000 AD, the population of Earth is 5 billion, and it cannot possibly produce enough food, so it is utterly dependent on supplies from the offworld colonies to survive more than a few weeks, and most people still ended up eating fake food from yeast vats. Kind of a pity he didn’t revisit it again before his death to acknowledge the Malthusian assumptions that were so common in SF of that era.

File under peculiar that the blurb for the current re-releases claim the stories have been “out of print for 75 years!”, which is obviously contradicted by the 1970 forewords. I mean, I read the Del Rey paperbacks printed in the Eighties, and apparently there were book club editions in the Nineties as well.

Somebody else’s PoS

Went into a local store yesterday to pick up one of two items I ordered a few days ago. They called me to say it was in, they had it, and the label on the box matched the receipt in my hand, but the in-store system showed a completely different item at the exact same price. In fact, it showed that as the only thing I’d ever ordered through them. Pulled up their web site, and it showed both orders, plus correct history.

Unfortunately, their inventory controls would not allow him to just hand it to me, because he couldn’t reconcile it in the system. He had to send email to their helpdesk and mark it urgent, which means he’ll hear back from India today. Or maybe tomorrow.

Apple cut the price!

…on their $19 screen-cleaning cloth. It’s now only $9.

In other news, pre-orders are now open for the new M5/M6 Mac Mini and Mac Studio. Gold bars are the preferred currency. If you like surprises, you can use the new “Apple Upgrade” plan to lease one for 2 or 3 years of monthly payments instead; the final buyout price is not disclosed.

“Alexa, get your shit together!”

My mother’s lamps stopped working when “Alexa+” was released. All of the lights it discovered through the Philips Hue app work fine, but the Amazon Smart Plugs that are visible and controllable through the Alexa app on her phone are not visible to the Echo device that’s synced to the same account. Even reverting to the less-quirky “standard” Alexa didn’t fix it; the service is just hosed.

Not-At-All-Coincidentally, launching the Alexa phone app fills her phone screen with a chat interface for Alexa+ that can’t be disabled or hidden. It’s an extra set of swipes to see anything else in the app, which is a great experience for someone with Parkinson’s, thanks. Disabled Alexa+, restarted the app, and… it filled the screen with the same chat panel, now labeled “Alexa+ Preview”.

Fuck you with a rusty tire iron, Amazon.

So I ordered a bunch of Philips Hue wall plugs, and we’ll just throw out all the useless Amazon-branded ones.

Everybody gets to play!

Somali pirates seized a US-sanctioned, Eritrean-flagged oil tanker that’s part of Iran’s shadow fleet and managed by a UAE company. Gosh, that’s too bad.

---

Comments via Isso

Markdown formatting and simple HTML accepted.

Sometimes you have to double-click to enter text in the form (interaction between Isso and Bootstrap?). Tab is more reliable.

---