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alChandler's Halls
Spreading joy since 1999.
WWII Veteran vs. a Tesla
May 7, 2025
ChatGPT and the Alzabo
Our mental models for AIs come from television and movies. We think of HAL, Data or Samantha, all three are sentient. But programs like ChatGPT are more comparable to the alzabo in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series.
The alazbo is a large predator, kind of a cross between a hyena and a bear. Brought to Urth from another planet it can absorb bits of knowledge from the brains of its prey and use that to aid it in future hunts. In the book Severian encounters an alzabo in the mountains while staying with a family. There's Casdoe, her son (also named Severian) and her father in law. Her husband, Becan, has gone missing. As it turns out Becan is dead, killed and eaten by the alzabo.
The alzabo goes to the cabin at night and runs the Becan program. So Casdoe hears her husband's voice asking her to come out and join him in the alzabo. The alzabo is not sentient and Becan is not alive in the alzabo's brain (some folks may disagree with me on that) but the beast can use bits and pieces of Becan's knowledge to make its hunt easier. As the family huddles in their attic, Severian and the alzabo talk:
"In a watch or two then, I will kill you or you will kill me. Or we will destroy each other. If I turn now and go out into the night and the rain will you hunt me down when Urth turns toward the light once more? Or remain here to keep me from the woman and the child that are mine?"
"No," I said.
The alzabo without understanding of the nuance of the conversation is using what's left of Becan to determine if it has to fight for its next meal or if Severian (and his big ass sword) can be persuaded to leave. And since Severian is leaving, it can come back later and kill the rest of the family without too much fuss.
No real understanding of the conversation, but it can indeed hold a conversation, not unlike Chat GPT. ChatGPT isn't HAL or Data, it's an alzabo.
By the way, if Severian seems like a shit for cutting a deal with the alzabo, he had his reasons.
May 7, 2025
New Phone
My current phone is a Pixel 7a and it's the most reliable phone I ever owned. It hasn't given me a day's worth of trouble in three years and the battery is still going strong. And still, yesterday I ordered a Pixel 9a.
In the past my phones had a tendency to crash and burn at or near the three year mark. As I said, the 7a hasn't show nay sign of aging. But three years is three years and I don't want to have my phone die with Trump's tariffs in place. The 9a which cost me $600 yesterday will probably cost me $1200+ by the end of the year, that's because Trump is an idiot.
There's more I could say here but it would quickly devolve into a FUCK EVERYBODY rant.
May 6, 2025
Harry Potter
When Donna Lea's daughter was young she read the fist book in the Harry Potter series, then Donna read it and she passed it to me and insisted I read it. I gave it my best shot but gave up after about 30 pages. I'm afraid it just wasn't for me. I saw one of the movies, the one that tied up all the loose ends. I think it turned out at Snape, the bad guy, was really a good guy. He was working against the real bad guy, the bald dude with the fucked up nose. Or something.
But I haven't heard anything bad about the movies, which is why I don't understand why Max is making a Harry Potter series. Especially with the the whole J.K. Rowling thing. Rowling is virulently transphobic and Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have called her out for her views. And Rowling has an executive producer gig with the new series.
So Max is getting a lot of pushback before the series has even started filming. Casey Bloys, the compny's CEO is getting rather defensive about the whole thing:
"I've said this before, but the decision to be in business with J.K. Rowling is not new for us. We've been in business for 25 years. We already have a show on HBO from J.K. Rowling called 'C.B. Strike' that we do with the BBC. I think it's pretty clear those are her personal political views. She's entitled to them. 'Harry Potter' is not being secretly infused with anything, and she's entitled to those views and I think people are pretty clear that she's entitled to them, and if you want to debate her, you can go on Twitter."
And yes, she is entitled to them, but that doesn't mean you have to give a transphobic billionaire any more of your money. And now the story isn't how cool, a Harry Potter series and is now, why are you working with this awful person. But that's Max's problem.
May 6, 2025
A Blast from the past
I knew I had the box somewhere in the closet of wonders. I probably have the manual too but trying to find it would take longer then it took Frodo to get to Mordor.
May 5, 2025
Happy Star Wars Day
May 4, 2025
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
After 186 hours it's time to put Assassin's Creed Shadows out to pasture for a bit. I assume there's going to be a couple of expansions and I'll play then when they're released. In the meantime I decided to pick up the remaster of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I almost never replay games I've finished but almost is not the same as never. I did replay all three Mass Effect games when the Legendary Edition was released. And after 19 years my memories of the original Oblivion are faint enough to almost make it a new game for me.
That's Clem, standing outside of what's left of Kvatch after a daedric invasion. Daedras are demons breaking out of the hellplane of Oblivion to trouble Cyrodiil. I'm sure there's a reason for the invasion but after 19 years I've long since forgotten it. So I'll find out what's going on by playing, the same as I did in 2006.
For the rest, it's a remaster, not a remake so by today's standards the world is underpopulated, the cities are small and some of them load by sections. But I'm having fun, but hanging over that fun is the knowledge that I beat the game once and so I feel I have to beat it a second time, lest I be disgraced.
May 4, 2025
Victory
I'm still playing ACS but the main plot is over. There are a few things to tidy up but 16th century Japan has been squared away. I enjoyed the adventure, but of Ubisoft's four role playing games set in the Assassin's universe, this one comes in fourth. If you're interested:
1. Assassin's Creed Odyssey
2. Assassin's Creed Origins
3. Assassin's Creed Valhalla
4. Assassin's Creed Shadows
Which is not to say that ACS is bad, I had a good time, but I have no real grasp about what's going on other then assassins are the good guys. And that goes for the other three games too. I suppose I could find out the convoluted back story from the net but what the hell, who cares when you can play with Sword Hulk and Samurai Black Widow.
Right now there are three games I'm interested in, there's an expansion for Star Wars Outlaws dropping in May, there's a remake of Elder Scrolls Oblivion out and finally there's a Fallout/Stalker type game set in Britain called Atomfall. I'm not sure which one will get the nod, so ACS will get to hang around for another week or two.
April 28, 2025
Boss Fight
I just finished a difficult boss fight in Assassin's Creed Shadows, it was my second attempt to kill this bastard and after half an hour and much dying I finally got him. Go Team alChandler.
When You encounter this guy there's the usual dick waving prick fight before it begins.
Boss: You are weak and I will destroy you.
Yasuke: No, you're weak and I'll destroy you.
Boss: I want what's best for Japan.
Yasuke: No! you're evil!
Boss: I know you are but what am I?
We've all encountered this and I don't mind it but after my first death it would have been nice if the game plonked me back into the start of the fight. Instead it drops me outside the door to the boss' ultmate sanctum and I have to go through the same conversation over (and over) again. Toward the end I hated the boss and Yasuke.
Now that I've gotten that out of my system, here's a picture of Yasuke on his truly bad ass horse.
April 24, 2025
This Is Still My Favorite Nerd Thing Ever
April 22, 2025
Andor: Revolution Is not a Dinner Party
That's a quote from Mao Zedong and it sums up my reasons for not watching Andor. Andor is probably the best Star Wars show ever made and I concede that by not watching it I'm missing something special. Last night I tried picking up on episode 7 and only got half an hour in before I turned it off and went back to reading Tamsin on my Kindle.
The rebels do terrible things in their fight against the Empire, perhaps not as bad as what the Empire does to hold power but it's not a question of the rebellion's ethics, they just don't have the Empire's reach. And I concede that the goals of the rebels are laudable; the Empire is run sort of like the Trump administration, only they're competent. But I simply can't watch it and I know it's my loss.
This isn't the first time this happened, In season 2 of Star Trek Voyager a transporter accident merged Lieutenant Tuvok and Neelix into one being who called himself Tuvix. After a lot of angst, Captain Janeway decided to kill Tuvix by having the transporter sperate him back into Tuvok and Nelix again. After that episode I stopped watching the show, although I did watch the series finale.
Anyway, Andor is well worth your time.
April 22, 2025
To Reign in Hell
Paradise Lost starts out with Satan and his angels already in Hell. But later on in the poem, Milton tells us how they got there. To Reign in Hell is Steven Brust's riff on Milton's war in Heaven, and a very good riff it is. I was on the fence about this book but I finished it in a day, something that almost never happens to me.
Milton's portrayal of Satan was so good some folks felt that he was the most noble character in the poem. I'm not a Milton scholar but I'm pretty certain that wasn't his intention. But in Brust's book, Satan is the hero. And Beelzebub and Lilith are pretty heroic too. Yahweh, not so much I'm afraid. But Yahweh doesn't come off too great in Paradise Lost either. That wasn't Milton's intention either.
And on that note I'm shutting up, there's always a chance that someone might want to read the book you know.
April 14, 2025
AI Stuff
The other day Ken posted some AI pictures of the Pulp Fiction characters as babies, I rather liked Honey Bunny. It started me thinking about my own mixed feelings about AI.
I used to have an AI program called dream. I nearly wrote an AI art program but I feel that if you're not sentient then you're not creating art of any kind. Anyway, I typed in the prompt, a cat as captain of a ship and told it to use this picture of Newton as a starting point.
I expected something like Newton on the bridge of a British man o' war, what I got surprised me.
I wasn't expecting that but I liked it and I occasionally use it as my phone's wallpaper. I suppose I could have paid somebody to make me wallpaper but Dream's wallpaper was free (not exactly, I paid a small monthly fee to Wombo, the folks that made Dream). And there's the rub, AI is taking jobs away from people, and that means I'm a participant in that.
Open AI recently released a Studio Ghibli art generator.
Hayao Miyazaki is livid and I expect they'll be lawsuits. Until the question is resolved one way or another, have fun with it. But if you're calling it art I think you're wrong. It's a lot like Musk claiming to be a great Path of Exile 2 player while paying people to level his character. As for me, I expect Studio Ghibli to take OpenAI to court. I don't know if you can prevent somebody from copying an art style but I guess we'll find out.
I don't think we'll have a self aware AI in my lifetime but it will probably happen in this century, barring societal collapse. When that day comes then we can talk about AI art.
April 12, 2025
Happy Anniversary Buddy
The little bugger moved in on April 9, 2014. He was, and still would be if I gave him half a chance, a destructive bastard but I wouldn't have him any other way. In other words, he's a good cat.
April 9, 2025
Superman
Ken told me about the film clip and I'm glad he did, I'm also very happy that Krypto is presented as a dog and not an animal with a super brain. Like all dogs, he does his best but sometimes he gets it wrong.
I never really enjoyed the movie experience but I made exceptions for some of the Star Trek movies, the LotR movies and some of the Marvel movies. I don't know if I'll make an exception for Superman: Legacy but I'm not ruling it out.
April 4, 2025
Fallout
Unintended consequences are a bitch, ain't they? I'm not talking about Trump here, I'm certain he's way beyond caring, or even understanding the stock market's reaction to his tariffs. I'm talking about the folks who voted for him, assuming their portfolios would increase in value. I'm talking about upper middle class folks and people in the 1 to 10 million range. Richer then me but they still have to plan for retirement.
They voted for Trump assuming that they'd be making a lot of money during the next four years and instead it's a bloodbath for their investments.
And hell, I don't have a lot of investments and I'm not happy about things either. And while there are some people who think that Trump's tariffs are part of some convoluted master plan, my own personal theory is he's just a stupid egocentric asshole who shoots from the hip and fuck the consequences. Elon Musk may suffer some of those consequences, the EU is going to fine Musk because X ignored the EU's regulations on disinformation and illicit content. They were a little nervous about dropping heavy penalties on Musk but after yesterday they're in full fuck it mode and there's talk that the fine will be a billion +.
Republicans in the House may also be part of those consequences. Even if Trump does a 180° by the end of the month, the economy will probably be bad for the 2026 election cycle and that means Democrats have a good chance at retaking the House next year. My own representative, Jeff Van Drew, changed party from Democrat to Republican during Trump's first term and I'm sure he's switch back if he thought it would get him reelected.
Right now Republicans are sticking by their guy and commentators are comparing the meltdown to the one in 2020. But who knows what will happen if the sell off reaches Great Recession numbers?
April 4, 2025
Yasuke
That's Yasuke in his new armor. He got it by raiding a castle and raiding a castle is kind of strange. The castle was owned by one of the guys on my assassination list, so it was cool for Yasuke to just go in there and start lopping heads. But if someone rings the alarm bell then you're the bad guy. So, as in other games in the series, if you come across and alarm bell you need to disable it.
When I finished Act One I was level 12 and the next plot area was level 18, so I've been grinding a bit. I was level 15 before I entered Nijo Place, after Yasuke's blood bath I turned level 16 so it might be time to get back to the plotline. I'm 40 hours into the game and I still haven't begun Act Two; it looks like I'll be in Japan for some time.
April 1, 2025
This has been a Whenpigsfly production.
Any questions or comments can be directed to kaliban13@comcast.net.
Logo courtesy of Mrs. Silverman.