Chronic Reblogger

sometimes abuse victims will insist to others that they were/are not being abused. sometimes abuse victims will insist to others that it's okay they were/are being abused for whatever reason.

in fact, leading a victim to believe that what is happening is normal and fine and even good or righteous for whatever reason is a common feature of abuse, whether the abuser did it on purpose or not.

if an abuse victim in your life...

questions whether they were abused

goes back and forth about whether they think they were abused

tells you they weren't being abused, and then later says they were

A few years after finishing it, I was talking to a friend who had just played it. He was saying how he dumped all of his orbs (game currency) into upgrading his minimum health pool and how he wanted to start over with a different build.

I stared at him. "Wait, what?" He repeated- he dumped all his orbs into increasing his minimum HP and just tanked a bunch of stuff.

That was when I realized that you could upgrade your minimum health. I had not noticed that you could spend orbs to do that. I spent them on everything else OTHER than upgrading my health bar. I literally spent so so so frikkin long beating the game with MINIMUM. HP. I WOULD HAVE HAD SAVED SO MUCH TIME AND ENERGY IF I HAD JUST FRIKKIN NOTICED THAT INCREASING MY MINIMUM HEALTH WAS EVEN AN OPTION. NO WONDER I HAD TO REDO THE SAME FIGHTS 20 TIMES. NO WONDER EVERYTHING WAS SO. DIFFICULT. I COMPLETELY just missed a crucial element to gameplay and specs and I basically played the game entirely incorrectly, exerting WAY more effort to get the same results as anyone who actually took time to examine the obvious upgrade options.

LLMs are plagiarism machines, and beyond that make the Internet worse, but even if you ignore all of that, there is still the massive harm data centers cause to individuals.

Look, I love technology, I understand the risks of any technology. But I also know that one has to draw the line ethically when one can.

I've been going to Barnes and Nobles since I was a tyke. I remember my dad driving my sibling and me to a Barnes and Nobles to try to convince us that reading was good actually and we should be addicted to reading. I bought most of my book collection from there and independent bookshops.

I've been doing a book store report on Barnes and Nobles and can tell you their stocking by year and the diversity report since I was 13. (Also I can tell you the now dead Borders and Walden too)

I can tell you which books I bought from Barnes and Nobles and the stories of how I found them. Book of Alta, I bought that in London Barnes and Nobles just before the stairs as I was turning and the cover caught my attention and I was drawn by the fact I'd never seen Jane Yolen in the United States. I still have that book and have fond memories of buying it and associate it with my trip to London with my parents when I was 9. I think my sibling bought yet another Terry Brooks book...

But this is a good way to make sure no one wants to stock their book in your store.

So writers and authors, beware this is happening and think harder how you are going to change your strategies. Discuss it with your agents and editors too. Because you fighting AI slop will make your life worse. More accusations will happen towards you if Barnes and Nobles lets this happen.

And fight like hell to show all of the effects the data centers will have on individuals to the CEO himself so he can feel guilty about his support of data centers. Note: I had to update my Gen AI post with this info. I hate this. I'm about to write a protest letter to break their hearts. I encourage you to do the same: