James R. Strickland (he/him)

James R. Strickland (he/him)

@jamesrstrickland.com

#Author of Science Fiction and Paranormal Mysteries. #Married, with #cats Poltergeist! Ask the Dust Poltergeist! Dead of Winter Poltergeist! Bikini Body http://www.jamesrstrickland.com I will not presume to tell you what to think. That’s your job

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So…let’s talk about vision. About a month ago, I had a detached retina in my right eye, and the subsequent surgery to repair it. The problem is: it has drastically changed the vision in that eye so that my glasses don’t work with it. It makes it hard to read. This is bad for a writer.

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With some tweaking, and working from my most recent glasses prescription, I was able to work up settings that allow me to read well. Not as well as before—my right eye will never be the instrument it was—but well enough. Thus, the picture above. I was never one who worried about looking funny. :P

So…let’s talk about vision. About a month ago, I had a detached retina in my right eye, and the subsequent surgery to repair it. The problem is: it has drastically changed the vision in that eye so that my glasses don’t work with it. It makes it hard to read. This is bad for a writer.

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Modern opticians do this kind of testing with a machine that you haul up to your face like binoculars bolted to the ground at scenic overlooks. But before that, they used kits like this, with a temporary glasses frame and interchangeable, stackable lenses.

So…let’s talk about vision. About a month ago, I had a detached retina in my right eye, and the subsequent surgery to repair it. The problem is: it has drastically changed the vision in that eye so that my glasses don’t work with it. It makes it hard to read. This is bad for a writer.

So after a month of not-very-patiently waiting for things to stabilize, I was told yesterday by my eye surgeon that my vision in that eye probably is not stable enough to get a prescription yet. This was not good news. “See you in 4-6 weeks,” he said.

My trashcan says ITEMS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS CONTAINER: Hot ashes, Rocks/Dirt/Construction Debris, Concrete, Paint/chemicals, Auto Parts, Dead animals, Hazardous Materials. My recycle bin, also from the City of Phoenix, says nothing. Apparently dead animals are recyclable. Awesome!

So here’s a pickle. Does anyone know for sure whether SFWA considers the version of LanguageTool where you run your own server locally an LLM for purposes of Nebula eligibility? I mean, it’s not like I’m in the running for one, or even a member, but…

To be clear, LT is a spelling and grammar checker. There are two versions. One uploads your text to the LT website. One runs locally and your text does not leave your own computer. I use the latter, because I don’t care to have my books scraped by data pimps before they are even published.

#mac #review. A short review of my new Mac Studio m4max. The thing that creeps up on you is just now fast this thing is internally. Moving up from an M1 mini, the bandwidth to the SSD is astonishing. The thing boots almost instantly. Blender starts in one bounce of the dock icon.

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#mac #review. A short review of my new Mac Studio m4max. The thing that creeps up on you is just now fast this thing is internally. Moving up from an M1 mini, the bandwidth to the SSD is astonishing. The thing boots almost instantly. Blender starts in one bounce of the dock icon.

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#mac #review. A short review of my new Mac Studio m4max. The thing that creeps up on you is just now fast this thing is internally. Moving up from an M1 mini, the bandwidth to the SSD is astonishing. The thing boots almost instantly. Blender starts in one bounce of the dock icon.

Gaming (Second Life, in my case, with the Firestorm beta for Apple Silicon) is more subtle. The framerate is adequate but not amazing, but it stays stable even when I turn on all the heavy graphical goodness (Shadows, reflections, mirrors, antialiasing, etc).

James R. Strickland (he/him) reposted

If you want to understand what's wrong with AI writing, consider this: Cats have a finite number of behaviors. You could put a few hundred of the most common in an AI model and have it generate the statistically most likely next behavior. And you'd miss out on everything that makes a cat a pet.

Hypothesis: warming all natural peanutbutter makes it easier to stir the oil back in. Procedure: a newly opened container of Kroger natural creamy peanutbutter was placed in the microwave for 30 seconds. Results: stirring was *much* easier. Science is delicious!