A Sorry Excuse For A Post

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I slept till eleven thirty, which hopefully resets the cycle that has been getting more and more out of control since I had trouble with the typesetting. At least I slept eight hours.

As to why I was so late yesterday, well, I was fighting Midjourney. You see, it would have been perfectly fine if I had just put up the book firs typesetting. But having to re-typeset (And still no idea if the program will accept it, because–) led to Dan questioning the cover…

The problem of having the same sort of mind — yesterday he watched The Accountant II while I beat the clanker (And it worked worse and worse every time) and both of us lost it at “Explain to the normie why we have to finish what we started.” (Not an exact quote, but close. We’d seen the movie in the theaters before, so he was re-watching) — we feed each other’s obsessive spirals.

So I re-rendered Skip and the beast because frankly I never liked them (Though it is a deliberate 70s style cover those two figures were a compromise) but then he started going nuts because Brund looks drawn, not painted. And getting Midje to render an hermaphrodite with no breasts (UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ASK FOR AN HERMAPHRODITE. You can thank me later. I didn’t gauge my eyes out, but it was a close run thing. This from the same program that threatens to ban me for asking for someone barefoot. It’s against their decency rules) unleashes a panoply of horrors the likes of which I don’t intend to inflict on anyone. The CLOSEST it gets to okay is just uncanny valley “off.” (Which is why the figure on the cover is stylized, etc. Sigh. Turns out the program doesn’t have a key for “Take this cartoonish rendering and make it look like an oil painting.” A serious flaw if anyone works for them and reads this.

(While I’m at it, if anyone works for Atticus and reads this, tell them for the love of all that’s holy to allow me to put a few blank pages at the beginning. Starting the book with the title page is weird and ALMOST makes me want to leave all those pages blank and start only under chapters. Have these people never SIGNED a book? They’re a wonderful program, but I swear it was written to do computer manuals. Which also explains their ASSUMPTIONS about the type size and spacing. Sigh.)

Anyway, the problem is that I have enough clanker — I love that I’ve lived long enough to have a slur for “robot” in common use — in me (I’m part clanker on my dad’s side) that we got into a spiral. I tried to get it to do what I wanted. It found new ways to fail. For something like 16 hours yesterday. (Oh, yeah, “elf” worked for that betwix and between but then the clanker decided that it would instead render green elf-hobbits from some game. ARGH.)

No, I’m not done on that yet, but I have great hopes, since at one in the morning I’d come out with something close to just making that illustration into a painting. Maybe.

One of the ways in which Midje has an almost personality is that what gives it fits one day will be easy the next WITH THE SAME PROMPT. For instance, the other day it was refusing to admit that women exist (no, not joking) for an entire afternoon. Then the next day it just rendered a beautiful woman no problems.

THEN after I finished beating the bot (my arms were tired, so I had to rest) I fell into a “can’t put it down” with a book Laura Montgomery sent me to advance read and didn’t go to sleep till I finished it at three thirty am. (Look, I’d gone to sleep the night before and dreamed of the book all night. a) this never happens with other people’s books. b) my dreams were very dark, which her book isn’t. So finishing it was the best course.) Great characters, action and plot. So, thank you Laura and also curse you. I’d have been jet lagged today anyway, but you just made it worse. (The compliment we writers all long for “You son/daughter of a b*tch, you kept me up all night reading!” Yep, we’re all sadists. Sorry no one told you.)

Oh, yeah, while in a doom spiral with the clanker, I was mostly listening to the WHY files (I like him because after the scary story, he levels and tells you what parts are outright impossible.) So I predict a lot of very weird fiction.

And I also finally had time to listen to the Razorfist podcast about McCarthy. Razorfist is Razorfist, so the program is of course not entirely objective. (It’s banned as a comment thread on this blog, but his comments on Lincoln are also over the top and far away, though from the other side.) OTOH while I don’t think McCarthy was a saint, or that Eisenhower was any more complicit in the shut down of McCarthy’s investigations than Trump was in Covidiocy, I do agree with Razor that the worst sin McCarthy committed was being 20 years (at least) too late. And it helps to put in perspective how and why communism/extreme leftism became a positional good, and also how our agencies became that infested.

The good thing is that this “prestige of the left” is dropping away at speed. And that the philosophy is so bad it can’t survive without it.

It can’t be relegated to the midden of history fast enough.

69 thoughts on “A Sorry Excuse For A Post”

  3. I can imagine what that AI prompt produced, unfortunately, and it’s not GW’s Slaaneshi stuff from the late ’80s (which is pretty mild in comparison; and if you’re not familiar with that reference, don’t worry). I am shocked that the AI let it through. As you noted, those things are typically *very* aggressive about censoring images for reasons of “decency”.

    It’s troubling that specific category apparently didn’t get censored. The only thing that comes to mind is that maybe the AI has been affected by lefty views on trans to the point where it’s corrupted the censorship algorithms if that topic is mentioned.

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    1. where it’s corrupted the censorship algorithms if that topic is mentioned.

      Or maybe the Leftist techbro who wrote that algorithm excluded that subject from censorship. How would you know?

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      1. It’s possible. But the people who look for that stuff usually use other terms instead, particularly the Japanese one (which I’m not using to avoid search engine hits).

        Dunno.

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      2. No. It’s that the censorship is run by AI so it has WEIRD side effects.
        On the non censorship side would y’all calm down with the J. D. Vance memes? Now if I tell midje to fill in an icy landscape, I get JD Vance’s “fat” head taking up half of it.

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    2. No. the AI is aggressive about censuring indecency, except when it produces it UNASKED.
      Like…. one time the prompt (it was for a blog illustration) was “Beautiful woman in evening dress.”
      I COULDN’T GET IT TO RENDER ANYTHING WITHOUT AT LEAST ONE EXPOSED BREAST.
      I ended up going to pixabay or something because the clanker was set on showing me breasts. WHO KNOWS WHY?

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      1. That’s an odd combo.

        I know they’re focused on specific words, as it’s possible to “trick” them into creating adult images. I’m also not surprised by the images you likely got. I’m surprised the word itself isn’t verboten, though, given the fetishes out there right now.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. You know, I wonder what the history is of using clanker as a slur against robots is?

    I know over in Helldivers 2, we’ve been using it for the Automaton faction since the game’s launch last year. I don’t know if it was in common use in the Helldivers 1 community though.

    But I do know who to ask…

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      1. Apparently, William Tenn used the term in his 1958 article (about robots in SF movies).

        But yes, it became popular via Star Wars media.

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      3. I came across it on some of the Clone Wars clips I’ve encountered over the years. Though as other have noted it’s been around for longer than that.

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    2. It’s (also) been running around in the steampunk ‘world’ for years / decades, maybe about as long as there’s been one… for humanoid-form robots, and automata in general. It really helps that the mechanical(-ish) ones in this setting maybe actually do clank when they move…

      Liked by 1 person

  5. “Get some rest, if you don’t have your health…” Truer words, jeesh. I try to get 8 hours, rarely can.I’ve been away from the blog for a while, is “The Clanker” short for AI for image making?On the Razorfist on McCarthy, man that one was an eye opener. I love that guy, he’s had quite the personal journey, along with all of the changes to his own channel. I regularly catch the game streams on Fridays, and from “F U I WAS RIGHT” to many times talking about reading scripture and what version he likes (his dad is a preacher man) and etc. Great channel.  He really opened my eyes years back with the “Hollywood was always red” and Stalin spending 4 million a year in the 1940’s on Commie propaganda. In the 40’s!!!  Hollywood Was Always Red: A RantOr on Michael Jackson, and how the media hated him so much.  Takes the mask off a lot O “stuff” that’s for sure.

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      2. “You racketing clanker” would seem to be about the standard-issue state of the art, as far as I can tell. “Robot” is of course generic and largely-neutral, so not so much ‘punch’ as a slur; and also see its origins in Capek and “RUR” (etc.), so a word that originally meant simply “worker” has even got a rather positive spin, seen from a certain angle.

        Bets on how long between any large-scale introduction of, say, Tesla Optimus robots and ‘robot baiting’ or ‘robot tipping’ or the like? Surely the Elizabethans, at least, would’ve understood that.

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        1. There are rather minion-shaped wheeled patrol robots in use, which are subject to derision and blankets and tipping. I looked quickly on DDGo and found at least seven different purveyors of AI patrol ‘bots, most wheeled, some quad-legged.

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  6. You appear to be apologizing for focusing on paid work versus free work.

    ….

    (scowl I learned from then CPT Kratman)

    ….

    Do I have to rattle the rolled newspaper? Knock it off. Don’t make me get out the Squirt Bottle of DOOM.

    ….

    “Short post today. Slaying gremlins and telling clankers to “Reap Rust.” Bye.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Your battles with Midjourney remind me of the saying about mud-wrestling a pig.

    Maybe the solution is to begin weeks early and do just one trial-and-error cycle every day. Or every 12 hours, maybe.

    Meanwhile, get your rest!

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  9. With apologies to Tennesee Ernie and Merle Travis….

    “Write, write, write that vig-i-nette.

    Write, write, write, and when you write yourself to death,

    Tell Saint Peter at the Golden Gate

    That you hate to make him wait,

    But you just gotta write another vig-i-nette!”

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  10. First of all, if MidJourney doesn’t let you show someone barefoot, why did I have to wrestle with it for my Facebook ads? MidJ kept removing the character’s shirt!

    Second, my apparently sadistic side is happy, happy, happy. Thank you, Sarah!

    Liked by 3 people

  11. For the “blank” pages, maybe you could have some fancy border art? (I know there’s a term for it, but it doesn’t come to mind.) That way, you could have a little space before the title page, all ready for signatures or “this book owned by” bookplates.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Dover (for one) even used to publish re-issues of old “decorative borders” books, quite suitable for either copying or scanning.

      Though actual blank pages do have far more of a genuine printing / publishing tradition (and of course they often happened naturally due to printing multiple pages per sheet, see ‘folio’ and ‘duodecimo’ and all that once-current language).

      Liked by 1 person

      3. IIRC you have to create a new chapter (down at the bottom – add chapter) and then drag it to the place that you want it, remove the Chapter heading and such.

        You can put dedications, etc before the title if you want and several blank pages doing the above. (I just checked it again to be sure I wasn’t lying or mind blanked.)

        I also use the limited version, so I don’t know what version you are on, or if that is an issue.

        If you (or anyone else) has Atticus questions, let me know, I’ll see what I can do/fix. I’ve written step by steps for some of the stuff already.

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        1. No. That was how it used to be, yes. BUT now they have a protected section at the top: title, copyright and the generated contents table. You can’t add anything to those. Including new pages or chapters.
          GRRRRR

          Liked by 1 person

          1. You can ask them to put you back to the limited version (the older version). Then it will work the old way. That is what I use. You don’t have to go to the modern version.

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  12. If you slept that late you likely needed it; yesterday was like that for me.

    But today! Despite all the craziness of yesterday! I have the start of chapter 7 in White Cat’s Bluff, where Fengye really gets into hot water….

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  13. Not sure he could help being 20 years late, but I hope he’s up there smiling to see the masks dropping. That poor man did NOT deserve to have his name used as a slur or his name dragged through the mud, no matter what his faults.

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  14. I like razorfist. Even if i don’t always agree with him he is entertaining to listen to. And he changed my mind about Michael Jackson.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I don’t have time to add another set of videos to my to-watch list; would you mind summarizing what he said about Michael Jackson? Don’t spend too long on it, I’m just curious to hear the highlights if you have a bit of time.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. Re the long march penetration of the lever arms of government, a potential connection struck me between the basic long march through the institutions theme and something I saw in passing the other day which I vaguely remember reading in the newspapers back when I was in HS, what became known as the Halloween Massacre at the CIA in 1977 (if you search for it, use “Halloween Massacre CIA” as there have apparently been several events so named).

    Under President Jimmeh on October 31, 1977, CIA Director Stansfield Turner notified 800 senior officers on the Clandestine Services Division of the CIA that they were being fired. This gutted the hands-on side of the CIA (800 out of about 4,000 CSD officers, so 20%), as those senior folks were the institutional knowledge of The Agency on how to do the things governments don’t admit to doing.

    This was pitched at the time as oh so moral Jimmeh taking out his icks about spy stuff, especially after the Church Committee Hearings held by the Senate in 1975 where the Dems in power after Watergate turned over all the rocks, going after the clandestine side of the house at CIA and other agencies. Under those rocks they definitely found some icky stuff, as one does when one looks under rocks.

    The official cover story was the CIA didn’t need those old-head spies anymore because they were reading all their mail through “Technical Means” – intercepts and code breaking and satellites were good enough, plus Jimmeh had no icks about satellites.

    Notably I can find no reporting of mass firings occurring in the Analysis side of the CIA in 1977. The long march tie-in that occurred to me was that by 1977 the penetration of academia was pretty far advanced. The analysis side of the CIA comes from academia, but the clandestine side is drawn more from the military. By zapping such a large senior chunk of the Clandestine Services side, Admiral Turner gave a significant leg up to the influence of academia in The Agency, and academia was already on Team Arrow of History.

    If a really long game was in fact underway, doing this exact thing would be a great way to increase penetration over time of the US Intelligence Community, while simultaneously crippling the running-assets and breaking-and-entering side of the CIA.

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    1. Analysts aren’t usually academics, although they do call them in.

      Asked the guy I know who is involved with them, says about half of the agents he knows or knows of were former military.

      … one that was an analyst suggested, and the agents agreed, this is a really good summary of how they treated analysts:

      I suspect that the bigger issue would be related to all the “important people” just “knowing” all the Marxist stuff was best– so it doesn’t matter what is sent up, they ignore it.

      You know, exactly like what keeps coming up in everything else, from 9/11 on out. “Nobody knew this was coming, our analysts were blindsided!” and then you find out there were like 50 different reports all saying HEY HEY THIS IS HAPPENING but they weren’t politically useful.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Oh, and there aren’t news stories about analysts being fired, partly because that’s not sexy, and partly because of how they selected who to fire.

      They fired those who gave horrible information, like, “hey, bad stuff is gonna happen in Iran.”

      >.>

      (If you don’t fire them, you can keep a lid on “hey, I told people this was going to happen” a bit better, though.)

      Liked by 3 people

        2. You literally had a meltdown over an article claiming “agents”, complete with math based off of that categorization, and failed to read the article eventually explaining no, it was employees rather than agents, quite recently.

          Furthermore, the twitter collection you link is about three offices being shut down, not about firings.

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  16. The teacher in the photo looks a lot like Black Widow disguised as “Natalie Rushman” in that Iron-Man 2 scene:

    Natalie Rushman in that scene had slightly longer hair, but otherwise that could have been copied directly from the movie.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Reloaded the page, saw the top-of-the-page image again. Yep, that’s definitely Natalie Rushman teaching that class. Wonder what mission required Black Widow to go under cover as an elementary school teacher?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Whatever required her to go undercover, the bullies are going to get schooled by their victims once she’s done encouraging the kids. And whoever is going after all the children in the class (or the school) is going to seriously regret it before everything is said and done.

        Do not go after children – especially little girls – with Natalia Romanova around. Your grandchildren (if you have any) will be feeling the pain after the Black Widow is done with you!

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    2. “Photo”? Photo? I meant picture. It’s not even meant to look like a photo, it’s meant to look like a painting. I don’t know why I typed “photo”.

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    3. Part of the genius of that Iron-Man 2 scene is that it came out before you had ever been formally introduced to Black Widow in the Marvel movies. So if you were a comics reader you probably figured out who Natalie Rushman was, but if you were just discovering these characters for the first time by watching the movies, you were just as shocked as Pepper was when Black Widow did the twist-the-wrist move (is that an arm bar, or is an arm bar something else? I have no personal experience with martial arts) and threw Happy to the mat. But after watching the rest of the MCU films, you look at that scene and recognize Black Widow immediately, which frees you up to think “Why was she there? Oh, of course: Fury wanted to keep tabs on Iron Man, because any superhero has the potential for going supervillain and Tony Stark has several red flags (like his personal arrogance) that warrant keeping an eye on him.” None of which is pointed out in the movie, but it’s all there to be figured out if you’re thinking about the larger setting. Tony Stark has just revealed publicly that he’s Iron Man, so Fury sends one of his best agents to keep an eye on Stark and see what he’s up to. Once she’s gathered enough evidence to satisfy Fury that Stark is not in danger of becoming a supervillain (at least not right now, though I’d argue that he was in real danger of it at some points), he would have reassigned her elsewhere which is why she doesn’t show up in the plot of Iron-Man 2 (or 3, as I recall) in any major way.

      I do appreciate when stories stand up to being poked at, rather than tearing a massive rip in the fabric of the story’s continuity at the first tiny poke of an inquiring finger.

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  17. Our professional organizations need to be nuked from orbit…..

    https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2025/08/20/pamela-garfield-jaeger-trump-cult-zoom-meeting-thread-n2417633

    This writer keeps warning readers that one of the reasons the Left desperately wants to take over healthcare is to use it as a weapon against their political opponents.

    Here’s more proof for that file, as this thread exposes how so-called ‘professional’ training seminar for therapists instructed participants to hate patients who support President Trump.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. And I imagine that knowledge of the political perversion of the psychiatric / psychological profession keeps a fairly large number of rational people from seeking assistance from them with the problems the insanity of our current society causes.

    John in Indy

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  19. And I imagine that knowledge of the political perversion of the psychiatric / psychological profession keeps a fairly large number of rational people from seeking assistance from them with the problems the insanity of our current society causes.

    John in Indy

    Like

  20. And I imagine that knowledge of the political perversion of the psychiatric / psychological profession keeps a fairly large number of rational people from seeking assistance from them with the problems the insanity of our current society causes.

    John in Indy

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Imagine the average military person, in need of some help, having to deal with the hard-left as therapist.

      I walked out of one session saying, “Dude, I know I am troubled. You are both evil and (HONK!)ing nuts.”

      And that was 35ish years ago.

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