So, I have a lovely new iPad mini. Not so lovely: migrating my account has been really slow, everything's sluggish, apps not loading … after hours of this I *FINALLY* noticed that iOS has prioritised downloading my ENTIRE photo library—all 19 years of it—rather than, say, my VPN, adblockers, password manager, or LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE I ACTUALLY USE ALL THE TIME.

Why you can’t trust any AI that hoovers up text from Reddit for training! Here’s a thread on /r/aviation asking why 1950s airliners had so many bodies on the flight deck: it goes sideways fast …

Wake up, bro, AI bubble is bursting *today*: https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2026/nov/06/global-stocks-tumble-ai-panic-markets-democrats-midterms-success-jobs-oil-dollar-latest-news-updates

For when your server room is on fire …

RE: https://mastodon.social/@rgarner/117556896025660928

"Couldn't get a Republican elected in Texas" is the new "couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery."

#WritersCoffeeClub Nov 4: Do you include a cast of characters at the beginning of a work?

Only if an editor twists my arm REALLY hard!

There's one in the "Empire Games" trilogy because it's a follow-on from an earlier series with a cast of thousands, and even then I fought back.

RE: https://isdream.ing/@mookie/117538591236341191

I have been daydreaming about gathering together a metric buttload of sticks of DRAM (psst: ancient will do, doesn't matter if it's measured in kilobytes or megabytes) and building a bonfire of them outside Altman's home, just to make him weep.

Futile, I know, and probably polluting, but so much fun!

RE: https://mefi.social/@MissConstrue/117538029184503498

Prediction: this isn't preparation for "fallen soldiers", this is for "undesirables" and "illegal immigrants".

#WritersCoffeeClub October 27:
As a writer, what do you need right now?

A straight street—the Royal Mile will do—at least a kilometer long, with a billionaire impaled on a stake every two metres on both sides. (Don't worry, we won't run out of billionaires before we get to the end.) And complete criminalization of all commercial applications of AI. Plus the end of crapitalism as a cherry on top.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@alt_historian/117509691921899922

Clickbait-free answer: he'd have died.

All the men died.

The women had more body fat and better endurance: a few of them survived.

Don't ask about the children.

/grim

La TrussTERFfuck does it again:

Liz Truss claims UK would be flying people to Mars by 2040 if she’d stayed as PM

https://metro.co.uk/2026/10/26/liz-truss-claims-uk-flying-people-mars-2040-stayed-pm-29738974/

#writersCoffeeClub Oct 22: Share a work you found really challenging to read.

I gave up on "Gravity's Rainbow" about halfway through, thirty-something years ago. It was good and chewy, but maybe *too* chewy—I could only choke down about one chapter a day, and after a month I gave up.

It was slower going than "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice" by Foley, Van Damm, et al (and *that* was full of 3D homogeneous matrix transformations and their applications).

I first met PHP circa 1995, back when it was a ghastly Perl knock-off—Perl 4, at that, no OOP or test harnesses or attempts to tidy the language up. The only thing it brought to the table was slightly tighter web integration, and it wasn't worth the added suck elsewhere.

Everything I have learned about PHP since 1995 has only confirmed my decision to have *nothing* to do with it: it seems to be a loosely coupled lexicon of security exploits flying in loose formation, not a language.

AI Bubble Teetering on the Brink as OpenAI Admits to Massive Financial Failure in Leaked Documents

Financial Times reveals that OpenAI’s annualized revenue is roughly $20 billion lower than previously expected:

https://futurism.com/future-society/ai-financial-bubble-openai-billions-failure

Microsoft can't afford to proofread the slide decks for their HIGH PROFILE PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS by the CEO any more.

It's true, relying on AI *really does* rot the brain.

#WritersCoffeeClub 7th Oct 2026. Does your editing process tend towards addition or reduction?

I just finished a redraft in which I was trying to cut, hard, at a long novel. I managed to shorten it by 5%, which is an absolute triumph—my redrafts normally grow by 10%. (This one's a third draft, though, so maybe it's done all its lengthening previously.)

In rewrite I tend to tighten up the prose and elaborate on details, and to clarify murky plot points, hence the lengthening tendency.

Alternative Health Influencer Boasts That He’s Been Drinking From a Radioactive Jug for 250 Days Straight:

“My favorite thing about radium water is it pulls the vaccine toxicity out of the body, and also is a solution to [electromagnetic field] sensitivity,” Roeske says later in his video, holding his radiated jug up for the camera.

https://futurism.com/future-society/alternative-health-influencer-drinking-radioactive-jug-revigator

☢️💀☢️

RE: https://freethought.online/@pzmyers/117371577688481871

Because *of course* he'd be AI-pilled.

(This is the rancid fucknugget who once wrote that he wanted my chromed skull as a desk ornament. *After* he discovered I'm not a christian singularitarian, I'm a pro-feminist LGBT-positive Scottish socialist green.)

#WritersCoffeeClub Oct 2 Do you have plans for your next work yet?

Ha ha lolsob

After I finish the current rewrite I have to rewrite *another* novel (I know where the last rewrite attempt went wrong).

Then I have a half-written novella to dust off and probably finish.

Then I have the first 50K words of a sequel to the current WIP to continue, but only if my agent successfully auctions the current rewrite.

*Then* I have a stack of book ideas deep enough to see me through to retirement age.

RE: https://zpravobot.news/@Rainmaker1973/117355332500418001

@mwl