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SteveClough

@[email protected]

Christian Quaker, software developer, anarchist, Green, and many other things I am not very good at.

He/Him. Also respond to it/Oi/Shut up you idiot.

#Nobridge #Nothreads #Nofascists

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nithou , to bookstodon
@nithou@piaille.fr avatar

Wow started reading The Ministry of the Future and damn, quite depressing after 15% 😭 @bookstodon

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@nithou @bookstodon Yeah, it is. It does become less unremittingly depressing.

I can hardly say cheerful.

SteveClough , to bookstodon
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

So i have just finished reading At The Existentialist Cafe. It is a really good book covering existentialism and phenomenology and the various ideas around it.

If this is your sort of interest, then it is worth a read. It is the stories of half a dozen of the main philosophers of this, and their interactions, so you get something more than reading each of them.

@bookstodon

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@Five Oh good.

What he means is that being found out for lying will impact how much people believe him.

Well no shit Sherlock.

CultureDesk , to bookstodon
@CultureDesk@flipboard.social avatar

Ever dreamed of spending a vacation surrounded by books? Gladstone's Library may be your dream destination. It's the U.K.'s only residential library and has 26 bedrooms, 150,000 books, and several book-lined reading rooms with desks and armchairs where you can read, study and write (in the past decade, more than 300 books have been worked on there). Emily Monaco wrote about staying there for BBC Travel.

https://flip.it/63EfGo

@bookstodon

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@CultureDesk @bookstodon A residential library - you would never get me out.

I mean - never.

NickEast , to bookstodon
@NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

Ultimate reader cage match: One reader enters, no books leave! 😂

@bookstodon @libraries @librarians @publiclibraries



SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@NickEast @bookstodon @libraries @librarians @publiclibraries I don't see the problem with this.

ramblingreaders , to bookstodon
@ramblingreaders@toot.community avatar

Do you know there's a alternative to Amazon-owned ? is a social network for tracking your reading, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next. You can follow and interact with users on different instances and on . You can import from a Goodreads CSV export. You can create private shelves and curated lists. Join us at https://ramblingreaders.org or choose one of the other instances available @bookstodon

SteveClough , (edited )
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@danialbehzadi @Hawkwinter @diazona @ramblingreaders @bookstodon Well the simple definition is that the source is open and available. So you can see everything the code is doing.

There are usually restrictions on usage - I write proprietary software, and there are sometimes conditions that mean any usage has to be open source too - which is a pain.

But you have the source, so you can change it - but probably not then claim it is the original.

It is all very fraught.

DocCarms , (edited ) to bookstodon
@DocCarms@mstdn.social avatar

There was a poll that stated—Rowling’s opening line in the HP series is one of best in the world. Someone posted about how there are a bunch of other opening statements that are better.

Here’s one of my personal favorites, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (in English):
“It is inevitable — the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

What are some of your favorite opening lines in literature? 😊
@bookstodon

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@Greenseer @DocCarms @bookstodon A good book - very deep and esoteric book that makes you think.

I do love Eco. His writing is so - grown up.

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@Greenseer @DocCarms @bookstodon I have read some of his academic material as well, and it really helps to see his entire world view.

hawksquill , to bookstodon
@hawksquill@writing.exchange avatar

Just started Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin. Apparently the later books of the cycle are disliked by fans. I am bewildered by that assessment. I can already tell this is an all-time favorite.

Everything from the prose to the characters feels more mature and meditative. Gender is also examined in a much more holistic and painful way. Several passages have already spoken to my soul in such a deep way that I know will remain with me for a long time

@bookstodon

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@elysegrasso @diazona @mori @derpoltergeist @Grizzlysgrowls @ukaunz @bookstodon @philip_cardella @wordstitcher @hawksquill

What a fascinating discussion. I guess it is similar in concept to the "Dowager House" that large estates would have.

Or a Granny Flat in a wide sense - which can be at least paritally integrated with the rest of the house.

laminda , to bookstodon
@laminda@mastodon.social avatar

If you recently learned that your book (or books) were used without your knowledge or consent to train AI, here's what you can do next, according to the Authors Guild (which has already filed a class action suit against OpenAI, representing more than a dozen writers).

https://authorsguild.org/news/you-just-found-out-your-book-was-used-to-train-ai-now-what/

@bookstodon

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@ErikJonker @laminda @bookstodon I think the answer is no. You own A COPY of the book, but the content. So using that for your own purposes is not justified.

Some time ago, I bought a piece of original art, because I wanted to use it on my book cover. The artists was fine with that, but I asked - because even the ownership of an original piece of art does not give me the right to reproduce it for my own gain (AFAIK).

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@maartenpelgrim @ErikJonker @laminda @bookstodon Fair Use: Where you are allowed to use an extract of a published work (not all of it or even a subsstantial amout of it) with a reference to the original.

All of which is about using other works and guiding people to those original ones in preference if you want more detail, or to confirm the quote or implication is acurate.

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@maartenpelgrim @ErikJonker @laminda @bookstodon And I think the problem is that LLM might not properly represent the original.

So I might say "Einstein said that E = mc^2" - and refer to his paper.

An LLM might - quite easily - misrepresent this - saying that Einstein said e = mc, for example, whih matches the correct structure, but an academc reference implies that I have read the original, and understood it. LLM doesn;t do this.

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@ErikJonker @maartenpelgrim @laminda @bookstodon LLM as a tool to organise thoughts etc is fine (as a general rule, it is good for that - building a structure of what your answer/paper should look like). The problem comes if the source material you feed into an LLM is used elsewhere - if it is passed to the LLM owner, for training the LLM process (as they mostly are)

Then you and the LLM have probably violated copyright - albeit unwittingly on your part.

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@ErikJonker @maartenpelgrim @laminda @bookstodon I am not saying I am correct legally speaking. Just interested to explore the whole area.

I am very aware of it when I use online tools and put pieces of the company code into them for checking/comparing/whatever. I try to ensure that I am not actually leaking company IP.

And I know many people don't concern themselves with this! But I do.

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@maartenpelgrim @ErikJonker @laminda @bookstodon Oh totally - but then (in academia) it is up to peer review or colleagues to pull them up on it.

That whole process works when there is a person who is taking the responsibility (and claiming - by referencing - to have read the original). When it is a database, to correct that, to even challenge that, is much harder.

KitMuse , to bookstodon
@KitMuse@eponaauthor.social avatar

Okay, now I want to know if there are any academic journals devoted to speculative fiction. I know there are the anthologies like BtVS and Philosophy (or the book I have on my TBR, the Religions of Star Trek).

If there isn't, must look up what it takes to start one, because that would certainly fall under the umbrella of something I'm working on.

@bookstodon

SteveClough ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@KitMuse @aram @electricarchaeo @bookstodon That sounds interesting, and good luck.

I tried to get a reference to Firefly into my PhD thesis, but it never made it.

SteveClough , to bookstodon Japanese
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@jules @timgatewood @niten @betaquarii @bookstodon Yes - I couldn;t think of an example, but this is one where the speculation is not science-based (really).

As with music, I maintain incredulity towards genres. They can be useful, but not if they are rigorously used to divide.

SteveClough OP ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@timgatewood @jules @niten @betaquarii @bookstodon Well the genre is actually, in full, SFF - including fantasy, which most of these would be included in.

But this is why I am not a fan of genres, because it excludes some that should be included, and means that gross-genre work - which can be so incredible - is problematic.

SteveClough OP ,
@SteveClough@metalhead.club avatar

@DarkMatterZine @timgatewood @niten @betaquarii @bookstodon Yes agree there. I have called my book "Magical Realism" because it involves magic in the real world. But it is much more fantasy/humour than literature (nobody has ever accused me of writing literature).

I guess this is the problem with a genre - so often, it is really wide. It covers radically different areas. Or it is so niche as to be the purview of one or two authors, wnd inpregnable.

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