Posts

The Real World of Generative AI

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I had a call with my best friend from college the other day. While I went into software development for the web, that guy is a scientist playing with plasma physics. He’s also a world-class Ultimate Frisbee player, but that’s probably best for another blog. Anyways, he asked me my thoughts on AI. I gave it to him straight: I believe Generative AI to be an unforgiving and unforgivable technology. I stole that phrase from Ursula Franklin, who was an amazing woman. In her 1989 Massey Lecture, The Real World of Technology , she says that “nuclear power is an unforgiving and unforgivable technology.” She says this as a research physicist that refused to work with nuclear power. She said that nuclear power left an indelible mark on both the planet and mankind and that no use of it could excuse that unethical side effect. I believe the same thing with Generative AI. While there is nothing as dramatic as Hiroshima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island to point to as an example of the unforgiving im...
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Repost: The Unexpected, Casual Body Horror of Return to Oz

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I was watching Return to Oz  yesterday (as one does on the Fourth of July). My mom and I both have an odd love for it - and one of the twins was oddly fascinated by it. Got me thinking about this old article I posted. It was originally published on The Roarbots back in September 2021. That blog was a fun time but, sadly, is no longer hosted anywhere. So I figured for this week I'd repost it. It's a favorite of mine. Enjoy. What a wholesome film? Right. Right?? Body horror is definitely a niche realm of horror that is hit or miss for a lot of people. Some of the concepts are universal – even though some of the delivery gets to be too gross or visceral for most. But I can’t get enough of it for some reason. The themes are fascinating to me. For those who aren’t familiar with the subgenre, I once described it to my mom as “horror where you don’t have full agency of your body.” Her response was, “Would that make werewolves body horror?” Right on the money. The classic werewolves ha...
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In Defense of Physical Media

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This is not going to be a suddenly crazy new stance for most of my online mutuals: I'm known by most as "that guy who has way too many laserdiscs." An excuse to post my LaserDisc collection? Don't mind if I do! This week, Playstation announced that they were removing over 500 films  from their streaming service because of a lapse of rights. This goes beyond "you can't stream it" or "you can't rent it." If you had "purchased" it on there, you will also lose it. If this is news to you, I truly am sorry. Because a streaming service can only provide a film as long as they either own the rights or they have a deal for those rights - when you "purchase" a film on there - you ain't buying it. You are "long-term renting it." Check the fine print you always just click away. Sony is not special in this relationship to video media - its built into all  streaming services. So if you (like me, I must confess) purchased ...
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Pontificating on Running in Crowds

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I like doing projects that challenge me. Big things that I've never done before. I've run a music festival; written and self-published a book; started a monthly delivery service; designed and had a board game professionally published; and now I'm looking to start a nonprofit for opening movie theaters. Might as well include proof that I ran a music festival Each time I pivoted to a new project, not only did I have to learn new skills to handle the task I discovered the existing community and, for lack of a better word, infiltrated it. For some of the communities, like the music festival, the community was definitely preexisting. I had to find them, but they were there. When I got into board game design, while finding folks down for a board game isn't that  challenging - finding where the designers are was tricky. I contributed to bringing the designers of an area together to have weekly test play nights and it was magical. Getting into the nonprofit community locally is...
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A Listicle on Shows I've Watched Recently

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I like watching stuff. Sometimes its hard to find the good stuff to watch from the bad stuff. Movies are a self-contained thing and you can usually tell real quick if it's gonna be "your thing" or not. Shows? Sometimes you have to give it three or four episodes to make that decision. Anyways, here's a review of shows that I'm either caught up on, rewatching, or in the middle of watching a season of. Widow's Bay  on AppleTV Widow's Bay, Season 1 Dang y'all. I'm digging this. I figured I would because I dig Matthew Rhys and Stephen Root and horror shows but I wasn't ready for this. It has a fascinating tone that walks both horror and comedy without being too horrific or too goofy. You never know if you're gonna be shocked or laughing and that tension  is deftly handled in the writing, directing, and acting. And the acting. My goodness. I love Stephen Root. I've been on Team Root since I first saw him in Office Space. I go out of my way to...
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Code Post: Building Relationship-Based Access Control in Ruby on Rails

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Y'all have seen me do personal posts and cinema posts. Now it's time for the code posts. If you are here for me ranting about cinema or whining about my life and don't want to read about me nerding out to code I promise not to take it personal. I'm also assuming a target audience of this blog of someone who has familiarity with database architecture. I'll still be back next week and I promise I'll do code posts at most once a month. So! Relationship-Based Access Control! Also known as "Fine Grain Access Control" it stands in contrast to "Role-Based Access Control" which, if you have familiarity with authorization systems, you probably have heard of, or at least know about. It's management of access to areas and data based off of the role a user has: like an admin could go anywhere but someone with a "Financial Manager" role wouldn't be able to edit permissions of another user. If  you're familiar with Role-Based Access C...
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You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Make Art But It Helps

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The last week and so I've been getting more into art. It started with wanting to make a zine for the upcoming Appalachia Cinema Preservation Society movie screening. In the era of generative AI (and I guess as an apology for designing a zine completely on a computer like a poser), I wanted at least something  handmade on there - so I drew the cover. I named him "Smiley McTrustworthy" A part of my past I don't talk about a lot - less from being disappointed in it and more because I've led a life of weird projects that overshadow this section - is that for a few years I was the designer for my college newspaper. It was a small enough community that we actually gave the local papers a run for their money and won awards. I loved designing. Not just the act of it but specifically designing something that had an end result of something in the physical realm. I've apparently forgotten how much I enjoyed that, but I've been rediscovering it with this project. Som...
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