If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading
Concept: You walk outside one night and notice that there are two full moons. A few hours go by and they don’t seem to move.
You stare up at them.
They blink.
What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?
An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:
I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.
Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.
A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)
So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.
Arctic wolves traversing deep snow...
Bloop
Bleep
it’s december 1 where’s the christmas tail kitten bring him to me
Hi Seanan! The Glasgow Worldcon just sent out the instruction email today to remind people to nominate things for the 2024 Hugos. With the ... everything ... that's going on with the Hugos right now, are you still wanting your works from last year nominated? And if so, is there any place you've listed which works of yours are eligible for which categories, and which you'd most like nominated? Thank you!
What happened with the Chengdu Hugos was a travesty, and I am heartbroken, on a whole bunch of levels. For the people who were unfairly left off the ballot; for the losers; for the winners. There's an asterix on that award now, and none of the people on the ballot are responsible. We didn't do anything wrong.
That said, I truly and genuinely love the Hugo awards. Like so many writers in the SF/F community, I grew up reading past winners and dreaming of one day having an award of my own to hold and hug and go to bed with at night (I don't actually do that--it's a foot-tall metal stick, I would hurt myself). And then, in high school, I became the foster child of a working Hugo Administrator, who taught me how to run the awards myself, so I'd always have a place in fandom. I love the Hugos. The awards themselves are not to blame for the bad behavior of the 2023 administrators.
What I have eligible and would truly love to see nominated:
Best Series, October Daye. Best Novella, Lost in the Moment and Found. Best Short Story, "Family Game Night," Magic Story. Best Graphic Story, Soul and Stone, Boom! Comics. Best Related Work, Overwatch: Declassified. Best Game Writing, Magic: the Gathering, Wizards of the Coast.
And please consider Grace Fong, Amy King, and Emily Smith for Best Fan Artist, and Manda Cherry for Best Fan Writer.
this is going around twitter and i thought it'd be a fun little thing to bond over
in the tags as usual