well thank you

I actually feel a little better going into this weekend. That one newer friend that I think I mentioned vanishing about a month ago for self-doubt and personal reasons has started messaging me again, trying to send good vibes my way because they'd seen my status and inferred I've not been doing so hot. Also, my sweet girl kinda called me out on my bull****, forcing me to accept her desire to get me some fancy new computer parts for a bit of an upgrade (which to be fair is about due here at the 2-year mark). This in addition to sending me a catgirl/boy set and an adorable little Eevee plush (along with something a bit lewder )

Also I find myself developing more around that one character I mentioned a while back, the eternally-pregnant Lady of Ash. Well, truth be told right now I find myself reading up about Apollo since the naming and theming is stemming from there, but the developing is coming along at the same time. I've been hearing from another friend about single-player RPG-like systems they've been mashing together for story writing and I'm thinking of using some of that to get some more solid details set in stone about this character.

[slig voice]Hi![/slig voice]


Fate/Kaleid
As you can tell by the name, it's a Fate/Stay Night spin off. Though it takes a bit of a turn into Magical Girl Show for the first few seasons before it decides to be Fate again.


It's still pretty much Modern Take of Cultural Mythology. It's just the culture in question is Pop Culture and they're superheroing all over everything.
Which is a substantial departure from the Weatherlight's approach being more grounded and less explicitly about people with superpowers going around righting wrong.
Biggest problem it has really boils down to the fact that they imbued absolutely no depth into any of the run up to this and dragged a ton of characters with razor thin motivation into plots that are no better for their inclusion in them.


So, in other news though, going back to the esoteric talk of painting:
Someone else around the store finally actually could talk about painting with me. Everyone else that frequents the place doesn't really understand any degree of nuance or technique involved, since they either buy the models painted or they are… unconcerned with the technical aspects.
But in any condition, it was actually really satisfying to be able to genuinely talk shop, in a way I’m not sure I can quantify, but it meant a lot more than I thought it would. He was also pretty damn impressed with my brush control, I think genuinely he was surprised at the level of quality considering how short a time I’ve been working. His only real criticism was in dealing with the metallics, but that’s no small part a shortage of materials, so I take no ownership over that foible.
I turned over the second batch of my current commission, putting the numbers 22/42 I’ll post a picture of the one I think turned out best out of the most recent batch. That said, I was somewhat… a lot bothered by the fact that the guy I’m doing this work for tried to “grime” up and weather the models, because consequently he ruined the paintjob on like half the ones I already turned over. (Rule 1, don’t do that kind of crap on more than one to test if you’re not sure what you’re doing) Suffice to say, that bugged the actual hell out of me, but at the end of the day, they’re his models. Also, his slapdash attempt at fixing them looks like ass, I’m fairly annoyed, but he’s determined he really shouldn’t have done that.
Beyond that, the rate I ended up charging for the work I’m doing on the miniatures ends up coming out to .92 cents, but I’m also effectively getting paid in experience and reputation, so… I set that rate myself, not like I can gripe about it.
However, the flip side to that is now that I’ve delivered positive results, he wants me to paint a $65 figure, and he has 2. My payment for that is the second model, so that’s a pretty substantial value demand increase. (Actually, it’s damaged, so the real value is closer to like $40, but whatever, it’s still a huge turn on that.)
I have 1 more commission confirmed, and then 1 guy interested in having me paint his army, but he’s not provided any actual commitment, only the nebulous “when I get paid” he’s interested. I have a friend of mine also interested in me painting one of his, but that’s low key also me wanting to paint one of his pieces. I’m being mildly insidious with that, under the assumption once I turn in mind blowing work, it’ll bother him the rest of his stuff doesn’t look as good.

The best of that last batch.
Apologies for the fuzzy quality, but I work with what I got

Jeez, I'm impressed! I tried my hand at a few minis years ago I'm sure you recall, and I just don't fully get the artistic technique that goes into painting in the first place, not to mention the fine brushstrokes that are kind of difficult for me. I wouldn't say I'm impaired but I am hella clumsy and it's not easy for me to make the little movements needed. Seeing the work you've got here, it's no wonder you've got so many commissions lined up so quickly!

--------

In some small personal news, my sweet girl called me out on my bull**** and forced me to accept her graciousness, not just searching for a new graphics card to upgrade my computer but buying it herself to gift me (and by the sound of it possibly a bigger hard drive as well but I wasn't clear on that)

I should probably post photos of my own painting efforts. I can make things look good with the blending and such, but trying to slip up and put the a color on a part that's not supposed to be that color always gets me. It's like ... sure the scabbard's steel-grey too I guess.

Very nice work, Barinellos. As I said, I don't personally have the knowledge or even necessarily the nomenclature to comment on the technical aspects of your work, but they look very cool to me!


Honestly, learning to accept generosity from others is a hard thing to do for a lot of people, myself included. But I hope you enjoy her gift(s)!

If the people at the bottom of the hierarchy start feeling they deserve things then the whole things fall apart. Reject good things! Maintain the social order!
:Jpg of recruitment poster goes here. Maintain Order- Know Your Place:

...I may have come from a bad family.

Uuuugh...
Well, I wouldn't advocate anyone repeat my weekend. A double dose of thirteen hour shifts where equipment breaks.
And I had an unmistakably messed up dream last night to add to the pile.
Tomorrow I'm off at least, but by Gods I'm going to try to finish my painting project so I can move on to the next one.

On the positive, I feel like I've managed to crest the hill in my current deck building projects for Warhammer 40k. For the most part at least.

Sorry to hear that. I hate long days like that, and I am glad that they are (hopefully) mostly behind me. I used to teach a night class once a week, on Wednesdays, which meant that I would have a 14 hour day every week, and right in the middle of the week, too. It wasn't great. Better than when I was working at the hotel, though, that's for sure.

Good luck with the painting!

I honestly don't know where to actually put this, but I couldn't not share it.
https://youtu.be/MaiUUitZbns

That's amazing. As someone who has written a parody of that song, I have to respect the craftsmanship of this much, much better parody. Admittedly, some of them came down to pronunciation, but that's sort of all rhyming, when you get down to it.

Thanks for sharing, Barinellos! I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Happy Birthday, Aaarrrgh! I hope it is an amazing day filled with happiness, joy, and various other good things!

Happy Birthday, Aaarrrgh!

Great Celebrations upon you, Aaarrrgh!

Happy Birthday!

I'm making chat gpt write thundercats/he-man fanfic and a sailor moon prequel.
This is clearly the Pinnacle of human accomplishment and not at all an example of the trivial decadence that will be our undoing. I'm enjoying myself regardless.

Ugh. ChatGPT. Don't even get me started.

...

Alright, too late.

So, as an English Professor, this thing has become/will remain the bane of my existence. Students are already using this to write papers and other assignments, and there is no easy way to detect it. They are "trying" to come up with counter-programs to recognize algorithms in writing to guess whether or not an AI wrote it, but it's still a crap-shoot. Obviously, if I get three papers from a student that barely use complete sentences and then I get a masterful paper, it's clear something was done, but how do I go about proving it? At least when students would plagiarize off the Internet, I would usually be able to find the original. Now, there is no proof.

I try not to get too down about things, or to ride slippery slopes down to portents of destruction, but I admit that I am very worried about numerous issues that this and other AIs bring up. First of all, I care about my job. I want to do the best for my students, and I put a ton of time and effort into trying to help them become better writers. I can't help but feel like all of that time and effort will be wasted going forward. Full disclosure, a lot of it has been wasted already, considering how few of my students actually care about getting better at writing, but at least it was usually their writing I was working with. Now, though? When all they need to do is plug in a prompt or two into ChatGPT? What the hell is even the point of me putting in any effort? So that's one thing I'm worried about. I'm worried about just giving up at some point. I have seen professors who just don't care anymore, and I don't want to become that. But if it starts to feel like every student is using that or a similar program, it'll start to feel like I'm just talking to a brick wall.

On a larger scale, I can't help thinking about society as a whole. Again, I want to try to avoid becoming that old man who just mutters about how everything is going to hell in a handbasket. But at the same time, I can't help thinking about the Roman Empire. Many historians that I've read say that one of the primary reasons the Roman Empire fell was because near the end, the Romans did almost nothing for themselves. Their daily lives were run chiefly by slaves. Their armies were made up in majority by mercenaries, many of who were of Germanic descent, the very people they were chiefly fighting. I just can't quite shake the feeling that we're there, as well. An entire generation is about to go through school with the option of basically never having to do their own work (some still will, of course. There will always be self-motivated people, and there will always be slackers and cheats). It scares me to think what the kids entering school this year will be like when and if I see them in college in 12 or 13 years, assuming I haven't been drummed out of this field by then, that is.

And then there is the creative aspect, as well. There is something deeply satisfying to me about creating a story, or a character, or a world. They have a shape and a texture in my mind, and when I finish a story, it feels good having done so. I enjoy writing, and I like talking about the things I've created, and the things others have created. It is, essentially, what brought us all together here. Now, suddenly, we live in a world that can just spit something out without any effort or thought or craft. And I know this is not a new thing. I have that thread where I posted AI art, which has the exact same issues. I know music has been written by AI. I understand that my field is only the latest to be thusly invaded. It's just a depressing thought, that's all.

Anyway, I should probably play around with ChatGPT myself to get a feel for what it can do and what it is likely to do. And maybe over the summer, I will. But the whole thing has me worried. I'm worried for my job. I'm worried for my passions. I'm worried for the world. Am I being over-dramatic? Probably. Hopefully. But I worry.

Just be glad most of the students lazy enough to use it aren't smart enough or have enough money to do what else I've seen, where someone fed their handwriting into an algorithm and then had a 3-D printer literally replicate their handwriting with AI generated text.
But regardless, I don't blame you for being, at an absolute minimum, pensive about the entire affair. Especially for academics, it's not going to be a satisfying time at the moment, and even though I'm messing around with it, I have my deep seated issues with it, mostly for the impact it's likely to have on society.



In the creative regard, I'm honestly a lot less worried. It works great with the concepts of transformative works, but there's virtually no soul or depth involved with its creations. It's very good at determining actions to an internal logic so long as the sample size can be traced, but it has no concept of internal logic for characters that act like people or the ability to generate layers to anything original. As a tool, it works best for one of two things: Transformative mapping, where you can project ideas based on existing properties with data enough to create a pattern, or prompt generation, in which case I could see it being a VERY good tool to bounce ideas off of as a writer. It might be able to genuinely help with writer's block, insofar as it can give you possible branches of actions to direct your story.

But again, it can't really create, it doesn't dream and while it's good with patterns, it lacks the genuine spark that gives life to a wholly original story and the characters that populate it.
It makes NPC's, not protagonists.
Where it may go?... much harder to say, but the word count limit keeps it from being much use in actual creative endeavors and anything that tries to prompt further than that, it starts to lose its consistency and repeat itself.

Something that comes to mind when this discussion comes up...

We invented the Camera, but people still paint and value paintings

That is impressive and terrifying, all at once.


And after so many books and movies have warned people about AI, too...


And that's fair...for now. But of course, AI is just going to get better. And I'm hardly a neo-Luddite when it comes to AI and creative endeavors, as is evidenced by my AI Art thread and the random generator thread (which, admittedly, is only "AI" in the loosest possible sense). But I guess all we can do is wait and see what happens.


If you are referring to the creative aspect of my issue, then I agree with you, although to be fair, a ton of paintings go beyond what a camera can do on its own when it comes to things like surrealism and expressionism and so forth. But yes, people will still continue to write as a creative outlet even if AI gets to the point where it can innovate and not just replicate.

If you are referring to my academic concerns, though, my counter to that is that we invented the Internet...and almost immediately students started using it to plagiarize and cheat. And yes, I know for an absolute fact that students have already used ChatGPT to write their assignments.