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neongrey

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About neongrey

  • Birthday February 24

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  1. No, you've been blocked ever since you decided that a commentary on my work was a great place for you to spew MRA talking points, and that hasn't changed. When that died off I was content to leave it at that, but you're at the point of actually causing outright harm to people beside myself, so I'm not at all interested in letting that noxious behaviour continue. This is a frankly bonkers conclusion to leap to. No, my sources on this aren't German-owned newspapers-- they're not newspapers at all. That's downright monstrous. The Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw will be glad to hear that from you because their studies have been showing literally the opposite. They're refugees. They wanted to stay home, but couldn't, and turning them away causes nothing but more deaths. Problems at the societal level are the responsibility of a society. Individual action is a different matter entirely. I mean your premise here is based on the fundamentally islamophobic notion that Muslims are responsible for a majority (or even significant proportion) of terrorist attacks. And the statistics don't bear that out-- not worldwide, not in the US, not in the EU. And then the question is straight-up both intellectually dishonest and islamohobic, because it's outright taken as given that terrorist action is a function of an Islamic society. What are you basing that on? You, and I, and everyone else are responsible for the actions of racists because racism (and sexism, and ableism, and all of that) is baked into our societies, because racists have a habit of ruining things for everybody. On a deep, deep societal level.
  2. It's really very disingenuous to pretend there's equivalence between people who have been systemically dehumanized expressing frustration in a frankly inappropriate way and actual, demonstrated acts of systemic violence. Do you really, truly believe that those statements should be given equal weight warrant systemic police violence, that they warrant the murders by police that go unpunished? And really, even that one, single article you're locating, even that isn't calling for people to be killed. I cannot say that for white supremacists and neo-nazis. And let's get something straight here. You're acting as if your being from Poland absolves you of all aspects of white privelege. That Poland has in no way engaged in any systemic oppression of any other people. Poland is a country with a rising tide of anti-semitism (despite having very few Jews), growing islamophobia (despiet having even fewer Muslims than Jews), that recently refused all refugees during a time of humanitarian crisis, and indeed this past fall recently came very close to criminalizing miscarriage. You're very desperately trying to reach for 'but I haven't done anything wrong' but the thing is, this isn't about what any individual has done, it's about what we as a society are doing. You don't get to opt out of that, and saying you have no responsibility fundamentally ignores what a society is. Society empowers white supremacy, and it's empowering neo-nazis, and it's empowering these people who can and do act on their white supremacist beliefs. Sitting on our hands and drawing false equivalences between the people who are doing harm and the people they want to harm only enables them to continue to do harm. It's gross-- it's blaming people who have been hurt for being hurt. My Gigi, a Pole, fought at Stalingrad to help try to stop them the first time. My Pink Baba, a Pole, machine gunned Nazis who were prowling around her property, before she ended up packing up the family and fleeing. I wouldn't be here without both of them doing those things, and I've always been proud of my family and where I came from. You make me ashamed of that heritage. You genuinely repulse me on a moral level, and I'd say that you should be ashamed of yourself, but I don't think you're capable of that. So did you actually have something you wanted to contribute, or did you just want to glibly invalidate a discussion that legitimately involves modern white supremacy and neo-nazis?
  3. Yeah, Jim Frenkel (the known harasser) was fired a couple years back-- this is a little bit dicey because his behaviour was well known long before he actually got canned. I mean, they did the right thing eventually, which was good, but yeah.
  4. Oh wow! What a small world, that's super cool-- yes, that's the one I was thinking of. I thought that was a really fascinating illustrative example of just how pernicious these sorts of things are. It's obviously not a conscious intention for this algorithm to have used race as a factor, and yet that effectively came out that way. That's my primary interest as far as the AI angle goes-- the article I linked interests me primarily from a sociolinguistic angle but it's really interesting watching these sort of issues mushroom up from the AI field. I'm not going to say it exposes problems we don't know about, because we do, but it makes them really clear. I was talking with one of my friends at Google about this about what a huge problem it is in the field. It makes sense that it is, though-- literally anything that is created is going to be a function of the biases and priorities of its creator. There's a pop-culture notion that AI is inherently biasless or strictly objective but that is just straight-up not possible-- they're all created to the biases and priorities of the creator. And then further, when you're creating things to learn from given inputs-- well, like you said, there's no clean data sets. Literally everything is created by a society and that society has its own values and biases. There's no way to escape that being reflected in... well, anything, lol.
  5. You mean you're not sixteen, seventeen? How embarrassing.
  6. You have a really bad habit of getting defensive and making sweeping incorrect assumptions about things. This is fairly normal in kids your age, so don't sweat it too much, but try to keep it in mind. If you don't understand something, better to ask, you know? So, this article is saying something about language, not 'the English language', not 'a language', I'm talking about language, in the linguistic sense, and specifically in the semantic sense. It's about connotation. What the article is discussing is the lines of connotation drawn between x groups of words and y groups of words. Flowers connote nice things, bugs connote bad things, to reiterate the article's example. Snow connotes cold. Rain connotes cloudy skies. Love connotes affection. There's no such thing as a language without connotation and context because it's a property of words meaning things. Language is simultaneously a function of, created by, creates, and requires context. So the things you wave off about clusters of words taking meaning from their proximity to other words-- this is in fact a core component of how language actually works, this is a lot of where meaning is derived from. This is a basic property that makes language function on a semantic (ie, meaning) level. You can understand the sentences I am constructing not because of an intrinsic property of the words themselves but because of the patterns they form and because of the context they arrive from. The thing about language is that it's fundamentally a construct of the people who create and use it. (and indeed this is where its relevance to my own work lies) It doesn't spring up out of nowhere-- the thing about AI work is the way as you give it the tools to parse not only language but just things created in a society in general, it's laying more bare things about those constructs that aren't as immediately visible in ourselves because we just don't think about them. This article is just discussing one of those aspects-- there've been others (that one about, what was it, sentencing done by computer). The thing is, something created by humans is going to be created in a human context-- we can examine what that means both to ourselves and what we create but context is inescapable. As the old hacker koan says:
  7. Here's an interesting article-- at least, I found it so. It's not directly related to writing but it's about biases intrinsic to language usage, which is pretty key to the stuff I'm working on.
  8. P.1 'Morphed' feels like an odd word out here; as a verb outside of cinematography it's really only come into usage since the late 1980s or so (and around the 50s for the other); which is not to say it can't be used but it feels a little modern in a way that the rest of the story doesn't. Otherwise, this page just feels a little wordy overall; I feel like you could probably get the same job done more effectively in two-thirds of the space. This is feeling really too explanatory, and not really in a particularly helpful way. P.2 Yeah, I'm really feeling like this is taking a bit too long to go anywhere. P.3 Yeah, you're picking up here, but the 'You're still bleeding' paragraph is a bit muddily-phrased; it's not 100% obvious who's speaking from how you're bouncing around the subjects of sentences. There's a logical answer but it's interrupting the flow to need to put that together. P.4 This again feels a little bit wordy, but not exceptionally so; nothing iteration won't address, I don't think. P.5 Phrasing feels a little bit more awkward around here; I'm not a big fan of noting what's normal. Better to note what's unusual, I think. P.6 The conversation here is, I think, a bit too explanatory. Feels a bit off. I get there's reasons to be talking about other things than the matter at hand, but, ehhh. P.7 It's a bit cleaner here as we get some back-and-forth, but this definitely has a bit too much the feel of this-is-information-being-conveyed, I think. P.8 If corseting is the norm, and riding is a generally done thing, there's probably riding corsets-- probably corded rather than boned for riding, though since you're erring earlier than Victorian and are going for at least some measure of rigor, you're probably looking a bit more at stays or possibly just stiffened bodices if you want to go really early. Either way, there's deffo gonna be some sort of support garment for use when riding even if a full Victorian corset is in play. P.9 The top paragraph is way too distant even for someone forcing themselves into distance. 'had just started to form', I think, is just not a great phrase. And the bottom paragraph, yeah, this is just not working for me here. P.10 one s in pus, and two esses but one y in the other, depending on what you mean by that Otherwise, smoother here. P.11 Again, a bit clunky, but nothing worth uniquely commenting on here. P.12 Pinkie, again, feels a little bit out of tone. Not a period thing, it just feels a little bit out to me. Otherwise-- I dunno, I don't have any specific problems, but it feels off somehow. I think this bit might just be a little wordy too, is all. P.13 I haven't been keeping up with commentary very much so I don't know if this is a dead topic or not, but this is definitely erring younger on Sorin than the early stated age was. Even given lack of experience, this feels young. P.14 This bit is nice, though. P.15 Some of this dialogue feels a bit out, tonally speaking. Magda's bouncing registers a lot early on-- it works better when she eases towards casuality toward the end of the page/paragraph, rather than whatever this is going on at the beginning of it. P.16 Wordy at the start, I think but otherwise fine. Overall, you know, I mostly think this needs a good going at with an axe; once everything gets shaved down, I think this'll be really nice.
  9. 1 The first paragraph is too long by half, I think; it's mostly wordy point-blank explanation. The middle two-- this has a good feel in terms of the feel of the movement but you're really muddy in terms of saying who's doing what. Are there two people acting here, or three? When one person is closing a gap between two people, that suggets three people, as does that 'the man' in para 3. That said, this is a nicely-drawn scene, but I don't see this as a piece of flash fiction-- I don't think this stands on its own as a story. Flash still needs a plot, and you don't really have one here. This is definitely the best of the set, though-- with some more clarity of purpose in your writing, this could be really nice. 2 Again, you're expositing clumsily at the start-- other than that this is all right. The tone is actually really fairy-tale, and the repetition works okay with that for me, though I'm not in love with the Middle School section. The ending just fizzles for me; it leaves me feeling that there wasn't a particular point to the rest of the piece. 3 This is way, way too much explanation for flash, and this concept is downright hackneyed to begin with. This ground is really well-trodden and you don't really have anything interesting to say about, basically, yet another trolley problem. This has been done, nearly verbatim, countless times, and it's really tiresome. especially given the handling of the POV character's wife, which is beyond tacky. I don't think this one is worth reworking; I would toss it.
  10. I'm actually no awarding Talons; I hated it, found it absolutely insufferable. That said, I seem to be in a minority there, so no skin off my back if it does well. Otherwise-- looks like most of VD's ninnery seems to have been shut down. One in these categories-- not something I'm going to sweat, even if I'd prefer that not be there at all. Too Like the Lightning is my top pick for novel, personally-- it's a little impenetrable which may hinder it from the spot, but I think the payoff is worth it. I still need to read a couple of these books in the category, so my ranking could change, and she's still got a spot with the Campbell nominees, so, we'll see. I've only barely had time to start Seven Surrenders... I'm honestly a little concerned by Tor.com nearly sweeping the novella category both here and in the Nebulas but they've been one of the only publishers actually publishing them regularly, so I suppose it's unavoidable. Every Heart a Doorway was fine, really; I didn't love it but I can see why it speaks to people. I suspect Dream-Quest is going to be my number one though-- I really like Kij Johnson's work in general. None of my picks on shorts made it, but there's an absolutely huge qualifying pool, so that's to be expected. We'll see what I think of these other pieces when I get to them. Related work should probably go to Hurley, but we'll see if it does. Frankly, I think some of the submissions/publication analysis should have gotten a nod here, but it's not, so what can you do. I have heard a lot of good about Monstress, but just haven't gotten around to reading it.. Long Form Dramatic is where I've finally seen everything in the category already and I have a clear ballot in mind; I liked... most of these works, but Arrival had me crying like a baby for twenty minutes solid.
  11. Yeah, there's cuts to be made in this dialogue, I'm just waiting to get something back on this. It should tighten a lot of this. Though part of it is probably unavoidable. I'm going to chalk that up to it having been... oh wow, nearly a year since we addressed this stuff. Yes, Kathalania was, effectively, sent to reform school run by the Sleeping God's church, ran away to Alia's, killed Alia, and was sent to Savae. This is straight text and recent to the position in the story. That is the chapter that this one is replacing. Is there anything in particular indicating to you that his/her form is changing? (if there is, it needs to go) Thanks!
  12. Despite having the same name and same quote, this is entirely new material otherwise. This wholly replaces the prior chapter 4, which was the original Thalan POV, which is going to get moved back until 13 or 14 or so and will, quite obviously, be rather different. This should help have Aserahin and the actual details of Savae's plot be less out of left field when Savae acts on them. 8 will be getting a similar treatment, but I may or may not sub it; it's at least going to follow the same skeleton as the current version. That said, the conversation in this one meanders some and is due for some shaving, so don't focus on the particulars of that too too much. Since this does involve business dealings and directly addresses honorifics, please see the e-mail for a link to a reference chart (please note, it has been updated since the most recent send I realized I hadn't rolled in more recent condensations yet). As before, this is straight-up my working copy and not intended for presentation as-is, but is offered for reference in lieu of a final version being available. Previously: Savae meets with Varael Ashana, who requires that they procure something of symbolic relevance to one Senator Riruna; Varael will use this to call upon shudkathra magic to kill him, so his wife's brother can claim the vacated Senate seat. A girl named Kathalania brings materials required for a commission to Savae, and reveals that they fear they have killed the goddess Alia. Thanks!
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