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Okay, I think I've got another tricky one. Shoot!

https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2007/gwng0704.htm In short; How to read Gene Wolfe: 1) Trust the text implicitly. The answers are in there. 2) Do not trust the text farther than you can throw it, if that far. It's tricksy and desperate stuff, and it may go off in your hand at any time. 3) Reread. It's better the second time. It will be even better the third time. And anyway, the books will subtly reshape themselves while you are away from them.Peace really was a gentle Midwestern memoir the first time I read it. It only became a horror novel on the second or the third reading. 4) There are wolves in there, prowling behind the words. Sometimes they come out in the pages. Sometimes they wait until you close the book. The musky wolf-smell can sometimes be masked by the aromatic scent of rosemary. Understand, these are not today-wolves, slinking grayly in packs through deserted places. These are the dire-wolves of old, huge and solitary wolves that could stand their ground against grizzlies. 5) Reading Gene Wolfe is dangerous work. It's a knife-throwing act, and like all good knife-throwing acts, you may lose fingers, toes, earlobes or eyes in the process. Gene doesn't mind. Gene is throwing the knives. 6) Make yourself comfortable. Pour a pot of tea. Hang up a DO NOT DISTURB Sign. Start at Page One. 7) There are two kinds of clever writer. The ones that point out how clever they are, and the ones who see no need to point out how clever they are. Gene Wolfe is of the second kind, and the intelligence is less important than the tale. He is not smart to make you feel stupid. He is smart to make you smart as well. 8) He was there. He saw it happen. He knows whose reflection they saw in the mirror that night. 9) Be willing to learn.

Impersonation for purpose of satire is not theft. Impersonation for purposes of making a product more valuable… is absolutely theft and has been for decades… plural. I hope Johannson sues.

I’m so confused. I didn’t even think it sounded like Johansson, maybe a slightly lower register than average but nobody was like “oh my god that’s her!”. So somebody maybe might have impersonated her a bit? Are impersonations theft? (Hint: no.)

Hmmmm...hard to not say pizza, but if we're generalizing a category of a type of food, I'm going with BBQ...Texas Style BBQ...

Possibly tacos al pastor.

Rice. Not sure what kind or dish. But it would be rice. I’m a simple man with simple tastes.

Rashford left out, fair enough, he needs to take the summer to sort himself out.

Reports that Toni Kroos will be retiring from club and international football after the Euros.

@Spockydog Thanks for sharing. Difficult to dig in to as can’t see too many others covering it, but some of the same bogus figures are back again; the 54% increase is down to increased monitoring. Any figure stating sewage spills have increased since any time before 2022 needs treating as suspect. The Southern Water quote further down contradicts the article; As for the fish, I don’t know. I’d be curious to see what this link actually is and how they’ve been connected to sewage spills. Genuinely am always happy to be convinced otherwise on all this, my position isn’t that spills definitely haven’t increased in X years, it’s that every piece of journalism on this falls short for the same reason, they don’t acknowledge how monitoring skews the data. I’d truly love to read any article that claims it has increased in spite of this, and what evidence they have.

The tastiest part of the scab Also, Baked Beans aren't liquidy, you open the can a bit, turn it upside down and let most of the juice run out before serving.

It is appropriation of Johannson’s likeness without her permission. It is theft. I hope she sues.

That's because the GPT-4o version has upgrades to how the voice emotes, pauses, and generally sounds more "human". Also, its totally not true that the huskiness/sultriness wasn't part of the Sky voice. It definitely was, and was commented on by multiple reviewers/users before the voice was removed.

It’s a breakfast food, it’s good for hangovers but would kind of gross me out on a drunk (too much flour, maybe). I know I’m culturally biased, but it’s definitely a better taste and visual than the part of the English breakfast that involves a liquidy pile of beans and black pudding, which for the uninitiated is a sausage made of scabs - and if that’s not appealing, has the consistency of fried coffee grounds and looks like turd slices retrieved from a coal bin.

I mean.... maybe? The general problem with symbolic analysis is that almost anything can be seen as a symbol of something else if one wants to interpret it that way. So while some subtle clues about something are no doubt hidden in Brienne's side trip to the Whispers, there is nothing solid to hold onto there. If it is related to the Tower of Joy, it could just as well be Arthur Dayne who should have used his magic sword. But... I mean... it is a stretch. There is no actual "Stark maiden" at the Whispers. Brienne's attackers are not defending anyone, they are setting up an ambush. So the parallels only stand if you ignore key differences.

If you've seen Her, you'll notice that the voice in the demos doesn't actually sound like Scarlett Johansson in the film beyond the general 20-something young white American woman. Johansson speaks in a lower register and with a distinctive huskiness which the voice in the demo does not have. What it mimics, if it was mimicry at all, is something of the emotional timbre and mannerisms of Samantha the AI, a character Scarlett Johansson played. Which can be explained by a voice actor being paid considerable sums to provide vocal data for training, and possibly being directed in recordings of her voice towards a sort of bubbly friendliness and positivity like the AI character had. It's worth noting that the "Sky" voice has been available since last year, and no one made a fuss about it until this demo -- which features interactions between a human man and a digital assistant -- put people in mind of Her. Altman's case isn't helped by tweeting the title or having approached Johansson previously, but that's not the same thing as saying he "stole" her voice.

Raya makes her living creating art and sees how the theft by generative AI is impacting her and her community… Deliberately training the voice of a generative AI to sound like Scarlett Johannson in the film “Her” is not just, deliberately creepy and weird, … it’s theft. The use of an actors likeness without that actor’s permission has long been seen as such. We went over a number of cases about this issue during Law School. Training the voice to sound like Scarlett Johannson is certainly in the same ball park. I hope she sues. https://higgslaw.com/celebrities-sue-over-unauthorized-use-of-identity/

Does Raya have more information than the rest of the public on OpenAI's "Sky" voice and its relationship to Scarlett Johansson? I would be very surprised.

4 palace players in the squad (Eze, Guehi, Henderson, Wharton), you wouldn't have predicted that 2 months ago. Why the fuck is Jarell Quansah in the squad?

Sounds like Sterling is out, which is fair, he's done well at previous tournaments, but has been completely anonymous this year.

Ask Raya what she thinks of all this.

Oh, you got it! That was quite a short game. Congratulations ^^

They've held three independence referendums all of which have failed, that's hardly not letting it go. Also the law change seems entirely reasonable allowing citizens who have lived there for that long seems completely fair. Those independence referendums failed despite a large block of anti-independence voters being excluded from the vote. The unrest is largely because the pro-independence parties know if every citizen on the island gets a vote their dream of independence is dead forever. France seems to have done everything as fair as it could be done. It's hardly imperialism when the territory in question keeps repeatedly voting to stay part of France despite questionable franchise restrictions.

That's a lot of conjecture, some of that stuff seems show only related and not book. For example what proof is there that book Mel is frail?

Oh, it's the poor girl who was fried by Drogon. Hazzea.