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  Funny story: Turns out voting actually matters a lot.

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  My latest essay on AI/AGI and the baffling promises/threats of maybe total destruction maybe a personal slave for everyone is now up on Patreon if you don't want to deal with Substack: https://www.patreon.com/catvalente/posts/bonus-essay-ur-4-170360439

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  You know, when I can’t afford something & my credit is maxed out, I just don’t get to have it. So weird. Maybe they should hold a bake sale. That’s how we fund unimportant stuff like education.

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  You better HOPE this is late-stage capitalism. But that phrase was invented to describe the post-WWI era, babes. They thought it was late-stage 100 years ago, too. Capitalism hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to make any kind of sweeping pronouncements about its natural life cycle. This could just be the awkward young adult years before things get REALLY messy. Have a nice day!

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  Someone brought up Silently & Very Fast on Insta & AI butted in to “helpfully” inform me about my own book Fun fact: I’ve never written an essay with that title. That title is a line from Ken MacLeod, scraped from an 07 Gizmodo article by @annaleen.bsky.social which reviews KM right before reviewing me. Wow this is so worth wrecking the planet & maybe ending all human life!

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  RE: https://wandering.shop/@Catvalente/117331874326176875 Now, I’m probably the only one who’d know for sure that I never wrote an essay with a Ken MacLeod title But maybe think about that the next time you trust AI’s mewling results It all seems pretty good until it talks about something you know REALLY well Is there someone out there who’d instantly know the AI is wrong? Even if it’s only one person? And unless it’s you…how can you be sure? Aw, but it’s so TOUGH to keep all your mountains...

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  Happy 8th Birthday to my darling Childe, who makes everything a better kind of chaotic. I love you, big kitten.

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  As the Childe’s birthday party wound down this weekend, a group of adults were talking about homeowner nonsense & Childe calmly deadpans from across the room: “When you think about it we’re all homes.” Adults: “Wh…at?” *8-year-old waves their arms in the air excitedly & yells: “TO BACTERIA AND PARASITES OF COURSE!”

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  The Childe’s #LordoftheRings is accomplished! Tag urself I’m the Bacons of Gondor Are Lit (Full write-up on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/catvalente/posts/bonus-post-long-170913758)

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  Every month on Patreon I post progress pics of my slow, mostly inept remodeling/reclaiming of my “quirky” 125-year-old Maine house. This month: master bathroom windows—this room has been slow but soon will be done & ready to be shown in full! https://www.patreon.com/catvalente/posts/171025844

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  It’s legit one of the weirdest things to happen on this Plane of Weirdest Things that of all the Weirdest Things, fucking Harry Potter and the Methods of goddamned Rationality might ultimately end the bloody world.

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  I think I’m just going to keep our birthday sign up year-round. There’s a lot of ways to be “on party business” after all. Best find one before you knock!

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  Today’s a DOUBLE book release day for me! The first is this amazing, star-jammed anthology The Book of the Dead ed by @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social! My story is (very humbly) called This Is What Happens When You Die. I am SO proud of it; one of my favorite things I’ve ever written https://amzn.to/3WbT9ZZ

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  The 2nd book in my DOUBLE BOOK RELEASE DAY is… …this incredible work of image + word celebrating the work of the impossible-to-competently-adjective Brian & Wendy Froud, edited by @terriwindling.bsky.social Honored doesn’t cover it. At all. The Frouds built the interior of my heart. This is also my first published poem in quite awhile: Witch (Wood) Wood (Witch) about the fell bargain between a witch and her forest… https://amzn.to/4hLh1ea

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  Truly amazing how a group “devoted” to “authors” “wrote” a wholly meaningless “charter” crammed full of weasel words, empty marketing lingo, *classically* slippery philosophical concepts like fucking “good,” & condescending hand-wavy “I hereby declare Facebook is forbidden to use my personal data!!”disclaimer vaguespeak a 3rd grader could chase up a sophist-tree to mean just about anything. GOLD STAR COMRADES ✊ YOU HAVE SOLVED AI https://bsky.app/profile/societyofauthors.bsky.social/...

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  I don’t care where you started out on the political spectrum. If your kid comes out as trans & you don’t become a rainbow-clad, parade-cheering ally & rock-solid supportive girl/boy/enby dad/mom? You were never a parent at all. You were a doll collector furious they didn’t stay in their packaging. If you can go every level of ham to support their travel hockey league, whether you like hockey or not, you can do it to support their deepest hearts & souls. For fuck’s sake.

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  Every once in awhile, in the midst of my nights, I’m struck dumb with awe and a strange, refracted grief: It’s legitimately fucking *crazy* how good the internet used to be

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  On the plane to #Worldcon! Here’s my schedule, come find me here or in the bar! https://www.patreon.com/catvalente/posts/167678269?utm_campaign=postshare_creator

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  RE: https://wandering.shop/@Catvalente/117167664929031455 I’m sure it’s just coincidence that making the online world infrastructurally mandatory, then incredibly unpleasant & difficult, drives people straight into the tentacled arms of fawning, frictionless AI that will never tell you not to feel briefly sad that Dolly fucking Parton died.

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  Hello #Worldcon! We are having a meetup for members of my Patreon and Substack (and anyone curious!) TODAY, Friday, at 4 pm in the Hilton lobby! Come hang with us! (My autographing is directly afterward at 6.)

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  That parts of the internet are already busy being nasty about Dolly Parton of all people shows so starkly how much the snuffing out of any positive, kind, pro-social feeling has become a bedrock, load-bearing industry. If they can’t totally monetize your heart, they’ll happily monetize rotting it.

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  RE: https://wandering.shop/@Catvalente/117010437435111317 You have two days left to get yourself a $50 WSFS membership (if you don’t already have one or aren’t attending) & vote in the #Hugos! Anyone can, you get all the nominated works for free for that $50, & can nominate next year, too. Deadline is Noon Pacific, Saturday 8/8! https://www.lacon.org/register/

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  You guys it’s fucking happening. My kid wants a Lord of the Rings themed birthday party this year. I was born for this moment. No admittance except on party business.

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  Just a weird alley cat and their kitten moving way too fast through linear time

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  Was really looking forward to #worldcon but unfortunately my kid made me go bowling for 3 hours today so instead I will be dying, crumbling into dust, and haunting the next owners of my house.

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  We have such sights to show you…

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  RE: https://wandering.shop/@Catvalente/117120655016918820 I gotta be honest, Cenobite Configurations make more sense as an explanation than literally anything else these days.

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  Doing the gentle parenting thing of patiently explaining the effects of a small one’s actions/choices when… Childe: STOP IT YOU’RE JUST TRYING TO GET ME TO FEEL WHAT YOU FEEL!! Me: Well…yeah. It’s called empathy. Kind of a big deal Childe: WELL I HATE IT I AM NOT GOING TO DO IT

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  RE: https://wandering.shop/@Catvalente/117119165711861946 By the way, this is the exact historical process of “woke” people attempting basic goodness & smashing into the conservative brain over the course of this stupid fucking century. It’s just that conservatives stay 7 forever.

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  I just said this to my friend. I must record for posterity: “Look, my position on Christianity is pretty much my position on #Warhammer I’m not really into the gameplay & a lot, though not all, of the people who are REALLY into it aren’t okay & freak me out, but the lore & art design are AMAZING.”