Yearly Archives: 2019

Gaming, Poetry

The Song of Uka

Note: I’ve written a few poems about World of Warcraft, okay? Stop looking at me that way. The events in this poem actually happened as described. While leveling in WoW Classic, I got camped by a higher level Shaman who ran away immediately as soon as a similarly-leveled opponent came along. It was originally posted to Reddit where it received no love at all (sigh). I have mixed feelings about the enormous amount of time I put into WoW; it was very much an addiction, but perhaps not totally devoid of merits, though certainly not worth the many costs. I permanently deleted my WoW account (along with almost all my video games and social media) in May of this year. (DL, Dec. 10, 2022)

Uka the Shaman, mighty and bold,
Like Vol’jin, and Zekhan, and Thex.
He’s stronger than you if you aren’t very old,
So watch out, he’s ready to flex.

One pleasant day in Hillsbrad they say
He found him a 32 warrior.
With “Calooh! Callay!” he entered the fray,
Just right for a 41 shaman.

The battle was hard (that clutch heal was timely),
But finally he finished his foe.
Pleased with himself (he’d battled sublimely),
He spit on the corpse he’d laid low.

Then he sat on his raptor on guard for the fallen,
To show he was better than him.
As soon as he rezzed he set straight to brawlin’,
Then spit on his corpse again.

Over and over, he conquered his man,
(Though sometimes it was a close shave).
He teabagged and laughed, a jovial fan
Of the prowess of Uka the Brave.

Then all of a sudden a 41 rogue
Sapped the shit out of Uka the shaman.
It was then that he felt it was time to prorogue
His fight with the dangerous warrior.

Fighting a warrior is one thing you see,
When his level is appropriately low.
But fighting a rogue the same level as he
Takes more plum than he’s willing to show.

The rogue kicked his ass (right away so they say),
And poor Uka, he rezzed in the bushes.
Then fast as he could he scurried away,
Like manure that a bulldozer pushes.

Adventurers all, remember this tale,
Whenever you feel overpowered.
It’s better to fight those who are bigger and fail,
Than be a pussy like Uka the Coward.

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Politics

Men Don’t Give Birth

"Doctors prepared to do an emergency cesarean delivery, but in the operating room no fetal heartbeat was heard. Moments later, the man delivered a stillborn baby."

apnews.com/b5e7bb73c6134d58a0df9e1cee2fb8ad

If men have babies, what’s even the point of talking about gender and sex categories? The categories are literally meaningless.

First:
“Sex” and “Gender” were synonyms. They both meant male and female as traditionally understood. Girls. Boys. Pink. Blue.

Then:
“Sex” and “Gender” were separated. Sex referred to biology. Gender referred to cultural norms around biology. Male vs. Masculine. Gender—being cultural—was malleable, and things like gender fluidity and transgender became common terms.

Now:
Sex and gender are synonyms again. But now they mean “malleable designations that mean whatever an individual wants them to mean.” The malleability of culturally-based gender notions has been back-migrated into biological sex.

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Poetry

Driven

In Riyadh drivers are a fact of life.
Domestics, Ubers, taxi men—they steer
the expat hordes and every mother, wife,
and daughter to their destinations here.
They come in droves from countries down the scale,
from Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Nepal,
and India—impoverished men who trail
the highways at another’s beck and call.
Each time I walk, I hear the taxi horns,
each plaintive beep, “Please white man, share your wealth
with me.” For fourteen hours, from early morns
and through each night they spend their life—and health.
I sit in back, while they the front are given.
My conscience knows who drives and who is driven.

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Technology

AI and the Death of Truth

Note: I first became aware of OpenAI’s language model development work in 2019. Even then, it was clear where their work would lead. In the aftermath of ChatGPT’s release in November of last year, it’s quite clear that the disruptions to work and truth that were envisioned in 2019 are simply inevitable. I am sad for my children. I added a follow-up to the initial post a day later. Both are provided below. (DL, June 11, 2023). 

Feed it the first few paragraphs of a Guardian story about Brexit, and its output is plausible newspaper prose, replete with “quotes” from Jeremy Corbyn, mentions of the Irish border, and answers from the prime minister’s spokesman.

One such, completely artificial, paragraph reads: “Asked to clarify the reports, a spokesman for May said: ‘The PM has made it absolutely clear her intention is to leave the EU as quickly as is possible and that will be under her negotiating mandate as confirmed in the Queen’s speech last week.’”

www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/14/elon-musk-backed-ai-writes-convincing-news-fiction

And who will be able to tell the difference?

I spent ten years as an English teacher. Trust me when I tell you most people definitely won’t be able to.

The search for truth is about to die—shortly before the planet does.

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