ministry of writing

I’ve been sitting on this one for longer than I should have (and then, obviously, forgetting entirely about it). After putting DeepSeek through the ropes for my Lovecraft test, I decided to try Google’s Gemini. I haven’t used Gemini much, although I have used NotebookLLM which is based on Gemini, and I think it generally […]

The stupidly big news in LLMs right now is that DeepSeek, a LLM built by a small Chinese team that was released a couple weeks ago, performs as well as, if not better than larger, more sophisticated (at least in terms of the dollars and hardware thrown at it) models by OpenAI and Anthropic (Claude) […]

“That was close,” Fleeb Mungwort said, wiping his brow after the two pan-dimensional hyper-intelligent beings left the massive computational chamber. “I can’t believe they bought the whole bit about the successor computer,” Ploox Vendarf said, tying her head tentacles back into a tail. “That bit about Earth? Truly a stroke of genius!” “The problem remains,” […]

When Avery woke up, all they saw was dark. It was unnerving, but they tried not to panic. They had been assured that there would be a period of adjustment as all the systems came fully online. Instead, Avery took deep breaths to slow their heart rate, and continued to stare and perceive an inky […]

The truck cuts in front of me and I need to slam on the brakes to not smash into the TRUMP bumper sticker on the fender. There’s a “LET’S GO BRANDON!” sticker in the corner of the cab window. It’s too dark to see the driver but his (I assume it’s a he) red taillights […]

I’ve run this test twice already and I figured it was probably about time to try it again. If you’ve been reading my AI posts (which is all I post anymore), you may remember past incarnations of what I like to call The Lovecraft Test. I ran it very early on with ChatGPT when it […]

Well, not actually. But he did post this, and I figured, since I drafted and then scrapped a long Thread about where I ended December with regards to the novel I am writing, I figured this would be a good excuse to write a blog about it instead. So, where am I? I didn’t hit […]

Mouse rubbed his jaw. The muscles were tight from clenching his teeth which had been chattering all night as he tried to sleep in the shallow cave he found as the sun began to set last night. Having no skill in fire building, he merely huddled against the rounded wall and tried to make himself […]

Alia woke in the dark room as she did every other morning. She got dressed and made tea. The kettle heated the water for precisely three minutes and thirty-seven seconds before clicking off. While it was simmering, she put the tea infuser in her cup and scooped exactly two teaspoons of looseleaf, ceylon tea into […]

This is how the paladin fell. “…and lead us not into temptation…” Javid didn’t know much, but he knew the Dawnfather brought the light, brought good, brought hope. Most of all, he knew the Dawnfather saved his mother when she was near-death after eating destroying angel mushrooms when he was too young to know the […]

“This last card, Death, represents your future. But don’t worry, it’s not talking about your actual death. Death represents an ending and, possibly, a new beginning. However, when it’s reversed, as it is now, it’s the lack of that end. This card is saying that you are stuck, or there’s a danger that you might […]

The smell of coffee and ramen intermingled with Cheetos, a 12-pack worth of empty cans of Mountain Lightning and a hint of male body odor. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed somewhat, joining a chorus of crickets outside the open window. The mood was tense. The group sat around a small table, notebooks, clipboards, binders or […]