weepingcrab | Reading

When I pulled up to Massage Envy for my appointment today, there was a huge truck parked in front of the storefront, and packing cases all over the sidewalk and in the reception area.

I walked in the front door and asked, "What in tarnation is going on here?"

The receptionist said they were delivering the massage robot, as if I was supposed to know about that. I had not heard about this yet (Jenny filled me in during my massage). A woman I did not recognize said something about Tom Brady being the chief innovation officer for the company. I laughed and said, "He's a football player, what does he know about robots?" She said something about he knows about wellness. Well yes, but that has ZERO to do with building robots or the software to run them. But I didn't say that out loud, because I sort of figured she might be the owner (and I was right) and I didn't want to say anything negative about what was probably a very expensive new purchase.

They're testing the robots (which are essentially more complicated massage chairs) because they're having trouble hiring massage therapists. A lot of massage schools have shut down in recent years, so there aren't enough therapists to fill all the open positions. Jenny said that she hadn't mentioned the robots to me, because she hadn't thought I'd be interested. And she's right. There's no way I'd let a robot touch me, not in the early development stages anyway. I know how buggy early software is, I'm not letting some robotic arm pummel me that's driven by software, even if you are supposed to have a tablet that lets you control it. Maybe in five years. But the prototype? Aw hell no.

The website, just in case you want to look at the thing.
https://www.aescape.com/massages

keplers_angels

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

brickhousewench

AI really is becoming the bane of my technical writing existence this month. =P

One of our bleeding edge Technical Writers wrote a really nice post on Slack today about how we should not be worrying about keeping up with all the technology, that just focusing on a few simple things (editing topics, writing new topics) is all we should really be doing. Because trying to keep up with all the new technologies is too much, and we’re only human. And then he shared this file he uses to have AI check work against our Style Guide (SO useful!).

One of my coworkers thanked him, saying “You've lowered my blood pressure with a single post.”

I saved it to read again later when I need a reality check. It really was THAT good.

I just wish he hadn’t said, “Get really good at 1 and 2 [editing and creating topics] and your productivity will be 100x more.” Because I don’t want anyone to think that it’s humanly possible to be 100 times more productive. Even with AI. Especially because I just read an article last week about a study that found that “AI adoption increases labour productivity levels by 4% on average in the EU”. And that four percent is actually higher than the last study I saw, which IIRC (I can’t find it) was somewhere in the 2% productivity growth range.

* le sigh *

brickhousewench

I called mom and dad last night. Just to follow up on mom's call about the storm. She's said she was going to call back to find out how much snow we got, and neither of us thought to do it on Tuesday. I really just wanted to let her know that even though RI got three feet, I was fine. And had gotten less snow that other parts of Lowell.

dredpiratebunny lives on the other side of town and said the snow was up to her knees (She's over six foot tall). A coworker in Dracut said she got at least a foot of snow. So I guess Frogholm really did manage to miss the worst part of the storm somehow!

brickhousewench

Since they were predicting a huge snowstorm here for Monday, last weekend I really pushed myself to try to get stuff done around the house that I might not be able to do until we got ourselves dug out.

Saturday morning I ran out to Mann Orchards and Thwaites Market and picked up some salad greens and ready made food (because I hate cooking for one). Because we’d had about four inches of sticky snow overnight, I was driving through a winter wonderland. All the trees and bushes were frosted with snow. But I was having trouble enjoying it because I’m still pissed at our Property Manager and snow reminds me of the whole kerfluffle. I need to get that out of my system so I can at least enjoy a pretty snowfall again.

I hauled a bunch of stuff out to the dumpster. Kitchen trash, a box of purged papers, and lots of empty cardboard boxes. I checked the dates on food in the fridge and found a few things past their expiration date, so those went out too. I also did a bunch of laundry, washed my sheets and all my bedding, bath towels, whites and darks. Next weekend, when it’s warmer out, I’m going to have to wash my fleece vests and winter coat, because I’ve been sweating whilst clearing off the cars and they could use a wash.

I also made a run out to Target and picked up a few things there, and a grocery run to Hannaford, for milk and other perishables.

At the start of the weekend I was facing a huge pile of dirty dishes and almost all of my silverware was dirty. And I think I was down to my last emergency spoon. I’ve got all the dishes done, the only dirty dishes are the ones I’ve used today. And I put away a bunch of stuff that was sitting out on the counters. I haven’t had this much counter space clear in quite a while. That was probably my biggest achievement this weekend. Tackling the kitchen for twenty minutes, then taking a break, then back to the kitchen again, even when I didn’t feel like it. Go me! *\0/*

brickhousewench

I have absolutely no idea how much total snow we got yesterday. Things blew around way too much. I had maybe two inches of snow on the roof of one car, maybe an inch of snow on the roof of the other car, and drifts on the hoods and between cars.

My best guesstimate is that we didn't get more than six inches. But I have no way to verify that, other than my best guess.

brickhousewench

Oh, forgot to mention that mom called last night to see how much snow we'd gotten already.

I'd been out to haul stuff to the dumpster and make a grocery run and had gotten back around 7:00 pm. Mom called around 8:00 to see how much snow we'd gotten? When I told her it hadn't started snowing yet, she asked if I was sure. I said I'd been outside in the past hour and she accepted that.

I said we were supposed to get 13 inches (6" on Sunday night, 7" over Monday) and she said, "No you're not, you're supposed to get two feet!" I told her that I'd been checking the forecast hourly all day, and that while they were forecasting more snow south of me, I hadn't heard anything about two feet for my area.

Lord, at my age you'd think she'd trust me to check my own weather forecast without her calling to warn me that the Snowpocaplyse is coming. She said she'll call back tonight to check how much snow we got.

She also asked about power outages. I told her I'm just down the road from the Water Company, so even when I lose power, I get it back pretty quickly.

I think she might be bored.

brickhousewench

We were supposed to get six inches of snow yesterday and seven inches today.

When I went to bed last night around 11:00, it hadn't started snowing yet. The storm was wrapped in a C shape around Lowell, but we were in a large clear spot.

Just poked my head out the front door. It's snowing pretty steadily and blowing around a lot. Looks like maybe 3 - 4 inches on top of the cars.

Current weather report says we're supposed to get three inches more.

Looks like Frogholm might have dodged a bullet on this storm if we're only getting 6 - 7 inches and they were predicting 13 - 18.

adore

I posted here about Amazon behaving oddly with my KDP account. I have since got wind of more information about Amazon and some recent choices it's been making.

Firstly, I subscribe to the I Heart SapphFic newsletter. They spotlight sapphic fiction and queer authors, and keep the lights on through user donations, author ads, but mostly Amazon Affiliate links. Well, turns out that Amazon has recently taken to removing queer books and books they guess are steamy from their Affiliate Program.

Amazon has also "suppressed their findability" as I found out via a newsletter from Lissette Marshall, a romantasy author. Lissette and several other romantasy authors made a charity anthology to fight book bans (the proceeds go to PEN America) in response to these changes at the Zon and other tech giants. The anthology, Romantasy Rebels, was banned twice by the Zon, and the second time, they terminated the KDP account of the author uploading it.

Not only was Romantasy Rebels unavailable a second time, but my good friend Vela Roth, who had volunteered to host the anthology on her account, lost her entire livelihood between one moment and the next.

Between you and me -- I don't think I've ever been so angry in my life.

The upside is that, as always, the bookish community stands up for each other! Thanks to friends with helpful connections, from Amazon reps to legal advice, we've managed to reverse the (unfounded) decision on their end and get Vela's books and our anthology back 🔥 (But my goodness, it was a long, long 24 hours that I hope to never experience again.)

Reading that and imagining myself in Vela's shoes, I feel indescribable. Anger, terror, and I don't know the words for what else. Vela Roth is in Kindle Unlimited, and she's a full-time romantasy author, which means her entire livelihood was on Amazon. And Amazon just deleted it all, just like that. I'm so relieved that the bookish community was able to help her and that her books and livelihood are reinstated now. Quoting Lissette again:

Amazon fuckery took down our charity anthology twice, and almost ended a wonderful author's career in the process. In addition to all else, the experience has been a frightening reminder of just how dependent indie authors are on a very small number of tech companies who don't particularly like spice, or marginalised people, or, you know, democracy.

So, yeah. That's what's going on. I feel better about having to unpublish Bloodhunt Academy now, because it was a queer book and Amazon is clearly not a home for it.

As for Romantasy Rebels, it's being sold wide (so it's on all the major ebook retailers, not just Amazon) and will be available until the end of the month. Proceeds will go to PEN America. There's also a charity auction organised by romantasy authors, called The Books They Can't Burn, and its proceeds will also go to PEN America. The charity auction has a variety of items that one can bid on, including ebook omnibuses, signed special editions, Zoom chats with authors, etc. I even saw a fight scene consult with a martial artist, how fun. It looks like several people are bidding on everything so I'm glad it's going well!

Feeling: discontent

michaelboy

It was about fifty years ago on that night when we wrapped arms around each other and kissed in this community swimming pool. It was a Friday night swim-dance and this was simply a flash of a moment (perhaps all of three minutes) in the long stretch of decades, but certainly it made my mind spin a whole lot that night. Notwithstanding, I've carried it gently with me, ever since.

She was a year ahead of me in high school, so we really never interacted much and certainly never brought up the kiss with each other. Hell, I've never really spoken about it to anyone and it's been so long, that sometimes it feels... almost like it was never even real.

I saw her in Kroger's a couple of years ago. We exchanged a bit of small-talk near the greeting card department and I kept thinking the whole time that I wanted to somehow express gratitude or at least my acknowledgement for the unspoken...but it just seemed stupid, inappropriate and really out of place. I sometimes wonder, even though I hope -- if she remembers it.

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weepingcrab

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