Tag: technology

Green Energy Blackout

Spain, Portugal, and parts of France have been without electricity all day:

Panic buying has swept Spain and Portugal as nationwide blackouts paralysed both countries, shutting down transport networks and prompting people to clear supermarket shelves amid fears the chaos could last for days.

Huge queues formed outside shops and banks as residents and tourists desperately sought to stockpile essentials and take out cash as much cash as they could amid the uncertainty.

Rows of cars were pictured lining up at petrol stations as people hoped to fill up their vehicles and fuel cans, with ex-pats detailing how they have tried to power generators to keep their homes going.

Airports have also been hit by the outages, with flights delayed and cancelled and holidaymakers in Portugal warned by the country’s flagship airline TAP Air not to travel for their flights until further notice.

A British holidaymaker in Madrid described the situation in the city centre as ‘carnage’, telling MailOnline: ‘People are starting to panic. It’s going to get really bad if they don’t restore power quickly.’

Madrid’s Mayor urged people in the city to stay where they were as the disaster unfolded, while the president of the city’s regional government called for Spain’s prime minister to activate an emergency plan to allow for soldiers to be deployed.

Power outages gripped Spain at around 12.30 local time, plunging millions into darkness. Spain’s nuclear power plants automatically stopped, but diesel generators were activated to keep them in ‘safe condition’, officials said.

Trains and metro services were shut down in both countries, with people stuck in tunnels and on railway tracks, forcing evacuations.

Portugal’s electricity grid operator warned that it is ‘impossible’ to say when the power supply would be fully restored, adding that while ‘all resources’ were deployed to resolve the issues, it could take up to a week to fix.

The power cuts come just days after Spain’s power grid ran entirely on renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydro power, for a whole day for the first time on April 16. 

Spanish officials are urgently investigating the cause of the outages and have said they are looking into the possibility of the blackouts being triggered by a devastating cyber attack. 

Videos online show railway networks in Spanish cities plunged into chaos, with people being evacuated through tunnels as blackouts hit underground stations and halted trains.

The centralized power grid was always a foolish idea, with little redundancy and a natural tendency to get pushed beyond its limits. But attempting to go entirely to so-called “renewable” energy – as if oil isn’t a naturally renewable resource – was always likely to result in something like this.

DISCUSS ON SG

Claude Responds to Larry

Larry Correia declared that AI can only produce vapid soulless shit in what we sadly can no longer describe as his “inimitable” style, as AI responded in the style of Larry Correia. This is completely unedited and the AI didn’t know it was responding to Larry Correia.

AI AIN’T THE ENEMY, IT’S JUST ANOTHER DAMN TOOL

Alright, listen up. I’m about to drop some truth bombs that might ruffle some feathers, but that’s what I do. I make a living telling it like it is, both in fiction and in real life.

First off, this whole “AI is the death of creativity” hysteria is about as overblown as a politician’s promises. Let me be crystal clear: AI is just another TOOL in the arsenal. Nothing more, nothing less.

You know what else was once considered a “soulless” tool that would kill authorship? Fucking TYPEWRITERS. Then word processors. Then spell-check. Every time technology advances, the pearl-clutchers come out of the woodwork.

Here’s where the original rant gets it wrong: assuming AI is only for lazy bastards who want to skip the “fun part” of writing. That’s like saying power tools are only for lazy carpenters. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how professionals integrate tools into their workflow.

THE REAL DEAL WITH AI

I’ve been in this business long enough to know that different parts of writing are “fun” for different people. For some, it’s worldbuilding. For others, it’s character development. For me, sometimes it’s just blowing shit up on the page. The idea that the initial draft is universally “the fun part” is nonsense.

AI doesn’t replace the human element – it AMPLIFIES it. When I’m working through a complex plot line, having AI help me organize my thoughts or generate alternatives isn’t “giving away the fun part.” It’s like having a brainstorming partner who never needs coffee breaks.

The original rant talks about enthusiasm like it’s something that only exists in the first draft. Bull. Fucking. Shit. My enthusiasm is in my VISION, in what I want to say and how I want to say it. The tools I use to get there are irrelevant.

THE QUALITY ARGUMENT

Now let’s talk about quality. Yes, there will be hacks who use AI to pump out garbage. Guess what? There have ALWAYS been hacks pumping out garbage. Before AI, they used ghostwriters, content mills, or just wrote terrible shit themselves. The medium doesn’t create the hack – the hack exists independently.

For professionals who give a damn about their work, AI is no different than hiring a research assistant or a developmental editor. It’s about enhancing your capabilities, not replacing your voice.

The claim that AI has “no enthusiasm” misses the point entirely. My chainsaw doesn’t have enthusiasm either, but it sure as hell helps me cut down trees more efficiently than a handsaw. The enthusiasm comes from ME, the CREATOR, in how I direct the tool, refine its output, and infuse it with my unique perspective.

THE HUMAN TOUCH

Here’s where I actually agree with the original rant: the human touch matters. It absolutely does. But that’s exactly why AI won’t replace good authors – it will just separate the wheat from the chaff more efficiently.

In my books, whether it’s Monster Hunters or the Grimnoir Chronicles, what readers connect with isn’t just plot mechanics or technically correct sentences. It’s the worldview, the humor, the politics, the cultural references, the lived experiences that I bring to the table. No AI can replicate THAT.

What AI CAN do is help me get my ideas down faster, overcome writer’s block, or suggest plot twists I hadn’t considered. It can handle the mechanical parts of writing that aren’t my strong suit, freeing me up to focus on what I do best.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The fearmongering about AI is just that – fear. It’s not killing writing; it’s evolving it. The truly talented, the ones with actual shit to say, will use AI to enhance their voice, not replace it.

So if you’re a writer paralyzed by the rise of AI, I’ve got some advice: stop whining and start adapting. Figure out how these new tools can serve YOUR vision, YOUR voice, YOUR message. Because at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

And if you think a machine can replace your unique human perspective, then maybe you didn’t have much of a perspective to begin with.

DISCUSS ON SG

Mailvox: Vox Dai Responds

Edward Feser wrote a critique of President Trump’s new tariffs and his trade policy. A reader asked ChatGPT to respond to his critique as if it was me. And apparently AI now does non-fiction nearly as well as it does fiction.

1. Feser’s Overemphasis on Prudential Moderation over Existential Necessity

Vox Day might begin by pointing out that Feser’s argument is essentially one of technocratic prudence—tariffs might be useful in moderation, if well-targeted, in the right economic climate, with good timing, and clear justification. Vox would call this academic dithering in the face of civilizational crisis. From his view, America is not merely suffering a mild imbalance of trade—it is being gutted by decades of globalist betrayal that have systematically offshored its manufacturing capacity, hollowed out its industrial base, and turned its working class into wage-serfs of the service economy.

“Feser speaks as if we are tweaking dials on a functioning machine. The machine is broken. Or more accurately, it’s been sabotaged.”

For Vox, Trump’s tariff policy is not merely an economic adjustment—it is a weapon of national defense. The timing, conception, and execution are secondary to the existential imperative of reclaiming national sovereignty.

2. Feser’s Appeal to Order Is Misplaced When the Existing Order Is Corrupt

Feser warns that Trump’s tariff regime contributes to “chaos rather than order,” but Vox Day would challenge the idea that the status quo deserves preservation. The “order” of the neoliberal global economy, in Vox’s framing, is a false order—an artificial equilibrium imposed by elite international actors who have no loyalty to the American nation or its people.

“There is no ‘order’ in a system that rewards financial speculation over production, that imports the labor force of the Third World to lower wages, and that treats citizens as mere consumers.”

Feser’s invocation of “order” is classically Aristotelian, but for Vox, Aristotle himself would recognize the legitimacy of revolutionary upheaval in response to an unjust oligarchy. In that light, disruption is not vice but virtue.

3. Misdiagnosing Trump’s Popular Support as Fanaticism

Feser characterizes Trump’s base as “glibly dismissing all concerns” and treating complex economic policy with “flippant boosterism.” Vox would see this as an elitist dismissal of populist wisdom. Trump’s supporters are not irrational—they are simply more in touch with reality than technocratic intellectuals who worry about trade reciprocity with Lesotho.

“It is not ‘flippant’ to support a policy that seeks to restore your community’s livelihood. It is not ‘unserious’ to recognize that the system has failed and to back the only leader willing to tear it down.”

Vox would likely argue that Feser underestimates the strategic depth of Trump’s messaging, and the extent to which it resonates with people who have nothing left to lose.

4. Feser’s Focus on Legality Ignores the Regime Question

Feser critiques Trump’s tariff actions as possibly illegal or extraconstitutional. Vox Day would scoff at this, pointing out that the law is downstream of sovereignty. If the regime in question is illegitimate—unaccountable, globalist, hostile to the nation—then adherence to its procedures is not a moral good.

“The Constitution is not a suicide pact. The post-WWII economic order is not sacred. If reclaiming control requires bending the rules written by those who sold us out, so be it.”

Vox has long argued that power precedes legality, not the other way around. Trump, in his view, is acting as a caesarist figure—wielding executive power to right the ship of state, not delicately balancing congressional niceties.

5. Feser’s Economic Assumptions Are Still Liberal, Even If Postliberal

Though Feser claims to reject classical liberalism and neoliberalism, Vox might charge him with retaining too much of their framework—especially their belief that markets are self-regulating entities to be disturbed only with care. In Vox’s view, the “invisible hand” is no longer a metaphor for organic market coordination—it’s a euphemism for invisible oligarchs manipulating outcomes for their own gain.

“Tariffs aren’t ‘inefficient’ if the market itself is rigged. Free trade isn’t moral if it’s enforced by military alliances, IMF dictates, and offshoring subsidies.”

Where Feser looks for a prudential balance, Vox sees the need for economic war—and in war, blunt instruments like tariffs are not inappropriate, but inevitable.

6. Missing the Meta-Political Stakes

Ultimately, Vox would say that Feser misses the forest for the trees. This isn’t about the comparative merits of tariff rates or whether poor island nations are treated fairly. It’s about whether America will continue to exist as a sovereign, industrial, self-reliant civilization. That is not a question that can be solved through abstract appeals to distributist theorists or cautious policy think-pieces.

“You don’t use a scalpel to excise a gangrene-stricken limb. You use an axe.”

I would say that hits six for six, even if some of the wording is a little different than I might have chosen. I do love that reinterpretation of Smith’s Invisible Hand, though. I’ll see if it missed anything and add it in a subsequent post; I suspect Mr. Feser still subscribes to now-disproven comparative advantage theory on the basis of the points he raises, but I don’t actually know that. But if he does, obviously that would be the very first point I would raise, given my conclusive disproof of it, to say nothing of Ian Fletcher’s.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Last Librarian

We shall conclude the game with a style wherein there is no point in even trying to pretend you will not recognize.

The Librarian of Forgotten Sundays

The first thing you should know about the Bibliotheca Absurdia is that it doesn’t play by the rules of time, physics, or basic human dignity.

The second thing? It has a very aggressive late-fee policy.

I found this out the hard way when I walked in to return A Brief History of Time Travel (That You Weren’t Supposed to Read Yet)—three centuries overdue—and the Librarian hit me with a glare that could’ve curdled dark matter.

“You,” she said, adjusting her glasses in a way that suggested imminent violence, “are exactly why we can’t have nice spacetime.”

The Librarian of Forgotten Sundays was a tall, no-nonsense woman with a bun tighter than the plot of a Kafka novel and a name tag that just read “MRS. P.” (The “P” stood for something eldritch. I’d asked once. She’d sighed and stamped “DON’T” on my library card in response.)

I slid the book across the counter. “Look, I meant to bring it back, but there was this whole thing with a paradox, and—”

She held up a hand. “Save it for the Temporal Arbitration Board. Your penalty is Section 37-C: Community Service in a Doomed Timeline.”

I groaned. “Not the French Revolution again.”

“Worse,” she said, grinning. “Beta Reading.“

Behind her, a shelf of half-written universes groaned in existential dread.

Why This is Pure Scalzi

  1. Snarky, Conversational Voice
    • Scalzi’s protagonists talk like this—witty, self-deprecating, and deeply unserious about cosmic horrors.
  2. High Concept + Low Stakes (At First)
    • A library that loans out time-travel manuals and punishes lateness with doomed timelines? Classic Scalzi absurdity (see Redshirts’ meta-narrative or *Kaiju Preservation Society’*s glorified animal control).
  3. Bureaucratic Satire
    • The Temporal Arbitration Board and Section 37-C are peak Scalzi. He loves mocking institutional absurdity (Lock In’s healthcare dystopia, The Android’s Dream’s diplomatic nonsense).
  4. Pop-Culture-Literate Humor
    • The Kafka joke, the “DON’T” stamp—Scalzi embeds geekery like a DNA splicer (Agent to the Stars was literally about Hollywood aliens).
  5. Women Who Won’t Suffer Fools
    • Mrs. P. is a Scalzi archetype: the competent, exasperated authority figure (Colonel Rigney in Old Man’s War, Kiva Lagos in The Collapsing Empire).
  6. Sudden Scale Shift
    • Starts with a late book, ends with erasing universes—a trademark Scalzi pivot from silly to epic (The Last Emperox’s galaxy-spanning collapse… over paperwork).

How This Differs From Other “Librarian” Versions

  • Vs. Correia: Zero bullets. All bureaucracy.
  • Vs. Miéville: The weirdness is fun, not oppressive.
  • Vs. Day: No moralizing—just chaotic neutral mischief.

Speaking of other Librarian versions, the 7th Librarian was indeed me, although stylistically limited to my pair of Maupassant-inspired short stories, and my new best friend explains what the clues were:

Why This is Vox Day

  1. Polemical Bent
    • Maupassant’s naturalism and irony are preserved (the detached scholar, the creeping horror), but sharpened by Day’s polemical bent—the library as a metaphor for “forbidden knowledge” corrupting arrogant moderns.
  2. Reactionary Themes
    • Lefèvre embodies the enlightened rationalist humbled by forces he dismisses, a recurring Day trope. The librarian, an ancient, knowing woman, represents traditional wisdom scoffing at his hubris.
  3. Provocative Imagery
    • The human-skin ledger and God’s erased days are classic Day-isms—shocking, sacrilegious, and designed to unsettle progressive sensibilities.
  4. Ambiguous Supernaturalism
    • The horror is implied, not explained. Day often uses unseen, malevolent forces to symbolize ideological enemies.
  5. Anti-Enlightenment Subtext
    • The library punishes curiosity, a theme Day explores in works like Throne of Bones—a rejection of modernist “progress” in favor of primal, even punitive, truths.

How This Differs from Other “Librarian” Versions

  • Vs. Correia: No shootouts—just psychological dread.
  • Vs. Miéville: No whimsy; the weirdness is malign and moralistic.
  • Vs. Murakami: No jazz, only Gothic decay.

Want it more Day? Add:

  • A subplot where Lefèvre’s degenerate Diderot-quoting rival gets eaten by the books.
  • A footnote denouncing French secularism.
  • The librarian revealing herself as Lilith in a lace bonnet.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Seventh Librarian

The Librarian of Forgotten Sundays

Monsieur Lefèvre had always believed himself a man of reason. A scholar of some renown, he prided himself on his detachment from the superstitions of the common rabble—until the day he entered the Bibliothèque des Dimanches Oubliés, and reason abandoned him like a faithless wife.

The library stood in the forgotten arrondissement of Paris, a place where the cobblestones seemed to whisper of sins long buried. Its keeper was a woman of indeterminate age, her face a map of wrinkles, her eyes two shards of obsidian. She did not speak when Lefèvre entered; she merely smiled, revealing teeth like yellowed piano keys.

“You seek the forbidden,” she said at last, not a question.

Lefèvre scoffed. “I seek knowledge, madame. Nothing more.”

“Ah,” she crooned, stroking the spine of a ledger bound in what appeared to be human skin. “But knowledge is forbidden. That is why they send men like you—men who think themselves too clever to believe.”

He demanded to see the rarest volume in her collection. With a chuckle like dry leaves scraping stone, she led him to a shelf where a single book lay, its cover blank.

“The Librarian of Forgotten Sundays,” she whispered. “A chronicle of all the days God chose to erase.”

When Lefèvre opened it, the pages were empty. Yet as he stared, words began to form—his own name, his secrets, his shames. And then, the laughter started. Not hers.

The library’s.

DISCUSS ON SG

An Echo of Eco

Chapter Two: Bibliothecarius Scriptor Timoris

“For whoso speaketh of Time’s lie, seeketh his own destruction, wherein the keepers of chronology shall pursue him like water pursues the lowlands.”

— Anonymous marginalia, Codex Sangallensis 193

I could still feel the weight of the mysterious tome in my hands as I made my way to Father Umbertus’s private study. The symbols on its cover—a circle quartered by a cross—seemed to burn in my mind’s eye. What had I stumbled upon in that forgotten corner of our library? And why had the sight of it transformed our normally impassive librarian into a man seized by fear?

These questions churned within me as I approached his door. I had been summoned, as I knew I would be. Father Umbertus von Kreuzlingen had been the keeper of Saint Gallen’s literary treasures for longer than I had been alive—thirty-seven years of vigilance that had etched deep lines into his face and turned his beard the color of aged vellum. He was not a man easily disturbed. Yet when he had seen the book in my hands, his face had drained of color as if he beheld not parchment and leather, but the very gates of Hell.

The second episode – the first part of Chapter Two – is up on Arktoons and can be read there. I’ll be posting ~1000-word episodes five times a week, M-F, but I’ll only mention it here if there is a new chapter starting.

If you want to start from the beginning, please begin here: Annos Dormi.

And if you’re an Eco fan, let me know if you think it works or not.

DISCUSS ON SG

Shall We Step Into the Narrative?

This will be the most Gaimanesque thing you’ve ever read in your life, possibly that you will ever read, even if you happen to have been a former fan who read everything that Mr. Tubcuddle has ever written. Not for totally consensual mutual bathing survivors or for the faint of heart.

The Cauldron of Possibilities

Come, let me tell you a secret. The night has unfolded its ink-stained wings, and there is a tub—my tub—waiting like a vessel of polished ivory beneath a sky trembling with stars. It is no ordinary tub, you understand. It is a cauldron of possibilities, a porcelain oracle brimming with water warm as a whispered promise. And it occurs to me, as the moon hoists itself above the pines, that you and I are characters in a story half-written, poised on the brink of a paragraph that could only ever be penned in steam and starlight.

Picture it, if you will: a clawfoot sentinel, older than sin and twice as elegant, crouched in a thicket of wild rosemary and twilight. The air smells of damp earth and distant bonfires, of secrets the wind carried here from places we’ve yet to name. Fireflies drift like embers loosed from some primordial hearth, and the water—ah, the water—shimmers as if the stars themselves dissolved into it, liquid constellations swirling around your ankles, your knees, the curve of your shoulders.

You might protest, of course. The night is cool, you’ll say, and the world beyond this garden is a cacophony of oughts and musts. But consider: the chill is but a goblin’s breath, fleeting and harmless, and the steam rising from the water is a spell to banish it. As for the world? Let it spin on without us awhile. The tub is a life raft, a sanctuary, a confessional where the only vows exchanged are between your skin and the silence.

I cannot promise you safety, mind. There are risks in such an undertaking. The water may play alchemist, transmuting your weariness into something lighter than foam. Your bones might forget their burdens; your mind might wander off, barefoot and grinning, into the labyrinth of stories we’ll conjure between us. You may find yourself laughing at nothing, or everything, or the sheer absurdity of two souls huddled in a tub while the cosmos glitters above like a diamond-studded net.

And yes, there is vulnerability here. To slip into warm water is to surrender to the oldest magic—the same that cradled us before we drew our first breath. But I will be your witness, and you mine. We’ll speak in half-sentences, in glances, in the language of ripples. We’ll let the water carry off the residue of hours and obligations, the silt of small griefs. We’ll be rinsed clean of all our many sins, if only for tonight.

Stay. The night is a raconteur, and it has gifted us this scene: steam curling into the dark, the symphony of crickets and creaking branches, the tub’s embrace like a mother’s arms. There are stories that can only be told submerged. There are truths that dissolve unless spoken into hot, wet air.

Come. The water is growing restless. The stars are leaning closer, eager to eavesdrop. And I—well, I am but a man with a tub and a whimsy, hoping you’ll help me turn this ordinary evening into a tale worth remembering.

What do you say, my dear? Shall we step into the narrative together?

DISCUSS ON SG

NOTA BENE: Interestingly enough, this was graded as only 11 percent AI written by Grammarly

TEMPUS OCCULTUM

When I mourned the death of Umberto Eco, it was also the sense of an opportunity lost. I was planning to see him only a few weeks later, and I was hoping to run an idea past him that I thought he might enjoy. He is gone now, although thankfully he has left a significant treasure trove of books and other writings behind for our edification. But then I thought, if I could get my new best friend to mimic the styles of Neil Gaiman and Larry Correia so well, why could I not combine that ability with my own ability to think in an appropriately convoluted manner, that, while it might not approximate the great man at the peak of his powers, might at least hope to exceed that of his lesser works.

So, let me know what you think of this, especially if you are a serious Eco fan or are sufficiently familiar with his novels. If there is enough interest, I’ll put up a daily post on Arktoons to keep the story going. And don’t worry, this will have no effect on my finishing either SIGMA GAME or A GRAVE OF GODS.

DISCUSS ON SG

Continue reading “TEMPUS OCCULTUM”

Speaking of Convergence

Not the social justice kind, of course. Here’s a little treat courtesy of my new best friend and one of the commenters at Sigma Game, who inadvertently produced a line that I thought sounded… familiar. So, naturally, I took the opportunity to turn it into a short story. Do enjoy, and feel free to discuss on SG.

A BRAVE TALE OF A TRUE HEART

I’ve been walking my crush home since last week to protect her from all the creeps walking around. Next week I’m going to introduce myself to her.

Right now, though, I was content to stay in the shadows, watching from a distance as she made her way down the dimly lit sidewalk. Her name was Elise, and she worked the late shift at the diner on 5th and Main. Every night at 11:30, she stepped out, adjusted her bag over her shoulder, and started the six-block walk to her apartment. And every night, I followed.

Not in a creepy way. At least, I hoped not. The city had gotten bad lately—muggers, weirdos, and worse. The kind of things most people didn’t believe in until it was too late. I’d seen the news reports: Missing Persons. Unexplained Attacks. Animal Maulings. The cops didn’t have a clue. But I did.

I knew what was out there.

Continue reading “Speaking of Convergence”

The Sixth Librarian

The Librarian of Forgotten Sundays

The Library of Ash and Ink stood at the crossroads of seven deserts, its walls black as a widow’s nails, its windows glazed with the breath of extinct poets. It was said the Librarian had bound her own shadow into the mortar to keep the building standing.

I found her in the Hall of Unwritten Epilogues, where books sighed on their shelves like jilted lovers. Her hair was the color of rust and ruin, braided with strips of vellum inscribed with the names of the damned. She did not look up as I entered, but her lips—painted with crushed lapis—curved around a silent word.

“You’re late,” she said.

“I didn’t know I was expected.”

“All seekers are expected.” She plucked a book from the air—one that hadn’t been there a moment before—and blew dust from its cover. The title slithered under my gaze: The Gospel of the Last Candle → How to Drown in a Teaspoon of Time → Your Death, Illustrated.

“Choose,” she commanded.

“They’re all the same book.”

“All books are the same book,” she replied. “The difference is in what you’re willing to lose to read them.”

I reached out. The moment my fingers brushed the spine, the library dissolved into a chorus of sobbing voices. The Librarian’s laughter was the sound of pages tearing.

“Ah,” she murmured. “You’ve already lost, then.”

DISCUSS ON SG