Eleanor Konik @eleanorkonik@scholar.social

Hello, Scholars (& Friends!)

My undergrad degree was in philosophy and I passed the bar exam in 2012 (oof) so now I teach (yay). My interests are broad and varied; I enjoy reading academic papers on random topics like feudalism and the role of priestesses in ancient Rome.

I'm working on an epic fantasy novel inspired by the environmental crises in northeast Africa, but I won't talk much about the writing process nearly as often as I'll squee about obscure research dives.

#introductions

One of my blueberry bushes has developed yellowish leaves with brownish spots. No idea what caused it (weird soil doesn't seem likely, it's the same soil a couple of feet over and that bush is fine...)

Oh well. Time to prune!

Crap. My parents are coming over in like an hour to help me with a couple of trivial household tasks (my front door keyless number pad entry thing needs to be reprogrammed; it came with the house and we don't know the number) and I have not showered, am barely dressed, and my house is messy.

My mom isn't precisely judgmental but she does have feelings about a properly clean house, soooooo...

writing is going to have to wait a bit!

see also: the parable of the paperclip maximizer.

https://hackernoon.com/the-parable-of-the-paperclip-maximizer-3ed4cccc669a

And yes, I realize that the UN isn't actually advocating for perfect equality of the lowest common denominator, but the point isn't a philosophical discussion of whether the UN Declaration of Human Rights is any good, but rather whether a product of machine learning can implement it in a way that wouldn't completely suck, if that's it's "driving principal" and my intuition is that no AI, no matter how advanced, would be able to "be the government" in a way that would not suck.

Person on Wattpad: "When AI takes over the world government and is programmed with checks and balances to avoid working just for the wealthy, I hope it uses the UN Declaration of Human Rights for its optimization protocols defining what working 'for the good of humanity' means."

Me: "Do you want to live in Harrison Bergeron land? Because that's how you get Harrison Bergeron land, and 'perfect equality of the lowest common denominator' is not actually my idea of utopia."

Whoever came up with the idea for reactive armor on tanks is pretty ballsy.

"I know! Let's put explosives inside our tank to help counteract people shooting us!"

Like, can you imagine wearing dynamite as body armor?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_armour

Of the 10 mainstream science fiction and fantasy novels I just recommended to my husband, exactly zero were available from our library in audiobook format.

No wonder Audible makes so much money :/

Still riding the wave of productivity. I just finished writing a 500 word summary of THE GENOCIDE DRAFT so I don't forget where I'm going with it and can hopefully sustain a reasonable writing pace.

I just submitted it to the #wattys too, which is exciting. Here's the logline in the format they require, if anyone is curious:

Demetrius, a genetically engineered supersoldier, must overcome tyrannical leadership and survive a virgin planet in order to stop a genocide triggered by luddite rebels.

Feeling pretty proud of myself. I'm on day 2 of my 4tw streak and re-read what I'd written so far of my serial novel THE GENOCIDE DRAFT so I could create a glossary & cast list which I just posted up to wattpad. No idea if anyone is going to read it, but I'm glad I'm writing again. The story isn't perfect, but I do actually think it's pretty engaging, which I'm proud of.

The perennial problem: I'm hungry but I can't think of anything in the house I think I can make myself eat. I had a granola bar and a banana, but being pregnancy is compounding my already finicky tastes, to say nothing of the impact it's having on the depression symptoms I have surrounding food. I'd almost always rather go back to bed than go thru the trouble of making food, which is almost always the wrong choice.

Ugh.

The intersection of economics, science-for-the-sake-of-it, and people having enough food to survive and thrive is pretty interesting.

The fact that the scientist in this article was female and worked for free (!) because the university refused to pay married scientists adds a certain feminist bent to the reading as well. I'm super glad the Japanese nori farmers honored her for her vital work and continue to do so.

Highly recommend: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-nori

Do I have 700 more words in me today?

Let's find out.

Once upon a time I made a really comprehensive spreadsheet for 4TheWords and now I can't find it ANYWHERE and honestly I am kind of distraught. Not so much that I don't have it anymore that I can't FIND it. It feels like going mad :(

Man, #4thewords has really changed since the last time I used it. I hope it still feels like gamified writing once I figure it out (: