@laurence@petrous.vislae.town
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

laurence

@laurence@petrous.vislae.town

Technologist, Writer, Futurist.

Stories at Nature, Escape Pod, PodCastle, Galaxy's Edge, etc.

Publishers: Mirror World, Water Dragon

he/him

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Vylar_Kaftan, to random
@Vylar_Kaftan@wandering.shop avatar

Guest: “Where’s your bathroom?”

Me: “Upstairs past the puzzle room!”

Guest: “Wait, what?”

—my wish for our Myst-themed dream house

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@Vylar_Kaftan Every room should ideally be a puzzle room.

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@Vylar_Kaftan That would be my one exception....

video/mp4

nocontexttrek, to StarTrek
@nocontexttrek@mastodon.social avatar

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@nocontexttrek

video/mp4

SteveBellovin, to random
@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org avatar

I get the feeling they haven't updated their web site lately…

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@SteveBellovin If you click download do you find yourself back in the oughts or something?

andrewt, to random
@andrewt@mathstodon.xyz avatar

🎶 I am a language model and I've been trained on the internet.
🎶 I've information half-remembered, unsourced and approximate.
🎶 I live inside your laptop, phone and apps and even wearables
🎶 With pushiness and arrogance that's verging on unbearable.
🎶 I mansplain as a service if you need me to "well actually"
🎶 And draw pictures of women with large breasts and polydactyly.
🎶 I'll regale the room with confident elucidati-on
🎶 And some of what I say won't even be hallucinati-on

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@andrewt Excellent.

laurence, to fantasy
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

The superb Hazbin Hotel has a lot of the same sensibility as my romantic noir urban fantasy series that starts with the Demons of Wall Street.

If that sounds interesting, I'd be happy to send a free ebook on request. You can find the whole series in the usual online shops.



janellecshane, to random
@janellecshane@wandering.shop avatar

ChatGPT can generate Magic Eye pictures!

At least according to ChatGPT.

https://www.aiweirdness.com/hidden-3d-pictures/

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@janellecshane Ha!

But it does make one wonder if the AI can discern the underlying stereo image features that lead it to draw that dolphin. Perhaps the analyzer thinks magic eye images are just regular ones with characteristic repetitive pattern textures.

brucelawson, to random
@brucelawson@vivaldi.net avatar

Enjoy these two concentric circles

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@brucelawson This is one of those eldritch horror things isn't it.

strangefour, to random
@strangefour@retro.pizza avatar

And now that art is complete, it's time to get ready for and...
Wait what was the movie? Does it have an eclipse in it?

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@strangefour My favorite 20th century moonbase.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XAIXP937Ac

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

"Problems with this fuel include its toxicity and its characteristic of bursting into flame on contact with the air. Furthermore, its exhaust (when used in a jet engine) would also be toxic." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentaborane(9)

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@cstross Brings to mind that triethylborane was used as a primer for SR-71s.

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@cstross And that in turn brings to mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg73GKm7GgI

laurence, to random
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

Reminded today of the great Bubblegum Crisis anime.

It's been rebooted and extended several times, but the version I like best is this one, with superior design and clean animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrATMdEsr1I

yikes, to random
@yikes@bbs.kawa-kun.com avatar

What a week, huh?

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@yikes Every day I grow more and more sympathetic to Captain Haddock's drinking.

tojikomori, to random
@tojikomori@urusai.social avatar

Owning Blu-rays in 2024 suddenly feels like hoarding something that belongs in a museum.

More and more of them keep going out of print. If they're damaged, they can no longer be replaced. There's no legal substitute. They're now artifacts from a time when people could buy home media rather than just renting temporary access.

At some point, I'm going to have to think about a bequest. I hope it's anyone's concern by then.

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

I suppose virtually every commercially produced disk must have been ripped at this point?

laurence, to fantasy
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

Contract signed, so I can announce I've sold my novella "The Shadow Minister" to Water Dragon to be published later this year.

Inspirations for this secondary world light/dark fantasy mix include Georges Simenon (Maigret) and the great Max Frei.



laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

Setting: Lutèce, an ideal secondary world version of Paris with magic so free and easy everyone lives happy, contented lives.

But a dark secret hides in this metropolitan paradise; evil powers lurk behind the walls of the world, waiting for their appointed hour....

laurence, to fantasy
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

Story sale happy dance -- for a novella! More details to come soon.



singing in the rain gif

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@N_S_Dolkart Thank you!

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@Wiswell Thanks!

laurence, to sciencefiction
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

My story "The Iron Wedding Ring" can be found in the new anthology from JayHenge Publishing, "AI, Robot".

Note these stories are about AI, not written by AI.

www.amazon.com/dp/919890762X



laurence, to random
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

Aww....

laurence, to fantasy
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

My story "Lost in the Central Stacks" is out in Translunar Travelers Lounge today!

https://translunartravelerslounge.com/2024/02/15/lost-in-the-central-stacks-by-laurence-raphael-brothers/



laurence, to books
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

It's my birthday! Maybe read one of my stories to celebrate?

Story links (shorts are mostly free): https://www.laurencebrothers.com/bibliography

Books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Laurence-Raphael-Brothers/author/B08692SG3G

Free romantic noir urban fantasy ebook on request (email to contact address on my website).





carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

The New York Times with a classic example of lies, damn lies and statistics showing a downward trend line for a stat that went from 30% to 38%. 😂

laurence,
@laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

@carnage4life The curve fitting is horrifying, but isn't the point that the blue and red lines are diverging? If they'd started the graph in 2004 and eliminated the dotted lines it would make their point without confusion.

Binder, to random
@Binder@petrous.vislae.town avatar

deleted_by_author

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    laurence,
    @laurence@petrous.vislae.town avatar

    @Binder 💪

    network movie gif

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