Ziv W

@quitevague

"There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind." Editor at Diabolical Plots, Associate Editor PodCastle . He/Him.

332 Siguiendo485 Seguidores748 Publicaciones

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¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y quitevague.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Ziv W@quitevague· Jun 19

New in Diabolical Plots! John and Katie Batemen, printers of Fleet Street, know their newest pamphlet is about to be the talk of the town. But a late-night stranger is determined to cut their print run short... www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-1...

Engraving: "The Tiber Monster," 1523.
Depicts a creature standing upright and composed with features of many animals: the head of a donkey; the claw of a chicken; scales of a snake, and an odd dragon-head for a tail.

Ziv W@quitevague· Apr 27

אין לי מנוי, אבל אולה כתבה באנגלית זה התוצאה היחידה שחוזרת לי בחיפוש. ולפחות בטיזר, הציטוט שם בנוי שונה.

Screenshot of Google Search: "A Jew on a Fantasy Adventure".
Preview Quote: "Or as she puts it, in those years 'there was a big trope — of the Jew as the jester in the fantasy quest.'"

Ziv W@quitevague· Apr 20

I've always loved this Ira Glass quote on that. Full text: www.themarginalian.org/2014/01/29/i...

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone told me.
All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.

But there is this gap.

For the first couple of years, you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not.
But your taste, the thing that got you jnto the game, is still killer. And you taste is why your work disappoints you.

A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit.

Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this.

And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it's normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one story.
It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.

And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's going to take awhile. It's normal to take awhile. You've just gotta fight your way through.

Ziv W@quitevague· Mar 9

"The shelves fill with more and more of less and less. In the great and exponentially-growing library, the new volumes are his own summaries, and summaries of summaries, and so on into dim infinity." By @slharris.bsky.social , new in @diabolicalplots.com ! www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-1...

Shelves of leather-bound books, with a library ladder off to one side.

Photo by Dmitrij Paskevic on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/hardbound-books-YjVa-F9P9kk

Ziv W@quitevague· Dec 17

I have been working on my FacebookCeption for more than a decade now, I think it's going pretty well

An image of nested Facebook memories -- in each one, the "memory" is an image of the previous memory.
It's nested 5 deep, "from 1 year ago," "from 1 year ago," "from 4 years ago," "from 2 years ago," and a last one too small to be legible.

At the very bottom, you can see the edge of the picture which presumably was the original memory, but you can't see enough to tell what it is.

Ziv W@quitevague· Oct 23

Galaxy brain meme.

Level 1: Frankenstein is the monster
Level 2: Frankenstein is the doctor
Level 3: Doctor Frankenstein is the real monster
Level 4: Victor Frankenstein doesn't even have a doctorate

Ziv W@quitevague· Sep 1

Post a random picture or else everything will go wrong in September

Tiny jellyfish swimming inside a circular window

Ziv W@quitevague· Jun 15

ey Womble! I've spent the weekend barrelling through "The Raven Scholar," by Antonia Hodgson

Cover: "The Raven Scholar," by Antonia Hodgson.

Purple cover with gold embellishments, showing a white sketch of a raven

Ziv W@quitevague· Jun 11

OK, but Riley is responding to this very specific, highly-visible claim that Chat GPT can just answer your questions and guide you through it This is not signalling to anybody "guard yourself by anticipating a bunch of problems in the instruction prompt" It's signalling "this GPT is ✨magic✨"

Copy of image from the original post, with giant banner demonstrating a ChatGPT conversation, beginning "I'm procrastinating, Give me a guide for mastering this Calc 101 syllabus"

Ziv W@quitevague· Jun 11

But ChatGPT isn't keying onto that. It's not asking the "student" to re-do the problem (and get the 0/0 result), it's not noting the mistake. Instead it's continuing the "expected" flow of finding a limit, and then telling the student that they've "discovered" a discontinuity /+

ChatGPT screencap.

ChatGPT correctly finds the limit of the previous expression (which is 3, as (x-1) can be cancelled out),
and jumps from there to explain
"That canceled-out x−1 means there’s a hole at x=1, but the limit still exists."

This is a sentence that makes no sense in the context of a "student" who evaluated that expression as coming out "1" rather than "0".

Ziv W@quitevague· Jun 11

Heya! I want to say I've been going through my own process of prodding at my AI skepticism, and I know some people find it really helpful. I appreciate digging into the details of how to use it usefully, and where it's a good tool. Let's take a look at this first exercise set, though /+

ChatGPT Screencap.

"Step 1: Understand What a Limit Is

A limit is the value a function approaches as the input approaches a certain number."

An example is provided:
"What’s lim[⁡x→2](3x+1)?" (the limit of the expression "3x+1", as x goes to 2)

And the answer:
"Just plug in 2:
3*(2)+1=7

✅ That means the limit is 7."

ChatGPT Screencap, with an exercise section:

"🧪 Your Turn – Try These (Plug-in Style)
Try them out! Show your work (or I’ll help you if you're unsure). When you're ready, we'll continue to graphical and more tricky limits, and then move on to continuity."

Three problems are given, the third of which is highlighted:

The problem : lim_[x→1]((x^2+x-2)/(x-1))
That is, the limit of the expression (x^2 + x -2)/(x-1), as x approaches 1

Screenshot also includes the "student" response, which answers this as "0/1=0"

ChatGPT "checking" student result:

"You got: 0/1=0 — but let’s double-check"

Ziv W@quitevague· Sep 20

We've got two wonderful stories in our September issue of @diabolicalplots.com ! Let me tell you a few words about why each of them is wonderful: /+

Ziv W@quitevague· Sep 18

Forever.

Image for satire article. Title reads: "Mike Pence horrified to discover unisex toilet in own house"

Picture is of Mike Pence, frowning, deeply displeased and looking very uptight, in front of open door to a narrow home bathroom

Ziv W@quitevague· Sep 9

I've been trying to read more SFF criticism lately, if that sounds cool to you too-- here's three great essays about Star Trek that have really stuck with me, and why I love 'em /+

Star Trek's Data, his hands in a shrugging expression

Ziv W@quitevague· Sep 8

Drop an alien not from Star Trek or Star Wars

Mork (played by Robin Williams, in striped orange and black shirt with rainbow suspenders) and Mindy (played by Pam Dawber). Mork is making a sideways version of Spock's vulcan salute.

Ziv W@quitevague· Aug 12

This was Glasgow this morning Now I'm already in London, but haven't had a chance to get outside here yet 😅

View out the window in Glasgow's Woodlands Drive

Ziv W@quitevague· Aug 9

(ok ok I am ALSO here to give out ribbons they're fantastic ribbons! perhaps you would like a couple!)

A fan of ribbons: blue ones for Diabolical Plots, white ones for The Submission Grinder

Ziv W@quitevague· Aug 9

HOW TO FIND A ZIV AT WORLDCON: - great big smile (under jeans blue face mask) - whimsical @diabolicalplots.com t-shirt - kippah over his near-total absence of hair I am literally here to MEET AND HANG OUT. If you want that too, whether or not we know each other, please say hi (or, DM to find me!)

Picture of Ziv, who looks just as described in the post!

Ziv W@quitevague· Aug 7

YUP

Quark dressed in a floral T-shirt carrying two fertility statuettes, with Dax in vacation-wear behind him

Ziv W@quitevague· Jun 18

Maybe Ushpizin, by Shuli Rand? Very Jewish, plenty of melodrama but also very fun!

Still from "Ushpizin": a Breslev couple and two Mizrachi jews wearing ill-fitting kippot, sitting in a decorated wooden sukkah

Ziv W@quitevague· Jun 3

"Angelmaker," by Nick Harkaway, read to me like "what if Terry Pratchett wrote an action-adventure thriller." It's a lot of fun, with concepts that feel simultaneously gonzo and resonant, and a Pratchett-esque cast of unlikely but very likeable characters.

Cover: "Angelmaker," by Nick Harkaway

Fractal pattern in gold and black; in the center, an odd construction that looks part-beehive, part wooden shed.

Ziv W@quitevague· May 16

It's “How to Kill the Giant Living Brain You Found in Your Mother’s Basement After She Died: An Interactive Guide,” by Alex Sobel! Maybe grab something sharp to keep handy, and read it here: www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-1...

Ziv W@quitevague· May 16

Welcome to this interactive guide! I understand from your About Me profile that you have an issue with a brain that needs killing. I’m here to help! --- Oh, friends, you are going to love this one, at @diabolicalplots.com /+ www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-1...

Clip Art: a computer screen with a big smiley face

Ziv W@quitevague· May 1

this crossed my timeline and now it's yours too

A series of portraits of Dragonlance characters, with accompanying text:

Sturm Brightblade: "You have my sword"
Tanis Half-Elven: "And you have my bow"
Flint Fireforge: "And my axe!"
Tasslehoff Burrfoot: "You must have dropped them"

Ziv W@quitevague· Mar 3

These social media icons in my Xiaomi bookmarks get magically updated sometimes; not by me. As of today, Bluesky is Facebook and Facebook is a Vonnegut asshole

Ziv W@quitevague· Feb 16

2023 saw the publication of my special guest DIABOLICAL THOUGHTS issue at @diabolicalplots.com, with fantastic stories of telepathy and weirdness by Jenova Edenson, Josh Pearce, Carolina Valentine, and Ruth Joffre www.diabolicalplots.com/issue-97-dia... /+

Image: a human brain in neon blue, crackling with electricity
Text: Diabolical Plots

Ziv W@quitevague· Jan 1

I'm healed

Image of a hurricane on a dirt road through a grass field. Text: "A night out can be quite similar to constantly walking around in darkness"

Ziv W@quitevague· Dec 5

If you see this, post a Which.

Illustration from The Phantom Tollbooth: Milo and Tock sitting across from Faintly Macabre, the Not-So Wicked Which

Ziv W@quitevague· Jul 25

all i'm saying is, when wordle tells you they've "update their terms", it COULD just mean they've chosen another couple of years of puzzle solutions