Can you spot the date I said “I’m done”?

Anyhoo… the reason I checked was because I was cleaning up my closet, which I’m told you have to do five times a century, whether it needs it or not.

I got about er 11? of these refuse sacs (a lot of yellowed white t-shirts, and why did I have 20 bed sets? dating back to the 80s, and some bleached-out black t-shirts, and some disgusting old pillows).

Look! Now I can squeeze in more stuff. But the reason I was reminded of the Emacs thing was that I happened upon these shirts:

I’d forgotten that I had some overflow No Gnus t-shirts — and as you can see, some of them are kinda dusty and/or sun bleached (there should be no sun in closets, but there is in mine, and these have been lying around for more than a decade). (Never worn! How dare you even ask!)

So, I’ve got four XL and four L shirts (in various colours)…

… and one Twenty Years of September t-shirt (I was supposed to do a Thirty Years last autumn, but I er didn’t; perhaps I’ll do them this spring).

So if you want one (primarily if you’re a Gnus user, I guess), send me an email (at larsi@gnus.org) with your snail-mail address, and I’ll do a lottery in about a week, and then send you a shirt if you win. (Free postage, too.) Remember to state your size, and whether you have any colour preference.

My New Book Review Blog

Just kidding! Ain’t nobody got time for reviewing, but I just read this book:

It’s Sheri Tepper’s final book, written when she was in her 80s and published two years before she died. On Goodreads, Fish Tails has a kinda normal 3.6 total grade, but there are so many one star reviews like this:

I cannot believe I am giving a Sheri Tepper book a one star review, but this book is a horrid mess.

So I wanted to natter on about it a bit. I’ll let you read the first three pages first:

I understand why many people really dislike this book — it’s not a good book. Most everything they say about it is true: It’s too long (700 pages), it’s repetetive (there’s a 13 page introduction that’s inexplicably repeated 70 pages later, but expanded to about 20 pages, among other oddities), it doesn’t have much of a plot arc (a magical alien swoops in the last 100 pages and fixes everything OOPS SPOILERS)…

I just found it to be a pleasant read. Tepper’s previous book was in 2010, and this was published in 2014 (the longest wait between books ever — she used to publish a couple books per year), so I guess she wrote it over several years. It has that kind of feel. Reading this book is basically like sitting listening to somebody confabulate about an imagined world. The main part of the book has the main characters drive slowly through this world, and they encounter people (oh so many people), and every one of these people explicate at length about some part of this world.

Even when they stop moving around, there are random people poking their heads in and talk for a couple of pages about, well, anything — mating rituals, soup production, how to pack a bag — and are then never heard from again.

So how the novel was constructed is very obvious — the seams are showing. Tepper was probably thinking about this world all the time, and whenever she came up with something, she put it into the novel. And then a few days later, she sees that that didn’t quite add up, so she adds a new character clarifying the previous bit. And so on until you have this brick of a book.

That’s no way to make a novel! They should have, like, plots and stuff! And stakes! But eh, whatevs.

Some of the characters obsess a bit too much about certain things, and that’s annoying — but that’s also acknowledged within the book, where other characters tell them to stop going over the same things again and again. So Tepper seemed aware that the book may be annoying to some, but she doesn’t care that much. And that’s fine.

This book has several magical dohickeys that could fix anything the characters encounter, but they always seem to be forgotten when there’s some bad people around, but Tepper has an explanation for that, too: Her characters forgot to read the instructions on the dohickeys. Sure, why not.

So would I recommend this book? Of course. Not. Tepper has written a good number of really solid novels (like Beauty or The Gate To Women’s Country), but after you’ve read all the other er 40? books, you may or may not want to just spend some more time with Tepper, and that’s what this book offers.

I’m not sure many people want to, these days. First of all — most science fiction authors are pretty much forgotten when they stop publishing. The new books function like ads for the older books, and when they stop writing, people stop buying all their old books, too.

Here’s the bookshop.org results for Sheri Tepper:

The ones that have “add to cart” are probably still in print, and the “backorder” ones may not be. But more importantly, we get 9 results in total, and she’s written so many more books.

But beyond just, like, being dead, there may be other reasons why she’s being forgotten: Her Big Theme was that People Are Awful And Something Should Be Done About It. This could have been her theme song:

Gary Clail On-U Sound System - Human Nature

And Tepper’s solution (throughout many of her books) is eugenics. The only way to get a better future, or a future at all, is to breed better humans. This, coupled with her perhaps essentialist views on gender, won’t endear her to many liberals. But perhaps right-wing people would enjoy her books? Hah! Right-wing-itude is what she wanted to breed out of the human race, so not many sales there, either.

Another thing they said over at Goodreads is that Tepper is famously humourless… and I guess I see what they mean, because she’s very earnest about certain things. But she’s also hilarious: In one of the novels, she has an alien species that’s going to save the world (again, by breeding better humans), but this species is pretty wasp-like. And at one point in the book, it’s mating season, so they have to lay their eggs (that turn into larvae) somewhere. And it has to be in a sentient creature! (For some reason that I’m sure was explained.) And they’re working on saving Earth, so they can’t leave, so they have to lay their eggs in humans. Who to choose? Well, of course they have to choose somebody who thinks that all life is sacrosanct, so they choose a few dozen (male) Pro-Lifers (priests, politicians, etc), lay their eggs in them, and then the larvae chew their way out of their abdomens.

It was the funniest thing ever! Pure glee!

I couldn’t remember the name of the book, so I googled, and it’s Fresco:

But according to Tepper (in this book at least – not neccesarily her personal view) it’s ok to rape men if they are anti-abortion.

Lots of people (I guess mostly men) were really offended. Tee hee!

Anyway, that’s the last Tepper book, and I’ve already read all the rest (even the ones written under other pseudonyms), so that’s a bit wistful…

Er… So that’s it. I’m done typing now.

Translation, Apps, Comics, oh la la…

I’m learning French (so that I’ll be able to read French comics, as one does). I started absolutely from scratch (no high school French or nuttin), and after about half a year, I’m at that point where I can sort of kinda actually read some French comics. Sort of. If they’re for children.

Of course, even if I can basically parse a French sentence, I still have a minuscule vocabulary. I don’t want to use a dictionary or do a lot of typing, because I want to read comics, not like “work” at “learning” or something obnoxious like that. The only way to keep myself motivated to keep reading is if it’s fun.

So it’d be great if there were some kind of magical device I could wave in front of the offending word and, presto, it’d tell me what that word meant. Sounds like science fiction, right?

But I haven’t come to praise and say “how far technology has come today, eh, eh?”, but instead to bitch about how things aren’t perfect.

So here’s my situation: I’m sitting here, reading Modeste et Pompon (a French series from the 50s by Franquin), and I see something I don’t understand. So I whip out my Iphone with Google Translate and hold it up to the difficult panel:

But but… it’s not able to focus? Yes, it’s a well known bug in Google Translate: On Iphone 14 and 15, it can’t use the macro camera…

… so to be able to focus, I have to hold the phone waaaay off the page…

… but at least then it’ll do pretty good OCR. But I’ve got an Ipad Mini, and Google Translate doesn’t have that bug there:

Now, the Mini isn’t as convenient to hold, but that’s… Hang on, what’s with that translation? “Et pourquis pas, garnement?” The last word was what I was wondering about, and Google Translate says that it’s “you bitch”? In a 50s comic for children?

Well, Google Translate has always been astoundingly bad at idioms — it’s always been risibly literal. That was amusing 15 years ago, but it’s basically never gotten any better at that stuff, even with the LLM revolution happening over the past few years. Somebody on the Yellow Site speculated (well, since half the people on that site seem to work for Google, it was probably not speculation) that the head of Google Translate is so set on not ditching the work they’ve done on translation for decades for the shiny new LLM toy that there’s been no progress in that direction. Or any progress at all — asking Google Translate to translate a French sentence still often yield English text that makes no sense at all.

So that brings me to the point of this blog post: Does anybody know of an app that fits my use case? That is, that allows me to just sit here in my chair and read comics, and when I wonder about a word, I can wave my phone around and it’ll tell me? I don’t want to be typing, because that’s too awkward and takes too much time.

I’ve tried several apps now, and the one that comes closest is Deep L. Which from the name sounds like it has something to do with AI. It’s good at doing the OCR, it uses the macro camera on Iphone 15 fine, and it’s faster than Google Translate at doing the translation (which is very important — I want to be reading comics, not waiting for translations), and most important of all: It’s much better than Google Translate at actually translating. It turns out that the sentence in question really meant “And why not, you rascal?” which makes more sense, and sounds idiomatic.

If Deep L is so perfect, what’s the problem? This is the problem: I’m guessing they didn’t have comics reading as the (ahem) primary use case, so it’s just really bad at actually determining what it’s supposed to translate. It’ll often randomly fixate on a single line or two, and it’s impossible to get it to change its mind.

So — does anybody know of a better app? The “live view” bit is essential. There’s several apps that allow you to snap a pic and then translate that, but it takes several button presses and a long time, so it’s just not convenient.

Comics Daze

So, I’ve been Duolinguing French for half a year now, but I still can’t really er read French with any comfortable speed, so it makes no sense to start buying French comics already.

And look:

I’ve managed to not go too wild. Right? Right!

But I’ve been trying to find some comics that I can attempt, because reading actual stuff instead of the typical “I put the penguin that I got from you on top of the fridge” sentences in Duolingo is more, er, more better. Yeah. It’s more better.

I tried some children’s comics first, but they were mostly humour books, which is not ideal, because there’s too much punning that I don’t get at all. I managed to read the entire book above, written by Tardi for a radio play, but the problem was that Tardi loves using Parisian slang, so that’s not ideal, either. It took me like three hours to get through this album, abetted by Google Translate.

But I think I’ve found the ideal thing: Maurice Tillieux from the 50s — there’s some punny stuff going on, but it’s mostly straightforward action and mysteries and stuff. It easier to read things when they make sense, hein?

So I think I’m gonna get more stuff like this, and within a few years I’ll have the reading comprehension of a three-year-old boy from France in the 1950s! Whoho!

Oh, OK, I also bought a whole lot of comics by Annie Goetzinger.

ANYWAY! I’ve gotten a bunch of comics in comprehensible languages, so today is a comics readin’ day. Let’s get started.

Japan: Quiet Life

13:37: The Legens of Deerskin Dan by Jack Turnbull

This looks really nice — I live the graphical approach here.

It’s about a kid rebelling against the world being all shitty and stuff. It’s cool.

13:49: Hot to Trot by Veronica Post (Conundrum Press)

Oh yeah, I remember reading the first volume of this… er… but only vaguely. Oh right, the guy had gone to Europe to try to run away from some crime he had done in Canada, of all things.

The character design is just very confusing. The hairstyle (or lack of it), body shape and the way he dresses all seem to point to him being in his mid-60s, but he was arrested for doing graffiti, and I guess that woman (also of ambiguous age) wouldn’t be traipsing around with him if he’s 60, so I guess he’s supposed to be like what 25?

Even Walt Wallet didn’t look that staid in his 20s.

David Bowie: Lodger

Is the dog meant to be symbolic or something? They never interact with it, and they brought it from Germany to the US without anybody putting it in quarantine or anything…

Oh, finally, after a couple hundred pages, they acknowledge the dog. Once.

Weird.

Anyway, I didn’t really enjoy the book.

And now I think I have to run some errands before it starts sleeting again.

Simple Minds: Empires And Dance

15:14: Tetanos

I’m guessing this is a Mexican book? There’s some text in Spanish, but almost all the comics are in English. (But many are wordless.)

The indicia is in Spanish, too, so I have no idea who did what.

Anyway, it’s pretty good — a wide array of approaches, with many of the strips leaning towards abstraction.

15:22: Internal Affairs by Mel Tow, Michael Furler & PC (Peow)

This is a printing extravaganza — wrap-around cover, metallic inks, a band, a fold-out page…

I don’t think I’ve read Internal Affairs before, and this is the tenth anniversary book, and it’s three pretty short stories — and it’s a bit inscrutable.

The second story is pretty self-contained, though, and goes all out.

The third story is incomprehensible (to me, who knows nothing about these characters). So I guess this book just isn’t for me…

15:43: Looking for the Cat by Matthew Thurber

This is a very brief book — I guess there’s only ten story pages? And it’s a kind of improvised shaggy dog story, but it’s really compelling. More, please.

Vinicius Cantuária: Tucumã

15:52: Freak 11 by

This book is printed on really thick, matte paper. It’s nice. (Yasmeen Abedifard.)

The art styles are varied, but there is a kind of unified feel going through most of the pieces — it’s mostly kinda distracted vignettes, if that makes sense. (Daniel Zhou.)

But some are pretty intense. (Jonathan McBurnie.)

Hey! Inside Comics by Angela Fanche!

It’s a really attractive anthology — not a single dud, and some very interesting pieces.

16:12: Swamp Parade, Heel of the Shovel & Playbill by Steven Arnold and Michael Kamison

I bought a whole bunch of comics from these guys after reading one of theirs the last time around (I think), so let’s read er four of them.

The first book is a kinda-sorta metaphorical play thing. It’s fun.

The second book is varied storytelling wise, but has a very consistent mood.

It’s hypnotic.

Heel on the Shovel is a three volume story, and it’s insanely ambitious. The obvious touchstone is Daniel Clowes, and er I’m afraid I don’t think they pulled it off.

The Notwist: Neon Golden

There’s a lot of interesting bits here, but the tone is uncertain. Most of the time it seems like they’re going for real pathos, but then there are things that just seem like offhand jokes (especially in the more Franksteinian sections).

If I google things correctly, the second volume was done in 2018, and the third and final volume has never been published. So perhaps they lost faith in the book as well? Because it’s really creaking under its own weight.

David Bowie: Station to Station

18:05: Tales of the City by Isabelle Bauthian/Sandrine Revel (Ablaze)

I don’t know what the Ablaze people are doing… I mean, they’re a pretty new company, aren’t they? Or at least I seem to have discovered them recently. And they’re doing a lot of translations of French comics, and they publish them all in the wrong form factor (and shrink them down to boot). Those huge top/bottom margins and the almost nonexistent gutters look fugly, and makes for uncomfortable reading to boot, since you have to keep bending the book.

Ablaze, you can do better.

Arto Lindsay: Mundo Civilizado

The artwork is certainly attractive.

But this book is a total mess. I’ve read the original series, and even so, this book was borderline incomprehensible. There’s so many characters, and so many of them look similar… I think this book basically covers the first Maupin novel (well, collected serial), and it’s a short novel, but even so it feels like we’re fast-forwarding through the novel; just getting glimpses. The Maupin series wasn’t well-written or anything, but it did have a real mood going, and this doesn’t have that either. The only thing this has going for it is the artwork. What a shame.

19:15: Stray by Molly Mendoza (Bulgilhan Press)

Again, the artwork is attractive…

… and the story is certainly intense, but I dunno. Perhaps it’s just my annoyance with the previous book carrying over, but I just couldn’t get into this one.

Sandy Denny: The North Star Grassman and the Ravens

19:27: Far Distant by A Liang Chan (Bulgilhan Press)

This has a good mood going on.

And very mysterious. Good stuff, if very brief.

19:33: Highlands by Philippe Aymond (Cinebook)

Wow, this looks pretty turgid…

But it’s not as bad as all that. Once it gets going, it’s not totally without charm. But it gets pretty annoying after a while, despite the nice scenery.

Japan: Oil On Canvas (2)

19:58: The End

Well, OK, that was too many bad comics in one day, so I have to call it a day, even though I’ve only been reading comics for what six hours? I mean, there were good comics, too, but…

The Commentaspamapocalypse Is Nigh!

I run a couple of blogs, and across them, I get about 50 spam comments per day. Here’s a sampling:

Fortunately, WordPress offers something called “Akismet Antispam” which takes care of all this noise. It lets a spam message through about once every two months, and I think I’ve seen one false positive over the past few years. So it’s very reliable, and without it, I would have to close down comments. (Which would be a shame, because sometimes these comments are much more interesting and informative than whatever I’m nattering on about.)

But the reason Akismet can do such a good job is that these comment spam bots post generic messages across millions of WordPress installations. And nothing in these texts refer to the content of the posts they are commenting on, so even if you’re going through these comments manually, you can easily tell that they’re all fake.

So I’ve been waiting for these creeps to start using AI: You ask ChatGPT (or whatever open sores AI engine you have running (it’s cheaper when doing millions of comments)) to give a polite response to the blog article (or a nasty response; that’s probably even more effective). Then you’ll 1) get a text that Akismet hasn’t seen before, so it won’t tag as spam, and 2) even if it gets stuck in a manual approval queue, perhaps the blog author will think it’s genuine.

It’s taken longer time to start than I expected, but! Behold! My first one:

That is an extremely flattering summary of this blog article, and only the lack of typos and the flat affect of the language gives it away. Oh, and that it links to some sort of… scam site, I guess?

(And that nobody would ever leave a comment like this on as vapid a blog post as that one, I guess.)

So there you go. The Commentaspamapocalypse (catchy name, I should trademark it and get fabulously rich) is nigh!

(And, of course, much of the “content” on the web is already AI-generated (to “optimise” the search on Google), so in a couple of years the web will be 97% LLM: AI spam posts with nothing but AI spam comments underneath.)