Ken Alba

@especiallygreatliterature.com

437 Followers 2770 Following

he's just this guy, you know? * Formerly: BU (PhD, English Lit), MIT DH Lab. * Now: VP of Product @ Ander * Blogging about sf/f at https://hugonaut.leaflet.pub/ . He/him

John Turturro in Miller's Crossing, sniveling.
A screenshot of an event window from the video game Crusader Kings III, titled "Schism: SSPX in Switzerland." The text describes Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X embracing "Lefebvrism" and rejecting the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. A 3D character model of a Pope-like figure is shown on the right, standing in a church. Below the text are two buttons: "What twisted mockery of our faith is this!?" and "You know, they do have some good points...".
quiz results that say my closest political match is Mamdani
an achewood comic strip. the top has a conversation between Roast Beef the Cat and Teodor the bear. Teodor: "Yeah, I set it up so that the second monitor shows exactly what's happening on Ray's computer" Beef: "Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time." Teodor: "Weird, he just googled for a picture of Mt. Everest... and made it his desktop!" Beef: "Now he's googlin' for a picture of a motorcycle" Teodor: "... he chooses one..." Beef: "and shrinks the browser all down real small" Then we get the bottom three frames, which shows the small window of the motorcycle being dragged over the mountain.
A half full school auditorium.
Bender from Futurama as a giant statue breathing fire, pharoahish. The caption is REMEMBER ME.
Two screenshots from Futurama. 1) the Robot Devil saying You can’t just have your characters announce how they feel! 2) the aame robot devil yelling “that makes me feel angry!” Fry is watching.
that selfsame dog, looking derpier
imbiamba jombes, a russetish 50 lb dog, running at full tilt. He's cornering, so he's at a weird angle to the ground, and 3 of his feete are in the air. he's on a green field and he's wearing a teal vest.
some images from the splatbook GUIDE TO THE TECHNOCRACY from White Wolf's MAGE: THE ASCENSION line
Me holding my little Baofeng handheld transceiver tuned to 444.925.
A patch with Artemis, the goddess, in red white and blue, drawing a bow. The moon is behind her. The words ET LUNA AD MARTEM are emblazoned on the bottom.
The Artemis 2 rocket, visible against a blue sky over some water.
A chat with Claude, pasted below Hey Claude. I believe there are more likely than not colonies of very intelligent octopuses deep under the sea in places we haven't explored. • Prepared thoughtful engagement with sp... › That's a fun idea to explore! There are some genuinely fascinating things about octopus cognition that make this an appealing thought. But there are also some pretty significant reasons to be skeptical. What makes the idea compelling: • Octopuses are remarkably intelligent - they use tools, solve puzzles, and show impressive problem-solving abilities • We've only explored a small fraction of the deep ocean, s Lnuine unknowns exist down there Reply to Claude + 小
me in black and white in the woods, the sun is right behind me and big and loud
A Frankenstein from the old movie with the words FIRE BAD
screenshot of the search from the epstein library for "Little St. James operation", a substring in the post above. no results found.
The man in the yellow suit from Blood Simple
my dog, Imbiamba Jombes, in a white, blue, and orange snood with a little puffball on the top. His ears are poking out of the side of the snood, and he's licking his nose. He looks a little bit anxious because he always looks a little bit anxious.
Duck from Mad Men leaving a dog outside
A conversation on Twitter. Elon Musk has retweeted “Autism Central”. Pasted convo: Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays • 7h On Monday, I will ask President Trump, via X, to help save my life. He offered to help me if I needed it. I need it. As many of you know, I have metastasized prostate cancer. My healthcare provider, Kaiser of Northern California, has approved my application to receive a Show more Robert F. Kennedy Jr Scott. How do I reach you? The President wants to help. Chamath Palihapitiya Just connected you guys via text.
A dog in a purple hat.
An Achewood comic strip. Panel 1 has Ray saying "Dude, are you bangin' a website?" as Roast Beef looks on, chagrinned, from on top of a scanner. Panel 2 has RB respond "Jesus I'm just scanning my belly button Ray". Panel 3 h as Ray turning to leave and saying "You're bangin' a website, but whatever. No cookies for you."
a screenshot of the aforementioned headline
Achewood strip with Roast Beef the cat, pacmans for eyes, saying “oh, hee hee hee!”
a bearded guy crouching among three dogs. He's petting one of them, and two of them (the reddish one and the spotted one from the previous picture) are sniffing around a bag containing dog treats. the reddish one has madness in his eyes.
a reddish dog in a blue harness chasing a white dog with big brown spots through a green field. the reddish dog has chomped the white dog's tail
Tinkering with the Dead: Technonecromancy and Local LLMs. This hands-on workshop will dwell on the unsavory possibilities that large language models make possible around the voices of the dead. It begins with a provocation: what right do we have to the common language of the past? How might practitioners use their own tools and their own machines to perform their own profane practice on their own work, and on the works of their predecessors? This workshop will teach participants how to run an LLM on their laptops, with particular attention to creating author-specific corpora as the grounds for their models and their practice. We will cover how to download, install, and use particular models with Ollama and OpenWebUl. We will also discuss acquiring and loading the corpora of dead authors, and what we can do with them. As this installation takes place, an open discussion on the ethics of the enterprise at hand will occur. Some starting points for this conversation: • What is the environmental cost of training and using a local model? How does it compare to using a model on the cloud? To flying to the conference we're all attending? • What words are permissible to use? Is there a sliding scale here? • Is an ethical large language model, trained on smaller, "open" data sets, possible? • How do debates about fair use and intellectual property law apply here? • How does training a model compare with collage, bricolage, or other artistic practices of (re)making that characterize the work of E-Lit practitioners? • How do older, spiritualist practices compare with modern technonecromancy? • What can we actually do with these tools that's worth the ethical murk? Conflict is welcome here; this workshop will be just as successful if we all decide we shouldn't be installing models in the first place. By the end of the workshop. participants will be able to load and configure a local ChatGPT-style interface.
Company Samuel Beckett A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine. To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in the dark. Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said. But by far the greater part of what is said cannot be verified. As for example when he hears, You first saw the light on such and such a day. Sometimes the two are combined as for example, You first saw the light on such and such a day and now you are on your back in the dark. A device perhaps from the incontrovertibility of the one to win credence for the other. That then is the proposition. To one on his back in the dark a voice tells of a past. With occasional allusion to a present and more rarely to a future as for example, You will end as you now are. And in another dark or in the same another devising it all for company. Quick leave him
A student office behind a chain metal wall indoors.
Me, a bearded dude, in scarlet regalia
Screenshot of the Fox News homepage scrolled to the bottom, with one story (Trump slammed from left and right as markets crash over tariffs) highlighted due to in-browser search.
Bum Farto, a greasy looking hairy man with a cigar and gross sunglasses on. His mouth is open, and he looks like Bum Farto
A tweet from Rod Hilton in 2022 reading He talked about electric cars. I don't know anything about cars, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius. Then he talked about rockets. I don't know anything about rockets, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius. Now he talks about software. I happen to know a lot about software & Elon Musk is saying the stupidest shit I've ever heard anyone say, so when people say he's a genius I figure I should stay the hell away from his cars and rockets.
The state seal of Virginia, featuring, per Wikipedia: "The standing allegorical female figure of virtue is shown having vanquished tyranny, symbolized by a fallen king at her feet. She has an exposed breast in the manner of classical depictions of Amazons. The motto Sic semper tyrannis means "Thus always to tyrants.""
Gene Hackman in front of a big audio workstation.
An Achewood strip: [[Roast Beef and Ray are walking side by side]] Ray: So, like, the king used to have someone taste his food to make sure it wasn't poison, you know? Roast Beef: I've heard that yeah Ray: But what if the food taster knew to only eat a certain part that didn't have poison in it? What if it was a cahoots-type situation? Roast Beef: Well the taster probably operated on the understanding that if the king died an he didn't they'd go ahead and kill him too. Ray: Man, that is way smart of an analogy. Kings were clever as HELL. Roast Beef: Kings were raw. Ray: How do you even get to be king, anyway? Roast Beef: Just punch hell of suckers in the mouth and tell chicks straight up that you like them [[Ray stops and has a contemplative look on his face]] Ray: That's what the craziest dudes used to get sent to separate high school for! Roast Beef: Schools are exactly designed to keep dudes from becoming kings Ray: Now I'm actually wonderin' if I even LIKE kings, man. I'll see you later, I got to take stock.
the album cover for I LOVE YOU HONEYBEAR by Father John Misty. It features a bunch of fucked up animals and what looks like a Mother Mary holding Father John Misty as a sacred baby.
a screenshot from Crusader Kings III where the player has created a New Christian Faith called "AdVanced Catholcism", with a temporal head of faith and the tenets Divine Marriage, Pursuit of Power, and Sacred Lies.
An Achewood strip where Teodor says "Hey guys! Guess who just got :musicnotes: Yelled At!
Hardcover copies of THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS and RAKESFALL
Ranking Member Connolly’s Statement on President Trump’s Purge of Federal Inspectors General in the Dead of Night Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s firing of inspectors general of at least a dozen federal agencies: Trump’s Friday night coup to overthrow legally protected independent inspectors general is an attack on transparency and accountability, essential ingredients in our democratic form of government. Replacing independent inspectors general with political hacks will harm every American who relies on social security, veterans benefits, and a fair hearing at IRS on refunds and audits. On January 22, 2025, Ranking Member Connolly and Committee Democrats sent a letter to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), offering their support in preserving transparency, accountability, and independence within the Inspectors General community.
human language use takes place between individuals who share common ground and are mutually aware of that sharing (and its extent), who have communicative intents which they use language to convey, and who model each other's mental states as they communicate (617).
A little Frog Santa with a tag reading Fully Rely On God (FROG)
Orson Welles from F for Fake looking like a weirdo
An enormous Funfetti cake that says CONGRATULATIONS KENNY APPLE PhD on it. It has a wizard hat made out of chocolate in the middle, and little xbox controllers along the outside.
As much as Douglass intends to stand in the way of those would destroy the victory of an earlier age, he knows that, for him, "Time and strength are not equal to the task before me." And yet: But could I be heard by this great nation, I would call to mind the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its birth, it saluted a listening world. Its voice then, was as the trumpet of an archangel, summoning hoary forms of oppression and time honored tyranny, to judgement. Crowned heads heard it and shrieked. Toiling millions heard it and clapped their hands for joy. It announced the advent of a nation, based upon human brotherhood and the self-evident truths of liberty and equality. Its mission was the redemption of the world from the bondage of ages.
Front page of the New York Times website, with a prominent piece by the editorial board to VOTE TO END THE TRUMP ERA. The full piece, not just the headline, is there.