Where You Are

Previous poll review
In the Subscriptions poll, 27.1% of respondents have cancelled a subscription for political reasons lately, and a further 6.2% are thinking about it. That is a large proportion! Also, 35.4% agreed with "grar at everything".

In ticky-boxes, hard copy media came second to hugs, 39.6% to 68.8%. Lemurs got 31.2%. Thank you for your votes!!

Reading
Still reading Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers (an engaging shaggy dog story, so far). Nothing really in audio.

Kdramas
A few episodes into Knight Flower and enjoying it very much. The male lead is whatever, but the female lead is 100% delightful.

We finished Typhoon Family. Unfortunately it felt like it got shaggier and more shambolic as it went along, so that was a little unsatisfying. The least good Junho drama of the four I've seen.

Pru and I are making our way through Family by Choice, ahhh I love this show!!

Other TV
It feels like we're watching a ton of currently airing things, but now we've finished Typhoon Family, it's really just Down Cemetery Road (excellent) and Pluribus, which is a metaphor for half a dozen different things (Covid, grief, AI, et al).

We also still have Prehistoric Planet on the go, and last night we watched the first two episodes of the new season of Stranger Things, though I ended up colouring in and just looking up from time to time. Not super in the mood for watching people in peril. (At some point we'll probably watch the whole show right through, so I can always catch up properly then.)

Audio entertainment
Letters from an American, Cross Party Lines, some 99% Invisible. And a bunch of episodes of Shell Game, in season 1 of which, the podcaster makes some AI agents with his voice and deploys them at various people (including at his partner and friends). I thought this might be interesting because, while I've listened to a bunch of stuff about how AI is personally, politically and existentially terrible for our selves, societies and planet, I hadn't heard much about the experience of using it. I expected Shell Game to document the fact that it's just kind of crap. But although an "AI agent" is just a voice simulator reading ChatGPT outputs full of made-up nonsense, the podcaster seems weirdly invested in seeing them as mini-mes. Ot1h, using it to engage with scammers and spammers? Sure, why not? Otoh, sending his AI agent to AI therapy?? And then real therapy with a human therapist?? Very strange choices. I kind of want to shake him and remind him that there is NOTHING IN THERE!! (Maybe he reaches that conclusion in the final episode? I'm not there yet.) In season 2, he creates a start-up that is staffed entirely by himself and a bunch of AI agents. I'm not sure this is for me.

Guardian/Fandom
( Rambling about Guardian. )

Writing/making things
Working on my Yuletide fic. It's slow going, but I'm enjoying it. Need to think of something for the new fan_flashworks round (prompt: Boss).

Link dump
ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study (Time Magazine, Jun 24, 2025) | New Zealand chant (Reddit). :D :D :D

Good things
The boy, the cat, the house. The public health system (what's left of it). Online and offline friends. All the media, everywhere, all at once. Fandom, Guardian, Yuletide, squee. Starting and finishing this post all in one day.