A Possibility
Last week we talked about a book now going unpublished because there were questions about AI assistance.
I wouldn't ever want AI assistance to write a book. I don't need it. Well, unless it was to check for typos. That would be quite nice, actually.
If I composed music or painted, I wouldn't want assistance, either.
Games, though, might be different.
I made Gridiron Solitaire all those years ago because it was a game I wanted to play. It didn't exist, so I made it. Then I continued to play it long after it was released.
I don't re-read the books I've written. I can't imagine musicians listening to their old albums, either, or painters spending hours with their old work.
A game, though, is play. I make games so I can play them.
So would I use AI if it made a game I wanted to play a better experience? I would. It might also make it possible to make a more complex, more interesting game than I originally imagined.
Which I would then continue to expand and play after I released it.
The only consideration, in the end, is would it be more fun?
A Tale of Two Days
Yesterday, five hours to edit half a a page.
Today, three hours to edit forty-five.
At times, writing is a very strange craft.
How It's Going
I spent five hours on half a page today.
This happens sometimes. Nobody is going to fix it but you. You just have to keep going. it doesn't make it any more fun, though.
The good news: I'm at the point where I can spend five hours fixing half a page. Being able to focus on such a small section is a luxury.
A Difference in Approach
I've been spending quite a bit of time playing
Pro Spirits 2026, the Japanese baseball game, focusing on high school (Koshien) mode.
I've been playing College Football 27, too, but not as much.
I'm struck by the difference in Konami's development approach versus EA's.
In Pro Spirits 2026, everything just works. Menus are snappy. Animations are correct. The level of jank is zero. Even though the gameplay loop in Koshien mode is quite repetitive, it's never annoying, because--like I said--it all works, and there are constantly tiny variations and individual moments that make the game feel alive.
College Football 27 is the third iteration of EA's return to college football. In typical EA fashion, they've revamped things that worked absolutely fine and made them different for no reason. Like the menus, which were snappy last year. Now, they're sluggish.
Other parts of the game have been revised in Dynasty, too, also for no reason. Things that never needed to be changed, like controls in slow sim, for example. These revisions have introduced bugs that didn't exist before.
Even after several patches, it's still a problem. The whole experience has more jank than I want, at least for now.
This is the difference in approach. Konami fundamentally opposes any jank in Pro Spirits 2026. It seems like a core development concept. EA doesn't prioritize reducing jank at all. I guess they assume it will be fixed eventually, even though it usually isn't.
I like the team developing NCAA. They've had two strong efforts in the last two years. But now, in typical EA fashion, they're going sideways.
Friday Links!
Leading off, some incredible photographs: Photographs of drama and emotion – the career of Chris Smith.
Uh-oh: This Atlantic hurricane season is looking like a dud, but there will be a price to pay.
This is staggering: Black lung rates in Appalachia are high as the 1970s, with thousands of miners sick.
French bulldogs are the GOAT, and here's another reason why: French bulldog dethrones ‘The Dream Team’ at World Dog Surfing Championships.
Disgusting: Accused of sex crimes, a San Francisco social climber turned to lawsuits, legal threats.
A fascinating story (and alarming): The Mysterious Case of the JetBlue Flight That Went Into Free Fall: Why would a perfectly good plane go rogue? The answer grounded 6,000 aircraft.
A long and fantastic read: Night Visitors: T.J. Clark on the Chauvet cave paintings.
From Wally, a thoughtful essay: Philip K. Dick Didn’t Fear Robots. He Feared You. I had no idea, really: After 40 years, Aliens is still shaping the way video games are made. The issue of copyright is a fascinating twist here: AI Questions Spoil Book & Movie Heat On Unpublished Debut Novel ‘Call Me, I’ll Hide The Body’ – The Dish.
A Fascinating Wrinkle
A novel titled Call Me, I'll Hide the Body was the new hotness, with a bidding war for both the book and film rights. Millions of dollars involved.
Then it all collapsed because questions were raised about AI use.
The reason, though, is interesting: copyright.
Because something created with AI can't be copyrighted, it raises the question of whether something assisted by AI in the process can be copyrighted. Where do you draw the line? If 5% of the content was written by AI, can it be copyrighted? 20%? Who knows?
The problem is that no one wants to pay millions of dollars for rights to something that can't be copyrighted. It renders the IP somewhat useless.
It's a mess, and I don't know how it gets resolved. It will, eventually, but it's going to take time.
The author denies using AI, but the publisher dropped him anyway. What's odd, though, is that he should have been able to prove he wasn't using AI to write his book. It's a basic principle of sound file retention.
I have a Word document for every day I worked on the book. For five years. I do this because if I make a change I regret, I can go back and look at the original text before it was changed. So no one could ever claim I used AI, because I could show them everything from the first four hundred words of the first draft forward.
Thoughts
Eli 25.0 sent me this quote from an article on ethical research, which was partially presented as a series of questions. The last question was this:
Have you forgiven yourself in advance for the limitations in what you will achieve?
I never imagined a single sentence could be so profound.
This is something I've never been able to do. Ever. I'm sure some of you are the same way. Somehow, just reading it gave me an enormous sense of relief.
I wrote this on a post-it and it's under my monitor now, where I'll see it every day. I have one other quote next to it, from Carlos Alcaraz:
It's amazing to be able to fight for big things.
Those two sentences cover much ground.
A Satisfied Customer
I think my dentist is money laundering.
I'm not complaining, mind you. It's a genuine boon for customer service.
The first time I went, six months ago, I walked in and asked if I could make an appointment to get my teeth cleaned. The offices were only half a mile from our house, and I decided to walk in and take a look around before I committed.
For new customers, two cleanings and x-rays for $125. Outrageous.
The receptionist said, "We can see you right now." Seriously?
I sailed right in. The hygienist who cleaned my teeth was a brute, and the woman who polished my teeth had probably never done it before, but whatever.
I noticed this week that my Sara Boynton twelve-month calendar, on August 5, said "DENTIST." No explanation. No details.
Present me cursed past me and decided to walk in and ask if I had an appointment or if I was just reminding myself to make one.
"Tomorrow at 1:30," the receptionist said, and I thanked her and stopped at the door on my way out to put in my earbuds. "Or would you just like to go in now?" she asked.
I looked at her with a large WTF on my face.
"Since you're already here," she said, "and the hygienist is here today." I nodded dumbly and she said they'd be right with me.
I figured they were fitting me in and I'd wait for a while, which was fine. Nope. Thirty seconds later, I'm called back.
This time, the hygienist was quite good.
The dentist looked at my x-rays and said, "That baby tooth is hanging by a thread. It has to come out sometime."
I said, "That baby tooth graduated college before you were born. It can handle itself." He burst out laughing and we got alone fine.
There's no way this place could possibly be legit. Or more convenient.
Stigmata: Screwdriver Edition
Sure, you thought I was crazy.
And why not? I probably am. It doesn't mean I'm wrong, though.
Isolated from the other screwdrivers, resting comfortably on a paper towel, the purple screwdriver continues to spontaneously weep its purple tears.
What trauma could a screwdriver have? What dark secrets?
Only the screwdriver knows.
Friday Links!
Eli 25.0 has a birthday today!
Leading off this week, what an adventure: The Boys Who Ran Away to New York: How Two Dublin Kids Fooled the World in 1985.
This is an incredible, bizarre, tragic story: https://wThe mystery of why Sonia Exelby paid a man to kill her.
An even-handed article on what AI can and can't do in a specific use case: What happens when you put AI to work deciphering lost languages?
From the Texas Monthly archives, and it's terrifically witty: The Hog Chronicles.
Incredibly, it still lives: Nudists, peaceniks and freeloading travellers: the people keeping the Esperanto dream alive.
Strawberries have this problem, too: Gassed Up: Tomato ripening rooms reveal the growing costs of the produce industry’s massive consolidation.
From Wally, and some of these are fantastic: 10 Biggest Lord of the Rings LEGO Sets, Ranked by Piece Count. This next includes two famous science fiction authors and a toaster: The Brave Little Toaster. An interesting read: Who Were the Sea Peoples? Exploring references in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
From David G., and it will never get old: Lawyer Reacts to the Insane Waterpark That Killed 6 People.
From Chris M., and it's an excellent read: We used to be able to buy things in this country: Locking up toothpaste was a warning sign that our executive class was crazy.
Unspeakable
I will tell the tale.
A few weeks ago, C brought out a pile of screwdrivers. "Something leaked all over them," she said. She cleaned the screwdrivers and put them in a wire basket.
On Sunday, I went looking for a screwdriver.
The purple one, the one in the photograph, was the perfect size. I picked it up and recoiled because it was covered in some kind of oily liquid, and there were purple tears of something along its spines.
I checked the other screwdrivers. They were clean and dry.
Odd, I thought. I washed the purple screwdriver--thoroughly--and used it without incident. Afterwards, it went into the wire basket.
Today, I needed it again. I pulled it out of the wire basket and IT WAS FULL OF PURPLE TEARS again.
The other screwdrivers, once again, were clean and dry. I could draw only one conclusion: the purple screwdriver is weeping.
What unspeakable hell is this screwdriver enduring? Will it ever be free? Or will it weep unto eternity?
I for one, am not encouraged.
Project 56, Starting With a Random Note About Yesterday
I originally called the Skipper "Captain" in yesterday's post. I've lost all credibility.
We have dozens of sports records in our family, all held by myself or Eli 24.11. He's surpassed me in most things by now, but my running records, particularly for shorter distances, are holding.
Mostly because he hasn't tried to beat them, but still. I'll take what I can get.
Last week he announced Project 56, his very brief training period to beat my 440 record (57). That's not fast, for a track runner, but it's not a pushover, either.
Also, the project name. Every attempt to beat a record has to have a cool project name. It's essential.
He has a few advantages. One, he's wearing spikes and I wore regular running shoes (heavy ones back then, too). Two, he's on a synthetic surface while I was running on a red dirt track. Three, the fastest 800 meter runner in Oxford history is helping him train, and is going to pace him during his attempt.
He's become the ultimate "guy who knows a guy" (or girl) for every conceivable situation.
Plus he's running on the same track where Roger Bannister first broke four minutes in the mile. Not cinders anymore, of course, but the same physical location. Epic.
He messaged me last weekend and said he'd done a test at 300 meters in 41.8 seconds. That translates to a 400-meter (440 yards, or very close) time of anywhere from 56.7 to 58.4, depending on his ability to hold form for the last 100 meters.
In other words, it doesn't appear to be a route.
He still has 3+ weeks of speed training to do, so I may be cooked. But he promised to have video of the record, at least, so I can enjoy watching him run that fast.
It's a great feeling when you're running as fast as you can. Nothing like it.
