maeve66 | Network

dinogrrl posting in

Hello wonderful people!

I've got a fantasy story that's set in early 18th-century Venice. I don't speak Italian, and definitely don't know the difference between the various regional dialects, so I'm looking for some help with a nickname in Venetian.

I have a priest who can use magic, who is not exactly a nice guy. Nobody likes to be around him, he's the kind of person you can just tell will erupt like a magic-spewing volcano the moment something doesn't go his way. My main character is ten when she first meets him and has a very visceral Do Not Like reaction to him, comparing him to a pack of rabid dogs. She is not told his name at the time, so in her mind she dubs him Father Mad Dog (creative, I know).

Several years ago I tried to parse "Father Mad Dog" into Italian/Venetian, and I don't know where I came to the conclusion that it'd be "Don Can' Pazzo" but that's what I've been using. I guess somewhere along the line I was under the impression that cane would get shortened to can when used like this. Is any of this correct? Or do I need another phrase entirely?

pivot_to_ai_feed

Posted by David Gerard

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/06/venture-capital-is-lending-money-against-video-cards/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=4959

Last year, Wall Street finance firms started making loans, using video cards as collateral — that famously long-term asset class that solidly maintains its value over, ooh, months. Investment bankers and hedge funds got in on the action too. [FT, archive; Bloomberg, archive]

AI bubble companies want the money so they can buy more Nvidia cards. I’m sure it’ll be fine.

The venture capitalists are diving into this wonderful market. 38% of this year’s venture debt borrowers have been generative AI and machine learning companies.

Venture debt lending was $27.4 billion in 2023, which near-doubled to $53.3 billion in 2024. VCs have lent out $30 billion just in the first half of this year. [Pitchbook; Pitchbook]

Venture capital investors really want some cash back, thanks. And the nice thing about loans is that they pay interest in the near term.

The VC guys are making deals so they can say they made a deal. It doesn’t matter if they’re lending against an asset made of fluff. It’s bubble economics. The loan itself is a great big asset on the books. Number goes up!

What if it all goes wrong? That’s OK! In a bankruptcy, creditors get paid first — they’ll get what’s left of the money those other venture capital firms invested in the companies. So if you can’t invest, lend.

But also, all of this is a bubble and everyone knows it’s a bubble. Forget the future — right now, they can’t make plans past lunchtime. This morning, it’s a good deal. This afternoon, ehh, that’s this afternoon’s problem.

Video version

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/06/venture-capital-is-lending-money-against-video-cards/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=4959

petra

I offered to write drabbles and poetry: that offer is still open. Request something and make my day!

Here's what I've made so far:

Strike a pose (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Tim Drake/Dick Grayson, Tim Drake/Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson
Characters: Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson
Additional Tags: Drabble, Video Cameras, Voyeurism
Summary:

Tim chooses his moment to best advantage.

*

External hearts are a disabling condition (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent
Additional Tags: Psychic Wolves, Drabble
Summary:

Bruce's wolfsister and his duty to the League.

*

The movement of (astronomical) bodies (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Carrot Ironfoundersson/Angua von Uberwald
Characters: Carrot Ironfoundersson, Angua von Uberwald
Additional Tags: Drabble, lycanthropy
Summary:

Carrot's favorite time of the month.

*

Interstellar Deliveroo (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Arthur Dent/Ford Prefect
Characters: Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect
Additional Tags: Drabble, Gig Economy
Summary:

Arthur gets a new job, and does as well at it as he does at everything else.

*

It's possible to be too beautiful (187 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker
Additional Tags: Bad Poetry, Sonnets, Adolescent Poetry, Shakespearean Sonnets
Summary:

Prompt: young Anakin's Very Bad But Heartfelt poetry (directed at your choice).

*

If wishes were horses (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Strangers in Paradise (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Casey Bullocks-Femur/Katina Choovanski/Francine Peters/David Qin
Characters: Katina Choovanski
Additional Tags: Drabble, Masturbation
Summary:

Katchoo fantasizes.

*

Exploring the collection (200 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan/Alys Vorpatril
Characters: Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Alys Vorpatril
Additional Tags: Sex Toys, Double Drabble
Summary:

Alys shares her collection of specialized implements with Cordelia.

Current Mood: curatorial
Current Music: And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul

theharbourreader

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
— Emerson

Hi friends - and welcome! Whether you found me through the addme community or wandered in some other way, I’m really glad you’re here. 🐚🌞

This little corner of the internet is part journal, part book nook, part daydream. I’ll be sharing personal thoughts, reading notes, and soft seasonal things—sunlight on the water, library hauls, the occasional poem. Think cozy coastal mornings and late-80s summer nostalgia. 🌼

June felt like a reset in ways I didn’t expect. I slowed down - on purpose and not. I let go of a few things that weren’t sitting right, gave myself permission to just be without pushing for productivity. It was quiet, internal, and a little uncertain, but I think I needed that pause.

July, though... July feels like it wants to be brighter. Not necessarily louder or busier, but lighter in spirit. More sun on skin. More open windows. More intentional joy.

I’m craving slow mornings with iced coffee and a book, walks that feel like wandering, and maybe starting a little creative project just for me. I want to lean into what feels good without needing to explain it. Quiet delight. Soft momentum.

So this is a soft launch of sorts. A quiet beginning. A new rhythm. A space to fill, slowly.

Feel free to say hi or introduce yourself below - I’d love to hear what this month looks like for you. 💛

(And maybe I’ll add a little July moodboard here soon…)

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6757 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #965.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

petra

Today's jumpscare: the second most common relationship for Arthur Dent is Khan Noonien Singh, because of bad casting and Sherlock obsession on the part of fandom.

I still haven't seen the real Khan movie, but its Robot Chicken opera version made more of an impression on me than the AOS version where they cast B--- C---, which I have never watched and never intend to see.

Current Mood: oh no
Current Music: Khaaan! Khaaan! Khaaan!

conuly

Eirenicon: A proposal to resolve disputes and reconcile differences in order to advance peace, strengthen or establish unity, or foster solidarity.

************************

( Read more... )

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: hopeful

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: relaxed

sovay

I screamed in dismay in the middle of the night because I had just seen the news that Kenneth Colley died.

I saw him in roles beyond the megafamous one, of course, and he was everything from inevitable to excellent in them, but it happens that last week

spatch and I took the excuse of a genuinely fun fact to rewatch Return of the Jedi (1983) and at home on my own couch I cheered his typically controlled and almost imperceptibly nervy appearance aboard the Executor, which by the actor's own account was exactly how he had gotten this assignment stationed off the sanctuary moon of Endor in the first place, the only Imperial officer to reprise his role by popular demand. In hindsight of more ground-level explorations of the Empire like Rogue One (2016) and Andor (2022–25), Admiral Piett looks like the parent and original of their careerists and idealists, all too human in their sunk cost loyalties to a regime to which they are interchangeably disposable, but just the slight shock-stillness of his face as he swallows his promotion from frying pan to fire would have kept an audience rooting for him against their own moral alignment so long as they had ever once held a job. It didn't hurt that he never looked like he'd gotten a good night's sleep in his life, not even when he was younger and turning up as randomly as an ill-fated Teddy-boy trickster on The Avengers (1961–69) or one of the lights of the impeccably awful am-dram Hammer send-up that is the best scene in The Blood Beast Terror (1968). Years before I saw the film it came from, a still of him and his haunted face in I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)—smoking in bed, stretched out all in black on the white sheets like a catafalque—crossbred with a nightmare of mine into a poem. Out of sincere curiosity, I'll take a time machine ticket for his 1979 Benedick for the RSC.

He played Hitler for Ken Russell and Jesus for the Pythons: I am not in danger of having nothing to watch for his memory, as ever it's just the memory that's the kicker. No actor or artist or writer of importance to me has yet turned out to be immortal, but I resent the interference of COVID-19 in this one. In the haphazard way that I collected character actors, he would have been one of the earlier, almost certainly tapping in his glass-darkly fashion into my longstanding soft spot for harried functionaries of all flavors even when actual bureaucracy has done its best for most of my life to kill me. I am glad he was still in the world the last time I saw him. A friend no longer on LJ/DW already wrote him the best eulogy.

Current Music: Slumber Party, "Soldier"

petra

I am having a difficult brainweasel day, and would like to counteract that by making you some words. I am feeling poetic, with a side-order of "Drabbles are nice," so:

Comment with: Drabble or Poetry, Fandom(s) from the list of things I know, Character[/Character/etc.], Prompt (if any).

Feel free to publicize this.

Current Mood: aspiring
Current Music: I like your -- how you say? -- imperturbable perspicacity

pivot_to_ai_feed

Posted by David Gerard

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/05/google-veo-3-fails-week-3-fail-harder-with-a-vengeance/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=4949

When you’ve read this post, go watch the worked examples on YouTube. [YouTube]

Our good friend Aron Peterson, a.k.a. Shokunin Studio, is a media production professional. He experiments with AI image and video generators. But he also knows what professional quality is.

Google Veo 3 is the new hotness in video generation. It does sound as well as video. But can it follow a script? You can’t do professional work if you can’t follow a script.

AI shills keep claiming that video generators like Veo 3 can do professional work. Aron thought: let’s take the AI pumpers at their word. Let’s use Veo like an AV professional would do.

As we’ve seen over the past two weeks, Veo will not take direction. It has no consistency. It keeps making stuff up.

When AI promoters tell you that video generators will replace human actors any moment, they are lying.

Veo is really bad at keeping track of who says what in a scene. It gets confused and it drops to silence, it puts in nonsense text subtitles, or it drops in a random scene you didn’t ask for.

Veo can’t do voiceovers — it keeps making the actor speak the lines. Veo randomly switches between voiceover, physical monologue, subtitles with no voiceover, or complete silence.

Go to the video and listen to the audio quality in the Day 15 clip that remakes a scene from Godfather 2 (3:34 on). The Veo-generated sound is like it’s down a tunnel — like really bad compression artefacts or noise reduction turned up too high. You can hear odd effects in a lot of Veo audio, but it’s really obvious in this segment. Veo audio also clips a lot — particularly on sound effects.

Veo just can’t act. Aron tried doing a gangster movie, Sexy Beast by Jonathan Glazer:

Veo’s version of Don Logan wasn’t intimidating or a sociopath. It came across as a newsreader on British TV. There’s no tension. Generated actors are always bland no matter how well they generate.

For still image generators, it took a couple of years before they could render text that wasn’t random letter-shaped gibberish — and even then they still fail. The Veo developers didn’t bother doing that work, and Veo makes a complete mess of putting text on a screen.

Veo does plausible output — but only if you don’t really care what it spits out. If you’ll take any old garbage that looks plausible for seven seconds, Veo’s just the thing!

A lot of AI fans are still telling Aron it can’t be that stupid, he must be prompting it wrong. But they still haven’t posted a prompt that will work reliably for other people. Perhaps you can respond to this post, and show us what a good prompt engineer you are.

Now go watch the video for the fun stuff. And check out last week’s Veo fails and the week before.

Video version

Watch on YouTube

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/05/google-veo-3-fails-week-3-fail-harder-with-a-vengeance/

https://pivot-to-ai.com/?p=4949

redbird

Sometime in the last couple of months, someone posted a link to a site that had interesting looking shirts made of linen, for lower prices than most places charge. I forgot to bookmark it. Can anyone point me to it? or to something else that fits that description, even if you didn't see it here?

Edited to add: A the shirts were less expensive than I expected, which is a large part of why I'm interested. Those may have been sale prices, I don't remember.

Also, the were made of either linen or a linen blend, not "line".

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6756 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #965.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

case posting in

fandomsecrets

[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #968 ]

The first secret from this batch will be posted on July 12th.

RULES:
1. One secret link per comment.
2. 750x750 px or smaller.
3. Link directly to the image.

More details on how to send a secret in!

Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is.

Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret.

Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment!

lynn82md

I answer questions about living in Sweden while I do my make up.

Watch on YouTube

conuly

Holy fuck that’s awful :(

conuly

( Though, upon reflection, it's surprising that this hasn't happened before in 30+ years of menstruation )

I'd say that was the worst thing to happen this weekend, but then I glanced at the news, and how do things keep getting worse? I thought we might at least get a reprieve over the holiday weekend, Congress would all go on vacation and not pass any terrible bills in the interim, but I guess not.

I'm not linking to it, not today. I know how to take a break, even if they don't. Take this article on amenorrhea instead.

sovay

On the normality front, our street is full of cracks and bangs and whooshes from fireworks set off around the neighborhood, none so far combustibly. Otherwise I spent this Fourth of July with my husbands and my parents and eleven leaves of milkweed on which the monarch seen fluttering around the yard this afternoon had left her progeny. My hair still smells like grill smoke. Due to the size of one of the hamburgers, I folded it over into a double-decker with cheese and avocado and chipotle mayo and regret nothing about the hipster Dagwood sandwich. A quantity of peach pie and strawberries and cream were highlights of the dessert after a walk into the Great Meadows where the black water had risen under the boardwalk and the water lilies were growing in profusion from the last, droughtier time we had passed that way. I do not know the species of bird that has built a nest in the rhododendron beside the summer kitchen, but the three eggs in it are dye-blue.

On the non-normality front, I meant it about the spite: watching my country stripped for parts for the cruelty of it, half remixed atrocities, half sprint into dystopia, however complicated the American definition has always been, right now it still means my family of queers and rootless cosmopolitans and as most of the holidays we observe assert, we are still here. It's peculiar. I was not raised to think of my nationality as an important part of myself so much as an accident of history, much like the chain of immigrations and migrations that led to my birth in Boston. I was raised to carry home with me, not locate it in geography. I've been asked my whole life where I really come from. This administration in both its nameless rounds has managed to make me territorial about my country beyond the mechanisms of its democracy whose guardrails turned out to be such movable goalposts. It enrages me to be expected not to care that I have seen the pendulum swing like a wrecking ball in my lifetime, as if the trajectory were so inevitable that it absolves the avarice to do harm or the cowardice to prevent it. It is nothing to do with statues. The door to the stranger is supposed to be open.

The wet meadows of the Great Meadows are peatlands. They were cut for fuel in the nineteenth century, the surrealism of fossil fuels: twelve thousand years after the glaciers, ashes in a night. The color of their smoke filled the air sixteen years ago when some of the dryer acres burned. If you ask me, there's room for bog bodies.

Current Music: Japanese Breakfast, "Picture Window"

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: ecstatic

Profile

maeve66

June 2025

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Page Summary

dinogrrl in little_details - help with Venetian dialect
pivot_to_ai_feed - Venture capital is lending money against video cards
petra - Prose & Poem - DCU, Discworld, Hitchhiker's Guide, Star Wars, Strangers in Paradise, Vorkosigan
theharbourreader - July vibes
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET POST #6757 ]
petra - Fandom's foibles
conuly - Oh, I like this word!
minoanmiss - This is probably utterly hubristic of me
minoanmiss - Three Day Weekends Woot Woot
sovay - I'm a mercenary soldier and we all look the same
petra - Ask me to write you something!
pivot_to_ai_feed - Google Veo 3 fails, week 3 — fail harder with a vengeance
redbird - looking for a link/website
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET POST #6756 ]
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #968 ]
lynn82md - Q&A on Living in Sweden While I Do Make Up
conuly - When I made my previous post I hadn’t heard about the flooding
conuly - Well, that was unexpected and unpleasant
sovay - All of my ghosts are my home
minoanmiss - Twice in one day

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Theme: Sea Serpent by dancing_serpent
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Page generated Jul. 7th, 2025 12:27 am

Friends

... worth reading

Network

help with Venetian dialect

Venture capital is lending money against video cards

Prose & Poem - DCU, Discworld, Hitchhiker's Guide, Star Wars, Strangers in Paradise, Vorkosigan

July vibes

[ SECRET POST #6757 ]

Fandom's foibles

Oh, I like this word!

This is probably utterly hubristic of me

Three Day Weekends Woot Woot

I'm a mercenary soldier and we all look the same

Ask me to write you something!

Google Veo 3 fails, week 3 — fail harder with a vengeance

looking for a link/website

[ SECRET POST #6756 ]

[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #968 ]

Q&A on Living in Sweden While I Do Make Up

When I made my previous post I hadn’t heard about the flooding

Well, that was unexpected and unpleasant

All of my ghosts are my home

Twice in one day

Profile

June 2025

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Style Credit

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