The Byron Project and Byronics

So the Byron AI project is proceeding apace. Due to UATV going down, I was unable to make the planned announcement, but thanks to the devs it’s back up again and so I will make it on the Darkstream Monday night. Thanks to the 86/88 backers so far; we’ve tripled our initial objective and there are still five Custom Novel slots left.

And speaking of George Gordon his own bad self, I finished a mix and a music video for a song which my late co-lyricist in Soulsigma wrote as a short poem called THERE BE NONE OF BEAUTY’S DAUGHTERS, and which I dubbed PERFECTION. If you’d like to see the video and learn a little more about the technology behind it, you can do so at AI Central. I think you will be able to see the steady progression from the first attempt at a video to this one; I’ll put them up on UATV soon.

Don’t skip reading the poem at the top of the post; it’s excellent, it’s not very long, and it will add depth to your appreciation for both the song and the video.

DISCUSS ON SG

Escalation in the Red Sea

The third front in the War of the Straits is heating up again:

After the Encelia attack (Wednesday) and a further strike Friday on the Saudi vessel NCC MASA (minor hull damage, continued to destination per SPA), the Saudi-led coalition struck Houthi-held Hodeidah late Friday July 24. Al-Maliki framed it as a “proportionate military response against legitimate military targets” — sites used to threaten commercial shipping — and pointedly insisted the port itself wasn’t hit and remains open. The Houthis see it differently: Al Masirah says the strikes hit state telecommunications facilities in Hodeidah city and Kamaran Island (one woman injured there), with explosions reported at the port by Reuters. The Houthi Foreign Ministry warned Riyadh has made “escalation for escalation” the defining feature of the coming phase and that the strike “will prove costly.”

And sure enough, within hours, the Houthis launched 5 ballistic missiles launched at the ARAMCO oil terminal at Jazan Port, Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Aramco facilities in Jazan (also spelled Jizan) represent one of the company’s most ambitious and technologically advanced downstream projects — a fully integrated refinery, petrochemical complex, and power generation hub located in the far southwest of the Kingdom, on the Red Sea coast. The refinery is a full-conversion refinery, meaning it can process heavy crude into high-value light products rather than simply separating crude into fractions. Jazan is the largest gasification-based power facility in the world.

The Jazan complex is not merely a refinery — it is a fully integrated energy ecosystem that converts crude oil into refined products, petrochemicals, electricity, hydrogen, and industrial metals, all while minimizing waste and emissions. It represents Saudi Aramco’s vision of a smarter, lower-carbon downstream future and serves as the economic anchor for one of the Kingdom’s most ambitious regional development initiatives. In other words, the Houthis hit an extremely important Saudi Arabian energy asset.

The ball is now in the Saudi court. Will they escalate and attack the port facilities at Hodeidah or will they decide to call a halt to military operations and seek a diplomatic resolution? The smart move will be to go the diplomatic route. If they choose to strike more targets in Houthi-held territory then the Houthis’ next logical target would be the oil terminals at Yanbu.

Rather like Hitler in the Berlin bunker, Clown World is so desperate to keep its claws on the controls that it is not only risking its own fate, but the entire economic fate of the West on wars that are objectively unwinnable. And it appears that they will be attempting their own run for Argentina before they throw in the towel.

DISCUSS ON SG

The EU is a Pirate State

Send in the Marines…

European states have developed a mechanism that allows them to sell confiscated Russian oil without transferring the proceeds to its rightful owners, according to a decision in the official journal of the EU. European countries intend to dispose of seized Russian oil without transferring the proceeds to its owners; the corresponding decision was published in the official journal of the European Union, reports RIA News.

Before the adoption of the new package of sanctions, the embargo prohibited the purchase, import and transportation of Russian energy resources, but there was no mechanism for selling goods without transferring profits to the owner. The new amendments introduce this possibility for the first time. The mechanism will allow European countries to remove confiscated products from the ban, sell them to third parties and keep the proceeds for themselves.

I seem to recall something about “the shores of Tripoli”. The US Marines were sent there to deal with a piracy problem, and now we’ve got the European Union literally operating as an oil-pirating operation.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Addition of Economic Attrition

Instead of accepting the reality of its military defeat, Ukraine has tried to create political pressure on Russia by targeting the civilian population. To which, of course, Russia has responded by escalating and expanding the economic pain on Ukraine and Europe:

Ukraine is trying to redirect part of the cargo flow from the Odesa region. Due to the strikes on the port infrastructure of Odesa and ships in Ukrainian territorial waters, the largest container shipping operator, Maersk, has suspended operations at the Black Sea Fish Port and redirected ships to the Romanian port of Constanta. On July 27, Ukraine initiated an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council due to the cessation of ship traffic in the Odesa ports.

In addition, there is a slight increase in the volume of rail traffic of grain and oilseed cargoes, redirected from the Greater Odesa area, to the western railway border crossings (key stations: Chop, Uzhgorod, Mostyska, Rava-Ruska, Yagodin, Batievo, Vadul-Siret) and the Danube ports (Izmail, Reni, Kilia). The early involvement of the Moldovan port of 🇲🇩Giurgiu and the Romanian 🇷🇴Constanta (to which barges can be delivered from the Danube ports) is expected.

In the scheme of increasing rail transportation to the west, large grain storage facilities, located directly at the border stations or within 5-30 km of them, will play a key role, due to the need to transship from the broad gauge (1520 mm) to the European gauge (1435 mm).

However, land routes are not capable of completely replacing sea exports: their combined throughput is estimated at only 1-1.2 million tons per month, compared to the required 5-6 million tons. And this is under the condition that strikes on the railway infrastructure will not increase.

It is clear that the Russian side has finally found a truly sensitive vulnerability of the enemy and its sponsors, and pressure on them needs to be increased. The importance of Ukrainian agricultural products for its European sponsors will increase significantly this season – according to estimates by European industry associations, the June heatwave in Europe led to a loss of almost 9 million tons of grain.

This is why one has to have serious questions about the reality of war, especially when foreign leaders, or national leaders owned by foreign interests are involved. Ukraine can’t possibly win. The people are suffering greatly. And yet the leadership remains as bellicose and belligerent as ever.

And it’s not only Ukraine. Germany should be surrendering now too; its energy costs are skyrocketing and its economy is practically dehydrating. And yet, the so-called “leaders” keep banging on their war drums.

DISCUSS ON SG

A Strange New Regard for Peace

Larry Johnson contemplates why Israel’s warhawks and US neocons are being conspicuously quiet while Trump is pounding the war drums again:

During the first five weeks of Epic Fury Israel’s refineries in Haifa and Ashdod were hit and suffered significant damage. Those two refineries are essential for Israel’s ability to produce diesel and jet fuel. At present Israel is scraping by, but it does not have substantial reserves. Further damage to those refineries would create a fuel crisis for Israel, especially in terms of its ability to produce jet fuel. Without jet fuel, Israel’s ability to continue bombing Lebanon and Gaza would be severely constrained, if not eliminated. A lack of diesel would also cripple Israel’s ground operations. In short, renewed Iranian attacks on Israel’s refineries could leave Israel unable to continue military operations.

Translation: Israel knows the IDF will lose the next round. Washington, however, is not convinced of its own inability to defeat Iran. However, I don’t think that failing to join the incipient strikes is going to convince anyone, least of all the Iranian military strategists, that Israel has turned over a new leaf and genuinely wants peaceful coexistence in the region.

DISCUSS ON SG

If It Sounds Implausible

It is reliably fake. Especially when the Magic Negroes are said to be especially, impressively, astonishingly, magic.

Born to Ghanaian parents, Arday grew up on a council estate (the British equivalent of Section 8 housing) in south London. At age three he was diagnosed with global development delay and autism. Therapists said he would be confined to an assisted living facility. Miraculously, at 11 years old, he spoke his first word (“hello”). When he was 18, he learned to read and write.

Under the influence of a white high school teacher who “gave [him] agency,” Arday pursued higher education. After receiving a PhD from Liverpool John Moores University, he rocketed up the academic ladder as a scholar of racism, education, and inequality. In three years he went from senior lecturer at Roehampton (2018) to associate professor at Durham (2019) to professor at Glasgow (2021). Ivy League universities (plural) tried to recruit him, but he had his heart set on Oxford or Cambridge. In 2023, at age 37, he became the youngest black full professor in the history of Cambridge. He is one of the youngest people of any race to ever hold a chair professorship at Oxbridge.

In his spare time, Arday ran 30 marathons in 35 days and 300 miles in three days.

As of 2023, he had worked with “more than 70” charities and raised more than £5 million.

Up until his appointment at Cambridge, Arday continued to face unspecified hardships. As reported by the Guardian in 2023, despite previously being a professor at Durham and Glasgow, “He has barely slept over the past 15 years…, working through most nights—often on his academic and charity work, but sometimes just to make ends meet.”

Most seemingly credible successes are fake these days. There is absolutely no chance that the incredible ones are even remotely true. Especially not those that are connected to Clown World institutions like Oxford, Cambrdige, and registered charities in some way.

This story passes the sniff test about as well as rancid, month-old deli meat slipping past a customs hound.

DISCUSS ON SG

The End of the Boomer Cons

Not being a particularly social individual, I never really got conventions. I went to Minicon once because I had just published Rebel Moon and joined SFWA, and had been invited there. I loved CGDC before it was taken over by the marketing departments and you could still sit down and talk game design and development details for hours with Julian LeFay, John Romero, and Sid Meiers, but in general, I’ve never understood the appeal of consumer-related conventions. It appears the younger generations tend to agree:

For nearly its entire 39-year run, LibertyCon has sold out the same day registration opens. This year, it didn’t. Four days after badges went live, the convention posted an update fans aren’t used to seeing: “In a strange twist of events, there are still a few badges left for LibertyCon 39.”

That single sentence is a meaningful data point for a convention built the way LibertyCon is built. It’s capped by charter, historically at 750 attendees and more recently around 1,000, deliberately kept small so fans can actually sit down with guests rather than get lost in a crowd. It’s held every June in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and it leans heavily on Baen Books as its backbone, with the “Baen Roadshow” as a recurring programming staple and a guest list built around Baen’s own stable: David Weber, Larry Correia, David Drake, Timothy Zahn, and others who’ve anchored the convention’s identity for decades. A convention with a hard attendance cap, a loyal fanbase, and one of the most reliable backfill mechanisms in the genre (publisher name recognition) not selling out immediately isn’t a small shift. It’s a convention that has weathered a lot, including the death of its own founder, Timothy “Uncle Timmy” Bolgeo, and a last-minute venue change years ago, still selling out every single time until now.

The reason isn’t a mystery. Baen’s bench of marquee authors is aging, and there isn’t a wave of comparably famous younger names coming up behind them the way there was a decade ago. A convention that leans on its guest list to move tickets needs that list to keep refreshing, and when the same handful of names carry the show every year, the show ages right along with them. Older fans who built LibertyCon’s sellout streak for decades aren’t attending at the same rate they used to either, whether due to health, cost, or simply aging out of convention travel altogether. That’s not a knock on LibertyCon’s organizers, who by every account still run one of the best-managed conventions in the genre. It’s a structural problem no amount of good management fixes on its own.

It’s not a surprise that Baen has struggled post-Jim Baen. Most of the publishing industry is struggling; Castalia would be too if we had relied upon selling traditional hardcovers and paperbacks like everyone has done for decades.

But it’s still sad to see traditions dying, even if you understand the terrible choices that the johnny-come-latelies made thirty years ago that are finally coming home to roost. It’s not the political gatekeeping that has done them in, but it certainly assured their demise given the fact that the winds were against them. For some reason, the more difficult the environmental challenge, the more unreasonable people running these legacy organizations tend to become.

DISCUSS ON SG

A Genre Vote

Due to popular demand, we have added a new support tier to the Byron AI campaign. The $100 tier not only provides an ebook of the first novel produced by the Byron AI, but a vote on what the next genres or styles to be trained will be as well. We’re also going to add a stretch goal of adding the classic science fiction genre to the training when the public campaign hits $50k. The genre vote will be an ongoing right that isn’t limited to the campaign period; as we complete different genres and styles, we’ll turn to the original backers to help us decide what gets added next.

And yes, all of the higher tiers now come with this voting right as well and it applies to everyone who already backed the campaign.

The specific authorial style training will no doubt be controversial in certain circles, but a) those circles are already rabidly anti-AI and b) there is no copyright or trademark or patent or other intellectual protection of “style” or “look-and-feel” since the matter was settled by the US Supreme Court in 1994 and reaffirmed last year in the Anthropic lawsuit.

People tend to think of these things in terms of living authors, but the reality of copyright law is that the only substantive benefits are to the corporations who strip-mine it without respecting either the material or the author.

In other news, UATV is down. The devs don’t know why yet. We’ll keep you posted on that.

DISCUSS ON SG

One Trump, Two Trump

There are, of course, more than just two Trump avatars. We know there were at least six Bidens. The short, fat one in the front is the Clown World puppet. I don’t think we have any way of knowing if the original Trump is even still alive, but it’s certain that the main “President Trump” avatar who doesn’t care about the financial well-being of Americans, is waging a futile mercenary war on Iran, and just slapped 50 percent tariffs on Canada is not the same man who rode down the elevator in 2015.

DISCUSS ON SG