Written In Stone [Special Edition]
This Edition of The Members Drop Is Open For Everyone
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the latest edition of Written In Stone [WIS]. This newsletter is normally an exclusive for paid Members, but since it has been a few months since I have done so?
I have decided to open this post for everyone!
Sent and posted every Thursday, each drop will include site updates, news-bites, and personal musings, along with whatever else might be striking my fancy at the moment of publication.
I hope you enjoy this free offering…
You can now earn points toward free Membership! To get started, click the button below.
Behind The Scenes
IN A NOVEMBER article I discussed a desire to increase the number of posts I offer on The Stone Age, in the hope of serving the readers here as much quality content as possible. After a little over a month, I decided to check the results of that effort.
The totals? Since said-article I have dropped 25 total works. Considering I did not post that many pieces over the previous three-months combined… I feel pretty good about that.
Is it translating into subscriptions, views, and engagements? I am waiting to see if the seeds planted will bear future fruit before going there…
ASIDE FROM THAT little tidbit, I do not really have any stirring ‘behind the scenes’ stuff to share at this time, except that I plan to be fairly sparse over the next week. In fact, barring a super-inspiring item popping up? The only thing I will probably drop during this timeframe is next week’s edition of WIS, which I plan to post it earlier in the week than usual.
This means a new Stone Age WX will be posted next Friday morning (12/20/2024), while a fresh Three-Dot Tablet will drop two days later (12/22/2024).
As for the downtime itself? I intend to use it to clean up some digital things, iron out a few details on an overdue project or two, and gear up for the holiday ahead. Then maybe - maybe - I will actually HAVE something from ‘behind the scenes’ worth discussing.
I hope to, anyhow…
News-Bite: Malfeasance or Incompetence?
I WONDER IF this trend is ever going to end. I remember when ‘lab-leaks’ were fodder for horror novels and science-fiction films, but now? They are so frequent they are becoming nearly blasé…
Deadly virus samples went missing from lab in ‘major biosecurity breach’
Fox News
So is there another ‘viral plandemic’ in the works, or was this just a cataclysmic screwup? Neither possibility is terribly soothing…
Hundreds of deadly virus samples are missing from a laboratory in Australia, the Queensland government announced on Monday. The government has instructed [Australia’s public health department] to launch an investigation into what’s being described as a "major historical breach of biosecurity protocols," according to the online media statement.
According to reports, over 300 vials of ‘multiple infectious viruses’ mysteriously disappeared from a lab in northeastern Australia, and no one seems to know how this occurred. And many of these are considered particularly dangerous, with one being of the ‘animal-to-human’ variety while another can cause… rabies!
No risk here, right?
Of course not, and this is the kicker: Though they do not even know if the samples were stolen or destroyed, they confidently assure us that there is "no evidence of risk to the community."
Are they serious?
And how screwed up do your ‘lab protocols’ have to be that 300-plus vials vanish, and you cannot even ascertain whether or not they were destroyed? That rattles me more than anything else, to be honest.
If you do not know whether they had been lost, misplaced, or stolen? Okay, that’s horrible, yes, but at least I can wrap my mind around it. But the notion you are so incompetent that you do not know if you destroyed them or not?
As I said… rattled.
Normally I would be inclined to think that this is just another COVID-like psyop, an attempt to utilize fear to corral the mindless masses. Just one problem with that scenario here, however: If it were a psyop they would be hyping up the fear, not trying to reign it in.
To me, unwarranted reassurance is scarier than fear-mongering, because it is an indicator of when they have no control over a situation. I mean, they have several vials of potentially-deadly pathogens they are unable to locate at all, yet their response is all, “Relax, folks - we got this.”
Think about it: If this were a legitimate psyop, they’d be all over the “You’re all going to die except we have developed / are developing a vaccine to save you,” nonsense, trying to get us ‘in line.’ But this? This, “nothing to fear,” response?
Yeah, I got a feeling something else is going on here, folks - something that will not be good for us commoners…
An ‘X’ File
IT’S FUNNY HOW a little thing, even just a mild annoyance, can upset an entire applecart. Case in point: My recent experience with the platform known as X.
When I initially re-subscribed for their monthly premium service, I did so for two primary reasons: To test their Grok 2 as an image generator, and to explore the possibility of offering paid subs on the platform (the whole, ‘eggs in one basket’ idea).
Regarding the latter, at the time I re-subbed a user only needed a minimum 500 followers to be able to offer people subscription-based posts, and since I had well-surpassed that threshold? I was planning to expand to the platform after the first of the year, mirroring part of what I was already offering here on The Stone Age (not all of it, because Substack is still my home-base). And as for the former?
Grok was nothing short of amazing. I was able to generate superior images, with realistic faces / hands and weather-related shots that were borderline-artistic. As I thought the images greatly enhanced my offerings here, $8 a month seemed like a no-brainer.
Then X made a change. Actually, they made two… and my entire attitude shifted.
First they shipped an update to Grok… and now it absolutely sucks, with cocked eyes, misplaced appendages, and mangled fingers being the order of the day. Their WX-shots became bland and uninspired, with landscape creations suddenly unfit for a child’s coloring book. To put it bluntly, in one fail swoop Grok’s images became inferior to what I could generate even with the Substack tool… and I can use that for free.
The second change they made was inexcusable for a multinational concern; they upped the number of followers one must have to be able to take advantage of the subscriber program, from 500 regular followers… to 2,000 verified followers. The shifting goalposts and elitist ‘gatekeeping’ (the ‘clique’ mindset) is not something I can support, especially since platforms like Substack allow people to offer paid subscriptions from the word ‘go.’
Throw in the false-claims of ‘free-speech’ and a degradation in the overall quality of content, both of which I have discussed multiple times here, and I have chosen to cancel their premium service (effective December 19). I will thus be seeking out another tool for images and - until I find that tool - will be using images that I have either saved (I have a deep library of them) or generate with Substack’s free image generator.
And the moral of this story? What is real today can change tomorrow, always have multiple back-up plans in place, and don’t expect self-absorbed billionaires - who fantasize about literally going to Mars - to make business decisions that have any chance of benefiting you.
Of course, I already knew all of this, but every now and then life gives a refresher…
AND THAT IS all for this free edition of Written In Stone. I hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to seeing you here later next week.
Until then…
- Stone
Thank you for your continued support, and - if not already a subscriber - join me as we build a unique Substack subculture of information, entertainment, and enlightenment.
Notes…
-- Unless otherwise credited, all images were generated by the author, using Grok 2 (on X), or Substack’s AI Image Tool.
Viruses, monkeys, little green men, what will they misplace next 😆
Very interesting Stone. I've fallen back online due to the parks internet. So, using my phone. I don't like using it, and right now instead of the 15 platforms, just here for now
Anyway, I found your article very interesting! Thank you