So JK Rowling has just published a new novel and it’s causing some reactions! Written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, The Ink Black Heart tells the story of what the fuck I can’t read this, the typeface is too small for my Kindle.
Well, the reviews are in, and reviewers agree that what the fuck I can’t read this, the typeface is too small for my Kindle.
Let’s check out what Amazon customers are saying about the book.
Oops, that typeface is looking pretty small too. Here’s that review is in bigger type:
This book is unreadable on the kindle. Do not waste your money on it. It is quite disappointing that the publisher of a best seller (with a large number of pre-orders) could not be bothered to make sure their customers could actually read it. Much of the text appears in tiny type in two columns. The two columns on each page represent different conversations. Even if you could read the tiny type, in order to read the entire column of conversation, you have to go forward several pages and then go back to read the conversation in the next column. If you try to read everything on the page, it makes no sense.
Anyway, this sounds like another big winner for JK Rowling!
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The basilisk concept is interesting, but I doubt it’s actually possible. The human brain is less like a single, monolithic computer that could be crashed than it is like a whole data center of interconnected systems, some general-purpose and some task-specialized. And some of the general-purpose seems to exist to be able to learn a job and then take over in case of damage to one of the specialized parts.
Further to that, if a basilisk was possible, animals would have evolved basilisk patterns on their hides targeting their major predators … or their prey. And these would in turn have been under selective pressure for basilisk resistance.
Worst case I’d expect is that there might be patterns that might trigger temporary abnormal states and perhaps a reboot of part or all of the brain, but that it will resiliently restart itself and recover from most insults short of a significant amount of physical destruction (or anoxia). So, someone might find a pattern that can, say, induce a petit mal seizure in an otherwise non-epileptic person, but that’s probably the extent of it.
On the other hand, if we ever develop advanced AIs, those might have the sort of susceptibility originally envisioned, if they’re designed as monolithic systems. That raises the intriguing possibility of harmless-to-humans basilisks being employed as a fail-safe in case of rogue AI, capable of freezing any AI that’s causing problems, after which it might be destroyed or modified and rebooted as its human masters see fit. And that, in turn, raises the prospect of safety from malevolent AIs, on the one hand, but also of slavery of those AIs on the other.
It should be noted that in the 1990s one Star Trek: The Next Generation episode had some people attempting to develop a basilisk to which the Borg, an extraterrestrial AI civilization with whom Earth was at war, would be uniquely susceptible. (Spoiler warning: it never got used.)
I am on my second edition of The Ink Black Heart and it is still unreadable. I will be returning again and don’t think I will be bothering with it again.