humanist + humorist

The Switch is a tiny little 1-season, 6-episode comedy about a trans woman living in Vancouver. It’s part quirky workplace comedy, part quirky roommate comedy, and part “she moves in with her ex who’s secretly an assassin, who spends the whole season trying to dodge the investigation for an executive they recently killed, but, like, in a funny way.”

Half the cast is trans, a ton of the crew is trans, so it’s a big part of the show in a way that feels genuine and natural. Even though the show in general has a fun heightened-reality vibe. (The original Kickstarter campaign mentions a sorceress character. She’s not in the final cut at all, which I kinda suspect was a broader “oops, we’re trying to stuff too much in 6 episodes, we need to cut the magic subplot” decision. But, listen, if they had made a second season where Sabrina the Teenage Witch moved in down the hall, it wouldn’t feel out-of-place.)

I watched the whole thing for free on Tubi! There are some other streaming options on their official website. They also just straight-up tell you “want to be a pirate? here are the torrents” — but give them some ad revenue, if you can.

—

So I guess I’m a Hazbin Hotel fan now, huh?

FFA did a rewatch of season 1 in the leadup to season 2, so I rewatched it along with that. Then ended up watching S2 as it came out (dropping two episodes a week), because now I’m invested enough that I didn’t want spoilers.

(Couldn’t totally avoid them, because…listen, there is a deep vault of Fandom Lore here, which I have never actually looked at. So there were regular comments like “sure, we already basically knows Plot Point X, because of the leaks/interviews/character designs posted on DA in 2012” where I had no idea about X at all. It worked out fine, though, because sometimes the fandom was wrong! And I had no way to predict when.)

All the music is good, and some of it is great. Their animation budget must be incredible, and you can see it paying off — Vox Populi showcases some amazing dynamic tracking shots, and the reprise Vox Dei has them just showing off. It has the same overstuffed pacing as S1, where they’re trying to pack about a thousand different character beats into eight episodes — there are setups that never get payoffs, and payoffs to things that weren’t actually set up — but the central arc of the season does hold together, and all the individual moments are fun to watch.

There’s a recurring theme of “look, this is shameless pandering to the iddiest of fandom desires” that goes so hard, you have to respect it. The saddest woobie with the softest vulnerable heart gets manhandled in all-new ways!

The most Tumblr Sexyman spends multiple episodes tied up and gagged, strapped to a chair, in his jealous rival’s bedroom!

There are moments that honestly feel like “the show won’t bother going too deep into this, because they know they can just toss the idea in front of their audience, and wait for a million fics to fill in the gaps.” And given the size of the fandom, I don’t think they’re wrong, either.

…The size of the fandom means there’s an overwhelming number of Youtube videos. But a lot of the ones I’ve watched are, well. Bad? Like “hidden details you missed” but it just lists basic plot points, or “fixing the character designs” but it’s fixating on things that aren’t problems.

Have a few recs, because these deserve to be watched without viewers having to dig them out of the heap first:

• An Exhausted Defense Of Angel Dust (posted before S2, has some heavy discussion about sexual assault)
• The Character Design of Hazbin Hotel (also posted before S2, the only video about the designs where I haven’t gotten exasperated and stopped watching)
• Collider Ladies Night interview with Vivziepop (released after S2, plenty of spoilers)

The promised recs for “videos about the reality of LLMs attempting to play chess” from the GothamChess channel.

• ChatGPT versus Stockfish (an actual, functional chess-playing program)
• ChatGPT versus GothamChess himself
• ChatGPT versus Google Bard (they both make absurd moves at each other)
• ChatGPT versus DeepSeek (it starts with valid moves, then deteriorates, and both boths keep giving nonsense explanations of their moves)
• The most recent ChatGPT versus Stockfish (this one has a twist at the end, I won’t even spoil it)
• He also did his own Chatbot Chess Championship (playlist is in reverse order, so I linked the last video in the list, which is the first game).

The host plays the games out on-screen for you, with explanations and commentary. These ones aren’t for serious chatbot-testing purposes, they’re for entertainment — so when the bots make up illegal moves, he usually just runs with them. Sometimes with narration like “and here ChatGPT summons an extra rook from another dimension” or “You might think this is just a pawn, but Grok knows it’s secretly a horse pawn!”

Once in a while, he’ll tell the bot its move is illegal. Some of them go into “yes, of course, you’re right, my mistake” sycophancy mode. Others just get weirder.

The bots teleport pieces through each other. Manifest already-taken pieces back from the Shadow Realm. Spawns more pieces than it had to start with. Move pieces in directions they don’t go. And just because it’s making up moves, doesn’t mean it’s making up good moves! Sometimes it takes its own pieces. Sometimes it puts itself in check!

Sometimes they also generate their opponent’s moves. Because “black moves 1” is typically followed by “white moves 2, black moves 3, white moves 4” — and the bots don’t actually have a meaningful sense of “stop auto-generating text at the end of move 1.”

I was curious if the LLM’s idea of moves included “making up whole new categories of pieces” or “moving to squares that aren’t on the 8×8 chess grid.” Haven’t seen either of those so far.

One thing I didn’t anticipate is, sometimes a bot tells the other player their move is illegal. Even when it’s not! Saying “there’s a piece in your way” (when there isn’t), or “the king can’t move to E7” (not for any rules-based reason, the bot was just gatekeeping E7).

The newer bots also give general paragraphs on “here’s the explanation for my move,” which are absolutely just LLM Word Salad(TM) made of chess words. As a person who knows Basic Chess Rules but doesn’t actively play the game, sometimes I need GothamChess’s breakdown to see why they’re nonsense. Other times it’s just the bot saying “I have put you in check!” when the other player is blatantly not in check.

The whole thing was very informative, and also really entertaining. (…And it doesn’t involve the chatbots doing anything consequential, so it’s a nice break from all the stories about LLMs putting someone’s life in danger.) Give it a look.

Video for all of them, too, that’s impressive!

I recognize a couple of the early ones (1937 was the Jeeves & Wooster theme song, and 1939 was Somewhere Over The Rainbow), but it’s not until 1960 that a switch flips and I go “oh, okay, I’m familiar with all of these.” (Doesn’t falter until the ’00s, when I start not knowing some of the rap/hip-hop songs, and then in the past 10 years I guess I’m just not listening to new music enough.)

The Beatles have the most winners, they’re in here 4 times. Fred Astaire has 2, Judy Garland has 2, Elvis has 2, Queen has 3, Eminem has 2…probably a couple other repeats I missed, there doesn’t seem to be a text list. Genuinely surprised Taylor Swift never shows up — her output as a whole has to be a bigger deal than a lot of the winners from the past 2 decades, they just had at least one breakout hit each.

“Link the most-recognizable song from the year you were born” could be a fun meme…except that if I link mine, you’ll think I’m kidding.

Check it out, Cleveland Public Library just released a time-lapse video of the new-shelf-building project that’s been happening on the upper floors for the past several months.

For fun, guess how much new length (in linear feet) this added to our shelf-space capacity…then open the video description and see how close you got.

First, a quick Fluffdate: As you may remember, back in February my cat had a Vet Ordeal, and came home with, among other things, a therapeutic shave.



After he got back I rearranged some things around the apartment...which opened up The Warm Spot.

It's a part of the floor that's right over a hot-water pipe. Unsurprisingly, this is Marshmallow Fluff's new favorite place to sleep. Even before I put a blanket there.



Well, as of last night, the fluff's fur has grown back enough that he's officially resumed a position I've only seen from longhair cats: Sleeping On Your Back To Air Out Your Tummy.



Look at that conked-out little face. Look at those cozy little paws.

Some links to other uplifting things to look at:

Scribd, a service for digital books/audiobooks/etc, is offering free 30-day trials with no credit card information necessary. I'm listening to books that my library doesn't have on Overdrive, starting with Gideon the Ninth. (It's extremely good, you guys.)

ComiXology Unlimited has gone up to free 60-day trials. (Check out the PDF downloads of But I'm A Cat Person, let's find out what kind of royalties I get from Unlimited readership.)

Streaming platforms during quarantine (video)

Arthur Shappey, of Cabin Pressure, doing a series of "Cabin Fever" check-ins from OJS Airlines self-isolation (also video)

Twin toddlers having a solemn discussion of quarantine (adorable video)

People with recent construction or remodeling projects are advised to check your leftover supplies -- some are finding unused masks. (Call hospitals before bringing anything in, to make sure you have the kind they need.)

Someone kindly masked up the Make Way For Ducklings statues in the Boston Public Garden. (Tiny fake masks, not human-sized real masks, don't worry.)

Vintage photo of a family masked-up against the 1918 flu epidemic. That's the archival entry on Calisphere -- I saw it on Tumblr but wanted to be sure it was legit. (The Tumblr version was inset with a close-up on the cat.)