This is simply not technically possible. You cannot generate enough writing in-house to train an LLM. You cannot generate enough art in-house to train a GAN. People who think they have a model "trained on our own material" are using a base model of mass-scraped data, unknowingly or disingenuously.

If you know anyone who's hiring a front-end web developer remotely, please share Chris' info with them! His current place is giving off bad vibes, so he is looking for opportunities. He's the other half to @hand-designed.com so y'all seen his work! cabrailsford.com

Every year we try to find the derpiest zodiac statue for our entranceway and this year's a good one.

"No fucking AI assets" - a reminder that many good publishers that will disqualify any prototype with genAI placeholders, and that using it is at your own peril. Hooded Horse happens to be one of the best publishers out there at the moment, so this is a big one. kotaku.com/hooded-horse...

the discourse on what jobs are acceptable to replace with generative AI reveals a lot about what we think of other people's jobs

Are you a gamedev who's not using any GenAI in your pipeline? I'm currently compiling a list of such statements, either in the press, social media, or directly through your credit roll. Feel free to add more examples below.

Speaking of Brandon Sanderson I loooove his advice for writing. www.polygon.com/brandon-sand...

Finished the 4th Stormlight Archives book, Rhythm of War, and I think that was the best one so far. I loved every moment. Hoping I can read book 5 next year, then re-read the whole series in time for book 6 in 2031(ish).

Finally reading this great essay on what translators do and what language is! This part in particular hit home for me.

If your resolution this year is to support more independent bookstores, hi!👋🏽 We’re Bookshop.org, an ethical alternative to Amazon for buying books online where every purchase supports indie bookstores all over the U.S. 😌📚 (And our CEO has never gone to space, just saying)

Make music! Get on stage! Draw comics! Make zines! Translate books! Write novels! Put your weirdness out into the world! We need your art to stay sane in this increasingly wild world!

I was biking to work one day and a pigeon LEAPED out of some long grass as I turned a corner. Turning corner + dodging pigeon = wipe out. I effed up both knees and the palms of my hands and I still went to work covered in blood and bike oil 😂

You don't necessarily need to say "image of" in your alt text for users to know it's an image. Screen readers will announce that it's an image. But it can help readers to specify if it's a hand-drawn image, Polaroid, infographic, screenshot, chart, map, diagram, or so on.

Japan Post is out here doing the Lord's work, and while I salute their efforts, given the number of "A happy new year" greetings I still receive, they are fighting a losing battle.

LinkedIn is so stressful. I can't spend more than a few minutes on it because of all the sloppy crap. I would have quit it ages ago if it weren't for the nice messages I get saying they appreciate my posts or from aspiring translators asking for help.

If your Healthcare costs have gone up today's a good day to recalculate your freelance rate with Alexandria Neonakis' spreadsheet (make a copy to your own drive to edit) docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Deleted a repost of a thread. Looking closer, the person is comfortable sharing AI images & video. Was the thread also AI? Was it accurate? I’d rather not take the chance and share it. Journalists, keep this in mind. “Fun” AI videos & images undercut your credibility.

ugh

Fun Fact: One of the reasons Square was pushed to improve its localization practices in the 2000s is because Alexander O. Smith showed them reviews proving that people *cared* about translation quality. (Link to the full interview: web.archive.org/web/20091113...)

In 2026, let’s commit to supporting and celebrating human artists! 🎨 Character by @luseals.bsky.social and logo by @hinokodo.com

I have never heard of lemon pig until yesterday and now I'm seeing it everywhere 😂

In all seriousness 2025 was a stressful year. I didn't realise how stressed I was until the last few weeks when I wasn't and I suddenly had energy and felt more like myself. And although I didn't do as much outside of work as I would have liked, I did go on some fun adventures, including camping.

Happy New Year from Osaka!

I will never understand why they replaced community submitted subtitles for this nonsense Real human people were happy and willing to make subtitles in a variety of languages for free, and the creator had full control of what submissions were used And they GOT RID OF IT

Jet lag won't let me sleep. I've been awake for 22 hours and not tired at all.

This year I worked really hard on [redacted], going to [redacted] for [redacted] and even [redacted].

I've waited 3 years to make this post

another year, another 20+ translated Japanese game developer interviews published by @shmuplations.bsky.social at shmuplations.com —the final updates for the year just went up, so allow me to run down what's been translated over the course of 2025, from most to least recent: (thread)

What was your favourite book or manga you read in Japanese this year?

This is just going to always be my go-to response to this kind of thing anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

Just gonna say this again for games sphere cus we get the same question: Networking doesn't mean schmoozing up to famous people, it means making friends with your peers. Then in 10 years, 20, one of you might be famous? And sure you're still helping each other cus well yeah friends. Make. Friends.

I've found this to be true for the translation industry too. Making friends and supporting each other (building a network of amazing people) can open potential doors, but it takes years to build up those relationships. Fellow translators aren't competition, they're colleagues and friends.

The r/Fantasy Megasale has begun! Check out the books available at this link. All 3 of mine are on sale for 99¢ 🥰. The link to the Reddit thread with more info about the sale and comments of recommendations/community engagement etc. is in the next post. megasale.yrliu.com

I unfollow and remove connections here and on LinkedIn when I see they've used or shared AI slop in any way. No need to call it out, just cut them out and walk away.

Merry Christmas everyone! メリークリスマス！

I’ve created a personal account as the designer of the game brand Atelier Mimir. I look forward to connecting with you here. ゲームデザイナーの個人アカウントを作りました！フォローよろしくお願いします✨ portfolio｜ asami-yamanaka.foriio.com

Before the year ends is a great time to check out Best Literary Translations 2025 if you haven't yet. Such a massive honor to be included T_T bsky.app/profile/tris...

If you're in the giving spirit and have some free time soon, go through the games you've played and give them a review, it means a lot to Devs 🥹💖

I love Expedition 33, but this is absolutely the right thing to do. Good games shouldn't get a pass for using the plagiarism machine.

genAI is STOLEN WORK. Using genAI in *any* capacity is trafficking in stolen work, supporting the plunder. Period. These facts aren't even denied by the AI companies, they just find ways to make that plunder seem benevolent. Using their product enables that lie. Stop enabling the theft of our work.

French publishing house Harlequin decided to use AI translation instead of human translations. All their freelance translators (some of whom had been working with Harlequin for +30y!!!) were told they would no longer receive work from Harlequin

It's probably not well-known, but in some (not so rare) cases a SINGLE PAGE of manga can take 3-4 hours to letter. Get 2-3 pages like this and your day is fucked. Meanwhile, you might only have 7 days to finish the volume. The amount of work going into some books is absolutely mind-boggling.

Remember how I said I have it written into my foreign-language contracts that my work has to be translated by an actual human? This shit is why. Those book translations are gonna suck. They'll save money putting out books that are going to be painful to read. That's not a great long-term strategy.

Seeing the backlash against the use of generative AI makes me feel hopeful about humanity again.

Every person talking about AI is like "poor TomSteve. Having to do all that tedious work of slaving away making all those game assets. AI can liberate them from that!" Dude, that is literally their job.

We can do even more.

Been thinking on the use of GenAi for mood boards. Ethics and legal risks aside, I truly believe using GenAi as references deprives one of many pivotal things. Here’s a blurb on what I mean: