Dems want to investigate Signal blunder. And, federal return-to-office complications
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/26/g-s1-55962/up-first-newsletter-war-plans-signal-ukraine-russia-black-sea-federal-workers?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into U.S. News @u-s-news-npr
Giant "nightmare bee" that was once thought to be extinct is discovered alive
While the world's largest bee may seem horrifying, discoverers celebrated its survivalCaitlin O'Kane (CBS News)
Living ‘Bee Fences’ Protect Farmers from Elephants, and Vice Versa
scientificamerican.com/article…
Living 'Bee Fences' Protect Farmers from Elephants, and Vice Versa
A string of hives between posts can fend off the pachyderms better than other deterrents, research showsCari Shane (Scientific American)
thepihut.com/
Fast and elegant and clear. A real achievement in my view.
The Ultimate Raspberry Pi & Maker Store
The #1 Raspberry Pi & Maker superstore. Official Raspberry Pi reseller. The largest range of maker products with all your favourite brands under one roof. Next Day delivery available.The Pi Hut
A US Senator comments
Watch the trailer. 6 minutes.
youtube.com/watch?v=Iuu5Hr8GTu…
Donald Trump's Colossal F*ckup
--- Join the conversation: → https://www.schiff.senate.gov→ https://www.facebook.com/SenAdamSchiff→ https://www.twitter.com/SenAdamSchiff→ https://www.instag...YouTube
The nice thing about cybertrucks is that you can dunk on them endlessly without ever hurting someone who didn't earn it.
In 1962, an artist from Philly named Howard Smith was invited to a youth festival in Helsinki. He went — and stayed — becoming one of Finland's most notable artists and designers.
Years later, he found out the journey (and the festival) had been funded by the CIA.
My story:
altaonline.com/culture/art/a63…
The CIA and the Collagist
Howard Smith found fame overseas but stayed obscure at home. Discover how a CIA-funded trip to Finland launched a boundary-breaking art career.Carolina A. Miranda (Alta Online)
EuroMillones.com - EuroMillions results, information and statistics
Euromillones.com, the latest EuroMillions draw results as they happen and all the information and statistics about the game.euromillones.com
(Und man müsste ja gar nicht hinfahren, sondern kann ganz bequem online mitspielen 😉 )
The AI bots that desperately need OSS for code training, are now slowly killing OSS by overloading every site.
The curl website is now at 77TB/month, or 8GB every five minutes.
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/dev…
Open Source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries
AI bots hungry for data are taking down FOSS sites by accident, but humans are fighting back.Benj Edwards (Ars Technica)
reshared this
Who are ECRA and What is an Ethiscore? - Ethical Revolution
ECRA is the Ethical Consumer Research Association: a member-led, independent co-operative specialising in consumer engagement and best practice in ethical markets for businesses and NGOs.Ethical Revolution
'Felt like a kidnapping': Wrong turn leads to 5-day detention ordeal
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/26/nx-s1-5335524/wrong-turn-bridge-detention-ordeal?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into U.S. News @u-s-news-npr
Google Patches Chrome Sandbox Escape Zero-Day Caught By Kaspersky - Slashdot
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Google late Tuesday rushed out a patch for a sandbox escape vulnerability in its flagship Chrome browser after researchers at Kaspersky caught a professional hacking operation launching drive-by download …slashdot.org
US war plans leak shows Five Eyes allies must ‘look out for ourselves’, says Mark Carney
Signal blunder likely to put strain on Five Eyes as it weighs how Traitor Trump Nazi regime handles classified information
#signalgate
#TrumpIsARussianAsset theguardian.com/us-news/2025/m…
US war plans leak shows Five Eyes allies must ‘look out for ourselves’, says Mark Carney
Signal blunder likely to put strain on Five Eyes as it weighs how Trump administration handles classified informationLeyland Cecco (The Guardian)
🐶 Bei einer PKW-Kontrolle erschnüffelte #Zollhund Haze 2 kg #Heroin und 1 kg #Kokain im Wert von 150.000 Euro.
Die Drogen waren im Motorraum des aus den Niederlanden kommenden Fahrzeugs versteckt.
👮♂️ 3 Personen festgenommen
🔎 Die weiteren Ermittlungen durch das Zollfahndungsamt Hamburg im Auftrag der Staatsanwaltschaft Kiel dauern an
presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/5…
ZOLL-HH: Kiloweise Drogen auf der Vorderachse Heroin und Kokain im Wert von 150.000 Euro wurden unter...
Hamburg (ots) - Gemeinsame Pressemitteilung der Staatsanwaltschaft Kiel und des Zollfahndungsamtes Hamburg Mitte März reisten drei Personen mit dem Auto nach Deutschland ein....Zollfahndungsamt Hamburg (Presseportal.de)
Why don't diving seals drown? Scientists finally have an answer
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/26/g-s1-55440/why-dont-diving-seals-drown-answer-in-their-blood-scientists?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Science @science-npr
My own feelings on AI slop are "it's complicated" but to ill-advisedly paraphrase, in addition to "fuck exploitive and monopolizing tech, literally bring out the guillotines" I will also say that (1) we should respect and pay artists, (2) copyright itself has long been fucked, (3) everything is a remix, and (4) many musicians in the 1870s were deeply opposed to the idea of recording performances.
@hko I don't have answers, but our fight is with the structural issues as manifested through the tools. After spending literally decades screaming "NOT LIKE THAT" at my screen, I have zero, no, *negative* faith that moralizing about this stuff will influence how and where these tools get used.
I wish I had a handle on how to approach the problem, but it's somewhere between @rudyfraser.com "Find Joy" and @zephoria's stance here: techpolicy.press/we-need-an-in…
We Need an Interventionist Mindset
To stabilize and enhance democratic practices, danah boyd advocates for an interventionist approach to AI regulation.danah boyd (Tech Policy Press)
my point was not so much to moralize, and I appreciate your words.
My feeling is that these tescreal freaks need to go bankrupt as soon as possible. To my mind, one way to hasten this inevitable course of things is to make it quite clear that no upstanding nerd will have anything to do with their bullshit.
No quarter for hyper vc funded morons on the search for the machine God. Or a trillion USD. Or whatever the fuck it is they want.
Fuck them.
#politics
Trump’s desire to ‘un-unite’ Russia and China is unlikely to work – in fact, it could well backfire
During the Nixon era, the US encouraged a split between the Soviet Union and communist China. But things have changed since the Cold War ended.The Conversation
Evil bastards are hitting me where I live now.
Anyway, you can still get these comics. I made sure to save local copies. I probably should mirror some of this stuff.
nasawatch.com/education/you-ca…
You Can Still Read NASA's Deleted "First Woman" Graphic Novels (Update) - NASA Watch
in 2021 NASA issued the first of two interactive comic books/graphic novels] depicting young women dreaming of - and then training for - a future that would comprise the so-called "Artemis Generation."Keith Cowing (NASA Watch)
Dave 🔜 @WHY2025 reshared this.
Couldn't resist this one.
This DATAMAN S4 Programmer showed up from Denmark.
Price was good enough, the included bag of loose EPROMs is probably junk.
I'll have to repair the LCD contrast potentiometer and a cracked screw post. And the NiCd battery is probably gone, too.
I think Ian Scott Johnston had a video on that already.
#Electronics
Superb bit of kit, also had a S3 that I blew up emulating a live uP system, I forgot to unplug the rs232 from the PC. 😞
I actually blew the display out of the front 😀
“Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot”
futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-…
> Researchers have found that ChatGPT "power users," or those who use it the most and at the longest durations, are becoming dependent upon — or even addicted to — the chatbot.
Possibly related: what I wrote a couple of years ago on how LLM chatbots function like a mentalist's con
softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llm…
Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot
ChatGPT "power users," or those who use it the most, are becoming dependent upon — or even addicted to — the chatbot.Noor Al-Sibai (Futurism)
reshared this
I tried giving chatGPT one of my poems. Asked for feedback. The feedback was 'pretty OK.' It seemed like real feedback from a person. What I didn't anticipate was how it me very happy, if only in a fleeting way.
Writing is hard and getting someone to read your work and understand it is a big milestone. GPT correctly described the symbolism and techniques in my poem and was generally positive about it.
Part of me responded to reading this as if a person had said those things.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
But there isn't a person who has read my poem and has seen all of those things in it, or noticed all of those things about it.
It's nice to know that I've written a poem where it ought to be possible for that to happen with a real person.
But, maybe the poem is too boring, or too strange, or not strange enough and no one will even get that far. Maybe, I have more work to do to make a poem that connects with people... which is what I want.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
But, reading the GPT feedback gave a little of the joy of reading a good response to my work from a reader. As in I was blushing a little like "aw shucks" because the analysis was so complete and ... had a person written such a response it would mean they really paid attention to and really engaged with my work.
I can easily see how that might become addictive.
And looking at the criticism again days later, it's flattering but not very helpful. I doesn't help me to write better.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
I've had people read stories I've written and they miss what I thought were major obvious plot points. This can be very frustrating and it's tempting to blame the reader, but I look at it as a sign that either something is off in my story telling or maybe the story just isn't "for" that person.
GPT doesn't do that. It picks up on EVERYTHING... and yet there is something shallow in the response.
@Jay
I'd only ever give it material that has been public on the web for years. I don't really trust the people who run it.
It's hard to say if it was helpful or not.
It showed that theoretically it was possible to "get" many of the things from the poem that I wanted people to get. But, I don't know if that means much?
I think it might be able to show a writer if their work is so confused and opaque that it doesn't even say what they think it says.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
@Jay
I often trash talk LLMs because there are many things they are bad at. But, writing "feedback" that passes as real is something they can do rather well.
The statistical associative way that the responses are generated allows the LLM to make comparisons and spot themes in a convincing way.
People who run slightly scammy "writer's workshops" that string amateur writers along may be out of work.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
@Jay
The reason I consider some pay-to-play writers workshops scammy is they flatter amateur writers to keep them paying for more workshops. It's a gray area, it's hard to prove that feedback is "fake."
Sometimes "I got bored and didn't finish reading it" is the feedback I need even if I don't want to hear that. I'd much rather read about all of the symbolism someone noticed in my work. But, no one is going to read with that much care if the story isn't compelling.
So it's fake.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
@Jay
It's not a replacement for my favorite "beta reader" my husband. If he gets lost and misses things I know exactly what I need to do. He's not plugged in to the arts and writing and just either enjoys things or finds them confusing. If my work isn't justifying its existence I can tell from his response very quickly. And boy is it disappointing when I realize that something isn't working!
Much more flattering and fun to have GPT tell me about symbolism. Flattering and useless.
@Jay
I have not told him this, but what I look for most is how quickly he reads the story. If he's glued to it and reads it all in one sitting that's a good sign. He always says he likes it, but sometimes I've done a bad job organizing the story, or elements are too vague, or plot is too meandering.
My "writer friends" don't always let me know about these more fundamental problems. Like GPT they force themselves to read with care.
I need to know if the story can *make* a reader care.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
@mattmcirvin @futurebird @Jay That worries me because every time I've tested Grammarly over the past year or so, it's been extremely error prone and often introduced errors through suggestions, made the text clunkier, and quite often made "corrections" that were unambiguously incorrect, such as suggesting plural words when inappropriate.
Grammarly didn't use to be this bad. It was quite usable 2-3 years ago.
IDK I feel like LLM is being applied in a way where it might stand to be useful in this context. Text generation that meets expectations is what LLMs do best.
@futurebird @Jay
This is the only way I use gpt when writing. After I've finished all my editing, I run it through chat and ask the machine to explain the story, characters, and literary techniques back to me. If it can describe what I'm trying to say, I must have inserted what I wanted in the text.
Critical to this is identifying the work to the bot as "a new novel from an unknown author". It blows smoke up your ass if it knows the work is yours.
myrmepropagandist reshared this.
@franebleu
I gave it these paragraphs and it correctly understood that this is about cleaning out a summer home after one of your parents has died. (which my husband missed when I showed it to him) GPT correctly sorted all the imagery into summer and winter contrasts.
futurebird.tumblr.com/post/756…
In reality for microfiction I think it needs a little more work.
summer cottage
In the bright summer months we would go to the little house on the edge of the earth. I remember the sand-scoured floors the wood bleached by sun and salt. The sun would set forever, rise forever, it...futurebird (Tumblr)
Beautiful !
(In my humblest opinion, it could even do without "the mortgage and documents" sentence, it was so real it made me fall on the ground from my flight)
Magnificent stuff 😀
pretty sure this is part of the RLHF fine-tuning" to please the user" whatever the inputs.
Could even be implicit due to the human feedback loop in the process. It very likley does catch on basic human psychology
@gdupont
When I was in college this guy came to our reading group as a part of his attempts to pick me up. He figured out that he could get me to talk to him if he talked about my writing and put a lot of effort in to it.
It kind of reminded me of that.
@futurebird
I've done the same for code.. starting it with a blank brain and feeding in source files one by one and then basically saying "discuss, explain". No comments explain what the whole thing is about.
It documents my APIs nicely. Cool, they make sense theoretically.
It deduces how parts interact. It even gets a little excited about it.
But it is no better at offering an explanation of "why" or "what it is for" than I am.
But for testing source readability, its nice.
Getting someone to read and understand a huge collection of source-code. Also.. rather hard. Especially if you know few actual people and none who have ever learned a programming language 😉.
I felt both very silly and also this very heart-warming relief to see the actual functional ideas documented and correct and extrapolated upon by a voice that wasn't just me to myself in my head.
Andy Piper
in reply to Sam Johnston • • •