Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋 @bibliolater@qoto.org
Not a bot just a chap in his fifties who occasionally reads things.
Toots are humanities, science, non-fiction, books, maps, charts and graphs related. Some toots containing videos may also find their way into the timeline.
Toots or follows or boosts or mentions ≠ endorsements of any particular notion or notions.
Finis
Joined Nov 2022
**From 400-year-old globes to cosmic shrouds: A Maine library brings maps to life**
🔗 https://www.opb.org/article/2025/12/07/from-ancient-globes-to-cosmic-shrouds-the-stories-maps-tell/.
#Maps #Cartography #Maine #Library #Archive
#Image attribution: Adam Bernaert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adam_Bernaert_-_%22Vanitas%22_Still_Life_-_Walters_37682.jpg.
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
Why do students choose mathematics as a career? New post in "Devlin's Angle" for the MAA. https://maa.org/math-values/why-do-we-become-mathematicians/
🖥️ **Artificial intelligence research has a slop problem, academics say: ‘It’s a mess’**
"_Farid says that he now counsels students to not go into AI research, because of the “frenzy” in the field and the large volume of low-quality work being put out by people hoping to better their career prospects._"
🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/06/ai-research-papers.
#News #Press #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AISlop #Technology #Tech #Research #Academia
#Image attribution: Gre123gr, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Backlit_Laptop_Keyboard.jpg.
🇺🇸 **More than 1,800 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation.**
"_The Washington Post has compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of pages of census records and historical documents_"
🔗 https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2022/congress-slaveowners-names-list/.
#History #Histodons #Slavery #Archives #Database #USA #UnitedStates
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
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@bibliolater An excellent overview of #nonfiction #books from some of #Canada's fabulous #writers.
🌍 **Billionaires Now Hold a Record $15.8 Trillion of the World’s Wealth, a New Report Says**
"_Just over 190 people hit the $1 billion mark this year, altogether adding $386.5 billion to their net worths, marking the second-highest annual increase ever recorded by the firm._"
🔗 https://robbreport.com/lifestyle/news/ubs-billionaire-ambitions-report-1237395428/.
@ChemicalEyeGuy From memory I think the credit for that development was given in large part to Fibonacci and the spread of his work Liber Abaci.
📚 🇨🇦 **The best Canadian nonfiction of 2025**
🔗 https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-best-canadian-nonfiction-of-2025-9.6998488.
🇳🇴 **Over a span of 150 years, a billion Islamic silver coins may have flowed into the Viking world**
_"Here you see part of the driving force behind the Viking Age," says a Norwegian coin expert._
#History #HIstodons #Archaeology #Archaeodons #Vikings #Numismatics #Silver #Coins #Norway #Scandinavia
🖥️ **PropensityBench: Evaluating Latent Safety Risks in Large Language Models via an Agentic Approach**
"_Across open-source and proprietary frontier models, we uncover 9 alarming signs of propensity: models frequently choose high-risk tools when under pressure, despite lacking the capability to execute such actions unaided._"
Sehwag, U.M. et al. (2025) 'PropensityBench: Evaluating latent safety risks in large language models via an agentic approach,' arXiv (Cornell University) [Preprint]. https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2511.20703.
🖥️ **Expert Comment: What should we do about chatbots?**
"_He argues that we must educate users to see these systems not as new members of the human community, but as tools that risk reducing both therapy and relationships to one-dimensional, instrumental exchanges."_
🔗 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-12-05-expert-comment-what-should-we-do-about-chatbots.
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Chatbots #Technology #Tech #Ethics
#Image attribution: piqsels, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piqsels.com-id-zbxec.jpg.
📚 **The 14 best non-fiction books of 2025**
🔗 https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/14-best-nonfiction-books-2025-4064967.
📚 **Scientific American’s Best Nonfiction of 2025**
🔗 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-americans-best-nonfiction-of-2025/.
🖥️ **Does AI make us more dishonest?**
"_When participants could cheat without explicitly lying, either by training the agent with dishonest data or setting profit-maximizing goals, cheating rates soared._"
🔗 https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2025/12/04/dishonest/.
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Tech #Ethics #Honesty
🇺🇸 🌡️ **New England warming faster than most places on Earth, study finds**
"_Pace of area’s temperature rise, outpaced in US only by Alaskan Arctic, apparently increased in past five years_"
🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/new-england-warming.
**Climate-driven changes in Mediterranean grain trade mitigated famine but introduced the Black Death to medieval Europe**
"_Here, we argue that a post-volcanic climate downturn and trans-Mediterranean famine from 1345–1347 CE forced the Italian maritime republics of Venice, Genoa and Pisa to activate their well-established supply network and import grain from the Mongols of the Golden Horde around the Sea of Azov in 1347 CE. This climate-driven change in long-distance grain trade not only prevented large parts of Italy from starvation but also introduced the plague bacterium to Mediterranean harbours and fueled its rapid dispersal across much of Europe._"
Bauch, M., Büntgen, U. Climate-driven changes in Mediterranean grain trade mitigated famine but introduced the Black Death to medieval Europe. Commun Earth Environ 6, 986 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02964-0.
#OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #History #Medieval #Europe #Climate #ClimateChange #Ecology #Academia
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
From Cornell University Press:
⏳ Only Two Days Left—Don’t Miss 44% off All Books!
Enjoy 44% off every book* when you use promo code 09WINTER at checkout.
More info: https://mailchi.mp/cornellpress/winter-sale-two-days-left?e=a4d497663e
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
An absolute classic
**Strabo: The First Geographer**
"_As the father of descriptive geography, Strabo of Amasia provides a unique view of the early Roman Empire._"
🔗 https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/strabo-first-geographer.
#History #Histodons #Geography #RomanEmpire #Ancient #Greece #Literature
🇬🇧 🩺 🖥️ ** How are GPs using AI? Insights from the front line**
"_Of the 2,108 GP survey respondents, 598 (28%) said they currently use AI tools in their clinical practice._"
Kumpunen S, Lobont C, Garrard L, Fisher D, Lau R, Fallica G and Fisher R (2025) How are GPs using AI? Insights from the front line. Research report, Nuffield Trust. https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/research/how-are-gps-using-ai-insights-from-the-front-line.
#Research #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Tech #Health #Medicine #UK #UnitedKingdom
Not a bot just a chap in his fifties who occasionally reads things.
Toots are humanities, science, non-fiction, books, maps, charts and graphs related. Some toots containing videos may also find their way into the timeline.
Toots or follows or boosts or mentions ≠ endorsements of any particular notion or notions.
Finis
Joined Nov 2022
