Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

So many Republican electeds out here condemning “political violence” today. Meanwhile Trump has called for political violence over and over for the past 10 years at least. Haven’t heard people like George W. Bush, Mitch McConnell, Steve Scalise, and Mike Johnson piping up then about its unacceptability. #Craven #Hypocrisy

I’ve had my fill of living in interesting times

Don’t spread misinformation

I’m annoyed that we’ve found a way to spend 100 times more electricity over standard search to have computers confidently provide wrong answers to questions.

This. All of it. Top to bottom.

This is what the MSM should be plastering wall to wall.

Eyes on the ball, everyone.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-07-11/la-trump-unfit-for-office-biden-election

i think where people’s brains break regarding LLMs is understanding that they generate the most likely result. not the one most likely to be correct, but simply the most likely. if it shows up in the training data more often, it’ll probably get picked. that doesn’t necessarily have any correlation to how correct it is. that there is any overlap between correct and likely is a function of the quality of the training data, which requires intensive and constant curation, moderation, and filtering.

So apparently the European Honeybee has recently been named Virginia's official state pollinator. This steams me so bad. Honeybees are NOT native to Virginia, and the fact that so many people import them to grow colonies and have their own honey actually crowds out native bees that mostly feed on native plants. I'm still not sure how this happened, as the European Honeybee is widely considered an invasive species.

We need a word for real-life enshittification caused by online culture. Like being unable to find an organisation’s info because they’ve Instagram but no website. Or panicked people being sent a videolink to download to their phone when they ring for an ambulance. Or being excluded from residents' association news if you're not on Facebook. Or having cash payment refused. Or staff in the business you’re physically standing in telling you to find the answer to your question on their website.

You can't solve problems you don't understand with software you don't understand.

It feels weird needing to repeat that.

LB: if OpenAI violating copyright becomes legally ok but Internet Archive still isn't, I might actually scream

"We can make a digital AI clone of you that will do your video conferences for you and respond like you."

This mentality shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the purpose of nearly every type of meeting. Let me put it a different way:

"We can make a digital clone of you to go to class for you and take your courses. It will respond just like you in class."

1/

"Some hope that Nike will open-source the app so that customers can maintain their shoes' original and full functionality."

What an amazing sentence.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/immensely-disappointing-nike-killing-app-for-350-self-tying-sneakers/

So, the #InternetArchive is down. With it, the Wayback Machine. And Open Library.

I am here chasing an obscure Philippine epic with a female protagonist published as an MA thesis in the 1970s and referenced in a book from the 1980s not available anywhere.

I know this is a very niche problem to have.

But it hurts.

#storytelling #research #folklore

Friends, it is important to know that millions of rank and file Democrats are concerned about Biden’s health and/or his ability to beat Trump. Accusing them of wanting a Trump victory is neither accurate nor honest. We have to be the party where people can freely express concerns about Biden — otherwise, we risk degenerating into the current Republican situation, where all dissent has been quashed. 1/