ceoln @ceoln@qoto.org
A consciousness somehow associated with matter.
Posting about culture, philosophy, politics, AI Art Tools, NaNoWriMo, Software Development occasionally, the relationship of consciousness to matter.
Degrees in Philosophy and Computer Science, once had a US TS/SCI(redacted) clearance, radical-for-the-US politics, ex-Libertarian, zen-buddhist-pantheist-atheist.
Google employee, but I do not speak for Google in any way.
If your profile tells me nothing about you, it's less likely I'll follow you (back).
Header: abstract smoky patterns
pfp: Adorable weird piglet / delirium cultist... thing. In a hoodie.
Joined Nov 2022
ceoln
boosted
When I decided to jump into the fediverse with both feet, I signed up for a BookWyrm account at @bookrastinating. When I tried to import my history/library, there were two big issues.
The first was timing. I joined and started an import at about the same time many, many, many other people did, and the server promptly fell over. The owner of Bookrastinating was helpful and friendly and eventually the queue started moving again, so that's not an issue anymore.
The second was not actually a problem with BookWyrm at all, but with GoodReads! It turns out that a bunch of books I'd previously tagged as read on GoodRead were no longer the books they had been. No offense to Marc Blake, author of “How to Be a Sitcom Writer: Secrets from the Inside,” but I’ve never read that book. When I “shelved” it on January 9, 2017, I assigned it “baroque, cycle, fiction, hardback, series, read,” so it seems very clear that what I actually shelved was a book by Neal Stephenson, and checking now shows that GoodReads only knows I've read the second book in the tagged "baroque cycle" series, but it has lost the first and third.
I'm not sure when the GoodReads database was corrupted, and in a review of my Reading Challenge book lists for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017, everything seems probably-correct. But my 2017 Reading Challenge also does not include the book I mentioned above, the book that caught my eye as clearly-incorrect.
When I look at books *shelved* in 2017, I see many that are definitely not right, although they don't have "read" dates. I'm sure <cite>After the Martian Apocalypse: Extraterrestrial Artifacts and the Case for Mars Exploration</cite> is a perfectly fine book, but it definitely wasn't what I tagged with "fiction paperback series dragon king trilogy" on January 9, 2017. <cite>Love on the Dotted Line</cite> could be a fantastic romance novel, but it's not what I tagged "paperback anthology science fiction" on January 9, 2017. A dual-language collection of Italian women's poetry is definitely not what I tagged as a volume of the "Writers of the Future" science fiction anthology series. And so on. The ones I notice most easily are the titles I would never read, but the date January 9, 2017, stands out. Sorting by date added, I can see that some of the books added on that date seem correct. I know the books, and the tags match the books. Most do not.
I'm sure there's some irony in an import failure on the fediverse alerting me to serious corruption on Amazon-owned GoodReads, and the result stopping me from actually migrating.
I clearly cannot trust GoodReads, as they've broken the first and second rules of a database: they've lost data, and represented data falsely to belong to me when it doesn't. I'm not sure which of those is the first rule and which is the second, but both seem bad.
I also cannot import my entire library from GoodReads into BookWyrm, because I don't want to start with bad data. I think it's time to let most of the past go, and create a cleaned-up import file with just my reading history from 2017 onward.
Good thing I have the day off tomorrow!
@palafo
Ooooops
ceoln
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This is fascinating - Tapeworms eaten by Acorn #ants secrete more insulin that seems to aid in the ants #longevity. They want the ants to live as long as possible, to increase their chances of being eaten by a #woodpecker 😳.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/ants-live-10-times-longer-by-altering-their-insulin-responses-20230110/
ceoln
boosted
Social threat modeling and quote boosts on Mastodon
How to improve tools for preventing, and defending against, harassment and abuse?
https://privacy.thenexus.today/social-threat-modeling-and-quote-boosts/
@cliffjones
Another interesting-looking case was this one (sorry for bird link):
https://twitter.com/rainisto/status/1575494458166378496
but as with Kashtanova, the copyright holder seems to have become quiet.
Must be the Cabal. :D
What precisely are you thinking of there? Aren't government edicts still not copyrightable? Copyright is allowed on works that significantly decorate or enhance or package them, but...?
Thaler has been for years claiming that its his AIs that are being creative, and trying and failing to get copyrights and patents and things on that basis.
He always fails, but it's NOT because anyone has ever said "using a AI tool doesn't involve creativity"; they've only ever said that any creativity involved is (more or less by definition) on the part of the human, not the software.
(All the articles, like this one, saying that in the Thaler cases the PTO found that "art made with an AI can't be copyrighted", are just wrong; that issue has never been decided afaik.)
The obvious argument is that, just like with Photoshop or anything else, when a human uses a piece of software to create a work, the human is the author of the work. This Kashtanova thing MAY be them tentatively ruling otherwise, but since we know about it only like third hand, it's really hard to say.
If anyone has an actual statement of any kind from the PTO on this, I'd love to see it...
@cliffjones
There is, sadly, almost zero information here (and it gives the usual misinterpretation of Thaler).
It's very odd that we have as far as I can tell zero actual statements from the copyright office; just rather vague (and sometimes later taken down) statements from the copyright holders involved.
All this article says is that "in a post on her Facebook page. Kashtanova revealed that..." some stuff coming out of a game of telephone from a string of non-lawyers.
Really frustrating!
ceoln
boosted
Silly action movie
"Shouldn't we have more than like three guards between the entrance and your inner sanctum, Chief Bad Guy, sir?"
"It's okay, if anything happens, we'll just have Bob run in and yell 'Intruders!'."
Silly action movie
"My plan depends on no one noticing the several rather large and obvious bombs that I've left sitting around in various places on the ship! Nothing can go wrong!"
ceoln
boosted
A sample-return mission that led to big discoveries! ☄️
#OTD in 2006, the Stardust spacecraft returned samples of Comet Wild 2 to the Earth for study. Stardust, launched in 1999, was the first NASA mission dedicated to studying comets.
#NASAhistory
ceoln
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From the person who does the Wandering Warring blog: frosty mountain views in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada, 14 January, 2023.
ceoln
boosted
Remembered a weird dream from last night, about how the largest scales of reality are controlled by five god-like beings rolling dice. Each has their own realm, larger than the last, which looks different to the others. Dark and filled with black, starry velvet. Green with chaotic crystalline clouds. Purple and formless, with swirling lights. And I’m falling through them all, watching the tumbling dice that control how the world works.
ceoln
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Into the Croatan Forest - A Road Seldom Traveled fine art print.
With a simple surface of dirt and grass, this rustic road provides access into the Croatan for National Forest Service personnel.
#ArtMatters #AYearForArt #blackandwhite #woodland #forest #blackandwhitephotography #art #photography #fediart #mastoart #fineart #fineartphotography #monochrome #buyintoart #nature #photoart
Silly action movie
So I'm watching this League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, from a long time ago? Some of it's kind of fun, but...
The bad guy planted a bomb, not in the place he wanted to destroy, but in a place that would cause much of Venice to fall down like dominos, leading to the place that he wanted to destroy, eventually?
And so he could be stopped by someone rushing up ahead of the falling dominos and setting off a flare and then firing a missile at where the flare was, thereby destroying one of the dominos and halting the chain?
I mean... that's just silly.
Makes it harder to really get into the movie, y'know?
ceoln
boosted
You want to know how I really feel?
https://furbo.org/2023/01/15/the-shit-show/
P.S. That's the tame version.
ceoln
boosted
In conversation today a friend threw out the phrase “So since the pandemic and the cyberattack…” as background to get to the real event and I had to pause and marvel how used we’ve gotten to living in dystopian speculative sci-fi.
ceoln
boosted
Travel, playtesting, meet up, trains
On the train home after a long but enjoyable day.
In the Before Times, I'd make this trip most months, and it was a huge help in keeping me motivated and feeling like part of a community of game designers. It's great to do this again.
Played today a game about making connections (both literally and metaphorically), my co-design Grab Bag Zoo, a deduction and betting game, and a viking battle game. So much fun and inspiration.
A consciousness somehow associated with matter.
Posting about culture, philosophy, politics, AI Art Tools, NaNoWriMo, Software Development occasionally, the relationship of consciousness to matter.
Degrees in Philosophy and Computer Science, once had a US TS/SCI(redacted) clearance, radical-for-the-US politics, ex-Libertarian, zen-buddhist-pantheist-atheist.
Google employee, but I do not speak for Google in any way.
If your profile tells me nothing about you, it's less likely I'll follow you (back).
Header: abstract smoky patterns
pfp: Adorable weird piglet / delirium cultist... thing. In a hoodie.
Joined Nov 2022
