herid @herid@qoto.org

1/ Many observers have noted the difficulties that the Russians face in coping with winter in Ukraine, including deficiencies in clothing, discipline and leadership. But there's another critical factor worth highlighting: supplies of food and water. ⬇️

1/ Russian prisoners who refuse to sign up to fight in Ukraine are being subjected to physical abuse and forced to make self-incriminating 'blackmail videos', according to leaked photos and video. ⬇️

Elton Jonh - Don’t Go Breaking my Heart (with Kiki Dee)

https://youtu.be/z0qW9P-uYfM

In honor of him leaving twitter today.

#FovoriteMusic 28/

“When people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the big bang, so there is no time for god to make the universe in. It’s like asking directions to the edge of the earth; The Earth is a sphere; it doesn’t have an edge; so looking for it is a futile exercise. We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is; there is no god. No one created our universe,and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.”
― Stephen Hawking

#quoteoftheday 12/

There is something almost tautological happening with the large language models & specifically the hysteria (positive & negative) they induce…

The problem is that we as humans have been fooled by fluency for all of human history. LLMs are the equivalent of Prof. Harold Hill (without the char development). If they were human they’d be sociopath scammers.

The human brain is sort of innately vulnerable to fluency, or there wouldn’t be entire genres of scammers. And now we have fluent machines.

I think — unfortunately? — we’re going to keep having this same conversation for years.
1. Yes the large language models are impressive.
2. Yes there will be some clever uses of them.
3. No, the biggest uses aren’t obvious now and won’t be for some time. These big uses are likely to be largely invisible. Things will just work better.
4. Yes there are a LOT of problems with them at present.
5. No, it’s not clear they’re a killer tech.
6. The biggest problem is how good they are at fooling people.

I used to wake up & check the news on the bird site. Now, I surf Mastodon over a bowl of granola & oat milk & my mornings are so much more enjoyable. I mean, I see lots of toots about the bad things going on in the world still, but the convo is chill, nuanced, factual & in & amongst all the bad news is GOOD NEWS. People are successfully restoring coral reefs? Yes! Art long thought lost to the nazis has been recreated? YES!

I love this place. It is GOOD for my mental health. #TwitterMigration

"Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them."
— Leo Rosten
#Quote #QuoteOfTheDay

The public response to COVID has been climate change in fast forward. We're now in the "no one hurricane can be attributed" phase.
#COVIDIsNotOver #BringBackMasks

Just to be clear:

“Sinema’s move away from the Democratic Party is unlikely to change the power balance in the next Senate. Democrats will have a narrow 51-49 majority that includes two independents who caucus with them: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine…She did note, however, that she expects to keep her committee assignments – a signal that she doesn’t plan to upend the Senate composition, since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer controls committee rosters for Democrats.”

However, in the interview, she claims that Arizonans sent her to DC to be an "independent" voice, but surely many or even most of her voters voted for her to be a Democrat, which is the party she represented when she asked for votes.

From the Green Party to Democrats to Independent. Does she believe in anything besides her own ambitions?

Beware of people like this whether politics or personal.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/politics/kyrsten-sinema-leaves-democratic-party/index.html

Kyrsten Sinema single-handedly stopped Democrats from ending a tax break for hedge-fund managers and private equity executives.

Meanwhile, she received ~$1 million in donations from Wall Street.

Don’t be fooled: Sinema isn't “independent.” She's beholden to her donors.