Paul Sutton @zleap@qoto.org

@jonmsterling The right mental model for interacting with an LLM is to treat it like a person being tortured: It will say whatever is most likely to make you stop, the only trustworthy answers are ones that you can instantly validate.

Well..can just sit here and watch TCM today? The next movie is a chronicle of Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England with Joan Baez and Donovan...I was 12 years old and I can still feel the possibilities that come with that age...but that is tempered with knowing how life went from that point and where I ended up...
#today

1 January 1926 | A Polish Jew, Leon Weintraub, was born in Łódź.

In #Auschwitz from August 1944.
He was transferred to Groß-Rosen, Flossenbürg & Natzweiler-Struthof.
He was liberated on 23 April 1945 near Donaueschingen.

He became a doctor.
Today he turns 99.
Happy birthday!

5 reasons you should use Markdown for documentation and notetaking

A good reminder again about the future-proofed nature of Markdown format notes. They are essentially plain text and will be read my many apps well into the future.

Also true that Markdown’s “shortcuts” for headings, lists, are largely universal, ...continues

See https://gadgeteer.co.za/5-reasons-you-should-use-markdown-for-documentation-and-notetaking/

#markdown #notes #openstandards #technology

If Online Grammar Checks Concern You, Run Your Own Private Grammarly Clone Using Docker and LanguageTool

I can’t see any feature advantages with this apart from all your checking being done locally. So for really privacy conscious folks, this may be a big plus to host this service on your own PC, or even an accessible server or Raspberry Pi.

One adv ...continues

See https://gadgeteer.co.za/if-online-grammar-checks-concern-you-run-your-own-private-grammarly-clone-using-docker-and-languagetool/

As we close out 2024, take 5 minutes to think of a creator who's made an impact on your life this year — maybe it's an artist, an open-source maintainer, a blogger... did an article stick with you? Is there an indie product you've been using?

Buy them a coffee and send them a note.

Bonus: share who you supported so others can discover them too!

As they murder women and children, Israeli soldiers get massages and fine dining - a perfect illustration of the invention of an entire alternate reality.

"The only thing still forbidden to the soldiers here is to go wading in the surf at Gaza,” explained Ynet reporter Yoav Zitun, in an article on the leisure village Israel has set up for soldiers in Gaza.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-luxury-spa-israel-fantasy-retreat-soldiers-kill-zone

🕎 🇵🇸 ☮️
#Gaza #Palestine

At least 12 more Palestinians were killed in relentless Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 45,553, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Wednesday.

A ministry statement added that some 108,379 others were injured in the ongoing assault.

“Israeli forces killed 12 people and injured 41 others in two massacres of families in the last 48 hours,” the ministry said.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-passes-45-550-as-israel-s-genocidal-war-continues-unabated/3439537

🕎 🇵🇸 ☮️
#Gaza #Palestine

Happy Revolutionary 2025.
Sharpen your guillotines.

At least 10 dead, dozens injured as truck crashes into New Orleans crowd
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/1/several-feared-dead-as-truck-crashes-into-new-orleans-crowd-report?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Global News @global-news-AlJazeera

A happy new year to everyone who shares my outlook with hope that we might change a few minds in the coming year. May all your hopes and wishes come a step closer.
I was looking for a happy new year image for this post and came across loads which read "Happy Hogmanay". Where did this rubbish come from? I have never heard anyone say this ever.
#HappyNewYear2025
#Scotland

Everyone agrees that naive quantum gravity, where you posit a particle called the 'graviton' interacting according to rules modeled after general relativity, is nonrenormalizable. But what does this actually mean? How bad is it?

In a renormalizable theory, as you increase the cutoff on the allowed mass of virtual particles, you can keep twiddling the parameters of your theory so that particle masses and charges as measured at low energies stay equal to their observed values.

For a nonrenormalizable theory you have to do more! As you boost the cutoff, you have to keep introducing more and more new interactions and twiddling *their* parameters, too!

In naive quantum gravity it works like this. General relativity gives only 3-graviton and 4-graviton interactions (one is shown below). But from these you can assemble diagrams involving more gravitons. When these diagrams include high-mass virtual gravitons, their effect on lower-energy physics is to mimic 5-graviton interactions, 6-graviton interactions, etc. Thus, at low energies we get a theory noticeably different from general relativity! And as the cutoff increases, the problem gets worse: the n-graviton interactions for large n become bigger and bigger at low energies.

To prevent this, we need to *add* 5-graviton interactions, 6-graviton interactions etc. to our theory, with strengths chosen carefully to *cancel out* the problematic effects at low energies. And the higher our cutoff gets, the more of these interactions we need to add, to get a theory that acts like general relativity at low energies.

We might be able to do it. But in the old days nobody wanted to, because it's a huge pain in the ass.

(6/n)

https://www.europesays.com/1731037/ Johnnie Walker: Former BBC Radio 2 DJ dies at the age of 79 #News #UK #UkNews #uknews #UnitedKingdom

To reinforce and encourage Mastodon as the go-to place for journalism,
we’re launching a new feature today.

You will notice that underneath some links shared on Mastodon,
the author byline can be clicked to open the author’s associated fediverse account,
right in the app.

This highlights writers and journalists that are active on the fediverse,
and makes it easier than ever to follow them and keep up with their future work
—potentially across different publications.

Writers often work with different publishers over the span of their careers,
but Mastodon is the perfect platform to amass a loyal audience that you, as the author, truly own,
and can take with you across the fediverse.

Some of the first websites adopting this feature are The Verge, MacStories, and MacRumors.

If you have an account on mastodon.social and use the web version or one of our official mobile apps,
you will see associated fediverse accounts underneath their articles,
no matter who posts them.

Of course, it’s also part of Mastodon’s API, so we expect to see support among the vast array of third party apps for Mastodon as well.

All Mastodon features are always available to all third-party apps since the API that powers the web version and the official mobile apps is the exact same for everyone
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/07/highlighting-journalism-on-mastodon/

Via @lolgop :

Elon could give away $100 every second for the next 144 years and still not run out of money. Yet Republicans want to give him a tax cut paid for with your Social Security.
#Musk

https://www.europesays.com/1730929/ Atomic Bomb Survivors Plan New Push for Nuclear Disarmament #AsItIs #LessonsOfTheDay #nuclear

An Amber Rain Warning has been issued for parts of NW England until 09:00 New Year's Day ⚠️

Stay #WeatherAware

🐦🔗 https://twitter.com/metoffice/status/1874213970464174108
🕐 31/12 22:00

This Boston Teacher Helped Restore Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris!

What a great story! Michael Burry, a woodworking teacher at a private trade school in Boston, had the thrill of working on the restoration of Notre … This Boston Teacher Helped Restore Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris!

http://nedhamsonsecondlineviewofthenews.com/2024/12/31/this-boston-teacher-helped-restore-notre-dame-cathedral-in-paris/

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🎉 Sir Alex Ferguson turns 83 today…

🏆 13x Premier League
🏆 10x English Super Cup
🏆 5x FA Cup
🏆 4x League Cup
🏆 4x Scottish Cup
🏆 3x Scottish Champion
🏆 2x Champions League
🏆 2x UEFA Super Cup
🏆 Scottish League Cup
🏆 Intercontinental Cup
🏆 Club World Cup

#MUFC #aberdeen