"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

Wow. Wow!

Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.

Absolutely thrilled to be shortlisted for the Comedy Women in Print Prize 2025. An insane line-up to be part of. Thank you so much to the judges. Don’t Make Me Laugh is out in paperback now! #CWIP @cwip.bsky.social

One of these rich dudes invested in a food company with all proceeds going to kids in need. The other started Sundance Institute, boosting the lives of countless artists. Hey modern rich dudes, don't be a typical greedy AI crypto-prick, be like these two.

Gloucestershire chippy spots easy way to get free publicity. The rest of us may question exactly how many chippies have a full-time member of staff taking phone orders. Maybe it’s a Gloucestershire thing, eh?

Watched This is Spinal Tap with the rising generation. All of the “up to 11” and so on was lovely, but all I could think about was the perfection of the London Borough of Squatney.

Why AI Narrators Will Never Be Able to Tell a Real Human Story. “Narrating audiobooks today is the closest thing to that primal art form. One person, one voice, spinning a tale for another.” [lithub.com]

“Nitty Nora” The school nurse, 1967 (More Words for Numbers) Artist: Kenneth Inns

Photo says otherwise

Barrister cites fictitious case (from ChatGPT). When challenged by Tribunal, uses ChatGPT to confirm the case exists. This does not go well. tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac/2025-u...

Channel 4 to mark Trump's state visit by dissecting more than 100 of his lies, in what the channel describes as “the longest uninterrupted reel of untruths, falsehoods and distortions ever broadcast on television”.

Sooo stressful to play There were two win conditions: escape in the shuttle with the cat, or blow the alien out of the airlock.

RIP Bobby Hart. He and - the also late - Tommy Boyce wrote Last Train to Clarksville, (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone, She, Valleri and (Theme From) The Monkees for, well, the Monkees, as well as this ace blast of bubblegum for themselves. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFT0...

Harro Siegel's marionette of Grendel from his post-war production of Beowulf. museo-marionetas-barcelona.org/en/master-bu...

The term "slop" really gets under their skin, so we need to keep using it. And it's rich calling us lazy when cutey here wants to create push-button podcasts with no work at all. "Ugh! These people who want to research and put in the work are so LAZY!"

if you have a billion dollars you should be legally designated a dragon and any human can adventure against you

“The first cat is the deepest” – pet cemetery

I wrote a Substack about surprise creeps.

A thread on the visual authenticity of Shane (1953) & cowboy/artist Joe De Yong, the film's technical advisor:

"In mid-2024, a study of 2,500 workers found that 77 percent reported decreased productivity and even higher workloads when using AI. Just under 40 percent of workers reported increased workloads caused explicitly by AI's sloppy mistakes."

Can Kennedy, boot artist extraordinaire

Denmark is poised to grant citizens copyright control over their own faces, voices, and bodies The copyright amendment would give every citizen legal ownership over their physical likeness, allowing them to demand the removal of unauthorized AI-generated content www.myprivacy.blog/denmark-make...

The lyrics of Lou Reed’s song Sick of You (from New York, 1989) floated into my mind. Quite an uncanny set of scenarios.

Meta sticking closely to the original intent of The Face Book

Dredd recently had to visit Aubrey Plaza, Earthlet

What people think they 80s were like versus what the 80s was actually like.

87 year old Ridley Scott currently has 5 upcoming projects listed for him to direct, on top of 20-odd as producer/exec producer. Including "Alien: Romulus 2". What a strange time we're living in.

Kevin Kelly recently published a guide called “Everything I Know about Self-Publishing”. “The way I approach publishing today is with as much self-publishing as I can handle.” [kk.org]

Between June 1983 and February 1985, fully 20% of the games to top the UK charts were by just one developer. Now I have reached their sixth and final #1, an example of a new genre of 3D platformer. My new post on Knight Lore, Alien 8, and the end of Ultimate: www.superchartisland.com/alien-8

Somehow it was inevitable that poor-cousin Channel 5 would be the one that picked up on the idea of cheap, interesting drama

Poster for the Swinging London documentary TONITE LET'S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON (1967)

"Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things" Georgia O'Keeffe

how are we supposed to reconcile these two things? (a) companies are going to start using AI for everything (b) companies are not responsible for what their AI programs do, and normal rules such as those around deception or sexual harassment don't apply to AI

The Beatles get their A Level results. Aug 1964.

So the megalomaniac rich dude who used his fortune to buy a major newspaper wants to make his untalented second wife a star? I wonder if he's also missing a beloved childhood toy. A sled, maybe?

A rollercoaster of a story that ends in some very dark places indeed. Heavily reliant on recon, so it's fortunate that it's well filmed and elegantly put together. This doc really stayed with me.

"generate a map of the USA with each state named"

Bill Nunn in Do the Right Thing, 1989

The perfect host.

Short story that repays a reread. Ralph sounds alright.

Fairness in sports

“Artificial” Intelligence is a slippery misnomer for LLMs. It sounds like intelligence built by other means. It doesn’t mean that. A better term would be “Aped Intelligence”. It looks and feels like there’s intelligence there, so we’re invited to believe in that intelligence. But it’s just aping.

You have until midnight tomorrow to get a whopping 25% off #DontMakeMeLaugh in @waterstones.bsky.social summer pre-order sale. Just click below and use SUMMER25 at checkout.

From the replies (bsky.app/profile/dasb...) here's Sam Altman doing what the quoted post described. He seems serious about it.

Also, the sales of physical media in the uk are increasing. More people are buying vinyl than last year. CD sales are steady after years of decline. Nobody wants cassettes though.

There’s lots of other interesting stuff in the Ofcom Media Nations report, including the fact that people in the UK listen to live radio more than they watch live TV or stream music.

Vladimir and Estragon’s Bogus Journey

I will never not understand how a minority of people have decided that wind farms - significantly prettier than pylons, coal power plants, nuclear power plants, and almost certainly fusion power plants - are ugly. In terms of energy generation, what else are you hoping for that is better?

Nine years after its creation, Nunkie and ThomThom Films' documentary "Wits in Felixstowe" about M R James's masterpiece "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You My Lad" is available free to view on Youtube Checkidoot! youtu.be/iYq-MS1790Y