Excellent stuff, although maybe we could collectively have been more vocal about this being the strategy years ago. I’m convinced this is the key to their whole business model. Here’s what I wrote back then — hugely inspired by Bender et al.’s work. morungos.com/2023/06/05/r...

Two modest proposals: Start calling people who are paid to have particular opinions sophists again. Stop sharing, writing for, and participating in anything to do with the institute for arts and ideas (dunno who funds it, but what it's doing is putting a *philosophy* shine on reactionary thought)

#NovaScotia Federal investigation probes grocery store competition in #Halifax Superstore, Sobeys examined for use of legal documents that restrict land for competitors www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

This is going to be interesting. Language models are memorizers — that’s how they work. This makes them into infringement engines. Please let this position hold, and we might just save copyright.

A delicious calm day on the coast today. But no otters yet.

Today I received my author's copies of Ghosts in Pencil, a one-man's-war story of a working-class Glasgow boy who flew 45 missions as a Lancaster bomb-aimer - from the Battle of Berlin to D-Day in an elite Pathfinder squadron. On Amazon - or better still, order from a local bookshop.

Yay. Finally made it.

Copilot backdoored all the things.

I am, briefly, for once in Hope.

… thus putting them ahead of most politicians.

‘AI’ thinks I’m a Skunk Cabbage!!

Okay hear me out. Tech is telling the world they don’t need labour to deliver services. Therefore, they’re overcharging us, a lot. Therefore, we should pay them less — even nothing. Use free and open alternatives. They don’t need tax breaks. Put social support into other sectors.

Note the psychology behind this. You might “lose” that 2 day work week if you resist AI. And then loss aversion cuts in. The modern era sells to us like this constantly, through risk and the fear of missing out. Hence crypto, hence NFTs. Only by knowing reality can we make informed choices.

Yup - that’s exactly how I feel.

Double vaccinated yesterday and the arm is a wee bit cranky today. I’ll take it over getting flu and/or Covid.

We have zero plans to put AI in LibreOffice, of course. Our focus is privacy and letting you control your data. Some users want AI features and they can get them via optional extensions made by the community – but we won't put it in the app itself.

I was just reminded of this excellent piece by @tepski.tech. Highly recommended reading, especially in the IP world:

As someone with a deep background in AI who’s worked in oncology and cancer bioinformatics, this is complete horseshit. Informatics made a massive contribution, sure (before they all got cut) but cancer is not one thing. It’s a disease of aging, basically, and it is whack-a-mole on human biology.

So we have seven pounds of bouncing baby quinces, lovely and aromatic and ripe. What an aroma!

Nom. With that cream, it might be an appley relative of tablet. And if so, double nom. Me? I’d probably not go with the salt. Call me a heretic, but that is not my thing.

NEW The gaming of the American constitution How a codified “written” constitution is being manipulated by those acting in bad faith By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

It should not be as miserable as it is to get an Acer laptop booting into different systems. But it was a huge palaver. Half the time the EFI data vanished entirely, or was inconsistent. I still can’t see how it can work, finding systems there’s no reference to. But… it’s good enough.

He’s designing the ballroom with AI isn’t he www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Goodbye internet.

Myth: Worker ownership is unstable and inefficient. Reality: Worker-owned businesses outperform traditional companies. employeeownership.co.uk/Site/Site/co...

Another bird🪶 thing from yesterday, the wee lake is temporary home to hundreds of ring-necked ducks. And I mean hundreds. Just a few shown here. I never knew it, but ducks have "thumb" winglets, like a plane wing's slats, and the whoosh when a bunch of them slow down for landing is something else.

Google AI doing terribly here. It appears to claim the osprey is actually a wader, because it eats fish. Not a raptor at all. For some reason the kestrel is too. The nuthatch is also wrong. Ospreys with a long pointed beak. lol. 🤣

Today our little local #halisky was honoured by a visit from (what I think is) a small flockette of lesser yellowlegs 🪶— a sandpiper that apparently has usually migrated through long ago. Anyway, they flew in, flew in circles for about fifteen minutes, then flew out again. A wonderful experience.

The pterodactyl returns to Nova Scotia after a very long absence.

This would literally result in the deportation of members of my family, who are parents of British citizens and married to British citizens. It is the kind of policy that should result in pitchforks, not press releases.

We treat drivers like these far too kindly. Seven days? It’s nuts. These folks need something that actually feels like punishment. Not this.

Look if Trump wants to demolish the White House he can get enough Canadians to do it again for free

Of course, if (just like the dotcom era) the wealth never really existed, if it was all a lie sold on the future potential of tech, then this loss was always going to happen some day, when the chickens come home to roost. Me, I’m on team chicken.

‘A monument to kindness’: the rise of Britain’s community cinemas

“Our product manager is using Copilot to write our Jira tickets” is the most cursed sentence I’ve heard all week, and I’ve been reading the news🗞️

Won’t comment on the signage, but this shows the pedestrian “island” in a three way crossing. I use this almost daily, it’s an accident hotspot, & cars often run the lights. As a pedestrian, this is the traffic equivalent of a shark cage with no bars. Frankly I don’t give a damn about the signage.

For about the last month I’ve been eating random wild/feral apples found in the area. Every one is different, but every one has had an amazing flavour. Appley, juicy goodness, even in our drought. Also, they have up to 100 times more nutrition. All that pectin? Soluble fibre — good for you.

So many parallels with the late ‘80s AI Winter. Short version is: the goal then was “expert systems”, tools to leverage skill for value. The problem is, they were expensive to built and didn’t create enough value. So, AI crashed. One fragment was knowledge management.

The best short ghost story ever.

Microsoft Bob is back, baby!

“I know, let’s drive the entire world economy on fear of missing out. What could possibly go wrong?”

Combining direct lighting - as Mark the Evangelist is demonstrating by using the illuminating dove - is great for targeted tasks and emphasizing details at your desk, while indirect lighting - see the open window - creates a warm and inviting environment. Bonus: your cat will like it. #catcontent

Tories are all upset because, after years of bumper stickers and flags, it was Katy Perry who achieved their dreams.

Canadians – If you have some time this long weekend, fill out this godawful government survey on AI, which itself seems to have been written by AI trained exclusively on buzzword-laden LinkedIn posts.

Happy to report that I laughed more at the movie Deep Cover than I have for a few years. Great fun, well written, and a fantastic cast loving every moment. More “British style” comedy than you’d expect from the crew. Reminded me of Elgin James and Stephen Merchant’s “The Outlaws”. Would recommend.

A great read. Now that I’m increasingly working on CV, i love this, because it’s more leverage for my stance that most folks are doing it entirely wrong anyways.

So someone “vibe coded” an app w/ a Google Maps API key that racked up a $50,000 bill and… LOL. But TBF those keys default to wide open. No restrictions by domain, IP, enabled APIs, etc. Massive potential for damage. They should be like a deadman’s switch… default to fully locked w/o explicit input.

I’ve heard people give variants on this argument for 30+ years, and mostly all they say is: we don’t understand either QM or consciousness, so they’re obviously the same thing. I don’t want your “spooky” unification concepts, you better have a damn good theory, and I haven’t heard one yet.