There are of course other reasons not to use generative LLMs for drafting. But leaving aside the training sets for a moment: They're also not good at it. And they're bad at it in ways that will make us bad at it.

I sometimes wish American cities had mascots like this. Then I remember the sort of mascots a lot of them come up with for their football teams and just go back to admiring Japan.

Happy holidays! Probably my favorite stop-motion from the past few years. Really enjoyed creating this one.

I can only admire the restraint shown in not ending the post mid-sentence. nealstephenson.substack.com/p/a-remarkab...

Actually it is on page 37. Multiple numbers.

You've got to be kidding me. I wonder who's going to be the first person to call Mick Jagger and see if this is legit.

But I can see you Your bronze helm shining in the sun And there's Gilgamesh with scale armor on, baby And I can tell you and Enkidu will still be strong After the boys of Sumer have gone

Rare footage of St Paul’s Cathedral testing its giant flamethrower

It all started in 1955 with a misprint in a Colorado newspaper and a call to Col. Harry Shoup's secret military hotline. Shoup played along with the tiny voice who called, and a tradition was born. From the NPR archives.

a) these are amazing b) yes the cat came home

I've been watching for the first "someone didn't know how to use the redaction tool, and here's what's under it". Given the number of documents, the likelihood of mistakes due to rushing, the chances that they put professionals on the job vs loyalist hacks....

hey man you don't need to talk about my business this doesn't need to go in the paper

There’s nothing stopping the people in Washington DC from naming their own things after the president The Donald J. Trump Dumpster The Donald J. Trump Port-a-Potty The Donald J. Trump Municipal Waste Disposal Facility

The Epstein file is the only thing Trump has ever taken his name off of

Christ, today's been a week long.

Friendly reminder that if you'd like a chance to read THE SECRET ATTIC super early, there is an advanced reader copy giveaway up on Goodreads. 20 winners. If you win, you'll get the ARC the same time I get my copy! www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho... #horror #thriller

If you ever wanted a clearer sign that fusion power is still a long ways off…

I really enjoyed this. A combination fascinating history, and a takedown of both inventor (?) / shithead Samuel Morse, and 90s sitcom Home Improvement. And it works!

History will be made and space will become a little more inclusive TODAY when my friend Michi Benthaus will become the first ever wheelchair user to leave our planet’s atmosphere (and only the second German woman to do so). Watch LIVE from 10am CST / 5pm CET here: www.blueorigin.com/missions/ns-37

Bonus fun: We can't do "on this day in 1582 in France" today, because it didn't exist.

30 years ago this month, the New York Daily News ran this article bemoaning how complicated coffee had become, bemused by Dalton's introduction of pumpkin spice coffee and Starbucks' eggnog lattes, noting that specialty coffee "is a fad--like breweries. It's already peaked."

Become ungovernable

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild: Moose Sika deer Sea eagle Lawn crawfish Snapping turtle

I guess this has probably already gone viral somewhere but I am simply dying at this picture of a bear that looks like it hired a photographer to do a glamour shoot

🚨🚨 Tukwilla, Washington: The NWS Seattle is reporting that a levee on the Green River has failed, flash flooding is occurring. If you are in the area, move to higher ground immediately!

“Oh you should be online to try to provide value to your political side” fuck that that’s nerd shit you should be online because you’re unwell and need to tell people about weird animals you saw

You don’t have to share what that guy has to say. About anything, ever. we all know he’s awful. At this point if you share what he says I’m forced to assume at some level that you like it.

Ahh, that time of year where various services send reminders that they individually track and store all of our activity in a way that can be accessed by their marketing people, famously the most security-conscious members of an organization. "Year in review". Thanks.

It’s so cool that every website is just Like This now. We used to send guys to the chair for putting pop-up ads on their sites. Now if I want to read something I have to read single lines between autoplaying video ads that use so much RAM they force the browser to reload every 5 seconds.

This is one of my favorite web comics. It's smart, it's funny, it's thoughtful. The writing is clever and the art is excellent. I highly recommend it.

Today in “Dudes Rock”: A dude playing Dire Straits’s “Sultans of Swing” guitar solo on…a recorder.

Wow. This is an absolutely terrifying read. We now live in an age when a single company can, through what appears to be plain old bureaucracy, can more or less brick your entire digital life.

In light of the astronomical increases for my health insurance next year, I thought it would be a good time to encourage people to subscribe. (A few hundred should cover it. Sigh.) clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

And the results are in! After carefully reviewing the results of a national poll the Board of Directors of the Society for Canadian English (SCE) has determined that this year’s Canadian Word of the Year (CWOTY), the first of its kind, will be “maplewashing.”

Turkey full comic here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/turkin #smbc

This morning, in the largest expansion yet, hundreds of new union baristas are walking off the job in 34 cities. That means there are now: 🗣️ 3,800 baristas ☕️ across 180 stores 📍 in over 130 cities on an open-ended ULP strike! We’re 👏 only 👏 getting 👏 stronger

I've lost count of how many "AI will do these peoples' jobs and here are vague examples that mostly just show I know little about those jobs" articles I've read, but I don't think I've even once seen one that's "AI will do my job, that I know well, and here's exactly how"

gonna be a big week for this one

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Shotgun!

I'm coming up on 48h awake so I don't have the energy to alt-text the un-alt-texted image, but: bog standard rights grant clause, has all the limiters I look for, you cannot run a website without a rights grant clause, zero reason for panic

For folks doing their award reading (or just looking to stock up for some quiet reading time) maybe I offer these two short stories?

If the Democrats had an ounce of showmanship, while Trump is up there handing out giant checks to farmers, they'd have a Trump impersonator handing giant checks for $0.00 to stand-ins for families whose health insurance is jumping up, and paying more for groceries, and kids who don't need dolls.

This picture has been making the rounds again, and is being misidentified again. This is a GOOSEFISH. This is NOT a tasselled wobbegong shark. It’s a great pic. I get why people are very excited about it. But it’s as easy to give it the right name as the wrong one. fullfact.org/online/tasse...

I just sat through a talk about the economic impact of AI, and it's still all speculative. It's still all "I think other people who aren't me will see great benefits in their fields that aren't mine." Nobody seems able to articulate concrete benefits that will accrue.

this is similar to what I've come to think of as the "reverse turing test" when people find synthetic text is "good enough" to complete a task (homework, business report, email) it doesn't mean the machine is smart. it means they were asked to produce something that didn't matter it's diagnostic

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

I had a joke about Hector, but it kinda drags on.