![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Birdfeeding
Jul. 12th, 2025 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithToday is cloudy, mild, and wet. It rained earlier.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/12/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
It started drizzling again.
EDIT 7/12/25 -- I potted up 2 apricot seeds.
I picked the first ripe cucumber. :D
.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/12/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
It started drizzling again.
EDIT 7/12/25 -- I potted up 2 apricot seeds.
I picked the first ripe cucumber. :D
.
Weird Al and "Oh hey, it's that guy!", Murderbot-style
Jul. 12th, 2025 03:00 pmpetraI had the opportunity to go to a concert of his recently and enjoyed his part of the show exceedingly. The opening act, Puddles Pity Party, was very much not my thing, alas, but Mr. Yankovic is exuberantly himself, the costume changes are lolarious, and the music is inimitably Weird. If you like his work, you'll almost certainly like his concert. Extra points awarded for the songs (not all of them, alas) that had text videos, effectively functioning as closed captioning with a sense of humor.
Also, the audience was full of people wearing extremely cheerful shirts, and made great viewing.
I have not seen the most recent Murderbot yet, but I did spot David Dastmalchian as John Deacon in a clip of Weird-the-biopic which was played at the concert, so that's almost the same thing, right? I was very proud of my facial recognition software for picking up on that. I would like to belatedly award points to the casting department for finding a way to get another MENA-descended person into Queen, which is a great joke I didn't get at the time.
I loved the new Murderbot short story, which I read aloud to my SO.
Also, the audience was full of people wearing extremely cheerful shirts, and made great viewing.
I have not seen the most recent Murderbot yet, but I did spot David Dastmalchian as John Deacon in a clip of Weird-the-biopic which was played at the concert, so that's almost the same thing, right? I was very proud of my facial recognition software for picking up on that. I would like to belatedly award points to the casting department for finding a way to get another MENA-descended person into Queen, which is a great joke I didn't get at the time.
I loved the new Murderbot short story, which I read aloud to my SO.
Philosophical Questions: Poverty
Jul. 12th, 2025 02:36 amysabetwordsmithPeople have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.
Is poverty in society inevitable?
( Read more... )
Is poverty in society inevitable?
( Read more... )
Extinct Birds
Jul. 11th, 2025 11:31 pmysabetwordsmith'The Lord of the Rings' director Peter Jackson is on a mission to revive the world’s tallest bird, 600 years after it went extinct
Inspired by their debut project, Jackson is now working with Colossal to bring the ancient moa back to life through subfossil sourcing and genetic engineering.
On July 8, Jackson and his partner donated $15 million to the project.
The moa is an excellent choice for de-extinction, as it died out relatively recently and due to human misbehavior.
( Read more... )
Inspired by their debut project, Jackson is now working with Colossal to bring the ancient moa back to life through subfossil sourcing and genetic engineering.
On July 8, Jackson and his partner donated $15 million to the project.
The moa is an excellent choice for de-extinction, as it died out relatively recently and due to human misbehavior.
( Read more... )
Today's Adventures
Jul. 11th, 2025 09:34 pmysabetwordsmithToday we went to the Marshall Farmer's Market. It's an evening market from 6-8 PM, followed by a band concert, which is way better than a morning one.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
New Crowdfunding Project: "Take Us North"
Jul. 11th, 2025 09:27 pmysabetwordsmithTake Us North is down to the last day or so of its campaign. If you want to participate, now is the time.
$50,976 pledged of $30,000 goal
509 backers
26 hours to go
$50,976 pledged of $30,000 goal
509 backers
26 hours to go
some good things
Jul. 11th, 2025 11:56 pmkaberett- The fan. Got house down to Actually Matching Outside Air Temperature in finite time; set up to experiment with running it in the bedroom overnight. (It has been Too Warm For Cuddles, which is Bad.)
- Made the nonsense lavender-and-honey Welsh cakes for breakfast. I was sure I had picked way too much lavender but it actually fit in the measuring spoon pretty much perfectly, and wound up being noticeable but not Overwhelming.
- New Murderbot novelette! I have not launched right into reading it because I am just about a quarter of the way through a System Collapse reread (and fascinated by how little of it I remember, though I concede I've read it many fewer times than All Systems Red...) so I'm going to finish that first. Which I am not expecting to take me very long.
- Having spent a bunch of time poking around Wikipedia, I've gone back to Nerve and Muscle and, now almost two whole pages in, it is making significantly more sense than my previous attempt. (I have not yet started making myself notes on neuroanatomy but I am definitely considering it.)
- It is The Time Of Year when strawberries are relatively cheap, so after dinner we wandered down the hill in service of me getting my steps, and us getting some exposure to The Breeze, and acquiring me a giant box of strawberries, and also picking up Ice Lollies to consume on the way back up.
- Realised I could stick a jug of water in the fridge. This has made hydrating significantly easier. (I do not do well at drinking water that isn't Cold, and the magic ice dispenser on our freezer is currently out of action.)
- The online Oxfam shop. Shortly to be on their way to me: a pair of cargo shorts; two pairs of linen cargo trousers; a book I previously had out from the library but which I wanted to have a reference copy of at least briefly for writing purposes.
Art
Jul. 11th, 2025 03:35 pmysabetwordsmithThis art workshop made a "landscape" out of loose parts for the artists to use as inspiration. Every art room should have a generous collection of objects to mix and match like this.
Birdfeeding
Jul. 11th, 2025 02:53 pmysabetwordsmithToday is sunny and sweltering.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a house wren.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/11/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
I've seen a fox squirrel.
EDIT 7/11/25 -- Yesterday I collected 5 little pink crabapples while out and about. These are almost marble size, much more useful than the pea-sized ones. So I potted up those today to see if they'll sprout.
I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a house wren.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/11/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
I've seen a fox squirrel.
EDIT 7/11/25 -- Yesterday I collected 5 little pink crabapples while out and about. These are almost marble size, much more useful than the pea-sized ones. So I potted up those today to see if they'll sprout.
The AI Con by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
Jul. 11th, 2025 12:55 pmaltamira16This book was a very well done AI skeptic book that was rooted in deep knowledge of the history of artificial intelligence. It brought to light some interesting points that I had never thought about, and it never descended into a rant.
It gets into the history of AI, and a lot of that discussion is rooted in the type of probabilistic models that I learned about in grad school. It is discussing n-grams, Markov, and so on.
There is a discussion about how AI is an attempt to break labor and gets into a more detailed history of the Luddites. The Luddites were craftsmen, and machines were replacing their hard won skills with an inferior product. The machines that were doing this were also dangerous to their operators.
Various people involved in AI feel like there should not be any AI policy until it is thoroughly discussed, but the authors propose that existing laws should be used to limit the use of AI in areas where it can do harm. They quote Michael Atleson, an attorney within the FTC Division of Advertising Practices:
The book was extremely critical about the use of AI in making medical decisions and in law. Law has to do with the nuance of language, and generated language that no human really thinks through does not have the same nuance.
There were also good arguments for limiting the use of AI in education.
While some technology in education is important, a lot of technology in education is designed to give an inferior education to poor kids and union-bust.
One thing that I did not know was that the little Gemini summary on a Google search uses 10-30 times more energy than search before this feature was added.
The authors see both AI doomers and AI boosters as two sides of the same coin. Both of these groups believe that the AI will become smarter than humans. The outcome is the only thing that they differ on.
The group that wants to consider the data used to train the models and the impacts that AI has on the present really does not want to get lumped in with AI doomers that think that the AI is going to eventually get so smart that it will destroy humanity. They are rooted in reality while the doomers are not. There was some criticism of how Vice President Harris was trying to get the people concerned with the present impact of AI to work with the doomers.
There were a lot of references Karen Hao's work. How has recently released the book "Empire of AI." Hao is an AI journalist specifically focused on OpenAI.
It gets into the history of AI, and a lot of that discussion is rooted in the type of probabilistic models that I learned about in grad school. It is discussing n-grams, Markov, and so on.
There is a discussion about how AI is an attempt to break labor and gets into a more detailed history of the Luddites. The Luddites were craftsmen, and machines were replacing their hard won skills with an inferior product. The machines that were doing this were also dangerous to their operators.
Various people involved in AI feel like there should not be any AI policy until it is thoroughly discussed, but the authors propose that existing laws should be used to limit the use of AI in areas where it can do harm. They quote Michael Atleson, an attorney within the FTC Division of Advertising Practices:
Your therapy bots aren't licensed psychologists, your AI girlfriends are neither girls nor friends, your griefbots have no soul, and your AI copilots are not gods.
The book was extremely critical about the use of AI in making medical decisions and in law. Law has to do with the nuance of language, and generated language that no human really thinks through does not have the same nuance.
There were also good arguments for limiting the use of AI in education.
In August 2020, thousands of British students, unable to take their A-level exams due to the COVID-19 pandemic, received grades calculated based on an algorithm that took as input, among other things, the grades that other students at their schools received in previous years. After massive public outcry, in which hundreds of students gathered outside the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street in London, chanting "Fuck the algorithm!" the grades were retracted and replaced with grades based on teachers' assessments of the student work.
While some technology in education is important, a lot of technology in education is designed to give an inferior education to poor kids and union-bust.
One thing that I did not know was that the little Gemini summary on a Google search uses 10-30 times more energy than search before this feature was added.
The authors see both AI doomers and AI boosters as two sides of the same coin. Both of these groups believe that the AI will become smarter than humans. The outcome is the only thing that they differ on.
The group that wants to consider the data used to train the models and the impacts that AI has on the present really does not want to get lumped in with AI doomers that think that the AI is going to eventually get so smart that it will destroy humanity. They are rooted in reality while the doomers are not. There was some criticism of how Vice President Harris was trying to get the people concerned with the present impact of AI to work with the doomers.
There were a lot of references Karen Hao's work. How has recently released the book "Empire of AI." Hao is an AI journalist specifically focused on OpenAI.
Bonus Fishbowl
Jul. 11th, 2025 12:38 pmysabetwordsmithThere will be a bonus fishbowl on Tuesday, July 15. The theme will be "anything goes." If you want a continuation of an earlier piece, or something totally new, that doesn't fit the usual themes, then now's your chance. Brainstorm in advance and jot down ideas for later. You can also request any favorite series, character, setting, etc.
Note that our internet connection has been bad for well over a month. Sometimes it's down completely, other times things like Dreamwidth and searches won't run. So I'm losing a lot of work time and may only have access for half a day or less. Given this limitation, there's a higher chance of actually getting things written for prompts that use characters, settings, etc. that are already established.
Note that our internet connection has been bad for well over a month. Sometimes it's down completely, other times things like Dreamwidth and searches won't run. So I'm losing a lot of work time and may only have access for half a day or less. Given this limitation, there's a higher chance of actually getting things written for prompts that use characters, settings, etc. that are already established.
Communities
Jul. 11th, 2025 04:15 amysabetwordsmithHere's a cool Dreamwidth tool: take the URL of any community and add /read to the end. It will show you posts by all the members. So for instance:
https://birdfeeding.dreamwidth.org/read
https://birdfeeding.dreamwidth.org/read
Focus
Jul. 11th, 2025 03:58 amysabetwordsmithThis is why some people hate interruptions and find it hard to switch from one activity to another. It includes people with ADHD, autism, executive function disorder, post-concussion-syndrome, other cognitive issues; many introverts; and most people who spend a lot of time doing things they are bad at (e.g. a linguistically inclined person doing math, or an athletic person forced to write text). Discuss with the people in your life what kinds of interruptions are okay or not, when, and how.
Climate Change
Jul. 11th, 2025 01:00 amysabetwordsmithBigger crops, fewer nutrients: The hidden cost of climate change
Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens like kale and spinach. This shift could spell trouble for global health, particularly in communities already facing nutritional stress. Researchers warn that while crops may grow faster, they may also become less nourishing, with fewer minerals, proteins, and antioxidants raising concerns about obesity, weakened immunity, and chronic diseases.
( Read more... )
Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens like kale and spinach. This shift could spell trouble for global health, particularly in communities already facing nutritional stress. Researchers warn that while crops may grow faster, they may also become less nourishing, with fewer minerals, proteins, and antioxidants raising concerns about obesity, weakened immunity, and chronic diseases.
( Read more... )
Mushrooms
Jul. 10th, 2025 05:40 pmysabetwordsmithToday we cooked up the mixed carton of fancy mushrooms from the Champaign Farmer's Market. They included pink oysters, blue oysters, lion's mane, and some little brown things with long stems and caps the size of a thumbnail. We sauteed them in sunflower oil, seasoned them with garam masala, and added some chopped bacon.
The result tasted good, but not much better than our usual mix of mushrooms, and it was twice as expensive. The oysters were good, but don't taste notably different from the usual white to light brown ones. We did not care of the stringy texture of the lion's mane. Also, they cooked way fast and shrank way down, which left a small amount of stir-fry. They might have worked better in something like wild mushroom spaghetti sauce. So it was interesting to try, but not worth repeating.
The result tasted good, but not much better than our usual mix of mushrooms, and it was twice as expensive. The oysters were good, but don't taste notably different from the usual white to light brown ones. We did not care of the stringy texture of the lion's mane. Also, they cooked way fast and shrank way down, which left a small amount of stir-fry. They might have worked better in something like wild mushroom spaghetti sauce. So it was interesting to try, but not worth repeating.
Artificial Intelligence
Jul. 10th, 2025 04:53 pmysabetwordsmithThis post has the funniest argument I have seen against AI: "A computer can never be spiteful or horny. Therefore a computer must never make art."
Now from an anthropological perspective, anything decorative rather than purely functional is "art" -- a contrasting color around the rim of a jug, for instance. From a cultural perspective, however, art is about emotion. It's how we express our human feelings about things we have seen or imagined as a way of communicating with other people. So by that definition, a computer cannot make art, even if it can mash around colors and images. An interesting point.
Now from an anthropological perspective, anything decorative rather than purely functional is "art" -- a contrasting color around the rim of a jug, for instance. From a cultural perspective, however, art is about emotion. It's how we express our human feelings about things we have seen or imagined as a way of communicating with other people. So by that definition, a computer cannot make art, even if it can mash around colors and images. An interesting point.