Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing. […] A trained and tested LLM, when presented with a new text prompt, will generate the most likely next word, append it to the prompt, generate another next word, and continue in this manner,…
Look what I found on my shelf in a closet. #history #archaeology #media Similar:When students don't show up during office hours: I adjusted the cabinet and added a new (s…AestheticsDeus Ex MemoriesI’ve just finished my final training run…CybercultureA #neovictorian #steampunk ship-of-the-line needs a dramatic flag and a conveniently locat…AestheticsI can't really articulate why i enjoy…
This was before the printing press, so books were copied by hand on parchment, which made them expensive and rare. Most people didn’t read much, especially for pleasure. Instead, they listened to books at group readings for entertainment. Pero López de Ayala wrote at the end of the 14th century, “It also pleased me to…
Book historian Irene O’Daly notes that the passage crossed out in a medieval manuscript matches where the scribe accidentally turned two pages while copying out a printed book, showing that manuscript culture continued to exist even after the printing press was introduced. (It’s the third of three examples she uses.) Similar:The ballroom of my #steampunk…
I’m sure the good-apple cops will fairly and thoroughly investigate reports about someone stealing newspapers containing a story about alleged rapes at an underage drinking party at the police chief’s house. Nearly all the copies of a small-town Colorado newspaper were stolen from newspaper racks on the same day the Ouray County Plaindealer published a…
Ascending the path to High Hrothgar? No, just the steps from the parking lot at the appropriately named Seton Hill University. (It’s 101 steps, by the way.) Similar:She was nervous about the dog misbehaving during "Tomorrow," so I told her she could pract… https://youtu.be/718e4XsNvGY Leap…AmusingCarolyn, Easter 2017 PersonalIgnorance Meets an Invisible DisabilityI’m sure my young, healthy-looking…
This is offensive, deeply troubling, and, sadly, totally predictable. Julian Dibbell documented similar behavior 30 years ago in his article about sexual assault in the text-only virtual world LambaMOO. (Content warning… sexual assault in a multi-user virtual environment.) A woman has revealed she was ‘virtually gang raped’ by four male avatars in Meta‘s Horizon Worlds –…
Rewatching ST:DS9 The Ship On a mineral survey of a planet that just happens to look like Southern California, O’Brien trades playful barbs with crewman Muniz. Unlike most episodes where the leads have all the fun, this mission is fairly crawling with random crew we’ve never seen before. An unidentified ship appears randomly and crashes…
In general, I find Canvas a fairly decent system, but after a particularly frustrating hour wrestling with rubrics, I decided to spend two more hours blogging about my frustrations. I would expect a drop-down list to be populated with all the rubrics I’ve already created for my current class, and it would be a nice…
Rewatching ST:DS9 Worf and O’Brien want to search for overdue Sisko and Dax, but Kira invokes the Defiant’s standing orders to guard the station. When the captain’s damaged runabout turns up, we learn Starfleet wants him to prove that, per Odo’s intelligence, Gowron is a Changeling. Quark shows concern for Odo: “That’s one depressed ex-changeling.”…
I voiced Jack Rollins, writer of the popular holiday songs “Frosty the Snowman” and “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” in another “Whispers of the Past” documentary focused on Scottdale, Pa. Similar:A stranger approached me today.A stranger approached me today. I was a…CultureParallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesMy Anti-Linkbait…
“Be straight like a board!” My father is pressing me flat against the ceiling from my nose to my toes, and I’m squirming with laughter. His hands are so strong. I remember him helping my little fingers spread Limburger cheese — we called it our “buddy cheese.” My father worked as a…
POV: You are coding the automatic doors on your fantasy neovictorian cruiser personal project and you notice the strikeplate in the doorframe does not line up with the door latch. #unity3d #blender3d #revision #qc Similar:Desiderata (Nerdy Inspiration)This is a little story about an inspirat…CultureVersu's Epilogue: How an Interactive Fiction Pioneer's 15 Year Project Ended…
Similar:Jesus Christ SuperstarI have a daughter who does things. Her n…Culture'History has treated her badly': Hamnet and the 400-year-old mystery around Shakespeare's …Anyone seen “Hamnet”? I was not too i…CultureRichard Halloran / Owns Home Computer.“Engineers now predict the day will come…AmusingIn journalism, nuances such as "sources tell us…" "reportedly…" "it appears…" "confi…I don’t click…
As a grad student in the 1990s, I chose to focus my dissertation on the years 1920-1950, on the theory that works published during that time period would fall out of copyright during the prime of my academic career. I imagined that one of my ongoing scholarly projects would be to publish free, annotated editions…
Similar:A student who had often been frustrated during my class used this poem in her final reflec… PersonalThe Real Reason Why You Can't WriteHave you ever stopped to think about wha…AcademiaThose emails can wait.PersonalSeeing the Barebones production of The Sound Inside. (Support the arts in your community!)PersonalThe girl will be dancing as the Gold Fairy in…
Right now I can move the player around but the NPCs either just stand there or run to a random location and stop. Similar:My daughter was five or six when she created the character “Moonbot” for the #steampunk be…https://youtu.be/GoWiNB_tlJ8 AestheticsMy contribution to WAOB Audio Theatre’s plan to record all the proverbs.My contribution to WAOB Audio…
George Joseph Jerz, born on September 3rd, 1933, the son of Joseph and Clara (nee Kuta) Jerz, died peacefully in hospice care at Sunrise at Fair Oaks in Fairfax, Virginia on December 5th, 2023. He grew up in Chicago, Illinois, was interested in gymnastics and weightlifting in college, and then after serving in the military,…
Hello, I’m Dr. Jerz, I’ll be your server tonight for Christmas on the Hill. Similar:I baked about 12 million vertices of steampunk control panel geometry into a flat plane wi…PersonalEquus. Powerful theatre.PersonalThe third Google hit for " #steampunk control panel" is a #blender3d image I cre…PersonalCarolyn made it to the next round of the 2017…
I remember these young people. Similar:She doesn't have keys or a phone or an ID. Why does my tween need a purse?To stash her Lemonheads and Smarties. ht…Amusing"A Mushroom at Last… A Mushroom Forever"I asked my 10yo why she was moping. “…AmusingQuick visit to see my mother and siblings.AestheticsMemorizer (Memorization Tool)A Midsummer castmate shared a link to…