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:Drinking milk and using the #WaybackMachine to fix broken links in a 10-year-old blog post…PersonalWest Side Story (Aug 9-12) #somethingscomingCultureFie upon your multi-page, ad-stuffed crapfest of shame. (Don't click!)What I wrote is not actually a list, jus…DesignThe spoils.PersonalThis Is What Summer Vacation…
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:Understanding 9/11: A Television News…
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:Remembering James Doohan on his 100th Birthday (found on the Star Trek Wholesomeposting Fa…When I was a kid watching the reruns aft…HistoryFormer student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed…
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:Captain’s Holiday (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 19) Picard’s Archeologica…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….AmusingTexty Cloak of Darkness in ProseBelow is a snippet from…
“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:This Is How Tyranny Begins (Robert Reich)As the faculty advisor to a college jour…CultureRapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode…
Similar:Nichelle Nichols, ground-breaking Star Trek actor and NASA recruiter, 1932-2022 https://twitter.com/CNN/status/15538337…Current_EventsThe YouTubers who blew the whistle on an anti-vax plotWhile rational minds worry about the imp…Current_EventsYou Can Smell Trump's FearLike all successful demagogues, Trump ha…CultureBirthright, Part 2 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 17) Worf sows disorder in a …Rewatching ST:TNG L’Kor tells Worf…
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:Responding to Literature at the College LevelA new handout, based on the opening lect…AcademiaAP Style: try to determine, and then respect, a source's preferences when it comes to…PersonalBureaucrats Put the Squeeze on College NewspapersFew school newspapers are financially in…AcademiaWhat, exactly, am I looking at here? I’m so confused.What, exactly, am I looking at here? I’m…PersonalTell…
Right now I can move the player around but the NPCs either just stand there or run to a random location and stop. Similar:Worked a short day today, and it shows. Tomorrow is another day!PersonalChoiceScript tutorial for making casual, phone-friendly, stats-driven storygames. Choice o… https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…AcademiaThis is Ralph. Ralph is a concept, created by you while…
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’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Very glad I got my son interested in 2001: …PersonalWhat About “The Breakfast Club”?I made three movies with John Hughes; wh…Culture"The Nightmare of Prince Prezelsky"Leigh, Peter, Carolyn and I had fun reco…AmusingOut…
I remember these young people. Similar:Half of my students have never read Hamlet. (I told them not to get too attached to any of…We focused just on Act I today — the ope…PersonalBeautiful. No Data / Lore opposition required. AestheticsToday's 10 sq cm of a #steampunk control panel (background greebles for a personal project…AestheticsThe girl…