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:Attending Religious Perspectives on the War in Gaza. Attending Religious Perspectives on the…PersonalShakespeare's WillPersonalCarolyn as Cosette in the wedding scene in Les Miz. #feelsPersonal'Dream' casting a family affairAmong actors in Cabaret Theatre’s upcomi…CultureEvery few years, I Google the name of the kid…
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:English Is the Language of…
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:Datalore (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 12) Data's bro wants to be with a big crystal tr…In “Datalore,” an encounter with Data’s …CultureOpening night of Sive.PersonalPushing and pulling…
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:Booby Trap (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 6) When LaForge gets absurd with a hologr…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year b…DesignTelevision is Now the Second Screen for…
“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:Astronauts cloaked Klingon space patch: Star Trek-inspired emblem revealed The current commander of the Internati…AestheticsLive theater. August Wilson's Jitney, in…
Similar:Proofreading matters. (For the record, Blanche actually said, "We most certainly enter a p…I make mistakes on my blog all the time….Current_EventsThe Naked Now (Season 1, Episode 2: ST:TNG Rewatch) When a script that blows chunks makes …With a large ensemble, we saw many scene…CultureJournalism is doing just fine, thanks — it’s mass-media business…
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:Stage Right Arts4Homeschoolers present Hello Dolly Apr 28 & 29.My daughter will be playing Dolly Levi F…CultureZagg Rugged iPad Air2 keyboard case — USB mini socket came right out with the plug. Grr!I have not had much luck with Zagg keybo…PersonalThe Missing Will, by Agatha Christie (WAOB Audio Theatre)I had a great time playing Hastings…
Right now I can move the player around but the NPCs either just stand there or run to a random location and stop. Similar:As part of an ongoing feud over the rights to use a particular shade of ultra-black paint,…As part of an ongoing bid to get his han…AestheticsWhich of my colleagues wants attention?AcademiaStephen Coles’…
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:She was a musical ingenue Sunday, filmed a slasher movie past midnight Monday, and was pre…DanceMy project starts to get clunky while managing 1000 NPCs but I think if I split them up in…My project starts to get clunky while ma…AestheticsMore…
I remember these young people. Similar:Carnegie Science Center: Roboworld (and a bit of SportsWorks)Here’s a brief video, made up of clips I…CultureCongrats to all the winners at the Pittsburgh 48 Hour Film Project! Bit-Sized Productions …Bit-Sized Productions was nominated for …ArtThe daughter is performing now Twin Lakes Park.The daughter is performing now Twin Lake…PersonalAcademic Writing…