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:Remembering James Doohan on his 100th Birthday (found on the Star Trek Wholesomeposting Fa…When I was a kid watching the reruns aft…HistoryThe Cosmic Brownie fairy has visited my office. Is “brownie fairy” redundant? Thank you an…PersonalWhen you see a show alone often…
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:Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star…
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:I love my students enough to teach them the difference between passive voice and past tens…If a goggles-for-brains Lego character c…EducationSummer project: learning the Unity gaming engine.One bedtime…
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:30 years later, Sierra's Laura Bow mysteries are still a treasureWhen I was in college and grad school, a…CultureHow do you spend your last week…
“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:"Dammit Mom, I'm a daughter, not a theoretician!"”Dammit Mom, I’m a daughter, not a theor…AmusingThe boy wins once again. #chessGames'Jane…
Similar:Emily Dickinson Fun Page #literature #amusing #dashes Emily Dickinson Fun Page #literatu…AmusingIt's Science! Carolyn Uses Anastasia's Lip Balm KitMy friend Anastasia gave me a home-made …AestheticsChillax, Wikipedia, and bridezilla are not puns: Against adjoinagesSo if recessionista and fembot are not r…AmusingThe Days of Microsoft Internet Explorer Are Numbered—But Its Sorry Legacy Will Live OnStarting…
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:Wooden document holders. Pretty routine, but practice is practice. #Blender3DPersonalFaculty stacked up in launch tube beneath McKenna gym, ready for graduation 2022.AcademiaPerforming as Alquist in ActIII of Rossum’s Universal Robots. (Free Zoom performance of gr…https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…PersonalIn August, 2002, I was blogging about ebook readers and email in teaching; how urban legen…In August, 2002, I was blogging…
Right now I can move the player around but the NPCs either just stand there or run to a random location and stop. Similar:Updated my "Show, Don't (Just) Tell" HandoutTaking advantage of a summer day in the …AcademiaBlender 3D Flyover of Fantasy Steampunk Spacecraft When my kids were small, at bedtime …AestheticsHelping students find my…
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:A dinosaur and an octopus are among those doing a speed-writing workshop in my journalism …PersonalSet design for a virtual production of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Post-apocalypti… AestheticsEquus. Powerful theatre.PersonalYes, I spent the last hour designing this brutalist pen holder for…
I remember these young people. Similar:Create Joy with Content Management System Hexcodes for Canvas LMSI spent about 30 seconds eyeballing the …AcademiaThank you, 1993 Dennis, for documenting this low-resolution (the background image was 640x…Thank you, 1993 Dennis, for documenting …AestheticsDean Jones Dead: Disney Actor Was 84″The Love Bug” was one of the movies tha…Current_EventsHeart of…