Bits

A use of #ai I can get behind https://dutchcyclinglifestyle.com/

Is My Toddler a Stochastic Parrot?
“The world is racing to develop ever more sophisticated large language models while a small language model unfurls itself in my home.” .. a beautiful rumination on #ai #llm #humanity https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fhumor%2Fsketchbook%2Fis-my-toddler-a-stochastic-parrot

A man who struggles to survive after awakening alone, trapped in a society connected only by a primitive computer network, where the ability to entertain is the only currency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsEQXnddPa4

drawmyui.com sketch a #UI which is then sent to #gpt4 vision model & converted to working code #ux #design #ai https://www.drawmyui.com/

Pulling off an advanced scam on Wikipedia and got blocked, made a new account and spent five years of pretending to be an indie singer, emotionally traumatizing the person who revealed their fake(!) identity, disappeared off the face of the earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-11-06/Arbitration_report

All that location data your mobile churns out .. creates quite a market https://www.placer.ai/the-square/industry-trends

“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution… Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.” https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/from-toy-to-tool-dall-e-3-is-a-wake-up-call-for-visual-artists-and-the-rest-of-us/

Sound & Music

a free, #opensource visual #synth and #DMX lighting tool https://videosync.showsync.com/

The Beths – Expert In A Dying Field

Great Surface Noise show on @WFMU .. trucker tunes & ambient country https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/133857

Largely viewed as a nostalgic totem these days, the #cassette #tape was revelatory and revolutionary in its time; its disruptive power anticipated the even greater tectonic shift that the digital age would bring to music. https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fculture%2Fcultural-comment%2Fthe-cassette-tape-revolution

Saddened and angered to witness this happening to #bandcamp https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/is-bandcamp-as-we-know-it-over/

Bob Mehr, author of “Trouble Boys: The True Story Of The Replacements” today on #wfmu @WFMU with Michael Shelley https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/133868

Politics & Economics

“We’re in the year 2023 .. if we get through this century without a mass extinction event and social breakdown – that is utopia. So, the bar for utopia has been lowered.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF7j7J84Tdk

By removing the carbon tax on heating fuel, we now have the situation where far more than “8 out of 10” households in #novascotia will be receiving more money back than they pay for the carbon tax.

Unfortunately, the prime minister’s decision to “axe the tax” simply enhances Canada’s reputation as a climate laggard. #climatechange #canada #policy https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/commentary/the-effect-of-the-heating-oil-carve-out-in-nova-scotia/

drawing on an extensive review of photographs, videos and police investigative files from 11 mass killings between 2012 and 2023, The @washingtonpost is publishing the most comprehensive account to date of the repeating pattern of destruction wrought by the #ar15 — a weapon that was originally designed for military combat but has in recent years become one of the best-selling firearms on the U.S. market. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-force-mass-shootings/

In other cases, including lack of or delayed implementation of legislation, such as the Coastal Protection Act and regulations in #novascotia – political interests hinder planning actions that would limit hard infrastructure and development along the coast. https://theconversation.com/let-coastlines-be-coastlines-how-nature-based-approaches-can-protect-canadas-coasts-217353

“If you have 40 per cent of your market that’s somehow able to keep prices really low, you’re not going to be able to keep your prices really high, because people are going to have this other option,” she says. “That’s precisely why people don’t want [the co-op] sector to grow.” #canada #housing https://ricochet.media/en/4003/people-love-living-in-co-ops-so-why-did-canada-kill-the-program