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Dan Yack - Blaise Cendrars
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 195
Antarctica, again, I can't seem to get away from it.
Anyways, the first of 4 more of Cendrars books I ordered arrive, giving me hope the rest are still tied up in the mail.
About an English Shipping Magnate, in St. Petersberg, who having been thwarted in love after an bacchanal at a cabaret wakes up at the feet of a sculptor, a composer and a poet...
...after eavesdropping for some while upon their conversation he conspires to bring them with him for a year to Antarctica to explore the further limits of the Human Condition.
And, Antarctica, I'm beginning to know it as well as if I'd discovered it myself. Things here though turn out very different than they did for Scott, Cherry-Garrard and Shackleton, but I'll wait until the next volume in the series arrives, the "Diaries of Dan Yack", which should apparently clear up any confusion arisen in the first book.
A curious read, not my favourite (it is possible I've had quite enough of the polar climes), back to Cherry-Garrard. Halfway through and I'm thinking it'd be easier just to plant the god-damned flag myself and be done with it, or expire trying...
AI Models collapse when trained on recursively generated data
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 247
An interesting article on Nature.com about how AI Models collapse when trained on recursively generated data.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07566-y
Now, reassuring to us that they still need a diversity of inputs, hence the "I" part of "AI" is not yet complete. In human terms think of it as the conspiracy oriented wing-nut who gets his/her news from a single source and begins to parrot the most God-Awful theories, and even (god forbid) create his own.
What would be interesting is to create robots - in the likes of Boston Dynamics, have them "experience" the world - touch, sight, temperature, sound, taste, etc - and then see what they can tell us - so much of our own perception is based upon our own personal, cultural and even biological biases. What truths underpin the universe that are apparent when we strip those aside? And then monitor their interactions with each other and see how they learn/assimilate other robots "truths".
Reading between the lines there are some curious experiments being done, I'm sure, as we speak.
Robert Reich
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Audio & Podcasts
- Hits: 228
Listening to a few of his videos, largely on American Politics, how we (because ours are heading in the same direction) got to where we are, and how we can implement far-reaching and reasonable change.
Of extra-relevance, given our reduced earnings, skyrocketing groceries/rental bills, and - of course, the unending Ferry Strike, which is definitely a harbinger of things to come.
He's good, a long-time left leaning activist with a reasonable and informed approach - something you don't come across very often in politics nowadays...
My Haunted Electric Toothbrush
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 140
So I bought a new electric toothbrush a few weeks ago, the old one, it was pooched, wouldn't charge, power on, it was done.
I was a little annoyed as I didn't feel I'd gotten my money's worth. It didn't live nearly as long as the warranty promised it would, the warranty that I threw away upon buying because who keeps that stuff anyways...
Anyways, no sooner than I get the new toothbrush home and up and running than the old one begins working again.
At first, it's just on for a 2 minute cycle, no turning it off. And as I'm fastidious about using things right up I put the new toothbrush away and use the old one. After a couple of weeks it begins to allow me to turn it off as well as on, and it would seem to be as good as new.
Yesterday it needed charging. I threw it on the charger, and from the bathroom all night it played a variety of tunes, beeps, chirps, like R2-D2, this morning, took it off the charger (heard it beeping for attention) - it wasn't charged, put it back on, it was charged, light turns green. I go in to the bathroom a few minutes later to find it fully on and brushing an imaginary set of teeth...
It's as if it belonged to the internet of things, useless items that need to go online like fridges and thermostats and light bulbs, and had been taken over by a playful Russian Hacker. My haunted electric toothbrush...
***
I tried to brush my teeth before work. It wouldn't start. And so I chucked it away, time, overdue, piece-of-shit toothbrush.
And ever since then I've heard it powering on, off, on, off, beeping out Xmas Carols, in my garbage.
Time to take out the trash...
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