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Dan Yack - Blaise Cendrars
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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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: 712
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.
What is this rock?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Conversations
- Hits: 267
This was a rather hilarious YouTube recommendation, a geologist invites rockhounds/prospectors onto his show and identifies their rocks. Now, pretty boring, even for me, but worth it for the part where he tries to get some clues as to where this rock came from...
..."on the ground..."
More precisely?
"...in the desert..."
...
"Well, you see, we don't really want to say, be giving away our prime spot and all..."
Now I completely get it, who wouldn't, and the geologist, he sort of gets it, and the rock, it's pretty ugly, just a rock, but to them it's treasure, precious, and they'll go so far as to narrow down the area to a state, or a few hundred square miles, but more than that, well, it's just asking too much.
Robert Reich
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Audio & Podcasts
- Hits: 586
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...
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