Notices by Justin Pickard (jcalpickard@assemblag.es)

Getting on better with AI discourse (on all sides) upon finally internalising that _all this_ is something new, more modest and strange, which a bunch of bad men have squeezed into the preserved hide of some old, dead thing. Less Emperor’s New Clothes than Prince and the Pauper, via Weekend at Bernie’s (and/or Kevin Smith’s Tusk).

@scribe [chanting] framework framework framework

'He was able to expand his library quickly by obtaining the right to have his purchases funded by the family in exchange for relinquishing his birth-right to his younger brother—' #foundtext

'Your initial reluctance towards a project-based ontology, combined with this naming decision, suggests a nuanced approach to categorising your work that doesn't neatly fit into conventional software development paradigms.' #generatedtext

'[D]on't be surprised if technology seems to strip you of some capacity, since it almost always does; don't cling too firmly to your current technological milieu or even the way that your mind currently works; do, however, be shrewd, making sure that whenever you yield some capacity to a technology, allowing a power that was once proper to you to be pulled beyond you, you gain a profit—some other mentally worthwhile activity, your new possession that you share with others.' (Booten 2024)

@scribe @orbific This is something I'll be running at in earnest in the new year. In the meantime, I've seen this crop up a few times: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2338922/5-easy-ways-to-run-an-llm-locally.html

@scribe Working on a thing with @tmsullivan about "ostensive detachment" in LLMs and divination; I think there's also something about the iterative input-output tinkering, and being able to (quickly) see the effects of minor tweaks and changes.

@hugo thought this was the new zotero for a second there

'Button Stealer is a Chrome browser extension that "steals" buttons from the websites you visit.'

https://github.com/anatolyzenkov/button-stealer

@scribe Giving serious thought to putting Miniflux on the Raspberry Pi as, like, minimum viable sysadmin.

Knew it was coming, but Fraidycat's (finally) fallen over for me. Any recommendations for calm, uncluttered, free or low-cost RSS readers? Open to some technical wrangling, desktop applications, or browser (Firefox) plugins. Rad Reader is close, but lacks categories and prioritisation. 📡

And/or: Under what circumstances would it be sensible to put an RSS reader on this Raspberry Pi over here, just out of shot?

'The vest vibrates in time to the music to simulate a thumping bassline, while the controllers allow viewers to pick up rave flyers, turn up the radio and use a public phone box.'

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/19/vr-show-ravers-old-new-back-early-uk-acid-house-scene

@scribe Also all dovetails unexpectedly with that Zen & Pemacomputing book you (?) recommended.

@scribe The whole blog/angle seems very up your street.

'Jettisoning networking in favor of kinworking means taking a more ecological approach, one oriented towards nurturing the soil, planting seeds, providing water and sunlight—and then accepting that you have no control over what grows.'

https://everythingchanges.us/blog/make-kin-not-nets/

'The literature machines we’ve built today … are not merely surrounded by hidden ghosts of the individual and society but are built from them and speak in their tongues. Yes, these systems are used to produce swathes of bland, semi-language—meaningless pap that is not only not good but is actively corrosive to the business of thinking—but they’re also capable, as any combinatorial mechanism can be, human or otherwise, of insight and revelation.'

https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/do-chatbots-dream-of-ai-poetry-calvino-madness-and-machine-literature/

@scribe Okay, but unpracerbated by what? 🐸

@scribe Can you use it in a sentence?

Email inbox sample, Q1 2024:
• You have been granted access to [conversational assistant] Le Chat!
• Human potato relatedness and affective attunement across species in the Peruvian Highlands
• Traditional phone lines will soon be switched off