Notices by myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)

At the strange little ice cream shop down the street.

"Do you have birthday cake ice cream?"
"No! It's winter."
"???"
"We only have that one in the summer, you know, birthday season."

Birthday Season?

Has anyone ever heard of this?

During a big storm NYC is represented by two separate but equally important groups. The city officials who try to calm everyone down, and the media who freak everyone out.

These are their stories.

Pica wishes you a … a #caturday

(She's been looking at me like this for two hours... what do you suppose is on her mind? I think it's something like "she has two hands and yet uses them to type not pet the cat, this must be corrected")

#picathecat

There is something very creepy about the way LLMs willy cheerfully give lists of "random" numbers. But they aren't random in frequency, and as my students pointed out "it's probably from some webpage about how to generate random numbers"

But even then, why is the frequency so unnaturally regular? Is that an artifact from mixing lists of real random numbers together?

The LLM is like a little box of computer horrors that we peer into from time to time.

I'm sorry but the whole interface is just so silly.

You ask for random numbers with sentences and it pretends to give them to you? What are we doooooing?

Had a lot of fun with my stats students today. I gave them two data sets. One from a random number generator, the other was one I made up that was not random, but designed to look random. They were able to figure out which one was fake.

Then we had ChatGPT make the same kind of data set (random numbers 1-6 set of 100) and it had the same problems as my fake set but in a different way.

We talked about the study about AI generated passwords.

"No idea what 20F means, my Canadian boyfriend taught me the metric system and I don't even remember how farienheit even works now. I get lost all the time because I don't understand 'miles' anymore."

This works in similar, but not exactly the same way with other kinds of bigotry. NYC is so full of gay people that it's less homophobic.

And cities can be educational. You (could) learn to get along with people by being around them. Not everyone will, but it's much harder to have, for example, a reasonable view of trans people if you've never met any one who is trans.

Also, people who are bigoted are much more shy about "expressing themselves" when they are in a diverse environment.

Here is the cold water. Or maybe it's a hot take.

White people in say NYC are not less racist than those in rural PA. It's really about the same.

So then, why is NYC seen as much less racist place to be?

The difference is very basic: there are more Black people, and people of every race.

This is why I dislike it so much when liberals go off on how "backwards" they think their country counterparts must be. Having been there and having been here I don't see a very big difference.

What do ya'll people who use sane unit systems rather than our US nonsense system call "mileage"

"distance traveled" ?

"meterage??"

"kilometerage?"

(American ants talk about "inchage")

I find this shocking:

In the recent file release we have new documents that show that the prison footage of Epstein's cell was deleted by an FBI agent who was advised (or someone was advised) that this action would delete the footage.

...

OK. Sure. Great. Wonderful. Makes total sense.

This has not gotten much traction and it's making me feel a little like a crazy person.

Is anyone going to ask why the FBI deleted this footage?

@waitworry

I don't want to believe in a conspiracy theory. :(

But I can't rule it out, sorry. :(

@tante

Feeling discouraged is understandable but here is a little perspective.

About two weeks ago I was talking to my mom on the phone. She's a mathematician and has been programming since there were punch cards but she never really got into the internet. A month ago we had a bit of a falling out since she was using chatGPT to help her edit this book on Civil War history that's she's doing as a hobby project. I was worried it'd destroy everything that might make the project good.

@screwturn @tante

It makes most writing worse IMO. Sometimes it finds errors but it also just drains the life out of everything.

There are contexts where people what their writing to be lifeless. So it's good for that.

@lxo

I got 404 for that link?

@dalias @TheServitor

Instead this account would go on and on about how "now because of AI we have representation isn't this wonderful!"

Unsettling, unnatural. And ... the thing is there are a lot of artists creating work. The problem isn't that the content isn't there. It's just ignored.

The account was made by some person with zero awareness of the vast sea of incredible diverse art. People tried to introduce them to it? They had zero interest.

It was all just an AI charm offensive.

@dalias @TheServitor

But what really put a sour taste in my mouth was the idea that this "young Black artist" would be OK with not developing their own talent or vision. That they'd just give up and turn it all over to the machine and then brag about it. The whole notion just ran counter to the reasons every young (and old) artist I know creates things.

I've never met any artist who was just satisfied with "output" ... because when you make things you are trying to reach out to other people.

@dalias @TheServitor

There was an online "art" account that was excited about AI because "now we have have more Black representation in fantasy" I was gentle in my initial response. They presented themselves as a young Black person who claimed to do their own drawing too and said "now I can keep up"

This didn't sit right with me.

The whole persona turned out to be a lie. Sock puppet. It was not a young person, nor a Black kid from Brooklyn who liked to draw.

@TheServitor

Anyone who's making "diversity" or "empowerment" pro-AI arguments isn't really serious about diversity It's just a prop to them OR they are deeply uninformed.

There was a time where I'd try to trust that people were well-meaning but I don't think it's wise to do that anymore. It's silly and it's harmful when there are serious issues of gatekeeping and sexism that are worse than I've ever seen going on right now.

@elilla

To be fair though. I *am* a mean "mastodon anti-AI reply guy"

But, I also don't think that is a bad thing to be.

Is this what they call "Dark Woke"

Anyhow.