Notices by Thanasis Kinias (tkinias@historians.social)

@lavaeolus
so... how *do* we explain to laypeople that “AI” (which for most people now means ChatGPT and other LLMs) doesn’t do what the marketing says it does? (different, if subtly so, from “it’s not real”)

@lavaeolus
I’m thinking more informally—like “talking to family over Xmas dinner” where I can’t assign them academic reading 😉

What I often get when pointing out “the limitations, the weirdness, the brokenness” is that it’s early days and these problems will go away as the tech matures (a perspective, of course, predicated on a failure to understand the tech).

@skinnylatte
I also don’t have vivid dreams (and rarely remember dreams at all), but my most recent was a bizarre dream about waking up and finding that the operating system in my phone had been replaced while I slept.

@slothrop
actually hard to find a precise one-word term for it that isn’t thoroughly obscene

Any of my #histodons here know some good recent work on the U.S... *ahem* ‘involvement’ in Nicaragua in the 1980s?

@skinnylatte
but Singapore noodles is a wild one, because the mix of flavors in it actually feels like something that could plausibly have come out of the cultural mixing in Singapore (at least from an outsider’s perspective)

@skinnylatte
well on that front, *many* things aren’t from where their names imply—a favorite for me is “gobi Manchurian” which has AFAICT no connection with Manchuria whatsoever.

It kinda does my head in that Midwestern State University is, in fact, in Texas.

It’s even more confusing that the university is in a town called Wichita Falls.

Next up: We open a University of Saxony in rural Bavaria.

@liamvhogan
as someone who loves Fedi and LaTeX, this hurts

(but it’s not necessarily false)

@RnDanger
I am guessing that NWS was prohibited from making an app for ideological reasons.
@elaterite @ingalls

@CitizenWald @CoinOfNote
Luckily I chose an academic career so that gap shouldn’t be too huge *lolsob*

@CoinOfNote
one of my undergrad profs once said that being a humanities scholar meant having “champagne tastes on a PBR salary”

(not sure if Pabst Blue Ribbon is familiar in Aus, but it’s the kind of beer that they used to run $1 specials on at dive bars when I was younger [and still frequenting dive bars])
@CitizenWald

@CitizenWald
> In premodern society, at least the elites had good taste

Well... I dunno, man. Have you *seen* the Baroque? 😉

(though to be fair, that’s not entirely premodern)
@CoinOfNote

@philip_cardella
Honestly, I think it’s not a very accurate comparison because left-wing and right-wing dictatorships aren’t the same—not that I’d want to live under either, of course, but it’s important not to conflate them.

That said, the Democrats need to be prepared to fight dirty to defeat fascism, and if that means painting Trump—somewhat disingenuously—as being akin to left-wing dictators when talking to conservative Latine voters, then so be it.

I just read that a single Bitcoin transaction requires upwards of 1,000 kW-hr of electricity.

That’s like running a small air conditioner 24/7 for a month and a half.

them: “Government should operate like a business”

*government gives billions of dollars in subsidies to a for-profit corporation*

me: “So the government’s getting an equity stake in the business they just capitalized, right?”

them: “OMG no, that would be communism”

@evan
strong ’always’ here—and I’m always shocked and dismayed by the lack of virtual desktops when I have to help someone on their Mac or Windows machine

@evan
Not sure (because of paywall) if that article addresses this, but my understanding is that a real obstacle to sactions is that many of the most dangerous extremists are immigrants from the States—so can’t be sanctioned because they’re U.S. citizens.

@mdekstrand
Yeah, that’s where I tend to miss it most: wanting to append an explanation of why I think this thing is interesting and worth sharing.

Consequently, when it comes to sharing links, I’m often tempted just to start a new post with the same link, so I can explain why I’m sharing it.

@polotek