Ben Taylor @VoxDei@social.cleverlibre.org
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
Ben Taylor
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Quick thread to answer @Loukas's (excellent) question:
"Were first Royal Navy aircraft carriers were built slower on purpose because they were designed to stay with battleships?"
This is something that does come up a lot in 70s/80s books. But the answer is... no.
This seems to have mostly been a bit of a misunderstanding about how carriers WORK (no really).
Let's look quickly at the reasons why: 🧵 #histodons #histodon #navalHistory /1
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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Following Elsevier's decision to raise the article processing charge for NeuroImage to $3,450, all editors (inc. chief editors) from NeuroImage and NeuroImage:Reports have resigned, effective immediately.
I am joining this action and have also resigned.
Full announcement: https://imaging-neuroscience.org/Announcement.pdf
Ben Taylor
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‘The world of spy catchers will look less like John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and more like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash or Charles Stross’s Halting State. As Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins put it: “Sometimes it takes the terminally online to catch the terminally online.”’
It’s good to see @cstross getting a prominent mention for Halting State.
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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RT @EmergencyBod
Scientists have finally captured on video the very moment a cat reproduces by mitosis.
This... may be the most ludicrously-titled book I've ever encountered. Found in my local garden centre in Devon with the coronation stuff. Who'd have thought, he dreamed big all his life, and that's all it takes to be King, be you never so humble...
@cstross just for the rage.
Just finished Golden Treasure: The Great Green. One ending, anyway. That was a very good game. If you like story and development in RPGs, you should play it. Thanks to @garius for recommending it a while back, or I'd never have found it.
https://doctorow.medium.com/the-ai-hype-bubble-is-the-new-crypto-hype-bubble-74e53028631e
@GreatDismal quoting an Italian MP's suggestion to replace the acronym "AI" with "SALAMI" (“Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences”) as a way to avoid overly anthropomorphising it. I wasn't taking ChatGPT that seriously anyway, but now I can't stop laughing at it:
“Is this SALAMI intelligent? Can this SALAMI write a novel? Does this SALAMI deserve human rights?”
No, no and no. HAL it ain't. Nor Skynet. It's not even the computer from the USS Enterprise D.
Ben Taylor
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Had a stupid idea. It worked. Thanks, ChatGPT!
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Here is a list of items of regalia belonging to the Crown Jewels, with descriptions as if they were magical items in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign:
Ben Taylor
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My daughter, who has had a degree in computer science for 25 years, posted this observation about ChatGPT on Facebook. It's the best description I've seen:
Ben Taylor
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Now class, can anyone tell me why this *might* be a bad idea?
Ben Taylor
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Asked for examples of sexual harassment at law schools, ChatGPT named a GW law prof accused of touching a student on a class trip to Alaska, citing a 2018 Washington Post story.
The law prof is real. The rest was made up.
We wrote about what happens when AIs lie about you: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/05/chatgpt-lies/
Ben Taylor
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Avalon magic. Little people waiting for the sun to rise on Glastonbury Tor 😂
Ben Taylor
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RT @BinImad@twitter.com
Cat jumps on Imam during qiyam (taraweeh) prayers and he behaves exactly like any imam Insha’Allah would.
#Ramadan
I have had two occasions where it has become clear that my Google Home is listening and acting on things that are not said to it directly:
1. Much to my confusion, I received a push notification about the weather in Ibiza. It only became clear why a week later when my wife told me she was going there with her Mum. She had been discussing it next to one of our two Google Home devices.
2. Just now, I had a meeting where the word "Glasgow" was said several times (again, next to my Google Home), along with discussing an upcoming meeting there. When I opened Google Maps after that, it opened centred on central Glasgow. I live at the other end of the UK, there's no other reason for it to do that.
Now, I understand that both of these things were "helpful" as Google's algorithms saw it. I appreciate that it's trying to help me. The problem I've got is that as far as I know Google swears it doesn't listen when not addressed directly, when it clearly absolutely does. If it does for purposes that are "good" for me, what else does it do with what it hears.
#google #googlehome #googlenest #voiceassistant #dataprivacy
Ben Taylor
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As I've said before, Wrath and Undiscovered are the best Trek films because they show Kirk for what he is: a brilliant, arrogant, bloody warrior.
And then they have him realise that it is everyone else pays the price for that, not him. And, for a moment, he hates himself for it.
Ben Taylor
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Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
