Mainly for PA+Cat, but others might have an interest:
I know Covid has become mostly background noise at this point, but I’m still tracking data. I mentioned previously how CT is odd in reporting Covid deaths over the past year. They go about 5-6 days with zero, then there’s a large number reported. They are obviously lumping previous deaths into one day reporting. However, what is really odd is that when I average the daily deaths over a 2 week period to try and smooth the data out it stills shows CT Covid deaths increasing over the last 200 days or so. The state is totally at odds with the rest of the states I track. Even more, the daily cases continue to drop in CT. Just for comparison, here’s the 2 week averaged daily Covid deaths by state and divided by the population in millions; ie daily deaths per million. If anyone has an explanation, I’d like to know.
CT 2.8/million
GA 0.06/million
NH 0.2/million
NC 0.2/million
FL 0.3/million
Kling is linkin’ to lots of very interesting substack blog posts, plus a bit more on ai – chatGPT & Sidney (the secret name of Bling’s chat bot based on GPT-3).
Everything done on computer will be able to be done, soon, by computer ai.
Better than most college grads.
Soon after, better than most professionals.
Words, art, reference, documents.
AI wars, for market share, have started and will be intensifying.
cohere.ai has some good tech documents.
So does surgehq.ai
That is really odd. It seems like you may have uncovered some monkey business, or incompetence.
Tom Grey,
No question we are getting a glimpse of the next big thing. It very well could be akin to the industrial revolution, regarding disruption. And, as you point out, if so, it will likely be an industrial revolution of “white collar” work.
Interesting that we are on the verge of creating caretakers at the same point human birth rates are peaking and life expectancy is increasing. In 20 years will most of us be attended to by “compassionate/empathetic” robotic AI? Even at its current level I could probably spend a few hours each day chatting with ChatGPT and feel good about the social interaction.
Speaking of a “how to”, we might need to brush up on something when the trials begin: How to Build a Gallows
No nail guns, please. Oh, to hear the sound of banging hammers as in days of old.
Jeff and Matt Walsh (his role in this are outlined by Jeff in the essay) are saying, “you don’t catch more flies with honey” you catch them with truth. What’s interesting in the bee clips is many of the feminists featured appear to be seeing and interacting with “real” men for the first time in their lives. And rather than be repulsed by the truth of what the men are saying, and the authoritative way they are stating facts, they appear to learn from the discussion. Which is Goldstein and Walsh’s point. Be real and truthful and many folks will react positively.
Many people, especially young people, are simply looking for reality. If we all stand back while an alternate, destructive reality is proffered many will go along with the alternate version.
Hey Rufus, my wife (the doctor & professor) thinks she wouldn’t trust an ai to be a care-giver, but I’m sure it’s coming. Most likely in Japan, first, where they are already quite advanced with “Pepper”, the clearly robotic assistant at banks and other places.
I only read that GREAT book a couple years ago – after I had been recommending to IBM that they should use their ai, Watson, to teach English as a Second Language, as well as to kids, with multi-media access. (IBM retired me and went for college psychology teaching first.)
(Rufus, you’ve often referenced an earlier comment of mine which has always been relevant and interesting to me, but I haven’t always thanked you – but I’ve always thought “Thanks!”, while reading more of Neo or Kling links…)
Anders Puck Nielson (Danish youtuber, military intelligence officer) interviews Maxim Katz (Russian politician now living and youtubing from Israel) on opposition politics in Russia [50:46 mins]: https://youtu.be/xmtqXovLhv4
I guess this could be filed under “How it’s done”, no?
Tom Grey,
Happy to hear I may have helped in some way. Lots of neo’s commenters have pointed me in interesting, beneficial directions.
Elderly companionship almost certainly will be an application for AI and you’re likely correct about youth companionship/mentoring.
Everything done on computer will be able to be done, soon, by computer ai.
Better than most college grads.
Soon after, better than most professionals.
Words, art, reference, documents.
Maybe so, but there are some imagining that humans will become superfluous. But from where does AI get its skill and inspiration? From human input and interaction. Of course AI can replace some things humans do, and do them better (or more cheaply). That’s not so different from humans developing machines that supplant labor. And that labor goes into developing better machines. So more humans will be involved in improving AI rather than doing the tasks that AI now does better. Take humans out completely and AI devolves into an echo chamber.
sdferr:
Thanks for the link to Anders Puck Nelson!
Since Tom Grey has also recommended Lorenzo Warby’s essays, I’m going to chip in and reprint my comment of January 3rd. My original comment includes a list of Warby’s essays, as well as his general thesis. I think he’s worth a read.
So … here’s a list of the essays and their thesis. As a group, the essays are called “Worshiping the future: the spiraling catastrophe of transformative politics.”
“The basic thesis is that we are dealing far less with a set of ideas—these keep evolving and shifting—than a set of status-and-social-leverage strategies. Seeing the proponents as holding to a set of ideals with which compromise is possible—so they can be mollified by various concessions—feeds the strategy.
It is only if the status and social leverage strategies are rendered dysfunctional that processes of ‘wokification’ can be halted or reversed. These essays will explore those strategies, and the mechanisms that make them effective, allowing readers to see how to respond usefully.”
And, finally, here are the essays’ titles:
Essay 1: Social justice as social leverage
Essay 2: Why does anyone believe in Marxism?
Essay 3: Class and the state
Essay 4: The Paradox of polities
Essay 5: The deep appeal of Marxism
Essay 6: Updating the template
Essay 7: Gaming consciousness
Essay 8: Feminisation has consequences
Essay 9: A better future versus the transformational future
Essay 10: Creating social dysfunction
Essay 11: The social-imperial state
Essay 12: Migration as social-imperial project
Essay 13: A crusading clerisy
Essay 14: The Transcult
Essay 15: Winning through social dysfunction
Essay 16: The triple attack on democracy
Essay 17: The Revolt of the Somewheres
Essay 18: Delusions of technocracy
Essay 19: A new convergence
Essay 20: Vanguard capital
Essay 21: Taking away achievement
Essay 22: Lack of character, avoiding reality, selecting for approval
Essay 23: An imperial ideology of aggression and cruelty
Essay 24: Pandemic responses and the colonising of fragility
Essay 25: Marxism as original sin
Essay 26: Action plan
Lorenzo Warby has reorganized his publication plan, and currently plans 32 essays. So far, he’s done nine.
And on the video, there is of course Michelangelo’s famous quote:
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
physicsguy–
Thank you for the info. about the odd CT COVID stats– I don’t have any useful explanation for the figures you cite. I have noticed that the daily dose of COVID stats that used to appear on the local weather forecast site went away some time ago. Sooooo . . . I went to the CT Department of Public Health website and found the following on the home page: COVID-19 Community Levels Update, Mar. 03, 2023: The CDC has listed three Connecticut Counties—Litchfield, Middlesex and New Haven Counties—in the Medium/Yellow category as part of its weekly COVID-19 Community Levels update.? Fairfield, Hartford, Tolland, Windham, New London Counties are listed in the Low/Green category.? For those living in a county listed in the Medium/Yellow category, the Connecticut Department of Public Health recommends that residents consider wearing a mask while in public indoor spaces. People who are at a high risk for severe illness should consider additional measures to minimize their exposure to COVID-19 and respiratory illnesses. Visit the CDC COVID-19 Community Levels Map for updates.
In regard to the local New Haven superspreader institution, here is its COVID-19 web page: https://covid19.yale.edu/
I opened the “Mask Requirements & Guidance” tab and found that the info. there has not been updated since 12/20/22– which implies that the administration is a lot less uptight than it was at the end of last summer.
On the international COVID front, evidently what was then Her Majesty’s government thought about asking the Brits to kill their pet cats– for the greater good, of course: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when little was known about the virus, the U.K. government briefly considered asking the public to exterminate every cat amid fears that the pets could spread the disease. Lord Bethell, a former deputy Health Minister from 2020 to 2021, revealed the news Wednesday during an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News.
The bombshell revelations have sparked astonishment from some on social media, with users sharing images of their own cats and vowing they would have put up a fight. 10 Downing Street’s own feline friend Larry’s unofficial Twitter parody account wrote: “Hard not to take this personally.” Bethell added in the Channel 4 News interview that there was a moment where evidence suggested there was merit in taking the extraordinary measure but it was investigated and ultimately dismissed.
My cats’ opinion of the UK proposal to euthanize their friends across the pond was just deposited in the bathroom litter box.
Miguel
Taking your 2 above in sequence:
“Malpractice” is a relatively kind and gentle word that I’ll keep in mind when I want to be civil in politically mixed company. Usually I hold my tongue, because even tame expressions can open worm cans.
As for Naomi’s question, clearly yes. The pagan gods of old are back as a consequence of the descent into petty narcissism.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time exercising ChatGPT, and am less blown away than many. Some examples:
-I asked it for an essay on the book ‘The Caine Mutiny’. It told me that Captain Queeg was (a) an intellectual, and (b) a highly competent naval officer
-Also asked it to review Goeth’s Faust. It said, and confirmed when challenged, that Faust wound up going to Hell, which he did not.
-Asked it to review the fantasy novel “A pocketful of stars” by my friend Margaret Ball. It got everything wrong, including the name of the lead character. Further discussion led to it agreeing that the lead character was different from its initial claim, but the review still had nothing to do with the book.
-Exercised it on some simple assignment problems, for instance, for a high school dance, match up boys & girls such that everyone is with someone they like. It said that no solution was possible for the data given, which was wrong.
-Had it write some programs for simple control systems, specifically driveway gate opener and two-shaft elevator. It seems to have a problem with the concept of *time* and with handling multiple event streams at once.
Nevertheless, it’s an impressive piece of work at will surely get better over time.
(continuing) There is a long history of expectations for automation systems which turned out to be excessively optimistic (or excessively pessimistic, depending on one’s POV)…the characteristics of real work are often more complex and subtle than they appear at first glance. I write about some of this history in my three-post series Attack of the Job-Killing Robots:
Late to the discussion. I’ll go OT, and talk about the video. Thanks, Neo. I work in stone myself, although my material of choice is the softer, and more easily shaped alabaster. I learned a lot today just watching how he handles the chisel and mallet. It’s refreshing to see art being made the old school way- stone+steel+skill. This is how I work: no power tools, no AI generated nothin’. But (*sigh*) Now I’m really going to have to get myself a piece of that marble.
Looks like the Trans Sec has another headache: Another openly gay mayor that he mentored was arrested yesterday on 56 counts of possession and distribution of child porn: “Patrick Wojahn, the mayor of College Park, Md., allegedly operated a social media account that possessed and distributed suspected child pornography . . . . The City of College Park issued a statement on Thursday, announcing that Wojahn had resigned ‘last night, after business hours,’ and that a special election will be held within the next 65 days as Mayor Pro Tem Denise Mitchell fills the position. Wojahn served as mayor since 2015 and was on city council since 2007.”
AI has already made a big difference in language learning.
Google Translate is hardly perfect but its first raw cut at translating a passage is a real leg up in the early stages of learning a language.
I’m not sure how much AI goes into converting text to speech, but I suspect there is some and that is a boon as well.
Anyone who believes that learning a language is a lot of work is absolutely correct.
But computers and the internet do a great job of keeping one in the learning zone — instead of fumbling for a dead tree dictionary, trying to decipher linguistic glyphs for pronunciation, or jotting down notes one may study later.
Steve Kaufmann, my current YouTube language learning guru, makes a distinction between “learning” language and “discovering” it.
In conventional language classes students “learn” grammar rules and vocabulary in lesson-sized chunks. It all builds nicely like a subject-topic-subtopic outline. Then one knows the language. That’s the theory.
Except most people don’t. They take years and years of language classes, pass the tests and then … they still can’t use the language in a meaningful way and whatever they have fades quickly.
Kaufmann’s approach is mostly to expose himself to the language — listening and reading intensively. He notices things, wonders about them and maybe “discovers” something.
Over time all those somethings build up. Gradually the language resolves into focus as he gets better and better. That’s his theory.
Mind you, Kaufmann is not above peeking at a grammar book while he is discovering. He prefers to do so when a question is fresh and real as opposed to “Today, class, we are learning the Partitive Article.” (Some/Any, if you’re curious.)
It seems to work for Kaufmann, a polyglot. Frankly, that’s how I’ve l learned about everything I know since sixth grade. I get interested, expose myself to as much as possible, notice things, ask questions, maybe discover … lather, rinse, repeat.
The problem with this is, What does the Teacher do?
@ Rufus > ” Even at its current level I could probably spend a few hours each day chatting with ChatGPT and feel good about the social interaction.”
Amazon Echo – SNL – Alexa Silver “specially designed for the Greatest Generation”
Mainly for PA+Cat, but others might have an interest:
I know Covid has become mostly background noise at this point, but I’m still tracking data. I mentioned previously how CT is odd in reporting Covid deaths over the past year. They go about 5-6 days with zero, then there’s a large number reported. They are obviously lumping previous deaths into one day reporting. However, what is really odd is that when I average the daily deaths over a 2 week period to try and smooth the data out it stills shows CT Covid deaths increasing over the last 200 days or so. The state is totally at odds with the rest of the states I track. Even more, the daily cases continue to drop in CT. Just for comparison, here’s the 2 week averaged daily Covid deaths by state and divided by the population in millions; ie daily deaths per million. If anyone has an explanation, I’d like to know.
CT 2.8/million
GA 0.06/million
NH 0.2/million
NC 0.2/million
FL 0.3/million
More Lorenzo of OZ, as talked about at Arnold’s place:
https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/lorenzo-warby-on-adverse-selection.
Kling is linkin’ to lots of very interesting substack blog posts, plus a bit more on ai – chatGPT & Sidney (the secret name of Bling’s chat bot based on GPT-3).
Everything done on computer will be able to be done, soon, by computer ai.
Better than most college grads.
Soon after, better than most professionals.
Words, art, reference, documents.
AI wars, for market share, have started and will be intensifying.
cohere.ai has some good tech documents.
So does surgehq.ai
Get shades, the future’s gettin’ brighter!
Since we were discussing books before
https://serialize.substack.com/
physicsguy,
That is really odd. It seems like you may have uncovered some monkey business, or incompetence.
Tom Grey,
No question we are getting a glimpse of the next big thing. It very well could be akin to the industrial revolution, regarding disruption. And, as you point out, if so, it will likely be an industrial revolution of “white collar” work.
Interesting that we are on the verge of creating caretakers at the same point human birth rates are peaking and life expectancy is increasing. In 20 years will most of us be attended to by “compassionate/empathetic” robotic AI? Even at its current level I could probably spend a few hours each day chatting with ChatGPT and feel good about the social interaction.
RFK Jr with Congressional hearing clip attached:
Medical science experts from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Stanford testifying before Congress: “The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.”
Speaking of a “how to”, we might need to brush up on something when the trials begin: How to Build a Gallows
No nail guns, please. Oh, to hear the sound of banging hammers as in days of old.
I think quite a few folks here would find this post from the babylon bee interesting. I recommend you take the time to watch the associated clips. They are rather short and seeing the interactions makes the bee’s opinion more obvious.
https://notthebee.com/article/this-dating-show-whatever-is-going-viral-for-redpilling-feminists-with-some-absolutely-based-lessons-here-are-a-few-of-the-most-controversial-clips
This substack from the great, Jeff Goldstein is also related: https://jeffgoldstein.substack.com/p/when-will-we-learn?
Jeff and Matt Walsh (his role in this are outlined by Jeff in the essay) are saying, “you don’t catch more flies with honey” you catch them with truth. What’s interesting in the bee clips is many of the feminists featured appear to be seeing and interacting with “real” men for the first time in their lives. And rather than be repulsed by the truth of what the men are saying, and the authoritative way they are stating facts, they appear to learn from the discussion. Which is Goldstein and Walsh’s point. Be real and truthful and many folks will react positively.
Many people, especially young people, are simply looking for reality. If we all stand back while an alternate, destructive reality is proffered many will go along with the alternate version.
This is malpractice
https://theracket.news/p/there-is-no-lab-leak-theory
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/have-the-ancient-gods-returned-8e5#details
Hey Rufus, my wife (the doctor & professor) thinks she wouldn’t trust an ai to be a care-giver, but I’m sure it’s coming. Most likely in Japan, first, where they are already quite advanced with “Pepper”, the clearly robotic assistant at banks and other places.
Kling refers to a podcast with Marc Andreesen
https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/economic-consequences-of-llms which follows these lines but with kids growing up with a personal assistant. Much like the Neal Stephenson idea of a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer
https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Neal-Stephenson-2-Jun-2011-Paperback/dp/B011T6QLEW/ref=sr_1_2?crid=NZCEUDVMLDPU&keywords=diamond+age&qid=1677867525&s=books&sprefix=diamond+age%2Cstripbooks%2C203&sr=1-2
I only read that GREAT book a couple years ago – after I had been recommending to IBM that they should use their ai, Watson, to teach English as a Second Language, as well as to kids, with multi-media access. (IBM retired me and went for college psychology teaching first.)
(Rufus, you’ve often referenced an earlier comment of mine which has always been relevant and interesting to me, but I haven’t always thanked you – but I’ve always thought “Thanks!”, while reading more of Neo or Kling links…)
Anders Puck Nielson (Danish youtuber, military intelligence officer) interviews Maxim Katz (Russian politician now living and youtubing from Israel) on opposition politics in Russia [50:46 mins]: https://youtu.be/xmtqXovLhv4
“Why did we destroy the tombstones on the graves of gang members?”: https://mobile.twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1631452921014411266
I guess this could be filed under “How it’s done”, no?
Tom Grey,
Happy to hear I may have helped in some way. Lots of neo’s commenters have pointed me in interesting, beneficial directions.
Elderly companionship almost certainly will be an application for AI and you’re likely correct about youth companionship/mentoring.
Everything done on computer will be able to be done, soon, by computer ai.
Better than most college grads.
Soon after, better than most professionals.
Words, art, reference, documents.
Maybe so, but there are some imagining that humans will become superfluous. But from where does AI get its skill and inspiration? From human input and interaction. Of course AI can replace some things humans do, and do them better (or more cheaply). That’s not so different from humans developing machines that supplant labor. And that labor goes into developing better machines. So more humans will be involved in improving AI rather than doing the tasks that AI now does better. Take humans out completely and AI devolves into an echo chamber.
sdferr:
Thanks for the link to Anders Puck Nelson!
Since Tom Grey has also recommended Lorenzo Warby’s essays, I’m going to chip in and reprint my comment of January 3rd. My original comment includes a list of Warby’s essays, as well as his general thesis. I think he’s worth a read.
_____________________________________________________________
So … here’s a list of the essays and their thesis. As a group, the essays are called “Worshiping the future: the spiraling catastrophe of transformative politics.”
Here’s a link: https://helendale.substack.com/p/worshipping-the-future
And here’s the thesis:
“The basic thesis is that we are dealing far less with a set of ideas—these keep evolving and shifting—than a set of status-and-social-leverage strategies. Seeing the proponents as holding to a set of ideals with which compromise is possible—so they can be mollified by various concessions—feeds the strategy.
It is only if the status and social leverage strategies are rendered dysfunctional that processes of ‘wokification’ can be halted or reversed. These essays will explore those strategies, and the mechanisms that make them effective, allowing readers to see how to respond usefully.”
And, finally, here are the essays’ titles:
Essay 1: Social justice as social leverage
Essay 2: Why does anyone believe in Marxism?
Essay 3: Class and the state
Essay 4: The Paradox of polities
Essay 5: The deep appeal of Marxism
Essay 6: Updating the template
Essay 7: Gaming consciousness
Essay 8: Feminisation has consequences
Essay 9: A better future versus the transformational future
Essay 10: Creating social dysfunction
Essay 11: The social-imperial state
Essay 12: Migration as social-imperial project
Essay 13: A crusading clerisy
Essay 14: The Transcult
Essay 15: Winning through social dysfunction
Essay 16: The triple attack on democracy
Essay 17: The Revolt of the Somewheres
Essay 18: Delusions of technocracy
Essay 19: A new convergence
Essay 20: Vanguard capital
Essay 21: Taking away achievement
Essay 22: Lack of character, avoiding reality, selecting for approval
Essay 23: An imperial ideology of aggression and cruelty
Essay 24: Pandemic responses and the colonising of fragility
Essay 25: Marxism as original sin
Essay 26: Action plan
_____________________________________________________________
Lorenzo Warby has reorganized his publication plan, and currently plans 32 essays. So far, he’s done nine.
And on the video, there is of course Michelangelo’s famous quote:
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
physicsguy–
Thank you for the info. about the odd CT COVID stats– I don’t have any useful explanation for the figures you cite. I have noticed that the daily dose of COVID stats that used to appear on the local weather forecast site went away some time ago. Sooooo . . . I went to the CT Department of Public Health website and found the following on the home page: COVID-19 Community Levels Update, Mar. 03, 2023: The CDC has listed three Connecticut Counties—Litchfield, Middlesex and New Haven Counties—in the Medium/Yellow category as part of its weekly COVID-19 Community Levels update.? Fairfield, Hartford, Tolland, Windham, New London Counties are listed in the Low/Green category.? For those living in a county listed in the Medium/Yellow category, the Connecticut Department of Public Health recommends that residents consider wearing a mask while in public indoor spaces. People who are at a high risk for severe illness should consider additional measures to minimize their exposure to COVID-19 and respiratory illnesses. Visit the CDC COVID-19 Community Levels Map for updates.
https://portal.ct.gov/DPH
In regard to the local New Haven superspreader institution, here is its COVID-19 web page: https://covid19.yale.edu/
I opened the “Mask Requirements & Guidance” tab and found that the info. there has not been updated since 12/20/22– which implies that the administration is a lot less uptight than it was at the end of last summer.
On the international COVID front, evidently what was then Her Majesty’s government thought about asking the Brits to kill their pet cats– for the greater good, of course: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when little was known about the virus, the U.K. government briefly considered asking the public to exterminate every cat amid fears that the pets could spread the disease. Lord Bethell, a former deputy Health Minister from 2020 to 2021, revealed the news Wednesday during an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News.
The bombshell revelations have sparked astonishment from some on social media, with users sharing images of their own cats and vowing they would have put up a fight. 10 Downing Street’s own feline friend Larry’s unofficial Twitter parody account wrote: “Hard not to take this personally.” Bethell added in the Channel 4 News interview that there was a moment where evidence suggested there was merit in taking the extraordinary measure but it was investigated and ultimately dismissed.
Photo of Larry, the PM’s cat whose official title is “Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office,” at the link: https://time.com/6259763/uk-considered-killing-cats-pandemic/
My cats’ opinion of the UK proposal to euthanize their friends across the pond was just deposited in the bathroom litter box.
Miguel
Taking your 2 above in sequence:
“Malpractice” is a relatively kind and gentle word that I’ll keep in mind when I want to be civil in politically mixed company. Usually I hold my tongue, because even tame expressions can open worm cans.
As for Naomi’s question, clearly yes. The pagan gods of old are back as a consequence of the descent into petty narcissism.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time exercising ChatGPT, and am less blown away than many. Some examples:
-I asked it for an essay on the book ‘The Caine Mutiny’. It told me that Captain Queeg was (a) an intellectual, and (b) a highly competent naval officer
-Also asked it to review Goeth’s Faust. It said, and confirmed when challenged, that Faust wound up going to Hell, which he did not.
-Asked it to review the fantasy novel “A pocketful of stars” by my friend Margaret Ball. It got everything wrong, including the name of the lead character. Further discussion led to it agreeing that the lead character was different from its initial claim, but the review still had nothing to do with the book.
-Exercised it on some simple assignment problems, for instance, for a high school dance, match up boys & girls such that everyone is with someone they like. It said that no solution was possible for the data given, which was wrong.
-Had it write some programs for simple control systems, specifically driveway gate opener and two-shaft elevator. It seems to have a problem with the concept of *time* and with handling multiple event streams at once.
Nevertheless, it’s an impressive piece of work at will surely get better over time.
Betsy Palmer arrives at 13:46
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J-rQ6kl2zA
(continuing) There is a long history of expectations for automation systems which turned out to be excessively optimistic (or excessively pessimistic, depending on one’s POV)…the characteristics of real work are often more complex and subtle than they appear at first glance. I write about some of this history in my three-post series Attack of the Job-Killing Robots:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/54252.html
Late to the discussion. I’ll go OT, and talk about the video. Thanks, Neo. I work in stone myself, although my material of choice is the softer, and more easily shaped alabaster. I learned a lot today just watching how he handles the chisel and mallet. It’s refreshing to see art being made the old school way- stone+steel+skill. This is how I work: no power tools, no AI generated nothin’. But (*sigh*) Now I’m really going to have to get myself a piece of that marble.
JWM
Good one:
Disneyland quietly removes controversial (‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah’) lyric from new parade soundtrack
“Wow! Top that!” you say. Don’t worry, they will.
Looks like the Trans Sec has another headache: Another openly gay mayor that he mentored was arrested yesterday on 56 counts of possession and distribution of child porn: “Patrick Wojahn, the mayor of College Park, Md., allegedly operated a social media account that possessed and distributed suspected child pornography . . . . The City of College Park issued a statement on Thursday, announcing that Wojahn had resigned ‘last night, after business hours,’ and that a special election will be held within the next 65 days as Mayor Pro Tem Denise Mitchell fills the position. Wojahn served as mayor since 2015 and was on city council since 2007.”
https://people.com/crime/maryland-mayor-resigns-after-child-pornography-arrest/
Details of Wojahn’s mentee/mentor relationship with Buttigieg at the link: https://nypost.com/2023/03/03/accused-pedo-mayor-patrick-wojahn-called-pete-buttigieg-his-buddy/
AI has already made a big difference in language learning.
Google Translate is hardly perfect but its first raw cut at translating a passage is a real leg up in the early stages of learning a language.
I’m not sure how much AI goes into converting text to speech, but I suspect there is some and that is a boon as well.
Anyone who believes that learning a language is a lot of work is absolutely correct.
But computers and the internet do a great job of keeping one in the learning zone — instead of fumbling for a dead tree dictionary, trying to decipher linguistic glyphs for pronunciation, or jotting down notes one may study later.
Steve Kaufmann, my current YouTube language learning guru, makes a distinction between “learning” language and “discovering” it.
In conventional language classes students “learn” grammar rules and vocabulary in lesson-sized chunks. It all builds nicely like a subject-topic-subtopic outline. Then one knows the language. That’s the theory.
Except most people don’t. They take years and years of language classes, pass the tests and then … they still can’t use the language in a meaningful way and whatever they have fades quickly.
Kaufmann’s approach is mostly to expose himself to the language — listening and reading intensively. He notices things, wonders about them and maybe “discovers” something.
Over time all those somethings build up. Gradually the language resolves into focus as he gets better and better. That’s his theory.
Mind you, Kaufmann is not above peeking at a grammar book while he is discovering. He prefers to do so when a question is fresh and real as opposed to “Today, class, we are learning the Partitive Article.” (Some/Any, if you’re curious.)
It seems to work for Kaufmann, a polyglot. Frankly, that’s how I’ve l learned about everything I know since sixth grade. I get interested, expose myself to as much as possible, notice things, ask questions, maybe discover … lather, rinse, repeat.
The problem with this is, What does the Teacher do?
@ Rufus > ” Even at its current level I could probably spend a few hours each day chatting with ChatGPT and feel good about the social interaction.”
Amazon Echo – SNL – Alexa Silver “specially designed for the Greatest Generation”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk
Funniest skit I’ve ever seen from SNL.
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/03/04/should-universities-offer-black-bereavement-leave/comment-page-1/#comment-2267476
Shut the teachers’ colleges. Every last one.
Better than babelfish i remember i tried to use it with a dutch correspondent