ernads

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: shocked

fred_mouse

For Reasons, I'm looking for fiction books--preference for kids, but any age will do--with anything that looks a bit like generative AI. Chatbots in particular would be a win. I've been doing a fascinating dive into the librarything tag cloud*. Note that at this point it doesn't have to be a well written or readable book

adding: I'll take recommendations for artificial general intelligence as well; I'll care about the line between them later, when I've used them to generate the relevant keywords

What I've found so far

Do You Remember Being Born - Sean Michaels
Artificial: A love Story - Amy Kurzweil
The Future Happens Twice Trilogy - Matt Browne
We Solve Murders - Richard Osman (I didn't see why in the blurb, but the tag was there, and the library has it)
Tell the Machine Goodnight - Katie Williams

Not found, but remembered: "Better Living Through Algorithms" by Naomi Kritzer, which is questionable because it is probably meant to be artificial general intelligence rather than generative AI, but at this point I'm not being that picky because the hit rate is so low.

also! the closest I've got at this point in kids books is Wild Robot and the sequels; failing to work out where to find more. (in english. I've found a book that looks perfect in Chinese)

*so thankful that people put all sorts of tags on their books; I'm having a great time working out what maps to what tag. If I get it together I'll write a post off the clock about what I found that was truly batshit

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: in solidarity

dewline

1. Meet some more people who believe that, in religion, there must always be compulsion.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/why-you-should-be-worried-about-a-new-trump-appointed-commission-you-probably-haven-t-heard-of-opinion/ar-AA1IfTTD

2. A science fair about things that won't be learned.

https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/science-fair-congress-canceled-grant-funding

3. Not only are we dealing with wildfires up here at home at the insistence of the fossil fuel industry, certain members of the US Congress are bashing us while Trump's making annexationist noises...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canadian-wildfire-smoke-ruining-americans-summer-1.7580738

4. Coal Taurozzi, the last of the Parliament Hill Cats, is no more. :-(

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/last-parliament-hill-cat-dies-1.7580650

5. Our chartered banks can be mean at times. One of the latest cases in point:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rbc-bank-investigator-scam-1.7577770

Current Mood: busy

stonepicnicking_okapi

Wednesday's word is courtesy of

kitarella_imagines and is...

...persiflage

[pur-suh-flahzh, pair-]

noun

1. light, bantering talk or writing.
2. a frivolous or flippant style of treating a subject.

origin

First recorded in 1750–60; from French, derivative of persifler “to banter,” equivalent to per- prefix meaning “through, thoroughly, very” + siffler “to whistle, hiss.”

example

Maybe that shows that they’ve finally gotten wise to the PR persiflage of Big Pharma. Los Angeles Times 10/11/23

shipperslist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: scared

stonepicnicking_okapi

Today (9 Jul) is the day that is celebrated as the day of the BTS fan (ARMY). 13 Jun is their debut day but this is the fandom's founding day. So happy day to

bethctg and

celli and all the other ARMYs of the world

bts

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

dewline

I'm still looking for work. Still working on my Trek fanfic star maps. Still doing visitation with my mother. Still keeping on keeping on.

Current Mood: busy

stonepicnicking_okapi

1. It is day #2 of my job and I had to call #911 for my client. Talk about being thrown in the deep end! He's okay and I'm okay but it was still a wild second day.

2. Also Minisculus woke up with neck pain enough to make him sob and scream, and I had to leave him. I am being thrown the working mom angst right from the start.

3. But Minisculus placed 7th in his race at the regional club championship so he got to stand on the podium and a bronze medal the size of a dinner plate.

I'm trying to figure out my routine. I will add a second client on Thursday so I suppose I am waiting for that to figure out what I do when (like grocery shopping). I am reminding myself to take it easy and just handle one enormous shift at a time. Being a working mom fand having my kid be a latch key kid is enough for this week.

shipperslist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

mdehners

I've been noticing something weird in the garden this yr. Up until this yr all but a small corner of the beds under our windows are in Full Shade. This makes sense since we're on the N side of the house. However, this yr there's something different. Full Shade only covers about 1/2. The rest NOW gets Full Sun much of the day. The house is now 356 North. This is literally unsettling.
We DID have an earthquake a couple months ago. Also, the BBC had a report that the Appalachians have risen a few centimeters either in a month or a yr. A yr would make me feel better. Lots of guesses why but no answers other than give the region a Red level threat....whatever that means.

Cheers,
Pat

Current Mood: morose
Current Location: Lenoir City(Nevermore;>!)
Current Music: The Longest Johns Radio

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: excited

garote

Matt: We should do a watch party some night. How about ... THE NET?

Me: Gruh, that was 1995?

(Rummaging around in digital archives.)

Me: Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen. The movie starts at 10pm. Let's go.

(0:00 in.)

Matt: Here comes the MIDI brass!
Me: Ooo! Intriguing music for such an awful movie.

(0:05 in.)

Me: Faaake! MacOS did not use "/" as a folder separator! My disbelief is throughly de-suspended.
Matt: Oh believe me, that won't be the least accurate thing in this movie.
Me: Oh yeaaah the online the pizza order...
Matt: Fun fact, Sandra Bullock really was one of the earliest proponents of Internet food ordering.
Me: That was like, already a combination of really cool and really wanky, even then. Also: No one eats like that, and looks like her.

(0:15 in.)

Matt: Oh look, a small aircraft at a critical plot point, I wonder what will happen.
Me: Yeah there's no reason we'd be seeing this unless...

(KABOOOOM)

Me: Yeah there it is.
Matt: That wasn't the tower he was supposed to contact. And also that's not what we meant by contact.

(0:20 in. Sandra is on the beach, with a laptop. An older guy is nearby, also on a laptop.)

Me: This guy is a villain, right?
Matt: WHAT GAVE IT AWAY
Me: The hair.

(0:25 in.)

Me: Okay, so, uh, DOES THIS MOVIE ACTUALLY HAVE A PLOT? We're almost 25 minutes in, and so far it does not.
Matt: Maybe it's one of the special features on the DVD.

(0:29 in.)

Me: At what point does she use her super hax0r skills to not get murdered at sea?
Matt: Well... I think she plays snake on her phone with a hacked skill level to avoid getting bored out of her mind.
Me: Wait; he unloaded the gun and put it away below decks after killing that guy, but now he's going down to get it, even though the plan was to kill her the whole time?
Matt: Don't overthink it. He clearly didn't.

(0:31 in. Sandra and the creepy guy are making out.)

Me: Okay, NOW THEY'RE PLAYING "SNAKE". AM I RIGHT PEOPLE?
Matt: Looks more like Tetris to me.

(0:35 in. The camera is focusing on the villain's lips. They fill the screen as he talks.)

Me: Mr. Winkler made a dumb decision with those close-ups. That was like, "student project" directing.
Matt: Yeah, I think that editing was considered edgy for the '90s. But what it really looks like to me is somebody who mostly shot for TV.
Me: I'm enjoying the fact that I can google stuff about this movie while watching it. Me from 1995 would find that hilarious.

(0:49 in. Sandra is running from the law, and meets up with Dennis Miller.)

Matt: And there he is!
Me: You know, I kinda forgot, 1995 Sandra is not actually a very good actor. She has two modes: Slightly checked-out, or panicked motormouth.
Matt: Dialogue can be written for her, and she looks good on camera, but yeah, it's not the same thing.
Me: Dennis Miller isn't great either, but for a totally different reason. I mean, he's very natural, but that's because he's not acting. He's just being Dennis Miller.

(0:53 in.)

Me: Tell me Dennis ad-libbed that toilet line.
Matt: I feel like he either did it as a formal rewrite or ad-libbed it, yeah. Because that clearly didn't come out of the rest of these writers.
Me: AGREED. So, is he gonna get killed in like 35 seconds?

(1:00 in.)

Me: Awwww, they had to actually spell out IRL!
Matt: "You know what would help, Sandra, is if you just like read the screen out loud, because most people who go to see hacker movies can't actually read. Our focus group thinks this is what it will take."
Me: "Also, while you read it, we're going to film your lips moving. Right up close. Try not to think about it."

(1:02 in. Dennis has just been poisoned.)

Me: Okay it took longer than 35 seconds, but he is going to die, right?
Matt: I honestly can't remember.

(Sandra is using stolen hacking software to look something up in hospital's medical records.)

Me: Hold on. You looked at a record on the internet, and used that as confirmation that the last record you saw on the internet was fake? Now that's just dumb.
Matt: IT WAS A SIMPLER TIME.

(1:07. Dennis is being poisoned again, but worse.)

Me: Awww Dennis. I knew you were gonna die as soon as you walked on-screen.

(1:15 in. Sandra has just yanked an old computer monitor off a desk. It shatters on the floor.)

Matt: Now I don't know about you, but I've dropped a few CRTs from a second floor, and those things don't shatter that easy.

(1:20 in. Sandra is being chased by cops for driving a stolen car.)

Me: Okay, so Sandra has like, 20 minutes to turn this all around. And so far she's done nothing but ask a couple of guys for help, and run from people. Now both the guys are dead and she's in jail. When are we going to see some h4x0r skills?

(1:25 in. Sandra has just crashed another car and is running from a fake FBI agent.)

Me: ... Okay now Sandra has less than 15 minutes to turn this all around.

(1:33 in. Sandra has finally decided to infiltrate the headquarters of the company pursuing her.)

Me: Cathedral, Inc! We do software security like gangbusters, but we don't lock our doors, and we don't have a front desk! No one has a badge, no one asks who you are, there are no security cameras, and we never log out of our machines when we leave!

(1:36 in. Columns of numbers are zipping around on the screen.)

Matt: Nice. A subnet octet greater than 255. I wonder if somebody was thinking that was like the "555-1212" of the internet.
Me: Yeah that was .... a whole lot of confusing.

(1:42 in.)

Matt: Oh here it is, here it is! The theme scene for the whole film! Wait fooor iiiiit...

(Sandra attempts to put a 3.5" disk into a drive but shoves it in upside down. It jams. She pulls it back out and turns it over.)

Matt: Ta daaa! Did you catch that?
Me: "That's the take we'll use!"

(1:46 in. Sandra has just restored her entire digital life by pressing one key.)

Matt: And there you go.
Me: It just ends?
Matt: What did you think?
Me: Well, to start, I'm glad I didn't watch that movie 30 years ago. Because honestly it's better as a horrendous time capsule, and by "better", what I mean is, less than completely intolerable.

(The credits are finally rolling.)

Me: "Adam Winkler" as "COMPUTER NERD". Hey, there are like 4 Winklers in this cast.
Matt: Yeah they got Winklered to hell.
Me: Very Winklery.