← Feed

Posts

• View post

  I didn't expect my 5th grade students to be very interested in the collection of "mathematical patterns in nature" photos I have. They will design a pattern for the end papers of the book they are binding. The book is about how information is stored and includes an explanation of how it was bound, encryption, hexadecimal, and other projects from this fun class I get to teach. But they really loved looking at the photos and trying to identify what they were and how they related to...

• View post

  "please don't give root to the text generator" shouldn't need to be on the rules list... but here we are.

• View post

  Link NYC is having a kernel panic.

• View post

  Is there a word for when a dataset is created, possibly not even intentionally but then some other group of people swoop in and analyze and apply that data in a new unexpected, strange possibly evil way? Like taking all of the attendance data from a school and using it to predict real estate prices? (Which happened.)

• View post

  from etsy "big phone scary"

• View post

  While trying to explain how we could use the art of war to defeat the raccoons to my husband. I was having trouble remembering the Roman general from AFTER* the battle of Trebia... and I was like "Fabulous Gluteus Maximus??" nope. That's not it. It was: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus You can understand the mistake. *edit: wouldn't want to get the history wrong

• View post

  A cat can never make a management decision because a cat can never be held accountable. (too cute)

• View post

  UPDATE: This post is my personal opinion and does not represent advice or the official position of Pica LLC Friendly reminder that you should under no circumstances give #PicaTheCat your credit card number and the pin on the back so she can "shop for you and save you time"

• View post

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@JonBaker/117371421273699432 I’m so sick of seeing posts about what is going on over on X on here. I don’t care about what they are doing on twitter.

• View post

  Hot Take: Dungeon Crawler Carl may be one of the trashiest books I've ever read but Matt Dinniman writes better female characters (including the haunted head of a sex doll) than Issac Asmov. Well really all of his characters are good because the secret to writing "better female characters" is to just write them like all of the characters. Something about the series is very of the moment too. These books are about our time. LAMO.

• View post

  Are you a US citizen who can vote but you aren't registered to vote? Are you embarrassed you didn't get around to it? Couldn't be bothered because the US political landscape is ... well we can all see it, I get it. Get registered and vote this time. Do it as a prank. Just get it done.

• View post

  Here is the scam: * ask an LLM to generate a document that seems like advice on how to get more customers for MLM sellers * ask it to make it seems like exclusive secret information that can be applied easily online * list your advice document for sale on facebook marketplace targeting agents looking to increase their sales * make a private facebook group that goes with the file, you need to buy it to join the group. * fill the group with bot conversations about people doing well with MLMs

• View post

  RE: https://freeradical.zone/@mensrea/117354224198720442 A parasite is a creature that feeds on another organism without killing it. A parasitoid is the same, but it eventually kills its host. A hyper-parasite is a parasite of other parasites. Hyper-parasitoids also exist. The complexity is mind-boggling, infinite. Unrelated: Would you like to buy my online course that teaches you how to sell marketing advice to AI agents who are looking for ways to promote the MLM‘s of their users? Potential...

• View post

  No one is coming to save us. There isn't a big single hero. That's a good thing. Following, trusting in singular persons is part of the problem. Keep your heroes at an arms distance. The durable way out is the one where we have to save ourselves.

• View post

  Facebook muse it a wildly dangerous idea. Most people think that Meta is a big trusted company. They enter their credit card info to use facebook marketplace. They have an expectation of a certain level of security and sanity that just doesn't exist with "agents" At best this will spawn a new cohort of facebook spammers. It will make the boring services that keep facebook alive unusable as they grow clogged with MLM spam and poorly thought out "outreach" initiatives.

• View post

  Teaching fifth graders to properly bind books because it's interesting but also because I suspect it might be a needed life skill the way things are going.

• View post

  every dyson sphere I've ever seen has been full of cat hair how is that the future?

• View post

  I had a big thread on Sunday about how people feel about "AI" and the attempt to make older people feel like if they aren't into AI they are falling behind the times. Some responses seemed to think I meant that AI hype is all the fault of boomers. I don't really think that. (and didn't say it, but I can see how it came of that way) It's a multi-generational hype project. There was one response among all of them that haunts me. This one: https://tech.lgbt/@paculin...

• View post

  There but by the grace of god go I— you ever have an embarrassing memory that keeps popping up up to remind you? “you did that. that was YOU” ? well mine is when I met a very pregnant woman and before thinking said “oh my god how many??” Fortunately it was triplets. But really I was just so amazed and happy for her, and a little worried. They are all now six years old and amazing kids.

• View post

  "911 what is your emergency?" "I work with Flock Safety and I'm getting followed, harassed pretty much. Taking videos and pictures." 🤣 Video? They took video of you without asking? My god. That's terrible. How could they... OMG. (I do feel a little sorry for the tech who clearly doesn't understand what they have signed up for HOWEVER) https://www.investigatetv.com/2026/09/08/flock-worker-calls-police-investigatetv-reporter-filming-public-camera-installation/

• View post

  A people with no history are not "a people" they are labor, customers, automata subject to the whims of the markets and the people who drive those markets. It's obvious that burning the library, burning the books is wrong. We understand that words written by people we can never meet, people who are far away or long gone can make each of us more powerful. But what if the fire that consumes your library is instead a torrent of nonsense? Fire is only one kind of entropy.

• View post

  You could be like Ed Zitron and question financial assumptions implied by the actions of big players in AI. You could be like Corey Doctorow and question the social, artistic, and human implications of the way the technology is being adopted and marketed. Or like Eli Etherton (the computer guy) you might ask about the impact of the actions of these big players on security and professionalism in IT and Computer Science. These people don't even all agree. Pick one pick them all.

• View post

  There is an attempt to make people feel like being critical of using LLMs is not "hip and with it" Only old people who don't understand technology are unimpressed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Young people don't like the slop, the most tech people have the harshest words. The typical AI fan doesn't know how it works or the limitations: this blind spot makes them both dazzled and fearful ... therefore unable to assign blame to humans when they do crime in a co...

• View post

  Some people shouldn't be allowed to make diagrams or graphs.

• View post

  You don't often see street preachers in the Bronx but when you do they WILL have a hype man, like Chuck D, like it is 1996

• View post

  @symbo1ics.bsky.social I don't own it. I just saw a photo and made my own out of cardboard when I couldn't solve it in my head. It takes like 70 moves! Though I think there may be ways to do it more efficiently.

• View post

  "All people have a heart which cannot bear to see the suffering of others." And also "Also people have a sense of logic which cannot bear to see an obvious contradiction." The second one isn't as important, but it's still pretty good I think.

• View post

  Owning the libs. Renting to own the libs. The installment plan... for the libs. Falling behind on your payments for the libs. and now your water might get shut off.

• View post

  How do I explain to #picaTheCat that I cannot "turn the nor'easter off" or "turn up the sunshine more" on the roof. She meows at the door. I open the door. She meows at the torrential cold crisp rain to "stop at once" ... then at me for not helping.

• View post

  You know flying is bad for the environment. But it that hasn't gotten you to shy away from flying maybe the new AI powered air traffic control might. And The Devil Said: "But there are applications for LLM algorithms in routing and traffic control that could lead to greater efficiency when properly--" Listen Air Traffic Controllers are famously unionized and scarce professionals. They are essential to a system that does not want to share value with them properly. This is a short...