@diffendale
archaeologist, at the moment studying volcanic tuff as a building material but interested in all old trash ΟΣΟΝ ΖΗΣ ΦΑΙΝΟΥ he/him Pisa (but bury me beside the Piramide) 🥖🌹 simultaneously more and less fun than profile suggests
Why Language Models Hallucinate. A paper released by OpenAI in September of 2025.
Back in September, OpenAI released a paper showing that ChatGPT will always make things up.
Not sometimes. Not until the next update. Always. It's how the system fundamentally works. Which means there is no "fix."
my magpie brings all the joy to the yard
A black & white line drawing/engraving of a pig headed trumpet raised above a spear carrying army.
For #FindsFriday this gorgeous depiction of the Deskford carnyx by Keith Henderson in Piggott’s Scotland Before History, 1958.
Found c.1816 Near Deskford, just south of the Moray coast, it dates to the later 1stC AD, deposited in a bog c.2/3rdC. Now in the National Museum of Scotland.
#CarnyxCrazy
rare two-for-joy spotted out the window
Il Cristo greco si è fermato a Empoli
I guess I didn’t wake up thinking I needed to know the names of the 279 named triremes ⛵️in the 4th century BCE Athenian navy, but it appears we all do. link.springer.com/article/10.1... I do like that 3.58% had animal names like Λεοντῆ (lion skin) and Λέαινα (lioness). Greek epigraphy is fun! 🪦
the latter is certainly a problem, but it's just something we have to accept. More concerned with the present day, namely scholars who hijack other people's projects and then write them out of the research
the archaeology of the city of Rome is a nest of vipers. Trying not to let it make me bitter
As ever this is the moderate position.
A painting of a peasant, identified as Bencino Brugnolaio, and a dog in a mountainous landscape strewn with foodstuffs: cheeses, fruits, ham, celery, ricotta, citrons, fowl, cherries, eggs, all peculiarly out of scale
Giovanna Garzoni, Old Man from Artimino, 1648-51, Watercolor on parchment, 386 x 600 mm, Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence
Pretty easy to understand that the love of AI is rooted in it’s ability to obscure the agency of those making decisions and whitewash horrific abuses by giving each choice the veneer of cold, machinelike rationality.
learning, via worldcat, that Pisa is exactly equidistant from Rome and Turin
pretty confident that if our own government bombed, say, Philadelphia, we'd just kind forget about it after a couple more Rocky movies
This reminds me of that Frankie Boyle joke about how Americans not only come to your country and kill your people, they also come back twenty years later to make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers sad.
finally rested enough to be tired
In a 1968 submission to UNESCO the UK rep said ‘nah we don’t need heritage regulation because the aristos own the heritage and it’s fine’. Hewison’s 1987 ‘Heritage Industry’ noted nothing had changed in 20 yrs except increasing imperial nostalgia. And now …
We should not have to buy our heritage back from treasure hunters. And our museums should not be in stark, market-driven financial competition with auction houses for our shared past. 🏺
high-fiving past me, who in fact *did* take a photo, back in 2017, of that thing I now need a photo of
With New Momentum, Republican States Push Broader Limits for Trans Americans In states that once focused mainly on health care and sports for transgender minors, debates now revolve around the validity of transgender identity.
The subheadline on this NYT piece is going to turn me into the Joker.
Like... this... is exactly what trans people have been saying was going to happen for years.
the purpose of a system is what it does
This is a beige vessel known as an askos. It has a central mouth, two smaller lateral spouts, and two horizontal handles. It features a painting in a darker shade of brown. This painting features various ornaments, as well as human figures in a procession and a body lying in state, accompanied by musicians and mourners.
Admittedly, it is not the most beautiful of vessels. However, by depicting a funerary procession and rituals, the Catarinella Askos is one of the most fascinating painted pots from ancient southern Italy. It was quite fun to write about it. doi.org/10.1017/S104... #Archaeology 🏺
nowhere is safe
write a single paragraph without using "anche se" - challenge level: impossible
Hey! Scholars! If you're using someone's work in your class, sometimes it's nice to email them and tell them, because then they might feel good about their research instead of entirely crushed by the academic humanities' ongoing descent into the grave
Episode 5 is now available:
Roman Timber: Roofs, Doors and Forgotten Walls
#romans #rome #history #archaeology #brick #tiles
Episode 6 is now available:
Roman Timber: Roofs, Doors and Forgotten Walls
#romans #rome #history #archaeology #bronze #iron #romanbronze
shows.acast.com/building-the...
The left tried for decades to pass green energy subsidies, passed them, the subsidies worked, and now literally the entire planet's electricity grid is going to convert to solar+battery. It just doesn't feel like "tech" because it mostly produces kinda boring blue collar jobs instead of billionaires
I feel more at home where I speak the language of these ghosts
I tried doing this but the result is that I now understand neither