Lynn Ann Conway was an American computer scientist, engineer, and transgender rights activist. She worked at IBM and Xerox PARC pioneering microchip design before becoming a professor. After her retirement in 1999 she became an activist for trans rights until her death in 2024.
buff.ly/ur7jrfa
'Smoke me a Kipper, I'll be back for breakfast' - RIP Rob Grant
This doesn't look like a terrible map for 🏴.
“Is there a technology the left is excited about?”
High-speed rail! MRNA vaccines! New cancer treatments! Solar and wind energy collection! Better and longer-range EVs! That wood that's harder than steel! New apples! Fibermaxxing! Buldak Swicy ramen! Muppets! Muppets are too a technology, shut up!
I can’t believe you lefty Luddites hate tech so much that you embrace mRNA vaccines, heat pumps, electric bikes, hybrid work, renewable power (and awesome advancements in storage), space telescopes, and hot/cold running water but reject the planet destroying plagiarism enrich the worst people bots!
Don't Create the Torment Nexus
Not a new observation, of course, but one that keeps coming back to me.
I thought we'd all agreed this was bad.
NEATO.
Round of applause and cheers for Keir Starmer as he arrives to address Labour MPs at the PLP meeting
Almost as loud as the response Theresa May and Boris Johnson got from Tory MPs before they were ousted
"2029 is still a long way off, but at this rate, it looks like Keir Starmer will go down in history as a midwife to fascism"
A large group of people, including children, on bikes of all sizes cycle through a green space. The text reads: Pedal on Parliament - Save the date: 30th May 2026, 11.30am - #PoP26 - Meadows to Holyrood on closed roads, for a cycle-friendly Scotland
We’re back - Save the Date! In 2026 we Pedal on Parliament for a cycle-friendly Scotland, on Sat 30th May at 11.30am - Middle Meadow Walk to Holyrood, Edinburgh on closed roads.
#ThisMachineFightsClimateChange #pop26
Susan got up on to the dais. There was something odd about the things around her. Of course, there was everything odd about the things around her, but it was a huge major oddness that was simply in their nature. She could ignore it. But there was an oddness on a human level. Everything was just slightly wrong, as if it had been made by someone who hadn't fully comprehended its purpose. There was a blotter on the oversize desk but it was part of it, fused to the surface. The drawers were just raised areas of wood, impossible to open. Whoever had made the desk had seen desks, but hadn't understood deskishness. There was even some sort of desk ornament. It was just a slab of lead, with a thread hanging down one side and a shiny round metal ball on the end of the thread. If you raised the ball it swung down and thumped into the lead, just once.
I stumbled upon a reddit post saying Pratchett's description of Death's house is also a perfect description of AI pictures. This is from Soul Music in 1994.
www.reddit.com/r/discworld/...
“Open the fridge door, Family Hub.”
“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
E-mail Addresses That Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone by Michael Ward MikeUnderscore2004@yahoo.com MikeAtYahooDotCom@hotmail.com Mike_WardAllOneWord@yahoo.com AAAAAThatsSixAs@yahoo.com One1TheFirstJustTheNumberTheSecondSpelledOut@hotmail.com
pound for pound this might be the funniest thing ever written
At least beta males typically have an active and invested user base
When men refer to themselves as "alpha males", I hear that in the context of software, where alpha versions are unstable, missing important features, filled with flaws, and not fit for the public.
A while ago I also did temp work on a 26 ton bin lorry (with dubious visibility), while it made multiple 90° turns on and off Rose St. Those are dangerous and every pedestrian who saw it gave it a wide berth.
Members of that committee seems to see 'cyclist' as a synonym of 'psychopath'. I've cycled down parts of Rose St, while looking a place to lock 🔒 my bike 🚲 before going into a shop. George St is the place to get any speed.
Genuine question: Why's the reaction of many politicians to AI 'it's transformational, we must go faster, we can dismiss concerns over energy, copyright, job losses', yet the reaction to a clean tech transition that's more advanced and has less overt downsides is 'steady now, we need to slow down'.
A six-panel comic. In the first panel, a yellow warbler says "Hey so I'm going to go out on a limb here." In panels two through five, the warbler hops along a long branch against a blue sky with clouds. In panel 6, it stops at the end of the branch and sings.
As the year comes to an end, I'm reposting some of the comics I made this year, including this ridiculous thing.
The headlines I’ve been reading over the past week are some of the most out of touch nonsense I’ve seen from gaming executives in all of my time covering games… and that’s saying something.
Without asylum:
Marks and Spencer wouldn't exist
Queen would have been without a front man
The other queen wouldn't have had a husband
Judith Kerr would never have written The Tiger Who Came to Tea
And thousands of less famous people wouldn't have been teachers, politicians, neighbours, etc
Today marks just six months to go until the 2026 Scottish Parliament Election! As is now usual, I'll be looking to commission a pre-election poll. If you can, please chip in to the crowdfunder here - all donations gratefully received, and even if you can't donate, please share!
gofund.me/cf862de1a
Just finished watching this incredible talk by Dr. Greg Wilson (sadly I can't find a bsky account for him, find him at third-bit.com ) which cites a lot of great work including that of the incomparable @grimalkina.bsky.social - really a masterclass, I highly recommend it.
“The researchers aim to show that the ‘inevitability’ of AI is just a marketing frame perpetrated by the industry and that pushback is a lot more possible than we often see.” Yes!
“‘The uncritical adoption of AI can lead to students not developing essential academic skills such as critical thinking and writing. If students are taught to learn through automation, without learning about how & why things work, they won’t be able to solve problems when something actually breaks’”
