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81st Column

@81stcolumn.bsky.social

240 followers 270 following 930 posts

Autistic educator who still loves teaching after 30 years, #sportsci #Welshman domiciled in #Aotearoa - The 81st column was a means by which IBM VDU's could display all characters in full - it wasn't accessible to programmers.. Yes it's me... #MDANT

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81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 1h

Stairway #Glow

#Photography #Aoteroa #BlueskyArtShow

3:2, Colour, Portrait: A modern building at #night with a glass facade revealing a warmly lit staircase taking centre place. There is a mixture of glowing light and texture created by the combination of light, staircase silhouette and window frames. This shot is best understood in vertical thirds, on the left is a tree lit from behind by an evening sky. In the centre is the stairwell, on the right are grid-like window frames. This is shot over the road from the Northbridge retirement home. I’ve had several goes at this one this is the best so far. I get stared at by suspicious old folks…. #Nikon #nz #urbangaze #Auckland #aotearoa #UrbanPhotography #Glow #BlueskyArtShow

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Reposted by 81st Column

FRBH Recordings @frbhrecs.bsky.social · 1d

Cheer up your Saturday with this article by @wrongtom.bsky.social on the formidable Shut Up & Dance - special mention for “18 Inch Speaker” as well

daily.bandcamp.com/features/shu...

How Shut Up & Dance Cross-Wired Reggae With Rave, Techno, Jungle, and More

In the late ’80s and early ’90s Hackney’s PJ and Smiley had UK dance music in their grip.

daily.bandcamp.com

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81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 22h

Coffee in Grafton #Photography #Aotearoa #Night #BlueSkyArtShow #Glow

3:2, Colour, Landscape: A nighttime view of a coffee shop with large glass windows. The word “COFFEE” is boldly printed across the top of the windows in block letters. Inside, warm ambient lighting #glows over a mural featuring abstract faces and swirling patterns. Pendant lights hang above tables and chairs, casting soft shadows. A menu board and posters add to the texture of the shot. This place is an important counterpoint to the general modernising and embourgeoisement of Grafton. Set right opposite the hospital I don't think they'll go out of business, but landlords? #Nikon #nz #UrbanGaze #Auckland #Aotearoa #UrbanPhotography #Glow #BlueskyArtShow

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 1d

I'm truly sad for all the things that will be missed as a consequence.

Reposted by 81st Column

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 2d

important on LLMs for academics:

1️⃣ LLMs are usefully seen as lossy content-addressable systems

2️⃣ we can't automatically detect plagiarism

3️⃣ LLMs automate plagiarism & paper mills

4️⃣ we must protect literature from pollution

5️⃣ LLM use is a CoI

6️⃣ prompts do not cause output in authorial sense

5 Ghostwriter in the Machine
A unique selling point of these systems is conversing and writing in a human-like way. This is imminently understandable, although wrong-headed, when one realises these are systems that
essentially function as lossy2
content-addressable memory: when
input is given, the output generated by the model is text that
stochastically matches the input text. The reason text at the output looks novel is because by design the AI product performs
an automated version of what is known as mosaic or patchwork
plagiarism (Baždarić, 2013) — due to the nature of input masking and next token prediction, the output essentially uses similar words in similar orders to what it has been exposed to. This
makes the automated flagging of plagiarism unlikely, which is
also true when students or colleagues perform this type of copypaste and then thesaurus trick, and true when so-called AI plagiarism detectors falsely claim to detect AI-produced text (Edwards, 2023a). This aspect of LLM-based AI products can be
seen as an automation of plagiarism and especially of the research paper mill (Guest, 2025; Guest, Suarez, et al., 2025; van
Rooij, 2022): the “churn[ing] out [of] fake or poor-quality journal papers” (Sanderson, 2024; Committee on Publication Ethics,

Either way, even if
the courts decide in the favour of companies, we should not allow
these companies with vested interests to write our papers (Fisher
et al., 2025), or to filter what we include in our papers. Because
it is not the case that we only operate based on legal precedents,
but also on our own ethical values and scientific integrity codes
(ALLEA, 2023; KNAW et al., 2018), and we have a direct duty to
protect, as with previous crises and in general, the literature from
pollution. In other words, the same issues as in previous sections
play out here, where essentially now every paper produced using
chatbot output must declare a conflict of interest, since the output text can be biased in subtle or direct ways by the company
who owns the bot (see Table 2).
Seen in the right light — AI products understood as contentaddressable systems — we see that framing the user, the academic
in this case, as the creator of the bot’s output is misplaced. The
input does not cause the output in an authorial sense, much like
input to a library search engine does not cause relevant articles
and books to be written (Guest, 2025). The respective authors
wrote those, not the search query!

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81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 2d

Did the Green party go up in the polls or something?

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 4d

These are Clivia apparently. M'Dear describes them as a "non-native weed"...... but #Spring in #Aotearoa. #Photograhpy #Kikorangi do I get to call them shady bu**ers?

5:4, Landscape, Colour: A stem of orange Clivia #flowers in focus along the left third, on the right, out of focus something red. Gosh I suck at flowers, so just enjoy the pretty. #Nikon #nz #Nature

5:4, Portrait, Colour: Some more Clivia, this time the flow is from top left to bottom right. The big bunch is top left and a small raindrop sits on the end of an unopened bud on the bottom right intersection of thirds. I shot these for fun, I'm sure the novelty of Bokeh will wear off soon. I have however acquired a great respect for those who photograph #flowers well. It's some what harder than it looks. #Nikon #nz #Nature

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 5d

This looks perfect, I suck at typing but M'Dear needs a replacement for her MS ergo layout keyb.

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 5d

What's it like to use? Where did you get it?

Reposted by 81st Column

Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 7d

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

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81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 7d

I understand it's customary to share photos of #flowers in #spring Shot between showers this one caught my eye, I'm just sad M'Dear is missing this (she's in Japan). Our yard is a riot in spring and she put so much time into it over the winter. #Photography #Aotearoa #Kikorangi

4:3, Portrait, Colour: A picture of a flower (I have no idea what kind) lit from above by the sun to create glowing trumpets of orange the stamens take centre stage. #Nikon

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81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 7d

Thank you, that's a kind thing to say.

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 7d

View from a bridge #Photography #BlackandWhite #aotearoa

3:2, #Monochrome, Portrait: A #blackandwhite #nighttime shot of a curving elevated section of motorway in #Auckland lit by tall streetlights. Light trails from passing vehicles streak across the road. Dense trees and urban buildings frame the scene, while a pedestrian path runs alongside the road. Grafton bridge has a reinforced safety screen along its length on both sides, but someone has cut some round holes in it. Lucky me. #Nikon #night #nz #urbanphotography #Auckland #Monochrome #BlackandWhite #aotearoa

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 7d

Taken for granted - Sia
Take it for granted - Carmel

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81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 8d

We got this.... right?

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 12d

Who’s your favourite Jedi? (Wrong answers only)

Errol Flynn on the set of Captain Blood looking ready to swash a few buckles with his sword.

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 12d

The question that needs to be asked is "What actions are Universities taking to secure the validity of assessments?"

81st Column @81stcolumn.bsky.social · 12d

So if I've followed the logic of this from the start Govt. is arguing for more exploration in the name of "Energy security" despite the resource in case being technically non-existent?

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