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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 3h

I mean the business model of all these companies is basically fraud and I'm not sure their synthetic text generators getting better at questions about spelling is really going to make the fraud easier.

Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 3h

This is also why LLMs suck at things like alphabetization and spelling. They're not really looking at the letters. That probably would be an easier work around to fix than the syllable thing. I don't expect they will though because I can't really see why they would bother.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 3h

If you're curious, when LLMs analyze prompts they're broken down into fragments composed of larger chunks of several letters to several words called tokens that are then analyzed. Those tokens can't necessarily be broken down into syllabus consistently so they're always going to struggle there.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 3h

Also LLMs are notoriously bad at writing haikus. And actually for once there are valid technical reasons for them being bad at that. But what on earth is anyone doing advertising an LLM for writing haikus.

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 6h

Ew ew ew just for an ad for one of those AI assistants in which a woman asks it to write a haiku about her cat.

You can’t write a 3 line, 17 syllable poem about your cat?????

What is being alive for if not writing tiny little poems about your cat??!!

Add this to my joker file. Good lord.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 4h

Also I can't wait for @chrisskinner.bsky.social's debut book whatever that is. Maybe a memoir with an unreliable narrator titled Richie Firth Travel Hacker, or a fantasy novel about an audio producer. The sky is really the limit.

Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 4h

This is a really good discussion by a couple of people who dealt with releasing a book through Unbound as it collapsed. @alicefraser.bsky.social and @chrisskinner.bsky.social are great, Alice's book is fantastic, and it's really unfair this happened to so many great people. youtu.be/8l73x6t27U4?...

We made a hit book, and saw none of the money! Chris and Alice Unleashed!!! B'Ankruptcy Edition

YouTube video by The Bugle

youtu.be

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Reposted by Lacci

cageyratfish FREE LINK, YOU COWARDS 🏳️‍⚧️🇨🇦 @cageyratfish.bsky.social · 19h

We're talking about "The History of the Twentieth Century" podcast by Mark Painter, in case you're wondering. It's brilliant. Can't recommend it highly enough. Especially right now

Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 19h

It really is. If there's any podcast I've heard I think might still be finding new listeners in a few decades this is the one I think.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 19h

It really is. If there's any podcast I've heard I think might still be finding new listeners in a few decades this is the one I think.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 19h

And I hope he gets to the end of the century and is still healthy and going strong and has to figure out what else to do with his time. That's the problem I want him to have.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 19h

😂 Yeah. Also the breadth of his engagement with all sorts of topics is truly fantastic. Like absolutely give me someone who super enthusiastically covers The Ballet Rus and scientific advancements and the Russo Japanese war. Because it all matters.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 19h

The theme song for Boardwalk Empire is a really weird choice. It's a period drama set in the jazz age, the first great world influential iconic musical period of American history. So a contemporary rock song with electric guitar is a strange choice.

Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 19h

There's probably a real chance he or a family member was one of my grandfather's patients.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 19h

Oh that's wonderful! I'm so glad you like it. He really does a fantastic job. Also he talks just like my parents and their siblings (same age, grew up right by them) so I find it kind of soothing to hear his voice.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

Poland had an autocratic thing going on too, so as a Marxist he was somewhat at risk from his own government. Eventually I think he actually worked with Keynes at Cambridge for a bit before going back to Poland after the war. Ah yeah, his name was Michał Kalecki. Took me a while to dredge it up.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

The organizers were all gentry members I think. You know worth a few million or more, accustomed to being a boss and having the associated prestige. Someone who might work but someone who's assets are earning more than their labor.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

A polish Marxist actually independently discovered Keynes's theories of how to run a central bank effectively at the same time as he did. And he framed it all in the format of running a socialist state without capitalism. It's pretty cool. Poland had it rough subsequently and he's less remembered.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

I mean sometimes anyway. It really depends what they do. I mean even communist countries had central banks. And the Marxist-Leninist idea of not having any markets or currency of some kind was kind of a weird thing and never made a lot of sense even to most marxists.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

I think most of them are probably what Patrick Wyman calls the gentry (in sort of an abstract sense). But also some of the convoy people were legitimately like working people. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

American Gentry

The jet-setting cosmopolitans of popular imagination exist, but they are far outnumbered by a less exalted and less discussed elite group, one that sits at the pinnacle of America’s local hierarchies.

www.theatlantic.com

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

I mean that was Keynes's background too, I don't think it really adequately explains Carney's behavior. I disagreed with Keynes in a lot of ways and he wanted a kind of capitalism (would have ended poorly) but he definitely wasn't this. And Carney would probably say he's a Keynsian.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

They don't care about small businesses really. It's a lip service thing. All the small businesses are getting overrun by enormous chains because the regulatory environment massively privileges them. But they have to say they care about them.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

A lot of central bankers go into banking when they leave government service, but it's more an influence buying thing by banks than that it's that similar of a job and their skills are super useful. They have knowledge and connections that help in evading regulations.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

He's not really a businessman either. He's probably closer to a politician than a businessman as a central banker, but he's not really either exactly. He was a very prestigious and well paid professional bureaucrat. It's kind of like being a diplomat or something.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

Yeah. And it makes sense to let the postal service do more rather than make it do less. Pharmacy by mail is big business in Canada, sick people need meds to their house not a pickup site.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

I just have difficulty fathoming why anyone thinks it would make any sense not to have a robust postal service in a world dominated by e-commerce. I get it from politicians who live in a fantasy world of lies about everything, but for someone like Carney it should be obvious.

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Lacci @lacci.bsky.social · 20h

My friend lives in Prince George, it's not big and awfully from anything else. I mean they'll still have mail in the city, but they already have problems with private delivery companies having inadequate service. I can't imagine it won't be a serious problem in the surrounding area.

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