There was once a time when the Teletext Advent Calendar was everything...

In April 2024, a few words like "delve" had a viral moment, when researchers pointed out that GPT-4 used it often, demonstrating that the spread of the word showed AI in science papers.

Did that result in a decrease in AI use in scientific writing? No, but people started avoiding the word "delve!"

Optical media makes a comeback?
www.techradar.com/pro/forget-a...

How reliable are USB memory sticks? #TeamCompSci
www.pcworld.com/article/2037...

I've just discovered that in some programming languages you can use an underscore as a thousands separator.

If you've ever modded a game, investigated a binary, or just tweaked a program to run your way, you owe it to Codemasters: a firm founded by two British guys who fought for your right to hack. (Also, check out a young Paul Rudd in this Game Genie commercial.)

I won't be sober-enough to remember later, and it must already be the New Year somewhere, so I'll get in early and wish all of my followers...

I wouldn't want a return to coursework - there's too much inauthentic labour in a "project" (i.e. the documentation), and I believe that students get more programming practice and a broader range of experience by spending the time doing lots of smaller tasks.
www.advanced-ict.info/programming/...

Little weekend present for any #OCR J277 teachers. This site lets you write and run exam reference language. So yuo can actually code switch case selection and do until loops. www.examreferencelanguage.co.uk/index.php?co...

#TeamCompSci #CASchat #EduSky #CSed

"The game that couldn't be written!": Alexander the OK goes into the design and math behind the 22 kilobytes that created a world.

People make prompting too hard. Most people would benefit from just using good enough prompting techniques. I outline some basic rules, including why “treat AI like an intern” is no longer the advice I would give new AI users. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/getting-st...

Martin Lewis joined Bluesky yesterday

He's on @martinlewismse.bsky.social

👍🏼

💡 Tip: You can set your website as your username on Bluesky!

This is one form of self-verification, and we especially encourage official organizations and brands to do this! Examples include @npr.org @react.dev @duolingobrasil.com.br.

Here's our guide for how to do this:

And you can play it in a web browser at the BBC Micro Games Archive - much easier than installing an emulator!

bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=...

And you can play it right now, it's free.

"Experience the classic space trading game, Elite, as released on the BBC Model B in 1984, by Ian Bell and David Braben."

www.frontierstore.net/games/elite-...