samuel_wade

samuel_wade, 2 months ago to random

@TedUnderwood Hi, I hope you’re well. I was wondering if you have any thoughts on detecting AI-generated text—is there any method for doing that that’s better than reading tea leaves? Could provide an interesting bonus angle to something else we’ve been working on.

samuel_wade, 2 months ago to random

Redwoods are growing almost as fast in the UK as their Californian cousins https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/redwoods-are-growing-almost-as-fast-in-the-uk-as-their-californian-cousins/

samuel_wade, 2 months ago to random

Gaza ceasefire hopes rise after Hamas abandons key demands https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/16/gaza-ceasefire-hopes-rise-after-hamas-abandons-key-demands

samuel_wade, 3 months ago to random

Great piece. “‘Sixth Tone was able to write about China as a place where real people live and care about their future, as opposed to an abstraction, or a rival nation, or a site to do business, or a series of social and economic problems,’ says Qian Jinghua, who became its head of news.” I’m not remotely opposed to paywalls, but it’s a real shame that’s behind one. It’s a very good account of the tightening media controls over the last few years. https://www.thewirechina.com/2024/02/25/tone-deaf-media-china-sixth-tone-chinese-journalism-censor-crackdown/

samuel_wade, 3 months ago to random

Fact of the day: it’s hard to facepalm and clap at the same time. https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/23/24081249/slack-slackbot-gizmodo-tom-mckay

samuel_wade, 3 months ago to random

Naturally we have cyberpunk seabird colonies. “The unnatural habitat has now become home to half of the province’s population of double-crested cormorants.” https://thetyee.ca/News/2024/02/21/Meet-Cormorants-Second-Narrows-Bridge/

skinnylatte, 3 months ago to food

Me before I made these Persian raisin cookies: man, I don’t love cookies

Me after I made these Persian raisin cookies: I could eat cookies everyday

(I really struggle with traditional American cookies. Texture and sugar level)

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/nan-e-keshmeshi-persian-raisin-cookies-recipe

#Food #recipes

samuel_wade, 4 months ago to random

iPhone apps abuse iOS push notifications to collect user data https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/iphone-apps-abuse-ios-push-notifications-to-collect-user-data/ Includes TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Bing

samuel_wade, 4 months ago to random

Supreme court declines to halt first US nitrogen-gas execution in Alabama case https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/24/supreme-court-nitrogen-gas-execution-case Too many grim details to quote, but the fact that this method is deemed unacceptable for most animals was a frontrunner.

samuel_wade, 4 months ago to random

NOOOOOOO https://www.space.com/nasa-loses-contact-ingenuity-mars-helicopter

samuel_wade, 4 months ago to random

“Border Force’s number one priority is to keep our borders safe and secure, and we will never compromise on this” is perhaps the stupidest conceivable response to this story. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/07/spanish-woman-deported-from-uk-after-returning-from-christmas-holiday

samuel_wade, 4 months ago to random

“Rejoicing over a disaster (or mocking the victims) makes the citizens of this great nation infinitely less civilized.” – WeChat blogger 江湖挑灯看剑, criticizing Schadenfreude on Chinese social media after a major earthquake struck Japan https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/01/quote-of-the-day-rejoicing-over-a-disaster-makes-citizens-of-this-great-nation-infinitely-less-civilized/ Japan has A LOT of work to do in reckoning with its past, but popular enmity now has more to do with political cynicism. It’s sad. I’ll never forget the donation box at my local konbini after the 2008 Sichuan quake, literally buried under cash

samuel_wade, 4 months ago to random

Well this has wiped the smug 1337er-than-thou smirk off my portrait-monitors-only face. https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/linux-is-the-only-os-to-support-diagonal-pc-monitor-mode-dev-champions-the-case-for-22-degree-rotation-computing

samuel_wade, 5 months ago to random

A top-secret Chinese spy satellite just launched on a supersized rocket https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/12/a-top-secret-chinese-spy-satellite-just-launched-on-a-super-sized-rocket/ Sun Tzu referred to satellites as "the balloons of the outer heavens"

gruber, 5 months ago to random

@reichenstein The upcoming iA Notebook looks very nice, but it looks ... thick? How many pages? Can you share the W×H×D dimensions? (Centimeters are fine, I'll convert them. 😃)

https://ia.net/topics/ia-writer-in-paper

samuel_wade, 5 months ago to random

Reminder: Google is about to start purging inactive accounts https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/28/23979178/google-inactive-accounts-deletion-december-2023-psa-reminder

samuel_wade, 6 months ago to random

“David Cameron, the former prime minister, was also seen going into No 10, although it was not immediately clear why.” In fairness, it’s been years since it was clear why anyone’s been into No 10. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/13/suella-braverman-sacked-home-secretary

samuel_wade, 6 months ago to random

samuel_wade, 6 months ago to random

Spines of a hedgehog, snout of an anteater: Indonesian mammal seen for first time in 60 years https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/10/attenborough-long-beaked-echidna-seen-first-time-cyclops-mountain-photos-footage

samuel_wade, 6 months ago to random

Our interview with Lhadon Tethong https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2023/10/interview-with-lhadon-tethong-on-tibets-colonial-boarding-schools-they-are-stealing-an-entire-generation/ on the current situation in Tibet, and especially the grotesque system of cultural erasure through boarding schools for children as young as four 🤢, is now also available in Chinese https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/701838.html

glynmoody, 6 months ago to random

‘Darwin’s oak’ to be felled to make way for Shrewsbury bypass - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/01/darwins-oak-to-be-felled-to-make-way-for-shrewsbury-bypass what a terrible symbol of our short-sighted stupidity

Bing_Chris, 6 months ago to random

Will the US ever truly compete with china on cyber and have the NSA create a song?
https://youtu.be/kbBKPqOh6DU?si=VAtW_WsTIF3EQARy

(^just discovered this amazing video from the launch of the cyberspace administration of china)

samuel_wade, 6 months ago to random

The main strength of Mastodon vs Bluesky is that I can mute moaning about Bluesky on Mastodon but not moaning about Mastodon on Bluesky.

samuel_wade, 7 months ago to random

The more I read about whether free will exists, the less interested I am in the question. Even if the guy talking about it looks just enough like Robert Plant to have caught my eye on the website.

I agree I can’t make choices independently from a huge array of influences from a billion different sources, but the product of all those effects is what I am, so what does that even mean? It’s not that the answer to the question is no; it’s just a flawed question. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/science/free-will-sapolsky.html