Another Uncanny Valley Sunday, whoa, charcoal burning everywhere.

"It was harder than you think to remember that Tilly is just a computer because millions of years of evolution have made it so that when I stare at something that looks and acts like a human, my brain keeps rounding up, making her human. The tripwires of my uncanny valley are highly refined, but because either a world of slop has bulldozed right through those tripwires or Tilly is so good, I also don’t feel grossed out or upset by the sight of her."

Tilly Norwood, A.I. Actress, Wants to Know Why Everyone’s Mad at Her
By Taffy Brodesser-Akner
The New York Times Magazine
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/magazine/ai-actress-tilly-norwood.html

#UncannyValley #computers #ImaginaryFriends

Happy birthday Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827), French mathematical physicist (who incidentally, did invaluable work in geophysics). He was pretty hard-headed and probably didn’t really have any imaginary friends, but nonetheless Laplace’s Demon is my 3rd in the series of Imaginary Friends of Science. 🧵
⁠
https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/74889917

#linocut #printmaking #histsci #Laplace #LaplacesDemon #physics #determinism #ImaginaryFriends #Science #mastoArt

I added a few more translations of the phrase "The rest is trash" to the spamtraps at https://nxdomain.no/~peter/traplist.shtml (see https://nxdomain.no/~peter/the_rest_is_trash.html or https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-rest-is-trash.html).

If you want further translations added, please let me know (with translation in your message).

#spamtraps #greytrapping #spamd #openbsd #freebsd #antispam #imaginaryfriends #localization #cybercrime

The list without wrapper text is available as https://www.bsdly.net/~peter/sortlist.txt (BIG! -- 22975800 entries as of right now, will increase)

Has anybody told Senator Schumer that ICE murdered Joe Bailey yet?

#ice #politics #imaginaryfriends

The surprisingly simple reason kids have imaginary friends

https://www.vox.com/life/404992/imaginary-friends-kids-friendships-children

#HackerNews #imaginaryfriends #kids #psychology #childhood #friendships #parenting

Complex numbers = imaginary friends for mathematicians.
Lose ‘i’, and suddenly, it's very real.

🔗 https://techgeeksapparel.com/funny-math-pun-shirt/
#ImaginaryFriends #MathPuns #AlgebraJokes #STEMLife