People are afraid of all sorts of outlandish AI apocalypse scenarios, but the only one I'm scared of (besides the massive increase in CO₂ emissions) is the facilitation of mass surveillance. The only thing LLMs are really good at is summarising. The thing that your local conspiracy nut has been afraid of all these years — that everyone is being personally watched at all times — has never before been practical. Now it is.

#AI #AIapocalypse #AIpanopticon

The fell beasts riden by the flying Nazgûl are, according to Tolkien himself, not pterosaurs but do resemble them and may have been a survivor of older geological eras. They are also described as having skin stretched between wing fingers, more like bat wings than pterosaur wings. I therefore conclude that the fell beasts are giant scansoriopterygids.

#LotR #Tolkien #pterosaurs #scansoriopterygids #dinosaurs

Today, I was asked about effective air cleaners, because wildfires have already begun to flare in North America.

Extensive global testing has found that a DIY #CorsiRosenthalBox will outperform almost every commercial HEPA unit while costing less to run.

For the US & Canada, the best source of filters to build one is Costco: Filtrete 1900, 2200, or 2500 models with at least one 20-inch dimension.

These units also help mitigate allergens and infectious aerosols like #Covid and Influenza.

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Sharing this graphic to help put today's attacks by the Tories on cyclists into some kind of perspective.

Their hate has real world implications, from cyclists being less safe as a result of harassment/attacks and by shifting the discussion away from the infrastructure improvements that would make everyone's lives better and safer.

🚴🌍

😡 😡 😡

Israeli Ambassador to Serbia has stated that Israel does not recognize Srebrenica as a genocide

"Srebrenica should not be called genocide. Israel has never accepted that the crime in Srebrenica be called genocide. When you call Srebrenica genocide, in my opinion, it diminishes the importance of that term."

https://xkcd.com/2233/

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2233:_Aurora_Meaning

[saw this going around without alt-text or links]