Postcards

RHCP – Marley Park, June 2022

July 29, 2022July 29, 2022 No Comments

What an awesome gig, pure brilliance. Went with my partner in crime, who makes everything more awesome. Played a few from Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic which I loved. (Image: https://www.instagram.com/p/CfZ7rh6P13w/) The IT has a review: Their laid-back attitude came across as a sense of fun and excitement in them. Whether it was Smith’s fills, Flea’s […]

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Food for Thought Government

Mediocrity is killing public service

July 20, 2022 No Comments

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2022/07/19/janan-ganesh-western-democracy-has-a-personnel-problem/ As Janesh argues in the IT: The crisis of democracy is the crisis of the restaurant trade and of Heathrow airport. You just can’t get the staff. Worth reading in full

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Food for Thought Technology Uncategorized

GPT-3 – Great use of statistical computing, tells us nothing about language

July 13, 2022July 13, 2022 No Comments

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/noam-chomsky-and-gpt-3 One good way to move beyond merely filling in the blanks might be to ask whether the models could reliably distinguish truth from fiction. In point of fact, they can’t. Rather, systems like GPT are truth-challenged, known to routinely lose coherence over long passages of text and known to fabricate endlessly. One such variant […]

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Space

James Webb Telescope – superb images

July 12, 2022 No Comments

BBC has a description of how the new space telescope sees so far back in time, plus a comparison with Hubble. Remarkable increase in sharpness. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62122859

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Arts Films Just for Laughs

The Crimson Permanent Assurance

July 11, 2022July 12, 2022 No Comments

Skirt the shoals of bankruptcy with the crimson permanent assurance! https://vimeo.com/111458975

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Government History Military

L.E. Eithne – a floating museum?

July 11, 2022 No Comments

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-navy-decommission-eithne-orla-ciara-5805258-Jul2022/ Now, that’d be a nice bit of history. We don’t have much naval history on show for an island nation. The Eithne was the last naval ship built in Ireland, so it’s a piece of history in itself.

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Psychology & The Mind Science!

Someone finally checked – Hangry is real

July 9, 2022 No Comments

Many have known it is a real thing for a long time, yet, apparently, nobody every did any actual studies into it, so it was unproven. But now it is, thanks to one curious and hangry scientist: Until now, feeling ‘hangry’ – angry because you’re hungry – has been described in a general, colloquial sense, […]

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Science! Space

The Search for Planet 9

June 29, 2022 No Comments

The hunt for a potential ‘Planet 9’ by Shannon Stirone over on Longreads is a fascinating story of dogged, patient detective work. Learning from each failure and persisting is the theme of this story set in the other worldly landscape on top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, located at Hale […]

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Bits & Bobs Photography

DB 7730

June 8, 2022 No Comments

Lego Set 7730

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Human Rights Parenting & Children

How to Talk about Autism Respectfully – Field Guide

May 27, 2022 No Comments

This is a good guide, and very informative: If you take away nothing else from this essay I’d like you to take this: one of the core mottos of our community comes from South African disability rights activism: “Nothing About Us Without Us.” If you can keep those five words in your mind when writing […]

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Postcards

Who?

Murf

RHCP – Marley Park, June 2022

Mediocrity is killing public service

GPT-3 – Great use of statistical computing, tells us nothing about language

James Webb Telescope – superb images

The Crimson Permanent Assurance

L.E. Eithne – a floating museum?

Someone finally checked – Hangry is real

The Search for Planet 9

DB 7730

How to Talk about Autism Respectfully – Field Guide