That thing where somebody breathlessly talks about a “great” AI feature being added to an app they use, then show that said feature immediately breaks and doesn’t work properly, but will almost certainly be fixed soon, despite the flaw in question being baked into how LLMs work.

🤨

“GitHub - orlp/polymur-hash: The PolymurHash universal hash function.”

Final photos of the day. These were taken at an outdoor commitment ceremony for a couple of my friends. I’m guessing this is 2004 or 2005.

A child wearing a crown of flowers stares at a procession of people in the distance.Several kids are running around, most of them are looking away from the camera at the approaching couple. Other people have their cameras out.

For some reason, I really enjoy photos of mundane, day-to-day, stuff. These are probably from 2003, before I moved to Redland in Bristol.

A work bench in an art studio in Spike Island. The sign says “workshop must be swept clear after use”. Some of it looks like welding equipment.Chairs in a laundromat. On one of them is a stack of newspapers A fairly old and, frankly, shoddy-looking front door. Some mail is on the floor to the side, left leaning against the wall.

I’ve always been fond of taking pictures in urban green spaces, even when there’s no “there” there.

These were taken, I think, around 2003-4.

Some grass in Clifton, BristolAt the top of the grassy field in the last photo. We are now by some cars and a bicycle.By the cemetery in Clifton that I posted yesterday. Just outside the photo are the foundations of a church that was bombed in WW2

I’ve been posting some of the older photos I’ve taken.

This one is one of the last pictures I took on my battered old Yashica, around 2000 or thereabouts. I put it away shortly after this as I started trying out affordable Eastern European cameras.

A photo taken through an archway of a couple. The woman is taking a picture of something off to the side.

“Ugly Numbers from Microsoft and ChatGPT Reveal that AI Demand is Already Shrinking”

A huge amount has been invested into AI but consumers aren’t taking the bait. They’re treating it like those American Online startup disks in the mail.

“The Rise and Fall of ChatGPT? - by Gary Marcus”

In less than a year, ChatGPT has gone from being mistaken for AGI to being the butt of a joke

Some of us have been saying from the start that generative models have a functionality problem

“Pluralistic: Supervised AI isn’t (23 August 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow”

the story of AI being managed by a “human in the loop” is a fantasy, because humans are neurologically incapable of maintaining vigilance in watching for rare occurrences.

“Use web components for what they’re good at”

This is a solid and practical overview of what web components are good at.

“Reclaiming AI as a theoretical tool for cognitive science”

In this paper, we have shown that (re)making human-like or human-level minds is computationally intractable (even under highly idealised conditions).

“Reclaiming AI as a theoretical tool for cognitive science”

Any factual AI system created in the short-run (say, within the next few decades or so) is so astronomically unlikely to be anything like a human mind, or even a coherent capacity that is part of that mind, that claims of ‘inevitability’ of AGI within the foreseeable future are revealed to be false and mis- leading.

“Pros and cons of using Shadow DOM and style encapsulation”

I’ve generally found the Shadow DOM to be less useful than it’s normally portrayed and an active hindrance to small projects.

This old photo was taken in Ashton Court in 2002 or 2003, I think? I was using the Werra camera made in East Germany by Carl Zeiss Jena.

I’m quite fond of these kinds of pictures, even though they don’t look fancy or dramatic.

In the distance we can see a dog running to catch up to the person it’s with.

This photo was taken in the old cemetery in Clifton (I forget the name, it’s the one belonging to the church that was bombed in WW2). Another crap camera and lens. This time a soviet produced camera and lens, IIRC. Even the film was an Eastern European make.

We look down a tunnel of brambles at a person holding an umbrella in the other end

Continuing with the reposting of my old photos. These are all from 2000, still using the battered old Yashica with the 50mm kit lens.

Competitive rowers practice on the river Avon in BristolThree swans paddle in the river Avon just in front of a site where a building has recently been torn downA quick shot taken through the alley next to what was at the time the restaurant “The Slug and Lettuce” near the St. Nicholas Market in Bristol

Is it possible to hyperventilate for two weeks straight? Just ordered review copies of the books from a PoD printer and, because I’m too cheap to pay for expedited printing, the wait is likely to be around two weeks. 😬️

“Worrying about the NPM ecosystem | Sam Bleckley”

“How to protect yourself from npm – Timo Tijhof”

“less code, more software: The principles of product development flow”

I’ve enjoyed all of Reinertsen’s books even if connecting the dots to software dev can occasionally take a bit of work.

“View Transitions Break Incremental Rendering — ericportis.com”

“Reloading a Document (and Preserving Query String Parameters) Using Only HTML - Jim Nielsen’s Blog”

“Progressively Enhanced Form Validation, Part 3: Validating a checkbox group – Cloud Four”

“Please size your inline SVGs :: Aaron Gustafson”

“The modern era of research-backed software delivery”

Essentially, making projects small has 3x more impact than making them agile.

I’m pretty much required by law to link to any essay that both cites the CHAOS reports and Gall’s law