Tootfinder

Now, I have a lot of reasons to hate vibe coding, but one of them is that I just think more easily in code. I reason by writing the code. It's not something I can easily disentangle.
Architectures tend to live in my head as pictures that change as I write. The words are code. There's no intermediate. So the offer of being able to skip the poc phase is just not interesting. "Oh, cool, I can skip the part where I preemptively identify problems? Great. That's gonna work out well." Vibe coding can give you working proof of concepts that self destruct when you try to grow them (much like any poc code you just try to use without actually engineering).
I don't know that this problem will ever get fixed. Even if it does, I don't know that this fix will ever rival human engineering. I don't think it's actually possible to know that yet, there are too many factors at play. It's definitely lowered the bar for writing proof of concepts. Now a business idiot can make a proof of concept, which even further distorts their understanding of what engineering actually looks like.
In order to go back to work, I'm basically expected to be ramped up on LLM stuff. But it all keeps reminding me of the feeling of powerlessness when we organized against Trump, when we organized against the rally at UW, when I tried to stop someone from pepperspraying people and I got shot. It's all the same ideology of rapists and pedophiles forcing their entire world on us against our will, thinking they can dangle "the Epstein files" in front of everyone and then yank them away like nothing ever happened... Like no one knows they implicate the entire power structure.

Now, I don't especially like the term "church" so I may use something else... like "coven." You can do what you want. But I happen to have already mapped out an example. (It is exactly that, just an example, so take if it's useful, change if you need, and don't stick to anything too closely.) Oh, this mapping also means that you would, for religious reasons, only be allowed to work under capitalism 4 days a week instead of 5.
Given the increases in productivity over the last 100 years, a 4 day work week is a completely reasonable expectation. If we have to annex Monday for the weekend by force of religion, so be it. It is rightfully ours anyway. If enough people try it, this will probably work. If it doesn't work, it just needs more people.
The Practice of Worship:
It is recommended to break down worship in to three sections: the functional, the communal, and the spiritual. It is also recommended to break these across multiple days. A common structure for some Christian churches is to take 10-15 minutes for announcements (Functional), an hour or two for services (Spiritual), followed by (Communal) coffee, tea, and cookies for an unspecified time up to two hours after. When starting or working with limited time a single compressed model like this may work, but it's not optimal.
- The Functional
The purpose of this section is to address the functional needs of the coven. Block out time (less than 90 minute blocks is recommended) to go through reports and updates from those involved in the Dispensary, Library, Works Committee (infrastructure), and Services Committee (providing services internally and, potentially, externally). Talk through any additional announcements, including those from other covens you may be federated with.
It is helpful to include unstructured communal time, such as shared meals, during or after functional meetings. As the federation grows, more time will be needed. It is recommended to break functional meetings, work parties, and such across multiple days. When a federation becomes sufficiently large, it is recommended to take every Monday, on top of Saturday and Sunday, as a third day of community and worship.
The scope of the functional spans 3 realms (which may be more-or-less fluid): the personal or family, the coven and federation, and humanity itself. It is up to each coven and individual to negotiate how to allocate the three days of the weekend once we have liberated Monday from the work week, but it is important to reserve it for one of these three. However, some people must work on weekends. Medical personnel, for example, cannot conform to a standard work week. While the work week should be universally restricted, which specific days are used will be up to the specific coven and their members.
A functional meeting can start with an agenda like the following:
Functional Invocation
Announcements
Report Backs
Dispensary
Inventory Check
What is low
What is empty
What is expiring
What is needed
Funds status
Library
Inventory Check and Items needing return
Library acquisition requests
Funds status and budget check
Works Committee
Upcoming projects
Subcommittee updates (Following the Works Committee agenda)
New committee formations
Funds status
Services Committee
New capabilities announcements
New needs requests
Subcommittee updates (Following the Works Committee agenda)
New committee formations
Funds status
Task Check
Breaking the Circle
This agenda is a suggestion for those who don't know where to start. It can be adapted or ignored as appropriate.
- The Spiritual
Spirituality is necessarily an undefined space. It is deeply personal. Each individual taking time to share their own personal spiritual experiences can help each connect with each other. This experience of connection can itself be a spiritual experience. It may also be useful to read esoteric, mystical, or philosophical texts together as type of "book club" and share thoughts. Others may draw from their own knowledge or traditions. This is something that must be defined together within a group.
- The Communal
The communal aspect of the practice of worship bind the coven and federation together. Within the community we find joy and release, connection and comfort. The coven is where we turn in times of need, and where we share our hopes and dreams.

Dear generative AI enthusiasts,
Look, I know the tokens you're burning right now don't actually use *that*much energy (even though it's somewhat substantial already and disastrous when we take into account the quality of the crap it's being used for) but what's more important is the appearance (or not) of that token spend on the quarterly earnings report of OpenAI/Anthropic/etc. lays the foundation necessary for those companies to go ahead with their plans for datacenters on a truly ridiculous scale, and those datacenters, if built, ate indeed a climate nightmare which *my kids* will have to live through even if they never benefit from any of it at all. That's (one of many reasons) why I personally need you to stop using generative AI right now.
The fact that the output is crap, the way it erodes your intelligence, and the ways in which it plagiarizes and actively undermines good citation practices are among many other practical reasons not to use it, but what's personal to me is the way that your frivolous sloperation is making the future worse for the baby I'm feeding blueberries to as I type this, and half the time I interact with people like you the conversation begins with some form of "putting aside the ethical issues..."
#AI #GenAI #LLMs

The reasons we consider plagiarism to be cheating in school and malpractice in professional contexts are many of the same reasons that LLMs are not going to replace all knowledge-based human labor. (Details left as an exercise for the reader.)
And yes, a whole lot of what LLMs do •would• count as plagiarism if one of my students did it manually, and •should• count as plagiarism just the same if they use a machine to do it — not just in a “that’s cheating!!” sense, but more importantly in a “that’s not really doing the work” sense.
5/

#osint folks: what's the go-to for free off-nadir aerial imagery these days? One of the big reasons to use bing maps instead of google maps was the "birds eye" feature which gave very high resolution off-nadir aerial photos, sometimes from a couple of view angles.
That product no longer seems to be available, is there anything that replaces it? Not looking for super duper up to da…

Is there such a thing as best e-book reader?
I am thinking about replacing my Kindle 2021.
Please share what you are using. Multiple choices possible.
Poll limited to 4 options for reasons unknown so please use a reply if yours is not in the list.
Kindle
Kobo
XTEINK
Boox