Now It Can Be Told

Jul. 14th, 2025 11:29 pm
kevin_standlee: (Cheryl 2)
[personal profile] kevin_standlee
I know I've been a touch mysterious about why I went to the UK and why I'm with Cheryl Morgan. Today was the big day, and now that it's done and we've finally made it back to her home in Wales, I can finally reveal what the big deal was and why we could not talk about it.

It's not clickbait, really! )

They treated us very well, and they took much better professional photos compared to my quick shots here. These two are here just so you who follow me know what happened. I haven't labeled all of my photos, and I hope to go back soon and talk more about how yesterday went. I will say that the university treated both Cheryl and I very well, and I am extremely proud that she asked me to be her +1 with her at this event.

More later when I have had more sleep and time to work on labeling photos. We'll be here at Cheryl's place, with me working on the Day Jobbe tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, and Friday we head back up to London, where we'll stay at a hotel near Heathrow to make it easier for me to take my flight home. I'd love to stay longer, but medical, dental, and fannish commitments during this very busy part of my year are piling up.

2025.07.14

Jul. 14th, 2025 08:16 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Scientists detect biggest ever merger of two massive black holes
Ripples in space-time from collision recorded by gravitational wave detector forces a rethink of how the objects form
Ian Sample Science editor
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jul/14/scientists-detect-biggest-ever-merger-of-two-massive-black-holes

Call for British Museum to take Bayeux tapestry to ‘1066 country’
MP calls for region where Battle of Hastings took place to be included in events surrounding return of artwork
Nadia Khomami Arts and culture correspondent
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/14/call-for-british-museum-to-take-bayeux-tapestry-to-1066-country

Futra Days review – esoteric sci-fi romance offers lovers time-jump ‘happiness heists’ to save relationships
A man gets catapulted into the future to help him understand the future of his crush, but the sloppy chronology and gratuitous stylistic touches leave this film a little too infatuated with itself
Phil Hoad
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jul/14/futra-days-review-esoteric-time-travel-romance-loses-its-thread Read more... )

dreamworld

Jul. 14th, 2025 01:11 am
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
I keep having this dream in which I'm the eldest of 6 or 8 children who've been kidnapped, or something, and we're each going to be asked a question, some type of relevant trivia knowledge I think. But though at the time I face the first question, I think I can identify the age and gender of all the other children as well as remember what the question is that each has been asked, by the time I get through that stage of the dream, all that knowledge has vanished and the dream crumbles. (I have particular trouble remembering dreams after I wake, thus even more of the vagueness of this account.)

Speaking of trivia questions, I've been watching compilations from a British quiz program called University Challenge, in which teams of undergraduates expose their knowledge, or, if the questions are about classical music as in these compilations, their ignorance. I've gotten used to identifications of Wagner's Lohengrin as by Leonard Bernstein, or not knowing a crumhorn when they see a picture of one, but this was a real gem. Played a piece of music and told it was from an opera overture and asked to name the opera, they were stumped.

The music was a pastoral theme for English horn and flute that you've probably heard in Bugs Bunny cartoons or even Bambi Meets Godzilla, and which in the overture immediately precedes what is surely the most famous tune in any opera overture anywhere. One team guessed La bohème and the other Carmen. No, it's the Ranz des vaches from Rossini's William Tell.

Reverse Jetlag

Jul. 14th, 2025 05:08 am
kevin_standlee: (Kreegah Bundalo)
[personal profile] kevin_standlee
I got to bed around 10 PM or so last night and slept around six hours, waking up around 4 AM BST, which is 8 PM PST, the time zone from which I traveled on Friday-Saturday. This seems very strange to me.

We don't have to be out of the hotel until Noon today (Monday), and have a booked car to take us to our next destination at 11:45 AM, so if I do get back to sleep for a few hours, that's fine. It just is a a bit unexpected. This must have something to do with how I got actual sleep on the flight from SFO to LHR on Friday night into Saturday.

Day in Exeter

Jul. 13th, 2025 08:56 pm
kevin_standlee: (Cheryl 2)
[personal profile] kevin_standlee
Surprisingly, I seem to have adjusted to UK time pretty well. Okay, I woke up at 5 AM, but my normal wake-up time at home is around 4:30 AM anyway. OTOH, that won't work on the two days this coming week that I'm working remotely at the Day Jobbe, but I'll deal with that when we get there.

Today we had the day to ourselves (we have commitments tomorrow).

Around Exeter )

We did a lot of shopping but very little buying. There was a street market with various vendors, and I bought Kayla a pair of earrings, which was about all for me. We also looked in some bookstores, but I didn't find anything that I wanted to try and squeeze into my luggage.

We were back at the hotel in the mid-to-late afternoon, as I was loaning my computer to Kayla to participate in the First Main Meeting of the 2025 WSFS Business Meeting. She participated by voice only because I didn't pack the webcam. Because of the nature of the meeting, neither she nor I have much to say about it. Cheryl put various sports on the hotel TV and we ordered room service.

Tomorrow we have non-fannish responsibilities about which we'll report later, but with luck I'll get some sleep tonight despite having to drink a bunch of coffee to stay awake earlier today.

2025.07.13

Jul. 13th, 2025 08:56 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
The Texas way: why the most disaster-prone US state is so allergic to preparing for disasters
It faces hurricanes, heat, drought, rising seas and – as last week showed – deadly floods. But despite the clear need for preventive action, that is not the political mood
Ed Pilkington US chief reporter
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/13/texas-disaster-weather-preparations-us

Some gut microbes can absorb and help expel ‘forever chemicals’ from the body, research shows
Previously, the only way to reduce levels of Pfas was by bloodletting or a drug with unpleasant side effects
Tom Perkins
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/13/pfas-gut-microbes-forever-chemicals

Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published
Mainstream mockery of AI-generated rat with giant penis in one paper brings problem to public attention
Ian Sample Science editor
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jul/13/quality-of-scientific-papers-questioned-as-academics-overwhelmed-by-the-millions-published Read more... )

world according to cat, and more

Jul. 12th, 2025 07:47 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
Tybalt really does seem to find my weekly sorting of pills into pillboxes to be fascinating. Whenever I start it, he'll jump up and start inserting his nose in the business. I've managed to dissuade him before he gets to the point of eating the pills. He also likes knocking pill bottles to the floor. When I'm done, he goes back to wherever he was resting before. We call him my assistant.

B. is struggling with trying to get her new CD player to pair with her older headphones. They're both Bluetooth-enabled, and Bluetooth is supposed to be a universal standard, but apparently not. It's probably something like USB, which may I remind you stands for universal serial bus, but there are now at least four different sizes of USB plugs and ports, and woe if you have the wrong one for where it's supposed to go. So maybe there are different kinds of Bluetooth. They should name the new standard Forkbeard, as he was the next king of Denmark after Bluetooth.

Out on errands and needing lunch, I thought I'd revisit the Thai restaurant in a convenient shopping center. It was OK, never that great, but it'd been a long time since I'd been there. It's gone, replaced by a new Chinese Malatang outlet. This is like the fifth one I've come across in the last couple months of a type of cuisine I'd never heard of before. Malatang is a little bit like Mongolian barbecue in that you take a bowl, fill it with raw ingredients from a buffet, and hand it in for cooking. It's different in the ingredients and the seasoning - typical Malatang is soup, though there are also some dry versions - you pay by the weight, and you can't watch it being cooked. Ingredients are roughly the same between outlets but vary a bit. Some have lots of veggies, some few, some with broccoli, some with bok choy. Some have fish, some don't. Some peel their shrimp, some don't. Meat is always shaved beef and lamb, but there might be pork, might be bbq. There's also plenty of weird stuff, which the westerner tries at their peril. (I did not find cow throat edible.) There are no serving utensils in the containers; you take a pair of tongs with your bowl at the beginning. The quarters are always very clean, which is not always true of Mongolian barbecue. I've been getting kind of used to Malatang and will probably have some more.

First Class Travel

Jul. 12th, 2025 10:24 pm
kevin_standlee: (Cheryl 2)
[personal profile] kevin_standlee
I left Reno for SFO on Friday afternoon and arrived in London mid-afternoon on Saturday, continuing on to Exeter via London Paddington by train. Travel is always wearing, but this was some of the best travel I've ever had.

First Class Most of the Way )

This was of course a very long day-plus for me, but fortunately, we don't have to be up early tomorrow. Getting that Polaris upgrade made a big difference, so I'm only tired, not shattered.

It's only human

Jul. 12th, 2025 04:33 pm
garyomaha: Sophie&Charlie_04-27-25 (Default)
[personal profile] garyomaha
I received a well-meaning message via Facebook Messenger (NOT my favorite form of communication).  The sender meant well and we've known each other for decades, but there were so many annoyances in the message that I just had to let off some steam (here) about it.

First of all, yes, I know, mistakes are human and heaven (or the location of your choice) knows I make plenty.  But that message clearly bothered me.  A time period referred to in the message was incorrect.  The grammar in the message was messy.  And the thing that really bothered me -- which could make many if not most readers here wonder what is WRONG with me -- was a reference that there will be cake at an upcoming event.  As if cake, in any way, shape, or form, would on its own bring me, an introvert, to anything.  Pie, perhaps, but cake, never!

I do not intend to do anything further about the message; having written has taken the edge off;

Please return to your normal programming, no doubt already in progress.


2025.07.12

Jul. 12th, 2025 09:17 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Three freeway closures planned in Twin Cities this weekend
MPR News Staff
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/07/11/twin-cities-freeway-closures-this-weekend

‘Tremendous uncertainty’ for cancer research as US officials target mRNA vaccines
Amid Trump cuts and state-level backlash, experts worry that progress in messenger RNA vaccines could stall
Melody Schreiber
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/12/mrna-vaccine-cancer-research-trump-administration

Engine fuel switches cut off before Air India crash that killed 260, preliminary report finds
Early investigation into accident in Ahmedabad in June also contains details of pilots discussing the switches
Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi, Nadeem Badshah and agencies
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/11/engine-fuel-switches-cut-off-before-air-india-crash-that-killed-260-report-finds

Risotto rice under threat from flamingoes in north-eastern Italy
Farmers are seeking ways to fend off birds who are stirring up soil in flooded paddy fields in Ferrara province
Associated Press
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/12/risotto-rice-paddies-flamingoes-ferrara-italy

‘Sheer luck’: how German backpacker Carolina Wilga was found after 11 nights lost in dense Australian outback
With minimal food and water, the 26-year-old drank from puddles, sheltered in a cave and used the sun for navigation
Tory Shepherd
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/12/carolina-wilga-missing-german-backpacker-found-after-11-nights-dense-australian-outback

Stellan Skarsgård on Ingmar Bergman: ‘The only person I know who cried when Hitler died’
Actor spoke at Karlovy Vary film festival about his experience working with ‘manipulative’ director in the 80s
Adrian Horton
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jul/11/stellan-skarsgard-ingmar-bergman-hitler

Georgia Republican’s Ponzi scheme defrauded people of $140m, say officials
Brant Frost IV’s First Liberty Building and Loan lied to investors about lending high-interest loans to small firms
Associated Press
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/11/georgia-republican-ponzi-scheme

Meera Sodha’s recipe for no-churn malted ice-cream and peanut cookie sandwiches
Soft, creamy ice-cream – light on fuss and subtly salted with soy – sandwiched between peanut cookies: an all-round winner of a summer dessert
Meera Sodha
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/jul/12/no-churn-malted-ice-cream-recipe-peanut-cookie-sandwiches-meera-sodha

Bears ins Munichs

Jul. 12th, 2025 01:30 am
travelswithkuma: (Default)
[personal profile] travelswithkuma
Wents withs girls tos britishs stores, was goings tos gets girls tos buys fishes ands chips. Bears woulds haves thes fishes, and bears woulds gives chips tos girls. Pouts. wents tos weres was supposes tos bes, buts nos stores. Stills hads lots ofs rides ons trains unders thes grounds.
Bears is tills tireds fromes travles, sooos girls tooks us backs tos apartments.
altamira16: A sailboat on the water at dawn or dusk (Default)
[personal profile] altamira16
This book was a very well done AI skeptic book that was rooted in deep knowledge of the history of artificial intelligence. It brought to light some interesting points that I had never thought about, and it never descended into a rant.

It gets into the history of AI, and a lot of that discussion is rooted in the type of probabilistic models that I learned about in grad school. It is discussing n-grams, Markov, and so on.

There is a discussion about how AI is an attempt to break labor and gets into a more detailed history of the Luddites. The Luddites were craftsmen, and machines were replacing their hard won skills with an inferior product. The machines that were doing this were also dangerous to their operators.

Various people involved in AI feel like there should not be any AI policy until it is thoroughly discussed, but the authors propose that existing laws should be used to limit the use of AI in areas where it can do harm. They quote Michael Atleson, an attorney within the FTC Division of Advertising Practices:


Your therapy bots aren't licensed psychologists, your AI girlfriends are neither girls nor friends, your griefbots have no soul, and your AI copilots are not gods.


The book was extremely critical about the use of AI in making medical decisions and in law. Law has to do with the nuance of language, and generated language that no human really thinks through does not have the same nuance.

There were also good arguments for limiting the use of AI in education.


In August 2020, thousands of British students, unable to take their A-level exams due to the COVID-19 pandemic, received grades calculated based on an algorithm that took as input, among other things, the grades that other students at their schools received in previous years. After massive public outcry, in which hundreds of students gathered outside the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street in London, chanting "Fuck the algorithm!" the grades were retracted and replaced with grades based on teachers' assessments of the student work.


While some technology in education is important, a lot of technology in education is designed to give an inferior education to poor kids and union-bust.

One thing that I did not know was that the little Gemini summary on a Google search uses 10-30 times more energy than search before this feature was added.

The authors see both AI doomers and AI boosters as two sides of the same coin. Both of these groups believe that the AI will become smarter than humans. The outcome is the only thing that they differ on.

The group that wants to consider the data used to train the models and the impacts that AI has on the present really does not want to get lumped in with AI doomers that think that the AI is going to eventually get so smart that it will destroy humanity. They are rooted in reality while the doomers are not. There was some criticism of how Vice President Harris was trying to get the people concerned with the present impact of AI to work with the doomers.

There were a lot of references Karen Hao's work. How has recently released the book "Empire of AI." Hao is an AI journalist specifically focused on OpenAI.

Travel Time

Jul. 11th, 2025 08:26 am
kevin_standlee: (Cheryl 2)
[personal profile] kevin_standlee
I'm heading to the UK (RNO-SFO-LHR) today for a week, staying with Cheryl Morgan at her place in Wales. We're attending a non-fannish function about which I might write later, but not now. In order to preserve PTO, I'll work remotely for a couple of the days I'm there, as I did last summer after Worldcon.

Normally, I don't look forward to long flights, but this time United's upgrade algorithm slipped a gear and offered a Polaris Business class upgrade for less than Premium Economy and cheap compared to them asking $500 (!) for a first-class upgrade for the roughly hour-long flight RNO-SFO, and I jumped on it before the AI came to its senses. I get what looks to be a very nice seat (left side single), along with Polaris lounge access at SFO on the layover.

With luck, I should get some valuable sleep tonight. The flight leaves in the evening and arrives Saturday afternoon local time. Given how tired I am right now, I'm looking forward to it.

2025.07.11

Jul. 11th, 2025 08:56 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Paris rejoices as Moulin Rouge windmill sails turn again year after collapse
Cabaret venue marks restoration of red-painted windmill with 90-strong troupe performing signature can-can dance
Jon Henley in Paris
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/11/paris-moulin-rouge-windmill-sails-turn-again-year-after-collapse

DoJ whistleblower provides emails backing claim Emil Bove defied courts over deportations
Messages released by fired DoJ lawyer show officials were aware they might have to ignore judicial orders
Sam Levine
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/10/doj-whistleblower-deportations-emil-bove

‘I’d be proud to be thrown out of America!’ Eric Idle on Trump, life after Python and not talking before lunch
As told to Catherine Shoard
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jul/11/id-be-proud-to-be-thrown-out-of-america-eric-idle-on-trump-life-after-python-and-not-talking-before-lunch

Denver museum known for dinosaur displays finds fossil under its parking lot
A hole drilled 750ft deep to study museum’s geothermal potential yielded an unexpected surprise
Associated Press
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/10/denver-museum-fossil-parking-lot

Trump’s inaugural fund received $19m from fossil fuel industry, analysis shows
President raised $239m for inauguration – more than previous three inaugural committees took in combined
Dharna Noor
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/10/trump-inaugural-fund-fossil-fuel-industry

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup
Here and Beyond by Hal LaCroix; One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford; I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman; The Reaper by Jackson P Brown
Lisa Tuttle
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jul/11/the-best-recent-science-fiction-fantasy-and-horror-review-roundup

alt text issues

Jul. 11th, 2025 12:38 am
solarbird: our bike hill girl standing back to the camera facing her bike, which spans the image (biking)
[personal profile] solarbird

The last couple of posts I’ve made with images didn’t have their alt text make it to the Federation. It made it to Dreamwidth, but didn’t federate.

Let’s try this one:

A highly complicated cluster of street names on bike infrastructure and/or high-bike-use streets in east Seattle around Madrona. Is this alt-text visible to the Fediverse?

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

a 17th-century joke

Jul. 10th, 2025 09:49 pm
calimac: (Default)
[personal profile] calimac
I thought this was pretty funny. B. didn't get it. How say you?
A melting* Sermon being preached in a Country Church, all fell a weeping, except a Country man, who being ask'd why he did not weep with the rest?
'Because' (says he) 'I am not of this Parish.'
*I presume 'melting' means 'causing the hearts of the hearers to melt.'

Source: The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose, compiled by Frank Muir (OUP, 1990)

Dispatch from Munich

Jul. 10th, 2025 08:29 am
kevin_standlee: (Lisa)
[personal profile] kevin_standlee
According to FlightTracker, Lisa's flight DEN-MUC landed about the time I got up this morning to start working on the Day Jobbe. A few hours later, she called me from her apartment (long-stay hotel), having managed to make her way there from the airport. (On her past trip, she arrived in Munich by train and left by heading north toward Norway by train, so she'd never actually been at Munich airport.) To her relief, the room has a wired internet connection like the one in which she stayed there last year. (It's actually the same exact room layout and location as last year, just on a different floor.) This meant she could connect her internet phone and thus can call me at no extra charge. She told me she'd go out and get groceries (she knows where the nearest Aldi Sud) is, try to stay up a little longer, then get some much-needed sleep. She wasn't able to sleep on the plane because both seats next to her filled, and worse, the couple sitting in those seats coughed the whole way from Denver to Munich. Lisa, naturally, stayed masked up with one of her N95 masks, as I will do on my flight to London tomorrow.

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