Cool short video on making books come alive by asking ChatGPT to come up with a prompt you can feed into Dall-E. Here is the link.
I use LLMs all the time. So for me the usefulness of AI is crystal clear. For others not so much. So here is an interesting experiment: What Can be Done in 59 Seconds: An Opportunity (and a Crisis)
Here is the link to an interesting article: The Native Business Model For Content.
Cool story: The floppy disk refused to die in Japan (link)
People’s ingenuity amazes me sometimes! Just read this story: “Functional 16-bit CPU built and runs in Excel”. Here is the link.
Een Nederlandse start-up levert zonnepanelen alsof het een Ikea-pakket is. De start-up Rable (link) heeft een plug-and-play zonnepaneelsysteem ontwikkeld. Het kan zelf gelegd en aangesloten worden door simpelweg de stekker in het stopcontact te steken.
This is important: Why we need to highlight stories of progress to build a better future. Here is the link to an interview with Hannah Ritchie, who writes over at Sustainability by numbers. In the article she discusses the work of Hans Rosling, who fights misconceptions via the website Gapminder.
Message from the past: Can Movable Type become a useful AI writer’s tool? Link
Paper mills are bribing editors at scholarly journals, Science investigation finds. In the latest twist of the publishing arms race, firms churning out fake papers have taken to bribing journal editors. Link
Violent video games decrease stress hormones, study finds
BMW’s South Carolina plant is testing humanoid robot workers. The ‘general purpose’ robots from robotics startup Figure are intended to automate dangerous or repetitive manufacturing tasks. Here is the link.
A Norwegian company is developing a microcontroller that does not require a better but harvests its own energy from the environment. Link
Kiwix is an innovative software application designed to provide offline access to a wide range of digital content. Its primary feature is the ability to download and store large volumes of information, such as Wikipedia, iFixit, educational resources, and other reference materials, for offline use. Here is a link.
This is a must read: SLEEPER AGENTS: TRAINING DECEPTIVE LLMS THAT PERSIST THROUGH SAFETY TRAINING. Here is the link.
This is cool: Despite losing propellant at a critical rate, Peregrine has managed to activate numerous payloads, marking a minor victory in its otherwise ill-fated mission. Read more in: In the Face of Doom, Lunar Lander’s Instruments Spring to Life
Nederland start EU-pilot met digitaal reisdocument op smartphone bij KLM-vlucht. (Link)
“Years ago I revealed a data broker was harvesting location data from Muslim prayer and dating apps. The FTC has now banned X-Mode from selling location data related to places of worship and other sensitive locations including family planning facilities,” writes Joseph Cox in this article. Five years later the FTC Stops Data Broker X-Mode Selling Sensitive Location Data.
Listening to Ballad Of A Dead Sophia by 2PAC right now. Streaming from the Internet Archive. Mixtape platform DatPiff has uploaded the entirety of its over 366,420-project catalog to the internet archive. Per Rolling Stone.
Documentary on one the the most fascinating musicians of our times: Robert Wyatt (wikipedia). You can only watch it on Youtube. Here is a screenshot I took:
SmartBin: deze slimme prullenbak keert statiegeld uit via Tikkie. Link
Interesting story in the Dutch media about the return of RSS. If you want to know more about what has been happening and still is happening with RSS and feeds, start following Dave Winer over at Scripting News.
‘In de tiende en de elfde eeuw, zeg maar het ‘midden van de middeleeuwen’, kreeg het landschap van het huidige Nederland vorm. In een fraaie expo in het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden wordt het weinig bekende verhaal van die periode verteld. Het verhaal over de landschapstransformatie gaat voor een deel ook op voor Vlaanderen.’ Een mooi artikel in EOS over het ontstaan van de Lage Landen.
Interesting read: 404 Media spoke to a victim of a hacking ring the Secret Service believes stole millions of dollars by setting up fake Coinbase login pages. Here is the article: Inside a $20 Million Coinbase Phishing Ring
Portrait of Jeroen Derwort, a highly successful Dutch developer of gaming software (in Dutch). He developed Online Soccer Manager, a soccer game played by millions across the globe. I read his book ‘Scoren!’ After all those US startup success stories it is very interesting to read how an entrepreneur in The Netherlands finds his way to success.
I love Rest of World, a website about … well… tech developments in ‘the rest of the world’. Fascinating tech stories from fascinating countries and regions. Here is a good example about AI developments in China. Highly recommended!
🫤 Workers on non-permanent contracts and workers with no formal contract are less satisfied with the functioning of democracy in their country, as are workers experiencing job insecurity. They are less likely to vote in elections and are also less likely to participate in demonstrations – an indicator of disengagement. This might lead to a very undesirable situation, as we can read in ‘Job insecurity undermines democracy’ (by Eurofound).
You’re the OS is a game that will make you feel for your poor, overworked system.
Belgium is a fascinating country. For its many languages, the great food, Belgian beer. But maybe not so well-known is the role of architecture in Belgium and especially Flanders. Interested? In that case this might be a story form you: Behind the Great Public Architecture Boom of Belgium.
California wildlife officials are hoping to apprehend a 5-year-old sea otter, who has a knack for riding the waves after committing longboard larceny. Link
Article in Rest of World: The workers at the frontlines of the AI revolution The global labor force of outsourced and contract workers are early adopters of generative AI — and the most at risk.
Per Quartz: It only took five hours for an AI model to design a functional computer. Researchers claim that was 1,000 times faster than what it takes humans to design a CPU. Here is the link.
Via The Verge: Meta is planning to let people in the EU download apps through Facebook
Disturbing story: What Really Happened When Google Ousted Timnit Gebru? She was a star engineer who warned that messy AI can spread racism. Google brought her in. Then it forced her out. Can Big Tech take criticism from within? Here is a link to the story@Wired.
Wired published this: The Untold Story of the Boldest Supply-Chain Hack Ever. The attackers were in thousands of corporate and government networks. They might still be there now. Behind the scenes of the SolarWinds investigation.
If we are to believe The New Yorker ‘A.I. Pop Culture Is Already Here‘. The magazine claims: m’We’re living in a world in which every style, every idea, and every possible remix can be generated as fast and frictionlessly as possible.’
Per Gizmodo: Hackers Take Control of Government-Owned Satellite in Alarming Experiment
It’s very interesting to read and has lots of links to minimalist websites.
