[This blog contains descriptions of child abuse.] One of the worst beatings my father ever gave me came in response to me asserting a truth. I was eleven or twelve years old, and I don’t remember how we got into an argument, but I remember it having something to do with me not being able to make something stand upright. My father was yelling at me because he thought I could never get this thing to stand upright, even though I had done so before…
It’s Time to Wear a Mask Again, Health Experts Say (New York Times via Yahoo! News) During my final years in Toledo, I would occasionally see people wearing face masks at stores like Meijer and Kroger, especially during the winter. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone wearing face masks outside of hospitals and doctors’ offices before then, but I was enough of a Japanophile to know that wearing a mask when one is worried about spreading illness is far more common in Eastern countries than…
While testing out the new ChatGPT chatbot several days ago, as I detailed in my most recent blog, I had neglected to notice that the bot allowed you to post follow-up questions in your session, to ask for more information or clarifications or such. While not perfect, this makes the chatbot exponentially more useful at certain tasks, so I want to take back what I said last week and state, on the record, that ChatGPT does represent a quantum leap forward in chatbot technology. I’ve…
AI bot ChatGPT writes smart essays — should professors worry? (nature.com) For a long time now, I’ve wanted to study Cold War-era fiction from the communist countries of the era. It’s fairly well-known that authors in those countries were restricted in how they wrote, essentially conscripted as propagandists for the state. As such, from the accounts I’ve read, most stories from those countries are stultifying in their adherence to formulas, protagonists invariably coming to sing the praises of communism (if they weren’t already at the…
I didn’t bother unpacking my television when I moved to Platteville at the start of September; on top of not really using it that much in recent months, I also wasn’t sure just how I wanted to position it in my new apartment. After the chaos of my first weeks here, and especially after getting so sick in the middle of the month, my television kind of stayed on the back burner for a long time, especially since I had my streaming television app on…