Victor Geislinger

My 5yr old kids really don't mind my wife's classroom Madagascar hissing cockroaches— they hold them & named them! Even the one twin who is otherwise a little spooked by bugs

I assume that a good portion of the fear/ick is socially/culturally constructed. But that's probably true of most things

I have periodically thought of how caterpillars are pretty close to maggots but of course we think of them as *adorable!*

It has to be our association w/ maggots eating 'gross' things while butterfly larvae don't. Plus the adults hang out near pretty flowers (how cute! 🐛 🦋🌸)

YouTube video by MinuteFood The food label you should always ignore

Been unable to watch this MinuteFood video youtu.be/fQB0deRu9lQ because it's *littered* with Ithkuil writing— I've already spent way too much time attempting to translate it

I feel my #linguistics side has been nerd sniped & having trouble walking away
(please send help...)

‎Gemini - 📖 The Star-Sparkle Adventure Created with Gemini

I know everyone is talking about GPT-5 but I'm too busy using Gemini to make Storybooks w/ my kids XD
g.co/gemini/share...

They really like being able to direct the Gemini stories. But what's really awesome is I can see it gets them all jazzed up to invent & tell their own stories from scratch!

I've heard that one possible explanation for dreams is so you can run through scenarios in a safe environment

Last night I dreamt that I asked my dentist questions I've been thinking about for my appointment later this week

i did not like it

👀 hopping on this thread because I only have one
How to Speak Whale: The Power and Wonder of Listening to Animals share.google/IH9C58oJa8GC...

www.victorsothervector.com/books/book-h...

Oh damn! So sorry to hear this happen
I do hope you take good care of yourself. I'm hopeful you'll find something just as good for you if not better— in fact, I'm pretty certain of it ♥️

Holding page 284 open: MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS All zombie research is theoretical. We can never know exactly what the coming pandemic will look like until the teeming undead horde is finally at our doorsteps. You may think that day will never come, and you could be right. But as Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University, argues, even if the chance of a zombie pandemic is a fraction of 1 percent, it represents such a profound and devastating threat to modern civilization that the only responsible course of action is intense research and preparation? Because once the dead rise, the days of study and conjecture are over. Gone will be reasoned debate and hard scientific study. Gone will be global lines of communication and easy access to information. Gone will be the support structures that allow us to engage easily in serious scientific, social, and historic investigation. When the dead rise, it's run-and-scream time. Therefore, mankind's research goal must be to develop solid working theories that foster as complete an understanding as possible of the dangers we face before it's too late. ALL SURVIVAL IS LOCAL

Also loved this bit— sounds like an argument about 'super intelligent AI'

"even if the chance of a zombie pandemic is a fraction of 1 percent, it represents such a profound and devastating threat to modern civilization that the only responsible course of action is intense research and preparation"

Brain needed a transition from fiction to non-fiction & Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies hit the spot

Touches on the cinematic history & is playful w/how to survive the inevitable living dead pandemic
Always been a big zombie fan but still learned a bit— they're related to vampires!

That's not a bad idea— I'm generally good with the external structure & it really is just the shelves that haven't faired the best

Two-filled bookshelves of multiple books

I see this in my billy shelves. I've had them for a few years & I can see them bow

Plan is to move in the not distant future & hoping to get something new for my books (since they've overflowed off the current shelves 😅)

I feel this 😅 I have two main billy shelves but needing to get more. But getting something a little sturdier & frankly nicer goes up in cost *real* quick

Finished reading Bobiverse #5 — Not Till We Are Lost by @dennisetaylor.bsky.social in late July

Personally, this was more what I wanted compared to #4. It's interesting to see some modern ideas of a *true* 'artificial super intelligence'— definitely a fun story thinking about far-off technologies

Finished readingWhalefall by @danielkraus.com last month after a friend recommended it

The structure was really interesting & engaging. (I'm also realizing I like short chapters in my fiction)
To me, the vibes & emotion it gave resonated w/ me more than the actual plot— in a good way!

Read The AI Mirror by @shannonvallor.bsky.social a couple weeks ago for a work book club

I agree w/ a good portion of its arguments on the technology reflecting 'us'but frankly not convinced by the ultimate conclusion. I think it's mostly me not resonating w/ the author's focus on virtue ethics

Read Bobiverse #4 — Heaven's River by @dennisetaylor.bsky.social last month

Loved the idea of 'drift' in the digital clones (reminds me of Universal Paperclips)
Honestly not my favorite but still enjoyed it! Probably says more about me & how I want to read more about sci-fi space exploration XD

Finished reading Why Wakanda Matters edited by @drsheenahoward.bsky.social in July

It's a great collection of essays discussing the Black Panther movie. Enjoyed hearing different Black perspectives especially relating the movie with Black culture & social movements. Definitely an interesting read!

Finished Parble of the Sower by Octavia Butler last month

It's been on my list for a while & definitely hit me hard at parts. Strange reading a book set in my present (esp. growing up in California). Even more chilling seeing parallels in a dystopia
But the story also overall leaves me hopeful

Read Bobiverse #3 — All These Worlds by @dennisetaylor.bsky.social(again in June)

Feels like it wraps up a lot of the conflict building up in the past two books. But not enough where there isn't more to be done!
(Since I'm posting this after reading the next 2, there's a lot more to the series!)

Read Bobiverse #2 — For We Are Many by @dennisetaylor.bsky.socialalso back in June

Enjoyed this sequel in the 'Bobiverse' series as much as the 1st!` The modern takes on 'digital minds' & space exploration is pretty fun
Someone a while ago suggested the series to me & so glad I finally got into it!

Agree though I'd even be more restrictive for NLP-based systems— you have to remind yourself that it's still finding patterns from training which can be useful but also seductive in believing it can do certain things reliably

Finished reading The AI Con by @alexhanna.bsky.social & @emilymbender.bsky.social back in June

Actually agree w/ a lot of points but not on the ultimate stance against 'AI'/'mathy-maths'
I'm definitely biased but I think there is a lot of good w/ the current tech— but we could use less hype XD

Realizing I have a backlog of finished books over these past couple months to continue my 'sharing chain' 😅 Time to break the seal of doing-nothing & share something lol

Sounds like that could be a whole other talk ; )

Holding book of kitten and puppy decorated w/ stickers "super Silly stickers Puppies & kitten"

Two puppies each on a page with abstract background

For the curious, this is from this book of just a bunch of cute puppies & kittens w/ stickers you can accessorize with. My kids are almost through the two of these books

Real white kitten on pink background with colored black marker around the head

Same real white kitten on pink background edited with no black marker anymore

We had a little conflict w/ my 5yr olds where one colored on a picture the other wanted. We had to go through the whole process of 'sorry & forgiveness', but it did help that we were able to print an approximate of the original w/ some quick AI editing

Haha that checks!

I used to teach data science remotely for a boot camp & we always made sure that the first day was dedicated for learners to just get Jupyter running through Anaconda XD That was always a very busy day— so many weird little traps to get stuck in

Makes sense— definitely learned of Jupyter after university when I refocused completely on 'data'. But I was using IPython so using Jupyter for the first time felt familiar & amazing!

Though these feel like 'back in my day...' stories, I enjoy hearing about all the different paths to data science!

Had to look up when Colab came out (2017) & then realized Jupyter wasn't even a thing while I was at university 😅
But I do think it's fun lookin back to when everything I was doing was CPU-focused compared to now using GPU (or TPU) for everything

We had our first (successful) backpacking trip as a family!
My 5yr olds had a blast being at Wildcat beach at Pt. Reyes

Sure we had book it out of there at night because of the tsunami warning (not fun) but the kids said they want to do it again! ("just no tsunamis next time!" 😅 fair enough)