Becky

Wow, so many potential issues for something so important - I’m shocked that there isn’t a web option!

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Huge congratulations!

Engraving of Poseidon riding a sea horse.

Matrix of hand-drawn tree and army map elements with a renaissance style.

Matrix of hand-drawn map elements with a medieval style.

Matrix of hand-drawn map elements with a vintage Japanese style.

So many amazing elements from vintage maps, scanned & cleaned up for re-use by @kmalexander.bsky.social

kmalexander.com/free-stuff/f...

via Evan Applegate

Cartoon. Medieval looking king sits on a throne with a steward behind him. A forlorn, skinny looking young fellow stands on the left. The king says "But you told me this news an hour ago!" The steward says "Sir, you need to refresh the page"

Refresh the page

If you like this cartoon, I can draw one for you. www.worldofmoose.com/products/ref...

Historians are going to have better records from the 19th century than the 21st, is my most medievalist futurist prediction.

@yaelrice.bsky.social and I co-authored this piece precisely to combat misguided work like this so people don't have to constantly rehearse the arguments about why it's specious. We laid it all out here for you!

hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...

Markdown and the slow fade of the formatting fetish Notes on a revolution in slow motion.

I wanted to quickly explain why, school kids should learn markdown instead of MS Office, and ended up writing another major Epos:

ia.net/topics/markd...

This is, I kid you not, about 1/6th of what I wrote. I'll publish the rest later.

Rob Goodwin Leatherworks posted this picture of Moiraine from The Wheel of Time channeling into glowing orb. His caption reads, “Really looking forward to sharing some new work with you all...”

Wow! This is LEATHER!

Rob Goodwin responded to me in IG and said that there is a thermoplastic base but it’s mostly tooled leather. Absolutely incredible.

#TheWheelOfTime

Summer School 2025 : I-GUIDE

Spread the word for the Summer School 2025! i-guide.io/summer-schoo...

This year's topic is "Spatial AI for Extreme Events and Disaster Resilience" and will take place in Boulder, CO on Aug 4-8th, 2025!

Participant applications are due Monday April 14th.

Forum 2025: Call for Participation : I-GUIDE

LAST CALL for I-GUIDE Forum 2025!

We can't wait to see your posters, papers, workshops, etc. in June, but you need to get your submissions in today! i-guide.io/forum/forum-...

The I-GUIDE Forum 2025 is co-located with the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress in Chicago!

The easy way to get non programmers to understand why old systems are more robust than newer ones, and can't be easily or quickly rebuilt from scratch:

"what is a valid name a person can have?"

In 50 year old code, each edge case has already been seen, fixed.

www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/f...

Social media platforms are not built for this We have simultaneously too much and too little information.

Our big social media platforms have been *intentionally designed* to make it near impossible to find (and post) useful, timely information about disasters, as this article points out - this has been angering me for years.

We need “most recent” and functional search!

Which Bluesky provides.

Advice for talking to the media as a conservation scientist: Part 1 By David Shiffman and Brett Favaro. Many environmental scientists understand that there is value in communicating about their work through the media, as publicity can help raise public awareness of…

Please enjoy part 1 of a series of blog posts written by myself and @brettfavaro.bsky.social offering our advice on how scientists can effectively speak with jouranlists about our areas of expertise. Part 2 is coming next week.

Please read and share!

www.southernfriedscience.com/advice-for-t... 🧪

I am somehow for the first time ever reviewing for PNAS and their reviewer instructions include this BANGER of a line:

"The purpose of peer review is not to demonstrate proficiency in identifying flaws"

Print it in eleventy point font and hang it from the hillside. Scream it from the rooftops.

The way I went from Yay! to oof! reading this :)

looking good!

Totally thought that was sidewalk chalk there for a second!

It is easier for me to find local news from the 70s and 80s (archived in a library) than from my own childhood.

C Isn't A Programming Language Anymore - Faultlore

obviously i'm biased but i think this post is a very good summation of how you should treat c going forward

faultlore.com/blah/c-isnt-...

Reminder: if you haven’t yet read “The Mythical Man Month,” buy two copies so you can read it faster.

Young Coders Are Using AI for Everything, Giving "Blank Stares" When Asked How Programs Actually Work Young programmers "can't actually program" because they're too reliant on AI models, writes developer Namanyay Goel.

To me, programming is most rewarding when you understand the system well enough to figure out a tricky bug or can implement a true optimization. How can you do that without building up deep understanding? This is a challenge that we as a society will need to address: futurism.com/young-coders...

We had our first meeting of the UCGIS Book Club this morning. We will be reading Yuval Noah Harari's "Nexus" for next month's meeting. If you would like to join us on April 7, reach out and I will get you on the email list.

bookshop.org/p/books/nexu...

NSF fact sheet

The National Science Foundation benefits communities in every state.

Now you have me singing the “Bulbul pakhi moyna tiye” song!

The biggest reason why I dislike the idea of respectability in dress is because it conflates the *appearance* of virtue with *actual* virtue. Wearing a suit doesn't make you respectful, intelligent, or capable, just as wearing a leather jacket doesn't make you rugged.

Laura’s bike is parked next to the front of Butter Bakery, which was recently run into by a car driver. The brick facade is heavily damaged with caution tape around it.

When you move around primarily or exclusively by car, you may not notice all of the evidence of car crashes around you:

bent sign posts
broken car pieces
entire buildings hit by cars

For those who travel by 🚶🏻, 🚲, 🦽 & 🚌 these reminders are everywhere on sidewalks, streets… & buildings.

A new spatial mechanism for coexistence: Hidden patterns in tree distribution stabilize biodiversity in forests The reason why so many tree species can coexist in species-rich forests has long been a subject of debate in ecology. This question is key to understanding the mechanisms governing the dynamics and st...

The spatial distribution of trees in tropical forests is most affected by seed dispersal by animals. In temperate forests, that role shifts to mycorrhizal fungi.

phys.org/news/2025-02...

Cars will need fewer screens and more buttons to earn five-star safety rating in Europe Euro NCAP will release new testing guidelines in 2026.

Next year, the EU will require cars to have buttons & dials -- not just touchscreens -- to get a top safety rating.

This is a great move. Drivers can fiddle with knobs & buttons without taking their eyes off the road, but they can't do that with touchscreens.

(Even better: Tesla will hate this)