Ian Malcolm

It was very effective! Pretty hard to see unless standing close and actively searching! 🦎

I don't think so, re: the talking/clicking ones - definitely never heard them here, and know what that sounds like from ones in Fiji, etc.

Cheers! It was a surprise the first time I found a gecko in Melb (in an upstairs walk-in wardrobe in our old unit in Elwood, 20 years back...) but I find them in/under pots here regularly now.

That's great about the book! It certainly kept me turning the pages! 😎

Small gecko in shaded of brown, cream and black against a tree trunk with rough bark. Not sure what species it is; looks a bit like a Marbled Gecko or an Eastern Tree Dtella from the photos I've seen, but not an expert!

Cute #gecko doing its best to blend in on a tree in suburban #Melbourne this afternoon.

For 30+ years I'd never seen a gecko in the wild here, but increasingly noticed them over the last decade.

Turns out there are actually 10 species here in Victoria - nine native and one introduced.
#photography

Yeah, a curiously popular name back in the day, but it slowly fell into disrepute. Can’t imagine why… 😉

When I finally managed to save up enough to get a drive for my C64, Uridium was literally the first game I bought on disk.

Great game, cheers Andrew!

YouTube video by Cressup Jakub Dvorský: 20 Years of Amanita Design - Machinarium, Samorost and Phonopolis!

Couple of people posting about Amanita Design's Phonopolis atm because the demo is out for Steam Next Fest.

I had a chat with Amanita's head Jakub Dvorský a few years back about it - and also twenty years of making beloved games like Machinarium.
youtu.be/K7RAcmLn5N4?...

Phonopolis Welcome to Phonopolis, a new puzzle adventure hand-crafted by Amanita Design, the indie c

Ooh, bookmarked this to watch a bit later - cheers! 😎

I’ve been a fan of Amanita since first playing the original browser version of Samarost, and the mini-game they did for Polyphonic Spree.

(This new one can also be wish-listed on GOG, for anyone who’d rather get it DRM-free on Windows or Mac.)

Oh cool - love Amanita Design’s adventure-puzzly stuff, but had no idea this was on the horizon.

And a quick check shows it’s also going to be on GOG for both Mac and Windows, for those who prefer DRM-free. #MacGaming

www.gog.com/en/game/phon...

For many years I thought the Bauhaus cover was the original. 🤪😂

True, but only if you're watching it with Daphne. If Velma is there instead, it stands for "Jinkies!"

That deserves a 😂 for brilliance, but also needs a 😬 for the spot-on truthiness.

I did earlier. Came away unconvinced of their suitability for anything outside a narrow set of applications.

LLMs are a novelty inflated beyond reason by grifters and the credulous.

They give the appearance of conversation, calculation, etc. but don't do the actual things, so can't be relied upon.

^This.

Not many are aware of this, but H.R. Pufnstuf's full name is Human Resources Pufnstuf.

Two months ago Terence Tao proposed rejecting the term AGI as inaccurate. And in the last month he seems to be edging away from his more grandiose previous statements.

Might be best if we just agree to disagree, and move on. Clearly no-one's changing hearts and minds here. 🤷‍♂️

From an Atlantic article published four days ago:

"When I called Tao earlier this month to get his take on what AI can offer mathematics, he was more tempered. The AI-generated Erdős solutions are impressive, but not overwhelmingly so: The bots have functionally landed some “cheap wins,” Tao said.

All I see is empty hype and folk making excuses for the unreliability of the inherently flawed LLM model - a dead-end in pursuit of mythical "AGI".

Significant results would be shouted from on high by techbros - instead they're pivoting to built-in ads and porn-generation to try and make a buck.

Only because those pushing this tech have a vested interest in constantly muddying the waters, whether by conflating LLMs with completely different technology, or deliberately ascribing emotions and motivations to it that it absolutely doesn't have.

It keeps the gullible FOMO VC money coming in.

Yep. And I read the other day that apparently in the US now 1 in 4 political lobbyists is working on behalf of the GenAI "industry".

Just in case folk wondered why unfit for purpose slop-generation is constantly being pushed, despite it not actually working or making a genuine profit. 🤷‍♂️

Um indeed. Cos yes, I read that, but he still finished by making excuses for the tech, conflating slop-generators with completely different tech. That's his conclusion and take-away.

A semi-random word generator isn't going to magically, spontaneously become sentient. He's lost the plot. 🤷‍♂️

YouTube video by This is Jinsy MITTENS (FEAT. KT TUNSTALL) - THIS IS JINSY (SERIES 2)

Excellent! Or glass, or mug, or beaker! 🍻

Whilst wearing mittens, of course!

YouTube video by This is Jinsy THIS IS JINSY - ELECTRIC OWLS

Haha, indeed! Rob Brydon and his unfeasibly swollen arms are a (literally) massive part of the Jinsy folk scene.

Just keep an eye out for electric owls.

YouTube video by This is Jinsy ONION SONG (FEAT. KT TUNSTALL) - THIS IS JINSY

Absolutely. And what better way to celebrate Jinsy time than with what may be KT Tunstall's finest moment?

Cartoon of a person saying "Say 'I am alive"" to a PC presumably running an LLM/GenAI. The computer responds, "I AM ALIVE" and the man then says, "Oh my god."

The "Singularity" for the foreseeable future is a fairy story.

It's magical thinking to believe that what is basically next level autocomplete, attached to a massive database, will "somehow" spontaneously develop sentience.

It's utter nonsense.

Sorry but Walsh isn parroting the techbro PR line. "Don't worry about the bad stuff! One day it might cure cancer!"

Bull. Shit.

Machine learning applications for medical analysis are NOT the LLM slop-generators being forced into everything. An "AI super legend" wouldn't conflate the two. 🤷‍♂️

Betcha they'll be rehiring again as the reality of slop-generators' lack of "fit for purpose"-ness comes back to bite them on the arse.

The only people who could easily be replaced by slop-generators that are constantly wrong are, ironically, the CEOs and senior managers hot to sack staff.

Happily my 15 yo was the one who sent me the promo vid, and is excited as I am for that surf and turf action. 🌊🏄‍♂️

His older teen brother however had _exactly_ the reaction you described. 🤷‍♂️😂

That is the woo and indeed the hoo! 🙌

A frantic "Copy post text", then "Delete post" then hit reply again, paste post text and fix/update before hitting send, and hope no-one saw, liked or replied to the previous version in the meantime... 😜

Such a seamless and user-friendly method. Makes me wish I was on Masto at the time...!

Haha, we do indeed! I hate it when I hit “reply” before I’m done! 🤪