Sandra Gornall

Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless Independent research identifies few learning gains

Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com.

‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’
economist.com/united-state...

Missed a delivery last week because I was foolish enough to believe one of these hallucinated notifications. We're in the age of slopware.

One of my old friends (absolutely offline) was going through some scary stuff last year -- and I, helpless, live so far away. And so I asked what I could do to support her best.

"When you see something that makes you think of me, text me."

An article I would like to read from a great UX designer:

An indepth breakdown of when chat based interfaces are preferable and a better solution than point and click software inputs.

I haven't seen much discussion on this topic and it feels quite important.

and people think computers can write poetry smh

Darkness and cold, darkness and cold

I had an interesting set of interactions w AI-generated content that I think is instructive. A very bright student made a claim in an essay that struck me as outlandish, so I searched the question on Google which turned up that phrasing the search a certain way makes the AI summary agree w the claim

This study show that using poems to jailbreak LLMs is... super effective? What the heck.

He will never play Victoria because it's not worth the risk of being subjected to my questions about side 2 of Star Wars.

I have a running joke about the completely implausible scenario of entrapping Jeff Tweedy in conversation on a BC Ferries trip between Vancouver and Victoria.

Rushmore. It's a better story.

Hello Froast

Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers We align the aligners

Q. Who aligns the aligners?
A. alignmentalignment.ai

Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

I Deleted My Second Brain Why I Erased 10,000 Notes, 7 Years of Ideas, and Every Thought I Tried to Save

I Deleted My Second Brain. Why I Erased 10,000 Notes, 7 Years of Ideas, and Every Thought I Tried to Save. “Instead of accelerating my thinking, it began to replace it. Instead of aiding memory, it froze my curiosity into static categories.” [joanwestenberg.com]

I would not allow the responses to use I/me pronouns.

Every product needs to do this. Or - here's a radical idea - make simpler interfaces for EVERYONE.

Remember when the whole internet wasn't just on four sites on people's phones? LET'S GO BACK TO A WEBSITE homestarrunner.com/toons/backto...

thought of you when I heard it happened!

Shriekback's "Oil and Gold" is flat out one of the best albums of the 80s. Huge for me. Rest easy Dave Allen.

time flies, I remember when she was a precocious kid whiteboarding wireframes for a website about cheese

I've tried arguing against tooltips because they're not great on mobile or for accessibility, but perhaps the best case against them is that they're out of site, out of mind, so no one bothers to make them useful.

Google search result for the MyCity website showing issues with page titles and descriptions: "Child Care Landing" and "Sorry to interrupt. CSS Error. Refresh. Search...Loading..."

🫣

Reading about people preserving old media always makes me happy. "Preservation is an act of collective willpower."

New Day Rising! (Or I'll volunteer to write something about it if you want to tackle one of the other ones)

AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library Librarians say that taxpayers are already paying for low quality AI-generated ebooks in public libraries.

New from 404 Media: Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries, forcing librarians to sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI.

www.404media.co/ai-generated...

This Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner report from December of last year is interesting reading on the Toronto Public Library cyberattack - contains a number of details that to my knowledge have not been made public before: www.ipc.on.ca/en/cases-of-...

I think this really sank in for me when I learned they drink different whiskies.

shoutout to music journalism! (I discover almost everything through reading)

Stop using generative AI as a search engine Sometimes ChatGPT spits out something original — and wrong, like fake presidential pardons.

Stop using generative AI as a search engine. Seriously, just stop.
www.theverge.com/2024/12/5/24...

“Don’t waste this. Keep everyone guessing. Make me proud.” When Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser spoke at our second festival in 2013, the Mac software company had just started venturing into games by funding the studio behind Firewatch, an indie blockbuster that launched Panic’s games publishing busin Cabel Sasser, Panic - XOXO Festival (2024)

This is Cabel Sasser’s XOXO talk. Best not to know anything going into it…just watch all the way to the end. “Don’t waste this. Keep everyone guessing. Make me proud.” [youtube.com]