One of the decisive moments in my understanding of [#LLMs](https://fediscience.org/tags/LLMs) and their limitations was when, last autumn, [@emilymbender](https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender) walked me through her Thai Library thought experiment.

She's now written it up as a Medium post, and you can read it here. The value comes from really pondering the question she poses, so take the time to think about it. What would YOU do in the situation she outlines?

<https:medium.com/@emilymenonbender/thought-experiment-in-the-national-library-of-thailand-f2bf761a8a83>

Midnight rain. Location Osaka. [#streetphotography](https://mstdn.jp/tags/streetphotography) [#写真](https://mstdn.jp/tags/%E5%86%99%E7%9C%9F) [#photography](https://mstdn.jp/tags/photography)

Please give me your favorite [#Zelda](https://mastodon.social/tags/Zelda) elixir recipies! I have none to speak of thx! [#TearsOfTheKingdom](https://mastodon.social/tags/TearsOfTheKingdom)

Rice terraces that reflect like mirror.
[#photography](https://mstdn.jp/tags/photography) [#japan](https://mstdn.jp/tags/japan)

This thread is now available as a blog post:
<https:innig.net/teaching/liberal-arts-manifesto>

–––

In college, I took a class called The Letters of Paul. I took it for two very good reasons:

1. I was (and am) named Paul.
2. The prof, Cal Roetzel, was (and is) cool.

I didn’t figure it was an especially practical course. It was for fun, for the challenge, for the cultural knowledge, for the pleasure of doing it.

WHAT LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION IS FOR: A THREAD

1/

LEGO Celebrates BATMAN RETURNS With Unreal 3,981 Piece Batcave Shadowbox Set!: <https://www.blast-o-rama.com/2023/05/16/lego-celebrates-batman-returns-with-unreal-3981-piece-batcave-shadowbox-set/>

A deep dive on Andreessen Horowitz's latest "State of Crypto" report. In short: they want people to keep buying crypto, and are not above publishing blatant falsehoods to convince them to do so.

The report itself is 60 pages long, so this is a long one.

<https:newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/andreessen-horowitzs-state-of-crypto>

[#crypto](https://hachyderm.io/tags/crypto) [#cryptocurrency](https://hachyderm.io/tags/cryptocurrency) [#VentureCapital](https://hachyderm.io/tags/VentureCapital) [#AndreessenHorowitz](https://hachyderm.io/tags/AndreessenHorowitz)

Feeling very spring. 🌸🌱🌦️

Michael Kenna, Forest Edge, Hokuto, Hokkaido, Japan, 2004

The problem with AI/ML isn’t what the tech is or isn’t useful for (we don’t really know yet). The problem is the people who build and own and operate it, a mix of giant tech monopolies and VC-funded growth-crazed startups. Both are entirely oblivious to ethics and the civic good.

It is fair and reasonable to be paranoid and suspicious about *any* tech pushed by this cabal.

[This post from a member-owned co-op Fediverse instance, see <https://cosocial.info>]

[@lethain](https://mastodon.social/@lethain) Schedule 1:1s with everyone in your org. If that's not practical, have office hours where people can sign up for a 1:1. And publish your 90-day plan.

Every time I get a new manager or leader I freak out a little about how they're going to change things. And you come with a bit of celebrity status.

The plan makes it clear what's going to happen in the next 3 months and 1:1s give people a chance to know you as a person not the famous author.

[@atomicpoet](https://mastodon.social/@atomicpoet) [@phanpy](https://hachyderm.io/@phanpy)

Wow, my initial impression is excellent! Start at: phanpy.social

Includes everything I want, excludes lots of junk that I don’t. Easy on the eyes. I’m sure there will be flies in the ointment eventually, but seriously considering adopting this as my everyday web client.

I presented a three hour tutorial at [#PyConUS](https://fedi.simonwillison.net/tags/PyConUS) yesterday - "Data analysis with SQLite and Python"

Wrote a few notes about that here: <https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/20/pycon-2023/> - and I've shared the full 9-page workshop handout as well: <https://sqlite-tutorial-pycon-2023.readthedocs.io/>

Commander 2023 Wallpaper

<https:basicappleguy.com/basicappleblog/commander-2023>

So many highlights in this paper "Eight Things to Know about Large Language Models" by Sam Bowman

If you've not been staying entirely on top of modern LLM research this might be a great place to start catching up - it's succinct, readable and full of fascinating details

PDF: <https://cims.nyu.edu/~sbowman/eightthings.pdf>

If you write code you probably have to read this, because it’s by Steve Yegge: <https://about.sourcegraph.com/blog/cheating-is-all-you-need>

I’m still unconvinced, but you still have to read it.

I wrote about how AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects <https://simonwillison.net/2023/Mar/27/ai-enhanced-development/>

I published a new library called ThumbHash, which generates very compact image representations for image placeholders. There's more info on the website: <https://evanw.github.io/thumbhash/>

It's inspired by BlurHash but does some things a little differently (e.g. supports alpha, uses binary instead of ASCII, separates luma and chroma).

Big thanks to [@WAHa_06x36](https://mastodon.social/@WAHa_06x36) for the original BlurHash concept and implementation.

Copenhagen

[#photography](https://hachyderm.io/tags/photography)

The entire 3-disc set of the Portal 2 soundtrack is still online to download for free if you need some mp3s to hear while you are working: <https://www.thinkwithportals.com/music.php>

RT @OrinKerr
How many people are in prison or jail in the United States, and for what. <https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/03/14/whole_pie_2022/>

🌟 Near my house, there's an apartment building with a courtyard. Big deal, right? But if you walk up the steps a little bit, there's something about this courtyard that you might find really truly wonderful… <https://cabel.com/2023/02/25/the-courtyard/>

[@ivory](https://tapbots.social/@ivory) [@paul](https://tapbots.social/@paul)

The release of the iPod is closer in time to the birth of the Internet than the iPod’s release is from today.

I do not photograph architecture that often. But it is a lot of fun trying something new.

[#Photography](https://pixelfed.de/discover/tags/Photography?src=hash) [#Nature](https://pixelfed.de/discover/tags/Nature?src=hash) [#Projekt1zu1](https://pixelfed.de/discover/tags/Projekt1zu1?src=hash) [#Project1to1](https://pixelfed.de/discover/tags/Project1to1?src=hash) [#Squared](https://pixelfed.de/discover/tags/Squared?src=hash) [#Architecture](https://pixelfed.de/discover/tags/Architecture?src=hash) [#ArchitecturePhotography](https://pixelfed.de/discover/tags/ArchitecturePhotography?src=hash)

very nice app <https://www.wickeditor.com/>

kinda if HyperCard and Framer had a really cute kid.

[#animation](https://indieweb.social/tags/animation) [#indieWeb](https://indieweb.social/tags/indieWeb) [#gameDev](https://indieweb.social/tags/gameDev) [#opensource](https://indieweb.social/tags/opensource)

For everyone who's up to date with Abbott Elementary: are you a truckie?

TIL that macOS ships with a default CLI command called "sips", for "scriptable image processing system" - and it can convert webp images to PNG, but it can also generate entirely new images from scratch using an almost entirely undocumented canvas-based JavaScript API! <https://til.simonwillison.net/macos/sips>

6 months ago my pineapple plant started growing a flower, which turned into a fruit, which I harvested this week. It was delicious! Sweet, juicy, and full of flavour—very pleased. [#gardening](https://mastodon.decentralised.social/tags/gardening)

Hey, folks. Big layoffs at DigitalOcean today, and my team and I were hit. In fact, so was my adjacent team, and a good chunk of my department. I don't have much reach here on Mastodon yet, but if anybody wants to discuss opportunities for a technical editor / writer / manager of same, I'm up for it.

[@chockenberry](https://mastodon.social/@chockenberry) you can also/instead add to Control Center in System Settings › Control Center

Happy birthday Tom Hiddleston! Can you stop growing so I can catch up to you? Wishing you a good one, bro—wherever you may be in the world.

My wife has been asking me to make Toum (Lebanese garlic sauce) for a while. Today I finally took the plunge & boy I shoulda listened to her long long ago.

If you’ve never eaten it before it’s hard to describe just how good it is. It’s light and fluffy (it quadrupled in volume as I was making it!!) and so garlicky and yummie.

Awesome as a dip, on chicken or fish, in pitas and on and on. Really easy to make, lasts for months in the fridge. Highly recommended!! 🧄👍 Recipe: <https://feelgoodfoodie.net/recipe/lebanese-garlic-sauce/>

Trying out <https://toot.readthedocs.io> - since I have some bots I need to move to Mastodon

You can now add up to four social account links to your GitHub profile which render with a sprinkling of formatting support for our most popular platforms. Yes, the resulting links links will satisfy Mastodon verification requirements when rendered.

To get started, visit your profile and click the "Edit profile" button in the sidebar.

For typography addicts, this is amazing. (It’s also extraordinarily well-done.)

<https:klim.co.nz/blog/epicene-design-information/>

This is a fantastic annotated talk about ChatGPT for educators, in this case from the perspective of a journalism professor, Jonathan Soma

<https:jonathansoma.com/chatgpt-for-educators/>

Everywhere I've worked, people have complained that internal communication could be better. There is an art to delightful internal comms, but doing a reasonably good job bakes down to mechanically following a few fairly simple practices.

Full notes in <https://lethain.com/internal-comms-execs/>

We just posted a free wallpaper drawn by [@piraino](https://mastodon.art/@piraino) on our Patreon depicting Ollie's take on the recent chaos. <https://www.patreon.com/posts/is-this-fine-77509303>

The character of the light made it possible to get the texture and color in the feathers.

Want to embed a stream of your Mastodon posts on a website? Want to turn a thread or a bunch of comments into an article? I made some templates for y'all! <https://patrickcurry.com/socials/mastodon/tools/>

Mind. Blown.