Have a couple of reads I found interesting. The anti-AI crowd talks a *lot* about the so-called cognitive decline that results from using GenAI (for particular tasks and in particular ways, not that they much care for nuance) as if it's causing actual brain damage, a point that they'll maintain despite the studies not actually saying *that* and moreover hardly concluding that GenAI should be banned as a result of their dangerous findings. (One might recall the frequent allegations that watching TV "rots" ones brain in a meaningful way and the likely contempt with which we'd view anyone who believed that in a literal sense.) Anyway, these articles touch on the described phenomenon in a more sensible manner.

From singularityhub: Is AI Making Us Dumber? (more...)

FB keeps showing me ads for Jordan Peterson's Peterson Academy. I know why it does that -- I seek out a lot of reading that someone who'd plunk down hundreds of dollars to hear Peterson ramble might also read -- but I do think it's nuts that there are apparently folks who'd plunk down hundreds of dollars to hear Peterson ramble. Judging from the Peterson Academy trailers -- complete with dramatic music and sweeping pronouncements like, "All your ideas are the ideas of dead philosophers. Every single one of them... The probability that you've had an original idea is like zero."

And it's such horseshit, because it's not *entirely* untrue -- many of your ideas when it comes to ethics and values, for instance, probably are shared by dead philosophers (and politicians and monarchs etc etc) who exerted cultural influence over the societies from which our own is descended. But ALL of them?? Surely he didn't mean ALL of them -- except he said "every single one of them." How is that not the point where most people tune out? Why take one's claim into obviously flawed territory? Is that supposed to be mindblowing, such that people plow forward to know more? Is that why the music is so dramatic??? (more...)

Again: I really like song lyrics (and other phrases in various contexts, really) that can be interpreted in different ways! Today's lyric:

I'm yours to ruin
don't ask me why

So it's the second line I find most interesting, but let's look at the first line first. Already we're presented with two choices:

1-1) "I'm completely and entirely yours, such that you may even go so far as to ruin me should you wish to do so." This is the "sweeter" read -- there's genuine affection and trust underlying this interpretation. One might even hear in it a quiet plea for the beloved *not* to ruin the singing lover.

1-2) "I'm yours specifically for the purpose of being ruined by you." Pretty self-explanatory, I think, at least in terms of intention? I don't know precisely what "ruin" entails here (could be sex, could be emotional pain, could be a punishing match in Jurassic Park: Warpath), but the singing lover is very much here for and desirous of being ruined by the beloved.

*There is also my initial read, where I interpreted the "to" as "until." As in, I'm yours until (the) Ruin -- that is, the period of dust and desolation that will follow the collapse of civilization, as featured in many a post-apocalyptic property -- so effectively a declaration of enduring devotion. (I think this is not a properly "legitimate" read, though, in that it's unlikely to occur to people who are not me. ^^;)

"Don't ask me why" is more interesting to me. (more...)

I just ate 20-plus?-year-old salt. I found the packets in the pockets of my old 90s trench coat, which I'd unearthed for the Salome finale and which I suspect I last wore in the early aughts if I didn't occasionally dig it out for goth nights later than that. Anyway. Apparently salt is eternal, so I shouldn't die from eating spoiled salt. But having tasted the stuff, I have to ask...

Was salt saltier back then???

I'm not sure I've posted about it in the context of Salome yet, but I'm sure I've admitted this before: I have difficulty with suspension of disbelief in theatrical settings. I can respect, for example, all of the effort that goes into a well-choreographed stage fight or intimate moment, and I've found it interesting to participate in those sorts of scenes. To the extent that audiences believe them, I can even sort of grasp the appeal and impact of those sorts of scenes. But for me... they just don't do anything?

And I understand that that's a me thing. I really do. (I also find car chases in movies boring AF, and I have fallen asleep on many an action movie final fight between two very similar CGI things chaotically slugging it out.) But it definitely feels not great to be unable to appreciate such deliberately integral elements to so much media? And depending upon the emphasis people place on those elements and how much their appeal derives from their relatability -- particularly when it comes to intimate connections between characters -- it feels not good to be the sort of person who can't appreciate those things. (more...)