~metafilter | Bookmarks (1009)

Pivot-to-AI reports: In an official position statement on AI [archive], the NaNoWriMo organization declares: "We also want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege." This year's new sponsor is ProWritingAid.com, which has now added unspecified "AI" functionality. [archive]

"An employee who spoke with KPNX on the condition of anonymity said a colleague found her at her desk while walking around the building and that several people had smelled a foul odor, but believed it to be faulty plumbing. Wells Fargo confirmed she sat in an under-populated area of the building."This is far from the first time someone has died at work and...

"The crisis in Sudan is catastrophic," Macklemore said in an Instagram post on Monday. Some food security specialists estimate up to 2.5 million people could die of starvation and illness by October. [bbc]Sudan, previously

Casy Calver's Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War: A Dossier is an annotated edition of the eponymous 1937 pamphlet [previously], containing "many influential writers' opinions on one of the most significant conflicts of the twentieth century." Calver includes related unpublished documents plus background on contributors like C.L.R. James, Marcus Garvey, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Victor Gollancz, Sylvia Pankhurst, Cecil Day-Lewis, Arthur Koestler, Rebecca West,...

At OpenSea, once the largest marketplace for NFTs, more storms have gathered. One of the most valuable private startups to come out of the incubator Y Combinator is now facing pending litigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission, a previously unreported "matter" with the Federal Trade Commission, inbounds from US and international tax authorities, heightened competition, accusations of gender discrimination, and employee attrition. Interviews...

Linda Deutsch, AP Trial Writer Who Had Front Row to Courtroom History, Dies at 80 "One of America's best-known trial reporters, she covered a who's who of criminal defendants — Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Patty Hearst, Phil Spector, the Menendez Brothers, "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski and the police officers charged in the beating of motorist Rodney King."I was fortunate...

An Ontario woman is left with a hefty repair bill after a bear breaks into her car, rips the upholstery apart, and then falls asleep.

Hurrying through the National Gallery of Art five minutes before closing, I passed a Navajo weaving with a complex abstract pattern. Suddenly, I realized the pattern was strangely familiar, so I stopped and looked closely. The design turned out to be an image of Intel's Pentium chip, the start of the long-lived Pentium family.

July and August 2024 in space. Let's check in on humanity's exploration of space from late this summer.Sun NASA's Parker Solar Probe is now the fastest human-made artifact, orbiting the Sun "at 635,266 kilometers (394,736 miles) per hour." Not to be outdone, our sun fired off a very massive solar flare, thankfully pointing away from the Earth, as observed by the European Space Agency...

Sandor Bodo is an artist who collects and then photographs heavily distressed U.S. pennies. You can find 16 of them on that project page, or scan through this video montage for a whole bunch more.Excerpted from the artist statement image-block:With macro photography, the work takes a close up look at found pennies in states of distress with surface features that impose, obscure and distort...

No one keeps an official list of uninhabited islands worldwide. If they did, it would be long. Norway and Sweden alone have hundreds of thousands of desert islands, including some that are astonishingly remote. One glacier-covered Norwegian island, Bouvetøya, is more than 1,000 miles from the nearest point of land. Desert islands conjure isolation so effectively they've become our go-to metaphor for it. We...

The Olympics but high fashion, 30 looks for 30 countries (Threadreader version, original Twitter, video on TikTok). See also the request to make an outfit for every year since the beginning of time. Wisdom Kaye previously on MeFi.

LinkMe, September '24 edition: Come across an interesting link recently that you'd like to share, but don't want to work it up into a full post? Share it here for our perusal, nbd. And if you'd like to post something but need some inspiration, check out the links here to see what other members have found interesting and would like to read more about!...

Several months ago, a dentist visited his parents' new house for the first time and immediately spotted what looked like a human jawbone in the travertine tile (previously). A few emails later, it is positively identified as a probable hominid fossil and they are connected with appropriate researcher (subsequently). The tile has been removed safely and is undergoing further examination. Some additional tiles with...

'He was in mystic delirium' : was this hermit mathematician a forgotten genius whose ideas could transform AI – or a lonely madman? (Guardian)

"I'm not going to let anybody underestimate me," said Adam, who has multiple sclerosis and is known for her ability to zoom down the court, her signature sleek ponytail flying out behind her. "The guys think they're going to come and hit into me and knock me over, and I hit them right back and put them on their face and kind of roll...

Back from the brink, hairy-nosed wombats settle into ready-made new home. The success of conserving and breeding one of the world's most endangered animals, the northern hairy-nosed wombat, has seen the species move to a third location for the first time in decades.

The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down [NYT Gift link] The dream of Próspera, founded by a U.S. corporation off the coast of Honduras, was to escape government control. The Honduran government wants it gone. As we peered over the edge of the tower's rooftop, I considered the story of a subcontractor who was working at the apartment tower at night two months...

"public-school enrollment has declined by about a million students" Alec MacGillis looks at a national trend by profiling secondary school closures in upstate New York. (SLNew Yorker)

How Do You Change a Chatbot's Mind? When I set out to improve my tainted reputation with chatbots, I discovered a new world of A.I. manipulation. (gift link) A while back, Kevin Roose published an article in which a chatbot professed its love for him (NYT). Now he's persona non grata among chatbots. Can he improve his reputation among them?My theory about what happened...

The U.S. surgeon general has issued a public health advisory on the stresses of modern parenting. "41 per cent [of parents] said most days they "were so stressed they couldn't function" — double the number reported by non-parents — while 42 per cent said they were so stressed they felt numb.""You know more than you think you do." - Dr. Spock, who besides being...

Wonderland is a new social network community centered around nature journaling sponsored by John Muir Laws and the Wild Wonder Foundation. Wonderland will allow users to share their work, plan events, connect with local clubs, etc.Content from experts to beginners. Resources for getting started. Previously.