Dear friends,

I procrastinated a bit this morning before starting to put together this email, and I’m glad I did, because I followed a link from the University of Winds newsletter and now I can share this with you:

If the use of Large Language Models does become a norm in our lives for the years to come, does this mean that more of our educational programs will be dedicated to the study and practice of learning to name what we see?

I find the flattening effect (and flattened affect) of text produced by and with generative AI depressing. If LLMs are going to hallucinate, why can’t they at least hallucinate useful new words? (I know why they can’t, no need to explain.) Anyway, that whole essay is a joy and full of delightful words.

Related: “Bixonimania doesn’t exist except in a clutch of obviously bogus academic papers.” (I guess we have a new flavor of mountweazel!)

“An alleycat [unsanctioned bicycle race] where checkpoints involve tricks, often fixed gear, may be called "TrickCat" or "JibCat".”

Today in “sentences that are the entire plot of a historical novel I’d like to read”: “Neophytos soon became a well-known spiritual figure and in 1170 he was forced by Basil Kinnamos, the bishop of Paphos at the time, to accept a disciple.” (From the point of view of the poor disciple, of course.)

“The Engel coefficient [food budget share at a point in time] is used for this purpose by The United Nations (UN), where a coefficient above 59% represents poverty, 50-59% represents a state where daily needs are barely met, 40-50% a moderately well-off standard of living, 30-40% a good standard of living and below 30% a wealthy life.”

Tuareg jewelry includes ‘rattle rings’, “large hollow rings filled with small seeds that make a soft rattling noise when a woman moves her hands.”

“In Ancient Greece, the number 17 was despised by followers of Pythagoras, as the number was between 16 and 18, which were perfect representations of 4×4 and 3×6 quadrilaterals, respectively.” [Wikipedia]

The sinking of the HMS Birkenhead is supposed to be the origin of the “women and children first” convention for evacuations.

“[I]n the early 1970s, the Medina standard expanded the U.S. Code to include the criminal liability of American military officers for the war crimes committed by their subordinates, as are the war-criminal military officers of an enemy power.” [Wikipedia]

Stay well!

Your friend,

Erin