What are you reading?

"For this Google worker, the biggest concern with AI training is the feedback given to AI models by raters like him. “After having seen how bad the data is that goes into supposedly training the model, I knew there was absolutely no way it could ever be trained correctly like that,” he said. He used the term “garbage in, garbage out”, a principle in computer programming which explains that if you feed bad or incomplete data into a technical system, then the output would also have the same flaws.

The rater avoids using generative AI and has also “advised every family member and friend of mine to not buy newer phones that have AI integrated in them, to resist automatic updates if possible that add AI integration, and to not tell AI anything personal”, he said."

“Once you’ve seen how these systems are cobbled together – the biases, the rushed timelines, the constant compromises – you stop seeing AI as futuristic and start seeing it as fragile,” said Adio Dinika, who studies the labor behind AI at the Distributed AI Research Institute, about people who work behind the scenes. “In my experience it’s always people who don’t understand AI who are enchanted by it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/22/ai-workers-tell-family-stay-away

A long way away.

Something about the big bang theory doesn't make sense to me. A singularity in nowhere and it makes a "where" ?

@silvermouse said:

What Role, If Any, Do Ambrosia Beetles Play in Rapid Apple Decline?

https://entomologytoday.org/2025/11/25/ambrosia-beetles-rapid-apple-decline/

Source: Wikipedia

Aren't they all, Edward?

"For centuries, scholars have been puzzled by the movement of the Rapa Nui moai, monolithic stone figures that represent deified ancestors. Between A.D. 1200 and 1700, the statues were hewed from compacted ash in a quarry inside the crater of the extinct volcano Rano Raraku, and then transported as far as 11 miles across rugged terrain; some reached 33 feet in height and weighed as much as 86 tons."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/science/archaeology-easter-island-rapa-nui.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4U8.LAtd.cncEJEpEfFHe&smid=url-share&utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=ec6f17302f-nature-briefing-daily-20251127&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-49863420

I read somewhere that Japan was offering free breeding visas to get men to go knock up their women.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/490428/origin-of-the-word-spudger

@silvermouse said:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/490428/origin-of-the-word-spudger

I've often wondered where the word came from, having used telecom spudgers for years.

We called these spud wrenches, aka an erection wrench. The pointy end was used to line up the holes on sections of towers we were erecting so we could bolt them together.

@Yakster said:

@silvermouse said:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/490428/origin-of-the-word-spudger

I've often wondered where the word came from, having used telecom spudgers for years.

We called these spud wrenches, aka an erection wrench. The pointy end was used to line up the holes on sections of towers we were erecting so we could bolt them together.

hehe, he said erection, hehe, hehe.

My kind of party animal.

Summary: An increasing number of people experience fear, discomfort, or disgust toward nature—a phenomenon known as biophobia. The findings reveal that negative emotions form through both external factors such as urban environments and media portrayals, and internal factors like health and emotional traits.

Limited contact with nature can reinforce avoidance, reducing exposure to well-known mental and physical health benefits. Researchers suggest that early positive experiences with nature and greener urban spaces may help reverse this growing trend.

https://neurosciencenews.com/biophobia-neuroscience-30018/

That's a lot of years of cracking nuts.