Neither “the magic is going away” nor “the magic is just beginning” but “the magic has been around for fifty years and society has only partly adjusted”
I haven’t been talking much about Doctor Who on this blog recently but I’m very impressed by the new season. (Apart from “Space Babies”. Just not for me, that one.) “Dot and Bubble” is a very clever episode, with the most hateable main character Doctor Who has ever had, and yeah I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t work out until RIGHT before the twist that this was a planet of racists. It’s so obvious when you look back at it (Lindy immediately blocking the Doctor, Lindy saying that the Doctor looks “stupid”…) but I didn’t notice. So I guess this episode indicates I too have a bubble of sorts.
gazafunds.com – Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical attention, food, rebuilding homes/businesses etc. (Spotlights 1 verified gfm at a time so if you don’t know who/where to donate to just go here and donate to the one they show you!)
Help provide tents (urgent):
The Sameer Project: Currently providing tents for displaced families in Gaza (emergency bc tents in Rafah are being burned as we speak) (paypal) (gfm)
Food, cash & essentials:
Care for Gaza: Working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash, medicine & other essentials to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)
Direct Aid for Gaza: also working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash & other daily essential suppliess to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)
Water:
Gaza Municipality’s water project: The officialMunicipality of Gaza needs help rebuilding the water infrastructure in Gaza City to restore access to clean water and waste management services for the people of Gaza. (This campaign only has a couple of weeks left but it’s still only at 15%!)
crips for esims for gaza: If you don’t know how to buy esims or don’t have the capacity to manage them (e.g. topping up regularly), this team of volunteers are collecting funds to buy & manage gaza esims regularly
Medical Aid
Palestine Red Crescent Society: Provides emergency medical and ambulance services and humanitarian relief on the ground in Gaza e.g. rescuing and treating the wounded.
today in “google AI is fucking useless because it hallucinates things that never happened”, i bought a couple CVS thermometers that have both been acting up, tried to search if there had been a problem with the whole product line:
there is no record of this product recall. it did not happen. the date “feb 8 2024” is the date someone listed a thermometer for sale on ebay.
Google’s trying to save you the time spent clicking on a site full of AI-generated SEO garbage by presenting the AI-generated garbage right up front! Such efficiency.
I was under the impression that we did know why: AI isn’t actually a brain and can’t actually think or understand information, so it has no concept of something being true or not, or what markers indicate truth or falsity, or how to synthesize information. It’s putting a bunch of words in a jar, shaking the jar, and then dumping it out, and acting like that means the jar knows how to talk.
Like, in this case, OP asked for information about a recall. The AI knows that, throughout the entire internet, the word “recall” usually is surrounded by information like a date or a number, so it gives you a date and a number. It doesn’t know what a date is or what it’s for or what it means. (It also apparently doesn’t know the difference between “recall” as in “removing a dangerous product from the shelves” and “recall” as in “remembering,” since it smooshes the two together)
what’s that thing again that you can put into ublock that blocks all the ai results from google?
[ID mostly by @homunculusalphonse : A photo of the Google search results for the phrase “cvs thermometers recall”: “On February 8, 2024, CVS Health recalled its rigid tip digital thermometer with memory recall and fever alarm. The thermometers have a memory recall feature that stores the previous temperature. The item number for the recall is 375235991489.” Both the links attached to this text are from eBay and Pinterest. This module does say “AI overviews are experimental”, in much smaller font. /End ID]
The uBlockOrigin AI blocklist above is super helpful y’all.
General election announced for the 4th of July, make sure you are registered to vote! Remember if you’re a student you can register with your home address and term time address but can only vote in one (could be a good idea to think tactically on this – which constituency more needs your vote to help kick the Tories out)
