it's truly amazing what LLMs can achieve. we now know it's possible to produce an html5 parsing library with nothing but the full source code of an existing html5 parsing library, all the source code of all other open source libraries ever, a meticulously maintained and extremely comprehensive test suite written by somebody else, 5 different models, a megawatt-hour of energy, a swimming pool full of water, and a month of spare time of an extremely senior engineer

a little late with the newsletter, but i've got news as we approach the end of Health Communism by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant

also, new newsletter post if you want to read it there: https://buttondown.com/al2/archive/health-communism-host/

Applications for @jamcoders, a one month free algorithms and programming camp for Jamaican high schoolers, are now open.

Head over to https://jamcoders.org.jm/#apply. No programming experience required for students.

We're looking for students and teaching assistants.

Please spread the world and encourage people who you think may be interested, to apply.

Deadline January 31.

God I long for cool, queer, computer-y language-y stuff. I'm so bored with tech that boils down to "efficiently trick people into spending more time and money" or "efficiently track how much time and money we've tricked people into spending"

@mhoye Ah yeah this is such a tough problem! So much of "good UX" is defined as reducing friction/cognitive load, but sometimes you want friction, and there are good/important/necessary kinds of cognitive load

startup dudes are so strange about making up words when perfectly normal words already exist.

‘I am a fractional CFO’

‘You mean you’re a part time accountant’

Literally saw someone post ‘Yes! Google finally gets fractional!’ And it was a link to a part time job at Google

I hope this email finds you well
I hope this email minds you
I hope this email brings you in
And in the darkness binds you

😂

Update 4/6: OverDrive (makers of Libby) is supporting and profiting from Israel's genocide in Palestine. More info: https://merida.hair/notes/9rryqx1x2fek02to

UPDATE 1/30: Two updates!

- I've been in touch with the person I mentioned in this post. If you would like to help my friend Elliot and his family get out of Ohio you can contribute here: https://ko-fi.com/fleeingwhiletrans

- I've noticed what I believe to be a pattern at #OverDrive of trans people who come out while working there being forced out or fired. Of the three folks who have come out as trans at OverDrive since 2018 none of us remained employed there for longer than 2 years.

------

Remember how my previous employer denied my WFH request so that I could flee the state of Ohio to take care of my trans kid while still working for a company I loved?

I just heard they did it to someone else today.

When you insist people come in to an office a few days a week because you want a "hybrid culture" not a "remote culture" and then tell them to just fuck off when all they want to do is get their kid somewhere safe that makes you an absolutely shitty person.

I'm done hiding who it was.

The company is #OverDrive, based in Cleveland. They make ebook lending software for your local library called #Libby. They say they care about their LGBTQIA+ employees and families but that is clearly a lie.

Ohio lawmakers are turning my home state into absolute garbage and companies like this one are playing along.

Tell your local library to #DropLibby

[Edit, since this is doing numbers: The reason my request was denied a little over a year ago, despite me explaining in detail why, was because they "want a hybrid culture, not a remote culture." (a quote from a senior leader to my face)

In both 2020 and 2021 while the whole company was working remotely I won two annual employee excellence awards for my work on their Security team, while the company had record growth.

Meanwhile, one of my teammates moved out of state to be closer to family and continued to work remotely.]

[Edit 2:

I no longer work there, I know KKR has money in them because I worked there, no I don't think KKR has convinced OD to destroy libraries, we no longer live in Ohio, I have a new remote job at a company that's treating me just fine so far, and don't stop using Libby because your library depends on the circulation numbers for funding. Instead convince your library to switch to something else.]

#Trans #TransRights #Ebooks #Libraries #Bookstodon

Mystery AI Hype Theater returns tomorrow with Dr.s @alex & @emilymbender clearing a backlog of #FreshAIHell. Join us at 12pm pacific at https://www.twitch.tv/dair_institute.

Catch up on prior episodes here & thank you for downloading the podcast 31 THOUSAND times! 🎉🎉🎉
https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/

*Puts on a Sinéad O'Connor/Steve Wickham slow jam*
https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/

I really wanted a better sense of how the current version of DALL-E (through GPT-4) works and what the limitations still are (because people keep telling me it's OMG SO AMAZING), and so I'm trying to use it to illustrate my "Twas the Night Before AI Bias" poem. Seemed like a decent test case.

Ask me how many times I have had to write "Can you please not make all the elves white?". Also, totally bizarrely, it insisted that it's incapable of illustrating elves without... wings. WINGS.

Men will literally
Develop entire AI platforms
Instead of
Investing in tech writing

Palestinian children do not deserve to die because Hamas exists.

Israeli children do not deserve to die because of right-wing politicians in the government.

Collective punishment is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Do not fall into the trap of dehumanising people. "But terrorists" has been the source of human rights violations for decades now. Don't be a sucker.

Murdering someone else's child will not bring the victims back.

Big tech now arguing that the platforms they’ve built can’t be held accountable for e.g. racism, as racism has been around for all of human history. Well yes, you know what else has? Nipples. Interesting how easy those were to ban, but racism? “Content moderation is just *so* hard!”

Get the fuck out of here.

Hey advanced #Mandarin language learner friends! This #linguistics experiment is cool and you should participate: https://cla.purdue.edu/english/francislab/recruitment/

#AI bros having a sad about #Glaze and #Nightshade like "I'm not stealing from artists! I'm prefiguring a post-scarcity information economy!" #CreateDontScrape

I appreciate this observation from @gvwilson: https://mastodon.social/@gvwilson/111295815878628974

For almost a decade at this point, people have been writing papers that we can summarize as:

“I put some data into the model, and the result looked cool. I bet something interesting is happening, although I don’t have time to think about exactly what.”

I Wish we’d stop using “promising first step” to wave away scrutiny. And that we’d stop equating “rigor” with “a bunch of fancy equations and architecture diagrams”

I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether LLMs are going to revolutionize software development or not. What I _do_ know is that very few of the papers being posted on arXiv are based on any coherent theory: they're the equivalent of, "Hey look, I irradiated [thing] and I noticed [effect]." That might be a necessary step in the early days of a new field, but watching so many young researchers pack up and head for Alaska for the gold rush is wearying. 2/