🎉 I’m very glad to announce I have a new Betula instance:

🪵 @inmediasres@log.digitalwords.net
​:blobfoxnomlog:​ https://log.digitalwords.net

🍄 For anyone who is not familiar with Betula (@betula@fosstodon.org), it is a free federated self-hosted single-user bookmarking software for the independent web with archival support, which can be used for organising bookmarks, maintaining a linklog (my use) or making a personal web archive. It lacks some features (like profile images, notification of mentions and making the archive public), but it’s very nice and I enjoy it immensely.

#Betula #linklog #fediverse #selfHosting #self_hosting

#TIL about @betula;

"... a free federated self-hosted single-user bookmarking software for the independent web. Use it to organize bookmarks or maintain a linklog."

https://betula.mycorrhiza.wiki/

#ActivityPub #LinkLog #Betula

Wonderful nerdy article about screensaver and their history. (via @macsparky)

#linklog #article

https://tedium.co/2025/01/12/screen-saver-history/

Bukmark club

A collection of web pages from across the Internet that have a curated collection of bookmarks and/or links.

I'll apply.

#collection, #linklog

“Easier Said Than Done” by Alan Page about growing as an individual contributor in software engineering:

> * Build relationships through small, visible wins.
>
> * Invest in understanding your manager’s priorities and challenges.
>
> * Leverage your network for insights and alignment.

#linklog #article

https://angryweasel.substack.com/p/easier-said-than-done

Podcast: Bad productivity advice from Chris Baily:
> How to separate good productivity advice from bad.

- Rules of 3: Pick three things from your task list you wish to accomplish by the end of the day.
- Time tracking
- Time blocking

#linklog #podcast

https://chrisbailey.com/podcast-bad-productivity-advice/

I'm in the middle of cleaning up and reorganizing my #linklog. Still a way to go, but it's starting to feel manageable again: https://felix.plesoianu.ro/links/log/

Blogged:
Weeknote 2024 W10
Keeping the weeknote as bucket of stuff approach #powerplatform #NHS #LinkLog
https://www.synesthesia.co.uk/note/2024/03/07/weeknote-2024-w10/

Me apunto para revisar Dark Visitors, una página web que enumera agentes de usuario relacionados con scrapers y bots que se dedican a robar contenido de páginas web para alimentar inteligencias artificiales. En la lista completa se muestran agentes como Bytespider, el de TikTok, o GPTBot, el agente principal usado por OpenAI.

A través de Hacker News también leo a Cory proponiendo bloquear este tipo de bots metiéndolos en el robots.txt. En algunas de mis webs ya tengo bloqueados algunos bots en el robots.txt, pero esta lista me servirá para ponerla al día. Sin embargo, me pregunto cuál de estas soluciones es realmente más efectiva.

Por un lado, podríamos poner este tipo de bots en el robots.txt y asumir que lo van a respetar. robots.txt es un sistema de honor. Realmente no hay nada que impida a un bot ignorar el robots.txt e igualmente hacer scrapping de la página web para extraer su contenido.

Pero a la vez, por el otro, optaría por una solución que asuma que el bot va a ser malévolo y va a ignorar una petición de no escaneo del sitio web. Para esas situaciones, se podría optar por banear la IP del sitio web a nivel firewall. Esta es una solución que tengo implementada en mi servidor, por ejemplo, para algunos productos de inteligencia artificial que sí enumeran las direcciones IP que usan para hacer el escaneo. OpenAI las enumera, por ejemplo.

Por último, otra opción que se me ocurre es tirar por la vía de la confusión. Detectar en el servidor web cuándo una petición procede de un user-agent asociado a un bot, y en vez de servir un HTTP 403 o de tirar abajo la conexión mediante el firewall, servir en su lugar otra página web diferente con el código HTTP 200, para que el bot lo interprete como una página correcta, pero servir información falsa para contaminar el dataset. Estoy pensando en una página en blanco que tenga un par de frases como «los cerdos vuelan y las vacas dan chocolate», pero podría proponer burradas más grandes que puedan hacer daño.

Neuer Blogpost: AI links, human notes #3

Lesedauer 2 Minuten

My bookmark list keeps growing. For this blog series, I spare you the tech books and tutorial videos I’m spending most of my time with and focusing on the broader picture. Let me know in the comments (or by answering this post on the fediverse) how you like my selection.

Text:

• Meta plans AI chatbots in their networks. Not much longer and we won’t know if the person we’re chatting with online is human or virtual.
• Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University use machine learning to „see“ people by analyzing wifi signals. Yes, this technology can turn your home wifi router into a camera system. I find this fascinating and terrifying at the same time.
• Is AI coming for our jobs? Hollywood actors went on strike because Hollywood studios consider using AI replicas of them – for free. Ouch.
• It looks like chatGPT can recognize faces but if you ignore that, then mulöti-modal LLMs are real game changers for blind people.
• Bill Gates wrote a blog post about the risks of AI and says he is confident that they are manageable.
• btw, OpenAI assumes they’re en route to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and outlined principles on how to approach it.
• Too much doom? No worries, the world economic forum thinks AI will give us with long term job growth.
• … unless… Goldman Sachs is right. They predict 300m jobs loss.
• How smart are AI systems actually? It may be surprising, but this is hard to say because we lack a solid definition we can all agree on. So, let’s read up on the question of how we would know how smart they are.
• Students (and lawyers) everywhere wonder „Can anyone tell that I asked chatGPT to write my thing?“. The short answer is „probably„.

Podcast & Videos:

• Maybe the most inspiring use of AI I have heard so far: The Earth Species Project is a non-profit dedicated to using AI to decode non-human communication. Yes, that means using AI to talk with animals. Here’s a podcast explaining more.
• Writers are worried about the use of AI as well, specifically, the fact that their texts are being used to train AIs. The podcast „The Daily“ has more context.
• I don’t like the hyperbole of calling this video podcast an emergency episode. However, this conversation with Mo Gawdat about the direction AI is taking is still interesting and thought-provoking.
• Yuval Harari is probably one of the smartest thinkers we have and gave a keynote lecture called „AI and the future of humanity“ that is well worth your time.

#AI #studylog #linklog

#ai #english #linklog #studylog

https://taeglichkeiten.kopfstim.me/?p=562

Achtung:Direkt auf den Post gegebene Antworten tauchen evtl. auch als Kommentar im verlinkten Blogpost auf.

Neuer Blogpost: AI links, human notes #2

Lesedauer 3 Minuten

Well, it’s been a while since my last AI centric link list. Let’s add some recent reads and watches to your todo list.

Text:

• Brave just released an API for their SearchEngine with an emphasis on it’s use in training AI. It is a bit surprising given the privacy and security centric ethos of the Brave ecosystem.
• [Paper] On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?
• [Paper] Language Models are Few-Shot Learners
• [Paper] Smaller Language Models are Better Black-box Machine-Generated Text Detectors
• Well, this is very old for everyone in the field but maybe new to you… The paper that gave birth to modern large language models is already 8 years old and still a read worthy your time: Attention Is All You Need
• This paper is a bit much for you? No worries: Here is an article walking you through all key ideas behind chatGPT, Bard & Co.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky is convinced that AI will kill us all. Normally we would ignore him but it turns out he’s a very accomplished scientist who kinda knows what he’s talking about.
• There is quite the number of scientists who warn about the risks of AI. Some may make you feel like you’re living in the end times (looking at you, Eliezer Yudkowsky). If you’re looking for a balanced view on some of their argument then Paul Christianos post „Where I agree and disagree with Eliezer“ is a highly recommended read.
• The case for how and why AI might kill us all – I think the title says it all… And, yes, it is Eliezer again.
• A little less panicky but not any less concerning is this piece in MIT Technology Review explaining why Geoffrey Hinton, one of the fathers of modern AI, decided to leave Google so he can tell us why he’s now scared of his creation.
• Even if you don’t believe that it is quite as dangerous there are still plenty of issues. Governments for instance realize these days that AI is far far ahead of current laws and regulations. So politics is playing catch up, and Europe announces to spin up an AI research hub to apply accountability rules.
• Not depressed already? Good. ars technica tells you all about „The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI„. That might do the trick.
• Math is your cocaine? You’ll be thrilled to browse through this blog post explaining the math related to computation and memory usage for transformers. You’re welcome.

Videos:

• Yes, 67 minutes is not exactly short. But I watched it anyhow and then I shared it with everyone I knew. But be warned: you’ll be worried afterwards. It talks you through parallels between the current AI revolution and the events when we introduced social media. Then it walks you through AI in general and how the situation today relates to society, politics and the moment we find ourselves in. Scary stuff. The A.I. Dilemma
• So you want to know how to build your own GPT? Here are 2 hours that take you through the entire process from start to finish.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky is a very respected scientist who truly beliefs that AI will kill us all. His belief comes from years of study and understanding that it is a very hard problem. This 90 minute lecture he gave 6 years ago at Standford University explains why.
• Another lecture, this time from Robert Miles. In about 18 minutes he walks you though the subject of AI safety.
• Lex Friedman talks for his podcast with high caliber thinkers such as the philosopher Sam Harris. Here you find the 20 minute cut-out where they speak about AI specifically.

#AI #studylog #linklog

Image: Midjourney

#ai #english #linklog #studylog

https://taeglichkeiten.kopfstim.me/?p=535

Achtung:Direkt auf den Post gegebene Antworten tauchen evtl. auch als Kommentar im verlinkten Blogpost auf.

Neuer Blogpost: AI links, human notes #1

Lesedauer 2 Minuten

I love online research. Since I started my degree on Artificial Intelligence a lot of it is AI related, so let’s blog about it 🙂

Text:

• What if AI would break free and try to destroy humanity? Nah, not gonna happen. Instead, human jokers on the internet will build an AI exclusively dedicated to our destruction.
• The latest trend in all things LLM? Connect multiple AI agents to make them more autonomous.
• This article discusses how transformers seem to help with understanding places and resemble structures we know from our brains.
• GPT is revolutionizing our world and it is changing jobs already. This post on reddit is from a 3D artist describing how it dramatically shifted how he works.
• A lot of people debate these days if large language model truly understand language. This paper summarizes arguments for and against this idea and relates the debate to the broader sciences of intelligence.
• Looking for a primer on so-called „prompt engineering“? This medium piece got you covered.
• Oh, you want a library of prompts without reading through the explanations first? Well, head over to https://prompts.chat/ and knock yourself out…
• People tell you’re silly if you think chatGPT could indeed take over the world? What if I told you that OpenAI checked themselves just to be sure?
• Tom Scheinfeldt is a researcher thinking and writing about the impact of LLMs on universities. In March he gave a keynote to the Dartmouth Colleague Teaching with Primary Sources Symposium (yes, that’s a mouth full). In it he outlines 8 things he believes universities need to change now that generative AI is here.

Videos:

• This lecture is well worth watching if you wonder how intelligent chatGPT really is…
• Max Tegmark is a hugely influential voice in AI research. 5 years ago he wrote a book describing the future of humanity and AI. This lecture and this talk at Google give you a teaser about his thinking and I definitely recommend to buy the book right after watching… The second video has some overlap but it is interesting for the Q&A alone.
• 2 years ago Boston Dynamics released this video to demonstrate how far they have gotten in controlling their robot movements. It is fun because they’re dancing and would be uncanny if they’d do different things.
• Did you know that DeepMind created a documentary about AlphaGo? Me neither.
• Sam Altman is CEO of OpenAI and in this 2:23 podcast he talke about the future of AI
• The Future of Life Institute urges us to think about AI safety now. This fictious video shows a scary vision for autonomous weaponized drones but what is really haunting is this panel discussion with experts on the field which tells us that some of this is already reality.
• Kevin Kelly gave several TED talks on the future of technology. This one explains how AI will bring on a second industrial revolution and it is 13 minutes well spent.

#ai #linklog #studylog

https://taeglichkeiten.kopfstim.me/?p=515

Achtung:Direkt auf den Post gegebene Antworten tauchen evtl. auch als Kommentar im verlinkten Blogpost auf.

@feditips @IceWolf I have never bothered with link shorteners it is to much work. #linktax #linkcosplay #linklog #linkle #linksteuer #linkestablished #linkchecker #linkestablished #linkedinjobsearch #linkebpt #linkerscript

@drh@octodon.social @eevee
Linklogging this one #linklog

#linklog
Might as well add this so I don't forget it. https://going-medieval.com/2019/07/26/on-colonialism-imperialism-and-ignoring-medieval-history/

A quick #linklog, including "What if work dominated your life", a great interview with King Crimson singer/guitarist Jakko Jakszyk, the cult of optimism, nazis, Trump's long history of racism, and a vegan curry recipe to wash down the bad taste of the last few items on that list.

http://reinderdijkhuis.com/wordpress/2019/07/21/linklog-for-july-21-does-work-dominate-your-life/

I can't even SEE the Tweet that Dr. Brooke Magnanti is quote-tweeting but the thread as a whole is a wonderfully concise demolition of the 'but echo chambers' concern trolling that you get from certain quarters.

https://twitter.com/belledejour_uk/status/1142884704007254016

#linklog

I try not to linklog paywalled posts, but this Patreon-only post from Colleen Doran is worth it to me: https://www.patreon.com/posts/consistent-focus-27812687

It is the first of a series in which she discusses her past habit of attending self-help seminars and distills the useful things she's learned in them into short posts. The first one is about consistent focus and consistent action, and the need to spend time on something every day, even if it's just half an hour.
#linklog