ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
This post has the funniest argument I have seen against AI:  "A computer can never be spiteful or horny.  Therefore a computer must never make art."

Now from an anthropological perspective, anything decorative rather than purely functional is "art" -- a contrasting color around the rim of a jug, for instance.  From a cultural perspective, however, art is about emotion.  It's how we express our human feelings about things we have seen or imagined as a way of communicating with other people.  So by that definition, a computer cannot make art, even if it can mash around colors and images.  An interesting point.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Latest new exhibits in the LLM-Generated Garbage hall of shame

Featuring Santa Claus and reindeer.

Warning: Do not read with mouth full!

Waterfox

May. 23rd, 2025 02:12 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Waterfox - a new privacy-oriented search engine option

This could be useful. Even if you don't want to make it your primary search engine, it's ideal for searches you want to keep secret.  Regrettably the only means of support seem to be ads or subscription.  A voluntary donation model would be much more flexible and appealing.

ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
The anti-spam function on Dreamwidth has been glitchy recently. If you have that enabled on your blog, and it is out of order, then nobody will be able to comment. You might want to turn it off until the problem gets fixed.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Intro to the Web Revival #1: What is the Web Revival?

The Web Revival is about reclaiming the technology in our lives and asking what we really want from the tools we use, and the digital experiences we share. The Web Revival often references the early Internet, but it's not about recreating a bygone web; the Web Revival is about reviving the spirit of openness and fresh excitement that surrounded the Web in its earliest days. The Web Revival is not one single movement, but a loose collection of ideas and groups that fall under many names.


I heartily approve of this movement. I can't code, but I can boost the signal. So if you're involved in Web Revival, feel free to share your favorite links or other resources. Because we deserve better than enshittification.

Do you want to code your own website, or support others who do? Check out the FujoGuide.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Are you fictionfolk? Do you have a personal website? We'd love to have you join our webring! We've have yet to see anyone make fictionfolk webring, so we're filling the gap ourselves.
ysabetwordsmith: A blue sheep holding a quill dreams of Dreamwidth (Dreamsheep)
For a while now, I've been making posts that list active communities on Dreamwidth. The weekly posts cover different topics, mostly active communities plus a few dormant that could be revived. The seasonal gather posts list all the active communities from the past three months, without the dormant ones, but adding a list of newly created communities from the same timespan. These also include the parameters for the listings.

This seems like a good time to make a masterlist of these resources. Please share widely to help people find communities they'll enjoy on Dreamwidth.

Introduction -- February 4, 2022

Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Here are a couple of community activity updates from [personal profile] soc_puppet:

[community profile] moodthemeinayear is nearing its next break period! It begins on Wednesday. Following that break, the Minimum and Medium Tracks will reset, so it's a great time to jump on for anyone who wants a schedule to follow.

[community profile] summerofthe69's amnesty period will end on Monday, with theme suggestions for 2025 set to open on Wednesday. Voting for themes will begin in May, so you have plenty of time to ponder theme suggestions.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Amazon is disabling the ability to download ebooks you pay for.  So you won't really own them, even though you pay for them.  This makes it a poor choice to find ebooks, and for authors, a poor place to offer them to readers.  Remember, if you can't save a copy to your hard drive, you don't really own it and the company can take it away at any time, for any reason or no reason.  This has already happened with other services that promise you will "always" have access to materials.  If it can't be saved to equipment you own, under your control alone, it's not secure.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
100 things you can do on your personal website

Below, I list many things you can do on your personal website. This post is not meant to be a checklist so much as a source for inspiration. Perhaps one of the ideas below will take you down a delightful rabbit hole that leads you to new learnings. Perhaps an idea will bring you joy. Perhaps some ideas aren’t right for your site, but that still get you thinking.


Some of these require your own website and/or a considerable amount of coding skill. Others are things you can do on Dreamwidth or another platform where you have a site.
ysabetwordsmith: March Meta Matters Challenge (meta)
MARCH META MATTERS CHALLENGE, CHECK-IN NO. 1 on [community profile] marchmetamatterschallenge 

Welcome to year 6 of the Meta Matters Challenge! I'm your moderator, [personal profile] yourlibrarian.

These posts will be used for us all to check-in with one another, offer encouragement and answers to questions, and maybe tips we come up with as we copy our work to other locations
.


This challenge runs through the month of March.  Visit the above post to introduce yourself and your goals.

ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] bedes has a list of indie web fansites.  None of these sound like my kind of fandom, but I'm delighted to see someone promoting them.  I am actively looking for individual fansites that have fanfic and maybe some art.   
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
A new research program is Indigenizing artificial intelligence

A new initiative is challenging the conversation around the direction of artificial intelligence (AI). It charges that the current trajectory is inherently biased against non-Western modes of thinking about intelligence -- especially those originating from Indigenous cultures. Abundant Intelligences is an international, multi-institutional and interdisciplinary program that seeks to rethink how we conceive of AI. The driving concept behind it is the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems to create an inclusive, robust concept of intelligence and intelligent action, and how that can be embedded into existing and future technologies.

Read more... )
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
If you've been waiting for the fancy rat and jellyfish (choice of blue, green, orange, purple, pink, or yellow) mood themes by [personal profile] soc_puppet to become official Dreamwidth themes, here they are! You can now use them on your blog if you wish.
ysabetwordsmith: Quixotic Ideas icon with mystical key (Quixotic Ideas)
Thanks to work by [personal profile] nsfwords, the series page for Quixotic Ideas is now up to date.  Go check it out to find anything you might have missed. 
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Another use for AI -- collecting hilariously wrong examples of its output.

Campfire in tent
 
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Thinking about Hapsburg AI and the problems caused when new AI trains on older AI-generated content made me realize a new use for AI: sabotage.  So far, it has been common for companies to train their AI using online content, and they don't give a flying fuck about consent or boundaries.

So a creative person sharing their work online could mix in some AI-generated entries, such that any AI scraping their site without permission would take damage from the inbreeding effect.  *cackle*  Just let your audience know what you're doing and how to distinguish your work from the boobytraps.  I'm sure people would have fun thinking of creative and amusing ways to do that.  And what if everyone did that?  It would rapidly become very unsafe for programmers to steal content for training purposes.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
Remember this article about AI inbreeding?

There's a name for it:
Again, doubling down, the "Tech Bros" are using AI generated training data. Data science literally calls this "Hapsburg AI," after the 19th Century Austrian royal family. It's data science's anser to inbreeding.

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