Did they? A scene from 18th century Rome by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Veduta della Piazza di Monte Cavallo (View of the Piazza del Quirinale with the Statues of Horse Tamers in side view), from Prianesi’s Vedute di Roma…
Can that be true? A scene from 18th century Rome by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Veduta della Piazza di Monte Cavallo (View of the Piazza del Quirinale with the Statues of Horse Tamers in side view), from Prianesi’s Vedute di Roma. Note …
Podcasts are great! You can be out running, walking the dog, getting in your 10,000 steps and still listen and learn about the world. A few weeks ago I was interviewed by “The Informed Life” podcast host Jorge Arango, which he has just …
It’s May… P/C Dan, from a lovely trip to Norway…. and it has been a very full few months since the start of the year. I’m feeling in dire need of taking a little bit of a break, so I’m temporarily going on a hiatus to do a lit…
Remember this? P/C Dall-e. Prompt: happy robots answering questions rendered in aukiyo-e style on a sweeping landscape cheerfulOur Challenge was this: 1. I’d like you to report on YOUR experiences in trying t…
LLMs have a big problem: P/C Dall-E. Prompt: “happy robots talking about truth” They have zero idea what’s true. They only know the probabilities of words in text. That’s NOT the same thing as “knowing” something–it’s a bit like …
For all their apparent competence, P/C Dalle-D. Prompt: computational oracles answering questions rendered as an expressive oil painting set on a sweeping landscape… when you get down to asking specific, verifiable questions ab…
This week let’s try something different. P/C Dall-e. Prompt: happy robots answering questions rendered in a ukiyo-e style on a sweeping landscape cheerfulI’ve written a couple of posts about using LLMs (Large Language Models–e.g….
No, it’s not Hogwarts… P/C Dan… the architecture IS fantastical–full of remarkable towers, arched entryways, stone carvings, stained glass, and what looks to be medieval cathedrals all around. Here are a couple other images that I …
I’m at a famous university today… P/C Dan… and I’m fascinated by the architecture I see all around me. I went on a short run yesterday and was brought up short so many times by the completely remarkable views that I need to know mo…
The LLMs aren’t non compos mentis… P/C Dall-E… they don’t even have a mentis to be unsound! For example, if I ask Bard what languages it speaks (a question you might think would be pretty straightforward), you get this response:&nbs…
When you ask an LLM a silly question… Ouroboros from an alchemical tract of 1478. P/C Wikimedia…. you have to expect a silly answer. A key skill of great searchers is knowing what it is they’re asking. To do decent SearchResea…
Words are my life… P/C Dall-E. Prompt: [cottagecore ocean sunrise Cape Cod Andrew Wyeth]In many ways, that’s really true. I write more or less constantly, think about words in the context of search queries, and I carefully consider t…
Rivers ultimately flow to the sea.. … except when they don’t. As the pair of pictures above show, the thing about these places is that they are often closed off from free flow between the mountains and the sea. Sometimes a big p…
If you wander along coastlines as I do, you’ll eventually see this… … the place where a river runs to the sea. It’s always a dramatic place–fresh water meets salt water, and wildlife often congregates due to the fish that hang out …