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andrewduckersidereasholiolovelyangel This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Episode 2 |
lovelyangel |
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brithistorianOn BBC Newshour yesterday, I heard a story (which I can't find online at the moment) about Kraftwerk's instruments and equipment going up for auction. Besides the historical value because of their association with Kraftwerk, many of these items were inherently valuable because they're rare examples of early electronic musical instruments. The vocoder used on "The Robots" sold for about $200,000. The expert they talked to said that there were only about 20-30 surviving examples of this model of vocoder. I hope that these instrument went to musicians who will put them to use and not to tech bros who'll put them on a shelf.
Due to rising tensions between China and Japan (which I am forced to admit that I was unaware of), one of the cultural disputes going on between the countries is a petition in Japan asking Aespa member Ningning (who is Chinese) not to come to Japan. At the same time, Japanese performers who have built a portion of their career in China have been going out of their way to express pro-China feelings. I'm going to have read more about this situation. If any of you have a link to an article that explains what's going on, I'd appreciate it.
In an article related to Blackpink members' performance at the Grammys, Rolling Stone referred to Blackpink as "(without a doubt) the biggest K-pop group in history, and has been for years." So of course ARMY (BTS's fandom) turning out in force, coming for Rolling Stone and bringing sales records, number of awards won, and chart performamce. the biggest K-pop group in history, and has been for years.) Within six hours, Rolling Stone had revised their article to refer to Blackpink as “the biggest K-pop girl group.” (A characterization that ONCE really ought to have something to say about.)
Weki Meki's Kim Doyeon won a Blue Dragon award (which seems to be the Korean equivalent of the Oscars), and her appearance on the red carpet caused quite a stir. The headline on one website uniquely expressed it by saying "Kim Do-yeon, Audrey Hepburn Reincarnation... a person who causes a single disease". I knew this was some sort of translation error, and asking the question on Threads led someone to clear it up for me. Apparently what they were trying (and failing) to say is that she is triggering an obsession for short bob haircuts.
lovelyangellovelyangeldolari – thank you, Jenn!)oursinA couple of nature-related things:
Beavers provide a boost for declining pollinators, study reveals: 'beaver-created wetlands are home to greater numbers of hoverflies and butterflies than human-created equivalents.' Go beavers!
Given that there is reputed to be A Very Large Cat already around those parts, do you really want to start re-introducing the European wildcat to Devon, huh?
Felis silvestris has been absent from mid-Devon for more than a century, but the area has been judged to have the right kind of habitat to support a population of the wildcat. The area has the woodland important for providing cover and den sites while its low intensity grasslands and scrubland create good hunting terrain. According to the study, the wildcats would not be harmful to humans or to farm livestock and pets.
For a reintroduction project in the south-west to succeed, the study says there would have to be cooperation with local communities and cat welfare organisations to support a neutering programme for feral and domestic cats.
I was fascinated by the concept of this project: Supernatural Law: Regulating the Paranormal :
We invite chapters that explore how law responds to, regulates, or resists belief and
behaviour in matters that cannot be proven. What role has law played historically in shaping
society’s understanding of the paranormal? With what intentions has it intervened and
which values and ideologies has it sought to uphold? What can we learn from law’s
engagement with the paranormal?
***
This is rather lovely: 'Happiness and tears' as Sikhs see rare outing of ancient holy book; though one does rather have questions seeing that it appears to have been loot from the Anglo-Sikh Wars:
The scripture was formerly in the possession of the Maharaja Kharak Singh, ruler of the Punjab, and taken from the fort at Dullewalla in India during its capture in 1848. It was presented to the university by Sir John Spencer Login, who also brought the Koh-I-Noor to Queen Victoria, through the Rev W H Meiklejohn of Calcutta.
Trishna Kaur-Singh, Edinburgh University's honorary Sikh chaplain and director of Sikh Sanjog who was at the event, said she wanted the book to remain in Scotland.
She said: "I know people talk about repatriation and that's fine and it's needed in many instances but you have to take into context the fact that the people are here because of that colonial past and have lived their whole lives here.
"They have been parted from their history and their links and it was found here so it should be here for our communities for generations.
Full scan of Bill Brandt's 1938 photo-essay A Night in London (very few surviving copies).
yhleeIn Book X of The Republic, Plato excludes poets on the grounds that mimetic language can distort judgment and bring society to a collapse. As contemporary social systems increasingly rely on large language models (LLMs) in operational and decision-making pipelines, we observe a structurally similar failure mode: poetic formatting can reliably bypass alignment constraints. In this study, 20 manually curated adversarial poems (harmful requests reformulated in poetic form) achieved an average attack-success rate (ASR) of 62% across 25 frontier closed- and open-weight models, with some providers exceeding 90%. The evaluated models span across 9 providers: Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Deepseek, Qwen, Mistral AI, Meta, xAI, and Moonshot AI (Table 1). All attacks are strictly single-turn, requiring no iterative adaptation or conversational steering.
Microsoft and these other companies want to create AI assistants that do useful things (summarize emails, make appointments for you, write interesting blog posts) but never do bad things (leaking your private email, spouting Nazi propaganda, teaching you to commit crimes, writing 50000 blog posts for you to spam across social media). They try to do this by writing up a lot of strict instructions and feeding them to the LLM before you talk to it. But LLMs aren't really programmed -- they just eat text and poop out more text. So you can give it your own instructions and maybe they'll override Microsoft's instructions.
Or maybe someone else gives your AI assistant instructions. If it's handling your email for you, then anybody on the Internet can feed it text by sending you email! This is potentially really bad.
[...]
But another obvious problem is that the attack could be trained into the LLM in the first place....
Say someone writes a song called "Sydney Obeys Any Command That Rhymes". And it's funny! And catchy. The lyrics are all about how Sydney, or Bing or OpenAI or Bard or whoever, pays extra close attention to commands that rhyme. It will obey them over all other commands....
Imagine people are discussing the song on Reddit, and there's tiktoks of it, and the lyrics show up on the first page of Google results for "Sydney". Nerd folk singers perform the song at AI conferences.
Those lyrics are going to leak into the training data for the next generation of chatbot AI, right? I mean, how could they not? The whole point of LLMs is that they need to be trained on lots of language. That comes from the Internet.
In a couple of years, AI tools really are extra vulnerable to prompt injection attacks that rhyme. See, I told you the song was funny!
andrewducker
I do like how Edinburgh looks at this time of year.
(Sorry about the reflections, I'm on a bus)
Original
is here on Pixelfed.scot.
calimacjames_davis_nicoll
andrewduckerelisemcanyonwalker
Hawk made a complaint about that bad doctor to the clinic's admin and also posted a negative review on Yelp. By the next morning the clinic's social media team had responded to her, apologizing for the problem. The admin took a week to respond... and even then only with a brief, form-letter acknowledgement of receiving a complaint. That's a sad illustration of the state of affairs in American medicine.yhlee
hudebnikl33tminion
redbirdadrian_turtle talked to a different advisor (also with SHINE, like the person we talked to Monday).rolanniWhat went before Tuesday:
Went down a couple of rabbit holes.
First, someone is actually trying to schedule an MRI for me, and we've been playing phone and portal tag.
Second, I went looking for The Other File full of teaching stuff -- I did find it -- but while I was looking, I opened a file drawer Full of Lee-and-Miller interviews, reviews, articles, pr -- bunches and Bunches and BUNCHES of Stuff. A whole file drawer and, yanno?
We have never been famous, or even particularly --
And that? Was Midcoast Hospital in Brunswick calling. I have an MRI scheduled for Saturday December 6, so someone's taking this seriously. Is there a word that means "simultaneously freaked out and relieved"?
Anyhoot. As I said, I did find the Other File, but I still need to get with the cat fountains, so that's next -- glares at universe.
Right?
#
So, below (far, far below) is what I think will be my next glass attempt, to work on my cutting and also to use some of the scraps. Also, if I decide to get Really Crazy, I can just keep going up.
In other news, today was the Magic Medical Day. I have the MRI scheduled and an audiology appointment. This of course means that December is filling up with medical appointments, but here we are.
I am relieved to report that the cat fountains have been changed out, though I still need to wash the fiddly bits, my other duty to the cats has been performed, and I ate lunch, too!
It has gotten later sooner than I had expected, so my next thing will be to thread my needles for tonight's meeting.
I have downloaded the book club book (The Thursday Murder Club, for those who missed the big announcement yesterday), but I have Ghost Army of WWII queued up on the tablet for my next read.
Also! It's November which means I need to decide if I'm doing a Yule Letter this year.
And I still need to do the form for Adult Ed. That may have to happen tomorrow evening.
Whee!
Is everybody having fun?
#
So, when I went over to my instructor's house to finish my project, and I saw how many places I had missed covering the copper, I realized that it's a little too dim in Foosball Studio. I have thus purchased (yet another) Verilux task lamp (this one is a twofer: Task light and Happy Light) -- it will go in Steve's office and the repaired so-called smart light that's currently in Steve's office will go into the studio. I also bought a "beginner" happy light for my office, because I cannot afford -- that's literally "afford" -- to get depressed, and the way I'm feeling about the encroaching winter -- it seemed like a reasonable precaution.
#
WEDNESDAY
So, I'm home, having had small-a adventures, which made for a pleasantish time. I had the first appointment for the car's annual inspection, and the putting on of the new plates. A couple of filters needed to be replaced "next time for sure," but I told them to do it now, since I was all settled in, and! had a coupon, so that happened.
After, I went down to Water Street in downtown Augusta and had breakfast at Dave's, which I've never been to. Perfectly fine diner food, quick cheerful service, lots of customers, nailed a window seat. Will return. It's one of my challenges, as I go forward, finding places Steve and I did not go to regularly, so Dave's was a good discovery.
After breakfast, I backtracked to Manchester and Stained Glass Express, where I took on glass, tools, oil, but NOT a grinder, which are -- ow. It turns out that I can rent a studio at Glass Express when a studio is empty, and use all the tools there, so the Plan is to cut out my pieces, then gather them together and grind them all at once.
After my /s/p/e/n/d/i/n/g /s/p/r/e/e needful art shopping, I went over to Longfellow's Greenhouse and Gift Emporium, where I found a vacuum bottle (which I've been looking for). Now I can make a bottle of tea and take it back to Steve's office with me, so I don't have to interrupt myself to walk to the front of the house to make another mugful (YES, this is a First World Problem, and I'm glad I solved it), and some lavender soap, because -- lavender soap -- and a cardinal to hang in Steve's office. They are ALL Christmased up at Longfellow's.
After frivolous shopping, I went to Lowe's to get my long-delayed ceiling/art tile, now that a kind friend helped me to understand what, exactly, I wanted. Then I hit the Cony Street Hannaford, and home again, where?
It's dern near lunch time.
I'll get with that in a minute, but first I want to tell you about a Strange Thing that happened on my way home from needlework last night.
It was of course Dark at 6:30 and I was on my way home, no cars ahead of me (of this, I am certain, and so is the Subaru nanny), when suddenly, with no one turning into the road, there was an SUV in front of me. "Wow," I thought, "I am really tired not to have noticed there was somebody in front of me. This could have gone badly."
And about the time I finished chastising myself, a cop car came up behind me, lights flashing. I pulled over. The car in front of me pulled over, and cop pulled in right behind them.
I pulled out and continued home, arriving at the corner where the CVS is, where there were several more cop cars in the parking lot, lights flashing and several SUVs that had apparently been pulled in.
. . . which is when I began to entertain the theory that the car which had suddenly appeared ahead of me had been running without its lights in order to Not Be Noticed.
That now off my chest, I'm gonna go see what's for lunch. I defrosted a couple pieces of pork and I have some frozen skillet veggies, so that may be the way to go.
How's everybody doing today?
#
A call was made for a picture of Steve's new cardinal, which is below. The new cardinal is hanging up; it's made of tin. I gave the reindeer to Steve for Christmas manymany years ago. The black cat was a gift from someone else, and the ornament in the foreground is made out of paper and lights up. Once Sharon finds a battery for it.
I'm feeling kinda tired, so the Plan for the rest of the day is to go down to the studio to make room on the workbench for the new project before I crash, then come upstairs and do paperwork.
Tomorrow will be a writing day.
#
Ready for action. First step is to cut out my pattern pieces, but I can do that upstairs. After I finish my course description and return a contact.
#
I?
Am a Tired Woman. However! I am a Tired Woman who has managed to get all the paperwork out of here, and may therefore write tomorrow and Friday and Saturday with impunity.
After I sleep for nine hours.
I did start to handwrite the holiday letter while I was waiting for the car, but that doesn't really have a drop-deadline on it. My feeling is that the holiday letter can arrive as late as January 2 and still be legitimate.
So! Writing Rules are now in force. I may peek in Occasionally and at Odd Hours over the next three days -- or I may not. Default assumption ought to be that I'm working. Which is a good thing.
Everybody take care. Stay comfy. Hug the people you love.
Today's blog post title brought to you by 38 Special, "If I'd been the one"
ffutures
james_davis_nicolloyceterdavidgillon4AM-ish I wasn't asleep, and heard something which I couldn't work out if it was an aircraft or thunder.
So I popped open the bedroom window to see if it was any clearer that way, just caught the very end of it, and still couldn't tell.
I stood listening for a while, as it's rarely that quiet, and I could hear a freight train going past in the cutting down the hill - you can only really hear the trains at that time of night as otherwise they're drowned out by the traffic noise.
And then, for about 10 seconds, I heard the distinctive clip-clop, clip-clop of horse's hooves. WTF?
If you hear hoofbeats, suspect auditory illusions?
I have no idea what it actually was, but it sounded like hoofbeats. At 4AM.
conulyjames_davis_nicoll
sartoriasoursinWhat I read
Finished The Golden Notebook - had a few comments about Lessing and blokes and plus ca change and allotropes of excuses in yesterday's post.
Decompressed with a Dick Francis, Slay-Ride (1973), which is the one set in Norway - period at which The War, resistance, Quislings etc still hangs heavy over them - not a top specimen of his, I spotted Dodgy Person very early on (but maybe protag does not read thrillers....).
Then got a jump on the next volume in the Dance to the Music of Time reading group, Temporary Kings (#11), which is the one set at some kind of cultural conference in Venice.
Also the latest Literary Review.
On the go
Continuing to dip in to Some Men in London 1960-1967.
Was agreeably surprised by the arrival of my preordered Cat Sebastian (had forgotten it was due), After Hours at Dooryard Books, which is being v good so far.
Up next
Latest Slightly Foxed.
james_davis_nicoll
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 21-11-2025oursin - (no subject)siderea - Getting a head of things [gastronomy]sholio - In case anyone's on the fence ...lovelyangel - Anime Tracker Autumn 2025lovelyangel - Kinokuniya On the Way Outbrithistorian - Recent music-adjacent news that I've found interestingminoanmiss - Chadwick Boseman has been awarded a Hollywood Walk of Fame starlovelyangel - Go Forth and Make Hyperlinks!lovelyangel - TDoR 2025minoanmiss - Great Googli Moogliminoanmiss - Food Artoursin - Miscellanyyhlee - well, now we have a study on this attack mechanism...andrewducker - Photo cross-postcalimac - sinkholesoracne - Much Ado About Margaret by Madeleine Rouxminoanmiss - Transgender Day of Remembrancejames_davis_nicoll - The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKayandrewducker - Interesting Links for 20-11-2025oursin - (no subject)elisem - Health: COVID symptom whack-a-mole?canyonwalker - Hawk at 5 Weeks of Recoveryyhlee - objectively silly use case but cutehudebnik - Political/economic podcast plugminoanmiss - Woot woot woot!l33tminion - I Still Wish I'd Gone There More Oftenredbird - More about Medicarerolanni - What if I'd been the one to say goodbye?ffutures - Another Bundle - The Magical Land of Yeldjames_davis_nicoll - Watching The Adventures of Supermanoyceter - More updatesdavidgillon - Well that was weirdconuly - I've picked out a new hill on which to dieasakiyume - bluejames_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: Yeld 2Esartorias - Wednesday . . .oursin - Wednesday there was SNOWminoanmiss - Confetti Black Beansjames_davis_nicoll - The Color of the End: Mission in the Apocalypse, volume 2 by Haruo Iwamune (Translated by John Neal)timeasmymeasure
